------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Czechs approve output boost at nuclear plant
Residents protest against Japan nuclear project
Nuclear officials charged in 1999 accident
Clinton Trip to N. Korea Hinges on Missile Intentions
Spectrum widens for semiconductor lasers
Removal of uranium waste approved
MILITARY
Bookstore Fights Court Order to Name Customers
RANGOON JUNTA MAKES A MOCKERY OF UNITED NATIONS STANDARDS
Why Yemen May Be Slow to Aid U.S. Bombing Probe
U.S. Marines seek families exposed to chemicals
BROTHERS IN ARMS
OTHER
Ford shows fuel-cell prototype car
Italian toxic tanker cargo sinks in Channel
An Ineffectual Congress
Biotech company IPOs are sign of healthy sector
World Bank Head Speaks On Demonstrations
U.S. Steps Up World Web Policing
ACTIVISTS
Anti-Capitalist Youths Challenge IMF in Montreal
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- czech republic
Czechs approve output boost at nuclear plant
CZECH REPUBLIC
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
November 1, 2000
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8751
PRAGUE - Czech regulators gave the final go-ahead yesterday to boost output at the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant, built from a Soviet-era design near borders with fiercely anti-nuclear Austria.
The decision came just hours before Prime Minister Milos Zeman was to meet his Austrian counterpart Wolfgang Schuessel.
Austria strongly opposes the plant, built about 50 km (30 miles) from its borders, and has threatened to block the Czechs' negotiations to join the European Union unless new safety checks are made.
But the State Nuclear Safety Office said that at 1400 GMT it gave permission to power generator CEZ to begin raising activity at the sole VVER-1000, 981 megawatt reactor at Temelin, which has been running at low levels since mid-October.
Thousands of Austrians have repeatedly blocked Czech border crossings in protests against the plant. Zeman and Schuessel were to meet to ease the diplomatic row.
On Monday Austrian Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, head of the far-right Freedom Party, said Austria would not sign the energy chapter needed for Czech entry to the EU as long as Temelin remained active and no comprehensive security check was undertaken.
Temelin was built under a Soviet project but has been upgraded with a Western control system and fuel. A second block is due to follow the first in about 15 months. CEZ has said it would gradually raise output to 100 percent over the next few months.
-------- japan
Residents protest against Japan nuclear project
JAPAN: November 1, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8753
TOKYO - Protesters in western Japan held a sit-in at a public hearing yesterday to oppose a nuclear power project, reflecting rising concern over atomic energy after the nation's worst ever nuclear accident last autumn.
About 200 protesters blocked people from entering the building where the hearing was to be held, delaying it by more than three hours, the Kyodo news agency said.
The session was the first such hearing since an accident at a uranium-processing plant in September last year resulted in the deaths of two workers and exposed at least 439 people to radiation in Japan's worst nuclear accident.
The government organised the public hearing to seek residents' views on a plan by Chugoku Electric Power Co Inc to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki, a town in the western prefecture of Yamaguchi.
About 20 residents gave their views during the session to about 300 people, Kyodo said.
Residents opposed to the project have called the hearing a "ritual" aimed at giving the plan a go-ahead.
After the hearings are completed and if the prefecture's governor gives his consent, the construction plan will be brought before a central government panel and incorporated into the nation's power development programme.
But Kyodo said strong opposition from locals and the fact that Chugoku Electric has yet to acquire about 100,000 square metres of land required for the project may make that unlikely.
---
Nuclear officials charged in 1999 accident
USA Today
11/01/00- Updated 12:09 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed06.htm
TOKYO (AP) - Six former nuclear fuel reprocessing plant officials were charged Wednesday with negligence in an uncontrolled reaction last year that killed two people, Kyodo News agency reported. It was Japan's worst nuclear accident.
If convicted in connection with the Sept. 30, 1999 accident, the six former employees of JCO Co. face maximum penalties of five years in prison or a $4,630 fine.
One of the six, Kenzo Koshijima, a former general manager, was also charged with violating the country's nuclear safety regulations law. That calls for a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $4,630 fine. JCO was charged with the same crime.
Prosecutors and JCO officials were not immediately available for comment late Wednesday.
JCO is accused of systematic security violations in the accident in Tokaimura, 70 miles northeast of Tokyo.
The accident began when two workers tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks. The mix set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, exposing the two to fatal doses of radiation. A third worker was hospitalized in critical condition.
Authorities ordered 161 people evacuated from their homes, and another 310,000 were advised to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation.
An investigation into the accident showed JCO routinely skipped crucial security steps while reprocessing fuel. The company was stripped of its license to operate the processing plant in March.
The company has also agreed to pay $117.2 million in compensation to settle 6,875 complaints over the accident.
-------- korea
Clinton Trip to N. Korea Hinges on Missile Intentions
By Ellen Nakashima and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 1, 2000 ; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53215-2000Oct31.html
President Clinton won't decide whether to visit North Korea until after talks between American and North Korean officials that begin today in Kuala Lumpur on the sensitive issue of the communist country's missile program.
Clinton met Monday with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who reported on her visit to Pyongyang last week and told him that North Korea had indicated it was willing to give up its missile program in exchange for help launching communications satellites.
U.S. officials said they believe the proposal made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is "serious," and one said Kim even tried to answer technical questions during his meetings with Albright. Nonetheless, a senior administration official said Clinton would want to know "the specifics" before committing to a state visit.
Robert J. Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, will lead the U.S. team trying to nail down those specifics in Kuala Lumpur. At issue is which categories of missiles would be prohibited, what types of research would be barred, and what guarantees there would be against the export of missile parts and technology. The talks are scheduled to last three days.
"Ultimately, the question comes down to what are they willing to give up, and what do they think they need as a substitute?" said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
North Korea, starved for revenue, has indicated that it would expect to be compensated for the loss of export earnings if it agreed to halt exports to countries such as Iran and Pakistan.
But U.S. officials argue that North Korea's missile exports might bring in as little as $300 million. That could be offset by increased trade and tourism with South Korea alone, and reconciliation with Japan could result in reparations for World War II.
The administration has not decided exactly how much movement by North Korea would justify a presidential visit, the senior official said. "Missiles is probably the most paramount issue that we face," he said. "That will be a cornerstone of a judgment [whether] to go, and we don't know enough yet." Another key issue is for Pyongyang to take steps to reduce tensions on the border between North and South Korea.
It is possible that a presidential visit could be made to mark significant progress, even if a formal agreement is not ready for signing, the senior official said. "We haven't made that decision," he said.
The trip also has a political dimension, since Clinton must weigh the risk of appearing to give in to missile blackmail against the opportunity to defuse a threat from a country whose border he once called "the scariest place on earth." Albright has been criticized since her return for turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in North Korea.
"We all recognize that we want to capture this moment," said the senior administration official. "Chairman Kim is clearly indicating that he wants a different kind of relationship with the United States and the rest of the world in the future. That is certainly something we should nurture and advance. If this continues, there will at some point in the future be a visit by the president of the United States to Pyongyang. The question is whether now is that time. . . . You won't know that until you really evaluate all of the substance."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new mexico
Spectrum widens for semiconductor lasers
Electronics Design, Technology & News Network
11/01/00, 8:30 p.m. EDT
By R. Colin Johnson EE Times
http://www.eetimes.com
http://www.edtn.com/story/tech/OEG20001101S0079-Rsource_code=26
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Semiconductor laser research has pushed performance into new territory at both ends of the spectrum in separate developments at Sandia National Laboratories and Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories. Sandia and Brown University scientists collaborated on the first vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) to achieve emission at 380 nanometers in the ultraviolet, while Bell Labs researchers built the longest-wavelength semiconductor laser, which emits at 20-micron wavelength. The Bell Labs laser, called a quantum cascade or QC laser, has a fundamentally different structure from the Sandia VCSEL.
Sandia's 380-nm laser could someday help build solid state "light bulbs" similar to big LEDs, but white. Today, small white LEDs are available. They use 410-nm blue LEDs housed inside a tiny "bulb" coated with white phosphor, just like a fluorescent tube, but the dim "cold" light they emit limits their usefulness. On the other hand, a chip with hundreds of true UV sources could produce the bright "warm" white light of normal-sized light bulbs.
Bell Labs' long-wavelength laser could become the basis of a new type of chemical sensor and analysis system, since the rotational frequency of gas molecules falls into the same frequency region as the QC laser light. That would allow a light beam passing through a gas to identify specific compounds via a selective absorption profile. Since semiconductor lasers can be mass-produced at low cost, the QC laser could form the basis for a new class of chemical analysis products.
Both breakthroughs are the result of incremental improvements to existing laser architectures. The Sandia researchers have found a way to improve the performance of the mirror at the bottom end of the laser cavity. The Bell Labs researchers were building on past successes with the quantum cascade approach, which was invented by Federico Capasso and Alfred Cho, two members of the current team. The quantum cascade effect is able to generate photons in a range of wavelengths, making it a uniquely flexible laser architecture.
Light emission at long wavelengths becomes difficult, since correspondingly thicker semiconductor layers are required to produce the light. The current breakthrough resulted from a new way to guide photons along a single layer. The photons are attracted to the layer by what is known as a surface plasmon - a layer of photons traveling along the interface between the semiconductor and a metal contact.
Sandia team members said they have not yet achieved an electrically pumped VCSEL but have managed to show that such a device is possible by improving the efficiency of the bottom oxide mirror. "We have finally achieved a laser in the UV range, and though many researchers around the world are also trying to achieve the same goal, we are the first. But I want to emphasize that we have not achieved the holy grail, because our device is optically, not electrically, pumped," said the lead scientist at Sandia, Jung Han. The group hopes to demonstrate an electrically pumped design "within a year," said Han.
The current breakthrough involved shortening the wavelength of the laser beam produced by an optically pumped VCSEL to 380 nm. The previous shortest-wavelength VCSEL was 410 nm. The traditional boundary between blue and ultraviolet is 400 nm, even though 320 nm is the UV range that tans skin. However, the source of excitation for the VCSEL was a big, bulky 355-nm laser shining on the VCSEL microchip.
Sandia has begun work on its next goal: to produce a single-chip solution - the electrically pumped VCSEL that Han referred to as the holy grail.
VCSELs are manufactured by sandwiching thin layers of semiconductors that emit photons when electricity is passed through them. The vertical orientation of the layers is arranged to reflect that light back from the top, as well as up from the bottom, onto the photon-generating microcavity target, thereby prompting it to lase. The reflectivity of the mirrors is directly proportional to the power produced by the resulting laser.
"Our key accomplishment, which has not been discussed elsewhere since we have patents pending, was building an epitaxial bottom mirror - that was a major engineering accomplishment that has not been duplicated at any other lab that I know about," said Han.
Other VCSEL designers use symmetrical dielectric mirror layers for both top and bottom - usually an oxide layer, such as titanium oxide. But Sandia used a dielectric hafnium oxide top mirror; and for the bottom layer, instead of an oxide mirror, it used an aluminum-gallium-nitride epitaxial one with almost 100 percent reflectivity.
"Other labs have had only limited success without an epitaxial bottom mirror, but we mastered the process of building epitaxial mirrors with nearly 100 percent reflectivity and have applied for a patent," said Han.
The problem with building epitaxial mirrors has been stress-induced cracking during annealing. During the fabrication process, chips are raised to thousands of degrees centigrade, and the layers deposited have slightly dissimilar lattice spacing, causing stress between them. During cooling, other labs were getting very low yields because the mirrors were cracking to relieve the stress.
"We have a new process that I can't describe in detail, since we only applied for the patent last month, but I can tell you that it is a recipe you can use with conventional chip fabrication equipment," said Han. "Basically, what we call stress engineering in our patent is a set of special procedures to use during both the growth and cooling phase to prevent epitaxial mirrors from cracking. We are getting 100 percent yields with our stress-management system."
Another advance in the three-year-old project took place more than a year ago, when the researchers added indium to the gallium nitride and aluminum nitride layers, bumping the efficiency of the process from 1 percent to nearly 20 percent. The introduction of indium lengthened the wavelength of the experimental VCSEL to 380 nm from 360 nm, but the extra efficiency of the device convinced Han to work on shortening the wavelength of an efficient device rather than try to make a shorter-wavelength device more efficient, as did competing labs.
The solid-state light bulb could be enabled by UV VCSELs by building something similar to a fluorescent tube, the inside of which is coated with traditional phosphors but is illuminated by chips covered with hundreds of lasing VCSELS, instead of an electrified glowing plasma as in normal fluorescent tubes. Sandia estimates $100 billion a year in worldwide cost savings, a 120-gigawatt reduction in power generation capacity, and 350 million tons per year less carbon emission to operate such solid-state light bulbs compared with conventional bulbs.
Other applications, however, can utilize the UV laser in its own right. For instance, Sandia's chemical-lab-on-a-chip group plans to integrate the UV laser for detecting radioactive materials and even some pathogens, such as E. coli bacteria. Today, samples must be taken to a 10-cubic-foot UV laser or, for field work, the samples must be tagged with materials that respond to longer-wavelength sources of portable illumination.
"We will work very hard in the next year to create a compact UV laser source, which will benefit groups working on both national security and medical devices to detect chemical and biological pathogens in the field," said Han. Sandia's work was funded by a directed research and development program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's basic energy science program. It was managed on-site by a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp. in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif.
The Bell Labs team included researchers Alessandro Tredicucci, Claire Gmachl, Michael Wanke, Albert Hutchinson, Deborah Sivco and Sung-Nee Chu, in addition to Capasso and Cho. They described their work in a recent issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Additional reporting by Chappell Brown.
-------- utah
Removal of uranium waste approved
Environmental News Network
Wednesday, November 1, 2000
By Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/11/11012000/ap_uranium_39735.asp
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/wednesday/news_93ff5c87e4aba1271081.html
A huge pile of uranium processing waste leaking into the Colorado River in Utah would be moved to a safer area under a plan signed into law by President Clinton.
Local, state and federal officials have been squabbling for years over what to do about the 10.5 million tons of radioactive dirt, the legacy of a closed uranium processing plant near Moab, Utah.
The waste pile is only 750 feet from the Colorado River and is leaking radioactivity and other toxins into the river, killing fish and other water creatures. The river serves as the drinking water source for parts of Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, though that water is drawn far downstream, where the concentration of pollutants is much lower.
Cleaning up the former Atlas Corp. uranium mill waste is expected to take about a decade, said Bill Hedden of the Grand Canyon Trust, an expert on the issue. Officials have estimated the cost at about $300 million.
"It's a mess that took about 45 years to be created, so it's going to take a little while to clean it up," Hedden said.
The plan to clean up the waste, contained in a military authorization bill Clinton signed Monday night, does not include federal money for the cleanup. Congress will have to approve that later.
But there is a funding mechanism that could pay at least part of the cost.
The measure returns 84,000 acres of federal land in Utah to the Ute Indian tribe. In return, the tribe agrees to pay the Energy Department about 8 percent of the proceeds from oil or natural gas development to help pay for cleaning up the uranium waste. The tribe's contribution is estimated to be about $80 million to $100 million.
"It serves multiple purposes. The environment is just one of those. Safe water down the river is another," said Ute tribal chairman O. Roland McCook. "The land will also help us out in whatever way we deem necessary. We're glad to be a part of that."
The Ute tribe, whose 1.2 million-acre reservation is the second-largest in the United States, needs the jobs that drilling would provide, McCook said.
The Atlas uranium mill was one of many in the Four Corners area of the Southwest that processed uranium ore from mines in the area. Most of the uranium handled by the plant during its operations from 1956 to 1984 went into nuclear weapons.
Denver-based Atlas posted a $6.5 million cleanup bond for the site but went bankrupt before it could be forced to pay any more.
The new law gives the Energy Department a year to study the best way to move the waste and the best place to put it. Local officials have suggested a site on a plateau 18 miles away.
-------- MILITARY
-------- drug war
Bookstore Fights Court Order to Name Customers
Washington Post
Wednesday, November 1, 2000 ; Page A12
Reuters
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53188-2000Oct31.html
DENVER -- One of the nation's most famous bookstores is fighting an effort by prosecutors to force it to reveal the names of people who bought books on how to make methamphetamines in a freedom-of-speech case that is being closely watched by bookstores nationwide.
The Tattered Cover Book Store, one of the largest independent bookstores in the United States, has until the end of the week to appeal a judge's order to open its records on who bought two books on drug-making found in a suspected methamphetamine laboratory.
Store owner Joyce Meskis has said the order could have a "chilling effect" on the First Amendment and on readers who may hesitate to buy certain books.
Bookstore owners around the country are concerned about the case, according to Oren Teicher, chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association in Tarrytown, N.Y.
The Tattered Cover's troubles began last April when five police officers showed Meskis a search warrant to review records on book sales. She refused and went to court.
In March, suburban police raided a mobile home that was a suspected methamphetamine laboratory, but they could not determine who lived in the mobile home because a number of people were seen going in and out. However, they did find two books, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture" by "Uncle Fester" and "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories" by "Jack B. Nimble."
Police found an envelope with an invoice number from the bookstore and wanted to know to whom that invoice was sent.
A judge granted a temporary restraining order earlier this year, but he recently said police could look at the records, calling them important to the case and saying police had tried to obtain the information through other means.
-------- myanmar
RANGOON JUNTA MAKES A MOCKERY OF UNITED NATIONS STANDARDS
From: burmajapan@aol.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 1, 2000
CONTACT: Dan Beeton - (202) 547-5985
DICTATORS VIOLATE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNERâ€(tm)S RIGHTS EVEN AS THEY REQUEST RENEWED UN MEMBERSHIP
ATTENTION PHOTOGRAPHERS: VISUAL DEMONSTRATION!!
Washington, D.C. Supporters of freedom and democracy in Burma will demonstrate outside three separate locations connected to the Burmese junta on Wednesday, November 1, 2000, beginning at 7:00pm. The protests will commence with a rally at the Military Attache office at 2300 California Ave, NW, and will proceed past the Embassy at 2300 S Street before ending up at the Ambassador's residence at 2223 R Street.
We must send a message to the UN that the thugs in Rangoon have no place in the General Assembly, says Free Burma Coalition founder Zarni. These are criminals who are violating the human rights of a Nobel Peace prize winner at the same time that they are asking for their UN membership to be renewed.
On the day that the United Nations Credentials Committee meets to review the credentials of all UN members countries, demonstrators here will be raising awareness of the current plight of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Laureate and Burmese democracy leader who has been under house arrest for over a month now. Other members of her party, the National League for Democracy, have been imprisoned in military safe houses and notorious prisons such as Insein, north of Rangoon. The Free Burma Coalition is stepping up its campaign to umseat the Burmese junta from the United Nations General Assembly by demanding that its UN credentials be denied.
Supporters of democracy in Burma are demanding that the Credentials Committee deny the Rangoon junta approval, as they are an illegal government. The democracy party of Aung San Suu Kyi won an overwhelming majority of votes in the last nation-wide elections in 1990. The junta refused to allow a transfer of power.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Dan Beeton, Free Burma Coalition Campaign Coordinator or Jeremy Woodrum, Director of the FBC Washington Office at (202) 547-5985.
-------- u.s.
Why Yemen May Be Slow to Aid U.S. Bombing Probe
Time
Time Daily - November 1, 2000
Tony Karon
http://www.time.com/time/daily/0%2C2960%2C59343-101001101%2C00.html
Undiplomatic Dispatch: U.S. agents are complaining that cooperation in the Cole investigation isn't what it ought to be.
The Yemenis aren't being accused of stonewalling, as such, but there appears to have been a shoe-challenging case of foot-dragging on the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole. Speaking off the record, U.S. officials have complained that the Yemenis have limited their access to sites containing possible evidence and barred them from interviews with suspects and witnesses. This despite President Clinton's personal intervention last week imploring Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh to allow a "genuine joint investigation."
The Yemeni attitude naturally sets off alarm bells for U.S. law enforcement personnel who recall their deeply frustrating experiences with the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Despite diplomatic pressure from Washington, the Saudis never allowed U.S. personnel access to the suspects they tried and summarily executed for their part in carrying out the truck bomb attack that killed 19 U.S. military personnel. U.S. investigators, however, have been quick to point out that the Yemeni experience has been nothing like the stonewalling by the Saudis; only that it has fallen well short of what has been requested.
Yemeni reticence, though, may hold some important indicators of the pressures weighing on Arab governments that maintain alliances with the U.S. right now. During testimony to the House and Senate Armed Services committees last week, the U.S. commander for the Middle East and Gulf, General Tommy Franks, apprised legislators of some brutal facts about the region: 19 of its 25 states were concerned areas of high risk to U.S. personnel. This despite the fact that the governments of most of these states are U.S. allies. And earlier this week, it was reported that the U.S. Navy has decided temporarily to avoid the Suez Canal, instead rerouting vessels around the southern tip of Africa to reach the Gulf. This was a troubling indicator of the state of the Pax Americana that has prevailed in the region since the Gulf War. After all, the whole point of deploying your navy in distant waters is the projection of power - it sends a message to your enemies that you are not to be trifled with. Rerouting them from a waterway bordered by no states formally hostile to the U.S. suggests that Washington's allies in the region are having trouble maintaining Pax Americana.
Then again, the Navy's decision may be a recognition of a reality that politicians may be slower to acknowledge: that formal political alliances with moderate regimes in the Arab world don't necessarily make them safe for U.S. personnel. Israel is the only real democracy in the region, and most of the pro-Western moderate regimes on whose good offices both Israel and the West rely are not particularly reflective of the feelings of their citizenry — and if they were, it's questionable whether they would be either aligned with Washington or at peace with Israel. So, despite the choices of moderate governments in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, terrorist groups find plenty of fertile ground in which to operate despite the best efforts of local intelligence services to hound them out.
And it's not as if the governments are easily able to rally the population against the terrorists, either. That may be why Yemen and Saudi Arabia have been reluctant to allow the U.S. too visible a role in the investigation process, despite having been the target of attack. To be sure, no government anywhere in the world is easily convinced to allow foreign law enforcement personnel to operate on its territory, but this may be more than just a routine sovereignty issue.
For one thing, the Yemeni might be reluctant to see the investigation stray into uncomfortable areas. While President Salah has worked hard against the odds to close down Islamist opposition groups supportive of Osama Bin Laden's global anti-U.S. jihad, the fact remains that his government had previously relied on some of those same groups to help him win a 1994 civil war against leftist opposition in the south. But there may be more immediate reasons for shutting the U.S. out of the police work: With the Islamist opposition groups using the specter of increasing U.S. involvement in Yemen to scare up support, the last thing the government can afford to do is be seen to be giving free rein to U.S. investigators.
Yemen, like a number of other moderate Arab regimes, might now be finding themselves circumscribed in their friendship with the U.S. for fear of rousing the ire of their more hostile citizenry. The latest Israeli-Palestinian violence has prompted fierce demonstrations throughout the Arab world against both Israel and the U.S. And that may leave not only Yemen, but most of Washington's moderate Arab allies, in no rush to publicly proclaim themselves U.S.-friendly.
---
U.S. Marines seek families exposed to chemicals
Contaminated water linked to birth defects
CNN
November 1, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/11/01/lejeune.polluted/index.html
CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina (CNN) -- The U.S. Marine Corps is seeking thousands of people who lived at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, between 1968 and 1985, when they could have been exposed to contaminated water suspected of causing birth defects and childhood cancers.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/11/01/lejeune.polluted/map.camp.lejeune.jpg
The Marines have turned to the national news media to publicize their search. At a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, Marine Corps spokesman Col. Michael Lehnert told reporters that some families who lived in base housing raised serious questions about their children's health.
Deborah Horney became pregnant twice while the military base's water was contaminated. She suffered one miscarriage before giving birth to another child who developed a large mass on his neck. The growth was surgically removed but never identified.
"We actually consider ourselves relatively lucky compared to some people who had children who were born severely deformed and may have lived a few days -- people who had children who died," said Horney, a Marine Corps. wife.
That was the case with another Camp Lejeune wife, Martha Vaughn. Her daughter was one month old when she died.
"When she was born she had a knot on her stomach and they told us she needed to have surgery," Vaughn recalled. "That her intestines were somehow tangled together, her large and small intestines."
Vaughn said doctors told her they had they had seen two other newborns with the very same, rare defect in the previous two months at Camp Lejeune.
What was in the water
Marine officials emphasize that all current drinking water at Camp Lejeune is regularly tested and is safe to drink.
The contaminated wells that once supplied houses on the sprawling military base have been closed for 15 years.
The water in those wells was found to contain excessive levels of two carcinogenic chemicals:
• Tetrachlorethylene (PCE), used for dry cleaning and metal degreasing. Suspected of being dumped by a former dry cleaner.
Exposure to high concentrations of the chemical can cause dizziness, headaches, sleepiness, confusion, nausea, difficulty in speaking and walking, and unconsciousness.
• Trichloroethylene (TCE), a colorless liquid used as solvent for cleaning metal parts, apparently dumped by the base motor pool. Drinking or breathing high levels of the chemical may cause nervous system effects, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat, coma and possibly death.
University of Georgia environmental health professor Jeff Fisher said the concentration of those chemicals was ten times higher at the base than at other comparable toxic sites.
"At least a factor of ten, going from a hundred parts per billion contamination level for solvents, to a thousand," said Fisher.
Corps knew of problem since 1985
Marine Corps officials claim they and water officials weren't even monitoring wells for PCE and TCE until the early 1980s and didn't know any better.
"The important thing to understand is what we knew and when we knew it, and what type of guidelines were available to commanders at the time," said Lehnert. "We're confident that the commanders that were working around the base at that time acted responsibly."
Once they discovered the problem in 1985, the Marines told those service members living on base but made no effort to inform former residents until last year.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry published a report in 1998 identifying a potential link between the contaminated water and birth defects. That report was based on a sampling of Camp Lejeune families.
The agency last year began contacting parents of children either born or conceived at the base between 1968 and 1985 to survey their health histories.
Only about 6,500 of the estimated 16,500 families that may have been exposed to the contaminated water have been reached to date.
Study could be expanded
Even those parents whose children have not exhibited any health concerns are asked to answer a 35-question health survey conducted by telephone. To participate, the parents should call the National Opinion Research Center at 1-800-639-4270.
The data collected may be used in a follow-up scientific research study about the effects of the contaminated water may have on children when exposed to the chemicals before birth.
Questions also have been raised about whether the contaminated water could have affected not only unborn infants but adults and children.
"There's always that possibility," said Wendy Kaye, chief of epidemiology at ATSDR. "But the in-utero exposure is believed to be the most susceptible time period. And if we find a problem in that group, then we might expand it to other groups."
Former Marine Charles Horney, whose family drank the contaminated water, hopes the marines are telling the full truth:
"Well, I love the Corps, you know. I'll always be faithful to the Corps," said Horney. "But what's wrong is wrong. If something needs to be done, they need to make it right."
CNN Correspondent Brian Cabell and Reuters contributed to this report.
---
BROTHERS IN ARMS
boxoffice.com
By Francesca Dinglasan
http://www.boxoff.com/issues/nov00/greenwood_culp.html
Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp Portray John and Robert Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis Saga "13 Days"
If there's one thing Hollywood hasn't produced in small quantity, it's the near-end-of-the-world disaster flick. Asteroids have been hurled at the earth, malevolent aliens have gleefully obliterated famous U.S. landmarks, Satan has revisited humanity during the Y2K festivities and prehistoric dinosaurs have been brought back to life to menace modern man. Scary sets of circumstances, unquestionably, but nothing compared to what's in store for the big-screen come Christmas time: the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Of all the frightening scenarios -- digitally created raptors tearing after children included -- it's hard to imagine that any event could be as truly terrifying as the real-life tale of the two weeks in October 1962, when the world seemed to come within a hair's breadth of nuclear annihilation.
At the heart of this drama was U.S. president John F. Kennedy, who, with the guidance of his most trusted advisors -- brother and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and longtime friend and aide Kenneth O'Donnell -- was forced to confront the actions of Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev regarding the Soviet Union's strategic placement of nuclear weapons in Cuba. In history's most perilous game of chicken, the two Cold War enemies faced off over the presence of the nuclear missiles on the communist island. Remove the missiles, demanded President Kennedy of the too-close-to-home set of deadly arms, or the U.S. will enforce a blockade of Cuba and fire on any Soviet ships attempting to enter the island.
Now, nearly 40 years since these tense moments passed happily into the pages of history, the story is coming back anew in New Line's upcoming "13 Days."
Based on O'Donnell's memoirs, "Thirteen Days" features Kevin Costner as the tough talking, Bostonian presidential aide who provides a firsthand view of the political inner sanctum behind the near-nuclear disaster. While Costner is, of course, the film's star draw, the undoubted center of attention will be the actors rising to the challenge of portraying the Kennedy brothers: Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp.
The special pressure attached to depicting two of 20th-century America's most significant figures wasn't lost on the thesps. Culp tells BOXOFFICE he fully understood the seriousness of becoming involved in such an ambitious project, which in his case meant bringing the tough-as-nails persona of Robert F. Kennedy to life. "You're playing these icons," he says, "And you really have to have a lot of stuff in your bones just to show up, just to walk into the room. You're taking a life at a certain point and putting [forth] an interpretation and trying to portray it as true to the spirit of somebody as possible."
Greenwood, too, tells BOXOFFICE that he realized the high risks inherent to a film such as "13 Days" the moment his agent informed him that the role of John F. Kennedy was up for grabs. "Are you kidding?" he thought. "JFK? Forget it. I want to be a target like that? What if I got it? What a nightmare!"
The "nightmare" came true, and Greenwood says he couldn't have been more excited to be a part of it. "It was incredibly invigorating because it was hard work, like the hard work when you're working out. It feels great." To which he adds, "I read about it. When the endorphins kick in, I gather, people feel good when they're in shape."
While Greenwood -- who is currently on location in Ireland filming his next project -- jokes that getting in shape is a foreign concept to him (he quips, "I'll put out my cigarette here and grab a Guinness"), both he and Culp admit that they each had to undergo a degree of physical transformation for their respective roles.
"I had to shape myself into this wiry Bobby Kennedy body," says Culp. "I'm naturally just a hair taller and a hair broader than Bruce. That was one of the reasons they wanted to see us together in the screen test. They had him in a padded coat and lifts, and I hate to whittle myself down and pretty much spent five or six months in training and had a very strict diet regime."
Greenwood, however, says that his metamorphosis into JFK involved concentrating on other areas -- posture and locks, to be exact. "He was in such chronic pain," the actor says of President Kennedy. "If you watch the way he sits, he's always tilted over on one side to take the weight off his back. Once I figured out how I was going to deal with his back pain and that particular kind of stiffness...hair was where we spent the most time.
"People generally think of [JFK with] just a tremendously virile thatch, I think, because so many of those photographs [of him show] this great, big tousled shag," continues Greenwood. "[Film hairstylist] Tony Walker toyed around with all kinds of stuff, including letting it come down low. At one point I looked perilously close to Sam Donaldson, so we had to change it."
Bad imitations of TV news anchors aside, preparing for the Kennedy roles was no small feat, if the hours of study and research put in by Greenwood and Culp are any indication. "Tons of reading, watching tapes and listening to tapes" is how Culp describes the rehearsal process for RFK. "I like to do a lot of reading on things anyway because that's just the way my mind works. So I did a lot of reading from different point of views...and I found the best accounts were the ones that tried to paint the fullest three-dimensional pictures."
Greenwood echoes this sentiment, noting that the subjective nature of memoirs written by various players in the Cuban Missile Crisis emphasized the need to take several disparate sources into consideration. "There's countless volumes written about that period and that incident specifically," he says. "What I found interesting after getting a stack of books up to my belt and reading them was comparing the different accounts. A lot of people were reporting on the same meetings in their books, but of course their perspectives are completely different sometimes. Their take on what the tenor of the room was is often different, so when you put all those together, you can get a pretty good idea of what it was really like."
Getting a feel for the general mood of the scenario wasn't the only area of concern for Culp and Greenwood. Besides the "tenor of the room," of obvious importance was capturing the famous tenor of each Kennedy's voice. RFK and JFK's distinct accents and inflections, after all, are the traits that most readily identify the brothers -- any perceived exaggeration or missed nuance seems likely to be the first target of criticism for eager historians and film reviewers alike. Conscious of the difficulty, the actors say that they worked together in an attempt to master each of their Kennedy tongues.
"People have this sort of generalized idea of the Kennedy accent," explains Culp. "One thing you find is that [JFK and RFK's] voices are different tonally -- there's a real difference. [Bruce and I] found when we were doing the auditions together, we would start drifting towards each other's voice, so we would call each other up on the phone and do dueling Kennedys."
"We worked alone on our accents and then we would get together and talk and try to avoid leaking into one another," says Greenwood. "I tried to avoid having what he was doing seep into me, and he tried the same thing. [An] analogy would be that we each had a flask of our own Kennedy and we kept pouring it and hoping they wouldn't mix." (He modestly undercuts this charming image by adding, "That's not even a good analogy. I can find a better metaphor.")
With all these communal rehearsals, one would think the actors would have long tired of each other by the time filming of "13 Days" came to a close. Both, however, express a genuine fondness for the other -- rendered all the more sincere by their ability to kid about their relationship. Culp, for example, tells BOXOFFICE, "Don't believe a word he says," when he learns about this writer's interview with Greenwood. Greenwood, meanwhile, answers, "Agony. Can we not talk about it?" when asked by BOXOFFICE what it was like to work with Culp.
This shared sense of humor, says Culp, actually helped the working relationship between the two performers. "I think there was a thing that we fell into where we really were older brother/younger brother," he explains. "We kind of fell into that giving each other s -- t thing a lot, which, as far as my understanding, was very much a part of the Kennedy brothers. That was how they communicated, that sort of constant ribbing and cajoling, and we really fell into that very easily. I think there was a certain enjoyment to the fact that we were falling into it and we just kind of kept it going. There was a real camaraderie there."
Greenwood shares his friend's sentiment. "[Steven] was great. We worked well right from the beginning. We didn't know each other at all, and ["13 Days"] is a big deal for both of us. We wanted to treat each other with respect, and out of that good things grew."
It's a sense of professionalism and regard that both actors readily extend to Costner, the film's star. "Kevin was like the third brother," says Culp. "[He's] somebody who really, really wants it all to be good. He was really focused on the work and how we can make it better."
"He was tremendous," Greenwood adds. "It's hard for whatever superlative I use [to express] how he supported us and how he was there at all times and [under] all kinds of circumstances. He was a gentleman and a force for solidarity. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the way he approached this whole project."
Costner's deep commitment to "13 Days," is, in fact, well known in Hollywood circles. The actor stuck with the project as it was shepherded through numerous studios and possible directors, until it found a home at New Line and with helmer Roger Donaldson. And while the reasons behind Costner's strong attachment to the script is, for the moment, up for conjecture, Greenwood and Culp shared some of their own recollections and connections to their characters and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Culp says for him, the role of Robert Kennedy, which he previously played in the HBO special "Norma Jean and Marilyn," resonated on a personal level. "The more I researched him, the more I admired him, despite his faults," he says. "A lot of people's views are that he was somebody who never stopped evolving or growing....I know my mom was a real Kennedy person, and I was probably influenced by that. She [died] four years [ago], but they offered me the deal in the screen test on her birthday, so I thought she was pulling strings."
For Greenwood, memories of October 1962 hit very close to home -- literally. "When the Crisis was happening, I was in school in [Washington, D.C. suburb] Bethesda, Maryland, which is Ground Zero," he says. "We were doing the drills -- duck-and-cover under the melamine desktops -- hoping the nuclear holocaust would brush by us and leave us unscathed, so we could go home to our cheese sandwiches -- scamper home to the Velveeta after the blast."
It's this very sense of doom that Greenwood thinks might appeal to younger moviegoers who have long forgotten -- if they ever even momentarily cognized -- the danger of the Cold War. "You think a Sega game is bad?" he suggest as a possible marketing slogan. "Try reality."
Culp, too, is hopeful that "13 Days" will draw a demographically diverse crowd, especially those eager for an inspirational, intelligent plot. "It's about human beings who, in the midst of a crisis situation, become better than themselves," he says of the film, "who surpass who they are, who work together to save the world from possible disaster."
And, really -- space aliens, devils and dinosaurs notwithstanding -- who wouldn't want to see humankind saved from itself?
"13 Days." Starring Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp. Directed by Roger Donaldson. Written by David Self. Produced by Armyan Bernstein. A New Line release. Drama. Rated PG-13. Opens December 20.
-------- OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Ford shows fuel-cell prototype car
USA: November 1, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8754
DETROIT - Ford Motor Co. showed off the world's first production prototype of a direct-hydrogen powered fuel cell car at an auto show in Las Vegas on Monday.
The No. 2 automaker will deliver the Ford Focus FCV to the California Fuel Cell Partnership this week for use in demonstrating the capabilities of fuel cell vehicles, Chris Theodore, Ford vice president for North American cars, told industry officials at the Speciality Equipment Market Association show. The vehicle will be based at the partnership's headquarters in Sacramento, Calif.
"It represents the future of automotive power," Theodore said.
A fuel cell is an energy conversion device that converts chemical energy using hydrogen and oxygen and producing water as the only byproduct. Ford has previously said it will put a hybrid-powered engine in its new Escape small sport utility vehicle starting in 2003.
Ford said it also plans to deliver several additional fuel cell vehicles to the California Fuel Cell Partnership over the next three years.
The partnership, which started in April 1999, includes auto manufacturers, energy providers, fuel cell companies and California state agencies. It plans to put up to 50 fuel cell vehicles on the road between 2000 and 2003.
The Focus FCV is based on the automaker's high-volume small car, which was the top-selling car in the world through the first six months of this year, Theodore said. It features high fuel economy, zero emissions and the seamless ride of electric vehicles.
The hybrid Focus is powered by technology developed by Ford's TH!NK Group and will sport a "Powered by TH!NK" logo. TH!NK concentrates on fuel cell and other advanced electric power sources for Ford.
John Wallace, executive director of Ford's TH!NK Group said in a statement that the industry is still a long way from having fuel cells that will compete with the internal combustion engine, as hurdles to overcome include cutting cost, improving reliability and making the fuel available on a wider basis.
"It is the only (technology) that has a chance of replacing the internal combustion engine," he said.
The Focus FCV is the second direct-hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicle from Ford. The company introduced its first fuel cell vehicle - the P2000 HFC - at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January 1998.
Ford also showed three other concept vehicles at the auto conference in Las Vegas. The "Made in Detroit" Focus is a panel van meant to appeal to younger buyers fascinated by techno music and industrial culture. It takes its name from the "Made in Detroit" brand clothing.
Ford also showed a high performance version of the Focus, dubbed FR200, meant to show the kinds of parts buyers may be able to buy in the aftermarket to jazz up their Focus cars and a concept called the Focus Flexus, meant to appeal to younger buyers looking for more flexibility in their small cars.
The five-door Flexus sports such features as a modular roof rack designed to hold bikes, skis and snowboards that can fold into extra storage space, and a foldable ramp in the rear to help in loading large objects into the back.
-------- environment
Italian toxic tanker cargo sinks in Channel
Story by Pierre-Henri Allain
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
FRANCE: November 1, 2000
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8756
CHERBOURG, France - An Italian tanker with 6,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals aboard sank in the Channel yesterday as it was being towed to the French port of Cherbourg.
The Ievoli Sun, whose 14 crew were ferried to safety by helicopter when the vessel ran into trouble on Monday, sank 11 miles (18 km) northwest of the Channel island of Alderney, the French maritime command in Brest said.
The second major shipping disaster in a year in the perilous seas off northwestern France sparked new calls from Paris for an urgent crackdown in maritime security at European level.
The stricken tanker was carrying 6,000 tonnes of chemicals, including 4,000 tonnes of styrene, a hydrocarbon used for making synthetic plastics. It reported a hole in its double hull in heavy weather on Monday and radioed for help.
The sinking raised fears of a major pollution spill just under a year after the Erika tanker sank off western France washing thousands of tonnes of heavy fuel onto the coast with disastrous effects for the local tourism and fishing industries.
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin told parliament that pollution control equipment was being rushed to the spot where the ship went down and a crisis centre set up to coordinate the response.
Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot, who was flown to the area, said he had seen an "iridescent trail" of some 800 metres (yards) but did not know if it was fuel from the engines or chemicals from the cargo holds.
"This raises the question of the companies' responsibility," Gayssot also said. "We cannot accept that safety is sacrificed on the altar of profits."
A spokesman for the Brest maritime command said the ship was chartered among others by oil companies Shell and Esso, which is part of U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil .
President Jacques Chirac, whose country currently presides over European Union affairs, also called for tighter pan-EU rules. Jospin said the issue would be taken up at the highest level, at an EU summit in the town of Nice in early December.
The Green party and environment protection group Greenpeace said the shipwreck was already polluting the waters and that the Ievoli Sun went down in an area where radioactive and chemical waste and World War Two munitions had already been dumped.
SHIP SANK UNDER TOW TO CHERBOURG
Gayssot said that if the styrene, which is highly toxic and corrosive, leaked from the ship's tanks it could float to the surface and evaporate, and part could dissolve in the water. Or it might harden, which would be less dangerous, and could then be recovered by pollution-fighting ships.
Special booms used to combat the oil spill from the Erika on the other side of the northwestern Brittany peninsula early this year were being shipped to Cherbourg in case they were needed.
The 11-year-old Ievoli Sun, owned by Italian firm Marnavi, had left the British port of Fawley for Bar in Yugoslavia when its bow began to dip into the sea on Monday. The water was 60 to 80 metres (200 to 260 feet) deep where the ship sank.
The 114-metre-long (376 feet) tanker was being towed from the stern by a French tug when it began sinking yesterday morning, five hours before it was due to reach Cherbourg.
The Maltese-registered Erika broke in half in stormy seas on December 12 last year, spewing up to 15,000 tonnes of oil onto the southern Brittany coast. The disaster devastated the local tourist industry, forced most oyster farms and sea salt producers to close temporarily and killed thousands of seabirds.
Ships completed pumping thousands of tonnes of heavy fuel oil trapped in the holds of the Erika last month.
Maritime experts expressed hope that the Ievoli Sun's tanks would stay intact, allowing them to pump out the chemicals with less risk of pollution than in the Erika case.
"If it sinks intact, then it's not as urgent a problem as a spill at sea in real time," said Brest maritime prefect Admiral Jacques Gheerbrandt.
Chirac said France would do its best to tighten maritime safety rules. Gayssot said the Ievoli Sun had been cited for major deficiencies three times in Dutch ports and would have been banned from EU waters if tighter security measures that France proposed after the Erika disaster were already in effect.
But environmentaists accused Paris of culpable apathy.
"How was a boat carrying such dangerous substances allowed to take to the seas despite warnings of a Force 10 gale?" asked the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Greenpeace said if France had pushed more actively for stricter maritime rules during its six months at the EU helm then port controls would have been tightened and Italian vessel classification company Rina, which is being investigated for endangering lives in the Erika disaster, would have been struck off the list.
Rina said in a separate statement port authorities had last inspected the Ievoli Sun in April and found no "structure-related deficiencies".
--------
An Ineffectual Congress
New York Times
November 01, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/01/opinion/01WED1.html
The 106th Congress, with little to show for its two years of existence, has all but vanished from public discourse. In past presidential campaigns, Congress has at least been an issue, if only as an object of revulsion, as Bill Clinton made the Gingrich Congress in 1996. But nobody, least of all the presidential candidates, is talking about this particular Congress, and the reason is plain. On almost every matter of importance - gun control, patients' bill of rights, energy deregulation, Social Security - Congress has done little or nothing, failing to produce a record worthy of either celebration or condemnation.
Nor has it been able to complete even the most basic business, the appropriations bills that keep the government functioning. Three have been vetoed, and two others have not even been sent to President Clinton for his signature. Absent a burst of statesmanship in the next few days, it is possible that Congress will have to come back after Election Day to complete work on the federal budget.
But if Congress has done a lousy job for the public at large, it is a doing a fabulous job of feathering its own nest and rewarding commercial interests and favored constituencies with last- minute legislative surprises that neither the public nor most members of Congress have digested. One big reason for Congress's failure to finish the appropriations bills is that it has been locked in all-day negotiating sessions with the White House, trying to preserve as many of these items as it can.
In some cases, Mr. Clinton has refused to accept legislation because it was missing something he very much wanted. For instance, he threatened to veto one spending bill because it did not contain a provision, supported by this page, granting limited amnesty for long-term illegal immigrants. But most of his energy has been spent beating back last- minute riders he does not like. At last count, there were well over 200 special-interest items "in play." Originally they were attached to the Commerce- Justice-State spending bill. When the president threatened a veto, they jumped like fleas to the Labor-Health and Human Services bill.
Most of these items are garden-variety pork projects. But some involve real substance and bad policy. One egregious example is a bill that passed the Senate Agriculture Committee without hearings and never received a floor vote in either chamber. It would broadly prohibit states from using their authority to write food safety regulations stronger than those required by the federal government. This means that the states could no longer fill gaps left by the Food and Drug Administration.
As usual, some of the worst riders involve the environment. One would overturn a judge's ruling under the Endangered Species Act blocking trawl fishing along parts of the Alaska coastline inhabited by the endangered Steller sea lion. Another would restrict the Secretary of Interior's authority to ban snowmobiles from national parks. A third would underwrite what could be the last great Western water boondoggle - the diversion of the free- flowing Animas River in southwestern Colorado to provide water for local governments that have so far demonstrated no need for it.
The Republicans believe that somehow they will profit from these confrontations. But Mr. Clinton has won these standoffs in the past, and there is no reason why he cannot do so now.
-------- genetics
Biotech company IPOs are sign of healthy sector
Montreal Gazette
Wednesday 1 November 2000
MARY WEIL DJ
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/pages/001101/4789784.html
Recent market volatility hasn't dissuaded Canadian biotechnology companies from filing for initial public offerings. In fact, with the market rotation out of the technology sector, biotech companies might be just what the doctor ordered.
A half-dozen biotechnology and healthcare companies have filed for IPOs, and more are possible, said Michael Denny, director of investment banking at Yorkton Securities Inc.
Nexia Biotechnologies Inc. and Kinetek Pharmaceuticals Inc. have both filed in the past week, joining several companies that are part way through the process.
CryoCath Technologies Inc., which started trading yesterday, is the latest Canadian company to move to the public market. It sold 5 million shares at $8 a share for total proceeds of $40 million, making it the largest Canadian health-sciences IPO to date.
In addition to market factors, biotech companies are also benefiting from the publicity regarding the human genome project, said Claude Camire, a biotech analyst with Dundee Securities Corp. That view was echoed by Denny.
"A huge amount of news was associated with the sequencing of the human genome and that's not just market hype. That's a real ... scientific achievement which will be spinning off new opportunities for the next 20 years," Denny said.
Conservative investors rotating money out of the technology sector might head for the banking group, up 7.5 per cent since Nortel Network Corp.'s plunge last Wednesday, but more aggressive investors will head for biotech, Denny said.
So far this year, 55 biotech companies in North America have moved to the public market, as compared with only 16 in 1999, Camire said.
ConjuChem Inc. is another biotech on the way to becoming a public company, aiming to raise $25 million to $30 million. Others include GlycoDesign Inc., a company working on cancer drugs, Supratek Pharma Inc., which is looking for $35 million to $40 million, and Dynacare, a company that provides laboratory-testing services and is planning to sell 7 million common shares.
Nexia Biotechnologies, based in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, is perhaps the most intriguing of the potential new public companies. Nexia is developing genetically modified goats that produce milk containing a synthetic version of spider silk.
Spider silk, which is tougher and stronger than steel and Kevlar, would be used in products like medical devices and bullet-proof vests.
Biotechnology indexes have been significantly less volatile than other technology indexes and have been relatively strong this year, so there are more institutional investors interested in biotech offerings, Denny said
After being ignored this year in the technology and Internet hype, there's been a return of interest in the biotechnology sector, he said.
But the window of opportunity for the biotechs might be closing, after MediChem Life Sciences Inc. showed little upward movement in last week's debut. The Lemont, Ill., company reduced the price range of its offering and ended up pricing at the low end.
The Nasdaq biotechnology index has also fallen in the past two sessions, though it still shows a year-to-date gain of about 32 per cent.
Activity in the Canadian biotechnology sector has been steady so far in 2000, with 61 companies raising funds or going public for a total of $1.3 billion, just under last year's total of $1.4 billion, which was raised by 45 companies over the course of the whole year, said Eric Slavens, public-offerings service leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In terms of IPOs, the average size of the deals this year in the biotech sector is about $18 million, compared with only $6 million last year, but there have been fewer deals so far, Slavens said.
-------- imf / world bank
World Bank Head Speaks On Demonstrations
From: radman <resist@best.com>
RadTimes # 92
UN Wire November 1, 2000
James Wolfensohn remembers when he was a student and he and his generation demonstrated against US economic dominance in his native Australia. But as president of the World Bank, Wolfensohn has a lightly different view of the recent, and surprising, upsurge in youthful street protests against his and other international organizations that at times have turned ugly. Seattle took many people by surprise. Protesters succeeded in delaying speeches by foreign ministers at the World Trade Organization talks. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had to scratch his speech altogether because he couldn't get into the conference hall. Wolfensohn says he warned WTO head Michael Moore that if he were more concerned about the plight of poor countries, as the World Bank is, he wouldn't have had such a mess in the streets. After street protests almost disrupted the recent World Bank and IMF meetings in Prague, Wolfensohn says Moore came back to him and asked, "What was that you said to me in Seattle?"
"Middle class kids in my generation used to come out to protest and now we have another series of protests," Wolfensohn told UN Wire in an interview. "I don't resent that at all, I'm glad they are interested. If it's for debate and real discussion, no problem. What hurts me is when they are throwing Molotov cocktails or hurt the police, or close down the very meetings that are dealing with the very issues they are concerned with. Our big concerns were AIDS, corruption and good governance, and people outside were complaining that no one was concerned about AIDS, corruption and good governance. They were subjects on our agenda, not because of the people outside, but because they are central to our agenda. They've got our attention. It's important to have a dialogue. But all I'm looking for is dialogue," he said.
Wolfensohn said only a partnership between national governments, multilateral organizations (such as the World Bank), civil society (including nongovernmental organizations and peaceful protesters) and the private sector can reduce or eliminate poverty. He doesn't deny that global corporations have immense power and therefore immense responsibility. But he sees their efforts to make a profit in developing countries, through the use of local labor markets and resources, as well as investment in developing countries currency and debt markets, as positive for developing world peoples.
"I remember when I was a student in Australia in the '50s and was complaining about US investment in Australia. We weren't exactly a country in deep poverty, though it wasn't as developed as it is now, and I was angry because I thought the Americans were coming in to buy up Australian resources. As I grew older and little wiser, I saw that the simple fact is that Australia developed as a consequence of overseas investment and bought back many of those companies. In fact, the industrial revolution in Australia was caused by a transfer of resources and technology. As I get around the world to talk to African, Asian and Latin American leaders, all of them are eager to bring about a transfer of technology and money. The reason is not to rape the people, but to create jobs."
Wolfensohn says he's at the bank, where he has been president since 1995, because he's dedicated to poverty eradication. The World Bank has loaned more than $300 billion in its existence. And it is trying now to battle corruption in developing world governments.
Wolfensohn said people in the streets of Prague, where the World Bank and International Monetary Fund held their annual meeting last month, criticized "everything and nothing and some were there just to destroy." He says the protests reflect great uncertainty about how decisions are being made without the involvement of the masses. "It's positive if it's a questioning of the direction and about involvement," he says, "but I am concerned about those without information jumping to conclusions trying to close us down, or to destroy us."
It's difficult to convince the protesters he is not one of the big bad capitalists, says Wolfensohn, and he says the Internet Age can spread dissent as never before. "You can organize revolution very fast, but the thing they are criticizing, globalization, is actually one of their biggest tools." He says the bank has to explain the complexities of development and poverty and show that such problems can't be solved overnight. "You can't answer these problems on a barricade or in a sound bite," he says.
-------- police
U.S. Steps Up World Web Policing
wired.com
by Declan McCullagh
2:00 a.m. Nov. 1, 2000 PST http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39884,00.html?tw=wn20001101
WASHINGTON -- Forget grumpy congressional committees and nosy investigative reporters.
What really irks a modern, tech-savvy bureaucrat is far more disruptive: Offshore websites that lie outside the reach of U.S. law.
So it was no surprise to see the Federal Trade Commission say on Tuesday that it was redoubling its efforts to enlist international cooperation in its fight against online scams.
"These collaborations are helping us create a climate where e-commerce can be conducted with confidence," said Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection, during a press conference. "We want dot-con artists to know that consumer protection spans the globe, physically and in cyberspace."
Tuesday's announcement of "Operation Dot Con" represents a joint effort between the FTC and its sister agencies in nations including Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Among the scams highlighted: Web cramming, where scam artists offer to build a website for free and then place unauthorized charges on the phone bills of their victims.
But it only takes one country to provide safe refuge for scam artists, and only a handful of nations -- nine total -- are participating.
"The U.S. government will never be able to police the Internet as they'd like," says Sonia Arrison, a technology analyst at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.
"Just look at what happened with voteauction.com: It was shut down by the U.S. government only to reopen hours later in another country. No matter how hard they try, they'll never be able to get every single country to cooperate with them," Arrison says.
Voteauction.com was forced offline by U.S. officials, but then quickly reopened at vote-auction.com instead.
Making international agreements even more tricky are potentially conflicting laws: Advertising practices -- such as price comparison -- may be legal in the United States, but are banned in some European nations. Some practices that U.S. authorities say are scams may not be illegal elsewhere.
Arrison and other free-market advocates have a simple message: Buyer beware. They argue that people shouldn't automatically trust online offers, and technologies such as privacy seals and Better Business Bureau certifications are more effective.
But that doesn't seem to have stopped the feds.
The results of the "Dot-Con" investigation coincides with the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding" between the FTC and the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading that calls for enhanced law enforcement cooperation between the U.S. and Britain.
It also takes place during a three-day meeting of the International Marketing Supervision Network, an organization of consumer protection agencies from 29 countries as well as representatives from the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
This week is the first time that the IMSN has met in the United States, with the FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson acting as the rotating president.
-------- activists
Anti-Capitalist Youths Challenge IMF in Montreal
Students, Cops Clash At Bankers' Summit
Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:59:36 -0800
Subject: RadTimes # 89
By Josina Dunkel Montreal
First in Seattle, then Washington, then Prague, now Montreal. Once again the youths of a major city clashed with the International Monetary Fund and the so-called free-trade forces.
In a militant but mostly peaceful demonstration Oct. 23, hundreds of protesters expressed their anger at the Group of 20 conference scheduled to begin the following day in Montreal.
The crowd--mostly students--chanted in French and English and danced to drums in front of the Sheraton Centre, site of the conference.
A few students threw paint and eggs at the hotel, and a plate glass window was broken.
According to the G-20 Web site, "In Sept. 1999 in Washington, D.C., the finance ministers of the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations announced the creation of the Group of Twenty (G-20). This new international forum of finance ministers and central bank governors represents 19 countries, the European Union and the Bretton Woods Institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank)."
The G-20 include both major imperialist powers and oppressed countries. They are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
One protester told the Canadian Broadcasting Co. evening news, "The G-20, the IMF and their policymakers require violence. The very policies they implement are violent by nature. The fact that 19,000 children die each day in the Third World because of IMF restructuring policies--I think that is violent."
Police provoked the protesters to lash out. They pushed the crowd back and chanted, "Move, move, move," to the menacing beat of their billy clubs smacking their shields.
The cops were clearly prepared for the situation they created, having worn riot gear all afternoon. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at the cops, who responded with a gas that choked the young crowd.
But the standoff wasn't over yet. Riot police, backed up by the cavalry, repeatedly charged into the crowd to move the protesters off the major street they were occupying.
While the protesters would fall back, moments later they would surge forward to continue their action. Some pelted the cops with rocks and pieces of a fence they were dismantling. One cop was injured and seen limping away with the support of two other riot police. Two other cops were also reported injured.
Several protesters were aided by medics, mostly for the effects of the gas. Thirty-nine were arrested. The demonstrators marched away, vowing to return the following day. Bigger, louder protests were expected at the conference opening.
While the protest here was much smaller than those recently held in Seattle, Washington and Prague, there was a high degree of militancy. People expressed fierce opposition to the cruelties of the so-called free trade system being forced on the poor of the world by the United States, Canada and the other imperialist powers.
Not surprisingly, Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin, the conference chairperson, refused to come out of the hotel to meet with the protesters. ---- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 2, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper
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