NUCLEAR
Nuclear Company To File Complaint
Protesters to lobby French nuclear submarine
Israel Launches Observation Satellite From Siberia
Korean Reunification Said Way Off
Norway Jets Intercepted Russian Planes After Kursk
Russia Assures U.S. on Arms Sales to Iran
Russia ready to defy missile defence plan
Spain Would Like Britain to Take Back Nuclear Sub
Headaches Pile Up on Ukraine Leader
Chernobyl's Last Reactor in Emergency Shutdown
Chernobyl Reactor Malfunctions
Chernobyl's only working reactor halted
Benefits program closer to completion for nuclear-plant workers
Rice named CEO of GE Power Systems
10 Flats workers contaminated
HADDAM: NUCLEAR STORAGE REJECTED
FPL is pursuing a life extension for nuclear plant
Russian sub has left the city
Anti-Terror Experiments a Real Blast
MILITARY
Cohen warns Europe on defense needs
U.S. has tough words for EU allies
Colombia kidnappings threaten elite
DEA's responsibility
Clinton: Pot Smoking Should Not Be Prison Offense
THE BUSH-CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE
Panel recommends reform in drug law
Corrections
Clinton issues Medal of Freedom
NASA approves plan to fix space station
Putin's Touchy Timing
UN extends Iraq oil-for-food program
Up to 6 Yemenis to be tried in Cole attack
States
GOP lawyers focus on military ballots
Persian Gulf security increased
3 Yemenis face trial in Cole attack
Feds find Army Corps rigged data
OTHER
States
EPA to crack down on vehicle emissions
Scientists urge biotech corn study
World Bank fires 3 in kickback scheme
Metro Briefing
Jury awards $2M to paralyzed man
California
British police fight crime with new tool - guns
Police role in terror task force criticized
U.S. Businessman Found Guilty of Espionage
U.S. Objects To American's Sentence
Edmond Pope is convicted of espionage
CIA briefs Bush; GOP urges voiding Clinton orders
American Convicted of Espionage in Russia
Cuba spy trial opens in Miami
Peru roots out Montesinos influence
U.S. BUSINESSMAN SENTENCED AS SPY
ACTIVISTS
Rosie's hide
Freeh urges no clemency for Peltier
US Army detains 1700 at School of Americas
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- business
Nuclear Company To File Complaint
December 6, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Uranium-Trade.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The only U.S. company that provides fuel for nuclear power plants says it will file a trade complaint against European competitors.
The U.S. Enrichment Corp. said it will ask the government to investigate whether Eurodif SA and Urenco Ltd. sold uranium to American power plants for less than the cost of production.
Eurodif is a British, Dutch and German consortium. Urenco is France's uranium enrichment company.
The case, to be filed Thursday, alleges the competitors benefit from government subsidies, and have harmed the U.S. company by selling power plant-grade uranium at illegally low prices.
``The injury is in multiple millions of dollars,'' said Richard Cunningham, a lawyer for U.S. Enrichment.
The company has been struggling for profitability against a worldwide drop in the price of uranium available for sale to power plants.
As of the end of June, the company was selling uranium to 73 percent of available nuclear power customers in North America, compared with 13 percent for Urenco and 7 percent for Eurodif.
It also dominates the world market, with 36 percent of the current business, compared with 21 percent for Eurodif, 21 percent for Russia's Tenex, and 14 percent for Urenco.
-------- france
Protesters to lobby French nuclear submarine
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Wed, 6 Dec 2000 17:15 ADST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-6dec2000-31.htm
Anti-nuclear campaigners say they will be lobbying to try to prevent the planned visit of a French nuclear submarine to Australia next year.
Defence regulations will have to be changed to permit the visit, as part of naval exercises in the region.
Friends of the Earth spokesman John Hallam says a campaign is already underway, demanding the visit be refused and he expects opposition to grow as the date draws nearer.
"There might be a little bit more of an oomph to it and I am quite sure as well that we would go a long way in collaborating with French groups to prevent such a thing from happening, and to lobby not only the Australian Government but also to lobby the French Government from France itself," he said.
-------- israel
Israel Launches Observation Satellite From Siberia
December 6, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/science/science-israel-satell.html
TEL AVIV - Israel launched the first of a series of observation satellites Tuesday designed to take high-resolution photographs of any spot on earth.
The launch, in Siberia, came almost two years after Israel's Ofek-4 satellite, which was widely reported to have been meant to spy on Iran, Iraq and Syria, malfunctioned and burned up after liftoff.
Israel's Ofek-3 reconnaissance satellite has been in space for more than four years and is reaching the end of its life.
The 550-pound, $100 million EROS-1 satellite from ImageSat International NV was launched in Siberia using a Russian Topol or SS-25 ballistic missile. It has enough fuel to stay in orbit for six years.
Netherlands Antilles-based ImageSat said the satellite was meant for commercial purposes, such as mapping, urban development and fishery. But Israel's Ha'artez daily reported on Tuesday the Israeli Defense Ministry would be a customer.
State-owned Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), with 31 percent, holds a majority stake in ImageSat. Israel's Electro-Optical Industries, United Mizrahi Bank (MZRH.TA), the Challenge Fund and Core Software Technology also own stakes.
``We expect to commission up to eight high-resolution satellites in the coming years,'' said Jacob Weiss, chief executive officer of ImageSat.
Eight Satellites Within Six Years
EROS-1, at nearly 300 miles above earth, will orbit the earth every 90 minutes, company officials said.
``It will cover every place on the planet,'' said ImageSat vice president Yifrah Haim, a retired Israeli general. ``When we have more than one satellite, the ability to cover the same area more often will improve.''
He noted that EROS should be ready within days to start taking photos, while all eight satellites should be operational within six years.
Israel accelerated its spy satellite program after the 1991 Gulf War when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israeli cities. The current Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation has heightened tensions in the Middle East and raised war fears.
Experts put the cost of detailed, high-resolution photos at about $1,500 each and Merrill Lynch forecast the commercial satellite imaging market reaching $6.5 billion in revenues by 2007, anticipating the annual growth rate to be about 35 percent.
-------- korea
Korean Reunification Said Way Off
December 6, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-NKorea.html
KYOTO, Japan (AP) -- Remarkable improvements in relations between the Koreas this year have given the peninsula its best outlook for peace in five decades, but reunification is not a realistic short-term goal, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Wednesday.
Steven W. Bosworth said that for the time being, North and South Korea should keep working to promote reconciliation. Meanwhile, the U.S. military should remain in South Korea and the North should be encouraged to reduce its weapons of mass destruction, including long-range missiles, he said.
Bosworth's comments at the opening of a U.N.-funded symposium on ways to promote peace in East Asia were immediately criticized by a North Korean delegate.
The delegate, Myong Chol Kim, insisted in an interview that reunification is the top goal of the two Koreas. He said he hopes to see them form a joint central government within five years to share decisions on issues such as defense and foreign policy.
Kim also said the United States opposes such a goal because it could lead the Koreas to ask for the withdrawal of the tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers who have been protecting the South since the end of the Korean War.
Kim, a North Korean who lives in Japan, has long been considered the unofficial spokesman of the government in Pyongyang. He denied the widely held view that North Korea presents a big military threat to South Korean and U.S. forces.
``From our point of view, our missile forces and military spending are a joke compared to the massive ones of the United States,'' he said.
During his speech, Bosworth praised South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for taking major steps to reduce long-standing tensions during their summit in Pyongyang in June. Since the summit, the South has helped the North with its struggling economy and food shortages, and the sides have taken steps to reunite separated families and reopen rail and road links across one of the world's most heavily armed borders.
But Bosworth said the United States will keep a strong military force in the South to deter possible North Korean aggression. He also said Washington would continue to try to negotiate an end to the North's development of weapons of mass destruction and its export of long-range missile equipment to countries such as Pakistan and Iran.
``We have a long way to go in such talks, but there has been an encouraging series of developments,'' he said.
-------- norway
Norway Jets Intercepted Russian Planes After Kursk
New York Times
December 6, 2000 Filed at 9:52 a.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-norway-.html
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway sent fighter jets in August to intercept Russian planes apparently scouring the Barents Sea for a foreign submarine suspected of sinking Russia's Kursk nuclear submarine, Norway's armed forces said on Wednesday.
All 118 sailors aboard the nuclear-powered Kursk died in the unexplained accident in mid-August.
NATO member Norway reiterated that it had no evidence that a foreign submarine, including the USS Memphis which docked in Norway about week after the sinking, might have collided with the nuclear-powered Kursk.
``The Russians sent some maritime patrol aircraft over the Barents Sea after the accident. They apparently suspected that a foreign submarine was involved,'' armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel John Espen Lien told Reuters.
He said Norway sent F-16 fighter jets to identify the Illyushin-built surveillance planes, the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Orion plane, over international Arctic waters on both August 17 and 18.
``The F-16s were sent up to identify the planes,'' he said. The Norwegian pilots were told to fly close enough to look at and identify the planes. Such surveillance planes can drop sonars into the sea to listen for submarines.
He said that the Russian surveillance planes had not patrolled the area since 1996 and that Norway sent its F-16s as part of ``maritime policing.'' The Russian planes were intercepted on both August 17 and 18.
In Moscow Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev confirmed a report by a Norwegian admiral that Russian warplanes were deployed to track a foreign submarine from the Barents Sea just days after the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster.
Russia's NTV television station cited a Norwegian admiral, Einar Skorgen, as saying he had launched warplanes on that date to intercept six Russian fighters in danger of breaching Norwegian air space.
Norway's armed forces suspect that two explosions aboard the Kursk, perhaps caused by a faulty torpedo, were the most likely cause of the accident.
Lien said there was no evidence of a collision even though causes of the accident were unknown. ``The only ones who can give a full answer to this are the Russians,'' by examining the Kursk, he said.
He said the USS Memphis, which called at a Norwegian port near the western city of Bergen on August 18 as part of a long-planned visit, was undamaged above the waterline.
``We didn't notice any damage to the sub and we didn't notice any repairs going on,'' he said. ``You could easily stand on the other side of the fjord and look at the Memphis. It was floating as normal.''
``We didn't see below the waterline,'' he said. ``But the crew used their time off in Bergen as normal.''
-------- russia
Russia Assures U.S. on Arms Sales to Iran
December 6, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/arms-russia-usa.html
BRUSSELS, Dec. 6 - - Russia assured the United States on Wednesday that it will not sell offensive weapons to Iran despite last month's decision by Moscow to resume arms transfers to Tehran, U.S. defence officials said.
The officials spoke with reporters following a 45-minute bilateral meeting between Russian defence minister Igor Sergeyev and U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen at NATO headquarters in the Belgian capital.
``He (Sergeyev) said they would sell only defensive weapons,'' one of the U.S. officials, who asked not to be identified, told reporters travelling with Cohen to a NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels.
``Most of these sales would be to service and maintain old Soviet equipment,'' the official added.
The Cohen-Sergeyev exchange came when Cohen reiterated U.S. concern about Moscow's recent decision, effective last week, to withdraw from a 1995 pact not to sell conventional arms to Iran, which the United States says is trying to develop nuclear arms and supports anti-western ``terrorist'' groups.
U.S. state department officials travelled to Moscow this week to press Washington's concerns over the matter and to make sure that any new transfers to Iran do not include technology that might improve Tehran's Sahab-3 missile, now in development with a range of about 1,500 km (about 1,000 miles).
Moscow is prevented by other agreements from selling nuclear, chemical or biological arms and technology to Iran, which the United States says has an active nuclear arms programme.
LUCRATIVE MARKET
Washington has warned that it would consider sanctions under U.S. law against Russian companies or the government if sales of advanced conventional technology occurred.
``They (the Russians) have already pledged not to sell any equipment or expertise which would contribute to theirnuclear weapons programme,'' another U.S. defence official said on Wednesday.
Sergeyev, who is expected to visit Tehran soon, told reporters during a visit to NATO on Tuesday Moscow would stick with its international obligations on transfers to Iran.
But Russia wants to make money from a lucrative market at a time of high oil prices and appears to be taking advantage of a delay in determining U.S. President Bill Clinton's successor in the White House.
Wednesday's meeting was upbeat, U.S. officials said, and both Cohen and Sergeyev stressed that U.S.-Russian military relations were improving. The U.S. secretary praised Sergeyev's suggestion at the NATO gathering that Moscow's ties with the western alliance needed to break out of a state of ``permafrost.''
The two defence leaders promised to work together to complete a joint planned early missile warning system in Moscow, the U.S. officials said, adding that the project had been delayed by Russian tax laws covering U.S. monitoring equipment being sent to Russia.
Cohen also promised to cooperate with Russia under an agreement made by NATO and the Russians on Tuesday to explore cooperation on possible joint submarine rescue efforts.
That agreement followed an August accident in which the submarine Kursk plunged to the bottom of the Barents Sea, killing 118 sailors in Russia's worst such naval disaster.
Sergeyev told Cohen that the incident was still under investigation and did not repeat claims by some Russian military officials that the Kursk might have collided with another submarine, U.S. officials said.
But Cohen, they added, ``strongly repeated'' U.S. statements that no American submarine was involved in the disaster, in which was the Kursk was rocked by two explosions.
---
Russia ready to defy missile defence plan
Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 06/12/2000
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/06/text/world7.html
NATO will discuss United States plans for new missile defences as Russia said it would refuse to destroy thousands of nuclear warheads if the system went ahead.
The Republican presidential candidate, Mr George W. Bush, is committed to pushing ahead with the national missile defence system, saying it is needed to protect the US from attack by rogue states such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
But the head of Russia's strategic rocket forces, General Vladimir Yakovlev, said this would scupper treaties agreeing to the destruction of warheads.
The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (AMB) treaty, which Washington wants to amend, governs the conditions under which the US and the former Soviet Union can develop and deploy anti-ballistic missile systems.
The current treaty would limit US deployment to its launch pad at Grand Forks, North Dakota, preventing the kind of nationwide protection envisaged under the new plans.
The ABM treaty led to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks treaties, the most recent of which - START II - would halve US and Russian nuclear arsenals to 3,000 or 3,500 warheads each. Russia's President Vladimir Putin has suggested that under Start III both sides should reduce their nuclear arsenals to 1,500 each.
But General Yakovlev said Russia was not prepared to soften its approach to allow the national missile defence system to go ahead. Deploying it would galvanise Russians to create new weapons even deadlier than nuclear missiles, he said.
"Unfortunately, men will always be driven to create new weapons. We expend our ingenuity inventing new systems and then have to work to find ways to eliminate them."
The vaunted Star Wars system of the former US president Ronald Reagan was abandoned largely because it was recognised as too expensive to protect every US city.
Last year's National Missile Defence Act committed the US to deploying the $A134 billion system "as soon as technologically possible".
It is expected to involve space and ground-based sensors to provide early-warning, ground-based radar to identify and track missiles, ground-based interceptors to destroy enemy warheads, and a battle command, control and communications system.
Despite US assurances that it is intended to protect the US from countries such as North Korea and Iraq, the Russians fear its ultimate aim is to put them at a disadvantage.
General Yakovlev said if it did not go ahead and there was agreement on Start III, Moscow was prepared to get rid of all its intercontinental ballistic missiles, with the exception of 1,500 new Topol Ms which have a range of 10,000 kilometres.
The Telegraph, London
-------- spain
Spain Would Like Britain to Take Back Nuclear Sub
Reuters
December 6, 2000 Filed at 11:32 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-spain-s.html
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said on Wednesday he would like Britain to take back a damaged nuclear submarine moored in Gibraltar, but only when such an operation was feasible.
The presence of the Tireless -- anchored in the tiny British colony on the southern tip of Spain since May despite protests from nearby Spanish communities -- has become an irritant in relations between London and Madrid.
``What I have said is that moving back the submarine to the United Kingdom would be the most reasonable and desirable thing...when it is feasible,'' Aznar told a news conference.
He was asked to comment on his own remarks in an interview published on Wednesday by British newspaper The Times, under the headline ``Aznar tells (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair to take back submarine.''
``When all the necessary analysis and studies have been carried out in order to decide whether it is possible to move a nuclear submarine, then and only then we will be able to say with full possession of the facts what is most reasonable.
``And the most reasonable thing is that the submarine is moved,'' Aznar said. He told reporters London had been informed of the Spanish position.
The issue dominated a meeting in November between Aznar and Blair. Blair said then that moving the submarine would be too complex and that Tireless, which sprang a leak in the cooling system of its nuclear reactor, had to be repaired in Gibraltar.
The European Commission has asked Britain to provide plans to keep the public informed of any health risk and likely measures in the event of a radioactive leak.
Aznar reiterated that public health was not at risk.
``There are full guarantees for the safety for citizens. The damage is limited and there is an exchange of information between British and Spanish technicians which is very reassuring,'' Aznar said.
Spain has a long-standing claim to Gibraltar.
-------- ukraine
Headaches Pile Up on Ukraine Leader
December 6, 2000
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/world/06UKRA.html
MOSCOW, Dec. 5 - President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine is having one of the worst ordeals of his long political career.
First, he is facing the monumental task on Dec. 15 of closing the last reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, site of the 1986 fire and radiation catastrophe. But the shutdown threatens further power cuts for millions of Ukrainians already shivering because of storms and equipment breakdowns.
Then, the International Monetary Fund has yet to certify Ukraine as creditworthy after having learned last winter how Kiev's central bankers were altering the national books to inflate reserves of hard currency, thus entitling Ukraine to additional loans from the fund.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has chosen this season to force Ukraine to accept a schedule to pay off its $1.5 billion gas debt to Moscow. And, Mr. Kuchma, after a brief honeymoon with a new reformist prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, is at odds with him as reforms cut into the influence, and incomes, of some of Mr. Kuchma's powerful industrial backers and regional bosses.
Then last week, Oleksandr Moroz, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, made public a tape recording supposedly with the voices of Mr. Kuchma and two of his top aides as they hurled curses and threats at a muckraking Ukrainian journalist, Georgy Gongadze. There was even talk on the tapes that suggested, "It would be good if he is kidnapped by the Chechens and taken to Chechnya and held there for ransom."
Mr. Gongadze, who published an opposition newspaper on an Internet Web site, Ukrainian Truth, at www.pravda.com.ua, disappeared on Sept. 16. Since that time, Ukrainian and international associations of journalists have called on Mr. Kuchma to press for a more vigorous investigation to find him in light of the history of assaults and intimidation against opposition journalists in Ukraine.
The International Press Institute told Mr. Kuchma in a letter on Sept. 20 that its global association of editors and news executives was "deeply worried about the fate" of the missing journalist.
Mr. Gongadze's colleagues say they believe that a mutilated corpse found on the outskirts of Kiev this fall, but not positively identified, is his body.
On the recording that Mr. Moroz released, there is talk of taking measures against Mr. Gongadze, whose Georgia ancestry is vilified. "I say take him out, throw him away," says the voice that is reportedly Mr. Kuchma's. "Give him to the Chechens."
The voices of the president, Interior Minister Yrui Kravchenko and the chief of the presidential administration, Vladimir Litvin, were submitted to unidentified experts by Mr. Moroz's party to verify their authenticity, a Socialist spokesman said. There has been no independent examination.
Wiretapping to gather compromising material on political opponents is common in Ukraine, Russia and other former Soviet republics. The release of this recording, which Mr. Moroz said had been provided by an unidentified official of Ukraine security services who was outside the country but willing to come forward and testify, has created a sensation.
A spokesman for the president immediately denounced the tape, saying, "These assertions are absolutely groundless and pure insinuation."
A prosecutor in Kiev announced that he was investigating Mr. Moroz in connection with criminal "insults and slander" against the presidency.
On Friday in Minsk, where Mr. Kuchma attended a summit meeting of leaders of former Soviet republics, he said releasing the cassette and the allegations that Ukrainian officials were complicit in Mr. Gongadze's disappearance was "a provocation, probably involving foreign special services."
"We will have to find out which special services," the president said.
----
Chernobyl's Last Reactor in Emergency Shutdown
December 6, 2000
By REUTERS Filed at 11:11 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-ukraine.html
KIEV (Reuters) - A steam leak at Chernobyl nuclear power station forced an emergency shutdown of its last functioning reactor on Wednesday, just nine days before the world's most infamous power plant was due to be decommissioned.
The Chernobyl complex, 75 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, has suffered a series of accidents since reactor Number Four caught fire and exploded 14 years ago, sending a radioactive cloud across much of Europe.
The station said it had measured no increase in radioactivity after Wednesday's shutdown, but it came on the eve of a decision by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on lending $215 million for the completion of two more Soviet-designed reactors.
Ukraine says it cannot afford to switch off Chernobyl, which provides five percent of all its electricity, without Western loans for decommissioning the plant and completing the reactors.
``The reason for shutting down the unit was the discovery of steam in an unstaffed room, number 404,'' a statement from the station said. The room contains pipes from the primary cooling system, electricity distributors and other equipment, it said.
``Now we are cooling the energy block to find the exact point of the steam leak,'' it said.
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster immediately killed around 30 firemen, and radiation has since been blamed for the deaths of thousands and a sharp increase in thyroid cancer and other diseases affecting one in sixteen Ukrainians.
SECOND SHUTDOWN IN TWO WEEKS
The unexpected shutdown was the second in as many weeks after cold weather froze and snapped power lines last week, forcing the station to close down because it had nowhere to feed its power.
The last reactor, Number Three, was restarted on Friday for its final weeks of operation.
The shutdown took place at 11.04 a.m. (0904 GMT) in accordance with accident prevention procedures, the station said. A spokesman for Ukraine's atomic energy regulator said technicians would have to inspect the reactor before deciding whether or not to restart it.
Environmentalists in Kiev made a last ditch effort on Thursday to persuade the EBRD not to fund the completion of reactors at Khmelnitsky and Rivne (known as K2R4), which are of a more modern design than those at Chernobyl but designed by Soviet engineers in the 1970s.
The EBRD is due to announce its decision on Thursday and its president, Jean Lemierre, has said he backs the move.
A report to the Austrian government, leaked last week by the environmental group Greenpeace, described the K2R4 reactors as hazardous and listed 29 safety issues which were not adequately dealt with, including the safety of steam tubes, fire prevention and seismic activity.
Austria's EBRD representative was due to vote against the loan, and a Dutch EBRD spokesman said the Netherlands would also oppose it. But votes from France, Britain and the United States were expected to be in favor.
A few dozen Ukrainian environmentalists protested outside the EBRD's Kiev office, waving banners saying ``No more Chernobyls.''
``The EBRD knows it doesn't make economic sense and that it does not guarantee nuclear safety,'' said protester Yuri Urbanksky. ``But it's blackmail from the Ukrainian side in return for shutting down Chernobyl.''
----
Chernobyl Reactor Malfunctions
December 6, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Ukraine-Chernobyl.html
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A malfunction forced the only working reactor at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant to be shut down Wednesday, nine days before the plant is to be closed for good.
The No. 3 reactor was halted by a safety system after some fumes were registered in the reactor's forced circulation department, and workers were cooling the reactor to determine the source, the Chernobyl press service said.
Radiation levels at the plant were reported to be normal.
It was the second shutdown in two weeks at Chernobyl. The reactor was halted Nov. 27 after an ice-covered power line snapped, causing a short-circuit.
Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986, when its No. 4 reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe. Under intense international pressure, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has agreed to close the plant for good Dec. 15.
Ukraine, one of world's biggest energy consumers, operates five nuclear power plants with 14 atomic reactors. Nine of the reactors are currently working.
About 20 environmental activists demonstrated outside the Kiev office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to protest the construction of two nuclear reactors at existing atomic power plants. The new reactors are meant to compensate for the energy that will be lost after Chernobyl is closed. The EBRD has helped fund the project.
``Save energy! Don't build new Chernobyls!'' read one of the protesters' banners.
---
Chernobyl's only working reactor halted
Miami Herald
Wednesday, December 6, 2000
http://www.herald.com/content/wed/news/brknews/docs/106264.htm
KIEV, Ukraine -- (AP) -- A malfunction forced the only working reactor at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant to be shut down today, nine days before the plant is to be closed for good.
The No. 3 reactor was halted by a safety system after some fumes were registered in the reactor's forced circulation department, and workers were cooling the reactor to determine the source, the Chernobyl press service said.
Radiation levels at the plant were reported to be normal.
It was the second shutdown in two weeks at Chernobyl. The reactor was halted Nov. 27 after an ice-covered power line snapped, causing a short-circuit.
Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986, when its No. 4 reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe. Under intense international pressure, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has agreed to close the plant for good Dec. 15.
Ukraine, one of world's biggest energy consumers, operates five nuclear power plants with 14 atomic reactors. Nine of the reactors are currently working.
About 20 environmental activists demonstrated outside the Kiev office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to protest the construction of two nuclear reactors at existing atomic power plants. The new reactors are meant to compensate for the energy that will be lost after Chernobyl is closed. The EBRD has helped fund the project.
``Save energy! Don't build new Chernobyls!'' read one of the protesters' banners.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Benefits program closer to completion for nuclear-plant workers
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Friday, December 8, 2000
Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/dec00/522627.html
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton yesterday approved a key step needed to put into effect a federal compensation program benefiting Cold War-era nuclear-plant workers in southern Ohio and across the nation.
Clinton signed an executive order giving the U.S. Department of Labor most responsibility for running the program, which grants $150,000 payments and health care to workers stricken by cancer as a result of workplace radiation exposures.
About 4,000 nuclear-plant workers nationwide -- including as many as several hundred at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio -- could be eligible for the compensation. Nuclear workers made ill by chemicals and other toxic materials would receive federal assistance in seeking state workers' compensation benefits, with the responsibility for that placed with the Department of Energy.
Investigations by the federal government and a number of news organizations, including The Dispatch, have yielded strong evidence that for decades the government was more concerned about producing nuclear weapons than safeguarding workers.
"These individuals, many of whom were neither protected from nor informed of the hazards to which they were exposed, developed illnesses as a result of their exposure to radiation and other hazards unique to nuclear weapons production and testing,'' Clinton said in a statement.
"While the nation can never fully repay these workers or their families, they deserve fair compensation for their sacrifices. I am pleased to take the next critical step in ensuring that these courageous individuals receive the compensation and recognition they have long deserved.''
Congress authorized the compensation program in October as part of a defense funding bill. Estimated to cost $1 billion over five years and $1.7 billion over the next decade, it will go into effect July 31 as proposed by Clinton unless lawmakers pass new legislation enhancing the package. It's possible the new administration could make changes before July 31, as well.
The executive order leaves it up to the Department of Health and Human Services to determine what types of radiation exposures and doses make a worker, or a worker's survivors, eligible for benefits.
Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, called the order a "positive first step.''
There had been some question whether the Labor Department or the Department of Justice would run the program. But the Justice Department has been criticized for its administration of a similar compensation program for uranium miners.
Lawmakers who pushed for the new compensation program, including Strickland and Sen. George V. Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, lobbied hard to place the initiative within the Labor Department.
They haven't given up hope to enhance the package. For instance, they want workers disabled by workplace-related illnesses to also receive lost wages.
Strickland and several House members also say the program can be made more accessible to workers and easier for them to gain benefits. For instance, there should be a guarantee that claims are evaluated and accepted or rejected within 180 days, Strickland said. He said he hopes Congress will make improvements through new legislation or by fine- tuning the regulations implementing the program still to be written by the agencies in charge.
"I think there's some good things in it,'' Strickland said of the executive order. "But we want further changes.''
jriskind@dispatch.com
---------
Rice named CEO of GE Power Systems
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405228616
FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) - General Electric Co. named John G. Rice on Wednesday to replace the departing Robert L. Nardelli as president and chief executive of GE Power Systems, a leading supplier of power generation technology.
Rice, 44, was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer of Power Systems in June in a move viewed as making him the top candidate to succeed Nardelli.
Nardelli was one of three top GE executives in the running to replace GE chairman and CEO John F. Welch when he retires at the end of 2001. Jeffrey Immelt, who headed GE's medical systems division, was named last week to succeed Welch.
On Tuesday, it was disclosed that Nardelli would become president and chief executive of The Home Depot, the Atlanta-based home improvement retailer.
GE Power Systems, headquartered in Schenectady, N.Y., is as sw326 dsf leading supplier of power generation technology, energy services and management systems. It has annual revenues of $15 billion.
``John is a natural leader and someone who always delivered for GE,'' Welch said in a statement.
Before joining the power systems division in June, Rice worked as president and CEO of GE Transportation Systems.
Rice began his General Electric career in 1978 as a member of the Financial Management Program, moving to the corporate audit staff in 1981. He has held various positions at GE Appliances, GE Plastics Pacific and GE Transportation Systems.
-------- colorado
10 Flats workers contaminated
Source of plutonium is mystery; cleanup of building delayed
Denver Rocky Mountain News
December 6, 2000
By Berny Morson Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
mailto:morsonb@rockymountainnews.com
http://insidedenver.com/news/1206flat1.shtml
Cleanup at one of the most contaminated Rocky Flats buildings has been halted after radioactive plutonium turned up in the bodies of 10 workers.
The doses received by the 10 workers were well below federal safety standards, Rocky Flats officials said. But the workers were not supposed to absorb any plutonium, and the source of the material remains a mystery.
Workers in respirators are combing the building, said Robert Card, president of Kaiser-Hill Inc., the company coordinating the Rocky Flats cleanup.
The contamination occurred in Building 771, termed the most dangerous structure in the United States in a 1994 federal report.
During the Cold War, Building 771 was where bits of plutonium were recovered from acid used in making nuclear bombs. The building was the scene of a devastating 1957 fire in which plutonium was released.
Federal officials have said repeatedly that cleaning up Building 771 could be dangerous because of loose plutonium in the ductwork.
"This is one of the risks - this mystery stuff," Card said.
Halting work this week probably won't affect the 2006 target date to complete the Rocky Flats cleanup, Card said. But repeated delays could push back the end of the project, he said.
Card said some plutonium may be coming from parts of the building that have not been visited in decades, such as attics and tunnels where pipes carried the acid solution. Trace amounts of plutonium were found near a broken valve, Card said.
Jennifer Thompson, a Kaiser-Hill spokeswoman, said one theory being investigated is that contamination is being shaken loose as pipes are cut up.
But how the plutonium got to the 10 workers is unclear. They did not work with the pipes.
A total of 11 workers were tested after a routine inspection in October found a broken radiation detector in the area where they were cutting up contaminated glove boxes.
But since the workers were wearing respirators, it was not clear how they could have inhaled plutonium. Also, workers who had been in the area longest showed the least plutonium.
Some of the workers had at one point been involved in moving sealed bags containing contaminated coveralls, Card said. They could have inhaled plutonium if one of the bags was torn.
Card said workers will wear respirators when moving bags containing dangerous trash.
Contact Berny Morson at (303) 892-5072 or morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com.
-------- connecticut
New York Times
December 6, 2000
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/nyregion/06MBRF.html
CONNECTICUT
HADDAM: NUCLEAR STORAGE REJECTED The town's Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously rejected a proposal on Monday from the owners of the defunct Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant, left, to store spent nuclear fuel in concrete casks at the site. Opponents were worried that approving the plan would create a regional dump that would have to accept nuclear waste from out of state, said Paul Geraghty, chairman of the zoning commission. (AP)
-------- florida
FPL is pursuing a life extension for nuclear plant
Turkey Point progress cited
Miami Herald
Wednesday, December 6, 2000, in the Miami Herald
BY CURTIS MORGAN cmorgan@herald.com
http://www.herald.com/content/wed/news/florida/digdocs/060777.htm
Florida Power & Light has asked federal regulators to extend the working life of Turkey Point, one of the nation's oldest nuclear plants and once one of its most trouble-prone.
Citing an operating record that has dramatically improved in the last decade, the company wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to relicense Turkey Point's two reactors for another 20 years to 2033. The current 40-year licenses expire in 2013.
The federal agency will hold the first of several public hearings on the relicensing request today in Homestead.
``We're really quite proud of the record Turkey Point has,'' said Carol Clawson, FPL's manager of corporate communications. ``It is recognized as one of the top performing plants in the country.''
NRC records back that. By 1997, the agency named the plant, located on Biscayne Bay near Homestead, one of the two safest in the nation. In the last three inspection periods, it also received the highest marks.
``They've gone from the bottom of the list to being one of the top performers,'' said Roger Hannah, a spokesman in the NRC's regional office in Atlanta.
Critics, however, are concerned the plant's advancing age raises the risk that something could go wrong. Joette Lorion, a longtime anti-nuclear activist in Miami-Dade County, already has filed a notice with the NRC asking for a thorough environmental impact study and raising a number of other concerns.
``I agree their grades have certainly improved with the NRC but there is only so much you can do with old equipment,'' she said. ``What we have is this generation of aging nuclear plants that were supposed to operate a certain period of time and are now going to be operating beyond that time.''
One of the more serious questions, she said, was the structural integrity of Turkey Point's twin concrete and steel reactor towers. NRC tests conducted in 1992 showed that the reactor vessels at Turkey Point, and 13 other older plants nationwide, might be aging faster than expected when they were built and prone to cracks from radiation damage.
Turkey Point will also run out of room to store its own spent nuclear fuel at least a year before its original license expires, she said.
``The probability of an accident may be small but the consequences are so large and grave,'' Lorion said. ``FPL needs to prove that plant will maintain its integrity throughout that period of time.''
Clawson said FPL had done extensive examinations before formally applying for the relicensing on Sept. 11 and was confident that the plant could perform well within strict margins set by the federal government.
``Obviously, we look at it very carefully, and the NRC looks at it very carefully,'' Clawson said. Though the plant is so old that many of its monitoring systems are analog technology that rely on close human oversight rather than modern digital computer systems, it has operated with only minor problems for more than 10 years. That's the result of constant scrutiny, Clawson said.
``The culture in terms of nuclear is not to do it as cheaply as possible but to do it as carefully as possible,'' she said. As for disposing of fuel, she said, FPL had several options, including a private storage consortium in Utah.
Turkey Point didn't always operate so well.
The reactors were trouble-prone from the beginning when they went on line in 1972 and 1973. Thinning steam tubes in steam generators, which turn turbines that create electricity, were found in 1974. Replacing the generators cost $165 million.
For four years in the late 1980s, it also was on the NRC's ``problem plant'' list.
In 1989, the NRC even threatened to close the place down because of a string of problems. More than half the plant's reactor operators also failed requalification exams in 1986 and 1989, at one point forcing FPL to shut down one unit due to a shortage of qualified operators.
Today's NRC meetings will be at the Homestead YMCA, 1034 NE Eighth St., from 1 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 10 p.m.
--------
Russian sub has left the city
For the three years, The Pier attraction that never was has had a bumpy stay in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg Times
published December 6, 2000
By JOUNICE NEALY St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/News/120600/TampaBay/Russian_sub_has_left_.shtml
[Times photo: Fred Victorin] City workers and members of the press stand at dockside Tuesday morning as the submarine is towed out of Bayboro Harbor in St. Petersburg. The vessel may eventually be used in a movie starring Harrison Ford.
ST. PETERSBURG -- Ending an ignominious three years in the port of St. Petersburg, an orphaned Russian submarine was towed away Tuesday to Tampa, a preliminary stop before it hits the silver screen.
It's out of the port," said St. Petersburg Port Director Michael D. Perez. "It's been a very long day but a good day.
The sub left St. Petersburg about 8:30 a.m., after a towing crew spent about 35 minutes getting it ready to transport. It had been scheduled to be moved Monday but high winds postponed the towing.
After an inspection by an insurance company, the sub is expected to be moved up north, possibly Nova Scotia.
Last week a production company signed an agreement with the sub's owners to use the Juliett class guided missile launcher in K-19: The Widowmaker, Perez said. Harrison Ford is under consideration for a starring role in the movie about a crew's attempt to avoid a nuclear meltdown on board.
The sub came to St. Petersburg nearly three years ago, destined to be a tourist attraction at The Pier.
It never happened.
During two attempts to tow it from the port to The Pier, the sub was damaged and the move was aborted.
The first time, it broke loose from its tugboat during a storm. The sub docked at the port, where it opened for tours. During a second attempt, it was damaged again and returned to the port.
Then the submarine's Canadian owner filed for bankruptcy, and it was closed to tourists. After the bankruptcy filing, the sub reverted to its original owner, Oy-Sub Expo of Finland.
Three months ago, the city's attorneys were authorized by the St. Petersburg City Council to file an injunction in federal court to get the sub out of the port. But council member Bill Foster said the council later agreed to give the Finnish owner a chance to move it.
Oy-Sub Expo still owes the city about $35,000, but Perez said that attorneys are comfortable with an arrangement that would reimburse the city.
-------- new mexico
Anti-Terror Experiments a Real Blast
Albuquerque Journal
Wednesday, December 6, 2000
By John J. Lumpkin Journal Staff Writer
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/192589news12-06-00.htm
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE - In the interest of the national defense, the military and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms blew up a Winnebago here last week.
They used 750 pounds of ammonium nitrate explosive - a smaller "fertilizer bomb" in the family of the bomb detonated at the federal building in Oklahoma City - that was placed in the RV's interior.
After an orange flash and a crashing boom, all that was left were little Winnebago bits scattered over a football-field-sized swath of land at the base.
Twisted scraps of metal were strewn among chunks of seat cushion and shredded wood paneling. A four-foot-wide crater, directly beneath the explosion, contained something distantly recognizable as the remains of a transmission. There was no sign of the "W" that had once adorned the vehicle.
The RV was obliterated as part of an ATF research project that is gathering data on explosives effects to help investigate terrorist attacks.
The test was held on Nov. 28 by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Pentagon outfit that works to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It has offices at Kirtland. The ATF is one of its "customers" that orders such tests.
"It is fun," Army Col. C. "Rundy" Galles said after his team blew up the RV. "But we're doing things that will eventually help the warfighter and anti-terrorism agencies."
All manner of instruments and cameras recorded the explosion, and the data will be entered into a computer program that allows agents to determine what sort of bomb was used in an attack, said David Shatzer, an ATF explosions enforcement officer overseeing the test.
The Winnebago had been seized during a drug raid, when agents found it being used as a methamphetamine lab.
The test's secondary purpose was to allow visiting ATF agents to practice investigating a bomb site.
In truth, the military and other government agencies blow up lots of things at Kirtland. From time to time, the explosions rattle windows in Albuquerque or the East Mountains.
The base is limited to conducting tests using no more than 750 pounds of explosives, but a safety official said an effort is under way to nearly triple that limit to 2,000 pounds.
Here are some of the things that have been blown up at Kirtland, according to base officials:
* Guns seized from criminals;
* Drugs seized from criminals;
* Suspicious packages recovered by security forces;
* Intercontinental ballistic missile propellant;
* A panel truck, similar to the one used at the Oklahoma City bombing;
* Tanks and other armored vehicles;
* Conventional military ammo, including grenades, bullets, bombs and rockets that have outlived their shelf lives;
* A mail bomb in a mock post office;
* Classified "Department of Defense items";
* A Dodge van on a cobblestone road built for the sole purpose of being blown up.
The last was another test by the ATF, similar to the Winnebago blast. While cobblestone roads aren't common in the United States, the data from that detonation could be used during an explosion investigation in Eastern Europe, Shatzer said.
The base has six sites it uses for detonations, said John Allen, a Kirtland safety official. Most are on the southern range of the base, near the Manzano Mountains, or on the base's border with Isleta Pueblo. Blasts average about one a day, he said.
He would not say how some of the blasts relate to Kirtland's nuclear mission. Kirtland, one of the nation's two primary nuclear weapon storage depots, is estimated to have many hundreds to a few thousand nuclear weapons stored in an underground complex.
"Everything that is disposed of, handled by the people here on this base, would be in the conventional (non-nuclear) arena," he said. "Anything else would be handled elsewhere."
Kirtland officials say they take measures to limit noise from the blasts. Ralph Francis, chief of public affairs at Kirtland, said his office frequently receives a mix of questioning and irate phone calls after a particularly loud one.
"If the cloud cover is too low, the sound waves bounce off the clouds, or they come off the Manzano Mountains," Francis said. "That's when we get the noise complaints."
Normally, officials will postpone a blast until any cloud cover burns off. People call to claim a blast cracked a window or did other damage "about a couple of times a year," he said.
They are referred to a claims office, which conducts an investigation, Francis said. He could not immediately provide figures on how much the base has paid.
Base officials want to be able to have larger blasts at Kirtland. The big bangs usually take place at remote parts of White Sands Missile Range or at a range in Nevada. Using either requires expensive and time-consuming travel, officials said.
Securing the necessary approvals from the Defense Department for the larger blasts could take between six months and two years, Allen said.
The base would use additional noise-reduction techniques, like sound barriers, for those blasts, he said.
-------- MILITARY
Cohen warns Europe on defense needs
Washington Times
December 6, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2000126223114.htm
BRUSSELS - Defense Secretary William S. Cohen warned his European colleagues yesterday, telling them if they don't start spending more on their military and work out a new EU-NATO relationship, the alliance "could become a relic of history."
The 15-nation European Union is developing its own rapid-reaction force, separate from NATO but with plans to share some NATO planning facilities, intelligence and communications.
It would use the force to address crises with which the trans-Atlantic alliance does not want to get involved. The EU wants to be able to field a 60,000-man force by 2003.
--------
U.S. has tough words for EU allies
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By JEFFREY ULBRICH Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405227301
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Defense Secretary William Cohen got tough with his European colleagues Tuesday, telling them if they don't start spending more on their military and work out a new EU-NATO relationship, the alliance ``could become a relic of history.''
The 15-nation European Union is developing its own rapid-reaction force, separate from NATO but with plans to share some NATO planning facilities, intelligence and communications. It would use the force to address crises that NATO does not want to get involved in. The EU wants to be able to field a 60,000-man force by 2003.
Cohen, making his last appearance at a NATO ministerial meeting as a representative of the Clinton administration, stressed the American concern that the EU not duplicate NATO's extensive planning capacity.
France, which is not a member of the alliance's integrated military command, would prefer the Union to be more autonomous than the United States and some of the other allies would like, and would like to see a separate planning structure.
NATO, Cohen told reporters, ``is not a political organization designed to balance competing agendas.''
``If NATO and the EU ... are seen as autonomous and competing institutions rather than integrated, transparent and complementary ones, then NATO and collective security are likely to suffer.''
French Defense Minister Alain Richard insisted: ``We are not disagreeing. We are creating something new.''
NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson agreed with the American's criticisms. ``I think Secretary Cohen was right to warn us,'' he said.
He added: ``If we get a lot of things wrong, then NATO will be irrelevant. If we don't get the right capability for the future, then NATO will not have credibility. If we don't get the right EU-NATO linkages, then of course there will be danger for the vitality of NATO as an organization and the security of its members.''
Future NATO-EU relations depend on how the EU's new European Security and Defense Policy evolves. EU leaders will meet in Nice, France, beginning Thursday to examine proposals for a new NATO-EU relationship.
The EU is developing its military arm while NATO is implementing the Defense Capabilities Initiative, an effort to modernize and upgrade NATO military capabilities to move away from the Cold War posture and prepare for future threats, such as terrorism and ethnic conflicts. This calls for more military spending as well.
``Every European member of NATO has only one set of forces and one defense budget, not one force and one budget for NATO and another force and military budget for the EU,'' Cohen said. ``Therefore I proposed as part of the proposed NATO-EU link a common defense planning process involving all 23 NATO and EU countries as the only logical and cost effective way to insure the best possible coordination of limited forces and resources.''
Every dollar spent on bureaucracy rather than military capability is a disadvantage for the soldier on the ground, he said.
NATO must remain a true partnership, Cohen said, according to an official who listened to his speech. European members must do more than pay lip service to burden sharing, and the EU summit in Nice, which will approve the EU's proposal for an EU-NATO relationship, must not turn into an exercise in virtual reality.
``Secretary Cohen is indicating a warning that other people have also given about the importance of getting this (EU) project right, that duplication and rivalry between NATO and the European Union would be highly dangerous for both organizations,'' Robertson said. ``And that is why so much time and so much trouble is being devoted to getting the linkages right. There is no point in the European union trying to replicate NATO's proven planning structure.''
Other American concerns include how European members of NATO that are not members of the EU will be able to participate in EU decision-making, particularly when it involves NATO assets.
-------- colombia
Colombia kidnappings threaten elite
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By JARED KOTLER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405227323
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A former Cabinet minister is snatched while jogging in one of Colombia's safest cities. The teen-age daughter of a business leader is abducted in broad daylight near a Bogota campus. The general manager of a foreign carmaker is taken from a getaway home outside the capital.
Each case _ including the kidnapping Monday of former economic development minister Fernando Araujo in the tourist seaport of Cartagena _ occurred in just the past two weeks.
With at least 2,754 abductions reported through October, Colombia's kidnapping industry is breaking its own records this year _ and bringing home the danger of the 36-year guerrilla war to an elite that once felt immune from the conflict.
The South American nation is expected to register more than 3,000 kidnappings this year for the first time ever, according to a private monitoring group, the Free Country Foundation.
Statistics don't give a sense of how pervasive the problem has become, nor of the heartbreak it causes for victims and their families.
But turn on a radio on any given night on Colombia and you can hear wives and children of kidnap victims sending teary messages to their loved ones in captivity. The ``kidnap radio'' programs have become a form of national group therapy.
Go to any bookstore in Bogota and pick up a copy of two of the year's best sellers: ``How To Survive a Kidnapping,'' by a psychologist who counsels victims, and ``Kidnapped'', a teen-ager's first-person account of her abduction last year by guerrillas who hijacked a domestic airliner.
Or observe the armored cars packed with gun-toting bodyguards waiting every afternoon to pick up children _ a growing target _ from private schools in Bogota.
``What all this is generating is panic and fear, said David Buitrago, an analyst at Free Country who believes the media learn about only a fraction of the kidnappings hitting prominent families. ``Colombia feels kidnapped.''
The Avianca airliner hijacking was followed by two other large-scale rebel kidnappings in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city. Guerrillas snared nearly 300 people from a Roman Catholic Mass in a wealthy neighborhood and along a strip of roadside restaurants that were a weekend getaway for that city's well-to-do.
Most of the abductions are committed by guerrillas or common criminals. But rightist paramilitary groups have been getting into the act, and kidnapping rings have operated out of the military.
The armed groups' voracious demand for hostages has even given birth to free-lance gangs who abduct people in major cities or on their country estates and sell them to the insurgents.
And with peace negotiations between rebels and the government faltering, the industry will likely keep booming.
Multinational corporations working in Colombia typically insure top executives against kidnappings. They are not being overly cautious, as illustrated by the Nov. 25 abduction of Hyundai Corp.'s general manager from his weekend home outside Bogota.
Police freed the Colombian executive, Lazaro Montes, on Tuesday from kidnappers allegedly belonging to the nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Visiting Colombia on Monday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson called the kidnapping surge ``extremely alarming'' and urged government security measures.
Guerrillas say their ransom kidnappings are a way of ``taxing'' the rich to finance their fight. But hundreds of middle-class people have been kidnapped in the past few years at rebel roadblocks placed randomly along the highways.
Many wealthy Colombians dare not venture to weekend estates for fear of being snared at one of the roadblocks, operations nicknamed ``pescas milagrosas,'' or ``fishing for miracles.'' Colombians who can obtain foreign visas are leaving the country in record numbers.
The kidnapping of Araujo in Cartagena on Monday showed that even one of Colombia's safest places _ the pastel-washed colonial seaport President Clinton visited in August _ is not without danger.
Araujo, 44, was taking an evening run in an area of hotels and luxury apartments when five men forced him into a car and sped away. Police said they had no clue who kidnapped him.
Pastrana replaced Araujo one year into his administration, after prosecutors named him in corruption investigations surrounding a government land sale in Cartagena.
Authorities also have been mum about the Nov. 28 kidnapping of 19-year-old Juliana Villegas, a political science student whose father, Luis Carlos Villegas, heads the National Association of Industries and has been involved in peace contacts with the guerrillas.
-------- drug war
DEA's responsibility
Washington Times
December 6, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-2000126181712.htm
The Mexican Embassy yesterday insisted it was correct when it identified a Texas official, who killed a Mexican trying to enter the United States illegally, as a federal agent.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Monday complained that the embassy mistakenly named Wilbur Honeycutt as a DEA agent.
A spokeswoman said Honeycutt was an investigator for the State's Attorney's Office in Maverick County, Texas, who was on temporary assignment with a DEA anti-drug task force at the time he shot Abecnego Monje in January 1999. Honeycutt was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Mexican Embassy spokesman Jose A. Zabalgoitia dismissed the DEA position as irrelevant.
As far as Mexico is concerned, the DEA had responsibility for Honeycutt's action, he said.
"I don't care where his pension fund is," he said. "Mr. Monje's family is suing the DEA. They are not suing Maverick County, Texas."
--------
Clinton: Pot Smoking Should Not Be Prison Offense
Alta Vista News
12/06/00
http://live.altavista.com/e?efi=467&ei=2330214&ern=y
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Clinton, who tried to avoid the stigma of smoking marijuana by saying he never ''inhaled,'' tells Rolling Stone magazine that people should not be jailed for using or selling small amounts of the drug.
In an interview with the rock magazine released on Wednesday, Clinton was asked if he thought that ``people should go to jail for using or even selling small amounts of marijuana?''
Clinton, who raised eyebrows in the 1992 presidential primary campaign when he admitted trying the drug but adding he didn't inhale, told the magazine, ``I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be.''
He added, ``We really need a reexamination of our entire policy on imprisonment. Some people deliberately hurt other people and they ought to be in jail because they can't be trusted to be on the streets. Some people do things that are so serious that that they have to be put in jail to discourage other people from doing similar things.
``But a lot of people are in prison because they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too many of them are getting out -- particularly out of state systems -- without treatment, without education, without skills, without serious efforts at job placement.''
The interview, to be published on Friday, only weeks before Clinton leaves office, was conducted during the presidential campaign and Clinton made a prediction that has not come true and may not come true -- that Vice President Al Gore would carry Florida.
``Gore will win Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan. I always thought Gore would win Florida. We worked like crazy there for eight years. And we've done a lot for Florida and a lot with Florida -- and Joe Lieberman has helped a lot in Florida. So I think Gore will win.'' That matter is still in the courts even though Florida has certified Republican George W. Bush the winner.
In the interview, Clinton also blamed his impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal on the work of a right-wing Congress and said special prosecutor Kenneth Starr ``did what he was paid to.'' He added, ``The right wing was in control of the Congress and ... they thought they had a free shot to put a hit on me, and so they did. I don't think it's complicated.''
--------
THE BUSH-CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE
Emporers Clothes.com
(10-6-2000)
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/ruppert/bush2.htm
www.tenc.net [Emperor's Clothes]
Halliburton Corporation's Brown and Root is a major component of -
by Michael C. Ruppert
This shortened version is reprinted from the October, 2000 issue of "From The Wilderness" (see end of article)
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/ruppert/bush.htm#b
The success of Bush Vice Presidential running mate Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five year $3.8 billion "pig-out" on federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans is only a partial indicator of what may happen if the Bush ticket wins in two weeks. A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) at www.public-i.org, suggests that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by Halliburton under Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is especially true for Halliburton's most famous subsidiary, heavy construction and oil giant, Brown and Root. A deeper look into history reveals that Brown and Root's past as well as the past of Dick Cheney himself, connect to the international drug trade on more than one occasion and in more than one way.
This June the lead Washington, D.C. attorney for a major Russian oil company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling and also a beneficiary of US backed loans to pay for Brown and Root contracts in Russia, held a $2.2 million fund raiser to fill the already bulging coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first time that Brown and Root has been connected to drugs and the fact is that this "poster child" of American industry may also be a key player in Wall Street's efforts to maintain domination of the half trillion dollar a year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick Cheney, who has also come closer to drugs than most suspect, and who is also Halliburton's largest individual shareholder ($45.5 million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown and Root's successes continue.
Of all American companies dealing directly with the U.S. military and providing cover for CIA operations few firms can match the global presence of this giant construction powerhouse which employs 20,000 people in more than 100 countries. Through its sister companies or joint ventures, Brown and Root can build offshore oil rigs, drill wells, construct and operate everything from harbors to pipelines to highways to nuclear reactors. It can train and arm security forces and it can now also feed, supply and house armies. One key beacon of Brown and Root's overwhelming appeal to agencies like the CIA is that, from its own corporate web page, it proudly announces that it has received the contract to dismantle aging Russian nuclear tipped ICBMs in their silos.
Furthermore, the relationships between key institutions, players and the Bushes themselves suggest that under a George "W" administration the Bush family and its allies may well be able, using Brown and Root as the operational interface, to control the drug trade all the way from Medellin to Moscow.
Originally formed as a heavy construction company to build dams, Brown and Root grew its operations via shrewd political contributions to Senate candidate Lyndon Johnson in 1948. Expanding into the building of oil platforms, military bases, ports, nuclear facilities, harbors and tunnels, Brown and Root virtually underwrote LBJ's political career. It prospered as a result, making billions on U.S. Government contracts during the Vietnam War. The "Austin Chronicle" in an August 28 Op-ed piece entitled "The Candidate From Brown and Root" labels Republican Cheney as the political dispenser of Brown and Root's largesse. According to political campaign records, during Cheney's five year tenure at Halliburton the company's political contributions more than doubled to $1.2 million. Not surprisingly, most of that money went to Republican candidates.
Independent news service "newsmakingnews.com," also describes how in 1998, with Cheney as Chairman, Halliburton spent $8.1 billion to purchase oil industry equipment and drilling supplier Dresser Industries. This made Halliburton a corporation that will have a presence in almost any future oil drilling operation anywhere in the world. And it also brought back into the family fold the company that had once sent a plane - also in 1948 - to fetch the new Yale Graduate George H.W. Bush, to begin his career in the Texas oil business. Bush the elder's father, Prescott, served as a Managing Director for the firm that once owned Dresser, Brown Bothers Harriman.
It is clear that everywhere there is oil there is Brown and Root. But increasingly, everywhere there is war or insurrection there is Brown and Root also. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to Chechnya, to Rwanda, to Burma, to Pakistan, to Laos, to Vietnam, to Indonesia, to Iran to Libya to Mexico to Colombia, Brown and Root's traditional operations have expanded from heavy construction to include the provision of logistical support for the U.S. military. Now, instead of U.S. Army quartermasters, the world is likely to see Brown and Root warehouses storing and managing everything from uniforms to rations to vehicles.
Dramatic expansion of Brown and Root's operations in Colombia also suggest Bush preparations for a war inspired feeding frenzy as a part of "Plan Colombia." This is consistent with moves by former Bush Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady to open a joint Colombian-American investment partnership called Corfinsura for the financing of major construction projects with the Colombian Antioquia Syndicate, headquartered in Medellin. (See "From the Wilderness" June, 2000). And expectations of a ground war in Colombia may explain why, in a 2000 SEC filing, Brown and Root reported that in addition to owning more than 80,000 square feet of warehouse space in Colombia, they also lease another 122,000 square feet. According to the filing of the Brown and Root Energy Services Group, the only other places where the company maintains warehouse space are in Mexico (525,000 sq. feet), and the U.S. (38,000) square feet.
According to the web site of Colombia's Foreign Investment Promotion Agency Brown and Root had no presence in the country until 1997. What does Brown and Root, which, according to the AP has made more than $2 billion supporting and supplying U.S. troops, know about Colombia that the U.S. public does not? Why the need for almost a million square feet of warehouse space that can be transferred from one Brown and Root operation (energy) to another (military support) with the stroke of a pen?
DRUGS
As described by the Associated Press, during "Iran-Contra" Congressman Dick Cheney of the House Intelligence Committee was a rabid supporter of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. This was in spite of the fact that North had lied to Cheney in a private 1986 White House briefing. Oliver North's own diaries and subsequent investigations by the CIA Inspector General have irrevocably tied him directly to cocaine smuggling during the 1980s and the opening of bank accounts for one firm moving four tons of cocaine a month. This, however, did not stop Cheney from actively supporting North's 1994 unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia just a year before he took over the reins at Brown and Root's parent company, Dallas based Halliburton Inc. in 1995.
As the Bush Secretary of Defense during Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990-91), Cheney also directed special operations involving Kurdish rebels in northern Iran. The Kurds' primary source of income for more than fifty years has been heroin smuggling from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Having had some personal experience with Brown and Root I noted carefully when the Los Angeles Times observed that on March 22, 1991 that a group of gunmen burst into the Ankara, Turkey offices of the joint venture, Vinnell, Brown and Root and assassinated retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant John Gandy.
In March of 1991, tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees, long-time assets of the CIA, were being massacred by Sadam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War. Sadam, seeking to destroy any hopes of a successful Kurdish revolt, found it easy to kill thousands of the unwanted Kurds who had fled to the Turkish border seeking sanctuary. There, Turkish security forces, trained in part by the Vinnell, Brown and Root partnership, turned thousands of Kurds back into certain death. Today, the Vinnell Corporation (a TRW Company) is, along with the firms MPRI and DynCorp ('From the Wilderness' June, 00) one of the three pre-eminent private mercenary corporations in the world. It is also the dominant entity for the training of security forces throughout the Middle East. Not surprisingly the Turkish border regions in question were the primary transhipment pointsfor heroin, grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan and destined for the markets of Europe.
A confidential source with intelligence experience in the region subsequently told me that the Kurds "got some payback against the folks that used to help them move their drugs." He openly acknowledged that Brown and Root and Vinnell both routinely provided NOC or non-official cover for CIA officers. But I already knew that.
From 1994 to 1999, during US military intervention in the Balkans where, according to "The Christian Science Monitor" and "Jane's Intelligence Review," the Kosovo Liberation Army controls 70 per cent of the heroin entering Western Europe, Cheney's Brown and Root made billions of dollars supplying U.S. troops from vast facilities in the region. Brown and Root support operations continue in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia to this day.
Dick Cheney's footprints have come closer to drugs than one might suspect. The August Center for Public Integrity report brought them even closer. It would be factually correct to say that there is a direct linkage of Brown and Root facilities - often in remote and hazardous regions - between every drug producing region and every drug consuming region in the world. These coincidences, in and of themselves, do not prove complicity in the trade. Other facts, however, lead inescapably in that direction.
A DIRECT DRUG LINK
The CPI report entitled "Cheney Led Halliburton To Feast at Federal Trough" written by veteran journalists Knut Royce and Nathaniel Heller describes how, under five years of Cheney's leadership, Halliburton, largely through subsidiary Brown and Root, enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer insured loans. The loans had been granted by the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). According to Ralph McGehee's "CIA Base (c)" both institutions are heavily infiltrated by the CIA and routinely provide NOC to its officers.
One of those loans to Russian financial/banking conglomerate The Alfa Group of Companies contained $292 million to pay for Brown and Root's contract to refurbish a Siberian oil field owned by the Russian Tyumen Oil Company. The Alfa Group completed its 51% acquisition of Tyumen Oil in what was allegedly a rigged bidding process in 1998. An official Russian government report claimed that the Alfa Group's top executives, oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven "allegedly participated in the transit of drugs from Southeast Asia through Russia and into Europe."
These same executives, Fridman and Aven, who reportedly smuggled the heroin in connection with Russia's Solntsevo mob family were the same ones who applied for the EXIM loans that Halliburton's lobbying later safely secured. As a result Brown and Root's work in Alfa Tyumen oil fields could continue - and expand.
After describing how organized criminal interests in the Alfa Group had allegedly stolen the oil field by fraud, the CPI story, using official reports from the FSB (the Russian equivalent of the FBI), oil companies such as BP-Amoco, former CIA and KGB officers and press accounts then established a solid link to Alfa Tyumen and the transportation of heroin.
In 1995 sacks of heroin disguised as sugar were stolen from a rail container leased by Alfa Echo and sold in the Siberian town of Khabarovsk. A problem arose when many residents of the town became "intoxicated" or "poisoned." The CPI story also stated, "The FSB report said that within days of the incident, Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) agents conducted raids of Alfa Eko buildings and found 'drugs and other compromising documentation.'
"Both reports claim that Alfa Bank has laundered drug funds from Russian and Colombian drug cartels.
"The FSB document claims that at the end of 1993, a top Alfa official met with Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the now imprisoned financial mastermind of Colombia's notorious Cali cartel, 'to conclude an agreement about the transfer of money into the Alfa Bank from offshore zones such as the Bahamas, Gibraltar and others. The plan was to insert it back into the Russian economy through the purchase of stock in Russian companies.
"... He [the former KGB agent] reported that there was evidence 'regarding [Alfa Bank's] involvement with the money laundering of... Latin American drug cartels."
It then becomes harder for Cheney and Halliburton to assert mere coincidence in all of this as CPI reported that Tyumen's lead Washington attorney James C, Langdon, Jr. at the firm of Aikin Gump "helped coordinate a $2.2 million fund raiser for Bush this June. He then agreed to help recruit 100 lawyers and lobbyists in the capital to raise $25,000 each for W's campaign."
The heroin mentioned in the CPI story, originated in Laos where longtime Bush allies and covert warriors Richard Armitage and retired CIA ADDO (Associate Deputy Director of Operations) Ted Shackley have been repeatedly linked to the drug trade. It then made its way across Southeast Asia to Vietnam, probably the port of Haiphong. Then the heroin sailed to Russia's Pacific port of Valdivostok from whence it subsequently bounced across Siberia by rail and thence by truck or rail to Europe, passing through the hands of Russian Mafia leaders in Chechnya and Azerbaijan. Chechnya and Azerbaijan are hotbeds of both armed conflict and oil exploration and Brown and Root has operations all along this route.
This long, expensive and tortured path was hastily established, as described by 'From the Wilderness' in previous issues, after President George Bush's personal envoy Richard Armitage, holding the rank of Ambassador, had traveled to the former Soviet Union to assist it with its "economic development" in 1989. The obstacle then to a more direct, profitable and efficient route from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Turkey into Europe was a cohesive Yugoslavian/Serbian government controlling the Balkans and continuing instability in the Golden Crescent of Pakistan/Afghanistan. Also, there was no other way, using heroin from the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos and Thailand), to deal with China and India but to go around them.
It is perhaps not by coincidence again that Cheney and Armitage share membership in the prestigious Aspen Institute, an exclusive bi-partisan research think tank, and also in the U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Just last November, in what may be a portent of things to come, Armitage, played the role of Secretary of Defense in an practical exercise at the Council on Foreign Relations where he and Cheney are also both members. Speculation that the scandal plagued Armitage, who resigned under a cloud as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, is W's first choice for Secretary of Defense next year is widespread.
The Clinton Administration took care of all that wasted travel for heroin with the 1998 destruction of Serbia and Kosovo and the installation of the KLA as a regional power. That opened a direct line from Afghanistan to Western Europe and Brown and Root was right in the middle of that too. The Clinton skill at streamlining drug operations was described in detail in the May issue of
in a story entitled "The Democratic Party's Presidential Drug Money Pipeline." That article has since been reprinted in three countries. The essence of the drug economic lesson was that by growing opium in Colombia and by smuggling both cocaine and heroin from Colombia to New York City through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (a virtual straight line), traditional smuggling routes could be shortened or even eliminated. This reduced both risk and cost, increased profits and eliminated competition.
'From the Wilderness' suspects the hand of Medellin co-founder Carlos Lehder in this process and it is interesting to note that Lehder, released from prison under Clinton in 1995, is now active in both the Bahamas and South America. Lehder was known during the eighties as "The genius of transportation." I can well imagine a Dick Cheney, having witnessed the complete restructuring of the global drug trade in the last eight years, going to George W and saying, "Look, I know how we can make it even better." One thing is for certain. As quoted in the CPI article, one Halliburton Vice President noted that if the Bush-Cheney ticket was elected, "the company's government contracts would obviously go through the roof."
(c) Copyright 2000, Michael C. Ruppert and "From The Wilderness" Publications, P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, 818-788-8791, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. - Permission to reprint for non-profit only is hereby granted as long as proper sourcing appears. For all other permissions contact mruppert@copvcia.com.
Sources:
- The Center for Public Integrity, "Cheney Led Halliburton to Feast at Federal Trough", Knut Royce & Nathaniel Heller, http://www.public i.org/story_01_080200.htm
- "Le Monde - Diplomatique", April 2000.
- The U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
- The Aspen Institute, www.aspeninst.org
- "The Austin Chronicle", August 28, 2000
- The Associated Press, "Study: US Could Save Cost in Balkans" - 10/10/00
- The Associated Press, "Cheney, North Relationship Probed" - 8/11/00
- "The New York Times" Index
- The Council on Foreign Relations
- "The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush" - Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin
- "CIA Base" (c) 1992, Ralph McGehee
- CIA Inspector General Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States. Volume II: The Contra Story - Report 96-0143-IG.
- newsmakingnews.com, 27 August 2000, "The Dick Cheney Data Dump"
- Securities and Exchange Commission - "Edgar" Data base.
- Halliburton/Brown and Root - www.Halliburton.com/brs
- The Vinnell Corporation - www.Vinnell.com
- "The New York Press," 8/1/00
- "The Los Angeles Times," March 23, 1991.
- "The Los Angeles Herald Examiner:, Oct. 11 & 18, 1981
- "The Christian Science Monitor" - Oct. 20, 1994
- "Jane's Intelligence Review" - February 1, 1995.
- Written testimony of Michael C. Ruppert for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dated 10/1/97 - http://www.copvcia.com/ssci.htm
- "From The Wilderness" (4/99, 4/00, 6/00)
----------
Panel recommends reform in drug law
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By KEN GUGGENHEIM Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405228575
WASHINGTON (AP) - Concerned that innocent companies could be penalized for inadvertently doing business with drug traffickers, an independent panel of lawyers is recommending changes in the year-old ``drug kingpin'' law.
The five-lawyer panel recommended that businesses that are fined or have assets blocked under the Foreign Drug Kingpin Designation Act be permitted to appeal the penalties to a judge.
Under the kingpin law, the Treasury Department can freeze the U.S. assets of foreign drug traffickers and penalize companies that do business with them.
Supporters of the law see it as an important new weapon in the fight against drug trafficking. Civil libertarians and foreign officials worried, however, that innocent companies could be fined or have assets blocked without having the opportunity to defend themselves.
``Balancing the needs of law enforcement in combating these forces with the due process protections of U.S. businesses and citizens who may unwittingly do business with them is a delicate and never-ending challenge,'' the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control said in an interim report issued Monday. A final report is due in January.
Under the law, people designated drug kingpins by the president have their U.S. assets blocked. Twelve suspected traffickers were placed on the list in June.
The law also allows the Treasury Department to prepare a ``Tier II'' list of foreign companies linked to drug traffickers. Any company on this list - none has been designated so far - would also have its U.S. assets blocked, and U.S. companies would be barred from doing business with them.
Under current law, foreign companies can't appeal orders blocking assets, and U.S. companies can't appeal civil penalties they receive for doing business with a ``Tier II'' company.
The review commission, created under the kingpin legislation, recommended the creation of an administrative review system to allow appeals. Those rulings could then be further appealed in the federal court system.
``By allowing judicial review of Tier II designations by the Secretary of the Treasury in the manner the commission recommends, Congress would strengthen the domestic and international business communities' faith in the integrity and fairness of the process,'' the report said.
Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a major supporter of the kingpin legislation, said through a spokeswoman that he hasn't a had chance yet to review the report, but ``we're going to monitor this closely.''
Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control would not comment on the report because it is under review.
Among other recommendations by the commission, chaired by Atlanta attorney Larry Thompson, were clarifying the standards for Tier II designations, preventing assets from being blocked during investigations and reviewing criminal penalties _ now maximum sentences of 30 years and $10 million fines.
Rachel King of the American Civil Liberties Union said the report's recommendations were ``excellent.''
``The main reason why we opposed it from a civil liberties perspective was its eliminating judicial review,'' she said.
-------- iraq
December 6, 2000
Corrections
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/pageoneplus/corrections.html
ecause of an editing error, an article on Saturday about Iraq's suspension of oil exports omitted a word in summarizing a view of independent arms experts on terms for getting weapons inspectors back into Iraq. They said that to avoid letting Iraq do only the minimal accounting required, international authorities should "not" give the country a list of tasks that must be done to close the book on its biological, chemical, nuclear and missile programs.
-------- myanmar
Clinton issues Medal of Freedom
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By JESSE J. HOLLAND Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405228434
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Nobel Peace Prize winner under house arrest in Burma for her human rights work received America's highest civilian award Wednesday from President Clinton during his commemoration of Human Rights Day.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy party leader who won the 1991 Nobel for her pro-democracy work and is being detained by the country's military government, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It will be accepted by her son, Alexander Aris.
``Her struggle continues and her spirit still inspires us,'' Clinton said. ``She has seen her supporters beaten, tortured and killed, yet she has never responded to hatred and violence in kind.''
``She has been treated without mercy, yet she has preached forgiveness, promising that in a democratic Burma there will be no retribution and nothing by honor and respect for the military.''
Clinton also mentioned the still-unresolved U.S. presidential election when he recognized Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a past recipient of the human rights award. Clinton said he has a picture of Lewis being beaten in Selma, Ala., in 1965 when white law enforcement officers used tear gas and nightsticks against blacks in a voting rights march.
Clinton noted a recent newspaper editorial Lewis wrote that pointed out that the ``right to vote includes not only the right to cast a vote, but the right to have it counted.''
Clinton also gave the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights to five people: Tillie Black Bear of South Dakota, who established one of the first shelters for battered women on an Indian reservation; Frederick Charles Cuny of Texas, who spent almost 30 years working to help civilian victims of conflict; Norman Dorsen of New York, who dedicated 50 years of his life to promoting civil rights; Elaine R. Jones of New York, who spent 25 years in the NAACP Defense and Education Fund; and Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, who was recently named leader of the 510,000 Roman Catholics who live in the District of Columbia and southeastern Maryland.
The Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, was established by President Truman as a wartime honor. President Kennedy reintroduced it as way to honor civilian service.
The award will be accepted by Suu Kyi's son because she has been held virtually incommunicado and allowed visits only by close relatives since Sept. 21, after a dispute with the government in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
The latest dispute in her battle began Aug. 24, when Suu Kyi tried to drive out of Yangon. Stopped by authorities, she spent nine days camping on the roadside, then was forcibly brought back to the capital. Her ordeal brought worldwide sympathy and harsh Western criticism of the military junta.
Suu Kyi won the Nobel for her peaceful struggle for democracy against the military regime in Myanmar. The military had overturned her party's resounding victory in general elections.
Hundreds of members of her National League for Democracy have since been jailed in Myanmar, one of the world's poorest countries. Suu Kyi also was under house arrest for six years before her release in 1995.
-------- space
NASA approves plan to fix space station
USA Today
12/06/00- Updated 11:44 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed04.htm
SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - Astronauts on space shuttle Endeavour enjoyed some time off Wednesday after a 6.50-hour spacewalk that completed power connections for the international space station's electricity-producing solar wings. Meanwhile, mission managers on Wednesday approved a plan to fix a tension problem on one of the space station's wings.
Two cables came off their reels and pulleys when the right wing was extended Sunday night, leaving the blanket of solar cells slack. The problem could cause the fabric to tear or the wing to bend or break during shuttle dockings.
NASA's repair plan calls for astronauts Joe Tanner and Carlos Noriega to try to fix the problem at the start of their third spacewalk Thursday.
The astronauts will climb to the top of the truss that holds the solar wings' batteries and electronics and use tools to put the two loose cables back into place.
''We think we have a really good plan in place, and it's a fairly simple task, we believe,'' said Glenda Laws, lead spacewalk officer.
The second wing was released Monday during a nearly two-hour start-and-stop unfurling procedure to prevent what happened to the first wing.
During Tuesday's spacewalk, Noriega used a small TV camera mounted on his helmet to transmit pictures of the loose tension cables on the right wing.
The helmet cameras - dubbed ''Carlos-cam'' and ''Joe-cam'' - are a new spacewalking feature. Tanner's helmet camera stopped working, however, and the shuttle crew planned to try fixing it for Thursday's spacewalk.
Also Tuesday, Noriega and Tanner hooked up power cables between the solar wings and the station, while station commander Bill Shepherd and his Russian crew attached cables on the inside to complete the circuit.
''I'm not tired at all. I may be cranky in my old age, but I'm not tired,'' said the 50-year-old Tanner.
With more electricity, the station's inhabitants will finally have full run of the place. One of space station Alpha's three rooms had been unheated and sealed off.
The $600 million solar wings, 240 feet from tip to tip and 38 feet wide, are capable of producing 65 kilowatts at peak power. That is four times more than Alpha was producing before. The new wings were installed Sunday on the station by Noriega and Tanner.
The installation of the solar wings will also enable NASA to launch its power-hungry Destiny lab module in January as planned.
The spacewalkers made one unexpected discovery: a gouge the size of the tip of a ball point pen and small scratches on a mirrorlike plate outside the space station. It turned out the plate was nicked when it was launched.
-------- russia
Putin's Touchy Timing
Washington Post
Wednesday, December 6, 2000 ; Page A35
By Jim Hoagland
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30179-2000Dec5?language=printer
Russia's President Vladimir Putin will travel to Cuba next week on a journey that underlines the "assertive but positive" attitude he will adopt with the next president of the United States, according to a senior Russian official.
The timing of the trip--initially disclosed by U.S. sources--is ruffling feathers in the outgoing Clinton administration. Putin seems to some to be taking advantage of the post-election limbo in Washington to poke a thumb in Washington's eye.
There are also questions about Putin's including the head of Russia's atomic energy ministry on the trip. The Russian president will fly across U.S. airspace after visiting Havana to start a visit to Canada on Dec. 15.
The timing of the North American trip is unrelated to U.S. politics, the visiting official and other Russian sources insist. It was originally set in September after Putin saw Cuban President Fidel Castro at the United Nations and postponed when Cuba needed more time to prepare. Putin's biggest interest in the trip is described not as geopolitics but as finding ways to get Cuba to pay back its large Soviet-era debt. But Putin's decision to go ahead with the politically sensitive Cuba trip now as uncertainty lingers over the presidential election here is an unintended signal of its own.
Russia and other nations are factoring into their policies the effect of the contested presidential election and a more evenly divided Congress. Inevitably, they see room to pursue their interests with more assertiveness. Some nations are openly intensifying their challenge to U.S. power during the limbo.
Iraq has shut off oil exports to back up its campaign against economic sanctions. Iran has stepped up support for Islamic guerrilla operations against Israel. Libya has effectively neutralized the international travel ban that Washington has sought to keep in place.
In his first year, Putin has worked to deepen Russian ties with those three countries and with other Soviet-era clients. In his quest to collect back debts and open new markets for the Russian economy, he seems unconcerned about appearing to President Clinton and others to revive problems of the past rather than cooperate with the United States on the future in the world's regional conflicts.
Putin's outlook on future cooperation with Washington is "assertive but positive," the visiting Russian official countered, insisting that Putin's active Third World diplomacy is not directed against the United States.
The Russian president used a visit to North Korea "to introduce Kim Jong Il on the world stage as a different person," he continued. During her recent visit to Pyongyang, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pursued proposals Putin originally made to restrain North Korean missile development. "Some Western leaders have actually thanked President Putin for what he did."
Moscow and Washington resume talks at the expert level this week on Russia's conventional arms sales to Iran, even though Russia on Dec. 1 formally canceled a secret U.S.-Russia understanding that sought to restrain those sales, the official added.
"Our attitude is not based on a memorandum. We can find ways to cooperate without that. We continue to talk to Washington about U.S. concerns and try to understand them. We may not agree on all points, but we want a full and continuing dialogue with the next administration on this and other points, including arms control," the official said.
His comments, which were delivered with an unusual authority and precision for such semi-public utterances, sought to emphasize common points of interest both in Third World diplomacy and arms control. The official sketched a rationale for Russian onstructive engagement with troublesome states.
"After all, President Clinton seemed at one point in his presidency to hope to visit Cuba, and maybe North Korea. When he was secretary of state, Jim Baker discussed how Moscow might help the United States normalize with Cuba. And Cuba occupies historically a certain relationship with us. This is not intended as a signal."
But this official acknowledged that the campaign and the Nov. 7 election results create new questions about Washington-Moscow ties that echo into world politics at large.
"With dialogue, we can get past" the campaign stereotype "that this relationship was conducted by a bunch of crooks in the Kremlin and a bunch of romantics in Washington. We averted more crises than is known, and created a basis for moving forward with the ext administration."
But there is a new risk created by the disputed election and the nearly even partisan divisions of the Senate and House, he concluded: "Foreign policy is always an easy target in time of domestic troubles, in any nation."
That is one reason Putin should have considered delaying the Cuba trip again. It may not be intended as a signal to Washington. But it will be an early window on a relationship that seems headed for more challenging times.
-------- u.n.
UN extends Iraq oil-for-food program
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405227341
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Security Council approved a six-month extension of the U.N. humanitarian program for Iraq on Tuesday, aiming to get more aid to its neediest people and provide the country's ailing oil industry with up to $530 million in additional funds.
But whether Iraq actually gets the money will depend on whether it is willing to cooperate with the United Nations, which is required to monitor how the funds are spent.
Working against a midnight deadline before the program expired, the 15-member council reached a compromise agreement Tuesday night after a contentious debate between Iraq's supporters led by France and its opponents led by the United States. The resolution was approved unanimously after Washington signed off on the deal.
Iraq is allowed to sell oil under the four-year-old U.N. oil-for-food program, provided the money goes for food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies and equipment to rebuild its frayed oil infrastructure. The program was launched to help ordinary Iraqis cope with the effects of U.N. sanctions imposed to punish Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Under Security Council resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs have been dismantled along with the missiles to deliver them. Iraq is demanding the immediate lifting of sanctions and has barred the return of U.N. weapons inspectors, who pulled out ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes in December 1998.
The resolution will increase the funds available for humanitarian purposes by 5 percent and it earmarks the money for the most vulnerable Iraqis. It establishes lists of pre-approved items with the aim of expediting the shipment of humanitarian aid. It exempts contracts for electricity and housing supplies from mandatory approval by the U.N. committee that monitors sanctions.
The key compromise was on the issue of allowing Iraq to receive a large chunk of oil revenue to be spent locally to improve its oil industry. The United States and Britain wanted to ensure that any cash be made available to all sectors of the Iraqi economy.
In the compromise, the council asks Secretary-General Kofi Annan to make arrangements to allow oil-for-food funds to be used by Iraq to buy locally produced goods for civilian needs and to allow up to $530 million to be used for maintaining and improving the country's oil industry. The resolution also requires the Security Council to approve the arrangements.
Iraq's supporters also pressed for $15 million in oil revenue to be earmarked to pay Baghdad's U.N. dues and arrears, which now total $11 million, but the United States strongly opposed any such diversion of oil-for-food money. The final resolution expresses the council's readiness to consider allowing such a payment if Iraq cooperates in implementing all council resolutions _ but does not authorize any payment.
In another compromise, references to the smuggling of petroleum and petroleum products _ which the United States and Britain wanted to include _ were dropped.
The oil-for-food program has generated $37 billion in revenue, and $24 billion has gone to humanitarian programs. Currently, contracts valued at $2.5 billion have been placed on hold, and there is $4.7 billion available to purchase supplies.
While the council debated extending the oil-for-food program, Iraqi and U.N. oil experts were trying to reach agreement on a pricing formula which would enable Iraq to resume oil shipments. Iraq halted oil exports last Thursday after U.N. experts rejected its proposed prices for December as too low _ and its U.N. ambassador said shipments will not resume until the United Nations approves new prices.
Iraqi Oil Minister Mohammed Rasheed told the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that that Iraq hoped to resolve the impasse ``in the next day or two,'' the OPEC News Agency reported.
U.N. oil experts gave Iraq's state oil marketing organization a new set of prices Tuesday afternoon for its consideration, U.N. officials said. Iraq is OPEC's third-largest exporter and provides about 3 percent of global crude oil, about 2.3 million barrels a day.
-------- u.s.
Up to 6 Yemenis to be tried in Cole attack
USA Today
12/06/00- Updated 09:44 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm
PHOTO: The damage sustained by the USS Cole after a bomb exploded during a refueling operation in Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12. (U.S Navy, AP file)
SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - At least three Yemenis and possibly up to six will be tried next month in the attack on the USS Cole, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Iryani said Wednesday.
Al-Iryani told The Associated Press the suspects all were ''culprits in preparing for the attack on the Cole'' but said he had no details on their exact roles or the charges they would face.
Police have completed their investigation and prosecutors were reviewing the case in preparation for filing charges, al-Iryani said. Charges could be filed ''at any time,'' he said, but any trial could not begin before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends late this month.
Al-Iryani said he expected the public trial of three to six suspects to open in a criminal court in Aden sometime in the second half of January.
Last month, Yemeni sources said six Yemenis had been detained as key accomplices in the attack - including one who was allegedly in charge of the operation in Yemen. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sources close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said charges would include carrying out the attack, threatening state security, forming an armed gang and possessing explosives. The suspects could be executed if convicted of threatening state security or carrying out the bombings; the other charges carry a minimum prison sentence of 10 years.
''They were culprits, no question about it,'' al-Iryani said of those to be charged. ''The degree of information that each one may know could be different.''
Two suicide bombers steered a small boat laden with explosives alongside the U.S. warship and detonated their craft on Oct. 12, tearing a huge hole in the Cole. The blast killed 17 sailors and wounded 39. The Cole had just arrived for refueling in the Aden harbor, about 190 miles south of San'a.
Al-Iryani, speaking in an exclusive AP interview in English, said all of those so far identified as having taken part in the attack - including at least one of the suicide bombers - were Yemeni. The other bomber has not yet been identified, he said.
But al-Iryani said he believed the plot reached far beyond Yemen, involving ''international terrorist elements - by international here, I mean Afghans, so-called Arab Afghans, not exclusively Yemeni preparation and execution.''
Thousands of Arabs, including many from Yemen, went to Afghanistan to join U.S.-supported guerrillas in fighting Soviet invaders in the 1980s. After that Cold War-era battle ended with the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, many Afghanistan veterans turned their anger against the United States, which they see as a threat to Islam and to Arab independence.
America's prime terrorism suspect, Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, is a veteran of the Afghan war and continues to live in Afghanistan, from where he issues occasional calls for violence against the United States.
Al-Iryani said the Cole suicide bombers were too young to have fought in Afghanistan, but that it was possible some of the other plotters soon to be brought to trial were Afghan veterans. The prime minister added that the Yemeni investigation had not produced any leads as to who outside Yemen may have participated in the plot.
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USA Today
12/06/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Maryland
Upper Marlboro - A Naval Academy midshipman faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty on two counts of vehicular manslaughter in a November 1999 accident. Jason Jones, 19, was distracted by his cell phone when he slammed into a New York family's car parked alongside Interstate 495, prosecutors at his trial said. The crash killed the parents of two young children.
Oklahoma
Midwest City - Tinker Air Force Base awarded Boeing Co. a $107 million contract to improve more radar units on AWACS planes. The contract allows Boeing to work on six more of the sentry aircraft; it's already updating 13 of the planes. Officials estimate some $400 million will be needed to update all 32 of the AWACS planes at Tinker.
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GOP lawyers focus on military ballots
Washington Times
December 6, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/national/nobyline-200012605338.htm
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - Republican lawyers urged a federal judge yesterday to rule that hundreds of rejected overseas ballots, mostly from military personnel, should be counted in the state's contested presidential election.
The lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier to declare the ballots valid even if they were undated, lacked postmarks, were postmarked in the United States and were not requested on time or at all.
Such a decision would say what the judge thinks the law ought to be without directly ordering the ballots counted, explained Republican lawyer Kenneth W. Sukhia, a former U.S. Attorney from Tallahassee.
It could, however, be used to persuade county canvassing boards to accept disputed overseas ballots and set a precedent for future elections, Mr. Sukhia said.
"I for one have no problem with this entire thing being changed," testified Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections Pat Hollarn, a Republican and defendant in the lawsuit. Turning to Judge Collier, she said, "I hope you find a way for us to get out of this."
Republican George W. Bush carried Florida's overseas voters by a 2-1 ratio over Democrat Al Gore and was certified the winner of the state by 537 votes.
Ed Fleming, a Republican lawyer from Pensacola, estimated that about 600 rejected ballots received after the Nov. 7 election could be affected by the case. He was not sure how many ballots counted on Election Day might also be affected.
Judge Collier promised a prompt ruling. A decision favoring Mr. Bush would come into play only if Mr. Gore wins contests pending in other courts.
Seven county canvassing boards initially were named as defendants, but those in Pasco and Walton counties were dropped after they accepted all ballots at issue.
That left Okaloosa, Orange, Hillsborough, Polk and Collier counties. Okaloosa's board was represented by Mike Chesser and Miss Hollarn was his only witness. The other counties submitted written responses.
Florida accepts overseas ballots received within 10 days of an election if they were cast on or before Election Day. Ballots with overseas civilian and military postmarks were not in dispute.
However, some counties refused to count those without dates or postmarks to confirm that they were voted on time, or had domestic rather than overseas postmarks. In other counties, including Okaloosa, such ballots were accepted.
Mr. Fleming argued that postmarks are unnecessary because military ballots are mailed free and instructions failed to say voters should date them. He said some ballots were erroneously postmarked after arriving in the United States.
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Persian Gulf security increased
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405227318
WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary William Cohen has authorized military commanders to send dozens of additional U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf to strengthen port security, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
The move is part of a Pentagon effort to improve the protection of American ships and other military forces in the region in the aftermath of the Oct. 12 terrorist bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
The Navy, meanwhile, said the heavily damaged Cole is due to arrive back in the United States next week.
The Cole, which lost 17 sailors in the suicide bombing, has been in transit from the Middle East since early November aboard a Norwegian-owned heavy lift ship. It will be off-loaded at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., for repairs that are expected to take one year and cost roughly $240 million.
A small boat maneuvered close to the Cole while it was refueling in Aden harbor and detonated a bomb that blew a hole in the ship's hull 40 feet wide and 40 feet high. Yemeni and American law enforcement authorities are still investigating the attack, for which no credible claim of responsibility has been made.
The day the Cole was attacked, U.S. Navy commanders in the Middle East ordered all ships out of port and they have not returned since. Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Tuesday ``there is a great desire'' to ease the security restrictions ``to have a more comfortable and relaxed standard of living, if you will, for our sailors and marines in that area, and yet the first priority has to be force protection.''
To strengthen port security in the Gulf, Cohen authorized the deployment of extra Navy and Coast Guard security personnel, Quigley said. He did not immediately have any details and said the Pentagon would be deliberately vague about where the security forces would operate and how they would be equipped.
Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, told reporters that he could not comment on the ongoing Cole investigations, which include an internal Navy probe focusing on whether the Cole's captain took the required self-protection measures prior to entering Aden harbor for what was supposed to be a four-hour stop.
A separate investigation, by an outside panel appointed by Defense Secretary William Cohen, is reviewing whether the U.S. military as a whole can take steps to improve the way it protects and supports U.S. forces abroad.
Clark said the Navy investigation's preliminary results are expected to be forwarded in the next few days from the U.S. Fifth Fleet commander in Bahrain, Vice Adm. Charles W. Moore Jr., to the commander of U.S. Atlantic Command in Norfolk, Va., Adm. Robert Natter. Because it ultimately will come to Clark for review, ``it would be totally inappropriate'' to comment on the specifics of the investigation, he said.
Clark said one of the toughest issues raised by the Cole attack is how the Navy can better improve the security of its ships in foreign ports without violating the sovereign interests of host nations.
To illustrate his point, the four-star admiral postulated a circumstance in which a foreign ship entered an American port and established its own security perimeter with armed guards that prohibited U.S. vessels from moving about.
``How long would we tolerate that?'' he asked. ``About four seconds. We can't go do that in other people's countries, either.''
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3 Yemenis face trial in Cole attack
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By DONNA BRYSON Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405228502
SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - At least three Yemenis and possibly up to six will be tried next month in the deadly attack on the USS Cole, Yemen's prime minister said Wednesday, adding there was ``no question'' the men were involved.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Iryani said the suspects all were ``culprits in preparing for the attack on the Cole'' but said he had no details on their exact roles or the charges they would face.
Police have completed their investigation and prosecutors were reviewing the case in preparation for filing charges, al-Iryani said. Charges could be filed ``at any time,'' he said, but any trial could not begin before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends late this month.
Al-Iryani said he expected the public trial of three to six suspects to open in a criminal court in Aden sometime in the second half of January.
Last month, Yemeni sources said six Yemenis had been detained as key accomplices in the attack _ including one who was allegedly in charge of the operation in Yemen. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sources close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said charges would include carrying out the attack, threatening state security, forming an armed gang and possessing explosives. The suspects could be executed if convicted of threatening state security or carrying out the bombings; the other charges carry a minimum prison sentence of 10 years.
``They were culprits, no question about it,'' al-Iryani said of those to be charged. ``The degree of information that each one may know could be different.''
Two suicide bombers steered a small boat laden with explosives alongside the U.S. warship and detonated their craft on Oct. 12, tearing a huge hole in the Cole. The blast killed 17 sailors and wounded 39. The Cole had just arrived for refueling in the Aden harbor, about 190 miles south of San'a.
Al-Iryani, speaking in an exclusive AP interview in English, said all of those so far identified as having taken part in the attack _ including at least one of the suicide bombers _ were Yemeni. The other bomber has not yet been identified, he said.
But al-Iryani said he believed the plot reached far beyond Yemen, involving ``international terrorist elements _ by international here, I mean Afghans, so-called Arab Afghans, not exclusively Yemeni preparation and execution.''
Thousands of Arabs, including many from Yemen, went to Afghanistan to join U.S.-supported guerrillas in fighting Soviet invaders in the 1980s. After that Cold War-era battle ended with the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, many Afghanistan veterans turned their anger against the United States, which they see as a threat to Islam and to Arab independence.
America's prime terrorism suspect, Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, is a veteran of the Afghan war and continues to live in Afghanistan, from where he issues occasional calls for violence against the United States.
Al-Iryani said the Cole suicide bombers were too young to have fought in Afghanistan, but that it was possible some of the other plotters soon to be brought to trial were Afghan veterans.
The prime minister added that the Yemeni investigation had not produced any leads as to who outside Yemen may have participated in the plot.
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Feds find Army Corps rigged data
Infobeat
December 06, 2000
By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405228420
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Army Corps of Engineers officials rigged data to justify a proposed $1 billion lock expansion on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, according to a blistering Pentagon report released Wednesday.
More broadly, the 10-month investigation by the Army's inspector general found ``strong indications'' that intense pressure from the corps' top ranks resulted in an agencywide bias toward favorable evaluations for all river construction projects.
``The overall impression conveyed by testimony of corps employees was that some of them had no confidence in the integrity of the corps' study processes,'' the report said.
Corps spokesman Ron Fournier said the agency had not seen the report and had no comment.
The corps, an Army branch with a $4 billion budget for flood control and river navigation construction, recommends that Congress fund its projects after analyzing which ones have the most net benefit to taxpayers.
The Army inspector general began its investigation after a whistle-blower - corps economist Don Sweeney - came forward with allegations that top corps officials had manipulated data to justify the lock project.
The inspector general found that 18 months ago corps brass ordered alterations to a $54 million analysis of the future needs of the upper Mississippi River navigation system, even though they knew the changes were mathematically flawed.
The intention, the investigation found, was to reverse the seven-year study's preliminary determination that the cost of lengthening seven locks on the two rivers would far outweigh the economic rewards.
The report also concluded that politically connected shipping and agribusiness companies, which want lock expansions for speedier river passage, were improperly given preferential access to the process - even to the point of being assigned to calculate economic benefits for inclusion in the study.
Investigators said the corps officials' behavior was prompted by a desire to boost the agency's construction budget and a tendency to treat the barge industry as a customer.
Those influences ``combined to create an atmosphere where objectivity in its analyses was placed in jeopardy,'' the report said.
The controversy was ignited in February when Sweeney filed an affidavit with the federal Office of Special Counsel, which determined there was ``a substantial likelihood'' of wrongdoing and directed the Army inspector general to investigate.
A letter accompanying the report from OSC chief Elaine Kaplan declared the report documented ``evidence of serious misconduct and improprieties.'' Still, she found the investigation lacking because it did not, as required, include the actions the Pentagon intends to take to address the findings and did not adequately address several of Sweeney's specific charges.
``It takes a great deal of courage and perseverance to come forward as Dr. Sweeney did and to reveal incidents of official misconduct,'' Kaplan said at a news conference. ``Dr. Sweeney's disclosures have contributed to the public interest.''
The charges from Sweeney, who was placed in a different corps job after the pre