------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
U.S., Russia May Agree To More Weapons Cuts,
Russia ready to sell radar system blocked by US
Today In History
Japanese Nuclear Plant Reopens
Clinton Predicts More Cuts in U.S., Russian Arsenals
Chen Shui-bian Denies Reports Of Feud With Vice President
Competition for Data From Satellites Rises
NY Power Plant Criticized on Leak
Fluor Wins Department of Energy Contract For Closure Work at Fernald Site
Fluor Corp. Gets 10-Yr, $2.4 Billion Uranium Plant Closure Pact
MILITARY
EU to begin building defense force
Today In History
U.N., China sign human-rights document
Yemen Detains Possible Accomplices in Cole Bombing
Competition for Data From Satellites Rises
OTHER
States to tighten pollution controls on large trucks
Chirac Urges U.S. to Take Lead on Global Warming
U.S. Move Improves Chance for Global Warming Treaty
Detroit police evacuate when evidence turns out to be bomb
Wave of refugees sweeps the globe
ACTIVISTS
1,700 Arrested in War School Protest
Puffy To Help Feed Atlanta Homeless On Thanksgiving
-------- NUCLEAR
U.S., Russia May Agree To More Weapons Cuts,
Salt Lake Tribune
Monday, November 20, 2000
BY TERENCE HUNT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/11202000/nation_w/45399.htm
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/clintint200011202.htm
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/clin20.html
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200011/20+missile112000_news.html+20001120
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- President Clinton said Sunday it is "quite possible" that the United States and Russia will agree to deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals and that he would support a missile defense system if it could reliably block weapons from striking American soil.
Clinton put off a decision to build a missile shield earlier this year, leaving it to his successor to explore whether the anti-missile system should be pursued. Moscow adamantly opposes the idea, pushing instead for more arms cuts.
Clinton said he deferred the decision to give the next president more time to talk with Russia, China, European allies and others "to plot out a future that would leave us safer than we are today."
In an interview with CNN at the end of a three-day visit to Vietnam, the president said he postponed the decision on a missile shield because he could not "justify wrecking" the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between Russia and the United States. To do that would have meant "gambling that somehow, someday, some way the technology will be there," he said. "We don't want to do that."
The administration says it would have to seek changes in or abandon the ABM treaty to build an anti-missile system.
"If the technology existed which would give us high levels of confidence that one or two or five or 10 missiles could be stopped from coming into the country, it would be hard to justify not putting it up," the president said.
He said the best way to proceed was to do more research and find a way to "bring these other countries into this."
A week ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia and the United States could make drastic cuts in their nuclear arsenals far beyond existing proposals. Putin, who is pushing to reduce a large and inefficient military Russia can no longer afford, said the former Cold War opponents need not stop at the 1,500-warhead limit Russia has been advocating until now. He did not propose any specific numbers.
Clinton said he did not want to compromise his successors' options. But he said, "I think it is quite possible that we could agree to go down to fewer missiles in our nuclear arsenal and theirs. I think that it's important that there also be fewer warheads."
He said the United States should not return to the era of building "highly dangerous, richly armed" multiple warhead missiles.
"But what we have to do is to have a target design that we believe is adequate to protect the United States and that our missile component will serve," he said. "And if we do that, then we could agree with them to reduce the number of missiles." He said he had hoped he could have done that. He has not decided whether to go to North Korea before the end of his presidency but "it's conceivable that there could still be a trip." He said the United States wants North Korea to end its long-range missile program and stop exporting missiles to other countries.
-- The violence in the Middle East stands in the way of resuming peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. "They might as well be on the other side of the globe, as long as all the shooting is going on." He said that "you don't have to end every single instance" of violence but there has to be "a dramatic reduction" before the parties can talk.
---
Russia ready to sell radar system blocked by US
Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 20/11/2000
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0011/20/text/world11.html
Beijing: Four months after the United States pressured Israel to cancel the sale to China of planes equipped with powerful early warning radar, Russia appears ready to sell its own, weaker version to Beijing, sources in China said at the weekend.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Ilya Klebanov, recently discussed the sale of four to six Beriev A-50E advanced radar aircraft, which NATO calls the Mainstay, with China's top general, Zhang Wannian, and the Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji, Russian and Western sources said. Mr Klebanov said in Beijing that the sale would occur.
The deal would significantly bolster China's ability to attack Taiwan and possibly allow China to threaten US aircraft-carrier battle groups in South-East Asia. An AWACS-type system would allow the Chinese Air Force to co-ordinate scores of fighters and bombers, increase the accuracy of its missiles and give China's military the ability to see over the horizon.
It would boost China's efforts to wrest air dominance over the Taiwan Straits from the island of 23 million people. And it would underscore the increasingly close security relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Russia now sells at least $US1 billion ($1.93 billion) of weaponry, much of it relatively advanced, to China each year.
During a visit by Russia's Prime Minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, earlier this month, Mr Zhu said that China-Russia relations were "enjoying their best period ever".
Most troubling to some Western military attachés is the presence in China of Russian technical experts who are believed to be helping China develop cruise missile technology and improve the quality of its nuclear forces.
-------- france
Today In History
Associated Press
November 20, 2000 Filed at 7:00 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-History.html
Today is Tuesday, Nov. 21, the 326th day of 2000. There are 40 days left in the year.
On this date:
Five years ago: Balkan leaders meeting in Dayton, Ohio, initialed a peace plan to end 3 1/2 years of ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. France detonated a fourth underground nuclear blast at its test site in the South Pacific. The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 5,000 mark for the first time.
-------- japan
Japanese Nuclear Plant Reopens
Associated Press
November 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Nuclear.html
TOKYO (AP) -- A nuclear fuel reprocessing plant near Tokyo reopened Monday for the first time since an accident exposed dozens of people to low levels of radiation in 1997.
The plant at Tokaimura, 70 miles northeast of Tokyo, was closed after a fire and explosion in March 1997 exposed 37 workers to radiation.
The plant's operator later acknowledged hiding details of the accident from the government.
Its current operator, Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, promised tighter safety procedures in the reopened plant.
It is in the same community where two workers were killed and hundreds exposed to radiation in another uranium reprocessing plant in September 1999, in Japan's worst nuclear accident.
-------- russia
Clinton Predicts More Cuts in U.S., Russian Arsenals
Associated Press
Monday, November 20, 2000
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/printedition/nat/usrussia20.htm
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/fordig20.htm
President Clinton said today it is "quite possible" that the United States and Russia will agree to deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals and that he would support a missile defense system if it could reliably block weapons from striking American soil.
Clinton put off a decision to build a missile shield this year, leaving it to his successor to explore whether the anti-missile system should be pursued. Moscow opposes the idea, pushing instead for more arms cuts.
Clinton said he deferred the decision to give the next president more time to talk with Russia, China, European allies and others "to plot out a future that would leave us safer than we are today."
In an interview with CNN at the end of a three-day visit to Vietnam, the president said he postponed the decision on a missile shield because he could not "justify wrecking" the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between Russia and the United States. To do that would have meant "gambling that somehow, someday, some way the technology will be there," he said. "We don't want to do that."
The Clinton administration says it would have to seek changes in the treaty or abandon the agreement to build an anti-missile system.
"If the technology existed which would give us high levels of confidence that one or two or five or 10 missiles could be stopped from coming into the country, it would be hard to justify not putting it up," the president said.
Clinton said the best way to proceed was to do more research and find a way to "bring these other countries into this."
A week ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia and the United States could drastically cut their nuclear arsenals far beyond existing proposals. Putin, who is pushing to reduce a large and inefficient military Russia can no longer afford, said the former Cold War opponents need not stop at the 1,500 warheads Russia has been advocating. He did not propose specific numbers.
Clinton said he did not want to compromise his successor's options. But he said, "I think it is quite possible that we could agree to go down to fewer missiles in our nuclear arsenal and theirs. I think that it's important that there also be fewer warheads."
He said the United States should not return to building "highly dangerous, richly armed" multiple warhead missiles.
"But what we have to do is to have a target design that we believe is adequate to protect the United States and that our missile component will serve," he said. "And if we do that, then we could agree with them to reduce the number of missiles." He said he had hoped to do that.
On other national security issues, Clinton said:
He has not decided whether to go to North Korea before the end of his presidency, but "it's conceivable that there could still be a trip." He said the United States wants North Korea to end its long-range missile program and stop exporting missiles to other countries.
The violence in the Middle East stands in the way of resuming peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. "They might as well be on the other side of the globe as long as all the shooting is going on." He said, "You don't have to end every single instance" of violence, but there has to be "a dramatic reduction" before the parties can talk.
-------- taiwan
Chen Shui-bian Denies Reports Of Feud With Vice President
Inside China Today
Nov 20, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=222050
http://news.excite.com/news/r/001120/04/taiwan-politics
TAIPEI -- (Reuters) Taiwan's embattled President Chen Shui-bian, facing a hostile opposition and flagging popularity, tried on Monday to a put a lid on reports speculating a feud with his vice president.
"President Chen has complete confidence and trust in Vice President (Annette) Lu," said Chen's chief of staff, Yu Shyi-kun, referring to a magazine article alleging that Lu spread rumors Chen was having an extramarital affair.
"We believe the storm will be behind us soon."
Yu said the president would respect Lu's decision on whether to sue the Chinese-language Journalist weekly, denying reports that Chen wanted to talk the vice president out of legal actions to avoid further embarrassment.
Lu has flatly denied she was the source of the rumors concerning the president and vowed to prove her innocence in court. She called the magazine report a "political conspiracy".
The Journalist has said it stood by its report and was willing to present relevant evidence in court.
Chen has made no public comments on his alleged affair, but his office condemned the allegation as vicious slander.
The president's chief of staff said Chen urged the public to focus on national affairs instead of rumors and called on the opposition, which dominates the parliament and has threatened to sack him, to work together and stabilize domestic politics.
An opposition coalition led by the Nationalists, who ruled Taiwan for 55 years until it was ousted by Chen in presidential elections in March, said it was waiting for the right moment to raise a dismissal motion against him in parliament.
Chen became embroiled in his biggest political crisis when his anti-nuclear government scrapped a USD 5.5 billion nuclear plant, which had been a pet project of the Nationalists.
Taiwan stocks fell to their lowest close in more than four and a half years in part due to deepening political worries.
"There is uncertainty on the political side. It looks as if there is more than a battle between the ruling an opposition parties going on," said Nomura Securities analyst Ben Lee.
"This will prevent the government from concentrating all its power on dealing with financial problems," he said.
The TAIEX closed below the psychologically important 5,000 mark to end down 6.23 percent at 4,845.21 - well below the level of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
The index has not ended lower since closing at 4,751.08 on March 13 1996 when rival China launched missile tests off Taiwan waters to intimidate the island's voters in the run-up to the island's first presidential elections.
A survey conducted by the mass circulation United Daily News showed on Monday President Chen's approval rate fell to 46 percent, compared with a high of 79 percent in June.
Forty-eight percent of those interviewed said Chen failed to meet their expectations. But only 16 percent said they believed the president was having an affair.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Competition for Data From Satellites Rises
Washington Post
Monday , November 20, 2000 ; Page A19
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44618-2000Nov20?language=printer
Military requests for data from U.S. spy satellites are limiting the intelligence that can be provided to the White House, State Department and other policymakers throughout the government, according to a blue-ribbon congressional commission.
The panel called for immediate review of a presidential directive that set the protection of U.S. military forces abroad as the first priority of the nation's intelligence satellites.
"There should be support for war fighters but not at the expense of national customers, like the White House, who feel they are being left behind," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the commission that studied the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for the satellites.
"The directive is creating conflicts that need to be resolved," added the panel's vice chairman, Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.).
The nation's multibillion-dollar constellation of spy satellites is under pressure to supply daily information to support Pentagon deployments in such places as Kosovo and northern Iraq. As a result, tasking the satellites for other needs has become what one source described as "an increasingly emotional challenge."
"A platoon sergeant in the field in Kosovo who forwards time-sensitive requirements by the hundreds for satellite intelligence data could take precedence over one request from the president in the White House," said a person involved in the panel's work.
The Pentagon, which years ago was hesitant to depend on satellite data, "has fallen in love with the systems," this participant said.
The competition for satellite tasking today is primarily in Europe, the Near East and Persian Gulf, officials said. Air Force pilots patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq, for example, receive satellite information that takes away coverage from targets such as Indian and Pakistani missile- testing areas.
But, Kerrey said, "What does that do when the president or secretary of state asks to have coverage of Iran's possible testing of a missile or nuclear components? It's not clear."
The debate over how U.S. intelligence satellites should be used has been brewing quietly for more than four years. A panel of experts found in 1996 that "both strategic and tactical customers of the NRO were frustrated." Headed by retired Adm. David Jeremiah, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that panel emphasized that military commanders felt there was "insufficient commitment to satisfying their needs."
Presidential Decision Directive No. 35 was signed in 1995 to set "military force protection" as a top priority. The Goss panel said: "The directive has not been reviewed recently to determine whether it has been properly applied and should remain in effect."
Another problem, according to the panel, is that in the mid-1990s, the Pentagon cut its own funding for acquiring space systems and sensors to support tactical commanders. Instead, NRO's budget was made to carry that burden. The Goss panel recommended that more money should come out of the Defense Department's funds.
Under today's system, two Pentagon-run agencies manage day-to-day collections by NRO's spy satellites, rather than Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet's intelligence community management structure. The National Security Agency handles signals intelligence tasking, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency handles satellite photography and other imaging techniques.
An associate director of central intelligence attempts to coordinate the collection tasking, but the Goss panel said it is up to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Tenet "to resolve the current debate."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
NY Power Plant Criticized on Leak
Associated Press
November 20, 2000 Filed at 11:58 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Citation.html
BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued its first ``red'' citation Monday, citing safety problems that led to a radioactive leak at a power plant north of New York City in February.
It was the worst violation cited at any of the nation's 103 reactors since the ranking system went into effect in April, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
The commission said problems at the Indian Point 2 plant amounted to ``an issue of high safety significance.''
Consolidated Edison, the utility that runs the plant, responded by saying the NRC statement ``contains no new information and simply restates the NRC's findings.''
An amount of radioactive steam too small to be measured escaped into the atmosphere Feb. 15, when radioactive water from one of the reactor's 13,000 tubes contaminated the clean water that is turned to steam to drive turbines. There were no injuries at the plant 35 miles north of New York City, but it was the worst accident its 26-year history.
Under pressure from the public and politicians, Con Ed eventually agreed to replace its aging generators. It expects Indian Point 2 to be running again next month and is in the process of selling the plant to Entergy Corp. for $602 million.
Specifically, Monday's citation is for violating NRC requirements during a 1997 inspection of the steam generator tubes. Con Ed said it used the best technology available, but the NRC said better methods could have detected the tubes' susceptibility to corrosion and might have prevented the leak.
The decision will result in more inspections and more reporting, Sheehan said. No fine was imposed and no court action is planned.
-------- ohio
Fluor Wins Department of Energy Contract For Closure Work at Fernald Site
Excite News
November 20, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/pr/001120/ca-fluor-doe-contract
ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Fluor Fernald, a unit of Fluor Global Services, a $2.4 billion, 10-year cost reimbursable, incentive fee contract for the closure of the Fernald Environmental Management Project.
The actual fee earned will be determined by cost and schedule performance. The value of services is expected to amount to $290 million per year and is based on annual funding authorization from the government.
"We are very pleased with the Department's decision to award us a closure contract at Fernald," said Jim Stein, president and chief executive officer of Fluor Global Services. "Fluor Fernald has cut over a decade from the original cleanup schedule and reduced taxpayer cost for the project by $3.1 billion. Now, our challenge is to further accelerate the schedule and reduce costs."
Fluor has operated as the prime contractor at Fernald, a former uranium processing facility located near Cincinnati, Ohio, since 1992. During that time, the company has made substantive, visible cleanup progress, earning Fluor Fernald the support of local stakeholders, labor unions and regulators.
Fluor Fernald accomplishments include: -- Developed original accelerated closure plan; -- Completed Safe Shutdown of the site two years and $7 million under budget; -- Demolished 90 of 278 buildings; -- Completed waste placement in cell 1 of the On-Site Disposal Facility. -- Treated more than 6.5 billion gallons of contaminated water from the Great Miami Aquifer. -- Shipped 29 unit trains containing a total of 167,000 tons of low-level waste to Envirocare in Utah.
In addition to the benefits realized on the local level, Fluor is also recognized throughout the DOE complex as the leader in accelerated cleanup, transferring both management expertise and proven technologies to other DOE sites.
To accomplish this goal of closure at Fernald, the company has extended its teaming agreements with the Jacobs Engineering Group and Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), and added the expertise of Waste Management Federal Services (WMFS) and TRS Staffing Solutions.
"As a company, we are focusing our energies on the things we do well," said Stein. "We have a proven track record of success working for the Department of Energy, and we plan to continue to grow that portion of our business."
Fluor, ranked No. 1 in the engineering and construction category of Fortune Magazine's annual listing of the "World's Most Admired Companies," is also overseeing the cleanup at the Hanford site and is seeking to expand its presence in the government arena.
Jacobs Engineering Group is one of the nation's largest engineering and construction companies and will support the Fluor team by providing engineering and project management expertise.
Since 1957, Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) has provided DOE with superior nuclear fuel and waste processing. NFS offers innovative solutions for reintroducing Fernald's remaining nuclear material back into the nation's fuel cycle.
Waste Management Federal Services (WMFS) will accelerate the disposition of the site's legacy waste by at least two years. Each year, WMFS disposes of more than 14 million cubic feet of radioactive waste for DOE and other commercial clients.
TRS Staffing Solutions, a unit of Fluor Corporation, will manage the site's skill-mix needs and help transition workers to other employment as Fluor achieves closure at Fernald.
"We've put together the best possible team to accomplish accelerated closure at a reduced cost without compromising safety or quality," said John Bradburne, president and chief executive officer of Fluor Fernald. "We're looking forward to the challenges ahead."
With 1999 revenues of $12.4 billion, Fluor Corporation provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance, operations, project management, business services and coal production.
For more information please contact: Keith Karpe or Lori Serrato of Fluor Corp., 949-349-7661; or Jeff Wagner of Fluor Fernald, 513-648-4898.
---
Fluor Corp. Gets 10-Yr, $2.4 Billion Uranium Plant Closure Pact
Excite News
November 20, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/dj/001120/20001120-000024
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. -(Dow Jones)- Fluor Corp.'s (FLR) Fluor Fernald unit received a $2.4 billion, 10-year cost reimbursable, incentive fee contract from the U.S. Department of Energy for the closure of the Fernald Environmental Management Project.
In a press release Monday, Fluor said the actual fee earned will be determined by cost and schedule performance, and expects the value of services to total $290 million a year.
Fluor has been prime contractor at Fernald, a former uranium processing facility near Cincinnati, since 1992.
-------- MILITARY
-------- europe
EU to begin building defense force
11/20/00
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsmon06.htm
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union defense ministers pledged manpower and weapons Monday for a new rapid reaction corps to use in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions where NATO chooses not to become involved.
The force was being assembled a year after the 15 EU leaders decided in Helsinki, Finland, to create a corps of 60,000 troops capable by 2003 of deploying within 60 days and remaining on the ground for up to a year.
Some in the United States and Europe, however, fear an independent EU force could lead to the disintegration of NATO. Though Washington has welcomed the EU move, the union and the 19-member alliance are still deep in negotiations over how the relationship will work.
''The EU is determined that it should play a more complete role in tackling crises,'' said Javier Solana, the EU's chief of foreign and security policy, calling Monday's pledging session ''a serious first step.''
The EU officials had no trouble meeting the force requirements. Member countries had previously given provisional indications of what they would be offering. The real problem is getting these forces ready to operate.
A senior EU official, whose asked not to be identified by name, said more than 100,000 soldiers had been offered, along with 400 combat aircraft and more than 100 ships.
No new forces are being created, however, and many of these troops are also committed to NATO.
The priority now, Solana said, is to close the gaps between the men and equipment on offer and the requirements approved last week by the chiefs of military staff of member countries. He said the EU now has much of what it needs and is determined to come up with the rest before the 2003 deadline.
''This is part of the European integration process,'' said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who was participating in a parallel meeting of foreign ministers here to approve the pledges. He said the crisis over Kosovo illustrated there is no longer a division between the military and civilian aspects of crisis management.
The main shortcomings are in transport and in high-tech capabilities, particularly air forces, where more precision-guided weapons are needed.
As an example of the many kinds of shortfalls, only 30 aircraft capable of suppressing air defenses were offered, half the number called for in a catalogue of requirements.
For a strategic sealift, the requirements are for 61 roll-on, roll-off ships, but fewer than 10 were pledged. Offers for combat aircraft surpassed the requirements - 250 promised as opposed to 400 called for.
While the aim is for 60,000 troops, a pool of 100,000-120,000 is needed so that commanders can select the kind of forces they need for any given mission. What's more, taking into consideration a rotation of troops every six months, the real number is more than 200,000.
The EU force would not take up territorial defense, the job of NATO. It aims primarily to deploy in peacekeeping or peacemaking missions where NATO - and particularly the United States - decides not to intervene.
Still, the relationship between the EU force and NATO is uncertain. Under the current plan, the EU force would have access to NATO assets, if necessary.
The United States is concerned about unnecessary duplication, particularly in the area of operational planning. The six European members of NATO who are not members of the EU - particularly Turkey and Iceland - worry about allowing the EU automatic access to alliance facilities when they are not a part of the union's decision-making process.
Washington says it favors the EU force on the assumption that anything adding to European security is good, but it wants to insure NATO remains the key element in continental defense.
The EU did not announce figures for each country's troop contribution to the force.
Based on provisional pledges, the union expected a minimum of 2,000 from Austria; Belgium, 1,000; Britain, 12,500; Finland, 2,000; France, 12,000; Germany, 13,500; Greece, 3,500; Ireland, 1,000; Italy, 6,000; Luxembourg, 100; Netherlands, 5,000; Portugal, 1,000; Spain, 6,000 and Sweden, 1,500. Denmark did not pledge any forces.
-------- space
Today In History
Associated Press
November 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-History.html
Today is Tuesday, Nov. 21, the 326th day of 2000. There are 40 days left in the year.
On this date:
One year ago: President Clinton, speaking at a conference in Florence, Italy, called on prosperous nations to spread global wealth by helping poor countries with Internet hookups, cell phones, debt relief and small loans. China completed its first unmanned test of a spacecraft meant to carry astronauts. Quentin Crisp, the eccentric writer, performer and raconteur best-known for his autobiography ``The Naked Civil Servant,'' died in Manchester, England, at age 90.
-------- u.n.
U.N., China sign human-rights document
11/20/00
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsmon04.htm
BEIJING (AP) - The top U.N. human rights officer agreed Monday to work with China to reform its legal and police practices, but said a broader effort is needed to protect the basic civil liberties of its people.
Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya signed a memorandum committing China to comply with rights treaties it has already signed and to review some current rights abuses, including its use of labor camps.
While Robinson called the agreement an important step in improving human rights in China, she said abuses continue and warned her office will pay close attention to China's behavior, particularly on insufficient protections for freedom of expression, assembly and religion.
''These remain areas of concern, and I hope to discuss them further,'' Robinson told reporters with Wang at her side after they signed the agreement at the start of her two-day visit to Beijing.
In a sign of the agreement's limits, Robinson said she would press Chinese leaders anew to accept a visit by a U.N. monitor on torture. China agreed to host the monitor last year, but then refused to grant unfettered access to sites and victims.
China has shown a readiness in recent years to work with foreign governments and the United Nations on human rights, but there has been little change. Critics have accused Beijing of taking symbolic steps at opportune moments to deflect foreign censure.
Negotiated for two years, the memorandum signed Monday was to have been approved during Robinson's last visit in March. But she balked, in part to avoid the perception she was condoning Beijing's rights practices just before the annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
Neither side released copies of the agreement to reporters. Vice Foreign Minister Wang said it would help China meet international standards in efforts to reform its legal system and improve police training.
''It is our hope that the implementation of these projects will help China to learn more about the practices and experiences of the international community in the area of human rights,'' Wang said.
Under the agreement, China will take part in regular discussions with U.N. and other foreign legal experts who will advise China on implementing two international rights covenants, Robinson said. The first meeting was set for February.
China's legislature took up the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights but delayed ratification of the document, which the government signed three years ago. A second covenant on civil and political rights, signed two years ago, has not been ratified, either.
The two covenants set out basic civil-liberties guarantees, something human rights groups say are now virtually absent from China.
With Beijing pursuing a crackdown on dissent, rights groups have warned Robinson against signing an agreement that falls short of correcting specific abuses.
''What we hope doesn't happen is that China can make cosmetic changes without changing the substance to get critics in the international community to shut up,'' said Sophia Woodman, a spokeswoman for New York-based Human Rights in China. ''This sort of reform is unacceptable.''
Among the abuses singled out in Monday's memorandum is what China calls reform through labor, a system that allows police to send suspects to labor camps for up to three years without trial. Largely meant for drug addicts and other nonviolent offenders, it has been used against political dissidents and more recently the outlawed Falun Gong sect.
Robinson said the labor reform system and other detention policies will top the agenda of February's dialogue between Chinese and foreign experts.
-------- u.s.
Yemen Detains Possible Accomplices in Cole Bombing
Washington Post
Monday, November 20, 2000
By Karl Vick Washington Post Foreign Service
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/printedition/int/yemen20.htm
Authorities have detained some alleged accomplices, all Yemenis, in the Oct. 12 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, a Yemeni security official said today.
The suspects numbered "less than 10" of the more than 50 people still being held for questioning more than a month after the U.S. destroyer was attacked while refueling in Aden harbor, said the official, who asked not to be identified. Seventeen sailors were killed.
The Associated Press quoted Yemeni sources close to the investigation as saying authorities have detained six men they believe were key accomplices, including a main plotter.
Yemen's prime minister said last week that the two men who steered a small boat packed with plastic explosives into the Cole were veterans of the U.S.-backed guerrilla war in Afghanistan. In that 1980s conflict, Islamic fundamentalists were recruited to drive out Soviet forces. Abdel-Karim Ali Iryani said both men were believed to be Yemenis, although only one has been positively identified.
But the security official said today that none of the alleged accomplices is known to have fought in the Afghan conflict, known as a jihad, or holy war. He quoted them as telling Yemeni authorities they supported the attack because "they see nothing wrong with it."
The security official said the two men who piloted the small boat, although natives of Yemen, had moved in and out of the country since the Afghan war. He said they returned to Aden from abroad to carry out an attack on an American warship.
The Yemen Observer newspaper said an attack planned for January failed when TNT packed into the hull of a small boat absorbed seawater and became much heavier, causing the craft to sink after being launched toward another American warship. The security official called the report accurate.
The as-yet-unidentified group of plotters then had an explosives expert reconfigure the charge using relatively lightweight C-4 plastic explosive, according to Yemeni officials. The source of the explosive has not been determined, the security official said.
The Yemen Observer also quoted a well-placed source as saying the fiberglass boat used in the attack on the Cole was brought to Yemen from another country. It said a length of red rope used to tether the skiff to a trailer was blown onto the Cole's deck.
Also recovered, according to the Observer, was a pair of glasses matching those one of the bombers wore in a fraudulent photo ID found at one of several safe houses where the attack was prepared.
Yemeni officials said it appears the plot against the Cole employed a network of cells, each with one to three sympathetic operatives who lived quietly in the general population until alerted to act.
The Cole attack has several parallels with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, including the initial reliance on TNT, outside explosive specialists, sophisticated electrical detonation devices and long-standing local cells. U.S. officials have blamed the 1998 attacks on exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, whose terrorist network has roots in the Afghan war.
But the Yemeni security official said today that the Aden suspects have not mentioned bin Laden. "They just talk about the United States being 'the enemy,'" the official said.
---
Competition for Data From Satellites Rises
Washington Post
Monday, November 20, 2000; Page A19
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44618-2000Nov20.html
Military requests for data from U.S. spy satellites are limiting the intelligence that can be provided to the White House, State Department and other policymakers throughout the government, according to a blue-ribbon congressional commission.
The panel called for immediate review of a presidential directive that set the protection of U.S. military forces abroad as the first priority of the nation's intelligence satellites.
"There should be support for war fighters but not at the expense of national customers, like the White House, who feel they are being left behind," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the commission that studied the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for the satellites.
"The directive is creating conflicts that need to be resolved," added the panel's vice chairman, Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.).
The nation's multibillion-dollar constellation of spy satellites is under pressure to supply daily information to support Pentagon deployments in such places as Kosovo and northern Iraq. As a result, tasking the satellites for other needs has become what one source described as "an increasingly emotional challenge."
"A platoon sergeant in the field in Kosovo who forwards time-sensitive requirements by the hundreds for satellite intelligence data could take precedence over one request from the president in the White House," said a person involved in the panel's work.
The Pentagon, which years ago was hesitant to depend on satellite data, "has fallen in love with the systems," this participant said.
The competition for satellite tasking today is primarily in Europe, the Near East and Persian Gulf, officials said. Air Force pilots patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq, for example, receive satellite information that takes away coverage from targets such as Indian and Pakistani missile- testing areas.
But, Kerrey said, "What does that do when the president or secretary of state asks to have coverage of Iran's possible testing of a missile or nuclear components? It's not clear."
The debate over how U.S. intelligence satellites should be used has been brewing quietly for more than four years. A panel of experts found in 1996 that "both strategic and tactical customers of the NRO were frustrated." Headed by retired Adm. David Jeremiah, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that panel emphasized that military commanders felt there was "insufficient commitment to satisfying their needs."
Presidential Decision Directive No. 35 was signed in 1995 to set "military force protection" as a top priority. The Goss panel said: "The directive has not been reviewed recently to determine whether it has been properly applied and should remain in effect."
Another problem, according to the panel, is that in the mid-1990s, the Pentagon cut its own funding for acquiring space systems and sensors to support tactical commanders. Instead, NRO's budget was made to carry that burden. The Goss panel recommended that more money should come out of the Defense Department's funds.
Under today's system, two Pentagon-run agencies manage day-to-day collections by NRO's spy satellites, rather than Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet's intelligence community management structure. The National Security Agency handles signals intelligence tasking, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency handles satellite photography and other imaging techniques.
An associate director of central intelligence attempts to coordinate the collection tasking, but the Goss panel said it is up to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Tenet "to resolve the current debate."
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
States to tighten pollution controls on large trucks
CNN
November 20, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/11/20/truck.pollution.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Addressing what they call a "loophole" in federal regulations, California and 13 other states plan to impose new requirements to cut pollution from heavy-duty diesel trucks sold in their states.
The action announced Monday is meant to force manufacturers of big diesel truck and bus engines to comply with more stringent testing procedures two years before even tougher federal regulations go into effect in 2007.
The pollution controls would not directly affect trucks already on the road, but would require an estimated 400,000 new heavy-duty trucks and buses, likely to be sold in 2005 and 2006, to comply with the stricter testing procedures, state officials said.
Since these trucks would be expected to operate for 15 to 20 years, the tougher standards would amount to thousands of tons of reduced air pollution, equal to removing millions of cars from the road, the state officials said.
"These new rules are needed to prevent diesel manufacturers from deliberately designing and building higher polluting trucks in those years," said Winston Hickox, head of the state Environmental Protection Agency in California.
He said his state will approve the new requirements at a meeting early next month. Nine northeastern states as well as Texas, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina plan to join California, the state officials said.
The requirements are designed to make sure that "there is no backsliding" by engine manufactures regarding production of less polluting diesel engines for large trucks and buses, said William Becker, executive director of two groups that represent state and local air pollution officials.
The major engine manufacturers in 1998 promised as part of a consent agreement with the Justice Department to adopt more stringent testing procedures that ensure diesel trucks will comply with emission reduction standards during highway driving.
Those standards would take effect in 2004, but they fail to cover trucks sold in 2005 and 2006 before even tougher emission controls go into effect under a separate federal regulations in 2007.
The states' action is aimed at closing this loophole, said Becker, whose organization, the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators, helped organize the state effort.
"The manufactures are even now trying to get out of the consent decree, saying they can't meet it," said Becker.
Spokesmen for several of the manufactures, which include Cummins and Caterpillar Inc., could not immediately be reached Monday.
Richard Valentinetti, director of Vermont's pollution control agency, said that the multistate initiative is expected to "prod engine makers to make cleaner engines all across the nation," since the manufacturers are not likely to build two engines, one suitable for 14 states and another for sale elsewhere.
The 14 states account for about 40 percent of new heavy-duty diesel truck and bus sales in the country.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, states are free to adopt pollution controls more stringent than the federal requirements if they follow the lead of California, which because of its historically dirty air has the authority to draft its own air rules.
Robert W. Perciasepe, who heads the federal Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution control effort, said the agency supports the 13 states' action as a backstop to the federal program.
While the requirements under the 1998 consent agreement require cleaner engines to be produced in 2005, new federal pollution standards for large trucks do not kick in until 2007. And if the EPA were to try to fill the two-year gap through federal action, it might have to postpone its 2007 requirements, the state officials said.
Supporting California's tougher standards are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Nevada.
---
Chirac Urges U.S. to Take Lead on Global Warming
Reuters
November 20, 2000
THE HAGUE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers reacted sharply on Monday to criticism from French President Jacques Chirac that the United States was ducking its responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions implicated in global warming.
Chirac opened a crucial second week of U.N.-backed climate change talks with a direct call to the United States, the world's biggest polluter, to take a lead in cutting pollution that scientists warn could have catastrophic consequences on global weather patterns.
``Each American emits three times more greenhouse gases than a Frenchman,'' Chirac told the conference in the Hague.
``It is in the Americans, in the first place, that we place our hopes of effectively limiting greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale,'' he said. ``No country can elude its share of the collective effort.''
U.S. senators attending the Hague talks, called to put flesh on the bones of an accord signed in the Japanese city of Kyoto three years ago, responded angrily, saying the French leader's comments were ``unproductive.''
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said: ``I don't believe President Chirac's statement today was particularly helpful for the success of this conference.
``To single out the United States, as he did rather directly, does not facilitate a cooperative spirit.''
Fellow Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho admitted the United States was guilty of wasting energy, but said this had brought benefits in science, technology and medicine.
Defending his own state's large agricultural output, Craig said two thirds of U.S. farm production was exported to feed people around the world.
``Are (our farmers) large consumers of energy? Yes. Are they large producers? Yes. They're proud of it. The president's speech was very unproductive,'' Craig said.
LEADERS SEEK TO BREAK IMPASSE
Political leaders arrived in The Hague to try and break a deadlock between the world's wealthier countries over who should pay to cut pollution.
While Europe has urged the industrialised world to take tough action by cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, the main culprit in raising global temperatures, the U.S. and others prefer market-based measures such as buying the right to pollute elsewhere.
They could do this by trading emissions credits -- buying pollution quotas from nations who easily meet their Kyoto emission reduction targets.
This would allow the United States to avoid unpopular steps at home, such as higher energy taxes on industry and consumers.
Both Hagel and Craig are wary of the Kyoto deal's potential threat to the U.S. economy and sovereignty, key to the U.S. Senate's opposition to the accord.
U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, a Democrat locked in a bitter struggle for the next presidency with Republican George W. Bush, was deeply involved in the Kyoto agreement.
Both senators said they wanted the United States to remain a part of the global process to tackle climate change and would not want to see the Senate rush to throw out any agreement.
``If you are asking whether bringing it to the Senate for a slam-dunk 'no' vote would solve the problem, I don't think it would. I think we should remain engaged,'' Craig said.
The Kyoto pact requires the United States to cut carbon emissions by seven percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2014.
CHIRAC CALLS FOR REVOLUTION IN THINKING
The EU wants those nations required to make emissions cuts to make at least half of them at home, limiting use of emissions trading or other flexible mechanisms foreseen under Kyoto.
Chirac said society needed to undergo a ``revolution in our way of thinking'' and change the way economies consume natural resources.
``Cutting down on our consumption of raw materials, diversifying our sources of supply, recycling waste, (using) new materials, energy efficiency and developing renewable energies: these are the choices that ought to inspire us in our policy making,'' he said.
However, the French leader, who currently also holds the presidency of the 15-nation EU, made one conciliatory gesture towards the United States.
He appeared to offer some support, over the long term, to a U.S. idea of using new and existing forests and farmland to soak up pollution, so-called carbon ``sinks.''
``If it were to be (scientifically) confirmed that reforestation, the fight against desertification and the fight against global warming can be mutually reinforcing, then we would be wrong to rule out this course.''
The EU has so far opposed the carbon ``sink'' idea, put forward by the United States, Japan and Canada as a way to offset some of their emissions reduction targets.
Scientists say the Earth's temperature could rise by up to six degrees Centigrade (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, with devastating consequences on the environment and human life.
--------
U.S. Move Improves Chance for Global Warming Treaty
New York Times
November 20, 2000
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/20/science/20CLIM.html
THE HAGUE, Nov. 19 - In a shift that is likely to brighten prospects for a global warming treaty, American negotiators at talks here have said the United States would be willing to limit its use of forest projects to reach its target for reducing heat- trapping greenhouse gases.
The new stance, signaled in the face of mounting criticism from Europe and private environmental groups, came this weekend, halfway through a contentious two-week session aimed at writing the fine print for the treaty, called the Kyoto Protocol.
The treaty was worked out by more than 170 nations in Japan in 1997. If ratified, it would commit three dozen industrialized nations to reduce their combined greenhouse- gas releases by 2012 to at least 5 percent below emissions in 1990, with each country taking a unique target depending on its emissions.
But the rules and means to achieve cuts have never been resolved, with this session, called the Sixth Conference of the Parties, intended as the denouement.
Many disagreements in these pivotal negotiations have focused on the role of forests as "sinks," in which carbon dioxide, a warming gas flooding the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and forests, is removed by trees, which store the carbon in wood and soil.
The United States, by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, calculated last summer that its vast forests, by absorbing up to 300 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, could help it get halfway to its pledged target under the treaty, reducing emissions by 2012 to 7 percent below where they were in 1990. It also wants to get credit for paying for forest-protection and tree-planting projects in other countries.
But Europe, too crowded to take advantage of forests, and many private environmental groups say crediting forest growth would allow the United States and other large, forested countries to meet their targets without undertaking the much harder, and potentially costlier, task of reducing greenhouse gases at the source: mainly tailpipes and smokestacks.
"This is a major free ride for the U.S., a get-out-of-jail-free card the likes of which has never been seen," said Kert Davies, a representative of Greenpeace USA lobbying at the talks.
Last week, in sharply rejecting a preliminary American proposal for phasing in the use of forest credits, the European Union described sinks as "a free gift."
Frank E. Loy, the under secretary of state for global affairs and chief American negotiator, said forests were one of several treaty components that American negotiators see as essential to any agreement that is both effective and cost-effective - and that will satisfy a highly skeptical Senate, whose approval the treaty needs.
"If an agreement doesn't take into account the fact that forests can act as a huge source of emissions as well as an important opportunity to reduce emissions, it will be a very unsatisfactory exercise," Mr. Loy said.
But other American negotiators explained that they were prepared to compromise on the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by forests for which a country could receive credit, moving beyond an earlier proposal that would phase in credit for forests from 2008 to 2012.
"We are prepared to discount some of the tons that would come through the process," one official said.
Mr. Loy said the United States was committed to acting aggressively on home turf to curtail emissions, but insisted that there should be flexibility to use every emissions-cutting tool available wherever it could be used most effectively.
"We've always thought of sinks as being part of the answer," he said. "They're not intended to take the place of investments in environmentally sound technologies."
In a news conference late last week, Jos Delbeke, the head of the climate section of the European Commission, said that so far, the American proposal was "far too vague and far too incomplete" and would be acceptable only when there were hard numbers showing a clear retreat from large forest credits.
Many other disagreements between blocs of countries remained unresolved over the weekend, including whether countries should be able to get credit toward emissions goals for investing in pollution-cutting projects abroad, and whether such projects should include controversial technologies like nuclear power and "clean coal" plants - or forest projects.
Environmental campaigners used theatrics to make points. On Saturday, several thousand people from 40 countries built a dike of 50,000 sandbags around the sprawling convention center, meant to highlight one of the perils expected in a warmer world. Scientists predict that continued global warming will disrupt ecosystems and weather patterns and also raise sea levels as glaciers melt.
In the lobby, demonstrators presented a petition seeking much deeper emissions cuts to the president of the conference, Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister. "We're trying to build a dike of words," Mr. Pronk responded.
Acknowledging the rifts still sharply dividing countries, he added, "It's extremely difficult to take actions now to protect people not yet born, but that is what we are trying to do."
As several thousand delegates combed through hundreds of bracketed paragraphs in reams of treaty text, lobbyists for companies touting everything from windmills to nuclear plants roamed the hallways, along with a similar number of campaigners from environmental groups.
Despite the clashing mosaic of stances, many delegates, from both rich and poor countries, said they had a sense - after more than a decade of meetings leading to the treaty - that agreement could be reached, mainly because a growing number of nations were seeing the deal as an opportunity for economic growth and not simply an environmental pact.
"There is no great aggressiveness from the developing countries now, not like there was in 1990," said a delegate from a large Asian country. He added that rich countries, in turn, are now asking "how do we expand commercial investment opportunities and sell our technologies."
Observers who had attended previous talks agreed that the atmosphere was different, and that Europe and the United States - despite outward discord - seemed poised for compromise.
"The gulf doesn't seem to be as wide," said Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming, a coal-rich state. He attended the Kyoto talks and another session in Buenos Aires and remains skeptical that the treaty will be fair to the United States. "Compared to Kyoto," he said, "they almost appear to be agreeing."
Still, some camps seemed determined to scuttle the talks. One point deemed essential by the United States is some clause that at least implies that fast-growing countries like China and India commit more concretely to initiate climate-protection programs. The Senate has said it will not approve a treaty without this.
To some, this presented an opportunity. A person working with oil- producing countries described how they were successful - for the third climate-treaty conference in a row - at putting pressure on the organizers before the opening gavel to delete from the agenda any consideration of such a commitment from developing nations.
On Sunday afternoon, as delegates girded for the increasingly intense sessions to come, many sought guidance at an "Ecumenical Service on Climate Change" at the Cloister Church.
-------- police
Detroit police evacuate when evidence turns out to be bomb
CNN
November 20, 2000
DETROIT (Reuters) -- Detectives evacuated Detroit's police headquarters Monday after a piece of evidence gathered at a weekend murder scene turned out to be a bomb, police said.
"There were wires attached to it, and the bomb and arson squad deactivated it using water to terminate the threat," Detroit Police Sgt. Ricardo Moore said.
Another officer said it was believed to be some type of incendiary device whose destructive power was not immediately known. Floors adjacent to the homicide section at police headquarters were also evacuated as a precaution.
The bomb was brought in early Saturday as evidence from the unexplained murder of a 30-year-old man whose girlfriend found him dead from a gunshot in his home. Police had no suspects and would not speculate about the origin of the device or the possible target.
-------- refugees
Wave of refugees sweeps the globe
November 20, 2000
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000112022956.htm
The numbers are staggering and fail to express the depth of human misery they represent. People are moving and not because they want to.
• More than 100,000 Tibetans, 66,000 Sri Lankans and 15,000 Bhutanese have fled political and religious persecution in their homelands to seek refuge in India.
• Nearly 300,000 ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam have gone to China.
• Yugoslavia has nearly a half-million refugees and internally displaced persons.
• Germany hosts nearly 1 million refugees, mostly from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
• More than 1.5 million Africans are displaced.
• Some 2.5 million Afghans are living in Iran and Pakistan.
• Some 3.6 million Palestinian refugees are scattered in a 50-year diaspora around the world.
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which came into being in 1951 to help settle displaced people after World War II, more than 22 million people in the world today have been forced from their homes by war, famine or other disaster. They are living in camps, seeking asylum, on the run from militants or wandering in deserts.
'A very messy world'
"We have been very busy. It is a reflection of a very messy world," said Sadako Ogata, 73, the high commissioner, who will step down Dec. 31 after 10 years on the job. "I hope we do not have to be as busy during the next 50 years."
Speaking at the National Press Club for the publication of "The State of the World's Refugees: 50 Years of Humanitarian Action," Mrs. Ogata said her job has been rewarding but frustrating.
"The problem is: How do you protect real people, in real danger?" she said.
She said the world's richest countries give money to areas where they perceive a national interest, but are less generous in more remote regions. She underlined the difference between the world's generous "overresponse" to Kosovo as opposed to the scant attention paid to parts of Africa.
"I had a very hard time getting international attention on the refugee issues in Africa, and there was a lot of resentment on the part of African leaders," she said.
She said African leaders charged that the international community gave as much as $120 per refugee for the Kosovo crisis but less than $30 for each African refugee.
Mrs. Ogata dismissed the figures as comparing apples and oranges, but acknowledged that racism may have been part of the problem. She said the West responded to Kosovo because it was seen as being "in Europe's back yard."
Publicity spurs funding
"In a crisis, I get a lot of money. It is on the [television] screen in front of everyone. But when the screen no longer looks at the misery, that is when the funding drops. But that is when I need it most," she said.
Mrs. Ogata said the three places of most concern for her agency today are Afghanistan, Angola and Congo.
More than 2.5 million Afghans are living in camps in Pakistan, Iran and India. Mrs. Ogata said these refugees are reluctant to return to an Afghanistan dominated by the fundamentalist Islamic Taleban, which restricts human rights, especially women's rights to education and employment.
But, she said, the host nations are struggling with declining economies.
"They are tired of having these people and want them to go home," she said.
In Angola, she said, the long civil war created an "enormous internally displaced population and there is a feeling of giving up."
The war in Congo has created an internally displaced population of about 1 million. Additionally, she said, 300,000 Congolese are refugees in neighboring countries, and 200,000 refugees from neighboring countries are in Congo.
"There is a feeling of: 'How much can we do?' " she said.
Mrs. Ogata said one of the more difficult problems that the UNHCR has faced during her tenure was dealing with "militarized refugee camps" in places such as Zaire (once again called called Congo) and West Timor.
Combatants as refugees
"Most of today's wars are internal, and the militarized people are part of the group that has lost the war and moved out with the victims of the war," she said.
She said Tanzania has about 400,000 refugees from Burundi -many of them ethnic Hutu combatants who lost the war in their country. She said the UNHCR came under harsh criticism from the government of Burundi, which accused her agency of housing, feeding and protecting terrorists.
Mrs. Ogata's response was to bring in Tanzanian police to prevent recruitment and the use of the camps as a rebel base. The plan worked, she said.
"This is the first year the president of Burundi did not accuse me," she said.
She said the border regions of China, where Muslim populations live on the overlapping fringes of China, Russia and the Central Asian republics, are "a crossroad of potentially very dangerous movement of people." She said that while the UNHCR does not have any projects there, she finds the region fascinating.
"If I were to be a student and starting my studies, I'd start studying that area," she said.
She said her biggest challenge as leader of UNHCR was dealing with one large crisis after another.
One crisis after another
"My 10 years was a rather turbulent 10 years. To have over a million refugees in a crisis, starting with Iraq, going to Yugoslavia, the Great Lakes region in Africa - all of them more than a million - constantly, was quite a strain," she said. "At least our input made a large difference for a lot of people to survive."
In 1951, the UNHCR had a staff of 33 and a budget of $300,000. Today, it employees more than 5,000 people, has a budget of nearly $1 billion and assists some 26 million refugees. Its early focus was on Europe, but it has grown to assist people in 120 nations.
"The State of the World's Refugees" is a history of the UNHCR's work during the past 50 years and is a chronicle of human misery. It details the problems faced by European refugees right after World War II, how the UNHCR dealt with the failed Hungarian revolt of 1956 and the subsequent flood of refugees.
One section examines the intractable problems that refugees in Africa have faced and are facing -from genocide, to the militarization of camps, to AIDS.
After retiring, Mrs. Ogata said, she will return to Japan and write a book.
"I'd like to take a little time to make choices - because so far there is not a day that I could freely make choices. It was a very, very stimulating, interesting 10 years."
-------- activists
1,700 Arrested in War School Protest
Associated Press
November 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-School-of-the-Americas.html
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) -- Wearing white masks and black robes and carrying cardboard coffins and crosses, thousands of demonstrators marched slowly through the gates of Fort Benning.
As they've done every year since 1989, they came Sunday to demand the closing of the Army's School of the Americas, which trains Latin American soldiers. Critics blame the school for human rights abuses committed by some of its graduates -- charges the Army calls absurd.
``I'd characterize it as false and as propaganda,'' Maj. Gen. John LeMoyne, the post commander, said.
Police arrested 1,700 protesters, including actor Martin Sheen -- about half the number that entered the west-central Georgia post Sunday. An estimated 3,000 others continued the protest outside the gates.
Most of those arrested were charged with trespassing, given a warning and released, said Col. G.T. Myers, Fort Benning's provost marshal. Some who poured fake blood on the street were charged with damaging government property, he said.
The annual demonstration commemorates the Nov. 16, 1989, killings in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, to which some of the school's graduates have been linked.
Though the school is scheduled to close Dec. 15 and be replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, opponents vow to keep up the protests.
``We see this as cosmetic,'' said Roy Bourgeois, a co-founder of School of the Americas Watch who has spearheaded the protests. ``It's like taking a bottle of poison and writing `Penicillin' on it.''
The new school will be run by the Defense Department, under guiding principles of the Organization of American States.
The demonstration Sunday took place in near-freezing temperatures and occasional rain. Many protesters, wearing plastic parkas, shivered as they marched to a point where they were halted by police.
Sheen, who plays the nation's president in the hit TV show ``The West Wing,'' has joined the protests the past three years. Myers said he did not know what laws the actor was accused of breaking.
Those arrested were given letters barring them from visiting Fort Benning for five years. They could be subject to a year in prison if charged with trespassing on the post again within that period.
Sister Mary Johnalyn, 68, of West Allis, Wis., said she was photographed, fingerprinted and given a letter barring her from the post. She said she was charged with damaging U.S. property for spilling fake blood.
``I was a missionary in Mexico and I found those people so loving,'' she said. ``I don't want them to come up here and learn to be ugly murderers.''
---
Puffy To Help Feed Atlanta Homeless On Thanksgiving
MTV.com
11.20.00 16:55 EST
Puff Daddy
http://www.mtv.com/sendme.tin?page=/news/headlines/001120/story5.html
Rapper Sean "Puffy" Combs has pledged his financial support for the late Hosea Williams' Atlanta-based Feed the Hungry and Homeless campaign, following the civil rights leader's death last week.
Combs announced Sunday he would help underwrite the program's annual Thanksgiving dinner, which is expected to feed an estimated 30,000 people Thursday at Turner Field in Atlanta.
"I am honored that I am able to help in Reverend Williams' mission this Thanksgiving," Combs said in a statement. "Every year I give food to the hungry and underprivileged in New York through my charitable fund, Daddy's House. It's never enough and we all need to do whatever it takes to stop the disease of hunger."
Williams' daughter, Elizabeth Omilami, spoke with Combs about supporting the program during a fundraising event Tuesday at Justin's restaurant in Atlanta, which Combs owns and operates, according to Felicia Jeda in the Feed the Hungry and Homeless press office.
"My father's mission will continue to live on with the people he inspired, like Mr. Combs," Omilami said in a press release.
In addition to meals, Feed the Hungry and Homeless provides clothes, medical and dental screenings and job placement services as part of its holiday dinner program, which also serves some 40,000 in the metro-Atlanta area on Christmas Day.
Williams was a longtime member of the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and he worked on Martin Luther King Jr.'s staff in the early '60s. Williams began serving Thanksgiving meals to the homeless and needy out of his Atlanta church in 1970.
Williams died at age 74 Thursday at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta from cancer-related complications. The civil rights leader had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and underwent surgery to remove a cancerous kidney last year.
Combs has been involved in various charitable endeavors via his Daddy's House Social Programs, which have hosted summer camps and sponsored trips and other youth activities in New York.
Daddy's House provides Thanksgiving dinners to families in New York's Harlem district, feeding some 4,000 people in the last two years.
-- David Basham
------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)