------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
COMMANDER SPEAKS OUT
Rio Tinto unlikely to go ahead with Jabiluka development
WHO report on DU web site
Brookings Briefing: Bush's National Missile Defense Plan
Bush to deliver address on national missile defense
Chernobyl's Legacy
comeback for nuclear power
Nuclear power, long dormant, undergoes a nascent revival
Bush to Push Missile Shield, Nuclear Arms Cuts Next Week
U.S. Taiwan Policy Hits New Level of Ambiguity
Uranium Waste

MILITARY
China and Taiwan Urge Talks, but Their Call Rings Hollow
State Court Sides With Gunmakers in Liability Case
N.Y. court rules gun manufacturers not liable
Fulbright Scholar Sentenced to 37 Months in Russian Jail
Russia Convicts U.S. Student on Drug Charges
AUDITORS CLEAR DRUG CZAR
Rethink U.S. role in drug war
Tape: CIA tried to prevent shooting of plane
Honda in gear for US drive as losses grow
Japan's New Premier Renews His Vow to Field a Full Army
Navy Resumes Bombing on Vieques
Judge Refuses to Block Bombing on Puerto Rican Island
Kerrey Defends Account of Navy Seals' Raid in Vietnam
B-1s threatened

OTHER
Chemical Weapons Ban May Suffer for Lack of Dues
GOOD NEWS FOR LIVESTOCK
MOUNTAIN LIONS SEEN AT RISK
Defense Faults Police in Obtaining the Confession
Police Dept. Rejects Punishment for Officers in Diallo Shooting
Racial profiling starts early
Testimony on Somali Attack Is Excluded in Terror Trial
C.I.A. Opens Files on Hitler
A Pilot Is Lost, and a Communist Titan Is Found
Intelligence Fallouts for Bush
China grabs secrets from plane
Hitler's doctor foresaw world's 'craziest criminal'

ACTIVISTS
U.S. military detains protesters at Vieques
INDIAN RIGHTS BILL ADVANCES
PROTEST AGAINST NAVY EXERCISES IN VIEQUES
Judge denies bail to last man held after summit
Opponents of Nuclear Waste Rally in Salt Lake City
BLOCKADES IN THE CHAPARE REGION, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS TEAR-GASSED
Seattle IMC Won Gag order battle with FBI/Secrect Service!
UK's Trident Nuclear Subs Reached,
Carnival atmosphere prevails at Helsinki anti-nuke demo


-------- NUCLEAR

COMMANDER SPEAKS OUT

New York Times
April 27, 2001
National Briefing
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/national/27BRFS.html

HAWAII: Cmdr. Scott Waddle, whose submarine collided with a Japanese fishing trawler, rejected the view in Japan that he had gotten off lightly. "Had this gone to a court-martial, the rules of evidence are such that it more than likely would have resulted in an acquittal," Commander Waddle said on NBC's "Today" program. That outcome would have "further enraged the Japanese population," he said. An inquiry into the Feb. 9 collision found Commander Waddle solely responsible. He was reprimanded and allowed to resign from the Navy.

-------- australia

Rio Tinto unlikely to go ahead with Jabiluka development

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Fri, 27 Apr 2001 14:17 AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-27apr2001-47.htm

Mining giant Rio Tinto says development of its Jabiluka uranium site in the Northern Territory is an economically unattractive investment and unlikely to go ahead.

Speaking at the company's annual general meeting, company director Sir Robert Wilson told shareholders and Rio Tinto representatives that development at Jabiluka cannot proceed without the consent of the Northern Land Council and the area's traditional owners.

He said that consent is nowhere near forthcoming and may never be, making the whole issue only a remote possibility.

When asked whether Rio Tinto would sell its 68 per cent stake in uranium miner ERA, Sir Robert Wilson said they have no present plans to do so.

Shareholders and Rio Tinto representatives were met by dozens of environmental and union protesters outside the Darling Harbour Convention Centre as they arrived for this morning's meeting.

Security was very tight at the meeting with one woman ejected for trying to videotape part of the proceedings.

-------- depleted uranium

WHO report on DU web site

From: Magnu96196@aol.com
Fri, 27 Apr 2001

http://www.who.int/environmental_information/radiation/depleted_uranium.htm

-------- missile defense

Brookings Briefing: Bush's National Missile Defense Plan
Too Much, Too Little, Or Just Right?

US Newswire
Newswire 27 Apr 16:10
Contact: Brookings Office of Communications, 202-797-6105 e-mail: communications@brookings.edu
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0427-135.html

News Advisory:

WHAT: A Brookings Press Briefing: President Bush's National Missile Defense Plan: Too Much, Too Little, Or Just Right?

WHEN: Wednesday, May 2, 2001 9:30 a.m. -- 11 a.m. Continental breakfast will be served

WHERE: The Brookings Institution Falk Auditorium 1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C.

White House officials say President Bush is preparing to announce shortly his plan to create a National Missile Defense shield to protect the United States from missile attack. The proposal is likely to be highly controversial because of questions about its effectiveness and cost, and because of protests from Russia, China, and some European nations that it will initiate a new arms race.

Two senior fellows in the Brookings Foreign Policy Studies Program

-- Michael E. O'Hanlon, a former defense and foreign policy analyst in the national security division of the Congressional Budget Office, and James M. Lindsay, former director for global issues and multilateral affairs with the National Security Council -- will analyze the pros and cons of the president's missile defense announcement, explore related issues, and provide essential background information.

Other national security and defense experts are expected to participate in the briefing.

O'Hanlon and Lindsay are authors of a newly published book, Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense, in which they assess current and future missile threats to the United States, and examine the effectiveness of existing missile defense technologies.

In their book, O'Hanlon and Lindsay suggest that President Bush create a defense system that would protect the United States from missile attack while acknowledging technological and budgetary restraints. They argue that such a system need not mean dismantling the ABM treaty immediately or antagonizing allies, instead proposing a boost-phase defense system that would be aimed at possible missile attacks from so-called rogue states rather than from powers like Russia or China.

WHO:

-- Michael E. O'Hanlon, senior fellow, foreign policy studies, The Brookings Institution; co-author of Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense.

-- James M. Lindsay, senior fellow, foreign policy studies, The Brookings Institution; co-author of Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense.

-- Philip Coyle, senior advisor, Center for Defense Information; former director of operational test and evaluation, Department of Defense.

RSVP: Call the Brookings Office of Communications, 202-797-6105, or e-mail communications@brookings.edu.

---

Bush to deliver address on national missile defense

CNN
April 27, 2001
John King
CNN senior White House correspondent
http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/27/bush.missile.defense/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush plans to deliver a speech Tuesday outlining his rationale for a national missile defense plan, an administration official said Thursday. The speech will be the springboard for previously announced administration plans to consult with key allies in the spring in an effort to overcome skepticism and opposition.

Bush decided not to press ahead and begin construction this year at an Alaska site that would be involved in the missile defense network; that decision was left over from the Clinton administration. Instead, Bush decided to wait for a review of military spending being conducted by Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld, who has told deputies he considers the missile shield a top priority.

Bush plans two trips to Europe over the next several months, and administration officials want to consult with key allies beforehand and make their case for the missile shield. The president's speech is the opening foray in making the case to the allies and the American people, the White House official said.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Bush discussed the issue.

"It's an issue that my administration is going to take very seriously, and that is the development of anti-ballistic missile systems that will make our world a safer world. And one of the things you'll see us doing here in the course of -- in due time -- is to begin consultations with others around the world as to what we mean by missile defense. I'm not prepared to do that yet, but we'll do that.

"And I had said during the course of the campaign, and I'm going to say it in the administration, it is important for us to use our resources and technologies to develop such a system so as to make threats to people around the world that, you know, as obsolete as possible, as irrelevant as possible. And that threat's not only in the Far East, but in the Middle East, as well, and to our own homeland," the president said.

-------- ukraine

Chernobyl's Legacy

Irish Times
Friday, April 27, 2001
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2001/0427/edi2.htm

Fifteen years on, the Chernobyl disaster still leaves a scar across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and the wider circle of European States affected by what has been described as the worst environmental catastrophe in human history. One hundred and ninety tons of highly radioactive uranium and graphite material were scattered into the atmosphere by the explosion at 1.23 am on April 26th, 1986 - hundreds of times more than the radioactivity released when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Some seven million people were directly affected, 70 per cent of them in Belarus. This includes millions of children, as the exemplary work of the Cork-based Chernobyl Children's Project has continued to remind people in this country and elsewhere. Thyroid cancer, genetic changes, congenital birth deformities and toxic contamination of the land are among the most damaging impacts of the catastrophe.

Disturbing evidence of donor aid fatigue and complacency about such long-term effects is underlined by the appeal yesterday for solidarity with the people concerned by the United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan. So far much more money has been donated to contain the physical damage to the plant - undoubtedly an essential requirement, given the reportedly weak state of the sarcophagus surrounding the Number 4 reactor - than to the civilian victims. Such skewed priorities can only be corrected by sustained political pressure at an international level - in what could be an appropriate role for Ireland at the UN Security Council.

It is too early to provide a full evaluation of either the physical or human scale of the Chernobyl disaster. It has had a profound impact on safety practices within the international nuclear power industry, leading to the closure or phasing out of plants in a number of states, modification of their design and intensified research on alternative forms of energy. In Sweden and Germany decisions have been taken to phase out nuclear plants - an approach that has yet to find favour in most other industrialised States.

Compared to this it is estimated that by 2015 the human impact of the disaster will have cost Belarus - one of the poorest States in Europe - some $235 billion. In the absence of international aid its people will have to bear that cost themselves. This is a shameful fact, likely to have long-term consequences for regional stability. That can be seen in the backwardness of Belarus's political and economic system - as in that of Ukraine, where the liberal reformer, Mr Viktor Yushchenko, was yesterday voted out of office by a coalition of forces supporting the president, Mr Leonid Kuchma and parties representing tycoons likely to suffer disadvantage from his policies.

Unfortunately such political turbulence makes donors of aid more reluctant to come forward, for fear it will be diverted by endemic corruption. It is to the lasting credit of the Chernobyl Children's Project to have been able to channel its aid directly to the people most affected by the disaster.

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

Energy crunch, climbing prices, global warming generate comeback for nuclear power

Seattle Times
Nation & World
By Peter Behr
The Washington Post
Friday, April 27, 2001
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=nuke27&date=20010427

The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear-power plant on the Connecticut River were about to sell their 27-year-old facility last year when something remarkable happened, remarkable at least for that long-shunned industry.

A new bidder for the plant showed up, ready to double the purchase price, followed by another bidder, and another. Vermont officials halted the sale and have put the plant up for auction.

Only recently the nuclear industry seemed dead in this country. No new U.S. nuclear-power plant has been built since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and the Chernobyl disaster 15 years ago in Ukraine left a cloud of fear over the industry.

But soaring natural-gas prices, concerns about climate change and fear that California blackouts will spread have made electricity from the atom more attractive, though critics still worry about safety and what to do with radioactive waste.

U.S. nuclear plants have increased their overall output by 25 percent in the past 10 years by reducing accident rates and shutdowns. The nation's 103 commercial reactors deliver nearly 20 percent of the nation's electricity and do so without discharges of greenhouse gases or air pollution, industry officials say.

A few years ago, industry analysts predicted many nuclear-plant owners would not renew operating licenses, choosing instead to close the facilities in favor of more economic natural-gas-fired plants. Now, about 40 percent of the plants have announced plans to seek renewed licenses and twice that may apply, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials said.

"We have even seen the first stirring of interest in the possibility of new (nuclear-plant) construction in the United States, a thought that would have been unthinkable even a year ago," NRC Chairman Richard Meserve said in March.

Without a serious accident in years, nuclear power also is gaining acceptance.

Half the people queried in a new Associated Press poll support using reactors to produce electricity compared with 45 percent two years ago. And 56 percent of the supporters say they would not mind a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their home. Three in 10 opposed nuclear power; the remainder said they were unsure. Support for nuclear power was strongest in the energy-starved West, 55 percent.

The poll of 1,002 adults, taken April 18 through Monday, was conducted for the AP by ICR of Media, Pa.; it had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Safety still an issue

The revival of the nuclear-power industry has set the stage for a critical debate about energy policies that will hold the key to its future. The Bush administration says nuclear power should be a cornerstone of the new national energy plan the White House is preparing.

Industry opponents, led by the Union of Concerned Scientists, say the advancing age of U.S. plants and the difficulty in recruiting skilled operators create constant issues of operational safety. Control of nuclear plants is passing from traditional utilities to competitive generating companies, creating a risk that corners will be cut to boost profits, critics say.

But a re-energized nuclear industry says its safety record since Three Mile Island speaks for itself. It is pressing the administration for tax incentives and regulatory help that would make old plants more profitable and future construction easier.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who heads the president's energy task force, has been touting nuclear power as essential to America's energy needs. "It's the only way to deal with the question of global warming," Cheney said.

White House officials would not disclose what nuclear-power initiatives will be adopted by the task force. But industry leaders expect the Bush administration to give a go-ahead late this year to a long-delayed proposal to store hazardous radioactive wastes permanently in an underground site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The project could be authorized by Congress over Nevada's objections.

The administration would support renewal of the Price Anderson Act, which limits generators' liability from nuclear accidents, industry executives believe. The federal law is to expire next year.

The industry also is asking that nuclear plants receive valuable financial credit for not emitting the kind of greenhouse gases discharged by fossil-fuel plants.

Boost from rising gas prices

The shift in fortunes for nuclear power has several causes, most importantly last year's sudden escalation of natural-gas prices and this year's energy crunch. In the late 1990s, gas had become the fuel of choice for new power-plant projects because it burns more cleanly than coal or oil and because of its low price.

But shortages caused wholesale gas prices to rise more than $10 per 1,000 cubic feet at the beginning of winter, triple the levels of a year ago. Prices have since eased to about $5, but that makes gas-fired electricity pricey enough for nuclear plants to compete with, said Angelina Howard, executive vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

"We're very economically competitive," added Corbin McNeill, chairman of Chicago-based Exelon, the nation's largest operator of nuclear plants.

The industry's prospects have also been helped by what Howard calls a more "predictable" and "effective" oversight by the NRC in the past 1 1/2 years.

The NRC has sped up procedures for relicensing existing nuclear-power plants. Last year, it granted a renewed, 20-year license to the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant southeast of Washington, D.C., operated by Baltimore Gas & Electric, taking a relatively short two years.

The impact of higher gas prices and improved regulatory environment is apparent in the run-up in nuclear-plant prices that surprised Vermont Yankee's owners.

Two years ago, buyers were paying about $100 a megawatt for nuclear-power plants, said Paul Dabbar, vice president of J.P. Morgan, which is handling the Vermont Yankee auction.

In March, Dominion Resources, the Richmond, Va.-based energy conglomerate, paid $1.3 billion to buy the Millstone Nuclear Power plant from Northeast Utilities in Connecticut. The price for one of the Millstone units hit $791 a megawatt, almost eight times the average of a few years before, Dabbar said.

Increasingly stiff air-quality regulations are also ahead for conventional power plants. "Nuclear power doesn't have to worry about that," he added.

In addition, power woes in the West have highlighted the need for new generating plants, even prompting some in the Northwest and California to take a new look at mothballed and unfinished plants.

Regulatory breaks

If the nuclear industry bets on a longer, more profitable future for existing plants, a bigger question remains unanswered: Will it attempt to build new plants?

The NRC has streamlined consideration of new nuclear projects, creating separate reviews for plant designs and sites. Several plant designs have been pre-approved and if a generator adopts one of these designs, it doesn't have to cross that regulatory hurdle again.

The most likely scenario for a new project would be to add a unit, using an approved design, on a power plant site, said James Lake, president of the American Nuclear Society.

Critics say that under the new NRC approach, activists lose many opportunities to challenge a project, especially if a proposed plant will be next to an existing nuclear-power plant.

If the NRC proceeds with a proposal that could limit activists' access to confidential company data, "the public can jump up and down, but there would be no leverage for meaningful dialogue," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear-safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

Rather than support a new round of nuclear-plant construction, Lochbaum said, Congress and the administration should be promoting an increase in energy from solar, wind, hydroelectric and other renewable sources.

New technologies

The industry is also asking the Bush administration to help fund development of new plant technologies.

One, based on 1950s German designs, is a "pebble-bed modular reactor" that uses uranium fuel packed in individually shielded canisters the size of tennis balls. In case of accident, the reactor would come to a standstill, gradually releasing heat but not radiation, Exelon officials said. The design does not require an emergency cooling system, the officials said.

Exelon supports construction of a pebble-bed reactor in South Africa, which it hopes will be a model for plants in this country.

"It answers every criticism but long-term waste disposal. There is no conceivable way you get a Three Mile Island accident out of that design," Exelon's McNeill said.

--------

Nuclear power, long dormant, undergoes a nascent revival
Rising electricity rates and concern about global warming spur second look at industry. But waste-disposal problems persist.

Christian Science Monitor
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2001
By David R. Francis (francisd@csps.com)
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/04/27/fp3s1-csm.shtml

For more than a quarter century, nuclear power has been the enfant terrible of US energy policy. Sure, it's a cheap way today to generate electricity. Sure, it doesn't spew any greenhouse gases out of hour-glass stacks.

Yet there is that problem of radioactive waste, which alone has been enough to harden a generation of activists against it - and ensure that a nuclear plant hasn't been ordered in the US in 23 years.

Yet today, at the birth of a new century and new concerns about domestic energy supplies, nuclear power is getting a second look. Soaring natural gas prices, shortages of electricity, and fresh concerns about global warming are reviving some of the interest.

More important, the Bush administration seems poised to give nuclear power a boost in its new energy plan. Even public opinion seems to have shifted somewhat on the issue: An Associated Press poll out this week shows that 50 percent of Americans support nuclear power - up from 45 percent just two years ago.

While none of this means new nuclear reactors will be dotting the landscape any time soon, it is causing the industry to renew the licenses on some existing plants - and push ahead with a generation of safer reactors.

"We are moving down the road," says Marvin Fertel, senior vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington.

For the record, the last time an American utility ordered a new nuclear plant was when "Dallas" was a hit TV show and Jimmy Carter was president, in 1978. It was a year before the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Commonwealth Edison in Illinois cancelled the order in 1990. The last commercial reactor to come on line - at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant - did so in 1996, 26 years after being ordered.

As even Mr. Fertel admits, the road ahead to a new plant will be packed with politics and potholes, if not land mines.

"I would be surprised if we saw a new nuclear reactor in this decade," says James Moniz, undersecretary for energy, science, and the environment at the Department of Energy under President Clinton.

Just how far the Bush administration will go in pushing the nuclear option is uncertain. Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" earlier this month that the US must build 65 power plants annually and "some of those ought to be nuclear." The administration's energy task force, which Mr. Cheney heads, is expected to present its report in the next few weeks. Experts speculate - and the industry hopes - the White House will offer tax incentives and ease regulatory requirements to encourage development.

On one level, the White House could play the green card. The administration has come under fire for several moves affecting the environment, and it could claim that new nuclear plants would reduce greenhouse emissions. Sen. Pete Domenici (R) of New Mexico notes that since the 1970s, nuclear plants have prevented the emission of more than 2 billion tons of carbon.

But opponents point to the highly radioactive wastes produced by the plants, and may consider promotion of nuclear power another sign of a pro-business, anti-environmental stance by President Bush.

There is also the enduring concern of weapons-grade nuclear material falling into the wrong hands. Edwin Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute, argues that expanded reliance on the technology could lead to the proliferation of nuclear arms abroad and a greater risk of sabotage of plants at home.

Still, proponents won't be deterred. Last month, Senator Domenici introduced a bill to foster more nuclear power. One provision aims at encouraging upgrades of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants. If the improvements step up power output by 5 percent or more, they could get a subsidy of up to $1 million. "We risk the nation's future prosperity if we lose the nuclear option through inaction," Domenici says.

At present, nuclear plants generate about 20 percent of the nation's power demands. During the 1990s, by taking measures to improve efficiency, reduce shutdowns, and expand output, the plants added the effective equivalent of 23 new 1,000-megawatt power plants. That was enough power to serve 30 percent of new electric consumption during that time.

Many thought these existing plants would be decommissioned when their 40-year licenses ran out. But five plants already have had their licenses renewed for 20 years. Another five are before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 33 more are expected to file in the next three years for 20-year license renewals.

In a power-short nation and with the spread of competitive electricity generation, the plants have become prized possessions. Their price has been bid up as the cost of power produced by natural gas has zoomed.

Despite the momentum, the Achilles' Heel of nuclear power remains where to store the radioactive wastes. The DOE is scheduled to issue a report on the proposed Yucca Mountain waste site in Nevada late this year. It is supposed to be based on scientific findings, not politics.

Mr. Moniz, now teaching physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says his reviews of the years-long research at Yucca indicate "no apparent show stoppers" for an effective depository for radioactive waste that could remain dangerous for thousands of years.

If the report is positive, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will then make a recommendation to President Bush on whether the site is suitable. If Bush approves, Congress would be notified, and the NRC would start on the path to licensing.

Since public opinion and political leaders in Nevada are opposed to the Yucca repository, a Bush decision could have political consequences. On the other hand, politicians in more populous states with existing nuclear plants and waste-storage sites may push for Yucca. Radioactive waste, at the moment, is stored at plants on site. "I would think they [Nevada politicians] would get steamrolled on this," says David Lockbaum, an engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

But without further clarity of the nuclear-waste issue, it is difficult to see a new plant being built and licensed, says Moniz. Indeed, there is some debate as to whether Yucca approval would prompt any utility to risk right away the $1 billion or more needed for a new plant, or wait some years further to watch developments.

The industry is, however, moving ahead with new technology. Late this year, Exelon Corp. of Chicago and its foreign partners will decide whether to build a prototype "pebble-bed" reactor that proponents say is incapable of a meltdown like that at Chernobyl.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush to Push Missile Shield, Nuclear Arms Cuts Next Week

By Thomas E. Ricks and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 27, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9632-2001Apr27?language=printer

President Bush plans a major speech next week in which he will announce plans for a missile defense system but try to reassure allies by tying the shield's deployment to reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, officials said yesterday.

The officials said Bush's speech will hew to his campaign promise to develop a missile defense to "guard against attack and blackmail." Bush also had promised to maintain the "lowest possible number" of nuclear weapons and destroy the rest.

Bush has mentioned the missile shield only in passing since taking office, and the budget he released earlier this month did not earmark money for it. The speech will renew his commitment to the plan but acknowledge the objections from Europe and Russia about his plans.

Overseas leaders have complained that the system could relaunch the arms race by destroying the framework for nuclear control. In Europe, where Bush has infuriated leaders with his rejection of the Kyoto global warming treaty, officials fear that deployment of an anti-missile shield would sour their ties with Russia.

Development of a missile defense eventually would become a violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which bans such systems, and some administration officials say privately that it is inevitable that the United States will abrogate that treaty.

The president isn't expected to take that step in his speech, advisers said. Before the administration announces that it is breaking out of the ABM Treaty, it wants to devote major efforts to bringing along major U.S. allies.

There are practical reasons for that diplomatic work. To operate as conceived, a missile defense system would require the United States to operate huge radar stations in Britain and Greenland.

A Pentagon official said the two-pronged approach of tying the missile defense system to arms reductions is intended in part to assuage Russian concerns about the shield.

The president is expected to announce steps to broaden the Pentagon effort to develop missile defenses beyond the Clinton administration's emphasis on intercepting missiles in space, when they are midway through their flight, another administration official said.

The most significant in the short term is likely to be spending on ways of knocking down missiles soon after they are launched. This area of missile defense, called "boost-phase intercept," is likely especially to benefit the Navy, which operates sophisticated Aegis warships that can track hundreds of aircraft and missiles simultaneously.

In addition, Bush is expected to say he wants to increase research and development spending on "terminal" defenses, systems that knock down missiles after they have reentered the atmosphere.

Defense experts call this varied approach a "layered defense" system. Its advantage is that it offers several chances to intercept an enemy missile. One of its major disadvantages is that it is expensive. For example, just the Aegis warships in the boost-phase intercept part of the system cost about $1 billion apiece.

----

U.S. Taiwan Policy Hits New Level of Ambiguity
Bush's Words Please Some, Leave Others Confounded

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 27, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8778-2001Apr26?language=printer

In just seconds Wednesday, President Bush cast doubt on a policy that had been worked out over many years. Like someone pulling on a loose string, he came close to unraveling part of the tattered fabric of relations between the United States and China, according to U.S. experts on China.

The policy he tugged on is known in diplomatic shorthand as "strategic ambiguity." But after a day that began with Bush's blunt declaration of support for Taiwan and ended with qualifications from the White House, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) quipped that the policy should be rechristened "ambiguous strategic ambiguity."

The original ambiguity was whether the United States would rescue Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. China claims the self-governing island as part of its territory, and although the United States has long advocated a peaceful resolution to the issue of reunification, Beijing has refused to renounce the use of force as an option. By being vague about whether American forces would intervene in the event of an attack, the United States has hoped to deter Beijing while restraining Taiwan.

So when Bush was asked during a taped ABC-TV morning show whether he would use U.S. military forces to help Taiwan defend itself from China and he responded that he would do "whatever it took," he broke a 22-year-old taboo. More than 12 hours later, White House officials were still trying to convince reporters, diplomats and lawmakers that there had been no change in policy.

Many observers said yesterday the president had made a gaffe. Others said that it was a case, as columnist Michael Kinsley once observed, of a gaffe being when a politician says what he really believes.

"This is one of those things you can walk back partway but never completely, because it's part of the mind-set," said Kenneth Lieberthal, Asia director of President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. "It is very hard to erase the memory of a startling statement on a keenly sensitive issue made by the president of the United States to a national television audience."

Taiwan's chief representative in Washington said yesterday that Bush's pledge to defend Taiwan sent a "strong message" to China. "The words he used were not the words used before" and represented a "firmer stance" than those taken by previous administrations, said the envoy, C.J. Chien-jen Chen.

Despite the facade of ambiguity, the U.S. military already has detailed plans for the defense of Taiwan. They are one of only two sets of war plans on the shelves of the U.S. Pacific Command; the other is for the defense of South Korea.

The irony is that, despite talk about helping Taiwan defend itself, the U.S. war plans exclude Taiwanese forces and assume they would simply get out of the way. When the United States reestablished relations with mainland China in 1979, it severed ties with Taiwan's military, making communication and coordination all but impossible.

Some measure of ambiguity also was lost in 1996, when the Clinton administration sent 16 warships to Taiwan during a series of intimidating Chinese missile firings off the Taiwanese coast.

Indeed, many experts contend that for all the rancor of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the only thing that really matters is the implicit U.S. commitment to come to Taiwan's defense. "The U.S. military is the ultimate guarantor of Taiwan's security," said David Finkelstein, a China expert at the Center for Naval Analysis.

Ambiguity was certainly useful a quarter-century ago. The Taiwan question was the main reason that it took nine years from the first secret Sino-American diplomatic contacts in Warsaw and seven years from President Richard M. Nixon's historic trip to Beijing for the United States and China to restore formal diplomatic relations.

The compromise reached in 1979 contained important concessions for China. The United States supported a "one China" policy, implying that it did not support an independent Taiwan, and downgraded its relations with Taiwan, relegating contacts to low levels. In addition, the United States abrogated its defense pact with Taiwan.

Ambiguity has also served the interests of Japan, because a U.S. defense of Taiwan would probably involve the U.S. base in Okinawa, Japan.

"One has to ask whether the administration consulted with Japan before making this public statement by the president," Lieberthal said. "There are clear, potentially major implications for our alliance with Japan of a firm U.S. commitment to use all available means to defend Taiwan."

As it is, Chinese-Japanese relations are going through a rough patch because Tokyo granted a visa to former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui over Beijing's protests. China reportedly postponed a visit to Japan by Li Peng, the Chinese Communist Party's second-ranking official, and increased the number of ships doing surveillance off Japan's coast.

Some conservatives argue that strategic ambiguity is an anachronism.

Since 1979, Taiwan has become a democracy and China has modernized its military, and for the United States to say that intervention would depend on circumstances is no longer enough, said Joseph A. Bosco, who teaches at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

China has "been probing what those circumstances are," Bosco said. "If the game was to keep them guessing and keep them from doing anything rash, it has just the opposite effect."

-------- us nuc waste

Uranium Waste

Los Angeles Times
Friday, April 27, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20010427/t000035626.html

According to "Uranium Waste Cleanup Gets No U.S. Funds" (April 24), the Bush administration has allowed no money for the cleanup of the uranium waste outside of Moab, Utah, which has been leaking into the Colorado River and therefore into the water supply of several Western states.

Some people have been critical of this omission, but they have failed to see that this is part of the Bush administration's brilliant solution to the energy crisis. When people have drunk enough of this Colorado River water, their radioactive glow will diminish considerably the need for nighttime lighting. And money is saved on the cleanup.

R.C. RICHARDS La Mesa

Why worry about the Colorado River cleanup? It's only our Los Angeles water supply. After all, we can go out and spend a few dollars for a plastic jug of the stuff at any market. We need all the funds left just to build more nukes and continue the nuclear arms race. A race, by the way, to where? With whom?

And uranium is no doubt needed to fuel the "safe" and "too cheap to meter" nuclear power plants--those that haven't been shut down already due to cost overruns and public danger.

ANDREW KAY LIBERMAN Los Angeles


-------- MILITARY

China and Taiwan Urge Talks, but Their Call Rings Hollow

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27CND-TAIWAN.html

BEIJING, April 27 - Eight years after they began a historic and ultimately abortive dialogue on future relations, mainland China and Taiwan both made calls today for renewed talks.

But the pleas appeared hollow, as neither side showed any sign of compromising on Beijing's core precondition for any negotiations: Taiwan's agreement that it remains part of "one China."

Taiwanese leaders, as they extended an invitation they knew China would reject, quietly reveled in the substantial new weapons package that Washington has offered to sell, and in President Bush's public promise to aid the island if it comes under attack.

Beijing continued today with a drumbeat of harsh warnings - to Taiwan for its refusal to embrace reunification and to Washington for its arms offer and for surprise remarks made by President Bush on Wednesday.

On national television Mr. Bush said the United States would do all it could to aid Taiwan in the event of an attack. It was a more overt statement of support than previous American leaders had made, which Beijing called another step on a "dangerous road," even as American officials said there had been no real change in policy.

Today it appeared that Chinese-Americans could be rattled still more, as Washington officials were reported as saying that President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan may be allowed to meet with members of Congress during stopovers in the United States on his way to Latin America.

China has sought to isolate Taiwan's government, which it regards as illegitimate, and especially Mr. Chen, who was elected last year and whose party has worked for Taiwan's independence from Beijing.

Ever since Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Nationalists fled to the island in 1949, the two sides have been in more and less hostile states of limbo, with Beijing claiming full sovereignty over Taiwan and threatening to use force if it refuses to rejoin the motherland.

Mr. Bush has caused consternation here with his promises of stronger support for Taiwan. He avoided setting off a major confrontation by refusing this year to approve the sale of the highly advanced Aegis radar and battle-management system, which Beijing had stridently warned against. But he did anger the Chinese by offering a $4 billion arms package that includes diesel submarines, which previous American presidents had rejected as too provocative. The Chinese have responded with belligerent rhetoric, though not any specific reprisals.

At a news conference today, Zhang Mingqing, spokesman for the cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office, charged that the weapons offered to Taipei were intended for offensive rather than defensive purposes and violated previous American promises to phase down the stream of arms to what Beijing considers an internal region.

This morning one official newspaper, The Guangming Daily, urged the United States to "reign in its horse at the edge of the cliff," while several newspapers asserted that Taiwan's leaders, abetted by Americans whose real goal is to keep China down, are headed for disaster.

Mr. Zhang issued a statement from Wang Daohan, an elder statesman, calling for Taiwan to return to what Beijing says was an unwritten agreement in 1992 that made talks possible, in which both sides accepted "one China" in principle but did not try to hammer out the practical meaning.

Taiwanese officials disagree among themselves over what was tacitly agreed in 1992, but Mr. Chen's government has been loathe to adopt Beijing's proposed approach.

Beijing halted all official contacts two years ago when the former Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-hui, said Taiwan and Beijing had a "state-to-state" relationship.

In his statement today, Mr. Wang reiterated China's formulation, regarded here as a generous offer of future autonomy to Taiwan, that "under the prerequisite of one China, everything is possible."

But today Mr. Zhang, from the cabinet's Taiwan office, ruled out one path that some experts have proposed.

"A federation or confederation would not be `one China,' " he said in response to a question.

-------- arms sales

State Court Sides With Gunmakers in Liability Case

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/nyregion/27GUN.html

ALBANY, April 26 - The state's highest court ruled today that the gun industry cannot generally be held liable for shootings involving guns bought and sold illegally, a decision that will probably result in the overturning of a landmark verdict won by a firearms victim two years ago.

In 1999, a Brooklyn jury held several gun makers responsible for a shooting based on the way the companies had marketed their products, the only verdict of its kind in the nation. Today, though the Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the plaintiff had not proved his case, the judges did hold out the possibility that such liability could be established in the future.

A lawyer for two of the defendants in the case, Lawrence S. Greenwald, said, "This decision will have important ripple effects nationally, in other cases asserting negligence by the industry."

Mr. Greenwald, who represents Beretta U.S.A. and American Arms Inc., added, "This is a precedent from a highly regarded court that has pushed the envelope of corporate defendants' duty and liability."

The gun industry has been under legal siege in recent years, with not only individuals, but dozens of cities and counties, and the state of New York, filing suits against manufacturers in an attempt to hold them responsible for the carnage caused by firearms.

As with litigation against the tobacco industry several years ago, government and private groups have formed a loose coalition to take on gun makers - at one point, several states and the federal government threatened to sue them - and a cadre of lawyers has made a specialty of such suits.

The case the Court of Appeals ruled on today drew national attention in February 1999, when a jury in Federal district court in Brooklyn awarded $522,000 to Steven Fox, a Queens teenager who was shot in the head five years earlier. The jury accepted the plaintiffs' argument that gun makers were guilty of negligent marketing, a verdict that was recognized by all sides as a landmark. It spawned dozens of similar suits around the country and articles in notable law journals. With thousands of shooting victims around the state who might have filed similar suits, the verdict represented a serious financial threat to the entire gun industry.

Many of the individual suits against gun makers, and some of the municipal ones, relied on theories of negligence similar to Mr. Fox's, and could be set back by today's ruling. But others, including a pending case filed by New York State, used completely different legal theories and most likely would not be affected.

Mr. Fox's suit charged the gun makers with negligence, saying that they marketed their products in a way that fed illegal firearms traffic. For example, the suit charged, the gun industry over-supplied dealers in states with lax gun laws, knowing that many of those weapons would end up in states like New York that have tougher laws. The case was tried in federal court because the defendants were mostly out-of-state companies.

The gun companies appealed the novel verdict to the U. S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, contending that they do not have a duty to the public to protect them from the illegal acquisition or misuse of a firearm. The circuit court then asked the New York State Court of Appeals to answer two questions of state law that were part of the underpinnings of Mr. Fox's case. The state high court today answered both questions resoundingly in the gun industry's favor.

The decision almost certainly means that the Federal appellate court will overturn the verdict and throw out the case, said lawyers who were involved in the case and who observed it from the outside. "I would assume so," said Dennis A. Hennigan, legal director of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence in Washington, which had filed a brief on behalf of the plaintiffs. "This is a setback, because this was the first and only jury verdict against a manufacturer for negligent marketing."

The more basic of the two questions about state law answered by the court was whether the industry had "a duty to exercise reasonable care in the marketing and distribution" of firearms - for instance, to avoid sales to dealers who might, in turn, feed the black market.

"We should be cautious in imposing novel theories of tort liability while the difficult problem of illegal guns in the United States remains the focus of a national policy debate," Judge Richard C. Wesley wrote for the court. "In sum, analysis of this state's longstanding precedents demonstrates that defendants - given the evidence presented here - did not owe plaintiffs the duty they claim."

As with most shootings, it is unknown what kind of gun was used to shoot Mr. Fox, who is now 21 and has permanent brain damage. The weapon was never recovered by the police, and the bullet, which could be used to identify the manufacturer, remains lodged in his brain.

His lawyers persuaded the jury that multiple manufacturers could be held responsible for his injuries, with liability divided among gun makers based on their share of the handgun market. It was akin to the theory that the Court of Appeals adopted in a precedent-setting 1989 decision, when it ruled that makers of the morning sickness drug DES could be held jointly liable for its ill effects on the children of the women who took it, even if the plaintiffs could not show which company made their mothers' pills.

The federal appellate court asked the Court of Appeals whether, under state law, that legal theory applied in Mr. Fox's case. The court ruled that it did not, in part because there was no reason to believe that all gun makers had the same marketing practice, and that therefore their products posed the same risks.

"We recognize the difficulty in proving precisely which manufacturer caused any particular plaintiff's injuries since crime guns are often not recovered," Judge Wesley wrote. "Inability to locate evidence, however, does not alone justify the extraordinary step of applying market share liability." But rather than slamming the door shut to such a lawsuit, the court explicitly held it open, though it made clear that proving the case would not be easy. Judge Wesley wrote that further interpretation, in future cases, could hold manufacturers responsible if they knew, for example, that their distributors were engaging routinely in illegal gun sales. He noted that plaintiffs did not present such evidence in this case.

Marc E. Elovitz, one of Mr. Fox's lawyers, said the court had essentially showed what it would take to win such a suit. "They've given us a road map for the litigation," he said. "We're disappointed that we didn't get to the destination on this round, but it's not the end of the story."

The trail that led to today's ruling began on Nov. 14, 1994, in Jamaica, Queens, when Mr. Fox, then 15, was accidentally shot in the head by a friend, who said he had bought the gun from a man selling them from the trunk of his car. The original plaintiffs in the case included the families of six people killed with guns, but the jury found negligence only in Mr. Fox's case. The jury said that 15 of the 25 gun makers named as defendants were negligent, but found only three of them liable - Taurus International Manufacturing, Beretta and American Arms.

---

N.Y. court rules gun manufacturers not liable

Washington Times
April 27, 2001
By Frank J. Murray THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010427-81846324.htm

New York´s top court yesterday disarmed a swarm of plaintiffs in a key class-action lawsuit seeking to make 25 gunmakers pay for six murders and a wounding.

The seven-judge state Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that manufacturers cannot be held liable for the actions of retail gun buyers or even those who steal guns.

"The chain most often includes subsequent legal purchasers or even a thief," Judge Richard Wesley said in explaining why the Albany court decided the legal doctrine of "negligent entrustment" doesn´t apply to gun companies.

The interpretation of state law -- for which there is no appeal -- likely will derail the legal theory that powered at least 17 copycat lawsuits by cities across the nation: that indiscriminate marketing and distribution practices generated an underground market in handguns for violent criminals.

More evidence of direct negligence would have to be established, considering the number of federally licensed dealers and wholesalers who process sales after a gun is manufactured, Judge Wesley said.

The unusual state ruling in a federal case likely will nullify a $4 million federal jury verdict in February 1999 against three gun companies.

Without proof of which company made the gun that wounded Stephen Fox, who is permanently disabled with a .25-caliber bullet still in his brain, the jury returned a verdict dividing the $4 million award according to the share of the gun market held by American Arms Inc., Beretta U.S.A. Corp., and Taurus International Manufacturing Inc.

Mr. Fox, now 23, survived a 1994 shooting by his friend, Alfred Adkins Jr., when both were 16. Adkins bought the gun shortly before the shooting, not from one of the 24 gun dealers who also were sued but from an unlicensed gun merchant hawking pistols from a car trunk in a city where such handguns are generally illegal. Adkins pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment.

Mr. Fox´s New York lawyer, Elisa Barnes, who developed the theories of collective guilt and "duty" not to market hazardous guns, referred calls last night to co-counsel Marc Elovitz, who did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which now has jurisdiction of the case, threw out similar theories in the 1993 shootings that killed six Long Island Railroad passengers, including the husband of U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, New York Democrat.

Product-liability cases generally are governed by state law but may be filed in federal court when parties live in different states.

The Fox decision eventually could be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court on narrower federal grounds but the federal trial judge or the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now is likely to vacate the controversial legal ruling that led to it.

The opinion today said that manufacturers may become legally liable if they knowingly continue to distribute guns through dealers involved in illegal trafficking, but companies cannot be made to pay for gunshot injuries on the basis of how many guns it sells.

"No case has applied the market-share theory of liability to such varied conduct and wisely so," the court said, suggesting the issue could produce changes in the law.

The court noted the "novel theory, negligent marketing of a potentially lethal yet legal product, based upon the acts not of one manufacturer, but of an industry," but said it doesn´t see that manufacturers have the duty the plaintiffs claim.

Highly publicized copycat cases in Chicago, New Orleans, Miami and elsewhere followed the Fox verdict based on rulings by U.S. District Judge Jack P. Weinstein.

Among those vowing to follow suit was Kwesi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who said the NAACP also would sue gunmakers in the wake of the groundbreaking Hamilton v. Accu-Tek decision. The NAACP press office did not respond last night to a call seeking comment.

"The gun industry has refused to take even basic measures to keep criminals and prohibited persons from obtaining firearms," Mr. Mfume said at a February 1999 press conference when he released drafts of his complaint.

Desmond Riley, spokesman for the D.C.-based Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence, said at the time that his group introduced Mr. Mfume and Ms. Barnes and helped obtain financing for his legal effort from George Soros´ Open Society Institute.

Four months after the Fox verdict triggered headlines in February 1999, Judge Weinstein began expressing doubts on the wisdom of his own judgment that the "ultrahazardous" nature of guns made the manufacturers liable to a greater degree than for other products.

In June 1999, Judge Weinstein joined in endorsing requests that the federal appeals court ask the state court for a ruling, which he had refused to do when asked earlier in the process.

"I think he recognizes his decision went far beyond what it allowed when the law is so strong on this issue. A company can´t be held responsible for the criminal acts of others, where a party has no ability to control those acts," said a Chicago lawyer representing Smith & Wesson, Colt´s Manufacturing, and Sturm, Ruger, none of which was held liable in the case.

"It´s not common for a district court judge to ask the federal appeals court to certify the question to the state´s highest court," said another gun industry lawyer who also asked not to be named.

-------- drug war

Fulbright Scholar Sentenced to 37 Months in Russian Jail

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27CND-MOSCOW.html

MOSCOW, April 27 -- A court in the southwest Russian city of Voronezh convicted a visiting American Fulbright scholar on drug charges today and sentenced him to 37 months in a penal colony near Moscow.

John Edward Tobin, who was a post-graduate student at Voronezh State University, was found guilty of possessing and distributing drugs. His lawyers persuaded the court to drop a third charge of maintaining a drug den. They told the Interfax news service that they would appeal the verdict to the high court for Voronezh province.

Mr. Tobin's arrest on seemingly minor marijuana charges last Feb. 1 went almost unnoticed for weeks. But it quickly and unexpectedly became a showcase for the tensions that lie beneath Russians' ties to the United States.

Mr. Tobin, 24, was at work on a thesis examining Russian's changing political attitudes when police arrested him and, they said, found a half-ounce of marijuana in his clothes. A search of his apartment, they said, turned up another 1.5 ounces. Mr. Tobin was quoted as saying in court that the drugs had been planted on him.

The case burst onto Russian newspapers and national television only four weeks later, after local officials of Russia's counterintelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, held a news conference to charge that Mr. Tobin was in training to become a spy.

"The Russian security services believe the American was apparently carrying out work to familiarize himself with the country and language before receiving his main assignment," a spokesman for the Voronezh arm of the security service told the Interfax at the time.

Their evidence was his background: before becoming a Fulbright scholar, Mr. Tobin studied Russian and received training in interrogation at a Defense Department intelligence institute in Fort Huachuca, Ariz. It was later disclosed that Mr. Tobin, whose home is in Ridgefield, Conn. was assigned to an Army reserve military intelligence battalion in nearby Waterbury.

The State Department denied the accusation, and a day later security service officials in Moscow said Mr. Tobin had broken no espionage laws, although it stuck by its assessment.

The flap followed a series of incidents involving supposed espionage efforts that underscored the suspicion of Western intentions that appears to have snowballed here in recent years.

Several months before Mr. Tobin was jailed, a Moscow court had convicted a retired American naval intelligence officer, Edmund Pope, on espionage charges after he purchased Russian military technology from Russian researchers. Mr. Pope and the researchers said the purchases had been approved in advance by Russian officials.

The United States embassy in Moscow had no comment on today's guilty verdict imposed on Mr. Tobin.

Officials at Russia's Justice Ministry said that if his appeals fail, they will imprison Mr. Tobin at a colony for foreign offenders in the Republic of Mordovia, south of Moscow. Mordovia has been a center for prisons since the Stalin era.

---

Russia Convicts U.S. Student on Drug Charges

Associated Press
April 27, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-US-Trial.html

VORONEZH, Russia (AP) -- An American Fulbright scholar was sentenced to more than 3 years in prison on drug charges Friday in a verdict his lawyer said was influenced by accusations from Russia's secret services that he was a spy in training.

John Tobin, 24, of Ridgefield, Conn., had firmly asserted his innocence. During the trial, a prosecutor who said police apparently doctored reports in the case asked for the most serious drug trafficking charges against him to be thrown out. Tobin was convicted on the lesser charges of obtaining, possessing and distributing marijuana.

Tobin was arrested Jan. 26 outside a nightclub in Voronezh. Police said he had a small matchbox containing marijuana and that a small packet of the drug was found in a book in his apartment.

The arrest attracted little attention until about a month later, when the Federal Security Service stated publicly that Tobin, who was studying at Voronezh State University under a grant, was apparently training to be an espionage agent.

Although he was not charged with spying, ``the social fuss that has been pumped up by certain law enforcement officials could not but influence the attitude toward this case and the way it was investigated,'' his attorney, Maxim Bayev, said after the verdict.

The accusation about Tobin's intelligence connections came about a week after U.S. investigators arrested FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen on charges of spying for Russia, escalating tensions over espionage between Washington and Moscow. Tobin, a graduate of Middlebury College, had studied at a U.S. military school and at the U.S. Defense Language Institute.

``I am a student. I came here to study. I don't have anything to do with drugs,'' Tobin said in his final statement to the court, speaking from the metal cage in which defendants are kept in Russian trials.

Four hours later, Judge Tatyana Korchagina read the verdict in a courtroom packed with journalists, supporters and curious Voronezh residents. Tobin stood with his hands behind his back, listening attentively but showing no reaction.

Bayev said he would appeal the sentence and demand in particular that the conviction for distribution be overturned because it was not supported by the evidence. He also said he would also protest the way the investigation was carried out.

Earlier in the trial, the prosecutor accused police of overstating by 10 times the amount of marijuana allegedly found on Tobin -- from 0.148 grams in the initial report to 1.48 grams later -- and asked for the dropping of charges of running a drug den and obtaining and possessing drugs as part of a criminal gang, which carried sentences of up to 15 years.

``The position of the prosecutor's office ... is telling,'' Bayev told reporters.

After the verdict, Pavel Bolshunov, spokesman for the Voronezh branch of the Federal Security Service, said the agency was still interested in learning more about Tobin.

``Was he just studying here or was he doing something else?'' Bolshunov said. ``He did not violate anything (in terms of state security), he just behaved strangely.''

A small group of young demonstrators stood outside the court with signs reading ``Say no to American drugs.''

Tobin's supporters -- students and professors from Voronezh State University -- said they would try to help him by writing letters and gathering signatures in his behalf.

``You always hope for the best, and in that sense, the verdict came unexpectedly, but not all is lost,'' said 24-year-old Dmitry Zornikov, who had been in a band with Tobin during the American's first visit to Voronezh in 1998.

Severe sentences for possessing small amounts of drugs are not unusual in Russia, even for first offenders, said Karina Moskalenko, a prominent defense attorney and human rights activist in Moscow.

``There are countries that take a strictly punitive view, and my country is one of them,'' she said. ``I often see cases where people get long sentences for measly small amounts of drugs.''

Russian law defines more than 0.1 grams of marijuana as a ``large amount,'' Moskalenko said.

---

AUDITORS CLEAR DRUG CZAR

New York Times
April 27, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27BRIE.html

A team of British auditors for the United Nations has cleared Pino Arlacchi, the head of the organization's anti-narcotics office, of charges of impropriety made by a former associate and some politicians in Europe. But the report faulted his office, the United Nations Drug Control Program, in Vienna, for some lapses in recruitment procedures and handling of travel expenses, as well as overambitious programs begun before money was available to see them through. Two other reports on his office are due in coming weeks from the United Nations inspector general's office. Barbara Crossette (NYT)

--------

Rethink U.S. role in drug war

USA Today
04/27/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2001-04-27-opline.htm

Tragic deaths: U.S. missionary Veronica Bowers and infant daughter, Charity, were killed April 20.

The Detroit News in an editorial: "President Bush has suspended U.S. assistance for Peru's aerial drug-interception program pending an investigation into the Peruvian Air Force's shooting down of a plane carrying American missionaries. This makes sense. But Mr. Bush should rethink... America's growing support for the militarization of the drug war. In the most recent incident, a U.S.-owned surveillance plane, full of CIA-hired personnel, spotted a suspicious-looking Cessna aircraft over the Amazon River. The CIA operatives radioed Peruvian authorities, who quickly dispatched a jet, which shot down the Cessna... (killing) Veronica Bowers, a Baptist missionary... and her infant daughter.... Peru's Air Force has a history of shooting first and asking questions later.... The strong U.S. response to an incident involving its own citizens will feed the perception in Latin America that U.S. concern for due process is based not on principle, but self-interest. Disregard for the civil rights of ordinary citizens, however, is not something that is limited to the aerial-surveillance program; it is endemic to the entire war on drugs."

Lancaster (Pa.) New Era in an editorial: "This incident would be difficult enough to accept if those responsible told the full truth of what transpired.... But U.S. and Peruvian authorities disagree on details.... There is no reason to doubt the survivors' story. They have absolutely no reason to lie. Peruvian and American officials, on the other hand, have reasons to attempt to cover up their part in the incident."

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch in an editorial: "In recent years, the Peruvian air force has shot down 25 to 30 suspected drug-smuggling aircraft.... One can't help but wonder whether this is the first time innocent lives have been lost. Former U.S. anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey says these shoot-downs have virtually eliminated airborne drug trafficking in Peru. But even if those planes were ferrying illegal drugs ... firing on them can be a form of summary execution for the pilot or passengers, who die without a trial or a chance for appeal. This may be legal in Peru, but it violates fundamental principles of U.S. justice."

The Baltimore Sun in an editorial: "Removing the CIA from the program would invite narco-terrorists to resume their trade in madness and death. But the CIA and U.S. military should suspend operations until assured that such an atrocity cannot recur. The need to stop drug traffic is no excuse for target practice on people who are not drug smugglers."

The Courier-Journal, Louisville, in an editorial: "Shooting down missionaries is bad PR. Luckily, it's also rare. But our anti-drug operations in Peru and especially in Colombia are hurting people on the ground in those countries every day. The use of airdropped defoliants on coca crops in Colombia probably has little impact on the volume of cocaine that eventually reaches the U.S. But it affects the livelihood and perhaps the health of peasants who grow the stuff and have no other way to make a living. We're making enemies, big-time - without winning the drug war."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an editorial: "The Bush administration acted quickly to freeze anti-drug surveillance flights in Peru. ... That's OK, as far as it goes, but President Bush should have taken the opportunity to ask for a broad review of the longtime Washington policy of assisting drug interdiction in foreign countries. ... U.S. officials, trying to justify U.S. involvement in the Peruvian shoot-down incident, have said the cooperation between the United States and Peru in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy has been successful in cutting back the production of cocaine in Peru dramatically. But can anyone point to data that show that shooting down planes over Peru has done anything to stop even one addict in this country from using drugs? ... The U.S. government continues to spend billions in Latin America (to try to reduce) production of marijuana and cocaine. This is a 'war' we cannot win."

--------

Tape: CIA tried to prevent shooting of plane

USA Today
04/27/2001 - Updated 11:23 AM ET
By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-26-peru-usplane.htm

WASHINGTON - The three CIA crewmembers aboard a U.S. surveillance aircraft that first spotted an American missionary floatplane over the Amazon River repeatedly questioned whether the civilian aircraft was carrying drug runners. The CIA crew then tried in vain to stop a Peruvian jet from shooting down the missionary plane, according to a tape of the cockpit conversation. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" one of the CIA crewmembers can be heard screaming on the 45-minute CIA plane tape, played for USA TODAY.

Missionary Veronica Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, died in the incident last Friday. The pilot of their plane, Kevin Donaldson, 42, was injured. Bower's husband Jim, 38, and their son Cory, 6, escaped unharmed.

Peruvian officials have said they mistook the Cessna 185, which belonged to the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, based in New Cumberland, Pa., for a drug-trafficking plane.

The three CIA contract employees, who spoke English, were accompanied by a bilingual Peruvian military liaison officer. The liaison was in contact with a Peruvian military base as the U.S. crew looked for drug runners.

The tape says, the U.S. crew repeatedly asked the Peruvian military officer if he was sure the missionary plane was carrying drugs.

"Are you sure this is a bad guy?" a CIA crewmember asks as they follow the floatplane, which was flying west in the Amazon region.

"No," the Peruvian officer responds. But he radios the military base in Pucallpa, Peru, for permission to fire anyway.

"But he's not taking any evasive action," a CIA crewmember says. "To ID the tail number is very important."

A Peruvian Air Force A-37 jet, sent up to intercept the civilian plane, then reports the tail number, and the Peruvian liaison officer relays the number to the base. Without waiting for a response, the officer again asks for permission to go to "Phase 3," an attack by the fighter jet.

"Phase 3 authorized," the Peruvian military base responds.

"Jeez!" the CIA pilot says.

"Is Phase 3 authorized OK?" repeats the Peruvian liaison officer. "OK," the base says.

"OK?" the CIA pilot asks. "Are you sure it's a bandido? Are you sure it's a fact?"

After a few more seconds of back and forth, the CIA pilot says, "I think we're making a mistake." His co-pilot adds, "I agree with you."

Seconds later, the Peruvian fighter jet begins spraying the floatplane with bullets.

The tape records missionary pilot Donaldson telling a civilian airport tower in Spanish, "They're killing us."

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" the CIA pilot yells.

The Peruvian officer tells the air force jet, "No more."

"God!" the CIA pilot says.

The funeral for Bowers and her daughter is set for Friday in Fruitport, Mich.

-------- europe

Honda in gear for US drive as losses grow
Three join missile pact

This Is London
27 April 2001
By Robert Lea

Missile systems from three of Europe's biggest manufacturers are to be integrated into a new grouping called MBDA that will target defence forces' requirements throughout the world.

Britain's BAE Systems, French-owned Eads and Italy's Finmeccanica are putting all their missile-manufacturing interests into MBDA, which will have an order book worth e13 billion (£8 billion).

It will employ 10,000 workers and have sales of e2 billion a year. The group will be the world's second-largest missile-maker and will be competing with America's Raytheon.

-------- japan

Japan's New Premier Renews His Vow to Field a Full Army

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27CND-JAPAN.html

TOKYO, April 27 - In his first full day in office, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi moved to reassure neighbors about nationalist currents in Japan, while reaffirming a campaign pledge to field a full-fledged army.

He also renewed a vow to visit a shrine to war veterans that contains the remains of war criminals, a site that most Japanese politicians have shied away from visiting in recent years for fear of offending the country's neighbors.

At his first news conference since his confirmation by Parliament on Thursday, Mr. Koizumi said that "saying the self-defense forces aren't an army is just a lie." He added, "In the very worst case, if Japan is invaded, not being fully equipped and prepared is politically irresponsible."

Mr. Koizumi stressed, though, that the pillar of Japan's security policy remains its alliance with the United States, and said he hoped to meet President Bush as soon as possible. He also said he favored a more active role for Japan in international peacekeeping, which is something the United States has long urged on the country.

The comments were Mr. Koizumi's first confirmation since taking office of a campaign vow to seek changes to Japan's Constitution to allow the country to organize a national army in place of its current self-defense force.

The Constitution, written by Americans in the occupation era after Japan's 1945 defeat in World War II, limits the military to self-defense.

Its self-defense force, however, has one of the world's largest military budgets.

Many of Japan's neighbors, victims of Tokyo's aggressive expansionism in the first half of the 20th century, have vigorously condemned perceived movements toward the fielding of a national army, and watch closely for any signs of renewed Japanese nationalism.

Mr. Koizumi himself fueled concerns about the rise of nationalism in his campaign, in which he joined with other conservative candidates of the governing Liberal Democratic Party with his pledge to visit the Yasukuni Shrine to war veterans in Tokyo on Aug. 15, a national memorial day.

But today, in a rare reference to Japan's wartime past by a sitting prime minister, Mr. Koizumi struck a resolutely pacifist tome.

"Why did we get involved in that war?" he said. "Because Japan became isolated from international society. What is most important is that we do not fight a war again, and do not again become internationally isolated."

Mr. Koizumi also balanced his potentially provocative comments about the Constitution and about the war memorial with a telephone call to President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea. He pledged to work with Mr. Kim to settle a controversy over Tokyo's recent approval of junior high school history textbooks that avoid mention of Japan's wartime atrocities.

Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Kim also agreed to coordinate their policies toward North Korea, together with the United States. In a busy first day for the new government, Mr. Koizumi's newly appointed foreign minister, Makiko Tanaka, met with the governor of Okinawa, Keiichi Inamine, on the issue of American troops stationed on that island.

Asked about Japan's perennially difficult relations with China, which were exacerbated this week by a visit by a former Taiwanese leader, Mr. Koizumi said "there are various problems, but what is important is to understand each other's position."

Mr. Inamine has recently demanded a reduction in the number of marines stationed on the island, and asked for Ms. Tanaka's "understanding" over the strains caused by the presence of the American troops.

Soon after her appointment on Thursday, Ms. Tanaka hinted that she would support a new, stricter agreement governing the behavior of American military personnel in Japan. The Marine Corps presence in Okinawa has been a longtime irritant in relations between the two countries, because of a string of rapes, arson and other crimes involving marines.

Mr. Koizumi gave little indication about his economic policy intentions, other than to say that "economic recovery and rebuilding the economy are a top priority."

"The most crucial point for the implementation of policy is for citizens to trust politicians, and the prime minister in particular," said Mr. Koizumi, who was elected after a campaign that called for sweeping reform.

"I think the prerequisite for the implementation of any type of policy is trust in politics, trust in the cabinet, and trust in the prime minister."

-------- puerto rico

Navy Resumes Bombing on Vieques

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Navy-Vieques.html

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The U.S. Navy dropped 500-pound dummy bombs from jet fighters and fired shells from ships as it resumed exercises on Vieques island Friday, despite the presence of protesters so close they forced a temporary halt to the fire.

``They're risking the lives of our people by dropping bombs,'' said Robert Rabin, an organizer of demonstrators who say the exercises harm islanders' health and environment. Navy officials in the U.S. Caribbean territory insist the training does not hurt the island's 9,400 people and is vital to save American lives in combat.

Rabin said an unknown number of demonstrators who cut through fences and breached the area by boat remained in the 19-square-mile military zone Friday afternoon.

Four Puerto Rican legislators sent by boat to see whether the exercises were violating a local noise law were detained briefly by the U.S. Coast Guard as they approached restricted waters, then allowed to continue sailing outside the military zone.

The Navy said there were no intruders on the 900-acre firing range on the island's eastern tip, which federal agents scoured through the night with helicopters, dogs and foot patrols.

``The range is green ... There's nobody out there to pose a danger to,'' said spokesman Lt. Corey Barker. ``They wouldn't do the exercises unless it was perfectly safe.''

Nevertheless, eight protesters were discovered on a small island within 100 yards of the target zone, where the exercises began with bombing runs shortly after 9 a.m.

Navy spokesman Jeff Gordon said the protesters were spotted just before a ship was to begin shelling -- ``close enough to the range to suspend the exercise.''

The shelling began about 1 1/2 hours later.

Those arrested will be prosecuted for trespassing on federal land along with 38 others detained Thursday and Friday, Gordon said.

Thirty-two of the protesters cut through the fence near the entrance to the Navy's Camp Garcia on Friday, unimpeded by about a dozen Puerto Rico police officers just yards away.

During the night, protesters hurled stones at a Navy vehicle, shattering the windshield, and others set a field of grass ablaze in the military zone, the Navy said. Navy guards sprayed pepper spray at protesters trying to cut through fences.

Among protesters who may still be in the restricted area are opposition Sen. Norma Burgos and Myrta Sanes, sister of civilian security guard David Sanes, whose April 1999 death by 500-pound bombs dropped off target on the range provoked an explosion of public anger and anti-U.S. sentiment.

Protesters occupied the range after the guard's death, preventing exercises until they were removed by U.S. marshals in May 2000. Since then, training has been limited to inert ammunition and hundreds of protesters have been arrested.

About 15,000 sailors and Marines are taking part in the latest exercises, which involve the Norfolk, Va.-based aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and about a dozen cruisers and destroyers. They are expected to last several days.

On Thursday, a federal judge turned down a last-minute court action from the Puerto Rican government complaining that the exercises could harm islanders' health and violate the new noise law.

Puerto Rican officials claimed a partial victory in the court case, noting U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was disturbed by ``an implied promise'' from Navy officials to postpone the drills until the Department of Health and Human Services completed a review of studies linking noise from the exercises to islanders' heart problems.

Friday's exercises were the first since Gov. Sila Calderon was elected in November, in part because of her demands for an immediate end to the bombing exercises.

The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques and says the bombing range, which covers 3 percent of the island, is the only one where it can simultaneously practice amphibious invasions, ship-to-shore shelling and bombing from aircraft.

---

Judge Refuses to Block Bombing on Puerto Rican Island

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/national/27PUER.html

WASHINGTON, April 26 - A federal judge refused today to block resumption of naval bombing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, finding insufficient evidence that the exercises would irreparably harm residents of the island.

But while the judge, Gladys Kessler of Federal District Court, cleared the way for the bombing to resume on Friday, she made several remarks that heartened opponents of the bombing.

Judge Kessler said the Navy had made "an implied promise" not to resume the bombing until completion of studies into possible links between noise and heart ailments among island residents.

She also said the bombing, which would last four to seven days, apparently violated a new Puerto Rican law against noise pollution. And she encouraged Pentagon officials to intensify their discussions with Puerto Rican officials about the future of the exercises.

"Based on the evidence before me, I cannot find that the four-to-seven- day period of shelling will cause irreparable harm to the people of Vieques," the judge said at the end of a hearing.

A finding of irreparable harm is crucial when a court determines whether to grant a restraining order or injunction.

Judge Kessler's decision was in response to a lawsuit to block the exercises, filed on Tuesday by Gov. Sila M. Calderón of Puerto Rico.

The exercises to begin on Friday will involve thousands of sailors and marines and many ships and planes. The Navy guns will fire nonexplosive projectiles, but the jets and artillery will still create a mighty din.

The Navy owns about two-thirds of the island and for more than 50 years has used a 900-acre practice range on its eastern tip. Opposition to using the range arose after a civilian was killed by off-target bombs in 1999. The Navy had suspended exercises in recent months.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said today that the Vieques range was "very, very important" to Navy and Marine Corps training. He called the range "the best in the entire Atlantic."

Justice Department lawyers representing the Pentagon and the Navy said the noise-control law enacted this week by Puerto Rico was aimed at the bombing exercises and timed to enable the Puerto Rican government to file a last-minute complaint.

Judge Kessler's ruling will not be the last word in the controversy. She did not rule on the merits of the case, and it was far from clear how long the dispute would continue and whether it would be decided in court or through negotiations.

Anabelle Rodríguez, Puerto Rico's secretary of justice, said she was "extremely pleased" at the tone of Judge Kessler's ruling and predicted that opponents of the bombing would prevail eventually.

Governor Calderón also predicted that the legal battle would succeed in the long run.

"The decision pushes forward the Vieques cause, even though the immediate decision was not what the Puerto Rico government was looking for," the governor said.

Nevertheless, she conceded that "all signs point to Navy practices this weekend." In front of the Capitol in San Juan, the governor attended an evening rally dubbed Cry for Peace, where she briefly addressed hundreds of people waving the flags of Vieques and Puerto Rico.

Protesters poured into Vieques today. Local and federal authorities have increased security on the island and have urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.

Navy officials have warned protesters that they will press felony charges against anyone entering the Navy's restricted area.

Despite the warnings, a small group of protesters slipped into restricted land today. Five were arrested.

The protesters included several prominent political leaders.

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

Kerrey Defends Account of Navy Seals' Raid in Vietnam

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/politics/27KERR.html

Alternately anguished and angry, Bob Kerrey appeared at a Manhattan hotel yesterday to defend his recollection of a mission he led in Vietnam that resulted in the deaths of 13 to 20 unarmed civilians, mostly women and children.

The mission, which Mr. Kerrey had discussed with less than a handful of people in the three decades since he returned from Vietnam, is the subject of an article to appear this Sunday in The New York Times Magazine - now posted on The New York Times Web site - and of the CBS program "60 Minutes II" to be shown Tuesday.

Mr. Kerrey insisted, as he had in interviews the previous day, that his squad of Navy Seals, which had entered the Vietnamese village Thanh Phong to capture a Vietcong leader, had fired only after being fired on, and then discovered that the dead were unarmed civilians.

Another member of his squad, Gerhard Klann, has offered a different version of events from the Feb. 25, 1969, raid. He said that the squad, feeling it could not otherwise retreat safely, executed a group of women and children it had rounded up in the village, in the Mekong Delta.

Asked why, if the incident was a mistake born of the fog of war, he felt such anguish and guilt, Mr. Kerrey, who lost a leg in Vietnam, won a Medal of Honor for his service and went on to become the governor and a United States senator from Nebraska, said: "I don't know - it may be that I did nothing wrong. But I have not been able to justify it militarily or morally."

Mr. Kerrey, 57, is now president of the New School University in Manhattan. Yesterday, the trustees of the university issued a statement offering their "unqualified support" to Mr. Kerrey.

"War is hell," the statement said. "We should all recognize the agony that Bob has gone through and must continue to deal with."

That agony was visible on Mr. Kerrey's face yesterday as he faced a roomful of print and television journalists at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. He stood with his wife, Sarah Paley, before an American flag and read a prepared statement in which he said he had anguished over the mission for three decades, but that the shame he felt over it did not prevent him from seeing the facts. He stressed repeatedly that his squad had been operating in a "free-fire zone," and said he was certain his unit had been fired upon before returning fire.

"We did not go out on a mission with the intent of killing innocent people," said Mr. Kerrey, who was a 25-year-old lieutenant at the time. "I feel guilty because of what happened, not because of what we intended to do."

But he seemed unprepared for the barrage of questions that followed. Asked repeatedly whether he would return the Bronze Star he received for the mission, he said he did not intend to do so. "The medal has meant nothing to me," he said.

Mr. Kerrey said he had received the citation while he was in a hospital recovering from war wounds. "I put it, along with other memories," he said, "as far behind me as I possibly could, and went back to try to live a private life."

Asked why the citation for the military honor reported that 21 Vietcong had been killed on the mission, he said, "That's a question you've got to put to my superior officer." He said he had reported the civilian deaths to his commanding officer.

"I didn't campaign either on the Bronze Star or the Medal of Honor," said Mr. Kerrey, a onetime presidential candidate. "I've never asserted I was a hero in the war."

At one point, Mr. Kerrey said: "You're asking too much of me. I'm in the early stages of telling this story. I'm trying to deal with it."

To another questioner who said he had had more than 30 years to decide how he felt about the events in question, Mr. Kerrey snapped: "I'm sorry. For the first 10 years of my life I was just trying to figure out how to get healthy again."

One questioner began by saying, "As a potential commander in chief--"

Mr. Kerrey interrupted: "I am not a potential commander in chief."

Asked more directly later if he was ruling out a run for president in 2004, Mr. Kerrey, a Democrat, turned to his wife, who is pregnant. "Sweetheart, are we ruling out a run?" he asked.

Ms. Paley nodded yes.

Mr. Kerrey seemed torn as to how to respond to Mr. Klann's version of events. He said yesterday that when part of his leg was blown off by a grenade in a mission less than a month after the Thanh Phong mission, it was Mr. Klann who held him until he could be evacuated.

Asked how to reconcile their versions of the events, Mr. Kerrey said, "I don't know that you ever can."

---

B-1s threatened

Washington Times
April 27, 2001
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010427-24182972.htm

A group of U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers in the Middle East came close to getting fired on by the Yemeni air force in an encounter several days ago. Defense officials tell us the four B-1Bs were flying down the Red Sea as part of a global exercise when they were warned by ground controllers in Yemen their flight path was too close to Yemeni airspace. Two Yemeni MiG-21 jets scrambled to intercept them. U.S. intelligence officials said communications intelligence indicated that orders were given to fire on the bombers. Luckily, no shots or missiles were fired and the aircraft passed safely through the Bab el Mandeb, as the strait between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden is called. "They harassed us," said one senior official. A second official said the Yemenis ordered the aircraft to change course and the bombers were unable to do so without violating Eritrean airspace. "This was an innocent right of passage," this official said, who noted that the bombers´ flight path was scheduled well in advance and that the Yemeni government should have known about it.

Threatcon The Navy put its Pascagoula, Miss., base on high alert earlier this month after the Naval Criminal Investigative Service learned that an ex-military chaplain might want to plant a bomb, says an internal memo we obtained. "According to the Marshal Service, subject possesses the background and knowledge to follow through on a terrorist attack," the Navy memo states. "Law enforcement sources indicate the subject may be in Mississippi for a convention related to his white supremacist affiliations circa mid-May 2001. His presence would coincide with the planned execution of the Oklahoma City bomber." The memo says the naval station at Pascagoula decided to increase its "threatcon" or threat condition after a nearby air base increased force protection. "According to an anonymous source, this named individual had made comments sympathetic to the Oklahoma City bomber and was reportedly planning something similar to the OK bombing." A Navy spokeswoman said yesterday the base remains on high alert.

North Korea-Iran spat New shipments of North Korean missile components and technology are being held up -- but not because of any covert U.S. counter-proliferation efforts. U.S. intelligence officials said a dispute broke out over a letter of credit between Iran´s missile-building defense organization and the North Korean government. The disagreement was detected by U.S. intelligence agencies in the past two weeks. North Korea sent its last shipment of missile parts by Il-76 transport planes in late February from Sunan International Airport north of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. The earlier shipment, first disclosed by The Washington Times on April 18, included documents and missile components that U.S. intelligence officials believe are intended for Iran´s medium-range missile program.

Rumfeld´s rules An anonymous Senate aide is lampooning Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld´s famous "Rumsfeld´s Rules" in a show of pique over the way the new Pentagon team is treating Hill staffers. Mr. Rumsfeld, a career corporate manager who served briefly as defense secretary under President Ford, is proud of his set of 19 rules on carrying out top private sector and government jobs. One rule states, "The secretary of defense is not a super general or admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the department for the commander-in-chief and the country." In his parody, the Hill staffer writes, "Your previous service as secretary of defense predates the post-Watergate reforms . . . You cannot run the Pentagon the same way as you did in 1975. That world no longer exists. Get used to it." There are several undercurrents driving a schism between the Rumsfeld team and the Hill. Staffers believe job screeners are denying top budget and acquisition jobs to congressional aides because Mr. Rumsfeld does not want aides beholden to powerful senators and House members. And the new defense secretary is bent on running the building like a corporation, with strong civilian control and less congressional rule-making. States the parody, "The Pentagon´s mission is about the defense of our nation and her interests. It is not a company. It does not seek to maximize profits, and meeting payrolls is not its primary objective." Mr. Rumsfeld´s complaints of excessive congressional oversight is, however, popular with some Hill staffers. Said one Senate aide, "The disdain for Congress is well deserved. Staff up here is lousy. It caters to the self-serving interests of members and industry. The contempt for congressional staff is well deserved. It´s not technically competent. They think they know what they´re talking about, but all they are doing is shilling for their services and their bosses." One revealing statistic: when Mr. Rumsfeld held the defense post 25 years ago, the Senate and House Armed Services committees produced a bill containing 17 pages of legislation and directives. This year´s bill contains 534 pages.

Intercepts The Pentagon is still working out details on its planned sale of eight Harpoon missile-equipped diesel submarines to Taiwan. A spokeswoman for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency told us yesterday the agency is still looking into the issue. "We will not have detailed plans until we sit down with the Taiwanese and discuss it." When will that be? "We do not know." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld´s inner circle is invoking the name of a former president in explaining the type of transformation they foresee. The ex-president is Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Rumsfeld aides often cite his transformation of a World War II force into a Cold War force as the kind of change President Bush wants. Critics point out that Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, slashed conventional forces to dangerously low numbers. The Weekly Standard normally devotes it cover story to political news. But this week´s edition devotes the top spot to the U.S. Army. Under the headline "The New Army: Be Whatever You Want to Be," writer Matt Labash skewers the Army for a decade of political correctness that produced easier boot camps, a recruit ad campaign aimed at self-centered youth and black berets for all. The retired Army officer who produced the Web site "We Have Lost Our Way" was kicked off the site shortly after Inside the Ring gave it some publicity last week. One of the new sites is http//:armyreadiness.netfirms.com . Douglas Paal, the pro-China director of a one-man think tank funded by overseas Chinese friends, is said to be in the running for the much-sought-after job of deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia. The other leading contender identified by us last week remains former House International Relations Committee Asia staffer Peter Brookes. Bill Inglee, who spent 15 years on Capitol Hill and was top national security adviser to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, is moving up at Lockheed Martin. Mr. Inglee has been promoted to the post of top Washington lobbyist.

Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are Pentagon reporters. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertztwtmail.com . Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbotwtmail.com .

-------- OTHER

-------- chemical weapons

Chemical Weapons Ban May Suffer for Lack of Dues From Treaty's Parties

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27ARMS.html

The international organization charged with verifying the 1997 treaty that bans chemical weapons is in debt and may be forced to cut inspections in half this year because the United States and other key parties to the treaty have not paid their way, arms control experts said Wednesday.

Ron G. Manley, director of verification for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is charged with implementing the treaty and ridding the world of chemical weapons, said in an interview that the United States, Russia and other member states were largely responsible for the financial crunch by failing to pay their annual assessments on time and failing to reimburse the group for inspections and other activities.

As a result, he said, the organization - which is based in The Hague, spends about $60 million a year and employs about 500 people - ran a deficit of $4 million in 2000, and expects a shortfall this year of $5.5 million.

Mr. Manley said that even with belt-tightening and other economies, the group would probably be able to conduct only 60 to 80 of the 140 inspections planned for this year.

Earlier predictions about the budget crisis were far more dire. In an internal memorandum in January, José M. Bustani, the organization's director general, warned that his group would only be able to conduct 25 inspections of chemical plants this year.

Mr. Manley discussed the budget crisis and other problems confronting the organization in an interview and at a conference Wednesday in Washington that debated the record of the treaty, which was circulated for signatures in 1993 and entered into force in 1997. The conference was sponsored by the American branch of Green Cross International, a nongovernmental group based in Geneva and headed by former Russian president Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Meanwhile, a report on the chemical weapons treaty by the Monterey Institute of International Studies, scheduled to be released yesterday, concludes that while the treaty can claim "significant accomplishments" in recruiting new member states, identifying weapons stockpiles and beginning to destroy them, the United States, during the Clinton administration, undermined the treaty in several important ways.

Jonathan B. Tucker, the editor of the 72-page report, said that the treaty had yet to fulfill its promise "in large part because of a lack of U.S. leadership."

Analysts who contributed to the study agreed that the Clinton administration diluted the treaty by, among other things, creating unilateral exemptions to its terms and failing to demand inspections in countries like Iran, which it has accused of violating the treaty.

The previous administration, concluded Amy E. Smithson, a chemical weapons expert and senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, "made a mockery" of the treaty by establishing what she called "a separate set of rules for the United States." For instance, Congress gave United States presidents the right to refuse an inspection on grounds that it could "pose a threat" to national security and provided that samples collected during inspections on American soil had to be analyzed by laboratories in the United States. Washington was also three years late in declaring a list of America's chemical factories that could be inspected, the authors noted.

The report criticizes Russia's implementation of the treaty as well. Alexander A. Pikayev, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment's center in Moscow, concludes that even if Moscow finds enough money to fulfill its pledge to destroy the 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons it admits to having produced, which Mr. Tucker calls the world's largest stockpile, Russia might still be "unable to meet its obligations under the treaty." Because of its financial plight and delays in its chemical weapons destruction program, Russia missed the deadline to eliminate one percent of its chemical weapons stocks by April 29, 2000.

John D. Holum, the undersecretary of state for arms control in the Clinton administration, disagreed with the report's conclusions, saying the Clinton team had fought hard, if somewhat belatedly, for the treaty's ratification. The administration was forced to accept the unilateral exemptions to the inspection system to win ratification, he said. In response to the assertion of failing to pay dues on time, Mr. Holum said the United States angered most international organizations by paying dues not in January, when they are due, but at the beginning of the fiscal year some nine months later.

An official in the Bush administration who asked not to be identified said the administration strongly supports the Chemical Weapons Convention and its implementation.

The official - noting that the United States still pays the highest dues of the 143 states that have signed and ratified the treaty - said the administration was "working hard" to find money to reimburse the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for verification activities. He said that Congress had provided no money for this purpose in fiscal 1999 or fiscal 2000.

The official also noted that the administration had paid about two- thirds of its 2001 assessment. "It is not our intention to undermine this treaty," he said.

-------- environment

GOOD NEWS FOR LIVESTOCK

New York Times
April 27, 2001
World Briefing
Warren Hoge
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27BRIE.html

BRITAIN: The government said that because of the drop in the number of new cases of foot-and-mouth disease, it was easing its policy of automatically slaughtering healthy animals on farms next to those with infected cattle. The policy is credited with curbing the spread of the virus but has caused enormous distress to farm owners. Local veterinarians will now have the power to decide whether it is necessary, Agriculture Minister Nick Brown told the House of Commons. (NYT)

---

MOUNTAIN LIONS SEEN AT RISK

New York Times
April 27, 2001
National Briefing
Mindy Sink
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/national/27BRFS.html

COLORADO: A study released this week by the National Wildlife Federation concluded that mountain lions have lost half of their habitat in the West, largely to human development along Colorado's Front Range. Metropolitan areas like Denver, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, have pushed west into wildlife areas. The loss of habitat threatens the survival of the lions and increases the risk of contact with humans, said the federation, an environmental group based in Washington. (NYT)

-------- police

Defense Faults Police in Obtaining the Confession of Wendy's Suspect

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By SARAH KERSHAWhttp://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/nyregion/27WEND.html

The police may have improperly obtained the confession of a man charged in the killing of five workers at a Wendy's restaurant in Queens last year, raising the possibility that the confession will not be allowed as evidence in the man's murder trial, according to court documents filed by the defense.

Legal experts and lawyers familiar with the evidence against the man, John B. Taylor, said the problem could complicate what had seemed to be a straightforward case and make it more difficult for prosecutors to persuade a jury to sentence Mr. Taylor to death. The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, had been under great pressure from some of the relatives of the victims to seek the most severe punishment against Mr. Taylor, 36, especially after the other man accused in the massacre was sentenced in February to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Prosecutors said the police acted properly in obtaining a series of self-incriminating statements from Mr. Taylor, and other legal experts said there is a strong case against Mr. Taylor even without the confession. However, these experts said, if a judge ruled that Mr. Taylor's rights were violated when he made the statements, that could pose a problem at sentencing. Without the ironclad evidence of a confession, lingering doubts could nudge a jury away from imposing the death penalty.

The confession has become an issue because Mr. Taylor made the statements without a lawyer present, even though a lawyer was representing him on a previous robbery case. That was a violation of Mr. Taylor's state and federal constitutional rights and makes the confession invalid, according to papers filed in court by Mr. Taylor's lawyer, John Youngblood, of the Capital Defender Office.

"Once you have a lawyer, there is a requirement that you can't play games any more," said Edward A. McDonald, a criminal defense lawyer in Manhattan. He referred to several cases in New York in which judges have determined that confessions were not admissible because they were obtained from suspects who were questioned without representation and had lawyers on previous cases.

Prosecutors said Mr. Taylor waived his right to a lawyer and "wouldn't shut up" about how he and the other defendant, Craig Godineaux, bound and gagged seven Wendy's employees and then shot each of them point blank, killing five and leaving two for dead. And because of the publicity surrounding the case, detectives, who located Mr. Taylor at his sister-in-law's house on Long Island two days after the crime last May 24 - and were celebrated for their handy police work - "crossed every t and dotted every i," said Mary de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for Mr. Brown.

"All of the rights to which the defendant is entitled under the law were scrupulously observed," she said.

Mr. Youngblood declined to comment on the confession.

Justice Steven W. Fisher will ultimately decide, at a hearing before the trial, whether Mr. Taylor's self- incriminating statements to the police should be thrown out, as Mr. Youngblood has argued. The trial is expected to begin later this year.

Mr. Godineaux, 31, was spared the possibility of the death penalty when he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in February to life in prison with no chance of parole. He gave a harrowing statement in court that portrayed Mr. Taylor as the mastermind behind the massacre.

The crime and the confession received extensive publicity, with Mr. Taylor's detailed statements about the killings displayed prominently in newspapers. Mr. Taylor gave a series of statements to the police, starting during his ride in a police car from his sister-in-law's home in Brentwood on Long Island, where he was arrested, and continuing with his hourlong videotaped confession, made at midnight in an interview room at the 111th precinct station house in Bayside, Queens. In the first statement, according to what prosecutors said during Mr. Taylor's arraignment last July, he told detectives, "please get Craig. He's at SC&R right now," referring to the Jamaica clothing store where the two men both worked as security guards.

"He is security just like me at 165 and Jamaica Avenue, you know, the Coliseum," Mr. Taylor continued. "Detectives, please, if you guys don't get Craig, he's definitely going to kill me, because I was the only one who saw him shoot those people in Wendy's. Look, detective, I know all about my rights, and it is me that's going to make this right because this was just supposed to be a robbery."

In the second statement, according to the arraignment minutes, Mr. Taylor told detectives that he did not want his lawyer on the prior robbery case, Pamela Jordan of Queens Law Associates, to represent him, and "expressed that he was not happy with her and also advised that he did not wish to have any attorney represent him."

"I don't need a lawyer. I just want to tell you what happened to make this right," Mr. Taylor was quoted as telling the detectives.

Ms. Jordan said she had represented Mr. Godineaux, but could not comment on the Wendy's case. In later statements, Mr. Taylor admitted to shooting one of the dead victims, while Mr. Godineaux admitted to shooting three and wounding two. Prosecutors charged Mr. Taylor earlier this month with the murder of the fifth victim, Anita C. Smith. Arraignment on that charge is scheduled for May 4. Mr. Taylor's confession is only one of many pieces of evidence against him, including identification of his weapon, eyewitness accounts from the two people who survived the massacre and a motive - he had been fired from the Wendy's - and is not seen as crucial to his conviction.

And in the penalty phase, factors other than investigative tactics are more important, said Gerald L. Shargel, a Manhattan lawyer who successfully defended a capital punishment case. He said that on a jury, "the collective mindset against imposing the death penalty usually comes from the social and family history of the defendant," not questions about investigative tactics, unless they are extreme.

However, he added, "Confession is always a big deal."

---

Police Dept. Rejects Punishment for Officers in Diallo Shooting

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/nyregion/27DIAL.html

Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik has decided not to discipline the four officers who killed Amadou Diallo in a hail of gunfire in the Bronx two years ago, but will order them to undergo retraining in tactics, high-ranking police officials said last night.

These officials said Mr. Kerik would announce as early as today that he had accepted recommendations by two departmental investigating panels that found that the officers, despite their barrage at an unarmed man, had not violated police guidelines because they believed that Mr. Diallo had a gun and that their lives were in imminent danger.

While the investigators did not endorse punishment, the officials said the recommendations for retraining were intended as an acknowledgment that the officers had committed serious errors in the confrontation. Critics, however, have insisted that the negligence was so grave that the officers should have been dismissed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said it was unclear when the officers, who have been working at desk jobs without badges or guns, would be retrained, or when, if ever, they might return to full duty. Two have applied to join the Fire Department, and officials voiced doubts about whether the men could ever resume normal police careers.

Even before Mr. Kerik's decision became known last night, the preliminary findings of the investigators who recommended retraining but no punishments for the officers were denounced by Mr. Diallo's mother, Kadiatou Diallo; by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has organized demonstrations in the case; and by several politicians, including two of the four major Democratic candidates for mayor.

The officers - Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy - were acquitted of criminal charges last year in a trial that was moved to Albany after a finding that public anger and political passions in New York City made a fair trial impossible. The United States Justice Department decided in January that federal civil rights charges were unwarranted.

Thus, while civil lawsuits against the officers and the city are pending, Mr. Kerik's decision to drop departmental charges brings to an end all criminal and administrative proceedings in a racially divisive case that has provoked demonstrations and a citywide debate on aggressive police tactics and continues to reverberate in this year's nascent mayoral election campaign.

Mr. Diallo, a 22-year-old street vendor from West Africa, was killed in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building on Feb. 4, 1999, when four officers in plain clothes, who said they thought he resembled a rape suspect, confronted him and fired 41 shots, hitting him 19 times. They said they thought he drew a gun, but it turned out to be a wallet.

The recommendation for retraining but no disciplinary action was made recently by a panel of Bronx police commanders, whose conclusions - that the officers had fired in a split-second reaction because they believed they were in deadly peril - were similar to those by the judge in the criminal trial and by federal officials who decided not to pursue civil rights charges.

The Bronx panel's report was forwarded on Wednesday to the department chief, Joseph J. Esposito, who led a second group of senior officials, known as the Firearms Discharge Review Panel, in examining the case. Their recommendations, coinciding with those of the first group, were sent to First Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph P. Dunne and to Commissioner Kerik, who was said to have reached his decision late yesterday.

While that decision was yet to be made public, reaction yesterday to the recommendations was swift and in some quarters vehement.

Citing reports that the officers would not face dismissal for what he called an unfathomable shooting, Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx borough president and one of the Democratic candidates for mayor, said: "Such a decision would send a horrific message. It would be taken as evidence by millions of New Yorkers that the N.Y.P.D. is incapable of policing itself, and would create an even wider gulf between the police and the community."

Another candidate, City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone, said: "I find it hard to accept that the Diallo tragedy occurred within the department's guidelines, as the preliminary panel contends. If this were the case, then it confirms my original claim that the department needs to immediately overhaul officer training."

The city comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, another Democrat running for mayor, said the recommendation against punishment "raises some serious questions about whether the outcome of the investigation is a foregone conclusion." The city's public advocate, Mark Green, the fourth major Democratic candidate, declined to comment until the commissioner announced his decision.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has generally supported the officers, said that the case had been "investigated by everybody" and that "the police officers have been found innocent." He said the department's conclusion "should not be a surprising one if people are guided by the facts and the truth rather than by their predetermined prejudices."

Stephen Worth, the lawyer who represented the officers in seven hours of questioning last week by the Bronx commanders and the Internal Affairs Bureau, declined to comment yesterday, as did the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

In Harlem, Kadiatou Diallo said the recommendation against punishing the officers was part of a pattern of politics in her son's death. "It is not about real justice," she said. "I am a mother. I have been polite. I have been reasonable, but I am beyond the limit. I have to express my feelings. For me, justification for what these officers have done is not possible."

In their lawsuit in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, the parents and the estate of Amadou Diallo are seeking $20 million in compensatory damages from the city and $41 million in punitive damages from the four officers.

The officers have all been assigned to administrative duties pending the outcome of the administrative charges. Officer Carroll has been working in the Aviation Unit, and Officer Boss in an Emergency Service Unit. Officers Murphy and McMellon have been in a Harbor Unit, and both have applied to join the Fire Department.

Officer McMellon, because of a high score on the firefighters' exam, has been tentatively cleared for hiring, but fire officials have been awaiting the outcome of the police disciplinary process before making decisions.

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Racial profiling starts early

USA Today
04/27/2001 - Updated 11:27 AM ET
By Jill Nelson
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2001-04-27-ncguest1.htm

Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken says his city will act quickly to try to resolve a federal lawsuit that accuses the city's police of a 30-year pattern of racial profiling. The lawsuit, it should be noted, was filed before Timothy Thomas, 19, became the 15th black male killed by the city's police since 1995. He died April 7 while officers tried to arrest him on a slew of misdemeanor warrants, including one for not wearing a seat belt.

If you're an African-American male in Cincinnati - or many other U.S. cities - you're apt to feel that your likelihood of serious injury or death at the hands of the police is greater than it is from not buckling up. Racial profiling of black and Latino citizens by law enforcement authorities has resonance across the nation; note the almost instant understanding of the term "driving while black."

But racial profiling begins way before you can apply for a driver's permit. There has long been evidence that black and Latino students, particularly males, are those most likely to be tracked into special-education classes early in their academic careers. Ask any black or Latino youth how he is perceived by others at school, walking down the streets or in stores, and he will more than likely describe living in a culture in which the very sight of him evokes feelings of hostility and fear.

An article Monday in USA TODAY takes the notion of racial profiling down a disturbing notch. According to research by La Vonne Neal of Southwestern University in Texas, the way black male students walk may result in their being sent to special-education classes.

Neal's 1997 study found that students, both black and white, who "stroll" - walk with an exaggerated swagger and dip a shoulder - were more likely to be perceived as low achievers and aggressive. A fascinating element of Neal's research found that white students who stroll received an even lower rating than black students who do. Does this mean that white students who effect the swaggering walk of their black friends - becoming, in a sense, cultural race traitors - are perceived as even more threatening?

Whether it is racial profiling by police officers or grade-school teachers, it is past time we began to look honestly at the data and find solutions. The alternative, and it really isn't one, is to ignore the evidence and wait for the next generation of children victimized by racism and racial profiling to grow up into alienated, hopeless and understandably angry young men.

Jill Nelson, a New York-based writer, is the editor of a recent anthology, Police Brutality.

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Testimony on Somali Attack Is Excluded in Terror Trial

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27TERR.html

Over the objections of prosecutors, a federal judge in Manhattan said yesterday that he would instruct the jury in the embassy bombings trial to disregard the testimony of a former Army pilot who described the killings of 18 American soldiers in Somalia in 1993.

Prosecutors have contended that the attack in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, was part of a global terrorism conspiracy to kill Americans that was led by Osama bin Laden and that also included the bombings of two American Embassies in Africa in 1998, which killed 224 people.

Although the government had not said that Mr. bin Laden's followers directly killed the Americans, it maintained that his group, known as Al Qaeda, was indirectly involved - training the fighters who eventually carried out the attacks and later taking credit for the killings.

But defense lawyers contended that there was no evidence directly tying the four men on trial or others in Al Qaeda to the specific killings of the 18 soldiers.

The judge, Leonard B. Sand of Federal District Court, excluded the pilot's dramatic account of a squadron of American Black Hawk helicopters coming under unexpectedly harsh fire, leading to the 18 deaths, after a federal prosecutor said, "We're not saying Al Qaeda's people pulled the trigger."

"Our theory is training responsibility, not physical killing," the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said.

Judge Sand's ruling was made on a day when the defense at first seemed poised to rest its case, with only a few remaining items to be offered to the jury, before closing arguments were to begin as early as Tuesday.

But at the last minute, lawyers for one defendant, Wadih El-Hage, who has been accused by the government of serving as Mr. bin Laden's personal secretary, indicated that their client might want to testify.

The lawyers agreed to give Judge Sand their client's final decision on Monday. Mr. El-Hage has been charged with being a member of the terrorist conspiracy and with lying to a federal grand jury when questioned about his activities.

Judge Sand's decision to exclude the testimony of the pilot, James F. Yacone, now an F.B.I. agent, was made after prosecutors said they were dropping an act, or assertion, in the indictment that charged that Mr. bin Laden had trained people who were eventually involved in the Somali attacks.

"I don't think in the present state of the record," Judge Sand observed, "there is evidence which shows that the 18 deaths named in that overt act were attributable to forces allied with Al Qaeda, as opposed to forces allied with any other faction in Somalia."

Even before the trial, the extent of Mr. bin Laden's role in the Somali attacks had been questioned, even by some former American officials who had served in Somalia and were quoted in news accounts as expressing doubts that Mr. bin Laden had helped to train or arm the men who had killed the soldiers.

In court, one of Mr. El-Hage's lawyers, Sam A. Schmidt, told the judge, "They have to abandon any claim that any member of Al Qaeda actually participated in the physical act of attempting to kill or killing Americans in Somalia."

But Mr. Fitzgerald made clear that the government was not backing down from its contention that Mr. bin Laden's group had sought to kill Americans in Somalia. "The government's theory has never been a forensic case of proving a murder in Somalia, saying this bullet came from Al Qaeda members," he said.

"What we have sought to prove," he said, "is that Al Qaeda was involved in Somalia."

Mr. Fitzgerald cited trial testimony from a former Al Qaeda member that Mr. bin Laden's military commander had gone to Somalia to assess how the Somalis might fight the Americans; a call by Mr. bin Laden for attacks on the Americans in Somalia; and a computer file seized from an Al Qaeda member in Kenya that said Mr. bin Laden's followers were responsible for the Somali attacks.

"We're not going to say that when Agent Yacone was shot down that an Al Qaeda member pulled the trigger," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "Our point is to show the state of mind of the Al Qaeda conspiracy."

Mr. Fitzgerald said the government may also introduce as rebuttal evidence that Mr. bin Laden was involved in a Dec. 29, 1992, bombing on American troops who were in a Yemen hotel on their way to Somalia.

Although some marines were injured in the bombing, none were killed, he said.

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C.I.A. Opens Files on Hitler

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27CND-INTEL.html

WASHINGTON, April 27 - A Central Intelligence Agency file on Adolf Hitler was made public today, including a report that described the Nazi leader as a "border case between genius and insanity" and predicted that Hitler could become the "craziest criminal the world ever knew."

The C.I.A. file on Hitler was released along with those of 19 other wartime figures, like Josef Mengele, the sadistic doctor at the Auschwitz death camp; Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the extermination of Europe's Jews, and Heinrich Mueller, the feared Gestapo chief.

Over all, historians who have studied the records said today that the declassification of 10,000 pages of documents from the C.I.A.'s files provides few revelations to alter what is known about the Nazi era. Nevertheless, the documents shed more light on when and how much American intelligence knew about the Nazi era.

At a news conference at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, several historians said that the files may be most significant because they show that in the aftermath of World War II the American government, primarily military intelligence, knowingly recruited Nazis accused of war crimes for espionage operations against the Soviet Union.

At the time, the historians said, Americans defended the practice on utilitarian grounds, because of the perceived seriousness of the Soviet threat to the West. Other European governments also used Nazis, and some war criminals sought to use their wartime knowledge of the Soviet Union to ingratiate themselves with the Western powers.

Several historians at the news conference said the files help clarify the record of some wartime figures like Kurt Waldheim, the Austrian leader and former Secretary General of the United Nations, who was found to have concealed his wartime activities as a German officer in Yugoslavia.

For years, some researchers have raised questions about whether the United States concealed its knowledge of Mr. Waldheim's wartime role by refusing to disclose its files when he served at the United Nations between 1972 and 1982. But the historians said there was little evidence in the files to support a cover-up by the United States.

In a report today, Richard Breitman, a history professor at American University who directed research on the C.I.A. files, concluded, "The thrust of hese documents suggests that the C.I.A. itself did not have a great deal of information or knowledge about Waldheim's Nazi past."

The files, Mr. Breitman said, did not suggest that Mr. Waldheim was a C.I.A. agent or informant, nor did they show that the Soviet Union was aware of Mr. Waldheim's past and used the information to blackmail him while he was Secretary General.

The comments about Hitler's mental state were attributed to a German surgeon at the University of Berlin, Ferdinand Sauerbruch, in a memorandum written on Dec. 7, 1944, by Ronald Carroll, an officer in the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime forerunner of the C.I.A.

The report is based on an interview with an informant, Hans Bie, who said he had discussed Hitler with Dr. Sauerbruch at a party in 1937. According to the memorandum, Dr. Sauerbruch was reported to have said that "from close observation of Hitler for many years, he had formed the opinion that the Nazi leader was a border case between genius and insanity and that in his opinion the decision would take place in the near future whether Hitler's mind would swing toward the latter."

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A Pilot Is Lost, and a Communist Titan Is Found

New York Times
April 27, 2001
Beijing Journal:
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27CHIN.html

BEIJING, April 26 - After he plunged to oblivion on April 1, his jet fighter splintered in a collision with an American spy plane, Wang Wei was quickly declared a "martyr of the revolution" and praised as a heroic defender of the motherland.

Now the Chinese public is learning that Mr. Wang was far more than just a "brave serviceman, a versatile talent and a good husband," as one of the official tributes put it.

It turns out, according to a blitz of gushing biographies in the state media this week, that Mr. Wang was also "a good cook, able to prepare delicious food and a skillful tailor who made a fashionable skirt for his wife to mark their wedding anniversary," as the New China News Agency reported.

Far from being the reckless "hot dog" described by American pilots, Mr. Wang, 33, was also an accomplished painter - his garish oils of jet planes have been shown on national television - and a fine singer and a flower arranger too, according to official accounts.

He was even a "meticulous housekeeper," his wife said from her hospital bed in Beijing, to which she had been flown from southern China to recover from her grief - and, not coincidentally, to lie within easy driving distance of top leaders who have visited to offer televised condolences.

There's more: Mr. Wang was a man of "fantastic health," his doctor informed reporters, and he was adept at computers too, his colleagues said.

So the Chinese propaganda machine would have it this week as it shifted into overdrive with a campaign to refashion Mr. Wang into China's latest super-hero - a model of perfection for the masses to study and emulate, in the best Maoist tradition.

Seizing on the unexpected opportunity, the Communist leadership seems bent on creating a modernized Lei Feng, the young soldier who was canonized by Mao Zedong in 1962 after he died in a freak road accident and his purported diaries told of a life of unsurpassed self-sacrifice and Communist faith.

The examples of Lei Feng and other super-model citizens have been trumpeted periodically ever since, especially in times of instability, but in many circles these days such figures are more apt to evoke satire than veneration.

In the 21st century, not the isolated 1960's, it remains an open question how widely today's more diversified masses will buy into such comically over-embellished stories. As the government polishes the portrait of Mr. Wang, some critics here say, it risks turning a genuine tragedy into a cartoon, and public grief into skeptical indifference.

Many Chinese were moved by the death of Mr. Wang, who was apparently a spirited and fearless airman, and by the suffering of his wife and young son. But as the hyperbole has soared, many people say they have just tuned it out - a remarkable change from the Communist Party's heyday when everyone paid heed to mass campaigns. This week, some Chinese even joked privately that the military had probably located Mr. Wang soon after the collision over the South China Sea and spirited him away for a change of identity, to permit the creation of a badly needed national hero.

The deification of Mr. Wang might appear overdone, even silly, to some urban professionals, said a historian of the Communist Party who spoke on condition of anonymity. But depicting heroes in unshaded white - and villains in stark black - is a Chinese tradition, he said, and the party leaders may still find it useful to build up a hero like Mr. Wang, whose life was celebrated by about 1,000 navy and government officials today with a memorial service off the southern Chinese island of Hainan where his jet went down.

"This activity is aimed at the broad masses, especially the broad masses of soldiers who, after all, are just country kids," the historian said. "In the past few years the leaders have been concerned that the party's work in `political thought' has lost its spark. So they will grab at any opportunity to win over people."

"The party needs heroes who can animate people, who can make them believe that the party has their interests at heart, but also that they must make sacrifices themselves," he said. "That's hard in a market economy where the universal attitude is `How will this benefit me?' "

In interviews this week, college students - many of whom have resented what they perceive as American arrogance in the spy-plane incident - expressed a range of feelings about the glorification of Mr. Wang. Most recognized that the official stories had stretched the truth, but most also felt respect for Mr. Wang's sacrifice, and accepted the need for patriotic symbols.

A 23-year-old student in computer science, surnamed Jian, was on the skeptical end, saying: "A lot of the news about him isn't really believable. He was probably a good person, but it's hard to say exactly what kind of person he was."

Mr. Zhao, 19, a biology student who was wearing military fatigues, reflecting the month of military training required of all freshman, said of Mr. Wang that "only after someone dies do we appreciate his special qualities."

Most of the students, like most Chinese, took it for granted that the party would capitalize on Mr. Wang's death and were not inclined to pick apart the particular claims.

Certainly, the efforts to paint Mr. Wang as a wonderful husband as well as a dedicated aviator seemed to hint, on too close an examination, at possible contradictions. He was so determined to be a pioneer, said an article carried in the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, People's Daily, and several other newspapers, that he had to be the first to try out any new aircraft. And one time when the claims of prospective fatherhood seemed to threaten his chance to fly a newly refitted model, the newspapers reported in an approving tone: "He persuaded his wife, pregnant for the first time, to have an abortion."

"I want to make the most of my youth and fly 8 or 10 models," Mr. Wang is reported to have told his wife, who "tearfully agreed" to the abortion.

(The official English translation of the same article, released by the New China News Agency, puts things more delicately: when the "brave pilot" was applying to make the trial flight of a refurbished aircraft, it said, "he asked his wife to help him overcome difficulties in family life.")

Balancing his dedication to national security and love of family, Mr. Wang only returned home for a meal once or twice a week, People's Daily said. Each time, though, "he would make several hometown dishes his wife loved."

Whatever personal tradeoffs duty may have imposed, Mr. Wang's life has already been declared the subject of a "Learn from Wang Wei" campaign within the military.

It seems a stretch, some experts here and abroad say, to assume that a generation raised with Hollywood films and the Internet, in an age when even comic-book heroes have moral complexity, will respond to this latest Communist propaganda technique. But for now, the Propaganda Department is working with the methods it knows and the materials at hand.

"The Chinese nation is always peaceloving and fearless in the face of great-power threats,"the People's Daily said on Wednesday in a commentary extolling "Wang Wei, Hero of the Era."

To learn from Mr. Wang's example naturally means, it suggested, to "rally more closely around the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with Jiang Zemin at the core."

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Intelligence Fallouts for Bush

New York Times
April 27, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27PLAN.html

WASHINGTON, April 26 - President Bush has already seen that far-flung United States intelligence operations can lead to some of the most delicate foreign policy crises that an American leader can confront. Two significant flare-ups early in his term - the collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter, and the mistaken downing of a plane carrying a missionary family over Peru during an anti-narcotics operation - involved elements of American intelligence.

By operating in gray areas beyond the scope of other aspects of American foreign policy, such intelligence operations come with the potential for creating international incidents, government officials say.

Intelligence is "at the point of the sword, and that's the most vulnerable position to have," said Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Hugh Price, a former deputy director of operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, said: "Of course these things lead to problems, because they are perceived as intrusive. What is intelligence? It is the cheapest form of being kept advised and informed."

"So where you are not willing to use a very aggressive military approach to a certain problem," he added, intelligence is used.

During the cold war, Washington was willing to take such risks, because the operations aided in the collection of information about the Soviet Union or other adversaries that policy makers considered crucial. Perhaps the most famous historical example was the Soviet Union's downing of the U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1960, which strained relations between Washington and Moscow just before a summit meeting between President Eisenhower and the Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev.

Now, however, the threats to American national security are more varied than a monolithic Soviet threat, and so such programs face greater scrutiny. Both the surveillance flights off the Chinese coast and the air interdiction operations to fight drug traffickers have been suspended in the wake of the two incidents.

Certainly, American involvement in air interdiction operations in Latin America to combat drug trafficking is now likely to come under Congressional scrutiny because of the downing last week of the missionary plane by a Peruvian fighter working in a joint Peruvian-American operation, according to members of Congress. An American woman and her infant daughter were killed in the incident. An American surveillance plane, with a crew of three C.I.A. contract employees, was part of the joint operation with Peru, working to identify and interdict drug trafficking aircraft.

The American plane's role was to locate and monitor suspicious aircraft, and then turn the information over to the Peruvian Air Force, which would then intercept the suspect planes. Under certain established procedures, Peruvian fighters were authorized to shoot, but only after making extensive efforts to identify the aircraft. Since the downing of the aircraft last Friday, American officials have said the Peruvian jet opened fire on the missionaries' plane without carefully following those established procedures.

Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, who represents an area of western Michigan where the victims were from, said in an interview that he expected the air interdiction program would be reviewed by Congress to determine how such accidents can be prevented.

"The rules of engagement are fairly clear," he said. "We identify the plane, but then what happens to the plane becomes the responsibility of the Peruvian chain of command. I think you will see a lot of discussion about that policy. Is this the kind of policy we ought to be embracing?"

Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he agreed with the Bush administration's decision to suspend the air interdiction program while the incident is investigated. "My judgment would be that this has been a very successful program over the years, but this was a tragic incident that shouldn't have happened," he said.

Mr. Shelby and other lawmakers have already raised questions about possible communications hitches between the English-speaking American crew of the surveillance plane and Peruvian Air Force personnel. American officials say there was a bilingual Peruvian officer on board the American surveillance plane, acting as the liaison with the Peruvian Air Force; the American crew would speak English with that officer, who then spoke Spanish with the pilot of the Peruvian jet that fired upon the missionary plane.

The United States is expected to conduct an investigation of the incident, although it is still not certain who will conduct that review.

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China grabs secrets from plane

Washkngton Times
April 27, 2001
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010427-86048951.htm

Chinese military intelligence recovered large amounts of classified documents from the downed EP-3E surveillance aircraft in what U.S. officials say is a major compromise of secrets. The classified documents include secret information on Chinese communications facilities and other targets of eavesdropping, said intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. One intelligence official said that damage is difficult to assess because the plane still is in Chinese hands. However, the official said the capture of classified documents is a major loss.

The Pentagon is still trying to get China to return the plane that made an emergency landing on Hainan island after colliding with a Chinese F-8 jet that had been flying too close. Negotiations with the Chinese are being led by U.S. Ambassador to China Joseph W. Prueher. Asked the Pentagon´s position, one senior official said: "We want the plane back." White House deputy press secretary Scott McClellan said just because the administration has not made many announcements about the status of the plane does not mean its return is not a high priority for the president. He added that the National Security Council maintains that "we will continue to have ongoing diplomatic discussions."

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley declined to specify what has been learned about compromised information in debriefings with the 24 crew members who were detained by the Chinese military until their release April 12. Asked if there was a loss of secrets in the aircraft, Adm. Quigley told reporters: "We feel there was." He did not elaborate. The preliminary assessment of the losses is part of a damage estimate being conducted by the National Security Agency, the Pentagon´s electronic eavesdropping and code-breaking agency.

The EP-3E crew, using hammers and axes, destroyed most of the electronic gear on the aircraft in the minutes after the April 1 collision with a Chinese F-8 jet. One official said cryptographic equipment and keys were destroyed by the crew, but there are fears the Chinese might be able to recover the damaged equipment. If so, it would be a major loss because it would give the Chinese military a limited capability to read secret U.S. military communications. The crew was unable to destroy the sensitive documents on the aircraft, which were obtained by Chinese military intelligence. U.S. intelligence officials said the Chinese military dispatched about 100 technicians to Lingshui air base on Hainan island to examine the state-of-the-art surveillance plane.

Chinese military intelligence operates numerous electronic eavesdropping posts around its territory. Several posts were successful in spying on U.S. and Saudi military communications before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The Chinese military, according to U.S. intelligence reports, was able to predict the start of the allied ground offensive against Iraq to within hours of the actual start. James Bamford, author of a new book on the National Security Agency, said the loss of classified documents would be "extremely valuable" for Chinese intelligence. "The EP-3s probably carry a lot of documents that indicate what we know about Chinese communications and radar systems, such as frequencies and radar pulse rates," he said. That information could be used to frustrate or deceive future U.S. electronic surveillance.

U.S. intelligence-gathering planes also are known to carry lists of Chinese targets, Mr. Bamford said. The lists would make it easier for the Chinese to alter their communications or electronic signatures to make eavesdropping more difficult. Mr. Bamford said the damage would be even worse if the Chinese obtained "key cards" used to scramble and unscramble coded communications. "The cards probably will not do too much good in the future because NSA probably changed the codes as soon as the plane was captured," said Mr. Bamford, who revealed new details of the spy agency in his book, "Body of Secrets." A second intelligence official said the initial damage assessment from the loss of the aircraft is "a matter of concern."

U.S. government officials told Reuters that the crew did not destroy as much of the sensitive material on the $80 million aircraft as first reports indicated. "They weren´t able to get a lot of it," one source knowledgeable about the Pentagon´s damage assessment told the news agency. "We still feel that the crew did the best job they could with the time that they had after the collision and before the plane touched down on Hainan island," Adm. Quigley said. "It wasn´t perfect, but we feel they did the best job that they could." When the crew is fully questioned, the Pentagon will then analyze "very carefully" what damage there was and "what changes then we might have to make in procedures, in equipment . . . in order to compensate for that possible compromise," Adm. Quigley said. The aircraft is still at Lingshui air base on Hainan island. Bill Sammon, traveling with President Bush in Texas, contributed to this article.

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Hitler's doctor foresaw world's 'craziest criminal'

USA Today
04/27/2001 - Updated 03:44 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-04-27-hitler.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Adolf Hitler was a "border case between genius and insanity," the Nazi leader's doctor told a U.S. informant near the end of World War II, and he said his patient was on his way to becoming "the craziest criminal the world ever saw," a CIA document shows.

The document is among 10,000 pages of CIA files declassified Friday in an effort to shed more light on Nazi war criminals and how Western governments later used them as intelligence sources.

The comments reportedly made by German surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch were written in a memo Dec. 7, 1944, from Ron Carroll of the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Carroll noted at the outset of the memo that there was a question about the informant's credibility. But he went on to report that an informant named Hans Bie told him he had talked to Sauerbruch at a party in January 1937 and that Sauerbruch discussed Hitler.

"Sauerbruch ... stated that from close observation of Hitler for many years, he had formed the opinion that the Nazi leader was a border case between genius and insanity and that ... the decision would take place in the near future whether Hitler's mind would swing toward the latter," Carroll's memo said.

"Sauerbruch then said that should the latter occur, Hitler would become 'the craziest criminal the world ever saw,' " the memo said.

It went on to say that when Bie and Sauerbruch again met in April 1937, the doctor "stated that in his opinion, the swing towards insanity had taken place and that the first symptom was the dismissal of moderate members of Hitler's government."

The file on Hitler was released with those of 19 other Nazi-era figures, including Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller and Dr. Josef Mengele.

In a news conference at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, officials and historians who reviewed the documents said they also revealed that Kurt Waldheim, who later would become U.N. secretary-general, was not used as an intelligence source by the U.S. government.

The files were released by the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working group, first established in January 1999 to coordinate a large-scale effort by U.S. federal agencies to find, declassify and release U.S. records relating to Germany's Nazi regime.

U.S. agencies have declassified more than 3 million pages, and they are now available for research in the National Archives and Records Administrations. The effort has been expanded to include records relating to the Japanese and Far East.


-------- activists

U.S. military detains protesters at Vieques

CNN
April 27, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/04/27/vieques.protests.02/index.html

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (CNN) -- Protesters faced off with the U.S. military on Friday at a Navy bombing range on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/maps/puerto.rico.vieques.jpg

By midday, U.S. security forces had detained at least 13 people, including eight protesters who boated to a tiny island just offshore, forcing the Navy to stop its bombing minutes after it started.

The bombing, using "inert" bombs the Navy said would not explode, resumed after the eight were arrested. At least five more people were detained overnight when they were found on the practice range grounds.

The range, used for target practice since 1941, has been a battleground of a different sort since a civilian security guard was killed two years ago by an errant bomb.

Puerto Rico had sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to block the drills, but U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the arguments.

After the ruling, the Navy said it would again conduct training exercises at Vieques, and hundreds of protesters converged on San Juan, Puerto Rico, to signal their displeasure.

By Friday afternoon, dozens of protesters beat drums, sang and chanted as they marched in front of the gates. A line of security guards stood between them and the bombing range on the eastern end of Vieques Island.

Opponents confident of eventual win

Earlier on Friday, Navy A-4 bombers from the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico started bombing but stopped minutes later when the protesters were spotted on the island. Security forces were dispatched to remove them.

Two destroyers from the carrier's battle group launched ship-to-shore bombs after the protesters were taken into custody and removed to safety.

Opponents of the Navy's use of the island said they were not discouraged by the ruling that allowed the resumption of the bombing.

"We have a strong case, a difficult case, but a strong case. ... I'm confident we're going to prevail on the merits," said Eugene Gulland, an attorney representing the Puerto Rican government. He said Puerto Rico hopes to resolve the matter through talks with the Bush administration.

Kessler rejected arguments from attorneys for Puerto Rico that the coming exercise would inflict irreparable harm on people living near the range. The Department of Health and Human Services is studying whether the noise may be linked to some health problems in residents of Vieques.

Justice Department attorneys had argued the United States has the right to continue the drills while broader questions over noise are resolved.

Range used for 60 years

Last year, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested as they sought to block use of the bombing range, protesting the accidental bombing death of a civilian there. In April 1999, a Marine Corps jet inadvertently dropped two bombs off target, killing a civilian guard working on the bombing range.

The Pentagon says it needs the range for combat training for Navy and Marine pilots.

"We continue to say that the training down there is very, very important. Realistic training is one of the reasons that the United States military is as effective as it is around the world," said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley. "And Vieques is a superb training range, the best in the entire Atlantic for the uses that the Navy and Marine Corps need to put it toward."

He added that the training there "is absolutely essential to the value and the realism and the preparedness of our military forces as they prepare to deploy forward."

CNN Producers Allison Flexner and Paul Courson and Correspondent John Zarrella contributed to this report.

----

INDIAN RIGHTS BILL ADVANCES

New York Times
April 27, 2001
World Briefing
Tim Weiner
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/27BRIE.html

MEXICO An Indian rights bill sought by the Zapatista rebels and supported by President Vicente Fox passed its first legal hurdle in a unanimous Senate vote. The bill, a proposed constitutional amendment, requires approval by the lower house and a majority of state legislatures. It would guarantee political and cultural rights to roughly 10 million Indians. (NYT)

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PROTEST AGAINST NAVY EXERCISES IN VIEQUES HELD IN WASHINGTON -- PUERTO RICO

Friday, April 27, 2001
Agencia EFE S.A.
http://library.northernlight.com/FD20010427750000069.html

Washington, Apr 27, 2001 (EFE via COMTEX) -- About 100 people carrying Puerto Rican flags and chanting slogans gathered in front of the White House on Friday to protest Navy war exercises on the island of Vieques.

"Sixty years is enough," said demonstrator Sara Mussenden, in reference to the time that the Navy has been staging military maneuvers in the island of Vieques, where 9,000 people live.

Another demonstrator, Gina Rosario, said that Puerto Ricans are "sick and tired" of such use of Vieques, and that it is time for the Navy to leave the island alone.

Vieques has been in and out of the news since April 1999, when a Puerto Rican guard was killed by a misdirected bomb launched during the U.S. Navy's land-sea-air exercises, triggering a groundswell of protests against the maneuvers.

In May 2000 the FBI managed to evict hundreds of protesters that occupied the target area, but under a deal with the Clinton administration the 9,300 residents of Vieques are to hold a referendum ballot in November this year on the future of the war games.

As approved by the former Puerto Rican government, voters will be given the option of either approving the end of maneuvers in May 2003, or else allowing them to continue.

But officials in the new administration of governor Sila Maria Calderon have said they would press to have a third option on the ballot for an immediate end to what the U.S. Navy considers "the jewel in the crown" of its training and readiness facilities. http://www.efe.es

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Judge denies bail to last man held after summit
The Summit of the Americas protester is charged with possession of a catapult

Vancouver Sun
Friday 27 April 2001
Kevin Dougherty The Montreal Gazette
http://www.vancouversun.com/newsite/news/010427/5086312.html

QUEBEC -- Jaggi Singh, who was arrested on the opening day of the Summit of the Americas last Friday and charged with possession of a medieval catapult, was denied bail yesterday by a Quebec Court judge who misunderstood testimony by Toronto writer-broadcaster Judy Rebick.

Singh will remain in Orsainville jail, north of the city, until next Thursday when he will appear at a hearing to set the date for his preliminary inquiry.

In rendering his decision Judge Yvon Mercier praised Rebick as an "excellent witness" and said that based on her testimony that Singh encouraged demonstrators to advance toward police lines when a peaceful march turned violent, he was denying Singh bail.

"This is crazy," Rebick said Thursday from Toronto. "I said just the opposite. He was encouraging them to go back."

On Wednesday Rebick said twice, first under questioning from Singh, and secondly in response to Crown prosecutor Georges Letendre, that Singh told the demonstrators at the perimeter fence, where it crossed Quebec City's Rene-Levesque boulevard, to withdraw after protesters knocked down a section of the barrier.

Rebick also testified that the catapult, used to fire teddy bears over the 3.8-kilometre fence during the Quebec summit, was in her possession and Singh had nothing to do with it.

"There is no reason to keep him in prison without bail," she said. "I'm very upset."

Singh is the last of the 463 people arrested during anti-globalization protests at the Quebec summit to remain behind bars. Five of the seven men arrested before the summit are also being held in Orsainville jail, which was cleared of most of its prisoners for the summit.

Acting as his own lawyer, with assistance from lawyer Pascal Lescarbeau, Singh testified and examined his own witnesses over a video link from Orsainville where he and the other prisoners appeared one by one on screen.

As he was waiting for Judge Mercier to render his decision in the Quebec City courtroom where the prosecutor, witnesses, audience and reporters covering the hearing were present, a smiling Singh, apparently expecting to be freed, put one arm around Lescarbeau and the other around a burly prison guard beside him.

Uncomfortable, the guard slipped out of Singh's grasp.

A woman who began to cry as the judge read his decision was expelled and spectators raised their arms in a clenched fist salute, chanting, "Un peuple uni ne sera jamais vaincu" (a united people will never be defeated) as armed public security guards looked on uneasily.

---

Opponents of Nuclear Waste Rally in Salt Lake City

Salt Lake Tribune
Friday, April 27, 2001
BY SHIA KAPOS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/04272001/utah/92412.htm

Nearly 200 opponents of nuclear-waste disposal in Utah rallied in downtown Salt Lake City late Thursday.

In a Berkeley, Calif.-like scene, long-toothed peaceniks stood next to 20-something environmentalists as toddlers ran about to the music of Utah's own Saliva Sisters singing trio.

The peaceful rally was held at the Rio Grande train station because, say activists, it is on Utah's rails that nuclear waste could be brought into the state. Many at the sunset event carried placards reading "Stop Mobile Chernobyl!" and "Utah Is Not the Place for the Nation's Nuclear Waste."

The group was brought together by the 15th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster and by memories of Downwinders in southern Utah. But mostly, the group focused on plans by two different groups to bring nuclear waste to Utah. "You only have one environment. Once you ruin that, there's nowhere else to go," said Claire Geddes of Legislative Watch, a citizen watchdog group. "We did not create this waste; we see no reason to bring it to Utah."

She was referring to proposals by Private Fuel Storage (PFS) and Envirocare of Utah to bring nuclear waste to the state. PFS is working to store spent nuclear fuel in steel and concrete casks on the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indian Reservation, southwest of Salt Lake City. Envirocare has plans to bring high-level waste to its facility in Tooele County.

Both entities say they can store the waste safely and have been working to educate the public on how that can be done.

Earlier this week, PFS criticized Thursday's planned rally, saying it was "misleading and unfair" to link the Soviet nuclear accident to its efforts to store waste in Utah.

Activists disagree and have formed an alliance of citizens and organizations to voice that opposition. Called HEAL -- for Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah -- the group also hopes to educate the public to its cause.

skapos@sltrib.com

------

BLOCKADES IN THE CHAPARE REGION, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS TEAR-GASSED

From: Ravi Khanna <oneworld@igc.org>
April 27, 2001
Prepared by the Andean Information Network

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS TEAR-GASSED DURING PEACEFUL GATHERING

At noon today throughout the nation, the Permanent Human Rights Assembly and other institutions held a peaceful protest with a ten minute moment of silence to advocate dignity, economic justice and human rights (see attached Manifesto). Approximately 30 heavily armed police officers tear-gassed the group and press in attendance at the Murillo Plaza in La Paz.

BLOCKADES IN THE CHAPARE

At midnight on Wednesday April 25, Chapare coca growers began to block the main highway between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba through the region (150 km). At approximately 5:00 am that morning Bolivian military began to remove blockades. Since that time, coca growers have replaced blockades as soon as the security forces have removed them. This early phase of "cat and mouse" is gradually shifting to stronger blockades, as additional communities begin to participate.

Road blockades in the Chapare region will most likely be consolidated on Tuesday, May 1, as other sectors begin to block highways and roads throughout the nation.

On Wednesday, the strongest points in the blockade were in the Mamore Federation. Combined forces maintained a high profile throughout the region. Shinahota is under military control.

However, a gradually increasing resistance on the part of coca growers, with around 650 local unions participating. Each union has 50-150 members. The coca growers' movement designates around 20 percent of members at the blockades at any given time. Members rotate approximately every 24 hours. This, paired with the possibility of a larger percentage of participants, blockades could continue indefinitely.

It has been confirmed that the 8th military division situated in Santa Cruz has called on its members who are now ready to move to the Chapare region to intervene with the road blockades.

Bolivian government officials stated on the government station yesterday that is was safe to travel and that the highway was open. This deliberate misinformation left several hundred passengers stranded in the region during the September-October blockades last year.

FIRST DETAINEES OF THE CHAPARE REGION OF COCHABAMBA

The Cochabamba chief of Police, Colonel Eduardo Wayar has confirmed the detention of two individuals as a consequence of an incident that occurred yesterday when a helicopter, according to information from police authorities, was attacked by shots from firearms.

Military police detained 7 individuals yesterday for instigating public disorder and obstructing traffic near San Isidro. (Felipe Flores, Alberto Calderon, Hugo Diaz Arce, Basilio Lopez, Armando Lazarte, Simon Torres, Benito Duran Garcia).

Technical Judicial Police (PTJ) officers detained Maximo Torres, Alex Mendez, Elias Condori for disorderly conduct in Senda 3.

All were liberated last night as a result of the efforts of the Human Rights Ombudsman's Chapare Office.

There are reports of at least 4 more detainees today in Shinahota.

This practice of arbitrary detentions exacerbates existing tensions between Combined forces and coca growers, increasing the possibility of violent confrontations in the near future.

The government continues to refuse dialogue with coca growers. Information Minister, Manfredo Kempff stated, "There is nothing to negotiate with the ex-coca growers in the Chapare."

LA PAZ YUNGAS-BLOCKADES AND MISSING PERSONS

Blockades in this region are scheduled to begin sometime between tonight and May 1 in Nor and Sud Yungas.

Leaders of the Colonizers' confederation denounced that 19 participants in the March for Life and Sovereignty (the great majority from the La Paz Yungas) have been missing since April 22 when security forces dispersed their group in Pongo. Union leaders are attempting to locate these individuals in their communities or elsewhere. Please contact AIN for the names of these individuals.

OTHER SECTORS ANNOUNCE BLOCKADES AND STRIKES

The Cochabamba Water Coordinator, water rights activists and others elected to postpone blockades until after consultative meeting with their members today. Blockades could begin at any time.

Leaders of the COMUNAL (the organizations that Participated in the March for Life and Sovereignty have a meeting with Catholic Church officials tonight to develop strategies to bring the government to the negotiating table.

Felipe Quispe Huanca, leader of the Campesino Federation (CSUTCB) had stated that they would begin blockades in rural areas on May 1, but has decided to debate the possibility on Monday April 30.

COB- STRIKE, MARCH AND BLOCKADES

The Bolivian Workers' Union COB has called an indefinite strike road blockades and a march from Oruro to La Paz beginning on May first.

This group demands:

1) wage increase 2) government compliance with agreement signed with the CSUTCB in October 3) defense of the coca leaf 4) opposition to anti-drug Law 1008 5) no further privatization of government companies 6) abolition oar articles 55 and 56 of Supreme Decree 21060 7) the creation of job stability 8) immediate payment of agreed upon pensions to retired 9) industrial safety norms for construction and factory workers and others

Urban teachers will go on strike beginning May 2, in support of the COB's demands.

Health workers throughout the nation participate in a 24-hour strike today to protest the shift of health administration from the central to municipal governments. They complain that municipal governments do not have adequate funds or experience in this area.

Yesterday (April 26), retired pensioners threatened to begin a hunger strike to protest the government's failure to comply with an agreement signed last to increase pensions to approximately 130 dollars (US). Congress has yet to sign this agreement to allow payment.

Union leaders in Epizana, on the old road to Santa Cruz have also threatened to cut off this alternative route.

Member of the Colonizers Confederation in the Santa Cruz rural are have threatened to join blockades because the government has not honored agreements signed in October.

Debtors groups protested today in La Paz as well.

24 HOUR STRIKES LED BY CIVIC COMMITTEES

PotosiWednesday, April 25

Tarija Thursday, April 26

Oruro, Friday, April 27

For more information please contact paz@albatros.cnb.net or kledebur@albatros.cnb.net

For more information on Bolivia, please visit http://www.1worldcommunication.org

Ravi Khanna, Director 1world communication P. O. Box 2476 Amherst, MA 01004 Phone: 413-323-7629 Cell: 413-530-9640 Fax: 413-323-9348 E-mail: oneworld@igc.org Web-site: http://www.1worldcommunication.org Signup to join 1world list. Get updates and participate in discussions. Send a blank e-mail to: 1worldcommunication-subscribe@topica.com

------

Seattle IMC Won Gag order battle with FBI/Secrect Service!

From: imc-news-admin@lists.indymedia.org
4/27/01

PRESS RELEASE
GAG ORDER LIFTED FROM IMC

GAG ORDER LIFTED; INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER IN FREE SPEECH BATTLE IN WAKE OF FBI /SECRET SERVICE VISIT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEATTLE INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER
27 APRIL 2001

CONTACT: Seattle Independent Media Center 206.262.0721

On the evening of Saturday, April 21, a day during which tens of thousands demonstrated against the FTAA in the streets of Quebec City, the Independent Media Center in Seattle was served with a sealed court order by two FBI agents and an agent of the US Secret Service. The terms of the sealed order prevented IMC volunteers from publicizing its terms; volunteers immediately began discussions with legal counsel to amend the order. This morning, April 27, Magistrate Judge Monica Benton issued an amended order, freeing us to discuss the situation without the threat of being held in contempt.

The original order, also issued by Judge Benton, directed the IMC to supply the FBI with "all user connection logs" for April 20 and 21st from a web server occupying an IP address which the Secret Service believed belonged to the IMC. The order stated that this was part of an "ongoing criminal investigation" into acts that could constitute violations of Canadian law, specifically theft and mischief. IMC legal counsel David Sobel, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, comments: "As the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized, the First Amendment protects the right to communicate anonymously with the press and for political purposes. An order compelling the disclosure of information identifying an indiscriminately large number of users of a website devoted to political discourse raises very serious constitutional issues. To provide the same protection to the press and anonymous sources in the Internet world as with more traditional media, the Government must be severely limited in its ability to demand their Internet identity--their "Internet Protocol addresses." A federal statute already requires that such efforts against the press be approved by the Attorney General, and only where essential and after alternatives have been exhausted. There is no suggestion that these standards were met here.

The sealed court order also directed the IMC not to disclose "the existence of this Application or Order, or the existence of this investigation, unless or until ordered by this court." Such a prior restraint on a media organization goes to the heart of the First Amendment. Ironically, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer learned about the existence of the order from "federal sources," suggesting that the purpose of the gag order was simply to allow the government to spin the issue its way.

The order did not specify what acts were being investigated, and the Secret Service agent acknowledged that the IMC itself was not suspected of criminal activity. No violation of US law was alleged. It is not clear whether federal law allows the Attorney General ever to approve such an investigation of US press entities to facilitate a foreign investigation. According to IMC counsel Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "This kind of fishing expedition is another in a long line of overbroad and onerous attempts to chill political speech and activism. Back in 1956, Alabama tried to force the NAACP to give up its membership lists -- but the Supreme Court stopped them. This order to IMC, even without the 'gag,' is a threat to free speech, free association, and privacy."

Responding to questions from IMC volunteers, the agents claimed that their investigation concerned the source of either one or two postings which, they said, had been posted to an IMC newswire early Saturday morning. These posts, according to the agents, contained documents stolen from a Canadian government agency, including classified information related to the travel itinerary of George W. Bush (who was at that time in Quebec City, participating in Summit of the Americas meetings). Agents claimed that the Secret Service was notified of the existence of such posts by a tip from an (unnamed) major commercial news network.

The agents were unable to provide URL addresses or titles for the postings they described. Additionally, the court order contained a non-working IP address, rather than an address assigned to any of the IMC sites. IMC volunteers nevertheless were able to identify two articles posted to the Montreal IMC which partially matched the agents' incomplete description. These articles, posted first in French and then in English translations (http://montreal.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=505, 514 and 515), contain sections of documents purportedly stolen from a Quebec City police car during Friday night anti-FTAA demonstrations; the documents detail police strategies for hindering protesters' mass action. It does not appear that any materials were posted to any IMC site containing Bush¹s travel plans.

Although the agents were concerned with only two posts, the court order demands "all user connections logs" for a 48-hour period, which would include individual IP addresses for every person who posted materials to or visited the IMC site during the FTAA protests. IMC legal counsel Nancy Chang, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, comments that "the overbroad sweep of the information demanded by the FBI raises the disturbing question of whether the order is calculated to discourage association with the IMC."

The agents arrived at the IMC around 7pm. Seattle IMC volunteers had been busy all afternoon gathering regional IMC coverage of FTAA protests underway in Seattle and in Blaine, Washington, and coordinating coverage with other sites on the IMC network. Several visitors were also in the IMC at the time, using public computers.. While agents were speaking with one staff volunteer, another began making telephone calls in an effort to contact legal counsel. After the agents left, volunteers discussed the court order's gag provision, and began recontacting the handful of people who had already been called, in order to make sure that the terms of the court order would not be violated before legal counsel had time to appraise the situation.

Initial attempts were made to contain news of the FBI/Secret Service visit; however, a few details of the story were soon leaked via a partially accurate report broadcast on the Vermont IMC internet radio stream. Soon the Seattle IMC was flooded with phone calls requesting information about what quickly began to be described as an "FBI raid," and speculations began to spread rapidly across the open-publishing newswires of various IMCs.

For about three hours, a network of IMC technology volunteers attempted to comply with the court order by removing such posts from the Seattle IMC and other major IMC sites as they appeared. This had the unfortunate effect of seemingly confirming the worst suspicions of independent journalists who posted brief articles announcing or speculating about mysterious and terrible things going on at the Seattle IMC, then finding their posts removed from view minutes later. Volunteers called off this clumsy attempt at rumor control around midnight, when it became clear that removing of posts was only serving to fan the flames of rumor, and that in any case the story had already spread beyond the confines of the IMC network. In acting to remove these posts, IMC volunteers were motivated by fear of violating the court order's gag provision even before legal counsel had had a chance to review the document. We regret the feelings of confusion and disempowerment which many users of the IMC sites experienced due to Saturday night's blackout of postings on this topic, and the general frustration caused by the gag order.

Since the incident occurred, several persistent, yet false, rumors have taken shape; some of these found their way into coverage published in Monday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other commercial media. We can now dispel some of the more common of these: No search warrant was served on IMC in connection with the court order, and nobody connected to the Seattle IMC has been arrested. No equipment or logs have been seized; the agents' visit was not a "raid."

Now, free from restrictive court orders, the Seattle IMC will be able to cover this important story as it continues to unfold.

The Seattle Independent Media Center was launched in Fall 1999 to provide immediate, authentic, grassroots coverage of protests against the WTO. Just a year and a half later, the IMC network has reached around the world, with dozens of sites scattered across six continents. IMCs are autonomously organized and administered, but share collective organizational principles and certain technological resources. Each IMC's news coverage centers upon its open-publishing newswire, an innovative and democratizing system allowing anyone with access to an Internet connection to become a journalist, reporting on events from his or her own perspective rather than being forced to rely on the narrow range of views presented by corporate-owned mainstream media sources.

During last weekend's widespread protests against a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, many IMC sites collaborated to produce comprehensive coverage of demonstrations taking place in Quebec City and Sao Paulo, as well as solidarity protests in cities across the U.S. and along the Mexican and Canadian borders. The breadth and depth of coverage produced by the IMC's global network eclipsed that of many corporate media outlets.

The Seattle IMC remains committed to its mission: "The Independent Media Center is a grassroots organization committed to using media production and distribution as a tool for promoting social and economic justice. It is our goal to further the self-determination of people under-represented in media production and content, and to illuminate and analyze local and global issues that impact ecosystems, communities and individuals. We seek to generate alternatives to the biases inherent in the corporate media controlled by profit, and to identify and create positive models for a sustainable and equitable society."

CONTACT:

Seattle Independent Media Center 1415 3rd Ave. Seattle, WA, 98101 206.262.0721 206.262.9905 fax http://seattle.indymedia.org

David Burman, IMC counsel Perkins Coie LLP 1201 Third Ave., 40th Floor Seattle, WA 98101 206.583.8888 burmd@perkinscoie.com

Alan Korn, Attorney with the National Lawyers Guild Center on Democratic Communication 415.362.5700

David Sobel, General Counsel Electronic Privacy Information Center Suite 200, 1718 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20009 202.483.1140

Nancy Chang, Senior Litigation Attorney Center for Constitutional Rights 666 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY 10012 212.614.6420

Lee Tien, Senior Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415.436.9333

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UK's Trident Nuclear Subs Reached,
"Impossible" Security Breach Accomplished By Anti-Nuclear Activist

From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>
Trident Ploughshares
27th April 2001

Trident Three Activist Spray-Paints UK Nuclear Weapon Submarine Danish Campaigner Says Breaching High-Security was "Easy-Peasy"

This morning Trident Three activist Ulla Roder spray-painted Britain's nuclear weapon submarine HMS Vanguard in its special high-security berth at Faslane naval base on the Clyde in Scotland.

Ulla (45), from Odense in Denmark, swam inside the Trident berths, reached Vanguard and prepared to remove from the boat's hull some of the special tiles which help the sub remain undetected by enemy craft. She was immediately challenged by a guard, who pointed a gun at her and demanded that she leave the boat alone. Ulla decided not to risk further work on the tiles and instead spray-painted in cellulose letters a metre high the word "USELESS" on the hull. She was then taken into custody by the marine patrol and charged with three offences: malicious damage (referring to the spray-painting); breach of the by-laws; being inside a prohibited area without authorisation. She was released from custody at 10 a.m. this morning. Although activists have on a number of occasions swum close to the Trident submarines this is the first time that one has been reached in Faslane, a feat the MOD police claimed was impossible. According to Ulla it was "Easy-Peasy".

This is Ulla's 16th arrest for anti-Trident actions. In June 1999 she was one of the three women who threw laboratory equipment from the research barge Maytime to the bottom of Loch Goil. Her acquittal at Greenock Sheriff Court following this action led to the recent High Court Opinion which criticised the judgment of the Sheriff, Margaret Gimblett. Yesterday Ulla appeared in Edinburgh Sheriff Court to plead not guilty on a charge of disrupting the Scottish Parliament on 5th April.

Ulla's determination to continue to try to disarm Trident has not been affected by the High Court's Opinion. Referring to the Opinion she said: "Luckily there is more common sense among ordinary people, who want the lives of future generations and the environment to be protected by the law. As long as the government continues its preparations for war crime by maintaining and deploying Trident, by developing new warheads and by failing to fulfill its obligation to disarm, we in Trident Ploughshares will continue the disarmament ourselves... We do not accept the right of any government or court to keep innocent people in ongoing danger of nuclear annihilation."

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Carnival atmosphere prevails at Helsinki anti-nuke demo
About 3,000 march against planned fifth nuclear reactor

27 Apr 2001
http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20010427IE6&pvm=20010427\

Finnish opponents of nuclear energy received support from the far reaches of Europe for their Helsinki demonstration on Thursday. Vanessa Arizo from Spain and a number of her friends took pictures of the group of a few thousand demonstrators as the procession went down Mannerheimintie to the House of Parliament.

"Nuclear power is a very dirty and bad form of energy, considering that there are so many other, cleaner alternatives. In Spain there are plans to give up nuclear power and to construct wind power in its place", Arizo said.

Although there are extensive areas suitable for wind power in Spain, Arizo says that wind energy faces the same problems as in Finland: nobody wants windmills on their own property.

A crowd of about 3,000 took part in the demonstration against the construction of a fifth commercial nuclear reactor in Finland on Thursday, which was the 15th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

The march from Helsinki's Senate Square to the House of Parliament proceeded in a happy, carnival-like atmosphere. Many of the demonstrators rode to Helsinki by chartered bus from cities around Finland, including Turku, Oulu, Joensuu, Kuopio, Ähtäri, and even as far away as Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland.

Henna Tahvanainen of Turku said that coming to the march was a foregone conclusion for her. "If there are other energy alternatives, there is no reason to go for the easiest one."

Ella Makkonen and Aura Yliselä of Jyväskylä pointed out that uranium is mined in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples.

"It is the wrong way to produce energy. The construction of nuclear power also prevents the utilisation of alternate energy sources", added Kimmo Ilppola and Simo Salmela, also from Jyväskylä.

The demonstration was organised by Valtavirta, or "Mainstream", a coalition of more than 30 environmental organisations, political groups, and other NGOs opposed to the construction of a new nuclear reactor in Finland.

Politicians were on hand already at the Senate Square, where Green MPs Anni Sinnemäki and Janina Andersson and the party's secretary Ari Heikkinen scanned the crowd for familiar faces before joining the march to the House of Parliament.

Sinnemäki was one of the speakers at the rally at the Parliament, where she told the crowd that more nuclear energy would block the development of sustainable energy sources.

"Nuclear power would briefly ease the symptoms of climate change, but would make the disease itself worse. Emmissions will start to grow immediately after the completion of a nuclear reactor. A new power plant would bring a flood of cheap electricity onto the market, and the inevitable result would be an increase in the growth of energy consumption", Sinnemäki said.

Environment Minister Satu Hassi (Green) pointed out that the possibility of serious nuclear accidents can never be completely ruled out. "It is not necessary to build more nuclear power. In fact, it is quite strange that this kind of issue is even being discussed."

Hassi defended the call for the use of more natural gas, which is part of the climate strategy of the Finnish government. "Little attention has been paid to the fact that the natural gas alternative is much better for the environment", Hassi said.


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