------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Civilians could have distracted sub crew
LOCAL BUSINESS - DC
Swiss Find Scant Plutonium Traces in Balkans
Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001
Chance of another Indo-Pak. war: CIA
Nuclear Watchdog: Iraq Cooperated with Inspection
Future of NATO in question
Bush Seeks Missile Shield Dialogue with China
Europe's change of heart
German Sees Russia Bending on Missiles
Russia Chided for Missile Tech Info
Taiwan to Resume Building Nuclear Plant
Taiwan Restarts Nuclear Project
Taiwan Says Work on Plant Will Resume
Bush tours NATO, Navy units
Whistle-blower wins ruling vs. Ga. Power
RAD PROTECTION STANDARDS
A shot in the dark?
Russia: Germany Won't Mediate In Missile Debate With U.S.
Germany adopts key role in missile-defense dispute
Revenue generation makes waste-disposal industry a heavy hitter
Tooele residents support facility
Goshutes divided over N-storage

MILITARY
Russian warplanes in Japan airspace
Hikers found dead at bottom of ravine
Colombia Peace Talks Resume
Colombian Military Officers Convicted in Village Killings
For the Dutch, Ecstasy just the latest fad
Governor's Drug Efforts Show Fruit in Santa Fe
Powell: U.S Won't Toughen Sanctions
Inside Saddam's death lab
SKorean President To Meet Bush
Spacewalk 100: Astronauts finish lab work
Battle with bureaucrats
Help not on the way, yet
Accidents fuel military-training concern
Japanese Outrage Grows Over Hawaii Submarine Crash
Submarine Inquiry Focuses on Civilians
Copters Crash on Maneuvers Over Hawaii
Bush Details Plan to Focus Military on New Weaponry
Bush Vows Spending on Futuristic Weapons
Excerpts From Bush's Remarks on the Military
Bush to ease strain on reservists

OTHER
The World in Medicine
Chemical warfare has a long and terrifying history
Mad cow measures may destroy bullfights
Tunisia plants trees, builds homes to revitalize Sahara
EU proposes new mad-cow measures
Paving the Planet: Cars and Crops Competing for Land
Europe OKs new biotech food rules
Iran's parliament limits police
Defense Grills Terror Witness on bin Laden
Terror Trial Witness's Reliability Questioned
Poll: US Against Retaliatory Attack

ACTIVISTS
NEXT STOP FOR ANTI-GLOBALIZATION MARCH - HAWAII
National Day of Action to Stop Staples
Bonds Boycott February Update
Mother's Day 2001
Chiapas Indymedia Up and On-line NOW!
China to execute Islamic protester
China Tries Man for Web Site
Greenpeace Sails To Pacific Star Wars Test Site
Veterans for Peace

-
------ NUCLEAR

Civilians could have distracted sub crew

02/14/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-02-14-sub.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Navy officials Wednesday acknowledged the possibility that 15 civilians aboard the U.S. attack submarine that sank a Japanese fishing vessel could have distracted the crew, but said there is not yet any evidence of that. The officials also said that in seeking to determine how the accident happened, the Navy is considering an inquiry along criminal lines that could result in charges against the captain of the submarine or members of its crew. Nine Japanese from the fishing vessel are still missing and hopes for their rescue have faded since the collision Friday off Hawaii.

A decision on how to proceed with the investigation is being weighed by Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths Jr., who as commander of Submarine Group Nine based at Bangor, Wash., is in charge of all ballistic missile submarines assigned to the Pacific Fleet.

He was dispatched to Hawaii shortly after the accident.

The captain of the submarine has been relieved of duty pending the outcome of the investigation. Regardless of the format of Griffiths' investigation, his findings will be forwarded to the Navy chain of command for a decision on what, if any, charges to pursue against the sub's captain or crew members.

The Navy might choose to use a more formal approach to its inquiry because of the likelihood that civilian deaths may have resulted from the collision, officials said.

Although the nine Japanese are still listed as missing, Navy officials believe it is likely they were either trapped inside the ship or otherwise drowned.

The ship is lying at the bottom of the sea at a depth of 1,800 feet.

In addition to the Navy inquiry, the National Transportation Safety Board is doing its own investigation.

The Navy acknowledged Tuesday that two civilians were at key control stations of the USS Greeneville when it practiced an emergency surfacing maneuver and rammed the Ehime Maru, sinking it. Lt. Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman in Hawaii, wouldn't specify the stations or release the names of the civilians, who included businessmen.

Other Navy officials said Wednesday none of the civilians are nationally recognized names.

It is not unusual for the Navy to take civilians aboard for a demonstration ride on a submarine or surface ship.

One issue to be considered in the investigation is whether their presence in the control room or elsewhere on the submarine could have interfered with the crew's normal procedures, officials said.

The disclosure that two civilians were at control positions on the submarine drew sharp criticism from some Japanese. ''A civilian wouldn't know what to do,'' Ryoichi Miya, first mate of the Ehime Maru, said Tuesday.

''It's absolutely unforgivable if a civilian was operating it.''

A defense official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that one civilian was at the helm, where the vertical movement and direction of the submarine are controlled.

The source said there was no indication that person played a role in Friday's crash.

The Washington Post, citing a source it did not identify, said another civilian was at the ballast controls, where the surfacing maneuver would have begun.

The Greeneville was performing a drill in which it dove to about 400 feet and then made a rapid ascent, shooting out of the water.

This is done to practice an emergency ascent, although there was no actual emergency at the time.

The submarine commander usually ensures nothing is overhead before blowing the sub's ballast tanks, but the Greeneville somehow failed to detect the presence of the fishing vessel.

National Transportation Safety Board member John Hammerschmidt said late Tuesday that the submarine's primary periscope was functioning properly.

However, he said Navy officials had informed him there were no sonar recordings or video to show what crew members saw before the Greeneville surfaced.

He said investigators might be able to retrieve sonar data from computer hard drives.

Hammerschmidt said investigators also hadn't determined whether civilians' actions had any role in the crash. It isn't unusual for civilians to be allowed on Navy vessels; last year, 213 civilians took part in at-sea tours on Hawaii-based submarines, he said.

-------- business

LOCAL BUSINESS - DC

Wednesday, February 14, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1871-2001Feb13?language=printer

USEC of Bethesda, a processor of enriched uranium for nuclear power plants, said it will reduce headquarters costs 20 percent -- eliminating 40 to 50 jobs -- for a total of $10 million in savings in fiscal 2002. The company also plans to cease enrichment operations at its Portsmouth, Ohio, gaseous-diffusion plant in June and consolidate enrichment operations at its Paducah, Ky., plant.


-------- depleted uranium

Swiss Find Scant Plutonium Traces in Balkans

February 14, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/science-health-pluton.html

ZURICH (Reuters) - A Swiss laboratory has found only minute traces of plutonium in NATO depleted uranium (DU) weapons used by NATO-led forces in the Balkans, Swiss radio reported on Wednesday.

``It is already clear that only extremely small -- if any -- traces of plutonium were found in the shells and shell fragments that were checked, and these in no way pose a potential health risk, according to scientists,'' the radio reported.

The possible danger of contamination from armor and other targets hit by cheap and highly-effective shells tipped with depleted uranium during the Gulf War -- and more recently in southern Serbia -- has caused an outcry in some Western states. Britain and the United have insisted the risks are minimal.

Swiss defense ministry spokesman Oswald Sigg told the radio: ``We will release the detailed findings of the Spiez (weapons lab) plutonium investigation this week, but we can already confirm the same trend that the German investigation found.''

He was referring to reports that Germany's GSF research lab had also found no traces of highly toxic plutonium in NATO ammunition used in the Balkans.

Last month Switzerland ordered the lab to check DU weapons samples from Kosovo for plutonium amid concern -- played down by defense experts -- that the munitions may have posed health risks to peacekeepers, aid workers and civilians in areas of the Balkans where NATO used them to blast Serb tanks.

The United Nations' Environmental Program (UNEP) sent a mission to Kosovo earlier this month as the storm broke in Europe over reports that foreign troops who served in the Balkans and the Gulf over the past decade may have been exposed to contaminated sites that could cause cancer.

The 14 experts collected 340 samples of soil, water and vegetation, conducted smear tests on buildings and destroyed Yugoslav army vehicles, and found remnants of DU ammunition at eight of the 11 sites they visited.

UNEP is working with the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer to try to determine exactly what risks soldiers and civilians run from DU weapons.

UNEP had asked the Spiez lab to check the samples for enriched uranium, and it found traces of uranium 236, created during processing in nuclear power plants.

But UNEP has said the traces were so small that the weapons containing it would have been no more dangerous than purely DU arms.

--------

HR 612----
Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001

Wed, 14 Feb 2001

This bill is an attempt to clarify two regulations that were not being fully implemented and to further define Undiagnosed Illnesses of the Gulf War Vets....and to force the VA to compensate the Gulf WAR VETERANS.

intoduced today FEB 14

107TH CONGRESS H. R. __612______ 1ST SESSION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Mr. MANZULLO introduced the following bin; which was referred to the Committee on__________ ________________________________________

A BILL To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify the stand- ards for compensation for Persian Gulf veterans suf- fering from certain undiagnosed illnesses, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the "Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001".

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Although the majority of veterans of the

Armed Forces who served in the Persian Gulf War returned from the Southwest Asia theater of operations to normal activities, many of those veterans have experienced a range of unexplained illnesses, including chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, loss of concentration, forgetfulness, headache, and rash.

(2) Those veterans were potentially exposed to a wide range of biological and chemical agents in eluding sand, smoke from oil-well fires, paints, solvents, insecticides, petroleum fuels and their com- bustion products, organophosphate nerve agents, pyridostigmine bromide, depleted uranium, anthrax and botulinum toroid vaccinations, and infectious diseases, in addition to other psychological and physiological stresses.

(3) Section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, enacted on November 2, 1994, by the Persian Gulf War Veterans' Benefits Act (title I of Public Law 103-446), provides for the payment of compensation to Persian Gulf veterans suffering from a chronic disability resulting from an undiagnosed illness (or combination of undiagnosed illnesses) that became manifest to a compensable degree within a period prescribed by regulation.

(4) The Secretary of Veterans Affairs prescribed regulations under section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, that interpreted that section so as to limit compensation to Persian Gulf veterans with illnesses that "cannot be attributed to any known clinical diagnosis".

(5) In a report dated September 7, 2000, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences indicated that it was not asked to determine whether an identifiable medical syndrome referred to as "Gulf War Syndrome" exists and suggested that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in developing a compensation program for Persian Gulf veterans, consider the health effects that may be associated with exposures to specific agents that were present in the Southwest Asia theater of operations during the Persian Gulf War.

sec. 3. COMPENSATION OF VETERANS OF PERSIAN GULF WAR WHO HAVE CERTAIN ILLNESSES.

(a) PRESUMPTION PERIOD FOR UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESSES PROGRAM.--Section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, is amended--

(1) in subsection (a)(2), by striking "within the presumptive period prescribed under subsection (b)" and inserting "before December 31, 2011, or such later date as the Secretary may prescribe by regulation"; and

(2) by striking subsection (b).

(b) UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESSES.--Such section, as amended by subsection (a); is further amended by inserting after subsection (a) the following new subsection (b):

"(b)(l) For purposes of this section, the term 'undiagnosed illness' means illness manifested by syrnptoms or signs the cause, etiology, or origin of which cannot be specifically and definitely identified, including poorly defined illnesses such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune disorders, and multiple chemical sensitivity. The attribution of one or more of the symptoms to a disability that is not an undiagnosed illness shall not preclude other symptoms from being considered a manifestation of an undiagnosed illness.

"(2) For purposes of paragraph (1), signs or symptoms that may be a manifestation of an undiagnosed illness include the following:

"(A) Fatigue.
"(B) Unexplained rashes logical signs or symptoms.
"(C) Headache.
"(D) Muscle pain.
"(E) Joint pain.
"(F) Neurologic signs or symptoms.
"(G) Neuropsychological signs or symptoms.
"(H) Signs or symptoms involving the respiratory system (upper or lower).
"(I) Sleep disturbances.
"(J) Gastrointestinal signs or symptoms.
"(K) Cardiovascular signs or symptoms.
"(L) Abnormal weight loss.
"(M) Menstrual disorders.".

(c) PRESUMPTION OF SERVICE CONNECTION PROGRAM. ----Section 1118(a) of such title is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

"(4) For purposes of this section, the term 'undiagnosed illness' has the meaning given that term in section 1117(b) of this title.".

(d) EFFECTIVE DATE.--(l) For purposes of section 5110(g) of title 38, United States Code--

(A) the amendments to section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, made by subsections (a), (b), and (c) shah take effect as of November 2, 1994; and

(B) the amendment to section 1118 of title 38, United States Code, made by subsection (d) shall take effect as of October 21, 1998.

(2) The second sentence of section 5110(g) of title 38, United States Code, shall not apply in the case of an award, or increased award, of compensation pursuant to the amendments made by this section if the date of application therefor is not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act.

-------- india / pakistan

Chance of another Indo-Pak. war: CIA

Friday, February 09, 2001
The Hindu
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/02/09/stories/03090003.htm

WASHINGTON, FEB. 8. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. George Tenet, has told a Congressional panel that he is worried about the proliferation and development of missiles and weapons of mass destruction in South Asia and that there were ``good prospects'' for another round of nuclear tests by India and Pakistan.

``I told you I was worried about the proliferation and development of missiles and weapons of mass destruction in South Asia. The competition predictable extends here as well, and there is no sign that the situation has improved. We still believe there is a good prospect for another round of nuclear tests. On the missile front, India decided to test another Agni missile last month, reflecting its determination to improve its nuclear weapons delivery capability. Pakistan may respond in kind'', Mr. Tenet said during the course of a hearing at the Senate Intelligence Committee.

At a broader level on the issue of missile proliferation, the CIA chief argued that as worrying as the threat of the ICBM's may be to the U.S., the threat to American interests from short and medium range missiles was very much there. ``The proliferation of MRBMs (medium range ballistic missiles) driven largely, though not exclusively, by North Korean Nodong sales, is altering strategic balances in the Middle-East and Asia. These missiles include Iran's Shahab-3, Pakistan's Ghauri and Indian Agni-2'', Mr. Tenet said.

Mr. Tenet, an appointee of the Clinton administration who has been asked to stay on by the President, Mr. Bush, otherwise made a routine assessment of the South Asian situation reiterating that both India and Pakistan were willing to take risks over Kashmir even while taking note of the positive developments in the recent past. ``India has been trying to engage select militants and separatists, but militant groups have kept up their attacks through India's most recent ceasefire'', Mr. Tenet observed.

In a context that has a domestic interest, one of Mr. Tenet's major focus was on Osama Bin Laden, his network of terror and the implications of Islamic militancy not only for the U.S. but globally as well including the region of South Asia. ``Osama Bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat. His organisation is continuing to place emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection, blame and retaliation'', Mr. Tenet noted.

Referring to the expanding Islamic militancy in West Asia, Mr. Tenet argued that the terrorist threat to U.S. interests because of the country's relationship with Israel has increased. ``At the same time, Islamic militancy is expanding and the worldwide pool of potential recruits for terrorist networks is growing. In Central Asia, the Middle-East and South Asia, Islamic terrorist organisations are attracting new recruits, including under the banner of anti-Americanism'', the CIA chief observed.

After the open hearing, the Senate Intelligence Committee went into a closed session with the Director of the CIA where the Senators would have had the chance for more pointed questioning and exchange of views with Mr. Tenet.

In fact during the open session there was considerable interest on a broad range of countries including China and Russia.

At one point Mr. Tenet told law makers that the U.S. was ``watching and analysing'' carefully the actions of China especially in the context of the commitment of last November not to assist countries in the development of ballistic missiles. ``We are watching and analysing carefully for any sign that the Chinese entities may be acting against this commitment. We are worried, for example, that Pakistan's continued development of the two stage Shaheen-2 MRBM will require additional Chinese assistance'', Mr. Tenet told law makers on Wednesday.

-------- iraq

Nuclear Watchdog: Iraq Cooperated with Inspection

February 14, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-nu.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iraq, which refuses to let in U.N. weapons inspectors, has cooperated with the latest routine nuclear inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog agency said on Wednesday.

``Iraq provided the necessary cooperation for the inspection team to perform its activities effectively and efficiently,'' IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter to the Security Council.

The inspection itself, which took place last month, went well, ElBaradei said. His teams ``were able to verify the presence of the nuclear material subject to safeguards, which consists of low enriched, natural and depleted uranium,'' none of which is of weapons grade.

The IAEA inspection team had wrapped up its four-day mission in Iraq on Jan. 23 but gave no word at that time on the outcome of its first inspection in a year of the several tons of uranium it had put under seal more than two years earlier.

The material it inspected was located at the Tuweitha nuclear plant, 12 miles south of Baghdad. The IAEA put it under seal following the plant's destruction after the 1991 Gulf War.

The inspection by the agency, which monitors the peaceful use of nuclear power worldwide, was intended to guard against any diversion of the nuclear material to military programs.

It was unconnected to more intrusive IAEA inspections in Iraq conducted prior to 1998 under a Security Council resolution ordering Baghdad to eliminate all its weapons of mass destruction following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

U.N. weapons inspections have been barred since the last U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) team left Iraq in December 1998. It withdrew shortly before U.S. and British warplanes launched a four-day air campaign on grounds that Iraq was hindering the work of U.N. arms experts.

Baghdad has rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for new arms inspections in return for an easing of the sanctions imposed after the Gulf War.

-------- missile defense

Future of NATO in question

Friday, February 09, 2001
The Hindu
By Batuk Gathani
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/02/09/stories/0309000g.htm

BRUSSELS, FEB. 8. The Munich visit of the U.S. DefenceSecretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, paves the way for a new Euro-American defence debate.

The European Union has reacted cautiously to the U.S. plans for a national missile defence system. The security conference held in Munich last weekend shows that it may take some time for the U.S. and Europe to agree on a new plan for security. Mr. Rumsfeld made it clear to the E.U. and NATO countries that the U.S. was determined to move ahead with the President, Mr. George Bush's controversial missile defence plan. In European and Asian capitals, this plan is considered as the first major American initiative to protect the U.S. armed forces not only in Europe but in regions like South Korea, in the Far East and in West Asia from missile attacks by the so-called rogue States - North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

The Munich conference on security policy was attended by Defence Ministers and also defence specialists. Russia and China have threatened to build more weapons if the U.S. goes ahead with its plan. Mr. Rumsfeld said the U.S. would not be dissuaded by existing non-proliferation treaties or European concerns about the missile defence programme. The Europeans have also expressed concern about the planned reduction of U.S. troops from the Balkan region. The Bush administration has said the U.S. needed to rethink its policy of troop deployment in NATO-led peacekeeping missions in the Balkans. But Mr. Rumsfeld reassured U.S. allies that the U.S. would not act ``unilaterally'' and would consult NATO on troop deployment in the Balkan region.

The proposed NMD system may take a decade or more to be implemented. A senior European official was quoted as saying that though the U.S. had belatedly taken note of the concern of its allies ``neither Europe nor Russia has any real leverage to stop the U.S.'' The Greek Defence Minister called the U.S. plan a one- sided decision and warned that if handled badly it could antagonise Russia and China. The German Foreign Minister, Mr. Joschka Fischer urged the U.S. not to endanger existing nuclear agreements with Russia and added that the size and importance of Russia must be considered while shaping European security.

The U.S. have also expressed reservations about the E.U.'s proposed launch of a 60,000 strong military force. This has highlighted the difference of defence perceptions between the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. feels that the creation of a European force may undermine the NATO alliance. Eleven of the E.U.'s 15-member States are also members of NATO but six other European NATO allies are not members of the E.U. Turkey, which is a founding member of the old NATO alliance, has objected to the creation of an independent European force as it will have no say in it not being a member of the E.U.

New York Times warned in an article: ``The incoming Bush administration risks making an early mistake if it rushes to build a national missile defence. A hasty move in this area could quickly deplete the goodwill generally accorded to new President by foreign leaders, especially those of Russia, China and Washington's main European allies...Mr. Bush should instead expand research and testing to determine what kind of defensive shield can best meet America's security needs against the future threat of nuclear missile attack from unpredictable nations like North Korea, Iraq and Iran.''

Over a decade ago, central Europe was the most militarised region in the world guarded by the Western NATO military in the west and the then Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact military alliance in the east. The debate at the height of the Cold War was who would attack first. All that is now history after the ignominious collapse of communist rule in eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1989.

---

Bush Seeks Missile Shield Dialogue with China

Wednesday February 14
Yahoo News
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010214/pl/china_usa_dc_3.html

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - U.S. President George Bush wants to open a dialogue with China and Russia on a U.S. proposal to build an anti-ballistic missile shield to protect the United States from attack, a Canadian official said on Wednesday.

The message was passed on to Chinese President Jiang Zemin (news - web sites) by visiting Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien in a meeting of the two leaders in Beijing Tuesday, the Canadian official told Reuters. Chretien was the first world leader to visit the new U.S. president after his inauguration in January.

``(Bush) recognizes that he has some communication and exchange to have with all the NATO (news - web sites) partners, and with the Russians and with the Chinese,'' the official quoted Chretien as saying in Shanghai.

Bush ``has agreed that he wants a lot of discussion to occur (on the missile umbrella). He has to convince the partners and they are not quite ready, the technology is not quite ready, but he thinks that he has a very good case.''

It was the first indication that the Bush administration would be willing to open a dialogue on the issue, which has been strongly opposed by Russia and China.

Both believe the U.S. plan to develop the ambitious shield against ballistic missiles would pose a threat to their own nuclear forces.

Another Canadian official had said Tuesday that Jiang had raised with Chretien China's fears that the plans for the shield would spark a costly arms race.

Steadfast Opposition

China has steadfastly opposed the National Missile Defense (news - web sites) (NMD) system, fearing that even a limited U.S. shield would neutralize its modest strategic arsenal.

Ahead of his inauguration as president in January, statements from Bush and key cabinet appointees endorsing NMD drew sharp demands from Beijing that Washington scrap the scheme.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is an ardent proponent of NMD, and author of an influential report on the missile threat from ``rogue states'' such as North Korea (news - web sites).

Japan has been studying a proposal with the United States for a Theater Missile Defense (TMD), a variant of the NMD aimed at shielding U.S. troops in Asia.

Tokyo was stunned in August 1998 when Pyongyang test fired a medium-range Taeopodong missile which flew over Japan before crashing in the Pacific Ocean.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji in January warned the United States against offering Taiwan protection under a TMD proposed to protect U.S. troops and allies in Asia.

---

Europe's change of heart

February 14, 2001
Washington Times
Helle Bering
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2001214182154.htm

It being defense week in the Bush White House, this column will take the liberty of revisiting a topic recently discussed here - national missile defense (NMD) - which provoked particularly interesting reactions from European diplomats and officials in Washington. The changed tone - and substance - in discussions over NMD could hardly have been greater. What seemed only like intimations of a change in the air last week have taken more definite shape.

The watershed event in the discussion of missile defense, of course, was the appearance of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the NATO defense minister's annual Wehrkunde meeting in Munich. It bears repeating what Mr. Rumsfeld said that was so remarkable. For one thing, he told the European allies that the Bush administration was committed to developing missile defense and would do so with or without their consent. However, he also emphasized that extensive consultations would take place and that the United States did not want this issue to create a split in the alliance. In fact, he said that American allies ought to be covered and extensively consulted.

The question is whether Mr. Rumsfeld by these bold moves have managed to cut this particular Gordian knot. While it appears so on first impressions, it is also clear that as we move to the next level of the debate, a whole new set of issues will have to be dealt with. Now, we know that missile defense is not a question of "if," but "when." Than comes the questions "how," and "at what price."

Most startling was the comment in Moscow this week by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, that despite Russia's vigorous objection to any system that violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, "In the end, the Russians are going to accept it." Now, judging by the remarks of Russian National Security Adviser Sergei Ivanov, who responded to Mr. Rumsfeld's speech with a series of paranoid rantings of his own, it hardly sounds that way. "It will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create the prerequisites for a new arms race," Mr. Ivanov said. Mr. Fischer, however, was cool as a cucumber. The Russian comments "are sometimes a bit harsh," he reflected. "But it all depends on the climate. The climate is good; there's a difference between statements and climate."

Meanwhile, at a German ambassador's breakfast this week, a high ranking German government official speaking on background, actually welcomed the approach of the new American administration, which is remarkable given that most Europeans displayed a distinct distrust, not to say disdain for candidate George W. Bush during the presidential campaign. "Rumsfeld coming to NATO in Munich after just two weeks in office sends a very important signal," he said. Asked whether the Clinton administration did not consult with the Europeans - which despite all their protestations they certainly skimped on - the official hedged, but said that "there is a difference. In the Clinton administration there was no decision to do so."

Conversations with representatives of other European countries reflected a similar sense of resignation, bordering on relief. "U.S. leadership is a good thing," said Olli-Pekka Jalonen, defense counsel at the embassy of Finland. "It is better to have someone who knows what he wants." According to Danish ambassador Ulrik A. Federspiel, who spoke to The Washington Times this week, "Rumsfeld's speech was sufficiently clear that the Americans will go ahead. That may have cleared the air."

Even a spokesman for the French embassy, Francois Delattre (whose President Jaques Chirac warned that missile defense was "an invitation to proliferation" at an Anglo-French summit last week) said that France "is not opposed, but has some doubts that it is the best possible answer to the threat we now have to face. Furthermore, "whatever our concerns, we think it is an American decision."

Obvious as this fact may seem, it is huge progress. Somehow threats of a split within the NATO alliance have evaporated, and talk is everywhere of extensive consultations within the alliance, particularly as far as threat assessment is concerned and beyond that, trade offs, costs and systems.

The bottomline is that discussions must not become a bureaucratic nightmare, a labyrinth of commissions within commissions, a specialty of the European bureaucracy. If Europe wants threat assessment, we could ship a load of copies of the Rumsfeld Commission report on the missile threat to Brussels. Then there is the question of whether American acceptance of the European Security and Defense Initiative could be a trade off, or dramatic nuclear missile reduction to 1,500 as set out in START III negotiations with the Russians. As far as systems go, the European preference is clearly for theater missile defense, which can provide localized boost-phase interception, for areas like Europe, the Middle East, Japan and Korea - and does not violate the ABM treaty. This still would leave the mainland of the United States vulnerable though, and has to be combined with another system, probably space-based, to protect the United States. By all means let us have consultation and discussion. That does not mean, however, that we should allow the subject to be talked to death.

E-mail: hbering@washingtontimes.com.

Helle Bering is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Her column appears on Wednesdays.

--------

German Sees Russia Bending on Missiles

February 14, 2001
NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/politics/14RUSS.html

MOSCOW, Feb. 13 - President Vladimir V. Putin and Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, discussed the proposed American missile defense at a Kremlin meeting today, ending two days of talks that Mr. Fischer said pointed to new Russian flexibility on the notion of a shield against rogue missiles.

Mr. Fischer and Russian officials denied that Germany was acting as an intermediary between Moscow and the new Bush administration, which has made clear its plan to develop the shield in the face of European qualms and fierce Russian opposition.

But Mr. Fischer will be in Washington next week. And after talks with many of the Kremlin's top foreign-policy leaders and the Communist leader of Parliament, each covering the missile-defense plan in depth, it was clear that he would be able to give the White House a detailed view of Russia's objections.

Russia's foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, met with Mr. Fischer on Monday and said Russia "will act at negotiations on questions pertaining to strategic offensive weapons and missile defense in a constructive way."

Mr. Fischer went a bit further. "In the end, I think Russia will accept negotiations" on the missile shield, he told reporters.

-------- russia

Russia Chided for Missile Tech Info

February 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Russia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld chastised Russia on Wednesday for contributing to the spread of missile technologies to nations hostile to the United States.

In his strongest comments about Russia since becoming Pentagon chief in January, Rumsfeld said Russia's opposition to Bush administration plans to erect a defense against ballistic missiles ``is not really serious.''

Rumsfeld said Moscow has nothing to fear from a U.S. missile shield, which would not be capable of defeating a large-scale missile attack of the kind that the Russian military is capable of launching. The U.S. defense system would be designed to stop only ``handfuls'' of missiles, he said.

The Russian government has said a U.S. national missile defense would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, lead to the unraveling of other arms control measures and disrupt the global balance of power. China, which has only about 20 long-range nuclear missiles, also objects.

``Let's be very honest about what Russia is doing,'' Rumsfeld said on PBS' ``NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.''

``Russia is an active proliferator. They are part of the problem. They are selling and assisting countries like Iran, North Korea and India and other countries with these technologies, which are threatening other people, including the United States, Western Europe and countries in the Middle East.

``Why they would be actively proliferating (missile technologies) and then complaining when the United States wants to defend itself against the fruit of those proliferation activities it seems to me is misplaced.''

Eventually, Rumsfeld predicted, the Russians will ``accommodate themselves'' to U.S. missile defenses. He also said he expects the European allies to warm to the idea of a U.S. missile shield.

-------- taiwan

Taiwan to Resume Building Nuclear Plant

Wednesday February 14
Yahoo News
By Alice Hung
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010214/wl/taiwan_dc_1.html

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's cabinet said on Wednesday it would immediately resume construction of a controversial nuclear power plant, ending a three-month political stand-off with the opposition-dominated legislature.

``To me this is a bitter decision and unavoidable responsibility,'' said Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (news - web sites), who made the widely expected announcement at a news conference after the Executive Yuan, or cabinet, approved the decision.

The US$5.5 billion, 2,700-megawatt nuclear power plant, Taiwan's fourth, was one-third complete when the cabinet decided to shelve it last October, to the anger of the main opposition Nationalist Party which initiated the project.

Although the cabinet's decision ended the political deadlock, the controversy over the plant is unlikely to end. Anti-nuclear residents in the area it is being built and members of the ruling party both expressed opposition to it.

Chang said the decision to resume construction was made for the sake of ``political stability and economic development'' and because his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in a minority in parliament.

The DPP holds just 66 seats in the 220-member legislature.

``With the global economy slowing, we cannot afford to split because of a single item on the public agenda,'' Chang said.

A prolonged political stalemate would bring economic and social turbulence, he said.

The cabinet would restore the budget for the nuclear plant and resume construction ``with the highest safety standards,'' he said.

In a key concession, the cabinet agreed to drop its insistence that a new legislature, to be elected at the end of the year, decide whether to finish the plant located outside Taipei.

Protest Planned

DPP chairman Frank Hsieh said the cabinet's decision contradicted the party's anti-nuclear principle, but the government had no choice.

``The cabinet is forced to make this decision to prevent the entire government's operations from being paralyzed,'' Hsieh said.

Hsieh said his party would push for a referendum bill in order to let the public decide on the plant.

Residents of Kungliao, where the plant is located, were angry about the government's reversal.

``We are disgusted that politicians betray their conscience, lie to their voters, and abandon their principles,'' said Kungliao township chief Chao Kuo-tung.

The decision also faced strong opposition from anti-nuclear die-hards in the DPP.

The DPP's decision-making Central Standing Committee said it would back a big anti-nuclear protest march planned for February 24 and would encourage members to take part.

The stock market ended down 2.32 percent as investors cashed in profits after Tuesday's 3.09 percent rally fueled by signs of a political breakthrough.

The business community, fearing future power shortages, mostly favors building the power plant. But environmentalists say Taiwan lacks the ability to process nuclear waste and deal with accidents.

In January, Taiwan's top judges censured the prime minister for not consulting lawmakers on his decision to halt construction and said the cabinet must seek legislative approval.

Chang took office last October when his predecessor, a Nationalist Party stalwart, resigned after falling out with the president over the power station.

The Nationalists, ousted by Chen in presidential elections last March after five decades in power, had spearheaded a drive by a coalition of opposition legislators to sack Chen over the nuclear row. That drive lost steam due to public opposition.

``We hope this is the last time the people have to pay such a price,'' Nationalist chairman Lien Chan said, referring to the political deadlock.

--------

Taiwan Restarts Nuclear Project

February 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Taiwan-Politics.html

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Taiwan's government ordered construction to begin again on the island's fourth nuclear plant Wednesday, sacrificing a key policy goal for political and economic stability.

Restarting the nuclear project was the first major defeat for President Chen Shui-bian's administration, which infuriated the powerful opposition by trying to cancel the plant three months ago without seeking lawmakers' approval.

Political feuding over the plant that ravaged investor confidence in the stock market officially came to an end when Premier Chang Chun-hsiung reinstated the $5.4 billion plant, the pet project of the previous government.

During a news conference, Chang -- Taiwan's No. 3 ranking leader -- said several times that restarting the plant was a ``painful decision.'' But he said, ``If we allow this standoff to continue, it will cause economic and social chaos.''

The announcement came a day after the government cut a deal with the opposition, capping days of tense negotiations. The agreement includes a pledge to work together on a nuclear energy bill, which the government hopes will phase out nuclear power.

Restarting the nuclear project, one-third complete, was an agonizing decision for the president because his Democratic Progressive Party has spent years campaigning to spike the project. The DPP argues the plant would be unsafe on the earthquake-prone island and that other energy sources would be cleaner and more practical.

But the recent battle over the plant was more about political power than nuclear energy. The opposition-controlled legislature argued that the minority government exceeded the limits on its power by unilaterally canceling the plant.

The opposition refused to cooperate with the president on other issues, causing gridlock that helped cause the stock market to lose 44 percent of its value last year.

The president was long reluctant to cave in because he needs the support of anti-nuclear factions in his party to battle the huge opposition, said Philip Yang, a political science professor at National Taiwan University.

--------

Taiwan Says Work on Plant Will Resume

Wednesday, February 14, 2001
News Services
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2501-2001Feb14?language=printer

TAIPEI, Taiwan, -- Taiwan's cabinet said today that it would immediately resume construction of a disputed nuclear power plant.

"To me this is a bitter decision and unavoidable responsibility," said Prime Minister Chang Chun-hsiung, who made the widely expected announcement at a news conference after the cabinet formally approved the decision.

The $5.5 billion, 2,700-megawatt nuclear power plant, Taiwan's fourth, was one-third complete when the cabinet unilaterally decided to shelve it last October.

Earlier, the government struck a deal with the powerful opposition to restart construction on the plant, ending a three-month feud that took a severe toll on the stock market and public confidence.

The agreement came after President Chen Shui-bian ceded to lawmakers' demands and retreated from his campaign promise to cancel the project, which was 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."

When the government canceled the project in October, the opposition-controlled legislature was furious that lawmakers were not asked to endorse the move.

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

Bush tours NATO, Navy units

February 14, 2001
Washington Times
By Joseph Curl
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001214224436.htm

NORFOLK NAVAL BASE - President Bush yesterday told sailors and NATO ambassadors that new national-security threats will drive the future of the U.S. military, but said "the best way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms."

On his second leg of a three-day tour of military bases to highlight his agenda to revamp the armed forces, Mr. Bush described "a new era" of danger to America and its allies.

"The grave threat from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons has not gone away with the Cold War. It has evolved into many separate threats, some of them harder to see and harder to answer. And the adversaries seeking these tools of terror are less predictable, more diverse."

The answer, Mr. Bush said, is to modernize the military to prepare it to "confront the threats that come on a missile . . . in a shipping container or in a suitcase."

Mr. Bush used a ceremony at the Allied Command Atlantic headquarters of NATO to announce he will request Congress add $2.6 billion to the Pentagon's research-and-development budget next year.

"We're witnessing a revolution in the technology of war, powers increasingly defined not by size, but by mobility and swiftness. . . . Safety is gained in stealth and forces projected on the long arc of precision-guided weapons," Mr. Bush told hundreds of members NATO military personnel and their families.

Mr. Bush, who plans to deploy a high-tech "umbrella" defense against incoming ballistic missiles, pledged to work closely within the NATO alliance before building the system.

"In diplomacy and technology and missile defense, in fighting wars and, above all, in preventing wars, we must work as one," Mr. Bush said. "We did not prevail together in the Cold War only to go our separate ways, pursuing separate plans with separate technologies.

"NATO is the reason history records no World War Three, by preserving the stability of Europe and the trans-Atlantic community. NATO has kept the peace and the work goes on. The defenses we build must protect us all," he said.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush proposed sharing missile-defense technology with NATO and other allies, such as Israel.

But sweeping changes won't come swiftly.

"We must put strategy first, then spending," said Mr. Bush, who plans no major changes in spending until after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld completes a strategic review of the armed forces. "Our defense vision will drive our defense budget, not the other way around.

"Redesigning the strategic vision of the military is going to take some time," he told reporters onboard 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."

Washington-based diplomats from NATO nations, as well as Virginia Sens. John W. Warner and George F. Allen, traveled to Norfolk to attend the ceremony.

At the Allied Command Atlantic headquarters, Mr. Bush also watched a high-tech war game 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.

In his short visit to this naval port city, Mr. Bush also visited the nearby U.S. Joint Forces Command, which assesses national security threats and recommends ways to outfit and configure the military to adapt to the changing strategic environment.

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

-------- georgia

Whistle-blower wins ruling vs. Ga. Power

February 14, 2001
Matthew C. Quinn
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/wednesday/business _a3a88276636a319a0023.html

Georgia Power Co. has been ordered to reinstate and pay an estimated $5 million in back pay, damages and attorney fees to a nuclear plant executive fired in a 10-year-old whistle-blower case.

The utility said it will appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals a U.S. Labor Department administrative review board ruling that Marvin B. Hobby be reinstated with $250,000 in compensatory damages for "emotional distress, humiliation and loss of reputation'' plus back pay and other costs.

Hobby claimed Georgia Power fired him in 1990 because he questioned decisions on control of the utility's two nuclear power plants, contending they violated federal operating licenses.

Hobby's Washington attorney, Michael Kohn, on Tuesday estimated the final award at $3 million in back pay plus another $2 million in legal fees, costs and damages. The review board issued the ruling last Friday.

Kohn is associated with the National Whistleblower Center, a Washington-based activist group. He called the award the largest resulting from a series of U.S. environmental whistle-blower laws enacted during the 1970s. Hobby, 54, lives and is employed in metro Atlanta but was not available for comment Tuesday.

Kohn said the company is required to make full payment to Hobby within 30 days. But Georgia Power spokesman Todd Terrell said the company will ask the appeals court to suspend the order while the appeal is litigated. He also disputed Kohn's calculation of $5 million in damages but didn't put a value on the award. Parent Southern Co. and Georgia Power denied Hobby's accusations.

It's the latest turn in a legal saga that dates to 1990, when Hobby filed his original complaint with the Department of Labor.

Hobby alleged he was dismissed on Feb. 2, 1990, as general manager of Georgia Power's Nuclear Operations Contract Administration in retaliation for voicing concerns inside the company over transfer of control of the utility's two nuclear power plants to an unincorporated subsidiary of Southern Co. Hobby said the transfer violated Southern's Nuclear Regulatory Commission operating license.

A Labor Department administrative law judge initially ruled in Georgia Power's favor. But Robert Reich, then labor secretary, threw out the ruling in a 1995 decision that found the decision to fire Hobby "was based solely on retaliatory animus.''

In his decision, Reich said A.W. "Bill'' Dahlberg, then Georgia Power president and now Southern Co. chief executive, and another senior executive had denied knowing about Hobby's concerns. "I discredit their testimony,'' Reich said.

Reich remanded the decision to another administrative law judge, who in 1998 ordered Georgia Power to pay Hobby back pay and damages. That decision was upheld last week by the review board.

In 1997, Georgia Power reached an out-of-court settlement with another nuclear plant whistle-blower also represented by Kohn. Alan Mosbaugh had been dismissed in 1990 after alleging nuclear plant safety violations at Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle to the NRC and secretly taping high-level executives.

ON THE WEB: For more information about the Hobby case and the National Whistleblower Center: www.whistleblowers.org

-------- nevada

RAD PROTECTION STANDARDS

Feb. 14, 2001

Please Fax [preferably] or call Bush at: White House Fax: 202-456-2461 White House Phones:202-456-1111 & 202-456-1414

Contact: Lisa Gue (202) 454-5130
Kevin Kamps (202) 328-0002
Kalynda Tilges (702) 796-5662

Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program ph: (202) 454-5130; fax: (202) 547-7392 www.citizen.org/cmep

Strong Radiation Protection Standards Essential For Scientific Decision on Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Bush administration should develop strong radiation protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository to protect the public and the environment from the dangers of radiation, a dozen consumer and environmental groups said today. The national and Nevada-based groups, which actively oppose the Yucca Mountain repository proposal, were joined by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) in calling attention to the radiation protection standards used to evaluate site suitability.

Yucca Mountain, located near Las Vegas, Nev., is currently the only site under consideration for a potential dump for high-level radioactive waste generated by U.S. commercial reactors and weapons facilities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to set radiation protection standards for the site. The agency released a proposed rule for comment in 1999. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy (DOE) commented in favor of weaker standards, and a final rule has not yet been issued. The standard now falls to the new administration to issue in final form.

We urge the Bush administration to support a standard that at a minimum ensures:

- exposure limits at least equivalent to the EPA's generic radioactive waste disposal standard, in terms of annual dose to the most vulnerable persons (e.g. fetuses, children, the elderly); - groundwater protection consistent with the Safe Drinking Water Act; - a regulatory timeframe that covers the entire period the material would be dangerously radioactive; and, - compliance at the boundary of the repository so as to not allow for a buffer zone.

While campaigning in Nevada last fall, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney promised to base a decision about the contentious Yucca Mountain proposal on sound science. The new administration has an early opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to this pledge by establishing a radiation protection rule that requires radioactive waste to be isolated from people and the environment. More lenient standards would threaten public health and promote a reliance on merely dilution -- rather than containment -- of nuclear waste to meet regulatory requirements. This would be a travesty of the scientific concept undergirding the proposal for a geologic repository, the groups said.

The DOE is expected later this year to recommend the Yucca Mountain site for development as a permanent repository for 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste. A favorable recommendation is contingent on an assessment of whether a Yucca Mountain repository could meet EPA radiation protection standards.

Radiation standards are of critical importance for public health and environmental protection - quite literally a matter of life and death. Therefore, on behalf of their combined memberships across the country, the following organizations urge the Bush administration to live up to its campaign promises by establishing strong radiation protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Public Citizen, Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), Women's Legislative Lobby (WiLL), Citizen Alert, Healing Ourselves and Mother Earth (HOME), Nevada Desert Experience, Nevada Nuclear Waste Taskforce, Toiyabe (Nevada Chapter) Sierra Club.

Bipartisan political leadership in Nevada shared the concerns of these groups.

"Last year, it required a presidential veto to stop efforts to strip away the role of the EPA in establishing radiation standards for Yucca Mountain, and I would hope the new administration will pledge to do the same if required," said Sen. Reid. "During her confirmation hearing I received an assurance from EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman that her agency would continue to set radiation standards for Yucca Mountain. The Bush administration must honor that commitment to protect the health and safety of Nevadans by requiring a stringent radiation standard, not one which is supported by the greedy nuclear power industry."

Nevada's governor, Guinn, has received promises from President Bush that radiation protection standards would not be lowered or transferred to another agency. The state continues to insist that Nevadans are entitled to the same level of radiation protection as other Americans and that standards for a Yucca Mountain repository cannot be more lenient than those governing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.

Added Sen. Ensign, "I welcome this call for the strongest possible radiation protection standards when it comes to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. I have every confidence this administration will follow through on promises made during the campaign, to let the Environmental Protection Agency set those standards. If sound science truly governs this process, then nuclear waste will not be dumped in Nevadans' backyard in the first place."

In conjunction with other groups in Nevada, Citizen Alert has prepared a detailed position paper on the proposed EPA radiation standards from a Nevada perspective, which will be ready for release within the next 10 days.

###

For more information about these groups and nuclear issues, view the following Web sites: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA): www.ananuclear.org Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS): www.nirs.org Public Citizen: www.citizen.org/cmep Sierra Club: www.sierraclub.org/nuke U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG): www.uspirg.org Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), Women's Legislative Lobby (WiLL): www.wand.org Citizen Alert: www.citizenalert.org Nevada Desert Experience: nevadadesertexperience.org Toiyabe (Nevada Chapter) Sierra Club: www.sierraclub.org/chapters/nv

-------- us nuc politics

A shot in the dark?

February 14, 2001
Excite News
By Justin Greene
The Technician North Carolina State U.
http://news.excite.com/news/uw/010214/university-171

(U-WIRE) RALEIGH, N.C. -- In the early days of the new administration, President George W. Bush has stepped up to the plate with a new and controversial proposal for national missile defense (NMD). Bush's proposal, backed up by national security experts Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, calls for an extensive shield of missiles to defend the United States and its allies against nuclear coercion by what are considered to be rogue states: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Bush's plan differs from previous approaches in that the language used by him and his advisors explicitly includes the development of defenses for our allies, not just the 50 states.

While the more expansive aspect of the plan is new, the basic foundations of NMD have a long and intensely debated history. Beginning in the 1960s, the defense and intelligence communities began to seriously consider the idea of a missile defense shield. The idea was soon tabled; however, it became clear the cost and technology needed to defend the United States against 9,000 Soviet missiles was extremely preventative. In addition, the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) gained steam as U.S. leaders decided the best defense for both America and the Soviet Union was to threaten each other with eminent nuclear holocaust if someone stepped out of line.

The NMD debate exploded again in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, which was labeled "Star Wars" by opposing Senator Ted Kennedy, proposed the idea of satellite-based technology and armed conflict above the atmosphere. Once again, U.S. leaders chose to stick with the prevailing MAD philosophy.

All these factors changed enormously with the fall of the Soviet Union. The world was no longer saddled by gigantic superpowers engaged in an epic arms race. In place of the USSR was a defunct collaboration of struggling nations with a whole lot of firepower and no clear way to keep track of it all. Indeed, the United States was faced with developing a new slate of foreign policy and defense agendas aimed at combating rogue nations and idealistic terrorists instead of a Russian military juggernaut.

Unfortunately, many observers continue to weigh the merits of a NMD system based on the old U.S.-Soviet relations, with any change in mutual vulnerability being viewed as destabilizing. In 1995, senior Clinton appointee Jan Lodal held a news conference saying, "Nuclear deterrence worked throughout the Cold War; it continues to work now; it will work into the future. The exact same kinds of nuclear deterrence calculations that have always worked will continue to work." This assessment may certainly be true in a bi-lateral scenario between the United States and a China or Russia, but it completely ignores the basic rules of the MAD scenario when applied to potentially new nuclear powers such as North Korea or Iraq. In order for mutual vulnerability to be a deterrent, both countries must have informed decision makers, a high degree of rationality on both sides, a degree of familiarity, effective channels of communication, and leaders who are sensitive to cost and risk. None of these aspects is present in either case.

To add more fuel to the fire, in 1998 the independent Rumsfeld Report assessed the current nuclear situation as very dangerous and advised future U.S. leaders to either deploy a NMD system, substantially alter our current nuclear treaties, or both. Shortly after the report was issued, North Korea fired a three-stage rocket over Japanese airspace, serving to confirm the intelligence community's worst fears. The choice now seems clearer than ever before. While the system will be an investment in the tens of billions of dollars and will take time to develop, it is important for the United States to be firm in its advocacy of nuclear defense. Critics point to two failed interception tests as proof that the idea won't work, but any invention takes time to test and perfect.

President Bush has taken the right step in mandating NMD. At the same time, he has shown a keen awareness of international concerns by pursuing a system that helps our allies as well. At a time when murderous terrorists such as Osama bin-Laden are seeking out stores of uranium, America must look past the smoking embers of the Cold War and chart an efficient and cautious course through the minefields ahead.

---

Russia: Germany Won't Mediate In Missile Debate With U.S.

14 February 2001
Radio Free Europe
By Roland Eggleston
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/02/14022001105800.asp

Munich (RFE/RL) -- German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer says Germany will do all it can to facilitate a dialogue between Russia and the United States over Washington's planned missile defense system.

But Fischer says Germany is not prepared to act as a mediator between the two.

Fischer made his comments after holding talks earlier this week in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and the head of Russia's national security council, Sergei Ivanov. Fischer said he would discuss Russia's position with U.S. officials when he visits Washington next week, but would not try to seek compromises.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is expected to present Russia's objections to the missile defense system when he meets U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell later this month in Cairo (Feb 24).

Russia says it believes the proposed missile defense system would destroy the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which it says forms the cornerstone of arms control agreements. Russia argues that if America goes ahead with a plan to build a missile shield, it might spur other countries to take similar measures or to increase the numbers of their own missiles, thereby eroding nuclear deterrence. Fischer told German news media that it was in everyone's interests that the U.S. and Russia discuss their differences over the missile system in a climate of cooperation, not confrontation. He said his talks left him with the impression that Russia wants to avoid a political clash with the U.S.

"We were pleased the Russian parliament, the president, the foreign minister, and the security adviser assured us they would take a constructive attitude and possibly hold talks with the United States on a missile defense system."

Fischer has made clear several times he has some sympathy for Russia's concern about the planned missile defense system.

But while in Moscow he stressed that Germany was a loyal partner of the United States. He told reporters: "The United States is our most important ally."

Fischer's most intense talks about the missile defense system were with the head of the Russian national security council, Sergei Ivanov. German officials described them as a continuation of talks between Fischer and Ivanov at a security conference in Munich earlier this month.

In an address to that conference, Ivanov said deployment of the U.S. missile system would destroy international strategic stability and open the way for a new arms race, including an arms race in outer space.

Ivanov said that if Washington dropped its plans, Russia was ready for a joint program with the United States to make radical cuts in the number of offensive strategic weapons.

Fischer's talks in Moscow also covered the European Union's plans to offer membership to Central European and Baltic nations. In an address to Russian political scientists, Fischer said the accession of the Baltic states to the Union would confer EU citizenship on the Russians living in these countries. He said this could help improve ties with Moscow.

The German foreign minister also met members of the Memorial organization, which seeks to defend human rights in Chechnya. According to the German Foreign Ministry, Fischer told them that accurate reporting of human rights violations was an important part of the effort to bring peace to the region.

---

Germany adopts key role in missile-defense dispute

Feb. 14, 2001
San Jose Mercury News
New York Times
BY MICHAEL WINES
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/germany14.htm

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin and Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, discussed the United States' proposed national missile defense at a Kremlin meeting Tuesday, ending two days of talks that Fischer said point to new Russian flexibility on the notion of a shield against rogue missiles.

Both Fischer and Russian officials denied that Germany was acting as an intermediary between Moscow and the new Bush administration, which has made clear its plan to develop the shield in the face of European qualms and fierce Russian opposition.

But Fischer will be in Washington next week. And after talks with many of the Kremlin's top foreign-policy leaders and the Communist leader of parliament, covering the missile-defense plan in depth, it was clear that he would be able to give the White House a detailed view of Russia's objections.

Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, who met with Fischer on Monday, will hold his first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 24, the Kremlin said Tuesday. The missile-defense proposal is expected to be the centerpiece of those talks.

Ivanov said Monday that Russia ``will act at negotiations on questions pertaining to strategic offensive weapons and missile defense in a constructive way.'' He added, ``We are interested in expanding international cooperation in countering new threats and challenges.''

Fischer went a bit further. ``In the end, I think Russia will accept negotiations'' on the missile shield, he told reporters.

The United States insists that a limited missile defense is needed only to counter the growing threat of a surprise strike, with one or a handful of nuclear-tipped missiles, by a ``rogue'' state like North Korea or Iran.

Bush's defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has sought to allay European concerns about the program by offering to extend any shield to cover Europe. He has also said Washington will not move on its own without conducting extensive negotiations with both Europe and Russia.

But Russia and China say they fear that the defense is aimed squarely at their strategic nuclear forces. Conventional wisdom today says that the nuclear arms race is held in check because no nation can defend itself against a missile strike, and so no nation is willing to risk a counterstrike by launching its own attack.

-------- us nuc waste

Revenue generation makes waste-disposal industry a heavy hitter

Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Deseret News
By Jerry D. Spangler and Donna Kemp
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,250011074,00.html

What's a five-letter word for garbage? Maybe "waste" or "trash?"

In Utah, the correct response is inevitably "money." In fact, the disposal of waste is a huge industry here. Collectively, these businesses generate hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate revenues, employ hundreds of workers and sweeten state and local coffers through millions in fees and taxes.

In fact, the Tooele County budget is largely dependent on waste industries.

In all, Utah is home to one hazardous waste landfill, two hazardous waste incinerators (one is currently shut down), two radioactive waste dumps, a chemical weapons incinerator, a massive commercial landfill that accepts some wastes deemed hazardous in other states but not in Utah, and a facility that burns municipal waste.

Each is regulated to some degree or another by the state Department of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and/or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Each, to one degree or another, is subject to fierce criticism from environmentalists who scrutinize every nuance of their disposal licenses, applications for changes in their permits, and violations issued by regulators. Now add to the brew the inescapable fact all operate in a highly charged political atmosphere and a volatile business climate where the market for waste is constantly changing.

"In this business, you change or you aren't in business anymore," said Charles Judd, president of Envirocare of Utah, a commercial low-level radioactive waste facility in Tooele County that generates about $100 million a year in revenue.

Changes in the market for the nastiest of human-caused wastes have already led to the demise of one hazardous waste incinerator (it operated only a few months before it was shut down for lack of waste to burn). And Safety-Kleen, owners of a hazardous waste landfill in Tooele County, recently filed for bankruptcy protection. Envirocare is also faced with declining revenues, forcing them to lay off workers.

The result is an industry that is struggling to stay alive. And Judd warns that companies that don't change are going to be out of business.

When Judd says "change" what he means is they must be allowed to accept different kinds of wastes above and beyond what was originally authorized.

Envirocare had planned to petition Utah lawmakers and the governor this legislative session for permission to accept radioactive wastes thousands of times hotter than they are currently licensed for now. Called Class B and C wastes, these materials are remnants from the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, as well as wastes from research labs and hospitals. Some of the shipments will be so lethal that if somebody got close enough, they could receive a fatal dose, noted Bill Sinclair, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control.

But the company decided to wait, given that lawmakers are uncomfortable about addressing the issue before the public comment period has ended.

Without the permit, Judd said Envirocare will be in serious financial trouble as its current supply of waste - low-level radioactive soils called Class A wastes - runs out in the next few years.

Several years ago, Safety-Kleen had approached lawmakers about its plan to accept the same Class A radioactive wastes that constitute the bulk of Envirocare's business. But those attempts were blocked by Envirocare and Tooele County commissioners who argued there was not enough of the waste to sustain both the existing Envirocare facility and an expanded Safety-Kleen.

For more than a decade, Envirocare has deftly navigated the stormy political waters surrounding the commercial storage of mildly radioactive waste. But many lawmakers simply don't like the fact Utah has become a national dumping ground for radioactive and hazardous wastes, and they can't see allowing wastes that are even more toxic.

Envirocare and its owner, Khosrow B. Semnani, have responded by contributing generously to Utah political campaigns and political parties - Almost $100,000 over the past two years - winning friends on Capitol Hill.

Envirocare sees its two primary sources of waste -11e2 and Class A wastes that currently combine for 80 to 90 percent of their business - largely disappearing over the next several years.

It's not so much that supplies of waste have disappeared as it is government regulators are looking for less-costly ways of disposing of contaminated soils. Most federally funded cleanups now involve building storage cells on or near the contaminated site.

For example, the 10 million tons of uranium tailings at the Atlas mill near Moab is something that in years past could have been earmarked for disposal at Envirocare. But Atlas cleanup plans call for the tailings to be shipped to a site near the Moab airport where they will be buried.

Government regulators with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have also changed the rules on disposal of low-level radioactive wastes. Some materials once targeted for Envirocare are considered so benign they can now be discarded in public landfills. Other contaminated soils can be recycled for traces of uranium.

Despite objections by the state, the NRC is allowing International Uranium Corp., which operates a uranium processing mill near Blanding, to accept contaminated soils and mill tailings for recycling. The small traces of uranium being extracted cannot be justified given low market prices for uranium, but the company also gets paid cleanup fees for taking the materials.

State regulators argue that is nothing more than a sham for disposing of radioactive wastes without state oversight, and that taxpayers will be left with cleaning up a huge tailings pile once the company walks away from the Blanding mill. The company argues, and the NRC agrees, that recycling, whether subsidized with cleanup payments or not, makes good economic and environmental sense.

Ironically, the state's dispute with International Uranium has resulted in a strange alliance: Environmentalists often critical of the state's pro-industry posture toward waste disposal have been wholeheartedly supporting the state's position that radioactive wastes should be properly discarded in regulated facilities like Envirocare.

"It is painful (to admit), but yes, sites like Envirocare are needed to serve the public good by cleaning up these cultural nightmares sitting next to schools and airports," said J. Preston Truman, founder of Utah Downwinders and a frequent critic of Envirocare's business practices.

"Does it mean it all has to be shipped to Utah? I don't think so," he said. "The nation has to come to task with those already sacrificed on the nuclear altar, the Utahns and Nevadans and Idahoans who have already given their lives."

---

Tooele residents support facility
Community is at peace with plant that employs 700

Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Deseret News
By Joe Bauman
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,250010923,00.html

STOCKTON, Tooele County - Near this small ranching community 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, the first incinerator of its kind in United States is burning a toxic legacy of the Cold War - 13,616 tons of nerve gas and blister agent.

With numerous shutdowns and one acknowledged release of nerve agent into the atmosphere, the Tooele Chemical Disposal Facility (TOCDF) has been a lightning rod for criticism. But residents of nearby communities seem at peace with the plant, which employs about 700. More than half of the employees live in Tooele County.

The Army's $1 billion incinerator is based at Deseret Chemical Depot, a base that also houses rows of storage igloos for the thousands of rounds of chemical arms and storage tanks.

The incinerator began its task in August 1996. By mid-January, it had burned 4,917 tons of chemical agent, 36 percent of the stockpile. The only type of material destroyed so far is GB nerve agent (a k a sarin), with VX nerve agent and mustard agent yet to be burned.

The Tooele stockpile - thousands of munitions, including bombs, projectiles, land mines, spray tanks, rockets and one-ton storage containers loaded with nerve gas or blister agent - once amounted to 44 percent of the country's entire chemical armory.

TOCDF's work is scheduled for completion by 2004.

The campaign is given urgency by the fact that nearly every month, some of the aging munitions stored in protective igloos are discovered leaking, and must be specially double-packed until they are destroyed.

The fact that the incinerator is reducing that risk doesn't mean the picture is entirely rosy. The plant has a history of controversy, mistakes and breakdowns.

But the plant's neighbors have grown used to seeing alarm systems mounted on power poles and hearing the weekly test sirens. They are not worried.

Environmentalists insist the plant may not be safe. The types of incidents that concern them were demonstrated within the past year:

The most serious release happened the night of May 8-9, 2000, when the plant vented nerve gas to the outside air. The incinerator immediately shut down and remained closed for several months.

Only a minute amount of GB leaked from the stack, but none should have escaped. State, Army and federal officials investigated. All concluded that nobody was harmed.

The Centers for Disease Control recommended changes, most of them procedural. After improvements, the plant was back in full operation in September.

In November 2000, low levels of GB were detected on work clothes worn by employees. At worst, it was less than one-quarter of one time-weighted average. Under federal standards, 1 TWA is the level at which a worker can be exposed without harm for eight hours a day, five days a week, for 40 years.

Jason Groenewold, director of the anti-incinerator group Families Against Incinerator Risk, Salt Lake City, contends the plant is not operating as designed.

"The original design was based on draining nerve agent from the bombs and rockets, so that no more than a slight residual amount would go into the metal parts furnace or their deactivation furnace," he said. "However, due to the jelling of agent inside a significant portion of the weapons, the Army has now been incinerating nerve agent in a manner that was never intended."

Officials "really can't assure us that what is coming out of the smokestack is safe," he said.

Dave Jackson, the incinerator's site project manager, responded that the plant operates with alarms and sampling tubes. The Depot Area Air Monitoring System (DAAMS) tubes take samples from smokestack emissions.

"The DAAMS tubes . . . are analyzed with very sophisticated instrumentation," Jackson said. "Since those things are on there 24 hours a day, we know the performance of the system for agent destruction."

The system operates better than the required destruction efficiency, he said. That requirement is a strict one, nicknamed "six nines." The plant must destroy 99.9999 percent of the nerve agent.

"We exceed that tremendously," Jackson said.

The bottom line, according to Jackson, is that the plant is in full compliance with the state's permit, according to the state's interpretation. "This is a safe facility," he said, "and you cannot forgo the fact that we have made the neighbors that I have around me safer."

A quick telephone survey of the plant's neighbors found residents of nearby Rush Valley, Tooele County, support the plant.

"Oh, we're not dead yet. We're still kicking. Of course, I don't know if I've received any harmful effects from it," said Lyle Erickson, whose comments are the closest to a criticism voiced by anyone in this small community during the interviews.

Most of his reactions were like those of his neighbors, a positive feeling about the work the plant is doing to destroy toxic chemical arms. "But one thing I do know," he said. "I think they've eliminated about 50 percent of the hazardous waste in this valley, and that's a plus."

The plant has not stopped real estate values from rising, he said. "Nobody seems too concerned about the gas thing," he said.

Odell Russell, mayor of Rush Valley, lives about four or five miles from the incinerator. "I think I can speak for the community. . . . We have no concern about it. We think it's safe, and I think they're doing a good job."

---

Goshutes divided over N-storage

Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Deseret News
By Jerry D. Spangler and Donna Kemp
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/sview/1,3329,250010939,00.html

To get to the 18,000-acre Goshute Indian Reservation, head west from Salt Lake City on I-80 past the slag piles of the Kennecott smelter, then past the turn-off to the Deseret Chemical Depot, where the nation's deadliest chemical and biological weapons are stockpiled prior to incineration.

Keep heading west toward the MagCorp smokestack in the distance. You can't miss it. It's the one spewing more air pollution into the atmosphere than any other plant in North America.

About 45 miles west of downtown Salt Lake, turn south just before you get to two hazardous waste incinerators, a hazardous waste dump and a radioactive waste facility. You get to the reservation about 25 miles later, or about 10 miles before the Dugway Proving Ground, home of some of the nastiest byproducts of military weapons testing.

These days, the reservation boundary is marked only by a nondescript sign, a cattle guard across the road and a billboard inviting travelers to stop at the Pony Express Store, a two-pump pullout with sparsely stocked shelves. It is the only business on the reservation.

About 25 people live in this sun-baked desert where the only sound is the occasional scream of a car engine as it races along the arrow-straight highway to some place else.

A treaty more than 130 years ago exiled a small band of Goshute Indians out of sight and out of mind in one of the harshest landscapes imaginable, a place so desolate it was appropriately named Skull Valley.

"Our homeland was the Tooele Valley, but the pioneers kept pushing us west," said 44-year-old Leon Bear, just elected to his second term as chairman of the 112-member band, most of whom live in towns far removed from the reservation. "They pushed and pushed."

The Goshutes are now pushing back, tweaking the nose of Gov. Mike Leavitt and Utah's political establishment by entering into a lease agreement to allow a consortium of nuclear power utilities to store up to 40,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in above-ground casks on tribal lands. Because the tribe has sovereignty over what happens on the reservation, the state has struggled mightily with how to stop the Goshutes from accepting the most lethal wastes known to man.

The proposal calls for temporary storage of the waste. But opponents believe once it's here, it'll stay.

Bear believes the wastes can and will be stored safely, and that the deal with Private Fuel Storage will spell economic prosperity on his impoverished reservation. The $3 billion to be spent building and operating the facility over the next 40 years will mean jobs for Goshutes, a handful of new homes, money for health services and a cultural center to help them preserve their disappearing heritage.

But the proposal has bitterly divided the tiny tribe.

Margene Bullcreek is leading a small group of "traditionalists" who do not want their ancestral homeland turned into a toxic waste dump.

"(Leon) is trying to convince himself that what he is doing is right," said the 54-year-old Bullcreek. "(But) this waste will destroy who we are."

The dispute is far more than a small Indian tribe going to war with a state bent on keeping the waste out. Rather, the lease agreement thrusts the Goshutes into the middle of a national debate over the nation's nuclear policy, which has failed for more than 50 years to come up with a plan to dispose of nuclear waste.

It seems the only ones who want the waste are the Skull Valley Goshutes, who say their reservation, already tucked between toxic waste dumps and incinerators, is not only a suitable site, but the only real option the tribe has for drumming up jobs.

The tribe has tried but failed to attract other businesses. A rocket test range that the Hercules Corporation used to test satellite launch rockets since 1975 now sits idle on the reservation, the company recently declining to renew its contract. In 1993, the tribe invested in a glass and aluminum recycling plant that went bankrupt.

Other prospects didn't pan out either.

Three years ago, Bear signed a lease with PFS, but he won't disclose the financial details. "Some things," he said, "are nobody's business."

National dilemma

What to do with nuclear waste has become a huge national problem, not just for the nation's nuclear power plants, which provide 20 percent of the country's power, but for the federal government that needs a place to dispose of waste from nuclear submarines, decommissioned nuclear missiles, nuclear testing laboratories (including two in Utah) and thousands of fuel assemblies from nuclear power plants in foreign countries.

In 1983, Congress passed legislation committing the government to have a permanent repository for the nuclear waste in place by Jan. 31, 1998. Now the government is saying a permanent facility will not be ready before 2010 at the earliest.

And no one inside the industry believes the government will meet that deadline, either.

Most agree a permanent nuclear waste facility will someday be built deep inside Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada. Scientific tests on the suitability of the site continue, but actual construction is years away.

Government officials recognized years ago they would not meet the storage deadline passed by Congress. In the early 1990s, the Department of Energy invited communities and Indian tribes to apply for grants to study the possibility of temporarily accepting nuclear waste pending completion of a permanent site.

The Goshutes were among two Indian tribes that responded. They accepted two grants totaling $300,000 to conduct studies and visit nuclear power plants around the world.

"Initially, it bothered us that they seemed to be targeting Indian reservations," said Bear, who at the time was tribal secretary. "Then we went through the studies and decided it was feasible to store it, that it was safe."

A general meeting of tribal members passed a resolution supporting the idea.

In 1997, the tribal council, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and a consortium of nuclear power companies signed a 40-year lease agreement for temporary storage of nuclear waste, emphasizing to a wary public that the Skull Valley facility is a stop-gap only until the federal government completes a permanent facility. Even at a cost of $3 billion, it is money well spent if it avoids the shutdown of 10 to 20 nuclear reactors, says Scott Northard, PFS project manager.

The Skull Valley facility would cover 820 acres, most of which would be covered by rows of some 4,000 stainless steel canisters, each 18 feet tall, enclosing spent nuclear fuel rods transported to the site by rail from nuclear power plants around the nation.

If all goes as planned and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the Goshutes and PFS a license to store the wastes, construction could begin by 2002. Not only will Goshutes be given preference in the construction jobs, but they will have first crack at 43 full-time jobs at the site, Bear said.

It's just the kind of economic development, Bear said, that will draw tribal members - most now living in Grantsville, Tooele and Salt Lake City - back to the reservation. And the financial windfall, he said, will help create the infrastructure that will give them something more than jobs.

Tribal survival

For most of the past century, few Goshutes have actually lived in Skull Valley. Most drifted to white communities where they could find jobs and their children could be taught in public schools.

Bear grew up playing in the arsenic-contaminated dirt of Stockton, just south of Tooele.

He worked awhile as a security guard at the missile test facility before moving permanently to the reservation in 1980 with his wife, a Paiute, where they raised their two daughters. He doesn't speak the Goshute language.

In contrast, Bullcreek and her family have always lived on the reservation. Her brother, the late Bert Wash, was the tribal chairman before Leon Bear's father, Richard, replaced him. Fluent in the Goshute tongue, she calls herself a traditionalist.

She feels that the large utility corporations are invading their small tribe because they don't recognize their traditions. "You don't have to live in teepees to be a traditionalist," she said.

Bullcreek and her neighbor, Sammy Blackbear, have been leading the fight against the nuclear waste storage facility since Bear signed the lease with Private Fuel Storage in 1997. They organized a small opposition group called Ohnogo Gaudadeh Devia (Goshute for "mountain community"), mustering support from other Native American tribes, environmentalists and politicos.

Their attorney, Duncan Steadman, has filed a federal action to force the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reverse its approval of the lease agreement. State officials have openly supported the lawsuit and the Goshute opposition, using state funds to foster the legal challenge.

"I felt I had to be outspoken or lose everything that has been passed down from generations," Bullcreek said. "The stories that tell why we became the people we are and how we should consider our animal life, our air, things that are sacred to us."

Bullcreek has a powerful ally on her side. Gov. Mike Leavitt is confident the state can block the waste through a series of legal and regulatory challenges to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process.

Leavitt is also looking to Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, chairman of the House Resources Committee, to exert congressional muscle to thwart PFS. And he considers President George W. Bush a friend who could feasibly block the deal through executive order.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is warning the governor that there is little that can be done in Washington to block the nuclear waste dump, and that powerful political forces are at work to make it happen. And make no mistake about it, he said: If nuclear waste comes to Utah, it will be permanent.

"The state needs to do some clever, creative thinking about how to stop this," Hatch said.

Leavitt insists he is. He plans to twist the arm of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura to put the political stops on Minnesota-based PFS from shipping nuclear wastes from power plants there.

Closer to home, Leavitt is pushing the Utah Legislature to pass a law prohibiting Tooele County from providing electricity or water or other public services to the site. And he wants lawmakers to give him $1.6 million for a legal and public relations war on PFS.

And the war will be carried outside of Utah where accidents during rail transport of nuclear wastes could expose millions to the dangers of nuclear contamination.

Bear approaches the state's opposition with Zen-like indifference. Maybe the Goshutes win, maybe the state does. But if the proposal falls through, all is not lost.

"We're not dead in the water yet," he said. "We'll look for something else."

E-MAIL: spang@desnews.com ; donna@desnews.com


-------- MILITARY

Russian warplanes in Japan airspace

2/14/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=8pkr06va8gkoq

TOKYO (AP) - Russian military planes illegally entered Japan's airspace twice on Wednesday in the first such violations in six years, the defense agency said. Russian officials denied the claim. Japanese fighters scrambled toward the Russian warplanes after they were spotted on radar screens, but no encounter occurred, said Koichiro Oshima, a defense agency official. He said four Russian planes, including TU-22 bombers, were spotted at 11:59 a.m. in the Japanese airspace off Rebunto island at the tip of Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido. He said two TU-22 bombers were then spotted at 2:36 p.m. in the same area. Each time, the planes flew over Japanese air space for about three minutes, Oshima said. It was the first Russian violation of Japanese airspace since 1995, Oshima said.

-------- colombia

Hikers found dead at bottom of ravine

02/14/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-14-hikers.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - The bodies of nine hikers on an excursion near a national park in southwest Colombia were found at the bottom of a ravine, authorities said Wednesday. They had all been shot execution-style.

National police chief Gen. Ernesto Gilibert said it was too early to speculate on who killed the hikers near the Purace National Park, home to a majestic, snowcapped volcano. All of the victims - three women and six men - were Colombians.

It was not immediately clear when they had been killed. A report in El Tiempo newspaper said the group had last been seen on Feb. 4, when one of the hikers phoned home from an archaeological site near the park.

The bodies were discovered Tuesday, and authorities initially believed they had stumbled upon a massacre of peasants - almost a daily occurrence in a 37-year war that pits leftist guerrillas against the military and right-wing paramilitary groups.

Guerrilla fronts are active in the area in western Cauca state, police said, however officials were not pointing blame in any direction.

"It's extremely worrisome given that these were people dedicated to recreation, far removed from any kind of conflict," Gilibert said. "We have to clarify whether it was a misunderstanding or simply a homicide or a robbery."

Local media reports indicated the hike was organized by an ecological group and employees of health and recreation cooperative.

--------

Colombia Peace Talks Resume

February 14, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Colombia-Peace-Talks.html

LOS POZOS, Colombia (AP) -- Peace talks resumed Wednesday in this southern village following a daring, high-stakes summit between President Andres Pastrana and the country's top guerrilla leader.

Topping the agenda between the government and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were cease-fire proposals and a much-awaited exchange of ill prisoners.

Before flying into a large rebel-held territory that includes Los Pozos, a government peace envoy said he was optimistic about the talks.

``We hope both sides can discover the path which, little by little, will demonstrate their desire for peace,'' Sen. Juan Gabriel Uribe told reporters.

The negotiations were made possible by a dramatic, two-day summit here last week between Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. The president spent the night with minimal security in the guerrillas' main stronghold and managed to pull them back into negotiations they had suspended in November.

A 13-point agreement to reshape and expedite the talks avoided sending Colombia into ``a leap into the abyss'', rebel leader Alfonso Cano, a top aide to Marulanda, said in an interview published Wednesday in Bogota's El Espectador newspaper.

But Colombians were under few illusions that the new talks would produce quick results to end a 37-year war or reduce civilians' suffering.

Colombia's long conflict is being fueled by money guerrillas and paramilitary groups derive from ``taxing'' the drug trade, and a majority of Colombians question the FARC's sincerity. The government's willingness to make the sweeping political and economic reforms demanded by the Marxist rebels is also an open question.

Negotiations with a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, are also having difficulty getting off the ground amid opposition by northern residents to holding the peace talks in their region.

Los Pozos is part of an area twice the size of New Jersey that Pastrana ceded two years ago to the FARC to entice them into the negotiations. Following the meeting with Marulanda, the president extended the zone through October.

Meanwhile Wednesday, in what was seen as a good-faith gesture, the FARC turned over to authorities 62 fighters between the ages of 13 and 16, and pledged to dismiss 500 more underage guerrillas in the months ahead. The FARC has been under pressure in Colombia and internationally to stop recruiting children.

--------

Colombian Military Officers Convicted in '97 Village Killings

February 14, 2001
New York Times
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/world/14COLO.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Feb. 13 - An army general and a colonel were convicted late Monday for allowing right-wing paramilitary gunmen to kill dozens of villagers in 1997, the first such conviction of high-ranking military officers in a human rights case.

But human rights groups said today that the prison sentences handed down by the military tribunal - 40 months for the general and 30 months for the colonel - were too light, given the horrendous nature of the crime.

Retired Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui and Col. Hernán Orozco were convicted for having allowed gunmen from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to enter the southern village of Mapiripán in July 1997 in search of suspected rebel sympathizers. Over six days, the men decapitated villagers and burned bodies, as calls for help from local officials went unheeded. Authorities have said at least 30 people died, though the exact number remains unknown.

Human rights groups say that Colombia's paramilitaries have historically had ties to the military, receiving logistical and, in some cases, tactical support in their attacks on villages. In the Mapiripán case, investigators believe that the military not only ignored warnings and cries for help from villagers, but may have also allowed paramilitaries to stop at a nearby army base en route to the village.

A military tribunal, in finding General Uscategui guilty of "omission," said he "didn't act, though he could have and should have."

General Uscategui, who was relieved of his duties last year, was commander of the Seventh Brigade in the southern province of Meta when the massacre took place. The tribunal said that Colonel Orozco, who commanded a local battalion, helped his superior officer cover up reports by a judge in Mapiripán of the continuing killings.

Speaking to reporters, General Uscategui denied his involvement, and said he would appeal the conviction. "I've been dishonored on the national and international level," he said. "I've been unjustly held prisoner for more than a year, and I know that the evidence is in my favor."

The convictions come as President Andrés Pastrana's administration has been trying to demonstrate that it is taking a tough line against the paramilitaries, who are thought responsible for most of the country's massacres.

At his meeting last week with the leader of Colombia's largest rebel group, Mr. Pastrana agreed to create a commission that would make recommendations on how to deal with paramilitaries. In November, the rebels had declared a unilateral freeze on peace talks until the government could show that it was taking a harder line against the groups.

Despite government pronouncements, many international and Colombian human rights organizations say not enough is being done to punish military officials with ties to the paramilitaries. Human rights groups were disheartened that General Uscategui was not convicted of homicide or other serious offenses.

"This works out to a little more than a month for each Colombian murdered in Mapiripán," said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch in Washington.

The paramilitaries have grown to 8,000 fighters from a few hundred in the early 1990's, according to military estimates. Although historically based in the north, in the last two or three years they have spread across the country, where they single out people they believe help the rebels.

-------- drug war

For the Dutch, Ecstasy just the latest fad

02/14/2001
USA Today
By Steven Komarow, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-14-ecstasy.htm

AMSTERDAM - Jaro Renout is looking for drugs.
A bouncer at the dance club Milky Way, Renout nightly frisks patrons and pulls plenty of drugs from their pockets, including Ecstasy, the feel-good pill that's the rage in Europe and the USA. And then he gets out the club's enforcement device: a jar of water. Dumping pills into water ruins them, which serves other purposes: It keeps away dealers who might annoy customers, and it proves the bouncers don't confiscate drugs for themselves.

It also, of course, makes it pointless to call police. But calling police is not the Dutch way.

While the United States considers Ecstasy a scourge, it's just the latest fad here. While America rushes to toughen penalties and police sweep through rave clubs, the Dutch government sees a health issue. America offers jail, while Amsterdam offers Ecstasy revelers chemical tests to make sure their pills are free of dangerous impurities.

But the next few years will tell whether the Dutch can maintain that permissive approach. The Ministry of Justice is struggling to control illegal manufacturing and smuggling operations that have made the nation the world's leading Ecstasy supplier.

In 1999, the last full year for which data are available, Dutch authorities carried out 150 major operations, closed 36 Ecstasy labs and seized 3.6 million pills. Figures for 2000 and 2001 are expected to climb, and seizures represent only a fraction of the Ecstasy trade.

"The unremitting efforts to tackle Ecstasy production and trafficking will be sustained," said the Ministry of Justice in a statement announcing a budget increase for 2001.

"The Dutch are extremely aggressive," says Dean Boyd, a spokesman on drug interdiction for the U.S. Customs Service. Dutch authorities have cooperated closely with the Customs Service, he says, but the huge profits make it hard to stop the traffickers.

A pill costs only a few cents to make and often sells for $25 or more. And demand is growing, especially in the USA. In the year ended Sept. 30, U.S. Customs seized 9.3 million pills, up from 400,000 in 1997. About 80% of the Ecstasy imported to the USA comes from or through the Netherlands.

Ecstasy is a synthetic stimulant and hallucinogen widely popular at "raves," parties where people dance all night to techno and club music. Also known by teens as "E," "X" and the "love drug," it causes feelings of euphoria.

A U.S. government report shows use of Ecstasy among eighth-graders increased to 3.1% in 2000 from 1.7% in 1999. Among 10th-graders, use rose to 5.4% from 4.4%. And among 12th-graders, Ecstasy use rose to 8.2% from 5.6%.

While not considered addictive like other "hard" drugs such as cocaine or heroin, Ecstasy use is a habit of many young people and can be dangerous. Side effects include severe dehydration. Medical studies have shown that heavy use can cause brain damage.

In the Netherlands, although Ecstasy sales are illegal, the permissive policy means that individuals take the risk.

Former U.S. drug chief Barry McCaffrey, who made an official visit to Amsterdam in 1998, called the policy an "unmitigated disaster." So-called "coffee shops" feature menus of marijuana products and other herbal concoctions. "Dutch tolerance of drug use has created a climate that drug manufacturers and traffickers have seized upon," McCaffrey said. President Bush has not yet appointed a new drug "czar," but the new administration is expected to take a similar stance.

Holland is unyielding. "The policy on coffee shops will remain unchanged," the Ministry of Justice says.

Rien Maas, police chief in Oosterhout, a town south of Amsterdam, says the policy is not a panacea. Despite the availability of treatment, there are about 70,000 hard drug addicts in Holland and there's still drug-related violence, especially between rival smugglers.

Still, he supports tolerance as the most practical approach, especially compared to U.S. laws with mandatory minimum sentences. "It is impossible" to have enough police to eliminate drug dealing and use ."

To crack down on dealers, Holland is looking to regulate sales of pill-making machines and block import of the chemical ingredients for Ecstasy. It also is working with neighbors to better track illegal drugs, since border controls have disappeared largely with the advent of the European Union.

While most of Europe has strict anti-drug policies similar to those in the USA, a few are moving toward the Dutch approach. The governments in neighboring Belgium and Switzerland have tentatively approved measures to decriminalize marijuana this year. Portugal and Luxembourg are considering similar action.

At Amsterdam's clubs, patrons say the Dutch policy works and the impact of the crackdowns is not entirely positive. Ecstasy pills are more frequently spiked with unwanted amphetamines and other substitutes, they say. "When I came here for the first time, pills were a lot better," says Anke Bertems, 25, a sociology student at the University of Amsterdam. "Police began to interfere a lot more with it, so the quality went down.

Officials say a wide variety of substances have been mixed into the pills. Sometimes other stimulants are included, which can be dangerous especially if the use of the pills is combined with alcohol or other drugs.

Bertems says her friends are careful about their drug use. And because drugs are legally tolerated, she says they don't take drugs to rebel or show off, only to feel good. "We're not judging each other," she says.

Nearby, at the club Paradiso, in an old church, powerful bass speakers rumble and dancers shake where pews once stood. Marijuana smoke scents the air. Though many are high, this is not a drug party. Almost everyone is dancing.

Clubgoers who don't take drugs say they are comfortable dancing alongside those who do. "I can see what it does to people, and I don't want it," says Bo van Brommel, 20. But she says making drugs illegal is wrong. "We've got a lot of education about it and you just make your own choice."

She also says Holland's liberal policies don't create an underworld of drug criminals, and as a result "Amsterdam, it's quite safe," she says. The murder rate in Holland is a fourth of that in the USA.

Tineke Edink, 22, says she's never tried drugs. She works one day a week at a drug-treatment facility and she knows the downside. "But I have friends who use drugs. They can handle it. They are not addicts at all," she says. "Because it's legal here, I think more people use it like my friends without problems. When things are illegal, for some people, it is more exciting."

Even in the clubs, the Dutch say that tolerance is not the same as "anything goes." The society expects people to be responsible, they say. Renski Bronk, 22, who works at the van Gogh museum, disapproves of Americans there who show up for work stoned.

"They can't use it in America, so they are using it here" to excess, she says

---

Governor's Drug Efforts Show Fruit in Santa Fe

February 14, 2001
New York Times
Statehouse Journal
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/politics/14DRUG.html?pagewanted=all

SANTA FE, N.M., Feb. 13 - When he first proposed radical changes to his state's drug laws almost 18 months ago, Gov. Gary E. Johnson of New Mexico was viewed by many New Mexicans as something of an oddity.

Here was this otherwise conservative Republican borrowing a hefty page from the left-wing playbook, urging that possession laws be liberalized, that drug users get rehabilitation rather than prison terms, that pharmacies be allowed to provide syringes to addicts.

Now, after his relentless campaign to treat drug abuse as a public health issue rather than as a criminal justice matter, Mr. Johnson stands a chance to see his vision fulfilled.

Eight bills that reflect his positions on drug policy are making their way through the New Mexico Legislature. California, New York and dozens of other states have passed some of the same ideas into law, and others have taken effect through ballot proposals.

But experts on drug policy say no other state in recent years has considered so many legislative changes at once, putting New Mexico at the forefront of a policy shift that many state politicians once considered outrageous, even dangerous.

"None of these measures, by itself, is radical," said Ethan A. Nadelmann, executive director of the Lindesmith Center, a leading national organization for overhauling drug policy. "But as a package, they are a leap forward."

Mr. Johnson, who has made drug- law changes a hallmark of his second and final four-year term, said he was ecstatic about the effects of his efforts. "A year ago, I wouldn't have dreamed this drug package would have generated so much support," he said in an interview in his office here, citing public response that he said was running 20-to-1 in favor. "I don't think it is out of bounds to believe that all eight pieces have a chance to pass."

His approach to solving drug problems, he said, reflects a traditional cost-benefit analysis that any fiscal conservative would take. At the same time it represents a major break from the usual mode of attack in the nation's so-called war on drugs, which has directed the power of law enforcement against suppliers and users alike.

In arguing that those efforts have produced only limited success, Mr. Johnson has become one of the nation's highest elected officials to advocate alternative means to reduce drug abuse and spare taxpayers the enormous costs of prosecuting low- level drug offenders and filling prisons with them.

Last May, Mr. Johnson appointed a panel of prominent officials that included a federal judge in Colorado to evaluate New Mexico's drug policies and recommend changes. Their report was the basis for the proposed legislation.

No other states have embraced such a comprehensive approach, and Attorney General John Ashcroft has said the Bush administration will pursue a strict approach to drug crimes without indicating much willingness to consider the many changes Mr. Johnson is pushing.

That has not dampened Mr. Johnson's enthusiasm. "I've talked to Bush twice about this," the governor said proudly. "So far, he hasn't dismissed me."

Here in the Legislature, the climate for a new direction appears warmer. The lobbyists representing the governor - one to work Republican lawmakers, another for Democrats - predicted that as many as five, perhaps six of the measures were likely to pass before the session ended next month.

The lobbyists - Mickey Barnett, a senior Republican Party official, and Toney Anaya, a former Democratic governor - said two bills were virtually certain to pass.

One, known as the Medical Marijuana Law, would exempt from prosecution anyone who uses "a reasonable supply" of marijuana to ease the pain of certain illnesses. Eight states and the District of Columbia have passed similar measures, and about 15 other states are considering the idea.

The other safe bet is a bill that would require that an offender be convicted before any assets could be confiscated, a measure similar to one passed by Congress last year and by Oregon and Utah through ballot initiatives.

Three more measures, the lobbyists said, have a good chance to pass. They include a bill that would protect pharmacists from criminal prosecution for selling clean syringes to drug users, a law in about 40 other states. Another would follow many other states in adding money for drug treatment, prevention and education programs to be used as local officials deem appropriate. The measure would nearly double, to $24 million, the money available, and officials estimate that as many as 33,000 people would be helped, an increase of more than 25 percent.

A third bill, which has gained little traction elsewhere, would provide immunity from prosecution for anyone who administered prescription drugs known as "opioid antagonists" to reverse the effects of a heroin or opium overdose.

The lobbyists said the remaining measures would be the hardest to sell.

One would resemble new laws in California, New York and other states to provide treatment rather than incarceration for first- and second-time offenders involved with small amounts of drugs. Another would decriminalize possession of one ounce of marijuana, as 10 other states have.

A third would allow judges to deviate from sentencing guidelines. A handful of other states, including New York, are considering such a measure.

Mr. Johnson's efforts have raised his profile considerably - but not so much, he said with a laugh, that President Bush might consider appointing him as the nation's drug czar.

"Not me," Mr. Johnson said, conceding that his positions might frighten as many people as they impress. "On this issue, I am radioactive."

-------- iraq

Powell: U.S Won't Toughen Sanctions

February 14, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Powell.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- In a more conciliatory tone toward Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday the United States will not seek tougher U.N. sanctions but insisted that Baghdad eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.

Powell, who met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for more than an hour, said the United States wants Iraq to allow U.N. inspectors to return to verify the destruction of its banned weapons -- as demanded by U.N. resolutions -- and then ``move on beyond this.''

Powell's visit comes just ahead of Feb. 26-27 talks between Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf on ending the stalemate over U.N. sanctions and weapons inspections.

``I hope that the Iraqi representative comes with new information that will show their willingness and desire to comply with the U.N. resolutions and become a progressive member of the world community again,'' he said.

The Bush administration has criticized the Clinton administration for being too soft on Iraq and not doing enough to bring about the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Bush and his top officials have have signaled a tougher line toward Baghdad and talked about reenergizing sanctions.

But the tougher line was not evident in Powell's comments Wednesday.

``We obviously are bound by U.N. resolutions and we're not trying to modify those,'' Powell said. ``What they have to do is get rid of the weapons of mass destruction that we know they have been developing and have had over the years.''

``The initiative should be in Baghdad for them to do what is required and what is right,'' Powell said.

Iraq wants to end the sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and it has strong backing from Arab nations, France, Russia and China. But it has refused to allow the return of U.N. inspectors, who pulled out ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes in December 1998.

After meeting Annan, Powell went to the U.S. Mission across the street from U.N. headquarters to meet ambassadors from the four other major powers on the Security Council -- Russia, China, Britain and France.

``We're all clear that we have the same objective on Iraq which is to see the resolutions implemented,'' Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said after the meeting, ``but we have different views on how to get there.''

Powell stressed that the Bush administration is now reviewing its Mideast and Iraq policies. The secretary of state is expected to make his first major trip to the Middle East later this month for a first-hand assessment.

Greenstock said once the policy is determined, the council would like quick action on Iraq.

Elsewhere in the Mideast, Powell called the latest clashes between Israel and the Palestinians ``very, very troubling'' and urged everybody ``to control their passions and not keep moving in the direction that gets us on an escalating scale of violence that does nothing but see people's lives destroyed.''

He also called for all countries in the region and international donors to provide economic assistance to the Palestinians.

Annan said he believes the U.N.-U.S. relationship ``is on a very good footing.'' U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said there are negotiations with the White House for Annan to meet Bush later this month.

--------

Inside Saddam's death lab

February 14, 1999
London Times
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/02/14/stirevnws01001.html?

A FEW kilometres south of Baghdad, in a looping bend of the Tigris, there is a low-lying tongue of land covered in reeds and rubble. The remains of ochre-brick buildings have crumbled into the scrub. It is a desolate and impenetrable spot.

The people of Iraq have suffered unprecedented hardship because of what their president, Saddam Hussein, did in this place and is determined to go on doing at other locations hidden around his benighted country.

The loop of land girded by the Tigris is called Salman Pak, and it was the secret headquarters of Saddam's biological warfare programme. It was bombed eight years ago in the Gulf war, but Saddam would not give up the work started there. It was turned over by United Nations inspectors after the war, but he would still not give up. Years of stringent economic sanctions have not forced him to come clean about the full extent of its weapons programme. Even now Saddam is defiant.

It is because of his unbending desire to keep his weapons of mass destruction that Britain and America have been bombing Iraq again this winter. After trying to root out the weapons for the past eight years, the UN inspectors have been kicked out by Iraq (for good, it says) and the world seems at a loss as to what to do next. Some are inclined to blame the inspectors for the predicament.

I was a senior adviser to the leader of the inspectors for four years, and I believe that even getting them back into Iraq with full powers would offer no hope of forcing Saddam to give in.

Are the inspectors to blame? Before answering, it is helpful to know the inside story of one of the greatest detective investigations of all time. Speaking as a former diplomat, I have had my views of the world indelibly altered by taking part in this investigation into a cynical and ruthless opponent. Many of my cosy ideals about international law and the efficacy of diplomacy were shattered in the face of uncompromising evil.

AN AIRCRAFT flies overhead and drops bombs, or a missile explodes. A chemical called VX is released into the air. You inhale it or it settles on your skin. The effect is dramatic and terminal.

VX blocks the transmission of nerve impulses. It shuts down the body's vital organs in seconds. Your heart stops beating. The intercostal muscles around your rib cage stop contracting so you can no longer breathe. Within minutes you are dead. This is chemical warfare.

Imagine another aircraft going over at low altitude. It is leaking something from tanks under its wings, but it does not seem to be in trouble and it is too high to be crop-dusting. You do not know it, but you are under attack.

The next day you notice that several of your friends are under the weather. It hits you two days later. You feel a slight fever and your chest feels tight. You think you have a bout of pneumonia. Over the course of the week many others are complaining of weariness and chest pains. As time goes on, you all have difficulty breathing and develop high fevers. Your skin turns a bluish-purplish colour, your neck swells and you cannot stop sweating.

You are dying of inhalation of anthrax spores - wool-sorter's disease. Your bloodstream has been taken over by billions of tiny, rod-shaped bacillus anthracis bacteria. They are only five or ten thousandths of a millimetre long, but there are so many that your blood has become a poisoned, blackish sludge. A day or so later you die. This is biological warfare.

Now take another scenario. You are at home with your family. Bombs burst. You get everyone into the basement - out of harm's way, you think. But the bombs have released viruses that cause haemorrhagic fever. You cannot see them; they are too small - only 100 nanometres (ten millionths of a centimetre) long.

Adults have a set of defences against this pernicious virus. But over the next few days you watch your six-year-old daughter going through agony. This begins after you think the danger has passed. She develops a sudden high temperature and her face flushes. This lasts two to