NUCLEAR
U.S., Ex - Republics Sign Agreement
Russia, Cuba Revive Ties, But Debt Unresolved
Putin talks with Castro in Cuba
Truce Brings Relief for Kashmiris
Dialogue hinges on Pak. ending terrorism: Panja
Iraq resumes loading oil at gulf
Inter-Korean talks falter
Calderon firm on Vieques stance
Navy sets date for Puerto Rico vote
Vladimir Putin's secret dream
Ukraine set for Chernobyl closure
Chernobyl Closure Lays to Rest Powerful Symbol
The legacy of Chernobyl
Pulling the plug at Chernobyl
Sub Critical Test Scheduled Today
U.S. Energy Chief Steps In, Keeps Lights On in California
In Crisis, California to Force Big Utilities to Supply Power
Imports Help Calif. Power Grid Limp Through Day
Discarded Tapes Checked for Los Alamos Link
TVA Chairman Announces Retirement
Hello, World
A Shift on U.S. Security Policy
Ridge says he'll serve out term
Clinton Reminds Leaders of Their Duty to the Poor
World Congratulates Bush
Man in the News: The 43rd President, George Walker Bush

MILITARY
Albright to urge defense cooperation
Prince Andrew leaving Royal Navy
Colombia reopens bomb death probe
Teen Drug Use Holds Steady
Teen Drug Use in United States Unchanged: Study
Ecstasy use shows big rise among teens
Study links marijuana and infertility
Slightly off center . . .
South Korea urges North on projects
Problems to prolong Alpha mission
GEORGIA: U.N. WORKERS FREED
6 suspects named in Cole bombing
U.S. experts thinks Cole bombers fled
To digress
WWII rocket inadvertently launched
Buried rocket inadvertently launched

OTHER
Gerry Levin says it all
Tank spills 60,000 gallons of gas
105,000-gallon spill cleanup begins
Chinese city to relocate 50,000
Environmental trade guidelines set
EPA Selects 43 Charter Members
Bay City News Report
EU debates big cuts in fish catches
TRENTON: STATE TO RELEASE E.P.A. REPORT
States
Scientists Decode Plant Genome
Genetic map of a plant completed
'Dolly' Company to Produce Proteins in Cloned Cattle
Different under Bush
NYC police sorry for taking Qurans
Legal Setbacks Against Police Policies Mount
Minor Charges Dropped Against 2 Accused in Pepper Spray Case
Charges Sought for Troopers Involved in Turnpike Shooting
L.A. OKs more corruption settlements
Arrest by Police Leader Takes Him Back to Roots
Slightly off center . . .
BOSNIA: WAR CRIMES PLEA
New Mexico
Freed U.S. prisoner leaves Russia
Convicted Spy Leaves Russia After Pardon
Spy Agency in Brazil Is Accused of Abuses
New anti-terrorist strategy sought
Yemen: Bin Laden Possibly Involved in Cole Attack
U.S. vows campaign against Taliban
Panel seeks 'coherent' anti-terrorist strategy
Taleban suspected of aiding terrorists
Two to avoid
Greek terrorists mock authorities

ACTIVISTS
Charges dropped against protesters
Working poor descend on food banks
Cities still seeing high need for assistance
Protests Planned for Bush Inauguration
U.S. Crop Protest in France
China jail term for sect member
Chinese protest removal of monument
Animal Rights Voters Flex Their Muscle/Help Decide Election
Serbs Protest Near Kosovo
SPAIN: WORKERS PROTEST
New York
China sect member's funeral held
S. Korean bank workers end protest
Freepers flamed


-------- NUCLEAR

U.S., Ex - Republics Sign Agreement

Associated Press
December 14, 2000 Filed at 8:02 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Disarmament.html

GENEVA (AP) -- An agreement signed Thursday by five nations spells out the details of ending round-the-clock monitoring at missile plants in Utah and Russia.

The May 31, 2001, deadline for dismantling the plants' monitoring systems was set out in the U.S.-Soviet treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear weapons. Thursday's agreement, signed by the United States and the former Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan and Belarus, spelled out the technical details of how to accomplish the dismantling.

The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty was signed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987. It banned intermediate-range nuclear missiles and was the first treaty to lead to the destruction of an entire class of nuclear weapons. ``Although the INF treaty is of unlimited duration, the treaty's extensive inspection regime, including continuous monitoring at missile assembly plants in Magna, Utah, and Votkinsk, Russia, will be concluded at midnight May 31, 2001,'' the countries said in a joint statement.

``The newly signed amendment provides principles and procedures for the completion of INF inspections,'' it added.

The round-the-clock monitoring system at the gates to the two missile assembly plants has to be dismantled by the May 31 deadline.

The INF treaty imposed a permanent ban on ground-launched missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,418 miles.

Belarus, Kazakstan and Ukraine were, along with Russia, the former Soviet republics most concerned with the class of weapons.

The same five nations on Monday signed an agreement specifying procedures for the phased elimination, under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, of the last SS-24 intercontinental missiles in Ukraine.

It will see major components that are essential to the missiles' use destroyed in a first phase, after which they will no longer be usable. The final date for the missiles to be eliminated is Dec. 4, 2001.

-------

Russia, Cuba Revive Ties, But Debt Unresolved

Reuters
December 14, 2000 Filed at 4:14 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-cuba-ru.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001214/wl/cuba_russia_dc_4.html

HAVANA (Reuters) - Russian and Cuban Presidents Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro agreed on Thursday to breathe new life into Moscow-Havana ties but apparently failed to resolve a major bilateral problem -- Cuba's enormous Soviet-era debt.

After a morning of talks in Havana, Putin joined Castro in condemning the U.S. trade embargo against the communist-ruled Caribbean island. But he also sent congratulations to U.S. president-elect George W. Bush and freed a convicted U.S. spy.

``Our mutual trade has reached $930 million in recent years, which is not bad for both Russia and Cuba,'' Putin told a news conference following the talks.

``But there are still some problems remaining which have accumulated in the last 10 years and they demand especially close attention and solution. The Soviet Union has invested a lot in Cuba's economy. ... This is worth billions of dollars. We have to understand what to do about this.''

Cuba's debt to the ex-Soviet Union, inherited by Russia, has been previously estimated in Moscow at around $20 billion.

But Havana disputes this figure and argues in return that the damage caused to its economy by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 adds up to an equivalent value.

Putin and Castro signed a joint declaration at Havana's Revolution Palace which condemned the U.S. embargo, called for a multipolar world to counter U.S. influence and lamented the perils of economic globalization for poor nations.

In a reference to events like last year's Balkans conflict, where Havana and Moscow were united in their disapproval of NATO military action, both leaders also underlined in their statement the ``fruitlessness'' of ``humanitarian interventions.''

U.S. EMBARGO A TARGET

But it was the mention of the U.S. embargo which will have most pleased the 74-year-old Castro, hosting Putin since Wednesday night on the first visit by a Russian leader to Latin America since the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago.

``They have repeated their condemnation of the continued trade, economic and financial blockade of Cuba by the United States, as well as any other extraterritorial acts linked to the blockade,'' said a Russian-language version of the joint communique, signed after a first round of formal talks.

That came just after Putin sent his message to U.S. election winner Bush wishing him ``success in this important and responsible post'' and looking forward to ``an intensive and constructive dialogue with you and your administration.''

Bush has promised a tough line on Castro, defiantly maintaining one of the world's last few bastions of Communism and a longtime political thorn in the side of Washington.

Putin also gave a pardon on Thursday to convicted U.S. spy Edmond Pope, who had been condemned to 20 years in jail. The pardon cited his poor health and the importance of U.S.-Russian ties.

Although himself a proponent of multi-party democracy and free-market economics -- both of which Castro has rejected in Cuba -- Putin wants to rekindle Moscow's political and economic ties with its former Cold War ally.

In addition to the bilateral trade and investment benefits for Cuba, Putin is thought to want to rebuild Russia's global role, particularly in the Third World, and has not been shy about making advances to other nations viewed suspiciously by the West -- including Libya, North Korea and Iraq.

PUTIN AND CASTRO OFF TO THE BEACH

Besides their joint communique, Castro and Putin also penned five other agreements, covering legal and health cooperation, avoidance of double taxation, trade targets for 2001-2005 and a project on archives of mutual interest.

``I believe new prospects have opened up for the development of relations between Russia and Cuba. ... They have received a special boost from President Putin's visit,'' Castro said.

The presidents, who met at Havana airport for Putin's arrival, were to spend most of the day together, with a visit to the Russian-operated Lourdes electronic intelligence center outside the Cuban capital scheduled for the afternoon.

Putin's two days of formal activities -- prior to a weekend at the world-famous beach resort of Varadero, at Castro's invitation -- began with a military guard of honor in front of Havana's Revolution Palace.

The Russian also held an unscheduled 20-minute meeting with Castro after his arrival shortly before midnight on Wednesday, during which he invited Castro to visit Moscow.

BEARHUG FOR GORBACHEV

The last major visit to Cuba from Moscow was by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989, who received an effusive bearhug from Castro and an open-top drive into Havana past cheering masses, rather than the businesslike handshake and quiet drive he shared with Putin on Wednesday.

The Soviet Union became Cuba's strategic partner shortly after Castro came to power in his 1959 revolution, which toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista. But relations loosened dramatically after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991.

Russia believes part of Cuba's debt could be covered by Russian participation in some potentially lucrative projects left over from the Soviet era.

Unfinished projects include a nickel ore processing plant at Las Camariocas, modernization of the Cienfuegos and Santiago oil refineries and the incomplete Juragua nuclear plant, whose construction was halted in 1992.

But no concrete agreements on these tasks were announced.

The two governments also signed a protocol extending a $350 million Russian credit to the island, originally granted in 1993 and intended to finance the completion of industrial projects.

---

Putin talks with Castro in Cuba

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405338097

HAVANA (AP) - Vladimir Putin, the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union, held talks with Fidel Castro on Thursday as he started a trip aimed at warming ties between the former Cold War allies.

Putin, in a dark suit and tie, and Castro, in his customary olive green uniform and cap, stood at attention as a Cuban military band played the national anthems of both countries outside the Palace of the Revolution.

After greeting a Russian delegation and members of Cuba's top leadership, the two presidents held formal talks inside the palace and signed a series of accords. Russian officials have said six documents were prepared for the trip, including agreements on cooperation in legal affairs and health.

The two presidents appeared to be chatting amiably through an interpreter on Wednesday, shortly after Castro greeted Putin at the Havana airport. They posed for photographs and sped away in a Russian-made limousine without talking with reporters.

Later, at the residence where Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, are staying, they spoke briefly in the presence of their respective foreign ministers, Russian officials said. Putin invited Castro to visit Russia, they said.

Putin sent congratulations to President-elect George W. Bush via telegram early Thursday, foreign affairs adviser Sergei Prikhodoko said. There was no immediate reaction from the Cuban government.

Cuba was a strategic outpost during the Cold War, and 20 percent of its gross national product is estimated to have come from Soviet subsidies. But it is a much-changed country since the Soviet collapse: Politics are now second to economics as Russian-Cuban trade replaces Soviet-Cuban aid at the top of the agenda.

During Putin's two-day state visit, the two countries will examine ways to help wipe out Cuba's $11 billion Soviet-era debt. Putin and Castro were meeting formally on Thursday morning for talks on trade and other economic issues. Putin was to attend a ceremony in the afternoon honoring Cuba's monument to the Unknown Soviet Soldier.

Also Thursday, Putin was to meet with Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly and Castro's point man on Cuba-U.S. affairs.

On Friday, the Russian president was scheduled to pay tribute to Cuban independence hero Jose Marti and visit Cuba's Institute of Genetics and Biotechnology. He then heads to Cuba's Varadero beach resort for a two-day rest before going to Canada on Sunday.

His wife was keeping a separate, more low-key program, meeting Thursday morning with Russian teachers and students Thursday morning at the University of Havana.

Both Cuba and Russia hope the visit will breathe new life into a decades-old relationship that thrived during the Cold War era.

Cuba was thrown into economic crisis by the loss of its Soviet bloc trading partners at the beginning of the last decade but is slowly learning to become economically self-sufficient. From the Russian perspective, Putin said this week his country must revive economic ties with Cuba or risk losing out to companies from other countries.

Russian trade with Cuba now totals about $1 billion per year, Putin said earlier this week - down from about $3.6 billion in 1991.

Putin was expected to promote Russia's participation in completing construction of Soviet-era projects, including the Las Camariocas nickel plant and the Cienfuegos oil refinery, according to Russian media.

-------- india / pakistan

Truce Brings Relief for Kashmiris

Associated Press
December 14, 2000 Filed at 2:29 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Kashmir-Violence.html

NOUSADA, Pakistan (AP) -- In Nousada, a Pakistani village tucked away in the Himalayan mountain shadows, children are going to classes for the first time this year -- but not in their school buildings. They bear the scars of war.

Like hospitals and homes here on the violent Kashmir border, the schools are too damaged to use. Wind whistles through broken windows. Shrapnel pockmarks the walls. Spent shells litter the playgrounds.

So despite the icy wind, students kneel outside during their lessons. Wrapped in sweaters and coats, they watch as teachers scribble on blackboards under the lukewarm winter sun.

Students and teachers alike cling to the hope that life can return to normal in Kashmir, where a temporary cease-fire has quieted the guns. But many are skeptical.

``We don't know how long these moments of peace will last. Indians can start targeting us again any time,'' teacher Syed Liaquat said while pointing toward Indian military posts barely three miles away in the Indian-ruled section of Kashmir.

Nousada sits at ground zero in the Kashmir dispute, a territorial fight between India and Pakistan that has raged for half a century and cost thousands of lives.

Kashmir has been divided between Pakistan and India since British rule ended on the subcontinent in 1947, but each country claims the Himalayan province in its entirety. The dispute has been the cause of two full-fledged wars, and for people who live on either side of the dividing line the violence has been relentless.

The two countries have deployed their armies along the border, and soldiers exchange fire daily. Thousands of villagers have died in the crossfire. Adding to the bloodshed, separatists who want the Indian-ruled section to either become independent or join Pakistan have waged an 11-year insurgency that has killed thousands more there.

In recent days, though, the guns along the Kashmir frontier have been uncharacteristically silent.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee offered a temporary cease-fire to the separatist guerrillas late last month, and Pakistan responded with a border truce. In the days that followed, residents of Nousada began returning to their ruggedly beautiful town and its rocket-ruined homes.

But Vajpayee's monthlong cease-fire is to end when Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, ends on Dec. 27. Knowing their respite may be a temporary one, villagers on both sides of the dividing line are making the most of it.

In Karanah, on the Indian side, children have returned to their cricket pitches: About 200 people in flowing Kashmiri tunics cheered cricketers on a recent day as they competed in the Mehtab Memorial Tournament.

The tournament is named for a 7-year-old boy killed by Pakistani shelling last April. Its duration depends on the durability of the cease-fires, the young players say.

``Shells used to land every half hour or so. We were indoors most of the time. We could not play,'' 18-year-old Abdul Aziz said.

After so many years of war, mistrust runs deep on both sides. Haji Bashir, a villager in Pakistani Kashmir whose shop was destroyed by shells, said he worries that the Indian cease-fire is only a ploy.

``They have always cheated us,'' said Bashir, who was hit in the right eye by shrapnel last June. ``They will use the opportunity to give their soldiers rest, consolidate positions along the Line of Control and bring in fresh supplies.''

Internationally, the tit-for-tat cease-fires have been welcome news: With both India and Pakistan in possession of nuclear weapons, the international community has been pressing to resolve the Kashmir issue and avoid another war.

But Bashir, like many along the disputed border, fears the cease-fire will not hold up.

``It is too fragile to last for long,'' he said. ``We want permanent peace.''

-------

Dialogue hinges on Pak. ending terrorism: Panja

The Hindu
Thursday, December 14, 2000
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/12/14/stories/0214000p.htm

NEW DELHI, DEC. 13. The Government today reiterated its commitment to resolve all outstanding issues with Pakistan through dialogue on the basis of the Shimla agreement and the Lahore declaration but emphasised that Islamabad must first stop cross-border terrorism and end anti-India propaganda.

Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr. Ajit Panja, said it was necessary for the resumption of dialogue that Pakistan should abandon sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India and also end its hostile propaganda and calls for jehad against India.

He said many Islamic countries had in their bilateral interaction with India shown sensitivity to New Delhi's position on Kashmir and generally subscribed to the view that it needed to be resolved through bilateral discussions. However, on Pakistan's instigation the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) routinely adopted resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. India had rejected all such resolutions saying the OIC had no locus standi on India's internal matters. India and China, which recently exchanged maps of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the middle sector, will start comparing the two maps to identify differences in the respective perceptions of the LAC. In reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Mr. Panja said the maps were exchanged at the recently held meeting of the India-China expert group.

The Minister while replying to another question, said Pakistan continued to acquire nuclear-related and dual use equipment and materials from various sources. He said the Indian Government has consistently highlighted the adverse effect on India's security from continuing nuclear and missile proliferations in Pakistan despite the existence of various export control regimes and declarations of restraint by supplier countries.

N-plant: The Government is considering roping in the private sector for setting up atomic energy plants in the country, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

The process of reviewing the Atomic Energy Act for this purpose is underway and a Bill would be introduced after completion of this process, the Minister of State for Atomic Energy, Ms. Vasundhara Raje, said in reply to a written question.

-------- iraq

Iraq resumes loading oil at gulf

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By WAIEL FALEH Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330746

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq has resumed loading oil at its Gulf terminal, the head of its state marketing organization said Wednesday, 13 days after it halted oil exports in a pricing dispute with the United Nations.

``We started loading two Indian oil tankers on Tuesday at Mina al-Bakr'' terminal, Saddam al-Hassan, chairman of the State Organization for Marketing Oil, told the The Associated Press in a phone interview.

In New York, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed the Indian loadings. It wasn't immediately clear, however, if they would lead to a full resumption of exports.

The loading began a week after the U.N. Security Council approved the next six-month phase of Iraq's oil-for-food program.

The dispute began in November when Iraq made its monthly proposal for prices on its oil exports. The U.N. sanctions committee rejected the prices, saying they were too low.

Under the oil-for-food program, Iraq is allowed to sell oil provided the money goes into a U.N.-controlled account whose funds are spent on food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies. The program was launched to help ordinary Iraqis cope with the effects of U.N. sanctions.

Under Security Council resolutions, sanctions can be lifted only after U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq's weapons programs have been dismantled. Baghdad says it has done so, but it refuses to cooperate with U.N. inspectors

-------- korea

Inter-Korean talks falter

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By SANG-HUN CHOE Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405338741

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Reconciliation talks between South and North Korea faltered Thursday amid a dispute over South Korea's policy of viewing the communist North as its main enemy.

North Korean negotiators accused the South of warmongering after they saw an annual report released last week by the South Korean defense ministry, according to pool reports filed by South Korean journalists in Pyongyang.

The defense ministry's report, called the ``White Paper,'' renewed its description of North Korea as the South's ``main enemy,'' the news accounts said. The White Paper urged the South's military to maintain a high state of vigilance despite improving ties between Seoul and Pyongyang.

The two Koreas have made progress toward reconciliation since a historic summit in June between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. But concern is spreading in South Korea that inter-Korean initiatives are losing momentum.

North Korea has delayed a series of humanitarian and other projects it had promised to undertake jointly with South Korea in the past several months. At the most recent talks, the South's negotiators again urged the North to discuss how to accelerate reunions of separated families and other friendly gestures.

But North Korean negotiators focused on the White Paper, saying it violated the spirit of the summit agreement to work toward reunification, pool reports said.

The South's unification minister, Park Jae-kyu, had arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday to review inter-Korean cooperation and discuss joint plans in 2001. The talks end Friday.

Park stressed the importance of the family reunion programs and suggested that another reunion be held before the next lunar new year, which falls on Jan. 24, the pool reports said. South Korea also proposed that the two Koreas set up a permanent meeting place for elderly separated family members by March. North Korea's response was not reported.

Millions of Koreans were separated from their relatives during the 1950-53 Korean War and have not spoken to them since. The border remains sealed and guarded by huge armies, and there is no direct means of communication between ordinary citizens of the two Koreas.

-------- puerto rico

Calderon firm on Vieques stance

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By EILEEN McNAMARA Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330836

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Governor-elect Sila Calderon on Wednesday refused to back down on a promise to seek the eviction of the U.S. Navy from its prized Vieques bombing range.

Her stance threatened an agreement reached among President Clinton, outgoing Gov. Pedro Rossello, and the Navy that ended a yearlong occupation of the bombing range by protesters angered by an April 1999 accident on the range that killed a civilian guard.

Under the agreement, Puerto Rico allows the Navy to set the date for a referendum on the island about whether the U.S. force should leave. The Navy has proposed Nov. 6 as the vote date.

If islanders vote to expel the Navy, it would have to leave by May 2003. If they allow the Navy to stay, it can resume training using live ammunition. The Navy says the exercises at Vieques are vital to national defense since they uniquely combine air, sea and land maneuvers.

Calderon, who takes office on Jan. 2, has angered U.S. officials by saying she wants a referendum to evict the Navy immediately from the island of 9,400 and that she would withdraw local police guarding the range from protesters.

``My position on Vieques and that of the overwhelming majority of the people of Puerto Rico is well known. I stand firm by that position,'' wrote Calderon in a letter Wednesday.

In a letter Monday, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig warned Calderon that if she does not comply with the agreement, the U.S. government won't fulfill its promises, including the transfer of 8,000 acres of Navy-owned land by Dec. 31.

``It's clear from what we're seeing here that she doesn't intend to honor the agreement,'' Danzig's spokesman Capt. Brian Cullin said.

Decades of resentment over the Navy's live bombing of Vieques turned to outrage after a U.S. Marine Corps jet dropped two 500-pound bombs off target and killed security guard David Sanes Rodriguez.

Protesters invaded the range for a year, thwarting exercises until they were forced out by U.S. Marshals in May, allowing the Navy to resume exercises with non-explosive bombs. Smaller groups of activists have sneaked onto the range since then.

---

Navy sets date for Puerto Rico vote

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 04:48 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. Navy has set Nov. 6 as the date for a vote on whether it must leave its bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, according to a letter released Tuesday. If islanders vote to expel the U.S. Navy, the servicemen and women would have to leave by May 2003. If they allow the Navy to stay, it can resume training using live ammunition - something the military has agreed not to do since an April 1999 accident on the range that killed a civilian guard.

-------- russia

Vladimir Putin's secret dream
Russia's steely leader likes eco-warriors, the ski slopes and the '72 hockey summit. But most of all, he'd like you to like him

Toronto's Globe and Mail
Thursday, December 14, 2000
GEOFFREY YORK AND CHRYSTIA FREELAND
http://www.globeandmail.ca/gam/International/20001214/UVLADN.html

MOSCOW -- Vladimir Putin has a secret dream. He might be known to the world as the tough-talking KGB veteran who waged a ruthless war in Chechnya, but he confesses that some day he might prefer a kinder and gentler life -- as an ecological activist.

"To be honest, I've always admired people who devote their lives to environmental problems," he said. "I've watched with astonishment as a group of people on a little boat try to oppose a huge military or industrial ship. I must say this inspires only sympathy."

When his time in the Kremlin runs out (he is constitutionally limited to serving eight years over two terms), the Russian President coyly hints that he might consider a second career as an environmentalist.

"I've often thought about what I should do when my term expires," Mr. Putin said in an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail and two Canadian television networks.

"It is a noble task to support the ecological movement. At least I wouldn't be sorry to spend time on it."

Canada should get ready to meet a softer and cuddlier Kremlin chief when he arrives in Ottawa this weekend. Mr. Putin captured the Russian presidency on the strength of his brutal military campaign against Chechen separatists. He misses no opportunity to display his bone-breaking judo skills, and last week he reinstated the melody of Joseph Stalin's national anthem as Russia's new national hymn. But on the eve of his first state visit to Canada, he is trying very hard to present a friendlier side.

It's not that Mr. Putin has suddenly converted from red to green. Rather, the Russian leader -- who once told a friend that his KGB training had made him "a specialist in human relations" -- seems to have decided that the best way to defuse mounting Western concerns about the fate of Russian democracy is with a personal-charm offensive.

In a 70-minute conversation in the Kremlin, he smiled, joked, and even flirted with his Canadian guests. He praised Canada as a good neighbour, paid homage to the memorable 1972 Canada-Soviet hockey series, offered soothing responses to tough political questions, and modestly deflected a question about a newspaper survey that rated him the sexiest man in Russia.

For the first time publicly, he confirmed he is studying English, which makes him the only Russian leader in modern times to try to learn the language of Britain and North America. "English is a world language," he said. "For me, studying English is something like intellectual gymnastics. And any language is a glimpse into another world, a different culture. It's exciting."

Still, Mr. Putin -- who also speaks German -- did the entire interview in Russian.

At the end of the session, he chatted amiably about skiing, asking for the names of top resorts in Western Canada, just in case he has a chance to go there in the future.

But beneath the charm, the steel is clearly there. Mr. Putin, whose cool-headed forcefulness came as such a relief to a nation exhausted by the boozy bombast of former president Boris Yeltsin, remains almost Teutonic in his precision and his control.

Even at 10 p.m. on a Friday night -- as the interview proceeds -- he is the model of crisp efficiency. His thinning, blondish hair is combed neatly, his face has been painted smooth for the television cameras, his white shirt gleams and his navy suit is freshly pressed.

Grey-blue eyes fixed on his questioner, Mr. Putin sits ramrod straight, his hands disciplined into stillness. Only his feet, hidden beneath the table his handlers insisted upon, are allowed to be unruly, dancing up and down.

Sitting in front of a white ceramic fireplace in one of the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of the Kremlin, with gold-gilded walls, parquet floors and plush, faux antique furniture, there is sometimes an earnest scholarliness in his desire to please his audience with carefully prepared answers.

Aware that Canadians are keen hockey fans, Mr. Putin memorized a series of precise statistics on the number of Russians in the National Hockey League. When nobody asked the right question, he finally managed to reveal his data in the final moments of the interview, while answering an unrelated question.

(Mr. Putin calculated that 408 Russians have played in the NHL since 1975, and 128 have signed professional contracts in the past year alone.)

Asked about his KGB years, he offers an old tale about how he once admitted his spy background to Henry Kissinger, who promptly assured him that "all decent people got their start in intelligence." It is an anecdote he has recycled in his memoirs and in other interviews, but he still relies on it as a way of disarming critics.

He makes it clear he is proud of his espionage work in the Soviet Union and East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. "I served my country, I did it in good faith, and I don't have any regrets," he said. "And by the way, surprisingly enough, I never violated the laws of any foreign countries. It was an interesting, highly professional job."

Despite his studious preparation, he occasionally reveals his inexperience on the world stage. At one point in the interview, he borrowed a quaintly chauvinistic quotation from a film to suggest that a state's efforts to restrict the media are like the sexual tension between a man and a woman.

"A real man should always try, and a decent woman should always resist," he said, oblivious to notions of political correctness.

At another point, he hinted that the opposition media could be seen as "hooligans" for their attacks on him. Then he quickly retreated from the remark, insisting he was speaking hypothetically.

Mr. Putin's public-relations efforts have been highly effective. He remains massively popular in Russia, and he has already won friends and admirers among some Western leaders.

But it remains difficult to glimpse the real Vladimir Putin. Even his close adviser, Gleb Pavlovsky, referred to him as a "black box."

There is still a raging debate in Russia and the West about whether Mr. Putin is a would-be dictator or a progressive modernizer who will drag Russia into the 21st century.

One thing is clear: he is determined to create a strong Russian state. Throughout the interview, he spoke of the need to strengthen the state, to force everyone to obey the law, and to "consolidate" political power to assure parliamentary approval for economic reforms.

The key question, of course, is whether a strong state would impose limits on freedom. Asked about that, Mr. Putin revealed a prudishly moral side of his character. Alluding to the erotic programming on late-night Russian television, he expressed envy for Canada's broadcasting regulations.

"In the United States and Canada, many things can be shown only on cable television, for moral reasons," he said approvingly. "Here, unfortunately, anything can be put on the air."

The Putin file

Personal: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born Oct. 7, 1952, in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad). He and his wife, Lyudmila, have two teenaged daughters, Katya and Maria. Education: Mr. Putin studied law at Leningrad State University between 1970 and 1975. Career: He joined Moscow's foreign-intelligence training unit in 1982 after being recruited by the KGB. He is believed by some German sources to have spied in West Germany between 1982 and 1984. He was officially posted in Dresden, East Germany, between 1985 and 1990 before returning to the Soviet Union and retiring from the KGB. After a brief turn in the foreign-affairs department at Leningrad State University, he launched his political career as adviser to Leningrad mayor Anatoly Sobchak. He joined the Kremlin staff in 1996 and was appointed director of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, in 1998. President Boris Yeltsin named him prime minister in August, 1999, then acting president when Mr. Yeltsin resigned on Dec. 31, 1999. Mr. Putin was elected president in March. Quote: "Competition today has shifted from the military sphere to the economic sphere. We have to look at things realistically."

-------- ukraine

Ukraine set for Chernobyl closure

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405339161

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The site of the world's worst nuclear accident, it came to symbolize the potential dangers of atomic energy. Now, after years of limping along in defiance of international criticism, the Chernobyl atomic power plant is about to be shut down for good.

Ukraine restarted Chernobyl's only working reactor one last time on Thursday, planning to let it run for a day before Friday's shutdown. Technically the final shutdown will be a very small step - three of the four reactors have been closed for years and the fourth was only operating at 1 percent capacity Thursday morning, the state-run Energoatom company said. But for many here it carries great import.

``It is very symbolic that the world will enter the next millennium without the Chernobyl plant,'' presidential spokesman Oleksandr Martynenko said.

Preparing for the shutdown, President Leonid Kuchma took visiting dignitaries on a tour of the site Thursday. A Friday ceremony at the posh Ukraina Palace in Kiev is to mark the actual closure. Kuchma will issue the shutdown command through a television link with the plant 85 miles away.

As the closure neared, the parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution urging the government to postpone the shutdown at least until April. Proponents said other nuclear power plants are not able to make up the lost electricity and that Ukraine needs to wait until foreign leaders make good on promises to build two new reactors.

However, the resolution was nonbinding, and the government was unlikely to heed the request.

Outside Parliament, about 300 victims of the Chernobyl disaster rallied to demand more social services and international recognition of their suffering.

``Let us live, give us bread!'' said Vira Korbut, the widow of a cleanup worker.

The Chernobyl tragedy began on April 26, 1986, when reactor No. 4 exploded and caught fire, contaminating vast areas of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and spewing a radioactive cloud over Europe. Thousands of people who took part in the cleanup died. A 1,040 square-mile area around Chernobyl that was once home to 120,000 people became a no man's land.

And Chernobyl's troubles did not stop with the accident. The plant's No. 2 reactor caught fire and was shut down in 1991, and reactor No. 1 was halted in 1996.

The one remaining working reactor, No. 3, has experienced numerous unplanned shutdowns and malfunctions. Yet energy-strapped Ukraine refused to close it before securing Western aid to build two new nuclear reactors.

Reactor No. 3 stopped producing electricity on Dec. 6 when it was shut down because of a steam leak. Ukraine's nuclear regulatory body reluctantly approved the reactor's restart to conduct unspecified experiments, as if to give this former Soviet republic something to ceremonially close down.

``The reactor will be brought to 5 percent of capacity, the experiments will take some 24 hours and it will be stopped Dec. 15,'' said Viktor Stovbun, a senior official at Energoatom.

Even after stoppage, the reactors will not be considered safe until all nuclear fuel is removed, a process expected to be completed in 2008.

It will take years to make the leaky concrete and steel sarcophagus that encases the ruined reactor No. 4 environmentally safe. And the government still appears to have no clear program of assistance for Chernobyl's nearly 6,000 workers and their families. Few of them, if any, will rejoice Friday.

``The decision is taken and we'll close down here,'' says Chernobyl spokesman Stanislav Shekstelo. ``But it will be a sad day for us.''

---

Chernobyl Closure Lays to Rest Powerful Symbol

Reuters
December 14, 2000 Filed at 6:15 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-ukraine.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001214/wl/ukraine_chernobyl_dc_4.html

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine lays to rest the world's most powerful symbol of the dangers of nuclear power on Friday when engineers at Chernobyl power station depress a button marked BAZ -- ``rapid emergency defense'' -- for the last time.

The button will slowly drop control rods into Chernobyl's last functioning reactor and herald the start of a long process of decommissioning the plant which caused the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986.

Fourteen years after the accident, the concrete entombed, burned-out and highly radioactive remains of Reactor Number Four, which exploded after a controversial experiment, loom over a small monument to 30 firemen who died fighting its flames.

Thousands are thought to have died a result of radiation which spewed from the reactor's burning shell. One in 16 Ukrainians, and millions of Russians and Belarussians suffer health disorders.

Chernobyl is encircled by a poisoned 20-mile no-go zone, which scientists say will be uninhabitable for centuries.

Reactors One and Two have already been stopped -- Two was shut down after a huge fire in 1991 and One passed its expiration date five years later.

But the third reactor has, on-and-off, been providing Ukraine with five percent of its electricity. Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma agreed earlier this year to shut the reactor down in return for Western financial aid to complete replacement reactors elsewhere.

RESTART FOR FINAL DAY

Technical glitches forced the reactor to shut down twice in the past two weeks. It was restarted for its final day on Thursday, only to be shut down again by engineers when Kuchma toured the control room.

A technician on duty at the complex said by telephone the reactor would be restarted at 1.00 a.m., ahead of Friday's closing ceremony which will be broadcast live to dignitaries in the capital Kiev, 70 miles south of Chernobyl.

Representatives of all Ukraine's religions will pray together during a morning service in St Sophia's church, followed by a gathering of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, along with others in Kiev's cavernous National Palace.

But the 6,000 workers at Chernobyl have indicated they will not be joining in the champagne cork-popping as they face their uncertain future.

During the eight years it will take to remove all fuel rods from reactor Three, jobs will gradually be shed, and many workers have said they do not trust government assurances of pensions and social benefits.

Kuchma sought again to reassure the workers that the economically battered state would provide for them.

``I want you to know from me and the government: nobody will be ignored,'' he said during his visit on Thursday.

``I don't believe him,'' said one worker in the audience. ''This pension will be paid in kopecks.''

--------

The legacy of Chernobyl
Chernobyl's last reactor is due to close

BBC News
Thursday, 14 December, 2000, 12:08 GMT
By Robin Aitken in the Ukraine
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/from_our_own_correspondent/newsid_1061000/1061703.stm

You probably won't be able to find the village of Masany on maps for very much longer. It must always have been a remote sort of place - tucked down in the south-east corner of Belarus a few kilometres from the border with the Ukraine. But these days it's deserted and you need a special permit to visit it.

Masany lies deep within the 30 kilometre exclusion zone which encircles the Chernobyl nuclear power station - the area which was most contaminated when the plant blew-up on 26 April 1986.

But despite the high levels of background radiation - the area is one of the most radioactive spots on Earth - Masany is not entirely uninhabited.

When we arrived, late on a sun-filled afternoon, two figures could be seen making their way across an otherwise un-peopled landscape.

Yuri Sushko and Slava Yevdokimov are both scientists who work in the zone on a two-week on, two-week off cycle. Their job is to measure radioactivity levels - in the soil, air, plants and animals - so that the contamination levels can be accurately tracked.

Yuri, a smiling, weatherbeaten sixty-something, said he loved his work . It's the solitude, the beauty and the wildlife, he told me - that and getting away from the wife and daughters.

Haven for wildlife

Masany is indeed beautiful. The dense forests which surround it are a haven for wildlife which, undisturbed by man, thrives in this accidental wilderness.

The place teems with wild boar - a herd ran right across the path of our vehicle - and I was told there are more than 200 bird species regularly seen in the area.

In the past couple of years, rare European bison have been introduced by Belarusian scientists curious to see how they would do. We didn't see any but apparently the herd is thriving.

Yuri Sushko says it looks as though nature is proving remarkably resilient to the increased radiation levels. He doesn't take any chances himself though - he and Slava are careful not to eat or drink anything which originates in the zone.

But their attitude towards the radioactivity was strikingly relaxed which is also what struck me when, a few days later, my producer and I travelled to Ukraine to visit the town of Chernobyl itself.

Our guide, a vivacious Tartar woman called Rima, couldn't have been more matter of fact. To her, showing Western visitors around the power station and its environs was all part of the day's routine.

Living in Chernobyl

She took us first to Pripyat, the town built to house the Chernobyl workers when it was built in the 1970s, now utterly abandoned. It has a separate checkpoint of its own - the soldiers manning it were glad to talk and break the monotony of duty.

They had no worries about serving their time at Chernobyl and the radiation didn't bother them. The main problem was the boredom.

For a first time visitor, though, Pripyat is a sobering place. It had been a showpiece town, well provided for with amenities and good housing.

From the top of the lifeless hotel you got a good view of the place - the children's funfair with it's rusted big wheel, the hospital with a huge Soviet style slogan that reads The health of the people is the wealth of the country - which, given what happened here, makes further comment superfluous.

Pripyat, and all the immediate surroundings of the power plant, will be uninhabitable for hundreds of years but the plant itself is still working.

Indeed there are 5,000 employees still on the payroll who come and go each day. That is because number three reactor is still working though it's due to shut after a long international campaign. The closure is deeply resented.

We were then taken into the plant itself. In the administrative block, the deputy director told me darkly that closure was a "political" decision. The reactor could have carried on going for years, he said, if the plant had been upgraded like its equivalents in Russia.

In the control room of number reactor, the atmosphere couldn't have been more relaxed. Strange to think that just through the wall - albeit a very,very thick one - lay the ruins of the reactor that exploded.

In amongst the rubble are about 200 tons of radioactive fuel rods mixed up with fallen masonry and a kind of lava that was formed by the intense heat after the initial explosion.

All that will stay radioactive for 100,000 years, which, when you think of it, is far beyond any human time horizon. But that doesn't trouble the workforce much, it would seem. To them, closure is a bread and butter issue.

In the control room, I was introduced to Andre Slavin, the shift leader. The following day we travelled to his home in the town of Slavutich - built after Pripyat was abandoned.

To Andre and his wife Elena the closure of Chernobyl is a sad, even a wrong, thing.

Slavutich, she told me, is a good town that is clean and beautiful. Her friends who have left regretted it, and she would like to stay - Chernobyl has been good to her.

---------

Pulling the plug at Chernobyl

Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 14/12/2000
The Guardian
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/14/text/features1.html

Fourteen years after one of its reactors exploded, the Chernobyl power plant is closing. The world may breathe a sigh of relief, writes Ian Traynor, but the locals are far from happy.

Six weeks after the explosion at Chernobyl spewed clouds of radioactive dust into the skies over Europe in April 1986, Sasha Novikov packed up his meagre belongings in what was then Leningrad and headed for a new life of danger and adventure on the nuclear frontline.

The nuclear physicist was 21 years old, just graduated and ambitious. He didn't think twice. "It was a war situation here at Chernobyl and we were the soldiers called to serve," he says. "Live work, dangerous work. So many people died. So many people got sick. But there's such a thing as patriotism and professional duty. And now? After all that effort, after all that suffering, after all the money that's been spent on making this place safe, they're closing it down. That's politics," he spits in disgust.

Environmentally, technologically and politically, Chernobyl's impact was, and continues to be, huge. The flat marshlands in Ukraine, north of Kiev, near the Belarus border, were chosen by the geriatric Soviet leadership in the '70s to be the site of the world's biggest nuclear power plant, a luminous symbol of communist progress and superiority.

But when a half-baked experiment at the station's fourth reactor backfired at 1.24am on April 26, 1986, the atomic explosion and the reactor meltdown not only instantly vaporised Valery Khodimchuk, the night-shift charge hand at reactor No 4, but terrified Europe, shocked the world, corroded public confidence in nuclear power everywhere, and hammered several large nails into the coffin in which the Soviet Union would be buried a few years later.

Igor Oleynich was on the night shift next door at reactor No 3 that night. "I was the only person in the reactor room. It filled with smoke instantly; within five seconds I was getting trapped. I ran outside and watched the explosion. It was awesome. We didn't know what a nuclear accident was. Some of us wanted to go in on kamikaze missions to get Khodimchuk's body out. No-one could have survived more than 15 seconds."

Almost 15 years on, with $US300 million ($550 million) spent on patching up the station, hundreds of millions more pledged to entomb the stricken reactor anew, and years of Western pressure on the Ukrainians, Chernobyl is finally to be closed for good tomorrow. (Indeed, only one of its four reactors is still operating. After the explosion at reactor No 4 in 1986, two more reactors were closed in 1991 and 1996.)

The world will breathe a mighty sigh of relief. But for the 6,000 people who take a sealed commuter train through the 30-kilometre exclusion zone every day to put on their turquoise suits, pick up their personal radiation dosimeters and go to work at Chernobyl, the closure is a disaster equal to April 1986. They are frightened and furious - not at having to work in what is perhaps the most toxic environment in Europe, but at the prospect of losing their jobs.

If you think Chernobyl is bad, says Oleg Goloskokov, the plant's assistant general director, try elsewhere in the Russian nuclear industry. "I came here in 1989 from Siberia. I've got two kids and my wife and I took a conscious decision. There are definite risks and there are really dirty zones. But I worked at Tomsk and Chelyabinsk. There was a terrible accident there in 1957. It's very dangerous, very polluted. And we wanted to get away from the nine-month winters. It's much better, much safer here."

Ustina Rudnichenko is even more stoical. In the hamlet of Opachichi, a few kilometres from the station and well inside the exclusion zone, the 84-year-old peasant woman lives alone with her chickens, her plum-brandy still and her outhouse piled with home-grown potatoes, garlic, pumpkins and pears. More than 100,000 people were belatedly evacuated from the zone after the disaster. Rudnichenko is one of the 600 or so mainly elderly peasants who have since returned illegally to their native villages to see out their last years. "My husband's dead, my children refuse to visit me. I'm very lonely," she says. "But I belong here. I'm not moving. This is where I was born. What is there to be afraid of? Death?"

Her countryside is enchanting, thickly wooded and unspoilt, at least to the eye. You can't see or smell radioactive contamination. After nearly 15 years of lying untouched, the no-go zone has become a bizarre safe haven for wildlife, plants and grasses.

"The exclusion zone has become a giant laboratory for natural research," says Anatoly Nosovsky, a former Chernobyl engineer now running a US-funded regional research centre. We don't understand the impact of radionuclides on nature, and, apart from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we can try to find out here."

There is an experimental dairy farm where cows - named Uranium, Alpha, Beta and Gamma - are put through their paces. Their milk is fed to pigs to observe the effects of contaminated milk. Plant research includes observing the extent of genetic mutation in strains of wheat grown on irradiated soil.

Rudnichenko and her fellow villagers are oblivious to the dangers, eating perch from the rivers and collecting mushrooms - especially hazardous - in autumn. But at 84, she is lively, articulate and alert. "We get lots of promises, but we never get any help."

And despite the batteries of statistics and the endless research into the impact of Chernobyl, the human cost of the disaster is less than clear. In the days that followed the blast, 31 emergency workers died. The years since have seen an alarming rise in thyroid cancer among children in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus, with cases running at almost 100 times the normal rate. One worker who loads fuel rods into reactor No 3, and who asks not to be named, says that he sent his 10-year-old daughter's medical data to the West for analysis and fears she will not live to be an adult. "I lost 12 of my friends and I've seen so much death and suffering," he says. "I don't think about my own health. I don't have the right. But I haven't told anyone here about my daughter."

Those who claim to have suffered from the disaster run into millions, but such figures are manipulated politically in Ukraine and Belarus. Three million people are categorised in Ukraine as "liquidators", the term for those who battled to contain the fallout to qualify for paltry government benefits. But Ukraine is broke, sunk in corruption. The past few months have seen strikes, demonstrations and hunger strikes in Ukraine, Moscow and Belarus in protest at the non-receipt of promised benefits. By contrast, Western engineers and consultants working at Chernobyl can earn monthly five-figure salaries and, health permitting, can look forward to an early, well-heeled retirement.

The West has pledged more than $US700 million to erect a new sarcophagus around reactor No 4 by 2015, but the plant managers complain that most of the money will go to the big Western nuclear engineering firms contracted to do the work. The project is urgent and extremely perilous. The existing sarcophagus was improvised after the catastrophe when helicopters dropped sand and concrete onto the smouldering reactor and huge remote-controlled cranes smothered the lot in hundreds of tonnes of thick sheet steel. Beneath the hulking battleship-grey containment there now lurks 200 tonnes of radioactive lava, poison, dust and debris, with radiation levels four times higher than lethal. The vehicles, hoisting equipment and helicopters - 12,000 items in total, and all highly contaminated - are dumped in a large metal graveyard a few kilometres from the station. More tall cranes and the red walls for the prospective fifth and sixth reactors stand frozen in time, relics of when construction was abandoned in 1986.

"The sarcophagus beams are not stable, the supports are weak. There is damp, rain and corrosion," says Anatoly Gora, chief engineer of the entombment project, who has worked at Chernobyl since 1976, the year before the first of the four reactors was started up. "We still haven't decided on the new type of containment, but we've been preparing for 2 years. Nothing like this has ever been tried before. It's a one-off project."

The existing sarcophagus could not be welded or screwed down because the work was too dangerous, so there are gaps big enough to crawl through - and more than big enough for the radiation to seep through unseen.

"The situation is getting worse," says Oleg Goloskokov. "There were 200 tonnes of nuclear fuel in the reactor when it exploded. About 3 per cent of that was expelled in the blast. The rest is still inside, including 30 tonnes of radioactive dust. The sarcophagus is not sealed. A lot of snow and rain gets in - up to 3,000 cubic metres of water every year. There's a chance the roof could cave in. A highly radioactive solution of water, plutonium and uranium is constantly leaking out.

"It's a problem we have not solved, controlling the water and the dust. The nuclear fuel has to be extracted, controlled and buried. Otherwise there could be another accident. But that's a very difficult problem and it has never been attempted anywhere before."

Chain-smoking Kent cigarettes in his spacious office, Vitaly Tolstonogov, the Chernobyl director, glances up from working through a pile of papers with his expensive fountain pen and snorts: "The end? You think Chernobyl's closure is the end? It's only the beginning. A political decision has been taken to close us down. But that does not solve the problems here. We'll solve the problems eventually. It's just a question of how long it takes and how much money it costs."

But that is little comfort to Sasha Novikov. The nuclear physicist, who is married with two children, expects to be among the 3,000 people to lose their jobs tomorrow, along with his salary of $US250 a month: "We were heroes back then in the war. Now they've no use for us."

Novikov delivers a bitter and mischievous grin. "I suppose I can always go and work for Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. They're always looking for people like me and the money's a lot better."

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Sub Critical Test Scheduled Today

Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:48:53 -0800
From: Shundahai Network <shundahai@shundahai.org>

Hello everyone

I have just received word and it has been confirmed, Oboe 6 is being tested today. It is with blatent disrespect, that the DOE continues to violate our Mother Earth as well as disregard the Treaty of Ruby Valley.

Charles F Hilfenhaus of the Atomic Veterens wrote

The U.S. Department of Energy has scheduled the 12th in a series of subcritical nuclear experiments for Thursday, December 14, 2000 at the Nevada Test Site. Subcritical experiments produce scientific and technical information about nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. The replaced underground nuclear tests, which were halted in 1992. This subcritical test is named Oboe 6.

It was also confirmed by Sally Light of the Nevada Desert Experience...

"I just got an email from Derek. He's involved in DOE publicly announcing the "subcritical" nuclear tests 24-48 hours before the detonations.

He states that two weeks ago, the January date he gave me was the correct info., but that they subsequently changed it to 12/14/00. He never volunteers information - I always contact him. Over the last several years of "subcritical" testing, he's generally been very reliable about the "subcritical" timeframes, but I believe that DOE has just neatly trumped our attempt to get many people to the demonstration we always do at Bechtel in San Francisco on test days.

I've spoken with NTS public relations and they've stated that it was Livermore Lab that decided to detonate "Oboe 6" today, 12/14/00 and that NTS was also given very short notice by Livermore Lab of this decision."

When will this maddness end? There must be some way to put an end to all of this destruction. We must make our Earth safe for our children's children to come.

Many Blessings to all of you

SHUNDAHAI NETWORK "Peace and Harmony with all Creation" Po Box 6360, Pahrump, NV 89041 Phone:(775) 537-6088 Email: shundahai@shundahai.org http://www.shundahai.org

Shundahai Network is proud to be part of: US Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Abolition 2000: A Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons People of Color/Disenfranchised Communities Environmental Health Network and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

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

-------- california

U.S. Energy Chief Steps In, Keeps Lights On in California

San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Chronicle Staff Writers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/14/MN82445.DTL

California narrowly averted an unprecedented electricity crisis yesterday, including widespread rolling blackouts, only after the U.S. energy secretary exercised emergency authority and ordered 12 generating companies to sell power to California.

The generators, many based outside California, had refused to sell electricity to utilities such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. because they feared they would not be paid.

"Our objective is to keep the lights on," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

California's electricity problems had been marginally improving in recent days. Many generators returned to operation and put more power into the marketplace, and imports from other regions increased.

But a severe cold front in the northwest on Wednesday dropped imports from there to virtually zero.

When the 12 power companies balked later yesterday morning, officials who manage the state's electricity grid feared that by 1 p.m. they would be short of power by about 1,000 megawatts -- enough juice to power 1 million homes.

Officials estimated that by the peak demand period of 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., they would have a shortfall of 3,000 megawatts -- or 3 million homes. Had that occurred, it would have been the largest shortfall ever because of limited supply, officials of the California Independent System Operator said.

The ISO yesterday declared a Stage 2 power emergency, meaning that demand for electricity rose to within 5 percent of the actual supply. It was the 30th Stage 2 alert the ISO has called since May.

ELECTED OFFICIALS WORRIED

Gov. Gray Davis and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein expressed dismay that rising electricity prices were harming the state's economy.

Feinstein said growers were worried they would not be able to protect citrus orchards from freezes if there were no electricity. She also said she had received letters from workers who were laid off because their employers could not afford higher electricity costs.

In addition, Feinstein worried about the fallout if energy prices bankrupt California's two largest utilities, PG&E and Southern California Edison.

"They employ 100,000 people in the state," she said. "It would have a dramatic ripple effect on the economy."

In other developments Wednesday:

-- John Bryson, the chief executive of Edison International, called for the full-scale re-regulation of California's electricity system;

-- Standard & Poors warned it might downgrade PG&E's and Edison's creditworthiness, making it more difficult and expensive for them to borrow money;

-- The president of the California Public Utilities Commission, Loretta Lynch, reversed its stance and said it would consider raising retail electricity rates and ending rate freezes even though they were frozen by law under deregulation, taking note of the companies' precarious financial stability.

Richardson's order, announced after noon on the West Coast, and other emergency measures helped avert what otherwise would have been rolling blackouts throughout the state affecting millions of households. The order, combined with other emergency measures, succeeded in drawing about 5,000 more megawatts of power into the state to cover peak demand, the ISO said.

GENERATORS FEAR CREDIT RISK

The power companies that generate electricity and sell it to California had refused to do so earlier in the day out of fears that the state's investor- owned utilities -- PG&E and Southern California Edison -- would not be able to pay their bills.

Wholesale power costs have risen to unseen levels in California in recent weeks as supply has tightened, from $30 in July 1999 to more than $1,400 per megawatt hour for power delivered during peak times on Wednesday. As a result, the utilities have piled on billions of dollars in debt to continue paying the bills.

In fact, PG&E has warned it may soon run out of money and the ability to secure more credit to continue buying power.

Davis, who was in Washington to plead California's case with officials of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, tried to put public pressure on FERC officials to help repair the dysfunctional California market.

"Because of the extraordinarily high prices being charged our utilities, bankruptcy is a distinct possibility," said Davis, appearing at a news conference with Richardson and Feinstein. "The lights will go off if FERC does not act."

FERC ACTION EXPECTED

Feinstein and Davis asked FERC to establish an immediate region-wide wholesale price cap to prevent generators from playing states off one another to get the highest price for their electricity.

They also asked FERC to mandate long-term contracts between privately owned electricity generators and utilities that would prevent price fluctuations.

FERC is expected to issue a final order addressing California's electricity crisis tomorrow.

James Hoecker, FERC's chairman, who has taken much of the wrath from Davis and other officials, said he could not comment on what action the board would take.

"As you can see, FERC is a small agency with a large responsibility," he said. "I believe that the commission is going to take strong action soon. I want to assure people that FERC will be part of the solution, not part of the problem."

It was a day of dubious firsts. Secretary Richardson, speaking at a news conference in Washington, said he had never before enacted emergency authority, granted under the Federal Power Act, and added that it had been used extremely rarely in the past.

He also said he would determine a fair rate at which the generators would sell power to California, rather than the astronomical prices for which it has been going in the last few days.

The 12 Tight-Fisted Power Generators

The following companies were identified by the Davis administration yesterday as having refused to supply California with more power unless they received cash payments in advance or other guarantees they would be paid:

-- Dynegy Power Marketing
-- Trans Alta
-- Eugene Water and Electric
-- PowerEx (British Columbia Hydro)
-- Public Service Colorado
-- Enron Power Marketing
-- Portland General
-- Avista (Washington Water Power)
-- Idaho Power Co.
-- PPL Montana
-- Seattle City Light
-- Puget Sound Energy

E-mail Christian Berthelsen at cberthelsen@sfchronicle.com and Lynda Gledhill at lgledhill@sfchronicle.com.

---

In Crisis, California to Force Big Utilities to Supply Power

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/national/14POWE.html

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 13 - California's power crisis deepened today as some big electricity generating companies refused to sell power to the state's financially ailing utilities, prompting Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to say that he would invoke rarely used emergency powers and force them to ship the desperately needed power.

Under the measures, about a dozen power producers in the West and Northwest would have to provide power to California's utilities at a price the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would determine.

Mr. Richardson, backed by Gov. Gray Davis of California, said the price would be fair, but, he added, "I will not allow them to unjustly profit from these conditions."

The day's events suggested that a sudden cascade of financial and market developments were threatening the entire power system in California and may have spelled the doom of the market's short-lived experiment with deregulation. It was a harsh blow to those who had backed the state's pioneering, and now disastrous, energy deregulation plan, which was supposed to have been a boon to consumers.

Prices have been skyrocketing this year because of severe shortages, and the system has been barely fending off rolling blackouts, which loomed here again this afternoon.

Now several of the state's largest utilities, like Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric, have said they face bankruptcy if something is not done to bring down the unprecedented prices they are being forced to pay for their power on the wholesale market.

For instance, a Pacific Gas and Electric spokesman said the company had been paying as much as 25 cents a kilowatt-hour for power that it is selling to customers, by law, at about 5 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Because of the losses they are sustaining, the utilities have had their credit ratings downgraded sharply, prompting some of the power generators to refuse to sell them electricity out of concern the companies might never pay for it.

Adding to the problems, the organization that was created to operate the power supply system, the Independent System Operator, declared a Stage 2 alert, which means that it had moved dangerously close to running out of power. In the afternoon, the organization said it might be edging toward a Stage 3 alert, when rolling blackouts would have been required. A Stage 2 alert means that the system has only 5 percent more power than is being used, a low margin of safety. The Stage 3 alert means the margin is down to 1.5 percent, which requires utilities to shut down blocks in their grids for one hour at a time.

The state had its first Stage 3 alert last Thursday and just managed to avoid blackouts by shutting down some large state-run pump stations.

Some areas would not be affected. Cities like Los Angeles and Sacramento, for instance, have municipal power companies with their own ample generating capacity. Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power said today that it was selling surpluses to other utilities.

After the crisis-like atmosphere that prevailed throughout the day, the chairman of one of the state's largest utilities reversed his earlier stand and declared deregulation a disaster that had to be ended quickly.

"This situation is not sustainable," said the official, John E. Bryson, of Edison International, the parent of Southern California Edison. "The new market structure is broken and must be discarded."

He added that the company, which had already been forced to pay more than $3.5 billion for its power above what it has been able to charge customers, might have to ration power to its customers in the southern portion of the state.

Jan Smutny-Jones, the executive director of the Independent Energy Producers Association, which represents most of the state's power generating companies, denied that his members were price gouging and said that an unfortunate series of events had brought about the crisis. These included, he said, soaring prices for natural gas, which is used at many big generating plants, and the fact that many plants are shut down for repairs or other problems.

---

Imports Help Calif. Power Grid Limp Through Day

Yahoo News
Top Stories News
Thursday December 14 7:21 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001214/ts/utilities_california_dc_8.html

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Power suppliers in the Pacific Northwest continued to ship badly-needed electricity south to California Thursday, helping the state to limp through its eleventh consecutive day of emergencies on the grid.

The Bonneville Power Administration, a federal power marketing agency, tapped supplies from big hydroelectric dams in Oregon and Washington to ship power south, said California power officials.

The California Independent System Operator (ISO), which manages most of the state's grid, said 3,000 to 4,000 megawatts was flowing into the state Thursday afternoon to boost supplies for the peak evening demand hours from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. That is enough energy for up to 4 million homes.

The volume was 1,000 megawatts less than the emergency shipments ordered Wednesday by U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to enable California to prevent the breakdown of the entire grid and rolling blackouts across the state.

Richardson acted Wednesday after power suppliers threatened to halt sales to California for fear they might not be paid by the state's biggest utilities, now strapped by more than $8 billion in power costs.

To keep the lights on in the state, Richardson said the federal government would require all generators and marketers to sell power to California at set prices.

Kellan Fluckiger, chief operating officer of the ISO, said the agency also received emergency help Thursday from California's municipal utilities and the state's Department of Water Resources, which turned off electrical pumps in the central valley water project to save power.

State and federal office buildings also dimmed lights to conserve megawatts and the ISO continued to plead for voluntary reductions by all Californians, including keeping holiday lighting displays dark until after 7 p.m.

Despite these actions, however, the grid was still on emergency footing and the ISO did not rule out the possibility of cutting off some industrial customers Thursday evening to protect the power system.

The ISO reported that 8,300 megawatts of in-state generating capacity was out of service Thursday -- 3,600 megawatts for scheduled maintenance and the balance idled for emergency repairs.

Fluckiger said California's power plants are rapidly becoming more prone to breakdowns because they have been working overtime since last spring to meet the high demand for electricity caused by a strong economy and growing population.

He said the plants, many of them built 30 to 40 years ago, are running too hard to keep up with demand.

``This means they will have more breakdowns because they just cannot keep operating at this pace,'' he said.

-------- new mexico

Discarded Tapes Checked for Los Alamos Link

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/national/14LAB.html

Federal officials said yesterday that investigators had found several tapes in a landfill outside Los Alamos, N.M., and were analyzing them to see if any had been discarded by Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who told of filling computer tapes with nuclear secrets and then throwing them in the trash.

The suspect tapes are cassettes, officials said, and thus resemble those on which Dr. Lee illegally downloaded highly sensitive weapons data.

But a preliminary analysis so far indicates that none of the tapes are Dr. Lee's, federal officials said yesterday, adding that further inquiry might reverse the tentative finding.

"They have clearly found something," said one official, who added that only detailed analysis by the Federal Bureau of Investigation would tell if any of the recovered tapes could help solve one of the case's central mysteries.

On Monday, officials said they had asked the Los Alamos laboratory to help analyze some of the tapes.

Julie Habiger, a spokeswoman for Los Alamos County, said the F.B.I. started digging at the dump site on Nov. 28, and finished last Friday, breaking for weekends and working a total of nine days.

Workers, Mrs. Habiger said, used bulldozers and hand rakes to comb through piles of trash, and security agents still guard the site continuously.

Mrs. Habiger said F.B.I. workers did not return to the landfill on Monday and, instead, agents told the county they were finished for now.

The hunt started after Dr. Lee told investigators as part of a plea agreement with the government in September that he had thrown the tapes in the garbage and that they had probably ended up in the landfill.

Dr. Lee, a former weapon scientist at Los Alamos, had originally been charged in a 59-count indictment with illegally downloading a wealth of weapons data with the intention of aiding a foreign nation and harming the United States.

Dr. Lee spent more than nine months in solitary confinement and was described as a major risk to national security.

But the government dropped almost its entire case, and Dr. Lee pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling secrets.

Dr. Lee won his freedom and agreed to explain why he had downloaded the data and what had happened to the tapes, at least seven of which are missing.

After Dr. Lee told of throwing the tapes in the trash, F.B.I. agents determined roughly where the laboratory's garbage bins were emptied at the landfill and began searching there two weeks ago.

The tapes are regarded by the government as having major importance and have been the focus of an enormous investigation, both to preserve them and to keep them from enemy hands. In court hearings, the tapes were described as containing data that could aid the building of advanced nuclear weapons.

On the tapes, or at least on one of them, was a virtual library of nuclear weapons testing and design data that Dr. Lee admitted to having created over many years.

As part of his plea deal, Dr. Lee agreed to meet with government investigators for 10 sessions up to six hours each and to answer all their questions about his illegal downloading and other activities. He had his 9th and 10th sessions Monday and Tuesday this week.

-------- tennessee

TVA Chairman Announces Retirement

Associated Press
December 14, 2000 Filed at 9:26 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-TVA-Chairman.html

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country's largest public power provider, said Thursday he will retire in April.

Craven Crowell, 57, a Clinton appointee and former colleague of Vice President Al Gore, will retire with nearly a year remaining on his nine-year term, making way for President-elect Bush to name a new chairman.

The head of the federal agency is always appointed by the president, and is typically chosen from the same political party. TVA board members are subject to confirmation by the Senate.

While Crowell's announcement came a day after Gore conceded the election, he said his decision was personal and had not been made under pressure.

``This is not the kind of decision you make without giving it a great deal of thought ... I plan to have another career, and maybe another one after that,'' he told The Associated Press.

Crowell, who was city editor at The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville in the 1970s while Gore was a reporter, said he had not told Gore of his decision.

Crowell's tenure has been marked by a major effort to pay down TVA's multibillion-dollar debt, restore its nuclear power program, maintain stable electric rates and launch a green power energy program.

TVA is a self-financing government corporation created as part of the New Deal in 1933 to improve the economy of the Tennessee Valley. It provides electricity to nearly 8 million people in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

The agency also manages flood control, river navigation and shoreline along the 652-mile Tennessee River.

-------- us nuc politics

Hello, World
A Foreign Policy Novice, But Bush Has Principles

Dec. 14
ABC News
By David Storey Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/world_policy001214.html

George W. Bush, meets with retired Gen. Colin Powell, right, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Nov. 30. Powell is expected to be secretary of state in Bush's administration. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
http://a1188.g.akamai.net/7/1188/810/14c5a1eec3f3e4/download.akamai.com/reuters/abc.gif

WASHINGTON, - George W. Bush, who takes over as U.S. president in January after squeaking through a protracted contest with Democrat Al Gore, did not get the job for his foreign policy expertise.

The Texas governor, wealthy son of a former president who had served as ambassador to China and as CIA Director, has shown little interest in the world outside the United States, traveling abroad only a handful of times in his 54 years.

But since the Nov. 7 election, he has publicly given special attention to foreign policy, perhaps to assure a nervous world that despite weeks of uncertainty over the result there will be no hiatus in U.S. policy.

He will choose his national security team from a pool of well-seasoned advisers, including retired Army Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state, to make up for his inexperience and boost his legitimacy after a knife-edge election win.

In a campaign dominated by domestic issues Bush staked out some principles on which his foreign policy would differ with that of outgoing President Bill Clinton, in particular a greater reluctance to intervene in foreign conflicts.

Bush will to continue U.S. commitment to free trade and to NATO, although he worried European allies by suggesting withdrawing U.S. peacekeeping forces from the Balkans, saying American troops are for "fighting wars" not peacekeeping.

He says he will maintain tough sanctions on Iraq and engagement with China, although he sees the communist giant more as a "strategic competitor" than as a "strategic partner" and promises more emphasis on traditional ties with Japan.

Old Friends, Old Foes

Bush has a host of foreign policy advisers, many of whom served his father and former President Ronald Reagan and will recall some of the enduring foes, like Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, from the old days.

Many analysts believe a more pronounced "America-first" attitude adopted by some of those advisers, particularly those who built their careers during the Cold War, could emerge, contrasting with a globalist approach under Clinton.

This could be encouraged by some powerful isolationist members in the Republican-led Congress.

In his first interview after the election, Bush sought to dispel such fears, going out of his way to stress the U.S. must accept its responsibilities in the world, not retreat into isolationism, and build up the major alliances.

"America can't go it alone," he told CBS television's 60 Minutes II. "The principal threat facing America is isolationism," he said, adding: "We've got to build our alliances, we've got to work with our friends."

Arms Ahoy

Bush has vowed to press ahead with a controversial National Missile Defense system, expanding it to protect not just the U.S. but also U.S. allies and troops around the world, despite threats from Russia that it would wreck existing international arms treaties.

Bush's comments have prompted concern in Moscow that the era of formal arms agreements, a basis of world stability during the Cold War, may be over and that a Bush White House would move toward a more unilateralist strategy.

Bush also supports Congress's decision last year not to ratify the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was seen by many allies as undermining U.S. leadership in the struggle to halt the spread of nuclear weapons in the world.

His close aide, Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to become his national security adviser, said the treaty would inhibit the U.S. in maintaining its own nuclear stockpile and would do little to stop the proliferation of such weapons.

Apparently to head off fears that as president he might encourage an American swagger, Bush says the U.S. must show humility while being firm in its principles.

Arrogant America

The U.S. role in the world must be "not an arrogant presence, but a humble presence, yet a consistent presence," he said in the 60 Minutes II interview.

The message would be: "When we say something, we mean it, and we're going to back up our word. We have great opportunities to help make the world more peaceful, but we can't do so if we become isolationists," he said.

Attacks on U.S. interests abroad would prompt a tough response, he said, saying: "The best way for our nation and other free nations is to punish those who would harm our citizens."

Referring specifically to the bombing of the USS Cole warship at Aden in October, which has been linked to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, he said: "If we find out who did it, there's going to be a consequence."

Rice, a Russia expert who served with Bush's father, President George Bush, has condemned Clinton's Moscow policy as based on "a romantic view of Russia" in the 1990s.

"Pouring IMF funding into an unreformed and corrupt economy in fact weakened Russia and helped to lead to the 1998 crash," she said in an interview earlier this year.

She said Washington must support "real economic reform, not pretend economic reform," although she did not elaborate. In President Vladimir Putin, Bush will have to deal with a leader apparently intent on reviving Russia's lost world clout.

One of the strongest points Bush repeated during his year-and-a-half of campaigning for the presidency has been a belief that Clinton has sent U.S. troops abroad too often, weakening the U.S. military's core role to defend America.

Leave Regional Conflicts Alone

He and Rice have said he would let regional allies take the strain in regional conflicts, like the Balkans, while massing force to overwhelm enemies in major conflicts directly affecting the U.S., like in the Gulf or in East Asia.

This matches the approach of the charismatic and widely respected Powell, who directed U.S. forces in the Gulf War.

Bush has generally adopted a similar approach to the Middle East as Clinton and Gore.

On one significant point they differ-Bush says he will begin preparations for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv once he is inaugurated, while Clinton argues this should await a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One issue that will confront Bush immediately will be North Korea, the Stalinist Asian wild card whose nuclear program and unrestrained sale of missiles to potential U.S. enemies made it a top priority for Clinton's national security team.

Clinton spent years brokering a deal to defuse its nuclear program and appears on the brink of a missile agreement, but some Republicans have accused him of appeasement and Bush will be under pressure to take a more cautious approach.

---

A Shift on U.S. Security Policy

International Herald Tribune
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Joseph Fitchett International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/4259.htm

PARIS The first actions abroad by the next U.S. president, George W. Bush, are bound to bring surprises for the partners and adversaries of the United States because he revealed so little during the campaign about his international priorities.

Mr. Bush seems committed to some initiatives - notably national missile defense - that would impose painful choices on the European allies, Russia and China. While shunning radical rhetoric, Mr. Bush - more accurately, the advisers around him - intend to move steadily toward the deployment of a much bigger anti-missile system than the one postponed last summer by President Bill Clinton.

Politically, this U.S. move signals a much wider shift in thinking on security policy, toward an approach that will rely more on U.S. power and less on international cooperation enshrined in arms control agreements. Those deals, particularly on nuclear weapons, underpinned restraint by the two superpowers in the Cold War. But the Bush team sees less value in such deals in an era where the threats come from smaller and more volatile nations.

Mr. Bush may also take a more unilateral approach in dealing with international financial crises, a major success of Mr. Clinton's foreign policy. The new team hopes to head off trouble by early moves, and by reviving closer working ties with a few key allies, like Japan.

Mr. Bush's foreign policy views never came into clear focus during the campaign. But that could change quickly after the divisive election, as the new president quickly embraces the special authority of his office in foreign affairs. Even though the Republicans will control the White House and Congress, diplomacy may be an area where Mr. Bush can seek early momentum to avoid the gridlock that has dogged Washington in recent years.

Overall, advisers to Mr. Bush have made clear, his administration would move to define U.S. interests more sharply than its predecessor, and then defend that agenda more aggressively.

Their approach was apparently foreshadowed last week when Washington suddenly adopted a harsher tone toward the military ambitions of the European Union, warning that the United States would rethink its NATO commitments unless the EU agreed to raise defense spending and align its defense preparations more closely with the alliance.

In contrast to this more hard-nosed, narrowly defined sense of U.S. interests, Mr. Clinton through his two terms took the view that the best protection for the United States lay in promoting multinational cooperation across the board: from NATO to international financial institutions, from environmental concerns to the battle against AIDS.

In putting new emphasis on strong U.S. national leadership, Washington would be more inclined to press unilateral initiatives, sometimes defying the lack of international consensus or even allied support.

In Europe and Asia, officials phrase their edginess about the Bush team as a question: How far does the world's only superpower feel it can go in ignoring allies as its pursues its own objectives?

French and other European officials have expressed concern about a tendency in Washington to believe that whatever seems right in the United States should be accepted by the rest of the world as good for them. The price of U.S. leadership, European officials maintain, should be shared trans-Atlantic risks in peacekeeping and shared universal rules in globalization.

Advisers to Mr. Bush insist that they want to take a more coherent, consistent approach that will ultimately be more effective in providing a clear road-map for how the U.S. intends to help allies and thwart adversaries.

One check on a Bush administration's actions would be the financial markets and the danger of jeopardizing the world's economic boom. No matter how strongly they resent Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, for example, the Bush team would hesitate about actions against Baghdad for fear of upsetting world oil supplies.

To help fend off accusations about his international inexperience, Mr. Bush spent time this past month, during the suspense about the voting results, with Colin Powell, the retired army general and likely secretary of state in Bush administration.

General Powell is one of a team of veteran policymakers who worked closely with Mr. Bush's father when he was president and are comfortable wielding power.

Their combination of experience and pragmatism may produce some surprises. In waging the Gulf War, General Powell, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, imposed a doctrine of using overwhelming force to minimize U.S. casualties. This approach has inhibited subsequent, less-decisive U.S. military interventions, including in Kosovo.

Now, Washington insiders ask, will General Powell find innovative new ways to accomplish tough jobs, without resorting to the overwhelming U.S. force he prefers? For example, eager to reduce the peacekeeping burden on U.S. forces, he could use his stature to turn around congressional objections and back UN peacekeeping as a cheaper, better alternative to using U.S. troops.

Supporters of Mr. Bush have signaled changes in style or substance in U.S. foreign policy in several key areas, including these:

•NATO. The Bush team has already signaled that it wants to reduce the peacekeeping role of U.S. forces so that they can concentrate on readiness for major wars. A logical suggestion would involve a deal in which the planned European Union rapid-reaction force would take over peacekeeping in Kosovo and Bosnia.

This approach would ease U.S. concerns about European Union ambitions to play a military role by giving the Europeans a practical mission, under NATO.

Agreement on this concrete step would allow time, perhaps two years, for a Bush administration and the European allies to work out the unfinished business of defining relations between the European Union and NATO. Overall, a Bush administration would take a tougher line with Europe on the need for the allies to spend more on military modernization and follow the U.S. lead toward more high-technology warfare. A critical unknown is a Bush administration's readiness to back trans-Atlantic mergers in the defense industry as a way to motivate European initiative.

•National Missile Defense. A Bush administration would almost certainly start moving to end a 1972 treaty with Moscow that prohibits anti-missile defenses.

Most European allies fear that a Bush administration would underestimate the risk of a backlash in Moscow and new militarism in Russia. But advisers to Mr. Bush have said the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin will agree to treaty changes as the price of good relations with Washington.

•China. A Bush administration would act to counter Beijing's military threats to Taiwan, one of the most dangerous flashpoints for U.S. security interests. Beijing objects strongly to U.S. plans to deploy missile defenses, which it fears could be extended to protect Taiwan. Initially, a Bush administration would try to emphasize newly institutionalized trade ties. Any hopes of revisiting the anti-missile issue would depend on North Korea's performance in curbing its own missile program, the other major issue in the region.

•The Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be the priority issue unless Mr. Clinton pulls off a peace agreement in his remaining weeks in office. The Bush team has ties to the Arab world, especially through Mr. Bush's father, who as president led the coalition that won the Gulf War and then worked on the foundations for a regional Arab-Israeli peace.

In confronting Baghdad, a Bush administration would have no obvious alternative to the current policy of containment. The new team may encourage support for dissident Iraqi factions, but a new military action to topple Mr. Saddam would run counter to the Bush team's emphasis on clear-cut campaigns with an exit strategy.

The most intriguing possibility involves Iran: A Bush administration might open toward Tehran in hopes of finding an ally against Baghdad and also of creating a shorter, more economical pipeline to the oil wealth at the Caspian Sea.

---

Ridge says he'll serve out term
But he said he would have to consider a cabinet offer if Bush were to extend one.

Philadelphia Inquirer
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By Amy Worden INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/12/14/national/RIDGE14.htm

HARRISBURG - With Gov. Ridge's name surfacing again for secretary of defense, he yesterday maintained his intention to serve out his term but did not fully close the door on a cabinet post.

"It's flattering speculation about a possible offer, but, as I said in July, I would complete my term," he said at a news conference.

"That was my decision then. That is my decision now. If Governor, now President-elect, Bush chooses to call and offer a position, I will entertain it, but I think he's got a very deep bench.

"He's got plenty of ready, willing and able and very competent people to serve with him, who are very, very anxious to serve with him. And I think, I suspect, he will probably go to that bench."

Bush advisers said yesterday that former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats was now the leading, but not the only, candidate to be defense secretary.

Ridge said he had spoken to Bush two times since the election.

"I've talked to him twice personally just as a friend, not as a would-be member of his administration in any capacity," Ridge said.

Political analysts say Ridge must remain noncommittal because of the intense national focus on this particular cabinet post.

"You can't campaign for vice president, and you can't campaign for cabinet," said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Millersville University. "This is the most important cabinet post next to state."

Ridge has deflected speculation about a cabinet job since July, when he announced that he had opted out of consideration for the vice president's job, weeks before Bush selected Dick Cheney as his running mate.

Some say Ridge, known for his support for abortion rights and his opposition as a member of Congress to high-profile defense initiatives, could face a difficult road to confirmation.

"He has a checkered record to some conservatives who will jump on his support of a nuclear freeze and his opposition to the 'Star Wars' missile-defense system," Madonna said.

Ridge, 55, and a decorated Vietnam veteran, is already facing opposition from right-wing interest groups.

"He was unhelpful in the Reagan years," said Gary Bauer, founder of the Campaign for Working Families and Reagan's domestic policy adviser.

Bauer said yesterday that his group had expressed its views on Ridge and other candidates in letters and e-mail to the Bush transition team. "We would like to find someone who is pro-defense," Bauer said. "Ridge was a thorn in our side on defense issues."

Amy Worden's e-mail address is aworden@phillynews.com

---

Clinton Reminds Leaders of Their Duty to the Poor

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By MARC LACEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/world/14CND-PREXY.html

COVENTRY, England, Dec. 14 - Laying out some of the challenges that will face the world after he leaves office, President Clinton today wound up what may be his final overseas trip as president with a plea to developed countries not to forget the poor in this era of high technology and globalization.

"No generation has ever had the opportunity that all of us now have to build a global economy that leaves no one behind and, in the process, to create a new century of peace and prosperity in a world that is more constructively and truly independent," Mr. Clinton told several hundred people at the University of Warwick, which has an institute that specializes in global issues.

"It is a wonderful opportunity," Mr. Clinton said of the spread of trade, communications and computer technology throughout the globe. "It is also a profound responsibility."

Mr. Clinton, who was to fly back to Washington late tonight, spent the morning in London, where he and Hillary Rodham Clinton had tea, coffee and cookies for about 20 minutes with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

Presidential aides are still mulling whether Mr. Clinton ought to make a trip to North Korea but that visit grows more unlikely by the day. So this may have been the final trip beyond the United States borders by the president who has traveled more than any other. It was Mr. Clinton's seventh trip to Britain, where he has established a close bond with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"Bill Clinton has been a true leader of the western world," Mr. Blair said in introducing the president, not long after he telephoned congratulations to the next one, President-elect George W. Bush. The prime minister noted that Mr. Clinton has "been a friend and confidant to me and leaders around the world.

In his foreign policy speech today, Mr. Clinton urged wealthy countries to consider forgiving the debts of nations in the developing world and to ensure that the "digital divide" is reduced between countries connected to computers and those left behind in the computer age.

"It's fair to ask, I suppose, are computers really an answer for people who are starving or can't yet read?" Mr. Clinton asked. "Is e-commerce an answer for villages that don't even have electricity? Of course, I wouldn't say that.

"We have to begin with the basics. But there should not be a choice between Pentium and penicillin."

The president, who often touts rosy statistics showing prosperity spreading throughout the world, focused today on the many problems that will outlast his presidency. He said half the world's people are struggling to survive on less than $2 a day, that nearly 1 billion live in chronic hunger, that half the children in the poorest countries are not in school and almost a billion adults have never learned to read.

Mr. Clinton has made globalization the foreign policy theme of much of his presidency, pursuing a free-trade agenda resisted by many critics, some of them members of his own party. That resistance, Mr. Clinton said, does not indicate flaws in globalization itself but rather a thoughtless approach to breaking down barriers among nations.

"The great question before us is not whether globalization will proceed, but how," the president said. "And what is our responsibility in the developed world to try to shape this process so that it lifts people in all nations."

Mr. Clinton largely steered clear of many high-profile issues the world will face in the years to come - the spread of terrorism, the effects of a missile shield, the role of peacekeepers stationed around the globe. Today, he focused on matters that often fall below the radar screens of foreign ministries - like the dangers of climate change, the national security threat that AIDS presents and the importance that education and school lunches can play in stabilizing a country.

White House aides said that the president's speech was aimed at leaders the world over, not at Mr. Clinton's successor, who comes to the job with modest credentials in foreign affairs.

"President Clinton made the transition from governor to world leader and it will be up to President-elect Bush to make that same transition," said P.J. Crowley, the president's national security spokesman. "He will, because the president of the United States has a unique mantle as a world leader. I don't think anyone will question that the United States will stay engaged. The question is how do you handle the challenges we all face?"

---

World Congratulates Bush

Associated Press
December 14, 2000 Filed at 5:09 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Election-World-Reaction.html

LONDON (AP) -- The world's presidents, prime ministers and monarchs showered President-elect George W. Bush with congratulations Thursday, but some leaders worried over his plans for a missile shield and his promise to defend Taiwan.

Despite the closeness of the U.S. vote and the five extra weeks it took America to determine a president, there were mainly kind words for the man a German official called ``the most important person for the most important and powerful country in the world.''

``The world needs a strong America and America is strong today, and I'm sure under President-elect Bush it will continue to be so,'' said British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

A number of British newspapers, however, made snide references to Bush's reputation for lacking a deep knowledge of foreign affairs. The tabloid Mirror had a front-page photo of Earth, with an arrow pointing to Britain: ``Congrats on becoming the president, Dubya ... P.S. We are here.''

But a Russian politician, Dmitry Rogozin, welcomed the possibility that the new administration would be more inward-looking.

A Bush administration ``will focus its attention on the solution of their own problems, on the strengthening of domestic security, and will not assume the role of a global Messiah, which Democrats sometimes liked to do,'' Rogozin told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

``People in Russia have hope that Republicans will not care how Russia acts on Chechnya, on human rights,'' said Liliya Shevtsova of the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office. ``The Bush policy will have less idealism. It will be calculated and not be sentimental toward Russia.''

During his campaign, Bush alarmed China by pledging to defend Taiwan if it were attacked and to build up military ties with the island. Such vocal support was more explicit than any U.S. president has given in years.

While offering ``warm congratulations'' to Bush, Chinese President Jiang Zemin telegraphed China's misgivings about his policies. Jiang reiterated his view that relations must adhere to three U.S.-China communiques -- agreements that Beijing says commit Washington to recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.

Washington and Beijing also are at odds over human rights, weapons sales and trade.

Bush has strongly supported a missile defense shield, a project that has disturbed some allies.

NATO's secretary-general, Lord Robertson, indicated Thursday that he hoped for no sudden moves to go ahead with the controversial and unproven system.

``I have no doubt that the new administration would want to look at some of the technical issues that are involved here,'' Robertson told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. ``But what I do know is that there is a commitment to consult other NATO allies.''

In France, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin expressed hope for the future, but he also touched on the challenge Bush faces in the coming months.

``Gore won the popular vote by 300,000,'' Jospin said. ``There was not a recount in Florida, so there will always be some uncertainty'' about who the real winner was.

Still, others cautioned that to dismiss Bush's potential would be a mistake.

``Don't underestimate the possibility of a president under those circumstances,'' said Karsten Voigt, the German government's coordinator for relations with the United States. ``We would be well advised to accept the fact and start from the assumption that this is still the most important person for the most important and powerful country in the world.''

There was a strong view in the Middle East that the outcome of the election would make little difference in U.S. policy, which has supported Israel through Republican and Democratic administrations.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak remarked last month: ``It makes no difference to me whether Bush or Gore wins.''

On Thursday, he sent Bush a message saying he looked forward to mutual cooperation ``to reach a just and permanent peace in the Middle East.''

Kuwaitis were more enthusiastic, having rooted for the son of the president who led the international coalition that drove the Iraqi army out of their country in 1991.

``The word `Bush' has become a part of Kuwaiti culture,'' said Abdullah Sahar, a political scientist at Kuwait University. ``We want to return the favor, even if it is only by good wishes.''

Bush's victory was good news for the church in Messing, a village 50 miles northeast of London, where Reynold Bush lived before emigrating to Massachusetts in 1631.

The win gives All Saints church another chance to sell coffee mugs made in the 1980s that proclaim: ``Messing: birthplace of Reynold Bush, ancestor of George Bush, President of the USA.''

---

Man in the News: The 43rd President, George Walker Bush

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/politics/14BMAN.html

AUSTIN, Tex., Dec. 13 - Gov. George W. Bush cast his quest for the presidency as a stand against poisonous Washington - its gridlock, its scandals, its bruising partisanship - and in the very last week of his campaign he was barnstorming under bright banners that promised, "Bringing America Together."

But as Mr. Bush was finally able to claim a belated and minuscule victory over Vice President Al Gore, after a debilitating month of bare-knuckled court fighting, it was as if he had somehow crossed through the looking glass.

In the contested aftermath of Election Day, the man who presented himself as a Texas outsider turned to the ultimate Washington insiders to secure his victory. James A. Baker III, Dick Cheney and Andrew H. Card, all from Mr. Bush's father's administration, became the faces of the Bush presidency in waiting, and Theodore B. Olson, the capital's reigning conservative litigator, argued the case at the Supreme Court.

Far from calming the flames of partisanship, Mr. Bush's struggle for victory against Mr. Gore fanned them to an intensity not seen since President Clinton's impeachment. And suddenly Mr. Bush seemed lassoed to the Congressional leaders whom he had once kept so carefully at a distance, as they thundered on his behalf against the "unelected judges" of Florida who were rendering verdicts about the vote.

Now George Walker Bush, 54, comes into office as only the fourth man in history - and the first in more than a century - to assume the presidency without winning the popular vote. Like the only other son of a president to win the office himself, John Quincy Adams in 1824 (who had fewer popular votes than Andrew Jackson), Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in a disputed election to a Tennessean. Indeed, Mr. Bush won office with 271 electoral votes, just one more than the minimum.

Mr. Bush is not facing personal scandal, as President Clinton did. But his situation may be just as searing politically, for Mr. Bush ultimately won through a bruising legal battle over the 25 electoral votes in a state run by his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida. It was a fight that was finally decided by nine Supreme Court justices, who split bitterly over the issue.

With his speech tonight from the Texas House of Representatives, Mr. Bush began trying to pull the nation together after this grueling ordeal, choosing the House because it is a chamber where the Democrats have a majority. He quoted the words of Thomas Jefferson who won the presidency in 1800 only after 36 ballots in the House of Representatives.

And he said that the rancor and strange circumstances of his election could lead to healing and help him bring the warring Congressional leaders together.

"I am optimistic that we can change the tone in Washington, D.C.," Mr. Bush said. "I believe things happen for a reason, and I hope the long wait of the last five weeks will heighten a desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the past."

Republicans say Mr. Bush's quick instincts about people and his years of reaching across the aisle in Texas have prepared him for this moment.

"It will take extraordinary effort, but you know, he's known for that," said Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, who was one of Mr. Bush's Republican primary opponents. "When he took over in Texas it wasn't exactly a Republican paradise. He's worked well with Democrats."

But on Capitol Hill, Democratic partisans suggest that the bitterness will not evaporate overnight.

"There will always be this sense that there was some larceny involved in this election," said Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut.

Indeed, it is hard to see how Mr. Bush can claim any mandate at all, a blow to his once confident prediction that his disciplined repetition of a campaign agenda would allow him to say: "This is what the American people have heard. This is what the American people want."

The extraordinary political divide in Congress only magnifies Mr. Bush's problems, with the Senate split 50-50 and the House lineup of 221 Republicans, 210 Democrats, 2 independents and a vacancy, giving the majority party one of the smallest margins in a century.

Under these circumstances, and with the economy showing signs of slowing, even members of Congress from Mr. Bush's own party say the next few years will be a time for incremental compromise - not for his grand plans for a sweeping tax cut or for diverting some Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts.

Yet Republicans from the conservative wing of the party are practically bursting with pent-up desires to pass a conservative agenda. "The things we have been dreaming about we can now do unfettered," Representative Tom DeLay, the hard-driving House majority whip from Texas said recently, though he added, "hopefully with bipartisan Democratic support."

A Leader Lacking Definition

Mr. Bush's path to the Oval Office has left him with only a small reserve of governing experience to draw upon as he tries to navigate these shoals.

Born on July 6, 1946, Mr. Bush drifted through much of his adult life, from oil ventures to partial ownership of a baseball team, until he won his first political office six years ago. Though he was himself the son of a president, his own mother did not expect him to win that race, against a formidable Texas governor, Ann Richards.

Mr. Bush may well prove again - as he did in that Texas race and in this year's presidential debates - that people underestimate him. But because of the partisan animosities that have hardened over the past five weeks no one in Washington is expecting Mr. Bush to have any honeymoon. He will quickly be forced to define who he is, how flexible he is, whether he will be an ideologue, a pragmatist of something in between.

Whatever he does will be revealing because even after almost 17 months on the campaign trail before the inconclusive Election Day, the amiable Mr. Bush remained something of a political Rorschach test, rounding off the edges of ideology and image enough for voters to see in him what they wanted to see. And even after this postelection interval the picture became no clearer. He kept such a low profile, at his Texas ranch or in the Texas Capitol, that his running mate, Mr. Cheney, was forced to fend off questions about whether he was really the one in charge.

At times during the campaign, Mr. Bush simply seemed to be selling his infectious optimism to the point that it almost did not seem to matter how much he tortured the English language or what he was really trying to say. The cheers did not stop at one Wisconsin rally even as Mr. Bush twisted a sentence into a sunny but nonsensical knot, proclaiming, "Families is where our nation takes hope, where wings take dream."

Is he a principled conservative or a pragmatic deal-maker? A brash and politically savvy Texas outsider or a privileged Ivy Leaguer plugged into his father's old-boy network? A clever politician tapping into the nation's anti-elitism or a defiant anti-intellectual uninterested in the fine points of policy and ideas?

In some ways the lack of definition might be a blessing now, allowing him to adjust to the divided nation.

Over the course of his campaign, Mr. Bush created a new Republican synthesis; he ran against Bill Clinton and sounded like him at the same time.

At one moment he was raising his right hand high and making his signature pledge to restore "honor and integrity" to the White House, a slap at Mr. Clinton's behavior in office. In the next breath, he was speaking about being a president "willing to reach across the partisan divide and to unite this nation" - a paraphrase of Mr. Clinton's own vow four years ago in the final days of his re-election bid, "to get away from the politics of division and embrace the politics of union."

Mr. Bush said he would be a "compassionate conservative" who cared about the less well-off in society. His declaration that "I do not believe that government is the enemy, but I do not believe it is always the answer" was a gentle half-turn away from Ronald Reagan's blunt assertion that "government is the problem."

Mr. Bush so played down divisive social issues that abortion opponents could trust his pledge to name "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court, while Republicans on the other side of the issue could argue that he would do nothing to overturn the decision that legalized abortion.

Yet at the same time Mr. Bush never shied away from forthrightly calling himself a conservative. Indeed, it could be argued that his agenda was as conservative as Mr. Reagan's: a tax cut larger than Congressional Republicans had ever dreamed of, a robust missile defense shield and sweeping overhauls of those two Democratic pillars, Social Security and Medicare.

Indeed, Mr. Bush's anti-government tones became more pronounced as he tried to fire up his partisans in the closing weeks of the campaign, deriding his opponent as being "of Washington, D.C., by Washington, D.C., for Washington, D.C." He thundered that Mr. Gore "trusts government, which stands in stark contrast to our view."

"We trust people," Mr. Bush said.

A Test of His Easy Charm

Mr. Bush now faces the test of his drive, his leadership abilities, his way with people.

To push anything through the bitterly divided Congress, Mr. Bush will have to build coalitions that reach across party lines. In this, he is counting on the easy charm that served him so well, as a cheerleader at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., as a businessman wooing investors for his oil ventures or to build a baseball stadium or a presidential candidate courting the journalists in the back of his campaign plane.

More than six years ago, Mr. Bush was still weeks away from victory in his first campaign for governor, when he paid a secret visit to Bob Bullock, the Democrat who was the lieutenant governor of Texas and the most powerful person in state politics.

"You may not think I'm going to win," Mr. Bush told Mr. Bullock. "But when I do I want to work with you."

Mr. Bush has made some overtures to Democrats already. He spoke recently to Senator John B. Breaux, the centrist Louisiana Democrat who broke with his party to promote an overhaul of Medicare much like the one Mr. Bush later came to endorse. He also reached out to Representative Gene Taylor, the Mississippi Democrat who said he would support Mr. Bush if the election were thrown into the House.

Mr. Bush's advisers insist that the efforts to reach out will only intensify, and that Mr. Bush will quickly meet with Congressional leaders of both parties.

"Look at this guy's record," said Representative Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, who is a close adviser to Mr. Bush. "He is going to reach out to get things done. People have talked about the Clinton-Gore administration as a permanent campaign. That's not going to happen with George Bush. His style's to reach out across party lines."

Some of Mr. Bush's hopes of putting prominent Democrats in his cabinet have been made far more difficult by the 50-50 split in the Senate which has made Democrats loath to desert their party and give up their seats. But aides say Mr. Bush would still like to see at least one Democrat in a high-ranking or cabinet position.

Advisers predict that he will also move to form commissions on Social Security and Medicare that would include Democrats like Bob Kerrey and Daniel P. Moynihan, two retiring senators who broke with their party to support the introduction of individual investment accounts into Social Security.

Will such gestures work? Mr. Bush may well find that his skill at dealing with like-minded conservative Democrats in Texas will not be as transferable to Washington as he believes, particularly after the acrimony over Florida.

Mr. Bush's advisers believe he can draw support from the Blue-Dog Democrats, a conservative Democratic caucus. But for this to work in these partisan times it will require more than just asking for their votes.

"We're not going to be charmed by whoever the president is," said Representative Gary A. Condit, a California Democrat and one of the founders of the group. "We're not going to be browbeaten by who the leadership is. We're there to be equal partners in the drafting of public policy."

If the Democrats are warning that they will not be pliant, Mr. Bush has to hope that his efforts to reach out do not cause a rebellion from conservatives like Mr. DeLay who recently proclaimed triumphantly: "We have the House. We have the Senate. We have the White House. Which means we have the agenda."

One adviser to Mr. Bush acknowledges, "One of the challenges will be the relationship with some of the more conservative or partisan Republicans on the Hill." The adviser added, "I think they will need to adjust to a president who is more interested in results than in politics, and that in the end may be a larger challenge than to get Democrats to sit down and roll up their sleeves and work."

Mr. Bush has said that one of his earliest priorities will be to win passage of his education agenda. He also wants to move fast to give states help in assisting the neediest elderly with prescription drugs until a more far-reaching overhaul of the federal Medicare program could be put in place.

Other decisions are more difficult. Mr. Bush will have to decide soon whether to try for his $1.3 trillion, 10-year tax cut all at once or try to enact it piecemeal. Democrats and even many Republicans argue that a push for the full tax cut would immediately polarize the Congress.

They say Mr. Bush would be better off signing some smaller tax cuts, to repeal the estate tax and reduce taxes on married couples. These proposals drew some Democratic support but were vetoed by President Clinton.

But one senior adviser to Mr. Bush said that the slowing economy made Mr. Bush ever more intent on trying to enact broad tax relief.

Mr. Bush also must decide when and how to try to push through his most politically charged proposal - to divert some Social Security payroll taxes to individual investment accounts. Back when his advisers once thought he would have a decisive victory, they were predicting that he would try to act in the first six months of his administration, when a new president's power is at its peak.

But aides say such decisions were put off as Mr. Bush's advisers turned all their attention to the legal and public relations battle over Florida.

Too Reaganesque?

Another question about Mr. Bush is whether his Reaganesque management style will work in such divided times. He made no secret that he is a delegator, frequently telling his audiences that they were electing not just a president but also an administration.

"I don't think you can expect any president to know all things about all subjects," Mr. Bush said earlier this year, adding that one of the roles of a leader was "to surround himself with excellent folks."

And he scoffed at Mr. Gore's well-known attention to the fine points of policy, saying dismissively one day, "I think if he's memorized the budget, I'd kind of wonder out loud about how he spends his time."

But when Mr. Bush pushed Mr. Cheney to the forefront of the transition during the past month, it only seemed to diminish Mr. Bush himself.

His confident public assertions last month about Mr. Cheney's health, which failed to include any information about the medical procedures that doctors had used to treat what turned out to be a mild heart attack - raised the question of whether Mr. Bush was on top of events at all.

During the campaign, some Republicans saw the governor as too detached and complained that the "Iron Triangle" of Texans who ran his campaign - Joseph Allbaugh, Karen P. Hughes and Karl Rove - were not open enough to outside advice or responsive enough to events.

But the hierarchy he created as governor of Texas was less rigid. And his advisers say Mr. Bush has already learned a lesson from a mistake his father made as president: he will avoid having one all-powerful chief of staff, like John H. Sununu, as the only aide funneling information to him.

While Mr. Bush delegates authority, his aides contend that he keeps his eye on the big picture, is more involved in decision-making than Mr. Reagan ever was and is not afraid to overrule his advisers, seeking progress reports and keeping staff discussions focused with penetrating and sometimes surprisingly simple but provocative questions.

It was Mr. Bush himself, staff members say, who insisted on making the creation of individual investment accounts in Social Security a pivotal plank of his campaign. (His political advisers had objected, and panicked Republicans from Capitol Hill begged him to avoid the issue.) "He's willing to overrule the majority of his advisers if he thinks it's important," said Lawrence B. Lindsey, Mr. Bush's chief economic adviser.

And Mr. Bush, according to several aides, brought a briefing on military policy to a screeching halt in the spring of 1999 by interrupting one of his national security advisers to ask, "What's the military for?" This began a long, thoughtful discussion about the purposes and goals of military spending.

Mr. Bush has already named one of his father's former aides, Mr. Card, a lobbyist for the auto industry, as his White House chief of staff. Several Republican officials affiliated with the Bush campaign said Mr. Bush had already decided that retired Gen. Colin L. Powell would be his secretary of state and that Condoleezza Rice, who helped his campaign formulate its foreign policy positions, would be his national security adviser.

With Mr. Cheney also down the hall, the administration is beginning to look a little like a Bush restoration, though many of the Texans from the campaign are also expected to hold prominent positions. And it is hard to imagine that Mr. Bush will not occasionally want his father on the other end of the telephone giving advice.

In his musings along the campaign trail, Mr. Bush often suggested that at the end of four years he would dearly like to have solved one of the biggest problems of the coming decades: keeping Social Security and Medicare solvent as the baby boom generation retires.

Mr. Bush has not always been in step with his generation, staying distant from the political upheavals of the 1960's that fueled the civil rights movement, the protests against the Vietnam War and the counterculture. His aides say that he now considers the overhaul of the retirement systems a final test of whether his generation will rise above selfishness.

Whether he can still harbor such grand hopes now is not clear. But he is likely to give it a try. "Why run for office if you are not going to try something like entitlement reform?" Mr. Bush said to reporters one summer day on his plane. "Why run?"

-------- MILITARY

Albright to urge defense cooperation

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2000121417251.htm

BRUSSELS - Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, making her last appearance at a NATO ministerial meeting for the Clinton administration, joins fellow foreign ministers today in examining proposals for cooperation between a planned European Union force and the Western alliance.

The 15 EU leaders agreed at a summit last week in Nice, France, on details for setting up and operating a 60,000-man rapid-reaction corps for peacekeeping or humanitarian missions.

-------- britain

Prince Andrew leaving Royal Navy

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=c6n3lo54u973m

LONDON (AP) - Prince Andrew plans to leave the Royal Navy after 22 years to promote British business abroad. The son of Queen Elizabeth II will represent British Trade International, the government organization responsible for the development and promotion of overseas trade and investment. "I have greatly enjoyed my service in the navy and am sad at the prospect of leaving," Andrew said Wednesday. "However, the invitation to participate in the work of British Trade International is an opportunity and challenge that I could not refuse." Andrew, who joined the Royal Navy in September 1979, will leave at the end of July. During his military service, he fought in Britain's 1982 war with Argentina over the disputed Falkland Islands.

-------- colombia

Colombia reopens bomb death probe

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By JARED KOTLER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405326466

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - An FBI ballistics analysis has prompted a new investigation into allegations the air force dropped a U.S.-made bomb on a village two years ago, killing 17 people, the air force said Wednesday.

Air force commander Gen. Hector Velasco said he had requested that a panel of three military judges be appointed in light of the FBI analysis of bomb fragments found at the scene of a December 1998 blast in Santo Domingo, near the border with Venezuela.

The FBI ballistics report, performed at Colombia's request and completed in May, determined that metal pieces found at a blast site were ``consistent with'' a 20-pound AN-M41 fragmentation bomb designed in the United States and meant to be dropped from the air. The U.S. military has provided such fragmentation bombs to Colombia in the past.

The FBI did not investigate whether the Colombian air force was responsible for the deaths.

The air force has previously denied dropping a bomb on Santo Domingo and said the deaths were caused by a truck bomb planted by leftist guerrillas.

Troops were battling guerrillas near the village around the time of the blast. Air force planes and helicopters had been called in to provide air support.

Velasco said he requested the probe by military judges on Oct. 27 in light of the FBI analysis. The status of the investigations was not immediately clear.

The case is being investigated amid rising scrutiny over Colombia's human rights record as the United States increases military aid and training under a $1.3 billion counternarcotics package.

On Tuesday, a group of U.S. jurists, law professors and clergy who held a symbolic trial in the case issued a ``judgment'' accusing air force officials of covering up their responsibility for the deaths of six children and 11 adults.

Velasco said the air force ``does not accept or consider valid'' the panel's findings.

The mock U.S. tribunal, headed by former Illinois Supreme Court judge Seymour Simon and including two Northwestern University law professors, a rabbi and an auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop from Chicago, has no legal standing. But it hopes to prod Colombian authorities into thoroughly investigating the deaths.

At a news conference Wednesday in Bogota, Northwestern law professor Douglass Cassel _ who organized but was not a member of the tribunal _ questioned the military's ability to conduct an impartial inquiry after ``two years of impunity.''

Cassel urged an independent civilian investigation in Colombia and a review and suspension of U.S. aid to any armed forces units involved in the deaths.

-------- drug war

Teen Drug Use Holds Steady

New York Times
December 14, 2000 Filed at 5:29 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Teens-Drugs.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teen-age drug use held steady in 2000, the fourth straight year it has either fallen or stayed the same, the federal government reported Thursday. Smoking dropped significantly but use of the club drug ecstasy climbed for the second year in a row.

The annual ``Monitoring the Future'' survey, a study of teen drug, alcohol and tobacco use, had mostly good news, with drops among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders. But it also found the number of high school seniors using heroin hit its highest point since the survey began in 1975, and more 10th-graders are using steroids.

The survey of 45,000 students in 435 randomly chosen schools nationwide found that use of cocaine and hallucinogens such as LSD dropped, with marijuana use unchanged from 1999.

The results were released Thursday by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and Barry McCaffrey, White House drug policy director.

``The national drug control strategy is working,'' McCaffrey said.

Despite success in holding back increases, ``we must remain vigilant to new threats, particularly that of so-called club drugs such as ecstasy,'' Shalala said.

After increasing through the mid-1990s, teen drug use leveled off -- and in some cases, dropped -- in 1996. This year, usage was steady no matter how it was measured -- in the last month, year or lifetime.

The survey, which teens fill out anonymously, found that between 1997 and 2000:

--For eighth-graders, use of any drug fell from 22.1 percent to 19.5 percent.

--For 10th-graders, it fell from 38.5 percent to 36.4 percent.

--For 12th-graders, it fell from 42.4 percent to 40.9 percent.

The survey also looked at specific drugs and found that 36.5 percent of seniors had used marijuana in the past year. For 10th-graders, it was nearly as high -- 32.2 percent, and for eighth-graders, 15.6 percent. Those figures were all steady from 1999.

Marijuana use peaked in 1979, when just over half of seniors used the substance. The low for marijuana use among 12th-graders was 1992, when just over one in five used it.

Alcohol use remained widespread, though largely unchanged, with nearly three in four high school seniors drinking at least once in the past year. It was two in three for 10th-graders, and just over 40 percent for eighth-graders.

A smaller but still significant chunk of teens reported binge drinking at least once in the two weeks before the survey. Thirty percent of 12th-graders, 26.2 percent of 10th-graders and 14.1 percent of eighth-graders said they had binged, defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row.

Binge drinking peaked in 1981 at 41 percent and the low was 27.5 percent in 1993.

Last year, 34.6 percent of seniors reported smoking in the past month, falling to 31.4 percent this year. The percentage of eighth-graders who used cigarettes in the past month fell from 17.5 percent last year to 14.6 percent.

There were a few danger signs, including an increase in the use of MDMA, known as ecstasy, among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders. Just over 8 percent of seniors said they had used ecstasy in the past year, up from 5.6 percent in 1999.

And among high school seniors, the percentage of seniors who used heroin crept up from 1.1 percent last year to 1.5 percent this year -- the first significant increase in a number of years. That's the highest percentage since the study began.

The proportion of 10th-graders who used steroids rose from 1.7 percent to 2.2 percent, the study found. Use in the past year was reported by 2.2 percent of eighth-grade males, 3.6 percent of 10th-grade males and 2.5 percent of 12th-grade males.

The survey also found:

--The percentage of high school seniors who used cocaine in the past year fell from 6.2 percent to 5 percent. Past year use of crack fell from 2.7 percent to 2.2 percent,

--Among seniors, past year use of hallucinogens dropped from 9.4 percent in 1999 to 8.1 percent this year.

The study conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse has tracked illicit drug use among 12th-graders since 1975. In 1991, eighth- and 10th-graders were added to the study.

On the Net: The text of the study can be found at http://www.drugabuse.gov.

------

Teen Drug Use in United States Unchanged: Study

Yahoo News
Top Stories News
Thursday December 14 3:48 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001214/ts/drugs_teens_dc_1.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American teenagers are using illegal drugs just as much as they were last year and they are using the ``club drug'' ecstasy more, but they are smoking less, a government report issued on Thursday finds.

An annual survey of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders -- aged 13 to 18 -- found the use of illicit drugs, including marijuana, generally remained unchanged in the last year. It is the fourth year in a row that the use of any illicit drugs among teenagers has stayed level or declined.

``This year's survey confirms that teens' use of marijuana and most other drugs has leveled off and even decreased among younger students,'' Health and Human Services (news - web sites) (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala said in a statement.

``And we've also begun to have a positive impact on teen smoking. But we must remain vigilant to new threats, particularly that of so-called club drugs such as ecstasy.''

The survey of 45,000 students in 435 schools across the nation shows a higher use of ecstasy, also known as MDMA, among all teens and slightly more heroin use among some.

``Our research shows that ecstasy is a dangerous drug,'' Dr. Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), said. ``Serious consequences include dehydration, hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperthermia, and heart or kidney failure.''

As in the past, trends are seen first in the 8th graders, Lloyd Johnston, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan, who conducted the study, said in an interview.

``Among drugs that declined particularly among younger kids are marijuana, crack cocaine, powder cocaine, tranquilizers, rohypnol, and there has also a been an important reduction in cigarette and smokeless tobacco use,'' Johnston said.

More 10th graders were using steroids, which have been touted as a way to build muscle and athletic ability although studies suggest they have dangerous side-effects, the study, which can be found on the Internet at http://monitoringthefuture.org, found.

``It's partly because they much are less likely to see it as dangerous,'' Johnston said, noting that famous athletes such as baseball slugger Mark McGwire had admitted publicly they had used steroids.

Fewer Teens Are Smoking

Cigarette use dropped significantly, the report, issued jointly by HHS, NIDA and General Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, found.

The percentage of teens who said they had smoked within the past month fell to 14.6 percent from 17.5 percent over the past year among 8th graders and to 31.4 percent from 34.6 percent among 12th graders.

``We are seeing a steady increase since 1995 in the degree to which kids see smoking as dangerous, which is encouraging, and that may have had to do with tremendous amount of adverse publicity that the industry has had,'' Johnston said.

``We are also beginning to see their personal disapproval of smoking increase. But I think also ... there have been some important increases in price and that almost surely has had some effect.''

There were few changes in the percentages of teens who said they drank alcohol. Fourteen percent of 8th graders and 30 percent of seniors said they drank 5 or more drinks in a row within the past two weeks.

The survey found that:

-- Use of any illicit drug in the past year by 8th graders declined to 19.5 percent in 2000 from 22.1 percent in 1997. For 10th graders, drug use was down to 36.4 percent in 2000 from 38.5 percent in 1997. For seniors, the percentages were 40.9 percent in 2000 and 42.4 percent in 1997.

-- The percentage of 10th graders who said they used steroids in the past year rose to 2.2 percent from 1.7 percent.

-- Use of ecstasy in the past year rose significantly among 8th graders, to 3.1 percent from 1.7 percent, and to 8.2 percent from 5.6 percent among 12th graders.

-- Marijuana use was unchanged, with 15.6 percent of 8th graders, 32.2 percent of 10th graders, and 36.5 percent of 12th graders saying they had used cannabis in the past year.

-- Among seniors, heroin use in the past year increased to 1.5 percent from 1.1 percent in 1999. It is the highest rate of heroin use among seniors since the survey began 26 years ago. The survey found that 1.1 percent of 8th graders used heroin, a decrease from 1.4 percent in 1999.

-- Cocaine use by seniors decreased to 5 percent from 6.2 percent, while crack use fell to 2.2 percent from 2.7 percent.

---

Ecstasy use shows big rise among teens

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 05:02 PM ET
By Sheila Rayam, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

Use of the "club drug" Ecstasy, a mainstay at raves and dance parties, continues to rise dramatically among American adolescents, according to a government report released Thursday. Among eighth-graders, use of Ecstasy, a synthetic stimulant and hallucinogen, increased from 1.7% in 1999 to 3.1% in 2000. Among 10th-graders, use rose from 4.4% to 5.4%. And among 12th-graders, Ecstasy use rose from 5.6% to 8.2%. "We are very concerned about the rise in the use of Ecstasy and other drugs that are widely available at raves and dance parties," said U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala.

The 26th annual Monitoring the Future Study, conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, surveyed 45,000 students in grades 8, 10 and 12.

Despite the sharp increases in Ecstasy use, the survey reports that overall drug use among teens has remained stable or declined for the past four years. Other key findings from the report sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services' National Institute on Drug Abuse:

Overall use of cocaine among 12th-graders dropped from 6.2% in 1999 to 5% in 2000.

Use of steroids among 10th-graders in the survey increased from 1.7% to 2.2%.

Marijuana remains the most widely used illicit drug, with 16% of eighth-graders, 32% of 10th-graders and 37% of 12th-graders indicating some use in the past year.

Alcohol use has remained stable. But 43% of eighth-graders, 65% of 10th-graders and 73% of 12th-graders had used alcohol during the past year.

Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Shalala cited a need to continue battling the surge of teenage use of steroids and Ecstasy.

Ecstasy, which also is known by teens as "E," "X" and "love drug," causes feelings of euphoria. The drug's use has been on the rise since the mid-'90s.

Howard Simon, a spokesman for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said Ecstasy use is up because kids perceive it to be a "low-risk" drug.

"Ecstasy is not a fun drug, it is not harmless," Shalala said. "It is a dangerous drug that can lead to heart or kidney failure."

---

Study links marijuana and infertility

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
http://www.washtimes.com/national/nhd-2000121422528.htm

In a finding that could send shivers down the spines of pot-smoking couples hoping to conceive, new research is raising the possibility that marijuana could interfere with reproduction.

New studies show that a cannabislike compound inhibits the ability of human sperm to fertilize an egg. Also, high concentrations of THC - the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana - appear to cause structural changes in sperm as they become able to fuse with a woman's egg.

While pot smoking may not yet qualify as a contraceptive, the findings presented Tuesday at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in San Francisco are some of the first indications that marijuana use could reduce fertility in both men and women.

Previous research has shown a link between heavy pot smoking and low sperm counts. The latest study focuses on a substance called anandamide that is produced by the body and acts very much like THC on a cellular level.

It is one of a class of substances called cannabinoids that bind to receptors on cells that also respond to THC. Cannabinoids are found throughout the body and their effect on various systems is only now being studied.

In a series of experiments, researchers at the University of Buffalo-SUNY found that a synthetic form of anandamide reduced by half the number of sperm that were able to attach to human eggs.

Furthermore, high concentrations of anandamide slowed down sperm's swimming ability, while low levels kicked it into overdrive.

The researchers also bathed human sperm in solutions containing either THC or anandamide and found that both substances significantly altered the normal structural changes sperm go through as they prepare to approach and bind with an egg.

"For people who are very heavy marijuana users, there may be reproductive consequences associated with that," said Herbert Schuel, a professor of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Buffalo and lead author of the study.

More generally, Mr. Schuel said, it is possible that glitches in the normal anandamide system could be linked to some cases of unexplained infertility.

Gregory Kopf, a professor in the obstetrics and gynecology department at the University of Pennsylvania, said he was intrigued by the findings, but added that he was not sure that the concentrations of anandamide used in the experiments would ever be reached in the reproductive tracts of people who smoke pot.

Mr. Kopf's research also focuses on the signals between cells that occur when an egg is fertilized and begins to divide into an embryo.

"It's an interesting observation, but personally I think it's a little too early to draw any conclusions yet in terms of infertility," Mr. Kopf said of Mr. Schuel's research.

Although there have been anecdotal reports of marijuana's adverse effect on fetal development and fertility, there have been virtually no formal studies to show whether a link exists, said S.K. Dey of the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Mr. Dey has shown that, in mice, excessive amounts of anandamide or an unusually large number of receptors for it on an embryo increases the risk that the fetus will miscarry.

Mr. Schuel said the federal government's restrictive stance on marijuana-related research has hindered the field.

But he said it is attracting more interest as scientists learn more about how cannabinoids affect everything from circulation to digestion to cancer.

---

Slightly off center . . .

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 02:46 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nweird.htm

Mississippi

Starkville- A former Mississippi State University student pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to six years in prison for planting drugs on his former Sigma Chi fraternity brother. Raymond Thomas admitted lying about $15,000 in drugs seized from the car of Clay Holder, who was charged and later exonerated. Holder headed a committee that refused to reinstate Thomas in the fraternity.

-------- korea

South Korea urges North on projects

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By KYONG-HWA SEOK Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405326161

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea urged the North on Wednesday to push forward with joint projects, saying it worries that relations between the countries are losing momentum.

Seoul's Unification Minister, Park Jae-kyu, discussed the concerns Wednesday during a meeting in Pyongyang with his North Korean counterpart, Chun Gum Jin. Details of the talks were reported by South Korean pool reporters traveling with the delegation.

Since a historic presidential summit in June, the two Koreas have made more progress toward reconciliation in recent months than in the past five decades since they were divided in 1945.

But concern is spreading in South Korea as North Korea slows humanitarian and other joint projects, citing logistical problems.

In recent months the North Koreans have delayed:

_ A third round of temporary reunions for separated family members, originally scheduled for early December.

_ Permission for correspondence beginning in November between separated families who have already been allowed to be temporarily reunited.

_ Visits by economic experts, scheduled for September, and a visit by North Korean tourists scheduled for October.

_ A second meeting between the defense chiefs of the two Koreas that was to be held in November.

The delay in family reunions has especially disappointed Southern officials. Park urged another round before Jan. 24, the pool journalists said, but they did not report the North Koreans' response.

Many families were split when about 1.2 million North Korean natives fled to South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War.

Thousands of South Koreans are believed to have gone to the North, many conscripted into the communist country's army during the war.

The Korean border is sealed, with nearly 2 million troops deployed on both sides. There is no telephone service or mail between ordinary citizens.

South Korea wants a permanent meeting place along the border for millions of separated family members. North Korea has proposed an isolated tourist site in its territory.

-------- space

Problems to prolong Alpha mission

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330301

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The crew of the international space station, Alpha, will have to spend two extra weeks in orbit because of space shuttle problems.

Station commander Bill Shepherd and his two Russian crewmates were supposed to return to Earth in late February, four months after rocketing into orbit. But their ride home, space shuttle Discovery, has damaged thrusters that need to be replaced, and the unexpected work will delay the flight by two weeks, NASA said Wednesday.

Discovery's launch with a space station replacement crew is now targeted for March 1, which would have Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev returning 11 days later.

Shepherd took the news from Mission Control in Houston in stride. He said he was ``banking on this maybe not being exactly per the plan anyway.''

``We're fine with it,'' Shepherd said. ``We've got plenty of chow, all the food and water we can drink. Could use a couple more T-shirts, but, hey, we're getting by.''

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

New York Times
December 14, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/world/14BRIE.html

GEORGIA: U.N. WORKERS FREED Two United Nations observers were freed three days after being kidnapped by rebels in a breakaway province of the former Soviet republic, officials said. The observers were taken hostage on Sunday in the Kodor Gorge area of the Abkhazia district. Officials said no ransom was paid, but no other details were disclosed. (AP) Compiled by Terence Neilan

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

6 suspects named in Cole bombing

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By DONNA BRYSON Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330803

SAN`A, Yemen (AP) - Six Yemeni suspects in the bombing of the USS Cole have been identified by sources close to the investigation, who say they share a background as fighters in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Jamal al-Badawi, the most senior of the six suspects jailed in Yemen told investigators he received telephone instructions for the Oct. 12 bombing from a man in the United Arab Emirates, the Yemeni sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Al-Badawi said he had met the man in Afghanistan during the war but had not seen him since, the sources said.

Two suicide bombers detonated their explosives-packed boat next to the U.S. warship as it refueled in Aden harbor at Yemen's southern tip, killing 17 U.S. sailors and wounding 39.

Al-Badawi identified his contact as Mohammed Omar al-Harazi, who used the aliases ``Abu al-Mohsin'' and ``Abu al-Hasan,'' the sources said. Al-Harazi remains at-large, they added.

Al-Harazi is a Saudi citizen born to a Yemeni family in the rugged Haraz mountain region west of San`a, the capital.

The Afghan connection is one of the tenuous links Yemeni investigators have found between the group involved in the Cole attack and America's No. 1 terror suspect, Osama bin Laden, who also fought in Afghanistan.

U.S. law enforcement officials have said previously that several threads link the suspects now held by the Yemenis to the bin Laden organization.

Al-Badawi told investigators that al-Harazi never directly told him he was receiving orders and financing for the attack from bin Laden, but al-Harazi's tone and manner had led him to believe that was the case, the sources said. They told The Associated Press that al-Badawi had no independent confirmation of involvement by bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan.

Other suspects in the Cole attack were identified as two police officials from Lahej, just north of Aden: Walid al-Sourouri and Fatha Abdul Rahman. A source said the policemen provided fake identification and other documents for the suicide bombers.

Yasser al-Azzani, also jailed in connection with the bombing, knew the suicide bombers well enough to play host to them at his Aden home for lunch the day before the attack, but it was unclear how much he knew about their plans, the sources said.

Another suspect, Jamal Ba Khorsh, may have been recruited to videotape the attack for unknown purposes but the tape was never made, the sources said. No details were given by the sources on the role of the sixth suspect who was identified as Ahmad al-Shinni.

Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Iryani told The Associated Press earlier that three to six suspects would stand trial next month.

A military weekly newspaper, September 26, in its latest edition also identified al-Harazi as the man outside Yemen giving orders and covering all expenses for the group that attacked the USS Cole. The newspaper described al-Badawi as the main suspect inside Yemen.

Terrorism experts say the Cole plotters worked in a manner they associate with bin Laden. They were organized into cells of two or three people, many recruited from among Arab Afghans, the volunteers who helped local Muslim militias fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Because the cells were small and isolated from one another, those involved knew little about other plotters or who was the overall director.

Ed Badolato, a former U.S. antiterrorism official, cautioned that bin Laden was not the only man to use such a structure. Badolato said it may be some time before anyone can say who was behind the Cole bombing.

Al-Iryani, the prime minister, has said Yemen has left it largely up to the United States to trace the plot beyond Yemen _ something that has proved difficult, despite tantalizing leads.

Yemeni sources have said a composite sketch of a man believed to have been one of the two Cole suicide bombers appears to match that of a man wanted for questioning in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The United States accuses bin Laden of masterminding the embassy attacks, which killed 224 people.

However, a U.S. Embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there are no confirmed links between the Yemeni suspects and the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

---

U.S. experts thinks Cole bombers fled

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330682

WASHINGTON (AP) - Several suspects in the bombing of the Navy destroyer USS Cole apparently fled to Afghanistan to hide out in that ``haven of lawlessness,'' the State Department's counterterrorism chief said Wednesday.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee's crime subcommittee, the official, Michael Sheehan, did not identify the ``numerous people'' who, he said, immediately left Yemen for Afghanistan after an explosives-laden skiff rammed the Cole in Aden harbor, killing 17 American sailors.

He told the subcommittee he lacks ``full information'' on who planned and carried out the bombing plot in October. ``We do know,'' Sheehan said, ``that numerous people immediately left Yemen for Afghanistan, the safe haven where they could hide out with little fear of Taliban intervention.''

Sheehan promised an all-out diplomatic, political and economic pressure campaign to isolate Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia from the world community.

``The Taliban's control over most of Afghanistan has resulted in a haven of lawlessness, in which terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals live with impunity,'' he said.

The United States and Russia already are trying to impose U.N. sanctions against the militia, which rules 95 percent of Afghanistan, for refusing to turn over expatriate Saudi terror suspect Osama bin Laden for prosecution in the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Sheehan named bin Laden and 10 other suspected terrorists who are sheltering in Afghanistan, training their forces there or being financed by the South Asian country.

The list ``gets longer all the time,'' Sheehan said.

Yemeni sources in San`a, Yemen's capital, told The Associated Press that the most senior of six jailed suspects in the Cole attack have identified his prime contact as a man he met in Afghanistan. The jailed suspect, Jamal al-Badawi, said Mohammed Omar al-Harazi, an ethnic Yemeni born in Saudi Arabia, telephoned him from the United Arab Emirates with instructions for the bombing.

Al-Harazi is at large. Al-Badawi said they met in Afghanistan in the 1980s while fighting to drive out Soviet invaders. Sheehan said Afghanistan has been at the heart of U.S. measures to counter terrorism.

Central to the U.S. campaign is the U.S.-Russian drive for sanctions from the U.N. Security Council. They would include embargoes on arms sales and the export of chemicals used to manufacture heroin. Sheehan said Afghanistan's opium crop accounts for 72 percent of the world's illicit opium, and cultivation of the crop is increasing.

The sanctions are intended to compel the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, who is alleged to have masterminded the attacks.

On other fronts, Sheehan said the United States was trying to rally support for Afghanistan's neighbors in fighting terrorism and the drug trade and is considering adding to the 29 foreign organizations designated as terrorist groups.

Also, Sheehan said, President Clinton has asked the Senate to approve an international agreement designed to make it more difficult for terrorist groups to raise or transfer money.

Additionally, the State, Justice and Treasury departments and the FBI are developing training courses for foreign officials to help detect and curb terrorist fund raising. The courses will begin early next year, Sheehan said.

``We will continue to put political, diplomatic and economic pressure on the Taliban to make them realize that they will not be an accepted member of the international community until they comply with internationally accepted norms on terrorism,'' Sheehan said.

A year ago, the U.N. Security Council froze Afghan assets and imposed an embargo on the Ariana Afghan Airlines, controlled by Taliban.

Some humanitarian groups say the sanctions would make life more difficult for Afghanistan's poor. Sheehan denied that. Some in the United Nations also expressed worries about a potential backlash against aid workers in the country.

Afghans are suffering from the impact of 20 years of civil war and the worst drought in decades.

Sheehan said, however, an explosion of poppy cultivation under the Taliban has reduced agricultural land available for food crops

---

To digress

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin
Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.

Just when we thought it was safe to go back outside, active-duty military pilots have reported a UFO sighting.

Flying aboard two U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle Mach 2 interceptors, the unidentified pilots were about to land after a practice mission on what was a bright sunny day with unlimited visibility, the Fund for UFO Research Inc. reports.

First detected as a bright yellow spot, the UFO rapidly approached one of the military aircraft, passing from the windshield to the left window. The pilot described the object as round, with a metallic-looking surface and bright yellow lights on top.

As a veteran fighter pilot, the officer reportedly conceded he should have retracted his landing gear, ignited his afterburners and chased "the son of a bitch," except he was "shocked to his bones."

John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or by e-mail at mccasl@twtmail.com.

---

WWII rocket inadvertently launched

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=c6n3lo54u973m

BARTOW, Fla. (AP) - A.R. Connor bulldozed trees and brush into a pile, set them on fire and walked off to get a drink of water. Then came the explosion, as a 2-foot-long, World War II-era rocket blasted out of the fire and crashed into a chain-link fence 700 feet away. "It sounded like dynamite," he said. Connor, 78, was clearing ground Wednesday for a new hangar at the city airport when he apparently dug out the rocket inadvertently. The heat from the brush fire was believed to have ignited it. No one was injured, but the area was evacuated and bomb experts were called, said Michael Shanley, spokeswoman for the Polk County Sheriff.

---

Buried rocket inadvertently launched

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 02:37 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm
http://usatoday.com/news/nweird.htm

BARTOW, Fla. - A.R. Connor bulldozed trees and brush into a pile, set them on fire and walked off to get a drink of water. Then came the explosion, as a 2-foot-long, World War II-era rocket blasted out of the fire and crashed into a chain-link fence 700 feet away. ''It sounded like dynamite,'' the78-year-old said. ''It exploded, hit the fence and dropped down and set the grass afire.'' The airport was a training base for the Army Air Corps during World War II, when it was known as Bartow Air Base. Explosives experts are searching for more buried surprises.

-------- OTHER

Gerry Levin says it all

"DHolstein" <dholstein@starpower.net>
Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:06:16 -0500

MERGER MADNESS: TIMEWARNER HEAD WARNS OF 'AMERICAN CULTURAL IMPERIALISM'; SEES CORPORATIONS TAKING 'GOVERNMENT ROLES'

AOL chief executive Steve Case and TIME WARNER chief executive Gerald Levin testified Thursday before a complete panel at the Federal Communications Commission.

But it is candid comments made by Levin earlier this year during a media roundtable that have some lawmakers in Congress concerned that something is foul with the latest greatest media marriage.

Levin recently warned in the post-Cold War era there is only "American cultural imperialism."

"There's no countervailing force, that's a significant problem," declared the man who will become the most powerful media executive in history if the AOL/TIME WARNER merger is approved by federal regulators.

Levin sees a future where major media corporations take on responsibilities currently administered by governments.

"We're going to need to have these corporations redefined as instruments of public service because they have the resources, they have the reach, they have the skill base, and maybe there's a new generation coming up that wants to achieve meaning in that context and have an impact, and that may be a more efficient way to deal with society's problems than governments," predicted Levin.

A summary of Levin's past comments circulated behind committee doors this week, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, including Levin's belief that an "old-fashioned regulatory system" has to give way to a new "global concern."

"It does appear that Mr. Levin has greater designs than simply running an entertainment conglomerate," said one Republican lawmaker, who would like to question Levin on his fellings about "American cultural imperialism."

At the TIMEWARNER Global Forum gathering in Shanghai last year, Levin introduced China's Communist President President Jiang Zemin, calling him "my good friend."

Levin presented him with a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Levin, who refused to meet with human rights representatives, told vaunted visitors that Jiang can reel off the Gettysburg address from memory.

But can Jiang - or Gerry, for that matter - recite Lincoln's reported letter to William F. Elkins, November 21, 1864?

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

-------- environment

Tank spills 60,000 gallons of gas

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330943

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Sixty thousand gallons of gasoline spilled from a Conoco storage tank Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of residences and businesses, a disaster official said. Oil company officials said the spill was contained.

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the spill.

The gasoline flowed from two holes about six feet from the top of the large storage tank, said Paul Spengler, Lewis and Clark County's disaster and emergency services coordinator.

Conoco spokesman John Bennitt referred to it as an overflow. He said the flow was stopped about 5:30 p.m. and all the fuel remained contained within a protective berm surrounding the tank.

A fire suppression foam was sprayed on the spill to reduce the threat of fire or explosion, and the cleanup process was underway by evening, Bennitt said.

Planes were barred from the air space above the plant, and Montana Rail Link halted its trains from entering the area to avoid sparks.

There were no reports of injuries or illness, though the fumes were strong enough to bring tears to the eyes of motorists on a nearby highway, which was later closed. Everything within a half-mile of the facility was evacuated, Spengler said. He said the evacuation order, affecting about 100 residents, was likely to remain in effect overnight.

The tank, one of many at the storage facility between Helena and East Helena, has a capacity of 84,000 gallons, Bennitt said. He wouldn't confirm Spengler's 60,000-gallon estimate for the spill.

---

105,000-gallon spill cleanup begins

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=c6n3lo54u973m

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Cleanup of an estimated 105,000 gallons of gasoline spilled from a Conoco storage tank continued Thursday as people who had left nearby homes and businesses returned to the area. About 100 workers were involved in the cleanup, said Conoco spokesman John Bennitt. The spill was first estimated at about 60,000 gallons, but that figure was increased Thursday by Paul Spengler, Lewis and Clark County's disaster and emergency services coordinator. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the gasoline to flow from two holes about six feet from the top of the 840,000-gallon tank. Bennitt referred to it as an overflow. He said the flow was stopped Wednesday and all the fuel was within a berm surrounding the tank. A fire suppression foam was sprayed on the spill to reduce the threat of fire or explosion. There were no reports of injuries or illness, though the fumes brought tears to the eyes of motorists on a nearby highway. The highway, which was later closed, reopened Thursday.

---

Chinese city to relocate 50,000

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405338737

BEIJING (AP) - Authorities will accelerate efforts to clear the way for China's massive Three Gorges Dam, moving 50,000 people next year from areas to be inundated to other parts of the country, state-run media said Thursday.

The 50,000 will be the largest group of people resettled from the dam area since the project started in 1994, the official Xinhua News Agency said. They will be moved from Chongqing municipality, along the Yangtze River toward the upper end of the projected 350-mile-long reservoir, to Shanghai and provinces in southern and eastern China, Xinhua said.

Chongqing authorities relocated 10,000 people this year, ``accumulating experience for the unprecedented relocation effort to be made next year,'' the agency said.

In all, the dam's rising waters are expected to displace 1.13 million people from their homes by the time its reservoir fills in 2009.

The dam is said to be the world's largest hydroelectric project. Its opponents call it an expensive, ecologically damaging mistake that will inundate valuable cultural sites. The government says it will curb flooding and produce clean power needed for economic growth.

---

Environmental trade guidelines set

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330465

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration, maintaining that free trade and environmental protection can go hand in hand, put into place new rules Wednesday that subject future trade deals to environmental reviews.

The guidelines were developed under an executive order issued by President Clinton last year. They direct the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the president's Council on Environmental Quality to review agreements for their potential environmental impacts. Also consulted would be governmental agencies, Congress and environmental groups.

While the guidelines will not be binding on a new administration, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky predicted that the next administration will choose to adopt similar environmental reviews.

``I believe the policy is here to stay because it makes good sense. It meets a real need,'' she told reporters.

In a statement, Clinton said the guidelines ``will ensure that we fully integrate environmental considerations into our negotiation of new trade agreements and will provide unparalleled opportunities for public involvement in trade policy.''

The rules are part of the administration's efforts to answer complaints that past trade deals have failed to include safeguards for the environment and worker rights.

U.S. labor unions and environmental groups have contended that globalization promotes moving U.S. factories to countries with a low-wage work force and lax environmental regulations.

Environmental groups praised the guidelines, although some expressed concerns about whether a Bush administration would adopt them.

Republicans have opposed including labor and environmental regulations in trade deals and the split with the Clinton administration has blocked congressional enactment of new trade negotiating authority for the past three years.

``The bottom line is if George Bush wants to build a consensus for trade policy, he will use these guidelines,'' said Daniel Seligman, trade policy director at the Sierra Club. ``The fair trade coalition has been able to block anti-environmental and anti-labor trade agreements.''

Signaling possible trade battles with Republicans next year, House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri said in a statement that U.S. policy had to deal with labor and environmental issues in order to ``build popular support in the United States for global economic engagement.''

Thousands of demonstrators disrupted World Trade Organization meetings a year ago in Seattle, where efforts to launch a new round of global trade negotiations collapsed in a cloud of tear gas.

Barshefsky said the administration would use the guidelines to review proposals, to be put forward before leaving office in January, on what a new round of trade talks should include, as well as efforts now under way to reach deals with Singapore and Chile.

---

EPA Selects 43 Charter Members From the Southeast in the National Environmental Achievement Track Program

Yahoo News
Thursday December 14, 5:31 pm Eastern Time
Press Release

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 14, 2000-- U. S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today the selection of 43 businesses and facilities in the southeast as charter members in the National Environmental Achievement Track.

The program recognizes and rewards businesses for exceeding environmental protection requirements.

Nationally, 225 companies were selected. The roster of companies in the program includes small businesses and large corporations, representing the automotive, pharmaceutical, sports equipment, food processing, chemical and petroleum industries, to name a few.

The facilities and corporate headquarters are located in 38 states and Puerto Rico. Among the 225 charter members are municipalities and branches of the federal government. Charter members in the southeast include the following:

Alabama Aaron Oil Company Incorporated, Saraland 3M Guin, Guin JVC Magnetics America Company, Tuscaloosa McNeil Specialty Products Company, McIntosh

Florida Cordis Corporation, W 60th Ave., Miami Lakes Cordis Corporation, 14000 NW 57th Court, Miami Lakes Indiantown Cogeneration LP, Indiantown Vistakon Incorporated, Jacksonville

Georgia Torrington Company, Dahlonega Blue Circle Aggregates Douglasville Quarry, Norcross Torrington Company, Sylvania Collins and Aikman Floorcoverings, Dalton Rockwell Automation Industrial Computer Business, Duluth TDK Components USA Incorporated, Peachtree City Torrington Company, Cairo Southwire Carrollton Building Wire Plant, Carrollton Sony Music Entertainment Incorporated, Carrollton JH Williams, Columbus Johnson and Johnson Consumer Products, Royston SI Corporation, Chickamauga Ethicon Incorporated, Cornelia Noramo, Athens

Kentucky Matsushita Electric Motor Company, Berea Dow Corning Corporation Carrollton Site, Carollton

Mississippi Kerr McGee Chemical LLC, Columbus

North Carolina Swift Eckrick Incorporated, Wallace IBM Research, Triangle Park Blue Ridge Paper Products Incorporated, Canton

South Carolina Torrington Company, Walhalla Bridgeston Firestone South Carolina Company, Graniteville Torrington Company, Honea Path Torrington Company, Clinton Alice Manufacturing Foster, Easley Spicer Heavy Systems, Lugoff Alice Manufacturing Arial, Easley Alice Manufacturing Ellison, Easley BMW Manufacturing Corporation, Greer Rhodia Incorporated, Spartanburg Alice Manufacturing Elliean, Easley

Tennessee Snap On Elizabethton Plant, Elizabethton Snap On Johnson City Plant, Johnson City Bridgestone Firestone Incorporated Warren Plant, Morrison

Achievement Track companies and facilities have strong records in environmental management with more waste recycling and greater reductions in air and water pollution than are legally required. They have reduced their energy consumption by millions of kilowatts per year, and are committing to an average of 22 percent improved energy efficiency in the future. Commitments for future water use reductions average 31 percent. Some companies have even exceeded in virtually eliminating discharges to surface water, while others are significantly reducing discharges to groundwater to protect underground drinking water supplies. Waste reduction at these facilities is projected to average 44 percent per year, representing millions of pounds of saved resources as process and packaging materials are recycled or reused. Others are significantly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to help protect the ozone lawyer, and some will cut their output of toxic air pollutants in half.

Based on several state leadership programs and numerous EPA innovation efforts with states, businesses, and community and environmental groups, the Agency has learned that innovations in environmental management can be used to create strategic business opportunities and advantages while maximizing the health and productivity of ecosystems and communities.

The expectation is that the program will motivate other companies and facilities to achieve similar improvements, and complement existing regulatory activities. The program has been designed so that criteria for participation are proportional to the benefits and that small, medium and large facilities will participate. Emphasis is being placed on continued environmental improvement, effective state/EPA partnerships, and the need to inform and involve citizens and communities.

The National Environmental Achievement Track is the first level of the new National Environmental Performance Track program. EPA plans to launch the second level of the program, the Stewardship Track, in May 2001. The National Environmental Performance Track program was established by EPA to recognize and encourage top environmental performers--those businesses which go beyond compliance with regulatory requirements.

Further information on the National Environmental Performance Track, and the process for being recognized for similar achievements, is available at: www.epa.gov/performancetrack.

Contact:
EPA Media Relations Dawn Harris, 404-562-8421

------

Bay City News Report

San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Bay Area News Roundup Local news all the time

A 42-year-old Malaysian man pleaded guilty in federal court in San Francisco Wednesday to charges that he led a ring that sold and smuggled endangered reptiles into the United States.

In return for his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Martin Jenkins to counts including smuggling, conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the Lacey wildlife protection act, Keng Liang Wong agreed in a lengthy plea agreement to cooperate with federal prosecutors, who also narrowed down sentencing issues regarding the terms of imprisonment.

Jenkins set a sentencing hearing for March 1. Wong remains in custody in Dublin, where he has been since August when he was extradited from Mexico. Wong had been lured to Mexico by federal agents and spent two years in custody there before he was brought to this country.

Wong was indicted in 1998 on 51 charges related to an international smuggling operation he allegedly ran through a wildlife export business in Malaysia. Wong, who is also known as Anson Wong, is a resident of Penang, Malaysia.

He was caught in a sting operation in which an undercover agent posing as an American collector interested in exotic wildlife bought rare animal species from him, including the Komodo Dragon and the Madagasan Spurred Tortoise.

---

EU debates big cuts in fish catches

Thursday, December 14, 2000
By PAUL AMES Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405339204

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Experts say some types of fish are being driven to the point of destroying their commercial markets in Europe, and less should be caught. Fishermen say they can't make a living unless they're allowed to cast their nets. Now European Union leaders have to decide where they stand.

In a meeting beginning Thursday in Brussels, fisheries ministers from the 15 EU nations debated plans to cut catch quotas by up to 74 percent next year to save stocks in danger of being fished into commercial extinction.

``The fish reserves are in a precarious state,'' said Portuguese minister Luis Capoulas Santos. ``The proposals are draconian, (but) there are big worries for stocks worldwide and we need preservation measures.''

The ministers meet every December to fix the catch limits, and they usually try to talk up quotas for their fishermen. This year, though, the EU's head office has warned of disastrous consequences unless governments accept stringent cuts.

For the most threatened species, the Commission has proposed lowering hake quotas by 74 percent from the Bay of Biscay to the mouth of the Baltic Sea; reducing cod catches off western Scotland by up to 56 percent; and halving the anchovy catch in the Atlantic waters off Spain and Portugal. Substantial cuts are also recommended for monkfish, haddock and whiting.

``If no action is taken, the stocks already at biological risk are likely to collapse,'' the European Commission said in a statement ahead of the talks.

In the North Sea, where the quota cuts are linked to a Dec. 1 EU agreement with Norway, the total cod catch is set to fall from 81,000 tons this year to 48,600 tons in 2001.

Officials say protection measures are needed to prevent fishing communities from facing a similar fate to those on Canada's Atlantic seaboard, where the government imposed a moratorium on fishing in the early 1990s because of depleted stocks, throwing thousands out of work.

Ministers are scheduled to meet again next month to consider other protection measures such as setting aside ``no-fishing'' zones, limiting fishing days and paying boat owners to stop fishing.

At Thursday's meeting, the ministers were also set to discuss stalled negotiations with Morocco to reopen North Africa's fishing grounds to European boats that have been excluded since a previous fisheries agreement expired over a year ago. As negotiations drag on, the EU has been paying compensation to the mostly Spanish and Portuguese boats that used to fish in Moroccan waters.

---

TRENTON: STATE TO RELEASE E.P.A. REPORT

New York Times
December 14, 2000
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/nyregion/14MBRF.html

New Jersey officials expect to release a report today detailing how well private auto inspection stations are doing in taking polluting cars off the road, compared with public stations. A State Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman said the report was to be filed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency last night. A spokeswoman, Amy Collings, said the report would justify New Jersey's plan to use private mechanics to help the state inspect and repair polluting cars. An E.P.A. spokesman, Richard Stapleton, said the report would compare how well the private stations, which account for about 25 percent of New Jersey inspections, repair cars that fail emission tests. (AP)

CONNECTICUT
HARTFORD: EMISSIONS COMPANY DROPPED

The state's Department of Motor Vehicles announced yesterday that it would take over the vehicle safety inspection program Jan. 2. Envirotest Systems, which had been handling the program, said last month that it would not contest Gov. John G. Rowland's decision to terminate its safety inspections contract with the state. In October, Governor Rowland declared Envirotest in default of the $2.2 million contract, citing several problems, including the arrest of seven employees on bribery charges. (AP)

---

USA Today
12/14/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Delaware

Wilmington - Delaware's poultry companies have agreed to help state farmers develop new ways to dispose of manure. Officials hope the measure will deter the federal government from imposing stricter regulations on handling of chicken waste. Runoff from the waste has been cited as a leading cause of water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware's inland bays.

Idaho

Preston - State wildlife managers are relocating wild turkeys in hopes of establishing smaller flocks. The Department of Fish and Game says some flocks have grown from fewer than a dozen to nearly 200 birds in recent years. Biologists say when populations become too concentrated they tend to attract and quickly spread diseases.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City - The Oklahoma Water Resources Board will consider the potential for pollution before granting water licenses to hog farmers. The board previously looked at only the amount of groundwater that hog farmers could use. The state Agriculture Department agreed to investigate potential pollution at applicants' farms, so the board accepted the new mandate.

Wisconsin

Madison - A Wisconsin lumber company has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle claims brought by federal prosecutors who accused the company of removing trees from an Indian reservation. Central Wisconsin Lumber was accused of taking timber from two allotments on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation. The land is held in trust by the federal government.

-------- genetics

Scientists Decode Plant Genome
Insights should prompt development of 'greener' disease-resistant crops

San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Los Angeles Times
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/14/MN171610.DTL

After four years of work, scientists have decoded the genome of a diminutive relative of cabbages and mustard, making it the first plant to have its genetic material fully described.

By understanding this "model plant," Arabidopsis thaliana, researchers hope they can figure out better, "greener" ways to alter important crops -- rendering them resistant to disease, for instance, or able to grow in warmer or colder climes.

"This will have equal significance -- in terms of providing opportunities for improving human health and welfare -- as sequencing the human genome," said Steve Kay, an Arabidopsis researcher and a professor of cell biology at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

"It's an incredibly exciting day," said Virginia Walbot, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, who wrote an accompanying commentary to the paper, published today in the British journal Nature.

Comparing the genomes of plants and animals -- lineages that diverged from each other 1.6 billion years ago -- probably will reveal fascinating similarities and differences in how each evolved to cope with life on Earth.

And while Arabidopsis itself, commonly known as thale cress, is worthless as a crop, the ease with which scientists grow it and experiment with it makes it valuable for agriculture.

But reaping this genetic harvest will take a lot of work. Finding and describing all 26,000 genes is just one step -- researchers now have to figure out what all the genes do and how they act together to build and run a plant.

"Having the genome is a lot like having a glossary, a dictionary -- it tells you all the words that exist," Walbot said. "But you wouldn't exactly predict Shakespeare's sonnets from looking at a dictionary, even if all the words are present."

The structure of the Arabidopsis genome was determined by a consortium of scientists in the United States, Europe and Japan in a publicly funded $70 million project known as the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative.

Arabidopsis is perfect for research because it has a relatively small amount of DNA, breeds quickly and easily, and produces masses of seeds, said Elliot Meyerowitz, chairman of the division of biology at the California Institute of Technology and longtime adviser on the Arabidopsis genome project.

Indeed, scientists around the world have used the weed to investigate everything from how and when a root, leaf or a flower is made to how a plant protects itself from salt, toxins, cold or sunlight.

Two repositories in the United States and United Kingdom house seed from thousands of different lines. These include tall and stunted plants, plants particularly susceptible or resistant to insects or molds, and plants that produce strange flowers consisting of nothing but female or male parts or just a cluster of leaves.

Already, those mutant plants have helped scientists track down genes that might help them breed better pest resistance in crops such as wheat or corn, or get crops to flower at slightly different times of year so they can grow in different parts of the world. The speed of such discoveries will only grow now that the genome has been thoroughly described.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---

Genetic map of a plant completed

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA AP Science Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330291

(AP) - Scientists on three continents have deciphered the entire genetic makeup of a plant, a breakthrough in basic science that not only unlocks the secrets of nature, but may soon help to feed a hungry world, reduce pollution and identify medicines of tomorrow.

The new poster plant for the genetics revolution isn't a towering sequoia or a fragrant rose. Instead, it's a spindly weed that grows along roadsides worldwide.

Arabidopsis thaliana _ gardeners know it as thale cress _ joins the fruitfly, the nematode worm, 600 viruses and two dozen bacteria as organisms that have revealed their entire DNA blueprints.

``From this point on, plant science will never be the same again and genetics will never be the same again,'' Mike Bevan, European coordinator of the $70 million international project, said in London.

A rough draft of the human genetic code was unveiled this summer and a completed version is expected to be published soon. The plant's genetic code is published in this week's issue of the journal Nature based on work in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Japan.

The plant project was started in 1996. Scientists selected Arabidopsis, a member of the mustard family and a cousin to cauliflower, over 250,000 other plant species because it is biologically simple and grows quickly _ as many as eight generations in a single year.

Arabidopsis has 25,500 genes on five chromosomes. The functions of two-thirds of its genes have been identified. Its genes contain about 117 million chemical base pairs. By comparison, corn has 3 billion base pairs.

Like animal models that have been genetically sequenced, it is easily manipulated in laboratory experiments and widely used as a stand-in for more complex organisms.

``Arabidopsis now is the reference plant for all others,'' said Jeff Dangl, who studies plant diseases at the University of North Carolina. ``It has all the genes that more complicated plants have for roots, seeds, flowers and fighting diseases. Now we know what it essentially takes to make a flower.''

Others said the sequencing was just the beginning of their work. A second phase seeks to identify all of the genes' functions by 2010.

``Once we know what each gene does, we must figure out why that function is important,'' said Iowa State University corn geneticist Patrick Schnable. ``We don't know how to do that yet.''

Arabidopsis genes already are being tested to make tailor-made crops that grow faster, withstand worsening climates, resist pests and disease, and provide vitamin boosts.

Such designer crops would reduce the use of agricultural chemicals and, perhaps, save millions of acres of rainforest from the plow by boosting harvests on existing farms.

Opponents fear that tinkering with crop genes will result in unforeseen health and environmental consequences. Activist groups have blocked cargos of gene-modified grains from unloading in ports, and some consumers have refused to buy gene-modified products. Regulatory agencies in the United States and the European Union are considering stricter controls on both farmers and food processors.

The gene milestone has implications beyond the grocery store.

As oil and gas prices rise, other labs are testing genes that would turn corn, soybeans, tobacco and other crops into biological factories producing renewable supplies of fuels and industrial chemicals.

Less certain, but intriguing, is how the Arabidopsis genome might offer insights into the evolution of complex organisms and even help cure disease in humans.

The sequence contains master genes controlling basic cell growth and behavior that have been at work since flowering plants appeared more than 125 million years ago.

The researchers found about 100 of the plant's genes that are closely related to human disease genes involved in deafness, blindness and cancer. Investigating gene-based therapies initially will easier _ and cheaper _ in the plant.

Quite a legacy for a little weed, researchers said.

``It's amazing that humans and plants share a number of genes,'' said Rod Wing, who is sequencing the rice genome at Clemson University. ``It provides further evidence that we do have a common origin. Having the whole genome of this plant opens so many questions about evolution. How related are we?'' ____

Medical Writer Emma Ross in London and Science Writer Paul Recer in Washington contributed to this report.

---

'Dolly' Company to Produce Proteins in Cloned Cattle

New York Times
December 14, 2000 Filed at 1:29 p.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/health-cloning.html

LONDON (Reuters Health) - PPL Therapeutics, the company that created ``Dolly'' the cloned sheep, is joining with Celentis Ltd. in an effort to use genetically-engineered cloned cattle to produce milk containing a multiple sclerosis-related protein and human albumin--a protein used to stabilize blood volume during surgery and in cases of shock or burns.

Celentis is the commercial arm of AgResearch, New Zealand's largest government research agency. PPL Therapeutics announced the joint venture on Thursday.

Dr. Ron James, managing director of PPL, said that the Scottish company planned to produce basic myelin protein, which could then hopefully be used to treat multiple sclerosis patients. In multiple sclerosis, the protective myelin sheath surrounding the nerve fibers is damaged, causing symptoms such as numbness, coordination problems, and muscle weakness and stiffness.

``Some work has been done in animals that indicates that you can regenerate nerves and get messages through,'' James told Reuters Health.

As for PPL's plans to enter the 1 billion pound (US $1.5 billion) human albumin market, he said producing the product in cattle avoided the risk of viral contamination that may occur when the protein is collected from human blood.

He also noted that the decision had an economic rationale as well. As more and more blood proteins are being produced in the laboratory--rather than collected from blood--the cost of producing the remaining products increases.

``One by one, plasma products are being replaced by recombinant versions,'' James said. ``As that happens, the cost of fractionation falls on fewer products. Therefore, the price per product goes up.''

In a news release, PPL said Celentis would fund the development of the founder cattle. From then on, the venture would be jointly funded, with PPL granting its rights to its nuclear transfer patents (the technique used in cloning) in the field of proteins in milk and Celentis bringing its experience of using nuclear transfer to produce transgenic cattle.

PPL has existing facilities in New Zealand, where it is breeding sheep for its lead product alpha-1-antitrypsin, which is being developed with Bayer.

-------- imf / world bank

Different under Bush

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
Embassy Row
James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-20001214214214.htm

While Australia is angry with the Clinton administration over the lamb issue, relations could be better with a Bush White House, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday.

He said George W. Bush has a strong commitment to free trade.

"I hope very much that during the course of next year, his first year, he will play an important role in getting a WTO round of negotiations going," Mr. Downer said, referring to the World Trade Organization.

"We can look pretty positively on Governor Bush in terms of trade liberalization."

Mr. Downer also expressed hopes of good security cooperation with a Bush administration.

"In a security sense, there will be a strengthening of the relationship," he said of Mr. Bush.

-------- police

NYC police sorry for taking Qurans

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405329184

NEW YORK (AP) - Police apologized to Muslim community leaders for confiscating copies of the Quran from street vendors and stuffing the holy books into plastic bags.

``We made a mistake, and it was our intention to fix it,'' Deputy Inspector Christopher Jamison said Tuesday.

Relations between police and some members of the Muslim community have been strained since Dec. 4, when officers cracked down on the unlicensed book sellers.

A civilian complaint report said police ``stomped the holy books to press (them) down in a bag'' and treated them ``like trash.'' The police switchboard lit up with angry callers, Jamison said.

Jamison said the officers were trying to ease sidewalk and traffic congestion.

``The community, however, felt that placing the items in the bags was akin to throwing the sacred book in the trash,'' said Jamison, who formally apologized to 10 Muslim leaders on Monday.

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Legal Setbacks Against Police Policies Mount, but City Officials See No Pattern

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/nyregion/14POLI.html

In case after case, the Police Department has suffered significant legal setbacks over the last two years in which its operations, policy and personnel decisions were reversed by judges and juries or overhauled to reach court settlements.

In at least nine cases, the department has been told by judges or juries that it overstepped its authority in areas like limiting the free speech of officers and withholding information from the public. And critics suggest that the setbacks are symptomatic of a department that, in its zeal to continue record crime reductions, has grown inattentive to the letter of the law.

And while city lawyers say that the city keeps no statistics on such cases and that the total number of lawsuits against the department has declined for the last three years, they acknowledge that the number of high- profile cases focusing on the department's management and operations - and the number of setbacks - have gone up.

They are quick to add, however, that the increase in these lawsuits reflects a trend in employment litigation in business, and that the city is appealing most decisions. Daniel S. Connolly, a special counsel to the city's Law Department, which defends the Police Department in such cases, said it would be a mistake to draw conclusions about its management from a series of what he said were unrelated lawsuits.

The lawsuits have focused on issues ranging from the department's sexual harassment policies to the city's refusal to formally recognize a fraternal officers group. And while most lawsuits against the department are by citizens charging excessive force or false arrest, many that focus on police operations are brought by officers themselves.

They include one in which a jury, in June, found that the city wrongly transferred 24 black officers to the 70th Precinct in Brooklyn after Abner Louima was tortured at its station house in 1997, and another, in July, in which the city agreed to pay $1 million to a former senior police official who said she was forced out for refusing to revise a report critical of other police officials.

In another case, a judge found that the city wrongly barred uniformed members of the Latino Officers Association from marching in parades. And a decision in 1998 resulted in an agreement under which federal prosecutors in Manhattan will monitor the department's policies on sexual harassment until 2001.

In response to these and similar cases, the department set up the Special Litigation Support Unit last month, with an 11-member staff of officers and civilians, said Thomas Antenen, the deputy commissioner of public information. He said the unit would aid city lawyers in defending against suits involving police operations, which often require the retrieval and review of many documents.

Mr. Connolly disputes the outcome of some lawsuits. He contends that the race-based transfer suit was a victory for the city because, while the jury found that the move violated the officers' constitutional rights, the judge did not forbid the department to make similar transfers in an emergency. And he attributes the spate of losses to coincidence, bad judges and juries, and plaintiffs' lawyers, who he said had made a career of suing the department.

"The global picture is positive," said Mr. Connolly, referring to what he said was an overall decline in lawsuits. "Having said that, we still remain in the most litigious area of the United States of America. We live in a world where the president of the United States of America is going to be selected through litigation, something that was inconceivable 30 years ago."

Mr. Connolly contended that because several lawsuits had been decided in a short period of time, there was a misperception that something was "profoundly amiss," a view that he suggested was fueled by the news media.

"The truth is that in any large organization - and this is a 55,000- person organization - you're going to have your share of lawsuits filed against you for employment discrimination" and other matters, he said. "So you can look at three or four cases and try to draw an inference about bad priests and you would be wrong. You would be making the same error if you looked at the cases that you named and drew the same inference against the N.Y.P.D."

He cited the use of nearly 10,000 officers for the peaceful New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square and the United Nations Millennium Summit, along with policies like seizing the cars of people arrested on drunken-driving charges, as examples of management achievements.

But to critics, the setbacks support their contention that the Police Department and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration as a whole have run roughshod over civil rights.

In several cases, judges and juries found that the department retaliated against officers who spoke out or filed formal complaints of sexual harassment. That practice of retaliation, several lawyers contend, is ingrained in the highest levels of the department. Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, who with his partner, Richard Emery, has represented plaintiffs in two cases, said that that kind of harassment and retaliation send "the worst possible message" to rank-and-file officers.

"If nothing else, by their actions, they are telling everyone else in the Police Department that this is a proper way to behave," Mr. Brinckerhoff said of senior police officials who have taken retaliatory action.

Among the recent cases in which judges or juries have found retaliation include that of Yvette Walton, an officer who sharply criticized the tactics of the Street Crime Unit after the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo. Ms. Walton testified before the City Council wearing a hood; hours later she was dismissed on the ground that she had misused sick leave while on probation from an earlier infraction.

Last month, a federal judge found that the department had violated Ms. Walton's First Amendment rights, rejecting its contention that Ms. Walton was fired for reasons other than her decision to testify. The judge also said he found "not credible" the statement by Howard Safir, then the police commissioner, that he did not know Officer Walton had testified.

Several lawsuits and investigations that could have a significant impact on the department are pending. They include the continuing inquiry by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn seeking changes in how the department investigates and disciplines officers accused of brutality, and an inquiry by federal prosecutors in Manhattan that has concluded that members of the Street Crime Unit engaged in racial profiling.

There is also a class-action suit pending in Federal District Court in Manhattan brought by people who claim they were wrongly stopped and searched by the police, and another class action in that court brought by black and Latino officers who claim that the department discriminates against them in the way it hands out discipline.

Norman Siegel, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented the Latino officers' group in both its suits, said the cases were a sign that the federal courts in New York had begun to intervene and overturn some of the Police Department's policies and management practices.

"Hopefully, the higher echelons of management at the N.Y.P.D. will begin to realize that grieved employees can and will redress their grievances in the federal court and they just might prevail," he said. "Consequently, this federal court option might act as a deterrent to future illegal and unconstitutional actions by the N.Y.P.D. management, and if this happens, that will be a big plus."

---

Minor Charges Dropped Against 2 Accused in Pepper Spray Case

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By RONALD SMOTHERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/nyregion/14ORAN.html

NEWARK, Dec. 13 - A federal judge dismissed some minor charges today against two of the five Orange police officers accused of beating and using pepper spray on a man who died in custody.

As testimony ended and he prepared to send the case to the jury, Judge John C. Lifland of Federal District Court dismissed a charge of menacing against Officer Tyrone Payton, 34. He also dismissed charges that Officer Payton and his partner, Officer Paul Carpinteri, 36, aided and abetted the beating of the man, Earl Faison, by two other policemen among those on trial.

But the judge let stand the major charge that the five officers conspired to deprive Mr. Faison of his civil rights by attacking, kicking and punching him and later covering up the incident. The judge also rejected a motion to dismiss charges against another officer, Brian Smith, 31, who the prosecution says aimed pepper spray directly at the nose and mouth of Mr. Faison, an asthma sufferer.

The state's regional medical examiner testified that Mr. Faison, 27, died of "acute exacerbation" of his asthma. But because he found no trace of pepper spray in Mr. Faison's lungs or blood, the death was not directly linked to the spraying incident, and the officers were not charged in connection with his death.

The ruling today came at the end of six weeks of testimony in the case, which stems from the investigation into the shooting of an Orange police officer, Joyce Carnegie, on April 8, 1999. Mr. Faison, arrested on April 11 for illegally possessing a handgun, was one of three men held in the shooting. The police eventually arrested Condell Woodson, 27, who pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

In accusing Officer Payton of menacing, the prosecution charged that he had drawn his gun and pointed it at Mr. Faison, who was motionless and handcuffed as he lay at police headquarters. But the judge ruled that the prosecution would have had an "uphill battle" in proving that Mr. Faison was conscious at the time, and consequently in proving that he was menaced or threatened.

Judge Lifland dismissed the aiding and abetting charge, finding that Officers Payton and Carpinteri, accused of beating Mr. Faison while they subdued him on the street, could not have predicted the actions of the other officers accused of punching him after he was taken to a patrol car. The other officers facing charges are Andrew Garth, 31, and Thomas Smith, a former lieutenant.

---

Charges Sought for Troopers Involved in Turnpike Shooting

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By ROBERT HANLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/nyregion/14TROO.html

HACKENSACK, N.J., Dec. 13 - The Attorney General's office went to court today seeking reinstatement of criminal charges against two state troopers who shot and wounded three unarmed men in a van on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1998, an incident that started a highly charged debate over racial profiling in the state.

An assistant attorney general, Richard W. Berg, contended before a three-judge panel in the Appellate Division of Superior Court that a lower court judge had erred on Oct. 31 when he threw out an indictment against the troopers, James Kenna and John Hogan, who are both white. Mr. Berg asked the judges to restore attempted-murder and aggravated- assault charges filed against them for firing 11 bullets into the van during a traffic stop in April 1998.

The van's four occupants (the fourth man was not hurt) were black or Hispanic and from New York City, and were driving south on the Turnpike on their way to a basketball clinic in North Carolina when the troopers stopped them. The troopers contended that the van was speeding. Moments after the vehicle was pulled over, the troopers have said, it lurched backward toward Trooper Hogan, and, fearing for his life, they began shooting.

Today's hearing focused on two of the reasons cited by Judge Andrew J. Smithson of State Superior Court when he threw out the indictment. At the time, he accused the Attorney General's office of violating the troopers' rights during the grand jury inquiry into the shooting, and he criticized the office for making public an April 1999 indictment charging Troopers Kenna and Hogan with falsifying arrest records.

The judge ruled that the state was legally obligated to explain to the grand jurors that police officers are allowed to fire their handguns in self- defense when they feel their lives are in jeopardy.

And since in April 1999 a grand jury was investigating the van shooting, Judge Smithson contended that the falsifying-records indictment was disclosed to quell a political furor over racial profiling and that it prejudiced the grand jurors investigating the shooting.

During questioning today by Judges David S. Baime, Phillip S. Carchman and John E. Wallace Jr., Mr. Berg said that the state was not required to tell grand jurors about the justifiable self-defense rules for police officers. He contended that forensic evidence undercut the troopers' self-defense argument, and that grand jurors must be told about self- defense evidence only when it is "clearly exculpatory." The proper forum for raising the self-defense argument, he said, was at trial, not in a grand jury proceeding.

Lawyers for both troopers disagreed with the state's contention. Philip DeVencentes, who represented Trooper Hogan, said that state prosecutors had promised early in the grand jury inquiry to explain the self-defense rule for police officers and that they failed to do so. He said officers were allowed to fire their weapons if they had a "reasonable" belief that their lives were in danger, even if that belief was later determined to be mistaken. He said the grand jurors should have been allowed to evaluate the evidence about the troopers' perceived threat from the van and to decide themselves if it was justified.

Trooper Kenna's lawyer, David W. Fassett, said he believed the state was compelled to tell the grand jurors about the rule on the self-defense justification.

The panel did not indicate when it would rule on the state's request.

The two troopers attended the hearing, but would not comment afterward.

---

L.A. OKs more corruption settlements

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 07:24 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndsthu05.htm

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The City Council has approved two more settlements of lawsuits stemming from a police corruption scandal, bringing to 45 the number resolved so far at a cost of about $31 million.

More than 70 lawsuits and 80 claims are pending, and city attorneys estimate settlement costs could top $125 million.

The council on Tuesday agreed with a city attorney's office recommendation to pay Robert Andrade and Olga Alatorre $400,000 each.

Andrade claims disgraced former officer Rafael Perez and his ex-partner, Nino Durden, searched for drugs in his apartment without his permission.

Perez has said he and Durden stole about $1,000 from Andrade's apartment and parts of their arrest report were false. Andrade served two years in prison before his conviction on drug charges was overturned and he was deported to Tijuana in April.

Alatorre, who says she was illegally searched by Perez, was convicted of cocaine possession and sentenced to four years in prison. She served almost three years before she was released and deported to Mexico.

Perez exposed the scandal last year when he detailed alleged corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart station in exchange for a lighter sentence for stealing cocaine from an evidence room.

More than 100 convictions have been thrown out as a result of the scandal in which officers of Rampart's anti-gang unit are said to have beat, robbed and framed suspects.

Three officers were convicted Nov. 15 of perjury and conspiracy in the first trial stemming from the allegations.

---

Arrest by Police Leader Takes Him Back to Roots

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/nyregion/14COMM.html

He had his shield out, and he liked it.

It was like old times, said Bernard B. Kerik, the police commissioner, as he recounted making a street arrest yesterday just a block from 1 Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan.

As a beat officer, he once walked a foot post on West 42nd Street, and he later worked as a ponytailed undercover narcotics detective. As commissioner, Mr. Kerik has tried to keep in touch with rank-and-file officers, especially with morale at a low ebb and contract negotiations for a long-sought raise stalled. He has appeared at roll calls at station houses around the city and invited randomly selected officers to dinner in his office.

So this bit of street-savvy police work yesterday could only enhance his popularity with them. The commissioner was in his car, returning about 1:30p.m. to Police Headquarters with his security detail, when he saw a man and a woman in a heated argument on the corner of Madison Street and St. James Place, he said.

"The woman was holding something in her hand that appeared to be a weapon," he said. "The thing she had in her hand was a box cutter razor."

Mr. Kerik said he and a detective on his security detail got out of their black Chrysler sedan and told the man and woman to step away from each other. The detective, Gary Combs, grabbed the woman, and Mr. Kerik reached into her pocket, where he had seen her put the object she had been holding. He came up with the box cutter.

The man had a large folding knife in his pocket, Mr. Kerik said. Both were arrested. The woman, Tina Sinclaire, 20, was charged with menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, the police said. The man, Wakene Littlejohn, 22, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

Mr. Kerik said that he had not told the man and woman that he was the police commissioner. They did not seem to recognize him, he said. "I identified myself as a police officer."

---

Slightly off center . . .

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 02:46 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nweird.htm
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Easy money police sting

COVINGTON, Ky. - Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn cooked up a bait-and-switch scheme using the prospect of unclaimed tax money to nab dozens of people with outstanding arrest warrants. In a two-year plan to resolve the backlog, the sheriff's office sent out notices inviting people to partake in their just desserts at the Kentucky Department of Tax Reclamation, an agency that doesn't exist. In the end, 72 spent the night in jail while 89 warrants were resolved. Many didn't detect the ruse even after being arrested, asking to use the tax refund toward bail.

---

New York Times
December 14, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/world/14BRIE.html

EUROPE
BOSNIA: WAR CRIMES PLEA A former Bosnian Serb police chief admitted committing war crimes, then dropped complaints that American troops illegally arrested him. The plea bargain, in which Steven Todorovic pleaded guilty to a single charge of persecution in exchange for having 26 other charges withdrawn, ended a legal standoff that had threatened to incapacitate the United Nations war crimes tribunal meeting in The Hague. (AP)

---

USA Today
12/14/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

New Mexico

Albuquerque - The city has agreed to pay $210,000 to a woman attacked by a police dog. In exchange, Eddie Mae Patterson, 24, won't pursue a lawsuit, her attorney said. A policeman released the dog in September when he found the woman inside a vacant apartment and she didn't show her hands as ordered. Patterson said she was asleep and unarmed.

West Virginia

Martinsburg - Survivors of policemen killed in the line of duty are urging state residents to put a single blue light in holiday decorations to honor fallen officers. Two officers died in West Virginia this year, one shot by a man he had arrested and another who crashed while on bike patrol.

-------- spying

Freed U.S. prisoner leaves Russia

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By MELISSA EDDY Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405339082

LANDSTUHL, Germany (AP) - Edmond Pope, newly pardoned by Russia's president after a spy conviction he had vigorously rejected, flew to freedom in Germany on Thursday, ending a ``horrible nightmare'' that cast a pall on U.S.-Russia relations.

Pope, the first American convicted of espionage in Russia in 40 years, landed at Ramstein Air Force base in Germany hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered him released from Moscow's Lefortovo prison. He had been sentenced to 20 years in jail by a Moscow court last week.

``It's great to be back in the real world,'' Pope said, waving a small American flag and shouting through wind and rain at reporters from a balcony at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where he is being treated.

Wearing a light-blue hospital gown and hugging his wife, Pope said he felt great.

The Pennsylvania businessman has suffered in the past from a rare form of bone cancer, and his health deteriorated in jail. He was to have a complete medical examination over the next 36 hours, said Landstuhl commander Col. Elder Granger.

``He's in great spirits. When he got here, he requested a cup of black coffee and to talk to a chaplain,'' Granger said. ``At this point he looks healthy and does not appear malnourished.''

Pope in recent weeks has gained back some of the 25 pounds he lost since his April 3 arrest, after his wife Cheri and U.S. Embassy officials in Moscow started bringing him food in prison, said U.S. Rep. John Peterson of Pennsylvania, who also flew to Germany on Thursday.

``He said that food was what has nourished him and helped him gain some of his strength back,'' Peterson said.

Russia's Security Service, the agency that prosecuted Pope, said a prison doctor examined Pope before his release and pronounced his health ``normal.''

But several things in recent months _ including a lump in the neck and back pain _ had raised his family's concerns about the cancer, Peterson's spokeswoman, Jennifer Bennett said. Doctors at Landstuhl planned a thorough cancer screening.

Pope was given some private time before seeing doctors at Landstuhl, 85 miles southwest of Frankfurt. He telephoned his mother, who is caring for his ailing father in Oregon, his two grown sons and his business partner, Bennett said.

Said his mother, Elizabeth: ``It's like waking up from a horrible nightmare.''

``I will be much happier when I see him and I am able to put my arms around him,'' she told The Associated Press from Grants Pass, Ore.

Pope's business partner in his hometown, State College, Pa., said Pope sounded ``in good spirits,'' during the call.

``I could see the smile on his face all the way through the phone. He was thankful for all the support that we were able to give him from this end,'' said Keith McClellan, Pope's partner in TechSource Marine Industries.

Pope was convicted and sentenced by a Moscow court last week on charges he illegally obtained plans for a top-secret Russian Navy torpedo.

Pope maintained his innocence, saying the plans he purchased were not secret and that the technology had already been sold abroad and published. Pope sent a letter to Putin asking for clemency on the eve of his conviction, his wife said.

Pope was quoted Thursday in a voice over by Russia's state-controlled ORT television as expressing mixed feelings about his release. ``On the one hand, I'm glad, on the other, I regret that it happened like this. I wouldn't want to damage Russian-American relations.''

A Putin spokesman told AP that the Russian leader pardoned Pope on humanitarian grounds and to preserve good relations with Washington. The pardon cited ``the health condition of the convict and his personal appeal, and also ... the high level of ties between the Russian Federation and the United States of America.''

President Clinton welcomed the release in a statement from England, saying ``it is important that humanitarian considerations prevailed in the end.''

``Mr. Pope's ordeal was unjustified,'' Clinton added.

Putin, meanwhile, arrived in Cuba late Wednesday for a visit to the former communist ally. He indicated last week that he would release Pope, and Thursday was the first day that Putin could pardon Pope under Russian law.

Liliya Shevtsova, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, suggested that Putin had pardoned Pope in hopes of favorable treatment by President-elect George W. Bush. ``It looks like there was some kind of trade-off,'' he said, adding that Pope's guilt ``clearly was not proven.''

The case also raised questions about the growing power of the security services in Russia and fueled fears among foreigners trying to do business there.

Earlier Thursday, Pope's wife went to the Moscow prison along with U.S. Embassy officers. A clutch of reporters and TV crews waited at the gates of the high-security prison, which is surrounded by a cinderblock wall topped with coiled, barbed wire.

The Security Service said Pope was handed his personal belongings and given the chance to ask questions about the pardon. He had none, the service said.

``We regret this decision wasn't made during the judicial process,'' Pope's lawyer, Pavel Astakhov said. ``But freedom is the main thing that Pope needs now.''

---

Convicted Spy Leaves Russia After Pardon

Yahoo News
World News
Thursday December 14 11:44 AM ET
By Patrick Lannin
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001214/wl/russia_usa_dc_9.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Convicted U.S. spy Edmond Pope left Russia on Thursday just hours after President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) freed him from a 20-year jail sentence due to his poor health and the importance of U.S.-Russian relations.

The United States welcomed the pardon, which removed a big irritant in ties just as it became clear that Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) would be the next U.S. president.

Pope said it felt ``great to be back in the real world'' after arriving at a U.S. military base in Germany where he was to have a medical check-up before flying home.

``It's great. I feel great. I feel good,'' a pale and visibly tired Pope told reporters from a balcony at the U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl, where he had been flown on a specially chartered jet after Putin pardoned him.

President Clinton (news - web sites), on a visit to Britain, thanked Putin for releasing Pope while insisting the ordeal suffered by the businessman and former naval intelligence officer was unjustified.

``I welcome today's release of Edmond Pope after eight months of detention in Russia and appreciate President Putin's decision to pardon Mr. Pope,'' Clinton said in a written statement.

``Mr. Pope's ordeal was unjustified. It is fortunate that humanitarian considerations prevailed in the end,'' he added.

The decision was a relief for Pope's wife and family, who had feared that the rare form of cancer from which he suffers would re-emerge from remission while he was in prison.

Putin freed Pope from the 20-year sentence for espionage on the first day he could legally issue the pardon after a presidential commission recommended Pope's release last week.

Great Spirits

A U.S. congressman who campaigned for Pope's release and was traveling with him said the 54-year-old was in ``great spirits.''

``The first thing he requested when he arrived here was a cup of black coffee and to see chaplain Dave McLean to pray and show gratitude to God and our country,'' said John Peterson, a Republican from Pope's home state of Pennsylvania.

The commander of the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Colonel Elder Granger, said Pope looked healthy despite having lost some weight during his confinement.

``There are no signs of malnourishment,'' Granger said, adding that Pope would undergo medical and psychological tests for 24 to 36 hours before being allowed to fly home.

White House National Security Adviser P.J. Crowley, traveling with Clinton, said the fact that Pope was homeward bound was reason enough to be pleased.

``It did have an impact on the relationship,'' Crowley said. ''It was something the president brought up repeatedly in their meetings this year and obviously it's something that President Putin has now put behind us.''

The FSB domestic security service said the decree was read to the American in a cell in the prison where he has been held since his arrest by the FSB in April.

Prison officials returned Pope's belongings to him and he immediately left for Moscow's international airport.

Pope had denied the charges of spying and trying to obtain secrets about a high-speed Russian torpedo. But a Russian court last week sentenced him to the maximum 20 years in jail.

Pope had said he was researching material already openly available. He was the first Westerner convicted of spying since the Cold War.

``This act of mercy toward Edmond Pope cannot be overestimated,'' Pope's Russian lawyer Pavel Astakhov told NTV independent television in Moscow as the American flew to Germany with his wife, Cheri.

Release On Humanitarian, Diplomatic Grounds

A presidential commission recommended his release days after the sentence was handed down, but Putin could not issue the decree until the sentence came into effect on December 14.

``Being guided by principles of humanity, taking into account the health condition of the convict and his personal appeal and based on the high level of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States of America, I order the pardon of Pope, Edmond Dean,'' Putin's decree said.

The FSB spokesman said Pope had left the jail in good health, thanking staff for maintaining conditions of imprisonment which, the FSB quoted Pope as saying, were at the level of international standards.

Putin had publicly promised Clinton he would free the businessman and the FSB said the pardon decree had been signed on Wednesday evening, before Putin left Moscow for a visit to Cuba and Canada.

---

Spy Agency in Brazil Is Accused of Abuses

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/world/14BRAZ.html

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 13 - First came accusations of domestic spying, then the firings of top officials said to have been involved in the torture of political prisoners many years ago.

Now the Brazilian government's intelligence agency is coming under increasingly heavy fire for what appear to be violations of its charter and a return to some of the more odious practices of the past.

The director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, Col. Ariel Rocha de Cunto, has been dismissed. News reports last month that his agents were spying on an opposition governor, reporters, a prosecutor and even the president's son were quickly followed by charges that at least two of his senior aides supervised the torture of dissidents during the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985.

In a sworn deposition to federal prosecutors last week after he stepped down, Colonel de Cunto identified some of the many entities that his agency has had under surveillance. Among those were the environmental group Greenpeace, the human rights organization Americas Watch, the Monsanto chemical company and the religious sect led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

The responses of those named have ranged from puzzlement to indignation.

"The money spent to obtain this type of information would be better employed in investigations of the various accusations we have made of industrial pollution, illegal commercialization of genetically modified food and the destructive exploitation of the Amazon Forest," said Roberto Kishinami, executive director of the Brazilian branch of Greenpeace.

For President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist with a social democratic philosophy, such disclosures, especially those relating to torture, strike especially close to home.

He was himself forced into exile during the military dictatorship and had friends who were jailed or even killed by the state security apparatus.

"I have a loathing of anyone who has links to torture," Mr. Cardoso said this month. Nevertheless his government has been placed in the awkward position of having to fend off demands to abolish the intelligence agency while simultaneously curbing the abuses that have come to light.

The agency, known in Portuguese as ABIN for short, was established a year ago this month as the successor to the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs, created in 1990. The predecessor of both agencies was the notorious National Intelligence Service, or SIN, which was in charge of all aspects of state security during the military dictatorship, when an estimated 3,000 Brazilians disappeared.

To replace Colonel de Cunto, Mr. Cardoso has nominated Marisa del'Isola e Diniz, a psychologist who, if confirmed by the Senate, would be the first woman to head an intelligence service in Latin America.

Little is known about Ms. Diniz or her background. She is reported to have worked for Brazilian intelligence agencies since the mid-1970's and to have most recently been in charge of personnel and training of ABIN's 1,740 employees.

Political analysts regard the selection of Ms. Diniz as an effort to defuse the scandal by appointing someone without a formal military background.

Nevertheless, opposition legislators have threatened to hold up her confirmation until the government supplies a complete list of the agency's staff so that the names of employees can be checked against a master registry of torturers that human rights groups have compiled.

"We are going to have a relationship of permanent conflict that will not be camouflaged," vowed Senator Heloisa Helena, who represents the leftist Workers' Party on a new congressional intelligence oversight committee.

The leadership of the Workers' Party includes survivors of some of the worst abuses of the period of dictatorship, and Ms. Helena said that "there are still some worries we need to put to rest" before Ms. Diniz can be confirmed.

Members of the oversight committee say 15 percent of the new agency's employees worked for the SIN. But military leaders oppose a thorough investigation, likening it to a witch hunt and accusing supporters of the plan of exaggerating the situation to obtain belated revenge.

"These are people who feed on their own bile and rancor," said Gen. Gleuber Vieira, commander in chief of the Brazilian Army. He dismissed the accusations of torture as "isolated instances" that "have nothing to do with those of us who are on active duty today," and criticized those who he said were "stirring up the past without necessity in order to make a lot of accusations that have no basis or proof."

-------- terrorism

New anti-terrorist strategy sought

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405336913

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States lacks a ``coherent ... national strategy'' to counter the threat of terrorist attacks, and the next president must develop one immediately, a new report says.

``We are impelled by the stark realization that a terrorist attack on some level inside our borders is inevitable, and the United States must be ready,'' a panel of anti-terrorism experts told President Clinton and Congress on Thursday.

A ``truly national'' strategy should give local law enforcers, fire departments and emergency medical services a major stake in planning and executing any new approach, the committee, chaired by Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, said in its second annual report. After bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, Congress established the advisory group in 1999 to assess the United States' domestic response capabilities to terrorism.

The distinctions between international terrorism and domestic terrorist attacks are eroding, said the report, noting acts as disparate as the World Trade Center bombing in New York, the attacks against the embassies in East Africa and the recent strike in Yemen against the destroyer USS Cole.

``To be functionally comprehensive, the national strategy should address the full spectrum of the nation's efforts against terrorism,'' from intelligence, investigation and prosecution to crisis management, the report said.

Among the panel's findings: Federal executive branch programs for addressing terrorism ``cross an extraordinary number of jurisdictions'' and ``no one is `in charge' of all relevant capabilities.''

``The United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism,'' the document concludes. It recommends a National Office for Combating Terrorism in the White House to deter, prepare for and respond to international and domestic terrorism.

The office would do extensive budget review and ``eliminate conflicts and unnecessary duplication among agencies.''

Congress ``shares responsibility for the inadequate coordination of programs to combat terrorism,'' the report said. It made these points:

_Congress should consolidate authority over anti-terrorism programs into a Special Committee for Combating Terrorism _ either a joint Senate-House committee or a separate committee in each chamber.

_The government should ensure that high-level state and local officials help develop and implement a national strategy for terrorism preparedness.

For example, ``adequate stockpiles of vaccines should be created and made accessible for rapid response to a terrorist biological attack.'' While the Centers for Disease Control recently contracted for 40 million doses of effective smallpox vaccine, ``much remains to be done to ensure effective distribution of vaccines, including better coordination with state and local agencies.''

On the Net: Last year's terrorism report:
http://www.rand.org/organization/nsrd/terrpanel

---

Yemen: Bin Laden Possibly Involved in Cole Attack

Yahoo News
World News
Thursday December 14 6:19 PM ET
By Rawhi Abeidoh

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Thursday it was possible Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden was involved in the apparent suicide bombing of the U.S. navy destroyer Cole in Aden in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed.

But Saleh said investigations with six suspects in the October 12 attack had so far not clearly identified who was behind the explosion that crippled the Cole and tore a big hole in the side of one of the most advanced U.S. warships.

``So far, we are not blaming a specific party in the Cole bombing. But the group which carried out the attack and those now under interrogation are elements who were in Afghanistan, therefore it is possible to link them with bin Laden,'' he told Reuters in an interview at the presidential palace in Sanaa.

Witnesses had reported seeing two men aboard a small boat that exploded alongside the Cole as it refueled at Aden port.

Yemeni officials have said the two bombers had died in the explosion that also injured more than 30 U.S. sailors.

Bin Laden, who is believed to live in Afghanistan and who has been accused by the United States of masterminding the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, has denied involvement in the Cole attack.

The Yemeni president said another possible culprit was Israel, because the Jewish state would be the main beneficiary in harming U.S.-Yemeni relations and tarnishing the image of Islam in Western eyes.

Key Suspect Still On The Run

Saleh said Yemeni authorities were hunting for a key suspect -- Mohammed Omar al-Harazi, whose mother is Saudi Arabian married to a Yemeni trader in the Saudi holy city of Mecca.

``Harazi is still on the run and the security authorities are chasing him with great interest,'' Saleh said.

The president said Harazi, like the six suspects under investigation, was an Afghan Arab.

He was referring to Muslim militants, including Yemenis, who fought to end Soviet occupation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but later turned against their former sponsor, the United States.

Saleh said cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI (news - web sites)) was still continuing, denying reports that Yemeni authorities had completed their case and prepared a trial for the six suspects in January.

Yemen's prime minister had been quoted as saying the six would be put on trial next month after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

``We are still following those who are involved in the Cole bombing and the probe is still continuing in cooperation with the FBI,'' Saleh said.

But he added that FBI experts were not allowed to attend the investigation of the suspects carried out by Yemeni security.

Saleh denied U.S. media reports that some Yemeni officials might have been involved in the Cole attack, either by providing help to the suspects or by turning a blind eye to their presence in Yemen.

---

U.S. vows campaign against Taliban

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405326191

WASHINGTON (AP) Declaring Afghanistan is ``a haven of lawlessness,'' the State Department's counterterrorism chief vowed Wednesday an all-out diplomatic, political and economic pressure campaign to isolate the ruling Taliban militia from the world community.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee's crime subcommittee, the official, Michael A. Sheehan, ticked off a list of 11 suspected terrorists who have been harbored in Afghanistan, train their forces there or been financed from the South Asian country.

And the list, headed by Saudi expatriate Osama bin Laden, wanted for prosecution in the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, ``gets longer all the time,'' Sheehan said.

Sheehan said Afghanistan has been at the heart of U.S. measures to counter terrorism.

``The Taliban's control over most of Afghanistan has resulted in a haven of lawlessness, in which terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals live with impunity,'' he said.

Central to the U.S. campaign are sanctions the United States and Russia are seeking to have the U.N. Security Council impose on the ruling Taliban militia. These include an embargo on arms sales to Afghanistan and export of chemicals used to manufacture heroin.

Sheehan said Afghanistan's opium crop accounts for 72 percent of the world's illicit opium and cultivation of the crop has continued to increase.

In the terrorism field, Sheehan said numerous people immediately left Yemen for Afghanistan after the USS Cole was bombed two months ago in Aden harbor, killing 17 American sailors.

There, Sheehan said, ``they could hide out with little fear of Taliban intervention.''

The proposed arms embargo and other sanctions are intended to compel the Taliban to hand over bin Laden for trial in the bombings. He is the alleged mastermind of the attacks.

On other fronts, Sheehan said the United States was trying to rally support for Afghanistan's neighbors in fighting terrorism and the drug trade and is considering adding to the 29 foreign organizations designated as terrorist groups.

Also, Sheehan said, President Clinton has asked the Senate to approve an international agreement designed to make it more difficult for terrorism groups to raise or transfer money.

And, he said, the State, Justice and Treasury Departments, and the FBI, are developing training courses for foreign officials to help them detect and curb terrorist fund-raising. The courses will begin early next year, Sheehan said.

``We will continue to put political, diplomatic and economic pressure on the Taliban to make them realize that they will not be an accepted member of the international community until they comply with internationally accepted norms on terrorism,'' Sheehan said.

A year ago, the U.N. Security Council froze Afghanistan assets and imposed an embargo on the Ariana Afghan Airlines, which is controlled by Taliban.

Sheehan said the new sanctions would hit the regime _ not the people _ where it hurts.

Some humanitarian groups say the sanctions would make life more difficult for the poor Afghan people. The United Nations also is concerned about a potential backlash against aid workers in the country.

Afghans are suffering from the impact of 20 years of civil war and the worst drought in decades.

Sheehan said, however, an explosion of poppy cultivation under the Taliban has reduced agricultural land available for food crops.

The Clinton administration decided to seek new sanctions after it made no headway toward persuading Taliban to hand over bin Laden. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering; William Milam, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, and other U.S. officials have held a series of meetings with Taliban representatives.

---

Panel seeks 'coherent' anti-terrorist strategy

USA Today
12/14/00- Updated 01:45 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu02.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A panel of anti-terrorism experts recommended on Thursday that President-elect Bush develop a national plan for combating terrorism within his first year in office.

''The United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism,'' said Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who heads the panel. ''Instead, we have a loosely coupled set of broad policy documents, plans and specific programs.''

The plan should give local law enforcement, fire departments and emergency medical services a major stake in planning and executing any new approach, the panel concluded in its second annual report, which was presented to Bush, President Clinton and Congress.

After bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, Congress established the advisory group in 1999 to assess the United States' domestic response capabilities to terrorism.

''A terrorist attack on some level inside our borders is inevitable and the United States must be ready,'' Gilmore said. ''We are not, as some suggest, totally unprepared to meet the threat of terrorism in our own front yard. But we can be better prepared.''

The panel also recommended that the White House create a national office to deter, prepare for and respond to international and domestic terrorism.

The office would do extensive budget reviews and ''eliminate conflicts and unnecessary duplication among agencies,'' the report said.

While the panel recommended better intelligence gathering about terrorism and increased sharing of that information among local law enforcement, Gilmore emphasized the need to protect the rights of Americans.

''Preservation of the Constitution and protection of our civil liberties must always come before what might be more efficient or expedient,'' he said, adding that the military should never head a domestic terrorism investigation, instead lending support to a civilian agency in charge.

The distinctions between international terrorism and domestic terrorist attacks are eroding, said the report, noting the World Trade Center bombing in New York, the attacks against the embassies in East Africa and the recent strike in Yemen against the destroyer USS Cole.

Among the panel's findings: Federal executive branch programs for addressing terrorism ''cross an extraordinary number of jurisdictions'' and ''no one is 'in charge' of all relevant capabilities.''

Congress ''shares responsibility for the inadequate coordination of programs to combat terrorism,'' the report said.

It made these points:

Congress should consolidate authority over anti-terrorism programs into a Special Committee for Combating Terrorism - either a joint Senate-House committee or a separate committee in each chamber.

The government should ensure that high-level state and local officials help develop and implement a national strategy for terrorism preparedness.

For example, ''adequate stockpiles of vaccines should be created and made accessible for rapid response to a terrorist biological attack.'' While the Centers for Disease Control recently contracted for 40 million doses of effective smallpox vaccine, ''much remains to be done to ensure effective distribution of vaccines, including better coordination with state and local agencies."

---

Taleban suspected of aiding terrorists

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
By Barry Schweid ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-20001214224850.htm

Hinting that suspects in the bombing of the USS Cole are hiding out in Afghanistan, the State Department's counterterrorism chief yesterday vowed an all-out diplomatic, political and economic pressure campaign to isolate the ruling Taleban militia from the world community.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee's crime subcommittee, the official, Michael A. Sheehan, presented a list of 11 suspected terrorists who have been harbored in Afghanistan, who train their forces there or who have been financed from the South Asian country.

Mr. Sheehan said the list, headed by Saudi expatriate Osama bin Laden, wanted for prosecution in the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, "gets longer all the time."

Mr. Sheehan said Afghanistan has been at the heart of U.S. measures to defeat terrorism.

"The Taleban's control over most of Afghanistan has resulted in a haven of lawlessness, in which terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals live with impunity," he said.

Mr. Sheehan said numerous people immediately left Yemen for Afghanistan after the USS Cole was bombed two months ago in Aden harbor, killing 17 American sailors.

There, Mr. Sheehan said, "they could hide out with little fear of Taleban intervention."

Central to the U.S. campaign are sanctions the United States and Russia are seeking to have the U.N. Security Council impose on the ruling Taleban militia. These include an embargo on arms sales to Afghanistan and export of chemicals used to manufacture heroin.

Mr. Sheehan said Afghanistan's opium crop accounts for 72 percent of the world's illicit opium and cultivation of the crop has continued to increase.

The proposed arms embargo and other sanctions are intended to compel the Taleban regime to hand over bin Laden for trial in the bombings. He is the suspected mastermind of the attacks.

On other fronts, Mr. Sheehan said the United States is trying to rally support for Afghanistan's neighbors in fighting terrorism and the drug trade and is considering adding to the 29 foreign organizations designated as terrorist groups.

Also, Mr. Sheehan said, President Clinton has asked the Senate to approve an international agreement designed to make it more difficult for terrorism groups to raise or transfer money.

The State, Justice and Treasury departments, plus the FBI, are developing training courses for foreign officials to help them detect and curb terrorist fund-raising, Mr. Sheehan said. The courses will begin early next year.

"We will continue to put political, diplomatic and economic pressure on the Taleban to make them realize that they will not be an accepted member of the international community until they comply with internationally accepted norms on terrorism," Mr. Sheehan said.

A year ago, the U.N. Security Council froze Afghanistan assets and imposed an embargo on the Ariana Afghan Airlines, which is controlled by the Taleban regime.

Mr. Sheehan said the new sanctions would hit the government -not the people - where it hurts.

Some humanitarian groups say the sanctions will make life more difficult for the already suffering Afghan people. The United Nations also is concerned about a potential backlash against aid workers in the country.

Afghans are suffering from the impact of 20 years of civil war and the worst drought in decades. But the explosion of poppy cultivation under the Taleban regime has reduced agricultural land available for food crops, Mr. Sheehan said.

---

Two to avoid

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
Embassy Row
James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-20001214214214.htm

Americans should avoid traveling to Sudan and Afghanistan, the State Department said yesterday.

One travel notice said Sudan is unstable and the police are out of control.

Another notice cited threats from terrorists as the reason to stay away from Afghanistan.

On today's World page, the State Department's counterterrorism chief, Michael A. Sheehan, gives more details on how Afghanistan has become a "haven of lawlessness" under the ruling Taleban militia.

Mr. Sheehan testified before the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime.

Sudan recently expelled an American diplomat and denounced Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice for an unauthorized visit to rebel-held areas of the country.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail morris@twtmail.com

---

Greek terrorists mock authorities

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2000121417251.htm

ATHENS, Greece - An elusive Greek terrorist group has released a lengthy statement mocking law enforcement authorities and saying the June assassination of a senior British diplomat was its most important act of violence.

The group, November 17, is blamed for 22 assassinations since 1975. In a six-page statement published yesterday in the Athens daily Eleftherotypia, the group said the killers of Brig. Gen. Stephen Saunders were able to weave through heavy rush-hour traffic on a motorcycle while carrying a 3-foot-long military assault rifle.

No members of the group, which surfaced in 1975 with the slaying of CIA station chief Richard Welch, have ever been caught.

-------- activists

Charges dropped against protesters

Infobeat
Thursday, December 14, 2000
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=c6n3lo54u973m

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Prosecutors dropped charges Wednesday against 33 more protesters arrested during last summer's Republican National Convention after police failed to identify the suspects from photographs or lineups. Police arrested 75 people Aug. 1 at a West Philadelphia warehouse where activists had been building papier mache puppets, signs and other props to be used during demonstrations. Charges against 32 of those arrested were dropped previously, after state troopers could not recognize mug shots of people whom they had testified against in pretrial hearings. The rest accepted plea agreements earlier. "The prosecutor's office did the right thing," defense attorney Bradley Bridge said. So far, about 200 Republican convention defendants have been cleared, and another 100 have accepted plea agreements for lesser charges. Fewer than 50 have been convicted of minor charges. About 90 defendants have pending trials.

---

Working poor descend on food banks

Infobeat
December 14, 2000

By RICHARD BENKE Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405329338

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - To the working poor looking in booming economy from the outside, housing and fuel prices have exploded and health care, prescription drug and car repair costs aren't far behind.

That's leaving precious little for food budgets this holiday season, almost five years into the welfare reform act's efforts to move people off welfare and into jobs.

``A lot of the people that eat here have jobs,'' said chef Joe Cailteux, cooking up ham, noodle casserole and green beans at Albuquerque's Salvation Army kitchen. ``As a matter of fact, we have scheduled the hours that we feed here in order to feed the people who do attempt to work.''

A year ago, the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that demand for emergency food assistance grew 18 percent over 1998 in 26 cities. On Thursday, they plan an update on hunger and homelessness.

A U.S. Agriculture Department study last year found 10 million families, or 9.7 percent of U.S. households, had inadequate access to food in 1996-98. New Mexico topped the list at 15.1 percent.

``It does become a choice between do I take my child to the doctor, pay my utility bill or go to the grocery store and buy food?'' said Cindy Cerf, spokeswoman for St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix, which distributes 30 million pounds of food a year, mostly to 900 relief agencies in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

``These aren't people who are depending on welfare,'' she said. ``It's just that they're at the low end of the pay scale.''

Also suffering are people whose jobs don't include health benefits, said Sister Paulette LoMonaco, executive director of Good Shepherd Services in New York City.

``Their salaries aren't sufficient to provide benefits or a living wage, so when a small problem comes up, it becomes a catastrophe,'' she said.

Single mother Margaret Trujillo of Albuquerque earns $60 a week from baby-sitting and gets $120 a month in food stamps. She says rising fuel prices mean she can't pay her bills, so she turned to a food pantry to make sure she and her 3-year-old son have enough to eat.

``My mom's not going to say get out, you know, but I need to pay her,'' she said.

Soaring demand, low inventories and expected colder weather will keep natural gas and heating-oil prices high through the winter, government and industry economists said Tuesday. The Energy Department estimated heating bills for natural gas consumers would be 50 percent higher this winter than last.

Rents have skyrocketed so much in 38 metropolitan areas that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development broadened its rent-subsidy program this month.

Still, some people aren't getting help that they could. Food stamp rolls dropped 28 percent after welfare reform, according to the General Accounting Office.

Doug O'Brien of Chicago-based America's Second Harvest, a food bank umbrella group, says many people leaving welfare were never told they remained eligible for food stamps or found it hard to get them.

Said Agriculture Undersecretary Shirley Watkins, who supervises the food stamp program: ``I think there was a lot of misinformation.''

So people turn to food banks. The Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque distributed 10 million pounds of food statewide this year _ double the amount since last year, said director Melody Wattenbarger.

``The flaw in that is we can't do it _ we were designed to be emergency food suppliers. There's really not enough food to do that,'' she said.

New Mexico plans a massive outreach program in the next six months to alert people eligible for food stamps.

The prevailing glow of affluence also can make helping the needy trickier: ``It's a little harder to convince people there's a whole group of people who have been left behind by that prosperity,'' Wattenbarger said.

Fred Grandy, recently retired as president of Goodwill Industries, says welfare reform was a turning point for that organization. Last year, he said, Goodwill served 373,000 people _ three times the number for 1995.

``It's a work in progress,'' he said. ``Replacing welfare with work is a good idea, but it is a long-term strategy, not a short-term fix.''

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Cities still seeing high need for assistance

USA Today 12/13/00
By Jessie Halladay, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed09.htm

Despite economic growth throughout the country, major cities continue to see an increased need for hunger and homeless assistance.

A report to be released Thursday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors shows that 25 cities surveyed saw a 15% spike in demand for emergency shelter in 1999, the highest increase since 1990.

At the same time, the report says, the increase in demand for hunger assistance remained relatively stable. It was 18% in 1998 and 17% in 1999.

During the 16 years the mayors' group has put out the hunger and homelessness report, the need for help has continued to increase despite the nation's overall economic growth, says Peter Clavelle, mayor of Burlington, Vt., and head of the group's hunger and homeless committee.

"The economists tell us that we're living in an era of unprecedented prosperity, yet the food banks and homeless shelters tell us that the lines are getting longer," Clavelle says.

The report points to low-paying jobs and the lack of affordable housing as causes of the increased demand for help. Also cited: Cuts in public assistance, substance-abuse treatment funds and programs for the mentally ill.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, about 5.4 million households either spend half their income on housing or live in substandard conditions. HUD estimates that 600,000 people are without shelter nationwide on any given night.

Congress continues to debate a $1 increase in the minimum wage over two years, as proposed by President Clinton. Supporters say the increase would help ease some of the problems pointed to in the mayors' report. Opponents believe it would hurt small businesses and create fewer jobs overall.

Deborah Leff, president of the nation's largest food bank service, America's Second Harvest, says it will take resources from all levels of national, state and local governments, along with the private and non-profit sectors, to address the rising needs. "We all have to come together to fight hunger."

A growing number of those people seeking help are families, children and working people, which troubles both Clavelle and Leff. "People go to work every day only to return at night to the homeless shelter," Clavelle says. Highlights of the report include:

62% of people requesting food were from families, and 32% were employed.

About 13% of requests for food were unmet.

About 23% of requests for shelter were unmet.

Cities responding to the survey range in size from Burlington, Vt., population 40,000, to Chicago, population 2.7 million.

San Antonio, with about 1 million people, saw a 47% increase in shelter requests, while Portland, Ore., population about 450,000, saw requests go down 13%.

Providence saw a 25% increase in food requests, while requests in Salt Lake City decreased by 36%.

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Protests Planned for Bush Inauguration

Yahoo News
Politics News
Thursday December 14 5:41 PM ET
By Sue Pleming
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001214/pl/bush_protests_dc_1.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Protest groups said on Thursday they plan demonstrations at the inauguration of President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites) in Washington on Jan. 20.

A motley coalition of mainly left-wing groups intends to protest this week's intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ending weeks of post-election legal wrangling, which handed Bush victory over Democratic challenger Al Gore (news - web sites).

They will also be airing charges that many black voters, who overwhelmingly backed Gore, were stopped from voting. Many also oppose the Texas governor's commitment to the death penalty. Texas leads the country in the number of executions.

Organizers said many of the anti-globalization activists who came to the capital last April to try to disrupt meetings of the World Bank and IMF (news - web sites) were expected to take part.

``We will have many, many thousands of people coming in by bus and cars,'' said Brian Becker, co-director of the New York-based International Action Center (IAC), which is organizing the anti-inaugural demonstrations.

Police said they were gearing up for a major operation to prevent disruption of the ceremony, which includes the swearing in of the incoming president on the steps of the Capitol and a parade through the streets to the White House.

``They are trying to cause some disruptions but have apparently said they will not try to shut things down,'' said Metropolitan police chief Charles Ramsey. ``What that means, I don't know.''

He told Reuters the city's entire police force would be deployed on Inauguration Day as well as additional police from surrounding areas. Federal police agencies will also be ready to cope with ``any situation,'' he said.

Havoc In The Capital

Demonstrators created havoc in the capital last April, closing down many government offices and clashing on several occasions with baton-wielding police who used pepper spray to stop them from blocking meetings of financial leaders from the world's richest nations.

The main aim this time is to protest the Supreme Court's decision on Tuesday not to allow a recount of Florida's votes, which effectively gave Bush his victory over Gore in the most rancorous, divisive U.S. election in recent memory.

``Bush's election is a result of the lynching of the black vote in Florida,'' Becker's group said in a statement to announce the protests.

``Governor Death does not have a mandate to push his pro-rich, anti-poor, racist policies,'' said the statement.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has also threatened mass protests across America against Bush and said on Wednesday these would coincide with Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 15 or on Inauguration Day.

Jackson and other civil rights leaders are protesting what they say was the disenfranchisement of many black voters, particularly in Florida. They say many were turned away from polling stations because of registration problems.

Becker said 300 other groups were doing grass-roots organizing to make the Jan. 20 protest effective, but that it was not clear if Jackson's Rainbow-Push coalition would join their protest.

The protest would be nonviolent, he promised, like the huge anti-Vietnam War demonstrations during Richard Nixon's 1973 inauguration. ``Our plan is not to shut down the inaugural nor to conduct civil disobedience. All we want to show is that there is a very important part of American society that is ... opposed to the new president,'' he said.

Washington police arrested hundreds of demonstrators at the April anti-globalization protests and Ramsey said the same could happen again if there was ``probable cause.''

``Charles Ramsey and the police are doing their usual demonizing of the demonstrators, saying that we will cause mayhem. The truth is that the police is the lawless group,'' said Becker.

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U.S. Crop Protest in France

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/science/14GENE.html

MONTPELLIER, France, Dec. 13 - Greenpeace activists dumped tons of genetically modified soy meal onto an American flag today at a protest outside a biotechnology conference in France. The protesters oppose American exports of genetically modified crops, which they say pose health risks.

The protest was held in Montpellier, in southern France, where representatives from 177 countries were meeting to discuss international biosafety regulations adopted in January.

France's prime minister, Lionel Jospin, said today that the government would continue its moratorium on the production of modified crops.

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China jail term for sect member

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405338732

BEIJING (AP) - China confirmed Thursday that a China-born U.S. resident who helped publicize Beijing's crackdown on the Falun Gong sect has been sentenced to three years in jail for spying.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue suggested there was little chance of early release or deportation to the United States for Teng Chunyan, who was sentenced Tuesday for ``spying and leaking state secrets.''

Teng, a China-born U.S. resident, returned to China earlier this year to focus attention on the crackdown on Falun Gong, which the government banned as a social menace in July 1999.

Under the pseudonym Hannah Li, she tipped off China-based foreign reporters to protests by Falun Gong adherents and arranged interviews with them.

Detained in May, Teng was indicted two months later and tried in a secretive Nov. 23 hearing.

Teng had been expected to receive a minimum of 10 years in prison. Her relatively light sentence followed protests on her behalf from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the U.S. State Department.

Zhang, the Chinese spokeswoman, denied any connection between the U.S. interventions and the length of Teng's sentence. Asked if Teng might be deported before completing her sentence, Zhang said Beijing usually reserves such actions for foreigners, suggesting that as a Chinese citizen Teng was ineligible.

``China is a country ruled by law. The handling of such cases has always been in accordance with the law,'' Zhang said.

Falun Gong attracted millions of members during the 1990s, preaching the spiritual and moral benefits of its exercise regimen and philosophy derived from Taoism, Buddhism and the ideas of its founder, Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now living in the United States.

Alarmed by the group's size and ability to mobilize, China banned it as a dangerous cult and has sent thousands of members to prison and labor camps.

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Chinese protest removal of monument

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405338738

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Protesters angry at the removal of a monument honoring victims of a wartime Japanese massacre attacked a newly built hotel in Nanjing, smashing windows and ransacking the lobby, officials and state media said Thursday.

The protest in the Central Chinese city erupted Wednesday, the 63rd anniversary of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. It began after local residents who came to pay respects at the monument to slain Buddhist monks found that it had been moved to make way for the hotel, according to newspapers and a local official.

A crowd of several hundred that gathered outside the Nanjing Shengdao Hotel smashed lights on its front and the picture window of its restaurant, the state-run China News Agency said. The hotel had opened only a day earlier, and its lobby was still decked with wreaths and bouquets of flowers sent by well-wishers.

``The lobby is a mess,'' the China News Agency said. Hotel staff members contacted by telephone refused to comment.

Japanese troops who captured Nanjing on Dec. 12, 1937, killed as many as 300,000 people in massacres that lasted for weeks and also are known as the Rape of Nanjing. After Japan's defeat in 1945, commanders of the Nanjing force were executed as war criminals.

The Beijing-based newspaper China Youth Daily said the monument to monks of the Zhenjue Temple was moved about 150 feet to clear the entrance to the hotel. A photo of the monument in the newspaper Guangzhou Daily showed a stone cross about 30 feet high.

There were no injuries and the area was calm Thursday, said Qian Wenhua, a spokesman for the provincial Foreign Affairs Office.

A spokeswoman for the state newspaper, the Nanjing Daily, said protesters were wrong to blame the hotel. She said the monument was moved not by the hotel builders but by cultural officials who put it closer to the former site of the slain monks' temple.

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Animal Rights Voters Flex Their Muscle/Help Decide Election

Yahoo News
Thursday December 14, 7:21 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
Last Chance for Animals:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001214/ca_lca_ele.html

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by Last Chance for Animals:

Al Gore lost the presidential election because of a few votes in the State of Florida and one vote in the Supreme Court. However, he also lost the states of New Hampshire, Ohio, Nevada, and his home state of Tennessee by narrow votes. Any of these states would have put the Vice-President on top in the electoral college vote without Florida. Voters in these states indicated that honesty and trustworthiness were the two qualities that mattered most to them in their vote for President -- and these voters overwhelmingly supported George Bush. Somehow Al Gore's public image was one of going back on his word and saying he's for an issue and then doing the opposite.

Many Animal Rights supporters could not bring themselves to vote for Al Gore and voted for Ralph Nader -- which ended up being a vote for Bush. Why, because he has consistently lied to the Animal Rights movement. Over ten million Americans claim to be sensitive to Animal Rights issues -- a large constituency who knows the difference between right and wrong, and could see Al Gore for who he really is -- an enemy to animals all over the world.

The Gorey History:

-- Supports a federal grant of $130 million dollars for a direct and indirect bailout of the hog industry, which pollutes our land, water and air but doesn't pay for cleanup and lost property values.

-- Helped to overturn dolphin protection laws, which allow tuna fleets to trap and drown thousands of dolphins off the Pacific coast. The Dolphin Death Bill -- passed by Congress in 1997 -- also permits Latin American countries to ship dolphin deadly tuna into the U.S. with the "dolphin safe" label.

-- Delayed the European Union's ban on the use of steel-jaw leghold traps for another six years in the U.S. thereby allowing the U.S. to continue selling furs to Europe from animals caught in the leghold trap.

-- Joined with the Environmental Protection Agency in calling for the complete testing including the cruel LD-50 test-of all HPV chemicals by the year 2005 involving at least 200,000 animals.

-- Refuses to support sanctions against Norway for the slaughtering of hundreds of whales in violation of the global ban on commercial whaling.

-- Failed to prevent Congress from weakening environmental laws through riders on appropriation legislation, i.e., 1995 salvage logging rider and moratorium on the listing of endangered species.

In the future before a candidate runs for public office and wish to gain the support of Animal Rights voters they should make sure that their record, past and present, has helped animals instead of perpetuated their suffering. With a record like this how could Al Gore claim to be a friend of animals? We assume in future elections that candidates from any party will take this message to heart since we now know that every vote counts.

SOURCE: Last Chance for Animals

---

Serbs Protest Near Kosovo

New York Times
December 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/world/14SERB.html

DAVIDOVAC, Serbia, Dec. 13 - Thousands of angry Serbs blocked key roads near Kosovo today, demanding that the authorities drive out the ethnic Albanian militants entrenched in the area.

Some 3,000 people used cars, trucks and tractors to close roads into and out of Bujanovac and the rail line and all roads that link Serbia to Macedonia and Greece.

The blockade, set up by Serbs from Kosovo as well as local residents, intensifies pressure on President Vojislav Kostunica to use force against ethnic Albanians fighting for Kosovo's independence from Serbia.

So far, Mr. Kostunica and the Yugoslav government have shown restraint, but this reluctance to use force could backfire before the elections scheduled this month.

---

New York Times
December 14, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/world/14BRIE.html

SPAIN: WORKERS PROTEST Tens of thousands of workers marched through cities across Spain to demand stable employment and to protest attempts by the government to pass labor legislation without first consulting unions. The protests came a day before a nationwide general strike by state employees who are demanding a wage increase of 4.7 percent, in contrast to the 2 percent the government has offered. The authorities said they would ensure vital services such as emergency health care and police work during the walkout. Benjamin Jones (NYT)

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USA Today
12/14/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

New York

Albany - Advocates are renewing a push for a holiday honoring Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave, conductor of the Underground Railroad and Army veteran. If they succeed, March 10, the day she died, could become the first New York state holiday for a woman. The measure has passed the Assembly and is in committee in the Senate.

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China sect member's funeral held

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330649
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2000121417251.htm

BEIJING (AP) - In an unusual display of support for a follower of the banned Falun Gong movement, hundreds of mourners attended the heavily policed funeral Wednesday of an adherent who died after suffering severe neck injuries allegedly inflicted by police.

Despite the official view that Falun Gong is an evil and socially menacing cult, hundreds of Zhao Xin's friends and relatives gathered at a cemetery in west Beijing, including five busloads of people from the university where she taught.

The 32-year-old lecturer died Monday, six months after she and 20 other Falun Gong followers were arrested for practicing their slow-motion exercises in a Beijing park _ an act prohibited since the Chinese government banned the group in July 1999.

While no Falun Gong emblems or symbols were visible during the brief funeral ceremony, Zhao's body arrived in a van bedecked with traditional Buddhist saffron-yellow pennants _ a color often favored for Falun Gong banners and uniforms.

As many as three dozen uniformed and plainclothes police kept watch inside and outside the cemetery but did not turn mourners away. Foreign reporters were ordered away and trailed by officers, apparently to deter mourners from granting interviews.

Aside from Zhao, at least 74 other Falun Gong followers have died in detention during the sustained 17-month government crackdown on the sect, according to a Hong Kong-based rights group that has kept a tally of the reported deaths. Falun Gong says the number is much higher.

The mourners' display of support for Zhao appeared to fly in the face of intense government efforts to discredit Falun Gong, which attracted tens of millions of adherents in the 1990s but worried Communist Party leaders with its size and organization.

Zhao, an assistant professor at the business college of Beijing's Industry and Commerce University, had practiced Falun Gong for two years and been repeatedly arrested during the crackdown for joining protests against the ban on the group, according to Falun Gong followers in the United States who reported her death.

After her last arrest on June 19, Zhao refused to tell police her name or where she worked and began a hunger strike, the U.S.-based adherents said in a statement.

On June 22, detention center guards sent Zhao to a hospital with three fractured neck vertebrae, minor head injuries and breathing problems, the statement said. After surgery and three months of hospital treatment, she was moved home because her family could no longer afford the medical fees. She died Monday evening, the U.S.-based adherents said.

They disputed police claims that Zhao fractured her neck by banging her head against a wall, saying her injuries could ``only be caused by a strong external force.''

Zhao was ``persecuted to death,'' they said.

The government has denied any mistreatment of detained Falun Gong members and claims it is protecting society by outlawing the group.

Authorities have detained tens of thousands of followers, sending as many as 5,000 to labor camps, according to rights groups.

In New York, 75 Falun Gong members protested at the Chinese Consulate over the sentencing of a sect member, Teng Chunyan, to three years in prison on Tuesday.

The girl's mother pleaded for her daughter's release at the demonstration. Seemingly impervious to the brutal Hudson River winds and bitter cold, the protesters stretched and flexed through a series of slow-motion, meditative exercises.

In a vitriolic campaign in the wholly state-run media, the government has claimed that Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi cheated followers and led 1,500 to their deaths, mainly by discouraging them to use medicine.

Followers believe Falun Gong's meditation and exercise routines promote health and they find moral guidance in the Buddhist- and Taoist-influenced teachings of founder Li, who now lives in the United States.

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S. Korean bank workers end protest

Infobeat
December 14, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405330242

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Unionized workers at one of South Korea's biggest banks ended a two-day siege of their head office Thursday after their chairman promised to suspend merger talks.

Kim Sang-hoon, head of Kookmin Bank, was allowed to walk out of his office after he announced suspension of merger talks with Housing and Commercial Bank. Kim had been kept in his office by 300 workers since late Tuesday.

In a written statement, Kim promised to have prior consultations with the bank's union in case Kookmin decides to resume merger talks with Housing and Commercial.

The two profitable banks reportedly had planned to announce a merger on Wednesday.

In an attempt to block the announcement, Kookmin workers detained their chairman in his 7th floor office. The protesters feared a merger would lead to mass layoffs.

Kookmin's merger plan was supported by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of the United States, the largest shareholder in the bank with a 15.8 percent stake.

Kookmin's labor union leader Lee Kyong-soo said the bank's 15,000 workers were determined to block the planned merger. He said the merger, if pushed, would result in 30 percent job cuts at Kookmin alone.

The 8,000-member Housing and Commercial Bank union also said it would protest unless it was given assurances that there would be no layoffs.

The merger is in line with government plans to restructure South Korea's inefficient financial sector, which officials say has eroded the confidence of foreign investors.

The government wants to finish the bank restructuring by the end of this year.

Most South Korean banks are financially shaky, with huge debts incurred by the collapse of thousands of companies during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

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Freepers flamed

Washington Times
December 14, 2000
Inside Politics
Robert Stacy McCain
News and political dispatches from around the nation.

"Freepers" - as regulars at the conservative Free Republic Web site (www.freerepublic.com) call themselves - are outraged that a columnist accused them of anti-Semitism for a protest at Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's New Haven, Conn., home.

During the monthlong battle over the Florida election, Free Republic's message board was a clearinghouse for information on rallies calling on Democrat Al Gore to concede to Republican George W. Bush. More than 200 Freepers showed up Dec. 2 for a rally in front of the home of Mr. Gore's running mate.

Yesterday, Hartford Courant political columnist Michele Jacklin (jacklin@courant.com) said the Lieberman protest raised "the specter of anti-Semitism" because Free Republic activist James Bancroft, of Bristol, Conn., was involved.

Miss Jacklin referred to Mr. Bancroft's claims on Free Republic that "believing that Jesus is the Messiah is the most Jewish thing you could do," which he defended as "a statement of fact." She said the Web site "has been linked . . . to extremist and bigoted organizations."

Calling on Connecticut Republican Chairman Chris DePino "to disavow this group," Miss Jacklin concluded: "In the end, it's sad that of all places, Lieberman's home state is where the stench of anti-Semitism has surfaced."

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)