------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
How low should we go on deterrence
UK Scientists Conducted HK Baby Nuclear Tests
Bulgaria sets up insurance pool against N-plant risk
EU Imperils GE-Honeywell Deal
Del Ponte is asked to prosecute NATO for DU
Bush Offers Vision of Europe United in 'Alliance of Liberty'
Pakistan, India Ready for Summit
U.S. Suspects Iran Getting Nuclear Components
S. Korea Defense Minister to Visit US
General Says Missile Shield Needs Money and Prudence
NMD will slow India's rise
US 'planned nuclear first strike on Russia'
Asian Forum Against U.S. Defense Plan
Bush Proposes Lifting Limits on Membership in NATO
Baltic States See NATO as Shield From Russia
Bush Eager to Meet Russia's Putin
Bush Wants Russia to Be 'Partner'
Russians en route to get U.S. spy plane
Bush Urges Russia to Forge New Ties
Putin Treads Carefully Toward Bush
Misrepresenting the ABM Treaty
Presentations Start for Nuke Workers
DOE secretary to visit
Uranium cleanup on House's wish list
Court denies downwinders' appeal
Bush Spotlights Poland's Democracy
U.S., Russia At Odds on Iranian Deal
Diplomat sets meeting with Powell
The Bush vision. . .
Bush Offers Vision of Wider Europe
Despite safety advances, the public remains wary of nuclear power

MILITARY
Inside the Ring
China. Russia, 4 Others Form Bloc
Global arms outlays up to $798 bil., U.S. share 37%
Two Suspected Arms Dealers Held
Bush pressured to increase military role
Two Serbs Jailed for War Crimes
Chinese forces observe joint mine-sweeping exercise
Colombian Military Empowered by Law
Americans blamed in Colombia raid
Iraq Says It Hit Allied Warplane
CIA Chief Puts Clout to Work in Mideast Effort
Chiapas Rebels Haunt Mexico Plans
Lott Opposes Bush's Vieques Plan
Why Bush Bowed Out of Vieques
Vieques Closing Angers Military, Hill GOP
Both Sides Attack Bush Plan to Halt Bombing on Vieques
Puerto Rico Will Vote on Vieques
Give Puerto Rico Its Independence
Cambodians Lose Faith in U.N.
Rumsfeld: Accelerate New Military Strategy
War Games Begin at Fort Bliss
Defense Chief Will Propose Military Change in Course

OTHER
Norway has significant wind power potential - NVE
Five Beheaded in Saudi Arabia
Calif. Looks into Energy Overcharges
African dust storms send germs to America
Sweden Police Call for Reinforcements
Senate panel plans probe of FBI's internal security
Handling of Deportees Faulted
U.S. Near Hanssen Plea Deal
Erosion of privacy on a global scale
China, Russia to launch anti-terrorism exercises

ACTIVISTS
Turner Starting Indie Movie Company
Protesters, Police Clash at EU Summit
Court Upholds Sharpton's, Vieques Allies' Sentences
Marchers demand ban on fluoride in water
Campaign to Revive Whistleblower Rights!!!!!
Vigil in Oak Ridge Tennessee


-------- NUCLEAR

How low should we go on deterrence

[Please reply to this guy!!! You can contact him directly at the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20015; send a letter to the editor of the Washington Times at letters@washingtontimes.com. et]

Washington Times
June 15, 2001
William M. "Mac" Thornberry
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010615-99950721.htm

Fifteen years ago, Ronald Reagan traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland, for his second summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

The turning point of the summit came when Mr. Reagan rejected Mr. Gorbachev´s challenge to abandon development of a missile defense system in exchange for unprecedented cutbacks in the size of the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

Although he was roundly criticized for it at the time, many now believe Mr. Reagan´s decision to hold firm hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Tomorrow, President Bush will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Clearly, the world has changed a great deal since 1986. However, one thing that has not changed is that the security of America continues to rest upon the strength of our nuclear deterrent.

In early May, President Bush spoke of shrinking the size of our nuclear arsenal to achieve "a credible deterrent with the lowest possible number of nuclear weapons consistent with our national security needs, including our obligations to our allies." Undoubtedly, we can safely reduce our current inventory of nuclear weapons without compromising our security.

But with some commentators suggesting that U.S. security needs can be met by a few hundred warheads in our arsenal, we need to consider some fundamental questions about what deterrence means and how we accomplish it.

What does nuclear deterrence mean today? During the Cold War, nuclear deterrence was clearly defined. It meant having an arsenal big enough to deter the Soviets from attacking first and potent enough to respond effectively if they did.

Today deterrence comes from a more delicate balance of reducing proliferation, dissuading adversaries, and assuring allies. Our nuclear deterrent also may discourage use of other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical or biological weapons. This broader concept of deterrence should be considered as we determine the number and the characteristics of our future stockpile.

Still, there is power in sheer numbers. Published estimates indicate Russia still has about 6,000 to 7,000 strategic and 10,000 to 20,000 tactical nuclear weapons. Unlike the United States, Russia is still manufacturing new warheads. But we must look beyond just Russia. From China and North Korea, to India, Pakistan, and countries in the Middle East, more and more nations are seeking to strengthen their regional influence by enhancing their nuclear capability. The U.S. may face possible alliances among them or terrorist groups that are actively seeking a nuclear capability.

The lower we make the threshold for becoming a world power, the more tempting it becomes. There may not be an appreciable difference whether the U.S. has 7,000 or 4,000 weapons. Even 2,500 weapons may seem unreachable for an emerging nuclear power with a few dozen weapons on hand. But matching a U.S. stockpile of 500 or 1,000 weapons may seem much closer and much more achievable, both practically and psychologically. We do not want to lower the bar so much that others are encouraged to try to jump up and reach it particularly those who see nuclear weapons as a shortcut to global influence.

How can we achieve deterrence as our nuclear stockpile grows older and more strategically limited? Since we are unable to build new weapons or conduct nuclear tests on old weapons, our most significant challenge may be keeping our existing deterrent credible.

The science-based stockpile stewardship program is still unproven and underfunded despite the best efforts of our scientists and nuclear work force. And those who expect significant budget savings from a smaller arsenal will be disappointed, for the tools and processes cost roughly the same for 1,000 weapons as for 5,000. But it could get worse. Deep cuts in the total number of warheads would reduce how many types of warheads we will have. For example, under START I the U.S. has nine different types of warheads. If we were to have only a few hundred weapons, we would probably keep only our submarine launched missiles, leaving just two or three different types of warheads. Logically, with fewer types of warheads, a problem with any one type and problems do develop from time to time disables a greater percentage of the stockpile. If we put all of our eggs into one or two baskets, a hole in one of those baskets could have devastating consequences.

The bottom line is that nuclear weapons have helped provide a stabilizing force in the world for more than 55 years. In the future, they may have a different role to play, but they will still be central to the security of the United States and world peace. A reduction in America´s nuclear arsenal may be sound policy. But how low we can go will depend on assessing the future threat accurately, deterring adversaries while assuring allies, and maintaining confidence in the weapons that remain. Just as President Reagan held firm at Reykjavik when challenged to drop his plans for a missile defense system, so too should President Bush hold firm when called upon to cut our nuclear arsenal below levels on which the security of the United States and the world depends.

William M. "Mac" Thornberry is a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas and serves on the House Armed Services and Budget Committees and is chairman of the Special Oversight Panel on Department of Energy Reorganization.

-------- australia

Paper: UK Scientists Conducted HK Baby Nuclear Tests

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/science-health-hongko.html?searchpv=reuters

HONG KONG (Reuters) - British scientists listed specific body parts of dead Hong Kong children they needed for nuclear experiments between the 1950s and 1970s, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday.

Citing official British records, the newspaper said some Hong Kong medical officials had given approval for bodies of Hong Kong children to be used in the tests without parental consent.

Pressure has been mounting on the Hong Kong government for a probe into recent reports in British newspapers that some 6,000 stillborn babies and dead infants were sent from Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, the United States and South America over a 15-year period.

The bodies and body parts were used by the U.S. Department of Energy for tests to monitor the impact of fallout and radioactivity from nuclear tests.

The remains of Hong Kong babies were also used by British scientists for similar tests and research that ended only in the 1970s.

According to the Post, Hong Kong health authorities were given detailed instructions by British scientists.

``What we most need are bones from children 0-5 years of age with the following minimum requirements: one complete femur from each child, cleaned from soft tissue,'' it quoted documents obtained from Britain's Public Records Office as saying.

``The following particulars about each subject: name; date of birth; date of death; whether breast or bottle-fed; place where the child lived; any other information thought relevant.''

In 1961, one scientist and a colleague analyzed samples from 31 Hong Kong children, which did not indicate dangerous levels of radioactive element Strontium 90.

The Hong Kong government has said it would not investigate the reports unless specific evidence came to light that Hong Kong babies had been used in the tests.

Government representatives were not immediately available for comment on the Post report.

Australia confirmed last week that cremated bones from some Australian babies, children and adults of up to 39 years old had been shipped to the United States and Britain to test for radioactive fallout from nuclear tests.

-------- bulgaria

Bulgaria sets up insurance pool against N-plant risk

BULGARIA: June 15, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11201

SOFIA - Eleven Bulgarian insurance companies yesterday set up the first ever Bulgarian national insurance nuclear pool against an accident at the Soviet-designed Kozloduy nuclear power plant.

"Today we signed a contract with Bulgarian companies for establishing a national insuranace pool against a nuclear accident in line with Vienna Convention on Civil Liabilities for Nuclear Damage," said State Energy Agency chief Ivan Shilyashki.

The annual premium will be $500,000, an insurance official said.

Among the 11 firms in the pool is Energia with 27 percent, second-ranked is Allianz Bulgaria, owned by Germany's Allianz AG with 20.5 percent, followed by Orel with 14 and State Insurance Institute-General Innsurance - 11.7 percent.

"The Bulgarian state guarantees some 51 million levs ($22.4 million) and 30 percent out of it would be covered by the national pool," Shilyashki told reporters.

The remaining 70 percent would be re-insured by foreign pools and experts from the nuclear isurance pools of Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland are now at the Kozloduy site to assess the level of the reactors' risk, he said.

In February the government appointed the Kozloduy plant as an operator of its nuclear facilities after it was legally separated from the state-owned National Electricity Company last year.

Now Kozloduy, being an independent entity, has the civil liability for damage in case of nuclear event.

The 3,760-megawatt Kozloduy plant, which supplies half of the country's power, will start in 2003 decommissioning its oldest 440-megawatt reactors one and two earlier than planned following safety fears of the international community.

The earlier closure of the other two 440 MW aging reactors, three and four, would be determined after negotiations with the European Commission.

The worst accident that the Kozloduy plant has registered so far has been of the second level of the seven-levelled International Nuclear Events Scale, the plant's spokeswoman Yordanka Stoyanov told Reuters.

-------- business

EU Imperils GE-Honeywell Deal
Antitrust Panel Demands Combined Firm Divest $6 Billion in Assets

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page E01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3053-2001Jun14?language=printer

BRUSSELS, June 14 -- General Electric Co.'s $45 billion bid to buy Honeywell International Inc. appeared seriously jeopardized today after the companies said the European Union's antitrust authorities had set intolerable conditions for approving the deal.

The possibility that the EU may effectively veto the combination of two U.S. industrial giants threatened to increase economic tension between the United States and Europe just as President Bush was holding a summit meeting in Goteborg, Sweden, with the 15 leaders of the European Union.

Executives for both companies said they had gone as far as they could to appease EU concerns by offering to divest Honeywell businesses that generate $2.2 billion in annual revenue. But merger experts for the European Commission, the EU's executive body, want them to dispose of $6 billion in assets, a price the companies consider exorbitant.

"We have always said there was a point at which we wouldn't do the deal," said GE chairman and chief executive John F. Welch Jr. "The commission's extraordinary demands are far beyond that point."

Welch, who traveled to Brussels last week hoping to resolve the last obstacles to the deal, said the EU's demands would require sacrificing virtually all of Honeywell's avionics business and rob the merger of its original strategic purpose.

"In this case, the European regulators' demands exceeded anything I or our European advisers imagined, and differed sharply from antitrust counterparts in the U.S. and Canada," who have approved the deal, Welch said.

EU antitrust regulators, who have authority to review the deal because of the large European presence of both companies, have demanded that the firms divest some assets to reduce the likelihood they will acquire overwhelming control of certain global aerospace markets.

Specifically, the EU's antitrust commissioner, Mario Monti, and his staff have repeatedly warned about the danger of GE and Honeywell "bundling" the sales and services of their different businesses. For example, GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS), the largest aircraft-leasing company, might buy only GE jet engines and Honeywell aerospace products. This combination, the EU commission fears, would produce package deals for commercial jet airplanes that would annihilate the competition and lead to much higher prices for customers.

The companies had until 6 p.m. today, Washington time, to submit their final concession offers. The EU's executive members must decide whether to approve the merger by July 12. Many antitrust experts predicted the companies will withdraw their proposal in the coming days.

Some industry analysts believe that GE officials, after rethinking the terms of the deal, and considering the U.S. economy's slowdown, are not unhappy the merger is falling apart.

"It's very, very possible GE has set terms it knows won't be accepted," said James Kelleher, an analyst at Argus Research.

With the United States and the European Union struggling to resolve a raft of trade conflicts at a time of growing weakness in the world economy, some Europeans expressed fears that an EU veto of the merger could anger members of the U.S. Congress.

A Bush administration spokesman confirmed that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card had spoken with Welch about his negotiations with the EU commission while the Bush delegation was in Brussels on Wednesday for a summit conference with NATO leaders. The spokesman said administration officials might raise the merger issue at the summit in Sweden.

Monti's spokeswoman, Amelia Torres, rejected suggestions that the EU's antitrust review had political implications and said that pressure from the United States or any other foreign government would not sway the panel. "As to political intervention, that's something that can happen and has happened in the past, but it really never impresses the commission," Torres said.

"The commission must review mergers and acquisitions solely based on competition grounds," she said. "That's always what the commission has done and that's what it intends to keep doing."

If the EU blocks the deal, it would mark the first time that European regulators foiled a merger of two American companies that had already been approved by the U.S. government.

Until now, U.S. and EU antitrust officials have collaborated closely in policing the competitive impact of mergers as a growing number of companies combine to compete on a global scale. But the divergent views of the GE-Honeywell merger held by regulators on either side of the Atlantic could portend new uncertainties for future mergers.

Monti and Welch met twice on Wednesday but made no headway, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

GE said today it had offered to set up GECAS as "as a separate, 'ring-fenced' entity to deal at arm's length with Honeywell avionics and non-avionics products." But the EU's merger task force demanded a complete spinoff, which GE claims is a deal-breaker.

It was unclear whether Welch's complaints today were an attempt to intimidate the EU commission into relaxing its demands. But Monti showed no signs of giving ground. He said his staff had spent a great amount of time with GE executives trying to find an acceptable compromise, but GE would not accept the commission's proposed solutions.

"We have explored commitments which would not have entailed further divestments in the aerospace industry but rather a structural commitment to modify the commercial behavior of GECAS," Monti said in a statement. "We regret that this avenue has not been pursued."

Staff writer Robert O'Harrow in New York contributed to this report.

-------- depleted uranium

Del Ponte is asked to prosecute NATO for DU

IHT-KATHIMERINI English Edition,
ARCHIVE SECTION ATHENS,
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2001 NEWS & COMMENT
http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=86413

The head of the Athens Bar Association and two human rights groups yesterday asked the chief war crimes prosecutor for Yugoslavia to charge NATO officials for allowing the use of depleted uranium ammunition in the Balkans.

In a request filed with Carla del Ponte, the three asked for the prosecution of any NATO political or military official who authorized the use of the armor-piercing ammunition.

They claim use of the ammunition violated international agreements barring the use of toxic or "other" materials during a war, and the 1949 Geneva Convention intended to protect civilians in areas of conflict. No NATO officials are named in their request.

The request was made by bar association president Andonis Roupakiotis; Constantinos Menoudakis, a high court judge and president of the Greek judicial workers union for democracy and freedom; and Aliki Maragopoulou, head of a human rights group.

Depleted uranium is a slightly radioactive heavy metal which is used in shells and can pierce the armor of a tank. There is concern that dust from the uranium can cause cancer.

A NATO committee which acts as a clearinghouse about possible health risks has said no evidence of a link between depleted uranium munitions and an increase in illness has yet been found.

The studies followed concerns in several European countries after Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukemia. (AP)

-------- europe

Bush Offers Vision of Europe United in 'Alliance of Liberty'

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/15CND-PREXY.html?searchpv=nytToday

WARSAW, June 15 - In this old world city whose people have suffered through war and tyranny, President Bush today offered his vision of a new Europe united in "a great alliance of liberty" and fortified by an expanded NATO.

"The bells of victory have rung," Mr. Bush declared at the Warsaw University Library. "The Iron Curtain is no more. Now we plan and build the House of Freedom whose doors are open to all of Europe's peoples, and whose windows look out to global challenges beyond."

Mr. Bush spoke on the eve of his meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and despite his speech's allusions to a Soviet Union and a Communist empire that are no more, he took pains to include Mr. Putin's nation in his vision.

"Tomorrow I will see President Putin and express my hopes for a Russia that is truly great - a greatness measured by the strength of its democracy, the good treatment of minorities, and the achievement of its people," Mr. Bush said in a speech interrupted frequently by applause.

"I will express to President Putin that Russia is a part of Europe and therefore does not need a buffer zone of insecure states separating it from Europe. NATO, even as it grows, is no enemy of Russia. Poland is no enemy of Russia. America is no enemy of Russia."

The President acknowledged America's debt to the far older culture of Poland, and he went further, "All who believe in the power of conscience and culture are in your debt."

Mr. Bush said it is high time to move beyond the "false lines" that divide East from West, one culture from another.

"This free Europe is no longer a dream," he said. "It is the Europe that is rising around us. It is the work that you and I area called on to complete. We can build an open Europe; a Europe without Hitler and Stalin, without Brezhnev and Honecker and Ceausescu and, yes, without Milosevic."

Mr. Bush foreshadowed his speech at a news conference after meeting with President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland, which has become a NATO member. "My government believes NATO should expand," Mr. Bush said. "We believe no one should be excluded because of history or location or geography. And we don't believe any nation should have a veto over who is accepted."

Moscow has complained about the expansion of NATO, a Western alliance that was originally created to counter potential Soviet aggression. Mr. Bush said that when he meets Mr. Putin on Saturday in Slovenia, he will assure him that the United States is no longer Russia's enemy and regards it as a potential partner and ally.

"I also will stress that my vision of Europe includes Russia," Mr. Bush said, "and that Russia should not fear the expansion of freedom-loving people to her borders. Russia has got fast potential and great opportunity, particularly if she makes a commitment to democratic institutions and to the rule of law, and embraces the open market."

Mr. Bush's schedule in Poland, the latest stop on his European trip, also includes meeting Prime Minister Jerzy Karol Buzek and visiting the Warsaw Ghetto memorial and Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

On Thursday, at a summit meeting of the European Union in Goteborg, Sweden, President Bush and European leaders expressed sharp differences and conflicting intentions about global warming

It was Mr. Bush's first appearance at a European Union meeting, and his first introduction to several of the leaders, but it was also the second day in a row that he found himself at odds with European officials. On Wednesday he clashed with leaders of the Atlantic Alliance on his plans for a missile defense shield.

That contentious issue is certain to come up again when he concludes his five-day, five-nation trip on Saturday.

During his meeting with Mr. Putin, Mr. Bush is certain to debate another issue that has already been a contentious one during his European trip -his desire to abandon the antiballistic missile treaty in effect between Moscow and Washington for nearly three decades.

Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, sought today to play down any expectation that he would persuade the Russian president to agree. She told reporters at a briefing in Warsaw that Mr. Bush would return to some themes he had sounded earlier in his trip - that the cold war was over, a new day had come for Europe and Russia should assume its rightful role. But she said the two leaders would not discuss any specific projects.

"I don't think I would expect the presidents to sit down and design a security framework," Ms. Rice said.

Mr. Bush told reporters on Thursday that he would express to Mr. Putin Washington's concern about the threat of weapons proliferation. "I am concerned about some reports of the proliferation of weapons throughout - on Russia's southern border, for example," Mr. Bush said, without going into further detail.

"I think it's important for Russia to hear that our nation is concerned about the spreading of weapons of mass destruction," he said. "And I'll bring it up in the context of explaining why it is important for us think differently about missile defenses, to think differently about the Cold War doctrine that is codified in the A.B.M. treaty of 1972."

In Thursday's meetings, the leaders of the European Union seemed intent on starting their relationship on a respectful note, using a studiously cordial tone and carefully measured words.

Even so, Mr. Bush and the Europeans laid bare their split over the wisdom of a 1997 treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. At least publicly, European leaders say they will press ahead with the accord, while Mr. Bush remains firmly opposed to it.

As leaders on each side defended their positions Thursday, the statements underscored tensions in the relationship between the United States and Europe and European leaders' fears that Mr. Bush was marching resolutely to his own drummer as he dealt with foreign policy issues of common concern.

"We don't agree on the Kyoto treaty," Mr. Bush bluntly stated at a news conference after talks with Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden and the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi. "But we do agree that climate change is a serious issue and we must work together."

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan, India Ready for Summit

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Pakistan-India.html?searchpv=aponline

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Friday said he hoped an upcoming summit with India's prime minister will bring ``a new beginning'' in the troubled relations between the two nuclear rivals.

In a surprise move last month, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee invited Musharraf to New Delhi for talks. The invitation broke a two-year deadlock in high-level contacts between the countries. The meeting is expected to take place in early July, though an exact date has not been set.

``I will go to India with an open mind and my open mind will be directly in proportion to the open-mindedness shown by the Indian leader,'' Musharraf said in a televised question and answer program.

``We can change history if the Indian leaders also show open-mindedness -- and we can have a new beginning,'' he said. The chances of moving forward have never been brighter than they are now.''

Musharraf said that he had ``cautious optimism'' about the talks, which are expected to touch on Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region over which India and Pakistan fought two of their three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.

``Kashmir is the core issue. That is the baseline,'' Musharraf said when asked about the agenda for talks.

Clashes in Kashmir between Indian security forces and Kashmiri militants fighting for either independence or merger with Pakistan claimed 21 lives on Friday.

Also Friday, four leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference -- an umbrella organization of political and religious separatist groups in Kashmir -- were detained in their homes to prevent them from taking part in a protest against recent clashes between militants and armed forces in two mosques in Kashmir.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the leaders.

Pakistan -- which has one of the world's highest rates of poverty and illiteracy -- spends 35 percent of its national budget on defense, mostly because of tensions with India.

On Friday, Musharraf said Pakistan will seek to emerge from a ``debt trap'' through a combination of funding by the International Monetary Fund, fresh lending and rescheduling of payments.

The military leader took power in a bloodless coup in October 1999 and has promised a return to democracy by October 2002.

While the press has remained largely free during Musharraf's rule, political rallies have been suppressed.

The general said Friday that he will allow political expression as long as activists ``do not cause disruption and do not disturb civic life.''

-------- iran

Post: U.S. Suspects Iran Getting Nuclear Components

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-us.html?searchpv=reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes Iran obtained material that could be used to make nuclear weapons through a Russian metals trader earlier this year, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Washington and Moscow have exchanged a series of diplomatic messages over U.S. and Israeli allegations that Moscow allowed a suspicious shipment of high strength aluminum to Iran soon after President Bush took office Jan. 21, the newspaper said.

According to the Post, U.S. officials were told by the Russians that the aluminum headed for Iran was intended for aircraft manufacture, but the U.S. did not accept that explanation.

Citing American officials, the Post said the U.S. and Israel have evidence that the aluminum was delivered to Iranian institutions connected with what they suspect is Iran's nuclear weapons project.

The newspaper quoted a Kremlin export official, Sergei Yekimov, as saying that Russia had made an ``exhaustive'' reply to U.S. concerns about the aluminum shipment.

According to the Post, U.S. officials did not know the origin of the aluminum, but said the shipment was arranged by a Russian metals trader -- leaving open the possibility that it did not involve the Russian government.

U.S. officials told the newspaper Bush would raise nuclear proliferation concerns in his first-ever meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in Slovenia. However, the officials said Bush would not go into details of specific cases.

The report said National security adviser Condoleezza Rice raised the aluminum case directly with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, while he was still head of the Kremlin Security Council. Ivanov provided her with written assurances that the aluminum was intended for aircraft manufacture, according to the Post.

The newspaper said Putin gave former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak a similar answer shortly before Barak left office on March 7, citing the official sources.

The Post said U.S. officials believed the aluminum could be intended for the manufacture of rotor blades in gas centrifuges used to produce weapons-grade uranium.

``U.S. experts say that Iran has been attempting to acquire centrifuge technology, as well as other technology for enriching uranium, for much of the last decade as part of a larger effort to build an atomic bomb,'' the paper said.

-------- korea

S. Korea Defense Minister to Visit US

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-SKorea-US.html?searchpv=aponline

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korean Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin will visit Washington next week for his first meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the government said Friday.

Kim, who took the post in a Cabinet shake-up in March, will meet Rumsfeld on Thursday for a discussion on North Korea and other security issues, Kim's office said in a statement.

During his weeklong visit, Kim is scheduled to meet Secretary of State Colin Powell and other top U.S. government officials. Kim will speak on the U.S.-South Korea military alliance at a meeting sponsored by the private think tank Heritage Foundation, the statement said.

The U.S. government said last week that it will start talks with North Korea over that country's missile and other weapons of mass destruction.

South Korean officials are hopeful the recent decision by the Bush administration to open security talks with the North will encourage the totalitarian North to resume a dialogue with the South.

Earlier this year, North Korea cut off virtually all contact with Seoul over tensions with Washington.

The United States keeps about 37,000 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against a possible North Korean invasion.

-------- missile defense

General Says Missile Shield Needs Money and Prudence

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/15MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, June 14 - The head of the Pentagon's missile defense program warned Congress today that accelerating development of a missile shield, as President Bush has urged, would be a mistake without meticulous planning and a major infusion of money.

In testimony before a House subcommittee, the Pentagon official, Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, injected a note of caution into the White House's plans to speed up deployment of the antimissile system, suggesting that similar efforts during the Clinton administration led to failed tests and bad publicity for the experimental program.

After considering plans to deploy a system by 2005, President Bill Clinton deferred initial construction of an antimissile system last year because of doubts about the technology. Mr. Clinton cited two test failures out of three attempts to shoot down long- range missiles.

But today General Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, was generally upbeat about the progress of the program, showing videotape of three successful intercepts. And he said he would support a more aggressive testing program on an array of technologies, provided adequate financing was allocated.

"If we rush development imprudently, I will guarantee that we will get less-than-satisfactory results," General Kadish told members of the House Subcommittee on Military Research and Development.

"If it is done prudently, with the right amount of resources," he added, the program "might prove to be very effective in rapidly advancing fielded hardware."

The general declined to say how much more money would be needed for a more ambitious testing program, but Pentagon officials said it would require billions or tens of billions of additional dollars. A typical test involving an attempted interception of an intercontinental ballistic missile costs $100 million.

But at a time when the federal surplus has been drastically reduced by President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut, it is unclear whether Congress is willing to invest billions of additional dollars on new antimissile systems - particularly when other military and social programs are competing for the money.

Representative Gene Taylor, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi, for example, said he came from a shipbuilding state and needed to be convinced that Congress should spend money testing antimissile weapons rather than enhancing the American fleet.

"I have got to decide in my mind whether or not we would have been better off with that same $63 billion having built 12 carriers or 70-plus destroyers," Mr. Taylor said, referring to the total amount spent since 1985 on the missile defense program.

Asked by Mr. Taylor when the Pentagon might have a working system, General Kadish said within 10 years, and possibly as soon as 2004, in time for the next election.

The Pentagon has asked defense companies to submit proposals for a limited system that could be operating by 2004, which has prompted Democrats to accuse the Bush administration of rushing the program for political reasons. The Pentagon has denied that assertion.

While General Kadish was making his remarks today, President Bush was in Europe trying to persuade the NATO allies of the urgent need to build a ballistic missile defense program as soon as possible to defend against attacks from nations like Iraq, Libya and North Korea.

Mr. Bush, along with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who visited Europe last week, have argued that the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty is hampering research and development of promising new antimissile technologies that could be fired from ships, planes or possibly space.

The treaty prohibits testing and development of systems that defend against long-range missiles, if those systems are land-based and mobile, or can be fired from ships, planes or space. It does allow fixed, land-based antimissile systems, provided they are constructed in specific places.

Responding to a question today, General Kadish said that the treaty had not yet interfered with tests involving the land-based system. He did not mention the treaty's influence on future tests or on other kinds of systems.

But a Pentagon official close to the missile defense program said all tests scheduled by the missile defense organization through 2003, and perhaps several years beyond that, complied with the treaty, including ones involving an airborne laser and ship-fired missiles.

Those tests, the official noted, were planned by the Clinton administration which, Republicans said, was overly cautious about treaty compliance.

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NMD will slow India's rise

By Steve LaMontagne,
The Hindu Thursday,
June 14, 2001
From: aiindex@mnet.fr

The United States President, Mr. George W. Bush has found little support abroad for his costly and controversial National Missile Defence (NMD) proposal. European responses have ranged from skepticism to outright opposition, while Russia and China have warned that unilateral abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty could undermine global security and ignite a new arms race, one that could easily spread to South Asia.

Why, then, was India one of the first and only country to express its support, albeit lukewarmly, for the NMD? The anwser lies in the fact that conditions are ripe for a fair-weather friendship between India and the U.S. The Bush administration is anxious to tap India's pool of skilled labour and market of over one billion people. Moreover, several administration officials view India as a valuable strategic counterweight to China, with whom U.S. relations have soured because of the recent spy- plane incident and differences over Taiwan, weapons proliferation, human rights, and missile defenses.

India, for its part, would like to see the U.S. lift what remains of the sanctions imposed after the 1998 nuclear tests, most of which prohibit the export of military and dual-use goods. In addition to the prospect of military and technological assistance, India also hopes to win U.S. support for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Being the only country to jump on the NMD bandwagon therefore seems like a good way to grease the wheels of India's rise to greatpower status.

Unfortunately, any potential benefits of currying favour with the U.S. will be washed out by the long-term consequences of a U.S. anti- missile system. The implications for India's national security are especially worrisome. First, the likely Chinese response would be a qualitative and quantitative buildup of its nuclear forces. A classified U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released in August 2000 confirms this assessment, reportedly predicting that China's strategic arsenal could swell to 10 times its present size as a response to the NMD. To achieve such a buildup, China may decide both to equip its nuclear missiles with multiple independent re-entry vehicles and to resume nuclear tests, steps that India would find threatening.

Second, China will be less likely to honour its non- proliferation commitments in the face of growing U.S. unilateralism and support for Taiwan. Traffic of sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile components and technologies to Pakistan, among other countries, would likely increase.

The fallout from the NMD may simply increase the threat to India from its two immediate neighbours, with both of whom it has a history of conflict. China and Pakistan will be engaged in rapid nuclear buildups and will be cultivating a strategic relationship based on the proliferation of nuclear technology and ballistic missiles. These unsettling security trends could undermine improved relations between India and China as well as halt progress towards a resolution of the longstanding dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

India's social and economic development may be affected as pressure rises to respond with further increases in military spending levels, which have already risen by double-digit percentages each of the previous two years. India may also be pushed closer to a decision to fully weaponise and deploy its nuclear forces. Such a step would entail massive expenditures on nuclear command, control, communications, and intelligence, and force officials to make critical decisions about nuclear doctrine, such as how many weapons would constitute a sufficient deterrent and which cities or facilities to target. Individual military branches will squabble for control over the largest piece of the nuclear pie.

Spending more money on bombers and nuclear weapons means that fewer resources will be available for priorities such as disaster relief, poverty alleviation, and economic development that are more important to India's future than senseless and destablising arms races. India will still be able to pursue its interests without endorsing the concept of missile defences. Indeed, supporting the NMD may ultimately slow India's rise to greatness, not accelerate it.

(The writer is a specialist on nonproliferation at Council for a Livable World Education Fund, a Washington DC-based arms control advocacy group.)

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US 'planned nuclear first strike on Russia'

Friday 15 June 2001
By Michael Smith
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000118613908976&rtmo=V15PPuxx&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/01/6/15/nuke15.html

Richard J Aldrich, School of Politics - University of Nottingham

The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, Richard J Aldrich - Amazon UK

Cold War hot links - Saint Martin's College, Washingtonn

Moscow had Cold War spy base in north London

BRITISH intelligence warned in 1951 that the Americans were planning to wage a "preventative" atomic war on the Russians the next year with or without the support of their Nato allies.

The Director of Naval Intelligence said the United States military was convinced that "all-out war against the Soviet Union was not only inevitable but imminent". Vice-Admiral Eric Longley-Cook went on to say that the Americans had, accordingly, "gone ahead to prepare for an inevitable clash of arms with the Soviet Union, 'fixed' for mid or late 1952."

Details of the report, and the British concerns that their ally was about to provoke a third world war, are contained in a new book by Richard J Aldrich, Professor of Politics at Nottingham University. The Hidden Hand says Longley-Cook's report, so secret that only six copies were produced, was the culmination of two years of tension in which the Russians had exploded their first atomic bomb, four years before the earliest Nato intelligence prediction.

During that period, a succession of senior British officers had returned from visits to America expressing alarm over the apparent conviction among their United States counterparts that they should attack Russia. Longley-Cook said that the Russians were far too cautious to start a war themselves. The main threat to strategic stability and the security of Britain appeared to come from the United States where McCarthyism was in full flow.

"Many people in America have made up their minds that war with Russia is inevitable and there is a strong tendency in military circles to 'fix' the zero date for war," he said. "It is doubtful whether, in a year's time, the US will be able to control the Frankenstein monster which they are creating. There is a definite risk of the USA becoming involved in a preventative war against Russia, however firmly their Nato allies object."

It was not just the view of senior United States generals and intelligence officers, who seemed unwilling to endorse a threat assessment based on "factual intelligence" rather than their own prejudices. Many ordinary Americans shared their opinions. There was an apocalyptic view among the inhabitants of major American cities, "who visualise in their own concentrated home town the ruins of Hamburg and Berlin", Longley-Cook said.

"These and other Americans say, 'We have the bomb, let's use it now while the balance is in our favour. Since war with Russia is inevitable, let's get it over with now'. Some talk of an 'ultimatum from strength', but many more believe in the necessity for 'smashing the Russians' at the earliest possible moment."

There was certainly evidence to support the British assessment. One US general had said that the West could not afford to wait until Europe or even America was devastated by a nuclear holocaust. "We can afford, however, to create a wilderness in Russia without serious repercussion on Western civilisation. We have a moral obligation to stop Russia's aggression by force, if necessary, rather than face the consequences of delay."

Another US general said that his country was already at war with Russia. "Whether we call it a Cold War or apply any other term we are not winning. It seems to me that almost any analysis of the situation shows that the only way that we can be certain of winning is to take the offensive as soon as possible and hit Russia hard enough to at least prevent her from taking over Europe.

"If we plan and execute the operation properly, the weight of our attack in the early stages may be sufficient to compel Russia to accept our terms for a real peace. It will not be a preventative war, because we are already at war."

Most copies of Longley-Cook's report were ordered to be destroyed once read but one was passed to Winston Churchill after he returned to power in late 1951. He was initially highly dismissive, even suggesting that Longley-Cook must be a communist and ordering that "a sharp eye should be kept on the writer".

But in April 1952, after returning from Washington having failed to obtain a veto on US strikes from British bases, he had changed his mind. He told his private secretary: "I want to see the secret report prepared by the late Director of Naval Intelligence and sent to me by the First Lord when I was in America. Let me have it back again."

The Hidden Hand by Richard J Aldrich (John Murray) is available for £22 plus 99p p&p. To order please call 0870 1557222 or write to Telegraph Books Direct, 32-34, Park Royal Rd, London, NW10 7LN.

2 May 2001: [International] Bush 'shield' could fuel new nuclear race 30 March 2001: [International] US warns Russia on nuclear spread 17 February 2001: [International] Russia tests nuclear missiles after war of words with US

----

Asian Forum Against U.S. Defense Plan

JUNE 15, 12:22 EST
By MARTIN FACKLER
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7CL3C980

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Defense ministers of a new six-nation Asian forum led by China and Russia criticized U.S. missile-defense plans Friday as harmful to world security.

At a ceremony to inaugurate the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, leaders of China, Russia and four Central Asian republics said they hoped the group would counterbalance American dominance of world affairs.

The leaders lauded the new group as a step toward a world with more than one power center - a veiled reference to the United States.

The group will foster ``world multi-polarization,'' said Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev said it would nurture the ``establishment of a fair and reasonable international order.''

Other members of the group are Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Tajikistan. It replaces the Shanghai Five, a forum created in 1996 to resolve border disputes and fight rising Islamic militancy.

In a meeting Friday, defense ministers of the six nations singled out Washington for criticism, saying its proposed missile defense would have a ``negative impact on world security,'' according to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Deguang.

Zhang said the new group was not a military alliance aimed at the United States.

The governments want stability and security in Central Asia, but not by ``seeking military confrontation or establishing a military alliance, which was a feature of the Cold War era,'' Zhang told reporters.

The leaders on Friday pledged to cooperate in exploiting oil, natural gas and minerals, which Central Asia has in abundance. China is keen to gain access to new energy for its expanding economy.

But much of the agreement was devoted to joint efforts against Muslim separatists. The issue has given common ground to rivals Russia and China and the newly independent Central Asian republics, which are wary of domination by Moscow or Beijing.

Many of the governments face rebels who they believe are getting arms and training from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Islamic militia.

``The cradle of terrorism, separatism and extremism is the instability in Afghanistan,'' President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakstan warned.

The leaders discussed an anti-terrorism center that they agreed to set up last year. Chinese officials refused to confirm reports that they also talked about joint military exercises and Chinese military aid to Kyrgyzstan.

Moscow wants help in cutting outside support for Muslim guerrillas who are fighting a bloody independence war in Chechnya. Central Asian nations are worried about armed rebels based in Uzbekistan.

China is fighting Muslim separatists who are waging a campaign of assassination and bombings in its western region of Xinjiang. The biggest ethnic group there, the Uighurs, are Muslims with ties to Turkic groups dominant in much of Central Asia.

-------- nato

Bush Proposes Lifting Limits on Membership in NATO

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/continuous/15CND-PREXY.html?searchpv=nytToday

WARSAW, June 15 - On his first visit to Poland, President Bush urged today that NATO be opened to virtually any democracy that wants to join.

"My government believes NATO should expand," Mr. Bush said, speaking at a news conference after meeting with President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland, which has become a NATO member. "We believe no one should be excluded because of history or location or geography. And we don't believe any nation should have a veto over who is accepted."

Striking a theme that he is expected to amplify in a speech today at the Warsaw University library, Mr. Bush said that "it's not a matter of whether NATO expands, it's a matter of when NATO expands. We strongly stand on the side of expansion of NATO."

Moscow has complained about the expansion of NATO, a Western alliance that was created originally to counter potential Soviet aggression. Mr. Bush said that when he meets President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia Saturday in Slovenia, he will assure him that the United States is no longer Russia's enemy and regards it as a potential partner and ally.

"I also will stress that my vision of Europe includes Russia," Mr. Bush said, "and that Russia should not fear the expansion of freedom-loving people to her borders. Russia has got fast potential and great opportunity, particularly if she makes a commitment to democratic institutions and to the rule of law, and embraces the open market."

"We want Russia to be a partner and an ally, a partner in peace, a partner in democracy, a country that embraces freedom, a country that enhances the security of Europe," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush's schedule in Poland, the latest stop on his European trip, also includes meeting Prime Minister Jerzy Karol Buzek and visiting the Warsaw Ghetto memorial and Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

On Thursday, at a summit meeting of the European Union in Goteborg, Sweden, President Bush and European leaders expressed sharp differences and conflicting intentions about global warming

It was Mr. Bush's first appearance at a European Union meeting, and his first introduction to several of the leaders, but it was also the second day in a row that he found himself at odds with European officials. On Wednesday, he clashed with leaders of the Atlantic Alliance on his plans for a missile defense shield.

That contentious issue is certain to come up again when he concludes his five-day, five-nation trip on Saturday with a meeting with Russian President Putin.

During their meeting, Mr. Bush is certain to debate another issue that has already been a contentious one during his European trip - his desire to abandon the anti-ballistic missile treaty in effect between Moscow and Washington for nearly three decades.

Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, sought today to downplay any expectation that he would persuade the Russian president. She told reporters at a briefing in Warsaw that Mr. Bush would return to some themes he had sounded earlier in his trip - that the Cold War was over, a new day had come for Europe and Russia should assume its rightful role. But she said the two leaders would not discuss any specific projects. "I don't think I would expect the presidents to sit down and design a security framework," Ms. Rice said.

Mr. Bush told reporters today that he would express to Mr. Putin Washington's concern about the threat of weapons proliferation. "I am concerned about some reports of the proliferation of weapons throughout - on Russia's southern border, for example," Mr. Bush said, without going into further detail.

"I think it's important for Russia to hear that our nation is concerned about the spreading of weapons of mass destruction," he said. "And I'll bring it up in the context of explaining why it is important for us think differently about missile defenses, to think differently about the Cold War doctrine that is codified in the A.B.M. treaty of 1972."

In Thursday's meetings, the leaders of the European Union seemed intent on starting their relationship on a respectful note, using a studiously cordial tone and carefully measured words.

Even so, Mr. Bush and the Europeans laid bare their split over the wisdom of a 1997 treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. At least publicly, European leaders say they will press ahead with the accord, while Mr. Bush remains firmly opposed to it.

As leaders on each side defended their positions Thursday, the statements underscored tensions in the relationship between the United States and Europe and European leaders' fears that Mr. Bush was marching resolutely to his own drummer as he dealt with foreign policy issues of common concern.

"We don't agree on the Kyoto treaty," Mr. Bush bluntly stated at a news conference after talks with Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden and the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi. "But we do agree that climate change is a serious issue and we must work together."

Later Mr. Bush added, "I say loud and clear that our nation is willing to lead on this issue." Nonetheless, he said, "We didn't feel like the Kyoto treaty was well balanced. It didn't include developing nations. Its goals were not realistic."

Mr. Persson and Mr. Prodi, speaking at the same news conference, offered dissenting assessments.

"The European Union will stick to the Kyoto Protocol and go for a ratification process," Mr. Persson said. "The U.S. has chosen another policy."

In what came across as a gentle rebuke of Mr. Bush, Mr. Persson added that "climate change is not isolated" to Europe and is a global threat. "So, nevertheless, if you are in favor or against the Kyoto Protocol, you have to take action," he said.

The Kyoto accord would require industrialized nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels, a year that the Bush administration has said was chosen to make achieving compliance easier for certain European countries than for the United States.

Neither the United States nor any country in the European Union subsequently ratified the treaty, and administration officials said that was in part because some European governments, despite statements of support designed to please voters with environmental concerns, had their own reservations.

When Mr. Bush and Mr. Prodi were asked why European countries had not moved faster, Mr. Bush said, "I think that's a good question." And there was a hint of disbelief on the president's face when Mr. Prodi subsequently said that every country would indeed ratify and that the "process will start soon."

The divergence over Kyoto is just one symbol of various issues on which European leaders believe that the Bush administration is not sensitive to their concerns.

Mr. Bush seemed muted during Thursday's news conference and gave several erroneous, unclear or unwelcome characterizations of the other issues he was addressing.

He said at one point during that news conference that "Europe ought to include nations beyond the current scope of E.U. and NATO" and that "my vision of Europe is a larger vision" that included "more countries."

He appeared to be advocating expansion of the European Union, which was to be discussed by the 15 member nations today and Saturday. And his remarks prompted a stern response from Chris Patten, the union's external affairs commissioner, who said pointedly, "The United States is not a member of the European Union."

Mr. Bush, turning his attention to another continent, told reporters, "We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, and we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease."

Mr. Bush had unwaveringly stated his opposition to the Kyoto agreement before he left Washington earlier this week for his first overseas trip as president, which will conclude in Slovenia on Saturday when he meets Mr. Putin.

The Bush administration's position is that it wants to work to cut emissions by leading the world in the research and development of technologies that will combat global warming without hurting American industries and the country's economy.

While the European dissatisfaction with that was stated in relatively polite terms Thursday by Mr. Persson and Mr. Prodi, it is seriously felt, and administration officials acknowledged that it was a more divisive disagreement than the one over the missile treaty.

And the nature and depth of the suspicion among some Europeans feel toward Mr. Bush - a sentiment that other new American presidents have also faced - was suggested by a statement by Mr. Persson to antiglobalization protesters on Wednesday, before Mr. Bush arrived here.

Referring to the European Union, Mr. Persson said, "It's one of the few institutions we can develop as a balance to U.S. world domination."

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Baltic States See NATO as Shield From Russia

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/15BALT.html?searchpv=nytToday

VILNIUS, Lithuania, June 14 - Ten years ago last January, Soviet tanks and machine gunners stormed the central television studios and broadcasting tower of this Baltic capital, killing 15 people and wounding hundreds, as the Red Army tried to put down the wave of independence movements that was tearing the Soviet Union apart.

It was one of the darkest hours of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's rule as he lurched between conservatives and liberals in the final days of empire before he himself was swept aside, first by a conservative coup, and then by the man who rescued him from it, Boris N. Yeltsin.

Now, as President Bush prepares for his first meeting with Mr. Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir V. Putin, a reckoning of sorts will be on the agenda for Lithuania and its two Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Estonia. Call it a national insurance policy that what happened here in January 1991 - and in 1940 when the Soviet Army forcibly incorporated the Baltic states into the empire - will never happen again.

For these three small and fiercely independent democracies lead the list of nine nations seeking to enter the NATO alliance in 2002. But Mr. Putin, his top military commanders and most of the Russian establishment strongly oppose what would be the first NATO advance onto the territory of the former Soviet Union.

"Accepting Lithuania into NATO is a signal to Russia that never and never will Lithuania be taken over by Russia again," said President Valdas Adamkus in an interview here. "This is a formal declaration to Russia politically that we are free, and declaring ourselves free forever."

It won't be easy. Between them, the Baltic states have no competent armed forces, no tanks or artillery and a few transport planes that could hardly be called an air force. But they are working on it, and have contributed a few hundred peacekeepers to NATO forces in the former Yugoslavia. And in the event that NATO ever had to defend the Baltic states from attack, some Pentagon and NATO military planners believe that such a defense could not be accomplished with conventional forces.

"Because it is unlikely that NATO members would wish to ensure a country's protection through a nuclear guarantee alone," a 1999 congressional study said, these Western military officials said they doubted that the Baltic states would be offered NATO membership "until alliance relations with Russia improve dramatically."

Besides the three Baltic states, NATO has accepted formal applications from Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Croatia is seeking to join this group as a 10th applicant. This week, in a NATO summit meeting Mr. Bush attended in Brussels, Western leaders agreed that they would invite new members to join the alliance at a summit meeting in Prague next year, but they were silent on which ones. This fall Mr. Bush is expected to notify Congress which applicants the United States will support.

In a speech in Warsaw on Friday, the president will elaborate his administration's position on how far NATO's door remains open to the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and among the former Soviet republics. He is also expected to reaffirm that Russia will have no veto over NATO's decisions. But at the same time, Mr. Bush is seeking to engage Russia in a constructive discussion on missile defense and, more generally, on how to improve international security.

Here in Vilnius, the generation of leaders who defied Soviet rule and have worked more than a decade to build democratic institutions and a market economy expect America's voice to be crucial in NATO's decision and have thus riveted their attention on Mr. Bush.

"The United States is the main pillar of our hopes to join NATO soon," said Vytautas Landsbergis, who led Lithuania in its first days after independence and who now sits in Parliament as a faction leader. "And if Russia succeeds to delay this decision, it is a great victory for Moscow and a big concession to Russia by the United States."

The question of NATO expansion to Russia's frontiers lies at the heart of Moscow's growing worry that instead of integrating Russia deeper into the common European enterprise of building new security structures, the Bush administration is erecting the foundations for some future containment of Russia.

As Mr. Bush and his top advisers have in recent weeks spoken in more conciliatory tones about engaging Russia as a security partner, the anxiety level in the Baltics has risen.

The Baltic leaders fear a tradeoff in which Russia might be convinced to go along with Mr. Bush's missile defense project in return for leaving the Baltic states outside NATO.

Mr. Putin's closest adviser on national security matters, Sergei B. Ivanov, who became defense minister this spring, last week issued a pointed warning that relations between Russia and the West will deteriorate should NATO expansion plans move forward.

"NATO enlargement symbolizes the formation of a security system in Europe in which Russia is not an equal party and it is a direct infringement on Russia's vital interests," he said in Brussels after meeting with NATO officials. "Politicians of the alliance should think once again of the possible losses to the European community if deciding on the enlargement of NATO ignores the opinion of Russia."

In the Baltics, Moscow's warnings are taken as so much bluster and officials here are quick to point out that Russia just as vehemently opposed the entry of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO in 1999. Instead of any deterioration, they point out, relations between those countries and Russia have , if anything, led their leaders to speak to each other with a new clarity and self-assurance.

"We insist that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are not a direct threat to Russia whether they are members of NATO or not," said Mr. Adamkus. "The issue here is psychological: Russia cannot accept that their former Soviet republics, which were incorporated by force, suddenly are not only separating themselves physically and politically, but they are even becoming a member" of the Western alliance.

But Russia has other concerns, which Mr. Putin is likely to raise with Mr. Bush.

Most prominently, Russia's Baltic Fleet and home port in the enclave of Kaliningrad, already cut off from Russia proper, will be flanked by NATO countries if Lithuania joins the alliance. A key lifeline connecting Kaliningrad to Russia is a military railroad that crosses Lithuania and Belarus.

In March, Mr. Putin invited Mr. Adamkus to the Kremlin for their first meeting, which turned out to be a long and intense negotiation in which Russia pressed for a treaty guaranteeing Moscow's right to resupply its military forces in Kaliningrad - mainly with fuel - along this rail line.

By gaining such a bilateral treaty, Mr. Putin apparently hoped to protect Russia from the day when NATO might order Russian military traffic halted on the rail link.

Mr. Adamkus, beaming with pride over his own tenacity, said he "succeeded" in withstanding Mr. Putin's barrage of charm and pressure. He looked Mr. Putin in the eye, he said, and told him that the informal agreement that now allows Russian military cargos - on a case-by-case basis - to cross Lithuania is adequate. "I used the American phrase, I said, `Mr. Putin, if it isn't broken, why fix it?' " The Russian leader "sat in silence for about five seconds, then he smiled and said, `Yes,' and the issue was dropped."

But Mr. Adamkus and other senior officials here acknowledged that if Lithuania joins the Western alliance NATO would have the right to shut down Russian military traffic through Lithuania in a period of tension.

But Russia has its own leverage over the Baltic states as a major supplier of energy to the region.

In Lithuania, the only oil refinery depends on cheap Russian crude oil to operate profitably. Lukoil, the Russian oil company that supplies the refinery, cut back its supplies last year in a commercial dispute with the American company, Williams International, that Lithuania has retained to operate the refinery.

And Lithuania will likely need Russian cooperation to deal with the nuclear waste from the Soviet-built Ignalina power station, whose reactors are of the same design as the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine that exploded in 1986.

Lithuania had pledged to close one of the two reactors by 2005 as a condition for entering the European Union, but will need as much as $3 billion in Western assistance to do so, Mr. Adamkus said. Where the radioactive fuel and wastes get stored may depend on Russia.

-------- russia

Bush Eager to Meet Russia's Putin

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Summit-Chemistry.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ronald Reagan couldn't wait to meet Mikhail Gorbachev, ``get him in a room alone and set him straight.'' Richard Nixon found commonality with combustible Soviet leaders and said the world was safer as a result.

Now it's President Bush, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, who says he's been eager to ``look him in the eye.''

U.S. presidents have been great believers in the power of the personal touch and never more so than when dealing with Moscow.

Putin said Friday he was going into the Slovenia meeting ``in a good mood'' and with hopes for advancing world security. Bush said his priority was to establish personal ties, ``to develop a trust between us.''

Over the decades, U.S. and Russian leaders sometimes have come together like oil and water -- a smooth operator here, a coarse one there. Men on the rise and in their twilight. Leaders in command of all the details and leaders interested only in the big picture.

The results have been personal chemistry at times, poison at others. Gorbachev and Reagan formed an unlikely friendship. Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin seemed to be in on some hilarious private joke.

John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev sparred in Vienna in a session that left the new American president down, rattled and empty-handed, and the bellicose Russian believing he could push JFK around. That feeling changed a year later in the showdown over the Cuban missile crisis.

Few expect the spark of friendship to come easily for the affable Bush, 54, and the guarded Putin, 48. They have little outwardly in common beyond an interest in working out with weights.

``I don't think personal relationships are going to carry the day here,'' says Edward Turzanski, a political scientist who advised the Reagan administration on Soviet affairs. ``These are very different men.''

Peg Hermann, who specializes in political psychology at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and has examined the makeup of Russian leaders, says Putin's strength is his ambiguity, which lets people see in him what they want, yet keeps them at a distance.

``Part of his political astuteness is not to let people know him,'' she said.

Bush is more of an open book in some respects. But his ideology has ranged, too, sometimes emphasizing the moderate, other times the conservative.

Summits can have an emulsion of their own, blending mismatched personalities, although historians say the payoffs tend to be seen in meetings after the first one.

``Some things can happen, it's amazing,'' said Dennis Dunn, a history professor at Southwest Texas State University. With Gorbachev, Reagan the anti-Soviet hard-liner ``felt this was a man he could actually work with.''

As much as he considered Leonid Brezhnev driven by the goal of communist expansion, Nixon was able to negotiate with him on arms control and said their relationship was as important as their agreements in maintaining peace.

During his vice presidency, Nixon even established a rapport of sorts with the explosive Khrushchev, a man he considered a ranting, wily drunk.

Turzanski, who teaches at La Salle University in Philadelphia, says it's an American trait to think there is nothing like eye contact, an iron handshake and a head-to-head talk to make the other guy see matters your way.

Americans come to the table with neither the baggage of a thousand-year history, nor its lessons, he says. Faith in the power of eye contact is a young country's way of making up for its youth.

Yeltsin gave Putin a heads-up on this characteristic.

``Even such a phrase from the younger George Bush as 'I want to meet Putin to have a look in this guy's eye' sounds coarse,'' said Yeltsin, who hardly had the reputation of a smoothie himself.

``But this is American style,'' he said. ``One needs to get accustomed to this.''

Dunn, who wrote a book on Soviet-U.S. diplomacy in the era of Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, said FDR overestimated the force of his personality.

``In some cases it worked,'' he said. ``Against Stalin it had very little impact.

When chemistry has happened, it has not always lasted.

Much was made of the ``spirit of Camp David'' when President Eisenhower met Khrushchev in 1959; yet the following years saw the shooting down of a U.S. spy plane, the Berlin Wall, the missile crisis.

Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev signed an arms treaty and bear-hugged about six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan -- another setback history has not forgotten as Americans and Russians search now for a spirit of Slovenia.

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Bush Wants Russia to Be 'Partner'

By Ron Fournier
AP White House Correspondent
Friday, June 15, 2001; 10:49 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline104953_000.htm

WARSAW, Poland -- On the eve of his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Bush said Friday he wants to make Russia a "partner and an ally" but raised worries about Moscow's nuclear programs.

"I am concerned about some reports of proliferation of weapons throughout Russia's southern border, for example - countries on her southern border - and I'll bring that subject up," Bush said at the opening of a state visit to this former Soviet-bloc nation.

The United States suspects Russia of shipping high-grade aluminum - used to produce uranium - to Iran. Bush said he would raise the topic at the U.S.-Russian summit Saturday in Slovenia as part of his rationale for building the U.S. missile defense shield that Russia so strongly opposes.

The more a "rogue nation," such as Iran or Iraq, has the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, Bush said, "the more necessary it is for freedom-loving people to halt any political blackmail they may choose to inflict upon us."

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice called Russia's suspected commerce with Iran "an impediment to full cooperation" with the United States.

"We believe that some of the things that the Russians are doing with the Iranians may lead to an increased danger of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to Iran," Rice told CNN.

The United States has no expectations of an agreement on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Bush wants to scrap in order to build his anti-missile system. Putin prizes the treaty as a foundation for controlling nuclear weapons.

Aides said Bush also will propose to Putin that they scale down the level of contacts between their two countries in order to lower the profile of arms-control negotiations.

Bush will not put on the table any major specific proposals, Rice said. Briefing the press, she did not rule out moving ahead later with incentives to ease Moscow's opposition to missile defense.

U.S. officials say Bush is willing to offer a broad range of arms purchases, military aid and join anti-missile exercises to Russia in hopes of easing opposition to his missile defense plans. Rice indicated that Russian and American advisers will work out the details of "a new security framework" that the presidents could address later.

Putin and Bush meet again next month in Italy at a summit of world leaders.

"We want Russia to be a partner and an ally, a partner in peace, a partner in democracy, a country that embraces freedom, a country that enhances the security of Europe," Bush said at his joint news conference Friday with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

After months of mixed and chilly signals toward Russia, Bush said his first priority in his high-stakes inaugural meeting with Putin is "to develop a trust between us."

"He doesn't know me, and I don't know him very well. But at my press conference tomorrow, I'm confident I'll be able to say I've got a pretty good feel for the man, and he's got a good feel for me. And he'll see that I'm the president of a peace-loving nation, a nation that wants Russia to succeed and to do well," Bush said.

"The definition of the relationship will evolve over time, but first and foremost, it has got to start with the simple word "friend," Bush said.

Russia's economic success is in American interests, Bush said, adding that "if Russia makes the right choices, she will attract a lot of U.S. capital."

On Russia's embrace of democratic institutions, including free speech and free press, Rice said there are "some troubling signs" though the nation has made lots of progress.

Two senior administration officials, previewing the U.S.-Russian talks, said Thursday that Bush will resist a Russian overture to set up two working groups to deal with missile defenses and further reductions in U.S. and Russian offensive arsenals.

While prospects for an arms-control accord are remote, the president intends to approach Putin for cooperation against terrorism and hopes the U.S. proposal for managing bilateral relations could give their summit special weight, said the officials. Chechnya and Afghanistan are terror concerns.

As part of the proposed overhaul, Bush wants to abandon the high-level panel, run by then-Vice President Al Gore and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, that oversaw major U.S.-Russian issues during Bill Clinton's presidency.

The Gore-Chernomyrdin commission is "deader than a doornail," one official said. The process Bush wants is "decentralizing."

Bush's approach is that issues involving the two countries should be managed by departments in Washington and Moscow instead of by formal commissions that can involve massive delegations, the officials said.

Some defense cooperation may emerge from Saturday's meeting, such as shared work on early warning of accidental missile launches.

Spurgeon Keeny, president of the private Arms Control Association, says the United States is asking Russia for a "blank check" on missile defense and very little can come out of the Bush-Putin meeting.

"The worst that can come out of it," Keeny said, "is that they can get into substance. And if Bush tries to push withdrawal from the ABM treaty or expansion of NATO into the Baltics it's going to be a disaster."

EDITOR'S NOTE - AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid in Washington contributed to this report.

----

Russians en route to get U.S. spy plane

06/15/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-15-russia-plane.htm

KADENA, Okinawa (AP) - A huge Russian cargo plane arrived for a stopover at a U.S. air base on this southern Japan island Friday on its way to retrieve an American spy plane forced to make an emergency landing in China more than two months ago. The Russian Antonov 124 arrived at Kadena Air Base Friday morning and was expected to leave for the Chinese island of Hainan soon, though military spokesmen refused to comment on its exact schedule.

Plans call for the EP-3 spy plane to be dismantled and loaded in pieces onto two Antonov 124s and flown to the U.S. base on Okinawa. Officials refused to comment on the schedule of the other Russian plane, or whether it was flying directly to Hainan.

The EP-3 has been held at an air base on Hainan since making an emergency landing there April 1 after colliding with a Chinese jet fighter. The Chinese pilot is presumed dead. China held the 24 American crew members for 11 days as it tried to compel Washington to apologize for the incident.

Dismantling and loading the EP-3 onto the two Russian Antonov 124s is expected to take nearly a month. The U.S. Navy said in Hawaii that it expected work to be finished by July 11.

China rejected a U.S. proposal to repair the plane and fly it home, apparently hoping to punish Washington by forcing it to destroy its aircraft in order to retrieve it.

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Bush Urges Russia to Forge New Ties

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/15WIRE-PREX.html?searchpv=aponline

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- In the heart of the old Soviet bloc, President Bush chastised Russia on Friday for suspected nuclear commerce and encouraged the former Cold War rival to help ``erase the false lines that have divided Europe.''

A day before his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, Bush urged the Russian president to forge new ties with the West and become ``a partner and an ally.'' Aides said Bush will seek to open talks between U.S. and Russian military leaders aimed at easing Moscow's opposition to an American anti-missile shield.

``The Europe we are building must also be open to Russia,'' Bush said at Warsaw University in the signature speech of his first overseas trip.

``We have a stake in Russia's success -- and we look for the day when Russia is fully reformed, fully democratic, and closely bound to the rest of Europe.''

In Moscow, Putin said he heads to Slovenia for Saturday's summit ``in a good mood'' and eager for a face-to-face talk on missile defense.

``I would like to hear from the U.S. president in person his point of view ... and, for him, it would probably be interesting to hear from the Russian head of state Russia's position on this problem,'' Putin said, according to the news agency Interfax.

Bush's daylong state visit to this former Warsaw Pact city, where Soviet troops once stood as a menace to the West, provided breathing room between the two chapters of his five-day trip. After haggling with NATO and European Union allies over global warming, trade and missile defense, Bush looked toward even tougher discussions with Putin.

``Europe's great institutions -- NATO and the European Union -- can and should build partnerships with Russia and with all its countries that have emerged from the wreckage of the former Soviet Union,'' Bush said.

Even as he reached out, differences with Moscow reared up.

``I am concerned about some reports of proliferation of weapons throughout Russia's southern border ... and I'll bring that subject up'' at the summit, Bush said at joint news conference with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

The United States suspects Russia of shipping high-grade aluminum -- used in the production of bomb-grade uranium -- to Iran, which National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice called ``an impediment to full cooperation'' with the United States.

Rice also said there were ``troubling signs'' that Russia, while making progress, is struggling with democratic principles such as a free press.

The criticism illustrated the pitfalls ahead as Bush tries to reach across the former Iron Curtain to a wary ex-rival.

In his address at the university library, a city landmark whose facade of giant copper plates includes fragments of scholarly writings, Bush sought to incorporate Russia into his vision of a Europe at peace ``whole and free.''

Outside, some 200 demonstrators held banners, one of which read: ``Bush to outer space; Missiles to dust bin.''

Bush borrowed language from his father, the former president, who visited Poland in 1989 as Eastern Europe shed the yoke of communism.

``Today, I have come to the center of Europe to speak of the future of Europe,'' Bush said in a speech that cited historic figures from former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Pope John Paul II, a Pole. ``It is time to put talk of East and West behind us.''

``Our goal is to erase the false lines that have divided Europe for too long,'' Bush said.

He hopes to start at Saturday's summit. Although Bush does not carry with him any specific proposals, advisers said the summit could produce first steps toward a new framework for U.S.-Russian relations.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president hopes for agreement to begin consultations among U.S. Cabinet secretaries and Russian ministers on what Bush calls ``a new security framework.''

Under Bush's plan, defense officials for both countries would begin talks on a number of issues, including a proposed missile shield.

As Bush reminded Russia of the economic benefits that come with democratic reforms, aides said the summit also may yield talks between U.S. and Russian economic ministers.

Bush hopes the summit will lead to the kind of military-to-military contacts that are routine between the U.S. and allies, the official said. Such contacts could produce deals on arms purchases, military aid and joint anti-missile exercises with Russia, easing Moscow opposition to his missile defense plans.

The Americans want to build a system capable of shooting down ballistic missiles fired from unpredictable nations such as North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Bush needs Russia's acquiescence to his anti-missile system if he is to sell his own allies on the deal.

``Only together can we confront the emerging threats of a changing world,'' he said.

Bush would be willing to offer to buy Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missiles that America could use to defend Russia and Europe, the official said, but he wants defense ministers in both countries to consult on whether another missile system or approach would be better.

Putin and Bush meet again next month in Italy at a summit of industrialized powers, but the administration does not plan to have the new framework ready by then.

``We want Russia to be a partner and an ally, a partner in peace, a partner in democracy,'' Bush said.

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Putin Treads Carefully Toward Bush

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Putins-Test.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- Vladimir Putin has enchanted European leaders and championed arms sales to China and India in a dizzying year of foreign travel since his election as Russia's president. But the tireless ex-spy's toughest foreign policy test looms Saturday: his first meeting with President Bush.

Observers say Putin will try to probe Bush's weaknesses -- such as limited foreign experience -- while guarding his own, such as Russia's deflated economy and uncertainty about the country's political direction.

With relations in recent months frosty over U.S. missile defense plans, spy scandals and Russia's growing military and nuclear ties with Iran, both Putin and Bush are approaching the summit in Slovenia with caution. The meeting will produce no written agreements and will last just an afternoon, Russian Foreign Ministry officials say.

That means personal impressions may well play a crucial role in the success -- or failure -- of the summit.

Bush said Friday he wants to overcome earlier tensions and that the United States wants Russia as ``a partner and an ally.'' But his first priority was the personal tie with Putin, ``to develop a trust between us.''

``He doesn't know me, and I don't know him very well. But at my press conference tomorrow, I'm confident I'll be able to say I've got a pretty good feel for the man, and he's got a good feel for me,'' Bush told reporters in Poland.

An easy rapport between the presidents is considered unlikely, and the kind of chummy camaraderie that characterized the early years of their predecessors -- Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin -- is virtually ruled out.

Controlled and pragmatic, Putin owes his overwhelming public support to a populace deeply resentful of America -- unlike when Yeltsin and Clinton exchanged guffaws and bear hugs during their meetings in the 1990s.

Misused and misguided U.S. aid and advice, along with NATO expansion, dashed the admiration of America that blossomed in Russia after the 1991 Soviet collapse. According to recent opinion polls, Russians again see the United States as the greatest external threat to their shaky nation.

Putin is under pressure to make an impression on the U.S. policy team as a firm negotiator whose nation's needs cannot be dismissed -- but without risking confrontation or global isolation.

The Kremlin has been tightlipped about Putin's agenda for the meeting, fueling speculation that Putin has no major policy proposals to present.

``The Russian administration hasn't decided where its position is in the world,'' Dmitry Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, said Thursday.

Some say the important thing is that the meeting, which the Kremlin had long sought, is happening at all.

``We prove to ourselves, as well as to the rest of the world, that we are still a world power and we are still equal to the U.S., because the U.S. discusses something with us,'' Russian military observer Alexander Golts said at a recent Carnegie forum.

Despite Russia's weak global position, some Moscow observers say Putin has several advantages going into the summit.

``Putin has achieved serious success on the global chessboard,'' Trenin said.

For example, he said, Putin arrives in Ljubljana from China, which he has visited twice since his election and which joins Russia in denouncing many U.S. policies.

Putin also has more experience as president than Bush, and he's a better linguist. While Bush is making his first foray into Europe, Putin used his good German to help cultivate close ties with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He also made a good impression on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, dispelling worries about his KGB past.

Europe is an easier backdrop for Putin than the United States, although the Russian leader is now learning English. He has pushed for closer economic integration with Europe, especially as ties with Washington have cooled, while Europeans' skepticism of America is high.

Though Bush has spent the last several days in Europe pitching U.S. missile defense plans, Russian officials insist the Bush-Putin summit will address much more than their dispute over the proposal.

Cooperation in settling conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East, jointly fighting international terrorism and organized crime, and Russian proposals for deep nuclear weapons cuts are also on the agenda, Foreign Ministry officials said.

Still, ``no revolutionary decisions are expected,'' V.I. Chkhikvishvili, head of the ministry's North America department, told a news conference. ``An important principle in our relations with the United States is no surprises.''

-------- treaties

Misrepresenting the ABM Treaty

New York Times
June 15, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/opinion/15FRI1.html?searchpv=nytToday

Arguments over the merits of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty between Washington and Moscow have been a feature of President Bush's European trip this week and could affect the atmosphere of his meetings tomorrow with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. The Bush administration would have Americans believe that the treaty is a discredited cold-war relic that bars the way to a new era free from fear of nuclear missile attack. That is bad history and bad policy.

For decades, the ABM treaty restrained competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to build increasing numbers of offensive missiles. Since the cold war's end it has allowed Russia and America to dismantle significant portions of their nuclear arsenals without fear that they would be unable to respond effectively to a surprise attack.

In future years the ABM treaty could serve as a bridge to a new era in which further reductions in offensive missiles could be accompanied by the testing and building of limited defensive systems to blunt emerging threats from unpredictable countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. But to arrive at that desirable result the administration will have to stop maligning the treaty and engage in constructive discussions with Russia and China. The goal of this diplomacy should be agreement on how to either amend the treaty or supersede it with a new agreement that can regulate the development of reasonable missile defenses.

• As it now stands, the ABM treaty allows testing and construction of missile defenses, but under very strict limits. No nationwide coverage against long- range warheads is permitted. Mobile-based interceptors, like those launched from ships, are prohibited and cannot even be tested, although mobile defenses against short-range missiles are allowed. These rules were designed to assure that neither Washington nor Moscow could launch a nuclear attack without fear of suffering effective retaliation. Without the treaty, both would have faced irresistible pressures to build thousands of additional offensive missiles to overwhelm any defensive system. With the treaty in place, additional agreements were reached that limited, then sharply reduced, the number of offensive missiles on both sides.

Since the end of the cold war, new kinds of missile threats have arisen from smaller, more erratic nations, and new defensive technologies have been designed that may prove able to counter them. Those technologies still need further testing. But if they do prove workable, the treaty would have to be modified or replaced to permit building them. The ABM treaty has already been amended once before, in 1974, and a second set of agreed changes was negotiated in 1997 but never ratified.

Amending or replacing the treaty is a better course than simply abrogating it. Russia fears that if there were no agreed limits on missile defenses, future technological improvements could render even its present missile force of several thousand inadequate. China has more immediate fears that even a limited missile defense could nullify its far smaller number of long-range missiles. These concerns are legitimate, and the United States, along with the rest of the world, has an interest in these countries' feeling secure with the lowest possible number of intercontinental missiles.

But Washington is right to seek new scope to develop limited missile defenses. The answer is to seek a new strategic equation that encourages the United States and Russia as well as China to field a minimal number of offensive weapons and reasonable defensive systems. The groundwork for this can begin to be laid when President Bush meets Mr. Putin for the first time in Slovenia tomorrow. That meeting is planned primarily as a chance for the two men to get acquainted. But they will meet again at next month's economic summit conference in Italy. By summer's end they could be ready to designate representatives to begin substantive talks.

The Bush administration ought to stop demonizing the ABM treaty and start building on it.

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

Presentations Start for Nuke Workers

By Masha Herbst
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 4:09 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline040912_000.htm

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Cold War-era defense workers and their families are hearing presentations from the U.S. Department of Labor about compensation that may be available for people sickened by dangerous raw materials.

A program approved last year provides workers who contracted radiation-related cancer, beryllium disease or chronic silicosis with a $150,000 lump-sum payment. If the worker has died, the payment could go to relatives.

The presentations, which began Tuesday in Connecticut and Washington state, are expected to continue for about six weeks. Representatives plan to visit 30 cities in 19 states.

Between 650,000 and 750,000 workers nationwide may have been exposed to radiation and the toxic materials beryllium and silica, said Hal Glassman, a representative of the employment standards division of the Department of Labor.

"We encourage people to file claims because we regard the people who worked in these plants as very dedicated Americans working in highly classified areas of the national defense who helped us win the Cold War," Glassman said.

Among the 50 people attending the session were Pertina Younger Grant of Hartford. Her husband, Vibert, is in a nursing home with multiple illnesses, many of which his relatives believe were brought on by exposure to dangerous materials while working at Combustion Engineering in Middletown.

Grant said she thinks the program, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, could be a good one. But she points to a provision that says the children of a deceased worker are only eligible for benefits if they were under age 18 or full-time students under age 23 at the time of their parent's death.

"They let you believe that each relative is eligible if a person is deceased," Mrs. Grant said.

Hartford attorney Brian Prucker, who specializes in worker's compensation and came to the session to learn more about the program, said disputes are inevitable.

"The question of what's a covered employer and who's a covered employee is going to lead to litigation," Prucker said.

Some said the Labor Department had misread the age guidelines, but department officials defended their interpretation.

"The statute says in ways that we would have no ability to modify ... that the definition of a survivor is how our regulation has defined it," said Shelby Hallmark, acting director of the department's Office of Worker Compensation Programs.

The Labor Department is required to accept public comment through August. Claims from former employees and survivors will be processed beginning in August.

-------- tennessee

DOE secretary to visit

from staff reports,
June 15, 2001 Oak Ridger
http://www.oakridger.com/

Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will visit Oak Ridge Monday. His tour will include Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, the Spallation Neutron Source construction site and East Tennessee Technology Park at the Oak Ridge K-25 site.

According to a media advisory from DOE, Abraham will highlight "the important role scientific and high-tech research and advancements play to help solve America's energy challenges."

This will be Abraham's first visit to Oak Ridge, according to DOE. He'll be joined by U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, U.S. Reps. Zach Wamp and Jimmy Duncan and others.

-------- washington

Uranium cleanup on House's wish list
Lawmakers provide money for study of site

By CHRISTINE DORSEY
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU,
June 15, 2001
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-15-Fri-2001/news/16328173.html

WASHINGTON -- House lawmakers have provided $1.95 million to be used by the Department of Energy to pay for a study this summer on how best to clean up a huge pile of radioactive uranium tailings that is leaking into the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.

The money was tucked into a $6.5 billion bill to eliminate shortfalls in the 2001 budget. The supplemental spending bill provides money primarily for military, disaster relief and high energy costs.

President Bush requested $2.8 million in his 2002 budget for activities at an Energy Department office in Grand Junction, Colo., some of which would have been used for the study, a department spokesperson said.

Under legislation in a defense authorization bill last year, cleanup of the Utah site will be turned over to the Energy Department in September. This provided more incentive for the House to include money in the supplemental bill for a mandatory study of cleanup options by the National Academy of Sciences.

"They're going to have to jump on it," said Bill Hedden, Utah conservation director for Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group that has been monitoring the mine tailings.

In March, Utah Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging him to include "the necessary funding" to move the tailings from where they sit, 750 feet from the river.

In April, seven members of Congress, including Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., wrote a letter to the House Appropriations Committee requesting $10 million for the Energy Department to pay for the cleanup this year.

Hedden said the Energy Department will need at least $8.25 million in 2002 to begin serious work on preparing a new site for the uranium. In the meantime, the football field-sized pile sits in a Colorado River flood plain just outside Arches National Park.

"If we have a good water year, we're done," said Hedden, noting that when water levels are high, the river laps up against the exposed tailings.

Most of Southern Nevada's drinking water comes from the Colorado River, via Lake Mead, about 450 miles downstream of the Moab tailings pile.

Federal officials know of no evidence that uranium is traveling down river into water supplies for Nevada or Southern California, but some reports show the tailings are leaking radioactive uranium into the river.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority regularly tests for traces of radioactive substances, and has consistently found levels to be well below the minimum federal level, the office has said.

Some officials estimate it could cost as much as $300 million to remove the 13 million tons of radioactive tailings left behind by Atlas Mining Corp. The Denver-based company used to mine uranium during the Cold War. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1997, turning the cleanup over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Congress voted last year to turn over the project to the Energy Department.

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Court denies downwinders' appeal

Fri, Jun 15, 2001
By Annette Cary
Tri-City Herald staff writer

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided against Hanford downwinders who are trying to force the federal government to pay for medical monitoring.

During production of plutonium for nuclear bombs and tests, as much as 1.1 million curies of radioactive iodine was released at Hanford between 1944 and 1957 and spread downwind. Radioactive iodine collects in thyroid glands, where it can cause cancer and other thyroid illnesses.

Trisha Pritikin, a California attorney and activist who was exposed to radioactive iodine as a child in Richland, sued the Department of Energy under the Superfund law that governs Hanford's cleanup to require DOE to pay for a program to monitor the thyroid health of downwinders.

Her father, a Hanford scientist, died of a rare form of thyroid cancer, and she believes the radioactive iodine also damaged her thyroid gland and endocrine system. Children were particularly susceptible to thyroid damage. Their thyroids are small, and the radioactive iodine concentrated in the milk of cows that grazed on contaminated grass.

In March 1999, U.S. District Judge Edward Shea dismissed her suit, saying the Superfund law does not give a private citizen the right to require DOE to pay for medical monitoring.

Wednesday, the Court of Appeals upheld Shea's decision. It agreed that Pritikin cannot require DOE to make budget requests and to shift environmental cleanup money into a medical monitoring program.

Pritikin has argued through her attorney that the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, is legally required to monitor downwinders for thyroid problems, and DOE is liable for the costs.

However, the appeals court found that ATSDR, which was not named in the suit, could seek another way to pay for the program and need not wait for DOE money to start the program.

"Thus, any failure to implement the medical monitoring program lies at the hands of ATSDR," the court wrote.

ATSDR proposed a program to monitor the thyroids of 14,000 people who lived downwind of Hanford in Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon in the 1940s and 1950s at a cost of nearly $50 million.

However, that was scaled back to a proposal to emphasize providing information and education to eligible downwinders and doctors.

Since the ATSDR medical monitoring program was proposed, an $18 million study failed to show that thyroid disease in vulnerable downwinders had increased with larger estimated doses of radioactive iodine.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush Spotlights Poland's Democracy

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 9:28 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline092806_000.htm

WARSAW, Poland -- President Bush crossed Europe's old Iron Curtain divide Friday to spotlight Poland's successful transition from communism to democracy. "Poland serves as an example of what's possible," he said.

With a nod to Russia, Bush said he envisions Russia as an ally, and said the former Soviet empire "should not fear the expansion of freedom-loving people to her borders."

Bush began his Warsaw visit - the fourth stop on an inaugural five-nation European tour - by meeting with President Aleksander Kwasniewski at the 17th century Presidential Palace, a Baroque-style mansion where his father attended a state dinner in 1989.

He announced that the United States had begun the process of transferring a second frigate to the Polish navy, and expressed support for Poland to gain membership in the European Union. The two leaders also discussed NATO expansion, which Bush said is inevitable and should be not be based on the politics of exclusion.

"And we don't believe any nation should have a veto over who is accepted," Bush said.

Of his first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin, Bush said he would seek to assure the Russian president that he wants to help elevate Russia's role "in the world and Europe" while raising concerns about possible Russian shipments of weapons material to Iran. The two leaders meet Saturday in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

His primary goal, Bush said, is to build trust with Putin so that when their meeting is over, "I am confident I'll be able to say I got a pretty good feel for the man, and he's got a good feel for me."

Bush met later Friday with Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Karol Buzek, and laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial.

Bush faced the tomb at attention while two soldiers placed a wreath of red, white and blue flowers before the tomb's eternal flame. He then stepped up to the tomb and stood silently with hands clasped while a small crowd looked on from behind a barricade a few hundred yards away.

Bush was making the only public address of his trip Friday afternoon at the Warsaw University Library, whose facade of giant copper plates with fragments of great scholarly writings is a Warsaw landmark. He said he would use the address to stress that NATO nations have to be more receptive of countries aspiring for membership.

Bush flew to Poland from Goteborg, Sweden, where he and European Union leaders parted ways Thursday on a key environmental issue. At a news conference in Goteborg, Bush offered a preview of Friday's speech.

"I believe we have an opportunity to form an alliance of peace, that Europe ought to include nations beyond the current scope of the European Union and NATO," Bush said. He said the time has come to further expand the boundaries of both institutions - a prospect that deeply troubles Russia.

"My vision of Europe is a larger vision: more countries, more free trade, and one which welcomes Russia and the Ukraine, welcomes Russia and encourages Russia to make the right choices," he added.

But Europeans seem uncertain about the Bush administration's approach to their continent.

For example, the president has created concern by declaring his intention to deploy a missile defense that would violate the basic tenets of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Many European leaders consider the pact a pillar of global stability; Bush has called it a relic of the Cold War.

In Goteborg, Bush was at odds with the European Union on the 1997 Kyoto treaty on reducing environmentally harmful emissions. Europeans favor the treaty, which Bush has abandoned as scientifically unrealistic.

The Warsaw speech appeared aimed at burying any doubts about Bush's commitment to Europe's future, as well as his interest in persuading Russia it has nothing to fear from a more united Europe.

Bush sees Poland as a shining example of a formerly communist nation that wisely managed its transition to a free-market democracy. That transformation was sparked by the Solidarity union movement in the early 1980s, clinched by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and capped by Poland's entry into NATO in 1999.

The idea of continuing the integration of the formerly communist nations of Eastern and Central Europe into institutions born during the Cold War is one Bush raised at each stop on his first trip to Europe as president, which began Tuesday in Spain and included a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium.

The Czech Republic, along with Hungary and Poland, joined NATO in 1999 over Russia's strong objections. Bush has not said which new candidate countries he supports for membership, but his administration has made clear that Russian objections will not stand in the way.

Candidates for NATO membership include nine former communist nations - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania.

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U.S., Russia At Odds on Iranian Deal
Bush to Raise Atomic Issues at Summit

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2772-2001Jun14?language=printer

The United States and Russia are at odds over American and Israeli allegations that Moscow permitted a shipment of high-strength aluminum to Iran that could be used to manufacture enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons, according to U.S. and Russian officials.

The officials said the two countries exchanged a series of diplomatic messages after the United States and Israel alerted Russia to a suspicious aluminum shipment on a Russian boat that was headed for Iran via the Black Sea soon after President Bush took office Jan. 21.

According to the American version, Russian inspectors boarded the vessel and reported that the aluminum was intended for aircraft manufacture, an explanation not accepted by the United States. The shipment was allowed to proceed to Iran.

The precise origin of the aluminum is not known, but U.S. officials said the deal was arranged by a Russian metals trader. The officials said that the United States and Israel have evidence that the aluminum was delivered to Iranian institutions connected with what they suspect is Iran's nuclear weapons project.

The aluminum shipment is the latest in a series of nuclear proliferation disputes that have clouded U.S.-Russian relations in recent years. U.S. officials said Bush is expected to raise proliferation concerns with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their first face-to-face meeting Saturday in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana without going into detail about specific cases.

"It's a big deal," said one well-placed administration official, referring to fears that Iran is experimenting with different ways of enriching uranium to produce bomb-grade material that would serve as the basis for a crude nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials said they suspected that the aluminum alloy delivered to Iran was intended for the manufacture of rotor blades used in gas centrifuges that separate out the enriched uranium that can produce a chain reaction for a nuclear explosion. U.S. experts say that Iran has been attempting to acquire centrifuge technology, as well as other technology for enriching uranium, for much of the last decade as part of a larger effort to build an atomic bomb.

Under heavy pressure from the Clinton administration, Russia agreed in 1995 to shelve plans to sell Iran a gas centrifuge plant. Boris Yeltsin, then the Russian president, subsequently promised Clinton that Russia would not provide Iran with uranium enrichment technology of any kind, although it would go ahead with a contract to complete a civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

Several countries, including Pakistan and Iraq, have used gas centrifuges to enrich uranium and accumulate sufficient fissile material to build an atomic bomb. As a result of these efforts, Western governments devote a great deal of attention to attempting to prevent would-be nuclear weapons states from acquiring the high-strength, relatively lightweight materials that can be used to build centrifuges.

The challenge of combating nuclear proliferation is complicated by the fact that many of these materials can have such ordinary industrial uses as aircraft manufacture, and there is often legitimate debate about the purpose of a particular shipment.

Proliferators have become adept at disguising the identity of the end-user and producing fictitious billing statements. Evidence collected by intelligence agencies is often ambiguous and can lead to differing conclusions.

A Kremlin official responsible for export controls, Sergei Yekimov, said that Russia had made an "exhaustive" reply to U.S. concerns about the aluminum shipment, which left for Iran from the Russian-controlled Black Sea port of Sevastopol. He declined to provide further details, citing the sensitive nature of the issues involved.

According to U.S. officials, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice broached the aluminum case directly with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov, while he was head of the Kremlin Security Council before becoming defense minister. Ivanov provided her with written assurances that the aluminum was intended for aircraft manufacture. Putin gave then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak a similar answer in a telephone conversation shortly before Barak left office on March 7, the official sources said, while Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has raised the issue with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

The officials said that the shipment was arranged by a private Russian metals trader, suggesting the Russian government was not involved. U.S. officials are divided over whether the Russians deliberately misled their U.S. and Israeli counterparts over the nature of the shipment, or merely repeated erroneous information provided to them by subordinates.

Russian officials have often insisted in recent years that the government does not sanction the spread of materials to build weapons of mass destruction to such countries as Iran. But critics point out that the materials nonetheless appear to be leaking out of Russia, sometimes from state-run research institutes. In the most dramatic example, gyroscopes used in missile guidance systems were sent to Iraq in 1995 after being disassembled from Russian strategic rockets.

Nuclear experts say the acquisition of sufficient quantities of fissile material is the single biggest barrier faced by such countries as Iran in building a nuclear weapon. Iran's continuing attempts to acquire enrichment technology and relevant materials suggest that it has not been able to buy or steal fissile materials on the international black market, the shortest route to manufacturing a bomb.

In addition to centrifuges, Iran has displayed an interest in purchasing laser equipment that could be used to separate nuclear isotopes. Last year, according to U.S. and Russian officials, Moscow agreed to suspend plans to sell Iran laser separation technology that it had contracted to buy from the Efremov Institute in St. Petersburg, which reports to the Atomic Energy Ministry.

Russian officials said they had agreed to halt the sale as a "goodwill gesture" even though they did not believe it would have contributed in any significant way to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. While U.S. experts concede that the Russian equipment was capable of producing only tiny amounts of highly enriched uranium, they also feared that the Iranians might discover ways to use the equipment on a larger scale or as a "building block" for a more ambitious laser separation program.

In contrast to the laser separation technology, centrifuges are a proven route to acquiring significant quantities of weapons-grade uranium, and can be difficult to detect once they have been manufactured. However, nuclear experts say it is far from a simple matter for a country such as Iran to build a centrifuge plant without large-scale foreign assistance.

"We can assume that the Iranians have a workable centrifuge design, but it is still difficult for them to make the parts and get the centrifuges to run so they don't explode," said Gary Milhollin, of the nonprofit, Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. "They need to be very precisely balanced."

Milhollin added that Iran has not yet demonstrated that it can convert its plentiful uranium supplies to the uranium hexafluoride gas used to feed a centrifuge.

Most U.S. experts, both in and out of government, say that Iran is still in the research and development stages of building a gas centrifuge. To produce enough material for an atomic bomb, a country needs several thousand centrifuges linked together in a cascade. Centrifuges operate on the principle of centrifugal force created by rotor blades spinning at supersonic speeds, pushing the heavy uranium-238 molecules to the wall of the container and leaving lighter uranium-235 molecules in the center.

Because they spin so rapidly, the rotor blades must be made out of a light but high-strength material such as specialty steel or aluminum alloy. At the same time, they must be able to withstand the highly corrosive gases that feed the separation process. Aluminum is often used as a first stage for building centrifuges, as it is easier to work with than other materials.

The origin of the aluminum shipped to Iran is still unclear. Although most of Sevastopol's port is controlled by the Russian navy, the city belongs to Ukraine. However, U.S. officials appear to have accepted Ukrainian assurances that the material did not originate in Ukraine. Ukraine has a joint civilian aircraft project with Iran that U.S. officials say could have been used as a cover for nuclear procurement.

"The U.S. side was satisfied with our explanation," said Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, adding that Ukraine does not produce the special aluminum alloys that U.S. officials allege were part of the shipment.

----

Diplomat sets meeting with Powell

June 15, 2001
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010615-68783.htm

Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, who has irked Washington with skepticism on missile defenses and by refusing to see a senior U.S. envoy in Tokyo, is to meet Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in Washington next week.

Because the United States and Japan have one of the world´s closest diplomatic and military alliances, few have doubted that such a meeting would take place.

Nevertheless, Washington kept Mrs. Tanaka guessing after she announced the trip on Monday.

It took until yesterday to confirm an appointment Monday with Mr. Powell.

The State Department said in a statement that the two would discuss security and other issues and prepare for a summit between President Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Washington June 30.

Since she was named foreign minister in April, Mrs. Tanaka has emerged as a major skeptic of closer U.S.-Japan ties.

In May, she refused to meet with Richard Armitage, who had been sent to Tokyo as a special envoy by Mr. Bush to explain his approach to missile defense.

Mr. Armitage, who subsequently became U.S. deputy secretary of state, has been a longtime supporter of closer ties between Washington and Tokyo.

During the presidential campaign, he pledged that Mr. Bush, if elected, would make the U.S. alliance with Japan a cornerstone of U.S. policy in the Pacific.

At the time, he criticized the Clinton administration for having failed to treat Japan with enough respect and for neglecting the relationship.

Japan was particularly slighted when Mr. Clinton made a long and colorful visit to China in 1998, calling China a "strategic partner" and failing to stop off for a visit to nearby Japan, where 48,000 U.S. troops were stationed.

Mr. Koizumi this week refused to rule out Japanese opposition for the proposed missile shield.

Mr. Koizumi said the Japanese Diet, or parliament, needs to "carefully consider" its position.

The government´s earlier official position on the missile defense was neutral.

Mr. Armitage, who was sent to Asia to explain the proposal to build a missile defense system that could shoot down attacks by rogue states, ran into reluctance to endorse the plan in both Japan and South Korea.

Analysts say both nations fear antagonizing China, which believes that its 18 to 24 nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the United States would be neutralized by any missile defense system.

"We have to carefully consider this issue, which has enormous influence on global security," Mr. Koizumi said.

Asked whether a U.S. missile defense system might trigger a global arms race, he said, "We can´t rule out that possibility."

Mr. Koizumi has faced strong criticism over the performance of his untried foreign minister, Mrs. Tanaka. Her main qualification for office appears to be that she is the daughter of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, a longtime political boss of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Mrs. Tanaka´s comments that she had doubts about the missile defense system were made to diplomats in Italy and Australia and then leaked to the press by disgruntled Japanese Foreign Ministry officials.

She denied much of the reports but has been engaged in a bitter war with Foreign Ministry bureaucrats since then, attempting to fire one and reportedly barring others from her office.

Robert Manning, a Republican foreign policy adviser and former aide to Mr. Armitage, said the United States should be glad that the new leaders of Japan speak their minds, even if it´s not exactly what they want to hear.

Mr. Manning, a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview yesterday that China is emerging as a great power in Asia and "where is the counterweight?"

The United States wants Japan to be a leader in the region, a role the Asian nation historically has been reluctant to accept.

----

The Bush vision. . .

Washington Times
June 15, 2001
EDITORIAL
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010615-21037064.htm

''I hope the notion of a unilateral approach died in some people´s minds here today," President Bush said at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels following the closed-door meeting, adding, "Unilateralists don´t come around the table to listen to others and to share opinions." Nevertheless, the president issued clear signals Wednesday that those opposed to Mr. Bush´s vision would not have veto power. Mr. Bush said he "spoke of my commitment to fielding limited but effective missile defenses as soon as possible." He also said he "made it clear to our friends and allies that I think it´s necessary to set aside the Treaty, noting his intention to do so "in close consultation" with both NATO allies and Russia. For good measure, Mr. Bush asserted, "I´m intent upon doing what I think is the right thing in order to make the world more peaceful."

These are not the words of a man unsure of where he wants to lead the world´s most powerful military alliance. In fact, Mr. Bush seems determined to exert the strong American leadership that NATO has long required. Indeed, without the United States leading the way, there is little doubt that the path NATO would take would be far different from the one Mr. Bush is pursuing. As the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo engagement clearly demonstrated, the defense capabilities of most of the European allies, particularly those of the the French and Germans, were woefully inadequate. NATO Secretary General George Robertson admitted at the meeting that the Europeans had failed to meet even half their post-Kosovo commitments, concluding that "clear targets . . . have resulted in clear failure."

Some European governments Spain, Italy, Hungary and Poland have declared their readiness to support missile defense. However, French and German reservations are becoming tiresome. It is not the first time that the left-wing parties now ruling both countries have been dead wrong on the most important military issue of the day. At the height of the Cold War during the early 1980s, socialist-led France, which had previously detached itself from NATO´s military command, was unable to accept deployment of any intermediate-range cruise or ballistic missiles to counter the Soviet Union´s SS-20 ballistic missiles aimed at Western Europe. Weeks before those missiles were to begin arriving in West Germany at the end of 1983, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) voted to oppose deployment. Fortunately, the SPD did not govern West Germany in 1983. Thanks to President Ronald Reagan, the missiles were deployed, a development that eventually led the Soviet Union to eliminate its menacing missile force.

Just as Mr. Reagan exerted his leadership in NATO, so too must Mr. Bush.

----

Bush Offers Vision of Wider Europe

Washington Post
By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 6:44 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline064412_000.htm

WARSAW, Poland -- President Bush on Friday crossed the former Iron Curtain, once the political dividing line of Europe, to spotlight Poland's successful transition from communism to democracy. With a nod to Russia, Bush said he would proclaim his vision of a new "alliance of peace."

Bush began his Warsaw visit - the fourth stop on an inaugural five-nation European tour - with a brief airport greeting with about a dozen Polish graduates of the U.S. Military Academy. He then headed to the 17th century Presidential Palace, a Baroque-style mansion where his father attended a state dinner in 1989.

After meeting with President Aleksander Kwasniewski and, later, Prime Minister Jerzy Karol Buzek, Bush was laying wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial.

Bush was making the only public address of his trip Friday afternoon at the Warsaw University Library, whose facade of giant copper plates with fragments of great scholarly writings is a Warsaw landmark. Presidential aides billed the speech as a major policy address and the centerpiece of his European trip.

Bush flew to Poland from Goteborg, Sweden, where he and European Union leaders parted ways Thursday on a key environmental issue. At a news conference in Goteborg, Bush offered a preview of Friday's speech.

"I believe we have an opportunity to form an alliance of peace, that Europe ought to include nations beyond the current scope of the European Union and NATO," Bush said. He said the time has come to further expand the boundaries of both institutions - a prospect that deeply troubles Russia.

"My vision of Europe is a larger vision: more countries, more free trade, and one which welcomes Russia and the Ukraine, welcomes Russia and encourages Russia to make the right choices," he added.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush would "reflect about what this new post-Cold War is shaping up as. There's really something historic about that."

Europeans seem uncertain about the Bush administration's approach to their continent.

For example, the president has created concern by declaring his intention to deploy a missile defense that would violate the basic tenets of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Many European leaders consider the pact a pillar of global stability; Bush has called it a relic of the Cold War.

In Goteborg, Bush was at odds with the European Union on the 1997 Kyoto treaty on reducing environmentally harmful emissions. Europeans favor the treaty, which Bush has abandoned as scientifically unrealistic.

The Warsaw speech appeared aimed at burying any doubts about Bush's commitment to Europe's future, as well as his interest in persuading Russia it has nothing to fear from a more united Europe.

Bush sees Poland as a shining example of a formerly communist nation that wisely managed its transition to a free-market democracy. That transformation was sparked by the Solidarity union movement in the early 1980s, clinched by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and capped by Poland's entry into NATO in 1999.

The idea of continuing the integration of the formerly communist nations of Eastern and Central Europe into institutions born during the Cold War is one Bush raised at each stop on his first trip to Europe as president, which began Tuesday in Spain and included a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium.

"We must reach out to Russian leaders, and to a new Russian generation, with a message that Russia does have a future with Europe," Bush said Wednesday in Brussels, where leaders of the 19-nation alliance agreed to issue invitations to new members when they meet in the Czech Republic next year.

The Czech Republic, along with Hungary and Poland, joined NATO in 1999 over Russia's strong objections. Bush has not said which new candidate countries he supports for membership, but his administration has made clear that Russian objections will not stand in the way.

Candidates for NATO membership include nine former communist nations - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania.

The Warsaw speech comes a day ahead of perhaps Bush's most important overseas meeting yet - his first face-to-face session with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They will meet Saturday in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

"It's a very important time for me to visit with Mr. Putin," Bush said in Goteborg, "to assure him a couple of things - one, that Russia is not the enemy of the United States; two, the Cold War is over and the mentality that used to grip our two nations during the Cold War must end."

"Russia ought not to fear a Europe - Russia ought to welcome an expanded Europe on her border," he said.

-------- us nuc power

Despite safety advances, the public - and utilities - remain wary of nuclear power

By Guy Gugliotta
The Washington Post,
Seattle Times Nation & World :
Friday, June 15, 2001
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=nukes15&date=20010615

WASHINGTON - At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, a pump malfunction set off an alarm at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear-power plant outside Harrisburg, Pa. Within nine seconds, equipment failures and human error caused a dramatic drop in the reactor-core water level, setting off the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

No one was injured, but the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, and the far worse meltdown and explosion at Chernobyl seven years later, left deep scars on the American psyche about the dangers of nuclear power. Not a single plant has been ordered since 1973.

Now, however, the Bush administration's plan to increase energy supplies - including nuclear generation - has focused attention on whether the United States again might turn to the atom to fulfill its electricity needs.

The nuclear-power industry thinks it's ready. Since Chernobyl, engineers have designed a new generation of nuclear plants they believe will reduce the risk of another Three Mile Island sharply.

Three simpler - and therefore cheaper and safer - versions of the power plants currently in use have been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a crucial vote of confidence for any interested utility.

Moreover, an international consortium has designed a new type of plant that uses hundreds of thousands of billiard-ball-sized "pebbles" of nuclear material instead of a conventional reactor core. It does not have enough radioactive fuel in a confined space to generate temperatures necessary for the pebbles to explode. In theory, it is meltdown-proof.

But none of these advances has enticed a U.S. utility to order a nuclear plant, and many obstacles persist.

Polls show that public dread endures. About 40,000 tons of radioactive waste from existing reactors are piling up across the country because the Energy Department has not found a permanent repository.

Critics still skeptical

Critics of nuclear power remain skeptical of the new plants' safety. And although the economics are good today, who's to say how long that will last? Even if a utility decided to build a reactor tomorrow, it would take a snag-free minimum of six to 10 years to bring it on line.

"There's renewed interest, but people are still skeptical that the public will allow nuclear (plants) to be built again," said Stephen Lee of the Electric Power Research Institute, the utility industry's research and development arm. "Also, the financial risk is quite large. The private investor will always take the lowest-risk, highest-return option, which, for now, is still gas generation."

U.S. utilities in 31 states operate 103 commercial reactors, which provide about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.

All U.S. plants are either "boiling water reactors" or "pressurized water reactors" that use uranium-rich fuel rods in a reactor core to create a controlled nuclear chain reaction. Resulting heat changes water into steam that drives the turbo-generators. "Control rods," usually made of boron, are inserted or withdrawn from the core to regulate the pace of the reaction by soaking up excess neutrons.

As with any boiler, the integrity of a nuclear core depends on operators and instruments to prevent overheating. But while a conventional boiler may blow up in a cloud of fire and soot when it becomes too hot, a nuclear core can spew deadly radioactivity.

The keys to avoiding trouble are many: adequate operator training, fail-safe shutdown measures and careful monitoring of valves, gauges and instruments. This can be difficult, partly because of the machinery's intrinsic complexity, but mostly because U.S. plants are all one-of-a-kind designs with modifications added along the way. Washington state's lone operating nuclear plant, the Columbia Generating Station on the Hanford nuclear reservation, had a spotty record after its construction in 1984, with numerous safety shutdowns until a management overhaul and major renovation greatly improved its performance.

Energy planners now are studying the viability of finishing construction of the dead plant next door to Columbia, WNP-1, and firing it up. The debate will kick off in earnest this summer when the study is completed and open to public consideration.

In recent years, utilities markedly have improved safety records with better training and upgrades. Between 1987 and 1999, the number of automatic shutdowns per plant dropped from 3.6 per year to 0.6 per year, according to the NRC. The number of safety-system failures per plant was cut in half, to 0.8 per year.

In the meantime, the industry prepared three new reactor designs and obtained NRC certification for them. The object was standardization: "Right now there's a lot of highly skilled construction - it's like airports," said James Lake, president of the American Nuclear Society. "We're looking for a way to change to building airplanes. If you can build in one place on an assembly line, it's much, much cheaper."

The three designs - one by General Electric and two by Westinghouse - are based on traditional technology. GE simplified safety systems, reduced the amount of hardware and made the plant easier to operate.

"It's still concrete, steel, welding, pumps and valves," said Steven Hucik, GE's general manager for nuclear-plant projects. "But when you simplify the design, there's much less of it. You can reduce the size of the building, and that means savings."

GE has built two 1,350-megawatt "advanced boiling-water reactors" in Japan and has six under construction: four in Japan and two in Taiwan. The two operating plants took 4 years, 3 months to build, and "we're predicting 54 months (4-1/2 years) in the United States," Hucik said.

Neither of Westinghouse's two designs, both pressurized-water reactors, has been built. The System 80-plus, also 1,350 megawatts, is projected to be South Korea's next-generation reactor. The Westinghouse 600-megawatt "AP600" departs more from tradition because it incorporates "passive" safety features based on gravity and other natural forces. Many safety devices are activated without human intervention.

Off-site construction

Obtaining certification for the passive safety system was "a fundamental issue" for Westinghouse, said Howard Bruschi, the company's chief technology officer, because the system will allow off-site, modular construction that can be finished in three years.

Critics acknowledge that standardization and simplicity make new-generation plants safer, but reactors "are inherently dangerous, so while it's a question of properly managing the risk, you can't make it zero," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear-safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The only truly innovative design on the horizon for the U.S. market is the pebble-bed reactor. Instead of fuel rods, the pebble-bed reactor uses tiny particles of uranium dioxide encased in layers of graphite and silicon carbide and shaped into spheres. These pebbles - 320,000 of them - are poured into a 65-foot cylindrical hopper that is lined with graphite bricks and has a hollow column in the middle.

Helium, not steam

Once in place, the pebbles initiate a chain reaction. But instead of making steam, the plant pumps helium into the top of the hopper and extracts the heated gas at the bottom, where it drives the turbines.

To shut down the reactor, control rods are inserted through conduits in the graphite bricks. Because the rods cannot run straight through the pebble bed, the reactor must be small - 110 to 130 megawatts, vs. 1,000 megawatts or more for a water reactor. But proponents see small size as a plus.

"You can build it in a modular fashion and locate it close to transmission lines where you need generation," said Oliver Kingsley, president and chief nuclear officer of the U.S. utility Exelon. Small size also should make the reactor virtually accident-proof. Computer modeling shows that the plant can't generate enough heat to melt the pebbles - even if helium flow is stopped and the control rods are withdrawn.

"You can't have a runaway accident, and that's one thing that's very attractive," Lochbaum said. "But the jury's still out. Graphite can catch on fire, like it did at Chernobyl."

Seattle Times staff reporter Lynda V. Mapes contributed to this report.


-------- MILITARY

Inside the Ring

June 15, 2001
Washington Times
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Notes from the Pentagon.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010615-78749781.htm

Woody island missiles China is fortifying its South China Sea forces with new air defense missiles, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Surveillance of Woody island showed the recent deployment of HY-2 Seersucker anti-ship missiles. The missiles could be used to threaten or sink the large number of ships that pass through the strategic waterway. For example, most of Japan´s imported oil travels on tankers that pass through the South China Sea.

Woody island, part of the Paracel Islands, has become a major military outpost for Chinese forces in recent years.

Navy strategists say the Chinese military is progressively expanding its power farther into the South China Sea. It is part of China´s "island chain strategy" that calls for increasingly advancing China´s control farther and farther from its borders through what Beijing has identified as two island chains stretching from the South China Sea all the way to the North Pacific.

The HY-2 is a long-range anti-ship cruise missile capable of sinking destroyers up to 3,000 tons.

The discovery followed recent Chinese military exercises on Woody island earlier this month that included an amphibious landing by Chinese marines.

Center targeted

The U.S. Pacific Command´s think tank is under fire from Republicans in Congress for its liberal bias, especially when it comes to issues related to China. Capitol Hill sources said there are plans to cut the center´s $3 million annual budget as a way of shutting it down.

The Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, the Honolulu-based group, angered conservatives last month after it invited a Chinese scholar to a seminar it was holding but refused to allow a scholar from Taiwan to take part.

The invitation also came weeks after the aerial collision between a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft and a Chinese interceptor jet. The incident led to the detention of 24 American service members after their plane went down on Hainan island.

When the Pentagon was alerted to the lack of balance at the conference, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the Pacific Command to include the Taiwanese scholar. Rather than comply and invite someone from Taiwan, the center postponed the meeting, officials told us.

Reached by telephone yesterday, the center´s director, retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. H.C. Stackpole, confirmed that the seminar had been postponed. He said the center is waiting until the new administration´s policy on having both Chinese and Taiwanese speakers at the same event is sorted out.

He said the issue was whether the center would pay for the Taiwanese scholar to take part. No Taiwanese were ever paid to attend in the past, although Chinese officials were, he said. "We really don´t know what the policy of this administration is on that," he said.

Congressional aides said plans are afoot to "defund" the center through legislation because of the center´s policies. For example, one congressional aide said Gen. Stackpole recently gave a speech in Australia opposing U.S. plans for missile defense -- a key tenet of the new Bush administration. "Conservatives on the Hill are fed up with the center´s left-wing activities," one aide told us.

'Siberia' on hold

The Pentagon has put on hold a plan to move its Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) from offices near the Pentagon to a site farther away in Alexandria. The freeze came after three House Republicans wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on May 25 urging a delay until new Bush officeholders can review what DTSA employees consider a move to "the local equivalent of Siberia."

DTSA analysts were in the forefront of opposition to technology exports allowed by the Clinton administration to communist China and other potential adversaries. For it´s trouble, DTSA was lumped under a larger unit called the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. It was also taken from the Pentagon´s policy shop and put under the control of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, where bureaucrats view industry exports more kindly.

DTSA officials are hoping the incoming Bush team will return their unit to its previous prestige. One way to start is to get Mr. Rumsfeld to rescind the move to Alexandria, where it will be more difficult for DTSA analysts to stay in the Pentagon loop and make their views known.

"We are concerned that this latest move is being made without high-level guidance, at a time when your management team is not yet fully in place," said the May 25 letter from three Republicans: Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee; Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania; and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California.

"In an era in which advanced technology is increasingly vital to war-fighter capabilities, and when rogue nations are increasingly aggressive in pursuing militarily useful technology, the role of this organization is more important than ever," the three wrote. "We urge you to suspend any action to move this organization until such time that your new management team is in place and has had the opportunity to review this entire matter. Further, we ask that you review the organizational structure of the [office of the secretary of defense] to ensure that DTSA is as well positioned as possible to perform its mission."

The letter apparently had an effect. Less than a week later, Dave Tarbell, director of technology security, sent out a memo.

"Due to unforeseen circumstances, our move to the Alexandria Technical Center is postponed for one month beginning July 11," he told employees.

Intercepts

It would cost the Air Force $2 billion to reconstruct the B-2 bomber assembling line, industry sources say. Northrop Grumman Corp. is proposing the Air Force buy 40 additional B-2s for $700 million per copy to augment a fleet of 21 existing B-2s. The aircraft´s stock rose during the 1999 Kosovo campaign, when the bomber dropped only 3 percent of total munitions, yet covered about one-third of targets.

The B-2´s utility got another boost this week when a transformation study group, one of more than a dozen appointed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, recommended adapting the U.S.-based bomber to carry more munitions.

David Oliver, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, is supervising the Pentagon´s review of two corporate bids to buy Newport News Shipbuilding, the nation´s only producer of big-deck nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

That may be bad news to Newport News´ suitors, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. Mr. Oliver played a similar role two years ago when the Pentagon came out against the merger as anti-competitive. Sources say Mr. Oliver opposed the deal then and may do so again.

A retired Navy two-star admiral, Mr. Oliver worked for Northrop Grumman in the mid-1990s when he was director of technology and business development for naval systems at the corporation´s Westinghouse division.

Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge is scheduled to make his first foreign trip next week as Pentagon acquisition chief, attending the Paris Air Show. Traditionally a summit of who´s who in the global aerospace industry, the show will give Mr. Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, a chance to discuss major joint aircraft programs, such as the Joint Strike Fighter. He does not plan to meet with the press, a spokeswoman said.

• Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are Pentagon reporters. Mr. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at bgertz@washingtontimes.com. Mr. Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.

-------- africa

U.N. Peacekeepers To Stay in Congo

JUNE 15, 20:21 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AFRICA&STORYID=APIS7CLACTO0

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to keep U.N. peacekeepers in Congo for another year, buoyed that a cease-fire in the country's 2 1/2 -year war was holding.

But the 15-member council expressed its disappointment and condemned recent incursions by armed groups into neighboring Rwanda and Burundi and stressed that peace in Congo ``should not be achieved at the expense of peace in Burundi,'' which has been engulfed in a 7 1/2 -year civil war.

The resolution adopted by the council backs Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendation to maintain the U.N. force's authorized strength of 5,537 troops - including 500 military observers. There are currently 2,400 troops in Congo, but Annan said he expects that will increase to the authorized maximum as the next phase in the peace process - demobilization and withdrawal of foreign combatants - gets under way.

In a report to the council Monday, Annan expressed ``foreboding'' about reported movements of unnamed armed groups into eastern Congo and their incursions into Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. He said there was speculation that these groups were trying to evade participation in a program to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate combatants.

Rwandan-backed Congolese rebels said Hutu militias, known as Interahamwe, were heading east to Rwanda and their spokesman, Joseph Mudumbi, warned Thursday that ``signs of resumption of war are obvious.''

The Security Council urged all parties, including the government of Congo, to ``cease immediately all forms of assistance and cooperation with all armed groups.''

On Wednesday, Congo's foreign minister asked the Security Council to give U.N. peacekeepers explicit enforcement powers to end the civil war. However, the United States and Britain stressed that the parties to the conflict have the primary responsibility for ending it.

The council also emphasized that the conflict in Congo will not be settled until former Rwandan soldiers and Hutu militiamen are disarmed and demobilized, a key demand of Rwanda's Tutsi-led government.

The war in Congo erupted in August 1998 when Rwanda, Uganda and their Congolese rebel allies took up arms against then-President Laurent Kabila. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia poured thousands of troops and military hardware into Congo in support of Kabila.

A 1999 cease-fire accord, which was repeatedly violated, gained momentum following Kabila's Jan. 16 assassination and the succession of his son, Joseph, to the presidency. Since then, most belligerents have pulled back their forces from front lines and the United Nations has deployed troops to guard installations and equipment used by unarmed observers monitoring the cease-fire.

-------- asia

China. Russia, 4 Others Form Bloc

By Martin Fackler
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 10:13 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline101320_000.htm

SHANGHAI, China -- The leaders China, Russia and four Central Asian nations signed an agreement Friday on promoting trade and combating Islamic militancy.

They hailed it as a step toward building a new economic and security bloc in Central Asia, which Beijing and Moscow are also promoting as a way to counter U.S. and European influence in the region.

Friday's agreement called for more open trade and investment and stronger security ties between the six members of the new regional group, to be called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The new group will replace the Shanghai Five, a loosely knit forum created in 1996 to resolve border disputes and fight rising Islamic militancy.

The group also includes the Central Asian republics of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - and Uzbekistan was admitted on Thursday, the first day of the two-day summit here.

Joint efforts against separatist groups were at the center of Friday's agreement, and the leaders said they discussed setting up an anti-terrorism center agreed upon last year.

Central Asian governments, including China, are grappling with religious rebel groups, many receiving arms and training from the Taliban, Afghanistan's extremist Islamic rulers.

"The cradle of terrorism, separatism and extremism is the instability in Afghanistan," President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakstan warned in a speech during the signing ceremony.

China touted the peaceful intent of the new grouping announced Friday, saying its focus was economic. "It's not a military alliance, as in the Cold War," Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Deguang said.

But Beijing and Moscow view the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a way to offset growing U.S. and European investment in the region. Russia in particular hopes to regain more influence over Central Asian republics that became independent with the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Russia and China are also united in unease over what they see as America's dominance of world affairs and Washington's plans to build a missile defense shield.

Defense ministers from the six nations meeting Friday said the U.S. missile system would have "a negative impact on world security," Zhang said.

After signing the agreement, President Jiang Zemin heralded creation of a "brand new multilateral cooperation organization on the Eurasian continent."

Russian President Vladimir Putin called stronger economic ties a key aim.

"Cooperation in the economics, trade and culture is far more important than military cooperation," he said.

The leaders called for joint efforts to exploit the region's large reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals.

China is keen to gain access to new energy sources for its expanding economy.

But economic ties between the members remain tenuous. Trade between China and Russia totals about $8 billion a year, less than a tenth of China's trade with the United States. Russia is also closely bound to the West, especially Germany, for the investment it desperately needs to revive its faltering economy.

Central Asia's republics are wary of handing too much influence to Russia and China, which for centuries have competed for power in the region.

-------- arms sales

Global arms outlays up to $798 bil., U.S. share 37%

June 13, 2001
Kyodo News
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/all/display.jsp?an=20010613212

GOTEBORG, Kyodo - Global military expenditure, which dropped to the lowest point in the post-Cold War period in 1998, rose to $798 billion in 2000, an increase of 3.1% from the previous year, a Swedish research institute said Wednesday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released the figures in its annual report, the SIPRI Yearbook 2001.

The United States accounted for 37% of the global military spending, reflecting its current status as the world's only superpower, the report said.

The U.S. is also the world's largest arms supplier, accounting for 47% of all arms transfers between 1996 and 2000.

Military spending in South Asia rose 23% in real terms, second only to the growth rate in Africa, where arms conflicts pushed up the growth rate in military spending by 37% in the past two years, according to SIPRI figures.

Japan and China were among the ''major spenders'' which, together with Russia, have adopted ''procurement plans which will require increased military budgets in the future,'' the report said.

China was the world's ''leading arms recipient in 2000'' owing to deliveries of combat aircraft and warships from Russia. Taiwan and South Korea were among the leading recipients of conventional weapons in the 1996-2000 period, together with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the report said.

Global military expenditure and arms production in 2000 accounted for 2.5% of the world gross domestic product, or $130 per capita, SIPRI said.

Russia, which has rapidly increased its military spending in recent years, following sharp cuts in the 1990s, accounted for 6% of the world's total.

''The current level of Russian military expenditure is now more comparable with that of the major European countries than with that of the U.S.A.,'' SIPRI said, noting that Russian spending is only 10% higher than of France and 85% lower than that of the U.S.

Global arms transfers remained at a stable level in the last half of the 1990s, but fell 26% in 2000 from the preceding year. Russian arms transfers rose 19% owing largely to shipments to China.

SIPRI said Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the top arms maker in Japan, sold $2.46 billion worth of military equipment in 1999, making it the 14th largest arms maker in the world.

Among major Japanese arms makers, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. placed 28th in the world and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. 33rd.

According to SIPRI, Lockheed Martin Corp. of the U.S. remained the world's biggest arms manufacturer, selling $17.93 billion worth of military hardware in 1999.

While weapons accounted for 70% of Lockheed Martin's total revenue, arms sales made up only 3% to 11% of total sales in Japan's three largest arms manufacturers, the report said.

----

Two Suspected Arms Dealers Held

By Amanda Riddle
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 9:11 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline091121_000.htm

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Two suspected arms dealers were arrested after allegedly negotiating with undercover agents to illegally sell military weapons to a foreign country.

Diaa Mohsen and Mohammed Rajaa Malik, alleged middlemen in the deal, were arrested Tuesday after a 30-month sting operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Mohsen's attorney, Valentin Rodriguez, said his client was innocent and accused the government of entrapment. "The agents and the undercover person set everything up completely," he said. "It's like a James Bond novel."

Also arrested Tuesday were two men who allegedly agreed to launder $2.2 million in what they were told was profits from illegal arms sales. Kevin Ingram, 42, of Jersey City, N.J., and Walter Kapij, 44, of Weathersfield, Conn., were both charged with money laundering.

Their attorneys declined to comment on the charges, but lawyer Richard Lubin said Ingram was a New York investment counselor. Kapij told the court he sold airplanes.

The investigation began in late 1998, when an informant told ATF agents that Mohsen "was involved in illegal arms deals and purchasing arms for other groups," according to court documents.

Since then, more than a dozen meetings were held in South Florida, New Jersey and New York between undercover agents, the informant, and Mohsen and Malik, according to court records. The defendants discussed the purchase of missiles, machine guns, grenade launchers, night-vision goggles and other weapons, records say.

At one 1999 meeting at a West Palm Beach warehouse, Mohsen and Malik were secretly videotaped by government agents as they were shown machine guns, Stinger missiles and live explosives, court records say.

The records do not say what country the weapons were allegedly being sold to. One buyer was allegedly described as a "well-known" former military person who wanted to pay for the arms partially with heroin.

Mohsen, 57, and Malik, 52, both of Jersey City, N.J., were in federal custody pending a bond hearing next week. Bond was set Thursday for Ingram and Kapij, and their lawyers said they expected them to be released on bond shortly.

Mohsen introduced the government informant to Ingram in June 1999, according to court documents. The informant told Ingram he had "a certain amount of cash coming in every month and needs help cleaning it up" and Ingram agreed to launder it, the documents allege. He and Kapij were arrested Tuesday at a Fort Lauderdale hotel.

-------- balkans

Bush pressured to increase military role

June 15, 2001
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010615-4505736.htm

President Bush is coming under increasing pressure at home and abroad to escalate the American military role to deal with the crisis in Macedonia, in what would be the third major U.S. deployment in the Balkans in a decade.

Both the Macedonian government and the ethnic Albanian armed groups they have battled for months appealed yesterday to NATO to broker an end to the fighting, a day after the leaders of Britain and France suggested the alliance must be prepared to do more to contain the violence.

Mr. Bush, in the middle of a five-day European tour, so far has stood firm against a bigger military role, saying he believed there was still a chance diplomatic efforts to end the fighting would succeed.

Following talks yesterday in Gothenburg, Sweden, with the leaders of the 15-nation European Union, Mr. Bush confirmed that he was not ready to consider the military option for Macedonia.

"Together, we are endeavoring to prevent extremism from undermining the democratic process and stress the need for political, not military, solutions," said a joint statement released by Mr. Bush and the EU leaders.

But influential lawmakers in Congress and several analysts argued that any further delay in Macedonia intervention would only repeat the patterns of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, where ethnic violence increased as diplomatic efforts failed.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac also have suggested NATO must be prepared for a bigger military role in ending the Macedonia fighting, although neither has said publicly alliance troops should engage the Albanian rebels on the ground.

"History in that part of the world has taught us that it is better for us to make preparations to stabilize the situation rather than wait," Mr. Blair said Wednesday after a meeting with Mr. Bush and other NATO leaders in Brussels. British defense officials said yesterday they had offered to send training teams to help Macedonia´s army.

The Albanian rebels have cut off the water supply to Kumanovo, creating serious health problems in the northern Macedonian city of 100,000, said an unconfirmed report issued over the Internet. Kumanovo was the site of the signing of the June 1999 Military-Technical agreement between NATO and Yugoslavia ending the NATO bombing over Kosovo.

Richard Perle, who has served in the Reagan administration Defense Department and is now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Balkans on Wednesday that time is running short in Macedonia and that the major European powers cannot solve the problem.

"Macedonia today looks very much like Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo," Mr. Perle said, "and if we should have learned anything from a mistake made three times, it is that delay and indecision do not produce solutions. They only make matters worse and that´s the situation we´re in today."

At that hearing, both committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, and former Chairman Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, predicted that U.S. leadership and U.S. military forces ultimately would be required to enforce an end to the Macedonia fighting, which they said threatens to spill over into other countries in the region. For different reasons, both the Macedonian government and the rebels have appealed to NATO to intervene in recent days.

In Skopje yesterday, Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski asked visiting NATO Secretary-General George Robertson for help in disarming the rebels if a lasting cease-fire can be negotiated.

The shadowy Macedonian rebel force calling itself the National Liberation Army has pressed NATO to guarantee a permanent cease-fire.

----

Two Serbs Jailed for War Crimes
Convictions Are First by International Tribunal in Kosovo

Reuters
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A28
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4845-2001Jun14?language=printer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, June 14 -- An international tribunal for war crimes in Kosovo today sentenced a Serb man to 20 years in prison for his role in the killing of more than 60 ethnic Albanians and jailed another for five years on a lesser charge. The convictions were the first handed down by the three-judge panel.

Prosecutor Thomas Hickman said that Cedomir Jovanovic, 61, an alleged member of a Serbian paramilitary group, was convicted in connection with three separate incidents on March 25, 1999 -- a day after NATO launched a bombing campaign to halt Serb-led Yugoslavia's repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Hickman said men in police uniforms, including Jovanovic, came upon 26 members of the Zhuniqi and Spahiu families trying to flee from the Kosovo village of Bela Crkva. He said all were killed except for a 2-year-old boy who fell under his mother when she was shot, and that there was a witness to the massacre. In the second incident, an old man was killed, Hickman said.

Later the same day, Jovanovic's group came upon a large number of people and killed 36 men after separating them from the women and children, Hickman said.

In the same trial, Andjelko Kolasinac, 50, a former local leader in the central Kosovo village of Orahovac, received a five-year sentence for a lesser charge involving getting rid of personal belongings left behind by families who were expelled to neighboring Albania, Hickman said.

Both men can appeal.

The indictment originally named eight suspects, but six escaped from a jail in Kosovo last year.

NATO launched its 1999 bombing campaign to halt Belgrade's repression of Kosovo's Albanian majority. Albanians in the province have told reporters that many of the worst atrocities came just after the bombing commenced.

-------- china

Chinese forces observe joint mine-sweeping exercise

June 15, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010615-661450.htm

Chinese military forces are participating as observers in a U.S. mine-sweeping exercise near Singapore in their first joint military activity since China´s detention of 24 American service members in April.

Chinese military observers were invited to what the U.S. Pacific Command is calling the Western Pacific Mine Countermeasures Exercise, which began Monday in waters near Singapore.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis said the Chinese participation was approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as part of the new policy of conducting military exchanges and activities with the Chinese on a case-by-case basis.

"It has gone through the review process and it was approved," Cmdr. Davis said. "The secretary of defense´s policy was clear that any contacts would be approved on a case-by-case basis, and that was done."

It is the first joint U.S.-Chinese military activity since the April 1 collision between a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft and a Chinese F-8 interceptor. The collision led to the detention of the 24 U.S. service members who landed their damaged plane on Hainan island in the South China Sea after the aerial collision.

Mr. Rumsfeld suspended all contacts with China´s People´s Liberation Army as a result of the detention and China´s refusal to return the aircraft.

An American military team is on Hainan island to arrange for the removal of the damaged aircraft aboard a foreign transport jet.

The mine-sweeping exercises, sponsored by the Singapore government, are the first practiced jointly by U.S. and Singapore navies, with 14 other nations participating.

"The exercise will test mine detection, identification and disposal procedures required for maintaining open international waterways," a Pacific Command press statement said.

Some Pentagon officials are concerned that the exercises will provide China´s military with valuable intelligence on how the United States clears the sea of mines.

That information would be useful in the event of a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan, where defeating mine defenses would be a key objective of Chinese military forces.

"Taiwan´s defense depends on laying mines," said one official. "What the Chinese could learn from these exercises is how better to 'liberate´ Taiwan."

China´s military refused an invitation to take part in the U.S.-led Cobra Gold military exercises in Thailand earlier this month.

A Pacific Command spokesman had no immediate comment on whether Taiwan´s navy was invited to take part in the mine-sweeping exercises.

However, Taiwan´s military has been deliberately excluded in the past from multilateral exercises based on a U.S. policy aimed at avoiding any activities that would upset Pentagon efforts to develop ties with the Chinese military.

China has participated in joint search-and-rescue operations with the United States near Hong Kong. The first time the Chinese took part was primarily to conduct intelligence-gathering work. A second search-and-rescue exercise with the Chinese involved more interaction on the mechanics of conducting searches at sea, said a senior military official.

The Pacific Command stated that the exercises bolster "enhanced regional engagement."

In contrast, the U.S. military has never been invited to take part in any Chinese military exercises, although observers have attended staged military demonstrations.

A senior military official has said that inviting Chinese military observers to regional exercises is part of a strategy aimed at involving the Chinese in activities with its neighbors and moderating their behavior.

-------- colombia

Colombian Military Empowered by Law

JUNE 15, 21:56 EST
By CESAR GARCIA
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7CLBPK80

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A new law will give Colombia's military broader powers to detain and interrogate suspects in its war against leftist guerrillas but the law is being criticized Friday by some lawmakers.

The ``National Security Law,'' passed on Thursday, also gives President Andres Pastrana the authority to decree anti-terrorism measures within 90 days

Pastrana is expected to sign the law, putting it into effect, but opponents have threatened to challenge it in court.

Critics called some provisions in the legislation unconstitutional - especially those allowing soldiers to keep and interrogate suspects and handle corpses in remote combat zones until civilian police or prosecutors' agents arrive.

But the government, which introduced the law, claims the armed forces are hamstrung by legal obstacles in prosecuting an escalating 37-year armed conflict with guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.

Defense Minister Gustavo Bell, who until last week was the government's top human rights official, said the legislation marks ``an important step for the transformation of the armed forces.''

But opposition congressman Antonio Navarro Wolff, who voted against the bill, said he plans to challenge it before the Constitutional Court.

``The investigation of civilians are functions of the judicial police that cannot be undertaken by the armed forces, as is expressly mandated by the constitution,'' Wolff told The Associated Press.

Gustavo Gallon, president of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, a leading human rights group, call the new military powers ``improper'' and ``a clear violation of the constitution.''

--------

Americans blamed in Colombia raid

Karl Penhaul,
S.F. Chronicle Foreign Service
Friday, June 15, 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/06/15/MN219178.DTL

Bogota -- Three American civilian airmen providing airborne security for a U.S. oil company coordinated an anti-guerrilla raid in Colombia in 1998, marking targets and directing helicopter gunships that mistakenly killed 18 civilians, Colombian military pilots have alleged in a official inquiry.

The air attack on the village of Santo Domingo in oil-rich northeast Arauca province took place on Dec. 13 of that year amid efforts to hunt down a 200- strong column of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Survivors said the aircraft attacked them as they ran out of their homes to a nearby road with their hands in the air to show they were noncombatants.

The raid caused some of the worst "collateral damage" inflicted on civilians by the armed forces in the recent history of Colombia's 37-year conflict. Shortly after the incident, President Andres Pastrana criticized the military's actions, saying that security forces "cannot respond to barbarism with barbarism."

The alleged role of the U.S. airmen -- emerging only now -- has raised fresh questions about American involvement in a war that is increasingly being outsourced to private companies not accountable to the U.S. Congress.

According to the State Department, about 300 U.S. civilians are in Colombia,

most of whom work on contracts ostensibly linked to anti-drug efforts, which Washington has funded with more than $1 billion as part of the Pastrana government's "Plan Colombia." Some have even piloted helicopters in raids on drug plantations and installations in southern Colombia.

The pilots in the Santo Domingo incident were providing security for Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp., which operates the nearby Cano Limon oil field, Colombia's second largest.

Investigators at the Colombian prosecutor general's office have asked the U. S. Embassy in Bogota to help obtain information from the American airmen involved in the attack, who worked for a private Rockledge, Fla.-based air surveillance contractor called AirScan International Inc.

Embassy officials issued a terse statement Wednesday saying that the airmen were not contract employees of the U.S. government and that the embassy did not help oil companies solve their security issues.

Although it occurred 2 1/2 years ago, the Santo Domingo attack is becoming a cause celebre for human rights organizations protesting creeping U.S. involvement in Colombia's guerrilla war.

They say the fact that U.S.-donated helicopters dropped cluster bombs and rockets on Santo Domingo is a disturbing demonstration of how the Colombian military has sometimes used U.S. aid that in theory is earmarked only for anti- narcotics operations.

"Here is an example of how U.S. aid is involved in human rights abuses," said Robin Kirk, senior researcher for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch.

"This is really the first test case of how the U.S. government is going to abide by its own human rights laws," Kirk said, referring to the so-called Leahy Law that restricts U.S. aid from being spent on counterinsurgency operations.

Colombian Air Force pilot Cesar Romero told military judge Capt. Luz Monica Ostos in testimony last month about the Santo Domingo attack: "The coordination was done directly with the armored helicopters that were supporting us and with the (Cessna 337) Skymaster plane flown by U.S. pilots. The Skymaster and gunship crews talked directly to the ground troops."

While Romero conceded that the U.S.-donated Vietnam-era Huey UH-1H helicopter he piloted bombed a target marked by the Cessna, he said he had no intention of causing civilian casualties.

If Romero and Jimenez are eventually accused of criminal action in the deaths of innocent civilians, they could face up to 30 years in jail. It is unlikely that the U.S. airmen will face any charges, analysts say.

The raid came a day after army intelligence sources and the Skymaster plane detected rebel movements in the area.

Air force helicopters strafed Santo Domingo with machine-gun fire, air-to- surface rockets and cluster bombs. Eighteen civilians were killed, including nine children, but no guerrillas.

At the time, the Colombian armed forces and U.S. officials conceded that the aircraft and almost all weaponry involved in the attack had been supplied under a 1989 U.S. aid package that was exempt from current congressional restrictions.

An inquiry was launched immediately after the incident, but final results have been delayed by military and civilian courts arguing over jurisdiction.

In testimony to the military tribunal late last month, helicopter co-pilot Lt. Johan Jimenez backed Romero's accounts of the role of the AirScan spotter plane.

"The Skymaster pilot chose the places for troop disembarkment, pinpointed vulnerable areas and pointed out guerrilla presence," Jimenez said in an official transcript shown to The Chronicle.

"The (Colombian) Blackhawk (helicopter) and Skymaster pilots are the ones that helped the pilot of our Huey UH-1H to identify the target with visual aid from the ground," added Jimenez.

The Colombian pilots said the Skymaster -- equipped with infra-red sensors and high-resolution cameras -- was contracted by Occidental. Since 1997, the plane has constantly patrolled over the 120,000 barrel-a-day Cano Limon field and along the length of the 500-mile pipeline that pumps crude to the Caribbean coast.

Oil infrastructure is regularly sabotaged by the FARC and the small National Liberation Army (ELN), which accuse multinationals of plundering the country's natural resources.

Juan Carlos Ucros, Occidental's legal representative in Bogota, said the company had "no contractual links with the pilots or the plane" at the time of the attack.

But a senior official for the Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol, which has a stake in the Cano Limon field, said yesterday that Occidental had always funded the Skymaster plane but had switched from paying AirScan directly to channeling payments through the Colombian Defense Ministry.

"I have confirmed that the plane is paid for by Occidental although the contract has been held at various stages by either the Occidental-Ecopetrol partnership or by the Defense Ministry," said the official, who requested anonymity.

AirScan director John Manser, speaking from company headquarters, said the Skymaster plane and crew were originally contracted to Occidental and Ecopetrol in 1997. The company then trained Colombian crews and eventually leased and later sold the spotter plane to the Colombian air force.

Manser confirmed that the three U.S. airmen named in the Colombian investigation -- Joe Orta, Charlie Denny and Dan MacClintock -- had worked for AirScan in Colombia but had since left the company. He declined to say whether the men, like most of the company's employees, were former U.S. servicemen.

Air Force chief Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco has declined to comment about the allegations but told reporters briefly that there may have been U.S. "trainers" aboard the spotter plane piloted by Colombians.

-------- iraq

Iraq Says It Hit Allied Warplane

June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-US.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq hit an allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone over northern Iraq on Friday, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. The Pentagon said it had no such report.

The aircraft ``was seen leaving the skies with black smoke coming out of it,'' an unidentified Iraqi army spokesman was quoted as saying. He stressed the plane was not shot down and headed back to Turkey.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Phillips said forces in the region had no report on any such incident.

Iraq has previously claimed to have hit allied aircraft, but has never provided evidence.

Allied aircraft patrol the no-fly zones over southern and northern Iraq, which were established after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Shiite Muslim rebels in the south and Kurds in the north. British and American jets enforcing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq are based in Turkey.

Iraq does not recognize the no-fly zones and has been challenging allied aircraft since December 1998.

-------- israel

CIA Chief Puts Clout to Work in Mideast Effort

By Vernon Loeb and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A24
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4846-2001Jun14?language=printer

As Israeli and Palestinian security officials shook hands on a cease-fire Wednesday in Tel Aviv, CIA Director George J. Tenet made each side acknowledge one last time that the deal would begin the moment they left the room.

Tenet's ability to admonish the mutually suspicious security chiefs speaks to the candid relationship he has established with them over five years and 11 trips to the region as a mediator. Indeed, negotiators on both sides said yesterday that Tenet was uniquely qualified to broker the cease-fire, given what one called his practical, apolitical negotiating style.

"Neither the Palestinians nor Israelis want to look bad in front of this gentleman," said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator. "Everybody knew it was a turning point, a last-ditch effort. If Tenet couldn't do it, who could?"

Israeli Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland concurred. "He made every possible effort to deliver an agreement that is fair and balanced," Eiland said. Without Tenet, he added, the cease-fire "wouldn't have been achieved."

Tenet's clout also reflects the relationship he has forged since January with President Bush. On most mornings, he accompanies the CIA team that gives the president a daily intelligence briefing, and Bush often asks Tenet to brief him at Camp David on weekends, officials say.

"He's there almost every morning and has a chance to regularly speak personally with the president, which is very important," said one presidential appointee.

In March, as the Bush administration sought to distance itself from escalating violence in Israel, officials announced that the CIA would no longer serve as a broker between Israeli and Palestinian security services, a high-profile role begun in the Clinton administration.

But the administration changed course after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 20 Israelis on June 1, raising fears of massive retaliation. Tenet was dispatched to Jerusalem and assigned to seek a cease-fire.

"Given his history, he was the logical person -- and the right person -- to do it," said Dennis B. Ross, a longtime Middle East envoy. "You didn't have anyone else in the administration to go and do this."

The cease-fire brokered by Tenet calls for security officers from both sides to attend weekly meetings with CIA officials. Palestinians are to report on actions against terrorists, and Israelis are to report on efforts to stop Israelis planning acts of violence, according to a text published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and confirmed by U.S. officials.

The text states that the Palestinian Authority will "apprehend, question, and incarcerate terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza and will provide the security committee with the names of those arrested." The Israelis agreed to refrain from attacking Palestinian Authority facilities or "innocent civilian targets" and conducting "proactive" security operations in areas under Palestinian control.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed to the deal Wednesday, but only after Tenet made clear that he was about to go home empty-handed. Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said that during six days of negotiations, Arafat was bombarded by phone calls from world leaders urging him to accept the cease-fire. While Erekat said he believed the campaign was orchestrated by Tenet, a U.S. official said that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- who remained in constant contact with Tenet during the negotiations -- more likely was responsible.

In any event, Erekat said the Palestinians view Tenet as someone capable of standing up to Israel's security services.

"I wanted him to know that the most important thing is . . . will Israel keep its word?" Erekat said. "He said, 'I am going to do my best and guarantee my best. You have to help me.' "

On a personal level, Erekat said, Tenet is "capable of making you feel like you've known him for 100 years. You know he is not playing his cards, but he makes you feel he is very close to you and trusts you."

Edward G. Abington, a former U.S. consul general in Jersusalem who works as a consultant in Washington to the Palestinian Authority, said Tenet has been meeting with Jibril Rajoub, Mohammed Dahlan and other Palestinian security officials since he first traveled to the Middle East in 1996 as deputy CIA director.

"Particularly in dealing with Palestinians, the personal relationships are tremendously important -- whether you show empathy, whether you're able to show you understand where they're coming from," Abington said.

A Washingtonian with close ties to Israel made a similar point. "Tenet has a very ethnic manner that comes from his Greek background in New York," the analyst said. "It works very well with American Jews and Israelis -- and apparently with Palestinians and Arabs as well."

Less than 12 hours after returning from Israel, Tenet said in a commencement address to Langley High School's graduating class at Constitution Hall yesterday that "it might at first seem strange to have a largely secret organization like the CIA playing a public role in the long and difficult search for peace" in the Middle East.

"But the things we are trying to do -- improve communications on security and build confidence on both sides -- are well worth attempting, in public or in private," he said. "These are bridges our country very much wants to build. They are bridges that should be built."

Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.

-------- mexico

Chiapas Rebels Haunt Mexico Plans

JUNE 15, 22:40 EST
By AMPARO TREJO
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7CLCE4O0

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - Mexico's Zapatista rebellion has followed President Vicente Fox on a journey south - haunting his ambitious plans to develop southern Mexico along with all of Central America.

As Fox launched his Plan Puebla-Panama with Central American leaders on Friday, he found himself insisting that the rebels in Chiapas - deeply opposed to the idea - pose no danger to it.

``My government has created a favorable climate for dialogue and has instituted a series of measures that, with the will of everyone, could lead to a definitive solution (to the conflict),'' Fox said Friday.

In an interview with the Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Grafica on Thursday, Fox said that Plan Puebla ``is a thousand times greater than Zapatism or an Indian community in Chiapas.''

The unsettled revolt, which began with two weeks of fighting in 1994, has kept Mexico's southernmost state in political turmoil, feeding local bursts of violence and discouraging investment.

After taking office on Dec. 1, Fox withdrew troops from rebel-influenced parts of Chiapas state, had dozens of Zapatista prisoners freed, promoted a Zapatista caravan to Mexico City and embraced a rebel-backed Indian rights bill.

But the rebels have not even agreed to hold formal meetings with his negotiator. When congress modified the rights bill, the Zapatistas rejected it and withdrew to their jungle strongholds, uttering warnings of renewed war.

The socialist-inclined rebels have suggested that Fox's pro-market development plan is a plot to exterminate Indian cultures by selling their land to foreign capitalists while putting the people to work in foreign-owned factories.

``There is a very firm process of deactivating the conflict. In fact, there is no conflict,'' Fox told La Prensa Grafica. ``We don't have to give more space or a situation of power to Zapatism... It doesn't have anything to do with the Plan Puebla-Panama.''

The plan calls for coordinated development programs throughout Central America and southern Mexico, up to Puebla state. Those may eventually include fuel and power links with the United States and Canada.

Chiapas' governor, Pablo Salazar, admitted that there was opposition to the idea, but he said that would end when ``we give clarity and content to the Plan Puebla-Panama.'

-------- puerto rico

Lott Opposes Bush's Vieques Plan

June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Navy-Vieques.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's plan to end Navy bombing exercises on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island was criticized Friday by Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, who complained he had no advance notice of the decision.

``I've had basically no contact with the administration over it,'' the Mississippi senator told reporters. ``At this point I disagree very strongly with the decision.''

Other conservative Republicans have expressed opposition, saying the lives of military personnel would be endangered if the Navy stops the exercises.

Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would conduct hearings on the proposal this month.

Bush announced Thursday in Goteborg, Sweden, that 60 years of Navy bombing exercises on the island would end in May 2003. That's when the military would have pulled out under an agreement between former President Clinton and Puerto Rico's former governor, Pedro Rossello, if Vieques voters decided in a November referendum to end the exercises.

The training has been unpopular with many Hispanic voters, leaving Bush with a political problem, but the criticism from GOP lawmakers has created a new dilemma for the White House. The lawmakers said any change in the November referendum -- a plebiscite signed into law -- would need approval from Congress.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said he ``will do everything I can within my power to keep from changing the law so that we can go ahead with the November referendum and let the self-determination on the island of Vieques take place.''

Inhofe said, ``I see this as an issue that means American lives. We are going to lose other ranges if this range is lost.''

Stump said he was ``a little surprised today at the suddenness of the announcement'' and called the proposal ``a step in the wrong direction.''

``We have other areas ... even within this country where there have been numerous complaints about our training around our bases, and I think once you give in to this type of action ... then we're inviting trouble in many other places,'' he said.

Democrats said Bush should end the bombing sooner. ``I'm sorry that they seem to be putting it off for two years,'' House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said.

A nonbinding referendum will be held later this year in Vieques, where protests against use of the island have become more intense. The island has more than 9,000 residents.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and its former chairman, also called for Senate hearings but the new committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., only would say he had taken the request under advisement.

Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, wondered what the United States should tell other countries that host U.S. training facilities.

``What do we tell them? We won't bomb on ours, but we'll bomb on yours?'' Hansen said.

Speaking to reporters on his weeklong European tour, Bush said Thursday, ``These are our friends and neighbors, and they don't want us there.'' He added: ``The Navy ought to find somewhere else to conduct its exercises.''

In Puerto Rico, Gov. Sila Calderon said she was satisfied by the announcement. ``But we deplore that the intention to continue with the military exercises and bombings for two additional years,'' she said.

Pentagon officials want planning to begin now for an end to all exercises, possibly with appointment of a study panel to look at alternative sites and ways to train.

A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is hoped such a panel would find a location that is similar while also switching to more simulated training.

At the Pentagon, officials said Bush's decision was a big disappointment. They were concerned that he did not await results of the November referendum on Vieques.

----

Why Bush Bowed Out of Vieques

Friday, June 15, 2001
BY JESSICA REAVES AND MARK THOMPSON,
Time
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,130555,00.html

After considering the political risks of inaction, the White House decides to end the Navy's controversial training raids on the Puerto Rican island

After years of local resistance - and a few months of high-profile protests and arrests - the U.S. has decided to end Navy training exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

The bombing runs, which residents say are dangerous to their health and to the local environment, will end by 2003, according to a White House statement released Thursday.

This is a dramatic turnaround for the Bush administration, which until recently had solidly backed the Pentagon's insistence that the Navy could not afford to lose one of its most unique and vital training grounds.

TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson has been covering the Navy's dilemma in Vieques. He spoke with TIME.com Thursday morning.

TIME.com: Why did the White House make this decision now, after so many years of pledging to continue the bombings?

Mark Thompson: Plainly this was a political decision, not a military decision. The military did not want to give up this site. Bush, apparently for political reasons, decided to just move ahead with a closing date without asking for a referendum.

The White House perceived this to be a growing political problem among Hispanics, who are a very important and increasingly powerful political bloc.

Was Bush's decision really so targeted, or was it designed to appeal to voters outside the Hispanic community as well?

Concern was spreading outside Hispanic community - this has become a cause celebre in certain circles - but those circles certainly aren't representative of the American population at large.

You've mentioned the political benefits of Bush's decision to stop the bombing. Will there be political fallout as well?

Definitely. Republicans on the Hill are extremely vexed by Bush's decision, and they're going to be demanding answers from the White House

Protesters on Vieques have vowed to continue their activities until the last plane leaves the island. Is there any chance the exercises will stop before 2003?

Who knows? A year ago the Navy said there was no chance they'd pull out of Vieques, and now they're getting ready to move. It's simply a question of how much the Navy is willing to give up to train their troops. Our last amphibious landing was 50 years ago - and there is the question of whether we really need to be training for another one. It's a risk analysis, and ultimately the decision is up to the political leaders. Bush has apparently decided the political risks of continuing the bombing is greater than the risks of asking troops to train in conditions less ideal than those on Vieques.

Where might the Navy look for alternative site?

They want something in the Atlantic so they don't have to reassign ships to a completely new locale. The Navy has held bombing practice in the Mediterranean and in Scotland. The problem is in Vieques you can have airplanes flying, dropping bombs, ground staff doing their maneuvers and amphibious crews practicing. Finding a place where you can practice the trifecta of military maneuvers - air, land and water - is extremely difficult. The Navy was well aware of this difficulty, which is why there was so much resistance to leaving Vieques in the first place.

----

Vieques Closing Angers Military, Hill GOP
Bush's Decision Is Criticized as an 'Outrage,' 'Betrayal' and Politically Expedient

By Mike Allen and Roberto Suro
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A09
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3027-2001Jun14?language=printer

Senior military officers said they felt betrayed and Republicans on Capitol Hill reacted furiously yesterday after President Bush said he would end bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in 2003.

Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was among 21 Republican House members who sent Bush a letter saying they were "gravely disappointed" with the plan and warning that it could result in sending "our troops forward less than fully combat-ready."

If the Navy pulls out of Vieques, opposition to training exercises will mount in South Korea, Okinawa and elsewhere overseas, said Rep. James V. Hansen (R-Utah), a senior committee member. "What do we tell them?" he asked at a news conference with other Republican legislators. "We won't bomb on ours, but we'll bomb on yours?"

Senior Navy and Marine officers complained that they had not been consulted and used such terms as "outrage," "sold-out" and "betrayal" in describing their reactions. Speaking with the understanding they would not be identified, flag rank officers accused the White House of acting out of political expediency regardless of the cost to military readiness.

Described by the Navy as the crown jewel of training areas, Vieques is the only place where the Atlantic Fleet practices amphibious landings backed up by aerial bombing and naval gunfire. The Pacific Fleet conducts similar exercises on an uninhabited island off the California coast. Protests against the Navy periodically have flared in Puerto Rico over the past decade and gained momentum two years ago after an errant bomb killed a security guard on the training facility.

Until the administration's sudden change of course, the Pentagon's position was that the 9,500 residents of Vieques could be persuaded to accept the training exercises and would vote to let the Navy remain in a November referendum, part of a deal worked out under the Clinton administration. Moreover, the Navy has insisted that Vieques is an irreplaceable training ground for the flotillas that are rotated through the Persian Gulf.

Bush took an entirely different view when he announced his decision yesterday during a news conference in Goteborg, Sweden.

"The Navy ought to find somewhere else to conduct its exercises, for a lot of reasons," Bush said. "One, there's been some harm done to people in the past. Secondly, these are our friends and neighbors, and they don't want us there." And, he expressed confidence that the Navy "will find another place to practice, and to be prepared to keep the peace."

Normally loyal Republicans in Congress flatly disagreed with the president.

"I've been all the way around the world to every possible, conceivable alternative site," said Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), arguing that there is nothing to replace Vieques. "I see this as an issue that means American lives."

"I will do everything I can within my power to keep from changing the law so that we can go ahead with the November referendum," Inhofe added.

Other critics of the decision in both parties said it looked like a political favor to Hispanic voters and, in particular, to New York Gov. George E. Pataki, one of the few Republicans who lobbied to evict the Navy from the island.

A Republican official said the decision appeared to be part of Bush's effort to win over many Hispanic voters before he seeks reelection in 2004. "You don't get people voting for you who didn't in the past by not doing anything for them," the official said. "And now you have Pataki delivering for a big part of his constituency."

A White House official denied that political considerations played a part in the decision. The official said it was made quickly to quell protests planned for Monday, when the Navy begins another training exercise on the island, and to "keep more demonstrators out of harm's way."

The decision was finalized Wednesday at a White House meeting between Bush's senior adviser, Karl C. Rove, and Navy Secretary Gordon R. England. News of the move leaked that night, after England briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Senior military officials said that even the Pentagon's top uniformed leadership was taken by surprise.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld distanced himself from the controversy yesterday and offered only a tepid endorsement of the decision. Asked why he was giving up the long fight to continue training on Vieques, Rumsfeld told reporters: "That is a matter that the secretary of the Navy has been dealing with, with Deputy Secretary [Paul] Wolfowitz, and I think I'll leave that issue to them. We've got great confidence in them and the way they're handling it, and they're doing a fine job."

Pataki, who discussed Vieques with Rove during a meeting Tuesday at the White House, lobbied the administration and the Pentagon aggressively on the issue. He sat with Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon during Bush's inauguration and led a delegation of state lawmakers and community leaders to Vieques in March.

Michael McKeon, Pataki's communications director, said the governor considers Vieques to be "a human rights issue -- these are American citizens who don't want to live with bombs falling in their backyard."

Among senior military officers, suspicion about Bush's intentions began to mount more than a month ago when the White House blocked the Navy from taking steps intended to win the goodwill of the island's residents and increase the chances that they would vote in November to let the Navy continue using the island.

Under the agreement reached by the Clinton administration, the Navy was to spend $40 million on public works to improve the economy and living conditions on Vieques. The Bush administration, however, has given the Navy only $6 million of the authorized funds. This left the impression that the administration had no intention of trying to win the referendum, officers said.

----

Both Sides Attack Bush Plan to Halt Bombing on Vieques

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/politics/15BOMB.html

WASHINGTON, June 14 - President Bush's compromise plan to halt the Navy's bombing exercises in Puerto Rico came under intense attack today, both from critics who said it did not go far enough and from Congressional allies of the Pentagon who said it undermined military readiness.

Even Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, a strong supporter of the president who visited the White House this week to seek an end to the bombings, expressed disappointment that the Bush plan calls for doing so in 2003 rather than immediately as he had recommended.

"My goal is not to have it stopped two years from now," Mr. Pataki, a Republican, told reporters today at a news conference in New York. "My goal is to have it stopped now."

The plan the White House outlined calls for ending all military exercises and bombing runs on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques by May 2003 despite the Navy's longstanding contention that the island is an indispensable site for its East Coast training operations.

The decision was reached on Wednesday after a meeting among senior White House officials, including Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, who has voiced concerns that growing opposition to the bombings had cost Mr. Bush critical support among Hispanic voters. Mr. Rove did not return phone calls on the matter today.

Indeed, the bombing runs on Vieques have become a rallying cry for Hispanics across the nation, drawing celebrities like Edward James Olmos, the actor, as well as galvanizing Puerto Ricans who characterize the bombings as an example of American arrogance.

In April, about 180 protesters, including four prominent New York politicians, were arrested for trying to block the exercises, and opponents have vowed to continue protests until the bombings stop.

The Bush plan was released on Wednesday as Puerto Ricans prepared to hold a referendum next month on whether to allow the Navy to continue its operations on the 33,000-acre island that is home to about 9,300 people.

While the outcome of the July 29 referendum would not be legally binding, the island's governor, Sila María Calderón, has used it to keep the pressure on the Bush administration to end the bombings.

At a news conference today in San Juan, Ms. Calderón said she was pleased that the White House was committed to ending the exercises, but wanted them to stop now. And she promised to press ahead with the vote. [Page A18.] Today, some of the military's staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill sharply questioned the president's plan and warned that it would put the nation's military readiness at great risk.

The Navy has conducted exercises on the eastern tip of Vieques for more than 50 years. Military officials have maintained that live-fire training at Vieques, including both aerial bombing and ship-to-shore shelling, is the only way to verify that its aircraft and ships are combat ready.

Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said: "I cannot agree with a politically motivated decision, which sacrifices national security and unnecessarily puts the lives of our men and women in uniform at risk. Military training in Vieques is vital."

Representative Bob Stump, Republican of Arizona, echoed that sentiment, calling the island of Vieques an irreplaceable training ground and warning that giving in to Puerto Rican protesters would encourage residents living near other training sites to raise similar protests.

"I think it's a step in the wrong direction," Mr. Stump said. "I think it's setting a bad precedent."

Indeed, two senior national security officials said today that the precedent created by this decision could create a new set of difficulties for the Bush administration in dealing with the Japanese. The new Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is to arrive in Washington on June 30, and American troop presence on Okinawa is expected to an important issue on the agenda.

In Okinawa there have been increasing protests over the presence of the troops, and to keep them there the United States has used a version of the logic used to justify the exercises in Vieques: The American military cannot move its training facility there until it has another, equally good training site.

In Sweden, Mr. Bush defended his decision. "My attitude is that the Navy ought to find somewhere else to conduct its exercises, for a lot of reasons," the president said. "One, there's been some harm done to people in the past. Secondly, these are our friends and neighbors and they don't want us there."

But Mr. Inhofe said that "this decision will have a domino effect on other military ranges around the world."

Critics of the Navy's operations on the island expressed the same level of outrage with the president's plan today. They said they thought it was a grave mistake for Mr. Bush not to end the bombings on the island immediately and vowed to step up protests on the island against the Navy.

Representative Jose E. Serrano, Democrat of New York, who was born in Puerto Rico, dismissed the plan and expressed bafflement that the Bush administration would offer it as a solution. "It's amazing that the White House thinks we would accept this," Mr. Serrano said. "The problem is that the bombing is continuing. Nothing has changed, and this is unacceptable."

Representative Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said of the Bush plan: "This won't stop the protests. It is not a solution."

The concerns of Mr. Menendez, who is of Cuban descent, underscore the degree to which Vieques has become an issue of intense interest to all Hispanics, not just Puerto Ricans. And their concerns could hardly escape White House officials who are aware of the ever-growing clout Hispanic voters wield in Florida and in the Southwest.

Many of these critics also angrily dismissed the Bush plan as an empty gesture, noting that Puerto Ricans are almost certainly going to vote in favoring of suspending military exercises on the island in next month's referendum. "It promises no more than has already been promised - an end to the bombing by May 1st, 2003," said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, who called the plan a "mirage."

An agreement between President Bill Clinton and Ms. Calderón's predecessor called for the referendum on whether people wanted the bombing to end in 2003 or continue with the promise of financial assistance. Ms. Calderón rejected the deal.

Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York, who was also born in Puerto Rico, said: "What is the big news here? Everybody knew that the Navy would have to stop in 2003 because of the referendum. The people of Vieques were going to vote to get the Navy out."

As New York governor, Mr. Pataki has little control over the Vieques issue, but he has become a prominent spokesman for stopping the bombing. The Vieques issue is critically important for Mr. Pataki, as he considers whether to seek re-election in 2002. The bombings arouse deep emotions among many Puerto Ricans in New York, the state's largest Hispanic group, and Mr. Pataki has made no secret of his desire to court their vote.

Still, Mr. Pataki was far more measured in his comments than Democrats. He described the administration's action "a very positive step" and added that he would continue to press for an immediate halt to all military exercises on Vieques.

The Bush decision came a day after Mr. Pataki visited the White House to discuss the Vieques issue.

It is not clear what impact the Pataki visit ultimately had on the White House decision. But Mr. Pataki's advisers were giving the governor credit for having helped advance the issue this far with the White House, even as the governor himself sought to play down his influence.

"They didn't give me any indication at the time," Mr. Pataki said of his conversation with White House official. "I was surprised."

--------

Puerto Rico Will Vote on Vieques

JUNE 15, 21:38 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7CLBH380

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Puerto Rico is moving ahead with plans for a referendum on the Navy's presence in Vieques despite President Bush's decision to halt training exercises on the island in 2003.

Advertisements announcing the July 29 nonbinding vote appeared in Puerto Rican newspapers Friday, a day after Bush said the Navy should leave the inhabited island.

Voters on the island of 9,100 people will be asked to decide whether the Navy should stay, leave in 2003 or leave immediately.

But it's unclear now if another referendum on the issue will be held. That question, scheduled to appear on the Nov. 6 ballot, will also ask voters if the Navy should stay or go by 2003. The U.S. government and the previous Puerto Rican administration agreed to the referendum. But Bush's decision could mean it won't be held.

Gov. Sila Calderon, who took office in January and opposes the bombing exercises, has backed the July 29 referendum.

Meanwhile, Navy ships practiced maneuvers Friday in the waters miles off the shores of Vieques, said Navy spokesman Bob Nelson. The ships were to come into port over the weekend, and bombing exercises will begin Monday on the Vieques firing range, Nelson said.

--------

Give Puerto Rico Its Independence

By Pedro A. Cabán,
Newsday,
Friday, June 15, 2001
http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/editorial/friday/nd6214.htm

(Pedro A. Cabán is an associate professor of political science and Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University and author of "Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898-1932.")

AFTER HIS INVASION force landed in Puerto Rico in 1898, Gen. Nelson Miles announced, "We have not come to make war upon the people ... but to give to all the advantages and blessings of enlightened civilization." Over a hundred years later, the U.S. military is still there. Even though President George W. Bush yesterday announced an end, in 2003, to the Navy's decades of bombardment of Puerto Rico's island of Vieques, Puerto Ricans, in the words of Vieques Mayor Damaso Serrano, are not dismissing what has been an "arrogant abuse of a poor, Spanish-speaking and colored people." Relentless military maneuvers on economically and ecologically devastated Vieques-without regard for the welfare of its inhabitants or the consent of Puerto Rico's government-have been an affront to most Puerto Ricans. The debacle has come to have major national political implications. Justice for Vieques has become a rallying cry for a sizable portion of the growing Latino population on the mainland. Enterprising politicians, some driven by electoral ambitionsand others by moral indignation, realize that being on the side of the Viequenses is the right move.

The situation is not only putting pressure on Congress to rethink Puerto Rico's ineffective political status, but also has forced Bush to realize that the Navy's maltreatment of Vieques has become a national political issue with potentially serious ramifications for him and his party.

While the military has always asserted that Puerto Rico is a unique possession of immense strategic value that should never be relinquished, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of genuine revolutionary movements in Latin America have undermined the urgency of the claim. Bush's decision further erodes the credibility of the Navy's relentless assertions that without the use of Vieques as a bombing and strafing range, U.S. troops will be unable to train effectively.

Some will welcome Bush's decision as vindication of an effective campaign of civil disobedience and popular mobilization. But others will interpret it as a cynical move to preempt an upcoming and potentially embarrassing referendum on Navy use of Vieques and a reinforcement of the belief that Washington will continue to treat Puerto Rico as a mere territorial possession. It's also doubtful that this latest move will actually generate warm feelings among the Latino electorate for the Republican Party.

It seems everyone agrees that Puerto Rico's current status is an unworkable anachronism. Last June, Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) described the commonwealth as "a drain on the American taxpaying public. Its status is an affront to our constitutional system of government." Congress is increasingly opposed to the continuation of Puerto Rico's commonwealth status. Puerto Rico's statehood and independence parties want to abolish it, and even the Popular Democratic Party that devised it wants to radically alter this defunct political formula.

The truth is that Puerto Ricans have never been truly satisfied with the territorial status of their island-nation. The independence movement, which has included political parties, university student federations, self-proclaimed revolutionary organizations, and other legal and illegal groupings such as FALN and the Macheteros, has been subject to ceaseless government persecution.

Indeed, official intimidation and discrimination help to explain the failure of independence to garner more support than commonwealth status in plebiscites held in 1952, 1967 and 1993. Moreover, a relentless fear campaign has convinced many Puerto Ricans that a complete break with the United States would quickly result in political chaos and economic ruination. Despite this, everyone agrees that poor showings in the polls fail to capture the depth of popular sympathy for independence.

Puerto Ricans are caught between a rock and a hard place. Since Puerto Ricans are proud cultural nationalists they are apprehensive that their culture and language would be threatened by statehood. This helps to explain why Puerto Ricans rejected the statehood option in a 1998 plebiscite. However, they are also leery of independence given how it has been so demonized. Puerto Ricans have opted for commonwealth as it provides U.S. citizenship and economic support on one hand, and a measure of autonomy to protect its language and cultural institutions on the other.

After the 1898 U.S. invasion, Puerto Ricans at first believed that the enlightened, modern and wealthy empire of the north would be a vast improvement over Spain, their previous colonial masters. Puerto Ricans were convinced their island-nation would soon be incorporated into the Union on an equal footing with other states, and they would at last attain the dignity and self-government denied for centuries by the Spanish.

Statehood seemed preordained, if for no other reason than to guarantee the U.S. perpetual control of the strategically significant island. But Congress balked at paving the way for statehood because Puerto Ricans were considered overwhelmingly poor, dark- complexioned, Spanish-speaking, Catholic and simply incapable of appreciating the virtues of U.S. democracy.

According to Gov. George Davis in 1899, Puerto Ricans were "all of an alien race and foreign tongue" and were not fit "for participation in federal affairs." Davis also feared the repercussions if this "alien race" were permitted to send two senators and six representatives to Washington.

A century ago, Congress declared Puerto Rico a territorial possession subject to its plenary powers. This forestalled independence and, to this day, Congress quietly continues to oppose statehood. Legislation to change the island's antiquated political status has always foundered on fears that the Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans would choose statehood and increase the political power of mainland Latinos.

It is true that after a century of Americanization, and despite being exemplary citizens who have fought in every major U.S. military engagement, Puerto Ricans proudly proclaim their distinctive nationality and cultural identity.

The current commonwealth governor, Sila Calderon, has made this evident. To the chagrin of the statehood party and the annoyance of Washington she has stated: "We are Puerto Ricans who are U.S. citizens, we are not U.S. citizens who happen to be Puerto Ricans. We are Puerto Ricans first." To complicate matters further, surveys suggest that the majority of Puerto Ricans residing on the mainland agree with Calderon.

A consensus has formed around the recognition that commonwealth is no longer appropriate for this era of globalization. Both the statehood and commonwealth parties been proven incapable of resolving the serious social problems, which include high rates of unemployment, poverty, crime and addiction.

It is time to initiate a transition process to grant Puerto Rico its independence-an independence grounded in economic security, mutual respect and appreciation for the contributions that Puerto Rico and its people have given the United States during the long American century.

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

Cambodians Lose Faith in U.N.

JUNE 15, 21:12 EST
By HEATHER PATERSON
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7CLB53G0

SINGAPORE (AP) - Cambodia has lost hope that those behind the millions of murders during the Pol Pot regime will ever be brought to justice, a group of performers who survived the carnage said in Singapore Friday.

``It has been over 20 years that we have been waiting to hear what is going on and when the United Nations announced that they were going to arrange for the proper judgment we were happy,'' said classical dancer Thon Kim Ann. ``But since then until now - it's almost 10 years - we have lost confidence.''

Thon Kim Ann is in Singapore rehearsing the production, ``The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields,'' which will open at Yale in Connecticut next month.

The Continuum tells the stories of the four performers who were all targets of the Khmer Rouge as they were linked to the Royal Family.

Classical dance was only performed in the royal court before Pol Pot seized power in 1975 and tried to build a farmers' utopia. More than 1.7 million people died of starvation, disease, overwork or were executed.

The four will also perform in Singapore before taking a censored version back to Cambodia.

Puppeteer Mann Kosal runs his own association in Phnom Penh, and is afraid that if he told the uncensored version of his story it would upset some in the Cambodian government. Members of the Khmer Rouge now hold posts in the government.

``There are some words, some things I cannot stay on the stage (in Cambodia) because I don't want to attack those who are ex-murders in the government,'' said Mann Kosal. ``Because I work independently I am worried that the government will close down my association.''

In January, after years of delays, the Cambodian government finished drafting legislation to establish a U.N.-assisted war crimes tribunal of Cambodian and foreign judges.

The legislation is still to be amended in line with the constitution, approved again by Parliament, reviewed by the Constitutional Council and signed by King Norodom Sihanouk.

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

Rumsfeld: Accelerate New Military Strategy

Reuters
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A06
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3069-2001Jun14?language=printer

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has launched a "forced march" at the Pentagon to speed development of a new military strategy, a senior defense official said yesterday.

The official also told reporters in a Pentagon briefing that the ability to fight and win two major wars at once -- the centerpiece of American strategy for the past decade -- may be scrapped.

Rumsfeld has held talks with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military leaders for nearly three weeks on how to conduct the Quadrennial Defense Review. He hopes to have it completed by the end of July, the official said.

The strategy of preparing to fight two major conflicts at once was formulated during the 1991 Gulf War, when war on the Korean peninsula was also a prospect.

But it "tends to focus you on that one dimension of ability to carry out the current war plans," the official said. "It doesn't really at all take account of either the present requirements of the force -- the Kosovos, the missions all over the world -- and only handles the future in, I would say, a fairly clumsy way."

But the official noted that "it is easy to point out the defects." He added: "It is a lot harder to come up with an alternative construct. And that is one of the things we are wrestling with."

The defense official declined to speculate on what the new strategy might entail, other than to say it would result in a "strategy-driven" defense budget for 2003 rather than a budget-driven strategy.

----

War Games Begin at Fort Bliss

By Chris Roberts
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 4:20 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline042039_000.htm

EL PASO, Texas -- About 15,000 soldiers and the air and missile power of militaries around the world are going to war Friday, but there shouldn't be any human injuries.

Although real troops will maneuver on the ground and in the air, the actual fighting will be done on computers. The battles will be controlled from a command center at Fort Bliss Army base, near El Paso.

It's part of the world's largest international war game, a 10-day air and missile defense simulation called Roving Sands.

"Instead of American blood, we have an expenditure of electrons," said Army Maj. Gen. J.B. Burns, deputy exercise director.

In the simulation, a fictional U.S. ally with ancient religious sites and uranium and oil reserves is being invaded. The fictional enemy is armed with weaponry used by countries around the world, said Air Force Col. Stephen Fleet.

Among the weapons being tested in this year's simulation are some still on the drawing board, such as the U.S. Army's Theater High Altitude Area Defense program and the Air Force's Airborne Laser. Both are being developed to shoot down enemy missiles at longer ranges than the Patriot 3, the latest version of the missile used during the Persian Gulf War.

The Roving Sands exercise involves all branches of the U.S. military and troops from Canada, Germany, England and the Netherlands. It starts with a "non-attrition" phase, where no casualties are calculated. Next week, it moves to the "attrition" phase, where units can be knocked out of the game. Military bases in Louisiana, Florida and Virginia are also involved.

This is the 10th consecutive year for Roving Sands, but to cut costs, it is expected to be held every other year in the future. Military officials said they couldn't immediately calculate the cost of this year's exercise.

Planning for the exercises in the desert of southwest Texas and southern New Mexico ran into some trouble over concerns that European troops and equipment might bring foot-and-mouth disease.

Equipment from Great Britain and the Netherlands was barred because of outbreaks there, and about half of Germany's 66 vehicles failed a U.S. Department of Agriculture visual inspection last month even though the disease hadn't been detected there.

-------

Defense Chief Will Propose Military Change in Course

June 15, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/national/15MILI.html

WASHINGTON, June 14 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is planning to scrap the Clinton administration's guiding strategy for the military and replace it with four principles that range from assuring allies to defeating enemies, a senior defense official said today.

While the language used to define strategy may sound obvious and simplistic, military policy analysts said today that they heard tones of "great power politics" and a clear de-emphasizing of humanitarian missions and peacekeeping. There is no doubt that these phrases will become mantras to the military and will be used to determine what weapons to buy, how large the armed services should be, how they train for their missions and what those missions should be.

The senior official said that "four overriding defense strategy objectives" had been identified, and that Mr. Rumsfeld had set the Pentagon on a "forced march" to flesh out those concepts by the end of July in order to write new military budgets.

The first objective is "to assure friends and allies," the official said, and he listed the others: "Second, to dissuade future adversaries. Third, to deter threats and counter coercion. And four, to defeat adversaries if deterrence fails."

Those objectives will guide the Pentagon as it completes a Congressionally mandated strategy statement, called the Quadrennial Defense Review. That document will dictate the efforts to transform the military, the writing of an amended Defense Department budget for 2002 and a new one for 2003, when Mr. Rumsfeld and his team try to translate their new strategic lexicon into specific policies and programs.

Mr. Rumsfeld's redefinition of principles chooses language quite different from that inscribed by the Clinton administration in 1997, in its Quadrennial Defense Review, which ordered the military to shape the strategic environment, maintain the capability to respond and "prepare now" for future threats.

Since then that central thought, "Shape, Respond, Prepare," could be seen at every military installation worldwide and as the centerpiece of any briefing on global strategy.

Michele A. Flournoy, who drafted the strategy as a Clinton administration deputy assistant secretary of defense in 1997, said today that the Rumsfeld formulation "has many of the right components of a good defense strategy."

Now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ms. Flournoy said the new formulation did "sound like it puts a greater emphasis on the `high end' of conflict - decisive defeat. What's not there is the sort of peacetime engagement of countries that aren't allies. What I don't hear is the military operations that aren't about decisively defeating an enemy, but doing something else at the lower end of the spectrum, whether it's humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping."

That interpretation would be consistent with the view articulated by President Bush and his advisers, both during the campaign and in the administration's early weeks, when deployments in Bosnia and the Sinai were questioned as drains on the armed forces and distractions from their real missions.

The senior defense official said today that the Bush administration clearly understood the importance of American troops in maintaining stability in the Balkans, and that the United States "is not about to pull out of the Balkans in a way that reproduces the catastrophe that got us in there in the first place."

And he emphasized that the Pentagon would "plan in our strategy for those kinds of requirements, of which there are many," including enforcing the no-flight zones over Iraq.

One military policy analyst, Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, said he had heard in the new principles a greater emphasis on "traditional great power politics" in which: "We have friends. We have enemies. We don't think as much about the in-between categories."

By themselves, he said, "the words don't tell you everything. But if you understand the shorthand, there is nothing in this new list that gives prominence to those sorts of relationship-building missions. There is no indication of an interest in engaging China, engaging North Korea or even engaging more benign countries like India or Pakistan or a reformist government in Indonesia. That is significant."

The senior defense official said Mr. Rumsfeld wanted a new strategy in place before any new budgets were written, but conceded that any balance of risk and threat, and any decision on weapons and number of forces, would come down to money.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Norway has significant wind power potential - NVE

NORWAY: June 15, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11202

OSLO - Norway's potential for wind generated energy could total 480 terawatt hours of electricity a year, The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) said in a statement yesterday.

A study conducted for the NVE showed wind power conditions along the Norwegian coast and in some mountain areas to be "very good", but the NVE said potential development could be limited by high power prices, the amount of state funding and public resistance.

"With today's power prices and development costs it is unlikely that wind power can be developed without a significant amount of state funding," it said.

The NVE reckoned the realisation of Norway's wind power potential could be compared to that of hydropower, where economic and environmental concerns have curtailed development to only 140 TWh of an estimated 600 TWh of hydropower potential.

It also said wind power potential could be increased if Norway, like Denmark, lowered its requirement for yearly average wind speed.

The NVE study estimated an average yearly wind speed of over eight metres per second measured 50 metres above ground level.

"If the minimum requirement for wind speed is lowered to seven metres per second, the physical potential in the studied areas would increase to about 900 TWh," it said.

-------- death penalty

Five Beheaded in Saudi Arabia

June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Saudi-Beheading.html

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Four Saudi drug dealers were beheaded Friday for killing a police officer while another Saudi man was executed for murdering his father, the Interior Ministry said.

The four men were convicted of forming a drug trafficking gang and killing a police officer during a clash with security forces. They were beheaded in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, said the statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Three other gang members were sentenced to 15 years in jail and 375 lashes, at a rate of 50 lashes every six months during their imprisonment.

In a separate case, Fawaz bin Saad al-Otaibi was beheaded in the capital Riyadh after he was convicted of fatally shooting his father.

Friday's beheadings raise to 54 the number of people executed this year. Last year, 125 people were beheaded. Executions are carried out in public with a sword.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam that calls for the death penalty for murder, rape, drug trafficking and armed robbery.

-------- energy

Calif. Looks into Energy Overcharges

JUNE 15, 16:23 EST
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7CL6T7O0

WASHINGTON (AP) - Californians are wondering when, if ever, they'll see a refund for the $124 million that federal regulators said in March looked like overcharges by power wholesalers.

The money is a tiny portion of the more than $6 billion that California Gov. Gray Davis and consumer groups contend the companies have unfairly charged in the past year.

Critics of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission say failure to act on the $124 million that FERC itself said looked suspicious is emblematic of a timid stance with power wholesalers, even though the electricity rates in question are as much as 15 times as high than last year in parts of California.

``They are buying off on the inflated calculations and inflated numbers the companies are using,'' said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers Action Network in San Diego.

Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Davis, said, ``We fully expect the generators to defend their gouging. If FERC orders even this paltry amount, it opens the floodgates for more.''

Still, Maviglio said, if FERC were to order any refunds, ``We'd see it as encouraging.''

In filings with FERC and in interviews, the companies have defended their prices, arguing that the thirst for electricity forced them to fire up older, less efficient plants. FERC's analysis did not take into account that those plants cost more to run, the companies said.

The largest share of the potential overcharges identified by federal regulators belongs to Houston-based Dynegy Corp. - $42.5 million. Dynegy spokesman Steve Stengel said the company did not charge the state one cent more than it should have.

``We've submitted information that justifies our prices,'' Stengel said.

FERC is scheduled to discuss California's power crisis Monday, when it is expected to broaden price controls that took effect last month. It is not clear whether the commission will take up the alleged overcharges that regulators say occurred during power shortages in January and February.

Commission investigators examined only those transactions that took place when the state's power reserves had fallen below 1.5 percent and when the price exceeded $273 a megawatt-hour in January and $430 a megawatt-hour in February. They deemed charges above those prices unjustified and unreasonable, unless the companies could prove otherwise.

At the time, FERC chairman Curt Hebert called the action an example of his commission's willingness to act and ``commitment to ensure appropriate and reasonable prices.''

FERC spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen said commission staff still are gathering information but are working more quickly than usual.

``We've never experienced anything of this magnitude,'' Young-Allen said. ``There is so much pressure to hurry up.''

Refund orders could come at any time, after which the companies could ask FERC to reconsider or appeal in federal court. Most of the money would go to the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state's electricity grid. Some money also would be due the defunct California Power Exchange, which used to broker the sale of electricity.

-------- environment

African dust storms send germs to America

By Richard Stenger
CNN
June 15, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/06/15/dust.microbes/index.html

(CNN) -- Besides painting American sunsets red when they cross over the Atlantic, colossal Saharan dust storms bring loads of potentially dangerous microorganisms to the New World, according to scientists.

Loads of bacteria and fungi, some of which could cause disease and respiratory problems, hitch rides on dust storm plumes from Northern Africa that blow westward for thousands of miles, according to researchers.

As the dust grains and their tiny stowaways settle down in the Western Atlantic, they could pose health risks to people in Florida and the Caribbean, according to scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA.

The seasonal African storms, which peak in July, transport millions of tons of fine-grained dust across the Atlantic each year, contributing to a reddish haze over much of the U.S. Southeast.

Besides painting the air red, the fine-grained dust particles serve nicely as air carriers for the upwardly mobile microbes, which ride on easterly trade winds more than 10,000 feet above sea level.

"Microbes in the cracks and crevasses of dust particles may be shielded from ultraviolet rays," said Dale Griffin, co-author of a report in the June 14 edition of the journal Aerobiologia, in a statement.

"Additionally, when dust clouds move over open water in lower latitudes, the moderate temperatures and high humidity are known to enhance microbial survival."

The dust events are cyclical. From February to April, the waves of particles descend on the Amazon Basin. The winds then shift and from June to October the Caribbean and North and Central America bear the brunt of the storms, which take 5 to 7 days to make the transatlantic trip.

Griffin and colleagues tracked the storms using a NASA satellite that monitors world ozone levels. They compared the results with airborne pollutants in the Caribbean and found corresponding high levels of microbes.

Florida receives more than half of all microbe-laden Africa dust in the United States. During major episodes, there could be a correlation with increased health risks in the state, the scientists cautioned.

Besides microbe and fungi passengers, the dust grains themselves are known to cause respiratory and allergic reactions. One study in the Caribbean revealed a 17-fold increase in asthma attacks during an increased period of dust transport.

-------- police

Sweden Police Call for Reinforcements

By Jan M. Olsen
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 1:42 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline014231_000.htm

GOTEBORG, Sweden -- Facing two more days of protests, police are calling for reinforcements after 200 people were arrested in clashes with more than a thousand demonstrators here for a European Union summit that included meetings with President Bush.

Swedish police, with a force of about 1,000 to face an estimated 25,000 protesters, were surprised Thursday when demonstrators turned violent after authorities blockaded a school housing activists, trapping up to 400 of them inside.

Although Bush leaves Friday for Warsaw, Poland, police fear more trouble as EU leaders hold a regular, two-day summit in this port city.

Police spokesman Lennart Ronnebro said reinforcements would be called in from other Swedish cities for added security.

"We have information that there will be some action when (the protesters) will try to get inside the Maessan," Ronnebro said, referring to the conference center less than a half-mile from the square reserved for the largest rallies.

Opponents believe the 15-member EU threatens national sovereignty and social welfare. Swedes are among the most skeptical, having joined only in 1995.

Trouble started Thursday morning when helmeted riot police, some mounted, sealed off the Hvitfeldtska high school - one of several facilities organized by city officials to house the mass of protesters. Police claimed they found evidence that activists in the school planned violence.

After a series of scuffles - including one in which eight people were arrested - tensions escalated when hundreds of protesters broke away from an anti-Bush rally and converged on barricades around the three-story brick building.

Police tried to push them back and arrested about 200 who resisted. They included Finns, Danes and Germans, police said. Five policemen were slightly injured and one demonstrator broke an arm, Rennebro said.

The clash occurred after some 10,000 people rallied in a downtown square in the biggest anti-Bush protest so far during his five-nation tour, which began Tuesday in Madrid, Spain. It ends Saturday in Slovenia where Bush meets Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Protesters made clear their opposition to Bush's policies on global warming, missile defense and capital punishment.

"He is making decisions about global issues without asking us, but look at how many we are. We don't want Bush to rule the world according to his rules," said 34-year-old Hannes Bjoerk, who traveled the some 300 miles from the capital, Stockholm.

Ahead of the Bush visit, police held extensive discussions with leaders of more than 80 protest groups in an attempt to keep the rallies peaceful. Some activists said they felt betrayed by the standoff at the high school.

----

Senate panel plans probe of FBI's internal security

June 15, 2001
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010615-16810154.htm

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in the wake of reports that classified software made its way to terrorist Osama bin Laden, yesterday said the FBI internal security safeguards will be a major focus of pending committee hearings.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said he is concerned that the country´s internal security will be breached if federal authorities are unable to keep classified information from "outside enemies."

"We have spent millions of dollars on computer security for federal agencies, and much of it goes to the FBI," Mr. Leahy told The Washington Times. "Keeping secrets from outside enemies of this country is only as good as our internal security.

"If the FBI is doing a poor job on internal security, all the money in the world will not effectively keep outsiders from breaching our most critical and secure systems," he said, adding that the committee would hold as yet unscheduled oversight hearings on the FBI internal security safeguards.

Mr. Leahy´s comments came in the wake of reports in yesterday´s editions of The Times that Robert P. Hanssen, a former FBI agent now awaiting trial on federal espionage charges, gave sophisticated software to his Russian handlers that later was sold to bin Laden for $2 million.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, also has said he intends to hold oversight hearings this year in the Hanssen case. Mr. Sensenbrenner told reporters he wanted to know what protections the FBI had built into its internal security system "against double agents as a result of the Hanssen case."

The software delivered to the Russian handlers and later sent to bin Laden, according to the sources, is believed to be an upgraded version of a program known as Promis - developed in the 1980s by a Washington firm, Inslaw Inc., to give U.S. attorneys the ability to keep tabs on their caseloads.

It would give bin Laden the ability to monitor U.S. efforts to track him down, federal law-enforcement officials say. It also gives him access to databases on specific targets of his choosing and the ability to monitor electronic-banking transactions, easing money-laundering operations for himself or others, according to the sources. The millionaire fugitive is being sought in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.

While federal prosecutors have declined comment on the Hanssen case, they charged in a criminal complaint that the former FBI counterintelligence agent made extensive use of the bureau´s computerized case management systems, Field Office Information Management Systems (FOIMS) and Community On-Line Intelligence Systems (COINS), as part of his espionage activities. They also charged that he gave his handlers a technical manual on the U.S. intelligence community´s secure network for online access to intelligence databases.

The sources said FOIMS and COINS are believed to be upgraded versions of the Promis software program.

Mr. Hanssen´s Washington attorney, Plato Cacheris, yesterday declined comment on the pending case. His client pleaded not guilty May 30 to federal charges of passing highly classified U.S. secrets to the Russians over a 15-year period and faces trial tentatively scheduled for Oct. 29.

The former FBI agent was arrested Feb. 18 as he tried to leave a package of reportedly classified documents at a secret drop-off location in a park near his Vienna home. He was indicted by a federal grand jury May 16 on charges of selling U.S. intelligence secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia beginning in October 1985. Fourteen of the 21 counts carry the death penalty.

----

Handling of Deportees Faulted
INS Not Properly Escorting Dangerous Individuals, Report Says

By Ben White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A14
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4817-2001Jun14?language=printer

The Immigration and Naturalization Service regularly puts travelers at risk by failing to properly escort potentially dangerous illegal immigrants being deported on commercial airline flights, a new government report concludes.

The report, released yesterday by the Justice Department's inspector general, found that INS officials in four districts, including Baltimore, regularly violate guidelines published in 1998 requiring two official escorts for any "Group Three" illegal immigrant being deported. That category includes those charged with or convicted of violent crimes, including sexual assault, murder and kidnapping.

Of 158 deportation cases studied in Baltimore, New York, Atlanta and Chicago, the report listed eight potentially dangerous illegal immigrants who were allowed to leave the country on commercial flights with no escorts and several more who were unescorted on at least one leg of their flights out of the country.

Among the unescorted was one who had been convicted of a sexual offense against a child and was being deported from New York to South Africa, and another who had been convicted of unlawful sale and use of firearms, domestic battery, rape and theft and was being deported from Miami to Belize.

In fiscal 1999 and 2000, according to the report, the INS removed 139,00 "criminal illegal aliens" from the United States. Of that total, 30,000 had been involved in violent crime cases, and 21,000 of those were Mexicans who were transported on INS buses. The report focused on the remaining 9,000 potentially dangerous deportees, about 80 percent of whom left the country on commercial airline flights.

In addition to the instances in which potentially violent illegal immigrants left the country with no escorts, the report noted several cases in which a group of deportees did not have the required ratio of escorts. Additionally, the report faulted the INS for failing to properly coordinate with the State Department, resulting in instances in which, upon arriving in another country, the escorts simply released potentially violent individuals at the airport, having failed to contact the appropriate foreign officials.

In a letter included in the report, INS Acting Commissioner Kevin D. Rooney said he concurs with the findings and plans to take corrective actions. The INS released a statement yesterday saying that it "shares the concerns of the Inspector General and the public for in-flight safety and security."

Among the report's recommendations are that INS officials should direct each district office to ensure that all Group Three deportees are properly escorted, to implement quarterly reviews of criminal deportation cases and to certify compliance with the guidelines. The report also suggests altering the standards themselves to include illegal immigrants who may not have documented criminal histories but who are known to be potentially dangerous, such as members of terrorist or drug organizations.

-------- spying

U.S. Near Hanssen Plea Deal

New York Times
June 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Hanssen-Death-Penalty.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Prosecutors and attorneys for spy suspect Robert Hanssen are nearing a deal in which the ex-FBI agent will reveal his secrets and the Justice Department won't seek to put him to death.

The informal agreement, which would mean life imprisonment for Hanssen depends on the government being satisfied he is cooperating with its inquiries, two people familiar with the negotiations said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Prosecutors say Hanssen's actions led to the death of two double agents.

Hanssen's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, declined to comment Friday, as did the Justice Department.

Last month, Cacheris said he had reached an impasse with prosecutors over a plea bargain because the government refused to waive the death penalty in exchange for his client's cooperation.

Hanssen pleaded innocent to all charges last month.

Hanssen passed U.S. secrets to Moscow for 15 years in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds, the government alleges. The FBI said it obtained original Russian documents that detailed Hanssen's activities, including letters he allegedly wrote to his Russian handlers and secret codes used to signal when and where he would drop documents.

Fourteen of the charges against Hanssen are punishable by death.

Hanssen has been detained at an undisclosed location since his arrest Feb. 18 at a Virginia park as he delivered a package that law enforcers say was to be picked up by his Russian handlers.

The Justice Department has usually decided to forgo a full trial in spy cases.

Going to trial raises the prospect of prosecutors having to reveal in open court sensitive information about U.S. counterintelligence activities. For instance, Hanssen is accused of disclosing how the United States was intercepting Soviet satellite transmissions and the means by which the United States would retaliate against a nuclear attack.

Most modern espionage cases have ended with deals in which the defendants agree to plead guilty and tell the government about their activities in exchange for lesser sentences.

Randy Bellows, assistant U.S. attorney and a lead prosecutor in the case, has said he would submit motions for dealing with classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act, a law which provides a mechanism for courts to determine what classified information can be used as evidence.

The government and Hanssen's attorneys have agreed to an Oct. 29 date for a jury trial and plan to submit a joint request for a proposed schedule of pretrial filings and discovery.

A plea bargain would avert that.

------

Erosion of privacy on a global scale

Jimmy Johnson's Controversy Corner,
Athens News,
June 15, 2001
http://www.athensnews.gr/athweb/nathens.prnt_article?e=C&f=&t=02&m=A18&aa=3

ECHELON, the global eavesdropper, had its first faceoff with the European Parliament (EP) last month. Guess which side capitulated without a shot, or, rather, by firing a round of blanks.

The 108-page report of the EP'S "temporary committee on the Echelon interception system" was published on May 29, with enough contradictory conclusions and red herrings to deflect even moderate criticisms that American and European human rights activists have directed against this ultra-secretive surveillance apparatus. "That a global system for intercepting communications exists... is no longer in doubt," the EP report said, referring to official denials of Echelon's existence by the governments of the secret UKUSA pact which sponsored it in the 1950s. Apart from the United States, whose National Security Agency (NSA) oversees the Echelon spy operations, EU member Britain is a key UKUSA partner, together with Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But the report merely hinted that "a member state participating in such a system [could be violating] EU law" - especially the "fundamental right to privacy", only if this global surveillance system is "abused" for the purpose of gathering "competitive intelligence" (ie industrial espionage) as opposed to spying for "national security".

Of course, the report found "no concrete evidence" of industrial espionage through Echelon interceptions - even though the EP committee was appointed to investigate specific European corporate complaints as well as informal US statements and documents to that effect. But before publishing its report, the EP committee's fact-finding trip to the US was stonewalled: the NSA, the CIA, the State Department and the Department of Commerce all refused to talk to the EP delegation, cutting its mission short. Instead of denouncing this "conspiracy of silence", the report politely suggested that Echelon may not be as "comprehensive" an eavesdropper as its critics claim, because it can intercept "only a very limited portion of communications". This arbitrary conclusion contradicts the report's finding about the "purpose" of Echelon's 150 orbiting spy satellites (each with remote-sensor "footprints" covering up to 50 percent of the earth's surface) aided by a vast array of surface tracking stations and supercomputer "filtering" and processing facilities. "What is important is Echelon's purpose to intercept private, civilian and commercial communications, rather than military intelligence," the report said.

As the Guardian poignantly noted on May 30, the whole legalistic argument about industrial espionage "is a politically inspired red herring". The crucial issue is the erosion of privacy on a global scale. If left unchecked, Echelon's intrusive technology makes it a global insider-trader as well as a "a cyber secret police, without courts or the right to defence". Indeed, this silent arsenal allows Echelon to shift its surveillance scope from individual to collective "targets" (whole nations or regions) and from "passive" interception to active electronic countermeasures of the most mind-boggling or lethal kind. Another red herring concerns the actual "level" of Echelon's capability of capturing huge volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fibre-optic traffic. The real problem is the illicit "end" which justifies the constant development of illicit "means", namely the end of controlling societies without legal, moral, cultural or ecological scruples.

-------- terrorism

China, Russia to launch anti-terrorism exercises

JUNE 15, 2001 FRIDAY
By David Hsieh
STRAITS TIMES CHINA BUREAU
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,1870,51155,00.html

They formally join with four Central Asia nations to fight terrorism, separatism and religious extremism

SHANGHAI - The leaders of China, Russia and several Central Asian countries will announce ground-breaking joint military exercises against terrorism today.

The group, which was formalised yesterday as the Shanghai Cooperative Organisation (SCO), set up a joint anti-terrorism centre last year in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

'By setting up the centre, we are in a position to fight the three forces of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism in a more effective manner and maintain peace and tranquility in the region more effectively,' said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao.

The presidents of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan gathered yesterday in Shanghai to endorse the epochal transformation of the Shanghai Five into the SCO.

The new Shanghai Covenant to be signed today to fight the so-called 'three forces' is seen as an important symbol of the breakthrough.

At a press conference yesterday, Mr Zhu said: 'The covenant will have the force of law. The covenant lays solid legal foundations for enhancing cooperation among the six countries in the security area.'

The six nations have long been grappling with separatist elements in radical Islamic groups, many of which have ties to the Taliban regime of Afghanistan.

In China's far western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, militants from the Uighur minority have been waging a terrorist campaign against the rule of the majority Han Chinese in recent years.

On the sidelines of the conference, Chinese President Jiang Zemin met presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan, and Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan separately yesterday.

Mr Jiang is expected to meet Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan tomorrow.

Mr Zhu also briefed reporters on the issues discussed between the Chinese and Russian leaders.

On the US Administration's proposed missile-defence shield, he said Mr Putin reiterated Russia's stand against the plan and China gave Russia its full support in maintaining the existing global nuclear balance.

He added that the two giant neighbours would maintain close consultations on the issue.

At the same time, both sides expressed desire to develop better relations with the US.

-------- activists

Turner Starting Indie Movie Company

The Associated Press
Friday, June 15, 2001; 9:58 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline095830_000.htm

ATLANTA -- Ted Turner is forming an independent company to focus on documentaries and commercial films.

The new venture, Ted Turner Pictures, located three blocks from CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, will allow Turner to make the movies he wants to make, said Robert Wussler, chief executive of the company and a longtime business confidante.

"He has a big list," Wussler told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for Friday's editions. "He's focused on certain things about improving the quality of life, saving this planet, preserving history."

Turner is not going into this venture through AOL Time Warner, the company that now owns Turner Broadcasting, the Atlanta-based cable empire he built. Turner is vice chairman of AOL Time Warner, but has a diminished role since the merger of AOL and Time Warner earlier this year.

Wussler said one commercial picture is about to begin production, but he declined to give details. Turner is particularly interested in the Civil War and other military history, he said.

Ted Turner Pictures also will produce pieces for Turner's nonprofit organizations: the U.N. Foundation, the Turner Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

"It's something he's prepared to put a sizable amount of his financial well-being into," Wussler said.

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Protesters, Police Clash at EU Summit

By Matti Huuhtanen
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 15, 2001; 6:02 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010615/aponline060233_000.htm

GOTEBORG, Sweden -- A melee broke out between hundreds of protesters and riot police Friday morning as a two-day European Union summit got under way.

Protesters, including several wearing black hoods, began marching toward the summit venue after a morning rally on the town's central square but were blocked by riot police backed by mounted troops.

Demonstrators threw sticks and stones as police slowly forced them back toward Goeta square, where the clashes continued. Several protesters took chairs and tables from nearby cafes to build barricades, setting them afire and smashing shop windows.

"It has been a little tense out there," police spokesman Tommy Hoff admitted.

Some 25,000 protesters converged on the port city of Goteborg this week, welcoming President Bush's visit to the EU gathering with demonstrations. The protests turned violent Thursday after a daylong standoff with riot police. Authorities called for reinforcements, and hundreds were arrested.

Goeta square is less than half a mile from the summit venue. Bush left Friday for Warsaw, Poland, but police braced for more protests during EU leaders' regular two-day summit.

Roads leading to the sprawling conference center were fenced off and blocked by large metal containers. Police had stepped up security amid speculation that some extremist groups were planning to force their way into the conference center.

A shopping mall in another part of the city was closed after authorities detected a bag with an item that "could resemble an explosive device," said Hoff, the police spokesman.

A handful of protesters approached the perimeter in the morning but were quickly turned away by police.

"I'm very convinced that it will go according to plan," police spokesman Bengt Staaf told Swedish radio.

"On the other hand, these youngsters who showed their true colors yesterday. From them you can expect anything," Staaf said.

Police said more than 400 people had been detained since Thursday, with most questioned and released, but dozens remained in custody for rioting and refusing to follow police orders.

Some Norwegians and Germans were deported, authorities said.

Okoth Osewe, a political refugee from Kenya, said his group No one Is Illegal condemned "police brutality against the demonstrators and we demand the immediate release of all activists by capitalist police."

"We condemn the World Trade Organization and all imperialist financial institutions, and we are here today to fight against the bosses, against fortress Europe," he added.

Opponents believe the EU threatens national sovereignty and social welfare. Swedes are among the most skeptical, having joined only in 1995.

On Thursday, protesters made clear their opposition to Bush's policies on global warming, missile defense and capital punishment.

Some 10,000 people rallied in a downtown square in the biggest anti-Bush protest so far during his five-nation tour, which began Tuesday in Madrid, Spain. It ends Saturday in Slovenia, where Bush meets Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"He is making decisions about global issues without asking us, but look at how many we are," said 34-year-old Hannes Bjoerk, who traveled some 300 miles from the capital, Stockholm. "We don't want Bush to rule the world according to his rules."

Ahead of the Bush visit, police held extensive discussions with leaders of more than 80 protest groups in an attempt to keep the rallies peaceful.

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Court Upholds Sharpton's, Vieques Allies' Sentences

Associated Press
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A10
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4847-2001Jun14?language=printer

BOSTON, June 14 -- A federal appeals court today upheld the convictions and sentences of activist Al Sharpton and three New York politicians who were arrested during a demonstration against Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Sharpton, along with New York City Councilman Adolfo Carrion, state Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Bronx County Democratic Party Chairman Roberto Ramirez, were arrested in Puerto Rico on May 1 for trespassing on government property.

Sharpton was given a 90-day sentence because of a prior conviction for civil disobedience. The three others were each sentenced to 40 days.

The men appealed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Puerto Rico.

They alleged they were denied the right to choose their own attorney and were not given enough time to prepare for their trial. They were tried, convicted and sentenced in one day in a federal court in Puerto Rico.

Sharpton and the others had from the date of their arrest until their trial on May 23 to prepare, the appeals court noted. "The case was simple and straightforward; the evidence and witnesses were readily available," the court said.

The appeals court also found that the 40- to 90-day sentences were well within the limits set by the law for a simple misdemeanor, which carries a maximum of six months.

Sharpton's attorney had argued that the sentences were unreasonable. But the appeals court said: "The district court had valid reasons for imposing the sentences it did."

The appeals court noted that the judge in Puerto Rico gave the same sentences the day before to another group of defendants -- 40 days for first-time offenders and 90 days for second-time offenders.

Sharpton and the other men have been held at a New York detention center. The four men began a hunger strike on May 29. Carrion ended his fast after a week, but Sharpton, Rivera and Ramirez continued.

Sharpton and the other men were among approximately 180 protesters arrested this spring during demonstrations against the military exercises.

President Bush said today that the Navy will end its bombing exercises on Vieques by May 2003.

The Navy has used its range on Vieques for six decades and has said the bombing exercises are safe and vital for national security. Critics have said the exercises poses a health threat to the 9,400 people who live there.

-----------

Marchers demand ban on fluoride in water

By Laura Slattery,
Irish Times June 15, 2001
From: magnu96196@aol.com

A group concerned with the effects of fluoride in water has demanded the Government stop fluoridation immediately.

The Fluoride Free Water group marched to the Department of Health this afternoon and called on the Minister Mr Martin, to carry out health studies into the effects of fluoride in water.

They also want the Minister to begin an independent public inquiry into the mass medication, which they say is a breach of human rights. Dr Don Mac Auley, a dentist, delivered a protest letter addressed to the Minister.

International scientific studies have linked fluoride in water to hip fractures, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, thyroid disorders and neurological damage. Under the Freedom of Information Act 1997 Dr Mac Auley discovered the agent being used to fluoridate Irish water is a highly corrosive acid and a waste product of the fertiliser industry, containing lead, chromium and arsenic.

Dr Mac Auley is concerned Ireland has not signed the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicines. Under Article 5 of this convention no one is allowed to beforced to take medication to which they have not given consent.

Dr Mac Auley told ireland.com the fluoridation forum set up by the Minister last May was inadequate and he claimed it was pro-fluoride. "We deserve better than that," he said.

Marchers held placards reading "Fluoride is More Toxic than Lead" and "Poison on Tap". Sister Rachel Hoey of Fluoride Free Water carried a bottle filled with thick brown liquid that took 60 days to collect from a tap with a filter.

"It's toxic filth," she said. "Babies just a few weeks old are given a formula that is made up with fluoridated water. It is steadily building up in our children."

Fluoride is added to 73 per cent of Irish water supplies and Sister Hoey is angry that the Minister has announced plans for more fluoridation plants to be built.

Mr Joseph Glynn, a researcher from Earthwatch, said it was "irresponsible" for the Government to medicate people without prescription and dismiss scientific evidence about the effects of fluoride.

"People are spending a lot of money buying bottled water to avoid this. They have justified fears about tap water but the Minister has not actually addressed the fears," Mr Glynn said.

"I see the damage in my surgery on a daily basis now," Dr Mac Auley said. "There was no fluoride in toothpaste when fluoridation first began in the 1960s but there is so much more now and it is not being monitored."

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Campaign to Revive Whistleblower Rights!!!!!

From: "Doug Hartnett" hartnett@whistleblower.org
Friday, June 15, 2001

Dear ANA members,

Our organizations have worked together in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. As you well know, one of the critical elements to maintaining a safe environment is the information provided by those federal employees who come forward to disclose public safety risks they see on the job. In fact, it has been the Government Accountability Project's (GAP) experience that perhaps the most dramatic and significant policy impact whistleblowers have collectively achieved is in the nuclear power and weapons industry. Unfortunately, these whistleblowers continue to suffer threats, demotions, and firing, as a result of their disclosures.

GAP works with employees Hanford and other nuclear sites across the country, who have received this type of harassment after revealing safety problems at their facility. But now the law that is supposed to protect the largest number of federal employees, the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), has been virtually nullified by loopholes punched in it by the hostile Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Federal agencies are all but guaranteed legal endorsement for scaring employees into silence.

Legislation was introduced (S.995) in the Senate last Thursday to amend the WPA and restore its effectiveness. Senators Akaka (D-HI), Levin (D-IL) and Grassley (R-IA) are the Senate sponsors. The House sponsors, Gilman (R-NY) and Morella (R-MD) are currently recruiting original co-sponsors and expect to introduce the same language as the Senate by the end of this month.

A growing group of policy organizations are recognizing the import roles whistleblowers play in their own issue area, and are signing onto this campaign. Please join us in the campaign to pass this law. We have attached a link to the action alert on our web site. From there you will find more detailed information on the campaign, and a link to the campaign petition to Congress - with over 80 organizations already signed on! (Perhaps some of you!)

We encourage you take a quick look at our website, sign the petition, and follow up with members of Congress you have contacts with. If you have any additional questions or if you would like informational packets about this issue, please contact Claire Lobdell at (202)-408-0034, ext. 153. If you do make contact, it would be ideal for us to know about it so we can coordinate and reinforce each other.

Thank you for your work in the field of nuclear safely and accountability. The ANA has always been a true friend of whistleblowers. They need our support now more than ever.

Sincerely, The Government Accountability Project

Action Alert: http://www.whistleblower.org/www/actionalert3.htm

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Vigil in Oak Ridge Tennessee

Fri, 15 Jun 2001
From: Geoffrey Lowthian <peace@gofairtrade.net>

Unfortunatly after 36 days, nobody stepped forward to take over, but there is still a vigil every sunday night at the same location at 5pm. Feel free to use anything from my site for NucNews. I am now headed for the National Rainbow Gathering to share what is going on in both Oak Ridge, and DC. and to distribute Peace Pilgrim's message.

Thanks for everything you are doing there, I might show up at some point to sit a spell. I do feel it is a very important way to bring attention to the cause.

In Spiritual Solidarity, Peace, geoffrey/pax http://www.gypsyfarm.com/pax

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS. --Mahatma Gandhi

Final Day May 18

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at a rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it - but all that had gone before." -- Jacob Riis

Today I sit in front of the Y-12 nuclear bomb making facility, listening to the many honks of support, feeling very good about what I have done. We perhaps have a lot of work in front of us before we will see an end to the crimes of our country, such as making nuclear weapons in violation to the desires of the majority of Americans, and international law. I cannot quantify what I have done except perhaps by the ever increasing number of honks supporting my presence, however I trust that what I have done has had a place in the continued effort to hold our policy makers accountable by raising public awareness.

More important than any results, this time here has had a profound impact on my life, and what my actions will be in the future. Among the many gifts I have received, I have been deeply moved by the support I have received by the wonderful group of dedicated people working every day to continue the resistance here in Oak Ridge by Stop The Bombs. The time here has also given me opportunity to look deeply into my own life, and the level of my citizen participation. I will always take a piece of the "Peace Presence" with me and realize that I have a duty to be present any time I witness injustice.

The roots of the word democracy is "the people rule". I don't feel this is the current situation in our country, and I feel that it is the responsibility of active citizens to stand in opposition to many of the decisions being made on our behalf.

As far as the "Peace Presence" here in Oak Ridge, everyone would like to see it continue until the August action, as nobody has come forward to lead this effort, for now it will be scaled back to an evening presence when most of the workers leave the facility.



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