------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
U.S. Discusses World Climate Treaty
New China spy agency
Western watchdogs say Czech N-plant near standard
Polite NATO Wearies of Russia's Kursk Suspicions
New Headaches for Problem French Aircraft Carrier
Japan's Top Party Finds the (Younger) Party Within
Kursk Sinking Probe Continues
Putin Cuts Forces by 600,000, Promising Military Overhaul
Kursk to be lifted next summer
EU's Prodi in Ukraine, pledges Chernobyl cash
FILM REVIEW 'Me and Isaac Newton':
Scientists Dispute Book's Facts
Conneticut
Western Resources To Sell Utilities
Secret Weapon Info Missing at Lab
Con Ed Selling Indian Point 2 Nuclear Plant

MILITARY
Clinton foreign policy has staying power
California Gets Set to Shift on Sentencing Drug Users
'Cancel the invitation'
Missouri
Reassuring Pakistan
Iranian Journalist, in Court, Says Security Forces Tortured Him
S. Korean officials inspect storehouses
Two Koreas exchange reunion lists
Putin risks alienating military
If U.N. Is to Police the World, It Finds It Must Also Police Itself
CUBA: U.N. SEEKS END TO EMBARGO
U.N. watchdog shifts focus
Cuba curbs condemned in U.N. by 167-3
Army berets (cont'd)
Failed Plan to Bomb a U.S. Ship Is Reported
Cole attackers had planned earlier bombing
States
Clinton urged to press Vietnam on freedoms

OTHER
WEAK PROFITS AT BASF
Along the Hudson, Vigils Supporting a River Cleanup
Forests May Help Counteract Greenhouse Gas
States
OMAN: JOINS W.T.O.
World Bank awards aid to Indian state
QUEENS: CHARGES OF BROTHEL PROTECTION
MUC police accept four-year contract
BRITAIN: EX-SPY DENIES CHARGES
Peru's ex-spy chief remains on

ACTIVISTS
Nation Rumbles at 1pm
Gay Protest Planned at Bishops' Gathering
MOZAMBIQUE: 10 PROTESTERS SLAIN
22 killed, 100 hurt in Mozambique protest



-------- NUCLEAR

U.S. Discusses World Climate Treaty

New York Times
November 10, 2000 Filed at 3:59 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Global-Warming.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Preparing for critical and probably contentious global warming talks, the Clinton administration is warning that the world treaty on climate change it agreed to three years ago may fall apart if the costs of reducing so-called ``greenhouse'' gases are not contained.

More than 160 countries, which crafted the Kyoto climate treaty in 1997, begin two weeks of intense discussions in the Netherlands next week on how to implement it. The outcome could determine whether ambitious efforts to tackle climate change will stall or become re-energized.

``If we don't have significant progress, ... we will have set back substantially the ability of the nations of the world to meet their (Kyoto emission) targets,'' Undersecretary of State Frank Loy, who will head the U.S. delegation, said in an interview.

The discussions take on additional urgency since the U.S. view of the climate treaty, which Vice President Al Gore helped craft, may dramatically shift if George W. Bush should become president. Unlike Gore, who views acceptance of the treaty critical, Bush opposes the accord as premature and potentially too disruptive and costly.

An implementation package that could be portrayed as ``cost-effective'' may defuse some congressional opposition and make it more difficult for Bush, should he emerge winner of this week's election, to ignore the treaty.

The Kyoto agreement negotiated in Japan is yet to be ratified by any industrial nation. It obligates industrial countries to cut heat-trapping emissions, mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, to 5.5 percent below 1990 levels by the end of this decade.

But a resurgence of economic growth has made that goal elusive. Many experts now predict that none of the countries, except possibly Britain, will meet its Kyoto target. The United States released 13 percent more greenhouse gases last year than in 1990 as emissions grow at about 1 percent a year.

Critics of the Kyoto accord in Congress and in American business fear it would require a dramatic shift from fossil fuels and produce soaring energy prices. To accommodate that view, the administration will insist next week on measures aimed primarily at cutting Kyoto costs.

``Achieving meaningful reductions (of greenhouse gases) is a very big assignment, and we ought to make it as easy or as cost-effective as possible,'' Loy said. He disputed criticism from many environmentalists that the U.S. proposal may thwart real reductions in greenhouse gases.

The proposal, expected to meet strong opposition from European delegates, includes:

--Unfettered trading of emissions credits, so that a country may avoid reductions from its factories, power plants or motor vehicles by buying pollution permits from a country already meeting its Kyoto target.

--Broad use of the natural capacity of forests and agricultural lands to absorb carbon through tree planting and land management. U.S. officials estimate half of the U.S. Kyoto target might be met this way.

--A flexible policy on the kinds of energy technology, including nuclear power, that would qualify as credits for industrial countries if used in developing countries to cut greenhouse emissions.

U.S. officials argue these approaches allow for the most economic reduction of heat-trapping emissions because it does not matter overall where the emission cuts come from on the globe.

These massive ``loopholes'' would make treaty compliance cheap, because as much as 85 percent of the U.S. greenhouse gas reductions could be achieved without cutting domestic emissions.

``These loopholes would make the treaty virtually irrelevant from an environmental standpoint,'' said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group.

Instead of U.S. industry cutting greenhouse emissions, it would be cheaper to buy pollution credits from Russia, where annual carbon emissions already are far below 1990 levels because of the country's economic collapse.

Likewise, U.S. negotiators acknowledge that more than half the 500 million metric tons of carbon reductions needed to meet the Kyoto target could be achieved if their negotiating partners were to accept the U.S. proposal on carbon-absorbing forests and agricultural lands.

These ``do-nothing tons'' of carbon reductions would be achieved without requiring additional land management or a greater reduction in carbon put into the air but would count against the Kyoto targets, said Jennifer Morgan of the World Wildlife Fund.

Both the extensive use of carbon sinks and unrestricted trading of pollution credits are adamantly opposed by the Europeans. On credits-swapping, they insist no more than half any country's emission-reduction target can come from international trading of credits.

``We are strongly opposed to that,'' said Assistant Secretary of State David Sandalow, a principal U.S. negotiator. ``No deal is better than a bad deal'' if the Europeans insist on capping trading credits, he said.

While seeking to make the treaty cost-effective, ``We are going over there seeking a treaty that has environmental integrity,'' Sandalow said in an interview. ``We are strongly committed to taking domestic action and have already been doing so.''

``All of the countries are worried that the United States is going to get a free ride,'' said Eileen Claussen, a former State Department climate treaty negotiator and now head of the private Pew Center on Global Climate Change. But, she said, the administration seems to believe ``the only way they can sell (the Kyoto treaty) politically is to show that it's virtually free.''

-------- china

New China spy agency

Washington Times
November 10, 2000
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-20001110213619.htm

A U.S. government counterintelligence report we obtained identifies the New China News Agency as much more than Beijing's state-run news service. The June 2000 report, "Intelligence Threat Handbook," states that the agency, also known as Xinhua, "primarily engages in open-source collection" for the Chinese government.

"It has a staff of more than 5,000 employees operating out of over 90 bureaus and 300 offices in China and abroad; monitoring newspapers, magazines and broadcasts from around the world and conducting open-source analysis for the Chinese leadership," the secret report says.

"Given its global network and journalistic credentials, it often provides cover to Chinese intelligence operatives from other agencies," the report adds.

The handbook noted that Chinese intelligence in the past limited its use of reporter slots for spies to those working for Xinhua and the People's Daily.

"However, this practice has recently been extended to most major newspapers, including Guangming Daily, Economic Daily, China Youth News, and Workers' Daily, which have correspondents in the United States, Japan, Europe and other countries," the report said.

The internal report by the Interagency OPSEC Support Staff, a counterspy and security unit, helps explain why the U.S. government blocked Xinhua's recent purchase of an Arlington, Va., high-rise apartment complex overlooking the Pentagon. The State Department forced the Chinese government to sell the building after the illegal deal was exposed in The Washington Times.

The Arlington Ridge building had a clear eavesdropping line to the Pentagon. The report said China's electronic spying capability is "the third-largest SIGINT [signals intelligence] effort in the world," focusing mostly on U.S. and foreign military communications around the world.

-------- europe

Western watchdogs say Czech N-plant near standard

Planet Ark
CZECH REPUBLIC: November 10, 2000
Story by Jan Lopatka
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8873

PRAGUE - Western Europe's nuclear watchdogs have given a conditional thumbs-up to the controversial Czech Temelin nuclear power plant launched last month, saying it could meet western standards if a few safety issues are resolved.

The assessment came in a new report by the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association (WENRA) on atomic safety in countries aiming to join the European Union, obtained by Reuters yesterday.

WENRA, which acts as an advisory body to the European Union, said in the report that most candidate countries have adopted extensive programmes to raise safety of their nuclear installations.

But major design flaws at some plants make them permanently deficient in safety standards, and a lack of funding impairs security precautions at others.

TEMELIN CAN MEET WESTERN STANDARDS

Fiercely anti-nuclear Austria strongly opposes the Temelin station, built just over 50 km (30 miles) from their border, and a row over it has grown into the Czechs' most serious diplomatic battle since the end of Communism in the region 11 years ago.

The Austrian government warned it will block the Czechs' EU entry talks unless the plant is stopped while further checks and an environment impact study is done. Thousands of Austrians have blocked Czech border crossings, demanding the plant's closure.

But WENRA said that Temelin would be fine if concerns over high-pressure pipes, which could swing and damage other equipment if they burst in an accident, are addressed. The other outstanding question includes safety valves, the study said.

"A few safety issues still need to be resolved. If these are resolved, the Temelin units 1-2 should reach a safety level comparable to that of currently operating Western European reactors," the WENRA report said.

This is a blow to Austria which has called for creation of unified Western European nuclear safety standards, hoping to use it as a leverage against the Czech plant to have it shut down permanently.

The report also said that the plant's builders have successfully implemented a western control system onto the original Soviet design, in the most comprehensive upgrade of the VVER-1000, 981 megawatt reactor ever done.

The Czech nuclear watchdog SUJB said in reaction to the report that it just needed to clarify details of the technical solution adopted at Temelin rather than order changes.

MIXED PICTURE OVER REGION

Elsewhere in EU candidate countries, the Lithuaninan Ignalina plant with two RBMK reactors, the type which blew up in Chernobyl in 1986, is seen as the biggest trouble spot.

"The Ignalina units... cannot realistically reach a safety level comparable to that of western European reactors of the same vintage," WENRA said, adding that a lack of cash also threatened to delay an ongoing safety improvement programme.

Lithuania has promised to close down the first unit by 2005.

Bulgaria's four VVER 440/230 reactors at the Kozloduy plant also fall short of acceptable standard. The government has promised to close the two oldest units by 2003.

Romania's only plant at Carnavoda, has a Candu 6 Canadian designed reactor, but "the plant management may have serious difficulities in ensuring and maintaining an adequate level of safety" due to financial problems.

Slovakia has promised to close two VVER 440/230 reactors at Jaslovske Bohunice between 2006 and 2008. The two units are the same type as in Bulgaria and have serious safety shortages despite major upgrades. Other Slovak reactors should be able to meet required safety levels with ongoing upgrades.

Hungary won high marks for its four VVER 440/230 units at Paks as well as Slovenia's Krcko plant with a U.S. built reactor.

---

Polite NATO Wearies of Russia's Kursk Suspicions

New York Times
November 10, 2000 Filed at 9:52 a.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nato-ru.html

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The NATO alliance turned the other cheek on Friday while Russia kept up dark hints that a Western submarine had collided with the giant sub Kursk and sent its 118 crewmen to the bottom of the Barents Sea.

Unwilling to embarrass the Russians, especially after a 1999 dispute over Kosovo damaged their post-Cold War ties, the Western allies are refusing to be drawn on allegations of coverup and conspiracy by Russian naval chiefs and tabloid media.

Firmly but quietly, NATO denies the charge.

A NATO military source noted one Russian newspaper recently printed a satellite photo of the U.S. Los Angeles class nuclear submarine USS Memphis in the harbor at Bergen in Norway, allegedly for emergency repairs.

``It was tied up next to a frigate that actually sank in 1994,'' he said. ``The photo also showed a strip of open water that has long since been filled in with gravel.''

TOM CLANCY RIVALS

The Russian story, printed in Versiya, suggested that the crippled Memphis, or maybe the Toledo, limped back to Norway a week after ramming into the Kursk on August 12, with ``its thick resin-ceramic outer hull stripped off like a banana peel.''

The collision had fatally triggered the Kursk's torpedoes, but the U.S. sub survived with the equivalent of big metal bruises, it said.

The story, worthy of a Tom Clancy novel and described by the author as a ``plausible theory,'' said it was no coincidence that CIA director George Tenet had rushed to Moscow right away to smooth things over and ``prevent a shooting war.''

The collision theory has received widespread coverage in more respected dailies than the tabloid Versiya.

Navy commander-in-chief Vladimir Koroyedov also recently said he was 80 percent sure a collision had sunk the Kursk.

Kuroyedov said Russia did not have the evidence yet but would publish it as soon as it did.

While NATO officials are patently weary of rebutting a tale they say Russian authorities must know is fiction, they are careful not to show exasperation or to threaten exposure.

NATO sources say some believe that the Kursk blew up when an experimental torpedo misfired. They will not say whether NATO has any proof of this.

CHECK YOUR SUBS?

The chairman of NATO's Military Committee, anti-submarine warfare expert Admiral Guido Venturoni of Italy, told reporters on Friday that Russian Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin had made no explicit charges in talks at NATO headquarters this week.

He also brushed aside a suggestion that Russian experts be allowed to inspect the alliance's submarine fleet for tell-tale marks of a collision.

Such a request could only be addressed to the U.S. and British navies, whom Moscow alleged had submarines in the vicinity of the naval exercise when the tragedy occurred.

``NATO itself doesn't have any submarines. The nations have submarines,'' he said. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had a mechanism for permitting mutual inspection of forces, but it did not apply to naval forces.

Venturoni quoted Kvashnin as reporting there were various theories in the Russian military and ``a lot of doubts.''

One theory was about a possible underwater ``contact'' and perhaps NATO could help clear up ``whether there were certain objects in the area,'' he quoted the general as saying.

Outside NATO's front door on Thursday evening, Kvashnin told a different story, informing Russian reporters he had suggested an inspection of allied subs by Moscow experts would help.

``This was apparently meant to make him look tough at home,'' said a NATO military source.

Venturoni said anything that had collided with the 18,000-ton Kursk and its titanium double hull would likely have suffered massive damage itself.

But the Bergen theory takes that into account. The story says the hastily patched up Los Angeles class submarine left Norway about the end of August and headed for Southampton in England.

-------- france

New Headaches for Problem French Aircraft Carrier

Reuters
November 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-france-.html

PARIS (Reuters) - The trouble-plagued French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle ran into new problems Friday when one of its propellers ceased to operate properly, the navy said.

The carrier, now on its first long cruise, had to reduce speed because of the incident which took place as it sailed from the French West Indian island of Martinique to Norfolk, Virginia.

A navy spokesman said the incident was not a cause for concern regarding security and that the combat aircraft it had aboard were still able to operate.

The reasons for the newest incident were being investigated, a navy spokesman said.

The carrier's debut has been plagued with problems.

First sea tests last year were aborted because of problems with the rudder. The flight deck had to be extended by 13 feet as it was too short for the EC2 Hawkeye warning and control aircraft the carrier is to have aboard.

Safety measures against radioactivity from the carrier's nuclear power plant also had to be reinforced because atomic security rules had been tightened since it was designed.

The final cost of the carrier came in at some 20 billion francs ($2.67 billion), four billion francs above budget.

-------- japan

Japan's Top Party Finds the (Younger) Party Within

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By STEPHANIE STROM
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10JAPA.html

HIRATSUKA, Japan - Taro Kono, a young member of Parliament who represents this town an hour's train ride southwest of Tokyo, was attending a meeting of the governing Liberal Democratic Party this summer when he did the unthinkable: he stood up and shook his fist at the party elders in the front of the room.

The gesture was particularly astonishing because Mr. Kono's father, Yohei Kono, is Japan's foreign minister - and a leading candidate to become the next prime minister.

"When I raised my fist, a lot of his friends came to me and told me to shut up because I was hurting his chances," Mr. Kono said. "I told them I didn't go into politics to make him prime minister."

Instead, Mr. Kono went into politics to shake things up, and he is not alone. His outburst led to the creation of the Group to Build an L.D.P. for Tomorrow, a band of about 40 younger party members dedicated to pulling off a radical overhaul of the party, often referred to by its initials. They are holding town hall meetings around the country, criticizing the leadership's failure to end Japan's long economic slump, its willingness to leave policy-making in the hands of bureaucrats, and most of all its age.

"We're hoping we will be the driving force against the old generation in the party," said Yasuhisa Shiozaki, a 49-year-old member of the group who plans to run for prime minister next time the job comes up for grabs. "The leadership hasn't shown a serious change in its mindset, but the public has."

The insurrection, its leaders say, could lead to faster economic restructuring, a more assertive foreign policy and a willingness to break long-held taboos by taking such measures as watering down Japan's "peace Constitution," which nominally bars it from maintaining an army.

The revolt has coincided with a broad public disenchantment with the political system. Long characterized as disaffected and apathetic, Japanese voters are themselves questioning and challenging their leadership as never before.

Still, many political commentators doubt that the current political ferment amounts to anything special. Japanese voters have been angry before, these experts say, most recently in the early 1990's, when the Liberal Democrats were tarnished by big scandals and the economy was in a severe decline. But rather than mounting a revolt, many simply stopped voting.

Postwar Japanese history is littered with self-described reformers, and it is still unclear whether Mr. Kono and his supporters will be any different.

In any case, the rebelliousness reflects a divide between old and young that yawns as wide in Japan as at any time in the last half-century. The interests of the old, centered around long-term health care and how to pay for it, collide with the interests of the young, who must shoulder the burden of caring for their elders.

Still, even in the older generation, there are those who yearn for something new in politics, and many of the younger Mr. Kono's strongest supporters are elderly.

"Society is changing," said Tomeharu Ito, a retired soy sauce maker, "and so Japan needs new leaders."

Masakazu Mizushima, a Kono supporter who was stationmaster at the bustling Tokyo Station until 1983, echoed these views. "Public opinion is hoping for change," he said. "We are all really tired of the traditional L.D.P. characters."

The Liberal Democrats suffered a humiliating setback in the June general election, and voters are also expressing their dissatisfaction in many other forums. Public outrage has forced the government to backtrack on plans for public works projects, bailouts for bankrupt companies and financial institutions and plans to raise various taxes. The party lost in all three by-elections held recently.

Perhaps no one understands the skepticism about his group better than the younger Mr. Kono, who comes from a long line of political rabble-rousers. His grandfather, Ichiro Kono, a wealthy landowner and industrialist, stood up to Gen. Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime prime minister, and won a parliamentary seat anyway.

In 1965, after Ichiro Kono died, his son Yohei assumed his seat. Although mild-mannered and deferential where his father had been irascible and imperious, Yohei, too, was a renegade. He wore jeans rather than the traditional white gloves and sash sported by campaigning politicians. And after an influence-peddling scandal in 1976, he left the party and started the New Liberal Club, which sold T-shirts to raise money.

The new party never attracted many adherents, however, and eventually Yohei Kono, like so many other dissidents before him, was forced to return to the party fold. He continued to rise through the ranks, seemingly unscathed by his rebellion.

Yohei Kono declined to be interviewed, but was said by his son Taro to have been angry about his July outburst, calling him too radical. When the L.D.P. for Tomorrow was formed, the elder Mr. Kono tartly suggested that it would be more aptly named Children for Tomorrow.

"I don't think he's too happy about all this," Taro Kono said of his father.

The common theme that emerges from conversations with the younger Mr. Kono's supporters is their yearning for someone who can bring change to Japan. He does not promise his constituents new train stations, infrastructure projects or agricultural subsidies, the carrots that politicians here traditionally use to win votes.

Rather, he talks to them about the dangers of genetically modified food, the need to develop a system for disposal of nuclear waste, and how Japan should play a bigger, more vocal role in world affairs, one more commensurate with its economic stature.

"Mr. Kono has only been in office four years, so I can't point to anything in terms of his accomplishments for the district," said Sakao Ito, a 69-year-old fruit and vegetable wholesaler. "The big reason we support him is that the questions he's asking about current politics are the exact same questions the people in this country have."

His confrontational style earned him a spot on a list of the 50 most disliked members of the Parliament, also known as the Diet, but he says even that did not hurt him.

"My constituents were calling me up," he said, "and saying, `Hey, you must be one of the 50 most powerful politicians in the Diet.'"

-------- russia

Kursk Sinking Probe Continues

Associated Press
November 10, 2000 Filed at 4:18 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-NATO-Russian-Submarine.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The controversy over what caused the sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk bubbled to the surface again, with Russia's top soldier saying NATO was still a suspect and the alliance's military chief again denying any NATO involvement.

Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the Russian general staff, told reporters Thursday he had asked NATO military chiefs of staff to prove the alliance's claim that none of its submarines was responsible for the Kursk tragedy by allowing Russian experts to inspect NATO submarines.

On Friday, the chief of NATO's Military Committee, Adm. Guido Venturoni, issued another in a long line of NATO denials, saying the alliance was not involved in the Kursk tragedy. He added that what the Russian general told reporters and what he actually said in the meeting with chiefs of staff were different.

``I was not there when Gen. Kvashnin spoke (to reporters) but I know exactly what he said in the meeting,'' the Italian admiral said. Venturoni said Kvashnin told NATO's top soldiers that Moscow still ``had doubts,'' and that those doubts could have been eliminated if the alliance had given a clear response when Russia first asked about its submarines in the area. Venturoni cited NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson's letter to the Russian ambassador in Brussels shortly after the accident affirming that no NATO assets were involved in the Kursk incident.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also received assurances from President Clinton, Venturoni said.

He added: ``As a military man, as an admiral, as a naval officer ... if we speak of a submarine of 18,000 tons of weight, with a double hull ... that we say has suffered major damage or a kind of devastation by hitting some object ... I think that object would receive a similar extent of damage.''

Russian naval officials have insisted on lifting the submarine to determine what caused the Aug. 12 explosions aboard the Kursk. Russian and Norwegian divers have recovered 12 bodies so far and some of the ship's documents.

Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is leading the government commission investigating the disaster, said a dent filmed on the Kursk's hull during the recovery operation may be evidence of a collision with a foreign vessel.

Venturoni, speaking to reporters after a two-day NATO chiefs of staff meeting in Brussels, said NATO itself has no submarines, only NATO members have submarines.

``NATO has already answered (the Russian queries) through the secretary-general,'' he said. ``It is not in my power nor in the power of the Military Committee to agree on an inspection on a submarine that belongs to a NATO nation, be it French or Dutch or whatever it is.''

---

Putin Cuts Forces by 600,000, Promising Military Overhaul

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10RUSS.html

MOSCOW, Nov. 9 - The Kremlin said tonight that it plans to shrink its three-million-strong armed forces by 600,000 people, led by deep cuts in the main Defense Ministry forces, to rein in what President Vladimir V. Putin called an unwieldy and extravagant military machine.

The move may also presage a deeper reshuffling of the defense apparatus and more direct control of the military by Mr. Putin. But some were unsure that the cuts would produce the sweeping reform Mr. Putin and his aides said they were committed to achieving.

The reductions, totaling about one- fifth of the Russians officially under arms, were announced after a meeting of Mr. Putin's security council, a board of military advisers. They include a long-expected reduction of the main uniformed defense forces by 365,000, to about 850,000, as well as layoffs of 235,000 civilian and military workers in 11 other armed branches not under the Defense Ministry's control.

"To maintain such a cumbersome and at times ineffective military organization is extravagant," Mr. Putin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "In our situation, it's simply impermissible."

The former domestic intelligence chief who runs the security council, Sergei Ivanov, agreed, saying that "a unanimous decision has been taken that we need to carry out military reform in the broad sense."

Whether this would mean military reform in the broad sense was less clear to independent observers. "It's a step in the right direction, trimming the oversized Russian military," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a journalist and independent military analyst. "But will it work out? And what will work out? That's another question.

"There have been numerous attempts to change the situation before," Mr. Felgenhauer said. "In Russia, everyone walks around in a uniform, or has military rank, or wears fatigues. But in a war, there's no one available to fight at all."

In fact, the military is omnipresent in democratic Russia, still a land where fatigue-clad men toting automatic rifles are so ubiquitous that they all but blend into the landscape.

At least 12 agencies have official military organizations, from railroad troops to spies to communications workers. And that does not count paramilitary organizations like the feared OMON, who fight wars and wield authority but are maintained more or less off the books.

The exact number of Russian forces, still a state secret, probably totals between four million and five million, Mr. Felgenhauer said. That said, the government clearly strained to assemble and maintain the force of 100,000 or so that has more or less subdued guerrillas in Chechnya during the last year.

All told, military and law-enforcement expenses eat up about 35 percent of Russia's federal budget. But forces are so large, and the budget so small by comparison, that soldiers have been forced to forgo firearms training, pilots spend too little time in flying practice to remain sharp, and the navy must hoard fuel to stage sea exercises.

The reductions announced today were proposed long ago but faltered under intense opposition from armed forces outside the Defense Ministry, which have considerable influence.

Today, Mr. Ivanov said reductions were essential if the military was to modernize. About 70 percent of the military budget is being spent merely to maintain troops and bureaucrats, he said, leaving precious little to maintain and upgrade equipment.

Officials said the combination of manpower cuts and a rising budget should enable Russia to effectively triple spending per soldier over the next decade.

A former American diplomat who is an expert on Russia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Thomas Graham, said much will depend on whether that increased spending goes to improve Russia's ragtag ground forces or to maintain its nuclear strike capability.

"While these cuts are moving in the right direction - everyone believes, given their economic circumstances, that they have to downsize the military - how they do it is something you can't tell from this announcement," he said.

"If they downsize their nuclear forces as well, it may also be an indication that they're beginning to realize that maintaining that force as a symbol of superpower status is beyond their means and not essential to their success at this point," he added.

---

Kursk to be lifted next summer

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 03:01 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#kursk

MOSCOW - The risky operation to lift the wrecked Kursk nuclear submarine from the Barents Sea floor is tentatively scheduled for next summer, the head of the Russian company that designed the vessel said Friday. The operation would be in July and August. Russian navy officials insist on lifting the Kursk to determine what caused the explosions that sank the submarine on Aug. 12. But it would also be very expensive, and it remains unclear whether the badly damaged 14,000-ton vessel could withstand the pressures of being raised, or if it would break into pieces during the operation.

-------- ukraine

EU's Prodi in Ukraine, pledges Chernobyl cash

UKRAINE: November 10, 2000
Story by Dmitry Solovyov
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8871

KIEV - European Commission President Romano Prodi pledged yesterday that international donors would stick to an agreement to help pay for the final closure of the troubled Chernobyl nuclear power station.

Prodi, arriving in the Ukrainian capital Kiev for a two-day visit, said he would discuss the amount and timing of foreign aid, which Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has stipulated as a precondition for the station's planned December 15 shutdown.

Chernobyl's number four reactor blew up in 1986, sending a radioactive cloud across Europe in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster. Its third reactor still works, providing Ukraine with up to eight percent of its electricity.

"We are going to keep to our commitment because we know that for Ukraine this is a sacrifice - to close Chernobyl - and we will do our duty," he told reporters at Kiev airport.

Some experts have estimated that decommissioning Chernobyl, including the building of new reactors elsewhere and finding suitable waste storage sites, could cost at least $2.3 billion.

UKRAINE CONFIRMS UNCONDITIONAL SHUTDOWN OF CHERNOBYL

Chernobyl raises powerful emotions in Ukraine, which had the double misfortune of suffering the accident's after-effects but also needing electricity wherever it can find it.

Leading politicians have made hawkish noises about the closure and made clear it might even be delayed.

But after meeting Prodi, Kuchma said Ukraine would keep its promise to close the accident-prone station.

"Today, Ukraine again confirmed its decision to close Chernobyl on December 15 this year," he said. "We confirmed our respect for all those obligations that we had undertaken."

Kuchma had said earlier the December 15 date would not stand unless funds were found to complete the building of two new reactors at Khmelnitska and Rivne in western Ukraine, which would compensate for lost generating capacity at Chernobyl.

"I confirmed I am working on the K2-R4 project," said Prodi, referring to the unfinished reactors at Khmelnitska and Rivne.

The G-7 group of leading industrial nations signed an agreement with Ukraine in 1995 to help the country shut the plant, but most of the money and loans have yet to be paid.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), charged by the wealthy nations with collecting funds for Chernobyl's closure, is to coordinate aid to Ukraine.

But Prodi said before starting to act, the EBRD and the donor states first had to see a decision by the International Monetary Fund to resume lending to Ukraine.

The IMF froze its $2.6 billion loan programme to Ukraine over slow reforms last September.

Prodi said that by the end of this year the EU would grant Ukraine 25 million euros ($21.42 million) to enable the cash-strapped government to replenish stocks of organic fuel at local thermal power plants.

EUROPE PLEDGES NOT TO ABANDON UKRAINE

Apart from pledges to help finance Chernobyl's closure, Prodi promised that Ukraine would not be sidelined in the planned enlargement of the EU.

Officials in Kiev have voiced concerns of a possible "new iron curtain" which might separate Ukraine from the rest of Europe after the accession of some post-communist east European neighbours to the European club of wealthy nations.

But Prodi was quick to dispel such fears.

"This (enlargement) must be accompanied by closer relations with Ukraine," he said.

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

FILM REVIEW 'Me and Isaac Newton':
Heroes of Science Through a Rose-Colored Lens

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/arts/10NEWT.html

A warm and cuddly sage or a wild-eyed egomaniac demonically tinkering with the balance of nature? The image of the scientist in the popular imagination usually tilts toward one of these extremes. And in "Me and Isaac Newton," a glossy group portrait of seven noted scientists, the documentary filmmaker Michael Apted places his chips on the warm, cuddly side of the table.

Without going recklessly overboard, this handsomely photographed, meticulously edited film implies that the sort of world-class mind possessed by a scientist of Nobel Prize-winning caliber is likely to be accompanied by an equally refined moral sense. Well, maybe. But is the opportunity to play God automatically such a humbling experience? The film's gorgeous cinematography and mystically flavored world-music soundtrack underscore its sanctification of scientific pursuit as a potentially world-saving secular religion whose leading lights exude a priestly wisdom.

The movie's seven subjects, who represent a cross section of scientific endeavor, are interviewed sequentially in cinematic chapters that begin with chatty thumbnail biographies and broaden to include topics like "the work" and "the future." They offer a largely comforting vision of collective genius balanced by compassion, humor and judicious self-assessment.

The pharmaceutical chemist Gertrude Elion (who died last year at 81 shortly after participating in the film) is a stern but caring grandmotherly type you can imagine preparing and serving up the most delicious chicken soup. When the twinkling-eyed theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, shown gliding on an ice rink, remarks that here "it's just me and Isaac Newton," you practically want to hug him.

As anyone familiar with the world of science knows, of course, most scientists aren't this cuddlesome. Science, like every other elite field, is fraught with cutthroat politics, clashing egos and a certain amount of skulduggery. But none of that messy stuff makes it into this high-minded film. As the subjects reminisce about their lives and their work in polished paragraphs studded with homey anecdotes, you marvel at how carefully prepared and edited their remarks appear to be. When they contemplate the future and the role of science, they are not unaware of its perils (the development of nuclear power and the hydrogen bomb remains the ultimate cautionary event) but still express a guarded optimism.

A number of these biographies are personal stories of triumphing over difficult odds. Mr. Kaku, a Japanese-American whose parents were interned during World War II, recalls always feeling like an outsider. One of the founders of string theory - "the idea that vibrating strings are at the core of electrons, protons and neutrons" - he is now ardently pursuing Albert Einstein's goal of discovering a single theory to explain "everything."

Elion, the oldest of the seven, never finished her Ph.D. but still became one of the first women to break through the glass ceiling in her field. Among her many accomplishments was the discovery of an immune system suppressant that helps prevent the body's rejection of transplanted organs.

The environmental physicist Ashok Gadgil, who was born in Bombay, grew up surrounded by poverty and disease and has devoted his life to researching energy efficiency. He has developed a simple, inexpensive system of disinfecting polluted water with ultraviolet light. As the film follows him on his travels among the poor, it invests him with a saintly aura.

Among the other subjects are Maja Mataric, a Yugoslav emigrant who grew up in Kansas and works in robotics; Steven Pinker, a Canadian pioneer in the field of cognitive neuroscience; and Karol Sikora, a cancer researcher exploring how gene therapy can influence the molecular behavior of cancer cells.

Finally, we have Patricia Wright, a late-blooming primatologist and conservationist who was a social worker and housewife until her fascination with a pet owl monkey drew her into a new career. Ms. Wright subsequently spent many years in Madagascar studying the 32 varieties of lemurs indigenous to the island. She became an ardent conservationist when she realized that the slash-and-burn agriculture in Madagascar was endangering wildlife that existed nowhere else on earth. And she helped raise the money to establish a national preserve that is now operating.

Because she spends months at a time in the rain forest observing wildlife, Ms. Wright has the most obviously colorful career, and her work is the easiest to understand. But when the film goes to the laboratory to observe more complex and theoretical projects, the information it imparts is so sketchy we are reminded of how difficult it is to translate science into lay language.

Despite its ultimate lack of intellectual substance, "Me and Isaac Newton" is still inspiring. All seven of its subjects are fascinating, and most are extremely likable. Mr. Apted has done them all a huge favor.

ME AND ISAAC NEWTON

Directed by Michael Apted; director of photography, Maryse Alberti; edited by Susanne Rostock; music by Patrick Seymour; produced by Jody Patton and Eileen Gregory; released by First Look Pictures. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 110 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Gertrude Elion, Ashok Gadgil, Michio Kaku, Maja Mataric, Steven Pinker, Karol Sikora and Patricia Wright.

---

Scientists Dispute Book's Facts

Associated Press
November 10, 2000 Filed at 10:34 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Scientist-Defended.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- One of the nation's most prestigious scientific bodies on Thursday disputed claims that reckless experiments by one of its members killed hundreds of South American Indians.

The claims are contained in the book ``Darkness in El Dorado,'' published this month by W.W. Norton Co. The author, anthropologist and journalist Patrick Tierney, charges that U.S. scientists inoculated thousands of Yanomami Indians in 1968 with a dangerous measles vaccine that sparked a deadly epidemic.

In a statement Thursday, the National Academy of Sciences said the book contains multiple factual errors and misstatements.

``Although 'Darkness in El Dorado' gives the appearance of being well-researched, in many instances the author's conclusions are either contradicted or not supported by the references he cites,'' the academy said.

Last month, an Associated Press article raised similar issues and cited several epidemiologists who said the vaccine given to the Yanomami by University of Michigan geneticist James Neel and his colleagues was proven safe and could not have transmitted measles.

Neel, who died in February, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1963. ``Darkness in El Dorado'' disparages him as a controversial figure ``whose eugenic views made him a pariah outside his own specialty.''

In reality, Neel was a highly respected scientist and well-loved by his colleagues, said Ken Fulton, executive director of membership for the academy.

``It seemed only right to defend him when he couldn't defend himself,'' Fulton said.

Reached in Venezuela, Tierney disagreed vehemently with the National Academy of Sciences statement.

``I feel it's a gross misrepresentation of what I say in my book,'' Tierney said. ``There is an element of mystery about the 1968 expedition and the measles epidemic that will never be resolved.''

The academy also disputed Tierney's characterization of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, an organization that studied the long-term health of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors. The commission was not a part of the Atomic Energy Commission, as Tierney's book says, but an arm of the National Academy of Sciences sometimes at odds with the federal nuclear agency.

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

-------- connecticut

USA Today
11/10/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Conneticut

New Britain - The Department of Public Utility Control began hearings into the $1.3 billion sale of the Millstone 2 and 3 power plants to Dominion Resources of Virginia. The offer is three times more than any other nuclear plants have sold for in the USA. State regulators said ratepayers would benefit from the sale. The DPUC and federal regulators must approve the deal.

-------- kansas

Western Resources To Sell Utilities

Associated Press
November 9, 2000 Filed at 5:03 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Utility-Sale.html

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Six months after a failed merger with a Midwestern power company, Western Resources is selling its electric utilities for about $1.5 billion in stock to Public Service Co. of New Mexico.

The deal announced Thursday would expand the reach of Albuquerque-based Public Service, the largest electric and natural gas utility in New Mexico.

The combined operations would be part of a new holding company based in Albuquerque with assets of $6.5 billion with about 1 million electric and natural gas customers in Kansas and New Mexico.

Western Resources provides electricity to about 634,000 customers in Kansas. Public Services has about 361,000 retail customers.

Western Resources was up $1.94, or 9 percent, to close at $23.31 a share Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange while Public Service shares tumbled 15 percent, or $4.25 a share, to close at $23.94.

Under terms of the deal, Public Service would swap 55 million shares of its stock for Western Resources' utility business which includes Kansas Gas Electric Co. and Kansas Power Light Co. as well as Western's stake in the $3 billion Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington.

Public Service also will assume about $2.9 billion in debt, making the total value of the deal about $4.4 billion.

he deal is expected to take 12 to 15 months to complete, subject to federal, New Mexico and Kansas regulatory approval.

``We evaluated potential partners across a broad range of criteria, including financial flexibility, proven management skills, superior operating and technological capabilities, excellent customer service, and a track record for fair dealing on regulatory issues,'' David C. Wittig, Western's chairman, president and chief executive, said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Western ended its merger effort with Kansas City Power Light and said it would seek a buyer for its electric utilities.

Western Resources' utility business will give Public Service a relatively inexpensive supply of electricity that could be sold to new and expanded wholesale markets in Kansas or nearby states, said Jeff Sterba, Public Service chairman and chief executive. ``This allows us to expand and to be a multiregional utility,'' he said.

Western has about 2,400 employees in Kansas, with an annual payroll of $60 million. The companies said they would seek to limit any job cuts that may be needed.

One condition of the sale is that Western separate its utility assets from its unregulated subsidiaries. These include an 85 percent stake in Protection One, a financially troubled monitored security operation, and 45 percent ownership of ONEOK Inc., the Tulsa, Okla.-based parent company of Kansas Gas Service Co.

Western plans to spin off those assets into a new company, Westar Industries. An application was filed in October to issue Westar stock.

-------- new mexico

Secret Weapon Info Missing at Lab

Associated Press
November 10, 2000 Filed at 4:53 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missing-Secrets.html

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have been disciplined for the disappearance and mysterious reappearance of two computer hard drives filled with top-secret information about nuclear weapons, officials said Friday. No one was fired.

Citing privacy rules, University of California spokesman Jeff Garberson declined to say who was disciplined or what type of discipline the workers faced, except to call it ``significant.'' He also would not say how many workers were disciplined.

The university manages the New Mexico nuclear weapons lab for the U.S. Energy Department.

Workers noticed the hard drives were missing from a vault in the lab's top-secret X Division as a wildfire moved onto lab property in early May, and the lab and surrounding community were evacuated.

A team member again could not find the hard drives once he was able to re-enter the vault May 22. Top lab officials were notified on June 1.

The hard drives were discovered June 16 behind a copy machine in an area that had been searched previously.

The hard drives, each slightly larger than a deck of cards, contain specifications that could be used to disarm a variety of nuclear weapons.

The university led the review of the incident, Los Alamos spokesman John Gustafson said. A separate FBI investigation is continuing.

-------- new york

Con Ed Selling Indian Point 2 Nuclear Plant

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By DAVID W. CHEN with MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/nyregion/10NUKE.html

BUCHANAN, N.Y., Nov. 9 - Nine months after the worst accident in the history of the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant, Consolidated Edison announced today that it had reached an agreement to sell the plant to a Mississippi company, signaling the end of the utility's historic role in the business of making electricity.

The sale of the plant - Con Ed's last major power-generating unit - to Entergy Nuclear, of Jackson, Miss., for $602 million, was not a surprise, though the timing did catch a few people off guard.

The plant has been shut down ever since it sprang a radioactive leak in February, and is now in the middle of a complicated, labor- intensive effort to replace its aging steam generators. Con Ed officials say they are still on schedule to restart the plant by year's end, and the sale is contingent on the plant's running at full capacity, and without any major problems.

If, however, the plant passes both technical and regulatory muster, then the transaction could be completed by next summer, setting another milestone in the unpredictable world of utility deregulation.

For Consolidated Edison, the sale means that the utility can now dedicate itself to its new mission of energy distribution, and leave the business of making electricity - a job it has been doing since Sept. 4, 1882, when Thomas A. Edison opened the Pearl Street Generation Station, which served about one square mile in lower Manhattan.

"It was just the right thing to do to go ahead and say, `We're at that step, let's make it happen as soon as reasonably achievable,' " said Stephen Quinn, a Con Ed vice president who once managed the Indian Point 2 plant.

For Entergy, which has steadily been amassing a fleet of nuclear reactors in the Northeast, the agreement complements its purchase earlier this year of the Indian Point 3 nuclear plant from the New York Power Authority. That plant is adjacent to Indian Point 2 in this Westchester County town 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. For the first time in the history of the Indian Point plants, there will be one operator.

"There will be some synergies that we can put together, but our main effort right now is to improve the performance of the plants, restore credibility in the community and operate these plants in a very efficient and safe manner," said Jerry W. Yelverton, the chief executive of Entergy Nuclear.

But some critics of Con Ed and of nuclear power said today that the sale could prove to be a mixed blessing.

"It's hard to conceive that any company could be less forthcoming than Con Ed," said Edward Smeloff, executive director of the Pace Law School Energy Project. "But from an environmental perspective, we are concerned that the movement of these plants into the competitive market puts additional stress on them to reduce costs, to reduce the work force, and we think there's a need for additional oversight."

Many Westchester residents and officials have been wary of the plant and the utility since the emergency in February at Indian Point 2, during which a steam-generator tube ruptured and caused a radioactive leak.

Although no one was injured and the authorities said the accident posed no health threat, it was the worst emergency in the plant's 26- year history, prompting a rash of criticism of both the utility and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And it prompted state legislators to demand administrative and legal redress - efforts which are still pending, and will not be affected by the sale, officials said.

Entergy emerged as the buyer after beating out a few other bidders, whose names were not divulged, according to company officials. Under the agreement, Entergy will pay $502 million for the Indian Point 2 plant, the defunct Indian Point 1 plant and other assets, and another $100 million for nuclear fuel. The company will also sell electricity to Con Edison at below-market prices through 2004.

In addition, Con Ed will transfer an estimated $430 million to Entergy to pay for the eventual decommissioning costs of the plant, which is expected to have another 10 to 15 years of life, Mr. Quinn said.

The deal is comparable, in terms of dollars per generating capacity, to the one reached in March between Entergy and the New York Power Authority for the Indian Point 3 plant and the James A. FitzPatrick plant in Oswego County for $967 million, Mr. Quinn said.

Entergy has promised to honor all union contracts for Indian Point 2, and has guaranteed the plant's 680 employees they will continue to receive their present salaries and benefit packages.

Entergy will probably not hire the outside contractors and consultants who frequently do maintenance and other work at Indian Point 2, using its own specialists instead in order to provide "low cost power supply," Mr. Yelverton said.

Con Edison has long expressed a desire to sell Indian Point 2, particularly as it began to sell off its other power-generating plants. Last year, Con Edison sold three fossil-fuel plants. In addition, over the years, four other major plants had been retired.

At its peak, the company owned about 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity, including Indian Point 2, which, with some gas turbine generators on the site, produces just over 1,000 megawatts.

It is keeping five small generators, one in Brooklyn and four in Manhattan, because they also make steam, which the utility sells separately.


-------- MILITARY

Clinton foreign policy has staying power

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 04:50 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/clinton/clinton2.htm

There is a historical and political component to any president's foreign policy legacy.

The historical component asks what this president has accomplished during his time in office. What disputes did he initiate or resolve, what agreements did he enter into, what alliances did he forge? In essence, did the president help or hurt America's position in the world, and were his actions consistent with U.S. values?

The political component of a foreign policy legacy deals with the durability of a president's policies. The key question here is the degree to which the president's successors hold to his overall policies. The Clinton administration's record on the former component is generally positive. On the second question, significant divisions in the American polity suggest that the general direction of Clinton's foreign policy will endure well beyond his retirement.

The Clinton administration's grand strategy of "engagement and enlargement" has proven itself adequate to the task. Admittedly, the administration had a rocky start on the foreign policy front. We can attribute some of this to candidate Clinton's lack of foreign policy experience. Blame must be shared, however, with the previous Bush administration, which left Clinton a series of unresolved and difficult foreign policy challenges, including a last-minute deployment to the chaos in Somalia, an escalating war in Bosnia, an unrepentant Saddam Hussein still firmly controlling Iraq, a NATO alliance on the verge of obsolescence and a NAFTA treaty with little hope of being implemented.

Early troubles notwithstanding, Clinton's strategy has contributed to a world that is more democratic and more interconnected than ever before and to a United States that is the undisputed leader of the world.

A few highlights are worth noting.

Clinton's policy of engagement has led to an expanded NATO that did little permanent damage to our relations with Russia; it gave Central and Eastern Europe an incentive to democratize; it helped bring peace to Bosnia and later Kosovo; and it contributed to the Milosevic regime's demise. In the Western Hemisphere, it helped open trade throughout North America and gave Haiti a chance at democracy.

In Asia, the Clinton administration's strategy helped the United States avoid either appeasement or renewed hostilities with China and North Korea. And though significant uncertainty remains, we may yet see China more firmly engaged in the world economy. North Korea may even be lured out of its paranoid and self-destructive shell.

The administration also has expended Herculean efforts to resolve the perennial conflicts in the Mideast and Northern Ireland.

Though the record largely validates the administration's goals of "engagement and enlargement," it has by no means insulated the administration from criticism.

Conservatives have argued that Clinton is too quick to intervene militarily, and they have linked these interventions to a decline in military readiness and morale. At the same time, they have pushed for a more confrontational stance against Iraq, North Korea and occasionally China. Liberals have faulted the administration for being too passive during the genocide in Rwanda and on human rights in general. They also have said Clinton has been too ready to risk U.S. jobs and the environment in the name of free trade.

There is merit in each set of criticisms. But the fact that criticism has come from both sides of the political spectrum suggests that the administration learned from its early mistakes and adopted a pragmatic, measured and relatively centrist approach - just as it did on domestic policy.

And this last point might hold the key to the second component of Clinton's foreign policy legacy: the degree to which Clinton's successor embraces his overall policies. In an era of extremely partisan politics, and with both chambers of Congress evenly divided between the two parties, the next president (whoever it is) may have no choice but to continue the relatively moderate, centrist foreign policy of Clinton's second term. To do otherwise risks congressional opposition from either side - opposition capable of preventing significant or long-term deviations from the status quo.

So it might not matter that George W. Bush and Al Gore differ in their approach to U.S. participation in peacemaking and peacekeeping, missile defense deployment and the U.S. role in NATO. Regardless of the merits associated with either candidate's policies, whoever becomes president may find himself making foreign policy decisions similar to Clinton's. If the future is anything like the past, this bodes well for America's position in the world.

David Auerswald is an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University. He has written two books: Disarmed Democracies : Domestic Institutions and the Use of Force and The Kosovo Conflict : A Diplomatic History Through Documents.

-------- drug war

California Gets Set to Shift on Sentencing Drug Users

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By EVELYN NIEVES
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/politics/10DRUG.html

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9 - California's enormous prison system, the largest in the Western Hemisphere with more than 162,000 inmates, may be radically altered since voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a measure that will sentence nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of prison.

Nearly one in three prisoners in California is serving time for a drug- related crime, more per capita than any other state. The new law, Proposition 36, puts California at the forefront of a national movement to change drug laws; it will send first- and second-time nonviolent drug offenders into treatment, reducing the prison population by as many as 36,000 inmates a year, according to the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

The measure, which comes as states nationwide re-examine their drug sentencing laws, was approved by 61 percent of voters despite strong opposition from virtually all of the state's law enforcement officials, judges and some health care groups.

It represents the most significant change in California's criminal justice policy since the 1994 passage of the "three strikes" law, which mandated tough prison terms for people convicted of a third felony offense.

"This shows that we can draw distinctions between real criminals or real crime and violent crime and drug users," said Dave Fratello, a spokesman for the Yes on 36 campaign. "It also punctures the conventional wisdom among politicians that what voters want is an across-the-board zero-tolerance drug policy."

Mr. Fratello added, "The only political competition on the drug issue has been to see who can be tougher, and I think what you're seeing is a radical rethinking of that."

Proposition 36 seeks to focus on treating drug addiction as a health problem rather than a crime. It requires probation and drug treatment for people convicted of possession, use and transporting for personal use of controlled substances and similar parole violations.

Those caught selling or manufacturing drugs are excluded from the treatment mandate, as are offenders also arrested on nondrug-related charges like theft or gun possession. The law is to take effect in July 2001.

Proponents of the proposition, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, emphasized the cost savings of the shift.

By diverting thousands of drug abusers from jail or prison, the Legislative Analyst's Office estimated that the measure would save the state about $250 million a year in incarceration costs and save local governments $40 million a year in operations costs.

The measure allocates $120 million a year for drug treatment, estimated at $4,000 a patient. That represents a large cut of the costs - about $20,000 a year - to keep a person in prison. It also provides what the Legislative Analyst's Office estimated as a onetime savings of up to $550 million in reduced costs for prison construction.

Opponents of Proposition 36 said the measure would decimate the state's drug courts, which already send thousands of drug addicts a year to treatment instead of prison.

More than 100 judges last month signed a petition criticizing the measure for banning two tools those drug courts use extensively: it would not pay for drug tests and it would outlaw the short jail terms the courts use to punish people caught using drugs during treatment.

"Proposition 36 will spend $120 million on treatment that will not work," said Judge Stephen Manley of Santa Clara County Superior Court, president of the California Association of Drug Court Professionals. "What does work is when you hold drug addicts accountable."

Under Proposition 36, drug offenders who fail treatment programs twice could be sentenced to jail or prison if they are found to be unamenable to treatment, and those who fail three times are required to serve time. Advocates of the measure say that it will reach far more addicts than drug courts, which reach only about 5 percent of offenders.

Larry Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association, said that the initiative's passage would probably mean that prosecutors will "sharply curtail" their practice of reducing drug-dealing charges to possession, done to expedite cases. He also expected a decline in plea bargains that reduce accompanying charges, like theft or burglary, to possession.

Mr. Fratello said the initiative omitted drug testing from what it would finance so that treatment would not be short-changed.

"That doesn't mean that judges can't assign testing," he said. "What we may need to do is reassess the whole way we conduct testing. Maybe we make the offender pay for his own tests. At $4 to $7 a test, that's not a lot to ask to stay out of prison."

Proponents of Proposition 36 outspent the opposition by more than 10 to 1. The measure was supported by three billionaires: George Soros, the New York financier and philanthropist who also contributed heavily to the measure that legalized "medical marijuana" in California four years ago; Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Insurance Company in Cleveland; and John Sperling, chairman of the University of Phoenix. Each contributed about $1 million for Proposition 36's passage.

The three also financed voter initiatives passed Tuesday that relaxed drug laws in four other states: those measures concerned legalizing medical marijuana in Colorado and Nevada, and laws restricting government seizure of drug offenders' property in Oregon and Utah.

A sixth initiative they financed lost in Massachusetts. It was similar to Proposition 36 except that it included low-level drug dealers among offenders who would qualify for treatment.

The three men have vowed to expand their support for initiatives addressing what they called the failure of the nation's strict drug policies.

The California District Attorneys Association said it had not decided whether to mount a legal challenge to Proposition 36.

Judge Manley said, however, that the California Association of Drug Court Professionals would try to make the initiative work by seeking money from the legislature for drug testing and by pushing for strict licensing and regulation of drug-treatment providers.

"I think we need to move forward now," Judge Manley said.

---

'Cancel the invitation'

Washington Times
November 10, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-20001110212821.htm

The U.S. ambassador to Panama is complaining that the Central American country is jeopardizing anti-drug operations, but a Panamanian official retorted that the envoy is "out of line."

"The anti-narcotics operations were occurring routinely with all of the former Panamanian governments," Ambassador Simon Ferro told the Associated Press in Panama on Wednesday. "But this year they have had to be canceled."

He said the reason was the lack of an agreement with Panama to confer a special status for U.S. military personnel involved in the anti-drug patrols off the Panamanian coast. He did not reveal the details of an agreement the United States proposed earlier this year.

Foreign Secretary Jose Miguel Aleman called the ambassador's comments "out of line" and repeated Panamanian complaints that the U.S. proposal had too many conditions.

He said, "It is as if I had invited someone to dinner at my house, and the guest asked me to change the decorations, change the carpet, or that he didn't like the meal.

"If that's the case, then perhaps I decide to cancel the invitation."

---

USA Today
11/10/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Missouri

Kansas City - A few years ago, some considered Jackson County the center of a methamphetamine epidemic, but authorities say meth makers are now moving into more rural and isolated areas. In 1997, there were 300 lab busts. Last year, the Drug Task Force raided 119 meth labs; this year, less than a dozen have been shut down.

-------- india/pakistan

Reassuring Pakistan

Washington Times
November 10, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-20001110212821.htm

Neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush plan any change in U.S. policy toward Pakistan, the U.S. ambassador there said yesterday.

"The broad outline of U.S. policy toward South Asia and particularly toward Pakistan would remain unchanged, no matter who is elected as the next president of the United States," Ambassador William B. Milam told the News, a daily newspaper in the capital, Islamabad.

That may not be the message Pakistan wants to hear. The News noted that Pakistanis believe President Clinton has tilted U.S. policy away from Pakistan and toward its regional rival, India.

"George Bush attaches great importance to allies and friends . . . and he believes that if you're going to rely on allies in times of travail and difficulty, you have to respect them in times of peace and stability," the News reported.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail morris@twtmail.com

-------- iran

Iranian Journalist, in Court, Says Security Forces Tortured Him

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10IRAN.html

TEHRAN, Nov. 9 - Iran's top investigative journalist today accused security forces of torturing him while he was in detention and showed reporters bruises on his face and body in a court appearance.

The journalist, Akbar Ganji, walked into the courtroom, which was packed with reporters, escorted by two policemen.

"I was tortured!" he shouted. "They kicked me in the head because I refused to wear the prison uniform," he said, pointing to bruises on his forehead.

Mr. Ganji then tore the top of his gray prison uniform, placing it under his seat, and sat shirtless in Tehran's Revolutionary Court in front of the judge.

Mr. Ganji is accused of harming Iranian security by taking part in a conference on Iran in Berlin in April. He is one of 17 people on trial on charges stemming from the conference, which hard-liners condemned as hostile to Iran and its Islamic principles.

Judge Hassan Moqaddas asked Mr. Ganji to file a complaint on the torture and promised to take action.

Mr. Ganji, 40, said he would begin a hunger strike to protest his mistreatment. He opposes wearing a prison uniform because he says he is a political prisoner and not a common criminal. He also said he had been tortured throughout his seven- month detention, placed in solitary confinement for more than three months and not allowed basic rights.

Mr. Ganji angered hard-liners when he accused top officials of involvement in a spate of killings of reformists in 1998. The Intelligence Ministry later admitted that some of its agents were involved, but said they were rogue operatives.

The reformists won control of Iran's Parliament in legislative elections in February, but hard-liners still run the judiciary, the military and the broadcast network.

The conservative judiciary has closed about 30 reformist newspapers and jailed more than 25 reformist writers and political activists over the last six months.

Iranians at Baghdad Fair

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 9 (Agence France-Presse) - As further proof that Iran and Iraq, former foes, are improving relations, around 50 Iranian companies are taking part in the Baghdad International Trade Fair with a view to getting a hold on the Iraqi market.

"We are in Baghdad to test out the Iraq market," said Ali Hatami, export manager for Govah, which supplies spare parts for Mercedes. "Our Iraqi neighbors need Iranian products which, instead of being exported via Saudi Arabia, Syria or Lebanon, could be taken straight to Iraq at a lower cost."

Asghar Azidehak, sales manager for Sepahan Lifter, which services plants, asked, "Why should Iraqis go to far-off countries such as Japan, China or Korea to find products available in Iran?"

It is the third successive year Iran has taken part in the Baghdad fair, with around 50 companies from the automobile, mechanical, agricultural, paint, chemical, food and medicine sectors.

Iran's transport minister, Mahmud Hojati, visited Baghdad last week and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi was here in mid-October, the first trip to Iraq by Tehran's top diplomat in 10 years.

Mr. Hojati signed a bilateral agreement in Baghdad on transport and communications on Monday, focusing mainly on "cooperation in the domain of road, maritime and railway transportation between the two countries, as well as the flow of goods."

-------- korea

S. Korean officials inspect storehouses

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 06:48 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsfri04.htm

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea allowed South Korean officials for the first time to inspect some of its food storehouses Friday to prove that it was not diverting outside aid to its military, reports said.

In the past, the North has rejected all South Korean requests for inspection of distribution of food aid from the South.

South Korea is in the middle of shipping 600,000 tons of rice and corn to the impoverished, communist North.

Friday's inspection was conducted by South Korean government officials on a visit to the North for talks on boosting investment in the reclusive country, said South Korean pool reports from the North.

A four-member South Korean delegation, accompanied by 12 assistants and six journalists, flew to North Korea by way of China on Wednesday for three days of talks.

The South Koreans asked to hold the inspection at the opening of the talks in Pyongyang on Thursday. North Korea accepted the request and allowed Seoul officials to inspect some food warehouses near the capital and Kaesong, a major city near the border with South Korea, the reports said.

North Korea also gave South Korean officials a written statement detailing the distribution of 148,687 tons of food it has received from South Korea so far, the reports said.

''Reviewing the report, we believe that food received is believed to have been distributed quite transparently,'' pool reports quoted Lee Keun-kyong, the South's chief delegate, as saying. The reports gave no other details.

The two sides, the reports said, also agreed to create a new joint currency that will be used along with the American dollar for settlement of inter-Korea trade.

Also discussed at the Pyongyang talks was adoption of agreements aimed at guaranteeing investment and avoiding double taxation, the reports said.

Inter-Korean relations have thawed significantly following a summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in June.

The Korean Peninsula was divided into the communist North and capitalist South Korea in 1945. The 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty and their border remains the world's most heavily fortified.

---

Two Koreas exchange reunion lists

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 07:30 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsfri05.htm

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North and South Korea on Friday exchanged information about candidates for this month's scheduled reunion of families separated by the Korean War 50 years ago.

The move brightened hope that the planned Nov. 30-Dec. 2 reunion will take place as scheduled. The reunion had been in question because of Pyongyang's demand for the resignation of South Korea's Red Cross chief, accusing him of defaming the North's communist system.

''The fact that the exchange of lists have taken place on time means that the reunion will also take place as scheduled,'' said Chung Kang-kyu, a spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry.

For the reunion in their capitals, Seoul and Pyongyang, the Koreas will allow 100 people each to cross the border.

The Koreas exchanged the names of 200 candidates each last month, so the status of long-lost relatives could be checked. South Korea has located the relatives of all but five North Koreans on the list. It was not immediately known how many relatives North Korea had located.

In a separate proposal on Thursday, North Korea suggested that the amount of cash gifts to be given to relatives be restricted to $500 and items to clothes and mementos, all new.

The upcoming reunion is the second of its kind since a historic inter-Korea summit in June during which the two Koreas pledged to work toward reconciliation and reunification.

In August, 100 people from each Korea were allowed to cross the border for temporary reunions with their relatives.

South Koreans who traveled to North Korea for the August reunions reported that they were heartbroken to see how poor and shabby their relatives were.

With its economy in shambles, North Korea has been relying on outside aid to feed its 22 million people.

The Koreas were separated into the communist North and the pro-Western South in 1945. Their border is sealed and there is no mail or other direct means of communications between citizens on the two sides.

-------- russia

Putin risks alienating military

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 02:46 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsfri07.htm

MOSCOW (AP) - In one of his most daring moves yet, President Vladimir Putin is taking on the military high command with radical reforms to cut the bloated and underfunded Russian armed forces by one-fifth.

Putin's plan to chop 600,000 of the about 3 million-member force faces strong opposition from the military high command and the officer corps, which have been among his strongest supporters.

The opposition could extend beyond the military because Putin owes much of his popularity to his promises to restore Russia's military and economic might, and the cuts may be perceived as backing down.

''The radical cuts will have broad social ramifications, and deal a serious blow to the government's prestige,'' said Yevgeny Volk, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Moscow office. He pointed at Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, saying their efforts to downsize the military had contributed to their demise.

Guidelines for the reductions were approved by Russia's influential Security Council on Thursday. Its passage had been preceded by infighting in the military high command, with rival groups eager to avoid cuts in their own formations.

But most military analysts and many senior commanders agree that radical reform is vital, saying the Russian military could not defend the country against a serious threat even though it remains one of the largest forces in the world. Despite its size, the military can only field a handful of combat units.

Presidential aides argue that reforms will streamline the military and free up funds for combat training and new weapons. The armed forces are in disarray because of the country's decade-long economic crisis, with ground troops rarely going on exercises, warplanes grounded and navy ships stuck in harbors because they have no fuel.

The lack of training has led to an increase in the number of fatal accidents and sapped morale among the mostly conscript military. Vicious hazing of young conscripts by elder soldiers is rife, resulting in an increasing number of desertions and killings.

While ordinary soldiers go short of food and clothing, theft of military funds and equipment is endemic. Hundreds of soldiers and officers, including several generals and admirals, have been convicted of theft, but Russian media reports suggest only a fraction of the crimes have even been detected.

Speaking to top military officials at the Security Council session Thursday, Putin sternly warned they would have to accept cuts.

''The time has run out,'' he said. ''It's absolutely wrong to preserve the bulky and ineffective military organization.''

Although former President Boris Yeltsin reduced the size of the army, the cuts barely touched the bloated officer corps. The top brass' efforts to save command jobs has resulted in many units existing only on paper. The army's plight was highlighted by the 1994-96 war in Chechnya, where it suffered a humiliating defeat against lightly-armed militants.

Russian troops have regained control of Chechnya since their second invasion in September 1999, but have still failed to beat the rebels. Some analysts questioned the wisdom of launching sharp cuts with the military bogged down in Chechnya.

''It's a bad moment for cuts,'' said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst. ''A military reform can hardly be successful when a war is going on.''

Others say that with Putin's popularity among the military still high, he chose the right moment. ''Putin's authority is still unwavering, and they will forgive him a lot,'' the Kommersant newspaper said Friday.

Analysts also pointed out that the reform guidelines fail to indicate what branches of the armed forces would be cut and how the military structure would change as a result.

''They still maintain the old imperial strategy of confronting the entire world, and it's not really clear what they want to achieve with this reform,'' Felgenhauer said.

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

If U.N. Is to Police the World, It Finds It Must Also Police Itself

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10NATI.html

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 9 - With a steady increase in peacekeeping operations and relief missions around the world, the United Nations inspector general recommended today that the organization needs to review how to police itself better. Corruption and mismanagement have been persistent problems in the isolated, quickly organized missions thousands of miles from New York that now characterize much more of the organization's work.

Complicating efforts to account for money and materials is the growing use of nongovernmental organizations - private relief agencies - to deliver services on behalf of the United Nations, especially in refugee work, the report found.

Dileep Nair, a Singaporean management expert and banker who became the United Nations second inspector general in April, said in this, his first report, that about 70 percent of his staff in the Office of Internal Oversight Services is based in New York, with the rest divided among the European headquarters in Geneva, the African center in Nairobi, Kenya, and on peacekeeping missions.

At the same time, Mr. Nair found, only 25 percent of cases still under investigation or working their way through courts involved people at the New York headquarters, while 27 percent of cases were in Africa and 28 percent in Europe. The remaining cases were scattered around Asia, the Middle East and the United States outside of United Nations headquarters.

The inspector general's office, established at the insistence mostly of the United States and European nations, is a relatively new operation, now in its sixth year. The first official to run the office was Karl Theodor Paschke, a German government administrator, whose five-year term of office ended last year.

It took Secretary General Kofi Annan some months to find a successor, so the latest report of the office covers only a few months of Mr. Nair's tenure, though his findings appear to underscore earlier reports.

But Mr. Nair, who holds the rank of under secretary general, signals in his report that he plans in coming years to tighten United Nations rules and policies and to make managers and staff accountable for "fraud, waste and abuse." In the year from July 1999 through June 2000, the inspector's office recovered or saved about $5.3 million of $17 million identified as misused money.

In his report, Mr. Nair, the former head of Singapore's largest savings bank, drew attention to cases encountered by his office in the field, where more activity now goes on.

For example, in Kosovo, auditors discovered that "software problems" apparently accounted for overpayments of subsistence allowances to the tune of $324,000. More broadly, the report said, "rapid deployment of the mission resulted in deficiencies and irregularities in the recruitment of local staff members."

---

CUBA: U.N. SEEKS END TO EMBARGO

New York Times
November 10, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10BRIE.html

For the ninth year, the United Nations General Assembly called by a wide margin for the lifting of the United States embargo on Cuba. The vote was 167 to 3, with 4 abstentions. Only Israel and the Marshall Islands voted with the United States. El Salvador, Latvia, Morocco and Nicaragua abstained. Barbara Crossette (NYT)

---

U.N. watchdog shifts focus

Washington Times
November 10, 2000
By Betsy Pisik THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-20001110221013.htm

NEW YORK - The U.N. inspector general's office, after years of nabbing criminals and rooting out waste and fraud within the United Nations, has turned its attention to improving management and procedures, the chief inspector said yesterday.

Dileep Nair, a Singaporean banker who took over the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) more than six months ago, said his staff had identified $17 million in savings this year.

He also said his office had recovered some $5 million by renegotiating misunderstood contracts and seeking compensation in criminal cases.

OIOS was created six years ago to rein in bad management and battle fraud and corruption in an organization that had grown haphazardly over four continents in the past five decades.

The department's 120 investigators, auditors, legal experts and management consultants have saved the organization nearly $90 million, the United Nations says.

While releasing an annual report from his office, Mr. Nair told reporters that his staff was shifting its focus from investigations of specific cases where waste and fraud are suspected and instead focusing on audits that result in "less direct savings, but more long-term savings."

He recommended establishing mini-versions of OIOS within some of the more complex U.N. agencies.

He also proposed stationing analysts in long-term missions such as those in East Timor and Kosovo to identify problems before they happen.

In the past year, his office has performed 82 audits and 35 investigations and made 968 recommendations to various U.N. departments, agencies, funds and programs.

Mr. Nair yesterday brushed aside suggestions that his office had suffered during the six-month gap between the departure of former head Karl Paschke and his own arrival in April.

The Clinton administration must certify to Congress that OSIS is independent from the rest of the United Nations to pry loose $54 million toward this year's U.N. dues.

"A certification will be forthcoming," a State Department official said yesterday.

That money is not related to a separate law drafted by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the committee's ranking Democrat, which would pay money the United Nations claims is overdue.

Congress also has demanded regular updates on the internal oversight office as a condition to authorize payments to the U.N. regular budget.

Washington has supported the work of OIOS, seeing it as a way to battle fraud, mismanagement and corruption from within.

One of OIOS' biggest discoveries came last year when it found that more than $700,000 had been deposited into the account of Susan Rouse Madakor, a single mother in New York.

Miss Madakor found the deposits, made in Italian lira, Japanese yen and British pounds, in her bank account and decided to keep the money.

The number of her account at Chase Bank is off by one digit from that of an account for a trust fund set up by the U.N. Environmental Program.

The annual report found "no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the U.N. staff members [but] deficiencies on the part of [the organization] and Chase were noted."

Miss Madakor has been found guilty of fraud and is to be sentenced in February.

---

Cuba curbs condemned in U.N. by 167-3

Washington Times
November 10, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-20001110212653.htm

NEW YORK - The U.N. General Assembly resoundingly criticized the United States yesterday for maintaining sanctions on Cuba for nearly four decades and urged Washington to lift them as soon as possible.

The nonbinding, Cuban-drafted resolution passed with 167 votes in favor - the widest margin in the nine years that Cuba has brought the initiative to the United Nations. Only the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands voted against it. Four countries abstained.

The resolution, introduced by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, was nearly identical to ones approved in years past.

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

Army berets (cont'd)

November 10, 2000
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Notes from the Pentagon.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-20001110213619.htm

Army berets (cont'd)

Army Special Operations Command has circulated a memo to commandos telling them to stop using official e-mail addresses to lampoon the Army chief of staff's decision to issue black berets to all soldiers, not just the elite.

The message went out Nov. 2 at the height of a bevy of e-mail messages among beret-wearing soldiers. There were cartoons making fun of the decision, references to Monica Lewinsky and her famous beret, and heavy criticism of Gen. Eric Shinseki, the chief of staff.

Brig. Gen. Frank Toney, commander of Green Berets at Fort Bragg, N.C., saw enough.

"Brig. Gen. Toney reminds the command the e-mail is for official use only," said a message to soldiers. "His directive is to cease and desist dissemination of emails regarding personal political views and personal views on the 'black beret' issue that recently surfaced."

Only three Army combatant units are now authorized to wear berets: Airborne troops (maroon); Special Forces (green); and Rangers (black). These soldiers complain that giving black berets to clerks, cooks and everyone else diminishes their symbol as elite warriors.

"Most of the gag orders have been coming down verbally through command channels," said one soldier. "I think the generals are finally smart enough to know that it's hard to cover your tracks if you put it down on paper or in an e-mail."

Secret arms deal

President Clinton's search for a legacy is leading to another questionable arms-control agreement with Russia.

Pentagon officials tell us arms negotiators are feverishly working on an agreement designed to prevent Russia from accidentally nuking us the next time Norway fires off a scientific rocket. That's what happened in January 1995 when jumpy Russian strategic-warning monitors told Russian President Boris Yeltsin the Norwegian weather rocket was a U.S. submarine-launched missile headed for the Kremlin men's room.

The warning prompted Mr. Yeltsin to turn on his nuclear "football" used to push "The Button" in ordering an all-out nuclear attack on the United States. Some intelligence officials said the incident was closer to a nuclear missile exchange than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Luckily, the Russians figured out they weren't under attack and stood down.

"It looks like the Clinton administration is determined to deliver one more arms control agreement before it leaves office in January," a defense source told us. The pact is being called a "presidential agreement" to avoid having to submit it to Congress, where skeptics are likely to see it as more an attempt at a presidential legacy than boosting national security.

The pact is known as the Pre and Post Launch Notification System (PPLNS). There are real fears within the Pentagon that "national security may be undermined instead of enhanced by the PPLNS," we are told.

"In the intervening years since the PPLNS was first conceived, it has been altered to the point where it doesn't address the very incident that started the process," one official said.

Senior defense officials have been considering whether the agreement in its current form is worth signing. The military services and intelligence community have discreetly raised objections to many provisions. But they have been muted by the haste to secure the agreement before the administration leaves office.

The notification system would give away important U.S. military and intelligence secrets that would help the Russians to defeat U.S. strategic-warning systems. That's what happened the last time the Russians were invited to monitor U.S. missile-warning systems in Colorado during the year 2000 rollover.

Moscow's ground forces launched Scud missiles against Chechnya so the Russians watching the launch on monitors in Colorado Springs could measure the sensitivity of the U.S. system, a key step toward fooling it or defeating it.

Defense officials also sought to keep private their concerns about the dangers of the U.S.-Russian PPLNS secret before the presidential election.

Cargo gap

A Pentagon insider tell us the department has completed its Mobility Requirements Study for the year 2005, but did not want to release it before Tuesday's election.

The reasons: For one, the study shows a big shortfall in sealift and airlift capability. Officials did not want to give George W. Bush another avenue to attack the Clinton administration's defense policies.

Secondly, there is a dispute between the Air Force and the civilian Program Analysis and Evaluation branch (PA&E). The Air Force wants to buy more C-17s. PA&E wants them to make do with upgraded C-5 cargo jets. It argues that, in time of war, the Air Force can readily lease commercial planes.

Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are syndicated columnists. Mr. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertz@twtmail.com. Mr. Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbo@twtmail.com.

----

Failed Plan to Bomb a U.S. Ship Is Reported

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10KUWA.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - A suspect in the bombing of the destroyer Cole has told Yemeni authorities that the Islamic militants behind the attack tried to bomb another warship in January, but aborted the assault after their explosives-packed skiff foundered near the beach, government officials said tonight.

The account of the aborted attack came from a suspect being questioned by Yemeni authorities, who have shared the information with American investigators, the officials said. One official said it was impossible to verify the account, but said American investigators believed the suspect was providing credible information that was useful in the inquiry into the Cole attack on Oct. 12, which killed 17 American sailors.

In the account, first reported by ABC News this evening, the suspect said the suicide bombers originally planned their attack on an American warship refueling in the Yemeni port in Aden in January. ABC reported the attack was aimed at another destroyer, The Sullivans, which stopped in Yemen on Jan. 3. However, the officials said, it was not clear whether The Sullivans or another warship on a separate visit in January was the target.

The aborted attack appears to have been part of a coordinated terrorist plot over the millennium holiday period, which included a separate attack that was foiled when Jordanian officials arrested 13 Islamic militants, the officials said. American authorities also foiled what they said was a terrorist attack when customs agents arrested an Algerian named Ahmed Ressam as he drove a car with explosives into the United States from Canada.

American officials have said that those plots were coordinated by militants linked to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile accused of bombing the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. If the suspect's account is confirmed, it would provide investigators with more evidence that the attack on the Cole is linked to Mr. bin Laden.

Yemeni authorities have said they are holding several suspects in the attack, but so far they have been unwilling to allow agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to participate in their questioning. American investigators said that getting direct access to the suspects, which has been the subject of intensive diplomatic negotiations, was crucial to the investigation.

The officials said the suspect, who has not been identified by name, was providing much information into the attack on the Cole, suggesting it was the work of a large, highly coordinated group with significant financing and support from outside Yemen.

"They were planning this for well over a year," a senior administration official said. "They had planned to do it earlier, but failed."

The officials said that the attempted attack in January had not been detected at the time and was impossible to verify independently. However, a government official said investigators were operating under the assumption the suspect's information was credible. "I don't think we have any reason to doubt the information we have," the official said.

If true, however, an earlier attack like the one against the Cole may have been narrowly averted by the bungling of the attackers. The suspect, in his account, said the two suicide bombers aborted the attack when their skiff began to sink, apparently because it was overloaded with explosives, the officials said.

The senior administration official said that after the failed attempt, the militants retrieved the skiff and began refitting it with explosives for the bombing of the Cole. Some of those involved in the Cole attack - it was not clear how many - fled Yemen for a time only to return when planning resumed for the bombing last month, the official said.

After the attack on the Cole, the Pentagon heightened the state of alert at American bases throughout the region, fearing a new wave of coordinated attacks. In Kuwait today, the Interior Ministry announced that the authorities had arrested three people and seized a large amount of explosives in what they believed was a plot to attack American troops in the country.

In Washington, an administration official said those arrests appeared to be related to a specific terrorist threat that prompted the Pentagon to order troops in Kuwait to the highest level of alert, called threat condition delta. The official said it was not clear whether the suspects in Kuwait were linked to those involved in attacking the Cole.

The bombing badly damaged the Cole, tearing a gaping hole on the port side. American and Yemeni investigators have said the bomb contained several hundred pounds of a military plastic explosive, known as C-4. The Cole left Yemen last Sunday carried aboard a Norwegian transport ship. The Navy announced today that it would not return to its home port in Norfolk, Va., but rather to Pascagoula, Miss., for repairs that are expected to cost $150 million.

---

Cole attackers had planned earlier bombing

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 12:09 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndsfri01.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of the same terrorists thought to have attacked the USS Cole botched a similar attack 10 months ago against another ship in Yemen's Aden harbor, an intelligence official said.

The target was a U.S. warship that had stopped to refuel, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The aborted attempt in January was planned around the millennium celebrations.

It was aborted when the attackers discovered that their boat had been overloaded with explosives and was not seaworthy, the official said.

The small boat did not sink, but was not able to complete the mission and may have been the same craft used for the October attack on the Cole, the official said.

ABC News, citing intelligence sources, reported that the target was the USS The Sullivans, which refueled in Yemen on Jan. 3.

The Pentagon announced Thursday, with few details, that Defense Secretary William Cohen will leave Tuesday to visit the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as Israel, Jordan and Egypt. He will consult with his counterparts in those countries, meet with other government officials and visit U.S. troops in the region.

U.S. forces have been on a heightened state of alert since the Cole bombing killed 17 U.S. sailors Oct. 12.

The Navy, meanwhile, announced after weeks of deliberation that the Cole will be repaired at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., where the $1 billion destroyer was built.

---

USA Today
11/10/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Alaska

Anchorage - The Federal Aviation Administration is seeking changes to rules and regulations governing air traffic over Anchorage. Take-offs and landings at local airports, military bases and float plane bases rose by more than 16% over the past five years. The FAA is asking air carriers, private pilots and military aviators to help write new rules to keep the airspace safe.

Arizona

Wenden - The Army Corps of Engineers is building temporary levees to protect the western Arizona town of Wenden from flooding. Two flashfloods hit the town within the space of a week last month, causing more than $8 million in damage. County officials said the 6-foot-high levees will offer protection for the rest of the rainy season.

--- viet nam

Clinton urged to press Vietnam on freedoms

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 03:01 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#kursk

HANOI, Vietnam - Human rights and Buddhist groups said Friday that they have urged President Clinton to press for greater freedoms in Vietnam when he visits the communist country next week. U.S. officials have said no issues will be off-limits during Clinton's three-day visit. Human Rights Watch, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights and the International Buddhist Information Bureau urged Clinton to make a public call for human rights. Vietnam has repeatedly denied claims by rights groups that it holds anyone in prison for their political or religious views, and bristles at outside criticism of its human-rights record.

-------- OTHER

WEAK PROFITS AT BASF

New York Times
November 10, 2000
World Business Briefings
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/business/10FOBR.html
EUROPE

Europe's largest chemical maker, BASF of Germany, said its operating profit before special items rose more than 10 percent, to 765 million euros ($654 million), in the third quarter; analysts had forecast 801.5 million euros. Sales rose 27 percent in the period. The company said it expected a gradual slowdown in growth and profits next year. (Reuters)

-------- environment

Along the Hudson, Vigils Supporting a River Cleanup

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By ROBERT WORTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/nyregion/10VIGI.html

Cupping candles in the gusty night wind, several hundred people attended vigils last night at dozens of sites along the Hudson River from Manhattan to upstate Hudson Falls to show their support for a cleanup of toxic PCB's in the river.

The vigils were organized by two environmental groups, Scenic Hudson and Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, to counter an advertising campaign by General Electric, which released the PCB's.

The company hopes to convince the public that dredging to remove the chemicals - which could be very costly - is not necessary. In December, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which has studied the problem for a decade, will announce its decision on how to deal with the PCB's.

"The purpose of the vigil is to draw attention to the fact that people in the Hudson Valley want the PCB's cleaned up," said Cara Lee, Scenic Hudson's environmental director.

But Mark Behan, a spokesman for General Electric, said: "This really ought to be a victory celebration rather than a vigil. G.E. has been conducting Hudson River cleanup projects for 20 years, and those cleanups have helped to reduce PCB levels in water and fish by 90 percent."

PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, pose a cancer risk for those who eat fish or drink water contaminated with them, according to the E.P.A., which has advised that children under 15 and women of childbearing age should not eat fish from the river. The chemicals, once used in the manufacture of electric capacitators, were released from two of G.E.'s upstate plants between 1946 and 1977 under legal permits from the state. The river was declared a federal Superfund site in 1983.

The company has spent $165 million cleaning up PCB's in the river, in voluntary agreements with the state and the federal agency. The company has been running full-page newspaper ads and television and radio spots in the upper Hudson Valley for six months saying that the river is cleaning itself naturally, and that dredging would only stir up the PCB's on the bottom, posing an increased threat to wildlife and people.

Andy Mele, the executive director of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, said the cost of the company's media campaign was $1 million to $2 million a week, with a total of about $60 million since May. "It is filled with outright falsehoods, and we have no way to get back at it," said Mr. Mele.

That sentiment was shared by many of those who attended last night's vigils. "G.E. is saying they don't have to clean it up - that's ridiculous," said Eliza Nagel, an actress in her early 20's who was among more than 100 people gathered at Pier 63 in Manhattan, where a Latin dance band played and hot cider was served.

At another gathering, in Beacon, N.Y., the folk singer Pete Seeger, who founded Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in 1966, led a rendition of "This Little Light of Mine."

Studies commissioned by General Electric have said that dredging the chemicals from the river bottom would pose a health threat, but Scenic Hudson released a nationwide study that concluded that dredging technology had improved.

---

Forests May Help Counteract Greenhouse Gas

New York Times
November 10, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/science/10CLIMATE.html

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 - Letting forests grow on abandoned farmland and logging grounds may do more than beautify the countryside -- they may be soaking up greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, scientists said on Thursday.

But as the forests mature, this effect will decrease, the researchers at Princeton University, the U.S. Forest Service and elsewhere, said.

``Today we are seeing the effects of past changes in use,'' ecologist John Casperson at Princeton said in a telephone interview.

``Throughout the East, in the last century a lot of forests were cut down either for agriculture or for logging. When those lands were no longer valuable as agricultural land, those lands just reverted to forest.''

As the trees grew, they used carbon dioxide -- a lot of it, according to the study, published in Science.

Casperson said government planners can use the information in future projections about global warming.

An estimated six billion tons of carbon dioxide are emitted each year -- much due to burning fossil fuels such as gas and coal. But only three billion or four billion tons accumulate in the atmosphere, forming a kind of blanket that can hold the sun's heat in and contribute to global warming.

Scientific study has suggested that big areas of plants, such as forests and prairies, soak up some of this carbon -- not surprising, as plants use carbon dioxide to grow.

Much of this seemed to be going on in the United States, a phenomenon known as the ``North American carbon sink.''

Scientists trying to figure out how this might happen proposed that the build-up of carbon itself was acting as a fertilizer and speeding the growth of trees. Others suggested that nitrogen coming from automobile emissions and industrial pollution was falling on the land and acting as fertilizer.

Scientists Compare Forest Growth Rates

Casperson's team decided to check by comparing recent growth of forests to old growth rates, looking at the forest inventory database collected by the Forest Service.

``They go out and measure the trees to make predictions about timber production. It also allows you to assess changes in stocks of carbon in forests ... by looking at how much timber there is. They measure things like tree volume,'' he said.

The researchers found that most of the carbon ``sink'' could be attributed to the new growth of trees.

Casperson's team looked at new forests in Minnesota, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.

``It takes like 200 to 500 years for them to mature,'' Casperson said, adding that most of the forests in the Eastern United States are at most 50 to 60 years old. Their growth will eventually slow as they mature, he said.

``The sink will disappear unless there is some future fertilization effect,'' Casperson said.

Negotiators from around the world are due to meet in The Hague in the Netherlands starting on Monday to resolve details of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Casperson said this information could be taken into account. Countries can get ``credit'' for sinks that offset carbon production, although his study is unlikely to do the United States much good.

``Kyoto specifically excludes using any sinks that include land use changed prior to 1990,'' he said.

---

USA Today
11/10/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Nevada

Hawthorne - Efforts to protect the endangered Lahontan cutthroat trout are blamed for endangering residents downstream from Weber Dam. Critics charge that environmental studies have delayed a project to reconstruct the dam. People living below it face the chance it could destroy their homes if it buckles in an earthquake.

New Mexico

Santa Fe - Santa Fe must secure its San Juan-Chama water rights or risk losing them, state engineer Tom Turney warned. He said the city needs to begin drawing more water from the federal diversion project, which carries water from southern Colorado. Otherwise, the government could take the water for endangered species like the Rio Grande silvery minnow, he said.

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

OMAN: JOINS W.T.O.

New York Times
November 10, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10BRIE.html

Oman became the 139th member of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization. The country, which began its entry negotiations four years ago, is the fifth member of the Gulf Cooperation Council to join the group, joining Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Only Saudi Arabia, which has been seeking membership since 1993, remains outside the trade arbiter group. Elizabeth Olson (NYT)

---

World Bank awards aid to Indian state

USA Today
11/10/00- Updated 03:01 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#kursk

HYDERABAD, India - The World Bank has awarded $434 million in assistance for anti-poverty programs in a southern Indian state. The programs, announced Friday by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, would include funding small businesses and irrigation projects in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Two-thirds of the aid would be as a loan. The rest would be in a grant. Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu, who is trying to make Andhra Pradesh the most technologically advanced in India, on Friday sought another 500 million dollars from the World Bank for forestry and environment conservation, education and satellite projects.

-------- police

QUEENS: CHARGES OF BROTHEL PROTECTION

New York Times
November 10, 2000
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/nyregion/10MBRF.html

A city police officer was charged yesterday with providing protection for a brothel and gambling den that catered mainly to Chinese-speaking patrons in Flushing, Queens. According to papers filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, the officer, Jay Zhao, helped two federal undercover agents posing as Chicago businessmen hire prostitutes from the brothel. The papers also said that Officer Zhao, who has been suspended from his job at the 78th Precinct, worked inside the brothel. His lawyer declined to comment. Alan Feuer (NYT)

MANHATTAN: MORE POLICE APPLICANTS

City officials said 11,354 people have applied to take the police examination next month, up 35 percent from the number for the last exam in May but barely half of the 21,000 who registered for a test in 1998. The department extended the filing period by six weeks and spent $10 million to advertise it. Applications had to be mailed by Nov. 3, and officials said it was possible they would receive a few hundred more. Kevin Flynn (NYT)

NEW JERSEY LAWRENCEVILLE: POLICE COPTERS GROUNDED

The state police decided to ground its three Sikorsky S-76 helicopters pending an investigation by Sikorsky, the manufacturer. The F.A.A. and Sikorsky issued a warning after a customer reported on Nov. 1 that a main rotor shaft had cracked. The helicopters are used to take accident victims to trauma centers, said Sgt. Al Della Fave. New Jersey will use helicopters from New York and Pennsylvania temporarily. Steve Strunsky (NYT)

---

MUC police accept four-year contract
The deal, approved by 87.3 per cent of the membership, will bring the salary of a constable with six years' experience to $62,126 and will boost a rookie's starting salary to $28,000.

Montreal Gazette
Friday 10 November 2000
LEVON SEVUNTS The Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/001110/4845097.html

Montreal Urban Community police voted last night to accept a contract offer that will give them an 8.6-per-cent raise over four years.

The MUC's initial offer was a 6.15-per-cent increase over a three-year term. For the union, the new agreement represents a $10-million increase over the $21 million the MUC had set aside to cover the contract.

Under the terms of the new agreement, the salary of an officer with six years' experience will rise to $62,126 from the current $57,214.

The starting salary of a rookie officer will rise from the current $25,405 to $28,000. But there was no indication last night whether nearly 600 of the young officers who had filed complaints with the Quebec Human Rights Commission would withdraw their complaints.

The young officers were upset by an orphan clause whereby officers hired since 1997 are on a different pay scale, giving them $5,000 a year less than colleagues hired before that date.

Their complaint to the human-rights commission alleged age discrimination on the part of the MUC and their own union.

Eighty per cent of 4,109 eligible members of the MUC Police Brotherhood cast ballots, and 87.3 per cent of the voters were in favour of accepting the new offer.

"The members of the brotherhood have considered the proposed conditions as sufficient and reasonable," said brotherhood vice-president Pierre-David Tremblay.

"We would have liked to get more," said Mario Morroni, secretary-treasurer of the brotherhood.

"But we are very happy that we finally came to a negotiated settlement. I think both sides preferred it to the arbitration."

Morroni, however, did not say how much the police union was asking for.

The police have been without a contract since December 1998.

Last spring, they rejected a contract agreement reached by their union and the MUC that would have given them a 6.15-per-cent raise over three years.

Under that deal, the salary of an officer with six years' experience would have risen to $60,727 from the present $57,214 after the three years.

But that deal didn't appeal to two groups in particular - the 835 young officers hired since 1997, and investigators, who were upset that a new formula for calculating overtime would cost them about $7 an hour.

Investigators work 200 to 300 hours of overtime a year.

The new contract agreement reverts to the original formula for calculating investigators' overtime.

After rejecting the offer in the spring, officers embarked on such pressure tactics as wearing jeans instead of uniform trousers, switching assigned vehicles and writing out detailed reports on minor incidents.

Morroni said last night that he hopes the acceptance of a new contract will improve the work atmosphere.

"Everyone likes to come back to work knowing that they have a contract, knowing that conditions are back to what they were.

"Everyone is very happy at this stage."

The new contract runs until the end of 2002.

-------- spying

New York Times
November 10, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/10BRIE.html

BRITAIN: EX-SPY DENIES CHARGES

The former spy David Shayler pleaded not guilty to charges he broke the Official Secrets Act in telling a newspaper that British intelligence had botched efforts to stop Irish Republican Army attacks and the 1994 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and kept files on celebrities and politicians. Trial was set for April for Mr. Shayler, 32, who returned from exile in France to face the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of four years. Warren Hoge (NYT)

---

Peru's ex-spy chief remains on lam

Washington Times
November 10, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-20001110212653.htm

LIMA, Peru - President Alberto Fujimori said yesterday his fugitive ex-spy chief remains on the run, and new evidence shows Vladimiro Montesinos has $10 million in foreign accounts in addition to reportedly illicit funds discovered earlier.

Mr. Fujimori's announcement came one week after Switzerland said it had frozen more than $48 million in five bank accounts linked to Mr. Montesinos on suspicion of illicit money laundering.

The president set off a nationwide manhunt for Mr. Montesinos two weeks ago. He denied rumors he had ordered that Mr. Montesinos be brought in dead or alive.

-------- activists

Nation Rumbles at 1pm

Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 15:13:39 -0600
From: Jim <friends@enteract.com>

As word spreads of large scale nation-wide protests (http://geocities.com/countercoup/) this Saturday at 1pm against Republican Headquarters we should use this as an opportunity to expose the larger American public to progressive issues. I encourage everyone who has a local Republican HQ, Federal Building, etc. to organize a protest against this phony election mess and the "Bush Coup"...

Protest sites for this 11/11, 1PM your local time: (alphabetical by city)
Asheville, NC: Pack Square.
Ann Arbor, MI: Federal Building.
Athens, GA: College Square, downtown Athens.
Athens, OH: the old courthouse, Court street.
Atlanta: Olympic Park, across from CNN headquarters.
Austin, TX: the Governor's Mansion in downtown
Austin. Baltimore: Federal Building, Hopkins' Plaza.
Bellingham, WA: Federal Building.
Bloomington, IN: Justice Building at 301 College St.
Boston: Capitol steps facing the Commons.
Buffalo, NY: City Hall.
Chicago: Daley Plaza @ Washington & Clark.
Cleveland, OH: Mall C at the "Free" Stamp statue.
Columbus, OH: Statehouse lawn.
Dallas: JFK Memorial (court district).
Denver: The circle in front of the State Capitol.
Des Moines, IA: State Capitol Steps.
Eugene, OR: Public space in front of City Hall.
Eureka, CA: County Courthouse.
Grand forks, ND: City Hall.
Grand Rapids, MI: Indian Mounds by the Ford Museum.
Houston, TX: Jones Plaza downtown.
Iowa City: Front steps of the Old Capitol.
Knoxville, TN: World's Fair Park.
Lansing, MI: Capital Steps.
Little Rock: Old State House.
Los Angeles: Federal Building at 11000 Wilshire Blvd.
Memphis, TN: Bush Headquarters, 1245 Ridgeway.
Miami: Bayfront Park
Milwaukee: Cathederal Square Park (Wells&Jefferson).
Minneapolis, MN: City Hall and Federal Courthouse at 5th St. & 3rd Ave.
Nashville: Executive Plaza, downtown Nashville.
New York: Times Square.
Northampton, MA: Courthouse (at King & Main).
Oakland, CA: Frank Osagawa Plaza, city center.
Olympia, WA: Fountain on the Capitol Campus.
Orlando, Fla: Lake Eola Park, by band shell.
Palm Springs, CA: City Hall.
Peoria, IL: Constitution Plaza.
Philadelphia: Independence Mall.
Phoenix: Patriot's Park.
Portland, OR: Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Providence, RI: Kennedy Plaza.
Richmond, VA: front of State Capitol building.
Roc