------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
India Cautiously Welcomes China's Anti-Proliferation Pledge
Insurers keep eye on costs of scanning tests
China avoids U.S. sanctions over missile sales
A Parting Deal With China
China Pledges Not to Aid International Missile Development
Boeing gets another shot at satellite launches
China Escapes U.S. Arms Sanctions, Iran, Pakistan Hit
China Pledges No More Missile Deals
China promises not to sell missiles
U.S. Hails China on Missile Pledge
China to Stop Selling A-Arms Delivery Systems
U.S. Waives Proliferation Penalties On China
Beijing avoids sanctions for sales of arms technology
Pakistan protests new U.S. sanctions
India Hopes China Will Honor Arms Control Pledge
ABM: Putin moots compromise
U.S. threatening sanctions on Russia
Russia Drops Pledge Not To Arm Iran
Hanford loses out to Idaho for plutonium project
Price tag goes up for cleanup at Paducah plant
Lars-Erik Nelson, 59, Writer Of Columns at The Daily News
Workers to get cut of Piketon power sale
Ohio
Hanford reactor will stay closed
Fast Flux reactor headed for shutdown
Test Nuclear Reactor Is to Remain Closed
Hanford reactor won't be restarted
NUCLEAR REPORT CARD
Rocky Flats sends most waste

MILITARY
Arafat Criticizes U.S. for Arming Israel
China defends lower priority for human rights
MULTINATIONAL DRUG BUST
IRAQ: CLAIMS OF A `HIT'
MYANMAR: GO-AHEAD FOR LAWSUIT
RUSSIA: BLAIR'S VISIT
Syria asked to confirm Iraqi oil deal
U.N. war-crimes chief pushes Yugoslav case
CHECKPOINT SAPPER JOURNAL
NAVY WON'T BE REPAID BY GAY MAN
States
Republican hope fades for military vote tally

OTHER
Agency to Halt Endangered Species Listings
Agency: Legal costs endanger species
States
The Kyoto myth
Giuliani in Washington to Block Police Suit
Inconsistencies Examined in Officers' Trial Testimony
Police May Raise Spending 25% for Anticrime Program
Los Angeles Settles Lawsuit Against Police
LAPD shooting victim gets $15 million
L.A. to pay $15M in police corruption case
Nebraska
Software to Track E-Mail Raises Privacy Concerns
Report: Carnivore could be abused
But Not Everyone Approves
Suspect in Terror Case Is Mistreated, Wife Says

ACTIVISTS
Emergency Alert on Climate Treaty Negotiations
Clock Ticking at Climate Conference
A Final March for Hosea Williams, and Many Tributes
Grape Boycott Called Off
Idaho
Judge bars buffer zone at abortion clinics
Anti-election activities in Montreal and Quebec City


-------- NUCLEAR

India Cautiously Welcomes China's Anti-Proliferation Pledge

Inside China Today
Nov 22, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=223288

NEW DELHI -- (Agence France Presse) India on Wednesday cautiously welcomed a pledge by China to enforce strict export controls against missile proliferation, saying it hoped Beijing would stick to its commitment.

The Indian foreign ministry, reacting to a waiver of U.S. sanctions against China, said in a statement that it hoped "effective implementation of the agreed measures would mark a step in the right direction.

"India has several times in the past voiced its grave concern about missile proliferation and the adverse impact this has on the security environment of our region.

"Such missile proliferation has unfortunately in recent years continued despite assurances to the contrary," it said. "It is our expectation that this process of proliferation will be halted and we shall ... not have any grounds for complaint in future."

India, which fought a brief but bitter border war with China in 1962 and three wars and a border conflict with Pakistan, staged nuclear tests in 1998 citing regional security threats.

The tests were followed by a riposte by Pakistan, earning both South Asian countries a host of sanctions from the U.S. and other countries.

The United States, accusing Pakistan and Iran of receiving missile technology from China, imposed sanctions against them Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Washington also announced the lifting of similar sanctions against China after Beijing issued an anti-proliferation statement saying it would no longer assist countries in building ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

"The new sanctions will actually have very limited economic effect, but they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs," a U.S. official said in Washington, referring to Pakistan and Iran.

Last year, the U.S. National Intelligence Council said it had concluded beyond doubt that China had transferred nuclear-capable M-11 missiles to Pakistan early in the 1990s.

Suspicions of continued Chinese aid to "countries of concern" in Asia are still lingering.

--- USA Today

Insurers keep eye on costs of scanning tests

Nov. 21, 2000
By Julie Appleby,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/life/health/hcare/lhhca135.htm

It's not just prescription drugs anymore.

The next jump in health care insurance premiums may be fueled by the soaring use of scanning tests used to detect cancer, heart disease, fractures and thinning bones.

"It's certainly an area a lot of managed care companies are wrestling with," says Gary Frazier, managing director of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown.

Some insurers report 15% to 20% annual increases in the use of X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) scans and certain cardiac exams. Already, more than two dozen health plans have hired outside firms to help get a handle on costs, meaning more scrutiny of who qualifies for the tests.

Even so, growth in the use of the tests isn't likely to decline. It's being driven by an aging population, new and better scanning equipment, patients demanding the tests after seeing advertisements and time-pressed doctors looking for quicker diagnoses.

"The industry right now is booming," says Ted Opie, a general manager at GE Medical Systems, whose $7.5 billion imaging equipment division is seeing 20% annual increases in orders.

For doctors and consumers, the boom means more and better tests, but also increased oversight by insurers, who determine when tests are considered "medically necessary."

"What we're really after is being able to ensure appropriate care for patients," says Frank Apgar, senior medical director at Blue Shield of California. The insurer is one of 18 that have hired National Imaging Associates of Upper Saddle River, N.J., to help manage radiology services. Another firm offering similar services is MedSolutions of Nashville, with eight insurers under contract.

For the past year, Blue Shield doctors considering sending patients for non-emergency diagnostic scans have called National Imaging first for consultation and authorization.

Apgar says there are good medical reasons not to rush into certain tests. "With CT scans, there's a significant amount of radiation," Apgar says. "It's important for patients to discuss with their doctors, 'Do I need this test?' "

Initially, National Imaging estimated that Blue Shield patients used diagnostic radiology services 20% more than expected based on averages calculated by the firm. After a year of requiring prior approval, Blue Shield found that 10% to 14% of the requests were either denied or withdrawn - a measure of how many may be unnecessary.

Some national radiology experts say tests aren't being ordered unnecessarily.

"The unlikely explanation is that physicians have suddenly decided to order exams on a whim," says Dietder Enzmann, head of radiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "I don't see a great deal of tests being ordered that don't seem to be indicated."

-------- china

China avoids U.S. sanctions over missile sales

CNN
November 22, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/11/21/china.missiles.02/index.html

BEIJING -- The U.S. State Department has gone ahead with sanctions against Iran and Pakistan but decided Tuesday to spare China, their suspected partner in deals that may have boosted their nuclear capability.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/11/21/china.missiles.02/map.china.gif

China avoided U.S. sanctions by vowing on Tuesday not to sell missiles or components to countries developing nuclear weapons.

The sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, ranging from guns and mortars to cargo planes, were announced Tuesday but took effect November 17.

Senior State Department officials told CNN the decision to impose the sanctions was based on evidence of a series of missile transfers from China to the two countries in the early 1990s.

China says it will improve controls

Chinese officials said Tuesday they will improve controls to stop unlicensed transfers of missile technology, and will publish a comprehensive list of "missile-related items and dual-use items" under export restrictions.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said Tuesday.

China agreed two years ago not to transfer entire missile systems.

The goal of the sanctions "is not to put someone on or off the hook ... (but) stop exports of missiles," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "That's what really matters, and that's what we have achieved."

Sanctions against companies lifted

U.S. officials said the State Department will also lift sanctions that have already been imposed on certain Chinese companies, and begin considering approving licenses for China to launch U.S. satellites.

"China will exercise special scrutiny and caution, even for items not specifically contained on the control list," Sun said Tuesday.

China, he added, will take into consideration whether an item could be diverted to missile programs before issuing export licenses.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," Boucher said.

Vow caps years of talks

China's pledge and Washington's response capped years of negotiations that intensified after they resumed in July following a 14-month suspension by Beijing. China had suspended the talks in anger over the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

The negotiators met again earlier this month and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the matter during last week's meeting of Pacific Rim economies in Brunei, Boucher said.

State Department officials said the missiles China sold to Pakistan and Iran were M-11s -- also known as category 1 missiles under the Missile Technology Control Regime, or MTCR -- and can travel more than 300 kilometers (186 miles.)

China also sold missile-related technology and missile components to Pakistan and Iran, the U.S. officials said.

Chinese leader agrees to restrain regime

In addition to the alleged transfers to Pakistan and Iran, U.S. officials have suspected China of providing missiles and related technology to Libya and North Korea.

China has denied transferring missiles or related technologies to other countries. Beijing showed a renewed interest in controlling the spread of missiles after Pakistan and India traded tit-for-tat nuclear test explosions in 1998.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed later that year during a summit in Beijing with U.S. President Bill Clinton to abide by, but not sign, the 13-year-old control regime. The MTCR is a voluntary institution of countries pledging missile restraint.

CNN State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---

A Parting Deal With China
Clinton Declares, Immediately Waives Ballistic Missile Proliferation Sanctions

ABC News
10/22/00
By David Ruppe
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/chinamissilepolicy_001122.html

Nov. 22 - In a most unusual maneuver, the Clinton Administration imposed economic sanctions on China for allowing missile technology to go to Pakistan and Iran - and then immediately waived them.

The waiver was prompted, officials said, by a new vow from Beijing to stop allowing destabilizing ballistic technologies to other countries.

The sanctions, which would have restricted the use of Chinese missile technology for U.S. commercial satellite launches, were required by law if the U.S. government had evidence of Chinese ballistic missile proliferation.

State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher, during a regularly scheduled briefing, described the proliferation the U.S. government believes occurred, including the transfer of complete ballistic missiles to Pakistan.

Boucher said the Administration's waiver was made "in consideration of" newly announced Chinese policies against allowing the spread of ballistic missile technology and a strengthening of its export control system.

Can Beijing Be Trusted?

The waiver was criticized by a long-time Republican critic of the administration's China proliferation policy.

"Their arms control record is a dismal disaster, and for them to say that China has made this new promise is absolutely ridiculous," said Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. "It's laughable, except for the severity of what they're doing."

"There is no reason to believe that China will be any more truthful in its promises on non-proliferation than it has been in the past," said Larry Wortzel, director of the Asian Studies Center at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"It comes at a time when the Congress is out of town, when the nation is transfixed by elections. I think that it is a response probably to an awful lot of campaign financing," he said.

The State Department's Boucher conceded the success of the waiver would depend on whether China lived up to its commitments.

"Its value ultimately will depend on whether those commitments are implemented fully and conscientiously," he said.

China's 'Commitment'

Boucher specifically cited a statement made Tuesday by China's foreign ministry spokesperson, which he said reflected a "clear policy commitment" not to assist other countries to develop ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons, and to improve its technology controls.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Boucher said that stated "commitment" was part of deal with the Chinese - negotiated over several years - whereby the U.S. would not impose sanctions required by China's past assistance to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran.

"What we've done here is to work out an arrangement that commits China not to assist other countries in the development of missile technology ... to put in place comprehensive missile-related export controls," he said.

China's Prior Violations

The United States for years has tried to discourage countries with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons from spreading those destabilizing technologies around the globe.

Despite those efforts, some Chinese entities had previously transferred to Pakistan what the United States considers the most destabilizing types items such as "complete missiles," their major subsystems or their production facilities, according to Boucher.

Boucher also said components of materials used to make ballistic missiles and subsystems were also transferred to Pakistan, and similarly serious technology was transferred to Iran.

There has been great tension over the past year between Pakistan and India, each of which tested nuclear weapons and have test-fired ballistic missiles that could deliver them.

Reluctance to Sanction?

The sanctions announced Tuesday, of course, were never imposed.

"Obviously, you can't waive sanctions that aren't in place. In this particular case, the imposition and the waiver occur at the same time," said a State Department official on condition of anonymity.

Rep. Weldon says he and others in Congress have tried unsuccessfully for years to get the Clinton administration to implement tough sanctions against China for suspected transfers of ballistic missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

"I did a floor speech two years ago where I documented 37 violations of existing arms control treaties by China and Russia. The administration imposed the required sanctions twice," said Weldon.

"The other 35 times with China and Russia the administration pretended the violation had not occurred or they said they did not have enough evidence," he said.

Boucher was not asked to address why the administration only now - when the Chinese agreed not to proliferate any longer - decided to impose these particular sanctions.

The State Department official who would not be identified would not say if the administration had any new information on Chinese proliferation. The source said only that such information on proliferation "was developing over time."

"As information was developing, we were talking to the Chinese about our concerns, and why we though that exports of this kind were regionally destabilizing," the official said.

Boucher disputed a suggestion by a reporter the United States was letting China off the hook.

"I would make the argument that the goal here is not to put somebody on the hook or off the hook. The goal here is to end sales of missiles and missile-related components," he said.

Pakistani, Iranian Entities Sanctioned

Boucher also announced the United States will impose two-year sanctions against certain Iranian and Pakistani entities that received the Chinese technology, and that those sanctions would be announced shortly.

Those entities included a subsection of Pakistan's Ministry of Defense: the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and its sub-units.

But Boucher suggested those sanctions would not be a big deal for either country.

"Because of the ongoing U.S. embargoes against Iran and pre-existing U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, the new sanctions will actually have very limited economic effect, but they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

Victory for U.S. Companies

The waiver was received warmly by the U.S. satellite industry.

"I think it kind of re-enforces the things that we've been saying all along, which is that satellites were never the problem here, it's always been about launch technology and missile technology," says Clayton Mowry, Executive Director of the Satellite Industry Association.

He says U.S. satellite manufacturers have been concerned about losing market share to European companies and the potential Chinese market for telecommunications services.

According to Boucher, the sanctions would have prohibited discussions on extending a 1995 U.S.-China agreement regarding international trade and commercial launch services. Washington several months ago had decided against negotiating a new agreement to replace the 1995 one which expires next year, he said.

"If the sanctions had been imposed upon the Chinese entities, one consequence would have been to preclude commercial space interactions, like launches of U.S. satellites on Chinese rockets," said Boucher.

The State Department also will resume processing license applications for American satellites to be launched on Chinese rockets. The applications were put on hold in February over concerns Chinese companies had continued exporting missile-related materials to Pakistan and Iran.

Some have argued that allowing U.S. companies to launch satellites on hired Chinese rockets can help China improve military missile capabilities.

"The FY 1999 Defense Authorization Act, and the Cox Commission report, and the indictment of the Loral Corp., and the grand jury investigation still of Hughes Corp. make it very clear that providing satellite assistance to China increases China's ability to target the United States.

---

China Pledges Not to Aid International Missile Development

Fox News
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By Christopher Bodeen Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/world/112200/china.sml

China has made its strongest commitment to date not to sell nuclear missile technology abroad, winning an immediate promise from Washington to forgo possibly bruising sanctions and to boost commercial space cooperation.

The deal between the two countries is aimed at curbing missile proliferation and should head off punitive legislation aimed at China in the U.S. Congress. Both sides hope it will put to rest a long and contentious issue between Washington and Beijing.

Minutes after China made its pledge late Tuesday in Beijing, the State Department praised the move as helping "achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security."

Both sides reap immediate benefits. China wins a reprieve from U.S. sanctions against Chinese companies suspected of transferring dangerous missile technology. It also gains a promise from Washington to begin processing licenses for commercial space cooperation, including the launching of U.S. satellites by China.

For its part, the United States is freed from imposing sanctions that could undermine fragile ties with Beijing and wins assurances that Pakistan, Iran and North Korea won't be benefiting from any new Chinese missile technology.

"This is China's clearest and most complete statement on missile proliferation," said Phillip Saunders, a China proliferation expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "If there are loopholes, it's not evident."

China also hopes the step will head off planned legislation in Congress requiring the U.S. president to report on Chinese missile technology transfers and potentially level sanctions for violations.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi, in remarks carried by China's Xinhua News Agency, said Clinton administration officials have opposed the legislation and will recommend the same position to the next president.

China's pledge, made in comments by Sun, moved it closer to full compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime - a 13-year-old agreement signed by 32 countries that restricts transfers of missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, along with their components.

Beijing agreed two years ago not to transfer whole missile systems, but has taken a more ambiguous approach to components and technology that could end up as parts of systems.

Under the agreement, China will for the first time publish a list of restricted missile-related and dual-use items. Controls to stop unlicensed transfers of missile technology will be improved and transfers to countries developing nuclear-capable missiles will be subject to special scrutiny even if export of the technology isn't banned outright, Sun said.

Although Sun did not mention specific countries, Washington has suspected China of aiding the missile programs of Pakistan, Iran and North Korea since the early 1990s and has in the past imposed sanctions on Chinese companies.

Evidence has grown about Beijing's transfers of missile technology. Intelligence reports over the past two years have sketched continuing Chinese assistance to Pakistan since the early 1990s. A CIA report in August also found that Chinese firms sent missile-related items, raw materials and other assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Experts say China has progressively committed to wider and more specific controls following years of nudging by the Clinton administration. After Pakistan and India traded nuclear test explosions in 1998, Beijing showed renewed interest in controlling the spread of missiles.

However, Beijing has publicly denied ever transferring missiles or related technology to foreign countries.

Pakistan responded in similar form on Wednesday, reiterating denials that it bought missile technology in defiance of international agreements. Pakistan possesses a minimum nuclear deterrence that needs neither American nor Chinese technology to sustain it, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.

In its response to the Chinese announcement, the State Department said new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China in the past.

---

Boeing gets another shot at satellite launches
Clinton, China make agreement to boost commercial space cooperation

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF and NEWS SERVICES
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/business/boe225.shtml

BEIJING -- China has made its strongest commitment to date not to sell nuclear missile technology abroad, winning an immediate promise from the United States to forgo possibly bruising sanctions and to boost commercial space cooperation.

The agreement, announced yesterday by China and the Clinton administration, will allow U.S. companies, including Boeing, to apply again for licenses to launch satellites on Chinese rockets.

However, The New York Times quoted unnamed State Department officials as saying Boeing Space and Communications, the former Hughes Electronic Corp. subsidiary based in Southern California, and Loral Space and Communications would not be affected by the sanction waiver.

The two companies, which were at the forefront of satellite launches in China, are being investigated to determine whether they improperly advised the Chinese on rocket design in the mid-1990s without obtaining State Department licenses.

The companies have denied any wrongdoing, but officials said they will not be able to apply for licenses until the cases are resolved.

Loral, however, said yesterday it may be among the first companies to benefit from the decision. "On the face of it, this sounds like a terrific breakthrough for the U.S. satellite business," said William Wright, president of Loral Space Systems Asia-Pacific.

Boeing said it needed time to analyze the accord. "Boeing will monitor all developments closely," said Connie Custer, communications manager for the company's government relations office in Washington, D.C.

"We will comply with all government regulations," she said. "But it is premature for us to talk about the actions that Boeing will take."

Boeing Space and Communications, the nation's top satellite manufacturer, is headquartered in Seal Beach, Calif.

---

China Escapes U.S. Arms Sanctions, Iran, Pakistan Hit

Inside China Today
Nov 22, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=222831

WASHINGTON -- (Reuters) The United States said on Tuesday it was waiving sanctions against China for past missile technology transfers to Iran and Pakistan but imposing them on these two states for receiving the equipment.

http://www.reuters.com

"The U.S. side has decided to waive sanctions under U.S. law for past Chinese assistance to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran, and to resume certain commercial space interactions with China," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

"Sanctions have been imposed upon Pakistani and Iranian recipients of the Chinese assistance," he added.

China was liable for sanctions because of the transfers of technology including whole missiles, in Pakistan's case, or in Iran's, of components to make them, Boucher said.

But President Bill Clinton, who leaves office in January, had granted a waiver because China's foreign ministry had pledged to clean up its act on arms technology exports.

A senior State Department official said that in the case of Iran, China's pledge to control exports "can certainly make a big impact in terms of slowing down developments".

He said the shorter the range of missile, the less Iran's dependence on foreign technology. "If they want an advanced missile capability, the horse is not yet out of the barn."

CHINESE RECOVERY, SLOW IRANIAN THAW

U.S.-Sino relations have been gradually recovering since last year when U.S. jets on a NATO mission against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic hit China's embassy in Belgrade in a bombing the United States has always said was accidental.

Though Boucher said the sanctions would have little impact on Iran because of an existing embargo, the announcement was unlikely to improve the tone of a diplomatic "pas-de-deux" as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refers to efforts to improve ties with reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

Boucher said existing sanctions also spelled limited impact on Pakistan, but that the new ones sent "a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

India and Pakistan are subject to U.S. sanctions because of their tit-for-tat nuclear tests of 1998.

Iran remains among seven nations labeled by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism for its opposition to the Middle East peace process, a designation which robs it of much U.S. aid.

What the United States calls Iran's desire for weapons of mass destruction also boosted arguments in the United States for a missile defense shield which would cost tens of billions of dollars to build but Clinton has deferred to his successor.

Boucher said the waiver meant the United States could resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation with Chinese companies, and talks on extending a 1995 deal on international trade and commercial launch services.

But the U.S. government would impose a two-year ban on export licenses for commerce-and state-controlled items in all new U.S. government contracts on several entities in Iran and Pakistan, and their subunits and successor bodies.

In Iran, the Defense Industries Organization, defense ministry and Armed Forces Logistics Command were affected.

In Pakistan, the affected bodies were the defense ministry and Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission.

Boucher said Beijing's foreign ministry had given a clear policy commitment not to help other states to develop ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear weapons.

It also pledged to improve its export control system, including publishing at an early date a full list of missile-related items, including dual-use ones, Boucher added.

He said the waiver depended on Beijing keeping its promise. "In that connection, while the United States is waiving sanctions that would otherwise be imposed for past transfers to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran, the waiver does not apply to any transfers that might occur in the future."

He added, "We're confident that the next administration will follow this question closely."

---

China Pledges No More Missile Deals
U.S. won't impose sanctions for exporting technology to other nations

San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
Norman Kempster, Los Angeles Times
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/11/22/MN52960.DTL

Washington -- The Clinton administration agreed yesterday not to punish China for exporting ballistic missile components to Iran and Pakistan after Beijing promised to end all future technological cooperation with countries trying to develop missile weaponry.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Chinese promise -- if kept -- would bring Beijing into "the international nonproliferation mainstream" after years of insisting that it had the right to sell missile parts and some other weapons technology to any country willing to pay for them.

Boucher said the administration had determined that China's sales to Iran and Pakistan would require sanctions under U.S. law. But he said Washington agreed to waive the regulations to acknowledge the Chinese pledge, which was hammered out during protracted negotiations.

But Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., a longtime critic of President Clinton's policy of engagement with China, said the administration traded a waiver of U.S. law for a vague promise that may not be kept.

"We are all agreed that winning compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime is good policy," Cox said in a telephone interview, referring to an international accord to limit exports of missile technology. But, he complained, "the waiver of U.S. law is in exchange for virtually the same promise that (China) made in October 1994 and then violated."

The moves, announced about the same time in Washington and Beijing, marked a substantial warming in U.S.-China relations, which were badly damaged when U. S. bombs erroneously hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia last year.

Among other steps, officials said that China will, for the first time, publish a comprehensive list of "missile-related items and dual-use items" whose export will be restricted.

"This is China's clearest and most complete statement on missile proliferation," said Phillip Saunders, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons transfers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "If there are loopholes, it's not evident."

In addition to holding off on mandatory sanctions, Boucher said, the administration agreed to resume consideration of the use of Chinese rockets to launch U.S.-manufactured satellites. U.S.-China cooperation on satellites was suspended after a controversy over charges that in 1996, American companies gave U.S. secrets to China to help the Beijing regime determine why a Chinese rocket exploded during the unsuccessful launch of a U.S. satellite.

At the same time as it was relaxing its attitude toward China, the administration imposed sanctions on the military and space agencies of Pakistan and Iran for receiving the Chinese technology. Boucher said the sanctions prohibit new U.S. government contracts with either government's military and space programs.

But, he said, the restrictions will have very limited economic impact because such transactions are already banned by an existing U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier sanctions against Pakistan in response to its 1998 nuclear tests.

"But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs," Boucher said.

A senior State Department official said that if China lives up to its pledge, it will certainly slow Iran's missile development program. He said Tehran is able to build short-range missiles on its own but needs help if it wants to produce longer-range rocketry.

---

China promises not to sell missiles

Florida Today
November 22, 2000
By Charles Hutzler Associated Press Writer
http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000b/112200a.htm
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/6/news/docs/036707.htm

BEIJING (AP) -- China promised Tuesday not to sell missiles or components to countries developing nuclear weapons, easing tensions with Washington over long-suspected Chinese assistance to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

A statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Sun said that China will improve controls to stop unlicensed transfers of missile technology and -- for the first time -- publish a comprehensive list of "missile-related items and dual-use items" whose export will be restricted.

For countries developing nuclear-capable missiles, "China will exercise special scrutiny and caution, even for items not specifically contained on the control list," Sun said. He added that before issuing export licenses, China will consider whether an item could be diverted to missile programs.

Although Sun did not mention specific countries, Washington has suspected China of aiding the missile programs of Pakistan, Iran and North Korea since the early 1990s and has in the past imposed sanctions on Chinese companies.

In response to China's statement, the U.S. State Department announced it would forgo imposing sanctions on Chinese companies previously involved in spreading the dangerous technologies and would begin processing licenses for commercial space cooperation, including the launching of U.S. satellites by China.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.

China's pledge and Washington's favorable response capped years of negotiations that quickened since they resumed in July following a 14-month suspension by Beijing in anger over the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

Boucher said negotiators met again earlier this month in Beijing and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed proliferation with Chinese officials at last week's meeting of Pacific Rim economies in Brunei.

"This is China's clearest and most complete statement on missile proliferation," said Phillip Saunders, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons transfers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "If there are loopholes, it's not evident."

Since the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration has tried to persuade Beijing to bolster arms controls and join international agreements while trying to avoid punishing China with broad sanctions that could undermine ties.

China has responded positively, progressively committing to broader and more specific controls, Saunders said, adding that while Beijing's "record has not been perfect, it has improved."

Evidence has grown about Beijing's transfers of missile technology. An intelligence finding last year determined that China transferred nuclear-capable M-11 missiles to Pakistan in the early 1990s. A CIA report in August said unspecified Chinese assistance to Pakistan continued in 1999. The report also found that Chinese firms provided missile-related items, raw materials and other assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

China has publicly denied ever transferring missiles or related technologies to foreign countries. After Pakistan and India traded nuclear test explosions in 1998, Beijing showed renewed interest in controlling the spread of missiles.

At a Beijing summit with President Clinton later that year, Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed to abide by, but not sign, the Missile Technology Control Regime -- a 13-year-old agreement signed by 32 countries that restricts transfers of missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

But U.S. arms control negotiators have said that China has interpreted the agreement narrowly, agreeing not to transfer whole systems but taking a more ambiguous approach to components.

China's statement on Tuesday appears to address those concerns while steering clear of formally joining the missile control pact. Sun, the Chinese spokesman, said that in drawing up a list of restricted items China will consider the practices of other countries.

---

U.S. Hails China on Missile Pledge

Associated Press
November 22, 2000 Filed at 3:20 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-China.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/001122/03/int-us-china

WASHINGTON (AP) -- China's promise to not help other countries develop ballistic missiles could slow down Iran's ambitious weapons program, U.S. officials say.

But like a similar pledge by Russia, which has not blocked all assistance to Iran, the pledge announced in Beijing and welcomed at the State Department is only as good as China's willingness to implement it, the officials said Tuesday.

Still, the administration responded by immediately waiving economic sanctions on Chinese companies suspected of assisting Pakistan and Iran in the past.

``This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

As a result, the United States will resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation between American and Chinese companies, including the launching of U.S. satellites in China, Boucher said.

The two countries also will resume negotiations on extending a 1995 agreement on international trade, he said.

However, Boucher said, new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China.

In Iran, the sanctioned entities are the Defense Industry Organization, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and their sub-units.

The sanctioned entities in Pakistan are the Ministry of Defense and the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and their sub-units and successors.

Boucher said this means that for two years all new U.S. government contracts will be denied to the Pakistani Ministry of Defense, Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and there will be no imports of their products into the United States.

The new sanctions will have very limited economic effect because of a U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, Boucher said. ``But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs.''

U.S. officials are not minimizing the promise, especially since it follows a similar pledge by North Korea not to export technology to countries for ballistic missile programs.

China's promise not to sell missiles or components to countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could ease tensions with Washington over long-suspected aid to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

The statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

``China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

---

China to Stop Selling A-Arms Delivery Systems

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22MISS.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - The Clinton administration and China said today that China had pledged to stop selling missile parts or the equipment needed for missile production to countries developing nuclear weapons.

In exchange, Washington agreed to waive economic sanctions for past sales of such matériel to Iran and Pakistan, the State Department said. This will allow American companies to apply again for licenses to launch satellites on Chinese rockets.

The agreement would help bring China into line with international standards restricting missile-related exports, officials said. They said that step, like membership in the World Trade Organization, would push China to be more responsible.

But in announcing the accord, which President Clinton and President Jiang Zemin reviewed at their meeting last week in Brunei, officials cautioned that China's pledges have yet to be enacted. "This looks good on paper," said one senior official involved in the talks. "What we'll have to watch is implementation," a job for the next administration.

The most promising aspect of the accord, officials said, was China's commitment to adopt an export-control list under which Beijing would require Chinese companies to get licenses to export "equipment, materials and technology that can be directly used in missiles, as well as missile-related dual-use items."

But the Chinese failed to specify what penalty companies would suffer if they exported without licenses.

It was also unclear how thoroughly the export-control list would be in compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime. That agreement, which restricts sales of specific missiles and missile parts, was signed by 32 countries, but not China.

China's continued export of missile production facilities to Pakistan has been of particular concern in Washington since the nuclear tests by Pakistan and India in 1998.

The issue complicated White House efforts to win Senate passage of a bill this year granting China permanent normal trade relations, especially after American intelligence agencies reported that China exported a few dozen long-range missiles to Pakistan in 1992 and sent missile production facilities in the 1990's. Among the items China sent to Pakistan after the 1998 nuclear tests were specialty steels and guidance systems.

The announcement today, in effect, confirms those Chinese exports, which under American law required sanctions. The administration said today that while technically it was imposing the sanctions, it was waiving them in view of the new pledges.

For American companies, the immediate effect will be the unfreezing of licence applications to launch American satellites on Chinese rockets. Applications were frozen in February because of concerns that Chinese aerospace companies were exporting missile-related materials to Pakistan and Iran.

Many American companies, from cellular telephone networks to international television conglomerates, are waiting in line for satellites to be sent into orbit, and China has expressed eagerness to offer low-cost services.

Two American companies at the forefront of satellite launches in China, Hughes Space and Communications International and Loral Space and Communications, will not be affected by the waiving of sanctions, officials said, because they are under investigation to determine whether they improperly advised the Chinese on rocket design in the mid-1990's without obtaining licenses. The companies have denied any wrongdoing, but officials said they would not be allowed to apply for licenses until the cases are resolved.

In the past, Washington has twice imposed sanctions on China for its proliferation of missiles.

Each time the sanctions were lifted on the strength of promises made by Beijing. In 1991 sanctions were imposed on China for assisting Pakistan's missile program in the late 1980's; they were lifted a year later. In 1993 sanctions were imposed for China's help to Pakistan for the building of M-11 missiles; they were removed in 1994 when China agreed to comply with the main provisions of the technology control regime.

In light of China's past record, the agreement today was greeted with some skepticism. Senator Fred Thompson, Republican of Tennessee, said, "Once again, the Clinton administration appears to be rewarding China for promises made instead of promises kept."

A Democratic staff aide said the "jury was still out." But the agreement appeared, for the first time, to rule out any kind of Chinese assistance for missile programs in other countries, the aide said.

Yet the accord merely says in its first paragraph that China has no "intention" of assisting, in any way, any country to develop ballistic missiles that can be be used to deliver nuclear weapons, the aide said.

At a State Department briefing, a senior official was asked if the administration was letting China off the hook. In reply, the official argued that having made the "legal determination" that China had indeed exported missiles, exports that required sanctions, the administration then chose to waive the penalties.

"The purpose of the law after all is not to impose penalties," the official said. "The purpose is to encourage better nonproliferation behavior."

---

U.S. Waives Proliferation Penalties On China

Washington Post
Wednesday, November 22, 2000 ; Page A20
By John Lancaster Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48973-2000Nov21.html
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858829s.htm

The Clinton administration yesterday announced the waiver of penalties against China for supplying missile parts to Iran and Pakistan, after Chinese officials formally pledged to end the practice. Republicans promptly accused the administration of rewarding China for a mere promise, rather than concrete action.

Administration officials said China would be exempted from sanctions even though the United States has determined that Chinese companies have exported ballistic missile components and technology to Iran and Pakistan. Among other things, the exemption will permit U.S. and Chinese companies to resume cooperation on commercial space ventures, including the launching of satellites.

The announcement of the waiver was timed to coincide with a declaration yesterday by the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing that "China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons." China pledged to implement a formal system of export controls, including restrictions on "dual-use" technology with military and civilian applications.

Administration officials described the Chinese declaration as a major diplomatic milestone. "You've got for the first time a very clear and unequivocal Chinese statement opposing the proliferation of missiles," said a senior official involved in formulating the deal. "On paper, they've really been very specific about the kinds of steps they're prepared to take."

At the same time, the official added, "All of us recognize that the key here is going to be implementation."

That concern is sure to resonate in Congress, where some Republicans have accused the administration of looking the other way as China peddled missile technology abroad. Critics expressed doubts yesterday as to China's sincerity and questioned why the administration waited until after the presidential election to make the controversial announcement.

"Once again, the Clinton administration appears to be rewarding China for promises made instead of promises kept," Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.), a frequent critic of administration nonproliferation efforts, said in a statement. "China has an abysmal track record at living up to nonproliferation agreements. However, rather than sanctioning China for its repeated violations, this administration has again chosen to lower the bar."

Administration officials said the timing of the announcement was dictated by the fact that the deal was not formally closed until President Clinton met last week with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on the margins of an economic summit in Brunei.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the U.S. and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement. "In consideration of China's commitment to strengthen its missile-related export control system, we have decided to waive economic sanctions required by U.S. law for past assistance by Chinese entities to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran."

Chinese missile exports have long been a source of tension in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. In 1994, China pledged to stop selling M-11 missiles to Pakistan; it also has pledged to abide by the principles of the Missile Control Technology Regime, which China has not formally joined. Nevertheless, administration officials say, China has continued to supply missile technology--including motors, materials and guidance systems--to Iran and Pakistan.

A senior administration official yesterday described Chinese sales to Pakistan's ballistic missile program as "quite significant" and somewhat less so in the case of Iran, which gets most of its missile-related technology from North Korea and Russia. Iran also is believed to be pursuing a nuclear capability.

Eager to avoid an open breach with Beijing, especially given its desire to promote free trade with China, the administration has instead pursued a path of quiet persuasion. But its efforts have been complicated by China's anger over American arms sales to Taiwan. Last summer, for example, Chinese officials made clear that they had little interest in curbing their missile-related exports so long as Washington was considering the sale of theater missile defenses to Taipei.

But a series of high-level meetings appears to overcome those differences, at least in part. In an unannounced trip to Beijing earlier this month, Robert Einhorn, the assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation affairs, and Gary Samore, a nonproliferation specialist on the National Security Council, worked out details of the agreement with their Chinese counterparts, officials said. Clinton and Jiang then gave it the final go-ahead last week.

Notwithstanding its irritation over Taiwan, China had a powerful incentive for cooperating: The imposition of sanctions would have barred U.S.-Chinese cooperation on commercial space ventures, such as launches of U.S. satellites on Chinese rockets, which are a major source of hard currency for China. The administration had suspended such cooperation pending the outcome of the sanctions review.

---

Beijing avoids sanctions for sales of arms technology

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-20001122223041.htm

The Clinton administration announced yesterday that it will not impose sanctions on China for selling missile technology and components to Iran and Pakistan, although it did impose sanctions on those countries for purchasing the equipment.

U.S. officials said they waived the sanctions in exchange for a promise from a Chinese government spokesman to curb further sales, the third time since 1992 that the U.S. government has lifted or waived sanctions based on Beijing's promises to curb further sales of missile-related goods.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in a statement, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, that "China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. government welcomed the statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," he said.

"Given the relationship between missile nonproliferation and peaceful space cooperation, the United States will now resume the processing of licenses that are necessary for commercial space cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese companies, such as launching U.S. satellites in China," Mr. Boucher said.

Mr. Sun's statement strongly resembled statements made by Chinese government officials in 1992 and 1994 when U.S. sanctions for China's sales of missiles and know-how were waived.

"While it's encouraging that the Clinton administration has finally at the twelfth hour decided to adhere to U.S. law in imposing sanctions, it is utterly discouraging that they decided to waive those sanctions and secured nothing from the Chinese other than a repetition of worthless pledges they made in 1992 and 1994," said a Senate aide involved in weapons-proliferation issues.

The sanctions imposed on Pakistan and Iran block all export licenses to those countries for two years. Those sanctions are not likely to have much effect on the countries because of their limited trade with the United States.

The action, announced by the State Department, means U.S. satellite companies will be able to launch more U.S. satellites on Chinese rocket boosters, a practice that has resulted in the improper sharing of U.S. missile technology by at least three U.S. manufacturers.

U.S. intelligence officials have said the missile know-how improved the reliability of Chinese nuclear missiles, including more than a dozen the CIA believes are targeted on U.S. cities.

The U.S. waiver came under a law that requires sanctions on nations engaged in missile and related technology sales to nations that are not part of the 29-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

China promised in the past to abide by the terms of the MTCR without becoming a formal signatory.

Numerous U.S. intelligence reports have indicated China's sales have continued unabated for several years.

The CIA stated in its semiannual report to Congress made public in February that China was continuing to sell missile goods to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, despite pledges not to do so.

With regard to Pakistan, the report concluded that "some ballistic missile assistance continues." The report also stated that China was involved in missile-related transfers to Libya and Syria.

Two U.S. satellite makers, Loral Space & Communications Ltd., and Hughes Electronics, currently are under federal investigation for improperly sharing missile technology with China in the mid-1990s.

Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz was one of the largest contributors to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and lobbied aggressively to loosen controls on satellite exports to China.

A third U.S. company, Lockheed Martin, agreed in June to pay a fine of $13 million for the company's role in improperly sharing missile-related technology with China.

Mr. Boucher said that if China implements its latest commitment, it would be "another important step by China to join the international nonproliferation mainstream."

Sanctions could be imposed on China in the future if it does not live up to the latest promises, he said.

Mr. Boucher said the transfers involved Chinese "entities" that sold complete missiles, major subsystems or production facilities to Pakistan.

Other officials said the reference was to China's sale of M-11 missiles to Pakistan and related production assistance.

Other Chinese firms sold transfers of less significant missile-related components or technology to Iran, he said.

In lifting sanctions on China in 1994, the State Department said China had agreed it will "not export ground-to-ground missiles" barred under the MTCR.

China's foreign minister at the time, Qian Qichen, stated in Washington that after the U.S. sanctions are lifted, "China will make the commitment not to sell the missiles."

The Bush administration in 1992 announced it was lifting missile sanctions after Beijing issued a promise not to sell missiles to nations outside the MTCR.

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan protests new U.S. sanctions
Measures imposed for missile technology deals with China

MSNBC
11/22/00
REUTERS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/493324.asp?cp1=1

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 22 - Pakistan said on Wednesday U.S. sanctions on Islamabad over alleged missile technology transfers from China were not justified and urged Washington to lift them. The appeal came after the U.S. waived sanctions against China for its part in the transactions.

"WE CONSIDER these measures unwarranted and unjustified," foreign ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan told Reuters, denying Pakistan had received technology which contravened international guidelines on missile technology transfers.

He was commenting on the imposition of sanctions on Pakistan and Iran unveiled by the United States on Tuesday. Washington said the two countries had received missile technology from China in the past.

"It is our hope that the U.S. will review the decision and remove these latest sanctions as well as those which it had imposed ... two years ago," said a statement from the foreign ministry spokesman's office, referring to sanctions slapped on the country after it carried out nuclear blasts in May 1998.

Khan said Pakistan and China have repeatedly stated no such transfers had taken place and therefore there was no need for the trade curbs.

CHINA ESCAPES SANCTIONS

China was liable for sanctions because of the transfers of technology including whole missiles, in Pakistan's case, or in Iran's, of components to make them.

But on Tuesday, U.S. President Bill Clinton, who leaves office in January, granted a waiver of the sanctions because China's foreign ministry had pledged to clean up its act on arms technology exports.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the waiver meant the United States could resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation with Chinese companies, and talks on extending a 1995 deal on international trade and commercial launch services.

He said the waiver depended on Beijing keeping its promise. "In that connection, while the United States is waiving sanctions that would otherwise be imposed for past transfers to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran, the waiver does not apply to any transfers that might occur in the future."

He added, "We're confident that the next administration will follow this question closely."

NUCLEAR PROGRAM 'INDISPENSABLE'

The sanctions on Pakistan include a two-year ban on exports from the United States to Pakistan's defense ministry and Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission.

Khan said it was too early to say what impact the restrictions would have on Pakistan. "But there is very little technology we receive from the United States these days," he added.

The statement said Pakistan had an indigenous missile development program which was a part of the country's nuclear deterrent and that it was "indispensable" to its security.

"This program will be maintained and will not be affected by any discriminatory regimes," it said.

The United States poured billions of dollars in aid and military supplies into Pakistan during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979.

But a year after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Washington suspended aid and imposed sanctions because of suspicions about Pakistan's nuclear program.

Islamabad's nuclear tests, matching atomic blasts by its arch-rival India, led to worldwide condemnation and further trade and investment curbs, some of which have since been lifted. The U.S. also imposed sanctions against India for the nuclear tests.

At the time of Tuesday's announcement of the sanctions, a U.S. spokesman said the new measures sent "a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

China China has about 20 nuclear missiles capable of reaching the U.S., an arsenal regarded as primarily defensive. However, some believe a limited missile shield would be enough to invalidate China's small arsenal and spur Beijing to launch into a major nuclear weapons buildup.

Source: MSNBC.com and NBC News

---

India Hopes China Will Honor Arms Control Pledge

Reuters
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-india-c.html

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India noted China's pledge to clean up its act on arms technology exports on Wednesday, and said it hoped it would no longer have grounds to complain about missile proliferation in its region.

India, which has repeatedly accused China of aiding Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs, was responding to Washington's announcement that it was waiving sanctions against Beijing for past arms technology transfers to Iran and Pakistan.

``India has, several times in the past, voiced its grave concern about missile proliferation and the adverse impact that this has on the security environment in our region,'' the foreign ministry said in a statement.

``Such missile proliferation has unfortunately, in recent years, continued despite assurances to the contrary.''

India has fought two wars with Pakistan and one with China since its independence from Britain in 1947.

In 1998 it carried out a series of nuclear tests, citing perceptions of regional threats as the motivation for its decision to go openly nuclear. Pakistan responded within weeks with experimental blasts of its own.

The United States said on Tuesday that it was waiving sanctions against China, which it said had been imposed because of the transfers of technology, including whole missiles in Pakistan's case and components to make them in Iran's case.

``We hope that effective implementation of the agreed measures would mark a step in the right direction,'' India's foreign ministry said.

``It is our expectation that this process of proliferation...will be halted and we shall, after due assessment, not have any grounds for complaint in future.''

-------- russia

ABM: Putin moots compromise

The Hindu
11/22/00
By Vladimir Radyuhin
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/11/22/stories/03220002.htm

MOSCOW, NOV. 21. The Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, has voiced readiness for compromise with the U.S. on the controversial issue of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, while reaffirming Moscow's opposition to scrapping it.

``We believe that the destruction of the ABM Treaty can destabilise the situation in the world, but we are ready to look together for ways of resolving the problem,'' Mr. Putin told reporters after talks with the visiting British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair.

Mr. Putin's offer of further talks on the ABM Treaty appears to be linked to a new compromise proposal put forward last week by the Russian strategic forces commander, Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev. Admitting that it would be difficult for Moscow to persuade Washington not to deploy anti-missile defences in violation of the ABM Treaty, Gen. Yakovlev proposed including anti-missile systems into agreed limits on strategic weapons and introduce an unchanging general indicator of such weapons, so that a country wishing to increase one component in the equation would have to cut back on another. Mr. Putin has also proposed slashing Russian and U.S. nuclear warheads from the 3500-level under the START-2 treaty to 1500 warheads or less for each side.

Mr. Blair's one-day visit to Moscow was apparently aimed at working out an agenda for Britain's mediation between Russia and the U.S. on missile defences and strategic arms. The British Prime Minister, who was the first world leader to develop a close working relationship with Mr. Putin, is clearly anxious to cast himself in the role of a European bridge between Russia and the U.S. The Russian and British leaders have met for an unprecedented five times since Mr. Putin's election last March, and Mr. Blair today defended his close interaction with the President.

The two leaders also discussed a plan actively promoted by Mr. Blair to set up European peace-keeping forces, which Russia sees as a welcome alternative to NATO forces.

---

U.S. threatening sanctions on Russia for reneging on deal not to export arms to Iran

Seattle Times
Nation & World
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
The Associated Press
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=russia23&date=20001122

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia for reneging on a 1995 deal struck by Vice President Gore to halt Russian arms exports to Iran.

Administration officials confirmed yesterday that Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sent a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright four days before the presidential election declaring that as of Dec. 1, Russia would no longer abide by the agreement.

In response, the administration is threatening to impose targeted sanctions on any Russian government agency or private business that sells restricted weaponry to neighboring Iran.

"We've told the Russians at the highest level that there will be consequences, including the possibility of sanctions if it proceeds with its plan," said White House spokesman P.J. Crowley. "We're troubled by the Russian decision. It could have serious implications for our security in the Mideast and the security of our friends and allies."

Despite Russia's commitment over the past five years to refrain from selling sensitive weapons and technology to Iran, the U.S. intelligence community says those sales have continued at an aggressive pace. Administration officials now fear Russia's decision to abrogate the deal between Gore and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin will open the floodgates for the sale of nuclear and chemical weaponry and know-how, as well as missile technology to Iran.

"Numerous Russian entities have been providing Iran with dual-use industrial chemicals equipment and chemical production technology that could be diverted to Tehran's offensive chemical-weapons program," the CIA reported to Congress last month.

Public word of the setback came a day after the United States and China reached a deal to curb Chinese export of missile technology to such countries as Iran and Pakistan.

The deal Gore struck with Chernomyrdin became controversial in the closing weeks of Gore's presidential campaign. Republicans seized on news reports that the agreement contained a secret "aide memoir" that waived sanctions on Russia for selling Iran less sophisticated weaponry. Republicans charged Gore with deliberately keeping Congress in the dark about an agreement that lawmakers would almost certainly have opposed.

Gore responded that the "secret" portion of the agreement with Russia had been described to journalists and lawmakers at the time. He emphasized that the agreement allowed Russia to sell Iran only antiquated weaponry that would not upset the balance of power in the region, while banning the sale of more sophisticated missile and nuclear technology.

The flap took up valuable time in the Gore's campaign home stretch but did not appear to cause serious damage. Democrats dismissed the Republican criticism as pre-election politicking.

But the collapse of an agreement with Russia to prevent weapons proliferation points to what critics of the administration say has been a consistent weakness of U.S. dealing with Russia and China. The administration has been naive in reaching agreements with Moscow and Beijing that those governments have then failed to uphold, the critics charge.

The Clinton administration is trying to convince Russia to adhere to the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal and White House officials held out some hope that Moscow could yet be convinced to abide by its earlier commitments.

In the letter to Albright, which remains classified, Ivanov complained that publicity about what was supposed to have been a secret addendum to the agreement undercut the viability of the deal. Albright sent Ivanov what officials described as a brusque letter of reply. The two have had rocky relations on many issues over the past year.

Last week, President Clinton pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue, warning Putin of the possibility of sanctions and urging him to reconsider his decision. The administration was hoping to reverse Russia's position before the collapse of the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement became public. But administration officials confirmed the developments after the Ivanov letter was disclosed Wednesday in a column in The Washington Post.

Republicans, who were from the beginning sharply critical of the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal, said that its demise now requires a stern response from Washington.

"It comes as no great surprise that Russia has abrogated its commitments under the secret Gore-Chernomyrdin deal," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who chaired hearings on the deal. "Russia never adhered to those commitments in the first place. It continued to transfer weapons to Iran and, in fact, signed at least $200 million in new deals after signing the aide memoir."

Republicans, citing U.S. intelligence reports, say that purportedly antiquated weaponry sold to Iran under the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal has included a Russian Akula-Class submarine.

Russian export controls on more sophisticated arms sales have had only limited impact on the flow of weapons and technology to Iran, according to the CIA.

Also, the CIA reported, Iran is seeking nuclear-related technology "from a variety of foreign sources, especially Russia."

The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since the hostage crisis of the late 1970s. Over the past few years, overtures from both Tehran and Washington have suggested an interest in both countries in renewing ties at some level.

But the State Department continues to list Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring nation. Also, the administration is concerned that Iran is seeking to enhance its military capability not just to discourage any renewal of hostilities to Iraq but also to pose a threat to Israel and check the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf.

---

Russia Drops Pledge Not To Arm Iran

Associated Press
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Russia.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/001122/16/news-us-russia

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia has notified Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that it will no longer observe a 1995 pledge not to sell tanks and battlefield weapons to Iran, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

Russia gave as its reason that the pledge it had made to Vice President Al Gore in 1995 had been made public during the presidential campaign, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The note was received by Albright a few days before the election, and the Clinton administration is trying to get Russia to change its mind, warning that if it sold the weapons to Iran the United States would impose sanctions, the official told The Associated Press.

Russia said it would no longer abide by the pledge after Dec. 1, which gives the administration time to try to persuade the Kremlin to change its mind, the official said.

An account of Russia's action appeared Wednesday in a column by Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post.

Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, R-N.Y., said in a statement: ``It is now obvious why the administration was so evasive with regard to its secret arrangement with Russia.''

Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said ``such a misguided policy of acquiescence to Russian arms transfers to Iran has not been able to withstand public scrutiny and has now collapsed of its own weight.''

He urged the administration to punish Russia quickly with economic sanctions.

Gore came under severe attack from Republicans during the campaign and from a group of former senior officials in Republican and Democratic administrations. He was accused of acquiescing in dangerous arms sales to Iran.

The Democrats responded that the agreement with former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin effectively curbed Russia's sale of dangerous weapons to Iran.

The Russian action surfaced a day after announcement by China that it would not help Iran and Pakistan develop ballistic missiles. U.S. officials welcomed the pledge and said it could slow down Iran's ambitious weapons program.

But they said a similar pledge by Russia had not blocked all assistance to Iran, and China's promise would have to be implemented to be worthwhile.

Still, the administration responded by immediately waiving economic sanctions on Chinese companies suspected of assisting Pakistan and Iran in the past.

``This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

As a result, the United States will resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation between American and Chinese companies, including the launching of U.S. satellites in China, Boucher said.

The two countries also will resume negotiations on extending a 1995 agreement on international trade, he said.

However, Boucher said, new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China.

In Iran, the sanctioned entities include the Defense Industry Organization, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.

The sanctioned entities in Pakistan include the Ministry of Defense and the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and their sub-units.

Boucher said this means that for two years all new U.S. government contracts will be denied to the Pakistani Ministry of Defense, Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and there will be no imports of their products into the United States.

The new sanctions will have very limited economic effect because of a U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, Boucher said. ``But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missile programs.''

China's promise not to sell missiles or components to countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could ease tensions with Washington over long-suspected aid to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

The statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

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

-------- idaho

Hanford loses out to Idaho for plutonium project

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/plut22ww.shtml

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- A type of plutonium used to power spacecraft will be produced in Idaho rather than at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state, Energy Department officials have decided.

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory was selected to produce plutonium-238, the most radioactive form of the element, and the extraction process will be handled at a plant in Tennessee, the department announced Tuesday.

Heat from the radiation is used to generate electricity and "keep things from freezing up," laboratory spokesman Brad Bugger said.

The plutonium-238 will be used on the spacecraft the National Aeronautics and Space Administration wants to send to Pluto after 2020.

The decision includes shutting down, decontaminating and decommissioning the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford, which also had been considered for the work.

The Snake River Alliance, a nuclear watchdog group, was relieved that the recovery process will not be done in Idaho. That process produces a great deal of liquid, radioactive waste, director Gary Richardson said.

Laboratory officials say producing the plutonium is no different from making other medical and commercial isotopes at the site's Advanced Test Reactor.

"We handle radioactive isotopes of all types on a regular basis," Bugger said.

An isotope is a form of an element with a slightly different nuclear configuration. Nuclear weapons typically use plutonium-239.

The reactor is the only operating reactor at the laboratory. It also performs research on fuel for the Navy's nuclear powered ships.

-------- kentucky

Price tag goes up for cleanup at Paducah plant

Evansville Courier & Press
11/22/00
By The Associated Press
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200011/22+price112200_news.html+20001122

PADUCAH, Ky. - Cleanup of radioactive metal drums from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant will exceed the $7 million bid by about 40 percent, officials said.

The Energy Department, which owned the plant for 50 years, has agreed to pay the higher amount, said Greg Cook, a spokesman for cleanup contractor Bechtel Jacobs Co. The cost is still below the department's internal estimate of $12 million to clean up the drum pile.

But an environmentalist who heads the community advisory board that monitors the Paducah site said the cost overrun, while not significant in terms of the entire cleanup budget for the plant, is still troubling.

"A 40 percent overrun, if you talk about the entire cleanup over a number of years, is probably something that would raise eyebrows," said Mark Donham of Brookport, Ill. "It's pretty significant if you carry that over the entire contract."

The cost of the four-month project escalated primarily because much more "non-conforming" material - mostly different types of drums and other metal pieces - was discovered in the pile than engineers thought would be there, Cook said. The material had to be tested before being packed for shipment and disposal.

Various government estimates have said it will take from $3 billion to $5 billion to clean up the Paducah plant of radioactive materials and cancer-causing solvents that leaked into the soil and tainted underground water supplies.

When work began on the drum mound, it stood 40 feet high and nearly covered the space of a football field. Bechtel Jacobs contracted the job to the United States Enrichment Corp., which leases parts of the plant to enrich uranium for use as nuclear power plant fuel.

The drum removal project was troubled from the start. It faced repeated equipment breakdowns, and the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection cited it for excessive dust and impeding access by state inspectors. Those allegations are pending, said Walter Perry, an Energy Department spokesman.

Engineers had estimated that the drum pile's "non-conforming" material - primarily other types of drums and metal pieces - would fill five storage boxes and five barrels. It ended up going in 129 storage boxes and 24 barrels, Cook said.

But Cook said tests showed most of the additional material was suitable for shipment to the same Utah disposal site designated for the drums. Because the questioned material had to be shredded and crushed for shipment, work is "not quite over yet," he said.

-------- new mexico

Lars-Erik Nelson, 59, Writer Of Columns at The Daily News

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22NELS.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Lars- Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News who covered and commented on the collapse of Communism and other events that shaped history, died on Monday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 59.

The cause of death was apparently a stroke, his family said.

Mr. Nelson joined The Daily News's Washington staff in 1979 and was bureau chief for about a decade before becoming a columnist for Newsday in 1993. In 1995, he returned to The Daily News as a columnist. He also wrote for The New York Review of Books.

Mr. Nelson defended President Clinton early on as the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, investigated Mr. Clinton's actions in connection with Monica Lewinsky. In late July 1998, amid growing evidence of a relationship between Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Nelson said the president should ask to be impeached to clear the air.

"Yes, impeachment would create a constitutional crisis," he wrote, "but a constitutional crisis fought in the sunshine is better than these termites nibbling at the presidency in the dark."

But a few weeks later, just after Mr. Clinton had finally acknowledged his dalliance with Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Nelson skewered both the president and his pursuers: "His worst political enemies are so loathsome, so greedy, so filled with venom that any alternative, even a moral pygmy, looks better."

And last spring, Mr. Nelson condemned Mr. Starr, asserting that the president's nemesis had presided over "a bumbling, overzealous, endless search for a crime, any crime, that could be pinned on a target that had been chosen in advance: Bill Clinton."

Mr. Nelson could be tough on journalists, too. He wrote that The New York Times had been alarmist in its coverage of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the scientist who was dismissed from his job at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory for mishandling nuclear secrets. Mr. Nelson thought The Times had been too credulous in accepting the views of people who saw a serious national security threat in Dr. Lee's behavior. The scientist eventually pleaded guilty to one of 59 charges.

A native of New York City, Lars- Erik Nelson graduated from Bronx High School of Science (where he was a hurdler) and from Columbia with a degree in Russian.

Shortly after beginning his career at The Daily News, Mr. Nelson won a Merriman Smith Award, named after the longtime reporter for United Press International, for writing under deadline pressure.

Before joining The Daily News, Mr. Nelson worked at The New York Herald-Tribune and The Record of Bergen County, N.J. He was a Reuters correspondent from 1967 to 1977 in London, Moscow, Prague, New York and Washington and was briefly a diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek.

Mr. Nelson devoured books and could converse on subjects as disparate as 17th-century shipbuilding and 20th-century baseball. He enjoyed music and loved to paint, as did his father, Arthur. He was fluent in Russian, competent in Polish and Czech and knew more than a smattering of French, Italian and Japanese.

Last summer, Mr. Nelson and his daughter, Amanda, were in Prague, where he had covered the Soviet suppression of Czechoslovakia's "Prague Spring" experiment in liberalization in 1968. Amanda Nelson said her father believed not that the West had won the cold war but that the Communist system had collapsed because of it was inefficient and corrupt at its core.

He is survived by his wife, the former Mary Cantwell, known as Goody; his daughter, who lives in Philadelphia; a son, Per Kristian, of Arlington, Va., and his mother, Freda, of Spring Valley, N.Y.

He is also survived by his final column, which appeared in The Daily News today. It was about the fight over Florida's electoral votes.

"Exactly two years ago, lawyers were trying to take a President away from us," he began. "Yesterday, they were trying to give us one. And both times, we, the voters in this great democracy, could only watch."

-------- ohio

Workers to get cut of Piketon power sale
Profits from an electricity deal will go to laid-off employees and the community

Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/nov00/505343.html

WASHINGTON -- A multimilliondollar dispute over the electric power allowance of southern Ohio's uranium-enrichment plant was resolved yesterday in what is being called a win-win deal benefiting workers and the community.

The fight concerned whether USEC, the privatized federal corporation that runs the Piketon plant and will shut down the facility in June, should reap $44 million from the sale of excess power this summer.

The power was obtained at a cheap rate by the Department of Energy in a contract with the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. and turned over to USEC at privatization.

State regulators yesterday approved a plan in which USEC gets to keep much of the money in return for giving $2 million to a local economic development organization and committing up to $18 million for severance benefits for workers laid off when USEC ceases operations.

USEC has agreed to contribute $2 million in July to the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative. However, USEC has to obtain only $18 million worth of surety bonds to ensure that laid-off workers get regular severance benefits plus an additional payment of $8,400 per worker.

But if all goes as hoped, the company will not have to pay much from those bonds, which will stay in force until Sept. 30, 2003.

That is because the U.S. Department of Energy has proposed a $630 million plan to save some 1,200 jobs with such initiatives as keeping the plant on cold standby, launching a new technology pilot program and expanding cleanup efforts. USEC also plans to keep about 300 workers for shipping operations.

That would mean most workers at the plant, which enriches uranium for use as commercial nuclear power-plant fuel, would be able to slide into new jobs after USEC stops manufacturing material at Piketon. Others now may find voluntary retirement packages more attractive. And USEC would get to keep most or all of its $18 million.

"It is my sincere hope that all of the efforts I have described will have put in place an insurance policy that the workers never need to cash in,'' said Gov. Bob Taft in a letter endorsing the deal sent Monday to Alan R. Schribner, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

"We started out with absolutely nothing. We've gotten something quite significant,'' said Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, who in August sought to block the proceeds of the power sale from going to USEC. "It's a good deal.''

Officials of the union that represents many of the Piketon workers echoed those sentiments, crediting Taft, Strickland and Ohio Republican Sens. Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich for helping forge the deal.

If not for those officials, "USEC would have transferred all of the $44 million to its shareholders and none of the benefits would have gone to southern Ohio,'' said Dan Minter, president of Local 5689 of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union.

But USEC pronounced itself content yesterday as well.

"It is a win-win for everyone,'' said Elizabeth Stuckle, USEC spokeswoman.

---

USA Today
11/22/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Ohio

Columbus - State regulators approved a plan for the operator of a uranium enrichment plant in Piketon to reinvest $2 million for local economic development. The U.S. Enrichment Corp. also will make $18 million available for workers who may be laid off at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The money will come from the sale of surplus electricity.

-------- washington

Hanford reactor will stay closed
The nuclear facility's permanent closure ends some hopes for its use in cancer and space research

oregonlive.com
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By Brent Hunsberger of The Oregonian staff
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/11/n4_hanf22.frame

Federal officials plan to shut down a dormant reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation whose proposed restart had raised hopes for new cancer treatments and space exploration but also the ire of conservationists and anti-nuclear activists.

U.S. Department of Energy officials said Tuesday that the agency would permanently close the Fast Flux Test Facility beginning next year, provided Energy Secretary Bill Richardson makes the decision final in January before leaving his post.

"Using our current facilities, we expect to meet the nation's foreseeable needs for years to come," Richardson said.

The facility, the department's most modern research reactor, was built in the 1970s to test advanced nuclear fuels and components. In 1992, the Energy Department deemed the 400-megawatt reactor unnecessary and put it on standby at an annual cost of $40 million.

Since 1996, officials have discussed restarting the reactor. Last year, Richardson began a broad study of its possible uses. Ideas included supplying NASA with plutonium for space missions and producing medical isotopes to diagnose and treat cancer and other illnesses.

Energy Undersecretary Bill Magwood said Tuesday the proposal lacked support from private industry and other federal agencies.

The decision was a victory for conservationists and Democrats from the Northwest's congressional delegation, who pressured Richardson to scrap the reactor.

It was a bitter pill for researchers and the Richland, Wash., area, which would have gained an estimated 1,000 new jobs from the reactor's restart.

Proponents cite a recent market analysis by Frost & Sullivan showing that demand for medical isotopes to be used in treating illnesses grew by 32 percent last year, twice as fast as expected. Most medical isotopes used in the United States must be imported, researchers say.

Robert Schenter, a scientist for Battelle and a board member of Citizens for Medical Isotopes, pledged to work in coming months to change the department's stand. Battelle operates the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at Hanford.

"The cancer patients and their families are not going to surrender to this decision," Schenter said. "As these better treatments, using medical isotopes, come on line, there's going to be a major demand. We'll have to rely on foreign reactors."

Conservationists hopeful

Conservationists praised the decision as a much-needed boost for cleanup at Hanford, where the Energy Department plans to spend $100 billion over 50 years ridding the site of nuclear and other hazardous wastes.

They said they remained wary that a new administration might overturn Richardson's upcoming decision.

"I want to say yes, we're excited, we have a victory," said Greg deBruler of Columbia Riverkeepers. "But at the same time I am cautious. He's waiting for the final day, practically."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

You can reach Brent Hunsberger at 503-221-8359 or by e-mail at brenthunsberger@news.oregonian.com.

---

Fast Flux reactor headed for shutdown

Seattle Times
Local News : Wednesday, November 22, 2000
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=nwdigest23&date=20001122

WASHINGTON - The test nuclear reactor at Hanford that has been dormant since 1992 will not be restarted to produce plutonium for space missions and isotopes to treat cancer.

Instead, if the Energy Department finalizes a proposed rule in January, the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be shut down beginning next year.

The possibility of restarting the reactor lacked support from the private sector and other federal agencies, said Bill Magwood, an Energy Department undersecretary.

In 1999, the Energy Department began a broad study of possible uses for the reactor, which was built in the 1970s to test advanced nuclear fuels and components. The agency in 1992 deemed the reactor was no longer needed.

Oregon and Washington state Democrats have urged Energy officials not to restart the reactor, saying that even the Energy Department had found no need for plutonium or medical isotopes the FFTF would produce. In addition, nuclear waste generated from the restarted facility could not be adequately stored, they said.

---

Test Nuclear Reactor Is to Remain Closed

New York Times
November 22, 2000
National News Briefs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22NATI.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (AP) - The Energy Department said today that a test nuclear reactor in Washington State that has been dormant since 1992 would not be restarted to produce plutonium.

If the Energy Department makes final a proposed rule in January, the reactor, the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, will be shut down beginning next year.

The possibility of restarting the reactor lacked support from the private sector and other federal agencies, said Bill Magwood, a department under secretary.

Energy officials were considering using the reactor to supply NASA with plutonium for space missions and to produce medical isotopes to diagnose and treat cancer and other illnesses. It was built in the 1970's to test advanced nuclear fuels.

Oregon and Washington Democrats have urged energy officials not to restart the reactor, saying that even the Energy Department had found no need for the plutonium or medical isotopes it would produce.

---

Hanford reactor won't be restarted

USA Today
11/22/00
Page 17A Nationline
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858907s.htm

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson decided that a test nuclear reactor in Washington state that has been dormant since 1992 should not be restarted to produce plutonium and isotopes to treat cancer. If the Energy Department goes ahead, the Fast Flux Test Facility reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be shut down next year. ''The missions, while of great interest . . . were not concrete enough to proceed at this time,'' said Bill Magwood of the Energy Department. The FFTF staff at Hanford is ''very disappointed,'' said director Bruce Klos. But FFTF opponent Gerald Pollet was pleased. ''Richardson's decision honors the desire of the public to put the cleanup of Hanford first and foremost instead of adding more waste to the nation's most contaminated area,'' he said. Hanford was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, the 560-square-mile site in southeast Washington state is trying to clean up the radioactive and hazardous waste created during 40 years of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear arsenal. -- Patrick McMahon

-------- us nuc politics

NUCLEAR REPORT CARD; PRESIDENT CLINTON GRILLED ON WBAI; COLOMBIA: MORE MONEY, MORE WEAPONS, MORE DRUGS

Wed, 22 Nov 2000
"Frida Berrigan" <BerrigaF@newschool.edu>

After the holiday we HOPE to bring you our analysis of the new president elect, and the most expensive presidential campaign in history, our take on pending arms sales, and much much more!!

Stay Tuned,
Bill Hartung Michelle Ciarrocca Dena Montague Frida Berrigan

NUCLEAR REPORT CARD: Abolition 2000 issued its "Annual Progress Toward a Nuclear Free World" report card late last month, announcing an abysmal total grade of 20 out of a possible 120 points. I would be afraid to bring those grades home to mother. The report card tracks progress on Abolition 2000's eleven points. On many key issues, namely ceasing to produce and deploy new nuclear weapons, ratification of a Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, prohibitions on new nuclear research and testing in the laboratory, countries were given a 0 out of 10 grade.

On a few issues, the nations of the world made progress and were rewarded with higher grades. Progress was made in recognizing and upholding the 1996 World Court decision on the illegality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, and for that a 6 of 10 grade was given. The report concludes with a quote from Albert Einstein, "For there is no secret and no defense, there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world." Abolition 2000's report card is a great tool for arousing that understanding.

You can download the Report Card at http://www.abolition2000.org/reports/reportcard2000.html or email Pamela Meidell at Atomic Mirror to request a PDF file info@atomicmirror.org

PRESS FOR CONVERSION: The current issue of this Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) publication is centered around the theme "Nonviolent Resistance to War and Injustice." There is not enough room to list all the great articles and resources in this issue, but suffice it to say it is worth picking up. People's historian Howard Zinn has an article entitled "A Noble Tradition of U.S. Nonviolent Resistance," Gener Sharp from the Albert Einstein Institute writes on "Methods of Nonviolent Action." If you'd like to learn more visit COAT's website at www.ncf.ca/coat or contact Richard Sanders at 613-231-3076 ad207@ncf.ca

PRESIDENT CLINTON GRILLED ON WBAI: One of the most exciting post-election web gleanings is the transcript of Democracy Now host Amy Goodman's impromptu half hour interview with President Bill Clinton. She "caught" Clinton as he was making election day tree shaking calls to radio stations. The full transcript can be read or listened to at http://www.democracynow.org.

President Clinton answered a barrage of questions on the death penalty, the Middle East violence, but finally lost his temper when Goodman suggested that he was partly responsible for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader's popularity "for having driven the Democratic Party to the right." "Now you listen to this," Clinton fumed, "the other thing that Ralph Nader says is that he is as pure as Caesar's wife on the environment," and proceeded to rattle off the administration's accomplishments. Goodman then countered with questions on the administration's passage of NAFTA and its continued support of sanctions against Iraq. The questions came fast and heavy, and were challenging, well informed and refreshingly "combative," suggesting that Amy Goodman would have been a breath of fresh air as moderator of the Bush/Gore debates.

COLOMBIA: MORE MONEY, MORE WEAPONS, MORE DRUGS New Report from GAO Highlights Difficulties with Plan Colombia

In October of 1999, at the urging of the U.S., Colombian President Andres Pastrana unveiled his ambitious $7.5 billion counternarcotics effort known as Plan Colombia, with hopes of reducing drug production by 50% over 6 years. Pastrana indicated that Plan Colombia would also focus on advancing the peace process, improving the economy, reforming the judicial system, and supporting democratization and social development. But as the Center for International Policy has pointed out, while Pastrana has stated only 25% of Plan Colombia would benefit Colombia's armed forces, so far 75% of the US contribution has been targeted for the military.

The Colombian government pledged $4 billion of its budget to the plan (which, considering Colombia's economic situation is an astronomical figure), and pleaded with other governments to assist with the remaining $3.5 billion. Now, more than a year later, the U.S. has agreed to provide $1.3 billion for counter-drug activities, of which $862 million will go to Colombia, while European nations have pledged, at best, $200 million in aid.

Yet despite record increases in U.S. military assistance to Colombia over the past five years, a new report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) reveals that coca cultivation and production have more than doubled during the same time period and Colombia has also become a leading producer of heroin. As for Plan Colombia, "the total cost and activities required to meet the plan's goals remain unknown, and it will take years before drug activities are significantly reduced." Winifred Tate, senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), points out, "Instead of learning from past decades of misguided military follies, U.S. policy towards Colombia continues to focus on expanding military operations."

The GAO report focuses on the U.S. aid package for Plan Colombia (and previous counternarcotics efforts) and details the difficulties and problems encountered. Some of the report's findings include: (see link to report below in resources)

· U.S. assistance has been of limited utility because of long-standing problems in planning and implementing this assistance. For example, helicopters provided to the National Police and the military have not had sufficient spare parts or the funding to operate and maintain them to the extent necessary for conducting counternarcotics operations. · The Colombian government has not demonstrated that it has the detailed plans, management structure, and funding necessary to effectively implement its programs and achieve stated goals. · The challenge of reducing drug-related activities has become more difficult as the two largest insurgent groups (FARC and ELN) and paramilitary groups have expanded their involvement in drug trafficking. · U.S. Embassy officials stated that the National Police have not always provided necessary documents, such as budgetary and planning documents, to determine if the National Police are using the resources in accordance with eradication and interdiction plans. · According to U.S. Embassy officials, despite extensive training and other efforts to have the Colombian National Police develop a management program that would ensure a more effective aerial eradication program, little progress has been made.

The report's findings are nothing new: a multi-billion dollar military aid package is unlikely to make more than a dent in Colombia's drug production, but will continue deepening U.S. involvement in Colombia's 40-year civil war, which has claimed 35,000 lives in the past ten years alone. While the GAO report examined the financial and logistical issues plaguing U.S. efforts to stem drug production in Colombia, an article in the Fall 2000 World Policy Journal by William LeoGrande and Kenneth Sharpe delves into the deeper reasons why Plan Colombia will fail.

First, despite administration's assurances that the U.S. aid package to Colombia is to combat drug trafficking, "no one in Colombia believes that, and no one in Washington ought to either." Beefing up the Colombian armed forces is premised on the notion that a stronger Colombian army will force the guerrilla groups to the peace table. As LeoGrande and Sharpe point out, this didn't work in El Salvador, why does the U.S. think it will work in Colombia's 40-year war? Instead, "a billion dollars of US aid turned that [El Salvadoran] army into a large, well-equipped, politically powerful force that murdered noncombatant civilians with impunity for over a decade . . . the war ended when the army finally recognized that it was unwinnable - a conclusion it reached when the US cut military assistance by 50 percent, threatened to end it entirely, and threw its full diplomatic weight behind the peace process."

Secondly, LeoGrande and Sharpe note that the U.S. aid package doesn't take into account the problem of the paramilitary groups, which are heavily involved in drug trafficking and have links to the army. Like in El Salvador when the Reagan administration tolerated the death squads because they were viewed as being "an essential weapon in its war against the left," the article speculates that in Colombia too, it is likely that the U.S.'s focus on the war against the guerrillas will cause Washington to turn a blind eye to the "army's other partner in this dirty war."

Although we're still waiting to see who will be the next president of the United States, one thing is certain, neither candidate is likely to stray from the failed and favored military approach to dealing with the drug problem. The issue did not generate any attention during the three presidential debates and neither candidate has been outspoken on the issue. Both Bush and Gore support Plan Colombia and an increase in U.S. assistance to Colombia. On a positive note, both candidates have acknowledged the need for more domestic drug treatment and prevention programs, yet how they would advance this idea in a resistant Congress is unclear.

But, the question of who will take over for Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey when he officially resigns his post on January 6, 2001 will have an even greater impact on the future of U.S. drug policy. McCaffrey's repeated claims that we're winning the drug war are wearing thin. The situation in Colombia notwithstanding, domestically, drug use by junior high students has increased by 300%, prevention and treatment programs are constantly shortchanged, and the prison population is exploding with more than 400,000 non-violent drug offenders in prison. The list goes on.

The U.S. should be encouraging the peace process in Colombia, not fanning and fueling the war. As LeoGrande and Sharpe aptly put it, "Even if the United States defoliates every acre given over to growing coca, burns every laboratory, and destroys every last gram of Colombian cocaine, it will have won a hollow victory. The drug business will simple move elsewhere, as it always does. But it is the people of Colombia who will pay the price for the inability of the United States to face the fact that its 'war' on drugs can only be won at home."

COLOMBIA RESOURCES: World Policy Journal, Fall 2000, "Two Wars or One? Drugs, Guerrillas, and Colombia's New Violencia," by William M. LeoGrande and Kenneth E. Sharpe (www.worldpolicy.org/journal/leogrande.html) - Join the online interactive discussion.

The Center for International Policy is an invaluable resource for activists wanting to learn more about US aid to Colombia (www.ciponline.org/colombia/aid/).

NACLA, September/October 2000, 'Report on Colombia' - includes articles on Colombia's two major guerrilla groups (FARC and ELN), the paramilitaries connections to both the drug traffickers and Colombia's armed forces, the ongoing peace process, displaced Colombians, and biowarfare in Colombia, - www.nacla.org

State Department's September 11 report to Congress on progress toward human rights goals (required by the aid package law) at www.ciponline.org/colombia/aid/091101.htm

General Accounting Office - New report: US Assistance to Colombia Will Take Years to Produce Results - www.gao.gov/new.items/d0126.PDF

-------- us nuc waste

Rocky Flats sends most waste

Denver Rocky Mountain News
November 22, 2000
Suburban briefs
http://insidedenver.com/news/1122sbrf9.shtml

GOLDEN - The former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant shipped more radioactive waste to disposal sites this year than any other Department of Energy site, according to cleanup officials.

Rocky Flats sent 42 shipments containing 279 cubic meters of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Transuranic waste consists of clothing, tools, rags, debris, residues and other disposable items contaminated with radioactive elements, mostly plutonium.

Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons for 40 years. It was closed in 1989 after chronic safety problems and because of the end of the Cold War.

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

Arafat Criticizes U.S. for Arming Israel

Reuters
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/mideast-egypt-arafat.html

CAIRO, Nov 22 - Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat attacked the United States on Wednesday for supplying Israel with weapons used to kill Palestinians while trying to broker Middle East peace at the same time.

``The most serious thing of all...is that the weapons used (by Israel) are American -- American helicopters, American fighter planes, American armoured cars, American missiles, American shells, American bombs,'' Arafat told reporters.

``The responsibility for this is with America, the main sponsor of the peace process...(because) part of its weaponry is used in attempts to exterminate the Palestinian people.''

Arafat, who held talks with President Hosni Mubarak earlier, was speaking after a meeting of the Cairo-based People's Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada.

He had been due in Cairo on Tuesday, but postponed his trip after Israeli missile strikes on Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip in reprisal for Monday's bomb attack on a Jewish settler school bus in Gaza that killed two Israelis.

After the Israeli missile attacks, Egypt withdrew its ambassador, Mohammed Bassiouny, from Tel Aviv.

The United States has urged Egypt to reconsider its decision, saying Cairo's ``engagement'' with Israel was needed to restore calm after eight weeks of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen, on a Middle East tour, met Mubarak after the Egyptian leader's talks with Arafat, but cancelled a planned news conference afterwards.

Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said after Mubarak's talks with Arafat that the ambassador's recall gave ``a serious signal that there are limits.'' Egypt also wanted to signal that it ``supports and will continue to strive for a just and balanced peace.''

He said Egypt and the Arabs should not make war on Israel, but could not stay silent in the face of ``continued aggression.'' Israeli scare tactics were not working because ``Palestinian children are still resisting Israeli forces with rocks.''

Moussa said future Egyptian-Palestinian consultations would explore ways to revive the peace process, which has collapsed during the recent clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinians armed with stones, petrol bombs and sometimes guns.

Cairo's recall of its envoy was the biggest diplomatic blow to Israel since the violence flared on September 28. At least 251 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.

Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 after fighting four Middle East wars. It has long played a key role in facilitating peace negotiations.

Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994 and Mauritania forged full relations with the Jewish state in 1999.

-------- china

China defends lower priority for human rights

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
By Martin Fackler ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-20001122224927.htm

BEIJING - The United Nations' top human-rights official and senior Chinese leaders differed publicly yesterday over civil liberties, a day after signing an agreement to cooperate on improving Beijing's rights protections.

An exchange at a conference on economic rights underscored the differing approaches between China and the United Nations despite their agreement Monday to cooperate.

Opening the conference, Communist Party Politburo member Li Tieying insisted human rights were relative, an argument the party leadership has long used to give economic development priority over rights.

"Each country and each ethnicity has the right to determine its own system for protecting human rights based on its own special conditions," Mr. Li said.

When her turn came to speak, Mary Robinson, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged China to accept "the universality of human rights" - a concept underpinning two U.N. rights treaties that Beijing has signed but not ratified.

President Jiang Zemin echoed Mr. Li's argument when he met with Mrs. Robinson, telling her China has "its own way of promoting and protecting human rights," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Moving Beijing toward implementing the two treaties - one on economic, social and cultural rights, the other on civil and political rights - was a key goal of the new agreement, which rights groups immediately criticized as ineffective.

Under the memorandum signed by Mrs. Robinson and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya, China agreed to U.N.-sponsored seminars on reforming its police, court and labor camp systems. The first meeting, set for February, will touch on police powers to send suspects to forced-labor camps for up to three years without trial.

Mrs. Robinson hailed the agreement as nudging China closer to standards set out in the two rights pacts. But rights groups faulted the agreement for doing no more than calling for workshops and not committing China to change.

"China could use this pretense of cooperation to muzzle U.N. monitoring procedures and public criticism of its human-rights situation," New York-based Human Rights in China said in a statement.

Mrs. Robinson conceded that the agreement "won't change everything overnight" but said criticism should be mixed with efforts to help China implement reforms needed for ratification of the two rights pacts.

During an 80-minute meeting with Mr. Jiang, she also raised concerns over China's treatment of Tibetans and of the banned Falun Gong sect.

In another sign of continued obstacles, Mrs. Robinson said she inconclusively pressed Chinese leaders during her two-day visit to allow unfettered access by a U.N. special monitor on torture. The monitor's planned visit last year was scotched after China put limits on his activities.

Although China is trying to make its police force more law-abiding, reports of torture and other abuses persist. A rights group reported yesterday that two more Falun Gong members died in custody, raising the death toll among followers in the 16-month-old crackdown to at least 70.

Yang Guijun died Oct. 15 in Shandong province after a weeklong hunger strike to protest beatings, and Li Wenrui, a trade official from the northeastern city of Harbin, died Nov. 9 in Beijing in what police called a suicide, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.

-------- drug war

Morrock News, Weds., Nov. 22, 2000
THE MORROCK NEWS DIGEST
Fast, free and independent http://morrock.com
WEDNESDAY :: NOVEMBER 22, 2000 :: EMAIL EDITION

MULTINATIONAL DRUG BUST: Police in 32 countries have arrested 2,876 suspects and seized 20 tons of cocaine in drug raids over the past three weeks, officials said. Besides the cocaine, police rounded up 29 tons of marijuana, 82,170 tablets of ecstacy, 100 tons of chemicals for drug-making, and 197 guns, and burned 9 square miles of fields of marijuana, opium poppies and coca plants.

-------- iraq

New York Times
November 22, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22BRIE.html?pagewanted=2
MIDDLE EAST

IRAQ: CLAIMS OF A `HIT' Iraq said its antiaircraft defenses hit one of a group of Western warplanes patrolling the north of the country. "Evidence indicates that one of the hostile planes was hit while the rest were forced to flee to their bases in Turkey," a spokesman said. There was no immediate comment from American or British military authorities, whose planes patrol no-flight zones in southern and northern Iraq. (Reuters)

-------- myanmar

New York Times
November 22, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22BRIE.html?pagewanted=2

MYANMAR: GO-AHEAD FOR LAWSUIT Although she did not attend the hearing, the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi lost a round in court when a judge ordered that a lawsuit over her property should proceed. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's brother is suing her for half- ownership of the home where she has lived for 12 years as she defies the military junta. Seth Mydans (NYT)

-------- russia

New York Times
November 22, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22BRIE.html

RUSSIA: BLAIR'S VISIT No. 5 Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, in Moscow for his fifth meeting in a year with President Vladimir V. Putin, said that he counted Mr. Putin as a friend and that close relations with Russia were "a risk well worth taking." Mr. Putin said that he no longer sees a threat in Europe's plans for a common military force, and that he is willing to discuss further arms-control measures. Michael Wines (NYT)

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

Syria asked to confirm Iraqi oil deal

USA Today
11/22/00
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858829s.htm

The U.S. State Department asked the Syrian government whether it could confirm reports that Iraq has resumed pumping oil through a pipeline to Syria without United Nations approval. The United States is seeking to stop the erosion of U.N. sanctions imposed against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

A Syrian oil official said about 150,000 barrels a day of Iraqi crude were flowing through the line. Iraqi oil exports are monitored under a U.N. oil-for-food program that allows Baghdad to export a fixed value of crude to finance humanitarian imports.

---

U.N. war-crimes chief pushes Yugoslav case

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-20001122211754.htm

NEW YORK - Declaring that former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic must stand trial, the United Nations' chief war-crimes prosecutor said yesterday that the world should insist Belgrade surrender him.

"Milosevic must be brought to trial before the international tribunal. There simply is no alternative," prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told an open U.N. Security Council session.

She made clear that Mr. Milosevic would be the main topic of her visit with the new Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, who invited her to Belgrade in the near future. Barred from visiting under Mr. Milosevic, she will reopen the tribunal's office in Belgrade.

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

CHECKPOINT SAPPER JOURNAL
G.I.'s in Kosovo Are Judges, Jailers, and Much More

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22KOSO.html

CHECKPOINT SAPPER, Kosovo - "What we do here," said Lt. Patrick Grow, "could affect the president of the U.S. in three minutes."

Kosovo is more or less at peace, but only because it is ringed by NATO steel and patrolled by NATO troops. Here in the American sector, Lieutenant Grow and his men of the First Armored Division are part of the United States Army's efforts to keep the tensions between Kosovo's Albanian majority and Serbian minority from spilling over to the rest of Serbia.

The solution the Army has found - making its men part detective, part judge and part jailer - illustrates the difficulty of peacekeeping in a difficult land.

As the lieutenant spoke, his men, in full battle gear, searched an Albanian family in a friendly but efficient way, keeping watch over the dirt road that crosses their position.

Checkpoint Sapper, on the ridge of the hills forming Kosovo's eastern border here, is an impromptu fortress, a warren of low green-sandbag walls with tanks dug in around it, their guns pointing down onto the roofs of Dobrosin, a village of Kosovo Albanians in the Presevo Valley be