------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Gov't Holds Back Scientist's Book
Australian Senate Panel Urges Halt to Lucas Heights Reactor
A Tactical Victory for Northrop Grumman?
TV Journalist wants NEW information on DU
Pakistani 'in a Tight Spot' Over Kashmir
Pakistan Accepts India Talks Offer
Nagasaki: A-bomb victims still traumatized
Japan energy policy in bind after MOX 'no' vote
Japan urges support for nuclear power
NATO Deals Blow to U.S. Missile Defense Plan
NATO leaders cool to U.S. plan for missile-defense system
NATO fails to embrace NMD
NATO Skeptical of U.S. Missile Defense Plan
NATO won't endorse U.S. missile defense plan
U.S. Soothes Allies, Moscow on Missile Plan
U.S. May Buy Russian Technology
Shift Senate may hinder Bush's missile plans
Russia reveals nuclear-waste dump
A city struggles to find formula for success
Russia Continues to Oppose Scrapping ABM Treaty
Hard Questions on Nuclear Power
Ground zero in nuclear-power battle

MILITARY
Military Warning System Also Tracks Bomb-Size Meteors
'Symbol of destruction´
U.S. will cut Bosnia troops to 3,000
Talking Down Germ Warfare
European Market Expands for Colombian Cocaine
Sharpton begins hunger strike over Vieques
Misconduct, Corruption by U.S. Police Mar Bosnia Mission
Dutch OK U.S. Use of Caribbean Base
New weapons deferred for health
Military plane crashes on Florida ranch
China Bars U.S. Warship From Visiting Hong Kong
Army Chief Seeks Changes to Improve Lives
Joint Chiefs Head to Visit India
Pentagon Scaling Back Expectations

OTHER
Farmers turn depressed farm commodities into gold
It's Still Dawn for Solar Power in L.A.
High-Temperature Superconductors Find a Variety of Uses
Energy study gives black marks to coal, boost to nukes
Bush, Davis at odds over Calif. energy crisis
VaxGen Up on New Finding of HIV Vaccine
AIDS approaches grim anniversary
Scientists View New Wave of Cancer Drugs
U.N. Agency Sees Rise in Forced Labor and Slavery
Amnesty International names heroes, scoundrels
Texas Approves DNA Testing Bill
Q&A: What you need to know about Echelon
Report Assesses NSA Network
Spy Plane Will Return to U.S. in Pieces as Cargo
China firm on refusing U.S. plane to fly off island
All four found guilty in embassy bombings trial

ACTIVISTS
HK activists block Nestle plant in GM food protest


-------- NUCLEAR

Interesting site: Check out http://www.parascope.com/gallery/galleryitems/hotNukes/index.htm for commentary, nuclear test images and video clips

----

Gov't Holds Back Scientist's Book

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scientist-China-Book.html?searchpv=aponline

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A retired Los Alamos scientist who spent the past decade gathering firsthand information on China's nuclear weapons programs is fighting U.S. efforts to block publication of his book.

Dan Stillman's book, based on meetings with Chinese scientists and visits to their secret facilities, has been under review for 1 1/2 years at the Energy Department, Defense Department and CIA, said his attorney, Mark Zaid. Pentagon and Energy Department spokeswomen confirmed that the review continues.

Zaid and fellow scientists say the government's opposition amounts to an abuse of Stillman's First Amendment rights. Zaid expects to file a lawsuit by mid-June.

``The government's attempt to suppress an entire 500-page manuscript is intolerable to anyone who cares about the First Amendment,'' said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. ``He has every right to tell his story.''

Air Force Lt. Col. Willette Carter said the Pentagon declines to comment since a lawsuit hasn't been filed.

Stillman, 67, retired at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1993, but has made 10 visits to China since 1990. He said he is among only five Americans allowed to visit both the Chinese nuclear test site and nuclear weapons lab.

``I simply asked questions, and they seemed happy to answer,'' Stillman said in an interview last week.

``Everything I brought back in my notes was unclassified,'' he said, suggesting the U.S. intelligence community later imposed ``a very high classification level in order to control the information.''

Asked why the government was blocking publication of ``Inside China's Nuclear Weapons Program,'' former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Harold Agnew said: ``It may well be they're just embarrassed.''

The government has been the focus of criticism over the Wen Ho Lee spy case. The Taiwan-born Los Alamos scientist was indicted on 59 counts of mishandling nuclear weapons secrets and spent nine months in solitary confinement, but was released after the government dropped all but one of the charges.

The FBI had said one reason for keeping Lee jailed without bail was his acquaintance with Hu Side, a former head of China's nuclear weapons program who during one of Stillman's visits tried to convey a message to Americans who accused China of espionage.

``I wish I could testify before your U.S. Congress to tell them how much damage has been done,'' Hu said in a 1999 speech attended by Stillman. ``I could tell them the truth, that we never found it necessary to steal any U.S. nuclear weapon secrets.''

He added that Lee ``is a scapegoat.''

Stillman said it is possible China never stole U.S. secrets.

``Out of 1.3 billion people, it's certainly possible to find some really brilliant scientists that can develop their own nuclear weapons program without having to steal it from the U.S,'' he said. ``I've never understood why some people in the U.S. think that we are the only intelligent people in the world.''

-------- australia

Australian Senate Panel Urges Halt to Lucas Heights Reactor

May 29, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-29-02.html

SYDNEY, Australia, Environmentalists are delighted with the finding of a new Senate inquiry that calls for a halt to plans for a controversial new nuclear research reactor in suburban Sydney. The proposed reactor would replace one built in 1958 at Lucas Heights just outside of Sydney.

The seven member Select Committee chaired by Senator Michael Forshaw of New South Wales heard detailed evidence at hearings in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide. It found that "no conclusive or compelling case has been established to support the proposed new reactor and that the proposed new reactor should not proceed."

Senator Michael Forshaw chairs the Senate Select Committee for an Inquiry into the Contract for a New Reactor at Lucas Heights (Photo courtesy Parliament of Australia)

The Senate committee said that the current government headed by Prime Minister John Howard has continued to pursue its decision, taken in September 1997, to build a new reactor at Lucas Heights "without a full appreciation of Australia's broader scientific and medical needs and without a clear understanding of how best to develop the country's research and development base."

Saying the the government continues with its plan to build a new reactor without regard to the findings and recommendations of previous inquiries, this Senate Inquiry found that the government "has failed to establish a conclusive or compelling case for the new reactor, and recommends that before the government proceeds any further it undertake an independent public review into the need for a new nuclear reactor."

Industry, Science and Resources Minister, Senator Nick Minchin (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

The Inquiry highlighted serious flaws in the reactor plan and concerns over the role of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and federal Industry, Science and Resources Minister, Senator Minchin.

The committee pointed to unacceptable levels of secrecy over key proposal documents and contracts. The report said the committee was never able to see the actual contract document with the Argentinian company INVAP to build the reactor. INVAP is a state owned company of the Province of Río Negro, Argentina that specializes in building nuclear research reactors.

"There is concern that the present government may have entered into a contract which seeks to bind future governments to build the reactor despite not having obtained the necessary approvals. The continuing secrecy over the terms of the contract, and in particular the termination provisions appear completely unjustified. The nature of the termination arrangements has nothing to do with INVAP commercial secrets and everything to do with the political convenience of the government," the committee wrote.

Its report faulted the government for its failure to adequately consult the scientific and wider community, and failure to address critical issues concerning radioactive waste.

There is no proven need for a reactor or examination of alternatives, said the Senate Inquiry, and it warned of inadequate project costings and the threat of a major budget blowout.

The Sutherland Shire Council, Greenpeace and People Against a Nuclear Reactor protest in Lucas Heights. (Photo courtesy Sutherland Shire Council)

"This Inquiry reflects the growing opposition to this ill advised and unnecessary reactor plan," Australian Conservation Foundation nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said. "The government is trying to rush it through before the coming federal election, and this report is further proof that this fast-tracking must end."

The Senate committee heard evidence of a wide range of Australian views on the Lucas Heights reactor strong support and equally strong objections.

Scientists and engineers, recent post graduates and those with years of research experience; nuclear medicine physicians from scientific and medical associations as well as a number of small and medium-sized enterprises have endorsed the new reactor. They focus on the benefits that nuclear technology brings to the Australian community, the committee reported.

With equal conviction, the committee wrote, conservation groups, the Sutherland Shire Council, experts in various fields and a number of concerned Australians from all walks of life across the country have denounced the proposal to build a new reactor.

"They question the claims promoting the benefits of a nuclear research reactor, raise concerns about the environmental and health impacts of the reactor, raise concerns about the impact and management of nuclear waste, and some dismiss outright the need for Australia to have such a facility. They regard it as an unnecessary and misguided use of resources that poses serious health and safety problems for the Australian people," the committee said.

Preliminary Safety Analysis Report for the Lucas Heights Research Reactor submitted as part of ANSTO's license application (Photo courtesy ANSTO)

Last week ANSTO formally applied to the federal nuclear regulator for a license to construct the new reactor. The new findings over problems with the reactor plan and process will be a serious blow to ANSTO's plans.

"On day three of their new license assessment process ANSTO have run into a wall," Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman David Noonan said. "They are in for an increasingly difficult time as the reactor plan is neither needed nor safe and has failed this independent scrutiny."

But ANSTO says the license application provides a full technical description of the replacement research reactor and a full assessment of its safety.

The application, prepared jointly by INVAP and ANSTO, contains details relating to the purpose, management and design of the facility, construction requirements, plans and schedule, inspection and test processes, and the status of compliance.

On receiving the application, Dr. John Loy, chief executive of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), said that public submissions will be called for in response to the application. In addition, it will be independently reviewed by a group of nuclear safety experts assembled through the International Atomic Energy Agency, who will report their findings to ARPANSA.

The complete report of the Select Committee for an Inquiry into the Contract for a New Reactor at Lucas Heights is available by clicking here: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/lucasheights_ctte/report/contents.htm .

-------- business

A Tactical Victory for Northrop Grumman?
Decade-Old Strategy Shift Puts Defense Contractor in Step With Bush's Pentagon

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A88790-2001May28?language=printer

Kent Kresa made a bet with his multibillion-dollar corporation a decade ago that a little-known Pentagon bureaucrat named Andrew M. Marshall had seen the future of military contracting.

Kresa, the chief executive of Northrop Grumman Corp., remade his company in keeping with the ideas of Marshall, an iconoclastic strategist who values technology over brute force. Marshall said, among other things, that the future was not in platforms -- ships, planes and tanks -- but in the electronics that go inside them. Today the Los Angeles-based builder of the B-2 bomber and the F-14 fighter is no longer a prime contractor for warplanes but instead makes electronic systems and drone aircraft.

It seems to have been a good bet. Marshall, who runs the Pentagon's internal think tank, was largely ignored during the 1990s but is suddenly in vogue with the Bush administration. He was named by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to lead a review of military strategy that could result in major shifts in how money is spent.

As many weapons makers fret over which of their big programs could be cut, Northrop Grumman -- derided by experts three years ago as being out of step with defense industry consolidation -- could be on target for a Marshall-fueled shift in military priorities.

And in a true Washington-style reward, two members of a squad of Marshall protégés who have advised Kresa at Northrop Grumman since the late 1980s have joined the Bush administration.

James G. Roche, who led Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector in Linthicum, Md., is the secretary of the Air Force, and Barry D. Watts, who had been running the company's in-house think tank, is director of the Pentagon's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.

Both are prominent alumni of "St. Andrew's Prep" -- the affectionate term used by a group of like-minded thinkers who once worked in Marshall's Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon. Now scattered throughout government and industry, they still meet every eight months or so.

"That informal contact probably helped the Northrop Grumman guys establish a vision of where the company ought to be headed now, and in turn that vision should play to the strengths that Northrop Grumman has as a result of . . . the role they've played in sort of reshaping strategy," said Byron Callan, a Merrill Lynch & Co. defense analyst.

While Rumsfeld has yet to announce his strategy, parts of it have leaked out, and the basic components are consistent with Marshall's thinking: Asia is a more likely arena for future conflict than Europe. In that case, the U.S. military will need to project power with great accuracy over enormous distances. Troops, ships and aircraft in far-flung locations will need to exchange information to coordinate actions. Friendly information systems need to be protected; the enemy's, attacked. Sophisticated enemy air defenses make unmanned aircraft increasingly important for both surveillance and combat.

Kresa, who met and admired Marshall during a 1970s stint with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, took that line of thought as gospel in reshaping his company during the 1990s. Northrop Grumman had primarily been a builder of airplanes. But its B-2 and F-14 programs came to an end as defense spending slowed, so Kresa bought the former Westinghouse radar and electronics plant in Linthicum in 1996 and announced that Northrop Grumman would cease to be a prime contractor on aircraft.

More recently, he bought the Logicon information technology business in Herndon, then added TASC Inc. and PRC Inc. to that by buying Litton Industries Inc. That segment now accounts for a quarter of Northrop Grumman's $15 billion in annual revenue. Defense electronics produces about a third of the company's revenue. To the words "defense" and "aerospace" sometimes written beneath the corporate logo, Kresa has added "cyberspace."

Last year Northrop Grumman bought Ryan Aeronautical to become the military's top builder of unmanned aircraft -- one of the hottest areas of military technology and a favorite of the Rumsfeld Pentagon.

Other defense companies also have realigned. Raytheon Co. made acquisitions to bolster its standing as a maker of military electronics and precision-guided weapons. Lockheed Martin Corp. is the government's biggest supplier of information technology, and General Dynamics Corp. has assembled a major infotech business. Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin both have dominant roles in ballistic missile defense.

But no other company has shifted as far or as deliberately as Northrop Grumman to address the tenets of Marshall's vision of a "revolution in military affairs."

Callan said Northrop Grumman developed and pursued those themes through its internal think tank, which both Roche and Watts have led. The facility, called the Analysis Center, is in a high-rise building in Rosslyn and includes a handful of former Pentagon officials who analyze military issues and strategy.

"It's a unique institution," Callan said. Because of the center, he added, Northrop Grumman officials are prominent participants at seminars on military theory, spreading their influence. Roche and Watts regularly give seminars at a summer studies group that Marshall hosts at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., an event attended by corporate and military officials.

"They were two of the best people, the most talented people to serve in Andy Marshall's office. Their stature has only grown since they left that office," said Andrew Krepinevich, another Marshall protégé, who heads the nonprofit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Krepinevich is working with Marshall to advise Rumsfeld on the strategic review.

Industry analysts have sometimes questioned the direction that Kresa and his advisers had charted for Northrop Grumman. In 1998, when the government blocked an effort by Lockheed Martin to acquire Northrop Grumman, many analysts said Kresa's company would have to find another partner to survive because it was too big to be a supplier and too small to compete with the major prime contractors.

Today, in the shadow of Rumsfeld's effort to rethink the military, the decision to reposition the company as a provider of technology instead of a builder of weapons platforms seems more prudent.

"That focus on capability over platforms is a fundamental shift in [Pentagon] acquisitions," said James McAleese, a lawyer in McLean who advises defense companies.

With no big prime contracts to defend, Northrop Grumman "has the least to lose of all the major contractors and potentially the most to gain" from a shake-up in weapons priorities, said defense consultant Brett Lambert of DFI International.

The one recent move that some analysts say has been out of step for Northrop Grumman is its current hostile bid to acquire Newport News Shipbuilding Inc. After acquiring two shipyards -- Ingalls Shipbuilding Inc. in Mississippi and Avondale Industries Inc. in Louisiana -- through last month's purchase of Litton Industries, Kresa felt compelled to protect his new interests by blocking a bid by rival shipbuilder General Dynamics to buy Newport News.

One industry expert said the move was puzzling because it would thrust Northrop Grumman back into prime contracting and metal bending. But others contend that naval power will become more important under the Pacific orientation of the Rumsfeld review, making shipbuilding a desirable industry.

Kresa said he believes he is in the right position. "Certainly many of the elements which we're involved in appear to be the directions you'd want to go," he said.

For the Marshall protégés who helped guide the company, their mentor's prominent role in the new Pentagon leadership has been gratifying -- not to mention a relief, given the degree to which Kresa followed their advice.

"It's nice to be at least partially right, but it's hardly a cause for having a great deal of confidence," said George E. "Chip" Pickett Jr., a Marshall protégé who oversees marketing and business planning at the company's sector in Linthicum. "This is a very competitive market, and it is changing. Now the challenge is figuring out where we're going over the next five to 10 years and making the right calls about where to put our money."

-------- depleted uranium

TV Journalist wants NEW information on DU

Date: Tue, 29 May 2001

Do you have new information or projects you would like to publicise? Please E-Mail

gmdcnd@gn.apc.org

for the attention of 'Clare'. I have been in correspondence with a journalist who is very keen to do a TV programme on DU.

Thank you for your time

Clare Frisby Administrative Support The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street Ancoats, Manchester M4 7HR, UK

Telephone and Fax: +44 (0)161 273 8293 E-Mail: gmdcnd@gn.apc.org Website: www.cadu.org.uk

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistani 'in a Tight Spot' Over Kashmir
For Musharraf, Talks With India Could Be Hard Sell

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A89255-2001May28?language=printer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- For months, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, has been telling anyone who would listen that he is willing to meet India's prime minister "any time, any place" to talk about resolving the conflict over Kashmir. Now India has called his bluff.

An invitation for talks, issued Wednesday by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, appears to hand the Pakistani army chief a degree of political legitimacy he had been denied since seizing power 19 months ago. But India's move also puts Musharraf in a difficult position: He must now demonstrate he can be a diplomatic and flexible leader, willing to compromise with his country's arch-adversary or risk proving his foreign critics right.

If the general appears too conciliatory, however, particularly on the Kashmir issue, he will risk arousing the wrath of powerful Islamic groups in Pakistan and jettisoning the sole cause that unites this fractious and volatile society.

"Musharraf is in a tight spot," said Arif Nizami, editor of the Nation newspaper in Lahore. "He knows there is no military solution to Kashmir, and he has kept on saying he wanted to talk. Now India is no longer painting him as an enfant terrible, but it is not clear whether he can sell Pakistanis on a deal with India. He has shunned the politicians, and the [hard-line Islamic] groups are arrayed against him. This brings his isolation into sharp focus."

India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads for 53 years over Kashmir, a mountainous region that is divided between the two countries and claimed by both. Since 1989, Muslim insurgents backed by Pakistan have been fighting Indian troops in the Indian portion of Kashmir, leaving tens of thousands dead.

In February 1999, Vajpayee broke the ice by traveling to the Pakistani border and signing an agreement with Nawaz Sharif, then Pakistan's prime minister. The two leaders pledged to work to resolve all bilateral issues, including nuclear tension, terrorism and the Kashmir dispute.

But three months later, the detente was shattered when Pakistani-backed fighters invaded the Kargil mountains in Kashmir, setting off a 10-week conflict with Indian troops. Musharraf, who was Pakistan's army chief at the time, overthrew Sharif's government that October, leading India to shun him as a traitor to peace and democracy.

The violence in Kashmir continued to escalate, even after Vajpayee called a unilateral cease-fire last November. Pakistan-based Islamic groups, bent on a holy war against Hindu India, sent hundreds of fighters into Kashmir.

Now that Vajpayee has called off the cease-fire, after extending it three times, and proposed talks, Musharraf must come face to face with the basic contradiction in Pakistan's Kashmir policy -- and choose between gaining credibility abroad or fending off adversaries at home.

"Musharraf will have the burden of history on him," said Rifaat Hussain, chairman of the strategic studies department at Quaid-i-Azam University. "It is a huge opportunity for the architect of Kargil to turn into the architect of peace, but if he is as flexible and bold as the occasion requires, it could get him in trouble with the hard-liners at home who want to sabotage the process."

Musharraf has not made any public statements since Vajpayee's offer, but aides said he is determined to approach India with sincerity and seriousness. They said senior military officials support his efforts and they played down the clout of militant groups and Islamic hard-liners in the military who oppose negotiations with India.

"Some people say the army needs Kashmir to perpetuate itself, but we are not mad," Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, Musharraf's military spokesman, said in an interview. "The top officers have never been opposed to talking with India, and far too much credence is given to the influence of the [militants]. They can whip up hysteria, but they cannot win any elections."

Pakistan's suspicions of India are long and deeply held, beginning with what it viewed as India's illegal annexation of Kashmir after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and India's refusal to honor U.N. resolutions calling for a Kashmiri plebiscite on self-determination.

This bitterness deepened in the early 1970s, when India militarily abetted the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, then conducted its first nuclear tests in 1974. In 1998, India tested five more nuclear weapons, and Pakistan responded with its own tests. The Kargil conflict of 1999 intensified tensions, which have been high ever since.

----

Pakistan Accepts India Talks Offer

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Pakistan-India.html?searchpv=aponline

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday formally accepted India's offer to hold peace talks over the disputed Kashmir region and other issues.

``I accept your invitation to me and my wife to visit India with great pleasure,'' Musharraf said in a letter to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. ``We wish to see a stable, prosperous India at peace with its neighbors.''

Musharraf's letter came four days after Vajpayee broke a two-year lull in high-level talks between the two rival nuclear powers by inviting the Pakistani leader to India.

In his response, Musharraf said Pakistan ``has always sought to establish tension-free and cooperative relations with India, so that our two peoples may be able to devote their resources and energies to the task of economic and social development.''

While announcing the peace invitation, India at the same time said it was ending a six-month cease-fire in Kashmir -- a move that drew sharp criticism from Pakistan.

The Himalayan region is claimed by both nations. Two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan since independence in 1947 were fought over Kashmir.

In his letter Tuesday, Musharraf said he looked ``forward to sincere and candid discussions ... to resolve the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people.'' Jammu and Kashmir is what the state is called in India, which controls two-thirds of the disputed region.

Musharraf said Pakistan is also ``ready to discuss all other outstanding issues between our two countries as well.''

It was not immediately clear when the meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf would take place. Nor was it clear if representatives of Kashmiri militant groups, which are fighting for either independence or merger with Pakistan, would attend.

Meanwhile, violence in Indian Kashmir continued Tuesday.

Islamic guerrillas tried to assassinate an Indian federal minister who is the son of the top elected leader in Kashmir, but missed their target and injured three schoolgirls, officials said.

The grenade attack on Omar Abdullah, the junior minister for commerce, was carried out at a girls' school in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

Abdullah escaped unhurt, and the schoolgirls were admitted to a local hospital, a federal Home Ministry official said. Abdullah is the son of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah of Jammu-Kashmir state.

A spokesman for the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, Kashmir's largest militant group, later claimed responsibility in phone calls to newspaper offices in Srinagar.

India says fighting in Kashmir has killed 30,000 people since 1989, when the separatist struggle began. Human rights groups put the number at closer to 60,000.

Sultan Mahmood, prime minister of Pakistani Kashmir, on Tuesday said talks between Pakistan and India over Kashmir would only succeed if Kashmiri representatives were included.

``We have already requested Gen. Pervez Musharraf to include Kashmiris in talks,'' Mahmood told The Associated Press. ``We are waiting for the response from the government.''

He added that ``no military solution to the Kashmir dispute is possible. It has to be resolved through talks.'' However, he said he was ``not optimistic'' about the negotiations' outcome.

For his part, Vajpayee, on vacation in northern India, told reporters that his invitation to Musharraf ``does not indicate any weakness on our part.''

-------- japan

Nagasaki: A-bomb victims still traumatized

Japan Today,
Tues., May 29, 01
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=29507

TOKYO -- A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki Prefecture living outside the area designated as the official bomb site still show signs of mental and physical problems relating to the bombing, a health ministry research group reported Monday.

The group's interim survey submitted to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry was conducted in March on 754 survivors living in parts of Nagasaki and six neighboring towns not officially designated as within the site affected by the atomic bombing on Aug. 9, 1945.

The survey was conducted in connection with a possible extension of the official bomb site and the definition of A-bomb victims. (Kyodo News).

----

Japan energy policy in bind after MOX 'no' vote

JAPAN: May 29, 2001
Story by Kazunori Takada
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10981&newsDate=29-May-2001

TOKYO - Japan struggled yesterday to find its way out of an energy policy pinch after residents of a tiny farming village - voting in a rare referendum - rejected the use of recycled nuclear fuel in its massive power plant.

"It is vital that the government and industry make even more strenuous efforts to win the people's understanding for nuclear energy," new Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told a parliamentary budget panel.

In a relatively close vote, 53.4 percent of the total 3,605 votes cast in the farming village of Kariwa in Niigata Prefecture went against the use of recycled fuel, known as MOX, in Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which provides 20 percent of Tokyo's electric power.

Those backing the plan accounted for 42.5 percent, while 3.6 percent were undecided. There were 16 invalid votes. Turnout was high at over 88 percent of eligible voters.

TEPCO said on Monday it was committed to the use of MOX, a blend of uranium and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear fuel.

But the vote, though non-binding, has created a dilemma for the government, which wants to make MOX use a cornerstone of its energy policy.

"I personally think this vote is very significant...and that the government will be forced to make a major revision of Japan's nuclear policy," said Takamitsu Sawa, director at Kyoto University's Institute of Economic Research.

Anti-MOX campaigners argue that the fuel is dangerous and does not make economic sense because it is more expensive than conventional nuclear fuel. And a series of nuclear power-related accidents has hurt public faith in the industry.

Koizumi, elected last month on a groundswell of grass-roots support within his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has shown himself keenly sensitive to public opinion - not surprising since he needs to keep his record-high popularity to succeed in his battle for reforms over objections from the LDP Old Guard.

WAITING, WATCHING

Takeo Hiranuma, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), echoed Koizumi's comments, while his vice minister, Katsusada Hirose, said the government would set up a team of officials to try to win local support.

"From now on, both the government and the industry must make maximum efforts to achieve better understanding by the people, since that is the first priority," Hiranuma said.

Kariwa Mayor Hiroo Shinada, a MOX fuel supporter, said on Monday he would postpone a final decision, adding that the village would set up a committee to discuss the issue before making a final recommendation to TEPCO and the national government, which have the last word.

"It is difficult to keep the same stance since more than half the voters said 'no'," he told a news conference.

TEPCO President Nobuya Minami told a news conference on Monday the company was still committed to using MOX, but added that a final decision on whether to load it or conventional nuclear fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant would be made by mid-June.

"As we have said many times in the past, the use of (MOX fuel) is important in terms of the nation's...energy policy...and we must move ahead with its implementation," Minami said.

PAST PROBLEMS

Resource-poor Japan depends on nuclear power for one-third of its energy needs and recycling helps avoid the thorny issue of what to do with nuclear waste.

Japan's power industry had intended to begin commercial use of MOX fuel in 1999 but was forced to postpone the plans after a controversy surrounding stated-owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd's (BNFL) falsification of data on MOX fuel shipped to Kansai Electric Power Co Inc in western Japan.

The MOX fuel to be used at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, if approved, will be made from nuclear waste from Japan that has been processed by Belgian firm Belgonucleaire.

A string of nuclear power-related accidents in recent years, including the country's worst nuclear accident in which two workers were fatally contaminated and hundreds of residents exposed to radiation, has eroded public faith in Japan's nuclear industry.

Since the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was built in 1985, it has brought concerns about its safety but has been seen by some residents as the economic saviour of the small farming community. (Additional reporting by Miho Yoshikawa).

----

Japan urges support for nuclear power

Tuesday, May 29, 2001
By Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/05/05292001/ap_japannuclear_43742.asp

TOKYO - Japan's prime minister urged the government Monday to redouble efforts to win public support for nuclear energy, a day after voters in a northern town rejected plans to use recycled plutonium in the world's most productive nuclear plant.

The vote on Sunday in Kariwa, home to the power plant, was a blow to resource-poor Japan's efforts to expand its use of nuclear energy. It followed recent accidents and cover-ups that have made many Japanese uneasy about the government's campaign.

"The government and utility companies should think about how we can gain public support for nuclear energy, and make further efforts," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told a parliamentary committee on Monday.

The Japanese government continues to urge the use of recycled plutonium, which critics say is a dangerously volatile form of nuclear fuel. Japanese energy planners see it as a long-term solution to nuclear waste disposal.

The plebiscite by voters in Kariwa, a town of 5,000 people, was not legally binding but could complicate plans to introduce plutonium-based mixed oxide, or MOX, in nuclear reactors nationwide. MOX is made by mixing uranium with plutonium extracted from spent fuel.

Japan depends on nuclear energy for about a third of its electricity needs.

"In this resource-poor country, it's crucial to establish a nuclear fuel recycling program," said Kazuhiko Koshikawa, Koizumi's spokesman.

Japanese utility companies had to postpone their plan to introduce MOX following Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident in September 1999, which killed two workers and exposed hundreds of people to radiation.

Japan plans to introduce the recycled fuel in 16 to 18 nuclear reactors around the country by 2010. Plutonium is used by 32 plants in four countries, including France and Germany, according to Greenpeace.

The plant in Kariwa produces 8.2 million kilowatts of electricity per year, making it the world's largest nuclear facility in terms of power generated.

-------- missile defense

NATO Deals Blow to U.S. Missile Defense Plan

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2001; 3:16 PM
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A90811-2001May29?language=printer

BUDAPEST, May 29 - The United States clashed today with several European countries over whether NATO faces a serious risk of a missile attack by small hostile countries, reflecting deep misgivings in allied capitals over the Bush administration's plans to press ahead with a missile-defense system.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell sought unsuccessfully to persuade his European counterparts here that the alliance as a whole, and not just the United States, must take urgent measures to cope with a "common threat" posed by intercontinental ballistic missiles being developed by potential enemies such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

But European allies, notably France and Germany, rejected his appeal that they should embrace the same security-risk assessment that the United States holds. They claimed that raising the level of perceived threat was unreasonable because they did not feel endangered nor did they deem it wise to provoke a potential confrontation by declaring that they were.

The conflict emerged at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers here - the first ever held in a former Warsaw Pact state - during debate over phrasing of a document setting forth alliance defense priorities. While the dispute might appear trivial, it demonstrated the wide gap that separates the United States from much of the alliance over Washington's perceived need for a missile defense shield.

Early this month, the United States dispatched a team of envoys to Europe and Asia in a bid to persuade friendly nations to cooperate, or at least show sympathy, for its missile defense plans. But instead of lending support, allied governments have grown even more antagonistic toward the idea since it was first broached in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

Since President Bush assumed office insisting that any anti-missile umbrella should be vast so as to protect allied countries as well as the United States, European governments have stepped up criticism of what they see as an expensive and unrealistic project that may trigger a global arms race by goading nations to develop new arsenals that can overwhelm such defenses.

They loathe the idea of scrapping the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed in 1972 by the United States and the Soviet Union, which restricts the development of national missile defenses. The United States claims that the treaty has become obsolete and no longer corresponds to post-Cold War security threats, but many European governments still refer to it as "the cornerstone of strategic stability."

Until today's meeting, that term was enshrined in NATO's twice-annual policymaking reviews. But at Powell's insistence, the ABM language was dropped from the alliance communique, a gesture that European diplomats said was retribution for their refusal to endorse the "common threat" language sought by the United States in the passage on missile defense. Since NATO works by unanimous consensus, any member can exercise a veto.

In order to satisfy everybody, NATO approved consultations that "will include appropriate assessment of threats and address the full range of strategic issues affecting our common security, and the means to address them, including deterrence and offensive and defensive means, and enhancing the effectiveness of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, as well as diplomatic and counter-proliferation measures."

Powell acknowledged that "it may take some time" to convince the allies to accept the administration's approach in dealing with a new strategic environment, but he expressed confidence that they will become converts once they understand the true nature of emerging threats and the technological potential to cope with them.

"I did not take a poll of everyone in the room today, but I think I can safely say there is recognition of some sort of threat out there and that it would be irresponsible for the United States not to do something about it," Powell told reporters.

"Some people see it as more immediate. Some see it as greater than perhaps others. But I don't think there's any question but that there's some sort of threat out there."

----

NATO leaders cool to U.S. plan for missile-defense system

By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
05/29/01 22:15
http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/home.pat,local/3accb5b6.529,.html

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- America's closest allies balked Tuesday at endorsing the Bush administration's plan for a national ballistic missile-defense system and questioned whether the threat from "rogue states" armed with ballistic missiles was as dire as Washington contends.

At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to reassure wary Europeans that the Bush administration would not deploy missile defenses without consulting them.

Powell also repeated his promises that the United States would not unilaterally withdraw its troops from NATO-led peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had suggested it might.

The meeting's outcome appeared to reflect continued unease in Europe over President Bush's foreign policy. Bush will meet with fellow NATO leaders when he travels to Europe next month as part of his first extended trip overseas as president.

The key point of dispute Tuesday was the gravity of the missile threat Bush cited this month in announcing that the United States planned to build and deploy an anti-missile system and to replace the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

"Some people see it as more immediate than others," Powell acknowledged. "Some people see it as greater than perhaps others. I don't think that there is any question that there is some sort of a threat out there."

Powell and his aides had pushed for the 19-nation alliance to declare that it faced "a common threat" of attack from missiles possibly armed with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

NATO's final communique was much more cautious, saying the organization must address threats that missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction "can pose."

An earlier commission led by Rumsfeld had estimated that nations such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea could build a missile capable of hitting U.S. territory within five years of deciding to do so.

Europeans question not only such estimates but also whether building a missile shield is the best way to respond.

"No one has brought up the deterrence issue," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said, referring to the traditional means of deterring missile attacks by threatening devastating retaliation.

However, Vedrine said there was "rejoicing" that Bush had followed through on his promise to consult with Europe, as well as Russia and others, before moving ahead with a missile defense plan. There will be no "hasty conclusions," he predicted.

Rumsfeld will present new details about the technologies the Pentagon hopes to use in a missile defense system when he attends a NATO defense ministers' meeting next week, Powell said.

At U.S. insistence, Tuesday's NATO declaration made no mention of the ABM treaty, which limits American and Russian missile-defense deployments. Last year's communique called the treaty "the cornerstone of strategic stability." Bush has made it clear that he views the treaty as outdated.

On American participation in NATO's Balkans peacekeeping, Powell said Washington would not cut and run.

"We went into this together, and we'll come out together," he said.

NATO defense ministers are expected to agree next week to modestly reduce the peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia, including shrinking the U.S. contingent from about 3,500 to 3,100 troops.

The alliance said it concluded after a six-month review "that it is not advisable at this time to consider major restructuring or reductions."

Many European foreign ministers have been concerned about statements made during Bush's presidential campaign last fall, and subsequently by Rumsfeld, that Washington wants to withdraw its forces from Bosnia and Kosovo, a province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia.

----

NATO fails to embrace NMD

May 29, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/05/29/nato.meeting.03/index.html

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- NATO has dealt a blow to U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed $60 billion National Missile Defence programme.

A meeting of the organisation's foreign ministers on Tuesday stopped far short of endorsing the scheme and said it would require further "substantive consultations" with Washington.

The Associated Press said a draft statement to be issued later in the day by the North Atlantic Council does not portray the possibility of missile attack as a common threat faced by allies, as the Bush administration had hoped.

NATO's response came despite the presence at the meeting in Budapest of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell had said he had hoped to persuade skeptical allies to be more supportive of NMD.

But, according to sources close to the process, France and Germany resisted stronger language sought by Powell.

The draft statement said NATO allies "welcome the consultations initiated by President Bush on the U.S. strategic review, including missile defence."

It added: "We intend to pursue these consultations vigorously, and welcome the United States' assurance that the views of allies will be taken into account as it considers its plans further."

In a minor victory, Powell was able to persuade NATO foreign ministers to omit from the joint statement any mention of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Last year's joint statement called the treaty "the cornerstone of strategic stability."

The statement was prepared for the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's top policy-making board, which is made up of foreign ministers of the 19 NATO nations.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said it was important that no decisions be made on the missile defence issue until further consultations have occurred.

A U.S. missile defence plan "must add to our security and stability. It must not lead to another arms race," Fischer said.

In addition to presenting U.S. views on missile defence, Powell also sought to assure allies that the U.S. would not pull its peacekeeping forces out of the Balkans, despite comments by Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggesting the U.S. role in Bosnia was near an end.

At an opening session, NATO foreign ministers also voiced concern about violence in Macedonia and indicated support for only modest cuts in the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, said a NATO official.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is ready to support only "trimming and minor adjustment" in the Bosnian force.

Other NATO sources have said they expect announcement of a cut of 10 percent to 15 percent in the peacekeeping force of 21,000, of which 3,300 are Americans.

Powell said Rumsfeld's comments may have been misinterpreted. The United States and its allies went into the Balkans together "and we'll come out together," Powell said. And he indicated that could be years from now.

----

NATO Skeptical of U.S. Missile Defense Plan

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Powell-NATO.html?searchpv=aponline

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) -- NATO's top policy-making body stopped far short of endorsing the Bush administration's plan for a national missile defense Tuesday, agreeing only to ``continue substantive consultations'' with Washington.

A joint statement issued by the North Atlantic Council does not portray the possibility of missile attack as a common threat faced by allies, as the Bush administration had hoped.

Secretary of State Colin Powell had hoped to persuade skeptical NATO allies to be more supportive of U.S. plans for a missile defense.

But, according to sources close to the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity, France and Germany resisted stronger language sought by Powell.

The final statement said NATO allies ``welcome the consultations initiated by President Bush on the U.S. strategic review, including missile defense.''

``We intend to pursue these consultations vigorously, and welcome the United States' assurance that the views of allies will be taken into account as it considers its plans further.''

In a minor victory, Powell persuaded NATO foreign ministers to omit from the joint statement any mention of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Last year's joint statement called the treaty ``the cornerstone of strategic stability.''

The Bush administration wants to scrap or heavily modify the treaty, which prohibits development of national missile defense systems.

Powell later told a news conference he was pleased that the final NATO statement did not mention the ABM treaty. As to the lack of general enthusiasm for missile defense, ``I didn't take a poll around the room of everybody's views but I think I can safely say that there is a recognition there's a threat out there,'' he said.

``Some people see it as more immediate than others. Some people see it as greater than perhaps others. But I don't think there's any question that there's some sort of threat out there.''

He said he hopes to win over more converts among NATO allies as further facts are presented.

The statement was issued by the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's top policy-making board, which is made up of foreign ministers of the 19 NATO nations.

In addition to presenting U.S. views on missile defense, Powell also sought to assure allies that the United States would not pull its peacekeeping forces out of the Balkans, despite comments by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggesting the U.S. role in Bosnia was near an end.

Tuesday's final statement said it was ``not advisable at this time to consider major restructuring or reductions'' in the peacekeeping force in Bosnia, other than ``a moderate reduction in overall troop level.''

``The job is not yet completed,'' NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson told reporters.

U.S. officials had worked behind the scenes for a joint statement that would cite a ``common threat'' of missile attack in a section referring to the U.S. missile defense plan.

That would be stronger than the phrase ``potential threat'' that was in a year-earlier statement.

But the United States failed to get the stronger language included.

Instead, NATO allies promise to consider ``appropriate assessment of threats and address the full range of strategic issues affecting our common security, and the means to address them.''

In the statement, the allies pledge to ``continue substantive consultations in the alliance on these issues.''

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said it was important that no decisions be made on the missile defense issue until further consultations have occurred.

A U.S. missile defense plan ``must add to our security and stability. It must not lead to another arms race,'' Fischer said.

At an opening session, NATO foreign ministers voiced concern about violence in Macedonia and indicated support for only modest cuts in the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, said a NATO official who attended.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is ready to support only ``trimming and minor adjustment'' in the Bosnian force.

Other NATO sources have said they expect announcement of a cut of 10 percent to 15 percent in the peacekeeping force of 21,000, of which 3,300 are Americans.

``I'll try to reassure them that there isn't a big split in the administration'' on whether to stay the course in the Balkans, Powell said in advance of the 19-nation NATO meetings in Budapest -- the first NATO meeting ever held in a city once part of the Soviet bloc.

Powell's comments followed suggestions in Washington by Rumsfeld that the United States was ready to pull out of Bosnia.

Powell said Rumsfeld's comments may have been misinterpreted. The United States and its allies went into the Balkans together ``and we'll come out together,'' Powell said. And he indicated that could be years from now.

Robertson opened the two-day session Tuesday by pledging to work toward ``a more balanced trans-Atlantic relationship.''

``This means above all that the European allies must shoulder a greater share of the burden of maintaining the security and stability,'' Robertson said. Robertson said the U.S. missile defense plan, the situation in the Balkans and ways to curb the proliferation of weapons would receive ``intensive dialogue.''

Participants expressed concern over political instability and ethnic violence in Macedonia, and were drafting a statement denouncing use of violence by extremists and urging the government to use ``proportionate force'' in maintaining order.

--------

NATO won't endorse U.S. missile defense plan

USA TODAY
05/29/2001
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-29-nato.htm

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - NATO refused to endorse the Bush administration's missile defense plans Tuesday despite efforts by Secretary of State Colin Powell to convince U.S. allies that they face a common threat of attack.

NATO leaders, meeting for the first time in a country once part of the Soviet bloc, also indicated support for modestly trimming peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, which include 3,300 Americans.

Powell said he assured NATO allies that "there is unanimity" within the Bush administration against acting alone in pulling U.S. peacekeepers out of the Balkans, despite comments by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that questioned continued U.S. presence in Bosnia.

France and Germany led resistance among NATO leaders to strong language on missile defense. NATO leaders promised only to maintain consultations with Washington as President Bush moves forward on his proposed missile shield.

Any missile defense plan "must add to our security and stability. It must not lead to another arms race," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, urging more study.

Powell said he hoped to win more converts later and would follow though on a promise to consult closely with allies. Meanwhile, he said the administration would press ahead with planning.

"If you want to have systems that can deal with such a threat, you don't wait until they're pointed at your heart," he said.

Powell did win a minor victory: NATO ministers omitted from their joint statement any reference to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Last year's joint statement called the treaty "the cornerstone of strategic stability."

The Bush administration wants to scrap or heavily modify the treaty, which prohibits development of national missile defense systems by either Moscow or Washington.

On other issues, the alliance's North Atlantic Council, NATO's top policy-making unit, asserted that it was "not advisable at this time" to consider major reductions or reorganization of peacekeeping operations in Bosnia.

NATO officials said they expect to cut about 10% to 15% in the peacekeeping force of 21,000 - of which 3,300 are Americans.

"The job is not yet completed," NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson told a news conference.

NATO leaders also expressed alarm at rising violence and political instability in Macedonia. They urged the government to use "proportionate force" in maintaining order and said rebels who use violence should be excluded from the negotiating table.

On missile defense, the final statement said NATO allies "welcome the consultations initiated by President Bush on the U.S. strategic review, including missile defense."

In the statement, the allies pledged to "continue substantive consultations in the alliance on these issues."

"We intend to pursue these consultations vigorously," it added.

U.S. officials had worked behind the scenes for a joint statement that would cite a "common threat" of missile attack. That would be stronger than the phrase "potential threat" that was in a year-earlier statement.

Powell later told a news conference, "I didn't take a poll around the room of everybody's views, but I think I can safely say that there is a recognition there's a threat out there."

"Some people see it as more immediate than others. Some people see it as greater than perhaps others. But I don't think there's any question that there's some sort of threat out there."

Tuesday's vote doesn't make the job any easier for Bush administration officials to sell the plan. Rumsfeld will try again next week when he meets with NATO defense ministers.

And the subject is certain to top the agenda at the June 13 heads-of-state NATO summit in Brussels, which Bush will attend.

Powell said he was pleased that the NATO statement excluded any reference to the ABM treaty

On the same omission, however, Stephen Young of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an arms-control advocacy group, said: "The failure of NATO to even mention the ABM treaty indicates a major split remains in the alliance over missile defense."

"The United States pushed hard to get the allies to agree they face a common threat from missile attack. The allies refused, undermining the Bush call for missile defenses," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters, "There is no change as far as our position is concerned." Russian opposes the missile-defense plan, although it has indicated willingness to talk with the Bush administration about it.

----

U.S. Soothes Allies, Moscow on Missile Plan

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nato-le.html?searchpv=reuters

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The United States sought to reassure both its NATO allies and Russia on Tuesday that it would not develop a controversial missile defense system without consulting them.

At a meeting of NATO and European Union foreign ministers in Budapest, Secretary of State Colin Powell also said Washington would not unilaterally withdraw its troops from international peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.

Ministers were briefed by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana before he flew back to Macedonia, where his staff later announced a breakthrough in talks aimed at preventing a breakup of the troubled country's ethnically mixed coalition government.

Powell acknowledged that it would take time for Washington to persuade skeptical allies that a missile defense system was needed to guard against possible ``rogue'' attacks. Other members of the alliance fear such a system could spark a new arms race.

Powell said President George Bush was not examining the issue in isolation but was looking at an ``overall strategic framework.''

``We're looking at reductions in offensive weapons, we're looking at what technologies are available to deal with limited missile attacks,'' he told a news conference.

``I made it clear to them that this is a real consultation that President Bush wants...and not a phony consultation,'' Powell added.

``At the same time I made it clear to them that we know we have to move forward. We can see the threat. The threat is clear and we have to deal with that threat.

``We'll do it in a way that I think will enhance overall strategic stability and it'll take us time to persuade everybody of that proposition. But I think we'll be successful at the end of the day.''

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov reaffirmed Moscow's hostility to the U.S. plan but welcomed Washington's willingness to discuss the project rather than steamroller it through.

``We very much hope that in the future this kind of consultation and discussion will enable us to find a solution, a way that will help international stability and does not undermine the architecture of a disarmament which has been created in the course of the last 30 years,'' he said.

He spoke after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, a consultative body that gives Moscow a voice in the Atlantic Alliance but no right to veto its decisions.

Ivanov said he hoped the two sides could keep intact the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which Moscow sees as vital for strategic stability, while meeting U.S. fears about nuclear missile programs developed by North Korea, Iraq and Iran.

But a communiqu De issued after the NATO meeting made no mention of the treaty, in marked contrast to the last foreign ministers' meeting in December which had affirmed it.

The NATO meeting -- the alliance's first behind the old Iron Curtain -- condemned ``extremist'' violence in Macedonia and reaffirmed allies' support for a ``firm but flexible'' Macedonian government as it fought ethnic Albanian rebels.

Solana's spokeswoman said in Skopje that the envoy had succeeded in brokering agreement between the Macedonian coalition parties.

The government said it agreed to set aside a dispute over a peace pact signed by ethnic Albanian leaders and guerrillas which had threatened to wreck the two-week-old government of national unity.

But Tuesday's statement said simply that the ``status of the document in question was no longer relevant.''

Progress was also reported on another issue that had been troubling the alliance -- the use of NATO military assets in EU operations outside the alliance. Turkey, a member of NATO but not of the EU, had strenuously objected.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said he had reached an agreement in principle on resolving the dispute.

``It's not a definitive accord, but there is an agreement in principle,'' he told reporters during the NATO talks. ``All our demands have been met in a general fashion and all the gray areas have been removed.''

Ankara had previously refused to give its go-ahead to ''lending'' NATO assets to the EU's proposed 60,000-strong Rapid Reaction Force which the bloc wants to be ready for peacekeeping missions by 2003.

Turkey had insisted it have a role in EU decision-making connected to the force when NATO assets were to be used, but the EU had rejected having a non-EU member get so involved.

Cem said Turkey had won ``an active participation in the (EU's) consultative mechanism,'' something the EU already affords NATO's other non-EU members.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson urged allies to be ready to spend more on improving equipment and preparedness to face future crises that could call for a military response.

``This means tough decisions must be taken now to build the right kind of defense forces and ensure the required and appropriate funding for them,'' he said.

``NATO does not want to be stuck riding a paper tiger.''

----

U.S. May Buy Russian Technology
Offer Planned to Ease Opposition to Missile Defense System

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 29, 2001; Page A11
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A89003-2001May28?language=printer

The Bush administration is preparing to offer Russia a package of incentives that could include the purchase of Russian military technology in hopes of easing Moscow's opposition to U.S. plans for a national missile defense system, administration officials said yesterday.

The incentives, being prepared for President Bush's meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin this summer, are part of a broader plan to convince both Moscow and skeptical U.S. allies in Europe that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is outdated as a cornerstone for arms control, according to a senior official.

"We are interested in talking to the Russians, as well as our friends and allies, about potential cooperation in air defense and missile defense and technology they may have under development," the official said.

The New York Times reported yesterday that the administration's package could include an offer to buy Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles, a tactical system comparable to American Patriot missiles used during the Persian Gulf War.

But the administration official said it is premature to discuss any particular missile system or technology that could be part of a deal. "We know the Russians have invested heavily for years in advanced air defense and missile defense technologies that may be of significant value to us," he said.

In Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said yesterday that any U.S. offer to purchase advanced anti-missile technology would have no bearing on Russia's continuing support for the ABM Treaty, which prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying national defensive missile shields, the Associated Press reported.

Ivanov said the treaty remains the foundation of arms control efforts between the two nations and noted that 32 arms control agreements make reference to it.

"You cannot take a brick out of a wall and hope it will stand," Ivanov said. "It will come tumbling down, and it's impossible to forecast the consequences."

Ivanov said his government has yet to receive a proposal from Washington for the purchase of S-300 missiles or any other defense technology.

Although Moscow would be willing to explore the sale of advanced anti-missile technology to Washington, he said, S-300 missiles are permitted by the ABM Treaty.

"S-300 missiles are air-defense, not anti-space weapons," Ivanov said. "Russia has sold these missiles to many countries. I cannot link this issue with ABM plans."

Bush condemned the ABM Treaty as a Cold War relic on May 1 in his first address as president on global security and vowed to construct an extensive shield against missiles.

In his speech, Bush stopped short of calling for abrogation of the treaty but said both sides "must move beyond the constraints" of the agreement.

----

Shift Senate may hinder Bush's missile plans

Tuesday, May 29, 2001
Irish Times
From Elaine Lafferty, in New York
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/0529/wor12.htm

Speculation about the real effect of the new Democratic controlled Senate on President George W. Bush's legislative agenda ran rampant yesterday, leading some observers to conclude that the president's missile defence plans may be in serious trouble.

Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, a Democrat who is likely to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who stands to take over the Armed Services Committee, are both opposed to much of Mr Bush's missile plans. Both also oppose a US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which some of the president's principal aides see as a necessary step toward putting a missile defence in place.

Mr Levin told CNN that such a system "could lead to a very negative and dangerous response on the part of Russia, for instance, or China".

China, Russia and a number of other countries have expressed opposition to Mr Bush's plans for a missile defence system, describing it as a violation of the 1972 treaty.

Even though a number of Democrats supported Mr Bush's tax plan this week, his other legislative priorities will not face smooth sailing. With Democrats set to take control of the Senate on June 5th, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who will be the majority leader, said it would be impossible to expand nuclear power now because of the lack of a national repository for nuclear waste storage.

Also, appearing on the NBC programme Meet the Press, he pronounced Mr Bush's proposal for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "finished".

And while Mr Daschle said Democrats would support more research on missile defence, he declared: "The president has said he wants to deploy, and I think that is a premature decision and we certainly wouldn't be prepared to do that."

Mr Andrew Card jnr, the White House chief of staff, insisted that President Bush would push ahead with his programme. "We'll be able to get the president's agenda put forward because it's an agenda for the American people," he said on the CBS programme Face the Nat ion.

The competing television appearances showed the struggle ahead in a reconfigured Congress in which the Republicans no longer hold both houses. Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont gave the Democrats majority status last week when he left the Republican Party to become an Independent.

-------- russia

Russia reveals nuclear-waste dump

World Scene
May 29, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010529-87864114.htm

OSLO -- Russia´s Northern Fleet opened a secret nuclear-waste dump in the arctic to outside inspection for the first time yesterday, after years of pressure from its smaller neighbor, Norway. A Norwegian delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide was allowed into the Andreeva Bay base, where tons of highly radioactive waste are stored roughly 30 miles from the Russian-Norwegian border. Andreeva Bay is considered one of the world´s most radioactively dangerous places. There are more than 100 nuclear submarines at Russian´s Northern Fleet bases on the Kola Peninsula, where northwestern Russia borders Norway. Most are rusted hulks, often with nuclear fuel on board, according to Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group that specializes in the issue. The waste at Andreeva includes spent nuclear fuel cores from atomic submarines. A 1996 report by Bellona said about 21,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies are stored here, and many of the containers are leaking.

----

A city struggles to find formula for success
Once-secret Russian research hive opens for business, offering commercial spinoffs.

By Fred Weir (fweir@online.ru)
The Christian Science Monitor,
May 29, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/29/p8s1.htm OBNINSK, RUSSIA

Alexander Sorokin is a physicist by training. But these days, he is something of an alchemist as well, determined to turn leftover Soviet military know-how into capitalist gold.

A physicist who spent his life working on secret nuclear programs in the formerly closed "atomic city" of Obninsk, Mr. Sorokin is deputy head of the local Science Council, dedicated to making commercially viable entities of the city's 12 impoverished state-run institutes, which still employ thousands of atomic specialists and engineers.

"We once designed nuclear reactors for submarines and spaceships here in Obninsk," he says. "I think we could figure out how to make a better mousetrap, too."

The Obninsk Science Council currently has a portfolio of 300 ideas drawn from the city's formerly secret research projects, some of which could revolutionize the way things are done if implemented in the civilian economy, Sorokin says.

Among these are aerosol filters used in atomic-power plants, now being tried experimentally in processing dairy products. One Obninsk institute is producing a popular brand of iodized bread, and preparing to market a line of biologically active mineral food supplements said to be more digestible than current types. Also in the works are new industrial methods for handling radioisotopes and heavy metals, he says.

More than Russia's economic fate may ride on the success of efforts to turn the heavily militarized former Soviet scientific complex to civilian pursuits.

Obninsk, 100 kilometers south of Moscow, is one of a score of closed towns built by the USSR, often in remote regions, which still house tens of thousands of nuclear-bomb and missile experts.

Under the Soviet regime, they led a privileged life, but with the 1991 collapse of Communism, government support evaporated.

A recent survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found many of those communities in an advanced state of social and economic collapse. Significant numbers of bomb and missile experts expressed a desire to emigrate, and some said they would work for anyone who paid them.

"You can't attach security guards to all the Russian scientists who possess dangerous knowledge and therefore pose a risk of nuclear proliferation," says Vladimir Orlov, an atomic physicist and director of the independent Pir Center in Moscow, a think tank on nuclear-security issues. "Ultimately we must find new employment that rewards them with appropriate salaries and status. We're still a long way from that."

At least one nuclear-bomb expert recruited from a former Soviet Central Asian republic is known to be working for international terrorist Osama bin Laden, Mr. Orlov says, citing sources in the Kremlin's Security Council.

Seven years ago, the Federal Security Service, the former KGB, stopped a planeload of Russian atomic scientists just as they were departing for North Korea. "Things are under better control now, because our current leadership understands how crucial this problem is," Orlov says.

Many Russian security experts lament the apparent determination of the Bush administration to cancel subsidies Washington has been paying to Russian military scientists to tide them over the financial crisis and keep them from leaving their posts.

"Obninsk has been a minor recipient of American aid, yet it has made a real difference to some scientists here," says Sorokin. "Some of our sister cities are still under a closed regime and in far more difficult straits than we, and are much more dependent on external aid. I don't know what they'll do if it's cut off."

In contrast to most of its sister communities, the efforts of scientists in Obninsk were directed mainly toward the Soviet Union's "peaceful" nuclear program. The world's first civilian atomic power reactor went online here in 1946. Obninsk experts have been heavily involved in studying and cleaning up the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown and other Soviet-era nuclear disasters.

"It was the good fortune of Obninsk to be given nonmilitary tasks," says Yelena Kolotikina, the city council's chief spokeswoman. "In Soviet times it meant lower prestige, but it is the main reason we are open to the world today while most of those military towns are still tightly closed."

About half of Obninsk's specialists have left their scientific jobs over the past decade. The average salary for those remaining is just 1,800 rubles (about $60) per month.

"Young people are not coming into physics any more," says Alexander Savelyev, vice president of the independent National Security and Strategic Research Institute in Moscow. "Russian science is falling behind and could die within a generation. If things don't soon change, we may not even have enough specialists to maintain the nuclear infrastructure that we inherited from the Soviet Union."

For further information:
Official site of Obninsk city http://www.obninsk.ru/index_en.html
Building Community Partnerships in Obninsk Eurasia Foundation http://www.eurasia.msk.ru/english/programs/obninsk.htm

-------- treaties

Russia Continues to Oppose Scrapping ABM Treaty

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/world/29RUSS.html?searchpv=nytToday

MOSCOW, May 28 - The Kremlin said today that its opposition to scrapping the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty would not be changed by a United States proposal that would reportedly incorporate Russian missiles and radar in a new antimissile system.

But as in the past, Russia did not rule out further negotiations over the American missile proposal, saying officials still await "a concrete understanding" of how and why Washington plans to supplant the ABM treaty.

A report in The New York Times today said President Bush hoped to involve President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia more deeply in American missile plans by offering Russia a package of weapons purchases, joint antimissile exercises and money to rebuild its outmoded early warning radar system and a proposal to include Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles in a new system.

The report, which cited unidentified administration officials, said Mr. Bush hoped to offer the proposal when he and Mr. Putin held their first face-to-face meeting, on June 16 in Slovenia.

The 1972 treaty, which bans deploying nationwide defenses against missile attacks, has been a cornerstone of arms-control policy. At its core, it holds that no nation will risk launching a missile attack if it is left defenseless against a retaliatory strike.

The United States now argues that the spread of missile technology requires advanced nations to erect defenses against at least the handful of missiles that could one day be launched against them by terrorists or rogue states.

Washington has sought to enlist Russia in the cause, and the Pentagon has proposed that the two nations conduct joint experiments to track dummy targets and fire antimissile devices.

"Think of it as exercising their missile defense with ours, to see whether they could be made inter- operable," a senior administration official was quoted as having said. "Our systems could be interconnected. It makes a lot of sense."

It also makes political sense to the administration, another official added, because an American antimissile program is unlikely to win broad approval in the United States or elsewhere without Russian participation or, at the least, assent.

Many European nations have voiced doubts about the plan, despite a United States proposal to extend a limited defense against missiles across the Atlantic.

But Russia appeared to offer Washington little today beyond a tentative willingness to accept money for its A-300 missiles.

In separate remarks, Russia's current and former defense ministers, its foreign minister and the head of its security council said the American proposals were no surprise. The officials stressed that offers of arms deals or other military aid would not affect Russia's position on the ABM treaty.

At a meeting on Russian national- security problems today, the Security Council secretary, Vladimir B. Rushailo, said Moscow remained willing to reduce its arsenal of nuclear missiles drastically, but only if the Antiballistic Missile Treaty remains in force.

Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov said Russia was open to selling its S- 300 air-defense system to the United States because it had already been sold to dozens of nations. But that would contribute nothing to a missile-defense system, he said, because the S-300 is designed to work against aircraft, not ballistic missiles.

Other defense experts argued that the proposal to help rebuild Russia's radar system would benefit Washington as much as Moscow, because it would reduce the prospect that Russia might interpret spotty radar data as indicating an American missile attack and respond with its own nuclear launching.

Mr. Ivanov said Russia had discussed missile strategies with the Clinton administration and was open to continuing talks with the Bush administration. But in the last year, he said, "practically nothing has changed" to allay the Kremlin's concerns about such plans.

"In order to hold a discussion, you have to have some subject for it, a plan, a concrete understanding of what the other side wants," he said. "For now, there are no such plans."

He argued that the 1972 treaty could not be easily scrapped, because it is the foundation of dozens of other side agreements that have kept the nuclear arms race from veering out of control.

"You cannot take a brick out of a wall and hope that it will stand," Mr. Ivanov said. "It will come tumbling down, and it's almost impossible to calculate the consequences."

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

Hard Questions on Nuclear Power

New York Times
May 29, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/opinion/29TUE1.html?searchpv=nytToday

After decades in the doghouse because of environmental, safety and cost concerns, nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance of expectations. The Bush administration's new energy plan gives a place of prominence to nuclear power as a clean and efficient energy source, and the industry itself is bubbling with new hopes and plans. In truth, there are good reasons to take a fresh look at this much- maligned source of energy that has been stalled in this country for the past three decades. But it is worrisome that the administration seems to have endorsed a nuclear resurgence with little sustained analysis of its pluses and minuses.

As an article by Katharine Seelye in The Times revealed last week, nuclear energy was barely in the consciousness of the drill-centric energy team at the White House until a delegation of nuclear industry executives sought a chance to make their pitch and succeeded so well that Vice President Dick Cheney almost immediately started touting the virtues of nuclear energy. A case can be made for greater exploitation of nuclear power in this country, but before the nation plunges too far down this path the administration will need to address some critical questions.

The rationale for a reassessment comes partly from the performance of the industry itself, and partly from changed circumstances in the environment in which it must operate. By most accounts, the industry has learned to operate its plants more safely and efficiently than in the years leading up to the traumatic near-tragedy at Three Mile Island. American nuclear plants are operating with much greater reliability and many fewer minor incidents. Moreover, the industry is consolidating, with plants being purchased and operated by companies that have more expertise than some of the previous operators. So there is reason to trust the industry a bit more than in past decades.

Meanwhile, external events are increasing the appeal of nuclear power. One is the rising concern over global warming, which is caused primarily by the emission of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Nuclear power plants emit no carbon dioxide, thus to the extent they can replace plants burning coal, oil or natural gas they can be considered a plus. Nuclear power can also contribute to the diversity of the nation's energy supplies. Nuclear plants already supply some 20 percent of the electricity generated in this country, compared with fossil fuel contributions of 52 percent for coal, 16 percent for natural gas and 3 percent for oil. But the great majority of all new power plants are being built to burn natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, making utilities and consumers vulnerable to price spikes when supplies become tight as they have this year.

President Bush's energy plan offers a wide range of steps to accelerate the use of nuclear power. But before Congress and the regulatory agencies proceed too far, some crucial questions require answers.

Impact on global warming: If this is the main reason for turning to nuclear power, the proponents will need to do a much better job of spelling out just how far nuclear power would have to spread to make a real dent in the problem. Nuclear power is used almost exclusively to generate electricity, thus it cannot reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil to power transportation systems. Nuclear fuel will primarily be substituting for natural gas - the least of the carbon dioxide emitters - as the clean fuel to which electric utilities turn. Moreover, fossil fuels are burned in mining and preparing nuclear fuels and in building reactors, so even nuclear energy is not entirely free of greenhouse gases. Some analyses suggest that to make a real impact in slowing global warming, nuclear power plants would need to spread widely around the world, a prospect that brings new challenges of its own.

Weapons risks: Expansion of nuclear power in this country poses no weapons danger, but the spread of nuclear plants into other countries could pose a risk. The uranium fuel for nuclear power plants is not generally considered of high enough grade to be used in weapons. But as more and more technicians around the world learn the skills of working with nuclear materials, and as governments become engaged in procuring nuclear technologies, there is a danger that civilian nuclear programs could serve as a cover for clandestine weapons activities. That is why, for example, the United States is angry that Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant. Even though Iran has pledged to abide by nonproliferation treaties and allow international inspections of the plant, there is grave concern that it will find a way to build weapons. Increasing the use of nuclear power in countries that already have either the bomb or nuclear power plants is not much of a danger. Spreading nuclear power to additional countries might be.

Waste disposal: In the political world, the lack of a proven method to store spent fuel from nuclear reactors for the tens of thousands of years the material remains radioactive has long been considered the Achilles' heel of the nuclear industry. In truth, spent fuel has been stored safely for decades in pools at the sites of nuclear power plants with no adverse effect. The problem is, the storage pools are filling up and critics are loath to expand nuclear power with no clear idea where to store the waste. The Bush administration is considering a site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada that has been studied for years, and it has proposed a new look at reprocessing the fuel to remove the long-lived plutonium for reuse as reactor fuel. That could greatly ease the storage problem here but might encourage wider use of reprocessed materials abroad, increasing the risk of weapons-grade plutonium's falling into the wrong hands.

Reactor safety: The safety problem in conventional nuclear plants is that, if things start to go wrong, emergency cooling systems and human operators have to act correctly to prevent a catastrophic meltdown. That makes nuclear power a cruel and unforgiving technology that cannot tolerate equipment failures or human mistakes. But the industry is exploring new technologies that would not lead to meltdown even in a worst-case malfunction, making them inherently safer and cheaper to build and operate. This is where the administration and the industry should be focusing their efforts - to develop demonstrably safer power plants. That would ease many of the concerns provoked by the current generation of nuclear reactors.

Economics: No matter what else is done to make nuclear power more attractive, the industry will make little headway unless it can overcome the high capital costs that brought it to a halt in recent decades. Some relief should come from the advance approval of standardized designs, allowing plants to be built more quickly and cheaply than in past years when each plant had a customized design. But Congress will need to take a close look at whether it should renew one of the industry's economic underpinnings - the so-called Price-Anderson Act that limits the liability of nuclear companies in the event of an accident. If the industry is as safe as it says, it may not need such subsidized protection. On the other hand, eliminating the liability protection might scare off investors for good.

Nuclear power has been stalled for so long in the United States that it is surprising to see it back in the spotlight. There may be a case for extending the licenses of existing plants, as has already happened in several cases, or for building new plants on existing nuclear sites where the risks are already understood. But the case has not yet been made for truly large-scale expansion of nuclear power, in this country or around the globe.

-------- nevada

Ground zero in nuclear-power battle
Despite $7 billion in studies, debate rises over safety of Yucca Mt. as a radioactive storage site.

By Daniel B. Wood (woodd@csps.com)
The Christian Science Monitor,
May 29, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/29/p1s2.htm

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, NEV. - No public roads cross these jagged escarpments, where rubble and sagebrush carpet dusty desert peaks. No sound intrudes upon the serene flight of hawks gliding the updrafts generated by scorching heat.

The remote panorama comes from atop Yucca Mountain, a hump of ash dumped by an erupting volcano some 12 million years ago.

The height, depth, and geological makeup of this Nevada mountain - what one engineer calls the "most studied piece of real estate in the history of mankind" - is reentering the national spotlight in the wake of calls by President Bush to revive the nuclear power industry.

Despite the White House push, the key to the industry's turnaround may ultimately hinge on the rabbit warrens beneath this windswept ridge.

It's here that the US wants to establish a repository to store radioactive waste for the next 10,000 years. But even after 22 years of study and debate, the politics of where to put the detritus from the nation's nuclear plants remains as hard as lava rock. "This is about to get very interesting," says a Department of Energy (DOE) official at the site. "Those who oppose this are beginning to get involved, and we expect litigation for some time to come."

As part of his national energy plan, Mr. Bush called for licensing new nuclear reactors as well speeding up the relicensing of existing plants to ease the nation's power problems. He also endorsed the idea of a national waste dump, without specifying the site

At present, the nation's 103 nuclear plants each generate an average of 3 to 6 tons of waste per year. That is in addition to the 77,000 tons now stored at some 70 sites around the country, including the grounds of existing reactors. But these temporary storage sites, where spent fuel is held in metal canisters surrounded by water or cement, are running out of space. Energy officials at each site must find more or, by law, shut down further production.

The US has studied different sites for such a repository, but since 1987 has stopped all serious consideration other than Yucca Mountain. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding meetings this week in Nevada to consider construction permits for the site.

Already a five-mile tunnel and several test "alcoves" exist in which scientists have been analyzing the geologic features of the mountain. They have been trying to determine how to safely keep radioactive waste away from humans - and without leaking into the environment or water table - until such waste chemically "degrades" and becomes safe, about 10,000 years by federal statute.

DOE is also taking public comments in coming months before forwarding recommendations to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who will advise the Bush administration.

But Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R), the state's congressional delegation, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman - whose city sits just 90 miles south - and most voters all oppose the project. So do a chorus of environmental, native American, and citizen lobbying groups. All are mounting campaigns within and without the state to generate opposition.

Yet many lawmakers from other parts of the country, not wanting a nuclear graveyard in their states, have supported the Nevada site.

While the politics of the issue swirls in Washington and elsewhere, the work of the engineers beneath the lava rock here is receiving more attention as pressure builds to open a repository. Already, more than $7 billion worth of study and testing have taken place. This has included probing earthquake movement, sediment layers, chemical content, volcanic activity, and water flow.

The proposed repository would be built at the end of a two-mile tunnel, 1,000 feet below the surface of the mountain and 1,000 feet above the water table. Government experts say no information has been yet found to disqualify the site as unsafe.

Surface water would have to descend 1,000 feet through volcanic rock, degrade the steel and ceramic cladding that surrounds the spent uranium fuel, descend another 1,000 feet to a water table, and then move horizontally 13 miles to the nearest exposure point. Tests show such a scenario would take far more than 10,000 years.

"Touring this site and seeing what tests they have performed and what protection exists should be very reassuring to even the biggest cynic," said Danny Keuter, vice president for Entergy Nuclear Inc., a nuclear firm.

While critics dispute these assertions, they note that storage isn't the only issue. Getting the waste to and from the facility is problematic, too. "The shipping campaign required to move waste to a repository would be the largest nuclear materials transport in history, involving more than 100,000 shipments and lasting more than 30 years," says Mr. Goodman.

His and other politicians' biggest fear: an accident or terrorism incident that ruins the state's tourist industry. DOE's own analyses estimate the cleanup of a severe accident in a rural area at $620 million and in an urban area at $2 billion, says Goodman. "If Washington makes the decision that this is where they want to bury it, you will see more than a little uprising all across this state," says Goodman aide Eric Pappa.

Still, in the end, if not Yucca Mountain, where? "As long as we have nuclear power, there is the necessity of putting this waste somewhere safe," says Dennis O'Brien, an energy expert at the University of Oklahoma. "We are about to witness a battle not over the scientific questions raised, but about the politics surrounding that science."

-------- MILITARY

Military Warning System Also Tracks Bomb-Size Meteors

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/science/29ROCK.html?searchpv=nytToday

In the early darkness of April 23, as Washington was beginning to relax after the spy plane crisis in China, alarm bells began to go off on the military system that monitors the globe for nuclear blasts.

Orbiting satellites that keep watch for nuclear attack had detected a blinding flash of light over the Pacific several hundred miles southwest of Los Angeles. On the ground, shock waves were strong enough to register halfway around the world.

Tension reignited until the Pentagon could reassure official Washington that the flash was not a nuclear blast. It was a speeding meteoroid from outer space that had crashed into the earth's atmosphere, where it exploded in an intense fireball.

"There was a big flurry of activity," recalled Dr. Douglas O. ReVelle, a federal scientist who helps run the military detectors. "Events like this don't happen all the time."

Preliminary estimates, Dr. ReVelle said, are that the cosmic intruder was the third largest since the Pentagon began making global satellite observations a quarter century ago. Its explosion in the atmosphere had nearly the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The episode shows how the system that warns of missile attack and clandestine nuclear blasts is fast evolving to detect bomb-size meteors as well. Now, it finds them about once a month, on average. But Dr. ReVelle, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said in an interview that the developing system was likely to find many more of the natural blasts in the years ahead.

"The real number is probably bigger," he said. "There's no doubt about that. But we don't know how much bigger."

Already, the system has shown that the planet is being continually struck by large speeding rocks, and that the rate of bombardment is higher than previously thought. The blasts light the sky with brilliant fireballs but people seldom see the blasts because they usually occur over the sea or uninhabited lands.

The rocky objects are anywhere from a few feet to about 80 feet wide. They vanish in titanic explosions high in the atmosphere, their enormous energy of motion converted almost instantly into vast amounts of heat and light.

The Air Force did not publicly disclose its imaging of the recent blast until late May, more than a month afterward. In a terse release on May 25, its Technical Applications Center, at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, said the flash was "non- nuclear" and consistent with past observed meteor explosions.

A Defense Department satellite, the Air Force said, detected bright flashes over a period of more than two seconds.

After that disclosure, Los Alamos got the military's permission to reveal its own detection of the April event. Its ground-based sensors are even more sensitive than orbiting satellites to the repercussions of meteor blasts. The ground-based sensors work like sensitive ears to detect very low-frequency sound waves, which radiate outward from an exploding rock over hundreds and thousands of miles.

The sensors record sounds well below the range of human hearing, including those from underground nuclear tests as well as atmospheric blasts.

Dr. ReVelle said four arrays of the lab's sound sensors had picked up the April blast. In addition, he said, sound detectors in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and Germany had picked up its shock waves. Two sensors in South America made tentative detections, he added.

"It was a big event," he said. "There are people worrying about impacts on the earth, and these things are giving us a better understanding of the impact rate. That's the real byproduct scientifically."

The speeding boulder was perhaps 12 feet wide, he added.

An even more sensitive global ear is emerging as the world's nations try to monitor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a tentative accord that seeks to end the exploding of nuclear arms and to police compliance. When finished in the next year or so, the global acoustic system is to consist of 60 arrays that give complete global coverage, increasing the odds that even more large meteor impacts will be detected.

The disclosure of such intruders is seen as bolstering the idea that the earth is periodically subjected to strikes by even larger objects, including doomsday rocks a few miles wide. Objects this size are predicted to hit once every 10 million years or so, causing mayhem and death on a planetary scale.

-------- arms sales

'Symbol of destruction´

May 29, 2001
Washington Times
Embassy Row,
James Morrison
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010529-81084586.htm

Chile´s former ambassador to the United States has denounced his country´s decision to buy American F-16 fighter jets.

Ambassador John Biehl said the purchase of the planes would "damage" the country´s image.

"The F-16s will cause political damage to our country in historical terms," Mr. Biehl told the newspaper, El Mercurio, Sunday. Mr. Biehl, ambassador here from 1994 to 2000, called the aircraft "a symbol of destruction."

Chile´s defense minister, Mario Fernandes, said last week that the government has decided to spend $600 million for 12 of the fighters. He said Chile will open negotiations with the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, if the U.S. Congress approves the sale.

After a three-year debate, Chile in December selected the F-16 over the French Mirage 200 and the Jas 39 Gripen built by Saab.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.

-------- balkans

U.S. will cut Bosnia troops to 3,000

By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 29, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010529-69476470.htm

BUDAPEST -- Plans to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina to about 3,000 will be announced at a NATO ministers´ meeting today, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday, but there will have to be American forces in the Balkans for "many years" to come.

"I think there will be decisions made tomorrow to reduce the Bosnian troop level more," Mr. Powell told reporters aboard his plane en route to the two-day NATO meeting after a five-day tour of Africa.

U.S. troops in Bosnia are being cut back to 3,600 under a previous reduction agreed to recently by NATO. Mr. Powell said another cut was expected, but he could not confirm the final number would be 3,100, as published in some newspaper reports.

Asked for a "timeline" for the total return of all U.S. troops from Kosovo and Bosnia, where peacekeeping has tied down U.S. forces since the 1995 Dayton accord, Mr. Powell said, "I don´t think I can."

"The numbers have been coming down steadily," he said. "But it will be years" before the Balkans enjoys a really stable peace without the threat of ethnic cleansing.

Mr. Powell said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is eager to bring U.S. troops home from foreign deployments. President Bush had also voiced opposition, during the election campaign, to long-term stationing of U.S. troops on peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.

But Mr. Powell said any force reductions will be undertaken only in coordination with the NATO allies who are shouldering most of the burden in the Balkans now.

"There isn´t a big split in the administration," he said.

He said Mr. Rumsfeld "has been told by the president to try to get our force levels down around the world. But Mr. Rumsfeld and I and the president have all said we are not going to bail out of our commitments (in Bosnia and Kosovo).

"We went in together, and we´ll come out together," he said, repeating a line he has used before. "We will not shirk our responsibility."

Mr. Powell said U.S. and other NATO troops remain tied down in part because only 11 out of a planned 19 multinational special police units have been deployed so far. "I´ll push for the other eight" units, he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Powell could not confirm a report in the New York Times that the United States was offering Russia a deal to win its acceptance of the Bush plan for a missile defense system to shoot down attacks by rogue states such as Iraq.

The report said Russia would be asked to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and in return, some of its S-300 ballistic missiles would be purchased for use in a missile shield to protect Europe and Russia from rogue attacks.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov dismissed the reports at a news conference in Moscow, wire services reported.

"If such proposals come -- we have not yet received them -- I am sure that they will not solve the ABM issue," he said. "S-300 missiles are air-defense, not anti-space weapons. Russia has sold these missiles to many countries. I cannot link this issue with ABM plans."

The North Atlantic Council ministerial meeting today and tomorrow includes the 19 foreign ministers of NATO.

Mr. Powell said their closed-door discussions would touch on Macedonia, where the United States and its NATO allies have strongly backed the government in Skopje in its fight against ethnic Albanian rebels mainly clustered along the border of Kosovo.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States supports Macedonia´s efforts "to stay the course against extremists but keep the political process open to (ethnic) Albanians."

"We recognize (the Macedonians) have to defend themselves."

Yesterday, Macedonian tanks blasted targets in a northern village to try to drive out ethnic Albanian guerrillas as Javier Solana, the EU´s top diplomat, arrived in the capital hoping to save the national unity government.

Two tanks shelled suspected rebel positions above Matejce, one of a string of a dozen villages controlled by the guerrillas in hilly terrain about 25 miles northeast of Skopje.

Aside from the Balkans, the NAC ministers plan to discuss the European desire to create a separate defense group -- the European Strategic Defense Initiative.

"We continue to support ESDI if it includes added capability ... and is closely linked to NATO," Mr. Powell said.

In a sign that Mr. Powell´s visit to Mali, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda was beginning to bear fruit, Sudan´s government and the opposition agreed to meet Saturday in Nairobi, Kenya, for the first time in four years to seek an end to their 18-year-old civil war.

A rebel spokesman said the summit would be attended by President Omar Hassan Bashir and by John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People´s Liberation Army.

Mr. Powell had called for reconciliation in Sudan while he was in Kenya Saturday, and he dispatched the top U.S. foreign aid official, Andrew Natsios, to return yesterday to Nairobi for meetings with both sides in the war.

-------- biological weapons

Talking Down Germ Warfare

TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2001
Christian Science Monitor
EDITORIAL
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/29/p10s2.htm

If the United States favors international cooperation to address problems of global scope, it can't afford to insist on doing things its way.

That was one lesson from the Bush administration's decision to opt out of the Kyoto protocol on global warming. Washington had legitimate concerns about that treaty - concerns that predated the new administration - but they could have been more carefully voiced within the context of continuing cooperative efforts. That would have reassured allies who were stunned by the US decision to withdraw.

The same dynamic surrounds the issue of proliferating biological warfare capabilities. It's a problem of global proportions, and Washington appears poised to go it alone.

After a cabinet-level review, the administration is reportedly ready to reject a protocol, six years in the making, that would give real teeth to a 1972 treaty banning the development, production, or possession of biological weaponry, such as germ-laden shells or warheads.

In this case, too, the objections to the protocol raised by Bush defense and diplomatic aides are substantial. They include concerns that procedures for inspection and verification aren't tough enough to deter cheaters. Case in point: Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which hid its programs to develop biological weapons under various food- and medicine-production guises. US critics of the protocol also worry that random inspections called for by the pact could allow trade secrets of US pharmaceutical companies to be stolen.

For protocol writers, these concerns pose a Catch-22 of sorts: Tougher inspections are needed, with fewer exemptions for industrial facilities - but such inspections mean more intrusions on company turf.

Such drafting difficulties, however, pale beside the need to do something to curb a particularly insidious and dangerous type of weaponry. Proponents of the protocol, which has an acceptance deadline of this November, argue persuasively that some enforcement system - though far from perfect - is better than no enforcement at all.

At the least, agreement on a protocol would signal a global commitment to tackle the problem. Also at the least, the United States should stay engaged with the process of crafting a workable enforcement structure, regardless of its concerns about the currently circulating draft.

That will reassure allies, and give no comfort to those rogue nations and terrorists who would be all too happy to have the world's only superpower stand aside.

-------- drug war

European Market Expands for Colombian Cocaine

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/world/29COLO.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 28 - As cocaine use in the United States has leveled off, trafficking to Europe from Colombia and other cocaine- producing South American countries has picked up, increasing at a particularly rapid pace since the mid- 1990's, according to the latest American data.

Estimates by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy indicate that up to 220 tons of cocaine flowed to Europe last year, as much as double the amount in 1996.

The United States, in comparison, received about 330 tons last year, a figure that has remained stable in recent years as consumption by casual users has fallen.

"It is certainly true that a bigger portion of cocaine goes to Europe than previously," said Klaus Nyholm, who oversees the United Nations Drug Control Program's office in Colombia. "The U.S. was the country of cocaine consumption par excellence, while the heroin and opiates were for Asia and Europe. What we see now is that the markets are coming to look more and more alike."

Europol, the European Union's fledgling police agency, said in a recent report that 35 percent of Colombia's cocaine was winding up in the union, entering mainly through Spain and the Netherlands. Seizures in member nations reached 43 tons in 1999, the report said, up 37 percent from the year before.

"There is a definite, unmistakable upward trend," said Robert Brown, acting deputy director for supply reduction at the White House drug policy office, which analyzes worldwide consumption and trafficking data.

The dire warning from American officials, some of whom say Europe is facing a crisis, have irked some European officials and drug policy experts.

They question Washington's assessment and view the new data as part of its effort to obtain more aid for Colombia's war on drugs, which was created with American pressure and involvement.

"There is very little sympathy and understanding," Martin Jelsma, a drug policy expert in the Netherlands, said of how Europeans view American policy toward Colombia.

"Based on private conversations I've had this year with officials from several European countries, the rejection of the current U.S. drug policy approach to Colombia is growing very clearly," added Mr. Jelsma, of the Transnational Institute, which analyzes drug use and international trafficking.

That approach relies on the American expenditure of $1.3 billion, most of it in military assistance, for the aerial spraying of herbicides on coca fields.

The Europeans have in general resisted supporting what they view as a military-style strategy that they say could intensify Colombia's 37- year-long conflict with leftist rebels, who are active in coca-growing areas and profit from the drug trade. The European Union instead recently pledged $293 million for social development programs in Colombia's impoverished countryside.

"There has been a tendency in Europe to look at the Colombian problem as one of the Colombians, of course, and the United States," said a high-ranking European official knowledgeable about drug interdiction efforts. "The Europeans are clearly dragging their feet. They are engaging more, yes, but from a very low level."

The Americans are irritated by Europe's stance. And in private conversations, American officials acknowledge working diplomatic channels to obtain more aid for Colombia.

"It's big business in Europe, and we think it's going to get a lot bigger," one State Department official said of the cocaine trade. "And we're trying to convince the Europeans to get concerned about it."

Trafficking to Europe is not new. Law enforcement authorities began detecting large-scale shipments in the 1980's, when Colombian drug cartels, battered by aggressive law enforcement, opened new routes to that largely untapped market. The demand in Europe, however, remained relatively modest through the early 1990's, dwarfed by a seemingly unquenchable appetite in the United States. That has changed.

The Colombians, for their part, have in recent months more openly pleaded for aid from European governments. Speaking of the common goal of eradicating drugs, President Andrés Pastrana has traveled to Europe and met here with numerous European delegations.

Other Colombians present the issue in starker terms. "They have been ashamed to say they have a problem, even though everyone sees what is happening," Rosso José Serrano, the former director of the Colombian National Police, said of the Europeans. "It seems to me that this is what happened in the United States, that they only took notice after the place was inundated with cocaine."

The Europeans bristle under such criticism, saying an emphasis on treatment and education in their own countries is a more viable solution to drug use.

European drug experts say American high-technology interdiction efforts and harsh enforcement inside the United States have had little impact in curtailing the flow of drugs to American users, an assertion many American drug experts do not dispute.

The Europeans are especially strongly opposed to aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia, which they say fails to address the country's deep social problems. Their opposition was highlighted in February when the European Parliament voted 474 to 1 to reject the American- supported spraying program in Colombia.

Europeans generally acknowledge that cocaine use, along with that of other drugs, is up, but they say American data exaggerate the increase.

"It's a slow increase," said Ingo Michels, who runs the office for the German drug commissioner. "The number has not been increasing dramatically in the last 10 years."

Yet European drug policy experts also acknowledge that drug consumption figures across the continent are not uniform and that the data are not as reliable as in the United States, which has been analyzing drug use and trafficking for much longer.

Europol says that between 1 and 3 percent of European adults and between 1 and 5 percent of young adults have sampled cocaine, comparable to figures for American consumption.

American estimates of drug flow to Europe are based, in part, on the theory that 25 percent of all drug shipments are seized or lost en route. And since about 50 European-bound tons of cocaine were seized in 1999, according to American figures, officials there say more than 200 tons were shipped.

The Americans said improved European interdiction efforts had helped lead to more seizures. But drug experts also say the high seizure rates in Europe - they increased by 15 percent a year in the 1990's - signal a rise in consumption.

By conservative estimates, according to American government reports, European cocaine use has grown by 10 percent a year in the 1990's. That rate, said the White House drug policy office, "is similar to the rate that U.S. consumption rose during its greatest increase," from the mid-1970's to mid-1980's.

Those developments come as Colombian cocaine trafficking has undergone major changes since 1993, when the Colombian police tracked down and killed Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the infamous leader of the Medellín cartel.

The large, flamboyant cartels of the Escobar era are gone. The Colombian cocaine trade is instead run by small, less visible trafficking groups that are more cautious and more willing to work with one another, said Francisco Thoumi, a Colombian-born economist who is writing a book about the Andean drug economy. Those groups have also come to rely on European markets more than their predecessors.

A window into the European drug pipeline was opened in April, when the Colombian Army tracked down Luiz Fernando da Costa, a powerful Brazilian trafficker who had been transporting cocaine via small private planes east to Suriname and south to Brazil. Much of the cocaine, the Colombian military said, then wound up in Europe.

Law enforcement officials here say Mr. da Costa's operation underscored how traffickers who have set their sights on Europe use circuitous routes, shipping cocaine along the Pacific coast to Chile or through the heart of South America to Argentina and Brazil. Container ships or freighters then transport the drugs to Europe.

"All these traffickers use the path of least resistance, to get away from enforcement," said Joseph D. Keefe, chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.

The extra effort, the experts say, is well worth it. In American cities, the price for a kilo of cocaine - about 2.2 pounds - can run below $20,000. But in Britain, the State Department says, a kilo can bring in $42,000 to $51,000, and in France, $35,000 to $45,000.

"You're talking about $18,000 a kilo in the United States when it's anywhere from $45,000 to $60,000 in Europe," said an official in the United States Embassy in Bogotá who works on drug issues. "So profit is the motive."

-------- puerto rico

Sharpton begins hunger strike over Vieques

USA TODAY
05/29/2001
Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-05-29-sharpton.htm

NEW YORK (AP) - The Rev. Al Sharpton began a hunger strike in jail Tuesday to publicize the Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques and his arrest protesting them, his lawyer said.

"Both his legal team and his family are concerned about Rev. Sharpton's health, but the hunger strike will continue until the release of the Vieques Four - as long as that takes," Sharpton's attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, said Tuesday.

Sharpton was arrested in Puerto Rico with three other men - City Councilman Adolfo Carrion, state Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Bronx County Democratic Party chairman Roberto Ramirez - for taking part in protests May 1 against the Navy's use of Vieques for military exercises. The men have been dubbed the "Vieques Four."

Sharpton was sentenced to serve 90 days by a federal judge in Puerto Rico because of a prior conviction for civil disobedience. The other three men were each sentenced to 40 days. They are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York.

"Rev. Sharpton is committed to keeping the focus of his imprisonment and the imprisonment of the Vieques Four on the issue of Vieques," said Rubenstein.

The Rev. T.L. Walker, who accompanied civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to jail in the 1960s, met with Sharpton on Monday afternoon, Rubenstein said.

Walker compared Sharpton's sentence with King's 40 years ago "when he protested Rich's Department Store with a sit-in," Rubenstein said. "The same thing has happened to Sharpton. He's been given twice the jail time just because he had a prior conviction for protesting over the Brooklyn Bridge."

Opposition to the bombing exercises grew after a civilian guard was killed on Vieques in 1999 by two off-target bombs. The Navy says the training is essential for national security.

Sharpton told The New York Times in Tuesday's editions that he would not eat until he was released.

Rubenstein also said that Sharpton and the other three men were denied their constitutional rights because they were not given the right or time to prepare a defense.

The four men could be released as early as Tuesday, once an appeals court in Boston rules on whether the men can be released on bail while they appeal their convictions.

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

Misconduct, Corruption by U.S. Police Mar Bosnia Mission
U.N., Europeans Query Push To Bring In More Officers

By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A88992-2001May28?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS -- In the five years since international police officers were sent to Bosnia to help restore law and order, the U.N. police mission there has faced numerous charges of misconduct, corruption and sexual impropriety. But in virtually every case, the allegations have been hushed up by sending officers home, often without a full investigation, according to internal U.N. reports and interviews with U.S. and European officials.

The troubles of the U.N. police mission in Bosnia have important consequences for the Bush administration. Eager to scale back military commitments, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is pushing to reduce the 3,350 American soldiers on peacekeeping duty in Bosnia and replace them with civilian police.

But some U.N. and European officials question the wisdom of shifting responsibility onto the international police force without first addressing its flaws, including low recruitment standards, a hazy command structure and the ability of individual officers to act with near impunity.

"Here we are, international police officers hoping to demonstrate and impress the locals with democratic policing and high moral values, and we're actually presenting them with one or two people who ought to be investigated and locked up," said Richard Monk, a top British police officer who served as the U.N. police commissioner in 1997.

Among the 1,832 U.N. police in Bosnia are 161 officers from the United States. Although the record of the U.S. contingent is no worse than others, senior American officials acknowledge serious problems in selecting and training U.S. police officers to serve in Bosnia. That job has been given to a private, Texas-based corporation, DynCorp Technical Services, under an exclusive, $15 million annual contract with the State Department.

In the past year alone, at least three American policemen were removed from the Bosnian mission for sexual misconduct and exceeding their authority, according to U.N. officials.

In prior cases, several other U.S. officers had been forced to resign under suspicion of committing statutory rape, abetting prostitution and accepting valuable gifts from Bosnian officials. Yet none was prosecuted. The most serious punishment imposed on an American officer was dismissal and the loss of a $4,600 bonus.

Asked about the allegations, DynCorp issued a statement voicing disappointment "that the misconduct of a few individuals has cast a shadow on the more than 2,000 police monitors who have helped to achieve the U.N. mission to rebuild these nations."

"Upon learning of the allegations from U.N. officials, we acted swiftly and responsibly, terminating and repatriating the individuals involved," the company said but refuses to disclose how many U.S. officers have been sent home.

International police have diplomatic immunity from prosecution in Bosnia, and unless their governments waive that immunity, the most severe punishment the United Nations can impose on renegade officers is to send them home.

Thomas Miller, the U.S. ambassador in Bosnia, conceded that in a race to find American police willing to serve abroad, the U.S. contingent accepted some officers who were unfit to serve on the International Police Task Force, or IPTF.

"In terms of the quality of U.S. IPTF folks, I have seen some really good ones," Miller said. "And I've heard about some not so good ones. No, let's be honest, bad ones."

American officials say the failings are due to inexperience in international policing and the absence of a national police force like France's Gendarmerie or Italy's Carabinieri. American participation in U.N. civilian police, or CivPol, missions has increased from about 50 American officers in Haiti in 1993 to about 880 serving today in U.N. missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.

President Bill Clinton issued a directive in February 2000 acknowledging that "the current process used by our government to recruit, prepare, train and deploy civilian police officers to CivPol operations is not adequate."

Last summer, the White House asked the FBI and police commissioners from major U.S. cities to provide a reserve of police officers who could be sent abroad to serve in U.N. missions. But the FBI and big city police departments demurred. "They slammed the door on us," said a former Clinton administration official.

Recruiting Difficulties

When the U.N. mission in Bosnia began in 1996, DynCorp scoured U.S. police departments in search of bored or underpaid officers looking for a change of pace. Advertisements in police publications promised adventure in a distant land for as much as $100,000 a year. To meet the State Department's demand for police, the company hired many retired officers, including some older than 65.

According to U.N. and DynCorp officials, many of the U.S. officers have performed nobly, even donating money and labor to local charities.

"The top 10 percent [of the American contingent] were fantastic: They are what made the mission," said a former U.N. police officer who requested anonymity. "But the bottom 10 percent made your eyes water."

One former Illinois state trooper was wearing a pacemaker when he arrived in the town of Stolac to set up the U.N. police headquarters, according to Steve Smith, a former officer from Santa Cruz, Calif., who served as the U.N.'s regional commander in Stolac.

"There was [another] guy, he was very elderly, in his sixties, that couldn't stay awake," Smith said. "He was very overweight, he waddled rather than walked. Neither one of them could have passed a physical."

But the main trouble with American officers, in Smith's view, was that they were difficult to command.

"It's easy to keep the French guys in line because they come from the Gendarmerie Nationale and they get an evaluation at the end of their stay," he said. "For the Americans, on the other hand, there are no professional consequences unless they want to keep working for DynCorp. The problem is that you have no hammer. . . .

"They're making $85,000 in a place where everyone else is making $5,000 and they're chasing whores, they're shacking up with young women, and they're basically just having a good time," Smith said.

Although U.N. officials said they were disappointed in the Americans, they conceded that the U.S. contingent was far from the weakest in the mission. Indonesia, Pakistan and Nepal sent police officers who could not speak English -- the working language of the IPTF -- or drive a vehicle, officials said. Jordanians, Pakistanis and Germans have also been sent home for sexual misconduct.

The Ukrainian contingent in Stolac made it abundantly clear that they had come to Bosnia to make money, not reform the local police, Smith said. He said their compound was packed with cars they were reselling for a profit back home.

The IPTF was created by the Dayton peace accord, which ended Bosnia's civil war in 1995. Its task was to integrate the country's warring Muslim, Croat and Serb officers into a national police force and monitor their activities. However, the U.N. officers are prohibited from carrying arms and do not have authority to make arrests; their role is mainly to monitor and advise local police.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton agreement, has described the police mission as its "weakest" component.

Murky Chain of Command

Among the problems is a fuzzy command structure that gives the U.N. brass limited authority over police officers recruited from more than 45 countries with widely varying law enforcement systems.

Mark Kroeker, now police commissioner in Portland, Ore., said that in an American police department, the chief "calls all the shots." If there are allegations of misconduct, he said, "you do your investigation, you impose discipline, and it's over." But in Bosnia, where he served as a deputy commissioner until 1998, "There were so many overlapping policies and rules and laws that it made it very diffuse."

The final say in disciplinary matters, according to Kroeker and U.N. officials, rests with the home governments, which seldom are interested in prosecuting or even thoroughly investigating the muddy allegations that arise in the Balkans.

One American officer was fired in December after the United Nations learned that he had paid 6,000 German marks -- about $2,900 -- to acquire "ownership" of a Moldovian prostitute he met at a brothel in Sarajevo.

She lived with the officer for several months before leaving him in a quarrel and returning to the brothel, according to senior U.S. and U.N. officials.

Some commanders took a lenient view. "This American was a rather innocent dupe," said a senior U.N. official. "It's actually a love story. He fell in love with this girl and bought her freedom."

Miller, the U.S. ambassador, said he had little sympathy for the officer.

"Maybe I'm just simplistic, but money was paid for a human being. . . . That's wrong. That's just plain and simply wrong," Miller said.

That incident was only the latest in a series of alleged misconduct cases that have tarnished American police officials in Bosnia.

David McBride, 53, a former Oklahoma commissioner of public safety, rose quickly through the IPTF ranks to become deputy police commissioner before he was forced to resign in August 1999.

An internal disciplinary panel concluded that he had violated the code of conduct by accepting financial favors from local government authorities, including a free room at the Interior Ministry's guest house, a mobile phone and use of a VW Golf automobile. When McBride traveled to the provincial town of Jace for a meeting, a local Bosnian-Croat police chief, Jozo Lucic, paid his hotel bill, according to U.N. investigators and McBride himself.

Senior U.N. and DynCorp officials said the gifts and McBride's failure to file reports on his meetings with local authorities had created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

McBride contends that he was a victim of character assassination by U.N. personnel who clashed with him over police policy. In a telephone interview, he said he had told his superiors about the gifts. He also furnished copies of e-mail messages in which he informed U.N. authorities about where he was living and who had supplied his cell phone.

"At no time ever did I do anything improper, unethical or illegal," McBride said. "Had I known what I know now -- that things in Bosnia are political and blown out of proportion -- I would be much more careful to avoid putting myself in a position that could be construed, for political purposes, as being inappropriate."

Nevertheless, European officials cite the McBride case and other alleged instances of American misconduct as evidence that DynCorp has provided the United Nations with substandard police.

"I have always been concerned about how the United States did its recruitment," said Eric Morris, a senior U.N. official who set up the panel that examined McBride's activities. "The United States says that they have no choice because they don't have a national police force. We always felt quality control was lacking."

In another case, Peter Alzugaray, 53, a former Miami police officer, attracted the attention of U.N. investigators in the spring of 1997, a year after he allegedly began a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old Bosnian girl in the town of Drvar.

"He said he was adopting her. She said that he had given her two rings, and that he was going to take her to America," said a U.N. official familiar with the case. "And the mother signed a document saying the girl could live with this guy."

A DynCorp official said the company fired Alzugaray and stripped him of his police gear as soon as it learned of the situation. But he disappeared before the company could send him back to the United States, the DynCorp official said.

Alzugaray acknowledged in an interview that the United Nations accused him of having sexual relations with a minor. But he said the Bosnian woman was actually 17 years old when he met her. And, he said, they waited a year before they began a sexual relationship, got married and moved to Miami.

"If she would have been a minor, would the Americans have given her a visa?" to come to Miami, he asked.

The relationship ended, he said, when she learned he had lied to her about owning a house in America and having only one ex-wife and two children. After arriving in Miami, they moved into a room in his sister's home, and he admitted that he had been married three times and had six children, Alzugaray said.

Last July, he said, the Bosnian woman visited an aunt in Texas, "met a young man and never came back."

U.N. officials insist that there has been steady improvement in the quality of international police serving in Bosnia, East Timor and elsewhere. DynCorp, for example, now requires American officers to undergo more strenuous fitness tests.

"To their credit, there has been a visible tightening of the standards," a U.N. official said, referring to the United States. "They have gone from a horrible standard to an adequate one."

Yet the U.S. contingent continues to face disciplinary problems.

In December, two American, two British and two Spanish police officers were forced out of the IPTF after they overstepped their authority by raiding three brothels and freeing 34 women. The top U.N. official in Bosnia, Jaques Klein, initially described the men as overzealous but superb officers who had acted out of moral outrage.

Under questioning by U.N. police investigators, however, some of the officers admitted having had sexual relations with women they had rescued, according to U.N. sources and an internal U.N. document. A British officer who participated in the raid told U.N. investigators that his colleagues had been regular customers at the three brothels.

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

Dutch OK U.S. Use of Caribbean Base

The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010529/aponline214418_000.htm

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The Dutch parliament endorsed a treaty Tuesday allowing U.S. aircraft to use Dutch bases in the Caribbean as staging areas in the fight against drug trafficking.

The measure was approved despite some objections that the treaty could draw the Netherlands too deeply into U.S. military operations.

As the treaty was debated, dozens of activists from political youth organizations demonstrated against the motion, and some poured a red liquid on the carpet at the entrance to the parliament building. Police detained 14 people.

The treaty allows U.S. aircraft to use facilities on Aruba and Curacao while making surveillance flights in Latin America. The two islands are autonomous areas within the Dutch kingdom, whose foreign affairs are controlled from the Netherlands.

The staging centers have been denounced by nearby Venezuela, which says they fall within its security zone.

----

New weapons deferred for health

May 29, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010529-69244174.htm

The White House will approve up to $30 billion in added Pentagon spending next year, not for big weapons, but for creature comforts, defense officials say.

The sources said the new money will be added to the Defense Department´s pending $310 billion plan for fiscal 2002, which begins Oct. 1. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to present the augmented budget to Congress next month. The money would come from the projected federal budget surplus.

The new pot of money will provide up to $8 billion for military health care and $12 billion to repair and build housing and facilities. The remaining funds would go to various accounts such as research and development.

In addition, Mr. Rumsfeld is expected to ask Congress to provide $6.5 billion in emergency money for the ongoing budget to shore up combat readiness. The chiefs of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps want this money to pay fuel bills, buy spare parts and patch up substandard barracks and offices.

While the new spending this year and in 2002 would meet immediate needs, major questions remain on President Bush´s long-range plans for the military. Those answers will start to emerge this fall, when Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff make decisions on an overriding military strategy and how to build the force to meet it. His decisions will be incorporated in the fiscal 2003 budget presented to Congress next February.

Defense officials say that if the White House limits increases to $30 billion or less annually, the Pentagon simply cannot afford the array of major weapons systems awaiting production in the quantity requested. These include the Air Force´s $62 billion F-22 fighter program and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) procurement of 3,000 aircraft for $300 billion.

The services have lobbied for up to $100 billion more a year to modernize the 1.4-million-troop force.

Mr. Rumsfeld, in several sessions with reporters last week, made it clear he has made no final decisions on strategy or weapons.

"We have not gotten to the point of addressing weapons systems or specifics," the defense secretary said. "We will in the context of the ´03 budget."

The vehicle to spell out the new policies is the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) due to be presented to Congress by Sept. 30. The Pentagon recently moved the study into full gear.

The QDR process lay dormant for weeks while study panels appointed by Mr. Rumsfeld turned in recommendations.

So far, major-ticket items such as the F-22, the JSF, the Marine Corps´ V-22 Osprey and large-deck Navy carriers have escaped any recommendation for cancellation by the early study panels.

But Mr. Rumsfeld will make final decisions.

Mr. Bush campaigned on transforming the military into a more agile force able to cope with a variety of threats in the new century, not just conventional conflicts, such as the 1991 Persian Gulf war. He quickly ordered Mr. Rumsfeld to conduct a top-to-bottom review, and come up with new policies and promising systems.

"There is an impression that I arrived in Washington with fully developed views on every single aspect of the defense establishment," said Mr. Rumsfeld, a corporate executive who ran the Pentagon in the mid-1970s. "The reality is I didn´t. . . . I have a lot of impressions, and I am prepared to begin discussing those impressions. But in terms of suggesting that there´re conclusions or I´ve rejected a lot of alternatives, the answer is that that´s just not the case."

In his commencement speech at the Naval Academy on Friday, Mr. Bush hinted at two new policies. He said graduates may one day see Trident ballistic missile submarines converted to carry hundreds of land-attack cruise missiles. And he suggested that the Navy´s Aegis destroyers will one day track and hunt ballistic missiles as part of a global anti-missile system.

----

Military plane crashes on Florida ranch

USA TODAY
05/29/2001
Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-05-29-plane.htm

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) - A Navy F-18 jet fighter crashed nose-first Tuesday on a ranch northeast of Lake Okeechobee. Authorities said it didn't appear the pilot survived.

The plane went down about 10:30 a.m. on the V-Bar-2 Ranch a few miles east of the Okeechobee County line, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said.

Sheriff Ken Mascara said a sheriff's helicopter called off a search after a half hour because officials didn't see any survivors or parachutes.

The jet took off from Oceana Naval Air Station, Va., and was believed to be headed to Key West, said Lt. Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a Navy spokeswoman in Washington.

Oceana officials said a F/A-18C jet fighter on a routine training mission was reported missing in South Florida.

The single-seater Hornet was assigned to Oceana's Strike Fighter Squadron 106, but the Navy said it hadn't yet confirmed that the wrecked plane was the one that was missing.

Witnesses at the cattle ranch saw the plane go down but didn't see anyone eject, said sheriff's office spokesman Mark Weinberg.

County Fire District spokesman Capt. Tom Whitley said witnesses reported seeing the aircraft "coming nose down from the sky."

Large pieces of wreckage lay in a crater 15 feet deep and 20 feet wide, Whitley said. Smaller pieces of the plane were scattered in a half-mile circle around the wreck.

The F/A-18C is the standard Navy and Marine Corps fighter. The Hornet, which also comes in a two-seat version, was used extensively in strikes against Iraq during the Gulf War.

--------

China Bars U.S. Warship From Visiting Hong Kong

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/china-usa-hongkong.html

HONG KONG, May 29 (Reuters) - China has refused permission for a U.S. warship to visit Hong Kong, the first denial since a mid-air collision between an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet off the south China coast on April 1.

``China informed the consulate on May 15 that it has denied a request for the USS Inchon to visit Hong Kong from June 28 to July 3,'' said U.S. consulate spokeswoman Barbara Zigli.

She said no reason was given for China's refusal.

It was the first request by the U.S. military for a ship to dock in Hong Kong since the spy plane incident, but not the first time China has refused permission.

The two sides agreed only this week on the return of the US$80 million EP-3 spy plane from Hainan island, where it made an emergency landing.

Zigli said the Inchon, a minesweeper, had wanted to make a routine stop in the former British colony, which was handed back to China in mid-1997.

Sixty to 70 U.S. warships visit each year, contributing more than US$50 million to the local economy.

China barred visits by U.S. navy ships to Hong Kong for three months after U.S. warplanes bombed China's embassy in Belgrade in May 1999, killing three people.

Zigli said the routine U.S. port visits resumed in September 1999 and ``there hasn't been a disapproval until this one.''

-------

Army Chief Seeks Changes to Improve Lives

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/national/29ARMY.html

WASHINGTON, May 28 - Responding to an Army survey of more than 13,000 officers, soldiers and family members released just before the Memorial Day holiday, the Army chief of staff has acknowledged that too many qualified personnel and future commanders are leaving and has pledged to improve the morale of service members and their families.

The chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said his goal was to make sweeping changes in how the Army trained and transferred personnel.

General Shinseki said he wanted an Army that rotated its troops only in the summer, when it would be less disruptive to families with school- age children, and that any transfer order for a move in less than six months be reviewed by a senior officer to assure that the stress of a last- minute move was warranted.

The Army must help its soldiers and officers find a balance between service and family, General Shinseki said, so he is instructing senior commanders to cut back and even cancel weekend training.

"We have an Army smaller than the mission profiles we have," he said in an interview. "The things we are asked to do and be ready for are significant. There is more to do than there is time to do it."

General Shinseki's comments did not cover pay, benefits or housing, which must be financed by Congress, but those areas of Army life that are completely under the control of Army officers.

He emphasized, of course, that front-line duties must always come first: "If a Somalia blows up and we have to get a contingency there, that's an operational requirement. That's what we're paid to do."

"But it's the routine replacement actions that are the problem," he added. "And if we wanted to, we could work every weekend. We lose great youngsters who don't see any way out of this box. Unless the senior leadership provides some balance to this, enforces some balance, we end up burning our youngsters at both ends."

The discussion of General Shinseki's plans for improving Army life was his first detailed response to the blistering survey. In the Army Training and Leader Development report, directed by Lt. Gen. William M. Steele, commander of the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., more than two-thirds of those surveyed said the Army had unacceptable standards for quality of life.

"What came out of the study was reinforcement for concerns that many of us have had and wrestled with over the years," General Shinseki said. "A good portion of that study described things we lived with ourselves. These were things that needed to be corrected for years. And the time is now for doing what's right."

Today, the Army transfers its troops in more or less equal monthly rotations. On his plans to move the entire Army to summer rotations, General Shinseki conceded, "we couldn't change the whole system today if we wanted to."

"But," he said, "I've asked the question, Does it make sense to go to all summer moves? Initially the answer came back, `We can't do it.' But I said, `That's not the question. The question is, Does it make sense? And then the answer came back, `Well, yes, we think it does make sense.' So I said, `O.K., then, let's put a plan in place to achieve that in time.' "

General Shinseki said he had begun rotating officers in the summer, both because he had more control over the change of commanders and to illustrate to those commanders the value of summer transfers.

"If we can demonstrate to commanders, `Look. We've invested in the movement of you and your family and put you on a summer cycle. Don't you think, commander, that this is a good thing for you to do for your subordinates?' " he said.

Soldiers with children entering their senior year of high school will be allowed to request a delay of transfer until after that child graduates, General Shinseki said, and he is working with public school districts surrounding the Army's largest installations to waive requirements for state history exams and instead accept scores from history exams of any state in which that child has lived. The Army is also asking these school districts to be more lenient in accepting newly transferred students into extracurricular activities and sports.

General Shinseki said he was particularly concerned about the number of hastily ordered transfers, which put extreme stress on Army families.

"I will not take these last-minute taskings and shove it down on subordinates," he said.

As a first step, General Shinseki said, he reviews every transfer of the Army Headquarters staff members at the Pentagon that requires a move in fewer than six months.

"And if there isn't what I think is a reasonable explanation for why we subject our subordinates to this late tasking, I won't send them," he said. "I expect every commanding officer to take on this same responsibility."

General Shinseki also said he had "instructed senior leaders to preserve weekends to provide that balance to our youngsters, understanding that there are things that get put off to next week."

The Army today has about 479,000 active troops, with 120,000 of them deployed in forward bases abroad. But all militaries calculate deployment numbers in multiples of three: For every soldier on a mission, one is training to take over that role, and one has just returned from the mission and must go through retraining.

"My Navy friends say, `Why are you so concerned?' " General Shinseki said. "I tell them, `You take six- month cruises. You define your rhythm by these six-month cruises.' Well, I've got a six-month cruise. It's called the U.S.S. Bosnia, the U.S.S. Kosovo, the U.S.S. Sinai, the U.S.S. Southwest Asia. And I have a one- year cruise called the U.S.S. Korea. I don't think any other force rotates like we do."

General Shinseki will sit with the other service chiefs this week at a series of meetings in the Pentagon's secure conference room, known as the Tank, during which Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to discuss more than a dozen military review panels he initiated. Those conclusions will be integrated into the Quadrennial Defense Review required by Congress, which will define the guiding military strategy - as well as the weapons and personnel it will need to carry out that strategy.

The Army has long been criticized as being the least deft of the armed services in lobbying for its cause with Congress and the public. General Shinseki comes in for his share of complaints as being cut from this same conservative mold when it comes to politicking and public relations - especially as he pursues his vision of transforming the Army from heavy divisions, dependent on tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, to a lighter, more lethal force.

But General Shinseki says he has decided to push Army transformation from inside the Army. For example, since becoming chief of staff in June 1999, he has traveled to every pre-command course to speak to the rising generation of officers, and their spouses, about Army transformation, and the quality-of-life issues that concern them.

"I am now coming up on my second anniversary," the general said. "Our commands are generally two years long. I will have spoken to just about every battalion and brigade commander currently in the force, whether they are in Korea or Bosnia or Germany or across the United States. They and their spouses have had a chance to hear the chief speak about transformation, and to answer the questions on their minds."

--------

Joint Chiefs Head to Visit India

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-India.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will visit India this week as part of a world tour that also will take him to the Middle East and NATO headquarters in Europe.

It will be Shelton's first trip to India as joint chiefs chairman. He will be the highest ranking U.S. military officer to visit since India's nuclear test in 1998, which prompted the Clinton administration to scale back military-to-military contacts.

Shelton's trip does not include a stop in Pakistan. Previous U.S. administrations have been closer to Pakistan than India, but that tilt began to change at the end of former President Clinton's term after Gen. Pervez Musharraf came to power in Islamabad in a military coup.

No details of Shelton's meetings in India were released.

He also will travel to Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt as well as attend NATO meetings in Brussels, Belgium on June 7-8.

-------

Pentagon Scaling Back Expectations

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Rumsfeld-Reviews.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The secretive policy reviews that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld undertook three months ago to begin modernizing the military are likely to result in less radical change that commonly believed, his spokesman said Tuesday.

``I think there was a widespread perception that there would be many more near-term announcements of dramatic change than what we're actually going to see,'' said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley.

In fact there have been no dramatic changes yet. Even for one of President Bush's highest national security priorities -- missile defense -- Rumsfeld has yet to come up with specific program changes.

Rumsfeld on Tuesday held the first in a series of meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on how to approach yet another major review of the military. The quadrennial defense review, or QDR, is required by law and is due to Congress by Sept. 30.

The last QDR, in 1997, was based on a strategy that Bush has criticized for getting the U.S. military involved in too many peacekeeping and other non-combat missions. Bush directed Rumsfeld to come up with another strategy, but so far the defense secretary has not said publicly what it will be.

Adding to the uncertainty is the Democratic takeover of the Senate, although Rumsfeld said last week he saw no reason to expect that the shift in political power would necessarily affect his relations with Congress.

Quigley said the policy reviews Rumsfeld requested shortly after he took office in January are now largely done. Most will not result in published papers but were meant to ``stimulate his thinking'' on important topics, such as the proper size of the military and other subjects to be studied in the QDR.

Quigley said Rumsfeld has not yet presented President Bush with a final version of his defense strategy, nor has Rumsfeld decided what portions of the various policy reviews will be made public, or when.

``I don't think the secretary has a complete understanding in his own mind of how he wants to fold all the parts together,'' the spokesman said.

The air of uncertainty in which the Pentagon has operated since Rumsfeld took office has frustrated and even angered some senior military leaders, although they have kept their concerns mostly private. Many have said that Rumsfeld, until recently, consulted them less than they would have liked on important issues affecting the future of their service branches.

Rumsfeld planned to meet each day this week, starting Tuesday, with the service chiefs, Quigley said. The sessions will culminate on Saturday with a session that will also include the commanders of the warfighting commands around the world.

Quigley was asked whether Rumsfeld had, in effect, scaled back the size of his expectations for shaking up the Pentagon.

``No, he just didn't know what he was going to find when he started down this road,'' Quigley replied. ``He started a process to help him better understand the issues ... and how they were going to be rolled out, in what manner, in what time frame. He didn't have a clue in the early February time frame when he started this effort.

``As time has passed and the studies have matured and his thinking has matured, I think he has a better understanding, but he was never on much of a timetable.''

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Farmers turn depressed farm commodities into gold

UK: May 29, 2001
Story by Sharman Esarey
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10986&newsDate=29-May-2001

LONDON - Once coffee belonged in a cup, potatoes on a plate and wool on one's back but soon they may crop up in more unexpected spots like roads, medicines or roofing.

Driven by historically low prices across agricultural commodities, hard-hit farmers and major producing countries are busy researching new uses for products from rubber to maize to tap into growing demand for natural products.

They are discovering that palm oil can power an engine as well as fry potatoes, and that those same spuds can be dinner or clean radiation-tainted earth. Rubber needn't go just to make tyres - it can help stabilise buildings in earthquakes.

New markets would come none too soon as farmers struggle with prices that have in some cases sunk to all-time lows with only modest improvement forecast in the next few years.

LOW COMMODITY PRICES THREATEN POVERTY

"Many (coffee farmers) have become significantly poorer and have to live on less than a dollar a day," Jorge Cardenas, general manager of Colombia's National Federation of Coffee Growers said recently in London.

"Export prices in constant U.S. dollars are the lowest since 1900 and below those recorded during the Great Depression of the 1930s."

The situation is so dire that the British development agency Oxfam called earlier this month for a global coffee initiative.

It warned that failure to act could consign millions of farmers and their families to extreme poverty and undermine the United Nations' goal to halve global poverty by 2015.

The U.N. has estimated that some 1.2 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty and three-quarters of them are in rural areas, making agricultural support essential.

So far, producers' desperate scramble to boost incomes - by warehousing, slashing or even burning their key crops and top foreign cash earners - has left world markets unimpressed.

Top coffee producer Brazil has spearheaded a year-long drive to stockpile millions of bags of unwanted beans. Major cocoa producer Ivory Coast sent some of its cocoa pods up in smoke.

And Indonesia, the world's second largest rubber producer, said this month it would cut its output.

"Right now, prices have been going down sharply. We need action," said Indonesian Trade and Industry Minister Luhut Pandjaitan.

At a U.N. conference on Least Developed Countries, held in Brussels this month, the chief of the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) urged more effort to achieve the poverty reduction goals set at last June's Millennium Summit.

IFAD head Lennart Bage has criticised the level of subsidies still being used in agriculture in most developed economies, saying they distorted competition and that poor countries also faced trade obstacles in the form of quality controls.

"WE NEED ACTION"

Down on the farm in Britain, the view is little better.

Christine Armstrong, a sheep farmer and businesswoman who lives just outside scenic Penrith in northwest England, looks out over the wall of her 18th-century farmhouse to empty and silent green fields once filled with bleating sheep.

So far, her own flock is safe but the foot and mouth epidemic has wreaked havoc on the tourist zone of the Lake District and Armstrong has her own innovative response.

"It's fairly devastating at the moment. The people who have lost everything wonder what the future holds," she said. "We have to fight back for it; we have to send a clear message we aren't going to give in."

She has set up manufacturing low-grade wool as building insulation, giving value to fleeces which were once discarded.

Much of the selling point for such a product is that it is natural, biodegradable, kind to the environment and human health and stems from a renewable resource.

There are a host of similar projects underway in agricultural grains, oilseeds, vegetables and soft commodities.

NON-EDIBLE USES FOR FOOD

In Britain, the government has just launched a forum on non-food uses for crops.

"The difficulties currently being experienced by the farming industry will inevitably stimulate interest in alternative enterprises and non-food uses of crops can be one opportunity," said Agriculture Minister of State Joyce Quin.

"Agriculture has a major role to play in securing the benefits of using renewable resources set against concerns about the environmental impact of using finite resources such as fossil fuels and minerals."

Researchers say that wheat, maize, rapeseed and starch from crops could provide a well of resources for a number of uses scientists are still dreaming up and which range from bio-energy to drugs and personal care items to specialist materials.

Maize, sugar, palm oil and oilseeds are under study as fossil fuel alternatives; coffee, sugar and grains could all see uses in construction. Sugar, cocoa and coffee could be used as feed or fodder. Maize starch is being made into plastic.

In Ukraine, near Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, scientists are planting potatoes and tubers to suck out the radiation from the tainted soil.

In earthquake zones, builders are experimenting with rubber to stabilise buildings.

Even if you're a city dweller, or perhaps especially so, your next home may be made of straw or be insulated with wool.

"In towns (people) may live in smoke and smog but they want to do what they can to screen it out...they want to make it as nice for themselves as they can," Armstrong said.

----

It's Still Dawn for Solar Power in L.A.
Despite City Subsidies, Homeowners Hesitate to Install Expensive Alternative Energy Source

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A88876-2001May28?language=printer

LOS ANGELES - One year ago this city announced its intent to become "the Solar Capital of the World," with 100,000 roofs covered with solar electric panels by the end of the decade, an audacious goal to transform the homes of this smoggy but sunny metropolis into miniature power plants.

To fulfill what is perhaps the nation's most ambitious solar campaign, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began offering substantial "buy down" subsidies that would reimburse rate payers for half the price of each new solar energy system. For the average home, a photovoltaic package costs between $10,000 and $20,000, parts and labor included, before the rebate.

How many have been installed?

At last count, about 40.

That leaves only 99,960 rooftops to go.

The Bush administration, and especially Vice President Cheney, architect of its energy plan, have been criticized for skepticism regarding alternative energy sources. But a close examination of the Los Angeles solar experiment and a review of similar programs suggest the former oilmen in the White House have a point: Solar, at least, has not proven ready for prime time.

For all of Los Angeles's good intentions, and for all of solar's many positive attributes, the problems of harnessing its power remain. Some of those challenges are economic and some technological; others are more mundane, but often ignored, such as finding a qualified contractor a homeowner can trust to drill dozens of holes in the roofs to mount the things.

In a reprise of the 1980s, solar again is hot. The price of photovoltaics is dropping and interest is growing. Other states such as New York, Arizona, Florida and Washington are moving to join California in major efforts to wire homes to draw power from the sun.

But as many Americans are beginning to understand, the delivery of energy is like a complex, interconnected assembly line, and the devil lurks in the details.

The Los Angeles experiment tells the story shared by other locales. In L.A., for example, the city's lone solar panel manufacturer has not been able to supply enough systems to meet demand. The systems, too, are often oversold by solar proponents. In the real world, most do not pay for themselves in a few years, as some advocates claim, but take 20 years or more to return their initial cost in the form of reduced utility bills.

Nor are the systems maintenance-free: At a minimum, the rooftop panels must be routinely cleaned of pollution, dust and leaves.

They cannot be installed efficiently on homes without shade-free, south-facing roofs; the shadow from a neighbor's palm tree can frustrate the system's photovoltaic cells.

Nor will the most common systems allow buyers to live "off the grid," unless they want to purchase a large bank of batteries. Even with the batteries, homeowners probably would not be able to run their washing machines and air conditioners at the same time.

"It is not an economic proposition at this point," conceded Terry Peterson, a solar expert at Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif. But one day, Peterson predicts, 100 years from now, solar energy will provide a substantial percentage of the world's energy needs. In a decade or two, the cost of solar will likely be competitive with other energy sources such as natural gas, nuclear or coal.

But now? It is still a luxury item. "Like buying a swimming pool," Peterson said.

"I really like the idea of running my house with solar power," said Andrew Chin, a potential customer in Los Angeles who has been researching a purchase. "But they're still pretty expensive, even with the rebates, and so I gotta ask myself, what am I doing this for," his conscience or his wallet. "I'm thinking I might wait until they work the kinks out."

Energy Woes Spark Interest

The most knowledgeable and experienced solar contractor in Los Angeles is probably Graham Owen, the founder, owner and single full-time employee of Go Solar Co.

His installation of a one-kilowatt solar electric system on a home in the San Fernando Valley was the first to be awarded a rebate by the Los Angeles power department in March.

How many systems has he installed as part of the rebate program? Three.

But Owen is a true believer, and over the next year, he plans to cover hundreds of roofs with solar panels. On his shelf, Owen still has an unreturned library book, "The Coming Age of Solar Energy," published in 1963, and checked out from his high school in Lennox Hills, Ill., in 1979. "I guess we're still stuck in the coming age of solar energy," he said, smiling. He recalled that the buzz about solar water heaters in the 1980s led to disappointment with shoddy workmanship and less than spectacular energy savings.

Until recently, there has been little widespread interest in solar electric power. Since 1998, the California Energy Commission has been pushing its own program to encourage homeowners to erect photovoltaic panels on their roofs, offering to subsidize about one-third of the cost.

Across a state with a population of about 35 million, only 450 solar energy systems have been installed on homes.

Then the California energy crisis struck, with its power interruptions and steep rate increases, and the phone calls began to overwhelm Owen's voice mail.

"On days with rolling blackouts? I get a hundred calls, maybe more," Owen says. His Web site,www.solarexpert.com, is now receiving 3,000 hits a day. Customers are begging him to do jobs.

The Los Angeles power department reports a similar surge in interest since the energy crisis began six months ago. "Customer demand has shot through the roof," says Angelina Galiteva, executive director for strategic planning at the Department of Water and Power. She estimates that her department receives 1,000 calls on some days about its solar subsidy program.

Still on the Grid

Yet while the reliability and cost of solar electric technologies continue to improve, solar power today accounts for only a sliver of the national pie chart of energy production -- less than 1 percent. The country produces about 300 megawatts of electricity with solar -- about the same amount produced by a single mid-sized traditional power plant.

The current trend for photovoltaics is not to erect large centralized solar farms in the desert, an experiment that withered in the 1980s, but to pursue "distributed generation" or individual units on scattered rooftops.

The problem has consistently been the cost of the solar panels, which has been too steep to justify them, except for customers who are committed environmentalists or techies who like the elegance of the systems.

Los Angeles began its solar experiment after Sacramento legislators mandated that utilities spend about 3 percent of their revenue on efficiency, conservation and renewable energy. For solar, the power department committed $75 million over the next five years -- enough to subsidize panels on 7,500 homes.

The power department will pay $5 for each watt of solar installed on a residence or business. Homeowners typically purchase a one-kilowatt or two-kilowatt (1,000 or 2,000 watts, respectively) solar electric system, meaning that the municipal utility would pay between $5,000 and $10,000 of the cost up front -- an enticing, tax-free offer.

"For many years, I wanted to do solar, but it was so expensive," said LaWanda Geary in the San Fernando Valley, who in April had Owen install 32 panels for a two-kilowatt system on her sunny roof. "The rebate really got me going. I don't know many times when the government offers to pay half of anything."

The systems that are eligible for rebates must be tied into a utility's electric power grid, meaning that during the day, when the sun is shining, the panels are adding a stream of electrons used by the home to run its lights and appliances.

If there is a surplus of solar power, that electricity goes back into the power lines and is passed along to a neighbor, and the electric meter at the house actually runs backward. Homeowners, however, are not selling their excess electricity -- they're giving it away to the utility company.

On cloudy days, and at night, the home is not being powered by solar energy, but getting its electricity the traditional way from the power lines.

Calculations on savings vary. A two-kilowatt solar system can supply an average-sized home with 20 to 80 percent of its electrical needs, depending on how many lights, appliances and air conditioners are running, and how efficient they are.

After the subsidy, and depending on how the system is paid for (in cash or with borrowed funds), a solar system can pay for itself in as little as six years and as much as 36 years. Owen assumes about 20 years.

Potential solar clients, moreover, often mistakenly assume that going with the sun will take them off the grid, which is not possible without a large bank of batteries that costs several thousand dollars more. Because the solar panels are still wired to the power grid, if there is a blackout, the power in a solar house goes off, just like everyone else's. If uninterrupted power is needed, Owen suggests a diesel generator.

Galiteva does cite one real advantage of solar: It reduces the electricity that must be purchased from power companies and protects, to some degree, a solar home from the full brunt of upwardly spiraling rate increases. Unfortunately for solar enthusiasts, the L.A. Department of Water and Power, which was not deregulated along with the three other major utilities in California, has perhaps the cheapest and most stable supply of electricity in the state, making the economic argument harder to make.

Supply and Demand

To receive the full $5 per watt subsidy, the L.A. Department of Water and Power requires a homeowner to purchase solar panels from a manufacturer based in the city. The idea is not only to become the solar capital of the world but also to encourage local growth of an emerging industry and create jobs.

One hitch is that no solar panel makers were located in Los Angeles.

After lengthy negotiations, Siemens Solar Industries, based in Camarillo, Calif., an hour's drive to the north, announced in February that it would open a solar panel manufacturing plant in Los Angeles. But it is not a complete facility: The L.A. plant does only some final assembly and then the units must be returned to Camarillo for final testing and shipping.

Tina Nickerson, a spokeswoman for Siemens Solar, estimates her company has sold "a couple dozen" to L.A. homeowners for the rebate program. But she, too, reports that the interest from consumers is sometimes overwhelming and that supply has been a problem. Most U.S.-manufactured units are shipped overseas to places such as Germany, Japan and Scandinavia, which have had generous subsidies in place for years.

LaWanda Geary had to call Siemens herself to push them to deliver panels for her house -- and she was eligible for the rebate because of a stopgap compromise that allows to Siemens to ship solar panels from Camarillo until its L.A. plant is fully operational.

Everyone involved concedes there have been bottlenecks. Siemens now says it has enough panels to begin to meet demand, and Owen and the city are hoping things will sort themselves out, especially if more solar manufacturers are drawn to Los Angeles. But proponents worry about what will happen when the subsidies run out.

"Selling solar is now the easy part," Owen says. "I could sell a hundred a week. It's getting them up on the roof that's the hard part."

----

High-Temperature Superconductors Find a Variety of Uses

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By KENNETH CHANG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/science/29SUPE.html

Fifteen years after their discovery, high-temperature superconductors have not come close to the most grandiose projections for their use, like high-speed trains levitated by superconducting magnets.

But the materials, which are able to carry electricity with virtually no resistance at relatively warm temperatures, have found useful niches in the real world.

This month, workers pulled out nine cables from underground conduits at a Detroit power substation so that they could be replaced by the first high-temperature superconductor cables in a working power grid. The three new cables contain only 250 pounds of superconductor, yet they will be able to carry just as much current as the 18,000 pounds of copper in the nine cables they replace. Swapping copper cables for superconducting ones within existing conduits could allow utilities to triple their power capacity without disruptive digging.

High-temperature superconductors are already used to improve signal reception in cell phone towers and for sensitive magnetic probes in scientific equipment. Efficient electric motors may be next.

Engineers have developed these uses even while physicists remain unable to explain why high-temperature superconductors are superconductors at all.

"We don't understand the physics, the mechanism," said Dr. Greg Yurek, chief executive of American Superconductor Corporation of Westborough, Mass., one of the companies involved in the Detroit project. "Yet it works. It's there."

A Dutch physicist, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, discovered superconductivity in 1911 when he cooled mercury to minus-452 degrees Fahrenheit, about 7.5 degrees above absolute zero, and all resistance to the flow of electricity vanished.

But the underlying physics of low- temperature superconductors remained a mystery until physicists at the University of Illinois, Dr. John Bardeen, Dr. Leon N. Cooper and Dr. John R. Schrieffer, worked out a theory, now known as B.C.S. theory after the initials of the three men's last names, in the mid-1950's.

Usually, electricity travels through metal as a stream of electrons. As they rattle against the lattice of the metal atoms, the electrons lose some of their energy, and the vibration spreads and dissipates as heat.

The B.C.S. theory says that in a sufficiently chilled superconductor, the negatively charged electrons, which normally repel each other, form an indirect kind of attraction. A negatively charged electron draws surrounding positively charged metal ions toward it, generating a vibration that travels through the metal lattice. This clump of positively charged ions attracts a second electron, which then receives a kick of momentum from the vibrating lattice. The resulting pairs of electrons, called Cooper pairs, end up traveling through the metal without resistance.

But for decades, no one found any superconductors that worked above minus-418 degrees, or 42 degrees above absolute zero. Many theorists suggested that none would ever be found, that higher temperatures inevitably broke apart the Cooper pairs.

Then, in 1986, two I.B.M. scientists in Zurich, Dr. George Bednorz and Dr. K. Alex Muller, discovered a new class of superconductors made out of exotic ceramics. Though the materials were very poor conductors at room temperature, Dr. Bednorz and Dr. Muller discovered they were superconducting at temperatures up to 63 degrees above absolute zero. Within a few months, other scientists created variations that pushed the superconducting temperature upward to 138 degrees above absolute zero.

That is still a very low temperature, but it is one that can be achieved using liquid nitrogen instead of more expensive liquid helium.

With each advance, scientists wondered whether they were about to find a material that would superconduct at room temperature, but the upward trek of superconducting temperatures stalled about a decade ago at about 220 degrees above absolute zero, or minus-240 degrees Fahrenheit

These high temperature superconductors do not conform to the B.C.S. theory, and, to their frustration, theorists have yet to devise an alternative.

Dr. Philip W. Anderson, an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton, thought he had it figured out when he returned from a 1987 conference on the problem in India. "I thought, `Now I just have to write this up,' " he said. "Boy, was I wrong."

Most theorists believe that Cooper pairs still form in high-temperature superconductors, but magnetic interactions replace the vibrations of B.C.S. theory. In this view, electrons can be thought of as bar magnets lined up next to one another, not touching. If the magnet at one end is rocked back and forth, its magnetic field will induce the neighboring magnet to rock, too, and a wave of rocking motion will travel from one magnet to the next.

Dr. Patrick Lee, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls this "a reasonable qualitative idea." But, he said: "To make a real theory to convince people demands a little more. That's where we're stuck."

The materials are complex - planes of copper atoms separated by oxygen atoms and rare earth elements like ytrium, bismuth, barium and lanthium - and theorists must decide which interactions are important and which can be ignored.

Dr. Anderson bases his theories on the same simple model that he started working with in 1987. "I then went off the rails and made a couple of fundamental blunders and didn't wake up until 10 years later," Dr. Anderson said. Now he says it may take another 10 years to work out the details, but he thinks he is on the right track.

But that is his opinion. Dr. David Pines, a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is equally sure the Anderson approach "would never tell you anything."

Instead, Dr. Pines and his collaborators have devised a more complicated model based on experimental observations. "And it works," he said. "We've gotten to the essence of what's working physically."

Others offer more unorthodox theories that cannot yet be ruled out.

"It speaks about how complicated it is," said Dr. Paul Grant, a science fellow at the Electric Power Research Institute. "The theorists working on it are the smartest ones on earth, and they've been working on it for 15 years. They still haven't come to a consensus that everyone is happy with."

Engineering obstacles also dimmed the early optimism. Current does not flow evenly in all directions in high temperature conductors, as it does in simple metallic compounds, making them unsuitable for some applications.

High-temperature superconductors have found use in cellular telephone towers as electronic filters to separate radio signals of individual phone calls.

Because of electrical resistance, conventional filters eat away part of the signal, and the sharper the filter, the more of the signal it eats away.

"As a result, practical filters are not as selective as you'd like them to be," said Dr. Randy Simon, vice president of technology at Conductus Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., one of the companies that produces the superconducting filters. "Superconductors get you out of that trade-off entirely."

The superconducting filters extend the distance at which a tower can pick up a cell phone signal and increase the number of calls that can be handled simultaneously.

Filters manufactured by Conductus and a competing company, Superconductor Technologies Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., are in use in more than 700 towers around the world.

Officials at American Superconductor forecast that a market for its superconducting wire, to be used for cables and electric motors, will open up over the next few years.

The company now manufactures about 300 miles of superconducting wire a year. When a new factory in Devens, Mass., starts production next year, it will make 6,000 miles of wire annually. Coils of the wire will be used in a prototype of a 5,000- horsepower ship propulsion electric motor that American Superconductor is building for the Navy this summer. With the higher current capacity of superconductors, the size and weight of the motors can be shrunk by half or more.

Pirelli Cables and Systems of Milan assembled the American Superconductor wires to the power cables used in the Detroit Edison project.

The 4-inch-wide power cables will snake 400 feet through underground conduits, including a couple of 90- degree bends, from a transformer to power distribution equipment inside the substation building.

The $13.9 million project, financed in part by the Department of Energy, will be a significant test of the technologies that have been developed to transform high temperature superconductors, which are by nature brittle and stiff, into flexible wires. Liquid nitrogen will run through the center of the cables to keep them chilled at minus-337 degrees.

The power lines will undergo a year of testing before going into service, supplying electricity to 14,000 customers.

The idea of superconducting power lines goes back decades, but until recent advances, has been too costly to be practical.

In 1967, Dr. Richard L. Garwin and Dr. Juri Matisoo, researchers at I.B.M.'s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., sketched out a design for a superconducting power transmission line. In the late 1970's, a superconducting cable was tested in a power grid in Austria, and in the 1980's, Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island built two 430-foot superconducting transmission cables made of niobium-tin, a low-temperature superconductor, that could carry enough electricity to power a large city. But they lost significant amounts of energy when conveying alternating current, or AC.

The alternating currents jostle magnetic fields that penetrate through the superconductors, and the jostled magnetic fields then bump into atoms. That dissipates energy just as electrons bumping into atoms in ordinary metals produce electrical resistance.

"An awful lot was learned about AC losses," said Dr. Grant of the Electric Power Research Institute. "The Brookhaven project was a technical success but an economic disaster."

With high-temperature superconductors, the cooling costs are greatly reduced, but because of the AC losses, the superconducting cables in the Detroit Edison project will not save any energy compared with the old copper cables.

Superconducting cables cost several times as much as copper ones, but because they carry much more current, they could still find use in urban areas where digging up streets to put in new conduits would be costly. Detroit Edison is not the only utility interested in the technology. "The planners are beginning to look around and think about where they may have similar situations," Dr. Grant said.

The Bush administration's energy policy recommends expanding research in superconducting power lines.

To reap the full benefits of superconductivity in long-distance transmission lines, Dr. Grant proposes that they carry direct current, where electricity flows constantly in one direction, instead of alternating current. That eliminates the AC losses, and the current can flow over long distances virtually without any energy loss.

"There's a window of opportunity coming for renewing America's power infrastructures," Dr. Grant said. "If we're not ready for it, we're going to miss the boat. I think it's going to be a race whether we have this technology cheap enough to capture a lot of this opportunity."

-------- energy

Energy study gives black marks to coal, boost to nukes

By David R. Francis (francisd@csps.com)
The Christian Science Monitor,
TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/29/p16s1.htm

All energy sources have their environmental drawbacks.

"There is no human activity that is pollution-free," says Denis Beller, a visiting scientist at the center for environmental studies at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

The Bush administration's energy plan, combined with the California power shortage and concerns about global warming, has revived discussion of the pros and cons of various energy sources.

Mr. Beller and author Richard Rhodes have looked at the environmental impact of major energy sources. Like the authors of the Bush plan, Beller and Mr. Rhodes end up as fans of nuclear power.

Their findings are intriguing, maybe surprising.

Coal, used to generate electricity, is the worst environmental offender. For instance, the Harvard School of Public Health maintains that particulates from coal burning are responsible for about 15,000 premature deaths annually in the United States.

By comparison, 4,000 people who took part in the cleanup attempt after the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Ukraine have died so far. Another 40,000 involved became ill or were disabled.

Coal plants are the major source of the acid rain that troubles the eastern US and Canada.

Less well-known is the fact that coal-fired power plants are the major source of radioactive releases into the environment.

When coal is burned, mildly radioactive uranium and thorium in it are released into the air. So is radioactive radon gas, a decay product of crustal uranium normally confined underground.

A 1,000-megawatt (MW) coal plant releases 100 times more radioactivity than a comparable nuclear plant. Of course, critics of nuclear plants worry about an accident releasing a huge plume of radioactivity. But none of the 420 operating power reactors worldwide have had an accident nearly as serious as that at the Chernobyl plant, which lacked a containment vessel.

A coal plant releases about 74 pounds of uranium-235 each year, enough for two or more nuclear bombs.

This material could be collected and processed from coal ash, perhaps without attracting much attention.

More radioactive heavy metal is released into the environment every two years by coal burning than the total spent fuel waiting to be buried from all US nuclear power production and most US nuclear-weapons production.

Coal supplies about 24 percent of world's energy needs. Natural gas provides 22.1 percent, and this percentage is expected to grow in coming years.

Natural gas is relatively clean burning. A 1,000 MW plant, for example, releases per day into the air "only" 5.5 metric tons of sulfur oxides, 21 tons of nitrogen oxides, 1.6 tons of carbon monoxide, and 0.9 tons of "particulates."

Natural-gas fires and explosions offer significant risks. Newspapers sometimes record houses and pipelines blowing up. A single mile of three-feet-diameter gas pipeline at 1,000 pounds per square inch pressure contains the equivalent of 1.32 million pounds of TNT - a lot of explosive energy.

A million miles of such gas pipelines lace the earth. The Bush plan calls for many more miles to take gas to market.

In an essay that appeared in an edited form in Foreign Affairs, Messrs. Beller and Rhodes also note that renewable energy sources have problems.

Hydropower submerges large areas of land, often displaces rural population, kills fish, and raises a risk of catastrophic failure. Dams, costly to build, also eventually silt up.

The making of photovoltaic cells produces a highly toxic waste stream of metals and solvents that requires special disposal technology. A 1,000-megawatt solar plant would generate 6,850 metric tons of hazardous waste over a 30-year lifetime from metals finishing alone.

A global solar-energy system would consume at least 20 percent of world iron resources. A huge volcanic eruption, such as the Krakatoa event of 1883, would temporarily put solar power out of business.

Wind farms need millions of pounds of concrete and steel, cause noise pollution, and slay many birds.

Beller approves of efforts to improve efficiency in producing and using electricity. But he says efficiency won't fully meet the needs for more energy. Nor will conservation. The power saved by conservation, often heavily subsidized, is twice as expensive in the US as generated power.

Nuclear power releases no noxious gases. A ton of nuclear fuel produces energy equivalent to 2 million to 3 million tons of fossil fuel. Generating 1,000 MW of electricity for a year requires 2,000 train cars of coal or 10 supertankers of oil, but only one 10-cubic-meter fuel assembly of uranium. A nuclear plant releases less radioactivity per person than a television set.

----

Bush, Davis at odds over Calif. energy crisis

USA TODAY
05/29/2001
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-05-29-california.htm

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Asked to impose federal caps on soaring electricity bills, President Bush called for an end to finger pointing and blame for California's energy crisis Tuesday. California Gov. Gray Davis persisted, ''We are entitled to relief.'' On a three-day mission to improve his West Coast political prospects, the president played down his private meeting with Davis in favor of an unusually busy public schedule highlighting his efforts to conserve electricity at federal installations, ease summer energy costs to the poor and boost the state's long-term resources.

Davis, a Democrat with hopes of challenging Bush for the presidency in 2004, demanded that Washington force down electricity prices that have cost California nearly $8 billion since January.

"We are entitled to relief," the governor said in a public discussion with victims of the energy crunch, staged in the same hotel where Bush was staying. "It doesn't matter if someone thinks we should have relief, the law says we should have relief."

Polls show voters in the nation's most populous state don't think either politician is doing enough to ease their power woes.

A spokesman for Davis dismissed Bush's call for a new tone on the energy debate.

"We're asking the president to step up to the plate to use the power that only he has, and that's to provide some short-term price relief," spokesman Steve Maviglio said.

Bush and Davis sparred in separate public events before their long-awaited meeting, scheduled for late Tuesday.

The session was tightly choreographed, and neither side expected a resolution of their differences. Too much was at stake: After weeks of mixed signals, Bush needs to show Californians he sympathizes with their power problems. Davis, his approval rating plummeting, is searching for a scapegoat - and a way out of the energy crunch.

Shortages and high prices could spread elsewhere and cause political problems for Bush. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was in Yonkers, N.Y., on Tuesday, warning that transmission bottlenecks are not restricted to California.

Bush has criticized California, and by implication Davis himself, for not building more power plants or moving quicker to respond to fallout from faulty state deregulation laws. He sought Tuesday to remain above the fray, even as White House advisers continued to criticize Davis privately and predict that the governor's confrontational approach would backfire.

"Energy debates sometimes throw off some sparks, but this is no time for harsh rhetoric. It's certainly no time for name calling. It's time for leadership. It's time for results. It's time to put politics aside and focus on the best interests of the people," Bush said during a visit to Camp Pendleton, a Marine base that has cut its energy usage.

He did not mention price caps, but advisers said Bush had not budged from his belief that artificial limits won't lower consumers' bill and will lead to supply problems down the road.

In the sundappled courtyard of the 1st Marine Division headquarters - nicknamed "the White House" for the color of its low-slung wood facade - Bush delivered a speech offering small measures of federal help to California.

The initiatives include:

$150 million to help low-income Americans pay energy bills this summer. He will ask Congress to approve the additional spending for this fiscal year, which ends in October. His announcement that military facilities in California have exceeded their goal of trimming usage by 10% during peak hours. A Department of Energy project to stimulate the building of more electrical lines running north and south through the state.

Bush also said his $1.35 trillion tax-cut plan will offer "some help" to people struggling to pay soaring energy bills.

Davis, who was elected in 1998 in a landslide, has watched his job approval rating drop about 20 percentage points since January as he struggled to come to grips with the state's energy shortages and rolling blackouts.

Bush's job approval rating is still relatively high, though 56% of Californians in a recent poll said they disapprove of his handling of the electricity crisis.

The president has avoided the state since losing its 54 electoral votes to Democratic rival Al Gore by 12 percentage points. He visited 29 states to promote his tax and budget plans before finally coming to California.

Senior Republicans, including some Bush advisers, privately concede that Bush's prospects are dim for winning California in 2004. They are working on electoral map models that don't include the state in his chase for 270 electoral votes.

Bush had to eek out a recount in Florida to win the presidency without California last year.

Sooner on the horizon are the 2002 congressional elections, where California could tip the balance. Republicans say Bush has to improve his standing here to help the GOP maintain control of the House and regain the Senate.

-------- health

VaxGen Up on New Finding of HIV Vaccine

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-health-vaxge.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of AIDS vaccine developer VaxGen Inc. (VXGN.O) rose 14 percent on Tuesday after the company said its HIV/AIDS vaccine may produce broader immunity than previously detected.

The Brisbane, California-based company said it presented laboratory data last week at a scientific conference suggesting that its HIV/AIDS vaccine, known as AIDSVAX, induces immune responses capable of preventing infection from a broader array of HIV strains than previously detected.

``The stock is very volatile and there's not any other news'' that moves it, said Colin Ferenbach, managing director at Haven Capital Management Inc., which has about $600 million under management and about 75,000 shares in VaxGen.

The stock jumped $2.64 to $21.53 in midday trading on Nasdaq.

More than 441,000 shares of VaxGen have changed hands, about 5 times the stocks' 50-day average trading volume of 82,000 shares, according to Morgan Stanley data.

VaxGen, which has about 14 million shares outstanding, has gained about 5 percent this year.

``I like the stock,'' said Ferenbach, whose fund bought VaxGen in 1998 before it became a public company. ``It's a gamble, but it's less of a gamble now than it used to be ... I would say the bet has gone from 1 in 100 when we bought it to 1 in 5.''

Ferenback, who sold VaxGen shares in February at about $27 a share and bought them back in March at about $17 a share, expects to know whether the vaccine will work in about six months.

``I don't know how to value the stock,'' Ferenbach said. If the vaccine works, the stock could be ``worth $100 a share,'' but if it will not work at all, investors would lose all because the company ``has nothing else,'' Ferenbach said.

VaxGen said it is the only company with preventive HIV vaccines in Phase III trials, the final stage before regulatory approval can be sought.

It said it is conducting two trials, one in North America and Europe and another in Thailand, with 7,900 volunteers.

Results from the trial in North America and Europe, which is nine months ahead of the Thai trial, are expected either in November or 12 months thereafter, the company said in a statement.

``These are preliminary laboratory results that need additional confirmation, but they are encouraging because they indicate that AIDSVAX induces the type of antibodies necessary to prevent HIV infection in real-life settings,'' said VaxGen President Donald P. Francis of the new laboratory data.

--------

AIDS approaches grim anniversary

05/29/2001
By Steve Sternberg,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/healthscience/health/aids/2001-05-29-aids-anniversary.htm

Few people took note when, on June 5, 1981, doctors reported that a strange and deadly new disease had turned up in five gay men in Los Angeles. Doctors, too, were perplexed by the illness, which turned its victims into prey for exotic microbes. All five suffered from Pneumocystis carinii, a fungus that feasts on the lungs; candida, another fungus that nests in the mouth and throat; and cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common cause of infection in transplanted organs.Normally, the immune system thwarts these microbes, which survive only in transplant patients, cancer patients and others whose defenses are down. But these men seemed to have as little resistance to hungry microbes as the stump of a fallen tree. In effect, they were decaying before their doctors' eyes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's typically dispassionate alert, published in a bulletin called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, describes the clustering of these infections in five "previously healthy" young men as "unusual."

Today, 20 years later, the disease now known as AIDS has stricken roughly 60 million people worldwide. Twenty-two million are dead; the rest are desperately trying to delay the inevitable. But it was research begun before AIDS had even appeared that set the stage for the development of effective AIDS tests and treatments.

Ultimately, says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, these studies will yield effective cancer vaccines, medicines to prevent rejection of transplanted tissue and drugs that block hair-trigger immune systems from attacking the body's own tissues. "The more you know, the more you'll be able to deal with a vast array of diseases," Fauci says.

New use for cancer research

It would take four years for researchers to identify the cause of AIDS as a virus, now known as human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Even before HIV was identified, doctors had pinpointed the virus's chief target as the helper T cell, a critical white blood cell that orchestrates the body's response to infection.

Neither of these discoveries could have occurred when they did if doctors had not begun key research projects years before AIDS emerged. Robert Gallo, then of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), was one such pioneer, tirelessly seeking viruses that could cause cancer. Luc Montagnier, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, had embarked on a similar quest. About the same time, Stuart Schlossman and Ellis Reinherz at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston contributed groundbreaking insights into the immune system.

"We've often reflected on what would have happened if this virus had struck 20 years earlier," Fauci says. "It would have been a much more disastrous picture."

Gallo began at NCI in the mid-1960s trying to figure out what prompted leukemia cells to begin their unbridled growth. Gallo soon became intrigued by an unusual class of viruses known as retroviruses.

Retroviruses cause leukemia in cats, but none had ever been linked to human malignancies. Gallo wanted to be the first to make this link. He had no idea at the time that his determination would prepare him for a different line of research altogether - AIDS.

Several challenges confronted Gallo and his team. First, leukemias are cancers of white blood cells. To find a human retrovirus in white blood cells, Gallo says, he would first have to "immortalize" them - prompt them to grow and divide endlessly in the laboratory. His first breakthrough came when his team identified a growth factor, now known as IL-2, that can grow whole colonies of T cells.

Armed with this growth factor, Gallo's team succeeded with tumor cells taken from a young black man with adult T-cell leukemia. Using a sophisticated test developed in his lab, Gallo's team detected the presence of the first virus linked to a human cancer. He called the virus Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type I, or HTLV-1.

During this time, members of Gallo's team, working with NCI researcher William Blattner, developed a far simpler test able to detect the presence of the virus. The antibody test was developed in 1980, a year before AIDS emerged. Gallo's team had unwittingly developed a prototype that in four years they would convert into the first test for antibodies to HIV.

For Montagnier - who collaborated with Gallo before turning into his fiercest rival - the search for human cancer viruses also led to research into retroviruses. But Montagnier and his team had taken aim at breast cancer, not leukemia. He and his colleagues were searching in humans for a relative of the mouse mammary tumor virus.

In 1982, Montagnier turned his attention to AIDS. He began studying tissue from the lymph nodes of a man with early symptoms of the disease. To see whether the man was infected with HTLV-I or a similar virus, Montagnier's team exposed the tissues to antibodies supplied by Gallo.

If the virus had been HTLV-I, the antibodies would have attacked the tissue to try to rid it of the virus. They did not. They ignored it. "We were excited," Montagnier says. "We thought it must be a new virus."

His team's report, published in the journal Science in 1983, carried an introduction written by Gallo at Montagnier's request.

Gallo still believed the AIDS virus was a form of HTLV-1 - he would later name it HTLV-3 - and Montagnier felt the introduction "implied that our virus should be included in the family of HTLV viruses."

Montagnier disagreed. Thus began one of the great rivalries in science.

Immune system research

In the late 1970s, as Gallo and Montagnier were pursuing cancer viruses, another cancer researcher, Ellis Reinherz, turned his attention to the immune system. Working under the recognized immunologist Stuart Schlossman at Harvard's Dana-Farber institute, Reinherz attacked a different problem - he wanted to dissect the human immune response using specially designed antibodies.

At the time, immunologists knew quite a bit about antibodies, which are made by white blood cells to kill microbes in the blood. In 1975, Cesar Milstein and Georges Kohler developed a technique that would turn antibodies into a laboratory tool. They found a way to genetically engineer antibodies so that they would zero in on any protein a scientist wanted to study. In 1984, the discovery earned the two men a Nobel Prize.

Reinherz and Schlossman found that T cells were coated with a variety of surface proteins, just as a planet's surface is studded with a variety of geologic lumps and bumps.

By correlating these proteins with the T cell's function, the researchers could tease out how the body responds to infection.

Reinherz first found a type of T cell that turns off the immune response. Then he found the T cell that turns the immune system on. This tiny cell, they realized, was the guardian protecting humans from a world of hungry microbes.

By now, it was just a matter of months before nature's "terrible" experiment would begin.

"Through HIV and the AIDS epidemic, we were able to study human beings whose immune systems were knocked out," Fauci says. "We were able to study the immune system by studying how the virus affected it."

Immune research took on new urgency. "HIV led to an explosion of immune-system research," says Alan Landay of Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.

Much remains to be done. Researchers are probing HIV to find weak points that can be exploited to produce less complicated, less toxic lifelong treatments. Vaccine researchers are trying to find ways to provoke the immune system to cope with a virus that first evades and then destroys it.

"We have a tremendous opportunity to learn," Landay says, "and we have to move quickly."

--------

Scientists View New Wave of Cancer Drugs

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/health/29CANC.html?pagewanted=all

A simple pill to treat cancer sounds too good to be true. But striking results with the drug known as STI-571, or Gleevec, have shown how effective a custom- designed cancer drug can be. And Gleevec is only one of many such agents now under development.

This new generation of cancer fighters, as it emerges, will be the long-awaited payoff from decades of research into the molecular biology of cancer. Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, blunderbuss weapons that attack healthy as well as cancerous cells and can cause severe side effects, the new agents are designed to kill cancer cells alone. In principle, they should eliminate malignancies more effectively while being far gentler on the patient.

Until Gleevec, progress in developing the new agents had been slow and generally unspectacular. Researchers and drug companies have put enormous effort into developing drugs against some obvious targets in cancer cells, such as a frequently errant signaling protein known as ras, but so far without much success. Herceptin, one of the first rationally designed cancer drugs to reach the market, is useful in certain cases of breast cancer but is no panacea.

Gleevec seems to be a smash hit, although so far it has been proved to work only on two comparatively rare cancers, and experts caution it has been in use far too short a time to be fully confident of its longer term usefulness. Taken as a pill, the drug has put into remission 90 percent of patients in the early stages of chronic myelogenous leukemia, one of the four kinds of leukemia. It has also secured speedy remissions in some 60 percent of patients with a rare and otherwise deadly stomach cancer known as gastrointestinal stromal tumor. The drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last month.

"This is really a fantastic breakthrough for patients suffering from chronic myelogenous leukemia, but it is also a validation of the idea that if we understand targets we can develop useful drugs," said Dr. Frank McCormick, director of the cancer center at the University of California at San Francisco.

Dr. Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, described the Gleevec results as "an incredibly important proof of principle because it shows the public that this investment can lead to drugs that really do work the way people have been hoping for 20 to 30 years."

Biologists believe that after some initial mutation in a gene, a growing clone of misbehaving cells acquires one mutated gene after another until each of the cell's cancer defenses has been compromised. That understanding has made clear what goes awry in cancer cells but also pointed to how hard it might be to take down a cell that has sabotaged all natural restraints on its growth.

For example, the initial damage that leads to chronic myelogenous leukemia occurs in a gene that makes a signaling protein called abl. The errant abl protein is hyperactive and seems to be a major driver of the cancer. But the white blood cells are highly likely to acquire damage in additional genes before they can start to proliferate as leukemic cells, said Dr. Robert A. Weinberg, a cancer expert at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Gleevec is a small chemical designed to slip into and jam signaling proteins like abl. An astonishing feature of Gleevec's success is that the cancerous cells pack up and die even though the drug's role is just to shut down their signaling proteins. It seems they have become so dependent on the hyperactive signaling pathway that its loss is a lethal blow.

Dr. Varmus said the Gleevec trials and similar results from mouse experiments suggested that turning off a hyperactive signaling protein could be a general way of forcing cancer cells to trigger the self-destruct mechanism all cells possess. This could mean the downstream signaling proteins, as well as the hyperactive protein that helped cause the cancer, could be suitable targets for drugs, he said.

From the decoding of the human genome, it is known that as many as one-fifth of all human genes make proteins that are involved in signaling. A special subset of these proteins, known to biologists as tyrosine kinases, are particularly prone to go awry and show up in hyperactive form in many human cancers. There are about 90 kinds of tyrosine kinases, of which 58 are embedded in the cell's outer membrane. Called receptors, the proteins pick up messages received from hormones and generate a corresponding signal inside the cell. The other 32 tyrosine kinases work in the cell's interior, relaying messages to the nucleus.

Gleevec was originally designed to inhibit a receptor kinase called PDGFR-beta, which is hyperactive in glioma, a brain cancer. But it also turned out to inhibit another kinase receptor called c-kit, which is overexpressed in gastrointestinal stromal cancer, as well as abl, the internal kinase whose gene goes awry in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Some 30 of the 58 kinds of receptor tyrosine kinase are known to run amok in various kinds of human cancer, as are 15 of the internal kinases, according to a list drawn up by Peter Blume-Jensen and Tony Hunter of the Salk Institute in San Diego and published in the current issue of Nature.

All of these proteins are in principle suitable targets for small molecule drugs, and the receptors can also be targets for antibodies. Herceptin, a drug already approved, is an antibody that aims at Her2/Neu, a tyrosine kinase receptor whose gene is amplified in 25 percent to 30 percent of cases of metastatic breast cancer.

Several companies are developing Gleevec-type drugs against other important receptors. AstraZeneca's Iressa, now in Phase 3 trials, the final test before possible F.D.A. approval, hits the epidermal growth factor receptor that is active in non- small cell lung cancer. Novartis, the company that developed Gleevec, is also working with drugs that inhibit the epidermal growth factor receptor and the vascular epithelial growth factor receptor. Some of these inhibiting drugs have a significant but minor effect on tumors, so large and expensive clinical trials are required to demonstrate their effectiveness. Still, as more such agents are developed, "it's the beginning of more rational therapy," said Dr. Gregory Burke, global head of development for Novartis's oncology unit.

The protein kinases are an especially suitable target for cancer drugs because they become more active in malignant cells and can be shut down with inhibitory drugs. But aberrant signaling proteins are just one class of misbehaving components in a cancer cell. Another is a group of substances that control the cell's division cycle, chief of which is a protein called Rb. Rb's role is to block a cell from dividing unless it is in good genetic shape, which cancer cells are not. All cancer cells must therefore knock out their Rb protein, either directly or indirectly, by acquiring mutations in the Rb gene itself or the genes that control it.

A cell that has lost control of its cell cycle is abnormal and starts sending out internal distress signals that reach a critical sentinel protein called p53. One of p53's many roles is to trigger the cell's self-destruct mechanism, preventing it from sliding down the fatal path toward cancer. Many cancer cells sabotage their own p53 gene directly and others do so indirectly.

The faulty Rb and p53 proteins are a major defect in many solid tumors, unlike leukemias, where a hyperactive signaling protein seems to be the cancer's principal driver. And whereas a hyperactive signaling protein can be turned off with a drug, the same is not true with a defective tumor suppressor, as these sentinel proteins are known.

For this reason Dr. Bert Vogelstein, a leading cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins, doubts that a Gleevec-type drug will be as successful with solid tumors. "The paradigm is likely to apply largely to tumors in which there is a single activated oncogene, which is largely leukemia and the lymphomas," he said. "This strategy is unlikely to apply to most of the common cancers because in solid tumors the dominant event is an inactivation."

The gastrointestinal stromal tumor inhibited by Gleevec is a solid tumor, but it originates in a different class of cell from most solid tumors and may be an exception to the rule, Dr. Vogelstein believes. He is also doubtful about the chances of inhibiting proteins whose genes become more active when p53 is knocked out.

"Once p53 is inactivated, its absence starts off a whole network of secondary changes which are potentially inhibitable by drugs, but because these proteins are enmeshed in a network, the inhibition of any single one of them is unlikely to have a significant effect," he said.

But a highly ingenious way of targeting cancer cells through their inactivated tumor suppressor genes has been devised by Dr. McCormick in San Francisco and is being developed by a company he founded, Onyx Pharmaceuticals of Richmond, Calif. The agents are genetically altered viruses that will grow only in cells that have inactivated their p53 or Rb proteins. One of these viruses, known as Onyx-015, has been used with considerable success to treat intractable head and neck cancers and has now advanced to Phase 3 trials. The agent has also shown promise in treating colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver.

Since the body's immune system attacks the virus, the agent is injected directly into the tumor or, in the case of metastatic liver cancer, into the hepatic artery. The virus infects and multiplies in cancer cells but does not attack normal cells. In some instances it has made large solid tumors melt to nothing. One limit on its complete success, besides immune attack, is that tumors often contain layers of normal tissue that impede the virus from gaining access to cancer cells.

Onyx-015 attacks cells whose p53 protein is inactive, and another virus, Onyx-411, is designed to flourish in cells that have inactivated their Rb gene.

Both agents are defective adenoviruses, one of the causes of the common cold. Adenoviruses get themselves replicated by forcing an infected cell to divide. But to do so they must overcome the cell's normal constraints on cell division, just as would-be cancer cells must. The virus's arsenal includes a gene called E1B, which inactivates the cell's p53 protein, and an E1A gene, which knocks out Rb.

In Onyx-015, the virus's E1B gene has been inactivated. Hence it cannot grow in normal human cells whose p53 is active. But it can grow in the many kinds of cancer cell that have knocked out their own p53 gene. Onyx-411 is an adenovirus engineered to grow only in the presence of a protein called E2F. This protein is directly inhibited by Rb and is found in high levels only in cancer cells that have sabotaged their Rb protein.

Dr. Vogelstein said the Onyx viruses were a clever approach but, even though very promising, they had problems of immunogenicity and delivery to overcome.

"We are at a critical juncture where so much has been learned and there is a lot of optimism that new kinds of therapies will be developed," he said. "I share that optimism, but realistically it is not going to be simple."

-------- human rights

U.N. Agency Sees Rise in Forced Labor and Slavery

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By ELIZABETH OLSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/world/29SLAV.html

GENEVA, May 28 - Forced labor, slavery and criminal trafficking in people are increasing globally, with women and children most at risk, the International Labor Organization says.

Increased efforts are needed to "stamp out the scourge of forced labor once and for all," the labor agency said in a report that examined the issue, which is set for debate by its 175 member nations at an annual meeting next month.

Although the report, "Stopping Forced Labor," did not quantify the problem, it said compelled work - slavery, debt bondage or bonded labor - was found worldwide. "The emerging picture is one where slavery, oppression and exploitation of society's most vulnerable members, especially women and children, have by no means been consigned to the past," said Juan Somavia, the agency's director general.

By far the fastest growing form of forced labor is trafficking in people, which is so pervasive that most nations are either sending, transit or receiving countries, the report said. The workers are sent to richer countries, with the United States believed to be the destination for 50,000 such women and children every year. Most are destined for the sex trade or domestic work. Many from the former Soviet Union end up in Western European sweatshops.

Yet traffickers, who are usually part of a criminal network, are rarely caught, and penalties are lighter than for drug smuggling.

Traditional forms of forced labor, like slavery and bonded labor, also ensnare vast numbers of people. In South and Central America, the Caribbean and South Asia, millions of people "are tied to their work through a vicious circle of debt," the report said.

Burma has been cited by the labor agency for compelling villagers to toil on public works. The country has outlawed the practice, but human rights groups and trade unions said this year that they had evidence that it was continuing.

The report also pointed to the use of prisoners by private companies. It said about 30 American states had legalized the practice of contracting out prison labor since 1990.

----

Amnesty International names heroes, scoundrels

By Mark Memmott,
USA TODAY
05/29/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-30-amnesty-list.htm

Illinois Gov. George Ryan was a "human rights hero" last year because he declared a moratorium on use of the death penalty in his state, Amnesty International will announce Wednesday.

The human rights group will also say last year's "human rights scoundrels" included California-based energy giant Unocal and the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole.

Unocal is cited for providing "financial support to the brutal and repressive military government of Myanmar (also known as Burma) through its business operations in that country."

Unocal spokesman Barry Lane says the company's 28% interest in a $1 billion natural gas project in Myanmar does not mean it endorses that nation's military regime. "Our one regret is there aren't 100 such projects in Burma," he says, because the company believes that if responsible corporations do business in a country, they can help initiate reforms.

The Texas Board is cited "for operating a flawed capital punishment system" that "violates Texas' own Open Meeting Act." Amnesty charges that many of the board's decisions are made in secret. Board members could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Amnesty International, a 40-year-old organization that works to free "prisoners of conscience" around the world, has long opposed the death penalty. Ryan's moratorium was issued after 13 death row inmates in the state were freed because of new evidence in their cases.

The naming of "heroes" and "scoundrels" will come in conjunction with the release of Amnesty's annual report on human rights conditions around the world. Other Amnesty "scoundrels:"

• Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, for heading a Communist Party that "maintains power through the widespread use of torture."

• Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, for allowing paramilitary troops to kill opponents and assault human rights activists.

• The multinational Stabilization Force for Bosnia-Herzegovina, for "failing to actively search for and arrest" indicted war criminals.

Other Amnesty "heroes:"

• Akin Birdal, former president of the Turkish Human Rights Association, who has defended the right of free speech in his country.

• Mehrangiz Kar, a human rights advocate in Iran who has "fought to gain recognition of women's and children's rights."

• Tsitsi Tripano, now deceased, who led the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe organization.

-------- police

Texas Approves DNA Testing Bill

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Texas-Legislature.html

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Lawmakers in tough-on-crime Texas may have softened that image this year by approving bills boosting the rights of suspects and criminals.

``Historically in Texas we have focused on the wild, wild West mentality of how to incarcerate and have not worked as diligently to balance the scales to make sure the system is fair,'' said Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who pushed many of the reform measures in the legislative session that ended Monday. ``We have made significant progress, but there's still more to do.''

The criminal justice system came under a spotlight during President Bush's campaign last year as opponents attacked the state's frequent use of the death penalty. Texas, the nation's No. 1 death penalty state, has executed seven people this year.

``I think the national and international spotlight did have an impact,'' Ellis said. ``It had an impact on how we looked at ourselves.''

Texas prison inmates will now have easier access to post-conviction DNA testing, and the state will have stronger penalties for hate crimes. Both bills have been signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who succeeded Bush as governor.

Other bills approved and awaiting Perry's decision include a ban on the execution of mentally retarded murderers; an overhaul of the indigent defense system that sets minimum standards for court-appointed attorneys; and increased compensation for inmates found to have been wrongly convicted and incarcerated.

``The light of justice is shining; we can see it at the end of the tunnel,'' Democratic Rep. Juan Hinojosa said.

Justice For All, a victims' rights group, criticized the ban on executing mentally retarded inmates, saying it will dramatically increase costs and delays in death row cases.

Lawmakers proposed other measures that failed.

A resolution to allow a possible two-year moratorium of the death penalty passed a Senate committee but never came up for a vote in the full Senate. A bill giving juries the option of sentencing capital murderers to life in prison without parole was voted down in the House.

Current law gives capital murder case juries two options for punishment: execution or a ``life'' sentence that allows for parole after 40 years.

The lawmakers also adjourned session without passing a congressional redistricting plan, prompting the governor to consider calling a special session.

The state is gaining two congressional seats as a result of population gains evidenced in the 2000 census. The next regular legislative session in Texas is not until 2003.

-------- spying

Q&A: What you need to know about Echelon

Tuesday, 29 May, 2001,
BBC

A European Parliament committee has advised computer users to encrypt all their e-mails if they want to avoid being spied on by the Echelon eavesdropping network. BBC News Online technology correspondent Mark Ward looks further.

What is Echelon?

Echelon is the name given to an international electronic eavesdropping network run by the intelligence organisations of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It is thought that within intelligence organisations the name "Echelon" only refers to the part of the network that intercepts satellite communications, but it has now become associated with the global tapping grid.

The inter-governmental agreement that gave rise to Echelon dates back to 1947 when the nations that now operate it signed accords agreeing to share and swap intelligence data.

The first Echelon network was built in 1971, but it has regularly been updated since then. The US National Security Agency (NSA) is thought to be the driving force behind the network.

Civil rights groups who monitor Echelon say it can be used to intercept almost any electronic communication, be it a phone conversation, mobile phone call, e-mail message, fax transmission, net browsing history, or satellite transmission.

The wildest estimates of its capabilities report that it can sift through up to 90% of all internet traffic.

How does it work?

Echelon is not thought to be a real-time tapping network. Instead it captures all the traffic it can and then sifts through it for keywords or anything the intelligence services deem to be "suspicious".

The network can apparently capture data in several ways. It uses terrestrial radio antennae that intercept satellite transmissions, and is also thought to have its own fleet of satellites that dip into transmissions between cities.

It also has many sites around the world that tap into communications conducted via wires.

"Sniffing" devices are thought to have been installed in key internet routing centres to catch addressing information from the packets of data passing through.

Data beamed along fibre-optic networks is not thought to be safe either. The NSA has reportedly developed devices that can tap optical undersea cables.

These deep water cables have replaced satellites as the main way that data travels between continents. One cable can carry tens of thousands of phone calls at once. One fibre-tap was discovered in 1982, but many others are thought to be in existence.

The recently published European Parliament report on Echelon played down some of the wilder claims for the network's eavesdropping abilities and said it can tap a "limited" proportion of net traffic, radio communications and cable transmissions.

What can we do to protect ourselves?

The sheer volume of data that Echelon has to sift through can help you hide. If you really want to stay anonymous use only payphones or buy a pre-pay mobile phone that doesn't require you to give an address when you buy it.

Consider changing to a net service provider that you can use anonymously, and does not assign you a fixed net address.

You can use encryption software to protect your e-mail messages, but as most messages are not protected this might make it a target for the security services.

It is likely that the intelligence agencies can crack open most commercially available encryption software. Even if they can't, the many holes and security bugs found in most software packages render them much easier to circumvent.

Echelon could be defeated by the ubiquitous network technologies that are currently being developed. One reason that phone calls are easy to tap is because they directly link two people. However the rise of the net radically changes the way that data is packaged up and sent.

Over the net, and more so with future phone networks, packets of data take a circuitous route to their destination. The proliferation of these networks will make it harder and harder for security forces to tap all of a data stream.

What does it look for?

Beyond the network of radio antenna, fleets of satellites and wiretaps, Echelon is thought to use a large computer network to sift through the vast pool of data it constantly collects.

This computer system looks for key words, phrases, addresses and names. This helps the intelligence agencies build up a picture of the communication and contact networks of people it deems suspicious or requiring watching.

Echelon was originally developed to help spies keep watch on the intelligence agencies and agents of opposing powers. With the end of the Cold War the focus has changed from espionage to surveillance of terrorists, organised crime, sensitive diplomatic negotiations such as treaty agreements and domestic political groups deemed to be a threat.

Why don't we know about it?

It is a secret network, and governments are very sensitive about accusations that they are increasingly spying on the largely innocent electronic communications of millions of their citizens. The US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists.

Knowledge about its existence has come from the Australian and New Zealand governments as well as the efforts of many civil liberty groups.

----

Report Assesses NSA Network

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A89250-2001May28?language=printer

A temporary investigative committee of the European Parliament has concluded in a draft report that the National Security Agency's global eavesdropping operations are not adequately monitored by member nations of the European Union and could be violating the privacy rights of Europeans.

But the May 18 draft, which now goes to the full parliament for review, contains a realistic assessment of the NSA's eavesdropping capabilities that should go a long way toward countering much of the hyperbole that has surrounded the issue in Europe over the past four years.

The European Parliament first became concerned about a worldwide surveillance network, code-named Echelon, run by the NSA and its partners in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, after a 1997 staff report concluded that "within Europe, all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted" by the NSA.

In its draft report, however, the Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System says the network involves the interception of "only a very small portion" of global telephone, e-mail and fax communications emanating from communications satellites.

"This means that the majority of communications cannot be intercepted by earth stations, but only by tapping cables and intercepting radio signals," the draft report states. "However, inquiries have shown that the Echelon states have access to only a very limited proportion of cable and radio communications, and, owing to the large numbers of personnel required, can analyse only a limited proportion of those communications."

Among numerous recommendations, the committee said the United States should be asked to sign an international protocol on civil and political rights, and it called for a broader use of encryption software by European nations.

RACIAL PROFILING? Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) sent an angry letter Friday to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham after Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) was detained by Department of Energy security guards and twice asked whether he was an American, even after the two-term House member of Chinese descent showed his congressional identification.

Cox, who chaired a special House panel in 1998 that investigated suspected Chinese espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory and touched off massive new security measures throughout the DOE, noted that he recently used the same entrance to agency headquarters and "was not asked any questions about my citizenship."

"The petty bureaucratic imposition of senseless and often offensive 'security' measures in circumstances such as these actually undermines support for genuine national security protections," Cox wrote. "Particularly in light of President Bush's initiatives to stamp out racial profiling, I urge you to take swift action to professionalize the DOE bureaucracy so that such an embarrassment to the Department never occurs again."

Abraham visited Wu's office Friday and apologized.

GANNON RETIRES: John Gannon, chairman of the National Intelligence Council and assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and production, is retiring June 15. He'll be taking all of a weekend off before becoming vice chairman of Intellibridge, a consulting firm co-chaired by former CIA director John M. Deutch and former national security adviser Anthony Lake.

----

Spy Plane Will Return to U.S. in Pieces as Cargo

New York Times
May 29, 2001
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/world/29CHIN.html?searchpv=nytToday

BEIJING, Tuesday, May 29 - American and Chinese officials have "agreed in principle" that a damaged American surveillance plane will be partly dismantled and removed from China on a giant Russian-designed cargo plane, the American Embassy said here today.

The timing of the removal and other final details are still under discussion, an embassy spokesman said, but it appears that an incident that has inflamed Chinese-American relations will soon be resolved.

American officials had hoped to repair the aircraft and fly it out of China, but Chinese officials said that would add to their national humiliation and refused, suggesting instead that the plane be broken into pieces and sent home in crates. As a compromise, the two sides have now agreed that the United States will send in an AN-124 cargo plane, to be rented from an unspecified country.

With such a large carrier, technicians may need only to remove the wings and tail of the spy plan for shipment, making it possible to repair the $80 million aircraft later. The AN-124 cargo planes have been manufactured in Russia and Ukraine, and are used commercially.

"If you agree to fly in a large cargo plane like the AN-124, you can disassemble it and then reassemble it," a Pentagon official said in Washington. "You can use the plane later."

The American EP-3E plane, which was conducting electronic surveillance outside Chinese territorial waters, made an emergency landing at a Chinese military base on the southern island of Hainan on April 1, after a midair collision with a trailing Chinese fighter jet.

The Chinese jet and its pilot, Wang Wei, were lost at sea. The collision and unauthorized landing of the crippled American craft on Chinese territory set off an outpouring of nationalist outrage here, while the initial refusal of the Chinese to free the 24-person Navy crew caused anger in Washington.

The crew was finally released 11 days later, after the United States, by agreement with China, issued a vague statement of sorrow at the loss of the Chinese pilot and the unauthorized landing. Beijing described it as an apology for the incident, and the crew was sent home. In the initial days after the collision, China blamed the American plane, charging that it had made a sudden swerve while the Chinese jet was watching from a safe distance. But American officials heatedly deny that charge and have offered evidence that the Chinese pilot swooped in too close to the slower spy plane, accidentally clipping a propeller with the jet's tail.

A second Chinese pilot on the scene said he saw Wang Wei parachute out of his craft, but an exhaustive search proved fruitless.

China also made demands that the United States halt its routine surveillance off Chinese waters. But American officials say the flights are standard and legal, and they have already staged at least one more since the collision.

The incident was an unexpected irritant to already strained relations between the Bush administration and the Beijing government. Having vowed during his campaign to be tougher on China, Mr. Bush has angered China with his proposed missile defense system, by approving a large package of arms sales to Taiwan, by allowing the Taiwanese president to make a very public visit to the United States and by meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in the White House.

Beijing has registered its complaints but also continued to stress its desire for better relations with the United States, and to proceed with its entry in the World Trade Organization, which will further open up Chinese markets.

--------

China firm on refusing U.S. plane to fly off island

USA TODAY
05/29/2001
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-29-china-spyplane.htm

BEIJING (AP) - China's refusal to allow a U.S. Navy spy plane to fly home, forcing the dismantling of the $80 million aircraft, was based on political rather than technical considerations, officials in Beijing said Tuesday. U.S. officials had wanted to repair the damaged EP-3 Aries II and fly it off China's Hainan island where it landed April 1 after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet. But China says that's impossible. Instead, the two sides have tentatively agreed that the plane will be transported home in pieces.

"We have explained the Chinese reason. It's not a technical issue, it has to do with the nature of this plane and how and where it landed," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday in explaining China's refusal.

The collision, which killed the Chinese pilot, and China's 11-day detention of the U.S. plane's 24 crew members caused the worst tensions between Washington and Beijing since NATO bombed China's embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999.

China accused the U.S. plane of causing the April 1 collision and of then violating Chinese sovereignty by making an unauthorized emergency landing at a military airport on Hainan. Beijing rejected Washington's explanations that the bombing was a mistake.

Deputy Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said in early May that allowing the plane to fly home would "further hurt the dignity and sentiments of the Chinese people."

Zhu said the "agreement in principle" to dismantle the plane and load it onto a commercial freight aircraft was worked out recently between a Chinese assistant foreign minister, Zhou Wenzhong, and Michael Marine, the acting U.S. ambassador to China.

Details are being discussed, Zhu said. One plan under consideration calls for taking the wings and tail off the EP-3 and flying the sections out of China aboard a giant Russian-designed AN-124 cargo aircraft.

Reinforcing signs that tensions will continue even after the U.S. plane's return, Zhu said Tuesday that China has refused permission to let the USS Inchon, an anti-mine ship, dock in Hong Kong next month.

Zhu did not link the refusal to the spy plane collision, but said China opposed the resumption of U.S. spy flights along its coast.

-------- terrorism

All four found guilty in embassy bombings trial

USA TODAY
05/29/2001
Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-05-29-trial.htm

NEW YORK (AP) - Four followers of Osama bin Laden were convicted Tuesday of all charges in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people and injured thousands of others in a shower of rubble and twisted metal. Two defendants were convicted of counts that could carry the death penalty. Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, 24, of Saudi Arabia; Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, of Tanzania; Wadih El-Hage, 40, of Arlington, Texas; and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, of Jordan, were convicted of conspiring to kill Americans in the nearly simultaneous bombings.

The death penalty counts pertained to Al-Owhali and Mohamed, who were convicted of using an explosive to cause mass destruction. The jury will return Wednesday to begin the penalty phase for the two.

The verdict from an anonymous federal jury in a tightly guarded Manhattan federal courtroom set the stage for more trials: Six other defendants charged in the conspiracy are in custody; a dozen others, including bin Laden, are being sought.

The courtroom was packed with about 100 spectators when the verdicts were read on the 12th day of jury deliberations. Several relatives of the defendants wiped away tears or hung their heads as each name was read aloud by the judge's deputy, followed by a litany of dozens of "guilty" verdicts.

Odeh, wearing a white cap, took notes. His attorney patted him on the back when Odeh was convicted on the first count. Otherwise, the defendants showed little reaction.

In all, the jury returned guilty verdicts on 302 counts that took more than an hour to read.

Jurors heard nearly three months of testimony about the twin blasts on Aug. 7, 1998, at embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Even though the attack was overseas, the United States had jurisdiction because American property was targeted. Twelve Americans were among the dead.

The defendants were brought to trial in New York because the U.S. attorney's office here had been investigating bin Laden since 1996. The same office had successfully prosecuted a dozen men in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Some jurors appeared stunned as they viewed photos of torn and burned bodies, charred cars and smoldering concrete ruins.

The jury heard prosecutors repeatedly invoke the name of bin Laden. They charged that as the reputed kingpin of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, he commanded a ragtag army of Islamic extremists who had answered the call to repel the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan.

As early as 1989, prosecutors said, bin Laden was taking aim at another superpower - the United States - and by 1998 had issued an edict to kill Americans anywhere they are found. A key government witness, former terrorist Jamal al-Fadl, testified that bin Laden referred to the United States as the "head of the snake."

The bombings brought an unprecedented worldwide response to terrorism by hundreds of FBI agents and prosecutors. Treating terrorism like organized crime, investigators used informants, turncoat terrorists, telephone bugs and confessions to build the case.

In a confession recounted during the trial by an FBI agent, Al-Owhali, told investigators he rode the bomb-carrying truck to the embassy in Nairobi and tossed stun grenades to distract guards. The would-be suicide bomber fled before he could become a martyr.

In a similar confession to another agent, Mohamed said he helped grind TNT for the bomb in Tanzania before loading the bomb truck and seeing it off, praying that it would achieve its deadly purpose.

Prosecutors alleged that El-Hage - bin Laden's personal secretary - led "a secret double life," globe-trotting to raise money and smuggle weapons like Stinger missiles for al-Qaeda's terror plots.

Odeh, an alleged explosives expert, was accused of being a "technical adviser" to the terror group. He stayed in the same hotel room with the mastermind of the Nairobi bombing in the days just before the attack, prosecutors said.

Defense lawyers claimed Mohamed was a mere "pawn" unaware of the bomb's intent, while Al-'Owhali should have been exonerated because he was accused of a decade-long worldwide conspiracy he knew nothing about.

The defense also argued that explosives residue on Odeh's clothing was inconclusive and that he was a victim of guilt by association because he had joined al-Qaeda. Lawyers for El-Hage argued that he was a businessman who knew nothing about bin Laden's terrorism designs.

With extraordinary cooperation from local authorities in Africa, the FBI interviewed the defendants soon after the bombings and placed them in custody.

Two of the four defendants, Al-'Owhali and Odeh, were arrested in Nairobi just days after the bombings. The Texan, El-Hage, was arrested in this country one month after the bombings, while Mohamed was apprehended in South Africa in October 1999.

-------- activists

HK activists block Nestle plant in GM food protest

CHINA: May 29, 2001
Story by Chee-may Chow
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10985&newsDate=29-May-2001

HONG KONG - Greenpeace activists in Hong Kong yesterday chained themselves to the gates of a factory owned by food manufacturing giant Nestle to protest against the use of genetically engineered ingredients in its products.

Protesters formed a human chain to block the entrance to the Nestle factory in the New Territories.

Activists in white lab coats held up a yellow banner that read "No more lies, no more GE food".

At the back of the building, two protesters chained themselves to a van parked by the gate while a third man wrapped a bicycle lock around his neck and attached it to the fence.

"The aim is so that none of their products would hit the market all day today," Greenpeace spokeswoman Luisa Tam told Reuters over the phone.

Police eventually cut the protestors chains and two men were taken into custody.

Greenpeace said Nestle had not followed through on a pledge to the group to phase out genetically-engineered ingredients contained in fresh soya milk and a beancurd dessert.

"In tests we did ourselves, we still found traces of GE-ingredients," said Tam.

A statement by Nestle Dairy Farm Hong Kong Ltd, a subsidiary of the Nestle group, said the protest had seriously disrupted business and demanded the protesters leave immediately.

It said the company abided by local regulations on the development and use of gene technology and would not discuss the issue with the environmental group.

When asked by Reuters if its products contained genetically engineered ingredients the company said that it had no immediate comment.

Protesters eventually dispersed peacefully with the group saying it planned further action. It said that Monday's blockade had successfully prevented Nestle's products reaching the market for at least eight hours.

Hong Kong has no specific regulations concerning genetically-modified food but is considering the introduction of a labeling system for such products.


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

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