------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Skipper promised 'open mind' in disciplinary hearing
Ties to Taiwan
Somebody's lying about depleted uranium
Supplier of UK's depleted uranium set to go boom
Panel: Expand missile defense
U.S. considers developing low-yield nuclear bomb
Waste dump official gave senator campaign donation
Goshutes look past the threat

MILITARY
U.S. Identified Baptists' Plane as Drug Carrier
Missionaries who survived Peru crash return to U.S.
Bush: U.S. tried to identify drug smugglers
States
Endeavour astronauts perform spacewalk

OTHER
California
Counties fight to keep hazardous waste away
States
Earth Day celebrations bring criticism for Bush
Democrats See Gold in Environment
Bush administration defends environmental record
All Together Now
Bush Links Trade With Democracy at Quebec Talks
Leaders sign agreement for trade pact by 2005
Leaders agree to open their markets by Dec. 2005
Summit leaders taped during closed-door session
Nebraska
Foreign language experts lacking in U.S. Security
In Embassy Bombings Case, Putting a Face on Men Confronting Death


-------- NUCLEAR

Skipper promised 'open mind' in disciplinary hearing

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 12:24 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-22-waddle.htm

HONOLULU (AP) - The skipper of the USS Greeneville has been assured his disciplinary hearing Monday will be conducted "with an open mind" and expects to retire with full pension and an honorable discharge, his attorney said.

Cmdr. Scott Waddle plans to travel to Japan after he retires to meet with families of the nine Japanese students and adults killed when the Greeneville collided with the school's fishing boat on Feb. 9, said civilian attorney Charles Gittins.

Waddle's commanding officer, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Thomas Fargo, will punish Waddle Monday at a hearing known as an "admiral's mast," rather than institute a court-martial proceeding. It will mean the end of Waddle's Navy career, although he will not face the prospect of prison.

"He will retire as commander, with full pension and with an honorable characterization of discharge, consistent with the character of his 20 years service," Gittins told The Associated Press.

Waddle has apologized and accepted full blame for the collision that sank the Ehime Maru. The collision occurred as the giant submarine was conducting a rapid resurfacing exercise in waters off Hawaii.

Navy officials have acknowledged that the surfacing demonstration was done only for the benefit of 16 civilians aboard, three of whom were seated at the sub's controls at the time of the collision.

Waddle could face other disciplinary action, including letters of reprimand and fines, but the decision not to have him to face a court martial has angered many Japanese. A Japanese official said Friday that the families of those killed will not be satisfied unless Waddle faces a court martial.

On Saturday, Waddle received a copy of the report of a three-member military panel that reviewed the case. Gittins declined to describe the panel's conclusions, but Pentagon officials have said Fargo is following the officers' recommendation in not calling for courts martial of top Greeneville officers.

"No other document was provided to Scott and we have been assured that Adm. Fargo will meet with Scott with an open mind," Gittins said.

Gittins said if punishment is imposed and there is grounds for appeal, "you can be sure we will pursue the appeal."

The session at Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor will be conducted under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The proceedings will be closed to the public and news media.

Gittins said Waddle has "a number of very good job offers" outside the military and has not decided where he and his family will settle.

-------- china

Ties to Taiwan have China, United States at center of other's radar

TRUDY RUBIN
Pioneer Planet
Sunday, April 22, 2001
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/sun/opinion/docs/45101.htm

The small, rich, democratic island of Taiwan could become the most dangerous place in the world. This is the one place over which the United States could conceivably go to war with another nuclear power -- China.

Such is the grim prospect underlying the Bush administration's hotly debated decision about new arms sales to Taiwan, coming this week.

Beijing considers Taiwan a "renegade province" that must be reunified with the mainland. The United States insists Taiwan's status must be resolved peacefully and is pledged to helping Taiwan acquire enough weapons to defend against Chinese attack.

The current question is whether to sell Taiwan an advanced ship-borne radar system known as Aegis. In theory, Aegis could someday help Taiwan link up to a planned U.S. missile defense system and blunt the threat of China's missile buildup opposite the island. China bitterly opposes the sale. Conservatives in Congress want President Bush to approve it.

But at its heart, the debate over Aegis is about something bigger: the best way to protect Taiwan but still avoid a war between China and the United States.

This question is tricky because the Taiwan issue comes wrapped in a tangle of history and emotions. Taiwan has been cut off from the Chinese mainland for more than a century; it was first occupied by the Japanese in 1895, then by the fleeing army of the nationalist Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, who lost the mainland to the communists in 1949.

Getting Taiwan back has become a visceral nationalist issue on the mainland. It's seen as a way to obtain redress for historic slights by foreigners, proof that China can maintain control over other restless provinces. Liberal Chinese friends snap when I broach the subject of an independent Taiwan. It's easy to imagine the Chinese public supporting a war to retain the island.

But America, too, has historic ties to Taiwan. We broke formal diplomatic relations with the Republic of Taiwan when we recognized China in 1979. But we also signed the Taiwan Relations Act, which binds us to supply the island with sufficient weapons for self-defense.

We've played a vital role in Taiwan's shift from an autocracy to one of the most vibrant democracies and economic success stories in Asia. Much of the island's political and usiness elite were educated here.

Now Taiwan balances in a political no-man's-land, recognized by only a few countries, hoping to work out some kind of loose confederal relationship with China. But that can happen only in the distant future, when China becomes sufficiently democratic that the link is not repressive.

Meanwhile, U.S. policy is not to back Taiwan's independence but to dissuade China from settling the matter by force. Trying that would be a huge mistake for China, and letting them do that would be a moral catastrophe for us -- and end our role as a major power in Asia. Which brings us back to the question of how to help Taiwan defend itself and prevent China from a major miscalculation.

The Aegis radar isn't the answer. The system, with its attendant destroyers, won't be ready for eight more years. The planned missile defenses to which it would plug in are unlikely to work well enough to protect the island from Chinese missiles. Other weapons systems -- less likely to provoke a Chinese overreaction -- are better suited to Taiwan's current defense needs.

Aegis systems can be delivered in the future if the Chinese missile buildup continues and it looks like Aegis would be useful.

But Taiwan needs something more than mere weapons. As China expert Robert Ross of Boston College puts it: "U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have minimum impact. What defends Taiwan is the U.S. commitment. The key is to convince the Chinese of our continuing commitment."

What really bothers China about Aegis is that the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries would have to work hand in glove on its operation. That close cooperation should be intensified even without the radar systems -- sending a clear message that our military will stand behind theirs. Only if China is convinced of our commitment to Taiwan can we head off a future clash.

Rubin (e-mail: trubin@phillynews.com) is a columnist and member of the editorial board at the Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia PA 19101. Distributed by KRT News Service.


-------- depleted uranium

Somebody's lying about depleted uranium

From: magnu96196@aol.com
Sun, 22 Apr 2001
WorldNetDaily.com

Soldiers from European Union nations are now beginning to experience what tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers experienced after the 1991 Persian Gulf War -- a mysterious "syndrome" that is causing illnesses and cancers.

Last week EU and U.N. officials reported that many European peacekeepers have "come down with" leukemia and other sicknesses after serving time in Kosovo, following the NATO-led 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

In the 78 days of that campaign, NATO warplanes dropped tons of munitions loaded with depleted uranium -- a great tank-busting metal but one that leads to the release of radioactivity, weapons experts have said. That radioactivity is released in small clouds after the munitions explode.

Over the weekend a team of U.N. environmental scientists examined 11 of the 112 sites that NATO said were bombed using depleted uranium shells. Other sources have said peacekeepers have been stationed in and around these areas; some of them are now sick.

While I rarely put much stock in U.N. "commissions" and scientists, there is other evidence to suggest they may be onto something here.

After the Persian Gulf War, a "Gulf War Syndrome" began to manifest itself in hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. and British soldiers. Though the Pentagon brushed off these incidents -- only to weakly admit years later that something was causing some illness -- many of these vets were also in contact with Iraqi armor, vehicles, buildings and other targets that had been bombed using depleted uranium shells.

Since then, children of Gulf War vets have been born disfigured. U.S. vets -- like their EU counterparts -- have gotten leukemia and other cancers; some of them have been "sick" off and on since the war.

Coincidence? No such thing in military-political policy matters.

Despite the evidence, the Pentagon and NATO officials -- who depend on U.S. military forces to make the alliance work -- have repeatedly denied what nuclear scientists have known since the 1950s: that short- or long-term contact with radiation in various doses can and does lead to cancer, birth defects and even death.

Domestic industries have also long known of the health hazards posed by radiation exposure. The next time you're in the hospital for an x-ray, see if the technician doesn't cover up with a lead apron before he shoots the picture. This is done because techs know about the damaging effects of radiation poisoning.

Everybody knows -- except the Pentagon.

Indeed, during the Cold War Americans were bombarded with information about radiation exposure.

How many times were we told that the most dangerous side effect of nuclear war isn't so much the initial catastrophic damage at ground zero, but, indeed, the fallout of radiation that will be present in the air, ground and water for decades after an ICBM explodes?

Since when did this hard-and-fast rule of nuclear science cease to apply?

The same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale, is obviously happening in Kosovo, just as it obviously happened in the Gulf.

In Kosovo, officials report that, although some of the sites examined were bombed nearly two years ago, many sites still are radioactive.

Weapons experts say nothing beats the destructive power of a depleted uranium shell. Fair enough -- but if we're going to kill our soldiers (and the surrounding civilian population) after a conflict, do we have a moral obligation to stop using such ammunition?

Considering that the Pentagon has required that all U.S. small arms ammunition can no longer be made of lead for "environmental" reasons; considering the campaign to clean up leftover land mines; and especially considering the effort to reduce the arsenals of nuclear weapons all over the world; I'd say yeah, we have a moral obligation to end the use of depleted uranium munitions.

---

Supplier of UK's depleted uranium set to go boom

From: magnu96196@aol.com
Sun, 22 Apr 2001
By Rob Edwards Environment Editor
www.starmet.com
www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/276331/000113388401500137/gdefs14a-24061.txt

Britain's secretive and dangerous trade in depleted uranium (DU) has been thrown into jeopardy because a leading uranium processing company in the US is facing bankruptcy, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The Starmet corporation, based in Concord, Massachu setts, is selling off its DU manufacturing operations to meet multi-million-dollar debts. The corporation has deals with the Ministry of Defence which involve shipping up to 750 tonnes of DU across the Atlantic.

The DU is used to make armour-piercing shells, 100 of which were fired in the Gulf war. The metal is radioactive and chemically toxic, has been linked to cancers and other illnesses suffered by Gulf veterans and civilians in Iraq and Kosovo.

Starmet also admits that its DU has been contaminated with plutonium. Researchers at Harwell in Oxfordshire say the radiation emitted by a single atom of plutonium in the body can trigger cancer.

Documents from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission disclose that Starmet exported 500 tonnes of DU to Britain in the early 1990s. Now the corporation is requesting a licence to import up to 250 tonnes of waste DU back from the MoD .

The waste - offcuts from the machining of shells and from abandoned weapon designs - has to be stored and shipped in 240,000 gallons of mineral oil to top it bursting into flames. The risks have caused alarm among environmental groups.

Starmet's main DU factory, at Barnwell in South Carolina, is up for sale to help pay off a multi-million-dollar bank loan.

Environmental campaigners welcome the company's crisis leading to the cancellation of its trade with Britain.

"It's no bad thing for the transport of hazardous materials such as DU to be brought to an end because of the financial problems of a US supplier," said David Lowry, an environmental policy consultant in London. "The outstanding and unanswered question is why Britain was going in for such a dangerous trade when there are large stockpiles of DU in Britain, including at Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway."

According to a document just filed with the Securities Exchange Commission in Washington DC, Starmet has called an emergency meeting of stockholders next month to endorse directors' plans to sell off the company's assets. The company admits it "may need to seek legal protection under the Bankruptcy Act".

The main reason for the financial crisis, Starmet claims, is the US army's refusal to fund an $18 million (£12.5m) clean-up of the company's Massachusetts headquarters, badly contaminated by DU. Starmet has also just lost a $4.4m (£3m) lawsuit filed by an environmental company contracted to dispose of waste from the site.

Starmet failed to return a series of calls and e-mails from the Sunday Herald on Friday. The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday that it had imported DU from Starmet, though a spokesman was unable to go into further detail. Ministers have always maintained that there is no evidence linking the use of DU with ill-health.

Lowry, editor of an expert briefing on contaminated land, said: "This highlights an issue that will become a bigger political problem in the future - the cleaning up of militarily contaminated land and the question of who is going to pay for it."

-------- missile defense

Panel: Expand missile defense
A Pentagon report says the U.S. should add sea- and space-based weapons to its program.

Philadelphia Inquirer
By Charles Aldinger
REUTERS
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/04/22/national/MISSILE22.htm

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon panel has issued a report recommending that the Bush administration expand a planned U.S. missile-defense program to include sea- and space-based weapons, a defense official said yesterday.

The missile defense recommendation was made by a panel headed by retired Air Force Gen. James McCarthy on March 30 as part of a broad review of U.S. defense programs by a number of groups, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

Quigley confirmed a Los Angeles Times report that the interim study stressed to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld the need to rapidly develop an ability to destroy attacking long-range missiles at any stage of flight - from liftoff, through midcourse to final approach to target.

Critics have warned that such an ambitious plan could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, far beyond the estimated $60 billion for a more modest continuing program to develop and deploy ground-based "hit-to-kill" projectiles to destroy attacking warheads in midflight.

That midcourse antimissile program, contemplated by the former Clinton administration to protect against limited attack by such "rogue" states as North Korea or Iraq, has failed in two of its last three tests. Sea- and space-based weapons, ranging from projectiles to lasers, are even further from final deployment.

Despite strong opposition from Russia and China, the Bush administration has made missile defense a priority and has promised to work with worried allies to help defend them from missile attack.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the committee was urging the new administration to continue funding the Clinton team's limited, ground-based system while supplementing it with antimissile systems based on warships, on aircraft and in space.

Quigley stressed that the recommendation by the committee - part of a study being done by the private Institute for Security Analysis - was not final and that another expert panel was making an even more detailed study of missile defense for Rumsfeld.

"This is strictly an interim report and is part of an overall study by a number of groups into different aspects of national security transformation," Quigley said.

According to the Times, the advisory panel said that an aggressive missile defense program would carry the risk of technical failure and unforeseen costs, but that the administration should "accept program risk to facilitate early development."

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

U.S. considers developing low-yield nuclear bomb

Seattle Times
Nation & World: Sunday, April 22, 2001
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=weapons22&date=20010422

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department is studying whether to develop a new, low-yield nuclear weapon with an earth-penetrating nose cone that could knock out hardened or deeply buried targets, according to administration and congressional sources.

Such a weapon has long been sought by nuclear-weapon scientists and some military strategists, including key members of the Bush administration, as a way of reaching targets hidden deep underground without incurring huge collateral damage.

Advocates also say that by developing such smaller nuclear weapons, the United States could safely reduce its current stockpile of 6,000 much more powerful warheads.

Interest in low-yield weapons has been rising with concern that Iraq's Saddam Hussein could hide his biological and chemical arsenals in underground bunkers.

Another target that has drawn attention is Russia's long-term construction of a nuclear-war command center under Yamental mountain.

One senior adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Iraqi leader would not be deterred by current U.S. nuclear weapons "because he knows a U.S. president would not drop a 100-kiloton bomb on Baghdad" and destroy the entire city and its population to reach Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

The prospect that the Pentagon would recommend the Bush administration develop a new, low-yield nuclear weapon has become the focus of attention for groups committed to traditional arms control. The Federation of American Scientists plans to release a report this week that argues that "adding low-yield warheads to the world's nuclear inventory simply makes their eventual use more likely."

A report on the Pentagon study is to be sent to Congress in July.

Seven years ago, Congress barred research and development of a low-yield precision-guided nuclear weapon, out of concern that it would blur the line between conventional and nuclear weapons.

But an amendment last year to the defense authorization bill by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., required the Pentagon to study how to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets. The Defense Department was specifically asked to determine what weapons might be needed, including low-yield nuclear devices.

The Energy Department, which controls the nuclear labs, is assisting the Pentagon.

The July report is due at the same time a review of U.S. strategic nuclear-deterrence policy, ordered by Rumsfeld, could be completed. That study deals with offensive and defensive systems, nuclear as well as conventional, administration sources said.

In a paper presented last month, Paul Robinson, head of Sandia Nuclear Laboratories, said he believed "low-yield weapons with highly accurate delivery systems" would be desirable "for deterrence in the non-Russian world." Robinson said the devices could help decision-makers "contemplate the destruction of some buried or hidden targets while being mindful of the need to minimize collateral damage."

Stephen Younger, chief of nuclear-weapon research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggested in a paper last summer that accurate, low-yield nuclear weapons could be better suited to attacking buried concrete bunkers and mobile missiles than today's U.S. arsenal of silo-busting weapons. Each of those weapons has the explosive power of 30 Hiroshima bombs.

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

-------- texas

Waste dump official gave senator campaign donation

By Kristina Shevory,
The Associated Press
Bangor Daily News
http://www.bangornews.com/cgi-bin/article.cfm?storynumber=31588

AUSTIN, Texas - A plan by Maine and Vermont to ship low-level radioactive waste to Texas is running into allegations that a key lawmaker in Austin has a conflict of interest.<p></p> Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown, R-Lake Jackson, the chairman of a Senate committee hearing a bill to build a radioactive waste dump in West Texas, received a $10,000 campaign donation from a businessman who oversees the company that could operate the site, documents show.

Brown, who also is the co-author of the waste dump bill, said he saw nothing wrong with accepting the money and plans to vote on the bill when it comes up for consideration by his Senate Natural Resources Committee.

That could happen as soon as Tuesday.<p></p> "There's not a conflict of interest," Brown said. "You could say that I couldn't vote on any piece of legislation, whatever it is, since there are campaign contributions coming in from every side."

Environmentalists and public advocacy groups disagree.<p></p> "The only reason this bill is being considered is because of the money," said Andrew Wheat, head of research for Texans for Public Justice. "The only way to get the bill through the Legislature is to give money to Brown, who will make sure it gets out of his committee and out onto the [Senate] floor for consideration."<p></p> Texans for Public Justice describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy and research organization.

The group identified Brown as one of several state officials who have accepted contributions from people tied to Waste Control Specialists and its parent company, Valhi Inc.

Harold Simmons of Dallas, chairman and chief executive officer of Valhi Inc., gave $10,000 to Brown on March 20, 2000, according to a contributions list the senator filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Valhi is a billion-dollar holding company with subsidiaries operating in the chemicals, component products, titanium metals and waste management industries.<p></p> Waste Control Specialists already operates a hazardous and nuclear waste facility in Andrews County northwest of Midland. That same county is now lobbying to become the site of the proposed dump.

WCS is one of the companies that could get the license for the new site.

Brown said he has received money from people affiliated with the company over the past 10 years, but he did not know the total amount. It is legal to accept money from people affiliated with a company, so long as the contribution is not given in the firm's name.

Simmons did not return calls from The Associated Press.<p></p> Eric Peus, chief executive officer of WCS, said he was not aware of the donation to Brown, but said he didn't think the contribution was unusual.

"Simmons is a very large contributor to many people, including Democrats, but in general, he gives to conservative Republicans," Peus said.

Gov. Rick Perry, Attorney General John Cornyn, House Speaker James E. "Pete" Laney, Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander, Land Commissioner David Dewhurst and Railroad Commissioner Tony Garza are among the elected officials who have received contributions from people associated with Valhi and WCS, Texans for Public Justice pointed out.

Under the Senate bill pending before Brown's natural resources committee, the state would license private companies to dispose of low-level radioactive waste from Texas, Maine and Vermont at a site in West Texas.

Some lawmakers say the bill would allow Texas to make good on its compact agreement with the two northeastern states. The compact - passed by Congress in the 1990s - is part of a nationwide plan to store low-level radioactive waste regionally.

Low-level radioactive waste is produced as a byproduct of medical, research and industrial activities and the operation of nuclear power plants.

The waste site would be the state's first permanent storage facility.

-------- utah

Goshutes look past the threat

Sunday, April 22, 2001
By Lee Benson
Deseret News columnist

The Goshutes just won't let it go, will they?

The 112-member Indian tribe that is determined to turn its west desert reservation into a nuclear landfill filed suit in federal court this past week against the governor, the state, the attorney general and the transportation commission, among others.

At issue are recently passed state laws intended to act as an effective roadblock to spent nuclear rods and other high-level radioactive waste ever entering the borders of the great state of Utah. The Legislature has indeed been busy implementing a strong defensive plan. Imagine having Dick Butkus, Dikembe Mutombo and Mr. T guarding the border, with the U.S. Marines as backup.

The Goshutes think these laws are in violation of not only the U.S. Constitution but also their rights as a sovereign nation - which is in itself kind of an interesting double-barrelled legal complaint when you stop and think about it. And they're willing and able to slug it out in court - thanks to the estimable financial backing of Private Fuel Storage, the company that wants to use the tribe's land as a nuclear dumping ground.

From the start, the pitch to the Goshutes from Private Fuel Storage has basically been this: Our dump will be a lot more attractive than rusted-out cars, and did we mention the part about it making you fabulously wealthy?

The problem, of course, is the subject matter.

Of all the 50 states in the union, Utah is the last place words like "radioactivity" and "fallout" can be tossed around unless you're looking for a fistfight. Utahns hear the word "nuclear" and go nuclear and for good reason.

We have, as a matter of fact, been a dumping ground already, and you know what, it didn't feel good.

For decades of testing, first above-ground and then below-ground, nuclear fallout wafted across the southern desert, taking a terrible and verifiable toll in southern Utah and a lesser and not as verifiable toll in the rest of the state. Who knows how many cases of multiple sclerosis, leukemia, cancer, skin and respiratory conditions and outright death are the result? Who knows how many innocent yet-to-be-born children will have bad stuff in their DNA because of the dangers of being close to things nuclear?

Problems from the Nevada Test Site aren't alone. In the west desert, not far from the Goshutes' land, the Army stores all kinds of hazardous materials. A few years ago, some nerve gas leaked out and killed 6,000 sheep. Who knows how many human lives it disrupted?

In southwestern Utah, unchecked uranium mining in the '40s, '50s and '60s brought problems to thousands. The worst of the damage was incurred by legions of Navajo Indians who worked shift after shift in the mines with no protective clothing and, worse, nobody telling them about the danger. Now, there is an epidemic of medical problems in the Navajo Nation, all related to nuclear fallout.

The Goshutes and their paleface partners with their deep pockets and their law firms on retainer wax righteously indignant. The government says their facility is safe, they rail in court.

Yeah, well, the government said the Nevada Test Site and the Moab mines were safe, too.

I like what the governor says, and I agree with him: The Goshutes will bring in nuclear waste over our dead bodies.

One way or another.

(Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.)

-------- MILITARY

-------- drug war

U.S. Identified Baptists' Plane as Drug Carrier

New York Times
April 22, 2001
By IRVIN MOLOTSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/world/22PLAN.html

WASHINGTON, April 21 - The airplane carrying American missionaries that was shot down on Friday in Peru had been mistakenly identified as a carrier of contraband drugs, a State Department official said tonight.

The official declined to say whether the mistake was made by a United States aircraft, but there was American surveillance plane in the area that was communicating with Peruvian military aircraft.

A missionary and her infant daughter were killed when the plane, a Cessna 185, was downed by fire from a Peruvian Air Force fighter jet.

The United States surveillance flights were suspended pending an investigation of the incident.

"An unarmed U.S. government tracking aircraft was in the area and provided location data for the subsequent intercept mission that was conducted by the Peruvian Air Force," the State Department official said.

The United States and Peru have had a long-standing project in which American spotters inform Peruvian interceptors when they spot what they think are drug runners.

Those killed in the downing of the American plane were Veronica Bowers, 35, a missionary with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and her daughter, Charity, 7 months old.

The Rev. E. C. Haskell, a spokesman for the association, which is based in Morgantown, Pa., said that the missionaries' pilot, Kevin Donaldson, was wounded.

Ms. Bowers's husband, Jim, 37, and their son, Cory, 6, were also on the plane and were not wounded, Mr. Haskell said.

The United States Customs Service flies surveillance planes into what it calls the "source zone" for drugs, but a spokesman, Dennis Murphy, said today that his agency's planes were not involved in tracking the missionaries' plane on Friday. A Customs Service radar plane based in the Caribbean was flying in Colombia on Friday, but it was far north of the path taken by the Cessna 185 and did not observe it, Mr. Murphy said.

The Customs Service has a P-3, a four-engine turboprop, the same kind of plane that the Navy uses to track enemy submarines, based in the Caribbean.

Normal practice for the Customs Service is that once a radar plane locates a suspicious plane in flight, it radios for a Citation, a smaller plane that can fly at low speeds, to observe the target visually.

Both the radar plane and the observation plane carry a representative from the host country, said Mr. Murphy, who communicates directly with the air force of the country involved.

Recently, he said, the observation plane saw a small plane land on a dirt strip, and saw bales being loaded unto mules; ground forces from the host country arrived in time to intercept the drugs, he said.

The State Department official said tonight: "We are very saddened by this tragic accident and extend our sympathy and condolences to the family, their friends and relatives."

The official said that the downed plane was flying in northern Peru near the Colombia border, flying from Leticia, Colombia, toward Iquitos, Peru. Colombia has long been a major source of cocaine and other drugs reaching the United States, prompting the United States surveillance flights in the region.

"Pending a thorough investigation and review by Peruvian and U.S. officials of how this tragic incident took place, the provision of location data by the U.S. and the conduct of intradiction flights have been suspended," the State Department official said.

The official said: "For a number of years, the United States has provided assistance to Peru in detecting and monitoring suspect aircraft passing through designated airspace in an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs. This is a United States government program in which a number of U.S. agencies are involved, including the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Drug Enforcement Administration and others.

"Peruvian authorities are responsible for identifying the aircraft and deciding on any action. We are working closely with Peruvian authorities to determine exactly how this tragic incident took place."

Earlier today, before the State Department had issued its statement, at the gathering of Western Hemisphere nations in Quebec, President Bush said: "The United States is certainly upset by the fact that two citizens lost their lives. I will wait to see all the facts before I reach any conclusions about blame."

---

Missionaries who survived Peru crash return to U.S.

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 06:21 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-04-22-missionary.htm

MORRISVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Missionaries whose plane was shot down in Peru returned Sunday to the United States to see their families for the first time since the crash.

Jim Bowers, his 6-year-old son Cory, and his brother, Phil Bowers, arrived at Raleigh-Durham International Airport early Sunday afternoon, said Patti Haller, a spokeswoman for the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism.

The New Cumberland, Pa., group sponsored the missionary work of Bowers and his wife, Veronica, who was killed in the shooting along with the couple's 7-month-old daughter, Charity.

The plane's pilot, 41-year-old Kevin Donaldson, arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday for medical treatment. Donaldson was shot in both calves but was able to make an emergency landing on the Amazon River. Peruvian villagers in dugout canoes rescued the survivors.

Gordon Donaldson, an osteopathic doctor in Morgantown, Pa., said his brother sounded upbeat when the two spoke by telephone Saturday night, as his brother prepared to board an airplane in Peru.

"Certainly it could have been a whole lot worse. He could have been one of the dead, or they all could have been dead," Gordon Donaldson said Sunday.

Donaldson will be admitted to Reading General Hospital, said public relations executive Brian Tierney, who said the White House had asked him to help handle reporters' questions.

The Peruvian air force shot down the missionaries' plane after mistakenly identifying it as carrying drugs. Drug interdiction flights over Peru have been suspended in the wake of the shooting, U.S. officials said.

Gordon Donaldson questioned why the Peruvian plane's pilot and U.S. authorities monitoring the anti-drug effort did not recognize the plane.

"There are only four or five civilian airplanes that fly out of the city of Iquitos," Gordon Donaldson said. "His airplane has been down there for 13 years, so it is not a foreign airplane to the air travel down there."

Jim and Cory Bowers were to visit family in the Raleigh area, she said.

Veronica and Jim Bowers met at Piedmont Baptist College in Winston-Salem in the mid-1980s. Since 1993, they preached in villages along the Amazon River, traveling in a houseboat.

As word of the shooting spread, friends formed a prayer chain by calling lists of friends and members of the Salem Baptist Church. The Bowers attended the Winston-Salem church before settling near his family in Muskegon, Mich., and starting their missionary work.

The couple married in 1985, and quit school the next year. Jim Bowers served in the Army for four years before they returned to the religious college, graduating in 1993. They went to Peru later that year.

"They were so excited about what God was doing to them and through them in their love for the Peruvian people," said Frank Hartwig, Piedmont's director of missions.

Donaldson said that his brother, who was born in Geigertown, Pa., has been in Peru for about 15 years.

The pilot and his wife, Barbara "Bobbi" Donaldson, met in Peru when both were missionary apprentices, said Gordon Donaldson. They have two sons, Ben, 15, and Greg, 12.

Kevin Donaldson also attended Piedmont Bible College, where he studied to become a missionary pilot.

---

Bush: U.S. tried to identify drug smugglers

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 02:53 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-04-22-peru-plane.htm

QUEBEC (AP) - President Bush pledged Sunday to find out what went wrong when Peru shot down a plane carrying American missionaries, but said the U.S. role was "simply to pass on information" about planes suspected of ferrying drugs. "Our government is involved with helping, and a variety of agencies are involved with helping, our friends in South America identify airplanes that might be carrying illegal drugs," Bush said at a news conference closing out the Summit of the Americas. "These operations have been going on for quite a while."

Such flights, he said, have been suspended "until we get to the bottom of the situation, to fully understand all the facts, to understand what went wrong in this terrible tragedy."

On Friday, the Peruvian air force shot down the missionaries' plane, which was mistakenly identified as the carrier of illegal drugs.

A woman and her infant daughter were killed in the shooting over the Amazon River.

A U.S. surveillance plane was tracking the missionaries' plane before it was shot down and had been in communication with the Peruvian air force, American officials have said.

"Our role ... like in other missions, was to provide information as to tail numbers," Bush said. "Our role is to help identify planes that fail to file flight plans."

The Peruvian government has said the plane entered Peruvian air space from Brazil without filing a flight plan. Airport officials have said the plane did not have a flight plan when it set out from Islandia, next to Brazil's border, Friday morning, but one was established when the pilot made radio contact with Iquitos' airport control tower.

The U.S. tracking plane was taking part in a longstanding U.S.-Peru project when it notified Peruvians that the missionaries' plane was operating without a flight plan in airspace frequented by drug runners, a U.S. government official said.

The official said Peru, which had the responsibility to identify the plane's intentions, mistakenly decided it was carrying drugs.

American surveillance planes routinely monitor the sky over Andean countries as part of the U.S. counter-narcotics efforts. Drug flights are common in the northern jungle region bordering Colombia and Brazil.

Under an agreement with the United States, Peru cannot use U.S. air surveillance or radar data to attack a suspected drug plane unless it is flying without a flight plan.

Missionary Veronica "Ronnie" Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old adopted daughter, Charity, were both killed and pilot Kevin Donaldson was wounded, said the Rev. E.C. Haskell, spokesman for the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, whose U.S. base is in New Cumberland, Pa.

Also on board and unhurt were Bowers' husband, Jim Bowers, 37, and their 6-year-old son Cory, said Haskell. The Bowers family is from Muskegon, Mich., and Donaldson from Morgantown, Pa., Haskell said.

"Our hearts go out to the families who have been affected," Bush said. "I want everybody in my country to understand that we weep for the families whose lives have been affected."

---

USA Today
04/22/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Delaware

Wilmington - State police who seized 68,000 Ecstasy pills said it was the largest seizure on the East Coast and the second largest in U.S. history. A trooper who pulled over a car on I-95 last week found a suitcase containing the drug, worth about $1.6 million. Two Israel natives with expired visas were in custody.

New York

New York - A Manhattan juror who said she doubted the guilt of a drug defendant refused to vote for conviction, causing a mistrial, and then put up $2,500 bail so he would be free while awaiting retrial. Paula Thompson, a graphic designer, was the lone holdout for the acquittal of Calvin Baker, 37, of Brooklyn, charged in State Supreme Court with third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance.

-------- space

Endeavour astronauts perform spacewalk

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 10:45 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - Two astronauts on the Space shuttle Endeavour ventured out on a spacewalk Sunday to unfold a massive 58-foot robot arm newly attached to the international space station.

The new arm, Canada's major contribution to the space station called Alpha, is critical to its continued construction.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and U.S. astronaut Scott Parazynski had to first connect wiring to supply power to the arm before loosening 4-foot bolts holding it to its packing crate so they could unfold it.

Hadfield became the first Canadian to perform a spacewalk.

"Oh, man, what a view," he said.

"Go Canada," Canadian astronaut and spacecraft communicator Steve MacLean in Mission Control told Endeavour's seven-man crew earlier.

Earlier Sunday Endeavour pilot Jeffrey Ashby used a smaller robot arm attached to the shuttle to hoist the packing crate containing the new arm to the station.

The arm could not support its own weight of 3,618 pounds on Earth, so it will get its first real test in orbit.

The new arm is a heavier, more dexterous version of the smaller arm attached to Endeavour, also built by Canada. The shuttle arm has helped build the space station, but the station's increased size outgrew the shuttle arm's capabilities.

The new billion-dollar arm will act as a high-tech construction crane, able to walk end-over-end and use both ends as hands to add pieces to Alpha.

The new arm will install a pressure chamber to Alpha in June that will allow station astronauts to conduct spacewalks without the aid of a shuttle.

Hadfield and Parazynski also on Sunday had to install a UHF antenna stored with the arm to enable members of the station crew to talk to spacewalkers and improve shuttle-to-station communication.

On Saturday Endeavour docked with the station, bringing Alpha's crew of three their first visitors since they arrived in March for a 4.50-month stay.

But Russian commander Yuri Usachev and U.S. astronauts Susan Helms and Jim Voss on Alpha must wait until Monday to meet Endeavour's crew face to face. The hatch between Endeavour and the station remained closed to maintain different cabin pressures in anticipation of Sunday's spacewalk.

The two crews exchanged items through an outer station compartment, including a power tool from Alpha for the spacewalkers and mail, fresh fruit and electrical cords delivered by the shuttle crew.

On Monday Helms and Voss will move the new arm from a control center in the station, guiding one end of it to a new location. Also on Monday the shuttle arm will attach Italian-built cargo carrier Raffaello to the station to start unloading 10,000 pounds of supplies.

The space station, under construction since 1998, is scheduled to be completed in 2006.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

California

USA Today
04/22/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

San Jose - This Silicon Valley city has joined Los Angeles and Sacramento in offering free parking to drivers of environmentally-friendly vehicles that use electricity or natural gas. Officials in congested San Francisco and Berkeley are also studying the idea.

-------- environment

Counties fight to keep hazardous waste away
Company covets access to salt dome

April 22, 2001, 9:50PM
Houston Chronicle
By CINDY HORSWELL
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/885811

It has been 21 years since the ground around Mont Belvieu began bubbling flammable propane from an underground storage cavern and the 1,800 residents of this tiny Chambers County town were evacuated.

The memory of that harrowing event and the contentious litigation between the community and the petrochemical industry that followed is still vivid in the town, which has the somewhat dubious distinction of sitting atop the largest underground salt-dome storage complex in the world.

Vivid enough that officials in Mont Belvieu and Chambers County have joined Wharton County residents and community leaders in opposition to a proposed change to state rules regulating storage of hazardous industrial waste in salt domes.

Eight years ago, Houston-based Secured Environmental Management Inc. applied for a state permit to dump 1 million barrels of hazardous waste into four caverns in an underground salt formation in Wharton County.

The permit is still pending. If approved, it would make Secured Environmental the first entity in Texas to be allowed to dump hazardous waste in a salt dome, state officials said.

Four previous efforts in Texas, including one in Liberty County, were denied permission by state officials because of safety concerns that range from the hauling of waste to possible seepage into groundwater.

In the latest wrinkle in the permitting process, Secured Environmental is requesting that a three-dimensional seismic survey, which the state requires to delineate the edges and overhangs of salt formations, be limited to only the area where the caverns would be located, instead of the entire formation.

Such surveys can show faults or fissures in the salt where leakage could occur. They also are used to map the shape and overhangs of the mushroom-shaped formations.

For a protective buffer, the state requires that storage caverns be created at least 500 feet from a formation's edge or any other existing cavern. Secured Environmental contends that mapping the whole dome would be unduly expensive and that obtaining permission to enter neighboring property to make the survey could prove difficult.

In the past two weeks, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission has heard protests against the proposed rule change at public hearings in Wharton and Chambers counties.

Wharton County commissioners and the Boling Independent School District board have approved resolutions objecting to any change in the rules or the requirement to survey the entire dome. Potential faults and defects in the salt-dome formation were cited as reasons for a more complete survey. Chambers County Commissioners Court and the Mont Belvieu City Council have unanimously passed resolutions against the rule change.

"Our point of view is that the state shouldn't permit hazardous waste to be put in any salt dome in the first place," said Mont Belvieu Mayor Lonnie Follis. "But if they do, the rules should be made more stringent, not more relaxed. The 3-D seismic survey of the whole dome shouldn't even be questioned."

Follis said Mont Belvieu is concerned about permanently filling such caverns with hazardous waste because of troubles his town has experienced with its water supply.

Drilling companies form caverns by using water to dissolve the salt, which generates large quantities of salty water.

"No amount of promises or money can replace our drinking water," Follis said. "Our drinking water comes from wells, and we've already lost one shallow aquifer that's become too salty from water that was used to make storage caverns."

The city had to drill another well, he said.

"Our main concern is the safety of our groundwater and questions about the stability of salt domes," said Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia. A leak in a pipe leading to Mont Belvieu's underground storage cavern led to the 1980 evacuation. The leak was detected when a dishwasher triggered a gas explosion.

Seventy-five families were evacuated from their homes for six months and longer as efforts were made to recapture the gas. More than 100 homeowners and several churches accepted buyouts as part of an eventual settlement with a nine-member industry consortium.

Mike Shelton, a Houston lawyer who is president of Secured Environmental Management, argues that salt domes provide a safer way to handle hazardous waste than other disposal methods.

"Landfills being used now for some hazardous-waste disposal are a much greater threat to drinking water," he said.

He noted that his proposed project would protect against leaks from the pipes leading to the caverns by constructing them of steel and concrete more than 3 feet thick.

As for the proposed rule change, he said, "I think it's unnecessary to make a 3-D seismic survey of an entire salt dome, especially one as large as the one in Wharton County."

The Boling dome there, estimated to be 4 miles by 5 miles in size, is the largest in Texas, officials said.

"We only need to know what's 500 feet on either side of any cavern that we would be using to determine its suitability," Shelton said.

His company, meanwhile, has done a 3-D seismic survey of the area where one of four caverns would be placed and found no problems, he said. He could not say what part of the company's 210-acre site, about a half-mile from the northwest corner of the dome, was surveyed.

Even if the proposed rule change is rejected, Shelton said, "We feel we meet the requirements of the law as it stands now and would not have to survey the whole dome."

Citizens Against Pollution President Harold McVey of Wharton County objects to any weakening of the rules.

"The seismic rule was meant to include the entire dome. The company just wants to change the rule now because Wharton County landowners won't let them come onto their property to do the survey," McVey said.

He said Secured Environmental already has sent out workers "pretending to look for oil and gas" in an effort to gain access to neighboring property for the survey, but they were not allowed into the area. Shelton denied that.

McVey contends a full survey is critical because Wharton County's dome has had more than 20,000 holes drilled in it for oil, gas and sulfur. There also has been subsidence in the area of the dome, which is only 23 feet above sea level, he added.

Meanwhile, TNRCC representatives recently held a public comment period on the proposal. They will submit a report to commissioners for a review and vote on the rule amendment.

No date has been set for the review, said commission spokesman Dick Lewis.

----

04/22/01
USA Today
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Arkansas

Little Rock - Federal officials attend weekly inspections of Arkansas hog farms that use food scraps as feed in the government's effort to prevent an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, state veterinarian Conley Byrd said. Swill feeders throughout the USA are getting similar inspections. New cases are dropping off in Britain, but the disease still poses a threat to U.S. livestock, Byrd said.

Colorado

Colorado Springs - The city delayed adding fluoride to drinking water after opponents questioned the long-term health effects. The utility board said it wants more time and information. The city has spent $1.3 million on the fluoridation program to build the storage tanks, the chemical feed pumps and monitoring equipment.

New Mexico

Santa Fe - Mischievous prairie dogs that have damaged lights and runway fixtures at the municipal airport are being relocated to a nearby field. The prairie dogs were attracting predators, like coyotes and dogs, which pose a danger to airplanes taking off and landing. After citizens expressed outrage over the gassing of the rodents in 1998, the city now moves them.

Oregon

Ashland - The city council has approved three aerial sprayings to stop the spread of gypsy moths. The state Department of Agriculture will spray 160 acres on Tuesday; spraying is also planned for May 7 and May 17. State health officials say the spray is safe, but people are advised to stay inside during the spraying.

Rhode Island

Burrillville - The owner of an abandoned mill has assumed the cleanup of an oil spill caused last week by two leaking underground storage tanks. Up to 2,000 gallons of oil has run into the ground and the Branch River, where an oil sheen stretched for 6 miles. Mill owner Charles Cove will run the cleanup and state and federal environmental officials will monitor it.

Virginia

Virginia Beach - The state says methane gas leakage makes the Mount Trashmore II landfill potentially dangerous. The state Department of Environmental Quality suggests closing the landfill in 2007, three years early, because of the threat to the environment.

Washington

Yakima - Four Indian tribes along the Columbia River are enjoying their first commercial fishery for spring chinook salmon in nearly 25 years. Officials are predicting a spring run of more than 346,000 chinook, the most since record-keeping began. The Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce tribes began the commercial season Wednesday.

Wyoming

Cheyenne - State officials are studying whether to sell or exchange seven parcels of land, including 1,366 valuable acres inside Grand Teton National Park. Wyoming and the National Park Service are just beginning talks, according to state official Jim Whalen. The Grand Teton tracts have not yet been appraised, but Whalen said a rough estimate is about $100 million.

--------

Earth Day celebrations bring criticism for Bush

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 06:17 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-04-22-earthday.htm

Activists, politicians and celebrities gathered for Earth Day celebrations and clean-ups Sunday, but the event's founder and others criticized what they fear will be a rollback of environmental progress.

President Bush has drawn fire from environmentalists for several environmental policies, including blocking efforts to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and proposing to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

"Tragically, the president doesn't have any interest at all in the issue," former Sen. Gaylord Nelson, credited with founding Earth Day in 1970, said in a speech Saturday.

Nelson criticized Bush's decision last month to reject the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty aimed at reducing heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. Bush said the treaty's mandatory pollution reductions were too harmful to the American economy.

The president has defended his efforts to strike a balance on environmental issues. In recent weeks, he has endorsed a treaty seeking a worldwide phase-out of a dozen highly toxic chemicals and upheld Clinton administration regulations requiring thousands of businesses to report releases of toxic lead.

"Each of us understands that our prosperity as a nation will mean little if our legacy to future generations is a world of polluted air, toxic waste, and vanished forests," Bush said Saturday. "As we celebrate Earth Day on this April 22, 2001, I encourage Americans to join me in renewing our commitment to protecting the environment and leaving our children and grandchildren with a legacy of clean water, clean air and natural beauty."

Earth Day celebrations were more muted than last year, the 30th anniversary of the event. But the mood was celebratory at Grace Cathedral, the towering landmark on San Francisco's Nob Hill.

Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart was to play at the cathedral's interfaith environmental celebration. About 1,000 people were expected to attend the event, which will feature everything from a Japanese dance group and Tibetan temple bells to American Indian and Muslim chants.

"This is sort of a unique experience where we're bringing a range of religious pasts together out of concern for creation and the earth," said cathedral spokeswoman MacKenzie Ward.

In Los Angeles, politicians and activists held a rally Saturday to protest Bush's environmental policies.

"Let's not turn back the clock," Rep. Jane Harman told a crowd of about 100 gathered at the Venice boardwalk. "Let's not let this Republican do the wrong thing."

The cheering crowd responded with cries of "No More Bush!"

"It's time to kick the bad drug habit of oil and costly energy," said actor Esai Morales, who plays Lt. Tony Rodriguez on the television drama NYPD Blue.

Hundreds of volunteers were joined Saturday by California's first lady, Sharon Davis, in cleaning up Los Angeles-area beaches, and the Los Angeles Zoo held a daylong celebration to promote recycling.

In Boston, more than one thousand volunteers celebrated gave the banks of the Charles River a much needed spring cleaning Saturday. Students from area universities and civic activists spread out to more than 20 sites along the 67-mile long river.

A rally in New York City drew about 100 anti-nuclear power activists to a demonstration Sunday across the street from the United Nations complex. Organizer Monika Kumar said the rally was to remind policy makers of commitments to a clean environment made on the first Earth Day.

At Harvard University, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt was to receive the Roger Tory Peterson award for his conservation efforts. He was to speak about global warming and Bush's environmental policies.

Salt Lake City's Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Games held an Earth Day celebration Saturday in drizzly, cold weather. The event promoted programs to keep pollution and congestion down during the Games.

Turnout was low, but the event drew protesters who handed out flyers condemning the games' corporate sponsorship. They held signs saying, "Corporate Games; Corporate Corruption" and "Protest Olympic greenwashing."

"The companies they call environmentally friendly are nothing of the sort," said protester Elizabeth Fondren.

-------

Democrats See Gold in Environment

New York Times
April 22, 2001
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/politics/22ENVI.html

WASHINGTON, April 21 - Let the Bush administration restudy what concentration of arsenic is acceptable in drinking water. One thing is clear: the issue has been very good for Democrats.

After three months of uncertainty over where to draw bright lines of opposition, Congressional Democrats have found a rallying cry and gone on the offensive against President Bush for early environmental rollbacks.

Throughout the Congressional recess, Democrats, from the party's presidential hopefuls to the most politically vulnerable House members, have struck the same themes, trying to use Mr. Bush's actions - including the decision to delay carrying out the Clinton administration's tougher arsenic standard - to undercut the president's image with moderates.

It is a concerted public relations campaign, amplified in television advertising by environmental advocacy groups, that is expected to reach a crescendo on Sunday, the 31st anniversary of Earth Day.

Some of the publicity is intended to put pressure on Republican moderates in Congress to help defeat such Bush efforts as his call to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.

But Democrats also have their eye on 2002, when control of the House and Senate is at stake. And gleeful party strategists say Mr. Bush has given them a way to appeal to the swing voters who will matter most: the suburban mothers and independents whom Mr. Bush courted with his emphasis on education.

"Republicans did make some progress in the last cycle in talking like Democrats," said James M. Jordan, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "This is an issue where we can get some clear, obvious, verifiable separation from the Republicans," Mr. Jordan said.

The Democratic assault has been building for weeks.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a possible presidential contender, told the Colorado Democratic Party late last month, "It is hard to accept that the Supreme Court has given us an administration that is content to allow one in every 100 Americans with certainty to get cancer from drinking water they have a right to believe is safe."

Representative Jay Inslee of Washington plans to remind runners racing on Sunday to protest global warming that Mr. Bush has reversed himself on a pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. "It's stunning to me how rapidly the president has caused folks in suburban areas to focus on this issue," he said.

And ground zero in the environmental wars may have been the pump house of a closed arsenic- plagued well in Hopewell Borough, N.J., where Representatives Rush D. Holt and Frank Pallone Jr. spoke out on Wednesday against the arsenic rule rollback.

The well, after all, is in a swing state, not just any swing state but the home state of former Gov. Christie Whitman of New Jersey, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. And it is in Mr. Holt's Congressional district - one of the most competitive House districts in the nation, encompassing Princeton University, new office complexes, farmland and suburban sprawl.

Mr. Holt, a former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, said he considered the environment and related concerns about suburban sprawl and open space part of a cluster of issues that had helped him prevail in an area long considered safely Republican.

And he said his constituents, including many Republicans, had taken notice of events in Washington. "Arsenic," he said. "That hit a nerve because arsenic sounds like poison." He added that a number of people who had voted for Mr. Bush had told him, "If I had known," or "I should have known."

And on Wednesday, he was stoking those sentiments at a news conference, expounding on arsenic. "When the old standards were devised years ago, no one knew about the cancer- causing effects of arsenic," he told reporters. "They only knew about acute arsenic poisoning."

Republican strategists say that issues like tax cuts, education and energy will prove more important to voters in the long run than the environment, and that in those districts where environmental concerns run high, moderate Republicans will have voting records that suit their constituents

"I think where it really matters, the Republicans won't cede the issue," said Jim McLaughlin, a pollster for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The White House has also moved fast to try to repair any political damage from a string of actions in March that included the rejection of the international Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Every day this week, senior administration officials participated in showy White House announcements to soften the president's environmental image. In rapid succession, Mr. Bush agreed to Clinton administration regulations on wetlands preservation and allowed Clinton rules on lead emissions to go forward.

The administration said it would sign a treaty negotiated in the Clinton presidency phasing out persistent toxic chemicals that are already banned in many developed nations. And Ms. Whitman indicated the administration would eventually toughen arsenic rules after further study.

Dan Bartlett, a deputy assistant to the president, said that over time, "Americans will say that this president has taken a very reasonable way" on the environment. "The president is committed to funding programs that work and making sure local stakeholders have a voice in the process," he said. "That is a departure from some on the left who would prefer that everything be controlled and dictated out of Washington."

Democrats are not relenting. Senator Barbara Boxer of California simply dismissed the week's White House announcements. "What he did this week was nothing," she said. "He didn't overturn a regulation on lead. That's hardly a clarion call on the environment when you don't repeal something."

One question is whether the environment really galvanizes voters. Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff to Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, says the environment works better as a campaign theme "when voters who care about these issues feel they are threatened."

The Gallup Poll, in a survey taken for Earth Day, found the environment ranks 16th on Americans' list of most important problems facing the country today. But it is their top concern for 25 years from now.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who recently briefed Senate Democratic aides on her findings, said that the issue appealed most to independents, and that it resonated most particularly when it was tied to the idea of favors for special interests. "They're antipolitical feelings as well as pro-environment feelings," she said.

---

Bush administration defends environmental record

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 08:01 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-22-bush-defense.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - On Earth Day, Bush Cabinet members defended the president's environmental policies as a measured approach that balances the need for clean air and water with demands for energy and other natural resources. "We have made a number of decisions that are very pro-environment, but unfortunately they get overlooked when there's something that people can challenge," Christie Whitman, the Environmental Protection Administration chief, said Sunday. "I would hope that we look at the total picture. Are we making the air cleaner, the water purer, are we better protecting the land?" she said on CBS' Face the Nation.

Environmental groups and some Democrats criticize Bush for rescinding several Clinton administration initiatives. They also say Bush is pushing for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at the expense of the environment.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, said the administration has been influenced by right-wing interests that would have him drill for oil on pristine lands and allow too much arsenic in water.

"When you get loose about the amount of arsenic in water, which we're worried causes cancer, when you say you're going to drill in one of the most beautiful places the good Lord has given us in America, the arctic refuge, that's not sensible centrism," Lieberman, D-Conn., told CBS.

The latest Newsweek poll found that 41% of Americans feel Bush is committed to protecting the environment. Lieberman, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said Bush was "outside the mainstream of where most Americans are" on the issue.

In recent weeks, Bush has endorsed a treaty seeking a worldwide phase-out of a dozen highly toxic chemicals; announced plans for a new standard within nine months on arsenic in drinking water; and upheld Clinton administration regulations requiring thousands more businesses to report releases of toxic lead.

The Green Party's defeated presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, said he believes the administration rolled out its environmental policies in recent weeks in response to polls that show Americans think Bush is unfriendly to the environment.

"They're retreating because they can't be overtly anti-environment in this country and not lose votes. No major party can do that overtly," Nader told "Fox News Sunday."

Specifically, environmentalists criticize Bush for rescinding a Clinton order that would have limited arsenic in drinking water to no more than 10 parts per billion; for proposing limits on the ability of environmental groups to get rare plants and animals added to the endangered species list; and retreating from a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

On arsenic, Whitman said the administration would prefer to base its policy on science rather than politics and wants further study to determine what the proper level should be. She said it is too early to say whether the level will be lower or higher than the Clinton administration standard.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton told ABC's This Week that her agency shifted funds away from one program on environmental species to increase the amount of money it uses on "really recovering species."

Lieberman threatened to subpoena the EPA to get information about how the administration has made its environmental decisions. He believes Bush officials only spoke to people on one side of the issue.

"I'm trying, on behalf of the people, to get information which will help me understand, what did the Bush administration do?" Lieberman said.

Also Sunday, Norton played down a report in Time magazine that Bush senior adviser Karl Rove said the administration would not push for drilling in the arctic refuge.

Norton said on CNN's Late Edition that Rove told her earlier Sunday that "he still believes that it is something that we should push forward with."

-------

All Together Now

'The Greening of Conservative America' by John R.E. Bliese
and
'Environmentalism Unbound' by Robert Gottlieb

Reviewed by Chip Ward
Sunday, April 22, 2001; Page BW03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37533-2001Apr19?language=printer

THE GREENING OF CONSERVATIVE AMERICA
By John R.E. Bliese
Westview. 339 pp. $27

ENVIRONMENTALISM UNBOUND
Exploring New Pathways for Change
By Robert Gottlieb
MIT Univ. 396 pp. $29.95

MAKING A DIFFERENCEInspirational Stories of How the Outdoor Industry and Individuals Are Working to Preserve America's Natural PlacesBy Amy IrvineGlobe Pequot. 264 pp. Paperback, $12.95

Blame it on the cumulative impact of the Industrial Revolution, two world wars and the threat of nuclear annihilation, but by the middle of the 20th century the typical citizen of the West had the ecological consciousness of a traumatized amnesiac. There was plenty of work ahead for citizens concerned about the environment, to be sure. But successive bouts of reformist activity -- from the patrician preservationism of John Muir to the conservationism of Gifford Pinchot to Rachel Carson's campaign against chemical pollution -- permitted us to indulge ourselves in the comforting notion that we were gradually bringing the collateral damage of industrial progress under control.

Not anymore. Cancer, the Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, the hole in the ozone and global warming have turned our optimistic pride into doubt and dread. There is a growing consensus that the regulatory reforms of the '60s and '70s, which gave us laws such as the Clean Air Act and tools such as risk assessments, are inadequate. Everyone, it seems (with the exception of President Dubya and company), is getting into the act.

The environmental movement is everywhere, as evidenced by three new books. John Bliese believes that the term "conservative environmentalist" is no oxymoron. He says it is an appropriate and logical synthesis of traditional conservative philosophical principles such as prudence and piety, as applied to environmental challenges such as conserving biodiversity or, as he puts it, "doing Noah's job." In The Greening of Conservative America, his proposed solutions for global warming and other problems are remarkably like those of the Naderite Greens and would probably make Republican congressmen, who are now in the throes of Arctic oil lust, apoplectic. Bliese claims that those leaders are out of touch with their Republican base on eco-issues and have betrayed the legacy of conservatives like Teddy Roosevelt and even Richard Nixon, who signed landmark environmental legislation. Not all environmentalists are pagan Lefties, he declares, and a healthy environment is a prerequisite for a healthy economy.

The case Bliese makes for environmental regulation comes across as plain common sense, though there is little evidence that his politically conservative compatriots will take his arguments as obvious. While his clarion call to conservatives to save the species is a retapping of philosophical roots, Robert Gottlieb's invitation to join an expansive environmental movement simply follows the money and finds the bottom line. If we leave the needs and aspirations of struggling urban communities and everyday workplace issues out of the picture, he says, we will miss powerful opportunities to work changes that can assure both social justice and environmental health.

His Environmentalism Unbound is cogent and visionary. He traces three cases -- janitors trying to use safe cleaning products, dry cleaners looking for non-polluting options, and urban dwellers seeking healthful food -- that reveal a potential for linking environmental justice with pollution prevention. These examples are about as down-to-earth as you can get. The coming struggle for environmental restoration, he suggests, will turn on efforts to redefine and reshape global food systems. Big food corporations and their chemical industry allies compensate for the inefficiencies of geographical distance by gene-splicing, spraying and processing our food into bland chain-store products. Community gardens and farmers markets that draw from regional producers, on the other hand, offer food that is delicious, nutritious, secure and environmentally friendly. Building a vital community, living lightly on the land, and gaining control of the food system go hand in hand. Think globally, eat locally.

Gottlieb's book is the most academic and demanding of the three, especially when he analyzes environmentalists' rhetoric of warning and persuasion. But the book is still worth reading for its provocative glimpses of how social justice and environmental agendas could merge in the coming decade.

In her impressive debut, Making a Difference, renowned rock climber Amy Irvine lyrically describes several grassroots efforts to save wild places. The Outdoor Industry Conservation Alliance funded these local struggles -- responses by outdoor enthusiasts to the ravages of developers in local areas teeming with plants and wildlife. Gottlieb might write off that funding as an example of mere consumption of nature, but the insights that motivate wilderness advocates cannot be dismissed so easily. They believe that an interlaced and ever-morphing wild world is not just beautiful to behold but the very ground of our sanity and well-being. Like Gottlieb's urban activists, they yearn for nourishing local food, but they also express a profound appreciation of the integrity of ecosystems and especially of watersheds.

Battles over wilderness are often depicted as being led by latte-lapping elitists who don the latest sports gear -- sold to them, no doubt, by the members of the Conservation Alliance. But as Irvine reminds us, these activists are defending the quality of water that shapes and nourishes ecosystems that others share and depend on even if they live far away. Her inspiring book is a pleasure to read.

Empowered by a growing regard for the lessons of conservation biology and by the advent of satellite and computer mapping tools, wilderness activists have been advancing bold proposals over the past decade. The Wildlands Project, for instance, is creating corridors to link designated wilderness areas and parklands on behalf of predatory animals and their migrating prey. As such efforts mature, the preservation and conservation wings of environmentalism are melding and working in new directions.

An era of incremental progress is coming to an end: The multifaceted global environmental crisis that we face calls for sweeping vision and efforts. Bliese's businessmen, Gottlieb's janitors and Irvine's river runners may not feel unity or even agree on much. Their targets for change may be as fragmented as the worldview they aim to make whole, but they are all expressions of an emerging and transformative way of configuring our daily lives to fit the natural world that includes us. We will either be inspired to clean up industrial production, our neighborhoods, our watersheds and the food we eat, or we will be driven by mad cows and melting ice caps to reach the same conclusions. Slowly but surely we are waking up, exploring common ground and healing ourselves and the natural systems that hold us in their weave. We will do this because we must -- one way or another. •

Chip Ward is a grassroots environmental activist living in Utah, and the author of "Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West."

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

Bush Links Trade With Democracy at Quebec Talks

New York Times
April 22, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/world/22SUMM.html

QUEBEC, April 21 - President Bush told the leaders of the Western Hemisphere today that after almost a decade of delays in creating a single market from the Arctic to the tip of South America, the time had come to "build an age of prosperity in a hemisphere of liberty."

Mr. Bush also tried to reach out to the thousands here who are protesting that a free trade accord would harm the poor and the environment.

In a 13-minute speech to the 33 leaders gathered here (only Fidel Castro of Cuba was not invited), Mr. Bush said he would only proceed with negotiations over a Free Trade Area of the Americas if it was combined with "a strong commitment to protecting our environment and improving labor standards." But he chose his words with enormous care, leaving unstated the critical question of whether any future trade accord would require all the countries in the hemisphere to adhere to minimum standards, from the wages they pay to the pollutants they emit from factories, or else face some kind of penalties.

As Mr. Bush spoke - breaking into Spanish three times - thousands of protesters who had tried unsuccessfully to surge through protective barriers ringing this walled city on the St. Lawrence were gathering to renew their protests today. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who arrested upwards of 100 protesters Friday night, said they were prepared for tens of thousands to demonstrate today.

The streets were quiet early this morning except for the sound of crews repairing damage done to the chain-link fence and concrete barricade that the protesters damaged Friday. Three-foot-high concrete blocks were brought in to reinforce the fence, but few police officers were present.

By midmorning, a new wave of anti-globalization protesters began arriving. They appeared to be decidedly older than the people who confronted police on Friday. One group of about 50 Quakers, most in their 60's, marched past the boarded up storefronts of Rue St. Jean to a peacefully rally.

One man from the United States, Charley Richardson, 48, said he watched the disturbances on television but did not intend to take part in them if they took place again today.

"Although some of us might decide not to associate with the ruckus and the trouble, that does not mean that we disassociate ourselves from what they stand for," said Mr. Richardson, a former Boston shipbuilder.

Friday's incidents of violence were fairly limited, and seemed to be committed mostly by young people who, in random interviews on the street, expressed few specific objections to the free trade agreement that the leaders were talking about inside the heavily guarded conference center.

That frustrated officials from some organizations, including the Sierra Club and human rights groups, who came here with a range of complaints about the shortcomings of modern free trade accords. The core of their argument is that such accords promote free commerce, lower tariffs and protect foreign investors, but require the signatory countries to do little to improve the lives of the hemisphere's poorest, and almost nothing to protect the forests, rivers and air.

This has long been a contentious issue between Democrats and Republicans, and between rich and poor countries, and in the end it was these divisions, rather than street protests, that led to the collapse of a new round of global trade talks in Seattle in December 1999.

Mr. Bush's party, reflecting the interests of the business groups that are among the new president's biggest financial supporters, contends that labor and environmental standards have no place in trade agreements, and only inhibit commerce. But Mr. Bush has taken many Republican leaders by surprise in recent weeks, acknowledging that as a matter of political reality some kind of labor and environmental standards will have to be part of new trade agreements, from the regional trade accord under discussion here, to a separate accord with Jordan now pending before Congress, and to one being negotiated with Chile.

Mr. Bush tried, in his statement today, to acknowledge those concerns without ever saying exactly what he would do about them.

"I'm here to offer my own ideas," he told the leaders, most of whom were taking his measure for the first time. "I'm here to learn, and to listen from voices - to those inside this hall, and to those outside this hall who want to join us in constructive dialogue."

His staff had scrambled in recent weeks to come up with some small, symbolic initiatives that would demonstrate his commitment to putting Latin America first on his list of foreign policy priorities, without spending much cash in Washington.

They found a few. For example, Mr. Bush said he was "committed to using the Tropical Forest Conservation Act to help countries redirect debt payment toward local projects that will protect biodiversity and tropical forests." But Mr. Bush's budget makes only about $30 million available for the program, a relatively tiny amount to be spread among all the developing nations of the world that owe debt repayments to the United States.

Mr. Bush also announced a series of other small programs: a new "American Fellow Program" for one-year exchanges of government officials in the United States and other nations. Only Argentina has agreed to join so far, and Mr. Bush did not say how much it would cost. He also said he would create an "Inter-American E-Business Fellowship Program" to allow young professionals to work at American companies to learn new technologies. Again, he did not say how much money he was willing to commit.

He did say he would commit $10 million to helping train teachers and school administrators in the Caribbean, the Andes and in Central America.

But the core of Mr. Bush's message was focused on the links between trade and democracy, a theme President Bill Clinton hit in 1994 at the first Summit of the Americas, held in Miami.

In fact, Mr. Bush today seemed at moments to discuss democratization and free trade in the same breath, as if each depended on the other - though the United States itself became what is now considered a free trader only in the last few decades.

"We seek freedom not only for people living within our borders, but also for commerce moving across our borders," Mr. Bush said. "Free and open trade creates new jobs and new income. It lifts the lives of all our people, applying the power of markets to the needs of the poor. It spurs the process of economic and legal reform. And open trade reinforces the habit of liberty."

"José Martí said it best," Mr. Bush said, referring to the Havana-born dissident and writer who died battling for Cuban independence more than a century ago. "La libertad no es nogociable," or liberty is not negotiable.

White House aides concede, however, that translating that concept into a free trade area of the Americas will be as challenging for Mr. Bush as it was for Mr. Clinton, and before that for the president's father.

Brazil is resistant to a quick free trade agreement, and succeeded in derailing Mr. Bush's hopes of setting a short deadline for completing the negotiations. Instead, the United States is agreeing here this weekend to a target date of 2005 to complete an accord and submit it to national legislatures for approval.

Mr. Bush also said for the first time today that when he returned to Washington he would publish what he called "a set of principles that will be the framework for more intense negotiations with Congress" over authority to negotiate a free trade accord. That authority, formerly known as "fast track," has been renamed "trade negotiating authority" by the Bush administration.

As described by Robert B. Zoellick, Mr. Bush's trade representative, the strategy for winning passage of the trade authority is to combine it in a single piece of legislation with a series of concrete trade accords. Congress would be asked to give Mr. Bush authority to negotiate the free trade area of the Americas in the same bill that would approve separate trade accords with Jordan and Vietnam, and perhaps one under negotiation with Singapore. That would give the business community some specific, export-enhancing agreements to rally around.

"If you look at those items, a number of them deal with environment or labor issues in different ways," Mr. Zoellick said. He said he favored a system that would impose fines, rather than trade sanctions, on nations that treat workers below international standards or commit environmental offenses. "It even makes more sense to have the penalty devoted to environmental or labor topics," committing the money, for example, to worker safety or environmental cleanups, he said.

But labor unions say those sanctions would probably not stick, and would not prove a sufficient deterrent. And some Republicans say that once trade agreements include such standards, other issues, unrelated to trade, will be included.

---

Leaders sign agreement for trade pact by 2005

USA Today
04/22/2001 - Updated 02:15 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

QUEBEC (AP) - Western Hemisphere leaders on Sunday signed an agreement to open their markets by December 2005, and said only countries with democratic governments can be a part of the world's most ambitious free-trade zone. In their final statement after a three-day summit, President Bush and 33 other leaders from North and South America and the Caribbean pledged to finish negotiations on the free-trade zone by January 2005, with the pact to take effect by the end of that year.

They insisted that democracy was "fundamental to the advancement of all our objectives," adding that any "unconstitutional alteration or interruption of the democratic order ... constitutes an insurmountable obstacle" to participation in further hemispheric trade talks.

The leaders signed the document in pairs, sitting down at a table two at a time to scrawl their names as Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, the summit host, watched over their shoulders like a proud parent.

The leaders said they would "conduct consultations" if any member state had a disruption of its democratic system, but the wording stopped short of establishing specific penalties or automatic expulsion from the talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The treaty would create a barrier-free trade zone from the Arctic to Argentina, linking markets of 800 million people and economies ranging from the world's largest - the United States - to some of its tiniest.

Mindful of the inequalities of the region, the leaders committed themselves to halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015. They didn't say how they would achieve that.

"We will spare no effort to free our fellow citizens from the dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty," they said in their declaration.

That responded to some of the demands of tens of thousands of protesters who came to Quebec City and marched peacefully or battled with riot police along the 2.3-mile concrete-and-wire security wall erected around the summit venue.

Chretien had heralded the democracy clause on Saturday as a pillar for the region's unity and prosperity in the future.

Even Venezuela's populist Hugo Chavez - who staged a failed coup as a young lieutenant colonel in 1992 - told reporters Sunday that his country would sign the declaration despite reservations.

"In Venezuela's case, representative democracy has been a trap that almost led the country to bloodshed," he said. "Some barons who were elected felt that they had a blank check to rob, betray and steamroll others."

With the signing of the democracy clause, Chretien singled out Haiti for its flawed election.

"Democracies in certain countries continues to be fragile," Chretien said. He called on Haiti's president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to live up to promises he made to advance democracy in the island nation and said an official from the Organization of American States would travel to Haiti to observe whether such steps were being taken.

Aristide, who became Haiti's first freely elected president in 1990, fell to a military coup and was restored to power in a 1994 U.S. invasion. He stepped down in 1996 and became president again last year in elections boycotted by the opposition because of a fraudulent legislative vote.

Aristide pledged cooperation Sunday, but gave no indication of how he plans to address demands for new elections.

"I am confident that we will come out with a quick resolution to the crisis in the next few days, thanks to the help of the Organization of American States," Aristide said.

The declaration said the next Summit of the Americas would be in Argentina, but no date was provided.

The leaders also were to release a draft text of the free-trade accord, meeting a key demand of citizens' groups and other protesters.

But it was unlikely to appease more radical, rock-throwing protesters intent on tearing down the summit perimeter fence. Those protesters have clashed with nightstick-wielding riot police who responded with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.

More clashes occurred overnight, with protesters setting fires and smashing windows in an area near the riverfront. Police said about 15 businesses complained of vandalism and minor theft, but there was no sign of widespread looting.

Streets were quiet on a rainy Sunday morning, but security remained tight in case of more protests.

Police said nearly 30,000 marchers processed through Quebec City on Saturday, with a few thousand growing violent along the security fence.

Protests continued into the night and a stinging mist of tear gas settled on the city as the leaders and their spouses gathered at the Congress Center for dinner and entertainment.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general, told reporters he wasn't bothered by the fumes: "It didn't affect me, but an old infantryman always remembers what tear gas and pot smell like when you walk into the barracks."

The so-called "democracy clause" excludes any country that ceases to be a democracy from participation in future summits, membership of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the benefits of the Inter-American Development Bank, a key regional financier, Chretien said.

The idea is to strengthen multiparty systems that have replaced military and civilian dictatorships across the region over the past two decades but have appeared increasingly shaky in some countries as economic prosperity has failed to follow.

Cuba was the only country in the region excluded from the Quebec summit, for its lack of free elections.

--------

Leaders agree to open their markets by Dec. 2005

USA Today
04/22/2001
By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/money/economy/2001-04-22-summit-pact.htm

QUEBEC CITY - President Bush and the leaders of 33 other nations finished their Summit of the Americas here Sunday with pledges to take down barriers to free trade by 2005 and to strengthen democracies throughout the hemisphere. Bush said it was "a very successful summit." The city was calm Sunday afternoon after two days of sometimes violent protests by demonstrators who say a Free Trade Area of the Americas would damage the environment, hurt workers and benefit only multinational corporations and their shareholders.

About 30 protesters were arrested Sunday, bringing the total to 430. Police reported injuries to nearly 50 officers and nearly 60 demonstrators during confrontations through the weekend at the security fences surrounding the summit site. Most of the injuries came during exchanges between rock- and bottle-throwing protesters and police who responded with tear gas, water canons and rubber bullets.

The vast majority of demonstrators here for the three-day summit were peaceful. The protests never seriously affected the proceedings and damage around the city was light, unlike during the December World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999.

Officials estimate there were 30,000 demonstrators at the peak Saturday. Protest leaders put the number at 60,000. Those who tried to knock down the fences or threw things at police numbered in the hundreds. Homes and businesses just yards from some of the most intense confrontations were untouched.

Many marchers were from unions worried about the effects of free trade on workers. Mike Swan was with a group of steelworkers from Buffalo, N.Y. "The mill I work in had 900 people when I started there 20 years ago," he said. "Now there are 34. And the politicians want to open up trade to cheap Brazilian steel."

As for the summit itself, the results had been determined in advance after negotiations by aides to the 34 leaders. The centerpiece of the agenda was the proposed free trade zone, which would reduce or eliminate tariffs and other barriers to trade. It would extend the North American Free Trade Agreement to include all democratic nations in the hemisphere. The zone would cover more than 800 million people and economies that produce more than $13 trillion annually in goods and services.

The leaders pledged to finish negotiations by January 2005 and enact the agreement by December 2005. Negotiations began shortly after the first Summit of the Americas in 1994. This was the third summit. The second was held in 1998.

Of all Western Hemisphere nations, only communist-led Cuba was not invited to take part.

Bush and the other leaders maintain that the advantages of free trade will promote democracy.

"Wealth can be spread throughout the hemisphere" by free trade, Bush said Sunday. "Combining in a market in our own hemisphere makes sense."

------

Summit leaders taped during closed-door session
Bush upbraided for chauvinism by female Panamanian president QUEBEC

Sun Apr 22, 2001 -
Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename =thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=987910474041&call_page=TS_Ne ws&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News

Behind closed doors, Bush was upbraided for sexism. Then, Latin American leaders had serious questions for the American president's plans. No debate was allowed even inside the meeting.

The prying lenses and sharp pencils of the press had been shooed out of the meeting hall.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien assured his fellow summit leaders their discussion was now closed and they could let their hair down.

Many did. But none of them noticed that a translated feed of their vigourous discussion was still flowing out of the room.

But an alert producer with Radio-Canada did take notice and scrambled to run an audio tape of the private discussions held Saturday.

Some of what was recorded would have cheered those on the streets and may have chagrined George W. Bush.

The U.S. president could take comfort that his chivalry was noted by the only woman head of state around the table.

''I have to say that the speakers make excellent speeches but they only speak of `Mr. presidents,''' said Panamanian President Mireya Elisa Moscoso.

''There's a woman president here, which I'm sure will only be a short-term exception. I'd like to thank President Bush for pointing this (the predominantly male presence) out to me during the break.''

No TV cameras were rolling to reveal if Bush blushed.

But much of the rest of the session must have been dreary for the U.S. president. One after one, leaders of smaller or poorer countries lined up to indirectly question whether his vision of unbridled capitalism is the best way to nurture nascent democracies.

Bush had told his counterparts during the televised session that democracy linked to markets was the best weapon against tyranny.

But, once the cameras left and the doors were closed to reporters, other leaders wondered how their creaking and vulnerable economies could possibly wield such a weapon. Others stated baldly that they needed to know how much money countries like Canada and the United States would be willing to pay to help them make the transition.

''The most powerful, I insist, cannot avoid the obligation of solidarity with those less favoured,'' said Paraguayan President Luis Angel Gonzalez.

That was code for a plea for cash before Paraguay can prepare to meet the 2005 deadline set for a negotiated deal on a Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Others asked larger countries to treat them as equals, but not before they were given preferential treatment.

''Don't poke sticks into our spokes,'' said Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo, thumping on his desk for emphasis.

''The small economies are not the same as the big economies. Just to become the equals of the big brothers, we will need to be treated accordingly.''

Portillo's solution included a promise from larger countries not to demand the lowest market prices for commodities from smaller countries. How that perspective might fit into the framework of a hemispheric free-trade pact remained a mystery.

Hugo Chavez, the firebrand president of Venezuela, scoffed at the notion of democracy as currently constructed in Latin America.

''If the democracy doesn't provide land, if it's concentrated in the hands of two per cent of the population, we can't speak of democracy,'' Chavez said.

There was little surprise on Sunday when the final declaration from summit leaders reaffirming their commitment to a hemispheric free-trade pact included an asterisk that represented Chavez's dissent.

The format of the meeting didn't allow for debate or discussion, so there was no noted reaction from Bush.

White House officials were said to be unhappy that a technical lapse threw open what was supposed to be a closed-door session.

-------- police

USA Today
04/22/01
States
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Nebraska

Grand Island - The state's Law Enforcement Memorial Committee is looking for a site for a proposed memorial to honor 125 Nebraska law officers who died in the line of duty. Committee members met with Grand Island officials who said their city would be a good fit because it's home to the state's Law Enforcement Training Center.

Ohio

Columbus - Potentially faulty blood-alcohol testing at the city's police lab may have compromised hundreds of tests used in criminal cases, officials said. An audit of tests between October 1999 and November 2000 focuses on crime lab equipment that may have been wrongly calibrated. Faulty tests could affect cases involving drunken driving.

Pennsylvania

Beaver Falls - Geneva College will award a posthumous diploma next month to a police officer who was fatally shot while on duty. James Naim, who was two months away from earning a degree in human resources management, was killed in March while patrolling a housing project in Aliquippa. Two men are charged with homicide in his death.

-------- terrorism

Foreign language experts lacking in U.S. Security

Pioneer Planet
Sunday, April 22, 2001
DIANA JEAN SCHEMO NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/sun/news/docs/027298.htm

As a band of trained terrorists plotted to blow up the World Trade Center, clues to the devastation ahead lay under the nose of law enforcement officials.

The FBI held videotapes, manuals and notebooks on bomb making that had been seized from Ahmad Ajaj, a Palestinian serving time in federal prison for passport fraud. There were phone calls the prison had taped, in which Ajaj guardedly told another terrorist how to build the bomb.

There was one problem: They were in Arabic. And nobody who understood Arabic listened to them until after the explosion at the Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000.

The tale is but one illustration of what intelligence and law enforcement officials describe as an increasingly dire lack of foreign language expertise that is undermining national security.

In the post-Soviet world, where threats are more diffuse and scattered over the map, military, diplomatic and intelligence officials are warning of critical shortages in their ability to understand the languages of other nations, and so unravel their secrets.

The reasons are many. With English increasingly becoming the world's lingua franca, the study of foreign languages has suffered. Taxpayer pressure on school districts to cut budgets and focus on the basics of reading and math has shortchanged language courses, and districts that are interested in teaching foreign languages report a shortage of qualified teachers.

At the same time, the need for language proficiency has grown as security threats have fragmented and the ability to eavesdrop has expanded.

But government layoffs and employee buyouts have trimmed foreign language expertise drastically, said Theodore Crump, who is updating a book cataloging the federal government's foreign language needs. These days, most agencies can only hope to catch up with, rather than anticipate, their needs.

``Back in 1985, the terrorist thing didn't really come up,'' he said of the year he first prepared the book. ``Now, when you have the possibility of someone coming in with a weapon of mass destruction in a suitcase, it changes the whole picture.''

While the Cold War's end has brought waves of immigrants with knowledge of obscure languages to the United States, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been reluctant to hire great numbers of them, citing a weakness in English and often difficulties in gaining security clearances for them.

According to testimony last September before a Senate subcommittee, roughly half of the U.S. State Department's diplomatic postings are filled by people lacking necessary foreign language skills.

The FBI must translate a million pages and untold hours of intercepted conversations a year and faces a mounting backlog that undermines its ability to prevent some crimes and investigate others. Intelligence agencies say they often are caught short in times of crisis, lacking a sufficient pool of agents and analysts with needed languages, from Arabic to Korean and -- most recently -- Macedonian.

Thousands of scientific and technical papers also go untranslated, depriving analysts andpolicy-makers of vital information about the state of foreign research in a range of areas, the Senate heard.

Robert Slater is director of the National Security Education Program run by the Defense Department, which offers grants to promote the study of foreign languages and cultures. Slater said that in the last decade, the linguistic shortfalls had gone from an episodic to a chronic problem.

A sobering illustration came in 1998, with the nuclear tests in Pakistan and India, said Richard Brecht, who runs the University of Maryland's National Foreign Language Center.

Official documents on the failure of U.S. intelligence to translate information that could have warned policy-makers of the explosions ``remain classified, but you can rest assured that those surprised people,'' Brecht said. The explosions, he added, ``should not have been surprises.''

According to government figures, American colleges and universities graduated only nine students who majored in Arabic last year. Only about 140 students graduated with degrees in Chinese, and only a handful in Korean.

These days, only 8.2 percent of American college and university students enroll in foreign language courses -- nearly all in Spanish, French and German, said Phyllis Franklin, executive director of the Modern Language Association.

Many of the lapses in essential translation skills remain invisible to the average citizen, who seldom learns of the linguistic flubs and risks that could have been avoided. But sometimes they spill into the public realm.

In November the publicly accessible version of the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, its roundup of foreign news reports, translated an article in a Palestinian newspaper accusing Israel of using weapons containing ``phlebotomized uranium'' -- which does not exist -- instead of depleted uranium.

``If such a wild mistranslation by FBIS is not a private joke, then it is an embarrassing sign of incompetence,'' said the Secrecy News, an electronic newsletter put out by the American Federation of Scientists.

---

In Embassy Bombings Case, Putting a Face on Men Confronting Death

New York Times
April 22, 2001
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/world/22TERR.html

A delicate dance over the death penalty has quietly intensified for two defendants in the embassy bombings trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

Throughout the trial, each man's lawyers have sought to paint their client's case as sympathetically as possible to a jury that seems increasingly likely to confront the issue of capital punishment. But the men's lawyers are also in a struggle of their own, each trying to distance his client's case from the other.

Lawyers for each man have recently filed papers with Judge Leonard B. Sand, asking that if their client is convicted in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Africa - which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured more than 4,000 - that the death penalty be considered in separate proceedings for each man.

On one level, the defense lawyers are concerned that evidence against one man could taint the other. But on a much more fundamental level, they fear that their clients will be seen less as individuals and more collectively, as faceless members of a terrorist conspiracy led by the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.

"It's a question of saying, `This is one life, one person,' " David A. Ruhnke, a lawyer for Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, said in an interview. His client is charged with helping to carry out the attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

David P. Baugh, a lawyer for the other defendant facing the death penalty, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, a 24-year- old Saudi charged in the attack in Nairobi, Kenya, said, "It's very easy, particularly in a case like this, to paint with a broad brush, with this sort of conspiracy, and the cultural differences, and the `them against us' mentality."

In joining the defense teams, Mr. Ruhnke and Mr. Baugh, each a specialist in the death penalty, have become participants in a historic trial - the first federal death penalty case to go in front of a jury in Manhattan in nearly half a century.

Judge Sand has signaled that he favors separate death penalty phases in the trial, but with certain conditions, namely that the jury not have to sit and hear essentially the same case twice.

The government initially opposed two lengthy and repetitive hearings before the same jury, but more recently said that it would change its position if the men offered substantially different cases.

Lawyers for the two other defendants in the case - Wadih El-Hage and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, who face life imprisonment if convicted - have each mounted aggressive defenses. But lawyers for Mr. al-'Owhali and Mr. Mohamed have adopted different strategies.

Mr. al-'Owhali's lawyers have vigorously cross-examined witnesses and appeared to be trying to show, for example, that a lengthy confession the authorities say their client gave was the product of coercion.

Lawyers for Mr. Mohamed seemed to concede the essence of the government's case against him. They have not disputed that Mr. Mohamed confessed, for example, and they appeared to hold out hope that in the death phase, jurors would see their client more sympathetically.

In fact, in arguing for separate hearings, the lawyers for both men have pointed out in court papers that they are very likely to attack the other defendant as a rationale for sparing their client's life.

"The reality of this case," Mr. Mohamed's lawyers wrote recently to Judge Sand, "is that each defendant is more likely to be sentenced to death if their penalty trials occur simultaneously."

Throughout the trial, both men's lawyers have been preparing for the death penalty phase. Lawyers who wait until after conviction to begin death-case preparations place their clients at great risk, Mr. Ruhnke said.

"Death rows are littered with clients who were represented by those lawyers, and some are in graveyards," he said.

"We've been planning for the penalty phase from the first day we got into the case."

One death penalty expert agreed that there was evidence that joint penalty phases worked against defendants. Edward J. Bronson, a professor at California State University at Chico, said, "In every single situation that I studied, both defendants did worse at penalty phases when it was joined."

Professor Bronson, whose research has been submitted to Judge Sand by the defense, said that when defendants' cases were heard together, jurors tended to impose the same penalty on each defendant. "Everybody was much more likely to get death," he said.

The crux of the debate over whether to separate the death penalty hearings was the government's contention that the execution of two convicted terrorists would be warranted in part because they would pose continuing threats if they were sentenced to life in prison.

Lawyers for the two defendants are expected to argue that a life term in a maximum security prison is reasonable and that it is unlikely that they would pose a threat to anyone.

But to bolster the government's argument against Mr. Mohamed, prosecutors said they might try to make a circumstantial case of his role in a near-fatal stabbing last fall of a jail guard at the Metropolitan Correctional Institution.

Prosecutors have said that Mr. Mohamed assisted another prisoner in the attack last Nov. 1, which left the guard, Louis Pepe, critically injured. Although Mr. Mohamed was not charged in the stabbing, and denied any role, prosecutors said that the attack was part of a plan to escape and take hostages to win the release of other suspected terrorists.

No one has charged Mr. al-'Owhali with a role in the attack, and his lawyers contended that he should go first - and separately - in the penalty phase. They do not want the jury to even know about the stabbing until after it reaches its life-or-death decision for Mr. al-'Owhali. "The reasons," Mr. al-'Owhali's lawyers wrote the judge, "are self-evident." If the cases are considered together, they say, jurors will have a much harder time separating the men in their minds.

Both sides offered another reason for separate hearings. Throughout the trial, lawyers for Mr. Mohamed have not seriously challenged the government's evidence that their client confessed immediately after his arrest to a role in the Tanzania attack.

In a death penalty hearing, his lawyers are very likely to point this out as a mark in his favor.

Mr. al-'Owhali's lawyers, on the other hand, are concerned about how such a comparison would make their client look in a joint hearing. Mr. al-Owhali is accused of lying for two weeks before admitting his role in the Nairobi attack.

Prosecutors, in their argument for a single hearing, said they expected both men to make a much more central and common assertion: that each was less culpable and deserving of the death penalty than the higher- ups who ordered the bombings, starting with Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Baugh, the lawyer for Mr. al- 'Owhali, said he would oppose any attempt to join the cases on the grounds of expedience or efficiency.

"Death is different," he said. "Balancing out convenience versus constitutional rights - I don't see that as a real balancing test. Democracy was never intended to be efficient."


------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)

------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!