------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Powell, Manley talk defense plan
Russians tighten ties to Iran
Canada, U.S. discuss plan for missiles
Troops' DU risks 'trivial' compared with combat
Seismic Data Point to 2 Blasts on Russian Sub
Rumsfeld Says Bush Will Go Ahead With Missile Defense
Nuclear cemetery plan ignites fight
Downwinders list illnesses at hearing

MILITARY
UN seeks Milosevic extradition
U.S. Marine fined in Japan
The Osprey Program

OTHER
Anthrax Scare Empties Southern Baptist Office
Kentucky fighting illegal dumping
Ship spills oil into Panama Canal
Tanker captain in Galapagos treated
Portugal starts slaughtering cattle
Jeb Bush opposes Fla. drilling
N.C. fines 5 major hog farms
Feds investigate quarantined cattle
Oil-Drilling Issue Could Set Bush Against Bush
New Hurdle Hampers Galápagos Oil-Spill Cleanup
Endangered Isles
Cattlemen Urge Action by U.S. on Cow Disease
PIPELINE SABOTAGED
Nassau County Police Officer Charged With Sexual Assault

ACTIVISTS
Brussels international meeting
Ind. man accused of spiking trees
No M-16s at Kent State
Court Frees Great-Granny Protester From Jail
Downwinders to Celebrate Utah 'Day of Remembrance'
Anti-globalization summit opens
Beijing in Battle With Sect: 'A Giant Fighting a Ghost'
Suu Kyi activists freed from jail
Myanmar opposition prisoners freed
World forum opens in Switzerland
Philippines leader defends protests
China decries U.S. Falun Gong comments
European autoworkers stage protest
STRIKE HITS CITIES
ACTIVISTS FREED


-------- NUCLEAR

Powell, Manley talk defense plan

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405965988

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell met Thursday with Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley and outlined the Bush administration's support for a national missile defense - an issue on which Canada has yet to take a stand.

After a brief one-on-one meeting, Powell and Manley had a working luncheon lasting almost two hours that covered a broad range of issues. It was Powell's first meeting with a foreign minister since becoming secretary of state last Saturday. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will come to Washington on Feb. 5 for talks with President Bush.

Highlighting the close U.S.-Canadian commercial ties, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said two-way trade exceeds $1 billion a day.

Boucher said Powell explained the U.S. position on a national missile defense.

During his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Boucher recalled, Powell said Bush ``is committed to deploying an effective ballistic missile defense, using the best technology available at the earliest date possible.''

Canada has said it is too early to take a stand on the issue. Russia, China and most U.S. allies oppose the project on grounds that it will spark an international arms race.

Boucher said the luncheon meeting also touched on such issues as salmon, soft wood and wild caribou. Some environmentalists on both sides of the border believe a Canadian mining project in northwest British Columbia poses a threat to the caribou habitat.

---

Russians tighten ties to Iran
A new cooperation agreement paves the way for future arms deals, as US worries.

Christian Science Monitor
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2001 WORLD
By Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/01/26/fp1s2-csm.shtml

MOSCOW - Moves by Russia and Iran to reestablish military ties are raising anew US fears of nuclear proliferation.

Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev - in the highest-level Russian visit to Tehran since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution - heralds a late-December agreement as a "new phase of military and technical cooperation." Iranian President Mohamad Khatami calls it "an important landmark."

The spread of Russian advanced weaponry and nuclear know-how to Iran has worried Washington for years. In his presidential campaign, George W. Bush accused his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, of looking the other way as Russia sold arms to Iran. The Bush administration has set a goal to stop such sales.

Russia desperately needs cash and wants to keep its vast arms factories going. Iran - with oil revenues $9 billion above 1999 levels - says it wants to buy.

"We are their brothers-in-arms, and have long-term interests together," says Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst in Moscow, ticking off mutual concerns including Caspian oil to security issues in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Russian edginess

Russia is edgy over Mr. Bush's stated support for creating a missile-defense system, and US readiness to walk away from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile treaty if Moscow won't permit changes.

The US, by far the world's largest arms dealer, has sought to curb some Russian sales. But on the eve of the US elections, the Kremlin abrogated a 1995 deal, made with then-Vice President Al Gore, in which Russia promised not to sell advanced conventional weapons to Iran.

Estimates of the potential value of new arms sales to Iran range from $1 billion to $7 billion.

Despite strong American concerns - and the threat of sanctions from Congress and the Clinton White House - Russian officials deny that their expertise and hardware will aid Iran's nuclear and nonconventional weapons programs. Russia says it will continue building a nuclear reactor for Iran at Bushehr, now nearly complete, despite US disapproval.

The warming relations go hand in hand with an effort by President Vladimir Putin to reassert Russia's role in world affairs and challenge what it disdainfully calls the "unipolar" world dominated by the US.

"The 'problem' of Iran is a relic of American imperialist ambitions," says Leonid Fituni, director of the Center for Strategic and Global Research in Moscow. "There is no real threat to the US from Iran."

Americans have warned for years that illegal proliferation - especially from Russia - has boosted Iranian nuclear-weapons ambitions. Several Russian institutions are already subject to US sanctions for this reason.

On Jan. 12, President Bush used the example of "some nation like Iran," to illustrate what he saw as the missile threat, in an interview with The New York Times.

Analysts say strident US opposition to closer Iran-Russia ties may be one reason for the new coziness. "The pressure from America ... is forcing a closer, more serious relation with Russia," says Nasser Hadian-Jazy, an American-educated political scientist at Tehran University. The US doesn't appreciate that Iran is stuck "between nuclear Pakistan and an Iraq with chemical weapons."

Iran may not fulfill Russian dreams of huge, cash-down sales, however, Mr. Hadian-Jazy says. "Even if we have it, still we are reluctant to spend it."

Increasing ties between Russia and Iran could affect US-Russian cooperation on various projects. In the decade since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US has spent $5 billion to help Russia safeguard its nuclear materials. A bipartisan panel commissioned by the Energy Department to review those programs recommended earlier this month that an additional $30 billion be spent in the next decade - if Russia cuts off weapons ties with Iran.

"One of the major obstacles to going forward is the Russia-Iran relationship," said Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel and a leader of the panel, in comments reported in The New York Times. "What the Russians are doing vis-a-vis Iran is violating all the norms."

Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's nuclear energy minister, affirmed days later that nonproliferation "remains a priority" for Moscow, calling US rhetoric about Iran "politics, pure and simple." "Not a single real fact" proves any Russian contribution to Iran's nuclear weapons development, he added. "It is really a question of whether the new administration will use this card in politics."

Crunching the numbers

The question many analysts are asking is how the numbers add up for Russia. In exchange for halting conventional arms sales to Iran, the 1995 agreement allowed Russia to launch Western satellites on its rockets. That deal has earned Russia nearly $2 billion and prevented the collapse of its space agency, says Konstantin Makienko, of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow. He estimates that Iran could, at most, have paid only $1.5 billion in those years on Russian arms.

Russia's weapon sales were worth $3.8 billion last year, according to CAST figures. Defense officials have stated goals of $6 billion per year.

Russia has become the biggest arms supplier to China, another foe of the US missile-defense shield. A new Russia-China military pact may result in $15 billion in Russian arms sales according to Jane's Intelligence Review in London.

Russia's arms bazaar could present a new challenge to Washington.

"Bush has told the Russians that it won't be business as usual, that 'the [American aid] fountain is going to dry up if you don't listen,' " says Shirzad Bozorgmehr, deputy editor of Tehran's English-language Iran News.

-------- canada

Canada, U.S. discuss plan for missiles
Canada will take its cue from Russia, China, Manley says

Friday 26 January 2001
Edmonton Journal
Southam Newspapers
Hilary MacKenzie
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news1/stories/010126/5066665.html
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010126/5066892.html

Canada appears content to allow China and Russia to determine its stance on the controversial national missile defence system touted by the United States.

"If he (U.S. President George W. Bush) can persuade the Russians and the Chinese, then he can persuade Canada," Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said on his first visit to Washington.

Manley met newly minted Secretary of State Colin Powell, who outlined the Bush administration's strong support for a missile defence system, dubbed son of Star Wars.

Powell "made quite clear . . . the fundamental view of the administration," State Department official Richard Boucher said of the two-hour meeting that began as a one-on-one, then involved senior officials and proceeded over lunch at the State Department.

Bush "is committed to deploying an effective ballistic missile defence, using the best technology available at the earliest date possible," Powell said last week at his Senate confirmation hearings.

Asked if the two men disagreed on the controversial defence system, Boucher said, "No, they didn't."

He underscored his point by repeating, "No, I wouldn't describe it as a disagreement."

While the Canadian government has yet to decide whether to participate in the $60-billion US program, Manley's predecessor Lloyd Axworthy openly criticized the plan, saying it would trigger a new arms race with Russia and China.

Manley said he asked Powell questions "about what NMD is and what it means for global security," and how it would affect Canada's European allies.

Canada fears that the defence plan threatens the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty that has capped a nuclear peace between the U.S. and Russia.

Canada is vital to the plan because its arctic radar stations are needed to give the U.S advance warning of a nuclear missile launch.

"We haven't been asked for our opinion," Manley said, but NATO forms a vital part of Canada's security architecture.

"Will the effect of failing to obtain Russian consent to a change in the ABM treaty cause them to become more provocative and start a renewed arms race and threaten Europe? That would concern NATO and that concerns us," Manley said.

The meeting, Powell's first with a foreign minister since becoming secretary of state last Saturday, covered a wide range of issues. Prime Minister Jean Chretien will come to Washington on Feb. 5 for talks with Bush.

As expected, Manley and Powell discussed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska, not far from the Yukon border. Manley said it was clear the Bush administration would go ahead with its plans to open up the environmentally sensitive area that also threatens herds of migrating caribou. All Canada could do was point to a bilateral environment agreement between the two countries and hold the U.S. to its terms, he said.

The two ministers also touched on such issues as salmon overfishing and softwood lumber.


-------- depleted uranium

Troops' DU risks 'trivial' compared with combat

By Richard Eden
26/01/2001
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/26/nuran26.xml

THE health risks from depleted uranium to troops who served in Kosovo are "trivial" compared with those from combat, the Ministry of Defence said last night.

The MoD released 30 documents at the heart of the depleted uranium (DU) weapons scare. The papers, with detailed commentary on each document, were posted on the department's website as the Government came under more pressure from MPs to suspend the use of DU weapons. Several of the documents discuss the possible cancer risks from exposure to DU dust, including current briefing advice given to troops in Kosovo.

However, the commentary accompanying the files rejects claims that there is a significant danger to the health of veterans who served in the Gulf and in Kosovo. Those troops who served in Kosovo are advised that the hazard from DU "is trivial compared with combat risks". It says: "Even if a DU fragment were inhaled or embedded in your body, by whatever means, the risk of you developing cancer over the next 50 years would only be very slightly increased."

A brief dated March 1997, leaked to the press earlier this month, is dismissed as containing "some scientifically incorrect information and assumptions". The MoD commentary attacked the document for not distinguishing sufficiently between soluble and insoluble DU dust and for overstating the health risks. The brief's claim that inhaling insoluble DU dust "through accumulation may cause damage by radiation" was not, however, rejected by the MoD.

The MoD said: "The considerable majority of the oxides produced on the battlefield are insoluble." Summarising the health risks to troops, the brief stated: "Personnel involved in the reclamation of damaged vehicles will be most at risk and may exceed the annual radiation dose limit in 50 hours."

In a Commons early day motion tabled yesterday, MPs voiced concerns over the "serious and long-term" health risks associated with DU weapons. They called on the Government to impose a moratorium on their use by the Armed Forces and to make a commitment to clean up the environmental damage they cause.

-------- russia

Seismic Data Point to 2 Blasts on Russian Sub
Collision with another vessel is ruled out

Friday, January 26, 2001
San Francisco Chronicle
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/26/MN31555.DTL

Once-secret techniques that scientists use to monitor the Earth for signs of clandestine underground nuclear weapons blasts have recorded clear evidence of the explosions that sank the Russian submarine Kursk last summer.

Earthquake specialists calling themselves "forensic seismologists" are studying data from more than 16,000 seismic stations permanently installed around the world to detect and record signals from quakes. The scientists report they have successfully applied that mass of information to reconstruct the Kursk disaster.

The heavily armed Oscar class cruise missile sub sank in the Barents Sea about 100 miles from the Russian port of Murmansk last Aug. 12, and its crew of 118 went down with it.

Two experts from the University of Arizona and two from Los Alamos National Laboratory report that their analysis of records from the worldwide seismographic network indicates that the Kursk did not sink because of a collision or any other impact.

They discounted charges leveled by some Russian military officers that a collision with another vessel caused the disaster, and that an unidentified Western submarine bent on spying could have been responsible.

The scientists who studied the seismic evidence were Keith D. Koper and Terry C. Wallace of the University of Arizona, and Steven R. Taylor and Hans E.

Hartse of the Los Alamos lab. Their report is published this week in Eos, the American Geophysical Union's weekly newsletter.

Water is a highly efficient medium for transmitting shock wave pulses from subsurface explosions, the scientists said. And in the case of the Kursk, their analysis of signals received from the seismic network's many instruments

--located as far away as 3,000 miles -- showed two distinct blasts from the sub, separated by 135 seconds.

The first explosion generated a signal equal to a small earthquake with a magnitude of about 2.2, according to the Los Alamos scientists, while the second and far more powerful blast equaled the energy of a 4.2 magnitude quake.

The Kursk was designed to carry a load of 28 torpedoes and 25 SS-19 conventional cruise missiles. While no one will ever know precisely what triggered the explosions unless the Kursk is raised from the ocean bottom, it is known that the ship's captain had requested authority to test-fire one torpedo just before the sinking.

The scientists speculated that the first blast probably occurred while the sub was near the surface because its periscope was later found in the "up" position when divers filmed it on the ocean bottom. The explosion could have sent a seismic signal through the water from a single torpedo that misfired and exploded inside its launching tube, the team speculated.

That first blast yielded a seismic record equal to the explosion of 550 pounds of TNT -- just about the warhead load of a modern torpedo, the scientists noted.

The second explosion, 250 times more powerful, released energy equal to the blast of about five tons of TNT, the scientists calculated. Arms control veterans have said the seismic signal was the same as would have been detected from an extremely small underground test of a nuclear warhead.

The five-ton blast could have come from the explosion of four to eight of the Kursk's ship-to-ship missiles, the scientists concluded -- or from the premature explosion of only a single cruise missile tipped with conventional high explosives.

The main clue to the second explosion aboard the doomed submarine came from a phenomenon called a "bubble pulse," the scientists said. Explosions that occur underwater, they noted, generate bubbles of hot gases that quickly rise to the surface and oscillate to produce a series of vibrating seismic tremors that are a dead giveaway.

"The simplest explanation from the seismic data is that the larger Kursk event resulted from a single, large explosion," the scientists concluded.

During the Cold War, many techniques for discriminating between seismic signals from earthquakes and underground nuclear weapons tests were highly classified. But the data from seismic stations around the world -- and the computer programs that analyze them -- are all in the open now.

Techniques for detecting clandestine nuclear tests were once highly secret. But they became a key goal of both Soviet and American scientists as the Cold War eased and arms controllers pushed their governments for a comprehensive nuclear test ban.

"The forensic seismology analysis of the Kursk disaster illustrates the power of the open seismic data and its importance in providing timely information to constrain the details of man-made events," the scientists say in their report.

In other words, today's improved and unclassified techniques should prove an increasingly effective way for identifying nations that try to cheat on any future nuclear test ban treaty.

E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.

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

Rumsfeld Says Bush Will Go Ahead With Missile Defense

January 26, 2001
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/politics/26CND-RUMS.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 - Leaving no doubt of the administration's intentions, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today that the United States would move ahead with a missile-defense system regardless of other countries' objections.

In his first Pentagon briefing since being sworn in, Mr. Rumsfeld reiterated President Bush's position that a limited missile defense is needed in the post-cold war world. Nor should the Russians feel threatened, he asserted.

"The Russians know, they have to know, that the kinds of capabilities being discussed are not the kind that threaten them in any way," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

As for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that rules out such defenses, the secretary said, "We're in a very different world," adding that "the Soviet Union is gone."

The limited defense system talked about is meant to guard against attack by terrorists or countries considered friendly to terrorists. Russia ought to see the wisdom of such a defense, he said: "They too must see threats."

Mr. Rumsfeld, who was defense secretary in the Ford administration and has gained a reputation for being a tough administrator and a skilled bureaucratic combatant when he had to be, was genial and relaxed as he took questions.

Besides a missile defense system, another high priority is improving the country's intelligence-gathering, Mr. Rumsfeld said. He said he has conferred with George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, about improving how intelligence is collected and analyzed to cope with a "more complex, more diverse set of problems and issues."

Mr. Rumsfeld has been on the job just four days. "It seems like four years," he said.

Mr. Rumsfeld, 68, had a successful private career and could have retired at leisure. So why is he back in government service? In answer, he borrowed a line from Theodore Roosevelt: "Far and away the best prize life offers is to work hard at work worth doing."

------- us nuc politics

Nuclear cemetery plan ignites fight

January 26, 2001
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Erin Moriarty Staff Writer
http://atlanta.bcentral.com/atlanta/stories/2001/01/29/story1.html

Since Southern Co. opened its first nuclear power plant in 1975, it has made nuclear energy a key part of its strategy -- today generating 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.

But Atlanta-based Southern and other utilities are running out of places to store the highly toxic waste produced by their nuclear plants. There are about 41,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from power plants -- or spent nuclear fuel, as it is called -- in the United States, and the amount is expected to reach 64,400 metric tons by the end of the decade, according to a study by NAC International Inc. (A metric ton is slightly more than 2,200 pounds.)

Some parts of this waste are so hazardous they will have to be stored in isolation for the next 10,000 years.

Now a consortium of eight major utility companies -- including Southern -- is pushing to build a "high-level" nuclear waste storage facility on an Indian reservation near Salt Lake City.

The $3.1 billion project has sparked a fiery controversy in Utah, where the major opposition ranges from groups of Native Americans and environmentalists to Sen. Orrin Hatch and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.

The state of Utah has filed 35 written arguments against the project with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will determine whether to issue an operating license to the consortium by next November.

"It's a matter of official state policy that we will resist the placement of these spent nuclear fuel rods in our state, and we will use every political and legal means to do so," said Gov. Leavitt in a telephone interview. "We didn't create it and we don't benefit from it and we won't store it for those who do."

Widespread problem

Southern, parent of Georgia Power Co. and one of the most widely held U.S. public utilities (with about 500,000 shareholders), is not the only utility company facing the challenge of increasing nuclear waste.

Nuclear power plants typically store their spent fuel rods in water-cooled pools inside the plant. However, as these pools have filled up, some electric companies have begun using dry storage, which entails placing the rods in large containers (or "casks") made of steel and concrete that sit outside on a concrete pad.

The amount of nuclear waste from power plants that was put in dry storage during 1999 represented a 24 percent increase in the total amount of waste that is in dry storage, according to a study by NAC International.

The consortium, known as Private Fuel Storage LLC, is proposing that electric utilities ship these nuclear waste storage casks -- most likely by train -- across the country to the Utah site.

The facility would be the largest of its kind and could store as much as 40,000 metric tons of uranium in spent nuclear fuel rods -- about the equivalent of all the commercial spent nuclear fuel rods in the United States, according to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. The state's opposition group contends that it is unfair to make Utah bear the brunt of the nation's nuclear waste, especially since the state has no nuclear plants.

Gov. Leavitt has established a multiagency task force to oppose the project, while the state's Legislature has taken action by reclaiming jurisdiction over the only road that leads to the reservation to prevent the consortium from building a rail connection to the reservation. Utah's Legislature also revoked limited liability for any entity engaged in storing or shipping high-level nuclear waste -- making those companies liable to the fullest extent in the event of an accident.

However, the consortium questions the legality of the state's maneuvers.

"The state, for whatever reason, has decided to expand their opposition beyond the legally established process and look for any political means or anything they can do to try to delay or stop the licensing of this facility," said Private Fuel Storage spokesperson Sue Martin. "The legislature has taken certain actions to attempt to do that, but whether or not those actions prove to be legal remains to be seen."

Seeking a solution

Rick Kimble, spokesperson for Southern Nuclear Operating Co., said that the nation must solve the issue of where to store spent nuclear fuel.

"As far as we're concerned, nuclear energy is here for the long haul as far as meeting the future energy needs of the country," Kimble said. "The country's energy needs have to be met and nuclear energy has to be a part of that mix."

And with nuclear energy comes spent nuclear fuel.

"Spent fuel is always going to be an issue and it simply needs to be addressed," Kimble said. "The quicker we can get a storage facility for it, the better."

Kimble said the nuclear industry believes the best solution is to store the waste in a central repository, such as the Private Fuel Storage site. A central location would provide better security, better monitoring, and could facilitate waste reprocessing someday.

Further, Private Fuel Storage believes its project will not only provide a viable option, but also benefit the area economically.

"We point to economic impact studies that have been done of plants and storage facilities which show a positive rather than a negative impact," Martin said. "We believe that regardless of perceptions right now, the reality will certainly not be a negative impact and will most likely be a positive one."

Utah also is fighting a tough battle since the Skull Valley band of Goshutes' tribal council already signed a lease in 1996 to allow Private Fuel Storage to use 820 acres of their 18,000-acre reservation to build the facility. Private Fuel Storage and the federal government have refused to release the terms of the lease -- even to members of the tribe who oppose it -- but some people speculate that it is worth billions of dollars.

Leon Bear, chairman of Skull Valley band of Goshutes, says the tribe plans to use the lease payments to improve the quality of life on the reservation by investing in public services, such as police and fire protection. The top priority will be to build a health clinic since the nearest tribal health services office is now 250 miles away.

Tribal territory

A complicating factor in the debate is the location of the reservation, which has been surrounded by hazardous neighbors and military operations for years.

The reservation is eight miles northeast of the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds -- which tests and destroys chemical and biological weapons -- and just east of a U.S. Air Force base that tests missiles.

In 1968, nerve agents escaped Dugway Proving Grounds and killed 6,000 sheep and other animals that grazed nearby. Even though the sheep were not owned by the tribe, the government buried 1,600 of the contaminated sheep on the reservation. It wasn't until last year that the government acknowledged the dead sheep were contaminating water on the reservation and, as a result, excavated the contaminated remains.

Also nearby are two hazardous waste incinerators and a low-level radioactive waste disposal site. The reservation sits north of a coal-fired power plant and south of a company that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ranked as the nation's largest emitter of toxic chlorine.

Ironically, Bear said, the presence of his toxic neighbors actually led him to welcome the storage of nuclear waste on the reservation.

"We just don't have a lot of economics since it's a desert area. ... And it's just a hard, hard place to do anything with, especially with all this stuff surrounding us because nobody wants to come out here when they're afraid of being contaminated by nerve gas or radioactive waste."

But Gov. Leavitt insists the proposed facility is a public safety issue, especially given its proximity to a handful of military bases. About 4,000 military aircraft fly over the Private Fuel Storage site each year and a nearby range is used for testing missiles.

"In the last three years in that area we've had two incidents of cruise missiles gone astray," Leavitt said. "One hit a mobile home and the other had to be shot out of the air by the Air Force."

The state also is worried about the transportation of nuclear waste in Utah. It estimates that in the worst case scenario, a transportation accident in Salt Lake City would result in 114 potential cancer fatalities and cost up to $313 billion to clean up.

But the state may have little control over whether the Skull Valley band of Goshutes will store the nation's nuclear waste. The Goshutes, like other tribes, are considered a sovereign nation and have a government-to-government relationship with federal authorities.

A national challenge

The problem of nuclear waste storage is complicated by the federal government's failed promises to the nuclear utilities.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a fee for nuclear utilities (and their customers) of one-tenth of a cent for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated from nuclear energy. The money went to a fund -- which is now worth more than $10 billion by some estimates -- to be used for creating a permanent facility for the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

The Department of Energy promised to have the permanent facility ready by January 1998, but failed to do so because the process of creating the first permanent nuclear waste facility is exhaustive both scientifically and politically.

"All the nuclear utilities have been paying into this fund, but the DOE still has not come to the table with a solution," said Southern's Kimble.

While the government has not yet solved the problem, it has spent more than a decade and $3.6 billion to evaluate the possibility of building a permanent nuclear waste storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. That project has faced heavy opposition from the state of Nevada, as well as some scientists and environmentalists.

Even if the government decides to proceed with the Yucca Mountain project, it likely would be 10 to 20 years before the facility opens. The situation has frustrated some utility companies into taking the government to court. Southern subsidiaries Alabama Power and Georgia Power are pursuing legal action against the government for breach of contract, according to Southern's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The timing of the Yucca Mountain project is critical because the Private Fuel Storage facility would be a temporary storage facility for waste that would eventually be moved to Yucca Mountain. The duration of nuclear waste storage in Utah depends on how long it takes to approve and build Yucca Mountain. Private Fuel Storage has applied for two 20-year operating licenses, so it could remain in Utah as long as 40 years.

If there is still no permanent facility after 40 years, Private Fuel Storage has proposed that the waste be shipped back to the nuclear plants, but Utah's Department of Environmental Quality fears that some plants may have been shut down by that time and will be unable to take back their waste.

But the state of Utah is running out of time to fight the proposal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will issue its final environmental impact statement in February, which would be the last regulatory hurdle before the commission makes its final decision in November.

If the project is approved this fall, the first-of-its-kind facility would open in late 2003. However, either side could appeal the decision all the way to federal court. Leavitt said the state of Utah will pursue every legal avenue.

"They want to put spent nuclear fuel that's lethally hot for 10,000 years in concrete casks in the desert," Leavitt said. "If it's so safe, then why don't they just leave it where it is?"

Reach Moriarty at emoriarty@bizjournals.com.

------

Downwinders list illnesses at hearing
Scientific panel hears of cancers, deaths linked with exposure

Newslicy
Friday, January 26, 2001
Karen Dorn Steele - Staff writer

KENNEWICK _ Ray Sampson worked in "hot" areas of Hanford from 1946 until his retirement, and has a festering black tumor on his nose as evidence of radiation's danger. "My nose is gone, pretty near ... all I got was a letter from (the U.S. Department of Energy) last August that said, we'll get back to you," Sampson told a citizen's forum organized by a federal panel studying evidence of Hanford's hazards.

While Sampson was doing dangerous work inside the fence lines during the Cold War, Laverne Kautz said she was a civilian casualty, 60 miles downwind. Kautz, 77, was raising a family in Ritzville, Wash., a farm town directly in the path of Hanford's radiation emissions during the heaviest years of plutonium production in the 1940s and '50s. Kautz, who still lives in Ritzville, tallied the cancer deaths around her: Twenty-two cousins. Seventeen neighbors within three blocks of her home. Four aunts.

"Workers should get compensated for their injuries. But they were monitored, and we weren't. We were just dumped on," she said.

With tears and angry words, a crowd of about 150 people told a panel of independent scientists studying disease and injuries at Hanford that there's plenty of evidence of harm among workers and downwinders alike.

Congress last year approved a $1.6 billion compensation program for nuclear workers, but no money has been appropriated so far to directly help downwinders with their medical problems.

Thursday's community forum was an effort by the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee, a federal advisory committee formed in 1995, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to gather more evidence of Hanford's public health impacts.

A tearful Randall Pixton of Warden, Wash., spoke of his wife's thyroid cancer, pausing often in an effort to control his emotions. Her Spokane surgeon told the family, "you don't have to tell me where you live -- I see myriad patients ... from Eastern Washington who have thyroid cancer," Pixton said, adding his brother, sister and brother-in-law to his list of relatives with thyroid problems. "I encourage people in this community to stand up. There's nobody here who couldn't identify 15 or so friends and neighbors" with cancers and thyroid disease, Pixton said.

Pixton praised Rudy Nussbaum, a retired Portland State University physics professor, for compiling a computerized database of 800 downwinders to track death and disease downwind. Nussbaum has published papers citing high numbers of hypothyroidism, miscarriages and spontaneous abortions among 300 women who returned health questionnaires from downwind counties.

Nussbaum, one of the independent scientists invited to describe his work on Hanford, called the downwinders "the invisible veterans of the Cold War." Nussbaum had harsh words for the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study, an $18 million, nine-year study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. It ended inconclusively in 1999 when scientists said they could find no link between Hanford's iodine 131 releases and increased thyroid cancer in

3,441 people born near Hanford from 1940 to 1946.

The study got strong criticism from the National Academy of Sciences for lacking statistical power -- the ability to detect a result -- and for exaggerating its no-findings conclusion before undergoing scientific peer review. It is being revised in response to the criticism.

"You as citizens have to stand up when a report is issued that cost a colossal $18 million and claims no impact," Nussbaum said to applause.

Several workers in the audience told stories of past pressure to cover up radiation exposures, and others insisted there's still pressure to conceal radiation incidents.

Retired worker Bob Colley said it was his job as a senior radiation monitor to pick up radioactive flakes that fell between buildings at Hanford. He worked there 33 years, and said he volunteered for the dirtiest jobs when there was an accident that release radiation. Colley said he was overexposed often in the accidents.

"We agreed it would not go on our records, because we couldn't work at Hanford any more if it did," he said. Colley said he's suffered from a heart attack, sinus problems and cancer.

James Lake of Pasco said he worked for a subcontractor in the defunct B Plant, one of Hanford's most contaminated and controversial facilities. "We got very high readings. We'd wash off the contamination with toilet cleaner so we wouldn't have to do the paperwork," he said.

Tim Takaro, a University of Washington faculty member in the schools of medicine and public health, is working on several studies of Hanford workers. He said records on subcontractors are often sketchy, and added that the Energy Department had no roster of its former workers until last October.

"It's difficult to reconstruct. We know we are missing a lot of people. There were up to 250,000 workers, and we can only find 100,000," Takaro said.

A U.S. Department of Energy contractor told the crowd that workers with questions about their radiation exposures can call a worker hotline, (877) 447-9756. Downwinders will have to wait for answers to their many questions.

"When is a downwinder going to be included in free health care?" asked Kay Sutherland of Walla Walla. "They are going to compensate workers, and we've been left out again. "When are all the advisory commissions going to help one downwinder?"

"We are trying to get money for medical monitoring," HHES chairwoman Jude Van Buren replied.

The ATSDR is also trying to get approval from the Office of Management and Budget for a $1.5 million survey of 500 downwinders born in Benton, Franklin and Adams counties between 1940 and 1951.

"We are ready as soon as we get approval," said Gregory Thomas, ATSDR program coordinator for medical monitoring programs.

Karen Dorn Steele can be reached at (509) 459-5462, or by e-mail at karend@spokesman.com.


-------- MILITARY

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

UN seeks Milosevic extradition

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
Associated Press
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=3oof91dqj9lge

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Criticizing President Vojislav Kostunica for dismissing her court's claim to Slobodan Milosevic, the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor rejected Yugoslav calls that the former president first stand trial at home.

Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said she remained ``cautiously optimistic'' that Milosevic would be extradited to the Netherlands-based tribunal so that the U.N. court can try him on suspicion of involvement in atrocities committed by his troops during the crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.

``For crimes against humanity ... Milosevic will stand trial in The Hague,'' Del Ponte predicted, winding up three days of meetings with Kostunica and other political leaders. ``For other (crimes), he may answer in Belgrade.''

Del Ponte said her meeting with Kostunica was disappointing. ``All I did was sit and listen to his lectures,'' she said, adding that other Serb leaders ``recognized the obligation'' to hand over Milosevic and other war crimes suspects to the U.N. tribunal.

Still, the prosecutor was rebuffed in her demands that Milosevic be extradited.

In a snub to Del Ponte, Milosevic made a rare public appearance Thursday while she was in Belgrade, further underlining that he is a free man despite her efforts to prosecute him. He met with Greek Communist leader Aleka Papariga, who was visiting Yugoslavia.

Zoran Djindjic, the new Serbian prime minister, said: ``Del Ponte arrived here with an unrealistic expectation that she would take a war crimes suspect on her flight back. That doesn't contribute to the respect for the court which she represents.''

Serb leaders have cited strong anti-tribunal sentiments in Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic, and local laws that prohibit extradition. Instead, the leaders suggested that Milosevic and the other indicted Serbs be tried in Serbia for alleged crimes ranging from embezzlement to wartime atrocities.

That plan is unacceptable to Del Ponte, who also indicated that at least some among the Yugoslav leadership suggested they were willing to discuss Milosevic's extradition _ but only after he had been tried in Serbia.

``We cannot wait for years,'' she said of domestic legal proceedings against the former leader. The tribunal must be ``the first to have Milosevic on trial.''

Del Ponte said that she handed two sealed, or secret, indictments to the Yugoslav authorities as a test whether they are willing to cooperate. Besides Milosevic, numerous other Serbs have been indicted for alleged war crimes in the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo but live freely in Yugoslavia.

Most people in Serbia, accounting for more than 90 percent of the Yugoslav population, have rallied behind the pro-democracy leadership that unseated Milosevic in October.

But the new leaders must act with caution on the delicate issue of extraditions or risk a rapid loss of popularity. Anti-tribunal feelings remain high, with most Serbs considering the court biased against them.

Although most of those indicted are Serbs, the tribunal is also prosecuting Croats and Muslims for war crimes in the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Bosnia.

The extradition of Milosevic and several other suspects has become a key test for the new Yugoslav leadership, which could lose its international credibility if it fails to cooperate.

``At the end of the day,'' Del Ponte said, ``full cooperation with the international court cannot be avoided if Yugoslavia wants to join the international community.''

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

U.S. Marine fined in Japan

1/26/2001
Afternoon Edition InfoBeat News
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405969602

TOKYO (AP) - An Okinawa court on Friday ordered a U.S. Marine arrested for allegedly lifting a high school girl's skirt and snapping photos to pay a $430 fine.

Cpl. Raven Gogol has two weeks to contest the order by the Okinawa District Court after prosecutors indicted the Marine, said court spokesman Takashi Hamada.

Gogol has denied the charges.

The U.S. military said no decision has been made on whether to discipline Gogol.

``Military authorities will investigate,'' said Marines spokeswoman Capt. Tanya Murnock.

The alleged lewd photo incident earlier this month sparked a renewed outcry over crimes by Okinawa-based U.S. servicemen against local residents.

Lawmakers on Okinawa last week reacted by adopting a resolution asking the United States to cut its military presence on the island.

The Okinawa government also asked the U.S. military to do more to prevent the recurrence of crimes.

The U.S. military last year imposed a late-night drinking ban on all troops in Okinawa to calm a community backlash following earlier misbehavior by servicemen. That ban was lifted days before Gogol was arrested.

Under a mutual security treaty between Japan and the United States, about 47,000 U.S. military service people are stationed in Japan. Nearly two-thirds of them are in Okinawa, which is 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo.

---

The Osprey Program

January 26, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/opinion/L26OSP.html

To the Editor:

Re "Dangerous Deceptions on the Osprey" (editorial, Jan. 21):

For the Marine Corps, the V-22 Osprey offers speed and range unsurpassed by existing helicopter designs. The Osprey's tilt-rotor technology has been demonstrated by more than 4,000 hours of flight tests under the most rigorous standards.

There have been four crashes during the life of the program, three of which involved tragic loss of life. The history of military aircraft development, however, suggests that risk is regrettably inherent in all programs featuring advanced design. None of the V-22 accident reports issued thus far suggest a substantial flaw in tilt- rotor technology.

The three investigations currently under way are wholly appropriate. All Osprey aircraft have been grounded pending evaluation of these reports. In the meantime, let us avoid a rush to judgment to terminate the program.

M. E. RHETT FLATER Executive Director, American Helicopter Society International Alexandria, Va., Jan. 22, 2001

-------- OTHER

-------- biological weapons

Anthrax Scare Empties Southern Baptist Office

January 26, 2001
New York Times
National News Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/national/26NATI.html

NASHVILLE, Jan. 25 - Part of the downtown offices of the Southern Baptist Convention's publishing arm were quarantined today after an employee opened an envelope that contained an orange powder that the authorities thought might be a biological agent.

The authorities sealed off the Nashville building after the employee of the publishing establishment, LifeWay Christian Resources, opened the envelope.

The publisher has 1,500 employees in Nashville, a spokesman said. F.B.I. agents took the orange substance for testing, and officials of the Nashville Fire and Police Departments said they were treating it as though it were anthrax, a potentially deadly form of bacteria.

-------- environment

Kentucky fighting illegal dumping

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
Associated Press
By MARK R. CHELLGREN
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405966247

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Gov. Paul Patton proposed mandatory curbside garbage pickup at every home in the state Thursday in hopes of breaking some Kentuckians' habit of dumping everything from rusty appliances to kitchen garbage in the hills and hollows.

Under the proposed legislation, each county would decide how to provide trash pickup. Homeowners and businesses would pay the cost, which Patton said averages $10.58 per month where service is already available.

``We're already spending taxpayer dollars to clean up other people's trash. We just need to get everybody to pay for their own,'' said James Bickford, secretary of the state Natural Resources Cabinet.

Each county is supposed to provide a way for people to dispose of garbage, but in many communities, that consists of nothing more than a centrally located Dumpster. The result, according to the state, is about 3,000 illegal dumps.

Another Democrat, House Majority Floor Leader Greg Stumbo, proposed his own plan on Wednesday, which includes a half-cent fee on fast-food cups and other containers.

Political opposition to any tax, fee or deposit is stiff. Senate President David Williams, a Republican, has already declared any proposals that raise money dead for this session.

Patton has previously backed mandatory curbside pickup and bottle deposits, but the measures failed, partly because some legislators said residents statewide should not have to pay for eastern Kentucky's problems.

---

Ship spills oil into Panama Canal

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405966724

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) - A Greek tanker spilled 5,000 gallons of oil into the Panama Canal, temporarily closing one of the locks and delaying traffic through the waterway.

Officials said the leak in the Neapolis, an oil tanker and a so-called Panamax ship, the largest allowed to move through the canal, was caused by previous damage. They said the ship never came in contact with the canal's walls.

The leak slowed canal traffic, but did not completely interrupt it, said Maricarmen Sarsanedas, a spokeswoman for the Panama Canal Authority. The authority took over the canal in December 1999 after 85 years of U.S. control.

Workers inspected the ship Thursday to determine exactly what caused the leak. It completed its trip through the canal, and was anchored for repairs.

One side of the Pedro Miguel locks, on the canal's Pacific side, was closed down to allow workers to clean up the oil. It reopened a few hours later.

Less than a month ago, an Indian ship carrying grain ran aground while passing through the Gaillard Cut, the narrowest part of the canal, flooding one of its containers. There were no damages or injuries and service was uninterrupted.

An average of 35 ships pass through the canal daily.

Between January and September 2000, the canal registered 16 accidents, compared to 19 during the same period in 1999, when the canal was still under U.S. control, the authority said.

---

Tanker captain in Galapagos treated

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
Associated Press
By GONZALO SOLANO
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=3oof91dqj9lge

PUERTO BAQUERIZO, Galapagos Islands (AP) - The captain of a crippled tanker who blamed ``overconfidence'' for the accident that spilled at least 185,000 gallons of fuel off the Galapagos Islands was under medical treatment Thursday for nerves, officials said.

Capt. Tarquino Arevalo, 58, whose tanker, Jessica, ran aground Jan. 16 after he turned off his radar at night and mistook a signal buoy for a lighthouse, was unable to resume answering investigators' questions, said Dr. Franklin Espinosa, a physician at a naval base medical clinic.

``He presented moderate lower back pain and sharp abdominal pains from nervous tension,'' Espinosa said. ``Psychologically, he is not stable and he required specialized help.'' The doctor did not give details.

Arevalo remained hospitalized under police custody at the naval base Thursday. At least three criminal proceedings have been announced against the captain, his crew and an official from Petrocomercial, an affiliate of the state-owned oil company Petroecuador.

A Galapagos judge ordered Arevalo and the Petrocomercial official, Julio Guerrero, held in police custody until investigations are complete.

Meanwhile, environmentalists expressed relief Thursday over the limited impact of the spill into a marine environment that supports unique animal and bird species and inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Only one pelican and two seagulls are known to have died. Still, dozens of other birds and marine animals _ sea lions, seagulls, blue-footed boobies and albatrosses _ have been affected, Galapagos park officials said.

``We have had a lot of luck because the sea currents, the winds and the strong sun have kept the spill from causing major damage,'' said Fernando Espinoza, director of the Charles Darwin Foundation's research station.

But some conservationists fear the fuel will sink to the ocean floor, destroying algae vital to the food chain and threatening marine iguanas, sharks, birds that feed off fish and other species.

The tanker, which carried some 234,000 gallons of diesel, ran into waters less than six feet deep off San Cristobal Island, the easternmost island in the Galapagos archipelago.

Arevalo, who could face up to five years in prison if convicted, claimed responsibility Tuesday for the accident.

``Unfortunately, because of overconfidence and because I know the area, I stopped using the radar,'' he said in a sworn statement.

Thousands of gallons of fuel were safely removed from the tanker after it hit. But it started leaking diesel Jan. 19 after pounding surf caused fissures in its hull. Most of its cargo ended up in the Galapagos waters.

The islands, 600 miles west of the Ecuadorean mainland, are that country's main tourist attraction.

Eliecer Cruz, director of the Galapagos National Park, called on the international community to lend ``support and resources to continue working on ongoing control and evaluation of the marine and land ecosystems that have been affected.''

He said the spill's impact on the marine environment reached ``a medium magnitude, which nevertheless can be reversed and the species will recover in the medium to long term if we have adequate resources.''

---

Portugal starts slaughtering cattle

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=3oof91dqj9lge

LISBON, Portugal (AP) - Slaughterhouses across Portugal began killing the first of 50,000 cattle Thursday in an attempt to purge herds of mad cow disease. Germany also ordered its first herd killed.

Portugal has recorded 503 cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, the brain-wasting ailment known as mad cow disease cropping up throughout Europe. Portuguese beef was banned for export by the European Union in 1998.

Hoping to keep infected beef from entering the food chain and to reassure jittery consumers, Portuguese officials ordered the slaughter of cattle older than 30 months at a rate of 3,000 a week.

More than 99 percent of the cows found with BSE were older than 30 months.

In Germany, which has recorded 19 cases of BSE in two months, an entire head of 1,012 cattle from one farm was ordered slaughtered Thursday after veterinarians diagnosed one of the animals with BSE.

BSE, believed spread by recycling meat and bone meal from infected animals back into cattle feed, is believed to cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal human equivalent of mad cow disease.

Since the mid-1990s, some 80 Europeans, most of them Britons, have died of new variant CJD, possibly after eating infected beef. No U.S. cows have been diagnosed with BSE.

As the crisis spreads throughout Europe, farm ministers were warned Thursday not to expect extra money from the European Union's central coffers to help cover the cost of combatting the disease.

``We'll spend that $1 billion for mad cow disease, but that's all, because there's no more money left,'' said Gregor Kreuzhuber, the EU's agriculture spokesman. EU farm ministers are to hold their monthly meeting Monday.

Meanwhile, in Spain _ where beef sales have plummeted by a third since the first case of BSE was announced in November, according to the Agriculture Ministry _ two more cows were diagnosed with the disease Thursday. Spain's total is now nine.

In Italy, farmers took to the streets Thursday to demand more government aid after a second suspected case of BSE turned up.

Belgian authorities also reported the country's third case of mad cow disease.

---

Jeb Bush opposes Fla. drilling

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405971509

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Gov. Jeb Bush has told his brother's new administration not to open up Florida's Gulf Coast to more offshore oil and gas drilling - a message President Bush already has said he will heed.

The president advocates increased energy exploration in the United States, but he said in a pre-inauguration interview with The Associated Press that he would support governors who want drilling banned off their coastlines.

Gov. Bush's letter to the U.S. Interior Department opposes the sale of an oil and gas lease that could allow drilling on nearly 6 million acres in federal waters south of Alabama near the Florida line.

``These are leases that are close to Florida waters and I think it's appropriate for the Florida governor to represent Florida's interests in that regard,'' Bush said Thursday of his letter.

In an interview on Jan. 17, George W. Bush forecast ``a monumental battle'' over increased energy exploration but said it is essential.

Asked about the Florida situation, Bush replied: ``I am for offshore drilling, but there is as much visual polution off of Florida, or off of coastlines, as well as potential pollution. ... ``So I am going to work with the governors and if they are for bans off their coast, I'll support them for bans off their coast,'' he said.

He said his advocacy of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve to energy exploration is another matter because it is an isolated ``area where we can develop and protect'' the environment.

In his letter, Gov. Bush said a federal sale of drilling rights off Florida would be the first in the eastern gulf since 1988.

``I am confident the new administration will recognize the need to protect sensitive natural resources located both offshore, and along Florida's coastline, for the benefit of the entire nation,'' Bush wrote Tuesday.

It's not clear when the federal government might make a decision on the lease.

Bush's move was applauded by Florida environmentalists, who have for years fiercely fought attempts to place oil rigs off the state's famous beaches.

Mark Ferrulo, who monitors offshore oil drilling for the Florida Public Interest Research Group, said Bush seems ``more aggressive on this issue than even the previous administration''

That's good news because President Bush has ``surrounded himself with the most pro-drilling Cabinet in history,'' Ferrulo said.

``Right now, protection of our shores is in Governor Jeb Bush's lap,'' Ferrulo said. ``It's not going to happen at the federal level.''

---

N.C. fines 5 major hog farms

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405972112

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - State regulators have fined four large eastern North Carolina hog farms that were targeted by Gov. Mike Easley for waste storage problems.

The owner of three hog farms in Pender and Duplin counties was fined more than $43,000 for a series of environmental violations. Problems with hog farms in North Carolina have received national attention after floods during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 caused waste storage tanks to overflow and leak tons of waste into rivers.

Allen Raynor, who owned all the farms when the problems occurred in late 1999 and early 2000, plans to appeal the penalties, said Richard Burrows, his attorney.

They include a $34,300 fine _ the fourth-largest penalty ever involving a swine farm in North Carolina _ against Pender Pork Farm No. 1 & No. 2. Raynor has sold the farms.

Inspectors with the state Division of Water Quality twice found hog waste leaking from one of the barns into a swampy tributary of the Northeast Cape Fear River.

Inspectors also said the farm had waste running off spray fields, high manure levels in a storage lagoon and 14 cases where the liquid manure was sprayed onto fields without any plants to soak up the fertilizer.

Raynor raises hogs under contract with Rose Hill-based Murphy Family Farms Inc. The $34,300 fine against him is a fraction of the $275,000 maximum penalty he faced for the violations.

In Pitt County, water quality officials fined GIS of North Carolina Inc. $16,894 for lagoon discharges that were first seen by inspectors flying aerial surveillance, said water quality spokesman Ernie Seneca.

Owners of the farm agreed to remove the 1,150 sows from the property and would sell the farm, according to an agreement signed with the state.

When Easley ordered the enforcement action, he assembled a team of lawyers and environmental regulators that threatened to shut down farms until they could meet state laws.

---

Feds investigate quarantined cattle

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
AP Farm Writer
By PHILIP BRASHER
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405972034

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal health regulators are investigating 1,000 cattle that were quarantined in Texas after a feed mill disclosed it may have violated rules designed to prevent mad cow disease.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has never been found in any U.S. cattle. However, as a precautionary measure, the government has banned cows and sheep from being given feed made from animal parts.

The feed maker notified the Food and Drug Administration that it may have mixed up ingredients, letting some cattle eat bone meal made from other U.S. cattle, FDA spokesman Lawrence Bachorik said Thursday.

``No cattle that might have received the feed will enter the food chain unless FDA decides there is no problem,'' he said.

A feed lot has quarantined the cattle while FDA investigators determine if any did eat banned feed, Bachorik said. While he wouldn't identify the feed maker, he stressed any risk is theoretical because U.S. cattle haven't been found carrying BSE.

Mad cow disease has so far been confined to Europe. The feed ban is designed to keep mad cow from spreading through animal feed if the disease does get into the United States.

A recent FDA report found hundreds of feed makers were violating labeling requirements and other rules associated with the ban. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has organized a private meeting Monday involving representatives of the industry and officials from the FDA and the Agriculture Department to press for better compliance.

``We decided that, given the situation in Europe, that we wanted to bring all the key players together to achieve 100 percent compliance with the FDA feed prohibitions,'' Gary Weber, who oversees regulatory issues for the rancher's group, said Thursday.

The disease first appeared in 1984 in a cow in Britain thought to have eaten feed that included offal from sheep that harbored scrapie, a similar illness.

The FDA has warned U.S. feed makers that continued violations will prompt seizures of feed, company closures, even prosecution. Some companies have received warning letters, and some feed has been recalled, the agency said.

``We're prepared to go to the meeting and let them know we are doing or are willing to do our part to ensure that we don't get BSE into this country,'' said Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association, which represents plants that process animal parts for feed and other products.

``We want the FDA to enforce the feed ban and take what resources it needs to make sure it is enforced.''

Americans are aware of the problem in Europe, but so far they are not overly worried, according to a recent ABC-Washington Post poll. One in five of those surveyed said they were very concerned about the problem, and fewer than half said they were at least somewhat concerned.

The U.S. livestock industry in 1996 voluntarily banned sheep and certain other animal parts from U.S. feed, in which they were included as a protein supplement. The following year, FDA formally banned any proteins from cows, sheep, goats, deer or elk - animals that get similar brain-wasting diseases - from feed for cows, sheep or goats. Poultry or pigs can still eat those proteins because they cannot contract the disease, but feed must be labeled ``do not feed to cows or other ruminants,'' and companies must have systems to prevent accidentally mixing up the feeds.

---

Oil-Drilling Issue Could Set Bush Against Bush

January 26, 2001
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/politics/26OIL.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 - All week the White House has offered a partial solution to the California energy shortage and any future shortfalls around the country: more exploration for oil and gas, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

But one place in which the new Administration has not talked much about drilling is off Florida, where the Interior Department is in the final stages of seeking public comment about a proposal to auction off rights to a six-million-acre field in the Gulf of Mexico. The federal government - that is, the administration of George W. Bush - is facing opposition to its exploration plans from the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush.

"I am confident," Governor Bush wrote in a letter on Tuesday to the acting secretary of the interior, Thomas Slonaker, "that the new administration will recognize the need to protect sensitive natural resources located both offshore and along Florida's coastline for the benefit of the entire nation."

The issue is important to the president's younger brother, whose political future may hinge on his ability to stop this and other new drilling off the Florida coast. But President Bush will hear from others with a very different view. Oil companies that helped finance his campaign and that have close allies in the cabinet have already been pressing to ease drilling restrictions along the Florida and California coasts. They cite the recent surge in gas prices to bolster their arguments.

Mr. Slonaker is not likely to have much of a voice in the matter; it will fall to Gale A. Norton, President Bush's nominee for secretary of the interior, who appears on her way to relatively easy confirmation by the Senate. Ms. Norton is a strong advocate of new exploration and exploitation of natural resources, though she has hedged on the issue of what to do in Florida.

In her confirmation hearings in recent days, Ms. Norton said she and the president opposed any new leasing off Florida, though she did not comment specifically on the lease the Interior Department is proposing to sell in an area Governor Bush strongly objects to developing.

"It is an important issue and we will certainly review it," Scott McClellan, deputy White House press secretary, said today, noting that President Bush has pledged to work with states and local communities on the issue.

During the presidential campaign, George Bush supported a moratorium, long in place, blocking new leasing of fields in parts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Bush has also said he was willing to work with local communities to determine what to do with leases already held by oil companies.

But the area that his brother seeks to stop from being auctioned is not covered by the existing moratorium. It actually lies off the coast of Alabama, but close enough to Florida to worry state environmentalists.

"This puts everyone in a precarious position," said Mark Ferrulo, the director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group, which has long opposed any exploration or production along the Florida coast. He praised Governor Bush for opposing the lease, even though it is technically in waters off a neighboring state. "He has not gone this far before," Mr. Ferrulo said

The governor has a large political stake in the issue. He faces re-election in two years, and is trying to recover from the political fallout from the disputed recount of the presidential election in his state. Drilling offshore is opposed by both Republicans and Democrats in Florida, and Governor Bush could be blamed if his brother's administration allows new drilling near the state's beaches.

"Florida's economy is based upon tourism and other activities that depend on a clean and healthy environment," Jeb Bush wrote in his letter to Washington. "As a result, we continue to have the nation's best beaches, abundant fisheries, and pristine marine waters. Protection of those resources is of paramount importance to the state of Florida."

--

New Hurdle Hampers Galápagos Oil-Spill Cleanup

January 26, 2001
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/ecuador-galapagos.html

PUERTO BAQUERIZO MORENO, Ecuador, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Efforts to move the Ecuadorean tanker aground on rocks off the Galapagos Islands were hampered by a lack of equipment on Friday but the threat from the oil spill was fading, experts said.

The Ecuadorean Navy had hoped to bring the Jessica to an even keel but a U.S. Coast Guard team said they ran out of cables key to the salvage operation in the exotic archipelago made famous by British naturalist Charles Darwin's visit in the 19th century.

The Jessica belched about two-thirds of its cargo of 240,000 gallons (908,496 litres) of oil into the crystalline Galapagos waters after running aground last week. Its semi-submerged hulk now rests in the prophetically named Shipwreck Bay, outside the tiny harbor of San Cristobal island.

``It's so frustrating. First the weather interrupted operations and now we've been hit by a lack of equipment,'' Coast Guard team chief Ed Stanton told Reuters.

``Today's a write-off -- and it's going to take a week minimum to get the boat righted,'' he said of the ecological disaster in the pristine ecosystem, which the ship's captain has admitted was due to his own error.

Tarquino Arevalo, 58, told Reuters he misjudged his entry into the tiny Pacific harbor of the ramshackle capital. The ship captain was being treated for a gash in his head and dehydration after staying aboard for four days after the accident. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted of damaging the environment -- a crime in the Galapagos.

The island cluster is home to myriad exotic species including iguanas, flightless cormorants, sea lions and the famous Galapagos giant tortoises. The islands inspired Darwin to devise his theory of evolution.

FAVORABLE CURRENTS

But ecologists said the damage has been minimal because ocean currents have taken most of the diesel and bunker fuel, which was to be used to power tour boats, away from the islands. While some animals would die, they anticipated the ecosystem would make a swift recovery.

``We are talking about minimal animal deaths, and we expect ... a full recovery (to the ecosystem) within three to four years,'' said Galapagos National Park Director Eliecer Cruz.

``We have been very lucky. We think the disaster has passed,'' Environment Minister Rodolfo Rendon told Reuters. ``The problem is still very serious, but paradise here will never be lost.''

The only known damage to wildlife has been a pair of dead pelicans and some animals and birds tainted with oil.

Efforts to seek other injured animals were being prepared for the coming days to augment those already being undertaken by teams of conservationists from around the world.

``We hope to start capturing the affected animals over the weekend, but fortunately not many animals have been affected,'' said Earl Peterson of the animal rehabilitation team.

About 30 sea lions and several pelicans, giant tortoises and colorful blue-footed boobie birds already have been moved to centers to be cleaned.

Seen from above, the Pacific was streaked with oily rainbows but the stain had largely broken up, with patches of pale blue from chemical agents sprayed from converted fishing boats.

A thin slick of diesel spread as far as Santa Cruz and Santa Fe islands, but the pollution of their shores has been negligible.

---

Endangered Isles

January 26, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/opinion/26FRI4.html

The Galápagos Islands have belonged to Ecuador since 1832, just before Charles Darwin arrived on board the Beagle in 1835. Remote and biologically unspoiled as they were even then, the Galápagos were nonetheless already part of the larger world, a regular port of call. While it was true that on those reptilian islands "the chief sound of life is a hiss," as Melville wrote, it was also true, according to Darwin's biographer, Janet Browne, that you could buy pigs and goats there or mail a letter. But the isolation that made the islands a perfect laboratory in which to study the variation of species as they occur in nature remained largely unviolated.

Until the past few years, little had changed on the Galápagos except an inexorable increase in the number of visitors, most of them tourists, which now number 50,000 a year. The islands, which cross the equator some 600 miles west of Ecuador, still preserve an extraordinary 96 percent of their endemic species. But where there were 1,000 human residents a half-century ago, there are now 16,000 and counting. The creation in 1998 of a marine biological reserve that extends 40 miles offshore has resulted in protests and vandalism by Ecuadorean fishermen, who have defied attempts to regulate their catch. Their protests have included burning the headquarters of Galápagos National Park and kidnapping giant tortoises.

And now an Ecuadorean tanker named Jessica, on a supply run to the Galápagos, has disgorged close to 200,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the ocean after striking a reef near the island of San Cristobal. The Ecuadorean Navy, the United States Coast Guard and experts from all over the globe are trying to contain the slick.

When Darwin came to the Galápagos he wrote, "we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact - that mystery of mysteries - the first appearance of new beings on earth." It was the remarkable articulation of that fact, the uniqueness and complexity of life on those islands, that gave Darwin the basis for working out his theory of natural selection. The pressures that shaped the character of natural life as Darwin found it on the Galápagos were almost entirely free of human influence. But today, tragically, those islands remind us that such a thing can no longer be said of any place on earth.

---

Cattlemen Urge Action by U.S. on Cow Disease

January 26, 2001
New York Times
National News Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/national/26NATI.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (AP) - Uneasy over the mad cow crisis in Europe, American cattle producers are pressing the government and feed makers to improve compliance with a federal ban on feeding animal meal to cows and sheep.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has not been found in cattle in the United States. The animal meal ban is intended to keep the disease from spreading through feed, should the disease reach the United States.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has organized a meeting on Monday with representatives of the industry, the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department to discuss the issue.

---

PIPELINE SABOTAGED

January 26, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/world/26BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

ECUADOR: An explosion in Ecuador's main crude oil pipeline near Santo Domingo de los Colorados, 83 miles west of Quito, caused about 10,000 barrels of oil to spill into local waterways, the state-run Petroecuador said. Jim Wyss (NYT)

-------- police

Nassau County Police Officer Charged With Sexual Assault

January 26, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/26WIRE-NASS.html

LEVITTOWN, N.Y. - A Nassau County police officer under investigation on charges that he forced a woman to perform oral sex on him in exchange for her release was arrested Thursday night on a second charge that he sexually assaulted a woman, police said.

The officer, Matthew Murphy, 36, a six-year veteran of the force, was arrested at the Eighth Precinct Station House in Levittown. He was charged with ordering a female victim to follow him to a secluded area of the Eighth Precinct and sodomizing her on Dec. 18, 1999.

Murphy was immediately suspended without pay, Deputy Inspector Peter Matuza said.

The incident came to light in the wake of allegations earlier this week that a woman's 5-month-old claim that an officer forced her to perform oral sex had not been properly investigated.

An anonymous caller who phoned the Nassau County Internal Affairs Unit on Tuesday, provided investigators with information that when acted upon, yielded information about the 1999 incident and resulted in Murphy's arrest, Matuza said.

Murphy is believed to be the officer involved in both incidents.

The investigation of the August report only began last week and department investigators and the county district attorney's office were trying to determine why they weren't notified of the alleged police misconduct sooner.

In the August incident, an unidentified woman said she was driving home early one morning when she was pulled over by an Eighth Precinct officer in an unmarked car. She said she was driven to a secluded, wooded area in the precinct, was forced to perform oral sex and was released. She filed a complaint with a desk officer at the Eighth Precinct station house later that day.

Matuza said the complaint was forwarded to detectives about one month later and was only turned over to the Internal Affairs Unit last week. It was not clear why the complaint wasn't immediately forwarded to Internal Affairs, which handles allegations of police wrongdoing.

The incident has prompted the police department to change its policy for stopping drivers.

Under the new policy only uniformed officers in marked police cars will be allowed to stop drivers for speeding or suspicion of drunken driving.

The arrest comes just weeks after an officer from neighboring Suffolk County was suspended for forcing women to strip for him to avoid drunken-driving arrests and several officers in a town in Orange County, another New York City suburb, were named in a civil rights lawsuit for allegedly sexually harassing citizens.

-------- activists

DU/ Brussels international meeting:
victims of NATO speak out Date:

Fri, Jan 26, 2001
From: "Michel Collon" <michel.collon@skynet.be>
To: Roland Marounek <roland.marounek@chello.be>

Dear friends,

The Belgian Coalition for Abolition of Depleted Uranium Weapons invites you to give your help, your suggestions and, if possible, to participate to a big international debate in Brussels, on the 1st of March. Please fin below:

1. Announcement of the meeting: 2. Calendar of the three days activities in Brussels 3. Call for your help and suggestions 4. Contacts. 5. Platform of the Coalition

University of Brussels, 1st of March 2001 URANIUM: The victims speak

Nato and the Western armies tried long to hide the truth about Depleted Uranium and to isolate the victims. It is now time to bring all these victims together, and demand justice. In the very capital of the Nato, Brussels, an exceptional debate will give the word to:

BELGIUM: Guido FLEURACKERS, contaminated soldier Marc DE CEULAER, contaminated soldier and leader of military trade union Marleen TEUGELS, investigation journalist (Knack) (invited) Frédéric LOORE, investigation journalist (Journal du Samedi), author of La Guerre invisible Pierre PIERART, professor (Association of Doctors against Nuclear War)

FRANCE: Hervé DESPLAT, contaminated soldier, founder of Association Avigolfe Christine ABDELKRIM-DELANNE: investigation journalist, author of La Sale Guerre propre

IRAK: (Names will follow)

BOSNIA: Dr Bojidar STAVROVIC (Sarajevo) Dr ILIC Contact taken for one victim

YUGOSLAVIA: (Names will follow)

KOSOVO: (Contact taken)

NETHERLANDS: XXX, victim of the 1992 catastrophe in Amsterdam (Bijlmermeer) Louis BERTHOLLET, association of victims of Bijlmermeer

GREAT-BRITAIN: (Invited: National Gulf Veterans and Families Association)

GREECE ? (Contact taken for one soldier, representative of the association demanding to cancel the presence of Greek troops in Kosovo)

OTHERS ? We are waiting for other answers.

2. Full program of three days

We propose to those who can to stay a few days more in Brussels. It seems to us very important to organize a high level activity in the capital of Natgo, at this present time. Also We can provide you accomodation and transport in Belgium, and also contacts with the press.

This is our full program:

Tuesday 27 evening or Wednesday 28 morning: arrival

Wednesday 28: interviews, contacts with the press, contacts (following your wishes) with Belgian medical institutions, experts and activists.

Thursday 1 (9 - 17) academic symposium in Brussels (Place will follow) Thursday evening: Great public debate

Friday 2: non public exchange of views between victims, associations and activists, measures for future cooperation Friday 2 evening or Saturday 3: departure.

3. How can you help?

°1 Making suggestions to complete (very soon) this program)

°2 Participating

°3 Helping for the cost: preparing the possibility of some small donations to cover the costs of some trips and some material expenses. Which are limited since every is benevolent but...

4. Contacts

The representatives of the Coalition are: Marcel Poznansky Abolition.ua@caramail.com poznanski@caramail.com

Pierre Piérart (Association of Doctors against Nuclear War): mail: pierre.pierart@pophost.eunet.be

Michel Collon is helping for the preparation of these three days: michel.collon@skynet.be

E-mails can be sent, for the next days, to these mail-address. Afterwards, a specific secretariat will come.

5. Our platform:

COALITION FOR ABOLITION OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS

Depleted Uranium Weapons (D.U.) have been used during the wars in the Gulf, in Bosnia, in Yugoslavia by the Americans and the British or by Nato. D.U. weapons have been tested secretly since dozens of years in many army manoeuvres in the US, Great-Britain, France, Germany, Central America and Pacific. More than forty countries possess them.

D.U. is producing alpha radiations. When inhaled in the form of small particles, it becomes a factor of cancer and the risk is aggravated by different pollutions (tobacco, motor gas, industrial pollutions...)

The general secretary of the Nato, George Robertson, supported by most of the national authorities of the member countries, is maintaining a complement incoherent position to exonerate the political and military leaders.

These weapons, chemical, radiological and non-discriminatory are polluting many places in the world. They are subject to the rule of law of armed conflicts (Declarations of St Petersburg 1868, The Hague 1899, Protocol of Geneva 1925, Declaration of the Conference in Paris 1989, U.N. Conventions concerning environment 1976)

In front of aggressions, often irreparable, against the health of the populations and the soldiers in Koweït, Irak, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, it his now most necessary to form a coalition to demand abolition of the D.U. weapons. The "Coalition for Abolition of Depleted Uranium Weapons" invites associations and political groups to participate or support this campaign. We are going to prepare with you a program of action to achieve that goal.

Informations: Pierre Piérart pierre.pierart@umh.ac.be Tél./fax: +32 2 376 10 93

Marcel Poznanski poznanski@caramail.com tél 32 2 511 63 10 gsm 32 476 85 56 52

Editeur responsable: Marc Lemaire, rue de la Ferme 118/4 BXL 1210, bs603416@skynet.be gsm 32 475 80 31 88 Abolition.ua@caramail.com

---

Ind. man accused of spiking trees

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405971569

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - An alleged member of a radical environmental group connected to a series of arsons and other crimes has been arrested for putting spikes in trees to destroy logging equipment.

Frank B. Ambrose, 26, is accused of driving 10-inch spikes into trees last June in an area of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest slated for logging.

Authorities believe Ambrose is affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front, a loosely knit group that claimed responsibility for spiking the trees.

The ELF has claimed responsibility for 22 major crimes, including arson attacks and other acts of sabotage across the country. The FBI has attributed $37 million in damage since 1996 to the group.

In a statement released Thursday, Ambrose denied spiking the trees. After his arrest, he refused to answer questions, including whether he's affiliated with the ELF.

Ambrose told The Herald-Times of Bloomington he was targeted by authorities for publicly refusing to condemn destroying property to prevent harm to the environment.

``Is it illegal to say that? It may not be popular with some people, but it doesn't mean I was involved in it,'' he said.

A six-month investigation by state conservation officers and the FBI traced the spiking nails to Ambrose through store surveillance tapes. According to an affidavit, Abrose's car was spotted outside the forest at the time of the incident, and police found hammering and metal-cutting tools and cotton gloves with a residue similar to that from the spikes in Ambrose's apartment.

Ambrose is the Midwest coordinator for the American Lands Alliance, a mainstream environmental group headed by former Indiana congressman Jim Jontz.

``American Lands doesn't support tree spiking,'' Jontz said from his Portland, Ore., office. ``Of course, I hope that these allegations aren't true.''

Ambrose was released on $2,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 2. Tree spiking is a felony in Indiana punishable with up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Leslie Pickering, a spokesman for the North American Earth Liberation Front, said he is not sure if Ambrose is a member of the ELF.

Conservation officer Marlin Dodge said it is hard to prove involvement in the group.

``There's no way you'll ever prove who an ELF is,'' he said. ``However, we're prepared to show that he did a criminal act that ELF took responsibility for.''

---

Students: No M-16s at Kent State

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405972467

KENT, Ohio (AP) - Kent State University has dropped plans to buy eight M-16 rifles for its police force because of student objections on the campus where National Guardsmen fired on antiwar protesters in 1970.

University President Carol Cartwright told the campus police force Thursday to find an alternative to the military rifle.

``The outpouring of comment in the last few days makes it clear that this particular rifle is not appropriate for this university,'' she said.

Kent State police planned to buy the M-16s from the Pentagon to replace the aging Marlin Camp 9mm rifles that are kept in locked compartments in their patrol cars.

Students objected to the idea of a military weapon being brought to Kent State, where Guardsmen killed four students and wounded nine in 1970 during a protest againt the Vietnam War.

The M-16 purchase would be ``an insult to the memory of the victims of May 4, 1970,'' said Michelle Touve of the student-led May 4th Task Force.

About 22,000 students attend Kent State. The 31 officers on the university police force carry 9mm handguns.

---

Court Frees Great-Granny Protester From Jail

January 26, 2001
Excite News
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010126/12/odd-greatgrandmother-dc

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A great-grandmother who has become an environmental celebrity was freed from prison on Thursday after a court ruled a one-year sentence for violating a judge's ban on protesting activities was too long.

Betty Krawczyk, 73, won international publicity when she was jailed for contempt of court after returning to a protest site in the Elaho Valley near Vancouver where environmentalists have clashed with loggers over the cutting of old-growth timber.

The British Columbia Appeals Court ruled the four months Krawczyk had served in prison was long enough.

Prosecutors had joined defense attorneys in arguing the judge had gone too far in sentencing her to one year without parole for contempt.

The three-member appeals court said Krawczyk has a history of civil disobedience for environment causes and "makes the most of her matronly status." It said she also knows she will face tougher sentences "if she carries on in this way."

Greenpeace officials in the United States hailed the court's decision, saying it vindicated Krawczyk's belief "that she has the right to defend the environment for her grandchildren and great grandchildren."

---

Downwinders to Celebrate Utah 'Day of Remembrance'

Friday, January 26, 2001
Salt Lake Tribune
BY JUDY FAHYS
http://www.sltrib.com/01262001/utah/65924.htm

Dave Timothy is making the long trip from Toquerville to Saturday's "Day of Remembrance" rally at the State Capitol.

It is a short haul, though, considering the health hazards he says he has endured as the result of atomic-testing fallout.

Toxic air began drifting over his family farm in southern Utah 50 years ago, and finally the government is acknowledging the harm it caused, said Timothy.

"I'm hoping that people, especially the young people who may not know anything about it, will be able to understand what happened and what its impacts have been," he said. "My single biggest concern is that this will be repeated."

Timothy will be among those attending the remembrance rally Saturday, beginning 1:30 p.m., in the Capitol Rotunda. Gov. Mike Leavitt and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson have declared the day, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site, as the "Day of Remembrance."

The event, which is open to the public, is sponsored by the group Downwinders and several other organizations that have served as advocates for victims of nuclear testing.

The groups will gather after the rally at the University of Utah, Union Building 324, to view films about downwinders.

One featured film will be "Return of Navajo Boy," a documentary about a Monument Valley family's struggle with uranium mining's radioactive legacy. On hand will be Elsie Mae Begay, a central figure in the film.

Timothy will be on hand, too. Since the age of 18, he has undergone surgery eight times for thyroid cancer, which is a common disease of people exposed to harmful levels of radiation.

More information is available by calling 521-6128 or at www.downwinders.org/launch.htm

---

Anti-globalization summit opens

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
Associated Press Writer
By TONY SMITH
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405966748

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) - Opening an anti-globalization summit, host Gov. Olivio Dutra urged participants to turn ``indignation into an organized movement'' to fight unemployment, poverty, discrimination, war and environmental destruction.

Dutra, governor of host state Rio Grande do Sul, welcomed some 3,500 politicians and activists to Porto Alegre for the five-day World Social Forum, the self-styled nemesis of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Participants cheered Cuba and booed the United States as they sought to find an alternative model for the world economy than the globalization touted at the forum in Davos, which also opened Thursday.

``Today, the heads of state and multinational bosses meeting at Davos have lost all legitimacy,'' said French farmer Jose Bove, who won fame for ransacking a McDonald's franchise in his country.

Bove called the Porto Alegre forum the ``legitimate people's movement'' and warned that protesters would converge on Quebec in April when leaders from the Americas gather for the latest round of negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

As the names of participating countries was read at Thursday's opening ceremony, cheers went up for Brazil, Cuba, France, North Korea and South Africa. Boos were reserved for the United States and the latest World Trade Organization candidate, China.

Thousands of participants then launched a ``March for Life and against Neoliberalism'' through Porto Alegre's sun-baked streets to a riverfront concert area. Porto Alegre lies about 1,000 miles south of Sao Paulo.

The activists defined ``neoliberalism'' as unfettered world trade that they say makes rich countries richer and developing countries poorer. Workshops and debates were to start Friday on such issues as human rights, social justice and sustainable development.

Speakers include Danielle Mitterrand, widow of late French President Francois Mitterrand; Dita Sari, an Indonesian student activist who led the movement to topple President Suharto; Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman; and Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan political writer.

``We are here to show the world that a different world is possible,'' said Bernard Cassen, a forum organizer and editor of Le Monde Diplomatique.

But some participants said they doubted the forum would succeed in transforming the will to protest against globalization into solid political action.

``I would like to see a coherent, concrete platform come out of the forum, but I'm not sure that will happen,'' said Jair Krischke, director of a local human rights group.

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso compared anti-globalization activists to Britain's Luddites, workers who rioted against industrialization during the 19th century by destroying the machines that were displacing them.

``You can't just smash machines. It doesn't make sense,'' he told the Porto Alegre newspaper Zero Hora. ``Imagining that you can turn the clock back in the world, stopping telecommunication and rapid financial information _ that's not possible.''

---

Anti-globalization summit opens

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
Associated Press
By TONY SMITH
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405970801

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) - A prominent anti-globalization activist promised strong protests against a proposed all-American free trade zone during a summit in April in Quebec.

Jose Bove, a French sheep farmer who won fame for ransacking a McDonald's restaurant in his home country, said Thursday that protesters from across the globe would attend the April 20 summit of North and South American leaders meeting for the latest round of negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

That area would stretch from Alaska to Chile.

``People from all over the world are going to come and say 'We don't want a free market all over the Americas,'' Bove said.

Bove was attending the World Social Forum, a five-day summit of 3,500 activists from over 100 countries that is considering ideas for a more equitable world economy. The meeting is an answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which also opened Thursday.

The participants are worried that as businesses expand their global reach due to falling trade barriers, governments and the people who elect them have less power to curb their abuses.

No major demonstrations were reported Thursday either in Davos or in Porto Alegre, about 1,000 miles south of Sao Paulo.

In opening the Forum, Olivio Dutra, the left-wing governor of the host state, Rio Grande do Sul, said more solidarity was needed worldwide.

He urged participants to ``transform our gestures of indignation into an organized movement on a global scale to overcome unemployment, absolute poverty, hunger, discrimination, domination, wars, the concentration of land ownership, massive alienation and the irrational destruction of the environment.''

Bove said the Forum, the first meeting of its kind since rioting protesters marred the World Trade Organization's December 1999 summit in Seattle, was symbolic for what he called a growing anti-globalization movement around the world.

The Forum's broad and varied agenda, however, means it might be difficult for the event to come up with any concrete findings.

Asked what sort of economic model he would like to see the Forum embrace, Bove said he did not know.

``We still don't know how the world is going to be after, but it's the same thing as 200 years ago in France when the people who made the French revolution destroyed the Bastille on July 14th,'' he said. ``They didn't know what would happen the next day.''

Participants fear that unfettered trade will make rich countries richer and developing countries poorer.

Alongside Bove, who turned down an invitation to address the Davos meeting, speakers include Danielle Mitterrand, widow of late French President Francois Mitterrand; Dita Sari, the Indonesian student activist who was key in toppling President Suharto; Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman; and Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan political author.

Activist author Noam Chomsky begged off at the last minute to join protests in Davos instead.

---

Beijing in Battle With Sect: 'A Giant Fighting a Ghost'

January 26, 2001
New York Times
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/world/26CHIN.html?pagewanted=all

BEIJING, Jan. 25 - As he ambles down the street with a newspaper under his arm, the clean-shaven engineer, dressed in a neat down jacket and blue slacks, could be an advertisement for the new urban China. He has a Ph.D., speaks a bit of English, likes to surf the Net and has moved steadily up in his profession.

He could be, that is, except for one problem: He remains a committed - though mostly closeted - follower of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. And that represents a challenge to the Chinese government, whose vicious 18-month campaign has failed to eliminate the group, or even reliably identify its millions of quietly devoted followers who make it so resilient.

Brazen expressions of dissent are mounting; just Tuesday, five Falun Gong members set themselves ablaze in the middle of Tiananmen Square, and one died, a terrifying denouement to months of almost daily smaller acts of civil disobedience. By now the police are adept at snatching banners and whisking meditators into vans, instantaneously erasing all traces of trouble.

The silent majority in Falun Gong do not demonstrate. Yet they form an enormous reservoir of believers who may someday be driven to act. They provide one another with emotional and sometimes financial support - as they do those members who have been jailed or lost jobs.

"Those who go to the square are the tip of the iceberg or - as we say in Chinese - just one hair on nine oxen," said the engineer. "They are willing to confront whatever the government will do to them. Most of us are not."

All this makes Falun Gong a daunting enemy for China's ever-present security forces.

Falun Gong may prove to be "the most challenging organized opposition" the party has faced, said Lu Xiaobo, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York. "In this `political struggle,' I see an image of a giant fighting a ghost - you know it is there and haunting you, but you don't exactly know where to attack, or when it will attack you."

Falun Gong is threatening to China's leadership precisely because it includes a remarkable cross section of people - peasants and professors, rich and poor - devoted to an organization that is not the Chinese Communist Party. No matter that the group, which China's top leaders have labeled an evil cult, has no political goals and is only loosely organized here.

But some say the government attacks may backfire, because so far they have often served to radicalize people whose only goal 18 months ago was to improve their health through Falun Gong's quirky blend of exercise, meditation and mystical Eastern-leaning philosophy.

"The Chinese Communist Party has a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma," said Professor Lu. "Had there not been a crackdown, Falun Gong could have become a huge organized force that someday might be at odds with the government.

"But as the government tries to suppress the group, it has become a real opposition and more `political' than ever."

The government's China Anti-Cult Association estimates that there are still 50,000 to 80,000 followers in China. But adherents put the number in the tens of millions, most of whom now practice only in the privacy of their homes.

In Tiananmen Square, the bulk of the demonstrators appear to be peasants and middle-aged factory workers - people often attracted to Falun Gong by its purported health benefits. But many in Falun Gong are educated and well-connected professionals drawn to the groups' mystical cosmology. While unseen forces like "qi" are ridiculed in the West, many Chinese accept their existence.

"My belief is not blind faith but the result of careful and deep reflection," the engineer said. "Many people in lots of cultures believe that a higher being exists."

Falun Gong adamantly denies that it is "organized" in any official sense. But the piecemeal efforts of its millions of Chinese members have at the very least created a nationwide web of like-minded people that effectively undercuts the government ban.

The engineer, who is adept with computers, takes postings off the blocked Falun Gong Web site and passes them on to friends, even mailing them to people in his distant hometown. On Jan. 1 the Falun Gong leader, Li Hongzhi, who lives in exile in New York, announced on his Web site that followers needed no longer practice "forbearance" in the face of unreasonable attacks. That message by now has made its way to rural China, and is perhaps what provoked a recent spate of demonstrations.

Almost everyone seems to know a member of the group: a landlord, an office mate, the owner of a favorite dumpling stand. And while many regard Falun Gong as offbeat or strange, they do not approve of the persecution of friends.

"I'm not a follower, but I sympathize with them," said a magazine editor. "They're just people following their beliefs."

The government has called on people to denounce colleagues, published cult-bashing comic books and even trotted out reformed practitioners on television. Its heavy-handed campaign seems better suited to the isolated China of 1960 than to the relatively sophisticated country of today.

The Chinese now get news from the Internet, from Hong Kong television and from an increasingly diverse state press. They travel freely inside China and are in constant touch with friends in other parts of the country. Many are at least somewhat disillusioned with the Communists, most skeptical of propaganda.

The engineer said he became disillusioned with Communism after the June 4, 1989, army crackdown on pro- democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square, which left hundreds dead. He said the experience had led him to abandon the "materialist" world view promoted by the Communist Party and to seek a new ideal.

"Ten or 20 years ago, it's hard to imagine the movement could have persisted in China after 18 months of a government campaign," he said. "But people understand persecution. They can sympathize and identify with us, because of events like the Cultural Revolution and June 4th."

The government's calls for citizens' help in weeding out Falun Gong members have been answered with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The leaders of Qinghua University, China's equivalent of M.I.T., have been zealous in ferreting out on-campus followers, but at Beijing University, No. 1 in the country, officials have adopted more of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, one student said.

One teacher was removed from his job after he protested in Tiananmen Square, but continues to get housing and pay from his school.

Also, more and more Chinese now work for themselves and live in private housing, making their personal lives hard to monitor.

But when they are found out, members and their families can lose their jobs, or be detained. Of the 20 adherents the engineer knew best before the government's 1999 ban, about half have been detained at least once, and two are in labor camps, he said.

He was jailed for a few weeks last year, he said, after the police broke into a home where he and others were doing exercises. In the detention center, food was inadequate, and he was forced to sit still on a wooden plank for hours each day.

Falun Gong members have described many incidents of torture in captivity, and claim that more than 100 members have died in jail. The engineer said he was hit only once - the one time he tried to meditate.

Since his release, he said, the police have frequently visited and harassed him - several times a day on important holidays, when Falun Gong demonstrations are more numerous. But even the police have shown an uncertain resolve.

"At first, they wanted me to promise that I wouldn't practice," he said. "But in the end I just promised that I'd practice at home, and they were O.K. with that. They said, `That way we won't see it and Jiang Zemin won't know.' " Still, since "truth" is one of the cardinal principles of Falun Gong, he is somewhat ashamed of that arrangement.

The largely poor demonstrators who show up at Tiananmen Square have obviously been unwilling to live with compromise.

Peasants from small towns may be unable to hide their practice from zealous authorities. And the followers who have already lost their jobs or homes may have little left to hide.

---

Suu Kyi activists freed from jail

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=3oof91dqj9lge

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A top pro-democracy leader has been released after four months in detention, a family member said Thursday, in a sign of improved relations between the ruling military and opposition forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Also Thursday, 20 activists of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party were released from jail, said Lewin, a party central executive committee member who uses one name.

NLD vice chairman, Tin Oo was sent back to his home from a military camp Wednesday night, but was still barred from receiving visitors.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the releases and repeated his call on the government and opposition ``to seize the momentum and to strive to achieve national reconciliation in Myanmar,'' U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York.

The 74-year-old Tin Oo and eight other members of the party were detained early Sept. 22 along with Suu Kyi after they tried to leave Yangon by train to go to the countryside for party work.

Some 80 other activists who had accompanied Suu Kyi to the railway station were also detained and kept in jail. Twenty of them were freed Thursday, said Lewin. A few others had been released earlier but the rest remain in detention.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and seven other NLD leaders were confined to their homes. But the bans on all but Suu Kyi and party Chairman Aung Shwe were lifted Dec. 1.

Tension between the NLD and military have eased amid reports of secret talks between the two sides over the past four months to break the political impasse in this Southeast Asian nation.

An Associated Press reporter who tried to visit Tin Oo Thursday morning was told by a plainclothes security official watching the house that ``visitors are not allowed yet.''

A close relative of Tin Oo, one of the NLD's most outspoken figures, said the activist was well and had gained a few pounds during his detention. The family member spoke on condition of anonymity.

Suu Kyi is engaged in a decade-old political deadlock with Myanmar's military junta, which crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 then refused to honor the results of 1990 elections that were won by Suu Kyi's NLD.

A four-member European Union delegation was expected to meet Suu Kyi and the generals during a visit Monday and Tuesday to Myanmar to assess the progress of the reported talks.

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Myanmar opposition prisoners freed

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405969555

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - In another sign of improving relations between Myanmar's military government and the opposition, authorities released from prison 84 members of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, a senior party official said Friday.

The 84, including 38 women, included party members who were arrested in April, August and September last year. They were freed in small groups from Yangon's Insein prison on Thursday, the NLD official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The releases came as tensions are showing signs of easing between the opposition party and the ruling military, following secret talks between the two sides over the past four months aimed at breaking a decade-long political impasse in this Southeast Asian nation.

Suu Kyi, the party leader, remains under virtual house arrest.

``I will continue with my party activities,'' said one of the released prisoners and senior party member, Ma Khine, 32. ``That was my third time in prison and hopefully my last.''

Khine said most of the 84 were NLD youth members. Thirty-one were arrested in April when Suu Kyi was trying to organize the party's youth wing in Yangon. Two others were arrested in August, after Suu Kyi was engaged in a nine-day standoff with the government, blocked by authorities when she tried to travel outside the capital.

The other 51 were rounded up early on Sept. 22, when the NLD leader attempted to travel to the northern city of Mandalay by train. All the detainees from that incident have now been released.

The Myanmar government issued no immediate comment on the prison releases.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Prize laureate, and seven other NLD leaders were confined to their homes on Sept. 22, but the travel bans on all but Suu Kyi and party Chairman Aung Shwe were lifted on Dec. 1.

Party vice-chairman Tin Oo, 74, had been detained at a military camp but was released Wednesday night. He was still barred from receiving visitors Friday.

Myo Nyunt, 34, an NLD youth-wing member, said on Friday that he strongly believes his release was the result of the first talks between Suu Kyi and top generals in the regime in six years. He said he heard about them during his prison confinement.

``I am very happy that talks have begun. I am confident that the restriction on Daw Suu, U Aung Shwe and U Tin Oo will be lifted very soon, hopefully today,'' he said. Daw and U are honorifics.

Suu Kyi is engaged in a decade-old political deadlock with Myanmar's military junta, which crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

In 1990, the generals called a national election that was won by the NLD, but the military refused to honor the results and imposed severe restrictions on league members.

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World forum opens in Switzerland

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
Associated Press
By PAUL GEITNER
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=3oof91dqj9lge

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - Hoping to head off violence that marred last year's gathering, the World Economic Forum aimed to be more inclusive in 2001 _ inviting ``responsible voices'' from activist groups to join the global leaders and corporate chieftains as they ponder the world's future.

Yet as the forum opened Thursday in this ritzy Alpine ski resort, the focus at the first big session, ``Hard or Soft Landing? The Impact on the World Economy,'' was still clearly on the United States, Japan and Europe _ to the disapproval of some of the invited ``outsiders.''

``We are so rich and they are starving,'' said Satish Kumar, an expert in spiritual ecology, Indian philosophy and local economics from Schumacher College in Britain who is attending the gathering. ``That's why the world is watching this so intently.''

Authorities have banned any demonstrations _ peaceful or otherwise _ and thousands of police and soldiers manned roadblocks and checkpoints leading to the summit. Fifteen protesters were arrested after blocking a Swiss autobahn about 55 miles from Davos.

Anti-globalization crusaders issued Internet appeals Thursday to fellow travelers not to be discouraged. Activists plan a march through town on Saturday.

Last year's protesters broke a window at a McDonald's, vandalized several cars and burned an American flag.

Organizers aren't taking any chances. The convention center is ringed with barbed wire and guarded by police with submachine guns. Some nervous shopkeepers boarded up their windows, but streets were quiet Thursday.

The six-day forum is expected to draw some 3,200 participants _ including more than 30 heads of state or government, as well as other politicians, business leaders and members of U.N. agencies and non-governmental groups.

The U.S. State Department issued a warning to American citizens this year to consider staying away because of the danger of ``disorderly and violent'' demonstrations.

Senators Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, were delayed by weather, not demonstrators, but never considered staying away.

``It's become part of the cost of doing business in the world,'' Smith said of the threat of protests as he toured the center. ``We'll make allowances and take precautions as necessary, but it's our responsibility to our constituents to participate in these international events.''

Others dismissed the danger as exaggerated.

``You've got chocolate and you've got fondue, and if you have a problem with veal this isn't the place to be, but otherwise you're probably safer here than you are in Austin, Texas,'' said Donald Morris, editor of Time Atlantic.

Inside the conference center, delegates schmoozed in the corridors and fiddled with their complementary iPac Pocket PCs ahead of Thursday evening's official opening.

At the packed morning panel, economists played down the chances of a serious recession hitting the main Western economies this year, predicting growth would recover in the second half of the year.

During questions and answers, Kumar asked whether constant growth risked becoming ``cancerous'' to the environment. ``Why not say we have reached a good standard of living and now we can share it with the rest of the world?'' he asked.

Panelists sidestepped the question, causing some grumbling afterward.

``This panel was very selfish,'' Kumar said. Inviting dissidents like him is a ``good sign that they want to open up and listen. But it's a disappointing beginning.''

In his opening address, Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger called on participants to implement globalization in a responsible manner.

``Dialogue alone obligates us to nothing,'' he said. ``The proof of the will to handle our freedoms and possibilities responsibly doesn't show up here, but when we're back in our daily lives.''

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Philippines leader defends protests

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
Associated Press
By ADAM BROWN
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405965388

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The Philippines' new president on Thursday defended the street protests that swept her to power, denying they could undermine the nation's democracy.

In her first news conference since taking office Saturday, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said the protests _ dubbed ``people power II'' after the 1986 ``people power'' revolution that toppled late dictator Ferdinand Marcos _ had strengthened the country's democracy.

``In our constitution, people power has also been enshrined,'' said Macapagal-Arroyo, who was sworn in after Joseph Estrada fled the presidential palace amid massive street demonstrations demanding his resignation for corruption and the defection of key allies.

Some have said the change of power was no boost for democracy because it came in a way not set down by the constitution. Singapore elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew said as much Monday, but added that the Philippines can expect investment to flow back into the country.

``I think the bottom line is how the markets accepted it,'' Macapagal-Arroyo said Thursday. ``These are indicators of trust ... and that the strengthening of democracy is the prevailing position.''

Shares on the Philippine stock market rose by 2 percent Thursday, buoyed by expectations the new government will pursue reforms to keep the country on track to economic recovery, traders said. Shares prices have soared by 20 percent sent Estrada was toppled.

Macapagal-Arroyo also used the news conference to introduce members of the partial Cabinet she has formed. Conspicuously absent from the conference was Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado, who held a simultaneous media briefing to announce he was quitting his post over her appointment of Lisandro Abadia as national security adviser.

Mercado and military chief Gen. Angelo Reyes withdrew their support of Estrada last Friday, helping topple the former president. Mercado claimed Abadia was tainted by a military corruption scandal four years ago.

Macapagal-Arroyo said she had not decided whether to accept Mercado's resignation.

When asked about rumors of a possible coup by Marine Lt. Gen. Edgardo Espinosa, she said Espinosa was ``an old friend'' and had an aide call him on a cellular phone.

``Are you going to stage a coup against me?'' Macapagal-Arroyo asked.

She listened to his response before telling reporters that he said the reports were nothing more than imagination.

Espinosa leads at least three military groups that reportedly planned to defect from Estrada. There is speculation that Espinosa might not have liked Macapagal-Arroyo's decision to keep Reyes as head of the military.

Reyes said Thursday that he abandoned Estrada and backed protesters last week to pre-empt possible actions by military groups that could have sparked chaos and bloodshed.

After Estrada's impeachment trial stalled Jan. 16 and sparked massive street protests, Reyes said he received reports that certain military groups were preparing to ``act up'' and that communist guerrillas were reportedly heading to Manila.

``When you merge all of these and you have a very volatile situation, what will happen?'' Reyes told radio station DZRH.

Also on Thursday, Justice Secretary Hernando Perez discarded fears that Estrada would try to legally regain the presidency by arguing he did not sign a resignation and had only had stepped down temporarily.

``There is no basis for President Estrada to recover his office,'' Perez said. ``He was ousted from his office. He said his farewells. As far as the law is concerned, the former president is a former president.''

The impeachment trial allegations that Estrada took bribes and kickbacks was transformed into a criminal investigation Monday on six possible charges. Since then, Estrada has been barred from leaving the country and had at least one of his bank accounts frozen.

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China decries U.S. Falun Gong comments

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405965388

BEIJING (AP) - In its first quarrel with the Bush administration, China rebuked the United States on Thursday for condemning its crackdown on the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement and warned that such criticism could harm relations.

The testy comments came amid intense security in Beijing to thwart Falun Gong protests, and a few hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell told China's ambassador in Washington to respect civil liberties.

Commenting on Powell's meeting with the ambassador Wednesday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher condemned China's suppression of Falun Gong and called for the release of all sect followers jailed for the peaceful exercise of freedom of religion, belief and conscience.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Boucher's comments ignored the facts and called them ``totally unacceptable'' to China. He defended his government's actions against Falun Gong.

``China demands the U.S. government respect the stand of the Chinese government on the Falun Gong issue and stop interfering in China's internal affairs,'' the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Zhu as saying.

Zhu reiterated arguments Beijing has made since banning Falun Gong 18 months ago. He accused the group of deceiving people, endangering society and causing the deaths of 1,700 practitioners ``who went insane, committed suicide or refused medical treatment.''

Falun Gong argues otherwise. The group, which has millions of followers, claims its slow-motion exercises and New Age philosophy promote health, morality and supernatural powers. Practitioners have continued to wage a civil disobedience campaign against the ban.

On Thursday, Falun Gong followers staged the kind of sporadic, isolated protests that have become a daily occurrence in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Police officers tackled a man who ran across the square shouting praise of Falun Gong and pinned him on the paving stones with their knees. Police also seized a banner from a young woman and took her away.

The protests came despite the extra-tight security imposed in the square after five people doused in gasoline set themselves on fire Tuesday in an attempted suicide that left one of them dead.

The standoff between the government and Falun Gong has joined a host of irritants in U.S.-China relations, chiefly China's human rights record, military sales and attitude toward Taiwan.

Beijing has greeted Bush's election warily, fearing a more assertive approach to ties. Powell told Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing that Washington will be firm when differences arise, Boucher said.

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European autoworkers stage protest

1/26/2001
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition -
AP Business
By HANS GREIMEL
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405965388

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Thousands of European autoworkers staged protests against General Motors Corp. on Thursday to denounce the U.S. automaker's plans to cut as many as 5,000 jobs across the region in a restructuring.

An estimated 30,000 workers, or a third of GM's 90,000-person European workforce took part, though union leaders at GM subsidiary Adam Opel AG in Germany put the figure closer to 40,000.

The walkout took a 12 percent bite out of GM's daily European vehicle output, with only 7,450 of the usual 8,500 autos rolling off assembly lines.

Union officials said more than 15,000 workers rallied for about an hour outside four Opel factories, while 8,500 stayed away from work at four British plants operated by GM's Vauxhall Motors unit.

Labor leaders mustered the massive protests to denounce the closing of Vauxhall's Luton plant, where the world's biggest automaker intends to layoff 2,000 workers. While most of Thursday's walkouts lasted no more than an hour, union officials said the British strike would last 24 hours.

Opel workers' council leader Udo Loewenbrueck said he couldn't rule out additional protests in the next few days.

Several dozen GM workers staged a sympathy strike at company offices in Zaragoza, Spain. Another 6,000 protested outside a plant in Antwerp, Belgium, according to German labor union IG Metall.

``Any plant in Europe could itself be the next one affected,'' IG Metall spokesman Guenter Lorenz said, calling for workers across the continent to down tools in solidarity.

A full day's production _ or 650 autos _ was lost at Vauxhall's Luton plant, while another 400 autos were lost at the unit's Ellesmere factory, where employees worked only half shifts then went home, Vauxhall spokesman David Crundwell said.

Neither Crundwell or General Motors spokesman Ulrich Weber could say how much the production setback would cost the company.

GM vowed to push ahead with the closure plan, issuing a statement that said ``the intent to end car production in Luton remains firm.''

The surprise job cuts, announced last month, are aimed at paring down excess production capacity in Europe. Aside from the 2,000 jobs lost at Vauxhall's factory in Luton just north of London, GM also will eliminate 3,000 jobs elsewhere in Europe, including about 1,700 at Opel.

Those additional cuts are to come by reducing salaried management and administrative staff by 10 percent across the board. GM expects to eliminate the jobs within the next 17 months.

Vauxhall acknowledged that the decision to stop building passenger cars at Luton stemmed in part from the strength of the British pound. That has made it more difficult for Vauxhall to compete in continental Europe against cars priced in euros, the currency used by 12 of the 15 European Union nations. Britain, an EU member, has declined to join the common currency.

GM is the latest carmaker to restructure or curtail operations in Britain.

Ford Motor Co. plans to stop building cars altogether at its plant in Dagenham, East London. Toyota Motor Corp. is trying to minimize its currency risk by telling some British suppliers to do their accounting in euros instead of pounds, and Honda Motor Co. is to start building sports utility vehicles for export to the United States, where the dollar has been more stable against the pound.

Germany's BMW also blamed the strength of the pound when it gave up on its losing investment in the Rover group and sold the car business to a British consortium in May.

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STRIKE HITS CITIES

January 26, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/world/26BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

FRANCE: Tens of thousands of French workers and retirees paralyzed transportation services in several major cities, protesting plans to change the way their pension funds are run. In a rare gesture of solidarity, France's combative public-sector trade unions joined private-sector employees in taking to the streets. The protesters are angry at the country's largest employers' group, which wants to increase the amount employees pay into their retirement funds. Suzanne Daley (NYT)

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ACTIVISTS FREED

January 26, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/world/26BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

ASIA

MYANMAR: Twenty activists of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy league were released from jail, a member of the group said, hours after one of the party's top leaders, Tin Oo, was freed after four months' detention. The releases were another sign of improved relations between the rulers and the league. (AP)

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