NUCLEAR
Europe can't kick nuclear habit
Advocates for Iranian Jews fear policy shift under GOP
Clinton likely to visit to N Korea
National security and foreign policy
Leak found at Pa. nuclear plant
Low-level emergency declared at Pennsylvania nuclear plant
Nuke Plant Leak Prompts Emergency
Regulators probing broken pipe at N-plant
Bush II Arms Control

MILITARY
Conroy Fights Hallinan's Drug Rehab Plan for Treasure Island
Privacy a Victim of the Drug War
Iraq Is Forcing Kurds From Their Homes, the U.N. Reports
Endeavour lands after successful mission
U.N. Workers Kidnapped in Caucasus
Appeals court upholds disputed military ballots
Talks Agree on Global Ban on 12 Very Toxic Chemicals
Bipartisanship prevails to save Everglades
Rip it up James K. Glassman
Clinton signs legislation to restore Everglades
The Truth About Polygraphs?
Despite likely pardon, Russian intentions hard to gauge
Russia agrees to free US spy

ACTIVISTS
Morocco Arrests Dozens of Rights Protesters


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- europe

Europe can't kick nuclear habit
Atomic power gains post-Chernobyl life as clean alternative to fossil fuels

Ottawa Citizen
12/11/00
Bruce Wallace The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/001211/5025105.html

LONDON -- The last of Chernobyl's nuclear reactors may be set to shudder to an automatic stop, but no one should assume the Ukraine government has lost its thirst for nuclear power.

Tempted by hundreds of millions of dollars in western loans, Ukraine's government has agreed to close Chernobyl's reactor No. 3 on Friday. Dimming the lights for good will bring sighs of relief in the West, where the 1986 fire at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 remains not just the most alarming symbol of nuclear energy's dangers, but an ongoing worry about how to permanently seal its radioactive hull.

Even at the end of its traumatic life, Chernobyl produced about five per cent of the country's electricity -- power that must be replaced.

Last week, the Ukrainian government reached the final stage of negotiations on a $215-million U.S. loan to finish building two new reactors to compensate for the loss of Chernobyl's juice.

Nothing better illustrates how the death of nuclear power has been greatly exaggerated.

There is no doubt the industry has been on its heels since the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Several countries -- Germany being the most notable -- have either abandoned or announced plans to wean themselves from nuclear power.

But Europe still has a nuclear club, starting with France, which has 59 reactors and a lasting pride in its nuclear program. It also includes many of the East European states eager to join the European Union.

And the Russians were furious over Ukraine's shutdown of Chernobyl, arguing the reconditioned plant was perfectly safe.

"The event in Ukraine is a very political event," said Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's atomic energy minister. "There are no grounds, technical or safety, to close the Chernobyl plant."

Mr. Adamov said Russia now operates 11 remodelled Chernobyl-type plants, and plans to add 29 nuclear reactors to its network.

But nuclear power's staying power is not merely an issue of Russian scientific and technological pride.

The industry has been given an unexpected boost by the global effort to stabilize the world's climate. Countries are now getting down to the business of substituting hard choices for the easy rhetoric of cutting the greenhouse gas emissions believed to be affecting the world's atmosphere.

To some countries growing panicky about how to meet their lofty promises to cut emissions, nuclear power merits another look. And the nuclear industry senses the animosity weakening.

"As energy prices and demand continue to rise, and scientific data continue to confirm the warming of the planet, it is clear nuclear power will eventually be seen in a different light," nuclear industry executive Arthur de Montalembert told the Uranium Institute's annual symposium this year.

Meanwhile, the European Commission recently released its first overhaul of energy policy since the late 1970s, and concluded that while nuclear power may be an "undesirable fuel," the continent can hardly do without it.

The EU is horribly addicted to Mideast oil and Russian natural gas, the study says, warning that dependence on foreign sources of energy is the "Achilles heel" of its economy.

According to the commission, Europe's unquenchable energy thirst and slower-than-planned conversion to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power will make it tough to meet its own emission commitments. Take nuclear power out of the mix and the chore becomes almost impossible.

Nuclear power now generates 35 per cent of Europe's electricity, avoiding the equivalent of seven per cent of the continent's carbon dioxide emissions. Put another way, replacing all Europe's nuclear power with fossil fuels would be the equivalent of putting another 75 million cars on the road.

The Swedes are getting a taste of the dilemma right now. In 1980, Sweden was the first European country to impose a moratorium on nuclear power construction. But 20 years later, the Swedish government says it will not be able to meet its mid-2001 deadline for closing the second of two reactors near its southern border with Denmark.

Not even the nuclear industry pretends it has the magic bullet to cure global warming. The political road back is long and uphill. For one thing, there is still the unresolved problem of what to do with radioactive waste from the plants, currently stored in temporary facilities.

And though polls show a majority of Europeans think the problem should not be left to burden future generations, none is willing to store it anywhere close by.

Instead, the industry may see its real opportunity in selling its technology to the developing world, where expanding economies are expected to generate a leap in emissions from fossil fuels. China and South Korea appear to have voracious appetites for nuclear power.

The industry had hoped the conference at The Hague would endorse nuclear power as part of the clean development mechanism, allowing countries like Canada to help meet their own lower emissions targets by assisting developing countries which choose to build a nuclear plant instead of a coal-fired one.

A nuclear power credit was part of the Canadian position going into The Hague meetings, but was offered up as a concession in hopes of getting a final deal. That bartering upset the industry.

"In negotiations in The Hague, nuclear energy was used for political manoeuvring rather than being recognized for its true value in helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions," said Wolf-J. Schmidt-Kuster, head of the European Atomic Forum.

"Developing countries have the sovereign right to make their own energy choices."

-------- iran

BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Advocates for Iranian Jews fear policy shift under GOP

Jewish Telegraphic Agency
12/11/00
By Michael J. Jordan
http://jta.virtualjerusalem.com/index.exe?0012118

NEW YORK, Dec. 11 (JTA) - Iranian and U.S. oil officials seem to be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect that a pair of oil men, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, will occupy the White House and end America's long- standing oil sanctions against Iran.

But among American activists lobbying to free 10 Iranian Jews imprisoned for alleged espionage, opinion is divided as to whether a Republican administration would forsake their cause celebre for oil interests.

At the same time, some activists lament that as the "Iran 10" judicial process drags on and hopes for their release grow dimmer, American Jewish leaders are preoccupied by the violence engulfing Israel and the Palestinians.

The 10 were convicted in July on various charges connected with spying for Israel.

Amid international pressure, an Iranian court reduced their sentences to terms ranging from two to nine years. They could have faced the death penalty; 17 other Jews have reportedly been executed in Iran for alleged spying since 1979.

Now undergoing a second appeal, the case is being reviewed by the Iranian prosecutor general. It is unclear when he will render a decision. He may let the ruling stand, order a retrial, or send it up to Iran's Supreme Court.

One remaining option would be to appeal to Iran's chief spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to pardon the prisoners.

With American Jewish leaders furiously defending Israel on several fronts - in Washington, at the United Nations, in the media - the Iranian case has clearly slipped down on the priority list.

"We're stuck," said Pooya Dayanim, spokesman for the Los Angeles-based Council of Iranian American Jewish Organizations.

While he said he understands the attention among mainstream Jewish leaders on the situation in Israel, he feels that the lobbying efforts on behalf of the Iranian Jews has lost tremendous steam as a result.

But Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations who has been a major advocate on the issue, said that despite the crisis roiling Israel, he continues to monitor events in Iran daily.

He said communication with the 27,000 or so Jews in Iran and other Iranian sources has worsened during the Mideast violence, Hoenlein said, as Tehran has ratcheted up its pro-Palestinian, anti-"Zionist enemy" vitriol.

The Jewish community of Shiraz, from which most of the 10 prisoners were arrested, is now "leaderless" and fearful of what may come next.

"Yeah, we know what kind of government we're dealing with in Iran, but we and the families are not giving up hope," Hoenlein said.

Likewise, oil folks are hopeful their lot will improve.

In a news report Dec. 5 from Tehran, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Kazempour-Ardebili said removal of U.S. oil sanctions is "inevitable."

Iran is reported to be OPEC's second largest producer of oil after Saudi Arabia, generating some 3.7 million barrels per day.

"Representatives from U.S. oil firms had informed Iran five months ahead of the U.S. presidential elections that in case of a Republican victory, the sanctions would be lifted swiftly," Kazempour-Ardebili was quoted as saying.

The same day, in Houston, a top official at the Conoco oil firm, also expressed optimism that America's oil policy vis-a-vis Iran and fellow rogue state Libya "will change in the next 12 months" - regardless of who becomes president.

Conoco, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, heads a coalition of oil concerns that has reportedly lobbied Washington intensively to lift the sanctions.

American companies are banned from doing business in Iran because of its place on the State Department's annual list of sponsors of terrorism. In addition, a 1996 law, known as the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, calls for punitive trade measures against foreign companies and countries that invest in Iran's energy sector.

"We're going to be there the day after sanctions are lifted in Iran and Libya," Archie Dunham, Conoco's chief executive, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The coalition includes Halliburton, the company led by Dick Cheney until he was tapped as Bush's vice presidential running mate. Cheney has, in the past, lobbied against sanctions, but said early during the campaign that he would accede to Bush on the issue.

The Clinton Administration has balanced criticism of Iran's handling of the "Iran 10" with its stated goal of rapprochement with Iran, apparently to reward its relatively moderate president, Mohammad Khatami.

This spring the administration lifted the ban on several Iranian luxury exports, like caviar, carpets and pistachios, angering advocates of the "Iran 10."

President Clinton once reportedly described the "Iran 10" case as "an irritant" that hamstrung his efforts at reconciliation with Iran.

Nevertheless, some observers predict a Bush administration would be less responsive to human rights concerns, and more eager to promote trade.

During the presidential campaign, both Bush, a former oil executive in Texas, and Al Gore proclaimed the fate of the 10 Jews as a "test" that would shape future U.S.-Iran relations. Cheney also announced he would cease his oil- related lobbying.

The Republican Party platform adopted in August does not specifically mention sanctions, but says that Iran's record on terrorism and human rights, specifically the case of the Iranian Jews, "demonstrates that Tehran remains a dangerous threat to the United States and our interests in the region."

Bush and his advisers were "clear and unambiguous during the campaign that they would maintain the sanctions against Iran, and they are suspicious of the Clinton administration's statements about the 'moderation' of the Iranian government," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Indeed, Iran's reported actions over the past two months could temper any notion that moderation is sweeping the country.

For example, the Iranian foreign minister was in Damascus, Syria, in October, reportedly exhorting leaders of Hamas and other terrorist groups to launch attacks within Israel. Hoenlein said Iran has also increased financial support to Hezbollah, the Shi'ite gunmen in south Lebanon.

If oil sanctions against Iran - a lever to exert diplomatic pressure - are lifted, Dayanim, the U.S. Iranian Jewish leader, said hopes for freeing the Iran 10 "are pretty much over."

More optimistic was Sam Kermanian, secretary-general of a rival Los Angeles-based group, the American Iranian Jewish Federation.

He said he believes that "any American president would be sensitive to issues of human rights and minority rights."

"I take him at his word, until it is proven otherwise," he said of Bush. "If he becomes the president, we are going to ask him to keep his word."

Hoenlein, too, doesn't expect an about-face toward Iran.

Even if a Bush White House were oil-friendly, he said, Iran's build-up of its missile and nuclear-weapons programs, and its sponsorship of terrorism - combined with a divided U.S. Congress - "would all mitigate against a bold move to lift sanctions."

Meanwhile, the 10 Iranian Jews, who are Orthodox, remain in prison and are "pretty much resigned to their fate," Dayanim said.

In all, 13 Iranian Jews - religious leaders, shopkeepers, and a 16-year- old student - were arrested in January and March 1999.

They prisoners are permitted once-a-week visits from relatives and reportedly provided with kosher food, Dayanim said.

As for their families, some are said to be struggling financially with their primary breadwinner behind bars.

"We have made sure that they are taken care of,'' Dayanim said.

-------- korea

Clinton likely to visit to N Korea

Australian News Network
11dec00
LYNNE O'DONNELL
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1505817%255E401,00.html

US President Bill Clinton was leaving open the possibility of visiting North Korea before his term ended next month, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has revealed.

Japanese objections are holding up final confirmation because Tokyo fears its own relatively hardline position on Pyongyang's re-entry into the regional fold would be undermined by a Clinton visit heavy on symbolism at the cost of substantive progress.

But US officials are recommending a trip go ahead as a reward for North Korean concessions in negotiations for an agreement on limiting missile development. "We're looking at this very carefully and assessing the situation, and the issues are under discussion," Dr Albright told reporters on Friday during a visit to South Africa.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told Dr Albright during her visit to Pyongyang in October he was willing to curb his program of developing and exporting nuclear-capable missiles in return for substantial financial incentives.

But until a deal is done, Washington and other Western capitals will remain concerned about missile exports to Pakistan, Iran, Libya and other nations considered sponsors of international terrorism.

The Japanese Government has been lobbying hard against a Clinton visit amid frustration in Tokyo that the possibility was first raised without consulting Washington's strongest regional ally.

Tokyo has a number of particular issues to settle with Pyongyang, including the fate of about a dozen people believed to have been kidnapped by North Korean agents.

Talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang have not made progress on the fate and return of the kidnap victims, according to official Japanese sources, because the North Koreans refuse to even acknowledge their existence.

Japan and North Korea resumed normalisation negotiations in April after an eight-year suspension but the talks remain deadlocked over issues such as Pyongyang's demand for an apology and compensation for Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The last round of talks, held in Beijing in late October, effectively broke down on this point and no date has been set for a next meeting. For that reason, Japanese officials said the time was not yet right for a presidential visit to Pyongyang. If Mr Clinton does travel to Pyongyang, it will appear as a tacit approval of the North Korean attitude to Japan, said a Japanese official who attended the bilateral talks.

-------- russia

National security and foreign policy

International Herald Tribune
Monday, December 11, 2000
Jim Hoagland The Washington Post
http://www.iht.com/articles/3951.htm

WASHINGTON National security and foreign policy have dominated George W. Bush's tentative preparations to move into the White House. The global view of Bush II is taking shape in Austin even as legal challenges echo across Florida.

This is partly a matter of necessity. By showcasing Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as his almost certain choices for secretary of state and national security adviser now, Mr. Bush informs the rest of the world that there will be no delay, no early vacuum of power in his administration.

This course is only prudent, as another Bush might say. But it is also personal. The Texas governor intends to make his mark in foreign affairs as well as in education, even though he talked much more about the latter during the presidential campaign.

If he does prevail in Florida and is sworn in on Jan. 20, Mr. Bush will bring with him to the White House the beginnings of a strategic dialogue with Russia that will center on missile defense and deep cuts in each nation's nuclear arsenals.

The dialogue started tentatively in April when Ms. Rice arranged for Mr. Bush to meet Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Washington. The two men said little about their talk afterward, to avoid entangling it in the U.S. campaign. But its key points have become known as Moscow shapes its approach to Bush II.

The conversation began convivially with Mr. Bush speaking a few sentences in Spanish to the Russian diplomat, who was long posted in Madrid. Mr. Bush quickly moved on to deliver a blunt assessment to Mr. Ivanov: The United States would soon build a national missile defense to protect its territory from rogue states or accidental launches. This was a political fact of life that Russia and other nations had to absorb.

The system might be built faster and more robustly if he became president, Mr. Bush hinted, but it would happen in any event. Congress would mandate it.

The sense left by Mr. Bush's careful words was that this could mean U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow, Beijing and other capitals describe as the foundation of international arms control.

This assessment deepened Russian concern about Mr. Bush's public campaign declarations suggesting that the era of formal arms control agreements to reduce nuclear arsenals may be over.

Mr. Bush emphasized instead the possibility of unilateral reductions by each nation. This would leave the United States free to develop a defensive shield and adapt offensive forces to it. It might also lessen international pressure on the United States to match nuclear reductions that Russia must make for budgetary reasons.

Neither outcome is desirable for Russia. On Nov. 13, President Vladimir Putin issued a public declaration emphasizing the importance of the ABM Treaty and Russia's willingness to proceed quickly with the next administration on new arms control talks to limit each nation to fewer than 1,500 warheads.

Mr. Ivanov then dispatched his top U.S. expert, Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov, to Washington for a final round of talks with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on strategic stability.

But Mr. Mamedov's main message was intended for the next administration, be it Gore or Bush. According to a senior Russian official, it was an appeal "to keep talking." He added: "Don't create an artificial pause. Don't abandon channels that have worked. Explore seriously the proposals we are making as seriously as we explored the proposals for national missile defense" that the Clintonites put forward.

Moscow and Washington could not agree on modifications to the ABM Treaty that would have permitted deployment of a limited missile defense, and Bill Clinton leaves that decision for his successor. Russia clearly fears that Mr. Bush will move quickly toward a unilateralist nuclear strategy.

"We are prepared to work together or in parallel," the official said. The formulation was intended to open the door for talks with the Bush team on nuclear reductions that could be coordinated (rather than formally negotiated) and jointly verified. "The important first step is to engage."

Arms control remains an important component of Russian U.S. relations, he added. "It is still a central issue. If you believe the other side is up to destroying or blackmailing you, you cannot work together. Arms control is about good governance, and about saving money."

As Americans emerge from their absorption with Florida circuit courts and county canvassing boards, they will find the world waiting to get back to business. Russia's hope is that it will be business as usual.

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

-------- pennsylvania

Leak found at Pa. nuclear plant

USA Today
12/11/00- Updated 11:13 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndsmon05.htm

SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. (AP) - A leak in a coolant system at a nuclear power plant prompted a low-level emergency Monday.

Authorities said the leak at the Beaver Valley Power Station was contained within the building and there was no indication of a threat to public health or safety.

Reports from the plant, which is about 25 miles west of Pittsburgh, indicated there had not been a radioactive release from the plant, said David Smith, director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

The emergency was declared at the plant's No. 2 reactor unit at 5:36 a.m. The leak was called an ''unusual event,'' the least serious of four classifications of power plant emergencies.

At one point, radioactive water was spilling onto the floor of the containment building at the rate of 12 to 20 gallons a minute, said Neil Sheehan, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman. No workers were exposed.

The reactor was shut down and workers in protective suits were checking the leak, Sheehan said.

The other three classifications of emergencies are an alert, a site-area emergency and a general emergency. Only one general emergency has ever been declared at a U.S. nuclear plant, after the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg.

--------

Low-level emergency declared at Pennsylvania nuclear plant

Miami Herald
Monday, December 11, 2000
http://www.herald.com/content/tue/news/brknews/docs/107653.htm

SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. -- (AP) -- A leak in a coolant system at a nuclear power plant forced the shutdown of one of the plant's reactors and prompted a low-level emergency Monday.

Authorities said the leak at the Beaver Valley Power Station was contained within the building and there was no indication of a threat to public health or safety.

Reports from the plant, which is about 25 miles west of Pittsburgh, indicated there had not been a radioactive release from the building, said David Smith, director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

The emergency was declared at the plant's No. 2 reactor unit at 5:36 a.m. The leak was called an ``unusual event,'' the least serious of four classifications of power plant emergencies.

At one point, radioactive water was spilling onto the floor of the containment building at the rate of 12 to 20 gallons a minute, said Neil Sheehan, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman. No workers were exposed.

Workers in protective suits went into the building to check the leak, but were unable to reach the valve and gave up the effort until the reactor cools, Sheehan said.

The leak appeared to be coming from a line used to drain water from the reactor's coolant system, said Sheehan. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules direct plant operators to investigate leaks exceeding one gallon a minute and to shut down reactors when the leak exceeds 10 gallons each minute.

``Leakage in general is something that occurs at plants all the time,'' Sheehan said. ``But when it involves the reactor coolant system, which contains highly radioactive water, you have to deal with it quickly.''

The other three classifications of nuclear plant emergencies are an alert, a site-area emergency and a general emergency. Only one general emergency has ever been declared at a U.S. nuclear plant, after the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg.

-------

Nuke Plant Leak Prompts Emergency

Associated Press
December 11, 2000 Filed at 5:57 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Leak.html

SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. (AP) -- A leak in a coolant system at a nuclear power plant forced the shutdown of one of the plant's reactors and prompted a low-level emergency Monday.

Authorities said the leak at the Beaver Valley Power Station was contained within the building and there was no indication of a threat to public health or safety.

Reports from the plant, which is about 25 miles west of Pittsburgh, indicated there had not been a radioactive release from the building, said David Smith, director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

The emergency was declared at the plant's No. 2 reactor unit at 5:36 a.m. The leak was called an ``unusual event,'' the least serious of four classifications of power plant emergencies.

At one point, radioactive water was spilling onto the floor of the containment building at the rate of 12 to 20 gallons a minute, said Neil Sheehan, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman. No workers were exposed.

Workers in protective suits went into the building to check the leak, but were unable to reach the valve and gave up the effort until the reactor cools, Sheehan said.

The leak appeared to be coming from a line used to drain water from the reactor's coolant system, said Sheehan. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules direct plant operators to investigate leaks exceeding one gallon a minute and to shut down reactors when the leak exceeds 10 gallons each minute.

``Leakage in general is something that occurs at plants all the time,'' Sheehan said. ``But when it involves the reactor coolant system, which contains highly radioactive water, you have to deal with it quickly.''

The other three classifications of nuclear plant emergencies are an alert, a site-area emergency and a general emergency. Only one general emergency has ever been declared at a U.S. nuclear plant, after the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg.

-------- south carolina

Regulators probing broken pipe at N-plant

Miami Herald
Monday, December 11, 2000
http://www.herald.com/content/tue/news/brknews/docs/072233.htm

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- (AP) -- Federal regulators will have a section of cracked pipe from a South Carolina nuclear plant tested to see if similar problems are possible at other plants across the country.

Regulators say the crack at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station appears to be the first of its kind at a commercial nuclear plant in the United States. A 2.7-inch tear occurred along a weld seam in a large pipe that carries scalding, contaminated water out of the nuclear reactor core.

``This is fairly unusual to have a crack in this particular kind of pipe. The key question is whether this was just an anomaly, or something that may show up in similar welds and pipes,'' Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah said.

The section of cracked pipe was shipped to a Westinghouse plant in Pennsylvania for testing. The plant's operator, South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., thinks answers could come by the end of this month.

The pipe, one of the biggest lines at a nuclear power plant, carries 600-degree water away from the nuclear reactor.

Regulators say the leak, which caused 100 pounds of boric acid to spill in October, never posed a threat to the environment.

But if the crack had become wider and allowed large amounts of water to spill, it could have been harder to keep highly radioactive fuel from melting, according to the Nuclear Control Institute, a watchdog group.

Utility officials say the nuclear plant's backup systems would have kept cooling water around the fuel.

While U.S. plants haven't reported weld cracks on major pipes near reactors, two similar splits have been reported at nuclear reactors in Sweden and Spain, said South Carolina Electric & Gas spokesman Steve Byrne.

The Summer nuclear plant remains shut down, and probably will not restart until after Jan. 1.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush II Arms Control

By Jim Hoagland
Monday, December 11, 2000 ; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52907-2000Dec10?language=printer

National security and foreign policy have dominated George W. Bush's tentative preparations to move into the White House. The global view of Bush II is taking shape in Austin even as legal challenges echo across Florida.

This is partly a matter of necessity. By showcasing Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as his almost-certain choices for secretary of state and national security adviser, Bush informs the rest of the world that there will be no delay, no early vacuum of power, in his administration.

This course is only prudent, as another Bush might say. But it is also personal. Bush intends to make his mark in foreign affairs as well as education, even though he talked much more about the latter during the presidential campaign.

If he does prevail in Florida and is sworn in on Jan. 20, Bush will bring with him to the White House the beginnings of a strategic dialogue with Russia that will center on missile defense and deep cuts in each nation's nuclear arsenals.

The dialogue started tentatively in April, when Rice arranged for Bush to meet Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Washington. The two men said little about their talk to avoid entangling it in the campaign. But its key points have become known as Moscow shapes its approach to Bush II. The conversation began convivially with Bush speaking a few sentences in Spanish to the Russian diplomat, who was long posted in Madrid.

Bush quickly moved on to deliver a blunt assessment to Ivanov: The United States soon would build a national missile defense to protect its territory from rogue states or accidental launches. This was a political fact of life that Russia and other nations had to absorb.

The system might be built faster and more robustly if he became president, Bush hinted. But in any event, Congress would mandate it. The sense left by Bush's careful words was that this could mean U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow, Beijing and other capitals describe as the foundation of international arms control.

This assessment deepened Russian concern about Bush's campaign declarations suggesting that the era of formal arms control agreements to reduce nuclear arsenals may be over.

The Republican nominee emphasized instead the possibility of unilateral reductions. This would leave the United States free to develop a defensive shield and adapt offensive forces to it. It might also lessen international pressure on the United States to match nuclear reductions Russia must make for budgetary reasons.

Neither outcome is desirable for Russia. On Nov. 13, President Vladimir Putin issued a public declaration emphasizing the importance of the ABM treaty and Russia's willingness to proceed quickly with the next administration on new arms control talks to limit each nation to fewer than 1,500 warheads.

Ivanov then dispatched his top U.S. expert, Georgy Mamedov, to Washington for a final round of talks with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on strategic stability.

But Mamedov's main message was intended for the next administration, be it Gore or Bush. The message, according to a senior Russian official, was an appeal "to keep talking. Don't create an artificial pause. Don't abandon channels that have worked. Explore seriously the proposals we are making, as seriously as we explored the proposals for national missile defense" that the Clintonites put forward.

Moscow and Washington could not agree on modifications to the ABM treaty that would have permitted deployment of a limited missile defense, and Clinton left that decision for his successor. Russia clearly fears that Bush will move quickly toward a unilateralist nuclear strategy.

"We are prepared to work together or in parallel," the official said. The formulation was intended to open the door for talks with the Bush team on nuclear reductions that could be coordinated (rather than formally negotiated) and jointly verified. "The important first step is to engage."

Arms control remains an important component of Russian-U.S. relations, he added:

"It is still a central issue. If you believe the other side is up to destroying or blackmailing you, you cannot work together. Arms control is about good governance, and about saving money."

As Americans emerge from their absorption with Florida circuit courts and county canvassing boards, they will find the world waiting to get back to business. Russia's hope is that it will be business as usual on arms control. But even Moscow recognizes that a new day is dawning on old theories of the nuclear balance of terror.

-------- MILITARY

-------- drug war

Conroy Fights Hallinan's Drug Rehab Plan for Treasure Island

San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, December 11, 2000
Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/11/MNW41565.DTL

San Francisco -- Annemarie Conroy -- Mayor Willie Brown's commodore of Treasure Island -- has two words for District Attorney Terence Hallinan's much publicized idea of setting up drug rehab centers out on the island.

"No dice."

And those are the nice words.

Conroy tells us that a quarter of the former Navy base's housing is already going to homeless programs -- and enough is enough.

Hallinan thinks differently. He says the recent passage of Proposition 36 shows that voters clearly want more drug rehabilitation programs. The problem is, they don't want them in their own backyard. So why not put them out in the middle of the bay?

It's an idea he's touted very publicly these last couple of weeks -- but one he never shared with Conroy before going public with it.

"Here we are, getting ready to hold a pre-bid conference for people interested in developing the island, and he comes out with the idea of dumping drug rehab programs out here," Conroy fumed. "It's a public relations nightmare."

Well, if it is, Hallinan isn't showing any signs of backing down.

"Annemarie should keep in mind that Treasure Island belongs to the people of San Francisco -- not the developers," Hallinan said. "It's use will be decided by the Board of Supervisors -- not by Conroy or her staff."

This is a fight that could get very interesting and very personal very fast, because Conroy has never been one to back down, either.

The last time she said "no" it was to the state's plans to build the new Bay Bridge span across the island. In that instance, she and Mayor Brown (who is no friend of Hallinan's, either) managed to tie the bridge project up for years.

On the other hand, Mayor Brown is already up to his neck with criticism that he's turning the city over to developers -- and Treasure Island has been a sore spot.

Whatever the case, the first punch is already on the way.

It turns out that Hallinan's office leases space out on the island for a check-bouncing program.

"Those leases are up this week, and I'm sending him a termination notice right now," Conroy told us.

"As far as I'm concerned, he's been voted off the island."

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross can be heard on KGO Radio on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Phil Matier can also be seen regularly on KRON-TV. Call them at (415) 777-8815. Their e-mail address is matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

--------

Privacy a Victim of the Drug War

Wired
Dec. 11, 2000 PST
by Declan McCullagh
mailto:declan@wired.com?subject=Privacy a Victim of the Drug War

WASHINGTON -- When Indianapolis police stopped James Edmond and Joell Palmer at a drug checkpoint two years ago, the two men didn't merely get peeved.

They got even. Edmond and Palmer filed a federal lawsuit claiming the drug-stop violated the Constitution's rule against unreasonable searches, and the Supreme Court recently agreed with them in a 6-3 ruling.

But privacy scholars caution that the decision is only a minor victory for the right to be let alone, saying that the 30-year old war on drugs has gradually but persistently eroded privacy rights offline and online.

Government officials have repeatedly warned of "drug smugglers" and "money launderers" while asking for encryption export controls, increased wiretap powers, and the authority to conduct infrared scans of homes without search warrants. The FBI claims its controversial Carnivore system is a big help in narcotics investigations.

"The Fourth Amendment has been virtually repealed by court decisions, most of which involve drug searches," says Steven Duke, a professor of law at Yale University.

Duke is talking about the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against "unreasonable" searches and seizures -- a phrasing that permits courts to decide what kinds of searches are reasonable or not.

Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has largely sided with law enforcement's views, and the justices over time have handed police more surveillance and search authority.

The high court has said, for instance, that a search based on an invalid warrant is perfectly OK as long as police acted in "good faith." In Oliver vs. U.S., the justices ruled that police can search a field next to a farmhouse for marijuana plants, even if "No Trespassing" signs are posted and the police trespass was a criminal act in itself.

Duke believes the court's ruling in the drug-stop case is mildly encouraging, but not much more. "The Supreme Court's decision is a ray of hope," Duke says. "I would hope that the pendulum might swing a little in the opposite direction. But I don't think we'll get back much of the privacy we've lost. I'd be very surprised if we did."

One case that the Supreme Court has agreed to review this term, Kyllo vs. United States, will determine whether police can scan homes from afar -- without a warrant -- using a thermal imaging gun. The practice is becoming increasingly common as cops use the devices to hunt for heat patterns that could indicate pot plants in someone's basement.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that "we find no violation of the Fourth Amendment" when police used the Thermovision 210 to examine Danny Lee Kyllo's home and convict him of one count of "manufacturing" marijuana.

Defenders of the drug war say that their strategy has worked.

Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, last month welcomed a survey saying that drug use among teens had declined. The White House claims that unapproved drug use costs the country 52,000 deaths and over $110 billion a year.

"This is very good news for our nation and our society," McCaffrey said at the time. "It means America's team effort to get the message out on the dangers of drugs is working."

In October, McCaffrey said that "support of sound law enforcement has caused drug-related crime to plummet."

The Justice Department says its surveillance procedures protect individual rights. "The procedures that we have in place have safeguards to protect the privacy of the individual," spokesman John Russell said. "We are aware of such criticism."

Perhaps the most striking intersection between the drug war and privacy is in a rather mundane area of the law: wiretapping.

In 1968, state officials conducted 174 wiretaps and the feds none, according to statistics from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. By 1999, three decades after President Nixon kicked off the drug war, the number had ballooned to 1,350 wiretaps, with a breakdown of 749 state and 601 federal. Not one request was denied.

By last year, the vast majority of the wiretaps had become narcotics-related: 978 of 1,350, according to government figures.

"The expansion of federal wiretap activity and authority, which are two distinct concepts, is significant," says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It is clearly the case that the war on drugs has increased the number of wiretaps conducted and the number of circumstances where wiretaps can be conducted."

Law enforcement's concern in the early 1990s over being able to eavesdrop on digital phone systems prompted Congress to approve the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is currently snarled in federal court proceedings.

In April 1997, FBI Director Louis Freeh asked a Senate appropriations committee for $100 million to pay telephone companies to rewire their networks, as required under CALEA.

His reason: the war on drugs. "In 1995, state and local law enforcement accounted for 44 percent of the applications for wiretaps in criminal cases," Freeh said. "The loss of these capabilities would be especially devestating to the nation's efforts to combat drug trafficking."

The FBI's commitment to the drug war also buttressed the decade-long prohibition on posting encryption software on the Internet or shipping such products overseas, two restrictions that were not partially relaxed until about a year ago.

A former FBI field agent, Freeh has spent much of the his time in office complaining that the widespread availability of encryption will harm the drug war.

Freeh told a Senate panel in June 1997 that "uncrackable encryption will allow drug lords, terrorists and even violent gangs to communicate with impunity." He predicted that rescinding regulations would let crypto "proliferate to the point where any kidnapper or any drug dealer could purchase it off the shelf and connect up with a network which would make all of those activities covert."

Attorney General Janet Reno, at an October 1999 press conference, warned that the feds needed backdoors into encryption products. "As more and more drug traffickers and others engaged in organized crime and other activities, including terrorism, encrypt their communication, it is going to be more and more difficult for law enforcement," Reno said.

Other examples of drug-related surveillance:

The Clinton administration has used the drug war to justify the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. "Carnivore is, in essence, a special filtering tool that can gather the information authorized by court order, and only that information," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin DiGregory said in July. "It permits law enforcement, for example, to gather only the e-mail addresses of those persons with whom (a) drug dealer is communicating."

The House of Representatives last year rejected a bill to bolster financial privacy by a 299-129 vote. "Say no to the dope dealers," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in a floor speech at the time.

An anti-methamphetamine bill in Congress this year would have made it a crime to link to illegal drug-related websites and would hand police the power to enter homes to do secret searches.

The conservative group Americans for Tax Reform in September sent a letter to Congress saying that the U.S. Customs Service needs the ability to open packages to search for drugs. The letter quoted from a popular marijuana seed website, which advises customers to avoid "UPS, Federal Express or any other overnight express service" and use the post office instead.

The FBI last year blocked a Canadian firm, TMI Communications, from selling mobile telephone service in the United States. "The nightmare scenario for us is that word gets around in the drug-trafficking community that the thing to do if you are a Detroit drug trafficker or a New York one or a New Orleans one, for that matter, is to go to a telephone reseller in Toronto," a Justice Department official told Canada's National Post.

British police this month suggested that the government record information on all telephone calls and e-mail messages for seven years. The stated justifications: "the use of computers by pedophiles to run child pornography rings, as well as terrorism and international drug trafficking."

Given this trend, Yale's Duke is hardly optimistic. "I'm surprised they haven't restricted their possession of anti-bug devices," he said. "But that's coming. The government will try to limit our ability to defend ourselves against invasions of privacy."

-------- iraq

Iraq Is Forcing Kurds From Their Homes, the U.N. Reports

New York Times
December 11, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/world/11IRAQ.html

UNITED NATIONS, - More than a decade after President Saddam Hussein began a murderous campaign against rebellious Kurds, unknown thousands of them and other non-Arab Iraqis are again being driven from their homes, United Nations officials in the region say.

Much of the forced migration is taking place within northern Iraq, from government-controlled locations like the oil-producing area around Kirkuk, which the displaced people say President Saddam Hussein is trying to "Arabize."

They are being resettled in Kurdish areas in the north. The relocation, which the United Nations is beginning to quantify, adds to an already large refugee population in the north. The earlier refugees are Iraqis displaced by sporadic outbreaks of Kurdish infighting, families who fled or were forced north from government-controlled areas of central and southern Iraq during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and others from Iran.

Officials say the 805,000 displaced people there - about 23 percent of the population - are putting strains on international relief efforts and local populations. They have asked Baghdad to stop the flow.

In a briefing to the Security Council last Monday, Benon Sevan, who directs all of the United Nations programs in Iraq that are not related to weapons, said he was "greatly concerned with the increasing numbers of internally displaced persons." He said conditions at refugee centers were "abominable."

Officials working in the Kurdish region say about 59,000 people have been surveyed, mostly Kurds and some Turkomen, and report that they have been displaced from homes near Kirkuk - an oil-producing city about 200 miles north of Baghdad near the border of Kurdish areas - where there is also a huge military base and airfield.

They have told officials that the Iraqi government apparently does not want them in that strategic area.

This round of expulsions has been going on to varying degrees for two years, human rights groups say, but has attracted little attention until now, when the concentrations of people arriving at refugee camps has made the trend obvious.

In its 2001 world report, the private group Human Rights Watch said this week that Kurds and Turkomen were being expelled from at least half a dozen districts as part of a government program that has forced ethnic minorities to sign forms renouncing their ethnic identities and declaring themselves to be Arabs.

Some refugees arriving in the north say that even that was not enough to avoid expulsion and the seizure of their properties.

Human Rights Watch documented more than 800 expulsions from January to June of this year. At the State Department, the office of the ambassador at large for war crimes, David Scheffer, has been watching the forced relocations as officials prepare evidence for a possible war crimes indictment of President Hussein.

The Kurds, a rebellious and fractious people, have particular reasons to fear the central government. In 1987 and 1988, 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds were gassed to death with chemical agents by Mr. Hussein's government, American officials say.

At a refugee camp at Kani Shaitan, east of Kirkuk in Kurdish territory, 1,375 people, 994 of them children, have been crowded into a settlement built for 550 people. People continue to arrive at the camp, officials say, sometimes in groups that appear to have been driven out of government- controlled regions en masse.

"Unfortunately, the number of families at the Kani Shaitan camp appears to be increasing," Mr. Sevan said. Arrivals are getting ahead of efforts to build homes for newcomers. At another nearby camp, Chamchamal, plans to build nearly 500 houses in time for the harsh winter of mountainous northern Iraq have been held up by a dearth of materials. In other settlements the United Nations has been putting up tents and supplying them with heaters.

The latest report of the United Nations program under which Iraq exports unlimited quantities of oil to buy civilian goods says the presence of so many refugees is taxing the ability of the United Nations housing agency, Habitat. Housing experts are looking for ways to encourage local builders to provide labor and material for crash programs.

In the Kurdish north - comprising the three Iraqi provinces of Dahuk, Erbil and Sulaimaniya - the United Nations, not the government, administers the oil for food program. Because the Hussein government has a record of abuse against Kurds, money is specially earmarked for them.

Direct United Nations administration appears to have meant a better targeted, more carefully monitored relief effort in the Kurdish areas, and Iraqi officials contend that per capita, the Kurds are spoiled in comparison with other Iraqis.

In the last six months, United Nations officials say, economic improvements have continued in Kurdish areas, especially in livestock breeding and poultry farming, as money from the oil-sales program provides food and new stock. More than 43,000 chicks were distributed in recent months, and 10 million fish larvae were introduced into local waters. A million fruit tree seedlings were introduced, and 2,000 farmers and 640 agricultural workers were trained.

But electricity remains in short supply in the north, while it is becoming more available in government- controlled areas.

In June, Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, found a mixed pattern in studying malnutrition. In Kurdish areas chronic malnutrition dropped to 14.5 percent of children under 5, from 18.3 percent a year earlier. But the incidence of underweight children rose and acute malnutrition doubled. Officials attribute that to diarrheal diseases that could be corrected with more education about hygiene.

Cholera has been all but eliminated in Kurdish areas through a campaign to teach sanitation and good health practices, the United Nations says.

-------- space

Endeavour lands after successful mission

USA Today
12/11/00- Updated 07:12 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndsmon06.htm

CAPE CANAVERAL - Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of five returned to Earth in triumph Monday, ending NASA's most difficult space-station construction mission yet.

Throughout the afternoon, Mission Control had worried clouds or rain might delay Endeavour's homecoming. But the weather cooperated, and the shuttle touched down shortly after sunset, right on time.

The International Space Station, Alpha, and its gleaming, new solar wings soared over Florida four minutes before Endeavour's touchdown, clearly visible from Cape Canaveral as it streaked through the dark sky. By the time the shuttle landed, the station was just off the Virginia coast, its three residents supposedly asleep.

''Outstanding job. Welcome back,'' Mission Control told Endeavour's commander, Brent Jett Jr., once the shuttle came to a safe stop on the illuminated runway.

During their week at the space station, Jett and his crew installed the world's largest and most powerful solar wings. Three spacewalks were required to attach the $600 million wings, hook up all the cables and then tighten the right wing, which was too slack.

The astronauts also spent one day inside Alpha, helping commander Bill Shepherd and his two Russian crewmates with computer problems and cargo transfers.

Thanks to the new electricity-producing solar wings, which stretch 240 feet from tip to tip, Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev no longer have to conserve power aboard the space station. They also now have access to the entire three-room complex; one room had been sealed off because there was not enough power to heat it.

Altogether, the solar wings cover half an acre and make Alpha one of the brightest ''stars'' in the night sky.

Shepherd and his crew have been aboard the space station for one month and have three more months to go before they return to Earth.

Their next visitors will be five astronauts who are supposed to deliver the American-made lab Destiny aboard space shuttle Atlantis in January.

NASA held off moving Atlantis to the launch pad on Monday to inspect electrical connectors for explosive devices used to separate the two solid-fuel boosters from the shuttle during liftoff. One of those devices failed to work during Endeavour's climb to orbit on Nov. 30; a backup charge severed the left booster as planned.

The space agency plans six shuttle trips to the space station next year, taking up not only the Destiny lab but also a Canadian-built robot arm, a U.S.-built airlock and replacement crews.

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

U.N. Workers Kidnapped in Caucasus

New York Times
December 11, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/world/11GEOR.html

TBILISI, Georgia, Dec. 11 - Two members of a United Nations observer mission were kidnapped today in a breakaway province of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, officials said.

The men, one Polish and one Greek, were patrolling the Kodor Gorge in Abkhazia Province when they lost contact with the mission office, said Veselin Kostov, political adviser at the United Nations office in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

They had been traveling in a jeep in convoy with another United Nations vehicle when they were accosted near a dilapidated bridge by a group of armed men, Mr. Kostov said on Georgian television. The other vehicle escaped.

The Kodor Gorge is the only part of Abkhazia still largely under Georgian control, but Mr. Kostov said the men were seized in an area under Abkhazian control. Mr. Kostov would not give the men's names.

Their whereabouts were unknown. An envoy of President Eduard Shevardnadze traveled to the region to help search for them, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

It was the latest in a string of kidnappings in the former Soviet republic. Two Spaniards were captured Nov. 30 outside Tbilisi and authorities are still searching for them.

United Nations observers have been targeted before. Four members of the United Nations Abkhazia mission were seized in the Kodor Gorge in June. The captives were released several days later, and officials said no ransom was paid. Seven United Nations workers were seized in October 1999 in the same area and released unharmed after two days.

Abkhazia, a small region bordered by the Black Sea and Russia, has been effectively independent since separatists drove out government forces during a 1992-93 war. The two sides reached a cease-fire in 1994, but peace talks on a political solution have stalled.

Russia began pulling out military hardware yesterday from its Gudauta base in Abkhazia, a withdrawal being monitored by American, European and other foreign military observers.

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

Appeals court upholds disputed military ballots

Washington Times
December 11, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/national/nobyline-20001211172450.htm

ATLANTA (AP) -- An appeals court today agreed with a federal judge who refused to throw out 2,400 of Florida's overseas ballots, mostly from military personnel, because they arrived after Election Day.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul in Gainesville, Fla., was consistent with recent comments by Florida's highest court about the workings of the absentee ballot law.

The lawsuit brought by Democratic voters sought to eliminate enough ballots to change the election results in Vice President Al Gore's favor. Republican George W. Bush led by less than 200 votes as election challenges continued in the U.S. Supreme Court and elsewhere today.

"While Florida law seems to favor counting ballots, this change would take away the votes of thousands of Florida citizens -- including members of America's armed forces on duty outside of the country pursuant to the nation's orders -- who, to cast their ballots, just did what they were told by Florida's election officials," the appeals court said.

The appeals court rejected the claims of lawyers representing 13 individual Democratic voters whose lawsuits were combined before Judge Paul.

The lawsuits claimed that state and federal laws, along with the U.S. Constitution, require all ballots to be received by the close of the polls on Election Day.

Roger Bernstein, a New York lawyer for the voters, said an appeal was likely.

"The decision seems inconsistent with the enacted laws of Florida," he said.

Joseph Klock, lawyer for Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, said he had been optimistic about the case. "It's just outrageous for someone to suggest that the ballots of overseas military ... are going to be disallowed," Mr. Klock said

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

Talks Agree on Global Ban on 12 Very Toxic Chemicals

New York Times
December 11, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/science/11POLL.html

JOHANNESBURG, - After extending their meeting into a seventh day and haggling all night, negotiators for 122 nations agreed today on a global ban on 12 highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer, birth defects and other genetic abnormalities.

The convention calls for the elimination of PCB's, dioxins and other chemicals intentionally used or produced in manfacturing that have become known as the "dirty dozen." They are persistent organic pollutants that dissolve slowly, travel easily and are absorbed by living organisms, including humans.

The treaty, which is to be signed in May in Stockholm, has been more than two and half years in the works after negotiations were begun in June 1998 in Montreal.

The meeting here was scheduled to end late Saturday, but delegates agreed to extend the conference and finally concluded their negotiations early today, said Michael Williams, a meeting spokesman.

"The treaty enjoyed the broadest possible support," said John Buccini, chairman of the meeting, which was organized by the United Nations Environment Program. "People not only felt that we have a treaty, but that we have a good treaty."

The treaty calls for reduction of releases of dioxins and furans - toxic byproducts of burning and industrial production - "with the goal of their continuing minimization and, where feasible, ultimate elimination."

The continued use of electrical equipment containing PCB's will still be permitted until 2025 as long as the equipment does not leak.

It also allows for the continued use of the industrial pesticide DDT to combat malaria until other alternatives are available.

Industrialized countries have already banned several of the chemicals, but the ban will still require "some hard work on the part of all countries to apply," said James Willis, an official with the United Nations Environmental Program.

Countries burning their waste in open air and some factories will have to find alternative techniques, Mr. Buccini said.

"It is a possibility that this could lead to a higher cost," he said. "For example, manufacturing factories are going to have to address reduction of releases of dioxins and furans."

The most contentious issues were provisions for expansion of the treaty to include other chemicals and a mechanism for industrialized nations to pay about $150 million a year to help developing countries use cleaner but costlier options.

In a statement, Greenpeace welcomed the treaty as the "beginning of the end of toxic pollution."

The treaty must be ratified by 50 nations before it can take effect. Brooks Yeager, head of the United States delegation, said he expected the ban to be approved by the coming Congress.

---

Bipartisanship prevails to save Everglades

USA Today
12/11/00- Updated 04:59 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Bush went to the White House Monday, but it was the other one. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a brother of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, came to Washington to join other Floridians in watching President Clinton sign into law a measure to help restore the Florida Everglades, one of the major environmental initiatives of the year. The law authorizes $1.4 billion as a first installment in a 30-year, $7.8 billion attempt to restore the natural flow in the 300 miles of swampland, saw-grass marshes and mangrove estuaries.

As Jeb Bush entered the Oval Office for the bill signing, lawyers for his older brother were making their case for ending the Florida election recount battle between George W. Bush and Clinton's vice president, Democrat Al Gore.

''In an era or a time where people are focused on politics, and there's a little acrimony - I don't know whether y'all have noticed - this is a good example of how in spite of all that, bipartisanship is still alive,'' Bush said after the bill signing.

The Florida governor refused to answer reporters' questions about the election controversy, saying only that he had not talked to his brother.

''We're here to talk about something that is going to be long lasting, way past counting votes,'' he said. ''This is the restoration of a treasure for our country.''

Clinton shook hands with Jeb Bush and the other members of the Florida delegation that came for the signing, White House officials said. Clinton and Bush chatted briefly but the election did not come up, the officials said.

The signing was closed to the media and the public and Bush's other activities in Washington were not announced.

The law involves water storage, storm water treatment areas and agriculture storage reservoirs. The overall cost is to be divided equally with the state of Florida.

Advocates say the project will bring cleaner drinking water to 6 million south Florida residents, a boon to the tourist industry and a reprieve for the Florida panther, the West Indian manatee and other endangered species in the Everglades.

Half of the Everglades, a national park, disappeared over the past half-century as a result of Army Corps of Engineers work that was ordered by Congress. The orders were to build canals, levees and pumping stations to decrease the risk of flooding and open up land to agriculture and residential development.

Everyday, 1.7 billion gallons of water drains from the park into the sea.

''I'm extremely pleased that in spite of all the focus of attention on what divides us, that America's Everglades has been a topic that has united us in a common effort,'' said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. ''Politics is not an end to itself. It is a means to an end. This is an example of that end at its best.''

The National Wildlife Federation also cheered the bill signing. ''We will continue to work to make sure that scientifically and ecologically sound restoration measures get the attention and continued funding they need to succeed,'' said Mark Van Putten, the federation's president.

--

Rip it up James K. Glassman

Washington Times
December 11, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2000121119496.htm

A wind chill of minus-17 degrees greeted senior environmental officials from the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and the South Pacific in Ottawa last Wednesday as they went behind closed doors for two days of talks to try to reignite burned-out negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next week, more talks are expected in Oslo, Norway. The aim appears to be an agreement in time for French President Jacques Chirac's meeting with President Clinton when they meet in Washington Dec. 18.

But it would be far better for Mr. Clinton's legacy - and the world economy - if no deal is reached. And, even if one is struck, the reception of Congress would be far chillier than the winds of Ottawa.

Mr. Clinton is acting like a frantic lame duck on the environment. In these last days, he's already fenced off vast tracks of resources in the Pacific and the Northwest from development. His regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, are issuing costly new orders to clean up PCBs from the Hudson River and sulfur from diesel fuel - both matters that a new administration with better research and less ideological fervor would certainly delay.

But it is the president's last-minute dash to sign a climate-change treaty that is most disturbing. It was barely two weeks ago that talks broke down at the U.N.-sponsored climate-change negotiations in The Hague, capital of the Netherlands. The issue was the means by which industrial nations would be allowed to cut their greenhouse emissions - particularly carbon dioxide - to meet goals set at a similar conference in Kyoto in 1997. Under the protocol, negotiated by Vice President Al Gore, the United States would have had to cut its emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

I attended the conclave of 180 nations at The Hague, and it was obvious that Europeans were more interested in trying to gain an economic advantage over the United States and in scoring points for Uncle Sam-bashing with their "green" constituents than in meeting, in a sensible way, the still uncertain threat of global warming.

They balked at reducing carbon dioxide by using such methods as reforestation ("carbon sinks") and trading of emission credits between nations. Those methods would have made meeting the targets more affordable for countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan, but would have little effect on Europe, which had already rigged the rules in its favor. More important, carbon pulled out of the air through the natural action of trees has the same effect, scientifically, as carbon emissions never entering the air in the first place.

The new talks, conducted furtively behind closed doors rather than in the open as they were in the Netherlands, apparently start where the old talks fell apart. Five senators, all Republicans, even sent a letter this week to Mr. Clinton urging negotiators to keep in mind that the Senate is clearly on record, by a vote of 95-0, regarding what kind of climate-change treaty would be acceptable. It cannot cause serious harm to the U.S. economy and it must include binding commitments from all nations to limit or reduce "greenhouse gas" emissions.

An agreement merely among the nations represented in Ottawa obviously doesn't involve all nations, and not even such major polluters such as India and China. Those developing countries would exempted from the Kyoto Protocol. The apparent U.S. position at The Hague was weak enough, and any further would damage the U.S. economy, perhaps even send it into recession.

The senators noted in their letter to Mr. Clinton that his own undersecretary of state, Frank Loy, had said at the collapse of talks in the Netherlands: "Nations can only negotiate abroad what they believe they can ratify at home. The United States is not in the business of signing-up to agreements it knows it cannot fulfill. We don't make promises we can't keep."

Why should the administration now decide that its last questionable proposal should become the starting point for further compromise on a climate treaty that the Senate won't accept? Perhaps to put pressure on George W. Bush if he becomes president.

Under this scenario, a piece of paper, from Ottawa or Oslo, committing the United States to reductions in greenhouse gases - the way the Europeans want them reduced - would face a President Bush in his first day in office, with environmentalists clamoring for him to prove his mettle by agreeing to it.

If that happens, Mr. Bush's choice would be clear: Rip it up. Yes, the threat of global climate change is serious and bears close scrutiny. If the United States believes that warming warrants action, we can take steps ourselves. We don't need to sign an agreement that Mr. Chirac calls a grand step toward "global governance." Do it right. Go it alone.

James K. Glassman is host of TechCentralStation.com and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

--------

Clinton signs legislation to restore Everglades

USA Today
12/11/00- Updated 04:29 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon04.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Bush went to the White House Monday, but it was the other one.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a brother of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, came to Washington to join other Floridians in watching President Clinton sign into law a measure to help restore the Florida Everglades, one of the major environmental initiatives of the year.

As Jeb Bush entered the Oval Office for the bill signing, lawyers for his older brother were making their case for ending the Florida election recount battle between George W. Bush and Clinton's vice president, Democrat Al Gore.

''In an era or a time where people are focused on politics, and there's a little acrimony - I don't know whether y'all have noticed - this is a good example of how in spite of all that, bipartisanship is still alive,'' Bush said after the bill signing.

The Florida governor refused to answer reporters' questions about the election controversy, saying only that he had not talked to his brother.

''We're here to talk about something that is going to be long lasting, way past counting votes,'' he said. ''This is the restoration of a treasure for our country.''

Clinton shook hands with Jeb Bush and the other members of the Florida delegation that came for the signing, White House officials said. Clinton and Bush chatted briefly but the election did not come up, the officials said.

The signing was closed to the media and the public and Bush's other activities in Washington were not announced.

The law authorizes $1.4 billion as a first installment in a 30-year, $7.8 billion attempt to restore the natural flow in the 300 miles of swampland, saw-grass marshes and mangrove estuaries. It will involve water storage, storm water treatment areas and agriculture storage reservoirs. The overall cost is to be divided equally with the state of Florida.

Advocates say the project will bring cleaner drinking water to 6 million south Florida residents, a boon to the tourist industry and a reprieve for the Florida panther, the West Indian manatee and other endangered species in the Everglades.

Half of the Everglades, a national park, disappeared over the past half-century as a result of Army Corps of Engineers work that was ordered by Congress. The orders were to build canals, levees and pumping stations to decrease the risk of flooding and open up land to agriculture and residential development.

Everyday, 1.7 billion gallons of water drains from the park into the sea.

''I'm extremely pleased that in spite of all the focus of attention on what divides us, that America's Everglades has been a topic that has united us in a common effort,'' said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. ''Politics is not an end to itself. It is a means to an end. This is an example of that end at its best.''

The National Wildlife Federation also cheered the bill signing. ''We will continue to work to make sure that scientifically and ecologically sound restoration measures get the attention and continued funding they need to succeed,'' said Mark Van Putten, the federation's president.

-------- spying

The Truth About Polygraphs?

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 11, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45255-2000Dec8?language=printer

In a handwritten letter to the Federation of American Scientists postmarked late last month, convicted CIA spy Aldrich H. Ames attacks the use of polygraph examinations as "pseudoscience," saying he knows from experience that they do not work in counterintelligence investigations.

Ames passed at least two "lie detector" tests during his years as a KGB mole inside the CIA. But never in his letter, written in response to an essay by Steven Aftergood, an FAS anti-polygraph activist, does he make reference to what his hands-on experience entailed. There is no reference, direct or indirect, to treason, betrayal, the deaths of numerous CIA assets in the Soviet Union - none of it.

Instead, Ames pontificates from his lofty perch - Allenwood Federal Penitentiary - about the polygraph's primary use as a coercive tool of interrogation, not a tool of science that can be relied upon with any degree of accuracy.

In this, Ames makes a valid point. "Its most obvious use is as a coercive aid to interrogators, lying somewhere on the scale between the rubber truncheon and the diploma on the wall behind the interrogator's desk," Ames writes, displaying the glibness for which he was famous inside the agency.

"I wish you well in this particularly important theater of the struggle against pseudoscience: the national security state has many unfair and cruel weapons in its arsenal, but that of junk science is one which can be fought and perhaps defeated by honest and forthright efforts like yours," Ames concludes his letter.

Coming from Ames, it's hard to know what to make of such congratulations.

At one point in the letter, Ames makes an astonishing statement, totally oblivious to the irony of his own judgment: "Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task, and in a variety of situations, a bad, lazy or just unlucky decision about a person can result not only in serious problems for the organization and its purposes, but in career-damaging blame for the unfortunate decision maker."

This, he knows only too well. He is, in his letter, supremely defiant to the end, noting in a postscript that "all my outgoing mail goes through the CIA - unlawfully - for review, censorship and whatever use it chooses to make of it."

Polygraph II: How the CIA Cracked the Covert Chat Room

After CIA officials announced late last month that they had fired four employees and suspended 11 others for participating in secret chat rooms, former CIA scientist Allen Thomson pointed out that all CIA employees are routinely asked about unauthorized computer use during polygraphs they must take every five years as a condition of employment.

"I wonder whether this story doesn't connect with the ongoing Perils of thePolygraph topic," Thomson said. "Security reinvestigations are supposed to occur everyfive years, though they sometimes slip. But with 160 people [involved] and 15 years,we're surely talking about dozens of polygraph examinations. Something about this doesn't compute, so to speak."

Actually, it does. As Thomson surmises, CIA officials discovered the covert chat rooms earlier this year when one of the participants showed "deception" when asked the question about computers.

In announcing the firings and suspensions - the largest disciplinary action in CIA history - one senior intelligence official explained that stern action was taken because 160 employees communicating in the covert chat rooms had deliberately taken steps to hide what they were doing from management.

As such, the official said, the employees had betrayed the agency's trust.

George W. Maschke, a former military intelligence officer and fervent polygraph opponent, called the official's assertion "pious" and said that "senior CIA management needs to realize that trust is a two-way street."

"These CIA employees were disciplined for deliberately deceiving their supervisors, yet these same supervisors feel at liberty to deliberately deceive every CIA employee through the polygraph screening process," said Maschke, who is now a captain in the Army Reserve. He failed an FBI preemployment polygraph after a bureau polygrapher essentially accused him of treason, telling him he was lying when he denied ever passing classified information to unauthorized individuals.

One retired CIA employee who participated in the covert chat rooms, which went under various names - The Den, The Underground Railroad, File 99 - said the CIA's harsh disciplinary action was unnecessary and should be reconsidered.

Yes, participants swore to keep the chat rooms secret, the former employee said, but only as a way to foster an open exchange of ideas - and keep out those who would abuse such an open forum. "We didn't want people who were abusive, obnoxious, close-minded, bigots or those who would use what was said against anyone," the former employee said, asking not to be quoted by name. "We invited those people at the CIA who really made the CIA a better place to work.

"And what about that loyalty and trust? Well, before this action, you wouldn't have found a group that was more loyal to the CIA. We may have griped about management but only because we couldn't stand to see ineptitude at the agency. . . . All along, the group was only some friends doing the digital equivalent of networking around the water cooler but without having to stop work to do it."

The former employee concluded: "I felt that the agency was family. That is rare in an organization, and it was largely due to this group. A freedom has been lost at an agency that does not have much to begin with."

Polygraph III: Add 5,000 to DOE's Polygraph List

Alan P. Zelicoff, a medical doctor and senior scientist in Sandia National Laboratory's Center for National Security and Arms Control, fired off an angry letter last month to Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), protesting a provision in the fiscal 2001 Defense Authorization Act that would expand the Department of Energy's burgeoning polygraph program to include all employees who handled sensitive compartmented information (SCI).

Zelicoff holds Shelby, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, responsible for inserting the provision. Shelby aides say that Zelicoff is wrong and that the provision came from members of the Armed Services Committee.

In any event, Zelicoff said the provision would add 5,000 employees at the national laboratories to DOE's polygraph backlog. Since Energy Secretary Bill Richardson first proposed initiating polygraphs for several hundred employees in the fall of 1998, congressional concern over Chinese espionage at the nuclear labs has now expanded the program, with the latest provision, to 20,000.

"Personnel at the National Labs are quite familiar with the research that has discredited the validity of the" counterintelligence polygraph, Zelicoff wrote to Shelby. "In a recent review of the effectiveness of the new security infrastructure at the Labs . . . Sandia Vice President Lynn Jones recently noted that the single most destructive new measure has been polygraph testing. Lab employees describe the tests as "insulting," "counterproductive" and "wasteful." One lab employee has even noted that "if one wanted to conspire to destroy the labs, the best way to do so is by using screening polygraphs to [prove] the loyalty of Lab staff.' "

Polygraph IV: Clinton 'Deeply Disappointed'

Zelicoff isn't the only one annoyed by the new provision. In signing the fiscal 2001 Defense Authorization Act, President Clinton said he was "deeply disappointed that the Congress has taken upon itself to set greatly increased polygraph requirements that are unrealistic in scope, impractical in execution, and that would be strongly counterproductive in their impact on our national security."

Clinton continued: "The bill also micromanages the Secretary of Energy's authority to grant temporary waivers to the polygraph requirement in a potentially damaging way, by explicitly directing him not to consider the scientific vitality of DOE laboratories. This directs the Secretary not to do his job, since maintaining the scientific vitality of DOE national laboratories is essential to our national security and is one of the Secretary's most important responsibilities."

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Despite likely pardon, Russian intentions hard to gauge

Washington Times
December 11, 2000
By David R. Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000121123194.htm

Russia's decision to release an American businessman convicted last week of spying has done little to ease misgivings over a series of provocative steps that suggest an increasingly confrontational posture from Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin made it clear over the weekend that he will pardon businessman Edmond Pope, whose sentencing Wednesday to 20 years in a Russian penal colony angered the Clinton administration and enraged many lawmakers in Congress.

But the sentencing was just one in a series of moves that suggest Mr. Putin is maneuvering to seek advantage in a number of areas while the American political elite remains transfixed by the U.S. transition drama.

"Any new U.S. administration is going to be seeking a modus vivendi with Russia," said Heritage Foundation analyst Ariel Cohen. "Mr. Putin's actions in recent days suggest he's trying to make that harder than it was before."

In recent weeks, Russia has:

• Sentenced Mr. Pope for espionage, the first such conviction of an American in Russia in 40 years.

• Scrapped a secret understanding with the United States to end weapons sales to Iran.

• Revived the melody - though not the lyrics - of the old Soviet national anthem commissioned by Josef Stalin. At Mr. Putin's insistence, the Russian State Duma last week also adopted the old red military banner from Soviet times as well as the tricolor flag and the double-headed eagle coat of arms dating from the time of the czars.

• Renewed its diplomatic press in Europe against a national missile defense plan strongly backed by George W. Bush, the U.S. president-elect pending legal appeals.

• Announced that Mr. Putin this week will become the first Russian leader to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Even in the Pope case, Russian media have speculated that Mr. Putin's action is driven more by internal considerations than a desire for good relations with the United States.

Letting Mr. Pope go home could "kill several birds with one stone," the influential Moscow daily Segodnya wrote in an editorial late last week.

In this way, the newspaper said, the Federal Security Services, which have been criticized for their handling of the case, "could save face, Putin can demonstrate that he's not beholden to outside pressure and Russian scientists are given a lesson about the consequences of 'para-scientific' contacts with foreigners."

Mr. Cohen noted that Mr. Putin, while seeming to thumb his nose at Washington, has worked to improve relations with nations hostile to the United States, including Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Vietnam.

And in meetings with leaders in China, India and Western Europe, Mr. Putin regularly has attacked what he calls a "unipolar world" -one dominated by the United States.

Even so, a year into the Putin era, analysts say it is hard to grasp the direction of Russia policy. A senior Russian official was quoted last week describing Mr. Putin's approach as "assertive but positive."

Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russian and Eurasian program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described Mr. Putin's foreign policy as one of "omnidirectional friendliness," seeking aid and understanding on a wide range of fronts as he tries to rebuild a nation depleted by a decade of economic and social dislocation.

Russia's hopes of building an "iron alliance" with China and India are limited by the huge economic and military advantages enjoyed by the United States.

"Particularly with Russia and China, but also India, the United States holds a great deal of leverage simply by virtue of its position as global economic leader, and also as global military leader and senior partner in the most powerful European and Asian alliances," Mr. Kuchins said.

Advisers to Mr. Bush have spoken privately of getting off to a good start with Russia if they take power next year. Mr. Bush praised Russia's mediation role in Yugoslavia during the campaign and proposed deep cuts in U.S. nuclear missile stocks, inviting Mr. Putin to reciprocate.

The cuts would be designed to improve the tone of the dialogue as a Bush administration sought Russian acquiescence in a modification of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty to permit construction of a national missile defense shield.

Mr. Putin's government has shown little give on the ABM issue.

Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, in a visit to London last week, again pressed the British government not to cooperate with any such system.

But Mr. Putin has approved sharp cuts in Russian military forces at home. And while junking the agreement on Iranian arms sales, Russian officials negotiated at length with U.S. officials on the issue last week.

Russian officials also have tried to ease American concerns about Mr. Putin's three-day visit to Cuba beginning Wednesday. One of the president's top priorities will be to get Fidel Castro's government to repay Soviet-era debts, they said.

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Russia agrees to free US spy

Australian News Network
11dec00
By MARK FRANCHETTI
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1505818%255E401,00.html

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin has agreed to pardon ailing US businessman Edmund Pope, who had been sentenced to 20 years' hard labour for spying on Russia.

The US Government had denounced the conviction last week of Pope, 54, a former American navy intelligence officer who was arrested after allegedly trying to buy classified information about the Shkval, a top-secret underwater rocket.

There has been speculation that a malfunction of a similar missile may have been responsible for the explosion that sank the nuclear submarine Kursk on August 12, killing 118 sailors.

During a tour of factories in the Urals, Mr Putin said he wanted to maintain good relations with the US. He did not give a specific date for Pope's release. Under Russian law, clemency cannot be granted until a week after sentence is passed.

But it was expected that Pope, who is suffering from a rare form of bone cancer, will be able to travel home to Pennsylvania before Christmas.

Mr Putin's move came after the presidential pardons commission recommended on Friday that Pope, who had already spent eight months in Moscow's Lefortovo jail, be released and deported.

In a letter to the President, the commission said the long sentence would prevent Pope from seeing his father, who is dying of cancer. Pope himself would not survive long in a penal colony, it declared. US President Bill Clinton also phoned Mr Putin late on Friday to urge his release.

Pope, who runs a company specialising in information technology, insisted during his seven-week trial that he was not a spy and that information he held about the missile was freely available. But the Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB, seemed determined to turn the case into a show trial.

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Morocco Arrests Dozens of Rights Protesters

New York Times
December 11, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/world/11MORO.html

RABAT, Morocco, Dec. 10 - The riot police arrested dozens of peaceful protesters today who were demanding the legalization of their Muslim fundamentalist group and an end to a ban on their newspapers, which has been in place for more than a decade.

Less than 24 hours after a similar police action in which 41 human rights campaigners were arrested, Reuters correspondents saw police squads fiercely beating scores of young protesters and arresting dozens of them aged between 19 and 24.

The protesters had gathered in the capital's central Alawite square to mark the anniversary of the Universal Human Rights Declaration and were all members of the outlawed Muslim fundamentalist group Al Adl Wal Ihsane, or Justice and Charity.

The police seized cameras from Muslim group members and a video camera from a correspondent for the BBC after they took pictures of the scene, which was witnessed by thousands of passers-by.

Abderrahmane Benameur, a prominent human rights figure and lawyer, was among the 41 members of the independent Moroccan Human Rights Association who were detained on Saturday night. He said by cell phone from police custody, "As everybody could see, the makhzen has returned to its old habits and repressive behavior." The makhzen is the secretive royal court hierarchy, which operates in parallel to the government and is widely believed to be behind most important decisions.

Two of the 41 people detained on Saturday were freed, but others, including Mr. Benameur and eight women, were interrogated on Sunday by the prosecutor of a Rabat court for their part in what the authorities termed an "illegal gathering." The human rights association was demonstrating outside Parliament to demand an investigation into past human rights abuses.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that demonstrations on the streets were banned over the weekend for public security reasons.

Earlier this week, the human rights group urged Parliament to set up an independent inquiry into the reported involvement of 16 senior Moroccan officials in the torture and disappearance of opposition activists, mainly in the 1970's.

Most of the 16 officials identified by the human rights association are now retired. They include half a dozen top army and police figures, among them former chiefs of the paramilitary gendarmerie and of counterintelligence.

The human rights association called on the state to acknowledge its part in reported abuses and urged the authorities to bring those responsible to trial.

King Mohammed VI, in a televised speech on Saturday, urged all sectors of society to work toward an improvement of the human rights situation in the country. The king, who was enthroned in 1999, has set up a $12 million fund to compensate some victims of human rights abuses and ordered the creation of a human rights body to examine some 5,000 complaints.

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