------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Civilian Was at Control Station of Crash Submarine
Rescued Japanese Students Return to Japan
Reaching Out to Japan
Fight to Survive Sinking of Fishing Vessel
Navy chief urged fleet safety check
Sunken Japanese boat still missing
Sub collision survivors return home
Coalition Partner Said Urging Japan PM to Resign
Bush Vows to Work with NATO on Missile Defense
Germans Urge Dialogue on Missile Defense
Germans Urge U.S., Russia Talks
In Speech, Bush Charts New Course for Military
China Attacks U.S. Missile Plans
Bush Highlights Need to Modernize Military
Bush Urges New Weapons Systems
MEETING WITH POWELL
Missile-Defense Flaw
Space Rangers
Bush wants more mobile, higher-tech military
German says Moscow amenable to missile defense
Is This Shield Necessary?
Russians to study Kursk's torpedoes
Deal reached on nuclear plant deal in Taiwan
Asia Assets Rangebound Ahead of Greenspan
Top EU Officials Head for Scandal - Riven Ukraine
Russia Offers a Motherly Embrace for Ukraine Industry
Navy sending search vessel to site of sub-boat collision
Bush takes troop pledge to front line
Ugo Fano
Privatized company reaps what it sows
Bush seeks to modernize military
Ivanov, Powell to meet this month

MILITARY
Thai-Myanmar border closes
Colombia, U.S. Look at Andean Drug Plan
Colombian officer convicted in human rights case
Bush to meet Colombian president in two weeks
U.S.-trained troops on destroy missions against drugs
Colombian general convicted
States
Militants attack army patrols in Kashmir
Iraqis Mourn Gulf War Victims
Atlantis, space station astronauts enjoy new view
U.N. Now Sees Fewer Troops in Congo Patrol
Whose rights, whose humanity?
U.S. to close Taliban N.Y. office
UN needs fewer observers in Congo
Two U.S. Army Helicopters May Have Collided
Bush Seeks $5.7 Billion Increase for Military
A Longtime Friend of Powell Is Tapped to Be Deputy
Six Dead After 2 Army Helicopters Crash in Hawaii
Top Marine Clears Osprey's Design in Crash
Marines clear Osprey design in crash
Army helicopters crash in Hawaii, killing six
Dollars and bullets
Defense spending debated
Bush promises pay raise to troops
Army helicopters crash; 6 dead

OTHER
Market and Government Are Sapping Murmansk
Human Intrusion Bodes Ill for Galápagos Creatures
Filibuster Vowed if Bush Seeks Arctic Oil Drilling
PLAN TO CUT EMISSIONS
EU proposes measures to stem mad cow crisis
French farmers demand mad cow aid
Norton making case for oil drilling
Climate change talks set to resume
EU proposes new mad cow measures
States
EU officials approve mad-cow spending plan
Surveys to Gauge Public's Perception of Police
Home Loans to Peace Officers and Firefighters
California
NSA listens to bin Laden
Bin Laden Aide Tells of Proposed Riyadh Attack
Terror Exports Are the Business of Jihad Inc

ACTIVISTS
Nobel Peace Prize Nominations
POWER PLANT PROTEST
Vegetarian Wardrobe
Seattle Drops Charges Related to Trade Protest
China Begins to Turn Light on Wide Use of Torture
Vietnam struggling to quell highlands unrest
Accounts of torture in China on the rise
CSIS predicts anarchists will bring violence
Greenpeace Challenges Bush's Missile Defense System
Reporters knew of suicides
ACLU sues over Olympic protests

-
-------- NUCLEAR

Civilian Was at Control Station of Crash Submarine

Tuesday February 13
Yahoo News
By Charles Aldinger
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010213/ts/submarine_leadall_dc_8.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A civilian, one of 15 invited aboard the USS Greeneville for a brief training cruise last week, was at one of the three control stations of the submarine as it shot to the surface and struck a Japanese fishing vessel, a Pentagon (news - web sites) official said on Tuesday.

But the official, who asked not to be identified, said the civilian was under careful supervision at the time and that the move was not highly unusual and apparently had no influence on the collision.

Separately, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to identify the 15 civilians from Hawaii who had been aboard the submarine, saying they had requested that their identities not be released.

Meanwhile, a Navy underwater robot vehicle arrived in Hawaii on Tuesday to examine the possibility of raising the Japanese ship that sunk after it was hit by the U.S. submarine in a major international incident, the Pentagon said.

The U.S. ``Super Scorpio'', a cumbersome 4,500-pound device controlled from a surface ship and capable of diving 5,000 feet, arrived to look for the Japanese fishing ship Ehime Maru, Quigley said.

Nine people are missing from the Ehime Maru, which sank in about 1,800 feet of water nine miles off Diamond Head, Hawaii, after a collision on Friday with the attack submarine.

``We don't know,'' Quigley told reporters when asked whether the Navy would eventually be able to raise the ship at Japan's request. ``It would depend on the condition of the vessel itself ... we don't know the extent of damage to the hull.''

Although hope had dimmed for any survivors, Quigley stressed that a search by U.S. rescue aircraft, helicopters and ships was still under way for the missing Japanese.

Bush Apologies For Accident

President George W. Bush (news - web sites) said he apologized to the Japanese for the accident in a telephone call to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori (news - web sites).

``I apologized on behalf of our nation for the accident that took place and the lives that are missing,'' Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One while returning from a visit to Norfolk Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia.

``He asked me to do everything I could, which we are doing, to locate the missing folks,'' he added. ``I think we need to do what we need to do to get the bodies out of there, if they're there.''

The Super Scorpio submergence unit, flown from San Diego, carries a sonar and video cameras capable of examining underwater objects.

Quigley said a Klein side-looking sonar device was also being sent to Hawaii and a ``deep drone,'' another remotely-operated vehicle designed to aid deep ocean recovery efforts, was standing by at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, ready to be flown to the scene.

The deep drone can descend to a depth of 7,200 feet.

Quigley on Tuesday repeated denials by U.S. defense officials that the Greeneville had simply ignored the rescue operation after the Japanese ship was struck and quickly sank. He said the sub broadcast appeals for help but did not want to add danger for the passengers of the ship by getting too close.

``Lousy'' Rescue Platform

``A submarine is a lousy platform to recover people from the water or bring rafts alongside,'' the spokesman said, noting that the round hull of the submarine is slick and that seas were running four to six feet.

``The rafts or individuals (from the Japanese vessel) could have been slammed up on the hull and injured, or even killed,'' Quigley added.

Anguished relatives of the missing have pleaded for two days to have the wreck raised so they would know if their loved ones had been trapped inside. The request -- also being pushed strongly by the Japanese government -- was forwarded to top U.S. government officials.

The accident occurred when the Greeneville shot out of the depths directly underneath the 499-tonJapanese ship being used as a fisheries training school.

The Greeneville was staging an emergency training drill in which it made a sudden drop to a depth of 400 feet and then a rapid push to the surface, when the accident took place. It had used passive sonar and scanned the surface twice with a periscope, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (news - web sites).

At the Pentagon, Quigley told reporters that passive sonar was the best search device for the Greeneville to use under the circumstances because the active sonar on the ship was designed to find ice floes in the Arctic.

---

Rescued Japanese Students Return to Japan

February 13, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-japan-s.html

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nine Japanese students who survived after a U.S. nuclear submarine sank their training trawler off Hawaii returned home Tuesday while schoolmates prayed for four others presumed entombed in the vessel on the seabed.

The high school students, among 26 people rescued after the disaster, arrived at Osaka airport en route to anxious families and their homes in the southwestern city of Matsuyama.

The students, many visibly tired or tense, kept their heads down as officials led them through a mob of reporters in the airport lobby.

``I feel fine,'' one told Japanese television.

The USS Greeneville had surfaced suddenly off the coast of Hawaii, sinking the trawler Ehime Maru run by a Japanese high school and probably entombing nine of its 35 crew at the bottom of the sea.

Mindful of possible public backlash at home, the Japanese government said it was preparing to send a sophisticated unmanned deep-sea research vessel and minesweepers to the scene of the disaster.

Earlier in the day, tearful students and teachers at their small fisheries high school gathered to pray for those still missing amid diminishing hopes for their safety.

``Let us pray that the missing students and teachers will be safely rescued,'' Vice-Principal Kazumitsu Joko told some 140 students gathered at Uwajima Fisheries High School in southwestern Japan.

As he read out the names of the missing, some students started sobbing, an official at the high school said.

``I trust that all of them are safe and waiting for help,'' Joko said.

The school canceled all classes scheduled for the day, the official said.

Thirteen students from the high school were aboard the trawler when the USS Greeneville surfaced, struck it and sank it at 6:45 p.m. EST Friday.

Four of the students, all 17 years old, two teachers and three crew members were still unaccounted for. Nine students who were rescued shortly after the incident were expected to return home later Tuesday.

JAPAN READY TO HELP

Earlier Tuesday, Japan urged the United States to use whatever technology is available to salvage the sunken trawler, saying that the nine missing may have been trapped inside.

``We want the United States to make utmost efforts to salvage the trawler by using technologies available today,'' Bummei Ibuki, state minister in charge of crisis management, told parliament.

``There is a possibility that the nine people were trapped in the ship.''

He added that Tokyo may offer technological support to raise the trawler from the 600-yard seas.

Japan was also prepared to send the unmanned deep-sea probe ''Kaiyo'' to the scene.

Kaiyo is equipped with a remote vehicle ``Hyper Dolphin'' which has a maximum diving depth of 3,000 yards and could monitor the trawler's condition with an underwater camera, Science Minister Nobutaka Machimura said.

Japan's Defense Agency said it was ready to dispatch minesweepers to Hawaii to locate the sunken ship, although it would wait for a request from Washington before doing so.

President George W. Bush Saturday sent his ``regrets and condolences'' to Tokyo and Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono to convey his own and Bush's apology.

---

Reaching Out to Japan

February 13, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/opinion/13TUE1.html

The sinking of a Japanese fishing vessel by an American Navy submarine off Hawaii last Friday has prompted apologies from Washington, a promise to investigate and a moment of silent prayer yesterday from President Bush. These actions reflected appropriate sensitivity by the new administration as it moves to renew ties with Japan at a difficult time. Indeed, the submarine episode could force the administration to make some quick decisions on how to handle an apparently growing uneasiness over the presence of American troops in Japan, most of them on Okinawa. The administration also needs to decide how to address Japan's suddenly worsening economic problems.

Three days after the submarine accident, many questions remain. The first is how the 360-foot submarine could have failed to detect the presence of the 190-foot trawler, the Ehime Maru, before proceeding with an extremely rapid emergency surfacing drill. Twenty-six Japanese were rescued, but nine, including four high school students on a field trip learning to fish, are still missing. In Japan, commentators are also openly asking why the submarine did not rescue those thrown into the sea after the accident but instead waited for the Coast Guard to pull them from the water. American officials say the waves were too high for such a rescue operation, but the Japanese captain seems to be disputing that view.

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has also drawn criticism for his handling of the episode after he was reported to have asked journalists why they were interrupting him during a golf game to ask about the disaster. As President Vladimir Putin discovered last August when a Russian submarine sank in the Barents Sea, a nation's citizens can be very unforgiving if officials do not treat such incidents seriously from the start. In addition, a wave of populism is sweeping through Japan right now, and some analysts say that political parties questioning the security relationship with America could gain in the parliamentary election this summer.

Mr. Bush would do well to listen to Japanese concerns about the submarine episode and the larger security issues. Many Japanese are also uneasy over whether the new administration will embark on a missile defense program that could anger their neighbors Russia and China, or take a more confrontational approach to North Korea than was adopted by President Clinton.

Mr. Bush's choice of a new ambassador to Japan will be among his most important diplomatic appointments. Since the days of Mike Mansfield, Japan has come to expect a senior American political figure to represent American interests in Tokyo. The current ambassador, former House speaker Thomas Foley, fits that pattern, which Mr. Bush will surely want to continue when he makes his own choice.

The most urgent problem facing Japan is economic. Once again the country appears to be slipping back into a recession after more than a decade of little or no growth. Its troubles will make it all the harder for the United States to avoid an economic downturn. Recently Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill spoke disapprovingly of Washington's traditional practice of pressing the Tokyo government to change its economic or industrial policies. He said he would prefer working directly with Japanese business executives. That approach sounds unrealistic. The United States cannot afford a hands-off attitude toward the need for Japan to reform its banking system, deregulate its sclerotic industrial structure and stimulate its economy.

Right now, however, the most immediate priority is to do everything possible to investigate the submarine tragedy and make amends for those who may have lost their lives.

---

Safety Board Tells of Fight to Survive Sinking of Fishing Vessel Hit by Submarine

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/national/13HAWA.html?pagewanted=all

HONOLULU, Feb. 12 - In their first interviews with American government officials, the captain and some of the students from a Japanese fishing vessel that was sunk near here on Friday by a United States Navy submarine said that they had heard two loud noises and found themselves ankle deep in rapidly rising oil and water and that within five minutes their ship had slipped beneath the choppy seas.

Twenty-six of the ship's crew were pulled from the sea, and 9 are missing, four of them students.

John A. Hammerschmidt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a press briefing here this evening that the surviving members of the Japanese training vessel, the 190-foot Ehime Maru, said the ship had been traveling 11 knots, its normal cruising speed. The students said they had seen nothing when, without warning, when they felt the collision with the submarine Greeneville.

The students recalled having only the tiniest amount of time to grab life vests - some did not even have time to do that - and scampering from the mess hall where they were cleaning up 20 minutes after lunch. The lights on the ship went out after the second noise, they said, and they raced to the deck with water and oil already lapping at their ankles.

The Greeneville had been performing a surfacing drill when, from about 400 feet down, it rocketed to the surface, crashing into the Ehime Maru.

Mr. Hammerschmidt said the students reported that very quickly the stern began to sink and the bow of the ship began to rise. One student said it reminded him of the movie "Titanic," Mr. Hammerschmidt said. Some of the students leapt into the water and some reported being swept in by the sea, in which there were three- to four-foot waves.

One student clung so tenaciously to the rapidly sinking ship that he climbed up the mast as it slid rapidly under the waves. Mr. Hammerschmidt said some of the students were sucked under but bobbed back to the surface.

Mr. Hammerschmidt added that the captain reported seeing the submarine surface after the collision and that it initially steamed away from his sinking ship before turning around.

The submarine eventually came within three or four yards of one of the life rafts that bobbed to the surface after the Ehime Maru sank. Mr. Hammerschmidt said some of the students reported that sailors from the submarine emerged from its top hatch and that they shouted back and forth but could understand nothing because of the language barrier.

There had been reports that the captain of the Ehime Maru was critical of the submarine crew for not taking any of the survivors on board or trying to help find others. Nine people from the Ehime Maru are still missing.

Mr. Hammerschmidt said that in the captain's interview with American officials today he volunteered that he now understood why the submarine had not been able to pick up survivors. Mr. Hammerschmidt said the captain did not explain.

There have been reports that the seas were too rough for the submarine to help, but the Navy has not officially confirmed this.

The survivors were eventually picked up by the Coast Guard. The Navy announced tonight that it was bringing in sophisticated underwater search equipment to Honolulu to search for the sunken vessel, which is believed to be lying on the bottom roughly 1,800 feet down.

At an appearance at a military base in Georgia, President Bush called for a moment of silence for the missing, while Bush administration officials, trying to address Japanese anger, said they had seen no indication that the incident involved any breakdown in safety procedures.

In Washington today, Navy officials said the submarine had been following standard procedures and did not use highly accurate active sonar devices that might have better detected that the vessel was near.

Instead, before performing the emergency drill the Greeneville relied on passive sonar, which is designed to pick up the sounds of approaching vessels, and on follow-up scans from a periscope.

The Navy officials defended the Greeneville's basic approach and said it should have been more than adequate to allow the submarine's crew to detect the trawler. They said they could not yet explain the sequence that led to the sinking, leaving nine Japanese missing after more than three days.

As investigators in Hawaii try to piece together what happened, some have focused on decisions about sonar use as a possible factor.

safety board officials on the scene in Hawaii said that for more than 10 years the Navy had rejected a recommendation by the board that submarines employ active sonar when operating in American coastal waters as a precaution against just such accidents. The exception would be in cases that threaten national security.

As a general rule, submarines avoid using active sonar, which can reveal their positions to enemy forces, and Navy officials in Washington defended that position, saying that passive sonar was in most cases the better tool.

"Commanders have the flexibility to use any and all systems to determine the conditions at the time," said Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman. "But we believe passive sonar provides the best method for determining whether ships are operating in the area."

The safety board's recommendation followed its investigation of an incident involving the Houston, a submarine similar to the Greeneville. The Houston snagged the towline of a tugboat on June 14, 1989, dragging it beneath the surface and killing one sailor 10 miles southeast of Long Beach, Calif.

At a news conference in Hawaii on Sunday night, Mr. Hammerschmidt emphasized that investigators were not drawing direct comparisons between the two incidents. But safety board officials said that in both cases the submarines were using the less- accurate passive sonar systems rather than active sonar, which sends a ping-like sound through the water and bounces off other vessels to provide a more accurate analysis of their locations.

Mr. Hammerschmidt said on Sunday that the incident involving the Greeneville was prompting the safety board to review the earlier incident.

The fact that four of the nine missing are 17-year-old Japanese fisheries students has compounded public outrage in Japan and led to protests from the Japanese government.

At the State Department today, a spokesman, Richard Boucher, said that strong ties with Japan would not be damaged by the accident. "One week has not changed a trend of history," Mr. Boucher said.

In Hawaii on Sunday, at the news conference that provided some of the first details about the sequence leading up to the incident, Mr. Hammerschmidt said that as part of its precautions before conducting the surfacing maneuver, the Greeneville had moved to a periscope depth of about 60 feet and conducted two scans of the surrounding water. The vessel then descended to 400 feet to begin the maneuver.

But Mr. Hammerschmidt and Navy officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said they did not know or were not ready to say how much time might have elapsed between that final visual scan and the surfacing. That factor is likely to be a crucial part of the investigation, because submarine commanders try to keep the duration as short as possible - within 10 to 15 minutes, often less - in order to reduce the prospect that previously unseen vessels might move into danger.

The Greeneville's skipper, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Waddle, was relieved of his post pending the results of the investigations.

Another factor that has not yet been fully explained has to do with the periscope search itself. Under normal circumstances, Navy officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said today, submarine crew members would conduct three 360- degree scans through each of two optical devices - the first, a high- intensity device with a narrow field of view, and the second, of lower- intensity but a wider field of view.

--------

Navy chief urged fleet safety check

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=1722_3657099_108107_775_149539_0&YY=65985&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=6&box=Inbox

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. Navy submarine's sinking of a Japanese fishing boat came five months after the Navy's top officer raised concerns about an increase in at-sea accidents. Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, ordered a one-day "safety standdown" on Sept. 15, requiring all vessels in the fleet - including submarines - to review navigation procedures. The standdown, the first since 1989, was in response to a spate of accidents, including an incident Sept. 12 in which the USS La Moure County, a Newport-class ship used to transport and land tanks, struck a reef in the waters off Chile while conducting a tank-landing operation. No one was injured.

The Navy said then that there had been six major ship collisions over the previous 12 months. The Navy chief was concerned about lapses in seamanship and navigation, officials said.

Navy officials at the Pentagon on Monday referred questions about the possible causes of last Friday's accident 20 miles southeast of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to officials at U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii.

The USS Greeneville, an attack submarine, struck an 180-foot Japanese fishing vessel while conducting a rapid-ascent drill. Twenty-six people from the fishing boat were rescued; nine are still missing.

The incident has plunged the Navy into another sensitive investigation, just weeks after it completed an accountability review of what happened aboard the USS Cole before it was attacked by terrorists while refueling in Aden, Yemen, last October. Seventeen sailors were killed in the attack. The Navy decided to take no disciplinary action against the Cole's commander.

In the case of the Greeneville, the commander has been reassigned pending the outcome of investigations.

---

Sunken Japanese boat still missing

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=1722_3657099_108107_775_149539_0&YY=65985&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=6&box=Inbox

HONOLULU (AP) - The Navy will use a deep-sea robot to investigate the ocean floor where a Japanese fishing vessel sank after it was struck by a U.S. submarine, a Navy spokeswoman said Monday. Lt. Col. Christy Samuels, spokeswoman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, said no decision about a salvage operation had been made. She did not say when the remote-controlled submersible would be dropped.

The possibility of a salvage operation - which has been urged by the Japanese - was the subject of a meeting planned Monday between Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, and Yoshitaka Sakurada, Japan's parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs. The Ehime Maru went down in 1,800 feet of water nine miles from Honolulu on Friday after it was hit by the surfacing USS Greeneville.

Twenty-six people were rescued, but nine are missing and feared dead. The Navy and Coast Guard have searched more than 5,000 square miles with no signs of the missing, who include four Japanese students, two instructors and three crewman. The Ehime Maru is 180 feet long and 499 tons.

Bringing it nearly one-third of a mile to the surface would be costly and risky, experts said.

---

Sub collision survivors return home

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

UWAJIMA, Japan (AP) - Appearing sad and tired, nine teen-agers who survived a fatal collision between their fishing vessel and a surfacing U.S. submarine off the coast of Hawaii returned home to Japan on Tuesday. The students from Uwajima Fisheries High School had been on a two-month training cruise when their 190-foot vessel was rammed by the nuclear-powered sub as it practiced a surfacing maneuver Friday.

Twenty-six people were rescued within an hour of the accident, which happened about 20 miles southeast of Pearl Harbor. After they were brought to safety, some survivors vomited diesel fuel they swallowed while adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

The students had an exhausting trip home, starting with a flight from Honolulu to Osaka, then a flight to Matsuyama - where they were met by their parents - then a two-hour bus ride to Uwajima.

In Honolulu, the chief U.S. investigator said Tuesday there is no indication whether or not the USS Greeneville's crew followed correct procedures in surfacing.

-------- japan

Coalition Partner Said Urging Japan PM to Resign

February 13, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-japan-d.html

TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's grip on power was in question on Wednesday amid attacks by both ruling and opposition lawmakers for his response to the sinking of a Japanese ship carrying high school students by a U.S. submarine.

In a sign of the mounting pressure on the unpopular premier, a top official of the number two party in the ruling camp said Mori should resign, Kyodo news agency reported.

``I think it would be best if he resigned,'' Kyodo quoted an unidentified senior executive from the New Komeito party as saying.

Domestic media and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been bashing Mori relentlessly for carrying on with a golf game on Saturday after hearing that the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville had crashed into and sunk the training trawler for high school students off Hawaii. Nine people are still missing and believed entombed in the sunken ship.

Lawmakers in the three-way ruling camp are nervous about the threat of a thrashing in an election for parliament's Upper House set for July, and now analysts are betting that the latest burst of media criticism and TV footage of outraged citizens could well be the final straw for the unloved Mori.

The burly former rugby player's popularity was already at rock bottom due to his reputation for verbal gaffes and a string of scandals that have claimed the scalps of three cabinet ministers since he took office last April.

The yen got some support from the news that the coalition partner was calling for Mori to resign, and Tokyo share prices recouped early losses on chances he would soon be ousted.

IDES OF MARCH

One favorite scenario has Mori losing his job in March after the national budget for the fiscal year from April 1 is adopted by parliament's powerful Lower House.

``I think it will probably happen,'' said Steven Reed, a professor of modern government at Chuo University in Tokyo. ``In the past, the LDP (Mori's Liberal Democratic Party) could get away with a lot but the Komeito in particular can't put up with this.''

Mori, who is expected to face a grilling from opposition leaders in parliamentary ``Question Time'' later in the day -- has defended his decision to remain on the golf course.

``I decided at that point that in order to issue instructions, it was better for me to stay put,'' domestic media quoted Mori as telling reporters at his official residence on Tuesday.

``I feel I took leadership firmly.''

A spokesman for Mori said on Wednesday that the prime minister was sticking to his stance, and declined to comment on the reported call by the New Komeito official for Mori to resign.

``There is no way to confirm the comment, or in what context it was made, so I am not in a position to make any comment,'' spokesman Kazuhiko Koshikawa told Reuters.

Mori's defense, however, appears to have done little to soothe fears in the ruling camp that letting Mori lead into the Upper House election would be a recipe for disaster.

``Voters are saying, 'Would he have been so relaxed if it had been his own children whose lives were in danger','' conservative newspaper Sankei Shimbun quoted a member of the Conservative Party, the LDP's tiniest ruling partner, as saying.

On Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda joined the chorus of criticism, telling a regular news conference he personally thought Mori should not have been playing golf at all during an important session of parliament.

SUCCESSOR WOES

Finding a viable successor for Mori should the LDP decide to ditch him -- possibly around the time of a party convention set for March 13 -- remains a major headache for the ruling camp.

``Everybody wants Mori out but I can't quite see who would take his place,'' a European diplomat in Tokyo said. ``What they're looking for is somebody strong, but they don't have anybody.''

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, once seen as a front-runner for the job, has had his image tainted by a scandal involving allegations that a senior diplomat embezzled millions of dollars in public money to fund a high-flying lifestyle.

And former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, another possibility, suffered a blow after Fukushiro Nukaga, a rising star in his LDP faction, had to resign as economics minister over links to a firm at the center of a bribery scandal.

That leaves Junichiro Koizumi, the eccentric head of Mori's own LDP faction in the multi-faction LDP and known as a proponent of economic reforms, as the most likely candidate for now.

-------- missile defense

Bush Vows to Work with NATO on Missile Defense

Tuesday February 13
Yahoo News
By Patricia Wilson
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010213/ts/bush_leadall_dc_264.html

NORFOLK NAVAL AIR STATION, Va. (Reuters) - After watching a display of simulated missiles stream toward the United States, President George W. Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday vowed to work with NATO (news - web sites) to confront the threat of nuclear weapons.

At the headquarters of the Allied Command Atlantic, Bush stood before three large video screens displaying high-tech war-games conducted jointly by the United States and its NATO allies directed from the command ship, the USS Mount Whitney, 50 miles off the Virginia coast.

Then, at an outdoor rotunda ringed by the flags of 19 NATO nations, he sent a strong signal that he was committed to working in unity with the allies on defense, whether against missiles or extremist attack, and on peacekeeping.

``I'm here today with a message for America's allies. We will cooperate in the work of peace, we will consult early and candidly with our NATO allies, and we'll expect them to return the same.

``NATO is the reason history records no World War Three, by preserving the stability of Europe and the transatlantic community. NATO has kept the peace and the work goes on,'' he told a gathering of Navy personnel and their families.

Diplomats from NATO states based in Washington also traveled to Norfolk to attend.

Bush's speech appeared designed partly to relieve allied uneasiness over his reluctance to use U.S. military forces for peacekeeping or ``nation-building'' and his determination to build a robust National Missile Defense (news - web sites) despite opposition from Russia and China as well as objections from Europe.

Different Challenges

``Our challenges have changed ...but the purpose of NATO remains permanent,'' he said. ``As we have seen in the Balkans, together, united, we can deter the designs of aggression and spare the continent from the effects of ethnic hatreds,''

Later, Bush said the United States needed to be ``very judicious'' about committing its troops.

``Redesigning the strategic vision of the military is going to take some time,'' he told reporters on board Air Force One. ''But we must do it. There are going to be some tough choices to make, but that's why you get elected.

In his address, Bush said NATO collaboration was essential to build a system to protect against missiles and to ward of attacks by ``terrorists''.

``With advanced technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile,'' he said. ``With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats that come in a shipping container or in a suitcase.''

``In diplomacy, in technology, in missile defense, in fighting wars and, above all, in preventing wars, we (in NATO) must work as one,'' the president said.

Stressing the need for the same unity with which the United States and its European allies faced the Cold War and which he saw on display in the simulated war game, Bush cautioned against ``pursuing separate plans with separate technologies.''

``The defenses we build must protect us all,'' he said. During the presidential campaign, Bush proposed sharing missile defense technology with NATO and other allies such as Israel.

He also appeared to be reflecting U.S. concerns over plans for a European Rapid Reaction force which Washington fears could develop separately from NATO and undermine the alliance.

``New Strategic Vision''

The United States currently has more than 7,000 nuclear warheads, but Bush has ordered a review that could lead to unilateral cuts perhaps to as few as 2,000.

Officials have said such cuts might make missile defense more palatable to Moscow, which has proposed mutual reductions to as low as 1,500 nuclear warheads on each side.

However, senior U.S. military officers have in the past strongly objected to massive cuts so long as Russia retains thousands of long-range and tactical nuclear missiles despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Bush vowed to develop ``a new strategic vision'' that would ''challenge the status quo.'' He also said he would redirect $2.6 billion from the $310 billion defense budget for next year to research and development ``to redefine war on our terms.''

``We are witnessing a revolution in the technology of war. Power is increasingly defined not by size, but by mobility and swiftness,'' he said.

Bush's visit to Norfolk Naval Air Station was the second of three trips to bases this week to promote his plans to revamp the military and redefine the U.S. defense posture.

Having accused former President Clinton (news - web sites) of neglecting the armed forces, Bush has ordered a ``top-to-bottom'' review of the military, including its strategy, missions, modernization priorities and nuclear weapons arsenal.

Bush, who plans modest increases in U.S. military spending until his review is complete, got a hero's welcome from troops at Fort Stewart on Monday when he proposed spending $5.7 billion on pay raises, improved housing and medical benefits.

---

Germans Urge Dialogue on Missile Defense Between U.S. and Russia

February 13, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/13WIRE-GERM.html

MOSCOW - Germany's foreign minister on Tuesday urged Russia and the United States to settle their differences over U.S. plans to build a national missile defense system.

Moscow has vehemently opposed the U.S. plan for the missile defense. The system would go against the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the Kremlin describes as a cornerstone of world stability.

But while German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has predicted that Russia will eventually reconcile itself to the missile defense system, he urged the United States not to antagonize Moscow by pushing ahead with the project without consultations.

``It is our substantial interest that two major nuclear powers discuss all the issues related to possible NMD implementation ... in a climate of cooperation, not confrontation,'' Fischer told Associated Press Television News

Washington has tried to assure Moscow that the missile shield would not be able to guard against Russia's huge nuclear arsenal, being designed only to protect against possible smaller-scale attacks by so-called rogue nations. Russia has rejected the argument.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is trying to arrange a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to discuss Moscow's concerns, the State Department said Monday.

Fischer met Tuesday with Sergei Ivanov, the secretary of President Vladimir Putin's powerful security council. He was to be received by President Vladimir Putin later Tuesday.

Ivanov said he and Fischer had focused on questions of European security. Fischer tried to allay Russian concerns that NATO's eastward expansion could pose a threat to Moscow, while Ivanov encouraged development of alternative security institutions to NATO, which Moscow considers U.S.-dominated.

``There are three main forces on the continent now: NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Union. If we find a true balance of interaction in this triangle, European security will be considerably strengthened,'' Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Russian-German relations have flourished over the past year, due in part to Putin's friendship with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and to Putin's fluent German, which he perfected during his years as a KGB agent in East Germany.

Schroeder will visit St. Petersburg for a meeting with Putin on April 11, Fischer said Tuesday.

---

Germans Urge U.S., Russia Talks

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Germany.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- Germany's foreign minister on Tuesday urged Russia and the United States to settle their differences over U.S. plans to build a national missile defense system.

Moscow has vehemently opposed the U.S. plan for the missile defense. The system would go against the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the Kremlin describes as a cornerstone of world stability.

But while German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has predicted that Russia will eventually reconcile itself to the missile defense system, he urged the United States not to antagonize Moscow by pushing ahead with the project without consultations.

``It is our substantial interest that two major nuclear powers discuss all the issues related to possible NMD implementation ... in a climate of cooperation, not confrontation,'' Fischer told Associated Press Television News

Washington has tried to assure Moscow that the missile shield would not be able to guard against Russia's huge nuclear arsenal, being designed only to protect against possible smaller-scale attacks by so-called rogue nations. Russia has rejected the argument.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is trying to arrange a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to discuss Moscow's concerns, the State Department said Monday.

Fischer met Tuesday with Sergei Ivanov, the secretary of President Vladimir Putin's powerful security council. He was to be received by President Vladimir Putin later Tuesday.

Ivanov said he and Fischer had focused on questions of European security. Fischer tried to allay Russian concerns that NATO's eastward expansion could pose a threat to Moscow, while Ivanov encouraged development of alternative security institutions to NATO, which Moscow considers U.S.-dominated.

``There are three main forces on the continent now: NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Union. If we find a true balance of interaction in this triangle, European security will be considerably strengthened,'' Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Russian-German relations have flourished over the past year, due in part to Putin's friendship with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and to Putin's fluent German, which he perfected during his years as a KGB agent in East Germany.

Schroeder will visit St. Petersburg for a meeting with Putin on April 11, Fischer said Tuesday.

---

In Speech, Bush Charts New Course for Military

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/politics/14BUSH.html?printpage=yes

NORFOLK, Va., Feb. 13 - President Bush said today that he planned to break with Pentagon orthodoxy and create "a new architecture for the defense of America and our allies," investing in new technologies and weapons systems rather than making "marginal improvements" for systems in which America's arms industry has invested billions of dollars.

In the second of his speeches on national security this week, Mr. Bush appeared to take sides in a long- brewing debate in the defense establishment over whether to invest in entirely new technologies and weapons systems, even if that means neglecting older and outdated systems for years until the next generation of arms is available. His strategy is also bound to set off a scramble within American industry - especially among a new group of software companies and others who have not traditionally served as defense contractors - for tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in new Pentagon contracts.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Bush can execute the kind of sweeping changes he suggested today; many presidents, including Mr. Bush's father, ran up against the Pentagon bureaucracy, entrenched members of Congress and local interests that make it all but impossible to kill a weapons system that is already in production. (When he served as defense secretary, Vice President Dick Cheney tried and failed to kill the accident-prone V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey.)

"We do not know yet the exact shape of our future military," Mr. Bush said, "but we know the direction we must begin to travel. On land, our heavy forces will be lighter. Our light forces will be more lethal. All will be easier to deploy and to sustain. In the air, we'll be able to strike across the world with pinpoint accuracy, using both aircraft and unmanned systems."

Over the course of his administration, today's speech is likely to become the measure of Mr. Bush's success in altering not only the Pentagon, but its strategy and its structure.

But the president also stressed today that he was unwilling to spend much on his new plans until Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who sat beside him during his speech to Navy personnel here, completes a comprehensive review of American strategy and the structure of military forces.

Mr. Bush offered no specifics today, apart from saying he had given Mr. Rumsfeld "a broad mandate to challenge the status quo." The president said he would provide only $2.6 billion in next year's budget in additional funds for research and development. That represents an increase of only about 6 percent over existing levels - an increase that Republicans in Congress have said is far too low.

Mr. Bush himself acknowledged that his proposal was hardly the kind of money needed to rethink an entire arsenal, but said, "Before we make our full investment, we must know our exact priorities."

"We will modernize some existing weapons and equipment, a task we have neglected for too long," Mr. Bush said here at the headquarters of NATO's Atlantic command. "But we will do this judiciously and selectively. Our goal is to move beyond marginal improvements to harness new technologies that will support a new strategy."

Though Mr. Bush never used the phrase today, the movement he endorsed is known within the defense establishment as the "revolution in military affairs." It takes many forms, but focuses on the development of new weapons, often designed to attack not only enemy states, but small groups of terrorists who, like Osama bin Laden, can pose a major threat to the United States and its allies.

Most of the new weapons involve the use of sensing satellites that are linked to long-range, pilotless missiles or drones, and highly sophisticated reconnaissance systems. While the proposals and technologies vary, the aim is to obliterate targets from afar, and with little risk to American military personnel.

Reacting to intense criticism from Europe about his plans to deploy a national missile defense system, Mr. Bush also offered reassurances today without backtracking from his determination to build the system.

"We will cooperate in the work of peace," he said. "We will consult early and candidly with our NATO allies. We will expect them to return the same. In diplomacy, in technology, in missile defense, in fighting wars and, above all, in preventing wars, we must work as one."

At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Bush added, "God bless NATO."

But Mr. Bush's speech today is not likely to calm the fears of allies. In Europe, Mr. Bush is an unknown entity: he has visited only once as an adult (Italy, where his daughter was studying), knows none of the NATO leaders personally (though Prime Minister Tony Blair comes for a visit later this month), and his campaign declarations about pulling American troops out of the Balkans set off a diplomatic uproar, forcing Mr. Bush to say he would do nothing precipitate.

Many of the ambassadors of NATO nations came here today to hear Mr. Bush's speech, but what they heard did not venture far from the markers Mr. Bush laid out in his campaign.

Indeed, some of his words were drawn directly from a campaign speech he gave at The Citadel, the military academy in South Carolina. The difference is that today the ideas moved from campaign positions to the official stamp of policy directives from the commander in chief.

At moments in today's speech, Mr. Bush echoed a theme that President Bill Clinton often returned to in talking about new threats to the United States: the fear of a biological or nuclear attack, perhaps delivered in a small container to an American city, by terrorists rather than a hostile state.

"With advanced technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile," he said. "With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats that come in a shipping container or in a suitcase."

Yet, nothing in the national missile defense plan that Mr. Bush made a centerpiece of his campaign addresses weapons that might enter American territory that way. Nor did Mr. Bush suggest new approaches to those threats today, other than working closely with allies.

"We did not prevail together in the cold war only to go our separate ways, pursuing separate plans with separate technologies," he said.

The burden of translating Mr. Bush's lofty goal of technological revolution will fall to Mr. Rumsfeld, who also served as defense secretary a quarter century ago - when the microprocessor was new technology and when the Pentagon was considered a developer of new technology, rather than a consumer of advanced technology that originated in commercial products.

In the next few days, Mr. Rumsfeld is expected to receive three directives from the White House to carry out the vision described by Mr. Bush today, ordering thorough reviews of troop deployments, American military strategy 11 years after the end of the cold war, and the time frame in which new technologies can be converted into new weapons.

Indeed, the challenge to the Bush administration, many of whose top national security officials were veterans of the cold war, is to demonstrate that they are able and eager to embrace a very different defense structure to deal with a very different age.

But there are technological and political hurdles to Mr. Bush's plans, as well as opposition from many within the armed services that, for example, are heavily vested in piloted fighters and heavy bombers and resist calls to move to drone vehicles. And much of the new weaponry Mr. Bush envisions remains experimental; in some cases, it has yet to be designed.

"There are very few technologies ready to be mass-produced and deployed that could transform the force today," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively on the Pentagon's budget.

Moreover, to make it all affordable, something must give - and there Mr. Rumsfeld will run into an entrenched bureaucracy, well-paid lobbyists, corporate behemoths that are terrified about losing lucrative contracts, and members of Congress who can imagine no worse form of torture than voting to kill a weapons system made in their district or state.

Some defense analysts have argued that many of the new weapons programs now being developed - from the Army's new mobile artillery system to the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet, from the Navy's DD-21 destroyer to the Joint Strike Fighter - represent relatively marginal advances from previous generations of weapons. But each has a corporate and political constituency, and each will be difficult to stop.

---

China Attacks U.S. Missile Plans

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-US-Missile-Defense.html

BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese state newspaper on Tuesday fired a new attack against U.S. plans to build a missile defense system, warning that it would set off an arms race in space.

The China Daily suggested attempts to build such a system are linked to what it said was a computer simulation Jan. 22 by the American military of a battle between satellites in which China was the presumed enemy.

``The consequence will be a dangerous arms race in space,'' the newspaper quoted Yao Yunzhu, an analyst at the Chinese army's Academy of Military Science, as saying.

The comments echoed previous Chinese protests that plans outlined by the new Bush administration for a system to knock out incoming ballistic missiles would upset arms-control efforts.

President Bush has said the system would be aimed at stemming the threat of nuclear attack by such ``rogue nations'' as North Korea. Critics note that it isn't clear whether such a system could be built, because Washington still faces numerous technical obstacles despite having spent billions of dollars on research.

China fears U.S. anti-missile technology could undermine the effectiveness of its nuclear arsenal. Some in the United States have proposed extending its protection to Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province and has threatened to capture by force.

Other countries would be forced to compete, leading to the ``militarization of space,'' the newspaper said.

The criticism coincides with efforts by Washington to placate Russia, which has joined China in condemning the project as a threat to arms control.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that he expected Russia to relent and eventually accept the system. That would leave China diplomatically isolated on the issue.

---

Bush Highlights Need to Modernize Military

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush.html

NORFOLK, Va. -- President Bush marveled Tuesday at a high-tech simulation of NATO's military might as he asked America's allies to "work as one" with him on the development of a missile defense system and "new architecture" for U.S. defenses.

"To succeed, America knows we must work with our allies. We did not prevail together in the Cold War only to go our separate ways pursuing separate plans with separate technologies," Bush told an outdoor assembly of Navy and Defense Department personnel.

"In diplomacy and technology, in missile defense, in fighting wars and above all, in preventing wars, we must work as one."

The president, on the second of three tours of military units this week, visited the Joint Forces Command. There, by three-dimensional video link, he watched as Vice Adm. Michael Mullen, who was some 50 miles offshore on the USS Mount Whitney, coordinated an allied U.S.-NATO response to a simulated missile attack.

"Pretty exciting technology, and it's only going to get better," Bush commented.

Moments earlier, he and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met briefly and privately with representatives from 19 NATO countries, most of them deeply wary that any U.S. missile defense could touch off an arms race.

Russia and China view the proposed system -- a sort of anti-missile "umbrella," which proponents say could shield the nation from a limited missile attack -- as a serious threat to their own security.

Bush said Tuesday that the old Cold War threats have "devolved into many separate threats -- some of them hard to see and harder to answer." He cited in particular chemical and biological weapons that terrorists might use against civilians.

"With advanced technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile. With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats that come in a shipping container or in a suitcase," the president said.

He envisioned a "new architecture for the defense of America and our allies."

"On land, our heavy forces will be lighter. Our light forces will be more lethal. All will be easier to deploy and to sustain. In the air, we'll be able to strike across the world with pinpoint accuracy using both aircraft and unmanned systems. On the oceans, we'll connect information and weapons in new ways ... . In space, we'll protect our network of satellites."

All of this, Bush said, will require new spending. He has proposed a $14 billion increase over current defense spending -- the same increase that the Clinton administration had projected for the coming fiscal year.

Accompanying Bush to Norfolk were 10 members of Congress, including Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Joint Forces Command is responsible for training 1.2 million American service personnel in all military branches.

The Norfolk trip -- a 35-minute flight aboard Air Force One -- was the second of Bush's three consecutive daily visits to military installations, preceding his trip Friday to Mexico. After devoting his first three weeks in office to domestic concerns such as education, Medicare and taxes, the president is stepping into his role as a world leader. As he does so, the jockeying over the military budget is growing more intense.

Bush has proposed a $310 billion Pentagon budget for 2002. On Monday he said he would set aside $5.7 billion for pay increases, improved health benefits and upgraded housing.

Rumsfeld believes significant increases in military spending are necessary, but is overseeing a review of the Pentagon before Bush makes a decision.

That pause has surprised some Republicans.

At the same time, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., argued Bush's proposed tax cut would make it impossible to meet the nation's defense needs.

Lieberman, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Bush in a letter to "reconsider a tax cut that may result in a military less capable of overcoming the new and dangerous threats they may face in the coming years."

---

Bush, in Break With Pentagon, Urges New Weapons Systems

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/politics/13CND-BUSH.html

NORFOLK, Va., Feb. 13 - President Bush said today that he planned to break with Pentagon orthodoxy and create "a new architecture for defense of our people," investing in new technologies and weapons systems, rather than make what he called "marginal improvements" in systems in which America's arms industry has already invested billions of dollars.

In his second speech on national security this week, Mr. Bush appeared to take sides in a long-brewing debate in the military establishment over whether to take the risk of investing in entirely new technologies and weapons systems, even if that meant neglecting older and outdated systems for years until the next generation of arms is available.

His strategy is also bound to set off a scramble within American industry - especially among a new group of software companies and others that have not usually served as military contractors - for tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in new Pentagon contracts.

But Mr. Bush emphasized today that he was unwilling to spend much on his new plans until Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who sat beside him during his speech to Navy personnel here, completes a comprehensive review of American strategy and force structures.

Mr. Bush offered no specifics today, apart from saying he had given Mr. Rumsfeld "a broad mandate to challenge the status quo," and he said he would provide just $2.6 billion in additional money for research and development in next year's budget. That represents an increase of only about 6 percent over existing levels. He acknowledged that was hardly the kind of money needed to rethink an entire arsenal, but said "before we make our full investment, we must know our exact priorities."

"We will modernize some existing weapons and equipment, a task we have neglected for too long," Mr. Bush said here at the headquarters of NATO's Atlantic command. "But we will do this judiciously and selectively. Our goal is to move beyond marginal improvements to harness new technologies that will support a new strategy."

Reacting to intense criticism from Europe about his plans to deploy a national missile defense system, Mr. Bush also offered reassurances today without backtracking from his determination to build the system.

"We will cooperate in the work of peace," he said. "We will consult early and candidly with our NATO allies. We will expect them to return the same. In diplomacy, in technology, in missile defense, in fighting wars and above all in preventing wars, we must work as one."

At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Bush added: "God bless NATO," words rarely if ever before heard from the leader of a party whose right wing has often been deeply suspicious of any overseas commitments.

But Mr. Bush's speech today is not likely to calm their fears. In Europe, Mr. Bush is an unknown entity. He has visited only once (to Italy, where his daughter was studying) and knows none of the NATO leaders (although Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain is scheduled to visit Mr. Bush later this month). Moreover, Mr. Bush's campaign declarations about pulling American troops out of the Balkans set off a diplomatic uproar.

Many of the ambassadors of NATO nations came here today to hear Mr. Bush's speech, part of a week of daily events focusing on national security and foreign policy. But Mr. Bush has not ventured far from the script he laid out in his campaign. Indeed, some of his words today were drawn directly out of a presidential campaign speech he gave at the Citadel, the state military college in South Carolina, but today they assumed the official stamp of policy directives from the commander in chief.

"We do not know yet the exact share of our future military," Mr. Bush said, "but we know the direction we must begin to travel. On land, our heavy forces will be lighter, our light forces will be more lethal. All will be easier to deploy and to sustain. In the air, we will be able to strike across the world with pinpoint accuracy, using both aircraft and unmanned systems."

At moments in today's speech, Mr. Bush echoed a theme that Bill Clinton often returned to as president: the fear of a biological or nuclear attack that is slipped into an American city, perhaps by terrorists rather than a hostile state.

"With advance technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile," Mr. Bush said. "With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats the come in a shipping container or in a suitcase."

Yet nothing in the national missile defense plan that Mr. Bush made a centerpiece of his campaign addresses weapons that might enter American territory that way. Nor did Mr. Bush suggest new approaches to those threats today, other than working with allies.

"We did not prevail together in the Cold War only to go our separate ways, pursuing separate plans with separate technologies," he said.

---

MEETING WITH POWELL

February 13, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/world/13BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

RUSSIA: Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Secretary of State Colin M. Powell plan to hold their first face-to-face meeting during Mr. Powell's visit to the Mideast and Belgium late this month, the Kremlin confirmed. No agenda has been released, but the talks may center on the Bush administration's planned national missile defense system, which Russia opposes. General Powell's Feb. 23-27 trip includes stops in Kuwait, to mark the 10th anniversary of the end of the Persian Gulf war, and in Brussels for meetings with European Union officials. Michael Wines (NYT)

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Missile-Defense Flaw

February 13, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/opinion/L13MIS.html

To the Editor:

Re "Bush in First Step to Shrink Arsenal of U.S. Warheads" (front page, Feb. 9):

President Bush's plans for a national missile defense system will prevent him from making real improvements to our security.

The most serious missile threat to the United States is an unauthorized, accidental or mistaken launching of Russian nuclear weapons. Like the United States, Russia keeps its nuclear forces on hair-trigger alert so it can launch them on warning of an incoming first strike. A false warning from Russia's deteriorating early warning system or a breakdown in its unsteady command and control system could result in a devastating attack on the United States - one much too large for a national missile defense system to cope with.

Our security depends on Russia's removal of its forces from high alert, but Russia will keep its vulnerable land-based missiles on high alert in the face of a missile defense system.

LISBETH GRONLUND Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 9, 2001 The writer is senior staff scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists.

---

Space Rangers

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/opinion/13FRIE.html

It's only a month into the Bush administration and I'm already tired of listening to its foreign policy. Because it seems to be focused on only one idea, which, so far, doesn't work - building a "Star Wars" missile shield - against an enemy that, so far, doesn't exist.

While a day doesn't go by without the Bush team's reiterating its plan to build this sci-fi missile shield, the C.I.A. director, George Tenet, has been highlighting some of the more immediate threats to America - to which we have no policy responses.

Mr. Tenet laid out his views most succinctly in Senate testimony last week, entitled "Worldwide Threats to National Security," and they could be summarized as follows. We are increasingly threatened today by a combustible combination of two new forces: the failure of many nations to master modernity - particularly in the Middle East - which is producing a lot of unemployed and angry young people in those countries, combined with the spread of new information technologies, which are super-empowering these angry people in ways that not only threaten the stability of the states they live in but also enable them, as individuals, to threaten America. they don't need a missile to hit us; they can fire a nuclear mortar from a rowboat off Manhattan.

"As I reflect on the threats to American national security," the C.I.A. director told the Senate, "what strikes me most forcefully is the accelerating pace of change in so many arenas that affect our national security . . . new communications technology that enables the efforts of terrorists and narco-traffickers as surely as it aids law enforcement and intelligence, rapid global population growth that will create new strains in parts of the world least able to cope, the weakening internal bonds in a number of states whose cohesion can no longer be taken for granted, [and] the accelerating growth in missile capabilities in so many parts of the world."

Maybe the best way to understand this new threat environment is to first go see the movie "Thirteen Days," about the Cuban missile crisis, and then reflect on last year's "Love Bug" computer virus, which, after it was unleashed on the world by two Filipino techies, melted down roughly 10 million computers and $10 billion in data on 7 continents in 24 hours. The Cuban missile crisis was to the cold- war system what the "Love Bug" virus is to today's globalization system - it was the event that illustrated our most dangerous vulnerability. The Cuban missile crisis illustrated the dangers of a world divided between two nuclear-armed superpowers - both of which were in charge. And the Love Bug virus illustrated the dangers of a world connected - in which no one is in charge. The cold- war era was a two-player game with rational actors. The Love Bug era is a multi-player game with many angry, non-rational actors.

A missile shield, if it can work, may be necessary to protect us in this new world, but it's hardly sufficient. The only way to even begin to manage this new world is by focusing on precisely the area of foreign policy that the Bush team has the most contempt for: nation-building - helping others restructure their economies and put in place decent, non-corrupt government.

Listen to Mr. Tenet on the Arab world: While everyone is focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, "Population pressures, growing public access to information and the limited prospects for economic development will have a profound impact on the future of the Middle East. In many places in the Arab world, average citizens are becoming increasingly restive and getting louder. Through access to the Internet and other communication, a restive public is increasingly capable of taking action without any identifiable leadership or organizational structure."

Our ability to promote nation- building is limited and should be approached with great humility. But that doesn't mean we have nothing to offer or can't galvanize others. We will be affected by failed states with super-empowered angry people a lot sooner than we're going to face a rogue missile from North Korea. Mr. Bush is speaking about foreign policy this week. This is a good time for him to demonstrate that while he has his father's foreign policy advisers, he doesn't have his father's foreign policy, because he certainly doesn't have his father's world.

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Bush wants more mobile, higher-tech military

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-13-military.htm

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - President Bush pledged Tuesday to modernize the military to face "the dangers of a new era," even if it means scaling back some older systems beloved by the Pentagon and members of Congress.

He called for a new generation of lighter, more mobile and more sophisticated military devices that would harness new technologies.

"Our goal is to move beyond marginal improvements" in older weaponry, Bush said after visiting a joint U.S.-NATO command post on the nation's Eastern Seaboard and viewing an electronic naval battle simulation.

To those who might criticize his plans, Bush suggested they wait until Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finishes a top-to-bottom review of the military.

He did not suggest which weapons systems he might delay or seek to cancel to make room for new technology.

But later, aboard Air Force One, Bush told reporters, "We must do it. We've got some tough choices to make, but that's why you get elected."

Bush also promoted his proposal for a multibillion-dollar national missile defense shield that would protect not only the United States but allies from limited ballistic missile attack.

"The defenses we build must protect us all," he told an audience that included emissaries from 18 NATO partners.

European allies have been skeptical about such a system, which is strongly opposed by Russia and China.

"We must prepare our nations against the dangers of a new era," Bush said.

The visit was the second installment on Bush's three-day tour of U.S. military installations.

The president expressed anguish over the loss of life, both in an Army helicopter mishap Monday night on the Hawaiian island Oahu and of Japanese passengers on a fishing boat that was struck by a U.S. submarine just south of the island.

Bush led a silent prayer for the six killed and 11 injured in the crash of two Army Black Hawk helicopters. "Just this morning, we were reminded of the risks of your duty and the sacrifices that you make," Bush said.

Later, he said, "The soldiers are my direct responsibility as commander in chief. I take the responsibility incredibly seriously."

"We need to be very judicious and careful about committing our troops," Bush said in his Air Force One remarks.

Through his campaign, and now as president, Bush has talked about committing defense dollars to fast-forwarding research and skipping to a new generation of weaponry and defensive systems.

"On land, our heavy forces will be lighter. Our light forces will be more lethal," he said. "All will be easier to deploy and to sustain. In the air, we'll be able to strike across the world with pinpoint accuracy using both aircraft and unmanned systems. On the oceans, we'll connect information and weapons in new ways. ... In space, we'll protect our network of satellites."

Some in Congress and in defense industries have seen such remarks as a signal that Bush wants to cut back on large weapons systems designed to meet Cold War challenges, such as the Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force F-22 fighter or the Army Crusader artillery system.

While saying he did not know which changes he will support, Bush told his Norfolk audience, "You can count on me to lead these changes in the spirit of respect and gratitude for the military and its traditions."

"The best way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms," Bush added.

Accompanying Bush were Rumsfeld; Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff; and 10 members of Congress on committees dealing with the military.

Bush has proposed a $14 billion increase over current defense spending, the same increase the Clinton administration had projected for the coming fiscal year.

On Tuesday, he pledged an increase of at least $2.6 billion for research and development.

The president visited Norfolk's Joint Forces Command, where he spoke by a video link with Vice Adm. Michael Mullen, stationed about 50 miles offshore on the USS Mount Whitney.

He watched Mullen coordinate a simulated U.S.-NATO response to an enemy missile attack.

"Pretty exciting technology, and it's only going to get better," Bush said.

---

German says Moscow amenable to missile defense

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Anna Dolgov
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200121322210.htm

MOSCOW - Despite Moscow's sharp rhetoric, Russia will eventually reconcile itself to U.S. intentions to build a national missile defense system, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer predicted yesterday.

Russia has steadfastly maintained that the U.S. project is a threat to international stability because it violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which prohibits anti-missile systems that defend an entire nation. Germany also opposes the U.S. proposal.

"In the end, the Russians are going to accept it," Mr. Fischer, in Moscow for a two-day visit, told reporters. He added that Washington would have a harder time with China, which could decide to build up its arsenal in response to missile defense plans.

Washington has long tried to assure Moscow that the missile shield could not guard against Russia's huge nuclear arsenal but was designed only to protect against possible smaller-scale attacks by so-called rogue nations. Russia has rejected the argument.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said yesterday the United States should hold talks with Russia on widening the ABM treaty before going forward with a national missile defense system.

Germany also has shown support to Russia on another sensitive defense issue - NATO's eastward expansion. Moscow is worried that the Western alliance is getting too close to Russia's borders, and Berlin has cautioned against expanding NATO too quickly.

Yet Mr. Fischer noted a "very positive development" in Russian-NATO relations in recent weeks, adding that Moscow may be more amenable than it sounds.

"The [Russian] comments are sometimes a bit harsh, but it all depends on the climate," Mr. Fischer said. "The climate is good; there's a difference between statements and climate."

Mr. Fischer also said he did not see Germany as a mediator between Russia and the United States on security issues, and said the countries were capable of negotiating directly. "Germany does not have the role of go-between for Washington and Moscow," he said.

Mr. Fischer met yesterday afternoon with Gennady Seleznyov, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, and with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

He was expected to express concern over Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran. Last week in Berlin, he issued a warning to Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi against any attempt to use Russian technology to build nuclear weapons.

Russia has signed a deal to build a nuclear reactor at Iran's Bushehr power plant, drawing strong U.S. objections over fears that the technology could be used to develop nuclear arms. Moscow and Tehran maintain the plant can be used only for civilian purposes.

Mr. Fischer did not comment on the Iran deal after the meeting with Mr. Ivanov.

Today, Mr. Fischer was scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin, who perfected his German serving as a KGB agent in East Germany. Mr. Putin's friendship with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has given a boost to Russian-German ties over the past year.

------

Is This Shield Necessary?

Tuesday, February 13, 2001
Washington Post
By Samuel R. Berger
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61869-2001Feb12?language=printer

In the first weeks of the Bush administration, national missile defense has risen to the top of the national security agenda. Having wrestled with this issue over the last years of the Clinton administration, I believe it would be a mistake to proceed pell-mell with missile defense deployment as though all legitimate questions about the system had been answered. They have not.

While the United States maintains strength unmatched in the world, the vulnerability of the American people to attack here at home by weapons of mass destruction is greater than ever. Dealing with our vulnerability to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons requires an ambitious, robust, comprehensive strategy.

But 20 years and tens of billions of dollars later, national missile defense is still a question-ridden response to the least likely of the threats posed by these weapons: a long-range ballistic missile launched by an outlaw nation.

President Clinton last year decided to continue research and development of national missile defense, but deferred a decision on deployment. In part, this was based on a judgment that we do not yet know whether it will work reliably. The Bush administration should reject arbitrary deadlines and, as part of Secretary Rumsfeld's laudable defense review, take a fresh look at the overall threat we face.

Without question we need to broaden America's defenses against weapons of mass destruction. But plunging ahead with missile defense deployment before critical questions are answered is looking through the telescope from the wrong end: from the perspective of bureaucratically driven technology rather than that of the greatest vulnerabilities of the American people.

President Reagan's global shield (SDI) has evolved into a more limited system aimed at defeating long-range missiles launched not by a major nuclear rival but by an irrational leader of a hostile nation, particularly North Korea, Iraq or Iran. Its premise is that an aggressive tyrant such as Saddam Hussein is less likely to be deterred than were the leaders of the Soviet Union by the prospect that an attack on us or our friends would provoke devastating retaliation.

It is further suggested that lack of a defense could intimidate U.S. leadership: We might have hesitated to liberate Kuwait if we knew Saddam could have delivered a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon to the United States with a long-range ballistic missile.

But why do we believe Saddam or his malevolent counterparts would be less susceptible to deterrence than Stalin or his successors? Indeed, dictators such as Saddam tend to stay in power so long because of their obsession with self-protection. And is it likely we would not use every means at our disposal to respond to a vital threat to our economic lifeline, even if it meant preemptively taking out any long-range missiles the other side might have?

The fact is that a far greater threat to the American people is the delivery of weapons of mass destruction by means far less sophisticated than an ICBM: a ship, plane or suitcase. The tragedies of the USS Cole and sarin gas in the Tokyo subway show that lethal power does not need to ride on a long-range missile.

We know that we increasingly are the target of a widespread network of anti-American terrorists. We know they are seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction. If deterrence arguably doesn't work against hostile nations, it is even less so for fanatical terrorists with no clear home address.

The real issue is what is the most cost-effective way to spend an additional 100 billion or more defense dollars to protect this country from the greatest WMD threats. In that broader context, is national missile defense our first priority?

Is it wiser to continue research and development and explore alternative technologies while we invest in substantially intensifying the broad-scale, long-term effort against terrorist enemies? (Such an effort would include increased intelligence resources, heightened border security, even training of local police and public health officials to recognize a deadly biological agent.)

The ultimate question is whether Americans will be more secure with or without a national missile defense. The answer is not self-evident. We can't build the system that is farthest along in development -- a land-based one -- without cooperation from our allies.

Their misgivings derive in significant part from the prospect of abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia; that could unravel the global arms control and nonproliferation system.

It has been suggested that we could address Europeans' concerns by including them in our missile defense system or helping them build their own. But such an amalgamation would be more capable against Russia and thus more likely to stiffen its resistance to change in the ABM; it could also increase the chance Russia would respond in ways that would reduce strategic stability -- for example by retaining multiple-warhead ICBMs it has agreed to eliminate.

Of course no other country can ever have a veto over decisions we must take to protect our national security. But in making that judgment, we must understand that the basic logic of the ABM has not been repealed -- that if either side has a defensive system the other believes can neutralize its offensive capabilities, mutual deterrence is undermined and the world is a less safe place.

Then there is China. It is suggested that we can work this out with China by at least implicitly giving it a "green light" to build up its ICBM arsenal to levels that would not be threatened by our national missile defense.

This strategy fails to take into account the dynamic it could unleash in Asia: Would China's missile buildup stimulate advocates of nuclear weapons in Japan? How would India view this "separate peace" between the United States and China? What effect would that have on Pakistan and the Koreas?

Will we be more secure as Americans with a missile defense system or less secure? It is not a question that answers itself. But it is a question that requires answers.

The writer was President Clinton's national security adviser.

-------- russia

Russians to study Kursk's torpedoes

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-13-kursk.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Submarine.html

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian researchers are studying the type of torpedoes carried by the Kursk nuclear submarine to determine what caused the blast that killed 118 sailors and sank the ship last year, a top government official said Tuesday.

The announcement suggested that the government is seriously investigating whether the Aug. 12 accident was caused by an internal torpedo malfunction. The government has previously focused on the theory that the Kursk was hit by a foreign ship, and played down statements by international experts that the most likely cause was a torpedo breakdown.

Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that scientists are conducting experiments with Kursk-type torpedoes and studying fragments of Kursk torpedoes retrieved after the explosion.

"For us it is absolutely clear that a torpedo took part in the catastrophe from the very beginning. Either an outside influence on a torpedo led to the catastrophe, or some kind of processes developed inside a torpedo," Klebanov said. "A torpedo directly or indirectly became the cause of the catastrophe."

Russian officials have offered no evidence of a collision.

Two blasts rocked the Kursk, the second much larger than the first. U.S.-based researchers published a report last month saying analysis of seismic waves suggested that two onboard explosions had destroyed the Kursk. The first was consistent with a misfiring torpedo, and the second was likely caused by fire from the first blast setting off other torpedoes or propellant fuel, they said.

Klebanov also said that the government was finalizing plans for its ambitious venture to raise the Kursk, which is expected to start in April and cost $70 million. He said the Dutch company Mamut had joined the coalition planning the salvage effort, which includes Dallas-based Halliburton, Russian submarine builder CDB and the Dutch company Heerema Marine Contractors.

-------- taiwan

Deal reached on nuclear plant deal in Taiwan

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-13-nuclear.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Taiwan-Nuclear.html

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - The government struck a deal with the powerful opposition Tuesday to restart construction on Taiwan's fourth nuclear plant, ending a three-month feud that took a severe toll on the stock market and public confidence.

The agreement came after new President Chen Shui-bian caved in to lawmakers' demands and retreated from his campaign promise to spike the partially built nuclear project, approved by the previous government.

Announcing that the opposition would accept the government's proposal with minor changes, the Legislature's president, Wang Jin-pyng, said, "We have demonstrated our utmost goodwill. We did this so that the economy can quickly recover, and people can feel at ease."

The protracted dispute has been more about the limits of power than the merits of nuclear energy. When the government canceled the $5.4-billion project last October, the opposition-controlled legislature was furious that lawmakers were not asked to endorse the move.

Legislators said they approved the plant's budget and should have had a say about its future. But the government argued it had the power to cancel a plant that would be unsafe on earthquake-prone Taiwan.

The political squabbling was a major factor in the stock market's 44% plunge last year, and a steep drop in approval ratings for the president and opposition.

The island's highest court eventually ordered the two sides to negotiate a settlement.

In the latest round of negotiations, the government repeated its willingness to restart construction on the nuclear plant. The government also backed away from a key demand that lawmakers elected later this year be able to vote on future budgets for the nuclear project. This would have given lawmakers the power to cancel the plant.

Chen's Democratic Progressive Party has long been opposed to the fourth nuclear plant. The DPP has accused the former Nationalist Party government of railroading the project through the legislature.

Several party leaders said Tuesday that the DPP will continue to oppose the plant.

---

Asia Assets Rangebound Ahead of Greenspan

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-markets-asia.html

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian asset prices were broadly rangebound on Tuesday as investors awaited U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's prognosis on the world's biggest economy in testimony to the Senate later in the day.

Regional currencies perked up in late trade on hopes Greenspan's appearance -- due at 1500 GMT -- would reassure markets that while the U.S. economy has slowed it has not stalled and the Fed would take necessary steps to keep it moving.

Tokyo stocks fell as optimism sparked by last week's interest rate cut in Japan faded and traders returned their focus to a looming supply glut ahead of the fiscal year-end in March.

The dollar failed to take advantage of the fall on the Nikkei 225 and was quoted at 117.26/36, in late trade, having hit a low of 117.08 yen earlier in the day.

CHINA MARKETS MIXED ON CRACKDOWN

China stocks closed mixed with most investors sidelined after days of selling sparked by an official probe on price rigging.

The Shanghai B share index edged up 0.34 percent on thin turnover of $11.91 million versus Monday's $14.54 million.

Domestic A shares, off-limits to foreign investors, closed a shade higher in slow trade on selective retail buying, but brokers said cautious sentiment still prevailed.

China's stocks tumbled about seven percent in four straight sessions last week as the government widened its probe into price manipulation. The markets are Asia's worst performing so far this year -- the only equities indices in negative territory.

But investors and analysts say the short term volatility caused by the corruption probe is needed to underpin China's broad economic reform plans and long term viability of the country's financial markets.

``Clearly a crackdown on corruption, providing it's sustained, will be very helpful and quite clearly the creation of efficient markets in which people in China -- as well as foreign investors -- have confidence is an important and fundamental part of (economic) reform,'' Paul Coughlin, a managing director at ratings agency Standard & Poor's in Hong Kong, told Reuters Television.

``From a ratings perspective it's just another installment of the same process that's been in train for several years. Obviously there's a broad need in China for institutions to become more transparent, for them to become more efficient and less corrupt. That applies in the equity markets as much as generally in the management of the state enterprise sector,'' Coughlin said.

Standard & Poor's last week affirmed its BBB long-term and A3 short-term foreign currency sovereign credit ratings on China. It said the outlook on both ratings was stable.

NUCLEAR PLANT POWERS TAIWAN STOCKS Taiwan stocks closed more than three percent higher in active trade on Tuesday, driven by hopes for an end to a three-month political stand-off over the fate of a partly completed nuclear power plant, analysts said.

Taiwan's anti-nuclear government bowed to key opposition demands late on Monday, raising hopes for an end to the bitter impasse over the $5.5 billion nuclear power plant.

Despite gains on Tuesday, fund managers warned selling pressure would be heavy if the index rose to 6,100 points as short-term investors would cash in on recent gains.

On the technical charts, Taiwan's 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) was off overbought territory, standing at 68.083.

The benchmark TAIEX is Asia's best performing market, up a thumping 27.2 percent so far this year after losing 43.9 percent of its value in 2000.

ASIA BONDS STEADY PRE-GREENSPAN

Asian dollar bond spreads held steady ahead of Greenspan, with investment grade paper enjoying the best of the bidding.

Greenspan is widely expected to use his testimony to lay the groundwork for lower rates at the Fed's next policy-setting meeting on March 20.

Interest rate cuts by the Fed this year have had a dramatic effect on Asian bond spreads and opened the taps to more supply.

Meanwhile on the new issue front the market is on watch for pricing of the new Hutchison Whampoa $1.5 billion senior unsecured note deal.

This deal is expected to be all 10-year maturities at around 190 basis points over U.S. Treasuries.

-------- ukraine

Top EU Officials Head for Scandal - Riven Ukraine

February 13, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-europe-.html

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Senior European Union officials head for scandal-riven Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss political and economic ties between the 15-nation bloc and its large but impoverished ex-Soviet neighbor.

The EU is anxious to help stabilize Ukraine, which has a population of 50 million and will share a long border with the Union after the accession of Poland and other former communist states from eastern Europe over the next few years.

The EU team, whose visit to Kiev comes hard on the heels of a trip by Russian President Vladimir Putin, will urge Ukraine to protect democratic freedoms and independent media amid a growing scandal over the mysterious disappearance of a journalist.

``We will stress the need for continued political and economic reforms and will express concern over democratic principles,'' said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Accompanying Solana to Kiev are European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten and the foreign ministers of Sweden and Belgium. Sweden holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, which Belgium assumes in July.

HEADLESS CORPSE

The Kiev trip coincides with demonstrations calling for President Leonid Kuchma's resignation or impeachment over tapes recorded secretly last year. They purport to show Kuchma ordering officials to ``deal with'' journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

A headless corpse thought to be that of Gongadze was found outside Kiev in November. Kuchma denies all involvement and has accused outsiders of trying to destabilize his country.

``The EU will be pressing for a transparent investigation of the Gongadze case,'' Gallach told Reuters.

The case has alarmed foreign governments and investors, and several major multinationals are reported to have put investment and recruitment plans on hold due to the political uncertainty.

Gallach said the EU-Ukraine talks would also cover energy cooperation, fighting organized crime and illegal immigration and the EU's efforts to forge a common security and defense policy -- an initiative in which Kiev has expressed interest.

The European Commission has provided loans to Ukraine to build two nuclear reactors designed to replace the Chernobyl complex -- site of the world's worst civil nuclear accident -- which finally shut down last December.

The EU and Russia are currently discussing a new energy partnership which includes a gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine.

MOLDOVA, MOSCOW, KALININGRAD

After Ukraine, Solana and the other officials move on to tiny Moldova, another impoverished ex-Soviet state whose hopes of EU membership remain a very distant prospect.

Gallach said the EU would express strong backing for efforts by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to mediate a settlement between Moldova and ethnic Russian separatists in its eastern Dnestr region.

Officials said the EU wants Russian troops stationed in Dnestr to leave the area in 2002, in line with an agreement reached at an OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999.

On Thursday, after talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and security chief Sergei Ivanov, the EU officials travel to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad, a Baltic port plagued by organized crime, AIDS and environmental problems, will become surrounded by EU territory once Poland and Lithuania join the bloc.

--------

Russia Offers a Motherly Embrace for Ukraine Industry

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/world/13UKRA.html?pagewanted=all

KIEV, Ukraine, Feb. 12 - The presidents of Russia and Ukraine signed agreements today to expand their cooperation in civilian space research and aviation, in a meeting that reaffirmed the political and industrial ties between the two former Soviet republics.

Though the talks were long planned, the moment was meaningful for both men, Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Leonid D. Kuchma of Ukraine.

Mr. Kuchma faces a rising domestic political revolt over the disappearance of a muckraking journalist and the release of recordings suggesting that the president may have been involved in ordering his abduction.

And Mr. Putin has been pursuing strategies to rebuild Russia's military-industrial sector by connecting it with traditional Soviet markets in India, China and the Middle East, while also rebuilding and strengthening the industrial network that was disrupted by the Soviet Union's collapse a decade ago.

In Ukraine, Mr. Putin's strategy carries additional significance. Moscow hopes that by strengthening economic and political cooperation, a new commonality of purpose in the technology of space and aviation might slow the pace of Ukraine's strategic alignment with the United States and NATO, where it has joined a kind of apprenticeship, the Partnership for Peace.

Meeting in Dnipropetrovsk, in the southeast, where Mr. Kuchma once ran the Soviet Union's largest factory for nuclear missiles, the two men also agreed to reconnect their electric power grids, further integrating the nations' energy markets.

The two leaders also pledged commercial development of the Antonov- 70 airliner as "the most promising, top-priority program in cooperation between Ukraine and Russia in the field of aircraft construction."

The United States has taken a keen interest in Mr. Putin's recent overtures to step up cooperation between heavy industries, many of which were dedicated to weapons manufacture in the past.

The American ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos E. Pascual, said recently that he had asked members of Mr. Kuchma's government about rumors that Russia and Ukraine were going to jointly make intercontinental ballistic missiles.

He said Oleksandr Marchuk, secretary of the national security council, told him "it is absolutely not so," because such cooperation would violate "Ukraine's international obligations."

In an interview this month with a Ukrainian newspaper, Mr. Pascual also suggested that Ukraine should not allow Russian investors to dominate the bidding for heavy industries that are being privatized. "Ukraine should think about how to maximize international participation on a competitive basis," he said. "If you don't want to do it on a competitive basis, the conclusions are obvious."

On Sunday, up to 5,000 demonstrators occupied the central square in Kiev chanting "Kuchma Out!" and calling for early presidential elections over the missing-journalist scandal, which has turned much of Parliament against the president, alarmed Ukraine's Western supporters and threatened a prolonged political stalemate.

Mr. Putin emphasized that his visit was not timed to profit from Mr. Kuchma's domestic troubles. "Our meeting today was a planned one and we fulfilled promises we gave to our industrialists and business people in December," he said.

But in Moscow, Vladimir Lukin, a former Russian ambassador to the United States, expressed some skepticism about whether today's agreements would yield long-term results. Mr. Kuchma, he said, has a history of seeking improved relations with Russia "as his position inside the country deteriorates."

Touring his old missile factory with Mr. Putin at his side, a smiling Mr. Kuchma said today, "We didn't talk about politics, honestly," after a signing ceremony in front of a huge civilian booster rocket at the Yushmash plant.

He characterized the agreement on connecting the power grids as "a colossal step" that would help overcome the frequent disputes between Moscow and Kiev over Ukraine's acknowledged history of siphoning natural gas illegally from Russian pipelines to Europe that cross Ukraine.

Mr. Putin said the talks were "positive and fruitful," and added that cooperation to link production lines that build boosters for commercial satellite launches would yield $6 billion in revenues for Russia and Ukraine.

The two leaders also signed agreements that would allow Russian companies to take a role in the destruction of booster rockets that were once tipped with Soviet nuclear warheads.

At the time of the Soviet collapse and Kiev's declaration of independence in August 1991, Ukraine was home to the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal, including 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Though all of Ukraine's nuclear weapons were subsequently moved to Russia, the booster rockets remained. Ukraine has received more than $2 billion in American aid over the last decade, most of it dedicated to disarmament.

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

Navy sending search vessel to site of sub-boat collision

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001213224821.htm

The Pentagon is sending a Navy deep-sea drone to Hawaii to survey a sunken Japanese fishing vessel as part of efforts to determine the fate of nine persons missing since a collision with a U.S. submarine, defense officials said yesterday.

The undersea search vehicle will be used to "locate and inspect" the fishing trawler Ehime Maru on the ocean floor, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"The information from this inspection will help us respond to the Japanese government request to salvage the vessel," said one Pentagon official.

The drone, the Super Scorpio remote-operated vehicle, will be sent from San Diego to Hawaii within the next day. It can operate at a depth of 5,000 feet.

Another official said the Pentagon is "making an assessment" for a recovery and salvage operation that might be conducted by a commercial salvage company, rather than the U.S. Navy.

Defense officials said a preliminary assessment of the incident is that the steel-reinforced tail rudder of the USS Greeneville sliced through the hull of the Japanese research fishing trawler during the submarine's rapid ascent.

A senior defense official said the collision was an unusual mishap in open ocean waters. "It would be hard to do this if you intended to," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Damage to the Greeneville includes scrapes on the port side hull behind the sail, or conning tower, and to the rudder - a 5-foot high steel fin that is part of the submarine's propulsion and steering mechanism. The rudder is made to be able to break through ice, defense officials said.

The incident is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Navy, headed by Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths Jr. The submarine commander has been relieved of duty during the probe.

White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that nothing yet indicates the submarine's crew was at fault because proper procedures appear to have been followed.

In practicing an emergency surfacing, procedures call for submarines to rise close to the surface first and scan the area by periscope for other ships before submerging further and bringing up the submarine steeply at a 15- to 20-degree angle. The standard practice calls for a periscope scan of the surface in every direction using both high- and low-power viewing.

Asked if the U.S. government would raise the Japanese vessel, Miss Rice said on NBC's "Today" show: "Well, we'll certainly want to talk to the Japanese about what they have in mind. I think nothing is off the table, but we'll have to talk to them. . . . There is much discussion about what to do about this terribly tragic accident."

NTSB investigator John Hammerschmidt told reporters the submarine used "passive" sonar, which is less accurate than its active sonar system.

A State Department official confirmed that Japan has requested that the United States consider "raising this trawler."

"We're looking into it, but no decisions have been made yet," the senior defense official said.

Nine persons, including crew members and four teens on a fishing trip, are missing and presumed dead from the Friday accident nine miles off the Hawaiian coast.

President Bush offered a silent prayer for the victims during a visit yesterday to Fort Stewart, Ga. "I would ask for your prayers for those still missing," he said.

Former Navy submariners told The Washington Times there are several possible scenarios.

One theory has the submarine's commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Waddle, following procedures, but not noticing the ship.

The submarine's passive sonar detected no sound from a surface ship. When the Greeneville went to periscope depth of 45 feet, the ship failed to appear, perhaps hidden in 6- to 8-foot waves.

The ship then submerged to a depth of 400 feet and prepared for a practice emergency surfacing, or "blow," - a procedure required twice a year for submarine crews. But the Greeneville, perhaps, loitered too long, giving the Japanese ship time to cross the sub's path.

Submarine experts unanimously said it is highly unlikely Cmdr. Waddle failed to follow the sonar and periscope requirements, especially given the fact that a more senior leader, Capt. Robert Brandhuber, was escorting a group of 15 civilian observers.

"I'm personally flabbergasted at the report that the sub was conducting an emergency main ballast blow exercise," said one ex-Navy submariner. "I can't imagine any submarine skipper doing that as an exercise in a known traffic area and without full knowledge of the surface picture above."

This source thought it unlikely that an experienced Navy crew would loiter before surfacing.

---

Bush takes troop pledge to front line

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
By Joseph Curl and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001213225921.htm

President Bush took to the field yesterday at a sprawling Army base in Georgia to make good on a campaign promise to "reward courage and idealism" in the armed forces, drawing a boisterous "Hooah" from soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division.

Meanwhile, a White House budget official in Washington disputed recent press reports that said the president would not propose military increases beyond President Clinton's plan. In fact, the official said, Mr. Bush's 2002 Pentagon budget will be $14 billion higher.

The new commander in chief, making his first appearance before his troops, announced $5.7 billion in spending initiatives to cover pay raises and retention incentives, increased health benefits and housing improvements.

"The freedom and security you make possible improve our quality of life every day," Mr. Bush told hundreds of camouflage-clad, cheering soldiers in an 11-minute address at Fort Stewart, Ga. "Our nation can never fully repay our debt to you. But we can give you our full support, and my administration will."

Mr. Bush pledged to fix the problems plaguing the military, from low pay and poor housing to drooping morale and flagging recruitment.

"While you're serving us well, America is not serving you well enough. . . . This is not the way a great nation should reward courage and idealism. It's ungrateful, it's unwise and it is unacceptable."

Nearly 10,000 soldiers and family members braved bitter cold to attend the ceremony. The crowd erupted when the president's Marine One helicopter broke through the overcast sky.

"You're among the first in the Army to hear me extend 'Hooah,' " he told members of the division, who call themselves "dog-faced soldiers." The crowd returned the greeting, some barking loudly.

Meanwhile yesterday, the White House budget office asserted that, contrary to press reports over the past week, Mr. Bush in fact is proposing increases - about $14 billion - in the 2002 Pentagon budget beyond Mr. Clinton's plan.

"It was not comparing apples to apples," said Chris Ullman, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget. He said reporters were taking this year's top line of $296 billion, which does not include Energy Department nuclear weapons accounts, and comparing it with Mr. Clinton's 2002 budget, which does include Energy.

Mr. Ullman said Mr. Bush will propose $310 billion in non-Energy defense spending, roughly a 5 percent increase over the $296 billion sum.

The $14 billion includes $1 billion for a 4.6 percent pay raise effective in January, $400 million to complete a pay raise enacted last year, $400 million for housing and $3.9 billion for health care. Other money will cover inflation and weapons research and development, Mr. Ullman said.

Mr. Bush has been criticized by pro-defense lawmakers for refusing to immediately submit to Congress the Joint Chiefs of Staff's request for $7 billion in emergency funds in the 2001 budget.

Despite the criticism, the president, who campaigned on a theme of "help is on the way" to the armed forces, has not backed off his resistance to funding emergency items such as spare parts, fuel and ammunition. He says any substantial boost to future defense budgets must await his ordered "top to bottom" review of force structure to meet shifting post-Cold War threats.

Sen. John W. Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Mr. Bush in a letter last week to seek an emergency spending bill. Yesterday, he put in a pitch again.

"I commend President Bush for proposing to dedicate $5.7 billion for increases in pay and improvements in housing and health care," the Virginia Republican said. "This is an excellent first step in the effort to keep faith with the men and women in uniform and their families. I support strongly the president's initiative to pursue strategic assessments. I continue to believe, however, that there is a necessity to have a supplemental appropriations bill before July 4 to address immediate personnel and readiness needs."

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, defended the state of the military during the campaign against Mr. Bush's charges that the armed forces were in bad shape.

But yesterday, the former vice-presidential candidate seemed to agree with that charge and questioned whether the president was going back on a campaign promise by not submitting an emergency spending request to Congress.

"Now that he is in the White House, President Bush seems content to tell our fighting forces not that help is on the way, but that the check is in the mail," Mr. Lieberman said. "I am today sending a letter to the president urging him to reconsider his decision regarding defense spending."

Some soldiers said help cannot come soon enough.

"When I first came here, we had three soldiers living together in buildings for single soldiers," said Sgt. Matthew D. Moran, who enlisted four years ago. "Now, we have five."

Maj. Mike Birmingham said the Army spends most of its money on training while neglecting its infrastructure.

"If you don't recapitalize housing, training ranges or barracks and you put all your money into trying to stay ready, you start losing the quality of life," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who accompanied Mr. Bush yesterday, is conducting a comprehensive study of the military, including its strategy, missions, modernization priorities and nuclear weapons arsenal before he decides on overall defense spending.

In Georgia, local schools canceled classes for the day and hundreds of children joined their parents for the ceremony. Soldiers stood atop howitzers - which later blasted out a 21-gun salute - tanks and personnel carriers to catch a glimpse of the 43rd president.

Mr. Bush reviewed the troops, standing ramrod straight as he walked the line as officers barked: "Ten-hut. Eyes right." Several times, he snapped off smart salutes in return.

Fort commander Maj. Gen. Walter J. Sharp lauded Mr. Bush as "a leader who understands that the foundation of peace is a strong and capable military."

"Sir, thank you for recognizing that the defense of our nation is our No. 1 priority," the general said.

Mr. Bush's warm reception was in stark contrast to Mr. Clinton's shaky ties to the military. Mr. Clinton was disliked by many soldiers because of his highly publicized efforts to avoid the Vietnam War and his early push to allow homosexuals in the military.

• Joseph Curl reported from Fort Stewart, Ga.; Rowan Scarborough from Washington.

---

Ugo Fano

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Deaths.html?pagewanted=all

CHICAGO (AP) -- University of Chicago physicist Ugo Fano, whose research helped in the development of the laser and the use of radiation in medical diagnosis and therapy, died Tuesday from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 88.

Fano's work was instrumental to a better understanding of the structure of atoms and molecules and their interaction with light.

A number of phenomena bear his name, including the ``Fano Effect'' and the ``Fano-Factor.''

Fano began his career as a graduate student in Italy working from 1934 to 1936 with Enrico Fermi, a 1938 Nobel laureate in physics, and a key member of the Manhattan Project which created the atom bomb.

Fano immigrated to the United States in 1939 and worked at the Washington Biophysical Institute, the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory until 1945. He then worked for 20 years at the National Bureau of Standards before joining the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1966. He was made a professor emeritus in 1982.

In 1996 he was honored for lifetime achievement in the field of nuclear energy when he and biochemist Martin D. Kamen shared the Enrico Fermi Award.

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

-------- ohio

Privatized company reaps what it sows

Tuesday, February 13, 2001
EDITORIAL CAVEAT EMPTOR

The privatization of the United States Enrichment Corp. three years ago was a cause for consternation among many politicians, nuclear-policy experts and members of the media, including The Dispatch.

Troubling questions arose on issues that included national security and whether taxpayers would get a fair return on their investment in the company, which was created to handle the United States' purchase of uranium from Russia and conversion of it into fuel for nuclear-power reactors.

But financial pressures for privatization won out. Wall Street stood to make tens of millions of dollars by helping to change the corporation into a private company. Problems soon followed. Sixteen months after privatization, the company threatened to walk away from an agreement regarding how much uranium the United States would buy from Russia and at what price. USEC was demanding that the U.S. government pay to offset losses the company suffered when prices for uranium dropped.

Next, USEC backed off of its pledge to keep the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, open until 2005 by announcing in July plans to close the 2,000-employee plant this year. A proposed $630 million plan to keep the plant on standby was approved by the Clinton administration in the fall but is being reviewed by the Bush administration.

So USEC hasn't done much to endear itself to the public. Now, in a move that adds insult to injury to taxpayers, the company had the nerve to ask that the federal government replace up to $200 million worth of the uranium stockpile it took over, which, it says, might be contaminated and therefore useless on the commercial market.

Almost 25 million pounds of natural uranium given to USEC by the government out of a total of almost 75 million pounds might be tainted with a radioactive material called technetium.

Ironically, when the plant was privatized, critics assailed the fact that a valuable stockpile of government-owned natural uranium simply was handed over to the company.

Although the U.S. Energy Department says that to begin exploring possible technical and policy remedies for USEC would be premature, one has to hope that the corporation is given no more than the simple and timeless advice of "Buyer, beware.''

USEC has struggled financially since the privatization, but that's not the fault of taxpayers. There were plenty of critics of the deal who labeled it a boondoggle before it even took place and urged its postponement.

In retrospect, the company's officials probably wish they had slowed down and heeded such advice. But taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for such haste and arrogance.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush seeks to modernize military

Afternoon Edition - 2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - President Bush marveled Tuesday at a high-tech simulation of NATO's military might as he asked America's allies to "work as one" with him on the development of a missile defense system and "new architecture" for U.S. defenses. "To succeed, America knows we must work with our allies. We did not prevail together in the Cold War only to go our separate ways pursuing separate plans with separate technologies," Bush told an outdoor assembly of Navy and Defense Department personnel.

The president, on the second of three tours of military units this week, visited the Joint Forces Command. There, by three-dimensional video link, he watched as Vice Adm. Michael Mullen, who was some 50 miles offshore on the USS Mount Whitney, coordinated an allied U.S.-NATO response to a simulated missile attack. Moments earlier, he and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met briefly and privately with representatives from 19 NATO countries, most of them deeply wary that any U.S. missile defense could touch off an arms race.

---

Ivanov, Powell to meet this month

Afternoon Edition - 2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Tuesday that he and new Secretary of State Colin Powell will hold their first meeting on Feb. 24 in Cairo, Egypt. The announcement came after a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. The meeting will take place during Powell's trip to the Middle East, the Gulf region and Europe.

Ivanov said that at the meeting with Powell he "intended to begin a direct dialogue on a whole array of problems" including the increasingly tense dispute between the Kremlin and Washington over arms control issues, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Earlier Tuesday, Fischer urged Russia and the United States to settle their differences over U.S. plans to build a national missile defense system. Moscow has vehemently opposed the U.S. plan. The system would go against the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the Kremlin describes as a cornerstone of world stability.

Washington has tried to assure Moscow that the missile shield would not be able to guard against Russia's huge nuclear arsenal, being designed to protect only against possible smaller-scale attacks by so-called rogue nations. Russia has rejected the argument.


-------- MILITARY

-------- burma/myanmar

Thai-Myanmar border closes

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

MAE SAI, Thailand (AP) - Thailand sent troops to reinforce its northern border on Tuesday, saying it needed to ensure the "sovereignty of the nation" after a ferocious artillery assault to drive out Myanmar troops. "The situation has become more tense," said Col. Wanthip Wongwai of Thailand's border task force.

On Monday, bloodstained Myanmar military uniforms and spent rocket-propelled grenades littered the site of fighting at Pang Noon, about a mile inside Thailand.

The fighting, the worst between the two countries in several years, presents the first diplomatic crisis to new Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who said Monday he would visit Myanmar as soon as possible in a bid to improve relations.

The Thai army said hundreds of troops were deployed along a mountainous stretch of the frontier. The checkpoint, one of three crossing points along more than 1,250 miles of the Thai-Myanmar frontier, was closed Sunday when the fighting started. It reopened Monday when Thai and Myanmar forces agreed on a cease-fire, but was closed again early Tuesday.

-------- colombia

Colombia, U.S. Look at Andean Drug Plan

Tuesday February 13
Yahoo News
By Anthony Boadle
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010213/wl/colombia_usa_dc_2.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Colombia held talks on Tuesday on their anti-drugs offensive in rebel-controlled southern Colombia, discussing the fears of neighboring countries about the impact on them.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) met Colombian Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernandez de Soto and told him the Bush administration was committed to backing Plan Colombia, which uses U.S.-equipped troops in a drive against drug crops.

``It was a very positive, somewhat detailed, discussion of how Plan Colombia is working, how Plan Colombia is achieving some success and how we can go forward in the future,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Boucher said Powell was particularly interested in ``looking at what we do with neighboring countries, how we make it an Andean sort of strategy.''

Washington decided in 2000 to spend $1.3 billion over two years to back Plan Colombia, which calls for a military push against drug plantations protected by Marxist guerrillas.

Colombia is the world's main cocaine producer and a source of much of the heroine sold on the streets of U.S. cities.

Plan Colombia includes peace talks with the well-financed and heavily armed rebels, and alternative crop programs to draw peasants away from coca and poppy growing.

The U.S. aid is mainly going into training Colombian army units and equipping them with Blackhawk helicopters for rapid deployment into areas rebels have held for decades.

Colombia's neighbors fear armed clashes will send waves of refugees spilling across their borders, followed by the drug plantations, and they are seeking more U.S. funding.

Powell and Fernandez did not talk about future funding, Boucher said. ``The discussion centered on the desire of the United States to continue to support Plan Colombia,'' he said.

Pastrana To Meet Bush

Colombian President Andres Pastrana will meet President George W. Bush (news - web sites) in Washington on Feb. 27 to discuss the crisis in Colombia, where peace talks with the main guerrilla movement resume on Wednesday after a three-month break.

Fernandez said relations between Bogota and Washington were ''excellent'' and he thanked the Bush administration for continuing to support Plan Colombia.

Powell was given an update on the peace process that was revived last week after Pastrana had talks with the commander of the 17,000 guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Manuel Marulanda.

Fernandez reported progress in the destruction by aerial spraying of 30,000 hectares of coca in Putumayo province in only six weeks, amounting to half the plantations in the area.

He said 10,000 peasant families had agreed to enter the government's voluntary eradication program. ``These results effectively show that the plan is working,'' he said.

``We discussed the regional dimension that the plan should have. We are going to work on that,'' Fernandez told reporters as he left the State Department. He gave no details.

Fernandez asked the Bush administration for support in winning preferential trade treatment for exports from Andean nations entering the U.S. market.

``I did not come to ask for more money. I came to ask for more cooperation and trade,'' he said.

``The regional dimension is fundamental in this fight. Colombia cannot eradicate the drug problem on its own. Our countries need more trade and investment,'' he said.

Fernandez also requested a temporary amnesty for thousands of Colombians illegally in the United States. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) would allow them to avoid deportation while they legalize their U.S. papers.

---

Colombian officer convicted in human rights case

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-13-colombia.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - In the first such verdict against a top Colombian officer in a human rights case, a former army general was convicted for failing to defend a town during a 1997 killing spree by a right-wing paramilitary death squad.

Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui, handed a 40-month sentence by a military tribunal late Monday in the massacre of at least 22 people in the southern town of Mapiripan, had become a symbol of military impunity and connivance with rightist militias.

Gunmen based in Colombia's north allegedly flew by private plane into a military-controlled airport on route to the town. They stayed for five days, slitting victims throats and dumping bodies in a river after accusing them of collaborating with leftist guerrillas.

Human rights activists protested what they considered a light sentence. However, the government was likely to tout the conviction as progress in battling paramilitary violence and punishing military officers accused of paramilitary ties. Such progress is a condition for Colombia to receiving U.S. military aid under a $1.3 billion anti-narcotics package.

Uscategui, an area military commander at the time of the killings, was convicted of "omission" - meaning he was derelict in his duty for not sending troops to stop the killings. Homicide charges were dropped.

A colonel who worked under Uscategui was also convicted, even though his testimony was crucial in gaining the general's conviction. Col. Hernan Orozco, who testified that he informed Uscategui while the killings were going on, received a 38-month sentence for omission.

Another army colonel still faces trial in a civilian court on charges he helped organize the massacre. Two sergeants who worked at the military airport are also under arrest.

The Mapiripan massacre in July 1997 was the first major strike into the guerrilla-dominated south by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC. Backed by landowners and elements within the armed forces, the rightist force has massacred thousands in a scorched-earth campaign against the rebels.

While the slaughter proceeded in Mapiripan, a town judge made repeated phone calls and sent written messages to military and other authorities asking for help. The pleas were ignored. The judge later fled Colombia out of fear for his life.

Robin Kirk, a Colombia specialist at the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch, called the conviction merely a "slap on the hand" for Uscategui. She said the military is still incapable of punishing its own and urged that such cases be tried in civilian courts.

But Uscategui, who is appealing the conviction, received support Tuesday from the commander of the paramilitary forces. In a radio interview, AUC chief Carlos Castano said Uscategui is innocent and complained that "men who defend the fatherland are taken to prison while guerrillas are attended to" - a reference to President Andres Pastrana's peace talks with rival leftist rebels.

Also on Monday, the same day as Uscategui's conviction, gunmen assassinated a former federal human rights official who had probed paramilitary violence. Ivan Villamizar, killed in eastern Cucuta, had taken part in the investigation of a 1999 paramilitary massacre for an army general who was fired but not convicted.

--------

Bush to meet Colombian president in two weeks

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-13-bush-colombia.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will meet with Colombian President Andres Pastrana here later this month to review the two countries' efforts to curb narcotics trafficking, Colombian Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernandez de Soto said Tuesday.

Fernandez disclosed the Feb. 27 plans after meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In Bogota, Pastrana said Bush's decision to meet with him was "a public recognition that Colombia is one of the top countries on the (U.S. foreign policy) agenda."

In addition to discussing drugs with Bush, Pastrana said he will be seeking his support for more open markets for legal Colombian exports such as textiles.

"What we need are opportunities for Colombians to export our products to the United States, which is a very important market," Pastrana said.

Fernandez joined the State Department in hailing the excellent relations between the two countries.

Favorable developments in Colombia have been few and far between as the country has been struggling against narcotrafficking, determined rebel movements from the left and right and horrific human rights abuses.

There has been a modest upswing for the Colombian government lately, with the largest of the leftist rebel movements, the FARC, agreeing to peace negotiations and an apparently improving coca plant eradication effort.

Fernandez told Powell 30,000 hectares of coca plants in southern Putumayo province had been eradicated, half the total.

In addition, the State Department welcomed the conviction of a former Colombian army general, Jaime Humberto Uscategui, who allegedly failed to defend a town during a 1997 killing spree by a right-wing paramilitary death squad.

Many in Congress have been wary about the $1.3 billion U.S. aid program for Colombia, complaining of the lack of progress on the human rights front and ties between the Colombian military and the paramilitary units.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "It's long been our position that cooperation between members of the Colombian armed forces and the paramilitary groups is unacceptable, and we welcome this decision by the courts."

Uscategui was sentenced to 40 months in prison by a military tribunal Monday in the massacre of at least 22 people in the southern town of Mapiripan.

Boucher said Powell expressed "strongest support" to Fernandez for the efforts that the Colombian government was making for stability, development and an end to trafficking.

He said Powell acknowledged that the problems that beset Colombia, particularly from narcotraffickers, are rooted in the demand for drugs in the United States. Powell promised efforts to reduce demand.

---

U.S.-trained troops on destroy missions against drugs

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-13-drug.htm

LA ESPERANZA, Colombia (AP) - Buoyed by unexpected success in fumigating coca crops, a U.S.-financed offensive is targeting clandestine jungle labs in search-and-destroy missions in the heart of the world's main cocaine-producing region.

Colombian army troops, trained by Green Berets and guided by spy-plane and satellite technology, have had only light skirmishes with leftist rebels and rival right-wing paramilitary gunmen who earn millions of dollars from "taxing" the cocaine industry in southern Colombia.

U.S. officials say it is too early to declare victory, but the Colombian commander of the operations says rebel vows to combat the offensive have proved empty.

"We had expected tough fights when we went into these places. We thought they would shoot down our helicopters and planes. But the engagements have been routine," Colombian army Gen. Mario Montoya told reporters Monday at Tres Esquinas army base, where U.S. intelligence experts have operated alongside Colombian military personnel in a heavily guarded Joint Intelligence Center.

Montoya then flew into the war zone to direct the demolition of a lab that produced millions of dollars worth of cocaine. After showing journalists the lab - hidden in a stand of jungle growth and containing packages of purified cocaine, processing chemicals, microwave ovens and an electrical generator - Montoya's men placed explosive charges inside it and retreated into the middle of a coca field.

"One, two, three!" Montoya called out. At three, a soldier pressed a detonator, triggering a deafening explosion that enveloped the drug lab in a fireball. It sent a column of black smoke into the air, where helicopter gunships circled overhead like raptors seeking their prey

Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had overseen the operation of the lab, which was capable of refining 2,200 pounds of cocaine per week, Montoya said. But the guerrillas were nowhere to be seen as the heavily armed government soldiers, their faces smeared with camouflage paint, conducted sweeps into the surrounding jungle. One discovered a stash of 1,100 pounds of "coca paste," or unrefined cocaine.

Three men were arrested when the troops first arrived.

Montoya strode through the coca field, M-16 assault rifle in hand, barking orders to his troops. After destroying the lab, along with the chemicals and coca paste, Montoya boarded a helicopter and took off for the Tres Esquinas base.

"I am convinced that the military capacity of the FARC is what we have seen," Montoya told reporters of the rebel response to the counterdrug offensive, which began on Dec. 19 and which has resulted in the aerial fumigation of some 72,000 acres of coca, according to Colombian and U.S. officials.

Whichever figures are correct, the early success has far exceeded planners' expectations. Montoya, whose troops and helicopters protect crop dusters from enemy gunfire, said he had been charged with destroying some 59,000 acres of coca in two years, a target which he surpassed only seven weeks after the so-called "Push into the South" offensive began. A temporary halt to the spraying campaign was declared 10 days ago. At least 123,000 acres of coca is believed to still exist.

Montoya said his forces' presence on fumigation missions has dramatically cut the risk to the crop dusters' pilots, who are subcontracted by the U.S. State Department. Previously, when the crop dusters flew unprotected, a plane was hit by bullets on virtually every mission. Now, less than 1% of the planes receive groundfire, Montoya said.

--------

Colombian general convicted

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A military tribunal has convicted a cashiered army general of failing to defend a village where a right-wing paramilitary death squad slaughtered dozens of people. It was the first conviction of a Colombian general in a major human rights case.

Retired Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui was convicted and sentenced late Monday to 40 months in a military prison for "omission" in failing to respond during the July 1997 massacre of at least 22 people in the southern village of Mapiripan. The killers, members of the nationwide United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, accused their victims of supporting leftist guerrillas. Homicide charges were dropped, however.

A colonel under Uscategui's command at the time of the killings whose testimony first implicated Uscategui was also convicted. Col. Hernan Orozco received a 38-month sentence.

Colombia has been under pressure to prosecute military officers implicated in human rights cases - one of the conditions established for receiving U.S. military aid.

-------- drug war

01/02/13
USA Today
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Arizona

Tucson - Brazen marijuana smugglers have put authorities at the border on edge and endangered others while trying to escape, authorities said. At least seven times since Oct. 1, vehicles packed with marijuana raced north through the Douglas entry, despite speed bumps and plastic barriers. To protect children, school bus drivers have been told to report any suspicious activity from their radio-equipped buses.

Louisiana

Many - The mother of a first-grade pupil was arrested after her son took what he thought was a plastic bag of candy to school. It turned out to be a small amount of crack cocaine, police said. A teacher at Many Elementary School spotted the drug and got the bag away from the child. His mother, Tanja McLendon, was arrested, police said.

-------- india/pakistan

Militants attack army patrols in Kashmir

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-13-kashmir.htm

JAMMU, India (AP) - Separatist militants attacked three army patrols in the disputed territory of Kashmir on Tuesday, killing two soldiers and injuring three others. Nine separatists died, the Indian military said.

The three patrols were operating in Poonch district, about 130 miles northwest of Jammu, Kashmir's winter capital, following the massacre of 13 villagers in the area last week, Gen. P.C. Das said.

In a separate clash Tuesday, a soldier was killed and nine people, including policemen, were injured when they were ambushed by militants in Baramullah, just north of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. The patrol was escorting polling officials to their homes after they had supervised village elections.

None of the dozens of Islamic guerrilla groups fighting to separate Kashmir from India claimed responsibility for the attack.

India accuses Pakistan of fomenting and backing an 11-year-old Islamic insurgency in Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state in India, which is overwhelmingly Hindu.

Pakistan denies that, saying its support for the insurgency is only ideological.

The two countries have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries and is claimed by both in its entirety.

India says more than 30,000 people have been killed in fighting in Kashmir in the past 11 years. Human rights groups put the toll at 60,000.

-------- iraq

Iraqis Mourn Gulf War Victims

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Gulf-War-Anniversary.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqis prayed and wept Tuesday in a shelter where hundreds of civilians died in one of the bloodiest attacks of the Persian Gulf War.

The concrete shelter has been left as it was -- with blackened walls and a 15-foot-wide hole in the roof -- since it was hit by two U.S. missiles on Feb. 13, 1991.

Survivors and relatives of those killed gather on the anniversary of the bombing each year at the site, which has been preserved by the government as a monument to the war.

On Tuesday, weeping mourners placed flowers along the charred walls below photographs of the dead; others prayed.

Iraqi officials say 403 civilians, including 52 children, were killed in the attack. U.S. officials said at the time that the underground facility was an Iraqi military command center and they did not know why civilians were inside.

Iraqis living near the structure in a west Baghdad neighborhood said it had merely been one of many air raid shelters built across Iraq during the nation's war with Iran. The shelters were equipped with video systems to show cartoons and movies to help pass the long hours of air raids.

Samira Obaid, her eyes filled with tears, brought one of her grandchildren to the shelter Tuesday to show him where his three cousins died.

``Those people lie,'' she said of U.S. officials. ``They always lie to justify their mistakes.''

The attack on the shelter drew sharp criticism from some countries in the region. Protests in Jordan prompted King Hussein to call for an immediate cease-fire and a U.N. investigation. Yemen and Tunisia condemned the attack, but some Arab countries accused Iraq of placing civilians in a military target.

The bombing resulted in the highest civilian casualty in a single attack during the war, which was triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The war ended Feb. 28, 1991.

That February night a decade ago, Ali Saleh had allowed his four children to join friends in the shelter, which was a short walk from his house.

When the first missile hit, rocking the neighborhood in the early hours of the morning, Saleh ran to the shelter. The force of the second blast threw him against a wall. When he awoke, he was in a hospital with one leg amputated and a broken back.

Saleh Khafouri remembers being surrounded by flames in the shelter. His son, Ra'ad, was burned and screaming. He said he tried to push him toward the door, but passed out. Khafouri awoke in a hospital.

``Ra'ad was dead,'' said Khafouri, who was among 14 survivors.

-------- space

Atlantis, space station astronauts enjoy new view

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-02-13-spaceshuttle.htm

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - A new set of gyroscopes took over control of the international space station's attitude in orbit on Tuesday as NASA tested the equipment that will allow a huge savings in thruster fuel. The motion-control devices went into operation one day after astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis installed a new shutter that allows the station crew to look out through a state-of-the-art window.

The four electrically powered gyroscopes, sent up to station Alpha on an earlier shuttle flight, took over control of the state's orientation in orbit from thrusters on one of the Russian modules of the station. Replacing the thrusters will save the fuel they need to operate and allow NASA to take over command of the station.

"We've reached another benchmark," Mission Control said as it informed station commander Bill Shepherd the gyroscopes were in control.

"Another step for the Federation," Shepherd responded with a reference to "Star Trek."

Testing of the gyroscopes will continue through the Atlantis flight.

The astronauts had a relatively light agenda for Tuesday, with Atlantis' crew planning to fire the shuttle's steering jets to boost the station and shuttle's altitude. The mission's third and final spacewalk was slated for Wednesday.

On Monday, spacewalkers Thomas Jones and Robert Curbeam Jr. attached an aluminum shutter to a porthole on the Destiny science laboratory, which had been joined to the station two days earlier.

The porthole, the finest optical-quality window ever built into a spacecraft, needed the aluminum shutter for protection against micrometeorites. Until the shutter was installed, the view through the window had been blocked by insulating material.

The shutter was attached two days early because shuttle astronauts Jones and Curbeam were ahead of schedule.

As soon as the shutter was in place, Alpha's residents cranked it open from inside the station. "It worked!" Curbeam called out.

Astronauts and cosmonauts will photograph and observe the Earth through the window, using high-powered cameras and telescopes.

During Monday's spacewalk, Jones and Curbeam also wired up a shuttle docking port on the end of the $1.4 billion Destiny laboratory, considered the centerpiece of the orbiting complex.

Astronaut Marsha Ivins, the shuttle robot-arm operator, performed the bulk of the work in attaching the docking port. The port had been moved to make way for Destiny when the lab was mounted onto Alpha.

As the spacewalkers toiled outside Destiny, work went on inside to get the lab up and running. Shepherd and his two Russian crewmates confirmed Monday that all the exterior connections were good.

The astronauts briefly paused from their work to hear some good news from Mission Control: the NEAR spacecraft had landed on the asteroid Eros and was sending back signals.

"I hope we'll have some astronauts following to the asteroids in just a few years," said Jones, a planetary scientist.

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

U.N. Now Sees Fewer Troops in Congo Patrol

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/world/13CONG.html

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 12 - Hoping to seize the opportunity provided by the change in leadership in Congo, the United Nations peacekeeping department is working out a plan to send fewer troops there than originally planned, but to send them sooner, the head of the department said today.

The plan is to go to the Security Council this week.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, a French military expert who became under secretary general for peacekeeping in October, said at a news conference today that there was an unexpected opening, with a burst of diplomatic activity since the killing of President Laurent Kabila on Jan. 16 and the subsequent choice of his son Joseph as successor.

"On the field, we have seen that there have been no significant violations of the cease-fire for more than three weeks," Mr. Guéhenno said, calling the lull "the longest period of calm since the signing of the Lusaka cease-fire agreement in the summer of 1999."

"We felt that we had to exploit that window of opportunity," he added.

As outlined by Mr. Guéhenno, formerly chairman of the Institute of Advanced Studies on National Defense in France, the new Congo peacekeeping plan would reduce the total number of troops and military observers to about 3,000, from the 5,537 authorized last year by the Security Council.

The cuts would be mainly in troops, whose role would be limited to protecting 550 military observers based in Kisangani, Kalemie, Kananga and Mbandaka. The observers would monitor the pullback that various factions and foreign armies agreed to in December.

"We want to reduce the risk of clashes between them and to position them for an eventual full withdrawal," Mr. Guéhenno said.

He said monitors already in Congo had faced few problems so far. Also, because much of their logistical support could be provided by about 400 troops using rivers (in a country largely without roads and railways), the number of soldiers assigned to protect them could be reduced to about 2,000.

When they could be sent, however, remains an open question, because the warring sides have not yet pulled back to agreed positions. "It's too early to tell you that the lights are all green," Mr. Guéhenno said.

On Feb. 21 the Security Council is to open a two-day summit meeting on Congo with government leaders from the region.

---

Whose rights, whose humanity?

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-2001213183259.htm

The definition of the words "child" and "victim" will be major themes underlying two upcoming conferences hosted by the United Nations. The United Nations Special Session on Children, to be held in New York in September, sounds like it is paved with good intentions. So does the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance to be held in Durban, South Africa in August. However, some pro-life NGOs aren't so sure, and they are gearing up now to ensure their voices are heard in the face of possible U.N. opposition. When the definition of what constitutes a "child" includes only the children who actually make it to birth, and homosexuals become a race with extra rights of their own, the meaning of "human rights" itself could be a victim.

"They would love to keep us out, but we're going to be there," Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute told The Washington Times yesterday. He noted in a previous report in The Washington Times that at two different U.N. summits, pro-life groups felt sidelined. At one involving 800 NGOs, only six pro-life groups were allowed. At another with 7,000, only 30 were allowed. Freedom House, a New York-based human rights group which has often fought for the rights of Sudanese Christians and animists being bombed and enslaved, also had its accreditation challenged again by Sudan and Cuba. Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told The Washington Times that the accreditation was an administrative matter, but Freedom House says it had been accused of violating U.N. rules by allowing those with views opposing the Sudanese government to speak at one of their meetings where U.N. officials were present.

Gay McDougal, who is helping to coordinate NGO participation for the racism conference, thought the fears were unnecessary. "The efforts to date has been to get as many NGOs from as many countries as possible. There hasn't been an issue of blocking or stopping anyone," she said. But victims will not take part in the official part of the program, though they will participate in an unofficial panel. And of Freedom House, she was confidant. "I don't think that there's any question that they'll be able to attend and participate," the executive director of the International Human Rights Law Group said.

Whether they will be listened to is another question. Clinton appointees who have differing views on abortion from the Bush administration are still exerting much influence at U.N. meetings, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute said. Ambassador Betty King, who was an appointee to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, Margaret Pollack, who heads the Office of Population in the U.S. State Department, and Peggy Kerry, who serves as an NGO liaison officer for the U.S. Mission, are examples of three women who have pushed for abortion rights and are now representing the Bush administration.

It is important that the United Nations does not discriminate against certain victims and children because they do not fall into politically correct categories. The Bush administration should aid this effort as soon as possible by appointing representatives to the United Nations that accurately reflect its views that all lives are worth defending.

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U.S. to close Taliban N.Y. office

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=1722_3657099_108107_775_149539_0&YY=65985&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=6&box=Inbox

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The top U.N. official for Afghanistan said Monday he opposes a U.S. decision to close the New York office of the ruling Taliban militia, claiming the move could hurt U.N. efforts to end the country's 20-year civil war. Francesc Vendrell said he believes U.N. sanctions calling for the closure of Taliban offices abroad should not necessarily prevent the Islamic group from maintaining a liaison office with U.N. links. He said keeping the office open would allow the Taliban to maintain political contacts and seek ways to stem a crisis in which half a million Afghans have fled their homes in a year because of drought and war. Vendrell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's personal envoy to Afghanistan, said he planned to discuss the issue Tuesday with State Department officials in Washington.

U.S. deputy ambassador Nancy Soderberg said the State Department's order Friday to shut the office will stand because it is required under the sanctions imposed on the Taliban last month.

The U.N. Security Council, in which the United States is an influential permanent member, imposed the sanctions to increase pressure on the Islamic militia to hand over suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

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UN needs fewer observers in Congo

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations says it needs about 3,000 observers to monitor a cease-fire in Congo - about half the number that was initially authorized. Officials said troops could be ready within the next few weeks. The new figures were released Monday night at a news conference.

Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said officials now believe they don't need such a large security contingent to protect U.N. observers.

The Security Council last February authorized a 5,537-strong force to oversee the 1999 cease-fire agreement signed by the half-dozen warring sides in the massive central African nation. But in a report to the Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said about 3,000 troops would be sufficient for now. The warring sides agreed to this redeployment in December but it wasn't yet clear when that pullback would begin.

Rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda took up arms against the late President Laurent Kabila in August 1998, accusing him of corruption and mismanagement.

Kabila enlisted the support of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. All sides signed a cease-fire agreement in Lusaka, Zambia in 1999 that has been frequently violated.

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Two U.S. Army Helicopters May Have Collided

Tuesday February 13
Yahoo News
By Charles Aldinger
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010213/ts/crash_army_dc_4.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. Army helicopters may have collided during a training accident in Hawaii that killed six soldiers and injured nine others aboard the two aircraft, the Defense Department said on Tuesday.

``It is my understanding that somehow or other they came in contact,'' Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon (news - web sites) spokesman, told reporters in response to questions on the crashes of the two UH-60 Black Hawks on Monday night during a troop training exercise on Hawaii's Oahu island.

But Quigley said details of the accident, in which all six soldiers on one of the helicopters died and nine of the 11 on the other helicopter were injured, were not clear.

``They (pilots) were wearing night vision goggles,'' he said, adding that the accident occurred in a light rain and that visibility was at an acceptable distance of about 3,500 feet.

In Honolulu the Army said the helicopters crashed during an exercise on the north shore of Oahu.

Maj. Cynthia Teramae, an Army spokeswoman, said the injured were being treated at local hospitals. She did not have details on their condition.

The accident occurred in a remote area about 7:40 p.m. Hawaii time on Monday.

Teramae said the helicopters involved in the incident were participating in the annual Lightning Thrust Warrior exercises of the Army's 25th Infantry Division, a light aviation brigade.

The exercise involved 30 helicopters ferrying nearly 1,000 soldiers from Wheeler Army Airfield to a base in Kahuku. It began on Feb. 5 and was scheduled to end on Friday.

The exercise was not related to the search for nine people missing from a Japanese trawler that was struck by a surfacing U.S. submarine off Diamond Head, Hawaii, last Friday.

In Norfolk, Virginia, President George W. Bush (news - web sites) led a silent prayer on Tuesday for victims of the helicopter accident.

Speaking to a military audience at the Norfolk Naval Air Station, Bush said, ``Just this morning, we were reminded of the risks of your duty and the sacrifices that you make.''

``I ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer for the dead, the wounded and missing crew members of the 25th Infantry Division, who were involved in a training accident on Oahu.''

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Bush Seeks $5.7 Billion Increase for Military Salaries and Benefits

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/politics/13BUSH.html?pagewanted=all

FORT STEWART, Ga., Feb. 12 - Even as conservatives in Congress pressed for more money for the military, President Bush today proposed shifting $5.7 billion in Pentagon spending for increased pay, improved health care and better housing, warning that substandard benefits and aging barracks were taxing soldiers and their families.

Speaking to 8,000 soldiers and visitors assembled on a parade field at this sprawling Army post west of Savannah, Mr. Bush used unusually pointed language to depict the armed forces as frustrated, demoralized and unappreciated, a theme he often used in last year's campaign.

"While you're serving us well, America is not serving you well," he said, appearing on a military base for the first time as commander in chief. "Many in our military have been overdeployed and underpaid. Many live in aging houses and work in aging buildings. You see some of this right here at Fort Stewart."

The crowd punctuated each sentence with applause, yelps and whistles.

Mr. Bush's visit to Fort Stewart, the first of three trips to military bases this week, shifted the new administration's message to matters of defense and national security after three weeks in which he focused on education, tax cuts and other parts of his political agenda.

Today's trip and the proposed spending increases on personnel, announced before his formal budget proposal is unveiled, seemed at least partly intended to deal with muted criticism from military commanders and louder comments from Republicans in Congress that Mr. Bush had not moved quickly to give the Pentagon an infusion of cash for training, repairs and new equipment.

After a campaign in which he derided the Clinton administration's handling of the military, Mr. Bush has said he does not intend to increase the Pentagon's budget significantly until Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld completes a review of military strategy and the armed services.

The $5.7 billion - $1.4 billion for pay, $3.9 billion for health care and $400 million for housing - would fall within the $310 billion budget that President Bill Clinton outlined for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year that begins in October.

Mr. Bush's aides have said that he will, more or less, submit that budget, which would represent a $14 billion increase over the current $296 billion budget. Mr. Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said that the money for personnel represented new spending, while the rest of the $14 billion increase would cover rising costs due to inflation.

As a result, the decision is likely to cause still more concern at the Pentagon and in Congress, since it will force budget planners to shift planned increases from other parts of the military budget to the areas Mr. Bush outlined today.

"It's a shifting in priorities," an aide said.

Mr. Bush's proposal to increase military pay continues a trend that started two years ago, when President Clinton and Congress concluded that military pay was not adequate. They agreed on an immediate 4.8 percent raise, coupled with even higher increases for mid-career soldiers and officers who have been leaving the military in droves in recent years.

In the current year, salaries rose another 3.7 percent. Pay was scheduled to rise an additional 3.9 percent in the coming year, but Mr. Bush is proposing to expand that to 4.6 percent, at a cost of $400 million. The plan would set aside another $1 billion for targeted increases, re-enlistment bonuses or other incentives, an aide said today.

Neither Mr. Bush nor aides detailed how they would parcel out the new spending. Officials said percentages for the health care and housing increases were not available.

Much of the spending Mr. Bush unveiled today would simply pay for initiatives that began under President Clinton but were not included in spending plans. The $3.9 billion in health care would pay for an expansion of benefits that Congress approved last year. The military has also been trying in recent years to renovate aging housing, and some of the barracks Mr. Bush visited today had recently been rebuilt.

In Washington, reaction to Mr. Bush's proposals varied. Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the spending proposal but warned that the Pentagon needed - by July 4 - an emergency spending bill for the current budget "to address immediate personnel and readiness needs."

Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House Democratic leader, released a statement accusing Mr. Bush of "going back on his pledge to invest in troops" by devoting so much of the projected surpluses in the federal budget on his $1.6 trillion tax cut proposal.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, also criticized the tax cut plan, and called for an immediate infusion of cash for the military.

"I, too, want to provide tax relief, and I believe we can, but not at the expense of our other priorities or at the cost of our shared responsibilities," Senator Lieberman said.

Here in Fort Stewart, on a gray, chilly day, the reaction was far less ambiguous.

Mr. Bush, a Republican whose candidacy was widely, if unofficially, supported by many in the military, received a rousing reception from the soldiers, many of them members of the Third Infantry Division and the 48th Combat Brigade of the Georgia National Guard. They cheered even when he spoke of deteriorating conditions in which they live and work.

The division's commander, Maj. Gen. Walter L. Sharp, called today "a great day to be a dog-faced soldier." Specialist Geoffrey C. Wheelan, 22, of Barstow, Calif., said he was confident Mr. Bush would ease budgetary constraints that have created shortages of parts, people and spirit. "After eight years in which people didn't like the military and talked about demilitarization," he said, "it's nice to have a president who wants to bolster the military."

Despite doubts in some quarters over his spending plans, Mr. Bush sought to demonstrate his support for the military. "You're among the first in the Army to hear me extend a hoo-ah," Mr. Bush said, using a traditional Army exclamation. "Hoo-ah!" the crowd thundered back.

Although he never mentioned his predecessor, many of the issues he addressed echoed those that critics leveled at Mr. Clinton over the years. "We owe you and your families a decent quality of life," Mr. Bush said. "We owe you the training and equipment you need to do your jobs. And when we send you into harm's way, we owe you a clear mission, with clear goals."

Mr. Bush has pledged to review overseas deployments, which have proliferated since the end of the cold war. He noted that in the last year 24,000 troops had passed through Hunter Army Airfield, a major staging area nearby for soldiers headed overseas, "deploying everywhere from Bosnia to the Bahamas."

The Third Infantry Division, which has its headquarters here, is among the busiest forces in the military. It has more than 2,300 troops overseeing the American peacekeeping mission in Bosnia today and will send 1,700 for a second six-month tour in March. Another brigade's worth of soldiers is headed to Kosovo in May.

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A Longtime Friend of Powell Is Tapped to Be His Deputy

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/politics/13APPO.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell once said of his friend, Richard L. Armitage, "I would trust him with my life, my children, my reputation, everything I have."

Indeed, since the two men met 20 years ago, they have spoken as often as five times a day, trading gossip, swapping advice and hashing out each other's crisis of the moment.

Today, President Bush reunited the two confidants, announcing his intention to appoint Mr. Armitage as deputy secretary of state.

There had been little doubt that Mr. Bush would find a top national security job for Mr. Armitage, 55, a veteran of four tours in Vietnam and an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Mr. Armitage advised Mr. Bush in the campaign and was an architect of Mr. Bush's major speech on military matters at the Citadel, the military college in South Carolina, in 1999.

But the early betting had Mr. Armitage returning to the Pentagon as the No. 2 official there, eager to help reshape the military's post cold-war strategy.

Associates also said that Mr. Armitage did not want to jeopardize his friendship with General Powell by working for him at the State Department.

Instead, the deputy Pentagon post went to Paul D. Wolfowitz, a former Defense Department official, and General Powell came calling on his friend again.

Mr. Armitage, who an Asia specialist, set aside his reservations and plunged into helping General Powell map out the new administration's foreign policy.

"Rich is a brilliant operations man who can get things done, and in a bureaucracy like the State Department that's a very valuable trait," said Kenneth Adelman, who was an official in the Reagan administration.

Mr. Armitage joins a powerful group of national security deputies, including Mr. Wolfowitz and Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's deputy national security adviser, who have worked together in previous Republican administrations.

From 1983 to 1989, Mr. Armitage was assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. In 1989, Mr. Bush's father, President George Bush, said he would nominate Mr. Armitage to be assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and then changed his mind and chose Mr. Armitage for secretary of the Army.

But Mr. Armitage withdrew from consideration, saying he wanted to spend more time with his wife and eight children. His withdrawal also avoided a confirmation hearing at which he probably would have been asked whether he had met with an Israeli official to discuss the Iran- contra affair. Mr. Armitage said he could remember no such discussion.

Mr. Bush later appointed Mr. Armitage to be the chief negotiator in talks on the future of United States bases in the Philippines. Under President Clinton, Mr. Armitage was a special envoy for technical and humanitarian assistance to the former Soviet republics. More recently, he headed Armitage Associates, a consulting firm in northern Virginia.

Mr. Armitage will cut a striking figure in the halls of Foggy Bottom. General Powell, in his autobiography, "My American Journey," recalled his first meeting Mr. Armitage, a Naval Academy graduate who could bench-press 440 pounds, "Armitage was in his mid-thirties, big, bald, brassy, built like an anvil, he looked as if he could step into the ring next Saturday at the World Federation of Wrestling."

Also today, Mr. Bush said he would nominate another foreign policy adviser in the campaign, Dov Zakheim, to be undersecretary of defense and comptroller, the Pentagon's top financial official.

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Six Dead After 2 Army Helicopters Crash in Hawaii

February 13, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/13WIRE-HELI.html

HONOLULU - Six soldiers died when two Army Black Hawk helicopters crashed during a nighttime exercise on the island of Oahu. Eleven others were injured.

The names of the dead and injured were not disclosed, pending notification of their families. Seventeen soldiers were aboard the two aircraft.

The accident involved two UH60 helicopters participating in an exercise over Kahuku on Monday evening, said Maj. Nancy Makowski, a spokeswoman for the 25th Infantry Division based at Schofield Barracks.

"This is a very tragic event for us," Makowski said.

It was initially believed the two helicopters collided in the air, but that has not been confirmed and will be determined in an investigation, Makowski said.

"I heard a big thud," said Perry Dane, who lives on Kamehameha Highway about a mile from the crash site. "It sounded like thunder. It shook, too, like a big rattle."

The accident was in a remote military area and accessible only by four-wheel-drive vehicles because of the wet conditions, said Mandy Shiraki, district chief of the city ambulance services.

The two aircraft crashed about 200 yards apart, said Capt. Stephen Johnson, whose fire company came from the nearby Sunset Beach station.

When paramedics and firefighters reached the scene, it was raining heavily and had been raining on and off all day, creating muddy conditions at the site, he said.

There were five or six helicopters in the flight, but only two were involved in the crash, Shiraki said.

Thirty helicopters were involved in ferrying nearly 1,000 soldiers from Wheeler Army Airfield to a base in Kahuku, according to an earlier Army advisory warning of possible noise disturbing residents.

It was part of the Army Hawaii's two-week Lightning Thrust Warrior exercise, which began Feb. 5.

The Black Hawk is a light transport helicopter that is the primary helicopter for air assault, air cavalry and aeromedical evacuations units. Each helicopter can transport an 11-man squad.

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Top Marine Clears Osprey's Design in Crash

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/national/13OSPR.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - The Marine Corps has conclusively determined that the Dec. 11 crash of a V-22 Osprey that killed four marines was a result of hydraulic and computer failures, not the aircraft's hybrid tilt-rotor design, the commandant of the corps said today.

The Marines are hoping that the finding, part of a crash report they expect to send to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld as early as this week, will be the first step toward rehabilitating the costly and troubled V-22 program, which has been plagued by two fatal accidents and accusations of falsified maintenance reports in the last year alone.

"The thing I would say now is it doesn't appear to be anything that has to do with tilt-rotor physics," the commandant, Gen. James L. Jones, said of the December crash in an interview today. More generally, the commandant said that "there is sometimes out there an idea that an aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane can't do either very well," but that "so far the physics of the tilt rotor doesn't lend itself to that type of criticism."

Some aircraft experts have questioned the inherent safety of the Osprey, on whose wings are rotors that can tilt up like a helicopter's or forward like a plane's. Those questions, dealing with the craft's aerodynamic stability, are being reviewed by an expert panel appointed late last year by William S. Cohen, then the secretary of defense.

General Jones said he was optimistic that the Marines' final crash report would include assurances from the Defense Department's inspector general that the December crash, as well as a fatal crash last April, were not a result of falsified maintenance records at the Osprey squadron's headquarters at the New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina. That case is a subject of a separate inquiry.

"You want to be sure that you can de-link any insinuation that there might have been a maintenance problem or anything that could have been, and should have been, caught with either crash," General Jones said. "I'm reasonably optimistic that we're going to be able to do that."

The Osprey, built by the Boeing Company's helicopter division and Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter unit, has been one of the Pentagon's most controversial programs for over a decade. The aircraft, still experimental, will have a price tag of well over $30 billion should full production proceed, and already had a record of crashes before the one last April.

In 1989, Dick Cheney, then the defense secretary, tried to cancel the Osprey to save money. But Congress kept it alive. Then, last April, safety questions that had already emerged grew all the more serious when an Osprey crashed in the Arizona desert, killing all 19 marines on board. Those questions multiplied with the December crash, near the New River station.

And in January, the Marines opened in investigation of the Osprey squadron at New River after receiving an anonymous letter accusing the squadron commander of ordering subordinates to cover up maintenance problems. In addition to the letter was a tape recording that appeared to implicate the commander, Lt. Col. Odin F. Leberman. Colonel Leberman has been relieved of command, and the inquiry has been taken over by the Pentagon's inspector general, who is investigating whether high-ranking Marine officers might have pressured the colonel to falsify the records.

General Jones declined today to provide details about the causes of the hydraulic and computer malfunctions that he said led to the December crash. But he said investigators had found amid the debris a broken hydraulic line that, he said, proved their hypothesis that a hydraulic failure had caused the pilot, considered the best in the V-22 squadron, to lose control.

The hydraulic system enables the pilot to control the speed and direction of the aircraft by adjusting its wings, rotors and rotor engine casings. Pentagon officials in charge of testing the craft had warned of worn hydraulic lines in existing Ospreys in the weeks before the crash.

Investigators have also concluded that because of a computer software malfunction, an emergency backup for the hydraulic system did not work. One person familiar with elements of the investigation said the software appeared to have been incorrectly written, creating even greater problems for the pilot as he struggled to regain control in the seconds before the crash.

General Jones said today that the Osprey was extremely important to the Marine Corps, because it can fly much farther and faster than the Vietnam-era helicopters it is supposed to replace. But he said he would be the first to support canceling the program if it were proved to be inherently unsafe. "We should never have preconceived notions that you can't receive bad news," he said. "And if it's bad news, I'll be the first to stand up as a moral issue and say, `We ought not to do this.'"

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Marines clear Osprey design in crash

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-13-osprey.htm

NEW YORK (AP) - The Marine Corps says the fatal December crash of a V-22 Osprey was not caused by the aircraft's hybrid tilt-rotor design and hopes the finding could lead to the revival of the troubled aircraft program, The New York Times reported in Tuesday's editions.

The finding, discussed by a commandant of the corps on Monday, is part of a crash report that the corps expects to send to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as early as this week.

The costly V-22 program has been plagued by two fatal accidents and accusations of doctored maintenance reports in the last year alone. The latest investigation blames hydraulic and computer failures.

"The thing I would say now is it doesn't appear to be anything that has to do with tilt-rotor physics," the commandant, Gen. James Jones, said of the Dec. 11 crash which killed four marines.

Jones said there is a belief that an aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane "can't do either very well" but that "so far the physics of the tilt rotor doesn't lend itself to that type of criticism."

Some aircraft experts have questioned the inherent safety of the Osprey, whose wings have rotors that can tilt upward like a helicopter or forward like a plane.

Questions of the craft's aerodynamic stability are being reviewed by an expert panel appointed last year by former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

Jones said he was optimistic that the Marines' final crash report would include assurances from the Defense Department's inspector general that the December crash, as well as a fatal crash last April, were not a result of falsified maintenance records at the Osprey squadron's headquarters in North Carolina. The April crash, which killed 19 marines, is the subject of a separate inquiry.

The Osprey, built by the Boeing Co.'s helicopter division and Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter unit, has been one of the Pentagon's most controversial programs. The experimental aircraft will have a price tag topping $30 billion should full production proceed.

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Army helicopters crash in Hawaii, killing six

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-02-13-helicopter.htm

HONOLULU (AP) - Two Army Black Hawk helicopters crashed in a remote area during a nighttime exercise, killing six soldiers and injuring 11 others. It was still unclear Tuesday whether the helicopters had collided, said Maj. Cynthia Teramae of the 25th Infantry Division based at Schofield Barracks. Investigators from the Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., were expected to arrive during the day.

The two UH60 helicopters went down late Monday while participating in an exercise over Kahuku on the island of Oahu, said Maj. Nancy Makowski, a spokeswoman for the 25th Infantry Division based at Schofield Barracks.

Seventeen soldiers were aboard the two aircraft.

They crashed about 200 yards apart, said Capt. Stephen Johnson, whose fire company came from the nearby Sunset Beach station.

"I heard a big thud," said Perry Dane, who lives on Kamehameha Highway about a mile from the crash site. "It sounded like thunder. It shook, too, like a big rattle."

The accident came just three days after a Navy submarine crashed into a Japanese fishing trawler off the coast of Oahu, sinking the trawler. Nine men and boys aboard the Japanese ship were feared lost and 26 others were rescued.

The helicopters went down in a remote military area accessible only by four-wheel-drive vehicles, said Mandy Shiraki, district chief of the city ambulance services.

Rain had fallen on and off all day and was falling heavily when paramedics and firefighters arrived, Johnson said.

The helicopters were among 30 aircraft ferrying nearly 1,000 soldiers from Wheeler Army Airfield to a base at Kahuku, part of a two-week Army exercise that started Feb. 5.

The names of the victims were not disclosed pending notification of their families.

Four of the injured were listed in stable condition Tuesday at Tripler Army Medical Center. The other seven had been treated and released.

The Black Hawk is the Army's primary helicopter for air assault, air cavalry and aeromedical evacuations units. Each helicopter can transport an 11-man squad.

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Dollars and bullets

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
Tod Lindberg
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2001213193233.htm

The first noteworthy intraparty skirmish of the Bush administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill got under way over a subject one might have thought an easy one for the GOP: defense spending.

Specifically, the Bush White House indicated it would not be seeking an early supplemental appropriation for the Pentagon, as had been widely expected and as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had presaged during his confirmation hearing. Rather, the administration said, there would be reviews of major nuclear and conventional programs with a view toward post-Cold War reform and restructuring.

Mr. Bush would indeed be seeking money for a pay raise for people in uniform as well as for some other quality of life improvements. But as for a rapid, major infusion of new emergency cash, no soap. Hawks on Capitol Hill and outside were vexed. The Bush-Cheney ticket campaigned on military spending increases, after all, having pointed a finger at the deleterious consequences of defense spending reductions during the post-Cold War drawdown. Help was "on the way," Dick Cheney said.

Yet upon taking office, the Bush administration was content with defense spending at the same level Bill Clinton proposed, $310 billion (up from $295 billion) - an amount actually lower than what Al Gore proposed on the campaign trial, for the inadequacy of which Messrs. Bush and Cheney had flayed him.

What's going on? Is the Bush administration actually going to betray its own campaign rhetoric and go soft on defense?

I would count myself one very surprised hawk if that turned out to be the case. The Bush team could surely have handled the politics of this issue more deftly. But the idea that this administration, of all administrations, is going to be inattentive to defense is pretty absurd on its face. Nor was a defense supplemental ever a sensible test of its seriousness.

For years in Washington now, momentum has been gathering around two broad conclusions. One is that the drawdown has run its course and that it is time for defense spending to increase once again. The other is that U.S. forces need to undergo a transformation. We are still mainly living off the legacy of the force we built for the Cold War, and the assumptions on which that force was built simply don't reflect the challenges we are likely to face in the decades ahead.

The problem is that there's a certain tension between these two propositions. Specifically, while no one disputes that a transformation is going to cost more money, the infusion of money may paradoxically impede necessary reform. When it is suddenly easier, rather than somewhat difficult, to do more of the same - whether or not more of the same is what one should be doing - then the impulse to rethink one's activities can vanish into a satiated Pentagon bureaucracy, defense industry and its lobbies, and assorted interests on Capitol Hill.

A large supplemental defense appropriation would have been very reassuring to this community. And, no doubt about it, it would have done some good in terms of readiness and relieving other strains resulting from a mismatch in operating tempo and available resources. It would also have been politically easy for the new administration - a readily available bipartisan victory of the sort that one shouldn't turn down every day.

But what about reform? In fact, the stars are rather well aligned for some basic rethinking. Indeed, the services themselves have been producing ideas that are in some cases quite radical, given the bureaucratic imperatives. It makes excellent sense to try to capture the moment; and it is at least arguable that the Bush administration's decision not to go forward with a big supplemental makes the point that this is going to be a time for reform, not just (bigger) business as usual.

It made sense for Ronald Reagan to crank up defense spending rapidly in the early 1980s not just because of need but also because the fundamental structure of the Cold War military was appropriate to the task (though even then, forward-minded thinkers were worried about lost opportunities for reform). Now, however, we do not have the structure in place; we need to create it.

What about the need? It is real. But it does not constitute an acute crisis, a clear and present danger that will leave us defenseless unless certain billions arrive by next month. And there's also a potential cost in treating it that way.

Tod Lindberg is editor of Policy Review magazine. His column appears Tuesdays.

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Defense spending debated

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=1722_3657099_108107_775_149539_0&YY=65985&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=6&box=Inbox

WASHINGTON (AP) - It would be unwise for Congress to approve billions of dollars more in defense spending before the administration decides the future structure of the nation's armed forces, military analysts told the Senate Budget Committee on Monday.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, contended that President Bush will be unable to fulfill his campaign promises to increase the defense budget if his tax cut proposals become law.

Visiting troops in Georgia on Monday, Bush pledged $5.7 billion in new money to improve quality of life in the military. He announced a $310 billion budget for fiscal 2002, up $14 billion from this year and including $1.4 billion in military pay raises, $3.9 billion for health benefits and $400 million for housing. He previously said he would put off asking Congress for an emergency defense spending bill until after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld completes a strategic review of the nation's military.

Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said this left his committee without direction from the Pentagon as it struggles to come up with budget numbers in the coming weeks.

---

Bush promises pay raise to troops

Morning Coffee Edition - 2/13/2001
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FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) - President Bush, in his first trip with all the trappings of commander in chief, told U.S. soldiers Monday that "America is not serving you well" and promised morale-boosting pay increases, better housing and health care. "I'm proud to lead you," Bush told hundreds of soldiers and their families on a cold, wind-swept marching field. "And I'm committed to serve you."

It was a day filled with firsts for the new president: his first major trip as president, his first flight aboard the Boeing 747 Air Force One and the first official playing of "Hail to the Chief." It was the first of four presidential trips this week designed to promote Bush's national security policies, including a Friday stay in Mexico.

Bush reviewed the troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - the president's steps keeping time with a military hymn, battle flags dipping as he passed each unit. Cannons pounded out a 21-gun salute, the first for Bush as president.

Less formal later, the president visited cramped quarters and ate lunch with the troops. He announced a $310 billion proposed Pentagon budget for 2002, up $14 billion from the current figure.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said $5.7 billion of the new money will improve the quality of life for troops; the rest will help other projects keep pace with inflation.

Bush avoided the Vietnam War by serving in the Texas Air National Guard, a point that wasn't raised by a dozen soldiers questioned about their new commander in chief.

---

Army helicopters crash; 6 dead

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
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HONOLULU (AP) - Two Army Black Hawk helicopters crashed in a remote area during a nighttime exercise, killing six soldiers and injuring 11 others. It was still unclear Tuesday whether the helicopters had collided, said Maj. Cynthia Teramae of the 25th Infantry Division based at Schofield Barracks.

Investigators from the Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., were expected to arrive during the day, she said.

The two UH60 helicopters went down late Monday while participating in an exercise over Kahuku on the island of Oahu, said Maj. Nancy Makowski, a spokeswoman for the 25th Infantry Division based at Schofield Barracks. Seventeen soldiers were aboard the two aircraft.

They crashed about 200 yards apart, said Capt. Stephen Johnson, whose fire company came from the nearby Sunset Beach station.


-------- OTHER

-------- environment

Market and Government Are Sapping Murmansk

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By JOHN VAROLI
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/business/13FISH.html?pagewanted=all

MURMANSK, Russia - The fresh fish have vanished. This city of 400,000 on Russia's bleak Arctic coast worries about doing the same.

It was not a natural or environmental disaster that denuded the bustling port of its lifeblood. Though heavily exploited, the waters of the Barents Sea are still among Europe's richest fishing grounds, and Russian-owned vessels still harvest a million tons of fish a year.

But because of a crosscurrent of disincentives created by Russian bureaucracy, fuel prices, tax laws and market forces, the ships sell their catch abroad, making Murmansk the only major port city in Europe where fresh fish is almost unobtainable.

The port is Murmansk's only reason to exist. It was founded during World War I so that convoys from Western Europe and North America could deliver military supplies. Nearby bases are home to much of what remains of Russia's cash- starved navy; the ill-fated nuclear submarine Kursk sailed from here.

The fishing fleet has also deteriorated since the late 1980's, and the total catch for the northern European part of Russia has fallen two- thirds. What fish they do catch are often brought to market outside Russia, leaving many processing plants here idle. To the frustration of local officials, the country winds up importing its own catch - processed and packaged in neighboring countries.

"Since Russian law allows for a free market, our fishermen sell their catch abroad, where they can fetch a higher price and earn hard currency," said Anatoli Yevenko, chairman of the Murmansk regional government's fishing industry committee.

The species in greatest demand, like cod, are the first to be diverted, usually to Norway, whose northeast tip is about 120 miles to the west. When any fish reach Russians at all, it is generally only the less desirable, less edible fish like moiva.

Alarmed, the regional government is trying to reverse the trend and bring the whole catch back to Murmansk. But it is up against a force harder to combat even than the invisible hand of the market: the perverse consequences of a ramshackle regulatory and tax system.

There is, for example, a 25 percent tax on foreign-made equipment, including new trawlers built in Poland or Norway that are far more efficient than the old, rusting Russian- built boats. Rather than pay an extra $2.5 million on each new $10 million trawler, companies like OAO Murmansk Trawler Fleet, the largest fishing operator in the region, never tie up the new boats in Russia. Crews are rotated by helicopter, and the fish they catch are sold in Norway, said Vladimir Bondarenko, general manager of Murmansk Trawler.

Another problem is the way quotas, intended to preserve fish stocks, are assigned. The trouble is not the limit on the total catch, Mr. Bodarenko said, but the way the quotas are divided among companies. He said his ships can catch up to 80,000 tons of cod a year, but the current quota is equivalent to only 20,000 tons for each trawler, so only the most efficient third of his boats sail.

"We understand the environmental need for quotas, but we don't understand why the government allows new fishing companies to enter the market when the quota remains the same," Mr. Bondarenko said. "This means that a constant amount of fish is being divided more and more among a growing number of companies."

Last year, Murmansk Trawler had sales of $100 million, and a profit of about $20 million, but it expects its revenue and profit to decline in 2001 and beyond, and warns that bankruptcy may threaten unless the government changes its approach.

Fuel prices are also a worry, as are the flat or falling real incomes of many Russians, which limit fish producers' ability to pass along increased costs in higher retail prices.

As the amount of fresh fish is dwindling, the number of jobless young men on Murmansk's streets is swelling. The official unemployment rate has risen to 20 percent, and petty crime is increasing. Outward migration of working-age young people in search of better prospects in Moscow or St. Petersburg and the falling birth rate among those who remain has cut the region's population by 10 percent in seven years.

Roma Dzhavarov, 26, came home to Murmansk after a six-month stint with the army in Chechnya. He found work was scarce, and good pay scarcer.

"There is nothing to do here, and if you're lucky to find a job through contacts, it pays no more than $50 a month," Mr. Dzhavarov said. "How can you live on that, let alone try to raise a family?" Many of his army friends have turned to crime, he said.

He still dreams of a job on a trawler and the $500 a month it would pay, enough to live comfortably here. But when a rare opening appears, the competition includes many workers with more experience.

Regional governments have been arguing with Moscow for six years over a package of laws to help the fishing industry, to little result.

"If this situation continues, then the Russian fishing industry could soon disappear entirely," Mr. Bondarenko said. "As long as this city has existed, it has lived on the fishing industry. Now, since our commercial future is in question, so is the city's."

---

Human Intrusion Bodes Ill for Galápagos Creatures

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/world/13GALA.html

PUERTO AYORA, Galápagos Islands, Feb. 12 - With pelicans circling overhead and giant tortoises lumbering up volcanic peaks, sailing into the Galápagos Islands was like going back in time for Charles Darwin.

Stunned by the rare species of birds, reptiles and marine life that had evolved in the natural habitat, safely out of the reach of man, Darwin wrote in his journal in 1835 that in the islands, "We seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact - that mystery of mysteries - the first appearance of beings on this earth." The species there include the flightless cormorant and the marine iguana, the world's only seagoing lizard.

Now, a near disastrous oil spill has proved a cautionary tale for experts who fear that the unique ecosystem Darwin documented is in peril from man, the animal it eluded for so long.

"The reason the Galápagos are still so pristine is precisely because mankind only colonized them later than almost anywhere else on earth," said Carlos Valle of the World Wildlife Fund, who has been working on the islands for 25 years.

Nature came to the rescue of the island cluster when the oil tanker Jessica ran aground in San Cristóbal Island's prophetically named Shipwreck Bay in mid-January, spewing most of its 240,000-gallon fuel cargo into the crystalline waters.

Luckily for the islands' endemic species, strong ocean currents washed the fuel out to sea, where most of it evaporated. Just two pelicans were found dead, while dozens were soiled, along with several sea lions and pups and exotic blue-footed booby birds.

Experts said contamination was minimal and were optimistic that there would be no major long-term damage. But from pollution to cultivation, the impact of the 10,000-member community who now live on the islands and the $120 million-a-year tourist industry they depend on pose a constant threat to the ecosystem.

Conservationists have spent the last 35 years trying to repair the damage man has done to the giant tortoise population, which has dwindled to just 10,000 from the hundreds of thousands believed to have once inhabited the volcanic islands that rose out of the ocean some five million years ago.

Slaughtered for their meat by pirates and hunters and later by colonists for oil, the tortoises continued to be destroyed as late as the 1950's, when goats introduced to the islands by farmers ate many of the famed giant tortoises out of their habitat. And Darwin himself remarked on the "excellent soup" young tortoises made.

The herbivorous reptiles and tortoises had thrived until the arrival of man - and the rats that stowed away on his ships - because there had been no large predatory, carnivorous mammals for them to contend with.

One of the 11 surviving subspecies of the rare tortoise now faces extinction. Just one male of Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni is known to exist and no female has been identified.

And even now fishermen camp illegally on uninhabited islands overnight and leave trash behind that could sow havoc.

"The danger is they will leave the remains of a plant like a tomato and the seeds will grow into plants that don't naturally belong here and alter the habitat," said Nick Jenkins of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

"Who knows what impact the local population and tourism could have on evolution on the islands in the longer term?" he asked. "But you could well see animals like the sea lions stop living on the beaches here in time if tourist numbers rise."

Fortunately for the endemic species, a lack of fresh water springs was crucial in staving off man's initial abortive attempts to settle on the islands.

But as more and more mainland Ecuadoreans seek work in the islands - the population of San Cristóbal alone has doubled to 6,000 people in recent years as workers try to cash in on the tourist dollars - some fear a spreading impact.

In the meantime, the listing, semi- submerged hulk of the rusting Jessica remains a cautionary reminder of the danger of the world encroaching on the fragile island ecosystem.

---

Filibuster Vowed if Bush Seeks Arctic Oil Drilling

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/politics/13ARCT.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts threatened today to block any legislative plan from President Bush for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling, saying such activity in the pristine wilderness was wrongheaded.

"Most senators agree that drilling in A.N.W.R. is not just environmentally unsound, it gives false hopes to citizens suffering energy problems today," said Mr. Kerry, a Democrat.

"We need to make it clear to President Bush that this approach to energy policy is unacceptable, and that is why I will, if necessary, filibuster any attempt to open A.N.W.R. to this kind of exploitation," he said.

A senator can challenge legislation by staging a filibuster, a maneuver to block action on an item by controlling the Senate floor for an unlimited time. A filibuster can be ended through legislative agreement, or by invoking cloture, which requires 60 votes. The Senate is evenly split, with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats.

Mr. Kerry called President Bush's effort to link oil exploration in the refuge to the current electricity supply shortage in California "muddled at best and cynical at worst."

Senate Republicans plan to introduce a national energy bill within weeks, encompassing the Bush administration's goal of increasing domestic energy supplies. The bill would open the coastal plain of the refuge to oil and natural gas drilling. Mr. Bush contends that advanced technology means the drilling would have little, if any, effect on the caribou, polar bears and other wildlife that live there.

Environmental groups have vowed to fight any move to open the Alaskan refuge to oil drilling.

---

PLAN TO CUT EMISSIONS

February 13, 2001
New York Times
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/nyregion/13MBRF.html?pagewanted=all

NEW BRUNSWICK: The presidents of the 56 universities and colleges in New Jersey, including Princeton and Rutgers Universities, have endorsed a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 3.5 percent statewide by 2005. Under the agreement, signed yesterday at Rutgers, the schools are to compare their 1990 use of coal, oil and gas with levels burned in 2000 and then voluntarily draft plans to conserve energy and cut pollution. Robert Hanley (NYT)

---

EU proposes measures to stem mad cow crisis

02/13/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-13-madcow.htm

STRASBOURG, France (AP) - The EU Commission proposed new measures Tuesday to counter the mad cow crisis, urging a move away from so-called industrial farms, where animals are packed into crowded warehouses and fed mass-produced feed.

EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler called for increased support for organic agriculture and said certain subsidies should be available only to herds that contain 90 head of cattle or less.

The mad cow crisis, "demonstrates the need for a return to farming methods that are more in tune with the environment," Fischler said.

Feed containing bone meal and other animal byproducts has been blamed for spreading bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.

Fischler also urged decreased beef production in the face of a flagging market. Otherwise, "we would build up a beef mountain we could not deal with," he said, adding: "We have to find a new direction."

Fischler said confidence in beef had fallen to historic lows in the 15 EU member nations and around the globe, where EU exports have plummeted.

Other reforms Fischler proposed include lifting the 350,000 ton-per-year limit on the amount of beef the EU can buy back to prop up the market, and an extension of its program to buy up carcasses of untested older cattle in order to destroy them.

Farmers meanwhile, took to the streets to call for more financial aid to counter the crisis.

In Brussels, farmers' trucks blocked traffic in a protest to press the government into providing financial aid to help with the mad-cow crisis.

A planned week of demonstrations in France began Monday with burning tires, cows unleashed in the streets and hundreds of farmers demanding more money.

The mad cow crisis has forced the EU to reassess its farming policy, which for most of the last 40 years has centered on promoting intensive agriculture. Over the past months, cries for environmentally friendly farming have become ever more prominent.

Beef sales have plummeted in the EU after an upsurge of mad cow cases in several countries late last year and a scandal in France when a batch of potentially infected meat had gone on sale.

Mad cow disease has been linked to brain-wasting disease in humans, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which has killed some 80 people since the mid-1990s, mostly in Britain.

Meanwhile, the European Union issued a warning that mad cow disease has probably spread to Lithuania because of the Baltic nation's imports of live cattle and meat-and-bone meal from EU countries.

"It is regarded as highly likely that Lithuanian cattle were exposed to potentially BSE contaminated feed and subsequently infected," the European Commission said in a statement.

-------

French farmers demand mad cow aid

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
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PARIS (AP) - Farmers in northern France burned tires, paraded cows through streets and blocked a building with tractors Monday, calling for more government aid amid the mad cow crisis. The demonstrations began a week of planned protests by farmers' unions and came on the eve of a planned meeting between union leaders and Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany. Farmers demanded compensation to help them overcome financial hardships they say have resulted from public panic over mad cow disease. In Avesnes-sur-Helpe, about 300 farmers marched through the streets alongside tractors and cows. In Caen, about 20 farmers blocked off the regional agriculture department with tractors, vowing to remain there for three days. And in nearby Rouen, two dozen farmers burned tires in front of a government building.

Beef sales plummeted in France after an announcement in October that a batch of potentially infected meat had gone on sale in grocery stores. Mad cow disease has been linked with a human equivalent called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which has killed some 80 Europeans since the mid-1990s, mostly in Britain.

European Union finance ministers approved a $900 million budget Monday to fight mad cow disease and its economic effects, including $650 million to ease pressure on beef prices by destroying cows.

The number of cases of mad cow disease reported in France increased nearly fivefold last year, to 150, in part because the government broadened screening of cows.

---

Norton making case for oil drilling

2/13/2001
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration will weigh opening some currently off-limits areas of the Rockies to oil and gas drilling as part of a sweeping review of untapped energy resources, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Monday. But the former Colorado attorney general acknowledged the administration still needs to make the case for opening Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling. "In order to satisfy Congress...President Bush and I are going to have to establish that energy development can take place in a very environmentally responsible manner," Norton said.

A 1999 study by the National Petroleum Council, an industry advisory group to the government, said about 10% of the country's total reserves of natural gas lay beneath the Rockies but that 40% of the deposits are off-limits to drilling.

In 1997, the U.S. Forest Service banned drilling in areas of the Lewis and Clark National Forest that is part of the Overthrust Belt - a geological formation in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and northern Utah rich in oil and gas deposits. "We want to ensure that energy production is taking place in those areas where the environment can most tolerate that," Norton said. "One of the areas that would be studied as part of an across-the-board look at energy resources would be the Overthrust Belt."

However, she said she and Bush support current moratoriums on new offshore drilling in California and Florida.

The last time the Interior Department did a formal Environmental Impact Statement on drilling for oil in the Alaska refuge was 1987. Norton said current technologies would have minimal effect on the environment, but she acknowledged new studies may be needed.

---

Climate change talks set to resume

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Talks on how to cut pollution that is warming the planet will resume in mid-June or July, despite a continuing face-off between the biggest offender - the United States - and other countries. The last round of talks on implementing a 1997 climate accord ended in failure after a two-week session in November at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Jan Pronk, the Netherlands environment minister who is president of the talks, said Monday the negotiations will resume for two weeks sometime between mid-June and late July, though a location has not been set.

Four days after President Bush's inauguration on Jan. 20, the United States asked that climate negotiations, scheduled to resume in May, be postponed until July.

Under the 1997 protocol reached in Kyoto, Japan, the developed world pledged to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions by 5.2% from 1990 levels.

The United States - the largest emitter of greenhouse gases - says it signed onto the Kyoto agreement assuming that existing forests and agricultural lands would count.

---

EU proposes new mad cow measures

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

STRASBOURG, France (AP) - The EU Commission proposed new measures Tuesday to counter the mad cow crisis, urging a move away from so-called industrial farms, where animals are packed into crowded warehouses and fed mass-produced feed. EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler called for increased support for organic agriculture and said certain subsidies should be available only to herds that contain 90 head of cattle or less. The mad cow crisis, "demonstrates the need for a return to farming methods that are more in tune with the environment," Fischler said.

Feed containing bone meal and other animal byproducts has been blamed for spreading bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.

Fischler also urged decreased beef production in the face of a flagging market. Fischler said confidence in beef had fallen to historic lows in the 15 EU member nations and around the globe, where EU exports have plummeted.

Farmers meanwhile, took to the streets to call for more financial aid to counter the crisis.

EU seeks to ease chemical fears

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Seeking to promote a "nontoxic environment" amid scares over poisoned pacifiers and tainted milk, the European Union's head office made proposals Tuesday that would force the chemical industry to prove its products are safe. The report has already provoked criticism from environmentalists, who call it inadequate, as well as from business groups, who say the cost of new testing could put small firms out of business. But the EU Commission maintains it can reduce risks without endangering jobs in Europe's $360 billion chemicals industry. "We think we have reached a good, balanced answer," Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said after the full Commission approved the report.

The proposals will be assessed, and likely modified, by the 15 EU governments and the European Parliament over the coming months before a final directive is enacted.

Little is known about the impact on human health of about 30,000 widely used chemicals because they were classified as "existing substances" when the current European regulations were adopted in 1981, according to the report. The problem is not limited to Europe.

---

01/02/13
USA Today
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

New Jersey

New Brunswick - The presidents of the state's 56 public and private colleges and universities agreed to implement programs to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions by 3.5% by 2005. They signed pledges committing their schools to reduce emissions, such as those from fossil fuels, through recycling, conservation and pollution prevention.

North Dakota

Bismarck - Nearly 600 North Dakota farmers and ranchers took part in programs allowing them to hay, graze or farm land managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year, the agency said in its annual report. More than 5,400 acres of National Wildlife Refuges and Waterfowl Production Areas in 39 counties were in agricultural production for private landowners.

South Dakota

Aberdeen - State Veterinarian Sam Holland questions a claim by some scientists that livestock in the USA are eating more antibiotics. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 25 million pounds of antibiotics are fed to livestock annually, compared with 16 million pounds in the mid-1980s. But Holland says cleaner production methods have cut the need for antibiotics.

Utah

Salt Lake City - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received a $6 million grant to purchase land near St. George for the Mojave desert tortoise reserve, but the transaction may need the Utah Legislature's OK. A bill that has passed the House and is awaiting a Senate vote would require legislative approval of the land sale to the federal government.

Washington

Issaquah - Wildlife experts will offer a free workshop on Living with Carnivores for residents of the Cascade foothills. Their main advice for keeping bears and cougars away is to tightly seal garbage cans. Ken Konigsmark, a workshop sponsor, said he was "irritated by people who move to the edge of forest lands, then complain about wildlife and demand that they be shot."

---

EU officials approve mad-cow spending plan

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001213213727.htm

BRUSSELS - European Union finance ministers yesterday approved a $900 million budget for fighting mad-cow disease and warned they would not pitch in any more money if it proved insufficient.

The spending plan, presented last month by the EU's executive body, shifts surplus funds from the 2000 budget to cover the cost of destroying cattle and testing for mad-cow disease.

German Deputy Finance Minister Caio Koch-Weser noted that the spending cap for the EU's agriculture budget had thus been reached - meaning any additional funds needed if the beef market did not recover would have to come from savings or reallocation from other programs.

-------- police

Surveys to Gauge Public's Perception of Police

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By DIANE CARDWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/nyregion/13POLI.html

Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik offered a detailed picture yesterday of the "neighborhood satisfaction surveys" the Police Department will conduct as part of his efforts to improve relations with New Yorkers, who he said should be treated like "customers."

Mr. Kerik told a City Council committee that the new surveys would focus on people who have had recent dealings with the police. "We think this will give us a much truer picture of customer satisfaction than random polling surveys, which too often include individuals who have had no contact with the police and whose opinions are largely based on what they have heard" through newspapers and other media, he said.

The commissioner made his remarks at a hearing of the Council's Select Committee on Police Performance and Community Relations held to examine the results of a public opinion survey that the Council commissioned last summer. That survey, the results of which were made public in September, was conducted during the tenure of Mr. Kerik's predecessor, Howard Safir, and suggested that New Yorkers saw the police as effective in fighting crime but felt alienated by them. The survey was based on phone calls to 1,500 New Yorkers that sought to reach a representative sampling based on geography and ethnicity.

The Council's hearing had been delayed until yesterday to "give the commissioner time to institute his own policies," said Lupé Todd, a City Council spokeswoman.

Maureen E. Casey, the Police Department's deputy commissioner for policy and planning, said that the department planned to develop a pilot survey in five precincts, one in each borough, and then expand it to every precinct by the summer. The department has not hired a polling company to conduct the survey.

The surveys are to be conducted monthly, and the results will be used to develop a system to rate neighborhood satisfaction with each precinct, which can then be tracked, the commissioner said. People in three categories will be polled: those who used the services of the police, like those who walk into a station or call the police to report a crime or to ask how to contact the Civilian Complaint Review Board; those who have had potentially negative contact, like being stopped and questioned; and those who have had positive contact with the police, like those who have received emergency aid.

The commissioner also announced that the department would require commanders to notify elected officials and community leaders quickly after a serious incident in their area. "That way, community leaders will not only feel as if they are in the loop, but they will be armed with the timely and accurate information they need to get the truth out before the false rumors have a chance to start," he said.

Both plans are part of the commissioner's efforts to transform negative perceptions of a police department that he says is doing an excellent job. Near the end of his remarks, the commissioner said that the Police Department is more effective, more professional and more successful that it has ever been. "The fact that there are citizens in this city who don't hold that view of the N.Y.P.D. is a critical issue that needs to be addressed," he said.

---

Home Loans to Peace Officers and Firefighters

Tuesday February 13,
Yahoo News
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010213/ca_state_c.html

State Controller Kathleen Connell to Sponsor Bill Offering Home Loans to Peace Officers and Firefighters

Public Safety Officers Could Afford Homes in the Communities They Serve Under Bill Authored by Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 2001-- State Controller Kathleen Connell will outline a proposal that would alleviate the housing crisis for key members of law enforcement and fire agencies. The Controller will discuss the bill at the site of an averaged price family home in Los Angeles.

Under the bill, authored by Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn, (D) San Jose, public safety officers who want to buy homes in the communities they serve will be eligible for home loans of up to $7,500. The loans would be forgiven if the recipient remains in the community and working at the same agency for at least five years.

The communities covered under the proposed legislation are five of California's largest cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose and Long Beach.

State Controller Kathleen Connell will explain the criteria for recipients and the details and funding of the proposed legislation in a news conference Wednesday morning at a single family home in a neighborhood in Northridge.

Representatives from public safety agencies will also be present at the news conference to show their support for this measure.

When: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 Time: 9:30 AM Where: 16711 Superior St. Northridge, CA

Directions: Fwy No. 405 North, Nordhoff Exit, left(West) to Balboa, right (pass Plummer), right on Citronia, left on McLennan, and right on Superior.

Contact:
CA State Controller Cynthia Sardo, 310/342-5696

---

California

01/02/13
USA Today
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Los Angeles - City tax revenues have risen to the highest levels in a decade, and most of the surplus is going to salary increases and expenses like lawsuits from the Rampart police scandal, officials said. From July to December, revenue came in about $47 million above the expected $2.93 billion.

Minnesota

St. Paul - The first black woman in the Minnesota Legislature, Neva Walker, is taking the racial profiling issue personally. She says police have pulled over three of her brothers without cause. Walker, a Democrat, is backing a bill that would force law enforcement officers to gather racial information on the drivers they stop. Republicans support a rival proposal that would make such data gathering voluntary.

Vermont

Montpelier - Vermont police are upset about new rules written by the state Supreme Court governing issuing tickets for minor offenses, including speeding. Law enforcement agencies are asking that the March 1 implementation of the rules be delayed. Among the new requirements would be asking the person ticketed if he or she were in the military and, if so, getting details like the commanding officer's name and phone number.

-------- spying

NSA listens to bin Laden

Tuesday, 13 February 2001
By RICHARD SALE, Terrorism Correspondent
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=159822

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- If you like to use your e-mail to convey enticements to your sweetie or snuggle down and trade intimate long distance calls at midnight, you may want to think again, especially if you are connected with anything that the U.S. government regards as a threat to national security.

Ask Saudi exile and terrorist Osama bin Laden.

The U.S. case unfolding against him in United States District Court in Manhattan is based mainly on National Security Agency intercepts of phone calls between bin Laden and his operatives around the world -- Afghanistan to London, from Kenya to the United States.

The 321-count indictment charges that bin Laden is chief of a shadowy group called Al Qaeda, or "The Base," whose aim is to kill U.S. nationals anywhere in the world. Specifically mentioned in the indictment are the 1993 murder in Somalia of 18 U.S. Army Rangers and the 1998 bombing of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa that killed 224 and injured more than 4,000.

It is perhaps ironic that a current defendant in the trial, Khalid Al Fawwaz, waiting to be extradited from Britain and who allegedly ran bin Laden's "media information office" in London, procured for Bin Laden a satellite phone. Fawwaz also provided satellite phones for other members of the bin Laden's group, "to facilitate communications," the indictment said.

Instead the phones facilitated his and the others' downfall.

The London Al Qaeda office served as a conduit for messages, including reports on military and security matters from various terrorist cells. For example, bin Laden called Fawwaz in the London office many times to discuss financial disbursements and other matters, according to the indictment.

Just before the Aug. 7 embassy bombings, a suicide bomber, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, contacted an Al Qaeda number in Yemen from a safe house in Nairobi. Owhali called that same number the next day from a hospital clinic and would make a series of phone calls from Nairobi to Yemen.

The indictment clearly links bin Laden's satellite telephone calls to the East Africa bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam.

On Aug. 11, two days after the bombings were completed, bin Laden's satellite number phone was used to contact network operatives in Yemen, at a number frequently called by perpetrators of the bombing from their safe house in Nairobi.

What pulled all this information together?

A system called ECHELON is said to be mainly responsible, according to U.S. government officials who requested anonymity. They said that ECHELON is designed by the National Security Agency based at Fort Meade, between Washington and Baltimore, Md., and that the system is linked with special collections stations around the world, which allow signals intelligence agencies to increase surveillance over the Internet and of databases, faxes, phone calls and e-mails connected with it.

The stations are run by the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, sources said.

The targets of ECHELON center on the penetration of the major components of most of the world's telephone and telecommunications systems. This could cover conversations NSA targets. Also included are all telexes carried over the world's telecommunications networks, along with financial dealings: money transfers, airline destinations, stock information, data on demonstrations or international conferences, and much more.

When United Press International wanted to send some information to a former CIA official about Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior bin Laden military commander and organizer, the intelligence official exclaimed," My God, don't put that in an e-mail," indicating that the worldwide listening system would light up. "NSA has huge watch lists" and he didn't want to be on one, he said. According to a half dozen specialists interviewed by UPI, ECHELON doesn't listen in on a particular individual. Instead, the system vacuums up tremendous amounts of communications and then uses dictionary computers to sort and identify the messages that have any intelligence value. These are sent immediately to the headquarters of the listening organization -- in the NSA's case, the vast complex of buildings and computers at Fort Meade that houses 20,000 employees.

The dictionary computers are supplied with key words -- names of terrorists or political groups or crime organizations. The computers then begin to intercept e-mails from such groups and make a record of all contacts, and the contacts that those contacts make, adding them to a watch list. The information is recorded digitally on magnetic tapes and then turned over to analysts for scrutiny, U.S. sources said.

"It's a pretty awesome capability," said a former Defense Intelligence Agency official.

According to him and others, the ECHELON system can intercept all the communications carried by a ring of stationary communications satellites positioned above the equator, which each day daily process hundreds of thousands of e-mails, phone calls and telexes. Also targeted are microwave networks over land, and undersea cables systems. Once the undersea cables emerge from the sea and join with the network of line-of-sight microwave towers, they are "extremely vulnerable" to interception, in the words of one U.S. expert.

The NSA listening station at Sugar Grove, about 150 miles from Washington in the hills of West Virginia, covers Atlantic Intelsats transmitting to North and South America. In one operation a few years ago, officials at the European Union's offices in Luxembourg complained to U.S. officials that the E.U. had evidence that NSA had used the Internet to penetrate the e-mails that linked the 5,000 EU elected officials and bureaucrats. Such activity has been used recently to monitor talk about the EU wanting to set up its own defense force, a U.S. officials said on condition of not being named.

"It's a freebee," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official. "It's a tremendously rich source of material. We'd be fools not to use it."

Asked about its legality, he replied, "This isn't about legality. This is about trying to protect American lives."

Another NSA listening post at Yakima, Wash., inside a U.S. Army firing range there, is used to listen in on the Pacific Intelsats. They are aided by stations in New Zealand, which has stations at Waihopai, and a station at Geraldton in Western Australia that pick up what Yakima is unable to hear.

Another series of stations at Menwith Hill in England; Shoal Bay near Darwin in northern Australia; Leitrim, just south of Ottawa, Canada; Misawa in Japan; and Bad Aidblig in Germany, listen in on happenings in Russia, these sources said.

The stations are formidable installations. The one at Menwith Hill consists of 4.9 acres of buildings with 22 or more satellite terminals, U.S. government officials said.

The Menwith Hill station has played a key part in tracking bin Laden, according to U.S. government sources. In 1991, it was given the NSA "Station of the Year" prize for its performance during the Gulf War. The station also serves as a ground station for real-time data transmissions from U.S. electronic spy satellites like Vortex, which can intercept military communications from walkie-talkies to military radios or any microwave transmissions.

Since 1995, bin Laden has tried to protect his communications with a "full suite of tools," according to Ben Venzke, director of intelligence, special projects, for iDefense, a Virginia information warfare firm.

Coded letters, encryption of calls, verbal ciphers, messengers that elude technical collection, embedding messages in Internet porno films -- all are being used.

Since Bin Laden started to encrypt certain calls in 1995, why would they now be part of a court record? "Codes were broken," US officials said, and Venzke added that you don't use your highest level of secure communications all the time. It's too burdensome, and it exposes it to other types of exploitation."

During an insurgency in Cyprus in the 1950s, the British found the rebels were using female motorcycle riders to carry messages back and forth. Bin Laden is doing the same. But while messengers are fine, their use "is dependent very much on the speed you require," Venzke said: "Communication has to be safe, but it has to be efficient too."

The best way to augment signals intelligence is with HUMINT -- human intelligence, placing a source "close to the target," said Venzke.

"HUMINT is essential. It's hard to place assets where they are needed to be, but they're essential for exact information," he said.

-------- terrorism

Bin Laden Aide Tells of Proposed Riyadh Attack

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/crime-bombing-africa.html

NEW YORK, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A former Osama bin Laden aide, who has received almost $1 million in U.S. assistance as an informant, said on Tuesday the Saudi dissident's militant group discussed bombing the American embassy in Riyadh in 1994.

Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, the first witness in a trial of four bin Laden followers charged in a conspiracy that included the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, acknowledged during cross-examination that he had learned of the proposed attack in the Saudi capital but did nothing to discourage the plans.

Although the Saudi attack never occurred, Bin Laden and his followers were charged with the later blasts at U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured thousands.

The attacks were allegedly carried out by members of al Qaeda (the Base), which prosecutors said is an ``international terrorist group'' run by bin Laden ``dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence.''

Although 22 defendants were charged, only four were being tried: Wadih El-Hage, 40, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon; Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, 24, a Saudi Arabian; Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, a Tanzanian; and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 35, a Jordanian. Mohamed and al-'Owhali could face the death penalty if convicted.

Bin Laden, believed living in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban, is among a group of defendants who are fugitives, and the U.S. government is offering rewards of $5 million for information leading to their arrest. Three others are involved in extradition proceedings in Britain.

RIYADH BOMBING PROPOSED

Carl Herman, a lawyer for Odeh, asked Al-Fadl if he was aware of 1994 discussions in which Egyptian officers in Al Qaeda proposed bombing the U.S. embassy in Riyadh.

``I learned ... they tried to do that,'' Al-Fadl said.

Herman said Saudi members of the group rejected the plan.

He also asked Al-Fadl if he had told U.S. authorities that bin Laden misinterpreted portions of the Koran to justify violent actions.

Al-Fadl replied it was not exactly his statement but when pressed by Herman he replied, ``If they (U.S. authorities) wrote it, yes.''

Last week Al-Fadl testified about al Qaeda's broad operations that included farming, import/export, transportation and investment businesses. He also described how members of the group received fatwas, or religious decrees, ordering them to kill Americans.

During cross-examination, defense attorneys tried to portray Al-Fadl as a callous turncoat who swore an oath to to kill innocent people and even die himself as an al Qaeda member. After stealing money from the bin Laden group he then sought protection from its enemy the United States and agreed to plead guilty and testify against the group to whom he had pledged his life.

David Baugh, a defense lawyer for al-'Owhali, asked Al-Fadl how he preferred to describe himself ``informant, snitch or turncoat?''

Al-Fadl, who speaks broken English with an Arabic accent, said he did not understand the question.

Baugh asked if he had received more than $794,200 from the U.S. witness protection program since 1999 for rent, food and other expenses for himself and his family. The program relocates witnesses and helps them start new lives under a different identity.

``I didn't count it,'' Al-Fadl said.

Baugh then asked if he had received another $151,047 from the FBI for expenses since 1997.

``If they say it, they're right,'' Al-Fadl said.

He also said that under his plea agreement, he faces a jail term that would not exceed 15 years.

``You're hoping you'll get less...you might not go to jail at all,'' asked David Stern, a lawyer for Mohamed.

``Yes,'' said said Al-Fadl.

Defense lawyers also questioned Al-Fadl about his knowledge of Islam and prohibitions against killing innocent women, children, sick people and the elderly.

When Al-Fadl said this was his understanding, defense lawyers asked if he had participated in al Qaeda's sale of weapons throughout the world that would be used to ``kill people in the name of Islam.''

Al-Fadl said he had.

Stern asked Al-Fadl if he had tried to stop the proposed Riyadh bombing that would have killed many innocent people.

``No,'' said Al-Fadl.

---

Terror Exports Are the Business of Jihad Inc

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By ALAN FEUER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/world/13TERR.html

When the business was just a start-up, the boss had the first office on the left as you entered the eight- or nine-room headquarters on McNimr Street in downtown Khartoum, Sudan.

When people arrived for appointments, they checked in with his secretary, who sat at a desk outside his door. When he went on a business trip, he called the travel office, which arranged for his plane tickets and the visas he needed to go abroad.

While terrorists may be known for exporting chaos and mayhem, the international group that prosecutors say is run by Osama bin Laden emerged last week in the first two days of testimony at the trial in the American Embassy bombings in East Africa as a sleek and highly organized outfit in fairly good corporate trim.

According to a witness who once ran its payroll, the group, known as Al Qaeda (Arabic for the Base), was a model of efficiency, complete with a finance committee, a network of profitable business ventures, even an in-house newspaper published by a man called Abu Musab Reuter by his peers.

The portrait of Al Qaeda as a modern-day corporation was painted in Federal District Court in Manhattan by Jamal Ahmed Al- Fadl, who described himself as Mr. bin Laden's former paymaster and the third man to join the terrorist group.

On the witness stand, Mr. Al-Fadl, who left the group in 1996, laid out Al Qaeda's inner structure in detail, explaining who was in charge and how the group earned money.

The emir, or chief executive, was Mr. bin Laden, the witness said. Under him was a body called the Shura Council, a panel of a dozen or so top aides who, according to Mr. Al-Fadl, discussed pressing matters as a group because they had "more experience about jihad," or holy wars.

The organization was divided into specialized committees, Mr. Al-Fadl said. A military committee oversaw war training and weapons purchases; a finance committee ran the group's corporate holdings; an Islamic study committee issued rulings on religious law; and a media committee published the group's daily newspaper, Nashrat al Akhbar.

There was also a travel department, where "if you want to travel they give you passport," Mr. Al-Fadl testified.

While much has been written about Al Qaeda's military wing - its terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, for example, where recruits were taught to use C-4 explosives and rocket-propelled grenades - Mr. Al-Fadl provided new details about the group's extensive network of companies.

The first of these, the witness said, was a business called Wadi al-Aqiq, a corporate shell that operated in Sudan and that Mr. Al- Fadl said was the "mother of other companies." But as Al Qaeda solidified its position in Sudan, he said, other business ventures followed.

There was the Ladin International Company, an import-export concern; Taba Investment, a currency trading firm; Hijra Construction, which built bridges and roads; and the Themar al-Mubaraka Company, which grew sesame, peanuts and white corn for the group on a farm near Ed Damazin, Sudan.

At the farm, Al Qaeda also provided its members with refresher courses in light weapons and explosives, Mr. Al- Fadl said.

Al Qaeda not only had an officelike structure, the witness said, it also had office politics. Mr. Al-Fadl, who is Sudanese, said the terrorist group paid him about $300 a month. But his co-workers, he said, particularly Egyptians, received higher salaries.

"Some people, they got more," he testified. "Some people, they got less."

The group ran an international trading company that dealt in commodities like sugar and palm oil. It was from these transactions that a disgruntled Mr. Al-Fadl took $110,000 in illicit commissions and kickbacks. He was eventually caught, and, fearing for his life, left the group in 1996 after working there for nearly a decade. He fled into the arms of American investigators at an unidentified United States embassy.

Al Qaeda's money - and there was lots of it, Mr. Al-Fadl said without giving an exact amount - was held in a web of bank accounts in Europe, Asia and Sudan.

There was an account under the name Osama bin Laden in Bank Shaml in Khartoum, and at least three more under other names in three other Sudanese banks, he said. There were also accounts, he said, in Hong Kong and Malaysia and at Barclays Bank in London.

Like any successful business, Al Qaeda had its experts. A man named Abu Anas al-Liby, the witness said, was the resident computer wizard. Another man, Abu Khalid el-Masry, specialized in maintaining battle tanks, he said.

A third man, Abu Muaz el-Masry, the witness said, had an unlikely specialty: he was Al Qaeda's in-house interpreter of dreams.

"If anyone got dream and he believes that dream could become true," Mr. Al-Fadl said, "he go and tell him.

"Abu Muaz, he got great experience to tell the people what the dream going to be, and he's a scholar for that."

-------- activists

Nobel Peace Prize Nominations

February 13, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Nobel-Nominations.html

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, U.S. peace broker Richard Holbrooke and the International Red Cross were among the 126 people and groups nominated as of Tuesday for the Nobel Peace Prize, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Geir Lundestad, the nonvoting secretary of the Oslo-based awards committee, said 98 individuals and 28 organizations had been nominated, and that the final count was expected to be higher.

Nominations postmarked by the Feb. 1 deadline continue to arrive, he said, and the five-member committee can makes its own nominations at its first meeting on Feb. 23.

``We probably won't break last year's record of 150,'' said Lundestad. ``But we can't set a new record every year. The trend, however, is clear, that there is increasing interest each year.''

The Nobel Prizes, created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his 1896 will, were first awarded in 1901. The founder of the Red Cross shared the prize that year. All living laureates have been invited to a centennial celebration in December.

The committee never releases the names of candidates, and works in secret to select a winner. However, those making a nomination often announce their favorite.

This year, known nominees include Chinese Falun Gong movement founder Li Hingzhi; jailed Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who disclosed details about his country's atomic weapons program; and Japanese historian Saburo Iebaga for his efforts to expose atrocities during World War II. Also, Thich Quang Do, a dissident Buddhist monk in Vietnam; former President Carter for his wide-ranging peace efforts; former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari for his Balkan and other peace efforts; The European Court of Human Rights; Stanley ``Tookie'' Williams, a U.S. death row inmate nominated for his books urging children to stay clear of crime; and the game of soccer.

The United Nations and its secretary general, Annan, as well as the Red Cross were seen as appropriate candidates to mark the prize's centennial.

Possible but unconfirmed nominees include the Salvation Army, Human Rights Watch and Pope John Paul II.

So far, no nomination of former President Clinton has been announced. He was repeatedly proposed in past years by a group of Norwegian legislators.

Thousands of people have nomination rights, including committee members, past laureates, some university professors, members of national legislatures and governments and some organizations.

``Just because someone is nominated, does not mean that they will be considered for the prize,'' said Lundestad.

Last year's prize went to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

``We notice that when a prize goes to a geographical area, it increases interest from that area,'' said Lundestad, noting an increase from Asia.

The prize includes a cash award that is expected to increase to about $1 million this year.

The Nobel Prizes are always awarded on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death. The peace prize is awarded in Oslo, and the other prize in Stockholm, Sweden.

---

POWER PLANT PROTEST

February 13, 2001
New York Times
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/nyregion/13MBRF.html?pagewanted=all

BROOKLYN: Critics of two power plants planned for Williamsburg gathered in the neighborhood yesterday to protest. They also announced a lawsuit against the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which issued permits for the plants. Citing the area's high asthma and cancer rates, officials and members of Communities United for Responsible Energy called for a moratorium on plant construction permits until the city could develop a plan for its power needs. Tara Bahrampour (NYT)

---

Vegetarian Wardrobe

February 13, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/opinion/L13HYP.html

To the Editor:

Re "Hypocrisy Has Its Virtues" by Alan Ehrenhalt (Op-Ed, Feb. 6):

I recall a conversation with my daughter, 14 at the time, who had recently become a vegetarian, wreaking havoc on my rather limited cooking repertory. When I pointed out that she was refusing to eat meat or fish but still wore leather shoes and clothes, she responded, "I'm not a hypocrite, I'm inconsistent!"

DAVID E. MANDELBAUM Highland Park, N.J., Feb. 6, 2001

---

Seattle Drops Charges Related to Trade Protest

February 13, 2001
New York Times
National News Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/national/13NATI.html

SEATTLE, Feb. 12 (AP) - The city is dismissing charges against 77 people arrested in November in a protest against the World Trade Organization. The city attorney, Mark H. Sidran, said on Friday that he lacked evidence to pursue the misdemeanor charges.

More than 100 people were arrested. A few cases were resolved earlier, and 23 cases will go forward, Mr. Sidran said.

He said the decision to drop the charges had not been influenced by an Associated Press report on Friday that Mayor Paul Schell had intervened in the cases of officials with the King County Labor Council, Seattle Union Now and the Washington State Labor Council. The three labor officials were arrested but were released and never charged.

Lawyers for the other protesters had seized upon the treatment of the labor leaders and suggested that politics had played a role. In his last campaign, Mr. Schell was endorsed by the King County Labor Council. Mr. Schell's office said the mayor was not available to discuss his actions.

---

China Begins to Turn Light on Wide Use of Torture

February 13, 2001
New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/world/13CHIN.html

BEIJING, Feb. 12 - Soon after his arrest on trumped-up charges, Li Kuisheng was beaten to a bloody mess.

Mr. Li, a prominent lawyer in the central city of Zhengzhou, had crossed the police by trying to defend an official suspected of corruption, and found himself charged with concocting evidence.

In a two-week ordeal intended to make him confess, he was forced to jog naked in the snow, handcuffed and shackled. Then one arm was forced back over his shoulder, the other arm was forced up from behind and his thumbs were tied together, an agonizing position that he says left him wishing to die. He was deprived of sleep for days on end, had rifle butts repeatedly slammed into his back and served as a target dummy for flying kung fu kicks.

Last month, after 26 months in custody, Mr. Li was cleared of all charges and released.

What was unusual about Mr. Li's case was not that he was tortured by the police, legal experts say, but that fellow lawyers were able to raise enough of a fuss to get him freed.

Increasingly, instances of police torture are reported in the official press, as Mr. Li's was. And in rare cases, though apparently not including his, the offending officials have been prosecuted. But public reports and prosecutions, experts say, have barely scratched the surface of what one Chinese scholar has called the legal system's "chronic illness."

A report issued today by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, reviews scores of torture allegations involving not just the police but also tax collectors, birth-control officials and other authorities and concludes, "Torture and ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners is widespread and systemic in China."

While acknowledging that internal debate over police abuses is rising, the report also highlights evidence of a major new wave of police violence against members of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group, more than 100 of whom have reportedly died in police custody.

Whether torture is actually spreading here, as the Amnesty report suggests, or is more frequently exposed is not clear. But several Chinese scholars and articles in the official press have also described a pervasive pattern of torture by the police and prosecutors, usually with the acquiescence of the courts.

In a recently published book called "Fighting Torture," Chen Yunsheng, of the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, describes the police abuse of detainees, especially to extract confessions, as "rampant" and a "chronic illness." He says that only a tiny fraction of such violations are investigated.

"For a minority of legal personnel," he wrote, "beating people has simply become an everyday thing."

In addition to such tried methods as beating prisoners with clubs or pistols, using stun guns on the genitals or flashing bright lights in the eyes, he wrote, an increasingly popular technique has involved wrapping the victim with a telephone cord in a manner that produces an excruciating electric shock.

"The real problem," said a recent commentary in the Legal Daily, is that solving criminal cases wins acclaim and promotions for officials "no matter what methods are used."

In another recent Legal Daily article, a scholar at Beijing University, Chen Xingliang, criticized Chinese courts for routinely accepting confessions obtained through torture and said a more explicit rule was needed to bar evidence gained through abuses.

China is a party to a United Nations treaty banning torture, but has exempted itself from the clause allowing outsiders to investigate alleged torture cases.

For the last several years, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Sir Nigel Rodley, a British law professor, has sought to arrange a fact-finding visit to China. But Beijing has refused to agree to the usual conditions of such a visit including access to installations without advance notice and unmonitored prisoner interviews, Sir Nigel said.

China's own laws do forbid torture of prisoners. But the country's long tradition of primary reliance on confessions for conviction, and the informal ties linking the local police, prosecutors and judges, have hampered progress.

Chinese scholars and the report from Amnesty International propose major changes in legal practice that could help curb abuses.

One would be to grant defendants the right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination - a standard protection in the West, but one that flies against tradition here.

But real progress, experts here say, would require changes in attitudes and training of legal officers as well as changes in the legal code.

"The government has acknowledged for many years that torture is a serious problem but has done little about it," the Amnesty International report asserts.

---

Vietnam struggling to quell highlands unrest

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
By David R. Sands
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200121322037.htm

Vietnam's Communist leaders are struggling to contain a potent mixture of economic, ethnic and religious resentments that has produced violent protests in the country's coffee-growing central highlands.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi officially warned Americans on Friday to avoid travel to the provinces of Gia Lai and Daklak, where the government has dispatched troops and attack helicopters to help riot police suppress demonstrations by indigenous ethnic groups.

The highlands, scene of long-standing tensions between the minority groups and the majority Vietnamese, include the most valuable farmland in Vietnam, the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil. The region's population has surged as the central government has encouraged ethnic Vietnamese to move to the area to relieve lowland crowding and promote coffee cultivation.

The central highlands region is also the home of many fast-growing Protestant sects that have resisted Hanoi's attempts to bring them under official control.

"You have all those factors mixed together and you can understand why the government would be worried," said Zachary Abuza, a political scientist at Boston's Simmons College and an authority on Vietnamese politics.

Frederick Z. Brown, a Southeast Asia scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said the clashes have come as the Communist Party is attempting to organize a party congress to anoint a new generation of leaders.

On former President Clinton's trip to Vietnam in November, U.S. officials noted a sharp split between the pro-reform Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu, who was much more hostile to U.S. prodding to open up Vietnam's economy to global competition.

"That just means the regime has to manage these protests much more carefully," Mr. Brown said.

Religious rights in Vietnam will get an airing on Capitol Hill today, when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom holds hearings on Vietnam and Indonesia.

Representatives of Vietnam's Buddhist, Protestant and Catholic communities will testify.

Vietnamese officials have sealed Gia Lai and Daklak to outsiders, but even the state-run Vietnam News Agency acknowledged last week that there had been widespread unrest in the two provinces.

VNA said ethnic "extremists" had sparked the unrest in Pleiku, the capital of Gia Lai, to protest the Jan. 29 detention of two men the government said were trying to sow ethnic discord. The protests spread to Daklak's capital of Buon Ma Thuot and at least 20 persons had been arrested for "provocative acts" and property destruction, according to the government.

But private sources and wire service reports say the disturbances were far more extensive.

Local hospital officials in Pleiku and Buon Ma Thuot have confirmed that 30 police officers and an unknown number of protesters were treated for injuries in the clashes, and Mr. Abuza said one Vietnamese contact told him 400 people had been detained in Pleiku alone.

The Montagnard Foundation, a South Carolina-based advocacy group for the more than 50 ethnic groups who live in Vietnam's highlands, maintained last week that the rioting was triggered when the government arrested and tortured two of its local human rights activists.

The pair, identified by the foundation as Rahlan Pon and Rahlan Djan, were arrested, severely beaten and held in a military camp, according an account posted on its World Wide Web site (www.montagnard-foundation.org).

The foundation said that some 20,000 demonstrators were gathered in Pleiku alone to demand the release of the pair, and that 600 marchers were beaten as they approached police barriers set up in the town.

The reports could not be independently confirmed and the government has denied foreign media access to the region since the unrest began.

But the scope of the government's response suggested that the protests were not confined to the two provincial capitals.

"You don't send in troops and helicopters just to deal with urban demonstrations," one Western diplomat in Hanoi said.

Peasants protesting against official corruption and graft staged violent protests in the northern province of Thai Binh in late 1997. Mr. Zachary said the government appeared to be moving swiftly in the latest clashes, employing tough new laws on detention without trial adopted in the wake of the Thai Binh fighting.

Analysts said the latest violence will undoubtedly factor into the party congress, although whether it will strengthen the hand of the hard-liners or the reformers isn't clear.

Many expected the congress, held every five years, to be convened next month, but the failure of the government to name a date has fueled talk of high-level divisions over personnel and policy.

"If the unrest continues, it will be a serious problem that doesn't reflect well on the leadership," said Mr. Brown. "The guys at the top have to take responsibility, and that is even more true in an authoritarian system like Vietnam."

---

Accounts of torture in China on the rise

February 13, 2001
Washington Times
By David R. Sands
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200121322355.htm

The use of torture has surged in China, with the targets ranging from political dissidents and religious activists to vagrants, prostitutes and tax delinquents, according to a major new survey.

The report, released yesterday by the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International, details more than 70 specific cases of torture administered by Chinese authorities, and cites evidence and press reports of hundreds more such incidents.

The survey comes a month before the annual U.N. Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva, where activists are lobbying for a resolution condemning Beijing.

"The phenomenon of torture is not new in China, but we believe it is certainly on the rise recently," said T. Kumar, advocacy director for Asia in Amnesty International's Washington office.

The new Bush administration has already clashed with China over human rights, with Secretary of State Colin Powell pointedly raising U.S. concerns in a private meeting with China's departing U.S. ambassador.

And yesterday, 30 U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, slamming China's human rights record. A copy of the letter was obtained by the Agence France-Presse news agency.

"We remain deeply concerned about serious violations of internationally recognized human rights in China," said the congressmen, all of whom supported President Clinton's historic trade pact with China passed last year.

The Amnesty report is a gruesome catalog of reported abuses, including infanticide, starvation, beatings, coerced confessions, electric shocks, rape, forced feedings and suspicious deaths in detention.

"We are increasingly getting solid information about different officials implicated in torture and new methods being used," Mr. Kumar said.

Among the organized groups within China that have been targeted are Tibetan monks, activists from the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and practitioners of the religious Falun Gong movement, which Beijing insists is a subversive sect.

"Many [political prisoners] report being beaten with whatever implement a guard or interrogator can find to hand, including gun butts," according to the report. "Prisoners are often beaten around the head, or kicked in the stomach, lower back or genitals. . . . Kidney and liver ailments are common among prisoners as a result of kicking and beatings by prison guards aimed specifically at these sensitive organs."

Said Erping Zhang, U.S. spokesman for the Falun Gong, "We are in the middle of a brutal crackdown." He said at least 100 Falun Gong adherents had died in detention in China.

"We are suffering the same fate as the other religions, but we are struggling on our own for our religious freedom," the spokesman said. "We understand that we are not the only group being persecuted for their beliefs in China."

Chinese Embassy officials here said they had not seen the report prior to its release and would not comment on the specifics.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement noting that Chinese law bans torture.

There is "no factual basis to think there is a 'systemic and large-scale' practice of torture in China," the ministry statement said.

Amnesty International, which has criticized China's human rights record in the past, initiated a global campaign in October against torture, charging that even democracies such as the United States and Britain were guilty.

The organization considers capital punishment - used in both China and the United States - as "the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman degrading punishment." Amnesty International has also charged that blacks in the United States are disproportionately victimized by police brutality.

Past human rights reports on China have tracked torture and ill treatment given to political prisoners and those sentenced to labor camps. But Mr. Kumar said the latest survey found a much wider circle of officials employing torture, including local police officers, tax collectors, authorities overseeing China's strict birth control statutes, prosecutors and workers in psychiatric hospitals.

"You don't always need a specific order from the top officials in Beijing to go torture A, B, C and D," Mr. Kumar said.

"But we see many cases where the central authorities give the green light to 'get results' and the local officials take it from there," he said. "And when people do raise the torture issue, it doesn't get investigated."

In one of China's so-called "Strike Hard" campaigns, police in Henan Province killed a businessman and his bodyguard in a hail of machine-gun fire when they were stopped at a tollgate. The officers justified the shooting as part of a "heightened state of alert" ordered by higher-level officials to crack down on car theft.

But the Amnesty International study also noted that China's own media were responsible for uncovering many of the instances of official corruption and torture - but only if the abuses were not related to political protests.

"We are seeing more boldness from the Chinese press," he said, "but only in cases where the authority of the Communist Party is not threatened."

Mr. Kumar said the new report on torture in China reinforced his group's demand that the Bush administration take public action by sponsoring a resolution in Geneva next month critical of China.

The Bush administration has not indicated whether it will back the resolution, which the Clinton administration supported last spring.

"If you're serious about human rights, you can't just do it in private meetings," Mr. Kumar said.

• Tom Carter contributed to this report.

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CSIS predicts anarchists will bring violence to global summit April meeting in Quebec

February 13, 2001
National Post
Southam News
Jim Bronskill
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010213/473136.html

OTTAWA - The likelihood of violence at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City has increased with calls from anarchists and other radicals to use force -- possibly including bricks and gasoline bombs -- to make their case against globalization, says Canada's spy agency.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service report warns the expected "presence of some violence-prone individuals" raises fresh concerns about the April gathering of the Organization of American States.

The newly obtained report, prepared in December, says the threat of serious disruption escalated last October with efforts to form "anarchist affinity groups" to plan activities ranging from projectile attacks to human blockades.

"Anarchist elements are actively organizing to protest the summit," says the confidential report, released to Southam News under the Access to Information Act.

The hemispheric meeting will bring together the leaders of 34 countries, including Canada, to discuss free trade and investment.

Protesters argue corporate globalization and the unbridled pursuit of profit are seriously eroding the rights of workers, feeding social injustices and damaging the environment.

For almost a year, activists have been preparing for the summit through Internet sites, e-mail, meetings and training camps.

While many demonstrators intend to express opposition peacefully, some are calling for "direct action" to achieve goals.

At previous global summits, the more extreme members of the anti-globalization movement have smashed windows, set fires and trashed stores.

For several months, some activists have urged protesters to shut down the Quebec City meetings.


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Greenpeace Challenges Bush's Missile Defense System

13 Feb 8:57
US Newswire
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0213-103.html

Greenpeace Challenges Bush's "Star Wars" Missile Defense System & Sends Ship To Test Site To: National Desk Contact: William Peden, 202-285-9130 or Mary MacNutt, 202-255-9560, both of Greenpeace; Web site: http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/nuclear

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The international environmental organization Greenpeace announced today that its flag ship, the SV Rainbow Warrior, has set sail from Auckland, New Zealand to the Pacific test site for the Bush Administration's National Missile Defense system, also known as "Star Wars." Greenpeace is also marking its 30th year of "raising hell to protect the planet", with plans to challenge the Bush administration and polluting industries across the globe to take steps to protect the environment.

"The Star Wars testing program poses real and present threats to the planet. Greenpeace began in 1971 protesting nuclear testing and today we are continuing our commitment to a nuclear free future by protesting the Star Wars project," said Greenpeace USA Executive Director John Passacantando. "And we'll be out in force this year to make clear our 30 year commitment to protecting the planet."

The Rainbow Warrior is sailing to the U.S. Army Missile Testing Range at Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands where the launch site for the so called "kill vehicle" -- a missile intended to intercept a simulated enemy missile fired from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base -- is located. As the next test of the Star Wars system is scheduled for sometime between March and June, the Rainbow Warrior will be on site in the Marshall Islands by mid-March. Upon arrival, Greenpeace is seeking meetings with Marshallese leaders and the Kwajalein Missile Range commander and will hold open boat days to discuss the Greenpeace campaign to stop the Star Wars program and the threat it poses to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons with the people of the Marshall Islands.

Sending the Rainbow Warrior to the Star Wars test site comes in the midst of the Administration's "National Security Week" and at a critical point in deciding the future course of the system. Lead by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an urgent review of the program is underway and is expected to report to the President in late March. It also comes at a time when the Bush administration is engaged in a diplomatic offensive to persuade European allies to accept its plans.

At a security conference in Munich two weeks ago where the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, warned that, "missile defense must not come at the expense of arms control." Other U.S. allies have also expressed major concern such as the French President, Jacques Chirac, who recently cautioned that Star Wars plans would "relaunch the arms race in the world," a point that is backed up the U.S. government's own intelligence reports that warn both Russia and China will probably expand and modernize their nuclear arsenals to counter a missile shield.

"The only thing this system will shoot down is the international nuclear disarmament process. If Bush really wants to protect our national security he should scrap Star Wars now," said Passacantando.

In addition, to the work planned around Star Wars, in March the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise ship will enter U.S. waters for a two-week tour of the polluted Louisiana coastline and waterways and the organization is gearing up to block FDA approval of genetically engineered fish. Efforts on oceans, ancient forests and global warming will also be high priority.

"Greenpeace is poised to make a tremendous impact on environmental issues within the U.S. and across the globe this year," said Passacantando. "We're sending a message to the Bush administration and polluting industries that we're watching them and that we are prepared to take action should they continue to threaten the environment."


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Reporters knew of suicides

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=1722_3657099_108107_775_149539_0&YY=65985&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=6&box=Inbox

BEIJING (AP) - In an apparent effort to discredit foreign reporting on the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, two state-run newspapers said Western reporters knew in advance of a group suicide attempt and did nothing to stop it. The Associated Press, Cable News Network and Agence France-Presse - named in the newspapers' accounts - denied they had prior warning of the Jan. 23 suicide attempt on Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The widely circulated newspapers also said that as many as seven journalists from the news organizations were detained after the self-immolations.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Feb. 8 that two reporters were detained, and they had been present without prior permission as required. Zhu did not address the allegations that journalists had prior warning of the protest.

A producer and cameraman with CNN who witnessed the protest were detained for 90 minutes and police confiscated their videotape. No AP reporters or photographers were on Tiananmen Square when the protest took place. AP also denied that its journalists were on the square and said none was detained.

State media said a 36-year-old woman died and four other Falun Gong members - including her 12-year old daughter - were seriously injured when they doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire. Authorities say police stopped two others before they could set themselves ablaze.

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ACLU sues over Olympic protests

2/13/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=13fdp2p7p12nn

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union has sued to force Olympic security planners to disclose the sites where demonstrators will be allowed during the 2002 Winter Games. After two attempts to get the information through the Government Records Access and Management Act, the Utah chapter of the ACLU filed suit Monday against the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command. Janelle Eurick, an ACLU attorney, said, "We'd like to send a message that we take these First Amendment zones seriously."

The U.S. and Utah constitutions protect protests, and courts have required that places be set aside for demonstrations.

Eurick asked UOPSC last month for documents concerning the treatment of peaceful protesters during the games. UOPSC spokesman Christopher Kramer said planners themselves do not know where the zones will be located. Eurick thinks the planners do not want protest groups to have the chance to mobilize and scout potential sites. It is "hard to imagine that they don't have something as simple as the fence lines decided at this point," Eurick said. ---
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