------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
U.S. Appeals Amount of EU Sanctions
Chrétien and Liberals in Canada Win Straight Majority
Study Links War Ailments to Brain
Russia's Putin Fills U.S. Vacuum with Initiatives
Russia, U.S. to Hold Expert Talks on Iran Arms Row
The Week in Science: Busy and Dubious
Weather forces Ukrainian nuclear shutdown
Weather blacks out Ukrainian nuclear power stations
UKRAINE: ICE STORM CLOSES CHERNOBYL UNIT
Missile defense fog
Space Laser Project Heats Up
Testing the Aging Stockpile in a Test Ban Era
DOE Site For Victims Of Human Radiation Experiments
HADDAM: NUCLEAR FUEL PLANTS
Tennessee
Stop the transportation of nuclear waste to Utah!
Vermont
Last hurrah for Hanford reactor
MILITARY
Editors fired for reporting explosion
U.S. Justices to Weigh Medical Marijuana Laws
Andean Meeting Canceled
Supreme Court Roundup: Medical Use of Marijuana Is Argued
Court Strikes Down Drug Checkpoints
High court strikes down drug checkpoints
Racial profiling disclosure could taint cases
3 Soldiers Killed in Kashmir Despite Truce
Kashmir cease-fire goes into effect
Endeavour mission gets closer
U.N. Issues Harsh Report as Strife, Barak's Woes Continue in Mideast
U.N. Rights Chief Proposes West Bank and Gaza Monitors
Bush campaign makes appeal to military and extreme right
OTHER
Odd Culprits in Collapse of Climate Talks
Falling Short on Global Warming
Negotiators Focus on 'Dirty Dozen' Pollutants
The good news on global warming
States
SARATOGA SPRINGS: HUDSON RIVER MEETINGS
Troubled trade group sees little progress
Federal Inquiry Is Urged in Police Shooting
Racial Profiling Routine, New Jersey Finds
Officer Fired for Criticisms, Judge Finds;
Murder charge dropped amid police scandal
Rhode Island
American in Moscow Spy Trial Claims Victory on Key Evidence
Former CIA director harshly criticized
Egyptian charged with spying for Israel
Ex-spy chief kept secret escape hatch
ACTIVISTS
The Demonstrators: How the Troops Were Mobilized for the Recount
-------- NUCLEAR
U.S. Appeals Amount of EU Sanctions
Associated Press
November 28, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Trade-Tax-Breaks.html
GENEVA (AP) -- The European Union on Tuesday served formal notice that it would impose sanctions of $4 billion per year against U.S. imports in a dispute over tax breaks -- a move immediately rejected by the United States.
U.S. Ambassador Rita Hayes told the World Trade Organization that Washington would appeal the level of sanctions, while discussions continue between the two trading powers about the law itself. She reiterated that the United States believed its tax law was now legal.
A panel of trade experts ruled earlier this year that so-called ``foreign sales corporations'' in the United States that grant companies billions of dollars in tax breaks on exported goods are illegal.
A replacement law was signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton earlier this month, but the European Union claims the new law is no better.
The EU announced plans Nov. 17 to ask for the $4.043 billion in sanctions against products ranging from meat, fruit and cereals to pearls, aircraft and nuclear reactors.
At Tuesday's meeting of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, the EU made that request official. The figure is based on what it claims European businesses are losing because of the U.S. law.
There is unlikely to be any immediate action. Hayes and EU Ambassador Carlo Trojan told the WTO meeting that both sides had agreed to await a WTO ruling on the legality of the new tax law before pressing for independent experts to decide the fair level of sanctions. The EU has not yet asked for the new WTO ruling.
Washington is already imposing sanctions against the European Union in two other trans-Atlantic trade disputes, over bananas and hormone-treated beef, but the sums involved in those cases are many times smaller than the ones in the FSC dispute.
-------- canada
Chrétien and Liberals in Canada Win Straight Majority
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/world/28CANA.html
OTTAWA, Nov. 27 - Jean Chrétien won a bold gamble tonight for a third term, becoming the first Canadian Prime Minister to win a third consecutive majority government since World War II.
Defying forecasters, Mr. Chrétien's Liberals swept Ontario and picked up seats in Quebec, sharply reducing the power of the separatist Bloc Québécois.
"Tonight the people of Canada renewed their confidence in our program, our government and our leadership," Mr. Chrétien, 66, told supporters. Apparently ruling out any early retirement, he shouted, "I guarantee the next five years will be very exciting for Canada."
By winning his 12th election for Parliament, Mr. Chrétien, who became prime minister in 1993, will become the longest serving leader of a major Western country after President Clinton steps down next month.
"For the prime minister, it's a three-peat!" Allan Rock, Health Minister and an Ontario member of Parliament, exclaimed at a victory party. "We have got a third majority government."
Preliminary returns indicated that the Liberals had added 11 seats, bringing their delegation to 172, comfortably above the 151 needed for a majority. Under Canada's parliamentary system, a majority vastly strengthens powers of the prime minister, allowing him great authority to pass legislation.
Surprising pollsters, the Quebec separatists lost seven seats, almost all to the Liberals.
"This is the first time since 1980 that the Liberal Party has obtained the majority of votes in Quebec, and this is important," said Mr. Chrétien, a native Quebecer, clearly seeing the returns as a personal vindication of his national unity policies.
The 36-day campaign started when the prime minister, encouraged by a strong economy, good polling numbers and a wave of nostalgia after the death of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, decided to call a snap election, only three and a half years into his second five-year mandate.
The Liberals won about 41 percent of the popular vote, a slight improvement over their 1997 showing. The Canadian Alliance won about 25 percent.
Although the Alliance appeared to increase its parliamentary delegation by 9 seats, to 67, the election was seen as a setback for the party, which was formed earlier this year expressly to unite the right and to win seats in Ontario. The Alliance did win 2 Ontario seats, both near this capital, but the Liberals swept 100 of the province's 103 seats.
"The message to us is not yet, not this time," Stockwell Day told his supporters in British Columbia, adding that he had called Mr. Chrétien to congratulate him on his victory. "We have increased our seats and we are the only party that has increased our popular vote in every part of the country. We are the federal alternative."
In the campaign, Mr. Day downplayed his social conservatism and stressed tax cutting, offering a 30 percent reduction for working families and a flat 17 percent income tax rate for most filers.
The poor showing of the Alliance was due in part to residual voting for Canada's traditional conservative party, the Progressive Conservatives. Joe Clark, the Tory leader, won a seat in Calgary, beating an incumbent Alliance candidate. Although the Tory delegation was reduced to 12 seats from 15, it met the minimum to enjoy privileges of official party status in Parliament.
Mr. Clark's rebound in the polls irritated The National Post, a national newspaper that was started two years ago, partly to push for a united right. In the last federal election, in June 1997, Mr. Chrétien won a parliamentary majority with 38 percent of the popular vote because the Progressive Conservative Party and the Reform Party, a predecessor to the Alliance, split the conservative vote, winning 19 percent apiece. Mr. Clark's followers, social liberals known as Tories, refused to join Mr. Day's Alliance.
"The Tories will remain an insignificant presence in Parliament," The Post editorialized today. "They have no sense of purpose, no fresh ideas. They would do Canada a favor by simply getting out of the way."
"Strong support for the Alliance today will produce a minority government and effectively end Mr. Chrétien's leadership," the editorial said.
In Canada's "pizza parliament," the fifth slice also got smaller as the New Democratic Party, a socialist group, saw its delegation radically reduced to 13 seats, from 19. The smaller parties, which only last weekend had hoped to wield influence if the Liberals were reduced to trying to govern with a minority delegation, now see their roles suddenly reduced to that of powerless critics.
Canadian elections traditionally have revolved around great issues. In 1963, at the height of the cold war, it was the question of accepting NATO nuclear weapons on Canadian soil. In 1968, Quebec nationalism dominated the election that marked the rise of Mr. Trudeau. In 1984 and 1988, debate revolved over jettisoning two centuries of protectionism in favor a free-trade pact with the United States.
In contrast, this campaign did not debate big themes. Instead, in a nation with a typically courteous political culture, mudslinging dominated.
"This campaign was almost entirely negative," Anthony Westell, a historian of Canadian elections, wrote in The Globe and Mail today. "It could and should have been about Canada's future."
Instead of debating proposals to harmonize Canadian and American tax rates or ways to deliver health care to an aging population, governing Liberals lampooned Mr. Day as a believer in creationism and charged that his supporters included Holocaust deniers.
"They tried to get people to hate us, not just disagree with our policies," Chuck Strahl, House leader for the Canadian Alliance, complained at the end of the campaign.
This evening, Mr. Chrétien tried to put the bitterness of the campaign behind him.
"Sometimes we say things, or we have thoughts that we may regret, but it is time to turn the page now," the Prime Minister told supporters in his home district of Shawinigan. "We are all part of the big Canadian family."
-------- depleted uranium
Study Links War Ailments to Brain
Associated Press
November 28, 2000 Filed at 7:32 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Gulf-War-Illness.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Researchers attempting to explain the mysterious ailments afflicting thousands of Gulf War veterans say new findings support their contention that brain abnormalities could be the cause.
A team led by Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas say magnetic imaging scans suggest specific abnormalities in the brains of some victims.
Last year at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, the researchers presented evidence from 22 sick veterans showing lower-than-usual levels of the chemical N-acetyl-aspartate in their brain stems and basal ganglias.
At this year's meeting in Chicago on Monday, the same team showed that 12 of these veterans with the worst symptoms had the lowest levels of the chemical.
The researchers said that damage to the right-side basal ganglia appeared to cause memory lapses, impaired sense of direction, and depression, while damage to the left basal ganglia seemed to cause general confusion, including difficulties understanding instructions, reading, solving problems and making decisions. Damage to the brain stem accounts in part for vertigo attacks and loss of balance.
The said they believed the damage was caused by exposure to combinations of low-level nerve gas, anti-nerve gas tablets, pesticides and DEET-containing insect repellents. However, they acknowledged there was no conclusive link.
Defense Department officials had no immediate comment on the research, but the Pentagon had previously criticized Haley's research, saying the study was too small and has not been replicated.
``We're the first ones to point out that our study only concerns one battalion of troops,'' Haley said. ``In this one battalion we think we've shown very strongly what the problem is. The big remaining question is, is it true of all sick Gulf War veterans?''
The Pentagon says an estimated 90,000 troops who served in the Gulf War complain of maladies including memory loss, anxiety, nausea, balance problems and chronic muscle and joint pain. But despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on scores of studies, officials say they've found no scientific explanation for the illnesses.
The Institute of Medicine, which was asked by Congress to look into various studies of Gulf War illnesses, reported in September it could not find enough evidence to link the illnesses to any single cause.
Pentagon studies have looked into pesticides, stress, depleted uranium, the toxic nerve agent sarin and vaccines the troops were given as possible contributors.
Dr. James Fleckenstein, a radiologist and member of the research team, believes psychotropic drugs, such as anti-depressants, could be used to treat the veterans because the symptoms overlap with psychiatric illnesses. Anti-epileptic drugs or those used for Parkinson's disease also could work, he said.
Testing of treatments could begin immediately, but the researchers have run out of money, he said.
``We can't do any more at this point,'' Fleckenstein said.
Haley and his team, who have received about $2 million from Ross Perot, have asked Congress for $16 million to expand their research and attempt to replicate the findings.
------- russia
Russia's Putin Fills U.S. Vacuum with Initiatives
Russia Today
Nov 28, 2000
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=224650
MOSCOW -- (Reuters) Russian President Vladimir Putin has steered clear of comment on the contested U.S. presidential election, but has put the weeks of turmoil to good advantage with a barrage of policy initiatives.
http://www.reuters.com
"If a confusing transition is bad for the United States, it's logical for Russia to take advantage of it," said one Western diplomat. "This has allowed Putin to be seen center-stage with what might be seen as relatively good and novel ideas."
Putin's press service and the Foreign Ministry politely declined on Monday to comment on the proclamation by George W. Bush that he won the November 7 poll.
As in other countries, Kremlin officials had been too quick to offer congratulations on the day following the poll when it initially appeared Vice-President Al Gore had conceded defeat.
But Putin, who has made foreign policy a priority and travelled widely since his March election victory, has not hesitated to turn America's embarrassment to good account.
"Since Putin has been in charge, the centrepiece of all his initiatives has been opposition to a mono-polar world," said the Western diplomat.
Some of these initiatives, pressed during the weeks since the U.S. vote, were longstanding ideas freshly repackaged.
Putin repeated his offer to slash strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads each for the United States and Russia -- an easier number for cash-strapped Moscow to maintain.
He called for quick ratification by signatories of a revised agreement on Conventional Forces in Europe -- altered to take account of Russian troops redeployed in southern regions in the campaign to crush Chechen separatists.
A top official said Moscow might soften opposition to U.S. proposals to alter the 1972 Anti-Ballistic missile treaty in order to proceed with a national anti-missile defense system.
PUTIN SHOWS REASONABLE FACE
Putin renewed Russia's resistance to the proposals, but was shown, alongside British Prime Minister Tony Blair, appearing utterly reasonable in offering to discuss them.
"The arms initiatives were typical Russian foreign policy moves independent of the election, moves used even way back in (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev's time," said Leonid Velikhov, an observer for the weekly magazine Itogi. "This was always a means to send the ball into the other man's court."
Putin looked equally reasonable in saying he understood the motivation for a European Union initiative to set up a rapid reaction force of 60,000 men for peacekeeping and emergencies.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov even suggested that Russia was ready to cooperate with the force, which he described as a "completely natural" bid to look after the continent's security.
Analysts said Putin's Middle East moves might have been aimed at making Washington look uncomfortable, an aim greatly aided by the uncertainty over recounts in Florida.
"The Middle East crisis occurred independently of the U.S. election, so taking advantage of this for Russian diplomacy was good fortune during the U.S. election confusion," said Velikhov.
"The issue of relations with Iran was probably more linked to the election. You could almost say Russia was inspired on this issue by the election."
Russia's understanding with the United States on halting new conventional arms deals with Iran, viewed by Washington as a sponsor of state terrorism, became a hot issue in the campaign. Gore's critics pointed to it as evidence of a failed policy.
Moscow's decision to back out of the accord and embark on new lucrative deals was actually taken four days before the vote, though it was not made public until last week. Ivanov dismissed suggestions of impending U.S. sanctions.
Moscow also showed it intended to re-establish a prominent role in Middle East peace negotiations, announcing that Putin had overseen telephone talks between visiting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Analysts said the Russians took satisfaction that Arafat's trip -- though organized at his request -- had produced an agreement on resuming operations at joint liaison offices. That was in contrast, they said, with the limited effect of U.S.-sponsored talks last month at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
But the effect of the initiatives remained an open question.
"It is certain that Russia tried to take advantage of the situation. But just how much it is by design or by simple coincidence is difficult to gauge," said Ilya Kulikov, a political correspondent for ORT public television.
"Success is also hard to assess. Even with the (Barak's) telephone call with Arafat, it is hard to see just what has changed."
---
Russia, U.S. to Hold Expert Talks on Iran Arms Row
Russia Today
Nov 28, 2000
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=224708
WASHINGTON -- (Reuters) U.S. officials will travel to Moscow next week to discuss Russia's plan to break an agreement barring the sale of conventional arms to Iran, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said on Monday.
http://www.reuters.com
Moscow shows no sign of a change of heart on scrapping the arrangement on Friday and sanctions will be considered, though in many cases actual transfers of weapons must occur for sanctions to apply, another State Department official said.
"We do not believe activities have occurred that would constitute a withdrawal" from the arrangement, the official said.
Russia this month overhauled its arms export structures to try to boost revenues from frozen contracts and possible expansion into big new deals.
Tehran is interested in assembling Russian hardware under license, like the MiG-29 fighter and T-72C tank.
Reeker said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought up the agreement with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on the eve of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ministerial council in Vienna on Sunday.
"She did discuss the matter of the aide-memoir," he said in reference to the legally non-binding agreement struck by Vice President Al Gore with then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in 1995.
"There's no reason to believe that they'll rescind their decision to withdraw but the two ministers agreed to have experts meet next week in Moscow and they will work out proposals to deal with their concerns," he added.
U.S. officials say Washington will consider sanctions if Moscow actually resumes selling advanced technology to Tehran, which is a paymaster of the Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah group that violently opposes existing Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
The Gore-Chernomyrdin deal let Moscow honor existing contracts for arms too unsophisticated to qualify for sanctions under a 1992 U.S. law, as long as all conventional arms sales stopped by the end of 1999, the official added.
Republicans accused Gore of letting Russia off the hook and used the arrangement -- and news that Moscow planned to break it -- as fuel for their argument that the presidential candidate oversaw a failed Russia policy.
Democrats say the deal addressed the wider issue of getting Moscow to commit to ending arms sales by a set date.
They also say Republicans like to forget that the deal was not legally binding.
"Keep in mind that what we're looking at here is activities. I don't believe at this point that Dec. 2 is going to see a huge arms shipment to Iran. I wouldn't say that that date connotes necessarily Armageddon," the official said.
BIGGER FISH TO FRY
Washington looks all the more poorly on arms sales to Iran because it believes Tehran has bigger fish to fry -- weapons of mass destruction.
"It is our view that over the last couple of years, Iran has successfully tested the Shihab-3 medium range missile. It has said it is trying to build a longer range Shihab-4 and has an active nuclear weapons program," the official said.
Asked if the unraveling of the Middle East peace process made the Russian move more troublesome, the official said, "I'd say the protection of U.S. security interests, and the safety and security of our allies, has always been paramount in our mind even in entering into this understanding with Russia."
-------- switzerland
November 21, 2000 to November 27, 2000
The Week in Science: Busy and Dubious
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/science/28WEEK.html
Much like elsewhere in the world, it was a busy but dubious week in science, full of setbacks or mixed successes.
First, the conference at The Hague to find ways of reducing greenhouse gases narrowly failed to reach agreement. The conference was intended to put teeth into the Kyoto protocol of 1997 that countries should cut their production of waste gases by 2012 to 5 percent less than the 1990 figure. So far no industrialized country has signed the agreement.
The Hague conference took place in a circus atmosphere where environmental activists burned passports and spattered the chief U.S. negotiator with a cream pie. Beneath the antics, the major issue was in essence a cultural split between European nations, influenced by strong green lobbies who favor legislative solutions, and the United States which in recent years has turned toward market-driven solutions to pollution control. The make-or-break issue between negotiators from the two sides of the Atlantic was the terms on which growing new forests as sinks for carbon dioxide could be counted as credits toward meeting the emission reduction goals.
Another failure was the inability of the doctors looking after Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney to tell the truth about his condition. They successfully treated him for a heart attack but failed to make clear to either his family or to Governor George W. Bush that he had in fact suffered one.
Doctors at George Washington University said at a press conference that Mr. Cheney's cardiac enzymes were "minimally elevated" and that the diagonal artery of the heart was "narrowed". At a second press conference held the same day, after Governor Bush had assured the nation that his running mate had not suffered a heart attack, the George Washington doctors said they assumed everyone would understand that "minimal elevation" meant a heart attack. Unsurprisingly, "narrowed" turned out to be another euphemism; the artery in question was 95% blocked.
Mixed success no 3: Dr. Ingo Potrykus has genetically engineered a strain of rice that makes the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene. One to two million children die every year for lack of vitamin A and half a million go blind. Many live in countries where the main staple is rice. Since rice is a plant that does not make beta-carotene, Dr. Potrykus inserted a suite of genes from other organisms that makes up this deficiency. He would like to give his strains of golden rice - so called because the beta-carotene makes the usually white kernels yellow - to poor farmers for free.
But the golden rice so far grows nowhere but in his grenade-proof greenhouse. Dr. Potrykus is fighting a maze of patent laws, legislation in Switzerland to bar the export of genetically modified organisms, and vigorous opposition from environmentalists.
"Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would do deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians,'' wrote Jonathan Swift, who would doubtless be astounded at the opposition to Dr. Potrykus's golden rice. But then, Swift lived in the Age of Rationalism.
You sometimes have to wonder a little about physicists. They claim to have a perfect explanation of matter in the form of the Standard Model, a scheme which groups the various subatomic particles into a unified whole. The Standard Model must be true, physicists say, because it predicts the properties of matter with amazing accuracy. Yes, but the whole scheme rests on an inferred subatomic particle which has not yet been discovered, called the Higgs boson.
Moreover the boson is generally agreed to be an "ugly" contrivance because it doesn't conform to physicists' ideas of mathematical elegant solutions. And their expectation of ugly physics is that some more perfect scheme of things lies beneath it. In other words, even if the Higgs boson is discovered, it will turn out to be merely the archway to some deeper realm of physics.
Still, that will continue the need to build bigger and better particle accelerators. A boson-trap with the grandiose name of Atlas is being constructed at Cern, the European nuclear physics lab in Geneva. It is part of a new $4 billion particle-generator known as the Large Hadron Collider. Experiments on Cern's present machine suggest that the Higgs boson has a mass of 115 giga-electrons volts, which means it is just within the discovery range of a rival American machine, an upgrade of the Tevatron at Chicago's Fermilab. This should ensure an interesting race to find the Higgs.
But to conclude on a positive note, what do Geena Davis and the Mona Lisa have in common? A subtly ambiguous smile caused by the shape of the cheekbones. That at least is the theory of a Harvard neuroscientist, Margaret Livingstone, who believes the Mona Lisa in Leonardo's painting sometimes seems to be smiling and sometimes not, depending on where the viewer is looking. When looking at the portrait's eyes, the mouth is in the periphery of vision and not clearly seen, but the shadows of the high cheek bones suggest a smile. But when you look at the mouth directly, the smile disappears.
-------- ukraine
Weather forces Ukrainian nuclear shutdown
CNN
November 28, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/28/ukraine.reactor.reut/index.html
KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) -- Power lines downed by bad weather forced a further two Ukrainian nuclear power reactors to automatically shut down on Tuesday, leaving only six of the country's 14 generating units in operation, officials said.
Ukraine relies on nuclear energy for 50 percent of its electricity but a cold snap snuffed out power lines across the country on Monday, forcing the closure of Chernobyl power station, site of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster, and other reactors.
"All shutdowns were linked to weather conditions," said Olexander Maistrenko, spokesman for the atomic energy agency Enerhoatom.
He said there was no increase in radiation levels at any affected station.
Nuclear reactors cannot quickly adjust to changes in demand from the national grid and are designed to shut themselves down if there is nowhere for them to feed electricity.
Maistrenko said reactor one of three at the South Ukraine nuclear power plant shut down at 7:41 a.m. (0541 GMT) followed at 7:52 a.m. (0752 GMT) by number three.
The station is now completely shut down after its number two reactor was put out of action on Monday by a leak from a steam generator.
Chernobyl shutdown
Late on Monday, number six reactor at the southern Zaporizhka nuclear power station switched off because of bad weather, Maistrenko said. Of the station's six reactors, two were already out of action for repairs, he said.
Driving rain, snow, ice and heavy winds have swept across Ukraine since the weekend.
According to the Emergencies Ministry, power was severed to half of all homes in two western regions and areas across the country were suffering blackouts. A spokeswoman said they expected further cuts as weather deteriorated.
The shutdown of the last functioning reactor at Chernobyl on Monday, three weeks before it was due to be taken out of service forever, served as a reminder of the decrepit state of Ukraine's infrastructure.
Chernobyl's number four reactor exploded in April 1986, immediately killing at least 30 people, and sending a radioactive cloud over Europe. Thousands are thought to have died since from the exposure to radiation.
But Ukraine, saddled by gas debts of at least $1.4 billion to Russia, says it can ill afford to forego nuclear power.
Western donors, to the chagrin of environmentalists, have pledged cash to build replacement reactors elsewhere once Chernobyl is permanently taken out of service on December 15.
Chernobyl's last functioning reactor provides the country with around five percent of its power, and following its shutdown on Monday the plant's chief engineer, Yuri Neretin, said stations like his were crucial.
"We're a big loss for Ukraine," he said. "You end up with a problem of stable electricity for the whole country."
---
Weather blacks out Ukrainian nuclear power stations
Environmental News Network
Tuesday, November 28, 2000
By Michael Steen
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/11/11282000/reu_uknuk_40463.asp
Power lines downed by bad weather forced two more Ukrainian nuclear power reactors to shut down automatically today, leaving millions without electricity and authorities warning of worse to come.
Ukraine relies on nuclear power for 50 percent of its electricity. Only six out of 14 nuclear reactors were operational today, a day after line fault tripped the last reactor at Chernobyl, site of the world's worst civil atomic disaster, off the grid, possibly forever.
Energy, or more often a lack of it, is Ukraine's hottest political potato, but the latest mass power cuts have struck at a time when foreign lenders have praised the country for progress in reforming the sector, renowned for creaking infrastructure and murky financial goings-on.
"All shutdowns were linked to weather conditions," said Olexander Maistrenko, spokesman for the atomic energy agency Enerhoatom. He said there was no increase in radiation levels at any affected station.
Nuclear reactors cannot quickly adjust to changes in demand from the national grid and are designed to shut themselves down if there is nowhere for them to feed electricity.
The government moved to calm fears of a complete collapse of the system.
"The energy system won't collapse (due to spikes in demand), because whole regions are cut off due to the weather," said a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko.
Maistrenko said reactor one of three at the South Ukraine nuclear power plant shut down at 7:41 a.m. (0541 GMT) followed at 7:52 a.m. (0552 GMT) by number three. The station is now completely shut down after its number two reactor was put out of action on Monday by a leak from a steam generator.
Late on Monday, number six reactor at the southern Zaporizhska nuclear power station switched off because of bad weather, Maistrenko said. Of the station's six reactors, two were already out of action for repairs, he said.
Driving rain, snow, ice and heavy winds have swept across Ukraine since the weekend. In some regions, schools and businesses have closed and many roads are completely iced over.
According to the Emergencies Ministry, power was severed to half of all homes in two western regions and areas across the country were suffering blackouts. A spokeswoman said they expected further cuts as weather deteriorated.
Andriy Dmytrenko, an energy sector analyst at brokerage Dragon Capital in Kiev, said he thought traditional power stations would be able to take up the generating slack until the nuclear reactors were working again.
"Higher thermal plant production was already expected because of the (scheduled) Chernobyl shutdown and the generating companies have been stockpiling coal," he said.
The automatic shutdown of the last functioning reactor at Chernobyl on Monday, three weeks before it was due to be taken out of service for good, served as a reminder of the decrepit state of Ukraine's infrastructure.
Chernobyl's number four reactor exploded in April 1986, immediately killing at least 30 people, and sending a radioactive cloud over Europe. Thousands are thought to have died since from the exposure to radiation.
But Ukraine, saddled by gas debts of at least $1.4 billion to Russia, says it can ill afford to forgo nuclear power.
Western donors, to the chagrin of environmentalists, have pledged cash to build replacement reactors elsewhere once Chernobyl is permanently taken out of service on December 15.
------
New York Times
November 28, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/world/28BRIE.html
EUROPE
UKRAINE: ICE STORM CLOSES CHERNOBYL UNIT The last operating reactor at Chernobyl, site of the worst nuclear accident in history, was shut down after an ice storm short-circuited transmission lines, activating safety systems designed to cool its radioactive core. No radiation leaks were reported. The shutdown occurred just days after Ukraine announced that the reactor, No. 3, next to the fire-scarred No. 4 reactor now encased in concrete and steel, would be closed for good on Dec. 15. But officials said they would restart No. 3 on Dec. 2 for a final two weeks. Patrick E. Tyler (NYT)
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Missile defense fog
November 28, 2000
Evan Gahr
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-20001128171444.htm
Some men rest on their laurels. Physicist Richard Garwin rests on his mistakes. In the 1980s, Mr. Garwin derided Ronald Reagan's plan to build a space-base defense against Soviet missile attacks. Mr. Garwin's "case" against the Strategic Defense Initiative relied heavily on calculations that quickly proved erroneous, and other assertions later discredited. At the time however, Mr. Garwin and the Union of Concerned Scientists, declared SDI too expensive, infeasible and likely to fuel an accelerated arms race. Sound familiar?
Today, Mr. Garwin and many of his same friends in the scientific community rank among the most influential opponents of the proposed National Missile Defense System, a largely land-based system. In letters to President Clinton, congressional testimony and "scientific" reports about missile defense, they offer much the same pseudo-scientific arguments as they did against "star wars." These ostensibly objective scientists will likely continue to influence the ongoing debate, no matter which party finally captures the White House.
After all, you can argue with Ted Kennedy, but to dispute Mr. Garwin or his colleagues is to question Science. Or is it? The reality is that Mr. Garwin and Co. made a number of gross errors back in the 1980s about SDI - everything from how many satellites would be required to the total cost ($3 trillion when under $100 billion was more likely). The errors of the UCS are long forgotten, but they shouldn't be - especially as Americans today again worry about the dangers of rogue missiles or terrorist attacks.
Before anyone else mistakes this bunch for reliable experts, it is worth considering how their previous assertions collided with reality.
Fresh on the heels of President Reagan's proposal for SDI in 1983, the UCS estimated that to adequately ensure against Soviet missile attacks would require 2,400 satellite battle stations - at a possible total cost of $3 trillion. It turned out the actual number of satellites needed was closer to 100 - the total cost, $100 billion, according to government scientists. Why the discrepancy? In a December 1984 Commentary magazine article, Dartmouth physicist Robert Jastrow explained that the UCS' wildly inflated estimates for SDI's total cost stemmed from a rather simple error; the UCS had underestimated the range of each satellites orbit. Each satellite, in short, could protect against far more Soviet missiles than the UCS thought.
Faced with criticism, the Union of Concerned Scientists backtracked - again and again. In what became known as the "Garwin curve," the UCS repeatedly changed its official estimates throughout 1984 and 1985. The magic number went from 2,400 to 800 then down to 300, The Washington Post reported in 1985.
Junk science is awfully resilient. Despite all the mistakes, the UCS' case against SDI - particularly the inflated cost - became conventional wisdom. Prominent Democrats, including Al Gore, spoke of SDI's prohibitively high price tag. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, Louisiana Democrat, warned his fellow senators that supporting SDI could possibly bankrupt this country.
Others folks called the program unworkable. Why? The UCS had certainly provided many specifics. Mr. Garwin and like-minded naysayers insisted that key components of the SDI program - including computer technology and chemical lasers - were utterly infeasible. How did these assertions withstand the test of time?
One supposedly intractable problem was computer programming. SDI's critics claimed the system would require "10 million lines of computer code, and [therefore] could not possibly be written in a way that makes it functional," recalls William Graham, President Reagan's science adviser. Sounds foreboding. But Mr. Graham says today much bigger codes are "used in everyday applications." A typical office computer can handle about 100 million lines of code, he says.
What about chemical lasers, which Richard Garwin and the UCS said would require too much fuel and offer too little firepower for an effective defense?
Early this June, the jointly developed U.S.-Israeli Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) tracked and destroyed a live Katyusha rocket. In late August, another test had the laser successfully take down two rockets in rapid succession.
Hindsight isn't always 20/20. Outside the Vatican, it is hard to find anyone possessed of a greater doctrine of infallibility than Richard Garwin. Interviewed by the American Spectator in late September, Mr. Garwin insisted all his calculations about SDI were entirely correct. But professor, why did so many people find errors? "I don't have time to talk to you. I'm too busy."
Curiously, many of the other folks who peddled junk science alongside Mr. Garwin claim the battle over SDI somehow vindicates their current position. Cornell University physicist Kurt Gottfried, who with Mr. Garwin overestimated the number of satellites needed for a defense, lately has inveighed against proposals for a National Missile Defense (NMD) system.
In April, Mr. Gottfried, now chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote the introduction to a UCS report that purported to discredit NMD. His battle-weary tone suggested a frustrated teacher who just can't get his dim-witted charges to see the light. "The scientific evidence we present to you is clear - the system will not work." In the end, these views carried the day. President Clinton this September decided to postpone deployment of the NMD.
Declaring that the the system as a whole is not yet proven, Mr. Clinton punted. He decided to let his successor make a final decision as to how or if the nation should proceed. Whoever finally assumes the presidency will need to be as nonpartisan as possible. To that end, the supposedly objective analysis from the UCS could prove even more influential. Some men look to the heavens and say "why not." Mr. Garwin and other scientists continue to say definitely not. Politicians faced with these unrepentant naysayers would do well to reply, "Oh no, not you again."
Evan Gahr is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He adapted this commentary from his longer article in the November issue of the American Spectator.
----
Space Laser Project Heats Up
Space.com
28 November 2000 posted: 07:00 am ET
By Leonard David Senior Space Writer
mailto:ldavid@hq.space.com http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_laser_001127.html
WASHINGTON -- The pace of work is not quite light-speed. But the end product may be just that -- an orbiting laser that churns out a high power beam to destroy a ballistic missile in flight by 2013.
Industry and government teams are now shaping the Space-Based Laser (SBL) concept. The idea is seen as next-generation directed energy weaponry, whereby dozens of space platforms would be interlinked to create an Earth-orbiting global missile defense system.
In early November, the Air Force awarded a $97 million contract to three companies: TRW Space & Electronics Group, Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space Operations, and Boeing Space & Communications Group.
Those monies are earmarked to continue work on an Integrated Flight Experiment (IFX) to be lofted into orbit in 2012. The experimental show-and-tell technology would be ready for target practice on a U.S.-launched ballistic missile the following year.
Team SBL-IFX, a joint venture comprising TRW, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, demands a host of new advancements. Here, an aluminum ring is under development. More than 100 of these rings will be stacked to form the laser's primary combustion chamber.
To date, Team SBL-IFX -- the working moniker for this trio of companies since early 1999 -- has been awarded some $240 million to design, build, and test a satellite capable of toting a high-energy laser, as well as blueprinting how best to demonstrate the hardware while in flight.
Souped-up chemical laser
The effort to create a space-based missile defense system is under the rubric of the U.S. Air Force and the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. $3.5 billion is budgeted to complete the SBL-IFX program.
"This is an ambitious project. Everybody should understand that," said Colonel Neil McCasland, director of the Air Force's SBL-IFX project in Los Angeles, California. "But this is a reach that is in the domain of the possible for American industry. The implications are commensurate with the ambition," he told SPACE.com.
McCasland said that the SBL-IFX is not an operational weapon. "It's a path to that operational weapon, if the country so chooses," he said.
A souped-up cylindrical, hydrogen-fluoride chemical laser is at the heart of the SBL-IFX test satellite.
Once in orbit, the laser is to be put through a series of tests prior to its first firing, said Major Arnie Streland, chief of acquisition management and planning, at the U.S. Air Force Space & Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, California.
"We'll basically prove out all the systems, including lighting off the high-energy laser before we actually go after a target," Streland said.
Less than a dozen firings of the laser are expected over the equipment's three-year lifetime, McCasland said. Studies are underway for designing the laser for on-orbit refueling, he said.
Boost phase blast
Directed energy beamed from a spacecraft travels at the speed of light, a blistering 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). That's about 43,000 times faster than the most capable ground-based interceptors.
The Space-Based Laser is designed to kill hostile rockets in their boost phase -- the period of time shortly after a rocket leaves the ground. It is within that boost phase that military planners see an aggressor's missile as most vulnerable.
Why? First, thanks to a rocket's burning engines, the missile produces a large infrared plume, ideal for tracking by spaceborne sensors. Secondly, the missile is slowly arcing through the sky, making it easier to track. Thirdly, at this point of flight, the rocket body is relatively fragile and under great stress.
"This is an ambitious project. Everybody should understand that. But this is a reach that is in the domain of the possible for American industry. The implications are commensurate with the ambition." -- Colonel Neil McCasland, Los Angeles Director of the USAF's SBL-IFX project
Moreover, because the rocket has yet to toss its warhead toward an intended target, there is a large "lethal-hit area" when trying to down a missile via laser beam. The heat from a laser beam weakens the missile's skin, leading to the vehicle's destruction.
For the SBL-IFX project, McCasland said the plan is to construct a target rocket stage, propelled by a Minuteman missile. This target stage is to be specially instrumented to collect data about the laser beam's knock-out punch.
Priceless testing
The orbiting laser idea is the only ballistic missile, boost-phase intercept system being pursued by the U.S. Department of Defense to provide global defense coverage to counter intercontinental ballistic missile attacks against America or its allies.
But trying to build an affordable, compact and less-weighty Space-Based Laser is no small task. One key step was recently taken using results of a TRW-built Alpha chemical laser firing last month.
That six-second test shot of the megawatt-class Alpha demonstrated ways to tailor the laser's chemical efficiency, output power, and shape of the beam produced. That data is a bonus for the megawatt-class SBL-IFX laser, McCasland said.
"Ground tests are priceless in helping us reduce risks for the space demonstration. What you can't do on the ground, however, is completely emulate the space environment. So the proof is in the flight," McCasland said.
Tug of war
Other hardware elements for a spaceborne laser are coming together.
For example, a new, self-cooling laser nozzle that feeds chemical reactants into a special cavity has been developed. Faster and more reliable fabrication techniques to form the primary combustion chamber for the SBL-IFX laser have proven successful.
Also achieved are manufacturing processes to crank out and coat uncooled, single-crystal silicon optics needed to form special mirrors for the SBL-IFX laser.
The use of uncooled optics means a weight-savings and use of less-complex "plumbing" inside a chemical laser payload.
Ultimately, the issue at hand is the laser's ability to pump out ample power in a small enough spot, McCasland said. It's a tug-of-war, he said, between combustion forces that breed laser energy, a need for rock-steady optics, all while precisely tracking and pointing a lethal laser beam at a fast-moving missile stage.
Major decision
While a hardware liftoff of 2012 might seem light-years away, a major decision is forthcoming for the project.
A new laser test facility is to be constructed, Streland said. Three locations are now being eyed, he said.
The candidate sites are: NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi; the Army's Redstone Arsenal adjacent to the space agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and at Cape Canaveral, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"We want to get started in 2001," McCasland said. "The test facility will allow us to run the flight configuration laser long enough to convince us that we're ready to take it to the launch pad," he said.
Show-stoppers?
It seems the most troublesome aspect for the laser project is more political than technical.
The "technology demonstration" by the SBL-IFX is to be conducted in full compliance with all relevant international treaties, officials of the project said, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
"The experiment will comply with the treaty," McCasland said. "This is not an operational weapon. It's only one satellite. We're not fielding something with the operational intent to shoot down ballistic missiles," he said.
Data gleaned from flight testing the SBL-IFX in 2013 will be used by Department of Defense policy makers to wrestle with a go/no-go decision to construct and deploy in orbit a full-scale laser missile defense system.
If given a green light, an operational fleet of lasers could be placed in space around 2020.
---
Testing the Aging Stockpile in a Test Ban Era
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/science/28BOMB.html
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - They called it "shaking the desert." For 40 years, the guardians of the nation's nuclear stockpile exploded bombs beneath the arid ground at a test site in Nevada, both to test new types of bombs and to be certain that old ones still worked as designed. Many of those tests also shook the desert from above, in the atmosphere, before a treaty banned the practice in 1963.
But since 1992, when the United States declared a moratorium on all nuclear tests, the desert has been still. Since then the nation has evaluated the thousands of warheads in its aging arsenal in a program called science-based stockpile stewardship, using computer simulations, experiments on bomb components and other methods to assess the condition of the weapons without actually exploding them.
Program officials have been confident that the stockpile is safe and secure and that the stewardship program can fully maintain the weapons. Now, however, some of the masters of nuclear weapons design are expressing concern over whether this program is up to the task.
Concerns about the program take a variety of forms, including criticisms of its underlying technical rationale and warnings that the program's base of talented scientists is eroding, and the experts do not speak with a single voice.
Many program supporters complain that onerous new security rules put in place after the arrest of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the scientist who pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets, have damaged the program by hampering research. They say the rules are also discouraging young researchers from entering the field at a time when weapons designers of the testing era are nearing retirement and must transmit their knowledge to a new generation.
A number of other weapons experts go even further, saying the concept of trying to assess the stockpile in the absence of nuclear tests is intrinsically flawed. Without exploding a sample of the bombs, they say, they can never reach clear-cut conclusions about the continued reliability of a given weapon design.
A stewardship program with no testing is "a religious exercise, not science," said Dr. Merri Wood, a senior designer of nuclear weaponry at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Wood said that as the weapons aged, it was becoming impossible to say with certainty that the stockpile was entirely functional.
"I can't give anybody a safe period," she said of the possibility that some weapons could become unreliable. "It could happen at any time."
Dr. Charles Nakhleh, another weapons designer at Los Alamos, said doubts about the stewardship program were widespread among weapons designers. "The vast, vast majority would say there are questions you can answer relatively definitively with nuclear testing that would be very difficult to answer without nuclear testing," he said.
Nuclear Politics
These comments provide an unusual glimpse into the secretive world of the nation's weapons designers at a time of heightened political awareness about the pros and cons of nuclear testing. Only a year ago, doubts about the stewardship program helped defeat the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear tests.
During the treaty debate, the directors of the nation's three major weapons laboratories testified that the program was working well. But their testimony was widely viewed as lukewarm. Few weapons designers spoke openly about the topic at the time, but the treaty debate itself appears to have encouraged some scientists within the program to begin to speak out.
Senator Pete V. Domenici, the New Mexico Republican who voted against the treaty and whose state contains two of the three major weapons laboratories, strongly praised the designers' willingness to discuss their concerns. Stressing his own neutrality on the issue, Mr. Domenici said he would consider holding hearings on "possible shortcomings" in the stewardship program.
Beyond the treaty debate and the continuing fallout from the Wen Ho Lee case, many weapons scientists say that the effects of materials' aging, cracking and deteriorating in the stockpile become increasingly apparent with each passing year, generating intense scientific discussion and debate.
Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the Los Alamos laboratory, acknowledged those findings. But in the laboratory's most recent review of the stockpile at the laboratory, its director, Dr. John Browne, concluded that despite the criticism of some lab scientists the aging stockpile was safe and reliable. The review, called certification, involves several labs and government agencies.
"Although there are a growing number of aging findings in the stockpile, at present Los Alamos doesn't see a need to recommend a return to underground testing," Mr. Danneskiold said.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said four formal certifications from 1996 through 1999 had found that "the stockpile is safe and secure."
Steve Andreasen, director of defense policy and arms control of the National Security Council at the White House, said the stewardship program was specifically designed to encourage skepticism so that any possible problems would be found.
"I'm not surprised that there are people within the program who are skeptical," he said. "They are working hard with the many who are confident that we have the right program for stewardship. And the fact remains we have four solid certifications under our belt."
Any proposal to resume nuclear testing would almost certainly lead to a political and diplomatic firestorm. But in endorsing the treaty, President Clinton pointed out that it contained a "supreme national interest" clause that would allow the nation to resume testing if at some point the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile could no longer be certified.
Outguessing Nature
The program is a fiendish technical challenge, and even its backers concede that science-based stockpile stewardship can never offer the certainty of the big explosions.
The thousands of bombs in the stockpile are highly complex devices. Each is made up of a forest of electronics and missile components surrounding a sort of atomic fuse, or "primary," that holds chemical explosives and a fission bomb containing a fuel like plutonium. In addition, there is a "secondary," whose thermonuclear fusion reaction is set off when the primary explodes.
Most of the weapons in the stockpile were not built with longevity in mind. It was expected that they would be replaced by a continuing stream of new and improved designs, checked in tests - until weapons production abruptly stopped in 1992. But the basic design of the newest of the bombs, a version called the W-88, received crucial tests in the 1970's and was fully designed by the mid-1980's. Production of the weapon ended by 1991. The oldest of the bombs date from 1970.
Assessing the changes can be bewilderingly difficult. The degradation turns symmetrical components shaped like spheres or cylinders into irregular shapes whose properties are a nightmare to model in computer simulations. Inspectors, who typically tear apart one weapon of each design per year and less intrusively check others, find weapons components deteriorating in various ways because the materials age, and because they are exposed to the radioactivity of their own fuel. Even tiny changes in those materials can lead to large changes in bomb performance, weapons designers say.
Supporters of the program say that regular inspections of the weapons will turn up any serious problems as the stockpile ages - and that those problems can be addressed.
"You'll get the warning bell and you'll know what to do," said Dr. Sidney Drell, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, who led a study in 1995 that underlies the stewardship program. Dr. Drell said he remained optimistic about scientists' ability to limit that element of doubt, which he called "genuine and serious."
But other experts at the nation's weapons laboratories are challenging this view. Designers say the sensitivity of the bombs to slight changes means that age could modify the bombs so that they do not work as they are supposed to. While program supporters believe those problems can be found and fixed, virtually everyone agrees that if any major redesign is needed, those new bombs could not be certified as reliable under the current program.
Dr. Harold Agnew, a former director of Los Alamos, said that "to consider putting those things in the stockpile without testing is nonsense." He is on the panel for a new study by the National Academy of Sciences that will examine many of the issues surrounding the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, including stockpile stewardship.
"In a blink, I would prefer to go back to testing," said Dr. Carol T. Alonso, a weapons designer for 20 years who is now assistant associate director for national security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Thomas Thomson, a weapons designer at Livermore, said that under the current program, "I think you just accept the fact that you're going to have a decline" in the reliability of the stockpile. "You try to make it as gradual as possible," he added.
Reid Worlton, a retired Los Alamos weapons designer who is still involved in the program, said, "There's nothing that really can replicate a nuclear test totally."
Big Bill, No Guarantees
The stockpile stewardship program will cost the nation about $5 billion in the fiscal year that started Oct. 1; since the mid-1990's it has cost more than $20 billion. An official at the Energy Department estimates that perhaps 25,000 workers of all kinds, from guards to chemists, participate. That includes thousands of scientists and engineers and roughly 50 senior designers.
In addition to some of the most powerful computers in the world, the program requires tests of bomb components and data like that produced by the $260 million Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test center at Los Alamos, where flashes of X-rays study exploding primaries from which the fission fuel has been removed. A $4 billion laser, under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is expected to create even more extreme conditions by crushing pellets of fusion fuel.
Even with all these tools, critics say, crucial questions about the performance of aging bombs must still be answered directly by data from old tests. Because bombs this old were never tested, they say, computer simulations cannot definitively determine the seriousness of new types of changes caused by continued aging.
Dr. Michael R. Anastasio, associate director of defense and nuclear technologies at Livermore and a supporter of the stockpile stewardship program, said it would be "at least 10 years" before scientists would be able to say for sure whether the approach could replace nuclear tests.
"We've said all along that the science-based stockpile stewardship program is the best program we know how to construct to meet the goals of sustaining confidence without nuclear testing," Dr. Anastasio said. "But we've always said there's no guarantee that it will work."
But Madelyn Creedon, the top official for day-to-day management of the stewardship program at the Energy Department, said the new computer simulations had already been able to answer questions about the stockpile that in the past would have required tests. "We keep pressing ahead and we keep having successes," she said. "The evidence shows that stockpile stewardship is doing the job."
Policing the Stewards
But can it keep doing the job? Serious questions about the operation of the stockpile program are being heard at all three of the major American weapons laboratories: Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. Open criticism of it appears to be most widespread at Los Alamos, where the Wen Ho Lee case and a later security lapse have led to an especially intense focus on tightened security. While the case against Dr. Lee, a former Los Alamos nuclear scientist, came to a close in September when he pleaded guilty to a single count of mishandling nuclear data, several investigations are still proceeding, including one involving the apparent theft of plans for the nation's most advanced warhead, the W-88.
Even weapons designers who support the stockpile stewardship program say the new security restrictions have made what would have been a difficult job under any circumstances even harder.
As an example of new security measures that have hindered bomb stewards' work, Dr. Michael Bernardin, a senior weapons designer at Los Alamos, cited the suspension of the so-called two-hour rule involving computer security after an incident in June when two hard drives containing nuclear data were lost and later recovered at Los Alamos. The rule had allowed computers involved in classified projects to remain running for up to two hours inside secure areas of the lab as scientists left to get coffee or take a break.
When the rule was suspended, any break, no matter how brief, meant the computers had to be shut down, halting work in midstream and all but shutting down many research activities. (Mr. Danneskiold, the Los Alamos spokesman, said a delay of more than a month in this year's certification work at the lab was partly the result of the suspension of the rule.)
"At that point, I and everybody else I know was ready to quit," said Dr. Nakhleh, the Los Alamos weapons designer. Security officials later reinstated the two-hour rule, but scientists at Los Alamos say other cumbersome procedures remain.
As a result of all this, according to officials at the weapons labs and at the Energy Department, which runs them, there has been a flight of scientific talent and a decline of top-flight applicants, problems exacerbated by a rise in lucrative job offers from the private sector.
Weapons experts say the frustration over tighter security procedures comes at a particularly unfortunate time, as the scientists who designed and tested the weapons in the stockpile try to pass their knowledge and experience to new caretakers before retiring or dying. "We have a five- year window to make this transfer," Dr. Bernardin said.
Critics of the bomb culture say old- line weapons designers are talking about nuclear testing now because they are unable to adapt to new tools, like superfast computers, that may make testing obsolete. Tom Z. Collina, director of the arms control and international security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the mixed message from the laboratories suggested "that they want to leave the door open to the resumption of testing and at the same time continue to get stockpile stewardship funds."
But Dr. Nakhleh, who is one of the young scientists working full time in the program, says testing is simply a more scientific approach.
One way to get around all these criticisms of the program and still avoid testing, some scientists outside the laboratories say, would be simply to "remanufacture" new, nearly exact replicas of existing weapons in the stockpile and replace them on a regular basis as they age. Neither very much science nor underground testing would be necessary.
But Dr. Jas Mercer-Smith, a former weapons designer who is deputy associate director for nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, said that was easier said than done, since many manufacturing techniques of the past were no longer available, and the copies could in reality be significantly different from the originals. Without the sophisticated scientific analysis of the stockpile stewardship program, he said, nuclear experts could not be sure what effects the changes might have.
Dr. Bernardin of Los Alamos said possible new military needs, anything from building nuclear-tipped missile interceptors to replacing an existing weapon completely if it became too old to function, could someday require entirely remade designs as well.
Supporters of remanufacture insist that no new designs are needed because the nation's nuclear deterrent is sufficient. If they are needed, however, the uncertainties and complexities involved in any new designs would inevitably require underground tests, and not just computer simulations, several weapons designers said. Those complexities, Dr. Wood of Los Alamos said, mean that even existing designs are now coming into question.
"If this was somebody's hair clip, I wouldn't mind as much," she said. "But it's not."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
DOE Site For Victims Of Human Radiation Experiments
Tue, 28 Nov 2000 19:13:45 -0800
RadTimes # 114 November, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
<http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/>
The Office of Human Radiation Experiments, established in March 1994, leads the Department of Energy's efforts to tell the agency's Cold War story of radiation research using human subjects. We have undertaken an intensive effort to identify and catalog relevant historical documents from DOE's 3.2 million cubic feet of records scattered across the country. Internet access to these resources is a key part of making DOE more open and responsive to the American public.
-------- connecticut
New York Times
November 28, 2000
Metro Briefs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/nyregion/28MBRF.html
HADDAM: NUCLEAR FUEL PLANTS Operators of the mothballed Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant are making plans to store spent fuel rods on site until a national storage site is ready. The town zoning board and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission are reviewing the plan to move the spent fuel from a pool into giant concrete casks farther away from the plant. The commission plans to discuss the storage system and other issues related to the decommissioning of the plant on Thursday. (AP)
-------- tennessee
USA Today
11/28/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Tennessee
Oak Ridge - Old age is beginning to show in the government's toxic waste incinerator. Production slowed to an all-time low, and about $230,000 in repairs were made to the 12-year-old facility. It burned 550,000 pounds of waste in the last fiscal year ending Sept. 30, about a quarter of what was planned. And problems with the kiln forced a month-long shutdown earlier this year.
-------- utah
President Clinton:
Stop the transportation of nuclear waste to Utah!
Background
Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of 8 commercial nuclear utilities, is preparing to transport 40,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste ("spent fuel") across the country to an interim storage facility in Utah.
Spent fuel (high-level nuclear waste) is a waste product from nuclear power plants. It is both thermally and radioactively hot and remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no known way to dispose of nuclear waste; it can only be stored. Currently, most spent fuel is stored on site, near the reactors where it was generated. But the PFS utilities are running out of space on site to store their radioactive garbage, so now they want to dump it in Utah!
The PFS facility would be located on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, approximately 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. The facility would consist of above-ground, dry-cask storage for up to 4,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel. PFS hopes to begin shipping radioactive waste to Skull Valley as soon as 2003.
The PFS facility is being proposed to temporarily store nuclear waste for a period of 20-40 years. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement presumes that the waste will then be transported (again!) to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain Nevada. But although Yucca Mountain is now being studied as a potential nuclear waste repository, the decision on whether to open a permanent facility is still pending!
Transporting high-level radioactive waste is inherently dangerous because it exposes people along transportation routes to the risk of radiation release in areas where emergency responders may not be equipped for a nuclear accident. The PFS interim storage facility would unnecessarily increase this risk by requiring waste to be transported more than once over long distances.
Because the PFS proposal is a private industry initiative, it does not require the consent of Congress. But, private industry should not be permitted to transfer liability for its dangerous waste to residents of Utah and people living along potential transportation routes!
Take Action!
President Clinton has on numerous occasions issued statements opposing the transportation of spent nuclear fuel to an interim storage facility. In April 2000, President Clinton vetoed Senate Bill 1287 which, among other things, would have opened an interim storage facility in Nevada. Join Public Citizen in asking Clinton to issue an Executive Order to block nuclear waste transportation to the PFS interim storage facility in Utah!
To endorse the following group letter, send the name of your organization, address (city and state), contact name and telephone number to Lisa_gue@citizen.org; fax (202) 547-7392.
For more information, please contact Lisa Gue at Lisa_gue@citizen.org; phone (202) 454-5130.
November 2000
President Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Clinton,
Our organizations represent hundreds of thousands of people across the country who are actively interested in promoting sensible, sustainable energy policy and programs. In the past years, we have appreciated your position against the premature transport of high-level nuclear waste to an interim storage facility in Nevada. We are writing to bring to your attention our grave concerns with the current proposal by Private Fuel Storage (PFS) to open an interim storage facility in Utah. We urgently request that you issue an Executive Order to prevent the remote siting of a high-level nuclear waste storage facility by private industry.
Transporting high-level nuclear waste is inherently dangerous because it exposes people along transportation routes to the risk of radiation release in areas where emergency responders may not be equipped for a nuclear accident. The PFS interim storage facility would unnecessarily increase this risk by requiring waste to be transported more than once over long distances.
Despite the risk that the PFS project would impose to communities along transportation routes, the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the PFS proposal gives inadequate attention to transportation issues and no public hearings have been scheduled outside Utah. PFS refuses to specify which routes would be used to transport the waste, making it difficult for concerned citizens to discern how their communities would be impacted by this large-scale nuclear transportation scheme.
In addition, the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the PFS facility explicitly assumes that nuclear waste stored in Utah would eventually be moved to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This assumption, at a time when no final decision has been made about the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, puts undue pressure on and undermines the integrity of the Yucca Mountain site characterization and licensing processes.
In the context of proposed amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Congress has contentiously debated the issue of remote-sited interim storage facilities for nuclear waste on several occasions. Yet, as a private industry initiative, PFS is not governed by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. We object in the strongest terms to the precedent that the PFS proposal sets for granting private industry the authority to decide upon remote siting and policy for high-level waste storage.
Moreover, transporting high-level radioactive waste to a storage facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation amounts to exporting U.S. nuclear waste to a sovereign nation. We are convinced that this action must be specifically regulated in consideration of the Executive Order on Environmental Justice.
It is clearly unacceptable to allow PFS to proceed with this flawed proposal, which places the economic interests of the nuclear industry above democratic process and the legitimate safety concerns of citizens.
President Clinton, we have appreciated your strong statements in opposition to previous proposals to transport high-level radioactive waste unnecessarily to an interim storage facility. Last spring, we applauded your veto of Senate Bill 1287, which would have allowed for temporary "back-up" storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Now, Private Fuel Storage would reverse these environmental victories without any opportunity for democratic intervention.
Therefore, we urge you to issue an Executive Order (1) prohibiting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from considering private industry license applications for remote-sited interim nuclear waste storage facilities such as the PFS proposal; and (2) directing that federal government resources allocated to the Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Transportation not be used to support the design, construction or operation of the PFS facility.
We look forward to meeting with your staff to elaborate our concerns. Please contact Public Citizen at (202) 454-5130.
Sincerely,
Wenonah Hauter Director, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
-------- vermont
USA Today
11/28/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Vermont
Montpelier - Environmental and consumer groups critical of the proposed sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant are asking plant owners to pay them $165,000 for legal work and expert testimony. The groups say they put a lot of effort into reviewing one offer. With a new proposal from AmerGen Energy Company of Philadelphia, the groups say they're running out of money.
-------- washington
Last hurrah for Hanford reactor
Environmental News Network
Tuesday, November 28, 2000
By Mike Stark
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/11/11282000/hanford_40437.asp
After years of contentious debate and political rancor, the federal government says a controversial nuclear reactor in Washington state should be permanently shut down.
The U.S. Department of Energy said the Hanford, Washington, test reactor, dormant since 1992, shouldn't be restarted to produce medical isotopes or plutonium for space missions. The decision, listed now as a "preferred alternative" and expected to be finalized in January, marks the beginning of the end to one of the hottest U.S. nuclear debates in years: closure of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington.
"This issue has divided the region and prevented us from working together for cleanup," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, a citizen-run Hanford watchdog group. "We have had four years of being called names, being subjected to threats and even physical assaults as we tried to work for the cleanup of Hanford, instead of adding more wastes to our problems."
Pollet's group and others say restarting the test reactor would only add to Hanford's nuclear waste, exacerbate existing problems with leaks and faulty tanks, and further delay cleanup at Hanford, the nation's most contaminated nuclear site.
The reactor, known as the Fast Flux Test Facility, was built in the 1970s to test nuclear fuels and components. When it shut down eight years ago, energy officials started looking for other uses for the reactor, including the production of plutonium for NASA space missions and isotopes to diagnose and treat cancer and other illnesses.
Supporters of the reactor, particularly those in the Tri-Cities area near Hanford, have said the FFTF could play a vital role in improving medical care and research. But Energy Department officials said there isn't enough convincing evidence to stoke up the reactor again.
"The missions, while of great interest ... were not concrete enough to proceed at this time," said Bill Magwood, an Energy Department undersecretary. The Energy Department will look into producing plutonium for space missions at other sites in Idaho and Tennessee. The department said it would also consider generating medical isotopes at other facilities.
The fight over the future of the test reactor has grown over the years. Thousands of citizens attended public meetings about the facility, and the Energy Department investigated different options. Opponents worried that more activity at Hanford, which operated from 1944 until the late 1980s, would further jeopardize the nearby Columbia River, which provides irrigation and hydroelectricity for the region and hosts several species of endangered salmon.
Hanford, created as part of the Manhattan Project, is already the focus of the world's largest environmental cleanup project.
The decision not to restart the test reactor was seen as a clear victory for conservation groups and others trying to clean up Hanford and the Columbia River. Some, though, worried that the decision might be overturned by the next presidential administration.
"There was massive pressure from nuclear special interests and citizens of the Tri-Cities to restart this archaic machine," said Greg deBruler, Hanford consultant for Columbia Riverkeeper, a conservation group. "Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson made a difficult and courageous decision."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said the Energy Department has wasted $30 million a year on a "scavenger hunt" to find a new mission for the FFTF at Hanford.
"Now, the supposed justifications for restart have completely evaporated and the funds that are being wasted will go where they have long belonged: into cleaning up the environment that adjoins our lifeblood, the Columbia River," Wyden said. "After years of indecision, the people of the Pacific Northwest deserve to have the money used to clean up the contamination at Hanford rather than on some wild good chase."
Deactivating the reactor could cost about $280 million.
-------- MILITARY
-------- china
Editors fired for reporting explosion
USA Today
11/28/00- Updated 04:47 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
BEIJING - Three editors at a state-run Chinese newspaper were fired for reporting on the explosion of an army truck, an official said Tuesday, a blast that killed 67 people and embarrassed the country's politically powerful military. A Hong Kong-based rights group said the three were fired after authorities said the paper violated rules governing China's media by publishing detailed reports about the explosion.
-------- drug war
U.S. Justices to Weigh Medical Marijuana Laws
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, November 28, 2000
By DAVID G. SAVAGE, TIM REITERMAN, Times Staff Writers
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001128/t000114112.html
WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will decide the fate of the medical marijuana laws in California and eight other states.
The case, to be heard early next year, poses a clash between the strict federal laws against distributing marijuana and California's limited move to legalize its use for those who are seriously ill.
In August, the high court tipped its hand by issuing an emergency order that halted the legal distribution of marijuana by a cannabis club in Oakland.
Usually, the justices intervene in a pending dispute only when they are convinced that the lower court is wrong. In this case, the federal appeals court based in San Francisco had said that it should be legal to give marijuana to patients whose medical need is apparent.
The justices now will decide formally whether there is a "medical necessity" exemption to the zero-tolerance federal drug policy.
Four years ago, California voters approved Proposition 215, a measure that authorized patients or their caregivers to get marijuana if they had a doctor's recommendation.
Advocates of the Compassionate Use Act--who say marijuana is effective in relieving pain and nausea in some patients who suffer from cancer or AIDS--continued Monday to express optimism, despite the latest in a series of court actions against them.
"We would argue that medical necessity, an ancient defense that goes back centuries in Anglo jurisprudence, continues to exist," said Robert A. Raich, attorney for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative. "Patients have no other effective therapy . . . and they have a right to access to that medicine."
Raich said that however the Supreme Court rules, the validity of patients' rights under Proposition 215 will not be affected. The high court indicated that it will be ruling only on whether medical necessity is a valid defense to distribution of marijuana under federal laws, he said.
Additionally, Raich said, the club's legal team will argue that--to be consistent with its previous positions on states' rights--the high court should respect the decision of California voters in approving the Compassionate Use Act.
Federal officials, however, have ignored such arguments and called for the narrowest reading of federal drug laws. They insist that the state had no power to waive federal narcotics laws, which make it a crime to grow and distribute marijuana. And they add that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use."
Despite this stark dispute, the U.S. Justice Department did not choose to challenge violations of the law simply by prosecuting individual users. Instead, federal lawyers sued six Northern California cannabis clubs and sought court orders making their operations illegal.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer agreed that the state law "directly conflicts with federal law" and that in such situations, the federal power prevails.
But last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed in part. It said that the law must make an exception for "seriously ill individuals who need cannabis for medical purposes." Its opinion referred to this as a "medical necessity exemption" to the federal drug laws.
In July, Breyer revised his order to allow the Oakland club to give marijuana to those who will "suffer imminent harm" if they are denied the drug.
The Justice Department reacted quickly and asked the Supreme Court to intervene on an emergency basis. On an 8-1 vote, the justices issued an order that prohibited the legal distribution of marijuana at the Oakland club.
Only Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, saying that the "orderly enforcement of federal criminal statutes" was not threatened by the medical use of marijuana.
After winning the emergency order, U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman petitioned the court and asked for a ruling that reversed the liberal standard set by the 9th Circuit. Distributing marijuana legally, even on limited basis, will "promote disrespect and disregard" for the drug laws, he said.
The court granted his appeal Monday in the case of U.S. vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, 00-151. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said he was recused from the case because his brother was the judge who issued the original order. If the justices rule for the government, their decision would mean that the distribution of marijuana is illegal, regardless of the circumstances.
Such a ruling would not necessarily mean the government would prosecute individuals who possessed marijuana for personal medical use. However, it would limit the means of distributing the drug to those who need it.
Previous legal actions have failed to stem the growth of the Oakland club and other medical marijuana distributors operating in the Bay Area. The membership of the Oakland club has expanded from 2,200 to about 7,000 in the last two years. However, Raich said, no marijuana currently is being distributed.
Now, he said, the cooperative is issuing identification cards only to patients who have a verified recommendation for medicinal marijuana from a physician. Those patients then are referred to medical marijuana providers that remain open.
Seven or eight such providers are operating in San Francisco, and another is scheduled to open in January.
Randi Webster, a director of the Patient Resource Center in San Francisco, estimates that several thousand patients in the area have identification cards that entitle them to use medical marijuana.
Dennis Peron, a chief author of Proposition 215, had his Cannabis Buyer's Club in San Francisco shut down by the state attorney general two years ago. He says he now is operating a medicinal marijuana growing cooperative on a 20-acre farm in Lake County.
There are 50 members who grow their own medicinal marijuana, he said.
"The initial buy-in is $100," he said. "You need a letter of diagnosis from a doctor, and you sign a form saying we are your primary caregiver."
Besides California, eight states have adopted medical marijuana laws. They are Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada and Washington.
Savage reported from Washington and Reiterman from Northern California.
---
Andean Meeting Canceled
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/world/28VENE.html
CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 27 - Venezuela canceled a Dec. 8-9 meeting of leaders from the Andean region today, citing schedule problems, but the move came amid a war of words with Colombia over its plans to intensify its fight against drugs and Marxist rebels.
The dispute heated up after Caracas served as host last week to a meeting with Colombian rebel representatives. Colombia recalled its ambassador to Venezuela for consultations, a move Venezuela copied today.
---
Supreme Court Roundup: Medical Use of Marijuana Is Argued
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/politics/28CASE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - The Supreme Court agreed today to decide whether "medical necessity" can justify distributing marijuana, in violation of federal law, to people who use it to relieve pain or medical symptoms that cannot be effectively treated by conventional means.
The case is an appeal by the Clinton administration of a federal court ruling in California that adopted the medical necessity defense.
At issue is the future of the dozens of marijuana cooperatives formed over the last few years as voters in a growing list of states have passed initiatives to authorize using marijuana for medical purposes.
The medical necessity defense "runs counter to the absolute ban" on distributing marijuana and is "directly at odds" with federal law, the administration told the court in its appeal of a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco.
The case is not a criminal prosecution. Rather, it grows out of the government's request three years ago for a federal court injunction to stop the operations of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, started by the city of Oakland to administer a medical marijuana program under California's Proposition 215. Also known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, the measure made it legal in California for seriously ill patients, with a doctor's recommendation, to possess and use marijuana for the relief of pain and other symptoms.
California is one of nine states where voters have adopted similar policies. Six others - Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada, where voters approved a constitutional amendment earlier this month - are also in the Ninth Circuit. The other two states are Maine and Colorado, where an initiative also received voter approval earlier this month.
Tens of thousands of people are thought to be members of marijuana cooperatives similar to the Oakland organization.
Judge Charles R. Breyer, of Federal District Court in San Francisco, initially granted the injunction that the government sought. He is the younger brother of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who has recused himself from the case, United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, No. 00-151.
In a ruling last year, the Ninth Circuit held that Judge Breyer should have modified the injunction to consider medical necessity and the "strong public interest" in the availability of marijuana for patients whose doctors think they need it.
As a result, Judge Breyer issued a new order in July, noting that the federal government "has still not offered any evidence" to rebut the Oakland cooperative's evidence "that cannabis is medically necessary for a group of seriously ill individuals."
He said the cooperative could continue to supply marijuana to members who suffer from a "serious medical condition," who will suffer "imminent harm" without marijuana, and for whom alternative treatments have been ineffective or have caused intolerable side effects. In August, the Supreme Court granted the federal government's request for a stay of the ruling.
In defending the lower court's ruling, the Oakland group told the justices that "necessity is one of the oldest and most well-entrenched common law defenses in Anglo- American jurisprudence whose roots can be traced to the mid-13th century in England." The group's court brief said that "contrary to the government's contention, recognition of a necessity defense does not undermine the rule of law."
These were some of the other developments at the court today:
Mushroom Growers
Accepting another government appeal, the court agreed to decide the constitutionality of a federal law that requires mushroom producers to pay into an Agriculture Department fund supporting generic advertising to encourage people to eat mushrooms.
Such funds exist for many agricultural commodities, from honey to watermelons to dairy products to pork. Many producers dislike the mandatory assessments and have been challenging the generic advertising as government-compelled commercial speech that violates the First Amendment.
Three years ago, the Supreme Court narrowly rejected a First Amendment challenge to the generic advertising program for California tree fruits, including peaches, plums and nectarines. But in the mushroom case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, nonetheless found that program unconstitutional in a ruling last year.
The appeals court said that while "the California tree fruit industry is fully collectivized and is no longer a part of a free market," the mushroom industry is essentially unregulated. The assessments and the advertising program represent only the dealings that the producers have with the federal government and cannot be justified as part of a general regulatory approach, the Sixth Circuit said.
In its appeal, United States v. United Foods, No. 00-276, the government told the court that the decision had created uncertainty about the constitutionality of agricultural market programs, which Congress passed in an effort to stabilize and strengthen various commodities.
Benefits Case
The court also agreed to decide whether the federal law governing employee benefit programs allows plan administrators to sue a member for reimbursement of medical expenses once the member has received money, through a lawsuit or settlement, from a person who caused the injuries.
The lower federal courts are in dispute over whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act permits this kind of suit, even if the benefits plan contains what is known as a subrogation clause providing that a member cannot keep a double-recovery windfall.
In this case, Reynolds Metals Co. v. Ellis, No. 99-1787, the Ninth Circuit refused to enforce the clause. The government, asked by the Supreme Court for its views, said the question was important because "it affects the ability of plan fiduciaries to recoup significant amounts of money on behalf of employee benefit trust funds."
---
Court Strikes Down Drug Checkpoints
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/national/29CND-SCOTUS.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 - Police roadblocks aimed at discovering drugs violate the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled today in an important decision reaffirming the Fourth Amendment prohibition against searches and seizures that are not based on a suspicion of individual wrongdoing.
"Without drawing the line at roadblocks designed primarily to serve the general interest in crime control," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the 6-to-3 majority, "the Fourth Amendment would do little to prevent such intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life."
The dissenters were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The majority agreed with a ruling last year by the federal appeals court in Chicago, holding that the city of Indianapolis violated the Fourth Amendment rights of motorists whom the police stopped at drug-interdiction checkpoints that were set up on city streets six times in 1998.
Pulling over cars in sequence, the police would check a driver's license and registration and then walk a specially trained dog around the car to sniff for drugs. Of the more than 1,100 cars that they stopped, the police made more than 100 arrests. More than half were for drug-related crimes and the rest were for license problems or other offenses.
The Indianapolis case was closely watched by cities and law enforcement agencies around the country. The National League of Cities told the Supreme Court in a brief that other cities were ready to adopt the Indianapolis program if the court upheld it.
In a case from Michigan 10 years ago, the Supreme Court upheld sobriety checkpoints as a means of protecting public safety by getting drunk drivers off the road. The court had also ruled in the past that a sniff by a drug-detecting dog, which are used commonly at airports, is so minimally intrusive as not to constitute a search.
Taking those precedents together, Indianapolis argued that adding a drug-sniffing dog to a checkpoint could not convert a lawful police practice into one that was unconstitutional.
But Justice O'Connor said the purpose of the checkpoint made all the difference: while sobriety checkpoints served to protect the public from an "immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb," she said, roadblocks for drug detection primarily served the ordinary law-enforcement interest in crime control.
"We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime," Justice O'Connor said, adding: "We are particularly reluctant to recognize exceptions to the general rule of individualized suspicion where governmental authorities primarily pursue their general crime control ends."
In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist said that because the Indianapolis checkpoints could be validly used to check for alcohol use or license irregularities, it was "constitutionally irrelevant" that the city "also hoped to interdict drugs."
In a separate dissent, Justice Thomas said he doubted the Constitution's framers would have regarded any roadblocks as acceptable, but since the court's precedents were not open for re-examination in this case, "I believe that those cases compel upholding the program at issue here."
The majority today might well have been influenced by the analysis of the issue contained in the lower court's opinion by Judge Richard A. Posner, whose views often carry particular weight among the more conservative justices. He said in his opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that the logic of the Indianapolis position could justify "totalitarian" police methods, even setting up metal detectors in front of people's homes to detect illegal weapons.
Indianapolis had argued that the severity of the drug problem justified the roadblocks. Granting that drugs create "social harms of the first magnitude," Justice O'Connor said, "the gravity of the threat alone" was not sufficient to justify dispensing with individual suspicion.
Justice O'Connor said that "limited circumstances" had the court been willing to set aside the requirement of individual suspicion. The examples she offered included drug-testing of customs agents, transportation workers, and student athletes, which the court's precedents have justified as serving "special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement."
Kenneth J. Falk, who brought the case against Indianapolis as legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Indiana affiliate and who argued the case last month, said today that the decision was an important reaffirmation of the Fourth Amendment principle that "the police cannot conduct a criminal investigation without cause." In an interview, he said that "the concern of civil libertarians was that the court had appeared to be drifting away" from that view of the Fourth Amendment and toward a general balancing of law enforcement needs and personal privacy concerns.
The court has been deferential to the police in defining the type of suspicion necessary to justify police action, an approach that this opinion does not change. Last term, for example, the court ruled that flight at the mere sight of a police officer can be suspicious enough to justify an officer in chasing and frisking the person.
There were also these other developments today:
Arbitration Upheld
The Court voted 9 to 0 to uphold an arbitrator's decision reinstating a truck driver whom an employer wanted to dismiss for failing two drug tests. The decision, with an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, affirmed a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond.
The employer, a coal company, argued that although the union contract provided for binding arbitration, the reinstatement of a drug-using truck driver violated "public policy." But Justice Breyer said that the policy in this situation was set by Congress and the Department of Transportation, which had detailed rules on drug use in the transportation industry that did not require dismissal in this case. The decision was Eastern Coal Corp. v. United Mine Workers, No. 99-1038.
More on Television
Two senators who sponsored a bill this year to open the federal courts to television wrote to the court today asking for reconsideration of the justices' refusal yesterday to open Friday's argument in the Florida election case to television coverage.
Senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, sponsors of the "Sunshine in the Courtroom" bill, told the justices that "the successful televising of the Florida Supreme Court proceedings is perhaps the single strongest argument for televising this unique Supreme Court case." A long list of cable and broadcast networks are also pressing their requests to cover the 90-minute argument, by sound if not by picture.
---
High court strikes down drug checkpoints
USA Today
11/28/00- Updated 10:56 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court on Monday struck down as unconstitutional random roadblocks intended to catch drug criminals. The court's most conservative justices dissented.
The 6-3 ruling weighed privacy rights against the interests of law enforcement. The majority found that Indianapolis' use of drug-sniffing dogs to check all cars pulled over at the roadblocks was an unreasonable search under the Constitution.
The majority, in an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, said the ruling does not affect other kinds of police roadblocks such as border checks and drunken-driving checkpoints. Those have already been found constitutional.
But the reasoning behind those kinds of roadblocks - chiefly that the benefit to the public outweighs the inconvenience - cannot be applied broadly, O'Connor wrote.
''If this case were to rest on such a high level of generality, there would be little check on the authorities' ability to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement purpose,'' the opinion said.
Lawyers for Indianapolis conceded that the roadblocks erected there in 1998 detained far more innocent motorists than criminals.
The city said its primary aim was to catch drug criminals. Civil liberties advocates called the practice heavy-handed and risky, and asked the Supreme Court to ban it.
Law enforcement in and of itself is not a good enough reason to stop innocent motorists, the majority ruling concluded.
The court was not swayed by the argument that the severity of the drug problem in some city neighborhoods justified the searches.
''While we do not limit the purposes that may justify a checkpoint program to any rigid set of categories, we decline to approve a program whose primary purpose is ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control,'' the majority opinion said.
Cars were pulled over at random in high-crime neighborhoods in Indianapolis, motorists questioned, and a drug-sniffing dog led around the cars. Most motorists were detained for about three minutes.
The city conducted six roadblocks over four months in 1998 before the practice was challenged in federal court.
Police stopped 1,161 cars and trucks and made 104 arrests. Fifty-five of the arrests were on drug charges.
---
Racial profiling disclosure could taint cases
USA Today
11/28/00- Updated 05:50 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndstue07.htm
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - After admitting the state's war on drugs unfairly victimized minority drivers, New Jersey's attorney general may drop drug charges against hundreds of motorists who claim they were pulled over because of their race.
The state also could be forced to settle dozens of lawsuits filed by black and Hispanic state troopers who allege they were forced to practice racial profiling.
Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr. said his office would review each pending criminal case in which bias allegedly tainted drug seizures. Criminal charges could be dropped, he said. Civil lawsuits also will be examined with an eye toward settlement.
''Where they are reasonable, we're going to settle these cases,'' Farmer said Monday. ''We'll certainly look at it a lot more closely based on what we've discovered.''
On Monday, Farmer released nearly 100,000 pages of documents showing that state troopers stopped overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers of minorities in searches for drugs. New Jersey's top law enforcement officials knew that since at least 1989 but didn't admit racial profiling was widespread until an April 1999 report.
Attorneys for the motorists and the troopers returned to a state reading room Tuesday to resume searching the documents.
''The constitutional violations are so egregious, and they've been sitting on these documents for years,'' public defender Kevin Walker said Tuesday.
Walker, who represents several defendants stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, said the state's only option is to dismiss the charges. His office is considering a court motion to ask just that.
''If they're talking about settlement, if they're taking that approach with the civil cases, it's certainly more important with the criminal ones because of the constitutional violations,'' Walker said. Attorneys predicted courts would be overwhelmed with pleas to overturn drug convictions.
''I hope more people come forward. If the New Jersey justice system has any moral strength and strength of character, it should be willing to reopen cases where the convictions aren't sound,'' attorney William Buckman said.
Buckman led a legal challenge that ended in 1996 when a judge said troopers on the turnpike targeted minorities more than whites. Despite internal evidence to support that conclusion, the state continued to appeal the ruling until 1999.
Included in the documents released Monday are many key reports state officials denied existed, Buckman said. Some of them were evidence he requested as early as 1990 for criminal trials.
Controversy over possible racial profiling - derided in the minority community as DWB or ''driving while black'' - was heightened in 1998 when two troopers shot and wounded three minority men during a traffic stop. In early 1999, Gov. Christie Whitman fired the State Police superintendent after he said minorities were responsible for most of the state's cocaine and marijuana traffic.
A state judge dismissed charges against the troopers involved in the shooting, accusing prosecutors of misconduct and a former state attorney general of bowing to political pressure. But this month, federal prosecutors agreed to pursue possible federal charges in the case.
-------- india/pakistan
3 Soldiers Killed in Kashmir Despite Truce
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/kashmir-attack.html
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 28 -- Three Indian soldiers were killed when militants blew up an army truck in Indian-held Kashmir on Tuesday, shattering the first day of a truce announced for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Police on the Indian side of Kashmir said twelve soldiers were also wounded in the attack which took place at Duru village in Anantnag, 55 km (34 miles) south of Srinagar.
Salim Hashmi, spokesman for the Hizbul Mujahideen guerrilla group, told Reuters its fighters used a landmine to blow up the vehicle in Nathipura, Islamabad district, in Kashmir.
Islamabad district is also known as Anantnag in the south of the Kashmir valley.
Indian forces started a month-long truce on Tuesday but militants have so far refused to join a ceasefire. A bloody insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir has claimed more than 30,000 lives in 11 years.
Underlining the rejection of a ceasefire, Al-Badar Mujahideen, a hardline group, said it would start Operation Al-Badar -- a Ramadan offensive against Indian forces in Kashmir -- from Tuesday evening before completion of the first fasting day.
``Ghazwa-e-Badar Operation will start from today...as there is no ceasefire, neither from our side nor from their (India),'' said a spokesman of Al-Badar Mujahideen.
Hizbul Mujahideen declared a ceasefire earlier this year and held brief talks with Indian officials but the process ended when India refused to include Pakistan. India holds about 45 percent of Kashmir, Pakistan just over a third and China the remainder.
A spokesman for Hizbul Mujahideen said the group had spelled out conditions for joining a ceasefire to the Indian government and until the terms -- which included talks including Pakistan to finally end the conflict -- were accepted the campaign would continue.
The All Party Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference and other political forces in Kashmir welcomed the ceasefire. But militant groups close to Pakistan said the ceasefire would have no effect on their operations.
---
Kashmir cease-fire goes into effect
Washington Times
November 28, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-20001128213513.htm
SRINAGAR, India - India put a cease-fire into effect in Kashmir late last night, ordering its soldiers not to fire on separatist guerrillas except as a last resort if attacked.
The unilateral cease-fire during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan was called by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in a bid to end an 11-year insurgency by Islamic separatists that has cost more than 30,000 lives.
An estimated 600,000 soldiers and thousands of other security forces in India's Jammu-Kashmir state stood guard in sandbagged bunkers, observation towers and along the mountainous frontier with Pakistan. The two countries have fought two wars over predominantly Muslim Kashmir.
-------- space
Endeavour mission gets closer
USA Today
11/28/00- Updated 03:27 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndstue05.htm
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA began the countdown Tuesday for a space shuttle mission that will provide powerful, new solar wings for the international space station. Endeavour is scheduled to lift off Thursday night with the American-made, electricity-producing panels. The $600 million panels will be folded for launch. Once installed on space station Alpha and unfurled, they will stretch 240 feet from tip to tip - the longest rigid structure ever deployed in space.
The power generated by the panels will allow Alpha's three residents to open a module that has been sealed since their arrival almost one month ago. There isn't enough power from the station's smaller Russian solar panels to heat the Unity module.
The extra power also will be used to operate NASA's Destiny lab once it's launched in January.
Shuttle commander Brent Jett Jr. spoke with the Alpha crew over the weekend and said the skipper, Bill Shepherd, is anxious for Endeavour to show up.
''I reminded Shep, I said, 'Well, Shep, you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of things that have to go right this week for us to launch on Thursday,''' Jett said. ''He understands that. He's flown on the shuttle before.''
The weather, at least, is expected to cooperate. Forecasters put the odds of acceptable conditions at 90%.
Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, the space station's first full-time residents, moved in Nov. 2 for a four-month stay. The five shuttle crew members, who arrived Monday evening at Kennedy Space Center, will be their first visitors.
Two shuttle astronauts will go outside three times during the 11-day mission to help install the solar panels and perform other spacewalking chores.
-------- u.n.
U.N. Issues Harsh Report as Strife, Barak's Woes Continue in Mideast
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, November 28, 2000
From Times Wire Reports
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001128/t000114126.html
Palestinians opened fire on the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo south of Jerusalem after nightfall Monday, shattering what had been a relatively quiet day, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak scrambled to save his government.
Meanwhile, U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson said in Geneva that she was "shocked and dismayed and even devastated" at the plight of Palestinians confronting Israeli forces in the occupied territories.
In a hard-hitting report on her visit earlier this month to the Middle East, Robinson urged creation of an international monitoring body.
For the first time in three weeks Monday, no one was killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as Palestinian Muslims marked the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Israeli soldiers fired at the Palestinian town of Beit Jala, source of the gunfire at Gilo. No casualties were reported.
On Sunday, gun battles in the West Bank and the shooting deaths of five Palestinians by Israeli troops set back hopes raised by rare meetings between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs. Another Palestinian died Monday of wounds received earlier.
Barak rival Ariel Sharon asked the Supreme Court to force Barak's Labor Party to allow for early elections if a simple majority of those in parliament asks for it.
---
U.N. Rights Chief Proposes West Bank and Gaza Monitors
New York Times
November 28, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/world/28NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 27 - The top United Nations human rights official said today that international monitors should be considered for the West Bank and Gaza, where she called the conditions of Palestinian civilian life bleak.
In a report on a visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said the reality of life for Palestinians in the current crisis had been one of "grinding, petty humiliations, discriminations and inequalities" that are "ultimately dehumanizing."
In forceful terms, Mrs. Robinson described how the violence have led to curtailed economic activity and a loss of income for the Palestinians. In a recommendation that supporters of Israel said strayed too far into politics, she also called for an end to new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and the removal of settlements in heavily populated Palestinian areas.
She said the benefits that Jewish residents in the settlements continue to enjoy - little or no loss of income, no punitive curfews, separate access roads and domination of land and water resources - contributed considerably to Palestinian resentment.
Trying to strike a balance as she described her tour, Mrs. Robinson said she found that "hate speech and incitement" was a problem on both sides. "The evidence was clearly visible on the walls of Palestinian houses and Israeli settlements," she wrote, adding that she had been "shocked by calls broadcast on Palestinian television and radio urging the killing of all Jews."
The call for monitors or further international action in Israel and the occupied territories has been roundly rejected by Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government. Israel views those proposals as ploys by the Palestinians and their international supporters - led in the United Nations by Egypt, Malaysia and Pakistan - to expand the roles of the United Nations and the European Union in the Mideast and to reduce the importance of American leadership.
The Palestinian push to raise demands on Israel seems at times to work at cross-purposes with Secretary General Kofi Annan's efforts to build a balanced role for himself and the organization in the region. He has made great efforts to help end Israel's isolation at the United Nations and to reduce the routine vilification that it receives from a majority of Arab and developing nations.
Mr. Annan has called proposals to send an international protection force to the Mideast to interpose itself between Palestinians and Israelis as unrealistic as long as Israel completely opposes it. He has met with and urged George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader and now chairman of an investigation commission on the violence between Israel and the Palestinians, to go to the region quickly and begin work.
On her trip, from Nov. 8 to 16, Mrs. Robinson, a former president of Ireland, met a range of Israeli and Palestinian officials. At the Palestinians' request, though, she canceled a meeting with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli opposition leader whose visit in September to the Temple Mount, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims, was followed by the new violence. She also went to Egypt and Jordan.
Her trip followed a series of votes in United Nations agencies that condemned Israel's military response to attacks by less-well-armed Palestinians. More than 270 people, mostly Palestinians, have died in two months of violence.
Her full report, sent to Mr. Annan on Sunday and to the General Assembly today, reflected the concerns of both Israelis and Palestinians.
Mrs. Robinson has no power to enforce her recommendations. But diplomats and some human rights leaders said they would bolster Palestinian arguments for outside help.
The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith said the commissioner had issued "a distorted and detrimental report."
"The violence could stop immediately if the Palestinians chose to stop it and commit to a negotiated settlement with Israel," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the league.
Amnesty International wrote to the Security Council today to back the recommendation on rights monitors, but called for scrutiny of both the Palestinian and the Israeli administrations. And delegates from the Islamic Conference Organization met Mr. Annan and the Security Council after their summit meeting of Islamic nations.
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Florida presidential recount:
Bush campaign makes appeal to military and extreme right
World Socialist Web Site
20 November 2000
By Patrick Martin
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/bush-n20.shtml
Less than 24 hours after a Florida Supreme Court decision temporarily halted plans by the Republican-controlled state government to declare George W. Bush the winner of the presidential election, the Bush campaign returned to the attack in a press conference Saturday afternoon. Spokesmen for the Texas governor combined a denunciation of the manual recount in three south Florida counties with the allegation that the Gore campaign and the Florida Democratic Party were seeking to exclude absentee ballots cast by military personnel from the statewide tally.
Both the tone and the content of the statements by Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Montana Governor Marc Racicot, a Bush confidant, were extraordinary, even by the debased standards of contemporary American politics.
Hughes declared, "We are concerned that a targeted effort by the Democratic Party sought to throw out as many as a third of the overseas absentee ballots received since Election Day. No one who aspires to commander in chief should seek to unfairly deny the votes of the men and women he would seek to command."
Racicot came close to inciting insubordination in the military, declaring, "Last night we learned how far the vice president's campaign will go to win this election. And I am very sorry to say but the vice president's lawyers have gone to war, in my judgment, against the men and women who serve in our armed forces."
The Bush campaign also released a statement from retired General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf War and a fervent Bush supporter, regretting that military personnel were finding that "because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the president of the United States, who will be their commander in chief."
The Bush campaign has shown no compunction about using technicalities to exclude tens of thousands of potentially valid votes which punch-card machines failed to read. In fact, Bush's entire claim to victory rests on a technicality: the claim by Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris that state law bars including recount totals which are submitted later than Tuesday, November 14.
The Republicans sought to waive just such a deadline for absentee ballots, which must be postmarked by Election Day according to state law. The postmark requirement is not merely a technicality, however, since it is the only indication that the ballot was actually sent from overseas.
The political significance of the military ballots goes well beyond the relatively small number of votes, which is unlikely to affect the outcome in Florida. Raising the issue is, on the part of the Bush campaign, a clear attempt to foment military opposition to the Democrats and to sound out sections of the military brass on their attitude toward a possible election stalemate.
It is worth recalling that soon after the Clinton-Gore administration took office, Republican Senator Jesse Helms warned the new president not to come to military bases in his home state of North Carolina because he was so unpopular that he would be in physical danger. During the 2000 campaign there was an unprecedented mobilization of retired military brass behind the Bush-Cheney campaign, including some top officers who had left active service only days before issuing their endorsement of the Republican ticket
The manual recount
The Republican attack on the manual recount in three south Florida counties also had a definite political audience in mind. The Bush campaign has taken up the claim, up to now limited to extreme right circles, that the manual recount is a crude exercise in vote-stealing by the Gore campaign.
The factual substance of the claims about the manual recount can be disposed of briefly. The Republicans have taken a handful of incidents, largely innocuous or deliberately distorted, and sought to manufacture a case that large-scale vote fraud is being carried out in Palm Beach and Broward counties. (Miami-Dade does not begin its recount until Monday morning, at which point fraud charges will undoubtedly be leveled there as well.)
While Hughes and Racicot claimed there was overwhelming evidence of fraud, none of the affidavits collected by the Republican Party have been submitted to election officials either in the three counties concerned or in the Republican-controlled state government. Thus, their goal in raising the issue is not to expose or prevent real vote-stealing, but to poison public opinion against the recount with unfounded charges, even before any totals are announced.
The method of the Bush campaign is a further elaboration of the Big Lie technique in which they have engaged since the election. Judge Charles Burton, supervisor of the Palm Beach County recount, analyzed one piece of "evidence," the presence of scotch tape on a half-dozen ballots, in some cases taping the "chad" back over the hole indicating a vote for Bush. Burton explained that all these ballots had been mailed in by absentee voters who had likely punched the wrong number, then sought to rectify their error with scotch tape. Each of these ballots ha