NUCLEAR
White House Fact Sheet: Foreign Policy for the Global Age
Europeans Giving Ukraine Loan for 2 Chernobyl Replacements
Other Asians Lose When Washington Coddles Beijing
US grows more wary of a Putin-led Russia
Mechanic sues over unpaid sub bills
Mechanic requests lien on sub for work done
Author talks Soviet politics at Villanova U.
Chernobyl closes, legacy endures
Compensation ordered for nuclear workers
Uranium miner payments OK'd
Nuclear Cleanup Workers Exposed to Radiation
Metro Briefing
Spent nuclear fuel moved from leaky site at Hanford
Spent fuel being removed from leaky Hanford basins
Hanford moves K Basin waste Related stories

MILITARY
Pentagon confirms brush with Russian warplanes
U.S. and Russia Ask Harsh Sanctions on Afghanistan
Colombian's Peace Pursuit: Part Carrot, Part Stick
Metro Briefing
DEA boss says he ordered continuation of drug probe
Chavez denounces diplomat's claim of arming rebels
Astronauts Tighten Slack Solar Panel
On U.N. Dues, No U.S. Cover From Europe
Preliminary Findings Point to Security Lapses Aboard USS Cole
Two Primary Figures Emerge in Bombing of the Cole
Military ballot hearings sought

OTHER
Darkness descends as California's power dwindles
INDIA: POLLUTION CRACKDOWN
U.S., Vietnam hold talks on Agent Orange
Green acres
EPA accelerates toxic site cleanup
TRENTON: MORE MINORITY POLICE CADETS
Russian Security Services Revived Under Putin
In Russia, Spies Come in From Cold
Russian Commission Recommends Clemency for U.S. Prisoner

ACTIVISTS
City Agrees to Settle Suit by Former Panther Leader
Clinton Faces Intense Views on Clemency in F.B.I. Case
Europeans, and Protesters, Meet on the Riviera
Jesse Jackson at Head of Protest in New York Over Florida Vote
CHINA: FALUN GONG TOLL RISES
Rioters spoil EU conference
Protesters riot as EU leaders hold meeting to urge unity
Protesters Taunt Troops with Mirrors
Violent protests bracket EU economic meeting
Review Material Wanted for Resources for Radicals


-------- NUCLEAR

White House Fact Sheet: Foreign Policy for the Global Age

8 Dec 15:24
U.S. Newswire
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1208-111.html

White House Fact Sheet: A Foreign Policy for the Global Age To: National Desk Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the White House:

Today, at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, President Clinton spoke about the role America has played in the world during the last several years, the principles that have guided the Administration's foreign policy and the path we should take in the future.

The broad outlines of a foreign policy for the global age are reflected in the principles that have guided the Clinton Administration's foreign policy over the past eight years.

1. OUR ALLIANCES WITH EUROPE AND ASIA ARE THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR NATIONAL SECURITY, BUT THEY MUST BE CONSTANTLY ADAPTED TO MEET EMERGING CHALLENGES. These core alliances are today stronger and arguably more durable because they are organized to advance a permanent set of shared interests, rather than to defeat a single threat. President Clinton broke new ground in 1993 by welcoming our European and Asian allies' desire to play a more responsible role while maintaining our troops and adapting our alliances in both regions.

Working for a Peaceful, Democratic, Undivided Europe

-- Revitalized, adapted and expanded NATO from a static Cold War alliance to a magnet for new democracies, with new partners, members and missions; adapted its command structure; admitted Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic; created Partnership for Peace.

-- Led NATO in its first military engagement and stopped the killing in Bosnia. The peace we brokered in Dayton has been sustained, a civil society complete with active opposition parties and non-governmental organizations is taking root, and national and local elections have taken place throughout the country.

-- Took military action in Kosovo to stop ethnic cleansing and regional instability. Forced withdrawal of Serb forces and deployed an international presence in Kosovo -- with a 47,000 strong NATO-led force providing security for the province. Achieved the safe and unconditional return of over 900,000 refugees, disbanded the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Adapting and Upholding our Alliance with Asia

-- Updated our strategic alliance with Japan through adoption of the Defense Guidelines and Joint Security Declaration to define how to respond together to post-Cold War threats.

-- Reduced the North Korean threat through deterrence, diplomacy. Negotiated the October 1994 Framework Agreement to freeze and dismantle North Korea's dangerous nuclear weapons fuel production and a moratorium on long-range missile testing in 1999.

-- Strengthened cooperation with South Korea to move forward to engage North Korea. Jointly engaged in Four Party Talks and established Trilateral Group (the United States, Japan and South Korea) to coordinate North Korea policy which helped create the conditions for an eventual North-South dialogue.

2. PEACE AND SECURITY FOR THE UNITED STATES DEPENDS ON BUILDING PRINCIPLED, CONSTRUCTIVE, CLEAR-EYED RELATIONS WITH OUR FORMER ADVERSARIES. We must continue to be mindful of threats to the peace while maximizing the chances that both nations evolve internally toward greater democracy, stability and prosperity. To achieve both goals, we must continue to seize on the desire of both Russia and China to participate in the global economy and global institutions, insisting they accept the obligations as well as the benefits of integration.

Building on Our Relationship with Russia

-- Negotiated the exit of Russian troops from the Baltics, brought Russian troops into NATO missions in the Balkans and won Russia's active support for a just end to the Kosovo war.

-- Brought Russia into the G-8, APEC, into a relationships with NATO and international financial institutions.

-- Reduced the nuclear danger. Deactivated/dismantled over 1,700 nuclear warheads, 300 missile launchers, 425 ICBM and SLBMs; strengthened security and accounting of nuclear materials; purchased 500 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium; reached agreement for the safe, transparent and irreversible destruction of 68 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

-- Supported economic reform and the creation of a market economy. Over 250,000 Russian entrepreneurs have received U.S. training, consulting services or loans. Today 70 percent of the Russian economy is in private hands.

Building on Our Relationship with China

-- Helped maintain peace in the Taiwan Straits and worked with China to maintain stability on Korean Peninsula.

-- Brought China into global non-proliferation regimes' Chemical Weapons Convention, CTBT and Biological Weapons Convention.

-- Negotiated terms for China's entry into the World Trade Organization, with Permanent Normal Trade Relations. Most constructive breakthrough in U.S.-China relations since normalization in 1979 ' will entangle China more deeply in a rules-based international system and change China internally.

3. LOCAL CONFLICTS CAN HAVE GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES. THE PURPOSE OF PEACEMAKING, WHETHER BY DIPLOMACY OR FORCE, MUST BE TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS BEFORE THEY ESCALATE AND HARM OUR VITAL INTERESTS. In a global age, arguments for peacemaking are even stronger: to defuse conflicts before they escalate and harm our interests. America's dominant power is more likely to be accepted if it is harnessed to the cause of peace.

-- Middle East: Brought parties together at Camp David for first high level discussions of all permanent status issues. Helped forge agreements that led to the Declaration of Principles in September 1993 and the Interim Agreement on Palestinian self-rule in September 1995. Brokered the Wye agreement in October 1998, revitalizing the peace process after years of stagnation. Helped broker the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum in September 1999, and the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in October 1994.

-- Balkans: Stabilizing Southeast Europe by ending a decade of repression and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Led NATO alliance to victory in air campaign and ushering in international peacekeepers. Launched the Stability Pact to strengthen democracy, economic development and security throughout the region, and accelerating its integration with the rest of Europe and freeing Europe from a permanent refugee crisis and source of conflict.

-- Greece and Turkey: Encouraged Greek-Turkish rapprochement. Strongly supported Turkey's EU candidacy. Restarted talks toward a comprehensive settlement on Cyprus.

-- India and Pakistan: Helped them move from the brink of what might have been a catastrophic war in July 1999.

-- Northern Ireland: Helped broker the Good Friday Peace Accord, ending decades of bloodshed and empowering the people of Northern Ireland to determine their future.

-- Peru and Ecuador: Worked with other regional governments to halt the 1995 border war between Peru and Ecuador.

-- Eritrea and Ethiopia: Worked with Organization of African Unity to broker a cease fire and negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement.

4. NOT ALL OLD THREATS HAVE DISAPPEARED, BUT NEW DANGERS, ACCENTUATED BY TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND THE PERMEABILITY OF BORDERS, REQUIRE NEW NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITIES. One of the biggest changes we have brought about in the way America relates to the world has been the change in what we consider important. The Clinton Administration has defined a new security agenda that addresses contemporary threats -- nonproliferation, terrorism, international crime, infectious disease, environmental damage.

-- Nonproliferation: Permanently eliminated nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and achieved the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

-- Terrorism: Developed a national counter-terrorism strategy, led by a national coordinator. Brought perpetrators of World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings to justice. Prevented planned attacks against Millennium celebrations.

-- Cyber Security: Developed first national strategy to protect critical infrastructure, bringing together private sector and government. Increased funding on critical infrastructure protection by over 40 percent since 1998.

-- Chemical and Biological Weapons: Strengthened international support for and adherence to CWC/BWC. Equipped and trained first responders in 120 largest metro areas.

-- Environment: Brought climate change issues into the mainstream of our foreign policy. Negotiated Kyoto protocol in 1997 to establish a strong, realistic framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in environmentally strong and economically sound way.

-- Infectious Disease: Made the international fight against deadly infectious diseases a national security priority. Introduced issue to the U.S.-EU Summit, the U.N. Millennium Assembly, and the G-8 Summit in Okinawa and mobilized billions from our international partners. More than doubled foreign assistance for HIV/AIDS. Working to accelerate the development of vaccines for AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other major disease threats through the President's Millennium Vaccine Initiative.

-- International Crime: Intensified interdiction efforts, cracking down on drug lords and providing $1.6 billion in assistance for Colombia. Combating trafficking in persons, especially women and children, with an integrated strategy that focuses on prevention, prosecution of traffickers and protection of and assistance to victims.

5. ECONOMIC INTEGRATION ADVANCES BOTH OUR INTERESTS AND OUR VALUES, BUT ALSO ACCENTUATES THE NEED TO ALLEVIATE ECONOMIC DISPARITY. As the first president who has understood the connections of the global economy and its connection to our prosperity, President Clinton has led the United States toward its greatest expansion in world trade in history -- from $4 to $6.6 trillion a year, opened markets for U.S. exports abroad and created American jobs through nearly 300 other free and fair trade agreements, contributing to the longest economic expansion in our history.

-- Completed the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations and created the WTO to reduce tariffs, settle trade disputes and enforce rules.

-- Ratified the North America Free Trade Association, cementing strategic trade relationships with our immediate neighbors. U.S. exports to Mexico grew 109 percent from 1993 to 1999, compared with growth to the rest of the world of 49 percent.

-- Strong U.S. growth and maintenance of open markets was in no small measure responsible for the recovery of the Asian economy which again is fueling global growth.

-- Helped rescue Mexico's economy with $20 billion in emergency support loans that were repaid in full with interest.

-- Supported the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative at the G-7 Summit in Cologne in June 1999, to provide deeper multilateral debt reduction for poor countries with unsustainable debt burdens.

-- Won approval of PNTR with China, integrate China into the world economy through entry into the WTO, open Chinese market to U.S. exports, slash Chinese tariffs and protect American workers and companies against dumping.

-- Won approval of the Caribbean Basin Initiative enhancement legislation to promote economic prosperity in Central America and the Caribbean.

-- Won approval for African Growth and Opportunity Act to support increased trade and investment between the United States and Africa, strengthen African economies and democratic governments, increase partnerships to counter terrorism, crime, environmental degradation and disease.

---

Europeans Giving Ukraine Loan for 2 Chernobyl Replacements

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08UKRA.html

MOSCOW, Dec. 7 - Ukraine won approval today for $215 million in critically needed loans to expand two nuclear power stations that will replace the electricity lost when the last reactor at the Chernobyl power plant shuts down for good this month.

In a victory that comes with strict conditions for President Leonid Kuchma, the board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development voted in London to extend the loans to complete two nuclear units at the existing Rivne and Khmelnitsky power stations in Ukraine.

The new reactors, 80 percent finished when the Soviet Union collapsed a decade ago, do not have the same graphite-core design as Chernobyl, engineering that many Western experts deem unsafe. Environmental groups like Greenpeace had urged the European bank to delay its decision because of safety concerns about the Soviet-era design of the pressurized-water reactors.

Ukraine has promised to close Chernobyl in ceremonies planned for Dec. 15. The No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl was the site of a fire in April 1986 that blew off the top of the reactor, spewing radiation into the skies over most of Europe.

Dozens of workers died in the immediate aftermath. Thousands of children contracted thyroid cancers, and tens of thousands of residents of Ukraine and Belarus have attributed a host of cancers and adverse health ailments over the years to the catastrophe. Unit No. 3, which adjoins the partly melted No. 4 reactor, now shrouded in a concrete-and-steel sarcophagus, has continued to operate, providing jobs for 6,000 employees and supporting a nearby community of 30,000 people.

The loan approval appears to be a significant concession to Ukraine on how to finance the completion of the replacement reactors. Earlier plans had called for far more expensive and extensive re-engineering at Rivne and Khmelnitsky. But Mr. Kuchma said that Ukraine could not afford a design overhaul and that the plants could be completed at a lower cost without jeopardizing safety.

Cost was a crucial factor, because almost no one pays for electricity in Ukraine, and Mr. Kuchma said the country could not repay the much higher loans sums that had initially been set to finance the engineering changes.

The European bank, created in 1991 to finance development in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, said the money would be disbursed only after Ukraine had pledged in writing that all four Chernobyl units would finally be closed. Ukraine also has to assure the bank that it is ready to meet all other financial commitments required to complete the stations, and it has to promise to toughen its safety standards.

In another sign of support, the bank said it would insist that before the loans proceeded, the International Monetary Fund had to decide to resume its $2.5 billion lending program to Ukraine.

-------- china

Other Asians Lose When Washington Coddles Beijing

International Herald Tribune
Friday, December 8, 2000
Brahma Chellaney IHT
http://www.iht.com/articles/3686.htm

NEW DELHI Just when the Clinton administration had determined after years of deliberation that China had engaged in clandestine missile trade with Pakistan and Iran, it announced that it was waiving the legal requirement to impose economic sanctions. The unmistakable message is that as long as such proliferation does not directly hurt U.S. interests, it makes more sense to cut a deal with Beijing's Communist rulers than penalize them.

In every respect, the administration's latest deal with China is wrong.

For nearly a decade after Beijing's first missile transfers to Pakistan came to light, Washington kept saying that it was trying to make a sanctions determination.

When the Clinton team reluctantly made the recent determination that various types of missile transfers had occurred, it struck a deal with Beijing that no sanctions would ensue. In one stroke it forgave China for all its past transfers made in breach of solemn pledges.

Like earlier nonproliferation deals with Beijing, the latest accord is based on a combination of Chinese promise and U.S. reward. Each time Washington discovered that Beijing had reneged on a promise, it presented new carrots to wheedle out another Chinese promise - and then packaged every new Chinese promise as a major diplomatic milestone.

Asian security comes under pressure both from the broken Chinese promises that result in the advent of offensive new systems in precarious states like Pakistan and Iran, and from the high technology that the United States provides Beijing to win nonproliferation pledges.

The flow of U.S. technology, both official and illicit, has helped China to improve the reliability of its Long March rockets and boosted its program to build a new generation of lighter missiles that can be moved around by road and are thus harder to detect and hit.

Chinese military modernization is still not a threat to the militarily preeminent United States. But it adds to the vulnerabilities of China's regional rivals, including India, Japan and Taiwan.

The only real promise that China has kept to date is a halt to missile transfers to Iran, to which it had sold only components, not completed systems. In contrast, according to America's latest determination, China has given Pakistan "complete missiles, their major subsystems and their production facilities," besides components and materials.

Missiles are at the heart of China's military force and its strategy against regional rivals. As Beijing improves their range, payload and accuracy and develops alternative delivery systems, particularly cruise missiles, it will have additional incentives to sell its older technologies to Pakistan so as to checkmate India and earn extra funding for its research and development program.

China has still given no signal that it intends to formally join the 32-nation, U.S.-led Missile Technology Control Regime. In addition, the deal is bereft of any kind of verification. And China's missile entities are under its Defense Ministry, but the deal is with the Foreign Ministry.

China's efforts to alter the balance of power in Asia in its favor can be countered only by the United States. It has again shown his readiness to appease Beijing in ways that undermine peace and stability in Asia.

The writer, a professor at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.

-------- russia

USA US grows more wary of a Putin-led Russia
As Russia's fledgling president tests US, the latest flash point is arms sales to Iran.

Christian Science Monitor
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2000
By Justin Brown (brownj@csps.com) Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON, While the United States has been mired in presidential uncertainty, Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched a diplomatic offensive that could further erode Moscow's fragile relationship with Washington.

Mr. Putin, who took control of Russia a year ago following the resignation of Boris Yeltsin, has moved swiftly in the areas of weapons sales, arms control, and strategic alliances - upsetting a delicate balance that was struck during the Clinton administration.

He's also given the US a flashback to the cold war with his pursuit of criminal charges against Edmond Pope, the US businessman whom a Moscow judge sentenced to 20 years of hard labor yesterday, for allegedly trying to steal Russian torpedo secrets.

Taken together, Putin's initiatives will provide an early challenge for the next US president, whether Texas Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore.

"There's definitely been a sense that things have taken a turn for the worse in the past three to four months," says a US official. "People here see Putin as a much tougher customer" than Mr. Yeltsin.

Arms sales to Iran

The most defiant move by Putin so far has been to try to sell arms to Iran, in violation of a secret 1995 agreement between Washington and Moscow that was brokered by Mr. Gore. The US State Department sent a delegation to Russia Wednesday to try to freeze the sale, which includes tanks and other conventional weapons. A long-term concern is that these kinds of transactions could escalate into the realm of ballistic missiles or nuclear technology.

"We've been very successful in the past on constraining arms sales to Iran that otherwise would have undermined regional stability," says State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, "and we're going to continue our dialogue with Russia on these critical issues."

Analysts say Russian arms sales to Iran are part of a larger strategy to boost Russia's deteriorating military-industrial complex, while at the same time improving regional security. Moscow is also trying to increase sales to China and India, with the hope that it can raise arms-sales revenue from its current level of between $3 billion and $4 billion, up to as much as $6 billion.

"The Russians face an environment in which they are surrounded by regional powers," says Andrew Kuchins of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "They can help manage these relations with strategic arms sales, which can give them leverage."

Putin may also be seeking greater military leverage through his suggestion that he wants to rapidly reduce Russia's strategic nuclear-weapons arsenal, possibly to 1,500 warheads or fewer. While Putin needs to do so first and foremost because of economic concerns, he is likely to use the overture to pressure the US into making similar concessions, officials say.

"The Russians have to go down in numbers anyway," says Mr. Kuchins. "Their preference is for the US to go down also to maintain some of their deterrence from the cold war."

Pressure on the US

First, Putin wants the US to give up plans to build a national missile defense (NMD), which would be designed to protect the US from incoming missiles. Although NMD tested poorly this year and the Clinton administration put a decision about its future on hold, it has strong support among Republicans, including Mr. Bush.

Second, Russia wants the US to reduce its nuclear arsenal to the same low levels Russia hopes to achieve. Bush has said that he would do so - provided he can compensate with defensive weapons like NMD - but the military establishment has yet to endorse a plan that would cut strategic nuclear weapons to fewer than 2,500.

Under Putin, Russia has also sought a greater role in international leadership. Putin has tried to mediate the Middle East crisis between Israel and the Palestinians, a move that has made the US uncomfortable because he is thought to favor some sort of United Nations peacekeeping force, which Washington opposes for now.

Also, Russia has shown surprising support for the creation of a joint European Union rapid-reaction defense force - and they have even indicated that they may be willing to contribute to it. Analysts say that support likely stems from Moscow's desire to back any global power that can counterbalance the US.

"The Russians are consumed with the foreign impression of their power," says a US official. "They still suffer illusions of being a superpower."

But according to Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Putin's international gambits may be hard to read because he is still trying to consolidate power at home.

While he is extremely popular - his approval rating is 70 percent, according to a recent poll - he still struggles to rein in the remnants of power left by the Yeltsin regime.

What's more, Ms. Hill says, Putin remains an enigmatic figure, and his true intentions with regards to the US are unclear.

"He's been very pragmatic with the US," she says. "He's not seeking confrontation, but he's not being pushed around by the US. Russian foreign policy is very opportunistic - and that's the case here."

---------

Mechanic sues over unpaid sub bills

St. Petersburg Times
published December 8, 2000
By Times staff writer
http://www.sptimes.com/News/120800/TampaBay/Mechanic_sues_over_un.shtml

TAMPA -- A local mechanic filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking that a judge place a lien on the Russian submarine recently towed to Tampa from St. Petersburg.

James N. Tsacrios says the original owners of the sub, Oy-Sub Expo of Finland, owe him $13,333 for work he did to help get the motors started, among other things.

He wants to make sure the sub stays put until he gets paid.

Last week a production company signed an agreement with the owners to use the Juliett class guided missile launcher in the movie K-19: The Widowmaker. Harrison Ford is under consideration for a starring role in the movie about a crew's attempt to avoid a nuclear meltdown on board.

After an inspection by an insurance company, the sub was expected to be moved north, possibly to Nova Scotia.

---------

Mechanic requests lien on sub for work done

St. Petersburg Times
published December 8, 2000
By Times staff writers
http://www.sptimes.com/News/120800/TampaBay/Tampa_Bay_briefs.shtml

TAMPA -- A local mechanic filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking that a judge place a lien on the Russian submarine recently towed to Tampa from St. Petersburg.

James N. Tsacrios claims the original owners of the sub, Oy-Sub Expo of Finland, owe him $13,333 for work he did to help get the motors started, among other things.

He wants to make sure the sub stays put until he gets paid.

Last week a production company signed an agreement with the owners to use the Juliett class guided missile launcher in the movie K-19: The Widowmaker. Harrison Ford is under consideration for a starring role in the movie about a crew's attempt to avoid a nuclear meltdown.

--------

Author talks Soviet politics at Villanova U.

Excite News
December 8, 2000
By David Carlberg The Villanovan Villanova U.
http://news.excite.com/news/uw/001208/university-education-13

(U-WIRE) VILLANOVA, Pa. -- Dr. Sergei N. Khrushchev, author of "Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower," lectured about his father, former U.S.S.R. leader Nikita Khrushchev on Wednesday at Villanova University.

The speech, held on the second floor of the Falvey Library, was part of the Falvey Memorial Library Distinguished Lecture Series. The Lecture Series features speakers who have published outstanding works or have been recognized for their professional achievements.

Khrushchev was born in 1935 as the son of a Communist Party chief. As he grew up, he watched his father become more and more powerful, eventually becoming the head of the Communist Party. Khrushchev accompanied his father on many international trips including those to East Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. He earned his Ph.D. in 1968 from the Moscow Electrical Power Institute as a control systems engineer. Khrushchev is also a prolific researcher and writer, focusing most of his studies on the Cold War.

After a brief introduction by Dr. James L. Mullins, Director of the Falvey Library and University librarian, Khrushchev, began his lecture by discussing the Cold War.

In his view, the Cold War was a transition from a long period of time when people fought to solve their problems. In the dawn of a nuclear age, "world leaders realized that in a war they would lose more than they would gain," said Khrushchev. The leaders, not knowing how to react to this, acted as if they were in a war although they were not fighting. Khrushchev pointed out that the driving force behind the Cold War on both the American and Soviet sides was fear that the opposing side would start a real war.

The rest of the speech described Cold War politics, beginning with Joseph Stalin. While he was the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin feared an attack by the Americans would come by 1956. Therefore, he built up the Soviet army to 5.5 million soldiers. He also attempted to close the country to outside influences.

As a result, the country's new leadership knew very little about the West after Stalin's death. Nikita Khrushchev was thrust into this situation when he became the leader of the Communist Party. In his speech, Khrushchev tried to give his audience a better understanding his father's actions. He related certain stories about his father and discussed reasons for many of his father's decisions.

Soon after taking office, Nikita Khrushchev felt the need to meet with the Soviet Union's two biggest opponents, the United States and England. He wanted to know whether these two countries had the intention of starting a war. In Russia there was a great fear of this prospect because the United States had just elected general and war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower as President. The leaders of the three superpowers met in 1955 in Geneva, and they soon began building relationships.

During the Geneva meetings, though, Nikita Khrushchev realized that his country must be strong if Russia were to survive the Cold War. Khrushchev also realized that his country could not survive unless it began providing more for its people. He was torn between having a strong military and providing for his people. He decided to divert resources to the citizens, while publicly declaring his intention to boost the military. Khrushchev said that his father exaggerated about the number of nuclear warheads in the Russian arsenal, stating, "There was no real arms race on the Soviet side," because the Russians did not have the resources to build nuclear weapons.

He went on to describe how the Cuban Missile Crisis ended up improving relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

For example, it convinced both leaders to sign nuclear treaties and to set up a hotline between the two countries. Khrushchev concluded by saying that under his father, nuclear weapons became more of a method preventing war rather than a method of fighting war.

-------- ukraine

Chernobyl closes, legacy endures
The official shutoff is Dec. 15, 14 years after a disaster that shook industry, East-West ties.

Christian Science Monitor
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2000
By Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/12/08/fp1s3-csm.shtml

CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE, The warning lights began to flash at Chernobyl's notorious nuclear power station, indicating a high-pressure steam leak. As a result, the complex's last reactor was shut down unceremoniously at 11:04 a.m. on Wednesday, just days before it was due to be officially decommissioned.

Declaring it a "historic moment," officials say they are not sure if the plant will be revved up again, just to hit the "off" switch Dec. 15.

Chernobyl is the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. The Soviet-era meltdown on April 26, 1986, immediately killed some 30 people and spewed radioactive material across Europe. Radiation is blamed for at least 6,000 subsequent deaths and health problems affecting millions in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.

But part of Chernobyl's legacy, analysts say, is positive: The disaster was a critical event that shook the nuclear power industry out of complacency, threw a spotlight on East-West differences, and brought a new sense of caution as well as tougher safety rules.

"Chernobyl was a real eye-opener that made people think about the apparent contradiction between safety and production," says Mark Hibbs, the Bonn, Germany based Europe and Asia editor for Nucleonics Week, a specialist magazine based in Washington, D.C. "The Soviets saw safety as putting limits on production, but today we know that the safer a reactor is, the more productive it will be."

If that was a primary lesson from Chernobyl, analysts say, the emergency shutdown this week is a case in point. In the past - with plans for the big finale that feature President Leonid Kuchma well under way - engineers would have thought twice about turning off the reactor early. The leaking pipe caused an increase in temperature and humidity in a sealed room. It was not serious, engineers say, though fixing it required turning off the reactor until the room cooled.

"Anyone would have been punished in 1986 for shutting down for such a small thing," says Sergei Pavlovsky, head of Chernobyl's external relations department. "The priority then was electrical output, not safety. The accident changed all our thoughts."

Ukraine inherited Chernobyl with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russians and Ukrainians have fond memories of trips before the accident to the vast forests nearby, not to mention the good mushroom picking. Today, a barbed-wire fence encircles an 18-mile "exclusion zone" around the plant. Immediately after the accident, 100,000 residents were evacuated, though a few thousand have returned. Much of the zone is likely to be relatively safe in 100 years, officials say. But it may be thousands of years before plutonium contamination dissipates in an inner, six-mile ring, where no one is allowed to live.

Ground zero is Unit Four of the Chernobyl complex, where an estimated 200 tons of "hot" radioactive material is encased in a huge concrete and steel tomb called the sarcophagus.

In front of the plant's main office, a large silver head of Lenin sits defiantly on a plinth, a holdover of an earlier era. These days, every worker must also pass elaborate radiation detectors, and a small black dosimeter is clipped to every lapel.

Western experts have sought to "imbue a safety culture" at former-Soviet reactors for more than a decade, and the "absolute key" driving force was the Chernobyl blast, says Gordon Fowler, Ukraine officer for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"The goal is very, very large: to change the way people are thinking," says Mr. Fowler. The NRC began work in the Soviet Union in 1988, and while NRC-supported local regulatory bodies are beginning to work, it is a long-term process. "We are a lot further along, but you've got to stay in there with them," he says.

Though there are a dozen reactors in Russia and Lithuania of the same RBMK design as Chernobyl, Ukraine has come under the heaviest Western pressure to close its plant for good. Unit Four was destroyed by the 1986 blast, and two other reactors have since been shut down.

But after one of Chernobyl's best years in memory - operating at above 82 percent capacity, until frozen electrical wires forced an initial shutdown on Nov. 28 - many here argue that closing Unit Three will deprive Ukrainians of much-needed electricity and thousands of well-paying jobs. Winter beginning to bite is a further complication.

"It's a political decision to shut it down, which doesn't meet the interests of Ukraine or the people who work here. It's a demand of the West," says Artun Zakharov, a leading project engineer. The plant provides 5 percent of Ukraine's energy and so will deprive 5 percent of the population of electricity, he says, because there "is no power that can take its place."

Western donors promised to provide alternatives, but directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development only met yesterday to vote on a $215 million loan for two new nuclear plants. Russia has made clear that - despite anxiety in the West about its RBMK plant design - it won't consider shutting down its reactors. Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's atomic energy minister and one of the RBMK designers, last week accused Ukraine of bowing to Western pressure. "There is a tradeoff or compromise between Ukraine getting loans and pressure to close the plant," Mr. Adamov said. "There are no grounds - technical or safety - to close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant."

Western experts disagree, citing design weaknesses that contributed to the disaster. Russia has "taken a lot of steps" and "corrected the most egregious" problems," says the NRC's Fowler, but "the West would still not license those plants." The poor state of the economies of Russia and other former Soviet states make changes tough, he notes, and applying Western standards in such conditions is difficult.

Closing may be a symbolic victory, but the accident here also sparked calls for a more open understanding of such facilities. Western governments found that, when Soviet authorities finally acknowledged the 1986 blast two days later, they knew almost nothing about the plant's design - and could offer little help. Transparency is one lesson from Chernobyl, says Mr. Hibbs, that is still being learned. "Some people feel that a few nuclear programs are just as isolated today as the Soviets were 15 years ago." India, for example, has refused safety inspections by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, and "a lot of people say it is an accident waiting to happen."

As the Chernobyl reactor cools down - possibly for the last time - its legacy may put an end to a Soviet joke popular before the accident that "even a gas stove should be as safe as the nuclear industry."

"Back then, society was quite calm, maybe too sure, of their nuclear power stations. But now people are quite aware of their responsibility," says Vladimir Komarov, a senior director at Chernobyl. "This [shutdown] decision has a political and psychological basis, to show that the thing that happened could never ... be repeated here," he says. "But the sarcophagus will remain, and the problem will remain here."


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

Compensation ordered for nuclear workers

Bergen Record
Friday, December 8, 2000
The Associated Press
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/labor9200012086.htm

WASHINGTON -- People exposed to hazardous materials while working in the nation's nuclear factories moved closer Thursday to getting cash and medical care as President Clinton put the Labor Department in charge of distributing the compensation.

"While the nation can never fully repay these workers or their families, they deserve fair compensation for their sacrifices," Clinton said in a statement released with the executive order that puts the department to work on program details as soon as Congress approves a budget.

One of the Clinton administration's legacies will be its reversal of 50 years of government policy by acknowledging that workers often were not given adequate protection or informed about job hazards in the nuclear bomb-making effort.

Clinton's order instructs the Labor Department to set up rules that make sure the program "minimizes the administrative burden on workers and their survivors."

The order also instructs the government to produce the information, if available, that will let experts decide whether a sick worker or the survivor of a deceased worker is eligible for benefits.

"America's weapons workers finally have justice. We are paying a debt long overdue," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said.

The Labor Department has until May 31 to write the eligibility rules.

---

Uranium miner payments OK'd

Denver Rocky Mountain News
December 8, 2000
Regional briefs
http://insidedenver.com/news/1208rbrf9.shtml

WASHINGTON - Uranium miners sickened by radiation while helping Cold War nuclear weapons efforts should be able to collect an extra $50,000 in compensation beginning next summer.

President Clinton signed an executive order Thursday that says federal agencies must have the enhanced compensation program up and running by July 31, 2001. The program also provides $150,000 payments to Energy Department workers sickened by radiation or some toxic substances.

-------- colorado

Nuclear Cleanup Workers Exposed to Radiation

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/science/08TOXI.html

GOLDEN, Colo., Dec. 7 - On windswept highlands 15 miles northwest of Denver, workers here are cleaning up some of the highest concentrations of nuclear waste in the country.

Their efforts are part of an 11-year, $7 billion project intended to turn what was once one of the nation's most important weapons development sites, a sprawling complex on 6,300 acres known as Rocky Flats, into a wildlife preserve. The cleanup is projected to be finished in 2006.

It is a tedious, painstaking process that depends on workers' using critical safety techniques. Yet every so often, the work produces a reminder of how life-threatening the toxic materials they are removing, like plutonium and beryllium, can be. And the latest emerged this week.

Plant officials disclosed that 10 workers cleaning one of the most contaminated of hundreds of buildings remaining, Building 771, tested positive for exposure to radiation. More medical screenings for the workers - nine men and one woman, half of whom had worked at the site for more than 20 years - were conducted last month, and results are expected within a month.

But the problem could be worse. With the cleanup in the building halted on Dec. 1, officials said today that they were still searching for the source of the radiation, a problem they rarely confront, they said, because alarm systems were in place throughout the complex to warn of elevated radiation readings. The medical tests on the workers were conducted after a routine inspection of the building in October, when a radiation detector was found to be operating improperly.

"This is very puzzling and troubling," Robert G. Card, president and chief executive of Kaiser-Hill, the company that won the cleanup contract in 1995, said. "We don't know yet where the exposure came from."

Nor, Mr. Card said, do plant officials know when the exposure occurred, which means as many as 200 other workers who were helping inside Building 771 could have been exposed. Nineteen have volunteered for medical tests, he said, and, if necessary, the company would urge others to submit.

Mr. Card and Paul Golan, deputy field manager for the Department of Energy, insisted the test results showed that even the elevated results fell within federal standards of 5,000 millirems a year for plant workers. But this was the first instance since the cleanup began in 1995, they said, that officials had been unable to gauge the magnitude of the problem.

"It is not lost on anyone here that this is one of the most dangerous things you can do," Mr. Card said. "But this is the first time we have had this much difficulty finding the source."

Rocky Flats was one of a series of weapons plants built after World War II for the cold war nuclear arms buildup. Now, it is one of 113 sites in 30 states that the Energy Department is cleaning and rehabilitating, an undertaking that includes treating huge amounts of contaminated ground water, weapons-grade plutonium and spent nuclear fuels. By some estimates, it will cost the federal government as much as $212 billion over the next seven decades.

The main activity at Rocky Flats, which opened in 1951 and closed 48 years later, was building plutonium detonators, or "pits," that were then shipped to Texas for assembly into nuclear weapons. It was a complex process to complete and, now, to dismantle, involving the stabilization and packaging of tons of leftover toxic metals as buildings were razed and areas were cleared. The materials are trucked to disposal sites in New Mexico and Georgia.

Over the years, several incidents have reflected the dangerous nature of the mission. Among hundreds of small fires that occurred through spontaneous combustion of toxic substances, three - in 1957, 1965 and 1969 - burned out of control, sending radioactive dust skyward. In 1966, officials found that 5,000 drums of radioactive material left outside of buildings had leaked in the previous 12 years, causing the largest plutonium contamination on the site.

More recently, Kaiser-Hill has been fined more than $700,000 for safety violations on the project.

-------- new york

Metro Briefing

New York Times
December 8, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/nyregion/08MBRF.html

NEW YORK
ALBANY: POWER CHIEF TO RESIGN

Clarence Rappleyea, 67, announced yesterday that he would step down as head of the New York Power Authority at the end of January. He has held the $185,000-a-year post since July 1995. Last month, the Power Authority sold its nuclear power plants in Westchester and Oswego Counties to the Entergy Corp. of New Orleans for $967 million. (AP)

ISLIP: UTILITY TAX RULING

Justice James A. Gowan of State Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the method used to reimburse the Long Island Power Authority for $620 million in taxes levied on the Shoreham nuclear power plant violated the Suffolk County Tax Act. The towns of Islip and Smithtown and four town supervisors had sued LIPA and other agencies, saying it was unfair that ratepayers in their towns had to pay higher utility fees to help reimburse LIPA when taxpayers in other towns had received most of the benefits of the extra tax payments. LIPA said it would appeal. Tina Kelley (NYT)

-------- washington

Spent nuclear fuel moved from leaky site at Hanford
After a series of delays, workers ship contaminated material away from an aging storage facility near the Columbia River

The Oregonian
Friday, December 8, 2000
By Brent Hunsberger of The Oregonian staff
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/12/lc_62nuke08.frame

Overcoming last-minute glitches and sleep deprivation, Hanford contractors late Thursday moved their first load of spent nuclear fuel out of one of the reservation's most environmentally hazardous sites.

Workers spent 18 hours Thursday preparing to move a heavily shielded canister containing about 240 fuel assemblies from Hanford's leak-prone K-Basins, a pair of aging reactors within a five-minute walk of the Columbia River's richest salmon spawning grounds.

The transfer was postponed three times Thursday but took place shortly before 8 p.m., said Michael Turner, spokesman with Fluor Hanford, the project's contractor. A truck carried the fuel only 400 yards to a vacuum drying facility. In a week, it's scheduled to be moved nine miles to a longer-term storage complex built in the heart of the 560-square-mile reservation.

Turner blamed Thursday's delays on incomplete paperwork and a malfunctioning video camera inside the radioactive basins. Workers needed the camera to complete the remote-controlled loading.

Moving all 2,300 tons of the basin's fuel to a more stable storage site is expected to take at least three years. But Thursday's first shipment was supposed to be a milestone for the U.S. Department of Energy, whose $1.7 billion project has been riddled by delays, Congressional inquiries and, as recently as last year, regulatory fines.

"It's a tremendous achievement because it really is the beginning of meeting DOE's vision of clearing the river corridor of all the risks and hazards," said Dave Van Leuven, vice president of Fluor Hanford. "It's urgent that we get this fuel out of here before we have additional leaks into the environment."

Thursday's shipment came a week late. DOE had promised in its "Tri-Party Agreement" with federal and Washington state officials to begin moving fuel by Nov. 30.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday seemed less concerned with issuing fines than with getting any amount of fuel away from the Hanford Reach, one of the Columbia River's most productive salmon-spawning beds.

"We call it enforcement discretion," said Douglas Sherwood, EPA's Hanford project manager. "That's our ability to decide if people are working hard and trying. We are only seven days later than Nov. 30, and there is no one at our agency that is concerned about being one week late."

Hanford's K-Basins, built in the 1950s, housed two reactors that converted uranium into weapons-grade plutonium. DOE replaced them in 1971 with Hanford's N-Reactor. But their water-filled, concrete basins were used to store the new reactor's 105,000 spent fuel assemblies.

The fuel, now up to 30 years old and never designed to be stored in water, is corroding. Half of the fuel assemblies are damaged. Canisters holding the fuel in the K-East Basin aren't even capped. Fluor Hanford officials expect a few assemblies to crumble as workers use remote, underwater equipment to clean and package them for shipping.

Worse, K-East leaked 15 million gallons of water in the 1970s and leaked again in the 1990s. Officials fear another leak, or an earthquake, would further contaminate groundwater that flows to the river. A plume of tritium exceeding federal drinking-water standards already has reached the river. High levels of strontium-90, carbon-14, chromium, nitrate and trichloroethylene also have been detected in groundwater around the basins.

"This is the stuff that constitutes the biggest threat to the river itself," said Keith Klein, DOE's Richland operations manger. The project has cost $900 million so far, Klein said, and is expected to cost another $800 million before the basins are rid of radioactive sludges, water and debris by 2007.

By then, Klein said, "We will have removed 99 percent of the radioactivity in what we call the river corridor, the 100 square miles right along the Columbia."

Plans to move the fuel Wednesday were postponed after the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a DOE oversight committee, on Tuesday raised concerns about handling and processing procedures. The fuel can burn spontaneously, under certain conditions, if not properly dried and shielded from air.

But DOE managers in Richland gave the go-ahead for the shipment late Wednesday. Crews worked around the clock Thursday to get a pre-loaded canister containing more than 200 fuel assemblies loaded on the truck.

The canister was taken to a new, $68 million Cold Vacuum Drying Facility, where the fuel will be dried and the canister injected with inert helium gas.

In a week it will be moved to a new, 420,000-square-foot underground storage vault, nine miles from the river. The $157 million Canister Storage Building, located at Hanford's 200 East area in the middle of the reservation's central plateau, is ventilated and built to store fuel for up to 70 years, or until Congress approves a permanent high-level radioactive storage facility.

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

---

Spent fuel being removed from leaky Hanford basins

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Friday, December 8, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/fuel08.shtml

RICHLAND -- After six years of preparation, Hanford Nuclear Reservation contractors yesterday began moving spent nuclear fuel out of a pair of old, leaky pools located just 400 yards from the Columbia River.

Getting the corroded uranium fuel rods out of the K Basins and ready for storage in the central part of Hanford has been one of the top priorities at the 560-square-mile Department of Energy site.

"This is roughly one-third of the radiation at Hanford," said Doug Sherwood, Hanford project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Not only is it a huge, significant source of radioactivity, it's so close to the river. The only thing that keeps it in the basins is concrete and water, and concrete and water are prone to leak."

About 2,100 tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, have been stored underwater in the K Basins, which are basically big swimming pools built in the 1950s with a planned use life of 20 years.

Between now and July 31, 2004, the Hanford contractors plan to move 105,000 fuel assemblies from the pools.

---

Hanford moves K Basin waste Related stories

Spokane Spokesman-Review
Friday, December 8, 2000
Associated Press
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/NewsTrak/newstracks.asp?Direc=lists&ID=L29
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=120800&ID=s890562

RICHLAND _ After six years of preparation, Hanford nuclear reservation contractors on Thursday began moving spent nuclear fuel out of a pair of old, leaky pools known as the K Basins, located just 400 yards from the Columbia River.

About 2,100 tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, have been stored underwater in the K Basins, which are basically big swimming pools that were built in the 1950s and expected to last 20 years.

Most of the deadly radioactive rods came from the N Reactor, which was used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and were originally intended to be reprocessed.

By July 31, 2004, contractors plan to move 105,000 fuel assemblies from the pools. They will be cleaned, dried and stored in canisters in 40-foot-deep underground stainless steel vaults.

-------- MILITARY

Pentagon confirms brush with Russian warplanes

December 8, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000128135413.htm

The Pentagon confirmed yesterday that two Russian jet fighters buzzed the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk within a few hundred feet, correcting earlier statements that the warplanes did not come close to the ship during a Cold War-style encounter on Oct. 17. As a result of that threatening aircraft encounter and a second incident on Nov. 9, the Kitty Hawk battle group has increased its alert status, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said. "They have changed their procedures to deal with flyovers like this," Mr. Bacon said. "I can't get into details of how they've changed them." The new procedures will allow the carrier and its accompanying ships to respond more quickly to threatening incidents, he said. The Washington Times, quoting Navy sources, reported yesterday that the Kitty Hawk was buzzed by Russian Su-24 and Su-27 jets and that it took 40 minutes to launch F-18 interceptor jets to confront the warplanes. Mr. Bacon told reporters he "misspoke" at an earlier Pentagon briefing in explaining the affair because of "misinformation" he had been provided. "This is very similar to events that happened routinely during the Cold War, but have not happened very often, if at all, since," Mr. Bacon told reporters yesterday, noting that U.S. planes generally do not conduct similar overflights of Russian ships. During the Nov. 9 incident, two Il-38 reconnaissance aircraft flew within 1,000 to 2,000 feet of the Kitty Hawk as it conducted exercises in the Sea of Japan. Mr. Bacon said that radar on the Kitty Hawk spotted the incoming planes numerous miles away. Mr. Bacon also confirmed that the Russian Defense Ministry then e-mailed reconnaissance photographs taken by the jets during the overflights to the Kitty Hawk's captain. Mr. Bacon and Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Steve Pietropaoli sought to play down the incident. "It's a curiosity more than anything," Adm. Pietropaoli said. "We didn't regard it as any big deal." Mr. Bacon said no protest was lodged with the Russians after the incidents and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen did not bring up the matter during a meeting in Belgium earlier this week with Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.

----

U.S. and Russia Ask Harsh Sanctions on Afghanistan

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08AFGH.html

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 7 - The United States and Russia asked the Security Council today to toughen and broaden sanctions against the Taliban government of Afghanistan, measures that would cut the country off from most contact with the world.

The common ground taken by the Russians and Americans in demonizing the Taliban follows their taking exactly opposite sides in the catastrophic civil war that followed the Soviet invasion of 1979.

A coalition of holy warriors, supplied by the United States, eventually drove Russian troops out. But a decade later, in a surprising reversal, the Russians are arming these very warriors because they are fighting Moscow's new enemy, the Taliban.

The agreement by the Russians and Americans on sanctions is also rare. They both are concerned about the Taliban's influence across Central Asia and beyond, concluding that the Islamic movement supports Muslim militancy and international terrorism. Both Moscow and Washington discount fears that the new sanctions could harden the Taliban's position and ruin prospects of a negotiated settlement of the Afghan civil war.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian ambassador, told reporters today that the new measures would leave "ample room" for peace talks to continue, a point also made by American officials.

"The problem is that the Taliban never delivered on a single promise, be this to start the dialogue, be this to stop fighting, be this to treat women and girls properly, or any other demand from the Security Council to stop the support for terrorism," Mr. Lavrov said.

Russians accuse the Taliban of involvement in the war in Chechnya. The United States is focused on the sanctuary in Afghanistan of the Saudi-born financier of militancy, Osama bin Laden, who is wanted in the United States on charges of being behind the bombings of two American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Reaction from the Taliban was swift. In Afghanistan, a minister of the Islamic movement called Mr. bin Laden "a guest and the upholder of the Afghan holy war" and said the Taliban could not be forced to hand him over.

In New York, the Taliban's representative, who may be forced to leave the United States under the new sanctions, said the proposed measures had more to do with Russian policy in Central Asia than the situation in Afghanistan. He predicted that the country would close ranks against outsiders and become more defiant.

Under the Russian-American resolution, which is almost certain to pass in the next week or two, the Council would demand the closing of all Taliban diplomatic offices around the world and those of Afghanistan's national airline, Ariana. All flights to or from landlocked Afghanistan, except for relief missions and religious pilgrimages, would be banned.

A comprehensive arms embargo would be imposed on the Taliban, but not on the opposition army of former American-backed mujahedeen struggling to keep a foothold in about 5 percent of the country. To curb the production of heroin in Afghanistan, the world's biggest opium grower, the sale of a chemical used in the making of heroin, acetic anhydride, would be banned.

Current sanctions restrict some flights of the Afghan airline and block off any Taliban financial assets abroad.

The Russian-American resolution demands not only the surrender of Mr. bin Laden, whose financial assets would be frozen worldwide, but also the closing of all training camps for Islamic militants. Sanctions would not end until all conditions were met.

Russian and American diplomats, seeking Beijing's support, have told the Chinese that these camps also send fighters to Muslim areas of China. India accuses the Taliban of involvement in the war in Kashmir.

At the insistence of France, which is wary of imposing any more open- ended sanctions, like those on Iraq, the new measures would have to be reviewed after a year.

Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, the representative in New York of the Taliban, who have been denied the United Nations seat still held by the mujahedeen opposition, said that the actions would increase sympathy for the Taliban across the Islamic world.

"The U.S. and U.N. are claiming championship of human rights all over the world, and at the same time they are killing our people with hunger," he said. "Now they want to prolong the war. They encourage the opposition to fight against the central government."

"Iran and Russia will benefit most from the sanctions," he said. "The Russian federation does want instability in Afghanistan. The Russians want to bring military forces into the region, and put the economic burden of supporting the army on the Central Asians while controlling those countries. Iran wants pipelines from Central Asia to go through Iran, not Afghanistan, the shortest way."

"This will only increase the resentment of the people of Afghanistan," he said. "We had nothing against the United States. We fought together against Russians. Ironically, today the U.S. is working alongside Russia against the people of Afghanistan."

The Taliban generally get little support from Islamic world, compared with the chorus of defense that has arisen in recent months for the Palestinians. But today neighboring Pakistan, the Taliban's main arms supplier, also condemned the proposed sanctions.

Shamshad Ahmad, Pakistan's United Nations representative and a former foreign secretary, said the sanctions would "scuttle" efforts by a representative of Secretary General Kofi Annan to start negotiations between the Taliban and their armed enemies after two decades of civil war.

"We believe that any new sanctions will further isolate and insulate the Taliban, with whom the world has been seeking to engage constructively, so that their policies can be influenced and moderated," Mr. Ahmad told reporters today. He said the measures would "only aggravate the situation, in terms of disrupting all channels of communication between the international community and the Taliban."

He added that coming on top of a severe drought in Afghanistan - one that the United Nations estimates could put upward of a million people at risk of starvation - the harsher sanctions could drive more people out of the country as refugees. Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled hunger and fighting in recent months.

An American official said today that the United States would be talking to Pakistan about getting it to cooperate with the new sanctions, a crucial factor in determining whether the measures will have any effect. In Islamabad, government officials say that they will support sanctions only if they are applied to both sides in the Afghan civil war.

"As a matter of principle," Mr. Ahmad said, sanctions are always unjust, unfair and counterproductive because they never, never achieve the desired objectives. They only hurt innocent people."

-------- colombia

Colombian's Peace Pursuit: Part Carrot, Part Stick

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08COLO.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Dec. 7 - His peace efforts faltered. Guerrillas stepped up their attacks. A greater number of Colombians clamored for a harder line against rebels, who have waged war for 36 years.

But President Andrés Pastrana, who won office promising to bring peace to this divided country, decided late on Wednesday to offer the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, another concession.

After feverish meetings with government ministers and several foreign ambassadors, Mr. Pastrana's government said the rebels could extend their hold a while longer, until Jan. 31, on a large swath of territory that the government ceded to them in 1998 as a peace gesture, though squeezing the rebels with new restrictions.

An extension may have been the president's only viable alternative.

By allowing the rebels to continue their oversight of a 16,000-square- mile zone in the southern province of Caqueta, Mr. Pastrana was forcefully prodding them to peace negotiations that they froze just over three weeks ago, complaining that the government was not doing enough to curb paramilitary forces, which are the rebels' nemesis.

"Even though the talks are now frozen, you're still in a peace process, and it's important that you try to negotiate," Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on a visit to Colombia last week. "I suppose there is a time when you say, `All bets are off, it's over and this goes in another direction, all-out military conflict.' But it seems to me that it has to be a very, very high threshold before you do that."

Indeed, had Mr. Pastrana decided to end the demilitarized zone, it would have meant abandoning peace efforts and dislodging a well- equipped rebel army that has become firmly rooted.

"To do away with it would be doing away with the most important program of the Pastrana administration, which is the peace process," said Armando Borrero, a political scientist and former national security adviser to President Ernesto Samper, who was Mr. Pastrana's predecessor.

Still, no one is arguing that the talks have produced much in the way of tangible results or that the outlook is rosy.

Supporters of Mr. Pastrana's administration say he has taken great steps to build an environment of trust in which peace talks could flourish. In early November, he announced the creation of a peace coalition with the opposition leader Horacio Serpa. In recent speeches, the president has also spoken passionately about the need to resume talks and avoid war.

The short time frame is meant to put pressure on the rebels, giving them a closing window for rejoining peace talks. Right now they have been at a peak of their strength, but their critics say that the paramilitary forces are pounding them and that government actions to take away their drug trade are bound to have some effect.

In talks leading up to the decision Wednesday, Mr. Pastrana consulted a cross section of government officials and others familiar with the conflict to shore up political support.

Senator Samuel Moreno, an independent who is a recent addition to Mr. Pastrana's Common Front for Peace, said, "What I consider positive is that the peace process has become an agenda of the state, not just of this government."

Yet many in Colombia and in Washington continued to argue today that the demilitarized zone has resulted in little more than a safe haven for the rebels to stage attacks, hold kidnapping victims and cultivate coca.

"The Colombian government, regrettably during this long, drawn-out process, has become weaker and the FARC has become stronger," Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, Republican of New York, said today. He is chairman of the International Relations Committee and an architect of the large American financial commitment to Colombia's anti-drug programs.

"The Pastrana government should end the fiction of a peace process that's going on in the demilitarized zone," he said.

Many in Colombia have come to agree.

In a poll published on Sunday in El Tiempo, Colombia's leading paper, 76 percent of those surveyed said the government should not extend the demilitarized zone, and 88 percent said the demilitarized zone had served no useful purpose.

Mr. Pastrana and his ministers did not ignore those concerns. The government, which had offered six- month extensions on the demilitarized zone in the past, limited this extension to 55 days.

The government also promised to restrict entry into the zone, to monitor incoming flights and to ensure that chemicals used for processing cocaine not be allowed to enter.

"All this sends a message that Pastrana does not accept FARC's recalcitrance," Mr. Borrero said. The president's message, he added, is that "peace is valued but that the demilitarized zone is not indefinite."

Officials said the president assessed such problems as the recruitment by the rebels of teenage fighters and their use of the territory to mount offensives, but came back to the option that has been the centerpiece of his administration, the search for a negotiated settlement.

Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts, a Democrat on the International Relations Committee who has visited Colombia and met with the rebels, said: "If you're talking, windows of opportunity will present themselves. If you're not talking, windows of opportunities will pass by, unnoticed."

-------- drug war

Metro Briefing

New York Times
December 8, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/nyregion/08MBRF.html

NEW YORK
MANHATTAN: ARRESTS IN DRUG CASE

A highly organized drug gang that sold more than $1 million of crack cocaine a year in the Bronx and Westchester County has been dismantled with the arrest of 14 of its members, Lt. Eugene Black of the Bronx narcotics squad said yesterday. The gang had been tracked for more than five years, he said. Last week, in tandem with the Westchester County district attorney's office, investigators seized $750,000 worth of drugs, 40 guns and gang records from apartments in the Bronx, Yonkers and New Rochelle. Kevin Flynn (NYT)

CONNECTICUT

GROTON: ECSTASY DEALERS ARRESTED

A task force of federal, state and local authorities has charged nine people with running an Ecstasy sales ring in southeastern Connecticut. Undercover officers bought more than 400 Ecstasy pills from ring members during a two-month investigation, the state police said on Wednesday. Among those arrested were Michael Patti, 20, Marion Patti, 24, Joey Pellegrino, 24, Paulino Garza, 27, and Ray Brown, 23, all of Groton; Brian Buckley, 29, of Waterford; Jeffrey Geronimo, 20, of Medford, Mass; and Ben Kuvalanka, 30, and Sean Horner, 20, both of Montville. (AP)

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DEA boss says he ordered continuation of drug probe

Washington Times
December 8, 2000
By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000128211341.htm

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration yesterday said he personally ordered that an investigation into a suspected Houston drug kingpin be continued after Rep. Maxine Waters complained that the probe's target was a victim of racial profiling.

DEA Administrator Donnie R. Marshall challenged the decision to shut down the investigation, telling the House Government Reform Committee he has since sought an internal probe to determine if DEA officials "succumbed to political pressure" in closing an investigation that had netted 20 convictions and more than $1 million in cocaine.

"At no time did anyone tell me the criminal investigation had been shut down," Mr. Marshall said. "My orders were to continue the active investigation and I was sure that was being done. We need to determine if anyone succumbed to political pressure and, if so, take the appropriate action.

"The DEA must be free of political influence, and I am committed to ensuring that it is," he said.

The accusations of racial profiling were made by Mrs. Waters, California Democrat, to Attorney General Janet Reno in August 1999 - days before Ernest L. Howard, head of the DEA Houston office, ordered members of a DEA/ Houston Police Department drug task force to end inquiries or pursue no new leads involving the probe's target, James A. Prince.

A DEA internal investigation later ruled that the accusations were unfounded, and that the sole source of the complaint was Mr. Prince, owner of a rap recording firm known as Rap-a-Lot.

Three Houston detectives, along with veteran DEA agent Jack Schumacher, who oversaw the probe, told the committee during testimony yesterday and on Wednesday that the investigation was prematurely shut down because of "political interference" and that additional investigative leads and targets were ignored.

Mrs. Waters complained to Miss Reno that Mr. Prince was harassed by DEA agents and Houston police and he feared for his life, although she offered no specific examples or cited any incidents.

Four days after the letter was received by the attorney general, the DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) interviewed Mr. Prince in Mrs. Waters' congressional office in Washington.

During the interview, DEA Chief Inspector Felix Jimenez, who was conducting the OPR review, noted that Mr. Prince had provided "insufficient" information for the agency to open an investigation, saying he had not identified any specific acts of wrongdoing. Later, a private investigative firm in Houston hired by Mr. Prince offered new accusations, involving brutality.

Mr. Marshall said that at that point, Agent Schumacher's removal from the case was suggested in an effort to guarantee his safety pending the OPR review, noting that a contract had been offered on the DEA agent's life. But, he said, he gave no order that the Rap-a-Lot investigation be shut down.

"I believed that the criminal investigation was proceeding with a new case agent," Mr. Marshall said. "I directed a certain course of action with regard to this investigation, and I assumed it was being followed."

Mr. Marshall said he has sent a new team of agents to Houston to investigate the case and determine what course of action the agency should take. He said the team has made a preliminary report to him, although he declined to discuss it in an open session.

In an Aug. 20, 1999, memo to Miss Reno, in response to the Waters letter, Mr. Marshall described the Houston probe as "a significant criminal investigation" and identified Mr. Prince and others as "legitimate suspects" based on "multiple sources of information."

Mrs. Waters was unavailable for comment. Her spokeswoman, Betty Edwards, referred inquiries in the matter to her August 1999 letter. Mr. Prince also has not returned calls, but he previously has denied any wrongdoing.

Agent Howard told the committee yesterday and on Wednesday he did not order the investigation closed, and could not explain why the three Houston detectives and Mr. Schumacher testified under oath to the contrary.

He also was hard pressed to explain e-mail messages he sent to DEA headquarters saying he had shut down the probe "because of the potential political pressure associated with it." He said he lied in the e-mail messages to get the attention of DEA supervisors.

The committee's inquiry also has focused on suspected efforts by the Justice Department to block the panel's own inquiries.

House investigators said Mr. Marshall voluntarily came forward when the accusations surfaced on the probe's being ended and promised full cooperation.

Later, they said Justice Department officials blocked his efforts. At one point, they said, he was ordered not to return calls from Committee Chairman Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican.

---

Chavez denounces diplomat's claim of arming rebels

Washington Times
December 8, 2000
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000128213216.htm

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela denied yesterday that he is funding revolutionary groups in neighboring countries, and he denounced a U.S. diplomat as an "agitator" for giving credibility to the accusations.

Mr. Chavez, whose left-wing rhetoric and friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro have alarmed U.S. officials, assailed a published report that the United States was investigating whether Venezuela was aiding rebels in Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador.

He delivered his message in a rambling, three-hour news conference with reporters in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and - by two-way video link - in Washington.

At one point, he brandished two rifles that he said had the same serial numbers as rifles that the Colombian government claims to have seized from Marxist rebels.

"Are they cloning rifles in Colombia?" asked Mr. Chavez.

Mr. Chavez said that since he was elected in 1998, no guns and rifles have been lost to Colombian rebels and he has given no cash or other support to rebel peasants in Bolivia or rebel military officers in Ecuador.

Mr. Chavez criticized Peter Romero, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Latin America, who told the Miami Herald he was investigating reports Mr. Chavez was backing rebel groups in Ecuador and Bolivia.

"The personal opinion of this agitator who is Peter Romero does not represent the opinion of the Clinton administration," said Mr. Chavez, who was elected president in December 1998 and re-elected under a new constitution to a six-year term last summer.

"A big lie is circulating," said Mr. Chavez, a former paratrooper who spent two years in prison for leading a failed 1992 military coup.

He blamed "oligarchs" in Colombia and anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Miami for spreading "lies."

The Herald on Tuesday quoted Mr. Romero as saying: "There are indications of Chavez government support for violent indigenous movements in Bolivia . . . . In the case of Ecuador, it included support for rebellious army officers."

Mr. Chavez said yesterday he has never met the Bolivian and Ecuadorean men named by the Herald and has given them no weapons or cash.

Yesterday, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker backed away from Mr. Romero's comments, noting they referred to newspaper reports that the U.S. government was examining.

"The headlines in Latin America said the United States is investigating Chavez," said Mr. Reeker in an interview. "That's completely wrong.

"Romero's comments refer to third-party reports [about possible Chavez aid to rebels], not U.S. reports. We can't confirm their accuracy.

"We now welcome statements from Venezuela that these reports are not correct."

Relations between the United States and Venezuela have been strained since Mr. Chavez visited Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in August over oil issues, and hosted Cuba's Mr. Castro in a public show of friendship in July.

The United States also is quietly fuming at Mr. Chavez for uniting oil-exporting countries behind a supply reduction last year that led oil prices to jump from under $10 per barrel to more than $30 this year.

U.S. officials also worry about Mr. Chavez's commitment to democracy after he used his enormous popularity among the poor to neutralize the legislature, bypass the two old political parties, write a new constitution and extend his own term in office.

Lately, the United States also is upset because Mr. Chavez questions the U.S. decision to supply Colombia's army with Black Hawk military helicopters and other weapons and aid worth more than $1 billion to fight drug traffickers.

"We have strong concerns about the military aspects of Plan Colombia and the consequences it can generate," said Mr. Chavez yesterday of the drug war.

Peru, Brazil, Ecuador and Panama share his concern that a Colombian conflict could spread drugs, crime, rebels and refugees, he said.

Colombia recently withdrew its ambassador from Caracas after Venezuela let two guerrilla leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attend a Latin American Parliament meeting held there.

-------- space

Astronauts Tighten Slack Solar Panel

New York Times
December 8, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/national/08SHUT.html

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec. 7 (AP) - Using just a hook and their gloved hands, two astronauts tightened a slack solar wing on the International Space Station with ease today.

"All finished," one astronaut, Carlos Noriega, said after helping to put both tension cables back on their pulleys and reels in minutes.

The two slack cables could have allowed the blanket of solar cells on the right wing to be torn or the support rods to bend or break.

The $600 million set of solar wings was urgently needed to increase electrical power for the space station, Alpha.

The wings were installed on Sunday by astronauts of the space shuttle Endeavour. The quick extension of the right solar wing popped its tension cables off their pulleys and reels. The left wing was unfolded much more slowly, and the cables were properly taut.

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

On U.N. Dues, No U.S. Cover From Europe

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08DUES.html

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 7 - The European Union made its position final today: Europe will not pay higher United Nations dues to offset any reduced payments by the United States.

"What is our bottom line is that we will not pay more," said Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union until the end of the year. The General Assembly finance committee, which Mr. Levitte addressed today, has until Dec. 22 to reach agreement on how, or if, the United States demand can be accommodated.

Europe's negative response throws the burden on the rest of the world to find a way to pay more if Washington is to be accommodated. Ideas are being discussed, but no firm plan has yet taken shape.

At issue are American demands to lower the percentage of the United Nations operating budget that Washington pays to 22 percent from 25 percent, and the peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent from 30 percent. Congress cut peacekeeping contributions in defiance of international agreements in 1995.

The United Nations has never recognized the move. Budgetary assessments are based roughly on a nation's share of the total world economy, with the American portion about 26 percent.

The Clinton administration did not fight Congress on these decisions, and accepted an agreement between Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat and ranking minority member of the committee, that essentially put conditions on American participation in the United Nations and tried to give Washington oversight of its budget and other affairs. Officials said that this was the only way to get any arrears paid.

For most of his 15 months as United States ambassador here, Richard C. Holbrooke has had to devote the bulk of his time to this issue in order to avoid what many feared would be a virtual break between the United States and the United Nations. A Republican-led Congress has set many conditions for paying a debt of $1.7 billion and for future contributions. Reducing the level of dues is the key demand.

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

Preliminary Findings Point to Security Lapses Aboard USS Cole

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08CND-NAVY.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - A Navy inquiry has found that the captain and crew of the American destroyer Cole failed to follow strict security procedures before a skiff packed with explosives attacked it in Yemen in October, killing 17 sailors, senior officials said today.

The inquiry, while not yet completed, has painted a critical picture of security aboard the Cole as it pulled into the port of Aden in the hours before the attack, cataloguing a series of lapses, according to officials who have been briefed on the findings.

The findings, which are now being reviewed by the Navy's senior admirals, raise the possibility of disciplinary action against the Cole's captain, Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, other officers and members of the crew. The officials said that any discussion of what punishment, if any, they might face was premature.

Despite the findings, the officials emphasized, it is not clear that the attack, which also injured 39 sailors and tore a gaping hole in the Cole's side, would have been averted if the Cole's crew had followed its own security procedures by the letter.

"The harder question is, even if all these measures had been taken, would the attack have been averted?" a senior Pentagon official said today.

The inquiry - required by Navy regulations - is focusing narrowly on the Cole's captain and crew and their actions before the attack. Several Navy and defense officials complained that the inquiry ignored the action of others beyond the ship itself that may have left the ship vulnerable.

The Cole's security guards, for example, were prohibited from firing warning shots to approaching boats because of orders issued not by the ship's captain, but from the Navy's 5th Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain. That directive was based on diplomatic concerns about repercussions should American sailors fire weapons - even as warnings - in the port of an Arab country.

Many officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also questioned whether military commanders in the region adequately prepared for an attack like the one against the Cole. They also questioned whether intelligence agencies properly assessed the terrorist threat in the region and, particularly, in Yemen, and whether those findings were transmitted down the chain of command to the Cole's officers.

Those questions are part of a broader review of security that Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen ordered. That review - led by two former commanders, Adm. Harold W. Gehman of the Navy and Gen. William Crouch of the Army - is expected to be completed by the end of the month or early January.

Admiral Gehman and General Crouch have received the Navy's preliminary findings and are to include them in their own investigation.

---

Two Primary Figures Emerge in Bombing of the Cole

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By JUDITH MILLER with JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08TERR.html

Yemeni officials have told the Clinton administration that they have identified two key figures in the October bombing of the destroyer Cole, and intelligence officials say they believe that at least one of them is associated with the organization controlled by Osama bin Laden.

A senior Yemeni official said yesterday that the man who ran the Cole bombing was Muhammad Omar al-Harazi, a Yemeni-born Saudi.

American officials said yesterday that they believe that Mr. Harazi - who is known to Washington as Abdul Ali-Nashiri or Abdul al- Nassir - was connected with the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa, in which more than 200 people died.

One intelligence official identified Mr. Harazi as an explosives expert who works for al Qaeda, Mr. bin Laden's group accused of international terrorism.

From the onset of the Cole investigation, Yemeni and American investigators have said that a prime suspect as the mastermind of the bombing is Mr. bin Laden, a Saudi exile who is living in Afghanistan. But one Yemeni official cautioned that the links to Mr. bin Laden fell far short of establishing that he had played any direct role in the attack.

The official noted that thousands of militant young Arabs had trained and fought in Afghanistan, many under the direction of Mr. bin Laden.

"Just about everybody who went to Afghanistan is linked in some way to bin Laden," the official said. "But if you're asking, can we prove that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the Cole, the answer is, no, we can't, at least not yet."

American and Yemeni officials identified another key figure in the plot as Jamal al-Badawi. Officials said he was in custody and was providing much of the information about the Cole bombing, in which 17 sailors died.

American officials said Yemeni officials have also reported telephone records showing contacts before the Cole bombing between suspects in the attack and members of al Qaeda.

American officials said that another suspect in custody told Yemeni officials that he was paid about $5,000 by an associate of Mr. bin Laden to help pay for the bombing of the Cole and to videotape the attack. American officials said that a further link to Mr. bin Laden had been established when Mr. Badawi told Yemeni investigators that he was trained in Afghan camps run by Mr. bin Laden and that he had fought with Mr. bin Laden's forces in Bosnia.

Mr. Badawi had previously been identified by Yemeni officials as having helped to procure the fiberglass skiff that was used to carry at least a third of a ton of high explosives in the attack on the Cole, which blew a 40-by-60-foot hole at the ship's waterline, causing what the Navy has estimated at $240 million in damage.

Much of the information about the links between Mr. bin Laden's organization and the Cole bombing was first reported last night by ABC News.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Iryani told The Associated Press that the ship bombing had reached far beyond Yemen, involving what he called "international terrorist elements."

Mr. Iryani identified these elements as so-called "Arab Afghans," Arabs who fought in the guerrilla war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980's and subsequently spread out across much of the world in a loosely linked terrorist network.

The latest disclosures come as the Clinton administration is mounting a campaign to broaden and toughen economic and political sanctions against the Taliban government of Afghanistan, where Mr. bin Laden has been living since 1996.

The United States and Russia asked the United Nations Security Council yesterday to approve new measures that would cut the country off from most contact with the rest of the world, except for relief workers.

The Taliban spokesman in New York reiterated the ruling group's position that Mr. bin Laden was a "guest and the upholder of the Afghan holy war." Afghanistan, he said, would not be pressured into expelling him.

The Clinton administration has been careful not to assign blame for the bombing of the Cole to Mr. bin Laden or his organization, saying that the investigators have not found a smoking gun that directly links the bombing to either the Saudi millionaire or his militant Islamic network.

For their part, Yemeni officials were even more cautious about whether Mr. Harazi had present or past links with Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Harazi, the man named as the main organizer of the attack from within Yemen, was born in the Harazi mountains, about 60 miles west of Sana, the Yemeni capital. Like many thousands of people in this poverty-stricken country, including Mr. bin Laden, the Harazi family migrated to Saudi Arabia, where Mr. Harazi gained his citizenship.

Officials in the Federal Bureau of Investigation say that Mr. Harazi has been identified as having inspired or directed several terrorist attacks on American targets over the past decade.

Mr. bin Laden has been indicted in one attack against Americans, the 1998 bombings of the embassies in East Africa. A federal trial of alleged conspirators in the embassy bombings is scheduled to begin in Manhattan in early January.

The telephone records and other links emerging between the suspects in the attack on the Cole and those associated with the East Africa bombings are likely to increase the administration's determination to take tougher action to close down the sanctuary that Afghanistan has provided to Mr. bin Laden and his group, and to other Muslim militants.

A former counterterrorism official in the Clinton administration said it was important not to assume the White House would endorse military action against Mr. bin Laden or the Taliban if direct evidence of firm links continues to mount.

---

Military ballot hearings sought

Washington Times
December 8, 2000
By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000128235321.htm

House Democrats yesterday tried to deflect criticism that their party is to blame for the dismissal of thousands of military ballots in the Florida election by calling for congressional hearings to examine the military balloting process.

Republicans are highlighting the disqualification of 40 percent of overseas military ballots in Florida, which benefits Vice President Al Gore's campaign, in the hopes of making it a 2002 campaign issue.

"I am greatly disturbed by the perception the Democratic Party is trying to keep the military from voting," said Rep. Gene Taylor, Mississippi Democrat, during a Capitol Hill press conference.

Florida Democrats not directly connected to Mr. Gore's campaign continued their cases yesterday in front of a federal judge to reject overseas ballots, most from military personnel.

Some canvassing boards dismissed numerous ballot lacking postmarks or dates, while other counties accepted ballots with the same omissions.

The congressional hearings would guide future drafting of legislation to address the postmarking issue and ensure the integrity of the election process.

"If a federal absentee ballot is otherwise properly executed, it should be counted, even if the postmark is in question," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii Democrat. "Every absentee voter is entitled to the same treatment."

Mr. Abercrombie said military men, women and families are being used as "pawns in a partisan battle."

"Attempts to make it so risks politicizing the military in a manner antithetical to democracy," Mr. Abercrombie said.

Rep. Ronnie Shows, Mississippi Democrat, said hearings will find solutions, not lay blame.

"We're not going after a party, a person, of whose fault this is," Mr. Shows said.

-------- OTHER

-------- energy

Darkness descends as California's power dwindles

By John Howard ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 8, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000128235614.htm

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California edged toward an unprecedented energy crisis yesterday as hundreds of companies were ordered to cut back on electricity use and officials warned of the possibility of rolling blackouts.

"We are really hurting today. The state is scrambling to find energy," said Pat Dorinson, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, a state power agency.

The power crunch - which hit before winter had even begun -has been blamed on cold weather in the Northwest, the shutdown of some power plants for repairs, and the effects of utility deregulation in California.

With supplies of electricity running perilously low, California officials declared a Stage Two emergency at 4 a.m. yesterday. It was the fourth such declaration in as many days and the eighth in three weeks.

Under the Stage Two emergency, hundreds of companies that had signed "interruptible" service contracts in exchange for huge rebates were ordered to reduce or shut down their power. Others awaited notification to do likewise.

Computer-chip manufacturer Intel stood ready to turn off 50 percent of the lights at its 6,500-employee installation in Folsom.

"If that's not enough, we'll take the lights down 100 percent and work in the dark," Intel spokesman Bill Mueller said.

Officials said the crisis could elevate to a Stage Three later in the day, which would trigger forced outages. Rolling blackouts would last about an hour in any given area and could affect hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the state.

A Stage Two emergency is declared when power reserves fall -or are expected to fall - below 5 percent. California has never before had a statewide Stage Three emergency, which is declared when reserves fall below 1.5 percent.

The alerts are the latest in a series of problems to bedevil California's deregulated electricity system.

The phased-in deregulation of California's $20 billion electrical power industry was supposed to lower prices by creating greater competition. But demand for electricity has outstripped supply, in part because of a growing population and a booming high-tech economy.

Electricity is also in short supply because energy companies held off building new power plants while deregulation was in the planning stages. In addition, deregulation has forced utilities to sell off their power-generating assets, such as dams and plants, and import electricity from neighboring states, where power demand is high right now because of a cold snap.

Earlier this week, energy companies and state officials asked Californians to delay turning on their Christmas lights until well after nightfall and to keep thermostats set at 68 degrees. After lighting the Christmas tree at the state Capitol, Gov. Gray Davis quickly pulled the plug to conserve energy.

California inspectors have begun surprise inspections of power plants that have closed for repairs to see whether the shutdowns were deliberate attempts to drive up costs.

Shutdowns were part of the reason that one-quarter of the system's capacity was down on Wednesday by 11,000 megawatts, enough to supply 11 million homes. Of that amount, state officials said, 4,000 megawatts were from plant breakdowns.

-------- environment

INDIA: POLLUTION CRACKDOWN

New York Times
December 8, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/world/08BRIE.html

The Supreme Court ruled that the national capital territory of Delhi and other agencies must close all polluting factories in residential areas within four weeks. It gave the Delhi Municipal Corporation 10 days to identify what are believed to be thousands of such factories. Delhi's move to close some of the factories last month set off rioting among workers and owners. Celia W. Dugger (NYT)

---

U.S., Vietnam hold talks on Agent Orange

Washington Times
December 8, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports

HANOI - Vietnam and the United States held "frank and serious" talks about Agent Orange at their first official discussions on the defoliant used during the Vietnam War, Vietnam said yesterday.

At a meeting in Singapore that ends today, they discussed research on the effects of the defoliant on people and the environment, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said.

Earlier this year, the United States promised to conduct joint research on the effects of the estimated 11 million gallons of defoliants, primarily Agent Orange, sprayed by U.S. planes between 1962 and 1971 to destroy jungle cover for communist troops.

No breakthrough seen at warming talks

OTTAWA - The United States and Europe failed yesterday to bridge major differences after two days of talks aimed at salvaging a pact to curb global warming.

Officials said they had made some progress in closing the gap between the European Union and the "umbrella group" of the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

But they also made it clear that major differences remain over how best to cut emissions of "greenhouse gases" and on how to meet previous promises to cut emissions.

The meeting was the first since last month's dramatic collapse of U.N.-sponsored talks in The Hague to set a global strategy on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

---

Green acres

Washington Times
December 8, 2000
Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin
Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.

We attended this week's congressional briefing on the Kyoto Protocol in the Cannon House Office Building, the global warming panel consisting of Harlan Watson, majority staff director of the House Science subcommittee on energy and the environment; Bonner R. Cohen, senior fellow of the Lexington Institute; Craig Rucker, executive director of the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow; Myron Ebell, director of global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute; and Christopher C. Horner, counsel to the Cooler Heads Coalition.

The latter had everybody laughing when he quoted one Canadian diplomat as conceding: "We Canadians used to pound the table to be as 'green' as we could be, knowing the United States would always save us from ourselves by vetoing the international environmental idiocy we'd offer to appease our domestic left. Since 1993, you haven't been there for us. You agree to anything."

Costly cows

Word's reached Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington that the federal government has finally conquered Virginia and her cows.

To summarize, in accordance with section 122(i) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, as amended by the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act (CERCLA), the proposed settlement concerns Uncle Sam's response costs at the "Tokeland Cow Dip Pit" CERCLA Site, in Pacific County, Wash.

The settlement requires the estate of Virginia M. Nelson to pay $57,111.55 to the Hazardous Substance Superfund.

--------

EPA accelerates toxic site cleanup

Tampa Bay briefs
St. Petersburg Times
published December 8, 2000
By Times staff writers
http://www.sptimes.com/News/120800/TampaBay/Tampa_Bay_briefs.shtml

TAMPA -- Fearing the spread of dangerous chemicals into local drinking water sources, the federal government will undertake an accelerated cleanup schedule at the former Alaric Inc. site in Orient Park, the government's project manager said.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added Alaric to its national priorities list.

The 1.7-acre Alaric site joined the list despite a Florida Department of Health report showing no immediate danger to surrounding residents. The report, performed for EPA, concluded the contaminated underground water was traveling south, away from homes, and that residents were safe because most use municipal water instead of well water.

But EPA, which is involved with the nearby Helena Chemical Company Superfund site, views longer-term risks in larger geographic areas when deciding whether to undertake cleanups, project manager Brad Jackson said.

-------- police

New York Times
December 8, 2000
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/nyregion/08MBRF.html

NEW JERSEY
TRENTON: MORE MINORITY POLICE CADETS

Minority representation among cadets enrolled in the New Jersey State Police Training Academy is higher than initial projections and exceeds the 14 percent minority representation among the 2,535 troopers, the police said yesterday. Among the 218 cadets who began training in September, 22.5 percent were members of racial and ethnic minorities, said John Hagerty, a police spokesman. Steve Strunsky (NYT)

-------- spying

Russian Security Services Revived Under Putin

By David Hoffman Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday , December 8, 2000 ; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40236-2000Dec7?language=printer

MOSCOW, Dec. 7 - During the trial of Edmond Pope, the American businessman and retired Navy intelligence officer convicted this week of espionage, an agent from the Federal Security Service approached one of Pope's Russian lawyers in the corridor outside the courtroom.

The lawyer, Andrei Andrusenko, had already reported being trailed by security agents, and believed his mobile telephone was tapped. Now the agent warned him to be careful. "You lawyers need to know," he said, according to Andrusenko, "the spy will sooner or later go, but you remain in this country, and it's not known who will be next on trial."

The threat offered a hint of what many Russian specialists say has been the growing influence and prominence of the security services under President Vladimir Putin, who spent most of his career in the KGB, the Soviet Union's secret police and foreign intelligence agency.

Putin has elevated veterans of the KGB and its successor agencies to his inner circle and installed them in key government posts. Russia has been awash in allegations of espionage and spy trials, some of which, like the Pope case, appear to have been based on weak evidence.

Putin has sought to restore the security services to the role in Russian political and economic life they enjoyed in Soviet times, alarming democrats, environmentalists and human rights activists. Critics say Putin has set a tone reminiscent of the old KGB - intolerant of political criticism, hostile to civil society and trying to put the independent news media under government control.

The KGB was broken up after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union into several agencies, among them the Federal Security Service, the chief domestic security agency, and the Foreign Intelligence Service, the equivalent of the CIA. Putin, who served in Germany as a KGB spy in the 1980s, was director of the Federal Security Service before being appointed prime minister by former president Boris Yeltsin more than a year ago.

Human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants said recently the former KGB agents are doing in power what they know best. "That is why it is quite natural that we got . . . the ever-growing censorship and monopolization of the press, intensifying surveillance, bugging of Internet and telephone calls, a spy mania, a landslide of criminal cases sloppily and brazenly fabricated by the special services," he said.

The Pope trial raised questions about the actions of the Federal Security Service, which investigated and helped prosecute the case. At one point, a key prosecution witness, Anatoly Babkin, who prepared four reports for Pope on a high-speed torpedo that formed the basis of the espionage charge, recanted his statement that they contained secret material.

Babkin said he originally signed his statements under duress. Two unidentified agents came to his home in the middle of the trial, and, according to an audio recording that defense lawyers said was genuine, threatened to jail Babkin if he recanted. He did so anyway; agents have not made good on the threat.

In another case that has sparked protests, the security services charged Igor Sutyagin, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of the United States and Canada, with treason in October 1999. Sutyagin was an arms control researcher who often had telephone contacts with overseas analysts. Pavel Podvig, a friend of Sutyagin and author of a book on Russian strategic weapons, said the evidence in the case has been "invented out of nothing."

Sutyagin, who was arrested and has been held more than a year without trial, "never had access to state secrets," Podvig said. The Federal Security Service "is testing the technology when any person who can read newspapers and magazines can be accused of divulging state secrets."

The Federal Security Service has also targeted environmentalists such as Grigory Pasko, a reporter for a military newspaper, who exposed the navy's dumping of nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean. He was arrested in November 1997 and charged with treason for passing information about the dumping to a Japanese television station. Pasko said the material was not secret.

He was acquitted of espionage in June 1999 after a five-month, closed-door trial, but the court found him guilty of a lesser charge of improper military conduct. Pasko was given an amnesty and released. Recently, the case was revived by a panel of military judges under the Russian Supreme Court, meaning that Pasko could be tried again.

In the Soviet system, verdicts were usually dictated by the Communist Party and did not hinge on courtroom arguments. Judges took their cue from the party and prosecutors, a phenomenon that was eerily repeated in the Pope case when defense lawyers' motions were largely ignored.

The newspaper Novye Izvestia said many recent spy cases had been poorly prepared by former KGB agents who "are not trained to get information that would become a convincing argument in court and withstand the probe of the defense."

Naum Nim, senior editor of Index on Censorship, a magazine here that campaigns against authoritarianism, said the security services do not want to engage in an open battle over the evidence.

"For them, any procedural matters are still rubbish," he said. "They seriously think, even now, that their opinion is the most convincing evidence. They do not want to learn procedural nuances. They want to bring the country back to the time when their judgment is the only thing that matters."

In Putin's Russia, the old Soviet mind-set that newspapers and television are supposed to serve the authorities rather than criticize them is increasingly voiced by high-level officials.

For example, Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the Kremlin Security Council and a long-time KGB official, recently complained that businessmen have been using their news media holdings for their own ends. Ivanov said the solution was for the government to expand the state-owned news media because citizens are not getting "sufficiently truthful information about the actions of the state, its plans, its intentions." Putin has waged a campaign this year against media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky, who founded the leading independent television network in Russia.

Yevgeny Yasin, a former economics minister, commented recently that the Kremlin has "a peculiar understanding of freedom of speech, differing from the generally accepted one."

A year ago, when he was prime minister, Putin attended a ceremony marking the Dec. 20 annual holiday of the security services. The secret services "must not be separated from the state and turned into some monster," he said, adding half-jokingly that a group of Federal Security Service agents "sent to work under cover in the government has been doing well at the initial stage."

The joke has become the reality since Putin succeeded Yeltsin, but the group is not working under cover. They have become some of the most influential Kremlin figures around Putin.

The most prominent is Ivanov, 47, a St. Petersburg confidant of the president who has handled a broad range of difficult issues, from military reform to the Kursk submarine catastrophe to the preparation of a new "information security" doctrine. In the months ahead, Ivanov is likely to be appointed to yet another high-level post, possibly defense minister or prime minister.

Putin also turned to veterans of the security services when he decided to appoint unelected super-governors to oversee Russia's 89 regions, which are run largely by elected governors and mayors. Five of the seven new posts were given to former KGB agents. One of the most powerful was Viktor Cherkessov, 50, a friend of Putin from St. Petersburg who joined the KGB the same year as Putin. Cherkessov was widely known for his aggressive attempts to persecute dissidents in the final years of the Soviet Union.

Putin has also appointed KGB veterans as first deputy justice minister; deputy minister of taxation; director of a new arms export agency; and first deputy minister of communication and information.

"Putin is bringing in his former colleagues, not because he has plotted a KGB revanche, but simply because he understands these people perfectly well," said Nim. "They have their own logic and manner of communication. Since he has been in the service a long time, he knows the rules and finds these people more reliable."

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In Russia, Spies Come in From Cold

By David Hoffman Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday , December 8, 2000 ; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40082-2000Dec7?language=printer

MOSCOW, Dec. 7 -- During the trial of Edmond Pope, the American businessman and retired Navy intelligence officer convicted this week of espionage, an agent from the Federal Security Service approached one of Pope's Russian lawyers in the corridor outside the courtroom.

The lawyer, Andrei Andrusenko, had already reported being trailed by security agents, and believed his mobile telephone was tapped. Now the agent warned him to be careful. "You lawyers need to know," he said, according to Andrusenko, "the spy will sooner or later go, but you remain in this country, and it's not known who will be next on trial."

The threat offered a hint of what many Russian specialists say has been the growing influence and prominence of the security services under President Vladimir Putin, who spent most of his career in the KGB, the Soviet Union's secret police and foreign intelligence agency.

Putin has elevated veterans of the KGB and its successor agencies to his inner circle and installed them in key government posts. Russia has been awash in allegations of espionage and spy trials, some of which, like the Pope case, appear to have been based on weak evidence.

Putin has sought to restore the security services to the role in Russian political and economic life they enjoyed in Soviet times, alarming democrats, environmentalists and human rights activists. Critics say Putin has set a tone reminiscent of the old KGB--intolerant of political criticism, hostile to civil society and trying to put the independent news media under government control.

After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB was broken up into several agencies, among them the Federal Security Service, the chief domestic security agency, and the Foreign Intelligence Service, the equivalent of the CIA. Putin, who served in Germany as a KGB spy in the 1980s, was director of the Federal Security Service before being appointed prime minister by then-President Boris Yeltsin more than a year ago.

Human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants said recently the former KGB agents are doing what they know best. "That is why it is quite natural that we got . . . the ever-growing censorship and monopolization of the press, intensifying surveillance, bugging of Internet and telephone calls, a spy mania, a landslide of criminal cases sloppily and brazenly fabricated by the special services," he said.

The Pope trial raised questions about the actions of the Federal Security Service, which investigated and helped prosecute the case. At one point, a key prosecution witness, Anatoly Babkin, who prepared four reports for Pope on a high-speed torpedo that formed the basis of the espionage charge, recanted his statement that the reports contained secret material.

Babkin said he originally signed his statements under duress. Two unidentified agents came to his home in the middle of the trial and, according to an audio recording that defense lawyers said was genuine, threatened to jail Babkin if he recanted. He did so anyway; agents have not made good on the threat.

In another case that has sparked protests, the security services charged Igor Sutyagin, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of the United States and Canada, with treason in October 1999. Sutyagin was an arms control researcher who often had telephone contacts with overseas analysts. Pavel Podvig, a friend of Sutyagin and author of a book on Russian strategic weapons, said the evidence in the case has been "invented out of nothing."

Sutyagin, who was arrested and has been held more than a year without trial, "never had access to state secrets," Podvig said. The Federal Security Service "is testing the technology when any person who can read newspapers and magazines can be accused of divulging state secrets."

The Federal Security Service has also targeted environmentalists such as Grigory Pasko, a reporter for a military newspaper, who exposed the navy's dumping of nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean. He was arrested in November 1997 and charged with treason for passing information about the dumping to a Japanese television station. Pasko said the material was not secret.

He was acquitted of espionage in June 1999 after a five-month, closed-door trial, but the court found him guilty of a lesser charge of improper military conduct. Pasko was given an amnesty and released. Recently, the case was revived by a panel of military judges under the Russian Supreme Court, meaning that Pasko could be tried again.

In the Soviet system, verdicts were usually dictated by the Communist Party and did not hinge on courtroom arguments. Judges took their cue from the party and prosecutors, a phenomenon that was eerily repeated in the Pope case when defense lawyers' motions were largely ignored.

The newspaper Novye Izvestia said many recent spy cases had been poorly prepared by former KGB agents who "are not trained to get information that would become a convincing argument in court and withstand the probe of the defense."

Naum Nim, senior editor of Index on Censorship, a magazine here that campaigns against authoritarianism, said the security services do not want to engage in an open battle over the evidence.

"For them, any procedural matters are still rubbish," he said. "They seriously think, even now, that their opinion is the most convincing evidence. They do not want to learn procedural nuances. They want to bring the country back to the time when their judgment is the only thing that matters."

In Putin's Russia, the old Soviet mind-set that newspapers and television are supposed to serve the authorities rather than criticize them is increasingly voiced by high-level officials.

For example, Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the Kremlin Security Council and a longtime KGB official, recently complained that businessmen have been using their news media holdings for their own ends. Ivanov said the solution was for the government to expand the state-owned news media because citizens are not getting "sufficiently truthful information about the actions of the state, its plans, its intentions." Putin has waged a campaign this year against media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky, who founded the leading independent television network in Russia.

Yevgeny Yasin, a former economics minister, commented recently that the Kremlin has "a peculiar understanding of freedom of speech, differing from the generally accepted one."

A year ago, when he was prime minister, Putin attended a ceremony marking the Dec. 20 annual holiday of the security services. The secret services "must not be separated from the state and turned into some monster," he said, adding half-jokingly that a group of Federal Security Service agents "sent to work under cover in the government has been doing well at the initial stage."

The joke has become the reality since Putin succeeded Yeltsin, but the group is not working under cover. They have become some of the most influential Kremlin figures around Putin.

The most prominent is Ivanov, 47, a St. Petersburg confidant of the president who has handled a broad range of difficult issues, from military reform to the Kursk submarine catastrophe to the preparation of a new "information security" doctrine. In the months ahead, Ivanov is likely to be appointed to yet another high-level post, possibly defense minister or prime minister.

Putin also turned to veterans of the security services when he decided to appoint unelected super-governors to oversee Russia's 89 regions, which are run largely by elected governors and mayors. Five of the seven new posts were given to former KGB agents. One of the most powerful was Viktor Cherkessov, 50, a friend of Putin from St. Petersburg who joined the KGB the same year as Putin. Cherkessov was widely known for his aggressive attempts to persecute dissidents in the final years of the Soviet Union.

Putin has also appointed KGB veterans as first deputy justice minister, deputy minister of taxation, director of a new arms export agency and first deputy minister of communication and information.

"Putin is bringing in his former colleagues, not because he has plotted a KGB revanche, but simply because he understands these people perfectly well," said Nim. "They have their own logic and manner of communication. Since he has been in the service a long time, he knows the rules and finds these people more reliable."

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Russian Commission Recommends Clemency for U.S. Prisoner

New York Times
December 8, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/08WIRE-RUSS.html

MOSCOW - Russia's presidential pardons commission on Friday recommended that President Vladimir Putin free U.S. prisoner Edmond Pope, who was convicted of spying earlier in the week and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"Pope is a sick man who has gone through a lot, and he should be let go," commission head Anatoly Pristavkin said.

Pristavkin had said earlier that Putin usually abides by the committee's recommendations, and on Friday he said he expects the president to act quickly. But other members of the commission cautioned that the president could not pardon Pope until the trial court's verdict goes into effect in seven days.

In Washington, White House national security spokesman P.J. Crowley said "it remains our position that Edmond Pope should be released, and we hope that President Putin will act on the recommendation of the commission."

Pope, 54, was convicted of espionage Wednesday despite his claims of innocence and sentenced to a maximum-security prison. He and his family have begged for a pardon, saying they fear the bone cancer he suffered has returned.

Pardons commission member Marietta Chudakova said Friday's unanimous decision by the commission was a protest against "alarming signs in the atmosphere today."

"The investigative and judicial organs of our country have remained in the Soviet era to a greater extent than society (as a whole)," the Interfax news agency quoted her as saying.

Pristavkin said members of the pardons commission had found the court's verdict quite harsh. "But we do not judge or discuss the court's decision, but instead base our actions on the laws of charity and humanity," he said.

Pope, from State College, Pa., is a former naval officer and the founder of CERF Technologies, International, which specializes in studying foreign maritime equipment. At his Moscow trial, Russia's Federal Securit