------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
*One year later, Japan nuclear village still lives in fear
*Support for Workers
*Maps Reveal Scattering of Ky. Plutonium
MILITARY
*U.S. DRUG WAR AT CENTER STAGE IN RENEWED BOLIVIAN VIOLENCE
*West funds anti-opium fungus Pleosporafungus
*A Virtual Battlefield Helps Keep Japan Alert
*Near DMZ, No Joy in Korean Warming
*Update on the Fast and the Grand March in Vieques
*Navy Detains Protesters on Vieques
ACTIVISTS
*Anti-nuclear protest on anniversary of Tokaimura disaster
*Japan recalls nuclear accident in protests
-------- NUCLEAR (by country)
-------- japan
One year later, Japan nuclear village still lives in fear
Environmental News Service
Sunday, October 1, 2000
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/10/10012000/s_32024.asp
Hideko Araki remembers Japan's worst nuclear accident as if it were yesterday.
When word came of trouble last Sept. 30, she called her 5-year-old twins inside, pulled down the laundry hanging outside her home and shut the doors and windows.
"I was home, playing with the kids," Araki, 41, said this week as she walked her children home from school. "I was surprised, and I just didn't know what else to do."
The accident at a fuel reprocessing plant 70 miles northeast of Tokyo killed two workers, exposed hundreds and sent shockwaves through Japan's entire nuclear energy industry.
The effects of that shock remain clear a year later.
Utilities are scaling down nuclear plant construction plans. The government is struggling to balance its aggressive plans for expansion of nuclear energy with new safety measures. And public skepticism is still strong.
"Rebuilding the damage to confidence in Japan's nuclear energy safety caused by the ... accident is still under way," said Shojiro Matsuura, chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission.
The staying power of the Tokaimura accident is no surprise - it dramatically confirmed critics' worst fears about the nuclear industry, from systematic disregard for safety rules to poor employee training.
On that morning, two workers trying to save time mixed excessive amounts of uranium in buckets and beakers instead of special mechanized tanks. The mix set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, hitting the two workers with fatal doses of radiation.
Authorities ordered 161 people evacuated from their homes. Another 310,000, like Araki's family, were advised to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation, although officials have played down the possibility of long-term health problems.
The accident - which followed several smaller accidents - was a powerful blow to Japan's ambitious plans to expand its reliance on nuclear energy, which provides about a third of the country's electricity.
While the government has stood by its conclusion that nuclear energy is the answer to Japan's dependence on foreign oil, utilities are slowly retreating on their reactor building plans.
The government said in 1998 that companies had plans to build 21 reactors by 2010. A current official estimate shows those plans being scaled down to 13 plants. No new reactors have started operation since July 1997.
Rising local opposition is playing a bigger role in construction plans. In February, a local governor - citing concerns over safety stemming from the Tokaimura accident - forced a utility company in western Japan to drop plans to build a nuclear plant.
Authorities have gone on a blitz of new safety measures aimed at rebuilding public confidence.
Measures including laws enhancing the prime minister's emergency powers and requiring periodic inspection of nuclear-fuel processing facilities - instead of just reactors - have taken effect in recent months.
"I believe we have come a fairly long way," said Matsuura, the nuclear safety chief. "These measures are the best we can think of at this point in time."
Gaia Hoerner, with the anti-nuclear Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, said the changes so far have not been very effective.
"A lot of the improvements that were made were post-accident improvements," she said. "So, with the prevention of an accident ... nothing has really been changed yet."
Critics want the government to back away from its full commitment to expanding nuclear power and devote more money to alternative sources of energy, such as solar.
At the center of the storm - the one-story building where the accident occurred - all is quiet. Weeds grow tall around the empty building and the barred windows are sealed shut. A protective steel barrier covers the delivery entrance.
"It's all safe," assured Shuji Noguchi, spokesman for JCO Co., the operator of the reprocessing plant.
Trouble, however, still surrounds JCO. The company was stripped of its license to operate the processing plant in March, and the last of the remaining uranium was being removed from the facility this week.
The company has also agreed to pay out $117.2 million in compensation to settle 6,875 cases from the accident. Another 150 claims are pending, and victims still accuse the company of failing to properly monitor their health.
Tokaimura - home to a dozen nuclear facilities and one operating reactor - also has yet to recover.
Toru Sato, like many farmers in the area, saw sales of his peanuts and Chinese cabbage plummet 30 percent after the accident because of nationwide fears that area produce could be contaminated.
But like many in a town where the nuclear industry employs a third of the work force, he's not against atomic power - only human blunders like the ones that led to last year's accident.
"If they do a perfect job, with today's technology it'll be OK," Sato said. "But in that accident, they were just slacking off. It's a matter of how they do things."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Support for Workers
Washington Post
Sunday, October 1, 2000 ; Page B06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49504-2000Sep30.html
The Sept. 22 news story on the hearing my subcommittee held on compensating workers who were exposed to toxic materials while working at nuclear arms production facilities incorrectly reported that I object to attaching a compensation program to the defense spending bill. I do not object. Further, my opening statement made it clear that I support compensating these workers who have sacrificed so much for our nation's security.
LAMAR SMITH Washington
The writer, a Republican representative from Texas, is chairman of the House subcommittee on immigration and claims.
-------- kentucky
Maps Reveal Scattering of Ky. Plutonium
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 1, 2000 ; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52663-2000Sep30?language=printer
A uranium processing plant in Paducah, Ky., spread plutonium farther around the facility than was previously known and even contaminated ground water in the area, according to newly released documents.
Maps drawn last summer but not released to federal investigators reveal that plant officials had taken hundreds of measurements over 10 years showing plutonium in soil and water more than a mile from the plant's fence. Most disturbing was the discovery of the highly dangerous metal in dozens of ground-water tests, which has potentially ominous implications for local drinking-water supplies.
The results of these tests suggest that government contractors knew far more about the extent of the contamination than was previously acknowledged, and the spread of plutonium was much more extensive than Energy Department officials reported after an investigation last fall. The probe was launched after The Washington Post reported such problems in August 1999.
Until the new documents were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request to the Energy Department, federal officials had reported finding no plutonium in ground water other than the minute traces found everywhere from nuclear weapons testing.
A department spokesman said yesterday that investigators had no knowledge of the maps until they were alerted by reporters. However, they stressed that they believed there was nothing in the maps that suggested greater threats to the public or wildlife, partly because area residents had stopped drinking water from potentially contaminated private wells.
"We don't see any information on the maps that would have changed our approach during our environmental investigation," said Ray Hardwick, acting deputy assistant secretary for the department's Office of Oversight. "Nor do we see anything that would change our conclusions."
Department officials, however, were clearly uncomfortable at having just learned of such detailed information and promised to investigate. "Obviously, this the kind of thing that would be interest," said Don Seaborg, the department's site manager for Paducah.
Others who learned of the maps' existence questioned whether the plant and its federal overseers ever intended to tell the community the full truth.
"It's mind-boggling," said Mark Donham, an environmentalist who serves as chairman of the Paducah plant's local citizen advisory board. "For years they never wanted to talk to us about what they found in the water. Obviously this is why."
The plant in southwestern Kentucky, called the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, was built in 1952 to produce enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. Soon after it opened, Atomic Energy Commission officials began quietly supplying the plant with a dirty form of uranium containing plutonium and other radioactive metals far more hazardous than ordinary uranium. Although the tainted shipments continued for more than 20 years, most workers and neighbors never knew about plutonium until it was revealed in a Post report.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson immediately launched an investigation, which culminated last fall in a pair of reports highly critical of safety and environmental practices of the plant's former contractors, including Union Carbide and Lockheed Martin. Independent tests confirmed that plutonium had polluted plant grounds and revealed pockets of contamination in ditches and stream banks a couple of hundred yards north of the plant's security fence.
The problems depicted in the agency's reports are mild, however, compared with the picture that emerges from the documents that came to light last week. Four maps prepared for the government were posted on the Energy Department's Web site after being released in response to an FOIA request. They show plant officials had been searching for plutonium for years--and found it nearly everywhere they looked.
The diagrams reflect what knowledgeable agency sources described as a composite of all positive test results for plutonium recorded by plant contractors since they began regular environmental sampling in 1989. The unsigned maps, bearing a handwritten date of Aug. 26, 1999, show a plant ringed with contamination that extends in some cases for well over a mile. The diagrams also show elevated levels of plutonium in the Ohio River, about two miles north of the plant.
Tests found plutonium in dozens of other places never publicly documented. Elevated levels were found, for example, a half-mile to the east, near a residential area, and to the southwest, in a wooded area now part of a state wildlife park. The concentrations in both spots were above 32,000 picocuries per kilogram, a level 1,200 times higher than normal "background" levels. By comparison, the U.S. government has set a maximum safe limit of 1,600 picocuries per kilogram when cleaning up the aftermath of nuclear testing in some Pacific islands.
Plant officials also found elevated plutonium levels in streams and ponds in more than 30 places, reporting levels as high as 17 picocuries per liter, or 170 times above background. They also detected the metal in more than three dozen ground-water samplings at concentrations as high as 59 picocuries per liter, or 590 times above background, documents showed.
The risk to the public and wildlife is unclear. Although the quantities of plutonium detected are still microscopically small, plutonium is regarded by many scientists as one of the deadliest substances known. A particle of plutonium as small as a millionth of an ounce, if inhaled, can cause a fatal cancer.
Experts who reviewed the maps for The Post said the risk to nearby residents was probably slight. Far more troubling, they said, was the plant's failure to make its findings public.
"I think people would like to know if there's plutonium in their ground water," said Tom Cochran, a senior scientist and director of nuclear programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer formerly with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said he was troubled that pollution was found "at all points of the compass" surrounding the plant. "It tends to suggest there was extensive contamination over long periods of time," said Lochbaum, now with the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
-------- MILITARY (by country)
-------- drug war
"U.S. DRUG WAR AT CENTER STAGE IN RENEWED BOLIVIAN VIOLENCE"
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER
Volume 35 - October 1, 2000
http://www.democracyctr.org
Dear Readers:
I am sorry to report that, once again, I am writing from a Bolivia in the midst of conflict. A series of national strikes and highway blockades which began two weeks ago has been met with 20,000 government troops using tear gas and live rounds in abundance. At least ten are dead, more than a hundred injured and many jailed. The U.S. State Department has publicly declared its support for the government's actions. Below is my dispatch from Bolivia, which will be circulated to news outlets in the U.S. Monday morning by Pacific News Service. I hope you will share it with others to keep Bolivia in the U.S. public eye.
The only help I am asking for at this time is the following. Many of the injured are children, many maimed beyond Bolivian medicine's ability to help them. This includes a six year old girl whose nose and face was decimated Saturday morning by a government tear gas canister. If any of you have contacts or suggestions of resources to help these children with appropriate medical attention, please contact me at: mailto:JShultz@democracyctr.org.
Jim Shultz The Democracy Center
"U.S. DRUG WAR AT CENTER STAGE IN RENEWED BOLIVIAN VIOLENCE"
by Jim Shultz
Friday, October 1, 2000
Cochabamba, Bolivia - While Colombia and Peru have been catching more of the world's Andean attention for the past few weeks, Bolivia suffers one of its worst political and social crises in decades. Two weeks ago an informal alliance of teachers, farmers, rural water users and others began a series of national protest actions aimed at forcing the Bolivian government to the table over a mix of issues including teacher salaries, eradication of the last remaining coca crop, and the construction of three new, U.S.-financed military bases.
A nationwide teachers strike has left virtually the entire Bolivian public school system idle during the final weeks of the South American school year. Blockades of the major national highways have brought virtually all overland travel and commerce to full stop. Bolivia's President, Hugo Banzer, who ruled the nation as a dictator during much of the 1970s, has deployed more than 20,000 soldiers and police in an effort to stop the protests by force.
U.S. BACKS CRACKDOWN, DESPITE KILLINGS
At least ten people have been killed by government fire, more than 100 injured, and an unknown number jailed. Eye witnesses have reported that much of the shooting is being carried out by army officers, including long-distance sharp shooters. The current crisis comes just six months after President Hugo Banzer declared a national "state of emergency" in an unsuccessful effort to stop a civic uprising over water privatization. Those protests forced the departure of a subsidiary of the U.S. Bechtel Corporation which had raised rates as much as 300%.
On Friday in Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared the U.S.'s support for Banzer's actions, saying, "We share and fully support President Hugo Banzer's call for communication andreconciliation." Hours later, just before dawn on Saturday, Banzer's government sent 1500 troops into the small town of Vinto, in an attempt to remove a highway blockade there. Soldiers killed a 25 year old taxi driver, Benito Espinoza Saravia, injured 29 others, including six year old Ximena Zenteno who had her nose destroyed by an army tear gas canister.
US DRUG WAR AT ISSUE
On Saturday, Bolivian government officials sat down for negotiations with various movement leaders, convened by the Catholic Archbishop. Sources close to the talks say that the hardest issues deal with the Bolivian government's US-financed plan to eradicate the last remaining 5% of the country's illegal coca leaf crop. That plan involves building three new military bases in the Chapare region, the chief coca growing area. To be built with $6 million in U.S. assistance, the bases would permanently deploy 1,500 troops in the area, a move bitterly opposed by local residents and many human rights groups.
"These bases were never debated in the Bolivian Congress or by the Bolivian people," says Edwin Claros, Vice President of the Assembly on Human Rights in Cochabamba. "The role of the military is to protect our borders, not to wage war with our own people. The bases will definitely mean more use of the military in the region and more violations of human rights." Late Saturday the government announced that it would back away from its hard-line insistence on the bases, but only with the alternative of expanding the military's presence at an existing base in the area. Arguing for a permanent military presence in the region in a televised speech to the nation last Wednesday, Banzer proclaimed, "We can't leave those areas unprotected to be retaken by the black market of narcotrafficking."
Despite U.S. Ambassador, V. Manuel Rocha's public declaration last week that the bases were, "not an imposition by the US government but a decision by the Bolivian government," many here question whether the US is voicing that same flexibility behind closed doors. An Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted that if Bolivia should back way from the US-financed base plan, it could create doubts about the Bolivian government's much-touted pledge to make the country "free of illegal coca" by 2002. Said the official, "That would leave open the question: If you are committed to eradicate coca using the military, how are you going to continue it without a military presence?"
In September the Bolivian government's coca eradication efforts were cited by President Clinton as his main reason for proposing that the U.S. and other lenders forgive the nation's multi-million dollar foreign debt. U.S. officials would very much like to use Bolivia as a model of a successful eradication effort, especially with the Clinton Administration's new $1.3 billion military-led coca eradication plan in Colombia.
Even with the apparent government concession on the bases, it is unclear how long the conflict may continue between the government and coca farmers in the Chapare region. Blockades there have cut off highway passage between the nation's second and third largest cities, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Representatives of farmers are demanding that they be allowed to continue growing small plots of the plant (less than 1/2 an acre). With nearly 95% of the crop already eradicated in the region, they argue, the small crops that remain would be for traditional uses, including the wide-spread Bolivian practice of chewing coca leaves. Talking about the eradication program this week, a top Bolivian official admitted, "We've also wiped out the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands, maybe one million people.''
While the coca leaf is the base ingredient for cocaine, it only takes on the drug's effects after being substantially processed with powerful chemicals. Unprocessed coca leaves are legal, sold and chewed widely and also used for commercial production of coca tea, popular as a treatment for stomach and altitude ailments. Coca farmers also note that small plantings are allowed under the nation's coca-eradication law approved under U.S. pressure in 1988.
FOOD SHORTAGES AND PATIENCE WEARING THIN
Meanwhile, food shortages caused by the blockades have started to take effect in some cities and many Bolivians are growing weary of the protest, lobbing criticisms and more at both sides. A collection of children's drawings pasted to the wall of one Cochabamba school shows images of soldiers opening fire on people and trucks stopped at blockades, along with writings such as: "I want peace; Don't throw rocks; and Don't kill people." A week ago, angry chicken producers dumped a pile of 1000 dead and rotting birds on the front steps of the Cochabamba state governor and of one protest group. The birds died when their food supplies were cutoff by the blockades. An informal poll by a daily newspaper here of 1440 readers voiced a 51% level of support for the protesters and their demands.
Following the end of negotiations Saturday, representatives of the various groups returned home to their local bases to consult on possible accords. Over the weekend some coca farmers announced that they were prepared to take up firearms if needed to protect their land if the government did not reach an acceptable agreement. The highway blockades, public mobilizations, and military deployments continue throughout the nation, creating a palatable air of tension and with no immediate end in site.
--
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE is an electronic publication of The Democracy Center, distributed on an occasional basis to more than 1700 nonprofit organizations, policy makers, journalists and others, throughout the US and worldwide. Please consider forwarding it along to those who might be interested. People can request to be added to the distribution list by sending an e-mail note to mailto:info@democracyctr.org.
Newspapers and periodicals interested in reprinting or excerpting material in the newsletter should contact The Democracy Center at "info@democracyctr.org". Suggestions and comments are welcome. Past issues are available on The Democracy Center Web site.
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER
SAN FRANCISCO: P.O. Box 22157 San Francisco, CA 94122 BOLIVIA: Casilla 5283, Cochabamba, Bolivia TEL: (415)564-4767 FAX: (978)383-1269 WEB: http://www.democracyctr.org E-MAIL: info@democracyctr.org
To read more about the situation in Bolivia please visit http://www.1worldommunication.org
Ravi Khanna, Director 1world communication P. O. Box 2476 Amherst, MA 01004 Phone: 413-323-7629 Fax: 413-323-9348 E-mail: oneworld@igc.org Web-site: http://www.1worldcommunication.org Signup to join 1world list. Get updates and participate in discussions. Send a blank e-mail to: 1worldcommunication-subscribe@topica.com
---
West funds anti-opium fungus Pleosporafungus:
A biological weapon for the drugs war
BBC News
Sunday, 1 October, 2000
By Diplomatic correspondent James Robbins
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_951000/951082.stm
The UK and the US are funding research on a new biological weapon in an effort to destroy the heroin trade.
The research, by former Soviet scientists in Uzbekistan, is being supervised by the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).
But there are doubts about the safety of the killer fungus they have developed, and the legality of any plan to spray the spores over Afghanistan - the source of most of Europe's poppy opium for heroin.
The BBC has obtained unique access to the laboratory across the border from Afghanistan, in Uzbekistan, where the fungus is now being tested.
Huge step
It has filmed in the laboratory and spoken to the scientist in charge, Professor Abdukarimov Abdusattar, as well as to a British scientist in Bristol, Mike Greaves, who oversees the work on behalf of the UNDCP.
Professor Abdusattar says one test tube contains millions of spores - sufficient to destroy 10 square metres of poppies by attacking the roots and killing them from inside.
But moving from research paid for largely by the UK and the US to using what amounts to a biological weapon would be a huge step.
Some scientists are worried the culture could mutate and attack other plants, or harm animals and humans.
Also, spraying the fungus over the poppy fields of Afghanistan without permission from the Taleban regime there, which is unlikely to be granted, could amount to illegal biological warfare.
However, Mr Greaves says the fungus appears so far to be safe.
"We are still working on the safety aspects, to be absolutely sure," he told the BBC's Panorama programme.
"At the moment we have tested, for example, 130 other plant species and it does not affect any of those."
You can see the whole of Panorama's investigation "Britain's secret war on drugs" on BBC One, on Monday at 2200 BST (2100 GMT)
-------- japan
A Virtual Battlefield Helps Keep Japan Alert
New York Times
October 01, 2000
By CALVIN SIMS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/01/technology/01JAPA.html
MOUNT FUJI, Japan - During a recent violent rainstorm, about 300 soldiers from Japan's self-defense forces were hastily dispatched to Mount Fuji, where 100 or so heavily armed invaders had seized control of the scenic summit.
In the ensuing battle, which lasted two days but went unreported in the news media, Japan's ground troops proved little match for the well-entrenched enemy forces and suffered heavy casualties from intense shelling and hidden minefields.
As the brutal conflict unfolded, Japanese commanders at a nearby military base watched it live over short-circuit television, monitoring the position and performance of every soldier on computer screens.
The skirmish, of course, was a battle simulation. But though the soldiers were real, just about everything else - the machine-gun blasts, land mines, mortars and artillery - ignited only within the digital battlefield of an elaborate computer program.
It was the computer that informed soldiers, who were equipped with radio headgear and electronic guns, when they had been killed or wounded. The dead were required to stand at attention in the battlefield, while the injured were rushed to a make-believe infirmary.
"This was one of the most overwhelming exercises of my career," said Maj. Hiroki Fujii, a 17-year- veteran of the self-defense forces who commanded the Japanese field troops. "When you see your soldiers being killed and injured one right after the other, it adds a sense of realism to the drill."
In the more than half-century since Japan was defeated in World War II and formally renounced military aggression, its armed forces, which are limited by the Constitution to self-defense, have never engaged in real combat. In fact, computerized war games like the recent invasion simulation at Mount Fuji are as close as postwar Japanese troops have ever come to actual conflict.
But thanks to the country's scientific know-how and generous budgets, the self-defense forces have become one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world.
In recent years, their role has expanded from defending national territory to providing emergency backup to United States troops stationed in Japan, taking part in overseas peacekeeping operations, and responding to natural disasters like the devastating 1995 earthquake in Kobe. As a result, the public image of its armed forces has never been better.
But Japan's self-defense forces are still far from a real military, and it is doubtful that they will ever be because of constitutional restrictions, Japan's deep-rooted pacifism and neighboring countries that have not forgotten the atrocities they suffered under Japanese military occupation.
"In a material sense, Japan's self-defense forces are a full- fledged military," said Shunji Toaka, who covers military affairs for the Asahi Shimbun, a major daily newspaper. "We have the weapons and the technology, but for the last 50 years we have had no practical experience in war. We have thousands of guns but we've never fired any in battle. Not one military surgeon has ever treated a soldier with a battle wound."
Under article 9 of the Constitution that the United States imposed on Japan after World War II, the Japanese people forever renounced war and the threat or use of force. Japan has interpreted that clause to mean that its military activities are restricted to defending its territory from attack.
As a result, Japan has no bombers, no long-range missiles and no aircraft carriers, and, theoretically, no means to project power beyond its own borders. Japanese soldiers who take part in international peacekeeping operations are limited to providing logistical and transportation support.
With the end of the cold war, however, and the growing threat of new conflicts in Asia, especially involving China and North Korea, more and more Japanese are calling for a reinterpretation of the Constitution or an amendment to give Japan's armed forces greater freedom.
Motoo Shiina, a member of Parliament who heads an independent party, said the time had come for Japan to revise its Constitution to clarify exactly what role the self- defense forces would play in the post-cold-war era. "It's ridiculous that we still are debating this issue after all this time," he said.
The debate is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, as the Japanese remain deeply divided over expanding the role of the self-defense forces. And the country remains content to rely on its longstanding military alliance with the United States, which has 45,000 troops in Japan, to help defend its borders and provide stability to the region.
For all the constitutional restrictions and historical sentiments, Japan has built its self-defense forces into one of the most powerful armies in Asia. Its annual military budget of $45 billion is the second largest in the world after that of the United States. The size of its forces and the sophistication of its weaponry are roughly equivalent to those of Britain, which has an annual defense budget of about $33 billion. Japan has about 236,000 military personnel, compared with Britain's 220,000.
The government spent more than $140 million to develop the battle simulation technology used at Mount Fuji. The complex program has an indirect firing system that registers virtual land mines and mortars and laser-beam machine guns. Each soldier is monitored using a positioning satellite system.
In fact, during the Mount Fuji drill, the battle was suspended for several hours because a thunderstorm raised fears that lightning might strike the soldiers, who wore heavy electronics and radio gear.
"Of course, we cannot reproduce each and every situation that may occur in the actual battlefield, but the major items can be duplicated in these simulations," said Gen. Yuji Fujinawa, chairman of the joint staff council for Japan's Defense Agency.
Asked what were the major security concerns facing Japan, General Fujinawa cited the unresolved conflict on the Korean peninsula and territorial disputes. Japan has long-running disputes with Russia and China over the sovereignty of several islands.
-------- korea
Near DMZ, No Joy in Korean Warming
New York Times
October 02, 2000
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/02/world/02KORE.html
TONGDUCHON, South Korea, Sept. 29 - For as long as anyone can remember in this garrison town of low-slung barracks and rundown shops, the threat of attack by enemy troops massed just across the border has been a constant as fixed and certain as the change of seasons.
And for those who are tempted to forget, every day brings its unpleasant reminders - from the helicopters that clatter loudly overhead throughout the day to the American soldiers in their combat boots and fatigues tramping through the narrow streets in search of entertainment or shopping bargains.
Sitting a bare 20 miles from the border with North Korea, this town would seem to have every reason to celebrate the warming of South Korea's relations with the North. But instead of enthusiasm - never mind giddiness - the people of Tongduchon regard their country's growing diplomatic closeness with the North with a wariness bordering on hard- bitten skepticism.
Most of all, they say they worry that their country will be bled dry financially in its search for peace with the vastly poorer North - or that it will somehow be tricked into letting its guard down, paving the way for renewed conflict.
"This is a really good thing for all Koreans, of course," said Han Jae Pil, a building contractor who paused from the renovation he was carrying out on a restaurant on a dusty side street near the town's bus depot. "But as the weeks go by, the euphoria has turned to realism. And what we fear is that our government is spending a lot of money simply to keep North Korea's door cracked open."
After nearly 50 years of grim face- off between the two Koreas - marked by Northern commando attacks against South Korean leaders, airplane bombings and constant incursions by secret tunnels and minisubmarines - the diplomacy between the two countries that began with a summit meeting in June is nothing short of unprecedented.
But for the gritty South Koreans, long accustomed to peril from hostile neighbors, relaxation does not come easily. In a series of interviews this week, both in this border region and in the capital, Seoul, people seemed far more grouchy than hopeful, and they focused on their worries far more readily than on their dreams.
This country has enjoyed one of the world's highest growth rates during the last two generations, rocketing up from the ashes of the Korean War in 1953, when it was as poor as the poorest African nation, to the world's 12th largest economy. But the Asian economic crisis of two years ago hit hard here, and fears of renewed difficulties are surprisingly strong.
"As Koreans, we cannot avoid helping our northern brothers," said Lee Je Sung, a clothing retailer who was watching his country's Olympic baseball team play on television at a Chinese restaurant. "But the way we are giving money to North Korea has really disenchanted a lot of people. If we are not more cautious, we'll end up with another economic crisis."
Each week seems to bring a new announcement of food aid or "reconstruction assistance" for the North. And opposition politicians, sensing the public unease over this new spending, have moved eagerly onto the attack. Indeed, Kim Young Sam, a former president, has vowed to block the visit of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who is to come to Seoul for the second inter-Korean summit meeting early next year.
If few Koreans seemed like they wished to see the summit diplomacy halted altogether, many said they feared that their country was being played like a fiddle.
"Who knows what is really going on when they get together to talk?" said a chain-smoking shopkeeper who was discussing matters with a fellow businessman on Tongduchon's main strip, where American soldiers peered into store windows comparing prices. "Somehow you just get the feeling that the North controls the levers," he said. "As long as we pay, they'll keep the talks going, but if the money slows, the talks will stop."
The other man said in agreement: "There's got to be more of an exchange. Good will is a two-way street."
Like many others, these men complained that except where money is concerned, North Korea always seems to insist on the slowest possible pace for cooperation between the two countries, like the family reunification program that is arranging visits of 100 people at a time, out of a pool of millions.
In Seoul, a city whose extraordinary growth can be measured by the huge new bridges that are built across the Han River every few months, the sense of caution about what has been going on with the North these last few months is no less acute.
Unlike the countryside, with its aging population, the capital teems with young people, and they too are full of questions - sometimes seemingly conflicting questions - about what reunification will cost their generation, why 37,000 Americans troops must remain here, and whether peace is really at hand at all.
"People of my age group are not in favor of quick reunification," said Kim Sinae, a 21-year-old Spanish major at Duksung Women's University in Seoul. "Sure it would be great to have one large country, and cut our military burden, but when you think of what it would cost our country to support the North, which is really very poor, it takes your enthusiasm right away."
Ms. Kim spoke at a Starbucks in central Seoul that was filled with students, and a lively discussion immediately ensued.
"Unification will bring lots of frustrations and lots of confusion," said Choi Sunyoun, 20, a college student. "The North still firmly believes that their country has the right ideology. But just as we accepted ideas from the outside so that we could develop, they too will learn. In fact, our mistakes will make it easier for them, and we will advance together."
-------- puerto rico
Update on the Fast and the Grand March in Vieques
From: "Andres Thomas Conteris" <andres@viequesfast.org>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 22:23:27 -0400
Dear friends,
Greetings from Vieques!! It has been an extraordinary day with a great Spirit over the entire island called "Isla Nena." (Little Girl Island). The March, perhaps the largest in history on this 21 mile long oasis of Caribbean beauty, showed that thousands (estimates range up to 5,000) are urging the U.S. Navy leave now! A wonderful rally followed the peace march, and a tremendous civil disobedience action preceded it. I decided not to take part in the action of "Divine Obedience" at this time. Below is an article from the AP.
Many people received me very graciously and expressed appreciation for my witness. I was able to rest a great deal prior to the March and following it as well, so have enjoyed it immensely. Last night, I was asked to speak before a crowd of hundreds that met outside the gates of the bombing range at the Justice and Peace Camp. It was a great honor to express to the people of Vieques that my witness is simply a reflection of their incredibly nonviolent and persevering commitment to rid their homeland of the scurge of contaminants and explosives that poison their people and environment.
Tomorrow, Monday, October 2, is the 131st birthday of Mohandas K. Gandhi, it is also the International Day of Prayer, Fasting, and Action for Peace in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Over 150 religious leaders and many others signed on to this initiative and many have pledged to spread the word about this Call. For information, please visit www.viequesfast.org. If you don't have Web access, we can send you information by email.
The most important specific action to take at this time is to contact members of the House of Representatives and urge them to sign on to the "Dear Colleague" letter circulated by Congressman Sam Farr, Luís Gutierrez and others. Your Member of Congress should send an email message to debbie.merrill@mail.house.gov expressing their desire to sign onto the letter. Please take a few moments to call them and urge them to do this: Tel. 202-224-3121.
Tomorrow is also the day I meet with some of the leaders of the religious and peace movement here in Vieques to discern with them the future of the fast. I am prepared to keep fasting on water-only. The last visit to the doctor showed that I have not yet entered into a critical stage of the fast that would be detrimental to my long-term health.
However, there is no indication that anyone here is asking me to continue fasting. After 70 days of fasting on liquids, 50 of which have been on water-only, they are saying that the fast should shift to something else. I am completely open to whatever consensus comes from the meeting. If I do transition out of the water fast, as is most likely, I will take great care with how this is done. I will also do so knowing that many hundreds of people have learned about the situation in Vieques as a result of the fasting that I and others have been doing for Vieques, and that especially tomorrow, people will be praying, fasting and acting on behalf of this land and people who have suffered so much.
Thanks to all who have supported and challenged me during this entire journey.
Love at all cost,
Andrés Thomas Conteris
OCTOBER 01, 18:33 EDT
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Navy Detains Protesters on Vieques
By LILLIAM IRIZARRY
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The U.S. Navy detained 65 protesters Sunday near a former weapons depot on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, part of a day of antimilitary demonstrations.
The protesters entered the base by crawling under a fence before dawn, Navy spokesman Lt. Jeff Gordon said. They would likely face trespassing charges, he said.
Later in the day, thousands of Puerto Ricans marched to demand the military abandon the Vieques training ground it has used since the 1940s.
"What's that sound I hear? It's the people on the warpath!" they chanted, waving Vieques' blue-and-white flag. [this was not a common chant whatsoever... the most common one was "Vieques Yes, Navy No" or "Navy Out"]
Authorities have arrested more than 600 protesters since May. More than 400 await trial on trespassing charges.
The Navy controls about two-thirds of the 20-mile by four-mile island. Opposition to the military's presence on Vieques flared in April 1999, when a U.S. Marine Corps F-18 jet dropped two 500-pound bombs off target, killing a civilian guard on the range.
Protesters occupied the bombing range to thwart further exercises until U.S. marshals forcibly removed them on May 4.
Navy opponents say the military exercises have damaged the environment, stunted the island's economy and endangered residents. The Navy says their claims are exaggerated and argues that the training is necessary to national defense.
President Clinton promised the Navy would abandon the western weapons depot and leave Vieques completely if the island's 9,400 residents vote in a referendum to expel it. That vote is expected before mid-2002.
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-------- activists
Anti-nuclear protest on anniversary of Tokaimura disaster
Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 01/10/2000
By KIRIKO NISHIYAMA
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0010/01/text/world4.html
Tokaimura: Japan marked the first anniversary of the Tokaimura nuclear disaster - the world's worst since Chernobyl - with activists clad in mourning clothes demanding the government bury atomic energy.
Residents of Tokaimura, 120km north-east of Tokyo, expressed their uneasiness as memories of the terrifying incident were revived by an emergency drill staged to mark the anniversary.
In the capital, 110 people gathered in front of the Science and Technology Agency carrying placards that read: "No more nuclear energy!" and "Seek the truth behind the accident!"
A student from Tokaimura bore aloft a clock stopped at 10.35am, when three workers at the JCO Co. Ltd. uranium processing plant set off a critical reaction which exposed more than 400 residents to radiation.
Two of the workers, Hisashi Ouchi and Masato Shinohara, later died in hospital of multiple organ failure, their bodies ravaged by radiation.
The protesters, most wearing black, observed a minute's silence before attempting to deliver a protest letter to the agency, which oversees Japan's nuclear industry.
But a guard on duty said there was nobody in at the weekend and refused to take delivery of the letter, signed by 52 anti-nuclear civil groups.
Thirty police officers stood in attendance as the peaceful protesters vowed to return to make their point to agency officials.
"I joined the demonstration so as not to forget what happened," said 24-year-old student Seita Ebisawa, one of 10 protesters in biochemical suits.
On September 30 last year, the three workers set off a critical reaction by using steel buckets to pour uranium into a precipitation tank.
They poured in far too much - 2.4 kilograms - using the unorthodox method and watched powerless as a blue flash signalled the start of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
"The background of the Tokaimura accident is that the workers did not know the dangers of criticality and did not observe the rules," said Shojiro Matsuura, chairman of the government's Nuclear Safety Commission.
But the activists' letter said the workers had been made scapegoats by a government keen to lessen resource-poor Japan's reliance on oil.
"It has failed to explain why the workers did what they did," it said, after newspaper reports alleged that JCO had sanctioned the highly dangerous steel bucket method in a 1996 operating manual to trim costs.
The government revoked the operating licence of JCO, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Ltd., in March in an unprecedented sanction following the disaster.
But local residents, many complaining of illness a year on, said they remained fearful as an air-raid siren signalled the start of the disaster drill.
"I should have thought twice about moving here," said Tomoko Sudo, a 49-year-old housewife who moved to Tokaimura five years ago. "When I moved here, I didn't give much thought to nuclear power. But now I realise I live in a very scary place."
Japan relies on 51 nuclear reactors, the oldest in service since 1970, to provide about one-third of its electricity. A string of more minor accidents has followed Tokaimura, including coolant and oil leaks.
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Japan recalls nuclear accident in protests
Lincoln Journal Star
10/01/00
The Associated Press
http://www.journalstar.com/nation?story_id=1694&date=20001001&past=
TOKYO, Japan -- Anti-nuclear activists, some dressed in funeral black, called for an end to nuclear energy in a noisy demonstration Saturday, a year after Japan's worst nuclear accident killed two people and exposed hundreds to radiation.
More than 100 demonstrators shouted through bullhorns outside the Science and Technology Agency, demanding the government pull the plug on Japan's nuclear power industry.
Nuclear power generates about a third of electricity in this resource-poor country.
The protest commemorated the Sept. 30, 1999, accident at the JCO Co. fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, near Tokyo, in which two workers tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.
The mix set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction at the plant, exposing the two to fatal doses of radiation. A third worker was hospitalized in critical condition.
Authorities ordered 161 people evacuated from their homes, and another 310,000 were advised to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation.
The Tokaimura calamity confirmed the worst fears of the industry's many critics, uncovering systematic disregard for safety regulations and inadequate employee training.
"The government doesn't seem to have learned anything at all from the accident," said Shin Kobuchi, a 22-year-old university student. "It has made no effort to listen to what the experts are saying about the dangers of nuclear energy."
Tokaimura, a rural community 70 miles northeast of Tokyo, is home to a nuclear reactor and a dozen related facilities.
The town and plant operators commemorated the first anniversary of the accident with a morning of disaster-prevention drills.
This time it was make-believe.
Municipal officials rushed to a command post after receiving a report of a dangerous radiation leak. Sirens wailed. Buses shuttled evacuees to safe areas, where they were examined by medical personnel with Geiger counters.
Last year's tragedy continued to weigh heavily on a nation suspicious of nuclear energy and increasingly aware of its destructive potential.
Utilities are scaling down plans to build new plants. The government is struggling to balance its long-term goal of expanding nuclear energy with calls for tightening safety measures.
In February, a state governor in western Japan forced a utility company to tear up blueprints for a nuclear facility, citing safety concerns raised by Tokaimura.
A leading Japanese newspaper on Saturday criticized the government's subsequent efforts to strengthen its supervision as halfhearted, asserting the industry still lacks a vigilant watchdog.
"Safety should not be left to chance," the daily Asahi wrote in an editorial.
JCO was stripped of its license to operate the processing plant in March, and the last of the remaining uranium was being removed from the facility this week.
The company also has agreed to pay out $117 million in compensation to settle 6,875 cases stemming from the accident.
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