------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Disabled people used as nuclear 'guinea pigs'
NATO, partners begin military exercise in Georgia
Theme for Europe
French nuke agency evicts Greenpeace from website
Germany seals nuclear shutdown
German Nuclear Shutdown Protested
Did Iraq Conduct a Clandestine Nuclear Test?
No evidence found of '89 Iraq N-test
Opposition To Missile Defenses Growing Vocal
Bush: Allies Have Say on Missile Shield Development
Missile Shield Point Man Does Not Shy From Tough Sell
Dark Side of U.S. Quest for Security: Squalor on an Atoll
Scientist defends use of dead babies
ACTIVISTS UNITE AGAINST YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR DUMP
Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository
OS man seeks change in DOE medical program
More Join Chorus for Nuke Power
UNDERGROUND REPOSITORIES NEEDED FOR NUCLEAR WASTES

MILITARY
Oil Money Is Fueling Sudan's War
Israel accepts U.S. cease-fire plan with reservations
Kennedy Goes to Court Over Vieques
STATE OF SIEGE AT THE PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE
Swiss to arm peacekeepers
U.N. drug control program faulted
N.J. Fire Blamed on Practice Bomb
Army fights to keep 10 combat divisions

OTHER
American wind energy industry comes of age
Germany Substitutes Wind for Nuclear Power
EU green energy plan may be delayed after Dutch object
US senators want more renewable fuels in gasoline
Statement From McVeigh's Attorney
METHANE HYDRATES
Text of President Bush's Remarks on Global Climate
GLOBAL WARMING - The Press Gets It Wrong
Chinese Labor Organizer Indicted
China Adds To Curbs on Falun Gong
Let the North join IMF, official says
Sir David Spedding, Headed Britain's Secret Service
Congress Looks to Patch the Safety Net for Whistle-Blowers

ACTIVISTS
Indonesia Releases Activists
Chechnya Discounted
Greenpeace raids tanker in anti-Bush protest
Thousands march in Madrid, denounce Bush policies
In the Desert, A Drink of Mercy, Protest Water to Migrants Questioned
Activists Speak on McVeigh Execution
PSR to Present Petitions Urging Congress to Oppose NMD


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- britain

Disabled people used as nuclear 'guinea pigs'

Irish Independent,
Independent News Service.
Kathy Marks in Sydney
June 11, 2001
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=32&si=450608

PROFOUNDLY disabled people were sent out from institutions in Britain to be used as guinea pigs during British atomic tests in the Australian desert in the 1950s, it was alleged yesterday.

They did not return home and are assumed to have died after witnessing nuclear explosions at Maralinga, in South Australia, at close quarters.

Claims that disabled people were deliberately exposed to radioactive fall-out in order to assess its effects on the human body were examined in 1985 by an Australian Royal Commission into the tests, but were dismissed as unsubstantiated.

Now The Independent has learned of the existence of a pilot who claims he flew them out from Britain.

The pilot related his story to respected Australian academic, Robert Jackson, director of the Centre for Disability Research and Development at Edith Cowan University in Perth.

The encounter took place after Dr Jackson gave a presentation to 300 staff in the late 1980s, during which he mentioned the allegations about radiation experiments.

Afterwards, he said, one staff member approached him and told him: "That was true. I was one of the pilots, and we didn't fly them out again."

Dr Jackson claimed he closely questioned the man, who had become a disabled care worker, and had no doubt he was telling the truth. "I was quite convinced," he added. The people who were used as guinea pigs had multiple disabilities, both physical and intellectual, the staff member told him. He is now trying to trace the man, who left the centre several years ago.

The disclosure follows revelations last week that bodies of stillborn and dead babies were shipped to the US in the 1950s from Britain, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong for use in research projects on the effects of radiation exposure. Thousands of human bone samples were also sent out.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency admitted bone samples were taken from dead babies and adults and sent abroad to be tested for Strontium 90, a key radioactive element, in a programme which continued until 1978. Chief Executive Dr John Loy said pathologists cremated bones and put ashes through a geiger counter.

-------- europe

NATO, partners begin military exercise in Georgia

06-11-01 08:40 ET
REUTERS NEWS
http://www.businessweek.com/reuters_stories/European/06_11_2001.reulb-story-bcarmsnatogeorgia.html

TBILISI, June 11 (Reuters) - Some 4,000 servicemen from 11 countries began a NATO training exercise near Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti on Monday aimed at deepening cooperation between the military alliance and countries to the east.

Soldiers from the United States, France, Italy, Turkey, Sweden and Greece were participating in the two-week exercise with others from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Georgia.

International Red Cross officials were also taking part.

``The main purpose of the exercises is to carry out coordinated activities among military forces of NATO and its partner countries, deepening collaboration in the military sphere and also carrying out humanitarian operations,'' Georgian Defence Ministry spokesman Mirian Kiknadze told Reuters.

The exercises will take place onshore and aboard 40 vessels in the Black Sea, he said.

Romania and Bulgaria are among nine eastern European candidates for NATO membership. Alliance leaders will meet in Prague at the end of next year to decide whether to allow further expansion to the east after three countries -- Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic -- were admitted in 1999.

Former Soviet Ukraine, sandwiched between Russia and Europe, has made overtures to NATO but has been careful to avoid saying it wants to join it.

Azerbaijan has suggested that NATO bases be established on its soil to counterbalance a Russian military presence in neighbouring Armenia, with which Azerbaijan is locked in a grinding dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory.

Western-oriented Georgia says it has aspirations to join, to the annoyance of its giant northern neighbour Russia.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said on Monday the NATO exercises marked a step toward bringing Georgian armed forces up to NATO standards.

``As to the political side, we could consider the NATO exercises as confirmation of the readiness of our country to move towards deeper Euro-Atlantic integration,'' Shevardnadze said in a regular radio broadcast.

Georgia has pressed for the closure of all four Russian military bases on its soil. Two bases will be closed down by July and the two sides are negotiating a timetable for closure of two other bases.

----

Theme for Europe

Washington Post
Monday, June 11, 2001; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48849-2001Jun10?language=printer

PRESIDENT BUSH leaves today for a tour of Europe that will do much to determine whether the relatively bumpy start his administration has had in transatlantic relations fades with growing familiarity or becomes an enduring problem. No doubt much of his discussions with European leaders will be dominated by the issues of missile defense and global warming, where European reaction to the administration's first steps has been prickly or even angry. It is unlikely those differences can be resolved this week, though if Mr. Bush can go further in explaining his vision of how missile defense fits within a larger "new strategic framework" for managing nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War world, he could make progress in winning over European opinion.

But there is another theme to the trip that offers Mr. Bush the chance to demonstrate continued U.S. commitment to positive engagement with Europe. As his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, described it, Mr. Bush wants to revitalize the goal of a "Europe whole, free and at peace" articulated by his father at the end of the Cold War. That slogan is far less rhetorical than it sounds. It encompasses a concrete and urgent piece of unfinished business that has not yet been the subject of adequate attention in U.S.-European discussions: the incorporation of 10 or more once-communist nations in Central and Eastern Europe into the continent's dominant institutions, which are the European Union and NATO.

Although Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were successfully brought into NATO four years ago, the European Union has yet to admit any of the states of the former Soviet Bloc. It now seems as though no Central or East European states will be allowed into the common market before 2004, and the date may slip still further as objections from existing members pile up. Meanwhile, states that will be vital to preserving peace and security in Europe, ranging from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the Baltic coast to Slovakia in Central Europe and Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Croatia and Slovenia in the Balkans, remain outside of NATO. A NATO summit in Prague next year is due to consider expansion, but so far there is no consensus and not even much deliberation within the alliance on new members.

There may not be much the United States can do about the shameful slowness of European Union expansion, though Mr. Bush would be right to urge the process forward at his summit meeting with EU leaders in Sweden. But the president can use his visit with NATO leaders in Brussels and his major address several days later in Warsaw to put NATO expansion firmly at the center of the transatlantic agenda. He can do that by strongly stating U.S. support for the eventual admission of all the candidate states that meet clear military and political criteria and by focusing the discussion within NATO on taking action on at least some new members by the Prague summit. By doing so, Mr. Bush would make clear to Europeans, both west and east, that the United States will remain engaged in the continent and committed to its security. He also would provide candidate nations, particularly in the Balkans, with a clear set of incentives to strengthen their new democratic institutions and professionalize their militaries -- and an assurance that their future lies with the democratic nations of the West, led by the United States.

-------- france

French nuke agency evicts Greenpeace from website

SWITZERLAND: June 11, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11135

GENEVA - Nuclear processing agency Cogema has won a cybersquatting case against Greenpeace International, having the environmentalists evicted from a site bearing the French concern's name.

An arbitrator appointed by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ruled that the domain name "cogema.org" should be transferred to the French agency, Compagnie Generale des Matieres Nucleaires.

Greenpeace registered the name last July, saying it was using the Internet for peaceful protest against the nuclear energy business.

The neutral arbitrator, Tony Willoughby, found that the domain name was confusingly similar to the French nuclear fuel agency's 68 trademarks held in 26 countries.

Greenpeace had no right or legitimate interest in the domain name which had been registered in bad faith, the Briton added in his ruling.

Cogema accused Greenpeace of trying to "tarnish" its name with "systematic denigrations, accusations and actions" performed while bearing the company's name, according to a statement issued by WIPO, a United Nations agency.

Greenpeace argues that Cogema's reprocessing plant at La Hague, on France's Channel coast, is responsible for high levels of radioactive discharge into the North Sea.

-------- germany

Germany seals nuclear shutdown

USA Today
06/11/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-11-germany.htm

BERLIN (AP) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and leading energy companies formally signed an agreement Monday to shut down Germany's 19 nuclear power plants, making it the world's largest industrialized nation to willingly forgo the technology.

Though it could take decades to complete, the plan underscores the divide between Europe and the United States on environmental policy. President Bush last month unveiled measures to promote the building of more nuclear plants, and many now operating are expected to apply to extend their operating license.

After the signing ceremony in Berlin, Schroeder said that while it was up to every country to design its own energy policy, "naturally we would hope that many follow our example."

The pact limits nuclear plants, which provide nearly a third of Germany's electricity, to an average 32 years of operation. That would likely see the most modern plants close around 2021 and see Germany join nations such as Italy and Austria in abandoning nuclear power.

Still, some environmentalists say that timetable is far too long while German conservatives argue that abandoning atomic power is a mistake. Power company executives say they haven't given up hope that a future government would scrap the plan.

The nuclear shutdown still must be approved by the Cabinet and parliament, where Schroeder's Social Democrats hold the majority along with the environmentalist Greens.

Eliminating nuclear power is a pet cause of the Greens, who for years backed protests focused on halting nuclear waste transports, which the pact will end by mid-2005.

Police deployed thousands of officers Monday to protect the latest shipment from demonstrators while the environmentalist group Greenpeace placed containers of contaminated soil from reprocessing plants in France and England outside the headquarters of the Social Democrats and Greens.

About 30 anti-nuclear activists beat drums and erected a model nuclear reactor that belched orange fumes during the signing ceremony at the new chancellery in Berlin.

The leading opposition party, the conservative Christian Democrats, argued that eliminating nuclear energy would force Germany to use dirtier power sources. That could make it more difficult to curb emissions as outlined by the landmark 1997 Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gases.

"Abandoning atomic energy is a historic failure," said Ulrich Mueller, a Christian Democrat who is environment minister of Baden-Wuerttemberg state.

But Schroeder said the Kyoto agreement meant Germany also had the responsibility to establish environmentally friendly power sources, a stance it will take to a U.N. climate conference next month in the former German capital Bonn.

"Germany truly will meet its responsibilities for climate protection," Schroeder pledged.

The U.S. administration opposes the Kyoto accord.

Monday's signing comes a full year after Schroeder hammered out a preliminary phase-out plan with industry leaders. E.On, the last of the four power companies involved to approve the deal, only did so Sunday.

But whether the German nuclear plan would survive a change in government remains open. Some conservatives, who hope to oust Schroeder in parliamentary elections next year, have said they will reverse the policy - a move that industry would welcome.

E.On chairman Ulrich Hartmann, speaking after Schroeder at Monday's ceremony, said the signing was "no reason to celebrate for us," arguing that the policy was misguided given limited energy resources and the need to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

"Nothing in life is irreversible," he insisted in an interview published Monday in Die Welt newspaper, though adding that industry would "keep to the agreements with the government as long as it keeps to them."

----

German Nuclear Shutdown Protested

By Geir Moulson
Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 11, 2001; 8:34 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010611/aponline083441_000.htm

BERLIN -- Supporters and opponents of nuclear power on Monday protested a deal being signed by the German government and utilities to shut down the country's 19 nuclear power plants.

Hailed by its backers as a historic shift of energy policy in Europe's biggest economy, the deal could take decades to carry out. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and executives of four power companies were to sign the deal in Berlin later Monday.

The government and utilities approved the nuclear phaseout a year ago, but needed time to negotiate details of the legislation to be submitted to parliament. The last of the power companies, E.On, approved the deal Sunday.

Anti-nuclear activists oppose the deal, which sets no fixed date for the last plant to close, because they want a quicker shut down.

Pro-nuclear politicians do no want Germany to abandon nuclear power and warn that it could impede efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases in line with the international pact signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, by forcing Germany to switch to other fuels, such as oil.

Nuclear plants provide almost a third of German electricity. The government has said it plans to promote other energy sources, including wind power.

The accord says the nuclear plants should have a standard life span of 32 years, which would see Germany's newest nuclear plant shutting down in 2021. The first of the plants, at Stade in northern Germany, is to close in 2003.

However, the accord stipulates that the transport of nuclear fuel and waste - which has attracted massive protests from Germany's anti-nuclear lobby - should end in mid-2005.

The environmental group Greenpeace placed containers filled with contaminated soil from reprocessing plants in France and England outside the headquarters of the Social Democrats and Greens, the two parties in Germany's governing coalition.

"The government pretends it has resolved the end of nuclear energy once and for all," said the organization's energy expert, Susanne Ochse. "Anyone who knows the deal knows that is complete nonsense."

Utilities, in turn, have made plain that they would look to future governments to stop the phaseout.

E.On chairman Ulrich Hartmann insisted that "nothing in life is irreversible."

"I'm sure that nuclear energy will still play an important role in the future," he said in an interview with the daily Die Welt.

-------- iraq

Did Iraq Conduct a Clandestine Nuclear Test?

WIRE: 06/11/2001 7:02 am ET
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20010611_60.html

UNITED NATIONS - The chief U.N. arms inspector and experts at a London think tank have concluded there was no evidence Iraq had carried out a successful nuclear test in 1989, as alleged in news reports earlier this year.

Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said he reported to the U.N. Security Council last week "the information is totally wrong" that Iraq conducted a nuclear test beneath Lake Rezazza, southwest of Baghdad on Sept. 19, 1989, before the Gulf War.

He told reporters his department and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had evidence in its files, from overhead flights and previous ground inspections "there had been no nuclear tests" nor a tunnel under the lake.

Purported evidence of a test, from two defecting former scientists in Iraq and an interpretation of satellite photographs of the test area, was reported in London's Sunday Times newspaper in February and received fairly wide coverage.

Terry Wallace, a professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona, says that while it is far easier to prove something did happen than to prove it did not there was no reason to believe the story is "anything but a hoax."

An examination of global earthquake catalogs, produced by the International Seismic Center and U.S. Geological Survey, revealed no significant seismic activity in Iraq the day the test was alleged to have taken place, Wallace said.

Such an explosion he said, in an article for the London-based think tank, the Verification, Training and Information Center, would have been easily detectable by international or by regional monitoring in Iran, Israel or Jordan, which keep records of earthquakes.

None of them reported any seismic events of the magnitude necessary for a nuclear test in the region around Lake Rezazza, Wallace said.

U.N. arms inspectors have not been permitted to track down Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction since mid-December 1998, when they were withdrawn shortly before the United States and Britain launched a four-day bombing campaign prompted by Iraq's failure to cooperate with the arms teams.

Blix's agency has now signed a contract with a private, satellite firm and is restarting overhead flights this month.

Earlier this year, Western intelligence agencies alleged that Iraq had reconstituted parts of its banned arms programs. The German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) in February told selected reporters Iraq could produce a nuclear device in three years and fire a missile as far as Europe by 2005.

U.S. and British officials alleged in January that Iraq had rebuilt three factories capable of producing chemical and biological weapons.

The IAEA, meanwhile, carried out its annual inspection of the Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear power center in January and reported that low-grade nuclear material held there had not been moved since its last visit.

--------

No evidence found of '89 Iraq N-test

Monday, June 11, 2001
Reuters News Service
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,275011024,00.html?

UNITED NATIONS - The chief U.N. arms inspector and experts at a London think tank have concluded there was no evidence Iraq had carried out a successful nuclear test in 1989, as alleged in news reports earlier this year.

Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said he reported to the U.N. Security Council last week "the information is totally wrong" that Iraq conducted a nuclear test beneath Lake Rezazza, southwest of Baghdad on Sept. 19, 1989, before the Gulf War.

He told reporters his department and the International Atomic Energy Agency had evidence in its files, from overhead flights and previous ground inspections "there had been no nuclear tests" nor a tunnel under the lake.

Purported evidence of a test, from two defecting former scientists in Iraq and an interpretation of satellite photographs of the test area, was reported in February.

Terry Wallace, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, says that while it is far easier to prove something did happen than to prove it did not there was no reason to believe the story is "anything but a hoax."

An examination of global earthquake catalogs revealed no significant seismic activity in Iraq the day the test was alleged to have taken place, Wallace said.

Such an explosion he said, in an article for the London-based think tank, the Verification, Training and Information Center, would have been easily detectable by international or by regional monitoring in Iran, Israel or Jordan, which keep records of earthquakes.

None of them reported any seismic events of the magnitude necessary for a nuclear test in the region around Lake Rezazza, Wallace said.

U.N. arms inspectors have not been permitted to track down Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction since mid-December 1998, when they were withdrawn shortly before the United States and Britain launched a four-day bombing campaign prompted by Iraq's failure to cooperate with the arms teams.

Blix's agency has now signed a contract with a private, satellite firm and is restarting overhead flights this month.

Earlier this year, Western intelligence agencies alleged that Iraq had reconstituted parts of its banned arms programs. The German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) in February told selected reporters Iraq could produce a nuclear device in three years and fire a missile as far as Europe by 2005.

U.S. and British officials alleged in January that Iraq had rebuilt three factories capable of producing chemical and biological weapons.

The IAEA, meanwhile, carried out its annual inspection of the Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear power center in January and reported that low-grade nuclear material held there had not been moved since its last visit.

-------- missile defense

Opposition To Missile Defenses Growing Vocal In Washington As Bush Departs For Meetings With European, Russian Leaders

U.S. Newswire 11 Jun 14:21
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0611-133.html

News Advisory:

WHAT: June 12 Capitol Hill press conference highlighting Congressional opposition to the Bush administration's push for missile defenses features members of Congress who oppose it, and have just heard from their constituents that they do, too. Part of a three-day series of events organized by national citizens' groups to voice broad-based public opposition to the Bush administration's missile defense plans, the press conference is the culmination of two days of meetings between constituents from 40 states opposing missile defenses and their representatives in Congress.

WHO: Participants available for interviews at the June 12 press conference include, among others:

Confirmed: -- Rep. Bob Filner, 50th district, California -- Rep. Barney Frank, 4th district, Massachusetts -- Rep. Rush Holt, 12th district, New Jersey -- Rep. Janice Shakowski, 9th district, Illinois -- Rep. John Tierney, 6th district, Massachusetts -- Jonathan Granoff, Arms Control Advisor, American Bar Association -- Tracy Moavero, program director, Peace Action -- Susan Shaer, executive director, Women's Action for New Directions -- Dr. Peter Wilk, former president of Physicians for Social Reponsibility -- Frank von Hippel, chairman of Federation of American Scientists, Princeton professor, former Assistant Director for National Security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Unconfirmed: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

WHEN & WHERE: 12 noon, Tuesday, June 12, outdoors in the SE triangle, located behind the House side of the Capitol building.

BACKGROUND:

The press conference illustrates growing resolve in Congress and in the electorate not to allow the White House to ram through its missile defense agenda either at home or abroad, just at the moment Democrats who are skeptical of NMD assume leadership of key Senate committees.

Opponents say missile defenses would be monumentally costly, unworkable, and damaging to US national security and strategic relationships. Friday Senate majority leader Tom Daschle said, "every aspect of the debate and the consideration given to this whole program is troubling to me."

New legislation is pending in Congress to move ahead with nuclear weapons reductions and reaffirm U.S. commitment to the arms control treaty regime that missile defenses would abrogate.

In recent days some 40,000 e-mails, 6,000 signatures and over 10,000 snail-mailed messages opposing NMD have poured into Washington, and continue to arrive at the rate of over 1000 a day. The messages will be presented to members of Congress at the press conference.

Polls show the more Americans learn about NMD, the more strongly they oppose it. A new ABC/Washington Post poll also shows a slipping 55 percent approval rating for President as he departs for meetings with the EU, NATO and Russian President Putin, where he will confront strong NMD opposition, and where he cannot legitimately argue missile defenses have broad-based support from the majority of Americans.

The June 12 press conference takes place on the first day of Bush's trip. It is also the anniversary of the largest demonstration in U.S. history: a 1982 rally in Central Park where over a million protestors opposed the nuclear arms race and galvinized a national movement against Reagan's Star Wars intitiative.

For more information or interviews, call Kent Communications via DC cell phone: 914-589-5988.

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor, Contacts: Steve Kent, 845-424-8382, or 914-589-5988 (cell phone, in Washington) or Alistair Millar, 202-393-5201

----

Bush: Allies Have Say on Missile Shield Development

June 11, 2001
By REUTERS Filed at 4:43 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-bu.html?searchpv=reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Washington will consult allies on ``how fast we will move'' with development of a missile defense system that is currently barred by a key U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms treaty, President Bush said on Monday.

In an interview with Belgian television on the eve of his inaugural visit to Europe, Bush said the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty no longer made sense.

``The safety guarantee must be developing a system which reflects the true threats of the 21st century. Russia is not the enemy of the United States and yet we still go to a treaty that assumes Russia is the enemy, a treaty that says the whole concept of peace is based on us blowing each other up,'' he said.

``I don't think that makes sense any more.''

Bush said the ABM treaty provisions were blocking testing and development of the elements of a multi-layered anti-missile shield. This would use land, air and seaborne weapons capable of destroying missiles at various stages of flight including in space.

``I believe strongly that what the United States is proposing makes sense for all freedom-loving peoples and we'll work with our friends in terms of how fast we will move,'' he said.

``A lot of it depends upon our ability to conduct the research and development necessary to develop systems that work and we will look forward to sharing technology with our friends.

``We've been testing some systems all along. But the current treaty prevents us from doing even more tests to determine what's effective and that's what we really want to know,'' the U.S. president added.

The next test of a ground-to-space missile interceptor, and the first under the Bush administration, is expected sometime next month, a year after the last one failed to hit its target.

Bush is now considering a fast-track option that could see a small number of such interceptors deployed by 2004, breaching the ABM treaty which Moscow says is the underpinning for over 30 nuclear arms pacts that reined in the Cold War arms race.

PLEDGE ON CLOSE CONSULTATIONS

Russia and some European NATO allies are opposed to the missile defense proposal, in part because they consider it to be a misdirected and expensive effort to counter hypothetical threats of attack by ``rogue states.''

Nuclear power China is strongly against the plan, which it sees as a bid to blunt its modest deterrent force.

``I look forward to working with friends like we have done -- close consultations -- as well as working with the Russians to make the case that freedom-loving people must work together to develop systems that reflect the true threats of the 21st century,'' Bush said.

He listed ``threats of terrorism, threats of weapons of mass destruction, threats that can interrupt our ability to communicate with each other, biological threats....''

Bush said he backed the European Union's plan to build up its own rapid reaction force for crisis management, provided it did not rival NATO, shut out non-EU allies or result in a net loss of military effectiveness.

``Within the framework I do (support it), so long as it doesn't undermine NATO, so long as there's transparency in the decision-making process and so long as the European nations are willing to put more defense dollars in so it doesn't affect NATO's capacity to keep the peace,'' he said.

Bush was due to visit the headquarters in Belgium of the Atlantic alliance on Wednesday and meet allied leaders, after spending the first day of his European tour in Spain.

He will meet European Union leaders on Thursday in Gothenburg, Sweden, and hold his first face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovenia on Saturday.

In an interview with Sweden's public-service SVT television Bush reiterated his views on missile defense and also defended his decision to pull out of the Kyoto climate treaty.

He said he would seek to assure European leaders that the United States remained committed to finding viable solutions to global warming.

``I haven't changed my mind on the Kyoto treaty, which was a flawed treaty,'' he said.

``I believe that the Kyoto treaty goals were unrealistic. We would not have been able to meet them. And had we tried it would have wrecked our economy,'' he added.

Bush defended his administration's position and said he was looking forward ``to assuring our friends in Europe that we take this issue very seriously.''

----

Missile Shield Point Man Does Not Shy From Tough Sell

Public Lives:
New York Times
June 11, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/politics/11LIVE.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON - IN his narrow office in the West Wing of the White House, Stephen J. Hadley keeps two small mementos. One is a cluster of models of every American intercontinental ballistic missile, from the Titan to the Peacekeeper, a reminder of his final days at the Defense Department in 1992, when he helped begin talks with Russia over sharing technology to build a missile defense system.

"It was going fine," Mr. Hadley recalled recently, "until the Russians figured out that George Herbert Walker Bush was not going to be re-elected."

Nearby is a figurine of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. Mr. Hadley was one of that tight group of Vulcans, the name for the foreign policy brain trust set up to bring another Bush up to speed on the dynamics of a world quite different from the one his father dealt with.

Today Mr. Hadley, 54, is coordinating President Bush's efforts to convince the Atlantic allies and Russia that scrapping the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty for a shared missile defense makes sense for superpowers, former superpowers and skeptical allies. Mr. Hadley was sent to Europe and Moscow to make the first pitch last month. Today the lobbying kicks into full swing, as President Bush heads for Europe and a meeting with Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin.

At one level, this is a chance for Mr. Hadley and his fellow Vulcans to breathe new life into the project they began in 1992. But, he insists, it is much more than that.

"Back then we were talking about a `global protection system,' but it was really strictly missile defense," he said recently, interrupted by calls from Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, who estimates that the two speak 20 times or more a day.

"What's interesting about what this president is doing," Mr. Hadley said, "is that he's constructed a much more ambitious concept that picked up on the themes that the cold war is over, and that we need a completely different approach to security, of which missile defense is a piece - but only a piece."

Mr. Bush, he said, "is talking about a much broader framework, one that says you need nonproliferation strategies, counterproliferation strategies, traditional deterrence and much less reliance on nuclear weapons."

They have yet to convince anyone - not the Russians, not the Europeans and certainly not the Chinese.

Mr. Hadley's job as deputy national security adviser is among the most powerful and least visible in the White House - particularly when the national security adviser is a media star. "I like it that way," he said.

He presides at meetings of the "deputies committee," the subcabinet working group that has recently rewritten the administration's policies on how to restart talks with Korea, tilt America's China policy toward Taiwan and keep Macedonia from disintegrating. The group is dominated by fellow Vulcans, from the deputy secretary of state, Richard L. Armitage, to the deputy secretary of defense, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and their advice is usually taken by their bosses and the president, who will travel nowhere without Ms. Rice or Mr. Hadley.

That is the official description of his job.

A senior official who sits in on many of the meetings said Mr. Hadley's other task was "reining in some of the right-wing ideologues who can get the president in trouble."

"He's methodical," the official said. "He runs meetings like an orchestra conductor. But when they are over, he's quietly tossed some pretty extreme ideas overboard."

Mr. Hadley takes umbrage at being called a closet moderate, arguing that he is committed to "a conservative agenda - realistically achievable, in a way that otherwise it might not be."

Ms. Rice, calling Mr. Hadley her "alter ego," credits him with countering her excesses. "I can sometimes jump from A to F," she said. "He backs me up to B and C, makes me think through the implications."

He has learned the deputy's art of protecting the boss from her own temper, one that rarely shows itself in public. "He helps me contain my undiplomatic side," Ms. Rice said. "He tells me when I'm being unnecessarily blunt."

MR. HADLEY was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of an electrical engineer for the old Reliance Electric Company and a mother who stayed home to raise the family. At Cornell University, under the tutelage of the diplomatic historian Walter Lefeber, Mr. Hadley (and several other Vulcans) acquired a love of foreign affairs. He went on to Yale Law School, where he befriended Hillary Rodham, a classmate.

"We were good friends, but we haven't talked much since," Mr. Hadley said. (He had little interaction with Bill Clinton.)

Shortly afterward, as a new staff member of the National Security Council in 1974, "I was in the East Room for Nixon's famous farewell speech," he recalled. He stayed during the Ford administration, then practiced law at the firm of Shea & Gardner, returning to the Pentagon in 1989 as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, the job in which he took part in those talks with Russia.

He met his wife, Ann Simon, in a failed subterfuge. "We were set up by friends who told her I was a tennis pro," said Mr. Hadley, who added that his large horned-rim glasses should have been a giveaway that "I'm really another Washington policy wonk." His wife is an assistant United States attorney, and they have two daughters, ages 14 and 12.

His time with them is limited these days as he tries to form and sell Mr. Bush's emerging vision of international security. "We have a lot of convincing to do," Mr. Hadley said. "But we never thought it was going to be easy. After all, we're talking about a whole new world."

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

Dark Side of U.S. Quest for Security: Squalor on an Atoll

June 11, 2001
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/world/11ISLA.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=print

KWAJALEIN ATOLL, Marshall Islands - Several times a year, these tiny Pacific islands witness a light show more spectacular than almost any offered by nature, when a gaggle of ballistic missiles, minus their warheads, streak in low, roaring through the night sky and hurtle into the nearby lagoon.

Such tests are no longer top secret, but the high-tech United States Army base here remains at the center of America's attempt to design missiles and missile defenses, right where it has been since the 1950's.

With the Bush administration vowing to develop a more expansive missile defense than ever, there is an atmosphere of excitement, at least among the Americans here, unrivaled since 1962, when a Nike Zeus rocket fired from here knocked out an incoming missile, the birth of the antimissile system era.

But the story of the Kwajalein range is more than a tale of triumphant technology. It is also an account of one of the closest things the United States has to a colonial relationship: one in which an almost idyllic small-town America sits on a sand-covered sliver of Micronesian coral, segregated from the overcrowded ghettos where native islanders have been displaced in America's pursuit of greater security.

The United States won control of the Marshall Islands' 29 atolls, comprising 1,225 low-lying coral islands, from Japan in 1944 during the bitterly fought Pacific campaign. And Washington has exercised broad control over the destiny of one of the world's smallest nations ever since.

After the war, the United States administered the territory under a United Nations mandate until 1986, when the country entered into a "free association" with Washington. Since then, the United States has secured use of its base here by a series of 15-year renewable agreements.

Those pacts make the United States responsible for the country's defense and give Washington final say over its foreign policy. The United States also provides disaster relief and many other services for the country's 50,000 people through programs like Head Start and the Job Corps as well as from the Department of Agriculture, the Federal Aviation Agency and the National Weather Service.

But from the very start, with the dropping of atomic bombs on Bikini Atoll, about 200 miles east of here, it has been a relationship laden with harsh consequences for the Marshallese people: sickness and death from radiation poisoning, the displacement of many people, and the destruction of a self-sufficient island way of life.

With its 839-square-mile lagoon, its missile-launching pads and clusters of huge, ultrahigh-performance tracking radars nested between the ruins of Japanese bunkers, today this atoll easily conjures up images of the island of Dr. No.

Because of its tiny population and distance from any continental land mass, the atoll and its surrounding seas offer weapons testers huge expanses that, almost unique in the world, are nearly free from traffic, whether human or radio.

"We think that all testing should come to Kwajalein Missile Range, because we've got the best capabilities in the world," said Lt. Col. Raymond Jones. "If you are living in New Mexico, the cities just get bigger and bigger, and begin to encroach on Los Alamos. Out here, they don't have cities to grow and encroach, and that's what makes this place an unduplicated national asset."

It also makes it something of a paradise, at least as far as the Americans are concerned. The Continental Airlines crew that flies an island- hopping route here from Guam announces the tone when it lands at Kwajalein, saying, "Welcome to the country club." Unlike the other stops along the way, here only American employees, their dependents and those with special permission are allowed to get off the plane.

The table-flat island of 1.2 square miles is home to about two dozen military personnel, along with 1,200 contractors and nearly as many family members in a closely knit community where people call one another by their first names, everyone pedals around on bicycles, and nine- hole golf, tennis, bowling and scuba diving provide recreation.

Church attendance is high, as are the test scores of the children who grow up here. Consumer goods are subsidized, keeping the cost of living down, and even recently released movies are shown for free at an open-air cinema. The result is that many of the people who come to work here for companies like Raytheon and Boeing often extend their tours as long as possible, some staying for 20 years or more.

"Every morning I walk out of my house and get on my bike to go to work, and expect to run into Beaver Cleaver," said Lt. Col. Steve Morris, a two-year resident, "because that's the kind of place we have here."

But the small-town-America feel has come at a high price for the Marshallese. Since 1946, when atomic testing began at Bikini Atoll, native islanders have been moved to make way for military programs.

Thirty-three years after the last of the 66 atomic and hydrogen weapons were exploded in the area, more than 350 displaced Bikini natives are still living on Kwajalein Atoll.

The American officer who persuaded Bikini's residents to evacuate during an impromptu meeting one Sunday in 1946, Commodore Ben Wyatt, told the villagers that their displacement was "for the good of mankind and to end all wars."

Today, the rationale for maintaining control of Kwajalein remains strikingly similar. "What has kept me here is the thought that missile defenses like this are really needed," said Dr. John Leeper, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology radar expert who has spent much of his career here. "Most Americans sleep soundly at night believing that we are already protected from attack, but that's just not so."

But in the place of the simple fishing and farming existence they once knew on their lightly inhabited atoll, Bikinians and many other displaced Marshallese have been relocated to badly overcrowded islands like Ebeye and Enniburr, where cholera outbreaks are common and malnutrition is frequently reported.

There, they live from month to month on the proceeds of the $1.1 billion paid by the United States under the latest 15-year agreement, which is up for renegotiation.

"We must respect the terms of our agreements with the United States, but the United States needs to recognize what has happened here, too," said Alvin Jacklick, the Marshall Islands' foreign minister. "Ebeye and Enniburr have become the worst ghettos of the Pacific, and the conditions there are barely humane."

The lucky few on these islands commute daily by boat to the American bases on Kwajalein Island or other installations, at Roi-Namur, for salaried jobs as cooks, maintenance workers and groundskeepers. Often, their spouses make the same commute to collect drinking water. They would gladly shop on the American- controlled islands, too, where prices are far lower and the selection is wide, except that Marshallese are not allowed to.

The lure of jobs has reputedly made Ebeye - a scorching place with poor sanitation, inadequate water supply and few trees - one of the most densely inhabited places on earth. With 15,000 people, the three- square mile island is now home to nearly a third of the Marshall Islands' total population.

Speaking warily, a woman who works at the Cafe Pacific, a dining hall that serves hearty breakfasts of pancakes, grits, sausages and eggs to the American workers on Kwajalein, described the mood of the Marshallese natives who live on Ebeye and the other islands as one of hopelessness and defeat.

"There used to be protests about the situation here," said the cafeteria worker. "But the Americans control the biggest island in this atoll, and they decide who gets jobs, and how much we get paid, too. We know there is something wrong here, but we feel like a mouse up against an elephant. What can we do?"

Many Americans blame Marshallese outright for their plight, saying they have wasted large sums of aid and that they crowd together in substandard housing because of the islanders' communal culture.

"Everyone knows that Ebeye is horrible," said Michael J. Senko, the United States ambassador to the Marshall Islands. "But what we are working with is a culture in which everyone who is your relative moves into your home if you have a job. But we know we've got to do more on education, and that we have to do better on Ebeye."

But many Marshallese say such arguments fail to acknowledge the role the United States played in destroying a largely self-sufficient way of life here, and in failing to replace it with any sustainable alternative.

On Enniburr, a sparsely shaded island the size of a football field, where about 1,000 people have relocated, there is no electricity, no running water and no stores. A few of the residents make the five-minute motorboat ride to Roi-Namur, at the northern tip of the atoll, to work on the American base there.

The others, though, mostly sit around all day, dreaming of another life. Asked what people there use for toilets, one man in his 30's who gave his name only as Simon, answered: "That's a good question. I guess we mostly use the reef, or that big bunker over there left by the Japanese. Maybe the Americans could take that away for us one day, and give us some electricity."

--------

Scientist defends use of dead babies

June 11, 2001
Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/06/11/story/0000089509

NECESSARY EVIL: The former leader of a project that used the corpses of babies, including Taiwanese, has defended his work, saying it greatly benefited mankind

The former head of a top-secret US project which used the corpses of babies in Cold War nuclear experiments has defended his work as a benefit to mankind, a news report said yesterday.

In an interview with Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post, Lawrence Kulp, acknowledged Project Sunshine used bone samples of cremated babies from around the world between 1955 and 1963 to test nuclear fall-out.

"What's unethical about chemically analyzing ash? There was a huge benefit for mankind," he was quoted as saying.

A furore erupted last week after Britain's The Observer newspaper cited declassified US documents as showing around 6,000 corpses of babies from hospitals in Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada and South America were shipped to the US for the experiments.

Officials have acknowledged that relatives did not always give their permission for the dead babies to be used.

Project Sunshine scientists focused on measuring Strontium 90, released into the atmosphere during nuclear tests, in the bones of dead babies, children and adults to see if the nuclear powers were poisoning the globe.

Kulp noted in the interview that their work eventually led to a 1963 world treaty banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere.

He said it was necessary for the scientists to get bodies from Asia because neither the British nor the Americans could obtain bodies from "Red" China to study irradiation.

"China was a big place. The data would have been representative of the diet of southeast China. We couldn't get samples from China. There was a Cold War going on," he said.

He said the project's British scientists used Hong Kong's former colonial status to gain access to corpses, while US scientists turned to Taiwan for similar purposes.

"Hong Kong and Taiwan bone samples were crucial to determining what levels of exposure there had been to the population of the region to this radiation. Hong Kong had the right rainfall, the right longitude and latitude," he said.

The results of the study reportedly showed more harmful effects from nuclear fall-out in North America and Europe because both the US and the former Soviet Union were conducting their nuclear tests around Siberia.

Kulp also said Project Sunshine was organized on a "doctor-to-doctor" rather than a governmental basis, and confirmed the role of British scientists, which has always been denied by the British government.

He dismissed allegations the project's scientists had been "baby-snatching" saying corpses of all ages were used in the testing.

Project Sunshine was started in 1955 after Willard Libby of the University of Chicago appealed for large numbers of bodies, preferably stillborn babies, for the experiments.

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

-------- nevada

ACTIVISTS UNITE AGAINST YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR DUMP

June 11, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-11-09.html

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, Activists from across the country gathered Friday to voice solidarity with Nevada's struggle against the proposed permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

"We are here to assure Nevadans that they have our support," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen in Washington, DC. "We will continue to actively oppose the industry-driven scheme to make Yucca Mountain into a high level nuclear waste dump."

Representatives of national groups were in Las Vegas at the meeting of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects to speak in support of Nevada Governor Ken Guinn's Nevada Protection Plan to defeat the Yucca Mountain proposal. National and Nevada activists emphasized the role of public interest groups in fostering informed citizen involvement at the grassroots.

"A broad based national effort is needed to defeat the Yucca Mountain Project and redirect nuclear waste policy to protect the health and safety of all Americans," said John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator for Citizen Alert.

The presence of groups from outside of Nevada demonstrated the national significance of the Yucca Mountain Project, the groups said. The nuclear transportation network that would be launched if the repository proposal were approved would send high level waste shipments through 43 states and within one half mile of 50 million people.

"Across the country people are waking up to the dangers of transporting highly radioactive waste through their communities to a leaky dump in Nevada. Awareness is growing that Yucca Mountain is in everyone's back yard," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, DC.

Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site now being studied for a permanent repository for the nation's nuclear wastes. Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released final standards for the amount of radiation that would be allowed to escape the site, bringing the proposal another step closer to a reality.

"After 14 years of study, we are at a critical juncture in the Yucca Mountain process," added Gue. "National groups are committed to working closely with Nevadans and concerned citizens across the country to defeat this dangerous and inherently flawed project."

-------

Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository
Environmentalists back Nevada's fight against nuke waste

By Mary Manning manning@lasvegassun.com
LAS VEGAS SUN
June 11, 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/dossier/nuke/

Environmental activists from across the country told Nevada officials Friday in Las Vegas that they support the state's fight against a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

They added that the project may have been successfully delayed, but is long from dead.

Nevada's congressional delegation has stopped temporary nuclear waste storage and stalled permanent burial of 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for more than 14 years, national grassroots representatives said.

In 1987 Yucca Mountain was designated in federal law as the only site to be studied as a high-level nuclear waste repository. A repository was originally supposed to open by 1998, but now will not open before 2010.

Since the Democrats gained control of the Senate last week, leaders have said legislation to further the Yucca Mountain Project will not be considered this year.

The environmentalists also told the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, meeting at Las Vegas City Hall, that new federal Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for how much radioactivity can escape from a proposed repository are encouraging, but not final.

The EPA standard would allow an average farmer 11 miles from the repository to be exposed to 15 millirems a year of radiation from Yucca Mountain, with a maximum of 4 millirems coming through the ground water. An average chest X-ray is 5 millirems.

That was lower than the limits suggested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would license the repository. The NRC advocated exposure of 25 millirems a year, with no separate ground water limit. NRC officials have said they will adopt the EPA standard when it becomes final next month.

"I was very pleased with the EPA regulations," said former governor and two-term U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, a vehement opponent of a Yucca Mountain repository, who was attending his first meeting as a commission member.

However, a clause tacked onto the law that can remove one or the other standard could be dangerous, he warned.

The language, called a severability clause, was put into the EPA standards during a Bush administration review of the radiation exposure limits, agency officials said.

"Severability means they can pick and choose what remains in the standard," Bryan, 63, said. "The severability clause cuts both ways."

Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, agreed with Bryan.

The nuclear industry filed two lawsuits within hours of EPA releasing the standards on Wednesday, Loux said. "That might give them another shot at going back to Congress and getting the standards set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," he said.

Grassroots activists said they can help stop the government from dumping nuclear waste in Nevada by raising national opposition to the plan.

"Yucca Mountain is flawed, that is the message to get out across the country," Scott Denman, executive director of the Safe Energy Communication Council, said. The council is a national energy policy group formed in 1980 to counteract "propaganda" from the Nuclear Energy Council, the former lobbying arm of the nuclear industry.

"You are not alone," Denman told Nevadans. "You share the same values of most Americans. A nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is not inevitable."

Representatives from Massachusetts, Georgia, Utah and Washington, D.C., activist groups echoed that sentiment.

Congressional action on Yucca Mountain could be as far away as 2003, after the next elections, Don Hancock, director of the Southwest Research and Information Center of Albuquerque, N.M., said.

No matter how much the public opposes a Yucca repository, it will take an act of Congress to stop it, Hancock said.

"Yucca Mountain is still in the law," Hancock said. "Until it is removed by Congress from the law, it could return as a solution after the congressional elections in 2002 or after the presidential election in 2004."

Glenn Carroll of Atlanta, who has fought nuclear utilities from expanding in the South for years, said it is time for a national dialogue on storing radioactive wastes, mainly spent fuel pellets, on site until a sound scientific solution is offered to handle the nuclear materials.

"But first, let's stop putting $1 million a day into the rat hole at Yucca Mountain," Carroll said.

Some Department of Energy laboratories have started research into methods to transform spent nuclear fuel into something less radioactive and with less bulk.

UNLV received $3 million this year to initiate studies on advanced accelerators, a method that would allow transforming the high-level nuclear waste near the 103 existing reactors around the nation. The accelerators would not eliminate a need for a repository, but it would have to store materials for about 300 years, instead of 10,000 years.

-------- tennessee

OS man seeks change in DOE medical program

June 11, 2001
by Paul Parson
Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/061101/new_0611010013.html

An Oliver Springs man is on a mission to get changes made to the Department of Energy's occupational medicine program.

Lester Raby's quest began shortly after his wife, Mary, died of cancer in 1994. She was a secretary in the Safeguards and Security Division at DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office.

Mary Raby's death, according to her husband, might have been prevented if she had received "adequate care" at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's medical clinic. He said that's where she received her annual physical examinations.

Lester Raby said lab reports show problems with his wife's blood cells as far back as 1987. Those problems were never mentioned at that time, he contends.

According to Lester Raby, his wife's platelet count dropped from 196,000 in 1989 to 122,000 in 1990. The normal value is 200,000 to 300,000 per cubic milliliter. Platelets are a component of the blood that play an important role in clotting.

It wasn't until 1991, according to Lester Raby, that an ORNL physician instructed his wife to get to the hospital because there was an "emergency." Mary Raby was admitted to Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge where she was diagnosed with refractory multiple myeloma, a type of bone cancer.

Mary Raby died on Feb. 22, 1994.

While Lester Raby is dissatisfied with the care his wife got at the ORNL clinic, he said all of DOE's sites have problems with their occupational medicine programs, except for one -- the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. He says DOE should use that site as a model for its other occupational medicine programs.

So Lester Raby has drafted and sent to the federal agency and several elected officials a total of 14 recommendations for improvements in DOE's occupational medicine program.

"I'm trying to correct a serious problem," he said of the recommendations, which include:

To avoid all conflicts of interest, do not allow the same contractor to operate the plants and the medical program.

Remove the funding for occupational medicine from site operations and fund the program through the director of occupational medicine's office.

Transfer authority for the clinics from the site operations to the director of DOE's occupational medicine program. The program would be enforced by DOE's Office of Oversight.

All DOE sites should have access to specialists in the fields of toxicology, epidemiology, immunology, hematology, endocrinology and industrial hygiene as well as any other disciplines central to occupational medicine that would apply to the types of chemicals and hazardous materials with which the employees work.

Require all medical programs to be accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Inc., which is headquartered in Illinois.

Joe Davis, a spokesman for DOE headquarters, confirmed that the federal agency has received Lester Raby's recommendations. Davis added that DOE's Office of Environmental Safety and Health is in the process of conducting a review of occupational medicine programs within DOE, which could result in some improvements.

"It's not something that is going to happen immediately," Davis said.

He said DOE will continue to work with Lester Raby and that his recommendations could be taken into consideration during the review.

Also receiving a copy of the recommendations was U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., according to Harvey Valentine with the senator's Washington, D.C., office. Valentine said Thompson staff members have spoken to DOE about Lester Raby's recommendations.

"We are monitoring their response," Valentine said.

Locally, each of DOE's major contractors, including UT-Battelle and BWXT Y-12, have separate occupational medicine programs that are run through their operating budgets, according to Frank Juan of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office. He said the programs have to meet "various accreditations through various organizations."

Regarding one of Lester Raby's recommendations, at least one DOE Oak Ridge clinic is already accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Inc., while another is in the process of becoming accredited.

Bill Wilburn, a spokesman for BWXT Y-12, said the occupational health clinic at the Y-12 National Security Complex underwent a survey by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Inc. this January.

"There were no adverse or deficiency findings," he said. " A full three-year accreditation was achieved. The date for the next accreditation survey is on or before Jan. 30, 2004."

James Phillips, a physician and the current medical director of ORNL's Health Division, said the lab's clinic is in the process of being accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Inc. A survey will be conducted during the second week of September.

-------- us nuc power

More Join Chorus for Nuke Power

Monday, June 11, 2001
Albuquerque Journal
By John Fleck Journal Staff Writer
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/357212news06-11-01.htm

Pete Domenici gets a glimmer in his eye when he talks about the possibility that someone might soon begin building the first new U.S. nuclear power plant in more than 20 years.

"That's not decades away," the Republican New Mexico senator said in a recent interview. "That's right around the corner."

Since the fall of 1997, Domenici has been a lone voice in Washington, enthusiastically talking up the future of nuclear power.

Suddenly, he has company.

Electricity shortages in California are a reminder that the nation's power consumption is rising faster than supplies, and nuclear power has its first serious presidential and congressional backing in years.

When the Bush administration released its national energy plan last month, nuclear power was given a prominent role.

Seventeen senators have signed on as co-sponsors of Domenici's "Nuclear Energy Electricity Supply Assurance Act of 2001," a bill aimed at smoothing the way for a resurgence of nuclear power in the United States.

Against that backdrop, the industry is talking seriously for the first time in decades about building new nuclear power plants.

But while Domenici and others work to smooth the regulatory road, the bottom line for the future of nuclear power in the country might be financial - can a new generation of nuclear power plants be cost-effective?

"I think the economics are the most important factor," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who took over last week as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Fear and funding

These are heady times for the scientists and engineers who have toiled for more than two decades on technologies for new nuclear power plants. There were times when it seemed there was little chance their ideas would ever be used.

No nuclear power plants were built during the past two decades as the electric power industry turned to other fuels, especially cheap natural gas.

While public fears about safety have dogged the industry, the biggest thing standing in the way of nuclear power plants was their cost, said Gary Rochau, a nuclear physicist at Sandia National Laboratories who works on next-generation nuclear power plant technology.

"It's a simple matter of economics," Rochau said.

"Once they are built, they produce power at a relatively low cost," Bingaman said.

According to a 1999 study by the Worldwatch Institute, the last nuclear power plants built in the United States cost an inflation-adjusted $3 billion to $4 billion each.

Building natural gas plants to supply a comparable amount of electricity cost $400 million to $600 million.

Nuclear engineers have developed designs for a new generation of nuclear power plants they believe will be cheaper and safer than past designs.

Their designs include the use of high-temperature gas instead of boiling water to turn heat to electricity, and Rochau noted they incorporate "passive" safety features, such as using gravity for emergency cooling water instead of requiring pumps.

The new designs are more efficient, Rochau said, extracting more electricity from their nuclear fuel.

"My opinion is that we will see a new nuclear power unit on line in 10 years," he said.

But critics say the new enthusiasm is misguided.

They raise arguments about nuclear waste disposal and reactor safety.

Nuclear power's most practical drawback might be that it remains more expensive than the alternatives, said Edwin Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute, an anti-nuclear group in Washington, D.C.

Nuclear crusader

Pete Domenici sounded like a voice in the Washington wilderness when he began what amounts to a nuclear crusade in the fall of 1997.

With his long-standing goal of a balanced federal budget met, the state's senior senator was looking for a new national issue to tackle, and the need for a rethinking of our nation's nuclear policies fit the bill.

In a speech at Harvard University in October 1997, Domenici talked about what he saw as irrational fears of radiation and a national discussion of our nuclear future that focused only on risks without considering benefits.

"That was, quite frankly, a call to arms," recalled Jim Lake, president of the American Nuclear Society.

In the years since, Domenici convened a series of meetings with leaders in government, industry and the U.S. nuclear research community to try to figure out how to revive nuclear power.

"What Domenici has done is he's restimulated everybody's thinking about these things," Lake said.

This spring, Domenici introduced a bill aimed at helping move nuclear power forward. It would:

- Renew a law that limits nuclear power plant operators' liability for accidents.

- Authorize spending on research into new power plant technology.

- Fund research into new nuclear waste disposal technologies.gulation of nuclear power plants.

At the time Domenici's crusade began, it might have seemed like he was tilting at windmills.

The nation's nuclear power plants were aging, and there was little enthusiasm for them in the utility industry.

That has changed.

Rather than shutting plants down when their licenses expire, utilities are asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to relicense them, extending the plants' lives.

"There are already five relicensed," Domenici said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects operators of another 40 nuclear reactors to apply over the next several years for operating license extensions, said Christopher Grimes, head of the commission's license renewal division.

The reason? Economics, according to Grimes. With the plants' construction costs now paid for, utilities believe they can economically continue to run nuclear plants for another 20 years.

One factor contributing to the economic renaissance of existing U.S. power plants is increasing productivity.

The 103 U.S. nuclear power reactors operating last year were generating power an average of 89 percent of the total possible operating time, according to the NRC, up from 60 percent in 1990.

Nuclear energy generates 23 percent of the United States' electricity, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

"What has happened to the industry is incredible," Domenici said.

Balance is shifting

What happens next, though, is unclear.

While the economics of operating a nuclear power plant once you've paid for its construction have become attractive, it is still unclear whether the same can be said for a new power plant.

Between now and 2020, according to a federal study published last December, 27 percent of the current U.S. nuclear generating capacity will be retired.

During that time, according to the study, U.S. electricity needs will grow by 1.8 percent a year, meaning 1,300 new power plants of some sort could be needed in this country - more than one new plant a week.

Until recently, said Sandia's Rochau, natural gas-burning power plants, the low-cost darling of the utility industry, seemed to leave little economic opportunity for new nuclear power plants.

With rising natural gas prices and new, more efficient designs for nuclear power plants, Rochau believes that balance is shifting.

The key, according to Rochau, is a new way to build nuclear power plants.

Gone are the days when each plant was a unique design, requiring its own lengthy Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process.

New designs on the drawing boards would be smaller and modular, using components built in a factory and assembled on site. Most of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safety reviews for the design would only need to be done once, Rochau explained.

"You build plants on a cookie cutter approach, rather than every one being unique," Rochau said.

And the most likely home for new plants would be on the site of existing plants, where utility companies have the infrastructure in place to manage them, and also where local communities have become comfortable with nuclear power in their back yards.

Lyman, of the Nuclear Control Institute, believes the only way the new plants will be made economically competitive is by doing away with important safety features like the massive concrete containment buildings that surround existing reactors.

Without cutting corners like that, Lyman argued, the new generation of nuclear reactors will not be economically competitive.

Rochau does not give Lyman's argument much credence. Any new plant designs must meet strict safety standards to meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval, he said. If they don't, he said, "We'll never get them built."

-------- us nuc waste

UNDERGROUND REPOSITORIES NEEDED FOR NUCLEAR WASTES

June 11, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-11-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, A report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) says that countries should move forward with the development of deep underground repositories for the safe storage and disposal of spent fuel from nuclear reactors and other high level radioactive waste.

The new report by an international committee of the academy's National Research Council says four decades of study have determined that the geological repository option is the only "scientifically credible, long term solution for safely isolating waste" without having to rely on active management.

"Although there are still some significant technical challenges, the broad consensus within the scientific and technical communities is that enough is known for countries to move forward with geological disposal," the committee said.

The committee noted that the U.S., Finland and Sweden have plans to begin placing waste in geological repositories early in this century, but that other countries, such as Russia, have no timetable set for the construction and use of deep repositories.

"Difficulties in garnering public support have been seriously underestimated, and opportunities to increase public involvement and to gain trust have been missed," said committee chair D. Warner North, president of NorthWorks Inc. in Belmont, California. "Waste management programs around the globe should direct their efforts beyond technical development to emphasize public participation in the decision making process."

The committee noted that spent nuclear fuel and high level waste have been kept at storage facilities on or near the Earth's surface since the nuclear age began more than 50 years ago. But it said the amount of waste, particularly spent fuel, is exceeding the current capacity of existing facilities in many countries, and some storage sites have not performed up to acceptable standards.

The full committee report is available at: http://lab.nap.edu/catalog/10119.html

-------- MILITARY

-------- africa

Oil Money Is Fueling Sudan's War New Arms Used to Drive Southerners From Land

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 11, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49118-2001Jun10?language=printer

BENTIU, Sudan -- Oil built the airport at Heglig, the lavishly outfitted hospital next door and the new school at Debap. Oil built the electricity towers stippling the horizon and the tightly packed, all-weather road that runs across the broad savanna to Bentiu, where a thatched roof keeps the sun off Veronica Nyabiele. She is 12 months old, but malnutrition has held her weight to nine pounds. Oil has a role in that, too.

In a civil war that seems to be fueled by so much -- religion, for example, because one side is Muslim and the other side is not, and race, because one side is Arab and the other African -- nothing has supercharged the fighting in southern Sudan quite like Nile Blend crude.

Large quantities of oil were discovered under south-central Sudan in the 1970s. Before it was drawn to the surface and piped north two years ago, the slightly waxy, light-grade petroleum was merely one more token of the schism between Sudan's ruling north and neglected south, something for the north to claim and the south to contest.

Today, four oil companies are producing more than 200,000 barrels a day -- and more firms are exploring other reserves. Export revenue has doubled the government's defense budget over two years. And a multitude of eyewitness reports say the new guns are being used to drive tens of thousands of southerners -- like Veronica and her family -- off their land to secure the oil underneath.

"The fighting follows the oil," said John Ryle, an independent investigator who recently released a report that documented a broad government effort to clear the petroleum concessions, sometimes using helicopter gunships stationed at oil-field airports.

"I wouldn't use the term 'scorched earth,' which implies a kind of systematic campaign," Ryle said. "But they are burning and attacking villages."

Such tactics are nothing new in Sudan's civil war, which has raged for 18 years. Government troops and allied militias have been fighting rebel groups seeking autonomy for the country's southern provinces. Human rights groups and aid workers say the government has razed villages, bombed hospitals and churches and supported the militias' abduction of southerners as slaves. The rebels have been accused of similar atrocities on a lesser scale.

But the presence of oil has brought the fighting to new areas, where it drives local people out of the countryside and into government-held garrisons such as Bentiu. Once it was a town of 15,000; now its population can triple or quadruple depending on the intensity of fighting nearby. A handful of U.N. and private agencies stand by with food and medical care. The worst cases end up, like Veronica, as stick figures in the therapeutic feeding center run by Action Against Hunger, an international charity.

"They all say the same thing," an aid worker said. "People came and destroyed their homes and they had to flee."

The situation has further stoked Western outrage over the Sudanese government's human rights record. While no American companies are involved -- U.S. law prohibits them from doing business in Sudan -- the involvement of Canadian and European firms in extracting Sudanese oil has prompted "disinvestment" campaigns like those directed against firms that did business with apartheid-era South Africa.

"These are war crimes," said Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who works against companies doing business in Sudan.

The criticism has fallen hardest on Talisman Energy Inc., a Calgary-based firm that was little known outside Canada until it bought a 25 percent stake in Sudan's most promising oil field. The Muglad basin is classic geography for oil, a sedimentary plain exposed by two plates being pulled apart. Unfortunately, the same area roughly defines the boundary between Sudan's north and south.

Except on maps, the country's two halves have never become one. The Muslim Arabs of the arid north historically preyed on the Africans who live in the wetter south and practice Christianity or traditional beliefs. British colonialists actually separated the two. National independence in 1956 was quickly followed by a sporadic war for southern secession. And although the fighting was in abeyance when Chevron Corp., the U.S. oil company, sank wells north of Bentiu in 1978, the discovery of oil helped renew the conflict in 1983.

"It is a problem of uneven distribution of resources and power," said Alfred Taban, a southerner who publishes the independent Khartoum Monitor. "The northerners have taken up all the ground."

Chevron pulled out in 1984, after rebels killed three of its employees. The oil fields stood largely idle until 1997, when the Sudanese government made peace with some of the rebel factions and formed a consortium to renew exploration. The partners included the China National Petroleum Corp., the Malaysian national oil company Petronas and Sudan's own Sudapet Ltd. But Talisman was the show horse.

Not only did the company bring technical expertise to build a 900-mile pipeline from the Heglig oil field to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, it also carried the stature of a Western oil firm, credentials craved by the government, which spent much of the 1990s under U.N. and U.S. sanctions because of its support of terrorism.

"My ultimate goal is to be the biggest oil exporter in the world," said Awad Jaz, Sudan's energy minister. Jaz has said any U.S. oil company could expect favorable terms if the sanctions were lifted.

But Western diplomats say U.S. firms are not lobbying hard to join Talisman and share its image problem. Reeves boasts that the divestment campaign has cost the company every one of its public institutional investors, from the City of New York to the Texas teachers' pension fund.

Campaigners are now pressing Fidelity Investments to divest, as well as pushing to ban oil concerns doing business in Sudan from being listed on U.S. stock exchanges.

Talisman has hired a Sudanese seminary student to buff its image and formed an office of corporate responsibility that points out that the oil areas have an infrastructure unique in this strikingly poor country of 30 million people: new water wells, schools, clinics and the Heglig hospital, extraordinarily well-equipped for rural Africa, complete with operating room and neonatal unit.

"It's kinda neat," said Helmut Gutsche, Talisman's field production manager at Heglig, where foreign employees fly in for 28-day shifts, eating and sleeping in a tidy camp of steel trailers. "There's poverty, on the downside. On the upside, we're trying to improve things."

Talisman also bought satellite photos to try to prove that its oil fields have always been largely vacant, but students of the Sudan war have long watched the fighting overlap with the oil concessions. And, though Talisman's lightly populated operation areas were first cleared perhaps two decades ago, Ryle and a Canadian researcher documented recent helicopter attacks near its fields. They also found deserting soldiers who said their mission was to drive people away from the oil fields.

"It's kind of a raggedy system of harassment, but it does seem to be classic counterinsurgency," Ryle said. "You're trying to get people to come into the towns so you can keep an eye on them, or drive them farther into the swamps."

Today, however, most of the fighting is farther south, nearer a concession leased to Lundin Oil, a Swedish company. Local residents were driven out over the past two years, largely through surrogates: The Sudanese government arms one southern militia, which raids the area, looting along the way.

Still farther south, a much larger bloc has long been held by the French giant TotalFinaElf. In fact, the Sudanese government has chopped much of the south into oil concessions reaching nearly to the Ugandan border. Critics see each bloc as another potential battlefield in a war that has already killed 2 million people.

Sudan's annual take from oil -- perhaps $500 million, a figure that will climb steeply after investors recover their risk -- has clearly tipped a stalemated war in the government's favor. The oil fields are new government garrisons, with soldiers camped every three miles on the main road, and tanks and helicopters in plain sight around airfields.

And the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the principal southern rebel force that declared oil installations a target, has managed only scattered raids. In January, rebels hit a drilling derrick operated by China's Great Wall Drilling Co., killing three soldiers in a raid that killed 15 rebels.

"You don't want to be flying around here at night if you don't have to," said a Canadian pilot who flies the Bell 212 helicopter that ferries oil workers around the concession.

Whatever it does to the military equation, however, oil shows no signs of easing the political question at the heart of the war.

"I will say one example," said Thomas Kume, a former governor of the province adjoining the oil fields and a nominal government ally. "The fact that the refinery is moved to Khartoum and there's not even a small refinery in the south -- southerners are bitter about it."

-------- israel

Israel accepts U.S. cease-fire plan with reservations

USA Today
06/12/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-12-mideast.htm

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel said Tuesday that despite some concerns it has accepted a cease-fire proposal made by CIA chief George Tenet, but the Palestinians objected to a key provision to arrest militants. "I don't say we are enthusiastic about everything there, but ... we decided to accept his plan to see if it can bring about a reduction in incidents," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Tel Aviv.

The main problems have been working out a timeline for each side to carry out the commitments it would make. Israel wants a cooling-off period during which there must be no violence, while the Palestinians insist security and confidence-building measures proceed together.

Jibril Rajoub, Palestinian security chief of the West Bank, described the four-hour meeting Monday night as "stormy." The Americans, he said, had not dealt positively with Palestinian concerns about setting a timetable for ending Israel's closure of the Palestinian areas.

"The American suggestions could be summarized in one point, which is that the Palestinian Authority has to arrest a number of wanted people for Israel," Rajoub said. The Palestinians, he said, refused to agree to carry out such arrests before the closure is lifted.

A statement from the Palestinian Authority's media center in Gaza said the Palestinians approved Tenet's recommendations, but found Israeli-proposed amendments included in Tenet's paper to be unacceptable.

It also said Israel's demand that they conduct widespread arrests against Palestinian civilians "is not on the agenda and is entirely unacceptable."

According to the statement, Israel proposed setting up a buffer zone to separate Palestinian and Israeli territory, which the Palestinian leadership found unacceptable because it was not part of the Mitchell proposal. A commission led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell laid out security and other measures needed for the two sides to get the peace process back on track.

Sharon's office declined to comment on whether the Israeli team had made such a proposal.

The Palestinian statement also said Palestinians were disappointed Israel wouldn't agree to immediately lifting a closure on the their territories.

Soon after the latest violence began in September, Israel imposed a security closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Most Palestinians are confined to the territories and, at times, their hometowns. The closure has devastated the already struggling Palestinian economy; many Palestinians depend on jobs inside Israel.

"We are still working very hard," U.S. envoy William Burns said as he left a meeting with Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Quriea. "We just finished discussing (how) to find a way to implement the Mitchell report as a package of sequenced steps - and that's what the United States is committed to doing."

Quriea said the Palestinians declared "honestly, explicitly, that we accept the Mitchell report as a whole, but not as one step to be separated from another."

Raanan Gissin, a close aide to Sharon, warned that any violence after a cease-fire would mean a cooling off period, an Israeli requirement before progressing further, would have to begin again.

"If there is another incident, like a baby being killed by a rock, then it will all start from the beginning again," Gissin said, alluding to the death Monday of a five-month-old Israeli baby struck by a stone thrown by a Palestinian on a West Bank road last week.

Rajoub said Israel was seeking conditions that would "delay any possible settlement for the current conflict so that they will not have to reach any advanced stages like freezing settlement activities."

Tenet's schedule is kept secret. But Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof said violence would worsen if he leaves without a deal.

"No doubt we can expect a serious escalation of shooting and battle between the sides - and a battle situation between the two will not allow any progress ... in the diplomatic arena," Rabin-Pelossof told Israel radio.

Also Tuesday, for the first time in more than a week, Israeli F-16 warplanes carried out maneuvers Tuesday in skies over Gaza, flying high, then dipping low and breaking the sound barrier with sonic booms a Palestinian security described as a "mock air raid."

The last overflight in the area was a week ago. An Israeli army spokesperson said such flights are part of routine maneuvers and refused to discuss details.

The Israeli army spokesman's office also said three mortar shells fell near the Israeli settlement of Morag in the Gaza Strip. No injuries or damage was reported.

In more than eight months of violence, 489 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 109 on the Israeli side.

-------- puerto rico

Kennedy Goes to Court Over Vieques

JUNE 11, 23:19 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7CIOKAO0

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Robert Kennedy Jr. is set to appear in federal court July 6 on trespassing charges stemming from protests on Vieques island, an attorney for the environmentalist said Monday.

Kennedy and Rivera were among some 180 people arrested in late April and early May during protests against naval bombings on Vieques, a small island east of Puerto Rico.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is serving a 90-day sentence in a New York prison in connection with the protests.

Puerto Rico Sen. Norma Burgos and Myrta Sanes, sister of a civilian guard killed by off-target bombs on the Vieques range in 1999, are to appear in U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico on July 6.

The former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Benito Romano, will be the lead attorney for Kennedy and Rivera in court, said former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who works with Romano at the New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Kennedy's spokesman had earlier said Cuomo himself would represent Kennedy and Rivera in court.

Protests opposing the U.S. Navy's use of a firing range on the island's eastern tip say the bombings harm islanders' health and the environment. The Navy has insisted the training causes no harm.

Bombing exercises are scheduled to resume as soon as Wednesday.

Vieques residents are to decide in a Nov. 6 referendum whether they want the Navy to stay or leave in 2003.

Gov. Sila Calderon also has announced a nonbinding locally administered referendum on July 29 that would include the option of an immediate halt to the exercises.

It is not clear how the Navy would respond to that vote.

----

STATE OF SIEGE AT THE PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE

Vieques Support Campaign
http://palfrente.tripod.com
E-mail viequessc@hotmail.com

The June 10, 2001 National Puerto Rican Day Parade which marched up New York City's 5th Avenue will surely be remembered by many as having the semblance of a military occupation. According to official sources, 2500 more cops were assigned duty to this year's parade, the largest ever police presence at this annual event.

Despite denials by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the police that they were placing blame on this traditional celebration for last year's Central Park sexual abuse of women, the heavy police presence, along with unnecessary new restrictions on marching participants and spectators, prove the opposite to be the case. The hypocritical overtures of Giuliani and police officials can not disguise the fact that the Puerto Rican masses were the target of a military exercise.

The requirement of a color-coded wristband that was necessary for admission to the designated area of contingents, is quite similar to prison identification wristbands ­ quite indicative of the thinking of government official eager to increase the authority of the police state. The control of pedestrian movement was accompanied by the bullying arrogance and intimidation of the police, especially directed at many of the Puerto Rican masses and their allies wishing to enter the area where the pro-Vieques, anti-Navy Contingent was gathering.

It was at the checkpoints leading to the Vieques Contingent on 45th Street where the police were quite hostile for obvious reasons. The Vieques Contingent had delegations from various struggles and political left. Among the participants in this contingent were representatives of the Palestine Right To Return Coalition - AL-AWDA who came with a banner that read, "U.S. BOMBS TESTED IN VIEQUES, DROPPED ON PALESTINE!"

A delegation from the Almighty Latin King & Queen Nation was also present, which the police attempted to provoke numerous times in order to disrupt the pro-Vieques, anti-Navy contingent.

Throughout the past year Giuliani and the police have continued to associate the Puerto Rican Day Parade of June 11, 2000 with the violence in Central Park on that day, by calling for a greater police presence at this year's parade. With the help of the media, these officials have insidiously demonized the parade and have continued to persecute the Puerto Rican people with racist stigma despite the fact that the violent incident in Central Park occurred three hours after the parade had ended.

Although police claimed to be carrying out the wishes of the Puerto Rican Day Parade Coordinating Committee, the methods used to control this parade were precisely what Giuliani and top police officials had been calling for all along.

Members of the Puerto Rican Day Parade Coordinating Committee were playing "good cop, bad cop" with the NYPD in order to hide their lack of dignity and courage to challenge the orders given by City Hall and implemented by NYPD. Instead, these Committee members representing the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, Inc. chose to prioritize protecting profits by catering to the sponsoring giant corporations at the expense of the political rights of the Puerto Rican community.

In the early morning hours the police department and representatives of the Parade Coordinating Committee attempted to remove people already inside the gathering area that did not have their wristbands issued to them yet. Vieques Contingent organizers held their ground and refused to allow the police and Parade Committee representatives to have their way. In the end they proved willing to compromise the interest of the Puerto Rican masses by helping racist cops to discourage as many people as possible from uniting in the pro-Vieques, anti-Navy contingent.

Despite the efforts of Giuliani, the police and Parade officials to suppress the issue of Vieques, including placing the Vieques Contingent towards the end of the parade, the message calling for the removal of the U.S. Navy could not be prevented from being a major theme at this event. There were signs proudly displayed by many spectators that expressed disapproval for the U.S. Navy bombing and occupation of Vieques.

If there is any doubt how the memory of the Central Park incident was used by racist officials to demonize the Puerto Rican community, just ask why the East Harlem Festival on Saturday, June 9, (three miles away from the Central Park incident location) was turned into a virtual military base by the NYPD?

The day before the big 5th Avenue parade, Puerto Ricans were subjected to harassment and disrespect in their own community. It is significant that at this festival, for the first time ever, the NYPD had cops sitting on watchtowers overlooking everyone partaking in the event. Cops searched residents as well as the property of venders at random to enforce a ban on beer while police helicopters hovered over the area, proving that a state of siege was in effect.

At both events, the police were obviously not interested in the sentiments of the public nor the benefits of well-coordinated festivals but rather, to exert their authority and be prepared to repress the rebelliousness of the Puerto Rican masses, if necessary.

The increased persecution of the Puerto Rican community is not coincidental. Police repression in the Puerto Rican community is no different in nature to the brutality inflicted on Puerto Ricans in Vieques by U.S. Marshals and military police.

And because the Puerto Rican community is going through a process of rapid politicization due to their affinities to the struggle for Vieques, it makes law enforcement officials feel increasingly leery of the rebellious potential the Puerto Rican community in the U.S. has proven to have. It should not surprise us that in law enforcement circles, military and other racist entities, that there is a backlash currently directed at Puerto Ricans.

After a year of insidiously blaming the Puerto Rican community for the Central Park incident, projecting it with racist depiction as the call for increased police presence continued to be made, Giuliani attempted to build a political justification for diminishing further the civil liberties of the Puerto Rican and other communities of color. It should not surprise us that the police were ready in riot gear on the streets of the Bronx before they brutally beat Puerto Rican residents.

In this latest attack by police, residents were celebrating on the streets after returning from the 5th Avenue event, which is not an unusual occurrence. It seems that to the racist oppressors, whenever Puerto Ricans congregate, automatically they become "unruly" and need to be beaten and arrested in order to preserve "control."

The police immediately began exerting their brutal force. Police used pepper spray on a young man in the crowd before beating him. His sister responded by coming to his aid, the police then grabbed and beat her. The crowd immediately reacted by coming to her defense ­ an absolute right of the people. By the time the incident ended, forty-two people were arrested and many suffered injuries inflicted by cops.

Boricua weekend is a time of pride that is celebrated by the Puerto Rican community every year. The heavy show of police in this year's celebrations, and the arrogance that they demonstrated at these events, demands all of us to take the example of the people in Vieques and engage in struggle to change our reality. The onslaught of police repression can be repelled. Guiliani, the police and the U.S. Navy are not invincible ­ with the unity of a peoples' movement, racists can be stopped as well as getting the U.S. Navy out of Vieques.

-------- switzerland

Swiss to arm peacekeepers

Washington Times`
June 11, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
World Scene -
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010611-32563245.htm

BERN, Switzerland -- Swiss voters yesterday gave razor-thin approval to a government proposal to arm peacekeepers, rejecting nationalist claims it will wreck Switzerland´s 200-year record of staying out of world conflicts.

The defense minister acknowledged the strong opposition to the measure and underlined that the country´s troops on foreign missions would be armed only to defend themselves.

"In no case will Swiss soldiers in U.N. or OSCE peacekeeping forces take part in combat," Defense Minister Samuel Schmid said.

Unarmed Swiss forces are currently deployed with both the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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

U.N. drug control program faulted

June 11, 2001
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010611-26608024.htm

NEW YORK - A new internal evaluation of the U.N. Drug Control Program faults the troubled agency's persistent inability to communicate with its own offices in the field and other U.N. programs engaged in similar work.

This failure to share program planning and information has led to a duplication of the efforts of other agencies and compromised the efficiency of donor-funded operations, according to the assessment.

The report also harshly criticizes the U.N. Drug Control Program´s year-late "World Drug Report" for 2000, saying the narrowly focused project contradicts itself and has jeopardized the agency's credibility.

Recommendations made in 1998 "had not been implemented in a manner that addressed underlying problems," said the report, one of three recent evaluations of the Vienna-based organized crime and drug control agency by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.

A separate OIOS investigation, which could be released as early as today, examines charges by former UNDCP officials of mismanagement and fraud by Executive Director Pino Arlacchi.

Concerns about poor management and inefficiency have troubled donor nations, whose voluntary contributions make up nearly all of the drug program's roughly $100 million budget.

In an effort to shore up confidence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has requested funding for a new deputy director to handle day-to-day management independent of Mr. Arlacchi. That post has not yet been filled.

The Dutch government, meanwhile, has suspended funding until it has digested the OIOS reports, and several other nations are either postponing their funding decisions or earmarking more of their contributions to specific programs, such as crop eradication in a specific nation.

The United States, by far the organization's largest contributor, has expressed concern about the management of the drug and crime program. However, U.S. officials praise Mr. Arlacchi's overall drug philosophy, which closely mirrors the American emphasis on interdiction and supply reduction.

The UNDCP is a bureaucratic cousin of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which publishes its own highly regarded biennial report on the illicit drug trade. The United States lost its seat on the INCB two months ago, a defeat that will have little impact on the running of UNDCP.

U.N. inspectors, following up on recommendations made in 1998, were dismayed to find lingering communication and coordination problems between UNDCP and other U.N. agencies and programs.

They also found the program should have done more to strengthen its role as an international clearinghouse for information on the drug trade.

The OIOS report also said the Vienna-based agency should work more closely with U.N. agencies in the field and headquarters, coordinating with legal, scientific and technical experts throughout the organization.

"There is no evidence of increased collaboration in the form envisioned," said the report, which was signed by Dileep Nair, the undersecretary-general for internal oversight services.

The inspectors were especially critical of the World Drug Report, which was issued in February, more than a year behind schedule and only a few weeks before a more comprehensive assessment was issued by the INCB.

"UNDCP was not able to maintain an approprate balance between advocacy and credibility," they said of the perfectly bound volume, singling out Mr. Arlacchi's "lengthy" 21-page introduction that highlights the program's successes and urges increased financial support.

The World Drug Report fails to mention relevent issues such as the surge in synthetic drugs or the link between illicit drugs and organized crime, law enforcement and corruption, according to OIOS.

Similar complaints have been made by one of the World Drug Report editors, Francisco Thoumi, who resigned complaining of repeated interference from Mr. Arlacchi.

OIOS inspectors also examined the data supporting the World Drug Report's sunny conclusions, and found that damaging trends, such as the rise of amphetamine-related abuse in the United States and Europe, were omitted.

The agency claims credit for successes more likely attributable to weather conditions, OIOS said. UNDCP officials in Vienna could not be reached for comment, and New York representative Zach Messitte declined to comment.

A draft of the inspector-general's report was submitted to UNDCP for comment and correction, and excerpts of those responses are included in the final version.

Mr. Arlacchi, a former Italian senator and noted Mafia foe, rejected many of the complaints.

There was some bright news in the OIOS evaluation. The $10 million Afghanistan pilot program to monitor poppy cultivation and reduce demand is entering its third year despite difficult circumstances.

"In view of the prevailing political and working circumstances in Afghanistan, to have sustained donor interest and funding ... is a remarkable achievement by all standards," wrote Mr. Nair, the head of OIOS.

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

N.J. Fire Blamed on Practice Bomb

JUNE 11, 17:04 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7CIJ4NG0

LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - An errant Air National Guard practice bomb caused a fire that burned more than 1,600 acres of woods, officials said Monday.

The dummy bomb, dropped by an F-16 fighter, landed about 100 yards outside the 2,400-acre Warren Grove bombing range area Sunday. The 25-pound dummy bomb contained no explosives, but had a small charge in its base designed to send up a plume of smoke so the pilot could see where it fell.

``Evidently, it was enough to start a fire,'' said Col. John Dwyer, a spokesman for the New Jersey Air National Guard. ``Why it fell into an area that was not cleared of debris and brush is under investigation.''

The fire at the Pinelands National Reserve forced the closing of State Route 539 for several hours. No evacuations were necessary and no buildings were damaged, state Forest Fire Service officials said.

No disciplinary action was expected against the pilot, whose name was not released, said Dwyer. ``There's no malice here. It's pure accident.''

----

Army fights to keep 10 combat divisions

June 11, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010611-32580263.htm

The Army is fighting to maintain its 10 active combat divisions in the face of suggestions from some Pentagon officials that trimming soldiers would help pay for the next generation of warplanes, ships and armored vehicles.

Pentagon officials said in interviews that no senior aide has yet recommended Army troop cuts to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is overseeing a thorough review of military strategy and the force structure needed to carry it out.

But the officials said the option is being discussed at lower levels as the Pentagon last month began writing a new Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) mandated by Congress and due Sept. 30.

A senior Army officer said his service has prepared arguments to dissuade Mr. Rumsfeld´s top aides from agreeing to a smaller Army. The Air Force, for one, has spent the post-Cold War era arguing that air power can blunt enemy invasions, an indirect way of saying fewer ground troops are needed.

"The thing about cutting force structure is that you get a cut within a cut within a cut," said a senior Army officer. "You cut personnel, recruiting, retention and salary expenses. These cuts are much more significant to the long-term budget than, say, the decision to not field the Army´s Crusader artillery system, which just saves a few billion dollars over a few years."

But a senior Pentagon official said that while various options have been discussed, no one in the QDR process has yet proposed cutting the armed forces´ 1.36 million active-duty roster.

"There´s nothing I´ve heard yet that the administration is seriously looking at reducing anybody´s force structure," said this official, who asked not to be named.

"That doesn´t mean [Mr. Rumsfeld] won´t be doing that later this summer."

The official said it would be difficult to trade Army formations for more weapons as long as the United States has a need to keep 200,000 troops in the Pacific region and in Europe.

Mr. Rumsfeld, while in Europe last week meeting with NATO officials, did not rule out a shift in Europe-based forces.

"We are of course looking at how forces are arranged, and force structures -- apart from size -- in addition to the question of structure, and what might come out of it, I don´t know," he told reporters. "We´re not at that stage. . . .

There has been no discussion of troop adjustments in Europe and it would be wrong to inject that into discussion and cause tremors unnecessarily and inaccurately, so please don´t."

Four years ago, the service was one QDR draft away from losing two divisions.

The Army top brass mounted a full-court press to convince Defense Secretary William S. Cohen that abolishing two divisions put the country at risk of not having a national military capability of fighting two regional wars simultaneously.

This time around, however, the stars are aligned differently.

Mr. Rumsfeld openly muses about changing the two-war strategy.

Pentagon officials say one option is a "one-war-plus" declaration. This would mean sizing the force to fight one regional war, while carrying out a multitude of smaller missions such as peacekeeping and "coercive" bombing to gain a diplomatic objective.

If the two-war goal is amended, the Pentagon could try to justify troops cuts.

Mr. Rumsfeld has said repeatedly in recent interviews that he has not decided whether to keep the two-war goal or amend it.

The Air Force has good reason to argue for a smaller Army. Two of its top priorities, the F-22 stealth fighter and the multi-service Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), carry long-term costs of $62 billion and $300 billion, respectively.

There is not enough money to fund these and other high-priced systems unless President Bush is willing to support huge increases in defense spending.

So far, the White House is willing to approve no more than $30 billion in additional money for next year´s defense budget, meaning something, troops or systems, will have to be scaled back.

The Congressional Budget Office has said the Pentagon needs $30 billion more in procurement accounts alone to replace aging weapons and equipment.

Pentagon analysts say a cut of two divisions could mean elimination of as many as 100,000 soldiers from the Army´s authorized end strength of 480,000.

This could also lead to reduction in Guard and Reserve units.

At that juncture, political sparks would fly.

Under the current QDR, the Pentagon was supposed to trim 45,000 Guardsmen and Reserves from a total force of just under 900,000.

But after imposing the first 20,000 cuts, the Pentagon ran up against stiff opposition from Congress and canceled further trims in the forces.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

American wind energy industry comes of age

Monday, June 11, 2001,
Environmental News Network
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/06/06112001/wind_43919.asp

The European wind energy industry has outpaced the world for years with Germany, Denmark and Britain leading the pack, but the maturity of the American wind power industry was demonstrated this month.

American wind energy producers responded powerfully to a request for proposals to build new generating facilities from the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in Portland, Oregon.

Seeking 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind power, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) asked for construction proposals in February from wind energy companies. Twenty-five proposals, totaling about 2,600 MW, were submitted, enough to serve 500,000 to 750,000 average U.S. households.

George Darr, BPA's renewable power resource program manager, said the wind industry response "blew us away." Currently, BPA sells electricity generated by hydropower dams, but the normally wet Pacific Northwest has been unusually dry this year. BPA acting administrator Steve Wright says wind power can help. "Harvesting the strong, steady winds of the Columbia River Basin works especially well with our hydropower base. When the winds blow, we can save more water in reservoirs. When the winds are still, we can release the river's power. Wind farms add to our local renewable resources."

The first wind power plants to be built for BPA will be installed by the end of next year, more quickly than most other power plants could be built. And its performance for BPA is just the beginning, according to the American Wind Energy Association which represents the industry.

Using figures from two federal government agencies, analysts at the wind energy association calculated that the wind resource of the Western and Midwestern states is bigger in energy terms than the oil resources of Saudi Arabia.

The federal Energy Information Administration estimates Saudi Arabia's remaining oil reserves at 261 billion barrels, or enough for about 90 years at the current production rate of eight million barrels a day. If burned to produce electricity, that amount of oil would generate about 153 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh), the wind industry group calculated.

The Pacific Northwest Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy lab, has estimated the U.S. wind resource as being capable of producing 10.8 trillion kWh annually. So, the wind industry group says, in 15 years, U.S. winds could generate more electricity than all of Saudi Arabia's oil, without being depleted.

"If wind is compared directly with oil in raw energy terms, the comparison is less advantageous because two-thirds of the energy in a barrel of oil is lost when it is burned to generate electricity," the American Wind Energy Association acknowledges. Even so, in 45 years, U.S. winds could produce more energy than Saudi oil reserves, without being depleted.

American Wind Energy Association executive director Randall Swisher says, "Hundreds of thousands of megawatts of wind power plants could be installed in the western U.S., vastly increasing electricity supplies and providing an abundance of clean, domestic energy."

Swisher called for expansion of President George W. Bush's National Energy Policy to include a "serious renewable energy agenda for the nation." He approved the policy's extension of the existing federal production tax credit for wind, which will expire at the end of this year unless it is renewed by Congress. But Swisher wants more.

A Renewables Portfolio Standard which would require that a minimum of 10 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. be produced by new renewable energy power plants, is desireable, Swisher said. He also wants a requirement that federal government agencies purchase an increasing percentage of their energy needs from renewable energy suppliers.

The wind industry needs increased research and development funding to continue driving down the price of wind generated electricity, Swisher says. And to make it less costly for households or businesses to install their own wind turbines, Swisher wants the Bush administration to grant a 30 percent investment tax credit for small wind systems below 75 kilowatts in capacity.

"Wind energy is the great success story of the last energy crisis - a brand-new technology developed over the last 20 years with enormous potential," Swisher said. "It's time to put it to work to deal with the energy problems we have today."

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Germany Substitutes Wind for Nuclear Power

June 11, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-11-03.html

BERLIN, Germany, The German government has unveiled plans for massive development of offshore wind power to help the country reconcile its climate protection goals with its nuclear phaseout policy.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (Photo courtesy IISD/Linkages)

A deal between the German government and German utilities to shut down the country's 19 nuclear power plants has been in the works for years. It was finally sealed today as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and executives of four power companies signed an agreement in Berlin.

Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin, a Green member of the German Social Democrat/Green coalition government has been pushing for the nuclear phaseout since he took office in October 1998.

Trittin told journalists in Berlin that the wind power plan could see between 75 and 80 terrawatt hours of electricity annually from offshore wind parks by 2030. This is equivalent to nearly 60 percent of the nuclear electricity produced last year in Germany.

The German nuclear plants have a standard life span of 32 years, which means Germany's newest nuclear plant would close in 2021. The first of the plants, at Stade in northern Germany, will shut down in 2003.

A ministry spokesperson said the plan is a "cornerstone of changing Germany's energy production system, to stop nuclear power, reduce fossil fuels and increase renewables."

German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin is a proponent of the nuclear phaseout. (Photo courtesy Office of the Minister)

The spokesman said that the spectacular growth in offshore wind energy envisaged under the government's plan would be achieved entirely through private capital investment. The country's renewable energy support law guarantees the price for wind energy at euros 0.09 (DM 0.178) per kilowatt hour. This brings the industry to "near economic" status, the ministry says.

Trittin said that two areas of the North Sea have been identified as appropriate for the construction of wind turbines which could total 4,000 by 2030. He said that the areas avoid all marine and bird conservation areas.

Offshore wind power is contentious among Germany environmentalists who are deeply divided about its environmental impact. The ministry does not expect its plan to get an easy ride so it has invited ecologists to a two-day congress this week to debate the "integration of climate protection, nature protection, marine protection and energy policy fit for the future."

Antinuclear activists from Greenpeace Germany protest nuclear waste transport in front the Social Democratic Party office in Berlin today. (Photo courtesy Domenic Butzmann/Greenpeace Germany)

Environmentalists are also displeased about the nuclear power plant phaseout schedule, which they view as too slow.

Pro-nuclear industrialists and politicians do not want Germany to back away from nuclear power, and some have expressed the intention to reverse this move under future governments. They warn it could slow efforts to limit global warming in line with the international pact signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, by forcing Germany to burn more fossil fuels which emit greenhouse gases.

A May 2000 study by the German Flensburg University conducted at the request of Greenpeace Germany concluded that a rapid phaseout of nuclear energy would result in huge financial benefits estimated at DM 83, the equivalent of US$35.8 billion.

Employment does not have to decrease in case of a rapid closure of nuclear plants, the Flensburg study said. About 24,500 new jobs are to be created if a change is made towards renewable energy by 2025. Although the emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the scenario would increase until 2005, after that year they would be reduced.

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EU green energy plan may be delayed after Dutch object

SWEDEN: June 11, 2001
Story by Eva Sohlman
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11120

VISPY, Sweden - A European Union plan to double the use of green energy by 2010 to fight global warming may be delayed after the Netherlands blocked a deal in final negotiations, officials said on Friday.

The Netherlands blocked the EU renewables directive, which covers wind, wave, solar and biomass, on Thursday because it wants power generated by burning municipal waste also to be classified as green energy.

"The directive could be delayed by six months or more," Guilio Volpi, climate policy officer at the World Wildlife Fund told an EU conference on renewable energy held on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

The Netherlands, which is backed by Italy and the United Kingdom, takes 50 percent of its green electricity from incineration of waste and would have difficulty complying with the directive without counting incineration as a renewable energy source.

Opponents say incineration should not be viewed as green energy because half of the waste contains plastics which emit poisonous gases when burning.

The other half is organic matter which uses rather than produces energy in the burning process.

Despite the split, Sweden hosting the rotating EU presidency, was optimistic the EU would reach an agreement on the issue in the next weeks.

"We are positive the directive will be agreed upon at July 6 at the latest," Lars Rekke, state secretary at the Swedish industry ministry, told a news conference on the island.

The directive states the share of green energy should rise from six percent of the EU's energy demand at present to 12 percent by 2010.

Next week, U.S. President George W. Bush will visit an EU summit in Gothenburg in Sweden, where heads of state are expected to tackle issues such as climate change and missile defence.

Volpi said it could be embarrassing for the EU, which heavily criticised the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto protocol to curb global warming and cut greenhouse gas emissions, should it fail to agree on the directive which would help the EU to meet its own emissions targets.

"This is the first challenge for the EU to show the Bush administration to cut emissions," he said.

Claude Turnes, vice president of EUFORES, the European forum for renewable energy resources, agreed.

"In the face of the weakened Kyoto process, it is important we reach an agreement on increased use of renewable energy as soon as possible."

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US senators want more renewable fuels in gasoline

USA: June 11, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11133&newsDate=11-Jun-2001

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