------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Reactor Monitors Get New Use
North Korea: More Give, Less Take

MILITARY
Cole Inquiry Provokes Bitter U.S. Dispute
North Korea Returns Remains of 15 Soldiers
Three anti-U.S. plots failed before Cole

OTHER
Can Black Gold Ever Flow Green?
A Tough Climate For Talks
Chat Room Causes Trouble for CIA Employees

ACTIVISTS
Voters Take to the Streets
Vietnam's Youth Stage a Gentler Revolution
Indonesian Separatists Rally Despite Threats of Violence
Four Arrested in Election Protest



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- cuba

Reactor Monitors Get New Use

Associated Press
November 12, 2000 Filed at 12:07 p.m. ET

MIAMI (AP) -- Equipment installed around the Gulf of Mexico to screen the air for particles emanating from two planned nuclear reactors in Cuba could be the key to unraveling the mystery of red tide.

The air samplers were put into service by the Department of Defense, which first funded the project three years ago. Funds for the Caribbean Radiation Early Warning System ran out in September, but one college is now using the technology to trace the microscopic algae that causes red tide.

``It could be an early warning system for biological events in the ocean,'' said Peter Betzer, acting dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

CREWS was implemented to pick up traces of Iodine-131 in the air and alert U.S. officials in the event of a large radioactive release from nuclear reactors near Juragua, about 80 miles south of Havana, which are still only partially built.

By last year, air samplers resembling an inverted vacuum cleaner were installed at Florida Keys Community College just east of Key West; the University of South Florida; Louisiana University's Marine Consortium in Cocodrie, La.; and the University of Texas' Marine Sciences Laboratory at Port Aransas, near Corpus Cristi.

The $2.8 million budgeted for CREWS by the Department of Defense served to fund the program for only about two years, long enough to obtain baseline data for the region in order to detect any change in the future, said Bob Bennett, a spokesman for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Construction of the two Soviet-designed, light-water reactors in Cuba began in the early 1980s, but financial problems in Cuba and the Soviet Union forced a halt to the project.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has said the project is on hold indefinitely.

``We have not been funded because the two Cuban nuclear plants are not operational,'' said Bill Trantham, director of the marine environmental technology program at Florida Keys Community College.

The monitors are now in the hands of researchers and students at the colleges.

``Essentially the colleges are now running those,'' said Lt. Col. Steve Campbell, a Pentagon spokesman. ``If we needed to use them for any reason, we would be able to negotiate with them to do that.''

In Florida, the first air sampler was installed at USF in February 1999. Professors and students at Florida State University in Tallahassee were given the task of analyzing what the monitors at USF and FKCC show.

Betzer says USF is now using the air monitoring equipment to study outbreaks of red tide and its possible link to vast clouds of dust from North Africa coming across the Atlantic.

A long drought in the Sahel grasslands near the Sahara in Northern Africa has caused huge and more frequent dust storms in recent years. Hundreds of millions of tons of soil are being blown away every year, scientists estimate. Hitchhiking along are bacteria, fungi, probably viruses and pesticides, even radiation.

Some scientists say the African dust could also be responsible for the demise of certain Caribbean corals and might be linked to the presence of mercury in the Everglades, red tide along the coasts and disease in some amphibians.

In the waters off Florida's Panhandle, high concentrations of red tide have been detected in the region four of the last five years.

Microscopic algae in the ocean need iron and normally don't receive an ample supply, but the African dust is rich in iron and when it falls into the ocean it causes the plants to boom, Betzer said.

``It actually does seem that their occurrence is, in fact, tied to the arrival of the dust,'' Betzer said, adding that the air samplers can serve as an early warning for onset of African dust storms.

Betzer said the monitoring systems that sample the air separate the particles from the air and can actually detect when one of these big dust storms comes over from Africa.

``It could be very important for understanding how the dust from Africa affects biological production in the ocean,'' Betzer said.

-------- korea

North Korea: More Give, Less Take

Los Angeles Times
Sunday, November 12, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20001112/t000108376.html

President Clinton has properly decided not to visit North Korea when he travels to Asia later this month, though the White House says he might still make such a visit before he leaves office Jan. 20. Clinton should forget about that one as well, because Washington's nascent relationship with the world's last Stalinist state isn't remotely near the point of meriting such a high-prestige trip, even by a lame-duck president.

U.S. diplomacy is rightly concerned with making Northeast Asia a safer place, but North Korea has yet to demonstrate that it shares that goal. Until it does, Washington should be sparing in the material inducements and political rewards it hands out to North Korea.

The next administration should give high priority to a reassessment of North Korean policy. Since 1994 the United States, along with South Korea and Japan, has given billions of dollars in energy and food aid to North Korea and done much to legitimate a longtime international pariah. The return on that investment has been meager: The North did agree to shut down facilities capable of producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel. But North Korea, one of 187 countries committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, still refuses to let international inspectors verify that it's not developing nuclear weapons. Before it froze its nuclear program, the Pyongyang regime is believed to have accumulated enough plutonium to make two bombs.

Washington's approach to Pyongyang has been shaped in good part by fear of what it might do with those potential weapons. The conventional belief for years was that reclusive North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and his successor and son, Kim Jong Il, might be mentally unstable and driven one day to launch a devastating if suicidal war. Kim Jong Il's recent meetings with foreign officials, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, have produced a far different impression. Kim is now seen as a shrewd and well-informed leader. His tactical skills are evident in the huge amounts of aid he has been able to extract from the United States and other donor nations while giving little in return.

This absurdly unbalanced relationship has to end. The next president should seek three minimum concessions from Pyongyang: to give the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear facilities, enter into a verifiable agreement to curb its missile development and export programs, and reduce its enormous military presence near its border with South Korea. If those things are done, it should be possible to start believing that Pyongyang really may be interested in a stable and peaceful Northeast Asia.


-------- MILITARY

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

Cole Inquiry Provokes Bitter U.S. Dispute

New York Times
November 12, 2000
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/12/world/12SHIP.html

SANA, Yemen, Nov. 11 - A month after the bombing of the destroyer Cole, a bitter dispute has erupted within the Clinton Administration over whether to accept Yemeni limits on the American investigation here or press for a wider ranging inquiry that F.B.I. officials believe could potentially lead to powerful people linked to the Yemeni government itself, American officials on both sides of the dispute say.

The dispute has become so heated, according to officials in Washington, that it has featured sometimes personal exchanges between leading American officials on opposing sides. Two of the principal figures in the dispute, with sharply conflicting views, according to those officials, have been Louis J. Freeh, the F.B.I. director, and Barbara K. Bodine, the American ambassador to Yemen.

According to a report this week in Al Hayat, an Arab-language newspaper published in London whose reports have accurately prefigured many disclosures in the Cole case so far, the F.B.I. wanted the American Embassy in Yemen to demand that the Yemeni investigation be extended to "social, political and military figures" with close ties to the Yemeni government. The State Department has resisted, American officials say, for fear of alienating Yemeni government officials and souring the atmosphere surrounding the investigation still further, and because of a reluctance to upset an already delicate, strategic relationship with Yemen.

The Al Hayat account was indirectly confirmed by an F.B.I. official, who said a critical aspect of the case - whether the bombers had help from powerful figures within Yemen and if so to what extent - was difficult, if not impossible, to determine as long as the Yemeni government decided exclusively whom to detain and interview.

Asked about the issue, a senior State Department official in Washington refused to comment, but said it was true that the inquiry needed to go beyond "the first and second levels," meaning who was immediately responsible for the attack, "all the way back to the spider in the web."

Despite the strains, senior American and Yemeni officials said in recent days that the dispute over Yemeni limits on the F.B.I. investigation was close to being resolved after weeks of confrontations between senior officials of the two governments. The deal now being worked out, both governments say, would allow the F.B.I. close access to suspects for the first time by permitting its agents to watch Yemeni interrogators by live television relay or through a one-way mirror, and to pass written questions to the Yemenis.

The F.B.I. has reacted coolly to the deal, partly because decisions on whom should be questioned would remain exclusively with the Yemenis. But by Friday the dispute appeared to be cooling, with F.B.I. officials saying that the Yemenis, under criticism for their seemingly reluctant cooperation so far, had handed over a large file of transcripts from interviews in the case, and that those, and other new evidence, included valuable details that should help move the investigation forward.

On the Yemeni side, the American- educated prime minister, Abdel Karim al-Iryani, said today that American officials were no longer "making an issue" over access to suspects, having accepted that Yemen was doing its best to solve the case and that nobody in the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh was involved. On the contrary, Mr. Iryani said, whoever planned the bombing intended to damage Mr. Saleh and his government's ties with the United States. "We are not hiding anything, and the Americans have accepted that," he said.

Still, the new terms for the F.B.I. role appear to fall far short of the free-ranging role the bureau demanded - and the State Department vetoed - in an internal dispute in Washington. The dispute, American officials say, drew in Mr. Freeh, the F.B.I. director, Ms. Bodine, the ambassador, and the White House.

Moreover, American officials say, the new arrangements could still fall apart over Yemeni counterdemands for access to information on the bombing that the F.B.I. gathers outside Yemen.

The issue, the State Department official said, was whether getting to the people ultimately responsible for the attack, in Yemen or elsewhere, would be more likely to be accomplished by accepting restraints on the F.B.I. that respected Yemeni sensitivities about its sovereignty, or by pressing for much wider access that would alienate President Saleh and other powerful figures in Yemen, and perhaps cause them to become even less cooperative.

The State Department official was scathing about the F.B.I.'s demands, saying the bureau lacked experience operating in countries with sharply different cultures, had no understanding of Yemeni sensitivities about "having a large Westerner standing in a room during the interrogation of a Yemeni," and had allowed the urgency of the case to override its judgment.

"The idea that you do whatever you like, in spite of where you are, is just silly," the official said. "Not all murder cases can be solved in the space of a 50-minute TV show."

Earlier in the investigation, the F.B.I. reacted to what it considered minimal Yemeni cooperation by removing most of the bureau's 150- member contingent in Aden from a harbor hotel and billeting them aboard a Navy ship, the Duluth, 10 miles out at sea. Later, most of the contingent returned to the United States, leaving only 20 agents, many of them deeply disgruntled, cooling their heels at another Aden hotel.

Until the transfer late this week of a rich new dossier of Yemeni interviews with suspects, most of the information reaching the F.B.I. came in the form of poorly translated, heavily edited transcripts, some of them days late. In addition, F.B.I. agents visiting safe houses and other locations used in the bombing were forbidden to talk to Yemenis who had met the bombers, and some of those potential witnesses told American reporters later that they had not been questioned by Yemeni investigators, either.

According to American officials, one issue that deepened suspicions in the F.B.I. turned out to be a misunderstanding. Days after the bombing, the Yemenis acknowledged to the F.B.I. that they had film of the bombing from a harbor surveillance camera. But when this was handed over, the F.B.I. was furious to find that it did not show the actual bombing and that the sequence it did show, after the blast, had been jerkily edited.

Angry representations were made to the Yemenis, who said that the surveillance cameras were set up to be used only as needed, after harbor officials spotted something wrong. In addition, the Yemenis said, the cameras were mounted on stanchions well behind the Cole's mooring point and on the side of the ship opposite the one where attack occurred.

The issues behind the dispute between the F.B.I. and the Yemenis could hardly be more critical, either for the prospects of a successful investigation of the attack or for the future of American relations with Yemen, which has emerged as a linchpin of American policy in the region. In fact, the wrangling mirrors policy conflicts that preceded the decision in 1999 to start sending American warships into Aden for refueling - a decision that ultimately led to the Cole bombing, which killed 17 American sailors.

That initial policy decision pitted officials in the Pentagon, the State Department and American intelligence agencies who wished to encourage closer ties with Yemen against others in the same agencies who warned of the dangers involved in entrusting the safety of warships to a country that had long been a sanctuary for terrorist groups.

So far, both the F.B.I. and the State Department say, the Yemenis have been energetic in finding answers to the first issue in the bombing: how it was done. F.B.I. and Yemeni investigators say they know that the men who guided the skiff that carried the bomb - and who for months monitored American ships entering the harbor - used the names Abdullah Ahmed Khaled Ali al-Musawah and Muhammad Ahmed al-Sharabi, that those were false identities, and that the two men were linked to a network of Islamic terrorist groups that have had bases in southern and eastern Yemen for much of the last decade.

But among the critical questions that remain unanswered, F.B.I. officials say, is whether the Islamic terrorists relied on an old network of connections between the terrorist groups and high-ranking figures in Sana, the capital. Those ties were forged in the early 1990's when Mr. Saleh's government was looking for allies in its struggle with a Socialist government that had ruled a separate state in Aden since the late 1960's.

In 1994, Mr. Saleh's forces, with crucial support from armed Islamic groups, won a brutal civil war and took control of Aden, but American intelligence reports have shown that the links from that time, despite American-financed efforts by the Saleh government to crack down on the terrorist groups, have persisted.

--------

North Korea Returns Remains of 15 Soldiers

Associated Press
November 12, 2000

TOKYO, Nov. 11 (AP) - Remains believed to be those of 15 soldiers missing in action since the Korean War were flown to Japan and handed over to the American military today, Veterans Day.

To the drone of a lone bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace," a United Nations honor guard removed the coffins from the plane that flew them to the United States air base at Yokota in Tokyo from Pyongyang, North Korea, said Master Sgt. Eudith Rodney, spokeswoman for United States Forces Japan.

American troops led the allied forces representing the United Nations that battled North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War.

The event was another sign of North Korea's improved relations with the United States, and marked the largest of five repatriations of remains this year.

The two nations began the exhumations four years ago.

More than 50 sets of remains have been recovered, several of which have been identified and returned to families.

---------

Three anti-U.S. plots failed before Cole

USA Today
11/12/00
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwssat08.htm

ADEN, Yemen (AP) - At least three plots against American targets in Yemen failed in the past year before last month's suicide bombing of the USS Cole, Yemeni sources close to the investigation said Saturday.

More than one suspect in Yemeni custody being questioned in connection with the Oct. 12 Cole bombing has admitted to involvement in a campaign targeting Americans in Yemen, the sources said, insisting on anonymity. They did not provide a specific number but did say the suspects belong to the Islamic Jihad and other Islamic groups.

The Islamic Jihad is linked to America's No. 1 terror suspect, Osama bin Laden.

In the first week of November 1999, Yemeni authorities foiled plans to blow up a convoy of U.S. military personnel heading to Yemen's National Center for the Removal of Land Mines hours before the operation was to be carried out, the sources said. Yemeni security forces discovered the explosives - planted about one mile away from the hotel where the Americans were staying - and defused them, sources said.

Suspects being questioned in the Cole explosion gave detailed information regarding the route the Americans took to and from the center, where U.S. military personnel give Yemenis technical training on removing land mines, the sources said. It is estimated that more that than 30 Americans - all military - were at the center when the explosives were set to go off.

When that attempt fell apart, the sources said the suspects made plans to attack the Royal Hotel, near the port in Aden, where most of the American servicemen were staying. It wasn't immediately clear when that operation was to be carried out, and no details were available on why it failed.

An attack similar to the one carried out on the Cole was aborted in January when the attackers realized their boat had been overloaded with explosives and was not seaworthy, the sources said. ABC News, citing intelligence sources, has reported that the target of that attack was the USS The Sullivans, a destroyer that refueled in Yemen on Jan. 3.

In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official has confirmed that some of the same people thought to have been involved in the Cole attack botched a similar attack 10 months ago against a U.S. warship that had stopped to refuel in Aden harbor.

Seventeen sailors were killed and 39 others were injured when the Cole was bombed Oct. 12.

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

Can Black Gold Ever Flow Green?

New York Times
November 12, 2000
By NEELA BANERJEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/12/business/12OILL.html

ARCTIC VILLAGE, Alaska -- As ridged as crocodile skin, the marshy coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge stretches 110 miles from the Canning River in the west to Alaska's border with Canada in the east. Over a few weeks in the early Arctic autumn, the mottled green length of the plain deepens to the color of coffee grounds and rust, a dark vein between the slate Beaufort Sea and the frayed northern edge of the Brooks mountain range.

The fate of this hushed span of tundra, like many other matters, may hang on the outcome of the presidential election. If Gov. George W. Bush of Texas is the new president, this plain and the oil deposits it covers may become an unlikely proving ground for the kind of company BP Amoco is and what it aspires to be: an oil company that is also a protector of the environment.

From its base in London, BP Amoco, the world's third-largest oil company and arguably the most powerful player in Alaskan oil, has broken ranks with most of the petroleum industry and worked to build a reputation as an environmental pioneer, while continuing to promote oil development. Over the last three years, it has acknowledged the danger of global warming and embraced alternative fuels. To foster this image, BP Amoco unveiled a sunburst logo and a new motto: Beyond Petroleum.

So far, BP, which pumps slightly more than 300,000 barrels of oil a day from Alaska, has sidestepped the question of drilling on the coastal plain of the refuge, an emotional environmental issue that gained national attention during the presidential race.

Drilling proponents, including Mr. Bush, the Alaskan congressional delegation and most of the Republican Party, say the country's energy independence hinges on tapping the billions of barrels of oil that geologists suspect are below the plain's permafrost, perhaps enough to pump a million barrels a day for 20 years. For opponents of the drilling, including Vice President Al Gore, the issue is a zero-sum game: if the area is opened to development, a rare wilderness where many birds and animals bear their young would be lost.

Mr. Bush has said unequivocally that he would open the coastal plain to oil exploration and production, though he would need Congressional support to proceed. Sir John Browne, the BP chief executive, said last week that if the area was unlocked under a Republican administration, BP would be interested in new exploration opportunities there. If it bids on leases to develop fields, which is highly probable given the demands on the company to bolster production and its stock price, BP would have a chance to show what Beyond Petroleum really means.

A green oil company may seem an oxymoron, but some regulators, scientists, environmentalists and investors say they cautiously believe that the company might be trying to transform itself and an industry that has become synonymous with pollution. For the last few years, environmentalists and indigenous groups have met with BP executives and board members to try to persuade them to promise not to drill in the refuge, just as the company pledged a decade ago to stay out of Antarctica. Those who have placed some faith in BP see the Arctic Refuge, home to scarce, unique wildlife, as the crucial test of the company's environmental resolve.

The BP record so far is mixed. The company's other activities in Alaska over the last few years suggest that there is a vast geographical and philosophical gulf within the company. On one side are executives in London who preach environmentalism; on the other are engineers in Anchorage who face the pressure of oil-driven local politics and their own bottom line.

BP executives repeat a company- wide mantra of "no damage" to the environment, and its units have to meet certain environmental goals. "We have learned a lot in 30 years," said F. X. O'Keefe, the head of BP's Alaska Exploration unit. "Our record shows we can go into different areas with little to no impact."

But the company's stock price ultimately depends on how much oil it draws out of the ground and at what cost. To ensure a steady flow of oil as supplies from Alaska's North Slope decline, BP has proceeded with projects and campaigns that pose significant risks to Alaska's ecology, said many state and federal regulators, wildlife biologists, environmentalists and representatives of native peoples.

"They're trying to present a new BP, but it's business as usual," said Francis A. Grant-Suttie, who, as director of private-sector initiatives at the World Wildlife Fund, meets regularly with BP executives. "On the P.R. level, they have been successful at differentiating themselves from others, but by virtue of what they're doing on the coastal plain, you can see it's sheer rhetoric."

This year, the company agreed to a compliance order with the state of Alaska that prohibits it from drilling several months of the year at Northstar, the first offshore well in the North American Arctic. The state contends that BP would not be able to clean up an oil spill in the open waters off Northstar. BP was also placed under criminal probation for five years and paid $7 million in civil and criminal penalties to the federal government after fumbling a case of dumping by a contractor at another Alaska site, Endicott.

Although BP has said it is not an active party in the heated discussion about development in the refuge, it has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Arctic Power, a group lobbying to open the refuge to drilling, as well as to politicians who support such efforts, including Mr. Bush and the Republican Party.

"Being `beyond petroleum' isn't an impossibility, but what on the ground says they are?" asked Theodore L. Rockwell Jr., who coordinates the Environmental Protection Agency's oil and gas program in Alaska.

BP built its reputation on exploration and production, first in Iran more than 90 years ago and, over the last generation, in the North Sea and Alaska. Earlier this year, when BP bought the Atlantic Richfield Company, its main rival on the North Slope, it had to sell ARCO's Alaskan fields to Phillips Petroleum in order to receive federal approval for the deal. Phillips produces somewhat more oil, but BP, on a contract basis with other oil concerns, operates most North Slope fields, making it the dominant force in Alaskan oil.

The company's makeover from a staid British energy empire to a brash maverick that embraced environmentalism is the handiwork of Sir John, the chief executive. A career company man who earned his M.B.A. in the United States and worked in Alaska in the late 1960's, Sir John, 52, has given the 154 business units within BP greater independence while demanding impressive results. He also familiarized himself with research on global warming and said three years ago that the company should take a stand on the issue, said David Rice, chief of staff for government and public affairs at BP.

Bucking industry wisdom, BP agreed with the idea that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global warming and pledged to cut its own emissions by 10 percent by 2010. The company is among the world's largest makers of solar panels and uses solar power at many of its own facilities. It is gradually shifting the emphasis of its exploration and production from crude oil to cleaner- burning natural gas.

In a letter to employees in July, Sir John wrote that BP's values "may be manifested in different ways, but they have much in common: a respect for the individual and the diversity of mankind, a responsibility to protect the natural environment."

Shareholders take Sir John's message seriously. At the annual meeting on April, 13 percent of shareholders voted for a resolution demanding that BP terminate Northstar and stay out of the refuge, a proportion so high that it stunned company management and even those who introduced the measure.

"Maybe it is painful for BP to have this degree of scrutiny, but being held accountable will help BP improve its environmental performance over the long run," said Simon Billenness, senior analyst at Trillium Asset Management of Boston, one of the sponsors of the resolution.

The notion of drilling in the coastal plain of the refuge provokes intense debate because of what the opposing sides see at stake. Every summer, thousands of birds from as near as Washington State and as far as Antarctica alight upon the narrow strip of tundra to bear their young. About 150,000 caribou, known as the Porcupine herd, migrate almost 500 miles annually from Canada to calve on the treeless expanse.

"There are a lot of people who will never go to the refuge, but I get some peace of mind knowing that there is an area of naturalness on such a scale," said Fran Mauer, a wildlife biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and an expert on the refuge. "Where else can you have such herds of caribou, so many bears, oxen roaming?"

Drilling proponents say there are about 16 billion barrels in the refuge. But no one knows how much oil is in the coastal plain because very little exploration has been done there. One exploratory well backed by BP and Chevron was drilled years ago on land owned by indigenous peoples within the refuge. BP said the results were a proprietary secret.

Based on seismic data and information gleaned from oil wells near the refuge, the United States Geological Survey has estimated that technologically recoverable oil in the area is about 7.7 billion barrels. If the area pumped one million barrels a day, it could supply oil to the United States for two decades. In comparison, the great Prudhoe Bay field in the North Slope of Alaska, where BP staked its fortune 30 years ago, had about 9.2 billion barrels.

Whatever numbers the experts settle on, Greg Gilbert worries that they will draw oil companies into the coastal plain. A member of the 7,500- member Gwich'in Indian nation that lives scattered through the boreal forests of northwest Canada and north central Alaska, Mr. Gilbert hunts caribou to feed his family of seven. Until about 50 years ago, the Gwich'in followed the Porcupine herd in its trek. Now, they live in settlements of one-story clapboard houses heated by wood stoves and often without running water.

Arctic Village, a settlement outside the southern rim of the refuge, is home to Mr. Gilbert and about 250 other Gwich'in, most of them unemployed, who survive by hunting caribou. Every few hours during one fall day, young men rode down from a nearby ridge in their all-terrain vehicles and unloaded shanks and sides of caribou and moose into their cabins.

Bundled in a fur hat against the biting wind one afternoon, Mr. Gilbert climbed a rickety 10-foot platform on the edge of a forest of stunted birch and pine and took out binoculars to survey for caribou.

"Caribou are sensitive," Mr. Gilbert said. "The oil companies want to drill in the refuge, but the elders say the caribou will disappear. They will change their route."

He climbed down from the observation platform, and his face was tight with concern. "I think drilling will eventually happen," he said. "The oil companies have the power to do it. But I worry about the future, my kids, their kids."

Opponents of drilling say the refuge could be better protected from development if President Clinton declared the area a national monument. Congress could overturn such a designation, but there is no precedent for doing so.

BP contends that oil development would not harm caribou, pointing to the thriving herd in the North Slope. A range of independent wildlife biologists dispute BP's argument. Moreover, the coastal plain in the refuge is far smaller than the North Slope but has 10 times the caribou population, which would make it very hard for the animals to avoid oil infrastructure.

BP says it can develop oil fields on the coastal plain with what it calls "minimal" environmental impact. The acreage that its newest wells occupy, their "footprint," is much smaller than that of older wells, and pipelines are built higher to let caribou pass underneath. Often, there are no roads nearby, and workers are airlifted in.

Stray caribou roam near the Prudhoe Bay roads that rumble with trucks and pick-ups. Others graze sometimes under pipelines. One bright morning, near the Phillips Alpine field, a flock of geese lifted like a hand from the flat table of the tundra. "The drive is to do no damage to the environment," said Mr. O'Keefe of BP's Alaska Exploration unit, echoing the "no damage" theme heard so often in BP offices from London to Anchorage. "There's no conflict here. The idea runs through all levels of the company."

From the spare halls of BP's Alaska headquarters in Anchorage to the bustling company cafeteria in Deadhorse in the North Slope, green-and- yellow posters spread the new environmental gospel: "Go, Do, Think Beyond." "BP. Bold. Progressive."

But doubts about the company's environmental mission run deep. In London, wags say the company is Beyond Belief. In Alaska, it is said that workers on the North Slope, many of whom have weathered the harsh tundra and the industry's bad image for more than 20 years, grumble that BP looks weak for going green.

BP has made sure that its interests are protected. This year, it contributed $50,000 to Arctic Power, the pro-development lobbying group. A BP executive also serves on the board of the group. BP donates to politicians who vote regularly to open the refuge. Moreover, its donations to the Republican Party this year were $613,870 out of its total of $901,796 to political action committees and party organizations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The company contributed $34,421 to Mr. Bush this year, compared with $4,250 to Mr. Gore.

BP's interest in the refuge reflects its need to keep Alaska output high. At its peak in 1988, the North Slope produced an average of 2.03 million barrels of oil a day. In 1999, daily output fell to about 1.08 million barrels, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

As the Arctic Refuge issues are worked out, BP is looking for rich new reservoirs in the National Petroleum Reserve to the west of its Prudhoe Bay fields, and offshoots of its older developments. So it embarked on Northstar, a 176-million-barrel field that, in the diminishing reservoir of the North Slope, is considered a large find.

The rig sits on a square, artificial five-acre island in the ocean beyond barrier islands. Endangered bowhead whales migrate near Northstar, and within the barrier islands two types of threatened sea ducks gather by the thousands every summer before migrating south for the winter.

When the field is operating fully, 65,000 barrels of crude oil will pass to shore daily through a pipeline buried below the seabed, an engineering first. BP will start drilling this winter, and it is seeking regulatory approval for another offshore well, Liberty, farther to the east of Northstar and closer to the refuge.

To be able to drill year-round at Northstar, BP must prove to Alaskan officials that it can clean up a spill in the ice-strewn water, should work at Northstar ever go awry. Since last fall, BP has held three clean-up drills, and each time it has failed. In every attempt, the broken ice in the water wrecked or disabled the equipment designed to collect oil. During a test last month, popcorn thrown on the water as a mock spill floated past the clean-up barges, silent testimony to BP's difficulties.

As a result of the tests, Alaska has placed BP under a compliance order that prohibits the company from drilling at Northstar when the frozen ocean around it has thawed and broken, or from about May to November.

The company, Alaska officials said, claimed in its plan that it could capture oil when up to 70 percent of the sea is covered with ice. But the state resources department contended that BP had difficulty even where there were trace amounts of ice in the water, based on what its monitors had witnessed.

"When you can't clean up oil in the Arctic, should you be going in at all?" asked one federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Northstar's pipeline is the first to run under the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. In winter, a process called ice scouring occurs in the Arctic, as ice breaks up, smashes together and plows into the sea floor. BP has installed a thick, single-wall pipeline that the company says is buried deep enough to avoid a puncture. The Joint Pipeline Office, a state and federal committee, tested and approved the pipe.

But other federal officials, environmentalists and an independent expert on pipelines contended that a double-walled pipe would be significantly safer. The draft version of the environmental impact statement gave the BP pipeline about a one-in- four chance of failure. The final version put the odds at 2 to 5 percent.

Ibrahim Konuk, head of the Canadian research team and a consultant for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service on the environmental impact statement for Liberty, cited concerns based on a lengthy computer modeling project conducted by Canada's Geological Survey on ice scouring and pipelines. "There's a very good chance that single pipe will fail," he said.

BP and the Joint Pipeline Office say a double-walled pipe would be more complicated, and therefore harder to monitor and repair. The company said it would stick with a single-walled pipe at Liberty.

BP has excelled in one environmental area: as part of a plea agreement to settle a federal criminal case filed against the company late last year, BP has instituted a nationwide environmental monitoring program at its exploration, drilling and production units to improve oversight and reduce the chance of accidents and spills.

In 1995, a whistleblower from BP's North Slope Endicott field reported that the contractor for which he was working, Doyon Drilling, had been illegally disposing of hazardous wastes from about 1993 to 1995. Last year, the Justice Department filed the criminal suit and a civil suit against BP. The company, which pleaded guilty to one violation of federal environmental laws, was fined $500,000 in the criminal proceeding and paid $6.5 million to settle the civil suit.

Federal attorneys in the criminal case against BP contended that the company knew of Doyon's activities but looked the other way - an accusation that BP denied. In the settlement of the criminal case, BP was placed on probation for five years. The company also volunteered over that period to put into place a stringent nationwide environmental management program at a cost of about $15 million.

While praising the extra step taken by BP, a federal prosecutor recognized the challenge that the company faces. "I think folks at their highest levels are committed to environmental issues," said Deborah Smith, deputy chief of the environmental crimes section at the Justice Department. "But does that reach down to their oil rig operator and change the thinking of an oil rig worker who is from an industry that hasn't always been concerned about the environment?"

---

A Tough Climate For Talks

Washington Post
Sunday, November 12, 2000; Page B01
By Jennifer Morgan and Dan Lashof
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64986-2000Nov11.html

There could hardly be a more difficult moment to be making decisions that will have a profound effect on the future of the planet.

Tomorrow, representatives of 170 countries will gather in the Dutch capital of The Hague for acrucial conference on global climate change. And the delegation from the United States--the country responsible for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions--will be coming from a nation split by profound political divisions and still not certain who its next president will be.

It may seem pointless to try to negotiate an international agreement with major and long-lasting impact under such circumstances. But we believe there is no other responsible choice.

The Climate Summit that begins tomorrow is the nuts-and-bolts follow-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming. At Kyoto, targets were set for greenhouse gas reductions; at The Hague, the rules will be made for achieving those targets. If an effective agreement is not reached during the two-week meeting, and subsequently ratified by enough national governments, years of study and painstaking negotiation will be wasted. Worse, the world will go further and more irrevocably down the road toward devastating climate change.

When the date of the meeting was set a year ago, the U.S. delegation--recognizing that it would be serving a lame-duck administration by then--asked for a delay. But it was overruled by other nations, notably the pollution-conscious Europeans, who want to get on with the business of finalizing the Kyoto Protocol, ratifying it, and cleaning up the atmosphere.

And they're right: It's time to act. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists know that global warming is a reality, and polls show that 80 percent of Americans say it is a problem that they want their government to do something about. Just last month, the international Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the world's leading body on climate science, established during the George Bush administration--confirmed that global warming is occurring and will accelerate if greenhouse gas pollution is not curbed. For all practical purposes, that debate is over.

What remains is for us to do something about it. It will certainly be difficult, given the vote-counting chaos in America, for the U.S. delegation to negotiate confidently with international partners over the next two weeks. But it must be done. The Clinton administration should comply with the current schedule, finish what it started three years ago, and answer the growing demands of the U.S. public by bringing home a strong protocol from The Hague.

Then, of course, the protocol has to be ratified by the Senate. This would be difficult under the leadership of George W. Bush, who still calls for "continued research" on global warming--the hackneyed line of the increasingly few holdouts who refuse to acknowledge it exists--and who opposes the Kyoto Protocol because he says "it is ineffective, inadequate and unfair to America."

Surprisingly, however, it could be almost as difficult under longtime environmentalist Al Gore, who is firmly committed to the protocol. While he was out campaigning, the U.S. position on implementing the Kyoto targets was riddled with loopholes that, if adopted at The Hague, would undermine the environmental benefits of the protocol.

This apparently was done with good intentions: The Clinton-Gore administration wants to bring home an agreement that can be ratified by senators who are under strong pressure to reject it from the auto, oil, coal and electricity industries.

But its approach is misguided. If the U.S. position prevails, it will make it harder to ratify the agreement at home, because the American public and organizations most committed to the global environment will not be able to fight for it.

In preparation for The Hague meeting, several of America's major environmental organizations--the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Environmental Trust and the Union of Concerned Scientists--have analyzed the U.S. proposals. And the results are chilling.

Here's why.

Under the targets set at Kyoto, industrialized countries are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions--mostly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and methane from pipeline leaks, coal mines, waste dumps and agriculture--to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. For the United States, that means a reduction of 500 million to 600 million tons. That can be accomplished either by cutting back on emissions from such sources as automobiles and power plants, or by increasing the amount of carbon stored as wood in forestland (trees ingest carbon) or as organic matter in soil.

Every country will be free to choose its approach to meeting its target. The approach the United States is proposing is creative--we would argue deceptive--accounting.

For example, take forests that are recovering from heavy logging. Under the U.S. proposal for counting carbon stored in forests, simply by letting the trees grow back as they already are doing, the United States could get to credit 130 million to 180 million tons of carbon toward meeting its target. That's one-fourth of America's total required reduction. This would not be progress toward stabilizing the climate; it would be doing nothing and calling it progress.

Another example from the U.S. proposal: Countries are allowed to "trade" emission credits. Say Russia gets credit for reduced carbon emissions--which it will, because many factories have shut down in the general economic collapse since 1990. The United States could purchase those credits from Russia. Russia would get needed money, the United States would get credit for another 75 million tons or so of carbon reductions, but the air would get no cleaner at all.

Or say an American utility building a new power plant in India claims that without its help the Indians would have built a more polluting unit. Under the U.S. proposal, the United States could get credit for that hypothetical reduction. Our analysis found that 25 million to 60 million tons of credit might be claimed from such business-as-usual investments.

So it goes. In the end, if the delegates at The Hague agree to the U.S. agenda, America could claim to meet up to 84 percent of its Kyoto target by getting credits for actions that would happen anyway. In fact, the United States could allow up to an 18 percent increase in emissions--and claim it had met its "reduction" target!

This scenario is Orwellian. It betrays the purpose of the Kyoto Protocol and the already-ratified Rio Climate Treaty. And most of all, it won't work--because the administration has no basis for assuming that the Senate would ratify a treaty with this framework. We monitor congressional attitudes toward climate policy and we know that there is no new support lined up on Capitol Hill in exchange for watering down the pact. Meanwhile, no support would be forthcoming from environmental activists who are looking for an agreement that would deliver genuine cuts in pollution.

And there is something else to consider: The United States is home to many multinational companies. If most other nations move forward with a strong protocol without the United States--as they say they are prepared to do--our companies will be asked to meet higher standards outside our shores. To be competitive, they will have to meet a higher standard in Europe than in the United States.

We have been working with such companies for years to help them manage their energy better--using more efficient motors, lighting, and energy sources, for example--which will in turn reduce their pollution. As we talk with their managers, they make one thing quite clear: They don't want to deal with different requirements placed on them in other countries. If most nations go forward with global warming standards, they would prefer parallel requirements here at home.

The meeting in The Hague is not taking place at a convenient political time. But should the current administration stall the negotiations and leave the Kyoto Protocol rules in limbo for another year? We believe not.

Kyoto opponents have not advanced any credible alternatives that would be more effective or more fair to the United States. Internationally, Kyoto is the only game in town. The agreement should be cost-effective, and it can be. It does not need to be riddled with loopholes that keep it from doing what it was meant to do--put us on the pathway toward stabilizing the atmosphere by cutting the pollution that causes global warming.

The Clinton-Gore administration should bring home a solid agreement from The Hague. The next president should then wake up, smell the carbon, and make the United States a responsible actor in the world.

Jennifer Morgan is the director of the climate change campaign of the World Wildlife Fund. Dan Lashof is a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

-------- spying

Chat Room Causes Trouble for CIA Employees

Washington Post
Sunday, November 12, 2000 ; Page A10
By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64444-2000Nov11.html

The CIA is investigating 160 employees and contractors for exchanging "inappropriate" e-mail and off-color jokes in a secret chat room created within the agency's classified computer network and hidden from management.

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said the willful "misuse of computers" did not "involve the compromise of any classified information." But the probe, nearing completion, involves employees at all levels of the agency, including some senior managers, and most likely will result in at least a few firings, agency officials said.

"The serious thing for us is people willfully misusing the computer system and trying to hide what they were trying to do," said one intelligence official. "If they were doing this with the KGB's computer system, we'd be giving them medals. Sadly, it was ours."

The House and Senate intelligence committees have been briefed about the secret chat room, which CIA investigators discovered while performing routine security checks, according to Harlow.

"Investigators uncovered evidence of long-term misuse involving multiple violations of CIA computer regulations," Harlow said.

An internal notice sent to all employees in May said, "This activity has apparently been taking place for some time and involves the use of unauthorized chat rooms and data bases in an apparent willful misuse of the agency's computer networks. Indeed, it appears that this group went to great lengths to conceal these actions. . . . Any attempts to alter or delete information on agency computer networks related to this investigation . . . could amount to a violation of federal criminal law."

Since then, all 160 employees and contractors who participated in what officials describe as an "invitation only" communications channel have been interviewed and given five days to explain their conduct in writing.

Several officials, including members of the Senior Intelligence Service, a cadre of career officers at the upper reaches of the civil service system, have been suspended with pay for the past six months while senior CIA officials try to determine what punishment is appropriate.

Robert D. Steele, a former CIA case officer with extensive ties to the agency, declined to name any of those involved but described two of the most senior officials under investigation as "innovative, out-of-the-box, unconventional thinkers--these are essentially the hackers of the CIA, in the most positive sense of the word."

One Capitol Hill source who has been briefed on the probe said it involves "some pretty clever people who know how to use computers creatively." The source said he thought the employees involved showed "bad judgment" and added that CIA officials have responded appropriately.

But one recent CIA retiree with knowledge of the probe said employees who face disciplinary action and even dismissal have been investigated far more aggressively than former CIA director John M. Deutch, who admitted drafting top-secret cables on unsecure home computers and was stripped of his CIA security clearances last year.

"Most of the employees involved are likely to have a letter of reprimand placed in their personnel file, which will quash their chances for promotion for at least a year and may adversely affect future assignment prospects," the CIA veteran said.

The former officer said that by giving those under investigation only five days to respond to the charges against them, the CIA has "effectively denied them the opportunity to seek legal counsel," because lawyers typically must wait for months to obtain security clearances necessary to represent agency personnel.

The former officer also said he doubts whether employees under investigation really were exchanging "secret" communications, because all senior CIA managers have a software program called "Shadow" that enables them to "remotely monitor every keystroke that their employees make."

"It seems highly suspicious that all of those supervisors, not to mention the numerous component network administrators and security personnel, were unaware over a period of years of illicit computer usage by a group of 160 personnel," the former officer said.

A CIA official responded that employees under investigation were operating beyond the normal reach of computer systems administrators. "These people were technically adept, and they went to great lengths to ensure that their efforts were not known to systems administrators. There are ways of monitoring things--if you know there is something to be monitored."

In some of the e-mails reviewed by investigators from the CIA's Center for Security, the official said, those involved even wrote messages to the effect that, "If they ever catch us doing this, we'll be fired."

The investigation is only the latest in a series of incidents involving misuse of computers at the CIA. Deutch's home computer security violations, discovered by CIA security officials when Deutch stepped down as director in December 1996, triggered a firestorm on Capitol Hill this year after a classified report by the CIA's inspector general was leaked to the media.

The report concluded that CIA Director George J. Tenet and other senior officials did not adequately investigate and punish Deutch's security violations. The report also concluded that Deutch exposed highly classified intelligence to hacker attacks by drafting memos on three unsecure home computers linked to the Internet.

In November 1996, one month before Deutch's violations were discovered, a CIA senior intelligence analyst was found to have written a document with the highest level of classification on his home computer, which was connected to the Internet. As in Deutch's case, members of the analyst's family had access to the computer.

The analyst was demoted in rank and salary, given a letter of reprimand barring raises for two years, and suspended without pay for a month. After the suspension, the analyst's clearances were restored, and he retired from the agency a year later.

Another CIA employee alleged in a lawsuit filed last year by Roy Krieger, an Alexandria lawyer, that she was disciplined for a "major lapse of CIA security" after the CIA sold 25 laptop computers at public auction "while still containing Top Secret information on their respective hard drives."

The employee's complaint alleged that the security lapse was not detected until months later, when a private purchaser reported finding classified files in one of the computers.

-------- activists

Voters Take to the Streets
Grass Roots Effort of Nationwide Protests Planned

Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 16:35:58 -0800
RadTimes # 99 November, 2000
By Robin Eisner
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/ELECTION_PROTESTS001110.html

Nov. 10 - Americans will take to the streets all over the country Saturday in a show of outrage over possible ballot irregularities in Florida that could, they feel, keep Al Gore from becoming president.

A grass-roots effort promoted online lists the locations of the protests, ranging from the Civic Plaza in Albuquerque, N.M., to the Federal Building in Baltimore, Md., to New York's Times Square and downtown Madison, Wis.

While local organizers of the rallies said they wouldn't speculate on expected turnout, they said the protests were just the beginning.

Gov. George W. Bush is leading Vice President Al Gore by fewer than than 1,000 votes in Florida, according to a recount of votes in 66 of 67 counties. But Democrats are collecting affidavits about alleged problems with up to 20,000 votes that had been disqualified in the state, and are supporting legal challenges.

If either Bush or Gore wins in Florida, the state's 25 electoral votes would make them president - as long as each man's current electoral count holds despite any challenges or recounts in other states.

Gore won the nationwide popular vote, according to results tallied so far - some of them unofficial - while Bush is poised to win the Electoral College tally.

Web Used To Organize While the administrators of the protest Web site, named "Countercoup," <http://geocities.com/countercoup/> would not return repeated e-mails for information about what kind of organization it was, Bob Fertik, 43, of New York City, a spokesman for <www.democrats.com>, said he was familiar with the group, and called it a grass-roots effort. His organization also is using the Web to collect affidavits about possible ballot irregularities.

The Democratic committee is not organizing these protests, Democrats' spokesmen said.

Repeated calls to Portia Palmer, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Florida, for comment about the protests or whether the party was planning protests itself, were not returned.

Pro-Republican protesters have been positioning themselves behind TV reporters, holding up signs that said things like "No Re-Vote, Gore Concede" and "Rule of Law: Bush-Cheney".

Bill Stevenson, 44, of Tallahassee, Fla., a supporter of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader who has been following the e-mail string for organization of the demonstrations said he disagreed with the idea of the protests. "Rather than spending time protests, they should just give the system a chance to work," he said.

Regardless of potential fallout, protesters are still planning to show up.

Charlie Harger, 25, a computer consultant who lives in Jersey City, N.J. says he is going to Times Square on Saturday at 1 p.m. and hopes other people will be joining him. "I am getting friends involved to come to the protest," Harger said. "I believe there was an injustice in Florida and we have got to take a stand."

Major Cities Targeted

Andy Olsen, county supervisor for Dane County, Wis., and a Gore supporter, said he is helping to organize the rally on the capitol steps in Madison on Saturday. Scheduled to speak, he said, is Ed Garvey, former progressive Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the state, a representative from a local union, and others.

"We are protesting the heist of the presidential election by the Bush brothers," Olsen said, referring to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Olsen compared the underground protest effort in the United States to the elections in Yugoslavia, where the people took to the streets to make sure the democratically elected candidate took office.

Chris Monelli, 22, a customer service manger at an Internet company, who is a Gore supporter, said he is going to Seattle Central Community College Saturday for a rally there and is calling for a revote in Palm Beach County.

Monelli said it was important that whoever gets into the White House got there legitimately. "The way it is now is not right," Monelli said, "Whether Gore wins or not is not important. I am in favor of a recount in other states, if that is necessary. What is important is that it is done right reflecting the will of the people."

Not a DNC Effort

Democratic National Committee spokesman Jamal Simmons says the DNC was not planning any rallies. "We are here to gather information," Simmons said speaking from Florida, adding that the DNC has collected approximately 5,000 to 7,000 affidavits of ballot problems in Florida.

A local Democratic club run by Herb Epstein had organized a rally in Delray Beach Local today to demand a recount of the vote in Palm Beach County because his group had received so many phone calls about the possible ballot problems there. "We did this on our own," Epstein said. "The DNC was not involved." People did, however, fill out affidavits that the club provided at the rally, Epstein said.

Thursday, Rev. Jesse Jackson, of the Rainbow/Push Organization led a rally across from the Palm Beach County Governmental Center where the votes are being recounted, demanding a new vote in the county.

---

Vietnam's Youth Stage a Gentler Revolution

November 12, 2000
THE WORLD
By SETH MYDANS

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- Carefree, war-free, with multicolored sparkles in their hair, Vietnam's young people are leading a revolution in Vietnam today, and it's not a Communist one.

It is a revolution of creeping globalization, and as in Communist lore, there is a small but very influential group of the young in the vanguard. When President Clinton goes to Vietnam this week - the first American president to visit since the end of the war 25 years ago - he will have a chance to encounter a new postwar generation that is open, curious, acquisitive and hungry to join the outside world, if the youth one meets in the cities and at the universities are any indication.

"We like freedom," said Ta Thi Minh Hong, 19, a first-year student at the Institute of International Relations, expressing what seems to be a newly discovered idea. "We want to do everything we like."

At least, it's fun to talk like that. The idea of freedom is itself an experiment and it is still being defined here, by people of all ages.

In a dozen interviews here and in the capital, Hanoi, young people made it clear that they agree with their elders that traditional Vietnamese values are paramount, that willy-nilly change is dangerous.

The freedom that attracts them seems a purely personal one, focusing on behavior and consumer goods. Like youth culture in other countries, it seems notably apolitical. And indeed, the cautious youth revolution of Vietnam may fit very well into the new, open marketplace that is being permitted, step by step, by the Communist government.

"I'm really impressed by the way young people live in America," said Nguyen Cong Huy, 19, a high school student who dreams of studying engineering in America. "For example - I don't want to talk politics - but the way young people live, they're free to live on their own, to have the relationships that they choose, sexual freedom. But actually, there should be limits. When you have too much freedom it can lead to problems."

With that kind of worldview emerging, where better to seek cultural wisdom than at a market research company? And indeed, the Vietnam office of the ACNielsen company has an insight to offer.

"This is the first generation in Vietnam to experience a true youth culture, with shared values, identity, symbols and language," said Gordon Milne, an ACNielsen executive who has collated interviews with hundreds of young people. "In the past," he said, "you as a teenager were basically a young old person. Same beliefs. Same values. Now we are seeing a set of young people whose expectations, lifestyle and behavior are more and more different from their parents."

Advertisers beware, he said. The young are becoming savvy consumers. It is no longer enough simply to offer a foreign product. They want quality. They want brand names. They want whatever it is that young people want in other countries.

But they are still learning. Compared with other Asian nations, Mr. Milne said, "we are talking about 20 to 25 years difference in terms of youth culture."

And they are still hesitant. The youth revolution in Vietnam remains a modest and polite one.

One young rebel is notable in his crowd for wearing a nose ring. But it's a clip-on ring and he takes it off when he goes home. After all, he wouldn't want to offend his parents.

Clearly, it is still easier to be a parent in Vietnam than in many a country. But perhaps it takes a bit more work these days than it used to. "My friends quarrel with their parents because they're different from their parents in every way," said Miss Hong, the student. "But parents understand so much about life. Their advice is useful for me to be a good person. If I think my parents are not right, or they don't understand me, I talk out my ideas and we discuss it."

Even that represents a leap forward. In the past, when it came to morals and manners, parents ruled. Now there is MTV (though a tame version, vetted by the government), the Internet (though still expensive and limited), pirated foreign movies and, for the privileged, satellite television, travel and a foreign education.

Not long ago, everything Korean was cool - fashion, makeup, music. But this is a youth culture; nothing lasts long.

"It doesn't matter, we can change quickly," said Nguyen My Nhung, 22, an auditor for a foreign company, raising her voice over the music at Hanoi's loudest discothèque, the New Century. "We have Internet access, satellite TV, fashion shows. We can try anything."

Like others with the money to go to a disco (many of them the children of the Communist elite) she was defensive about her privilege, asserting her solidarity with the great majority of Vietnamese who are poor.

Mr. Milne at ACNielsen acknowledged that his analyses are based on a tiny slice of society. "None of this extends to the guys working in the fields," he said. "Their lives have not changed significantly, unfortunately." But that does not mean that the ideas now percolating in the cities won't spread to the countryside. Indeed, a basic fact of life today is that most Vietnamese, whether rural or urban, were born after the war, and are the first for many generations to be raised in a time of peace (although it is also a time of poverty).

And yet Vietnam's history of war and the creation of an independent nation after its long colonization by the French are part of the fabric of life here. Even the bold talk of teenagers is cast in terms of the war.

"In the past they thought independence was the most important thing to focus on," Miss Hong said. "Now people in my generation don't care so much about it. We focus on music, fashion, making friends and going on picnics. My parents and their friends grew up in war, so they couldn't pay more attention to music or other habits, although they liked them. Now we're at peace, and if we want to we can learn about all fields in life."

Perhaps more than their counterparts abroad - given the sacrifices they are constantly being told their parents made - a number of those interviewed were sensitive about accusations that they are a Vietnamese version of a Me Generation.

"That's not true," said Nguyen Thanh Ha, 22, a graduate of National Economics University in Hanoi. "It's just the surface. You must look deeper inside."

"We are hard-working," she continued. "We want to improve our own lives first before asking others to do that for us." And she added: "You don't need a strike or a demonstration. Why should we spend our time demonstrating for democracy when we have so much more to worry about?"

--------

Indonesian Separatists Rally Despite Threats of Violence

Associated Press
November 12, 2000

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Nov. 11 - Tens of thousands of people rallied today in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, demanding a referendum on independence. The protesters rallied even after organizers formally canceled the event, saying they feared violence by security forces.

Clashes in the four days leading up to the rally left 21 people dead, most of them shot by security forces, and Indonesia's reformist president, Abdurrahman Wahid, blamed the army and the police for the violence.

As a military helicopter hovered overhead and armored vehicles stood guard today, a convoy of hundreds of cars, trucks and motorbikes drove through the city honking horns and carrying banners calling for a referendum for Aceh's 4.1 million people under the supervision of the United Nations.

Around 30,000 people gathered at the city's main mosque, and clerics called on the staunchly Muslim residents of Aceh, 1,100 miles northwest of Jakarta, to pray for independence and peace.

Separatists who claim wide public support have been fighting since 1975 for independence for their oil- and gas-rich homeland, at the northwestern tip of Sumatra Island. At least 5,500 people have been killed in the past decade.

The conflict poses a serious threat to Indonesia's government, which is struggling to stamp out conflicts in other regions and prevent this sprawling archipelago nation from splitting apart.

Today an Aceh police chief, Lt. Col. Sayad Hussein, warned there would be violence if the rally, which last year attracted about 250,000 people, went ahead.

In an effort to prevent further bloodshed, the rally's organizers officially postponed the event. "The police and military have demanded we cancel the rally and are stopping people from coming to the city," said Radhi Darmansyah, a spokesman of the Information Center for Aceh's Referendum.

For several days, police and soldiers have blocked roads leading into the city and even blew up two bridges in the north of the province to prevent people from coming here.

Mr. Darmansyah also accused the security forces of making threats of violence against many of the group's leaders.

On Friday, President Wahid said he would summon the head of the military and the national police chief to explain the violence.

"I want to ask, `Since when are guns used in negotiations?' " he said. "If you are using guns, then please retire."

Indonesia's government announced on Thursday that it planned to meet with the Aceh rebels in Switzerland next week to try to stem the bloodshed.

On June 2, government and rebel representatives signed an unprecedented truce accord in Geneva. They have since met several times to prolong the cease-fire, but continued fighting has killed about 221 people.

--------

Four Arrested in Election Protest

November 12, 2000
By TINA KELLEY

A protest against the handling of the presidential election drew about 300 people to Times Square yesterday afternoon, and four people were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.

Demonstrators called for a fair counting of Florida votes in the presidential race, and urged that people who may have misunderstood their ballots and marked them incorrectly get a second chance to vote.

The grass-roots protest, which was organized primarily over the Internet, lasted from noon until about 2:30 p.m. and moved from 46th Street to 43rd Street on Broadway. No injuries were reported.

After some people in the demonstration tried to obstruct traffic, the police said, four were charged with disorderly conduct. They were identified as Joel Meyer, 56, of Manhattan; John Cross, 36, of Beacon, N.Y.; Lorne Lieberman, 26, of Hollywood, Calif.; and Evan Shapiro, 33, of Manhattan. Mr. Shapiro was also charged with operating a bullhorn without a permit, Officer George Jensen said.

Pro-democracy demonstrations were held yesterday in about 90 cities nationwide, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Washington and Philadelphia, and more protests are scheduled for next Saturday, according to the protesters' Web site, www.geocities.com/countercoup.

Joseph Katz, 35, a computer consultant in Manhattan, helped organize the rallies through the Internet. "No one is connected to any political group," he said.

"People are just really concerned, and just started talking on the Internet," he said. "It was really kind of a spontaneous thing."

He described the gathering as peaceful. "People were just there to express their opinions," he said.

He originally found people interested in protesting through the Web site and worked with people on the mailing list there. On Friday afternoon they agreed on a meeting place in Times Square, and word spread.

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