------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Aussie Urges End to U.S. Alliance
WHO Study of Depleted Uranium Urged
Dutch Health Council Report on DU
Finland approves underground nuclear waste dump
Kazakhs Take Strong Issue With Bush's Missile Project
Russian Government Pays $16 Million
Russians Recall Andrei Sakharov
U.S., Russia Stop Checking a Treaty
PORTSMOUTH PLANT STOPS MAKING ENRICHED URANIUM
Dust-Control Effort Resumes at Tailings Site
US lawmakers want probe of Cheney's energy panel
You are leaving a nuclear-free zone
Nevada Nuclear Dump Debated Again

MILITARY
Rwandan Army Kills 35 Intruders
Aussie Urges End to U.S. Alliance
Germ Warfare Rules Need Changes, White House Told
$4.3M Report to Colombia Questioned
U.S. wavers on demand for Iraq inspections
When a Tough Sharon Gets Tougher, Israelis Get Nervous
Cheney Concerned About Mideast
Mideast Anticipates Mitchell Report
Leader Puts Peru on Healthy Path
Congo Urges Stronger UN Force
Attack on the International Court
CITIZENS CHALLENGE MILITARY TRAINING AT MAKUA, HAWAII
General in Balkan War Says Pentagon Hampered NATO
Biggest U.S. ships called vulnerable
The Defense Comfort Blanket

OTHER
Ukraine Abolishes Death Penalty
Qatar Court Passes Death Sentences
Poll: Americans skeptical of Bush energy plan
US energy plan a "crime" - Pacific activists
Toxic Chemical Ban Urged
Dirty dozen chemicals targeted by UN conference
A Provision on Arsenic in Water -- in Bangladesh
Dump Toxic Waste in Africa
Population growth in wealthy countries stopped
Bulgarian commission exposes 52 former spies


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- australia

Aussie Urges End to U.S. Alliance

MAY 21, 07:12 EST
Associated Press
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AUSANT&STORYID=APIS7C4APAO0

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - A former prime minister is urging Australia to abandon its military alliance with the United States - the cornerstone of its security policy for half a century - and beef up its own armed forces.

In a speech Sunday, Malcolm Fraser said Australia is compromised by the ANZUS treaty with the United States and New Zealand and should take a more independent approach to foreign policy, The Australian newspaper reported Monday.

``Australia ought to pursue greater independence. For 50 years we relied on Britain, now we rely too much on the United States,'' said Fraser, who was the prime minister of a conservative government from 1976 to 1983.

Increased independence would require a larger and more effective armed forces, he said.

Australia's U.S. alliance has gone unchallenged by its main political parties. Fraser's comments put him at odds with his own policy as prime minister and with that of the current government of Prime Minister John Howard.

Fraser has also criticized Howard's support of the United States' proposed nuclear missile shield.

-------- depleted uranium

WHO Study of Depleted Uranium Urged

MAY 21,
By EMMA ROSS AP Medical Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7C4LUHO0

GENEVA (AP) - Several countries pressed the World Health Organization on Monday to urgently determine whether depleted uranium used in NATO ammunition in the Persian Gulf and Balkans conflicts could have made soldiers and civilians sick.

At the annual World Health Assembly, the first gathering of health ministers since the use of the munitions sparked a health scare across Europe earlier this year, Iraq said it has new evidence that a recent increase in cancers and birth defects among its people is linked to the weapons.

Preliminary studies have failed to show a link, but countries are now turning to the WHO to conduct definitive research. Part of the problem is that many of the studies examined uranium mine or power plant workers, not soldiers and civilians in a war.

Urging the WHO to step up its involvement and settle the issue, France, Switzerland and Norway promised donations to help finance more relevant studies.

``We have taken due note of the recent studies which have concluded that, based on evidence currently available, no link can be identified, but we want to make sure that full clarity be obtained and investigated,'' the Norwegian delegate said, promising $100,000 toward the research.

But the American delegation urged that assessments of the levels of radiation released by the munitions be completed before deciding whether health studies are warranted.

U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. The munitions, favored because they have the rare ability to pierce tanks, were also used during the 1991 Gulf War.

Concerns arose in several European countries earlier this year when Italy started studying the illnesses of 30 veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions. Seven of the veterans died of cancer, including five from leukemia. Scores of other countries subsequently announced they would also begin screening their troops.

The 19-member NATO alliance has repeatedly denied the ammunition could have triggered cancer in soldiers. A NATO committee which acts as a clearinghouse about possible health risks has said no evidence has yet been found of a link between depleted uranium munitions and any increase in illness.

In addition, most independent medical experts say it is highly unlikely the low dose of depleted uranium dust created by the bombings could have made people sick.

However, Iraqi Health Minister Dr. Omeed Mubarak told the gathering Iraq had new evidence that an increase in cancer and birth defects was linked to the weapons.

``In Iraq, the incidence of cancers has increased. We have also noted genetic deformations and diseases which did not exist in Iraq previously,'' Mubarak told his counterparts at the assembly. ``Our scientists have detected the presence of uranium in the bodies of those who were exposed.''

At a news conference after the meeting, Mubarak said that in December, Iraqi scientists found traces of depleted uranium in the urine, blood and semen of Iraqis.

``We detected so many cases, I don't know exactly how many, but it was many of them,'' Mubarak said.

``That's why we are now asking WHO to cooperate with us, to examine these samples with us. We are not afraid of having any scientific discussion provided it is free from dirty political tricks,'' Mubarak said.

An Iraqi researcher, Dr. Mona Kammas, asserted recent Iraqi experiments exposing rats to depleted uranium have shown damage to the liver, kidney, immune system and DNA, as well as malformation of the sperm.

However, the findings have not been assessed by any independent experts.

On the Net:
World Health Organization April 2001 publication assessing existing evidence on health effects of depleted uranium,
http://www.who.int/environmental-information/radiation/depleted-uranium.htm

--------

Dutch Health Council Report on DU

Date: Mon, 21 May 2001
From: "Laka Foundation" laka@antenna.nl

On May 18, the Dutch Health Council (an advisory body of the Dutch government) published a report on depleted uranium: "Health Risks from exposure to depleted uranium". The 95 pages report is only available in Dutch; the executive summary is also available in english and printed below.

Laka Foundation has already criticized the report in the Dutch media.
source: http://www.gr.nl/engels/welcome/frameset.htm

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Health risks of exposure to depleted uranium

Not surprisingly, the use of ammunition containing depleted uranium (DU) in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans has provoked disquiet in Europe. In the Netherlands, concern over the release of this material had already been aroused previously following the crash of the El-Al airliner in the Bijlmermeer district of Amsterdam in 1992. It was against this background that the President of the Health Council decided to set up a Committee charged with the task of reviewing the health risks of exposure to DU and the preventive measures required for individuals present in areas where DU has been released into the environment. The present advisory report provides this review.

Uranium and depleted uranium

In its pure form, uranium (U) is a heavy, silver-coloured, radioactive metal. It is ubiquitous in nature in its natural isotopic form, together with its radioactive decay products. These decay products are removed during the extraction of uranium from ore. Natural uranium consists principally of the isotope U-238 and, to a minor extent, the isotopes U-234 and U-235.

Depleted uranium is recovered as a by-product of natural uranium during the enrichment of uranium for use in nuclear power stations. DU is characterised by a reduction to 0.2% of the percentage of the isotope U- 235. The radioactivity per unit of mass (activity concentration) of DU is lower than that of natural uranium (the respective levels being 14.8 and 25.4 kilobecquerels per gram). DU behaves chemically (and with that also toxicologically) identical to uranium in its natural isotopic form.

In residues of DU from Kosovo a small amount of U-236 (0.0028%) has also been detected. The contribution made by this isotope to the total activity concentration is so minute that it does not influence the radiological properties of DU. From information regarding the possible contamination of this DU with transuranium elements (including plutonium) and fission products we can surmise that these impurities do not play any significant role in the assessment of the risk of exposure to DU.

Uranium in the living environment

Uranium occurs naturally in the environment and therefore also in the human body. In the Netherlands, the concentration of uranium in the soil varies between 0.4 and 8 milligrams per kg of dry earth. Intake of uranium by humans principally occurs via the diet. Most of the orally ingested uranium is eliminated from the body in the excreta (principally in the faeces), but some accumulates in body tissues (mainly in bone).

DU enters the living environment via specific events, like a fire of objects containing DU (example: Bijlmer disaster) and military use of DU (example: Gulf War). Following such events DU fragments might be found in the areas concerned and uranium dust, usually in the form of the slightly soluble oxides, might have spread around in the surroundings of the event. That can cause exposure of the population, in particular via consumption of foodstuffs which have been grown on the contaminated soil and via inhalation of resuspended dust containing DU. Relief workers and military personnel entering these areas might be exposed via inhalation of dust and by radiation from DU fragments.

Exposure in the framework of other applications of DU will be limited to occupational exposure. These situations are not treated in the present advisory report. Exposure of soldiers during military actions is entirely left out of consideration. The DU exposure mentioned above comes on top of the exposure to natural uranium in the living environment.

Uranium in the body

Absorption, distribution and excretion in the human body are highly dependent on the chemical form of the uranium and on the manner in which it is entering the body. Thus slightly soluble compounds such as uranium dioxide are only slowly eliminated from the lungs and will therefore only burden other organs in minute quantities. Ingestion of slightly soluble compounds results in little or no contamination of the body, since there is very limited absorption through the intestinal wall, by far the greater part being excreted in the faeces. Soluble compounds, on the other hand, are able to enter partly the blood circulation via the lungs or the intestinal wall and they then accumulate in organs (especially in bone). However, the great majority is excreted relatively quickly in the urine.

Concentrations of 1 to 3 micrograms of uranium per kg of wet tissue are typically detected in organs. Typical values for excretion range from 0.05 to 0.5 micrograms per day in urine and around 1.5 micrograms per day in faeces.

Health effects of exposure

When assessing the health effects of exposure to natural uranium and DU, it is necessary to consider both the radioactivity of the material and its chemical toxic effect. Based on existing knowledge of the radiological properties of uranium, it would appear that radioactive contamination of the lungs is the principal health effect to be considered in connection with exposure to slightly soluble uranium compounds in the atmosphere. In this context should be mentioned that the dose arising from exposure to DU is much smaller than from exposure to natural uranium per unit of mass. For soluble compounds, the chemical toxic effect in the kidneys is the primary consideration. The toxicological effects are to some extent concordant with those of other heavy metals.

A substantial amount of work has been done with uranium since the mid twentieth century. Research involving large groups of workers in the uranium industry has produced valuable data about the risks of exposure to uranium, but it also displays the frequently unavoidable shortcomings: namely, substandard information about the actual exposure of the workers, substandard or non-existent information on exposure to other possibly harmful agents and unsatisfactory data on disruptive variables such as smoking habits.

The epidemiological research has not produced any clear evidence that exposure to uranium leads to health impairment. According to the literature, the additional cases of lung cancer among workers in uranium mines are attributable to the inhalation of the radioactive decay products of radon, which is found in elevated concentrations in and around mines. Military personnel who took part in the Gulf War exhibit more health complaints than others do. The extensive investigations conducted among these veterans have produced no evidence that exposure to DU is a causative factor in these complaints.

The Committee does not, therefore, anticipate that exposure to DU in the situations described above, also given the possible extent of the exposure, will result in a demonstrable increased risk of diseases and symptoms among exposed individuals as a result of a radiological or chemical toxic effect exerted by this substance.

Cancer

In view of the fact that DU emits ionising radiation in the form of alpha particles, the induction of cancer, in principle, needs to be taken into account in relation to individuals exhibiting internal contamination with DU. In case of inhalation of slightly soluble DU compounds, attention will in particular need to be focused on the lungs.

The radiation dose caused by incidental exposure to DU in the outlined scenarios is in the most conceivable cases limited compared with the radiation dose received during a lifetime of natural uranium a contribution t the induction of cancer in the population cannot be shown it can be concluded that the same is true for exposure to DU in the outlined scenarios. This general conclusion is also valid for the appearance of lung cancer and for the appearance of leukaemia after the inhalation of dust containing slightly soluble uranium compounds. The radiation dose elicited in the bone marrow and with that the theoretical probability for cancer induction by slightly soluble compounds is three orders of magnitude smaller than that elicited in the lungs.

Renal damage

For soluble compounds, the risk posed by exposure to DU is principally of a chemical toxic nature. In the case of increasing exposure, abnormalities will first of all appear in the kidneys. Exposure to small amounts (milligrams) of uranium over short periods will therefore result in changes in the kidneys which lead to acute, usually reversible, renal impairment. No such dose- dependency has been observed, however, in the frequency of chronic renal disorders among population groups who are chronically exposed to ­in general totally less than 1 milligram per year­ natural uranium. Nor have studies involving workers in the uranium industry and ex-military personnel (including the group with shrapnel in the body) to date produced any evidence that uranium can cause renal impairment. Thus the present body of scientific data tends to suggest an absence of irreparable renal damage as a result of the intake of DU in the exposure scenarios considered.

Prevention

DU is, just like several other heavy metals, classified as a hazardous substance. It is, after all, evident from the foregoing findings that the risks associated with exposure to DU for the exposure scenarios outlined here are very limited. The fundamental principle adopted in the fields of industrial and environmental hygiene dictates that unnecessary exposure to a hazardous substance must be avoided. According to the so-called ALARA principle (As Low As is Reasonably Achievable), exposure must be avoided as far as is reasonably possible. 'Reasonably' implies that the efforts made must be commensurate with the achievable degree of risk reduction ­ i.e. the achievable reduction in exposure.

As far as possible exposure to DU in contaminated areas is concerned (for example in the vicinity of a fire in which DU has been released or in an area where military actions involving the use of DU ammunition have occurred), the Committee considers the strategy for protection laid down in the rules and regulations governing radiation protection to be adequate, both as regards limiting radiological and chemical toxic risks. This means that the first priority is to determine the nature and the extent of the contamination. Has contamination actually occurred? After that questions should be raised like: If so, how extensive is it and which compounds are involved? Are there fragments of DU in the area? Is there a possibility that windblown DU compounds could be inhaled? And so on. Based on the answers to these questions, one can determine whether it is necessary to impose limitations on access to, and use of, the contaminated area, and whether or not individuals who need to enter the area in a professional capacity (relief workers, for example) should be regarded as radiological workers. This will presumably only apply be necessary in exceptional cases. 

The answers on the foregoing questions are not only of importance for experts and authorities but also for the population in the vicinity of the place where DU has been liberated and for persons who for occupational reasons have to stay there. Open communication can prevent unnecessary anxiety. For this the Committee refers to an other recently published advisory report of the Health Council 'Local environmental health concerns'.

Laka foundation - laka@antenna.nl

-------- finland

Finland approves underground nuclear waste dump

FINLAND: May 21, 2001
Story by Heli Suominen
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10882

HELSINKI - Finland's parliament on Friday overwhelmingly backed a controversial plan to build a dump 500 metres (1,600 ft) underground to take radioactive waste from the country's nuclear power plants.

The decision made Finland the first country to approve plans for burying nuclear waste in permanent underground sites, though several other countries are exploring the idea, said the environmental group Greenpeace.

The proposal passed easily through the house after years of debating the risks of nuclear waste, with 159 deputies voting in favour, three opposing and 37 members absent.

"The unanimity is important because this is such a far-reaching and important decision," said Leena Luhtanen, a deputy of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's Social Democratic Party.

Greenpeace, which has called for temporary storage of nuclear waste until an acceptable solution was found, called Friday's decision a dangerous one.

"It gives a dangerous message that this kind of method of storing nuclear waste is acceptable," said Harri Lammi, a Greenpeace nuclear campaigner in Helsinki. "Parliament did not spend enough time studying the safety issues."

The Finnish waste-disposal company Posiva is expected to begin researching possible sites in western Finland and plans to start building the deep waste dump in the year 2010.

But the dump needs a further construction permit from the government, and radioactive waste will not be deposited there until 2020 at the earliest.

If members of parliament have objections to the actual construction plans at a later date they will be able to raise the issue again.

The move comes at a time when countries across Europe are moving away from nuclear power, with public opinion increasingly opposed to both atomic energy and worried about radioactive waste disposal.

Even the Greens, junior partners in Finland's five-party coalition government and strongly opposed to nuclear power, voted for the proposal.

"The decision shows responsibility: we have four (nuclear) reactors that produce waste all the time. We decided not to continue the temporary storage forever," said Luhtanen.

A 1995 law forbids the export of nuclear waste, which up to the mid-1990s was shipped to Russia for reprocessing and storage.

The radioactive waste is expected to be buried underground at Olkiluoto in the town of Eurajoki on the west coast of Finland, next to the nuclear power plant there.

The Eurajoki authorities have already accepted the radioactive waste unit, which will bring the town up to 10 million Finnish markka ($1.48 million) annually - nearly 17,000 markka per capita - in real estate tax revenues.

Finland is also considering building a fifth nuclear reactor to cope with increasing energy demand.

-------- missile defense

Kazakhs Take Strong Issue With Bush's Missile Project

May 21, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/world/21KAZA.html?searchpv=nytToday

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, May 18 - The president of this Western-leaning, oil-rich country has warned that the Bush administration's determination to erect a broad array of missile defenses and to abandon a major arms control treaty threatens to ignite a deadly new arms race.

In an interview in the presidential palace here, President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev urged President Bush to work with Russia and other states that have nuclear weapons to reduce strategic nuclear arsenals rather than proceed with plans to build the missile defense shield and to abandon the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with the former Soviet Union.

"Any state has the right to defend itself as it sees fit," he said. "But such one-sided decisions could launch a new arms race."

His unhappiness about the planned American actions echoed sentiments from senior Russian officials, other former adversaries, and allies in London, Berlin, Tokyo and Seoul. Russia's military spokesman, Aleksandr Yakovenko, after meeting two weeks ago with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, criticized the American intentions, saying Mr. Wolfowitz's delegation had not addressed Russia's fundamental concerns.

Kazakhstan was not among the countries visited by three teams of American officials who fanned out earlier this month to discuss the administration's strategic intentions. But Mr. Nazarbayev said his country's views on those questions were made known by the minister of foreign affairs, Erlan Idrisov, who visited Washington earlier this month and met with Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials.

The fact that Mr. Cheney received Mr. Idrisov reflects the relative importance of this huge, sparsely populated former Soviet republic. Its vast oil reserves, geographic position in Central Asia and commitment to developing an open, market-based economy give the country added diplomatic importance.

Mr. Nazarbayev said his was the first of the former Soviet republics to renounce weapons of mass destruction. The country had not yet become independent, he said, when he decided in 1991 to close the nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk, the world's largest such site.

In an interview explaining the step, Vladimir Shkolnik, the minister of energy and mineral resources, said the action was tantamount to "the governor of Nevada announcing that he would close Nevada's nuclear test site."

Soon after independence, Mr. Nazarbayev declared that he would rid his country of what would have been the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal and the numerous chemical and biological weapons facilities with which, he said, the Soviet Union had "stuffed" his country.

In the interview, he said the decision was made in the face of protests from Moscow and internal opposition from those who argued that the weapons would give his newly independent country international respect. But the residue of the nuclear testing and the presence of chemical and germ weapons facilities, he said, had polluted his country and sickened some of its 16 million citizens.

He contended that the United States was miscalculating by pursuing a nuclear shield because "it perceives that Russia is weak and China is also unable to respond." The Soviet Union was also weak after World War II, "but it recovered and challenged the United States in a fierce arms race," he said. "Russia's weakness is not a permanent condition. And China, too, will respond to unilateral American steps."

In some respects, Mr. Nazarbayev's criticisms of the plan were more emphatic than Russia's. Kremlin officials uttered similar public complaints after Mr. Wolfowitz's visit. But they strongly hinted that Russia would continue to press in private for a prominent role in a missile defense program that would bind Russia more closely with Europe and the United States, and might leave China more isolated.

Mr. Nazarbayev, by contrast, said he remained committed to a "nuclear-free Kazakhstan, and why not a nuclear-free planet?"

He stressed his desire for "a high level of cooperation with the United States." But American diplomats have sensed a cooling in American- Kazakh relations as a result of pressure within Kazakhstan for its leaders to seek help from Russia against Islamic radicals tormenting other Central Asian countries, as well as American criticism of Kazakhstan's human rights policy.

Relations have also been strained by the Justice Department's investigation of whether an American businessman helped Mr. Nazarbayev and other senior officials siphon tens of millions of dollars from American oil companies. Kazakh officials have denied the allegations.

-------- russia

Russian Government Pays $16 Million

MAY 21, 13:54 EST
By MARCEL VAN DE HOEF
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7C4LG8O0

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch consortium hopes to raise a Russian nuclear submarine and the remaining bodies of its 118-man crew from the seabed in September, 13 months after it exploded and sank in the Barents Sea, the company manager said Monday.

Russia will pay a $16 million advance to the Mammoet Transport BV to lift the 18,300-ton Kursk from a depth of 356 feet, said Frans van Seumeren.

The full cost of the task was not disclosed, but van Seumeren said Russia will make more payments at various times. The advance was to be paid this week.

If bad weather forces the consortium to scrap the project, ``we will just go home'' without any commitment to complete the mission, said van Seumeren.

Russian and Norwegian divers retrieved 12 bodies from the Kursk last November, but their mission was called off because of rough weather and danger from broken equipment inside the submarine.

There are two nuclear reactors on the vessel, which exploded in a still unexplained accident during a training exercise Aug. 12, 2000. Environmentalists have voiced concern over the danger of radiation leaks during a salvage operation, but the Russians have said the reactors automatically shut down before the sub sank.

Russia maintains there were no nuclear weapons on board and says the sub was carrying only conventional practice weapons. But a Norwegian engineer involved in an earlier salvage effort said he had seen Russian documents confirming the presence of nuclear weapons. A Russian lawmaker investigating the accident also told Norwegian television that atomic weapons were on board, but later said he was misunderstood.

Mammoet declined to address questions about the nuclear equipment on the sub, but said the company would take special precautions. ``Safety measures will make it a little more difficult, but safety is very important,'' Seumeren said.

Mammoet proposed raising the Kursk using a huge barge equipped with 20 anchored hydraulic lifting devices. It will then be hauled to the Russian port of Murmansk.

It will only be after the sub is lifted onto a dry dock in Murmansk that the bodies of the 106 crewmen would be retrieved, van Seumeren said. That would be the responsibility of the Russian government.

Divers will begin in June to sever the damaged front part of the submarine and attach cables to the hull. It will be September before the sub will be hoisted up. The actual lifting will take 12-15 hours, and towing it to Murmansk will require up to a week, said van Seumeren.

The work will be done in a joint venture of Mammoet and Smit International, a Rotterdam-based company specializing in salvage operations.

----

Russians Recall Andrei Sakharov

MAY 21, 12:26 EST
By SARAH KARUSH
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7C4K6TG0

MOSCOW (AP) - Andrei Sakharov, the late physicist who was harassed by Soviet authorities for his outspoken criticism of the communist regime, was honored by Russians on Monday on what would have been his 80th birthday.

Sakharov, who designed the Soviet hydrogen bomb, became a staunch promoter of human rights and world peace and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

Sakharov's birthday was marked by ceremonies in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, the provincial city where Sakharov spent seven years in exile. Television news shows featured retrospectives on his life.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev laid flowers at a bust of Sakharov at Moscow International University.

The reformist Gorbachev released Sakharov from exile in 1986, but Sakharov cont/nued his vocal criticism and their relationship was often tense. On Monday, RTR state television showed footage from the 1989 Congress of People's Deputies, at which Gorbachev reluctantly allowed Sakharov to take the floor, but then harshly interrupted him, saying he had exceeded the allotted time.

Gorbachev on Monday called Sakharov ``a man of conscience, an impressive moral authority for all of us,'' the Interfax news agency reported.

``He was a great citizen, quiet and delicate, but an unbending man.''

In Nizhny Novgorod, known in Soviet times as Gorky, scientists and community leaders laid flowers at the house where Sakharov lived and broke ground for the Sakharov Garden next door, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

A tribute concert at the Moscow Conservatory on Monday evening featured violist Yuri Bashmet and the State Symphony Orchestra. Sakharov's ailing widow Yelena Bonner, who lives most of the time in the United States and had been expected to address the audience, did not appear.

Since his death in 1989, Sakharov has received wide recognition from Russian authorities, to the point that a street in central Moscow bears his name. But Bonner remains a harsh critic of the authorities and says the country's leaders do not understand her husband's legacy.

-------- treaties

U.S., Russia Stop Checking a Treaty

MAY 21, 14:03 EST
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7C4LK980

MOSCOW (AP) - Officials from the United States, Russia and three other former Soviet republics Monday marked the end of 13 years of monitoring under a landmark U.S.-Soviet disarmament treaty that eliminated an entire class of nuclear missiles.

The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces, or INF treaty, which was signed by then-U.S. President Reagan and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987, envisaged dismantling almost 2,700 nuclear missiles on both sides under elaborate and unprecedented scrutiny by inspectors.

After the Soviet collapse, the nations of Belarus, Kazakstan and Ukraine inherited some of the Soviet arsenal, and fulfilled Soviet obligations on the treaty alongside Russia.

Steven Steiner, who represented the United States on the Special Verification Commission, on Monday hailed the treaty as ``a major step toward ending the Cold War and building a safer world.''

``It brought about a new standard of openness by creating a 13-year on-site verification regime of unparalleled intrusiveness, including several types of short-notice inspections and the round-the-clock monitoring at missile assembly facilities,'' he said.

Under the INF treaty, about 20,000 U.S. and Russian inspectors carried out more than 1,000 inspections along with around-the-clock oversight of the U.S. plant in the Salt Lake City suburb of Magna, Utah, and Russia's plant in Votkinsk that manufactured missiles.

``Never before had we had such access to each other's weapons delivery systems and to the centers and facilities where these systems were based,'' Steiner said.

Steiner and other U.S. and Russian officials said the INF Treaty paved ground for more strategic nuclear weapons cuts.

Although the INF Treaty has unlimited duration, its extensive monitoring regime is to end May 31. U.S. and Russian officials carried out last checks of respective facilities earlier this month.

Monday's ceremony, attended by dozens of officials from all sides, brimmed with mutual praise rare amid the current chilly relations between Moscow and Washington. Ties have been strained over Russia's opposition to U.S. plans to develop missile defenses, and Washington's criticism of Russian weapons sales to Iran.

Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Romanov, head of the National Center for Reducing Nuclear Threat at the Russian military's General Staff, was quoted earlier this year as saying that Russia may opt out of the INF treaty in retaliation to the planned U.S. missile defense. Romanov received a quick reprimand from then-Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.

Romanov steered clear of hawkish statements during his speech at Monday's ceremony, hailing U.S.-Russian cooperation under the INF Treaty. ``We moved from general calls for nuclear disarmament to elimination of an entire class of nuclear weapons,'' he said.

In the same tone, Gen. Valery Manilov, the usually hard-line deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, suggested that the experience gained in the implementation of the INF Treaty could be useful in conducting a ``dialogue'' with Washington on its missile defense plan.

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

-------- ohio

PORTSMOUTH PLANT STOPS MAKING ENRICHED URANIUM

AmeriScan:
May 21, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-21-09.htmlThe

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio, Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio ceased production of enriched uranium on Friday, May 11, leaving just one U.S. facility producing enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants.

The plant closed down without fanfare, about a month earlier than scheduled.

U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) has leased the Portsmouth plant from the Department of Energy since 1993. The company plans to consolidate its enrichment operations at the remaining plant in Paducah, Kentucky.

"The Portsmouth employees have shown a strong commitment to safety and a high degree of professionalism in their work to conclude enrichment operations at the plant," said William Timbers, USEC president and CEO. "I commend all of them for their hard work and appreciate their professional attitudes."

The decision to close the Portsmouth plant was made in June 2000 amid cost cutting measures, including massive layoffs at both plants, because USEC was having financial troubles.

Over the past year, USEC has devoted thousands of hours to converting the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant to be able to produce reactor grade uranium hexafluoride as a nuclear fuel. In the past, that process was begun at Paducah, and then the material was shipped to Portsmouth for final enrichment.

The Department of Energy plans to build a pilot facility at the Portsmouth plant to explore replacing the gaseous diffusion process with a gas centrifuge to enrich uranium.

-------- utah

Dust-Control Effort Resumes at Tailings Site

BY LISA CHURCH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Monday, May 21, 2001
http://www.sltrib.com/05212001/utah/99129.htm
http://www.sltrib.com/05212001/images/tail.jpg

MOAB -- The dust is finally starting to settle over the Atlas uranium mill tailings north of Moab.

Work to seal the tailings was halted in January due to lack of money, but resumed Tuesday when a Grand Junction, Colo., contractor began to apply a sealing agent to bind the contaminated soil together in an attempt to prevent dust clouds -- a source of complaints from town residents.

Crews from the company, W.D. Yards, also began applying a mix of native grass seed to terraced slopes along the edges of the tailings to prevent further erosion of the pile located on the banks of the Colorado River.

The 13 million tons of tailings, spread over 130 acres, were created by Atlas Corp. which processed uranium at the site until the company closed the plant in 1984. Atlas filed for bankruptcy protection in 1998. Federal studies have concluded that up to 45,000 gallons a day in toxic waste is leaking into the river which is a source of culinary water for 25 million people down stream in Arizona, Nevada and California.

A trust fund to stabilize the site was established as part of the bankruptcy proceedings and PricewaterhouseCoopers was selected as the trustee. Between September 2000 and January, trustee contractors moved 800,000 yards of soil, which had earlier been treated, from the sides of the tailings to its top so the pressure would force out water trapped in the pile through 17,000 "wicks" inserted into the mound.

The soil was to be treated with a sealing agent, but work halted when funds in the trust ran dry, leaving untreated soil exposed to the wind which blew it into Moab.

An agreement reached last week between PricewaterhouseCoopers, the remediation trustee, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality freed up $400,000 in federal funds owed the trustee. An additional $1 million provided by the Energy Department will complete the dust-control measures. The Department of Energy will take control of the site in September and is expected to move the pile away from the river.

Department of Environmental Quality officials made controlling the dust a high priority because it contains high levels of fine particulates.

"It's unacceptable to have dust clouds blowing off that pile," said DEQ Executive Director Diane Nielson. She said the trustee has also agreed, if time and funds permit, to place a dirt cover on the exposed center of the tailings pile and construct an evaporation pond to hold water being drained from the tailings.

Loren Morton, a hydrogeologist with Environmental Quality, said his agency will step up monitoring of the site to ensure PricewaterhouseCoopers is getting the job done.

"We'll take a wait-and-see attitude,'' Morton said. "They have their instructions and the goal is in sight. It's up to PricewaterhouseCoopers to go to work. This is long overdue."

U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon said Tuesday further delays at the Atlas site will not be tolerated.

"Getting the dust mitigation process in place took too long and was too chaotic,'' said Cannon. "In the future, if issues regarding the tailings pile are not resolved expeditiously, the proper oversight action will take place, be it congressional oversight hearings, [General Accounting Office] audits or any other measure that will facilitate resolution."

Funds to pay for transfer of the tailings have not been authorized. The federal budget submitted to Congress by President Bush does not contain funding for the move, which is expected to take about 10 years at a cost of $330 million. But Cannon said he is confident funding will be secured.

"The administration did not exclude Atlas from any list, they simply allotted funds for current [Department of Energy] projects without line-item requests,'' Cannon said. "I am extremely confident that Senator [Bob] Bennett can secure funding for Atlas in the Senate, that our bipartisan group can secure funding in the House and that we have the full support of the Bush administration and the Department of Energy."

-------- us nuc politics

US lawmakers want probe of Cheney's energy panel

USA: May 21, 2001
Story by Timothy Gardner
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10889

NEW YORK - U.S. lawmakers have asked the investigative arm of Congress to determine what business interests participated in the behind-closed-doors meetings of the task force that helped form President George W. Bush's energy plan.

"It is our understanding that the task force has conducted a number of meetings ... and some, if not all, of these meetings have included exclusive groups of non-governmental participants - including political contributors - to discuss specific policies, rules, regulations, and legislation," Democratic U.S. representatives Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan wrote in their April 19 request to the General Accounting Office.

Bush unveiled the energy plan on Thursday to criticism from environmental opponents who say it concentrates heavily on increasing supplies of fossil fuels coal, oil, and natural gas and not enough on conservation.

Waxman, the ranking minority member of the committee on Government reform, and Dingell, the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, also requested the identities of the energy task force plan participators from the Department of Energy's Andrew Lundquist, the task plan's staff director.

That letter said the task force's decision to meet behind closed doors and exclude "certain parties from participation in its discussions may violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FAA)," which bars debating public policy in private.

GAO is requesting data and information from Vice President Dick Cheney's task force which formed the energy plan, said Bob Robinson GAO's managing director of Natural Resources and Environment. Robinson said GAO would write a report and deliver it to the congressmen

Counsel to Vice President Cheney, David Addington, replied in early May to Dingell and Waxman that FAA is not applicable to the task force because it "does not apply to a group 'composed wholly of full-time, or permanent part-time, officers or employees of the Federal Government.'"

Environmental groups have also been attempting to find out the identities of the shapers of the plan.

The Natural Resource Defense Council filed a Freedom of Information Act request in late April. On Monday, the DOE sent some documents to the NRDC, but so far it has not revealed the identities of task plan participants.

NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino said if the DOE does not reveal the participants within the 20 days, it will pursue the matter in court.

-------- us nuc power

You are leaving a nuclear-free zone
New technology promises safer nuclear power

By Michael Satchell, Business & Technology
5/21/01
U.S. News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010521/biztech/nuclear.htm

Fifteen years ago, after the meltdown of the Soviet Union's primitive Chernobyl nuclear reactor killed 31 and exposed thousands to potentially dangerous radiation levels, the disaster threatened to take the entire nuclear energy industry down with it. A scare from an overheated reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island seven years earlier already had the public nervous about the risks of nuclear fission as a power source. Suddenly, what had seemed a promising alternative to fossil fuels had a radioactive reputation. Antinuclear activists campaigned against the energy source with everything from "no nukes" rock concerts to street demonstrations that promised to "shut them down cold." By the mid-1990s, plans for more than 100 new plants in the United States had been canceled.

Today, this once moribund industry is showing signs of stirring. In the past two years, rolling brownouts, a shortage of natural gas, rising energy prices, and concerns about air pollution and global warming have reawakened interest in refurbishing existing plants and building new ones. Even environmentalists concede that renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass are unlikely-at least in the near future-to light entire cities or keep industry humming. The Bush administration, soon to announce its national energy plan, will call for renewed emphasis on nuclear technology as a cleaner and cheaper alternative to coal, oil, and natural gas.

Hot pebbles. If the nuclear industry is to revive, the single most important spark will very likely come from new technology that advocates claim improves not only safety but also efficiency. All of the nation's nuclear plants now use water-cooled reactors that produce steam to generate electricity. They utilize a complex system of pipes, tubes, pumps, and electric motors that are subjected to extreme stress and corrosion. Reactors require steel-lined, reinforced concrete containment in case of a radiation leak or a Chernobyl-style meltdown. But new, simpler, and more cost-efficient technology known as "pebble bed" promises to revolutionize nuclear power generation and avoid the threat of catastrophe.

The Exelon Corp., which operates 17 nuclear reactors in the United States, is planning to build the world's first commercial pebble bed reactor in South Africa. Construction outside Cape Town is scheduled to begin a year from now with the plant going online within three years.

The new technology uses helium instead of water to cool the nuclear fuel, absorb heat, and spin the turbines to generate power. Instead of bundled uranium fuel rods, the new design uses "pebbles" made up of thousands of uranium particles, each enclosed in a mix of ceramic materials. These coated particles are then encased in graphite spheres the size of billiard balls. The fuel balls theoretically won't melt even at the highest temperatures, precluding the possibility of a radiation leak or a runaway nuclear reaction. This obviates the need for containment, complex safety systems, and redundant backup equipment that make the current water-cooled plants so expensive. The fuel balls will also produce less high-level waste and, because of their ceramic protection and small size, will be easier and safer to store.

If the South African prototype performs as hoped, planners envision building small pebble-bed plants generating 110 megawatts of power-about the same as a small plant fired with natural gas-instead of the 1,000 megawatts produced by conventional reactors. Three of the pebble bed units could fit onto a football field, so utilities could place them close to where power is needed. Because their design is modular, additional units could be added as power demand increased.

Despite these claims, and evidence of improved safety at conventional reactors, critics are unswayed. Disposal of spent uranium fuel that will remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years remains a vexing problem. And nuclear opponents insist that water-cooled reactors-despite design improvements-will always pose potential hazards. Nuclear plants are safer, concedes David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, but he still likens them to "driving through a school zone at 70 mph instead of 90 mph."

-------- us nuc waste

Nevada Nuclear Dump Debated Again

MAY 21, 13:10 EST
By KEN RITTER
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7C4KRD00
http://wire.ap.org/APwire/import/media/graphics/0521yucca_mountain.gif

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Tourists in 1950s Las Vegas donned sunglasses to watch nuclear mushroom clouds over the horizon at the Nevada Test Site.

Today, the city and state fear the prospect of trucks and railroad cars hauling radioactive waste past Las Vegas' glittering new gambling palaces to the Test Site.

``One accident, no matter how minor, could create hysteria,'' the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce says in its stand against the federal government's proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Last week, President Bush called for a national nuclear waste repository as part of his energy plan. Bush also called for licensing new reactors and speeding the re-licensing of existing plants to ease the nation's power woes.

The president did not specifically name Yucca Mountain, but the reference sent shivers through the ranks of those fighting plans to store the nation's nuclear refuse 1,000 feet beneath a wind-swept ridge, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas on the western edge of the Test Site.

``There should be no expansion of nuclear power until we have a way to dispose of the waste for years to come without harming the public,'' said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a lobbying group opposed to the Yucca Mountain project.

Since 1987, Yucca Mountain has been the only site studied to become the graveyard for the nation's 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive research waste.

After $7 billion worth of study and testing, approval of the Energy Department project is at least a year away. The earliest the first load of waste could arrive is 2010. The project is expected to cost $58 billion over 100 years.

But things are happening on many fronts.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding meetings this week in Las Vegas and the rural community of Pahrump to talk about a construction permit for the site.

The Energy Department is taking public comment before forwarding its recommendation next year to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Abraham will make a recommendation to Bush. If Nevada opposes it, as expected, the decision will be sent to Congress.

Meanwhile, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Public Works, has been holding up Bush administration nominations to environmental and public works posts until the Environmental Protection Agency sets radiation standards for the site.

``Every nuclear power generator in the country has the ability to safely store the material on site,'' Reid spokesman David Cherry said Friday. ``We're talking about shipping 77,000 tons of waste so deadly that a particle the size of a grain of sand can cause cancer.''

The city and state are usually conservative and business-friendly. They went for Bush in November. But few support the Yucca Mountain plan. And Nevada's entire four-member congressional delegation is against it.

Dusty Las Vegas of 1950 had fewer than 25,000 residents. Today, there are 1.3 million people living in and around Las Vegas, the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country. The city draws 30 million visitors a year to its casinos and other attractions.

Most of the city's 125,000 hotel rooms are on the Las Vegas Strip, which looms over Interstate 15 and the Union Pacific Railroad main line to Yucca Mountain.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, is asking the Legislature to spend $5 million on an outside-the-state advertising campaign to block the dump.

``That would allow us to tell other states the proposal includes sending nuclear waste by truck and train right past the schools and parks and homes of people in Colorado and Illinois and Utah,'' said Jack Finn, the governor's spokesman.

-------- MILITARY

-------- africa

Rwandan Army Kills 35 Intruders

MAY 21, 15:17 EST
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AFRICA&STORYID=APIS7C4MMQ00

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) - Rwanda's army has killed 35 Hutu militia and former government soldiers who crossed into the country's northwest from neighboring Congo over the weekend, the commander in charge of the operation said Monday.

Brig. Gen. James Kabarere said a firefight erupted after civilians in the region alerted the army Sunday morning to the presence of about 70 Interahamwe militiamen and former soldiers. He said none his men were injured.

``We were not surprised because we have mounted intensive operations in the Masisi region of eastern Congo to flush them out, and that pressure was making it difficult for them, so perhaps they thought they would find it easier where the population might cooperate with them,'' Kabarere said by telephone from the army's regional headquarters in Ruhengeri.

The former members of Rwanda's military and the Interahamwe militia fled into refugee camps in what was then eastern Zaire in 1994 to escape reprisals for their participation in the slaughter of more than half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus from April to July of that year.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front, made up primarily of Rwandan Tutsi exiles from neighboring countries, ousted the government conducting the genocide and took power in July 1994.

Rwandan troops attacked the refugee camps in Congo in November 1996 to dislodge the former soldiers and Interahamwe who were using them as bases from which to attack Rwanda. Nearly 1 million Rwandan Hutus returned home in less than a week, but tens of thousands of former soldiers and Interahamwe scattered into Congo.

During 1997 and part of 1998, they staged periodic raids on northwestern Rwanda, which is heavily populated by majority Hutus, killing scores of civilians.

``This time the population was hostile to them, that's what made it easier for us,'' Kabarere said.

Rwandan troops entered Congo again in August 1998 in support of Congolese rebels attempting to oust then-President Laurent Kabila, who was arming the former Rwandan soldiers and militia. An agreement signed in July 1999 by all the parties engaged in the civil war in Congo calls for the disarming of the former soldiers and Interahamwe militia.

-------- australia

Aussie Urges End to U.S. Alliance

MAY 21, 07:12 EST
Associated Press
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AUSANT&STORYID=APIS7C4FJJG0

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - A former prime minister is urging Australia to abandon its military alliance with the United States - the cornerstone of its security policy for half a century - and beef up its own armed forces.

In a speech Sunday, Malcolm Fraser said Australia is compromised by the ANZUS treaty with the United States and New Zealand and should take a more independent approach to foreign policy, The Australian newspaper reported Monday.

``Australia ought to pursue greater independence. For 50 years we relied on Britain, now we rely too much on the United States,'' said Fraser, who was the prime minister of a conservative government from 1976 to 1983.

Increased independence would require a larger and more effective armed forces, he said.

Australia's U.S. alliance has gone unchallenged by its main political parties. Fraser's comments put him at odds with his own policy as prime minister and with that of the current government of Prime Minister John Howard.

Fraser has also criticized Howard's support of the United States' proposed nuclear missile shield.

-------- biological weapons

Germ Warfare Rules Need Changes, White House Told

Associated Press
Monday, May 21, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53450-2001May20?language=printer

A Bush administration team has recommended that the White House reject proposed rules for enforcing a germ weapons treaty, concluding that the guidelines are not tough enough.

The administration supports the 1972 germ weapons ban but is skeptical of the current protocol under which the treaty would be carried out. An interagency group has unanimously concluded that the protocol would not stop cheating, and the problems likely could not be fixed before the negotiating deadline, according to administration officials familiar with the review.

The recommendation was first reported by the New York Times.

The treaty, ratified by 143 nations, prohibits the development, production and possession of biological weapons.

It still lacks a vehicle for ensuring compliance, and negotiators are trying to create one by November.

The Clinton administration blessed the protocol.

The Bush White House has not taken a position, but officials said the review will carry great weight with the president and his advisers. The administration has not ruled out fresh attempts to write new rules.

The topic is sensitive, given allies' concerns that the new administration is spending too much on new military programs and not enough on nonproliferation.

-------- colombia

$4.3M Report to Colombia Questioned

MAY 21, 02:28 EST
By JARED KOTLER
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7C4BEC80

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - With years of guerrilla warfare under their belts, Colombia's generals might be excused if they didn't snap to attention when a pricey group of Pentagon contractors told them timely mail delivery might improve the war on drugs.

Working out of the defense ministry in Bogota, a team of 14 retired U.S. military officers held seminars and delivered a thick binder purporting to be ``the Colombian military forces' keystone war fighting document'' and ``the foundation for all commanders.''

Colombian defense officials have belittled the work, carried out for the Pentagon by Military Professional Resources Inc., of Alexandria, Va., at a cost of $4.3 million to U.S. taxpayers. One official said the advisers ``reinvented the wheel.''

Among the advice in the MPRI report:

- ``Accurate and timely delivery of mail enhances the quality of life for the men and women in the field.''

- ``Apply appropriate military capability prudently.''

- ``Hit the enemy with a closed fist, not poke at him with fingers of an open hand.''

Entitled ``Colombian Counter-Drug Doctrine,'' the report also refers to drug traffickers and Colombia's unique challenge of battling guerrillas and paramilitaries who protect cocaine crops and jungle laboratories. It urges respect for human rights.

But is largely an overview of U.S. military doctrine, planning and tactics, including lessons gleaned by military historians from the Gulf War to Gettysburg to Hannibal's battles with the Romans.

Colombian officials have suggested the MPRI's contributions were of little practical use.

Defense Minister Luis Ramirez told Semana newsmagazine that no ``empathy'' developed between his staff and the U.S. team, adding that his generals were too busy fighting a war to attend many of the meetings called by the consultants.

In a subsequent e-mail, Ramirez was more diplomatic. While many of its suggestions were ignored, the report prompted ``analysis and discussion,'' the minister told The Associated Press.

MPRI spokesman Ed Soyster, a retired U.S. general, said the Colombians should have been more receptive. ``We are not miracle workers,'' Soyster said of the 800-employee firm, which has also worked in the Balkans. ``It takes two to tango.''

The MPRI team did not contain Spanish speakers, but included experts in personnel, logistics, operations and intelligence, Soyster added.

Questions about the contract come amid growing criticism in Washington of the use of U.S. private contractors in the war on drugs in South America.

Opponents say ``outsourcing'' - from consultancies to flying eradication missions over guerrilla-infested coca fields - has reduced public accountability just as U.S. involvement grows. The United States provided Colombia $1.3 billion in aid last year, mostly in combat helicopters and other military assistance.

Responding to charges that Washington is taking sides in Colombia's 37-year civil war, U.S. officials have promised that Colombian army battalions trained by Americans would be used exclusively on drug-fighting missions.

Nonetheless, the report blurs the lines between the drug war and the civil war: its operational guidelines would have all Colombian infantry units switching back and forth between counter-drug and counter-guerrilla operations.

The Pentagon stands by the consultant's work, while acknowledging day-to-day guerrilla conflict left little time for Colombia's military to focus on broad reforms.

MPRI's one-year contract expired in March and was not renewed. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. George Rhynedance, said there was no ``bad blood'' behind the decision. ``It was a business opportunity that had run its course,'' he said.

-------- iraq

U.S. wavers on demand for Iraq inspections

May 21, 2001
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010521-13749724.htm

Vice President Richard B. Cheney says it is uncertain whether the easing of U.N. sanctions on Iraq would require the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to check if Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction.

When asked yesterday on NBC´s "Meet the Press" about possible changes to the sanctions regime on Iraq being considered in the U.N. Security Council next week, Mr. Cheney said the United States "would continue to demand inspections" but suggested it could accept their loss -- a sweeping reversal of previous U.S. policy.

In the past, this country has always set a return of U.N. weapons inspectors -- who were removed from Iraq in late 1998 in anticipation of U.S. bombing raids -- as a condition for easing the sanctions imposed on Iraq a decade ago as punishment for invading Kuwait and starting the Persian Gulf war.

Before the inspectors were withdrawn, Saddam said he would no longer cooperate with them. After they left, a state-run Iraqi newspaper said Baghdad would tolerate crippling sanctions rather than accept the inspectors´ return.

Asked on NBC if sanction relief would be ruled out unless the U.N. weapons inspectors are allowed back into Iraq, Mr. Cheney said, "I can´t say that."

The reason for the uncertainty, he said, is that negotiations "with members of the Security Council and our allies and friends in the world" on the sanctions that would be appropriate are still under way.

Mr. Cheney was then asked if the United States would view it as a "defeat" if Iraq is no longer subject to U.N. weapons inspections. He replied: "The key here is what happens with respect to Saddam´s military capability, and the argument is and has been by many of our friends in the region that the way the sanctions are operating now, they are, in fact, damaging relationships, in part because of harm that is done to civilians."

Mr. Cheney said Saddam uses that claim "as an excuse, frankly," for fostering anti-American sentiment in the region and justifying his repressive rule. He added that the United States now thinks "focusing on the military aspects . . . and retargeting the sanctions on the important [weapons] technologies and capabilities is crucial here."

In the NBC interview, the vice president was not asked how anyone can determine exactly what "important technologies and capabilities" Iraq has or is developing, without reports from impartial weapons inspectors.

According to published reports, the sanction-relief plan jointly proposed by the United States and Britain would end bans on civilian goods imported to Iraq but tighten controls on military-related supplies. The original plan reportedly required the return of the weapons inspectors as a condition for providing more focused sanctions.

But Mr. Cheney said yesterday: "Exactly what´s going to come out of the consultations that are now under way, I wouldn´t want to predict."

This is not the first time Mr. Cheney has suggested weapons inspectors may be dispensable.

In an interview March 2 with editors and reporters of The Washington Times, Mr. Cheney said inspectors "may not be as crucial" as in the past, "if you´ve got" a sanctions program in place that "people are willing to support."

But just hours after the interview, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president´s chief of staff, called The Times to clarify Mr. Cheney´s remarks. Mr. Libby said he wanted to make it clear that Mr. Cheney did not think the inspectors had become unimportant. "We expect the Iraqis to live up to all the U.N. resolutions, including getting the inspectors back," the aide said.

The vice president did not offer details about what he described as the "refocused sanctions" being proposed by Secretary of State Colin Powell. But he said they include "very tough" measures with respect "to anything that relates to the military" that would "keep the revenue from oil sales flowing through the U.N. escrow account, which is really key to maintaining those sanctions."

On "Meet the Press," Mr. Cheney was also asked about the disabled Navy surveillance plane that has been sitting on the ground in China for seven weeks, after being struck and damaged by a Chinese fighter jet on April 1.

China has said the United States can have its $80 million plane back, but it doesn´t want the aircraft to be flown off Hainan island. Beijing has refused the United States permission to fly the EP-3E plane, even though an American assessment team concluded it is flyable.

Asked if the Bush administration will demand that the plane be flown out of China, Mr. Cheney said, "My guess is that it may well have to be crated out, partly because it´s in such bad shape. Whether or not we should actually leave it there and try to repair it and then fly it out or crate it out, that´s a subject to be negotiated with the Chinese."

-------- israel

When a Tough Sharon Gets Tougher, Israelis Get Nervous

May 21, 2001
By DEBORAH SONTAG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/world/21MIDE.html?searchpv=nytToday

JERUSALEM, May 20 - In the aftermath of Israel's first use of American-supplied F-16 fighter jets in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the first real domestic criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has surged, with questions about whether his government has any plan beyond the next retaliation.

Four Israeli dailies, including the conservative Jerusalem Post, today condemned as unwise the deadly warplane attack on Friday on a Nablus police station, the Israeli military's response to a suicide bombing by a Hamas militant in Netanya. One paper called the air attack "unparalleled stupidity" and another said it was "a superfluous escalation."

Many Israelis do applaud Mr. Sharon for finally unleashing Israel's most deadly weapons against the Palestinians. But academics, opposition politicians, retired generals and a few cabinet members questioned the wisdom of an action with the potential to ignite the conflict and put Israel on the defensive against international criticism.

Some also asked whether the use of the warplanes demonstrated that the government has neither a military nor a diplomatic answer to the conflict.

"Friday's response should be seen as indicative of the helplessness of a government that has no path," Shlo mo Avineri, a political scientist, said on Israel Radio. "They don't have an alternative peace plan and they have no solution for restoring security to the public."

In response to the suicide bombing, which killed five Israelis in Netanya, the missile attack in Nablus killed 11 Palestinian police officers who did not appear to be personally implicated in the bombing or in any other violence against Israel.

On the front page of Haaretz today, a particularly acerbic columnist, Doron Rosenblum, asked: "What would happen after a terror attack in which, God forbid, 20 people were killed? An atomic bomb on Ramallah?"

An Israeli general, Giora Eiland, said Israel wanted to send a message to the Palestinians that "there is a cost not only on the Israeli side of the line but on their lives."

But that message appeared to be lost on the Palestinians, whose death toll since their uprising began in September far exceeds the Israelis', by a ratio of five to one. Rather, the assaults seemed to reaffirm Palestinians' commitment to continue the uprising.

During the last eight months, the weaponry in play has gone from stones to mortars on the Palestinian side and from M-16 rifles to F-16 jets on the Israeli side. Each has accused the other of crossing new red lines and turning the violence into a protracted low-level war.

Since Mr. Sharon took office in March, he has intensified Israel's military aggressiveness, devoted to what General Eiland described as a strategic attempt to wear down the Palestinians.

In an interview published today, Mr. Sharon reiterated that he would use "everything at our disposal to protect Israeli citizens." Implying United States backing, he also said, "The Americans understand that we can't take this anymore."

But in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney, asked on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" if Israel should stop using F-16's against the Palestinians, replied: "I think they should stop. Both sides should stop and think about where they are headed."

Mr. Cheney's words unintentionally echoed old questions here about whether the Israeli government is rudderless and raised new ones about whether the government is insensitive to international opinion.

But Mr. Sharon's associates brushed aside internal criticism. Meir Sheetrit, the justice minister and a member of Mr. Sharon's Likud Party, said Israel could not worry about world opinion when it was defending itself against terrorism.

"The mother or relative who has lost someone in the Netanya attack is not interested in what some woman in North America thinks of the Israeli reaction," Mr. Sheetrit said. "What interests them is that those who committed this despicable act will pay the price."

But Chemi Shalev, a well-known commentator, said he would have hoped that the Israeli government could rise above the "blood passions of the street."

"The man on the street is allowed to lose his mind with anger, but not so the country," Mr. Shalev wrote today in Maariv. "However, the decision to dispatch air force bombers to attack cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was such a gross diplomatic-strategic error that it is difficult to find any another explanation.

"The claim that they were trying to please public opinion is too cynical and cruel. And the idea that someone would, with premeditation, actually want to cause an escalation to war is too chilling. The only other explanation is a loss of control - hopefully a momentary one - among the leaders, which we will pay for dearly."

On Channel 7, the settlers' radio station, a correspondent, Haggai Huberman, said Israel had switched from helicopter gunships to warplanes because "helicopters can make holes in buildings but the bombs that an F-16 can drop can totally destroy them."

"The message to Arafat," he added, "is: "You want escalation? We'll give it to you.' "

But The Jerusalem Post, which advocates a firm response to the Palestinians, nonetheless questioned the efficacy of the aerial bombing of buildings, which "would not seem to erode the Palestinian military capability, while it is costly to Israel in public relations terms."

During times of diplomacy, the Israelis and Palestinians were always sparring about who was making the better effort at the peace table. Each would continuously argue that the ball was in the other's court.

Now they compete to be the most aggrieved in the court of world opinion. And some Israelis criticized the F-16 attacks precisely because they worried that it gave Palestinians the upper hand after a terrorist attack that should have redirected sympathy toward the Israelis.

Left-wing Israelis are increasing their mentions of Mr. Sharon's past, especially as defense minister directing the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. They suggest that Mr. Sharon may be dragging the country into another prolonged confrontation.

In discussions at universities here, some academics are advocating unilateral steps to test whether Israel could cool off the conflict, suggesting that Israel unconditionally pull back its tanks and troops, or announce a temporary freeze on settlements, or even close one of the less populated settlements in the Gaza Strip.

But such thinking is only in the academy at this point. And so far international pressure has been insufficient to bring either side to act first, or even for them to agree how to restrain themselves simultaneously.

On Monday, an international fact- finding committee led by a former United States Senator, George J. Mitchell, is to present its final recommendations in New York. Then the Bush administration will have to decide whether to accept them and whether to push aggressively to use the report as the basis for a renewed cease-fire effort.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said today that a Jordanian- Egyptian peace plan is still alive, even after the Arab League's foreign ministers recommended that Arab countries sever political ties with Israel over the F-16 attacks. But Mr. Mubarak cautioned that Israel's use of warplanes was counterproductive, saying that even if Yasir Arafat called on his people now to stop the violence, "No one would listen to him."

----

Cheney Concerned About Mideast

MAY 21, 07:05 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7C4FGFO0

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney stopped short of urging Israel to halt its use of U.S.-made F-16 fighter planes in attacks against Palestinians but appealed Sunday for an end to the escalating violence.

``Both sides should stop and think about where they're headed here and recognize that down this road lies disaster,'' Cheney said.

He would not say what the United States would do if the Israelis continued to use the F-16s. ``It's a very delicate situation,'' he said, adding he was not trying ``to evaluate the exact decisions'' by Israeli defense forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in comments published Sunday, said his country will do ``what it takes'' to protect its people.

To Sen. John McCain, the warplane's involvement indicates a ``perhaps spiraling out of control of this situation.''

Over a bloody weekend, six Israelis and 16 Palestinians, including a suicide bomber who blew himself up outside an Israeli shopping center, have died.

In retaliation for that bombing, Israel struck back at the Palestinians with the F-16s, the first time in 34 years that warplanes took part in attacks against targets in Palestinian territory.

``A terrorist attack on Israelis, a bombing attack by Israelis against Palestinians. Innocent children on both sides being killed. This is clearly goes beyond anything that can be justified by either side, I think,'' Cheney said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''

``The developments in the last few days ... obviously are very worrisome,'' Cheney said. The chance of arranging talks, he said, is ``pretty remote at this point.''

He cited diplomat fallout from the heightened violence: Arab foreign ministers and delegates, meeting Saturday in Egypt, asked Arab governments to sever political contact with Israel until it ceased military action against Palestinians.

``It's clear now the consequences, both for the Israelis and the Palestinians, of continuing this ever escalation of violence are beginning to get very, very serious,'' Cheney said. ``There has to be found some way to get both sides to back off.''

McCain, R-Ariz., said he thinks the administration should make proposals ``that would be at least a basis for ratcheting down'' the violence and appoint a special envoy to the region.

``I think we have to re-engage, and forcefully so, before the situation spreads throughout the Middle East,'' he said on ABC's ``This Week.''

Cheney said President Bush ``has been engaged actively,'' and administration officials have been in touch with both Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who departs Tuesday on a trip to Africa and Europe, may meet in Europe with one or both leaders, Cheney said.

The vice president said the administration hopes a coming report on the crisis, from a commission led by former Democratic senator George Mitchell, ``may provide some basis to begin to provide for reduction in violence and get some kind of confidence building measure started.''

The report, to be released Monday but already widely read, proposes a suspension of Israeli settlement construction - an idea rejected by Israel.

In response, Cheney said the administration has ``always said that both sides should avoid unilateral steps that, in effect, are provocative and undermine the negotiating process, and that's been our feeling with respect to settlements.''

The report also has heightened expectations that Washington will be more aggressive. The increasing clashes are seen as testing Bush's reluctance to get directly involved in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Powell, who has praised the report as a potential ``launchpad'' to end the fighting and reopen negotiations, is expected as early as Monday to make a more extensive statement on proposals to bring the two sides together.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been asked to do everything possible to ``convince Arafat to stop the violence,'' Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's office said in a statement.

A Pentagon spokesman said Sunday he could not confirm the request.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert faulted the Clinton administration for pushing ``very, very hard to get a peace agreement,'' and in doing so, jeopardizing the government of dovish Ehud Barak, the former prime minister defeated by hard-liner Sharon earlier this year.

``As a result, we have a different administration there that has a different attitude,'' Hastert said on ``Fox News Sunday.''

``I'm just saying that's their attitude. That's for their political survival right now. We have to work through those problems.''

----

Mideast Anticipates Mitchell Report

MAY 21, 07:03 EST
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7C4FF3G0

JEBALYA REFGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) - Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire Monday and Israeli helicopters rocketed what the army said was a mortar factory but Palestinians described as a workshop for spare car parts.

The violence came ahead of formal publication of an international commission's findings, already widely read, on how to stop eight months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

The United States is trying to put together a package deal for renewing peace talks that would include some of the Mitchell Commission recommendations, said a senior Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity.

The report also has heightened expectations that Washington will be more aggressive. The increasing clashes are seen as testing President Bush's reluctance to get directly involved in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has praised the report as a potential ``launchpad'' to end the fighting and reopen negotiations, is expected as early as Monday to make a more extensive statement on proposals to bring the two sides together.

A key sticking point is Israeli construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Mitchell Commission, as well as an Egyptian-Jordanian peace plan presented earlier this year, call for a construction freeze.

Israel has said it has to accommodate natural population growth in the settlements, home to 200,000 Israelis, and cannot stop building.

Monday's shelling began before daybreak when Israeli helicopter gunships rocketed the Jebalya refugee camp near Gaza City.

The shells badly damaged one building, knocking holes in the walls and shattering windows. Palestinians said it was a workshop for making spare car parts, while the army said it was a mortar factory.

Ahmed Rifayeh, 32, a worker, noted that the building is located along a busy main road and that it would be difficult to hide the production of mortars from passers-by.

The army said that 160 mortar shells have been fired from Gaza at Israeli targets in recent months, and that mortars were being made in several Gaza factories.

A factory for cement blocks and a book store were also damaged by the shelling. The Gaza security chief, Maj. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaida, accused Israel of hitting residential areas intentionally.

The street targeted by the shelling was littered with rubble and broken glass. About 100 Palestinians marched in the street, chanting, ``Revenge, revenge'' and ``God is great.''

On the outskirts of the Bureij refugee camp, near the border fence with Israel, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. The army said soldiers fired at Palestinians who planted explosives that were later discovered and detonated safely. Palestinian security officials said the two men were farmers on the way to their field.

Also Monday, Israeli troops fired tank-mounted machine guns at a neighborhood south of Gaza City, severely damaging several buildings, Palestinian officials said. Nearby, Israeli bulldozers razed several olive groves and farmlands on the outskirts of the Jewish settlement of Netzarim.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, a gun battle erupted between Israeli troops and Palestinian militiamen. One Palestinian was wounded.

On Sunday, Israeli tanks shelled the home of the West Bank security chief, Jibril Rajoub, in the town of Ramallah.

The Israeli army commander in the area, Lt. Col. Erez Winer, said Monday that soldiers fired at the house in response to shooting from the area, but that they did not intend to harm Rajoub.

The shooting from Rajoub's home ``continued for a long time and the bullets hit army posts,'' said Winer.

Rajoub escaped with minor injuries. The security chief, one of the most pragmatic Palestinian military leaders, said he did not believe the Israelis intended to kill him, but that they were escalating their attacks on Palestinians.

``It's a clear message to the international community that the Israeli government is insisting to use state terror against the Palestinian people,'' said Rajoub, who has often participated in peace talks with Israelis.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer also denied that the tank was aiming at Rajoub.

The Mitchell Commission report was to be released later Monday.

The commission, headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, was appointed after a summit last year at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, directed by then-President Clinton.

In Washington, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that the Mitchell report ``may provide some basis to begin to provide for reduction in violence and get some kind of confidence building measure started.''

Both Israel and the Palestinians submitted lengthy papers in response to the commission findings.

The Palestinians accepted the report, emphasizing the moves Israel is expected to make to defuse the situation.

Israel endorsed the procedure for ending the violence, but objected to a settlement freeze.

-------- peru

Leader Puts Peru on Healthy Path

MAY 21,
By RICK VECCHIO
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7C4AE380

LIMA, Peru (AP) - Knowing his time in office was short, Valentin Paniagua never moved into the opulent presidential palace, preferring to commute to work from the Lima suburbs.

The stopgap president will be out of office in July, but he'll be remembered for leading a broad-based government that has taken big strides toward rebuilding Peru's tattered democracy.

Paniagua, then president of Congress, was handed an eight-month term in November after the legislature fired President Alberto Fujimori, who fled the country under a cloud of corruption scandals.

His mandate was to provide clean elections, root out the corruption left by Fujimori's fugitive intelligence adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, and guide the country until a new president could be elected and sworn in the following July.

The difference is striking. In contrast to the years that Fujimori dominated Congress, the courts and most of Peruvian society, soft-spoken Paniagua has ruled by consensus and the law.

His approval rating stands at about 67 percent.

``Many people would like him to stay but he won't,'' said two-time former President Fernando Belaunde.

``He has always had a political life very much rooted in democratic norms when democratic rule didn't exist in Peru,'' Belaunde said in an interview. ``He is a man profoundly uninterested in material things and deeply preoccupied with the good of the nation.''

Paniagua was Belaunde's justice minister until the military seized power in 1968, and that experience hardened Paniagua's democratic instincts, Belaunde said.

Paniagua's administration has reformed electoral bodies that were discredited after last year's fraud-riddled elections, in which Fujimori won a constitutionally questionable third five-year term.

An April 8 ballot went off without a hitch, setting the stage for a June 3 runoff between front-runner Alejandro Toledo, a U.S.-trained economist, and former President Alan Garcia.

But while Peru's nearly 15 million voters may now trust the election machinery, they see such severe flaws in the candidates that polls predict one-third will cast spoiled ballots in protest.

Garcia, 51, is remembered for his populist presidency that ended in 1990 in rampant corruption, surging rebel violence, food shortages and hyperinflation. Toledo, 54, is widely viewed as erratic and power-hungry.

Paniagua's Cabinet has skilled and respected people from across the political spectrum. For prime minister he picked Javier Perez de Cuellar, the former U.N. secretary general, Peru's most prestigious public figure.

Paniagua avoids the limelight and lets his ministers do most of the talking at news conferences.

Justice Minister Diego Garcia Sayan says Paniagua has managed to debunk a long-standing perception that an effective president must be a ``caudillo,'' or strongman.

``I believe the nation is going to miss his way of working so responsibly, with a low profile,'' Garcia Sayan said.

Paniagua, 64, was constitutionally barred from running in this election, and says he will return to his law practice.

Fujimori was a hugely popular president for bringing leftist guerrillas and economic chaos to heel, but a network of kickbacks, coercion and bribes permeated Peruvian society and government.

Paniagua's government has fought back by enacting sweeping laws based on Italy's anti-Mafia legislation. More than 500 people are under investigation, and 17 military chiefs arrested, along with several judges and politicians and 10 business and media executives.

Overseas bank accounts containing some $200 million of alleged profits from illegal arms and drug dealing have been frozen.

The interim government has also started to restructure the military. Officers linked to Montesinos are being purged, and the military has been made to formally admit it was wrong to obey Fujimori in 1992 when he deployed troops to shut the opposition-controlled Congress and the courts.

``After 10 years of political penetration the infection has truly contaminated the social fabric of the armed forces,'' said Jaime Salinas, a retired army general.

``The important thing that stands out in Valentin Paniagua's government is that it has at least initiated and provided the guidelines for necessary change.''

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

Congo Urges Stronger UN Force

MAY 21, 21:34 EST
By EDDY ISANGO
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AFRICA&STORYID=APIS7C4S80G0

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Congo President Joseph Kabila urged the United Nations on Monday to increase its force here to 20,000 troops, saying more were needed to impose peace on combatants.

The United Nations, building up a 3,500-strong force in Congo, insists that peace depends on combatants fulfilling their pledges to end fighting - not on the armed might of the United Nations.

``There is enough of a contingent to monitor the disengagement of forces, and we hope that what has been signed will be implemented. A deal is a deal,'' said Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador leading a U.N. Security Council peace mission for Congo.

Levitte spoke in Lusaka, Zambia. Security Council ambassadors are touring nine African countries that have either armies or a diplomatic role in Congo's war, pressing combatants to move beyond the currently holding cease-fire.

Congo's war started in 1998 when Rwanda, Uganda and their Congolese rebel allies started fighting to topple Congo's government. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia entered the war on Congo's behalf.

Peace efforts have moved forward since January's assassination of Congo President Laurent Kabila, who was succeeded by his son, Joseph.

The United Nations is building up a force of 500 military observers to check whether all sides are complying with pledges to withdraw their forces from key battle zones.

Another 3,000 armed U.N. troops will be charged chiefly with guarding U.N. property.

The Uganda-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo has demanded more monitors before it will pull back from front-lines as promised.

In Kinshasa, Congo's capital, Kabila's government urged a 20,000-strong force and said even that was insufficient for a country of 1 million square miles.

Leonard Ntwaremba, Kabila's liaison with the United Nations, said the United Nations would have to redefine its mission here - to forcing peace, rather than verifying it.

----

Attack on the International Court

May 21, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/opinion/21MON3.html?searchpv=nytToday

Unhappy that President Clinton signed the global treaty creating an international criminal court, some officials in the Bush administration and some members of Congress are trying to get Washington to pressure other countries to reject it. This effort would strain America's already uneasy relations with its allies and limit the administration's flexibility on important national security matters. The Bush administration would better serve American interests by trying to change the provisions of the court it considers harmful.

The international criminal court will be able to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The treaty establishing the court has been signed by 139 nations, and so far 31 have ratified it. When 60 countries ratify, which is likely over the next few years, the court will begin work.

Several top Pentagon officials fear that American troops serving in countries that have ratified the treaty might be arrested on false charges and sent to The Hague for trial. While it is important to guard against politically motivated prosecutions, the court already has numerous safeguards to ensure that it deals only with the most serious cases, is staffed by respected and reasonable judges, and would take jurisdiction of a case only after a suspect's own national court system had exhausted its own options.

Opponents of the court would like an ironclad guarantee that the court would never try an American. Absent such a commitment, they want to block creation of the court by pressing countries not to ratify the treaty. This position may prevail in the administration, although more moderate officials would prefer to see Washington simply renounce its own signature of the treaty. The House, for its part, recently passed a bill that would require America to cut off military aid to most countries that ratify the treaty, unless they pledge never to surrender an American to the court. The bill also authorizes Washington to use force to rescue Americans - even from the Netherlands, where the court will be based.

The administration's wisest course is not to try to undermine the court. It probably cannot stop 29 more nations from ratifying the treaty, and to attempt to do so would further alienate allies that are already wary of President Bush's desire to build a missile shield and his decision to withdraw the United States from the Kyoto agreement on global warming.

America would also lose its remaining influence in shaping the court, and there are upcoming decisions that matter to Washington, such as the definition of new crimes and selection of judges. The international criminal court is going to be a reality. If the Bush administration feels the safeguards protecting Americans from show trials are inadequate, it should try to strengthen them, not waste global influence in a futile attempt to prevent the court's establishment.

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

CITIZENS CHALLENGE MILITARY TRAINING AT MAKUA, HAWAII

AmeriScan:
May 21, 2001
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-21-09.html

HONOLULU, Hawaii, May 21, 2001 (ENS) - A community organization is challenging the U.S. Army's claim that resuming live fire training at Makua Military Reservation (MMR) on O'ahu, Hawaii, would have no significant impact on more than 40 endangered species.

Malama Makua, represented by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, will return to court to argue that military training could harm endangered species and impact dozens of sacred and cultural sites found at Makua and on neighboring communities.

The Army issued a final Environmental Assessment this month that concludes that the training would have "no significant impact." That finding means that an Environmental Impact Statement under the National Environmental Policy Act is not required, and the Army may resume training.

Under a prior settlement agreement with Malama Makua, the Army must wait at least 30 days from the issuance of the environmental assessment to resume training. Malama Makua intends to file a motion for preliminary injunction so that a hearing can be scheduled prior to any resumption of live fire training.

"The Army's claim that it can do live fire training at Makua without significant impacts is an insult to the people of the Wai'anae Coast, who have witnessed the devastation that military training inflicts," said Leandra Wai, president of Malama Makua. "We have seen our churches and heiau bombed, our native forests burned, our endangered species destroyed, the bones of our ancestors desecrated, our soil contaminated, our fishing grounds polluted, and a growing population of sick people. If that's not significant, I don't know what is."

Malama Makua says its review of the environmental assessment shows that the Army combed through past drafts to remove any language that might inform the public that resumed training would harm wildlife. For example, in the September 2000 draft, the Army conceded that "the potential impacts associated with activities at Makua to threatened and endangered species cannot be eliminated or minimized to insignificant or discountable levels."

That statement was removed from the document released this month.

No training has taken place at MMR since September 1998 when, in response to a letter from Malama Makua indicating its intent to sue, the Army resumed consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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General in Balkan War Says Pentagon Hampered NATO

May 21, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/world/21NATO.html?searchpv=nytToday

LONDON, May 20 - In a new memoir, NATO's commander during the war with Yugoslavia asserts that the Pentagon repeatedly hampered the alliance's military planning and discouraged steps that might have made the fighting unnecessary.

The commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who is now retired, writes that the Pentagon opposed his proposal in March 1998 to warn Yugoslavia's president, Slobodan Milosevic, that NATO would intervene if he cracked down on the restive Albanian population in Kosovo.

Once the fighting started a year later, according to General Clark, the Pentagon was slow to approve some of the targets and resisted planning for a possible ground war.

And in the final weeks of the war, as Albanian rebels fought Yugoslavia's Serbian forces in Kosovo, the Pentagon rejected General Clark's request that American artillery, missile and helicopter rocket attacks be carried out from the Albanian side of the border. The American forces would not have entered Kosovo, but the Pentagon apparently feared a slippery slope that could lead to a land offensive.

"There was giant resistance from the Pentagon to deepening the commitment to the Balkans," General Clark said in a telephone interview today from Little Rock, Ark., where he now lives. He said the Balkans had not figured in "the Pentagon view of its national military strategy, which is to prepare to fight in the Persian Gulf and in Korea, and that short of that, the maximum amount should be spent on the procurement account."

The memoir, "Waging Modern War," is published by PublicAffairs. The 479-page book provides an inside account of the planning and conduct of the 77-day war, as well of the diplomacy that preceded it.

While it is well known that General Clark had a strained relationship with the Pentagon - his tour was cut short after less than three years by William S. Cohen, who was secretary of defense - the book offers fresh information about NATO's first and only war.

The fighting began as insurgents tried to break Kosovo away from Yugoslavia and Mr. Milosevic, who has been indicted for war crimes. His resistance caused the dislocations of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

During the NATO war, there was considerable speculation about America's disputes with the allies. The White House's handling of the Balkan crisis also came under scrutiny. But from the vantage of his NATO headquarters, General Clark provides a different picture.

He paints President Clinton as a capable leader who was prepared to make a tough call by moving toward the use of ground troops. Javier Solana, who was NATO's secretary general, is also portrayed as a decisive figure who tried to rally support in Europe for the bombing.

In contrast, General Clark is severely critical of the Pentagon leadership. Secretary Cohen repeatedly tried to limit the American involvement in the Balkans, he said. Fearful that General Clark would try to rally support in the administration for a land offensive, Mr. Cohen even tried to stop the general from going to Washington for a NATO summit gathering, according to the book.

Gen. Joseph Ralston, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General's Clark's successor as NATO commander, is portrayed as more consumed with bureaucratic politics in the Pentagon than with European strategy.

General Clark is especially critical of his own service, the Army. As storm clouds gathered late in 1998, he warned Gen. Dennis Reimer, then the Army chief of staff, that war might break out and that he should get ready for a confrontation with Yugoslavia. "But we don't want to fight there," the book recounts General Reimer as saying.

Gen. Eric Shinseki, the current Army chief of staff, is depicted as a by-the-book and overly cautious officer during his tour in Bosnia.

A West Point graduate and career Army officer, General Clark came to his post with a keen interest in the Balkans. He served as a military representative on Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke's delegation at Balkan peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, which led to accords in 1995.

But after General Clark went to NATO, he found the Pentagon to be less interested in the region.

One of General Clark's first run- ins with the Pentagon occurred early in 1998, he said. As tensions grew in Kosovo, he sent a message to Mr. Cohen recommending that the United States repeat a warning that President George Bush privately communicated in 1992: that a brutal crackdown in Kosovo could lead to NATO intervention.

After sending in the recommendation, General Clark wrote, he was awakened by a call from General Ralston. General Ralston said Mr. Cohen was upset that he had received the message. At a time when military spending legislation awaited action in Congress and expansion of NATO to the east was being debated, the Pentagon leadership felt that it had enough on its plate.

"And," General Ralston continued, "the secretary is concerned that Madeleine Albright might get a copy of this," the book recounts, referring to the secretary of state. Efforts to reach Mr. Cohen today through his former associates were unavailing.

As the crisis grew in Kosovo, the Clinton administration began to prepare for a showdown with Belgrade. Serbian atrocities in Kosovo were reported, and the administration decided to warn Mr. Milosevic that he faced airstrikes if he did not end his crackdown against the Albanian population in Kosovo and subscribe to the terms that international negotiators in France were trying to work out to keep peace in Kosovo.

But NATO ran into problems when it began to act. Some of the problems, General Clark's book recounts, had nothing to do with the Pentagon. General Clark's own command failed to foresee that Mr. Milosevic would try to stymie the alliance by expelling thousands of Albanians and creating a refugee crisis.

And General Clark issued a secret order that NATO's first requirement was to avoid the loss of any aircraft, according to his book. The preoccupation with avoiding NATO military casualties limited the effectiveness of the air campaign and increased the prospect of civilian casualties, because allied warplanes bombed from high altitudes. General Clark defended the order in an interview as necessary to maintain public support for the war.

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Biggest U.S. ships called vulnerable

05/21/2001
By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-05-21-carrier.htm

NORFOLK, Va. - Since their wooden-decked ancestors swept across the Pacific Ocean and obliterated Japanese forces in World War II, aircraft carriers have been the centerpiece of U.S. naval power.

Sixty years later, the gigantic floating airfields are fighting a new war - for survival.

The Navy's 12 aircraft carriers, the largest warships in the world, are facing flak from their own shores. Civilians in the Bush administration and other defense planners are raising questions about the carriers' vulnerability to attack in a world where smart bombs can seek out a small building and anti-ship missiles streak to their targets at twice the speed of sound.

The most recognizable symbol of American military might, the carrier is part of a larger debate over how the armed forces should fight 10-20 years from now. Critics say potential enemies such as China, Iran and Iraq could target U.S. carriers with long-range missiles and satellites.

But at Norfolk, a sprawling naval base that is home to five carriers, disciples of naval air power say the critics are wrong.

Looking over the USS Theodore Roosevelt's flight deck, which spreads over 4 1/2 acres, Cmdr. Mark Adamshick says threats to ships such as his are overstated.

"We have mitigated the risks," says Adamshick, a Gulf War veteran and former F-14 squadron commander. "It's like being in a bulletproof car with the pope - sometimes you have to go into bad neighborhoods."

Adamshick, 42, has been on six carrier cruises in a 20-year career, and says he finds it difficult to imagine a world without American carriers muscling their way into hostile areas. Capt. Rich O'Hanlon, commander of the Roosevelt, describes the nation's psychological attachment to aircraft carriers this way: When crises erupt around the world, "the White House response is, 'Where's the nearest carrier?' "

An aircraft carrier can steam 700 miles in a day. Its arsenal for a surface ship is unrivaled: 50 bomb-dropping F-14s and F-18s that can fly more than 100 missions a day. And unlike overseas military bases, they do not require the permission of foreign nations to launch attacks.

"It's a tremendous tool our leadership can use to control a situation," O'Hanlon says.

The aircraft carrier's value as a symbol of American might has a downside that worries even its most ardent supporters, however. The giant ships are densely packed with as many as 6,000 sailors. A few well-placed bombs could trigger a catastrophic loss of life.

Rumsfeld's strategic review

One source of the doubts is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's broad review of military strategy. His review is challenging long-held assumptions about U.S. forces, and the idea that Rumsfeld's staff is rethinking the carrier's 60-year reign as king of the high seas alarms Navy brass. In recent weeks, the Navy has made a case that carriers are not as vulnerable as Rumsfeld's advisers say, and current thinking inside the Pentagon is that they will survive the review largely intact.

"The aircraft carrier is the toughest, most robust ship ever built," says Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare requirements and programs. "Nothing is invulnerable," McGinn says, but the probability of a future enemy being able to easily sink one of the Navy's carriers "is very, very small."

Even some of the aircraft carrier's most vocal critics agree that in the open ocean there are few threats to the ship. U.S. carriers are the Strom Thurmonds of big weapons - once built, they typically keep going for 50 years, far longer than other Navy ships. Some defense experts contend that within the next 25 years, America's enemies might learn how to find these floating air bases and sink them with a barrage of smart weapons.

Navy officials say the Pentagon's new leadership team - led by strategy guru Andy Marshall - has considered cutting the number of Navy carriers from the current fleet of 12. It also has explored building smaller, harder-to-target aircraft carriers. Rumsfeld could complete his review this summer.

Politics inevitably will play a role in whatever decision is made about large weapons. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and carrier proponent, is likely to fight efforts to reduce their role.

USA's biggest stick

Since World War II, Navy "flat tops" have been the USA's biggest stick when trouble erupts overseas. Other countries, including Britain and France, sail carriers to distant waters. But American carriers are at least one-third longer and weigh three to four times more, which allows them to pack more punch.

America's Nimitz class is the most modern. The carriers cruise faster than 30 knots and carry 72 aircraft. A 24-story building that floats, the nuclear-powered Roosevelt has 2,500 telephones, 3,000 TVs and serves 18,600 meals a day.

But it's a challenge to staff and maintain such a seaborne metropolis. Because of that, no more than three of the Navy's 12 carriers are typically deployed at once. Carriers sail with crews of 5,000-6,000. They patrol for six months at a time and are accompanied by a carrier battle group - a combination of six to eight cruisers, destroyers and submarines.

Their main value is in their flexibility and independence, the Navy says. Overseas operations often require allies' permission to use airspace, ports or airfields. That can take time. All that's needed to launch a carrier strike is the order.

But Rumsfeld already has hinted at the kind of force he wants in the future: high-tech, oriented toward air power and space and agile enough to zoom to distant battlefields. So "older" weapons such as large artillery pieces, heavy battle tanks and perhaps large ships might be deemed antiquated.

Norman Polmar, a naval analyst and author, says that the aircraft carrier's vulnerability isn't the critical question. Carriers, like all ships, can be attacked and sunk by a determined enemy, he says.

"The real issue is, can other systems do the same job?" says Polmar, who favors a debate on whether the United States should buy smaller carriers that can use vertical-takeoff jets and develop other ships that might project power just as efficiently.

Former Navy secretary Richard Danzig, who left office earlier this year with the change in administrations, had proposed the Navy reduce future aircraft carrier crew size by 1,500 people, to a total of 4,000, including pilots and others who support flight operations. He says that would reduce costs and allay fears that a determined enemy could inflict heavy losses.

Among the biggest dangers is the availability of new weapons designed specifically to take out a ship. The Russian-made Sunburn anti-ship missile flies at about 1,500 mph (sound travels at 740 mph). It zooms a mere 60 feet above sea level and can be fired from 155 miles away.

Other potential dangers are a new generation of ultra-quiet diesel submarines and sophisticated underwater mines.

But even if carriers are viewed as increasingly vulnerable, they are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. In addition to the dozen in service, another two - including the USS Ronald Reagan - are under construction. The Navy is set to build four more to replace aging carriers between now and 2018.

"I wouldn't advocate we get rid of them, but we should do an objective analysis of what to do next and keep the ones we have," Polmar says.

A question of size

A giant Nimitz-class carrier is more than 1,000 feet long, costs $5 billion and takes seven years to build. The Navy says that size matters, in longevity and being able to defend against attack.

For several decades, Navy admirals have discouraged building smaller 600- to 800-foot ships. The Navy says a fleet of smaller carriers would cost more to maintain and be fitted with fewer on-board defenses. In classified, Cold War-era tests comparing the survivability of small and large aircraft carriers, the Navy found large ships could survive direct hits from as many as 10 anti-ship missiles. Small carriers were far easier to sink.

British carriers, for example, do not have the ability to launch far-searching radar reconnaissance planes. During the Falklands War in 1982, the Argentine air force raced past air defenses of the British fleet to fire Exocet missiles that slammed into the destroyer HMS Sheffield and the container ship HMS Atlantic Conveyor.

Nearly 20 years later, many of the United States' potential enemies have acquired anti-ship missiles and modern submarines.

Scott Truver, a military analyst with the Anteon Corp. in Fairfax, Va., says future threats to all naval ships, including aircraft carriers, are very real. Truver sees diesel submarines as perhaps the most serious of all challenges to surface ships. He noted that in recent years the Navy has cut back funding on both anti-submarine warfare and mine detection.

"In the future, many countries will be able to target and detect ships at sea," Truver says.

Past as prologue?

Those who say giant ships like the Roosevelt present an inviting target point to the Navy's armada of battleships on the eve of World War II.

Navy commanders who came of age when armor-plated dreadnoughts ruled the waves in the 1920s and '30s believed battleships were invincible.

The program from the Army-Navy football game of Nov. 29, 1941, showed the USS Arizona plowing through ocean swells. The caption read: "Despite the claims of air enthusiasts, no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs."

Eight days later, a Japanese bomb destroyed the Arizona at Pearl Harbor. The blast killed 1,177 sailors.

Navy leaders don't view the battleship debate of the 1940s as comparable to the carrier discussions of today. McGinn and other senior Navy commanders say that carriers can operate far offshore if necessary, and targeting them on the move is exceptionally difficult.

Even the best technology, the Navy argues, might not help. Future enemies will need a minimum of 138 low-orbiting satellites to know where U.S. carriers are at all times, according to one Navy study. Only a handful of such satellites exists today, and in the future U.S. officials consider it unlikely satellites would be able to provide timely information on ship movements.

The Navy admits that low-flying, "sea-skimming" missiles pose a serious threat. But carrier advocates argue that carrier battle groups have an array of means to confuse or shoot down enemy missiles - from an ability to move rapidly in the time it would take enemies to get a precise fix to the AEGIS combat system that defends against anti-ship missiles.

The Navy also says better technologies are just around the corner. Its new Cooperative Engagement Capability system will allow the aircraft carrier battle group to detect enemy attacks from much farther away, much more quickly.

Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va. think tank, agrees that the debate over the future of aircraft carriers is "long overdue." But Thompson says the Navy can make a good case that the giant ships are not nearly as easy to find as many believe.

"If we can convince ourselves that carriers are vulnerable, we can convince ourselves we don't need to spend money on them," Thompson says. "The problem is, we really don't know how we would do many of the carrier missions without them."

----

The Defense Comfort Blanket

By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, May 21, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40861-2001May17?language=printer

This Friday, when President Bush delivers the commencement at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, he will unveil the much-anticipated outlines of a new U.S. defense strategy.

By all accounts, the President will describe a military he wants to see focused more on Asia than on Europe. He will eliminate the "two-war standard" for U.S. military planning. There will be more money for research and development and a commitment to leap-ahead to the next generation of weaponry. America's strengths will be lauded and greater reliance on commercial information and space technologies will be called for. Long-range stealthy capabilities will supplant short-range systems and serve as an alternative to potentially vulnerable overseas bases. Nuclear reductions, missile defenses and a move away from the World War II infrastructure of domestic bases and heavy forces will signal a willingness to start afresh in the new millennium.

All that, and yet the Pentagon is likely to remain pretty much the way it is today.

Two Wars? How About 72 Wars?

On the surface, eliminating the requirement to have a force capable of conducting two regional wars simultaneously sounds so good. The reality test here is if Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld actually directs U.S. Central Command to tear up Operations Plan (OPLAN) 1003 - the calcified fight-the-last-war contingency for a repeat 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. There are only two "completed" OPLANs besides 1003: one for a war on the Korean peninsula (OPLAN 5027), and the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP, the nuclear war plan.

All told the U.S. military maintains no less than 72 contingency plans. Besides the three OPLANS, 45 additional contingencies of "less compelling interest" have what are called CONPLANs. And there are 24 "functional" and "theater engagement" plans covering day-to-day drug war, peacekeeping and overseas presence missions.

No wonder the Army says that even without the two-war standard, it still needs additional troops. And the Marines basically agree. "We see our transformation ... as a continuous process," Marine quadrennial defense chief Maj. Gen. Robert Magnus told Jane's Defence Weekly last week. Relevance for the Marines, Magnus says, is not dependent on some new study or strategy announcement. Marines have always had to be ready for an adverse, chaotic environment. "We're pretty relevant right now," he said.

The Road to Transformation

"We're witnessing a revolution in the technology of war," President Bush said in a Feb. 13 speech. "I have given [Secretary Rumsfeld] a broad mandate to challenge the status quo," he said.

Transformation enthusiasts argue that the U.S. has too many soldiers, buys the wrong weapons, and has too many of them. Cutting troops is everyone's way of paying for new technology.

But actually cutting forces to pay for all of what is wanted runs into conflict not just with generals fighting the proverbial last war, but also with those who argue that the military should focus on its central constitutional role of directly defending the United States. This is an argument that can not be ignored. As a result change often has to happen in indirect, and damaging, ways.

For example, the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was created in the 1980s during the days of maximum fear of the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua. This new entity bought together all of the military's special operators --Delta Force, Green Berets and Rangers from the Army, SEALs from the Navy, helicopters and gunships from the Air Force -- to create a competent and more powerful force for low-intensity conflicts.

The loser is the corporate Army, which has ceded its most effective light force to the special operations clan. These days when special operators achieve x or y mission, SOCOM gets the credit even if the people wear an Army uniform. The other Army is condemned to care for the not very sexy mission of actually building and sustaining heavy forces to defend America in total war. When the Army cannot quickly get to Albania in a Kosovo war, defense pundits guffaw and the other Army is pronounced anachronistic.

Gazing Skyward

Now the Air Force is about get SOCOM-ed as well. On May 8 Secretary Rumsfeld announced a revamping of U.S. military organization for space, a precursor many believe to creation of either a fifth military service to join army, navy, air force, and marines, or a SOCOM-like super space command. The Air Force will be the likely loser, as it focuses on that old-fashioned contraption called the airplane while the new joint space force becomes the symbolic strategic force of the 21st century. Space command gets the glamour missions and the Air Force gets dismissed as fly boys stuck in the silk scarf era.

The 20-plus year trend in the U.S. military has been that when the traditional organizations cannot carry out missions overnight (or do not want to) ad hoc organization are created. The "new" mission, whatever it is - the drug war, information warfare, countering terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention - often thrusts the military into unknown terrain. This inevitably marginalizes the military's core force as more and more attention is focused on the new missions. Aircraft carriers, main battle tanks, even new tactical fighters such as the Air Force's F-22 are increasingly viewed by many new mission enthusiasts as irrelevant for the future.

Zealots with an agenda or an axe to grind dismiss the old services left behind as hide-bound. But it was Ronald Reagan's Defense Secretary who fought to keep the military out of the drug war. His kind of welcome orthodoxy about focusing on core military duties has been largely absent from the opportunistic post-Cold War Pentagon.

In the course of the fire sale spawned by Bush's speech and Rumsfeld's defense review there will be some old fogies who will say, "Wait a minute, if China is indeed to become our enemy in the future, what forces do we need to win a World War III?" And: "Shouldn't we at least have heavy forces and defense industry and mobilization capability if we ever have to fight again on the ground?"

The answer, of course, will be yes and yes. But in the Bush administration the money will get spent on the fashionable and at the core, nothing will change.

-------- OTHER

-------- death penalty

Ukraine Abolishes Death Penalty

MAY 21, 07:47 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7C4G3T00

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed a new Criminal Code that formally abolished the nation's death penalty, putting it in line with most European countries, his office said Monday.

The legislation was overwhelmingly approved by parliament last month. Kuchma signed it on Friday and the new code takes effect June 1.

Ukraine's previous criminal code allowed the death penalty, but the new one sets life imprisonment as the maximum form of punishment. People under 18 and older than 65 and women who were pregnant when they committed a crime or during sentencing are not subject to life terms.

Ukraine promised to abolish the death penalty when it joined the Council of Europe in 1995, and imposed a moratorium on executions in March 1997. But the government was sharply criticized for its failure to fully abolish it.

Ukraine's Constitutional Court ruled the death penalty illegal in 1999 and parliament abolished it last summer. Legislators then formalized the step by including it in the new code.

About 180 people in Ukraine were executed between 1995 and March 1997.

The new code also introduces ``public work'' as a new form of punishment for less serious crimes, with adults subject to up to 240 hours and minors up to 120 hours.

Unlike the previous code, it eliminates criminal responsibility for slander and insult, an important step toward greater freedom of speech in the former Soviet republic.

It also outlines new crimes including copyright violations and prohibits elected officials from holding a second post or job, a common practice among lawmakers and regional authorities.

----

Qatar Court Passes Death Sentences

MAY 21, 07:09 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7C4FI7G0

DOHA, Qatar (AP) - An appeals court gave death sentences on Monday to 19 people, including the emir's cousin, for a failed coup attempt in 1996.

Eighteen other defendants were given life sentences, and 29 were ordered freed. The court order was read by the judge in the presence of journalists. Death sentences have to be approved by the emir.

Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir's cousin, was a former economy minister and an ex-police chief. He was thought to be the mastermind behind the coup attempt.

In February 2000 a lower court sentenced 33 people, including Sheik Hamad, to life in prison for attempting to overthrow the emir.

Another 85 defendants were acquitted by that court in a trial that began in November 1997. Nine of those convicted and 20 of those acquitted by the lower court were tried in absentia.

Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the 47-year-old current emir, overthrew his father in a 1995 coup. Those convicted were believed to be supporters of his father.

The ousted emir, Sheik Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, himself came to power after deposing his cousin. He has now settled in Paris but travels often to London and the Gulf.

Qatar, home to about 200,000 citizens and more than 300,000 expatriate workers, is a peninsula jutting off Saudi Arabia. It has the world's third-largest reserves of natural gas and enough oil to support an annual per capita income of about $13,600, one of the world's highest.

-------- energy

Poll: Americans skeptical of Bush energy plan

By Richard Benedetto,
USA TODAY
05/21/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-05-21-bush-energy.htm

An American public stunned by rising gasoline prices and worried about electricity shortages greeted President Bush's energy plan with skepticism, a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows. The findings suggest Bush faces a major selling job if he expects to persuade Congress to enact the proposals he unveiled last week and convince the public that he is acting in its interest.

"He needs to do something that will address energy problems in the short term and stop talking about everything being long-range," said Jaime Regalado, a political scientist at California State University-Los Angeles. "And he's got to stop looking so cozy with business."

The president's proposal emphasizes stepped-up production and modest conservation measures. It received mixed reviews from an anxious public that appears to want quick relief but sees the plan only helping after several years.

Although Bush says his program will allow Americans to retain the lifestyle they are accustomed to, only 30% of those surveyed said they believe it. Two of three said major lifestyle changes will be necessary to solve the nation's energy woes.

Nearly half said the Bush plan would not do enough to conserve energy, and 43% said the plan would do too little to increase production.

Americans also were split over the Bush proposal to increase the number of nuclear power plants to generate electricity: 49% for and 46% against.

The tepid response to the Bush energy plan might have been a factor in raising his job-disapproval rating from 31% a week ago to 36% now, the highest of his presidency. His 56% job-approval rating did not change from a week ago.

Bush's strongest disapproval came from Democrats, low-income earners, women under 50 and residents of California, a state wrestling with electricity shortages.

California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was highly critical of the Bush plan. He said it "does nothing to address the astronomical run-up in the prices of electricity, natural gas and gasoline (and) favors more energy production at the expense of everything else."

White House spokesman Claire Buchan said the president will continue to press his plan, regardless of the polls: "The president does not govern by polls. This is a serious issue that has been neglected for years, and he has begun a serious dialogue with the American people. It will continue."

Most poll respondents said they see threats of electricity shortages and the rising price of gasoline and heating fuels as serious problems, although only 12% said they see a "state of crisis." And most of those polled said Bush is not doing enough to address those problems.

At the same time, most said energy companies have too much influence over the administration's energy polices, an argument Democrats raise.

One in five said the Bush administration deserves a great deal of blame for the energy problems; 28% put a great deal of that blame on the Clinton administration.

The May 18-20 poll of 1,010 adults has an error margin of +/- 3 percentage points.

----

US energy plan a "crime" - Pacific activists

AUSTRALIA: May 21, 2001
Story by Michael Christie
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10878

SYDNEY - Pacific and Australian environmentalists reacted with horror on Friday to U.S. President George W. Bush's plan to boost coal, oil and nuclear power production, branding the proposal a "crime".

Among the most vulnerable to climate change, a group representing Pacific islanders complained the region's concerns were being ignored, even though some of its tiny, low-lying nations faced obliteration if sea levels rose too far.

"If the worst comes to the worst, if it comes to the crunch in climate change, some communities and cultures here will cease to exist. It's totally unjust," said Patrina Dumaru, climate officer for the Fiji-based Pacific Concerns Resources Centre.

"We are all environmental criminals. But there must be a new category for the United States. I would like to see an international justice system that would recognise this crime," said Dumaru, whose organisation is a regional umbrella group for non governmental organisations.

The small Pacific island states face more intense cyclones, sea erosion and some may sink beneath the waves if temperatures continue to rise due to global warming, according to studies.

"We do not generate all that much pollution but are always at the receiving end," said an official in Kiribati, a collection of 33 islands, with 65,000 people, astride the equator.

Bush, a former Texas oil man, on Thursday offered measures to drive up production in nuclear energy and fossil fuels in order to beat back high oil prices, blackouts and a "darker future".

The proposals included $10 billion in tax incentives for hybrid vehicles that use a combination of solar power and petrol, and for homeowners to install solar panels.

"COMBINATION OF EXXON VALDEZ AND CHERNOBYL"

But global environmentalists accused the U.S. president of delivering an "energy scam" rather than a plan, and said it could have been drafted in a boardroom of one of the U.S. oil firms.

Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown accused Bush of paying back the oil interests who supported his campaign.

"He's come up with a combination of Exxon Valdez and Chernobyl," Brown told Reuters, adding Bush had missed a once-in-a-generation chance to give the so-called Sunrise Industries, developing new forms of energy, a fillip.

The Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 35,000 tonnes of crude over the Alaskan coast in 1989, and the world suffered its worst nuclear accident at Ukraine's Chernobyl plant 15 years ago.

The emphasis on fossil fuels, blamed by a U.N. scientific body for causing most of the greenhouse gases that could sharply increase world temperatures, came on the heels of Bush dumping the 1997 Kyoto protocol on cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Kyoto committed the main industrialised nations to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Bush said the accord was economically harmful and impractical as it did not include developing nations, like China.

The tiny nation of Tuvalu, which consists of around 10,000 people on eight inhabited atolls, this week urged the U.S. government to reconsider its rejection of Kyoto, according to the Pacific Islands Broadcasting Association News Services.

"Tuvalu and other Pacific least developed countries may be viewed by the industrialised nations as strategically unimportant to them," Tuvalu finance minister Lagitupu Tuilimu told a U.N. conference in Brussels.

"But the Kyoto protocol may be the only means to safeguard the survival of an entire living society," Tuilimu said.

NUCLEAR POWER A PACIFIC NO-NO

Climate officer Dumaru said she was also alarmed at Bush's plan to increase nuclear power output.

The Pacific was a leading testing ground for U.S. and French nuclear bomb tests from the 1960s to the mid-1990s, and opposition in the region to nuclear power is fierce.

"If nuclear power output grows, then they will be looking for nuclear waste dumps and I fear the place they will look will be the Pacific," she said. "We're tired of everything they dish out on us."

The Australian government did not immediately react.

But Australia, a major coal exporter, backed Bush's stance over Kyoto, and has argued that without U.S. involvement, an alternative plan including developing nations to fight climate change should be negotiated.

-------- environment

Toxic Chemical Ban Urged

MAY 21, 12:04 EST
By TOMMY GRANDELL
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7C4JSKG0

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Environmental groups on Monday urged governments to swiftly implement a global treaty banning 12 highly toxic chemicals.

The convention on persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, which was concluded in December in South Africa after two years of negotiations, was to be formally adopted Tuesday and signed Wednesday in Stockholm by representatives of 122 governments, including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman.

The treaty is aimed at eliminating all hazardous chemicals but lists 12, widely dubbed ``the dirty dozen'' for priority action. Those include PCBs and dioxins, plus DDT and other pesticides shown to contribute to birth defects, cancer and other problems in humans and animals.

``Finally, the global community has accepted the fact - which is more or less common sense - that we cannot continue to attempt to manage persistent toxic substances,'' Greenpeace spokesman Kevin Stairs said Monday as delegates met to finalize details.

``However, this treaty is only words on paper, and the real impact has to come from implementation, both the government authorities in their implementing legislation, forcing industry to make the necessary changes, and also industry itself,'' he added.

Production and use of most of the chemicals will be banned as soon as the treaty takes effect, following ratification by at least 50 countries - a process expected to take four to five years.

The World Wildlife Fund stressed the importance of moving the process forward quickly.

``Governments should waste no time in ratifying the treaty so implementation can proceed as soon as possible.'' Wildlife Fund director Clifton Curtis said.

Most of the chemicals covered in the treaty no longer are used in industrial countries like the United States or Sweden.

But they remain popular in developing countries, break down slowly and travel easily in the environment, with traces of many of them found in pristine areas of the Arctic after having been transported by air currents from hundreds miles away.

About 25 countries would be allowed to use DDT to combat malaria in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines until they can develop safer solutions.

And using electrical equipment containing PCBs would be allowed until 2025, as long as the equipment doesn't leak the chemical, which can cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems, according to the document.

The treaty also calls for reducing releases of dioxins and furans - toxic byproducts of waste burning and industrial production - ``with the goal of their continuing minimization and, where feasible, ultimate elimination.''

The most contentious issues were provisions for an international fund, possibly as much as $150 million, to help developing countries offset the costs of using cleaner alternatives and the possibility for expanding the number of chemicals to be covered.

-------

Dirty dozen chemicals targeted by UN conference

SWEDEN: May 21, 2001
Source - United Nations Evironment Programme
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10895

STOCKHOLM - Delegates from more than 120 nations will agree a pact at a U.N. conference in Stockholm on May 22-23 to minimise and eliminate some of the world's most dangerous chemicals, dubbed the "dirty dozen". Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are among the most dangerous of all man-made products or wastes, causing death, disease and birth defects among humans and animals. The convention aims to control production, import, export, disposal, and use of POPs.

The 12 POPs that have been singled out for urgent action are:

ALDRIN - A pesticide applied to soils to kill termites, grasshoppers and other insect pests. It can also kill birds, fish and humans. In one incident, aldrin-treated rice is thought to have killed hundreds of shorebirds along Texas's Gulf Coast.

CHLORDANE - Used extensively to control termites and as a broad-spectrum insecticide on a range of crops. Tests show it can kill birds and fish and may affect the human immune system and may be a carcinogen. It is already banned or severely restricted in several countries.

DDT - Perhaps the most infamous of the POPs, DDT was widely used during World War Two to protect soldiers and civilians from malaria, typhus and other diseases spread by insects. It has since been widely employed to control disease and some nations have an opt-out to continue to use it to combat malaria. More than 30 countries have banned DDT and more than 30 have severely restricted its use. Long-term exposure has been associated with chronic ailments in humans while its best known toxic effect is to thin the shells of birds' eggs.

DIELDRIN - Used mainly to control termites and textile pests, its half-life in soil is around five years. It is highly toxic to fish and other aquatic animals, especially frogs. In a U.S. survey, dieldrin was the second most common pesticide found in pasteurized milk.

DIOXINS - These chemicals are produced unintentionally due to incomplete combustion, as well as the manufacture of pesticides and other chlorinated substances. They are emitted mostly from the burning of hospital waste, municipal waste and hazardous waste and have been linked to a number of adverse effects in humans, including immune and enzyme disorders. Food, especially from animals, is the major source of exposure for humans.

ENDRIN - An insecticide sprayed on the leaves of crops such as cotton and grains. It is also used to control mice and other rodents. It can persist in the soil for up to 12 years and find its way to water, where it is highly toxic to fish.

FURANS - These compounds are produced unintentionally from many of the same processes that produce dioxins and have been found in emissions from waste incinerators and automobiles. They are similar to dioxins and produce many of the same toxic effects.

HEPTACHLOR - Mostly used to kill soil insects and termites, it is believed to be responsible for the decline of many wild bird populations, including Canada geese and American kestrels in the Columbia River basin of the United States. High doses are also fatal to mink, rats and rabbits. It is classified as a possible human carcinogen.

HEXACHLOROBENZENE (HCB) - Introduced in 1945 to treat weeds, it kills fungi that affect food crops. When people in eastern Turkey ate HCB-treated seed grain between 1954 and 1959, they developed a variety of symptoms including colic. Several thousand developed a metabolic disorder called porphyria turcica and 14 percent died. HCB is found in food of all types.

MIREX - This insecticide is mainly used to combat fire ants and has also been used as a fire retardant in plastics, rubber and electrical goods. Direct exposure does not seem to cause injury to humans but it has been classified as a possible human carcinogen.

POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYLS (PCBs) - These compounds are used in industry as heat exchange fluids, in electric transformers and as additives in paint and plastics. They are toxic to fish and have been linked to reproductive failure and immune system suppression in a number of wild animals including seals and mink. Large numbers of people have been exposed to PCBs through food contamination. Consumption of PCB-contaminated rice oil in Japan in 1968 and Taiwan in 1979 caused pigmentation of nails and fatigue, nausea and vomiting. Children born up to seven years after the Taiwan incident in infected mothers showed developmental delays and behavioural problems.

TOXAPHENE - This insecticide is used on cotton, cereal grains, fruits, nuts and vegetables. It is highly toxic to fish and listed as a possible cause for cancer among humans. Thirty-seven countries have banned it and 11 others have severely restricted its use.

----

A Provision on Arsenic in Water -- in Bangladesh

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 21, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53314-2001May20?language=printer

Tucked away in last week's $8.2 billion State Department authorization bill was a sense of the Congress resolution concerning arsenic standards for drinking water -- but in this case, water in Bangladesh. President Bush, remember, sparked an outcry when he decided to rollback more stringent drinking water standards that had been enacted in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

Section 735 of the massive reauthorization bill chronicles how the United Nations and the Bangladeshi government installed tube wells in the early 1970s in Bangladesh, only to discover 20 years later that the wells were contaminated with arsenic.

"Health effects of exposure to arsenic in both adults and children include skin lesions, skin cancer, and mortality from internal cancers," the bill states. "The Secretary of State should work with appropriate United States government agencies, national laboratories, universities in the United States, the government of Bangladesh, international financial institutions and organizations, and international donors to identify a long term solution to the arsenic-contaminated drinking water problem."

This provision led some Democrats to question why the GOP would apply a different environmental standard when it came to a nation overseas.

"What's good for Bangladesh should be good for America," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

BUSH BAN: Last week's State Department debate, which featured a contentious argument over whether to restore Bush's ban on international family planning funds to groups that perform abortions, refer patients to abortion clinics or lobby on behalf of abortion rights, prompted lawmakers from both parties to switch sides. But while an almost equal number of members crossed the aisle on the vote -- 32 Democrats supported the restrictions, while 33 Republicans opposed them -- not a single Democrat spoke in favor of Bush's policy on the House floor.

House International Relations Committee ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.), who led the unsuccessful fight to lift the restrictions, said the fact that six Republicans took to the podium against the measure shows the broad support for his cause.

"It is telling that some of the most ardent speakers against the Mexico City policy were Republicans. Despite intense pressure from the White House, 33 Republicans voted against the president's policy, including six who spoke out in opposition during the debate," Lantos said. "Although we fell just short of overturning the policy, we believe we scored a significant moral victory by building the most bipartisan coalition in support of international family planning in years. It is clear President Bush's Mexico City policy has divided his own party and the nation."

Aides to Democrats James L. Oberstar (Minn.) and James A. Barcia (Mich.) said their bosses were too busy to speak for the amendment on the House floor, but they firmly supported it.

An Oberstar aide said the lawmaker's absence from the podium should not be "taken as any sign of his lack of enthusiasm on this issue."

BIG OIL, BIG OIL: Democrats were quick to decry Bush's energy plan as a giveaway to Big Oil, so much so that House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) couldn't resist using virtually the same line twice during his weekly briefing to reporters Thursday.

At the outset of the news conference, Gephardt called the president's energy plan "slick. It looks like the annual report of Exxon Mobil, and maybe that is about what it is." Several minutes later he invoked the same theme. "Again, it is a report that has a lot of pretty pictures. It's on slick paper and it looks like the annual report of a major oil company. And most importantly, the recommendations are largely recommendations that would be accepted by major oil companies."

Gephardt spokesman Erik Smith defended his boss as simply being on message.

"Being a Democrat, you sometimes feel you have to repeat yourself to get the attention of the White House," Smith said.

TESTING: Any lawmakers who are nervous about supporting the president's education bill can take comfort in a nationwide poll financed by the Educational Testing Service. The ETS survey shows that people like testing. According to the poll, which was conducted by Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Robert Teeter, 83 percent of respondents strongly favored or somewhat favored "creating standards for student achievement and testing students to determine whether those standards are being met."

For ETS officials, who recently briefed members of the House Education and Workforce Committee on their findings, it's a slam dunk: "Results of the survey of 1,054 adults nationwide shows that public understanding of, and support for, testing as an essential component of education reform is strong and unambiguous."

THE WEEK AHEAD: Both the House and Senate will be busy this week, as they prepare to finish up before the Memorial Day recess. The House will start the week with the Small Business Liability Protection Act as part of Superfund reform and will then take up education reform and tax relief. The Senate is expected to vote on education and tax cuts for the bulk of the week.

----

Dump Toxic Waste in Africa

By Panafrican News Agency (PANA),
Mulindwas communication group
Mon, 21 May 2001
From: radman resist@best.com

A report on toxic wastes trade and dumping episodes has revealed alleged plans by the US and some European countries to dump 29 million tonnes of toxic wastes in 11 African countries, the local press said in Lagos Monday.

The report released by Nigeria's national co-ordinator of the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, Oladele Osibajo, said in addition to the US, the UK, Italy, France and Switzerland planned to dump the dangerous materials in Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Benin, Congo and Equatorial Guinea.

Other African countries listed as possible destinations for the wastes were Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone.

The report said the materials to be dumped comprised industrial and chemical wastes, pesticide sludge, radioactive wastes and other categories of unspecified hazardous wastes.

It, however, noted that some of the African countries listed were collaborating with the US and the European countries with the aim of receiving financial compensation for the wastes to be dumped in their areas.

For example, the report said about five million tonnes of industrial wastes were to have been dumped in Angola by an unnamed European country for two million US dollars.

The Angolan government later cancelled the deal after discovering loopholes in it, the report claimed.

It listed other countries involved in the wastes-for-money deal as Benin, Equatorial Guinea and Congo, which it said was the first country in Africa to officially authorise the dumping of toxic wastes in the country from Europe and the US for a fee.

The plan to dump wastes in all the countries failed after their populations moved against it.

After an embarrassing episode of toxic wastes dump by an Italian company in Nigeria's mid-western Koko Port town in the late 1980s, Nigeria led an international campaign against the practice leading to the establishment of a sub-regional Dump Watch in West Africa.

-------- population

Population growth in wealthy countries stopped

05/21/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-21-popgrowth.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Natural population growth has essentially stopped in industrialized countries and shifted almost entirely to the less developed countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, according to a study released Monday.

The finding was included in the annual report on global population trends by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau.

"Currently, of the 83 million people added to global population each year by the difference between births and deaths, only 1 million are in the industrialized countries," said demographers Carl Haub and Diana Cornelius, who prepared the PRB's "2001 World Population Data Sheet."

They said the result will be "a very different world in terms of population."

The data sheet said that in 1950, there were twice as many people in the less developed countries but that by 2050, that difference could be almost six to one.

"The developing world's population is projected to increase by 2.9 billion by 2050, compared with only 49 million in the more developed countries," the authors said.

"Population growth this century will depend on how quickly, or how slowly, birth rates decline in the areas of the world where we have seen either no decline or moderate decline."

Other highlights of the data sheet:

• Women in less developed countries (excluding China) average 3.6 children, compared with only 1.6 in the more developed countries. Annually, about 123 million babies are born to mothers in less developed countries, while there are about 13 million births in the more developed countries. That increase is virtually offset by the 12 million deaths in these countries each year.

• In Europe, fewer babies are born each year than there are deaths, leading to "natural decrease," or population decline, except where it is offset by immigration. This situation is due both to the low birth rate and to higher proportions of older people in the population.

• The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world with a fertility rate at or above the "replacement level" of 2.1 children per woman.

• One of the major population developments in recent years has been the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, the populations of several African countries-Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe-are expected to decline over the next 50 years, a sharp reversal from past projections.

Among adults in Botswana's 1.6 million population, 36% are infected with the virus.

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Bulgarian commission exposes 52 former spies

05/21/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-21-bulgaria.htm

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - A parliamentary commission reviewing communist-era files on Monday exposed 52 people as former secret police agents, including six candidates in upcoming legislative elections.

The list of former spies was compiled under a new law providing public access to the secret police archives. No action will be taken against the former spies except to make public their cooperation with the communist regime.

Lawmakers say the revelations will help Bulgaria break with its communist past. Bulgaria is trying to join NATO, and alliance states are demanding that the former Soviet ally purge its ranks of former spies.

One of those on the list was Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the predominantly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and three of his top aides. He described the revelation as a "manipulation" and in remarks to Daik radio station said he would not withdraw from the June 17 vote.

Also on the list were Aleksandar Staliiski, who served as a defense minister in a minority anti-communist government in 1992, and Rumen Gechev, the former deputy prime minister of the Socialist Party of former communists.

Communist secret police files were partially opened in 1997 to screen senior politicians and state officials, but lawmakers argued that all of the files must be opened now.

Even so, the opening of the files may not reflect a complete picture of the country's past. Interior ministry officials have said that some 40% of the files in the archive were destroyed by security officials shortly after the fall of communism in 1989.


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