------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Nuclear fusion in a nutshell
Experts Differ on Missile Defense
Italy Asks NATO To Explain Ammo Use
Italy Urges NATO to Probe 'Balkan Syndrome' Deaths
Depleted Uranium Expert Shares Knowledge
Italy acts on NATO cancer fears
NATO weapons in cancer scare
E.Germany Used Nuclear Tags on Dissidents
U.S.: Russia moving weapons
U.S.: Russia Moved Weapons - AP
Russia transfers nuclear arms to Baltics
Bush Cabinet more diverse than any crafted by Clinton
Important Non-Public NRC Report
NRC issues fewer penalties in FY-00
California regulators approve rate increase
N.Y. nuclear plant resumes operation
NY Nuclear Plant Leaks Again
BUCHANAN: INDIAN POINT RESTART DELAYED
Mud Yields Ghosts of Hudson River's Past
New year's uncertainty arrives in Oak Ridge
DOE selection has many scratching heads
Conservative at the Core
Democrat Chosen as Bush Completes Cabinet Selection
Man in the News: Edmund Spencer Abraham
Bush's Pick for Energy Sought to Kill Agency
U.S. Agency Seeks Approval to Recycle Radioactive Metals

MILITARY
Mitterrand's Son Stays in Jail on Arms Charge
Mitterrand's son jailed on arms charge
Mitterrand son ordered freed from jail
U.S. Wants Liberian Arms Embargo
N.Y. gov. calls for drug law reform
Louisiana
GERMANY: WOMEN JOIN UP
Few German women apply to join army
Cease-fire broken in Kashmir
Militants battle Indians in Kashmir
Nuclear Fuel Could Take Man To Mars In Just Two Weeks
A Step Toward International Justice
Bush Aide Says Pact on Global Tribunal Faces New Review
Lubbers takes up UN refugee post
U.N. monitors Ethiopia, Eritirea cease fire
Editorial Roundup
Cole panel recommends heightened security
Military needs a few good mends
Don't call me 'General'

OTHER
Costner Challenged in New Role
Hollywood vs. heroes
Idaho
Mandated to fail
Protected lands hold gas supplies
FBI cracks down on houseboat waste
More Conservatives From Mr. Bush
Helena Journal: Montanans Feeling Shut Out of Own Trout Rivers
Editorial Roundup
States
EPA SETS WATER QUALITY CRITERIA FOR NUTRIENTS, METHYLMERCURY
CLINTON BOUNCES JAPAN WHALING ISSUE TO BUSH
SIERRA CLUB CALLS ON BUSH TO PROTECT ENVIRONMENT
SOUTH POLE SNOWPACK REVEALS CENTURY'S AIR QUALITY
CRITICAL HABITAT PROPOSED FOR 32 HAWAIIAN PLANTS
EPA ISSUES GUIDELINES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
Combination of Pesticides Linked to Parkinson's Disease
Freeh asked to stay on as FBI director
Giuliani Deplores Ruling on Cursing an Officer
Woman Says Officer Made Her Walk Home Unclothed
State Lawmaker Favors Killing Police Officers
Conneticut
Kohl Spy Tapes Won't Be Published for Time Being
Jury Selection Beginning in U.S. Embassy Bombings
Potential Jurors Questioned in U.S. Bin Laden Trial
Embassy bombings trial begins

ACTIVISTS
Anti-Sprawl Group Is Said to Burn New Homes on Long Island
N.Y. police search for arsonists
German minister recalls radical days
Hong Kong OKs Falun Gong conference
From a March to a Movement!
CHINA: FALUN GONG FATALITIES


-------- NUCLEAR

Nuclear fusion in a nutshell

Morroch News Service
January 3, 2001
By MICHAEL R. ALIX TMNS Technology Editor
malix@flash.net
http://morrock.com/tech.htm

For close to 70 years, since fusion was first broached in the early '30s, physicists have dreamed of using it to heat their homes and power their hedge trimmers. They have even made some progress toward implementing it.

Unlike its cousin, "fission," "fusion" requires atoms to fuse instead of split. Fusion uses light elements instead of heavy ones -- it works from the opposite side of the table of elements used by fission. And the old Einsteinian principle of Energy = Mass (E = mc squared) holds, but in fusion, no nasty radioactive pollutants. Just heat deuterium and tritium (derived from lithium) to a temperature of 100,000,000 degrees Kelvin.

In fusion, the "ions" in a particle-nucleus soup known as "plasma" begin to meld and change their chemical properties. The result is harmless helium, and an energy burst hotter than the surface of the sun. The resulting helium, minus the energy loss, weighs less than its component chemicals.

The principle of fusion has been widely compared to the production of solar energy. In the sun, hydrogen atoms pass through four states, aided by the trigger of gravity and by elements already present in the sun's hot core. Like earth-based fusion, solar fusion produces helium, an element that will eventually overwhelm the sun's balance of heat intake and heat expulsion -- a few billion years down the road.

Fusion has theoretical advantages. Scientists use isotopes (heavy versions of common elements) found in sea water for deuterium, and lithium remains fairly abundant. The major problem seems to be controlling the plasma. Also, for plasma to heat sufficiently to be a self-sustaining energy source, scientists must overcome the electrostatic force that repels atoms from each other, the coulomb barrier. To date, although they have come close, research teams have failed to achieve a self-supporting ignition. The production of energy consumes more power than it gives. Hardly something to tell Congress. And, reportedly, $10 billion has been spent.

Worse yet, earth-manufactured fusion has begun to lose its headline value. Like particle acceleration, fusion lacks the gee-whiz appeal of the latest Intel chip or the gosh-look-Ma razzle-dazzle of cellular networks and satellite feeds. Never mind that oil prices are rising, or that landfills are brimming with radioactive plutonium. "If it ain't there yet, we're not gonna invest in it," the moneyhandlers seem to be saying.

Oddly, fusion isn't exactly a homegrown science. A German refugee who worked on the Manhattan Project first explained it, and the Russians first created its practical reaction vessel -- a magnetic containment reactor, the Tokamak. Although another process involving atomic compression, known as inertial confinement, has been attempted by American researchers, the Tokamak has graduated to best-of-class status. Difficulties lie in the mathematics of plasma control and container resilience.

Like its namesake, the fusion bomb (H bomb), peaceful fusion poses a few dangers. Some observers worry that scientists are building a doomsday machine. On the other hand, fusion holds the promise of direct electrical current, instead of the daisy chain of energy to steam to turbine used by fission plants. And just think: one ton of deuterium in a fusion reaction might produce the equivalent energy of 29 billion tons of coal.

Enough to power up that handy-dandy hedge trimmer.

---

Experts Differ on Missile Defense

Associated Press
January 3, 2001 Filed at 12:58 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- How's this for a scary scenario: Iran takes some missiles supplied by North Korea and places them, along with a mobile launcher, aboard an ordinary merchant ship.

The ship sails to within 100 miles of the U.S. coast.

The crew, made up of militants from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, fires away, bringing ``a large section of the U.S. population under attack with zero warning, and not much opportunity to be detected.''

Could this actually happen? William Schneider, a former top State Department official, outlined that scenario a while back in making the case for the establishment of a national missile defense.

The concept is supported by President-elect George W. Bush and a large segment of the security establishment, but faces an impressive array of critics who believe there are better ways of neutralizing the missile threat.

That threat was spelled out in a July 1998 report prepared by a congressionally mandated commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld, Bush's choice to be secretary of defense.

The nine commissioners unanimously concluded that ``concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed forces and its friends and allies.

``These newer, developing threats in North Korea, Iran and Iraq are in addition to those posed by the existing ballistic missile arsenals of Russia and China, nations with which we are not now in conflict but which remain in uncertain transitions.''

Like Schneider, the commission suggests Iran is a country of particular concern. The report said that at some point, Iran could develop the capability for a missile in the 10,000-kilometer range, and hold the U.S. at risk in an arc extending northeast of a line from Philadelphia to St. Paul, MN.

President Clinton last summer deferred a decision on deployment to his successor after toying with the idea of a limited missile defense by deploying missile-tracking radar in Alaska.

Bush said last week in announcing his appointment of Rumsfeld that ``to defend our forces and allies and our own country from the threat of missile attack or accidental launch, we must develop a missile defense system.''

As the debate on a missile defense approaches, many opponents will take their cues from Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, a leading expert on the issue.

``Is there a future for national missile defense?'' he asks. ``I remain a skeptic but I would not reject the idea for all time.''

Opposition to a national missile defense, or NMD, is strong -- and it's not just the $60 billion estimated price tag that frightens critics.

Among the opponents are the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which said in a joint study last April that there are numerous ways an attacking nation or group could circumvent a missile defense.

The report found that attackers using nuclear weapons could defeat a missile defense system by deploying their warheads inside special balloons and releasing many empty balloons along with them, presenting the defense with an unwinnable shell-game. Or, the study said, a nuclear warhead could be covered by a shroud cooled to very low temperatures, preventing the heat-seeking interceptor from detecting and homing on the target.

There are other drawbacks that critics point to. Many experts believe China and Russia would seek ways to overwhelm a U.S. NMD by upgrading their arsenals, lest they become irrelevant.

NMD deployment could cause strains in the Atlantic Alliance. Camille Grand, of the Institut d'Etudes Politques in Paris, writes that there is genuine concern in Europe that ``the country that invented arms control and nonproliferation is showing a mounting distrust, if not outright contempt, for bilateral and multilateral regimes and treaties. ... The determined pursuit of NMD is another signal of growing U.S. preference for unilateral responses to global issues.''

-------- depleted uranium

Italy Asks NATO To Explain Ammo Use

Associated Press
January 3, 2001 Filed at 7:29 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-NATO-Uranium.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010103/19/int-nato-uranium

ROME (AP) -- Italy, where at least six soldiers have died of cancer since serving in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, is demanding that NATO explain its use of armor-piercing ammunition containing depleted uranium.

Italy's Green and Communist parties, both opponents of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, have long claimed that the ammunition was sickening peacekeepers in the Balkans.

Last week, Italy announced it was investigating illnesses among soldiers deployed in Kosovo after airstrikes there in 1999. Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Finland followed suit by screening their Balkans veterans.

NATO scheduled top-level discussions on the ammunition Saturday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

``The issue has taken a serious turn and the alarm caused is more than legitimate,'' Italian Premier Giuliano Amato said in an interview published Wednesday in La Repubblica newspaper.

Depleted uranium, a dense metal with low levels of radioactivity, is used in artillery because of its ability to penetrate armor. But some believe the dust created upon impact may be harmful.

The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia, SFOR, acknowledged using depleted uranium ammunition in Bosnia in the fall of 1994 and in the fall of 1995. But SFOR rejected the theory that depleted uranium was making soldiers ill.

In Kosovo, U.S. warplanes used armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium mostly in the central, western and southwestern parts of the province -- areas where Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese peacekeepers later were deployed.

A U.N. team that went to Kosovo in November is doing a study and is expected to report its findings in February.

Amato suggested he did not believe NATO's assurances. ``Now we fear things may not be so simple,'' he said of the possible health risk.

He said Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini would press NATO to ``assume its responsibility.'' Amato also seemed to suggest that Italy was deceived about the use of depleted uranium ammunition in an earlier Balkan conflict, the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

NATO member Italy takes part in every military meeting and is entitled to whatever information it is seeking, a NATO spokesman said in Brussels, Belgium.

Italy's study will concentrate on the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, including the six who have died of cancer. About 60,000 Italian soldiers have served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia since 1995.

Defense Minister Sergio Matarella leaves Thursday to reassure Italian peacekeepers in Bosnia.

``This is not a subject for politicians or even the military,'' he told the Corriere della Serra newspaper in an interview published Wednesday. ``Science needs to tell us what really happened.''

Other European countries were checking their troops as well for radiation.

Portugal and Turkey were screening soldiers in Kosovo, and Spain said it would examine all 32,000 troops who have served in the Balkans since 1992. Initial tests have come back negative, Spain's Defense Ministry said last week.

Portugal's Parliament held an emergency session Wednesday after the father of one deceased Kosovo veteran demanded that his son be exhumed for a radiation exposure test. The head of the army, Gen. Antonio Martins Barrento, dismissed the father's concerns as a ``paranoid fantasy.''

Finland, which is not a member of NATO but contributed 2,000 soldiers to the peacekeeping force, said spot checks of urine samples from veterans so far have revealed no radiation exposure.

Greece said it was monitoring radiation levels in the parts of Kosovo where it has troops.

---

Italy Urges NATO to Probe 'Balkan Syndrome' Deaths

Reuters
January 3, 2001 Filed at 5:03 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-italy-b.html
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010103/05/science-italy-balkans-dc

ROME (Reuters) - Italy has urged NATO to investigate claims that six Italians who died after serving in the Balkans were killed by exposure to depleted uranium, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said in an interview published Wednesday.

Amato told La Repubblica newspaper that alarm in Italy over the so-called ``Balkan syndrome'' was ``more than legitimate.''

``This is a very delicate situation,'' he said. ``We've always known that (depleted uranium) was used in Kosovo but not in Bosnia. We've always known that it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances like, for example, picking up a fragment with a hand on which there was an open wound, while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all.''

``But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple,'' Amato said.

He said he had ordered Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini to ask NATO to open a probe into the cases, but denied the deaths could strain relations between Italy and the Atlantic alliance. Six Italians who served in the Balkans during the 1990s have since died of leukemia. The latest, a 24-year-old soldier from Sicily, died in November after an 18-month illness.

Doctors have said there is insufficient evidence to link the deaths to exposure to uranium bullets but Italian media have claimed the number of deaths is too high to be coincidental.

Some 60,000 Italian soldiers and 15,000 civilians served in the Balkans during the 1990s.

According to Italian media reports, NATO used around 31,500 bullets and shells capped with depleted uranium during the campaign to end Serb repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.

Amato's call for a NATO probe follows similar expressions of concern from elsewhere in Europe.

Friday, Belgium called for European Union defense ministers to discuss health problems suffered by peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia, while the Portuguese media have reported that Portugal has ordered medical tests for its soldiers serving in Kosovo to check for exposure to radiation.

Concerns have also been raised by service members or civilian aid workers in Britain and the Netherlands.

--------

Depleted Uranium Expert Shares Knowledge

gulflink.osd.mil
January 3, 2000
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_harley_03jan00.html

WASHINGTON, (GulfLINK) - In the past year, many newspapers, magazines and Internet sites have featured information about the possible health effects of depleted uranium exposure. Recently, the CBS show "60 Minutes" covered this issue. Much of this information is conflicting, and reports seem to disagree on many important points. In an effort to clarify the facts, the office of the special assistant for Gulf War illnesses needed an independent scientist who was both highly qualified and able to explain scientific principles in layman's terms.

Naomi H. Harley is an authority on radiation physics. She earned her Ph.D. in radiological physics at New York University where she is currently a research professor at the University's School of Medicine, Department of Environmental Medicine. She has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on radiation exposure, measurement, and the risks of internal and external radiation exposure, with emphasis on natural background radiation. She has written six chapters in books dealing with radiation or toxicology and holds three patents for radiation measurement devices. She is a council member on the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, an advisor to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, and an editor of the journal "Environment International."

"I really feel that this is my life, my livelihood, my career. I've always been interested particularly in the health effects of radioactivity."

Harley says people who talk about the dangers of depleted uranium often don't realize how little its use affects the environment.

"Well, to begin with, most people don't realize that they live with an enormous amount of uranium already," Harley says. "All soil contains uranium. In normal soil, it's not unusual to find a ton of natural uranium per square kilometer." She agrees that in a battle zone much of the depleted uranium ammunition, which strikes hard targets such as tanks, will be dispersed in fine aerosol particles and settle over the ground.

"However, compared with Mother Nature," she says, "what you spread on the Earth's surface is almost indistinguishable from what was there already. This was certainly true in the Gulf War. There were follow up measurements made of soil in the battle areas and you really could not distinguish what's there normally from what was put there by the weapons."

In other words, she says these fine particles are mixed in with existing uranium without measurably increasing the amount present. And what about reports that before it settles, a cloud of aerosolized uranium could pose a danger to people who inhale particles miles away?

"Fortunately, it's really impossible to breathe in enough depleted uranium to do you any serious harm," Harley says. "If you work in an industry that uses uranium, you're allowed concentrations in the air of 0.2 of a milligram per cubic meter, which means in a work day you might inhale two milligrams. This is the kind of air concentration you find right near [an armored vehicle] where a DU round hits it. When you breathe it in, you breathe in some uranium, but the risk is so low it's very hard to calculate."

Harley thinks part of the cause of the confusion is that some people talk about the exposure to DU as if people in the area are starting with a zero dose, which simply isn't so. She offers a useful comparison.

"If you're in a concentration of uranium in the air from an exploded weapon, the actual dose you'll receive from breathing this is on the order of one percent of what you receive every year from natural radiation."

The question of dose causes a lot of misunderstanding. The United States Defense Nuclear Agency has reported that depleted uranium could present an exposure rate up to 200 millirems of radiation per hour on contact. This sounds like a huge dose, since they also say the maximum environmental limit is only 100 millirems per year.

"The agencies that set standards permit normal populations to be exposed to an extra 100 millirems per year over normal background. Now, if you put your hand on a big slab of depleted uranium for an hour you could get this 200 millirems. This is why the military is educating people who work with these weapons to minimize their time around them. But no one is expected to really be exposed that way, sitting next to anything that radioactive, for any great length of time. When you compare what you actually receive while sitting in a tank or holding a tank round, it's small compared to what is accepted normally," Harley says. "Besides, soldiers in a tank are only exposed to shielded depleted uranium, further reducing their exposure."

Some sources have reported that when depleted uranium hits a target, the particles released become a ceramic that can lodge in the lungs and cause damage. According to Harley, these particles that were once referred to as "high-fired" material are now called ceramic. Such tiny bits of material were first observed after atomic explosions.

"These are simply very insoluble particles," Harley says. "But when you inhale these, the lung has a very efficient mechanism for cleansing itself. First of all, when you inhale any material only a small fraction actually deposits in the lung. Most of it is exhaled, just as you see in cigarette smoke."

Most of what remains in your lungs is cleared away by the body's normal mechanisms. Some of it dissolves into the blood, washes through the kidneys and floats out in the urine. If the material is very insoluble, the little that remains in the lung dissolves very slowly.

"So the less soluble it is," Harley explains, "the smaller dose you get in other organs. And the lung eventually clears virtually all the radioactivity in it."

Some people are skeptical about the degree of confidence scientists can have in their understanding of depleted uranium's effects because little research has been done on it. Harley says scientists can be so sure because there's been a great deal of research on natural uranium.

"Depleted uranium is mostly the isotope called uranium 238," Harley says. "This is the same substance that's in natural uranium. Natural uranium has three isotopes in different ratios. Uranium 238 is by far the majority. Then you have a little uranium 235 and a little uranium 234. These are the fissionable isotopes, and U235 is what you use to make fuel for nuclear reactors and weapons. They take out this very small mass and you're left with U238, which is depleted uranium. So natural uranium is actually more radioactive than depleted uranium -- about 60 percent more. But otherwise you're actually talking about the exact same material. And this is a well-studied substance. There's much literature on how much you take in every day in diet and water and breathing air. People have measured the contents in body organs. From these data, we can really understand the biology of uranium."

When discussing depleted uranium left on the battlefield, critics have pointed out its long half-life, implying it will poison the environment for hundreds of years. But Harley says the longer the half-life, the less danger exists.

"The half life of uranium 238 is over 4 billion years," she says. "If you have 1,000 atoms of uranium it will take over 4 billion years for half of them to disappear or decay. That's the radiation, alpha particles that are emitted when the uranium atom does decay."

She says that means that depleted uranium is only slightly radioactive.

"Again, you already have this enormous amount of uranium present in all soil, all rock, and it's doing the same thing. And because it has a very long half-life, even if you get a few milligrams in your body, it exposes you to a very small amount of radioactivity because it's decaying so slowly. That's why the radiation dose is very low."

Some doctors report finding traces of depleted uranium in the urine of service members years after any possible exposure. This sounds hazardous, but Harley says this is only possible if the military members have depleted uranium fragments embedded in their bodies.

"The fragments will be dissolving very slowly," she says. "This gets into the blood stream, but uranium is cleared very quickly out of the blood stream. It will come out in the urine. In fact, you estimate what's in the body from measured urine samples. Doing this type of measurement is very important, and I'm a strong proponent of doing lots of measurements on veterans."

Some veterans are convinced that the fragments could be inhaled particles lodged in their lungs. Harley disagrees.

"It's hard to imagine that anybody could have inhaled enough material so that it could still be there eight or nine years later, enough so that you could see the amount being dissolved and then getting into urine."

Still, none of this makes it easy to dismiss the fact that concerned people around the world have called depleted uranium a dangerous radioactive waste material that might contaminate the water and food wherever it's used. Harley attributes these alarmist cries to a basic fear of radioactivity in general. And despite the many symptoms some people want to blame on exposure to depleted uranium, cancer is the only illness known to be caused by radiation. And even then, Harley says, the ore - uranium - is not the culprit.

"In uranium mines, the thing that actually causes cancer is inhaled radon gas. Cancer is not associated with any of the properties of the ore. What's in the environment normally does go into the food and water. There's a little bit in the air from resuspension. There's so much there naturally that what's put down in battle can't add anything significant in the way of dose or risk."

Harley says she's heard people project that the use of depleted uranium will cause tens of thousands of new cancers in Gulf War veterans and Iraqi citizens, but she says such projections frighten veterans unnecessarily because there is no scientific support for such claims.

"There is no way you can get enough uranium into the body to cause even one cancer," she says. "You can't inhale it, you can't ingest it. You would choke to death before you could inhale that much material."

Though the causes of some Gulf War illnesses are still unknown, there is no scientific evidence to date that depleted uranium is one of them. Much of that scientific evidence can be found in the GulfLINK depleted uranium section.

--------

Italy acts on NATO cancer fears

CNN
January 3, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/01/02/nato.uranium/index.html

ROME, Italy -- Italy's defence minister will travel to Kosovo amid fears of a cancer link to NATO ammunition used in the Balkans.

Sergio Matarella will arrive in Kosovo on Thursday. "The minister wants to reassure the troops," Colonel Paolo Bressan, a ministry official, said.

An Italian military prosecutor is conducting a probe into so-called "Balkans syndrome" -- a possible link between depleted uranium ammunition and 30 ill soldiers who served in missions in Bonsia and Kosovo.

Twelve of the soldiers have developed cancer and five have died.

Relatives of Salvatore Carbonaro, a Sicilian who died of leukaemia after returning from tours of duty in the Balkans, want the Italian government to recognise that his illness was caused by contact with contaminated equipment.

Carbonaro, who died aged 24, served as a guard at an ammunition depot in Bosnia in 1998.

"It is not possible to link Carbonaro's death to his service in Bosnia," Mario Lazzarino, an Italian doctor who treated him, told the ANSA newsagency, but some veterans' organisations are demanding that victims be compensated by the government.

On Tuesday, leaders from several political parties said the government had to recognise the problem and deal with it.

"Italy should move immediately to eliminate this ammunition from NATO's arsenal," Popular Party leader Sergio Castagnetti, a member of Italy's governing centre-left coalition demanded on Tuesday.

Around 60,000 Italian soldiers have served in missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia since 1995.

Italy's defence ministry said on Tuesday it could not say when any results of the prosecutor's investigations would be made available.

NATO has said that U.S. warplanes operating in Kosovo fired armour-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium during alliance's 78-day bombing campaign last year.

Spain announced last week it would examine all 32,000 soldiers who have served in the Balkans since 1992.

Findings by a team of U.N. experts sent to Kosovo in November are expected to be published early this year.

NATO has said that U.S. warplanes operating in Kosovo fired armour-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium during alliance's 78-day bombing campaign last year.

Spain announced last week it would examine all 32,000 soldiers who have served in the Balkans since 1992.

Findings by a team of U.N. experts sent to Kosovo in November are expected to be published early this year.

---

NATO weapons in cancer scare

CNN
January 3, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/01/03/balkans.syndrome/index.html

ROME, Italy -- NATO is to help Italy investigate claims that Italian soldiers died because of exposure to ammunition in the Balkans.

Italy said on Wednesday it had questioned NATO over the use of depleted uranium in ammunition used in campaigns in Kosovo and Bosnia after it was revealed that six Italians who had served there had died of leukaemia.

Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said in an interview published in la Repubblica newspaper that alarm over the so-called "Balkan syndrome" was "more than legitimate."

"This is a very delicate situation," Amato said, adding that his government had only recently discovered that the depleted uranium ammunition was used in the earlier Bosnia mission as well as in Kosovo.

"We've always known that it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances ... while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all," he said. "But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

On Thursday, Italian Foreign Minister Sergio Matarella is due to visit Kosovo to reassure troops still serving there that they are safe.

The visit comes, however, as Italy steps up a campaign to find out more about the ammunition.

A spokeswoman at NATO's headquarters in Brussels confirmed the alliance had received a request from Italy "for more information on the geographic use of the depleted uranium."

"NATO will do everything it can to provide this information ... Italy is a member country (of the alliance) and if it requests something, the alliance will do its best to help," the spokeswoman said.

Amato's acknowledgement that "Balkan syndrome" was of serious concern prompted swift reaction in Italy.

The Communist Refoundation Party, which supported the centre-left government from 1996-98, called for all Italian troops to be pulled out of the former Yugoslavia immediately.

Franco Giordano, Refoundation's leader in the lower house of parliament, also called for Javier Solana, NATO's secretary-general during the Kosovo conflict of 1999, to resign from his current post as European Union foreign policy chief.

"He certainly cannot carry on in the role he's filling at the moment," Giordano said.

Leukemia link

An association representing families of the six Italian dead released a copy of a document in English which it said was a list of NATO guidelines of how to deal with depleted uranium.

The association said the document, dated November 22, 1999 and apparently issued from the Yugoslav town of Pec, had never been given to troops before that date, although soldiers had by then spent months peacekeeping in Kosovo after a conflict in which uranium-tipped shells were used.

"It is very important to be aware of the problem, to know how to protect soldiers and how to avoid long term health effects," the document reads. "It is important to disseminate this information to all levels."

The six Italians who have died since returning from the Balkans all suffered leukaemia.

The latest was a 24-year-old soldier from Sicily who died after serving twice in Bosnia but never in Kosovo.

Doctors have said there is insufficient evidence to link the deaths to exposure to uranium bullets -- used to pierce armour -- but Italian media have claimed the number of deaths is too high to be coincidental.

Some 60,000 Italian soldiers and 15,000 civilians served in the Balkans during the 1990s.

According to Italian media reports, NATO used around 31,500 bullets and shells capped with uranium during the campaign.

Amato's call for a NATO probe followed similar expressions of concern from elsewhere in Europe.

On Friday, Belgium called for European Union defence ministers to discuss health problems suffered by peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia.

Portugal has ordered medical tests for its military and civilian personnel serving in Kosovo to check for exposure to radiation and Defence Minister Julio Castro Caldas has proposed a meeting of NATO countries to share information and agree common methods of testing.

Concerns have also been raised by service members or civilian aid workers in Britain and the Netherlands.

-------- germany

E.Germany Used Nuclear Tags on Dissidents

Reuters
January 3, 2001 Filed at 2:12 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-stasi-dc.html

LONDON (Reuters) - In a ploy worthy of a James Bond villain, East German dissidents were ``tagged'' with radioactive chemicals that allowed secret agents to track them with hidden Geiger counters, New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.

So that targets would not hear the distinctive clicking of the counter at close range, Stasi secret police agents wore the detector strapped under one arm, while a vibrating alarm was slung under the other arm.

The magazine's article was based on a paper by Klaus Becker, a leading radiation protection expert.

Evidence of the radioactive tracking exercise, dating from the 1970s and 1980s, was found in the vast Stasi archives by officials of the Berlin-based Gauck Commission, a German government agency investigating the former secret police.

``It is a remarkable story,'' Becker was quoted as saying. ''It's the first well-documented case of such a thing.''

``It really is the stuff of James Bond movies,'' said Barrie Lambert, a radiobiologist at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London.

``It's an unpleasant thing to do. The risk is not limited to the person being tagged. You'd be exposing other people, such as a spouse.''

The Stasi files revealed that dissidents were labeled with radioactive substances in a number of ways. If people could not be sprayed with a radioactive solution the spies would label their cars, documents or paper money, according to Becker.

If the floors of rooms used for meetings by dissidents could be treated, the Stasi could follow anyone who attended.

The Stasi also developed an airgun that could fire tags made of small pieces of silver wire into car tires.

Becker said that while doses of radiation were usually below what would seriously harm or kill, there were mishaps.

``The Stasi marked West German deutschmarks with large amounts of scandium to see how they circulated and for what purpose. While they expected to retrieve them, they didn't and the notes disappeared without trace,'' said Becker.

The Stasi later calculated that if more than one note was in a man's pocket, the effect on his fertility ``came close to castration,'' said Becker.

It has long been suspected that the Stasi used radiation as a weapon, but Becker said it would never be officially proved whether it was true that large X-ray machines were used to covertly irradiate dissidents in political prisons.

Becker left East Germany in 1951, aged 18. He later became a senior official of the Juelich Nuclear Research Establishment in West Germany.

-------- russia

U.S.: Russia moving weapons

Infobeat
January 3, 2000
By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405647636

WASHINGTON (AP) - Russia has moved short-range nuclear weapons onto one of its military bases in the Baltics, senior Clinton administration officials said Wednesday. Some in the administration believe the Russians may be seeking to step up pressure on NATO to withdraw similar weapons from Europe.

The movement of Russian nuclear weapons, first reported in Wednesday's Washington Times, also may reflect Moscow's response to NATO's eastern expansion in 1999 when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the alliance. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia want to be the next new members.

Russia views NATO expansion as a potential military threat and has said it would undermine arms control.

Moscow has long argued for the removal of all tactical, or short-range, nuclear weapons from Europe. The United States withdrew many missiles and other nuclear weapons from Europe in the 1980s and 1990s but maintains some nuclear bombs for aircraft based there.

The Times reported that Russia moved nuclear weapons last summer to the base in Kaliningrad, a Baltic Sea port located between Poland and Lithuania on a sliver of Russian territory not connected to the main part of Russia. The port is the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

The report was denied by the Baltic Fleet, according to Tass. The Russian news agency quoted Anatoly Lobsky, assistant to the fleet commander, as saying the fleet is unconditionally fulfilling its obligations to keep the Baltic a nuclear-free zone.

Two administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press there have been indications for more than a year that Russia moved nuclear weapons into the Baltics. Both officials said it was not clear how long the weapons have been there, but some were moved in recent months.

The Times report said the weapons are believed to be for use on a new missile with a range of about 44 miles.

Asked about the Times report, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said, ``We don't comment on intelligence.'' The Times quoted Bacon as saying, ``If the Russians have placed tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, it would violate their pledge that they were removing nuclear weapons from the Baltics, and that the Baltics should be nuclear-free.''

Russia and the United States announced in 1991 and 1992 nonbinding agreements to reduce arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons.The Russians said that all tactical nuclear weapons were removed from Eastern Europe to more secure areas in Russia. It was not clear whether that included nuclear weapons based in Kaliningrad.

---

U.S.: Russia Moved Weapons - AP

Associated Press
January 3, 2001 Filed at 3:08 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Nuclear.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia moved short-range nuclear weapons onto one of its military bases in the Baltics, senior Clinton administration officials said Wednesday.

The move would be in conflict with Moscow's stated policy of keeping the Baltics free of nuclear weapons, although it would not appear to violate any legally binding arms control agreement, U.S. officials said.

The Russian Navy, whose Baltic Fleet is headquartered at the base in Kaliningrad, denied the report, according to the Russian news agency Tass. It quoted Anatoly Lobsky, assistant to the fleet commander, as saying Russia is unconditionally fulfilling its pledge to keep the Baltics a nuclear-free zone.

Two senior U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports on the subject said there have been recent indications of movement of Russian nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad. They said some weapons may have been there a year or longer. Both officials agreed to discuss the matter only on condition they not be identified.

The officials would not discuss numbers or specific types of Russian weapons in Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is a Baltic Sea port located between Poland and Lithuania on a sliver of Russian territory not connected to the main part of Russia.

The movement of Russian nuclear weapons, first reported in Wednesday's Washington Times, may reflect Moscow's response to NATO's eastern expansion in 1999 when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the alliance.

The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- which were part of the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991 -- want to be the next new members. Russia has said it could not tolerate NATO so close to its border.

Russia views NATO expansion as a potential military threat and has said it would undermine arms control.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he could not comment on specifics of Russian nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad but expected the topic to be raised with Moscow.

``It's an issue that we want to take up, that we want to discuss with them,'' he said. ``It's something that we follow carefully, and that's about as far as I go.''

One administration official said the matter had already been discussed within NATO councils.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said he could not comment on the matter because it involves intelligence issues.

Boucher said Russian leaders had made unilateral pledges in the past to keep nuclear weapons out of the Baltics. Those promises stem from the period immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when both Washington and Moscow took unilateral steps to reduce the number of tactical nuclear weapons outside their borders. That was partly a response to the end of the Cold War and partly a desire by both governments to reduce the chances of unauthorized transfers of nuclear weapons materials.

Moscow has long argued for the removal of all U.S. tactical, or short-range, nuclear weapons from Europe. The United States withdrew many missiles and other nuclear weapons from Europe in the 1980s and 1990s but maintains some nuclear bombs for aircraft based there.

Some administration officials believe Russia may have moved weapons to Kaliningrad in order to raise diplomatic pressure on the United States to withdraw its remaining nuclear weapons from Europe.

The Baltic states Wednesday expressed concern but said they didn't know enough to fully assess the potential threat.

``We don't know whether it's true or not,'' the office of Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Ilves quoted the minister as saying. ``But if it is true, it is regretful, because it decreases the stability of the region.''

Lithuanian Defense Minister Linas Linkevicius said in an interview, ``This sounds alarming, but I see no reason Russia should try to escalate the situation in Baltic region.''

Liiga Bergmane, spokeswoman at Latvia's Foreign Ministry, said Latvia would seek independent confirmation of the reports.

``We don't see any reason why Russia should want to change its policy of keeping these kinds of weapons out of the Baltic region,'' she said. ``Russia pledged not to increase nuclear arms here and we can't imagine why it would reconsider.''

---

Russia transfers nuclear arms to Baltics

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200113223338.htm
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed04.htm

Russia is moving tactical nuclear weapons into a military base in Eastern Europe for the first time since the Cold War ended in an apparent effort to step up military pressure on the expanded NATO alliance, The Washington Times has learned.

The transfers of battlefield nuclear weapons to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad followed threats several years ago to position such weapons outside of Russia's territory in response to expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Kaliningrad is a Baltic Sea port located between Poland and Lithuania, and a major military base for Russian ground and naval forces, including the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet.

The movement of the new battlefield nuclear arms was detected in June and is a sign Moscow is following through on threats to respond to NATO expansion with the forward deployment of nuclear weapons, according to U.S. intelligence officials familiar with reports of the activity.

The precise type of new tactical weapons could not be learned. Some defense officials said they are probably for use on a new short-range missile known as the Toka. A Toka was test-fired on April 18 in Kaliningrad. It has a range of about 44 miles.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declined to comment on intelligence reports of the movement of tactical nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad.

However, Mr. Bacon said in an interview: "If the Russians have placed tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, it would violate their pledge that they were removing nuclear weapons from the Baltics, and that the Baltics should be nuclear-free."

Russia and the United States announced in 1991 and 1992 a non-binding agreement to reduce arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons.

In 1991, President George Bush ordered the military to unilaterally cut U.S. arsenals of tactical nuclear arms. Weapons were removed from ships and from many overseas bases.

The Soviet and Russian governments announced in 1991 and 1992, respectively, that all tactical nuclear weapons were removed from Eastern Europe to more secure areas in Russia. It was not clear whether that included nuclear weapons based in Kaliningrad.

Some U.S. tactical nuclear arms remain in Europe and Moscow has continued to demand their withdrawal in arms talks with U.S. officials.

Moscow also has refused to discuss the status and deployment of its tactical nuclear weapons with the United States, despite the Clinton administration's provision of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Russia to help eliminate its nuclear arms or protect them against theft, according to defense officials.

Clinton administration arms-control officials suggested the tactical nuclear arms in Kaliningrad may be part of an attempt by Moscow to test the incoming administration of President-elect George W. Bush.

Cuts in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear arsenals are supposed to be discussed in new U.S.-Russian negotiations on a START III arms treaty.

The forward deployment of new tactical nuclear arms is viewed by many defense officials as a worrisome sign Moscow is beefing up defenses against NATO.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted to NATO in 1999, angering Moscow, which fears encroachment by what it views as a Cold War alliance against the Soviet Union.

There also has been talk of some or all of the Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - joining the alliance.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said during a visit to Lithuania in June that it is "possible" the Vilnius government could join the alliance in the future. "We have indicted that the door to NATO remains open," Mr. Cohen said at the time.

In June 1998, Russian military officials stated that if the Baltic States joined NATO Moscow would base tactical nuclear arms in Kaliningrad.

Russia already has deployed its most advanced air-defense missiles, the S-300, in Kaliningrad, a sign that it plans to protect the enclave from attack.

Defense officials said Russian military exercises in the summer and fall of 1999 called Zapad-99 or "West-99" simulated a NATO attack against Kaliningrad. During the maneuvers, Russia's forces resorted to use of nuclear strikes and carried out air-launched cruise missiles against targets in Europe and the United States.

One official said the intelligence information about the new tactical nuclear arms was discovered in June but withheld from most policy-makers until last month, when it was first reported in the Military Intelligence Daily, the Defense Intelligence Agency's main intelligence report.

An intelligence official, however, said Kaliningrad nuclear reporting was not suppressed.

The Kaliningrad nuclear arms are part of an estimated 4,000 to 15,000 low-yield nuclear weapons in Russia's stockpile. They include artillery shells, short-range missile warheads, nuclear air-defense and ballistic missile defense interceptors, nuclear torpedoes and sea-launched cruise missiles, and nuclear weapons for shorter-range aircraft.

Russian military officials in the past have denied any nuclear arms are stored at the military facilities in Kaliningrad, although U.S. intelligence agencies suspected some nuclear arms, particularly naval weapons, are still there.

The sharp decline in Russia's military forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has increased Moscow's reliance on tactical nuclear weapons.

Defense analysts said the Russian military views these tactical weapons as war-fighting arms, in contrast to its strategic nuclear weapons that serve primarily as deterrent forces.

Russia's government announced in 1999, following NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia, that nuclear forces would remain the key element of military power.

At the time, Vladimir Putin, who later became President Boris Yeltsin's successor, announced that Mr. Yeltsin had signed three decrees outlining the development of Russia's nuclear weapons complex, including a new concept for developing and using nonstrategic nuclear weapons.

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

Bush Cabinet more diverse than any crafted by Clinton

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
By Ralph Z. Hallow THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20011322442.htm

With the three appointments he announced yesterday, George W. Bush has now assembled a Cabinet that looks more like America in its diversity than any of President Clinton's Cabinets.

Although the incoming Bush administration is ideologically varied - as the president-elect often promised on the campaign trail it would be - it also more heavily weighted to the right than any Cabinet since President Reagan's.

"The Bush Cabinet is turning out to be more conservative than a lot of people thought it was going to be - from John Ashcroft, Linda Chavez, Spencer Abraham to Tommy Thompson and Gale Norton," said Ron Utt, a senior economist and analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

"And it's more diverse than anything Clinton had, if you are going by the numbers on gender, race and ethnicity," Mr. Utt said.

In appointing two black men, one Asian-American man, four women (including a Hispanic), a Hispanic man and a Lebanese-American man, Mr. Bush has assembled a Cabinet that will have just five non-Hispanic white men, assuming all his nominees are approved by the Senate. But the differences are more than skin deep.

"I'd say from Chavez, Rumsfeld, Abraham and Ashcroft on the right to Mineta in the center and Christie Todd Whitman on the left, Bush has assembled something more ideologically diverse than Clinton ever dreamed of having," said American Conservative Union Chairman David A. Keene.

While the Clinton Cabinet has a liberal Republican - Defense Secretary William S. Cohen - Mr. Bush's Cabinet will include a Democrat who said yesterday he is "proud of and committed to my party's principles."

Norman Y. Mineta, nominated to head the Transportation Department and current commerce secretary, is an American of Japanese descent. He is said to look kindly on turning the government-run air-traffic-control system into a performance-based organization, if not necessarily privatizing it, as many free-market advocates in both parties would prefer.

"From the time he served as a congressman, Mineta has understood the need to invest in infrastructure, in highways and bridges, which are in disastrous shape across this country," said William Fay, president of the American Highway Users Alliance.

Privately, many transportation industry observers and political activists on the right feared Mr. Bush would appoint a devotee of federally subsidized railroads and were relieved by Mr. Mineta.

"He knows that 98 percent of all travel by Americans is on highways," Mr. Fay said.

Mr. Bush surprised many on both sides of the aisle by naming former civil rights commissioner Linda Chavez, a Hispanic Catholic, as labor secretary-nominee.

At first glance, she seems the one Bush appointment most like previous Cabinets in which people were chosen for sex or ethnicity.

In fact, Mrs. Chavez delighted most conservatives in that she does not have a vested interest in kowtowing to organized labor or advocates of racial preferences.

"Chavez has shown she is tough and has been instinctively skeptical about programs that give special preference to racial and ethnic groups - entitlements and quotas - instead of basing advancement on equal opportunity, fairness and merit," Mr. Utt said.

Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics-watchdog group, was particularly pleased with the selection of Mrs. Chavez.

Mr. Boehm's group, which publishes a newsletter on corruption in union leadership, said such corruption has grown in recent years.

"Anybody who takes on that issue can expect to be reviled by unfair accusations, but she would not flinch from it - her whole history in government and as an outside advocate shows that," he said.

He said he expects her to be the kind of strong labor secretary who would enforce the 1982 Supreme Court's Beck decision requiring union officials to have the written permission of each member before his compulsory union dues could be used for political purposes.

Mr. Bush's naming of Spencer Abraham, a Republican and Orthodox Christian of Lebanese descent, as energy secretary also pleases conservative reformers.

The biggest task of the new energy secretary will be to deal rationally with the 17 nuclear laboratories - mainly no-longer-needed nuclear-bomb factories, conservative critics say - that accounted for about $12 billion of the department's $17 billion budget.

The Energy Department was a creation of President Carter, who claimed the world would soon run out of gas and oil. But the new department also took the functions of the Atomic Energy Commission, and now the Energy Department mostly oversees nuclear-weapons facilities, Mr. Utt said.

In states like New Mexico, the facilities operate as local "pork."

Conservatives seem happy that Mr. Abraham has had little to do with the energy business and has no ties to interest groups involved in the department, unlike Clinton Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who represented the New Mexico House district that had Los Alamos laboratory.

"Two-thirds of the Energy Department's budget has nothing to do with energy," Mr. Utt said. "So basically in Spence you have someone with no parochial or regional interest in these labs."

"The other good thing is that throughout his Senate career he has been interested in dismantling and restructuring and doing that to the Department of Energy has always been on everyone's favorite to-do list, but the labs and their defenders don't want to give up the gravy train," he said.

--------

Important Non-Public NRC Report

Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 13:55:28 -0500
From: Dave Lochbaum [mailto:dlochbaum@ucsusa.org]

Good Day:

On December 20, 2000, the NRC staff sent the final report on spent fuel storage risks at permanently closed nuclear power plants to the NRC Commissioners. The transmittal indicated that the report (which has an ADAMS accession number of ML003762963) would be made public in ten days, unless the Commission directed otherwise. Well, the Commission directed otherwise. The report is not to be made public, at least for awhile.

It seems that the report, which was initiated after Maine Yankee sought to significantly reduce its onsite security requirements, concluded that the risk to workers and the public is so high that security cannot be relaxed. The threat is from long-lived isotopes in the spent fuel that can cause the metal rods containing the fuel to heat up if forced circulation is not available when oxygen is present. This threat applies to wet pool storage when the water level inside the pool drops to the point of partially uncovering the spent fuel assemblies. Without forced circulation, either by water or by air, the report concludes that there can be significant fuel damage with 10 CFR Part 100 consequences (i.e., people offsite can be hurt).

This threat also applies to spent fuel stored in dry casks. The casks use an inert gas (nitrogen or helium) that acts to transfer heat produced by the spent fuel. If that inert gas were to leak out and be replaced by air, the oxygen in the air can cause significant fuel damage. The heat generated by spent fuel in dry casks today is sufficient to cause damage if it is exposed to oxygen without forced circulation.

This report is extremely important. It shows that onsite spent fuel storage, whether in wet pools or dry casks, has greater risk than previously thought -- in fact, risk so high that people could get hurt. The report also shows that the transportation risk is higher than previously thought. It had been thought that there'd be no problem as long as criticality was prevented. No so, according to the new report. Fuel damage can occur due to overheating.

I spoke with Mr. George Hubbard of the NRC staff about the report's availability. He provided me the accession number and its status (limbo). Mr. Hubbard can be reached at (301) 415-2870.

If the report is ever made public, I'll e-mail a copy out to everyone on this distribution.

Thanks,

Dave Lochbaum Nuclear Safety Engineer Union of Concerned Scientists 1707 H Street NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20006-3919 (202) 223-6133 x137 (202) 223-6162 fax website: www.ucsusa.org

P.S. - Please don't ask how I got so much information on a report that has not been released publicly. And I will not be able to mail out copies of the report until it is made public by the NRC.

--------

NRC issues fewer penalties in FY-00

Washington
Nuclear News Flashes
3 Jan 2001

NRC issued 16 civil penalties totaling $446,600 in FY-00 compared to 24 penalties totaling nearly $1.1-million the previous fiscal year, according to the NRC Office of Enforcement's annual report. The report, released today, said the agency in FY-00 issued 94 individual escalated enforcement actions (including civil penalties, orders and notices of violations), a slight drop from the 114 issued in FY-99. The agency improved on the time it took to issue enforcement actions and nearly cut in half its 90-day goal. It took an average of 46.1 days in FY-00 to issue enforcement action, an improvement over an average of 75.2 days in FY-99 and 80.6 days in FY-98.

-------- california

California regulators approve rate increase of 7% to 15%

Washington
Nuclear News Flashes
3 Jan 2001

California regulators today recommended emergency rate increases of 7%-15%, far below what some analysts felt would be needed to restore financial confidence in Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E). SCE had asked for a 30% rate hike to pay for billions of dollars in undercollections on power bought on the California Power Exchange. PG&E had sought a 26% increase. Earlier today Richard Cortright Jr., an analyst with Standard & Poor's, speculated that a 10%-15% increase--seen as the range that Gov. Gray Davis supports--would not be enough to save the companies from being downgraded to junk bond status. The California Public Utilities Commission recommended rate increases of about 9% for residential customers, 7% for small businesses, and 15% for industrial users.

-------- new york

N.Y. nuclear plant resumes operation

Infobeat
January 03, 2000
By JIM FITZGERALD Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405648366

BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) - The Indian Point 2 nuclear plant resumed operation early Wednesday morning, nearly a year after a leak released radioactive steam into the air.

Indian Point 2 was brought back online at 10 to 15 percent capacity at 2:14 a.m., said a spokesman for Consolidated Edison, the utility that runs the plant north of New York City. The facility would be brought up to full speed if it passed numerous operating tests.

The restart was accomplished despite some last-minute glitches, including a small, contained leak of radioactive coolant, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

At less than a tenth of a gallon per minute, the leak was ``small potatoes,'' Sheehan said, ``but it's something they'll have to watch.''

Indian Point 2 had been out of commission since Feb. 15, when radioactive water from a leaky tube contaminated clean water that is turned to steam to drive turbines. A tiny amount of radioactive steam was released into the atmosphere.

The accident, the worst in the plant's 26-year history, caused no injuries. However, it sparked heavy criticism of Con Ed from local residents, politicians and the NRC.

The reopening of the plant was delayed for several months as Con Ed, under pressure from the NRC, installed new steam generators.

Sheehan, the NRC spokesman, said Indian Point 2 would remain under scrutiny, based on ``the general overall poor performance that we've seen.''

The troubles at Indian Point 2 occurred as Con Ed was putting it up for sale. Entergy Corp. agreed to buy the plant and Indian Point 1 for $602 million, and also acquired Indian Point 3 from the state Power Authority. __

---

NY Nuclear Plant Leaks Again

Associated Press
January 3, 2001 Filed at 8:29 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Nuclear-Plant.html

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- A small leak of radioactive coolant was discovered Wednesday a few hours after the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant went back into service after an 11-month closure to fix a similar problem.

Federal and plant officials said the new leak posed no danger, but area officials demanded that the 26-year-old plant be shut down.

``I cannot go out and tell the people of Westchester County that the nuclear plant in Buchanan is safe,'' said County Executive Andrew Spano. ``Close down the plant, fix the leak.''

Consolidated Edison, which owns the plant, said it began generating electricity again at 2:14 a.m. and was operating safely.

``Shutting down the plant at this time is totally unwarranted and not in the public interest,'' the company said. ``As with any restart, adjustments and corrections are made as warranted. At no time has any circumstance presented a threat to the health of the public or our workers.''

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the leak was ``minute,'' less than 0.08 of a gallon per minute. Industry guidelines allow a leak of 10 gallons per minute, he said.

He said the leak was contained in a coolant line and no radioactive material had leaked into the building or the atmosphere, as happened Feb. 15 when a corroded steam tube burst, releasing a tiny amount of radioactive steam. There were no injuries in either case, he said.

``They really aren't anywhere close to each other in magnitude,'' Sheehan said.

---

New York Times
January 3, 2001
Metro Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/nyregion/03MBRF.html?pagewanted=all

NEW YORK
BUCHANAN: INDIAN POINT RESTART DELAYED

A minor leak in a steam valve prevented the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant from returning to service over the weekend, 10 months after it was shut down because of a radioactive leak. The steam leak was not radioactive and caused no risk to the environment, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, adding that such problems were common when a nuclear plant is being restarted. Federal regulators and the plant's owner, Con Edison, said the leak occurred in a pipe in the system that draws Hudson River water and converts it into steam. Randal C. Archibold (NYT)

---

Mud Yields Ghosts of Hudson River's Past

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By KIRK JOHNSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/nyregion/03HUDS.html?pagewanted=all

ABOARD THE R. IAN FLETCHER, off Nyack, N.Y. - About a thousand years ago, a hurricane of cataclysmic proportions swept up the Hudson River.

Or perhaps it was the mother of all northeasters. No one knows. What is clear, however, is that the force of the storm was beyond any recorded or remembered human experience. Great swaths of the river bottom were scraped up and moved about in one ferocious flood.

Robin E. Bell, a senior research scientist at Columbia University, has seen the storm in her imagination, and touched with her fingers the dense, black-earth core drilling samples that reveal, in their banded marks, the river's ancient trauma.

From the deck of the Fletcher, a 36-foot-long work boat that sails out of Nyack, laden with computers and mini-cameras, sonar fish and salinity meters, Dr. Bell and other scientists at Columbia and the State University of New York at Stony Brook are mapping the Hudson from the bottom up, trying to understand how the ghosts of the river's past, like the perfect storm of A.D. 1000, might give clues about its future.

"It's about trying to find out these secrets, these time markers, so that you can put everything together," she said on a recent cold, gray day, as the boat bobbed gently on a slack tide just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Dr. Bell's mission, which is to build a complete model of the Hudson's bottom using every high- tech tool of the information age, is revealing things about the river that its murky waters have long kept veiled.

Huge natural reefs, made entirely of oyster shells, have been found for the first time. The reefs, built by hundreds of generations of oysters growing and dying and crumbling upon one another's backs, are at least 6,000 years old, predating the Great Pyramids. Sunken ships, one more than 150 feet long, that were long rumored or vaguely placed on shipping charts have been pinpointed.

But perhaps the most startling findings are coming from the most humble of sources: the river-bottom mud itself, which is giving up the secrets of how, why and where it is deposited.

In December, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, citing its own research about the properties of Hudson River mud, said that the General Electric Company, which dumped toxic PCB's into the river from its factories 150 miles north of here, should be required to clean up the chemicals that have become embedded in the sediment. It would be one of the largest and most complex river cleanups in American history, with a price tag of $460 million in dredging costs alone.

General Electric's research, however, suggests that the PCB's are best left where they are, entombed by successive layers of mud. The natural containment of the chemicals, G.E. officials say, grows more secure with every year and every new layer of silt.

Dr. Bell cautions that while her mapping project did not focus on the areas proposed for dredging, the portrait of the river that is emerging from her work suggests that both the government and the company are partly right. Changes to the river bottom happen slowly, as G.E.'s research concludes, with gradual and predictable new sediment layers piling one on top of another in a layer cake effect. But that pattern can be suddenly torn apart by an earthquake, a flood or some other environmental upheaval.

The evidence of such upheavals, Dr. Bell said, supports the E.P.A.'s position that while the PCB's may be buried now, their escape into the water will always be possible unless the chemicals are removed from the sediment. PCB's, polychlorinated biphenyls, which were widely used as insulating materials in electrical products until they were banned in the 1970's, have been linked to cancer in humans and to other problems in wildlife.

"It's clear that there are storms that go through and erode sediments," Dr. Bell said. "Stuff moves."

A G.E. spokesman, Mark L. Behan, said that the upper Hudson is in many ways a different river from the one being studied by Dr. Bell's group. The area proposed for dredging - a chain of PCB hot spots extending from Troy to the company's old factories in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward - is marked by an interconnected system of dams and locks and canals that collectively make the waters far more placid than they are to the south.

Recent studies by both the government and G.E. have suggested that floods are more likely to add new sediment to that part of the river than take it away, Mr. Behan said. The upper Hudson has largely been tamed.

Here to the south, especially on a blustery day, the Hudson still feels like a wild place, even though New York City is only a few miles away and the great span of the Tappan Zee Bridge dominates the horizon. Mergansers, graceful ducklike birds that fish these waters, float quietly by, unperturbed by the 39-degree temperature of the water. Fish of various sizes drift under the boat.

Other wonders of the river, like the salt wedge, are invisible. The salt wedge is the layer of ocean water that moves upriver with the tide. Because it is denser than fresh water, the wedge slides underneath the river's surface as it plows north, adding its own layer to the "cake." But the salt layer also creates a band of turbulence that can distort a sonar image, so it too must be understood so scientists can read the map results.

This day's work mostly consists of measuring the depth and strength of the salt current. Jay Ardai, an engineer-technician who hangs over the stern in an orange survival suit, dips various instruments into the water while Dr. Bell records the results. At the wheel, the Fletcher's captain, John Lipscomb, keeps track of the boat on a global positioning screen so that he can maneuver it for the next test.

The core drilling samples, like the salt wedge studies, are another way to provide backup verification, or "ground truth," as it is called, for the sonar images. But the cores also allow Dr. Bell to create a timeline of the river's history.

Scientists analyzing the samples at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., have identified a band of radioactive cesium in the river mud. They say that the cesium marks the period of above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950's and 1960's, a snapshot of the earth's atmosphere taken by the river at that one moment in time and then sealed on the bottom.

Dr. Bell sees a giant historical tapestry in all this. She became enthralled with geology when she learned about plate tectonics as a teenager and never quite got over it, she said. Examining a core sample at the Lamont-Doherty campus, she gently traces a finger down through the geologic record: a shell deposited in the river around the time of Jesus, a band of gravel, a compressed and preserved twig.

Now, standing on deck of the Fletcher - named for a conservationist who worked for many years with Riverkeeper, the boat's owner - Dr. Bell marvels at the ancient echoes of these waters. Since the Palisades on the river's western bank in Rockland County rose up in a volcanic eruption 180 million years ago, she said, the Hudson has been a timeless constant in the region. There are even different kinds of rocks on each side of the river, she says.

Daniel Wolff, a writer from Nyack who has come out on several mapping trips as a volunteer, stood near the stern, watching birds with his binoculars.

"They get so absorbed in looking at their computer screens that they don't notice the nature around them," he said, nodding toward the scientists.

-------- tennessee

New year's uncertainty arrives in Oak Ridge

Knoxville News-Sentinel
January 3, 2001
By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/fm01032001.shtml

The year 2000, forever labeled on our brains as Y2K, was a bountiful one for Oak Ridge -- so much so that U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., issued a series of best-of-times press releases late in the year, crowing about record budgets for the federal operations and mighty progress on Oak Ridge projects such as the Spallation Neutron Source.

It was an election year, of course, and politicians sometimes get a little carried away with the good news, but a lot of positive things really did happen, and some of them, notably the federal dollars approved for fiscal 2001, will carry over into the New Year.

With a new year, however, comes uncertainty, and that is especially true for 2001 because there's also a new administration ready to take control in Washington. Few places in the United States are more affected by changes in Washington than Oak Ridge. The Atomic City was born as a government entity during World War II, and despite numerous efforts to diversify the local economy, Oak Ridge remains heavily dependent on the federal dole.

There are questions waiting to be answered:

* Will the pro-defense platform of President-elect George W. Bush translate into strong support for the modernization of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge?

The U.S. Department of Energy and the plant's managing contractor, BWXT, are proposing construction of new facilities for production of nuclear warhead parts and storage of special nuclear materials. The cost of the projects, which essentially involve construction of a new plant at the Oak Ridge site, has been estimated at about $4 billion over the next decade.

DOE recently issued a draft environmental impact statement for Y-12, detailing the first two projects -- a storage center for highly enriched uranium and a facility where beryllium and other unnamed "special materials" would be processed.

The proposed work has been staggered to get the highest priorities taken care of up front, but if the Y-12 plant is to be rebuilt as planned, it will require broad-based support in Washington.

* Will there be a nuclear revival?

No, I'm not talking about Alvin Weinberg's Second Nuclear Era or a sudden rush of applications for nuclear power plants in the United States.

Bill Madia, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has suggested a more modest revival, which could include the lab's involvement in producing and processing plutonium-238 for future space missions.

DOE recently tabbed ORNL as the preferred site for that work, and a record of the decision is expected early this year. Beyond that, there are a number of nuclear-related issues that must be addressed.

How will the Bush administration approach nuclear recycling?

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson put a halt to an Oak Ridge recycling program, even though it had gained the approval of Tennessee regulators.

Richardson sided with critics who said the Oak Ridge work would put small amounts of radioactive substances into commercial products without warning consumers. DOE restricted the use of recycled metals to internal applications such as containers for nuclear wastes.

* Will the momentum to compensate sick workers at DOE nuclear sites be lost in the shuffle of administrations?

After decades of denial, DOE acknowledged that Cold War operations caused health problems among workers at Oak Ridge and other nuclear defense sites. The agency pushed for approval of a compensation program in Congress, and although the resulting package was disappointing to many affected workers, it was a mighty big step forward.

Will the new DOE retreat or push ahead with a more comprehensive proposal to help those workers and their families affected by workplace-related illnesses?

* Will Oak Ridge retirees get a boost in their pension benefits?

This is truly the $1 billion question for about 14,000 contractor retirees whose benefits come from a pension fund with a surplus in the range of $1 billion.

BWXT, the new manager at Y-12 and the new administrator of the pension fund, held a series of meetings with retired employees last month. The response from retirees was deafening, but it remains to be seen if it will fall on deaf ears.

If a boost in benefits (such as the company paying an increased share of medical insurance costs) is recommended, will there be strings attached?

There has been speculation that down the road BWXT might try to use a piece of the pension fund surplus for purposes others than employee benefits. Considering the hellfire and damnation brought forth by a similar proposal from BWXT's predecessor (Lockheed Martin), that would seem like a stupid idea.

But, hey, stranger -- and dumber -- things have happened in Oak Ridge.

Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/

-------- washington

DOE selection has many scratching heads

Tri-City Herald
1/3/2001
By John Stang and Annette Cary Herald staff writers
mailto:jstang@tri-cityherald.com
mailto:acary@tri-cityherald.com
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2001/0103/Story2.html

President-elect George W. Bush's candidate for Energy secretary is a defeated Michigan senator with no significant experience in nuclear or environmental cleanup issues.

In fact, Bush's nominee recently backed eliminating the Department of Energy.

Bush announced Tuesday that Spencer "Spence" Abraham, a Republican U.S. senator who lost his re-election bid in November, is his choice to succeed outgoing Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Tuesday's announcement drew a collective "Huh?" in Hanford circles, ranging from Tri-City interests and watchdog groups to Washington and Oregon officials. Several politically plugged-in participants in Hanford politics also drew a blank Tuesday on even Abraham's name.

"I've never heard of him," said Todd Martin, chairman-elect of the Hanford Advisory Board, which represents more than 30 constituencies across Hanford's entire political spectrum.

Sam Volpentest, executive vice president of the Tri-City Industrial Development Council, and Gerald Pollet, director of Heart of America Northwest, operate on the opposite extremes of Hanford's politics -- and both checked Tuesday with contacts in Washington, D.C., about Abraham.

"I'm told by people in the know in Washington that he doesn't know anything about energy," Volpentest said.

Pollet echoed Volpentest: "He has not been visible on any Department of Energy issues. It's a surprising choice -- someone with no background on DOE issues."

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said: "I am very concerned about this appointment. He has not been known for his work on energy issues."

However, U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., is optimistic about Abraham's nomination.

"It's always helpful when you have someone who is familiar with Congress," said Jeff Markey, Hastings' legislative director. Hastings believes he can build a close relationship with Abraham similar to the one he had with Richardson, Markey said.

But Murray noted Abraham had co-sponsored legislation to eliminate DOE.

Abraham co-sponsored two legislative attempts by recently defeated U.S. Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., to abolish DOE and transfer most of its functions to the U.S. Department of Interior, according to CNN. Neither bill made it far through Congress.

"Spencer Abraham was one of only three senators to introduce legislation to abolish the Department of Energy in the (past two years)," David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, told the Los Angeles Times. "And now he's going to be running the place. Who would have thunk it?"

Abraham will soon face at least two vital Hanford issues -- one in just a few weeks.

"We're talking probably a steep learning curve," Pollet said.

In February, or possibly March because of the drawn-out presidential election, DOE will have to submit its budget request -- including Hanford's cleanup requests -- to Congress for fiscal 2002.

Right now in an era of federal budget-tightening, DOE wants to boost Hanford's total cleanup budget of about $1.2 billion in 2001 to about $1.6 billion in 2002. That's because the long-awaited tank waste glassification project is supposed to kick into full construction in fiscal 2002. Also, DOE wants more money to accelerate cleanup efforts along Hanford's Columbia River shore.

Meanwhile, the state of Washington has been poised to file a lawsuit against DOE if it shows signs of backing down on its legal commitments to clean up Hanford -- such as inadequately funding the projects.

Also within the next few months, Abraham will have to decide whether to back outgoing Secretary Richardson's decision to shut down Hanford's dormant Fast Flux Test Facility. Proponents and opponents of the FFTF are braced to refight the issue when the new presidential administration takes over.

"We have to work hard out here. He doesn't know us, and we have to get to know him real quick," Volpentest said.

Paige Knight of Hanford Watch said: "It looks rather ominous for cleanup progress. I think we're in for a really dark four years at DOE."

Abraham, 48, grew up in East Lansing, Mich., and graduated in 1974 from Michigan State University. He graduated from Harvard University's law school in 1979.

In 1982, he became chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, a post he held until 1990. In 1990 and 1991, Abraham was deputy chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle. And he served as co-chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee in 1991 and 1992, for the 1992 elections.

He unseated incumbent Democrat John Carr in 1994 to become Michigan's first Republican senator in 22 years. He served on several Senate committees, including being a junior member on the Budget Committee and the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee. On the latter, he chaired the manufacturing and competitiveness subcommittee.

Abraham's office's Web site said he has had 16 bills signed into law, the most of any freshman senator elected in 1994.

Of his successful bills listed on his Web site, only one addressed environmental issues, and none addressed energy matters. In 1997, an Abraham bill was signed into law to provide tax deductions to corporations on certain cleanup costs.

On his Web site, Abraham cites his support of several Great Lakes-oriented environmental cleanup bills, wildlife-related projects and providing funds for environmental efforts in Michigan. He also got a bill passed in 1998 that stripped Lake Champlain of its then-brand-new status as one of the Great Lakes.

As a senator representing a state that includes automotive hub Detroit, Hanford observers speculated Abraham's only apparent energy-related interests are currently oil and gas.

A congressional watchdog group, The Center for Responsive Politics, said Abraham received $90,171 in campaign donations from 35 oil and gas political action committees in 1999 and 2000.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club contends Abraham accepted $490,000 "from polluting industries" in 2000, saying that is the most donated to congressional member.

The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters both graded Abraham very poorly on environmental matters -- emphasizing he voted consistently to hamstring clean water programs and to weaken laws requiring chemical manufacturers to report some of their toxic emissions.

The League of Conservation Voters said Abraham voted in 1995 to slash $1.5 billion from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's budget pertaining to enforcing air, water and wetlands regulations. The EPA is one of the two main regulatory agencies at Hanford.

Former Democratic Michigan congresswoman Debbie Stabenow knocked Abraham from his seat in November despite his 2-to-1 advantage in campaign funds. After the election, the Detroit News quoted Democratic campaign officials saying that Abraham lost partly because he lost touch with his constituents.

However, some printed reports plus inklings received Tuesday by Hanford observers painted Abraham as a conscientious, solid, hard-working senator who got along well with his congressional peers. He posted a perfect voting attendance record in his Senate term.

Abraham was considered a potential candidate for transportation secretary. And the Associated Press reported that Michigan Gov. John Engler is a close friend of Bush and strongly pushed Abraham for a Cabinet post.

Bush and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney -- both former oil men -- propose to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling, which Abraham supports.

Bush ultimately decided to nominate Democrat Norman Mineta, President Clinton's secretary of commerce, as the new transportation secretary. Because of the ultra-close presidential election, Bush talked about crossing party lines to fill his Cabinet. Mineta is the only Democrat among Bush's 14 cabinet nominees.

Longtime Bush supporter and recently defeated U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., had been prominently mentioned among the half-dozen potential nominees for energy secretary.

"I'm disappointed Slade is not getting it. He was a strong supporter of cleanup," said Harold Heacock of TRIDEC.

According to CNN, Abraham said Tuesday: "Many significant Energy Department issues face us at this time, ranging from the adequacy of supply, to affordability, to the development of new technologies, to the issue of security at our facilities," Abraham said. "I look forward to helping the president-elect effectively address these challenges in the days ahead."

CNN also quoted Abraham saying he would try to meet "our responsibilities as good stewards for the land, the air and water."

-------- us nuc politics

Conservative at the Core

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/politics/03ASSE.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - With the completion of his cabinet selections today, President-elect George W. Bush has put forward a governing team every bit as ethnically and racially diverse as President Clinton's. At the same time, he has chosen for the most critical domestic policy posts figures who are acceptable to his party's conservative wing.

Through his choices, Mr. Bush has started to answer one of the most tantalizing questions left from his campaign: just what will "compassionate conservatism" be in practice? His advisers maintain that it is a Republican synthesis not seen before on the national stage.

That is not to say that the faces and many of the policies are unfamiliar, or that Mr. Bush is not a true conservative. Linda Chavez, introduced today as labor secretary-designate, is a familiar and polarizing figure from the nation's cultural wars. Ms. Chavez, who was an official in the Reagan administration, opposes affirmative action and has been a steadfast foe of bilingual education, a stance for which she has drawn fire from Hispanic groups.

Nor has Mr. Bush retreated from the conservative policies he rolled out during his campaign. Once again today, he said he wanted to move ahead with a tax cut worth $1.6 trillion over 10 years, a sum that even many Republicans on Capitol Hill have called too large.

But in selecting his cabinet, Mr. Bush has showcased some of the breadth of the conservative movement. His choice for defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, a leading advocate of a missile defense system, is a figure very different from Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri, the religious conservative chosen for attorney general.

Like Mr. Ashcroft, Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin, chosen to take over the country's vast health and human services portfolio, opposes abortion but, in revamping his state's welfare laws, became known more as innovator than hard-liner.

And with blacks, Hispanics and women, as well as one Democrat, chosen for powerful posts in the new administration, even Democrats are commending Mr. Bush for inclusiveness.

"While not without its controversies, this cabinet is more representative of the country than any Republican presidential cabinet in memory," said Senator Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey. "There appears to have been a genuine effort to achieve real balance."

Take the three nominees introduced today alone: As staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights and then director of the Reagan White House's Office of Public Liaison, Ms. Chavez became one of the most prominent Hispanic women in any administration. By naming Norman Y. Mineta to run the Transportation Department, Mr. Bush not only made good on his pledge to name a Democrat to the cabinet but also gave a high-ranking post to an Asian-American. And Spencer Abraham, the recently defeated senator from Michigan, who was chosen for energy secretary, has Lebanese roots.

"President-elect Bush, like Governor Bush in Texas, is often misunderstood by some because he's a conservative, and by others because he's inclusive," said Ralph Reed, a Republican strategist who advised the Bush campaign. "And he's a unique and rare combination of both that you rarely see in a Republican political figure, which is a very significant part of his appeal."

Few would dispute that there is a conservative cast to Mr. Bush's cabinet, perhaps more than might have been expected given his talk of ending the bruising partisanship in Washington and reaching out to Democrats after the bitter, extended presidential election.

Republicans say that while Mr. Bush wants to reach across party lines when he can, he never intended to give up his strongly held positions.

"If anyone out there was observing a Bush-Cheney team thinking they would come up with an administration that didn't share their philosophy about government, I don't think they were very well grounded," said Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. "That wasn't going to happen."

Still, Mr. Bush has also named people with appeal to the party's moderate wing, including Christie Whitman to oversee environmental policy. His selection for treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill, was often at odds with conservatives when he served in the Office of Management and Budget under President Gerald R. Ford, and is not known as a Reaganesque supply-sider.

And even Mr. Bush's more conservative nominees may prove less doctrinaire than some expect. His choice for interior secretary, Gale A. Norton, a staunch advocate of property rights, was a protégée of James G. Watt, who sparred with environmental groups as a Reagan interior secretary, and she is likely to face many questions from Democrats at her confirmation hearing. Yet some Democrats who knew her when was the attorney general of Colorado say she can work across partisan barriers and is open to compromises.

Mr. Thompson, who as Wisconsin governor put in place a tough welfare-to-work law, accompanied it with a costly expansion of services to needy workers. And though Ms. Chavez has been at odds with Hispanic organizations because of her views on affirmative action and bilingual education, she once resigned as head of a group that wanted to make English the nation's official language, over a memorandum she thought showed bias against Hispanics.

Still, it is far from clear that Mr. Bush will be able to make any inroads with minorities who voted overwhelmingly for Vice President Al Gore. Civil rights leaders, saying blacks were disenfranchised in Florida, are calling for demonstrations before the inauguration. And the Rev. Jesse Jackson has signaled that civil rights groups will challenge Democrats to oppose Mr. Ashcroft's nomination.

Mr. Ashcroft is expected to face the fiercest confirmation battle of all, at hearings that will explore matters including his successful fight to defeat the federal judicial nomination of Ronnie White, the first black member of the Missouri Supreme Court. In addition, women's groups are pointing to his unyielding opposition to abortion.

The Ashcroft hearings will be held by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Asked if the nominee would be confirmed, one member, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, said: "A lot will be determined in the hearings. Will Senator Ashcroft enforce the law in areas that he is ideologically totally opposed to? The laws like on choice and gun control? If he doesn't thoroughly convince people, then he could have trouble."

With his cabinet choices complete, Mr. Bush will now turn his attention to policy, and is vowing to move boldly ahead with the agenda on which he campaigned instead of scaling back on the most contentious proposals because of the closely decided election.

The extent to which his proposals will succeed in a Congress that itself is so closely divided is uncertain. But his advisers say that the time to compromise will come later and that he would only weaken himself if he started retrenching now.

"You have to try to accomplish as much of the agenda on which you campaigned as you can," said Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist who was a Bush campaign aide. "The fact is that people in this incoming administration are realists, and they will determine how much of that agenda is achievable given the margins in Congress. But you don't know how much is achievable until you try it all."

---

Democrat Chosen as Bush Completes Cabinet Selection

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/politics/03BUSH.html

AUSTIN, Tex., Jan. 2 - President- elect George W. Bush completed his cabinet appointments today, saying he would nominate a defeated Republican senator to run the Energy Department, a conservative veteran of the Reagan administration to head the Labor Department and President Clinton's commerce secretary, a Democrat, to take over the Department of Transportation.

With today's announcements, Mr. Bush has filled his cabinet in the fewer than 20 days that have passed since he emerged as the winner of one of the most contested presidential elections in history. He began reviewing candidates while the dispute in Florida was going on, but by recent standards he has announced his choices fairly quickly, creating a government notable for its gender and ethnic diversity, its depth of experience and its inclination toward social conservatives.

The cabinet took on an even more conservative cast today when Mr. Bush selected Spencer Abraham to run the Energy Department. It was Mr. Abraham who several years ago co-sponsored a bill to eliminate the agency he has been selected to head, calling it a "wasteful umbrella organization."

Mr. Bush selected another prominent conservative, Linda Chavez, who was staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights under President Ronald Reagan, to run the Labor Department. Ms. Chavez was well known for her opposition to affirmative action programs and bilingual education. In her new post she will be dealing with unions that are suspicious of Mr. Bush and that fear possible retaliation because of their support of Vice President Al Gore in the presidential campaign. But Mr. Bush said today that he and Ms. Chavez, a onetime union member, "share a passion to make sure that nobody in America is left behind."

Mr. Bush also fulfilled his pledge today not to leave Democrats behind, naming Norman Y. Mineta, a former congressman and a Japanese-American who was placed in an internment camp as a child during World War II, to become transportation secretary. Mr. Mineta briefly led the public works and transportation committee in the House before Republicans took control in 1994.

Today at a news conference with Mr. Bush he described himself as "a Democrat, with both a small `d' and a large one." But Mr. Mineta, who left Congress five years ago for a senior job at Lockheed Martin, the military contractor, went on to say that problems of air safety, shipping and highways knew no party.

If confirmed, Mr. Mineta would become part of a small group of politicians who have served on the cabinets of both Democrats and Republicans. The last was James R. Schlesinger, who was appointed secretary of defense by President Richard M. Nixon, fired by President Gerald R. Ford and rehired by President Jimmy Carter as secretary of energy. Edwin M. Stanton, the attorney general for President James Buchanan, a Democrat, was named secretary of war by Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and became one of the most powerful members of Lincoln's cabinet.

But it is unclear whether Mr. Mineta, an informal adviser to Mr. Gore in the presidential campaign, will be able to exercise much influence beyond the Transportation Department. He has had only slight influence in the Clinton administration, which he joined early last summer, after William M. Daley left the commerce post to become chairman of Mr. Gore's campaign.

White House officials said today that Mr. Mineta had called both President Clinton and Mr. Gore to inform them that Mr. Bush had contacted him about a cabinet job. They said both men had encouraged Mr. Mineta to pursue the discussion.

Mr. Mineta met with Mr. Bush here just before today's announcement, and aides familiar with the discussions say Mr. Mineta said he would remain a Democrat but not campaign for his party in the next two elections. William S. Cohen, the Republican who has served as Mr. Clinton's defense secretary, kept a low profile during the last campaign.

The long Washington experience of many cabinet selections contrasts sharply with Mr. Bush's lack of experience in the capital and has raised questions about whether he could be overshadowed by some of his appointees. Mr. Bush said today that he was not concerned by that prospect.

"It says I'm not afraid to surround myself with strong and competent people," Mr. Bush said in response to a question. "I'm going to work with every cabinet member to set a series of goals for each cabinet, for each area of our government. And I'll work with the cabinet secretaries to help achieve those goals."

Mr. Bush's cabinet selections now include three women, two blacks, two Hispanics, one Asian-American Democrat, and with today's announcement of Mr. Abraham, one Arab-American. Mr. Bush's choice for national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is a black woman, but does not serve in the cabinet, and several other high-level positions, like trade representative and United Nations representative, have yet to be filled.

Unity with diversity will be Mr. Bush's message in the inaugural celebrations in 18 days. Mr. Bush's office said today that the theme of the Jan. 20 event would be "Celebrating America's Spirit Together." But despite the talk of unity, Mr. Bush has clearly placed social conservatives at the center of his domestic agencies, while placing Republicans from the moderate wing of the party, like Secretary of State-designate Colin L. Powell, Ms. Rice and Treasury Secretary-designate Paul H. O'Neill in command of the corners of government that are America's primary interface with the world.

One social conservative, Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft, who was also defeated for re-election to the Senate in November, appears likely to emerge as the Bush selection facing the most contentious confirmation hearings. Mr. Bush acknowledged that possibility again today but said he was confident that Mr. Ashcroft would convince his former colleagues in the Senate that his successful effort to derail the appointment of a prominent black judge to the federal bench had not been racially motivated.

"I'm sure there's going to be some tough questioning for some of our nominees," Mr. Bush said. "But they're all fully prepared to handle the tough questioning. And I hope people do talk to John Ashcroft about his vision of civil rights and his concept of fairness in America, because I certainly did."

Today's selections by Mr. Bush seem less likely to provoke controversy, although Mr. Abraham may have to perform some political footwork to explain why he should run an agency that in 1999 he was certain should be dismantled, its functions spread among other agencies of government. He did not directly refer to that position today, saying, "Many significant Energy Department-related issues face us at this time ranging from the adequacy of supply to affordability to the development of new technologies to the issues of security at our facilities."

In fact, Mr. Abraham is walking into two political minefields: one over rising oil prices and the mess created by the shortage of supply in California; another over the continuing and by some accounts bungled investigations into accusations of spying at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the possible disclosure of nuclear weapons secrets.

Mr. Abraham stayed clear of all specifics today.

Ms. Chavez's personal political journey has been an unusual one. As a senior at the University of Colorado, she joined Mexican-American and black students in demanding affirmative-action programs. But a decade later, as head of the Civil Rights Commission, she opposed racial preferences.

Today she noted that her father had painted houses and her mother had worked in restaurants and department stores, saying, "I intend to keep faith with the men and the women who still work at jobs like those my parents held."

She is not universally hailed by Hispanics. Despite her surname, her critics have asserted, she is neither bilingual nor bicultural. (Her father's ancestors came from Spain; her mother is of English and Irish descent.) And she received something well short of a warm greeting today from John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., who said: "It is an insult to American working men and women to put an avowed opponent of the most basic workers' rights in charge of enforcing the federal laws and regulations that protect workers' wages, employment and pension rights, equal employment opportunity and other programs for advancement."

Mr. Mineta's history is also well known in Washington. As a congressman, he helped enact legislation awarding $20,000 to every Japanese- American who, like himself, had been interned. He left the House in 1995, after 21 years but was clearly itching to return to government and lobbied hard, but quietly, for the job.

"This is an extraordinarily talented American," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Mineta, 69, who was beaming. "I love his story."

---

Man in the News: Edmund Spencer Abraham

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/politics/03ABRA.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - Spencer Abraham, a conservative Michigan senator who has fought to abolish the Department of Energy during his Congressional career, is now poised to take it over.

Mr. Abraham would assume control of a federal agency he has decried as wasteful and ungainly, with "no core mission." In 1999 he made his third effort in five years to abolish the department, joining forces with three other senators.

"Energy oversees everything from nuclear waste disposal to energy conservation to corporate welfare," Mr. Abraham wrote in a 1997 opinion article in The Washington Times, in which he also called for abolishing the Commerce Department. "What is not unneeded or harmful in this list would be better secured without Energy's wasteful umbrella organization."

Such candor in the name of cutting taxes and reducing the federal bureaucracy is a trademark of Mr. Abraham, a one-term senator who lost his re-election bid in November. His voting record is solidly conservative; he opposes abortion, favors free trade and dislikes environmental regulations.

But he has occasionally challenged the Republican orthodoxy, particularly in successfully fighting Republican colleagues' efforts to restrict legal immigration.

Edmund Spencer Abraham was born in East Lansing, Mich., on June 12, 1952, the son of an autoworker and the grandson of Lebanese Christian immigrants. During the last session of Congress he was the only Arab- American senator.

President-elect George W. Bush said Mr. Abraham would be deeply involved in establishing an energy policy that will include finding ways to meet rising demand through greater domestic production.

"He's ready to join me in seeking energy security for the United States," Mr. Bush said. "We understand our national security depends on energy security."

A Bush transition spokeswoman said today that Mr. Abraham was traveling and not available to comment on his efforts to abolish the Energy Department.

In accepting the nomination, he described himself as proud and eager to take up the task of addressing the nation's consumption needs while remaining sensitive to the environment. In praising the incoming administration's expertise, he appeared to be acknowledging the oil backgrounds of both Mr. Bush and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney.

"As we know," Mr. Abraham said, "many significant Energy Department-related issues face us at this time, ranging from the adequacy of supply, to affordability, to the development of new technologies, to the issues of security at our facilities, and more. Fortunately, this administration is comprised of many individuals with incredible expertise in these areas, and I look forward to helping the president-elect to effectively address these challenges in the days ahead."

But his selection worried conservationists, who see the emerging Bush cabinet as increasingly hostile to their interests.

Daniel F. Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program, said Mr. Abraham's ties to automotive interests had led him to oppose efforts to require greater fuel efficiency in sport utility vehicles. Overseeing fuel mileage falls under the purview of Transportation, not Energy, but some environmental activists feared that even so, Mr. Abraham would work against tighter regulations.

"The bottom line here," Mr. Becker said, "is that President-elect Bush is choosing a senator who led the fight for more gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s - to go find the oil to keep them running." He added that the Sierra Club, assessing the last Congress on environmental issues, had given Mr. Abraham its lowest rating.

Mr. Abraham stands to inherit control of a troubled department with sweeping jurisdictions - over the nation's weapons laboratories, the cleanup of nuclear waste sites and the management of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The agency has been shaken by recent security breaches at its research laboratories, as well as lawmakers' efforts to reduce its budget and manage its contractors. The new energy secretary is likely to face a series of challenges from the start, including electricity shortages on both coasts next summer and efforts among some OPEC nations to keep oil prices high.

The agency will also have primary responsibility for cleaning up nuclear weapons construction sites. It will also probably face new controversy over Mr. Bush's plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, a move fiercely opposed by conservationists.

Robert Alvarez, a former senior Energy Department official, said the agency's responsibilities were so far- flung and disparate that they required "a tough-minded manager who can define a vision and unify this department at a time when it is essentially falling apart."

Allies of Mr. Abraham say that with his intelligence and political contacts, he is up to the task. At Harvard Law School he founded the Federalist Society, a conservative legal activist group, and began a conservative version of the law review. His closest political allies include Senator Trent Lott, the majority leader, and Gov. John Engler of Michigan.

After serving as Michigan State Republican Party chairman at the age of 30, he became deputy chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle in 1990. He was elected to the Senate in 1994, the first Republican in more than two decades to take a seat from that centrist state.

-------

Bush's Pick for Energy Sought to Kill Agency

Washington Post
Wednesday, January 3, 2001; Page A06
By Peter Behr and Dina ElBoghdady
Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10981-2001Jan2?language=printer

In 1999, Republican Spencer Abraham of Michigan was one of a handful of senators sponsoring a short-lived proposal to eliminate the Department of Energy.

Now Abraham, who lost his Senate reelection bid in November, is President-elect Bush's choice to run that department in the face of the nation's harshest energy challenges in 20 years.

Bills for natural gas, electricity and heating oil have jumped 50 percent or more over those of a year ago as the coldest winter in years drains depleted fuel stocks. California faces an electricity crisis and on Jan. 17, three days before Bush's inauguration, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to consider a cutback in crude oil production that would reverse a recent easing in oil prices, energy analysts say.

All of this will land in the lap of Abraham, 48, a Harvard-educated lawyer, grandson of Lebanese immigrants and one-term senator who had been a top vice-presidential aide to Dan Quayle, assuming he is confirmed by his former Senate colleagues.

It will be a mostly new agenda for Abraham, as he acknowledged yesterday after his nomination by Bush.

"Fortunately, this administration is comprised of many individuals with incredible expertise in these areas," Abraham said, adding: "I look forward to helping the president-elect address these challenges."

Not since the energy shocks that battered the Carter administration has a new president confronted the range of bad news that awaits Bush, said Howard Gruenspecht, a former Energy Department official and now resident scholar at Resources for the Future, a research organization.

And while Abraham is in line to be the administration's point man on these issues, as energy secretary he would have direct control of only a few key policies. The regulation of electricity, access to oil and gas sites on public lands, and environmental rules governing power plants and refineries are in the hands of other departments and agencies, Gruenspecht said.

Nor does Abraham have a background in security issues at the nuclear weapons laboratories run by the Energy Department -- as also was the case with Bill Richardson, the current energy secretary, who was sharply criticized for that alleged failing by Republican House and Senate members who attacked the Clinton administration's management of the labs.

Although Abraham proposed abolishing the Energy Department as a means of reducing federal spending, the Bush transition team said he no longer holds that view because of the energy challenges facing the country.

As a senator representing Michigan, home to the U.S. auto industry, Abraham's priorities began with transportation issues, including successful efforts to block higher fuel-economy standards for sport-utility vehicles and light trucks and a failed attempt this year to suspend the federal gasoline tax in response to the sharp rise in pump prices.

"He understands the energy issues more than people think," said Debbie Dingell, president of the General Motors Foundation, a Democrat and a friend of Abraham's since the age of 15. "When you come from Michigan, you pay attention to these things."

Abraham's advocacy for the auto industry made him a ready target for environmentalists. The League of Conservation gave his Senate voting record a rating of zero.

After his narrow defeat in November by Rep. Deborah Ann Stabenow (D-Mich.), Abraham began appearing on some lists of possible Bush Cabinet appointees, although that speculation centered on the Transportation Department.

The prospect of life outside government did not appeal to Abraham, some Senate sources say. But his selection as energy secretary has baffled many environmentalists, political observers and even some of his closest colleagues.

"I really think the answer is that once the cards were shuffled, that was the only one [Cabinet position] left," said Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst and editor of the Rothenberg Report, an independent newsletter. "It was one of the slots they had open, and this is a multicultural Cabinet if they ever had one."

As the junior senator from Michigan, Abraham represented one of the largest Arab American populations in the country. Some Arab Americans say his Arab heritage will give him credibility in the Persian Gulf nations whose oil supplies are crucial to the U.S. economy.

Abraham joined with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) last year in an unsuccessful bid to open the protected Alaskan coastline of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.

Bush has put that at the top of his energy policy initiatives, promising an early battle with Democrats over the issue.

"We have vast resources within the United States, and these are crucial to our country's security," Abraham said yesterday at Bush's side. The administration can tap new domestic oil and gas reserves "while meeting our responsibilities as good stewards of the land, the air and the water," he said.

His nomination drew contrary responses yesterday from representatives of the energy industry and environmental groups.

Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, an association of investor-owned electric companies, praised Abraham's selection, calling him "a leader in the U.S. Senate, a very thoughtful policy person, just who we need to address the difficult energy issues facing the country today."

Dan Becker, a Sierra Club official in Washington, said of Abraham, "The only [energy] fight he's led was the one to guzzle more gas [by opposing increases in auto fuel economy standards], and his voting record has been singularly hostile to the environment."

"He's not an energy expert. I don't think he needs to be," said David M. Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit advocacy group. "You need a good politician who can bring together different points of view" on energy development and conservation, Nemtzow said.

Murkowski, whose committee will consider Abraham's confirmation, endorsed him yesterday.

"The Energy Department is a difficult one to manage, but I have every confidence that Sen. Abraham is up to the job," Murkowski said in a statement.

Swept into the Senate during the "Republican revolution" of 1994, Abraham was praised as an up-and-comer with enough conservative credentials to propel him into Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's "kitchen cabinet."

But in the Senate, he soon proved to be among the most vulnerable Republicans. A freshman in a swing state that had not elected a Republican to the Senate in 20 years, Abraham could never parlay his 1994 win into widespread recognition at home.

------- us nuc waste

U.S. Agency Seeks Approval to Recycle Radioactive Metals

Environmental News Service
January 3, 2001
By Brian Hansen
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-03-15.html

WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS) - The manufacture of consumer products out of radioactively contaminated materials discarded from commercial nuclear power plants and government bomb factories could become a fact of American life. In an extraordinary move, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today asked the National Academy of Sciences to sanction the controversial practice.

Dr. Richard Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), made the request during the public portion of a special National Academy of Sciences committee meeting in Washington.

Dr. Richard Meserve(Photo courtesy NRC)

Meserve asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel to examine the practice of releasing radioactively contaminated solid waste materials into everyday commerce. He said this type of recycling is necessary to insure the continued viability of the commercial nuclear power plant industry and the Cold War decommissioning activities of the U.S. Department of Energy.

"There has basically been no guidance as to how those problems should be addressed," Meserve said to the panel of NAS scientists. "It is our hope that we will get your findings and recommendations as to how we should proceed in a timely manner."

Meserve's request of the NAS panel is the latest development in a long standing government and industry led effort to establish a consistent system governing the release of solid materials from NRC licensed facilities.

The nuclear power industry and the Department of Energy (DOE) are currently saddled with tens of thousands of tons of solid materials contaminated with low levels of radioactivity, which they once disposed of in specially designed nuclear waste disposal facilities.

That practice changed beginning in the 1970s, when the NRC, its licensees, and the DOE began searching for a more cost effective method of disposing of the enormous volume of steel girders, pallets, machinery and other solid materials tainted with tiny amounts of radioactivity.

The NRC and the DOE now allow their licensees and contractors to recycle some solid materials, but there is currently no national health based standard or generally applicable criteria governing the release of solid materials from commercial nuclear power plants or government nuclear weapons facilities.

Radioactive scrap ready for sale (Photo courtesy Environmental Assessment Division Argonne National Laboratory U.S. Department of Energy)

Meserve said that the current "ad-hoc" recycling system is not sufficient for the NRC and its licensees, which he noted must spend large amounts of money to dispose of their low level solid wastes.

Meserve said that the DOE has encountered the same costly solid waste disposal problem "in spades" as it proceeds with decommissioning a number of Cold War nuclear weapons facilities.

"That's why we're here - to seek your advice on these matters," Meserve told the NAS panel.

At the NRC's request, the National Academy of Sciences' panel has agreed to examine the question of whether or not there are sufficient technical bases to establish a consistent system for controlling the release of what it is terming "slightly contaminated" solid materials.

The panel is expected to evaluate a number of factors in making its recommendations regarding the release of these materials, including studies of critical groups, exposure pathways and scenarios, and individual and collective doses.

Meserve asked the panel to consider a number of other factors in reaching its conclusion, including rulemaking actions taken by federal agencies, states, and the European Union.

Meserve outlined four conclusions that he said the NAS panel could reasonably reach.

Permitting the release of radioactively contaminated solid materials if the potential dose is less than a specified level.

Restricting the release of such materials for only certain authorized uses, which could prohibit recycling.

Prohibiting the release of materials that were stored in areas where radioactive materials were present.

Segregating reused materials for public and nonpublic use.

Meserve added that his list of alternatives was not intended to "constrain [the NAS panel] from being more inventive" in its recommendations.

Meserve acknowledged the controversial nature of the solid waste recycling initiative, which environmental and public health groups have vehemently criticized.

Processing radioactive materials (Photo courtesy Manufacturing Sciences Corporation)

"This is a difficult issue where the emotional currents run strong," he said.

Still, Meserve implored the NAS panel to resist putting a "spin" on its findings to address - or to avoid - the controversial nature of the NRC's solid waste recycling initiative.

"Call it the way you see it - we'll worry about the political fallout," Meserve said. "We want your best advice - give it to us straight."

Some members of the NAS panel did just that, as they wasted little time in peppering the NCR chairman with a host of probing questions.

Dr. Robert Budnitz, president of the California based Future Resources Associates, wanted to know why the NRC had requested the panel's recommendations at all.

"Where did this come from? What's going on?" Budnitz asked Meserve.

Budnitz, a former NRC official, said he suspects the request came about because the agency could no longer deal with the myriad individual recycling cases that it is currently juggling.

Meserve acknowledged the point, saying that "it's a licensee need," and that it is "extraordinarily expensive" for nuclear power plant operators to dispose of their radioactively contaminated solid materials through other means.

Radioactive metal pallets (Photo courtesy DOE Oakridge Operations)

Meserve added that, "There's a lot of decommissioning underway [at DOE nuclear weapons facilities] that we need to deal with somehow."

Bunditz pressed the point, asking Meserve if the Energy Department has "formally or informally" approached the NRC about pushing for a national standard for the recycling of contaminated solid materials.

"Is that part of this or not?" Bunditz asked.

Meserve acknowledged that he did "personally meet" with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson about this problem, and that Richardson had encouraged the National Academy of Sciences' involvement in the matter.

Andrew Wallo, director of the DOE radiation division's office of environment, safety and health, was on hand Wednesday to report the agency's perspective on the contaminated solid materials disposal problem.

Wallo noted that there are hundreds of tons of metals and other slightly contaminated materials at DOE nuclear weapons facilities that must be removed if the sites are to be cleaned up and closed down.

"It's a valuable commodity excepting the radioactivity in it," Wallo said of the materials.

Wallo told the panel that most of the scrap metal that has been released from DOE facilities is either not contaminated at all, or has surface contamination well below the agency's current standard. However, the pubic and the steel industry has not been accepting of those very low exposure risks, Wallo acknowledged.

Wallo recalled the furor that erupted when the DOE allowed contractor British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) to release 110,000 tons of radioactive metals - including 6,000 tons of volumetrically contaminated nickel - from the DOE's K-25 nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Public health and environmental groups vehemently objected to the contract, saying that there was no law prevent the metals from being used to make silverware, orthodontic braces, hip joint replacements, and even intrauterine devices.

The steel industry also opposed the release of the contaminated scrap metal, saying that it would erode public confidence in the industry and cost steel companies tens of million of dollars should radioactive materials somehow find their way into production furnaces.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson (Photo courtesy DOE)

The public outcry forced Energy Secretary Richardson to block the sale of the radioactive nickel. Richardson later issued a moratorium restricting the release of such materials until a national policy could be devised.

Gary Visscher, vice president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, watched with interest on Wednesday as the NRC and the DOE asked the National Academy of Sciences to sanction the practice of recycling radioactively contaminated metals.

"Anything that diminishes the public's confidence in the safeness of steel is going to hurt our companies," Visscher told ENS.

Lisa Gue, a policy analyst with the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, was also on hand on Wednesday to keep tabs on the two federal agencies and their industry contractors.

"We have an ongoing concern with federal agencies that appease industry by setting rules that facilitate the release of radionuclides into the environment," Gue said. "If the nuclear industry cannot afford to protect the public and the environment from its waste products, then it's not a viable industry."

Gue and other observers said they are concerned with the large block of time that was devoted to closed sessions during the three day meeting. According to the official agenda, a total of 12 and a half hours of meeting sessions are to be closed to the public, though officials pledged to post a summary of the private sessions on the Internet.

For more information on this week's meeting, log on to: http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/Projects+_by+_PIN/BEES-J-00-02-A?OpenDocument


-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

Mitterrand's Son Stays in Jail on Arms Charge

Yahoo News
World News
Wednesday January 3 12:48 PM ET
By Crispian Balmer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010103/wl/crime_france_dc_5.html

PARIS (Reuters) - Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son of the late French president facing accusations of illegal arms trafficking, defiantly refused to post bail Wednesday and instead decided to remain in prison.

A French court ruled Tuesday that Mitterrand could leave Paris's notorious Sante prison, where he has been held since December 21, on payment of an unusually high bail of five million francs ($718,000).

His lawyers said he did not have the money, and his brother Gilbert said he was refusing help from friends in protest at the investigating magistrate Philippe Courroye, who has been accused of committing serious procedural errors in the case.

``I can tell you straight out that he has enough friends who have already offered (to pay), but he does not want his friends to make amends for a mistake by magistrate Courroye,'' Gilbert told reporters after meeting Jean-Christophe in jail.

The 54-year-old is suspected of complicity in arms trafficking, influence peddling and embezzlement in relation to large sales of Russian arms to Angola in the early 1990s.

His father, Francois Mitterrand, was French president from 1981 to 1995. Jean-Christophe, nicknamed ``Papa-m'a-dit'' (Daddy told me) for often referring to himin conversation, was his father's adviser for Africa from 1986 to 1992.

He has admitted receiving $1.8 million in a Swiss bank account from arms dealer Pierre Falcone, who is also under investigation in the case, but says the money was payment for helping with a legal, inter-government oil deal.

His lawyer, Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, said Wednesday that Mitterrand had roughly 1.4 million francs in a foreign bank account but could not hand over this cash to help with the bail. ``He has to live. He has to pay his lawyers,'' he said.

Another lawyer called the bail demand ``a ransom request.''

French Ask Swiss To Freeze Accounts

Bernard Bertossa, the prosecutor general in the Swiss city of Geneva, said Wednesday he had received an application from France to freeze Mitterrand's bank accounts but declined to say whether Switzerland would be willing to comply.

Lawyers for both Mitterrand and Falcone hope that the case will be declared void at a January 12 court hearing into the allegations of procedural error.

They say magistrate Courroye knowingly ``predated'' an order last July directing authorities to widen the investigations. It was thanks to this order that Falcone, and then Mitterrand, were implicated in the case.

Versini-Campinchi told the court Tuesday that even if arms sales had taken place, it was not a matter for the French judiciary because none of the weaponry transited through France.

He also said the embezzlement charge was inapplicable, arguing that the firm involved was registered in Britain's Isle of Man and therefore beyond the reach of French magistrates.

The investigating magistrates, backed up by the public prosecutor, urged the court to keep Mitterrand behind bars, warning that he could tamper with the evidence if released.

---

Mitterrand's son jailed on arms charge

USA Today
01/03/01
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed05.htm
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405647907

PARIS (AP) - A son of late President Francois Mitterrand could not pay the $725,000 bail demanded by a court investigating an arms trafficking deal, and remained in jail Wednesday.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 54, who is under investigation for misuse of political power and complicity in weapons trafficking involving arms sales to Angola, has been in La Sante prison since Dec. 21.

A Paris court ordered his release on Tuesday but his lawyer said Mitterrand could not come up with the $725,000 bail. Mitterrand denies any involvement in arms trafficking.

Former first lady and human rights campaigner Danielle Mitterrand and her other son Gilbert visited Mitterrand on Wednesday.

Gilbert Mitterrand said his brother was happy the court had decided to release him but did not want his friends and family to bear the financial burden of the high bail.

''Personally, he cannot pay it and he does not want his friends to repair an error made by the judge,'' he told LCI television.

Mitterrand's lawyer, Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, said that the defense could seek to have the bail reduced, but that this could take time.

He portrayed his client as a victim. ''It didn't help him that his name is Mitterrand,'' he said.

When he gets out of jail, Mitterrand will have to surrender his passport and report once a week to his local police station.

---

Mitterrand son ordered freed from jail

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-20011321286.htm

PARIS - A court ordered the release of late President Francois Mitterrand's son yesterday but asked that his Swiss bank accounts be frozen during an investigation of arms sales to Angola.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 54, who has been in jail since Dec. 21, will spend at least one more night in prison. Bail was set at $725,000 and cannot be paid until this morning, Mr. Mitterrand's lawyer said.

Mr. Mitterrand, under investigation for complicity in weapons trafficking and misuse of political power, did not attend the hearing.

--------

U.S. Wants Liberian Arms Embargo

Associated Press
January 3, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Liberia.html
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405658977

UNITED NATIONS - The United States is seeking to impose a U.N. arms embargo on Liberia and a global ban on its diamond exports as a way to stem its support for Sierra Leone's rebels, diplomats said Wednesday.

A U.S.-sponsored draft resolution, circulating among Security Council diplomats Wednesday, comes after an independent U.N.-appointed panel alleged that Liberia was the rebels' most trusted middleman, helping them get their diamonds to market and acquire illegal weapons.

The panel report, released two weeks ago, recommended measures to try to block the Liberian connection and better enforce the existing U.N. arms and diamond embargoes on the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF.

The RUF restarted Sierra Leone's eight-year civil war in May by taking 500 U.N. peacekeepers hostage. The rebels have since signed a new cease-fire agreement, but the U.N. report documented a network that allowed the RUF to sell their gems for guns, despite a July diamond embargo.

Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was key in securing the release of the U.N. hostages, has insisted his administration was not involved in any diamond smuggling or gun-running for the RUF, with whom he has close ties.

The U.S. draft picks up most of the panel's recommendations, including imposing a global ban on all Liberian diamond exports until the government shows it is no longer supporting the rebels and smuggling out their gems, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

While Liberia does mine its own diamonds, the report found that the volume of ``Liberian'' gems that were being traded on international markets far outweighed its production capacity.

The U.S. draft would impose an arms embargo on Liberia, forbidding countries or their nationals from providing Liberia with any arms, ammunition or paramilitary equipment, the official said.

Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone met with rebel leaders Wednesday to urge their withdrawal from conflicts in Liberia as well as neighboring Guinea.

U.N. force commander Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande traveled by helicopter to the rebel-held town of Magburaka to meet with RUF leader Gen. Issa Sesay and other rebel officials, U.N. spokeswoman Hirut Befecadu said.

The U.N. Security Council has condemned recent rebel incursions into Guinea, where the government says Liberia and the RUF are backing Guinean dissidents who have staged a series of cross-border raids since September. RUF fighters are also reported to be helping Liberian forces fight their own dissidents in the northern part of that country.

``The U.N. is trying to get the RUF to see reason, so that their fighters are not used as mercenaries by these two neighboring countries,'' Befecadu said.

-------- drug war

N.Y. gov. calls for drug law reform

Infobeat
01/01/03
By MARC HUMBERT Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405648390

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Gov. George Pataki used his seventh annual State of the State address Wednesday to urge legislation to dramatically reform the state's tough Rockefeller drug laws.

The laws, enacted in the 1970s during the administration of the late Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, are among the harshest in the nation and can require life terms for even the possession of relatively small amounts of narcotics.

``However well-intentioned, key aspects of those laws are out of step with both the times and the complexities of drug addiction,'' the Republican governor said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday afternoon.

Nonetheless, Pataki offered no details of what his proposal would include. He said it would be unveiled in the coming weeks.

Pataki's pledge came even as advocates for an overhaul of the drug laws planned to demonstrate outside the state Capitol. There are currently more than 21,000 inmates in New York's state prisons serving time for drug-related convictions.

Until 1999, Pataki had been tight-lipped about his feelings concerning the Rockefeller-era laws, which have been criticized by many including the White House's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey.

That year, Pataki proposed some minor changes that would have affected an estimated 250 inmates. His proposal died in the Legislature; one Democratic leader said it was ``not real reform.''

The drug laws have significantly contributed to the surge in prison population in New York. In 1973, there were 14,700 inmates in 18 state prisons; in 1999, there were more than 70,000 inmates in 70 prisons. The overwhelming majority of those jailed on drug crimes are black or Hispanic.

In his speech, the governor also was calling for a complete overhaul of the formulas for distributing about $10 billion in state aid to public schools. And referring to the close 2000 presidential election, he said the state's voting system should be studied ``to guarantee that every citizen's right to vote is respected.''

---

USA Today
01/01/03
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Louisiana

Benton - A state court is being set up for Bossier and Webster parishes to handle adult addicts, including habitual gamblers. Bossier is contributing $30,000 to start the drug court for nonviolent offenders in Northwest Louisiana. Offenders can improve their records by adhering to strict rules and drug screenings.

-------- germany

New York Times
January 3, 2001
World Briefing
Victor Homola (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/world/03BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

GERMANY: WOMEN JOIN UP The military opened its combat units to women, accepting 244 female recruits who previously would have been assigned to jobs in medical or musical regiments. The move toward an equal opportunity army comes less than a year after the European Court in Luxembourg ruled that German laws restricting women from the armed forces violated European Union laws against sexual discrimination. More than 1,900 women have applied to join up.

---

Few German women apply to join army

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/nobyline-20011321578.htm

DUELMEN, Germany - After winning a long campaign for the right to serve as soldiers, hardly any women have actually applied to join the German army.

The German military opened up its combat units to women for the first time yesterday, accepting 244 female recruits who previously would have been relegated to medical or musical regiments.

The move toward an equal opportunity army comes less than a year after the European Court in Luxembourg ruled that German laws restricting women from the armed forces violated European Union laws against sexual discrimination.

But estimates of the number of female applicants who would be drawn up by the army's administration proved overly optimistic.

The Bundeswehr's higher command had planned on 15,000 women enlisting after the selection process was opened to both sexes, the London Daily Telegraph reported. This would have meant an army with a mix of 92 percent men and 8 percent women.

But since parliament changed the law in October, making it possible for women to serve in tank battalions, as fighter pilots or on submarines, only around 1,900 women have applied to join the German armed forces either as commissioned or noncommissioned officers.

In the United States, a 1997 survey by the Rand Corp. found that a large majority of military women did not believe they should be treated like men and serve in ground combat, The Washington Times reported.

The survey by Rand, an influential think tank used by the Pentagon to study a wide range of military issues, was based on responses from 934 men and women, officers as well as enlisted members.

Only 10 percent of female privates and corporals of those surveyed agreed to the statement: "I think that women should be treated exactly like men and serve in the combat arms just like men." Less than one-quarter of midgrade sergeants answered yes.

The highest-ranking female enlisted personnel, such as Navy chief petty officers and Army master sergeants, were split evenly on the question of ordering women into ground combat. Just more than 40 percent of female officers agreed, while just 17 percent said they were happy with regulations that exclude them from combat, the survey found.

Sixty-three percent of male officers thought the ban should stay in place, with only 22 percent saying women should be treated like men in serving in combat, according to the Rand poll. The armed forces opened more than 250,000 positions to women in 1994. Today, more than 80 percent of all military job descriptions are open to them.

Germany long had opposed allowing women into its front-line combat forces. Even in the last days of World War II, as it called up elderly men and boys in a desperate effort to stave off defeat, the Nazi leadership refused to draft women.

It changed its policy after one woman sued and won a European Court decision last January for the right to serve in combat forces.

The step brings Germany's military in line with other NATO members, including France, Britain and the United States, though some countries still keep women out of ground battles and submarine crews.

Yesterday, 151 women reported for duty in the army, 76 in the air force and 17 in the navy - for the first time, facing the same basic training as male peers. They also bear the added stress of being the first group to break the mold of traditional German thinking that women should not be called on to fight for their country.

"Basic training will certainly be a difficult job, but that's why I'm here," said Aysun Yazici, 18, reporting for duty at Duelmener Barracks in northwestern Germany.

The European court ruling was brought about by Tanja Kreil, an electronics engineer who was refused an army job working on weapons systems in 1996 because she was a woman.

Despite the verdict, Miss Kreil withdrew her application over the summer without explanation.

But other women signed up. Silvia Siebenhar, 23, was working in a bakery, a job she felt lacked the challenge she was seeking. As she tried on her backpack at the barracks for the first time yesterday, she bent under the weight of it.

"It's really heavy," she said, then stood up straight and reminded herself why she was here. "You can help people, you'll be needed and can learn a lot. And I'm someone who needs action."

While military personnel have been going through extensive gender training to prepare for the transition, many Germans have yet to embrace the idea fully.

The country's leading weekly, Der Spiegel, ran a story on women joining the armed forces with the headline: "What to do when women cry?" The article debated whether female recruits should be required to cut their hair or allowed to wear jewelry.

Many conservatives also argue that the end of the Cold War and the shifting of roles to include peacekeeping and crisis management already have put the army here under stress, and that having female recruits only would worsen the situation.

Within the ranks, the men worried that the addition of women would raise job competition. According to Der Spiegel, every fifth male conscript questioned said the inclusion of women in the armed forces would threaten their jobs.

-------- india/pakistan

Cease-fire broken in Kashmir

USA Today
01/03/01- Updated 02:04 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed08.htm

JAMMU, India (AP) - In the first fighting since a cease-fire began five weeks ago, four Indian soldiers and two civilians died Wednesday in clashes on India's border with Pakistan.

Since India declared its cease-fire in Kashmir beginning Nov. 28, the 1972 control line dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India had been quiet. India has since extended the cease-fire to Jan. 26.

But on Wednesday, two soldiers and two civilians were killed in heavy firing across the cease-fire line at a border post in Arhayee Mandi, 120 miles northwest of Jammu, winter capital of India's Kashmir state, an army spokesman said.

Farther north, Pakistani soldiers raided an Indian border post and killed a soldier on the cease-fire line in the Lam Sector, 50 miles northwest of Jammu, police said.

A spokesman for Al Badr, a Pakistan-based militant group, claimed in a telephone call that its members had carried out the two attacks. The spokesman said the guerrillas killed 25 soldiers in the attacks. The army denied the report.

According to the Border Security Force, Pakistani soldiers also killed an Indian soldier on the international border in the Hiranagar sector, 50 miles south of Jammu.

The Pakistani army denied its soldiers fired at the Indians.

''It's an Indian lie. No firing incident has occurred on the international border or the Line of Control,'' said Col. Salut Raza.

Kashmir has been divided between Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India since 1948, but each country claims the province in its entirety. The nations have fought two wars over Kashmir.

India says Pakistan funds, trains and arms the guerrillas and aids their movement across the mountainous border into India. Pakistan says it provides only moral support and has no control over the guerrillas' movement.

---

Militants battle Indians in Kashmir

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-20011321286.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Militants battling Indian soldiers in disputed Kashmir pledged yesterday to continue their secessionist war despite political talks planned for later this month and recent moves toward peace.

"We won't reduce our attacks against the Indian army nor will we allow New Delhi to use meaningless talks as a delaying tactic," said Farooq Kashmiri, chief of the militant group Harakat-ul Mujahedeen. "Our struggle will continue until Kashmir is liberated."

Since 1989, Muslim militants with headquarters in Pakistan have been waging a war in the Indian part of Kashmir, demanding either outright independence or union with Islamic Pakistan.

-------- space

Extremely Efficient Nuclear Fuel Could Take Man To Mars In Just Two Weeks

Science Daily
Posted 1/3/2001
Ben-Gurion University Of The Negev (http://www.bgu.ac.il)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/01/010103073253.htm

Beer-Sheva, December 28, 2000 - Scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have shown that an unusual nuclear fuel could speed space vehicles from Earth to Mars in as little as two weeks. Standard chemical propulsion used in existing spacecraft currently takes from between eight to ten months to make the same trip. Calculations supporting this conclusion were reported in this month's issue of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A (455: 442-451, 2000) by Prof. Yigal Ronen, of BGU's Department of Nuclear Engineering and graduate student Eugene Shwagerous.

In the article, the researchers demonstrate that the fairly rare nuclear material americium-242m (Am-242m) can maintain sustained nuclear fission as an extremely thin metallic film, less than a thousandth of a millimeter thick. In this form, the extremely high-energy, high-temperature fission products can escape the fuel elements and be used for propulsion in space. Obtaining fission-fragments is not possible with the better-known uranium-235 and plutonium-239 nuclear fuels: they require large fuel rods, which absorb fission products.

Ronen became interested in nuclear reactors for space vehicles some 15 years ago at a conference dedicated to this subject. Speaker-after-speaker stressed that whatever the approach, the mass (weight) of the reactor had to be as light as possible for efficient space travel. At a more recent meeting, Prof. Carlo Rubbia of CERN (Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1984) brought up the novel concept of utilizing the highly energetic fragments produced by nuclear fission to heat a gas; the extremely high temperatures produced would enable faster interplanetary travel.

To meet the challenge of a light nuclear reactor, Ronen examined one element of reactor design, the nuclear fuel itself. He found at the time that of the known fission fuels, Am-242m is the front-runner, requiring only 1 percent of the mass (or weight) of uranium or plutonium to reach its critical state. The recent study examined various theoretical structures for positioning Am-242m metal and control materials for space reactors. He determined that this fuel could indeed sustain fission in the form of thin films that release high-energy fission products. Moreover, he showed how these fission products could be used themselves as a propellant, or to heat a gas for propulsion, or to fuel a special generator that produces electricity.

"There are still many hurtles to overcome before americium-242m can be used in space," Ronen says. "There is the problem of producing the fuel in large enough quantities from plutonium-241 and americium-241, which requires several steps and is expensive. But the material is already available in fairly small amounts. In addition, actual reactor design, refueling, heat removal, and safety provisions for manned vehicles have not yet been examined.

"However, I am sure that americium-242m will eventually be implemented for space travel, as it is the only proven material whose fission products can be made available for high speed propulsion. Indeed, Carlo Rubbia has also recognized that this is the most probable fuel that will be getting us to Mars and back. I think that we are now far enough advanced to interest international space programs in taking a closer look at americium-based space vehicles."

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

A Step Toward International Justice

New York Times
January 3, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/opinion/03WED3.html

In signing the treaty establishing an international criminal court, President Clinton served American interests and the cause of justice worldwide. The court will enter into force when 60 countries ratify the treaty, which should happen in a few years. The court will then be empowered to try people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Senate must still ratify the treaty, which is not likely to happen soon. But by signing it, Mr. Clinton has insured that Washington can have a voice in affecting the shape of the court.

Washington's cooperation is under attack from conservatives in Congress and members of the incoming Bush administration. The most common objection is that American troops abroad might be subject to politically motivated prosecution. But the court is designed to deal with the most serious international crimes, and will try people only if they are not prosecuted at home. There are safeguards to prevent frivolous prosecutions.

Nevertheless, Senator Jesse Helms's chief aide has said that fighting the court will be a top priority. The senator is likely to reintroduce a bill that would cut off American military aid to non-NATO countries that ratify the treaty. The bill would prohibit United States troops from participating in United Nations peacekeeping missions unless the U.N. Security Council exempts them from the court's jurisdiction. It would also authorize the president to use any means "necessary and appropriate" - including, presumably, military action - to free Americans who are indicted and detained by the court.

This mischievous bill is no favor to the Bush government, though some top Bush appointees have opposed establishment of the court. The bill would severely constrain the administration's ability to form a balanced foreign policy in the critical opening months of the new administration and could also constrain its operations abroad. The new administration might be unable to take part in peacekeeping missions it finds important. It could also be forced to cut off aid to nations like South Korea or Colombia that are likely to ratify the treaty.

President Bush would be wise to forgo outright denunciation of the court or any attempt to discourage other countries from ratifying the treaty. This is an issue that should be allowed to rest while the new president organizes his overall foreign policy and consults with allies on a range of potentially divisive issues. At any rate, the administration ought to send delegates to international meetings still hammering out the details so that America retains influence on matters such as the court's financing and jurisdiction.

Many members of Mr. Bush's cabinet, including the secretary of state-designate, had intimate knowledge of the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein. They also calculated that his capture was not worth the loss of American lives. Colin Powell and his colleagues should thus welcome a court that could indict a future Saddam Hussein and create an international movement for his capture.

---

Bush Aide Says Pact on Global Tribunal Faces New Review

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/world/03TREA.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 - A treaty aimed at establishing an international war crimes tribunal is flawed and will not go to the Senate for approval in its current form, President-elect Bush's spokesman said today.

President Clinton signed the treaty on Sunday but recommended that Mr. Bush not submit it to the Senate until certain misgivings had been addressed.

"We concur," said Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for Mr. Bush. "We have no intent of sending the treaty up in its current form. We will review it when we come into office. But we are concerned with a flawed treaty."

At issue is the American role in the International Criminal Court, which is intended to bring to justice people accused of crimes against humanity. The world's nations have dealt with such allegations in tribunals established for specific cases in specific countries. Tribunals were established in the 1990's to work on crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

A spokesman for the State Department, Richard Boucher, said that by signing the treaty "the United States is in a position to influence the further evolution of the treaty."

In signing the pact, Mr. Clinton said, "A properly constituted and structured International Criminal Court would make a profound contribution in deterring egregious human rights abuses worldwide."

Sunday was the deadline for signing the treaty. After that, ratification is the sole method for a government to express support for the treaty or associate with it.

The treaty has encountered vigorous opposition from the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. He has pledged to give priority in the new Congressional session to passage of a bill that would bar United States cooperation with any such tribunal.

Mr. Helms said Mr. Clinton's action was a blatant attempt "to tie the hands of his successor." He added that he feared that the court would subject American service members to prosecution.

Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the United Nations, said the organization hoped that the United States and the 138 other countries that had signed the treaty would eventually ratify it.

"Certainly the signature by the U.S. government on Sunday was a tremendous step forward in terms of showing U.S. support for this court, and we hope that that continues," Mr. Haq said.

He noted, however, that "even if only half that number go on to ratify it, this treaty will in fact enter into force."

The treaty will take effect after 60 countries have ratified it. Twenty-seven have done so.

---

Lubbers takes up UN refugee post

Infobeat
January 03. 2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405648054

GENEVA (AP) - Former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers took up his post as head of the United Nations' refugee agency Wednesday with a plea for more funding from world governments.

``We need financial resources. The cause of refugees deserves financial resources,'' said Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Lubbers, 61, takes over from Japan's Sadako Ogata, who held the position for almost a decade. He was appointed by the U.N. General Assembly in October.

Lubbers told UNHCR staff the agency's call for more money would be more credible if it could demonstrate ``a minimum of bureaucracy and a maximum of flexibility; a minimum of hierarchy and a maximum of accountability and transparency.''

The agency, which is marking its 50th anniversary, helps more than 22 million refugees across the world and has 5,000 staff members in 120 countries.

Lubbers was the Netherlands' longest-serving postwar premier, serving from 1982 to 1994. After leaving politics he taught courses on globalization and sustainable development at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and was a visiting professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

---

U.N. monitors Ethiopia, Eritirea cease fire

USA Today
01/03/01- Updated 01:58 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed07.htm
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405647170

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - The United Nations is close to completing the deployment of more than 4,000 peacekeepers and support staff to monitor a cease-fire between Ethiopia and Eritrea, an official said Wednesday.

Troops from 22 countries have been arriving on a nearly daily basis in the Horn of Africa. So far, 2,245 peacekeepers and support staff, as well as 146 military observers, have been deployed, most of them in Eritrea, said Angela Walker, spokeswoman for the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

There are also 603 military support staff from the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark who are not being financed by the United Nations but will support the mission, Walker said.

The troops are being deployed to monitor the cease-fire between Eritrea and Ethiopia after the end of their two-year war and the demarcation of their disputed 620-mile border. The peacekeeping force is also supposed to oversee the redeployment of Ethiopian troops from Eritrean territory.

The peacekeepers will be deployed in a 15-mile buffer zone in the area of the disputed border, most of it inside Eritrea. Walker said all the peacekeepers and support staff would be in the region within the next few weeks.

The fighting ended in June when the nations signed a cessation of hostilities agreement and agreed to the deployment of a U.N. force. The conflict, which began in May 1998 was formally ended Dec. 12 when they signed a comprehensive peace agreement.

However, Eritrea and Ethiopia have yet to agree on the dimensions of the buffer zone, which is delaying the redeployment of Ethiopian troops who advanced into Eritrea in a final military offensive in May, said Yemane Kidane, the chief of staff in the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On Thursday, military officers from both sides held talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but failed to agree on the area the buffer zone should include. They are to meet again in Nairobi on Jan. 23.

''We are pleased that the negotiations are continuing and both sides seem to be cooperating,'' Walker said. ''We anticipate that it will continue to move forward and the continued confidence building measures will take root so that the peace will be maintained.''

The conflict cost the two impoverished nations, both plagued by drought, tens of thousands of lives and millions of dollars.

---

New York Times
January 3, 2001
Editorial Roundup
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Editorial-Rdp.html

Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:

Jan. 3
Star Tribune, Minneapolis, on U.S. and global health programs:

Just over a dime doesn't buy much in the United States anymore. ... Yet a pittance by U.S. standards can prevent malaria and save a life in much of the world.

It only takes 12 cents to purchase the drug treatment needed to stop malaria. That is why a much-needed, multimillion allocation from America will go a long way to combat the disease. Last week, President Clinton signed the International Malaria Control Act, under which the United States will spend $50 million to prevent and treat malaria in developing nations.

It's a relatively small investment with huge returns, according to a recent U.N. report. ... The United States has made an important contribution to the cause, but even more needs to be done to eradicate preventable disease. The new U.S. Congress must strive to increase the current $1.4 billion it spends on global health programs.

Jan. 2
The Tulsa (Okla.) World, on the United States paying its dues:

If Republican Sen. Jesse Helms wants to help his new president, he will end his stranglehold on the dues owed to the United Nations by the United States. That would restore some of the damaged credibility and give his Republican president the benefit of fully restored influence in the U.N.

Helms and other conservative Republicans have held up $582 million of the $1.3 billion the U.N. says the United States owes. Helms and his cohorts have cited everything from inept management at the United Nations to the dispensing of birth control to poor countries....

The failure to pay the debt owed has hurt U.S. interests abroad and done some damage in relations with allies. Some criticism of the United Nations has been justified. Other countries do need to pick up more of the tab for peacekeeping and relief efforts. But the United States remains the richest and most powerful country in the world. Shouldering more of the U.N. costs and responsibilities than say, Bangladesh, is fair.

President-elect George W. Bush will need all the help he can get on the international front when he takes office. A clean slate and fresh start with the United Nations would be helpful.

Jan. 3
Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden, on Clinton-UN treaty:

An International Criminal Court, which has no support in Washington, or maybe is even opposed by the Americans, risks being toothless.

Therefore it was an extraordinary occasion when (U.S.) President Bill Clinton at the last minute had his chief negotiator sign the treaty. The United States is on board and will have an influence on how it will be applied.

The international war crimes tribunal in The Hague has shown that international courts can function. After a fumbling and uncertain start, it has really got going during the past years. Prosecutions are started, suspects are arrested, sentences are passed.

Can we expect the same development when the permanent international court is in place? Much hinges on someone being prepared to do the dangerous part, someone's got to arrest the suspects.

To sign a document is not enough. Political will is necessary, not only from the U.S.A., to make it a success.

Jan. 2
The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, on Clinton-UN treaty:

President Bill Clinton's last-minute authorisation for the United States to sign a treaty for the creation of the world's first permanent court to try crimes against humanity has displeased the Pentagon and many conservative Americans. The decision, less than three weeks before the inauguration of George W. Bush, has been seen by Republicans as wrong, or at least as more mischievous than principled.

This Republican sentiment is affected not only by genuine concerns about the treaty's implications for U.S. service personnel abroad. It is also seen as part of a pattern of decisions by President Clinton, in the dying days of his presidency, to take revenge on the Republicans for having, through their control of Congress, impeached him and seen his Vice-President, Al Gore, defeated.

Yet President Clinton's decision is right and the arguments against it feeble. The United States, with more troops engaged overseas in various operations than any other country, is said to run the greatest risk of seeing its citizens brought before the proposed tribunal on frivolous or politically motivated charges. The answer to that, surely, is that because of the size, experience and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, its personnel are least likely to engage in genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

It has also been said that, by signing the treaty, the U.S. casts aside a powerful bargaining tool that it could have used to influence the shape of the proposed International Criminal Court. President Clinton sees it quite differently. He says that, apart from reaffirming the U.S.'s ``strong support for international accountability,'' the decision to sign was made ``because we wish to remain engaged in making the ICC an instrument of impartial and effective justice.''

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

Cole panel recommends heightened security

USA Today
01/03/01- Updated 07:23 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/20010103cole.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A special commission appointed by Defense Secretary William Cohen after the terrorist attack on the USS Cole will recommend that the United States improve its intelligence about Middle East terrorist threats, officials familiar with the panel's deliberations said.

The panel is expected to present its findings and recommendations to Cohen next week. Cohen created the group to identify ''lessons learned'' from the Cole bombing to minimize chances of similar attacks in the future.

The panel will recommend that the government act to improve the intelligence system, particularly its use of human sources, to provide advance indications of threats to U.S. troops transiting the Middle East, two officials said Tuesday. The officials discussed the matter on condition they not be identified.

For security reasons, some of the panel's recommendations will not be made public, the officials said.

One said the panel will tell Cohen that terrorist threats probably will remain a major problem and that the United States should be more proactive in addressing the problem in remote areas like Yemen, where the Navy destroyer USS Cole was attacked.

There was no specific intelligence warning of a terrorist threat to the Cole, which was attacked as it refueled in Aden harbor on Oct. 12. A small boat sidled up to the Cole, and explosives it carried were detonated without warning. The blast tore a hole 40 feet high and 40 feet wide in the destroyer's hull and killed 17 sailors. Members of the Cole crew who saw the boat approach assumed it was a harmless harbor craft.

In light of the Cole attack, Cohen appointed a commission to review procedures in place to protect American forces transiting the Middle East, not only ships in port but also military planes at airfields.

The commission is headed by retired Army Gen. William W. Crouch, a former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, and retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman, a former commander in chief of the U.S. Joint Forces Command. The two men went aboard the crippled Cole in late October while it was still in Aden harbor.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Crouch-Gehman panel found a breakdown in communication between embassies and the U.S. Central Command, the Florida-based organization responsible for U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf area. Arrangements for the Cole's refueling stop in Aden were made by the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.

In that Saudi peninsula country, meanwhile, a Yemen government security official and Western diplomats said Tuesday the United States has offered to help Yemen upgrade coastal security to try to curb arms smuggling and prevent attacks on ships.

The U.S. Navy has not used Aden as a refueling stop since the Cole episode but has not ruled out future visits.

In appointing the Crouch-Gehman panel, Cohen sought not only a review of the effectiveness of security measures already in place for U.S. troops in the Middle East but also recommendations for additional measures.

The Crouch-Gehman panel will tell Cohen that troop protection measures taken after a 1996 terrorist attack on a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia have been effective, the administration official said.

The measures taken after the 1996 attack, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force troops, were designed for established U.S. military facilities. Cohen asked Crouch and Gehman to recommend improvements in a different troublesome area: security for U.S. troops transiting remote places like Aden, where the support system is less well established.

The Crouch-Gehman panel did not attempt to determine who was behind the attack on the Cole or assess whether the Cole's commander or other U.S. military officers should be held accountable for the loss of life. The FBI is trying to identify the attackers, and the Navy is investigating the actions of the Cole's crew.

---

Military needs a few good mends

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200113223139.htm

Women in the military in recent years have not always experienced a good fit.

The Pentagon's women's advocacy committee says there is not sufficient variety of uniforms for female personnel, who sometimes must put on ill-fitting pants and shirts, boots designed for males and flight suits that leave them dehydrated.

A "working copy" of the latest report from the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) asserts "There is inequity between men and women in the cost, availability and fit of uniforms, including footwear."

The panel of 36 civilians, including five men, is seeing its words heeded by the Defense Logistics Agency, which has set up a special task force that works like a special fitting room for female service members. The agency says the problem is that a relatively low demand for women's dress uniforms means items are not always in production.

The Army, meanwhile, acknowledges its 136 different boot sizes are not specifically made for women. But it will special order boots for hard-to-fit feet.

"Women's feet are not just smaller than men's. You've got generally narrower heels and generally higher arches," said Navy Capt. Barbara Brehm, until recently DACOWITS' military directory.

The DACOWITS report describes the ill fit this way:

"Focus group interviews indicate that women are required to buy more uniform pieces, that the cost of women's uniform pieces often exceed the cost of men's uniform pieces, and that women's uniforms are frequently not available for immediate purchase. Women's uniforms are not made in all sizes to fit the varied shapes of women's bodies, requiring additional and costly tailoring. Women are required to wear men's boots causing health problems, such as stress fractures. Female flight crews wearing standard issue flight suits suffer dehydration because of difficulty in voiding in flight."

Capt. Brehm said female aviators on long flights have difficulty using a special sanitary system, causing some women to overcompensate by not taking in fluids. The easy fix, she says, is to lengthen the one-piece flight suit's zipper.

"Some individuals didn't drink lots of water before flights," Capt. Brehm said. "We want every one to drink water in the amounts they need to stay sharp. . . . It's really a fixable minor issue. It's not going to be a high cost."

To help women fit better into Navy whites, Army green and Air Force blue, the Pentagon first set up the Military Uniform Task Force, with representatives from manufacturers and DACOWITS.

Work began with one understanding from the services: Changing a uniform's traditional look was off-limits.

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which buys military clothing, said there is a low level of demand for women's items, meaning production lines only make those items intermittently. The solution is to create "more flexibility on the production line," said a DLA statement in response to questions from The Washington Times.

"All the services beginning with the Navy in 1993 have adopted a [Defense Department] Women's Sizing System that includes juniors, misses and petites and is based on commercial items having the same dimensions," the statement said.

The Pentagon spends hundreds of millions annually in dress uniforms alone for 1.4 million active duty personnel, about 14 percent of whom are women. It spends, for example, $5.6 million on 200,000 pairs of women's dress shoes and $16 million for the same item for men.

The issue is important to the Pentagon since the percentage of women in the force is expected to grow. In the 1990s, females took on more responsibilities in combat aircraft and ships, and in support jobs closer to the front lines.

Lt. Col. Russ Oaks, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said that while the service does not procure female-specific boots, it buys a wide variety of sizes. The Army will special-order boots for hard-to-fit feet and includes female soldiers in boot tests.

"It is true that the cost of the female clothing bag is greater than the cost of the male clothing bag," Col. Oaks said. "However, female enlisted members receive a larger clothing allowance to compensate for this disparity. Neither male nor female officers receive a clothing allowance."

"Establishing proper fit of the various female uniforms for all women is a responsibility the Army takes very seriously," he said.

"The Army recently completed the last phase of a complete resizing of the female dress uniform. Slacks, skirts and shirts were resized by 1996, and the jacket was resized by 1999," he said. "The sizing is based on body measurements versus standard sizing. For example, shirts now contain bust and waist measurements in addition to the standard size. Pants contain waist and hip sizes in addition to the standard size."

A 1999 DACOWITS report focused on uniform shortages at one post: the Cherry Point, N.C., Marine Corps Air Station.

The report summarized complaints of female Marines about their service's base at Camp LeJeune, saying it "does not stock all maternity sizes; therefore, after six months some Marines are unable to stand in formation. It is unclear to Marines what the difference is between 'enlisted' and 'officer' skirts, so they suggest 'a skirt.' There are complaints of cheap fabric, but high cost. . . . Trouser utility pleats don't fit over female hips."

---

Don't call me 'General'

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
Inside Politics
Greg Pierce
News and political dispatches from around the nation.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inpolitics.htm

In an apparent attempt to reflect his move from the burly world of military might to that of subtle diplomatic tact, incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell has instructed his new charges at the State Department not to refer to him as "General," Agence France-Presse reports.

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants to be identified by his current, albeit temporary, title - "secretary-designate" - until he is confirmed by the Senate, according to a message sent to department officials from his office.

"The secretary-designate wishes to drop 'General' from his signature block," the brief message says, outlining how Mr. Powell wants official correspondence signed.

"Letters should now show: Sincerely, Colin L. Powell, Secretary-designate of State," said the message, a copy of which was provided to the wire service.

Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or by e-mail: Pierce@twtmail.com

-------- OTHER

Costner Challenged in New Role

Associated Press
January 3, 2001 Filed at 3:09 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Kevin-Costner.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Playing a presidential adviser in the Cuban missile crisis thriller ``Thirteen Days'' was a performing challenge for Kevin Costner.

He said he didn't want his leading-man status to overshadow the true story of how President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, managed to stave off a nuclear war in 1962.

``I knew what my responsibility was, and that was letting everybody be what they're supposed to be. And Jack Kennedy was golden in this movie, as was Bobby,'' Costner said in a Daily News of Los Angeles interview published Tuesday.

He said his character -- Kenneth O'Donnell, Kennedy's presidential appointments secretary -- is more of a supporting role.

``So it wasn't a star turn,'' he joked. ``But I've gotten quite a bit of attention out of it.''

---

Hollywood vs. heroes

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
Inside Politics
Greg Pierce News and political dispatches from around the nation.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inpolitics.htm

Veteran newsman Eric Sevareid once predicted that Americans would some day lay flowers "at the grave of the U-2 pilot shot down over Cuba," the hero of "one of history's most decisive victories."

But dead pilots don't seem to fit Hollywood's idea of heroism.

A new movie called "Thirteen Days" stars Kevin Costner as JFK aide Kenneth O'Donnell during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Through several fictitious scenes, the film portrays Mr. O'Donnell as a major force in shaping the Kennedy administration's response to the secret Soviet missile deployment that threatened to provoke nuclear war.

The villain of the film, early reviews suggest, is neither Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev nor Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, but . . . U.S. Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, portrayed as the head of the warmongering "hawks" at the Pentagon.

While glorifying Mr. O'Donnell's role, the movie all but ignores the hero of the real-life crisis.

Maj. Rudolf "Rudy" Anderson Jr. was the pilot of the U-2 reconnaissance flight on Oct. 15, 1962, that located the site of the medium-range Soviet SS-5 missiles in Cuba.

And Maj. Anderson was the only casualty of the crisis - killed when he was shot down during a second mission over Cuba on Oct. 27, 1962, by Mr. Castro's Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missiles.

-------- alternative energy

USA Today
01/01/03
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Idaho

Lewiston - The Clearwater Power electric cooperative is offering customers the chance to support experimental generation of green power. For an extra $4 a month, cooperative members sponsor a 100-kilowatt-hour block of power generated by methane emissions from a landfill. So far customers are sponsoring 93 blocks a month, the co-op said.

---

Mandated to fail

Washington Times
January 3, 2001
Eric Peters
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-20011320822.htm

Electric cars are a lot like perpetual motion machines and the 100-mpg carburetor - the reality never quite catches up with the theory. Despite decades of work, electric cars remain crippled by impossibly short ranges, limited practicality and high cost. They're still not ready for prime time as alternatives to conventional cars - and may never be.

Hence, it's good news that California air quality regulators are revisiting the "zero emissions vehicle" (ZEV) mandates passed almost a decade ago that would have effectively required the mass production of unsellable electric cars - which are the only vehicles that currently meet the rigid and arbitrary "zero emissions" standard. What California does is apt to be emulated by other states, such as New York and Massachusetts, which have similar mandates on the books as well. So the outcome of this debate is critical.

The original California mandates are basically production quotas that would have required each automaker doing business in California to produce and offer for sale a quantity of "zero emissions" electric cars equivalent to 4 percent of overall sales each year, beginning with the 2003 model year. This translates into some 22,000 electric vehicles annually.

But the language of the mandate specified only that these "zero emissions" electric cars be built and offered for sale. No one could force consumers to actually purchase them.

And therein lies the dilemma that ultimately changed the minds of California regulators. With current "state of the art" electric vehicles such as the two-seat GM EV1 offering 70-100 mile ranges at the outer limits before needing to be recharged for several hours - and costing $30,000 and up per example - few buyers are likely to pony up.

"Our real mission here is to clean up vehicles and the air, and we can't do that with vehicles on paper," said Jerry Martin of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). "We need to get vehicles on the road," he said. He understands that whether the electric car holds the promise of cleaning up the air is beside the point if few people actually drive them.

The board's proposed revisions to the mandates would lower to 2 percent the total number of vehicles that would have to meet the arbitrary "zero emissions" standard. But CARB needs to go further and scrap the poorly conceived, outdated mandates in their entirety. They are as dated as a Duran Duran album.

As recently as the 1980s, gasoline engines were still relatively dirty - producing a substantial amount of the harmful emissions that contribute to smog and ozone formation. Electric vehicles, which produce no tailpipe emissions at all, were seen as a major potential solution to California's apparently intractable air quality problems.

But today's gasoline-burning engines are incredibly clean and efficient - thanks to advances in engine management systems and emissions controls. Approximately 98 percent of their combustion byproducts are harmless carbon dioxide and water vapor.

The allegedly "zero emissions" electric car (which runs on electricity generated quite frequently by coal-fired utility plants) has, at best, a roughly 2 percent advantage over a typical 2001 model year passenger car at the tailpipe. California air quality (and air quality nationwide) has seen marked improvement as older, less efficient vehicles are retired by attrition and replaced by the current crop of extremely clean new cars.

Meanwhile, Low Emissions Vehicle (LEV) and Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) gasoline-powered cars are entering the marketplace. These cars and trucks are within a few tenths of a percentage of being "zero emissions" vehicles themselves - functionally indistinguishable from "zero-emissions" electric cars.

All 2001 Lexus passenger cars (and some sport utility vehicles, or SUVs, such as the RX300) meet the LEV standard - as do many other 2001 model year cars and trucks offered for sale by other automakers.

Then there are "hybrids" - such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, both of which went on sale this year. These vehicles use two separate but complementary propulsion systems - usually a small, highly efficient gas or diesel engine teamed with an electric motor - to achieve even lower overall emissions than a LEV or ULEV vehicle, and extremely high fuel economy. Because the diesel/gas engine back-up is used part-time, or as an adjunct power source, a hybrid is nearly emissions free.

LEVS, ULEVS and hybrids are superior in every respect to electric cars as transportation - and arguably as harmless to the environment as electric cars. Yet ironically, though hybrids, ULEVS and LEVs are both commercially attractive and also extremely "clean" - they did not meet the rigid language of the original California "zero emissions" mandate - and were considered as "dirty" as any old rust-bucket from the '60s, at least from a regulatory standpoint.

This served no one's interests - and did nothing to address California's air quality issues. CARB's belated but nonetheless welcome admission that electric cars have not just failed their mission, but may not even be the best way to clean up the air, is therefore welcome news to anyone who values actual results - and not pie-in-the sky promises.

Eric Peters is an editorial writer for The Washington Times and a syndicated automotive columnist.

-------- environment

Protected lands hold gas supplies

USA Today
01/03/01- Updated 10:42 PM ET
By Tom Kenworthy,
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-01-03-doe.htm

At the same time that the Clinton administration is putting the finishing touches on a plan to block most commercial development on nearly 60 million acres of national forest land, the Department of Energy has been cautioned that those lands contain significant reserves of natural gas.

The analysis, prepared for the department in November by a private consulting firm, estimates that the so-called roadless areas to be covered by the administration's plan could hold as much as 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That is roughly equivalent to a year's supply in the USA.

The potential for significant gas development on national forest lands has led Republican senators and business interests concerned about the recent run-up in gas prices to urge the White House not to block drilling when it finalizes the roadless policy.

In a mid-December letter to President Clinton, five western Republicans led by energy committee chairman Frank Murkowski of Alaska said the administration's roadless policy "may have severe implications for the future production of natural gas needed to heat homes, run factories and provide energy to run our new economy."

During interagency meetings on the development of the roadless policy, the Energy Department argued that the plan should include some waivers or exemptions for areas with high potential for oil and gas development. That view was rejected.

"DOE felt it was important that this analysis be done and be considered in the final rulemaking, and we're glad that it was," said P.J. Glauthier, deputy Energy secretary.

Another senior administration official said that exemptions were rejected because less than 2% of potential gas reserves in the Rocky Mountain West fall within the roadless areas where development will be blocked. "There is no material impact on oil and gas prospects," the official said. "It's a complete red herring."

In November, after an expedited environmental review, the U.S. Forest Service announced plans to bar road-building and logging on nearly a third of the lands it manages.

The completed plan, which Clinton might announce as early as Friday, effectively would prevent oil and gas development on nearly 60 million acres of land, once it is implemented fully.

Potential gas reserves in those areas, primarily in the Rocky Mountain West, range from 3.5 trillion cubic feet to 23.1 trillion cubic feet, according to the analysis prepared by Advanced Resources International, an energy consulting firm.

The report might bolster GOP arguments that President-elect Bush should try to reverse the policy when he takes office.

---

FBI cracks down on houseboat waste

Infobeat
January 03, 2000
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405648331

LaFOLLETTE, Tenn. (AP) - The awful smell in the backwaters of Norris Lake only hinted at the growing problem - houseboat owners dumping millions of gallons of human waste into Tennessee Valley Authority waters.

A TVA survey of the lake's 23 marinas found less than two of every five houseboats using mandatory sanitation systems, sending as much as 400,000 gallons of untreated waste into the lake during the April-September boating season.

That could mean more than 7 million gallons discharged annually on TVA's lakes and rivers in eastern Tennessee alone, Assistant U.S. Attorney Guy Blackwell says.

Concerns over houseboat waste aren't isolated to the Tennessee Valley, but the region may offer the first comprehensive solution - a new multi-agency federal and state program combining boater incentives with tougher law enforcement.

For the amenable, TVA is offering educational programs and rebates to houseboat owners willing to sign up for commercial waste pumping services. In a pilot program last summer, TVA offered boaters a $100 rebate on a $300 seasonal sewage bill.

For the recalcitrant, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are cracking down with penalties of up to a year in jail and $100,000 in fines. Boaters have until May 30, then the crackdown starts.

TVA Police spokesman Art Schettini said inquiries he has received from counterparts outside the region suggest the problem is nationwide. ``They all want to know how our program is working and what we are doing,'' he said.

TVA, the nation's largest public power producer, is the caretaker of all the waters flowing into the 652-mile-long Tennessee River, its lakes and tributaries.

Federal law has barred boaters from discharging human waste into public waters since the 1980s; Tennessee added its own regulations in the early 1990s.

But the laws have been rarely enforced because of other priorities or lack of manpower, despite such potential health risks to lake users as acute diarrhea, inflammation of the intestines and liver, kidney failure, even death.

Dalan Courtney, owner of Shanghai Resort marina on Norris Lake, decided to take action himself. After getting complaints about the odor at the far reaches of his small harbor, Courtney found that only 10 of the 76 houseboats berthed in his cove used sewage collection services.

``We had customers tell us, `Well, the restroom is in the back of the boat. We swim off the front of the boat. So it is no big deal.'''

So last summer, Courtney told his customers to either sign up for a sewage service that would regularly pump their toilet holding tanks or weigh anchor.

Some owners resisted until they learned TVA was backing him and offering rebates under the pilot program, Courtney said.

Over the summer, 31,000 gallons of waste were pumped and properly disposed of from the boats and the restaurant at Shanghai - waste that otherwise would have been released into a harbor about the size of 1 1/2 football fields.

``That was a pretty astounding figure,'' TVA watershed manager Tere McDonough said. ``It surprised the customers, and it surprised us and made us think that we really need to find some ways to get that same level of participation in other places.''

Courtney said five Norris Lake marinas already are committed to banning discharges in their harbors next year and others are considering it.

Meantime, people are telling him the water in his cove seems cleaner.

``I can't really tell myself, but it's got to be,'' he said.

---

More Conservatives From Mr. Bush

New York Times
January 3, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/opinion/03WED2.html

George W. Bush filled the last three vacancies in his cabinet yesterday, choosing two right-of-center Republicans to run the departments of Energy and Labor and a moderate Democrat for the Department of Transportation. None of these posts equal the policy-making impact of the top jobs at State, Defense, Justice and even Interior. Taken together, however, they reinforce two emerging characteristics of Mr. Bush's cabinet - its essentially conservative cast and its fealty to the major themes of his campaign.

Mr. Bush's choice for energy secretary is Spencer Abraham, the recently defeated junior senator from Michigan. During his brief career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Abraham introduced a bill to abolish the very department he has now been asked to run. His selection is also a further insult to environmentalists still reeling from Mr. Bush's selection last Friday of Gale Norton as interior secretary. In the continuing struggle between the preservation of the country's natural resources and their exploitation, Mr. Abraham, like Ms. Norton, clearly favors exploitation. He, too, supports Mr. Bush's wholly unnecessary scheme to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

On the basis of his voting record - which routinely received zero ratings from the League of Conservation Voters - he is likely to champion an energy strategy that depends far more on production than on conservation, though any sensible policy would give at least equal weight to both. Similarly, he seems indifferent to issues that interested the incumbent secretary, Bill Richardson, including the development of cleaner cars and alternative fuels and, in general, a more energy-efficient economy. He also voted to roll back federal clean water and clean air programs.

Linda Chavez, the labor secretary-designate, is a highly ideological choice. As staff director of the Commission on Civil Rights and later as a senior adviser in the White House, she became one of the Reagan administration's most visible Hispanic officials. Her allies describe her as strongly committed to racial and ethnic equality, but she has often been at odds with Hispanic activists, in part because she opposes affirmative action and bilingual education. She was an outspoken supporter of California's Proposition 227, the ballot measure aimed at ending 30 years of bilingual education in California.

The choice of Norman Mineta, presently the secretary of commerce, as transportation secretary satisfies Mr. Bush's pledge to appoint a Democrat. Mr. Mineta is popular on Capitol Hill, and brings to his new job a broad familiarity with transportation issues, especially aviation. In 1997 he headed a top- level panel that warned of gridlock in the country's crowded skies.

The three choices definitely broaden the new cabinet's ethnic composition. Mr. Abraham is Arab- American, Ms. Chavez Hispanic and Mr. Mineta Japanese-American. What they do not add is significant ideological diversity.

---

Helena Journal: Montanans Feeling Shut Out of Own Trout Rivers

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By JIM ROBBINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/science/03FISH.html

HELENA, Mont., Jan. 2 - The Missouri River just north of this city in the mountains is choked with ice this time of year, though an occasional fisherman will brave the cold, and wade into an open stretch to cast a fly for a brown or rainbow trout.

The summer and fall, however, are altogether different. This choice piece of water for those serious about catching trout is often jammed with fishermen and fishing boats. There are times when the flotilla of boats and wading fishermen are nearly as thick as the clouds of caddis and other insects that fatten the trout.

Crowding on Montana's trout streams and hunting fields has become such a problem, in fact, that the Montana Fish and Game Commission recently took the first steps to create rules that would give residents who fish and hunt pheasants preference over the growing number of out-of-state sportsmen.

And it is high time, residents say.

"Sportsmen are saying, `Wait a minute, there's a reason we put up with cold weather and low wages,' " said Mike Whittington, a retired civil engineer in Billings who advocates a limit on out-of-state fishermen. "It's the quality of life. But we're losing our quality of life."

Complaints by residents had reached such a level that the Fish and Game Commission, directed by the State Legislature to find a solution, recently proposed several commercial-free zones on two of the busiest rivers in the state, the Big Hole and the Beaverhead, from May through September. Many nonresident fishermen pay outfitters to take them fishing, and they will be the ones most affected by the change.

The commission also proposed a weekly Citizen's Day on Saturdays during the peak seasons, which would close stretches of these two rivers on Saturdays in summer and fall to out-of-staters. If the regulations work, officials say, they will be expanded to rivers like the Missouri.

The commission also created a rule to open pheasant season for residents a week earlier than the nonresident season and to cap the number of out-of-state licenses. The proposed rules were sent out for public comment and may be voted on as soon as February.

Numbers reflect the changing landscape. On the Beaverhead River in southwestern Montana, a lightning rod for complaints, 56 percent of the fishermen in 1993 were nonresidents and 43 percent were residents, state statistics show. By 1997, the share of nonresidents had grown to 67 percent. In the decade from 1989 to 1999 the total number of "angler days," in which one fisherman spends a day on the river, nearly doubled, to 34,000 from 19,000.

"Resident, noncommercial anglers are being forced off the better rivers," Mr. Whittington said. "They have quit using those rivers."

That is true, said Robin Cunningham, an outfitter in Gallatin Gateway and head of the Fishing Outfitters Association of Montana. But a Citizen's Day intended to exclude out-of-staters is not fair, Mr. Cunningham said. The state should establish limits on the number of fishermen on the rivers, he said, and restrictions should be split between residents and those from out of state.

"Much of Montana river management is enhanced with federal dollars," Mr. Cunningham said. "If Montana chooses to use that money, they would have a difficult time justifying a limit on nonresidents."

There are virtually no limits on the number of fishing outfitters or where they may go, and at the peak of the season, in June, many out-of-state outfitters bring clients to Montana. Adding to the problem is that, by Eastern standards, the rivers are small. By midsummer, many of them are too low to fish, which results in a heavy concentration of fishermen on the few remaining large rivers, like the Missouri.

Mr. Cunningham believes the boom in fly fishing is a result of two main factors: new stock market wealth in the 1990's and Robert Redford. "Everybody talks about `the movie,' " he said, referring to the 1992 film "A River Runs Through It," which Mr. Redford directed. "It created a huge impact on Montana."

Mr. Cunningham said there was evidence that interest in fly fishing had plateaued and might soon show a decline.

The commission also proposed a shorter nonresident pheasant season and capping total licenses at 11,000, almost the same number sold in 1999 - because of a decline in resident bird hunters. The number of nonresident pheasant hunters has boomed and many outfitters and out-of-state residents lease private land for exclusive use, which has put some of the best pheasant habitat off limits to local residents.

"Most Montanans have lost the opportunity for the family pheasant hunt," said Stan Meyer of Great Falls, the retiring chairman of the Montana Fish and Game Commission. "Hunting and fishing is a way of life here, and to lose that is a very sad thing."

---

New York Times
January 3, 2001 Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET
Editorial Roundup
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Editorial-Rdp.html

Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:

Dec. 28
The Herald, Everett, Wash., on new organic food standards:

You don't have to be a ``granola'' to be pleased with the USDA's recent announcement of new standards for organic foods.

In an era in which genetically modified foods and cloning seems to be well on their way to becoming the norm, the USDA's standards offer people the choice to know exactly what they're eating. And if it catches on, it just might get more people to pay attention to what they put in their mouths....

---

USA Today
01/01/03
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Delaware

Wilmington - State environmental officials are considering a recycling program for obsolete home computers, which take up space in landfills and contain toxic materials like lead and mercury. Officials said a pilot program in October was successful, with 400 families and businesses dropping off about 800 computers. But state lawmakers do not plan to make computer recycling mandatory.

Maine

Augusta - A state senator has proposed a thermometer trade-in program to keep highly toxic mercury from contaminating the environment. Sen. John Martin wants consumers to be able to take old thermometers containing mercury to a drug store and trade them in at no cost.

Montana

Helena - Montana's first female governor took the oath of office calling for a "commitment to working cooperatively." Gov. Martz was interrupted briefly by an animal rights group protesting the killing of bison near Yellowstone National Park. An attempt to unfurl a banner from the balcony above Martz was broken up by guards.

Ohio

Sandusky - The Army Corps of Engineers will re-dredge a river blocked by a sandbar and littered with ammunition fired from a military testing range decades ago. Wind and waves swept the shells back into the Toussaint River after dredging a year ago. Marina owners say the artillery shells, some still live, scared away boaters.

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EPA SETS WATER QUALITY CRITERIA FOR NUTRIENTS, METHYLMERCURY

Environmental News Service
January 3, 2001
Environment AmeriScan:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-03-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, - Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took steps to protect waters from excessive nutrients and toxic methyl mercury.

Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can choke waterways and lead to algae blooms, including Pfiesteria and red tide, resulting in fish kills and harmful human health effects. For the first time, the EPA is setting water quality criteria which serve as recommendations to states and tribes for water quality standards for nutrients.

States are expected to adopt or revise their nutrient standards by 2004, based on the new criteria.

In a 1998 water quality report to Congress, nutrients were listed as a leading cause of water pollution. About half of the nation's waters surveyed by states do not support normal aquatic life because of excess nutrients.

Excessive nutrients have degraded almost 3.5 million acres of lakes and reservoirs and more than 84,000 miles of rivers and streams to the point where they no longer meet basic uses such as supporting healthy aquatic life.

EPA is also setting limits on methylmercury contamination in fish. The toxic form of mercury is taken up by plant and aquatic life and accumulates in the fish, which can be consumed by humans. Methylmercury is toxic to the nervous system.

EPA is issuing under the Clean Water Act its first water quality criteria for methylmercury to be used by states in determining methylmercury levels in fish tissue. The new criteria are based on a risk assessment that EPA has developed in response to last summer's recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences.

------

CLINTON BOUNCES JAPAN WHALING ISSUE TO BUSH

WASHINGTON, DC, January 3, 2001 (ENS) - In a special report to Congress issued late on Friday, President Bill Clinton opted to keep Japanese whaling under economic review, leaving to the incoming administration the politically difficult issue whether to impose trade sanctions for Japan's expanded whale hunt.

Japan, Clinton wrote to the lawmakers, has authorized "research whaling activities that diminish the effectiveness of the International Whaling Convention (IWC) conservation program." This is the third time since 1988 that Japan's whaling activities have led to a certification by the U.S. that that country's "research whaling activities" would hamper efforts to preserve the world's largest mammals.

In 2000, Japan added 10 sperm whales and 50 Bryde's whales to the harvest quota it set for itself, and harvested in the summer hunt 40 minke whales, five sperm whales and 43 Bryde's whales, Clinton said.

In response, U.S. Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta "certified" Japan under the Pelly Amendment to the 1967 Fishermen's Protective Act, setting the legal stage for economic sanctions against Japan and requiring a report to Congress.

"I also remain concerned about Japan's practice of taking whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary north of Antarctica," Clinton said. "I see no justification for Japan's practice and will continue to urge Japan to reconsider its policy, which I believe undermines the effectiveness of whale sanctuaries everywhere."

"The need for decisive U.S. action to contain Japanese whaling is shaping up as the first real environmental test the new president will face," said Richard Mott, vice president of World Wildlife Fund. "Even as George W. Bush takes the oath of office next month, Japan's whalers will be completing a slaughter in the Antarctic, flouting U.S. concerns."

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SIERRA CLUB CALLS ON BUSH TO PROTECT ENVIRONMENT

WASHINGTON, DC, January 3, 2001 (ENS) - In advertisements running today in several national newspapers, the Sierra Club called on President-elect George W. Bush to rise above partisan politics and to act as "chief steward of America's environment to protect our air, water and wild lands and wildlife."

"The overwhelming majority of Americans agree that we need to protect our environment," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director. "We're calling on President elect Bush to recognize this mandate and to deliver on his promise to unite Americans around the shared value we all place on protecting our air, water and wild places."

Bush has been criticized for nominating cabinet members whose records are hostile to the environment, and who support controversial proposals such as opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

The Sierra Club ad asks Bush to:

Rid the air of smog and soot Clean up toxic waste that threatens drinking water Protect pristine wild places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and untouched areas of national forests Protect species from extinction Act now to curb global warming Ensure the environment is protected in a globalized economy Restore faith in democracy by enacting campaign finance reform that makes it harder for polluters to influence policy and politicians.

"President elect Bush can shape an environmental agenda that gives Americans what we want - clean air to breathe, pure water to drink and wild lands to explore and enjoy," Pope said. "The Sierra Club will trumpet every act of environmental courage by President elect Bush, and we will lay out for judgement every sideways glance at a campaign donor."

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SOUTH POLE SNOWPACK REVEALS CENTURY'S AIR QUALITY

SOUTH POLE, Antarctica, January 3, 2001 (ENS) - A team of scientists will search the South Pole snowpack this January for 100 year old air samples, to investigate what the air quality was like during the last century.

The pockets of air trapped in the snowpack will provide scientists with a historical record of gases that were present in the atmosphere during this period. Researchers will then be able to analyze this record for clues to how human activity has influenced atmospheric processes.

With support from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the six investigators from Bowdoin College in Maine, NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, the University of Wisconsin and Princeton University, will draw air from the snowpack at incremental depths, stopping at about 120 meters, at which point the snow turns to ice.

The air samples will be analyzed at government and university labs in the U.S., New Zealand and Australia.

"It is important that we get these air samples now,"said Jim Butler of NOAA. "Each year we delay, we lose a year of history, as the snow turns to ice at the bottom of the hole. Just a few years from now, we will not be able to obtain air samples that span the entire 20th century, a time of rapid population, agricultural and industrial growth."

Large amounts of the old air will be stored at a NOAA facility in an "air archive." This archive will be available for future analyses, to answer questions that have not yet been thought of, and with techniques yet to be developed.

---------

CRITICAL HABITAT PROPOSED FOR 32 HAWAIIAN PLANTS

HONOLULU, Hawaii, January 3, 2001 (ENS) - The fourth in a series of seven critical habitat proposals covering 255 Hawaiian plant species was released Friday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). If made final, this proposed rule would establish 28 critical habitat units on the island of Molokai, including 15,227 acres of private, state and federal lands.

"With this proposal, we have met our court ordered deadline to propose critical habitat designations or nondesignations for 100 Hawaiian plant species," said Anne Badgley, USFWS Pacific regional director. "Our ultimate goal is to recover these plants and eventually remove them from the list of threatened and endangered species."

The 28 critical habitat units are concentrated in the eastern and northwestern portions of Molokai. Most of the acreage is on state and private lands.

The proposed rule for Molokai plants addresses 40 species and proposes critical habitat designations for 32 of them. Critical habitat was not proposed for seven species because they only exist on lands protected by The Nature Conservancy in its Moomomi, Pelekunu and Kamakou Preserves.

The USFWS also is not proposing critical habitat for one species of the native loulu palm in order to avoid increased threat to the species from vandalism or collection.

Several of the listed plants have 10 or fewer individual plants remaining in the wild, including five species that only exist on Molokai.

Public comments will be accepted for the next 60 days, via electronic mail to: fw1pie_molokai_crithab@fws.gov

---------

EPA ISSUES GUIDELINES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

WASHINGTON, DC, January 3, 2001 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the most far reaching internal guidance ever to assist its employees in analyzing the economic impacts of environmental regulations and policies.

The guidelines will ensure that valuation of costs and benefits are treated consistently in all EPA economic analyses. Entitled "Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses," the economic framework will assist EPA policy makers and analysts charged with developing environmental and health standards at the lowest cost.

Recent advances in theoretical and practical work in the field of environmental economics were incorporated into the new framework. The guidelines assess costs and benefits in various segments of the population, focusing on disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. After an extensive peer review, EPA's Science Advisory Board, an independent outside group, approved the new guidelines and confirmed that they represent the best economic analysis available.

The Guidelines address major analytical issues on key topics, including:

Treatment of uncertainty and non-monetary information Estimating the value of reducing fatal risks Defining baseline conditions, such as contrasting the state of the economy and environment with and without a proposed regulatory policy Comparing differences in the timing of benefits and costs Examining environmental justice concerns Assessing who pays the costs and receives the benefits of regulations Locating available data sources for conducting economic analyses.

The guidelines were developed by the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, and are available at: http://www.epa.gov/economics

---

Environment Combination of Pesticides Linked to Parkinson's Disease

Environmental News Service
January 3, 2001
By Cat Lazaroff
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-03-06.html

ROCHESTER, New York, (ENS) - A combination of two widely used agricultural pesticides - but neither one alone - creates in mice the exact pattern of brain damage that doctors see in patients with Parkinson's disease. The research offers the most compelling evidence yet that everyday environmental factors may play a role in the development of the disease.

The scientists caution that more studies are necessary to explain the link, since it is probable that many factors contribute to a complex disease like Parkinson's. The researchers say it is unlikely that the pesticides on their own actually cause the disease.

Spraying pesticide on peas in Washington state (Photo by Doug Wilson, courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA))

The latest findings of a team led by Deborah Cory-Slechta, Ph.D., professor of environmental medicine and dean for research at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, appear in the December 15 issue of the "Journal of Neuroscience."

Cory-Slechta's team studied the effects of a mixture of two very common agrichemicals, the herbicide paraquat and the fungicide maneb. Each is used by farmers on millions of acres in the United States alone.

Maneb is applied on such crops as potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce and corn. Paraquat is used on corn, soybeans, cotton, fruit and a variety of other products.

In the experiment, mice exposed to either one had little or no brain damage, but mice exposed to both share a significant trait with people in the very early stages of the disease: Though they appear healthy, key brain cells known as dopamine neurons are dying.

The mice exposed to the mixture carried nearly all of the molecular hallmarks of Parkinson's disease as seen in humans.

"The environmental reality is that several of these chemicals are used on the same crops and in the same geographical locations. You've got to get rid of the weeds. Then the insects. Then funguses. These are different chemicals that do different things, but they're often applied in the same fields," said Cory-Slechta, who was joined in the research by graduate student Mona Thiruchelvam and faculty members Eric Richfield, Raymond Baggs, and A. William Tank.

Cotton crops, like this one in Mississippi, may be treated with an herbicide like paraquat to reduce competition by weeds (Photo by Bill Tarpenning, courtesy USDA)

The study is one of the first to examine the effects of such chemicals in tandem. Previous studies on single pesticides have shown a link between indoor pesticide use and Parkinson's in humans, but have found no link between outdoor pesticide use and the disease.

Cory-Slechta noted that current regulations and determinations of safety levels are usually based on the effects of single chemicals.

"In the real world, we're exposed to mixtures of chemicals every day. There are thousands upon thousands of combinations. I think what we have found is the tip of the iceberg," Cory-Slechta said. "There are a dozen different fungicides related to maneb alone. I don't think we just happened to pick the right chemicals to see such an effect."

Maneb, paraquat and many other pesticides are used in the same agriculture rich areas of the country, including the Midwest, California, Florida and the Northeast. A map of their use mirrors areas of the country where people are more likely to die of Parkinson's disease.

Pesticide being applied to a soybean crop in Illinois (Photo by Ken Hammond. Three photos courtesy Agricultural Research Service)

Several epidemiological studies have hinted at a role for pesticides in the development of the disease. Studies have found that farmers, people who live in rural areas and people who drink well water are more likely to have the disease than people who do not.

Last month, scientists at Emory University presented evidence that rats given a steady dose of the natural pesticide rotenone, used on home grown fruits and vegetables, develop symptoms similar to those of Parkinson's. Cory-Slechta's study, which used much lower levels of chemicals than the Emory research, is the first to link a combination of more widely used pesticides to the disease.

"No one has looked at the effects of studying together some of these compounds that, taken by themselves, have little effect," said Cory-Slechta. "This has enormous implications."

Scientists have little understanding of what causes Parkinson's, which is characterized by the death of a tiny group of dopamine producing neurons deep within an area of the brain known as the substantia nigra. This cell death leads to a shortage of the neurotransmitter dopamine and to the tremors, rigidity and slow movement that mark the disease as it progresses slowly over a period of years or decades.

Parkinson's affects about one million people in North America. There is a growing consensus among scientists that both genetic predisposition and environmental agents may play a role in the disease.

Hooded pesticide sprayers, like these being used on a sorghum crop, can help keep pesticides from drifting away from agricultural areas. But they do not address the problem of pesticide residues on food (Photo by Jack Dykinga)

Cory-Slechta thinks it is unlikely that exposures to such chemicals cause Parkinson's on their own, but they may contribute to the development of the disease.

"This is the first time that truly environmental risk factors for Parkinson's disease have been identified," she said.

Cory-Slechta heads a research center funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences where researchers study the effects of environmental agents like cigarette smoke, air pollution and metals like mercury and lead on human health. She believes scientists must do more research on the effects of exposure to multiple chemicals.

"It's a huge problem to start thinking about a nearly infinite array of mixtures of chemicals, instead of the risk that a single chemical might pose," Cory-Slechta said.

She also says more work must be done to see how much of these chemicals people are exposed to. It is often not clear exactly how much of a pesticide remains on crops by the time they reach the dinner table, she said.

Without the use of herbicides like paraquat, crops can be choked by weeds. The field on the left has been treated with an herbicide that blocks the growth of a weed called giant foxtail; the field on the right is untreated (Photo by Doug Buhler)

Maneb frequently shows up as a slight residue, while paraquat usually shows up just in trace amounts, said Cory-Slechta. Exposures can also occur via other routes.

Often the two pesticides are used at different stages of the growing cycle.

"The real issue is what happens when they hit humans in the food chain. If they're both present, then you are exposed to the combination," said Cory-Slechta.

The University of Rochester team is currently pursuing several new avenues of research, with funding from the National Institutes of Environmental Health and Safety. Preliminary findings indicate that the Parkinson's like effects on mice may be permanent, and that older mice may be more sensitive to the combination than younger mice.

The team is also studying the effects of exposure to the mixture early in life, and they have shown that mice with the same genetic abnormality that causes some people to develop Parkinson's are particularly vulnerable to the mixture.

-------- police

Freeh asked to stay on as FBI director

USA Today
01/03/01- Updated 11:13 PM ET
By Kevin Johnson and Judy Keen, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-01-03-freeh.htm

WASHINGTON - FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose public clashes with the White House led to an often tense relationship with President Clinton, has been asked to remain on the job in the new Bush administration, officials close to the situation say.

Freeh, who was appointed by Clinton seven years ago, declined to comment Wednesday, as did Bush transition officials. But Freeh recently informed bureau employees that he has every intention of completing his 10-year term that expires in 2003. That term cannot be extended, so George W. Bush's administration then would be able to select another FBI chief to serve the following decade.

"As I have said before, I was appointed to a 10-year term and have no plans at this time to leave the FBI," Freeh said in an internal memo dated just before Christmas.

FBI officials said the memo was issued in part to quiet persistent rumors that Freeh, who will turn 51 on Saturday, might be seeking a higher-paying job in the private sector to support his large family. Freeh, who has six children, is paid $141,000 a year.

"Should the situation change," Freeh wrote, "FBI employees would be the first to know."

Freeh, Clinton's choice to replace former Texas federal judge William Sessions, clashed with the president just after his appointment over questions about the transfer of sensitive FBI files to the White House.

In a statement in 1996, Freeh said the "FBI and I were victimized" by the White House, when the bureau mistakenly turned over confidential personnel files that were requested by administration officials. The episode led the FBI to place new restrictions on access to its confidential files.

In recent years, Freeh has split with Attorney General Janet Reno by pressing for an independent investigation of campaign finance irregularities involving Clinton and Vice President Gore.

That history of disagreement bolstered Freeh's standing among Republicans in Congress.

Taking over from Sessions, who was battered by ethical questions, Freeh - a former FBI agent and federal judge - reshaped the bureau's mission.

Under Freeh, the FBI has expanded its role in overseas investigations, computer fraud and local policing matters. He also has presided over one of the largest personnel reorganizations in FBI history. About 5,000 agents have been hired in the past seven years, raising the total by nearly 15%.

---

Giuliani Deplores Ruling on Cursing an Officer

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By ERIC LIPTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/nyregion/03MAYO.html

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday sharply criticized a Criminal Court judge's ruling late last month that reaffirmed the right of a private citizen to curse at New York City police officers.

"It is just totally absurd," the mayor said of the Dec. 22 ruling by Judge Carol Edmead that dismissed charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest against a man who had cursed at an officer on the Upper West Side. "She is just wrong. She gets an F in law."

Carl Washington was arrested on Oct. 5 while standing at Broadway and West 86th Street, after cursing and yelling: "I'm not leaving. It's a free country." He also flailed his arms and raised his hands at Police Officer Michelle Artis at the time of his arrest, court records say.

Mr. Washington argued that the charge of disorderly conduct should be dismissed because the state and federal constitutions guarantee free expression, even if the speech is vulgar, the ruling said. Judge Edmead accepted that claim, citing court decisions concluding that a person is guilty of disorderly conduct only if he engages in "tumultuous and violent conduct" that threatens to cause a public disturbance.

Given that there was "no mention whatsoever of any passer-by or crowd at the scene of the incident," Judge Edmead's ruling says, "there are no allegations that the incident was anything more than a private dispute." The charge of resisting arrest was dismissed because the arrest was not proper in the first place, the ruling says.

Mayor Giuliani was so disturbed by the decision that he discussed the case for three minutes during his news conference yesterday, reading from affidavits submitted by Officer Artis and another officer.

"This man was yelling and screaming, flailing his arms and raising his arms," the former federal prosecutor said. "That means he was engaged in an assault."

Judge Edmead, the mayor said, misinterpreted the First Amendment right to free speech.

Judge Edmead declined to comment yesterday on the mayor's remarks, a court spokesman said.

Norman Siegel, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the mayor was "legally incorrect in his analysis."

---

Woman Says Officer Made Her Walk Home Unclothed

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By TINA KELLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/nyregion/03NAKE.html

A Suffolk County woman filed court papers yesterday claiming that a police officer made her strip to her underpants and high heels and walk four to five blocks in the snow as punishment for allegedly failing a sobriety test early Monday.

The Suffolk County Police Department is investigating the allegations and has placed the officer on administrative leave, said Lt. William Rohrer, a spokesman for the police.

"This is being viewed by the department as an allegation of serious conduct," said the lieutenant, who would not identify the officer, describe how long he had been on the force or say whether he had ever been accused of similar conduct.

The woman, Angelina Torres, 27, a homemaker and mother of four who lives in Mastic Beach, was arrested in Shirley around 2:30 a.m. Monday, said her lawyer, Gary Gramer, who filed papers yesterday notifying the county that she planned to sue.

He said the officer spoke with Ms. Torres after she had left a bar in Shirley and pulled her car over to the side of William Floyd Parkway in tears following a fight with her boyfriend. When asked, Ms. Torres told the officer that she had had two glasses of Champagne.

The officer gave Ms. Torres three sobriety tests - telling her she had passed the first and failed one of the others - then handcuffed her and placed her in the back of his patrol car, according to the papers. He then parked her car.

In the patrol car, the officer drove Ms. Torres around before stopping outside a Pathmark store in Shirley, Mr. Gramer said. The officer then told her that this was where he usually made "the guys" walk home naked, "to teach them a lesson," according to the legal papers.

Mr. Gramer said the officer drove Ms. Torres to about four blocks from her home, then ordered her to take off her clothes and carry them as she walked. After about three-tenths of a mile, she put her coat on, because she had recently had gynecological surgery and her incisions were bothering her, Mr. Gramer said. The officer asked to see the scars, but she showed him only one, as the other two were concealed by her underpants. The officer allowed her to wear her coat the rest of the way home, Mr. Gramer said.

Her sister, Melissa Torres, called the police soon after her sister returned home in tears, and a duty sergeant took her complaint, Mr. Gramer said. By 8 a.m. on Monday, the police had impounded the patrol car, Angelina Torres's car and her clothes, for fiber analysis, to confirm that she had been a passenger in the patrol car, and to confirm that the officer had driven her car.

Lt. Rohrer said he did not know whether other people had accused the officer of making them remove clothing and walk home, although that would be part of the investigation. Mr. Gramer said officers from the Internal Affairs Bureau had interviewed Ms. Torres for six hours.

According to the court papers, Ms. Torres is seeking damages resulting from harassment, false arrest, false imprisonment, extortion and being ordered to perform the "sexual act" of removing her clothing against her will.

"This is outrageous and reprehensible conduct," Mr. Gramer said. "Police should obey state law, and if a crime was committed, they are not supposed to administer their own form of corporal punishment."

In a telephone interview yesterday, Ms. Torres said she had had no previous run-ins with the police aside from traffic tickets.

"I was just scared, and cold, and wanted to go home to my kids," she said, recalling the incident.

She said she did not know whether anyone had seen her walking. "I wasn't really looking around," she said. "I was just embarrassed."

"It just shouldn't happen again," she said. "I mean it's scary when you're in that predicament."

---

State Lawmaker Favors Killing Police Officers

National News Briefs
Reuters
January 3, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/national/03NATI.html

CONCORD, N.H., Jan. 2 (AP) - A newly elected Republican state lawmaker has enraged his constituents, party leaders and the police by saying he favors killing police officers when they overstep their authority.

The lawmaker, Tom Alciere, 41, won a seat in the New Hampshire House in November on his fourth try after a low-key campaign. It was not until Sunday that his constituents in Nashua learned of his views about police officers in a local newspaper.

Mr. Alciere acknowledged to the Valley News of Lebanon that in 1999 he wrote on an Internet chat site, "Nobody will ever be safe until the last cop is dead."

Mr. Alciere also told the newspaper that he loved it when someone killed a police officer, saying it was unfortunate that the police made it necessary to kill them "when they're waging a war on drugs, and I view cops as enemy officers."

The state's Republican Party chairman, Steve Duprey, said Mr. Alciere should renounce his views or resign. But Mr. Alciere stood firm.

"There's no way I'm going to resign," he said today.

Mr. Alciere, who is married and has a child, inspects circuit boards at a factory. He said he was arrested for "petty stuff" years ago but never went to jail and has no criminal record.

---

USA Today
01/01/03
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Conneticut

New Haven - A police officer who fired at a car that was being driven from a sobriety checkpoint is being investigated by the department's internal affairs bureau. Shafiq Abdus-Sabur, who joined the force in 1996, will be on desk duty until the investigation is complete. "We don't want officers shooting at cars, because bullets don't stop cars," said Chief Melvin Wearing.

Oregon

Eugene - A state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require police to report the ethnicity of the people they stop. Rep. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, wants to prevent minorities from being stopped as a pretext for criminal investigations. Officers would record the age, gender and ethnicity of those stopped. Data would be compiled by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission and sent to the Legislature for action.

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh - City paramedics have agreed to work without contracts through the week, temporarily avoiding a work stoppage while contract talks continue. Sticking points in the negotiations continue to be pay, pensions and retirement age. Top-scale paramedics earn $3,000-$5,000 less per year than firefighters or police officers with equal experience.

-------- spying

Kohl Spy Tapes Won't Be Published for Time Being

Yahoo News
World News
Wednesday January 3 2:10 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010103/wl/germany_stasi_dc_1.html

BERLIN (Reuters) - The government agency overseeing East German Stasi spy files said Wednesday it would await a court judgement this summer before deciding whether to publish their records on former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The Berlin-based Gauck agency had wanted to publish early this year transcripts of Kohl's telephone conversations made by eavesdropping Stasi agents during his 16-year term in office but Kohl's lawyers sought an injunction against the move.

``The records pertaining to Helmut Kohl as a character of contemporary history will not be released before the decision this summer,'' the agency said in a statement of a ruling expected by the Federal Administrative Court.

Kohl has been at the center of a continuing scandal over illicit party funding as chancellor since he was defeated in elections by Gerhard Schroeder in 1998. He admitted in 1999 to accepting around $1 million in undeclared, and thus illegal, contributions but denies they constituted bribes.

While the spy tapes are not expected to offer major new evidence in the funding affair, Kohl argues that because they were collected illegally by the Stasi -- and possibly doctored -- they should not be published.

The Gauck agency said publication was justifiable because Kohl was an historical figure.

Documents released after the East German state collapsed in 1989 showed its agents had collected some 9,000 pages of records from wiretaps on nearly 100 phone lines in Kohl's offices.

-------- terrorism

Jury Selection Beginning in U.S. Embassy Bombings

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/nyregion/03TERR.html

More than two years after the deadly bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa, jury selection begins today in the trial of four men charged with conspiring with the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden to carry out those attacks and others against Americans abroad.

The trial, which is expected to last about 10 months, is the first in the United States stemming from the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998, which killed 224 people and wounded more than 4,000. The case is being tried in Federal District Court in Manhattan because prosecutors in New York were actively investigating Mr. bin Laden for other terrorist acts predating the embassy explosions.

The jury selection begins amid heightened concerns about courtroom security, and as the government continues its aggressive campaign to bring Mr. bin Laden to the United States from Afghanistan, where he is believed to be living under the protection of the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist movement that controls the country.

Three of the four defendants who were in the heavily guarded courtroom yesterday sat quietly in leg irons and shackles. The judge, Leonard B. Sand, warned the men that he would not tolerate any disruptions, and would not hesitate to banish any of them, if necessary, to a cellblock with a closed-circuit television where they could view the rest of the proceedings. In the more than two years of pretrial hearings, the defendants have had a history of interrupting and trying to address the judge.

Judge Sand also said that he would close jury selection to the public and the news media, reversing an earlier decision. The judge said he wanted jurors to be candid about their views during the selection process.

"I believe that this trial should be as open to the public and to the press as possible," Judge Sand said. "But if we want panelists to be candid," he added, about their prejudices, their attitudes toward the death penalty or their family circumstances, "it would simply be unfair to them and skew the process for them to know that the following day there may be a newspaper account."

The jurors will be anonymous, meaning that their identities will be kept from the defendants and others in the courtroom. They will not be sequestered, however.

With two defendants facing the death penalty if they are convicted, the trial will be the first capital case to go to before a federal jury in Manhattan in nearly half a century.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The two defendants who face capital charges are Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, 23, who is described by prosecutors as a would-be suicide bomber in the Nairobi, Kenya, blast; and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, who was charged with helping to carry out the bombing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

A third defendant, Wadih El-Hage, 40, a naturalized United States citizen born in Lebanon, has not been directly linked to the bombings, but has been charged with serving as one of Mr. bin Laden's chief lieutenants. The government says Mr. El-Hage worked as Mr. bin Laden's personal secretary, helped set up front companies in Kenya and sought components for chemical weapons.

The fourth defendant is Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, 35, who prosecutors say has acknowledged that he was an active member of Mr. bin Laden's group, called Al Qaeda. The government says Mr. Odeh was in Nairobi in the days before the attack but fled the country before it was carried out.

In preparation for the jury selection process, Judge Sand had said he would screen at least 1,500 people, one of the largest jury pools ever in a federal criminal case.

Yesterday, the judge rejected a request by a lawyer for Mr. al- 'Owhali that he increase the fee paid to jurors in the case, which is set by law at $40 per day for the first 30 days and $50 per day after that.

The low rate, the lawyer, David P. Baugh, had argued, would limit the number of people who could afford to sit for such a long trial, and thereby deny his client "a constitutionally required cross section of the population to serve as jurors."

In other rulings released yesterday, Judge Sand rejected several challenges to capital punishment in the case. He also refused to suppress a statement made by Mr. El-Hage to American investigators in Kenya in August 1997, and evidence obtained in a search of Mr. El-Hage's property at Kennedy International Airport in New York the next month.

The trial is expected to be the first of several held over the next few years relating to the bombings. A fifth defendant is already in custody in New York awaiting a trial, three more defendants are fighting extradition from Britain, and others, including Mr. bin Laden, are fugitives.

---

Potential Jurors Questioned in U.S. Bin Laden Trial

Yahoo News
Top Stories News
Wednesday January 3 3:49 PM ET
By Gail Appleson, Law Correspondent
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010103/ts/bombing_africa_dc_1.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jury selection began on Wednesday in the case against four Osama bin Laden associates charged with conspiring with the Saudi exile to bomb two U.S. embassies in East Africa killing more than 200 people.

The trial opened in a Manhattan federal courtroom amid high security and restricted news coverage of jury selection. The proceedings were closed to the public but families of the 12 American victims killed in the twin blasts were allowed to sit through the judge's brief introductory remarks.

As they left the courthouse, some lashed out at the U.S. government for ignoring warnings of possible attacks on the embassies.

``Our own secretary of state, Madeleine Albright (news - web sites), chose to ignore her own administrative employees that she has working abroad ... and that is absolutely unacceptable,'' said Edith Bartley, whose father, Consul General Julian Bartley, and brother, college student Julian Bartley Jr., died in the Nairobi blast.

``Our families did not sign up to have their lives lost,'' she said. ``I think that the posture that Madeleine Albright and our administration has taken has been one of arrogance.''

Reporters were also allowed in the courtroom during U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand's remarks, but were then asked to leave. On Tuesday Sand barred the press and public from the selection process, citing concerns their presence might cause jurors to be less candid about their death penalty views.

``What a wonderful way to start the new year,'' Sand told the first group of potential panelists after they sat down in the huge courtroom lined with federal marshals. He said the case presented them with an opportunity to fulfill their civic duty as jurors.

The trial stems from charges against a total of 22 defendants, including bin Laden indicted for a conspiracy that included plans to kill American nationals abroad and for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

Bin Laden Alleged Mastermind

Prosecutors alleged bin Laden masterminded the twin blasts that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands.

Only four of the defendants were being tried in January.

Bin Laden and 12 others remained fugitives on Wednesday and the U.S. government has offered rewards of $5 million for information leading to their arrest.

Bin Laden was believed to be living in Afghanistan. Three other defendants were in extradition proceedings in Britain.

Those on trial were Wadih El-Hage, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon; Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owali, a Saudi Arabian; Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a Tanzanian, and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, a Jordanian. Mohamed and Al-'Owali could face the death penalty.

Another defendant, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, was severed from the trial after he allegedly attacked a prison guard on Nov. 1, driving a sharpened comb through his eye and into his brain. Salim, an alleged high-level adviser to bin Laden, will be tried on expanded charges later.

Another defendant, Ali Mohamed, a former U.S. Army sergeant, pleaded guilty. His plea agreement remained sealed and it was uncertain whether he would testify at the trial.

Tension surrounding the trial built for several months, particularly since the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole while it was refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen. Bin Laden, while not formally charged in the Cole blast, was named as a key suspect behind the attack in which a small boat loaded with explosives blew up alongside the ship, killing 17 U.S. sailors.

Since then authorities have warned of the possibility of more attacks.

Judge Warns Against Outbursts

The defendants in the New York case have also exhibited aggressive and violent behavior. In addition to Salim's alleged brutal attack on the guard as part of an escape scheme to take hostages at the prison, El-Hage was disruptive during court proceedings and in one incident managed to race toward the judge and was tackled by marshals.

On Tuesday, Judge Sand warned lawyers that no outbursts from defendants would be tolerated during jury selection.

``There should be no occasion during the ... process for any defendant to make any audible sound,'' Sand said, warning that he would not hesitate to have the defendants removed from the courtroom to a detention cell.

---

Embassy bombings trial begins

USA Today
01/03/01- Updated 12:32 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405648165

NEW YORK (AP) - Nearly 21/2 years after U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed, a trial began Wednesday for four men facing conspiracy charges that could bring the death penalty for two of them.

In a heavily guarded Manhattan courtroom, jury selection began promptly as U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand wished a group of 30 prospective jurors a happy new year and introduced the defendants.

Sand concluded his 10-minute talk by closing the rest of the jury selection process - which may take up to a month - to the public. Prospective jurors had already filled out questionnaires and faced additional questions orally.

He had said a day earlier that public scrutiny of the questioning, especially those pertaining to views about the death penalty, might poison the process because ''some of the questions are so personal and require the divulgence of intimate family facts and circumstances.''

Four defendants face trial in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that left 224 people dead, including 12 Americans.

The judge in a written ruling Tuesday rejected legal arguments aimed at eliminating the possibility of a death sentence in the trial, which is expected to last up to a year.

Prosecutors plan to call 100 witnesses from six countries.

Two of the defendants could be sentenced to death; the other two could face life in prison.

It is the same courtroom where six defendants were convicted in the Feb. 26, 1993, World Trade Center bombing and 10 defendants were convicted in a failed plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

In all, prosecutors have charged 22 men in connection with the embassy bombings.

Besides the four who went on trial Wednesday, one other man is awaiting trial in New York, three are awaiting extradition from Britain and 13 remain at large.

One man has already pleaded guilty.

Security will be exceptionally tight, with bomb-sniffing dogs checking the courtroom regularly.

In one pretrial hearing, a defendant charged toward the judge and was tackled by marshals.

Another defendant whose trial has since been postponed was accused of critically injuring a federal prison guard during an escape attempt.

Sand warned the defendants Tuesday that they will not be permitted to disrupt the trial in any way.

He said he had equipped the cell block behind the courtroom with closed-circuit TV and won't hesitate to order a disruptive defendant to watch the trial from there.

-------- activists

Anti-Sprawl Group Is Said to Burn New Homes on Long Island

New York Times
January 3, 2001
By AL BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/nyregion/03EART.html?pagewanted=all

GARDEN CITY, N.Y., Jan. 2 - To its list of targets across the country, a radical environmental group opposed to sprawl has added Suffolk County, where it is claiming responsibility for several fires set in houses under construction on what used to be farmland.

The Suffolk County police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said today that they were jointly investigating at least three fires in Middle Island, Miller Place and Mount Sinai believed to have been set by the group, the Earth Liberation Front, or those sympathetic to its cause.

Besides setting fires, a tactic the group has used elsewhere around the country, members are believed to have committed numerous acts of vandalism in Suffolk, officials said. Early in December, they damaged a bulldozer at a construction site in Ridge, and broke windows and scrawled "Meat Is Murder" in red paint at a McDonald's corporate office in Hauppauge, the police said. Last July, members claimed responsibility for uprooting a cornfield that was part of a research project at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

No one has been injured in more than half a dozen incidents for which the group has claimed responsibility in Suffolk. The group, whose spokesman is based in Portland, Ore., says it is nonviolent, but local politicians and police and fire officials say it is only a matter of time before someone is hurt.

"We have to devote a lot of energy to this thing because these people are not going away," said Detective Lt. Charles Dohrenwend, commander of the arson squad of the Suffolk County Police Department. "They are dangerous."

On Saturday, at the height of the region's first big snowstorm of the season, crude explosive devices went off about 6 a.m. in luxury houses under construction at the Island Estates development in Mount Sinai, the police and developers said.

Three houses had fire and smoke damage. Another was marred by graffiti in red paint that said, "If you build it we will burn it." One of the devices failed to ignite in a fifth house.

Lennard Axinn, a building partner at the site, said the devices were crude: a candle placed next to a two-liter plastic bottle filled with gasoline. Damage was estimated at $35,000 to $40,000, said Lieutenant Dohrenwend.

According to a news advisory the group released the next day, the fires were set as "an early New Year's gift to Long Island's environment destroyers." The release said the group was trying to cost "the rich sprawl corporations" enough to force them to stop.

The group also struck on Dec. 19, when it set fire to a house under construction on Sarah Anne Court in Miller Place, at a site where it had previously spray-painted graffiti, Lieutenant Dohrenwend said. And on Dec. 9, the group set fire to one unit in a 16-unit condominium complex in Middle Island, where the damage was $200,000, the police said.

Many community leaders and environmentalists condemned the group's acts today, but said overdevelopment of Long Island was still a valid concern, as developers of new housing projects vie for limited open space on which to build.

"The reaction of these terrorists is wrong," said Richard L. Amper Jr., executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, a nonprofit group. "But they are not wrong about the fact of overdevelopment of Long Island. Just because they are behaving like terrorists doesn't mean we are not overbuilt."

The fires have got developers' attention, especially on the East End of Long Island. Some builders are hiring private security firms to patrol project sites, said Robert A. Wieboldt, executive vice president of the Long Island Builders Institute, which is working with the police and offering a $10,000 reward. Lieutenant Dohrenwend said the police had no suspects.

Steven Berry, a supervisory special agent for the F.B.I. in Washington, said the Earth Liberation Front, or E.L.F., is one of a number of "ecoterrorist" groups whose acts the F.B.I. investigates. Another is the Animal Liberation Front, which also claimed responsibility for the damage to the Hauppauge McDonald's headquarters, which was discovered on Dec. 8.

"It is a group that the F.B.I. is aware of because of past violent and/or criminal activity committed by some of the group's members," Mr. Berry said of E.L.F.

He would not comment on the incidents in Suffolk, but Joseph A. Valiquette, a spokesman for the F.B.I. office in New York, said his office had been in touch with the Suffolk County Police Department, "and we are working with them and the investigation is ongoing."

The group has been active around the United States since 1997, and has claimed responsibility for attacks causing more than $36 million in damage, said Craig S. Rosebraugh of Portland, who said he is the spokesman for the group.

Mr. Rosebraugh said he had no idea who the group's members were, where they were based or how many people claimed membership. The group is deliberately decentralized, he said, to prevent the authorities from identifying its leaders. Mr. Rosebraugh said he serves merely as a conduit between the news media and members, who communicate with him anonymously.

"I believe in what they do, and I feel the actions they take are worthwhile and needed and I hope it increases and continues," said Mr. Rosebraugh, who said that his home had been raided by federal agents and that he had been subpoenaed to appear before at least two federal grand juries in the last four years.

The first action for which the group claimed responsibility was in November 1997, when it said it burned a federal Bureau of Land Management horse corral in Burns, Ore., causing $450,000 in damage, Mr. Rosebraugh said. The group said it was protesting the rounding up of wild horses for slaughter.

In October 1998, the group claimed responsibility for burning five unoccupied structures at a ski resort in Vail, Colo., to protest the proposed 885-acre expansion of the resort into wilderness. They have released minks from fur farms, and they say they set the Christmas Day 1999 fire that destroyed the Oregon offices of the Boise Cascade Corporation, a paper manufacturer, because it had "ravaged the forests of the Pacific Northwest."

"We take inspiration from the Luddites, Levellers, Diggers, the Autonome squatter movement, ALF, the Zapatistas, and the little people - those mischievous elves of lore," said a 1997 Internet communiqué. "Many elves are moving to the Pacific Northwest and other sacred areas. Some elves will leave surprises as they go. Find your family! And let's dance as we make ruins of the corporate money system."

---

N.Y. police search for arsonists

Infobeat
January 03, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405648140

MOUNT SINAI, N.Y. (AP) - Police are searching for opponents of urban sprawl believed responsible for the arson and vandalism of three Long Island luxury homes on Long Island.

Responsibility for the weekend attack was claimed by the Earth Liberation Front, which also took responsibility for a multimillion-dollar blaze at a Colorado ski resort three years ago. Police believe the group also is responsible for millions of dollars in arson and vandalism to six other unoccupied homes in the past month.

No one has been injured.

The loosely constructed international environmental group, headquartered in Portland, Ore., issued press releases about the actions.

``This hopefully provided a firm message that we will not tolerate the destruction of our island,'' said a statement faxed to The Associated Press on Sunday.

Another environmental group dedicated to saving Long Island's open space called the damage ``worse than pointless.''

``They don't have to commit random acts of violence to let people know that Long Island's overdeveloped, since everyone knows we are,'' said Dick Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society.

``Should we burn down people's houses about it? No. We should probably throw some politicians out of office,'' he added.

The Long Island Builders Institute offered a $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the weekend vandalism at the Island Estates Development in Suffolk County.

Suffolk County police planned to meet with representatives of the district attorney's office to discuss setting up a task force and police protection for construction sites.

The Earth Liberation Front, acting at times with the Animal Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for dozens of actions across the county since 1996, including a 1998 arson at a Vail ski resort that caused $12 million in damage and a 1996 arson that destroyed a U.S. Forest Service station in Oregon, with damage estimated at $9 million.

---

German minister recalls radical days

Infobeat
January 03, 2000
By MELISSA EDDY Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405649018

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer recalls fighting off police with stones during his days as a militant radical, but denied in a magazine interview released Wednesday that he ever supported terrorists or their activities.

Fischer's past as a left-wing student radical _ always part of his mystique _ has resurfaced ahead of his scheduled testimony Jan. 16 at the trial of a former fellow militant charged with murder for a 1975 attack on an OPEC ministers' meeting.

Fischer, now the second-highest official in the German government, was called to testify as a character witness for defendant Hans-Joachim Klein, a friend during their radical student days in Frankfurt nearly 30 years ago, Frankfurt court spokesman Albrecht Simon said.

``Yes, I was militant,'' Fischer told Stern magazine in its latest issue, which hits the news stands Thursday. ``We took over houses and when the police came to kick us out, we fought back. We threw stones. We were beat up, but we fought back.''

But he drew a sharp line between the student radicals who challenged authority in street battles during the 1970s and terrorists of the Red Army Faction and Revolutionary Cells who sought to destabilize Germany with violence.

Fischer told Stern that Klein's transition from student radical to terrorist was a tragedy, and said he tried to discourage his friend from taking that path. ``If Hans-Joachim Klein had stayed in our group, he would never be facing a court today,'' Stern quoted Fischer as saying.

Stern also said the issue contains photos showing Fischer as a young radical in a motorcycle helmet and gloves, beating a police officer lying on the ground.

Fischer, a leading member of the liberal Greens party, justified his actions by saying it was a time when police were violent with students.

``It was a time of bitter confrontation, of publicly fed hate against students, when we saw German democracy as showing a side of itself that was a continuous with the Nazi era,'' he said.

Klein is charged with three counts of murder and three of attempted murder in the Dec. 21, 1975, attack in Vienna, Austria, allegedly led by the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Klein denies shooting any of those slain: an OPEC employee, an Iraqi bodyguard and an Austrian policeman.

He was captured in France in 1998 after 23 years on the run and extradited to Germany. His trial in a Frankfurt court began in October.

Fischer is the second former radical-turned-politician to serve as a witness. Prominent French Greens politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit testified in Klein's defense last month.

Conservative lawmakers were using the opportunity to call for Fischer's resignation, an extremely unlikely development given Fischer's stature as the most popular politician in Germany.

``Someone who acted in such a way is no representative for a peaceful society,'' Wolfgang Bosbach of the Christian Democratic Union told the daily Berliner Morgenpost. ``One can't be foreign minister of Germany with such an attitude.''

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Hong Kong OKs Falun Gong conference

Infobeat
January 03, 2000
By MARGARET WONG Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405645836

HONG KONG (AP) - In a move that could anger Beijing, officials in Hong Kong have granted permission to the Falun Gong spiritual group to hold an international conference inside its City Hall.

The Jan. 14 meeting by the sect _ which has faced a fierce crackdown in China but is legal in Hong Kong _ is expected to attract up to 1,000 participants from Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States, said a local Falun Gong spokesman, Kan Hung-cheung.

Hong Kong's Leisure and Cultural Services Department confirmed that it had allowed the sect to rent a public concert venue in City Hall.

``Our venues are open to any associations, communities and societies registered under the laws of the Hong Kong government,'' said department spokeswoman June Tong.

``You are eligible to hold any activities as long as it is lawful and related to the purpose of our venues,'' Tong said.

The Hong Kong office of China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a reporter's inquiry about the conference.

Falun Gong adherents say they have been blocked previously from renting space in local hotels. Kan said it will be the first such meeting in a government venue _ although the sect has previously displayed pictures outside a local cultural center showing alleged abuses carried out by Chinese authorities against Falun Gong.

The Chinese central government has sent thousands of Falun Gong's followers to prison and labor camps. Adherents have also recently run into trouble with authorities in Macau and Singapore for attempting to demonstrate without permission.

Fifteen followers of the movement who were arrested in Singapore for staging an unauthorized vigil on New Year's Eve were out on bail Wednesday. Thirteen of the detainees were released Tuesday. The remaining two, both Chinese citizens, were released late Wednesday after they surrendered their passports, Subordinate Court bail officer Raymond Loh said.

They were charged with obstructing a police officer and illegal assembly, charges that carry a maximum three-month jail term and fines. The accused are scheduled to appear in court again on Jan. 9.

The group were among some 80 Falun Gong members who gathered in a Singapore park to honor fellow believers they say died in police custody in China.

Human rights groups say at least 92 Falun Gong members have died in detention, including four who were reported dead Tuesday by the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Beijing.

Falun Gong has attracted millions of followers, most of them in China, with its combination of slow-motion exercises and its philosophy drawn from Taoism, Buddhism and the often unorthodox ideas of founder Li Hongzhi.

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From a March to a Movement!
Mom-entum Continues to Prevent Gun Violence
New Santa Clara County Million Mom March Chapter Forms
Newly Established Million Mom March Chapter Invites the Public to Attend; Kick-off Meeting on January 29, 2001

Yahoo News
Wednesday January 3, 1:11 pm Eastern Time
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010103/ca_million.html

Press Release

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 2001-- The Million Mom March, a grassroots, nationwide movement with the goal to enact sensible gun legislation, is forming a Santa Clara County chapter. Janet Conn, acting president of the Chapter announced that the organization will be dedicated to supporting legislation to prevent gun death and injury, public education, and supporting victims and survivors of gun trauma. The Santa Clara County chapter has been completing the necessary paperwork to form a chapter since the Million Mom March rally took place on Mother's Day earlier this year. It joins the ranks of more than 225 Million Mom March chapters around the country.

Indications of the recent elections make clear that candidates who were vocal about their support for sensible gun laws either won their races or mounted strong challenges in states and districts with pro-gun representatives. Where voters spoke directly through ballot measures, sensible gun laws won big. And the two states in which the gun lobby most aggressively promoted George W. Bush, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Al Gore carried the vote. (Editors: please visit the Million Mom March article at http://www.millionmommarch.com/home/index.cfm for further details.)

``The establishment of a Santa Clara County chapter of the Million Mom March clearly echoes the sentiments of the national vote - that support for sensible gun laws has come of age,'' said Conn. ``The Santa Clara County chapter will now be able to continue the goals of the March with an organization that will help establish a national system of licensing and registration of all handguns to help keep our community safer -particularly for our children.

``We encourage anyone who is interested in preventing gun violence to start off the new year by joining our chapter either as an ''armchair advocate`` or as a more active member.''

The Santa Clara Country chapter of the Million Mom March is in full support of the principles of the national organization. The chapter's goals are to educate the community about the need for sensible gun laws, including: (1) licensing of handgun owners, (2) registration of handguns, (3) creating consumer product safety standards for guns, and (4) closing the ``gun show loophole.''

These goals would not interfere with hunting, target shooting, gun collecting, or any other legitimate uses of firearms. However they would reduce the easy availability of handguns, which significantly increases the incidence of crimes, suicides and accidents.

Kids' Lives Are At Stake

Every day, ten children die from gunshot wounds. They are crime victims; wrong-place, wrong-time victims; unlocked-and-loaded-in-the-house victims; and suicides, made easy by access to a gun. American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. American children under 15 years old are 12 times more likely to die from gunfire than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Center for Health Statistics 1997 data.)

``It's not common knowledge but teddy bears are regulated for safety, water guns are regulated for safety and even stun gun ownership requires licensing and education. Unlike any other consumer good, guns have no restrictions, no regulations on their ownership or use and we feel to save our kids and our society we need registration and licensing much like you register and license cars and drivers,'' added Michele Costello, acting vice president of SCC chapter of Million Mom March. ``Our goals are personal, not political. Our chapter welcomes members committed to working together, with one clear voice, to change gun policy in America.''

The official kick-off meeting for the Santa Clara Country chapter of the Million Mom March will take place on Monday, January 29, 2001 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Marriott - Silicon Valley (formerly Santa Clara Marriott). The meeting will provide an overview of the national Million Mom March organization, the present goals of the Santa Clara County chapter and ways prospective members can get directly involved to help protect our community.

For further information on the kick-off meeting or to become a member of the Santa Clara County Chapter of the Million Mom March, please call 408-227-9593 or send email inquiries to ``MMMSANTACLARACOUNTY@hotmail.com.'' Additional information on the Santa Clara County Million Mom March chapter can also be obtained online at ``www.sfbayarea.org''.

Contact:
Clark PR Vicky Gray-Clark, 408/629-8842 vicky@clark-pr.com

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New York Times
January 3, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/03/world/03BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

ASIA

CHINA: FALUN GONG FATALITIES December was a deadly month for Falun Gong followers in China, where four more adherents of the spiritual discipline have died in confrontations with the police, a Hong Kong rights group said. Falun Gong followers say more than 90 members have died at the hands of the police since China banned the group and began a campaign of suppression in July 1999. Craig S. Smith (NYT)

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