------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
*New Polymer Coating Immobilizes Chernobyl Radioactive Waste
*U.S. Senate to Pass China Pact After Long Delay
*N-plant protests block entire Austro-Czech border
*Greenlanders Wary of a New Role in U.S. Defenses
*Indian warships on a goodwill mission to China
*Missile Designer Says India Ready To Develop ICBM
*India's Vajpayee Honored at White House Dinner
*Clinton Honors Indian Independence Leader Gandhi
*Iraq Arms Inspector Won't Share Info
*Another Dangerous Mission for a Veteran Israeli Warrior
*N. Korea, US To Resume Missile Talks In New York City
*Russia Emphasizes Its Objections to US Missile Defense
*Deadbeats owe utility $5 billion in Russia
*Ukraine confirms Chernobyl closure by December 15
*DOE FUNDS CLEAN ENERGY PROJECTS
*F.B.I. Is Under Scrutiny for Conduct in Lee Case
*Asian-Americans Demanding Bias Inquiry in Scientist's Case
*Asians: Lee Was Victim of Profiling
*The Wrong Methods
*Gore2000: Cox Report Evidently Biased
*CLINTON ASKS SENATE TO RATIFY SPENT FUEL PACT

MILITARY
*Western Leaders Face War Crimes Trial in Belgrade
*Let's trade with China
*Colombia Police: Gunmen Release 15
*Gunmen kidnap 30 in Colombia
*U.N. Forsakes Effort to Curb Poppy Growth by Afghans
*Washington Presses Case for Putting Saddam on Trial
*Cleric Uses Weapon of Religion Against Iran's Rulers
*Iraqi Press Predicts War
*Oil Eclipses Gulf War High
*Two Bombs Hit Northern Ireland; Four Hurt
*South Korea Starts Work on Rail Link to the North
*Railway ties two Koreas
*South Korea breaks ground on cross-border rail
*Scientists Eye Dangerous Asteroids
*Experts Mull Asteroid Risk
*Space Mission Ends, and Shuttle Plans Return
*Atlantis rockets away from space station
*UN Court Set to Try Rwanda Journalists for Genocide
*UN Court Hears Rwanda Journalists Pre-Trial Motions
*Peacekeeping With Honor
*U. N. Reassessing Safeguards After Official Killed in Africa
*Military Spends Billions to Ensure U.S. Battlefield Supremacy
*Navy undergoes one-day safety halt
*U.S. Kosovo Report Shows Misconduct
*Report details misconduct by U.S. troops
*Gay Arizona Lawmaker Faces Discharge From Army
*Honorable Discharge Proposed For Gay Legislator in Reserves
*Afterburner Seminars' U.S. Fighter Pilot Facilitators Head To Europe
*A Navy barge will be sunk near the Indian River
*Follow the leader

OTHER
*IMF Overhauls Loan Plan
*From Shipyards to Sausages, Ukrainian Town Struggles On
*World's Largest Solar Vessel Performs at the Sydney Olympics
*A tax incentive that can cut the cost of an alternative-fuel vehicle
*Russia's Environmental Crisis
*What's in My Backyard? Government Site Maps Environmental Dangers
*CD-ROM contains guide for terrorists Seized manual tied to bin Laden
*Maps Detail Environmental Hazards
*EPA Cites 11 Companies and City of Detroit for Clean-Air Violations
*Everglades Legislation
*State environmental officials are seeking to remove 30 dams
*Modified Corn Found in Taco Shells
*US Govt. Probes Biotech Corn in Taco Bell Shells
*Biotech corn found in taco shells
*Eastward bound Connie Mack
*Indiana State Police have severed access to the FBI's criminal database
*Pentagon alerted in '98 about Deutch
*Peruvian at Heart of Scandal Reported Arrested
*Spy Chief Reportedly Arrested in Peru
*Pollard's Crime
*Jordan Court Sentences Six Bin Laden Men to Hang
*Six sentenced to death for terror plans
*Terrorist threats of death dog local author

ACTIVISTS
*World Bank-IMF Summit Protesters Have Prague Clerks Working Overtime
*European Fuel Protests Pick Up Speed
*Fishermen block Barcelona port over fuel
*A Penn State student punished for hanging a protest banner

*

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

-------- business

New Polymer Coating Immobilizes Chernobyl Radioactive Waste

September 18, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-18-02.html

WASHINGTON, DC, A newly developed white silicon polymer coating known as EKOR can completely encapsulate nuclear waste and prevent radioactive contaminants from dusting or seeping into the environment. The substance which is now being demonstrated at the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor could solve problems of nuclear waste management anywhere in the world, its developers say.

In March, the EKOR coating was applied in a successful demonstration that contained radiation from the destroyed nuclear reactor at Chernobyl near Kiev, Ukraine. Robots applied the polymer to cover the largest fuel containing mass under the failed Reactor 4 at Chernobyl, the most radioactive spot on the planet.

EKOR coating covers a pile of a molten nuclear fuel located under the Chernobyl reactor. It was dusting and leaching before it was covered by EKOR. This photo was taken after about four months after the coverage and demonstrates no changes in EKOR. (Photos courtesy Eurotech)

Another, more extensive application, is planned for October to develop and fine tune the methods and equipment for applying EKOR coatings to nuclear waste.

When Reactor 4 was destroyed by an explosion and fire in April 1986, molten nuclear fuel collected beneath the ruined reactor where it has been emitting deadly radiation ever since. Many substances have been applied in attempts to contain radiation from the fuel masses and surrounding radioactive dust at Chernobyl, but all have disintegrated within three or four months from the effects of the radiation.

The ruined reactor and the nuclear fuel masses on the ground floor below are not really protected by the concrete structure that now partially covers the mess. Rainwater enters the building and carries the radioactivity into the soil and groundwater. Birds fly through and become contaminated.

International donors have collected millions of dollars to build a new concrete structure over the reactor, but construction has not yet begun.

EKOR was certified for use by the Ukrainian government in August after an initial application of the composite at Reactor 4 proved that EKOR is radiation resistant, does not degrade even after long term exposure to radiation, and can withstand extreme physical, chemical and biological assaults on its structural integrity.

The substance was developed by Russian scientists at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Some of these scientists went to Chernobyl shortly after the explosion and realized that a way of containing the deadly radiation must be found. The Institute covered the costs of research and development of the polymer.

Kurchatov Institute scientists also developed advanced robots to apply the EKOR coating in the dangerous working conditions under the failed Reactor 4 where humans would suffer the lethal effects of the radiation.

Don Hahnfeldt is president of Eurotech

Once created in the laboratory, the rights to produce and market EKOR were acquired by Eurotech, a publicly traded international technology holding and marketing company based in Washington, DC. Eurotech provided the funds to take the polymer from the laboratory stage to testing and demonstration in the field.

Eurotech president Don Hahnfeldt estimates the total development cost of EKOR to date is approximately $3 million.

Eurotech is currently working with NuSil Technology in Santa Barbara, California to test and prepare EKOR for commercial production in North America where hundreds of nuclear waste sites are emitting radiation.

EKOR is non-toxic, highly fire and heat resistant and can be applied wherever the radioactive material is located, on all surfaces, wet, dry, clean or dirty, according to Peter Gulko, a major shareholder and former director and president of Eurotech. Originally from Kiev himself, Gulko provides liaison between Eurotech and its affiliates in Russia and Ukraine.

To prevent radioactive waste and contaminants from spreading, the ideal encapsulating material must not degrade or decay over centuries of prolonged exposure to radiation and environmental corrosion.

Closeup of EKOR coating in Chernobyl reactor 4

Once applied, the material must form an impervious barrier to water and prevent contaminated materials from leaching into the environment. The substance must be nonflammable and non-toxic, causing no harmful effects to the environment. After exposure to radiation, the material must be disposable as environmentally safe non-radioactive waste if necessary. Gulko says EKOR meets all these criteria.

Recent fires near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory illustrate the potential for future nuclear accidents.

At power plants across the United States and in other countries, thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel are waiting for safe disposal. Radioactive wastes left from Cold War plutonium production for nuclear weapons at Department of Energy facilities across the United States, at the Mayak nuclear complex in Russia, and elsewhere around the world. All of these materials are emitting radiation.

An underground scaling machine removes loose rock from walls and ceilings in the WIPP underground to create a storage area for transuranic waste. (Photo courtesy WIPP)

Only one facility in the world, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the state of New Mexico, USA, is an operating geological repository designed for permanent disposal of long lived radioactive wastes. It accepts transuranic, but not high-level nuclear wastes for storage in salt caverns half a mile below the surface of the Earth.

Scientific evaluation of Yucca Mountain, Nevada for the permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste has found that even in this arid environment, water might come in contact with the containers in which the waste would be held, eventually eroding the containers and allowing radioactivity to escape.

The greatest problem in nuclear waste management is that many of the facilities designed to store and dispose of these wastes have failed to prevent the leakage into the environment, leaving the groundwater, surface water, soil and air at risk of contamination.

If the EKOR coating continues to perform as it has in the first demonstrations, some of the most dangerous nuclear waste in the world might be more manageable.

-------- china

U.S. Senate to Pass China Pact After Long Delay

Yahoo News
Sunday, September 17
By Adam Entous
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000917/pl/china_congress_dc_17.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After months of delay, the U.S. Senate is poised to give final approval to legislation granting permanent normal trade relations to China in a historic vote fulfilling one of President Clinton (news - web sites)'s last foreign policy objectives.

The hotly contested trade bill is expected to garner overwhelming support in Tuesday's vote, in a victory for business groups eager to tap the vast Chinese marketplace, potentially the world's largest with 1.3 billion consumers.

The final hurdle was cleared last week when senators rejected a controversial plan to impose sanctions on China for its alleged role in weapons proliferation and defeated other amendments urging Beijing to improve its human rights record.

Had any amendments been adopted by the Senate, the trade bill would have been sent back to a bitterly divided House of Representatives. The House approved permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) for China in May, but was unlikely to do so again so close to the November election, lawmakers said.

Clinton has made passage of the trade bill one of his top legislative priority for his final year in office.

Once approved by the Senate and signed into law by the president, the legislation would end the 20-year-old annual ritual of reviewing China's trade status and guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to the U.S. market as products from nearly every other nation.

In exchange for the benefits, China has agreed to open a wide range of markets to U.S. businesses under the terms of an agreement setting the stage for Beijing to join the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (news - web sites) (WTO) later this year.

The White House and its allies in the trade fight argued that China's accession to the WTO would benefit the U.S. economy and national security by encouraging Beijing to open its markets and eventually its political system.

``Passage of PNTR helps increase the probability of a much more stable relationship and greater dialogue with China,'' said Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, a vocal supporter of the trade bill.

But labor unions, a key Democratic constituency, warned that closer trade ties could cost hundreds of thousands of American workers their jobs, as Chinese goods flood the U.S. market and companies move their factories to China to take advantage of lower wages.

Other opponents warned that the bill would exacerbate an already huge U.S. trade deficit with China, and reward a communist regime that lawmakers accused of proliferating weapons of mass destruction and threatening Taiwan.

Despite vocal opposition, there was never much doubt about the outcome in the Senate, where free-trade initiatives typically garner bipartisan support.

Sixty-nine senators said in a Reuters poll they would support permanent normal trade relations, more than enough to override a vote-blocking filibuster and ensure final passage in the 100-member chamber.

-------- czech republic

N-plant protests block entire Austro-Czech border

AUSTRIA: September 18, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8210

VIENNA - Austrian environmentalists blocked all border crossings between Austria and the Czech Republic on Friday in protest against Prague's imminent activation of a nuclear power plant.

The blockade of the country's northern frontier was the third in as many weeks and the most comprehensive, with all 12 crossing points blocked in the provinces of Upper and Lower Austria, Austrian state television ORF said.

The Soviet-designed Temelin plant lies around 60 km (35 miles) from the Austrian border. The protesters, who barricaded the frontier with tractors and buses, demand an immediate halt to the plant's activity.

The Czech government has dismissed both Austrian and German concerns about the safety of the plant. Nuclear-free Austria has threatened to veto the Czechs' admission to the European Union if they put the controversial plant into operation this year.

The protests are set to fan out to Germany at the weekend, when anti-nuclear activists will stage a big demonstration at the Philippsreut border crossing in Bavaria on Sunday.

The $3 billion Temelin plant has been modified and fitted with western control systems supplied by Westinghouse, a unit of British Nuclear Fuel Ltd.

-------- greenland

Greenlanders Wary of a New Role in U.S. Defenses

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/world/18GREE.html

NUUK Greenland - First, the French foreign minister jetted into this seaside capital, which currently has more humpback whales in the fjord (two) than stoplights (one). Then a knot of Washington officials, dressed in business suits and smiles, arrived for what one newsweekly here headlined in Danish as the American "Charmoffensiv."

This month, it was the turn of the Russian ambassador to Denmark who was out among the icebergs in the fjord, fishing for arctic char with Greenland's premier, Jonathan Motzfeldt.

What is at stake is Greenland's eventual acquiescence to the use of the American air base in Thule as part of a national missile defense system. Although Denmark, the old colonial power here, retains control over Greenland's foreign and defense policy, Copenhagen insists that the Greenlanders' wishes will be taken into account.

Whoever occupies the White House next year will probably find that public opinion is skeptical, bordering on hostile, in the two proposed North American partners, Greenland and Canada.

"No one in Greenland wishes to take actions that would lead to recreating the atmosphere of the cold war era," Mr. Motzfeldt said in an interview. "I am content that NATO has not greeted the N.M.D. plans with cheers."

Even though the new defensive program would not involve placing weapons at Thule, Greenland's deputy premier, Josef Motzfeldt (no relation to the premier) attributed the missile plan to lobbying by "big shots in the weapons industries" and said in an interview, "The United States is very alone in the project."

Russia's ambassador, Nikolai Bordyuzha, charged here that the defense system would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. His Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, who visited Canada with similar warnings this month, told Danish officials earlier this summer that if they allowed Thule to be used for the American defense system, "Copenhagen will be responsible for pulling down the ABM treaty."

Mikaela Engell, a Greenland Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, said: "If you do a vox pop in the street, people will ask, `Why should we get involved in the American problems? Are we now going to get hit on the head with a great big bomb?' "

Certainly Markus Elias Olsen, a youth leader, was outside Parliament when it opened this month, leading a protest against the missile defense system. Not satisfied with President's Clinton's delay, he said: "In the case of ballistic missile wars, they will probably drop down on our heads, not on the Americans."

Although in the past Denmark has pointed to the Thule sites as helping fulfill its NATO obligations, Danish officials now insist that island opinion will be taken into account.

Denmark has yet to take a position on Thule's role in a missile defense system, but Gunnar Martens, the Danish High Commissioner here, stressed: "It should be in accordance with the ABM treaty. It should live up to international obligations between the United States and Russia."

Although Canada has been a partner of the United States for almost half a century in the North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as Norad and involving dozens of radars strung across Canada's north to detect Russian bombers or missiles coming over the North Pole, the loudest voices there oppose national missile defense.

"Put simply, the national missile defense system is a dumb idea," Canada's influential Globe and Mail newspaper editorialized, hailing Mr. Clinton's decision. It advised whoever is the new president to substitute "sense for macho posturing."

Canada's military establishment supports the missile defense plan. Although Canada and the United States renewed the Norad agreement last June for another five years, the Canadians fear, in the words of one general, that without participation in the new defense system they would be marginalized in Norad. Without directly contributing to the missile defense system, Canada is proceeding with a $430 million "joint space project," a military sensor program intended in part to free up American resources for missile defense.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has not taken a position on President Clinton's delay. But his Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, has been blunt. "We certainly welcome the decision," he said. "It's something we've been advocating."

Last spring, Mr. Axworthy had criticized the plan as "a risk not worth taking," one that could precipitate a new nuclear arms race.

In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Canada's Foreign Minister said the Pentagon's plan "doesn't screen out cruise missiles, doesn't screen out drones, doesn't screen out terrorist operations or tramp steamers or whatever other - you know, Greyhound buses or ferries. And those are real security issues."

Vice Adm. Herbert Browne, deputy commander of the United States Space Command, was so irritated that he suggested that if Canada did not participate in the system, the United States would not waste missiles defending Canadian cities. If Ottawa came under attack, Admiral Browne told reporters, "Detroit would be next, and the United States would be reluctant to say, `Well, we've expended all of our ground- based interceptors protecting Ottawa.' "

In Greenland, American advocates of the missile defense plan want first to make $50 million worth of improvements to an existing early warning radar in Thule, and then build an expanded radar that would focus on threats from the Middle East and from the Korean peninsula.

"Thule is a basic element in the N.M.D. architecture," John D. Holum, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said in an interview. Mr. Holum led the Pentagon and State Department delegation that briefed Greenland and Danish officials here, then traveled 1,000 miles north to visit the American base. In an attempt to assuage the fears of the 55,000 people living here, on the world's largest island, he said: "Greenland is not a target."

At the height of the cold war, Thule had 7,000 American soldiers and an array of nuclear-tipped missiles. It still has Greenland's largest road network and the island's northernmost airfield capable of accommodating jets, but the American presence has been reduced to 200 soldiers who maintain early warning radars.

Greenlanders say they are grateful for the network of airfields left by the Americans, who at the height of World War II had 17 installations here, but would like the military to come back and clean up the abandoned sites, including barrels of oil, and ammunition buried at Sondre Stromfjord, a base abandoned in the early 1990's.

In mid-August, a group of former employees at Thule charged that the Pentagon has covered up the loss of a nuclear bomb from a B-52G bomber that crashed and burned on sea ice seven miles from Thule on January 21, 1968. Based in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and loaded with four nuclear bombs, the airplane was flying over the area when it made an emergency crash landing, killing one crew member.

In response, Mr. Holum said: "There is no bomb remaining. They did a very comprehensive cleanup."

But, for some people here, the American military presence bears a legacy of mistrust.

For almost 40 years, American and Danish officials assured Danes and Greenlanders that Greenland was "a nuclear-weapons-free zone." Then in 1995, a 1957 memo came to light in which H. C. Hansen, then Denmark's Prime Minister, gave the United States secret permission for storage at Thule of nuclear bombs and warheads for Nike Hercules missiles. According to a recent investigation by a Danish government institute, all nuclear weapons were removed in 1965.

Dealing with another source of rancor, a Copenhagen court last year ordered the Danish government to pay to $3,500 to each of 53 Inuit villagers who sued over the forcible removal of their village in 1951 to make way for construction of the base at Thule.

Today, the mayor of Thule and many Inuit in the area "are scared and are unanimous in their opposition to N.M.D.," said Aqqaluk Lynge, a Greenlander who is president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, an organization based here that often speaks for the 150,000 Inuit of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia.

"We don't like that superpower attitude that says, `We can do what we want with our air bases,"' said Mr. Lynge, who was a member of Greenland's Parliament in the mid- 1980's. "The Arctic has always been looked at as a desert, with a only a few Eskimos and polar bears. Well, we see ourselves as the guardians of the environment up here."

-------- india / pakistan

Indian warships on a goodwill mission to China

The Hindu
Monday, September 18, 2000
By Atul Aneja
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/09/18/stories/01180009.htm

SHANGHAI, SEPT. 17. In an expression of goodwill as well as technological prowess, India's two key warships, for the first time after the Pokharan nuclear tests, are in China.

India's frontline warships, INS Delhi and INS Kora, have been positioned in the Shanghai harbour. Their Chinese hosts, symbolising a thaw in the strained post-Pokharan Sino- Indian military relationship, boarded these warships today. These ships on their way out of the harbour later will also hold a elementary communication drill with some Chinese ships of the eastern fleet. According to Vice-Admiral Vinod Pasricha, Commander-in-Chief of India's eastern fleet who is here on the occasion, Chinese ships are also likely to visit India in February next for the international fleet review, the first-ever meeting in India of eastern and western navies.

Admiral Pasricha pointed out that Indian warships have visited China only twice earlier. The old INS Delhi, which has now been decommissioned, was in China in 1958. Indian warships had also anchored in China in 1995.

During his stay in China, Vice-Admiral Pasrich called on the naval chief of the Peoples Liberation Army, Admiral Shi Yunseng, and held extensive discussions with the Commander of China's eastern fleet, Vice-Admiral Zhao Guojun.

Given the high importance attached to the visit, India, not surprisingly, has put its best foot forward. INS Delhi along with its sister ship, Mysore are the most advanced warships in the Navy. The Delhi, which is the largest ship in the Navy's stables has a displacement of around 7,000 tonnes. It packs an enormous punch with its 16 surface-to-surface missiles which can target at very long distances. Engagement at long distances is possible because of the availability of Delhi's two surveillance radars which can look far. Two Sea King helicopters which can carry missiles further enhance the Delhi's target reach. Besides, they play a crucial role defending the warship by detecting any hostile submarines in the vicinity using there dunking sonars. Submarines, if detected, can be destroyed by torpedoes which the Delhi boards. The Delhi, which can cover 5600 km without replenishment can also direct a naval battle in the high seas because of its superior command and control capabilities.

Apart from its fire-power, the Chinese will also witness the Indian advancement in warship design . The Delhi has been designed by the Naval Design Bureau and built indigenously at Mumbai's Mazagon Docks Limited. Most of its weaponry however is of Russian origin. The INS Kora which is accompanying the Delhi has been commissioned only two years ago. This ship is known for its missile punch and high manoeuvrability.

The Indian ships are also accompanied by the brand new indigenously-built tanker, INS Aditya, for the purpose of refuelling. The Aditya, however, has not entered the Shanghai harbour. Instead, it along with another missile corvette, INS Kuthar is visiting the South Korean port of Pusan on a similar visit which is taking place simultaneously. All these warships will later travel to Japan.

The visit to Japan is not surprising as New Delhi and Tokyo are attaching considerable importance on working together to keep the pirate-infested Malacca straits safe for commercial shipping. The importance of joint forays by India and Japan for maritime security was recently highlighted during the visit to India by the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Yoshori Mori.

Naval officials point out that the ongoing visits demonstrate the India's commitment to its ``look East policy'' which has a prominent naval diplomacy dimension. Not surprisingly, Indian warships will visit the Asia-Pacific shortly again when INS Rajput, a frontline destroyer of the Navy, visits Vietnam.

---

Missile Designer Says India Ready To Develop ICBM -Report

Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2000
Dow Jones Newswires
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve@6.cgi?guinstigator/text/autowire/data/DI-CO-20000918-000759.djml/&NVP=&template=atlas-srch-searchrecent.tmpl&form=atlas-srch-searchrecent.html&from-and=AND&to-and=AND&sort=Article-Doc-Date+desc&qand=&bool_query=Missile&dbname=%26name1%3Ddbname%26name2%3Ddbname%26name3%3Ddbname&location=article&period=%3A720&from=08/21/2000&to=09/19/2000&HI=

NEW DELHI (AP)--India can quickly develop and design an intercontinental ballistic missile, the architect of the country's missile program was quoted as saying Monday.

"Today we have the capability to design and develop any type of missile, including the ICBM. Now it's for the country to decide," A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told the Hindustan Times.

Kalam, principal science adviser to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said all the technologies used to develop the Agni-2 intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) are available for an intercontinental weapon.

"It'll not take much time, should India decide on it," the paper quoted Kalam as saying. "It would require a strong, highly willed nation for this to succeed."

Only the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain now have the capability to produce ICBMs, which have a minimum range of 5,000 kilometers.

Such a weapon, fired from India's northwest desert, where nuclear weapons were tested in May 1998, could reach Moscow, Beijing, the Korean Peninsula, Indonesia, Cairo, Budapest, Hungary, Warsaw and Helsinki.

Some defense analysts are skeptical about how quickly India could develop such a long-ranging missile.

The Agni-2 missile, tested in April 1999 with a range of more than 2,300 kilometers, has had only four tests during a period when 1,500 ballistic missiles have been tested worldwide, the Hindustan Times quoted unidentified experts as saying.

The Agni-2 range doesn't extend to Europe. It is capable of reaching anywhere in Pakistan, India's neighbor and chief rival for 52 years, and parts of western China, with which India fought a border war.

Some reports have said production of the Agni-2 is imminent. Others note setting up a command and control system and getting the missile armed with nuclear weapons would take five years.

Because India's missile and nuclear programs fall under secrecy laws, few public details are available.

Jasjit Singh, director of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, said, "The immediate priority should be the development and deployment of a 5,000-kilometer missile as a minimum credible deterrent. At the moment, we have nothing.

"Like the Chinese, we must deploy the Agni and then continue developing," the paper quoted him as saying. "Also the threats to India aren't global yet."

---

India's Vajpayee Honored at White House Dinner

Yahoo News
Sunday September 17
By Sue Pleming
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000917/pl/india_usa_dc_8.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee ended his visit to the United States on Sunday with a White House dinner in his honor at which President Clinton (news - web sites) praised the strong, mature partnership between the two nations.

Clinton told guests at a glittering reception in a marquee on the south lawn of the White House that the two great democracies faced similar problems -- from the shock of economic turmoil and the plague of infectious diseases to the spread of deadly military technology.

``The simple lesson of all of this to me, Mr. Prime Minister, is that if we are already in the same boat together we had better find a way to steer together,'' Clinton said. ``We must overcome the fears some people in both our countries sometimes have.''

Clinton, who visited India in March with his daughter Chelsea, praised Vajpayee for building the ``strongest, most mature partnership'' the two nations had ever known.

``I hope that in your time with us we have at least become close to repaying the warm hospitality with which you and the Indian people greeted, me, my family and fellow Americans,'' he said.

The high honors given Vajpayee during his four-day trip reflect the importance of growing U.S. ties with India, which have blossomed after years of Cold War suspicion during which New Delhi had close ties with the Soviet Union.

Vajpayee said it was testimony to Clinton's courage and leadership that relations had improved between the two countries. ``It is due to your efforts that the manner in which we approach each other is being fundamentally transformed,'' he said.

The dinner was shorter than many the Clintons have hosted in the past for foreign leaders, and the White House dispensed with the traditional receiving line of guests due to the prime minister's ailing health.

The 73-year-old prime minister, whose ill-health led to several events either being shortened or canceled, is due to have knee replacement surgery on his return to India.

Indian women dressed in colorful saris and turbaned men mingled at the dinner with such Hollywood stars as Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase, singer Melissa Etheridge and model Christie Brinkley.

Indian tennis player Vijay Amritraj was among Indian personalities along with Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-American astronaut, and a host of executives from Information Technology companies.

The menu reflected a fusion of American and Indian cuisine, with delicacies such as Darjeeling Tea Smoked Poussin, chilled green pea and cilantro soup and Wild Copper River salmon. For desert, guests enjoyed mango and banana lotus, litchis and raspberry sauce and a white chocolate confection called ''Majestic Tiger's Delight''.

The Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Center in New York, where the first lady is running for the U.S. Senate, soothed guests afterwards with music from Mozart.

The prime minister drew laughs when he said explorer Christopher Columbus set sail for India first but stopped off at the United States. ``One wonders where you would be or where we would be if he had actually reached India,'' he said.

---

Clinton Honors Indian Independence Leader Gandhi

Yahoo News
Saturday September 16 2:09 PM ET updated 3:35 PM ET Sep 18
By Deborah Charles
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000916/pl/india_usa_dc_7.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After participating in a solemn dedication of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial in Washington on Saturday, President Clinton (news - web sites) praised the Indian independence leader and reflected on the impact Gandhi had on his own life.

With traditional Indian music playing in the background, Clinton stood with visiting Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and sprinkled rose petals on the base of the memorial outside the Indian Embassy in northwest Washington.

The government of India dedicated the eight-foot, eight-inch tall bronze statue to honor Gandhi's work on behalf of the poor, his commitment to peace and his philosophy of non-violence.

Neither Clinton nor Vajpayee spoke to the public during the dedication, whispering to each other instead as they circled the statue and looked at the various plaques commemorating Gandhi's life.

But in remarks to reporters later, Clinton reflected on the important role Gandhi had not only in his country but in the United States as well.

``Because of his influence on Martin Luther King, Gandhi is profoundly important,'' Clinton said of the slain American civil rights leader who adopted Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent protests during his campaigns for racial equality in the 1960s.

While standing in front of the towering statue that depicts Gandhi in mid-stride, holding his walking stick, Clinton said, ``When I was a boy, I was a profound admirer of Martin Luther King, and I began to read all of his writings. When I read that he was so influenced by Gandhi then I began to read about Gandhi -- I was oh, about 17 or 18 or so.''

Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, five months after India won independence from British rule. King was assassinated 20 years later in April 1968.

Earlier this year in a visit to India, Clinton and his daughter Chelsea paid homage to Gandhi at a memorial in New Delhi.

Vajpayee is winding up a four-day official visit in Washington, which is to conclude on Sunday night with a White House dinner in his honor.

Clinton and the Indian prime minister held more than an hour of talks on Friday, during which they discussed a wide range of issues from weapons proliferation to the spread of AIDS (news - web sites) in India.

In a joint statement with the United States, India reaffirmed that, ``subject to its supreme national interests,'' it will continue a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing until the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty takes effect.

Clinton called the visit by Vajpayee a ``great success,'' and said he hoped the relationship between the two countries continued to thrive even after he leaves office in January 2001.

``I hope in the years ahead we'll be better economic partners, better political partners,'' he said. ``I hope we'll both be able to help to turn back what could otherwise be a dangerous tide of proliferation of dangerous weapons -- not just nuclear warheads on missiles, either -- chemical weapons, biological weapons. I hope we'll be able to turn that back.''

``And I hope someday there'll be some constructive role we can play as a partner in working with India and others to bring peace on the sub-continent.''

-------- iraq

Iraq Arms Inspector Won't Share Info

New York Times
September 18, 2000 Filed at 9:26 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Sweden-UN-Iraq.html

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- The chief U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq said Monday that he wants foreign governments to contribute intelligence reports on suspected weapons of mass destruction, but his team will not reciprocate by conducting surveillance or sharing information.

``We're not in the business of buying or selling information,'' Hans Blix, executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said at a news conference.

Blix wants to maintain communications with intelligence agencies in the United States, Britain, France, Russia and Israel, but he said such exchanges would be ``one-way traffic.''

``If they find a spot, or think they have strong evidence that weapons with mass destruction capabilities are hidden somewhere, it is in their own interest to tell us,'' Blix said.

His team, known as UNMOVIC, was created last year to replace the U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM, which oversaw the partial destruction of Iraq's biological, chemical, missile and nuclear weapons after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Blix replaced UNSCOM's Richard Butler last year after the Clinton administration acknowledged the United States received intelligence information from UNSCOM's weapons inspectors. Iraq refused to cooperate with UNSCOM in late 1998.

Blix said the new inspection team will consist only of employees working solely for the United Nations. Butler's team included experts from the public and private sectors in the United States and other countries.

Since Iraq's refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM, and the December 1998 British and U.S. missile attacks, the Middle East country has barred U.N. weapons inspectors from returning.

Blix said he is optimistic that Iraq will let his team in. He gave no date.

``We take it month by month,'' he said.

-------- israel

Another Dangerous Mission for a Veteran Israeli Warrior

New York Times
September 18, 2000
PUBLIC LIVES
By PHILIP SHENON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/pageoneplus/18LIVE.html

ON the wall of his office in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Ambassador David Ivry has a place of honor for a framed photograph of rubble. It is an American satellite photo of what was left of an Iraqi nuclear reactor after it was destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 1981.

The ambassador, a legendary fighter pilot and retired major general, directed the operation as commander of the Israeli Air Force. The photo was a gift from Dick Cheney, the United States defense secretary during the 1991 Persian Gulf war and now the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Mr. Cheney signed it "With thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job you did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm!"

Mr. Ivry called that mission the most logistically complicated of his nearly 30 years in the air force. Because pilots had to cross enemy territory for three hours, they had to top off their tanks on the runway - "so we could save the last drop of fuel" - and leave behind heavy jamming equipment. All the planes returned.

While Washington would express its gratitude later, the initial American response was outrage that Israel had attacked its Arab neighbor. "Nobody was expecting that everybody was going to bless us for it," Ambassador Ivry recalled.

Now, nine months after he arrived in Washington, he is embroiled in American-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians - an assignment that, like the 1981 raid, entails mind-numbing complexity, daring and the knowledge that some of Israel's friends will not be pleased with the result.

If there is an agreement, Mr. Ivry will need to explain it to some members of the American Jewish community who oppose the sorts of concessions contemplated by Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

"This is so complicated," he said in an interview in New York, where he spent much of last week while the Clinton administration was trying to revive peace talks during a United Nations meeting. "There are so many factors to consider," he said of the negotiations. "And you don't know what crisis you may face next."

Mr. Ivry was not a traditional choice as Israel's chief diplomat in Washington.

Past ambassadors have been the telegenic public face of Israel. But Mr. Ivry has been virtually absent from the airwaves, and he is quick to acknowledge that he is uncomfortable on the public stage.

"I didn't ask the prime minister to be ambassador," Mr. Ivry said in his heavily accented English.

Many in Jerusalem assume that Mr. Barak chose this shy, taciturn and distinguished 65- year-old military man as his ambassador in the belief that someone who had spent his life defending Israel's security would be the best salesman here for a peace accord that might seem to threaten it.

"Ex-generals can be much more forceful in making peace," Mr. Ivry said. "They know the real thing, what a war is."

Ambassador Ivry has taken part - as fighter pilot, air force commander or military policy maker - in every Israeli war since he joined the military in the early 1950's.

His parents fled Czechoslovakia for Palestine in 1934 when his father, a wood merchant and committed Zionist, decided that "there would be no room for the Jews" in Europe after Hitler's rise. His mother was pregnant at the time with David, the first of three children. Most of the rest of the family remained in Europe and died in the Holocaust.

As a young Israeli, Mr. Ivry was first assigned to Israel's fleet of Spitfires. "It's a pleasure to fly any plane, but that was real flying," he said of the legendary British-built fighter plane. He went on to qualify to fly 38 different types of aircraft. His favorite: the French Mirage, which he flew in combat during the Six-Day War of 1967.

Mr. Ivry rose quickly to become commander of the air force from 1977 to 1982. In 1986, he became director general of the Defense Ministry, a post he held for a decade, cementing his reputation for working well with politicians of all stripes. Last year, he was appointed national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When Mr. Barak ousted Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Ivry found himself packing for Washington.

His wife, Ofra, is a special-education teacher. The couple's two sons - one an architect, one a photographer - remain in Israel. A third son, an air force pilot, was killed in the crash of an F-16 in 1987. At the mention of his dead son during the interview, Ambassador Ivry fell silent, his eyes glistening.

AS he waits for the next round of peace talks to begin, Ambassador Ivry warns that peace with the Palestinians will be needlessly delayed if the Palestinians do not take advantage quickly of the concessions being offered by Mr. Barak, whose political survival is under threat.

"Some would say that Prime Minister Barak has done more than any leader in Israel has dared to do in the past," he said. "He's taken a lot of risks."

But whatever the frustrations of the peace process, Mr. Ivry said he was convinced that there would eventually be a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and with all the Arab nations that were once his enemies on the battlefield and in the air.

"In the long term, there will be peace," he said. "Both sides need it. All the sides understand there is no other solution."

-------- korea

N. Korea, US To Resume Missile Talks In New York City

Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2000
Dow Jones Newswires
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve@6.cgi?guinstigator/text/autowire/data/DI-CO-20000918-007945.djml/&NVP=&template=atlas-srch-searchrecent.tmpl&form=atlas-srch-searchrecent.html&from-and=AND&to-and=AND&sort=Article-Doc-Date+desc&qand=&bool_query=Missile&dbname=%26name1%3Ddbname%26name2%3Ddbname%26name3%3Ddbname&location=article&period=%3A720&from=08/21/2000&to=09/19/2000&HI=

WASHINGTON (AP)--The United States and North Korea, in another step toward a smoother relationship, have agreed to resume talks on three key issues-missile proliferation, nuclear weapons and terrorism-next week, a senior U.S. official said Monday.

From the U.S. standpoint, while North Korea has already reportedly promised to end its long-range missile program in exchange for unspecified conditions, the talks beginning Sept. 27 in New York are designed to halt the spread of North Korean technology to Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. From Pyongyang's standpoint, the meetings are a chance to air complaints that North Korea has not received all the energy supplies due it under an agreement with the United States to freeze its nuclear weapons development.

The third issue, terrorism, needs to be resolved before North Korea can hope to win U.S. acceptance. The communist North is listed by the State Department as a supporter of terrorism, and thereby under U.S. law is barred from receiving other than humanitarian assistance, such as food.

The senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the talks could go on a few days or longer, depending on the progress made.

U.S. relations with North Korea have been on the upswing since South Korean President Kim Dae-jung moved toward reconciliation with the Stalinist regime in the North-a move that was welcomed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

But the search at the Frankfurt, Germany, airport of the North Korean delegation to the United Nations' Millennium Summit earlier this month caused a ripple of ill will.

The delegation canceled its trip to New York, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright subsequently said she regretted the incident and that the search by German security personnel was not authorized by U.S. policy.

Meanwhile, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun decided not to attend the U.N. General Assembly meetings last week. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "unavoidable reasons" were behind the cancellation and not aimed at slowing momentum toward improved relations.

The visit had been foreseen as a possible opportunity for Albright to meet with the foreign minister, which would have shifted the improving relationship into higher gear.

The New York talks next week will be held at the working rather than ministerial level.

-------- russia

Russia Emphasizes Its Objections to US Missile Defense

Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2000
Dow Jones Newswires
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve@6.cgi?guinstigator/text/autowire/data/DI-CO-20000918-005735.djml/&NVP=&template=atlas-srch-searchrecent.tmpl&form=atlas-srch-searchrecent.html&from-and=AND&to-and=AND&sort=Article-Doc-Date+desc&qand=&bool_query=Missile&dbname=%26name1%3Ddbname%26name2%3Ddbname%26name3%3Ddbname&location=article&period=%3A720&from=08/21/2000&to=09/19/2000&HI=

UNITED NATIONS (AP)--In an implicit warning to the U.S. against pursuing a national missile defense, Russia's foreign minister said Monday that negotiations on new cuts in nuclear warheads couldn't be concluded if the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty were altered.

The U.S. has proposed amending the 1972 ABM treaty, considered the cornerstone of arms control agreements, to allow for development of a national missile defense to guard against threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran.

Russia and China have vigorously opposed the plan, arguing that it would jeopardize the deterrent effect of their own arsenals. Many U.S. allies also have voiced objections on grounds that it could lead to a new arms race.

In a speech to the General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov didn't refer specifically to the U.S. proposal. Rather, he tied negotiations on concluding a new strategic arms reduction treaty (START III) to the preservation of the ABM treaty, which explicitly forbids a nationwide defense against long-range ballistic missiles.

"We are ready to actively continue the process of nuclear disarmament and move towards the conclusion of a START III treaty with an even lower threshold of nuclear warheads - down to 1,500 units," Ivanov said.

"But this will only be feasible if the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty remains intact," Ivanov said.

He said the ABM treaty concerns "vital security interests" of the entire world. "Its preservation is a key element of global stability and a strong barrier to the race of nuclear and missile arms as well as other weapons of mass destruction," he said.

U.S. President Bill Clinton decided Sept. 1 to defer a decision on developing a national missile defense to his successor after determining that the technology wasn't yet at hand to build the system.

The leading U.S. presidential candidates, Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, have both expressed a desire to pursue development of the system and to negotiate the necessary changes to the ABM treaty with the Russians.

---

Deadbeats owe utility $5 billion in Russia

Chicago Sun-Times
September 18, 2000
BY JIM HEINTZ
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/russ18.html

MOSCOW--As the electricity monopoly in the world's largest country, Russia's Unified Energy Systems has plenty of prodigious statistics--including what could be the world's longest list of deadbeat customers.

Not only do they owe the partly state-owned UES an estimated $5 billion, but they include some of the country's most secret sites, including nuclear missile bases and the Plesetsk space launch facility.

The utility's attempts to collect its bills grabbed national attention last week when one of its local branches cut off power to a missile base that owed $683,000. The base retaliated by sending soldiers to a switching station to turn the lights back on.

In the wake of that dispute, the Plesetsk cosmodrome announced it had received a warning that switchoffs were imminent unless it paid $1.6 million in arrears.

A missile base in Altai said it was being pressured to pay up on bills exceeding $180,000.

UES later ordered its subsidiaries not to cut power to strategic military units. But if that order quelled the uproar, it didn't resolve the company's debt crisis.

The utility is caught in a web of financial problems that seem as complex as the 1.8 million miles of power lines it manages.

UES can't collect from many state-run installations because those operations are also underfunded. When it does collect, it's often in barter or in-kind services.

In the first half of this year, only 62 percent of the payments to UES were in cash, board member Andrei Trapeznikov said in a statement.

UES complains it has to sell electricity for unreasonably low rates, about 1 cent per kilowatt-hour. But charging more realistic rates could be catastrophic for Russia's economy. Many businesses survive by being able to sell their products at low prices made possible in part because of low power rates.

-------- ukraine

Ukraine confirms Chernobyl closure by December 15

FRANCE: September 18, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8212

PARIS - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma confirmed on Friday a decision to shut down by December 15 the last operating reactor at the Chernobyl plant, scene in 1986 of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster.

"It's a political decision...and it will be a historic event, I invite the world press to come and witness it," Kuchma told a news conference at France's Elysee presidential palace.

"In 1997, we took the decision with the European Union to shut down the reactor and this was a definitive decision," he said.

The news conference took place during a day of talks between Kuchma and three leading EU figures: French President Jacques Chirac whose country hold's the EU's rotating presidency, European Commission President Romano Prodi and EU foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana.

The talks centred on compensation to be paid by the EU and others to Ukraine which draws six percent of its energy from the last Chernobyl reactor and must build two new nuclear power plants with Western aid.

"The (European) community and its member states are providing a total of 430 million euros...which makes the EU the single largest provider of financial assistance for the operation," a joint statement issued later said.

The communique said Ukraine was taking steps to reform its energy sector: "notably by privatising distribution companies, improving cash collection, ensuring independent nuclear regulatory authority and improving energy efficiency."

The EU pledged to aid Ukraine in return for the reforms and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (ERBD) has granted credits for the construction of the new reactors.

Ukraine has also applied for credits from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and hoped to get a $100 million loan from the ERBD to buy fuel and replace capacities to be lost in the Chernobyl closure.

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

DOE FUNDS CLEAN ENERGY PROJECTS

September 18, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-18-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The Department of Energy has awarded six technology development research grants totaling almost $6 million for the advancement of clean energy technologies. "There are tremendous opportunities for clean energy technologies to thrive in the coming years," said Dan Reicher, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. "Through these partnerships, we are ensuring the development of energy efficient technologies which will help us to save energy, grow our economy and maintain a healthier environment by reducing the consumption of fossil fuels." The applicants will each contribute 20 to 58 percent of the funding to each project. The following projects have been selected for awards:

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs will develop an advanced hybrid system for supplying electricity, air conditioning, hot water, steam, energy storage, and/or dehumidification for commercial buildings. The Ohio Department of Development will develop compact modular fuel cells, using solid oxide fuel cell technology. The National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), in partnership with California, Florida, Wisconsin, New York and Ohio, will develop, test and expand use of clean energy technologies in schools. The University of Oregon will develop more accurate techniques to evaluate the potential of solar energy. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities will test the potential of distributed power systems to help Long Beach Island, New Jersey address high season variabilities in electricity demand in a cost effective way. The Idaho Department of Water Resources Energy Division will develop an on-site process for separating wheat straw into feedstock for making new plastics and soil compost.

-------- new mexico

F.B.I. Is Under Scrutiny for Conduct in Lee Case

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/national/18FBI.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 - To critics of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Wen Ho Lee case, in which agents tracked the nuclear scientist for years and at times pressed him to confess, revived memories of the J. Edgar Hoover era when the F.B.I. was accused of intimidating and abusive tactics.

Louis J. Freeh, the F.B.I. director, has defended the agency's investigation, but he has also begun a formal review of the F.B.I.'s conduct, agency officials said. Mr. Freeh is likely to face critical scrutiny in Congressional hearings next week after James A. Parker, the federal district judge in the case, called it a national embarrassment and President Clinton said he was "quite troubled."

The uproar followed a decision by federal authorities to settle the case after charging Dr. Lee in a 59-count felony indictment in December 1999. The indictment, accusing Dr. Lee of transferring huge amounts of secret atomic research data from the classified computer system at Los Alamos weapons lab, came after authorities had spent years investigating him.

In the end, Dr. Lee pleaded guilty only to a single count of mishandling classified material.

Mr. Freeh defended the settlement in a statement Wednesday in which he made no mention of the criticism. He said the evidence remained uncontradicted that Dr. Lee had copied large amounts of sensitive data without explanation onto 10 computer tapes, only three of which had been found.

Mr. Freeh said Dr. Lee's willingness, as part of the plea, to explain what he did with the tapes justified the settlement. "In this case, as has happened often in the past, national security and criminal justice needs intersect," Mr. Freeh said. "In some instances, prosecution must be forgone in favor of national security interests. In this case, both are served."

Mr. Freeh is out of the country until midweek, and F.B.I. officials have rallied to defend him, pointing out that other agencies were involved. The F.B.I. investigation was based on a referral from the Energy Department, which first raised suspicions about Dr. Lee. The decision to charge Dr. Lee with multiple counts was approved by Attorney General Janet Reno.

But other law enforcement officials in the government said the F.B.I. was largely responsible. They said it was the F.B.I. that identified Dr. Lee as the prime suspect and remained fixed on him - even as the inquiry went on for years without turning up any evidence of spying.

Moreover, they said, Mr. Freeh, whose views about criminal cases are widely respected at the Justice Department, influenced others in the government to go along. One official said after the guilty plea, "The F.B.I. sold Janet Reno a bill of goods."

Several former and current F.B.I. officials acknowledged that the Lee case was flawed.

They said counterintelligence investigations were almost never solved quickly, but often required years of painstaking work. The Lee case proved nearly impenetrable, involving an accusation of a theft of nuclear secrets that supposedly occurred in the 1980's, but was not suspected until the 1990's.

Some officials said institutional problems at the F.B.I. contributed to the breakdown of the Lee case - an inquiry that remained a relatively low priority for nearly two years, until 1998, when Mr. Freeh, facing criticism in Congress over the government's failure to plug security leaks at weapons labs, ordered the investigation put on a fast track.

Some officials said the case fell through the cracks of changing post- cold-war counterintelligence assumptions and priorities. China espionage had never been a top priority at the F.B.I. as it focused on the Soviet Union and East Bloc countries. But after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, counterintelligence no longer seemed as important. Many top agents were transferred out of spy-catching units.

In the swirl of change, the Lee case seemed to get lost, assigned not to one of the F.B.I.'s large offices in New York, Washington or Los Angeles, but to the Albuquerque office.

In mid-1997, when Ms. Reno turned down a request by the F.B.I. to seek a special intelligence warrant to allow electronic surveillance of Dr. Lee in an effort to jump-start the inquiry, F.B.I. officials protested, but did not alert Mr. Freeh. And he, in turn, did not appeal to Ms. Reno.

Ms. Reno had ruled that the evidence against Dr. Lee was too fragmentary and dated to justify a surveillance warrant.

The debate over the warrant still divides F.B.I. and Justice Department officials. Some argue that a last chance was lost to establish Dr. Lee's guilt or prove his innocence.

Without electronic eavesdropping, agents were stymied. But they seemed determined to show that Dr. Lee was the key to Chinese espionage at Los Alamos.

Two agents interrogated Dr. Lee at the Los Alamos lab on March 7, 1999, and adopted a bullying approach. An edited transcript of the interrogation shows that the agents asked him repeatedly to explain why he had failed a polygraph examination administered a month earlier.

"But Wen Ho, I'm telling you," one of the agents said, "the facts are right here! The facts are, if you're saying you didn't do anything, that's not what this shows. All of the polygraphs that you're taking, and all the stuff you're telling everybody, you're failing! Why are you failing your polygraphs?"

"I don't know," Dr. Lee replied. "I, I, I, I don't know why I fail, but I do know I have not done anything, I have not done anything." Dr. Lee added: "I never give classified information to Chinese people. I never tell them anything relating to nuclear weapons, uh, data or design or whatever, I have never done anything like that."

---

Asian-Americans Demanding Bias Inquiry in Scientist's Case

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/national/18LEE.html

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 17 - Leaders of Asian-American groups are planning to seize the opportunity of a long-scheduled meeting with White House officials in New York on Monday to express their outrage over the treatment of the former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee and to press for a full inquiry on whether racism played a role in his investigation and prosecution.

When the White House Initiative on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders set up a daylong town meeting many weeks ago, to be held in an auditorium at the New York University Law School, it was intended as a forum for the Clinton administration to put on display its interest in hearing from the rapidly growing Asian- American population.

A similar meeting about six weeks ago in Los Angeles was sparsely attended, some participants said, and several said they had been warned then that they were not to raise the issue of Dr. Lee, who pleaded guilty last week to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets after more than nine months of solitary confinement.

But some Asian-American leaders held a series of caucuses over the weekend and said they intended to take advantage of the time set aside for public comment at the Monday meeting to demand that the administration initiate an investigation into whether Dr. Lee was singled out because he is ethnically Chinese.

"We are calling for an impartial investigation on whether there was racial profiling, and we think this is a good forum for making sure we are heard," said Laura Hong, president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. A number of officials from the administration are scheduled to attend the conference.

Added Henry Tang, president of the Committee of 100, an organization of Chinese-Americans, "The focus is on full disclosure of all the documents on racial profiling."

Dr. David Ho, a highly regarded researcher and director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, is a commissioner of the White House organization, and he said that previously the group was discouraged from raising questions about Dr. Lee by administration officials on the grounds that it was a pending criminal case. But now that it is not, he said, "I think if we don't tackle this issue we will have no credibility" among Asian-Americans.

These leaders were referring to one of the most important developments in Dr. Lee's case. The judge, James A. Parker of Federal District Court in Albuquerque, had earlier ordered the government to hand over thousands of pages of classified documents detailing why Dr. Lee was singled out for investigation and how his case was handled compared with those of other government employees who violated security rules.

Those documents were due by last Friday. With Dr. Lee's plea agreement on Wednesday to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets, the judge's order was dropped. Judge Parker himself said he regretted that he would no longer be able to order the disclosure of the documents, and many others have insisted that the documents should still be examined for evidence of racism.

Many Asian-American leaders said they had been eager to find a forum to speak directly to the Clinton White House about their deep concerns over the way Dr. Lee was prosecuted, and the town meeting in New York has provided a venue.

Dr. Lee was investigated for years on suspicion that he had leaked nuclear weapons secrets to China, and he was fired from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in March 1999. However, no evidence could ever be found to support the allegations. But F.B.I. agents searching his home eventually found that he had improperly downloaded a huge volume of nuclear secrets. He was indicted last December on 59 felony counts of having illegally downloaded the data with the intent of helping a foreign country. The charges could have brought him a life sentence.

Though Dr. Lee's plea last Wednesday, which gave him his freedom in return for his cooperation with investigators, ended the prosecution, Judge Parker lectured the government on what he characterized as its disturbing handling of Dr. Lee and its misleading testimony.

That helped fuel the calls for an investigation, which are expected to transform what might have been a routine meeting on Monday into a rally on Dr. Lee's behalf.

---

Asians: Lee Was Victim of Profiling

Associated Press
September 18, 2000 Filed at 5:30 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scientist-Hearing.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee was the victim of the same type of racial profiling that sent Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II, Asian-American civic leaders told a presidential commission Monday.

``The government's prosecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee was politically motivated and tainted by racism from the start,'' said Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. ``The government officials responsible for this debacle must be held accountable for their actions.''

The 60-year-old Taiwan-born scientist, fired from his job at the Los Alamos weapons lab in March 1999, pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified material and was set free last week. The federal government dropped 58 other felony counts that once charged him with endangering nuclear secrets.

President Clinton said Friday that Lee's nine-month pretrial detention conflicted with America's disdain for ``abusive executive authority.'' But Clinton said he had seen no evidence of racial profiling in the case.

Speakers at Monday's town hall meeting before the President's Advisory Commission on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders disagreed, alleging Lee was unfairly singled out by prosecutors because of his Chinese background.

``If there is one stereotype about Asian-Americans that has fueled racism and discriminatory treatment, it is that Asians are perpetual foreigners whose loyalties to this country are always in question,'' Fung said. ``Asian-Americans have rallied to support Dr. Wen Ho Lee because of the realization that this type of racial scapegoating could happen to any of us.''

Henry Tang, president of the Committee of 100, an organization of Chinese-Americans, said the scarcity of Asians in leadership positions at the Los Alamos lab was a factor in the Lee case.

``The national laboratories, despite decades of heavy Asian-American employment, have almost non-existent Asian-American management at the director or deputy director levels,'' he said.

The gathering Monday at New York University's law school was the second of four planned town meetings before the commission. The first took place in Los Angeles in July. No date has been set for the next meeting in Honolulu.

---

The Wrong Methods

New York Times
September 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/opinion/L18WEN.html

To the Editor:

While I applaud James Lilley's sensitivity toward the Asian-American community, I cannot condone his calls for "timely investigative use of wiretaps, computer access, independent surveillance and informers" as a means of deterring Chinese intelligence efforts (Op-Ed, Sept. 12). These practices would inevitably escalate the ethnic profiling of the Wen Ho Lee case into a systematic and institutionalized way of mistreating Asian-Americans in weapons labs and other places.

No matter the worthiness of the intentions, the use of such techniques would further estrange Asian-Americans, the opposite of what Mr. Lilley hopes.

JANE K. DOKKO Ann Arbor, Mich., Sept. 12, 2000

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

Gore2000: Cox Report Evidently Biased

US Newswire
18 Sep 19:46
To: National Desk, Political Reporter
Contact: Douglas Hattaway or Chris Lehane, 615-340-3251,
both of Gore/Lieberman 2000;
Web site: http://www.algore.com
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0919-181.html

NASHVILLE, Sept. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by Gore/Lieberman 2000:

Noting that foreign affairs and national security were once taboo topics for partisan potshots, TIME magazine today reported that the soon-to-be-released Republican Cox Report on U.S.-Russian relations is evidently biased and partisan. TIME also reported that the report's author, Christopher Cox (R-CA), readily admitted that the report was partisan.

"This is a partisan report not worth the taxpayer-provided paper it's written on," said Gore/Lieberman national spokesman Douglas Hattaway. "While they play politics with foreign policy, Al Gore has put the national interest ahead of politics to help Russia reduce its nuclear arsenal and move toward a free-market democracy."

GOP PLAYING POLITICS WITH FOREIGN AFFAIRS, NATIONAL SECURITY

"It used to be that foreign affairs and national security were taboo topics for partisan potshots. Not this year; instead of stopping at the water's edge, politics in Washington is plunging off the deep end. This Wednesday, the House Republican leadership's Policy Committee will produce a 209-page report pillorying the Clinton administration for its handling of Russia. The main target? Al Gore..." (TIME.com, 9/19/00)

REPORT CALLED PARTISAN HATCHET JOB, EVEN MODERATE REPUBLICANS KEPT AT ARMS LENGTH

"Rep. Samuel Gejdenson, top Democrat on the House International Relations committee, fumes that the Republican-only exercise 'is a completely partisan hatchet job.' And even moderate Republicans from the International Relations Gommittee say they were kept at arm's length because the report's authors, under the leadership of California representative Christopher Cox, "get nervous when you try to inject some truth into the proceedings." (TIME.com, 9/19/00)

COX HIMSELF ADMITS REPORT IS PARTISAN

"Cox shrugs off charges the report is partisan - 'Of course it is!' he crows. But reports like this one are more likely to damage their authors' reputations than the electoral chances of their intended targets." (TIME.com, 9/19/00)

REPORT CALLED BIASED, VITUPERATIVE, & CONTAINING CONTRADICTIONS

"The document suffers from incomplete source materials presented with evident bias. It blames the administration for souring U.S.-Russian relations by pursuing NATO expansion and National Missile Defense, both of which Republicans support even more fervently than Democrats. It repeatedly mentions Russia's objections to unilateral U.S. action but then criticizes the administration for pursuing consensus-building with Moscow and others. Those contradictions, combined with breathless, vituperative language, obscure valid points, like the administration's studious disregard for Russian atrocities in Chechnya and its failure to achieve any new arms control agreements with the Russians over eight years." (TIME.com, 9/19/00)

-------- us nuc politics

CLINTON ASKS SENATE TO RATIFY SPENT FUEL PACT

September 18, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-18-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, President Clinton has sent the 1997 Joint Convention on Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management to the U.S. Senate for ratification. The Convention, as part of a broad effort to raise nuclear safety standards around the world, establishes a series of commitments for proper management of spent fuels and radioactive waste in the civilian sector. It complements the earlier Convention on Nuclear Safety, which entered into force in July 1999. The treaty now before the Senate was adopted by a diplomatic conference convened by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September 1997 and was opened for signature in Vienna on September 5, 1997. President Clinton has delayed sending the Convention to the Senate due to concerns that not enough votes could be found to ratify the agreement.

"The Convention is an important part of the effort to raise the level of nuclear safety around the world," said Clinton. "I urge the Senate to act expeditiously in giving its advice and consent to ratification." The Convention does not delineate detailed mandatory standards that participants must meet. Parties are instructed to take appropriate steps to bring their activities into compliance with the general obligations of the Convention. The agreement does not apply to military radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel unless a participating country opts to declare these wastes as spent nuclear fuel or radioactive waste for the purposes of the Convention. Parties to the Convention have absolute discretion as to what information is reported on material from military sources.

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

Western Leaders Face War Crimes Trial in Belgrade

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
By Beti Bilandzic
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/ts/nato_trial_dc_2.html

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Yugoslavia put Presidents Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac of France and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) in the dock Monday, accusing them of war crimes during last year's NATO (news - web sites) air strikes.

The names of the three, and of 11 other Western leaders including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, were attached to 14 empty front row seats in the Belgrade court room where the trial opened.

Serb authorities appointed lawyers for each of them.

The trial began a few days before September 24 presidential and parliamentary elections which the Yugoslav government portrays as a choice between ``patriotism and treachery,'' branding its domestic opponents traitors and NATO lackeys plotting to destroy Serbia.

President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites), who will be seeking a second term in the polls, was himself indicted by the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in May last year for war crimes in Kosovo.

District Public Prosecutor Andrija Milutinovic and his deputy took three hours to read the list of charges of war crimes during the March-to-June bombing. Yugoslav officials said it should take four days to present the evidence.

``They are charged with inciting an aggressive war...war crimes against civilian population...use of banned combat means, attempted murder of the Yugoslav president...the violation of the country's territorial integrity...,'' the charges sheet said.

``They fired 600 cruise missiles and made 25,119 (air) sorties during the 78-day aggression, attacking both military and civilian targets, killing and wounding many people, causing mass destruction of property,'' it added.

The prosecutor read out the names of 503 civilians, 240 soldiers and 147 police who he said were killed during the bombing, which NATO launched to halt Belgrade's repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.

Piles Of Stacked Documents

Piles of documents containing evidence were stacked on a court room table, and presiding judge Veroljub Raketic said there was six times as much material available elsewhere.

Court officials read out statements of the accused leaders to support the charge that they were inciting war.

Films of NATO attacks on Yugoslav targets were shown as the officials read out survivors' testimonies and forensic reports.

These testimonies included a mother whose daughter was killed in the Montenegrin village of Murino where she had been sent for safety and a rescuer speaking about a girl in flames who died in his arms as he took her out of a wrecked train.

A doctor from the town of Aleksinac, whose parents and sister were killed when their house was hit, was quoted as saying he wanted to kill himself when he saw what happened.

The accused face sentences of up to 20 years imprisonment if found guilty.

Serbian Justice Minister Dragoljub Jankovic said he expected maximum sentences on the basis of the evidence.

``The question is how the sentence will be carried out. As the international community's stand on our country is changing, I believe some of them will one day be extradited,'' he said in the town of Sabac, the independent Beta news agency reported.

But the mother of one of 16 employees killed in an attack on the state television building in Belgrade described the trial as a farce, saying in a written statement to reporters at the trial that those responsible in Yugoslavia should also be tried.

NATO insisted throughout the campaign it was aiming only at military targets and took all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

When the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in February that 500 civilians had been killed by the air strikes, NATO said its report constituted legitimate criticism but that NATO's actions could not be compared with Serb violence in Kosovo.

-------- china

Let's trade with China

Washington Times
September 18, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/ed-house-2000917123642.htm

This week, senators will decide if the United States should establish permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China. Although there are good arguments supporting both sides of this issue, there is only one correct course of action. By voting in favor of PNTR, lawmakers will make a long-term investment in U.S. economic growth, the empowerment of the Chinese people and the commercial engagement of a crucial world player.

Clearly lawmakers are keenly aware of the significance of this vote and tensions have been high. Granted, China already enjoys a de facto PNTR, since Congress has always granted the Asian country access to U.S. markets in its yearly review of its human rights record. But this year, the legislation is particularly important, since passage of the trade bill would pave the way for Beijing's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Already Beijing has granted the United States a series of trade concessions, which America would have to forfeit if it fails to approve PNTR.

Meanwhile, U.S. trade competitors, such as the Japan and the European Union (E.U.), have concluded their bilateral trade agreements with Beijing. The deal the E.U. reached with China in May is already advancing reform. This year, the E.U. will launch an initiative to restructure China´s financial service sector.

Trade with China isn't a benefit to U.S. corporations and the Chinese regime alone. Eventually, it will help enrich and empower the Chinese people. And the United States can leverage a burgeoning commercial relationship with China to help support wide-ranging reform. For example, included in PNTR legislation is the creation of a new bilateral human rights commission. As Mike Jendrzejczyk, from Human Rights Watch, suggested in a Boston Globe column Wednesday, Congress should hold a yearly debate on this commission's report, and should vote on specific policy recommendations based on its findings. In addition, the United States should fund reform projects, such as seminars on how to apply international legal and labor norms to China and should sponsor the training and exchanges of lawyers and judges.

Trade is also the best vehicle for establishing warmer relations with China. For all its eagerness to join the international trading community, Beijing continues to view U.S. economic and military power with wariness, and even suspicion. If China wins a stake in U.S. prosperity, the relationship can only improve.

It remains vital, however, that the interests of corporate America don't hijack U.S. policy towards China. At any given time, Washington must be prepared to subordinate commercial interests to safeguard national security concerns. The United States must continue to pressure Beijing to improve its disappointing human rights record and provide Taiwan with rhetorical and, if need be, military defense. Washington must also make unmistakably clear that China and Taiwan join the WTO as separate entities, as has been agreed in previous negotiations.

But trading with China and protecting America's national security aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, critics often cite human rights, economic and security concerns as reasons to reject PNTR. But these are the very reasons the Senate should normalize trade relations with China.

-------- colombia

Colombia Police: Gunmen Release 15

New York Times
September 18, 2000 Filed at 7:32 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Colombia-Mass-Kidnapping.html

CALI, Colombia (AP) -- An American woman freed by guerrillas on Monday said she was deeply shaken by her ordeal but has no intention of abandoning this violence-torn South American country that's been her home for 34 years.

Helena de Lima was among at least 40 people abducted Sunday by rebels from roadside restaurants and a private estate along a stretch of highway outside Cali. De Lima, the only American in the group, was among 15 released Monday; the guerrillas had freed two others on Sunday.

The mass abduction showed how lawless and insecure Colombia has become as a 36-year guerrilla war escalates. It is likely to damage fledgling peace talks between the government and the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, which was believed responsible for the kidnappings.

About 400 troops have surrounded the area where the remaining hostages were thought to be held, but officials said they had no immediate plans to attempt a military-style rescue.

A 58-year-old Baltimore native, de Lima and her Colombian husband, Eduardo, were kidnapped from their estate along with Eduardo's sister and a nephew. Eduardo de Lima was freed hours before his wife, but his two relatives were still being held.

``I walked four hours in the black of night,'' de Lima said of her ordeal in the cold Andean mountains. ``I felt very vulnerable, very scared.''

With her short white hair and wire-rim glasses, de Lima told The Associated Press she believes she was freed because of her age.

``It's so sad to go through this after giving your life and love to Colombia,'' de Lima said. ``I've always defended Colombians because they are basically good, warm people. There has to be another way of working this conflict out.''

Vice President Gustavo Bell called the action a ``flagrant violation'' of international law and said it contradicted the ELN's assertion that it is genuinely interested in peace.

No group has claimed responsibility, but police said they are almost certain it was the ELN, a 5,000-member rebel group and Colombia's second-largest leftist insurgency.

The de Limas said their captors wore ELN armbands.

The mass abduction was carried out by at least 50 heavily armed men, many of them wearing military-style uniforms and bulletproof vests, initially claiming to be members of Colombia's secret police.

Before heading to the de Lima estate, the gunmen snatched at least 36 hostages from two restaurants along the Via Al Mar, or Highway to the Sea, which meanders from Cali toward the Pacific Ocean, 45 miles to the west.

Seventeen have been released but others remained in captivity Monday, although it was not immediately clear how many. Some released hostages said they believe there are as many as 50 people still being held in the mountains.

The kidnapping has further unnerved residents of Colombia's third-largest city.

``We in Cali are known for our love of the outdoors,'' said Adolfo Lopez, a top city official. ``Now we feel like prisoners in our own house.''

The ELN carried out a string of mass abductions last year, including a raid on a Catholic Mass near Cali, to obtain ransoms and pressure the government for concessions in peace talks.

Colombia has the world's highest kidnapping rate, with nearly 3,000 abductions reported last year and at least 1,750 through July of this year, according to the private Free Country monitoring group.

Thousands of Colombians have left the country in the past two years as the war makes leading an ordinary life increasingly difficult.

But de Lima, who met her husband when he was studying medicine in the United States, said she had no plans to abandon the country.

``My roots here are as deep as the ones I stepped over in the jungle,'' she said.

---

Gunmen kidnap 30 in Colombia

Washington Times
September 18, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-2000918221419.htm

CALI, Colombia - Gunmen yesterday kidnapped at least 30 persons from two restaurants located in the weekend playground of the well-to-do outside Colombia's third-largest city in an operation blamed on leftist rebels.

At least one of those seized is an American, a relative said.

About 50 armed men, many wearing military-style uniforms and bulletproof vests, barged into the restaurants in the highlands outside Cali yesterday, police said. Gunmen also seized a couple from a nearby farm - Eduardo de Lima and wife Elena.

Mrs. de Lima, formerly of Timonium, moved to Colombia when she married her husband, her cousin, David Luria of Washington, said by telephone.

South Korea breaks ground on cross-border rail

Heavy fighting reported in northwest Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia - Government troops were engaged in heavy combat yesterday against leftist rebels in the jungles of northwest Colombia, with casualties reported high on both sides.

Gen. Nestor Ramirez, second-in-command of the army, said that 19 government soldiers were confirmed dead, and that fighting was continuing. RCN television said government forces had lost contact with 44 soldiers.

The clashes between the army and rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were centered around the town of Dabeiba, located 95 miles southeast of the Panamanian border.

-------- drug war

U.N. Forsakes Effort to Curb Poppy Growth by Afghans

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/world/18AFGH.html

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 15 - Frustrated by declining support from Western donors and the indifference of the ruling Taliban, the United Nations is winding down efforts to persuade farmers in Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium, to switch to alternative legal crops.

Ghorak, Khakrez and Maiwand, three districts of Kandahar province where the United Nations set up pilot programs promoting alternative crops, have recorded decreases in poppy cultivation of at least 50 percent, according to the latest annual survey of the United Nations International Drug Control Program.

"This demonstrates that the alternative development projects work very well," the program's executive director, Under Secretary General Pino Arlacchi, said here. Similar programs in Bolivia and Peru, he noted, led to sharp declines there in the cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine.

Despite United Nations efforts to convince Afghan farmers to switch to wheat and other food crops in return for compensation, Mr. Arlacchi said, "Afghanistan remains by far the largest opium supplier in the world."

Now, with United Nations funding running out and opium still Afghanistan's leading cash crop, the pilot projects will end this year, Mr. Arlacchi said, "given lack of financial and political support."

Afghanistan's production of opium, the essential raw ingredient of heroin, was estimated at just over 3,600 tons this year, a decline from the record 5,100 tons in 1999.

But the drop was caused mainly by a severe drought in southern Afghanistan and not by any effort by the Taliban to make peasants grow something other than opium poppies. A previous decree that farmers reduce their areas under opium cultivation by one-third has been widely ignored by the farmers and the Taliban authorities.

Half of Afghanistan's opium is consumed as heroin by addicts in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, Mr. Arlacchi said. The rest is smuggled out to heroin markets in Europe, usually via Turkey and the Balkans.

Afghanistan planted nearly 203,000 acres in opium poppies this year, a slight decline from last year, again apparently because of bad weather. United Nations officials hoped that the drought might encourage some farmers to revert to traditional crops. But the poor harvest may leave indebted farmers with no choice but to keep raising opium.

Opium growing is encouraged by Afghanistan's rugged, often remote terrain and a long-running civil war that has bred lawlessness and defiance of authority.

Afghan farmers can earn about $14 per pound of opium, considerably more than they do from other crops, United Nations officials say. Roughly 10 pounds of raw opium are used to produce 1 pound of heroin. At the consuming end, the cost of a pound of uncut heroin in Europe or the United States can exceed $40,000.

Opium poppies are grown in 22 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, but 6 provinces in the south account for 92 percent of the opium producing area. Moreover, 97 percent of this land is irrigated, proof that precious water is diverted to opium poppies at the expense of other crops.

The Taliban, a militant Islamic movement that fought its way into power, controls an estimated 91 percent of the Afghan villages visited by United Nations surveyors, compared with 9 percent controlled by opposition forces in the north. But the Taliban's territory contains 96 percent of the country's opium poppy fields, up from about 90 percent last year.

Mr. Arlacchi visited Afghanistan three years ago and secured assurances of cooperation from the Taliban, which considers drug use contrary to Islamic precepts, at least in theory. Since then, he said, "There was no substantial improvement in our relationship."

The United Nations drug control office will continue its annual survey of Afghanistan's opium cultivation and harvest yield, conducted by Afghan nationals who have been able to move about the country and interview opium growers and local officials.

-------- iraq

Washington Presses Case for Putting Saddam on Trial

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/ts/iraq_usa_dc_8.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official, speaking amid heightened fears of Iraq aggression, on Monday reiterated U.S. demands that President Saddam Hussein and top aides be brought before an international court.

``Our primary objective is to see Saddam Hussein and the leadership of the Iraqi regime indicted and prosecuted by an international criminal tribunal,'' said David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues.

He was addressing a meeting arranged by the Middle East Institute and the Iraq Foundation, which has been gathering information with a view to prosecuting Saddam before a similar tribunal to that set up for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.

Scheffer's remarks coincided with international concern over Iraq's intentions after Iraq renewed allegations that neighboring Kuwait was stealing Iraq's oil and reports emerged that an Iraqi military plane had this month intruded into Saudi air space.

Scheffer acknowledged international resistance to putting Saddam on trial, saying if this were not be possible then there could be ways of pursuing him through national courts.

``If an international criminal tribunal or even a commission of experts proves too difficult to achieve politically, there still may be opportunities in the national courts of certain jurisdictions to investigate and indict (Iraqi leaders),'' he said.

He said the United States jurisdiction was not the most suitable.

Fellow Security Council members Russia, China and France have taken a far more accommodating approach to Baghdad than Washington, which orchestrated the international coalition that drove Saddam's forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.

The United States gives financial backing to the opposition Iraqi National Congress, a motley and disputatious collection of opposition groups, as well as to the British-based INDICT campaign which works to bring Iraqi leaders to justice.

Scheffer, saying many who resisted action against Saddam were ``unaware of the magnitude of his criminal conduct,'' listed eight major areas under which Saddam and his fellow leaders could be indicted.

They included use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, which he said killed some 5,000 Iranians, to the slaughter of civilians by chemical weapons bombs at the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 to brutal suppression of domestic uprisings to acts against Americans in the Gulf War.

``Those who want to gloss over Saddam's criminal record often want to gloss over the need for him to be brought to justice,'' Scheffer said.

He quoted a list of 12 Iraqis drawn up by INDICT of those who shared with Saddam ``the responsibility for these criminal acts.''

It included Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid -- labeled ``Chemical Ali'' by the Iraqi opposition for his alleged use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians and a southern Shi'ite uprising -- and Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay.

---

Cleric Uses Weapon of Religion Against Iran's Rulers

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/world/18IRAN.html

TEHRAN - Despite his turban and cloak, or perhaps because of it, Mohsen Kadivar is a very dangerous man for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The 41-year-old cleric and confidant of President Mohammad Khatami trained at the best theological seminary and taught at some of the best universities in the country. He was active in the revolution that toppled the monarchy 21 years ago and has written heavy tomes on Islamic philosophy and law.

But that was before he was banned from teaching, before he was tried and sentenced to prison for disseminating lies, defaming Islam and disturbing public opinion with his newspaper commentaries suggesting that the rule of the clerics had become as tyrannical as the rule of the kings.

Now, after 18 months in prison, Mr. Kadivar is free, in a manner of speaking. He was released in July but is still banned from teaching. He has been told that he faces new criminal charges, but does not know what they are or when they will be filed.

Most of the reformist newspapers for which he wrote are closed. Many of the journalists and clerics he counts among his friends are behind bars. And his attempt to give a speech with another leading reformer in the western industrial city of Khorramabad in August was blocked by armed vigilantes, causing riots that left a policeman dead and 100 people wounded.

Mr. Kadivar has a lot of time to talk these days, but it was unusual for him to invite an American reporter to his home. The Western press is accused by many conservatives, including the country's hard-line newspaper commentators, of being part of an international conspiracy that has infiltrated the reform movement to undermine the stability of the Islamic state.

But Mr. Kadivar was upbeat, as he sat in an armchair in the living room of the comfortable apartment he shares with his wife and four children, surrounded by glass-encased, ceiling-to-floor bookcases filled with leather-bound books.

"I truly believe in the things I have said," he said in a three-hour conversation over sour cherry juice and platters of fruits and sweets. "And I have already paid the price for it."

The bearded, bespectacled mid- level cleric has refused to obey the dictum of the clerical court that convicted him - that he keep his pen still and his mouth shut. "I have no intention of listening to them," he said. "If they want to act against me again, this time it is they who will have to pay the price."

Mr. Kadivar is so dangerous because he is armed with one of the key weapons of the Islamic Republic - the language of religion.

Iran is locked in an intense struggle between reformers who want to make the system more responsive to the will of the people and conservatives supported by armed street vigilantes who are determined to keep their hold on power through their rigid interpretation of Islam.

Mr. Kadivar comes to this ideological battlefield armed with Koranic verses and complex theological scholarship. When he talks of democracy, he does not demand the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and its replacement with a secular form of government.

"I believe in a religious democratic state," he said. "I believe that democracy and Islam are compatible. But a religious state is possible only when it is elected and governed by the people. And the governing of the country should not be necessarily in the hands of the clergy. So what I support is the healthy state the reformers are promoting as an Islamic Republic, not what exists now."

And what exists now, he continued, is a system in which one man, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has too much power, under a system of government known as the "rule of the Islamic jurist." Under Iran's Constitution, Ayatollah Khamenei wields more power than the president and controls the national police and the security agencies and appoints the heads of the military, the Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary, national television and radio and the ostensibly charitable foundations that control hundreds of companies and industries.

But there are Islamic thinkers, Mr. Kadivar included, who argue that the power structure has become distorted over the years. Proof of that came last month, Mr. Kadivar said, when Ayatollah Khamenei stunned the popularly elected Parliament - and much of the nation - when he decided that that Parliament would be prohibited from amending a restrictive press law.

"This is the meaning of the absolute authority," Mr. Kadivar said, referring to the ayatollah's position. "If one person is going to rule the same way the monarchy did, well, it was not the goal of the revolution to have one-person rule, even if he is a fair and knowledgeable man."

In the current political climate in Iran, such criticism is breathtakingly bold. Essentially, Mr. Kadivar is arguing that the official interpretation of Islam developed under the Islamic Republic is misguided. But he speaks so openly in part because that is what he is trained to do.

The clerical system in Shiite Islam is a democratic, non-hierarchical, even rowdy one in which students are trained to speak their minds and challenge the authority of their professors.

Still, in clerical circles, Mr. Kadivar is an odd fit. He began his studies in electrical engineering at the prestigious University of Shiraz, where he learned English, and turned to religious studies in the dusty, provincial holy city of Qum only after the secular universities were closed in the cultural crackdown early in the revolution. For 16 years, Mr. Kadivar studied and taught a wide variety of courses, including Arabic literature, logic and religious law and philosophy.

Nine years ago, he antagonized conservative clerics when he wrote an article using the views of various Islamic thinkers to argue that there are other forms of Islamic government than one ruled by one "Islamic jurist." More writing on the subject followed, and eventually a newspaper that published the article was shut down, and Mr. Kadivar was stripped of his teaching responsibilities.

Until his trial in early 1999 before the powerful Special Court for the Clergy, however, he was overshadowed by his more prominent sister, Jamileh Kadivar, a journalist, politician and mother of four. She is married to Ataollah Mohajerani, a layman who, as minister of islamic culture and guidance, has struggled to liberalize film and the media.

In February, Jamileh Kadivar came in second place in the election for Parliament from Teheran. She is so outspoken that on the first day of her brother's trial she declared before the television cameras, "This court is worse than the executioners of the shah's regime."

Even from behind bars, Mr. Kadivar continued his relentless criticism of the clerical system. In his most pointed commentary, contained in a letter to his wife from prison in May 1999, Mr. Kadivar wrote, "The Islamic Republic is faced with a historic catastrophe in its 20th year of life in Iran." The main goal of the 1979 revolution, he added, was "the end of absolute monarchy and the transformation to an Islamic Republic. So the return to the same conduct of absolute monarchy cannot be called an Islamic Republic." (He also found time in prison to finish his doctoral dissertation.)

And in an article for the reformist newspaper Khordad before it was shut down earlier this year, he wrote, "No one with a different mentality - even if he or she is one of the founders or true supporters of the revolution - is safe in these chaotic conditions in which aggression prevails, bookshops fall easy prey to arson, people in cinemas and parks have to expect being unexpectedly raided, tourists are attacked and legal gatherings and lecturers are so often assaulted."

Asked about his writings now, Mr. Kadivar replied: "I stand by what I said then - word for word. I said these things to strengthen Islam in our society and to implement freedom."

He has been just as outspoken since his release, branding the judiciary a tool of the conservatives and "minority monopolists" and criticizing the elected Parliament for not yet working to fulfill the needs of the people.

And he keeps in contact with his fellow reformers, even those in prison. During the conversation, Akbar Ganji, one of Iran's best-known and most daring political commentators, called from Evin Prison, where he has been held for five months awaiting trial for his articles against the excesses of the system. Mr. Ganji was excited about an article he had written in an obscure reformist newspaper published in faraway Zanjan Province that has not been shut down - at least not yet.

Mr. Kadivar has no doubt that in the long run, his side will prevail. "The pressure against people like me cannot last forever, because the demands of the people are the opposite of what is happening in this country," he said.

In any case, he added, "can one live without hope?"

-------- iraq

Iraqi Press Predicts War
Baghdad Papers Say U.S. Plans 'New Aggression' Clinton Admin. Wants Saddam Tried For War Crimes Russia Says It Will Keep Flying Aid Into Baghdad

CBS News
Sept. 18, 2000
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,233586-412,00.shtml

(CBS) A week after Iraq made threatening gestures to Kuwait, the Iraqi press Monday predicted a U.S. attack, another sign of the tension that pushed gas prices to post-Gulf War highs.

Iraq sparked concern in the international community last week when its air force violated Saudi Arabian airspace and Baghdad threatened to "suitable measures" to defend itself against Kuwaiti or Western incursions, hinting that Kuwait was stealing oil.

Theft of Iraqi oil was one of the reasons Iraq gave for invading Kuwait in 1990.

The Iraqi press charged Monday that Washington was preparing an attack on Iraq, the influential newspaper Babel saying "The American administration is planning a new aggression against Iraq, relying on its failing actors in the region, the rulers of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia."

Pushed in part by the possibility of conflict in the Gulf, oil prices soared to a new 10-year-high in New York on Monday.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,234333-412,00.shtml

Gulf states have been in contact to decide whether to meet about the latest Iraqi threats, and a Saudi Foreign Ministry official has said a meeting affirming solidarity with Kuwait could be held in the coming days.

The Kuwaiti cabinet met on Sunday and issued a statement saying that Iraq posed a real and present threat to the vital oil-rich Gulf region and called for serious international steps to contain its former occupier.

In Singapore on Sunday, visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen warned Saddam Hussein to avoid taking "any kind of aggressive action" against his neighbors.

"He should understand that the United States and our British friends are fully prepared to take whatever action is necessary to prevent him from trying to repeat his past actions," Cohen said.

Western officials believe Saddam will exploit the sensitive U.S. campaign season to dramatize Iraq's opposition to U.N. economic sanctions and try to embarrass President Bill Clinton.

They said the White House had discussed plans for a range of eventualities, including Iraqi military action against the Kurds, an attack on Western aircraft or on Kuwait, and the risk that Saddam might play with oil exports to send world prices through the roof before the Nov. 7 U.S. vote.

Auguring against any new fighting is a prediction by the head of the U.N.'s new arms inspectorate for Iraq that his inspectors will be allowed into Iraq after November's U.S. presidential election. In addition, the United States said it had detected no unusually high activity by Iraqi air defense units in the northern no-fly zone.

However, in a move unlikely to defuse the potentially explosive situation, the Clinton administration urged the United Nations on Monday to establish a war crimes tribunal to try Saddam for war crimes like the gassing Kurds, using chemicals weapons against Iran and committing war crimes against American service members and Kuwaitis during the Gulf War.

Getting a tribunal to hear charges against the Iraqi will not be easy, as several Security Council members do not share the administration's zeal to punish him, among them Russia.

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday denied it had violated U.N. sanctions against Baghdad in dispatching a plane carrying five tons of medicine and 11 Russian oil experts. It was only the second such flight to Baghdad's newly reopened international airport since the 1991 Gulf War. The first was also a Russian aid shipment.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,226342-412,00.shtml

Critics of western sanctions against Iraq say the flights are much needed. An August report by UNICEF found that since the imposition of the trade restrictions, the infant mortality rate in Iraq had doubled.

The ban on international flights is one of several punitive measures approved by the United Nations in the wake of the war. Another is the no-fly zones which were established to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from potential attacks by Iraqi troops.

U.S. and British jets regularly patrol those areas from bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey. Iraq has made more than 150 violations of the no-fly zones since December, 1998.

---

Oil Eclipses Gulf War High
Top $37 A Barrel For First Time Since '91 Markets Worried About Iraq-Kuwait Tension Saudi Arabia Takes Wait-And-See Approach Before Pumping More Oil

CBS News
Sept. 18, 2000
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0%2C1597%2C234333-412%2C00.shtml

NEW YORK, (CBS) As the U.S. braces for a high heating prices this winter and Europe reels from a wave of fuel protests, oil prices hit their highest price Monday since the 1991 Gulf War.

NYMEX crude oil futures struck $37 a barrel on Monday afternoon amid growing tensions in the Middle East and as Saudi Arabia signaled it would wait to see the impact of OPEC's latest output increase before taking further steps to rebalance the market.

Crude for October delivery has advanced $1.08 or 3 percent on the day, gaining amid fears of supply disruptions after Iraq renewed last week allegations that Kuwait was stealing its oil.

Over the weekend Iraqi President Saddam Hussein warned fellow OPEC member states against pressure mounted by "superpowers" on producers to knock down blazing prices.

Kuwait said on Sunday that Iraq posed a real and present threat to the vital oil-rich Gulf region and called for serious international steps to contain its former occupier.

Defense analysts say the chances of a clash between Iraq and western powers are growing, especially as the U.S. presidential election campaign-which Saddam might try to influence-heats up. The White House has reportedly prepared several contingency plans on possible moves by the Iraqis.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,233586-412,00.shtml

Crude for October delivery has risen $5 a barrel since the NYMEX contract started as front month on August 23. Since the start of the year, NYMEX crude oil prices have risen more than $11 or about 45 percent.

Meanwhile, the wave of fuel price protests sweeping through Europe regained momentum Monday after a weekend lull, while shaken governments scrambled to limit the political fallout.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,233748-412,00.shtml

Monday's protests centered on Scandinavia but blockades sprang up at the Spanish port of Barcelona and in Slovenia, while Israeli truckers threatened to stage their own demonstrations Tuesday.

Britain is still recovering from days of fuel protests that dried up petrol supplies at most filling stations and forced the government to take emergency action to get blockaded gas shipments moving.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,231711-412,00.shtml

This winter, heating oil prices in the Northeast are expected to rise by at least 20 percent. In the Midwest, where heating oil is not widely used, gas prices are expected to be the biggest problem.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,231711-412,00.shtml

Stock markets were lower Monday, partly because of the rising oil prices, which pose an economic threat because so many industries depend upon gasoline, and rising gas prices can cut into profitability.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/current/snapshot.htx?source=htx/http2_mw

Some fear the rising prices could cause a recession.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,233766-412,00.shtml

-------- ireland

Two Bombs Hit Northern Ireland; Four Hurt

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
By Martin Cowley
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/wl/irish_bomb_dc_1.html

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Four people were hurt, one seriously, Monday when a van was blown up in the latest in a series of attacks fuelling tension in Northern Ireland.

The booby trap bombing in the coastal town of Bangor came just hours after a bomb attack on the Belfast headquarters of a group which supports Protestant guerrilla ex-prisoners.

No one was hurt in the Belfast attack. But during a search of the premises afterwards, police found a tail-fin for a mortar bomb, component parts of pipebombs, balaclavas and combat clothing, a police spokesman said.

The ``Ulster Prisoners Aid'' premises is a center that assists convicted members of the banned Ulster Defense Association, which is locked in confrontation with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

The Ulster Democratic Party (news - web sites), which is close to the UDA, blamed UVF activists for the attack.

The attacks come at a time when feuding between rival Protestant ``loyalist'' militias has cost the lives of three people in the past month.

Although the Northern Ireland peace process has not come under direct threat from the internecine Protestant violence, police and army patrols have been stepped up in the affected areas.

Police were unable to say what lay behind the van bomb attack in Bangor, which lies just south of Belfast.

``It's far too soon at this stage to speculate who is behind the attack and what the motivation is for the attack,'' Sir Ronnie Flanagan, head of the province's police force, told reporters during a visit to Dublin.

A loyalist politician denied that the van bomb was linked to the Protestant feud.

David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party said he believed the victim had been picked on because he tried to thwart drug-dealing by loyalist guerrillas.

The victim was head doorman at a Bangor discotheque, who was believed to have had a disagreement with loyalist drug dealers who wanted to ply their trade there.

``He wouldn't let them so they blew him up,'' Ervine said.

Witnesses said the bomb appeared to have been placed under one of the van's seats. It exploded as the vehicle was driven along a busy shopping street in Bangor.

``There was just a cloud of smoke, and a bang and bits of the vehicle flying everywhere,'' said Bob Milliken who was walking nearby.

Loyalist infighting has claimed three lives and forced some 170 families from their homes in the Shankill Road Protestant enclave in Belfast over recent weeks.

-------- korea

South Korea Starts Work on Rail Link to the North

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/24/world/18KORE.html

IMJINGAK South Korea, Monday, Sept. 18 - In the latest sign of improving relations between North and South Korea, workers began rebuilding a railway line across the two nations' border today to connect the Korean capitals for the first time in more than 50 years.

South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony in Imjingak, a village just south of the demilitarized zone that has separated the two Koreas since the 1945 division of the peninsula. The railway was cut off shortly before the start of the 1950-53 Korean War.

When completed by next fall, the railway and a new four-lane highway running alongside it that was also started today will link the two capitals, Seoul and Pyongyang. The railway and highway will become the first direct transport link between the two Koreas since 1950.

North and South Korea still have to negotiate how the railway and highway will be used, but Seoul officials expect them to be limited to cargo shipments at first.

The link through the DMZ - the world's most fortified border, with some one million mines sown within it and two million troops deployed on both sides - is the latest move to ease relations since the first-ever summit meeting between the leaders of the North and the South.

For decades, the sole point of contact between the South and the North has been a blocked and heavily guarded two-lane road at the truce village of Panmunjom.

Seoul will spend $50 million to rebuild the 12-mile stretch of railway between Munsan and the DMZ. Thousands of soldiers will be used to clear land mines inside the two-and- a-half-mile-wide zone where the link passes. North Korea is expected to use soldiers to rebuild the five miles of rail line on its side of the border, between the DMZ and Bongdong, a train station near Kaesung city.

Beyond Pyongyang, the rail line continues on to Shinuiju, a city on the North's border with China. The line could boost trade between the two countries and give South Korea a link to China and Russia's trans-Siberian railway, through which Seoul hopes to deliver products to Europe.

---

Railway ties two Koreas

USA Today
09/18/00
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY

South Korean workers Monday began rebuilding a railway line across the Cold War's last frontier to reconnect the capitals of North and South Korea for the first time in a half century.

As colorful balloons wafted overhead, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung presided over a ground-breaking ceremony in Imjingkak, a village south of the demilitarized zone that has separated the two Koreas since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

To be completed next fall, along with a new four-lane highway, the rail project is the latest in a series of gestures that have dramatically improved the tone - if not the substance - of relations between the capitalist south and the communist north.

In June, the leaders of the two countries met for the first time in the northern capital, Pyongyang. Last month, selected North and South Koreans held brief, closely monitored reunions. And on Friday, athletes from the two Koreas marched together in the opening Olympics parade in Sydney, Australia.

But Korea experts caution that the steps so far have not altered the world's most heavily defended border or its most closed society.

Defense ministers from both sides will meet next week, but likely will only agree to set up a military hotline and future notification of military exercises. "The two leaders are dreaming different dreams in the same bed," says Han Park, director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues at the University of Georgia.

Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, hopes to preserve his authoritarian system while gaining economic benefits from the wealthier south, Park says.

Kim Dae-jung, meanwhile, is thinking long-term, Park says, hoping North Korea will reform its outmoded economics and political system, and open up to normal interaction between the people of the two countries.

---

South Korea breaks ground on cross-border rail

Washington Times
September 18, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-2000918221419.htm

IMJINGAK, South Korea - In the latest sign of improving relations between North and South Korea, workers began rebuilding a railway line across the world's most heavily armed border today to connect the two Korean capitals for the first time in more than 50 years.

South Korea's president, Kim Dae-jung, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony in Imjingak, a village just south of the Demilitarized Zone, which has separated the two Koreas since the 1945 division of the peninsula.

The railway was cut off shortly before the start of the 1950-53 Korean War.

When completed by next fall, the railway and a new four-lane highway running beside it will link the Southern capital Seoul to the Northern capital Pyongyang.

-------- space

Scientists Eye Dangerous Asteroids

Associated Press
September 18, 2000 Filed at 4:42 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Asteroid-Watch.html

LONDON (AP) -- They may only strike every 100,000 years on average, but life-threatening asteroids could be heading Earth's way, and scientists said Monday they want a closer look.

A panel set up this year by the British government to assess the risk of asteroids slamming into the planet called for an international program to build a powerful $22.5 million telescope in the southern hemisphere.

``The risk is very real -- and very tiny -- but with awful consequences, and we ought to be doing something about it,'' said Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the panel, which published its report on Monday.

Although millions are already being spent trying to track Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, scientists acknowledge they're very much in the dark. Asteroids near Earth travel at between 10 and 20 miles per second, making them hard to detect. As a result, scientists watch their orbits to predict their expected course.

According to the U.S. space agency NASA, at the beginning of 2000, only about half the estimated 500-to-1,000 near-Earth asteroids measuring half a mile across or larger -- big enough to cause a global catastrophe -- had been detected.

The proposed 10-foot telescope would see further and wider and be able to pick up the faintest of glows, the panel said. Operated robotically, it would supplement the coverage of other telescopes in operation in the northern hemisphere.

``It's a question of giving ourselves a chance,'' said Robert Massey, an astronomer at Britain's Royal Observatory in Greenwich. ``We would be able to spot trouble 10 to 100 years away and could take steps accordingly.''

``On the other hand, if it were a year away, probably the best we could do would be to duck,'' Massey said.

Objects hitting the Earth have caused devastating damage over millions of years. One impact off the coast of what is now Mexico 65 million years ago is thought to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Another impact in 1908 in Siberia knocked down trees with its shock waves over hundreds of square miles.

The report listed nine objects that have come within two lunar distances of the Earth -- about 497,120 miles -- since 1991. In May 1996, an object 984 feet wide, called JA1, came as close as about 298,000 miles to the planet.

It also called for further study into how to destroy a sizable object on a collision course with the planet. One possibility is a nuclear explosion by the side of an asteroid to divert it from its course.

Recent Hollywood blockbusters ``Armageddon'' and ``Deep Impact'' have heightened public awareness about asteroid disasters.

NASA has already earmarked more than $1 billion to gain a better scientific understanding of asteroids, which are rocky or metallic bodies hurtling through space mostly in a band between Jupiter and Mars.

One British lawmaker, whose grandfather had an asteroid named after him to acknowledge his lifelong campaign to warn of impending disaster, welcomed Monday's proposal.

``We are playing Russian roulette with the future of the planet if we do nothing about it,'' said Lembit Opik. ``It would be a bit like Armageddon, but probably we would not want to send Bruce Willis.''

The panel is chaired by Dr. Harry Atkinson, formerly of the Science and Engineering Research Council and a past chairman of the European Space Agency's council.

---

Experts Mull Asteroid Risk

Associated Press
September 18, 2000 Filed at 11:14 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Asteroid-Watch.html

LONDON (AP) -- Scientists studying the threat of asteroids crashing into Earth urged the British government on Monday to seek international partners to fund a powerful new telescope to be stationed in the southern hemisphere.

A committee set up earlier this year by Science Minister Lord Sainsbury also said governments should launch joint studies to assess how to destroy an object on a collision course with the planet.

Objects hitting Earth have caused devastating damage. One impact off the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago is thought by some to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The report estimated that a wide object crashes into our planet every 10,000 years with the force of a 100-megaton nuclear bomb.

``We put a lot of money into astronomy and I think it's sensible to put just a little bit in to making certain that we know if there is a danger of an object hitting our very fragile planet,'' Lord Sainsbury said.

The committee is chaired by Dr. Harry Atkinson, formerly of the Science and Engineering Research Council and a past chairman of the European Space Agency's council.

---

Space Mission Ends, and Shuttle Plans Return

New York Times
September 18, 2000
National News Briefs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/national/18NATI.html

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Sept. 17 (AP) - The space shuttle Atlantis pulled away from the International Space Station today after astronauts accomplishing their chores.

"You did a fantastic job," Mission Control radioed before the craft undocked, "and we know the Expedition One crew will really appreciate all the effort you put in getting their new home set up."

Expedition One, the first permanent space station crew, is to blast off on Oct. 30 aboard a Russian rocket and arrive at the complex two days later for a four-month stay.

During their five days inside, the Atlantis astronauts stocked the space station with more than 6,000 pounds of supplies.

The seven astronauts installed the toilet, oxygen generator and treadmill in the new Russian-built living quarters. They also plugged in fresh batteries and raised the station to a 240-mile-high orbit, 14 miles higher.

Another shuttle, Discovery, is scheduled to blast off on Oct. 5 to make further preparations. But the launching date could change because of Tropical Storm Gordon.

---

Atlantis rockets away from space station

USA Today
09/18/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsmon03.htm

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - Space shuttle Atlantis rocketed away from the international space station early Monday, leaving the cosmic outpost fully stocked and freshly outfitted for its first inhabitants.

The spacecraft separated some 240 miles above Russia, a few minutes late because of minor computer trouble. Afterward, pilot Scott Altman flew Atlantis around the station twice while his crewmates took pictures and videotape of the shining outpost.

''Watching the sunrise and sunset, and the way it illuminated the solar arrays on the service module was just phenomenal. It sparkled like a jewel out there against the blue background of the oceans. A very, very beautiful sight for us,'' Altman said.

The craft flew together for eight days, during which Atlantis' seven-man crew completed all of their assigned tasks and even some planned for later missions. ''This crew has certainly laid out the red carpet for the first crew to come aboard the international space station,'' space station deputy manager Robert Cabana said. ''I think they accomplished everything we asked them to do, everything we wished they could do, and I think about everything we dreamed that they could do.''

During their five days inside, the shuttle astronauts outfitted the station with five new batteries, a toilet, oxygen generator and treadmill in the new Russian-built service module Zvezda. During a spacewalk a week ago, they hooked up power, data and TV cables. They also stocked the cabinets with more than 6,000 pounds of food, clothes, toiletries, ear plugs, office supplies, trash bags, vacuum cleaners and other gear.

All of that will be waiting when the first station crew arrives for a four-month stay, scheduled to begin Nov. 1. Shuttle Cmdr. Terrence Wilcutt said astronaut Bill

Shepherd, who will lead a crew of two cosmonauts, won't have any trouble making his home inside Zvezda.

''It seemed like a new house, which is exactly what it was. It's ready to go. We tidied it up, left him a couple of notes and I think it's ready for him to move into,'' Wilcutt said.

Atlantis' crew even warmed up the beds for Shepherd and company: Each of Atlantis' crew tried Zvezda's sleeping accommodations for a night, Wilcutt said.

All that remains for Atlantis' crew is a bit of well-earned relaxation time and landing preparations. Tropical Storm Gordon is not expected in interfere with a scheduled Wednesday return to the Kennedy Space Center.

''The forecast actually says that behind the storm, it should be pretty favorable weather conditions, so we're looking forward to those,'' mission operations representative Jeff Bantle said, but cautioned that it is too early to accurately predict.

The storm was expected to stay well north of Cape Canaveral, where space shuttle Discovery is on its launch pad awaiting a planned Oct. 5 departure for a space station construction mission.

NASA opted to keep Discovery on its pad because of the storm's path, and was not too concerned that the storm would knock launch preparations off schedule.

''We did lose a little time, but we built in contingency days,'' Bantle said.

-------- u.n.

UN Court Set to Try Rwanda Journalists for Genocide

Yahoo News
Sunday September 17
By Godfrey Mutizwa
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000917/wl/rwanda_genocide_dc_1.html

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Three Rwandan journalists are due to go on trial before a U.N. court on Monday, accused of inciting the genocide of up to 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994.

Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was director of public affairs in the Rwandan Foreign Affairs ministry in 1994, Hassan Ngeze was editor of Kangura, a Hutu extremist newspaper while Ferdinand Nahimana was the director of the ``hate-radio,'' Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).

The three men face charges of conspiracy and incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

But their lawyers said at the weekend they were not sure the long-awaited trial would start at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, northern Tanzania.

The independent Hirondelle news agency quoted Ngeze and Barayagwiza's lawyers as saying the case should be postponed to settle various issues, including Barayagwiza's demand that two of the ICTR judges exclude themselves from the case after recently visiting Rwanda, where they were received by President Paul Kagame.

Barayagwiza is also contesting the decision to try him together with Ngeze and Nahimana.

``We don't know what is going to happen on Monday,'' John Floyd, Ngeze's American lawyer was quoted as saying. ``We will have to wait and see.''

Hirondelle reports on the activities of the ICTR, funded by the European, Dutch and Swiss governments.

Rwanda's media played a large part in the 100-day killing orgy that stunned the world between April and June 1994.

RTLM journalists preached hatred and exhorted Hutus, who make up about 85 percent of the population, to kill Tutsis, the minority who ruled Rwanda for centuries before independence in 1962.

The ICTR in June jailed Belgian journalist Georges Ruggiu for 12 years after he pleaded guilty to direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

Ruggiu worked for RTLM -- which Barayagwiza helped establish -- at the time of the genocide and became an infamous voice behind what came to be known as ``hate radio.''

Ruggiu is expected to testify against the three men.

Some 120,000 genocide suspects are rotting in Rwanda's overcrowded jails, many in appalling conditions, a recent Organization of African Unity report said. It estimated that it would take up to four centuries to try them all at the present rate of prosecutions.

In Rwanda itself, rights groups say 3,000 suspects have been tried since genocide trials began there in late 1996.

About 400 people have been sentenced to death while 500 others have been acquitted. Twenty-two were executed in 1998.

The ICTR's biggest conviction to-date is that of former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who was found guilty of involvement in the genocide in 1998.

---

UN Court Hears Rwanda Journalists Pre-Trial Motions

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
By Godfrey Mutizwa
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/wl/rwanda_genocide_dc_2.html

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A United Nations (news - web sites) court began hearing pre-trial arguments on Monday in the case of three Rwandan journalists accused of fanning the 1994 genocide.

``They have opened now and they are working on the pre-trial motions,'' Bocar Sy, a spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) told Reuters from Arusha, northern Tanzania.

The defendants are Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, director of public affairs in the Rwandan Foreign Affairs ministry in 1994, Hassan Ngeze, former editor of the Hutu extremist newspaper Kangura, and Ferdinand Nahimana, former director of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which became known as ``hate radio.''

The three men face charges of conspiracy and incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

Sy said proceedings were likely to begin officially later on Monday after the court decided on a request by Ngeze that he be tried separately from Barayagwiza and Nahimana.

Barayagwiza has also asked the court for a separate trial. He is requesting that two of the judges excuse themselves after they traveled to Rwanda where they were received by current president Paul Kagame.

Kagame's Rwanda Patriotic Front ended the genocide in July 1994.

Rwanda's media played a large part in the 100-day killing orgy of about 800,000 people that stunned the world between April and June 1994.

Many RTLM journalists were accused of preaching hatred and exhorting Hutus, who make up about 85 percent of the population, to kill Tutsis.

Belgian journalist Georges Ruggiu, who became infamous during the genocide for urging the extermination of Tutsis, was in June jailed for 12 years by ICTR after he pleaded guilty to direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

He worked for RTLM, which Barayagwiza helped establish.

Ruggiu is expected to testify against the three defendants.

A recent Organization of African Unity report said more than 120,000 genocide suspects were languishing in Rwanda's overcrowded jails, many in appalling conditions. It estimated that it would take up to four centuries to try them all at the present rate of prosecutions.

Rwanda, a small nation seven million people in the heart of central Africa, says it lacks the resources to speed up the trial of suspects who include more than 4,000 minors.

Rights groups say 3,000 suspects have been tried since genocide trials began there in late 1996.

About 400 people have been sentenced to death while 500 others have been acquitted. Twenty-two were executed in 1998.

The ICTR's biggest conviction to-date is that of former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who was found guilty of involvement in the genocide in 1998 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is appealing against the sentence.

---

Peacekeeping With Honor

New York Times
September 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/opinion/18MON1.html

The notion of strengthening and expanding United Nations peacekeeping forces to quell foreign conflicts is a fine idea. But as President Clinton and other world leaders work toward that goal in the wake of their recent summit meeting in New York, they will have to overcome a host of political, military and financial obstacles, not the least of which is determining the appropriate American role.

There is no question that more effective U.N. peacekeeping operations could help control or even prevent bloodshed in troubled regions of the world, including the kind of ethnic slaughter that unhappily has become common in the last decade in Africa, Asia and the Balkans. But as U.N. failures in Rwanda, Bosnia and Sierra Leone demonstrate, a major overhaul of the organization's approach to crisis intervention is required if the U.N. is to play a useful role in pacifying turbulent lands.

Mr. Clinton recognizes that the U.N. cannot substitute for American-led forces in a conflict like the Persian Gulf war. When military action is warranted to defend vital American interests overseas, Washington often must act on its own or in concert with its allies. Fighting such wars is not a role U.N. forces can play, though Security Council endorsement for American intervention abroad is advisable whenever possible.

The more limited aim for the U.N. is to develop well-trained, adequately armed forces that can be dispatched quickly to trouble spots to prevent ethnic or political conflicts from escalating into widespread violence or to help maintain a truce or sustain a peace agreement that brings a war or ethnic strife to an end. There may also be circumstances when a robust U.N. military force can help protect civilian populations against genocidal attacks.

A recent report on U.N. peacekeeping efforts that was commissioned by Kofi Annan, the secretary general, properly said that the U.N. peacekeeping department - with 32 officers coordinating 27,000 troops - needs a larger and more professional staff and an intelligence-gathering capacity. It suggested that the U.N. abandon the pretense of neutrality when it was clear that one side in a conflict was responsible for the bulk of the atrocities. This principle could be misapplied, but it deserves consideration by the Security Council on a case-by-case basis. Britain's foreign secretary, Robin Cook, offered to establish a U.N. military war college in Britain to train peacekeeping forces, an idea Secretary General Annan has endorsed.

Many of the peacekeeping department's failures stem from the members' lack of commitment. Congress, for example, has agreed to pay only a portion of America's assessed peacekeeping dues. That is lamentable, but the payment scale - which reflects the relative wealth of nations in 1973, when it was established - does need modification.

With these and other reforms, the U.N. should be better able to handle low-intensity peacekeeping missions. Dealing with more complex and dangerous conflicts is another matter. Most governments want no part of them - especially conflicts in Africa, where many foreign powers believe they have no vital interests. The most painful example is Rwanda in 1994, when the U.N. pulled its troops out just as a genocide that eventually killed 800,000 people was beginning. A report by the U.N. last year concluded that a small contingent of troops might have prevented the slaughter, had Washington not blocked it. The United States, which had just lost 18 soldiers in Somalia, was unenthusiastic about becoming involved in Rwanda.

The next year, Dutch peacekeepers stood by in Srebrenica, Bosnia, as Serbs massacred thousands of Muslim men. U.N. peacekeepers pulled out of Angola last year when civil war resumed - in part because peacekeepers had been prohibited by members from forcibly disarming the rebels, who had reneged on their pledge to turn in their weapons.

Only a united Security Council can provide the forceful mandate required to make U.N. forces more effective in such difficult circumstances. With Russia and China wary about legitimizing outside intervention in their internal conflicts, it will be hard to achieve that kind of consensus in cases where violence is not spilling over borders. Regional intervention could be an alternative in some instances - NATO in Kosovo, for example - but regional powers often have complex and uneasy relationships with the countries in which they are intervening.

As the nation with the most powerful and transportable military forces, the United States will inevitably be drawn into U.N. peacekeeping operations. Washington should stand ready to contribute financial and logistical support. There will be occasions when the use of American troops is warranted, but Washington should not make a blanket commitment to contribute soldiers to all U.N. peacekeeping operations. There are places and times when a U.N. force is more acceptable to nations if Americans are not in the ranks.

---

U. N. Reassessing Safeguards After Official Killed in Africa

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/world/19CND-NATION.html

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 - The murder of a fourth United Nations refugee worker in less than two weeks is prompting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to reassess how best to safeguard staff members worldwide who come to the aid of refugees trapped in the vortex of war, violence and chaos.

The latest victim, Mensa Kpognon, a Togolese national who directed the refugee agency's office in Macenta in southeastern Guinea, was killed on Sunday by unidentified attackers who tried to rob him first. His colleague, Sapeu Laurence Djeya, from Ivory Coast, was abducted and remains missing.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a statement today that he was shocked by Mr. Kpognon's murder. Mr. Annan appealed to West African leaders to do whatever they could to secure Ms. Djeya's release.

The High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, was in Herat, Afghanistan when she learned of the latest attack.

"Why are innocent, unarmed humanitarians like Mensah Kpognon - a father of four children who was simply trying to make the world a better place - being struck down in the most brutal way?" Mrs. Ogata asked in a statement released here.

Mr. Kpognon, 50, had worked for the United Nations refugee agency since 1994. He held a master's degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Iowa.

On Sept. 6, three United Nations refugee workers from Puerto Rico, Ethiopia and Croatia were slaughtered in their office in Atambua, West Timor by rioters suspected of belonging to a militia opposed to independence for neighboring East Timor.

The United Nations has since withdrawn its staff from West Timor, where 120,000 refugees from the eastern part of the island remain in camps.

Now, following Mr. Kpognon's murder and the abduction of Ms. Djeya, the refugee agency today began scaling back operations in Guinea, where 460,000 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia have taken refuge. The agency's non-essential employees were told to stay, and dependents of international workers were being evacuated to the Guinean capital Conakry.

Since 1992, 50 internationally recruited civilians and 148 local employees of the United Nations, have been killed in line of duty. Thirty of these, including Mr. Kpognon, worked for the High Commissioner for Refugees.

Of the 198 fatalities, 21 were caused by aircraft accidents, 107 by gunshot wounds and 16 by bombings, landmines and other malicious acts. Another 52 died in ethnic violence in Rwanda and Burundi. Two more were killed during a hostage incident.

"These killings over last two weeks are going to prompt an overall review of security worldwide," Ron Redmond, the spokesman for the refugee agency, said by telephone from its Geneva headquarters.

"We work in a lot of bad places," he said. "That's the nature of the refugee business."

Nicolas Bwakira, the director of the refugee agency's liaison office to United Nations headquarters, said that about 80 civilians have been killed in Guinea, where tensions have risen between the Guinean government and some of the 460,000 refugees camped on its soil.

Liberia has claimed that Guinea is giving refuge to rebels who have been fighting Liberian government forces since July.

"This tension is being turned against the foreigners, not just refugees but any foreigner," Mr. Bwakira said. He expressed concern that it could lead to a regional crisis.

According to reports from Guinea, Mr. Kpognon's attackers banged on his door and demanded money following a pre-dawn raid on the town. They had just burned the nearby house of the prefect, a local administrator. When they tried to take Mr. Kpognon's vehicle, it would not start.

"And they killed him," Mr. Redmond said. "They burned the house. They burned the vehicle."

Other neighbors saw the raiders, who came from the direction of Liberia, lead Ms. Djeya back towards that country. Ms. Djeya worked for the refugee agency in Danane in Ivory Coast and had driven 125 miles to Macenta to deliver some containers of cooking gas.

Mrs. Ogata, in her statement, raised questions bound to be addressed in the reassessment. "How do we balance the risks involved in caring for hundreds of thousands of refugees who desperately need our help?" she said. "And what more should we and the international community be doing to protect all of these good people in bad places?"

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has 5,000 staff members assisting 22.3 million refugees and displaced persons in 120 countries.

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

NEW ECONOMY
Military Spends Billions to Ensure U.S. Battlefield Supremacy

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By BARNABY J. FEDER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/technology/18NECO.html

FOR more than 40 years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has had the daunting assignment of making sure that no enemy - or, for that matter, any current friend - has access to tomorrow's technology faster than does the Defense Department.

Darpa, as the agency is known, has parceled out billions of dollars for research projects that can often seem risky, even far- fetched. But the agency assumes that the really disruptive innovations are rarely obvious in their early stages.

"Anytime you propose something that's clearly achievable, they say it's not a Darpa problem," said Jon Sherbeck, vice president for engineering at Mdot Aerospace, a Phoenix-based start-up company that won a small-business award from the agency recently for designing a gas turbine the size of a D-cell battery.

Much of what turns out to be feasible never makes it beyond demonstration projects. Military and Congressional politics create some roadblocks and changing military priorities throw up others.

And yet, no other organization has so frequently if unintentionally served as midwife to the technologies of today's information- driven economy. Darpa gave birth to the Internet in the late 1960's. Other projects helped create many of the nation's most impressive computers, the chips used in cellular phones and vital networking technologies like the ability to send simultaneous signals of many wavelengths down a single fiber optic cable.

What's next? Well, as the agency told more than 1,000 engineers and high-technology executives who recently attended a three-day symposium in Dallas that summarized its current agenda, the next decade or two is likely to see extremes in miniaturization like molecule-size computers and six-inch spy planes. Machines, men and, perhaps, other living organisms like insects fitted with sensors will be joined in information networks of bewildering complexity for all sorts of military uses. The torrent of information could make today's network flow seem like a slow trickle.

Breakthroughs in biology and new materials could also create surprising new possibilities. The new materials include amorphous metals that resist corrosion and, unlike normal crystalline metals, become harder under stress.

For a relatively simple example of the agency's perspective, consider one of today's military mainstays, the Abrams tank. These battlefield wonders are more maneuverable and lethal than any other tank in operation. Their ability to accurately aim at enemy objects and fire on the move is unprecedented. With twice the range of Iraq's Russian-designed tanks, they played a major role in NATO's total domination of Iraq's larger army in the Persian Gulf war.

But to the advanced projects agency and some Army officials thinking about combat in the future, such large tanks are probably at an evolutionary dead end. Seen through the lens of the information age, the functions of a tank would be scattered across a combat network. A variety of robotic cannons and missile launchers could deliver the firepower, supplementing their built-in intelligence with help from a distant, manned command center. Smaller, quicker armored vehicles with single, large guns and just one or two crew members might also have a role.

A variety of heat, light and motion sensors on the ground and in the air could be networked to provide a much better picture of fighting conditions. Data would pour in not just from the ground vehicles but from satellites, low-flying miniature aircraft and, perhaps, thousands of pollen-size sensors floating like dust or attached to insects.

With military budgets shrinking and private-sector information technology development growing at an explosive pace, the advanced projects agency is increasingly looking for ways to repackage civilian technology for the military as a cost-effective alternative to sponsoring novel projects. Unfortunately, the networks and information systems the private sector is promoting look disturbingly brittle, threadbare and unsuitable for military purposes.

"B2B and enterprise software are low- hanging fruit technically compared to defense needs," said Shankar Sastry, director of the agency's Information Technology Office, referring to products that allow businesses to interact with each other over the Internet and software that allows many parts of an enterprise from finance to production to marketing to share data.

Darpa studies are looking at how to create and manage networks of up to 100,000 components that must be quickly able to shift how they communicate. Some components may periodically change functions - a device, for instance, might be monitoring radio signals at one moment and jamming them the next.

Similarly, the agency is financing research on networks of information users. It wants the Defense Department to be able to set up coalitions of up to 100 allies capable of sharing secure information and coordinating logistics within minutes. Just as important, it wants to be able to cut a party off a network instantly and notify all other members.

In both cases, the need for artificial intelligence is obvious. Even if the ability of humans to interact easily with computers were vastly improved by, say, flawless voice recognition software, the amount of information flooding in would be overwhelming. The agency's response includes research on software that can screen widely diverse data sources for relevant trends, automatically reshape networks and write new programs to respond rapidly to emerging needs.

One project partly addressing such concerns is the effort to develop so-called Darpa agent markup language. D.A.M.L., as the language is known in technical circles, would would create a universal format for telling computers what kind of information is in a data source. It would allow Internet search machines to extract data not just from the World Wide Web but from computer programs, sensors and other machines.

The computer language embodies one of the major changes the agency has confronted in adapting to the information age. While much of the agency's work still focuses on technology that it would just as soon see stay in American military hands, there are a growing number of developments that will go nowhere unless they also permeate civilian life.

---

Navy undergoes one-day safety halt

USA Today
09/18/00- Updated 04:41 PM ET
By John Omicinski, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon06.htm

WASHINGTON - Too many U.S. ships have been running into each other or colliding with land, so Chief of Naval Operations Vernon Clark has ordered a one-day safety halt for every U.S. vessel - from schooner to submarine.

Eight collisions in the past year, including one last week by the tank landing ship USS LaMoure County that ran aground off Chile, inspired Clark to call for the crews of all 318 vessels to freshen up for 24 hours on shipboard seamanship, steering and navigation fundamentals.

Clark ordered the fleet commanders to ''stop and take the time to thoughtfully assess the critical areas of shipboard seamanship and navigation.''

The LaMoure reportedly still was aground on a reef Monday, leaking fuel from ruptured tanks, and was ''in pretty bad shape,'' according to Navy sources. The LaMoure reportedly was in training exercises with Chilean forces.

No one has been injured or killed in the accidents, but collisions are piling up at a rate more than double that of 1998, when there were three.

The combat support vessel USS Detroit and the oiler USS Yukon each has been involved in two collisions.

Within the last few days, the Detroit reportedly received a 4-foot gash in the hull in a collision with a tugboat. At the end of August, the destroyer USS Nicholson and the Detroit ran into each other off Virginia Beach, Va.

In July, the Yukon, a tanker, was struck by the amphibious landing dock USS Denver off Hawaii. The Denver reportedly was carrying dozens of Marines at the time of the accident, which reportedly caused heavy damage to both ships. The Yukon also collided with a commercial ship in the Persian Gulf.

Among other accidents were two groundings - the frigate USS Underwood off Egypt and one in February involving the amphibious ship USS Shreveport.

In his order to fleet commanders, Clark ordered the training stand-down as soon as possible, but the ships will do it on their own schedule.

---

U.S. Kosovo Report Shows Misconduct

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Soldiers-Kosovo.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Army paratroopers abused and beat civilians in Kosovo after their training for a peacekeeping mission failed to tone down their ``combat mentality,'' according to an Army investigative report that also blamed the soldiers' commanders for ignoring signs of trouble in the unit.

The commander of the soldiers' battalion, Lt. Col. Michael D. Ellerbe, was faulted for pursuing a task -- to ``identify and neutralize'' Albanian splinter groups -- beyond the scope of the peacekeepers' mission, the report said.

That created a situation which invited soldiers to ``step over the line of acceptable conduct,'' the report concluded.

Defense Secretary William Cohen issued a statement Monday, while traveling in Asia, that called the incidents described in the report a matter of ``grave concern.'' He endorsed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's decision to order a high-level review and to take ``corrective actions as appropriate.''

The investigation was ordered after Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi -- a member of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division -- was accused of raping and murdering an 11-year-old Kosovo Albanian girl in Vitina last January. Ronghi was convicted and sentenced in August to life in prison.

The investigative report recommended that commanders consider court-martialing an officer, Lt. John Serafini, also of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, for assault and conduct unbecoming an officer and for communicating a threat. He admitted to holding an unloaded gun to the head of a Kosovo Albanian man during an interrogation and told investigators, ``I was totally wrong.''

Several other officers and soldiers were recommended for lesser punishment.

At the Fort Bragg, N.C., headquarters of the 82nd Airborne Division, spokesman Maj. Gary Tallman said Monday that in addition to Ronghi, nine soldiers received administrative punishment for actions in Kosovo, but no others were court-martialed. Tallman would not specify soldiers who were punished.

During his trial, Ronghi's attorneys read into the court record excerpts from the investigative report, including descriptions of misbehavior by several soldiers from Ronghi's unit. The full report was withheld from public release until the Army edited it to remove classified information.

In a sworn statement to the investigators, Ellerbe defended his actions. He said ``neutralizing'' Albanian splinter groups was ``the only task implied'' by the U.S. peacekeeping contingent's overall purpose.

``It was essential to eliminate the corrupt leadership that was suspected of committing all of the violent crime in Vitina,'' Ellerbe said, referring to the city in southeastern Kosovo for which his unit was responsible.

``My view is, to be successful at maintaining security in this area and policing the area, you have to eliminate the people that were causing the problems,'' he said.

The investigative report, conducted by Col. John W. Morgan III of the 1st Infantry Division, interviewed numerous soldiers who said Ellerbe's unit had created the impression of being pro-Serbian. This, coupled with Ellerbe's emphasis on ``neutralizing'' Albanian splinter groups, made Vitina ``the natural focal point for abuses and excessive use of force against the Albanians,'' Morgan concluded.

Morgan said the murder of 11-year-old Merita Shabiju was an isolated incident, although he found systemic problems fostered by a ``command climate'' that tolerated misbehavior, at least tacitly. He said battalion and company commanders knew or should have known of alleged misconduct.

``It is my opinion that battalion and company-level leadership failed to take appropriate action based upon reported allegations of soldier misconduct, to include the excessive use of force,'' Morgan wrote.

The report focused attention on whether the 3rd Battalion of the 504th received proper training in peacekeeping tasks, such as crowd control, in the several weeks before the unit went to Kosovo in September 1999. It concluded from interviews with soldiers that they misunderstood their purpose.

One soldier, whose name was not disclosed, told the investigator: ``I don't think we were prepared for what we came into when we got down here. We expected to get fired at and things like that. We didn't expect things to be so calm and laid-back. I actually thought it would be more like combat.''

Said another: ``I would say what we were trained on and what we actually saw when we got over here were two different things. I think the soldiers came over here expecting to lock and load or (be) ready for ground combat.''

Because they were not adequately trained for the full range of peacekeeping tasks, some soldiers ``experienced difficulties tempering their combat mentality,'' the report said. The investigator concluded that the unit's overly aggressive tendencies were manifest in its slogan: ``Shoot 'em in the face.''

On the Net: Peacekeeping force: http://www.kforonline.com
3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment: http://www.bragg.army.mil/3-504pir/home.htm

---

Report details misconduct by U.S. troops

USA Today
09/18/00- Updated 05:16 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon04.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Army unit accused of abusing Kosovar Albanian civilians while on peacekeeping duty was not properly trained for a mission that required ''tempering their combat mentality,'' according to an Army investigative report released Monday.

The report detailed numerous acts of misconduct by several members of the 82nd Airborne Division and said their commanders shared blame for not taking action once apprised of the misbehavior.

In a written statement accompanying the report, the Army said Gen. Eric Shinseki, the chief of staff, ordered a review of the report's findings. He asked Gen. John W. Hendrix, commander of U.S. Army Forces Command, to complete the review and ''take corrective actions as appropriate'' within 30 days.

The Army statement also said the misbehavior ''should never have occurred,'' but adds that the problem was limited to a small number of soldiers and should not detract from the exemplary work being done by the Army as a whole in Kosovo, where peacekeepers have been operating since June 1999.

Defense Secretary William Cohen, who is traveling in Asia, issued a brief statement in which he called the incidents of misbehavior ''a source of great concern'' and endorsed Shinseki's decision to review the matter further.

As reported publicly in August during the rape-and-murder trial of Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi, the Army investigators found evidence that several other soldiers were guilty of abusing Kosovar Albanian civilians.

Ronghi was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl. Nine other soldiers from his unit were given various forms of administrative punishment; the investigator recommended that commanders consider court-martialling some of the nine, but they were not.

The Army released the 1,100-page report after removing some material for privacy and secrecy reasons.

The report concluded that members of A company, 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment went beyond the bounds of their peacekeeping duties and violated the Army's basic tenets of decency.

''Unit members violated the limits and terms of their military assignments by intimidating, interrogating, abusing and beating Albanians,'' the report said. It said the actions constituted criminal violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice ''and violated basic standards of conduct, human decency and the Army values.''

The investigator, Col. John W. Morgan III, also concluded that leaders within A company and the 3rd Battalion knew or should have known about numerous instances of misconduct, including the excessive use of force, by members of their unit. He concluded that these leaders' failure to investigate the alleged misbehavior amounted to ''perpetuating a volatile situation'' and led to further trouble.

The report singled out Lt. Col. Michael D. Ellerbe, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 504th, for directing his soldiers to carry out a task - to ''identify and neutralize'' Albanian splinter groups - that went beyond the intent of his commanders.

''Ultimately, the result of Lieutenant Colonel Ellerbe pursuing (that task) permeated the unit's command climate and created a set of conditions that provided his subordinates the opportunity to commit the alleged misconduct,'' the report said. It recommended Ellerbe be given a letter of reprimand or other administrative punishment.

Maj. Gary Tallman, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, said Monday he would not comment on what punishment, if any, Ellerbe received until he had read the report. He said Ellerbe was reassigned to a position with the 18th Airborne Corps in June, and that this did not reflect any punishment.

Tallman said that as result of the investigation, one officer and five enlisted soldiers were given administrative punishment for having committed assaults in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and three officers were given letters of reprimand from the commander of the 82nd Airborne, Maj. Gen. Dan K. McNeil. The spokesman declined to identify those who received the punishment.

In concluding that the 3rd battalion of the 504th was not adequately trained for peacekeeping duty, the report said interviews with soldiers revealed that many believed prior to going to Kosovo that they would face a combat situation. At the time they were told to prepare for deployment to Kosovo, in July 1999, the soldiers were focused on training that emphasized high-intensity combat.

One soldier, whose name was not disclosed, told the investigator: ''I don't think we were prepared for what we came into when we got down here. We expected to get fired at and things like that. We didn't expect things to be so calm and laid back.''

Because they were not adequately trained for the full range of peacekeeping tasks, some soldiers ''experienced difficulties tempering their combat mentality for adapting and transitioning to'' peacekeeping duty, the report said. The unit's overly aggressive tendencies were manifested in its slogan: ''Shoot 'em in the face,'' the investigator concluded.

Drawing a line between peacekeeping duty and police work in Kosovo - as well as in Bosnia, where U.S. peacekeepers have been operating since 1995 - has long been a major concern of Army leaders and Clinton administration officials.

After the news of the Ronghi allegations broke last January, Cohen said U.S. and NATO forces were doing police work in Kosovo only because there are not yet enough civilian police available.

''We have long stated the position that the United States and our NATO forces can carry out a military operation quite successfully, but they are not for the most part - there are some exceptions - trained to carry out police work,'' Cohen said. ''They are not trained for that, they are not competent really to carry out police work, nor should they be doing it.''

---

Gay Arizona Lawmaker Faces Discharge From Army

Yahoo News
Sunday September 17
By Nigel Hunt
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000917/pl/military_gays_dc_2.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A panel of three U.S. Army colonels recommended on Sunday that Arizona lawmaker and army reservist Steve May should be given an honorable discharge for publicly revealing he was gay.

http://politics.yahoo.com/politics/state_and_local/Arizona/State_House/1185/

May, a reserve lieutenant who trains soldiers to defend themselves against chemical attacks, was initially investigated after he made comments on the floor of the Arizona Legislature during a February 1999 hearing on a bill that would have prohibited government benefits for employees' gay partners.

The Army has a ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy toward gays and lesbians, which tolerates their service in uniform so long as they do not discuss their sexual orientation.

``We're going to appeal,'' said May, who is hoping the Army will decided to exercise a provision that would allow him to be retained for the ``good of the service'' despite his sexual orientation.

Army attorneys had sought a general discharge for May, but the panel, sitting in Los Alamitos a few miles south of Los Angeles, ruled that he should have an honorable discharge.

``That provides some solace but I am deeply disturbed by this vindictive and unfair prosecution. The investigation should never have begun,'' said Christopher Wolf, of attorneys Proskauer Rose, who represent May.

In many cases related to violations of the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy, soldiers have been given dishonorable discharges, which result in loss of benefits and the ability to re-enlist.

Ted Bartimus, public affairs officer for the Army 63rd Regional Support Command, said the investigation was launched following several news articles saying May was homosexual.

``The government's position in these administrative proceedings has been that May violated the Department of Defense's homosexual policy which is based on public law,'' Bartimus said.

He said the panel's recommendation would be forwarded to Major General John Scott, commander of the 63rd Regional Support Command, which oversees Army reserve units in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Bartimus estimated it could be one to three months before any order was issued.

Wolf said there were opportunities to appeal before the decision was finalized and also sought the intervention of President Clinton.

``I think the White House should be aware of this and do what is necessary (to reverse the decision),'' Wolf said.

May said Congress needed to change the current policy on gays and lesbians in the military, noting the United States was the last NATO member that practiced mandatory discrimination.

``This (policy) is an old dinosaur that is an embarrassment to the nation,'' he said.

May has about seven months to run to complete his current Army commitment, but he said he had planned to continue to serve after the current term expired. He remains in service pending the outcome of appeals.

May serves with the 348th Transportation Company as a nuclear, biological and chemical officer, training soldiers in chemical defense.

Los Alamitos is the headquarters of the Army 63rd Regional Support Command which oversees his unit.

May, a Republican, represents the 26th district in the Arizona House of Representatives.

---

Yahoo News
Rep. Steve May, ( R - AZ - 26 )
Term: 1 First Elected: 1998
Phone: (602) 542-5408 Fax: (602) 542-3689
Adress: AZHR Phoenix, AZ 85007
District Office: Phoenix District Phone: (602) 468-5761
Committees: · Commerce
http://politics.yahoo.com/politics/State_and_Local/Arizona/House_Committees/AZ016/
· Education
http://politics.yahoo.com/politics/State_and_Local/Arizona/House_Committees/AZ017/
· Banking & Insurance
http://politics.yahoo.com/politics/State_and_Local/Arizona/House_Committees/AZ020/

- more biography
http://politics.yahoo.com/politics/state_and_local/Arizona/State_House/1185/bio.html

---

Honorable Discharge Proposed For Gay Legislator in Reserves

New York Times
September 18, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/national/18GAY.html

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., Sept. 17 (AP) - Army officials today recommended an honorable discharge for Reserve Lt. Steve May, an openly gay Arizona lawmaker who the Army said violated its "don't ask, don't tell" policy by acknowledging his sexual orientation in a legislative debate.

A panel of three Army colonels recommended an honorable discharge, which is typical for soldiers forced to leave the military because of sexual orientation. The Army had sought to give Lieutenant May a less- than-honorable, general discharge.

"We presented the position that we thought was justified in this case," said Maj. Mark Johnson, who argued the military's case.

Lieutenant May's lawyer, Christopher Wolf, said the investigation was a personal attack on the legislator's integrity. The officer's record is unblemished, Mr. Wolf said, and he has been rated an exceptional officer.

Lieutenant May said he still considered himself a member of the Reserves. "I'm still in," he said today. "I'll continue to serve until the appeals process is exhausted."

The discharge recommendation will go through a review process that will probably take three months, officials said. Meanwhile, Lieutenant May will continue to serve.

The Army began investigating Lieutenant May after he acknowledged his homosexuality in the Statehouse in a February 1999 hearing on a bill that would have prohibited government benefits for employees' gay partners. He had been open about his sexuality since his first campaign for elected office in 1996.

Lieutenant May made the public remarks after he was honorably discharged in 1995 and before he was recalled to duty in the Army Reserve during the Kosovo crisis.

The Army could have allowed him to remain in the Reserves by declaring that doing so would be for the good of the military, Mr. Wolf said. The panel hearing the case at this Army base in the suburbs south of Los Angeles rejected that argument.

The decision shows that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy does not work, said Stacey Sobel of the Service members Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit group that helps military members facing discharge because of their sexual orientation.

"The Army is kicking out a highly qualified and valued officer today. The loss is to the Army and the American people," Ms. Sobel said.

---

Afterburner Seminars' U.S. Fighter Pilot Facilitators Head To Europe To Train Top Technology Leader.

Yahoo News
Monday September 18, 1:01 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000918/ga_afterbu.html

ATLANTA & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2000--Afterburner Seminars, an international management training company comprised of U.S. men and women fighter pilots, is taking its seminars to Europe. Client IBM has engaged Afterburner Seminars to execute their ``extreme'' Afterburner Day seminar in cities throughout Europe. As part of IBM's E-Victory Tour, an IBM global division sales initiative, attendees will see how to execute a business mission flawlessly and deal with rapid change the fighter pilot way.

Jim 'MURPH' Murphy, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Afterburner Seminars, is practiced at mission planning and flawless execution. He has combined seven years of training as a U.S. F-15 fighter pilot with 15 years of business savvy to bring products to market with speed--a pace fighter pilots know well. As a result, Murphy and his team of fighter pilot facilitators will execute an intensive, interactive combat mission scenario, The Afterburner Day-1, which all of IBM's E-Victory Tour teams will complete in the next week.

IBM's E-Victory Tour, with training components including the Afterburner Day, kicked off in July with seminars in the U.S. and Asia. Last week two groups completed Afterburner Days in London and Wiesbaden. This week Paris and Rome. ``Training is essential. Practice at executing flawlessly in a rapidly changing environment, like we have as fighter pilots mission after mission, has shown results,'' says Murphy. ``People from all cultural backgrounds leave this seminar and feel like they have just jumped out of an F-15 and survived. This sense of risk and accomplishment gives participants both a new perspective and the practical experience to combat the next challenge--and they are pumped.''

Afterburner Seminars is a high growth company employing 45+ fighter pilots from around the U.S. Able to deploy on command from their respective locations, these fighter pilots have not only logged thousands of hours flying jets, they have also trained over 80,000 employees of top Fortune 500 companies. The results, Afterburner Seminars has doubled revenues yearly with an average of 193% growth each year since its inception in 1996.

Afterburner Seminars, an international leadership development and management training company, executes training programs, keynote addresses and customized follow on programs for companies interested in building the critical competencies necessary to ensure marketshare and growth in the global marketplace.

Contact:
Afterburner Seminars essica Stockwell, 404/869-7559 jessica@AfterburnerSeminars.com www.AfterburnerSeminars.com

---

USA Today
09/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Delaware

Millsboro - A Navy barge will be sunk near the Indian River inlet to create an artificial habitat for fish. The barge, which was decommissioned because of a cracked hull, will be hollowed out in hopes it will attract fish and other marine life.

Louisiana

Shreveport - Sculptor Jerry Gorum has been selected to create a bronze monument to area military veterans. Gorum, of Rapides Parish, is to create a 20-foot-tall monument near Shreveport's waterfront, highlighted by an eagle with outstretched wings.

---

Follow the leader

Washington Times
September 18, 2000
Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin
http://208.246.212.80/national/inbeltway.htm

Speaking of White House mattresses, we had to laugh when Vice President Al Gore's military adviser, Gordon Adams, went on the "PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" to say this of the Democratic presidential nominee:

"He voted for the Persian Gulf War, along with only nine other colleagues in the Senate Democrats, so he's prepared to go to the mattress with respect to American national security."

-------- OTHER

-------- imf / world bank

IMF Overhauls Loan Plan
Giving a Victory to the U.S. Agency's Move Is Meant to Help Shield Financial System From Global Turmoil

Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2000
By DAMIAN MILVERTON Dow Jones Newswires
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB969028200120804258.htm

WASHINGTON -- The International Monetary Fund overhauled its loan programs, a victory for the Clinton administration, which had pushed the global lender to focus on financial emergencies in the wake of the Asian crisis.

The new loans, with their emphasis on higher interest rates and shorter maturities, are designed to discourage better-off developing countries from relying on the IMF -- owned by 182 member countries -- for cheap financing when they could borrow on private capital markets.

"This is very much in line with our emphasis throughout the year on the importance of reforming IMF facilities and reforming the IMF to ensure that its role is to support, rather than supplant, private capital markets," Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said.

Mr. Summers, talking to reporters, said the poorest nations, including most of those in Africa, can still access long-term IMF loans on generous terms until their economies have matured enough to turn to international capital markets.

"These measures should ensure a more efficient use of the Fund's resources," said Thomas C. Dawson, director of external affairs at the IMF. Details of this restructuring will be provided this week in Prague when the IMF and World Bank hold their annual meetings, Mr. Dawson said.

The action is a significant step in the wider, three-year international effort to make the world financial system less vulnerable to the turmoil that hit East Asia in 1997, then spread to Russia and Brazil. The IMF is one of the principal tools the U.S. and other wealthy countries use to assist nations short of hard currency.

The new approach adopted Friday effectively divides IMF borrowers into three categories: the poorest nations that need long-term, bargain loans to develop; slightly richer countries whose economic policies or bad luck have left them short of money; and nations that have embraced sound economic policies but get swept up in a wider financial upheaval.

The first group will get the same aid as in the past. The second will face shortened repayment periods and higher interest rates to discourage overborrowing. And the third group will be offered cheaper insurance against future currency or financial crises, a contingent loan program akin to a preapproved credit card. Its interest rate has been cut significantly and the conditions for qualification eased, addressing the concerns of developing countries that shunned the loan program after President Clinton proposed it during the heat of the Asian crisis.

Separately, at the Prague meetings that start this weekend, World Bank and IMF members are expected to adopt streamlined procedures to speed debt relief for developing nations. At their summit in Japan in July, President Clinton and the other leaders of the Group of Seven major industrialized countries vowed to write off World Bank, IMF and government-to-government loans to 20 impoverished countries this year, with more to come next year. But with just a few months left in the year, G-7 members want to ensure that no bureaucratic snags slow the debt-relief effort -- a hot-button item among the thousands of antiglobalization protesters likely to descend on the Prague meetings.

The World Bank is also expected to create a new antipoverty loan program, which, while not including more money, is intended to help countries help their poorest citizens, something developing-world governments are required to do to qualify for debt relief.

"We have and will continue to work to permit debt-relief benefits to be realized as quickly as possible, while maintaining necessary safeguards to ensure resources are used well," Mr. Summers said.

--Staff reporter Michael M. Phillips contributed to this article.

Write to Damian Milverton at damian.milverton@dowjones.com

---

From Shipyards to Sausages, Ukrainian Town Struggles On

Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2000
By PAUL HOFHEINZ Staff Reporter
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB969225605276978556.htm

MYKOLAYIV, Ukraine -- In the shadows of this city's hulking and all-but-abandoned Soviet-era shipyard, Sergei Sorochinski is helping to rebuild the economy -- one sausage at a time.

The 31-year-old entrepreneur worked 14-hour shifts for four years to scrape together 2,400 euros ($2,058) to start his own sausage factory. Two years later, the factory, housed in a warehouse once used for storing cables, churns out 7,000 to 9,400 euros in sausages a day.

"People who are capable of being entrepreneurs are doing well," Mr. Sorochinski says, supervising his staff of 18 workers in bloodstained aprons as they shove ground meat into sausage casing. "Things are definitely improving," he says. "Although it might not always seem that way."

In many ways, Mr. Sorochinski's shop -- and the idle shipyard next door -- provide a fitting metaphor for the changes that are sweeping through the former Communist bloc these days. After nearly a decade of seemingly bottomless decline, countries like Ukraine are showing what may be the first signs of economic recovery.

World Bank economists, who gather this week behind the former Iron Curtain in Prague, are predicting that Central and Eastern Europe as a whole will grow some 4.35% this year -- compared with 1.25% last year. And if their predictions prove correct, 2000 could be the first year in a decade that every country in the region reports economic growth.

"Looking forward, one can for the first time be relatively optimistic about the region," says Johannes Linn, vice president for Europe and Central Asia at the World Bank. "The accession countries [such as Poland and Hungary] are well on their way to a complete transition [from a planned economy to a free market], and for the first time one can see the possibility of long-term growth" in the former Soviet Union, as well.

Of course, the turnaround is still tenuous, and for many countries -- especially those in the former Soviet Union -- it amounts to climbing out of a very deep hole. In Ukraine, growth is expected to be about 2% this year, better than last year's 0.4% decline but hardly enough to overcome a 60% drop in GDP over the last decade.

And economists warn that the trickle of growth could run dry if governments don't do more to create an environment that promotes free enterprise. "They need to create a stable institutional environment, attract foreign investment and more aggressively restructure their enterprises," says Peter Havlik, deputy director of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. "Otherwise, this [growth] may just be a little uptick. It could easily stagnate again next year."

Ukraine, for one, has had a spotty record in implementing the kinds of deep-seated reforms that have made countries like Poland and Hungary so successful. Last September, the International Monetary Fund suspended disbursements on a $2.6 billion (3 billion euro) loan, arguing that the government had moved too slowly to implement market reforms. An investigation into the way the Ukrainian government had used disbursed loans turned up irregularities in the Central Bank's reporting of its reserves, but the IMF chose not to punish Ukraine for the transgressions. On Friday, an IMF official praised the country's recent progress.

Despite the caveats, the things that go on in sleepy, little Mykolayiv -- home of Mr. Sorochinski's sausage factory -- do show that the region is making progress. A leafy river port in southern Ukraine, Mykolayiv was once a key cog in the Soviet Union's well-lubricated military machine. Most workers in the town of 523,000 inhabitants spent their days assembling aircraft carriers, cruisers and other military vessels.

But the town's shipbuilding industry disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. On paper, Mykolayiv's three shipyards are still open for business, but the town has not produced a sea-faring craft since 1997, when it fulfilled a small order for the Ukrainian coast guard. Unemployment, which was unknown in Soviet times, has risen to 6.5% of the work force, although Mykolayiv's mayor, Volodimir Chaika, estimates the real figure is five times that. "Most people don't even bother registering" at the centers to help the unemployed, he says. "They sell things in the market to get by."

Sausages From the Ashes

And yet, people like Mr. Sorochinski are building modest businesses on the ruins of the military-industrial complex. Mr. Sorochinski's factory is located on the edge of the Chernomorsky Shipyard, a sprawling industrial enterprise that once employed 22,000 people. In better times, the shipyard produced the Admiral Kuznetsov, a giant aircraft carrier that still serves as the flagship of Russia's dwindling Black Sea fleet. These days, its cranes stand idly gathering moss, while Mr. Sorochinski quietly makes his sausages below.

Two years ago, when Mr. Sorochinski and his wife were ready to open the factory, they weren't taking any chances. They called in an Eastern Orthodox priest on opening day to bless their motley collection of refrigerators, ovens, cooling racks and assembly tables; the priest even splashed some holy water on the sausages.

"We weren't really churchgoers," Mr. Sorochinski says, "but we felt like we needed to believe in something."

These days, that faith seems to have been well placed -- as the little factory buzzes with activity. In the big front hall, workers chop and dice meat to prepare it for grinding. Across the room, three women shove already ground meat into casings and tie off the wieners by hand. In a backroom, freshly boiled sausages release steam into the air as they hang on racks to dry. Mr. Sorochinski no longer dons a white apron, but he still smells like sausage -- even after a shower. "You get used to it after awhile," he says.

Customers start queuing each day around 5 a.m. at an unmarked screen door in the back of the gray-brick building. Some carry hand-sewn cloth bags, which they fill with sausages to resell in the local market. Others arrive in trucks to transport the links to grocery stores and kiosks around town.

Mr. Sorochinski admits that his tiny operation could hardly be considered a replacement for the vast naval works that used to operate from the same lot. But he thinks that businesses like his are a big step in the right direction. "We are making a contribution" to the country's economic turnaround, he says.

Furniture for Chains

And Mr. Sorochinski isn't alone. Over on Khersonskoye Chausee, Georgiy Kharchenko is busy placing a phone call to a customer at a legal college in Odessa, the region's largest seaport, some 120 kilometers away. In 17 years as director of OAO Mykolayiv Mebel, a furniture factory, Mr. Kharchenko has seen his company boom and bust. Back in the 1980s, the factory produced and sold around 2.1 million euros' worth of chairs, beds, desks, wardrobes and couches each year. By the mid-1990s, as the region's economic crisis deepened, cash-paying customers virtually disappeared and the plant's assembly lines ground to a halt. After going months without getting paid, most of the plant's 600 workers quit showing up for work.

But Mr. Kharchenko refused to give up. Once he accepted that his traditional retail market had disappeared, he decided to focus on corporate clients, such as schools, factories and collective farms. The strategy paid off. In the last two years, annual sales have crawled back to around 420,000 euros -- and the factory has brought back about 200 workers.

And yet, Mykolayiv Mebel's success is not as clear-cut as it seems. Even today, Mr. Kharchenko says that 70% of his revenue still comes in the form of barter. This has forced him to push his business in yet another direction. The first floor of the factory is now a de facto general store, where he sells the bags of cement, used motors, uncut glass and toilet seats that his customers provide as payment.

"This is our biggest nightmare," he says, gesturing toward a pile of chains he was recently given in return for a delivery of couches. "I stay up at night trying to figure out how to turn all of the sausage and vegetables we get paid in into cash."

Still, Mr. Kharchenko says the economic situation in Ukraine is better than it was, although he would need to see more progress before he can consider the region an economic success. "We're like a wolf eating its own leg," he says, referring to a popular theory that the reforms undertaken to save the country did much to destroy it. "When people [in factories] start getting paid again, that's when we'll be able to say that the situation has stabilized."

Birthday Bash

On the other side of town, Mayor Chaika is busy preparing for the city's 211th anniversary, which took place earlier this month. The pompous military parades -- replete with naval floats and goose-stepping young pioneers -- have long since been replaced with a huge, open-air block party. The city's central square is closed to traffic -- and rock bands play into the night.

Working the phones before the fete, Mayor Chaika pauses briefly to field questions from a visiting reporter. The city faces major challenges, he says, including an aging population and the crumbling shipyards, which will require a major cash infusion if they are ever to recapture their former glory. He says he is doing everything he can to get the shipyards back to work, and is actively courting a European strategic investor that he won't name.

But signs of progress are emerging. He says his experts tell him the city's 210 million-euro economy should grow around 2.8% this year, compared with a scarcely palpable 0.5% rise last year. The port, he says, is already reporting a 10% increase in river traffic and the city government has collected 190 million hryvnia (40 million euros) in taxes this year. Last year, the take for the whole 12-month period was only 200 million hryvnia. "Things are getting more and more stable," he says. "Production is growing. People are working again."

Hero Mother

Not everyone is happy about the changes. Over in the marketplace, Tatiana Puchkova sips a cup of sweetened coffee and watches customers walk past her stand of children's clothing. "I didn't do this to buy a car, or something," she says bitterly, as she folds and refolds some of the Turkey- and Thailand-made clothes she bought at a wholesale market in Odessa. "If the factories opened up again, I'd go back in a second."

In Soviet times, Ms. Puchkova held a privileged position. Twice decorated a Hero Mother for breeding seven children while the Russian population shrank, Ms. Puchkova was entitled to special perks when scarce consumer goods were distributed administratively at the post office where she worked.

Ms. Puchkova might not like being an entrepreneur, but she's good at it. On a good day, she takes home around 260 euros of profit -- nearly 10 times the average monthly salary in the city. Last year, she received a 7,000-hryvnia loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to expand her business after putting up a cellulite-burning machine as collateral.

Still, her newfound prosperity has hardly tempered her penchant for complaining. "At night, I'm so tired I fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow," she says. "The Soviet Union isn't coming back. It's a pity."

Indeed, some companies still behave as if the Iron Curtain had yet to lift. OAO Zaporozhstal, a huge steel works in Zaporozhiye some 360 kilometers north of Mykolayiv, may be a perfect example of the work that still needs to be done. After a cataclysmic decline in the mid-1990s, the company is undergoing something of a renaissance. Last year, profit rose to 104 million euros, even though the company sold less steel than it had the year before.

General Director Vitaliy Satskiy claims the higher profits stem from reforms and cost-cutting measures, but he also brags that he has not laid off a single employee since 1991. The payroll still stands at a bloated 19,200 employees.

Competitors, such as Chile's Cia Siderurgica Huachipato, have some questions about the way Zaporozhstal conducts business. They charge that the Ukrainian government doesn't make companies like Zaporozhstal pay their energy bills, and that therefore Zaporozhstal is able to ship steel at below-market prices.

"They introduce altered prices through uncompetitive practices," says Ernesto Escobar, commercial director at Siderurgica Huachipato. His company successfully pursued an anti-dumping complaint against Zaporozhstal in 1994, and Mr. Escobar says, "I still think they practice dumping in the market."

Avoiding Quotas

Mr. Satskiy brushes off the charge that the company gets a free ride on energy. "My God," he says. "If only it were true! The price is going up all the time." Zaporozhstal currently exports steel to 56 countries, but says it deliberately keeps the export volumes low to avoid triggering quotas or tariffs.

Back in Mykolayiv, the locals continue to view their hometown with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Viktor Gorbachev, loan director at Aval Bank, boasts that his company's credit portfolio has grown fivefold in the last two years. Eighty percent of those loans are to factories and start-up companies like Mr. Sorochinski's, he says.

"In the times of Catherine the Great, the plan was to make Mykolayiv into a 'little Venice,'" Mr. Gorbachev says, as he drives down one of the city's wide boulevards, where city planners once planned to put a canal. The decaying street is now littered with exposed steel rods, broken pavement and weeds. "As you can see," he says, "this 'little Venice" thing never really panned out."

Write to Paul Hofheinz at paul.hofheinz@wsj.com

-------- alternative energy

World's Largest Solar Vessel Performs at the Sydney Olympics

September 18, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-18-01.html

SYDNEY, Australia, As spectators and athletes at the 2000 Olympic Games look out on Homebush Bay they will surely see a unique boat moving back and forth across the water in front of the Olympic venues.

The award winning Solar Sailor is the world's largest solar vessel and the first able to be totally powered by the wind and the sun.

The Solar Sailor carried visiting and domestic media on September 15 as they followed the Olympic flame across Sydney Harbour. With its low wash, low noise and low vibrations it provided ideal conditions for media as they recorded the historic event.

Solar Sailor passes in front of the Sydney Opera House (Photo courtesy Solar Sailor)

Trevor Robertson, CEO of Solar Sailor Holdings, was delighted the Solar Sailor had been selected to participate in the Olympic celebrations.

It has been a successful year for the Solar Sailor. In July, the vessel won the Innovation & Best New Marine Product/Service category at the inaugural Australian Marine Awards 2000.

In accepting the award, Robertson, said the vessel is one of Australia's true success stories.

"This is homegrown technology, designed and built in Australia which will revolutionise the way the world travels on water," Robertson said. "The interest in the Solar Sailor is incredible and we are fielding calls from across the globe from people who want to know more about her the export potential is untold."

Robertson has received substantial financial support from the Australian government. "The award is made even more satisfying because we have been able to keep the groundbreaking technology in Australia thanks to support from the federal government and a $1 million grant through the Australian Greenhouse Office."

Solar Sailor features mounted wings which harness the sun and the wind, and can be adjusted to adapt to the prevailing weather conditions at any given time.

Robertson said the solar wing will allow owners and operators to access the world's most environmentally sensitive waterways previously off limits to traditional craft which emit fossil fuels.

"This is the water transport of the future from small passenger craft to ocean-going liners, the technology can be adapted for all these uses and ultimately cost nothing to operate," he said.

Solar Sailor has begun commercial operations on Sydney Harbour and is available to the public for charter through Captain Cook Cruises.

To find out more visit: http://www.solarsailor.com

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Arizona

USA Today 09/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Mesa - A tax incentive that can cut the cost of an alternative-fuel vehicle in half has become more popular than state officials imagined. About 5,000 applications for the grants have been received, and 250 more are arriving each week. If all are approved, the state could spend $50 million this year alone. The subsidies are good for 30%-50% off the price of a new car if it uses compressed natural gas, propane, electricity, solar power or hydrogen.

-------- environment

Russia's Environmental Crisis
OWING TO NEW DISASTERS AND PERSECUTIONS, ACTIVISM APPEARS TO BE RESURGENT.

The Nation
September 18/25, 2000
by MARK HERTSGAARD
http://www.loe.org
http://www.thenation.com/issue/000918/0918hertsgaard.shtml

The Russian nuclear submarine tragedy has shocked the world, but it has only reinforced what the country's most prominent environmentalist, Alexandr Nikitin, has been saying for years. A former submarine captain himself, Nikitin made international headlines in 1996 by blowing the whistle on the Russian Navy's ecologically disastrous mishandling of submarines. Now the government wants to re-prosecute Nikitin for his whistleblowing, on the bizarre grounds that it violated his civil rights the first time it tried to convict him. But the government's strategy may backfire: Its persecution of Nikitin and its dismantling of environmental laws appear to be sparking a resurgence of green activism in Russia.

When the Kursk sank on August 12, killing all 118 crew members, Russians were saddened and outraged--not just by the deaths and the government's ham-handed response but by the tragedy's deeper symbolism: Russia seemed to be falling apart. "There's no money to take care of anything...[so] the accidents just keep on happening," Sergei Titkov, a Moscow security guard, said after the Ostankino television tower caught fire August 27 in a further illustration of the nation's technological frailty. Just as an apparent lack of training and maintenance doomed the Kursk, so does inadequate repair and upkeep plague Russia's entire industrial infrastructure. Thus the Kursk tragedy may turn out to be but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The cash-strapped military has abandoned some 110 additional mothballed nuclear submarines on land and sea without proper environmental or security safeguards, according to Nikitin. Likewise, countless factories, pipelines and other increasingly decrepit civilianfacilities pose a growing risk to human life and natural ecosystems, both in Russia and beyond.

When Nikitin co-wrote a 1996 report revealing that the Northern Fleet had been dumping old reactors and spent fuel into the Barents Sea and on the Kola Peninsula for decades, he called the contamination "a Chernobyl in slow motion." The Federal Security Police (FSB), Russia's recast KGB, promptly threw him in jail. In the first of many irregularities, he was charged with espionage on the basis of a law written months after he was imprisoned. Nikitin spent the next four years fighting for his freedom. Finally, last December, the City Court of St. Petersburg acquitted him of all charges and made a point of criticizing the FSB for improprieties in the case. In April the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling.

Nikitin soon left for California to accept the Goldman Environmental Prize, which he'd won in 1997 but hadn't been allowed to leave Russia to accept. As he strode across the stage in Berkeley, Nikitin still looked the career military man, with close-cropped graying hair and a clipped, serious manner. But he did know how to tell a joke. After a heavily accented "Thank you very much," Nikitin said, in Russian, "I would like to apologize that I was late for this ceremony exactly three years." But no one was laughing a few days later when Russia's Prosecutor General announced that the government of President Vladimir Putin wanted to retry Nikitin. Officials at the prosecutor's office were unavailable for comment. But it's clear that Russian media coverage has made Alexandr Nikitin a hero to many politically aware Russians--a successful symbol of dissent. His colleagues believe that the campaign against him is aimed at discouraging others from following his example.

"What we have shown through the Nikitin case is that, if you fight, you're able to get results, even if your enemy is the KGB," says Frederic Hauge, president of the Bellona Foundation, the environmental group, based in Russia and Norway, that published Nikitin's original exposé. Hauge says Nikitin's court victories have been particularly inspiring to young Russians, who are now flocking to join environmental groups. "This gives young people a hope and also a weapon--the legal system--which they have not been aware of before. After seventy years with Communism, where you have been shot if you have disagreed with the government, this has ended up to be a very, very important symbolic case."

Also helping to swell the movement's ranks is the government's blatant assault on environmental regulations. Acting by decree, Putin abolished the State Committee for Environmental Protection in May and transferred its responsibilities to the Ministry of Natural Resources, the pro-development agency that licenses development of Russia's minerals and petroleum. Environmentalists accused Putin of "putting the goat in charge of the cabbage patch." Svet Zabelin of the Socio-Ecological Union, one of Russia's leading environmentalists, charges that this marks a return to the Soviet era, when ministries rubber-stamped their own environmental behavior: "During the Soviet period, each ministry had an environmental department, but it was not outside control.... Now we are simply [returning to] the same situation--an absolutely Soviet solution."

But there are signs the government's actions are provoking a popular backlash. The Russian news agency Interfax reports that 87 percent of Russians oppose Putin's abolition of the environmental agency. And a coalition of fifty environmental groups is organizing a national referendum that would overturn Putin's decree. Activists claim they have collected 400,000 signatures--a fifth of what's needed by the end of October to put the referendum on the ballot next year. "[Organizing] the referendum has truly, finally, united the environmental NGO movement in Russia," says David Gordon of the Oakland-based Pacific Environment and Resources Center. Traveling throughout Russia in August, Gordon reported that "NGOs have been actively discussing it at every meeting I have attended. It's their primary goal right now."

Activists want to restore the environmental committee even though they have criticized it as weak and too cozy with industry. "The committee was badly run," says Nikitin, "but it was doing an important job." Vera Mishenko, who founded Russia's first public-interest environmental law firm, Ecojuris, is suing to have Putin's decree declared illegal. She says documents generated by the environmental committee were helpful when Ecojuris stopped Exxon-Mobil and other transnational corporations from dumping toxic waste into the sea near Sakhalin Island. "Russian law requires that an environmental impact assessment be done before a permit is granted," Mishenko explains, "and when the State Committee told Exxon this, Exxon wrote back to complain, 'You promised us no inspections!'" Smiling, Mishenko adds, "We published this correspondence."

Mishenko believes the Putin government's anti-environmental initiatives reflect a simple goal: sell off Russia's remaining natural resources at maximum speed to attract the foreign investment Putin sees as vital to rejuvenating the moribund economy. (Of course, former President Boris Yeltsin tried this strategy and only ended up enriching the nation's infamous oligarchs.) Besides abolishing the environmental committee, Putin is overseeing a crackdown on green activists. Ecojuris and other groups have been accused of dodging taxes; when inspectors audit the groups, they gain access to membership lists and other confidential information. Putin, who headed the FSB in 1998 and 1999, has asserted that environmental groups provide cover for foreign spies.

Meanwhile, Russia's breathtaking environmental deterioration continues. One million tons of oil--the equivalent of twenty-five Exxon Valdez spills--leak out of pipelines into Russia's soil and water every month. Recent studies blame the disastrous state of the nation's air, soil and water for 30 percent of the precipitate decline in average Russian life spans. The impoverished economy makes matters worse, leaving little money for cleanup or repair. The nuclear submarine disaster illustrates the danger of operating military hardware without sufficient funding, but countless Russian industrial facilities are running the same risk. Says activist Zabelin, "The chances for a different accident are of course increasing, because we have the same equipment as twenty years ago. This is a kind of dangerous stability."

Nowhere are conditions more dire than near nuclear complexes. The most famous is Chernobyl, where the 1986 accident released 100 times as much radiation as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Today, 3 million youngsters still need treatment for Chernobyl-related ailments. At the Mayak complex in Chelyabinsk, where the Soviet Union built nuclear weapons during the cold war, Lake Karachay ranks as perhaps the most polluted spot on earth; it contains 120 million curies of radioactive waste, including seven times the amount of strontium-90 and cesium-137 that was released at Chernobyl. By 2020-30, half the children born in Chelyabinsk are expected to suffer "severe genetic deficiencies," British parliamentary aide David Lowry recently wrote in the Guardian.

Yet Mayak will receive tons of additional nuclear waste if Putin's minister of atomic energy, Yevgeny Adamov, gets his way. Adamov wants to change Russian law to allow the import of nuclear waste. Such imports, claims Adamov, could pay for scores of new nuclear power plants for Russia and help clean up sites like Lake Karachay. Nikitin opposes the plan, saying, "This is the source where Adamov will get funds to develop the nuclear industry, but it's like a snowball, always getting bigger. The more reactors he builds, the more waste there will be, and the more problems he will encounter."

Nikitin points out that Washington wields considerable influence on this matter. Under the old Atoms for Peace program, the United States regulates the nuclear waste that Russia wants to import from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. "I think our job is to influence not only the Russian side but also the American side," Nikitin told me, "because without the consent of the Americans and the Europeans it's impossible to import nuclear fuel or radioactive waste."

The proposed environmental referendum would reassert Russia's existing ban on nuclear waste imports as well as reverse Putin's decree, but will it pass? Activists Mishenko and Zabelin fear not; they worry that the government will seize upon the involvement of Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund in drafting the referendum to discredit it as a foreign plot. But Frederic Hauge of Bellona believes such pessimism underestimates the environmental fervor of the Russian people. "I have seen the local fights around Russia," he says. "When they tried to move nuclear waste from the Kola Peninsula down to Chelyabinsk, there were 10,000 people in the streets.... I think we will see the referendum during the next year."

For his part, Alexandr Nikitin must first survive his Supreme Court appearance on September 13. The stakes are high. If the court does grant the government's request for a retrial, it would distract Nikitin from the referendum fight and probably discourage ordinary Russians from enlisting in the environmental cause. A ruling in favor of Nikitin, on the other hand, would reinforce the message of earlier verdicts: In today's Russia, maybe you can fight the system and win.

Mark Hertsgaard is the author of Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future (Broadway) and a contributor to NPR's Living On Earth program, which broadcast a radio version of this story over the weekend of September 1-3. Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.

Send your letter to the editor to letters@thenation.com.
http://www.thenation.com/about/magazine/letters.shtml

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What's in My Backyard? Government Site Maps Environmental Dangers

ABC News
09/18/00
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/emapper000918.html

Sept. 18 - Worried about hazardous waste in your neighborhood? Rattled over radiation exposure? A new government Web site launches today to help you find out what dangers are out there.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is unveiling its E-Mapper Internet site, which allows users to type in a ZIP code and see a map of the area with data on local environmental hazards.

E-Mapper will offer Environmental Protection Agency information on Superfund cleanup sites, air pollution from power plants and factories, hazardous waste storage, and "brownfields" - areas of moderate contamination that have limited use permits.

You can also learn about the conditions of your favorite fishing hole or campground, HUD promises.

The service also provides demographic information about your neighborhood, in case you are curious about your community's average income level, ethnic makeup and average age. You'll also get information on crime, traffic, and see HUD projects in the area.

The combination of EPA, HUD and census information will be an important resource for communities, says Denis Hayes, an environmental activist and chairman of the Earth Day Foundation. "Suddenly you have a wonderful overview of the situation," he says.

Hayes, who will be on hand for the site launch today, hopes the Web site will draw public attention to trouble spots, and put pressure on polluters.

Are You in for a Shock?

When using E-Mapper to check environmental conditions in their region, many people will get a surprise, says Bradley Smith, Dean of Environmental Studies at Western Washington University.

"Most any community of any size will have hazardous waste sites," he notes.

From information about mercury in the ground, to lead in atmosphere, and phosphate in water, E-mapper may have something for everyone. In agricultural communities, residents may not know about runoff of chemicals, such as pesticides and fertilizers from farms and ranches, he says.

Many of the environmental hazards are leftover from long ago, he says.

E-Mapper might show an "old solid waste site from 50 years ago now covered by dirt," he says. "We don't live in a 'saniflush' world."

Still, he worries that people seeing environmental hazards in their neighborhood might leap to conclusions about their own safety, before learning the specifics of the threat and how it is being dealt with.

"I think that can lead to unnecessary angst and anxiety," he says.

"We don't live in a risk-free world."

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CD-ROM contains guide for terrorists Seized manual tied to bin Laden

USA Today
09/18/00
By Jack Kelley USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000918/2653146s.htm

U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained CD-ROM copies of a six-volume manual allegedly used by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden to train hundreds of recruits at his terrorist camps in Afghanistan, USA TODAY has learned.

The 1,000-page manual, called the Encyclopedia, contains information in Arabic on how to recruit followers, shoot weapons, conduct terrorist operations -- including assassinations -- and assemble bombs similar to those that destroyed U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials.

A U.S. federal court has indicted bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan, in connection with the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people. He denies involvement.

Representatives for the CIA and FBI declined comment, but other intelligence officials call the manual a ''gold mine'' of information on bin Laden's tactics. They say they hope to use it to help slow or disrupt terrorist operations overseas.

''That manual is a briefing book on 'how to conduct terror' and is no different than what (militant Islamic groups) Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran would use,'' says Ken Katzman, a terrorism analyst at the Congressional Research Service, the investigative arm of Congress.

The manual in CD-ROM form was recently given to the CIA and the FBI by intelligence officials from Jordan. They seized it from one of 16 men arrested in Jordan in December for allegedly planning New Year's attacks in Israel and Jordan.

U.S. and Jordanian intelligence officials say the planned attacks were masterminded by bin Laden and that the men were affiliated with Al-Qaida, his military organization.

Lt. Ziad Hajaya, a computer expert at the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, told a closed military court in Amman, Jordan, last year that one of the seized disks included information on ''explosives and manufacturing explosives, toxic and heavy weaponry,'' according to court documents obtained by USA TODAY.

U.S. officials say they have ''positively confirmed'' the manual was distributed by bin Laden in his terrorist camps along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

Officials say the manual matches data seized by Western law-enforcement agents from other terrorists who had trained in the camps and were associates of bin Laden.

One chapter, titled ''Making bombs with existing materials,'' explains how to assemble a car bomb from TNT or dynamite similar to the bombs that destroyed the U.S. embassies in East Africa.

There are also chapters on how to use hand-held rocket launchers and one showing the most effective way to kill a non-Muslim.

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Maps Detail Environmental Hazards

Associated Press
September 19, 2000 Filed at 7:46 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ever wonder what environmental hazards are lurking right in the neighborhood?

An online mapping program unveiled Monday by federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo will allow anyone with a computer to find out what pollution problems are nearby. The free Internet mapping program allows computer users to input an address and up pops a diagram with select information from the Environmental Protection Agency on brownfields, hazardous waste, air pollution levels and waste water discharge in the area.

The site also maps out the locations of various programs from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the first time federal agencies have combined their data on a Web site.

``We have a great tool in this new technology,'' Cuomo said Monday. ``We want to provide the information to the citizens and let them know what's going on in their backyard.''

Cuomo said he was hopeful that those seeking community development grants from HUD would use portions of the federal money for environmental cleanup once they saw what problems existed in their neighborhood.

He was joined by supermodel Christie Brinkley, who has fought pollution from nuclear plants near her home on eastern Long Island, Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes and Greg Wetstone, director of programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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EPA Cites 11 Companies and City of Detroit for Clean-Air Violations

Yahoo News
Monday September 18, 1:08 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: United States Environmental Protection Agency
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000918/il_epa_det.html

CHICAGO, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5 notified 11 companies and the City of Detroit in August that it believes they have violated Federal or federally enforceable State clean-air regulations, or both.

These are preliminary findings of violations. To resolve them, EPA may issue compliance orders, assess administrative penalties, or bring suit against the companies. The companies have 30 days from receipt of the notices to request meetings with EPA to discuss the allegations and how to resolve them.

``EPA's mission is to protect public health and the environment,'' said George Czerniak, chief of the regional Air Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Branch. ``We will take whatever steps are needed to ensure compliance with the Clean Air Act.''

Companies alleged to have violated Federal clean-air regulations receive a Finding of Violation (FOV), and companies alleged to have violated federally enforceable State regulations receive a Notice of Violation (NOV). Some companies receive both.

COMPANIES RECEIVING FOV'S

KMS Energy, Inc. 2851 Mound Rd. Joliet, IL EPA alleges KMS failed to do an emission compliance test on its gas collection and control system to measure nonmethane organic compounds at CDT Landfill, Joliet, IL. KMS also failed to timely apply for a State operating permit.

Whiteside County Landfill 18819 Lincoln Rd. Morrison, IL EPA alleges Whiteside failed to submit a gas collection and emission control system design plan and failed to do a performance test on its flare and gas collection and control system.

Mobil Oil Corp. Joliet Refinery I-55 & Arsenal Rd. Joliet, IL TWO FINDINGS OF VIOLATION WERE ISSUED: In one FOV, EPA alleges Mobil failed to comply with national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants and failed to meet standards for maximum achievable control technology. In the other FOV, EPA alleges that Mobil failed to comply with Federal new source performance standards.

AAA Building Demolition, Inc. 2536 West Euclid St., Suite #2 Detroit, MI EPA alleges AAA Building Demolition failed to comply with Federal regulations on asbestos -- a hazardous air pollutant -- when it demolished a vacant apartment building at 2750 Elmhurst St., Detroit, MI.

Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. 8655 Military St. Detroit, MI EPA alleges Ferguson Enterprises failed to comply with Federal regulations on asbestos -- a hazardous air pollutant -- when it demolished a former commercial building at 8042 Michigan Ave., Detroit, MI.

Power VAC Service, Inc. 14415 Meyers Rd. Detroit, MI EPA alleges Power VAC failed to comply with Federal regulations on asbestos -- a hazardous air pollutant -- when it demolished a former commercial building at 903 West Grand Blvd., Detroit, MI.

Lakeshore Engineering Services, Inc. 19215 West Eight Mile Rd., Suite A Detroit, MI EPA alleges Lakeshore Engineering failed to comply with Federal regulations on asbestos -- a hazardous air pollutant -- when it was involved as a consultant in the demolition of two former Detroit, MI, commercial buildings, one at 8042 Michigan Ave. and another at 903 West Grand Blvd., Detroit, MI.

Zebrowski & Associates, Inc. 242 East Pearl St. Plymouth, MI EPA alleges Zebrowski & Associates failed to comply with Federal regulations on asbestos -- a hazardous air pollutant -- when it demolished a former commercial building at 5601 Michigan Ave., Detroit, MI.

City of Detroit Department of Public Works Demolition Division 8221 West Davison Detroit, MI The City of Detroit is the owner of several Detroit properties that EPA alleges were demolished in violation of Federal regulations on asbestos -- a hazardous air pollutant. EPA alleges that the City of Detroit is also in violation of the asbestos regulations because it owns the sites. The properties are: 21231 Fenkell St., 22351 Fenkell St., 14845 Mack Ave., 12750 West Grand River Ave., 8042 Michigan Ave., 5601 Michigan Ave., 903 West Grand Blvd., and 2750 Elmhurst St.

COMPANIES RECEIVING NOV'S

Chicago Specialties, LLC-PMC 735 East 115th St. Chicago, IL EPA alleges Chicago Specialties failed to maintain a 98 percent volatile organic compound (VOC) emission control on its para-cresol distillation operation and failed to meet certain testing, monitoring, and record keeping requirements. The para-cresol process emits several hazardous air pollutants that are also VOC's.

Segerdahl Corp. 1351 South Wheeling Rd. Wheeling, IL EPA alleges Segerdahl failed to submit certification that it complied with, or was exempt from, federally enforceable State regulations on coatings containing volatile organic compounds.

Mobil Oil Corp. Joliet Refinery I-55 & Arsenal Rd. Joliet, IL EPA alleges Mobil modified its Joliet refinery without first getting a permit to prevent significant deterioration of air quality. Before new air pollution sources can be built, or existing sources modified, in areas that have attained national health-based standards for all air pollutants, companies must first get permits that restrict their emissions and prevent significant deterioration of air quality in those areas.

SOURCE: United States Environmental Protection Agency

---

Everglades Legislation

New York Times
September 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/opinion/L18EVE.html

To the Editor:

We agree wholeheartedly with your Sept. 13 editorial urging Congress to enact Everglades restoration legislation this year.

What the editorial did not mention is the unprecedented unity behind Restoring the Everglades, an American Legacy Act. Conservation organizations, agricultural producers, home builders, water utilities, Indian tribes and others have endorsed it. Agreement among these groups on Everglades issues is rare. Yet we are also joined by a bipartisan coalition of senators, Florida's Congressional delegation, the Clinton administration and Florida's governor, Jeb Bush - all committed to restoration in a manner that respects the needs of water users in Florida.

The level of support for Everglades restoration legislation is an opportunity Congress should seize, not squander.

JOHN FLICKER Pres., National Audubon Society New York, Sept. 13, 2000

---

USA Today
09/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Michigan

Detroit - State environmental officials are seeking to remove 30 dams believed to be in danger of crumbling or harming fish. But lack of funds has blocked their efforts. Scientists have long argued that most dams harm fish population by raising river temperatures and trapping sediments that cover rocky bottom habitat.

Missouri

Jefferson City - A proposal to return wild elk to the Missouri Ozarks is the subject of public hearings this week by the Department of Conservation. Opponents say elk will destroy private property and bring disease to cattle herds. Supporters say the animals were once native to the area and will bring beauty to the rural counties that were part of a feasibility study.

New Hampshire

Moultonboro- Environmental experts hope that New Hampshire's affection for lake-dwelling loons will help them communicate the danger of eating freshwater fish. The Northeast Loon Study Workgroup says about 15% of New Hampshire's loon population is sickened by mercury, which they get from eating fish in lakes contaminated with pollution from acid rain. Experts say simply warning people to eat less freshwater fish, which store the toxin, hasn't been as effective as they would like.

New York

Syracuse - Scientists have detected the first signs that Onondaga Lake, one of the most polluted bodies of water in the USA, is cleaner. But the evidence is the scourge of healthy waterways across North America the zebra mussel. Under federal court order last year, Onondaga County began a $380 million effort to eliminate pollution, especially ammonia discharges, from a county sewage treatment plant. Scientists say studies last month indicated up to 600 million ammonia-sensitive mussels live in the water.

South Carolina

Columbia - Cardinal Chemical Co. has provided state regulators with a plan for the possible shutdown of a plant along the Congaree River that is suspected of leaking tin compounds into the river. A spokesman for Cardinal said the company plans to fight the shutdown but provided the plan to comply with the state's order.

-------- genetics

Modified Corn Found in Taco Shells in Tests
Biotech: Genetically engineered grain, detected in Taco Bell grocery product, is not allowed in food. FDA is investigating charges.

Los Angeles Times
Monday, September 18, 2000
By MARC KAUFMAN, Washington Post
http://www.latimes.com/business/20000918/t000088123.html

WASHINGTON--A form of genetically modified corn not allowed in food because of concerns it could trigger allergies has been detected in Taco Bell brand taco shells that are sold in grocery stores, a coalition of biotech critics is expected to report this week.

The type of corn, produced by Aventis Corp. and called StarLink, was approved by federal authorities in 1998 as an animal feed. But because the corn has been genetically modified in a way that makes it more difficult to break down in the human intestine, regulators have refused to approve it for human use.

The possibility that the modified corn made it into food products has federal officials concerned, with several calling the development "very serious" if confirmed by further testing.

"If there has been a violation of our licensing process, then we would have a very great concern," said Stephen Johnson, an assistant administrator for pesticides at the Environmental Protection Agency. "Likewise, we would want to make sure we are completely protecting the public health."

Officials at the Food and Drug Administration, who called the possible presence of StarLink corn in human food "unlawful," said Sunday that the agency has already started an investigation.

If the tests are confirmed, they will probably raise the volume in the already contentious debate over biotech foods, which in recent years have become commonplace in American grocery stores. While most of the country's political, scientific and commercial establishment has embraced biotechnology as safe and useful, activists raise questions about its use and hope to inspire the kind of backlash present in Europe.

The group that had the taco shells tested, Genetically Engineered Food Alert, has asked the FDA to recall the products immediately.

"This corn is absolutely not supposed to be in our food, but an independent lab found it there anyway," said Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth, a member of the coalition. "This shows a major regulatory failure and raises some real human health concerns."

The group said this first finding was potentially "the tip of an iceberg," and that it could be in many other products. Samples of taco shells from Taco Bell restaurants will be tested soon, group members said.

The taco shells tested were manufactured in Mexico for Taco Bell and were distributed by Kraft Foods Inc. Michael Mudd, Kraft's vice president for corporate affairs, said the corn was bought by a Texas miller from farmers in six states, and that the miller had ordered a conventional form of corn.

"This is a serious issue and Kraft is doing everything we can to confirm whether or not this material is present in the product," Mudd said. "If it is confirmed, we will immediately take--in consultation with the FDA--all appropriate steps."

Biotech industry officials, however, questioned the testing techniques of Genetic Id, the Iowa company that concluded the unapproved corn was in the taco shells. At least once before, the company came to conclusions about the presence of genetically modified materials that were later proven inaccurate. Officials of Genetic Id, which does substantial testing of American products being shipped to Europe, have in the past been publicly skeptical about biotechnology.

Industry officials said testing for the protein is "not at all simple, and it is easy to get a false positive."

Aware of the sensitivity of the issue, the company repeated the tests on the taco shells, according to Genetic Id Vice President Jeffrey Smith. He said company policy is to duplicate each test, so the taco shell sample was actually tested four times using a process called polymerase chain reaction. Each time, he said, researchers found 1% of the corn DNA to be from the unapproved corn, and found the presence of other biotech material.

---

US Govt. Probes Biotech Corn in Taco Bell Shells

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
By Julie Vorman
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/pl/biotech_corn_dc_1.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is investigating a strain of bioengineered corn not approved for human food that may have crept into Taco Bell shells sold in grocery stores, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday.

News about the alleged unlicensed use of the corn variety in human food comes at a time when the Clinton administration is finalizing guidelines to use in approving new varieties of bio-engineered foods. The corn variety contains a protein that is feared might be an allergen.

Government regulators said if they determined the unapproved corn was in taco shells or other human food, the products would be immediately pulled off the market.

``This product is not licensed in any shape or form to be in products that human beings eat. If we find there was any infraction, then we're going to come down very very hard on those responsible,'' said Dave Cohen, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA and the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites), which share authority over gene-spliced foods, are jointly investigating.

Before the government considers any emergency action, it must first determine if the unapproved corn variety is in Taco Bell taco shells, as alleged by the anti-biotech environmental group, Friends of the Earth (news - web sites), according to an FDA official.

``If we do find this particular protein has been found in human food, we would immediately move to take the product off the market,'' the FDA official said.

Friends of the Earth and other members of the Genetically Engineered Food Alert coalition claim their samples of Taco Bell taco shells sold in grocery stores showed the presence of a Bt corn variety made by Aventis Corp.

The coalition was scheduled to release its scientific findings at a news conference later on Monday.

A spokeswoman for Taco Bell, which is owned by Tricon Global Restaurants Inc.(NYSE:YUM - news), was not immediately available for comment.

Corn Variety May Be Allergen

This particular corn variety has been approved only for use in animal foods because it contains a protein known as Cry9C, according to Stephen Johnson, assistant EPA administrator for pesticides. Scientists have blocked allowing the protein into human food for fear it might be an allergen.

``In the case of Cry9C, it is not readily digested. That's why we have not licensed this for human food consumption and have sought outside scientific opinion on whether this is a potential allergen,'' Johnson said.

Other varieties of Bt corn do not contain this protein, and have been approved for use in human food. Bt corn and cotton seeds are engineered to contain a naturally occurring plant pesticide known as bacillus thuringiensis, which is deadly for the destructive European corn borer.

The FDA is scheduled to release new regulations for genetically altered foods this month. The agency is widely expected to require food makers to have mandatory consultations -- instead of the current voluntary ones -- with FDA scientists before a biotech food can be marketed.

Several environmental groups have criticized the U.S. government for not requiring more safety testing and information from companies developing biotech foods. Seed companies and agribusiness contend that new kinds of gene-spliced corn, soybeans, tomatoes, squash and other foods undergo thousands of tests and safety checks before being released.

In April, a National Academy of Sciences study cautiously endorsed the safety of biofoods but urged the U.S. agencies that regulate them to do more to protect the environment and to monitor long-term health effects.

---

Biotech corn found in taco shells

USA Today
09/18/00- Updated 06:01 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm#strike

WASHINGTON - The government is investigating whether a variety of biotech corn that hasn't been approved for human consumption was used in taco shells sold in grocery stores under the Taco Bell brand, officials said Monday. The corn, which is genetically engineered to kill an insect pest, is approved for use only in animal feed because of unresolved questions about whether it could cause allergies to humans. Testing by an Iowa company found evidence of the corn in the taco shells, and a group of environmental organizations that are opposed to genetically engineered food announced the results in a press release. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration say they are looking into the test results.

-------- imf / world bank

Eastward bound Connie Mack

Washington Times
September 18, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/ed-column-2000916114929.htm

The Senate is poised to vote on whether or not to grant China Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), a status that we offer to over 90 percent of our trading partners worldwide. It will be one of the most important votes the 106th Congress makes. China has already agreed to several important trade concessions in order to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) and will become a member of this world organization whether the United States grants PNTR status or not.

How Congress votes will only dictate whether the United States can take advantage of the concessions that all other WTO members will enjoy, whether we allow our businesses to benefit from China's increasingly prosperous market of more than 1 billion consumers - and in turn allow American principles to influence the Chinese market. The economic choice is an obvious one; Congress should grant PNTR status to China.

By granting PNTR, American business will enjoy significantly lower tariffs when selling products in China. Tariffs on priority agricultural products will drop from the 1997 average of 31 percent to 15 percent by 2004. Overall industrial tariffs will be lowered from the 1997 average of 25 percent to 9 percent by 2005, and information technology products such as computers and semiconductors, which are major growth sectors in the U.S. economy, will face no tariffs at all.

Perhaps even more beneficial than tariff reductions, China has pledged to allow foreign firms to operate in many sectors of its economy now closed to them. Product distribution, insurance and banking are just some of the markets in which U.S. firms will be able to do business. In addition, the telecommunications sector will be greatly liberalized, allowing foreign firms to invest in and provide services for paging, mobile and cellular phones. China has also agreed to put in place import surge protections to shield U.S. manufacturers from the financial damage that can result from rapidly increasing import competition and to abide by other rules to protect firms in the United States from dumping by Chinese firms.

Approving PNTR assures that all concessions made by the Chinese apply to the United States. On the other hand, if the United States does not grant China PNTR, it will be in violation of WTO rules which require that each member unconditionally grant equal tariff treatment to all other members. If this situation occurs, China will not be obligated to extend to the United States any trade concessions besides lower tariffs.

American firms will be locked out of fast-growing sectors such as telecommunications, while their European and Japanese rivals will begin to develop long-lasting trade ties. The United States will be denied the increased export markets and important protections for domestic industries that all other WTO member countries will enjoy.

In my home state of Florida, exports to China have grown significantly since China lowered its trade barriers. Florida's exports to China have more than doubled, growing 146 percent between 1993 and 1998, creating thousands of new jobs. This trend will only continue as China lowers tariffs on manufactured goods, such as chemical products, and removes burdensome restrictions on agriculture, especially for citrus.

Free trade benefits everyone. It enhances prosperity and develops markets - essential elements to the spread of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. China's entry into the World Trade Organization will enhance American competitiveness, further our national interests and benefit our trading partners. But we must enter into this agreement with our eyes open. China must comply with this agreement for it to have meaning. The United States must vigilantly seek enforcement of all agreements with China, including those addressing human rights and national security.

The PNTR vote will be one of the most historically significant decisions of this Congress. The economics are clear - granting PNTR will be good for businesses and consumers in the United States and China. Ensuring compliance may prove difficult, but we should not shy away from that challenge in light of the enormous opportunity that increased trade represents for our two nations.

Sen. Connie Mack, Florida Republican, is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.

-------- police

USA Today
09/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Indiana

Highland - Indiana State Police have severed the Highland Police Department's access to the FBI's criminal database after police brass allegedly covered up illegal usage of the system. A report to a committee that oversees the state data and communications system found that top Highland police officers routinely used their computer to illegally check criminal backgrounds of contractors and peddlers.

Ohio

Waynesville - Mayor Charles Sanders will appear on the November ballot as the Democratic candidate for Congress and as the subject of a mayoral recall. Residents sought a recall after Sanders accused the police chief of condoning racial profiling.

-------- spying

Pentagon alerted in '98 about Deutch

USA Today
09/18/00- Updated 08:00 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon10.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon was alerted in the summer of 1998 that former CIA Director John Deutch downloaded defense secrets to unsecured personal computers and was urged to assess the damage. But documents show it waited until last February to begin investigating.

Among those who were told that the CIA was recommending a Pentagon damage assessment was Defense Secretary William Cohen.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a spokesman for Cohen, said the secretary did not act in 1998 because the Pentagon was ''not in possession of any documentation from the CIA's investigative efforts.'' He said that when information was turned over last February, Cohen ''turned right around'' and ordered the probe now under way.

The Pentagon documents, obtained by The Associated Press, show that in 1998, Cohen was at least informed by his inspector general that the CIA had evidence that Deutch download defense secrets to personal computers.

Cohen finally ordered a review in February when he said information was received by the Pentagon ''for the first time.''

In the July 1998 memo to Cohen and his top deputy, acting inspector general Donald Mancuso wrote, ''The CIA believes it may be necessary for DOD (Department of Defense) to conduct an assessment of any possible security compromises identified in their investigation.''

The memo said the CIA was ''investigating allegations that Mr. Deutch created and maintained highly classified and compartmented documents and journals on a number of computers, including personal computers at his homes in Maryland and Massachusetts.''

The computers ''were regularly used'' in conjunction with Deutch's America Online Internet account and ''may have been used to transfer such information without regard to security procedures,'' the 1998 memo said.

Efforts to reach Deutsch and his attorney for comment were not immediately successful.

Last Feb. 9, Cohen sent the Pentagon's general counsel and the inspector general a memo that confirmed ''oral instructions'' provided two days earlier.

''On or about that date, the Department of Defense received for the first time certain material from the Central Intelligence Agency which the CIA inspector general gathered in the course of their investigation'' of Deutch, Cohen wrote.

''Included in this material is a lengthy journal reportedly kept by Dr. Deutch during the time he served as undersecretary of defense ... and deputy secretary of defense.''

A June 1998 memo from a Pentagon investigator to the inspector general gave further information on what the Pentagon had learned from the CIA at that time.

''Mr. Deutch kept very thorough journals, which include significant quantities of DOD classified and other sensitive information,'' investigator Mark Spaulding wrote.

The CIA believed that ''a damage assessment by DOD is required to protect the significant quantities of DOD information on the computers,'' Spaulding added.

Other Pentagon documents said Deutch was under investigation for maintaining the ''highly classified'' documents on his personal computers, and for carrying, in his shirt pocket, a 1,000-page journal on computer disks and cards containing classified information.

Deutch left the CIA in 1996 and now teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Quigley, the DOD spokesman, said the Pentagon inspector general and the assistant defense secretary for command, control, communication and intelligence are conducting separate, parallel investigations.

The inspector general's office is ''trying to track the hard drives and the floppy drives that were in Dr. Deutch's possession over time,'' he said.

The assistant secretary was ''doing the damage assessment'' mentioned in the July 1998 memo to Cohen, Quigley said. That probe is trying to ''look at the actual content of material that was present on those computers,'' he said.

---

Peruvian at Heart of Scandal Reported Arrested

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/ts/peru_leadall_dc_8.html

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Vladimiro Montesinos, the shady spy chief at the center of Peru's latest political crisis, has been detained, a judicial source said on Monday citing legal documents filed by Montesinos' sister.

The source said Ana Montesinos had begun legal action against the arrest, which local CPN radio said had been carried out by the military. There was no immediate confirmation that Montesinos had been arrested.

Montesinos, 56, was President Alberto Fujimori's right-hand man and head of the notorious national intelligence service (SIN) throughout the president's decade in power.

A scandal erupted last week when a video surfaced showing Montesinos, dubbed Peru's ``Rasputin'', allegedly bribing an opposition congressman to switch sides.

In a bombshell address on Saturday, Fujimori said he was calling new elections and would not run again. Prime Minister Federico Salas said on Sunday night Montesinos was still in Lima and had not been detained.

---

Spy Chief Reportedly Arrested in Peru

New York Times
September 18, 2000 Filed at 4:31 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Peru-Fujimori.html

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- President Alberto Fujimori's deposed security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, has been detained by the military, Peru's independent CPN radio reported Monday.

The radio station, citing an unidentified military source, said the order for the arrest was issued by Montesinos' close associate, Gen. Jose Villanueva Ruestra, commander of Peru's armed forces.

A Defense Ministry spokesman declined to confirm the report.

But Miguel Gutierrez, a reporter for the opposition newspaper La Republica said he had confirmed the arrest with high ranking military sources.

Montesinos has been at the center of a bribery scandal since a videotape emerged last week allegedly showing the shadowy intelligence man bribing an opposition lawmaker to defect to the president's congressional bloc.

Soon after the revelation, Fujimori announced that he would call new elections -- and not run as a candidate himself. It was a shocking announcement from the man who has led Peru for more than a decade, and who recently won a disputed election for an unprecedented third term.

The radio station said Montesinos was being held on the second floor of a building at a Lima air force base, where the National Intelligence Service has its headquartered.

The radio station said Montesinos' sister had already filed a request asking a court to order the military to free the 54-year-old security chief.

Montesinos -- once dubbed Fujimori's ``Rasputin'' -- had built a wide base of support inside the military during his years at the helm of the feared intelligence service. He was widely believed to control the judicial system, the attorney general's office and the military.

He was suspended from his position on Saturday when Fujimori announced he was ``deactivating'' the intelligence agency.

Fujimori's foes accuse Montesinos of spearheading smear campaigns against the president's opponents in the recent presidential elections. His intelligence service also has been linked to death squad killings and torture.

Analysts said the video, released Thursday, had caused an irreparable rift between Fujimori and his spy chief, who Fujimori had relied on to help maintain an overwhelming grip on power.

Military experts said Fujimori's decision to oust Montesinos was likely supported by discontented midlevel officers, fed up with Montesinos' meddling in the armed forces.

Before the reported arrest Monday, Fujimori appeared to be in control of the armed forces, and military barracks were reported to be calm.

Retired army Gen. Daniel Mora said before the reported arrest that he doubted Montesinos had enough pull in the military to launch a barracks revolt. He said opponents in the armed forces had enough power to ``dissuade any action Montesinos may want to develop,'' he said.

The elections to replace Fujimori will likely be held in six to seven months, Health Minister Alejandro Aguinaga said Sunday. Salas said Fujimori would remain in power until the elections took place.

Many in Peru's opposition want Fujimori out now.

White House spokesman Jake Siewert, traveling in Pennsylvania with President Clinton, said Sunday that the United States has been encouraging political reform since the May elections.

In light of Fujimori's decision to call new elections, Siewert said, ``We hope that all elements in Peru will work a peaceful and transparent process to achieve full democracy.''

Opposition leader Alejandro Toledo, who headed back to Peru from Washington on Sunday, said he is prepared to govern.

``I want to be president. I will be president. I am prepared to govern,'' Toledo told reporters during a layover at Miami's international airport. Arriving at Lima's Jorge Chavez International Airport, he told hundreds of cheering supporters that he planned to meet with other opposition leaders to discuss a unified candidacy.

Toledo, who had been Fujimori's main challenger, boycotted May's presidential runoff vote, charging the vote would be rigged. Fujimori won.

The video was the clearest evidence to date backing up widespread accusations that Montesinos' main function in Fujimori's government was to subvert Peru's democracy.

Fujimori lost his majority control of congress in this year's election. But he regained it before his July 28 inauguration amid allegations that Montesinos and his agents bribed and blackmailed opposition lawmakers to defect to Fujimori.

Fujimori came to power in 1990, and later teamed up with Montesinos to co-opt Peru's military, eliminating a time-honored promotion system based on seniority and merit.

Today, Peru's top military commands are filled with former army cadets from Montesinos' 1966 graduating class at the Chorrillos military college.

---

Pollard's Crime

New York Times
September 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/opinion/L18POL.html

To the Editor:

Re "Lazio and Hillary Clinton Clash on Donations, Taxes and Trust" (front page, Sept. 14):

In the debate between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Representative Rick A. Lazio, Tim Russert, the moderator, introduced a question concerning the candidates' positions on clemency for our client Jonathan Pollard by stating that Mr. Pollard had been "sentenced to life for espionage and treason."

Mr. Pollard has never been charged with or convicted of treason. He was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, conspiracy to commit espionage. The distinction is significant. Treason entails aiding an enemy of the United States. Mr. Pollard was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, conspiracy to deliver classified information to Israel, an ally of the United States. Mr. Pollard was never charged with intending to harm the United States or aiding an enemy of the United States.

ELIOT LAUER JACQUES SEMMELMAN New York, Sept. 15, 2000 The writers are lawyers for Jonathan Pollard.

-------- terrorism

Jordan Court Sentences Six Bin Laden Men to Hang

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/ts/jordan_binladen_dc_2.html

AMMAN, Jordan (Reuters) - Jordan's State Security Court Monday sentenced to death six Muslim militants it linked to Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden for plotting attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets in the kingdom.

The six, four of whom are at large, were among 28 militants standing trial on charges including possession of weapons and explosives, membership of bin Laden's group and plotting bombings during millennium celebrations last December.

The court also sentenced two other militants to hang but commuted their sentences to life imprisonment.

It acquitted six defendants and handed down 15-year jail sentences to the rest. Some of these sentences were commuted to between seven-and-a-half and 10 years.

``Due to the dangerous crimes and their effect on the country's economy I urge the court to impose the heaviest punishments on them,'' State Security Court prosecutor Mahmoud Obeidat said before Chief Judge Lieutenant Colonel Tayel al-Raqad pronounced the verdicts.

The verdicts will automatically be appealed to a higher Court of Cassation. Jordan has commuted all previous death sentences imposed for political crimes.

Lawyers Surprised

The defendants' lawyers said they were surprised by the harsh sentences.

``There is a political background behind these sentences ... It's to serve the Americans and to prove that Jordan is pursuing what they call terrorists,'' lawyer Jawad Younis said.

Hashem Kurais, another lawyer, said: ``I'm not satisfied with the court's verdict because there is no reason to sentence these people to death.''

Twelve of the 28 suspects were tried in absentia. The verdicts and sentences, the climax of a five-month trial, were read during a court session attended by the 16 detained defendants.

They had denied links to bin Laden and charges that they planned strikes at tourist sites frequented by Israeli and U.S. tourists.

``You are the criminals, Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest),'' shouted Saed Hijazi, 25, after the court commuted his death sentence to a life in prison.

Many militants in conservative Jordan fear Western tourism could harm Islamic values, a fear compounded by the arrival of Israeli tourists since a peace treaty in 1994.

The two men sentenced to hang who were at court are ringleader Khodor Abu Hoshar and Osama Sammar. Among prominent convicts sentenced to death in absentia was Munir Maqdah, a Palestinian guerrilla commander in Lebanon.

Links Denied

Maqdah denied any links to bin Laden and charged that Jordan was a tool in the hands of the United States and Israel.

``This verdict did not come as a surprise, for it is a politically motivated ruling made by Jordan to satisfy the United States and the security apparatus of the Zionist state (Israel),'' he told Reuters from the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon.

One of the acquitted was Issam Mohammad Taher Barqawi, 40, a spiritual mentor for many Muslim militants he met in Afghanistan who fought Soviet forces.

Most of those convicted are Arabs of Palestinian origin who believe in Israel's destruction.

A Jordanian Islamist living in Britain, Omar Abu Omar, better known as Abu Kutaida, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years for his alleged role in financing the group. Zein al-Abdeen Hassan, a Palestinian with an Egyptian travel document who lives in Pakistan and was said by prosecution to be a key bin Laden aide, was also given a 15-year prison term.

Afghanistan-based bin Laden is wanted by the United States on suspicion of masterminding explosions at two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 that killed more than 200 people.

---

Six sentenced to death for terror plans

USA Today
09/18/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#terr

AMMAN, Jordan - A military court sentenced six men to death Monday for planning terrorist attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets during New Year's celebrations in Jordan. The three-man State Security Court acquitted six others and handed down prison terms ranging from life to 7 years in prison for the remaining 16 men. Those sentenced to death ''had a determined will to carry out terrorist attacks against American and Jewish interests in Jordan,'' said Col. Tayel Raqad, the court's presiding judge. The verdict can be appealed.

------

Terrorist threats of death dog local author

Washington Times
September 18, 2000
By Laurent Thomet
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200091822167.htm

The FBI will investigate death threats against a Maryland man who is soon to publish a book on Islamic terrorism and the plight of black slaves held by white Arabs in his native Mauritania.

Mohammed Nacir Athie, a former diplomat from the racially divided West African nation, defected to the United States in 1989 to escape an ethnic pogrom in which tens of thousands of blacks were driven out of the country to Senegal and other neighboring nations.

In 1995, Mr. Athie estimates, there were about 300,000 slaves in Mauritania. Most, he said, are domestic workers for Arab families. Some are sold to masters in nearby nations such as Libya.

Though slavery has been outlawed in Mauritania, it continues, with trade in human chattel taking place out of the public eye among friends, families and business associates.

A recent State Department report says: "Mauritanians continue to suffer the effects and consequences of the practice of slavery over generations and of caste distinctions including the traditional existence of a slave caste in both Moor and Southern communities."

Mr. Athie, 49, has become an American citizen and resides with his wife and three school-age children in suburban Maryland.

"This death threat is not a good omen," he says.

"I just hope I will not be forced to live a life of seclusion," he says, citing the experience of British author Salman Rushdie, who lived in safe houses for years after Iranian extremists offered a reward for his death.

Mr. Athie, who is black, has been active in working to eliminate slavery. The practice, he says, continues in his homeland and throughout parts of North Africa despite being officially outlawed. He serves as executive director of the Washington-based International Coalition Against Chattel Slavery.

About a month ago, he began receiving crank calls while preparing to publish a book titled "Second Guess," an account of Islamic terrorism and slavery told through the eyes of a fictional Muslim-Jewish couple from Washington.

Though the book mixes fiction with fact, Mr. Athie said, the events are taken from real life. They range from the ongoing Muslim revolt in the southern Philippines to the hijacking of an Indian Airlines airliner by Islamic militants from Kashmir in December.

With the book due to be published on the Internet next month and in paperback in January, he received a telephoned death threat a week ago.

"I will bomb you; you know what I'm talking about," warned the anonymous caller, who in Arabic-accented English also insulted Mr. Athie with a profane racial epithet.

Mr. Athie turned to the FBI and was told to call his local police, which he did. Two Prince George's County police officers visited his house, but said there was little they could do. After inquiries by this newspaper, the FBI agreed to investigate his complaints.

"This could very well be a terrorist threat," said FBI spokeswoman Heather Hobson. She said the FBI employee who initially told Mr. Athie to call local police "must have made a mistake."

"I have no doubt the threats are related to the book," Mr. Athie said. "I don't know how they found out about it. I don't want to be a hero, but there is a real problem with Muslim society that needs to be addressed."

His book "is not attacking Islam. It is attacking bad Muslims who practice terrorism or slavery. . . . Race is the issue, not religion." Most blacks in Mauritania are Muslims, he said.

Mr. Athie came to Washington in 1989 as a diplomat, and two months later was asked to return to the Islamic republic. He declined, he said, because there was "a huge ethnic cleansing against black Muslim Mauritanians."

Between 1989 and 1991, Mauritania expelled tens of thousands of mostly black Mauritanians and others fled in fear, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. The situation in Mauritania "is not as bad as a decade ago," said Amnesty spokesman Alistair Hodgett, but the Mauritanian government is not investigating crimes committed in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Mauritanian Embassy in Washington declined to comment

-------- activists

World Bank-IMF Summit Protesters Have Prague Clerks Working Overtime

Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2000
By RICK JERVIS Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB969226037654713166.htm

PRAGUE -- As the world's top economic policy makers and bankers pack their bags for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, municipal clerks are working overtime to register all the protesters who want permits to stage demonstrations.

As of late last week, 205 protests had been registered for the 10-day event, said Martin Salek, spokesman for Prague 6 City Council. "Normally, we don't even get 200 for the entire year," Mr. Salek said. "We're working overtime here." The increased requests have spawned crisis committees for each Prague city council, weekly meetings with police and the media, and extended work hours for clerks, he said.

The Communist Youth Union plans a four-hour march through the city on Saturday, starting in Prague 8 and ending at the Congress Center in Prague 4, site of the meetings and not far from a rally held by supporters of the Defense of the Environment group. (Prague is divided into 10 numbered neighborhoods, each with its own city council and police force.)

Meanwhile, supporters of the Civic Democratic Party will hold rallies every day of the meetings at Wenceslas and Old Town squares, both heavily traveled areas. The Initiative Against Economic Development, the umbrella group planning many of the protests, will demonstrate in Prague 2's Namesti Miru square, while skinheads plan to march on Letna Park in Prague 7.

And those are just the protests granted official permission. Some demonstrators plan protests without city approval, such as Ludvik Zifcak, whose leftist United Front political group was denied permission to protest by Prague 4 officials.

"Of course, we will not respect it," Mr. Zifcak told Czech reporters after hearing the decision. "We will not respect a decision made by Prague clerks. We will try to get to the places [where the protests were planned] at any cost."

----------

European Fuel Protests Pick Up Speed

Yahoo News
Monday September 18
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000918/wl/energy_protests_dc_1.html

OSLO (Reuters) - The wave of fuel price protests sweeping through Europe regained momentum Monday after a weekend lull, while shaken governments scrambled to limit the political fallout.

Monday's protests centered on Scandinavia but blockades sprang up at the Spanish port of Barcelona and in Slovenia, while Israeli truckers threatened to stage their own demonstrations from Tuesday.

In Norway, demonstrators blocked 11 oil terminals at key ports along the south and west coasts, but later called off their protest under the threat of police action.

Swedish truckers and farmers partially blockaded southern ports and ferries Monday in protest at a planned increase in the tax on diesel fuel. The protests were expected to involve about 400 drivers and stop traffic from ferries between Sweden and Denmark and Sweden and Germany.

Spanish fishermen, meanwhile, sealed off Barcelona's port and truckers laid siege to fuel distribution points in the center of the country.

Drivers throughout the continent, dismayed at rising prices of gasoline and diesel sparked by higher world oil prices, have been demanding their governments reduce the tax burden on fuel.

Some, like France and Italy, have made concessions while Britain and others have refused to budge. Most, however, have agreed to discuss truckers' demands and are planning to appeal to OPEC (news - web sites), under the auspices of the G7 group of advanced countries, for more crude output to bring prices down.

In Britain, where fuel supplies were gradually returning to normal after last week's blockades, Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) was assessing the political damage.

Conservative opposition leader William Hague called the protests ``a genuine taxpayers' revolt'' and said tax was now ''the hottest domestic political issue'' facing Britain.

A weekend poll put the Conservatives ahead of Labor for the first time in eight years after the protests prompted a shortage of fuel and supplies not seen in Britain since the 1970s.

In Germany, the government was due to discuss Monday how to ease the pain of high fuel costs but the center-left ruling alliance appeared split over tax breaks.

Talks were also due this week in Ireland, where hauliers have promised to refrain from protests for the time being.

Norway Protests

Norway -- the second biggest oil exporter in the world behind Saudi Arabia -- had escaped the first days of protests even though it has some of the highest gasoline and diesel prices.

Monday, however, hundreds of truckers blocked terminals in Oslo, Fredrikstad, Toensberg and Stavanger, all on the southern coast, and two terminals and the Mongstad oil refinery near Bergen in west Norway.

The hauliers announced the blockade last week after Labor Finance Minister Karl Eirik Schjoett-Pedersen refused to promise fuel tax cuts in a draft 2001 budget.

But the protests ended after a few hours when the state oil company Statoil threatened to bring in the police.

``Statoil has reported the blockade to the police and we have therefore decided to call off the demonstrations immediately,'' the truckers said in a statement.

Demonstrations in Spain began last Friday and resumed with a vengeance Monday as fishermen effectively sealed off the port of Barcelona.

``There's no way in or out,'' said a source at the Port Authority in Barcelona. ``Negotiations are going on with a representative of the fishermen.''

Two large cruising vessels were stopped just outside the port and around 200 fishing boats were unable to set out for their daily catch, officials said.

In the central region of Castille and Leon, the main grain-producing region, farmers blocked at least three fuel distribution points, state radio said. Police were trying to break up the demonstrations.

---

Fishermen block Barcelona port over fuel

USA Today
09/18/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#terr

MADRID, Spain - Fishermen angered by rising fuel prices blocked the entrance to the port of Barcelona on Monday as the Spanish government held last-ditch negotiations to avert nationwide fuel protests. Talks with groups that are part of the National Platform of Fuel Consumers were scheduled for Monday evening. About 20 fishing boats dropped anchor just outside the mouth of Spain's second-busiest port before dawn. At least 13 vessels were waiting to dock in Barcelona and a cruise ship was diverted to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. The coalition is threatening to put a stranglehold on the national fuel supply with blockades unless the government lowers taxes that account for as 60% of the pump price in Spain.

---

USA Today
09/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Pennsylvania

State College - A Penn State student punished for hanging a protest banner outside a National Governors' Association meeting on campus says university discipline is uneven. Justin Leto is on deferred suspension although trespass charges were dropped. Other critics of the university's student justice system say its process doesn't ensure Fifth Amendment rights or attorney representation. A school spokesman says the system is fair and is supported by students.

-------

NucNews - Please circulate -- help educate! - http://prop1.org

1. How To Save 75% Of U.S. Electricity - Amory Lovins
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

2. NucNews 00/09/18 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

3. Revised draft Judiciary Subcomm testimony, NWWAVARCHA draft and documentation
From: easlavin@aol.com

4. September 21, 2000 2141 Rayburn: House Judiciary Immig and Claims Subc
From: easlavin@aol.com

5. Very Interesting:Judiciary "Veryllium" Hearings at a Different Rayburn Room
From: easlavin@aol.com

6. Nongovernmental Organizations Opposing the Use of
From: Bernd Frieboese <bernd@barseback.de>

7. URGENT/PROTEST: UT Moving Morgan's Papers to DOE ORO/Health Physics Society
From: easlavin@aol.com

8. Call Oprah Show & G.W. Bush Tuesday - Have PHONY Question Ready For Screeners
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

9. Minatom Estimates 30 Russian Nuclear -Submarines Are Ready To Sink!!!
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

10. NucNews 00/09/19 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

-----------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

How To Save 75% Of U.S. Electricity - Amory Lovins
http://www.ccnr.org/Lovins_figure_4.html
http://www.ccnr.org/amory.html#acc

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

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

NucNews 00/09/18 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements

[Today's daybook is non-nuclear, but focuses on Israel, Russia, and the Balkans.]

Washington Times Daybook,
September 18, 2000,
Agence France Presse
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000918215432.htm

Peres speech - 9:30 a.m. - The Georgetown University Center for Arab Studies presents a lecture by Shimon Peres, regional cooperation minister and former prime minister of Israel, on "Middle East: Prospects for Peace in the New Millennium." Location: Georgetown University, 37th and O streets NW, Washington, DC. Contact: 202/687-4328.

8 p.m. - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Delivers keynote speech at a tribute to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Waldorf-Astoria, New York.

Russia discussion - noon - The National Press Club hosts a Noon Newsmaker news conference featuring a discussion on "Russia at the Crossroads." The speaker is Boris Berezovsky, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Location: First Amendment Room, National Press Club, 14th and F streets NW. Contact: 202/662-7593.

Balkans discussion - 4 p.m. - The Georgetown University Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies hosts Warren Zimmerman, former U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, for a discussion of "U.S. Policy in the Balkans: Priorities for a New Administration." Location: Room 205, Old North Building, Georgetown University, 37th and O streets NW. Contact: 202/687-4328.

Biorefineries seminar - 1 p.m. - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosts a biorefineries seminar, regarding private sector efforts to develop bio-based fuels and chemicals. Irshad Ahmed, Pure Energy Corp., participates. Location: 1615 H St. NW. Contact: 202/463-5682.

-- PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Presidential appointments briefing - 10 a.m. - The Brookings Institution hosts a presidential appointee initiative news briefing on how appointments and the selection process help shape the image of a new president and his team. The participants include: Stephen Hess, Brookings; Mike McCurry and Sheila Tate, former White House press secretaries; and R.W. Apple Jr., New York Times reporter. Location: Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Contact: 202/797-6105.

- George W. Bush - Arkansas and Missouri 11:00 a.m. - Remarks on tax cuts for families, St. Vincent's Infirmary, 2 St. Vincent Circle, Little Rock, Arkansas, (501) 603-6000 2:45 p.m. - One-on-One with local citizens, Gem Theater, 1615 East 18th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, (816) 842-1414 7:45 p.m. - Meeting with the Chicago, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #7, 1412 West Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois

- Al Gore - Las Vegas, Nevada 4 p.m. - Accepts the endorsement of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas.

- Ralph Nader - unknown

-- ANNOUNCEMENTS --

- Today is DAY 56 of the Vieques Fast - 36 days on water only. See www.viequesfast.org.

- A Force More Powerful - Just reminding everyone of the upcoming documentary on PBS... Premiere Broadcast: September 18 and 25, 2000, 9:00 pm (check local listings)

The PBS website announces two upcoming public television programs about the use of nonviolent action in India (Gandhi), South Africa (anti-apartheid), the U.S. (civil rights), Denmark (WWI against Nazis), Poland (Solidarity) and Chile (democratization). It is said to be particularly useful for training purposes since it gives an extensive behind-the-scenes look at *preparations* for nonviolent actions.

A Force More Powerful tells the story of how nonviolent power overcame oppression and authoritarian rule in many pivotal conflicts during the last 100 years. The two 90-minute television programs show how popular movements using nonviolent sanctions toppled tyrants, thwarted occupying armies, and secured justice and human rights. The series profiles Mohandas Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign against the British in India; the sit-ins and boycott that desegregated downtown Nashville, Tennessee; the nonviolent campaign against apartheid in South Africa; Danish resistance to the Nazis in World War II; the rise of Solidarity in Poland; and the momentous victory for democracy in Chile.

The companion Web site, including extended interviews, maps, photographs and an interactive timeline will allow viewers to explore these and other nonviolent conflicts in depth. As an educational tool, the site will feature lesson plans built around the major themes addressed in the series and a comprehensive list of print and online resources. An interactive forum will offer site visitors from around the world the opportunity to pose questions or to report on their personal experiences with nonviolent social change.

A co-production of York Zimmerman Inc. and WETA, Washington, D.C. http://www.pbs.org/weta/forcemorepowerful - [From: Carol Moore <mailto:Carolmoore@kreative.net>]

- THE CLOTH OF MANY COLORS - TWENTY-FOUR HOURS THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD - The Cloth of Many Colors goes to the UN, the US Capitol, and the Pentagon.

Hundreds of thousands of people from nearly every country in the world have contributed small swatches of cloth to be sewn into a peace quilt that is nearly a mile long. The project, called "Cloth of Many Colors," is a living prayer, and this September it will be presented at the United Nations in New York, hen wrapped around the US Capitol in Washington, DC, then finally the Pentagon. Please join millions of people for a twenty-four hour peace vigil beginning 10 am New York time on September 19th continuing to the same time on September 20th. The project began when James Twyman, renowned musician and author of the best-selling book Emissary of Light, was performing at a refugee camp on the border of Kosovo and Macedonia during the Kosovo war two years ago. Thirty thousand displaced people were present when Twyman helped lead a worldwide prayer vigil to bringing an end to the conflict. That night, in a dream, he saw those prayers being made into tangible realities, forming an enormous quilt that would someday be presented at the United Nations building. That dream is about to become a reality, and we invite you to be part of this amazing event. Hundreds of people have taken the small swatches of fabric and sewn them together into the Cloth of Many Colors. And yet there has still been no real marketing or exposure for the project, only the excitement and energy of people all over the world.

The Details: On September 19 at approximately 11:00 am the mile long quilt will be presented during a ceremony at the UN, part of Millennial Peace Day. Children from around the world will hold the cloth inside the UN, then walk with it outside to the UN Rose Garden where hundreds or even thousands of people will gather to pray. The World Peace Prayer Society will then present the flags of every nation of the world using the prayer "May Peace Prevail on Earth" as each country is named. A Prayer Shawl from the quilt will then be presented to the wife of Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and a special shawl to honor John Denver.

The next day, September 20, at approximately 8:30 am, the same cloth will be wrapped around the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC. Thousands of people will gather there to hold the quilt as it symbolically embraces the nation, and all nations. The Cloth of Many Colors will then be wrapped around members of Congress who will join in a ceremony of peace and forgiveness during a special breakfast in their honor.

Two days later, on September 22, the Cloth of Many Colors will be presented at the Pentagon in Washington, DC by both James Twyman and elders from many Native American Nations. One of these elders will be Chief Looking Horse who was present at the UN during the famed prophecy James Twyman recounted in several books. It was on April 23rd, 1998 when Twyman, Gregg Braden and Doreen Virtue sponsored "The Great Experiment," a prayer vigil that brought millions from around the world together in prayer. Mr. Twyman was at the UN with forty ambassadors when the prophesy was recounted by Betsy Stang: "Four years, four months, four weeks and four days ago, a group of native elders came to the UN to give their vision of the New World. One of the things they said was that four years, four months, four weeks and four days later something would happen at the UN that would change the world. This is the day these great men saw in their dreams." We believe that the Cloth of Many Colors is part of the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Join us in New York or Washington for the events that will unfold. If you are in the New York area on September 19 join us at the United Nations Plaza in the Rose Garden around 11:00 am. If you are in the Washington DC Area on September 20, meet us on the West Side of the US Capitol at 8 am. (for updated information go to: http://clothofmanycolors.com/) - [James Daniel McManis, Project Director]

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

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

Revised draft Judiciary Subcomm testimony, NWWAVARCHA draft and documentation

Good afternoon:

Enclosed is my draft House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims testimony, along with the revised Nuclear Weapons Workers, Atomic Veterans and Residents Compensation and Health Act (NWWAVARCHA), with fact sheet, section-by-section analysis and draft bill, which was developed earlier this year in consultation with CHE, Downwinders and sick workers and residents from around the country.

With kindest regards, Ed Slavin Box 3084 St. Augustine, FL 32085-3084 (904) 471-7023 (904) 471-9918 (fax)

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

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

September 21, 2000
2141 Rayburn: House Judiciary Immig and Claims Subc Hearing

September 21,
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, hearing on the following bills:
H.R. 675, Beryllium Exposure Compensation Act;
H.R. 3418, Energy Employees' Beryllium Compensation Act;
H.R. 3478, Federal Beryllium Compensation Act;
H.R. 3495, Department of Energy Nuclear Employees Exposure Compensation Act;
H.R. 4263, Atomic Workers' Compensation Act; and
H.R. 4398, Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Act of 2000,
9 a.m., 2141 Rayburn. (From Daily Digest, 9/15 Congressional Record)

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

Message: 5
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

Very Interesting:Judiciary "Veryllium" Hearings at a Different Rayburn Room No.!

AFTERNOON UPDATE:

The House Judiciary Committee majority staff can't even spell "beryllium" and has posted a hearing room (2237) different from the one in Congressional Record (2141). The website twice refers to the bills all concerning "veryllium" (sic) compensation, with no mention of nuclear weapons plants. Those who are very concerned about beryllium have a new malapropism to put in their letters and testimony: "veryllium."

You might wish to ask: If the House Judiciary Committee is in such a mad rush that it can't even spell the B-word right (beryllium), how are they going to understand the concepts about just compensation? Do they want sick workers and residents to have to wander around Rayburn from floor to floor, to hearing room to hearing room, or would they kindly let us know the correct room number in advance? :)

The House Judiciary committee Republican majority staff kinda reminds me of the one about George W. Bush being asked if he was dyslexic: he replied, "ON!"

G'day Ed

FULL COMMITTEE WEBSITE: Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims LIVE AUDIO 9:00 a.m. in 2237 Rayburn House Office Building Legislation hearing on: H.R. 675, H.R. 3418, H.R. 3478, H.R. 3495, H.R. 4263, and H.R. 4398, which all deal with compensation for veryllium(sic)-related illnesses.. Source: http://www.house.gov/judiciary/schedule.htm

SUBCOMMITTEE: Legislative hearing on H.R. 675, H.R. 3418, H.R. 3478, H.R. 3495, H.R. 4263, and H.R. 4398, which all deal with compensation for veryllium(sic)-related illnesses -- September 21, 2000 source: http://www.house.gov/judiciary/6.htm

-----------

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: Bernd Frieboese <bernd@barseback.de>

Statement by World Nongovernmental Organizations Opposing the Use of Plutonium (MOX) Fuel

PLEASE ADD YOUR VOICE TO OPPOSE PLUTONIUM FUEL --
Groups Please Sign the Nix MOX Action Day 2000 Statement Below.

To "sign on" please send your name, group name, city and state to Mary Olson <nirs.se@mindspring.com THANK YOU Questions? call 828-251-2060

We, the undersigned representatives of nongovernmental organizations around the world, call on the governments of the United States and Russia to forego the fabrication and use of plutonium (mixed oxide) fuel as a means to render surplus weapons plutonium unsuitable and unavailable for reuse in weapons, and demand that they pursue safer and more proliferation-resistant disposition methods.

We acknowledge that each country's declaration of roughly 50 metric tons of plutonium as surplus to military needs is a positive step toward worldwide nuclear disarmament and support the goal of preventing this plutonium from being diverted, stolen, or reused in weapons. In an attempt to achieve this goal, the US and Russian governments have agreed to a plan to convert most of this plutonium into mixed oxide (MOX) plutonium fuel for use in commercial nuclear power reactors (mainly light water reactors) in both Russia and the United States and possibly Canada or other countries. Russia also plans to use weapons MOX in plutonium breeder reactors, which are capable of producing more plutonium than they consume (though during the life of the program they will operate the reactors in such a way as not to produce more plutonium).

We oppose the MOX plan for the following reasons: - It would create a proliferation threat particularly while it is being transported to or stored at reactor sites, as the plutonium in fresh MOX fuel can be separated and used for weapons purposes. - It would establish a MOX infrastructure, thus encouraging reprocessing of plutonium-bearing spent fuel both in the US and Russia. Reprocessing generates vast amounts of high level liquid radioactive waste and increases stockpiles of separated plutonium.

(Russia has specifically stated that it would reprocess and re-extract the plutonium at the end of the disposition program.) - It raises many unresolved technical and safety questions as weapons-grade plutonium has never been used as a fuel in commercial reactors. At minimum, it would complicate safe reactor operation and increase the consequences of a severe nuclear reactor accident. - It is likely to take longer and cost more to dispose of plutonium using MOX compared to the current alternative, immobilization. - It would not prevent plutonium from entering the environment. It would merely incorporate it into high-level radioactive waste. - It would breach the barrier between civil and military nuclear activities and undermine global nonproliferation efforts.

We believe that immobilization is a far better option for plutonium disposition. It involves putting plutonium into a non-weapons usable form by mixing it with other materials and making the resultant waste form proliferation resistant, that is, resistant to theft and re-extraction by non-governmental parties or nuclear-capable states.

Under current US-Russian agreements, only the US will pursue immobilization and just for a portion of its surplus plutonium not deemed suitable for MOX. At this time, Russia is not planning on pursuing this option at all, and must be pressed by the international community to reverse its position.

We believe the full amount of plutonium declared surplus by each country should be immobilized and that research and development for immobilization, along with the necessary funding, should be increased to improve and further develop this technology. In the period before immobilization technologies are available, all plutonium should be stored securely and safely and placed under international safeguards.

Further, we believe that any plutonium disposition program must ensure public access to information including, but not limited to: adequate notification of decision timelines, information on program costs, knowledge of operating records of the various actors involved, detailed data on projected environmental impacts, and reliable data on safety and health risks. The public in the communities most directly affected in both countries should have ample opportunity for meaningful input into the decision-making process, including the right to intervene legally.

In both countries there should be sound independent oversight of the program and all aspects of the program should adhere to all relevant environmental or public process laws.

Therefore, we, as concerned colleagues across the globe who embrace efforts to reduce nuclear arms and safely dispose of surplus weapons plutonium, declare International Nix MOX Action Day, September 28, 2000.

We pledge to expand a united international movement that will challenge every effort to develop, encourage, or use MOX fuel as a means of plutonium disposition, will work toward the goal of having all plutonium declared surplus, and vow to continue our efforts to ensure the isolation of plutonium from the environment. Signed,

Pat Ortmeyer Women_s Action for New Directions
Kathy Crandall Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Kimberly Roberts Physicians for Social Responsibility
Michele Boyd Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Tom Clements Nuclear Control Institute
Mary Olson Nuclear Information Resource Service
Linda Gunter Safe Energy Communication Council
Bruna Nota, Michaela Told Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

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

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

URGENT/PROTEST: UT Moving Morgan's Papers to DOE ORO/Health Physics Society

Good evening:

I understand that Dr. Karl Z. Karl Morgan's papers about to be taken and carried out of UT Library Special Collections and moved to the custody of the local Health Physics Society and in secure storage at the DOE Federal Building. I think that this is a clear and present danger to investigation of radiation exposure problems in Oak Ridge, and must be stopped.

UT would not lend the Kefauver collection to the Republican Party -- how dare they lend the Morgan collection to the Health Physics Society, of which he was sharply critical before his death, criticizing it in his memoirs?

Does anyone agree with me that this would be a conflict of interest and could result in loss or spoliation of material evidence, including his papers about radiation safety issues? Dr. Morgan wrote in his book, The Angry Genie: A Walk Through the Nuclear Age (Oklahoma University Press 1999) about destruction of evidence and supppressionof scientifice information. It would at best be ironic if his papers were acquired by DOE ORO as a result of the University of Tennessee being given a sweetheart contract to co-manage Oak Ridge National Laboratory. See Karl Z. Morgan, supra,, at 60, 55, 59-60, 84-102, regarding "lax health physics regulations at Y-12" compared to ORNL, racist attitudes of scientists toward who should cleanup spills (African-Americans), criticality accidents due to racist attitudes and lax training, and de facto and de jure human experiments, including the deliberate pollution of White Oak Lake with radiation on assumption it would be diluted by Clinch River, serious waste problems ignored by AEC for years, with modest funding for waste disposal repeatedly rejected. Dr. Morgan was told: "Why not just dilute the radioactive waste to the occupational maximum permissiblble concentration, discharge it into White Oak Creek where it will seep into Clinch River, and forget it?" Id. at 85.

The late Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, the father of health physics, writes that anyone who challenges the nuclear industry: "must be prepared to withstand political, economic and professional attacks. For example, when I publicly criticized the majority of health physicists (for not stepping forward to assist injured workers in cases during a keynote speech in 1985 before union workers, Dr. Clarence Lushbaugh promptly responded in the Oak Ridger by equating that with the lowest species of "animals that befoul their own nest." Id. at 82-83.

Whistleblower retaliation is rampant in Oak Ridge. Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, the father of health physics wrote before his death: "No society that severely restricts freedom of speech will ultimately survive."

Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, the father of health physics, writes in his 1999 memoirs about how free speech was (sometimes) treasured in the early days of Oak Ridge, as when Dr. Alvin Weinberg was Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The late Dr. Morgan writes that Dr. Weinberg not only tolerated but sought employees who had the guts to disagree with them. They did not behave like so many other [ORNL] directors who only want to look in the mirror and see a reflection of their own views. Id. at 66 (Emphasis added).

The AEC/DOE/ORNL system did not follow Dr. Weinberg's example. DOE prefers "yes people" who will not disagree or report problems. Even top-level ORNL officials must be "team players" and toe the line or be fired for disagreeing with nuclear industrial management. In 1969, Dr. Weinberg wrote that "We in Oak Ridge [are] living in a sheltered and pleasant scientific lotus-land." In 1972, Dr. Alvin Weinberg raised concerns about nuclear reactor safety in a meeting with then-Representative Rep. Chet Holifield, a nuclear industry zealot, who said:

"Alvin, if you are concerned about the safety of reactors, then I think it may be time for you to leave nuclear energy." Dr. Weinberg succinctly states, "I had never been fired before."

When Dr. Karl Morgan prepared an unclassified talk discussing the pros and cons of the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) and nuclear proliferation concerns, his paper was withdrawn, destroyed, censored and resubmitted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory management without his permission, while he and his wife were on vacation. Dr. Morgan was told he was "jeopardizing the welfare of the laboratory" by criticizing management and thereby risking contracts for LMFBR work. Dr. Morgan was retaliated against by ORNL directors for criticizing the LMFBR: they continued their blacklisting campaign even when he left Oak Ridge and taught at Georgia Tech: they wrote the President, "deploring my stand and shaming the university for having me on its faculty." The next day, Dr. Morgan was told his contract was not being renewed, denying him his pension after 9.5 years teaching graduate engineering, on six months short of pension eligibility.

As the late father of health physics, Karl Morgan wrote in 1999:

"It is one thing to know that government or industry needs to make a change. It is quite another to stand up and insist that the change be made. The world community of informed citizens simply must make government and the global nuclear ndustrial complex accountable in two key areas, nuclear waste disposal and nuclear arsenals."

Wanna bet that DOE and the Oak Ridge Oligarchy of Atomic Plunderers "lose" some of Dr. Morgan's papers if this plan goes through?

With kindest regards, Ed Slavin

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

Message: 8
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

Call Oprah Show & G.W. Bush Tuesday Re Nuke Power

Thanks to Edith for bringing this to our attention. My suggestion since these people & shows have screeners- they don't want substantive questions or real challenges made, is to concoct an interesting, phony question that in the mind of any screener will interest/entertain the audience without being meaningful & when you get on read to Bush the following brief URL http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/rickover.html stating that there's a cover up being perpetrated by Former President Jimy Carter, DOE & NRC since the 3 Mile Island accident that if made known to the public would end the entire commercial nuclear industry according to Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy. Then ask Bush since this is a matter of national security if he's be willing to get on the air with Dr. Roslaie Bertell or any of the other people that were summarily fired from the public sector of Jimmy Carter's "Blue Ribbon" Panel to discuss just what dangers there are, why such UNDEMOCRATIC, massive lies continue and what, if anything he [Bush] plans to due about it. Dr. Rosalie Bertell's signed, notorized statement on this cover up & dismissal of the public sector of the panel can be viewed at: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell.html

Let's expose this MASSIVE, ONGOING lie once & for all & put an end to ALL commercial nukes as Admiral Rickover so feared & later regretted for not having done so & perpetrated this cover up on the public.

I don't have a phone# for the Oprah show & am not too familiar with her show but she's got a web site that a search will turn up. The phone# may or may not be posted on the air.

-Bill Smirnow

Hi,

I think its a good suggestion and decided to foward your message to everyone on the list. If more people try it will have a better chance of getting through.

The question does transcend both parties. If Bush answers I wager he would not hesitate to support nuclear production.

Edith Gbur -

Tomorrow, Governor Bush is scheduled to appear on Opra's show. Viewers have been invited to ask questions of him. Why don't you pose this question ? i.e. would he spurn any attempt to resurrect the nuclear industry at a world conference? I think that this issue transcends both parties and is in fact part of the boiler industry's never ending quest to foist their wares whether it be via nuke plants or incinerators. The annual Bohemia grove meeting in California decides this for all of us with the power brokers of both parties...

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

Message: 9
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

Minatom Estimates 30 Russian Nuclear -Submarines Are Ready To Sink!!!
THE LEGACY OF SUNKEN N-SUBMARINES
The Hindu 19 Sept 2000 Features

THE RECENT Russian nuclear submarine Kursk's sinking focusses media glare on undersea operations and its hazards. This disaster should not come as a surprise because nuclear submarines have sunk earlier and will probably sink again - people have died and will continue to die - unless we learn from our mistakes. Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) has estimated that 30 Russian nuclear submarines which have been laid off for more than 15 years without maintenance are also ready to sink! While the history of submarine disasters has generally remained a secret, the Kursk went down under an international media blaze.

No navy in the world would like to expose its submarine operations since these `silent stealthy killers' are often deployed at sensitive spots in the sea like foreign harbours and well traversed choke points. These underwater vessels are also used even during peace time for active duties for shadowing to `mark'/`counter-mark' warships and submarines during exercises. Therefore revealing their positions would involve considerable embarrassment to the country concerned. As Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, a spokesman for Pentagon, said on August 15: ``We don't discuss submarine operations other than to say that our submarines operate throughout the waters of the world. But we don't discuss specifics of submarine operations or their locales.''

Cold War mindset

Perhaps this explains why the Russians hesitated in asking for external help till much later. Few are aware that the Cold War mindset still persists underneath the sea. Russians claim that the U.S. submarines normally operate near Russian coastal waters and carefully mark their naval units during exercises. The Kursk appears to have sunk after a naval exercise while being marked by two American and/or a British submarine in the Barents Sea. During 1992-93, U.S. submarines collided with Russian submarines in the same area where the Kursk sank. The recent down trend in Russian-American relations due to the ``eastward expansion'' of the NATO and the controversy regarding the National Missile Defence (NMD) System might also have weighed heavily on the Russian mind before seeking help for the submarine rescue.

Possibly Russian naval pride backed by the experience of handling nearly 190 nuclear-powered submarines during the late 1980s and the early 1990s was another consideration against seeking foreign assistance. They probably thought that they could handle the mess themselves but in the process badly bungled the job. Even in the best of times the former Soviet naval underwater fleet had been dogged by poor training, construction and design of nuclear submarines which were built at breakneck speed and resulted in numerous reactor accidents, fires, explosions and other problems. However these disasters were rarely publicised in keeping with the submarine traditions of secrecy.

It is only now that the skeletons of the past are tumbling out of the cupboard, revealing fatal and serious accidents of various types involving Russian nuclear submarines. They include 10 major reactor accidents, which led to radioactive leakage, four major fires, a unique case of hijacking of the formidable, fully armed Akula class nuclear submarine from the Skalisty naval base by a 19-year-old recruit, (which led to the tragic death of eight sailors) and another case of K429 (a Charlie class nuclear submarine similar to the INS Chakra leased to India from the former Soviet Union) which sank on June 23, 1983 in the Savannaya Bay and was salvaged but went down again alongside the jetty on September 13, 1985. The incident led to the loss 16 lives and the imprisonment of the submarine commander.

A particular pattern

The Russians are undoubtedly guilty of the maximum number of sunken nuclear submarines lying on the ocean floor with their potential for radiation hazards. There are five such submarines (four of these were from the Northern Fleet), all of which have followed a particular pattern prior to their sinking. While most sunken submarines have conformed to this pattern the Kursk has not done so. All the submarines have caught fire while underwater on their return from `war patrols'. Efforts made to salvage them on surfacing have resulted in ingress of water and loss of the control post. As a result there has been a loss of buoyancy and stability of pitch thereby ultimately capsizing. Fortunately in all cases the nuclear reactors have been shut before sinking.

The five Soviet submarines, which sank, were the K-27, due to a reactor problem on May 24, 1968, which released radiation contaminating the entire submarine. It was finally scuttled (deliberately sunk) in the Kara Sea in 1981. Then there was the K-8, a November class nuclear submarine, which sank on April 8, 1970 in the Bay of Biscay and 52 people perished. Unbelievably the accident was kept secret till 1991. The K-219, a Yankee class strategic nuclear submarine, sank off Bermuda with 16 ballistic missiles on board on October 6, 1986. Four lives were lost. Rumours had it that the fires in the submarine broke out due to collision with a U.S. submarine. The 6,400 tonne Mike class nuclear submarine K-278 (Komsomolet) with an a ultra modern titanium hull capable of diving till 1000 mts. sank on April 7, 1982 south of the Bear island in the Norwegian Sea with its two nuclear reactors and two nuclear warheads. Forty one lives, including that of the commander, were lost.

The Kursk K-141 was an Oscar II type, 13,900 tonnes modern nuclear submarine (type 949 SSGN) commissioned as recently as June 1995. It did not follow the typical pattern and sank on August 12, 2000 in the Barents Sea presumably due to two explosions in the torpedo tubes. According to rumours the accident occurred due to a collision with a U.S./British submarine.

Peace time accidents

The U.S. Navy too has had a long and unenviable track record of submarine accidents since it started operating them from October 12, 1900. There have been 26 peace time accidents of which six were involved in explosions/fires, three were involved in flooding and seven submarines sank due to flooding while operating underwater. Two of these seven were nuclear submarines which still lie at the bottom of the ocean. The two are USS Thresher (SSN 593), which sank on April 10, 1963, 350 km east of Boston during a test dive killing all 129 crew. The other incident involved USS Scorpion (SSN 589), which sank on May 21, 1968, 640 km southwest of the Azores, due to a suspected torpedo malfunction (investigated to be untrue) killing all 99 crew on board. It has been rumoured that the Soviets had at one time made serious efforts to salvage one of these submarines to acquire the codebooks and cipher machines, not for any humanitarian and environmental concerns.

The media glare over the Kursk has come to associate only Russian submarines with disasters which is not really the case. Navies internationally associate submarine operations with daredevilry and several countries have suffered major submarine accidents during peace time operations. These include Denmark, the U.K., France, Israel, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Spain and Turkey. Some of these have been nuclear submarines like the British HMS `Warspite', which had a major fire on board. Sunken nuclear submarines not only involve a risk to its crew but also the radiation dimension which can cause havoc to the ecological balance of the oceans. Unless at least the reactors or the nuclear warheads of the sunken vessel is salvaged, sealed with a special material (like it was done for Komsomolets by the Russians), or placed in a sarcophagus (as in Chernobyl but now found leaking). Experts are still evaluating the effects of the Kursk on the nearby fishing grounds called Kildinbanken.

Partial transparency

The Kursk tragedy has enabled partial transparency to creep into submarine operations owing to media compulsions in the information age and rightly so. However this is only a first step considering that secrecy shrouds submarines operations. As Nikolay Survorov, the commander of the sunken nuclear sub K-429, said in his concluding speech during his trial ``If you do not say the truth others will not learn from bad experiences - more accidents will happen, more people will die''. The Russians acknowledged the loss of K-429 only in 1991.

P. K. GHOSH

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

Message: 10
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

NucNews 00/09/19 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements

Washington Times Daybook,
September 19, 2000,
Agence France Presse
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000919211429.htm

9:30 a.m. - Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing on U.S. policy toward Iraq. Location: 216 Hart Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3871.

Cuban sanctions hearing -9:30 a.m. - The U.S. International Trade Commission holds a public hearing, "The Economic Impact of U.S. Sanctions with Respect to Cuba." Location: Main hearing room, 500 E. St. SW. Contact: 202/205-1819.

Human rights briefing - 10 a.m. - The U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) presents a briefing, "Human Rights in Russia Today." Location: 2255 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-1901.

-- PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

- George W. Bush

Tuesday morning, September 19 - Oprah Winfrey Show, which will be broadcast across the country on Tuesday afternoon.

11:00 a.m. - Chicago, Illinois - Improving School Safety Discussion, Beethoven Academic center, 25 west 47th Street

6:15 p.m. - Lexington, Kentucky - One-on-One Discussion, Henry Clay High School, 2100 Fontaine Road, (859) 381-3423

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: There will an open press airport arrival at the Pittsburgh International Airport on Hanger Road in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Members of the media must be on site and set up at the Av Center by 8:30 p.m.

- Al Gore - Unknown

- Ralph Nader - This week

- Wednesday, Sept 20,

1:00 PM - Milwaukee, WI - Rally with Ralph Nader and Michael Moore, UW Milwaukee University, Student Union

5:00 PM - Madison, WI - Reception with Ralph Nader and Michael Moore, Madison Civic Center, Starlight Room, 211 State Street, RSVP to Robert McChesney (mailto:rwmcches@uiuc.edu)

7:00 PM - "A Wisconsin Night with Nader" Rally for Open Debates, With Ralph Nader, Ed Garvey, and Michael Moore, Followed by The Great Mobilization: DJs, Bands, & Videos, Orpheum, 216 State Street

- Thursday, Sept 21 -

12:30 PM - Ann Arbor, MI - Rally with Ralph Nader and Michael Moore, Michigan Theatre, 603 East Liberty; For more information: Michigan Greens (248) 398-8104

5:00 PM - Flint, MI - Rally with Ralph Nader and Michael Moore, James H. Whiting Auditorium, Doors Open at 4:00 PM, 1241 East Kearsley St.

7:00 PM - East Lansing, MI - Rally with Ralph Nader and Michael Moore, Michigan State University Auditorium at Farmlane and Auditorium Road, For more information: (248) 398-8104

- Friday, September 22 -

5:30 PM - Minneapolis, MN - Reception with Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, Target Center Hospitality Suite, for more info and to RSVP (mailto:leslie@votenader.org) - SUPER RALLY, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, with Special Guests Michael Moore and Granny D, 600 First Avenue North (downtown Minneapolis), Doors open 5 PM. Event begins 7 PM. To order tickets by phone: (612) 332-7170, For more info, www.MNGreens.org.

- Saturday, Sept. 23 -

5:30 to 7 PM. - Seattle, WA - Reception with Ralph Nader & Jim Hightower, Private Room at Key Arena Seattle, WA, For more info (mailto:leslie@votenader.org). The Key Arena - SUPER RALLY, Ralph Nader with Jim Hightower, Doors open 5 PM. Event starts 7 PM.

- Tuesday, Sept 26 -

3:00 - 5:00 PM - Pittsburgh, PA - Dinner and reception with Ralph Nader, Unitarian Universalist Church, Shadyside. RSVP to Paul Colaiaco, 412-951-6181

- Others -

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S SCHEDULE: Tuesday, September 19 Evening: Attends reception in advance of a performance of "Speak Truth to Power," a new play, based on a book by Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, by playwright Ariel Dorfman. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, 2100 F St. NW.

-- ANNOUNCEMENTS --

- Don't forget September 28th is International Nix-MOX Action Day. Please sign and send the following statement to: mailto:nirs.se@mindspring.com (Mary Olson). Questions? call 828-251-2060

Statement by World Nongovernmental Organizations Opposing the Use of Plutonium (MOX) Fuel

We, the undersigned representatives of nongovernmental organizations around the world, call on the governments of the United States and Russia to forego the fabrication and use of plutonium (mixed oxide) fuel as a means to render surplus weapons plutonium unsuitable and unavailable for reuse in weapons, and demand that they pursue safer and more proliferation-resistant disposition methods.

We acknowledge that each country's declaration of roughly 50 metric tons of plutonium as surplus to military needs is a positive step toward worldwide nuclear disarmament and support the goal of preventing this plutonium from being diverted, stolen, or reused in weapons.

In an attempt to achieve this goal, the US and Russian governments have agreed to a plan to convert most of this plutonium into mixed oxide (MOX) plutonium fuel for use in commercial nuclear power reactors (mainly light water reactors) in both Russia and the United States and possibly Canada or other countries. Russia also plans to use weapons MOX in plutonium breeder reactors, which are capable of producing more plutonium than they consume (though during the life of the program they will operate the reactors in such a way as not to produce more plutonium).

We oppose the MOX plan for the following reasons:

It would create a proliferation threat particularly while it is being transported to or stored at reactor sites, as the plutonium in fresh MOX fuel can be separated and used for weapons purposes.

It would establish a MOX infrastructure, thus encouraging reprocessing of plutonium-bearing spent fuel both in the US and Russia. Reprocessing generates vast amounts of high level liquid radioactive waste and increases stockpiles of separated plutonium. (Russia has specifically stated that it would reprocess and re-extract the plutonium at the end of the disposition program.)

It raises many unresolved technical and safety questions as weapons-grade plutonium has never been used as a fuel in commercial reactors. At minimum, it would complicate safe reactor operation and increase the consequences of a severe nuclear reactor accident.

It is likely to take longer and cost more to dispose of plutonium using MOX compared to the current alternative, immobilization.

It would not prevent plutonium from entering the environment. It would merely incorporate it into high-level radioactive waste.

It would breach the barrier between civil and military nuclear activities and undermine global nonproliferation efforts.

We believe that immobilization is a far better option for plutonium disposition. It involves putting plutonium into a non-weapons usable form by mixing it with other materials and making the resultant waste form proliferation resistant, that is, resistant to theft and re-extraction by non-governmental parties or nuclear-capable states.

Under current US-Russian agreements, only the US will pursue immobilization and just for a portion of its surplus plutonium not deemed suitable for MOX. At this time, Russia is not planning on pursuing this option at all, and must be pressed by the international community to reverse its position.

We believe the full amount of plutonium declared surplus by each country should be immobilized and that research and development for immobilization, along with the necessary funding, should be increased to improve and further develop this technology. In the period before immobilization technologies are available, all plutonium should be stored securely and safely and placed under international safeguards.

Further, we believe that any plutonium disposition program must ensure public access to information including, but not limited to: adequate notification of decision timelines, information on program costs, knowledge of operating records of the various actors involved, detailed data on projected environmental impacts, and reliable data on safety and health risks. The public in the communities most directly affected in both countries should have ample opportunity for meaningful input into the decision-making process, including the right to intervene legally.

In both countries there should be sound independent oversight of the program and all aspects of the program should adhere to all relevant environmental or public process laws.

Therefore, we, as concerned colleagues across the globe who embrace efforts to reduce nuclear arms and safely dispose of surplus weapons plutonium, declare International Nix MOX Action Day, September 28, 2000. We pledge to expand a united international movement that will challenge every effort to develop, encourage, or use MOX fuel as a means of plutonium disposition, will work toward the goal of having all plutonium declared surplus, and vow to continue our efforts to ensure the isolation of plutonium from the environment. Signed, [your name / organization]

- The following are a few of the current environmental job listings in EnviroOne's database. To view details of these and other current job openings, please visit http://www.EnviroOne.com.

- Industrial Waste Enforcement Supervisor (Promotional), Chicago IL. 2000 Salary range: $67,527.20 - $97,643.52/yr

- Environmental Policy Specialist, USEPA, Washington DC. Salary: GS 9-12.

- Environmental Scientists, USEPA (2 Vacancies), Washington DC. Salary: GS 11-13.

- International Program Specialists, USEPA (3 Vacancies), Washington DC. Salary: GS 9-13

- Environmental Health & Safety Supervisor, Colton CA. Competitive compensation plus excellent benefits package.

- Assistant Professor of Rangeland Watershed Management, Las Cruces, NM. Salary commensurate with training and experience.

- Country Director, Moscow and Khabarovsk, Russia. Salary: Applicants should send salary requirements

[From: "EnviroOne.com" <list@EnviroOne.com>]

- The interview by The Freedom Channel of Organizing Director, Van Gosse, on Peace Voter and Star Wars can be found from their website at http://www.peace-action.org/pvmedia.html or directly at http://www.freedomchannel.com/todays/index.cfm . James C. Bridgman <mailto:jbridgman@peace-action.org> - http://www.peace-action.org


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

DOEWatch List ----A Magnum-Opus Project
Subscribe online: http://www.onelist.com
DOEWatch page: http://members.aol.com/doewatch

1. How To Save 75% Of U.S. Electricity - Amory Lovins
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

2. Neil Aiken vs Pacific Gas and Electric
From: "Paul M. Blanch" <pmblanch@home.com>

3. Y-12 is open, and so are today's nuclear leaders
From: magnu96196@aol.com

4. Nun prays for peace during campout at Y-12
From: magnu96196@aol.com

5. Company to cap waste burial ground
From: magnu96196@aol.com

6. Letter to the editor----------Paducah Sun
From: magnu96196@aol.com

7. Letter to the Editor---------USA Today
From: magnu96196@aol.com

8. Council to consider cleanup plans, land swap
From: magnu96196@aol.com

9. Help the Atomic Vets get better presumtive illness coverage
From: magnu96196@aol.com

11. Call Oprah Show & G.W. Bush Re Nuke Power- Have PHONY Question Ready
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

12. Minatom Estimates 30 Russian Nuclear -Submarines Are Ready To Sink!!!
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

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

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 08:11:49 -0400
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

How To Save 75% Of U.S. Electricity - Amory Lovins
http://www.ccnr.org/Lovins_figure_4.html
http://www.ccnr.org/amory.html#acc

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

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: "Paul M. Blanch" <pmblanch@home.com>

Neil Aiken vs Pacific Gas and Electric The NRC has recently released its OI Report of Investigation addressing "Discrimination against Shift Forman by Management for Reporting Safety Concerns." The report may be found on the NRC's ADAMS web page indexed as Ascension number ML0037466473 or under title FOIA 2000-0207. If you recall, the DOL found that Mr. Aiken had been discriminated against and subjected to FFD, and had his security clearance removed. It appears that the DOL based its determination partially on the following evidence or "smoking gun." The following is directly from the DOL findings. "Shaffer also sent to Dr. Dietz a synopsis of the Fitness-For-Duty requirements and their interpretation by PG&E. This raises a question in the writer's analysis in that it would not seem necessary to provide this information to an independent evaluator of a person's mental condition in order to make a threat assessment used to then entertain the thought of sending the person for a fitness-for-duty evaluation. Dietz' role, according to PG&E, was not to perform a fitness-for-duty evaluation. There were a series of conference calls with Yang, Dietz and Shaffer between April 1 and June 1998 and according to Dietz' notes, they discussed FFD procedures and other topics were discussed such as buying Aiken out or promoting him to a job "where he can't do any harm" Dietz also speculates "lessening of outbursts has led to concern that he knows where he is going with this." Other notes by Dietz indicate "He could retire at age 55, but there are significant pension penalties associated with early retirement. He is 52. He is probably making $80-90K per year. . . PD suggested one way to handle this is to sanction him immediately for every insubordinate act and fire him the second or third time. If doctor finds him currently unfit ("Exhibit B"), that gives management the opportunity to buy him out. If medical evaluator imposes sufficiently stringent conditions, that may motivate Aiken to accept a buy out . . . PD (Dr. Park Dietz) thinks we could probably make legitimate case to get fitness exam. We would give the doctor the file and make it plain that Aiken is not to get the file, that this is management referral only . . they will lay out plans to management. If decision is to pursue fitness exam, they'll get back to me about my role, if any. PD would need to produce privileged and confidential report." The NRC's OI Investigation neither discussed or referenced these notes from Dr. Dietz and therefore came to the conclusion that there was no discrimination. Had it not been for the release of the unredacted DOL report, the "smoking gun" would have been lost in the Pacific ocean forever. Questions Did OI have a copy of Dr. Dietz's notes and if so, why did they choose to ignore this document? The NRC reviewed the DOL report and found it did not change its finding. Who made this determination? What other documents or interview revelations were ignored by the OI Investigation? Who within the NRC, was aware that Dr. Dietz's notes and possibly other documents "disappeared" from the OI Investigation? Dr. Dietz was the person recommending Mr. Aiken for FFD evaluation. Was Dr. Dietz interviewed by OI? Paul M. Blanch 135 Hyde Rd. West Hartford, CT 06117
---------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Y-12 is open, and so are today's nuclear leaders

September 18, 2000
By Frank Munger News-Sentinel staff writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/fm09182000.shtml

Bill Brumley and David Wall, key figures in the nuclear weapons program at Oak Ridge, sat down the other day to talk shop with members of the news media, and that in itself might qualify as news. It hasn't always been that way.

When I first started covering the U.S. Department of Energy in the early 1980s, Herschel Hickman was the defense chief in Oak Ridge, and he didn't sit at the same table with newspaper reporters and he didn't willingly talk about activities at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

In fact, if Hickman saw me walking down the street, he was apt to change his route rather than risk any type of verbal exchange.

His chilly approach to the news media may have been a personal choice, but it also reflected the Oak Ridge mindset at the tail end of the Cold War when Ronald Reagan openly dissed the "Evil Empire" and accelerated the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race.

Questions about Y-12's weapons work had to delivered to Hickman's office through intermediaries and, trust me, the answers didn't come back in real time or with much detail.

Things have changed.

That's not to suggest Brumley and Wall are blabbermouths. Much of the information tossed out during the recent briefing was couched in vague terminology and non sequiturs that blurred any news value. But it was interesting, nonetheless.

Brumley, Oak Ridge chief of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the quasi-independent agency within DOE that oversees the nuclear weapons complex, was intent on getting one message across:

Y-12 is not shut down. In fact, it is almost fully operational.

Brumley was concerned by a perception that the Oak Ridge plant is struggling to restart operations placed on stand down in the fall of 1994 (following a staff inspection by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board). He was seemingly distressed by news stories that reported on the forthcoming "restart" of enriched uranium operations at Y-12.

The defense chief said all but a small part of the enriched uranium operations already has been restarted. He acknowledged some chemical processing of the bomb-making material is not yet sanctioned, but again he emphasized that's a relatively small part of the Oak Ridge operations.

It's notable that Brumley wants people to know the warhead plant is going full bore. Not so long ago, federal officials would have been happy if local folks didn't have a clue about Y-12 activities.

As I noted during the session, however, it's pretty obvious some people realize Y-12 is still producing nuclear weapons parts. That's why the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance regularly stages protests at the plant's front gate.

Brumley and Wall, senior nuclear engineer in the Oak Ridge office, gave an overview of Y-12's work, much of which has been reported before, and answered a few questions.

I was intrigued by some of Wall's comments regarding the archiving of classified documents at Y-12.

The Oak Ridge plant has produced parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, and Wall said Y-12 maintains data files on every part ever produced, dating back to the post-World War II period when the plant made the transition from a uranium-enrichment facility to a bomb-making factory.

This is important, he said, as the United States re-manufactures new parts for old weapons systems, particularly now that nuclear testing is prohibited.

"We can replicate exactly any part that we've ever manufactured at Y-12 in all its history," Wall said.

The information stored at Y-12 reportedly goes well beyond the "Build Books" that contain specifications for component manufacturing, also including results from test explosions at the Nevada Test Site and associated data.

This is useful to weapons designers at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Labs who now must simulate weapons testing with supercomputers and high-tech equipment.

"They need to know exactly how something was built so they can model it," Wall said. " ... During these days when there's no testing going on, we are finding that all of that data has become more and more valuable."

Wall said most of the highly secret weapons documents are housed in the basement of a Y-12 building. He didn't offer too much more.

"Well, they are precisely filed," he said when pressed for more details.

"There are some folks that would like to see that historic archives upgraded - and indeed that will be one of the things we will upgrade as part of our plant modernization. It's a vault-type storage, obviously, because everything in there is very classified. I think we'd all like to see it stored in a much more modern, nice, pretty-looking building."

Is the vault temperature- and climate-controlled?

"I don't know," Wall said. "I haven't been down there in a long time."

Are there multiple copies of everything?

"Some of the old stuff, no," Wall said. "We are currently in a program that is reproducing and transferring some of that stuff to electronic media."

I thought the electronic duplication of paper documents was accomplished in the 1980s, but Wall said, "There is just so much of it, you can't do all of it."

The weapons designers typically establish priorities on what archived information needs to be compiled and in what format, he said.

It seemed surprising that information related to old weapons testing would be housed in Oak Ridge, but Wall explained:

"A lot of that information never left here. We would send data off to designers that they needed at the time, which during an era when they had the liberty to do testing, maybe they didn't need a whole lot. We archived everything. Well, now in an era with no testing -- this data becomes very important. So now we're having to go back and dig out some of these old archive files and regenerate them.

"In many cases, you're digging up files where the guy that put it together is long gone."

Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/.

==========

Comments:
The part of Y-12 that is not working is the chemical operation involving HF, which is nicknamed the greensalt operation. Its releases have harmed workers and the public, and it was a large component in the large fines that Y-12 received recently.

-----------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Nun prays for peace during campout at Y-12

September 18, 2000
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/

Mary Dennis Lentsch is praying for peace.

The Apison resident began a five-day retreat Sunday night that has her camping out in front of the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant.

Lentsch, a Roman Catholic nun, is a member of the Sisters of the Presentation and belongs to St. Stephen Catholic Church in her town near Chattanooga.

"I wanted to create a peace presence," she said. "I'm going to pray and reflect. I'm not going to cause any trouble.

"I just want to call on our government to stop building bombs. I see them as weapons of destruction and death. The money going for weapons is money that could be going for education, housing and medical care.

"It's important to choose life."

Lentsch's retreat commenced Sunday with the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance's weekly vigil held in front of the Y-12 Plant, which is owned by the Department of Energy.

Lentsch and those attending the vigil created a peace alphabet decorated with the words bold, good, hope, justice and love.

Oak Ridge police officers stopped by Lentsch's campsite Sunday night to inquire about her actions. The 63-year-old woman said the officers were very friendly and trusting toward her.

Lentsch, who has also participated in two retreats with the Sisters of the Presentation at the Nevada Test Site, says she will be camping out in front of the plant until Friday evening.

At night, she stays in a pickup truck with a camper on it and says she has a lot of blankets to keep her warm.

"I believe that each of us is called to work for peace and justice and we need to find that place S and move to action," Lentsch said. "This peace presence will make a change forever. I'm here as one person, but I just feel there are so many kindred spirits joined here that want peace."

When contacted this morning, DOE spokesman David Page said, "We support everybody's right to freedom of speech. This is an example of that right."

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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Company to cap waste burial ground

September 18, 2000
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/

A Colorado-based environmental remediation and engineering firm has been awarded a $12.2 million subcontract to cap the White Oak Creek waste burial ground that could result in improved water quality and reductions in the risk of radiation exposure near the site.

Bechtel Jacobs Co. LLC, which handles the Department of Energy's environmental management work in Oak Ridge, awarded the contract to MACTEC Inc. to remediate the Solid Waste Storage Area 4 radioactive waste burial ground and adjacent areas at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

MACTEC will construct a multilayer cap covering approximately 29 acres over the closed burial ground and an adjacent liquid waste seepage pit. Additionally, the company will erect groundwater collection and treatment features; remove several acres of contaminated soil along the floodplain of White Oak Creek; reroute Lagoon Road, which currently runs through the area to be capped; and create a borrow area to obtain soil for the cap.

The water quality of White Oak Creek should be improved due to significant reductions in contaminant releases from the old burial ground into streams, a press release stated. In addition, the cleanup of contaminated surface soils in a former holding pond along White Oak Creek will reduce potential risk from radiation exposure to workers and to ecological communities from mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls in the soil.

Around 75,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste were placed in the burial ground between 1951 and 1959, and numerous radionuclides are known to be present. Waste from other sites was buried there between 1955 and 1963, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a DOE predecessor agency, designated the site the Southeast Regional Burial Ground, and non-radioactive construction debris was placed in the site from 1959 to 1974.

The White Oak Creek project, which is to be completed by October 2004, is the first of several large burial ground capping projects that will be constructed as part of the remedy specified in the Record of Decision for Interim Actions for Melton Valley.

In June, Bechtel Jacobs Co. awarded MACTEC a $4.9 million subcontract for the demolition of 10 buildings at the Oak K-25 site.

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

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Letter to the editor
Paducah Sun

Dear Paducah Sun Editor,

Its election season and I am wondering if Paducah an's would be surprised to find a poison chemical plant similar to Bhopal in their backyards. The PGDP is a chemical processing plant just full of singly contained tanks that have a chemical even more dangerous than Bhopal's, lots of it, and it has been leaking, slowly. Typically, these plants lose 5% of their process gas, which is an extreme amount that causes harm to the region. If an aircraft ever crashes into this plant, the entire region would have to be evacuated and all the region permanently harmed.

Community investigations near the PGDP have found what appear to be health effects from living near this plant. Odd health effects like calcinosis have been discovered and problems with immune systems. How many neighbors to this plant know that the plant releases HF gas and this is an extreme poison that is a cumulative toxin that can damage the hypothyroid and kidneys that controls calcium in the body and that HF also damages white cells and macrophage that are the heart of the immune system? Other community ills may involve asthma and urinary cancers in kids, if this is surveyed.

An example of an injured worker at PGDP has been a person named Joe Harding, who had what appeared to be nails growing out of knee and ankle joints. HF can soak thru skin or be inhaled by workers in these plants and the toxic effects harden the tendons where they attach to the joints and these shards can protrude thru skin as they shear off. Workers exposed to UF-6 in the plants are exposed to HF and the fluorine in their bodies is a thousand times the uranium. The "nails" are signs of fluoride toxic effects and not radiation or toxic metals, yet these latter effects are the sensation ones that make the news and lawsuits. For the record, other worker ills connected to fluorides can be sweating with little exertion, asthma, arthritis, foggy thinking, fatigue, rapid aging, cancer, stomach problems, intestinal problems, kidney problems, back pain, retention of toxic metals, CFS, and so on. Lots of workers and community folks will have these effects.

The PGDP has long been telling half-truths about holes on UF-6 cylinders being self sealing and problems with leaking valves. The holes cake up with uranium and the uranium is contained, but these holes leak air and HF leaks out of these tanks, tons from even small holes over long periods of time. These leaks, plus all the thousands of others make for a toxic chemical fallout that gets into community persons lungs, bodies, and even in the milk and produce they consume from local farms. PGDP HF releases don't stop inside the buildings or at the fences; it has a long range downwind. Fluorides are widely used in insect pesticides and as rat killer, and this same toxic poison is rising in workers and local residents bodies, and it does cause a slow Bhopal like chemical poisoning effect. DOE has failed to inform the workers or public of these effects, some of which have been known for a 100 years, as fluorides poisoning was one of the first industrial poisoning effects seen.

Lots of press has been given to the Plutonium scare word, but not much attention is being focused on the Bhopal chemical poisoning effects around PGDP. DOE in OR and elsewhere set up a bunch of friendly non-profits ringers and fake environmental folks in the mid-80's that keep the attention off the real problems, and these actions are alive and working hard in this election season in Paducah to keep the focus off the most serious health problem. Why? The compensation for the real truth will be very expensive. In this election season, Paducah likely needs to know about the Bhopal in their back yard and that this chemical plant and its single shell tanks have been leaking poisons for years and it has made workers and communities sick, even killed some.

Perhaps this acid-laced question need to be asked of congress and election candidates that keep hoping their information control will hide these liabilities and many sick persons. By these continued actions, it appears our Govt. has lost it accountability, honesty, and ethics and with that the definition of Govt. is lost as well. Its election season, ask the truth seeking questions and return Govt. to the citizens.

Sincerely,
Jim Phelps

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

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Letter to the Editor
USA Today

Dear USA Today Editor,

Wonderful and thanks for Peter Eisler's USA Today series about the decades long cover up on violations of worker toxic exposures by the management of DOE contractors. This was a tremendous revelation and a shock to the American public, most of whom thought the Govt. would not allow these things to happen to workers.

We have a Govt. disaster in the making where congress fears this poisoning cover up exposes the country to too much liability and some are waffling under the duty to make things right. USA Today's series brought to the public eye that the Govt. did support poisoning workers and places all over the nation, and likely thousands are sick or dead.

The DOE/USAEC/ERDA also ran its main sites with the same techniques that caused harm to workers and even communities, and not too much different than all the fallout that rained down and affected the entire country with early illness and death. In regard to Govt. compensation for these improper actions, in comparison, coal miners are treated far better under black lung compensation than under RECA compensation for miners and fallout victims or the latest congressional proposals for the poisoned workers of DOE plants that totally omit what happened to communities.

The reason for this appears to be most of the legislation is written by the very polluter that made the persons sick in the first place. Its basically a case of the murderer getting to write his own get out of jail free legislation, by bribing the victims. This entire problem needs thorough and open congressional hearings and front page coverage for all to see, and close attention should be paid to the organized crime appearance of all this. This entire process went over the bounds for Govt. sanity and crossed thin blue lines of criminality.

The USA Today reports emphasized much of the radiation and toxic materials concerns, but omitted one of the very special problems linked to gaseous diffusion plant operations, that make these more like a Bhopal. The USA Today reports touched only slightly on the topic of HF in the report by IEER, where it mentions HF is extremely toxic. This is true, but there is more to consider.

The rest of the story on HF is the gas diffusion operations typically lost 5%, some lost 10%, of their process gas in operation and this gas turned into HF, and it highly affected the workers and downwind communities. This chemical toxic effect and others need to be at the same level of presumptive admission as the rest of the poisons in the legislation, and not shifted into more debates and denials of state systems.

HF and fluorides cause a wide range of chronic symptoms that predominate these workers illnesses. Symptoms range from unusual sweating, asthma, arthritis, cancer, thyroid damage, kidney damage, foggy thinking, increased toxic metal retention, fatigue, CFS, and other chronic conditions that produce disability and early death.

Admission by the DOE about the HF effects at the gaseous diffusion plants and other sites that used HF also will get into related poisoning effects seen in the Gulf War, where fluoride based nerve gas breakdown products poisoned vets with fluorides and they have symptoms much like the gas diffusion poisoned workers.

This too causes congress to legislatively try to dodge the bullet on the chemical poisoning effects of gas diffusion workers. Congress/DOD/DOE is after delaying these findings and minimizing the costs, but the bad part is the Govt. long knew they were poisoning these folks and making them sick and disabled.

To overcome these Govt dodge the bullet methods there needs to be some finger pointing and laying all the cards on the table and showing just what they knew and when they knew it. When that happens, the Govt looks more like a mafia and the criminal aspects of the worker and community poisoning should be considered. The victims should be allowed to be involved and the entire countries citizens duly informed that the Govt used national security excuses to such an extreme that it harmed workers, communities, and everyone in the country.

Congress with be discussing these issues soon, and the American public needs to know that these illnesses are not mysterious, but the direct result of poisoning of these workers, communities, and vets. They also need to know that the national security excuse harmed the citizens, then it was not national security at all, but only the deceit and treachery of poisoners covering up their trail of injured and dead.

Sincerely, Jim Phelps

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Message: 8
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Council to consider cleanup plans, land swap

September 18, 2000
by Amy L. Lee Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/091800/new_0918000036.html

Bethel Valley cleanup plans and a proposed land swap between the city and a private developer top a short agenda for Oak Ridge City Council's meeting tonight.

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building Courtroom.

Set to be adopted is a resolution authorizing the transmittal of the city's Environmental Quality Advisory Board's comments regarding the Department of Energy's plan for interim action in Bethel Valley to DOE.

The proposed plan for environmental restoration of the 1,734-acre Bethel Valley is geared toward restoring all creeks and streams within the watershed to current environmental standards.

According to Amy Fitzgerald, special assistant to the city manager, the plan serves as a comprehensive waste remediation strategy for the land. Waters from the property drain into White Oak Creek and ultimately are discharged into the Clinch River.

"Approximately 173 potential sources of contamination were identified; remedial actions are already under way at some of the sources," Fitzgerald states in a memorandum.

DOE's plan identifies the preferred alternatives for remediation of the Bethel Valley watershed, explains why these alternatives are preferred and describes other options that were considered.

It also summarizes results of environmental and engineering studies conducted for this area and describes the preferred alternative for environmental restoration measures in the Bethel Valley watershed.

This proposal includes demolition and removal of inactive facilities; removal of contaminated sediment from White Oak Creek, First Creek and Fifth Creek; extraction and treatment of groundwater to minimize further impacts to groundwater and to protect surface water; removal of contaminated surface soil; and land-use controls to prevent contact with buried waste, tanks, pipelines, subsurface soil and groundwater.

EQAB still has questions and concerns about some elements of the proposal, however.

"All alternatives considered would leave hazardous substances in place, which would require land-use restrictions for hundreds of years or more," the board states in its comments.

According to Fitzgerald, "The plan relies on controlling contamination at the source -- either by removal or isolation -- to reduce the levels of exposure, as well as placing restrictions on water resources."

She said city officials need to be aware that long-term stewardship will require controls, such as zoning, public advisories and deed notices, over a long period of time.

"Long-term responsibility for maintenance and funding of these controls ... have not been adequately addressed," she states.

In other business, EQAB Chairman Martin Cole is expected to request additional time for the board to review a document regarding the environmental impact of expanding civilian nuclear energy research and isotope production missions.

Included in the document are comments regarding the role of the Fast Flux Test Facility, which would be used to irradiate targets for medical and industrial isotope production, plutonium-238 production and research and development irradiation requirements.

Following the completed review, EQAB is expected to generate comments for transmittal to DOE and has already stated the board "feels that the work described in the (report) can be safely performed on the Oak Ridge Reservation."

Also to be presented for council consideration is a potential land swap between Rick Chinn and the city.

Chinn, president of R&R Enterprises, requested the swap of a .66-acre lot he currently owns for a city-owned 1.78-acre parcel of similar value. Chinn's property is Lot 60 located on the northeast corner of Lafayette Drive and South Illinois Avenue and was appraised at $115,000.

The city's property, Parcel 623, is a vacant triangle of land located across South Illinois Avenue from Lot 60 and was appraised at $124,000.

If council agrees to proceed with the exchange, Chinn plans to use the site for business development, and the city would use Lot 60 as a gateway location welcoming motorists to the city center.

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

Message: 9
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Help the Atomic Vets get better presumtive illness coverage
http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/oo_compose.pl?mailaddress0=il17&dir=dav&mes sage=131

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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

Call Oprah Show & G.W. Bush Tuesday Re Nuke Power- Have PHONY Question Ready For Screeners

Thanks to Edith for bringing this to our attention. My suggestion since these people & shows have screeners- they don't want substantive questions or real challenges made, is to concoct an interesting, phony question that in the mind of any screener will interest/entertain the audience without being meaningful & when you get on read to Bush the following brief URL[http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/rickover.html] stating that there's a cover up being perpetrated by Former President Jimy Carter, DOE & NRC since the 3 Mile Island accident that if made known to the public would end the entire commercial nuclear industry according to Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy. Then ask Bush since this is a matter of national security if he's be willing to get on the air with Dr. Roslaie Bertell or any of the other people that were summarily fired from the public sector of Jimmy Carter's "Blue Ribbon" Panel to discuss just what dangers there are, why such UNDEMOCRATIC, massive lies continue and what, if anything he [Bush] plans to due about it. Dr. Rosalie Bertell's signed, notorized statement on this cover up & dismissal of the public sector of the panel can be viewed at: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell.html

Let's expose this MASSIVE, ONGOING lie once & for all & put an end to ALL commercial nukes as Admiral Rickover so feared & later regretted for not having done so & perpetrated this cover up on the public.

I don't have a phone# for the Oprah show & am not too familiar with her show but she's got a web site that a search will turn up. The phone# may or may not be posted on the air.

-Bill Smirnow

Hi,

I think its a good suggestion and decided to foward your message to everyone on the list. If more people try it will have a better chance of getting through.

The question does transcend both parties. If Bush answers I wager he would not hesitate to support nuclear production.

Edith Gbur -

Tomorrow, Governor Bush is scheduled to appear on Opra's show. Viewers have been invited to ask questions of him. Why don't you pose this question ? i.e. would he spurn any attempt to resurrect the nuclear industry at a world conference? I think that this issue transcends both parties and is in fact part of the boiler industry's never ending quest to foist their wares whether it be via nuke plants or incinerators. The annual Bohemia grove meeting in California decides this for all of us with the power brokers of both parties...

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

Message: 12
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

Minatom Estimates 30 Russian Nuclear -Submarines Are Ready To Sink!!!

The Hindu
19 Sept 2000 Features
THE LEGACY OF SUNKEN N-SUBMARINES

THE RECENT Russian nuclear submarine Kursk's sinking focusses media glare on undersea operations and its hazards. This disaster should not come as a surprise because nuclear submarines have sunk earlier and will probably sink again - people have died and will continue to die - unless we learn from our mistakes. Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) has estimated that 30 Russian nuclear submarines which have been laid off for more than 15 years without maintenance are also ready to sink! While the history of submarine disasters has generally remained a secret, the Kursk went down under an international media blaze.

No navy in the world would like to expose its submarine operations since these `silent stealthy killers' are often deployed at sensitive spots in the sea like foreign harbours and well traversed choke points. These underwater vessels are also used even during peace time for active duties for shadowing to `mark'/`counter-mark' warships and submarines during exercises. Therefore revealing their positions would involve considerable embarrassment to the country concerned. As Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, a spokesman for Pentagon, said on August 15: ``We don't discuss submarine operations other than to say that our submarines operate throughout the waters of the world. But we don't discuss specifics of submarine operations or their locales.''

Cold War mindset

Perhaps this explains why the Russians hesitated in asking for external help till much later. Few are aware that the Cold War mindset still persists underneath the sea. Russians claim that the U.S. submarines normally operate near Russian coastal waters and carefully mark their naval units during exercises. The Kursk appears to have sunk after a naval exercise while being marked by two American and/or a British submarine in the Barents Sea. During 1992-93, U.S. submarines collided with Russian submarines in the same area where the Kursk sank. The recent down trend in Russian-American relations due to the ``eastward expansion'' of the NATO and the controversy regarding the National Missile Defence (NMD) System might also have weighed heavily on the Russian mind before seeking help for the submarine rescue.

Possibly Russian naval pride backed by the experience of handling nearly 190 nuclear-powered submarines during the late 1980s and the early 1990s was another consideration against seeking foreign assistance. They probably thought that they could handle the mess themselves but in the process badly bungled the job. Even in the best of times the former Soviet naval underwater fleet had been dogged by poor training, construction and design of nuclear submarines which were built at breakneck speed and resulted in numerous reactor accidents, fires, explosions and other problems. However these disasters were rarely publicised in keeping with the submarine traditions of secrecy.

It is only now that the skeletons of the past are tumbling out of the cupboard, revealing fatal and serious accidents of various types involving Russian nuclear submarines. They include 10 major reactor accidents, which led to radioactive leakage, four major fires, a unique case of hijacking of the formidable, fully armed Akula class nuclear submarine from the Skalisty naval base by a 19-year-old recruit, (which led to the tragic death of eight sailors) and another case of K429 (a Charlie class nuclear submarine similar to the INS Chakra leased to India from the former Soviet Union) which sank on June 23, 1983 in the Savannaya Bay and was salvaged but went down again alongside the jetty on September 13, 1985. The incident led to the loss 16 lives and the imprisonment of the submarine commander.

A particular pattern

The Russians are undoubtedly guilty of the maximum number of sunken nuclear submarines lying on the ocean floor with their potential for radiation hazards. There are five such submarines (four of these were from the Northern Fleet), all of which have followed a particular pattern prior to their sinking. While most sunken submarines have conformed to this pattern the Kursk has not done so. All the submarines have caught fire while underwater on their return from `war patrols'. Efforts made to salvage them on surfacing have resulted in ingress of water and loss of the control post. As a result there has been a loss of buoyancy and stability of pitch thereby ultimately capsizing. Fortunately in all cases the nuclear reactors have been shut before sinking.

The five Soviet submarines, which sank, were the K-27, due to a reactor problem on May 24, 1968, which released radiation contaminating the entire submarine. It was finally scuttled (deliberately sunk) in the Kara Sea in 1981. Then there was the K-8, a November class nuclear submarine, which sank on April 8, 1970 in the Bay of Biscay and 52 people perished. Unbelievably the accident was kept secret till 1991. The K-219, a Yankee class strategic nuclear submarine, sank off Bermuda with 16 ballistic missiles on board on October 6, 1986. Four lives were lost. Rumours had it that the fires in the submarine broke out due to collision with a U.S. submarine. The 6,400 tonne Mike class nuclear submarine K-278 (Komsomolet) with an a ultra modern titanium hull capable of diving till 1000 mts. sank on April 7, 1982 south of the Bear island in the Norwegian Sea with its two nuclear reactors and two nuclear warheads. Forty one lives, including that of the commander, were lost.

The Kursk K-141 was an Oscar II type, 13,900 tonnes modern nuclear submarine (type 949 SSGN) commissioned as recently as June 1995. It did not follow the typical pattern and sank on August 12, 2000 in the Barents Sea presumably due to two explosions in the torpedo tubes. According to rumours the accident occurred due to a collision with a U.S./British submarine.

Peace time accidents

The U.S. Navy too has had a long and unenviable track record of submarine accidents since it started operating them from October 12, 1900. There have been 26 peace time accidents of which six were involved in explosions/fires, three were involved in flooding and seven submarines sank due to flooding while operating underwater. Two of these seven were nuclear submarines which still lie at the bottom of the ocean. The two are USS Thresher (SSN 593), which sank on April 10, 1963, 350 km east of Boston during a test dive killing all 129 crew. The other incident involved USS Scorpion (SSN 589), which sank on May 21, 1968, 640 km southwest of the Azores, due to a suspected torpedo malfunction (investigated to be untrue) killing all 99 crew on board. It has been rumoured that the Soviets had at one time made serious efforts to salvage one of these submarines to acquire the codebooks and cipher machines, not for any humanitarian and environmental concerns.

The media glare over the Kursk has come to associate only Russian submarines with disasters which is not really the case. Navies internationally associate submarine operations with daredevilry and several countries have suffered major submarine accidents during peace time operations. These include Denmark, the U.K., France, Israel, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Spain and Turkey. Some of these have been nuclear submarines like the British HMS `Warspite', which had a major fire on board. Sunken nuclear submarines not only involve a risk to its crew but also the radiation dimension which can cause havoc to the ecological balance of the oceans. Unless at least the reactors or the nuclear warheads of the sunken vessel is salvaged, sealed with a special material (like it was done for Komsomolets by the Russians), or placed in a sarcophagus (as in Chernobyl but now found leaking). Experts are still evaluating the effects of the Kursk on the nearby fishing grounds called Kildinbanken.

Partial transparency

The Kursk tragedy has enabled partial transparency to creep into submarine operations owing to media compulsions in the information age and rightly so. However this is only a first step considering that secrecy shrouds submarines operations. As Nikolay Survorov, the commander of the sunken nuclear sub K-429, said in his concluding speech during his trial ``If you do not say the truth others will not learn from bad experiences - more accidents will happen, more people will die''. The Russians acknowledged the loss of K-429 only in 1991.

P. K. GHOSH

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

NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
1 Review nixes nuke plant
2 Sweden nuclear phase-out sparks power debate
3 County, other taxing entities to settle dispute with ComEd
4 Shamed Sellafield bosses get œ250,000 payoffs
5 N-PLANT PROTESTS BLOCK ENTIRE AUSTRO-CZECH BORDER
6 Special reports | Nuclear disaster averted
7 - Protest against Temelin Staged at Border Crossing
8 Tainted debris will be cleaned up at Grissom
9 Steam Escapes During Valve Tests At Czech Nuclear Plant
10 Company to cap waste burial ground
11 "Just the Facts: The USEC Business and National Security Story"

-----------

NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES

1 Review nixes nuke plant
The Taipei Times Online:
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2000
BY JOYCE HUANG STAFF REPORTER

ENERGY: A majority of the committee reviewing the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project voted against it, but the premier might not be in agreement

The committee formed to review the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant finished its work yesterday, voting 9-6 to halt construction of the controversial plant.

But Premier Tang Fei earlier yesterday told the legislature that he night not take no for an answer.

If the committee gave the plant the thumbs down, the Cabinet would bring in its own experts to review and perhaps overturn the verdict, Tang said during questioning.

If the committee wanted to continue construction of the plant, the Cabinet would act on its advice, Tang said. If, on the other hand, the committee recommended halting construction, the government might continue the evaluation using experts other than those serving on the committee.

"If the committee's consensus is to continue construction, the Cabinet will act on it. However, if the consensus is to halt the project, an alternative solution will have to be presented," Tang said, adding that the advice of experts outside the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant Re-evaluation Committee ((r)Ö¥|¦Aµû¦ô(c)e­û·|) would be sought.

Tang told People First Party legislators Chou Hsi-wei ((c)P¿üÞ³) and Liu Wen-hsiung (1/4B¤å¶¯) that more evaluation of the project was needed to assess the economic impact of halting it.

Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (ªL"H¸q) said yesterday that members of the evaluation committee had not reached a consensus last night on the plant's future.

"The ministry has asked members of the committee to summarize their conclusions in 600 characters," Lin said. "We will then publish them so that the public has a better understanding of this issue."

Lin said that an alternative energy project would be prepared, no matter what the outcome of the committee's decision was.

Tang said that scrapping the power plant would lead to political and legal complications, in which the Cabinet and the DPP's legislative caucus--which currently is a minority in the legislature -- would be required to overturn laws that have been passed to support the project.

Chou and Liu urged Tang to finalize his decision within one month. But the premier has previously said he would need two months to conduct another round of evaluations.

Political observers said it appeared that anti-nuclear forces have succeeded in stopping the energy plant, as the Cabinet has postponed making a decision until the end of the year.

That timing would give the Cabinet leverage in persuading the legislature not to veto the decision.

In addition, political watchers said, delaying the decision until the end of the year would clear the way for debate on the 2001 budget, which is scheduled to be reviewed during the present legislative term. By putting off the decision on the plant until after budget debates conclude, the Cabinet deprives opposition parties the opportunity of using the budget issue as a bargaining chip.

Opposition parties lashed out at the government yesterday for delaying the release of the evaluation report.

"Yearly growth for electricity consumption is 6 percent. If the plant is scrapped, there will be a negative impact on economic development, " KMT Legislator Ho Jyh-huei (¦ó´1/41/2÷) said. "If the new government decides to discontinue the project, they should forward their revisions of laws to the legislature."

PFP lawmaker Diane Lee (§õ1/4y¦w) said the DPP has been employing its political power to interfere with professional judgment. "I strongly urge DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (§d¤D¤¯) to withdraw his political threats," Lee said. This story has been viewed 293 times. [*][I] PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION

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2 Sweden nuclear phase-out sparks power debate
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 18,
By Eva Sohlman

BARSEBACK, Sweden, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Towering on the plains of southeast Sweden and surrounded by wind turbines, the Barseback nuclear power station has become the symbol of a debate about how fast Sweden should phase out nuclear power.

The government will announce on September 20 whether it will pursue a 1997 decision to close another reactor at Barseback.

``Why close a plant which is operating perfectly when this would mean power shortages and increased emissions of carbon dioxide?'', said Lars-Gunnar Fritz, head of information at the plant.

Swedes, fearing an environmental disaster, voted in a 1980 referendum to phase out nuclear power, which presently meets 47 percent of the country's electricity needs. But no date was set for a complete closure.

In 1997 the government decided to shut down one of Barseback's two 615 megawatt (MW) reactors in November last year--the first of Sweden's 12 reactors to be closed. The second is due to be shut down by 2001.

The shutdown of Barseback-1 cost the state 8.3 billion crowns ($928.4 million) in compensation to plant owner Sydkraft , Sweden's largest listed power company.

The decision provoked protests from employees and people living near the plant who say it is completely safe.

During the 1980 referendum campaign, a leading opposition politician offered to take a bath in the reactor container pool to show how safe the energy source was.

HOW TO REPLACE LOST POWER?

A shutdown by 2001 would leave a gap of four terawatt hours (TWh) a year in Sweden's total electricity output of 155 TWh and increase its need to import power on the deregulated Nordic power market.

The 1997 decree said the government must prove that energy lost by shutting down Barseback could be replaced with clean power from renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass and hydropower.

Several reports have subsequently suggested that planned substitutes will produce only 2.5 TWh by 2001.

Sweden's national grid says closure would double the risk of shortages when demand surges. Shortages would increase the need to import electricity from neighbouring countries such as Denmark and Poland which produce most of their power from coal--boosting Sweden's emissions of carbon dioxide.

Because of these concerns the government has apparently back-tracked, saying in August that the second reactor would not close as originally scheduled.

``For the government, it is obvious that the preconditions of the 1997 decision must be met,'' said Industry Minister Bjorn Rosengren.

COST EFFICIENCY

Sweden's National Energy Administration says the country could afford a closure without jeopardising power supplies.

``A closure is financially viable as power prices are so low and Sweden could import electricity in times of shortages,'' said Thomas Korsfeldt, the administration's chief executive.

Sweden no longer needs to be self-sufficient in energy as power prices have fallen to unexpectedly low levels. Power imports have become possible following the deregulation of power markets in Sweden and its neighbours.

``Today it is more expensive to keep reserve capacity and cheaper to import power on the Nordic power market,'' Korsfeldt said.

As a result production costs for nuclear power now exceed prices on the hydropower-intensive Nordic power market.

The production costs for nuclear power stand at around 0.11-0.17 crowns ($0.011-0.018) per kilowatt hour (kWh) compared with the production costs for hydropower at 0.005-0.030 crowns per kWh.

The market price for electricity in mid-August was about 0.08 crowns.

MORE PRESSURE ON PRODUCERS

Nuclear power producers suffered from last year's unusually mild winter and above-average snow and rainfall which forced them to curb output when demand was low and reservoir supplies plentiful.

A new fixed tax on installed capacity at nuclear power plants rather than on actual production, ending a loophole allowing generators to cut output and evade taxes when demand was low, added pressure to shrinking profit margins.

``This is a way to phase out nuclear power by stealth,'' said Bertil Tiusanen, former head of Sweden's largest power producer, Vattenfall [VATN.UL].

But Barseback's Fritz said he believed the government was in no hurry to shut the second reactor, and Sydkraft aimed to operate it until 2017.

``The fact that it is still unclear where we will store the waste in the long run indicates that Sweden does not seem to be in such a hurry to phase out its nuclear power,'' he said.

He said Sweden should imitate Germany which decided in June to phase out nuclear power without compensating producers but gave them the right to generate a fixed amount of power with control over the period over which it would be produced.

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3 County, other taxing entities to settle dispute with ComEd
Utility to collect $2.25 million for inaccurate property tax assessments
Daily Southtown: Serving Chicago area's Southland
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2000
BY PAIGE FUMO FOX STAFF WRITER

Within the next several weeks, Will County and 26 municipalities, school districts and other governments are expected to settle a dispute with ComEd that has lasted as long as the utility's Braidwood nuclear power plant has existed.

The utility began filing objections to its property tax assessments and tax bills before the Braidwood plant even came on line in 1986. At one point, ComEd officials were asking that more than $300 million be returned by Will governments that collected too much tax money based on the overassessment.

But the settlement that is expected to be approved by a judge soon agrees that Will County, the Will County Forest Preserve District, Joliet Park District, Joliet Junior College, Reed-Custer School District, Rockdale and East Joliet fire protection districts, Joliet Township and others will pay a combined $2.25 million to ComEd for tax money it collected based on inaccurate assessments of the Braidwood plant, two fossil fuel generating stations in Will County and Joliet that since have been sold and a Bolingbrook warehouse.

"We're all agreed to the settlement agreement. It's just a matter of tying up a few loose ends. This is ending 20 years of litigation, " said Will County assistant state's attorney John Urban. "If it's not the largest tax settlement in Illinois, it's one of the largest."

Among the governing bodies that will pay the most are Reed-Custer School District 255U, which owes $2 million; Will County, which will pay more than $1.4 million, and Joliet Junior College, which will pay more than $400,000.

The core of issue, to which there have been several layers of disputes added over the years, stems from the way the nuclear power plant and other properties were assessed, Urban said.

The utility argued the county should have valued parts of the Braidwood plant, like its nuclear reactors, as equipment and not as real property. Had that been done, the assessed value of the plants would have been lower and would have resulted in lower tax bills for ComEd, he said. ComEd also claimed it should be taxed based on its market value, not on the $4 billion it cost to build the facility in the late 1970s.

ComEd has routinely filed objections to its tax bills for Braidwood, the generating stations and warehouse. The upcoming settlement ties all those disputes into one decision.

"I personally feel it's a good agreement," said David Dye, property tax manager at ComEd. "It'll be nice to settle years and years of court cases and litigation and get that all behind us."

The turning point came with the 1997 deregulation of the utility industry, which forced towns with power plants to make adjustments as the plants' values would drop when they were part of the open market. For instance, the Braidwood plant was built for more than $4 billion; it would not fetch anywhere near that price if it were sold today. According to Dye, a nuclear plant in Clinton, Ill., sold last year for $20 million. Dye said the plants are supposed to be taxed on their market value, not the construction value.

"The (Reed-Custer) school district was really impacted by the deregulation of the electric industry," said the district's lawyer, Stuart Whitt, who served on a statewide task force to address these concerns. "How do you determine the value of a nuclear power station in a deregulated market for the purposes of taxation?"

The tentative settlement was reached using recommendations from the state task force on which Whitt served. The Illinois General Assembly never voted on those recommendations, but Whitt expects lawmakers to revisit them, perhaps this fall.

The settlement incrementally lowers the assessed value of the Braidwood station from nearly $835 million in 1998 to $290 million by 2005.

Will County Assessor Richard Loding estimates that although the assessed value of Braidwood will drop by about $545 million by 2005, the total assessed value of the county will keep growing, from more than $8.2 billion in 1998 to a projected $10.7 billion in 2005. That lessens the impact on larger taxing bodies like the county, forest preserve district and Joliet Junior College.

But in Reed-Custer, where 95 percent of the property taxes come from ComEd, the situation is different. As ComEd pays property taxes based on the lower assessed value, it will also pay an extra $1 million to $2.3 million to Reed-Custer each year through 2006 to ease the burden on the district. Last year ComEd paid $15.7 million in property taxes; in 2006, it will pay $9.6 million.

And over the next few years, the district will increase its tax rate until it reaches the rate limits allowed by the property tax cap, Whitt said, so that other taxpayers will pick up some of the difference.

The Reed-Custer tax rate is now $2.70, which was increased from $1.90 this year in anticipation of the settlement. It will reach its maximum within the next few years at $3.44.

Even with the increased tax revenue from the residents and other commercial taxpayers, the loss of ComEd revenue is a huge--up to one-third of the district's income, Superintendent Donald Hendricks said.

"The biggest hit (to taxpayers) was this year," Hendricks said. The 1,900-student district has some reserves on hand, and has not filled positions as staff members quit or retire, Hendricks said.

Early in the history of ComEd's objections to its taxes, it claimed Reed-Custer owed it more than $200 million in refunds for 15 years of over-taxing. The settlement requires the district to pay $1.4 million.

Besides the reassessment on Braidwood, the Will County fossil fuel station property tax assessment will decrease from $2.9 million to just $200. The taxing bodies that negotiated that part of the settlement agreed to simply not collect future taxes instead of making an up- front payment.

The Joliet station's assessed value will drop from $12,820,222 to $12.5 million. The negotiated refund include $250,000 for that station.

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4 Shamed Sellafield bosses get œ250,000 payoffs
THE SUNDAY TIMES: NEWS
September 17 2000

THREE executives at British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) criticised after a series of safety failures, managerial blunders and financial losses have received golden handshakes from the state-owned company totalling more than œ850,000.

John Taylor, the former chief executive, Graham Watts, the group's former commercial director, and Ross Chiese, the former finance director, were awarded payouts of more than œ250,000 each after resigning from their jobs, according to the company's annual report, published last week.

It emerged last September that workers checking the size of mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (Mox) fuel pellets at Sellafield in Cumbria made up the data on some batches. Inspectors said job cuts, which had been implemented by the board of directors despite warnings from unions, meant that the workers had not been properly supervised and safety had been undermined.

The falsification scandal led to losses of more than œ100m. It has also put a question mark over the future of reprocessing at the Sellafield plant because of a crisis of confidence among foreign clients.

While the four workers involved in falsifying data were dismissed without compensation, Taylor and Chiese, who were ousted after the scandal, received œ300,000 and œ277,000 respectively on top of their combined salaries of œ460,000. Watts, a government appointee who resigned before the falsification was discovered, received a golden handshake of œ274,000.

"These payouts are a high price for bringing a company to its knees, " said John Kane, the GMB union convener at Sellafield. "When they announced job cuts, we warned them safety standards would suffer.

" I don't think the workers involved in the falsification of data really understood what was expected of them. Workers can't believe that they left with nothing while these managers get huge payouts."

Taylor, who joined BNFL in 1997 from the oil giant Exxon, originally said he would not resign, but later agreed to go. He refused to discuss his payoff last week when contacted at his œ1m Oxfordshire house.

Speaking from the doorway of his large detached house in Northwood, west London, Chiese said yesterday : "Quite what the finance officer has to do with safety I don't know. The Department of Trade and Industry wanted scapegoats and I was one of them."

Watts, who had previously been responsible for corporate marketing at British Airways, and Chiese, are believed to have left BNFL without any immediate prospect of similarly lucrative directorships.

The annual report shows that BNFL suffered losses of œ337m last year - the worst in the company's history. More than a third of the losses were due to the falsification of the Mox data.

Senior executives are now worried about the future of a new œ 460m reprocessing plant at Sellafield. Japan has so far refused to place any orders for fuel, putting the project in jeopardy.

Fourteen months ago, senior BNFL managers were upbeat about the future of the company. It had notched up profits of more than œ200m and was on course for a partial privatisation.

The Mox scandal, however, was a commercial disaster and exposed a series of safety failures. It culminated in a management clear-out announced in April this year. Switzerland, Japan, Germany and Sweden banned nuclear trade with Sellafield and the United States announced that "business as usual is over with BNFL".

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5 N-PLANT PROTESTS BLOCK ENTIRE AUSTRO-CZECH BORDER
AUSTRIA: September 18, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

VIENNA - AUSTRIAN ENVIRONMENTALISTS BLOCKED ALL BORDER CROSSINGS BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC ON FRIDAY IN PROTEST AGAINST PRAGUE'S IMMINENT ACTIVATION OF A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.

The blockade of the country's northern frontier was the third in as many weeks and the most comprehensive, with all 12 crossing points blocked in the provinces of Upper and Lower Austria, Austrian state television ORF said.

The Soviet-designed Temelin plant lies around 60 km (35 miles) from the Austrian border. The protesters, who barricaded the frontier with tractors and buses, demand an immediate halt to the plant's activity.

The Czech government has dismissed both Austrian and German concerns about the safety of the plant. Nuclear-free Austria has threatened to veto the Czechs' admission to the European Union if they put the controversial plant into operation this year.

The protests are set to fan out to Germany at the weekend, when anti- nuclear activists will stage a big demonstration at the Philippsreut border crossing in Bavaria on Sunday.

The $3 billion Temelin plant has been modified and fitted with western control systems supplied by Westinghouse, a unit of British Nuclear Fuel Ltd.

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6 Special reports | Nuclear disaster averted
Russian power plant workers praised for 'heroic' operation to cool reactors
Guardian Unlimited
AMELIA GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2000

A nuclear catastrophe - triggered by a fault in Russia's ageing electrical grid - was averted last week thanks to a 'heroic' emergency operation by power station workers.

Details of how one of Russia's main nuclear plants and the country's largest plutonium-processing centre came close to disaster emerged slowly, prompting new alarm in a country still reeling from a string of disasters.

Nuclear experts said 'courageous' workers at the Beloyarsk power station and the Mayak reprocessing plant had managed to prevent a Chernobyl-style accident. Environmental campaigners warned that the crumbling state of Russia's infrastructure meant such close escapes could be expected with growing frequency.

Preliminary investigations showed that a short circuit in the regional electricity system caused a sudden blackout in three nuclear reactors in the Urals. Its cause remains unclear, although it has been widely attributed to a fault in the poorly maintained network.

Unexpected power cuts at nuclear plants, which are designed to work ceaselessly, pose a severe risk. There was controversy yesterday over whether built-in emergency electricity systems took over as they should have done. Minatom, Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy, insisted that all back-up systems at both sites began working in the seconds after the accident, but environmental activists reported that the standby electricity generators of at least one of the reactors had failed to start.

These sources say a technical hitch at the Beloyarsk plant, in the Sverdlovsk region, meant that the diesel generators built into the reactor failed to start automatically. Without a separate supply of electricity, the cooling system at the heart of the plant allegedly stopped working - causing the temperature in the core reactor to soar to dangerous levels, as workers lost control over the chain reactions occurring within.

'The problem was that the diesel generators were in poor condition and so the staff on the plant needed 36 minutes to repair them to get them started,' said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the Ecodefence organisation, which has spent the past week gathering information about the mishap. 'It was up to the personnel on the plant to avert a serious nuclear accident. They worked heroically.'

Alexei Yablokov of the Centre for Ecological Problems of Russia endorsed this view: 'We were just half an hour from another Chernobyl - had it not been for the professionalism of the plant staff.'

At around lunchtime on Saturday last weekend, a crash echoed from within the walls of the Beloyarsk compound. Local residents - many of whom were celebrating the annual town festival - listened in horror. Most of the people who live in Zarechny, the settlement which has grown up around the plant, are either current or former employees - so were well equipped to judge the gravity of the noise.

The precise cause of the sound remains unclear. Unconfirmed sources suggest that while technicians struggled to get the diesel generators working, they were forced to shut down the reactor manually. Residents may have heard steam spurting suddenly from the cooling plant, as pressure in the system mounted.

One of the immediate results of the shutdown at Beloyarsk was a power failure at the nearby Mayak processing plant in the Chelyabinsk region, where two reactors were in operation.

The potential consequences of malfunction at the vast, high-security Mayak plant are no less alarming. Scientists there take spent nuclear fuel from all over the former Soviet Union and convert it into weapons- grade plutonium and high-level waste. The site is estimated to contain 120 million curies of radioactive waste - much of it held in liquid form in vast tanks - including seven times the amount of strontium- 90 and caesium-137 that was released in Chernobyl.

Mayak was without power for 45 minutes and the reactors were automatically shut down. The head of the plant, Vitaliy Sadovnikov, told a local newspaper that this was the worst blackout the station had faced and it was only his staff's 'near-military discipline' which prevented a serious accident.

He said the back-up electricity provider, designed to cool down the reactors in the event of such an emergency, had only been started up 30 minutes after the plant was brought to a halt.

But yesterday Bulat Nigmatulin, a Deputy Minister at Minatom, said these reports were lies. 'This unpleasant situation came about because for the first time there was a breakdown in the local energy system, ' he said.

'The atomic installations at Beloyarsk and Mayak are protected against this kind of accident, and on this occasion everything went exactly according to plan, with on-site emergency electricity sources starting up immediately.'

He said 30-minute delays would have led to explosions in the reactors.

Officials at both plants report there was no radiation contamination as a result of the emergency shutdowns. Environmental activists in the region continue to test the site, but are so far satisfied that this is the case.

Although a crisis was averted, analysts agree that both mishaps are sobering examples of the ease with which a disaster could be sparked.

'The fact that the grid was down for 45 minutes is extremely alarming, because it means that control was temporarily lost in these crucial nuclear installations,' said Tobias Muenchmeyer, atomic energy expert with Greenpeace.

Some commentators linked the initial power cut to the campaign by Russia's electricity monopoly to cut off those customers with outstanding debts. They speculated that by suddenly switching off one area of the grid, Unified Energy Systems might have precipitated the short circuit. UES officials deny this, and a government commission has been set up to investigate.

State officials are eager to promote atomic energy as a means of heating and powering their vast country. A strategy document published by Minatom in May advocated that Russia should radically increase its nuclear capacity over the next 20 years, building up to 24 new reactors.

Independent experts affirm that over the past five years the number of emergency shutdowns in Russian reactors has dropped fourfold, and over the past two years financing of safety monitoring has increased. But the memory of the Chernobyl disaster 14 years ago remains uncomfortably fresh.

Guardian Unlimited c Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000

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7 - Protest against Temelin Staged at Border Crossing
Czech Today on Central Europe Online - Czech Today
Sep 18, 2000
CTK - Czech News Agency

PHILIPPSREUT, Germany, About 500 people from Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic attend a protest rally against the Czech nuclear power plant in Temelin at the Philippsreut/Strazny in the morning.

The protesters waved banners saying "Halt to all nuclear plants!" and "We don't believe CEZ a single word."

CEZ is the Czech national power utility operating the power plant.

Dana Kuchtova from the South Bohemian Mothers civic association said that the rally had shown that Temelin was opposed not only by Austrians, but also by Germans.

The activists said that a Soviet-built reactor was connected with the U.S. Westinghouse system in Temelin, which was an experiment. They said that an international commission should be set up to examine whether the power plant met international safety standards.

The event was also attended by the Coalition of the Green Party and the Union for Europe Alois Mach and Jan Roj. ((C) 2000 CTK - CZECH NEWS AGENCY)

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8 Tainted debris will be cleaned up at Grissom
Sunday, September 17, 2000

BUNKER HILL (AP)--Radioactive material, buried at Grissom Air Force Base following a 1964 fire that destroyed a plane carrying nuclear weapons, is being moved to a government-approved disposal site.

Workers hired by the U.S. Air Force and the Grissom Redevelopment Authority began excavating a 300 square-foot site last week along a runway at the former Air Force base.

The contaminated soil taken from alongside Runway 23 will be placed into containers and shipped to a government-approved disposal facility in Texas, said Lisa Marx of the Grissom Redevelopment Authority.

"We know the public has been concerned about this, and we just want to put it to rest," Marx told the Peru Tribune.

After it closed in 1994, about 1,350 acres of the idled Air Force base were turned over to the Grissom Redevelopment Authority to convert into civilian housing, general business and an industrial park.

But concerns lingered about nuclear material buried within a 300 square-foot site after a B-58 Hustler carrying five nuclear weapons slid off the edge of an icy runway in December 1964 during a training exercise.

The crew escaped the burning aircraft after its landing gear collapsed, causing a rupture in the fuel tank and scattering burning radioactive debris along the runway. That debris was buried in a six to 12-inch trench in order to completely douse the flames.

The plane's burned fuselage was buried at a separate site on the base and plans are being drafted to clean up that site also, officials said.

Marx said the runway debris buried at Grissom is extremely low-level radiation and poses no threat to health and safety.

"A person could sit directly on the site for a month and walk away with the equivalent of a chest X-ray," he said.

Because radiation was involved in the runway debris cleanup, John Ruyack of the Indiana State Department of Health was contacted. Using a gamma radiation detector, he constructed a color map showing the distribution of nuclear contamination at the site.

Excavation crews then used the map as a guide in removing the contaminated soil.

Major Steven Rademacher, who does consulting and service work for the Air Force in relation to radiation, environmental and health issues, said there was no weapons-grade plutonium released at the site.

"What was released onto and buried in the ground after the crash was depleted uranium," he said. "This is very different from enriched uranium, which is used to make nuclear weapons. It has a much lower level of radioactivity."

Marx said the only way the buried waste would have posed a risk to humans was if people had resided on the spot, drank water and consumed plants grown from the soil.

Marx said that at the time of the crash, standards for contamination were far lower than current rigid guidelines.

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9 Steam Escapes During Valve Tests At Czech Nuclear Plant
Central Europe Online Daily News
European Internet Network
Sep 17, 2000
Agence France Presse

PRAGUE, A leak of steam was detected during tests being held before the start-up of the southern Czech nuclear power plant of Temelin, a spokesman for the facility said on Saturday.

The faulty valve was found in the sealed primary circuit of the first sector of the plant and "presented absolutely no risk to the security of the installation," said spokesman Milan Nebesar.

Tests on the first sector continued on Saturday and specialists from the plant and from the Czech Nuclear Safety Office were due to meet Monday to discuss repairs and replacements for the affected valve, he said.

The firing up of the nuclear plant has provoked outcry from neighboring Austria, where demonstrators have gathered in recent days to protest what they claim is a lack of information about the facility's safety.

When Temelin is fully operative by 2002, it will provide some 20 percent of the Czech Republic's power needs.

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10 Company to cap waste burial ground
Oak Ridger Online
Monday, September 18, 2000
Oak Ridger staff

A Colorado-based environmental remediation and engineering firm has been awarded a $12.2 million subcontract to cap the White Oak Creek waste burial ground that could result in improved water quality and reductions in the risk of radiation exposure near the site.

Bechtel Jacobs Co. LLC, which handles the Department of Energy's environmental management work in Oak Ridge, awarded the contract to MACTEC Inc. to remediate the Solid Waste Storage Area 4 radioactive waste burial ground and adjacent areas at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

MACTEC will construct a multilayer cap covering approximately 29 acres over the closed burial ground and an adjacent liquid waste seepage pit. Additionally, the company will erect groundwater collection and treatment features; remove several acres of contaminated soil along the floodplain of White Oak Creek; reroute Lagoon Road, which currently runs through the area to be capped; and create a borrow area to obtain soil for the cap.

The water quality of White Oak Creek should be improved due to significant reductions in contaminant releases from the old burial ground into streams, a press release stated. In addition, the cleanup of contaminated surface soils in a former holding pond along White Oak Creek will reduce potential risk from radiation exposure to workers and to ecological communities from mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls in the soil.

Around 75,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste were placed in the burial ground between 1951 and 1959, and numerous radionuclides are known to be present. Waste from other sites was buried there between 1955 and 1963, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a DOE predecessor agency, designated the site the Southeast Regional Burial Ground, and non-radioactive construction debris was placed in the site from 1959 to 1974.

The White Oak Creek project, which is to be completed by October 2004, is the first of several large burial ground capping projects that will be constructed as part of the remedy specified in the Record of Decision for Interim Actions for Melton Valley.

In June, Bechtel Jacobs Co. awarded MACTEC a $4.9 million subcontract for the demolition of 10 buildings at the Oak K-25 site.

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11 "Just the Facts: The USEC Business and National Security Story"
"JUST THE FACTS: THE USEC BUSINESS

--REMARKS BY WILLIAM H. TIMBERS -- PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, USEC INC. DELIVERED AT THE SEVENTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR MATERIALS POLICY FORUM SEPTEMBER 7, 2000, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

For six years, USEC has been the U.S. government's executive agent for the historic U.S.- Russian Megatons to Megawatts Agreement. The government-to-government agreement was signed in 1993. In 1994, USEC and the Russian executive agent, Techsnabexport, signed the commercial implementing contract called for in the Agreement. In 1995, USEC began receiving Russian shipments of nuclear fuel derived from dismantled nuclear warheads.

>From my perspective, the facts and history are clear that both the U.S. and Russian partners and their executive agents have made this Agreement work. In doing so, they have made important contributions to the global imperative of reducing the threat to world stability posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials.

These are facts about the Megatons to Megawatts six-year performance record of: ÿ 1. Nearly 100 metric tons of Russian warhead HEU have been converted ÿto LEU fuel for us by USEC's electric utility customers. ÿ 2. 100 metric tons of HEU is the equivalent of about 4,000 nuclear ÿwarheads--enough bombs to destroy every large city in the world. ÿ 3. We are ahead of the original 1993, 20-year schedule to convert ÿa total of 500 metric tons of HEU-the equivalent of 20, ÿ000 nuclear warheads.

4. No taxpayer dollars have been spent on the enrichment purchases. ÿ This performance record is a major accomplishment in terms of the nuclear non-proliferation objectives we all share and support.

Let's talk frankly about these facts. Very little positive attention is paid to this historic program or its results although plenty of critical articles and comments have circulated. Most of you are aware of those critics of USEC and the privatization who said this kind of successful performance could never and would never happen. The same voices have posed alternatives in order to fix what isn't broken.

Well, they are wrong, and I want to use this opportunity to set the record straight about USEC's intentions, actions and prospects on three very important and interdependent matters:

FIRST, USEC's national security sp; nbsp;of the Russsian HEU agreement.

SECOND, USEC's business philosophy as an independent private company being operated for the benefit and interest of its investors, customers, employees and other ;

THIRD, and perhaps most importantly, the critical interdependence between our national security role and our business role.

Our basic premise is that relevant government national security objectives and USEC's business objectives are woven together. Here are the well-established facts:

With the largest customer base in the business, USEC is the best, most efficient and most reliable vehicle for putting Russian LEU from HEU to peaceful use on a commercially sustainable basis and at no cost to taxpayers.

- With the magnitude of the Russian material coming into the market, for its own self-interest, USEC needs both to perform well and to remain as executive agent. The U.S. needs a healthy USEC to most efficiently meet its nuclear non-proliferation objectives.

A healthy, investor-owned USEC -- like all other private sector companies--must be free to pursue commercial decisions required to cut costs and improve efficiencies. And, we must be free to do so in the face of difficult market conditions and intense competition--even while we are working cooperatively with government on matters of mutual interest.

Let me elaborate:

I. ON USEC'S COMMITMENT TO ITS NATIONAL SECURITY ROLE:

USEC has already accomplished one-fifth of the 20-year disarmament goal of the Russian HEU Agreement. In the past six years, whenever problems or situations emerged, we worked cooperatively with our Russian partner to find workable solutions. The success of that cooperative spirit is reflected in numerous contract amendments that accommodate the interests of both parties. We project completion of our purchases of LEU derived from 500 metric tons of HEU by 2013.

Today, nearly half of USEC's customer requirements are being supplied through this Agreement. We have maintained our commitment to this program in the face of a drastic deterioration in global market conditions, the magnitude of which could not have been foreseen at the time of privatization. Once again, the facts are quite revealing:

SINCE PRIVATIZATION THERE HAS BEEN:
A 15 percent drop in forecast global enrichment market prices
An 18 percent drop in available global enrichment demand
A 32 percent drop in uranium market prices
An 18 percent drop in available global uranium demand
Skyrocketing deregulated power costs - expense.

These developments posed significant challenges to the newly privatized USEC. For example, the price at which we could sell new Russian material fell below the fixed price we had agreed to pay for it.

As these losses on the HEU deal increased, we explored the willingness of the federal government to pay for a portion of this unanticipated price differential. We did so, based on our successful implementation of government national security objectives and based on fact that the federal government sold USEC at the top of the market and realized a total of over $3 billion.

When no government assistance materialized, we nevertheless determined to continue as executive agent because of the importance of maintaining stable markets. At the same time, we sought to renegotiate commercial pricing terms with the Russians. We also moved decisively to bring our costs in line with reduced revenues - as any other private company would do.

We have made major strides on both counts.

First, we resolved the issue of fixed- vs.-market-based pricing for the enriched Russian material. The Agreement-in-Principle is a market-based pricing arrangement that serves the interests of both parties and of their governments. I want to emphasize that the agreement-in-principle reached last May by both executive agents was achieved in full consultation with our respective governments. For example, USEC worked closely with the Administration's Enrichment Oversight Committee and received their concurrence for negotiation terms and conditions. Both executive agents are currently awaiting final government approvals for implementation of the Agreement-in-Principle.

Since these proposed new terms call for no government financial assistance, we hope that the U.S. government will grant this approval in the near future.

When approved, these new terms become effective in 2002. They will ensure that the remaining 13 years of purchases will be based on a flexible, commercial formula consistent with the goal of the original Agreement - that the program be self-sustaining on commercial terms.

II. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF USEC'S OPERATION AS A PROFITABLE PRIVATE COMPANY

Taking Strong Cost-Reduction Actions:

We have continued to cut production costs- including the decision to close one of our production plants. Although we were faced with substantial and understandable opposition from those constituencies affected by ending 50 years of full employment at our aging enrichment plants, we simply could not continue to operate both plants at only a fraction of their capacity.

We had to take actions as soon as we could, and we did. USEC

1. Launched a company-wide cost reduction effort
2. Implemented a 25 percent workforce reduction
3. Announced a year in advance, the closure of our Portsmouth, Ohio, plant in June 2001, with a consolidation of enrichment activities at our Paducah, Kentucky, facility
4. Secured a ten-year power contract to provide our Paducah facility with more economically priced power during the transition to a new domestic technology
5. Pursued three new enrichment options - U.S. centrifuge, foreign centrifuge and the Silex laser technology. We expect to make a decision in the next 12-18 months on which technology to develop.

These were not easy decisions. We recognize the human impact they will have on our employees, their families and their communities. We have taken the initiative to work with our union, the Administration, Congress and others to mitigate these impacts.

Nevertheless, these decisions understandably remain controversial for those affected. And tensions run high when urgent business decisions run counter to short-term political considerations.

The facts are that:

Taxpayers would have been denied $3 billion of privatization ; proceeds and would be subsidizing the operation of unneeded resources at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The facts are that:

No one can be certain that the required billions of dollars of public funds would be made available quickly enough to the HEU transaction going.

The facts are that:

Some of these necessary actions could. ;Some of these necessary actions could have been taken earlier, if not for government constraints. All were absolutely necessary.

B. THE RESULTS OF PRIVATIZATION:

The fact is that the privatization created a company that now can come fully to grips with difficult business realities, a company whose longer-term fundamentals are sure to be sounder than what would be generated by a less responsive and less decisive government enterprise. And a company better suited to deliver sustained performance for both its investors and the country's national security objectives embodied in the Megatons to Megawatts agreement.

C. PREDICTABLE OPPOSITION:

The fact is that the greatest threat to the continued achievement of these goals comes from those whose special interests were threatened by the privatization and who remain opposed to the actions USEC must take and is taking to compete effectively.

To some who still cannot accept the fact that USEC was privatized, it is like the movie "Groundhog Day,"--waking up every morning to re-fight the same war. They continue to contest the outcome and work to turn back the clock.

Indeed, a Congressman seeking to halt closure of the plant in his District actually introduced a bill in the House to re-nationalize USEC.

This legislation appears to be a Bill to Repeal the basic Law of Supply and Demand. Somehow, it proposes to keep two plants operating at a fraction of their capacity, each with a full workforce, producing a product for which there is static demand, to be sold in a market with depressed prices- and to keep these plants open in "the public interest" . And that proposal is supposed to be funded by the taxpayers. If these are expenditures that cannot be justified on the basis of market economics, then it is a stretch to justify them coming from taxpayers' pockets to benefit limited interests.

While observers say that this legislation has no chance of passing, it is worth noting because it quite literally attempts to ignore the basic economics and runs counter to the global trend toward privatization and the free market.

D. PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS THROUGH GOVERNMENT COOPERATION

As I have said, we all recognize that closing a production plant will have a tremendous impact on our employees, their families, their community and others. There are constructive, humanitarian and practical ways of relieving the real human upheaval associated with such a plant closing.

The U.S. government is obligated by law to clean up these sites, and if that cleanup - as we first recommended last January - begins in a timely manner, most affected workers can be usefully re-employed.

The privatized USEC requires the freedom to make business decisions. We also have a strong desire to work cooperatively with government to achieve common goals. We think these two imperatives can be joined.

Approval of the new commercial HEU deal, cooperation over the next eleven months on plant cleanup, and cooperation on American centrifuge technology represent important potential steps in striking a workable balance between private and public purposes without imposing inappropriate operational restraints on USEC.

But second-guessing, finger-pointing and rhetoric don't create a single new job or change the world market price for SWU, or change the costs of running USEC's old plants, or further the interests of maintaining a profitable company capable of ensuring completion of the Megatons to Megawatts program.

The fact is that USEC must be free to take the kind of actions private businesses take every day, whether they are "mom-and-pop" stores or IBM, while continuing to work cooperatively with the government in those areas of mutual interest and benefit. Such actions can both effectively support successful completion of the HEU transaction and provide a reasonable return to USEC's shareholders. Conversely, attempts to handcuff free market initiatives are not in anyone's interest.

Privatization took three years of government due diligence before it was authorized and accomplished. That due diligence was led by the Treasury Department and involved an exhaustive analysis of factors and issues by over a dozen agencies. The bottom line of their decision was that privatization was in the interest of national security, energy security and the nation.

At the time of privatization, our government chose to respect commercial realities more than political considerations. The very act of privatization showed that the government wanted USEC to succeed in the private sector.

The road has not been easy, but we are now finally running this enterprise like the global, competitive energy business it is. Nevertheless, misinformation continues to make the rounds.

The doom and gloom scenarios about USEC's prospects are greatly exaggerated. USEC has certainly taken its hits--a declining world market, aging technology, the Russian deal turned out to be overpriced, rising energy costs and, of course, the cancellation of AVLIS due to deteriorated performance economics. We are dealing with and resolving these problems as only a private- sector company is equipped to do--a company that is still the global market leader with substantial cash flows and modest debt.

USEC has:
1. 73 percent of the U.S. fuel enrichment market
2. 36 percent of the world fuel enrichment market
3. Annual sales on the order of $1.5 billion
4. $6 billion in sales backlog
5. Total assets over $2 billion

In addition, we are increasing the efficiency of our production operations and actively pursuing new opportunities. For example, we recently announced a joint venture with Enron that gives our electric utility customers a distinctive new opportunity to pay for their enrichment purchases with electric power.

In a commodity market such as ours, the formula for success is clear: reduce costs, increase profitable revenues, and continue to innovate and seize opportunities, including new partnerships. We are at work on all of these and more.

THE STRONG INTERDEPENDENCE OF NATIONAL SECURITY AND A USEC:

The bottom line fact is that the best way to ensure USEC remains healthy is for the Company to retain its business freedom while it works cooperatively with government, on matters like the HEU transaction, and the transition of employees for decommissioning and decontamination of the Portsmouth plant. A healthy USEC will provide a reasonable return to its shareholders while completing the objectives of implementing the Russian HEU program--and doing so at no cost to the government and no interruption in performance.

USEC needs a commercially successful HEU to Leu transaction. - The United States needs ; ; transaction. - Constructive cooperation achieve these mutually supportive goals.

As the government and USEC both act to meet their policy objectives and improve their balance sheets, I believe that, over time, it will become increasingly clear in the case of USEC, that good business can also be good politics. After all, even the government has taken actions to end record deficits in favor of achieving record surpluses.

In conclusion, there is much at stake, and many challenges remain. I believe it is in all of our larger interests to pursue the mutually supportive objectives I have described today, and to pursue them together. From our perspective, that is yet another fact you can count on.

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NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS

1 Editorials & Opinion: Focus on the cleanup at Hanford
2 Progress, At Last: DOE Gets Moving On Cleanup
3 Beware of nuclear doody bombs when caring for babies
4 PSR Statement on Budget Cap for NIF
5 2 teams in running for Pantex contract
6 Revelations In The Lee Case
7 Chinese observers aboard Kursk?
8 Washington Refuses Moscow Request to Examine Subs
9 Kremlin's Handling of Kursk Crisis Defended
10 Huge laser project has huge price tag
11 Russian Military Experts Say U.S. Submarine May Have Caused Kursk
12 Older lasers neglected for NIF
13 Y-12 is open, and so are today's nuclear leaders
14 Council to consider cleanup plans, land swap
15 Army Corps' Manhattan Project "Cleanup" Fiasco

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NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES

1 Editorials & Opinion: Focus on the cleanup at Hanford
Sunday, September 17, 2000, 07:17 p.m. Pacific

EDITORIAL
Seattle Times:

The Fast Flux Test Facility on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a distraction from the primary job at the sprawling complex: the cleanup of 40 years of lethal, unstable waste.

Quit mothballing the facility and close it down for good.

The U.S. Department of Energy persists in a cruel hoax that the FFTF might be restarted for any number of projects, all of which have fallen through because of the crushing expense of restarting the reactor.

Hanford served the nation proudly, but it also created a mess that has stymied the best minds and cost taxpayers a fortune. Those bills will only go higher. The Department of Energy has no business adding to the pollution burden at Hanford.

The FFTF was part of President Carter's vision of a breeder-reactor program, which collapsed in 1978. Other schemes to revive the plant have followed. The death knell came in late 1998 when the Department of Energy said it could produce tritium through the Tennessee Valley Authority for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Even the need for that role is disputed.

FFTF maintained a pulse with talk of medical isotopes or fuel cells for the space program. DOE and NASA subsequently said thanks, but no thanks.

Spend the money now going into wishful thinking on cleanup, Hanford's only job.

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2 Progress, At Last: DOE Gets Moving On Cleanup
The Paducah Sun
Sunday, September 17, 2000

Paducah, Kentucky - Drum mountain is finally gone, but federal officials can't avoid the acid-laced question posed by U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell: "If there was a presidential election every year, would cleanup of the (Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant) have been completed years ago?"

Perhaps a better question is this: If the controversy over the secret handling of highly radioactive materials at the plant had exploded 12 years ago, would the massive pile of rusted drums already be a distant memory?

When the U.S. Department of Energy began planning for the cleanup of the uranium enrichment facility more than 12 years ago, George Bush was in the White House and the word "plutonium" was rarely mentioned in connection with the plant.

Over the next decade DOE spent almost $400 million on the cleanup project without removing a single barrel of waste. This was "front- end work," a DOE official explained. The radioactive and chemical waste had to be monitored, studied and categorized before it could be removed, the official said.

It took DOE 12 years to study the waste, but less than three months to complete the challenging task of safely removing 85,000 crushed drums and preparing them for shipment to a waste disposal site in Utah.

We now know for sure that the federal bureaucracy has a high gear; unfortunately, it needs a scandal - and a presidential election - to shift into action.

The cleanup advanced at a glacial pace, with at least $300 million of the taxpayers' money spent on paper-shuffling and environmental management, until revelations about the use of the site as an unregulated nuclear waste dump during the Cold War began to spill out last year.

Most of the revelations stemmed from investigations that were initiated after current and former plant workers filed a lawsuit against former plant operators alleging that the companies lied about contamination in order to earn bonuses from the federal government.

As Sen. McConnell indicated, the cleanup operation really began picking up steam as the November election came into view.

Obviously, the Clinton administration has political reasons for making sure a "mountain" of contaminated material isn't sitting at a federal nuclear facility while Vice President Al Gore pushes his environmental agenda during the presidential election campaign.

Still, plant workers and the community as a whole are happy to know that drum mountain no longer exists. The waste problem is a health threat to workers and people who live nearby; it also hurts the community's image at a time when local leaders are trying to recruit new industry to offset layoffs at the plant.

News that the cleanup finally is progressing offers hope that the area eventually will be able to put this troubling episode behind it.

Drum mountain, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. The plant grounds are littered with about 59,000 tons of scrap metal, groundwater in the area is contaminated and vacant buildings represent another radioactive contamination problem.

Don Seaborg, the DOE site manager, says the agency is investigating whether another mountain of waste is buried beneath the site of drum mountain.

To make matters worse, the General Accounting Office says DOE has grossly underestimated the cost of a complete cleanup, which could exceed $3 billion.

The energy department has been notably reluctant to fulfill a congressional mandate to build facilities at the Paducah plant and its sister plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, to convert uranium hexafluoride into a safer form for disposal or reuse.

More than 47,000 cylinders containing depleted uranium hexafluoride are stored in Paducah. The conversion facilities could provide up to 200 jobs for employees of the United States Enrichment Corp. who lose their jobs as a result of company cutbacks.

If DOE doesn't begin moving on the conversion facilities soon, the money Congress set aside for the projects may be lost to the general fund. That would be a significant blow to the plant cleanup as well as another loss for workers rocked by layoffs at USEC.

It's too bad we can't hold a presidential election every year, if that's what it takes to get this gigantic mess cleaned up.

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3 Beware of nuclear doody bombs when caring for babies
Sunday, September 17, 2000
BY DAVE BARRY

It's very early, still dark out, and I'm on the living-room floor, trying to simultaneously sleep and play with my 6-month-old daughter, Sophie. She goes to bed at 7:30 p.m., so by 5:30 a.m., she's wide awake and raring to go.

That's not a figure of speech: Sophie gets up on her hands and knees in her crib and literally rares until a sleep- deprived parent stumbles in there and picks her up. Then it's time for fun!

When I'm the parent in charge, the first fun thing I do is change Sophie's diaper. Lately, this makes me nervous because of an article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, sent in by many alert readers, stating that an apartment in Ennis, Texas, caught fire when a soiled diaper left in a plastic bag on a hot patio released methane gas, which caused the bag to "erupt into flames." If a single diaper, under the right conditions, can cause that to happen, then our house is potentially a nuclear doody bomb. Most likely, it would mean the elected officials in charge had made a good case for the need.

By the time I finish changing Sophie, it's 5: 33 a.m. The morning is flying by! Next I try to feed her some "solid food," defined as "food that is not solid, and probably not food." It comes from those pranksters at Gerber who shove everything they can get hold of - peas, beets, pears, rutabagas, pepperonis, turkeys, goats, squirrels, squids, ceiling tiles, etc. - into a blender, then squirt the resulting glop into tiny jars, which are labeled with names like "Protein Medley."

I have an efficient feeding technique, and within a few minutes, every last spoonful of that glop is somewhere in Sophie's hair. I aim for her mouth, but she moves too fast. Sophie will try to eat virtually any random thing she finds on the floor, including a dead cockroach, but she draws the line at baby food.

Now it's 6 a.m. - time to play! This is where, as a parent, you want to be creative, to stimulate your child's mind and help her develop intellectually. So I turn on the TV. My plan is that Sophie will be so fascinated that she won't notice I'm sleeping.

The thing is, Sophie doesn't pay attention to the TV. She's busy rolling around the floor, exploring her environment, as her brain learns to perform the incredibly complex set of functions we call human thought ("Maybe THIS will fit into my mouth! Maybe THIS will fit into my mouth! Maybe THIS will . . . .")

Meanwhile, despite my sleepiness, I find myself watching the TV, especially a show called "Teletubbies," which is strangely compelling. For example, in a recent episode, Dipsy, who is the second-biggest Teletubby, was wearing his black-and-white hat, which is his favorite thing, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, there was this explosion - POOF - and Dipsy's hat was . . . very small! So Dipsy went around to Laa Laa, Po and Tinky Winky, and they seemed pretty uninterested, except to say, quote: "Dipsy hat too small." This surprised Dipsy. "Dipsy hat too small?" he kept asking, as though he could not grasp this concept, even though his hat looked like this little black-and-white forehead wart.

Just when Dipsy was starting to come to grips with the reality that his hat was too small, POOF it was . . . very big! The brim was down around Dipsy's waist. He looked like he was being eaten by a mutant airborne cow. So Dipsy AGAIN went around to Laa Laa, Po and Tinky Winky, and they - instead of telling him to get this hat to an exorcist - merely said: "Dipsy hat too big." While Dipsy was trying to absorb THAT, there was another POOF, and Dipsy's hat was . . . normal! As Laa Laa, Po and Tinky Winky put it, in another example of sparkling dialogue: "Dipsy hat just right."

At this point I was totally absorbed in the plot. I wanted to discuss it with somebody.

"Sophie!" I said. "Dipsy hat just right!"

But Sophie had rolled away and was exploring something under the sofa (". . . Maybe THIS will fit into . . .") I was actually glad she wasn't watching. I don't think it's healthy for babies to be exposed to a world where demons possess your clothing and your friends don't care. Also, on "Teletubbies," the sun is portrayed as a giant baby head, looking down from the sky and laughing. This is disturbing. If there's a giant baby head, there's a giant baby butt, right? Who's disposing of THAT diaper? Think about it! I think about it a LOT, lying on the carpet. And that's not the only alarming thing about children's TV shows. I also have come to suspect that the person inside the Barney suit is, in fact, L. Ron Hubbard. I have my reasons. I'd explain them, but Sophie's chewing something.

The Dave Barry-for-President campaign needs you! Check out Dave's Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him c/o The Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33132.)

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4 PSR Statement on Budget Cap for NIF
U.S. Newswire 11 Sep 17:12
PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:
STATEMENT ON BUDGET CAP ON NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY

To: National Desk Contact: Martin Butcher of Physicians for Social Responsibility, 202- 898-0150, ext. 220

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 /U.S. Newswire/--The following was released today by Physicians for Social Responsibility:

-- A Blow To Doe, A Victory For Common Sense: Senate Imposes Budget Cap On Troubled National Ignition Facility

-- Harkin Amendment Requires Independent Inquiry Into Waste, Scientific Flaws in Laser Project

--- Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) welcomes the action taken by the Senate, led by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), to pass an amendment to cap spending on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at $74.1 million in construction funding and require an independent review of the need for and usefulness of the facility by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

This action was taken after a campaign against the NIF by PSR and other NGOs. NIF is the most expensive single item in the nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program. Senate adoption of the Harkin amendment blocked an additional $135 million in NIF funding requested by the Clinton administration. The amendment passed September 7 on a voice vote, with the FY2001 Energy and Water Appropriations bill completed Sept. 8.

"PSR congratulates Senator Harkin for his leadership. This project is a scandal. It is grievously over budget, technically flawed and scientifically dubious," said Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., PSR's Executive Director and CEO. "Moreover, NIF has no role in maintaining nuclear weapons safely. It is welfare for weaponeers who can't wean themselves off public funding for new weapons design work."

PSR shares concerns that the NIF is a nuclear proliferation risk. NIF has no role in ensuring the safety of the current stockpile of nuclear weapons, but it would be used for designing new ones, counter to US disarmament obligations. Other nations, notably India, have cited the design capabilities of NIF to justify continued nuclear testing.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently issued a report that detailed management turmoil, cost overruns, slipping schedules, and unsolved technical problems. These include:

-- Skyrocketing costs: NIF's original $400 million estimate has ballooned to close to $4 billion.

-- Mismanagement: Lab officials told GAO they intentionally underestimated costs to gain Congressional approval, and then hid the cost overruns even from DOE.

"The NIF must be cancelled outright," said Musil. "The US should be implementing its promise in the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, not building facilities to design new nuclear weapons."

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5 2 teams in running for Pantex contract
Amarillo Globe-News:
SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 2000 5:53 a.m. CT
BY JIM MCBRIDE Globe-News Staff Writer

Much of the weapons work at Pantex is performed in assembly cells dubbed "Gravel Gerties" after a character in the Dick Tracy comic strip.

The Energy Department expects to award a new management and operations contract for the Pantex Plant in early July.

Two teams are vying for the lucrative five-year contract: Day and Zimmermann Inc., parent company of Pantex contractor Mason & Hanger Corp.; and a three-tiered group headed by BWX Technologies, a Virginia- based firm.

Although DOE officials will say little about the pending contract award, procurement officials are expected to hear the team's oral presentations in about two weeks.

Earlier this month, the DOE whittled down the list of potential Pantex bidders, eliminating bids proposed by a Lockheed-Martin-led group and EG&G Inc.

In a June 2 letter to one of the bidders, the DOE said it established a competitive range for the bid solicitation and informed the two groups that they had not been included.

Mason & Hanger has operated Pantex since 1956. The contract was extended through the contract year 1991. The DOE put the contract up for competition and Mason & Hanger won the bid, which began on Oct 1, 1991.

Pantex now has an estimated $250 million annual budget. The current contract expires on Sept. 30, with the new contract starting on Oct. 1.

The contract performance period runs five years with an option for another five years.

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6 Revelations In The Lee Case
CBS NEWS BROADCASTS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2000

"THE ISSUE IS NOT OVER. THERE ARE SOME VERY SERIOUS ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS THAT DR. LEE HAS." Energy Secretary Bill Richardson

Energy Secretary Tells '60 Minutes' Case Is Not Over
Lee Was Freed Wednesday By Judge Who Blasted Government
Justice Department Is Probing Handling Of Case

(CBS) Wen Ho Lee is still making news, despite his release Wednesday by a federal judge who blasted the government for its treatment of the Los Alamos nuclear research scientist.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, in an interview with CBS NEWS 60 MINUTES, says there will be more information coming out about Lee.

"THE ISSUE IS NOT OVER. THERE ARE SOME VERY SERIOUS ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS THAT DR. LEE HAS," Richardson told MIKE WALLACE.

Did The Tests Fail?

In February, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT SHARYL ATTKISSON reported on the FBI interrogation of Wen Ho Lee that is now the focus of an internal Justice Department review.

The extremely confrontational questioning of the Los Alamos scientist in March 1999 was one of a string of episodes in which the Lee probe seemed to deviate from standard investigative procedure.

For example, Dept. of Energy polygraphers originally said Lee passed a lie-detector test in Dec. 1998.

But the DOE later reversed those findings and deemed the results "incomplete." The FBI subsequently said he had failed.

Then the FBI conducted its own test, and said Lee had failed. But it didn't interrogate Lee-odd since he was suspected of compromise national security.

When Lee finally was interrogated, the interview involved questions like, "DO YOU WANT TO GO DOWN IN HISTORY.PROFESSING YOUR INNOCENCE LIKE THE ROSENBERGS TO THE DAY THAT THEY TAKE YOU TO THE ELECTRIC CHAIR?"

Richardson also stands behind the statement he made 14 months ago that Lee failed two polygraph tests.

But Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Publisher Stephen Schwartz tells 60 MINUTES, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, that Richardson's statement is wrong.

According to Schwartz, Lee passed the first test "WITH FLYING COLORS. HE GOT THE HIGHEST SCORE YOU COULD GET AND HE SHOWED NO DECEPTION."

Sources said the agents had been ordered to be "VERY AGGRESSIVE," but were "NOT PROPERLY TRAINED" and had "RUSHED THE JOB."During the second test several months later, the FBI agents doing the inquiry "ACTUALLY CUT OFF THE CIRCULATION TO HIS THUMB" when they wired him to the monitor, Schwartz said.

Lee also apparently tried to honor his security oaths by refusing to answer several questions required detailed classified information because he was not in a secure facility, Schwartz said.

Other points Schwartz makes during the 60 MINUTES broadcast include:

That there is no evidence linking Lee to the illegal release of any Trident II nuclear warhead secrets from Los Alamos.

Lee did download huge amounts of classified information onto a unsecured computer several years ago, in violation of security protocols, but "UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE" of computer officials at Los Alamos who were monitoring computer transactions. "THEY NOTED WHAT LEE WAS DOING. HE DIDN'T ATTEMPT TO HIDE HIS TRACKS." Other did the same thing but were never singled out.

There is "NO EVIDENCE" that Lee took the information with any intent ÿto do anything other than his job, and that most, if not all, ÿwas graded unclassified or confidential - confidential being ÿthe lowest security classification at Los Alamos.

Until FBI agents started making references to the Rosenbergs, an American couple executed for spying on the U.S., Lee cooperated with the agents. The agents' references - and threats - ÿwere very explicit.

President Bill Clinton said he will contact Attorney General Janet Reno to discuss his concerns about the government's handling of the Lee case.

Mr. Clinton said his staff has already contacted Reno, and "I'M SURE I'LL HAVE A CHANCE TO TALK TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL ABOUT IT." But a presidential spokesman later said he did not expect the president to reach out to the attorney general personally.

CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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7 Chinese observers aboard Kursk?
SEPTEMBER 17 2000
By Charles Smith

Amid rumors that Chinese navy officers were on the sunken Russian submarine Kursk, the relationship between China and Russia continues to be one dominated by advanced weapons.

"Reports of Chinese naval observers onboard the Kursk first appeared in the Taiwan and Hong Kong press," stated one U.S. intelligence source who requested his name be withheld.

"The Russians were certainly staging a naval war show in the Barents. Who was the audience?" he asked.

Instead of quickly squelching the story, both Beijing and Moscow are silent about Chinese naval observers being onboard the sunken nuclear submarine. Repeated calls to the Russian military attache in Washington, D.C., were not returned.

In 1999, the General Accounting Office reported that Russia is the top weapons supplier to China. The loss of the Kursk has not stopped the construction of another Oscar-class submarine in Russia. The K-530 currently sports the name "Belgorod" and is still under construction at the Severodvinsk Shipyard. Work on the new submarine continues, even though the Russian navy is broke and cannot buy the Belgorod. China, however, is reportedly interested in buying the K-530.

Unlike the K-530, there is hard evidence that Russia plans to sell China another nuclear missile-armed warship this year. According to the German navy, the second of two 8,480-ton Russian navy Project 956A Sovremenny destroyers built for China is now conducting trials in the eastern Baltic.

The Chinese navy is expected to take delivery of the second Russian- made warship this fall. A July article published in Jane's Defense contained photographs taken by German navy aircraft of the new warship with its Russian shakedown crew.

China currently operates a single Sovremenny warship across from Taiwan. The first Chinese Sovremenny was originally built for the Soviet navy as the Vazhnyy in 1988. The ship was launched in May 1994 and renamed the Yekaterinburg before work was halted.

The Alexandr Nevskiy, soon to become China's newest warship. Photo courtesy of German navy

In 1996, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) navy negotiated to buy the Yekaterinburg and another 956A-class destroyer named the Alexandr Nevskiy. The Yekaterinburg was delivered to the Chinese navy in 1999, passing through the Strait of Taiwan with a combined Russian/Chinese crew. The Chinese navy is scheduled to acquire the Alexandr Nevskiy by the end of 2000.

Each Sovremenny warship is armed with eight supersonic 3M82 Moskit sea-skimming missiles, NATO code-named SS-N-22 "Sunburn." According to documents obtained from the U.S. Navy using the Freedom Of Information the power of the A-bomb used on Hiroshima.

The Sovremenny is not the only Sunburn missile-armed warship to be acquired by China this year. U.S. and Taiwanese intelligence sources say China has also deployed the first Sunburn-armed Tarantul III Corvettes bought from Russia. The Chinese navy reportedly may add up to a dozen more of the potent missile-armed warships from Russian weapons-maker Vympel NPO.

Russian Tarantul III Corvette fires the deadly Sunburn missile.

According to Vympel documentation, the Tarantul III Corvette is considered a small warship, perfect for "littoral" waters. Official U.S. Navy documents state that each "Tarantul can deploy up to four Sunburns in a dual launcher per side configuration."

The new warship arrives into the People's Liberation Army's navy just in time to exercise with China's latest Russian fighters armed with new air-to-air missiles. During a recent exercise directly opposite Japan, the Chinese air force deployed the first SU-30 strike fighter along with a growing force of SU-27 Flanker fighter jets.

The Chinese force of advanced Sukhoi jets is expected to grow to 275 aircraft by 2005 with most of the aircraft manufactured under license in China. A recently published congressional report titled "China's New War Fighting Skills" noted the significant buildup in Chinese military activity.

"During ongoing large-scale military exercises, China has demonstrated significant new joint-service war-fighting skills 'under high-tech conditions' that are steadily altering the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait," states the report.

"The PLA is applying U.S. military doctrine to integrate its relentlessly expanding strategic missile forces, high-performance SU-27 and SU- 30 jet fighters purchased from Russia, blue-water navy ships--including a Sovremenny-class destroyer with deadly SS-N-22 anti-ship missiles, and state-of-the-art secure communications systems purchased from U.S. and other Western companies, in addition to developing advanced information and electronic warfare capabilities."

The Vympel R-77 medium-range missiles is similar to the American AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. Jane's Defense reports that China will acquire the R-77 and produce the missile under license.

In April, Jane's Defense reported that China is also close to finalizing a deal with Russian weapons maker Vympel to acquire the advanced R-77 air-to-air missile to arm the new fleet of Sukhoi jets. The R-77, NATO code named AA-12 "Adder," is also called "amraamsky" by Western defense analysts due to its similarity to the U.S.-made AIM- 120 AMRAAM missile.

The AA-12 is considered to be one of the most advanced radar-homing missiles in the world and is, in many ways, superior to the U.S.- made AMRAAM. According to an April report in Jane's Defense, China plans to manufacture the Adder missile as the R-129. PLAAF fighters armed with the new AA-12 missiles could easily destroy Taiwanese fighters armed with shorter range and less powerful air-to-air missiles. The AA-12 is also capable of destroying American fighter aircraft such as the U.S. Navy F-18 Hornet.

The Clinton-Gore administration previously denied the export of the U.S.-made AMRAAM missile to Taiwan this year, overriding congressional recommendations. The administration instead proposed that the AMRAAM missiles could be delivered to Taiwan in case of emergency.

military disagrees with the Clinton-Gore delayed delivery plan. According to Taiwanese military sources, the lack of AMRAAM missiles may be fatal.

"The new generation of PLA jet fighters has made major steps to control the skies with upgraded onboard avionics, EW and radar systems," concludes the congressional report.

"AMRAAM air-to-air missiles should also be delivered to Taiwan immediately, because the five-day delivery period after a conflict begins would be too late."

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REPORTS OF CHINESE NAVAL OBSERVERS ONBOARD THE KURSK FIRST APPEARED IN THE TAIWAN AND HONG KONG PRESS.

--A U.S. intelligence source

[I]THERE IS HARD EVIDENCE THAT RUSSIA PLANS TO SELL CHINA ANOTHER NUCLEAR MISSILE-ARMED WARSHIP THIS YEAR.

DURING ONGOING LARGE-SCALE MILITARY EXERCISES, CHINA HAS DEMONSTRATED SIGNIFICANT NEW JOINT-SERVICE WAR-FIGHTING SKILLS 'UNDER HIGH-TECH CONDITIONS' THAT ARE STEADILY ALTERING THE BALANCE OF POWER IN THE TAIWAN STRAIT.

--A congressional report on the Chinese military

THE NEW GENERATION OF PLA JET FIGHTERS HAS MADE MAJOR STEPS TO CONTROL THE SKIES WITH UPGRADED ONBOARD AVIONICS, EW AND RADAR SYSTEMS.

--A congressional report on the Chinese military

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8 Washington Refuses Moscow Request to Examine Subs
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 16 2:41 PM ET
Yahoo
By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said Saturday the United States had refused a Russian request to examine two of its submarines that were in the Barents Sea when the nuclear-powered Kursk sank last month.

Interfax news agency quoted a defense ministry source as saying the refusal only strengthened the Russian case that a collision with a foreign submarine had sunk the Kursk.

In a dispatch from Washington, Tass quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying that Defense Secretary William Cohen had turned down the request from his Russian opposite number Igor Sergeyev.

``William Cohen already gave Marshal Sergeyev a reply in which he explained that he did not feel it was necessary or appropriate to allow such an inspection to take place,'' Tass quoted the spokesman as saying.

No one was available at Russia's Defense Ministry to comment on the report or confirm that such a request had been made.

A source in the ministry later told Interfax Russia hoped Washington would allow the inspection.

``(The refusal) only serves to back up the version that it was a collision with another underwater vehicle that killed the Kursk,'' the source said.

``The decision by William Cohen does nothing to promote mutual trust between the two defense ministries.''

RUSSIA DEFENDS ITS KURSK RESCUE EFFORT

Russian investigations into two explosions which preceded the sinking of the Kursk during maneuvers in the Barents Sea have suggested a number of possible scenarios.

These include collision with another submarine or a World War Two mine, an explosion on board or the impact from a missile fired from another vessel. The United States and Britain have ruled out collisions with their vessels in the area at the time.

The Russian cabinet minister heading the government's inquiry, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, defended official handling of the disaster in parliament Friday.

He said errors in providing information during rescue efforts was not deliberate, but statements made ``in the heat of the moment without enough analysis.''

The commander of Russia's Northern Fleet told Russian reporters in the northern port of Murmansk Saturday that the navy had told no lies.

``Not a single lie was told by the navy and top officers during the active phase of rescue efforts,'' Tass quoted Admiral Vyacheslav Popov as saying.

Popov said hypotheses had been raised which later proved false. But everything had been done to help save the 118 seamen.

The navy initially said rescuers were in contact with the crew and that tapping was heard from the vessel. But officials now say nearly all the crew died in the immediate aftermath of the accident and there was never any contact with them.

``As a submarine specialist I knew that no one could have been alive even on the day following such a disaster,'' Tass quoted Popov as saying. ``But we wanted to believe that someone might have survived. And we kept on with the (rescue) work.''

A Russian mini-sub is to travel to the site of the accident next week and work to recover the bodies of the seamen is to start next month. A debate has been launched on whether to raise the submarine itself next year.

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9 Kremlin's Handling of Kursk Crisis Defended
Saturday, September 16, 2000
The Moscow Times
Combined Reports

Officials did not conduct a deliberate campaign of misinformation after the Kursk submarine disaster, but rather made statements "without enough analysis," Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Friday. During a grilling at the State Duma, Klebanov, who is heading the government's inquiry into the sinking, said that a Russian mini-sub, the Academic Keldysh, would arrive at the site of the accident on Sept. 23-24 to investigate what caused the nuclear-powered submarine to sink.

The Kursk sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea on Aug. 12 after two explosions ripped through its bow. All 118 people on board were killed. Klebanov responded to criticism from Duma deputies who asked why so many early statements about the disaster had later proven false. The navy initially said there were no deaths aboard the Kursk and that rescuers were in contact with the crew, but officials now say that nearly all the crew died instantly and there was never any contact with them. Klebanov said the errors were not a deliberate campaign of disinformation, but a question of statements being made "in the heat of the moment without enough analysis." He said he himself heard tapes of knocking sounds, which officials initially said were SOS signals. He said the navy now believe the sounds were caused by a "mechanical device" on the sub. Klebanov also said it was necessary to raise the Kursk to quell public fears of a future nuclear disaster.

Russian and Western sources agree that the Kursk sank after a small first blast that was followed by a devastating second explosion. But there have been a number of explanations for the cause of the first, which presumably triggered the deadly second blast. Klebanov said the three main theories involved an accident on board, a collision with a foreign submarine or a World War II-era mine.

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10 Huge laser project has huge price tag
Cost overrun pegged at $1.05 billion
September 17, 2000
By Andrew Widener Knight Ridder Newspapers

WALNUT CREEK - Bolstered by a glowing internal review, the Department of Energy on Friday sent Congress its final estimate of how much more it will cost to mend the embattled project to build the world's largest laser: $1.05 billion.

Now Congress can begin deciding whether to come through with a final construction cost of $2.23 billion for the National Ignition Facility, which has been plagued by technical and management problems that have caused the billion-dollar overrun and four years of delays.

Congress' most immediate decision will come this week, as House and Senate committees debate whether to boost the NIF's 2001 funding from $74 million, the amount project officials had requested before NIF's problems were understood, to $215 million.

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and DOE officials claimed with the support of the Lehman Review, an intense examination by 40 representatives of industry, academia, other national labs and the DOE that the project needs the $215 million for fiscal year 2001 to keep from losing the laser's vendors and breaking up the NIF organization through layoffs.

If it gets only $74 million, "the program is in serious jeopardy, " Madelyn Creedon, deputy administrator for defense programs at the DOE, said during a press conference. "It is a pretty desperate scenario."

As originally designed, the stadium-sized NIF would have brought 192 laser beams together on a target the size of a BB, creating a high-temperature, high-pressure environment like that inside NUCLEAR explosions or the sun. The original cost to build NIF was pegged at $1.2 billion.

Construction costs released Friday rose just $60 million over tentative estimates released this spring, to the $1.05 billion figure over the next eight years. That brings total construction costs to $2.23 billion and, when combined with research and development costs, brings the total NIF cost to $3.5 billion. That number does not include funding for the laser's tiny targets, which the DOE does not include in its NIF budget.

Creedon and NIF project manager Ed Moses both said the project would be $250 million cheaper if it was completed two years sooner, but the DOE decided not to pursue it because it would have placed a large burden on defense programs at Lawrence Livermore and two other weapons laboratories: Los Alamos and Sandia .

Despite concerns from scientists at other labs, Creedon said funding the NIF will have a minimal impact on defense research at Los Alamos and Sandia. She said the DOE's defense programs budget can accommodate the average of $117 million in additional funds NIF will cost over the next eight years without major damage to any one lab.

"We think we have done this so there won't be any negative impact on the rest of the program," Creedon said.

DOE officials Friday buttressed their claims that the NIF is both fiscally and technically sound with the results of its Lehman Review.

"The committee concluded that the proposed NIF scope, cost and schedule baselines are reasonable," the review states. "Several issues have been identified and, when properly addressed, will ensure a high probability for successful completion of the NIF."

Those suggestions include developing a single oversight group, hiring more people in the DOE's NIF office, creating a new system to track costs and schedule progress, and closely monitoring the installation of the laser's massive beam tubes.

"I think the report finally closes any 'credibility gap' about the NIF and proves it can be completed within its revised cost schedule, " said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo.

DOE officials have refused to divulge the names of the Lehman Review's members. The DOE also didn't release its report outlining the new cost schedule.

The new plan predicts the laser's "first light" in 2004, the same year the laser was originally scheduled to be completed. Experiments will begin in 2006, and the laser beams will gradually be activated through 2006 and 2007. All 192 beams should be completed late in 2008.

"We felt vindicated with all of the changes we have made and that the status of the technology was found to be healthy," Moses said.

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11 Russian Military Experts Say U.S. Submarine May Have Caused Kursk Tragedy
Agence France Presse
Sep 17, 2000
Russia Today

MOSCOW, The Russian defence ministry said Saturday that the theory of a U.S. submarine clashing with the fated Kursk was strengthened by Washington's refusal to allow a Russian inspection of two U.S. submarines.

U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen's rejection of the request from his Russian counterpart Igor Sergeyev "only strengthened the case that the Kursk clashed with another underwater vessel," the defence ministry told Interfax.

An investigation by Russian military experts into the cause of the August 12 explosion on the Kursk nuclear submarine, which killed 118 crew members, resulted in several possible explanations, including one that the Kursk had collided with a U.S. or British submarine.

The U.S. Toledo and Memphis and the British Splendid submarines were located in the Barents Sea at the time of the accident but have ruled out any collisions with their vessels.

The U.S. military, which believes the explosion originated inside the submarine, admitted that they had monitored the explosion and later provided Russia with a sonic report of the accident.

However, Cohen refused the inspection request explaining that "he did not think it was important or appropriate for the inspection to take place," a Pentagon official told ITAR-TASS on condition of anonymity.

"The Pentagon's reply was predictable, though today's level of relations between the two defence agencies led us to hope that Washington might have met us halfway," an official told Interfax. ((C) 2000 AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE)

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12 Older lasers neglected for NIF
Delays of top project come under criticism
September 17, 2000
By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER

LIVERMORE--Out with the old, late with the new.

Two major research lasers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory were terminated in the past two years in anticipation of a monumental laser, the National Ignition Facility, though that project is an estimated six years behind schedule.

NIF's first laser beams aren't expected to fire up until 2004.

The long lag time has left the lab dangling with a shrunken in-house capability for researching fusion with lasers, a field in which the lab has excelled since 1972.

While the lab has some small lasers to research fusion, there are no longer any high-power, large-scale facilities for laser fusion research at the NUCLEAR weapons lab.

Stephen Dean, president of Fusion Power Associates, an organization that promotes fusion energy research, said NIF has definitely taken precedent over other lab laser projects.

"There is no doubt that Livermore Lab slowly but surely began a process of squeezing the non-NIF efforts within the laser directorate to free up resources to support the research and development for NIF, " he said.

"In my view Livermore Lab went overboard in putting the squeeze on the operating programs to support the NIF, but could be forgiven if the NIF had maintained its original schedule."

Lab officials even renamed the Laser Programs Directorate in the past year--now it is called the NIF Programs Directorate to reflect a change in focus for lab laser research.

NIF, a NUCLEAR weapons tool intended to simulate thermoNUCLEAR explosions on a tiny scale, is expected to blast BB-size radioactive fuel pellets with 192 powerful ultra-violet laser beams.

Beamlet, a one-beam laser prototype for the NIF project that began operating in 1993, was terminated in 1998 and has since been shipped to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

An Energy Department task force that reviewed the NIF project criticized lab officials for dismantling the Beamlet so soon after it was built and charged that the one-beam laser was not a representative sample of an actual NIF laser beam.

John McTague, chairman of the task force, said in January, "It would have been much better to have continued on (with Beamlet), and to have a much more robust program."

The Nova, a 10-beam fusion research laser that began operation in 1984 and once was the world's largest laser, was terminated in May 1999, along with a companion short-pulse laser, called Petawatt, that was incorporated in its design.

Nova's target chamber--the place where the lasers converge--has been shipped to France to support an eight-beam laser under construction by the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

Two other NUCLEAR weapons labs, five universities, NASA, and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense will also receive Nova parts and pieces.

Lab workers are in the process of dismantling Nova. Lab officials this week denied access to the Nova building, claiming the remaining hulk of Nova was cluttered and was not suitable for public viewing.

While lab researchers await the completion of NIF, they will continue to conduct experiments on large-scale laser facilities at other research centers and the smaller lasers that remain at the lab.

Joe Kilkenny, deputy associate director of inertial confinement fusion research at Livermore Lab, said that NIF researchers are using the Omega laser at the University of Rochester, N.Y., in the absence of Nova and Beamlet.

Lab researchers also are using lasers in France, England and at Los Alamos Lab for fusion research, he said.

Kilkenny said that the shutdown of Nova and Beamlet freed up money and workers for NIF. The closures were intended "to make people here concentrate on the NIF, to free them up for NIF," Kilkenny said.

The decision to turn off Beamlet in 1998 was made in 1997, he said, and the decision to turn off Nova in 1999 was made in 1998, though it was known even earlier that both projects would close before NIF became operational.

But the closure dates were agreed upon before the extent of NIF's troubles--including a six-year delay and a more than $1 billion cost increase--were known to lab managers.

There was a "lab-wide decision" to shut down Nova, Kilkenny said, and there was "general agreement" but some dissent on the closure date.

Bruce Warner, NIF deputy project manager, said researchers at Livermore Lab have always sought after fusion ignition, a massive energy yield that powers the sun and hydrogen weapons blasts. And all fusion research lasers at the lab have been leading to NIF, he added. "Our goal has always been to get fusion in a laboratory," he said, and NIF is the best bet yet for achieving fusion ignition.

If NIF is canceled for lack of congressional support, the lab would be left without a major laser for fusion research.

The lab has not even considered that scenario, said Warner.

Paul Springer, a lab laser researcher, said in June, "Livermore has basically put most of the eggs in the NIF basket."

But even if the project is built, lab officials cannot guarantee that it will succeed in reaching fusion ignition.

Dean, who leads the fusion power association, said NIF is an important tool, though fusion research at the lab is lagging now that NIF is delayed and the big lasers are gone.

"If the original NIF schedule had been maintained, the loss of (other lab lasers) would not be so unfortunate as it has turned out to be in retrospect," Dean said.

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13 Y-12 is open, and so are today's nuclear leaders
The Knoxville News-Sentinel

Bill Brumley and David Wall, key figures in the nuclear weapons program at Oak Ridge, sat down the other day to talk shop with members of the news media, and that in itself might qualify as news.

It hasn't always been that way.

When I first started covering the U.S. Department of Energy in the early 1980s, Herschel Hickman was the defense chief in Oak Ridge, and he didn't sit at the same table with newspaper reporters and he didn't willingly talk about activities at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

In fact, if Hickman saw me walking down the street, he was apt to change his route rather than risk any type of verbal exchange.

His chilly approach to the news media may have been a personal choice, but it also reflected the Oak Ridge mindset at the tail end of the Cold War when Ronald Reagan openly dissed the "Evil Empire" and accelerated the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race.

Questions about Y-12's weapons work had to delivered to Hickman's office through intermediaries and, trust me, the answers didn't come back in real time or with much detail.

Things have changed.

That's not to suggest Brumley and Wall are blabbermouths. Much of the information tossed out during the recent briefing was couched in vague terminology and non sequiturs that blurred any news value. But it was interesting, nonetheless.

Brumley, Oak Ridge chief of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the quasi-independent agency within DOE that oversees the nuclear weapons complex, was intent on getting one message across:

Y-12 is not shut down. In fact, it is almost fully operational.

Brumley was concerned by a perception that the Oak Ridge plant is struggling to restart operations placed on stand down in the fall of 1994 (following a staff inspection by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board). He was seemingly distressed by news stories that reported on the forthcoming "restart" of enriched uranium operations at Y- 12.

The defense chief said all but a small part of the enriched uranium operations already has been restarted. He acknowledged some chemical processing of the bomb-making material is not yet sanctioned, but again he emphasized that's a relatively small part of the Oak Ridge operations.

It's notable that Brumley wants people to know the warhead plant is going full bore. Not so long ago, federal officials would have been happy if local folks didn't have a clue about Y-12 activities.

As I noted during the session, however, it's pretty obvious some people realize Y-12 is still producing nuclear weapons parts. That's why the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance regularly stages protests at the plant's front gate.

Brumley and Wall, senior nuclear engineer in the Oak Ridge office, gave an overview of Y-12's work, much of which has been reported before, and answered a few questions.

I was intrigued by some of Wall's comments regarding the archiving of classified documents at Y-12.

The Oak Ridge plant has produced parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, and Wall said Y-12 maintains data files on every part ever produced, dating back to the post-World War II period when the plant made the transition from a uranium-enrichment facility to a bomb-making factory.

This is important, he said, as the United States re-manufactures new parts for old weapons systems, particularly now that nuclear testing is prohibited.

"We can replicate exactly any part that we've ever manufactured at Y-12 in all its history," Wall said.

The information stored at Y-12 reportedly goes well beyond the "Build Books" that contain specifications for component manufacturing, also including results from test explosions at the Nevada Test Site and associated data.

This is useful to weapons designers at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Labs who now must simulate weapons testing with supercomputers and high-tech equipment.

"They need to know exactly how something was built so they can model it," Wall said. " ... During these days when there's no testing going on, we are finding that all of that data has become more and more valuable."

Wall said most of the highly secret weapons documents are housed in the basement of a Y-12 building. He didn't offer too much more.

"Well, they are precisely filed," he said when pressed for more details.

"There are some folks that would like to see that historic archives upgraded - and indeed that will be one of the things we will upgrade as part of our plant modernization. It's a vault-type storage, obviously, because everything in there is very classified. I think we'd all like to see it stored in a much more modern, nice, pretty-looking building."

Is the vault temperature- and climate-controlled?

"I don't know," Wall said. "I haven't been down there in a long time."

Are there multiple copies of everything?

"Some of the old stuff, no," Wall said. "We are currently in a program that is reproducing and transferring some of that stuff to electronic media."

I thought the electronic duplication of paper documents was accomplished in the 1980s, but Wall said, "There is just so much of it, you can't do all of it."

The weapons designers typically establish priorities on what archived information needs to be compiled and in what format, he said.

It seemed surprising that information related to old weapons testing would be housed in Oak Ridge, but Wall explained:

"A lot of that information never left here. We would send data off to designers that they needed at the time, which during an era when they had the liberty to do testing, maybe they didn't need a whole lot. We archived everything. Well, now in an era with no testing -- this data becomes very important. So now we're having to go back and dig out some of these old archive files and regenerate them.

"In many cases, you're digging up files where the guy that put it together is long gone."

Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/.

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14 Council to consider cleanup plans, land swap
Oak Ridger Online
Monday, September 18, 2000
Oak Ridger staff

Bethel Valley cleanup plans and a proposed land swap between the city and a private developer top a short agenda for Oak Ridge City Council's meeting tonight.

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building Courtroom.

Set to be adopted is a resolution authorizing the transmittal of the city's Environmental Quality Advisory Board's comments regarding the Department of Energy's plan for interim action in Bethel Valley to DOE.

The proposed plan for environmental restoration of the 1,734-acre Bethel Valley is geared toward restoring all creeks and streams within the watershed to current environmental standards.

According to Amy Fitzgerald, special assistant to the city manager, the plan serves as a comprehensive waste remediation strategy for the land. Waters from the property drain into White Oak Creek and ultimately are discharged into the Clinch River.

"Approximately 173 potential sources of contamination were identified; remedial actions are already under way at some of the sources," Fitzgerald states in a memorandum.

DOE's plan identifies the preferred alternatives for remediation of the Bethel Valley watershed, explains why these alternatives are preferred and describes other options that were considered.

It also summarizes results of environmental and engineering studies conducted for this area and describes the preferred alternative for environmental restoration measures in the Bethel Valley watershed.

This proposal includes demolition and removal of inactive facilities; removal of contaminated sediment from White Oak Creek, First Creek and Fifth Creek; extraction and treatment of groundwater to minimize further impacts to groundwater and to protect surface water; removal of contaminated surface soil; and land-use controls to prevent contact with buried waste, tanks, pipelines, subsurface soil and groundwater.

EQAB still has questions and concerns about some elements of the proposal, however.

"All alternatives considered would leave hazardous substances in place, which would require land-use restrictions for hundreds of years or more," the board states in its comments.

According to Fitzgerald, "The plan relies on controlling contamination at the source--either by removal or isolation--to reduce the levels of exposure, as well as placing restrictions on water resources."

She said city officials need to be aware that long-term stewardship will require controls, such as zoning, public advisories and deed notices, over a long period of time.

"Long-term responsibility for maintenance and funding of these controls ... have not been adequately addressed," she states.

In other business, EQAB Chairman Martin Cole is expected to request additional time for the board to review a document regarding the environmental impact of expanding civilian nuclear energy research and isotope production missions.

Included in the document are comments regarding the role of the Fast Flux Test Facility, which would be used to irradiate targets for medical and industrial isotope production, plutonium-238 production and research and development irradiation requirements.

Following the completed review, EQAB is expected to generate comments for transmittal to DOE and has already stated the board "feels that the work described in the (report) can be safely performed on the Oak Ridge Reservation."

Also to be presented for council consideration is a potential land swap between Rick Chinn and the city.

Chinn, president of R&R Enterprises, requested the swap of a .66- acre lot he currently owns for a city-owned 1.78-acre parcel of similar value. Chinn's property is Lot 60 located on the northeast corner of Lafayette Drive and South Illinois Avenue and was appraised at $115,000.

The city's property, Parcel 623, is a vacant triangle of land located across South Illinois Avenue from Lot 60 and was appraised at $124, 000.

If council agrees to proceed with the exchange, Chinn plans to use the site for business development, and the city would use Lot 60 as a gateway location welcoming motorists to the city center.

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15 Army Corps' Manhattan Project "Cleanup" Fiasco
September 9, 2000
F.A.C.T.S. (For A Clean Tonawanda Site) Inc.
by James Rauch
FOR FORMER A-BOMB REFINERY IN TONAWANDA, NY

Combined with an AWOL U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Congress' 1997 transfer of the Energy Department's FUSRAP (Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program) to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is producing cleanup fiascos at many old radioactive waste sites and also contaminating other, unlicensed facilities that should not be receiving radioactive material. USACE recently issued an extremely weak "cleanup" decision for the radioactive contamination at the Linde/Praxair FUSRAP property in Tonawanda, NY. (Linde Air Products Co. operated a uranium refinery on this property under contract with the Army's Manhattan Project during World War II which supplied uranium for the first A-bombs, including the Hiroshima bomb.)

The fundamental problem has been NRC's failure to exercise control over the huge volumes of FUSRAP radioactive wastes, despite a 1978 law (UMTRCA) passed by Congress specifically directing NRC to regulate these wastes (see Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation v. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ... , 903 F.2d 1, 284 U.S.App.D.C. 184). A local public interest group, F.A.C.T.S. (For A Clean Tonawanda Site), Inc., went to federal district court in June 1998 to challenge Army Corps' inappropriate selection of cleanup criteria and to require NRC to acknowledge its jurisdiction and to assume regulatory control of these wastes.

Both components of the case, 98-CV-0354E(H) in the Western District of NY, were eventually dismissed on June 20, 2000 by Judge John T. Elfvin. The challenge of the Corps' cleanup decision (ROD) was dismissed on the ground that section 113(h) of CERCLA does not allow citizen suits seeking review of cleanup decisions until after a cleanup is completed. Interestingly, in spite of the fact that separate RODs have been issued for the Ashland properties and the Linde property and will be issued for the Seaway property, and although cleanup of the Ashland 2 property is now completed, the Army Corps has indicated it will not "close out" completed properties until the whole Tonawanda site is completed. The request that NRC be declared the responsible regulator was dismissed on a venue technicality; Judge Elfvin ruled the matter should have been brought in the Court of Appeals. F.A.C.T.S.' attorney maintains that the judge had discretion under law to make a ruling. (For highlights of the court documents, see

The EPA, the NYS DEC, and independent radiation experts have severely criticized USACE's Linde risk analysis, which uses a very restrictive industrial use scenario to arrive at cleanup criteria that are 6 to 300 times weaker than those used in previous FUSRAP cleanups. The USACE decision would allow concentrations of uranium up to 554 pCi/g to remain in surface soil (first six inches) and up to 3,021 pCi/g to remain in subsurface soil.

The Energy Department had previously established a uniform soil uranium cleanup level of 60 pCi/g for Tonawanda, as part of an extensive environmental review process involving the preparation of the 1993 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

However, NRC policy since 1981, implemented at several smaller sites, has been to release for unrestricted use only those properties having total uranium concentrations that do not exceed 10 pCi/g (10 pCi/g total uranium is equivalent to 5 pCi/g U-238 and 5 pCi/g U-234). Also, it is a violation of NRC rules to employ dilution as a means of achieving concentration limits--by either averaging over clean or cleaner volumes (as USACE has proposed at Linde/Praxair) or the physical blending down of higher concentrations with cleaner material.

Based on actual waste volumes removed in completed operations at Tonawanda compared to Energy Department figures, it is appears that USACE has utilized soil blending, which to a certain extent is unavoidable in large earth moving operations. This is why it is essential that before any digging occurs the proper cleanup levels and removal methods be established, and also why F.A.C.T.S. sought a temporary restraining order when it brought suit over the earlier USACE Ashland cleanup decision.

Cleanup decision details:

The Army Corps has used the CERCLA (Superfund) law to invoke two lax cleanup regulations that are neither legally applicable nor appropriate for the affected environment at the Linde site, a heavily populated area subject to intensive land use and re-use, including residential habitation.

The first regulation is a radium cleanup standard developed twenty years ago by EPA to address radon-related sickness in communities near remote western uranium mill tailings sites (radium decays to radon gas). This standard provides a 15 pCi/g cleanup level for subsurface soil (deeper than six inches) that is three times less stringent than its 5 pCi/g surface soil (top six inches) cleanup level--the rationale being that the relaxed subsurface level was adequate to protect the remote residents from excessive levels of radon gas emanating from the uranium mill tailings piles. Uranium contamination of groundwater generally was not an issue at these sites at that time.

At the same time EPA was promulgating this radium standard [40 CFR 192], the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission adopted a comprehensive policy for cleanup of uranium from past operations that addresses all the radioactive members of the uranium decay chain, not just the radium [46 FR 52061-3, October 23, 1981]. Under this NRC policy as implemented at many sites across the country, for a property to be released for unrestricted use, i.e habitation by a resident farmer, the maximum concentration level of each uranium decay chain member must not exceed 5 pCi/g at all soil depths. The appropriate cleanup of the Linde property for unrestricted future use, i.e. proper license termination, requires application of this NRC policy.

In a January 12, 2000 letter to the USACE, EPA states:

"EPA disagrees with the interpretation of the appropriateness of the use of 15 pCi/g as a subsurface radium cleanup limit, especially in light of the fact that your subsequent benchmarking of the dose from this radium concentration is used to derive the equivalent subsurface uranium concentration of 3,021 pCi/g as a limit. We do not recognize the 15 pCi/g radium level is an ARAR [applicable or appropriate and relevant requirement], and therefore do not accept that the technique of benchmarking is applicable in this circumstance."

The "technique of benchmarking" that EPA refers to is the second regulation that Army Corps has improperly selected to set lax cleanup levels at Linde. This recent NRC regulation, called the Uranium Recovery Facilities Rule [69 FR 17506, April 12, 1999], was developed specifically as a loophole for four currently operating western uranium mills which claimed they could not meet the NRC's general License Termination Rule, previously adopted on July 21, 1997 [at 62 FR 39058]. Prior to its taking effect, F.A.C.T.S. commented to NRC on the weak provisions of the Uranium rule and its inapplicability at FUSRAP sites because no impact assessment had been done for such sites. NRC subsequently agreed that this rule was not applicable to FUSRAP sites.

Ironically, in an August 23, 1999 letter to USACE, DEC complains that contaminated material containing concentrations of uranium greater than 339 pCi/g (i.e., well below the USACE cleanup levels) is source material by definition and as such requires state regulation in the form of a radioactive materials license. In fact, the State Labor Department had license control of the Linde FUSRAP material by Amendment 4 to License No. 1983-0143 issued June 9, 1978 under the authority of the state's Industrial Code Rule 38 [12 NYCRR Part 38]. This license was unlawfully terminated by the state in July of 1996, in violation of the decontamination and decommissioning requirements of section 38.23 of these

Of great importance, in that letter DEC does clarify the current "Performance Standard District" zoning classification of the Linde/Praxair property. Dwelling units, i.e. residential uses, are not prohibited. DEC concludes: "[e]xamples of industrial property being put to residential use are increasingly common. In fact, the day after the June 3, 1999 public hearing on the Linde site, on the front page of the local section of The Buffalo News was an article about a developer turning the Trico complex into apartments. Therefore, this Department concludes that residential uses of the property are strongly possible and that the USACE should use a residential use scenario as the basis for their dose modeling."

A group of local politicians called CANiT (Coalition Against Nuclear materials in Tonawanda), led by Congressman John LaFalce, Deputy County Supervisor Carl Calabrese and County Legislator Chuck Swanick, has misinformed the public by repeatedly stating that the current zoning status limits re-development to only commercial/industrial uses. Of course, zoning is generally not recognized by responsible agencies as a durable means to control future property use.

Improper waste disposal

Both the Army Corps and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been severely criticized by residents and officials in Utah, California, and elsewhere for allowing the improper disposal of Tonawanda Site wastes. The local citizen group F.A.C.T.S. has consistently criticized the CANiT politicians for pursuing the use of physically unsuitable, improperly licensed sites as cheaper alternatives to the properly licensed disposal facilities. Several years ago, F.A.C.T.S. opposed CANiT when it actively sought the use of the Newmont/Dawn Mine site near Spokane, Washington -- an unsuitable storage location already plagued by groundwater contamination. In their sudden rush to make this fifty year old problem go away, CANiT politicians have not only supported the USACE's inadequate "cleanup" but also encouraged the use of unsuitable waste storage sites.

USACE is shipping large volumes of Tonawanda's contaminated soil to International Uranium Corporation's White Mesa mill near Blanding, Utah for supposed "reprocessing" under the terms of a special amendment to IUC's license granted by NRC. The White Mesa mill is not licensed as a disposal facility for FUSRAP wastes. The State of Utah and public interest groups have formally protested to NRC that this reprocessing amendment is a sham since it was previously determined in three separate studies commissioned by the Energy Department that volume reduction treatment, i.e. "reprocessing", of Tonawanda's soils is not economically feasible. It is believed that Tonawanda's wastes are going directly into the White Mesa mill's disposal area. Although NRC denied the petitions, recently USACE announced that it would no longer use the White Mesa mill for disposal of other FUSRAP sites' wastes without first consulting Utah. However, the Tonawanda shipments are to remain unaffected.

Last summer, the State of California became upset when it discovered the contaminated demolition debris of Building 30 had been sent to a Safety Kleen dump near Buttonwillow, CA during an earlier "interim action" at the 3-21-97 Buffalo ALT).) This hazardous waste facility is not licensed to receive FUSRAP radioactive wastes. Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) led the call for a Congressional hearing into USACE's FUSRAP waste disposal practices which was originally set for last fall.

At the urging of state radiation protection officers, including NYSDEC's Paul Merges, this hearing was expanded to include consideration of USACE's lack of authority to make radiological cleanup decisions. NRC was asked to appear. The delayed hearing, which had been rescheduled for April 12, was cancelled following an expose of the FUSRAP program in the April 10 Washington Post story by Mike Grunwald. The hearing has yet to be re-scheduled.

Back in the 80's Linde/Praxair itself demolished the FUSRAP-contaminated Building 37. Despite a written request by F.A.C.T.S. to the Energy Department, the identity of the local landfill which illegally received this radioactive material remains publicly unknown.

Interestingly, after demanding that Building 14 (the only Manhattan Project building built by Linde) be decontaminated and after several unsuccessful attempts to decontaminate this building to unrestricted use levels which cost a total of almost $10 million, Praxair now wants the building to be torn down and to be reimbursed for its full value (the Tonawanda assessor's office reported its full value assessment as $322,000 in 1997) plus $1.5 million in improvements that were made following its "decontamination". The Energy Department's Environmental Impact Statement had called for this building and others to be demolished at a cost of approximately $1.5 million. Such are the results when a legitimate public review process is abandoned by an irresponsible Congress.

The history of the Tonawanda Site is a long and sorry story, an almost unbelievable litany of regulatory failure combined with legislative irresponsibility. Recent deplorable details are discussed in "Nuclear Cleanup's Fallout", an April 10, 2000 Washington Post article by Detailed historical documentation is available in the library section of

James Rauch is a pharmacist and analyst for F.A.C.T.S. (For A Clean Tonawanda Site), Inc., a non-profit public interest group that has been monitoring the cleanup of four designated, radioactively contaminated properties known as the Tonawanda FUSRAP Site.

Background

TONAWANDA'S MANHATTAN PROJECT LEGACY
History:

1942 Top secret "Manhattan Project"; U.S. Army's Manhattan Engineer District (MED) contracts with Linde Air Products Company to refine uranium ores (Tonawanda "Ceramics plant") and to develop gaseous diffusion process (Chandler St., Buffalo) to produce first uranium atomic bombs (Hiroshima bomb, Nagasaki bomb was plutonium); MED builds several buildings (Bldgs. 30, 31, 37, and 38) for scale-up of Linde's refinery processes which were developed in Linde's Building 14, the "pilot plant".

1943 MED leases Haist property for disposal of uranium refinery sludges (tailings) from processing of domestic ores (residues from higher radium-content Belgian ores were taken to Lake Ontario Ordnance Works [LOOW] compound at Lewiston); government purchases Haist property in 1944.

1942 - 1948 Large quantities of radioactive liquid effluents are discharged from Linde's "Ceramics plant" uranium refinery to Tonawanda storm and sanitary sewers, Two Mile Creek, and on-site injection wells.

1947 War Powers Act expires on 3-31-47; Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (AEA) creates the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) which assumes control of radioactive materials; MED contracts with Linde continued by AEC until early 1950s.

1950 - 1952 AEC turns federal compound over to Linde at no charge; little decontamination performed.

1960 After performing radiological survey in 1958, AEC excesses Haist property, gives General Services Administration (GSA) go ahead to auction the 10 acre property; assessed for $5,000, it is sold to Ashland Oil Company for $56,000 via quitclaim deed; Ashland only bidder (of three) that knew of radioactive contamination; despite the 1958 survey which showed the wastes to contain license-requiring concentrations of uranium, AEC made the property transfer without requiring a license for Ashland's possession of the material; the AEC focus was on bomb production, AEC ignored the fourth purpose of the AEA: protecting the public health and welfare.

1962 NYS is delegated licensing authority over radioactive materials by AEC; NYS does not license the materials and thereby prevent their environmental dispersal.

1974 AEC reportedly starts a program (known as FUSRAP: Formerly Utilized MED/AEC Sites Remedial Action Program) to identify and clean up sites contaminated by past operations. Ashland Oil transfers 6,000 cubic yards of radioactive material from the Haist property (now known as Ashland 1) to the Seaway landfill and Ashland 2 property prior to constructing oil storage tanks on former Haist disposal area. The same year, intent on correcting AEC's regulatory failings, Congress splits AEC into the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and ERDA (which becomes the Department of Energy [DOE] in 1978).

1978 Congress enacts the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) to deal with massive waste problems at inactive uranium processing sites and to prevent further problems at operating sites; UMTRCA sets in place strict regulations at federal level which had to be adopted at state level for state control over these materials [11.e.(2) byproduct materials] to continue; NYS does not promulgate required regs and so authority over these materials reverts to NRC in late 1981. Waste material transfers by Ashland from the Ashland 1 property to the Ashland 2 property continue until 1982.

1980 Linde property is designated by DOE for clean-up. Ashland 1 and 2 and the Seaway property are designated in 1984 for clean-up.

1988 DOE issues Notice of Intent to prepare Environmental Impact Statement for clean-up of Tonawanda Site properties, start of public environmental review process.

1993 DOE releases draft RI/BRA/FS-EIS [Remedial Investigation/Baseline Risk Assessment/Feasibility Study - Environmental Impact Statement] for public comment, DOE's preferred alternative is partial clean-up with waste storage in tumulus along Niagara River (Ashland 1 property); public strongly opposed, favors Alternative 2 ("complete clean-up and offsite disposal").

1994 In April DOE "suspends" environmental review process, starts "new open, process"; DOE Secretary Hazel O'Leary issues policy change on NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act, the law requiring EISs for major actions affecting the environment) : no longer do EISs for most clean-ups, only limited CERCLA (Superfund) review. In response, F.A.C.T.S. (For A Clean Tonawanda Site) is formed, F.A.C.T.S. is assured by DOE that NEPA review will not be terminated at the Tonawanda Site.

1995 2-18-95, last public meeting by DOE of new process, thereafter DOE deals almost exclusively with CANiT politicians led by John LaFalce and Richard Tobe (Erie Co.'s Environment and Planning Commissioner). DOE starts "interim actions" at Linde without agreement on applicable clean-up criteria; F.A.C.T.S. objects to criteria as not conforming to the applicable NRC clean-up guidelines.

1996 F.A.C.T.S. makes written requests to NRC to step in and exercise its congressionally-mandated regulatory authority over the FUSRAP materials [11.e.(2) byproduct materials]. NYS DEC publicly acts as if it has authority over wastes and their clean-up long after being informed by NRC that it has no such authority; DOE asks and NYS DEC gives approval of "interim" clean-up criteria. 8-6-96, Congressman LaFalce announces limited clean-up agreement with DOE, some CANiT politicians present, other stakeholders not invited, details sketchy, poorly reported in press. Wastes in BFI's Niagara Landfill not to be removed. F.A.C.T.S. questions legitimacy of the process and the clean-up proposal.

1997 May, F.A.C.T.S. files FOIA litigation against DOE in federal district court for withholding information pertinent to public review process. 10-13-97, Congress transfers funding for the FUSRAP program from DOE to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). 11-13-97, USACE releases for public comment a DOE-revised proposed plan which addresses the clean-up of only the Ashland 1 and 2 properties using inadequate, non-NRC clean-up criteria (40 pCi/g thorium clean-up level); only 42,000 cubic yards of soils identified as contaminated vs. 172,000 cy in EIS; revised PP does not meet NEPA or CERCLA requirements.

1998 F.A.C.T.S. makes extensive comments on the Proposed Plan for Ashland 1 and 2 in anticipation of a need for legal redress; 4-20-98, USACE issues illigitimate Record of Decision (ROD) for Ashland 1 and 2, selecting the 40 pCi/g clean-up level; 6-2-98 F.A.C.T.S. files multi-faceted complaint in federal district court.

Problems with the Proposed Plan and Record of Decision:

1) USACE has no authority to make the decision on the clean-up of the Tonawanda Site's radioactive materials. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended by UMTRCA, only the NRC has authority to make the clean-up decision for these 11.e.(2) byproduct materials.

2) The NRC clean-up guidelines should be used; USACE's proposed clean-up guideline is not protective of public health (8 times less stringent than NRC guidelines).

- USACE proposes using the DOE-recommended soil guideline of 40 picoCuries/gram (pCi/g) for thorium-230 only, which results in a contaminated volume of 42,000 cubic yards for Ashland 1 and 2, vs. the EIS volume for these two properties of >172,000 cubic yards. (There are no provisions for restrictions on use following clean-up.)

- NRC guidelines for unrestricted release of contaminated property are 5 pCi/g for all uranium decay chain members. Contaminated volume using NRC clean-up guidelines not given, but more than EIS volume of 172,000 cubic yards for these two properties.

3) Not sitewide clean-up, the alternatives presented address only the Ashland 1 and 2 properties; raises NEPA segmentation issue.

- a major portion of contaminated soil is at the Seaway property, 117,000 cubic yards according to DOE's 1993 EIS which used the following DOE clean-up guidelines:

15 pCi/g for thorium-230 and radium-226, 28.4 pCi/g for uranium-238.

- the Linde property has approximately 50,000 cubic yards of contaminated soils by these same DOE guidelines.

4) NEPA issues not addressed: reasonable future land use, long-term impacts (health, tumulus maintenance costs, etc).

5) PP lacks details (costs, volumes of contaminated soils and buildings, etc) necessary to make comparisons between alternatives, both the draft EIS's sitewide and the limited versions of this PP's alternatives.

Uranium decay chain (alpha emitters only):

U-238 4.5b yr >
U-234 0.24m yr >
Th-230 77t yr >
Ra-226 1.6t yr >
Rn-222 4 dy >
Po-218 3 min >
Po-214 30 min >
Pb-210 22 yr >
Pb-206 (stable)