------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Bunker-busting US 'mini-nukes' alarm scientists
Russia to continue nuclear cooperation with India
Nuclear power is not safe
Waste from Norway research nuke spewed into sewer
Consequences for Russia
Russia: Duma Passes Nuclear-Import Plan
Sweden says may delay nuclear plant shutdown
Scientists take aim at low-yield nukes
Nuclear energy poised for a comeback
INEEL finishes removing vestiges of airplane project
Radioactivity found in Fallon wells
Bibb says money isn't the problem at Y-12

MILITARY
U.S. May Withhold Main Radar Item on Taiwan's List
Bush is likely to defer arms sales to Taiwan
North Korea sends missile parts, technology to Iran
Rebel Group In Colombia Kidnaps 100, But Frees 70
Guerrillas hold workers of U.S. oil field
Amtrak Knows Where You've Been . . .
Skakel witness says he was on heroin
Iranian Attack on Iraqi Towns Condemned
Pentagon: Fix Osprey, don't kill it
Saudi rules anger top Air Force pilot

OTHER
Washington calls on its cows to ease energy crisis
Bush Endorses Rule on Lead Emissions Proposed by Clinton
ALASKA: A NORTH SLOPE SPILL
MANHATTAN: HUDSON DREDGING SUPPORTED
The Environment: Read My Lips
Administration to tighten arsenic water standards
THE QUEBEC WALL
Bush Says He'll Press Effort for Hemisphere Trade Pact
Drug cost will soar in FTAA: experts
Big business's voice alone is heard at summit
Towards the America´s summit
Summit Rosy Scenario
New Call Against Verniero
Patterns of Police Violence
Fire Dept. Delays Hiring Officer in Diallo Shooting
Inquiry of Torricelli Examining Claim He Took Unreported Gifts
Session of Cincinnati Council Draws a Crowd
MANHATTAN: CIVILIAN COMPLAINT REVIEW BOARD
Cincinnati´s racial fires
A National Humiliation
U.S. Threatens to Stop Talks With Beijing
Knotty Task of Beijing Talks:
China could force U.S. to escort planes
Beyond the spy-plane issue: Keep engaging China
Russia Passes Spy Plane Treaty
To be a fly on the wall
Subpoena for Albright in Bombings Trial

ACTIVISTS
Inside a Soccer Mom, a 60's Agitator Roars
THE QUEBEC WALL
Quebec police charge six with possession of explosives
6 arrested, arsenal seized in Summit security move
Worry about the 'Blue Bloc', not the 'Black Bloc'


-------- NUCLEAR

Bunker-busting US 'mini-nukes' alarm scientists

The Guardian
Wednesday April 18, 2001
Julian Borger in Washington, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0%2C3604%2C474368%2C00.html

The Pentagon is examining the feasibility of producing a low-yield nuclear warhead capable of hitting deep fortified targets such as Saddam Hussein's underground bunkers. But US scientists warned yesterday that "mini-nukes" would lower the threshold of nuclear war.

The Pentagon is due to report to the Senate in July in response to a Republican request to it and the energy department to find a way of destroying "hardened and deeply buried targets".

But a Pentagon spokesman insisted yesterday that work on mini-nukes had not yet begun.

"The 2001 defence authorisation bill authorises us to review the requirements for a weapon to use against hardened and deeply buried targets," Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Campbell said.

"There has been no research and development."

A 1994 law prohibits the US developing a nuclear warhead of less than 5 kilotonnes, lest "low-yield nuclear weapons blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war".

The request by two Republican hawks, Senators John Warner and Wayne Allard, to find a way of destroying targets such as underground bunkers directly challenges that law. Testing a mini-nuke would breach the 1996 comprehensive test ban treaty, too.

There is thought to be support for developing such a weapon in the energy department's nuclear research laboratories and the Pentagon. An adviser to the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, told the Washington Post this week that President Saddam would not be deterred by any of the nuclear warheads in the US arsenal, "because he knows a US president would not drop a 100-kilotonne bomb on Baghdad".

In theory a mini-nuke missile released by a plane would point towards its target and fire its rocket motors, driving it deep underground. The weak nuclear charge would be exploded after a time-delay and the blast, supporters say, would be contained in the hole dug by the missile.

But a report by the Federation of American Scientists argues that the Earth-penetrating bombs now being tested have only penetrated 6 metres (20ft) below the surface. A nuclear blast at that depth, the report says, "will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area".

Robert Sherman, head of the federation's nuclear security project, said: "We have gone 56 years without a nuclear weapon being used anywhere. There is universal recognition that once you use the first nuclear weapon it becomes a great deal easier for someone to use the second.

"Its incredibly stupid to think you can use a small nuclear weapon, cross the nuclear firebreak and get away from it.

"Trying to sell it on the rationale that it can be used without collateral damage and that will be the end of it ... is incredibly irresponsible."

-----

Russia to continue nuclear cooperation with India

The Hindu
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
By Vladimir Radyuhin
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/04/18/stories/03180005.htm

MOSCOW, APRIL 17. Russia attaches top priority to nuclear cooperation with India and is working to clear international hurdles to further supply of nuclear reactors to India, the new Russian Atomic Energy Minister has said.

Mr. Alexander Rumyantsev, who replaced Mr. Yevgeny Adamov last month, reiterated Russia's resolve to continue nuclear cooperation with India. ``India is our strategic partner and we attach very great importance to nuclear cooperation with it,'' Mr. Rumyantsev told The Hindu.

Russia has offered to supply four more nuclear reactors for the Koodankulam power station in addition to two negotiated several years ago.

However, as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Moscow is under restrictions to supply any more nuclear reactors to India, as the latter refuses to place all its nuclear programmes under ``full-scope safeguards'' by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Mr. Rumyantsev admitted the problem, but was confident it could be overcome. ``We are in talks with the NSG and I am sure we can reach an agreement. We can sign some sort of memorandum with the NSG allowing us to supply nuclear technology to India. Some members of the NSG do make such supplies to non- nuclear states.''

The Minister also vowed to continue nuclear fuel supply to India's Tarapur power reactors despite American protest. ``They criticise us but we carry on with the supplies.''

Earlier this year, Russia had submitted a detailed project report for the construction of two 1,000-KW reactors at Koodankulam and a contract is expected to be the signed in summer.

--------

Nuclear power is not safe

Montreal Gazette
Wednesday 18 April 2001
http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/010418/5029146.html

Letter to the Editor

In response to Fred Nagy (Letters, April 11), atomic power is not the panacea to meet the world's clean-energy needs.

Here are three principal reasons against expanded use of radioactive electrical production: cost, longevity and safety.

A nuclear generating facility carries a foreboding construction cost, not only in building the reactors but the containment and backup safety systems as well. The lifespan of the average reactor is 25 years.

What use is a mothballed facility? It becomes a blight on the landscape.

Its decommissioning and waste disposal contribute other costs, not to mention the risk of transporting radioactive materials. We have seen fail-safe systems go awry, with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island coming to mind. The consequences of such disasters occurring more frequently causes one to shudder.

The alternatives to nuclear and fossil-fuel-burning electric plants lie in solar, wind, power-cell and point-of-demand geothermal energy.

All are renewable resources, and easily built in urbanized areas without harm to the environment. There would be no need for extensive power lines that scar our green spaces and remain vulnerable to ice storms, sabotage and right-of-way conflicts. Long transmission cables also rob current, and lessen efficiency.

As for nuclear energy: been there, done that. It's time to forge ahead to incorporate these new, environmentally safe technologies in order to fulfill our ever-increasing energy demands.

W. Wayne Franks LaSalle

-------- norway

Waste from Norway research nuke spewed into sewer

NORWAY: April 18, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10531

OSLO - Nuclear waste from a research reactor in Norway spewed into a city sewer for nine years after a pipeline mix-up, the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) said yesterday.

Some of the sewage sludge ended up as fertiliser spread on Norwegian farms near Halden, in southeast Norway. Officials said there had been no danger to human health from the low-level radioactive waste.

Sverre Hornkjoel, an NRPA scientist, said cooling water from the 42-year-old reactor, operated by the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), had ended up in the Halden sewers between 1991-1999 after the municipality tied the drainage to the city's sewerage system instead of leading it out to sea.

"The municipality made the howler, but it is still IFE which is responsible," Hornkjoel said. "In principle, this is a serious incident, but the emissions were very small," he said.

IFE spokesman Viktor Wikstroem said the cooling water had undergone tests before leaving the Halden reactor, part of an international project to test fuel rods for nuclear reactors, which showed emissions to be below the safety limit.

"Our annual emissions are 4,000 times lower than what you and I and everyone are exposed to each year," Wikstroem said. "It is the municipality which made the error."

Nuclear waste from the reactor's cooling water then ended up as sludge sold to farmers in the area who used it as fertiliser. The pipeline has now been correctly connected so that the waste ends up in the sea.

"It is frightening that IFE has so little control over its emissions," said Nils Boehmer, a nuclear physicist with the ecological organisation Bellona.

Boehmer said IFE was "cowardly" in trying to push the responsibility onto the municipality and should offer free radiation tests to farmers in the area rather than trying to play down what had happened.

Norway has no nuclear power plants and no nuclear weapons. The Halden reactor is part of a research project run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

-- russia

Consequences for Russia

Wednesday, April 18, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30369-2001Apr18?language=printer

LAST THURSDAY Secretary of State Colin Powell told Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of the Bush administration's support for preserving the freedom of Russia's NTV television network, reiterating a concern that the administration had repeatedly voiced publicly. On Sunday, security forces evicted NTV's journalistic team from the network's studios, forcibly installing new management selected by the state-controlled gas company. On Monday, the same government toadies shut down the newspaper Sevodnya, another beacon of the post-Soviet free press controlled by NTV's holding company, Media-Most. Yesterday, the apparatchiks ousted the editorial team at Itogi, a Media-Most weekly news magazine published in cooperation with Newsweek (which is owned by The Washington Post Co.).

The sum of these actions is clear: President Vladimir Putin has flouted the appeals of the United States and other Western governments that he preserve Russia's free media. Instead, piece by piece, his cronies have crushed the most prestigious television, newspaper and magazine organizations in the country. The claims of Mr. Putin's surrogates that they are motivated by business concerns, never very plausible, have been shredded in the last week: The first action of the new managers has been to dismiss the independent journalists who enraged Mr. Putin with critical reports on the war in Chechnya, on corruption and on reconstruction of the secret police apparatus. One group of journalists, led by television anchor Yevgeny Kiselyov, tried to move to a cable television network; on Monday, government tax police, led by a recent Putin appointee, brought charges against that network's directors.

The Bush administration and the governments of the European Union, Canada and Japan now face an important challenge: to ensure that Mr. Putin suffers some consequence from his grossly anti-democratic behavior. To avoid action after the many warnings to Moscow would be a serious blow to Western credibility. At the same time, the sanction must be suited to the offense; it would make little sense, for example, for the administration to curtail aid programs to Russia that support non-government groups or are aimed at dismantling nuclear warheads and preventing the leakage of nuclear materials. The nuclear cooperation programs directly support U.S. security interests, and Mr. Putin's autocratic behavior can best be countered by increasing, not curtailing, U.S. aid to human rights groups, small independent newspapers and other organizations struggling to keep an independent civil society alive.

White House officials say they are seeking to coordinate a response to Mr. Putin with other governments, which is good. The most effective message to Mr. Putin can be delivered not by the Bush administration alone, but by the Western-led international organizations his government aspires to be part of. Even as he moves to centralize power and stifle opposition at home, Mr. Putin imagines leading Russia back into a position of world influence, and revels in his membership in the G-7 group of industrialized nations and the Council of Europe. Russia's place in those prestigious but largely ceremonial organizations is ripe for reconsideration.

The United States supported Russia's addition to the club of seven rich democracies even though it was neither rich nor fully democratic; the idea was that inclusion in annual summit meetings would encourage Moscow to cooperate and eventually integrate with the democratic West. But Russia has ruptured that premise; and there should be no place at a summit of Western democracies, or any European political council, for a government that has suppressed freedom of speech, built up a secret police apparatus and waged a brutal campaign of repression like that in Chechnya.

Mr. Putin has been unwilling take the West seriously when it has raised these issues; if he is disinvited from the next G-7 summit meeting, he just might.

------

Russia: Duma Passes Nuclear-Import Plan

Radio Free Europe
18 April 2001
By Sophie Lambroschini
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/04/180418105729.asp

Moscow, (RFE/RL) -- Russia's lower house of parliament today gave preliminary approval to a controversial three-bill package that would allow Russia to import and store nuclear waste from other countries.

The State Duma passed the three-bill package on the second of three readings. The Duma is to consider the package in a third reading before passing it on to the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, for consideration.

The plan has the support of both the Kremlin and the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry, which says the country could earn up to $20 billion by importing and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

Critics point to Russia's poor nuclear-safety standards and say the plan could be disastrous for the environment and human health.

Duma deputy Grigory Yavlinsky, whose liberal Yabloko faction openly opposed the plan, calls the vote a step in the wrong direction:

"According to us, today another step was taken toward a mistake -- which cannot be undone in the future -- to allow the import of nuclear waste to Russia."

The vote came just three weeks after a government reshuffle ousted the plan's author and prime supporter, Yevgeny Adamov, from the top post at the Atomic Energy Ministry. Adamov had come under criticism after a Duma report accused him of corrupt business activities.

Observers had hoped his replacement, Aleksandr Rumyantsev, would temper enthusiasm for the proposal, but Rumyantsev defended the plan at a news conference Monday (April 16). He described the world's spent-fuel market as a rich opportunity that Russia should seize before its foreign reprocessing competitors -- like France's Cogema or Britain's BNFL -- do the same:

"To tell the truth, none of these companies has declared so far that they're competing with Russian reprocessing firms. At present there are around 200,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in the world. Our project is to take 10 percent of this and import it for storage and reprocessing."

Rumyantsev says taking in spent fuel is the only way for Russia to finance repairs to its existing nuclear infrastructure.

But Aleksei Yablokov, the head of environmental affairs under former President Boris Yeltsin, said at a news conference yesterday that Russia's safety standards are insufficient for taking on such a potentially risky project:

"It's the most polluting type of technology. The dirtiest part of the radioactive cycle is the reprocessing. We store it underground, and then it ends up in the Arctic Ocean somewhere."

Environmentalists and independent experts argue that Russia's two existing nuclear storage facilities are already almost full. They have also said the reprocessing itself, which isolates plutonium, puts Russia at danger of nuclear theft and potential terrorism.

Independent nuclear expert Vladimir Kuznetsov told RFE/RL earlier this year he doubted any of the money would finance environmental programs as provided in the bill package. He said most of the revenue would either be gobbled up by costly preparations to transport, store and reprocess the spent fuel, or disappear into Russia's secretive nuclear and defense sectors.

Yavlinsky suggests that Duma deputies who voted in favor of the plan put their own personal interests ahead of the country's welfare:

"The parliamentary factions supporting the atomic energy ministry proved once again that they consciously agreed to the import of nuclear waste to Russia in exchange for money, benefits and privileges, which they will obviously receive."

Attempts to block the import plan through a national referendum failed last year when electoral authorities invalidated some of the nearly 2 million signatures collected to support the vote.

-------- sweden

Sweden says may delay nuclear plant shutdown

SWEDEN: April 18, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10530

STOCKHOLM - Sweden has said it may postpone the planned 2003 closure of a controversial nuclear reactor plant if alternative electricity supplies are not secured.

Prime Minister Goran Persson said during the Easter holiday that the second reactor at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden would be shut down only once it was certain that the lost production could be replaced from other energy sources.

"We don't want to prolong this by a single day but at the same time we are not going to put ourselves in a situation where we could get problems in case of a cold winter," Persson was quoted as saying by the Swedish daily Dagens Industri.

Persson's spokeswoman Anna Hellsen confirmed the report yesterday.

"This is what the Prime Minister said," she told Reuters, but declined to elaborate.

The first Barseback reactor was closed in 1999 at a cost to the state of some 8.3 billion crowns ($809 million) and was part of a plan to phase out nuclear power. The government said last summer that the second Barseback reactor would be shut down in 2003.

Barseback lies some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) across the border from Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, which has banned nuclear power.

Persson was responding to Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who last week expressed concern that Sweden would not follow its aim to shut the reactor by 2003.

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

Scientists take aim at low-yield nukes

Environmental News Network
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
By United Press International
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/04/04182001/upi_nukes_43098.asp

A Washington-based scientific organization said on Monday that a new type of Earth-burrowing nuclear weapon under study by the United States government would inflict massive civilian causalities and undercut global efforts to quell the proliferation of nuclear arms.

Less deadly than Cold War-era bombs, the so-called "mini-nukes" would, in theory, penetrate hundreds of feet below the Earth's surface, destroying bunkers packed, for example, with chemical or biological weapons while leaving civilian populations above it unscathed.

Scientists at the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy's nuclear laboratories are spearheading the research.

Proponents, including a small number of politicians, planners and government scientists, argue that, because of their limited collateral damage and precise guidance systems, mini-nukes would be ideal for countering rogue states that deploy chemical weapons against American troops.

But a study released by the Federation of American Scientists, an organization overseen by more than half of the current American Nobel Laureates, took issue with those claims, arguing that low-yield nuclear bombs are a technological impossibility.

"No Earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the Earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the Hiroshima weapon," wrote Princeton University physicist Robert Nelson, the author of the FAS study. "The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with especially intense and deadly fallout."

The study stated that a 1-kiloton explosion, less than one tenth of the Hiroshima bomb, would have to burrow 450 feet to avoid civilian impacts.

It noted that when conducting nuclear explosions at the U.S. government's Nevada Test Site, scientists must bury a 5-kiloton explosive 650 feet below ground. Even then, the study reported, there are many documented cases where the local environment is exposed to radioactivity.

The report said that burrowing to a depth that is safe for civilians would destroy a warhead's ability to function.

Apart from technological considerations, some experts said the weapon would obfuscate distinctions between conventional and nuclear weapons and make their eventual use more likely.

"This type of weapon is much more problematic than proponents would have us believe," said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "If you start saying that the most powerful country in world needs nuclear weapons to deter chemical and biological attacks, then you have to ask why everyone doesn't need them? You swing open the door to global proliferation of nuclear weapons."

While some conventional weapons can destroy bunkers, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed former Pentagon official last year saying that the military needs a weapon capable of destroying a bunker buried beneath 300 meters of granite without hurting the surrounding population.

Sen. Wayne Allard, (R-Colo.) and Sen. John Warner, (R-Va.), inserted a provision into the 2001 defense authorization bill that required the DOD and DOE to study the burrowing bombs but did not allocate any funds for their development.

The results of those studies are due before July 1, 2001.

"Sen. Allard wants to look at ways to address the growing problem of so-called harden targets such as bunkers," Sean Conway, spokesman for Sen. Allard, told United Press International. "He will review the FAS study but he is waiting on the DOE and DOD report to make his final decision. He didn't want to take any options off the table until it was studied."

Some of the government's leading nuclear scientists have called for scaled-down nuclear weapons.

"Some targets require the energy of a nuclear weapon for their destruction," wrote Stephen M. Younger, associate laboratory director for nuclear weapons at the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in June 2000. "Precision targeting can greatly reduce the nuclear yield required to destroy such targets. Only a relatively few targets require high nuclear yields. Advantages of lower yields include reduced collateral damage, arms control advantages to the United States and the possibility that such weapons could be maintained with higher confidence and at lower cost than our current nuclear arsenal."

"The United States will undoubtedly require a new nuclear weapon because it is realized that the yields of the weapons left over from the Cold War are too high for addressing the deterrence requirements of a multi-polar, widely proliferated world," Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., said in a speech on March 28, 2000. "Without rectifying that situation, we would end up being self-deterred."

A spokesperson in his office told UPI that Robinson could not comment by press time because he had not read the FAS study.

The Department of Energy also did not comment by press time.

Speaking of the report, Bob Sherman, director of nuclear security projects at FAS, told UPI "we hope the information will give a useful perspective to claims of nuclear labs that they need to resume nuclear testing in order to get small, very strong warheads which they claim would do useful things we can't do now."

"I think the low-yield systems are a solution in search of a problem," said John Pike, a military expert and the director of GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.

"There is no real evidence that potential adversaries are constructing these deep underground bunkers and if there were, there is no particular reason to believe we could locate them with sufficient precision to destroy them."

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

Nuclear energy poised for a comeback

Environmental News Network
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
By John Roach
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/04/04182001/nukes_42979.asp

Blackouts roll across California. Icebergs calve in the Antarctic Peninsula. Salmon migrate via barges. Water creeps up on island nations. The United States wants energy. The Earth needs to cool down.

Are nuclear reactors the answer?

Vice President Dick Cheney thinks so. Cheney has jumped on the nuclear energy bandwagon as an answer to both the U.S.'s energy crisis and the world's high fever.

"If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants. They don't emit any carbon dioxide. They don't emit greenhouse gases," Cheney said recently on MSNBC's "Hardball" program.

Cheney believes that greater use of nuclear energy must be a part of the country's long-term energy strategy. Currently 20 percent of U.S. power is nuclear. If the Bush administration get its way, the figure will rise.

The administration touts nuclear energy as emission-free. As such, it is one way President George W. Bush's group can deal with global warming, a major thorn for the administation since it reneged on the Kyoto Protocol in March.

Emission-free, perhaps, but nuclear energy is as hazardous and controversial today as it was 20 years ago, said Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C.

"When you get outside of the Beltway and outside of the moneyed interests, there certainly remain concerns about nuclear waste, catastrophic accidents and proliferation of nuclear weapons material from this technology," he said.

Resurrection of the nuclear industry, the aim of a bill introduced in March by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, constitutes a resurgence in proliferation of nuclear weapons material, said Gunter.

"Given that a domestic market won't [support the industry], they are going to have to sell around the world," he said. "What this poses is the threat of proliferation in terms of the number of holders of the basic building blocks of nuclear weapons."

Storage of nuclear waste is another issue of major concern. The Department of Energy has long studied the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada but hasn't decided if the location is suitable.

Environmentalists point to the area's volcanic and seismic activity as evidence against the site.

-------- idaho

INEEL finishes removing vestiges of airplane project

KTVB News
APRIL 18, 2001, 11:15 AM
http://www.ktvb.com/news/newstory.html?StoryID=6349

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has finished tearing out the last remaining buildings used to design a nuclear-powered airplane which never flew.

Underground buildings which sheltered workers while tests on the nuclear engines took place during the late 1950s were removed.

Those tests accounted for some of the biggest releases of radioactivity from the site.

At the height of the Cold War, the military wanted a nuclear-powered plane that could stay aloft almost indefinitely without refueling. It was thought the plane would be used as a military command center in the event of a nuclear war.

The plane never flew because the massive shielding needed to protect crews from the reactor wasn't exactly conducive to flight.

President John Kennedy scrapped the project in 1961, after more than one billion dollars were spent.

Mercury, lead, asbestos and radioactive contamination had to be removed from the buildings.

----- nevada

Radioactivity found in Fallon wells

April 18, 2001
SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2001/apr/18/511709614.html

RENO -- A federal report shows ground water used for drinking in the Fallon area contains radioactive minerals that exceeded federal standards in 31 of 73 wells tested in the early 1990s, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported today.

State and federal officials said they neglected to consider the U.S. Geological Survey report in their investigation of a cluster of 12 childhood leukemia cases diagnosed in Fallon over the past few years.

The report has surfaced only because a former USGS director thought the information would be important to the investigation and wondered why it hadn't been considered, the newspaper said.

Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga, D-Fallon, learned about the report Tuesday and was outraged that it hadn't been brought up sooner.

"This could turn out to be significant in terms of the leukemia cluster," she said. "Clearly, radiation is one of the listed causes of leukemia. The researchers need to follow up on the radiation levels in the wells."

The significance of the ground water radiation is not clear, investigators said. It will be examined as one of many environmental factors, including agricultural chemicals, jet fuel from the nearby Navy base and other pollutants to be investigated.

The Geological Survey report, released in 1994, showed the shallow and intermediate ground water used for drinking water in the rural areas of the Carson Desert contained high amounts of naturally occurring uranium and radioactivity.

The city's municipal water supply, which serves about a third of the Fallon's population of about 8,300, comes from deeper wells that don't contain dissolved uranium, state and federal officials said.

Radiation is one of the few known triggers of leukemia, said researchers. In the Fallon area, 12 children have been diagnosed with the same type of acute lymphocytic leukemia since 1997, 11 of in the last two years.

Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set uranium standards for drinking water at 30 micrograms per liter. The 1994 USGS report shows one shallow well logging 310 micrograms per liter and another shallow well measuring 210 micrograms per liter.

The EPA standards do not go into effect until December 2003, EPA senior environmental scientist Jon Merkle said. "That is very surprising that such a recent report took so long to pop up," Merkle said.

The federal uranium limits only apply to municipal drinking water sources, but exposure risks from any source are the same, he said. "The health risks are the same whether your family is getting water from a public well or a private well," Merkle said.

The USGS report also showed radioactivity levels - presumably from the dissolved uranium - exceeded EPA standards in nine of 56 wells in the shallow or intermediate aquifer, the newspaper said.

Dr. Randy Todd, state epidemiologist, said he was unaware of the USGS report until a meeting with state and federal health and environmental officials Tuesday. USGS officials said the report was distributed to state and local officials in 1994 and didn't get much attention at the time.

"I guess it was on a shelf someplace," Todd said.

The report and ground water radiation levels never came up during the three-day Legislative hearing in February or the U.S. Senate hearing on the leukemia cluster last week, deBraga said.

John Nowlin, the former USGS director in Reno, said he called the Reno office two weeks ago to ask about the 1994 report.

"There was no big hue and cry when the report was released in 1994, before the uranium standard for drinking water was adopted," he told the newspaper.

"I knew it had been distributed and discussed back then, but I wondered why it hadn't been mentioned lately."

Todd said the USGS report will be significant in the state's testing of nine private wells used or formerly used by the families in the leukemia cluster. He said those wells are being tested for all contaminants mentioned in the state's clean water law, including uranium and radioactivity.

State health and environmental officials met Tuesday with officials of the USGS, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The officials exchanged information and began to plan a joint state-federal probe of the disease cases and possible causes, Todd said.

"There are a number of agencies whose data might be useful in this," he said. "We have to sift through all the information and come up with protocols for environmental and biological sampling in the area."

Sun reporter Mary Manning contributed to this story.

Comments:
Several factors appear to be involved in the Fallon leukemia cluster in kids.

1. Arsenic in well water, a toxic metal carcinogen which damage immunity
2. Uranium and radiation in some well water.
3. Soil contamination from fallout.
4. Parential exposures to fallout contributing to offspings potential for leukemia.
5. Town sits on NTS aquifer, which many have contained H-3 and Sr-90 at varing levels.
6. Jet fuel residues in the air, water, soil, jet fuels contain benzine.

-------- tennessee

Bibb says money isn't the problem at Y-12

Knoxville News-Sentinel
April 18, 2001
By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/fm04182001.shtml

There hasn't been much information available in Oak Ridge about the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, particularly the budget for 2002, so I placed a telephone call to North Carolina.

What?

On the surface that doesn't make much sense, but I figured Dr. Bill Bibb, a retired Energy Department official who lives on the Carolina coast, might have some information on Y-12 and maybe a few opinions, too. He did and, as it turned out, he was not reluctant to share them.

Bibb oversaw Y-12 operations when he headed DOE's defense programs in Oak Ridge and for a time held a key defense post at agency headquarters in Washington. After leaving federal service, he founded Citizens for National Security, an advocacy group that includes many weapons-manufacturing experts formerly on the Y-12 payroll.

The budget looks pretty good, according to Bibb, who traveled to Washington last week to meet with friends and do a little intelligence gathering. He has been a supporter of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-independent agency within DOE that was created a year ago to manage the nuclear weapons program.

"I think the NNSA is committed to providing funding for these (production) plants over and above what I think any of us had originally hoped for. By that, I mean the NNSA has clearly recognized there is an infrastructure problem. You can't ignore maintenance and infrastructure," he said.

Unfortunately, Bibb said, the nuclear weapons complex has deteriorated in the post-Cold War era.

"When we suddenly had this great 'peace dividend,' it was like, 'Let's cut back on staff, cut back on maintenance. We'll probably never need it again.' Well, hello! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to think that nuclear weapons need to be rebuilt now and again, refurbished."

Bibb is worried about the declining numbers of experienced technical staff within the weapons complex.

"What are you going to do when a lot of your graybeards walk out the door? You can't recruit these kinds of things," he said.

Bibb suggests that the precision associated with manufacturing warheads is something that requires years of on-the-job training.

He said skilled craftsmen have arrived at Y-12 over the years, fully confident of their abilities, only to find themselves totally unprepared for the machining standards in place at the Oak Ridge complex.

"The talent that's required is just unbelievable," he said.

Bibb said it looks like the Oak Ridge Centers for Manufacturing Technology at Y-12 is not receiving the kind of support that's needed.

The ORCMT was created a decade ago to facilitate the transfer of technologies from the nuclear weapons program to U.S. businesses, particularly those in the state and region. Besides helping industry solve manufacturing problems, the Oak Ridge centers were supposed to help keep key personnel available for weapons work.

The plant's "work for others" program, involving projects for the military and other federal agencies, also seems to have lost priority and momentum, he said.

While money for modernization of Oak Ridge facilities appears to be ready and available in Washington, Bibb said there apparently are some problems in putting this money to work.

"I'm not as concerned with the funding as I am with the commitment by BWXT Y-12 to get on with the job," he said. "Y-12, I think, has gotten satisfactory funding, adequate funding. Now the issue is: Can the new contractor utilize it effectively? That's the big question in my mind, and I would say the jury is still out."

BWXT is the new contractor in Oak Ridge, replacing Lockheed Martin last November as manager of Y-12, and Bibb said he's disappointed with what's he seen so far and what's he heard from informed officials within the weapons complex.

"When Martin Marietta came to town (in 1984, succeeding Union Carbide), we saw a lot of early-on accomplishment. We saw new people pumped up. All I'm seeing right now is the same old, same old. I don't have that warm and fuzzy feeling.

"We're supposed to be choosing (contractors) who are the best and brightest. I don't see Bechtel (one of the corporate partners in BWXT Y-12) shipping in some of their world-class project managers. It's these kinds of things that worry me, not the money. One of the worst things in the world is if you get the money and don't know what to do with it .... I don't see all these new things that BWXT said when they won the contract."

While expressing disappointment with BWXT's performance to date, Bibb also put the needle to the National Nuclear Security Administration's leadership.

He credited the NNSA with pushing for refurbishment of aging facilities, but Bibb said the new agency should have done a lot more in a year's time. He suggested that a bloated organizational chart is no way to make people accountable.

"I think you're going to see some frustration on The Hill" regarding the NNSA's lack of progress, he said.

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

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

U.S. May Withhold Main Radar Item on Taiwan's List

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/world/18MISS.html

WASHINGTON, April 17 - President Bush's senior national security aides have recommended that he defer the sale to Taiwan of advanced destroyers equipped with a highly sophisticated ship-borne radar system but have advised him to provide a range of less advanced weapons to counter China's growing arsenal.

The recommendation, by a team of senior deputies in the State and Defense Departments and the White House, was discussed this afternoon at a meeting of the National Security Council.

Officials declined to discuss that session, other than to say that Mr. Bush is expected to make a final decision next week. He and his senior advisers - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice - could chose a different path, officials warn.

What Mr. Bush sells to Taiwan, and how he words his decision about whether Taiwan may ultimately obtain the advanced radar system, known as Aegis, or equipment that could perform a similar function, could set the tone of his dealings with China for the next several years.

For Mr. Bush the decision is particularly delicate because pro-Taiwan conservatives in his own party have urged that he agree to Taiwan's entire shopping list, especially after the 11-day detention of the crew of the American spy plane that collided with a Chinese fighter jet on April 1.

But much can be done to strengthen Taiwan's defenses without selling the high-profile Aegis, and many of Taiwan's deficiencies cannot be resolved through the sale of weapons alone.

Administration officials insist that the standoff with China over the April 1 collision will have no influence on their final decision on what to sell Taiwan. But taken together, the collision and the arms sales are likely to define Mr. Bush's relations with Chinese leaders, and it is far from clear how China will view his decision.

Beijing has said that any sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan would severely damage relations with the United States, though Washington has made such sales in the past.

According to officials familiar with the report, Mr. Bush's top aides concluded that Taiwan did not yet have the technical skill to handle the Aegis system, which could protect Taiwan against a missile attack.

Instead, they recommended selling less sophisticated Kidd-class destroyers. Nor would they sell Taiwan the Army's advanced antimissile system, known as PAC-3, because it has yet to be deployed by American troops. There is continuing debate over whether to sell Taiwan diesel-powered submarines armed with conventional torpedoes.

Top United States Navy officials urged in March that Taiwan should get more sophisticated weapons.

But today, "there was no big fight over any of this," one senior Administration official said. "The issue now is how we present it." The official noted that China's reaction may depend more on the signals Mr. Bush sends about future sales.

If he decides to defer the decision on the Aegis, as now seems highly likely, Mr. Bush would be able to hold open the possibility of selling the system to Taiwan later if China continues to improve its ability to threaten the island, which it regards as a renegade province.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan and has always left ambiguous the extent to which it would aid Taiwan if it were attacked by China. The United States promised in 1982 that it would not increase the quality and quantity of arms sold to Taiwan, but that has always been interpreted by Washington to mean it could help the island maintain a defensive posture proportional to the perceived threat.

Deferring the decision on the sales also gives Mr. Bush some leverage over Taiwan's leaders. He wants to keep them from from provoking Beijing, while encouraging them to invest in what one senior official called "the business of a modern defense."

"There would be some conditionality on the sale of Aegis," said another senior official involved in the decision. "Before you buy your Ferrari, you better build the garage first."

During the presidential campaign last year, Mr. Bush talked occasionally about taking the ambiguity out of American military commitments to Taiwan, to support its democratic practices and send a message to Beijing. Speaking of the Clinton administration during a campaign stop at a Boeing plant last May, Mr. Bush said, "They have been inconsistent on Taiwan. I will be clear."

But as president he has discovered that clarity has its limits.

Mr. Bush is facing the tug of conflicting priorities: He wants to show his support for Taiwan, without undercutting a relationship with China that seems to be off to a rocky start.

Mr. Bush appears to be weaving toward a middle ground - a sale he can defend to his own party without risking a new rupture with China.

Taiwan has long sought the Aegis system because it would give it a clear advantage in the South China Sea. Mounted aboard an advanced destroyer, the Aegis is designed to track more than 200 targets, including sea-skimming missiles, and aerial attacks. Because China does not have the ability to mount an invasion, suppressing its considerable missile threat is vital.

But Bush administration officials, like their predecessors, fear that before the system is up and running - which could take eight years and more - China would have time to counter it with new weapons.

Mr. Bush's decision is bound to be examined closely in Congress, where several conservatives called recently for more arms sales to Taiwan.

Senator Craig Thomas, the Wyoming Republican who heads the Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific affairs, said today that he supported deferring any immediate sale of the Aegis system to Taiwan, because it would be unnecessarily provocative. "We're committed to helping Taiwan if they are attacked," he said, "but we don't need to be waving red flags in people's faces."

That is why the White House is leaning toward less sophisticated destroyers and diesel submarines to add to Taiwan's tiny fleet.

"Like a horse with legs at the end of the race, the submarine option seems to be gaining ground," said Bates Gill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on the Chinese military. But it is unclear who would build the submarines; American shipyards have moved on to more sophisticated gear, Mr. Gill noted. "There's even talk that the Germans might do the building, but assemble it here in the United States," he said.

---

Bush is likely to defer arms sales to Taiwan

USA Today
04/18/2001
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-18-taiwanarms.htm

WASHINGTON - Even as U.S.-China tensions continued to flare over a downed U.S. plane Wednesday, the Bush administration signaled that it would not sell Taiwan four destroyers equipped with high-tech radar. China has adamantly opposed the sale. U.S. officials said that though no final decision has been made, President Bush likely will defer the sale of four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with the Aegis radar system. China has warned that the sale would seriously damage U.S.-China relations.

In Beijing, meanwhile, U.S. officials threatened to break off further talks with China about the downed EP-3 surveillance plane and the 11-day standoff that resulted from China's detention of its 24-member crew.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the initial 21/2-hour meeting in Beijing between U.S. and Chinese officials was "unproductive." State Department officials expressed disappointment as well.

"I think we would say that the issue of the return of our aircraft was not discussed in any significant manner, in any manner that was productive," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

As a result, U.S. officials said, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher planned to tell Chinese authorities to respond to U.S. demands to return the plane or today's second session would not be held. On the Aegis sale, administration officials said Bush has been advised to defer it because Taiwan doesn't have the technical expertise to run the system. But officials say another prime concern was enraging Beijing and causing permanent damage to the U.S.-China relationship over the sale of destroyers that take from eight to 10 years to deliver. Administration officials say, however, that the Taiwan arms package Bush will announce next week likely will include other substantial items, including less technologically sophisticated Kidd-class destroyers. A decision still is pending on selling Taiwan diesel-powered submarines.

Under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the United States has pledged to sell Taiwan defensive weapons.

Bush also is considering using a future Aegis sale as leverage against China, and the White House still is formulating how to frame the arms-sale announcement, which is expected to be made Tuesday.

One possible scenario: Bush might say he intends to sell Taiwan the Aegis system as early as next year unless China eases its military buildup. China has about 300 short-range missiles that can reach Taiwan.

The context of Bush's announcement will also affect how much political flak he takes from Congress, particularly from the GOP's conservative wing, where there is significant support for the Aegis sale. Aides to GOP leaders in the House and Senate say that if Bush uses the threat of a future Aegis sale as a warning to the Chinese, the level of dissent on Capitol Hill will be relatively low.

In another U.S.-China development Wednesday, China blocked a U.S. resolution condemning Beijing's human rights record. In a 23-17 vote, the 53-nation United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva approved a "no action" motion by China on the U.N. resolution, which criticized Beijing for its crackdown on groups such as the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Contributing: Paul Wiseman in Beijing

---

North Korea sends missile parts, technology to Iran

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
Published 4/18/01
Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010418-25542720.htm

North Korea sent a shipment of missile components and technology to Iran two weeks ago aboard a transport aircraft, The Washington Times has learned.

The components were photographed late last month by a U.S. spy satellite as they were being loaded aboard an Iranian Il-76 transport jet at a North Korean airfield, according to U.S. intelligence officials familiar with reports of the arms transfer.

The officials identified the airfield as Sunan International Airport, located about 12 miles north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

The shipment is the second missile component transfer detected this year by U.S. intelligence agencies and is a sign Pyongyang is stepping up its missile- related exports.

In late February, a missile shipment was spotted at a North Korean port waiting to be loaded on a ship for an unidentified customer. The transfer was delayed because the port was frozen.

That shipment included chemicals and fuel-related materials, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.

The missile shipment that took place in late March included various components for Iran´s growing arsenal of medium-range and short-range missiles, including rocket motors and air frames for missiles.

The shipment also included crates of documents that intelligence officials believe are manuals and reference material related to developing missiles.

One official said intelligence reports indicate the missile components are intended for Iran´s medium-range Shahab-3 missile program.

The problem of North Korean missile exports was discussed in meetings last month between President Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

Mr. Bush said after one meeting that he is concerned that North Korea is "shipping weapons around the world."

Mr. Kim later said that lasting peace on the Korean peninsula will require solving the problem of North Korean missile exports.

North Korea is a major supplier of missile components to Iran and made a similar transfer last year.

That sale involved the export of 12 rocket motors made for North Korea´s 600-mile-range Nodong medium-range missiles. The engines were photographed being loaded on an Iranian 747 jetliner at Sunan Airport.

The shipment followed the imposition of economic sanctions on North Korea in January for earlier missile-related transfers.

In January, the State Department imposed sanctions on a North Korean missile company, Changgwang Sinyong Corp., for its transfers to Iran.

The company has been linked by U.S. intelligence to missile sales to Iran, including short-range Scuds, for several years.

The sanctions were not announced but posted quietly in the Federal Register.

The State Department said it was invoking a law passed last year called the Iran nonproliferation act, which requires U.S. sanctions barring U.S. government contracts with countries that sell weapons of mass destruction and missile-related equipment to Iran.

A CIA report to Congress said North Korea is one of the three major exporters of ballistic missile-related goods, technology and expertise to Iran. The others include Russia and China.

"Tehran is using this assistance to support current production programs and to achieve its goal of becoming self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles," the CIA stated in the report made public in February. "Iran already is producing Scud short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and has built and publicly displayed prototypes for the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM)."

The report said North Korea´s missile sales are a major source of hard currency for the cash-strapped Communist government in Pyongyang.

A senior U.S. military official said in a recent interview that U.S. and other foreign aid to North Korea has kept the government from collapsing. The aid allowed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to avoid making changes to the system, this official said.

Henry Sokolski, director of the private Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said reports of the latest missile transfer raise new questions about whether there should be any deals with North Korea.

"Missile sales seem to be business as usual, and there should be no deals between the United States and North Korea until they are halted," Mr. Sokolski said.

The Bush administration is reviewing past policies toward North Korea.

-------- colombia

Rebel Group In Colombia Kidnaps 100, But Frees 70

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/world/18COLO.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, April 17 - A leftist rebel group that has bombed oil pipelines and played havoc with Colombia's oil industry struck again on Monday, abducting about 100 employees of an American oil company.

By early today, at least 70 of the captives - all Colombians working under contract for Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, - had been released unharmed, the company said in a statement.

But late today, 27 remained in the hands of the National Liberation Army, or E.L.N., which has long accused multinational companies like Occidental of exploiting Colombia's natural resources.

Although the Liberation Army, Colombia's second-largest rebel group, did not offer detailed explanations for its actions, experts on Colombia's conflict saw the mass abduction as an effort by an ever-weakening rebel movement to gain recognition.

The 37-year-old rebel group, which has been hit hard in recent years by illegal paramilitary groups, had been angling for the government to cede a Rhode-Island-sized swath of land in northern Colombia as a safe haven for peace negotiations. But the plans have instead been put on hold as conflict between invading paramilitary fighters and the rebels has escalated in the region of Bolívar Province earmarked for the demilitarized zone.

"When nothing moves forward, these people try a harder line, and they try a harder line to get attention," said Manuel Ernesto Salamanca, a political scientist at the Javeriana University in Bogotá. "We have to keep in mind that the E.L.N. is in a process of complete debilitation, and these types of actions make waves, but in a very negative way."

The Liberation Army said in a communiqué read on a radio station that the kidnapping was part of "our offensive against oil policy until such time as" the company, "together with the government, fixes a mechanism for dialogue with Colombia's rebels."

The kidnapping took place along a road in eastern Arauca Province, not far from the Venezuelan border, when the rebels stopped a convoy of vehicles carrying the workers. Occidental officials said the captives were blue-collar employees under contract with the company.

This is not the first time the Liberation Army has carried out audacious mass kidnappings to get its point across. Since 1999, in the face of battlefield losses and government slights, the group has hijacked an airliner, kidnapped worshipers at a church and abducted dozens of diners from roadside restaurants outside Cali.

Since the 1980's, the group has also been known for its attacks against the oil industry. This year, the government says, the group has stepped up a series of bombings of the Caño Limón oil pipeline, which stretches 500 miles from Arauca province in the eastern hinterlands to Colombia's northern coast.

There have been 63 bombings of the pipeline, most believed to have been undertaken by the Liberation Army, resulting in a loss of $3 million a day, a spokesman for Ecopetrol, Colombia's state-owned oil company, said today. Last year, there were 98 attacks.

The Caño Limón oilfields of Arauca, Colombia's second-largest, produce an average of 120,000 barrels of crude each day. But in March, with attacks against the 15-year-old pipeline on the rise, the average dropped to 9,000.

Oil is Colombia's most important export, generating about $3.5 billion last year, but national oil production has fallen from a daily average of 2.2 million barrels in the first three months of 2000 to 1.9 million in the same period this year. The attacks have also lowered the price of Colombian crude, with buyers paying about $2 less per barrel because of the uncertainty of buying from companies operating in the conflict- racked nation.

"What happens is the Colombian government receives less value for the oil," said an Ecopetrol spokesman. "In addition to the cost of repairs, and the costs associated with cleanup, there's another loss because the crude is sold at below value. The country pays on all sides."

---

Guerrillas hold workers of U.S. oil field

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
Published 4/18/01
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010418-121284.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia -- After releasing dozens of hostages, suspected leftist guerrillas yesterday still held captive 27 Colombian contract employees of U.S.- based oil giant Occidental Petroleum, the company said.

The mass abduction appeared linked to faltering peace talks, and it highlighted the perils facing the oil industry in the war-wracked South American country.

Authorities accused the leftist National Liberation Army of abducting the employees late Monday along a highway in eastern Arauca state, near a huge oil field operated by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum.

-------- drug war

Amtrak Knows Where You've Been . . .

New York Times
April 18, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/opinion/L18AMTR.html

To the Editor:

You report that Amtrak shares information about its passengers with the Drug Enforcement Administration and receives a 10 percent cut of assets seized from drug couriers (Week in Review, April 15). For the fee, Amtrak, without being asked or subpoenaed to produce information about any person in particular, simply reveals all its passengers' names, itineraries and payment methods to the drug enforcement agency.

What other companies are selling information about their customers to the government? Does the F.B.I. know what books we buy or what videos we rent? Does the Internal Revenue Service know about our routine banking practices or to whom we send overnight letters and packages?

Big Brother appears to be watching more than ever. What's shocking is that routine information about us is in effect being sold to the government as a regular part of at least one company's "program." I want to know what other companies are doing the same thing.

MARK S. ARISOHN New York, April 16, 2001 The writer is a lawyer.

---

Skakel witness says he was on heroin

USA Today
04/18/2001 - Updated 04:35 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-04-18-skakel.htm

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) - A witness at a hearing to determine whether Kennedy nephew Michael Skakel should be tried for the 1975 murder of a Greenwich teenager testified Wednesday that he was using heroin when he told a one-judge grand jury that Skakel confessed to the killing.

But the witness - Gregory Coleman, who was a student at a Maine treatment center with Skakel when they were younger - did not recant his testimony that Skakel confessed to the beating death of Martha Moxley.

Coleman has said Skakel told him he shattered Moxley's skull with a golf club and declared: "I'm gonna get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy."

Under questioning Wednesday, Coleman said he was under the influence of heroin when he made the comments about Skakel to the grand jury and during a television interview.

Coleman was being cross-examined by Skakel's defense lawyer, Michael Sherman, about inconsistencies in his testimonies.

"I was on drugs when I came before the grand jury," Coleman said Wednesday.

"That's kind of scary," Sherman replied.

Coleman said he used the drug at a hotel before he spoke to the one-judge grand jury that investigated the case and recommended that Skakel be prosecuted.

Coleman also said he had used heroin and crack cocaine before a TV interview in which he said Skakel had confessed.

"Are you on drugs now?" Sherman asked Wednesday.

Coleman said he wasn't. "Give me a urine test," he said.

"No thanks," Sherman said, drawing a reprimand from the judge.

The hearing that began Wednesday is intended to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to try Skakel for the murder of Martha Moxley, whose body was discovered in October 1975 on her family's Greenwich estate.

No arrests were made for more than 24 years. Skakel, 40, was charged in the killing in January 2000 and later arraigned as a juvenile. A judge ruled in January that Skakel should be tried as an adult.

Skakel is the son of Rushton Skakel, the brother of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel.

An earlier probable cause in juvenile court hearing had focused on alleged confessions Skakel made while a resident at the Elan School, a substance abuse treatment center in Poland Spring, Maine.

One student, John Higgins, said Skakel confessed to him one night 20 years ago during an erratic, tearful conversation. But Higgins admitted he lied to investigators when they first asked him about the alleged confession. He also admitted asking about a $50,000 reward in the case.

During Higgins' testimony, tears trickled down Skakel's face.

"He's just very upset about hearing this moron get up there and lie," Sherman said at the time.

Coleman has previously admitted to a long battle with drug addiction, alcoholism and homelessness, at times living under a bridge.

Two other Elan students testified for the defense that they never heard Skakel confess.

-------- iran

Iranian Attack on Iraqi Towns Condemned

Middle East News Online
By Middle East News Online Reporter
Wednesday April 18, 2001
http://www.middleeastwire.com/newswire/stories/20010418_meno.shtml

BAGHDAD, Iraq: While Iran considers its attacks on opposition bases inside Iraqi territories, a legitimate act of defense, Iraq saw Wednesday's surface-to-surface Scud missile attack as cowardly and dangerous.

Iran fired 66 Scud missiles against bases for People's Mujahideen, and several Iraqi towns located near the Iraq-Iran border. Several people were reportedly killed, mostly Iraqi civilians.

"Iraq condemns this cowardly Iranian act of aggression which constitutes a flagrant violation of the UN charter and the rules of international law," the official INA news agency quoted an Iraqi official as saying.

The official warned that Tehran should bear "full responsibility under international law for the human and material losses caused by this cowardly aggression." While the Iraqi official estimated the number of Iranian missiles fired at 56, a spokesman for the Mujahideen group said that as many as 66 missiles reached targets inside Iraq.

Iran has repeatedly violated Iraqi territorial sovereignty in recent years as it attacked Iraq-based opposition groups.

Iran says that some of these groups stage violent attacks against Iranian targets, and its acts are mere reprisals.

Both Iran and Iraq host some of each other's opposition groups.

Despite semi-normal diplomatic ties between Iran and Iraq, tension rises in such occasions, renewing fear of a large-scale war to ignite once more.

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

Pentagon: Fix Osprey, don't kill it

USA Today
04/18/2001 - Updated 09:30 PM ET
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-18-osprey.htm

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon panel recommended Wednesday against canceling the controversial V-22 Osprey program but outlined a litany of problems that must be fixed before the tilt-rotor aircraft can go into full-scale production.

"This is a troubled program," said panel member Norman Augustine, former chairman of Lockheed Martin. Yet, "starting anew is not the answer," he said.

Although the Osprey was involved in two fatal crashes last year, the panel found no inherent safety flaws in the hybrid aircraft, which has tilting engines that let the Osprey take off like a helicopter and fly like a plane. But the panel said the contractors, Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing, should make design changes to the aircraft's engines and make numerous other changes.

Until those changes are made and a new round of testing is complete, Osprey production should be cut to the minimum necessary to keep plants open, the panel said. The current fleet numbers about a dozen.

The panel did not estimate how long the fixes will take or how much they will cost. The Pentagon already has spent nearly two decades and $12 billion to develop the Osprey. Total cost, including production of a fleet of 380 Ospreys, is estimated at $40 billion.

The Marine Corps has is relying on the V-22 to replace its aging Vietnam-era helicopters. Ospreys are designed to fly faster and farther and can carry more troops than conventional helicopters.

Paul Czysz, an aerospace-engineering professor at St. Louis University and an Osprey critic, says it will take at least two years to fix most of the problems but up 10 years to iron out flight-software irregularities.

Despite the panel's conclusion, the Osprey remains an endangered aircraft. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is looking for weapons programs to kill to save money, and the Osprey is one possibility.

The panel limited its investigation to safety and maintenance issues. Among its recommendations:

Re-engineer the tilt-rotor engine housing to make more room for hydraulic lines that have proved vulnerable to chafing. The Osprey has suffered three hydraulic-system failures, including one in December in North Carolina that killed four Marines.

Fix software glitches that contributed to the December crash. Previous problems with flight-control software caused a near-crash in sea trials in 1999.

Install a cockpit warning system to alert pilots about a dangerous loss of lift in flight known as a "vortex ring state." That occurs when the Osprey descends too rapidly at low forward air speeds. Loss of lift played a role in an April 2000 crash in Arizona that killed 19 Marines. The pilots had little warning.

Improve training manuals now plagued with incomplete and confusing information. Rely less on flight simulators and more on actual test flights.

Protect Osprey funds from being used for other military programs. The panel said chronic underfunding contributed to development problems.

The panel also recommended against giving the aircraft the ability to "auto-rotate," or keep its rotor turning if an engine fails so the craft can land safely. To save money, the members recommended instead that pilots be trained to glide to a safe landing in plane mode. Critics say the Osprey has a very poor glide capability.

The Marines also will have to live with the powerful "downwash," or strong force of air moving rapidly downward when the rotors are in helicopter position. The Osprey's downwash has limited some combat operations. The panel said a requirement that Marines be able to climb out of the aircraft on ropes will likely have to be scrapped as too dangerous.

Until the fixes are made, the panel recommended that testers limit night flights and fill its passenger cabin with sandbags, not Marines.

The Pentagon was set to approve full-scale production in December but grounded its test fleet instead after the North Carolina crash. The Osprey has been controversial since then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney tried to cancel it in the first Bush administration. Recently, the program has been roiled by reports that an officer falsified maintenance records.

Contributing: Dave Moniz

---

Saudi rules anger top Air Force pilot

USA Today
04/18/2001 - Updated 04:45 PM ET
By Edward T. Pound, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm

WASHINGTON - Maj. Martha McSally is the highest-ranking female fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, the first woman in that service to fly a combat aircraft into enemy territory. But she does not like the way she and other American military women are treated in Saudi Arabia, the male-run oil kingdom they are risking their lives to protect. In Saudi Arabia, McSally says, she is "treated like a Muslim piece of property." Whenever she and other women leave their military installations, their commanders require them to wear a black head scarf and a black neck-to-toe robe, known as an abaya, to satisfy the Saudis' strict interpretation of Islamic religion. They also must sit in the back seat of cars. The Defense Department, McSally says, does not want to offend its host. "It is a customary Muslim outfit for women," she says, "but I'm not Muslim and I'm not Saudi. I am a Christian."

The Pentagon sees the dress code as a necessity. Officials say it respects cultural and religious customs, avoids conflict with the Saudi public and helps the military complete its mission.

To McSally, the Pentagon is abandoning American values by imposing such a dress code on its women while allowing men to dress in casual Western clothes when off base. She says she's not arguing for unrestricted dress but believes women should be allowed to "cover up in American clothes."

McSally has quietly tried to persuade the Pentagon to modify the policy for the past six years. She discussed the issue with then Defense Secretary William Perry in 1995. She lobbied then-Air Force Secretary Whit Peters last year, and she has written memos and met with top generals in the Air Force. She says she got nowhere.

Now, she says, it is time to speak publicly - and she hopes her candor will not damage her career. "I've fought and spoken and been patient and worked within the system for so long to try and effect some change in this policy so, the fact that I would just be truthful I would hope wouldn't hurt me and, if it does, then so be it," she says.

Not all women see it her way. Air Force Maj. Lisa Caldwell, a senior spokesman for U.S. forces in the Middle East, has no problems with the restrictions. She says the policy allows military women to "show respect for Islamic law and Arabic customs."

Caldwell is based at the Eskan Village military compound near Riyadh, the Saudi capital. She says whenever she leaves the compound, she puts on her scarf and robe. "I am a guest here and I want to blend into the culture," she says. "That old saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' "

Capt. Richard Johnson, an Air Force spokesman based in the United States, adds, "We abide by the rules set by the government. It is not just a cultural issue, it is a force-protection issue. You always have to be on the alert for terrorist attacks. We just want to blend in with the population, be less of a target to terrorists."

Home to the holiest of Islamic sites, Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia is a religious state where freedom of worship is not allowed. The country's leaders also prohibit or restrict freedom of speech, press, assembly and association. Women's rights are restricted. In public, they must cover themselves head-to-foot, they can't drive and they must sit in the back seats of cars. Rules and codes of conduct are enforced by the mutawa, the religious police.

"Culturally, they are different and it's their country," says Col. Jet Jernigan, an F-16 pilot with the South Carolina National Guard and a Gulf War veteran. The strict Islamic customs, he adds, "clearly make it more complicated to operate there."

In recent years, that reality has hit home for Jernigan's F-16 unit and others who have deployed to Saudi Arabia. While the Saudis allow female Air Force air traffic controllers to work there, they are not permitted to talk to pilots. Jernigan says the male Saudi pilots don't like to be given instructions by females. "They wanted them off the radio," he says.

The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is based on mutual need. The Saudis want a strong U.S. military presence and the United States wants to safeguard global oil prices and the huge reserves in the Middle East. Since the Gulf War, the United States and allied air forces have enforced no-fly zones over southern and northern Iraq to protect ethnic minorities and to prevent troop movements that could threaten Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.

U.S. forces keep a low profile. The June 1996 terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers, which killed 19 Americans, caused the U.S. military to move to heavily guarded, remote sites such as Eskan Village and Prince Sultan Air Base at Al Kharj. The Air Force says that it has about 5,000 people in Saudi Arabia, 17% of them women.

McSally, 35, who deployed to Saudi Arabia for a one-year tour last November, is one of the Air Force's great success stories. The valedictorian of her high school class in Riverside, R.I., McSally placed 25th in her graduating class of 1,000 at the Air Force Academy. But, at 5-foot-3, she was one inch shy of the minimum height requirement for pilots. She got a waiver, based on her academic credentials and physical strength.

A champion triathlete, McSally later became one of the first seven women trained as fighter pilots. She also served as a flight instructor and did tours in Kuwait in 1995 and 1996. While there, she flew her single-seat A-10 Warthog jet 100 hours over southern Iraq enforcing the no-fly zone. Now, she runs search and rescue for that operation, based at Eskan Village.

McSally is one of 39 female fighter pilots in the Air Force. She has been promoted to lieutenant colonel, effective May 1. She gave her blunt assessment of the dress policy in interviews with USA TODAY while on leave in the United States and in an exchange of e-mails.

No indignities for men

She says men do not face the same indignities. They are directed, in writing, not to wear Muslim attire, she says, and are instructed to wear collared shirts and long pants when they leave their bases.

McSally says she's no crusader. But, as a Christian, she says, she is highly offended by the policy. "Just as we don't want to make someone who is not Jewish wear a yarmulke on their head, why would we have our female troops being mandated to wear Muslim clothing?"

Other women find the policy off-putting, she says, but are reluctant to tell the brass. McSally tells of some discomfiting encounters with religious police: "Some of our gals who have walked through a mall - they are kind of lax on the headgear thing where some of them just wear them around their neck - but there have been times where a mutawa comes up and just gets angry and starts kind of hitting them with little sticks and telling them, 'cover your head, cover your head.' "

McSally says she's not arguing for tank tops and short-shorts. "All I am saying is I will wear baggy pants or a baggy skirt, I will wear a long sleeve shirt. I will even wear a hat if you want me to," McSally says. "I mean, American clothes. I appreciate that (the Saudis say) cover up, well, fine, these gals are American soldiers. They are not Saudi Muslim women."

At a minimum, she says, American women should be allowed to wear long-sleeve shirts and long pants when traveling at night in a car, between bases. On official business, she says, women should be able to wear their uniforms, without covering themselves with the required black robe.

McSally acknowledges that change could take time. "Going downtown in free time to shop or eat dinner with friends" in casual clothes, she says, would be a marked change requiring a commitment by the United States and the Saudis.

She says U.S. officials could start by telling the Saudis how important it is for the two countries "to have a mutual respect." She believes she can prompt change. When she was deployed to Al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait in the mid-1990s, women had to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts on base. After she raised the issue, the policy was changed to allow women to wear shorts on base. Separately, she says, military women in Kuwait were allowed to wear long pants and shirts off base.

McSally says she understands the Air Force concern about protecting women from possible terrorist attacks but says there are times when there would be no risk if women dressed in American clothes. "Women driving in a car with other American soldiers from one base to another or to the airport - there is just no risk whatsoever," she says.

After learning she would be deployed to Saudi Arabia last year, McSally says she did not plan to wear the Saudi robe and scarf. When she informed senior officers of her decision, she says, she was warned that she would suffer "serious consequences" if she refused to comply with the regulations.

Later, she consulted a superior, Gen. Michael Moseley, in Washington. She says he advised her to wear the abaya and to press her views within the military, if she felt so strongly. She decided to wear the abaya. "I almost tubed my whole career over this," she says.

Moseley says many soldiers don't want to wear the abaya but understand the necessity. "The policy inside of this is huge," he says.

After arriving at Prince Sultan Air Base in the evening last November, McSally put on an abaya and a scarf for the 70-mile ride to Eskan Village. "I rode in a Suburban with tinted windows with a bunch of American men in collar shirts and jeans," she recalls. Since then, she seldom has left the base. "I don't want to go off base and wear the abaya." She sends others off base on work-related duties.

Not 'the same values'

Her logic, she says, is: "Saudi Arabia is a nation that does not have the same values as us. They are not democratic. Their human rights record is not real super."

McSally adds, "I understand for security reasons why we need to be allies with the Saudis. But, it is also part of our national security strategy to promote American values abroad. We, in the military, sign up to give our lives for the freedoms that we value deeply and people have died for before us.

"I am certainly willing to suck it up with the rest of the troops in some harsh condition when we are all treated the same. But, when you separate your troops into two groups and then impose the values of your host nation on one of them, to me that is abandoning your American values."

She says superiors have told her that there was no intent to demean, that the Defense Department wanted to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia and complete its mission without major incidents. "I believe that," she says, "but I wonder if I were a two-star general, would I have to wear an abaya and not drive."

McSally says the Air Force has given her great opportunities. "In general, the leadership has been very supportive of women in the military," she says. But the dress policy is "ridiculous and unnecessary."

Contributing: Dave Moniz

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Washington calls on its cows to ease energy crisis

USA: April 18, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10540

SAN FRANCISCO - Washington state, faced with a severe drought, dwindling reservoirs and a looming electricity shortage, is calling on its cows for help.

Clean-burning, environmentally friendly dung deposited by the state's 246,000 cows could be just the "green" fuel needed to fill the growing hydro-electric gap, state officials said.

"Due to the energy situation, we've gotten a lot of interest from private companies working on ways to utilize manure better," Gloria Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Washington state Dairy Federation, said Tuesday.

The high cost of so-called biogas power plants has discouraged their construction in Washington, but two bills making their way through the state senate and house could overcome this barrier by handing potential producers a sales tax exemption.

According to a recent study cited by the Dairy Federation, waste from dairy cattle in just one county could generate up to 10 megawatts of electricity, enough to light up 8,000 homes.

Running an energy-efficient biogas plant involves mixing dung, bacteria and occasion heat, yielding a gas that is up to 75 percent methane that is used in turn to fire electric turbines.

The Dairy Federation said Portland General Electric began building a tiny biogas facility in March on a dairy farm near Salem, Oregon, relying on the farm's 500 cows for fuel.

The plant is expected to generate 100 kilowatts of power, enough for around 65 homes, by July, the group said.

The need for creative energy alternatives has become acute throughout the Pacific Northwest following one of its driest winters on record. Hydro-power during normal rainfall years provides up to 70 percent of the region's electricity.

While the rush to build conventional power plants is seen by most state officials as coming too late to ease the crisis this year, the Dairy Federation points out that a new, $300,000 biogas plant would take just five months to build and could be paid off in six years.

-------- environment

Bush Endorses Rule on Lead Emissions Proposed by Clinton

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/politics/18ENVI.html

WASHINGTON, April 17 - Facing criticism that it cares more about promoting industry than protecting the environment, the Bush administration announced today that it would go forward with a regulation proposed by President Bill Clinton to require thousands of businesses to make public the details of their emissions of lead into the environment.

The announcement, which could have been a routine event at the Environmental Protection Agency, was made in a relatively splashy fashion at the White House. It followed an announcement on Monday that the administration was leaving in place regulations expanding protections for wetlands. In both cases, the president himself issued statements applauding the decisions.

With environmental groups threatening protests on Sunday, the 31st anniversary of Earth Day, Mr. Bush's spokesman emphasized today what he said were the positive steps the president had taken on the environment. These include putting money in his proposed budget to clean up the national parks and nearly doubling the money for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Some Republicans said that until this week the administration had been ham-handed both in its environmental policy and in its announcements, and urged Vice President Dick Cheney in a meeting on April 4 to make better public presentations of their case.

The announcement today - supported by a broad array of environmental groups and opposed by small businesses - allows a rule by the Clinton administration to take effect. It will require companies that handle as little as 100 pounds of lead a year to report to the Environmental Protection Agency how much is released into the air, soil and water. Until now, the reporting threshold had been at least 10,000 pounds a year.

Officials estimated that the rule meant nearly 10,000 additional plants would have to report emissions.

The new rules, which businesses are challenging in court, will do nothing directly to curb emissions and, some environmentalists pointed out, fulfilled Mr. Bush's view that regulations should not be too costly to business. But the details provided by the companies will be available to the public, and businesses say that setting up a way to provide the information will cost them.

The announcement on the lead reporting rules was made by Christie Whitman, the E.P.A. administrator, who said public scrutiny had helped reduce emissions of other toxic substances. "Information is power," she said.

In response to a question at a news conference, Mrs. Whitman sought to correct what she said was a false impression that Mr. Bush favored industry over the environment. "This president cares about these issues," she said. "This administration has an extraordinarily good environmental record."

The administration is expected to continue such announcements for the foreseeable future.

"There will be a series of new initiatives the president is launching," Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, said today.

Mr. Fleischer disputed suggestions that the decision was an effort to blunt criticism from environmental groups, who are planning Earth Day demonstrations in Washington and in Quebec, where Mr. Bush will be discussing trade policies this weekend.

The timing of this week's announcements was driven in part by the calendar. The administration had 60 days from the effective date of many rules approved in the final days of the Clinton administration to reject the rules or let them stand.

Mr. Fleischer today denied that the recent announcements were being done for effect. "The president is not concerned about his image," Mr. Fleischer said. "The president is concerned about results."

Still, the White House has clearly been stung by the reaction to many Bush decisions, which critics in the Democratic Party and leaders of private environmental groups contend place the health of the economy above that of the earth.

These decisions include Mr. Bush's opposition to a treaty on global warming, his reversal of a campaign promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, his eagerness to drill for oil in Alaska, a decision to repeal tighter limits for arsenic in drinking water, his proposed budget cuts of 6.7 percent in environmental programs, his proposal to limit the ability of citizens to use lawsuits to protect endangered species, rolling back standards for air- conditioners even as he proclaims an energy crisis, and the lifting of a rule that limited chemical runoff from mines.

Today, a Gallup poll showed that Americans favored environmental protection over energy drilling and economic growth. It also showed that the public disapproved of the administration's decision not to adhere to the treaty on global warming. And a coalition of environmental groups is beginning a television advertising campaign on Wednesday denouncing the president's environmental policies and urging viewers to tell their legislators to restore money he proposes to cut from the budget for environmental programs.

Last week, Laura Bush, the first lady, gave an interview to USA Today in which she described at length the eco-friendly aspects of the Bushes' new ranch house near Crawford, Tex., where the couple recycle their rainwater and household water for irrigation and use a geothermal heating and cooling system so efficient that they scrapped plans for solar energy panels.

Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said of the administration: "They know they're in political trouble on the environment, and they wanted to make a show about some positive action, so they came out today with modest forward action, not something bold and sweeping. The environmental community is still very skeptical and deeply concerned about the trajectory this administration is taking."

But it is not just the leaders of environmental groups to whom the White House is trying to appeal. Polls have shown repeatedly that the public places a high value on the environment and gives Mr. Bush low marks for his handling of it.

"His weakest issue-rating has been on the environment," said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster.

A New York Times poll conducted last month showed Republicans more or less equally divided on Mr. Bush's handling of the environment. But Democrats, independents, women and suburbanites all lopsidedly favored protecting the environment over producing energy, regardless of the cost. Mr. Bush cannot afford to alienate independents, women and suburbanites, the majority of whom voted last year for Al Gore. The big states with important suburban voting blocs - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and California - all went to Mr. Gore.

"Bush won states like West Virginia because of Al Gore's environmental extremism," Mr. Bolger said. But, he said, the president cannot continue to count on that same dynamic. "It will be hard for Bush to win New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. Swing voters in the Northeast - I'm not sure how important they are in terms of crass political calculations, but you don't want to be seen as anti-environment. You don't have to be as green as Al Gore, but there's a middle ground."

Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said that in the meeting of moderates with Mr. Cheney, the lawmakers told the vice president: "The environment is the one area you aren't handling well."

Mr. Shays said Mr. Cheney agreed. "They didn't argue with us," Mr. Shays said. "What they are changing now is their presentation."

That matters to other Republicans for whom the environment is an increasingly important issue.

Representative Clay E. Shaw Jr., a Florida Republican who squeaked into his 11th term last year with just 50 percent of the vote, said of Mr. Bush's handling of the environment: "As a Monday-morning quarterback, you can certainly see that the message could have been softened, it could have been eased out. The president is going to have to continue to make these announcements to let it be known that he is evenhanded. It's just smart politics."

---

ALASKA: A NORTH SLOPE SPILL

New York Times
April 18, 2001
National Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/national/18BRFS.html

Nearly 93,000 gallons of a mixture of salt water and crude oil have spilled from a pipe on the North Slope and saturated about an acre of tundra, officials said. The spill apparently occurred in a corroded section of pipe in the Kuparuk oil field and is believed to be one of the largest ever in the area, though most of the mixture is salt water. Environmentalists say the spill is one of many that occur in the area and cited the threat of similar accidents as a reason to block President Bush's proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, about 100 miles to the east. The Phillips Alaska company said the spill was discovered on Sunday night and the pipe shut down; clean-up efforts are continuing. Sam Howe Verhovek (NYT)

CALIFORNIA: ENERGY ADVISER APPOINTED Gov. Gray Davis named S. David Freeman, left, the general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, as his chief energy adviser, responsible for carrying out state programs to conserve electricity as part of an effort to avoid rolling blackouts this summer. Mr. Freeman, who is 75, is also widely expected to become the first head of a new state public power authority that could build and maintain power plants if private industry failed to do so. A measure to create the authority is pending in the Legislature. Todd S. Purdum (NYT)

TEXAS: WEEDS IMPEDE RIO GRANDE Weeds are choking the Rio Grande, officials say. Carlos Rubinstein, the American official who supervises the river, said that unusually high temperatures were responsible for an explosive growth of hydrilla and hyacinth in the Rio Grande, the border between Texas and Mexico. When the river's flow to the Gulf of Mexico was interrupted two months ago, water officials said waves from the Gulf of Mexico created a formidable sand bar at the river's mouth. Now they say the river cannot flow over the sand bar because the weeds are pooling the water farther upstream. Officials were unsure how the nonindigenous plants reached the Rio Grande, but any plan to fight them will require the approval of both Mexican and American officials. Environmentalists say pumping for irrigation and other uses has also strained the river. (AP)

---

MANHATTAN: HUDSON DREDGING SUPPORTED

New York Times
April 18, 2001
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/nyregion/18MBRF.html

The City Council passed a resolution yesterday supporting the federal Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to dredge the Hudson River of potentially dangerous PCB's. It also urged General Electric, which deposited the PCB's and opposes dredging, to "put an end to this drawn-out affair and take responsibility for its actions," said Stanley E. Michels, chairman of the Council's Environmental Protection Committee. The resolution came shortly after a member of G.E.'s board lobbied Council members, saying that dredging would stir up contaminants that would otherwise remain buried. Yesterday was the deadline for public comment on the dredging plan. Diane Cardwell (NYT)

---

The Environment: Read My Lips

New York Times
April 18, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/opinion/L18ENVI.html

To the Editor:

Re "E.P.A. Supports Protections Clinton Issued for Wetlands" (front page, April 17):

I tentatively applaud the Bush administration's protection of wetlands. But we must recognize that the announcement of an environmental policy and its rigorous enforcement are very different things.

If Christie Whitman, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is dedicated "to keeping our waterways clean and safe," she should carry out the E.P.A.'s plan for dredging the Hudson River of the PCB's that General Electric dumped into it.

I'll begin to accept the Bush administration's commitment to protecting our water when it enforces a proposal rather than sets it aside for further study.

ROBERT HILL New Brunswick, N.J., April 17, 2001 The writer is on the staff of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group.

•To the Editor:

Re "Bush Isn't All Wrong About the Endangered Species Act," by Bruce Babbitt (Op-Ed, April 15):

Congress should reject Mr. Babbitt's proposal to dilute the judicially enforceable requirement in the Endangered Species Act about how the Fish and Wildlife Service must map "critical habitat" for endangered species.

Judge J. Skelly Wright once warned that the goals of our environmental laws could get lost or misdirected in the vast halls of the federal bureaucracy; the role of the federal courts, he said, was to enforce the law when the agencies would not.

Eliminating the wildlife service's legal obligation to map critical habitat, and leaving the decision to bureaucrats bombarded by the complaints of industry lobbyists, virtually ensures that Congress's goal of protecting endangered species would get lost or misdirected.

JOHN D. ECHEVERRIA Washington, April 16, 2001 The writer is director of Georgetown University Law Center's Environmental Policy Project.

•To the Editor:

Bruce Babbitt, the former interior secretary, makes a convincing case that political attempts to undermine the Endangered Species Act are bipartisan (Op-Ed, April 15). Mr. Babbitt finds that President Bush's proposal to impose budget restrictions on habitat protection is merely controversial. He favors instead a delay of habitat protection, apparently to avoid opposition from developers and landowners.

This is bad biology and runs contrary to a recommendation from scientists that habitat that is important to the survival of imperiled species must be immediately protected.

A better approach is simply to obey the law as written. This would avoid court-mandated actions and, most important, be consistent with the wishes of citizens everywhere to preserve nature's legacy for future generations.

SAM HITT Santa Fe, N.M., April 16, 2001 The writer is the founder of Forest Guardians.

---

Administration to tighten arsenic water standards

USA Today
04/18/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration, under fire for scrapping Clinton standards for arsenic in drinking water, announced plans Wednesday to tighten the standards within nine months.

Christie Whitman, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said she was asking the National Academy of Sciences to examine the impact of a range of possible reductions.

Bush had drawn heavy criticism from environmentalists and others last month when his EPA killed a Clinton administration regulation that would have tightened the standard to no more than 10 parts of arsenic per billion in drinking water. The current standard, set in 1942, is 50 parts per billion.

Whitman said she wanted a panel of scientists at the academy to examine a standard in the range of 3 to 20 parts per billion.

"The Bush administration is committed to protecting the environment and the health of all Americans," Whitman said in a written statement, promising a final regulation within nine months.

She said the decision to seek a report from the academy would "ensure that a standard will be put in place in a timely manner that provides clean, safe and affordable drinking water for the nation and is based on the best science."

The Bush administration's decision on March 20 to stop the regulation put into place three days before the end of the Clinton presidency created an uproar among environmentalists, congressional Democrats and members of the public.

Whitman argued there was insufficient scientific evidence to justify the $200 million annual cost to municipalities, states and industry of meeting the new Clinton standards by 2006.

"I have said consistently that we will obtain the necessary scientific review ... and that we will establish that standard in a timely manner," she said Wednesday.

The administration plans to issue a new regulation that still meets the same timeframe for compliance as the Clinton standard.

In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences said that arsenic in drinking water can cause bladder, lung and skin cancer, and might cause liver and kidney cancer.

The Clinton EPA had initially proposed setting the standard at 5 parts per billion last year in response to a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, but then settled at 10 parts per billion.

Environmentalists, who have argued for years that the arsenic standard should be stricter, criticized the EPA on Wednesday for putting off a final decision.

"We're outraged that this is going to assure a year of delays for protection of public health for millions of Americans," NRDC senior attorney Erik D. Olson said.

He said the parameters set by Whitman are "a pretty clear signal" that the EPA is headed toward settling at 20 parts per billion - twice the amount that Clinton would have allowed.

-------- imf / world bank /ftaa

THE QUEBEC WALL

From: "mike sysiuk" <msysiuk@hotmail.com>
Wed, 18 Apr 2001
by Michel Chossudovsky

THE QUEBEC WALL: What lies behind Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)? by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa [18 April 2001]

The Summit of the Americas will be held inside a four kilometer "bunker" made of concrete and galvanized steel fencing. The 10 feet high "Quebec Wall" encircles part of the historic city center including the parliamentary compound of the National Assembly, hotels and shopping areas. Cars will enter through closely guarded checkpoints; laissez-passers have been issued to official delegations, to the CEOs of major banks and corporations, as well as approved media and "selected invitees." (Click to see map of the "Security Perimeter" at http://www.securitesommet.ca/pages/p_citoyen/p_cito_pe_f.html).

Outside the bunker, more than 6,000 police and security forces are on hand, equipped not only with "pepper spray" but also with "multi-shot" Arwen 37 guns shooting hard-coated plastic bullets. The latter --according to a RCMP spokesperson-- are

"... 'meant to crack a rib and put them in a lot of pain', ... Tactical squads are usually required to test such less-lethal weapons --such as Tasers, which deliver electric shocks-- on themselves. But Toronto Police Constable Leighton said it would be 'too dangerous' to do so with the Arwen." 1

With Canadian Armed Forces personnel dispatched to Quebec's capital from military bases in Nova Scotia, the security apparatus in Quebec promises to be "better organized" than at the Seattle WTO Millenium Summit in 1999. In Seattle, the city's riot police was integrated with Gang Squads and SWAT teams of the Tactical Operations Divisions constituting the "more militarized components" of the police force.

By any standard this is the largest police operation in North America directed against ordinary citizens. Rather than "cordoning off" the conference center which is standard practice in international summits-- the Canadian authorities have chosen to "fence in" a large part of the downtown area --not only denying the rights of citizens to protest but also preventing residents from moving around within their own city.

And those who defy the Quebec Wall will be taken to Orsainville penitentiary which has been emptied of its entire prison population (including several members of the Hells Angels) to make room for these more dangerous "troublemakers."

THE QUEBEC WALL IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Barely a week before the Summit, the Canadian and provincial governments, the City of Quebec and Quebec City's Police force were taken to court by a Montreal lawyer and the Vancouver based Canadian Liberty Committee (CLC). In a signed affidavit, the Canadian government representative stated that democracy was not under threat, to ensure:

''freedom of expression ... the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has [sent] invitations to the Summit to approximately 60 representatives of interest groups and lobby groups." 2

Moreover, "alternative protest sites" ("sites alternatifs de manifestation") have been designated --on the other side of the Wall-- so that the rank and file of these same civil society organisations can do their own thing.

The "People's Summit", organized by NGOs and major trade unions-- will receive "financial contributions for the holding of seminars, colloquia and public meetings."3 The federal government has allocated Can$287,000-- a comfortable amount of money, but "peanuts" in comparison to the 46 million dollar budget allocated by Ottawa for the police operation and the erection of the Wall.

WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT

The official list of civil society invitees has not been made public but we have a good idea who the "partner" civil society organizations are. The invitees include leaders of major trade union federations as well as several CEOs of mainstream NGOs. 4

The ritual is broadly similar to that of the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) Millenium Summit. Several months ahead of time, the WTO and Western governments had called for a "dialogue" with the leaders of selected civil society organisations. A carefully worded AFL-CIO petition had been drafted urging the WTO Summit to adopt "trade and investment rules [which] protect workers' rights and the environment". In Seattle, Labor's buzzword was to "make the global economy work for working families". 5

Similarly, last January at the global business Summit in Davos --regrouping the World's top corporate execs, heads of State and VIPs, the leaders of some 59 "civil society" organisations --including the CEOs of Greenpeace, Oxfam UK, Amnesty International and Save the Children Alliance-- were also in attendance.

The ploy is to selectively handpick civil society leaders "whom we can trust" and integrate them into a "dialogue", cut them off from their rank and file, make them feel that they are "global citizens" acting on behalf of their fellow workers but make them act in a way which serves the interests of the corporate establishment:

The participation of NGOs in the Annual Meeting in Davos is evidence of the fact that [we] purposely seek to integrate a broad spectrum of the major stakeholders in society in ... defining and advancing the global agenda ... We believe the [Davos] World Economic Forum provides the business community with the ideal framework for engaging in collaborative efforts with the other principal stakeholders [NGOs] of the global economy to "improve the state of the world," which is the Forum's mission. 6

AFL-CIO's John Sweeney and Canadian Labor Congress (CLC) Ken Georgetti --together with Bill Jordan of the International Confederation of Free trade Unions (ICTFU)-- were also in Davos, mingling in a friendly environment with financier George Soros, Microsoft's Bill Gates and World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Meanwhile the rank and file protesters of these "civil society" organisations were being beaten with clubs and assaulted with water cannons by the Swiss riot police "outside" the Conference venue at the "counter-Davos."

RITUAL OF DISSENT

In the New World Order, the ritual of inviting "civil society" leaders into the inner circles of power --while simultaneously repressing the rank and file-- serves several important functions. First, it says to the World that the critics of globalization "must make concessions" to earn the right to mingle. Second, it conveys the illusion that while the global elites should --under what is euphemistically called democracy-- be subject to criticism, they nonetheless rule legitimately. And third, it says "there is no alternative" to globalization: fundamental change is not possible and the most we can hope is to engage with these rulers in an ineffective "give and take".

While the "Globalizers" may adopt a few progressive phrases to demonstrate they have good intentions, their fundamental goals are not challenged. And what this "civil society mingling" does is to reinforce the clutch of the corporate establishment while weakening and dividing the protest movement.

An understanding of this process of co-optation is important, because tens of thousands of the most principled young people in Seattle, Prague and Quebec City are involved in the anti-globalization protests because they reject the notion that money is everything, because they reject the impoverishment of millions and the destruction of fragile Earth so that a few may get richer. This rank and file and some of their leaders as well, are to be applauded. But we need to go further. We need to challenge the right of the "Globalizers" to rule. This requires that we rethink the strategy of protest. Can we move to a higher plane, by launching mass movements in our respective countries, movements that bring the message of what globalization is doing, to ordinary people? For they are the force that must be mobilized to challenge those who would plunder the Globe.

THE FTAA: PRIVATIZATION OF A HEMISPHERE, UNDER U.S. CONTROL

The FTAA is a good deal more than a trade agreement. Throughout the Americas, it would radically transform the social existence of sovereign nations.

Fundamental economic, social and institutional relations would be enshrined into a set of legally binding conditions. All public services that are at least in part subsidized by the State, would be opened up to international tender under the terms of the proposed clauses on "national treatment." If a government finances health or education, this service must be opened to international bidding. And who would bid? The large corporations would take control, all community based facilities would be transformed into profit-making undertakings ---schools, sports clubs, day-care centers, everything.

Moreover, the FTAA clauses would literally allow for the privatization of municipalities. Water, sewer systems, roads and municipal services would be owned and operated by private companies (rather than by citizens) much in the same way as the "gated communities" in the US. More generally, the FTAA would destroy local economies, depress wages and impoverish millions of people. The agreement --entrenched in international law-- would annul or invalidate national laws.

The FTAA would also allow for the privatization of water, inter-city highways as well as entire urban areas. The FTAA would also lead to the demise of national, regional and municipal governments.

IMF MEDICINE BECOMES PERMANENT

Moreover, under FTAA rules, the enforcement of the IMF's deadly "economic medicine" --which has served to destroy national economies and impoverish developing countries --would no longer hinge upon cumbersome loan agreements, which for the governments had the advantage that they were not "legally binding" documents.

But under FTAA rules, Latin American governments would have no political leverage whatsoever; they would loose their "right" to even negotiate with their creditors: the "economic medicine" would become permanently entrenched in international law. Countries would not longer be "bonded" by external debt; they would be permanently "enslaved" by their creditors.

CHARTER OF RIGHTS FOR CORPORATIONS

The FTAA would grant a "charter of rights" to corporations, which would not only override national laws but would also enable private companies to sue national governments, demand the annulment of national laws and receive compensation for potential lost profits which result from government regulations.

While some of these broad issues will be debated at the People's Summit, they have not been included in the demands of trade union leaders from the US, Canada and Latin America. Regrouped under the umbrella of the ICFTU, The trade unions have called upon the FTAA Summit to include the usual core labor standards, environmental and human rights clauses in the agreement.

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

This is not a trade deal; it is the American Empire. Behind the FTAA are the powers of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. Ironically, while local economies including public services would be deregulated, under the FTAA the production of weapons of mass destruction by America's major defense contractors would remain heavily subsidized...

Although not officially on the FTAA agenda, the militarization of South America under "Plan Colombia", the signing of a "parallel" military cooperation protocol by 27 countries of the Americas (the so-called Declaration of Manaus) is an integral part of the process of hemispheric integration. US strategic interests are at stake.

The imposition of "free" trade by Washington is an instrument of economic conquest which serves US corporate interests as well as those of the military-intelligence-apparatus. Trade Negotiator Richard Zoellnick --who is slated to play a key role in Quebec City-- is part of the Bush National Security Team working closely with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

DOLLARISATION

The deregulation of national banking institutions is part and parcel of the Summit agenda. Supported by the Bush administration, Wall Street wants to extend its control throughout the hemisphere, eventually displacing or taking over existing national financial institutions.

With the help of the IMF, Washington is also bullying Latin American countries into accepting the US dollar as their national currency. The greenback has already been imposed on five Latin American countries including Ecuador, Argentina, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The economic and social consequences of "dollarisation" have been devastating. In these countries, Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve system directly control monetary policy. The entire structure of public expenditure is controlled by US creditors. Real wages have collapsed, social programs have been destroyed, large sectors of the population have been driven into abysmal poverty.

While not officially part of the FTAA Summit agenda, the adoption of the US dollar as the common currency for the Western Hemisphere is being discussed behind closed doors.

Militarisation and "dollarisation" are the essential building blocks of the American Empire.

DISARMING THE NEW WORLD ORDER

With mounting dissent from all sectors of society against the FTAA, the official Summit desperately needs the token participation of "civil society" leaders "on the inside", to give the appearance of being "democratic." The Summit is seeking the endorsement of these organizations in exchange for token modifications of the Agreement, which do not put into doubt the overall legitimacy of the FTAA nor modify substantially the workings of the proposed free trade area.

The hidden agenda is to weaken and divide the protest movement and orient the anti-globalization movement into areas that do not directly threaten the interests of the business establishment and --more importantly-- which do not raise the broader issue of Washington's political hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush's trade negotiator Robert Zoellnick is preparing fast-track legislation packaged under the "presidential trade promotion authority", with a view to rushing the FTAA (without amendments) through the US Congress. In other words, instating the American Empire will not be subjected to the uncertainties of parliamentary consent.

In turn, in consultation with the AFL-CIO, the powerful Business Roundtable (BR) and The Emergency Committee for American Trade (ECAT) --integrated by the representatives of America's largest corporations-- are pushing the line of the trade union bosses, they are demanding the Bush administration "to make labor and environmental standards part of future trade talks."6

While most of the protesters who have converged on Quebec City (including Quebec's vibrant student movement) reject the trade deal outright, the leaders of some of the mainstream "civil society" groups want to get their human rights, democracy, labor and environmental clauses embedded into the official texts and then "cry victory," we've done it! 7 However, by doing this they would not only go against their rank and file, they would also provide --without fully realizing the implications-- legitimacy to an all encompassing process which destroys institutions and impoverishes millions of people.

The American Empire cannot be amended; it must be rejected, fought and defeated. The FTAA must be closed down!

ENDNOTES

1. Toronto Star, 22 March 2001.

2. Canada, Province de Quebec, District de Quebec, Cours supérieure, No. 200-05-014848-019, Affidavit de Denis Ricard, Section II, paragragh 16).

3. According to the signed affidavit, Canada, Province de Québec, op cit.

4. CLC K. Georgetti and AFL-CIO J. Sweeney are also on the guest list of the official FTAA Summit in Quebec City. While the Council of Canadians (COC) has stated that it will decline Ottawa's invitation, Matthew Coon Come, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations has accepted. Among union leaders, the President of the Quebec's FTQ Henry Massé has accepted, while making clear that he will also be participating (outside the bunker) in the People's Summit in solidarity with his rank and file.

5. See AFL-CIO, "Make the Global Economy Work for Working Families", http://www.wslc.org/wto/index.htm. , October 1999)

6. See World Economic Forum, Press Release, http://www.weforum.org/whatwedo.nsf/documents/what+we+do?Open 5 January 2001.

7. In these Times, 16 April 2001

Related texts by Michel Chossudovsky:

Seattle and Beyond: Disarming the New World Order, November 1999 at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/seattle.htm

Global Poverty in the Late 20th Century, Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1999 at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chossu.htm .

CBC "Commentary", on the FTAA and the likely fate of the Canadian Dollar, CBC, 9 April 2001.

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Bush Says He'll Press Effort for Hemisphere Trade Pact

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/world/18PREX.html

WASHINGTON, April 17 - President Bush pledged today to intensify his efforts with Congress to win negotiating authority to build a free trade area from Alaska to Argentina just days before he travels to Canada for a summit meeting of leaders from the hemisphere.

In a speech before the Organization of American States, the central forum for 34 governments of the Americas, Mr. Bush said striking down trade barriers was critical to sustaining democracy and generating wealth throughout the region.

"There is a vital link between freedom of people and freedom of commerce," Mr. Bush said. "Democratic freedoms cannot flourish unless our hemisphere also builds a prosperity whose benefits are widely shared. Open trade is an essential foundation for that prosperity and that possibility."

On Friday, Mr. Bush plans to join his colleagues from Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean in Quebec City. The politicians plan to commit themselves to meeting a January 2005 deadline to create what would be the world's largest free trade zone, encompassing 800 million people.

"Nothing we do in Quebec will be more important or have a greater long-term impact," Mr. Bush said.

Despite his statement, Mr. Bush has yet to submit legislation to Congress to seek trade-negotiating or "fast track" authority. Supporters of the free trade area say such authority, which lapsed in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, is essential because it requires lawmakers to vote for or against an agreement without amending it.

Mr. Bush said that he was devising a strategy with congressional supporters to win the negotiating authority and that he had personally pressed his case with more than 100 lawmakers. "Trade promotion authority gives our trading partners confidence that they can rely on the deals that they negotiate," he said.

But skeptics in Congress said they would not support the authority unless the president guaranteed that any agreement would include provisions to protect labor rights and the environment. "If we learned anything in Seattle, it's that both labor and the environment need a seat at the table," said Michael Siegal, a spokesman for Max Baucus of Montana, senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. "These concerns need to be addressed in the scope of the agreement."

Thousands of demonstrators are widely expected to converge on Quebec over the weekend to protest the effects of globalization on workers and the environment in a sequel to the protests in 1999 at the Seattle trade talks. At a news conference today in Quebec, labor, environmental and consumer groups criticized the proposed free trade area.

The president of the Sierra Club, Robbie Cox, called the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 among the United States, Mexico and Canada "one of the most highly irresponsible trade policies in U.S. history" and said it must not be the basis for a broader agreement.

Many Latin American governments oppose including labor and environmental rules in trade negotiations, saying they do not want other nations dictating their domestic laws. The issue was especially contentious with Mexico in the talks that resulted in Nafta. Negotiators ended up relegating labor and environmental standards to side agreements that have generally been viewed as inadequate.

On Monday, after meeting President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, Mr. Bush said that he would seek to conclude a free trade agreement with Chile by the end of the year.

Lawmakers predicted that deal would go through regardless of whether Mr. Bush has the fast-track authority. At $6 billion a year, two- way trade with Chile is not too likely to affect the American economy significantly, and many members of Congress are eager to reward Chile for its economic growth and democratic reforms.

In an interview, Mr. Lagos said the challenge for Latin American governments was to show the connection between trade and growth on one hand and greater well-being for ordinary citizens on the other. "Progress has to mean you are going to have better schools, you are going to have drinkable water," he said.

Mr. Bush was warmly received in his first appearance at the O.A.S. After he ended his his remarks, diplomats stood to applaud. The president gamely spoke a few words in Spanish, among them, "I need to practice." By the time he leaves for Quebec, he will have met six presidents from the hemisphere and traveled to Mexico. President Clinton did not visit Latin America until his second term.

"There's a pretty good feeling that this administration knows about Latin America and cares about the region," said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a forum of prominent officials and academics.

Mr. Hakim predicted that Mr. Bush would fare better than his predecessor at securing the trade negotiating authority, because unlike Mr. Clinton, he will not be undercut by leaders from his own party. Referring to Mr. Bush, Mr. Hakim said, "It's a more natural part of his luggage."

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Drug cost will soar in FTAA: experts

Montreal Gazette
Wednesday 18 April 2001
AARON DERFEL The Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/010418/5028787.html

Prescription-drug prices are bound to soar even higher under trade pacts like the one being negotiated this week at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, health-care experts say.

From heart drugs to chemotherapy, essential medications represent the fastest-growing expense in health care today. In the past 15 years, Canada's prescription-drug bill jumped 344 per cent, according to a study last month by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

There are many reasons for the increase: New drugs have been approved to treat everything from arthritis to Alzheimer's disease, adding to total drug bills. An aging population is demanding more essential medications.

And international trade deals - like the bureaucratically titled Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) - have strengthened the patent monopolies enjoyed by big brand-name pharmaceutical companies.

The TRIPS deal has allowed these companies to keep their prices high for the 20-year life span of drug patents.

Drug patents have helped pharmaceutical companies net highly profitable returns on billions of dollars in research into new medicines. But without the profits derived from those patents, industry officials argue, innovative medicine would languish.

Local observers also point out that long-term drug patents have proved to be a boon to the Montreal-area economy. Companies like Merck Frosst have established large research centres in the city, creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue.

That doesn't silence the critics.

"It's no coincidence that escalating drug costs have occurred during this period of excessive patent protection," said Scott Sinclair, a trade-policy analyst who has advised provincial and territorial governments.

"Twenty years is a very long time, particularly when we're talking about access to essential medications."

Critics also point to the astronomical cost of AIDS drugs in the Third World as evidence of a patent policy gone awry. For years, pharmaceutical firms have refused to lower the prices of AIDS drug cocktails in impoverished African nations where more than 25 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.

International pressure has recently shamed these firms into slashing the prices of their AIDS medications in some parts of the developing world. But a coalition of 39 pharmaceutical companies is still suing the South African government for passing a law that permits the import of affordable AIDS medication and the manufacture of much cheaper generic drugs.

The drug companies intend to argue before the Supreme Court of South Africa that the government is flouting the TRIPS agreement.

Still, one need not look to the Third World for evidence of drug companies seeking to maintain their monopolies in the name of free trade.

In June 1999, the United States sued Canada before the World Trade Organization for violating drug patents. The United States pressed its case before a WTO tribunal even though Canada had passed legislation in 1993 reinforcing drug patents.

Last September, the WTO tribunal sided with the U.S. - a ruling that is expected to cost Canadian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in higher drug costs over the next few years. The U.S. successfully argued that Canada had reneged on an agreement to provide the 20-year patent protection required under the TRIPS deal.

Although Canada adopted 20-year drug-patent legislation in 1987, it applied only to patents filed after October 1989. Previous patents lasted 17 years.

The result of the WTO ruling, therefore, has been to give an extra three years' patent protection to makers of many commonly used drugs.

And that can only mean higher prices for consumers, says Dr. Joel Lexchin, a Toronto emergency physician and expert on the pharmaceutical issue.

"If drug patents are lengthened and generic drugs are delayed coming on to the market, then that means that drug care becomes much more costly," Lexchin said.

Reluctantly, Canada has tabled legislation to conform to the WTO ruling. One amendment will effectively delay competition from cheaper generic drugs even further - by stripping those generic drug-makers of the right to manufacture and stockpile medicines six months before a patent expires.

Sinclair, now a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the WTO ruling has undermined the authority of Parliament to use patent legislation as an integral part of Canadian health-care policy.

"What we're talking about here is certainly not a traditional trade-policy issue," he remarked. "The question of what term of patent protection is necessary to encourage innovation should be a democratic policy choice."

Analysts fear such drug-patent protection will be extended in a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) pact to be discussed in Quebec City this weekend. Details of the deal's patent-protection provisions are not known because negotiators only plan to make the agreement's text public after the summit.

But Jim Keon, president of the Canadian Drug Manufacturers' Association, notes that the U.S. has been pushing for 25-year patents.

"We are quite concerned about the FTAA," Keon said. "I think the strategy of the international drug companies - and abetted by the U.S. government - is to negotiate these (patent) agreements and put them into as many different treaties as possible, so that you're bound in many different ways to respect them."

Generic prescription-drug sales accounted for $1.3 billion in Canada last year. That's 14 per cent of the total market of more than $11 billion. Despite their relatively small market share, generics made up 40 per cent of all prescriptions filled - a clear sign of their popularity, and low cost.

The price disparity between brand names and generics is dramatic. For example, Terazosin, a drug used in the treatment of high blood pressure, sells for 95 cents a pill under the brand name Hytrin. The generic version sells for 60 cents.

Martin Zelder, a health-policy analyst for the Fraser Institute, defends the higher price of patent drugs as an acceptable cost for new life-saving medicines.

"I think the generic drug-makers' view is short-sighted in that they're only looking at one side of the issue," Zelder said. "They're not looking at the important social benefits arising from stronger patent rights like more research and development."

For Sinclair, though, it's clear that lengthy drug patents are eroding our public health-care system.

"Canadians should see the writing on the wall," he said of the FTAA. "Rising drug costs are a burden for consumers, as many Canadians have to pay out of their own pocket, and they're a burden on the taxpayer, because provincial plans cover drugs administered in hospitals."

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Big business's voice alone is heard at summit

Montreal Gazette
Wednesday 18 April 2001
http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/010418/5029149.html

Letter to the Editor

While I agree with your April 10 editorial that "lifting the veil" on the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement is a welcome development, your contention that "protection for the environment, labour and human rights ... has little direct link with trade" is absurd. This is an extension of the simplistic argument that business is business and that nothing else should interfere.

But to separate this area of human activity from all others flies in the face of reality. These issues, and others, are all affected by the way in which business is carried out, and they in turn affect the ability to do business.

It is naive to think that such issues will be effectively dealt with separately. Once a trade agreement is in place, it will be far too easy to reject any restrictions placed on it by attempts to protect the environment, labour and human rights and so on.

Whether or not this represents a deliberate lowering of standards is beside the point. Will including these issues in the trade talks make the talks more difficult? Absolutely, but the risk of including them outweighs the risk of not doing so.

The FTAA and globalization in general have the potential for both great good and great harm; the outcome depends very much on the process. As it now stands, the process is seriously flawed. The representatives of large corporations are the only people being allowed to address governments on issues that will affect many areas of our society.

How to balance, for example, the costs and benefits of protecting the environment against the costs and benefits of unhindered economic growth is a debate that everyone has the right to take part in.

Ideally, this kind of debate is informed by the opinions of experts in all relevant fields. The ultimate decision, however, is not an expert decision but a value judgment that must be made by every concerned individual. No expert can tell us the relative worth of these two views.

Right now, the only opinion heard at the trade talks is that of big business. This, and the fact that the rest of society is not being allowed to debate and decide the issues, makes the process clearly anti-democratic.

David Kalant Montreal

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Towards the America´s summit

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
Published 4/18/01
Francisco X. Aguirre-Sacasa
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010418-19185699.htm

The weekend of April 20-22, the world´s attention will be focused on the third Summit of the Americas that will be held in Quebec, Canada. The leaders of 34 American nations, including President George W. Bush, will meet to discuss how to promote democracy, and regional trade and prosperity, while combating international crime, including illegal drug trafficking. Cuba is the only nation in the Western Hemisphere not invited to the summit. This because its government is the only remaining dictatorship in the Americas, and the summit has been limited to democratic countries since it was first held in Miami in 1995.

Thousands will descend on the quaint capital of Quebec province for this event. Many of these will be delegates to the summit and journalists covering the meeting. But thousands of others will come to disrupt the meeting and protest issues that are anathema to the radical left and anarchists like globalization, free trade and international capitalism.

These demonstrations have become part and parcel of international gatherings in recent years and will doubtless grab most of the headlines coming out of Quebec. The real importance of the Quebec summit lies elsewhere, however.

First, the summit will help underscore the importance that the Western Hemisphere´s leaders attach to increasing the solidarity and integration of the Americas. One of the messages coming out of Quebec will be that the Americas do matter. It will also mark the first time that President Bush participates in a major international forum and the first opportunity for most Latin leaders to meet with him. During this "sizing up," a chemistry will be generated that will set the tone for Western Hemispheric relations in the coming years.

Second, the leaders of the Americas will discuss a greater integration of their economies. The United States, Canada and Mexico entered into North American Free Trade Agreement in the mid-1990s and the enhanced Caribbean Basin Initiative was approved in 2000. But a hemisphere-wide trade pact has so far proven elusive. The summit´s script calls for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) to go into effect by 2005. This commitment should be confirmed in Quebec. Some countries with strong protectionist tendencies may favor a more gradual approach to FTAA. Still others, like the Central American nations that welcome the challenges of globalization, will seek FTAA on an accelerated timetable and will lobby for a free trade agreement between Central America and the United States and Canada by, say, 2002 as an interim step.

In any event, free trade and regional integration will be on center stage at the summit, and for good reason. Closer economic integration is a win-win situation for all involved. While FTAA will entail turbulence for some outdated, inefficient industries both north and south of the Rio Grande, it harbors brighter prospects for all of the Americas. This, in turn, will translate into greater stability, diminished inequalities between the hemisphere´s nations and less illegal immigration. It also means that booming U.S. exports to Latin America will grow still more. In 2000, these surpassed the $170 billion mark dwarfing American exports to the European Union and helped create more than 500,000 jobs.

Third, the importance of strengthening democracy in the hemisphere will be squarely addressed in Quebec. Specifically, the hemisphere´s leaders will give consideration to the adoption of a so-called democracy clause that would limit participation in the summit and in its fruits including free trade to democratic countries. This is a bold and controversial initiative. It would, for instance, not only preclude Cuba from joining the club until it successfully completes a transition to democracy, but would also penalize currently democratic countries that were to backslide into dictatorship.

Some countries may oppose the democracy clause as interference in their internal affairs. But I view the clause as a frank recognition that democratization is not as several recent cases have suggested irreversible. It is, instead, a fragile process that requires an all-hands effort to preserve.

Nicaragua has lived through dictatorships of the right and of the left, and its people have paid a high price for these. With this in mind and because my government sees the democracy clause as a useful firewall against backsliding, Nicaragua will endorse a reasonably crafted democracy clause and support its adoption by other summit nations.

Francisco X. Aguirre-Sacasa is the foreign minister of Nicaragua.

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Summit Rosy Scenario

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/18/01
House Editorial
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010418-88770232.htm

This weekend´s Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Canada, could quite appropriately be dubbed Summit Rosy Scenario. And of the 34 democratically elected leaders of the Americas that will be attending, President George W. Bush has proven he is one of the leading wishful thinkers.

Yesterday, Mr. Bush promised to "fight for the right" to establish a free trade area stretching from Alaska to Chile, adding: "I believe we can get it done" by the agreed upon deadline of 2005. Mr. Bush had initially proposed setting a 2003 deadline to establish the free-trade zone, but other leaders in the region believed that timetable was much too ambitious.

Although Mr. Bush´s optimism is certainly encouraging, there are some weighty obstacles currently in the way of establishing a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). One of the most significant is fast-track negotiating authority for Mr. Bush, which would allow Congress to either approve or reject already negotiated free trade deals, but not change them. During his campaign, Mr. Bush said that the U.S. president that attended the Americas summit would look weak if he weren´t equipped with fast-track authority. But since he assumed the presidency, Mr. Bush has failed to formally request fast-track or even push forward the negotiating authority aggressively.

The White House has failed to even define how it will approach Democrats´ demands to have labor and environmental issues integrated into trade deals. "People are always trying to get me to put my cards on the table," Mr. Bush said obliquely Tuesday, when asked how he will handle these issues.

However, reaching a consensus among leaders of the Americas on government subsidies to the private sector will likely be the thorniest issue at the summit and the most difficult for Mr. Bush to address. Historically, the United States has pressed the emerging world to discontinue "dumping" its products, or selling them for less than what they cost to produce, in foreign markets to bolster their export sector. But thanks to the natural pressures of the marketplace, this dumping isn´t sustainable without government subsidies. So these subsidies, rather than the practice of dumping, should be the practice addressed during trade talks.

But U.S. food producers currently benefit greatly from subsidies, which reportedly reached a record $22.1 billion last year. Latin American leaders, meanwhile, correctly insist that these U.S. subsidies, many of which are based on tax credits, give U.S. food producers an unfair trade advantage. So far, the White House has indicated it is unwilling to discontinue these subsidies. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has said opening farm trade in just the Western Hemisphere would expose U.S. farmers to unfair competition from Europe.

Still, other sectors are eagerly endorsing the drive to establish free trade in the $13 trillion Western Hemisphere market that will encompass 34 countries and 800 million people. Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Citigroup Inc. to AT&T Corp. and Alfa SA, Mexico´s largest industrial group, are all lobbying in favor of FTAA.

And to be fair to Mr. Bush, he said yesterday he has met with more than 100 members of Congress to press for so-called fast-track trade authority. His efforts are certainly worthwhile, because without fast-track authority, this weekend´s Summit of the Americas will likely be little more than an opportunity for photo-ops.

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New Call Against Verniero

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/nyregion/18TROO.html

TRENTON, April 17 - State senators said today that they had added a sixth reason for the Assembly to begin impeachment proceedings against Justice Peter G. Verniero of the State Supreme Court, saying that as attorney general he knew of a report detailing complaints from minority troopers.

Justice Verniero told the Senate Judiciary Committee before his 1999 confirmation hearing that he never saw the report or knew its content.

Senators now argue that testimony during recent hearings on racial profiling shows that Justice Verniero knew of the report.

Justice Verniero's lawyer denied the new allegation as he has denied all conclusions of impropriety.

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Patterns of Police Violence

New York Times
April 18, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/opinion/18WED1.html

For the residents of Cincinnati, the death of 19- year-old Timothy Thomas on April 7 was a tragedy that says a lot about the community's deep racial divide and complicated history. But the case also ought to cause millions of Americans elsewhere and the Bush administration to study closely the use of deadly force against minorities. Ten years ago, grainy images of Rodney King being clubbed by Los Angeles police officers horrified the nation. More recently, police shootings and the possibility of racial profiling in street and traffic arrests have raised heightened concern about a systemic disparity in the treatment of whites and minorities by police in other states and cities.

The question arises at a time of falling crime statistics and of widespread political approval for the "broken window" theory, that clamping down on the most mundane infractions vastly improves public safety. But along with this change in law enforcement patterns have come repeated instances that suggest that police action or brutality aimed disproportionately at minorities has become a national problem.

The fact that black parents fear for the safety of their sons and that many black adults dread routine encounters with police has been amply documented. Hispanics report similar concerns. The 1998 shooting of black motorists stopped by state troopers in New Jersey has led to compelling evidence that racial profiling has existed on that state's highways for years, though it was denied by state officials. Long after the Rodney King case we learned that a member of a cell of rogue, corrupt police officers in Los Angeles shot an unarmed suspect and then lied about it in court.

In response to these scandals, the federal government has intervened to curb abusive behavior by the New Jersey State Police and the Los Angeles Police Department, pursuant to a 1994 law that allows the Justice Department to sue local police departments to seek remedies where there is a "pattern and practice" of misconduct. Before 1994 the government's main recourse in protecting citizens from their own police officers' wrongdoing was the less desirable one of charging individual officers with criminal behavior.

In New York, the threat of federal involvement in the aftermath of the Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima cases helped press the Police Department to alter its "stop and frisk" policies, though strains between the police and community have yet to heal. Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in Manhattan, is reportedly still considering bringing a lawsuit against the city to seek further reforms.

None of this adds up to conclusive proof of a national pattern. But the repeated incidents do provide strong grounds for continued federal vigilance. Nationwide, blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely as whites to be subjected to violent behavior when stopped by police officers, according to Justice Department statistics.

Following the shooting of Mr. Thomas, the Justice Department launched an inquiry into the "practices, procedures and training" of the Cincinnati police that seems justified by the statistics. Mr. Thomas, who was trying to avoid arrest for misdemeanor traffic citations and was unarmed when shot, was the 15th man killed by the police in Cincinnati since 1995 - all of them black. Whether the specific shooting was justified or not is under investigation, but the long-term pattern is disturbing. Federal oversight of local law enforcement is never popular, but the Bush administration must continue to prod police forces to adopt reforms aimed at protecting citizens' civil rights.

Last month the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Cincinnati, alleging a 30-year pattern of racial profiling by the police. The Police Department is accused of lacking adequate guidelines on the use of force, of being unwilling to discipline its own, and of failing to honor past commitments to hire and promote more black officers. This list of allegations will sound familiar to police critics elsewhere, who are increasingly reaching the conclusion that poor management at police departments, as much as any overt racism, is often the culprit underlying police misconduct.

"Patterns and practices" inquiries can produce results. Pittsburgh became the first major city to subject its department to such oversight in 1997 to settle litigation, and great strides have been taken in making its police more professional and accountable. The Pittsburgh case became the model for consent decrees entered into in 1999 and 2000 respectively by the New Jersey State Police and the Los Angeles Police Department. Even where the federal government does not take local police departments to court, as in New York, at least to date, the threat of doing so encourages reform.

The Bush administration must keep up the pressure in Cincinnati, and wherever else police behavior is problematic. This is an opportunity for Attorney General John Ashcroft to begin addressing the concerns of those who have questioned his willingness to muster federal power energetically on behalf of citizens' civil rights.

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Fire Dept. Delays Hiring Officer in Diallo Shooting

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By ANDY NEWMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/nyregion/18DIAL.html

The Fire Department has decided to delay hiring one of the four officers involved in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo pending the outcome of police disciplinary charges against him, officials said last night.

Last week, fire officials said that they had tentatively decided to hire the officer, Edward McMellon, and that they expected him to enter the Fire Academy this summer.

But after Mr. Diallo's mother, Kadiatou Diallo, objected, the Fire Department decided to put the appointment on hold, said Francis X. Gribbon, a department spokesman.

Officer McMellon, who fired 16 of the 41 shots that were aimed at Mr. Diallo as he stood unarmed in the vestibule of his apartment building in the Bronx in February 1999, was acquitted of criminal charges in the case last year. In January, federal prosecutors decided not to pursue civil rights charges against him.

But he still faces a hearing before the police force's Internal Affairs Bureau on whether his conduct violated police procedure or showed a lack of judgment befitting an officer. The process is expected to take months.

"We're just going to take a breather here and wait until everything is complete so there are no lingering issues with this officer's candidacy," Mr. Gribbon said. He added that Mrs. Diallo's concerns "certainly not only are reasonable, but warranted."

Mrs. Diallo could not be reached for comment last night.

A group of black firefighters that opposes hiring Officer McMellon, the Vulcan Society, welcomed the decision.

"This is just what should have happened ordinarily," said Lt. Paul Washington, the group's president. "He should go through his trial and not be allowed to circumvent any steps and become a fireman. We're glad to see that standard procedures are being followed."

Officer McMellon placed in the top 3 percent of candidates on the last firefighter test. Since the Diallo trial, he has been assigned to an administrative job in the police Harbor Unit.

The officer's lawyer, Stephen Worth, said he found the Fire Department's move "somewhat surprising" in view of the earlier statements about hiring him. But he added: "We certainly have to respect the fire commissioner's opinion, and it is time for the Police Department to come to terms with their own investigation. We are confident that after that investigation it will be found that these officers did nothing wrong under the circumstances."

Officer McMellon testified at his trial that just as the shooting began, he tripped and fell, which the defense said led his colleagues to believe he had been shot. Fire officials said last week that they had conducted an extensive review of the officer's role in the Diallo case, as well as his disciplinary history, which included five civilian complaints, none substantiated, and decided that he was a fit candidate.

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Inquiry of Torricelli Examining Claim He Took Unreported Gifts

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By TIM GOLDEN and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/nyregion/18INQU.html

A federal investigation into the activities of Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey is now concentrating on evidence that Mr. Torricelli may have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in unreported gifts and cash from one of his former political supporters, people involved in the case said.

Among the items that Mr. Torricelli received from the former backer, the people said, are at least 10 Italian-made suits, an $8,100 Rolex watch, bean-shaped cuff links from Tiffany & Company, a $1,500 area rug, $600 earrings for one of Mr. Torricelli's former girlfriends and a 52-inch Toshiba television set.

The former supporter, David Chang, has told investigators that as part of a lengthy effort to win Mr. Torricelli's help with several international business deals, he also gave the Democratic legislator tens of thousands of dollars in cash to spend on official travels, vacations and shopping trips.

A lawyer for Mr. Torricelli, Theodore V. Wells Jr., yesterday denied Mr. Chang's allegations and attacked his credibility. "Senator Torricelli has not engaged in any wrongdoing," Mr. Wells said in a statement. "David Chang's allegations are false."

Many of the allegations under scrutiny have come from Mr. Chang, a New Jersey businessman who pleaded guilty last June to giving Mr. Torricelli $53,700 in illegal campaign contributions and whose credibility was previously challenged in court by the same prosecutors who are now preparing him as a witness. But people involved in the case said investigators had gathered corroborating evidence of at least some of the gifts from other sources as well.

At least two of Mr. Chang's former aides or associates have confirmed parts of his account, these people said. One, a former assistant, has told the authorities that she was present when Mr. Chang delivered gifts and cash to Mr. Torricelli and said she had once delivered cash to Mr. Torricelli herself, these people said. She also said Mr. Chang had once tried to get her to sign an affidavit at the senator's request stating that the gifts were merely on loan to Mr. Torricelli.

In interviews, several New Jersey merchants also acknowledged that in response to grand jury subpoenas or the requests of F.B.I. agents, they provided investigators with records of purchases by Mr. Chang that coincide with some items he claims to have given to Mr. Torricelli.

One such merchant, a tailor in Palisades Park, described what may be an even closer connection between Mr. Chang's purchases and Mr. Torricelli.

The tailor, Chang Hwan Choi, said he had told F.B.I. agents that in early 1997, Mr. Chang picked him up at his shop and drove him a short distance to the home of a man he introduced as "John." Mr. Choi said he took the man's measurements and later sold Mr. Chang at least 10 Italian suits tailored to fit the man. Mr. Choi said that he could not remember the man's face well and had equivocated in identifying him to the agents, but that they had later told him that the man was Senator Torricelli.

One government official involved in the case said the claims of cash payments would be difficult for the authorities to prove. But others said Mr. Chang had kept a record of the gifts and F.B.I. agents had tried to correlate Mr. Chang's claims with cashed checks and withdrawals registered in the records of his personal account at Summit Bank. The results of those efforts could not be determined.

The claims of unreported gifts to Mr. Torricelli are the most serious allegations to emerge from the federal inquiry. The case began in 1997 when investigators looked at the illegal contributions of Mr. Chang and other donors to Mr. Torricelli's 1996 Senate campaign. It has since expanded to encompass his fund-raising activities and personal finances, the actions of some of his aides, and accusations that some of his allies tried to thwart the federal inquiry.

In an interview on Sunday on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Mr. Torricelli acknowledged that federal investigators had recently searched his home in Englewood, N.J., for documents and other items, but he characterized the action as part of an effort by his lawyers to dispel any notion that he had anything to hide. A spokesman for Mr. Torricelli, Dale Leibach, would not comment further on the search.

According to several people involved in the case, the allegations of gifts to Mr. Torricelli have moved to the center of the investigation since the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, based in Manhattan, took over the case in February from the Justice Department's Campaign Financing Task Force.

Mr. Torricelli's lawyer, Mr. Wells, said in his statement yesterday that he had been told by prosecutors that the senator was not a "target" of their inquiry. But that fact may or may not be significant. Federal prosecutors typically identify a person as a target only when an indictment may be imminent.

A spokesman for the United States attorney's office, Marvin Smilon, declined to comment on the investigation, as did a lawyer for Mr. Chang, Bradley D. Simon.

Under federal law and Congressional ethics rules, legislators may only accept gifts worth less than $50, with a limit of $100 from any one source each year. Mr. Torricelli's annual financial disclosure statements list no gifts from Mr. Chang other than a contribution of $5,000 to a legal defense fund that Mr. Torricelli established after he was charged in 1995 with disclosing classified information about C.I.A. activities in Guatemala while still a United States representative. He was ultimately cleared after an investigation by the House ethics committee.

Federal law also prohibits public officials from taking any gift or gratuity in exchange for an official action. But such cases have often been difficult for government prosecutors to prove, and Mr. Torricelli bolstered his legal team last month by hiring Mr. Wells, who helped the former agriculture secretary, Mike Espy, win acquittal on federal bribery charges in 1998. Mr. Torricelli also hired Mark F. Pomerantz, a former top aide to the United States attorney in Manhattan, Mary Jo White.

According to the accounts of Mr. Chang and several of his former associates, he turned to Mr. Torricelli for help as he ran into financial difficulties in the summer of 1995. At the time, Mr. Chang was struggling to win the repayment of $71 million he said he was owed by North Korea for corn and wheat shipments he had made to the country. Mr. Torricelli, his local congressman, was a member of the House International Relations Committee with an interest in Korean issues.

Mr. Torricelli promised immediately to help, these people said, asking that Mr. Chang also do what he could to support his Senate campaign. Soon, Mr. Chang made the first in a series of contributions to the Torricelli campaign, in his own name and through others.

According to three people familiar with Mr. Chang's statements to the authorities, he has told prosecutors that relatively early on in his relationship with Mr. Torricelli, the candidate also began asking him for cash - first for the campaign, later for his personal use.

Several of Mr. Chang's former employees said he had long been in the habit of giving lavish gifts. In late 1991, one former employee said, Mr. Chang gave new Mercedes-Benz sedans to two lobbyists who helped him win the government license that allowed him to sell grain to North Korea, and also gave one of them a diamond-studded Rolex.

In Mr. Chang's plea agreement last year, prosecutors said he could still be held criminally liable for payments to a former government employee. People involved in the case have identified the employee as C. Kenneth Quinones, a State Department official to whom Mr. Chang said he gave a 1994 Acura Legend sedan and $60,000 toward the college tuition of one of Dr. Quinones's daughters. Dr. Quinones has not been charged with any wrongdoing. His lawyer did not deny that Dr. Quinones had received the gifts, but said he had done nothing improper.

Mr. Chang has told investigators that he had made payments of $8,000 to $9,000 on a Mercedes E320 sedan for the senator in August 1996. Mr. Chang said Mr. Torricelli had asked him to buy the car but abruptly changed his mind after Mr. Chang disclosed the plan to a sales manager at the dealership. A spokesman for the senator denied that he had solicited the payments and said he demanded that they be refunded when he learned of them.

In December 1996, as Mr. Torricelli savored his hard-fought Senate victory, Mr. Chang arrived at Mr. Torricelli's Englewood home with a present, he and a former assistant, Audrey Yu, have told the authorities. Ms. Yu has also been cooperating with prosecutors since pleading guilty last year to obstructing justice.

According to an associate of Mr. Chang's who is familiar with his statements to investigators, the businessman said he delivered $25,000 to Mr. Torricelli at his home in late 1996. Separately, Ms. Yu has stated that she was in Mr. Chang's car when he drove up to Mr. Torricelli's house around Christmas and dropped off the $25,000; she said Mr. Chang had taken about that amount from his Summit, N.J., account in several withdrawals over the previous weeks, one person familiar with her testimony said.

In January 1997, Ms. Yu stated, she personally delivered an envelope with $10,000 in cash from Mr. Chang to Mr. Torricelli at his home, this person said. A lawyer for Ms. Yu, Alberto Rivas, refused to comment.

Mr. Chang has stated that Judy D. Balaban, Mr. Torricelli's former girlfriend, was also present on at least three occasions when he delivered some of the cash and that she received a set of earrings from Mr. Torricelli that Mr. Chang had bought, two people familiar with his statements said.

Ms. Balaban, a former fashion model, did not respond to letters, telephone calls and a message left at her home asking for her comment.

In about the spring of 1997, Mr. Chang arrived at the cramped clothing store of his tailor, Mr. Choi, and drove him about 15 minutes away to the home of a friend, Mr. Choi, speaking in Korean, said in an interview. Mr. Chang introduced the man as "John."

Four years later, Mr. Choi said he could not remember the man's face clearly. But he did recall his suit size - 40 regular, with the sleeves shortened - his taste for pinstripes and his preference for French cuffs.

Mr. Torricelli's spokesman, Mr. Leibach, refused to disclose the senator's coat size. But two former aides said they believed that he was about a 40 regular and confirmed that he likes pinstriped suits and shirt sleeves that close with cuff links.

Over about two years, Mr. Chang bought at least 10 Italian suits for the man at $400 each, Mr. Choi said, choosing a few from the rack each fall or spring and paying with an American Express card.

Mr. Choi said that F.B.I. agents had shown him photographs of Mr. Torricelli, but that while they resembled the man he fitted, he could not be sure. He added that he had later been told by F.B.I. agents that "John" was in fact Mr. Torricelli.

Shown a photograph of Mr. Torricelli's house by reporters from The New York Times, Mr. Choi said it looked similar to the home to which he was taken but he was not certain that it was the same one.

F.B.I. agents pursuing evidence of other gifts that Mr. Chang claimed to have given to Mr. Torricelli appear to have worked their way up and down the rows of tony shops that line East Palisade Avenue in Englewood, a few blocks from Mr. Torricelli's home. At Englewood Jewelers, where Mr. Chang has said he bought jewelry for Mr. Torricelli, the owner, Garabet J. Tacorian, said he had provided F.B.I. agents with a credit card receipt of about $600 for what he believed were some earrings Mr. Chang bought in 1998.

Across the street at Gorman Brothers appliances, James Gorman would not say whether he had given sales records for Mr. Chang to federal agents. But others involved in the case said Mr. Chang has told investigators that he bought Mr. Torricelli a 52-inch TV set and a compact stereo there.

Up the block at Starr Oriental Rugs, the owner, Shahram Nazar, confirmed that he, too, had been interviewed by the F.B.I. about a purchase Mr. Chang had made. He would not discuss the matter. But a person with knowledge of the purchase said Mr. Chang bought a $1,500 area rug there in 1998 that he told the authorities he had given to Mr. Torricelli.

In nearby Fort Lee, the owner of Palisade Jewelers, Ron Lieberman, also declined to comment. But people involved in the case said the F.B.I. had come to the store with a subpoena for records of Mr. Chang's purchases there, which they said had included a used Rolex watch worth about $8,100 and a Concord watch that cost about $2,000.

According to people involved in the case, Mr. Chang told investigators that he gave the Rolex to Mr. Torricelli at a dinner in the fall of 1998 and said that another friend had witnessed the gift giving.

But the other man, who agreed to be interviewed only on the condition that he not be named, said that although he had attended the dinner at Mr. Chang's home in Cresskill, N.J., he had not seen Mr. Chang give Mr. Torricelli a watch or any other gift. The man said he had told federal investigators the same thing.

Mr. Chang also told the authorities that he had given Mr. Torricelli at least two gifts bought at Tiffany & Company in New York, a pair of bean-shaped cuff links and a watch valued at about $3,000, people involved in the case said.

Not long after Mr. Chang came under the scrutiny of federal investigators, he has stated, Mr. Torricelli asked him to sign an affidavit stating that he had provided the gifts to Mr. Torricelli as loans and that they would be repaid. At Mr. Torricelli's request, Mr. Chang later asked Ms. Yu to sign a similar affidavit, but like him, she refused, people involved in the case quoted him as saying.

Mr. Chang said he had not kept a copy of the proposed affidavit, these people said.

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Session of Cincinnati Council Draws a Crowd

New York Times
April 18, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/national/18OHIO.html

CINCINNATI, April 17 - About 500 Cincinnati residents today packed the City Council's first public meeting after a curfew was rescinded to speak out about the April 7 killing of an unarmed 19-year-old Cincinnati man by a city police officer.

One City Council member, John Booth, announced late today that he would introduce a motion on Wednesday that the city review its policy on the use of deadly force by police officers.

Earlier in the day, four black members of the city's police force resigned their membership in the Fraternal Order of Police. The Sentinel Police Association, which claims virtually all of the city's 250 black police officers, will meet next week to review the situation.

In addition, the Hamilton County prosecutor's office announced that probably by the end of the week it would take to a grand jury its information about the shooting, which involved Officer Steven Roach. The executive director of the city's Human Relations Commission, Cecil Thomas, said that no police officer had ever been punished for shooting a civilian, black or white.

The declared purpose of the City Council meeting today was to consider changes in the city's charter that would exempt the chiefs of the police and fire departments from being covered by civil service, a circumstance that virtually dictates they be promoted from within their departments. In 1997, a similar motion was passed by the Council, only to be defeated at the polls in the election required to amend the charter.

But today's meeting provided an opportunity for a long line of residents to air their grievances against the city. The session was shown on a local cable television station and members of the public were allowed into at least three other rooms in City Hall to watch the proceedings.

The complaints included accusations of excessive use of force and racial profiling by the city's Police Department, poor housing and complaints that major cost overruns in the city's new football stadium were tolerated but not incidental discrepancies in programs for the poor.

Nearly 70 people spoke during the nearly five-hour session presided over by the Cincinnati mayor, Charlie Luken. Only occasionally did either Mayor Luken or any member of the Council speak. While the mayor was unfailingly polite to each speaker, the criticisms clearly took their toll on the Council members as the session wore on.

About three-quarters of the speakers were African-American, about the same proportion as in the crowd. One white speaker, Heidi Bruins, a financial manager with Procter & Gamble, made one of the strongest impressions. Ms. Bruins said she had been moved to attend last Saturday's funeral of Timothy Thomas, the youth slain by Officer Roach. Soon after leaving the church, she said, she witnessed police officers shoot "bean bags" at a peaceful crowd. The officers, she said, shot only at blacks, adding that she and her companions, all white, were not interfered with.

The officers drove off, then returned. At this point, Ms. Bruins said, several bottles were thrown at the cruisers. The police left a second time, she said, and a few minutes later 20 or more police cars were on the scene. "I felt it was important to make a statement," Ms. Bruins said later. "It is far to easy for white people to turn a blind eye when it's an issue about race. I felt if I didn't come to the meeting, I wouldn't be able to blame anybody else."

Many of those speaking clearly had no difficulty casting blame in the direction of Mayor Luken and his administration.

One woman complained that officials dismissed complaints. "You're ignoring us," she said. "Just puffed up with pride." And pride, she added, joined by those in the crowd who had caught her drift, "goes before the fall."

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MANHATTAN: CIVILIAN COMPLAINT REVIEW BOARD

New York Times
April 18, 2001
Metro Briefing
Diane Cardwell (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/nyregion/18MBRF.html

Peter F. Vallone, the City Council speaker, and Councilman Adolfo Carrion Jr. introduced legislation yesterday that would give the Civilian Complaint Review Board the authority to prosecute its own cases. The bill is subject to a vote by the Public Safety Committee and then the full Council. Mr. Carrion said the bill would make the board's prosecutorial function permanent instead of leaving it to the discretion of the police commissioner.

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Cincinnati´s racial fires House Editorial

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
4/18/01
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010418-69509156.htm

Three days of racially tinged riots engulfed minority neighborhoods in Cincinnati last week after a white city policeman shot and killed an unarmed black teen-ager, the fourth black man to be killed by Cincinnati police since November and the 15th to be killed in six years. Acknowledging that "violence on our streets is uncontrolled and runs rampant," Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken declared a state of emergency and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew for several days. "Gunfire went off like you might hear in Beirut," the mayor said. A sniper´s bullet grazed one officer as incidents of civilian gunfire directed against the police rapidly mounted. The spreading unrest featured roaming bands of youths smashing windows, looting stores and setting hundreds of fires.

While the latest death of a black suspect ignited the civil disturbances, tensions in Cincinnati have been simmering for a very long time. Blacks who live in Cincinnati have insisted for years that police have unfairly and abusively targeted them. Indeed, in March the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio joined a coalition of civil rights groups in filing a suit in federal court charging that Cincinnati police had engaged in a "30-year pattern of racial profiling." As evidence of racial profiling, the suit specifically cited the fact that each of the 13 suspects killed by Cincinnati police from 1995 through 2000 was black. Kweisi Mfume, national president of the NAACP, visited Cincinnati amid the unrest. "Cincinnati´s a microscope, the belly of the whale," Mr. Mfume asserted, arguing that the city was "ground zero" in the nation´s need to eliminate racial profiling.

In fact, the situation surrounding the use of police force in Cincinnati is far more complex than Mr. Mfume seems willing to acknowledge. And it is in no way comparable to the assessment maliciously offered by Malik Shabazz, the firebrand who heads the D.C.-based New Black Panther Party. Mr. Shabazz and some of his colleagues traveled to Cincinnati for the funeral of Timothy Thomas, the 19-year-old who was shot fleeing police, who tragically, and mistakenly, believed he was reaching for a gun. "Blacks are being shot down in cold blood," Mr. Shabazz charged without offering any evidence. But the tragic error that led to Mr. Thomas´ death, which is being investigated by the FBI and a grand jury, may have been the consequence of an over-apprehensive police force, which had been increasingly fired upon and otherwise attacked in recent months.

As it happens, the overwhelming majority of the fatal shootings since 1995 by Cincinnati police, several of whom were themselves black, have been justifiable. Twelve of the alleged victims threatened deadly force against the police. Six had their own guns. Another seized an officer´s gun. One wielded a knife. Another´s choice of weapons was a nail-studded board. An escaped psychiatric patient used a brick. Two others used their automobiles, including a 12-year-old boy who dragged one officer to death before being killed himself. Indeed, three Cincinnati policemen have been killed during the last four years; two of them were black. One policeman has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the asphyxiation death of one suspect. And the U.S. Justice Department, which was headed by Janet Reno, investigated several of the most controversial shootings, exonerating the officers. Unfortunately, it is much easier and much more self-serving for those in pursuit of their own personal or political or, yes, racial agendas to charge racism than it is to admit that the problem is complicated and there is enough blame to go around.

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A National Humiliation

Weekly Standard
April 16 - April 23, 2001
Vol 6, Number 30
By Robert Kagan and William Kristol
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_30_01/kagan_kristol_ed_6_30_01.asp

The profound national humiliation that President Bush has brought upon the United States may be forgotten temporarily when the American aircrew, held captive in China as this magazine goes to press, return home. But when we finish celebrating, it will be time to assess the damage done, and the dangers invited, by the administration's behavior.

To begin such an assessment, we need to review what has happened.

On April 1, a Chinese fighter intercepted an American surveillance aircraft flying a routine mission over international waters in the South China Sea. There was a collision. The exact circumstances are as yet unknown. Did the American plane "bank" into the Chinese jet? Or did the Chinese jet bump into the American plane's nose cone? It doesn't matter. What caused the accident were the unusually aggressive and extremely dangerous maneuvers of the Chinese pilot, who was flying so close to the American aircraft as to increase substantially the chances for a collision. There are common sense rules of the road for how the game is played. The Chinese pilot was recklessly violating those rules, like the guy who tailgates two inches off your bumper going 75 miles an hour. In circumstances such as these, it doesn't matter who bumps whom. Blame for the accident falls on the one who deliberately created such a dangerous situation.

Much attention has been paid to the particular Chinese pilot, who it seems had a history of just such reckless flying. But this misses the larger point. The decision to fly Chinese fighters dangerously close to American surveillance planes was made by the Chinese government in Beijing, not by any maverick Chinese aviator. In recent months, Chinese fighters had grown increasingly bold in their interception tactics, all part of a broader effort by the Chinese government to flex its muscles in the South China Sea. The Chinese want the United States to get out of the South China Sea. Why? Because it would be a key sea lane in the event of a conflict with Taiwan. Step one in this campaign is forcing American surveillance planes to stay out of the area. So the Chinese government consciously increased the risk to U.S. planes, and to its own pilots, in order to improve its strategic position. The accident, in short, was the direct consequence of a deliberate Chinese policy.

The accident also occurred despite repeated warnings by the United States that the new Chinese policy was dangerous. In December and January, after a number of close calls, top Pentagon officials formally protested the new Chinese tactics. The United States, they made clear, did not intend to renounce its right to fly in international airspace, but Chinese policy was vastly increasing the risk to everyone. The Chinese government ignored the protests. Then last week the inevitable happened and a Chinese pilot lost his life. It is a miracle, and a tribute to one American pilot's skill, that 24 Americans did not go down with him.

Instead, they made an emergency landing in China, whereupon they were taken hostage by the Chinese government. It is hardly surprising that the Chinese government boarded the plane and searched it for information about American intelligence-gathering capabilities, despite American insistence that the plane remained, even in China, the sovereign territory of the United States according to international law. What was a good deal more surprising was the Chinese government's announcement of the conditions for the crew's release: The American government would have to make a formal apology.

There has been no end of speculation by America's revered China experts as to why the Chinese would make such a baffling demand. The Chinese government is getting ready for President Jiang Zemin's "retirement" in 2002, and during such moments of succession, would-be Chinese leaders need to woo the powerful and virulently anti-American Chinese military and intelligence services. In addition, there has been a surge of nationalist fervor in China, especially since the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade two years ago. True, the Chinese government has helped stir up these nationalist passions in an attempt to compensate for the bankruptcy of Communist ideology. But now the government, we are told, is the victim of its own device. No Chinese leader can afford to look "soft" in a confrontation with the United States. Then there is the matter of Chinese culture, which places an unusually high premium on honor and "face." To admit Chinese error, or even to accept mutual responsibility for this kind of accident, would cause the Chinese leadership to lose face and suffer humiliation before its own people.

One or all of these explanations for Chinese behavior may be valid. But even if every one of them contributed to the Chinese decision to hold the American crew hostage until the United States apologized, it is abundantly clear-from the known facts and the public record-that the Chinese government's demand had two additional purposes.

First, it was a continuation of the policy that caused the accident in the first place. The Chinese government has for some time been asserting that the South China Sea and the skies above it are Chinese territory. Last week President Jiang declared, "The United States must stop these types of flights in the airspace of China's coastal areas. Only this will avoid a repeat of this type of incident." An American apology would acknowledge not merely that the American pilot was to blame for the accident. More important, it would acknowledge that the American government was to blame because it had "violated international law" by carrying out surveillance flights "in the airspace of China's coastal waters."

The broader purpose of the Chinese demand was to inflict upon the United States a public international humiliation. This, of course, is the flipside of China's face-conscious culture. In such a culture, to lose face is not only embarrassing. It is dangerous. It is a sign of weakness that invites repeated exploitation by those who have witnessed it. To be deprived of face by someone is in some sense to be vanquished and reduced to subservience. He who makes another lose face is essentially declaring himself superior and the other inferior, not worthy of respect. By demanding a public apology from the United States, therefore, the Chinese government was not only saving its own face, it was consciously and deliberately forcing the United States to lose face, and thereby to admit its weakness.

One gets a sense that for a brief moment President Bush instinctively understood all this. On Monday, April 2, a visibly angry Bush demanded the "prompt and safe" return of the crew and the plane. Only 24 hours after the accident, Bush said, "I am troubled by the lack of a timely Chinese response to our request" for access to the crew, and he demanded that the Chinese return the plane "without further damaging or tampering." China's delay was "inconsistent with standard diplomatic practice and with the expressed desire of both our countries for better relations."

On Tuesday, Bush seemed to be holding firm. Senior officials told reporters he was increasingly angry at the Chinese failure to respond. One adviser, after talking to Bush, told the Washington Post, "We've been patient and we've been very reasonable, but at some point, patience wears thin." Meeting the Chinese demand for an apology was out of the question: "There's nothing to apologize for," said one official. Another also rejected any statement of "regret." That was "not even in question." And Bush officials explained why even a statement of regret would be a mistake. The Chinese, they said, were measuring Bush and looking for "signs of weakness." Even expressing "regret" would make Bush look like he was afraid and caving to Chinese pressure.

There were signs even on Tuesday, however, that the administration's resolve was weakening, and the Chinese no doubt saw them. The Post article was aptly titled "U.S. Seeks to Avoid Test of Wills," which must have struck the Chinese as both amusing and revealing, since what they had set up was very much a test of wills, a test moreover in which there would be a winner and a loser. And, indeed, while some officials were talking tough, others were also suggesting that the Chinese needed to be mollified somehow. "All the decisions are being driven by what is most likely to be effective with the Chinese government," one official said. "One of the things you want to do is give them time to come to the right decision and not lock them into a position opposed to you."

The next day the Bush administration started to cave. It was Secretary of State Colin Powell who delivered the statement that the whole world understood as a partial capitulation to the Chinese demands for an apology. Powell expressed his "regret" that the Chinese pilot had gone down. He used the word "regret" twice. And by calling the collision a "tragic accident," Powell removed the issue of blame. He then called for a dialogue in which "both sides" could "present explanations." That evening Powell sent a letter to the Chinese outlining a mechanism for discussing the incident, including the creation of a bi-national commission to study what had happened and ways to prevent such events in the future.

Powell's statement and letter were intended to address both of China's main objectives in this whole affair. The statement of "regret" was meant to address China's demand for a broad American apology and acceptance of responsibility for the entire incident. In Europe, the headlines read: "U.S. Regrets Plane Incident," leaving readers with the impression that the United States was indeed accepting blame. And the Chinese made clear that they took Powell's statements to be at least a partial apology. "The regret expressed by the U.S. side," a Chinese spokesman declared, was "a step in the right direction." Thus one purpose of the Chinese demand, the public humiliation of the United States, was partially accomplished.

Powell's suggestion of a bi-national commission was also a step in the right direction for the Chinese, because it would allow them to press home their second objective: an agreement by the United States to pull back or at least take greater care in its surveillance activities in the South China Sea. After all, a bi-national commission cannot limit itself to the technical details of which pilot turned in the wrong direction. The Chinese side is not simply going to express hope that everyone's pilots be more careful in the future. They are going to insist on discussing the root cause of the accident. And for them, the root cause is that the United States is doing surveillance in the South China Sea. Three months ago, the United States told the Chinese to stuff it and stop harassing American planes engaged in legitimate surveillance in international airspace. Now, if Powell's plan is agreed to, the Chinese will have a forum in which to discuss with the Americans exactly who can fly where.

In the safe and friendly confines of the United States, most observers figured Powell's statements of regret were harmless-what could be wrong with expressing "regret" over the death of a pilot? But in the real world, and in Beijing's world, Powell's statements represented a partial capitulation, with real-world consequences.

Having brought the United States to one knee, the Chinese government kept up the pressure. Now it was time for the United States to go all the way, to "adopt a cooperative attitude, admit its mistakes and make a formal apology." As Lenin used to say, when your spear hits iron withdraw it, when it hits flesh press forward.

In the face of continued Chinese pressure, President Bush showed signs of cracking. Speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on Thursday, Bush amplified Powell's statements of regret. He not only regretted that the Chinese pilot had gone down, saying "our prayers go out to the pilot, his family." Bush also regretted that "one of their airplanes has been lost." He declared himself an "advocate of China's entering the WTO." And then the groveling began in earnest. "China is a strategic partner," Bush declared to the stunned audience, "I mean, a strategic competitor. . . . But that doesn't mean we can't find areas in which we can partner. And the economy is a place where we can partner."

Perhaps most significant was Bush's answer when asked if he might consider apologizing to China. Instead of simply saying "no," President Bush said, "I have no further comments on the subject." Bush's refusal to rule out an apology surely encouraged the Chinese to believe that someday the formal apology they have been demanding may be delivered. At this writing, the Chinese are sticking to their demand for a full and formal apology from the United States.

Now, it is possible that the American government will be able to negotiate the release of the crew with something short of a full and formal apology. Whatever the public and private terms of the deal, we will obviously be happy for the crew and their families. But no one should ignore the enormous price that will have been paid to secure their freedom. The United States is on the path to humiliation, and for a great power-not to mention the world's "sole superpower"-humiliation is not a matter to be taken lightly. It is not just a petty issue of "face."

As the Chinese understand better than American leaders, President Bush has revealed weakness. And he has revealed fear: fear of the political, strategic, and economic consequences of meeting a Chinese challenge. Having exposed this weakness and fear, the Chinese will try to exploit it again and again, most likely in a future confrontation over Taiwan. The American capitulation will also embolden others around the world who have watched this crisis carefully to see the new administration's mettle tested.

This defeat and humiliation, as another president once said, must not stand. Whether or not the American hostages are released, President Bush and members of Congress must begin immediately taking steps to repair the damage already done. It is essential that the Chinese be made to pay a price for their actions. Angry words and congressional resolutions of disapproval are now worse than useless. Unless backed by deeds, they will only confirm Beijing's perception of American weakness.

The United States must respond in ways that directly affect China's interests. Congress can do its part easily: by rejecting China's most-favored-nation trade status when it comes up for renewal later this spring. The Chinese believe, with good reason, that the American business community has a hammerlock on American policy toward China, and that Congress will never dare cut off American business's access to the Chinese market. Congress has a chance to prove that when matters of fundamental national security are at stake, the United States can break this addiction.

The Bush administration can do its part by augmenting America's strategic relationship with Taiwan and, above all, by selling Taiwan the weapons it needs to maintain the cross-straits military balance. At its core, after all, this entire crisis has really been about Taiwan-certainly from the Chinese perspective. The Chinese now need to know that their efforts to force the United States away from the defense of Taiwan cannot succeed. An internal Pentagon review has made it clear that the balance is swiftly tilting against Taiwan and that among the many things Taiwan needs is the Aegis battle-management system. Later this month, the Bush administration will have to decide whether or not the Taiwanese can purchase Aegis. Now, more than ever, the answer must be yes. Not only is the sale of Aegis the only appropriate response to Chinese behavior. But to decline to sell Aegis now, after all that has happened, would only reconfirm the Chinese impression that the United States is weak and afraid of confrontation.

Needless to say, we do not seek war with China. That is what advocates of appeasement always say about those who argue for standing up to an international bully. But it is the appeasers who wind up leading us into war. We have been calling for the active containment of China for the past six years precisely because we think it is the only way to keep the peace. Whatever risks may accompany a policy of confrontation and containment, the risks of weakness are infinitely greater. China hands both inside and outside the administration will argue that this crisis needs to be put behind us so that the U.S.-China relationship can return to normal. It is past time for everyone to wake up to the fact that the Chinese behavior we have seen this past week is normal. We have glimpsed the future. The only question now is whether we have the wisdom and the strength to meet it.

---

U.S. Threatens to Stop Talks With Beijing

New York Times
April 18, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/world/18CND-CHINA.html

The United States threatened today to call off talks with China over an in-flight collision between their aircraft unless the Chinese government agreed to discuss returning the American spy plane involved in the incident.

Negotiators from the United States and China met in Beijing today for two and a half hours, but American officials said no progress was made toward resolving their sharp disagreements over the American plane's collision with a Chinese jet fighter on April 1.

"No new ground was reached," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, told reporters accompanying President Bush on a trip to Connecticut. "We made our case. They made their case. It was not productive."

The talks were scheduled to resolve such disagreements, but each side has continued to blame the other for the incident, which has soured Chinese-American relations and widened a rhetorical gap between the two countries.

The talks were expected to last several days, and the Chinese media reported today that a second meeting would take place.

But a spokesman for the State Department, Richard Boucher, indicated that the Chinese had been unwilling at the first meeting to discuss all the issues raised by the United States.

"There was no progress on the issue of return of the airplane," Mr. Boucher said at the State Department's noon briefing. "We have made quite clear that we look to the Chinese to take a positive and constructive attitude at these meetings."

Mr. Boucher said the United States ambassador in Beijing, Adm. Joseph W. Prueher, would visit the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday "to make that point again and to make the point that we're willing to have another meeting, but only if the Chinese are willing to discuss in a constructive manner" all issues, including the return of the airplane in Hainan.

The spokesman said there would be no news about further sessions until after the American ambassador held a scheduled meeting with the Chinese in Beijing on Thursday morning (Wednesday evening EDT).

"First thing we're going to do is we're going to sit down and talk to them about discussing the whole agenda productively," Mr. Boucher said.

A week ago, China released the 24-member crew of the spy plane after receiving what it characterized as an apology from the American side, which it said was responsible for the crash. But since then, American officials have made it clear that they believe that their pilots were blameless in the incident, which left a Chinese pilot dead and a $100 million spy plane in the hands of China's military.

Armed now with the testimony of crew members, American officials say that Wang Wei, the Chinese pilot, was a dangerous daredevil, who twice came within feet of the American plane before hitting its propeller on the third pass.

But on Monday a decree signed by President Jiang Zemin posthumously proclaimed Mr. Wang a hero, "a guardian of territorial airspace and waters." And today, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, condemned "irresponsible remarks by some U.S. officials recently, which didn't respect the facts and confused right and wrong."

Consequently, the meeting today began with little common ground beyond a vague mutually stated desire to preserve a constructive relationship.

"Reality is running up against China's propaganda machine, which had developed its own mythologies about this event," David Shambaugh, an expert on the Chinese military at George Washington University said earlier.

"The posture that both sides have taken and their lack of leeway, for domestic political reasons, suggests that it will be hard to accomplish much at this meeting, at least not quickly."

The planes collided about 60 miles outside of China's territorial waters. China has announced that it wants the United States to stop such reconnaissance flights. But American military officials have already said they plan to resume them, although no date has been set, and the United States wants to set up rules to keep Chinese and American planes at a safe distance from one another.

The eight-member American delegation is headed by Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Peter F. Verga, and its members are mostly from the military. The Chinese delegation is headed by Lu Shumin, director of the Americas Department at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and includes both Foreign Ministry and military officials.

The Chinese government has not specifically responded to the detailed accounts of the American crew members that have come out since their release last Thursday, after 11 days in detention. And the American version presents the Chinese government with a quandary.

Almost since the moment of impact, the Chinese government has vehemently insisted that the lumbering EP-3E Aries II spy plane turned suddenly in midflight, ramming the nimbler Chinese plane. It says the severely damaged American spy plane landed in China illegally because it did not issue a distress call or request permission to land.

Contradicting those assertions, Lt. Shane J. Osborn, the mission commander and pilot, said he recalled thinking, "This guy just killed us," as the Chinese pilot crashed into the American plane's wing, sending the plane into a 7,000-foot dive. Lieutenant Osborn said the EP-3E issued many landing requests - none of which were answered - before it landed on China's Hainan island.

Chinese popular opinion, which last week supported "standing up to U.S. hegemonism," seems to have softened a bit this week, particularly after word of the American version of events filtered into Beijing. Although the crew's accounts have not been repeated in the state news media, they are available on the Internet.

And though a large number of Chinese are still angered by what they consider an abrupt and dismissive initial statement by American officials after the collision, many people say they believe that it was merely an accident - one that should not damage China's relations with the United States.

"I don't think the U.S. needs to apologize to China, and the people I know agree with that - although few are willing to say it, " said Dai Qing, a writer and social commentator.

But while popular opinion seems to have been tempered a bit in Beijing, the Chinese government may be forced to stay at the extreme position that it hastily staked out at the beginning of this crisis, when officials demanded that the United States accept full responsibility for the collision.

"Although the collision was accidental, the escalating tension was not," said Ms. Dai, who complained that the government did not give people the information necessary to make a rational decision about the incident.

Backing down from the official version of events, already two weeks old, would severely damage the credibility of China's government and its propaganda machine. The best hope, experts say, may be for the United States and China to agree diplomatically to disagree - as they have on so many previous events.

"The common ground is a mutual desire to preserve the overall framework of the relationship," said Mr. Shambaugh, the expert on the Chinese military. "One has the sense now that this relationship is spinning downward and needs a floor."

---

Knotty Task of Beijing Talks:
Reconciling Reality With Posturing

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/world/18CHIN.html

BEIJING, April 17 - Negotiators from the United States arrived in Beijing today for meetings with Chinese officials to resolve issues surrounding the midair collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter. But the rhetorical gulf between the two sides seemed huge and - if anything - widening.

Last Thursday, China released the 24-member crew of the spy plane after receiving what it characterized as an apology from the American side, which it said was responsible for the crash. But since then, American officials have made it crystal clear that they believe that their pilots were blameless in the incident, which left a Chinese pilot dead and a $100 million spy plane in the hands of China's military.

As the time draws near for the meeting on Wednesday, agreed on as a condition of the crew's release, intercontinental finger pointing has increased.

Armed now with the testimony of crew members, American officials say that Wang Wei, the Chinese pilot, was a dangerous daredevil, who twice came within feet of the American plane before hitting its propeller on the third pass.

But on Monday a decree signed by President Jiang Zemin posthumously proclaimed Mr. Wang a hero, "a guardian of territorial airspace and waters." And today, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, condemned "irresponsible remarks by some U.S. officials recently, which didn't respect the facts and confused right and wrong."

At the meeting on Wednesday, there will be little specific common ground - just a vague mutually stated desire to preserve a constructive relationship.

"Reality is running up against China's propaganda machine, which had developed its own mythologies about this event," said David Shambaugh, an expert on the Chinese military at George Washington University.

"The posture that both sides have taken and their lack of leeway, for domestic political reasons, suggests that it will be hard to accomplish much at this meeting, at least not quickly."

The agenda will include a discussion of how the incident occurred, terms for return of the American spy plane and rules for future reconnaissance flights.

The planes collided about 60 miles outside of China's territorial waters. China has announced that it wants the United States to stop such reconnaissance flights. But American military officials have already said they plan to resume them, although no date has been set, and the United States wants to set up rules to keep Chinese and American planes at a safe distance from one another.

The eight-member American delegation is headed by Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Peter F. Verga, and its members are mostly from the military. The Chinese delegation is headed by Lu Shumin, director of the Americas Department at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and includes both Foreign Ministry and military officials.

The Chinese government has not specifically responded to the detailed accounts of the American crew members that have come out since their release last Thursday, after 11 days in detention. And the American version presents the Chinese government with a quandary.

Almost since the moment of impact, the Chinese government has vehemently insisted that the lumbering EP-3E Aries II spy plane turned suddenly in midflight, ramming the nimbler Chinese plane. It says the severely damaged American spy plane landed in China illegally because it did not issue a distress call or request permission to land.

Contradicting those assertions, Lt. Shane J. Osborn, the mission commander and pilot, said he recalled thinking, "This guy just killed us," as the Chinese pilot crashed into the American plane's wing, sending the plane into a 7,000-foot dive. Lieutenant Osborn said the EP-3E issued many landing requests - none of which were answered - before it landed on China's Hainan island.

Chinese popular opinion, which last week supported "standing up to U.S. hegemonism," seems to have softened a bit this week, particularly after word of the American version of events filtered into Beijing. Although the crew's accounts have not been repeated in the state news media, they are available on the Internet.

And though a large number of Chinese are still angered by what they consider an abrupt and dismissive initial statement by American officials after the collision, many people say they believe that it was merely an accident - one that should not damage China's relations with the United States.

"I don't think the U.S. needs to apologize to China, and the people I know agree with that - although few are willing to say it, " said Dai Qing, a writer and social commentator.

But while popular opinion seems to have been tempered a bit in Beijing, the Chinese government may be forced to stay at the extreme position that it hastily staked out at the beginning of this crisis, when officials demanded that the United States accept full responsibility for the collision.

"Although the collision was accidental, the escalating tension was not," said Ms. Dai, who complained that the government did not give people the information necessary to make a rational decision about the incident.

Backing down from the official version of events, already two weeks old, would severely damage the credibility of China's government and its propaganda machine. The best hope, experts say, may be for the United States and China to agree diplomatically to disagree - as they have on so many previous events.

"The common ground is a mutual desire to preserve the overall framework of the relationship," said Mr. Shambaugh, the expert on the Chinese military. "One has the sense now that this relationship is spinning downward and needs a floor."

------

China could force U.S. to escort planes

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
Published 4/18/01
Joseph Curl
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010418-30679124.htm

China´s conduct during today´s talks in Beijing over a U.S. surveillance plane will determine what measures the United States will take to protect the flights when they resume.

A Pentagon official told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity that if China continues to demand an end to the flights, an outcome the United States has ruled out, the Pentagon will then be forced to protect the EP-3Es, perhaps with fighter escorts.

But if China agrees the United States has a right to conduct surveillance missions in international airspace, the aircraft would likely deploy unescorted.

"If they acknowledge there´s an issue of safety and they agree we can fly in international airspace, we´d probably return to a normal approach," said one Pentagon official. "It´s not a question of whether we resume the flights, it´s a question of when."

However, China yesterday reiterated its refusal to return the $80 million surveillance plane and stepped up its anti-American rhetoric as diplomatic talks between the two nations began in Beijing.

"We are continuing our investigation, and we are going to treat or manage the plane according to the law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.

In Beijing this morning, U.S. officials remained reticent about the imminent talks.

Ambassador Joseph Prueher gave no details besides that the meeting was scheduled to start at 3 p.m. local time (3 a.m. EDT).

"There will be a very short at the end of the meetings," Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Peter F. Verga told reporters outside the U.S. Embassy.

While Beijing officials said the talks would be nonconfrontational, Mr. Zhu yesterday again blamed the United States for the collision, which left a Chinese pilot dead and 24 Americans in captivity for 11 days on a South China Sea island.

"Top U.S. officials have made irresponsible statements, ignoring our requests and confusing falsehoods with truth," Mr. Zhu said. "At this moment, they also are trying to blame us, and they must take full responsibility. We express our dissatisfaction. We are the victim."

Mr. Bush´s national security team -- including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met separately yesterday. Each group discussed options for resuming surveillance flights off China and for protecting the aircraft if necessary.

The United States took an equally tough stance, demanding return of the plane now held on Hainan island and reiterating that the reconnaissance flights themselves are not up for negotiation and will resume at a time and place that Washington will determine.

"Our position going into this is very clear," said Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley. "That EP-3 is American property and we want it back."

"The United States will continue surveillance and reconnaissance flights around the world," Adm. Quigley said in Washington. "I mean, we do this in international airspace, in full compliance with international law, and we have every right to do that."

American military chiefs will recommend a two-step approach to resuming surveillance flights near China beginning along the eastern coast, where Pentagon officials say Chinese fighter jets have been less aggressive, then extending south to the area where this month´s collision took place, defense officials in Washington said yesterday on the condition of anonymity.

"There is sensitivity with the airplane down south," one official told Reuters news agency. "What they are talking about is a measured approach to give the Chinese a chance to come to grips with international law."

Mr. Rumsfeld has not yet made his final recommendation to Mr. Bush, and the officials reiterated that the president´s decision is likely to depend in large part on the outcome of talks in Beijing.

Officials told the Associated Press that fighter escorts were unlikely, but they could not rule it out. These officials said that if fighters were used, they more likely would be land-based U.S. fighters in South Korea or Japan, rather than fighters aboard an aircraft carrier.

Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said continuous fighter escorts would be impractical and expensive, but he said that if China does not stop harassing U.S. surveillance planes, "the United States may well have to do something to demonstrate its resolve" possibly using escorts for a short time.

The United States yesterday also laid out for the first time a specific mechanism for return of the high-tech surveillance plane.

Adm. Quigley said one plan is to "get a team of aeronautical engineers familiar with the construction of the EP-3 onto the ground" to assess damage to the plane, caused when a Chinese fighter jet clipped a propeller on the EP-3E and broke apart, showering the Navy plane with debris.

"If that is doable and it´s acceptable to the Chinese, we could then consider sending in a repair team of some sort with the appropriate parts and the tools and the auxiliary equipment you would need to effect the repairs and fly the plane out," Adm. Quigley said.

"If the plane is not flyable, or if that solution is not acceptable to the Chinese for one reason or another, an alternative might be to literally disassemble the plane and then figure out a way to either fly the parts of the airplane off the island or ship them off the island in crates or something," he said.

Adm. Quigley upped the rhetoric as well, saying China´s refusal to return the EP-3E could hurt the communist country in dealings with other nations.

"Anybody who would be looking perhaps to make investments in China would seriously question whether or not the Chinese would have respect for property," he said.

Six of the eight members of the U.S. team are military officers or Defense Department officials. They include an expert on the EP-3E and Army Brig. Gen. Neal Sealock, the U.S. Embassy military attache who served as chief contact with the crew members during their captivity.

China´s delegation is led by Lu Shimin, director general of the Foreign Ministry´s North American and Oceanic Affairs Department, said spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue. She said military officials would also be in the delegation, but provided no details.

Anti-American rhetoric remained high in Beijing. China´s government-run newspaper, the People´s Daily, said today´s meeting was to discuss "the crash of a Chinese military plane rammed by a U.S. military surveillance plane."

Mr. Zhu, speaking to reporters in Caracas, Venezuela, where President Jiang Zemin was wrapping up a 12-day Latin America tour, accused the United States of violating international and Chinese law.

He claimed the EP-3E was flying "inside" a Chinese territorial zone before it was intercepted by two Chinese fighter planes. He also charged that the United States violated China´s sovereignty by landing at the military base in Hainan without first securing permission.

Mr. Zhu restated China´s version that it was the EP-3E that caused the collision by turning into the path of the Chinese fighter.

"We can call these a series of actions by the U.S. side, which violated international law and the internal laws of our country," the Chinese spokesman said.

------

Beyond the spy-plane issue: Keep engaging China

Christian Science Monitor
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2001
OPINION
By John Hughes
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/04/18/fpcon-natl.shtml

SALT LAKE CITY - A few days ago, at a convention of newspaper editors in Washington, I attended a remarkable reunion.

It was a reunion of editors who had made the first pilgrimage to China some 25 years ago, after it opened up to the West, and a number of Chinese officials who had been our interpreters on that month-long visit.

One of the Chinese present was Yao Wei, who had been my interpreter. Yao Wei spoke fluent English. He was incredibly bright and well informed. He could articulate the Communist line with ease. Mao Tse-tung was still alive, as was Chou En-Lai, with whom we had a fascinating four-hour midnight dialogue. China was gripped by Communist fervor. We assumed that anybody like Yao Wei, trusted by the regime to mix with visiting American journalists, was a party stalwart.

Fast forward to 2001. Yao Wei and his family, now as American as they come, are settled in the United States. They live in Texas, where Yao Wei is CEO of a helicopter-manufacturing company, concerned with profit margins and productivity.

In the same time that Yao Wei has been transformed from a Communist apparatchik to an American businessman, millions who still live in China have had their lives transformed, too. When I first went to China, workers longed for a sewing machine, a radio, a bicycle. Today they want a color TV and a car, and dream of vacations in Hawaii.

If history is any road map, this revolution of rising expectations will also lead China inevitably to greater political freedom. But that time has not yet come. China is not free. It treats many of its own people with disregard for basic human rights. It persecutes the Falun Gong religious movement. It threatens Taiwan. It held an American aircrew in an irascible standoff with Washington. While the governing Chinese regime has abandoned communism as an economic blueprint, it retains it as a means to maintain political power.

This is the challenge that confronts the Bush administration as it strives to maintain "engagement" and trade ties with a country that defies the norms of international behavior and discourse. A country, moreover, whose government is a coalition of diverse factions with different agendas on the eve of a succession struggle. Not the least perplexing for those charged with managing the Bush administration's relations with China is the role of the hard-line Chinese military versus the role of the pragmatic politicians.

That attempt at engagement begins anew today, when Americans and Chinese try to bring closure to the crisis caused by the downing of an American reconnaissance plane. Dozens of countries - including China - routinely engage in such intelligence-gathering in international waters and air space. For the United States, it is done more cheaply and efficiently by planes eavesdropping from a distance of 200 miles than by satellites from 20,000 miles away. There is nothing unethical or illegal about such intelligence-gathering, pursued as it already is against the US by a string of other countries. The US has said it will resist Chinese pressure to abandon such flights, and it should.

Next comes the critical question of selling American weapons systems to Taiwan, including Aegis-equipped destroyers, antimissile batteries, and submarines. China requires the ultimate reintegration of Taiwan with China, and says it wants that to be peaceful.

But irritated by independence talk in Taiwan, the Chinese have been beefing up their missile bases and military units within striking distance of Taiwan. Under these circumstances, Taiwan has a legitimate reason for buying upgraded defensive weaponry from the US.

Several other issues loom. The US should favor trade with China and the facilitation thereof. That will help draw China into the 21st century. The United States should not block China's bid to host the Olympic Games in 2008. If China wins that campaign, it might be short-term protection for Taiwan. China would surely understand that any military action against Taiwan before 2008 would torpedo their hosting of the Olympics.

President Bush should proceed with plans to hold a summit meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin later this year. The outcome of that summit, however, needs to be carefully orchestrated in advance. The complexity of the US-China relationship is such that both leaders must come away with tangible results. This is no occasion for an aimless exchange of chit-chat, or far worse, a face-losing affront.

Such is the state of play with China, for what promises to be the most challenging foreign-policy problem of President Bush's first term.

• John Hughes is a former editor of the Monitor, and currently editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret News.

--------

Russia Passes Spy Plane Treaty

Excite News
April 18, 2001
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010418/21/int-russia-spy-planes

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's lower house of Parliament on Wednesday ratified a treaty allowing other countries to fly surveillance flights over its territory - a pact that aimed at preventing confrontations like the recent U.S.-Chinese standoff over a spy plane.

The treaty was approved in the 450-member State Duma lower house, said Sergei Butin, a spokesman for the international relations committee. It now goes to the Federation Council, the upper house of Parliament.

Failure to ratify the treaty by Russia and Belarus has kept the pact, signed in 1992, from going into effect. Belarus has said it will wait for Russia to ratify it. The treaty now goes to the upper house of parliament.

China is not a signatory to the treaty, which would in theory prevent confrontations like the one between the U.S. EP-3E and the Chinese fighter sent to intercept it. The two planes collided on April 1, killing the Chinese pilot and leading to the 11-day detention of the U.S. plane's crew after it made an emergency landing in China.

Other countries can join the treaty six months after it takes effect.

Russia has shown new interest in arms control treaties as the new U.S. administration makes it clear it will push ahead with a national missile defense system regardless of other countries' objections.

The Open Skies Treaty was negotiated between countries that belonged to NATO and the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact. The U.S. Senate ratified it in 1993.

It is unrelated to other so-called "open skies" trade agreements that concern airline landing rights.

Under the pact, each country is allotted a quota of flights it can make over other countries' territories using specified aircraft with sensors determined by the treaty.

The pact is a confidence-building measure - that is, it permits countries to observe other countries' military activities and reassure themselves that they are not preparing for war.

The concept was first proposed by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. While the treaty has lost some of its urgency with the end of the Cold War, one arms control expert said the Russian lawmakers' move was encouraging.

The treaty is "a useful step forward in terms of advancing toward transparency in military affairs," said Daryl Kimball, executive director Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers.

---

To be a fly on the wall

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com
Published 4/18/01
Helle Bering
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010418-2457708.htm

One imagines there will be a certain chill in the air, a good bit of frisson, when American and Chinese negotiators meet today to discuss the fate of the stranded U.S. EP-3E surveillance plane on Hainan island. What do you say when your airmen and women were "detained" for 12 days, prevented from sleeping and fed a diet of fish heads? (Some have suggested that this very same method was inflicted on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to produce the Oslo Middle East accord.)

What to say when desperate May Day calls from the American plane were utterly ignored by Chinese authorities, in defiance of civilized aviation behavior the world over? What to say when your $80-million airplane has been damaged, ransacked, picked over by Chinese soldiers and is still held against American wishes?

"Nice to see you"?

Hardly.

The Bush administration has already said we were "very sorry" for the loss of the Chinese pilot who caused the incident. Well, as the Chinese will have picked up, not all of us were that sorry, except for the reason that the U.S. plane got into such a pickle in the first place on Hainan island. President Bush has toughened his tone considerably following the safe return of the crew. Here in Washington, now is the time for recriminations to begin, as we like to say on the editorial page.

Being a fly on the wall at today´s meeting would be interesting, not only for the drama itself, but for the importance it will have for the future of U.S.-China relations. It is, in a way, a moment of truth. Or perhaps one of the moments of truth in a fraught relationship.

Basically, this situation can go either of two ways. One is escalating confrontation, the other a cooling of relations that will remain manageable, but not comfortable.

The fuel to stock a fire is definitely there. Among the issues currently occupying the United States and China are arms sales to Taiwan, which are to be decided next week.

There´s the question of China´s WTO membership, which is still pending following Chinese demands for changes in negotiated agreements, and China´s trading status with the United States, which comes up for renewal in June. Members of Congress have written to the president hoping to revoke China´s trade privileges.

There´s the 2008 Olympics, which Beijing dearly wants to host. And there´s Mr. Bush´s tentatively planned visit to Beijing this summer.

Mr. Bush has given his negotiators four specific assignments:

• Ensure the return of the plane, which is obviously U.S. property.

• Convey to the Chinese the American understanding of who´s to blame here.

• Discuss how accidents can be avoided in the future as the United States resumes surveillance flights (scheduled for tomorrow).

• And ask tough questions about the behavior of Chinese pilots as they try to intercept American surveillance flights, which according to U.S. pilots have become increasingly aggressive in the months leading up to the accident.

The Chinese for their part want:

• The United States to cease the surveillance flights, which inconveniently protect the sea lanes of the Taiwan Strait.

• The United States to refrain from selling submarines, Aegis destroyers, and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to Taiwan will only encourage Taiwan´s independence movement.

Even with all the anger in the air, chances are that ultimately the commission that meets today will have a calming effect. Both sides will be able to air their grievances and in the end, they will probably agree to disagree on how it happened, issuing two different statements and achieving the same diplomatic fuzziness that characterized the release of the crew. Based on the style and outcome of those negotiations that is the likely outcome. A permanent commission to set guidelines for accident avoidance in the air has precedent with the Soviets. Will trade be affected? Again the answer is probably not, given the influence of business interests when the time comes for Congress to vote on Normal Trade Relations. There is no doubt that the vote will be more contentious than ever.

This does not mean, though, that we should proceed with business as usual. Taiwan needs to get the arms it has requested to counter the build-up of Chinese missiles. Our surveillance flights must continue. As for Beijing´s bid for the Olympics, that has to be off the table. Communists are experts in symbolism and do not deserve to be handed this honor. Nor should they be granted the diplomatic pleasure of an American presidential visit at this time. We know only too well the kind of diplomatic manipulation Beijing will inflict on the U.S. president because we saw it happen only a few years ago.

China´s actions are not those of a friendly nation and must have consequences. The Chinese obviously never respected Bill Clinton or his emissaries, which is part of the problem Mr. Bush is facing now.

Therefore, the president has to show he is made of different mettle.

E-mail: hbering@washingtontimes.com

-------- terrorism

Subpoena for Albright in Bombings Trial

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/world/18TERR.html

A federal judge in Manhattan agreed yesterday to sign a subpoena seeking testimony from former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright for a defendant in the embassy bombings trial, but prosecutors are expected to ask the judge to quash it.

In court, a defense lawyer for Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, the defendant, complained that Dr. Albright was receiving special treatment because of the government's opposition to her court appearance.

"Quite candidly, if this were a subpoena for Joe the Ragman, they would be brought here," the lawyer, David P. Baugh, told Judge Leonard B. Sand of Federal District Court.

Mr. Baugh said that if his client was convicted, he wanted Dr. Albright's testimony for the penalty phase of the trial. Mr. Baugh wants to question her on the American sanctions on Iraq and other topics in the hopes of reducing the likelihood of an execution. The government has said Dr. Albright's testimony would be inadmissible.

Judge Sand, suggesting that he had questions about the subpoena, said he would sign it "simply to move the matter forward to the next step." A spokeswoman for Dr. Albright had no comment.

-------- activists

Public Lives: Inside a Soccer Mom, a 60's Agitator Roars

New York Times
April 18, 2001
By ROBIN FINN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/nyregion/18PROF.html

MAYBE it's the "interim" attached to her new title as interim executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union - things seemed a shade more raucous during Norman Siegel's 15-year tenure - that modulated Donna Lieberman's quiet inheritance of Mr. Siegel's spacious 17th-floor office and agitator's pulpit four months back when he declared his candidacy for public advocate (and put himself permanently out of a job at the nonpartisan civil liberties union).

She moved in her coffee maker, her files and family photos, and snapshots from her favorite demonstrations - if the cause is abortion rights, Ms. Lieberman never misses a march - but for the first several weeks at the helm she kept her mouth conspicuously shut. Out of shyness?

"Come on, compared to Norman, everybody's shy," protests Ms. Lieberman, at 52 an aging but unbowed activist (she'll be first aboard the bus to the Emergency Action for Women's Lives demonstration outside the White House this weekend). She's also an unmarried Upper West Side "big- time soccer mom" with two teenagers and a partner, Bill Stampur, and now a spokeswoman for New York's disfranchised. If the pursuit of civil liberties is an out-of-fashion career in the Internet age, call her dowdy.

"I was finding my way; putting my priorities in order," she says about low-keying her promotion at the organization, where she directed the Reproductive Rights Project for the past dozen years until taking over for the man who recruited her in 1989 from City College - she was an associate professor in the urban legal studies program. "Norman said, `You've got to come here; we're doing great stuff,' and so here I am," says Ms. Lieberman, who hopes she retains her position after the board completes its search for Mr. Siegel's permanent successor. "Where else do you get to do something you absolutely, totally, 100 percent believe in, and get paid for it?"

But the shrinking-violet transitional phase of Ms. Lieberman, who still takes evident pleasure in describing herself as an S.D.S. major at Harvard/Radcliffe in the waning 60's (for those who didn't major in Flower Power nostalgia, that's Students for a Democratic Society, and somehow she never got arrested) is history. She is finding her voice and - guess what, Mr. Mayor? - it's an angry one. Almost as angry as in the grand old student activist days when she helped chase R.O.T.C., Dow Chemical and Robert S. McNamara out of Cambridge and agitated for the creation of an African-American studies department.

"Back then you felt like you could change the world," she says, her blue eyes appropriately misty, "and indeed we did. To sort of be able to continue my college activism full time as an adult, I'm mindful of how lucky I am."

LAST week she simultaneously denounced Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's plan for revamping the Civilian Complaint Review Board's prosecutorial powers as "a sham" and vowed to make legal difficulties for his pet project, the so- called decency-in-art panel. This week she scolded the Fire Department for what she called the racial insensitivity inherent in its tentative decision to hire a police officer who took part in the Amadou Diallo shooting. And she is on the verge of filing a lawsuit against the city on behalf of Terence Hunter, the Staten Island man who spent a night in jail in January after the police mistook a letter he wrote to Borough President Guy V. Molinari protesting the closing of a youth center as a threat against the politician.

"Mayor Giuliani keeps us very busy," says Ms. Lieberman, working up the first in a stream of reflexive smirks inspired by Mr. Giuliani and his - in her view - depthless reservoir of politically incorrect pedantry, posturing and policies. When she refers to him as "the scion of morality," she stomps her feet, then gestures toward the specialty T-shirt draped against the copy of the Declaration of Independence that decorates her doorway. The message on the shirt blares: Stop the Censorship. It was designed after Mr. Giuliani tried to close the Brooklyn Museum over its "Sensation" exhibition in 1999; now its target is his decency panel.

"I think his latest attack on freedom of expression is almost hard to fathom," she says. "It runs so counter not just to the principles of the First Amendment but to the gestalt of New York City. New York is supposed to be the cultural capital of the country, if not the world, and here we have a mayor who's appointed a board of censors!" Ms. Lieberman loves her museums and there's no way, she says, the mayor will be allowed to bully them.

Ms. Lieberman's liberalism is as natural as her unruly brown hair: she organized her first civil-rights-linked event while still in high school in Cranford, N.J., where her teacher mother and businessman father both encouraged awareness of civil liberties issues. After reading that white supremacists opposed to integration had shut down the public school system in Prince Edward County, Va., birthplace of a classmate, she set up a benefit concert to raise money for a private school struggling to educate black students there.

Her decision to become "a people's lawyer" was inspired by Arthur Kinoy, one of the defense lawyers in the Chicago Seven trial, which arose from demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. After getting her law degree from Rutgers University, she went directly to the Legal Aid Society, and the South Bronx.

"I felt like a cog in the system," she says. Not anymore.
------

THE QUEBEC WALL
What lies behind the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)?

by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics,
University of Ottawa [18 April 2001]
Emperor's Clothes
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/quebec.htm www.tenc.net

The Summit of the Americas will be held inside a four kilometer "bunker" made of concrete and galvanized steel fencing. The 10 feet high "Quebec Wall" encircles part of the historic city center including the parliamentary compound of the National Assembly, hotels and shopping areas. Cars will enter through closely guarded checkpoints; laissez-passers have been issued to official delegations, to the CEOs of major banks and corporations, as well as approved media and "selected invitees." (Click to see map of the "Security Perimeter" at http://www.securitesommet.ca/pages/p_citoyen/p_cito_pe_f.html).

Outside the bunker, more than 6,000 police and security forces are on hand, equipped not only with "pepper spray" but also with "multi-shot" Arwen 37 guns shooting hard-coated plastic bullets. The latter --according to a RCMP spokesperson-- are

"... 'meant to crack a rib and put them in a lot of pain', ... Tactical squads are usually required to test such less-lethal weapons --such as Tasers, which deliver electric shocks-- on themselves. But Toronto Police Constable Leighton said it would be 'too dangerous' to do so with the Arwen." 1

With Canadian Armed Forces personnel dispatched to Quebec's capital from military bases in Nova Scotia, the security apparatus in Quebec promises to be "better organized" than at the Seattle WTO Millenium Summit in 1999. In Seattle, the city's riot police was integrated with Gang Squads and SWAT teams of the Tactical Operations Divisions constituting the "more militarized components" of the police force.

By any standard this is the largest police operation in North America directed against ordinary citizens. Rather than "cordoning off" the conference center which is standard practice in international summits-- the Canadian authorities have chosen to "fence in" a large part of the downtown area --not only denying the rights of citizens to protest but also preventing residents from moving around within their own city.

And those who defy the Quebec Wall will be taken to Orsainville penitentiary which has been emptied of its entire prison population (including several members of the Hells Angels) to make room for these more dangerous "troublemakers."

THE QUEBEC WALL IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Barely a week before the Summit, the Canadian and provincial governments, the City of Quebec and Quebec City's Police force were taken to court by a Montreal lawyer and the Vancouver based Canadian Liberty Committee (CLC). In a signed affidavit, the Canadian government representative stated that democracy was not under threat, to ensure:

''freedom of expression ... the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has [sent] invitations to the Summit to approximately 60 representatives of interest groups and lobby groups." 2

Moreover, "alternative protest sites" ("sites alternatifs de manifestation") have been designated --on the other side of the Wall-- so that the rank and file of these same civil society organisations can do their own thing.

The "People's Summit", organized by NGOs and major trade unions-- will receive "financial contributions for the holding of seminars, colloquia and public meetings."3 The federal government has allocated Can$287,000-- a comfortable amount of money, but "peanuts" in comparison to the 46 million dollar budget allocated by Ottawa for the police operation and the erection of the Wall.

WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT

The official list of civil society invitees has not been made public but we have a good idea who the "partner" civil society organizations are. The invitees include leaders of major trade union federations as well as several CEOs of mainstream NGOs. 4

The ritual is broadly similar to that of the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) Millenium Summit. Several months ahead of time, the WTO and Western governments had called for a "dialogue" with the leaders of selected civil society organisations. A carefully worded AFL-CIO petition had been drafted urging the WTO Summit to adopt "trade and investment rules [which] protect workers' rights and the environment". In Seattle, Labor's buzzword was to "make the global economy work for working families". 5

Similarly, last January at the global business Summit in Davos --regrouping the World's top corporate execs, heads of State and VIPs, the leaders of some 59 "civil society" organisations --including the CEOs of Greenpeace, Oxfam UK, Amnesty International and Save the Children Alliance-- were also in attendance.

The ploy is to selectively handpick civil society leaders "whom we can trust" and integrate them into a "dialogue", cut them off from their rank and file, make them feel that they are "global citizens" acting on behalf of their fellow workers but make them act in a way which serves the interests of the corporate establishment:

The participation of NGOs in the Annual Meeting in Davos is evidence of the fact that [we] purposely seek to integrate a broad spectrum of the major stakeholders in society in ... defining and advancing the global agenda ... We believe the [Davos] World Economic Forum provides the business community with the ideal framework for engaging in collaborative efforts with the other principal stakeholders [NGOs] of the global economy to "improve the state of the world," which is the Forum's mission. 6

AFL-CIO's John Sweeney and Canadian Labor Congress (CLC) Ken Georgetti --together with Bill Jordan of the International Confederation of Free trade Unions (ICTFU)-- were also in Davos, mingling in a friendly environment with financier George Soros, Microsoft's Bill Gates and World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Meanwhile the rank and file protesters of these "civil society" organisations were being beaten with clubs and assaulted with water cannons by the Swiss riot police "outside" the Conference venue at the "counter-Davos."

RITUAL OF DISSENT

In the New World Order, the ritual of inviting "civil society" leaders into the inner circles of power --while simultaneously repressing the rank and file-- serves several important functions. First, it says to the World that the critics of globalization "must make concessions" to earn the right to mingle. Second, it conveys the illusion that while the global elites should --under what is euphemistically called democracy-- be subject to criticism, they nonetheless rule legitimately. And third, it says "there is no alternative" to globalization: fundamental change is not possible and the most we can hope is to engage with these rulers in an ineffective "give and take".

While the "Globalizers" may adopt a few progressive phrases to demonstrate they have good intentions, their fundamental goals are not challenged. And what this "civil society mingling" does is to reinforce the clutch of the corporate establishment while weakening and dividing the protest movement.

An understanding of this process of co-optation is important, because tens of thousands of the most principled young people in Seattle, Prague and Quebec City are involved in the anti-globalization protests because they reject the notion that money is everything, because they reject the impoverishment of millions and the destruction of fragile Earth so that a few may get richer. This rank and file and some of their leaders as well, are to be applauded. But we need to go further. We need to challenge the right of the "Globalizers" to rule. This requires that we rethink the strategy of protest. Can we move to a higher plane, by launching mass movements in our respective countries, movements that bring the message of what globalization is doing, to ordinary people? For they are the force that must be mobilized to challenge those who would plunder the Globe.

THE FTAA: PRIVATIZATION OF A HEMISPHERE, UNDER U.S. CONTROL

The FTAA is a good deal more than a trade agreement. Throughout the Americas, it would radically transform the social existence of sovereign nations.

Fundamental economic, social and institutional relations would be enshrined into a set of legally binding conditions. All public services that are at least in part subsidized by the State, would be opened up to international tender under the terms of the proposed clauses on "national treatment." If a government finances health or education, this service must be opened to international bidding. And who would bid? The large corporations would take control, all community based facilities would be transformed into profit-making undertakings ---schools, sports clubs, day-care centers, everything.

Moreover, the FTAA clauses would literally allow for the privatization of municipalities. Water, sewer systems, roads and municipal services would be owned and operated by private companies (rather than by citizens) much in the same way as the "gated communities" in the US. More generally, the FTAA would destroy local economies, depress wages and impoverish millions of people. The agreement --entrenched in international law-- would annul or invalidate national laws.

The FTAA would also allow for the privatization of water, inter-city highways as well as entire urban areas. The FTAA would also lead to the demise of national, regional and municipal governments.

IMF MEDICINE BECOMES PERMANENT

Moreover, under FTAA rules, the enforcement of the IMF's deadly "economic medicine" --which has served to destroy national economies and impoverish developing countries --would no longer hinge upon cumbersome loan agreements, which for the governments had the advantage that they were not "legally binding" documents.

But under FTAA rules, Latin American governments would have no political leverage whatsoever; they would loose their "right" to even negotiate with their creditors: the "economic medicine" would become permanently entrenched in international law. Countries would not longer be "bonded" by external debt; they would be permanently "enslaved" by their creditors.

CHARTER OF RIGHTS FOR CORPORATIONS

The FTAA would grant a "charter of rights" to corporations, which would not only override national laws but would also enable private companies to sue national governments, demand the annulment of national laws and receive compensation for potential lost profits which result from government regulations.

While some of these broad issues will be debated at the People's Summit, they have not been included in the demands of trade union leaders from the US, Canada and Latin America. Regrouped under the umbrella of the ICFTU, The trade unions have called upon the FTAA Summit to include the usual core labor standards, environmental and human rights clauses in the agreement.

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

This is not a trade deal; it is the American Empire. Behind the FTAA are the powers of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. Ironically, while local economies including public services would be deregulated, under the FTAA the production of weapons of mass destruction by America's major defense contractors would remain heavily subsidized...

Although not officially on the FTAA agenda, the militarization of South America under "Plan Colombia", the signing of a "parallel" military cooperation protocol by 27 countries of the Americas (the so-called Declaration of Manaus) is an integral part of the process of hemispheric integration. US strategic interests are at stake.

The imposition of "free" trade by Washington is an instrument of economic conquest which serves US corporate interests as well as those of the military-intelligence-apparatus. Trade Negotiator Richard Zoellnick --who is slated to play a key role in Quebec City-- is part of the Bush National Security Team working closely with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

DOLLARISATION

The deregulation of national banking institutions is part and parcel of the Summit agenda. Supported by the Bush administration, Wall Street wants to extend its control throughout the hemisphere, eventually displacing or taking over existing national financial institutions.

With the help of the IMF, Washington is also bullying Latin American countries into accepting the US dollar as their national currency. The greenback has already been imposed on five Latin American countries including Ecuador, Argentina, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The economic and social consequences of "dollarisation" have been devastating. In these countries, Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve system directly control monetary policy. The entire structure of public expenditure is controlled by US creditors. Real wages have collapsed, social programs have been destroyed, large sectors of the population have been driven into abysmal poverty.

While not officially part of the FTAA Summit agenda, the adoption of the US dollar as the common currency for the Western Hemisphere is being discussed behind closed doors.

Militarisation and "dollarisation" are the essential building blocks of the American Empire.

DISARMING THE NEW WORLD ORDER

With mounting dissent from all sectors of society against the FTAA, the official Summit desperately needs the token participation of "civil society" leaders "on the inside", to give the appearance of being "democratic." The Summit is seeking the endorsement of these organizations in exchange for token modifications of the Agreement, which do not put into doubt the overall legitimacy of the FTAA nor modify substantially the workings of the proposed free trade area.

The hidden agenda is to weaken and divide the protest movement and orient the anti-globalization movement into areas that do not directly threaten the interests of the business establishment and --more importantly-- which do not raise the broader issue of Washington's political hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush's trade negotiator Robert Zoellnick is preparing fast-track legislation packaged under the "presidential trade promotion authority", with a view to rushing the FTAA (without amendments) through the US Congress. In other words, instating the American Empire will not be subjected to the uncertainties of parliamentary consent.

In turn, in consultation with the AFL-CIO, the powerful Business Roundtable (BR) and The Emergency Committee for American Trade (ECAT) --integrated by the representatives of America's largest corporations-- are pushing the line of the trade union bosses, they are demanding the Bush administration "to make labor and environmental standards part of future trade talks."6

While most of the protesters who have converged on Quebec City (including Quebec's vibrant student movement) reject the trade deal outright, the leaders of some of the mainstream "civil society" groups want to get their human rights, democracy, labor and environmental clauses embedded into the official texts and then "cry victory," we've done it! 7 However, by doing this they would not only go against their rank and file, they would also provide --without fully realizing the implications-- legitimacy to an all encompassing process which destroys institutions and impoverishes millions of people.

The American Empire cannot be amended; it must be rejected, fought and defeated. The FTAA must be closed down!

ENDNOTES

1. Toronto Star, 22 March 2001.

2. Canada, Province de Quebec, District de Quebec, Cours supérieure, No. 200-05-014848-019, Affidavit de Denis Ricard, Section II, paragragh 16).

3. According to the signed affidavit, Canada, Province de Québec, op cit.

4. CLC K. Georgetti and AFL-CIO J. Sweeney are also on the guest list of the official FTAA Summit in Quebec City. While the Council of Canadians (COC) has stated that it will decline Ottawa's invitation, Matthew Coon Come, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations has accepted. Among union leaders, the President of the Quebec's FTQ Henry Massé has accepted, while making clear that he will also be participating (outside the bunker) in the People's Summit in solidarity with his rank and file.

5. See AFL-CIO, "Make the Global Economy Work for Working Families", http://www.wslc.org/wto/index.htm. , October 1999)

6. See World Economic Forum, Press Release, http://www.weforum.org/whatwedo.nsf/documents/what+we+do?Open 5 January 2001.

7. In these Times, 16 April 2001

Related texts by Michel Chossudovsky:

Seattle and Beyond: Disarming the New World Order, November 1999 at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/seattle.htm

Global Poverty in the Late 20th Century, Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1999 at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chossu.htm.

CBC "Commentary", on the FTAA and the likely fate of the Canadian Dollar, CBC, 9 April 2001.

C Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, April 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to post this text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. The text can also be photocopied for non-commercial distribution. To publish this text in printed and/or other forms contact the author at chossudovsky@videotron.ca, fax: 1-514-4256224.

www.tenc.net [Emperor's Clothes]

-------

Quebec police charge six with possession of explosives

Organization: Community Network
From: "Edward Pickersgill" <Lab@assets.net>
Wed, 18 Apr 2001
CBCNEWS
http://cbc.ca/news

QUEBEC CITY-- Police have arrested six people, all Canadians, who they say were involved in transporting bomb-making material to Quebec City, just days before the official opening of the Summit of the Americas.

"They planned to try to break the perimeter, to affect security," said a spokesman for the RCMP.

Two people, both in their 20s, were arrested Tuesday as they headed to the city and were charged with possession of explosive substances, theft and possession of military materials. The suspects were also carrying four smoke bombs, five gas masks, two bags of ball bearings and a number of baseball bats.

Four more people were arrested in the Montreal and Laval regions on Wednesday. Police say a search of their premises turned up two timing devices.

The arrests mark the culmination of an investigation that began last fall and involved the Quebec provincial police, the RCMP and the Canadian military. One of those arrested is a member of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve.

A seventh suspect is being sought.

Police say the group was highly organized and structured.

Mike Gaudet of the RCMP told a news conference in Quebec City it was clear the group was planning to use the devices "for dangerous purposes."

"Theses devices could create confusion, panic, in a group of demonstrators or a crowd. If they explode near a person they can cause serious injury," said Gaudet.

Quebec City police also made an arrest overnight. An American was arrested in the city on Tuesday night for carrying a knife.

--------

6 arrested, arsenal seized in Summit security move
Police haul includes crude explosives, smoke bombs

Organization: Community Network
From: "Edward Pickersgill" <Lab@assets.net>
Wed, 18 Apr 2001
TORONTO STAR, 18 APRIL 2001

QUEBEC (CP) - In a pre-emptive strike against possible troublemakers at the Summit of the Americas, police have arrested six people, including a Canadian Forces reservist, and seized a vast array of explosive materials.

The police haul netted several crude explosives, four smoke bombs, shields, bags of steel balls, baseball bats, helmets, hammers and spray paint.

The six men belonged to a group that planned to strike at this weekend's global trade meeting in Quebec City, officers from the RCMP, Quebec provincial police and two municipal forces told a news conference Wednesday.

Potential terrorist attacks have dominated preparations for the summit, which will feature 34 leaders from the Western Hemisphere. ''They planned precise acts at precise times in precise places,'' said provincial police Insp. Robert Poeti.

The six were charged with various counts including conspiracy to commit mischief likely to endanger life; possession of an explosive substance with intent to use it; and theft and possession of military devices.

Two of the six were arrested near Quebec City on Tuesday night as they drove in from Montreal. Four others were arrested in the Montreal area on Wednesday morning.

Army reserve member Serge Vallee, 21, is accused of stealing military equipment and supplying it to members of a Montreal-based group that police described Wednesday as made up of ''activists.''

The suspects planned to wade into a throng of protesters and, once in the crowd, launch attacks that could endanger security officers and other protesters, police said.

Also facing charges is former Canadian Forces member Alex Boissonneault, 22.

Police were also looking for a seventh suspect.

Found among the weapons were red flags and a helmet emblazoned with Communist emblems like the hammer and sickle of the former Soviet Union.

However, police refused to say whether the group had a political motive.

The arrests came after an investigation that began last fall, said police, adding that other people are under surveillance.

In an unrelated incident, an American minor was arrested in Quebec City for allegedly being in possession of a knife and pepper spray.

He was freed Wednesday on $200 bail.

Police believe that between 10,000 and 20,000 protesters will flock to the city for the summit where leaders will negotiate an extended free-trade pact.

Organizers of protests in Seattle in 1999 and members of anarchist fringe groups are expected to be among the demonstrators. About 6,000 officers from the RCMP, Quebec provincial police and two municipal forces will be on hand, as well as 1,200 military personnel.

Meanwhile, a judge ruled Wednesday that a giant security fence placed around downtown Quebec City for the summit will remain in place.

Justice Gilles Blanchet, in a 30-page judgment, said the metal fence is a reasonable limit to impose in a free and democratic society considering the importance of the event and past violence at similar meetings.

The fence can stay ''because of the violent incidents during similar summits held around the world over the last several years,'' Blanchet wrote.

However, he added that the fence does impose some restrictions on individual freedoms.

''The security measures place significant restrictions on two fundamental liberties guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly,'' Blanchet wrote.

Blanchet said the size of the summit - which he called ''the largest international political event ever organized by the government of Canada'' - makes such security necessary.

Montreal lawyer Marc Tremblay, who went to court to get the fence dismantled, said he doesn't agree with the judgment. ''Obviously, I'm disappointed with the decision,'' Tremblay said.

Tremblay plans to appeal the verdict even if it's too late to have the fence torn down before the summit, said an intervenor in the case. ''The fence is a symbol of the destruction of our rights,'' said Clara Fogal, a director at the Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee. ''The summit is only here today, gone tomorrow. We are defending the rights of Canadians.''

The committee and one of its constitutional experts argued the case alongside Tremblay. Fogal said the case may one day end up before the Supreme Court.

Fogal said Canada has no rights to impose such drastic security measures unless the federal government invokes special legislation.

''We have mechanisms in our system on how to apply such security,'' she said in an interview.

''There are steps that have to be taken that guarantee the protection of citizens.''

---

Worry about the 'Blue Bloc', not the 'Black Bloc'
Blue Bloc is the most dangerous

Organization: Community Network
From: "Edward Pickersgill" <Lab@assets.net>
Wed, 18 Apr 2001
by Kevin Smith kevsmith@hotmail.com

CLAC spokesperson Jaggi Singh argues that the leaders of the countries involved in the Summit of the Americas, and the police and paramilitary they are bringing along are the real perpetrators of violence in the world -- not the 'black bloc'.

As the Quebec Summit approaches, the corporate media have circulated many horror stories about protesters who will be attending the Summit, and what actions they are likely to take. Boarded windows can be seen throughout the city, as these reports have unnerved shopkeepers, who are expecting windows to be smashed by a group called the "Black Bloc".

"There are violent people coming to Quebec - the 34 leaders of the countries attending the summit have been responsible for thousands of deaths," says Jaggi Singh, a media spokesperson for CLAC (one of the groups organizing Summit protests). He also noted that they will be accompanied by a large complement of police and paramilitary, who have also been responsible for violence in the past. "Don't worry about the Black Bloc; worry about the Blue Bloc [the police]".

"These leaders are not committed to non-violence. They have bombed Baghdad, Belgrade, and they have refused life-saving drugs for people with AIDS," he says.

CLAC is a French acronym for "Anti-capitalist convergence". Jaggi Singh says that their organizing is distinct in three ways. First, their organizational style is non-hierarchical, in that they try their best to have open meetings and to make decisions by consensus, rather than having leaders or select committees. Their analysis gets to the root of problems - capitalism and imperialism - instead of just opposing specific trade agreements. Finally, they support a 'diversity of tactics' - realizing that different people and groups have different ideas about effective protest, and different definitions of non-violence.

"The media tries to portray 'good' activists and 'bad' activists," he says, arguing it is better to stand together with mutual respect for others in the same struggle, and discuss our differences, rather than dismissing the tactics of other groups.

The 'Black Bloc' is a collection of autonomous individuals who are identified by black clothing, and tend to use more confrontational tactics. Their analysis is similar to the CLAC group, but their tactics tend to be more spontaneous than any of the other organizations involved. Their members may be seen participating with other groups and activities as well.

On Friday, CLAC and CASA (the Quebec City group), will be involved in a "Carnival Against Capitalism" -- a variety of actions, ranging from street theatre, cheerleading, and puppets, to militant confrontation. Their goal is to educate and to disrupt. How these actions will play out, and what the police response will be, is anyone's guess at this point.

www.quebec2001.net


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