------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
*THINGS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND
*GE Agrees To Acquire Honeywell
*Big Firms Said to Avoid Minimum Federal Tax
*Traveling Behind Enemy Lines
*Sunshine and Fine Lines A Nobel for one Kim; a summit for the other?
*For Clinton, An Albright Test Visit to North Korea
*Albright visit may break new ground
*Albright Makes Historic Trip to North Korea for Talks
*Albright arrives in North Korea
*Albright sets U.S. sights on better ties
*Albright Holds Unprecedented Korean Talks
*Divers Pierce Russian Sub's Inner Hull
*US cash helps Russian nuclear shipyard limp on
*Export Data Kept Confidential
*Department of Energy-Funded Early Lung Cancer Detection
*PLOWSHARE TESTS LEAVE A RADIOACTIVE LEGACY
*Nerve Gas Bomb Discovered During Colorado Arsenal Conversion
*AEP Earnings Up 10 Percent
*RGS Energy Group, Inc. Reports 2000 Third Quarter Earnings
*Tailing Atlas
*Gore's Russian roulette
*NEW BOOK, CD-ROM GUIDE HAZMAT TRANSPORT
*US ups estimate of plutonium waste

MILITARY
*CHINA SEES WAR WITH U.S. AS LIKELY
*Iran To Test Chinese - Made Missiles
*Greece Leaves Turkey NATO Exercise
*'Killed in Action': Is Gender an Issue?
*Why Americans Died in Yemen

OTHER
*Solar power trip ICP charges up its revenues to more than $10 million
*CORN GROWERS SAY ETHANOL COULD REDUCE FOSSIL FUEL USE
*Botulism outbreak

ACTIVISTS
*Tell Clinton to ban Burmese apparel imports
*COUNTDOWN TO CLEMENCY
*Ride For America: Capture the Flag 2000
*Geraldine Dreyfuss - Deaths in the News
*147 arrested at parade standoff
*Tribes, activists can use Columbus dispute to teach their history
*Crackdown On "Democracy Now!"

-------- NUCLEAR

-------- britain

THINGS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND

DayTips.Com Daily Lists
October 23, 2000
Strange News
http://www.daytips.com

Britain has recalled all 12 of its nuclear-powered killer-hunter submarines after an examination found faulty pipework on one of the vessels docked in Gibraltar.

"There are no leaks, no risk of radiation, but we have taken precautions just to make sure," Cmdr. Mike Finney of the Royal Navy told United Press International. A Ministry of Defense spokesman said the decision to inspect the whole fleet of subs was prompted by concerns that the pipework problem might be generic.

Defense analysts said the recall appears to have been influenced by the fate of Russian submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea on Aug. 14, killing all 118 sailors on board.

-------- business

GE Agrees To Acquire Honeywell

By Peter Behr and Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 23, 2000 ; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58496-2000Oct22?language=printer

General Electric Co. yesterday agreed to buy Honeywell International Inc. for about $49 billion, creating a combined business that would include the world's largest supplier of engines, electronics and systems for commercial aircraft.

John F. Welch Jr., GE's chairman and chief executive, will postpone his planned April retirement, remaining at his post until late 2001 to oversee the combination of the two companies.

GE directors approved the acquisition yesterday, completing a sudden, opportunistic strike by the nation's fifth largest public corporation, which made its overture to Honeywell on Friday about 10 minutes before Honeywell was to accept an offer of about $40 billion from United Technologies Inc.

The acquisition, which is subject to approval by Honeywell shareholders and U.S. antitrust officials, would make GE a dominant provider of a wide range of aircraft components for commercial and military aircraft, creating even tougher competition for United Technologies.

Perhaps no other such multi-billion-dollar deal has ever occurred in quite the way that this deal was struck.

Welch learned late Thursday, during an interview with a reporter from the GE affiliate CNBC, that Honeywell and United Technologies were close to a deal, officials said. On Friday morning Welch canvassed GE officials and members of the GE board, then called Honeywell chief executive Michael Bonsignore with an offer that topped the bid from United Technologies.

Bonsignore said he would have to have something in writing, telling Welch that "a phone call won't do it," according to one official's account. So Welch faxed a handwritten bid from GE's office in Manhattan to the Honeywell headquarters in Morristown, N.J., where Honeywell's board was meeting. At that point, Honeywell broke off its negotiations with United Technologies.

"GE has a lot of money and if they put their mind to it, they're going to get it," said Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group, a research firm in Fairfax. GE's $111.6 billion in revenue last year was more than twice the $49 billion in combined sales recorded last year by United Technologies and Honeywell.

GE, with headquarters in Fairfield, Conn., would pay 1.055 shares of its stock for each of Honeywell's 801 million outstanding shares, or about $44 billion, based on GE's closing stock price Friday of $52.25 a share on the New York Stock Exchange. GE also will assume about $4.7 billion in Honeywell debt. Honeywell's stock closed at $47 a share on the NYSE.

For GE and United Technologies, Honeywell was a compelling partner because of its strong line of aircraft and aerospace products. GE and United Technologies' rival Pratt & Whitney division are the leading manufacturers of commercial jet engines. Honeywell's product line would give either company more bargaining power with Boeing Co. and Airbus Industries PLC, Aboulafia said.

In addition to aircraft engines, GE's product line includes appliances, medical diagnostic equipment, electric power systems, lighting products, locomotives, plastics, real estate, a large financial services component and the NBC television network. Honeywell also makes spark plugs and automotive products, electronic controls, nylon and other specialty chemical products.

GE's acquisition of Honeywell will face review by U.S. antitrust officials, but analysts said that despite its size, GE would appear to have an easier time than United Technologies would have in gaining approval.

"I didn't view that [the United Technologies offer] as a good deal," said Stuart McCutchan, publisher of the Defense Mergers & Acquisitions newsletter. Honeywell and United Technologies are dominant providers of a number of systems for military aircraft, including avionics, cockpit controls and landing gear. "They could have achieved awesome costs savings, but there would have been too much dominance concentrated in certain markets," McCutchan said.

The product lines at GE and Honeywell are more complementary than competitive, McCutchan said. AlliedSignal Inc. acquired Minneapolis-based Honeywell 10 months ago and kept the Honeywell name.

The architect of that deal, former AlliedSignal chairman Lawrence Bossidy, is a one-time top GE executive who modeled his company's operations on many of Welch's methods, including a management program laid out by Welch called Six Sigma, which involves specialized training and efficiency measurements, McCutchan said.

"The two companies will be very comfortable with each other right from the get-go," McCutchan said.

Some analysts were intrigued by Welch's decision to remain in charge of GE past his announced April retirement date, after a 20-year career that has made him an icon in the business-management ranks. Welch, who turns 65 on Nov. 19, will oversee the combination of the two companies. Bonsignore also will work on the transition as a member of the GE board.

The acquisition is expected to be completed early next year. No information was available yesterday on whether some of Honeywell's businesses may be sold or how the deal will affect any of GE's 340,000 employees or Honeywell's 120,000 employees.

Jon B. Kutler, president of Quarterdeck Investment Partners Inc. in Los Angeles, said the Honeywell acquisition would be a eye-catching cap to Welch's career. "Guys in that situation like to go out with a bang and this would be a bang," Kutler said. "Many CEOs want to put one last imprint on the company. But of course, it falls on the successor to implement it."

---

Big Firms Said to Avoid Minimum Federal Tax

By Albert B. Crenshaw
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2000 ; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41728-2000Oct19?language=printer

With imagination and a little help from their friends in Congress, some of America's largest companies are again paying substantially less than the maximum federal income tax rate--sometimes nothing or less than nothing, according to a study released yesterday.

According to the report, 41 companies not only owed no tax, but received money back in at least one of the three years studied--1996-98--although they reported a total of $25.8 billion in pretax profits. "They made more money after taxes than before taxes," said Robert McIntyre, the principal author.

McIntyre, head of the Citizens for Tax Justice, did similar studies on corporate taxes in the 1980s. Those studies were part of the background that led to inclusion of an alternative minimum tax on corporations in the tax reform act of 1986.

His new report, released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, was sponsored by the Ford Foundation and other philanthropies. It found 24 companies--nearly one in 10 studied--received tax rebates in 1998 alone, including such household names as Texaco Inc., Chevron Corp., PepsiCo Inc., MCI WorldCom Inc., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and General Motors Corp.

Texaco, for example, received a tax rebate of $67.7 million, which meant that it paid taxes at a rate of negative 37.2 percent on the $182 million in profit it reported in 1998.

The maximum corporate tax rate is 35 percent.

In dollar terms, the study found that tax breaks enabled the companies to reduce their taxes by $98 billion over the three years, with 25 companies receiving almost half of that amount. General Electric Co. topped the list, with $6.9 billion in breaks, which cut its tax bill by 77 percent over the three years.

Several of the companies said yesterday that they had done nothing wrong, and were engaging in businesses that Congress intended to encourage. Some also disputed the report's figures.

A Texaco spokesman, for example, called the report "a little bit misleading" because the rebates it cited were actually refunds related "to overpayment of federal taxes in previous years."

A GE spokesman also questioned the report's methodology, noting that of the $6.9 billion in breaks cited, $2.4 billion was deferred taxes "that we will pay."

McIntyre said the findings suggest that big companies have succeeded in recovering much of the ground lost to federal revenue collectors since the 1986 tax bill. That law eliminated or restricted a number of commonly used write-offs and imposed the alternative minimum tax to prevent corporations from eliminating their tax burden altogether.

The AMT has been weakened twice since then, McIntyre said, and companies are using such devices as accelerated depreciation, research credits and breaks for operations in Puerto Rico to reduce or eliminate their taxes.

He also pointed to stock options, which are not expensed to employees but become deductible to the company when the employee exercises them. They are a growing factor in tax reduction, he said.

Among industry sectors, oil and pipeline companies paid the lowest rate over the three years--12.3 percent on total profit of $32.9 billion--followed by electronics at 13.1 percent and paper and forest products at 13.9 percent.

Highest rates were paid by publishing and printing companies, 31.6 percent (The Washington Post Co. paid 32.8 percent); retailers and wholesalers at 27.6 percent; and gas and electric utilities at 21.1 percent.

Corporate taxes have fluctuated over the years as a share of all income taxes paid, but the trend has been generally downward. In the 1960s, corporations paid about a third of all income taxes--with individuals paying the rest, the report said. That figure fell to 25 percent in the 1970s and 15 percent in the early 1980s, climbed back to 19 percent after the Tax Reform Act passed, but it dropped back to 17 percent in fiscal 2000.

Some of that has been caused by the explosion in personal income among high-income individuals, but McIntyre said in general corporate taxes have not risen nearly as fast as profits.

The overall effective corporate tax rate in 1998 was 20.1 percent, up from the 14.3 percent of 1981-1985 but down from the 26.5 percent level shortly after passage of the 1986 reform bill, the report said.

McIntyre, a longtime critic of federal tax policy, got his numbers from annual reports of corporations, which he said "have become very difficult to read." He suggested that companies be required to disclose their U.S. and foreign tax payments clearly and specifically in their annual reports.

The report called the corporate income tax law "overdue for a deep examination of how we tax, or fail to tax, our major corporations." Current tax breaks amount to government allocation of capital by giving breaks to some industries and companies and not to others. He said these breaks often are won by better lobbying and not by economic merit, a practice that is going to hurt growth in the long run.

He suggested that Congress reinstate a tough alternative minimum tax and rethink the way stock options are treated.

The report is available at www.itepnet.org.

-------- korea

Traveling Behind Enemy Lines
North Korea's number-two man talks peace in Washington

MSNBC
10/23/00
By George Wehrfritz NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
http://www.msnbc.com/news/476780.asp?cp1=1

October 23 issue - He wore an olive-drab uniform laden with communist medals. But when veteran fighter pilot Jo Myong Rok, now the second-most-powerful man in North Korea, arrived at the White House last week to greet President Clinton, his mission was to talk peace, not war.

THE TWO LEADERS-their nations enemies since the 1950-53 Korean War-chatted in the Oval Office for 45 minutes. They exchanged views on North Korea's missile program and America's peacekeeping role on the Korea Peninsula. Jo hand-delivered a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who pledged to join Clinton to reduce tension along the world's last cold-war frontier. Jo then paid a visit to America's top diplomat, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Earlier this year, when Albright met with North Korea's Foreign minister at an ASEAN gathering in Bangkok, U.S. administration officials weren't clear how much authority he had. There was no such uncertainty last week. "Jo's on a mission from God," a U.S. official joked. Albright played up the moment. In a dinner toast to Jo that evening, she said: "What was frozen can thaw and what has been contested ground can, over time, become common ground."After nearly half a century of enmity, the United States and North Korea are trying to mend their relationship. No deal was forged during Jo's three-day visit-but as diplomatic forays go, it was a promising start. The two countries issued a joint communique that broke no new ground, but was encouraging nonetheless. It stressed the importance of the dialogue between North and South Korea, contained a mutual declaration of "no hostile intent" between Washington and Pyongyang and affirmed North Korea's moratorium on missile testing. Most important, Albright announced that she would visit Pyongyang, perhaps later this month, to "make preparations for a possible visit to North Korea by President Clinton."

Korea's Mr. Sunshine

It's too early to declare peace in Korea. Some 690,000 South Korean soldiers and 37,000 uniformed Americans still guard the 38th parallel against nearly a million North Korean adversaries. Yet Jo's visit, the culmination of two years of painstaking diplomacy, has moved the peninsula from a state of near-constant crisis to the brink of a rapprochement. The United States aims to encourage the process-while keeping the pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to make concessions.

Recent U.S. press reports have suggested that Clinton might be close to removing North Korea from its list of "states that support terrorism"- a designation that disqualifies Pyongyang from receiving World Bank and IMF funding. But during talks last week, Jo was told that North Korea probably would not be removed from the terrorist list-at least before Albright's visit. "I would note that the secretary of State, and for that matter the president, have been to Syria, which remains on the U.S. terrorism list," said Wendy Sherman, the administration's top North Korea diplomat. However, U.S. officials acknowledged that progress had been made on outlining those moves Kim Jong Il must make to get off the terrorist list-among them, expelling four Japanese Red Army terrorists he harbors and halting missile sales to "rogue" states like Syria and Iran. For his part, Jo told U.S. officials that Kim Jong Il would proceed toward normalization of relations if the United States guarantees his country's territorial integrity. "They are looking for assurances about their sovereignty and right to exist," said Sherman. "We will study [that issue] further."

Most of the discussions in Washington focused on North Korea's ballistic missile program. According to Sherman, U.S. officials are still mulling a Kim proposal that was recently relayed to the United States by Russian President Vladimir Putin: that North Korea would end its missile program if other countries agree to put the North's satellites into orbit. "We believe there is validity to this idea," said Sherman.

Barely six years ago the United States was close to attacking suspected nuclear weapons labs in North Korea. It took a last-ditch peace mission by former president Jimmy Carter to produce a compromise. Known as the Agreed Framework, Pyongyang pledged to mothball its A-bomb program in exchange for two light-water nuclear power plants now under construction in the North. The crisis flared anew in August 1998, when Pyongyang test-fired its newest ballistic missile, the multistage Taepodong. Declared a "satellite launch," the missile soared over northern Japan and crashed into the Pacific.

The provocation sparked panic in Japan and enraged hawks in Washington. To appease Congress, Clinton deputized former Defense secretary William Perry to review his North Korea policy, a move widely anticipated to harden Washington's stance. Instead, Perry adopted a softer view of North Korea's behavior. He interpreted Pyong-yang's missiles program as largely a bargaining chip for a desperate regime fast running out of options. Rather than push containment, he endorsed diplomatic efforts aimed at coaxing Pyongyang toward moderation. Last year he became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit North Korea since the war. At the core of his thinking, a senior State Department official told NEWSWEEK, "was a recognized need for South-North dialogue." And Perry found a huge ally in South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. His "sunshine policy"-focused on providing financial aid to the north- has helped pull Kim Jong Il out of his communist cocoon.

While relishing the success of the Perry strategy and the prospect of a Clinton visit to Pyongyang, U.S. officials caution that good feelings must be reinforced with concrete actions by the North. "Our countries are moving in a positive direction," said Albright, "but as both sides recognize, we still have far to go." Fundamental issues, like lack of transparency on food aid, Pyonyang's refusal to pull its Army back from the border or to release Korean War POWs "are not even on the table," says Gordon Blake, a North Korea watcher at the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington. "[Jo's] visit will help keep tensions in check, but I don't see it as a breakthrough."

That said, analysts are picking up intriguing signals. Since the North-South summit, for example, Kim Jong Il has hinted that his government might countenance U.S. troops in Korea even after reunification-a 180 degree shift from Pyongyang's longstanding demand that the "imperialists" leave ahead of peace talks. Last week, in a commentary in the communist mouthpiece Rodong Daily, the North cited a 1980 blueprint by Kim's father, the late Kim Il Sung, for Korean reunification based on the principle of one country, two systems. Yet the report omitted the elder Kim's original precondition-that America "swiftly withdraw its troops from South Korea."

What's more, by hosting the inter-Korean summit, Pyong-yang tacitly endorsed the South Korean regime's legitimacy. Observers also gleaned a subtle shift during last week's celebrations in Pyongyang marking the 55th birthday of the ruling Korean Workers Party. As usual, Kim Jong Il was the focus of orchestrated adulation. Huge crowds paid him tribute during a colossal open-air rally. This year, however, planners omitted the traditional military parade replete with goose-stepping troops, columns of tanks and convoys of missiles.

As Clinton recognizes, symbolism matters. In his final weeks in office, the U.S. president's strategy for drawing out Kim-highlighted by Jo's White House visit and encouraged by Kim Dae Jung-is showing real promise. Whether Clinton makes it to Pyongyang or not, America's engagement policy will likely survive his presidency-and perhaps become the big foreign-policy achievement he seeks.

With Gregory Beals in Tokyo and Michael Hirsh in Washington

---

Sunshine and Fine Lines A Nobel for one Kim; a summit for the other?

MSNBC
19/23/00
By George Wehrfritz NEWSWEEK
http://www.msnbc.com/news/476822.asp?cp1=1

October 23 issue - The news flashed across Kwangju during the evening rush hour. The Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to the city's favorite son, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, 76. On the streets, where Kim's 1980 arrest sparked a civic insurrection in which soldiers massacred hundreds-possibly thousands-of civilians, drivers pulled over to buy newspapers headlining the award.

FIREWORKS WENT OFF, and at Kwangju's train station, commuters massed before TVs, cheering a live broadcast of the prize ceremony from Oslo. "I couldn't be happier if my dead parents came back alive," said Lee Sang Gyu, 62, as he wiped away tears.

Kim was honored for promoting democracy in South Korea and for his "sunshine policy" toward North Korea. That initiative led to a summit in Pyongyang last June with North Korea's eccentric leader, Kim Jong Il. Last week the opening extended all the way to Washington. North Korea's Gen. Jo Myong Rok called on Bill Clinton bearing a conciliatory letter from Kim Jong Il. The visit went so well that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she would go to Pyongyang in hopes of arranging a visit by Clinton.

Neither Kim's award nor Albright's diplomacy means that peace is at hand. North and South Korea have maintained a formal state of war for half a century, and 37,000 U.S. troops still help to defend the South. Washington has accused Pyongyang of sponsoring international terrorism, developing nuclear weapons and peddling ballistic missiles overseas. It regards North Korea as a "rogue" state whose unpredictability helps to justify the construction of a multibillion-dollar U.S. missile defense system.

Washington won't drop the rogue label soon. In fact, sources said Albright's trip was arranged on the understanding, which the North Koreans accepted, that Pyongyang will probably still be on Washington's list of terrorism sponsors when she arrives there. Tangible progress on some major issue will be needed to justify a visit by Clinton. U.S. officials are considering a suggestion that Kim Jong Il made to Russian President Vladimir Putin: that Pyongyang would abandon its missile program if other countries agree to launch its satellites. More extensive peacemaking could be a slow process; just last week, Kim Dae Jung said unification could take "20 or 30 years to achieve." In this case, as in many others, the Peace Prize was awarded for a good beginning.

With Michael Hirsh in Washington

---

For Clinton, An Albright Test Visit to North Korea

International Herald Tribune
Paris, Monday, October 23, 2000
By Jane Perlez New York Times Service
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/MON/FPAGE/mad.2.html

WASHINGTON - In a landmark visit that signals an accelerating thaw in U.S. relations with North Korea, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flew to North Korea on Sunday to meet with the Communist leader, Kim Jong Il, and to pave the way for a trip by President Bill Clinton.

Mrs. Albright is the most senior U.S. official to visit the tightly controlled Stalinist state, and Mr. Clinton would be the first American president to go to North Korea since the Korean War began more than 50 years ago.

The hasty arrangements for Mrs. Albright's trip - made in less than 10 days for a visit that would normally take months to choreograph - were another signal of the Clinton administration's desire to push ahead with improving relations before Mr. Clinton leaves office.

But the prospect of Mr. Clinton's making such an important foreign visit so late in his presidency to a country the United States has charged with supporting terrorism has raised mixed reactions from experts on the region and a heated discussion even within his own administration.

[A senior U.S. official traveling with Mrs. Albright said Sunday that Pyongyang might be ready to change its behavior, Reuters reported during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska. ''We have reason to believe, because of discussions that we have had, that North Korea may be prepared to take some very serious steps. The secretary will go and assess whether that is real and whether it would be meaningful for the president of the United States to travel to North Korea,'' she said.

[But she added: ''We don't expect any agreements out of this visit. It is a visit to listen, to discuss the range of ideas that might meet our most fundamental concerns.

[''Hopefully we will get some information and a better understanding of where they want to head so that the secretary can make a recommendation to the president about whether he should travel to North Korea to try to seal some agreements.'']

The usually reclusive Kim Jong Il made a surprising debut on the world stage this year, holding the first summit meeting with a South Korean president, Kim Dae Jung.

The two leaders made some progress in warming relations but left a raft of issues unresolved.

Mrs. Albright will be talking to the North Korean president about how far his country is prepared to go in shutting down its missile program and missile exports to countries hostile to the United States, senior administration officials said.

North Korea's missile program has raised anxiety throughout the region, particularly in Japan, and it was cited as one of the main reasons for the ambitious proposals in the United States to build a national missile defense system.

Other issues on the table will be North Korea's support of terrorism and how to reduce military tensions between North and South Korea, where the United States still maintains about 37,000 troops along a heavily militarized border. Mr. Clinton, at the start of his presidency, called the border the ''scariest place on earth.''

The sudden decision for Mrs. Albright to travel to North Korea follows a visit this month to the White House by Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok, a senior North Korean military official, who issued an invitation for Mr. Clinton to go to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

But the Pentagon is less enthusiastic about a presidential visit. Last month, it released a report with a pessimistic assessment about North Korea's military intentions, saying Pyongyang showed no fundamental change in its posture.

The report said North Korea had stockpiled chemical weapons and continued to develop its short- and long-range missiles, though it had honored its pledge to U.S. negotiators last year that it would not flight-test them.

The White House is clearly leaning toward going ahead with a Clinton visit.

''Tell me why I shouldn't go,'' will be Mrs. Albright's mission on behalf of the president, a senior official said.

The official said Mrs. Albright would be seeking to evaluate whether the North Koreans would be prepared to move forward on the issues if Mr. Clinton did in fact go.

''For North Korea, the president's visit is itself the prize,'' said Arnold Kanter, a former undersecretary of state in the Bush administration. ''The question is what the United States is getting in return that meets our needs to reduce the threat posed by North Korea.''

Another critique came from Michel Oksenberg, a China expert who served on the National Security Council during the Carter presidency.

He said the stakes were too high to rush into a visit with a lame-duck president.

''A presidential trip has to be exquisitely planned and time is very short,'' Mr. Oksenberg said.

But administration officials have defended a possible Clinton visit, saying they asked advice - and got approval - from the South Korean president before going ahead with Mrs. Albright's trip.

They also make the case that the trip is part of a slow process of negotiations with the North, which, they stressed, was a success, with Pyongyang's agreement last year to temporarily freeze missile flight tests, an accord that has been extended indefinitely.

Last month, the North also stockpiled the last of the spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactors, officials said, a move that Washington has wanted to help ensure that the fuel would not be used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

And one of Mrs. Albright's missions, they say, will be to further explore an idea raised by Kim Jong Il last summer in talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Mr. Kim said he would reduce North Korea's program to develop long-range missile program if foreign countries agreed to launch North Korean satellites.

Negotiations over the North's support of terrorism are close to bearing results as well, administration official argue.

North Korea remains on the State Department's list of countries that support terrorism, a position that bars it from entering any of the international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But the North Koreans have begun to make the required steps that could soon remove them from the terrorist list, the officials said.

---

Albright visit may break new ground

The Hindu
Monday, October 23, 2000
By F. J. Khergamvala
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/10/23/stories/0323000c.htm

TOKYO, OCT. 22. The U.S. Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright's visit to Pyongyang from Monday is a reciprocation of the trip made to Washington by Vice-Marshall Jo Myong-rok a fortnight ago, and may result in an announcement to open a U.S. liaison office in the North Korean capital.

Heading a party of 40, Ms Albright will certainly meet the North Korean leader, Mr Kim Jong-Il, becoming the first U.S. Cabinet official to do so, publicly. In fact, one of the conditions for Mr Clinton receiving the number three North Korean official, Vice-Marshall Jo Myong-rok in the White House was that Ms Albright would make a return visit to Pyongyang, on the condition that Mr Kim Jong-Il receive her. Last year, the U.S. special coordinator for North Korea, Dr William Perry, went to North Korea but could not meet Mr Kim Jong-Il. Nearly 50 journalists too will fly to Pyongyang on a chartered plane.

Though there has been much speculation on this score, it is not yet certain that Ms Albright will open the door to a visit by Mr Bill Clinton. It is though significant that not a single U.S. or North Korean official has denied that a presidential visit is possible. In all likelihood, in a face-saving way, the North might have to bend considerably on missile testing and exports as well as again renounce terrorism in all its forms, before the U.S. agrees to announce a presidential visit.

Should Mr Clinton's visit be announced as one outcome of Ms Albright's mission, it is almost certain that the North would have conceded on the ongoing missile development programme and missile parts exports to West Asia and Pakistan which fetch Pyongyang an estimated $500 millions each year. What is in all this for North Korea? Right now, the visit itself by a top U.S. official is a gain.

Though she will later be debriefed in Seoul by her South Korean and Japanese counterparts as well as meet the South Korean President, Mr Kim Dae Jung, Ms Albright's visit is as much meant to seize the initiative on North Korea as it is to make it appear as an endorsement of the engagement policies pursued by Mr Kim Dae Jung. Even if Mr Clinton's visit does not materialise, the visit of the Secretary of State is a real plum for a regime that is dubbed a ``state of concern'', or a ``rogue state'' in earlier American parlance. The North is in a hurry to seek an endorsement from the highest levels of the only superpower before political changes occur in Washington DC. Notably, the two countries have compressed the planning for the Albright mission into just 10 days.

An announcement about opening a U.S. liaison office would not be a great surprise even if it is the event that grabs TV headlines. The measure is provided in a step by step time table in the 1994 Agreed Framework and now that the North and South held a summit, there is little reason why such a semi- embassy should not be set up.

Pyongyang has stuck to the 1994 deal. It has recently stockpiled all the spent fuel rods from its old graphite moderated reactors. This safeguard against producing plutonium was an essential step before the U.S.-led consortium called Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) agreed on replacing existing nuclear reactors with the two 1,000 MW light water reactors, at an approximate $ 5.5 billions.

Some countries that are reluctant to build immediate bridges with the North because of domestic opposition on account of Pyongyang's record on missiles proliferation and the type of Government, may use the high-level U.S.-North Korea contacts to advance towards setting up diplomatic ties.

East Asia watchers have found South Korea, Japan and the European nations quite divided and uncertain on the question of establishing ties with the North. France is reluctant. Britain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain did make favourable noises at the recently concluded Asia-Europe summit in Seoul, perhaps out of politeness to the host leader. Italy, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Denmark already have diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

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Albright Makes Historic Trip to North Korea for Talks
Rapid progress could pave way for Clinton visit

San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, October 23, 2000
Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/10/23/MN113575.DTL

Pyongyang, North Korea -- In a historic visit by the first ranking U.S. official ever to come to North Korea, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrived here yesterday for talks aimed at improving relations and addressing some of the biggest global challenges facing Washington.

Albright was greeted by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gae Gwan in a low-key ceremony at the airport. She then headed to the former palace of the late ``Great Leader'' Kim Il Sung, which has been turned into a museum and mausoleum and where Vice Marshal Cho Myong Nok, the No. 2 man to current leader Kim Jong Il, was to meet her. Earlier this month, Cho visited President Clinton at the White House.

Albright's visit follows a whirlwind round of diplomacy in recent weeks that has stunned U.S. policymakers, including many who have tried for years to chip away at this isolated Communist nation and its quirky dynasty.

The initial progress and rapid pace of negotiations are likely to pave the way for a trip to Pyongyang by Clinton next month, an event that would have been considered wildly improbable just a few months ago. At a time when the administration faces a multitude of foreign policy challenges, North Korea could even prove to be its most notable final success, experts say.

``This visit may be the most important trip of Albright's tenure,'' said Joseph Cirincione, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

At the top of the agenda are weapons of mass destruction, particularly North Korea's advanced missile program; terrorism; and defusing tension on the world's most heavily fortified border, between North and South Korea, which has been a source of instability and sporadic crises in East Asia since the 1950-53 Korean War.

U.S. officials are trying to downplay expectations of a big breakthrough during the visit. But the momentum has clearly accelerated since a June visit to North Korea by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung opened the way for rapprochement with the outside world. Just days ago, Britain and Germany both announced that they would renew diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, and Spain and Belgium are expected to follow soon.

The European Union also promised aid, including a $17 million package to develop agriculture, and pledged to work toward closer ties. And Japan is scheduled to hold its own talks with North Korean officials in Beijing next week.

After the visit to Washington by Cho, North Korea renounced all forms of terrorism and the two former enemies declared their intention to ``formally end the Korean War'' by eventually converting an armistice into a permanent treaty.

The two governments now may also be close to an agreement that would remove North Korea from the State Department's Terrorism List, which by law requires sanctions that bar any sales or exports to targeted nations except of humanitarian goods.

The most critical and complex issue, however, is North Korea's missile program.

Pyongyang's medium-range ballistic missile capabilities have been the leading motive for the United States to consider developing a national missile defense at a cost of billions of dollars. The threat was underscored when North Korea fired a missile over Japan in 1998.

One of the world's last Communist states is also a major source of missiles and missile technology. Except for the world's five nuclear powers, only six countries have medium-range ballistic missiles. North Korea is a major supplier to two of them -- Pakistan and Iran.

So far, North Korea has agreed only to a moratorium on flight testing of long-range missiles, which doesn't affect development.

Even if major progress is made, U.S. officials caution that much work remains to be done on other issues, including human rights and Pyongyang's conventional weapons and military deployment. North Korea has 4,000 long-range artillery pieces aimed at and within range of Seoul.

---

Albright arrives in North Korea
The secretary of state could pave the way for a historic visit by President Clinton.

Philadelphia Inquirer
Monday, October 23, 2000
Steven Mufson and Doug Struck WASHINGTON POST
http://web.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/10/23/front_page/NKOREA23.htm
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/kor23.htm

PYONGYANG, North Korea - Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright landed in the North Korean capital today on a trip designed to improve relations with this isolated Stalinist country, which has been a Cold War adversary for a half-century.

Albright is the first secretary of state and highest-ranking U.S. official to set foot on North Korean soil. If her talks over the next two days go well, President Clinton may make a historic visit here next month.

Albright arrived at a stark, little-used airport, and was whisked along a highway nearly devoid of cars in a country with little food and little power. She was expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who recently has begun to increase contacts between his nation and the rest of the world. Albright plans to explore Kim's willingness to scale back North Korea's missile program, ease military tensions on the Korean peninsula, and normalize relations with the United States.

For its part, North Korea hopes to get off the State Department's list of governments accused of sponsoring terrorism, which would open economic assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Expectations are low, according to a senior State Department official, who said Albright did not anticipate reaching any formal agreements here. Nonetheless, U.S. officials say the change in atmosphere between Washington and Pyongyang, as well as the recent openings in the long-closed North Korean political system, represent important progress.

"They may seem like small steps, but they are really quite extraordinary considering where we were 11/2 years ago," a senior official said on the flight here.

The United States has had frosty relations with North Korea since the country was founded under a Communist government after World War II. The United States sent troops to help repel a North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950. In the ensuing three years, at least two million soldiers died, including more than 33,000 Americans.

The war never officially ended, but fighting was halted with an armistice in 1953 that is still enforced, in part, by 37,000 U.S. troops stationed on what is perhaps the most heavily fortified border in the world.

After a meeting in Washington this month between Clinton and a senior North Korean military official, Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok, both sides declared their intent to "formally end the Korean War." Another result of Jo's visit was the surprise announcement that Albright would visit Pyongyang.

Today, North Korea is a backward, impoverished country where perhaps as many as two million people have starved over the last four years. But U.S. military planners view the country as one of the world's most dangerous and unpredictable states, and cite North Korea as reason enough to maintain a U.S. missile-defense system.

North Korean missiles can strike U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea, and Pyongyang is trying to develop long-range ballistic missiles capable of striking the continental United States. It probably has enough plutonium for two nuclear weapons. And hundreds of North Korean ballistic missiles and thousands of long-range artillery pieces are within range of the South Korean capital, Seoul, which lies just 20 miles from the border.

"North Korea remains the major threat to stability and security in northeast Asia, and is the country most likely to involve the United States in a large-scale war," said a Pentagon report to Congress in September. Despite diplomatic openings by Pyongyang, the report noted, there had been no reduction in North Korean military forces or lessening of anti-American rhetoric.

The key issues for Albright's visit relate to security. The United States wants North Korea to open itself to more inspections of suspected sites for nuclear weapons development. It wants North Korea to end research on long-range ballistic missiles and to stop exporting them to countries such as Iran and Pakistan. And it wants North Korea to take steps to reduce tensions on its border with the South.

North Korea, in addition to seeking removal from the U.S. terrorism list, wants further implementation of a 1994 Agreed Framework under which the United States, Japan and South Korea would supply it with money and equipment for light-water nuclear power plants. Those countries also would provide North Korea with substantial amounts of fuel until the plants were built.

North Korea also wants more aid and investment to jump-start its stalled economy.

The Clinton administration's policy toward North Korea has been controversial. Critics say the administration has caved in to nuclear blackmail by providing food and fuel and laying aside concerns about human-rights violations and economic malpractice in exchange for dubious promises about suspensions in nuclear and missile programs.

--------

Albright sets U.S. sights on better ties
HISTORIC VISIT INDICATES PROGRESS IN GETTING NATION OUT OF ISOLATION, BUT DIPLOMATIC EXPECTATIONS LOW

San Jose Mercury News
Monday, October 23, 2000, in the San Jose Mercury News
BY STEVEN MUFSON AND DOUG STRUCK Washington Post
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/korea23.htm

PYONGYANG, N. Korea -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright landed in the North Korean capital today on a historic trip to improve relations with this isolated Stalinist country.

Albright is the first American secretary of state and highest-ranking U.S. official ever to set foot on North Korean soil. If her talks over the next two days go well, President Clinton may make a historic visit next month.

Albright is expected to meet with President Kim Jong Il, the nation's enigmatic leader, who has recently begun to increase contacts between his ``hermit kingdom'' and the rest of the world. Albright plans to explore Kim's willingness to scale back North Korea's missile program, ease military tensions on the Korean peninsula and normalize relations with the United States.

Terrorism list

For its part, North Korea hopes to get off the State Department's list of states accused of sponsoring terrorism, which would open up assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Expectations of progress are low, according to a senior State Department official, who said that Albright does not anticipate reaching any formal agreements. Nonetheless, American officials say the change in atmosphere between Washington and Pyongyang, as well as the recent openings in the long-closed North Korean political system, represent important progress.

In his recent contacts with the outside world, Kim has shed the stereotypical view of him as bizarre and secretive. Don Oberdorfer, a Korea expert at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, said Kim was depicted in intelligence reports as an awful man who was ``introverted and strange.''

Joel Wit, a former State Department official who has visited North Korea 14 times, agreed that Kim has not lived up to his reputation as being ``a little bit crazy.''

Still, conservative groups are concerned that Clinton may be taken in by the newly amiable North Korean leader.

The Center for Security Policy cites a Pentagon report leaked last month asserting that there is no evidence that North Korea is changing fundamentally and that there has been no reduction in North Korea's military.

The United States has had frosty relations with North Korea since the country was founded under a communist government following World War II. American troops helped repel a North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950; in the ensuing three years, at least 2 million soldiers died -- 33,000 of them Americans.

Fighting was halted with an armistice in 1953 that is still enforced, in part, by 37,000 U.S. troops stationed on what is perhaps the most heavily fortified border in the world.

Today, North Korea is an impoverished country where perhaps as many as 2 million people have starved in the past four years. U.S. military planners view it as the world's most dangerous and unpredictable state -- and reason enough for a U.S. missile defense system.

Missiles development

North Korean missiles can strike U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea, and Pyongyang is trying to develop long-range ballistic missiles capable of striking the continental United States. It probably has enough plutonium for two nuclear weapons. In this visit, Albright is expected to explore a casual suggestion that Kim made to Russian President Vladimir Putin that North Korea would give up its missile program if other countries would launch its satellites. Congressional Republicans say that such a deal would risk transferring technology useful for North Korea's military.

The Clinton administration's apparent willingness to engage North Korea has been controversial. Critics say that the administration has already caved in to nuclear blackmail, by providing food and fuel and laying aside concerns about human rights violations and economic malpractice in exchange for dubious promises about suspensions in nuclear and missile programs.

---

Albright Holds Unprecedented Korean Talks

Washington Post
Monday, October 23, 2000; Page A01
By Steven Mufson and Doug Struck Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58547-2000Oct22.html

PYONGYANG, North Korea, Oct. 23 (Monday) -- Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright landed in the North Korean capital today on a trail-breaking trip designed to improve relations with this isolated Stalinist country, which has been a bristling Cold War adversary for a half-century.

Albright is the first American secretary of state and the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to set foot on North Korean soil. If her talks over the next two days go well, President Clinton may make a historic visit here next month.

Albright and her entourage arrived in a gray dawn at a stark and little-used airport, and were whisked to central Pyongyang along a highway nearly devoid of cars in a country with little food and energy. The route from the airport took the motorcade past rice and cabbage fields, dilapidated, unlighted apartment buildings and a number of roadside billboards--one of which read: "Let's build a powerful nation."

Following a preliminary round of official meetings and welcoming events later today, she is expected to confer with President Kim Jong Il, the nation's enigmatic leader, who has recently begun to increase contacts between the "hermit kingdom" and the rest of the world. Albright plans to explore Kim's willingness to scale back North Korea's strategic missile program, ease military tensions on the Korean peninsula and normalize relations with the United States.

For its part, North Korea hopes to get off the State Department's list of states accused of sponsoring terrorism, which would open up economic assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Expectations of progress on such issues are low, according to a senior State Department official, who said Albright does not anticipate reaching any formal agreements here. Nonetheless, American officials say the change in atmosphere between Washington and Pyongyang, as well as the recent openings in the long-closed North Korean political system, represent important progress.

"They may seem like small steps, but they are really quite extraordinary considering where we were 1 1/2 years ago," the senior official said on the flight here.

The United States has had frosty relations with North Korea since the country was founded under a communist government following World War II. The United States sent troops to help repel a North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950; in the ensuing three years, at least 2 million soldiers died, including more than 33,000 Americans.

The war never officially ended, but fighting was halted in 1953 with an armistice that is still enforced, in part, by 37,000 U.S. troops stationed along what is perhaps the most heavily fortified border in the world. After a meeting in Washington this month between Clinton and a senior North Korean military official, Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok, both sides declared their intention to "formally end the Korean War." Another result of Jo's visit was the surprise announcement that Albright would visit Pyongyang.

Today, North Korea is a backward, impoverished country where perhaps as many as 2 million people have starved over the past four years. But U.S. military planners view the country as the world's most dangerous and unpredictable state--and reason enough for the United States to build a national missile defense system.

North Korean missiles can strike U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea, and Pyongyang is trying to develop ballistic missiles with a range that could strike the continental United States; it is thought to have enough plutonium for two nuclear warheads. Regionally, hundreds of North Korean tactical missiles and thousands of long-range artillery pieces are within range of the South Korean capital, Seoul, which lies just 20 miles from the border.

"North Korea remains the major threat to stability and security in northeast Asia and is the country most likely to involve the United States in a large-scale war," said a Pentagon report to Congress in September. Despite diplomatic openings by Pyongyang, the report noted, there had been no reduction in the size of North Korean military forces or lessening of anti-American rhetoric.

The key items on Albright's agenda are all related to security. The United States wants North Korea to allow more inspections of suspected nuclear-weapon development sites; to end research on long-range ballistic missiles and stop exporting them to such countries as Iran and Pakistan; and to take steps to reduce tensions on its border with the South.

Albright will explore a casual suggestion Kim made to Russian President Vladimir Putin this summer, indicating that North Korea would give up its missile program if other countries would launch its satellites into orbit. Congressional Republicans say that such a deal would risk transferring technology to North Korea's military.

North Korea, in addition to seeking its removal from the U.S. terrorism list, wants further implementation of a 1994 Agreed Framework under which the United States, Japan and South Korea would supply it with money and equipment to construct light-water nuclear power plants--which produce a minimum of plutonium. Those countries would also provide North Korea with substantial amounts of conventional fuels until the plants are built.

North Korea also wants more foreign aid and investment to invigorate its stalled economy. It has offered in the past to cease its missile exports if the United States would compensate it for the lost export earnings. Former defense secretary William J. Perry, who served as President Clinton's special envoy on North Korea, rejected that idea because it "would encourage proliferators worldwide to engage in similar blackmail."

The Clinton administration's policy toward North Korea has been controversial. Critics say it has already caved in to nuclear blackmail by providing food and fuel while overlooking concerns about human rights violations and economic malpractice in exchange for dubious promises about suspension of nuclear and missile programs.

Many administration officials concede that U.S. policy toward North Korea would be different were it not for the nuclear and missile threats. A senior State Department official, acknowledging a lower U.S. priority on human rights issues in North Korea, said last week that different priorities are appropriate for different countries. Human rights may be important in relations with Indonesia, China and the Balkans, but regarding North Korea they are matters best left until later, U.S. officials say.

"What we care about right now is the North's external behavior and the threat to stability in northeast Asia," said Alan Romberg, a former State Department official who is now a senior associate at the Stimson Center.

An important part of the Clinton administration's strategy was the decision to engage Pyongyang and the secretive Kim Jong Il diplomatically. Perry proposed a strategy that accepted the United States would have to deal with the North Korean regime as it is, not as the United States would like it to be. That enabled the United States to reassure Kim that it would not try to undermine his regime.

In addition, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, elected in December 1997, has advocated a "sunshine policy" of engagement with the North after a half-century of cross-border hostility. Japan has also supported that approach.

The result has been striking, considering North Korea's long, near total isolation. Over the past several months, North Korea's Kim has traveled to China, met Putin and welcomed the South Korean president in Pyongyang. North Korea has established diplomatic relations with Australia, Italy, Britain and Germany. And, after countless delays in sending a top official to Washington, the North Korean leader dispatched Vice Marshal Jo, who is second only to Kim in the military hierarchy.

Chuck Downs, a former aide to the House Republican Policy Committee and author of a book on North Korea, has argued that Albright and Clinton are rushing talks with North Korea to make their mark before leaving office. Negotiations with North Korea would be better left to the next president, Downs contends.

But Clinton administration officials maintain they should seize the moment. "If one thought one could make progress on missiles, if one thought one could reduce tensions on the peninsula, then it's worth trying," the senior State Department official said.

North Korea At a glance:

LAND: 46,540 square miles, about the same size as Pennsylvania. Much of the country is mountainous.

POPULATION: 23 million

ECONOMY: Natural resources are more plentiful than in South Korea. The economy suffered drastic declines in the 1990s, and a series of natural disasters reduced much of the country to starvation. Per capita gross domestic product is estimated at $741.

HISTORY: Once an independent kingdom associated with China, Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. At the end of World War II, Soviet and U.S. troops set up occupation zones in the North and South respectively. Negotiations to establish a democratic, unified Korea failed, and in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North and the Republic of Korea in the South. Under Kim Il Sung, the North set off the Korean War in June 1950 when it invaded the South. A U.N. force, dominated by U.S. troops, drove the North's forces back toward its border with China. China then joined the North and the two sides fought to a stalemate in 1953, when an armistice was signed.

FOREIGN RELATIONS: Officially the country bases its foreign policy on Kim Il Sung's "juche," a philosophy of political and economic self-reliance. After the economic hardship of the 1990s, the death of Kim Il Sung, and the proclamation of a more open "sunshine policy" toward the country by South Korea, North Korea began cautiously exploring improved relations with the West. The leaders of North and South Korea vowed to work toward reconciliation and eventual reunification at a historic summit held in Pyongyang in June.

POLITICAL SYSTEM: The Korean Workers Party controls all political activity and organized labor. North Korea's parliament, the 687-seat Supreme People's Assembly, approves most measures submitted to it. A 17-member Presidium oversees the State Administration Council, a cabinet-like body headed by the prime minister. Kim Il Sung was named prime minister in 1948 and president in 1972. He died in 1994 at age 82, and the office of state president was abolished in his honor. The de facto head of state is his son Kim Jong Il.

SOURCES: Associated Press, Political Handbook

-------- russia

Divers Pierce Russian Sub's Inner Hull

Associated Press
Monday, October 23, 2000 ; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58804-2000Oct22?language=printer

MURMANSK, Russia, Oct. 22 -- With the seas around them growing rougher, Russian and Norwegian divers today pierced the inner hull of the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk in a laborious, precarious bid to recover the bodies of 118 Russian sailors.

Winds at the Barents Sea site mounted throughout the day and were expected to pick up overnight, threatening to curtail the operation.

Working nonstop since Friday, teams of divers cut into the outer hull Saturday, the first step in the planned recovery operation. The divers hope to cut seven holes through both hulls.

After some struggling overnight, the divers sliced through the sturdy rubber layer between the hulls, said Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky, chief spokesman for the Russian navy's northern fleet.

Today, they cut a four-inch hole in the steel of the inner hull leading to compartment No. 8 in the rear of the submarine, Navrotsky said. Throughout the day they enlarged the hole a few millimeters at a time.

Russian navy spokesman Vadim Serga said cutting into the two-inch inner hull could be completed by Tuesday.

The divers were also dismantling and removing pipes, wires and other equipment in the six-foot space between the hulls that could tear diving suits.

The operation was focused outside the rear of the submarine, which sustained less damage than the front in the Aug. 12 accident. An explosion is believed to have occurred in the forward torpedo compartment.

----

FEATURE - US cash helps Russian nuclear shipyard limp on

Planet Ark
Story by Andrei Shukshin
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
RUSSIA: October 23, 2000
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8651

SEVERODVINSK, Russia - If there is one thing residents of this closed, once top secret, northern Russian town are really not accustomed to it is hearing English voices.

And yet last week, officials who for decades had been obsessed with secrecy in Russia's biggest nuclear submarine shipyard were all smiles as they rolled out the red carpet for a man who made no attempt to hide that he was a U.S. general.

Thomas Kuenning, director of the U.S. Department of Defence's Common Threat Reduction Directorate, seemed no less happy as he opened a U.S.-funded nuclear waste processing plant, near the shipyard which coincidentally built the Kursk, the Russian nuclear-powered submarine which sank in August after an explosion killing all 118 crew.

The plant is designed to help Moscow scrap its ageing submarines, and to help the people of Severodvinsk make a living.

"The United States really believes that the $17 million that it has invested in this project is money well spent," Kuenning said to warm applause before cutting the ribbon at the entrance to the multi-storey, hangar-like facility.

The plant, fully paid for by Washington and built by an international consortium which also included Russian companies, is scheduled to start what are called "hot" tests this week.

It will then be able to process large amounts of low-level radioactive waste, such as reactor cooling liquids, laundry wastewater and radioactive solids, generated in the dismantling of nuclear-powered submarines.

WASTE USED TO BE DUMPED INTO THE SEA

Russia, which is scrapping hundreds of such vessels under the START arms reduction agreements with the United States, has had trouble recycling the low-level waste accounting for about 15 percent of total radioactivity inside a submarine.

In the old days Moscow would simply dump the waste into the sea. It did so until 1992 when environmental groups and Nordic countries whose economies depend heavily on fishing forced it to abandon the practice.

With no money to develop and build processing facilities, Russia started to stockpile the waste in unsafe locations, such as barges along the coastline. Ecologists have said it was only a matter of time before disaster struck.

"This project will help make the area safer, the Arctic region safer, in fact, the whole world safer for the work that will be done at this plant," Kuenning said.

Russian Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valery Lebedev said 185 nuclear submarines across Russia were now waiting to be dismantled, 55 of them already cut up.

The plant in Severodvinsk, along with two more similar facilities due to be commissioned later, will help eliminate the problem of low-level waste altogether, he added.

U.S. CASH KEEPS RUSSIAN COMPANIES AFLOAT

But for many Russians involved in the project, the celebration was tinged with sadness as they observed that the shipyard which in Soviet days filled them with pride was saved from ruin by American money.

"We built submarines here that could annihilate all of the United States - and today it is thanks to their cash that we still exist," said a Russian engineer who asked not to be named.

"And we really had a hard time getting them to accept that Russian companies actually take part in the project. And for many of these companies it was the last chance of survival."

The atmosphere of days gone by was also distinctly present at a banquet to which all the guests were treated after the opening ceremony.

As organisers toasted the new U.S.-Russian friendship and cooperation, folk singers sang Soviet-era tunes about the joys of serving in the navy and how "a weary sub is heading home", apparently after lurking for months near American shores.

Tears glistened in some eyes when a film projector beamed images of rows of huge dark vessels moored for maintenance at the piers, long before the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union dried up financing.

Through the window one could see the same docks and piers, but not a single submarine in sight. The Kursk was one of the last submarines built in Severodvinsk.

The only vessel to grace the steely waters seemed to be the half-finished aircraft carrier Admiral Ushakov, which Moscow has virtually given up hope of completing because of lack of funds.

"We can only build big nuclear submarines here and nobody needs them anymore," said another local official who also asked not to be identified. "We tried to convert, but what can you convert to when you only know how to build these?"

The Americans, who had been dealing with Severodvinsk for more than two years, seemed to notice none of this sadness and sounded relieved as they left.

Giving the cold and featureless town a last glance, one of them said: "The worst is over".

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

Export Data Kept Confidential
Administration Holds Data on Exports to Countries of Concern

ABC News
10/23/00
By David Ruppe
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/commerceexports_001023.html

Oct. 23 - The Clinton Administration is trying to avoid revealing information on what if any militarily sensitive equipment it approved for export since 1994 to countries of concern for nuclear and missile proliferation.

A recently passed bill in the Congress could help them do it.

A lawsuit was filed in federal court by a Washington, D.C.-based arms control organization, the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, and a ruling is expected in the coming weeks.

The group wants the U.S. Commerce Department to disclose what equipment it licensed U.S. companies to export to Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan, and to which entities the equipment went to within those countries. U.S. laws and regulations restrict certain technologies controlled and licensed by Commerce, because they could help countries improve nuclear weapons, ballistic missile, and other military capabilities.

Gary Milhollin, the Wisconsin Project's director, believes the licensing information would show the Commerce Department ignored the government's own policies against nuclear weapons and missile proliferation.

"I think what we'll find is machine tools and supercomputers were approved to known missile and nuclear sites in several of these countries," says Milhollin.

His non-profit organization compiles and sells to U.S. companies information on companies suspected of building weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles - so they can be avoided - and so has an interest in having the information released.

Confidentiality Restrictions

Government and industry contend that allowing the information into the public domain would harm U.S. security interests by revealing product specifications contained in the licensing documents on U.S. high-performance equipment and would harm business interests.

"From the exporter's point of view, there is proprietary business information in these licensing documents that would be very useful both to foreign competitors overseas and to foreign governments," says Ed Rice, president of the Coalition for Employment Through Exports trade association.

He cites, "customer lists, pricing information, and related internal business data that a foreign government or foreign competitor could use to undercut a U.S. company."

Milhollin maintains the information his group is asking for does not contain specific model or performance specifications and wouldn't undercut company sales because it applies only to equipment on which the Commerce Department has acted.

The department had rejected Wisconsin Project requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the information citing confidentiality requirements contained in a U.S. export control law.

But that law, the 1979 Export Administration Act (EAA) expired in August 1994 and administration arguments the act had not lapsed were struck down by a federal judge in June in a separate case concerning exports to Cuba. The government has appealed the ruling.

Many of the EAA's provisions - though not the confidentiality requirement - have been extended each year by the administration under an emergency law. Attempts to rewrite the law have failed for a decade because of divisions in Congress between members associated with national security and business interests.

Congress May Block Disclosure

In an attempt to prevent the release of the information, the Commerce Department and industry have urged Congress to reactivate the 1979 Act, with its confidentiality provision, and Congress is on the verge of doing so.

The House in late September passed a measure reactivating the Act for one year. The Senate passed similar legislation by voice vote on Oct. 11. The House bill would extend retroactively, back to August 1994, the export act's confidentiality protection.

"The reason they're doing this is they're afraid we're going to win," says Milhollin. "I think what has happened here is that the Commerce Department has become worried that its dirty laundry is going to be hung out and so they've gone running to Congress to try to get Congress to save them by passing these bills."

It would not be the first time potentially embarrassing information of this sort was released. The Wisconsin Project occassionally publicizes through opinion pieces controversial export licensing decisions.

The group's suit says that licensing information on U.S. exports to Iraq disclosed by the Commerce Department in 1992 showed the department licensed more than $1.5 billion worth of sensitive U.S. exports to Iraq between 1985 and 1990, much of which were used in Iraq's missile and other military programs.

But both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue appear to be in agreement, having passed similar bills during this busy legislative season despite having a Republican Congress that has often criticized the administration for mishandling national security secrets.

"What has pleased me in the Congress is that just about everybody we've talked to, regardless of where we stand on what export control policy we should be persuing, has agreed with us that this is important," says Commerce's Undersecretary for Export Administration, Bill Reinsch.

"The Congress has felt for 30 years that its not in our national security interest to argue out individual licensing decisions in public and subject companies to second-guessing."

Milhollin takes a different view.

"I think perhaps this was shepherded through without people understanding what they were voting for," says Milhollin.

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

Department of Energy-Funded Early Lung Cancer Detection
Unit Is Launched For Current and Former Workers at Gaseous Diffusion Plants
PACE International Union and Queens College of the City University Of New York Administer New Program

Excite News
October 23, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/pr/001023/ky-pace-doe-detection

PADUCAH, KY., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- A new early lung cancer detection program for workers from the Department of Energy's three gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah, Ky; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tenn., was introduced here today at the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy (PACE) Workers Local 5-550 union hall.

Within the past year, the DOE has admitted that the gaseous diffusion plant workers, in addition to employees at other nuclear weapons facilities, were not adequately protected from exposure to such toxic agents as asbestos, beryllium, mercury, radioactive materials, nickel, chlorinated solvents and other chemicals.

For gaseous diffusion workers, their occupational exposure to lung carcinogens such as asbestos, uranium, plutonium and beryllium makes them at high risk for developing lung cancer.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony today, a low-dose, computerized axial tomography (CT) scan was demonstrated. This new technology detects lung cancer more effectively than a chest x-ray and at an earlier stage when the disease is more easily treatable. A 40-foot custom-built mobile unit houses the state-of-the-art CT scanner that will travel between the union halls at the Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plants.

The lung cancer screening will be offered to both current and former gaseous diffusion plant employees who meet pre-determined criteria for lung cancer risk. The medical screening is conducted independently of DOE and provides medical information directly to workers and their physicians. At least 2,000 former and current employees are expected to be screened during the next 12 months.

The lung screening program is a part of the Worker Health Protection Program (WHPP), a $7 million medical screening and education program funded by DOE and implemented by the PACE/ Queens College consortium. The PACE/Queens College program has screened 2000 nuclear weapons workers in the last 17 months. The goal of this program is to detect selected work-related illnesses at an early stage when medical intervention can be helpful.

"Early detection of lung cancer is essential to reduce mortality," said Dr. Steven Markowitz, director of the Queens College Center for the Biology of Natural Systems and the Worker Health Protection Program. "Only 12 percent of lung cancers are now detected early, but with this new CT scan technique, we expect to be able to diagnose up to 70-80 percent of lung cancers at an early stage. By finding so many more cancers at an early stage, we may dramatically increase the number of people who survive lung cancer and extend the life of others. Who deserves it more than workers who put themselves in harm's way in the service of their country?"

Speaking today at the Paducah ribbon-cutting ceremony were Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell; Kentucky Rep. Ed Whitfield; David Michaels, PhD, DOE assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety and health; Dr. Markowitz; James (Kip) Phillips, vice president and director of governmental affairs for PACE International Union; and David Fuller, PACE Local 5-550 president.

"Lung cancer is the most important specific cancer risk for workers at the DOE gaseous diffusion plants," said Phillips. "We are pleased the DOE is funding this new innovative program for nuclear workers, and are appreciative of the efforts of the DOE, Clinton administration and the bipartisan effort in Congress to secure this program."

The Worker Health Protection Program also will make participants aware of the new workers' compensation program established by the U.S. Congress in legislation passed this past month. "Our program will work hand-in-hand with the new compensation program to ensure that DOE workers receive what they are entitled to," said Dr. Markowitz.

PACE International Union represents 320,000 workers in the pulp, paper, oil, chemical, energy, automotive parts and cement industries. Background material on the WHPP program is available.

PACE International Union, www.paceunion.org

-------- california

PLOWSHARE TESTS LEAVE A RADIOACTIVE LEGACY

Oakland Tribune
Monday, October 23, 2000
by Glenn Roberts, Jr., Staff Writer,
The Oakland (California) Tribune, page 6-Local
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/S-ASP-Bin/ContentFrmBldr.ASP?puid=490&Indx=496 942&Article=ON

NEVADA TEST SITE -- Hurtling in from the heavens at 11 miles per second, a meteorite pounded the Earth 50,000 years ago, near present-day Flagstaff, Arizona.

The impact jolted the landscape with the explosive force of 20 million tons, or megatons, of TNT. The iron-nickel space boulder blasted a crater 700 feet deep and three-quarters of a mile across.

Four decades ago, in 1962, scientists attempted to replicate the earth-moving power of a meteoric impact without waiting for falling stars. They blew up a 104-kiloton nuclear explosive to blast a crater 32 feet deep and one-quarter mile across.

Today, Arizona's Barringer meteorite crater is a popular tourist stop and the Nevada Test Site's Project Sedan crater, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a main attraction for escorted visitors.

Sedan was the first nuclear cratering test in a series of experiments conducted for the Plowshares Program, a Lawrence Radiation Laboratory effort to develop civilian applications for nuclear bombs.

The most enduring legacy of Plowshare experiments, though, may be their radioactive contamination, said Vernon Brechin, a nuclear weapons historical consultant.

"There's no cost-effective solution. We don't have an existing solution to remediate it practically," he said.

An Energy Department report released in 2000 estimates the cleanup cost of the Nevada Test Site at $1.6 billion, with site restoration completed in 2014.

Details about the radioactive waste deposited by Plowshare experimentss hasn't been completely assessed, decades after the program halted. And Energy Department cleanup plans may not be a total fix, Brechin said.

"It's easy to make promises that they will be the guardians of these things forever," he said.

Desert shrubs have taken root on the slanted slopes of Sedan, and wildflowers bloom near ground zero at the once-bustling test site, a 1.350-square-mile stretch of desert where nuclear explosives tests halted in 1992. The only traces of contamination are the yellow signs that warn of radiological dangers -- but the hazards here are ever-present and invisible.

Brechin said that environmental cleanup will be the next major test at the Nevada Test Site, which was home to most of the 27 Plowshare experiments and 900 nuclear weapons tests.

Marylia Kelley, executive director for Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a nuclear watchdog group, said, "Every Plowshare site has contamination. And every nuclear test, whether it was a weapons test or a Plowshare test, is essentially an unlicensed dump."

Kelley said Plowshare tests seemed ironic: a promise of peaceful applications for an inherently destructive force. "Ripping apart the earth is a violent act. From an environmentalist point of view, all nuclear explosions are violent acts."

In addition to the Plowshare experiments at the test site, there were four experiments conducted in other areas, including two experiments in Colorado and two in New Mexico. The Energy Department estimates the cleanup will cost $134 million for all off-site tests, which includes Plowshare and weapons tests.

The Energy Department is still reviewing the environmental cleanup needs for the Plowshare test sites in Colorado and New Mexico "to determine what, if any, additional surface cleanup is required," according to a cleanup report released this year. The studies also will determine whether there is groundwater contamination that requires long-term monitoring.

-------- colorado

Nerve Gas Bomb Discovered During Colorado Arsenal Conversion

Environmental News Service
October 23, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2000/2000L-10-23-15.html

DENVER, Colorado, The discovery of a bomblet filled with deadly sarin nerve gas at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado last week has renewed concerns about the increasingly common practice of converting toxic waste dumps into wildlife refuges.

The bomblet was discovered last Monday in an isolated area of the massively contaminated Arsenal, which is being converted into a wildlife refuge to be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Officials maintain that the unexploded bomblet poses no threat to the public or the employees at the Arsenal, which is located about ten miles northeast of downtown Denver, Colorado.

The grapefruit sized bomblet, which may contain as much as 1.3 pounds of lethal sarin gas, will be detonated on site within the next two weeks, officials said.

For disposal of hazardous materials from 18 on-site cleanup projects, an on-site landfill is being constructed at the Arsenal. (Photos courtesy U.S. Army)

But those assurances are not good enough for some Colorado environmental groups, who have long been opposed to the controversial plan to convert the Arsenal into a wildlife refuge open to the public.

"We've been saying for years that if they want to have this as a wildlife refuge, it should be cleaned up properly," said Sandra Horrocks, who chairs the Sierra Club's Rocky Mountain Arsenal committee. "We don't call this a clean up - we call this a remediation."

Horrocks and other environmentalists believe that the Arsenal's polluters pushed to have it designated as a wildlife refuge so that they would not have to clean it up as thoroughly as they otherwise would.

The U.S. Army and the Shell Oil Company are responsible for most of the contamination at the Arsenal, which was added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List of Superfund sites in 1987.

In 1951, two workers assemble a napalm bomb at the Arsenal for the Korean War.

The Army built the Arsenal in 1942 to manufacture and stockpile chemical weapons to support the country's World War II efforts. By the end of the war, the Arsenal had produced about 155,000 tons of chlorine, mustard gas and arsenic trioxide, as well as some 87,000 tons of chemical products.

After the war, the Army leased parts of the Arsenal to private companies. The Shell Chemical Company made pesticides, insecticides and herbicides at the site from 1951 until 1982.

Both the Army and Shell disposed of liquid wastes from these endeavors in numerous unlined waste trenches around the Arsenal, leading to massive and widespread contamination of the site's soil, groundwater and surface water. Contamination also resulted from leaks in sewer lines, wind dispersion and accidental spills of both chemical products and chemical weapons.

Shell lobbied to have the Arsenal designated a national wildlife refuge after it learned that a pair of bald eagles - then an endangered species - had established a winter roost in a cottonwood grove on the site. The designation, which was codified by Congress in 1992, will save the company millions of dollars in clean up costs.

Young bald eagle at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal

"I think this country has better ways of handling things like this," said the Sierra Club's Horrocks. "This isn't good for the community."

Horrocks for the last two years has sent letters to every school in the Denver metropolitan area, warning teachers and principals not to take students on tours at the Arsenal because of the potential public health risks. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which will ultimately manage the Arsenal after the remediation is completed, conducts guided public tours at the site.

But the warnings articulated by Horrocks and the Sierra Club have been vigorously attacked by another local environmental group, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). In a 1999 letter, the NWF's Thomas Dougherty declared that the Sierra Club had "seriously overreacted" to the potential for dangers during tours of the Arsenal. According to Dougherty and the NWF, it is wrong to deprive Colorado school children of the valuable environmental and nature education programs that the Arsenal provides.

"If any health or safety risk is identified, I trust that EPA, U.S. Army, Fish and Wildlife Service, Colorado Department of Health and others would find it in everyone's interests to take action to protect the public and wildlife at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge and in the surrounding communities," Dougherty wrote in the 1999 letter.

All public tours at the Arsenal were suspended last week after the discovery of the sarin bomb. But for Dougherty, the discovery of the bomb in no way illustrates a fatal flaw with the plan to convert the Arsenal to a wildlife refuge.

"No one has demonstrated to me that human safety was ever at risk," said Dougherty, who noted that the bomb was found in an area not included on the public tours. "The value of allowing the public to gain ownership of an abundant wildlife habitat is still my first consideration."

In addition to bald eagles, the Arsenal refuge is populated by nearly 300 animal species, including deer, coyotes and owls.

One of about 50 coyotes at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal

Dougherty acknowledged that Shell and the Army probably pushed to have the site designated as a wildlife refuge so that they could save money on clean up costs. But had a more stringent clean up standard been mandated for the site, it would have become a prime target for real estate for developers, Dougherty noted.

"I'm absolutely convinced that a wildlife refuge is the best use of the site," Dougherty said.

Still, the discovery of the sarin bomb has only raised more questions about the controversial plans to establish a wildlife refuge at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and another nearby Superfund site, the now mothballed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

A bill that would transform the 6,000 acre Rocky Flats site into a wildlife refuge is currently pending in Congress. Congressman Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat with one of the best environmental records on Capitol Hill, is one of the measure's co-authors.

"We are in effect turning weapons into wildlife," Udall said as the bill was unveiled last month. "This bill would protect one of the last remaining open space opportunities along the Front Range, and at the same time, keep us on track for cleanup and closure of Rocky Flats."

Like the measure in place at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Udall's bill would convert the former nuclear weapons plant into a nation wildlife refuge only after the site has been cleaned up and closed.

The bill maintains federal ownership of the property, and directs that the Department of Energy (DOE) to continue clean up the site. The measure also stipulates that the refuge designation cannot be used to affect the cleanup and will not reduce the level of funds allocated for clean up work at Rocky Flats.

However, under Udall's measure, the public would be prohibited from visiting the wildlife refuge at Rocky Flats until after the clean up at the site is completed.

-------- michigan

AEP Earnings Up 10 Percent

By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-aep-earns-dc.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Electric Power Co.on Tuesday said third-quarter earnings before special items rose 10 percent, aided by strong trading and wholesale power sales and handily beating expectations.

... `Trading and wholesale marketing of power continues to be an increasing factor in our results, driving our comparative performance for the quarter by 29 cents per share,''said Linn Draper, chairman, president and chief executive officer of AEP. Draper said the return to full power by Unit 2 of the Cook station in Michigan, mild weather in the northeast portion of their service territory and better management of power stations outages increased the availability of power that could be sold to wholesale customers.

In early July, The 1,090 megawatt (MW) nuclear power Unit 2 of the two-unit Cook station returned to full power. The adjacent 1,090-MW unit is expected to return to power in the first quarter of 2001. Both units were closed in September 1997 for extensive upgrades to address safety concerns related to the plant's design.

-------- new york

RGS Energy Group, Inc. Reports 2000 Third Quarter Earnings

Excite News
October 23, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/pr/001023/ny-rgs-energy-3q-ern

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- RGS Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE:RGS) today reported consolidated earnings of $0.38 per share for the third quarter ended September 30, 2000, compared to $0.44 per share for the same period in 1999. As anticipated, third quarter 2000 earnings reflect cooler weather, scheduled rate reductions and increased purchase power expenses arising from industry restructuring and generation plant availability. Consolidated earnings for the nine-month period were $1.95 in 2000 compared to $1.79 in 1999. Increased wholesale electric sales, reduced operating expenses and the Company's share buyback program, which resulted in a reduction of shares outstanding, positively affected results for the first nine months of this year. Assuming normal weather for the fourth quarter of this year, the Company expects 2000 earnings per share to exceed last year's results.

Thomas S. Richards, Chairman, President and CEO, stated that "We are pleased to be able to continue to deliver solid results in a time of transition in our industry and turbulent wholesale electric markets. We are effectively managing the transition of our regulated business and growing our unregulated business."

Total electric revenues for the third quarter were down $0.8 million due to cooler weather and the scheduled reduction in regulated rates, which were partially offset by increased electric sales to other utilities. Purchase power expenses were up $11.8 million, which included hedging activities for the summer peak electric load and replacement power for the scheduled 2000 Ginna Nuclear Power Plant refueling outage which started on September 18, 2000. Electric fuel expenses were down $2.2 million due to lower generation at Ginna and the fossil units.

Third quarter regulated non-fuel operating expenses were down $9.9 million compared to last year. This reduction in expenses reflects the recognition of a New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) start-up refund, increased pension income and the elimination of Y2K expenses. Local, State and other taxes were down $4.9 million this quarter compared to 1999, reflecting the reduction in regulated revenues, a lower Gross Receipts Tax and lower property taxes. Partially offsetting the reduction in these taxes was the imposition of new State income taxes that totaled $2.8 million during the quarter. Federal income taxes include a $4.1 million credit resulting from recognition of a favorable resolution of outstanding tax issues.

Other (Income) & Deductions for the current quarter reflect a charge of $12.0 million to establish a reserve based on Management's estimate of adjustments that may occur in accordance with the terms of the PSC Competitive Opportunities Settlement which ends at June 30, 2002.

Energetix, RGS Energy Group's subsidiary, continues to grow its unregulated businesses of providing electric, natural gas, and petroleum-based energy products and services throughout the upstate New York region. Energetix and its subsidiary, Griffith Energy, one of the largest oil and propane distribution companies in New York, now serve a combined total of 140,000 customers. Total revenues for Energetix and Griffith have grown to $324.8 million for the first nine months of 2000 reflecting customer growth and increases in fuel oil prices resulting in a modest pre-tax loss.

The discussion presented above contains statements which are not historic fact and which can be classified as forward looking. In addition to the assumptions and other factors referred to specifically in connection with the forward looking statements, some of the other factors that could have a significant effect on whether the forward looking statements ultimately prove to be accurate are set forth in the RGS Energy Group, Inc. report to the SEC on Form 10-Q dated June 30, 2000.

RGS Energy Group, Inc.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE PERIODS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30

3 MONTHS 2000 1999

TOTAL OPERATING REVENUES $314,305,000 $279,853,000
NET INCOME (BEFORE PFD DIVDS) $14,095,000 $16,890,000
NET INCOME APPLICABLE TO COMMON STOCK $13,170,000 $15,965,000
AVERAGE SHARES OUTSTANDING 34,928,000 36,443,000
BASIC EARNINGS PER SHARE $0.38 $0.44
ELECTRIC SALES (GWH): RETAIL 1,487 1,671
LSEs 307 214
OEUs 438 209
GAS SALES (Mdt) 5,615 5,185
HEATING DEGREE DAYS 236 114

9 MONTHS 2000 1999

TOTAL OPERATING REVENUES $1,010,861,000 $881,750,000
NET INCOME (BEFORE PFD DIVDS) $71,731,000 $68,974,000
NET INCOME APPLICABLE TO COMMON STOCK $68,956,000 $65,816,000
AVERAGE SHARES OUTSTANDING 35,365,000 36,828,000
BASIC EARNINGS PER SHARE $1.95 $1.79
ELECTRIC SALES (GWH): RETAIL 4,339 4,777
LSEs 824 550
OEUs 1,306 678
GAS SALES (Mdt) 38,088 37,467
HEATING DEGREE DAYS 4,138 4,252

12 MONTHS 2000 1999

TOTAL OPERATING REVENUES $1,336,648,000 $1,168,258,000
NET INCOME (BEFORE PFD DIVDS) $ 96,337,000 $83,989,000
NET INCOME APPLICABLE TO COMMON STOCK $ 92,637,000 $79,904,000
AVERAGE SHARES OUTSTANDING 35,571,000 37,082,000
BASIC EARNINGS PER SHARE $2.60 $2.15
ELECTRIC SALES (GWH): RETAIL 5,858 6,311
LSEs 1,037 684
OEUs 1,740 1,017
GAS SALES (Mdt) 52,962 52,040
HEATING DEGREE DAYS 6,175 6,297
COOLING DEGREE DAYS (3RD QTR 00/99) 278 461

RGS Energy Group Inc. Consolidated Statement of Income (Thousands of dollars) (Unaudited)

For the Three Months Ended September 30, 2000 1999
For the Twelve Months Ended September 30, 2000 1999
Year To Date Ended September 30, 2000 1999

Operating Revenues
Electric $189,569 $190,372
$543,375 $529,955
$716,171 $694,236
Gas 37,428 32,300
214,249 203,348
295,377 81,944
Other 87,308 57,181
253,237 148,447
325,100 192,078
Total Operating Revenues 314,305 279,853
1,010,861 881,750
1,336,648 1,168,258

Fuel Expenses
Fuel for electric generation 13,382 15,629
35,419 37,642
47,074 50,601
Purchased electricity 27,928 16,166
64,366 44,489
74,214 50,136
Gas purchased for resale 24,915 18,160
121,180 105,530
167,108 147,709
Other fuel expenses 80,310 51,466
229,323 127,188
291,600 163,034
Total Fuel Expenses 146,535 101,421
450,288 314,849
579,996 411,480
Operating Revenues Less Fuel Expenses 167,770 178,432
560,573 566,901
756,652 756,778

Other Operating Expenses
Operations and maintenance excluding fuel 68,053 77,957
206,534 224,641
279,783 312,210
Unregulated operating and maintenance expenses6,974 6,062
excluding fuel 21,182 18,379
29,266 25,799
Depreciation and amortizaton 29,200 28,967
87,415 89,830
116,281 118,555
Taxes - state, local & other 21,541 26,449
71,229 85,325
100,543 115,080
Income taxes 8,631 9,330
51,671 41,909
74,136 55,787
Total Other Operating Expenses 134,399 148,765
438,031 460,084
600,009 627,431
Operating Income 33,371 29,667
122,542 106,817
156,643 129,347

Other (Income) & Deductions
Allowance for other funds used (225) (124)
during construction (605) (507)
(755) (621)
Income taxes (5,118) 677
(3,777) 2,083
(7,115) (355)
Other - net 9,037 (1,870)
8,321 (5,710)
5,853 (7,550)
Total Other (Income) & Deductions 3,694 (1,317)
3,939 (4,134)
(2,017) (8,526)
Income Before Interest Charges 29,677 30,984
118,603 110,951
158,660 137,873

Interest Charges
Long term debt 14,458 12,996
43,540 39,217
58,004 49,699
Other - net 1,485 1,297
4,300 3,571
5,527 5,180
Allowance for borrowed funds used (361) (199)
during construction (968) (811)
(1,208) (995)
Total Interest Charges 15,582 14,094
46,872 41,977
62,323 53,884
Dividends on Preferred Stock 925 925
2,775 3,158
3,700 4,085
Net Income Applicable to Common Stock 13,170 15,965
68,956 65,816
92,637 79,904

Average Number of Common Shares (000's)
Common Stock 34,928 36,443
35,365 36,828
35,571 37,082
Common Stock and Equivalents 35,009 36,535
35,436 36,863
35,639 37,193

Earnings per Common Share - Basic $0.38 $0.44
$1.95 $1.79
$2.60 $2.15
Earnings per Common Share - Diluted $0.38 $0.44
$1.95 $1.79
$2.60 $2.15
Cash Dividends Paid per Common Share $0.45 $0.45
$1.35 $1.35
$1.80 $1.80

RGS ENERGY GROUP, INC. CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET (Thousand of Dollars)

September 30, 1999 December 31, 2000 Assets (Unaudited)

Utility Plant Electric $2,448,221 $2,399,532
Gas 461,587 453,634
Common 137,542 130,118
Nuclear 291,640 270,447
3,338,990 3,253,731

Less:
Accumulated depreciation 1,723,253 1,636,955
Nuclear fuel amortization 251,274 239,243
1,364,463 1,377,533

Construction work in progress 113,234 95,862
Net Utility Plant 1,477,697 1,473,395

Current Assets Cash and cash equivalents 1,685 8,288
Accounts receivable,
net of allowance for doubtful accounts:2000-$34,236; 1999-$34,026
90,137 90,239
Unbilled revenue receivable 35,908 58,005
Materials, supplies and fuels 65,254 38,206
Prepayments 34,672 24,576
Other current assets 2,229 523
Total Current Assets 229,885 219,837

Intangible Assets Goodwill, net 12,678 13,894
Other Intangible Assets 13,890 7,338
Total Intangible Assets 26,568 21,232

Deferred Debits and Other Assets
Nuclear generating plant decommissioning fund 243,571 220,815
Nine Mile Two deferred costs 27,418 28,206
Unamortized debt expense 16,997 17,984
Other deferred debits 7,129 13,137
Regulatory assets 436,692 466,231
Other assets 614 2,037
Total Deferred Debits and Other Assets 732,421 748,410
Total Assets $2,466,571 $2,462,874

RGS ENERGY GROUP, INC. CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET (Thousand of Dollars)

September 30, December 31, 2000 1999 Capitalization and Liabilities (Unaudited)

Capitalization
Long term debt - mortgage bonds $580,117 $580,070
- promissory notes 233,158 235,395
Affiliate preferred stock
redeemable at option of Company 47,000 47,000
Affiliate preferred stock
subject to mandatory redemption 25,000 25,000
Common shareholders' equity
Common stock Authorized
100,000,000 shares; 38,885,813 shares issued at
September 30, 2000 and at December 31, 1999 700,803 700,268
Retained earnings 174,745 153,186
875,548 853,454

Less: Treasury stock at cost (4,222,700 shares at September 30, 2000 and 2,942,600 shares at December 31, 1999) 112,811 83,252
Total Common Shareholders' Equity 762,737 770,202
Total Capitalization 1,648,012 1,657,667

Long Term Liabilities Nuclear waste disposal 95,792 91,743
Uranium enrichment decommissioning 11,279 10,911
Site remediation 22,988 23,698
130,059 126,352

Current Liabilities Long term debt due within one year 8,189 37,643 Short term debt 44,000 10,500 Accounts payable 83,939 54,221 Dividends payable 16,515 17,078 Equal payment plan 4,483 10,529 Other 44,315 39,385 Total Current Liabilities 201,441 169,356

Deferred Credits and Other Liabilities Accumulated deferred income taxes 285,821 318,694 Pension costs accrued 35,665 48,628 Kamine deferred costs 53,598 58,738 Post employment benefits 53,860 48,653 Other 58,115 34,786 Total Deferred Credits and Other Liabilities 487,059 509,499

Commitments and Other Matters -- --

Total Capitalization and Liabilities $2,466,571 $2,462,874

RGS ENERGY GROUP, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS (Thousands of Dollars) (Unaudited)

Nine Months Ended 2000 1999
CASH FLOW FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES
Net Income $71,731 $68,974
Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided from operating activities: Depreciation & Amortization 100,298 101,681
Income taxes deferred (22,643) (3,554)
Changes in working capital, net 11,352 16,145
Other, net 36,313 5,216
Total Operating 197,052 188,462

CASH FLOW FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES
Net additions to utility plant (102,605) (78,945)
Nuclear generating plant decommissioning fund(15,536) (15,536)
Acquisition, net of cash (7,676) (3,152)
Other, net -- (34)
Total Investing (125,816) (97,667)

CASH FLOW FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES
Redemption of: Preferred stock -- (10,000)
Long term debt (30,000) --
Repayment of promissory notes (2,810) (5,096)
Short term borrowings, net 33,500 2,840
Payments of dividends (50,735) (53,260)
Purchase of treasury stock (29,559) (27,594)
Other, net 1,766 344
Total Financing (77,839) (92,766)
Increase in cash and cash equivalents (6,603) (1,971)
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 8,288 6,523
Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $1,685 $4,552

Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation Sales Statistics

For the Three Months Ended Sept. 30, 2000 % Change From 1999
For the Nine Months Ended Sept. 30, 2000 % Change From 1999
For the Twelve Months Ended Sept. 30, 2000 % Change From 1999

Electric-MWH
Residential 543,807 -13.3%
1,619,101 -6.8%
2,152,341 -4.4%
Commercial 446,565 -9.0%
1,264,300 -7.7%
1,678,992 -6.8%
Industrial 405,547 -6.7%
1,163,724 -10.1%
1,630,223 -7.0%
Municipal/Other 90,836 -22.4%
292,255 -22.5%
396,719 -21.5%
Total Retail Sales 1,486,755 -11.0%
4,339,380 -9.2%
5,858,275 -7.2%
Energy Marketers 307,425 43.4%
823,387 49.7%
1,036,299 51.5%
Other Electric Utilities 438,152 109.4%
1,305,819 92.7%
1,740,020 71.1%
Total Electric Sales 2,232,332 6.6%
6,468,586 7.7%
8,634,594 7.8%

Gas-Therms (000's)
Residential 17,489 8.4%
183,871 -4.7%
260,937 -3.7%
Commercial 2,629 3.4%
29,050 -7.0%
40,997 -12.5%
Industrial 128 -9.2%
2,965 -14.3%
4,048 -23.6%
Municipal 218 20.8%
3,397 -21.6%
4,815 -23.2%
Total Customer Sales 20,464 7.7%
219,283 -5.4%
310,797 -5.7%
Transportation of Customer Owned Gas35,689 8.6%
161,601 13.2%
218,820 14.6%
Total Gas Sold and Transported 56,153 8.3%
380,884 1.7%
529,617 1.8%


-------- utah

Environmental News Network
Monday, October 23, 2000
News Bytes
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/10/10232000/newsbytes_39482.asp

Tailing Atlas - U.S. Congress recently approved legislation to provide groundwater restoration and make way for the removal of some 13 million tons of radioactive mill tailings that have polluted the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, for nearly 50 years. The legislation, part of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act, will transfer jurisdiction for the Atlas uranium tailings site from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Department of Energy, with instructions to the DOE to remove the tailings from the floodplain of the river and restore the groundwater. The Atlas tailings pile, weighing in at 13 million tons over 130 acres, is the fifth largest in the United States. It covers an estimated 118 football fields in the floodplain of the Colorado River.

http://grandcanyontrust.org/science.htm
http://www.nrc.gov
http://www.doe.gov

---

http://grandcanyontrust.org/science.htm

Background

The Atlas Uranium Mill was built in 1956 beside the Colorado River, near Moab, Utah at the direction of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Atlas Corporation bought the mill in 1961 and operated it under jurisdiction of the AEC and its successor Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) until shutdown in 1984. For sixteen years thereafter, the company negotiated with NRC over reclamation plans. Early uranium production was mostly for the Cold War weapons or reactor programs, and, overall, 56% of the entire output was sold to the US government. From initial siting through everyday operation and shutdown of the mill, federal involvement has been constant and pervasive. Now, there is a clear responsibility for the government to assure an environmentally sound clean up, but this mill appears to be falling into an unanticipated void in the regulatory framework. That is why Secretary Richardson's January 14th announcement asking that jurisdiction be transferred from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to DOE is so important. It offers the promise that DOE can complete the great work of removing uranium mill wastes from the shores of the Colorado River and its tributaries.

Water Contamination

During its 28 years of operation, the mill accumulated 13 million tons of radioactive tailings and other mill wastes in an unlined pond in the floodplain of the Colorado River.i Underground leakage from this tailings pile has averaged 57,000 gallons per day over the last 40 years.ii The result is a plume of heavily contaminated groundwater over a mile wide and forty feet deep, discharging directly into the Colorado River. Some of the pollutants found in high concentrations in the aquifer and the river, or in fish are: ammonia; nitrates; sulfates; uranium; molybdenum; vanadium; and selenium.iii Ammonia levels in the river are so high that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a finding that current conditions, if allowed to continue, will jeopardize the existence of four species of endangered fish. To avoid an Endangered Species Act trainwreck, the agency agreed to a plan to cap the tailings in place as long as comprehensive treatment of the groundwater is completed within ten years. Without such treatment, high levels of leakage are projected to continue for hundreds of years. Though one would expect the Clean Water Act to protect the tens of millions of downstream water users, a federal appeals court has recently ruled that discharges from uranium mills are specifically exempt from that law. All jurisdiction has been concentrated in the NRC. As explained below, however, NRC does not have the financial and technical resources to reclaim the site itself, nor can the new licensee do the job for it. Without the direct congressional intervention requested by Secretary Richardson, there is scant prospect for a successful clean up.

The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978

Congress established the regulatory framework for uranium mill reclamation with passage of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) in 1978. Under the Act, current NRC licensees (like Atlas) were to clean up their own mills with NRC oversight, while mills that had been orphaned by the demise of the parent company were assigned to the Department of Energy (DOE) for reclamation. DOE received appropriations for performing the actual work, and has nearly completed surface reclamation at the 21 mills in the so-called Title I program. Of the ten tailings piles in this portfolio that were situated near western rivers, nine were moved to safer sites because of concerns about water contamination. (Only the Shiprock, NM site which sits high on a bluff above the San Juan River was reclaimed in place.) Federal investment at these nine sites exceeds $1.1 billion.iv In contrast, NRC does not receive appropriations for reclamation of its Title II sites, nor does NRC have the capability to do reclamation work. The agency's role is purely regulatory. It does not even plan clean up procedures, but simply rules on the adequacy of reclamation plans proposed by its licensees. Atlas Corporation never proposed to move its mill wastes to a safer location.

Atlas' Reclamation Plans and Costs

Ever since the passage of UMTRCA, NRC and Atlas Corporation struggled to agree on a reclamation plan for the Moab mill, which is nearly twice as large and far more polluting than the largest of the DOE sites. In 1982, Atlas proposed simply capping the tailings in place and established a $6.5 million bond to do the work. The amount of this bond was never increased, even though regulations subsequently promulgated by NRC clearly increased the cost of reclamation at the site. Atlas' final estimate of the cost of simply capping the pile was $19-22 million, and experience at similar tailings piles reclaimed by the DOE indicates that the actual cost might be much higher.v Additionally, neither NRC nor Atlas developed a plan to treat the groundwater contamination, since NRC considers groundwater clean-up a separate licensing action to be undertaken only after a surface reclamation plan is approved. However, NRC has estimated the cost of groundwater treatment at $25 million, and the State of Utah has placed the price tag at $77 million. The wide range of estimates reflects professional uncertainty about treatment options for the complex and unprecedented conditions of contamination at the Atlas mill.vi The estimated full cost of reclamation in place (with groundwater treatment) thus ranges from $44 million to over $100 million.

Atlas' Bankruptcy

Prospects for successful reclamation dimmed significantly when Atlas filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in September 1998.vii Since then, the company has signed a Settlement Agreement with NRC, Utah and the other creditors. Under the terms of this Agreement, Atlas terminated its NRC license in late 1999 and transferred certain assets into a Reclamation Trust. The company is now free of liability for the site. Initially, the assets of this Trust consist of the reclamation bond (its net realizable value is only $5.25 million), and title to the millsite and associated water rights (The millsite present value is negative. Value after reclamation will be perhaps $1-2 million). In the last days of 1999, NRC named PricewaterhouseCoopers as the new licensee, responsible for using the assets of the Trust to begin implementation of Atlas' capping plan. The licensee is eligible for 56% reimbursement of costs from Title X of the Energy Policy Act, administered by DOE. Under the most optimistic scenario, the assets of the Trust plus Title X reimbursements will be significantly less than Atlas' estimate for surface reclamation alone. There will be absolutely no money for groundwater treatment.

NRC Actions

While NRC was helping negotiate the Settlement Agreement that freed Atlas from liability for the Moab site, it took the puzzling simultaneous step of approving Atlas' Final Reclamation Plan (with its estimated $19-22 million cost) in May 1999. PricewaterhouseCoopers is now beginning implementation of this plan. The NRC approval is conditioned on successful completion of several studies and stipulates that capping cannot begin until it is proven that ammonia in the groundwater will be brought within standards set by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It is not clear, even to NRC, how the licensee will perform the studies and do the work with the scanty resources available. There appears to be high potential for the assets of the Trust to be wasted in a partial reclamation that does not address water contamination at all. What will happen thereafter occupies a blank spot on the regulatory map. Most likely, NRC will terminate the license and issue an Order transferring the unreclaimed site to DOE for perpetual custodial care. Active reclamation by DOE under this scenario will require congressional action.

Endangered Species Act Concerns

The US Fish and Wildlife Service concluded its Biological Opinion on the Atlas reclamation plan with a clear finding that capping the tailings without treating the groundwater will jeopardize the continued existence of endangered pikeminnows and razorback suckers.viii Several federal agencies are spending millions of dollars annually on a recovery program for these fish. Protecting habitat and water quality are key elements of the program, in which the impacts of various uses such as dams and irrigation withdrawals are being carefully balanced with the needs of the fish. If a major source of stress, like Atlas, is allowed to go untreated, other far more beneficial uses could be affected in order to offset the insult to water quality.

Need for Congressional Action

UMTRCA does not have a mechanism for transferring a site from Title II (NRC jurisdiction) to Title I (DOE jurisdiction) and the architects of UMTRCA did not provide guidance for situations where an NRC licensed site is orphaned. In the only precedent case, the State of Wyoming took over reclamation of a small tailings pile whose owner went bankrupt. At Atlas, with its much greater liability, the State of Utah has refused that role. NRC cannot do the work and the Reclamation Trust is too small for PricewaterhouseCoopers to do the job. This is the situation that prompted Secretary Richardson's February announcement that DOE will seek legislation to transfer the Atlas site to its jurisdiction, along with an appropriation sufficient to plan and execute a coordinated, comprehensive reclamation, both above and below ground. An offsetting revenue has been identified in oil and gas royalties to be paid by the Northern Ute Tribe on production from the former Naval Oil Shale Reserve #2 that is being returned to the tribe. The "Keep the Colorado River Clean Act" was introduced as HR 4165 by Congressman Chris Cannon and 49 co-sponsors on April 4, 2000. Senator Bob Bennett is expected to sponsor similar legislation in the Senate.

Footnotes i Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) found that the tailings pile sits 750 feet from the river at normal water levels, but is inundated by the river when it reaches flood stages above 45,000 cfs. For example, the 1993 flood of 49,000 cfs left the pile standing in 7 feet of river water. The nearby USGS measuring station has recorded this level of flood in 26 different years since record keeping began in 1914.

ii The Center for Nuclear Wast Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA), under contract to NRC, estimated leakage at 57,600 gallons/day over the life of the pile, and found that elevated levels of leakage will continue for 200-240 years after Atlas' proposed cap is installed.

iii ORNL measured groundwater sulfate concentrations of 21,947 mg/l; ammonia at 2,703 mg/l; and uranium at 26 mg/l or 590 times the NRC maximum of 0.0444 mg/l. The State of Utah measured ammonia in the river at 15 mg/l, or 7.8 times the dose US Fish & Wildlife considers immediately lethal to the endangered fish. The pile contains 426 million gallons of free tailings liquid, which will leak out unless the pile is dewatered. For this reason, CNWRA determined that contamination of the river will actually get worse for the next 60 years unless the groundwater is treated.

iv DOE relocated tailings piles at the following sites: Naturita, Colorado (San Miguel River); Slick Rock, Colorado (Dolores River); Gunnison, Colorado (Gunnison River); Riverton, Wyoming (Little Wind River); Durango, Colorado (Animas River); Rifle, Colorado (2 sites; Colorado River); Grand Junction, Colorado (Colorado River); and Green River, Utah (Green River). With the exception of the Little Wind River, all are tributaries of the Colorado River. The largest was the Grand Junction site containing 4.4 million cubic yards. Atlas is 70% larger, at 7.5 million cubic yards.

v On a per cubic yard basis, the least expensive DOE reclamation was at Ambrosia Lake, NM. There, 5.1 million cubic yards were reclaimed on site at a cost of $7.57/cubic yard. There were no groundwater or river complications there, but if Atlas could somehow match this lowest-ever price with current dollars, the cost for the 7.5 million cubic yard pile would $5.6 million.

vi Both the volume of contamination and the high concentrations are unlike anything dealt with in the DOE program. Technologies will be either experimental or applied at scales never before attempted. The periodic flooding of the river further complicates matters by introducing the probability that treatment structures will be overtopped.

vii NRC filed a creditor's claim in the Atlas proceeding for $44 million, reflecting the agency's estimate of reclamation costs at the site. The State of Utah filed a claim for $77 million to cover anticipated costs of groundwater treatment.

viii The first draft of US Fish & Wildlife Service's Biological Opinion offered moving the pile away from the river as the only "Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA)" to Atlas' capping plan. The Final Biological Opinion included an RPA specifying that capping could begin as a way of accelerating implementation of a promised comprehensive groundwater treatment program. This must bring ammonia levels in the river below set standards within 10 years. However, shortly after this document was released, Atlas filed bankruptcy, casting doubt on whether water treatment will ever happen.

Mill site photo by Tom Till

-------- us nuc politics

Editorial: Gore's Russian roulette

Savannah Morning News
Web posted Monday, October 23, 2000
mailto:mswendra@savannahnow.com?subject=Mark Swendra
http://www.savannahmorningnews.com/smn/stories/102300/OPEDone.shtml

THROUGHOUT THE presidential campaign, Vice President Gore has trumpeted the fact he has more foreign policy experience and global political connections than his opponent George W. Bush. But to what end would he wield that influence?

Recent revelations about his dealings with a former Russian official provides some unsettling insight.

First, The New York Times revealed that in 1995 Mr. Gore signed a secret agreement with then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, whom he has characterized as a close friend. It essentially exempted Russia from American sanctions on arms deliveries to Iran.

We're not talking salvage AK-47s and some loose ammo. Those weapons included sophisticated fighter jets and bombers, anti-ballistic missile systems and Kilo-class submarines, the most advanced subs in the world, armed with torpedoes designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers.

Imagine the havoc they could wreak on Navy ships in the Persian Gulf.

Mr. Gore agreed to allow Russia to arm a known state sponsor of global terrorism, one of the most virulent anti-American regimes in the world and which also holds enormous antipathy toward Israel, this nation's strongest ally in the Middle East. And the vice president did this in apparent violation of existing U.S. law.

In 1992 Congress passed the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-proliferation Act, which requires the imposition of sanctions on nations who make "destabilizing" arms sales to either country. The co-sponsors of the legislation were Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - and one Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn.

In other words, Mr. Gore may have violated the very law he helped write.

The Gore campaign and the Clinton administration have responded to this news not by denying a deal was struck, but by arguing that it doesn't violate the 1992 law. The statute prohibits sales of "advanced conventional weapons" that would change the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, and the Gore people contend the Russian materiel failed to meet that threshold.

Those sophisticated Kilo-class subs alone would appear to make a mockery of that excuse. Iran could destroy U.S. warships, sink oil tankers or blockade the oil shipping lanes, any of which would shift the balance of power in that region.

Under the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement, Moscow was supposed to halt arms sales to Iran by Dec. 31, 1999. But now there's ample evidence that Russia hasn't lived up to the deal and continues to arm Tehran with conventional weapons, as well as supplying nuclear reactor and ballistic missile technology.

Maybe since Mr. Chernomyrdin is no longer prime minister, Russia feels no obligation to honor his past agreements.

On top of all that, The Washington Times last week reported that it had obtained a classified 1995 letter from Mr. Chernomyrdin to Mr. Gore in which the prime minister requested that the vice president not convey the existence of their deal to "third parties, including the U.S. Congress."

Mr. Gore didn't let his friend down - he apparently never told American lawmakers of the arms agreement.

That's a violation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Act, which requires administrations to keep congressional oversight committees informed of all issues related to nuclear weapons proliferation.

We thought secret arms sales to Iran had been exposed as a bad idea during the Reagan administration. If Mr. Gore had a compelling reason why Russia should not be sanctioned for arming Iran, he at least should have shared it with Congress instead of going behind its back.

-------- us nuc waste

NEW BOOK, CD-ROM GUIDE HAZMAT TRANSPORT

October 23, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2000/2000L-10-23-09.html

DES PLAINES, Illinois, A massive increase in the transportation of hazardous materials has magnified safety concerns about these materials, says the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). To address this, ASSE has released a new book with a companion CD-ROM that explains how to safely handle a hazardous material spill or release. ASSE's new book, "Hazardous Materials Behavior and Emergency Response Operations," by Denis Zeimet and David Ballard, is aimed at providing a thorough understanding of hazardous material behavior and emergency response procedures. Written as a technical primer for students in the safety and fire sciences, it is also a useful resource for emergency response personnel, industrial safety and training coordinators, and others who require an introduction to the technical aspects of hazardous materials but lack an extensive background in chemistry and toxicology. Particular emphasis is placed on illustrating how molecular composition, structure and bonding influence hazardous properties such as toxicity, flammability, reactivity and corrosiveness.

Designed for use in training courses, each chapter of the book begins with expected outcomes and learning objectives and ends with detailed review questions. The book provides a review of federal regulations, labeling, and sources of information on hazardous materials; technical primers on the chemistry and toxicology of hazardous materials; hazardous material emergency response procedures; and an overview of hazard analysis planning and chemical safety inspections and audits. The new book and CD-ROM are available through the ASSE web site at http://www.asse.org, or by calling ASSE at: 847-699-2929. The price is $119.95 for ASSE members, $149.95 for non-members.

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US ups estimate of plutonium waste -

NY Times
USA: October 23, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8652

NEW YORK - The Energy Department has increased by 10 times its estimate of how much plutonium and other man-made radioactive material has been released in the ground or buried in poorly built containers, the New York Times said on Saturday.

The Times said that the department for years had stated that more than 97 percent of plutonium and related waste generated by the first four decades of nuclear weapons production was in "retrievable" storage awaiting burial at a new depository.

Only about 3 percent had been placed in soil or buried, it said.

Energy Department officials now say there is 10 times the amount of such wastes in the soil and in inadequate containers than previously estimated, the Times said.

The new estimate was said to come three years after an environmental group called the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research said the government's data was inconsistent and contradictory.

Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the group, told the Times that the government was doing little to address the problem of wastes in the dirt and in rusty, leaking barrels.

The Times cited a July letter to Makhijani from Carolyn Huntoon, assistant secretary for environmental management at the Energy Department, saying the department would not change the way it was managing the buried wastes.

The department's policy is to gather information on them and review them on a case-by-case basis, it said.

In a statement to the newspaper on Friday, Huntoon said the department would ask the National Academy of Sciences to review the Energy Department's strategies.

Huntoon added that the National Academy of Sciences backs the department's policies toward the wastes.

The Times said it was unclear how much material had leached into the ground at dump sites around the country.

-------- MILITARY

-------- china

From: David Morrock <davidm@morrock.com>
Morrock News, Monday, Oct. 23, 2000

CHINA SEES WAR WITH U.S. AS LIKELY: China sees the U.S. as its No. 1 enemy and believes that war with Taiwan is inevitable and war with the U.S. is likely, according to a report by John Leicester of the Associated Press, who writes: "Besides blowing up targets, test-firing missiles and driving tanks, the military displays at four land and sea sites in northern China in the middle of this month proved new capabilities to attack stealth warplanes and cruise missiles, state media reported."

-------- iran

Iran To Test Chinese - Made Missiles

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Naval.html

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran will reportedly test a modified version of a Chinese-made anti-ship missile during naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf next week.

Iran's regular army and the elite Revolutionary Guards will test C-802 Silkworm missiles in eight days of war games starting Sunday, the daily Iran quoted Morteza Saffari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' naval forces, as saying.

The war games will be staged in the Straight of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman, the paper said Monday.

Saffari did not say what modifications had been made on the missiles. Iran has tried to increase the range of missiles it has purchased from China and North Korea, according to officials from Israel and the United States.

An Iranian army official said Iran would deploy a large force as well as submarines for the war games. Iran has three Kilo-class Russian-built submarines.

Iran has built and tested a number of missiles, including the Shahab-3 which has a range of 810 miles. Washington denounced a July test of the Shahab-3, which it said could reach Israel or U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

-------- nato

Greece Leaves Turkey NATO Exercise

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Turkey-Greece-NATO.html

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Greek forces have pulled out of NATO exercises in Turkey after a dispute between the neighboring nations over military boundaries in the Aegean Sea, military officials said.

The dispute marked the first serious threat to a yearlong effort to improve relations between the traditional rivals.

``There is a real problem which NATO must deal with,'' Greek government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said Monday.

Greece's Defense Minister, Akis Tsochadzopoulos, ordered the county's forces to pull out of the maneuvers after NATO did not respond to a Greek request to cut the seven-nation exercises short.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Turkish military official at the NATO exercises said the entire Greek contingent -- two warships, six jets and 127 soldiers -- had returned home by Monday morning.

The pullout came after Turkey blocked Greek jets from participating in the exercise Saturday and warned of ``undesired results'' if Greece persisted in flying over two Aegean islands.

Turkey says the Greek islands, Lemnos and Ikaria, are ``demilitarized zones'' under past agreements. Greece, which maintains a strong military presence on Lemnos, says they were included in exercise flight plans.

The seven-nation military exercises are scheduled to end Wednesday.

Turkey and Greece have come close to war three times in the last 26 years over the divided island of Cyprus and over a number of territorial disputes in the Aegean.

But the neighboring nations agreed last year to set aside long-standing differences and began talks aimed to ease tensions. Turkey was accepted as a candidate to join the European Union after Greece lifted objections.

Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said the dispute should not be seen as the end of efforts to improve relations.

``I don't find it right that after one or two events one immediately becomes pessimistic on these efforts toward friendship,'' Cakmakoglu said.

Also Monday, Turkey's private television NTV reported that Greek Cypriot missile batteries locked on two Turkish F-16s which apparently entered Greek Cypriot air space to confront two Greek jets taking off from Paphos air base.

``You can't lock your missiles on our planes,'' NTV television quoted Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash as saying. ``If you are not careful, this could mean war.''

Cyprus has been divided into ethnic Greek and Turkish areas since the 1974 Turkish invasion which came in the wake of a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Turkey maintains 35,000 troops on the island.

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

'Killed in Action': Is Gender an Issue?

Washington Post
Monday, October 23, 2000; Page A03
By Thomas E. Ricks and Steve Vogel Washington Post Staff Writers
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58342-2000Oct22.html

In the tense hours after the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, Chris Ferretti was among the spouses who waited anxiously at Norfolk Naval Station for news about their loved ones aboard the crippled ship in faraway Yemen.

But unlike most of the others, Chris Ferretti is a man. When his wife, Petty Officer 2nd Class Loretta Lynn Taylor Ferretti, finally was able to call, she told him that she had been very lucky. Shortly before the blast, she decided to skip lunch in favor of a nap. She was asleep when the explosion hit the ship's mess.

The attack on the Cole, which appears to have been the first major terrorist attack on a U.S. warship, also marked another milestone: It was the first time that women permanently assigned to a Navy combatant ship have died in an attack on that ship, according to Lt. Jane Alexander, a Navy spokeswoman. She chose those words carefully because the Navy is not sure whether a female nurse ever was killed while serving temporarily on a warship.

Two of the 17 sailors who died aboard the Cole were women--Lakeina M. Francis, 19, of Woodleaf, N.C., and Lakiba Nicole Palmer, 22, of San Diego--a fact the country appears to have taken pretty much in stride. "Whether they're male or female doesn't matter," said Rear Adm. John Foley, commander of naval surface forces for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. "The focus has been on all Cole sailors."

"The story is that there is no story," said another senior Navy officer. "The media didn't say, 'Holy mackerel.'"

Academic experts on the military also have noted the lack of controversy. "I have to admit to being surprised that there was no media coverage related to the fact that women died aboard the Cole," said Juanita Firestone, a military sociologist at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

But there is sharp disagreement among the experts about what this means.

One school says the large, and growing, role of women in the military is now widely accepted. "I think the American public has gotten used to women being killed in the line of duty, not only in the military, but as police officers," said Mady Wechsler Segal, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Adds retired Navy Capt. Georgia Sadler, "The public understands that people who serve in the military can be killed, regardless of their gender. Thus, the public is taking the deaths of women in stride, and, rightfully, mourning for all the casualties of the Cole as sailors and heroes."

The other, more conservative view is that the American people's tolerance for the deaths of female soldiers and sailors has not been put to a full test.

"I suspect this is not yet the crossroads," said Cap Parlier, a retired Marine Corps test pilot.

In the Cole bombing, he noted, "the public never saw bodies, just a big hole in the side of the ship, a number of flag-draped caskets, some names and portrait photographs." He said he believes that the public will react vigorously when it someday sees photographs of "the semi-nude body of a female pilot being dragged through the streets of some Third World country."

Both schools agree that the 1991 Persian Gulf War was a watershed. Before that, most women in combat theaters were nurses.

During World War I, according to the Defense Department, no military women died in action, but 102 were felled by influenza and injury. During World War II, 16 nurses were killed in action, 14 died in aircraft crashes and other accidents, and 312 were killed by disease. Fifteen nurses died in Korea, and 10 in Vietnam.

But the Gulf War was the first time that American women went to war in large numbers as combatants. Some 37,000 were sent to the Gulf region, making up 7 percent of total U.S. forces there. Five Army women were killed in action, and nine others died in accidents according to the Pentagon.

In an even greater shock for public opinion, two U.S. women were taken prisoner by Iraqi troops. Early in the war, Spec. Melissa Rathbun-Nealy became the first female American POW since World War II when she was captured while driving an Army truck in Saudi Arabia near the Kuwaiti border. Later on, then-Maj. Rhonda Cornum, a flight surgeon, was shot down while on a combat search-and-rescue mission over Iraq.

Rathbun-Nealy later declined to discuss her experiences as a prisoner, but Cornum made headlines when she disclosed that she had been sexually assaulted.

Overall, the Gulf War was seen by many women as a successful test of their expanded place in the U.S. military. "Women performed vital roles, under stress, and performed well," concluded the section on female personnel in the Pentagon's official report to Congress on the "Conduct of the Persian Gulf War."

After that conflict, the Pentagon dropped a variety of restrictions, and today 92 percent of military career fields are open to women, including virtually all combat jobs in the Navy and Air Force, except in Special Operations and aboard submarines. In the Army, women fly attack helicopters but are still barred from most ground combat roles in the infantry, artillery, armor and combat engineer branches.

There is general agreement among the experts that, given the large number of women in combat billets, the next time the United States fights a large-scale ground war, women may die in large numbers. Also, analysts say, the nature of warfare is changing, making rear areas almost as vulnerable as the front lines, so that even if more combat slots aren't opened to women, they still are likely to be exposed to hostile fire.

It remains to be seen what the public reaction will be then, said John Sibley Butler, a military sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin who served as a combat medic during the Vietnam War. He noted that on certain bad days in Vietnam, he sometimes put more dead soldiers in body bags than were killed aboard the Cole.

But former Navy secretary James Webb says an opposite, colder reaction may occur. He worries that 25 years of an all-volunteer force have left most Americans feeling distant from their armed services, and so perhaps less concerned by casualties.

"They respect the military," said Webb. "But with the volunteer system, fewer and fewer Americans have any personal stakes when our people go into harm's way."

Military Women
Women represent a substantial portion of each branch of the military.

Number of women in uniform:
Percent of personnel who are women:

Army
Number of women in uniform: 70,687
Percent of personnel who are women: 15%

Air Force
Number of women in uniform: 65,746
Percent of personnel who are women: 19%

Navy
Number of women in uniform: 49,746
Percent of personnel who are women: 14%

Marines
Number of women in uniform: 10,272
Percent of personnel who are women: 6%

Number of women in uniform who died in action or from disease:
* World War I: 102
* World War II: 342
* Korean War: 15
* Vietnam War: 10
* 1988 Naples terrorist bombing: 1
* Persian Gulf War: 14
* 1995 Oklahoma City bombing: 4
* 1998 Kenya bombing: 1
* Oct. 12 attack on ship in Yemen: 2

SOURCE: Defense Department

---

Why Americans Died in Yemen

By William M. Arkin Special to The Washington Post
Monday , October 23, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48210-2000Oct20?language=printer

In November 1995, four and a half years after the end of the Gulf War, the government of Iraq turned over a previously undetected Soviet made SS-21 missile launcher to United Nations inspectors, revealing enormous blind spots in our intelligence.

Intelligence failure is again to blame for the deaths of 17 Americans aboard the USS Cole.

Yet while investigators search for the perpetrators, and two recently retired officers undertake the now routine inquiry into the specific circumstances that led to the attack, there is a massive forest looming beyond the trees.

The truth of the USS Cole bombing is not exciting, or conspiratorial. The tragedy goes beyond a lack of intelligence warning. Americans didn't die because Yemen provides a secret listening post on Socotra island or a prospective U.S. base, as has been suggested in the press. Yemen was not the only geographic alternative for Navy ships to refuel. Pundits might blithely say that the deaths occurred so that Americans can drive their SUVs at 85 miles per hour, but there isn't any oil to justify our so-called "engagement" policy.

No, American lives were wasted so that a meaningless country could be wrested away from some mythical Iraqi orbit. Yemen can be put on the American team against the region's number one bad boy, and Washington scores that as progress.

It is foreign policy without inhaling.

Oh, that SS-21 launcher in Iraq? The bumbling intelligence watchers found out in 1995 that Yemen had secretly supplied the nuclear capable missile to Saddam.

Don't Go There

In May 1990, the former independent states of North and South Yemen unified to create a new republic, a country that would become the poorest in the Arab world, one beset by chronic unemployment and internal instability. Though Yemen has proven oil reserves of some four billion barrels, it is an infinitesimal amount compared with Saudi Arabia's 263.5 billion barrels.

In fact, oil is not what Yemen is noted for. Some might remember the country as one of two (the other was Cuba) who voted against the U.N. Security Council mandate to use force against Iraq in 1990. But earlier this year, the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism report put it more succinctly in describing our new friend, calling Yemen a "safehaven for terrorist groups."

Not only do a variety of Islamic terrorists operate in the country, but home-grown tribal bandits regularly target foreigners. On January 17, two U.S. Embassy employees narrowly escaped a kidnap attempt. In early March, the Polish ambassador to Yemen was kidnapped for four days. Besides kidnapping, there have been numerous attacks on an oil pipeline in eastern Yemen, a pipeline operated by U.S.-based Hunt Oil.

Fueling the Fire

Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, brushing aside all of these facts and warning signs. He argues that his 1997 decision to court favor with Yemen was justified because the strategically located country is the best alternative for refueling in the Red Sea, a better choice even than Saudi Arabia or nearby Djibouti.

The purely military argument is utterly false. First, it is absurd to call Yemen safer than the two alternatives Zinni lists. Take Djibouti. U.S. Navy ships have visited the former French territory for decades. It is not even mentioned in the latest State Department Terrorism report. The Consular Information Sheet for the country doesn't mention terrorism. It merely tells Americans to "exercise caution when traveling to any remote area of the country, including the borders with Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia" because of unrest in those places. We are to believe that Yemen is necessary and more desirable than Saudi Arabia, Djibouti or completely friendly Oman just a few hundred miles away when U.S. Navy ships have been operating around the Arabian peninsula for 18 years without the Yemeni toehold?

No, the truth is that the opening towards Yemen was part of a broader American policy for the region, the refueling capability merely tacked on because that's what the U.S. military does when it makes nice: VIP visits, military exercises, exchanges, and port calls.

Relations for What?

Government officials who will talk, and those who testified before Congress, want us to believe that this new relationship with Yemen is "bearing fruit," that there is some specific and broader geo-political benefit for the United States. To them, the positive signs are a growing "humanitarian" effort funded by the United States, Yemeni military personnel attending U.S. military schools, U.S. special forces training Yemeni security types in counter-terrorism, even assistance to the Yemeni Coast Guard.

"We have been working to improve our relations with Yemen for some time," Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said last week at a Pentagon press conference.

Samuel R. Berger, the president's national security adviser, similarly lauded the "fragile movement toward political reform" that the United States saw taking hold in the Arab world at a speech at Stanford in December 1998. He singled out Yemen for holding open parliamentary elections and having a vibrant press.

So score one for the home team. In the Cold War habit of creating balance sheets of "our side" versus "theirs," Yemen is no longer unfinished business. The bureaucratic objective of recruiting them for the American camp is completed. The culmination occurred this April when Yemen's elected president, (that is, Lt. General) Ali Abdullah Saleh visited Washington and met with President Clinton.

Global Knuckleheads

"We are a global power. We have global responsibilities, and there are risks associated with that," Secretary of Defense William Cohen said at the Pentagon last week.

Speaking in North Carolina after the Cole incident, Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said the attack would not deter the United States from its mission to support peace, security and prosperity throughout the world.

It's circular. Between no fly zones and an embargo against Iraq, and an increasing presence in the region, engagement is hardly just Shelton's meaningless articulation of a global mission. It is refueling and supplies and toeholds and entry points to sustain a mobile and overstretched military machine. Zinni takes responsibility, and everyone in Washington seems to heave a sigh of relief at his valor, happy not to question the fundamental basis of the Yemen relationship. Meanwhile, we are being told that we need to increase defense spending so that we can "engage" more Yemens, put more Americans at risk. Sure, the military could use more money if this is how we are going to continue to operate it into the future. A far better alternative would be to break off some senseless engagements and stop making believe that there is any real benefit in a post-war imperial mission.

Contact William M. Arkin at william_arkin@washingtonpost.com.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Solar power trip ICP charges up its revenues to more than $10 million

Montreal Gazette
Monday 23 October 2000
PAUL DELEAN The Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/pages/001023/4734158.html

Quebec, a hotbed of solar-energy know-how? How can that be? Don't you need sun year-round for that? Sass Peress knows how improbable it seems. By now, he's used to the skepticism.

It hasn't kept him from building his Montreal company, ICP Global Technologies, into a developer and distributor of solar-powered products with international reach, and annual sales of "more than $10 million."

ICP sells solar panels capable of running small appliances, battery savers for cars, and solar-powered battery chargers. They're sold in Canada by large retailers such as Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart and Costco, and in the U.S. by the likes of Auto Zone, Camping World, Radio Shack, Wal-Mart's Sam's Club and West Marine.

"At the moment, about 90 per cent of our sales are exports," said Peress, ICP's president and chief executive officer. "We sell in the U.S., Japan, Australia, Germany and the U.K."

All the products were designed in-house, though some are made for ICP in Asia.

Local manufacturing operations will get a major boost over the next few months following a move this summer to a new plant on Jeanne Mance St., near Jean Talon. The building and equipment represent an investment of about $3 million over three years.

Provincial, municipal and federal governments have kicked in about $750,000 worth of financial, job-creation and export-development assistance.

By the time it's complete, the expansion will triple the local work force, to 90 from the current 30, Peress said in an interview in his spacious new corporate office.

The plant, which includes a fitness centre for the employees, is the culmination of a dozen years of steady growth.

"When I started the company, in 1988, I worked out of the second room of my apartment," said Peress, 40. "Other tenants got tired of the UPS guy going up and down the elevator so much, so after about four months, I sublet a 400-square-foot office (in St. Laurent)."

Until 1988, the Town of Mount Royal native and Concordia University finance grad had worked in sales for his father, Maurice, who ran Canadian Eastern International, a local manufacturer of car parts. "I learned a lot from him about how business is conducted."

At 28, he decided to strike out on his own.

"In August 1988, I went to a hardware trade show in Chicago, went by a booth for a now-defunct company called Chronar that featured a solar-powered ventilator, and was bowled over. The word 'solar-powered' caught my imagination. I basically spent the rest of the show at the booth, telling everyone I was going to be their Canadian distributor."

And that's what happened.

The ventilator that caught his fancy was intended for cars. It was incorporated in a strip of plastic that fit over a car window, and was supposed to suck out hot air while the car sat in the sun. Peress was able to get the product into Sears catalogues in Canada the first year, and it sold "like crazy."

It also came back "like crazy." The fan didn't turn fast enough to significantly cool down the car because the solar panel was too small. Consumers weren't satisfied and mailed them back in droves.

"That taught me about consumer expectations," Peress said. "It also taught me to hunt for solar products that worked rather than products that had promise but didn't deliver. You can't sell an environmental product just because it's environmental. It has to provide a solution. If you don't build quality into your product, you won't get over the first hurdle."

Peress was still sold on the technology, but became more discriminating in his quest for "solar-energy solutions for consumers." A lot of the solar-powered gadgets on the market were, in his words, "absolute crap."

He did find some items to distribute to retailers and mail-order companies, things like solar-powered garden lights and flashlights, but also began making recommendations to manufacturers about possible improvements to maximize the efficiency of the conversion of light to energy.

In 1993, ICP - which stands for Innovative Consumer Products - began experimenting with its own products.

The first was a solar-powered car-battery maintainer, which plugged into the cigarette lighter and, through a solar panel placed on the dash, maintained the battery while a vehicle sat idle.

"You never have to worry about a car battery going dead again," Peress said.

Sold exclusively through Sears catalogues the first year, the $40 charger was an immediate hit and soon was carried by most major Canadian retailers.

Now, ICP handles only products developed in-house. They include solar chargers for rechargeable AA batteries, and compact, mobile solar panels generating as much as 15 watts of power, intended for use in recreational vehicles, cottages and pleasure boats. The 15-watt kit retails for about $200.

In development now are panel combinations of 50, 75 and 100 watts, as well as several products Peress won't divulge yet.

"It's all proprietary technology, developed for the consumer market," he said. "We've been able to identify everyday consumer needs for portable power and supply solar solutions for that need. We make good products and we stand behind them.

"We're now a technology company in the energy sector, but different from most techs in that we started as a trading company. We established our business acumen first."

Peress said customer service is an important part of the ICP business plan. The company includes troubleshooting guides with its products. There's a toll-free phone line. It has a Web site where you can interact directly with an ICP employee, and E-mail responses are guaranteed within 24 hours (weekends included) to queries filed by Internet.

"Our people aren't called customer-service representatives," Peress noted. "They're 'customer delight and loyalty co-ordinators'."

ICP's sales have grown steadily from the start, but last year they doubled. And Peress said prospects going forward are bright, especially with the added production capacity.

"We were named vendor of the year in 1999 by Camping World, the largest seller of RV accessories in the world. And we recently licensed Exide, the largest 12-volt battery maker in the world, to carry our products under their brand in Europe."

The company has moved several times since its humble start in 1988, but that shouldn't happen again anytime soon. The new plant, built on property that used to house a warehouse owned by Peress's father, has double the usable capacity of the previous location in Dorval.

Naturally, it's a showcase for solar technology, featuring a heat-trapping wall of perforated aluminum on the south face and a solar-panel network on the roof to serve as a back-up power system.

"If you believe in what you're doing, you have to use it yourself," Peress said. "I look forward with glee to this winter's first Hydro power outage."

The first was a solar-powered car-battery maintainer, which plugged into the cigarette lighter and, through a solar panel placed on the dash, maintained the battery while a vehicle sat idle.

"You never have to worry about a car battery going dead again," Peress said.

Sold exclusively through Sears catalogues the first year, the $40 charger was an immediate hit and soon was carried by most major Canadian retailers.

Now, ICP handles only products developed in-house. They include solar chargers for rechargeable AA batteries, and compact, mobile solar panels generating as much as 15 watts of power, intended for use in recreational vehicles, cottages and pleasure boats. The 15-watt kit retails for about $200.

In development now are panel combinations of 50, 75 and 100 watts, as well as several products Peress won't divulge yet.

"It's all proprietary technology, developed for the consumer market," he said. "We've been able to identify everyday consumer needs for portable power and supply solar solutions for that need. We make good products and we stand behind them.

Focus on Service

"We're now a technology company in the energy sector, but different from most techs in that we started as a trading company. We established our business acumen first."

Peress said customer service is an important part of the ICP business plan. The company includes troubleshooting guides with its products. There's a toll-free phone line. It has a Web site where you can interact directly with an ICP employee, and E-mail responses are guaranteed within 24 hours (weekends included) to queries filed by Internet.

"Our people aren't called customer-service representatives," Peress noted. "They're 'customer delight and loyalty co-ordinators'."

ICP's sales have grown steadily from the start, but last year they doubled. And Peress said prospects going forward are bright, especially with the added production capacity.

"We were named vendor of the year in 1999 by Camping World, the largest seller of RV accessories in the world. And we recently licensed Exide, the largest 12-volt battery maker in the world, to carry our products under their brand in Europe."

The company has moved several times since its humble start in 1988, but that shouldn't happen again anytime soon.

The new plant, built on property that used to house a warehouse owned by Peress's father, has double the usable capacity of the previous location in Dorval.

Naturally, it's a showcase for solar technology, featuring a heat-trapping wall of perforated aluminum on the south face and a solar-panel network on the roof to serve as a backup power system.

"If you believe in what you're doing, you have to use it yourself," Peress said.

"I look forward with glee to this winter's first Hydro power outage."

---

CORN GROWERS SAY ETHANOL COULD REDUCE FOSSIL FUEL USE

October 23, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2000/2000L-10-23-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, Keith Dittrich, president of the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA), is urging movement on ethanol legislation before Congress adjourns for the elections. In the letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Missouri Republican, Dittrich said, "During this time of soaring energy prices and corn oversupplies, the United States has the opportunity to expand ethanol usage while cleaning the air we breathe ... Renewable fuels legislation has bipartisan support ... Farmers want to know what is holding up action on this timely legislation." Renewable energy could be important to national energy security and a national clean air strategy, said Dittrich. "Currently, the U.S. dependence on foreign oil is hurting our overall economy. At the same time, millions of bushels of excess corn are piling up at elevators and on farms across the country," he said.

"Passing legislation to create a renewable fuels standard for gasoline is the best way to address both of these conditions in a comprehensive way," said Dittrich, a Nebraska grain farmer. "A renewable fuels standard for gasoline would provide significant economic benefits to U.S. farmers. It needs to be drafted to increase the demand for ethanol by requiring a certain percentage of all motor fuels to be renewable. A renewable fuels standard would increase investment in corn ethanol facilities. The increase in the demand for corn for ethanol would also strengthen corn markets and provide added income to cash strapped farmers." ACGA supports the renewable fuels sections of S 2962, a bill that has moved through Senate Committees, and is being considered in last minute discussions on various appropriations bills.

-------- environment

Environmental News Network
Monday, October 23, 2000
News Bytes
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/10/10232000/newsbytes_39482.asp

Botulism outbreak - An outbreak of avian botulism has killed more than 50 wetland and shorebirds in Hawaii's Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge in Maui. The disease, which does not usually affect humans, is caused by a bacteria common in Hawaii's soil that produces a toxin when stagnant water, warm temperatures and decaying vegetation are present. Several endangered species including 29 Hawaiian coots, one Hawaiian stilt and 29 koloa (Hawaiian ducks) have been affected by the outbreak. "This has hit us at a terrible time of year, with the fall migration bringing more and more shorebirds to the refuge," said refuge manager Glynnis Nakai. "Soon, waterfowl such as Northern shovelers and pintails will be arriving after flying up to 2,400 miles across the ocean. We certainly don't want to attract them into Kealia Pond while the botulism is present, so we're keeping the pumps running in the smaller aquaculture ponds where better circulation keeps toxin levels down and turning off the pumps that deliver water to the main pond, where the majority of the dead birds have been found."

ORVs and grizzlies - The use of dirt bikes, four-wheelers and snowmobiles in grizzly bear habitat of Gallatin National Forest will be restricted for the time being, following an order issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Anderson. "Evidence indicates that human intrusion into grizzly bear habitat can no longer be managed simply by regulating the density of roads and trails," Anderson said. "It further indicates that off-road vehicles and snowmobiles may be encroaching upon core recovery areas." A deadline of Dec. 15 has been set for the Gallatin National Forest and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to address the problem. See the recent ENN story ORVs endanger grizzly recovery, groups warn.

Grand plan - The National Park Service is set to open Canyon View Information Plaza, a new, state-of-the art transportation and orientation facility, Thursday at Grand Canyon National Park. The plaza is the first major step in implementing the park's 1995 General Management Plan, which focuses on public transportation and enhanced educational and recreational opportunities. The Grand Canyon Association will operate a bookstore in the plaza. The park is also planning a mass transit system for completion in 2004. The system will include alternative fuel buses, light rail and a multi-use greenway.

Green tea greatness - A new study from CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, has identified the method by which antioxidants in green tea lower cholesterol in rabbits. The antioxidants in the tea kick off a mechanism that increases the amount of liver protein, which in turn works to clear cholesterol from the blood. Other studies have linked green tea with lower cholesterol levels, but this is the first study to find the system responsible. For more information, see the CSIRO press release.

-------- activists

From: DanBeeton@excite.com
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 08:39:07 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: URGENT ACTION ALERT: Tell Clinton to ban Burmese apparel imports!
*ARE SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS BEING SOLD IN STORES IN YOUR AREA?
SHOULD THE U.S. CONTINUE TO IMPORT MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS?

A number of grassroots organizations, including the Free Burma Coalition, United Students Against Sweatshops, Global Exchange, and the Campaign for Labor Rights, among others, have become concerned by the alarming increase of apparel imports from Burma to the U.S.

As you may be aware, the military junta in Rangoon has become an international pariah for its suppression of democracy and flagrant and widespread violations of human rights. Burma is also facing tough action from the International Labor Organization (ILO) for endemic forced labor in the country, and for the complete lack of labor rights there.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate and leader of Burma's struggle for democracy, has called for the U.S. government to halt multinational corporations from propping up the military regime. To honor this request, in 1997 President Clinton signed into law a limited ban on new investments in Burma.

A massive influx of Burmese-made apparel is presently undermining this ban. Apparel imports from Burma continue to skyrocket, having increased by 272% since 1995. This is a significant source of revenue for the junta in Rangoon, constituting over 80% of all Burmese imports entering the U.S.

But Activists around the country are taking action!

Recently, students at UC Berkeley and American University discovered apparel items in their campus bookstores with the "Made in Myanmar" label. After drawing campus media attention to the issue, the universities decided to pull the Burmese-made goods, and the Jansport company has requested a return of all its Burmese-made apparel from its stores.

Greedily, however, a number of other retail clothing companies in the U.S. continue to sell items with the "Made in Myanmar" label, including Adidas, Kohl's, Warner Bros., Bugle Boy, Jordache, and Nautica. While campaigns targeting these individual companies may be effective, we should pressure the U.S. to ban apparel imports from Burma altogether!

The AFL-CIO has recently sent a letter to Clinton asking for a ban on Burmese garment imports, but it is important that the Administration hear about this issue from as many people as possible. We need you send a letter to Clinton immediately! A sample letter follows.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SUPPORT LABOR RIGHTS AND A FREE BURMA:

- Copy the sample letter to Clinton; add a personal paragraph about your concern for freedom in Burma and/or labor rights.

- Email, mail, or fax the letter to Clinton right away!

- Forward this message to as many people in the U.S. as you can, and urge them to do the same!

- Investigate stores and name brands where you shop! Look for the "Made in Myanmar" label. If you find this label, write down the name brand, the store location, and the RN number. Notify the Free Burma Coalition with this information; notify media in your area, and finally, question the company that is vending the item whether it is their policy to source from Burma. You can even buy the item, save the receipt, and then return it, claiming that you are very dissatisfied with the product as it was made in Burma, a country where forced labor is endemic!

The following companies continue to vend items made in Burma:

Name brand apparel companies: Adidas, Kohl's, Warner Bros., Bugle Boy, Jordache, and Nautica.

Retail companies: Perry Ellis, Karl Kani, Kasper ASL, Macy's, Sports Authority, Williams-Sonoma, Montgomery Ward, Dress Barn, Filene's Conway, Burlington Coat Factory and others. Wal-Mart's Canadian division also imports from Burma.

Any information on companies vending "Made in Myanmar" products can be sent to:

Free Burma Coalition 1101 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 204 Washington, DC 20002 (202) 547-5985 (202) 544-6118 (fax) jeremy@freeburmacoalition.org

SAMPLE LETTER TO CLINTON:

The Honorable William J. Clinton President Office of the White House Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Clinton,

I am writing to urge you to ban imports of garments from Burma.

[personal explanation of your interest in this issue as a labor rights and/or Free Burma supporter]

In 1997, you signed into a law a bill enacting federal sanctions against Burma with the intent of pressuring for political change in the country, especially to pressure for democracy and respect for human rights in the country.

Since that time, as you are no doubt aware, the political and human rights situation in Burma has deteriorated. The democracy party, the National League for Democracy, faces total political annihilation at the hands of the junta in Rangoon. Clearly this is a time when the international community needs to act decisively.

The United States could act decisively by banning garment imports from Burma. This is an action that would have significant impact, as garment imports now constitute over 80% of the total imports to the U.S. from Burma.

Thank for taking this strong, decisive action to promote democracy.

Sincerely,

For more information, please visit www.freeburmacoalition.org.

---

Organization: Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee
From: John Steinbach <jsteinbach@igc.org>
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 11:12:44 +0000
Subject: [waggers] Free Peltier Meeting

COUNTDOWN TO CLEMENCY LEONARD PELTIER MARCH FOR FREEDOM HUMAN RIGHTS DAY - DECEMBER 10, 2000 NEW YORK

A bus to New York has been reserved for December 10. We will leave at 7:00 AM sharp, and return at 10PM. The cost is $25 per seat, however there will be a sliding scale for lower income activists. Volunteers are urgently needed! Please attend an initial planning meeting Wednesday, October 25, 7PM at the Gray Panthers Headquarters, 711 Eighth St. NW(Gallery Place Metro/Barrier-Free) Contact John Steinbach 1-703-369-7427 <jsteinbach@igc.org>, or Harry Scordo 703-820-9783 <nekton@erols.com>

---

From: george b ripley <grassrootsunity@juno.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 02:17:57 -0600
Subject: [waggers] 10-10 Tues -- Lincoln Memorial

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO YOUR D.C. LISTS Thanks, George Ripley
Tuesday (tomorrow) --all day and evening @ The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

Ride For America: Capture the Flag 2000 A 1st Amendment Demonstration October 24, 2000 10AM-10PM

Demonstration is in honor of Fred W. Mauney, aka The Phoenix, and his "Ride for America: Let's Take Our Country Back!" campaign.

Fred embarked on his journey to "restore honor and respect" to an american flag that was left flying at an abandoned Coca-Cola distribution facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, through Flag Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. On Independence Day, Fred rescued the flag. It is this flag that Fred carried with him from Salt Lake City to Washington D.C. as a symbol of corporate abandonment. It is for is this flag and the principles it represents that many have fought and died.

It is the mission of this demonstration to: *UNITE our nation in peaceable assembly *ATTEST the principles of freedom and democracy *DECLARE commitment to ecological, social, and economic justice *RESTORE the balance of power through dedication to participation and equal representation

Guest Speakers, focus groups, and performances: 10:00 Opening Ceremonies: Fred W. Mauney: The Phoenix Charities 11:00 George Ripley: Alliance for Democracy/Americans for Social Justice 12:00 Winter Cantagallo: Catalyst for Change 2:00 Regina Renke: Earth First/Shundahai Network 3:00 Gawain Crypke: Friends of the Earth Network: The Pollution of Politics 4:00 Jamie Stoner: Project Biodeisel TBA Kevin Kamps: Nuclear Information Resource Services 6:00 Walk to the White House 7:00 Martin Schnieder: Consumer Genocide: Censored Survival Kit 8:00 John Rich: Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants/Families Against Mandatory Minimums: Inmate Artwork and Performance . . . others TBA.

There will also be a flag raising ceremony to symbolize the restoration of democracy and a walk on the White House to declare our dedication to the missions of the demonstration.

Under the principles our flag represents, all people and causes are guaranteed freedom of expression and representation. MAY WE ALL UNITE UNDER OUR COMMON FLAG . . . LET'S TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK! Through the symbolism of raising our flag up out of the quagmire of the centralization of wealth and power that is destroying our planet and it's inhabitants.

We welcome all people and causes to be represented.
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

---

Geraldine Dreyfuss - Deaths in the News

October 24, 2000
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Deaths.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Geraldine ``Gerry'' Dreyfuss, a veteran peace and civil rights activist who also had bit parts in two movies starring her Oscar-winning son, Richard Dreyfuss, died Thursday. She was 79.

She was a Los Angeles organizer for the Women's Strike for Peace group, which has staged protests across the nation in favor of worldwide disarmament and against nuclear weapons testing and stockpiling. She also was active in civil rights groups.

Her movie credits include the 1986 film ``Down and Out in Beverly Hills'' and 1989's ``Let it Ride.''

---

147 arrested at parade standoff

RadTimes # 78 - October, 2000
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 00:23:48 -0700
From: radman <resist@best.com>
Subject: RadTimes # 78
<http://insidedenver.com/news/1008para2.shtml>

Vulgar words, tense confrontations greet Columbus Day march, but peace prevails

Sun, 8 Oct 2000 by Ann Carnahan, Sarah Huntley, and Todd Hartman Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writers

Weeks of tension came to a head Saturday as hundreds of Indian protesters faced off with police in a downtown intersection, interrupting the much-ballyhooed Columbus Day parade for an hour.

Nobody was hurt, but the day was marked by vulgar verbal exchanges between Italian-Americans and American Indians, tense confrontations and the arrests of 147 protesters.

Protesters shouting "No more Columbus Day," poured a line of red liquid across the parade route to represent the blood of their ancestors. They carried signs reading, "Your celebration is my pain" and "Why not Mussolini?"

Others locked arms and moved forward. Women were at the front of the protest line, a tactic aimed at keeping police from using force.

The 475 police officers along the parade route, some in riot gear, showed restraint but kept their hands close to their nightsticks. A half hour into the standoff, police began arresting those who sat down in the street.

Some of the women were cuffed with plastic wristbands as they were led into sheriff's buses a block away at 15th Street and Tremont Place. Some who weren't cuffed raised their fists in the air.

Afterward, the 25-minute parade continued without incident.

"Today was a model for free speech," Denver Mayor Wellington Webb said later. "I'm proud that today was peaceful, proud that individuals lived up to the responsibility to go to a higher moral plane."

Marchers and protesters found common ground in noting the day was a success because there was no violence.

"We had our parade and they had their protest and nobody got hurt," said parade organizer George Vendegnia. "We got our heritage back after nine years."

But Ted Roy, security chief for the American Indian Movement, said it won't be a complete success until Columbus Day is abolished.

C.M. Mangiaracina, another parade organizer, said the event will be back next year and will likely be named after Columbus, unless the federal government changes the name of the holiday.

To make his point, he said he would be going to a department store today to buy some jeans at its Columbus Day sale.

"Our community has been absent on the social landscape for too long," he said. "We're back."

AIM leader Russell Means promised to unveil a new strategy by Wednesday for combating plans for a parade next year.

"I'm sorry, but the day of Gandhiism and Martin Luther King tactics is over. I'm not going to put up with this any longer," Means told a crowd at the City and County Building after he was released from custody. "We are going to outsmart them. Believe me, it's very simple."

The Indians assert that Columbus was a slave trader and mounted genocide campaigns against their ancestors.

Last month, the sides agreed there would be no protests if there were no mention of Columbus, but parade organizers later disavowed the deal.

All the protesters were released Saturday after being processed on misdemeanor charges of loitering and failing to obey officers.

This was the first such parade in Denver since the parade was scuttled in 1992, when Indian activists confronted Italians as they prepared to march.

Estimates on the number of protesters Saturday varied wildly, but it was far fewer than the 3,000 to 3,500 at the 1992 parade.

This year's parade drew a hodgepodge of spectators.

"I want to see a riot," said William Kuhnhofer, 52, of Denver. "That's why most of these people came here. They don't care about Indians and Italians."

Kuhnhofer said he was disappointed in the peaceful outcome.

Several paradegoers pushed babies in strollers. Glenn Peterson, visiting from Des Moines, Iowa, brought his 17-month-old grandson but decided to leave after the standoff began. "Isn't it a shame children can't even go to a parade anymore?" he said.

An hour earlier, Italians gathered in the streets, blowing up balloons, lifting bales of hay onto the bed of tractor-trailer trucks and watching traditional dancers from St. Anthony's Society.

A vendor set up shop on the corner of 14th and Welton streets with balloons, cotton candy and American and Italian flags.

Nearly every new arrival was greeted with a handshake, a hug or a kiss.

Rosalyn Mancini-Juhl of Denver stood behind a metal barricade, holding a single red rose that someone gave her. She was there to celebrate her childhood tradition.

"The Italians always had a parade when I was a young girl," she said. "In school, Columbus Day was always quite a holiday for us."

Agnes Carrado, waving a small Italian flag, said she wasn't concerned about the possibility of violence.

"Not at all," said Carrado. "I think they (the protesters) did us a favor, really. More people, more Italians, showed up."

Parade organizers took steps to head off controversy when a pair of marchers showed up with a Columbus banner that read, "He came in the name of Christ."

Worried that the size and the message would incite the protesters, a parade marshal asked the pair to move to the back of the parade, which they reluctantly did.

The parade started promptly at 10 a.m. as limousines, trucks, flag-waving marchers and motorcycle clubs rolled down 15th Street.

Eight minutes later - as the arrests began - it came to an abrupt stop.

"It's about celebrating genocide," said Ellen Klaver of Niwot, as she was loaded into a paddywagon. Klaver, who described herself as European-American, said she has been arrested twice before in acts of civil disobedience.

"Don't be ignorant," one of the arrested women shouted to a crowd of Italians leaning over a barricade to watch.

"You're the one who's going to jail; let's talk about ignorance," someone shouted back.

Throughout the protest, the smell of pine filled the air, as Indian women burned incense that they said they brought to purify the event and keep protesters safe.

Those arrested cooperated with police. One officer helped a protester whose hands were tied, stopping to pick up the cellphone that had fallen from his pocket.

One protester tried to spark dialogue with the Italians. "You guys are the greatest artists in the world," he yelled. "You don't need Columbus. Pick a true hero. Pick Michelangelo. Pick da Vinci."

"Oh, go away," a woman in the parade shouted back.

As Means and activist Glenn Morris were arrested, the crowd applauded loudly, some in support of them, others in support of their arrest.

The arrests ended and the parade resumed to a mix of cheers and jeers.

Not all the parade marchers could contain themselves as they walked past protesters cursing them and holding signs comparing Columbus to Hitler. Some motorcyclists in the parade gunned their engines, drowning out the shouting. Others returned angry gestures with uniquely Italian gestures of their own.

After the parade, the Italians gathered at a park in northwest Denver to celebrate. "We will not be intimidated by the mayor or Russell Means," said Ron Damiana, as he headed to the park.

At the City and County Building, demonstrators lined the steps to await the release of those who had been arrested.

"We're saddened by the things that have occurred today, but we are not going to walk away," said Kaweah Red Elk, an AIM member from Colorado Springs. "If it takes my son and his children and their children, if it takes 500 years, that's the way it will be."

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Tribes, activists can use Columbus dispute to teach their history

by Deborah Frazier
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Russell Means and Glen Morris were taught that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, the same thing that every other American student learned. And they listened as their teachers said Columbus was a hero and told of his bravery. But Morris, an Osage, and Means, an Oglala Lakota, heard the rest of the story from their parents - the slavery and murder, verified by Columbus' journals.

For Means, 61, and Morris, 45, leaders of the opposition to Denver's Columbus Day Parade, the debate has become the perfect "teachable" moment - a public venue for the lessons their parents taught and the rage that forged the American Indian Movement.

"If there's a positive in this racist mess, we get to educate the world," said Means, who was born in South Dakota and remembers his first-grade teacher saying he'd never learn because he was Indian.

A year earlier, his mother had taught him to read and write. "With Columbus, there's the view from the boat and there's a view from the shore that's not taught," said Morris, an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Denver."In my classroom, both are taught."

He wants people to learn about how Columbus needed gold to pay the journey's debts and, when little gold was found, he took hundreds of Indians back to Spain as slaves.

Ask Morris, the academician activist, or Means, AIM's most visible and charismatic leader, and they will tell you that the Indians who survived the trip were paraded, nude, through Seville in 1495 and sold. On later trips, Columbus supervised the rape, torture and killing of Indians for sport, and the sailors used the dead as dog food, they say with fury and footnotes. "Indian children have been taught that Columbus was a hero," said Means. "We say he was lost, we found him and that's how the genocide started."

Means lives in Arizona. He will have two of his 13 children, Nataanii Nez, 9, and Tananka Wanbli, 15, with him at the parade. "I teach my children the entire story," said Means. Means and Morris believe that Columbus pioneered not only the slave trade, but laid the groundwork for American policies toward Indians - annihilation assimilation, relocation and race hatred - that endure until today. And that's the lesson Means and Morris want to teach America, the lesson of persistent racism. They take their teaching seriously. Means, who has been the voice of Indian rights for three decades, has poured "blood" - soluble red paint - on Denver's Columbus statue, appeared in movies and been the voice of Pocahontas' dad in the Walt Disney movie. In his autobiography, Means chronicles growing and selling marijuana and burglarizing drug stores, trials and acquittals for fights and AIM activities, including murder charges. He ditched drugs and alcohol, ran for president on a ticket with Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, cut a few records on his own label, and enrolled at a treatment center for anger management. The one consistent theme in his life has been Indian pride. And his theatrics have opened opportunities for Indians.

Morris, by comparison, is an eloquent Harvard-educated lawyer who left the courtroom for the classroom. He grew up in Missouri, Denver, Kansas and Arizona. As a student, he met Means in the 1970s during the siege at Wounded Knee, S.D. Former students and the young Native Americans who crowd around him today at social, religious and AIM gatherings will join the parade. "The people who remain blind to this issue are driven by fear," said Morris. "We are driven by hope. This is our homeland. The hope springs from the land." And, he said, the protests have taught the public more each year. "This year, no one is defending Columbus," said Morris. "The discussion is about rights of the parade, not about whether Columbus was a great guy. That was not the case in 1992."

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Crackdown On "Democracy Now!"

By Amy Goodman
Introductory Note from Michael Albert:

I received a long letter today sent by Amy Goodman to the Pacifica Board. The letter, included below in full, reveals Pacifica's efforts to curtail Democracy Now. For those who don't know her, Amy Goodman's work embodies meticulous care, huge talent, outrageous courage, and tireless audacity. The show she hosts, Democracy Now!, is one of the few effective sources of honest analysis and reporting in the United States.

Over the past few years Pacifica's authorities have coercively transformed a people's network into a nearly mainstream structure. They have claimed to be trying to increase Pacifica's progressive outreach, but even Pacifica's authorities can't expect anyone to believe that attacking Democracy Now! is progressive. Cutting off Democracy Now will sunder Pacifica's ties with its progressive listenership and its current donor base. The intent of the actions can only be to replace Pacifica's progressive audience with a more upscale and mainstream one. In short, Pacifica's leadership wants radio content that will get them invitations to hobnob with CEOs of the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

So what should be done?

Amy Goodman and Democracy Now should be supported to the full extent that their listening public and the entire progressive community can manage. Whether this means inundating Pacifica's board members with dissenting opinions by email and faxes, organizing together to demonstrate at Pacifica stations or affiliates, or even organizing at the board members' dwellings and workplaces, is up to you. But the point is to make crystal clear to these people that mainstreaming Pacifica is not going to increase its "owners" status and power, but will instead bring misery and shame upon them.

Pacifica's dissolution is sordid and impermissible. It should call forth whatever dissent is required to convince the Pacific Board to change its tune. For a start, if you are in the area, please attend protests outside local Pacifica stations in support of "Democracy Now!" (Details at: <http://www.mediademocracynow.org> Then, consider communicating with the folks listed below...

Pacifica National Board

Bessie Wash, Pacifica executive director phone: (toll free) 888-770-4944 x348, FALCON1591@aol.com

David Acosta, chair Phone: (713) 926-4604, FAX: (713) 921-2780, cpadga@aol.com

Ken Ford, vice chair Phone: (202) 822-0228, FAX: (202) 822-0369, kford@nahb.com

Lynn Chadwick, former executive director, now "consultant" lynnchad@aol.com

Dr. Mary Frances Berry, former chair, now Board member Phone: (202) 337-0382, FAX: (202) 376-7558, mfberry@sas.upenn.edu

June Makela, at-large member Phone: (212) 673-9225 or (212) 768-1831, Fax (212) 673-9225, junemakela@aol.com

Frank Millspaugh, WBAI Phone: (212) 741-0839, FAX: (212) 924-7409, fmillspa@aol.com

Bob Farrell - KPFK Phone: (323) 299-3800 X 255, FAX: (323) 299-3896, rfarrell@kamber.com

Lee, Bertram M Phone: (202)965-6223, 965-6224

John M. Murdock Phone: 202-861-0900, FAX: 202-296-2882, jmurdock@ebglaw.com

Michael Palmer, KPFT Phone: (713) 840-6646 or (713) 960-8583, FAX: 713-960-8583, mpalmer@cbrichardellis.com

Karolyn Van Putten, at large member Phone: (415) 771-1160, KvPPhD@aol.com

Wendell L. Johns, WPFK Phone: (202) 752-8193, wendell_i_johns@fanniemae.com

Andrea Cisco, WBAI acdarius@aol.com

Pete Bramson, KPFA prbram@aol.com

Rabbi Aaron Kriegel, KPFK HARAV1@aol.com

Tomas Moran, KPFA tomasmoran@aol.com

Rob Robinson, WPFW robrobin@erols.com

Leslie Cagan, WBAI LeslieCagan@igc.org

Beth Lyons, WBAI BethLyons@aol.com

Valerie Chambers, KPFT VChamber@pop.uh.edu

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Amy Goodman's Letter To: Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash and Board of Directors From: Amy Goodman Cc: Personnel File Date: 10/18/00

A few days ago, I was given a shocking memo from Pacifica Program Director Stephen Yasko and Pacifica attorney Larry Drapkin. In the 3-page memo, Yasko listed a series of Pacifica policies and work rules that I was ordered to immediately adhere to or face "disciplinary actions up to and including termination." Yasko handed me the memo during a meeting in the law offices of my union, AFTRA, at a gathering that my union representatives and I had been led to believe was meant to resolve a series of escalating conflicts which have erupted in recent months between Yasko, Executive Director Bessie Wash, myself and the Democracy Now! staff. In fact, union officials dissuaded me two weeks before the meeting from filing a formal grievance against Yasko and Pacifica for harassment because they had been led to believe Pacifica wanted to resolve these conflicts amicably.Instead, we were suddenly faced with this list of "ground rules" and the threat to fire me. My union lawyer accused Yasko and the Pacifica lawyer of acting in bad faith, immediately cancelled the meeting and approved the filing of a formal grievance. I have now filed grievances against Pacifica management charging harassment, gender harassment, and censorship, among other violations of the union contract. Several of the new "rules" target me with restrictions not applied to other Pacifica employees, and are outright attempts to curtail my constitutional rights of free speech. Some rules go against the very principles of community radio on which Pacifica was founded, while still others will have the effect of hampering Democracy Now!'s ability to reach the widest possible audience. Given their timing and seen in their totality, the ground rules are a transparent attempt to retaliate against me for seeking union representation in a management-labor dispute, a right protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

But in my opinion, there is something far bigger than a mere "work rules" dispute involved here, something which should deeply concern the Pacifica Board, our listeners and the greater community radio listenership. It is the desire of management to reign in and exert political control over Democracy Now! It intensified this summer when Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash had our press credentials pulled after we brought Ralph Nader into the Republican Convention to be interviewed and do color commentary. Management's action made it much more difficult to cover the Democrats in the same hardhitting, confrontational way we had reported on the Republicans, especially when it came to our focus on corporate control of the Conventions. This punishment was such an unprecedented act that it prompted my co-host and award-winning veteran journalist Juan Gonzalez to write an official protest to Steve Yasko, the new program director, the content of which Yasko never responded to.

Our election project, "Breaking With Convention: Power, Protest and the Presidency," was a milestone in Pacifica National Programming, encompassing the largest expansion of audience in Pacifica history. We engaged in an unprecedented collaboration with community public access cable tv stations as well as satellite television, beaming Democracy Now! into millions of homes across the country. Instead of building on that collaboration and continuing the televising of our radio program, and despite meeting and exceeding every stated objective for the show--i.e. audience growth, fundraising, new listeners, groundbreaking programming--Democracy Now! is being subjected to a withering assault by Pacifica management. The motivation is blatantly political.

Democracy Now! is a hardhitting grassroots program that is not afraid of tackling controversial issues day after day in the Pacifica tradition. We are not only being censored for our critical coverage of the Democrats as well as the Republicans, but for giving voice to a growing grassroots movement that fundamentally challenges the status quo--people fighting sweatshops, police brutality, prison growth, and corporate globalization.

On September 14, Steve Yasko called me to a meeting with Pacifica General Managers. KPFK Manager Mark Schubb, expressed his repeated criticism that audiences don't want to hear graphic details of police brutality before breakfast, or as he said last year "before I have my coffee." He criticized our coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal, East Timor and questioned why I asked Spike Lee about his affiliation with Nike. Pacifica's Chief Financial Officer weighed in with her criticism of American prisoner Lori Berenson in Peru, (we had just aired an exclusive interview with her that received widespread national press.) After the meeting, Yasko took me into the hotel lobby and shouted, "I am your boss! I am your boss!" I'm being subjected to a concerted campaign of abuse and harassment by Pacifica management. Despite repeated appeals to Executive Director Bessie Wash, there has been no redress. Yasko regularly makes new demands on me and Democracy Now! with wild outbursts of unprofessional yelling and screaming. This has happened during a period whenDemocracy Now! has been unique in radio by reporting extensively on the refusal of the Commission on Presidential Debates or many in the corporate media to provide fair coverage and inclusion of third parties. It has also happened during a time when Democracy Now! is growing in audience, in media coverage, and in fundraising from both listeners and foundations. That is, we are growing in all the areas the Pacifica board says it is concerned with.

Just as the presidential campaign reaches its climax, we are confronted with new restrictions and threats. Among those new work rules are a requirement to provide Yasko each Friday "a list of possible shows the following week and a short status report on each," adding we must "determine the topics of at least three shows the preceding week." Yasko notes that "the Administrative Council (of Pacifica) stated that the show does not sound like breaking news either to the station staffs or the listeners." Are we living in the same world? Our show breaks more national news, as measured by actual press coverage in the mainstream media, than perhaps any show in Pacifica history, e.g., Chevron in Nigeria, the Lori Berenson interview, Seattle WTO coverage, Nader at the Republican convention, Tulia, Texas, East Timor, etc. etc.

But instead of congratulations and kudos for our many accomplishments, Pacifica has clamped down and threatens me at every turn with dismissal!

As I write this, Yasko is forging ahead with imposing two new producers on Democracy Now! with or without the consent of co-host Juan Gonzalez and me. The two producers--our only producers-- are the heart of this show. It is clear from all of management's actions, they are using this opportunity to change the political direction of the program. This is the first time that we have been clearly told that our consent is not necessary.

In his memo, Yasko goes on to demand, "All use of volunteers on Democracy Now! must cease immediately." Why?! Volunteers have always played a pivotal role in Democracy Now! and are the lifeblood of Pacifica. For violation of this ban or any of the other dictates management has laid down, I am threatened with dismissal!

Take this section from the Yasko memo:

"To establish an appropriate balance between your programming obligations and any speaking engagements and related travel, you are not to accept any speaking engagements without first informing the Foundation and obtaining approval. It is also important to know whom you are speaking to."

This is an outrageous intrusion into my personal life and an illegal attempt to control my right of free speech. Given the many large and enthusiastic audiences I am often invited to address, I would think Pacifica would be glad for the positive publicity. Instead, Yasko demands veto power over when I speak and whom I speak to, and he tries to camouflage the crackdown with concern for my welfare or statements such as "you are, of course, a valued voice in spreading the word of our mission, programs and goals." I am so valued that he is ready to fire me if I don't follow unethical and illegal orders. Yasko should be worried less about where I am speaking and more about why our Ku satellite system suffers avoidable catastrophic foul-ups, an area he oversees.

I thought the Pacifica board had learned from the bitter battle in Berkeley last year that attempts to silence free speech are the last things this network wants to revisit. But apparently not. Maybe the stakes are too high in this presidential election year to permit too free a press -- even at Pacifica. I truly hope that is not the case.

I plead with those of you on the board who still remain dedicated to the grand mission of Lew Hill to reject this poorly disguised attempt at censorship of Democracy Now! and of me personally. Please direct Steve Yasko to cease his harassment and retaliation against me immediately, and Pacifica's attempts to exert political control and undermine the editorial independence of this hardhitting grassroots program.

We are not NPR. We are not US government media. We are not the corporate media.

We are Democracy Now!: The Exception to the Rulers.

Sincerely, Amy Goodman Host, Democracy Now!

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)