------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
*Russia Sends Mixed Signals on Laser System Sale to Iran
*Russia: Laser Deal With Iran Blocked
*India tests surface-to-air missile
*A 'Tilt' Toward India
*Plan in Doubt to Compensate Nuclear Workers
*The Buck Stops at Justice
*Wen Ho Lee, and Our Calls for Human Rights

MILITARY
*The Defense Contractor Welfare King
*Foreign aid: too little but not too late
*The Bad News on Trade With China
*Roll-Call Vote on China Trade Bill
*In Clinton's Words: 'An Outstretched Hand'
*Senate Votes to Lift Curbs on U.S. Trade With China
*New Realism Wins the Day as Senate Passes Trade Bill
*Results of PNTR vote, WTO passage
*Senate easily OKs China trade status
*Cocaine seizure an Arkansas record
*Aide Seeks to Be First Woman to Run for President in Iran
*House GOP report says Gore's policies hurt U.S.-Russian ties
*Atlantis returns to Earth
*Women's unequal treatment hurts economies

OTHER
*Metro Briefing
*Deep Peril for Deep-Sea Corals
*Conservation Plan Rocks the Cradle of Fly-Fishing
*IMF Warns the EU of Risks If Delays in Reforms Persist
*Central Europe's Economies Diverge As They Seek to Join European Union
*Farmers are warning that they could derail a new clean water initiative
*NOT GOOD ENOUGH:
*Persistent Poverty
*Forgiving Debts of the Poor
*Blast near London spy complex investigated
*Pentagon Admits on Deutch Case

ACTIVISTS
*Philadelphia's message on political protest
*New Protests on Fuel Costs Tie Up Europe
*Fishermen, farmers block fuel shipments
*Greens stage sit-in at Gore campaign office in oil protest
*Heart Set For Benefit With Wynonna, Sheryl Crow, Cyndi Lauper
*Diamond Rio Charity Golf Tournament Breaks Its Record

*

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

Russia Sends Mixed Signals on Laser System Sale to Iran

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20ARMS.html

The White House said yesterday that Russia had suspended a contract to sell Iran sophisticated laser technology that Washington says can be used to make fuel for nuclear weapons. But the Russian scientific institute involved says it still plans to make the sale.

In an e-mail response yesterday to questions from The New York Times, Boris Yatsenko, director of the Science and Technology Center of Microtechnology, a unit of the government's D. V. Efremov Institute of St. Petersburg, said his institute was planning to sell the equipment, which he said was solely for "medical, industrial, and scientific purposes."

"As we believe, Iran will use lasers and some electrophysical equipment deliverable by us for the scientific, industrial and medical purposes," Dr. Yatsenko said in the e-mail. "Our scientists and technicians will execute maintenance and guarantee support of the deliverable equipment during agreed periods."

Because the equipment was purely for nonmilitary purposes, the e-mail added, "we do not need the government's approval."

P. J. Crowley, spokesman for the National Security Council, said: "We will continue to work with the government of Russia to ensure that no Russian entities provide support to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. We're moving in the right direction, but clearly this remains a work in progress."

Administration officials have said they have been trying for three months to persuade Russia to cancel the sale. They said yesterday that Russia had agreed to suspend, but not cancel, the sale at a meeting of experts in New York earlier this month, just before President Clinton and President Vladimir V. Putin met.

"We were assured at the United Nations summit in New York two weeks ago that the Russian government had ordered a suspension of this sale pending a joint investigation into whether the laser technology could help Iran acquire a nuclear capability," a White House official said. "I think the institute's e-mail indicates some of the problems that the Russian government may be having in trying to rein in some of the more cash-strapped scientific centers."

"We think that the Russian government is negotiating in good faith," the official said. The official said he was convinced that the "Russian government has the authority to stop the sale if it chooses to do so."

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, informed that the institute believed that the sale was proceeding, said he could not comment on that issue since "the dialogue between the White House and the Kremlin is confidential."

An administration nuclear expert said he believed that the American team of experts had made a "very persuasive technical case" that the equipment the institute is trying to sell Iran could not be used efficiently for other than military purposes. "I cannot conceive of this type of equipment being used for any other purpose other than the once we are concerned about," the official said.

An expert in nuclear technology said there were many types of lasers, only some of which pose proliferation concerns.

In his message, the institute director said his center was "planning to supply to Iran the laser equipment of different types for the medical and scientific purposes by an average power of 15-20 W," with the letter standing for watts.

The expert in nuclear technology said that the Nuclear Suppliers Group - which identifies the technologies that require international safeguards because they are of proliferation concern - said the threshold for the type of "copper vapor" the institute is planning to sell Iran is 40 watts.

While the institute's lasers are less powerful than the suppliers group threshold, "they can still be of concern," he added. "It depends on how Iran is planning to use them, on what other equipment Russia is selling, and what the entire system looks like."

American officials have long believed that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear technology for a weapons program. Iran denies that, and asserts that it has forsworn nuclear weapons and is under international safeguards.

--------

Russia: Laser Deal With Iran Blocked

Washington Post
Wednesday, September 20, 2000 ; A25
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A40361-2000Sep19

Russian authorities have assured the Clinton administration that Moscow has suspended a contract for a research institute in St. Petersburg to provide Iran with a laser facility that could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium, a senior U.S. official said yesterday.

"The Russians don't want to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons, and we expect the contract to be canceled outright," the official said.

Beginning last spring, when U.S. intelligence agencies learned of the proposed deal, American officials have been pushing Moscow to halt the transaction between Iran and the D.V. Efremov Institute because "there is no question that the turn-key facility was intended for" Iran's nuclear weapons program, the official said.

The issue was raised again early this month at a working session in New York to prepare for a Sept. 6 summit meeting between President Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the United Nations.

Kremlin officials told White House aides during the planning session that the contract "has been suspended and is being reviewed" by the Russian government to determine whether the laser isotope enrichment facility could be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, the U.S. official said.

The laser project was first reported in yesterday's editions of the New York Times.

Since 1994, Russia has been helping to complete a nuclear power plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr.

German companies started work on the electrical generating facility, but they left after the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the shah.

U.S. officials have been concerned over the years that the Bushehr facility could be used by the Tehran government as a cover for developing nuclear weapons technology.

In 1994, then-President Boris Yeltsin promised Clinton that Russia would not permit the export of any enrichment technology unless it was clearly associated with the civilian power plant, not with nuclear weapons.

U.S. experts believe that Iran has been pursuing research on laser techniques for producing the highly enriched uranium used in weapons.

They also say that the laser method would not be economical for producing the low-enriched uranium used in civilian power reactors, because it would be less expensive to buy low-enriched uranium on the world market than to produce it with lasers.

"If Iran were interested in commercial applications for uranium fuel, lasers would be the worst way to get it," said Joseph Cirincione, head of the nonproliferation project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Cirincione added that "all scientific institutes" in Russia "are trying to sell things" because government support for science has been sharply cut, though the U.S. Energy Department provides some financial support to keep former Soviet nuclear weapons scientists employed on civilian projects.

According to U.S. officials, Clinton raised the laser contract with Putin in July, when the leaders of the Group of 8 countries met on Okinawa, and Vice President Gore has also discussed the issue with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.

Part of the official Russian response has been that Moscow did not know of the contract until early last year because the St. Petersburg institute had not sought an export permit, sources said.

The senior U.S. official said that some Russian laser-related equipment theoretically could be cleared for export to Iran but that the Clinton administration believes that, "taken as a whole package," the laser facility clearly "was intended and designed for weapons-grade enrichment."

-------- india / pakistan

India tests surface-to-air missile

Florida Today
September 20, 2000
http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000b/092000f.htm

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - India's most sophisticated surface-to-air missile was successfully test-fired Tuesday off the country's eastern coast.

The Akash (sky) missile was fired from India's testing range at Chandipur, off the coast of Orissa state, United News of India news agency quoted military officials as saying.

The Akash, one of five missiles being developed by India's Defense Research and Development Organization, has a range of 15 miles.

The missile can carry a payload of 110 pounds. With its multifunction radar, it can track 64 targets and engage four simultaneously, the news agency reported.

India conducted five nuclear tests in 1998 and is perfecting a delivery system.

Tuesday's exercise at Chandipur, 750 miles southeast of New Delhi, was the ninth of a series of tests.

---

A 'Tilt' Toward India

New York Times
September 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/opinion/20WED1.html

Two years ago, India's nuclear tests provoked worldwide condemnation and retaliatory sanctions by the United States. Yet in recent months, culminating in Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Washington last weekend, the United States has drawn closer to India diplomatically than at any time since the early 1960's. President Clinton has shaped a new foreign policy course in South Asia by embracing India and distancing the United States from Pakistan's military government. These steps have far-reaching ramifications for all of Asia, including China, as well as for the issue of nuclear proliferation. The shift is justified by India's growing importance. But it should be accompanied by more pressure on India to exercise nuclear restraint and defuse tensions with Pakistan.

Before the end of the cold war, American foreign policy in South Asia was characterized by Richard Nixon's famous decision that the United States should "tilt" toward Pakistan in its war with India in 1971. With the withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Soviet empire, the United States and India have repaired their ties. A vibrant new generation of Indian immigrants to America has contributed to an era of good feeling, as has India's participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. India can still be a nettlesome friend. It has fiercely criticized American positions on global warming and nuclear weapons. But as the world's most populous democracy, it is a natural American ally on many issues.

In improving its friendship with India, the United States needs to be particularly careful not to incite feelings of distrust in India's two wary neighbors Pakistan and China. The Senate vote yesterday to give permanent trade benefits to China caps President Clinton's welcome effort to stabilize relations with Beijing and to give Chinese leaders every incentive to open their nation to commerce and new ideas. India should now move quickly to sign the nuclear test ban treaty, which Mr. Vajpayee has promised, and to exercise more restraint on the deployment of missiles and production of fissile materials, since failure to do so will not only provoke Pakistan but raise anxiety in Beijing.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, India's only Muslim-dominated state, poses one of the gravest threats to world stability. In the last two years, it is Pakistan that has engaged in more provocative behavior by supporting guerrilla insurgents and, a year ago, sending its own forces across the border into the Kargil area. Mr. Clinton's pressure on Pakistan to withdraw the troops was successful, but it became a factor in a subsequent military coup last October by Gen. Pervez Musharraf. India was restrained in its response to Kargil, but its leaders need to do more to recognize that there can be no military solution to the Kashmir problem. In the end, greater autonomy must be granted to the region, and there should be more willingness to let the United States or other outsiders try to mediate a political solution.

After meeting with Mr. Vajpayee, Mr. Clinton made it clear that he hoped to cement a new relationship with India that the next president could expand. That may be difficult, not only because of the uncertainty over the American presidential election's outcome but also because Mr. Vajpayee appears to be in frail health. His Hindu nationalist government contains some claimants to leadership who might revert to an unacceptably militant posture toward Pakistan. But if handled sensitively, this new phase of friendship between India and the United States, and America's warming relations with China, should be forces for greater stability in the region and throughout the world.

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

Plan in Doubt to Compensate Nuclear Workers

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/national/20NUKE.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - An administration plan to compensate private-sector workers who were made sick by exposure to hazardous chemicals or radiation while building nuclear weapons may fall victim to a jurisdictional dispute, according to administration officials.

A provision that would authorize compensation passed the Senate on a voice vote, as part of the Defense Authorization bill, but there was no similar provision in the House legislation, so the issue is now before a House-Senate committee.

Agreement in the conference committee has been held up because the Senate bill calls for the program to be administered by the Labor Department, but members of the House Judiciary Committee want it channeled through a Justice Department office that also handles radiation claims against the government arising from nuclear weapons testing.

The legislation would cover thousands of people who worked for private contractors on weapons projects. Nearly all are ineligible for workers' compensation because their illnesses developed years or decades after their exposures, according to the Energy Department. The department acknowledged earlier this year that hundreds of workers had a lung illness that could have been caused only by their work on nuclear weapons components.

The Energy Department says the Senate version of the program would cost about $1.8 billion in the first five years, and less thereafter. It would provide each worker with reimbursement for lost wages or $200,000, whichever is larger, plus health care expenses. The Senate provision, though, is only an authorization, not an appropriation, leaving it to a future Congress to provide the money.

The Judiciary Committee favors a package modeled after the one already on the books for uranium miners and people who were exposed to fallout for weapons tests, which offers $100,000 per victim. Among the issues before the conferees is why one group of victims should be compensated more generously than another. It plans hearings on Thursday, although the issue could be decided by conferees on Wednesday.

Seeking to win compensation, 104 members of the House, including many with victims in their districts, wrote to the conferees asking them to adopt the Senate version.

Paul E. Kanjorski, a Pennsylvania Democrat whose district includes a defunct plant where workers were exposed to beryllium and where some now suffer a debilitating lung disease as a result, said he was "cautiously optimistic" that the Senate version would be approved.

Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department official who is now a consultant for a union representing some of the workers, said the House program amounted to an "apology payment" as opposed to reimbursement for losses, because it does not offer reimbursement for lost wages.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson early this year became the first head of that agency to acknowledge that weapons manufacture had sickened or killed some of the 600,000 people who have worked in the plants.

In a letter sent on Monday to Floyd D. Spence, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he said: "The men and women who worked for the Department of Energy and served our nation in the nuclear weapons industries of World War II and the cold war labored under difficult and dangerous conditions with some of the most hazardous materials known to mankind. It is time for Congress to act to ensure that they get the help they have long deserved. These workers, many of whom are now seriously ill, should not have to wait to be compensated."

-------- new mexico

The Buck Stops at Justice

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By MICHAEL R. BROMWICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/opinion/20BROM.html

The finger-pointing has begun in the failed case against Wen Ho Lee, and there is plenty of blame to go around.

President Clinton, strangely positioning himself as an outsider, said he was troubled by the actions of the Justice Department and F.B.I. in detaining Mr. Lee without bail prior to trial. Mr. Clinton has called for an inquiry of unspecified dimensions by unspecified entities. Members of Congress, many of whom denounced Attorney General Janet Reno for insufficient zeal in going after Mr. Lee, now want to find out how things could have gone so wrong in prosecuting him. The press, notably this newspaper, played an active role in stirring the investigative pot.

Ultimately, who deserves blame? Only one entity had the power to launch a criminal investigation, to prosecute and deprive someone of liberty before trial: the executive branch. Accountability for what went wrong must be placed squarely at the feet of the F.B.I. and Justice Department.

Ordinarily, the F.B.I. and prosecutors are partners in investigation and prosecution. But this relationship has been impaired in recent years by the bureau's proclivity in high-profile cases to air differences in public, seeking political gain at the Justice Department's expense. This was the case when Louis Freeh, the F.B.I. director, embarrassed Ms. Reno by urging her to appoint an independent counsel to investigate possible violations of political fund-raising laws.

In the Wen Ho Lee case, the bureau went public early and often, most notably over the attorney general's decision in 1997 not to approve F.B.I. requests to seek authority for placing a national security wiretap on Mr. Lee's phones. Ms. Reno took enormous heat for that decision. In retrospect, her ruling - that the evidence was too fragmentary and dated - seems to have been correct.

Even though F.B.I. officials discovered in 1999 that Mr. Lee had mysteriously downloaded sensitive information, it is not clear why they chose to press ahead with its 59-count indictment against him, accusing him of gathering, retaining and receiving restricted information.

It is almost impossible to imagine that such unprecedented charges - the first-ever criminal charges under the Atomic Energy Act - would have been made if Mr. Lee had not been previously targeted. The government's claim that it wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to the information is not compelling: Criminal charges are rarely brought to solve mysteries and, as the judge pointed out, the government has yet to explain why Mr. Lee's offers, before his arrest, to explain the missing tapes were not sufficient to meet the government's legitimate concerns.

The F.B.I.'s unflagging commitment to prove Dr. Lee guilty of something made it extremely difficult for the Justice Department to resist throwing the book at him. In the end, it was the department's job to resist, despite the intense pressure. That is the crucible in which a prosecutor proves himself, asking tough questions, pointing out weaknesses to aggressive investigators and, if necessary, saying "no" to prosecuting a case that shouldn't be brought. That is where prosecutors in the Wen Ho Lee case appear to have failed.

The experience proves that an aggressive F.B.I. and compliant prosecutors are a risky combination. We can only hope that the self-scrutiny and investigations to come yield meaningful warnings to the next generation of agents, prosecutors and others in pursuit of a hot case.

Michael R. Bromwich served as inspector general of the Justice Department from 1994 to 1999.

---

Wen Ho Lee, and Our Calls for Human Rights

New York Times
September 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/opinion/L20WEN.html

To the Editor:

"For Wen Ho Lee, a Tarnished Freedom," by Gish Jen (Op-Ed, Sept. 15), should remind us that the human rights situation in the United States is far from perfect. For example, where were Dr. Lee's constitutional rights during his extended confinement? Where was the principle of presumed innocence?

While we should always strive for an improvement in the human condition worldwide, we could stand a dose of humility when commenting on the human rights condition in other countries.

ROBERT H. TREADWAY JR. Ann Arbor, Mich., Sept. 15, 2000

To the Editor:

Gish Jen makes some good points in the context of the Wen Ho Lee case ("For Wen Ho Lee, a Tarnished Freedom," Op-Ed, Sept. 15). As a naturalized Indian-American scientist, with two American-born children who are as American as apple pie (both to my comfort and dismay), I find that this matter goes to the core of my being.

Given the large numbers of Asian- American scientists in laboratories all over the country, Dr. Lee could easily have had an Indian- or Asian- American name. The fact is that Asian-Americans as a group have achieved success in this country. Yet because they look "different," they suffer racial profiling. This kind of tragedy should not happen again.

AKHIL KUMAR Murray Hill, N.J., Sept. 17, 2000

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

-------- arms sales

The Defense Contractor Welfare King

Common Dreams
September 20, 2000 in the Seatlle Post-Intelligencer
by Geneva Overholser
http://commondreams.org/views/092000-104.htm

WASHINGTON -- If we're ever going to achieve reason on defense spending, we're going to need a good villain image. A bloated defense-contractor king, maybe.

You remember the welfare queen: Her role in the national lore was to embody welfare as devourer of the national budget and creator of dependency, a self-regenerating maw of wasteful consumption we seemed powerless to do anything about -- until her ugly visage rose and energized us, and we acted at last.

Now, imagine if politicians had proposed as a solution not "ending welfare as we know it" but piling on more money -- feeding the voracious welfare queen yet more generously.

There you have the defense-spending picture today.

Our military budget for next year will be somewhat more than $310 billion. It will absorb just about half of every dollar available for discretionary spending. It is bigger than the combined military spending of the next 10 military powers. Yet the two men who seek to be president are tripping all over each other promising more. Al Gore said recently he'd spend $100 billion of the projected surplus on the military. He took the occasion to jab at George W. Bush because he had proposed "only" $45 billion in additional defense spending.

"This is simply a bidding war," said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, a Washington arms control agency.

The candidates manage to look serious while committing this fiscal recklessness because they couch it as a matter of military readiness. What decent American can stand to see our armed services inadequately supported, our defense unready?

But if it were readiness that consumed our political leaders, their approach would be entirely different. Wisconsin Rep. David Obey last year estimated that, of the $27 billion Congress had added to the president's defense budgets over the preceding four years, $3.5 billion went to readiness. The rest feathered congressional districts and the defense industries therein. As for this year's defense appropriations bill, John McCain estimated the pork in it at a cool $7 billion.

If the military is unready, it's not because the defense budget is being starved.

Yet what a dirge the campaigns took to the VFW convention, outdoing one another in lamentations about how underattended are America's defenses. Bush charged Clinton with "long neglect," a military overextended and "in decline." Defense Secretary William Cohen fought back, saying it was President Bush's administration that had weakened the military and the Clinton administration that rescued it, with substantial increases in spending.

Dick Cheney, Bush's defense secretary, retorted with his own exposition of Clinton administration underfunding: "Defense spending today is lower as a percentage of GNP than at any time since 1940, the year before the attack on Pearl Harbor."

That's true. But it says a lot more about how big the economy is than how small is military spending. If you think budgets are more logically based on need than on cash available, this other fact may be more enlightening: Military spending totals are almost 95 percent of what they were on average during the Cold War.

Defense dollars are in direct competition with dollars for Head Start and other education programs, as well as health care, the environment and other social programs. Yet only in defense does waste win the enthusiastic respect of those who dole out the dough.

This irresponsibility continues in part because the public pays little attention. A Pew Research Center poll last June, in a typical finding, showed military issues ranking "very low" in voter interest.

When voters do pay attention, they're wonderfully sensible. Consider a tidbit from "Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling" by Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis. Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, complained last year, the authors tell us, that women don't support military spending because "there's all these touch-feely things that they want to spend money on." Women constantly ask him, added Stevens, "Why do you want to spend more money on the military? Don't they have enough?"

That isn't opposition to military spending. That's opposition to waste. These women probably assume -- quite correctly -- that we have the strongest military in the world. And also that we have other needs that should be addressed. And that resources should be distributed more equitably, more wisely, more sensibly.

I say, hand those women a microphone. And make sure, too, that they have on stage with them a cardboard cutout of the corpulent defense contractor king who looms over the self-satisfied little congressman. Maybe the picture will finally begin to become clear.

Geneva Overholser is a columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group.

---

Foreign aid: too little but not too late

MSNBC
09/19/00
By Michael Moran MSNBC
mailto:Michael.Moran@msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.com/news/463305.asp

U.S. needs to show it has more than bullets with which to battle the planet's many problem. East Timorese refugee children hope for charity at their camp in Tua Pukan, Kupang, West Timor last week. Humanitarian aid has not been one of the U.S.'s priorities when it comes to overseas aid.

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 - Foreign aid is primed for a comeback. In 2001, the U.S. budget for this area will still be only half of what it was during Ronald Reagan's presidency. But, after years of dodging any kind of increase in overseas aid, Democrats and Republicans in Congress now seem responsive to hiking this part of the budget. A sudden bipartisan humanitarian wave? Nope, the politicians are happy to support more foreign aid when sales of U.S. arms are a hefty part of the package.

WHILE THAT SUPPORT may be misguided, increased overseas aid is an urgent global need. A handful of facts from the Congressional Budget Office and the federal budget show how acute the problem is:

The U.S. spends less yearly on foreign aid than it spends weekly on Social Security. Total foreign aid for 2001 - $13.3 billion - is less than half of one percent of all federal spending.

Of that $13.3 billion - .01 percent of America's gross domestic product (GDP) - some $6 billion will go to the military and security establishments of countries that live on the edge of conflict, including Israel and Egypt, Greece and Turkey. Another $1.3 billion will go to Colombia's military to fight a leftist rebel movement that has allied itself with drug cartels.

federal budget

Aid to just one recipient, Israel, amounts to $3.1 billion - about $500 per Israeli, and will rise if a new peace deal is signed. As as a somewhat uncomfortable State Department official told me recently, "If you add what we spend in Africa and Latin America together, it doesn't approach $3 billion."

ADDING IT UP

For those who hate figures, let me simplify this. The cuts in foreign aid that began in the mid-'90s under a Republican Congress have stabilized somewhat, but more and more of what goes out each year to other nations is military in nature. Thus, in an era of unparalleled prosperity at home and unquestioned dominance economically and militarily abroad, the United States is spending almost nothing in relative terms to help educate, feed, clothe and ensure the democratic development of the rest of the world. Gone are most of the educational and nutritional programs that spring to mind when the term "foreign aid" is used. In their place are military training, arms transfers and - the newest entry - huge subsidies in the form of "security guarantees" aimed at bribing the Egypts, Israels and Bosnia's of the world into signing peace deals.

In an era of unparalleled U.S. prosperity we are spending almost nothing in relative terms to help educate, feed, clothe and ensure the democratic development of the rest of the world.

Other interesting figures show where the money goes:

In 1999, U.S. arms makers, aided by congressionally mandated programs that require the purchase of U.S. arms and training packages as a condition for some kinds of aid, delivered more weapons to these foreign recipients than the rest of the world combined, according to the Center for Defense Information.

In 1999, the United States spent more on its national defense than Japan, China, Russia, Great Britain and France combined, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

INVESTMENT STRATEGY

Back in the Cold War, spending money this way could be justified if you believed in a certain rationale. Then, winning "hearts and minds," an awful phrase with a noble goal, was half the game. The other half, of course, was keeping "our guys" in power and Soviet allies at bay. In service of that philosophy, the United States, by some estimates, spent well over a trillion dollars rebuilding Europe and Japan, propping up allies, both savory and unsavory, and fighting wars from Korea to Vietnam to Grenada (to name only the overt ones).

A trillion dollars is a great deal of money, even in this era of inflated expectations. So, rather than bemoaning (again) America's isolationist tendencies, let's look at this in cold, hard business terms. Consider that trillion or so spent on weapons, foreign aid and other Cold War items from 1947 to 1989 as an enormous investment, one that paid dividends. Those windfalls include the stabilization and democratization of Europe and Japan, the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberation of Eastern and Central Europe, the wave of democratic conversions that swept through Africa and Latin America and the embrace of capitalism in such unlikely places as New Delhi, Managua and Beijing.

Relieved of the burden of sustaining the endlessly spiraling expenditures of the Cold War, American economic growth exploded, raining prosperity down in unequal chunks all around it.

SQUANDERING THE DIVIDENDS

So, what has the United States done with its capital gains in the years since 1989? Almost immediately, the U.S. decided to stop investing in the rest of the world. A judgement was reached, voiced most famously in the GOP's "Contract with America," that with the Cold War over, foreign aid was obsolete.

The end result is a U.S. military constantly demanding money to maintain weapons systems more suited to the Cold War, rather than making the hard choices associated with moving into the future.

Yet, at about the same time, the U.S. began intervening selectively in foreign conflicts, first committing its forces to battle but more importantly, in the long run, committing the taxpayer to sustaining long post-war peacekeeping operations. From the Gulf War in 1990-91, continuing in Somalia ('92), Haiti ('94), Bosnia (belatedly, '96) and finally last year in Kosovo, the U.S. deployed troops to more foreign shores in nine years than it had in the previous 40. Except for Somalia, all led to significant long-term commitments of U.S. forces. The end result is a U.S. military constantly demanding money to maintain weapons systems more suited to the Cold War, rather than making the hard choices associated with moving into the future.

GETTING DISCONNECTED

The growing chasm between what the United States does abroad with its military and what it is willing to do to help other nations develop their own sustainable economies is even more startling in the information age. These days, jet aircraft wing people to America from myriad lands to take jobs in an economy that is outstripping the domestic labor force.

The United Nations estimates the world population will be in the range of 7.3 to 10.7 billion in the year 2050, depending on the assumed fertility trends. It has issued three projections of what low, medium and high annual growth rates will mean for the world's population. The U.N.'s goal is to slow population growth at least to the medium scenario.

Source: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects, The 1998 Revision

Meanwhile, those who insist foreign aid be kept to a bare minimum continue to view the rest of the world's problems as somehow separate from its own. Such an attitude - "live and let die" - simply won't do in today's world. Set aside ethnic violence and there's still plenty of room for help. This is a world where AIDS is now killing up to half the under-30 population of some sub-Saharan African nations. Other diseases once thought conquered - malaria, tuberculosis and syphilis - have resurfaced anew as threats to human life across the globe. The response from the U.S. is heavy on rhetoric, light on actual leadership. And if the U.S. expects the United Nations to grapple with the problem instead, America's decision to continue withholding its contribution to the U.N. budget is a funny way of helping.

SELF-FULFILLING SOPHISTRY

If simple humanity doesn't seem motive enough, consider this: In the new democratic states spawned by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, as well as those that emerged in Africa, Latin America and Asia after 1989, a new generation that does not measure their well-being by how hard things were under the previous system is coming of age. This means, for instance, in states once dominated by communism, the youngest generation now equates democracy, not communism, with the misery that has come to define life in places like Ukraine, Belarus, Romania and Albania. The assumption on this side of the Atlantic about these places continues to be based on the fairly optimistic theory that they will someday "bottom out" and ultimately stabilize into prosperous, European democracies. Nowhere, these days, is there any intelligent discussion of what a new wave of authoritarianism in that region, especially Russia, really means for the world.

Foreign aid cannot fix any of this alone, but it is part of a complicated answer to a complicated world. With only a modest increase in what this country devotes to nutrition, development and democratization programs, the U.S. can reinvest some of its profits in a better future and show that it has more than bullets with which to battle the planet's many problems. Without it, the United States, in the eyes of a planet yearning for leadership, looks more like Sparta than Athens with each passing day.

Michael Moran is senior producer, special reports at MSNBC.

-------- china Time

The Bad News on Trade With China

Time Daily
September 20, 2000
http://www.time.com/time/daily/0%2C2960%2C55391-101000921%2C00.html

Conflict will persist in the new era of relations with Beijing, argues TIME.com's Tony Karon. But the issues will be less about politics than about trade. President Clinton announces the normalization of trade relations with China.

The China trade deal is an historic breakthrough to be sure, but that doesn't mean it justifies the current giddy optimism over what it will mean for the Chinese people or for relations between Beijing and Washington. The Senate's ratification Tuesday of permanent normal trading-partner status for China "will dim the role of government in people's daily lives and strengthen those within China to fight for higher labor standards, a cleaner environment, for human rights, for rule of law," gushed President Clinton. But anyone who's been paying attention to conditions in China over the past couple of years won't be holding their breath.

In order to gain access to the World Trade Organization and improve the prospects for its exports, China has agreed to far-reaching liberalization measures in its economy - but for the U.S. to enjoy the benefits of those changes, it had to end the annual practice of making trade relations with China contingent upon a congressional review of Beijing's political and human rights record. Now that both the Senate and the House have voted to do just that, President Clinton will sign the legislation and open a new era in relations with Beijing. But that new era will hardly be free of conflict - quite the contrary.

Despite more than two decades of trade with the U.S., China remains an authoritarian state ruled by an all-powerful Communist party. And there's a furious struggle at the very top of that party over China's economic and political direction - a struggle in which hard-liners obsessed with maintaining order are currently dominant. Arch- reformer prime minister Zhu Rongji had hoped to use the conditions attached to WTO membership as a whip with which to dramatically accelerate the pace of economic reform, but Zhu has been increasingly marginalized over the past 18 months, particularly after President Clinton backed out of concluding a permanent trade agreement last April at the height of the furor over allegations of Chinese nuclear espionage.

The overriding priority for Beijing's leadership is maintaining order and social control, and liberalizing the economy will necessarily bring unemployment and uncertainty to millions of ordinary Chinese, raising the specter of massive social unrest that could potentially tear China apart. The depth of that fear among the leadership was evident in last year's crackdown on the apparently harmless Falun Gong religious sect, and it will almost certainly act as a brake on Beijing's implementing the economic liberalization measures to which it has agreed. So while the Senate vote ends the annual unpleasantness between Beijing and Washington when Congress would rattle its saber at China before dutifully extending normal trade status for another year, it opens what promises to be a new era of conflict over the terms of trade.

The U.S. can't disengage from China, from which it imported some $80 billion in consumer products last year alone. But as with trade relations with Japan in the '80s, Washington may well find itself continually at loggerheads with Beijing over the rules that govern its economy. In what may be the ultimate sign of China's transition from communism to an authoritarian capitalism, the annual political showdown with Beijing may be finally eclipsed by that most capitalist of geopolitical conflicts - trade warfare.

---

Roll-Call Vote on China Trade Bill

New York Times
September 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20ROLL.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 (AP) - Following is the 83-to-15 roll- call vote by which the Senate voted today to extend permanent normal trade relations to China. A yes vote was to approve normal relations and a no vote was to reject normal relations. Thirty- seven Democrats and forty-six Republicans voted yes. Seven Democrats and eight Republicans voted no.

DEMOCRATS YES

Baucus, Mont.; Bayh, Ind.; Biden, Del.; Bingaman, N.M.; Boxer, Calif.; Breaux, La.; Bryan, Nev.; Cleland, Ga.; Conrad, N.D.; Daschle, S.D.; Dodd, Conn.; Dorgan, N.D.; Durbin, Ill.; Edwards, N.C.; Feinstein, Calif.; Graham, Fla.; Harkin, Iowa; Inouye, Hawaii; Johnson, S.D.; Kennedy, Mass.; Kerrey, Neb.; Kerry, Mass.; Kohl, Wis.; Landrieu, La.; Lautenberg, N.J.; Leahy, Vt.; Levin, Mich.; Lincoln, Ark.; Miller, Ga.; Moynihan, N.Y.; Murray, Wash.; Reed, R.I.; Robb, Va.; Rockefeller, W. Va.; Schumer, N.Y.; Torricelli, N.J.; Wyden, Ore.

DEMOCRATS NO

Byrd, W. Va.; Feingold, Wis.; Hollings, S.C.; Mikulski, Md.; Reid, Nev.; Sarbanes, Md.; Wellstone, Minn.

DEMOCRATS NOT VOTING

Akaka, Hawaii; Lieberman, Conn.

REPUBLICANS YES

Abraham, Mich.; Allard, Colo.; Ashcroft, Mo.; Bennett, Utah; Bond, Mo.; Brownback, Kan.; Burns, Mont.; Chafee, R.I.; Cochran, Miss.; Collins, Me.; Craig, Idaho; Crapo, Idaho; DeWine, Ohio; Domenici, N.M.; Enzi, Wyo.; Fitzgerald, Ill.; Frist, Tenn.; Gorton, Wash.; Gramm, Texas; Grams, Minn.; Grassley, Iowa; Gregg, N.H.; Hagel, Neb.; Hatch, Utah; Hutchison, Texas; Kyl, Ariz.; Lott, Miss.; Lugar, Ind.; Mack, Fla.; McCain, Ariz.; McConnell, Ky.; Murkowski, Alaska; Nickles, Okla.; Roberts, Kan.; Roth, Del.; Santorum, Pa.; Sessions, Ala.; Shelby, Ala.; Smith, Ore.; Snowe, Me.; Stevens, Alaska; Thomas, Wyo.; Thompson, Tenn.; Thurmond, S.C.; Voinovich, Ohio; Warner, Va.

REPUBLICANS NO

Bunning, Ky.; Campbell, Colo.; Helms, N.C.; Hutchinson, Ark.; Inhofe, Okla.; Jeffords, Vt.; Smith, N.H.; Specter, Pa.

---

In Clinton's Words: 'An Outstretched Hand'

New York Times
September 2000, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20TEXT.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - Following is President Clinton's statement today in the White House Briefing Room on the Senate vote on trade relations with China, as transcribed by the Federal News Service.

Today the Senate voted to pave the way for permanent normal trade relations between the United States and China. This landmark agreement will extend economic prosperity at home and promote economic freedom in China, increasing the prospects for openness in China and a more peaceful future for all of us.

When we open markets abroad to U.S. goods, we open opportunities at home. This vote will do that. In return for normal trade relations, the same terms of trade we offer now to more than 130 other countries, China will open its markets to American products, from wheat to cars to consulting services. And we will be far more able to sell goods in China without moving our factories there.

But there's much more at stake here than our economic self-interest. It's about building a world in which more human beings have more freedom, more control over their lives, more contact with others than ever before, a world in which countries are tied more closely together and the prospects for peace are strengthened.

Trade alone won't create this kind of world. But bringing China under global rules of trade is a step in the right direction. The more China opens it markets to our products, the wider it opens its doors to economic freedom and the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people.

When China finishes its negotiations and joins the W.T.O., our high-tech companies will help to speed the information revolution there. Outside competition will speed the demise of China's huge state industries and spur the enterprise of private-sector involvement. They will diminish the role of government in people's daily lives. It will strengthen those within China who fight for higher labor standards, a cleaner environment, for human rights and the rule of law. And we will find, I believe, that America has more influence in China with an outstretched hand than with a clenched fist.

Of course, none of us should think for a moment that any of these outcomes are guaranteed. The advance of freedom ultimately will depend upon what people in China are willing to do to continue standing up for change. We will continue to help support them.

Peace and security in Asia will depend upon our military presence, our alliances, on stopping the spread of deadly weapons. Some will continue. So we will continue to be a force for peace, and we will not rest in our efforts to make sure that freer trade also is fairer trade.

These are some of the most important issues that our nation faces. That's why this vote was so important and, for many, so difficult. I want to thank Senator Lott and Senator Daschle, Senator Roth, Senator Moynihan and Senator Baucus, as well as those who led our effort in the House, and everyone within this administration who worked so hard to achieve this important milestone.

But I also want to acknowledge those who raised important questions about this policy and say to you this is not the end of the story. It is the beginning. We have a chance - not a certainty, but a chance - to strengthen our prosperity and our security and to see China become a more open society. Now our test as a nation is whether we can achieve that. I hope and I strongly believe that we will.

---

Senate Votes to Lift Curbs on U.S. Trade With China

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20TRAD.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - After a long and often tumultuous struggle, a bill to remove restraints on trade with China passed the Senate today in a strong bipartisan vote, giving President Clinton what he considered one of his crowning foreign policy goals.

Coupled with approval by the House in May, the vote today ended the annual Congressional review of China's trade status, a ritual for 20 years that Beijing considered degrading but that critics argued was necessary to force China to improve its record on human rights and religious freedom.

After the historic vote, which passed with little debate today, Mr. Clinton told reporters, "This landmark agreement will extend economic prosperity at home and promote economic freedom in China, increasing the prospects for openness in China and a more peaceful future for all of us." [Transcript and roll call, Page A16.]

The broad margin of the victory, 83 to 15, was all the more remarkable coming less than two months before the presidential election, and after nine months of passionate debate. It demonstrated how a foreign policy issue could retain bipartisan backing even in the heat of a campaign.

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the Republican presidential nominee, has supported the legislation. After the vote, a spokesman for Mr. Bush, Ray Sullivan, said, "This measure will help open markets to American products and help export American values, especially freedom and entrepreneurship."

Although Vice President Al Gore feared losing the support of allies in organized labor who opposed the measure as a threat to union jobs, he voiced qualified support for it today. But he stressed that American workers' rights must be protected. "We must combat unfair trade practices abroad when they harm our working families," Mr. Gore said.

Senate supporters hailed the deal, which will expand a vast overseas market for American goods, as a path-breaking step toward a new economic and security relationship. Senator Fred Thompson, a Tennessee Republican who tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to penalize Chinese companies that export advanced weapons, voted for it but said he would continue to press China to curb its arms trafficking.

"Generally, free trade leads to freer markets, and freer markets can lead to more open societies," Mr. Thompson said in a statement. "I will keep pushing to hold the Chinese accountable for their actions."

Passage of the measure ensures that the United States will benefit fully from a market-opening accord that Washington and Beijing negotiated in November to slash Chinese tariffs on a range of farm and industrial products and removes barriers to American service providers, like banks and telecommunications companies. Almost everything from apples to wine will have a better chance of getting into the Chinese market.

The November agreement paves the way for China to enter the World Trade Organization, the 135-member group that sets the rules for global commerce. China will join the organization, probably later this year, and would have done so regardless of the vote today. But without Congress's blessing, China could have withheld some trade benefits from the United States that it extended to other members of the group.

"For U.S. farmers, businesses and working people, this agreement opens up a range of opportunities in China across all sectors and all fields of a magnitude unprecedented in the modern era," said Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative. Some parts of the pact have taken effect, she said, noting that orange exports to China from Florida and California, for instance, have risen 100-fold since May.

Dave McCurdy, president of the Electronic Industries Alliance, said, "From semiconductors to circuit boards, from PC's to cell phones, China is simply the most dynamic international market for U.S. high- tech exports."

Overall, the United States bought $82 billion worth of Chinese-made goods last year, $69 billion more than the value of what it sold to China. The trade deficit, America's second-largest, was slightly smaller than the one with Japan.

The bill's supporters warned that several challenges remain in dealing with China, most immediately resolving disputes over some agriculture tariffs and how Taiwan will join the Word Trade Organization at the same time as China. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us," said Senator Max S. Baucus, Democrat of Montana.

The outcome of the vote today was never in doubt. The fierce lobbying that pitted corporate America against labor and religious groups before the House's approval of the measure in May, by a vote of 237 to 197, never materialized in the upper chamber because all sides knew the question in the pro-trade Senate was never if the measure would pass, only when and by how much.

But supporters still faced a delicate procedural and political balancing act in the Senate, where lawmakers zealously guard their prerogatives and a lone senator has the power to delay the most popular bill.

Backers of the legislation said it was essential to press for a measure free of amendments because there was not enough time to reconcile an amended Senate bill with the House version before Congress adjourned for the year. "We knew we had the votes, but what was difficult was that there was no margin for error in the Senate," said Steve Ricchetti, a deputy White House chief of staff who was Mr. Clinton's point man for the bill in the Senate. "It had to pass exactly as it passed out of the House."

So supporters adopted a low-key strategy aimed at leaching from Senate consideration all of the volatile politics that enmeshed the House vote. Tactically, that meant having Mr. Clinton - who eight years ago was on the opposite side, criticizing President George Bush's policy of engagement with China - project enough support to show that he still cared deeply about the bill, but not raise the debate temperature high enough to prompt some foes to take the bill hostage to delay it.

When Mr. Clinton's original point man on the bill, Commerce Secretary William M. Daley, left the Cabinet in June to head Mr. Gore's presidential election campaign, some supporters worried that momentum was slipping away.

The Senate majority leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, balked at scheduling a vote before the July 4 recess, arguing that the Senate had more pressing business in wrapping up many of the 13 must-pass spending bills that keep the government running. "If we go into September, our chances for passage drop precipitously," Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, warned in late June.

And for a while, critics seemed to have a point. Just as the vote in the House created unusual political alliances between liberal labor groups and conservative religious organizations in opposition to the bill, the Senate bill produced odd political couplings. Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, perhaps the Senate's most liberal Democratic member, teamed up with Jesse Helms of North Carolina, one of the staunchest Republican conservatives, to back amendments on human rights, religious freedom and prison labor.

But the gloomy predictions proved wrong. Mr. Lott and Democrats agreed in late July to bring the bill up for a final vote after the five-week summer recess. Despite its long-simmering tensions with Taiwan, Beijing heeded private warnings from administration officials to avoid any diplomatic or military provocations that could fuel opposition to the bill.

The trade bill never became a political football, partly because pro- trade Republicans were loath to antagonize their corporate benefactors in a hotly contested election year, and labor leaders never believed that they could win enough Democrats.

One after another, 20 different amendments to improve human rights, religious freedom and labor standards in China fell by lopsided votes, not because senators opposed them on merit but because of their potential harm to the underlying bill.

A similar fate awaited the most popular amendment, sponsored by Mr. Thompson and Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, to penalize Chinese companies that trafficked in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and long-range missiles. The measure struck an especially strong chord with lawmakers who had grown increasingly alarmed by intelligence reports of Chinese arms exports.

In the vote, all but 7 Democrats and 8 Republicans supported the bill. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who is Mr. Gore's running mate, was campaigning in California and Ohio and did not vote. Senator Daniel K. Akaka, Democrat of Hawaii, also did not vote.

Supporters said the agreement would benefit American business and values. "The Senate has cast an epic and overwhelming vote today," said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York. "By so doing, we bring China back into the trading system that it helped to establish out of the ashes of the Second World War."

But opponents criticized the measure as one that would undercut America's moral authority in the world, and reward a government that threatens its neighbors, persecutes its citizens and sells advanced weapons to America's enemies.

"The safety and security of the American people come first," Mr. Helms said. "That safety and security will be ensured ultimately not by appeasement, not by the hope of trade at any cost, but by dealing with Communist China without selling out the very moral and spiritual principles that made America great in the first place."

China Applauds Bill's Passage

SHANGHAI, Wednesday, Sept. 20 - China's Foreign Ministry today heralded the Senate's approval of the bill removing restraints on trade as paving the way for more stable relations with Washington.

At the same time, China criticized clauses in the bill intended to maintain pressure on Beijing to improve its human rights record. Hu Chusheng, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, reiterated irritation at the human rights monitoring panel in the trade bill, saying it "still contains certain clauses that are irrelevant to trade and are intended to interfere in the internal affairs of China."

---

New Realism Wins the Day as Senate Passes Trade Bill

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20ASSE.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - The Senate's overwhelming vote today to give permanent trade benefits to China ended a clash between America's global economic interests and the notion that the United States could use the annual threat of trade sanctions to change Beijing's behavior.

In the end, it wasn't even close - and behind that lies a new reality in how the United States deals with China, the world's most populous nation.

Despite the huge margin by which President Clinton won today - 83 to 15, his biggest legislative victory in the foreign policy arena since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 - the reversal of policy toward China cemented into law today was hardly assured, given all the impediments over the years.

During the past four years alone, it looked like the effort to normalize trade relations could be derailed by allegations of Chinese meddling in American elections, by accusations that Chinese spies had stolen American nuclear secrets, by considerable evidence that China still ships missiles to Pakistan, by Chinese threats against Taiwan.

Indeed, the measure passed today despite the State Department's recent conclusion that China's human rights violations have, if anything, grown more egregious this year. And it passed precisely seven weeks before a presidential election, even though America's labor unions viewed the accord as a threat to their jobs and strongly hinted they would punish Democrats who supported it.

Yet every time a crisis erupted and receded, China's economic and political role in the world seemed to loom ever larger, from Motorola plants in Illinois to farms in Iowa. Over time it became clear that Congress' periodic threat that it would refuse to renew China's annual trade status was empty, and the Chinese came to dismiss it as saber-rattling. Meanwhile, American business became more energized about stabilizing the economic relationship with China - and thus preserving their ballooning investments there - than on any other issue in recent legislative history.

So today senators of every stripe ended up voting for the trade bill. That included Fred Thompson, the Republican from Tennessee who conducted the campaign finance investigation and last week derided the "little people" in the business community who "need to be taken down a notch" because they orchestrated the defeat of an amendment to the trade bill that would have punished China for the spread of arms.

Now, though, the hard part starts.

Arguments still rage about whether the North American Free Trade Agreement helped or hurt the booming American economy. In the case of China, the facts are different: all the trade concessions were on China's part, the price of entering the World Trade Organization. Nonetheless, it can be expected that China will begin to drag its heels on carrying them out, for fear that letting in American steel will wipe out huge state-owned industries or letting in Japanese and American cars will threaten China's efforts to become the next industrial behemoth.

But the real test will come as America tries to use its deepening trade relationship as leverage to open China's political system.

Mr. Clinton won the battle over trade with China by first convincing himself, and then helping convince Congress, that rejecting normal economic ties with the world's most populous country would hurt the American economy, and benefit Japanese and European competitors. Then he gradually elevated the argument from the economic to the strategic, making the case that rejection would also help political hard-liners in China who are certain that America's real agenda is to contain growing Chinese power.

"The argument that made the difference in the Yellow Oval Room had to do with what happens if this didn't pass," said Samuel R. Berger, the president's national security adviser, referring to the room in the White House residence where Mr. Clinton twisted arms. "We would undermine China's reforms, scare the daylights out of our allies, and send a message to the world that at the pinnacle of our power we are in retreat."

Mr. Clinton today celebrated his victory with a line he used often during those nighttime sales pitches, telling reporters this afternoon, "We will find, I believe, that America has more influence in China with an outstretched hand than with a clenched fist."

And in the next breath, as eager as always to repair the breach with unions and environmentalists and others who believe they were sold out by the White House, he insisted that opening China to more commerce with shrink the control of the government. "It will strengthen those within China who fight for higher labor standards, a cleaner environment, for human rights and the rule of law," he said. Maybe he will be proven right, maybe not - it will be years, maybe decades, before anyone can judge. As Mr. Clinton himself acknowledged today, "none of us should think for a moment that any of these outcomes are guaranteed."

But what makes the experiment interesting is that only eight years ago both the Congress and Mr. Clinton were headed in precisely the opposite direction.

In 1992, when memories of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre were still vivid, Congress made the annual renewal of China's trading rights conditional on a range of changes in Beijing. President Bush vetoed the measure. The Senate fell just short of the two-thirds vote needed to override him - which would have essentially terminated China's trading privileges with the United States - by a vote of 60 to 38.

Within months, Mr. Clinton was charging Mr. Bush with "coddling dictators." It was not until he arrived in the White House, and spent a year unsuccessfully trying to link trade with China's human rights record, that Mr. Clinton ended a fierce fight within the White House and reversed himself. He became a passionate adherent of Mr. Bush's policy - and took it several steps further.

"This was a case where Clinton's new position gathered momentum slowly," said Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman who spent much of his career dealing with China issues. "Tiananmen seems like a long time ago. Then the business interests started lobbying this very hard. And good economic times have been a factor: People are now persuaded that trade has a lot to do with our prosperity."

But not everyone is persuaded - not by a long shot. Those who voted "no" included a hardy band of China's strongest critics on the left and right, liberals like Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota Democrat, and Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Then there were the disillusioned, but resigned, human rights advocates. Mike Jendrzejczyk, a top official of Human Rights Watch, noted that the timing of the vote "is particularly unfortunate, just as human rights conditions are worsening."

"Beijing is closing down all channels of political dissent - including the Internet," he added, "even while it is opening its economy."

Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative, who finished the 13-year negotiations with China over the rules under which it would enter the World Trade Organization, said in an interview this week that she learned two major lessons from the roller-coaster effort to negotiate the huge accord.

"The first is that you need an economic agreement whose advantages are beyond any doubt," she said. In fact, one of the differences between this debate and the arguments over the North American trade pact is that few, save for the most ardent union leaders, argued that the China trade deal would send American jobs overseas. ("No one ever made that case to me," Mr. Berger said. "I was amazed.")

But the second argument, Ms. Barshefsky said, is that, "You can only get trade agreements this big if you put them in a broader security framework, and link it to the security of the United States, or peace in Asia." That, of course, is the hallmark of Mr. Clinton's foreign policy: The linkage of trade to broader diplomatic goals. Essentially, he is betting that China cannot open its markets without also opening its political system. It cannot let in Amazon.com, he believes, without also letting any Dissidents.org broadcast their message around China. The Chinese leaders also believe that their entry into the W.T.O. will bring about change, ushering in foreign technology and foreign capital. But they think it is change they can manage and control.

The vote today has cemented in place the Clinton imprint on American foreign policy, the use of economic engagement to foster political change. But the judgment about whether he has created a second opening to China depends, in the end, on what China's leaders do with the economic and political opportunity.

---

Results of PNTR vote, WTO passage

USA Today
09/20/00- Updated 01:20 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncstue11.htm

Highlights, according to a White House fact sheet, of the results of permanent normal trade relations with China and China's entry into the World Trade Organization:

The Agriculture Department estimates that China's WTO accession would result in $2 billion annually in additional agriculture exports by 2005.

China makes significant, one-way market-opening concessions, including increasing access to its markets for agriculture, services, technology, telecommunications, and manufactured goods. China also agrees to eliminate ''unseen'' barriers, such as exclusive rights to import and distribute goods.

On U.S. priority agricultural products, tariffs will drop from an average of 31% to 14% by January 2004, with even sharper drops for beef, poultry, pork, cheese, and other commodities. China will significantly expand export opportunities for bulk commodities such as wheat, corn, and rice.

Industrial tariffs on U.S. products will fall from an average of 24.6% in 1997 to an average of 9.4% by 2005.

China will phase in trading rights and distribution services over three years, and also open up sectors related to distribution services, such as repair and maintenance, warehousing, trucking, and air courier services.

China will eliminate tariffs on products such as computers, semiconductors, and related products by 2005.

China will open its telecommunications sector and significantly expand investment and other activities for financial services firms. It will greatly increase the opportunities open to professional services such as law firms, management consulting, accountants, and environmental services.

For the first 12 years, the United States can take effective action in case of increased imports of a particular product from China that cause or threaten to cause market disruption in the United States.

---

Senate easily OKs China trade status

Washington Times
September 20, 2000
By Carter Dougherty
http://208.246.212.80/business/default-2000920214016.htm

The Senate yesterday overwhelmingly approved historic legislation that will expand commercial ties with China and end annual congressional reviews of the Asian giant's trade status that have produced much bluster but little action.

By a decisive 83-15 margin, senators adopted the bill without changing the version approved by the House in May, clearing the way for swift approval by President Clinton without the usual House-Senate conference.

"This is one for the history books," said Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who helped lead the fight for the trade bill.

Sen. William V. Roth Jr., the Delaware Republican who heads the Finance Committee, called the vote "a defining moment in the history of this chamber and in the history of our country."

Mr. Clinton, who pushed aggressively for the bill, welcomed its passage, a top legislative priority in his last year in office. The vote proved to be a major test of his leadership that had divided Democrats from a key constituency, organized labor, as Vice President Al Gore struggled to invigorate his presidential campaign.

"This landmark agreement will extend economic prosperity at home and promote economic freedom in China, increasing the prospects for openness in China and a more peaceful future for all of us," Mr. Clinton said.

The trade legislation will extend China permanent normal trade relations, a status that, under current law, is renewed on an annual basis and subject to congressional review. It extends to China the same tariff treatment accorded all but a handful of "rogue" nations such as Iraq, Cuba and North Korea.

The change, which abolishes the summer votes that had become an occasion to debate every aspect of Sino-American relations, will also smooth the way for China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). It also opens the Chinese market to a broad array of American goods and services under a trade agreement negotiated by the United States last year.

To smooth passage in the House, backers also included provisions to guard against sudden surges in Chinese imports and to create a commission to monitor China's dismal human rights record.

The bill will go into effect once China wraps up final WTO negotiations and formally enters the Geneva-based international commercial court, probably early next year.

Voting against the bill were seven Democrats and eight Republicans. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut did not vote.

Sen. Robert Byrd, West Virginia Democrat who opposed the bill, said the Senate made "a grave mistake" by rewarding a government that has been repressing religion "and generally behaving like the Bobby Knight of the international community."

Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, called the bill ill-advised and said Congress should be dealing with Communist China by stressing moral and spiritual principles instead of pursuing "the hope of trade at any cost."

The House passed the trade legislation in May by a margin of 235-195 after a bitter debate. Senate approval was never in doubt, but passage without amendments was not a foregone conclusion.

Senators last week turned back the most serious challenge to the bill, an amendment on weapons proliferation sponsored chiefly by Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican. Backers of the legislation defeated many other amendments as well, arguing that the House would refuse to hold another vote on the China trade bill if the Senate amended it, effectively killing the legislation until the next Congress.

"It has been a long process, but every senator has had an opportunity to have his or her say," said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican. "All things considered, trade is in our interest."

The House vote was marked by a massive campaign coordinated from the White House and heavy lobbying - and campaign contributions - by major corporations and business groups. Organized labor, along with a diverse set of allies from the right and left, responded in kind with aggressive pressure tactics that many observers believe ultimately backfired.

These groups largely wrote off the Senate, which has a history of strong support for trade-liberalizing measures.

Despite supporters' jubilation at having won a monthslong campaign to pass the legislation, Mr. Baucus also cautioned that having China in the WTO would not be a panacea for Sino-American commercial disputes, nor would it ensure improvements in human rights and weapons-proliferation disputes.

"China is still a volatile country, a country struggling to find its future," Mr. Baucus said. "There is still a major battle in the Chinese leadership between the forces of reform and the forces of reaction."

Business groups, aware of China's atrocious record in complying with international agreements, also warned that future administrations would have to be vigilant in extracting the full benefits of the WTO agreement from China.

"This is just the beginning of the work we need to do to make sure China's obligations as a member of the WTO are fully implemented and enforced," said Calman Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, an organization of major corporations.

Tacitly conceding that forcing China to live up to the agreement will be a major challenge, the Clinton administration announced a plan earlier this year to enforce U.S. rights under the pact.

-------- drug war

Cocaine seizure an Arkansas record

Washington Times
September 20, 2000
Around the Nation Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/national/aroundnation-2000920213352.htm

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - More than 10 tons of cocaine valued by authorities at $125 million was confiscated from a transport truck in what Arkansas authorities said yesterday was the largest cocaine seizure in the state's history.

Randy Ort, spokesman for the state's Department of Transportation, said state highway policemen were inspecting a tractor-trailer rig on Interstate 30 near Hope, Ark., when they uncovered processed cocaine hidden in a shipment of cantaloupes.

The truck driver and a passenger, both believed to be Oklahoma residents, were arrested and jailed in the town of Hope.

-------- iran

Aide Seeks to Be First Woman to Run for President in Iran

New Yorrk Times
September 20, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20TEHR.html

TEHRAN, Sept. 19 - A little-known conservative said today that she hoped to be the first woman to run for president here, a goal that some people say is unconstitutional.

"I've made my decision to run in next year's presidential elections," the woman, Farah Khosravi, 41, said in an interview. "I'm going to fight in the polls as an independent." She spoke on Women's Day, celebrated on the anniversary of the birth of Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muhammad.

The day was celebrated by a training flight by Maryam Pakshir, 19, that made her the nation's youngest pilot who is a woman, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The status of women has improved since the election of a reformist, Mohammad Khatami, as president in 1997. About 58 percent of first-year students at universities were women last year, according to official figures. Mr. Khatami appointed a woman as a vice president, and 11 women sit in the 290-member Parliament.

Women can hold public office, a role barred elsewhere in the region. Although no official date has been set for the election, it is generally expected in May.

The Guardian Council, which acts as an upper chamber of Parliament and oversees elections, rejected an application from a liberal-minded woman who sought to run in 1997, saying it was unconstitutional.

The Constitution says the presidency is open to "rijal," a Farsi term that has been interpreted to mean men. Some experts say that should be interpreted as "respectable people," regardless of sex.

"I'm hoping very much that the council will approve my application in order to pave the way for women to play a greater social and political role in the establishment," Ms. Khosravi said.

She is in charge of postings at the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology and has a master's degree in management. She also is secretary-general of the conservative-leaning Iran-e- Farda Society, a little-known group of politicians.

She ran for Parliament two times unsuccessfully.

Reformists who support Mr. Khatami say Ms. Khosravi's candidacy could be a publicity stunt.

"Hard-liners are trying to discourage Khatami from running or at least trying to undermine his votes through different tactics, including bringing forward a woman candidate," said a reformist lawmaker, Fatemeh Haqiqatjou.

Mr. Haqiqatjou said Ms. Khosravi would be "no serious challenge" to the popular president, who said in July that he planned to run for another four-year term. Women and young Iranians were a base for Mr. Khatami when he defeated a hard-liner in 1997. He was elected with more than 70 percent of the vote, winning more than 20 million votes.

Although they lost the presidency and control of Parliament, the hard-liners, led by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, still wield considerable power and have tried to stall Mr. Khatami's reformist movement. Hard-liners control the judiciary, military and broadcast networks.

-------- russia

House GOP report says Gore's policies hurt U.S.-Russian ties

Washington Times
September 20, 2000
By David Sands
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000920215218.htm

The Clinton administration's close identification with a few corrupt Kremlin officials has badly tarnished America's reputation in Russia and set back U.S.-Russian relations by at least a decade, a new congressional report says.

The 209-page report, to be released today by a dozen senior Republican House members, takes direct aim at Vice President Al Gore's stewardship of policy on Russia over the past eight years, and it has already drawn prerelease fire from Mr. Gore and congressional Democrats unhappy with its conclusions.

"After tens of billions of dollars and eight years of mismanagement by the Clinton administration, the U.S.-Russian relationship is in tatters, characterized by deep and growing hostility and divergent perceptions of international realities and intentions," according to the report, titled "Russia's Road to Corruption."

The report criticizes the administration's record on a variety of fronts, including aid in building a market economy in Russia, weapons proliferation, efforts to fight Russian corruption, and the focus on President Boris Yeltsin and a few favored aides while ignoring Russia's parliament and other regional and private power centers.

The survey notes that Russia's relations with China have improved sharply, with the two talking openly of warmer ties to frustrate U.S. foreign policy goals.

"To find a foreign policy failure of comparable scope and significance, it would be necessary to imagine that after eight years of American effort and billions of dollars of Marshall Plan aid, public opinion in Western Europe had become solidly anti-American, and Western European governments were vigorously collaborating in a 'strategic partnership' directed against the United States," the report says.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert commissioned the study in March. House GOP Policy Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, California Republican, chaired the group, which included the chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services, International Relations, Intelligence and Appropriations committees.

Democrats criticized both the report and its timing, coming out just weeks before the presidential election.

"This is a partisan report not worth the taxpayer-provided paper it's written on," said Douglas Hattaway, a spokesman for Mr. Gore yesterday.

"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," Mr. Hattaway said.

"This is a political hatchet job. It's outrageous," said Rep. Sam Gejdenson, Connecticut Democrat and the ranking minority member of the International Relations Committee.

Mr. Gejdenson was one of five senior Democratic House lawmakers who wrote a letter Monday to Mr. Hastert, Illinois Republican, complaining about the report, although they had not seen the text.

A copy of the report was obtained yesterday by The Washington Times.

"This document should come out under the letterhead of the Republican National Committee," added Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat. "It's only meant to inflame the electorate 48 days before the election."

Mr. Gore has been closely identified with the administration's Russia policy since being appointed by Mr. Clinton to head a joint commission with former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin overseeing a number of bilateral issues, including energy and space exploration.

Mr. Cox, in an interview with reporters and editors of The Washington Times, said the report was not intended as a partisan attack.

"The next president is going to face tremendous challenges and tremendous opportunities in our relationship with Russia," he said. "It's important to understand how we got to where we are and not repeat the mistakes of the past."

To Mr. Cox, the last eight years represent a series of squandered opportunities that have left Russia poorer, U.S. influence weaker and the average Russian far more cynical about U.S. intentions.

The report cites the State Department's own surveys tracking a sharp decline in favorable opinion among Russians toward the United States during the 1990s, from 70 percent favorable in 1993 when Mr. Clinton took office to just 37 percent in February.

Mr. Cox said an "insular troika" of advisers - Mr. Gore, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Deputy Treasury Secretary (now Secretary) Lawrence H. Summers - largely set U.S. diplomatic and economic policy toward Russia.

Their unflagging support for Mr. Yeltsin and close association with corruption-tainted aides such as Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and privatization chief Anatoly Chubais backfired badly as Mr. Yeltsin's popularity flagged and the economy staggered in the ruble crisis of August 1998, according to the Republican report.

Because of their rhetorical and financial support of figures like Mr. Chernomyrdin and Mr. Chubais, the report argues, the administration became associated with their policy failures and with the scandals involving money laundering and theft of state assets that plagued the Yeltsin years.

The administration has cited a number of successes in its foreign policy with Russia, including progress in decommissioning Russia's huge nuclear stockpile and Russia's efforts to broker an end to the conflict with Yugoslavia over Kosovo last year.

While the House report castigates U.S. economic policy toward Russia, a new International Monetary Fund survey forecasts over 7 percent economic growth for Russia in 2000, the country's best performance in years.

The House Republican report says the incoming administration will have a chance to repair Russian relations, but must broaden its contacts beyond a small Kremlin circle, must promote private sector solutions to Russia's woes, and more aggressively combat official Russian corruption.

-------- space

Atlantis returns to Earth

USA Today
09/20/00
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed01.htm

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew returned to Earth in the pre-dawn darkness Wednesday, capping a successful mission to the international space station.

''We've had a really great flight this time,'' flight director Wayne Hale said.

Powerful xenon lights illuminated the 3-mile-long landing strip as Atlantis swooped through the sky like a ghost ship, with a half-moon as a backdrop. Landing was right on time, at 3:56 a.m., just as launch was back on Sept. 8.

''Welcome home,'' Mission Control said once Atlantis rolled to a stop. ''Congratulations on an outstanding job. We are proud of you all.'' It was only the 15th nighttime landing in space shuttle history. Nighttime landings are becoming more common, though, now that NASA has a space station in orbit. All three previous shuttle flights to the space station also ended in darkness.

During their five days inside the space station, Atlantis' astronauts and cosmonauts hauled in 3 tons of equipment for the first permanent crew.

Among the supplies: shampoo, cream, shaving gel, moist towels and napkins, Russian and American meals, ear plugs, medical kits, labels, printer parts, clamps, brackets, camera equipment and small bags for the crew to use to relieve themselves in case the toilet jams.

The seven shuttle crewmen also installed the toilet, oxygen generator and treadmill in the new living quarters, and ran power and TV cables up the outside.

Getting an extra day helped. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration stretched the mission to 12 days to give the astronauts more time inside. ''We started with 52 items in our to-do list and wound up doing 74 different tasks on board the station, large and small,'' Hale said Tuesday.

The only disappointment was with one of five new batteries that were plugged into the Russian modules. It would not charge properly and was disconnected; the first residents will deal with the problem when they arrive.

Another shuttle crew is scheduled to depart for the space station on Oct. 5 aboard Discovery. The first space station residents will follow on Oct. 30 aboard a Russian rocket, arriving two days later for a four-month stay.

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

U.N. report: Women's unequal treatment hurts economies
Worldwide abuse 'a massive violation of human rights'

CNN
September 20, 2000
By Jonathan D. Austin CNN.com Writer
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/09/20/un.population.report/index.html

UNITED NATIONS -- Women throughout the world continue to be the victims of violence, sexual exploitation and discrimination -- at a considerable cost to their countries' economies, according to a United Nations report.

The report, issued by the U.N. Population Fund, notes that conditions for women have improved since 1994, when 179 countries met and pledged to do more for their female citizens.

But Stan Bernstein, a senior research adviser with the fund, said the continuing discrimination against women constitutes "a massive violation of human rights that takes various forms around the globe."

The annual report, which was released Wednesday, is an attempt to underscore "what the costs of inequality are, what has kept it in place in the past, and what's being done to address it now," Bernstein said.

Pocketbook factors

Bernstein said the report includes economic data because "sometimes people don't pay attention to misery until it hits them in the pocketbook. So we felt we had to report on both sides."

According the report, titled "State of the World Population 2000," a 1 percent increase in female secondary schooling results in a 0.3 percent increase in economic growth.

If you use Pakistan as an example, that estimate means the increased investment in education would have upped the country's economic growth by $262 million in 1999, excluding inflation, which was estimated at 6 percent.

Grim statistics

The report also tries to show the link between abuse, illness, early deaths, abortions and degradation. According to its data:

One in three women will experience violence during her lifetime -- most often at the hands of people she knows.

Two million girls under age 15 are forced into the sex trade each year.

Complications from pregnancy and childbirth kill 500,000 women each year.

Stillbirths or newborn deaths total an estimated 8 million yearly, with the lack of obstetric care cited as the primary cause.

About a third of all pregnancies each year -- 80 million -- are unintended or unwanted.

An estimated 50 million abortions occur each year, 20 million of which are unsafe, resulting in 78,000 maternal deaths. The report says a quarter of those unsafe births are to girls between the ages 15 and 19.

Abuse breeds additional miseries

"Abused women tend not to use family planning services ... for fear of reprisal from husbands," the report states, citing a Ghana study in which "close to half of all women and 43 percent of men said a man was justified in beating his wife if she used contraceptives without his expressed consent."

Likewise, abused women who participated in focus groups in Peru and Mexico said they did not discuss birth control with their husbands, fearing a violent reaction.

The resistance to contraception, the report said, "takes a tremendous toll, both physical and emotional, and causes immense damage to a woman's reproductive health." Unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, frequent high-risk pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases are among the results.

Nations agree

The miseries surveyed in the report have "direct consequences for the lives of women, for the lives of men, for the quality of their partnerships, for the development of their communities, and the development of their countries," Bernstein said.

The report refers to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. At that conference, 179 countries agreed to increase domestic allocations to health care, including reproductive health, and agreed to share technical data from successful programs.

In a 1999 review of the conference goals, representatives from those countries agreed that empowering women and meeting their education and health needs were necessary, according to the report.

"The countries included many of these goals for reproductive health, for women's empowerment, for reduction of women's mortality and HIV/AIDS deaths," Bernstein said.

Improvements noted

The report cites changes in legal or administrative codes that have since improved conditions for women, including:

The ban of female genital mutilation in eight African nations.

The adding of sexual and reproductive rights and gender equity to the new Venezuelan constitution.

The approved sale of low-dosage oral contraceptives in Japan.

Legislation to increase access to reproductive health services in Mexico and Peru.

The report also cites advancements in Cambodia, which enacted comprehensive abortion legislation; in Ecuador, which is discussing the addition of sexual and reproductive rights to its constitution; and in Albania, Burkina Faso, Fiji, Madagascar, Poland and the Sudan, all of which adopted measures to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.

"The world has moved these topics to the center of the international development agenda," Bernstein said. "This is a time of extraordinary opportunity, and we have to rise to the occasion.

"We know what needs to be done, and we need to commit ourselves to do the action," he said. "There are not going to be too many second chances."

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

USA Today
09/20/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Arkansas

Jonesboro - For $40 people can buy a brick for a veterans' monument to be built on the Craighead County Courthouse grounds. The monument will honor veterans of any era who either live or have lived in the northeast Arkansas county. Each brick will contain space for three lines of text.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Metro Briefing

New York Times
September 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/nyregion/20MBRF.html

MADISON: POWER PLANT TO USE WIND The largest wind-power generating station in the state is scheduled to begin commercial operations at the end of this month, its owner said . Known as a wind farm, the power plant is also the first on the East Coast to sell power to commercial energy distributors, according to its owner, the PG&E National Energy Group of Bethesda, Md. The plant's seven propeller- driven turbines, each rising 220 feet above the cornfields of Madison County, will generate 11.5 megawatts of electricity. (NYT)

-------- environment

Deep Peril for Deep-Sea Corals

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/19/science/19CORA.html

For nine miles along a submerged ridge, the corals rise in lumpy hillocks that spread out 100 yards or more, resembling heaped scoops of rainbow sherbet and Neapolitan ice cream. The mounds, some 100 feet tall, sprout delicate treelike gorgonians that sift currents for a plankton meal. Fish, worms and other creatures dart or crawl in every crevice.

This description could apply to thousands of coral reefs in shallow, sun-streaked tropical waters from Australia to the Bahamas. But this is the Sula Ridge, 1,000 feet down in frigid darkness on the continental shelf 100 miles off Norway's coast.

The pinks, yellows, oranges and other colors are apparent only under the blazing artificial light beamed from remote-controlled submersibles wielding video cameras. Absent such intrusions, this is a world of utter blackness.

Nearly 250 years ago, Scandinavian scientists, including Linnaeus, first described some of these cold- water corals, but only from bits and pieces pulled up in fishing nets or on hooks. Only in the last decade or so, as research submarines and robotic devices have become widely used, has the diversity and extent of these banks and reefs become apparent.

Marine biologists now say that deep-sea corals and attendant organisms easily rival tropical reefs in their diversity - and their fragility.

The same scientists who have been mapping these ecosystems for the first time in waters off Alaska, eastern Canada, Northern Europe, Australia and New Zealand have simultaneously been chronicling widespread damage from fleets of trawlers with gear that has been dropped ever deeper as fisheries in shallower waters are depleted.

"On sonar you can see the trawl tracks, like linear scars in the bottom," said Dr. Jan Helge Fosse, a marine ecologist at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.

Often, it has been commercial hook-and-line fishermen who have alerted scientists to the damage from the factory-scale fishing boats, which they see as a threat to their catch. That was the case in Nova Scotia, where reports surfaced several years ago of pairs of trawlers towing bottom-dragging cables between them to systematically topple forests of treelike Paragorgia corals so nothing would snag their gear on later passes.

Biologists have become alarmed by the extent of damage, with surveys in Norway indicating that a third to half of the charted deep reefs show some harm from fishing. This is particularly distressing, scientists say, not only because it could take centuries for the slow-growing corals to regenerate, but also because they contain clues to past climate and ocean-temperature shifts.

Variations in their microscopic growth rings and chemical composition provide the deep-sea equivalent of the climate record in tree rings, and scientists are just beginning to assess this newfound trove of data, said Dr. Michael Risk, a geologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who recently published a paper in Nature on the temperature data in a coral sample.

"The weak point always in every climate model is that we don't know what happens in the oceans, and here we've got this benthic tape recorder," Dr. Risk said. "The problem is, it's being wrecked."

He said a fisherman provided an early hint of the potential locked in the corals. "He hopped a fence at a wharf a couple years ago, went to a trawler and grabbed a specimen out of their net," he said. "He shipped it to me and it turned out it was 500 years old. That fisherman started getting death threats. And that piece was one-and-a-half inches in diameter. We hear stories of corals as big around as your leg. Some of these things may live thousands of years."

At the first international conference on deep sea corals, held this summer in Halifax, Nova Scotia, nearly 100 biologists and geologists compared notes and issued a statement calling for the expansion of marine protected areas to shield deep corals. So far only Norway and Australia have begun to do so.

"Most scientists are rather cautious types, but at the conference there was a very strong feeling that we have to step out from the closet of science and do something to protect them," said Dr. Martin Willison, a biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who helped organize the conference.

The joint statement said, "It is essential that existing national laws and international conventions for the protection of biodiversity and the regulation of fisheries be extended to cover these unique and vulnerable deep-water habitats."

In a recent interview, Dr. Willison marveled at how knowledge of deep corals had exploded in the last couple of decades. Scientists have now mapped them in the Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean, along continental shelves on both sides of the Pacific and Atlantic, and from Tasmania to the Arctic.

"I can get under my belt the idea of coral reefs in northern waters," Dr. Willison said, "but to think of them above the Arctic Circle was really quite spectacular."

Shallow-water corals are colonies of two organisms - a plankton-eating polyp and sun-dependent algae called zooxanthellae. Unlike them, the deep corals have only the carnivorous polyps, which use sticky mucus or stinging arms to capture zooplankton meals. This trait has allowed them, over tens of millions of years, to break free of dependence on light.

Fossil evidence shows some similar kinds of deep-sea mounds dating from 400 million years ago, geologists say. Reefs in different places are dominated by different forms. Bulbous colonies of Lophelia pertusa are typical in Northern Europe. The sea bottom off Nova Scotia and eastern Maine is more likely to hold forests of treelike pink Paragorgia corals, nicknamed "bubble gum tree" by Canadian fishermen, and Primnoa, a genus that has finer branches and is more bushlike.

Generally, scientists say, the deep corals seem to thrive in places where a hard rock bottom protrudes from the silt, providing a firm anchor, and a place for plankton to thrive - sites like the waters off the Bay of Fundy or areas around sea mounts, submerged mountains whose peaks reach within a thousand feet or so of the surface. They also tend to grow in places with strong, turbulent bottom currents, like ridges on the continental shelf off Norway that were left behind by the retreating glaciers of the last ice age. Sula Ridge off Norway is one such formation.

One theory is that the corals are binge eaters, relying on a spring rain of zooplankton from the surface that is then swept along the bottom by strong currents, said Dr. Andre Freiwald, a geologist at the University of Týbingen in Germany, who last week began a three-week trip using side-scan sonar to map corals in waters from Norway to Spain.

But there are other theories. Dr. Martin Hovland, a marine geologist, who surveys pipeline routes for Statoil, Norway's state-owned oil company, first mapped some of the country's extensive offshore corals nearly 20 years ago. He said many of the mounds seemed to be over areas of sea floor seeping hydrocarbons, which could be providing sustenance for plankton and creating a food chain supporting the deep reefs.

The diversity of life in the interstices of the coral mounds is dizzying, and just beginning to be appreciated. Several years ago, Andreas Jensen and Rune Frederiksen, from the Zoological Museum of the University of Copenhagen, dissected 40 pounds of coral hunks retrieved from a reef near the Faroe Islands, east of Iceland. They counted 4,626 organisms belonging to 256 species, with 42 other species in loose coral rubble that came up with the pieces.

Nearly 100 species had never been recorded from that region before. And when the scientists compared the creatures with those from coral samples taken from reefs in Norway and the Bay of Biscay, there were only a few overlaps, indicating just how variegated this deep-sea quilt is.

Surprises continue to pop up. At the Halifax conference, Sanford Atwood, a longtime hook-and-line fisherman from The Hawk, a Nova Scotia village, showed some visiting scientists a few of the small, pillow- shaped corals he had collected. They were eight or nine inches across and were called "hard hats" by the locals because of their shape.

"Some experts there said the chances of hauling that up where you said you did is the same chance as finding something in our forest that belongs in a rain forest," said Mr. Atwood, who recently shifted to lobster fishing because of declines in stocks of haddock, cod and other fin fish. He said the destruction from trawling could well be contributing to the drop in fish populations.

At the Hell Hole, a spot favored for generations by Nova Scotia long-liners, he said, the corals were always a well-known feature of the bottom. But now they appear to be mostly knocked down, he said, and the fishing suffers.

"I'm not an expert when it comes to science, but I do know how to go fishing and what fish depend on," he said, adding that it made no sense to let the destruction of the corals continue. "We take and take and take but never give. It's about time we did something for the ocean."

---

Conservation Plan Rocks the Cradle of Fly-Fishing

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By ALAN COWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/world/20BRIT.html

ABBOTTS BARTON, England - Silky smooth, the river flows through pampered banks, and anglers, crouching to cast lines to skittish, savvy trout, like to say that this is their shrine, the place where the arcane arts of fly-fishing were honed one hundred and more years ago. Indeed, this spot where willows weep and the waters sparkle is known not just to Britons but to American fly- fishers too as the cradle of their skills.

Yet throughout the summer this three-mile stretch of the River Itchen, crisscrossing the water meadows of Hampshire near Winchester, has been propelled from understated idyll to burning issue. A local conservation agency struck dread into the hearts of the anglers by decreeing that part of the hallowed Abbotts Barton fishery must be allowed to revert to nature.

No more would riverine weeds be trimmed or bankside reeds cut back to create a perfect habitat for trout - a kind of piscatorial Hilton with just the right mix of sheltering weed and gravel beds. No more would the streamside footpaths be cropped smooth for the benefit of anglers. No more would farmed brown trout be stocked alongside wild brown trout, and no more would voracious pike - which eat most things from ducklings to milder species of fish - be kept far away.

The anglers struck back. Letters were written to The Times of London. Legislators were drafted into the fray. Fly-fishing magazines took serious umbrage. "Cultural vandalism," thundered Total Flyfishing. "Tragedy at Abbotts Barton," said Trout and Salmon. And, for all the episode had echoes of the summertime silly season, there were - as in the stream itself - darker currents.

Was this in essence a class war between the conservationists and the 25 anglers in the Abbotts Barton club - known, in fly-fishing parlance, as rods? The members brave a five- year waiting list and then pay $1,500 a season to fish three days a week six months a year.

Or was it a broader question of where conservation begins and ends. Does it start, for instance, before the time in Roman Britain when the rivers were first harnessed to drive mills, or later, in the mid-17th century, when farmers created a complex of ditches and carrier streams to flood the surrounding water meadows?

Or, yet later, in the late 19th century when, as industry overtook agriculture in Victorian Britain, anglers took over the waters for their sport and managed them as a place devoted to the business of catching trout using bits of feather and hackle tied to barbed hooks?

The answer, perhaps, lies in a particular British reverence for chalk- stream waters like the Itchen and its sister stream in Hampshire, the Test, where fly-fishing has become especially refined as a skill and where access is largely restricted to sometimes snooty clubs and syndicates whose annual fees make the Abbotts Barton water look cheap.

"This can rightly be described as the cradle of dry-fly fishing," with the fly on the surface, said Roy Darlington, 59, who held the lease to the Abbotts Barton fishery for 25 years.

The local Hampshire Wildlife Trust - one of a plethora of environmental agencies - ended Mr. Darlington's tenure this year, giving him until the end of September, when the season closes, to wind up his affairs on the two-thirds of the fishery it owns. The rest is owned by a local family that has not objected to the anglers' regime.

To explain the finer points, which might seem arcane to nonfishers, or even to people satisfied with worms on hooks or plastic lures, Mr. Darlington said that, up till the late 19th century, people who fished with imitation flies did so by casting their lines downstream with the lures submerged.

In 1879, however, a group of English fly-fishers, including Frederic Halford and G. S. Marryat, took over the Abbotts Barton fishery and began experimenting with upstream fishing using imitations that floated on the surface. That caused a revolution in equipment. Then, in 1883, a young lawyer, George Edward Mackenzie Skues, also began fishing here, and noticed that many trout feed not only on hatching insects on the surface but also on larval insects underneath.

He, too, devised new techniques to cast a line upstream, using what are termed nymphs. "Modern fly-fishing has its origins here," Mr. Darlington said.

But the issue is not solely about fishing, says the Hampshire Wildlife Trust, which bought the Abbotts Barton property in 1981 to forestall housing and other development. Rather, the trust argues, it is about what flourishes there, how it is managed and who gets to enjoy it.

"In essence, it is a nature reserve that's been intensively managed for fishing," said Ian Woolley, the trust's chief executive officer. "We would like to see biodiversity and not just for trout."

Indeed, he said, since the trust suspended Mr. Darlington's lease this year, preventing him from intensive management of the river and banks, "there are many varieties of flowers and insects that are there now and weren't there previously."

Mr. Darlington sees it differently. "We argue that it's because of management over 400 years or more that there is biodiversity for the wildlife," he said. And without management, he said, the reeds would clog carrier streams, reducing water flows. The streams would silt up, raising water levels so that the area becomes swampy, with less varied flora and fauna.

Some anglers seem to think that they are being penalized by the trust as if they were seen as spoiled toffs despite their varied, nontoff backgrounds. But Mr. Woolley says that his membership "includes the whole range of classes from the urban poor to the extremely rich."

"We have some millionaires and some people on unemployment," he said. "We want the whole spectrum of society to visit" Abbotts Barton.

A compromise may be in the works, permitting fewer anglers - only 15 - to fish on shorter stretches of managed water while the rest of the fishery is left to nature. Mr. Woolley says the proposal is under consideration as part of a five-year plan for the whole area of streams and water meadows that could, indeed, make parts of the property soggier than now.

"The fishing is one of a whole series of issues," Mr. Woolley said, but "we are not going to walk away and turn it into a bog."

---

USA Today
September 20, 2000
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Delaware

Dover - Farmers are warning that they could derail a new clean water initiative. Members of the Delaware Nutrient Management Commission, a panel controlled by poultry farmers, say they will fight new federal regulations to protect waterways from manure and fertilizer runoff. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unveiled the proposed rules this summer.

Idaho

Boise - Goodman Oil Co., which has nine gas stations in Idaho, is going to court to fight a $736,000 penalty assessed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The fine for 35 alleged violations involving underground fuel tanks is the largest ever sought for such infractions in the Northwest. Goodman denies wrongdoing and rejected an offer to settle out of court.

Illinois

Carlyle - State officials want to develop land about 40 miles east of St. Louis that is also home to the rare Eastern massasauga rattlesnake, a candidate for the endangered species list. Officials say a proposed $1.5 million development that includes cabins and a hotel will provide jobs for economically depressed southern Illinois.

Indiana

Indianapolis - The state Department of Environmental Management didn't have to go far to investigate a mercury spill Beads of the liquid metal were found at the department's office. About 120 employees were evacuated as a precaution, but testing showed no health threat. The mercury came from a device used in a previous cleanup.

Massachusetts

Boston - Rainfall in Massachusetts contains 10 times the level of mercury considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a report by the National Wildlife Federation. Mercury is linked to learning disabilities and immune system and heart problems. Some of the mercury comes from incinerators and power plants in states to the west.

Minnesota

Ely - The town could face a $137,500 penalty from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly disposing of sewage sludge containing nitrate levels that exceed federal guidelines. The proposed fine comes after four years of wrangling with state regulators over how to clean up the sludge the city used to spray on land near White Iron Lake. A decision on the fine is expected next month.

Washington

Pasco - A Seattle City Council resolution in favor of removing four Snake River dams has offended communities in eastern Washington, where the dams are located. The Whitman County commission has asked the Seattle council to withdraw its resolution. It was intended to help restore the river's salmon population.

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

IMF Warns the EU of Risks If Delays in Reforms Persist

Wall Street Journal
September 20, 2000
By DAVID WESSEL and PAUL HOFHEINZ Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB969396136135422967.htm

Further Western European ambivalence or uncertainty about admitting Eastern European nations to the European Union could "weaken the commitment to and momentum of reforms" and make the ex-Communist countries "more susceptible to economic or political shocks," the International Monetary Fund warned.

In its semiannual World Economic Outlook, released Tuesday in Prague, the IMF urged the EU to "clarify the terms and conditions of entry" and "establish a more credible and certain timetable" for enlargement.

The World Economic Outlook includes the IMF's forecast for the world economy, but the organization's chief economist, Michael Mussa, on Tuesday cautioned that the outlook is clouded by the recent increase in oil prices. The IMF predicts the world economy will grow by 4.7% this year and 4.2% next year, which would be the strongest two-year period for the global economy in a decade.

Mr. Mussa said the forecast was based on the assumption that oil would cost $26.53 (31.07 euros) a barrel this year and $23 next year. Since the IMF crunched the numbers in August, oil has spiked to around $35 a barrel.

Impact on Inflation

"Assuming that the increase in oil prices does recede," Mr. Mussa said, the IMF now expects growth is more likely to be around 3.75%. "If oil prices were to stay at $35 a barrel, or escalate, the impact on inflation and world growth would be more significant."

The 10 Eastern Europeans countries that are candidates for the EU are: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia. Before it can admit so many new members, the EU must change voting procedures in the European Commission, restructure its costly farm-subsidy programs and rejigger its system of regional subsidies.

"Delays in these reforms have raised substantial doubts about the conditions under which enlargement will occur, and when full membership can realistically be expected for even the first group of applicants," the IMF said.

The IMF noted that several of the countries are attracting large amounts of Western investment "that, to some degree, may be based on expectations of timely accession." A change in that outlook could disrupt the flow of money to Eastern European economies and, thus, their economic growth.

The 15 current members of the EU said last year they aim to overhaul the body's institutions by January 2003, but they haven't set an entry date for the applicants. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer publicly mentioned a date for the first time earlier this month, when he said he was hoping Poland would be ready to join by 2005.

Key Driving Force

Any hesitation on the part of the existing EU members poses a threat to progress in Eastern Europe. "The goal of EU accession has become one of the key driving forces behind the adjustment and reform efforts that these countries are actively pursuing," the IMF economists concluded.

A report by two outside economists -- commissioned by the IMF but not endorsed by the agency -- was more blunt. "By postponing reforms, the EU creates uncertainty about the value of membership," said Erik Berglof of the Stockholm School of Economics and Gerard Roland of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. If Eastern European countries conclude that membership depends more on internal EU politics and less on the progress towards market capitalism, the EU leverage speed reforms will weaken, they said.

The academics also said that the EU shouldn't admit the transition countries as a group or lump countries together simply because of geographic proximity, but instead should provide "incentives for countries to differentiate themselves by accelerating reforms."

Write to David Wessel at david.wessel@wsj.com and Paul Hofheinz at paul.hofheinz@wsj.com

Growing Ex-Communist economies that are candidates to join EU

Population (millions)
Per capita GDP (in US$)

Bulgaria 8.3 1,540
Czech Republic 10.3 4,516
Estonia 1.4 3,694
Hungary 10.1 4,805
Latvia 2.4 2,572
Lithuania 3.4 2,885
Poland 38.7 3,984
Romania 22.4 1,523
Slovak Republic 5.4 3,479
Slovenia 2 10,982

EU Enlargement:
Past & Future
Countries Date joined EU Increase in EU population in % Increase in EU GDP in %

Denmark, Ireland, U.K. 1973 30.7 24.5
Greece 1981 3.5 1.8
Portugal, Spain 1986 16.7 8.4
Austria, Finland, Sweden 1995 7.6 7.6
Turkey -- 17.6 2.2
Ten ex-Communist countries -- 27.9 4.3

Source: International Monetary Fund (World Economic Outlook)
1999 gross domestic product at then-current exchange rates

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Central Europe's Economies Diverge As They Seek to Join European Union

Wall Street Journal
September 20, 2000
By PAUL HOFHEINZ Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB96939291274411453.htm

Ever since the European Union invited Central Europe's leading countries to prepare to join the euro club, analysts have said that interest rates, inflation and the cost of capital in the two halves of Europe would soon converge. Instead, Central Europe's leading economies seem to be doing more to diverge from each other.

Poland and Hungary are the most notable cases. Both countries are in the forefront of the region's efforts to integrate with Europe, and yet they find themselves facing radically different economic situations. Poland is fighting an epic battle with inflation and has a high current-account deficit. In response, its central bank has raised interest rates four times in the past year. Hungary, by contrast, is fighting moderately rising inflation, but its current account is well under control. Its central bank has lowered interest rates six times in the past year. Interest rates in Poland stand at 19%, compared with 10.75% in Hungary.

The result is a curious choice for investors. Assuming you buy into the "convergence" play -- the notion that bond prices will rise in the EU accession countries as their cost of capital falls to Western European levels -- you now have two remarkably different ways of placing your bet. Ten-year Polish treasurys offer a yield of 12.1% -- or 6.7 percentage points over German government bonds. Hungarian treasurys, meanwhile, offer 8.1% -- a lower yield, but one that comes with markedly less risk thanks to Hungary's sounder economic fundamentals.

'Tremendous Value'

So which is the better deal? The answer depends on how much risk you're willing to assume. Sonja Gibbs, an economist at Nomura in London, thinks the Polish paper is particularly attractive. "There's tremendous value to be had in the Polish bond market," she says, noting that investors seem to have overreacted to Poland's recent round of troubles.

In particular, Ms. Gibbs says, the yield curve for Polish treasurys is around 1.5 percentage points higher than it was just six months ago -- even on what analysts call the long end of the curve. In other words, investors are betting that inflation will still be a problem in Poland 10 years from now, even though the country is committed to getting inflation down to Western European levels within the next four or five years. "Why should people change their expectations [of what will happen 10 years from now] because of what's happening now?" Ms. Gibbs asks. She thinks Polish bond prices will rise when the market sees that it has reacted excessively to the current wave of troubles.

Others, like Merrill Lynch's Andrew Kenningham, think the Hungarian paper is a better buy. Noting that Hungary seems set for a credit upgrade in the near future, he says its euro bonds are nonetheless trading at a yield of 0.14 percentage point over their Polish equivalents. "It's the opposite of what you would expect," he says. "Hungarian bonds shouldn't be trading [at a higher yield than] Poland."

Effect of Euro

Who is right? At a glance, the Polish paper offers better terms. But when you buy zloty-denominated debt, you are also making a bet that the Polish government and central bank will be able to gain control of the current-account deficit -- now 7.2% of gross domestic product -- and 11.6% inflation without having to let the zloty depreciate. Some economists, like Salomon Smith Barney's Wike Groenenberg, predict that this feat will be difficult to pull off. She calculates that Poland might need to let its currency slip some 10% on a trade-weighted basis in order to help service the country's current-account deficit.

At the end of the day, the profitability of Central European bonds probably will be determined less by the economic situation in the countries themselves than by the euro's relationship to the dollar. For better or worse, the markets are treating Central Europe's leading currencies as if they already were part of the euro zone. As a result, Central Europe's leading currencies have lost much of their value against the dollar as the euro grows more and more anemic.

The result is a strange anomaly: Some dollar-based investors in Poland have made profits in zloty terms, but lost money in dollar terms. Given the fact that most emerging-market fund managers still count their profits in dollars, euro weakness has sometimes turned what ought to have been gains into net losses.

But, Nomura's Ms. Gibbs points out that if you can ignore the past, the weakened euro might hold certain advantages for the future. "It's hard to see how the zloty might weaken against the euro," she says, though she adds, "These are small, thinly traded currencies. It doesn't take much to move them around."

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

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The Industry Standard
September 18, 2000
International News Briefs
By Industry Standard Staff
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18480,00.html?partner=xdrive

NOT GOOD ENOUGH: The United States plans to pursue World Trade Organization action against Mexico over telecommunications competition, despite new measures to rein in the country's telephone giant, Telefonos de Mexico. Regulators will force the telco, also known as Telmex, to cut the rates it charges other companies to hook into its vast local network. But Washington said that was not enough to give U.S. firms a better chance to compete in Mexico.

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Persistent Poverty

Washington Post
Wednesday, September 20, 2000 ; A33
By Robert J. Samuelson
http://washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A40345-2000Sep19

The World Bank recently issued a massive report on global poverty. The aim seems to have been to demonstrate that big reductions are possible, but the impression that emerges from the 335 pages of charts and text is just the opposite: Large parts of the world seem impervious to sustained, rapid economic growth; globalization's reach is limited. The question of why will preoccupy the economic and