------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Tungsten revival (Canada)
Lithuanian applause
Pakistan's Military Ruler Declares Himself President
Decision Catches Pakistani Official, U.S. Off Guard
Iraq close to building nukes - defector
Secret Shipment of Nuclear Materials Leaves Japan
N. Korea Nixes Nuclear Inspection
Testimony from Powell contradicts Bush stance
No Defense for the Missile Shield
A Delicate Nuclear Balance
'Stealing' U.S. Nukes
US Government Urged to Abandon Nuclear War Plan
Radiation Victims May Soon Be Compensated
Payments to NTS workers outlined
Closing of Plant Brings More Strain
Ill 'Birdcage' workers to hear about possible compensation
Build US security on goodwill, not bombs
Helms warns Bush not to trust Putin
Rumsfeld to Recommend Defense Strategy

MILITARY
Israel Shopping for New Warships
NATO Plans Macedonian Force to Go In After Accord
Bosnian Serb Camp Commander Acquitted of Genocide
Yugoslav Reformers to Withdraw War Crimes Bill
Talks on Macedonia Conflict at an Impasse
Canadian Military Jet Crashes, Crew Survives
Army fires a test of Patriot missiles
Pro - Beijing Press Criticizes Taiwan
Iraq Says It Will 'Punish' Allies
Allied Strike Kills 23, Iraq Says
23 Iraqis Reported Killed in Airstrikes
Israel to Get $74M for Attack
Israel Suspends Military Moves to Give Truce a Chance
Sharon says army now free to act
NATO Set to Send Troops to Macedonia
NATO, U.S. OK force for Macedonia
Clouds of Fiberglass Particles Released By Vieques War Games
House schedules hearing on Vieques decision
Puerto Rico, 51st state?
Hansen stands by words
U.S. Satellites Vulnerable To Attacks, Officer Warns
Air Force Space Command Plan Warfare
NASA Plans Solar Plane Test Flights
Air Force Space Command Plan Warfare
Service Heads Keeping Corporate Ways
Defense Reforms to Guard Against Emerging Threats

OTHER
U.S. Courts Become Arbiters of Global Rights and Wrongs
Wisconsin utilities to power homes with cow manure
Hearst Castle converts to energy-wise buses
Death Penalty Council Denounces U.S.
IBM Computer Studies Fuel Efficiency
Governor Faults U.S. on Energy Refunds
Cold Water Flow From Arctic to Atlantic Is Falling.
Germany, France to Seek UN Ban on Human Cloning
Coca-Cola Joins AIDS Fight in Africa
PG police to use Tasers over deadly force
U.S., Mexico move to reduce migrant deaths along border
Senators Urge FBI Changes
Ashcroft Orders Review of FBI
Broad Review of F.B.I. Is Set as Senate Begins Hearings
Cuba Promises New Battle Over U.S. - Jailed Agents
Berenson Is Convicted in a Second Trial in Peru
Lori Berenson Wrongfully Convicted Again
Fourteen People Indicted in Khobar Towers Bombing
Shiites Early Suspects in Bombing

ACTIVISTS
Rolling Black Out
Idaho - Rainbows' permit request denied
Tibet protest
Berenson gets 20 years for rebel plot
CAN COPS LOOK THROUGH MY GARBAGE?
Body bags stockpiled for G8 summit


-------- NUCLEAR


-------- depleted uranium

Tungsten revival (Canada)
Second mine planned when CanTung exhausted

Dave Sullivan
May 21, 2001,
Northern News Services
From: uranium@t-online.de

Yellowknife (May 28/01) - A mine idle for 15 years is about to re-open, thanks in part to controversy over uranium-tipped explosive artillery shells.

The CanTung tungsten mine on the NWT side of the Yukon border west of Fort Simpson closed 15 years ago because of depressed prices.

Tungsten is among the hardest known metals, almost hard as diamonds. Prices have risen dramatically in recent years because of increased demand for dense metals that can replace armour-penetrating uranium in bombs, but mostly because China and Russia have run out of stockpiles they've been "dumping" for years, says Udo von Doehren, president of CanTung owner North American Tungsten Corporation.

CanTung, tucked between the Yukon border and Nahanni National Park, will run out of ore in about four and half years. When that happens production will be shifted to a larger deposit called MacTung located 100 kilometres north. A mine being planned for there should last 30 years, von Doehren said.

He doesn't expect problems finding workers for CanTung's reopening. "There is no shortage of qualified hard-rock miners in the North."

The company plans to hire 170 people and re-open the mine by year's end.

Mining operations will be contracted to a company that's not yet been picked.

Much better tungsten prices combined with a recently signed agreement with two big companies prompted the decision to re-open. North American Tungsten will spend about $10 million to get power generators, pumping stations and ore-processing equipment running again, von Doehren said.

Sweden-based drill equipment maker Sanvik and Germany-based Siemans subsidiary Osram Sylvania have agreed to buy everything the mine can produce -- about 900,000 tonnes over three years.

The European companies collectively are the world's biggest tungsten ore consumers. They have agreed to loan Vancouver-based North American Tungsten $4.5 million of the startup costs.

The company has not applied for regulatory approval process yet, but von Doehren says no delays are expected, as there is no evidence of environmental concerns. A previous water licence under the jurisdiction of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board is valid until September 2002. After that, he says, "we fully expect renewal."

Mine royalties will be paid to the GNWT, not Deh Cho communities, although the Deh Cho First Nations are negotiating for control of the region's resources.

Tungsten sells for $74 US per tonne, up from a low of $28 two years ago. Demand is always growing, von Doehren says, citing a decision by the U.S. military to replace lead with tungsten in bullets used in standard-issue M-16 rifles.

Many countries have also chosen to replace so-called "depleted" uranium in bomb and artillery shells because of still-unproven fears that residue from the shells causes cancer.

North American Tungsten owns 15 per cent of the world's known tungsten ore deposits, which are extracted from underground shafts. Until recently 75 per cent of the global supply came from China, but about 65 mines there and in some other countries have closed over the past couple years, von Doehren said.

Listed on the Canadian Venture Exchange, North American Tungsten's stock value soared from a low of 7 cents a share in 1999 to a 94-cent peak last year. Last week, shares were going for 68 cents.

-------- europe

Lithuanian applause

June 21, 2001,
Embassy Row,
by James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010621-83140812.htm

The Lithuanian ambassador this week praised President Bush for emphasizing his support for NATO enlargement on his European trip.

Ambassador Vygaudas Usackas noted that Mr. Bush raised the NATO issue at every stop.

"That speaks volumes for the U.S. commitment," he said in a speech this week to the State Department´s American Legion Post.

"We look to President Bush and the American people to lead the process of completing the unification of Europe through the subsequent enlargement of NATO in 2002 and beyond," he said.

Lithuania hopes to be one of the countries invited to join the alliance at a NATO summit next year.

"The bigger the group of countries ready to join NATO in 2002, the better for the completion of Europe, whole and free," he said.

Mr. Usackas, noting Russia´s objections to expanding the alliance to its borders, said, "An enlarged NATO is not a threat to anyone and membership of the Baltic states is going to help build greater cooperation with their neighbors."

The ambassador also noted that Lithuania is already proving its readiness to serve in the alliance by sending peacekeeping troops to the Balkans.

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan's Military Ruler Declares Himself President

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21PAKI.html

NEW DELHI, June 20 - Twenty months after toppling Pakistan's civilian government and assuming unbridled power under the misleadingly modest title of chief executive, and less than a month before flying to India for a crucial summit meeting, Gen. Pervez Musharraf today followed the pattern of three of Pakistan's military rulers over the last 50 years and appointed himself president and formal head of state.

After a brief, understated swearing-in ceremony in Islamabad, the Pakistan capital, General Musharraf renewed assurances that he will return the country and its 140 million people to civilian rule after elections in October 2002.

That date was set by Pakistan's Supreme Court when it endorsed the bloodless military takeover of October 1999 but stipulated a three-year deadline for restoring democracy.

In assuming the presidency while remaining army chief of staff and chief executive, the 57-year-old general said he planned "no change in the intention" to follow the court's demand for elections, which he described as "very clear."

Still, by pushing aside the departing civilian president, Rafiq Tara, and giving notice of his dismissal in a terse, one-sentence announcement that was read on Pakistan's state- controlled television at breakfast time, General Musharraf appeared to be setting the stage for a form of "guided democracy" that would leave him with final authority once an elected government was installed.

In Washington, the spokesman for the State Department, Richard A. Boucher, said General Musharraf's action "severely undermines Pakistan's constitutional order and casts Pakistan as a country ruled by decree rather than by democratic process."

Pakistan's presidency has traditionally carried a five-year term, and the general has already hinted that he intends to retain overall authority beyond next year.

But the timing of his move, three weeks before he is to arrive in New Delhi for a three-day summit meeting with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, appears to reflect diplomatic objectives too.

The meeting from July 14 to 16, billed as the most important of its kind in years, has stirred fresh hopes of a breakthrough in the half-century of enmity and war, punctuated by sputtering attempts at reconciliation, that followed the 1947 partition of British-ruled India into India, with a Hindu majority, and Pakistan, with a population that is overwhelmingly Muslim.

By taking the presidency before the summit meeting, General Musharraf appears intent on muting questions about his legitimacy, and longer-term future, as a negotiating partner on Kashmir and other knotty issues. India had registered misgivings by proposing ceremonial arrangements that seem to fall short of a full head-of-state welcome for the Pakistani leader.

In remarks televised in Pakistan, General Musharraf presented his assumption of the presidency much as he did his original seizure of power: as the act of a reluctant patriot, motivated by a desire to rid Pakistan of corruption and economic mismanagement that left the country teetering on the edge of an economic morass.

He described taking the presidency as a "personal embarrassment" but said it was "absolutely necessary" in Pakistan's national interest to enable him to carry forward reforms that he has deemed essential if Pakistan is to have a sustainable democracy.

For the swearing-in, General Musharraf shed his usual military khaki for the high-buttoned sherwani black coat that is the traditional formal wear for the subcontinent's statesmen.

His tone was unobtrusive, although the steel behind his move was underlined by the presence, prominent among the guests, of Pakistan's other top military leaders.

"I personally, in all sincerity, in all honesty, think that I have a role to play in this nation," he said, "and I sincerely think that I have a job to do here. And therefore I cannot, and I will not, let this nation down."

Mr. Tarar, the ousted president, was a figurehead appointed by the deposed civilian government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. By taking the last top post not already in his grasp, General Musharraf stripped away, as some of his Pakistanis opponents see it, the last facade of constitutional rule.

The impression was compounded by another move today, the formal dissolution of Parliament and of the legislatures in the country's four provinces. Since Parliament and all of the legislatures had been suspended since the 1999 coup, that had little practical effect.

To provide legal cover for today's moves, General Musharraf depended on a provisional constitutional order, previously approved by the Supreme Court, that gave him power to reorganize the country's institutions. But he also relied on a quiescent political situation within Pakistan.

Overt challenges to his rule have been limited, as they were after today's announcement, when there were scattered arrests of supporters of opposition political parties, and some recent opinion polls have suggested that he is supported by a majority, or something close to it, among Pakistanis.

Crucially, given that he leads a country with more than $35 billion of foreign debt, General Musharraf has also been accepted - or not strongly opposed - by Pakistan's traditional allies, including the United States, and by key international organizations like the International Monetary Fund.

Those points were pressed today by the general's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureishi, who rejected suggestions from a BBC interviewer that the Pakistani ruler was a dictator, saying that Pakistanis, and people outside Pakistan concerned for the country's well-being, recognized in General Musharraf a man "who has the best interests of the people at heart" and an austerity program that can end the downward economic spiral.

"For the first time in 14 or 15 years," General Qureishi said, referring to the last time that Pakistan had a military ruler, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, who died in an air crash in 1988, "the whole world has recognized that Pakistan has taken great strides towards becoming an economically viable country."

The restrained reaction today within Pakistan reflected, in part, the sense that General Musharraf was already all-powerful. But after living under military rulers for 26 of their 53 years as a nation, Pakistanis have grown leery of generals who promise a return to democracy, then adopt endless stratagems to delay it.

That was the case with General Zia, who held power for nine years until his death, and Gen. Mohammmad Ayub Khan, who ruled for 11 years in the 1950's and 60's. The other military ruler who became president, Gen. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, stepped down after only two years in 1971 after losing a civil war in East Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh.

Imran Khan, a former cricket hero who leads the Movement for Justice, a reformist political party, said he understood that General Musharraf felt the need for the presidency's stature before his India trip, and added that in any case his hold on the presidency would depend on his getting an elected Parliament to endorse him.

But Mr. Khan added, "What we don't want is to get into next year and suddenly find that the elections have been postponed."

Spokesmen for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who alternated as prime minister through the 1990's until both were deposed and charged in corruption scandals, were more vehement.

"It looks to me as though we're going back to the days of Zia ul- Haq," said Yusuf Talpur, a spokesman for Ms. Bhutto, who lives in self- imposed exile in London.

Mr. Sharif's son, Hasan Nawaz Sharif, said his father, freed from a lengthy jail term for corruption by General Musharraf last year in a deal that sent him into exile in Saudi Arabia, was "very sad and very disappointed" by the day's events, but added that Pakistani military rulers had all seen their grand plans for the country voided by one catastrophe or another.

One of Pakistan's most influential journalists, Najam Sethi, editor of the weekly Friday Times, said General Musharraf was taking advantage of the weak opposition to his rule.

"He's neutralized India; he's neutralized the United States; he's neutralized Europe," Mr. Sethi said. "People are learning to live with him."

In any case, there was no groundswell of opposition that might have stopped him. "The people of Pakistan are still alienated by and large from the political process," Mr. Sethi said, "and to that extent General Musharraf seems to have a clear ride."

----

Decision Catches Pakistani Official, U.S. Off Guard

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25213-2001Jun20?language=printer

The decision by Pakistan's military ruler to declare himself president yesterday came smack in the middle of his foreign minister's visit to the United States and just hours after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had told the minister that restoring democracy in Pakistan was a key element in improving relations with Washington.

"He told us they would have elections next year. We said it was very important that you do that for sanctions and other reasons," said a senior State Department official. "We were surprised to see this today."

Pakistan's foreign minister, Abdus Sattar, told administration officials during meetings in Washington yesterday that he was caught by surprise by the move by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power from Pakistan's elected government 20 months ago and will remain as army chief of staff and national chief executive.

Musharraf's action yesterday embarrassed the foreign minister and undercut his credibility, as well as that of his government, at a moment when the Bush administration had been exploring ways to improve ties and ease U.S. economic sanctions on Pakistan, a nation with nuclear weapons and a population of 140 million.

"There was no heads-up in the meetings until today. And I'm sure it caught him by surprise, the timing at least," said an administration official who met with the foreign minister Tuesday and yesterday. The official said that in addition to being a surprise, Musharraf's move "doesn't help with regard to one of the key issues on the agenda."

Yesterday afternoon, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told Sattar that the administration was "distressed" by Musharraf's swearing in.

Earlier, Powell had told Sattar that to improve relations with the United States, Pakistan would need to cut support for the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan, strictly prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and restore democracy.

Pakistan's political, financial and military support for the Taliban took up much of the discussions. "On Afghanistan, the message they received, hopefully loud and clear, was that there cannot be significant improvement in relations unless they distance themselves from the Taliban and cease support for the Taliban," an administration official said.

On nuclear weapons, Sattar told Powell on Tuesday that Pakistan intended to maintain its moratorium on testing "indefinitely," according to State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher. The Clinton administration had pressed Pakistan and India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but the Bush administration, which opposes the treaty, did not raise that issue.

Pakistan tested nuclear devices in 1998 after its neighbor and rival, India, tested nuclear devices of its own.

-------- iraq

Iraq close to building nukes - defector

By Janine Zacharia,
30 Sivan 5761 12:55
Thursday June 21, 2001
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/06/21/News/News.28756.html

WASHINGTON (June 21) - Iraq has all the basic components necessary for a nuclear bomb, but it is unclear whether it has acquired the fissile material to power it, the former head of Iraq's nuclear weapons program said yesterday.

Describing Iraq's nuclear weapons program as "more or less complete," Dr. Khidhir Hamza, who defected from Iraq in 1994, told the American Enterprise Institute that no sanctions or inspectors could thwart the well-concealed Iraqi program.

"The basic bomb components are there in Iraq. The casting is there. One of the casting furnaces was taken out but another one was built... The fuse components are there. Explosives are there. And the initiator for the nuclear reaction is there. So bomb-wise, Iraq is finished. It has the full technology to make a nuclear bomb," Hamza said.

Hamza said he understood that Iraq now has a much better bomb design than the one he was involved in producing, "but the bottleneck remains the supply of fissile material."

If Iraq has managed to purchase such nuclear-ready material, he said, "Iraq has a nuclear weapon by now. If it [has] not, it will have within a short time a nuclear weapon. I expect, another year."

Citing German intelligence estimates, Hamza said Iraq is said to have 1.3 tons of low-enriched uranium and 12 tons of natural uranium, which in their processed form would supply enough material for roughly six bombs.

Now, he said, scientists are focused on adapting the bombs to missiles that can transport them. With continued sanctions making smuggling difficult, Hamza speculated that Iraq is also pursuing a program to develop the technology to produce its own fissile material primarily through what is known as "diffusion."

"Iraq has the material right now, has the technology right now, to go into uranium enrichment if it wants," he said.

Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

Hamza said the Iraqi nuclear program is so well disguised and dispersed - in hospitals, schools, and small buildings in industrial complexes - that even if UN inspectors, absent since 1997, returned, they would never be able to detect it. And since most of the material necessary for the bomb is already inside Iraq, sanctions, he said, can do little to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

"The program is now harder to target, probably impossible to target," he said.

-------- japan

Secret Shipment of Nuclear Materials Leaves Japan

Press Release
21 June, 2001
http://www.cnic.or.jp/

A freighter carrying highly radioactive used or "spent" nuclear fuel left Tokai Port today without any official announcement of its departure. Due to recent strong international concerns over Japan's nuclear shipments, electric companies and the industry have began to announce the departure dates and routes. However, despite our request for information disclosure, Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPCO) continues to refuse to follow the examples of others.

The cargo contains 1,320 gas-cooled reactor fuel from JAPCO's Tokai Plant, and is being transported on the British-flagged, Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL) freighter "Pacific Sandpiper". PNTL is a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuel plc (BNFL) known in Japan for the 1999 scandal in which the company falsified quality control data of mixed plutonium-uranium oxide (MOX) fuel for Japanese reactors Takahama 3 and 4.

Hideyuki Ban of Citizens' Nuclear Information Center said "There is no reason why JAPCO should not release information on the departure date and the route since other companies are releasing such information for the shipments of MOX fuel and radioactive waste." The company explains that they cannot release such information for security reasons.

Based on past experience, the ship will most likely transit through Panama Canal and the Caribbean Sea. Concerns and oppositions against the transportation of Japanese nuclear materials strengthened in Panama after it regained control over the Canal at the end of 1999. Moreover, en-route countries have increasingly become vocal of their opposition against such shipments and have become to assert that the international law not only gives them sovereignty over territorial marine waters but also jurisdiction in matters concerning the protection and preservation of the marine ecosystems in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). (Ex. March 2001 "Rio Group" declaration etc.)

"JAPCO must respect the concerns of the en-route countries and immediately release information on this shipment. Moreover, Japanese utilities and the government must sincerely listen to the concerns and oppositions of the en-route countries, and should promptly make arrangements to end such dangerous transportation of nuclear materials through international waters." said Hideyuki Ban.

(Photos of the Pacific Sandpiper at Tokai and Hitachi Port available at http://www.cnic.or.jp/english/transport/photo/photo03.html.)

For more information contact: Gaia Hoerner, International Relations, CNIC, (tel) 81-3-5330-9520
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
1-58-15-3F, Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku,Tokyo, Japan
Phone: +81-3-5330-9520 Fax: +81-3-5330-9530
cnic-jp@po.iijnet.or.jp, cnic@kiwi.ne.jp, cnic@jca.apc.org,

-------- korea

N. Korea Nixes Nuclear Inspection

June 21, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-NKorea-Nuclear.html?searchpv=aponline
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010621/aponline113508_000.htm

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea will not allow U.N. monitors to inspect its nuclear program until the United States speeds up construction of two nuclear reactors promised to the communist state, an official news report said Thursday.

Under a 1994 agreement with Washington, North Korea froze its nuclear program, which U.S. officials suspected was being used to develop weapons.

The North said its nuclear program was only for peaceful purposes and it did not have the ability to build atomic bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency wants to assess that claim.

The U.N. nuclear agency said verification may take two to three years and its experts must start work immediately so that construction of the nuclear reactors can proceed.

``This is in contravention of the (North Korea)-U.S. agreed framework and an affront to the (North),'' North Korea's official news agency, KCNA, reported.

Construction of the nuclear reactors that Washington promised to build in return for the freeze on the North's nuclear program also has been delayed by funding problems and political tensions. U.S. officials have said the reactors will not be completed until 2008, five years behind schedule.

Because of the delays, North Korea said it has no reason to allow verification by the IAEA. It has also demanded compensation for the delays, which Washington has rejected.

U.S. experts said that before the accord, North Korea was suspected of having enough plutonium to make one or two atomic bombs.

The Bush administration wants verification that North Korea was not building atomic bombs and has said the nuclear problem will be a key topic when it reopens dialogue with North Korea.

The North's official news agency, monitored in Seoul, accused the IAEA of acting at the behest of the United States in pushing for immediate inspections.

North Korea is among 187 nations committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which allows IAEA to make sure nuclear technology is used for peaceful purposes.

-------- missile defense

Testimony from Powell contradicts Bush stance
BLOCK TO NUCLEAR WAR STILL NEEDED, PANEL TOLD

BY JONATHAN WRIGHT
Reuters -
June 21, 2001,
San Jose Mercury News
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/nation/docs/newpowell21.htm

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that mutually assured destruction, the basis of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, would be indispensable even if Washington built a missile defense.

In remarks that challenge one of the Bush administration's main arguments for missile defense, Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: ``You can't entirely do away with what has been known as mutual assured destruction.''

``It means that you keep enough weapons so that you will always be able to deter anyone else who is planning to strike you,'' he added.

Mutually assured destruction is the military strategy that holds that if Russia and the United States have enough nuclear weapons to retaliate against a first strike, fear of destruction will deter both countries from initiating nuclear war.

The proposed missile defense attempts to protect against nuclear attack by shooting down nuclear missiles.

President Bush, on his first official visit to Europe last week, argued that opposition to a missile-defense system was based on Cold War thinking, including the concept of mutually assured destruction, often known as MAD.

Bush urged allies and Russia to move beyond Cold War strategies.

Critics of the proposed system say that it would stimulate a nuclear arms race because potential adversaries of the United States would want to build enough new missiles to maintain the credibility of their nuclear deterrent.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters this week that Russia could respond to a missile-defense system by putting multiple nuclear warheads on some of its missiles -- a practice banned by arms-control agreements.

Powell told the Senate panel Wednesday that he doubted the Russians would do this when they saw that missile defense had limited objectives.

``There would be such transparency about what we are doing. It's not clear to me why a Russian planner could successfully walk in and say to Mr. Putin, `Rather than fixing our economy, let's double the size of our strategic force,' '' Powell said.

``Claims that the Russians will suddenly break out in an arms race and start doing this, that and the other are a bit overstated, even by the Russians, even when they say it,'' he said.

----

No Defense for the Missile Shield

By Mary McGrory
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26182-2001Jun20?language=printer

Domestic critics of national missile defense have little chance of attracting as much attention as their European counterparts -- mass mooning is hard to beat. But at least they can hope that President Bush's saunter through Europe, which ended with the surprise Slovenian soul scrape with former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, could lead to a long delayed public debate on the whole subject of arming outer space.

Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) thinks a good point to start would be with public distribution of the unclassified Coyle report, a short history of missile test failures that the Pentagon wants restricted to congressional readers. It is the work of Phil Coyle, former chief tester for the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, who is now with the Center for Defense Information. Coyle testified at a hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security on Sept. 8 of last year. Tierney's been trying to pry the report out of the Pentagon's grip ever since.

Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) disagrees with Tierney about missile defense but not about release of the Coyle report. "If the proponents can't be persuasive that's our fault, but the question should be addressed in public," Shays says.

Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld is the administration's lead cheerleader. His bizarre call for deployment now, tests later, has been echoed by other Republican notables such as Senate Republican leader Trent Lott. Bush has shown a proclivity for studies of other issues such as North Korea and military organization, but for NMD, which involves colossal expenditure, destruction of the ABM Treaty and disruption of diplomatic arrangements with friend and foe, no such consideration is given.

The report would not shock anybody. It is common knowledge that the first test was rigged so that the kill vehicle could not miss the brightly glowing missile and that the subsequent two tests simply failed. Perhaps it has to do with the Pentagon compulsion to keep control of anything that falls into its hands. Or maybe they think there's just no point in further publicizing bad news about the president's obsession.

Administration fans never mention the niggling details about the system's failure to work; instead they say NMD foes are hopelessly old hat. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, spoke last weekend of the importance of getting rid of the ABM Treaty, which arms controllers regard as the key safeguard against nuclear war, as "a relic" -- she disparaged the relevance of a treaty more than 30 years old.

Phil Coyle notes dryly that the Constitution is older than that and still matters. During his seven Pentagon years (1994-2001) Coyle was often pulled aside and asked why he didn't get with the program. His reply: "Bear in mind these are our sons and daughters who are going to test these weapons. It is very compelling. We have a responsibility to send military equipment to these kids that really works."

He recalls that he flew in a V-22 Osprey with a young Marine colonel who was later killed in one of the planes.

Coyle agrees with Tierney that the NMD discussion has to be wrested away from "Why?" to "How?" The politician's difficulty with looking at Bush's version of Star Wars with some objectivity is illustrated by the way the questions are phrased.

"Don't you have an obligation to protect Americans from missiles?" gets an overwhelmingly positive response.

But "Do you want to spend between $200 billion and $300 billion on a system that doesn't work?" gets a resounding no.

Politicians are intimidated by charges that they are indifferent to the fate of their people who might be hit by an ICBM neatly packaged with a North Korean return address. That master politician Bill Clinton, a policy wonk who could argue the Star Wars fanatics under the table, caved in to pressure and okayed a limited, land-based contraption that did not violate the ABM Treaty.

Coyle hopes Congress can develop some skepticism about Bush's schemes. Democrats have been polite about his trip but have noted it was not a pride-stirrer: It was the first time an American president has appeared as a hardware salesman abroad. Usually the New World tells the Old World about peace and hope. Bush's vision was of a world bristling with armaments.

For arms control advocates, the most heartening development -- and the most significant consequence of Sen. James M. Jeffords's bolting -- could be the elevation of Carl Levin of Michigan to the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee. There are no stars in his eyes about Star Wars. He wants to see it properly tested before it is hoisted into space.

-------- russia

A Delicate Nuclear Balance

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By ANATOL LIEVEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/opinion/21LIEV.html?searchpv=nytToday

COPENHAGEN -- At his press conference in Moscow after he met with President Bush in Slovenia, President Vladimir Putin of Russia indicated his interest in a compromise on amending the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow an American missile defense. But he also indicated, forcefully, that this must be a genuine compromise, taking Russian concerns into account, or Russia would retaliate with a major expansion of its nuclear arsenal. This tough stance was inevitable. From the Russian point of view, it is an effort at balance.

The American plans carry an obvious long-term threat to Russia's own nuclear deterrent; from the viewpoint of Russian security, adding warheads to counter an American missile shield would be a logical course. More immediately, the plans put Russia in a complex situation - especially, as President Putin hinted, with regard to China.

Russian and other opponents of antimissile programs have good reason to hope that defense systems will go on failing in tests, eventually burying the whole plan in domestic opposition and ridicule. The Democratic ascendancy in the Senate has increased Russian hopes in this regard. This is one good reason for Russia not to rush into an agreement.

Another reason is that Russia has no interest in getting ahead of Europe on this issue. As President Bush's talks with European leaders indicated, the latter remain profoundly skeptical of missile defense.

Russia has no interest in encouraging European leaders to abandon their skepticism. Russian hard-liners believe Russia passed up a golden opportunity to split the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over how to conduct the Kosovo war. Hostility to the United States in the Russian establishment remains strong and is fueled by the imminent prospect of NATO's expanding to include the Baltic states. Under such pressure at home, the Russian government is certainly not going to give free help to Mr. Bush in bridging a gap between America and Europe that American policies created.

If Russia is to cooperate with the United States on missile defense, it will only do so at a price. The first part of the Russian price relates to money and technology. The Russian security establishment was appalled at the shattering of Russia's high technology sector by Western-backed economic reforms in the 1990's, and by the supplanting of Russia on international markets. In return for agreeing to amend the ABM treaty, Moscow is likely to want both access to American technology and major American purchases of its own products.

Even more important, however, is the question of how, and to what extent, the ABM treaty is amended. Moscow wants a very tightly defined amendment that would allow limited protection against a few missiles from "rogue states" but would explicitly exclude future development toward a fuller shield.

This stance is dictated not only by Russia's interests, but also, as Mr. Putin stated, by those of China. Even a full-scale development of national missile defense would take decades to threaten Russia's massive deterrent - leaving aside whether Russia, as Mr. Putin indicated, would begin adding warheads in response to unilateral American action. However, the effectiveness of China's small arsenal could be compromised very much sooner. And Russia cannot afford to make a deal with the United States at Beijing's expense.

In part, this is because Moscow needs China to counter American global influence. But even if that were not so, Russia could still not risk angering China on a vital matter, not with a long common border and a huge and growing disproportion in population and non-nuclear military might. So American negotiators must recognize that their Russian opposite numbers will, to some extent, represent Chinese interests.

Should the United States be prepared to negotiate with Russia on these terms? A public debate on this question is necessary; and for that to occur the Bush administration must decide what it really wants from missile defense and tell the public of its decision. Whether because of coyness, uncertainty, caution or some other factor, the administration's intentions on this major policy issue remain rather mysterious. If the aim is a limited shield against rogue states, then a compromise with Russia (and perhaps even China) should be possible. If the hope is to create an expandable system leading to the militarization of space, then neither Russian, nor indeed European, acceptance is likely to be forthcoming.

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

'Stealing' U.S. Nukes

Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A24
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26172-2001Jun20?language=printer

Sam Nunn's June 12 op-ed column registered serious concerns about the vulnerability of Russia's plutonium and bomb-grade uranium to terrorists. But Mr. Nunn did not mention that the comparable U.S. bomb complex has similar vulnerabilities.

Independent inspections by Department of Energy teams, Army special forces and Navy Seals have confirmed this threat as recently as six months ago.

For example, in October during a drill at Los Alamos nuclear weapons facility, "suicidal terrorists" gained control of sensitive nuclear materials that would have resulted in a sizable nuclear detonation. In another drill at Rocky Flats, Navy Seals "stole" enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs.

The Department of Energy has protected itself from criticism by classifying information that would reveal its incompetence. Officials overseeing these facilities have tried to raise concerns only to be silenced, fired and marginalized. As a result, these vulnerabilities are not being addressed, leaving the lives of millions of Americans, the environment and our nation's security at risk.

DANIELLE BRIAN
Executive Director
Project on Government Oversight
Washington

--------

US Government Urged to Abandon Nuclear War Plan

Thursday, June 21, 2001
People's Daily (China)
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200106/21/eng20010621_73123.html

A US environmental organization has called on the Bush administration to get ride of its nuclear war plan aimed at Russian, China and other potential rivalries, and drastically whittle down its nuclear arsenal, presumably with more than 8,000 warheads at present, to a few hundred.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in a study released on Tuesday, also called for shifting nuclear war planning to a civilian-military command under the oversight of U.S. Congress.

Under its nuclear attack plan, which was codified into a Single Integrated Operation Plan (SIOP) in 1960, the United States has directed thousands of nuclear warheads against numerous targets in Russia, China and some other Cold War "enemies," including factories, command bunkers and military bases.

According to the latest issue of Times magazine, 10 years after the Cold War came to an end, the United States now still possesses 5,400 warheads loaded on intercontinental ballistic missiles on land and at sea, an additional 1,750 nuclear bombs and cruise missiles ready to be launched from B-2 and B-52 bombers, a further 1,670 nuclear weapons classified as "tactical."

Under the latest SIOP, approved by President Bill Clinton in 1997, more than 2,000 warheads remain on constant alert on land- and-sea-based missiles, which can take off within 30 minutes once Russia, Chian or some other nations launch a surprise nuclear attack against the United States.

The NRDC's two-year study shows that a U.S. strike at Russian missile silos and other nuclear forces would kill 8 million to 12 million Russians. Another study concludes that a single U.S. Trident missile submarine, which carries 192 nuclear warheads, could inflict more than 50 million casualties if the missiles hit Russian cities.

In its latest study report, the NRDC complains that the U.S. nuclear weaponry stockpile is too large and should be cut off sharply. "At this stage in the disarmament process, a U.S. stockpile numbering in the hundreds is more than adequate to achieve the single purpose of deterrence," the NRDC said in the report.

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

Radiation Victims May Soon Be Compensated

By Robert Gehrke,
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 21, 2001
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/364842news06-21-01.htm

WASHINGTON - Ill uranium miners and residents sickened by radioactive fallout from nuclear tests are a step closer to long-awaited compensation from the government.

Money to pay government IOUs worth $84 million will be included in the version of a $6.5 billion spending bill going today to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"Our people don't have to wait very long," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. It was unclear, however, how soon checks could arrive if the spending were to be approved.

Lori Goodman, a spokeswoman for the group Dine CARE, which represents sick Navajo Indians who worked in the uranium mines, remained wary: The allocation still must be approved by the Senate, agreed to by the House and signed by President Bush.

"It's hard to get all excited about it anymore," she said. "We've been waiting, and we'll be cheering when it does happen."

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed in 1990 to provide cash payments of $100,000 to uranium miners and $75,000 to "down-winders" - residents exposed to radioactive fallout caused by nuclear weapons tests in Nevada.

Many of the uranium mines were in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona and many of the miners were Navajos. The down-winders lived in southern Nevada and Utah and northern Arizona, where fallout settled from nuclear weapons tests near Las Vegas.

Last year, the act was expanded to cover more people, but no new money was added. Starting in May 2000, qualifying claimants received letters informing them the program was out of money. Several have died from their illnesses awaiting payments.

"In a situation that has added insult to injury, the federal government has been issuing worthless IOUs for months," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., in a statement. "It is high time we appropriate the funds necessary for compensating the uranium workers who dedicated their lives to helping us win the Cold War."

The Bush administration has proposed spending $97 million next year and $710 million over the next decade to pay RECA claims, but that money would not be available until the next fiscal year, which begins in October.

Despite lobbying from southwestern members of Congress, Bush did not include the $84 million in his request for supplemental appropriations, which would be available much sooner.

Domenici and Bingaman persuaded Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to add the money to the Senate bill.

It was one of the few departures from the president's request, said Domenici, who was grateful for Byrd's consideration.

The money will come out of a surplus in a loan program designed to help oil and gas companies hurt by foreign imports.

The Senate vote could come as early as next week. Domenici said he expects Senate negotiators to persuade House conferees to include the money in the version of the bill to go to the president.

On the Net

Justice Department's Radiation Exposure Compensation Program: www.usdoj.gov/civil/ torts/const/reca/index.ht

-------- nevada

Payments to NTS workers outlined

By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>,
June 21, 2001
LAS VEGAS SUN
From: "L.V. Citizen Alert" <lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net>

The Departments of Labor and Energy have scheduled town hall meetings at the end of June in Las Vegas to explain how hundreds of Nevada Test Site workers can receive compensation for exposure to radiation and hazardous materials.

Thousands of workers helped conduct more than 1,000 above-ground and underground nuclear weapons experiments at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, from 1951 to 1992, and up to 600 may be eligible for compensation, the DOE has estimated.

Las Vegas is one of more than 25 communities where the town hall meetings are scheduled through July, Peter Turcic, chief of the compensation program for the Labor Department, said.

The meetings are scheduled for 7 p.m. on June 28 and 1 p.m. on June 29 at Texas Station hotel-casino, Turcic said.

Congress approved a new law in October that pays a lump sum of $150,000 and covers the medical expenses of workers who became ill from exposure to radiation, the metal dust beryllium used in nuclear weapons or silica as a result of working in the government's nuclear weapons industry.

The Labor Department has primary responsibility under the law, Turcic said. Those attending the town hall meetings will receive a packet of information, including forms for applying to receive compensation, he said.

A resource center will be set up in Las Vegas for workers who cannot attend the hearings, he said. Workers can receive information and copies of the forms necessary to apply for benefits at the center.

The first compensation checks could be sent later this year.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao announced Monday that she has hired former Assistant Secretary of Energy David Michaels as a consultant to the program. Michaels held a daylong hearing in February in Las Vegas, where more than 500 Test Site workers described how they had been exposed to radiation from the nuclear blasts and dust and beryllium particles inside the tunnels.

"This is our first opportunity to meet with workers and explain the law in detail," Chao said. "It's critical that people know how to fill out these forms properly."

-------- ohio

Closing of Plant Brings More Strain

By John Nolan
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; 1:20 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010621/aponline132019_000.htm

PIKETON, Ohio -- In the coming months, Marybeth Hamel and hundreds of her co-workers at one of the nation's last two uranium enrichment plants will lose some of the best-paying jobs in a region long plagued by high unemployment.

U.S. Enrichment Corp. says it can no longer afford to operate the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a massive facility the government built in the 1950s to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and submarines, because of low prices caused by a market glut for nuclear plant fuel.

Production stopped last month, and this month layoffs of nearly a quarter of the plant's 1,700 workers began. The rest will remain to handle contract work and maintain equipment. At its peak in the 1980s, the plant employed more than 3,000 people.

The company will keep a sister plant in Paducah, Ky., open, and it will buy highly enriched Russian uranium from that country's decommissioned nuclear warheads.

Some members of Congress, who agreed to make the company private in 1998 to give it more flexibility to respond to market conditions, are now angry that it is laying off former federal workers who helped get the country through the Cold War.

At the Department of Energy's insistence, the company will keep the southern Ohio plant in a "cold standby status" so that it can be restarted if needed.

For Hamel, it will be her second layoff from the plant in a decade. But unlike last time, she isn't going to wait around for another job to open up - she already has been accepted into a nurse training program in Nashville, Tenn.

"The first time I was laid off, I had Tums on my desk and Zantac," Hamel said. "This time, I look at it as a temporary transition."

U.S. Enrichment has earmarked $20 million for community development, severance pay and extended benefits for laid-off workers, who on average earned $40,000 a year with another $20,000 in benefits. But that does little to cushion the shock for workers who have spent decades at the plant, union officials say.

"We have people who have never worked anywhere else," said Garry Sexton, a safety representative for the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy International Union Local 5-689. "They came out of high school here.

"We've been on a roller coaster ride for a long time, ever since privatization," said Sexton, a 17-year employee. "It's been a ride, with people not knowing what their destiny is going to be."

Union president Dan Minter said meeting with plant veterans who are losing jobs is an emotional drain. He has traveled to Washington repeatedly - four times last month alone - to lobby for government attention for the workers.

"It's the most difficult thing I've had to deal with in my lifetime," Minter said.

The region, with rolling green hills and sweeping views of the Ohio River, historically has the state's highest unemployment. Pike County, home to the plant, had a 6.9 percent unemployment rate in April, nearly double the statewide rate.

Hamel, 35, of Lucasville, said she doesn't know when exactly her layoff date will be. She just knows it is coming.

Her father worked at the plant and has retired. Her brother, sister-in-law and brother-in-law also work there.

Her current job is working as a safety representative for plant subcontractor Bechtel Jacobs. She is hoping to parlay her experience into a new career as an occupational nurse.

Her daughter, Bethany, an eighth-grader, cries at the prospect of leaving her 300-student school for a 1,700-student building full of strangers in Nashville.

"She's been a cheerleader since third grade," Hamel said. "She didn't go out for cheerleading this year because she didn't want to take another girl's spot. It broke her heart."

-------- tennessee

Ill 'Birdcage' workers to hear about possible compensation for radiation-related diseases

By CHANTAL ESCOTO
The Leaf-Chronicle - Tennesseean.com
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/01/04/05972534.shtml?Element_ID=59725

CLARKSVILLE - For the first time, Cold War-era workers who believe they were sickened by handling radioactive material at a Clarksville military facility will be able to talk to someone in person about possible compensation.

Today at Austin Peay State University, representatives from the U.S. Labor Department will explain a new law outlining a compensation program for former ''Birdcage'' workers and their family members. The Birdcage, also called Clarksville Base, was a special weapons storage area that operated on the Fort Campbell Army post between 1947 and 1965.

''When we set up the 800 number that people could call about the program, the areas where the most calls have come from are those who worked at Clarksville Base,'' said Sue Blumenthal, Paducah, Ky., Labor Department spokeswoman. ''This is our chance to explain how to apply and where to apply.

''One point we're trying to make is that to file a claim, they don't have to have all their work and medical history. But they need to get their claim in as soon as possible.''

The law, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, goes into effect July 31, which is the earliest that claims will be processed, she added.

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.

Between 650,000 and 750,000 workers nationwide may have been exposed to radiation and the toxic materials beryllium and silica, according to the Labor Department.

Many say that the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 is a step in the right direction.

Mary G. Boisseau's father worked at the Clarksville Base and died in 1975. She said she's hoping to finally get some answers after she was left in the dark about her father's terminal illness.

''All workers should be treated with respect and should be compensated for this. I have thought long and hard about this, and I just feel it has been very poorly'' communicated to the families of workers.

''Why did they wait so long to do this and why weren't their family members notified? I will certainly tell people about this meeting.''

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

Getting there

Representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor's Energy Employee's Compensation Program will have an information forum at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. today at Austin Peay State University's Music/Mass Communication Building on Marion Street. For more information, call the Department of Labor at 1-877-447-9756 or log onto the Department of Energy Office of Worker Advocacy Web site at http://tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/index.html.

Chantal Escoto covers Fort Campbell for The Leaf-Chronicle and can be reached by phone at (931) 245-0216 or e-mail at chantalescoto@theleafchronicle.com.

-------- us nuc politics

Build US security on goodwill, not bombs

By Tom Z. Collina
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2001
OPINION, Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/06/21/p9s2.htm WASHINGTON

In President Bush's first meeting with his Russian counterpart, he stressed the need for a system to defend against missile attacks from so-called rogue nations. According to press accounts, President Putin was polite in his continued opposition to Bush's plan for a missile defense system. But both leaders failed to acknowledge that the greatest danger to global security comes from the same old place - Russia, and by extension, the United States.

Last month, Mr. Bush stated: "Unlike the cold war, today's most urgent threat stems not from thousands of ballistic missiles in the Soviet hands, but from a small number of missiles in the hands of [rogue] states." Say that again? A handful of missiles that North Korea might acquire in the future is a greater danger than 1,000 Russian nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert?

Not a chance. It is true that, thankfully, we no longer face the realistic possibility of intentional nuclear attack from Russia. And, yes, long-range missiles in the hands of dictators are a serious concern. But that threat pales in comparison to the dangers posed by a crumbling Russian empire - a mistaken launch of Russian nuclear weapons and the risk that the spread of bomb ingredients from Russia will feed further nuclear appetites.

Ten years after the cold war evaporated, the US still has more than 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads on high alert - ready to launch at Russia within minutes. Russia struggles to match our quick-launch capabilities, but its early warning and control systems are deteriorating. This hair-trigger posture gravely increases the risk that a mistake in Russia could spark a nuclear war. This is not an idle concern. In 1995, Russia came dangerously close to launching a nuclear strike in response to what it thought might have been a US attack. Fortunately, Moscow was able to figure out in time that it was only an experimental rocket fired from Norway. Recognizing this danger, last year Bush said "for two nations at peace, keeping so many weapons on high alert may create unacceptable risks of accidental or unauthorized launch." He's right.

Unfortunately, the Russian warheads on hair-trigger alert are only the tip of the nuclear iceberg. Moscow also struggles to control up to 20,000 nuclear weapons either deployed or in storage, as well as vast supplies of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons materials - as well as thousands of missiles. There are tens of thousands of underpaid Russian scientists and technicians who might be tempted to sell their knowledge. As the recent bipartisan study chaired by Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler warned, Russia could emerge as "a virtual 'Home Depot' for would-be proliferators."

To its credit, the administration is considering reducing the US nuclear arsenal and its readiness for quick launch. Bush says he wants to lead by example, and then encourage Russia to follow suit. Such efforts should be supported and applauded.

But herein lies the rub: Bush's aggressive pursuit of a national missile defense system will make it difficult, if not impossible, for Moscow to shift to a safer nuclear stance. US intention to deploy this system undermines Russia's confidence that it could retaliate against a US attack, and encourages Moscow to maintain its quick-launch readiness. Missile defense also threatens US-Russian cooperation in general, and with it, future US-funded efforts to help Moscow control its nuclear weapons, materials, and scientists. Moreover, a defense system cannot hope to intercept a mistaken Russian launch. Such a launch could involve hundreds, if not thousands, of warheads, which would be accompanied by decoys to fool the defense.

The Bush administration's obsession with missile defense misses the central reality of US security - built upon and dependent on the cooperation and goodwill of US friends, allies, and even so-called competitors. The US cannot reduce the nuclear threats from Russia - both mistaken launch and loose nukes - on its own.

• Tom Z. Collina is the director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is one of 16 scientists and security experts who co-authored the recent report Toward True Security: A US Nuclear Posture for the Next Decade.

For further information:

Government of the Russian Federation White House Putin, Bush Reach Across the Divide Moscow Times

----

Helms warns Bush not to trust Putin

June 21, 2001
By John Wagner
McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010621-17039480.htm

Sen. Jesse Helms, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized President Bush yesterday for "an excessively personal endorsement" of Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

Following a meeting in Slovenia on Saturday, Mr. Bush told reporters that he found Mr. Putin "very straightforward and trustworthy" and called him "a remarkable leader." In a gesture of friendship, Mr. Bush invited the Russian leader to his ranch in Texas.

But Mr. Helms said the Russian president was "far from deserving" of such praise. "I criticized officials from the previous administration for using nearly those exact words to describe Mr. Putin," the North Carolina Republican said.

The senator then ticked off a litany of concerns about Mr. Putin, including his imposing "the jackboot of repression" on the press, violating arms-control treaties, transferring weapons technology to rogue states and continuing a military crackdown against Chechnya.

Mr. Helms made his comments at the outset of a committee hearing featuring testimony from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Mr. Powell defended his president´s performance in his meeting with Mr. Putin and said "a little too much is being made of this language."

"He went in there strong, he came out strong, and he met a man who is strong as well," Mr. Powell said. "The president went in there and made it clear what he believed and what he stood for, and he didn´t blink in the slightest."

Mr. Powell said Mr. Bush didn´t hesitate to raises areas of concern, including the military campaign against Chechnya, arms sales to Iran and repression of religious and media freedoms in Russia.

Mr. Helms, who was generally deferential to the Bush administration in its opening months, has shown more of a willingness to criticize its foreign policy in recent weeks. Last month, he questioned whether the administration was being firm enough with China.

--------

Rumsfeld to Recommend Defense Strategy

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Rumsfeld.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress on Thursday he expects to recommend to President Bush by late summer a new U.S. defense strategy and new approach to sizing the military.

Rumsfeld said he has not yet decided on a new defense strategy but has drawn some preliminary conclusions with senior military officers on how to improve the strategy that has guided U.S. defense planning for more than a decade.

``We need to prepare now for the new and different threats we will face in the decades ahead -- not wait until they fully emerge,'' he said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A key element of the evolving new strategy is improving the capabilities of U.S. forces deployed in Europe and Asia. He provided no details on the kinds of improvements he had in mind.

``We believe this would pose a stronger deterrent in peacetime, allow us to tailor forces for each region, and provide capabilities to engage and defeat adversaries' military objectives wherever and whenever they might challenge the interests of the United States, our allies and friends,'' he said.

Rumsfeld said the Pentagon would invest more in what he called ``rapidly deployable standing joint forces.'' He defined this as troops based abroad that could undertake a wide range of military missions with a minimal need for reinforcement from U.S. territory.

Current U.S. strategy is based on being able to conduct two major regional wars at the same time. Rumsfeld said this strategy was outdated because it overemphasized near-term threats such as North Korea at the expense of preparing for longer-term threats like weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld stressed the need to prepare for emerging and still unknown threats, such as attacks on computer networks.

``There are dangerous capabilities being developed at this moment that we do not know about, and may not know about for years, in come cases until after they are deployed,'' he said.

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

Israel Shopping for New Warships

21 June 2001 Stratfor.com
http://defence-data.com/current/page11311.htm

Analysis

In a move expected to provoke similar actions from Egypt and Syria, Israel may buy up to five new Sa'ar-5 corvettes, according to the Jerusalem Post. The warships would help Israel secure coastal waters and potentially provide a platform for nuclear weapons.

Neighbouring rivals are already moving to increase their naval capabilities, partly to counter Israel's new bid for sea power. Shifting the focus from land-based to naval defence systems will challenge the dominant role of national armies in the Middle East and North Africa and foster inter-service rivalries that could impair each country's military readiness.

Israel already has three Sa'ar-5s in service, and the new models - costing more than $200 million each - would substantially improve Israel's naval strength. Ton-for-ton, the Sa'ar-5 is considered the most heavily armed ship in the world. Each is stocked with Harpoon and Gabriel II surface-to-surface missiles, torpedoes, a 76 mm gun and Barak surface-to-air missiles, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The warships would serve a dual purpose: They could increase Israel's ability to launch nuclear strikes from the sea - a capability that now depends mostly on Dolphin-class submarines newly acquired from Germany - and they would help secure Israel's coastal waters. In May, the Israeli navy intercepted a Lebanese ship smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip, but the ship's captain said two similar cargos' had made it through.

But neighbouring countries will not let Israel's naval build-up go unchallenged. Logical countermeasures include attack submarines, anti-ship missiles and coastal patrol craft. Potential rivals along the Mediterranean already are exploring some of these options.

Algeria is looking to upgrade its two Russian-built Kilo-class submarines. Algeria already operates medium-range diesel-electric boats. Egypt has signed a letter of intent to purchase two Moray 1400-class diesel-electric submarines, Defense Daily International reported in October. It already has four antiquated Russian-type Romeo-class submarines built by China.

According to sources close to the Russian defence industry, Syria and Egypt are both interested in the Russian-built "Sunburn" anti-ship missile, known technically as the SS-N-22 MOSKIT. The Sunburn can reach speeds past Mach 2 - twice as fast as American Harpoons or French Exocets - reducing the target's time to launch countermeasures.

Israel's potential adversaries, such as Egypt and Syria, likely will reconfigure their military budgets to counter the emerging sea threat - but to their own detriment. The Egyptian and Syrian armies, which traditionally get the lion's share of military funding, face quality and readiness issues.

Spending more money on their navies won't be easy for Cairo or Damascus. Their military budgets have stayed relatively flat over the past five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and both economies are struggling. Egypt and Syria may get some favourable purchasing terms from Russia, but they will likely have to divert funds away from their armies.

-------- balkans

NATO Plans Macedonian Force to Go In After Accord

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21NATO.html

NATO is planning to send a force of up to 3,000 troops to Macedonia to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels if a political settlement is reached to end the insurgency in the troubled republic.

The NATO mission would probably be led by the British and would draw predominately on forces from European nations.

The United States is likely to provide transport, intelligence and other forms of support, allied officials said. But in keeping with the Bush administration's skeptical approach toward peacekeeping, Washington is not expected to send troops to Macedonia to join directly in the effort to take away the rebels' weapons.

NATO ambassadors approved the basic concept of the force at a meeting in Brussels yesterday. The precise troop contributions of allied members and other details still need to be worked out. NATO would have to make a separate decision to deploy the troops.

The initial proposal for the force came last week from Macedonia's president, Boris Trajkovski. He asked NATO to send troops to disarm the insurgents if a settlement was reached.

The request came at a crucial juncture. Peace talks are stalemated. The shaky cease-fire declared by the Macedonian government is to expire on Monday and is regularly interrupted by exchanges of fire.

The European Union and NATO officials are trying to bring about a settlement. But the International Crisis Group, a research organization, warned yesterday that the situation was perilous and getting more dangerous every day, raising the prospect of an all-out civil war. "The international community must do everything in its power to push through a political solution," said Mark Thompson, the group's top specialist on the Balkans. "If Macedonia slides into civil war the conflict will be very difficult to contain."

NATO's mission would have a limited mandate. The aim would be to collect weapons from rebels if a political settlement was reached, with a goal of completing the operation within a month.

As envisioned, NATO's mission would involve minimal risk. The rebels, for example, are not to be hunted or forcibly disarmed. The insurgents would hand over their weapons to NATO troops as part of a settlement in which they would be offered an amnesty and steps would be taken to enhance the rights of ethnic Albanians.

But given the volatile nature of the Balkans, the NATO wants to ensure that its force would be well equipped to defend itself.

According to the current plan, a force of 2,000 to 3,000 troops would be deployed. The British, who have already supplied some of the most capable peacekeeping troops in the Balkans, would provide a substantial headquarters as well as some of the troops.

The rebels have been operating in the hills bordering Kosovo and Albania. The NATO force would seek to collect weapons in three basic areas.

An eastern group of NATO forces would disarm rebels near Kumanovo, a town northeast of the Macedonia capital of Skopje and an area where the insurgents have been active.

A central group would gather weapons near Tetovo, Macedonia's second largest city. Tetovo has a large ethnic Albanian population and fighting raged near the town this past spring.

A Western group of NATO troops would gather weapons near the town of Gostivar near Albania.

Estimates of the rebel forces vary, but some American officials say there may be 1,200. The rebels say they are fighting for equal rights, but President Trajkovski has complained that Albanian leaders are pushing for a multiethnic federation, which could lead to a de facto partition of the country.

NATO nations plan to formally pledge troops for the mission later this week. France, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Italy have previously indicated that they are prepared to send troops.

Because time is of the essence and some of the nations' forces are stretched, some of the troops might initially be drawn from the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and from logistics bases in Macedonia that are supporting the Kosovo mission.

But NATO does not want to weaken its peacekeeping effort in Kosovo so troops drawn from that mission would need to be replaced.

Wesley K. Clark, the commander of NATO forces during the Kosovo campaign, said that NATO's decision yesterday was potentially an important step. But he said that NATO should be prepared to intervene militarily, with the consent of the Macedonian government, if the peace talks failed and the nation slipped closer to civil war.

"NATO cannot accept another war in the Balkans," General Clark said in a interview. "If there is no agreement, then the situation will be more grave and NATO must consider whether to intervene directly to stop the fighting."

It is far from clear that NATO is prepared to contemplate such bold action. The Bush administration, for its part, has sought to walk a fine line.

It understands that the fighting in Macedonia threatens the alliance's long effort to bring peace to the Balkans. And it supports the idea of a NATO operation to disarm ethnic rebels in Macedonia.

But so far the United States has not offered to send troops there to collect the weapons. Instead, American officials have suggested that the Europeans should expect more indirect support, like transport aircraft.

"The United States has not made any decision on what forces it would contribute," a Bush administration official said. "But we are looking at things like intelligence force and strategic lift."

Bush administration officials assert that the modest, but still useful, American role is part of a larger effort to shift peacekeeping duties to the Europeans.

The United States initially deployed a third of the 60,000 peacekeeping troops that were dispatched to Bosnia.

The United States accounts for 18 percent of the approximately 20,000- strong peacekeeping force that is currently deployed in Bosnia.

In Kosovo, the United States provides a slightly smaller percentage of the almost 40,000-strong force.

In the Macedonia mission, the American role would likely be smaller still.

The Pentagon has argued that such a trend will enable the United States to concentrate on deterring and fighting the nation's wars.

In essence, it is a more gradual approach to a contentious proposal by Condoleezza Rice, now President Bush's national security adviser, that the Europeans assume the entire burden of peacekeeping in the Balkans.

Yesterday, a senior Pentagon official sought to emphasize the limited nature of the NATO missions and the prospects of deeper American involvement in the Balkans. "It is more likely going to be a symbolic political mission rather than a military mission in any conventional sense," he said.

----

Bosnian Serb Camp Commander Acquitted of Genocide

Thu, Jun 21 2:21 PM EDT
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010621/14/international-yugoslavia-warcrimes-genocide-dc

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (Reuters) - A Bosnian Serb accused of commanding a notorious detention camp where hundreds of Muslims and Croats were killed, tortured and raped was acquitted of genocide Thursday.

Dusko Sikirica, alleged commander of Keraterm camp, had pleaded not guilty to genocide, complicity to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and violating the laws or customs of war.

He was the first camp commander in Bosnia to face the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal on a genocide charge.

After the prosecution ended its case on June 1, the defense said it would seek acquittal. That triggered Thursday's hearing, at which judges cleared Sikirica, 37, of genocide and complicity to commit genocide.

His trial continues on the other charges, with the defense due to begin its case next Wednesday.

"The defense submissions are allowed because the prosecution has failed to prove the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, religious or racial group as such," Judge Patrick Robinson told a special hearing.

It was the second time judges at The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia had acquitted a defendant of genocide, the most serious war crimes charge. Proving genocide means judges must be convinced the accused acted with the intent to decimate a population group.

Sikirica is on trial together with two other Bosnian Serbs, Damir Dosen and Dragan Kolundzija, who prosecutors say supervised shifts of guards at Keraterm camp.

Dosen and Kolundzija plead not guilty to crimes against humanity and violating the laws or customs of war.

Prosecutors say more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs were held at the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps in Prijedor, northwest Bosnia, from May through August 1992.

They allege that such camps played an integral role in the "ethnic cleansing" by which Bosnian Serbs intended to create an ethnically pure Serbian state.

----

Yugoslav Reformers to Withdraw War Crimes Bill

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-yugosla.html

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Yugoslavia's reformist leaders said on Thursday they would withdraw a bill on cooperation with the U.N war crimes court after they failed to resolve differences over the measure with their partner in government.

The junior partner, the Montenegrin Socialist People's Party (SNP), said it was sticking by its stance of opposing any law allowing war crimes suspects like ex-president Slobodan Milosevic to be transferred to the tribunal in The Hague.

Serbia's DOS reform alliance, the senior partner in the coalition, needs SNP support to pass the law, which is widely seen as crucial to securing badly needed Western funds for Yugoslavia at an international donors' conference next week.

The United States in particular has made clear that its participation in the meeting hinges on whether Belgrade is making progress on its commitment to full cooperation with the tribunal.

Yugoslavia's reformist Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic said after last-ditch talks with the SNP to try to get it to agree to the extradition provision that the DOS would withdraw the bill but find other ways to cooperate with the tribunal.

``We wanted to have that law to regulate that area and create legal protection for those indicted. But we will cooperate with The Hague even without that law,'' he told Reuters.

Zivkovic did not say how the DOS would regulate the extradition of Yugoslav citizens to the U.N. court. But asked if Milosevic, or other indictees, might one day wake up in the Hague, he said: ``Yes, but do not ask me for the date.''

A parliamentary session to discuss the law had been scheduled for Thursday but was moved to Friday to give the two sides more time to look for compromise. Reformers said the bill would now be removed from the agenda.

The SNP, a one-time coalition ally of Milosevic's Socialists, insists the tribunal is biased and that no suspects should be transferred to it.

Some anti-Milosevic reformers have mooted the possibility of taking the bill to the Serbian parliament, where they have a commanding majority. The Yugoslav federation is made up of Serbia and much smaller Montenegro.

But others have ruled out this option, suggesting the tribunal's statutes should simply be adopted by government decree and the transfer of suspects should then begin.

The U.N. tribunal has charged Milosevic, currently in a Serbian jail on suspicion of corruption, with crimes against humanity. Prosecutors accuse Serb forces under his command of mass expulsions and killings of Kosovo Albanians in 1999.

--------

Talks on Macedonia Conflict at an Impasse

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21MACE.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia, June 20 - Talks aimed at ending the conflict here between the government and ethnic Albanian rebels deadlocked today, with each side blaming the other, and President Boris Trajkovski turned to NATO and Western diplomats for help in breaking the impasse.

The country has been in suspense for the last five days as Albanian and Macedonian Slav political leaders have tried to forge a political agreement that could stave off an all-out civil war.

As negotiations were suspended this evening, dozens of police officers lined the road toward the restive western town of Tetovo, where army troops moved in more equipment. Already, daily exchanges of fire have disrupted the uneasy cease-fire declared by both sides.

The threat of civil war has come alarmingly close for the people in the capital in the last week since Albanian rebels reached the outlying suburbs. Two people were reported killed today in the village of Slupcane, 12 miles north of the capital, when it came under fire from government artillery, Reuters reported, quoting a village doctor.

The president was vehement in laying the blame for the political deadlock on the Albanians. "Unfortunately today, I have to say that the talks at this level are blocked, and that block came first and foremost because of the surprising change of the position of the D.P.A. and the P.D.P.," President Trajkovski said, referring to the two ethnic Albanian parties in the government coalition.

The two parties have changed their position significantly since talks began last Friday, he said, and they are now insisting that the multiethnic Balkan state be made a federation, raising fears of a division of the country.

Mr. Trajkovski said discussions could only continue if the Albanian parties "unreservedly, clearly, and publicly, state their wish to return to the position of sanctioning a civil society." Mr. Trajkovski has proposed a new phrasing for the Constitution that avoids naming ethnicity and declares Macedonia a civil society. But the Albanians want to be recognized in some way as being an integral or founding people of the Macedonian state.

Mr. Trajkovski accused the Albanian parties of "trying to prolong the talks, or better said, to fully block them."

He also accused them of taking political positions to make the military status quo permanent. "That would mean the position of the terrorists will be frozen in the positions they currently occupy," he said, referring to the ethnic Albanian rebels. He would not allow any threat to break up the country, or any concept of federalization that could threaten the unity of Macedonia, he added.

But the Albanian leader, Arben Xhaferi, countered that the Macedonian Slav parties were to blame since they had not tried to engage in negotiations and had refused even to discuss some of the most basic questions that the Albanian parties had raised. Mr. Trajkovski had failed to remain independent while he chaired the negotiations, Mr. Xhaferi said.

The Albanian parties had put forward proposals but there had been no discussion, he said. Even issues like the Albanian language, and measures to ensure equality in employment and in society for Albanians, were in doubt when his counterparts failed to produce any alternative proposal, he said.

"What they presented us with cannot be called a plan, it was merely offensive and humiliating," he said in unusually harsh language.

As the talks degenerated amid mutual accusations, both the government and the Albanian rebels were reported to be using the shaky truce to rearm.

A Defense Ministry spokesman, Georgi Trendafilov, confirmed that four Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopter gunships and four SU-25 war planes had been delivered to Skopje to increase the government army's fighting strength.

Rebels just north of the capital appear to be well equipped and and receiving more new weapons, a foreign reporter said.

-------- canada

Canadian Military Jet Crashes, Crew Survives

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-canada-.html

TORONTO (Reuters) - One of Canada's elite Snowbird acrobatic performance jets crashed into Lake Erie on Thursday after a mid-air collision ahead of an air show in London, Ontario, but the crew is safe, officials said.

Allison Zegalsky, of the Canadian air force's operations center in Winnipeg, said the two crew members were picked up from the lake and transferred to a local hospital.

``One has minor injuries and the other has more serious injuries,'' she said, but could give no details.

A second plane, part of a formation of nine aircraft, was slightly damaged in the mid-air crash, which took place some 25 miles south of London. But the plane landed safely at the local airport, officials in London said.

The two-seat training jets, painted in Canada's red and white national colors, had been demonstrating maneuvers to journalists on the press day ahead of the weekend air show in southwestern Ontario.

Members of the media had been aboard the some Snowbird planes, but officials could confirm the identity of the crew of the crashed jet, a 1960s-era CT-114 Tutor jets used for spectacular formation flying.

Air show organizers could not say if the airshow will proceed as scheduled on Friday. They refused to speculate on what caused the crash or on what happened in the air.

The Snowbirds have had five fatal accidents in Canada and the United States since 1972, the year after the flying troupe was formed.

The last fatal accident was in December 1998, when one of the elite flying squadron's crashed in southern Saskatchewan during a warm-up maneuver. The pilot was killed.

-------- china / taiwan

Army fires a test of Patriot missiles

June 21, 2001
By Annie Huang
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010621-18997275.htm

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The army test-fired U.S. Patriot missiles yesterday, and TV footage showed one arching through the sky in a display of the island´s best defense against a Chinese rocket attack.

The tests reportedly knocked down two airborne targets -- a dummy missile and a dummy airplane -- and officials here say they were conducted with Washington´s blessing.

They were seen locally as a show of U.S. support at a time when Taiwan is heartened by the belief President Bush is more accommodating than his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

But analysts warned it will take more than a successful test to show Taiwan can withstand a barrage of the Chinese missiles that some view as the greatest military threat to Taiwan.

Local media reported U.S. military personnel and contractors were to be at the test site, though Taiwan´s military refused to discuss this or reveal many details about the missile firings.

Many ordinary people were less than awed by Taiwan´s latest show of weaponry, which citizens here hope will never be put to the test of war.

"Economic development may be more important than missiles," said businessman Paul Hsu in the capital, Taipei. "I don´t feel safer now. The test-firing may be seen as provocative."

Taiwan insisted it wasn´t trying to provoke China, which claims Taiwan as a renegade province and has threatened to retake the island by force if necessary.

But the Patriots were fired as China was conducting massive war games in the region, including the mock invasion of a Taiwanese island. Taiwanese military officials called the timing coincidental.

The army sought to play down the Patriot test, at least in comparison to other live-fire military exercises that frequently are turned into major media events.

Instead of inviting reporters to the scene, the army distributed three photos, two showing launchings and one showing a fireball created as a missile hit its target.

Analysts said Taiwan had shown little more than its ability to successfully fire the Patriots.

Taiwan still needs long-range radar and facilities to receive missile information from spy satellites, said Shih Hsiao-wei, who edits the monthly Defense International.

"As it is now, we are hard pressed on warning time to knock down a missile," Mr. Shih said.

Still, Taiwan´s army said the Patriot missiles, fired from the Chiu-Peng base in southern Pingtung, all hit their targets in "one of the major drills to test our air defense capability."

The army did not specify in its brief statement how many missiles were fired or how many targets were hit.

The official Central News Agency, quoting a military source it did not identify, said three missiles were launched and two targets went down -- a dummy missile and a dummy aircraft.

Analysts said the other missile likely was fired first to track the target missile and transmit data back to the base so a second Patriot could hit it. That would fit with the design of the U.S.-made system that shoots down incoming missiles.

Taiwan has purchased from the United States 200 Patriot missiles, an improved version of the weapons that gained notoriety for missing their targets in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

They have been deployed around Taipei. The tests yesterday marked the first time the missiles had been fired from Taiwanese soil.

The China Times Express quoted unidentified military officials as saying they hoped Washington would further support Taiwan by allowing the island access to U.S. satellite information.

Washington does not have formal ties with Taiwan, but has said it is committed to selling the island weapons for its defense.

--------

Pro - Beijing Press Criticizes Taiwan

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Hong-Kong-Taiwan.html?searchpv=aponline

HONG KONG (AP) -- Taiwan's test-firing of U.S. Patriot missiles will heighten tensions with China and could harm already delicate U.S.-Chinese relations, pro-Beijing newspapers said Thursday.

``Taiwan missile test hurts ties,'' the state-run China Daily said in a page one headline of its Hong Kong edition -- one day after Taiwan said it knocked targets out of the sky with the first firing of the missiles from Taiwanese soil.

China Daily quoted Yu Keli, a Taiwan affairs expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying the firing of the Patriots, which are designed to shoot down incoming missiles or aircraft, puts the island in a more precarious position.

Yu was quoted as saying Taiwan's purchase of advanced weapons that could be used against China proves that Taiwan opposes reunification with China.

The two sides split amid civil war in 1949 but Beijing says Taiwan remains a Chinese province that must be reunited with the mainland at some point, even if that requires war. Most Taiwanese have been unwilling to reunite on Beijing's terms, however.

One of China's biggest potential threats to Taiwan is an array of missiles pointed at the island.

The 200 Patriots that Taiwan bought from Washington in 1993 are viewed as the island's best defense -- although analysts say Taiwan would need more hardware including radars and data from spy satellites to stand a better chance of stopping a barrage of Chinese missiles.

Wednesday's tests were carried out with Washington's blessing, Taiwanese officials have said, and thus were seen as a show of U.S. support at a time when Taiwan is heartened by the belief that President Bush is more accommodating than his predecessor, President Clinton.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters that U.S. policy is to provide Taiwan with the wherewithal to meet its legitimate defensive needs.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue denounced the sale of patriots to Taiwan by the United States, along with unspecified U.S. help in Wednesday's test, as a violation of U.S. commitments to China and an attack on Chinese sovereignty. Such sales and assistance create tension in the Taiwan Strait and undermine regional peace and stability, she told reporters at a regularly scheduled news conference Thursday in Beijing.

-------- iraq

Iraq Says It Will 'Punish' Allies

By Sameer N. Yacoub
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; 3:17 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010621/aponline151711_000.htm

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq warned that an alleged U.S.-British airstrike on a soccer field "will not go unpunished," the official Iraqi News Agency reported Thursday.

Iraq claimed that an allied airstrike Tuesday killed 23 people in Tall Afar, 275 miles northwest of Baghdad, but Washington said if there were deaths, they were likely caused by Iraq's own "misdirected ground fire."

"Iraqis will not be terrorized by such criminal acts," Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed al-Douri, told the agency.

U.S. and British defense officials said a mission was flown over Iraq's no-fly zone Tuesday, but denied warplanes fired on any positions.

The Pentagon said Iraqi forces had fired several surface-to-air missiles at allied planes and it appeared that part of at least one of the Iraqi missiles malfunctioned and landed on the soccer field.

"How do the U.S. officials know the missile malfunctioned?" an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, asked The Associated Press. "Do they have representatives working with our anti-aircraft missiles units?"

Lauren Cannon, the leader of visiting American and British activists currently visiting Iraq, said the group will travel to Tall Afar "to see for ourselves who was behind the deaths."

The newspaper of Iraq's ruling Baath party, Al-Thawra, accused the U.N. Security Council on Thursday of "turning a blind eye to U.S. and British aggression because it is dominated by the United States."

The Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"This new aggression is more proof of America's political and moral bankruptcy," the paper said in an editorial.

Allied aircraft patrol zones over southern and northern Iraq, which were established after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect Shiite Muslims rebels in the south and Kurds in the north. British and American jets enforcing the northern zone are based in Turkey.

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

----

Allied Strike Kills 23, Iraq Says
U.S. Denies Report, Says Baghdad Missile May Be Culprit

By Sameer N. Yacoub
Associated Press
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25658-2001Jun20?language=printer

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 20 -- The Iraqi government reported today that a U.S.-British airstrike killed 23 people and injured 11 during a soccer game near Mosul in the northern part of the country. But the United States said a wayward Iraqi antiaircraft missile was probably to blame.

State-run television broadcast footage of children it said were hurt in the attack and quoted an unidentified doctor as saying it occurred Tuesday. The report quoted the doctor as saying four members of one family were killed and some of the injured were in serious condition.

U.S. and British officials asserted that their warplanes dropped no bombs on Iraq on Tuesday or today. Pentagon officials in Washington said Iraqi forces fired several surface-to-air missiles at allied planes Tuesday and it appeared that part of at least one of the Iraqi missiles malfunctioned and landed in the soccer field.

"In the event anyone was killed it undoubtedly was the result of misdirected ground fire that ended up in a location that was not intended," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters.

The United States and Iraq have been engaged in a diplomatic tug of war recently over U.S. attempts to reform the sanctions regime that has been in place against Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Iraqi envoys have visited a number of foreign leaders in recent days, urging that the U.S. reforms be rejected.

An report from the official Iraqi News Agency today said allied planes attacked at Tall Afar, a small town 275 miles northwest of Baghdad, the capital. An injured child, Amar Hameed, 5, said on television that he was watching the soccer game when a missile fell on the field. He reportedly had burns and fractures. Television footage showed several other injured children in a hospital.

"I saw three planes attack the soccer field at 11:30 a.m.," an unidentified man told state-run TV.

"America and its ally, Britain, have committed a new, ugly crime that will be added to the record of their heinous crimes against Iraq," the news agency said. "The people of Tall Afar buried . . . the martyrs amid shouts of anger and condemnation against this crime."

The Iraqi television report also showed hundreds of people and government officials attending funerals, with people shouting "we will protect our leader with our souls" and "America is the enemy of the world's people." It was the largest number of civilian victims reported by Iraq in a single bombing since January 1999, when authorities said 24 people were killed in and around the southern city of Basra.

Allied aircraft regularly patrol the skies over southern and northern Iraq, preventing Iraqi military planes from flying there. The zones were established after the Persian Gulf War in 1991 to protect Shiite Muslim rebels in the south and Kurdish rebels in the north from President Saddam Hussein's forces. Iraq does not recognize the "no-fly" zones and has challenged allied aircraft regularly since December 1998.

Maj. Ed Loomis, public affairs officer for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said a strike such as that reported in Baghdad could not have happened Tuesday. "We did fly yesterday, conducting routine enforcement of the no-fly zone," Loomis said. "Our aircraft completed their mission without dropping any ordnance and returned safely to their bases. . . . The Iraqi allegations are absolutely false."

Britain's Defense Ministry said American and British planes were fired on by Iraqi ground forces while patrolling Tuesday and today, but did not respond either day.

British and American jets enforcing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq are based in Turkey. Those enforcing the southern zone fly from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and aircraft carriers based in the Persian Gulf.

----

23 Iraqis Reported Killed in Airstrikes

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21IRAQ.html?searchpv=nytToday

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 20 (AP) - Iraq's state-run television said today that an American-British airstrike killed 23 people during a soccer game. United States officials blamed a malfunctioning Iraqi anti- aircraft missile.

The Iraqi News Agency said allied planes had attacked Tall Afar, 275 miles northwest of Baghdad, the capital. It did not indicate when the attack occurred, but said the dead were buried on Wednesday. It said 11 others were wounded.

Pentagon officials said that Iraqi forces fired several surface-to-air missiles at allied planes on Tuesday and that part of at least one malfunctioned, hitting the soccer field.

-------- israel

Israel to Get $74M for Attack

By Alexander G. Higgins
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; 4:27 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010621/aponline162740_000.htm

GENEVA -- Israel will receive $74 million in compensation for costs incurred in Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War, but a U.N. panel rejected most of a $1 billion military-related claim.

"The commission very early decided that military costs of participating in the Desert Storm operation would not be compensated, but a number of member states went ahead in spite of this," U.N. Compensation Commission spokesman Joe Sills said Thursday.

The commission, charged with making payments to victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the resulting Gulf War, received a total of $8.58 billion in claims from Israel, Germany, Turkey and Syria, but only awarded approximately $79 million in compensation, Sills said.

Sills did not go into detail about what was rejected, but commission documents showed many of the successful claims involved costs of evacuating civilians. The commission also agreed to cover damage to diplomatic buildings, the documents showed.

Germany submitted claims for $130 million and was awarded $5 million. Turkey asked for $3.3 billion, but was granted only $1,800 for property losses. Syria submitted claims for $3.8 billion, but none of its claims were approved, Sills said.

The awards are funded through the U.N. oil-for-food program. The compensation fund receives 25 percent of the revenue Iraq earns through the sale of oil.

Because of Iraq's refusal to sell oil under the U.N.-imposed conditions, no further funds are being added to the commission's reserves, but it still has $503 million available, Sills said.

The panel also decided to let Iraq have up to $5 million to hire consultants to defend against environmental claims. The agreement, which initially had been opposed by the United States, was worked out on a political level in the U.N. Security Council in New York, Sills said.

The commission is made up of representatives of the 15 Security Council members.

----

Israel Suspends Military Moves to Give Truce a Chance

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By DEBORAH SONTAG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21MIDE.html

JERUSALEM, June 20 - Israel's diplomatic and security cabinet authorized plans for military operations against the Palestinian Authority today, but officials said the plans would be held in abeyance to allow the week-old American cease-fire plan more time to work.

Mr. Sharon has been invited to visit the White House next week, and Israeli and Palestinian commentators do not think that he would start a military campaign before then. They believe that the Israeli leader, who faces pressure from the right wing to abandon the cease-fire, is not ready to do so and wants to be perceived as giving the truce plan a real chance.

The Americans are expected to encourage Mr. Sharon not only to stick to the cease-fire but also to deepen his commitment to it by agreeing to reopen diplomatic relations between the two sides, an American official said. The Israeli leader has insisted that no talks take place until there is a complete halt to the violence.

Violent incidents continued in the West Bank today, testing the truce as it has been tested almost daily since it formally began a week ago. With two new deaths today, six Palestinians and four Israelis have died in fresh violence since then.

A 30-year-old Palestinian man, Jamal Oudeh Nafe, was shot dead by Israeli troops near a checkpoint between a Jewish settlement and a Palestinian village. His family said that he had been on his way home from work with two other villagers, and that they had left a car to go by foot around the checkpoint.

An Israeli Army spokesman said troops spotted three Palestinians who were "moving suspiciously" and fled when asked to stop. A soldier fired in the air and then at Mr. Nafe's legs, the spokesman said, adding that a bullet somehow struck the man's shoulder. That bullet pierced his heart, hospital officials said.

A 62-year-old Israeli, Eliya Kirivitz, from the Homesh settlement, was killed in a Palestinian village near Nablus. He had gone there to do business and was ambushed, Israeli news reports said.

Palestinian radio reported tonight that settlers subsequently entered the village, damaging buildings and setting fire to an olive grove.

Against this volatile backdrop, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met tonight to plan a timetable for the redeployment of Israeli troops to positions held before the violence erupted almost nine months ago. The meeting was stipulated in the cease-fire plan, which was devised by the American director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet. But the Israeli cabinet said that Israel would not honor the timetable until "after the cessation of terror attacks."

Mired in mutual distrust, the Israeli and Palestinian governments each say the other side is not complying fully with the cease-fire and decline to acknowledge as significant the steps that are being taken.

Although the Palestinian Authority beefed up its forces in the Bethlehem area and stopped shooting attacks on the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem, for instance, the Israelis barely acknowledged this. They focused instead on attacks on settlers on West Bank roads.

Similarly, while Israelis pulled back some tanks and eased the inspections at some checkpoints, Palestinians protested that the changes were little more than cosmetic because most Palestinian movement remained severely restricted and Israeli forces still encircled many towns.

In its statement, the Israeli security cabinet stressed what the Palestinians were not doing:

"The government of Israel has determined that the Palestinian Authority has still not fulfilled its obligations specified in the Tenet document: halting terrorism, arresting terrorists, stopping incitement and preventing attacks."

Yasir Arafat, in turn, accused the Israelis of trying to "deceive international public opinion" by stressing its continued commitment to the cease- fire. "They are still firing from their tanks and machine guns and are still using internationally banned weapons, and the settlers are pursuing their crimes under the protection of the Israeli Army," Mr. Arafat said, speaking to reporters.

On June 1, a terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv that killed 21 young Israelis altered the conflict. Mr. Arafat submitted to intense international pressure to make his first public call for a cease-fire since the violence erupted, heeding warnings of a major Israeli response to the attack. Because of his words, the Israelis refrained from a direct military reprisal. The groundwork was laid for Mr. Tenet's visit and the negotiation of a truce plan. The cycle of vengeance was interrupted, and rapid deterioration of the conflict was arrested for the moment.

Each side has taken some steps to carry out the truce while ignoring others. The atmosphere on the ground is somewhat improved; there is at least the beginning of security cooperation as some Israeli-Palestinian liaison offices in the West Bank have reopened - albeit with concrete walls separating Israeli and Palestinian officers. But the situation is fragile.

The Israeli diplomatic and security cabinet concluded today that the Palestinians were not upholding their commitments. American and European officials, however, say that the Palestinians are making a noticeable effort although they should do more.

A senior Palestinian security official in Gaza said that Palestinian forces have joined together to intensify their patrols, particularly along the border with Israel. They have set up checkpoints and are searching cars, he said. They have confiscated mortar shells and launchers and they believe that they prevented attacks in the last three days, he said.

The Palestinian official said that the Israelis too have taken concrete actions. He said that they have opened five miles of sea off the coast to Gazan fishermen, allowed several thousand workers to return to an industrial park on the border and partly opened a crossing to the movement of goods and fuel.

But in southern Gaza where they withdrew tanks, they built four new watchtowers and a military post, the official said. Israeli forces left two houses they had occupied but remained in seven others, he said. Today, after six days without entering Palestinian-ruled territory, they did so, he said.

In the West Bank, Brig. Gen. Ribhi Arafat, who commands the liaison offices with the Israelis, said that Palestinian forces had brought about a clear drop in the level of shooting from their territory. "Don't blame us for things that happen outside our territory," he said. "How can we prevent attacks in areas that the Israelis control?"

The Israelis think that the Palestinians are being disingenuous when they make this assertion.

General Arafat said he thought that the Israelis themselves were playing games.

"We are military professionals, not ignorant people," he said. "We know that all this movement of Israeli tanks doesn't mean anything. They are only 50 to 100 meters from their old sites. And, yes, it's true that they're easing on some of the checkpoints, but with those concrete blocks still stuck in the middle of the roads, you get the feeling that they're ready to pounce back in at any moment."

--------

Sharon says army now free to act as Mideast ceasefire closer to collapse

June 21, 2001
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010621/1/14k25.html

JERUSALEM, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Thursday that the army had a free hand to deal with Palestinian violence as an ineffective ceasefire orchestrated by the United States last week edged closer to collapse.

Hardline cabinet ministers stepped up the political pressure on Sharon to end the truce, calling for an "all-out war" against the Palestinians after the US-negotiated accord failed to prevent 10 more deaths in the past seven days.

Army officials acknowledged they had been given the green light to resume so-called "pinpoint attacks" against suspected Palestinian militants despite a security cabinet statement Wednesday pledging to uphold the truce accord.

"The army has a free hand to take action," Sharon told members of his right-wing Likud party in Tel Aviv, responding to growing public unhappiness over the ceasefire he agreed to along with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"We have to focus on the defence of Israeli citizens," public radio quoted him saying, while Jewish settlers were laying to rest the latest Israeli victim of the violence, 62-year-old Iliya Krivitch, a father of five gunned down on Wednesday.

Two of the most outspoken members of Sharon's cabinet, Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi and Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman, joined 15 MPs in signing a petition calling for an "all-out war," press reports said.

The petition, still circulating in the halls of parliament, said the army should ensure the Palestinian Authority is "defeated and dismantled" and retake enough territory "to enable all the residents of the country to live in security."

Violence erupted throughout the day in the Gaza Strip, where public radio said an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded by a hand grenade thrown by Palestinians near the Israel-Egypt border.

Earlier, a large-calibre mortar was fired on a farm in the region, but there were no reported casualties.

The upsurge in the violence, which has seen six Palestinians and four Israelis killed in the past week, has set off a new round of diplomatic maneuvering, with Sharon set to meet President George W. Bush in Washington on Tuesday.

Government sources dismissed rumours that the visit had been cancelled because of the latest events, while US Secretary of State Colin Powell was preparing for a visit next week to help keep the ceasefire deal from going off the rails.

"We're making enough progress for me to feel comfortable about asking the secretary of state to go," Bush told reporters Wednesday after speaking with Sharon, Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"The parties must continue to work on an all-out effort to bring peace," Bush said. "People can find excuses or rationale not to continue to work to break the cycle of violence. I urged them to not think that way."

The European Union's envoy for the Middle East, Miguel Angel Moratinos, was expected to arrive on Thursday evening from Damascus.

The diplomats appeared to have their work cut out for them, with the Israelis and Palestinians each insisting the other is failing to uphold the truce, which was negotiated by US intelligence chief George Tenet.

The Palestinian Authority issued a statement condemning the killings and vowed to arrest those responsible, but the Israeli security cabinet on Wednesday specifically accused the Authority of not jailing militants.

Amir Oren, military commentator for the Haaretz newspaper, said Thursday that the Israeli decision to approve attacks against Palestinian militants could render Powell's visit futile if the situation begins to explode.

"Two trains pulled out of the station Wednesday: the military one from Jerusalem and the diplomatic one from Washington," he wrote in an afternoon commentary on the paper's website. "Powell's is likely to arrive too late."

-------- nato

NATO Set to Send Troops to Macedonia

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A19
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25227-2001Jun20?language=printer

BRUSSELS, June 20 -- The NATO alliance announced today that it was prepared to send up to 3,000 European troops to Macedonia to help disarm ethnic Albanian rebels if a peace agreement is reached that ensures a cessation of hostilities.

Ambassadors from the 19 NATO countries ordered military planners to begin drawing up operational plans for the force, which would gather and destroy arsenals held by the rebels. The NATO troops would not be a formal peacekeeping mission, such as those in Kosovo and Bosnia, but would seek to fulfill a short-term task of disarming the guerrillas and then leave the country, perhaps within six weeks.

NATO officials said that seven European countries in the alliance have expressed willingness to contribute to a brigade-size force. The United States said it would not send any troops but would consider other means of support, perhaps logistics, communications and intelligence.

In a joint statement, the 19 allies emphasized "the urgent need for a successful outcome of the political dialogue between the different parties in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the cessation of hostilities as an essential precondition for any NATO assistance."

Macedonia's government and ethnic Albanian leaders have been negotiating for the past six days on the terms of a peace deal that would ostensibly enhance the political rights and cultural status of the Albanian minority, most of whom live in the western part of the country and represent about one-third of Macedonia's 2 million inhabitants.

But President Boris Trajkovski, a member of the country's Macedonian Slav majority, said that the talks appeared to have reached an impasse because of what he described as unreasonable demands by the Albanians. "They have dramatically changed their standpoint, practically asking for a two-nation state," he said. "They have no sincere intention of conducting a dialogue and finding effective and acceptable political solutions."

Trajkovski, whose democratically elected government enjoys the support of NATO in trying to suppress the five-month-old rebellion, said the Albanian negotiators appear to be holding out "in the expectation that the international community will intervene and support their unreal political demands, which would include cementing terrorist positions in temporarily occupied territories."

In the talks, Albanian negotiators have sought changes in the constitution to give them equal status with the Slav majority. They also have proposed creation of a new vice president's post that would be filled by an Albanian and have effective veto over major government decisions.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, is scheduled to travel to Skopje, the Macedonian capital, on Thursday in a bid to break the deadlock and disabuse the Albanians of the notion that armed struggle finds sympathy in the West. He will also press the government to deal with what Western countries see as legitimate Albanian grievances.

As the EU's main representative for security and foreign policy, Solana has taken the lead in trying to broker a peace deal, with the United States playing a lower-key role. He said the negotiations have now reached a critical point and that Western allies "must now do our utmost to avoid war in Macedonia."

Solana will be accompanied by NATO envoy Peter Feith, who will explain what role the alliance troops are willing to play once a peace agreement is achieved.

NATO participation would be intended to bolster any demobilization plan for the guerrillas that the negotiators devise. Albanian fighters who want to disarm, the logic goes, would be more likely to hand over their weapons to alliance soldiers than to Macedonian soldiers whom they have just been fighting.

Under the plan NATO has approved, the disarmament force would be a "coalition of willing nations" answering a call for assistance by the Macedonian government. It would not require a U.N. Security Council mandate. Britain has offered to take the lead in arranging the force, with the participation of troops from France, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and the Czech Republic.

The arms-collection force was discussed over lunch at a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels on June 13, reflecting a consensus that the alliance would have to shoulder additional responsibilities if it hoped to prevent a full-scale war in Macedonia that carried risks of spreading to other parts of the Balkans.

The new force would require fresh troops to be sent into the Balkan region, where the alliance now heads up peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. NATO already has based 3,000 troops in Macedonia, but they are logistical units, unsuited for combat, who help supply the Kosovo force.

In testimony in Washington today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that the United States had made no commitment to take part in the force. But he said that 700 U.S. soldiers handling logistics in Macedonia and several hundred others in Kosovo who patrol the border with Macedonia might become involved.

Some of the 38,000 troops in Kosovo have been assigned to interdict the flow of weapons and supplies to the rebels inside Macedonia, but their task has been made difficult by the mountainous terrain along the border.

----

NATO, U.S. OK force for Macedonia

June 21, 2001
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010621-30687480.htm

NATO and the United States yesterday edged closer to yet another military mission in the Balkans, approving plans to prepare a brigade-sized force to oversee a potential disarmament of ethnic Albanian rebels battling the government of Macedonia.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, who arrived in Washington yesterday for talks with senior Bush administration officials, stressed in a briefing with reporters that the NATO force would enter Macedonia only under "benign conditions" after the country´s leading Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties had hammered out a cease-fire and long-term power-sharing compromise.

"This is not an armed intervention," Mr. Robertson insisted. "It will be a force appropriate to the task in benign conditions."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, testifying yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said no decision had been made on whether U.S. troops would be part of the proposed disarmament force, but he made it clear U.S. participation was a live option.

"In fact, we have roughly 700 [support troops] in Macedonia already, and they at some point could become a part of that process," Mr. Powell said.

President Bush on his European trip last week said the United States still hoped for a political resolution to the Macedonian crisis, which many feared could spark other clashes in the region. At the time, administration officials said they did not support a military role for NATO to aid the beleaguered government in Skopje.

The shadowy National Liberation Army, reportedly with links to ethnic Albanian allies across the border in Kosovo, have seized several towns in northern Macedonia since early February and engaged in deadly firefights with government security forces.

The fighting has put severe pressure on the coalition government and raised ethnic tensions in a country where Albanians make up between one-quarter and one-third of the population.

But hopes for a peaceful end to nearly four months of ethnic guerrilla warfare in Macedonia received a severe blow yesterday when five days of talks aimed at ending the rebellion collapsed, with each side accusing the other of intransigence. The peace plan includes a partial amnesty for Macedonian-born rebels who agree to disarm.

Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski said ethnic Albanian political leaders were demanding a new constitution that would permanently divide the country along ethnic lines.

Arben Xhaferi, head of the Democratic Party of Albanians, in turn accused Mr. Trajkovski of trying to "create a climate of paranoia."

"Macedonia is a multiethnic society and the state must reflect the character of society," Mr. Xhaferi told reporters in Skopje yesterday.

Mr. Powell told the Senate panel that Western governments were pushing the Macedonian parties hard for a deal, including suggesting unnamed international mediators respected by both sides to help broker a compromise.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Macedonian leaders were dealing with "very difficult, very sensitive issues."

Mr. Robertson and Mr. Powell both made clear there were no plans for NATO to intervene militarily in Macedonia before a full cease-fire had been worked out.

Said Mr. Powell: "It´s a disarmament task in the sense that you are not going out fighting people to disarm them, but you are setting up points where their weapons can be received."

Mr. Robertson told reporters that the NATO force probably would consist of between 3,000 and 5,000 troops, and would not be drawn from the approximately 40,000 troops participating in the neighboring Kosovo peacekeeping mission. The troops would be armed and their mission "time-limited," Mr. Robertson said.

Britain has indicated that it would be willing to supply troops to a Macedonian mission. Mr. Robertson refused to say which countries have made similar offers, but the State Department´s Mr. Boucher confirmed yesterday that the United States was not one of them.

The Bush administration´s official line is that no U.S. troops have been offered because no formal request has been made for them either from the Macedonian government or from the NATO "force generation" conference that will be held if and when a disarmament mission is dispatched.

The Macedonian government "is not seeking an armed intervention," Mr. Robertson insisted yesterday. Disarming the rebels after a cease-fire "is all we have been asked to do and all that we are willing to do."

But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, told Mr. Powell yesterday that a more forceful U.S. military role in Macedonia may be required. • This article is based in part on wire service reports.

-------- puerto rico

Clouds of Fiberglass Particles Released By Vieques War Games

By Susan Soltero
June 21, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-21-02.html

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, The weather is hot and hazy. For two days the U.S. Navy blamed bad weather for the postponement of the start of the latest round of bombing exercises on the Vieques Island target range off the east coast of Puerto Rico.

So far, only a few inert bombs were dropped on the eastern tip of the island Monday, the first of 1,800 inert bombs that will fall on the bombing range over the next 18 days.

"Can you imagine how much damage bombs that will be dropped from planes going 1,200 miles per hour will do to the environment? They are going to have a significant impact," says Robert Rabin, spokesman for the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques.

Today, for the first time in this round of exercises, the U.S. Navy admitted it had to suspend bombing runs over Vieques due to the presence of protesters. More than 50 people remain within the bombing range, according to the leaders of the civil disobedience movement.

Bomb crater left on Vieques from previous war games. (Photo courtesy Vieques Libre)

The wife of the Reverend Jesse Jackson was jailed Tuesday after she refused to post bail on a charge of trespassing during a protest on Vieques. Jacqueline Jackson was arrested Monday after she and a group of activists cut through a fence to break into the Navy's Camp Garcia. Arrests total 30 since the weekend.

The U.S. Navy has increased security and built special traps for protesters within the range, so the most recent postponement is seen as a small victory by the demonstrators, a sign of good over evil. But no one is breathing a sigh of relief. In fact, what everyone may be breathing is chaff, tiny strips of fiberglass, released by pilots to hide aircraft and ships from radar.

At this time of the year, the Caribbean receives tons of dust transported across the Atlantic from Africa's Sahara Desert. People here are used to that. But what people are talking about today on the radio and in the legislature is not the amount of dust in the air - it is chaff.

Chaff is the name given to the substance used by the military in war games for over 50 years. Tons of fiberglass strands covered by aluminum or lead are dispersed by airplanes. The chaff serves two purposes: to block enemy radar from detecting ships below and to divert missiles fired towards aircraft.

Computer graphic image of chaff over the Puerto Rican island of Vieques today. (Image by Javier Ramos)

It is released from the back of airplanes and from aircraft carriers and is invisible to the naked eye. The fiberglass particles are so light, they are carried easily by the trade winds, and they are easily detectable on radar.

Last Thursday, after President George W. Bush announced an end to the use of Vieques by the U.S. Navy by the year 2003, a huge cloud of chaff drifted from the north on to the island of Puerto Rico.

The cloud grew from a point about 100 miles northeast of the island. The military exercises continued all night and the cloud lasted through the night as well.

In the past, the clouds of chaff have been seen frequently north or south of the island wherever the aircraft carriers are here. It is the signature the U.S. Navy leaves on radar while in territorial waters when maneuvers are being held. Occasionally, parts of the cloud might drift over the "big island" as Puerto Rico is called.

But Tuesday, for the second time in four days, a huge cloud of chaff drifted over the island, exposing many of the residents once again to the airborne particles.

Not only does chaff show up well on radar, it distorts the images of local radar images from airports and is confused with rain that may be falling at the time. Tuesday night, a tropical storm moved through, and no one saw the rain coming because the image was filled with chaff. The wave left, but the chaff did not, and the issue of chaff hit the fan.

State Senator Roberto Prats announced on Wednesday that he is making a Freedom of Information Act request to the Defense Department about the use of chaff in Puerto Rico. Specifically, he wants a confirmation by the U.S. Navy that it is being used, and he wants to know in what quantities and what type of chaff is being released. Some fiberglass particles are coated with aluminum while other are laced with lead.

Rear Admiral Kevin Green, senior naval officer in Puerto Rico (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy)

Late today the Navy confirmed chaff was used, but Navy officials would not say how much was released. They say they are permitted to use it 25 miles offshore of any populated areas.

Prats discovered a document released by the General Accounting Office in 1998 in response to a request by Nevada Senator Harry Reid who was concerned over the use of chaff in Nevada. According to Prats, the report said there is no conclusive evidence that chaff is not harmful to people or the environment. The GAO report recommends that the Department of Defense develop a type of chaff that is not harmful to the environment by the year 2004.

"My concern is that the study by the GAO's office also states that a B-52 can release 11 million strands of these particles in only 30 minutes. Obviously, to create a cloud that covers over half the island, the Navy must have used enormous quantities," said Prats while calling for an immediate end of the use of chaff over the island.

"I think this basically again puts the Navy in a very uncomfortable position in Puerto Ricans' eyes. If they haven't been able to certify scientifically beyond a reasonable doubt that chaff does not cause respiratory illnesses, they should, as a matter of logic and social responsibility, immediately stop all use of chaff in Puerto Rico," Prats said.

State Senator Fernando Martin and his staff are gearing up to field phone calls. They are creating a register of people that may be suffering from respiratory problems, colds, allergies, skin rashes, and conjunctivitis as a result of the possible presence of CHAFF over the island in the last few days.

A RIM-7, NATO Sea Sparrow missile is fired from the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp during a missile training exercise, August 1999 near the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. (U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Brett Dawson)

Last August, the minority Independence Party sponsored a bill to study the effect of chaff on the residents' health, but until this latest round of exercises, the issue was ignored.

"It is widely recognized that fiberglass is a pulmonary irritant," says Jorge Fernandez Porto, environmental consultant for State Senator Martin, "and there are a series of studies that link the ingestion of aluminum with Alzheimer's disease."

"Chaff also behaves like asbestos in the lung because it can't be destroyed," said Porto. "I have noticed an increase in cases of asthma, allergies and sinusitis when the use of chaff is made public by local weathercasters. We want to officially document these cases. When toxic substances are being used, we should always assume the substance is guilty until it's proven innocent, and people should be given the benefit of the doubt."

In the past, the U.S. Navy has insisted chaff is not harmful and that they would not subject their own men to something that might harm them. But as far as the harm done by chaff is concerned, the jury is still out.

----

House schedules hearing on Vieques decision

Around the Nation
June 21, 2001 •
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010621-77906045.htm

The House Armed Services Committee yesterday scheduled a hearing for next week on the Navy´s decision to end its bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in May 2003.

Rep. Bob Stump, the Arizona Republican who chairs the panel, said the June 27 hearing will include Defense Department witnesses who will testify on the implications of closing the training facility, possible alternatives to the site and the process followed by the Navy in reaching the decision.

----

Puerto Rico, 51st state?

Jeffrey T. Kuhner,
June 21, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010621-43194685.htm

Puerto Rico has been in the news lately. Many congressional Republicans are furious over the Bush administration´s decision to abandon Vieques as a bombing site for the U.S. Navy by 2003. They blame Karl Rove, the president´s top political adviser, for putting politics above national strategic interests in abandoning the site. Republicans on Capitol Hill insist that the decision was made to appeal to the Hispanic vote. They´re right. Yet the administration would be wiser to maintain the U.S. military´s presence on Vieques, and court the important emerging Hispanic vote through another policy: embracing Puerto Rican statehood.

Recently, Puerto Rico´s Senate Minority Leader Kenneth D. McClintock visited The Washington Times for a luncheon interview with editors and reporters to present his case that the tiny island become the 51st state in the Union. He was very convincing.

Few issues divide conservatives as much as Puerto Rican statehood. National Review, for example, has even gone so far as to state that the United States should prepare San Juan for eventual independence. Other conservatives believe that Puerto Rico´s current Commonwealth status, which it acquired in 1952, suits the interests of both Puerto Ricans and mainland Americans. Hence, they argue, it is best to let sleeping dogs lie. The central argument made against statehood is that the United States has historically been unable to absorb alien cultures and societies. By allowing Puerto Rico´s nearly 4 million Spanish-speaking and predominantly Catholic residents into the union, the United States would create another Quebec scenario a distinct region in culture and language that may become a source of perpetual political instability and secessionist sentiment.

Yet as Puerto Rico´s Mr. McClintock pointed out, the Quebec analogy does not apply to Puerto Rico. The French-speaking province is an industrial powerhouse, which along with Ontario dominates Canada´s economy. Moreover, Quebecers make up nearly 25 percent of Canada´s population, providing separatists with a critical mass to support the province´s drive for independence. During the past decade, opinion polls consistently demonstrate that Quebec separatism has the support of 40 percent to 50 percent of the population. By contrast, Puerto Rican independentistas rarely achieve 5 percent support.

It is therefore erroneous to suggest that by entering the union an island with a population slightly over 1 percent of the total on the American mainland and a per-capita income of $9,800 would pose a secessionist threat to the greatest economic and military superpower in history. Furthermore, unlike most French-speaking Quebecers , most Puerto Ricans want to learn English as a second language. Should Puerto Rico become a state, the proper analogy is not Quebec but Hawaii. Despite being an island kingdom in the 19th century and possessing its own language and religion, Hawaii has become a full-fledged state while preserving its distinct cultural identity. The same would apply to Puerto Rico.

Many conservatives do not realize that rather than being a liability, Puerto Rico´s well-entrenched Hispanic heritage presents a unique opportunity for Republicans. By embracing the issue of statehood the Bush administration can enhance its appeal to the largest minority voting bloc in the country. President Bush can recognize the reality of a multicultural America through the symbolic significance of supporting the creation of a predominantly Hispanic state. By championing Puerto Rico´s entry into the Union, Mr. Bush can send a clear message to Hispanics that his "compassionate conservatism" goes beyond speaking a few phrases in Spanish and making several high profile appointments.

Many Republicans, however, fear that by granting statehood Puerto Rico will become a Democratic stronghold. They cite numerous reasons for their concern, icluding the island´s high unemployment, its heavy reliance on social welfare programs and the fact that nearly one-third of its work force is employed by the public sector. They believe that Puerto Rico will become the political equivalent of Hawaii: a hotbed of big government activism, which in the long run may tip the legislative balance of power in favor of the left.

Yet, rather than being a liberal Democratic fiefdom, Puerto Rico will more likely be a swing state. Although the island´s residents tend to favor statism and lavish entitlement programs, they are also deeply Catholic and socially conservative. This renders them receptive to the Republicans´ message on abortion, family values and homosexual marriage. In fact, Puerto Rican statehood can help buttress the GOP against the onslaught of the forces of social liberalism, which have defeated the Republican Party on every cultural front for the past decade.

It will also help advance Mr. Bush´s foreign policy agenda, especially his goal of a Western Hemispheric free-trade zone by 2005 and closer ties between the United States and Latin America. With its strategic location in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico can act as a vital stepping stone to the vast markets of Central and South America.

More importantly, statehood will demonstrate to governments in Latin America, many of whom still view America as the ugly Gringo and resent the perceived legacy of belligerent imperialism, that the United States does not view Hispanic societies as inferior or second-class. As Mr. McClintock put it, admitting San Juan into the Union will show anti-American nationalists in the region that "Uncle Sam is no longer Uncle Bully."

Obviously, the question of Puerto Rican statehood should be left to the residents of the island who have to live with the consequences of their decision. Thus far, Puerto Ricans have been content to keep their political status unchanged.

However, successive referendums demonstrate that the statehood option has been rapidly gaining momentum. Opinion polls now show that a plurality of residents on the island favor becoming full-fledged Americans. It is only a matter of time before Puerto Rico enters the Union as the 51st state. Instead of resisting the inevitable, Republicans would be wise to embrace it.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is an assistant national editor at The Washington Times.

----

Hansen stands by words

Thursday, June 21, 2001,
By Lee Davidson,
Deseret News Washington correspondent;
Contributing: The Associated Press.
E-mail response to: lee@desnews.com
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0%2C1249%2C280008377%2C00.html

WASHINGTON - Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, is sticking by his guns and still insists that all Puerto Ricans are essentially on welfare - because the territory "is a welfare state" that receives big federal money and where few are required to pay taxes.

Hansen created a stir last week during a National Public Radio interview about President Bush's decision to close a test and training range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques amid protests about bombing there.

He said, "They sit down there on welfare and, very few of them paying taxes, got a sweetheart deal. I just don't really see the equity in it, but maybe I don't understand it."

That upset Puerto Rican groups as newspapers reprinted the comment. Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., who is Puerto Rican, even wrote Hansen to complain that his remarks were "disparaging and offensive."

"We have not moved to either grant them national sovereignty nor make them a state. It allows for insulting comments, the gut feeling that 'those people' are not part of us and should be kissing our feet," Serrano told The Associated Press.

Hansen's comments were particularly hurtful because they came from someone who wields great power over the island, Serrano said. But Hansen wasn't too apologetic on Wednesday.

For example, he said he saw a television story about his comments where a Puerto Rican "woman said she wasn't on welfare. Well, she was on welfare because she gets all the breaks" from a territorial government where residents are exempt from federal taxes but benefit from heavy federal funding.

"It's a welfare state," he said. His office even prepared a fact sheet of special breaks that Puerto Rico receives.

Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico's nonvoting representative in Congress, sent to a letter to Hansen bristling at the term "welfare."

"It is regrettable that you chose time and again to threaten punishment for Puerto Ricans over the issue of Vieques by blocking legislation that could benefit Puerto Rico," Acevedo-Vila wrote.

Further, Puerto Rican workers paid $2 billion into the federal Social Security system through payroll taxes in 1997, he said.

But, said Hansen, Puerto Rico receives $12 billion in direct federal expenditures despite paying no federal income tax.

He said Puerto Rico's federal education spending, for example, is expected to be more than $630 million next year under a new education bill. That is more than 43 states receive and much more than the $71 million Utah is expected to receive.

Hansen said that with such benefits, Puerto Rico has responsibilities - including helping with the national defense.

"But the governor down there wants it both ways," with no taxes and big benefits but not allowing bombing on Vieques, Hansen said.

"I look at it this way, there are 33 test and training ranges in the lower 48 states. We have one (in Utah)," Hansen said. "Many of them have people living closer than they do at Vieques. Even in Utah (at the Utah Test and Training Range) there are some people closer."

Hansen added, "I feel the folks in Puerto Rico should carry their share. Their National Guard units even train in Oklahoma."

Hansen followed those comments by saying, however, "There are some great Americans down there, and they are very fine people."

So does Hansen wish he had chosen different words at first?

"If a reporter or the press wants to take it anyway they like, the Lord himself couldn't say it in a way that it wouldn't be taken wrong. I'm tempted to say my answer is Galatians 4:16 . . . 'Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?' " Hansen said.

Hansen, a member of the Armed Services Committee, has long pushed to protect test and training ranges from incursion.

He complains that Karl Rove, a fellow Utahn who is a top aide to Bush, recommended closing Vieques to score political points with Hispanics.

"What I told Rove is that he has started a very dangerous precedent. There are already Japanese reporters calling and saying they don't like what we're doing in Okinawa, and since we're leaving Vieques are we also going to leave there. . . . I worry this will snowball," Hansen said.

He said another hearing on military ranges is scheduled next week. "I plan to ask the military where on the East Coast they can now go for live fire (exercises). I know the answer: nowhere. I worry about the young people we would send into battle without that training."

-------- space

U.S. Satellites Vulnerable To Attacks, Officer Warns

Thursday, June 21, 2001
Walter Pincus
Washington Post; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26095-2001Jun20?language=printer

A senior military officer warned yesterday that U.S. military and commercial satellites are vulnerable to attack and said the United States must begin creating a system to defend them.

Unless more focus is put on "protecting and advancing our interests in space," the United States runs "the very real risk of a 'space Pearl Harbor' or another Sputnik that catches us off guard and unprepared," Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III, deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command, told the House Armed Services Committee.

"We must prepare now to ensure our continued access to space [and] deny space to others, if necessary," he said.

As a step toward enhancing the country's space defense capabilities, Anderson said the Pentagon recently set up two Air Force squadrons "to replicate the known capabilities of potential adversaries . . . [and] explore future space control technologies."

Anderson sought congressional support for research on a space-based laser that could be used in missile defense and other missions such as air defense, global surveillance, space control and target detection.

------

Air Force Space Command Plan Warfare

By Robert Weller
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; 3:41 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010621/aponline034110_000.htm

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- As Russia and the Bush Administration squabble over proposals for a U.S. anti-missile defense system, planners at Air Force Space Command are drawing plans for space-based equipment that would be far more advanced.

They have discussed ways to disrupt enemy satellites, such as creating micropaint satellites that could fire paintball-like substances to blind satellites or sending beams of light to temporarily confuse satellite equipment.

For now, these are only concepts, said Col. Chuck Carpenter, the Space Command's deputy director of plans and programs. But the Space Command has other projects in the works and a 20-year plan to guide them.

"Our charter is to think, think long and hard on how to defeat potential adversaries," said Lt. Col. Dan Ziegler, the Command's chief of strategy, policy and doctrine. The Space Command spends $12 million to $15 million a year out of its $8.8 billion budget researching space warfare concepts, according to Capt. Adriane Craig.

While the Space Command planners aren't advocating covert space warfare, there is a clandestine element to some of their ideas.

The tactics under consideration would temporarily disable a satellite rather than cause permanent damage, giving the attacker "a fair amount of deniability," Carpenter said. A direct attack, on the other hand, could be considered an act of war, and blowing up a satellite could create debris that could damage U.S. satellites.

Planners fear the same satellite disabling techniques could also be used against U.S. satellites at some point, including the increasingly crucial global positioning systems run by Space Command at nearby Schriever Air Force Base.

A national advisory commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld before he became secretary of defense reported the nation's military and commercial satellite system risks a "space Pearl Harbor" without defensive measures.

Rumsfeld in May announced a major reorganization of the Pentagon's space programs to increase the importance of space in strategic planning. However, talk of building a national missile defense system has been widely criticized by Russia and U.S. allies who say it would violate key security treaties. China and France have also urged maintaining the non-militarization of space.

Ziegler said it is pointless to begin debating whether a micropaint satellite or a space laser could be considered an offensive weapon, because "there is no sense in making a policy if we don't even have a weapon."

"Thinking is not a violation of any treaty," Ziegler said.

Robert Pfaltzgraff, a senior analyst for the Institute of Foreign Police Analysis in Cambridge, Mass., said planning for space-based warfare is essential.

"If they are not looking at all these possibilities they are not earning their keep as far as I am concerned," he said. "I would hope that they are looking at all these technologies and more we do not know about. The Russians have historically looked at as many of these things as they could afford."

In an interview with The Associated Press, Space Command planners laid out the 20-year plan they presented to the Air Force, though it is only a sketch of what's to come.

First on the agenda is a high-flying infrared sensor system to replace existing launch-detection satellites. The planners declined to say how much time the new technology could shave off an early-warning alert.

After the high-flying sensor system is deployed, a lower-level infrared system would be developed to guide defensive missiles to intercept attacking missiles. Both the high-flying and lower-level systems are in Space Command's plan for the next six years.

Planners don't expect to have space-based radar before 2012.

A longer-range plan calls for sending up a demonstration version of a laser around 2020, though how such a laser might be used in space has yet to be determined.

"Seventeen consecutive miracles are going to have to happen for us to get there," said Carpenter, noting Space Command has to compete with other services and even others in the Air Force for weapons money.

Also being considered is development of a shuttle that could carry weapons to space and then release them to descend on their targets. The method would avoid stationing weapons in space, a potential violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, considered a pillar of arms control and deterrence.

Operating from space has been a dream for planners.

From a budget standpoint, "space is a cheap place to operate. There is no rent and no living costs," Lt. Col. Donald Magee said.

There are no plans to put troops in space, though. "If we ever need boots on the moon we will call the Army," Ziegler said.

-------

NASA Plans Solar Plane Test Flights

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Flying-Wing.html?searchpv=aponline

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- NASA is planning a series of test flights of an unmanned flying wing that's designed to run on solar power and cruise for days at 100,000 feet, more than three times higher than commercial jets.

The first of as many as three flights could come this weekend from a Navy airstrip on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration developed the Helios Prototype with AeroVironment Inc. in a bid to build a remotely piloted aircraft that could replace space satellites for some applications.

``The goal is extreme-duration, sustained high-altitude, long-endurance flight for essentially Earth observing and telecommunications,'' said John Hicks, who manages NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology project at the Dryden Flight Research Center. ``Basically, it's to try to get it up for six months at a time.''

The plane has a 247-foot wingspan, greater than that of a Boeing 747, yet is only 12 feet long. It is too large to use the runways at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, so it will take off and land from the crushed coral apron alongside the strip.

The first flight may reach only 70,000 feet, as engineers assess how well Helios performs. The second and third will attempt to reach 100,000 feet -- more than midway through the stratosphere to a height of 19 miles. Each flight is expected to last about 14 hours. If successful, the plane will set a record for sustained flight at that altitude.

The Helios Prototype last flew in 1999, when it completed a series of six flights in the Mojave Desert using battery power. This time, it will soar on power generated from the sun. The rectangular, translucent wing is covered with more than 60,000 solar cells.

AeroVironment, based in Monrovia, Calif., has produced other innovative aircraft in its 30-year history, including the Gossamer Albatross, a human-powered plane that crossed the English Channel in 1979. Its Pathfinder Plus flew to over 80,000 feet in August 1998, a record for propeller-powered aircraft.

Pathfinder Plus will fly again in 2002, when it will be used to aid Hawaiian coffee growers in a NASA-sponsored project to monitor ripening beans.

NASA and AeroVironment plan to fly Helios again in 2003, when they will attempt to keep the plane aloft for four days.

--------

Air Force Space Command Plan Warfare

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Space-Warfare.html?searchpv=aponline

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AP) -- As Russia and the Bush Administration squabble over proposals for a U.S. anti-missile defense system, planners at Air Force Space Command are drawing plans for space-based equipment that would be far more advanced.

They have discussed ways to disrupt enemy satellites, such as creating micropaint satellites that could fire paintball-like substances to blind satellites or sending beams of light to temporarily confuse satellite equipment.

For now, these are only concepts, said Col. Chuck Carpenter, the Space Command's deputy director of plans and programs. But the Space Command has other projects in the works and a 20-year plan to guide them.

``Our charter is to think, think long and hard on how to defeat potential adversaries,'' said Lt. Col. Dan Ziegler, the Command's chief of strategy, policy and doctrine. The Space Command spends $12 million to $15 million a year out of its $8.8 billion budget researching space warfare concepts, according to Capt. Adriane Craig.

While the Space Command planners aren't advocating covert space warfare, there is a clandestine element to some of their ideas.

The tactics under consideration would temporarily disable a satellite rather than cause permanent damage, giving the attacker ``a fair amount of deniability,'' Carpenter said. A direct attack, on the other hand, could be considered an act of war, and blowing up a satellite could create debris that could damage U.S. satellites.

Planners fear the same satellite disabling techniques could also be used against U.S. satellites at some point, including the increasingly crucial global positioning systems run by Space Command at nearby Schriever Air Force Base.

A national advisory commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld before he became secretary of defense reported the nation's military and commercial satellite system risks a ``space Pearl Harbor'' without defensive measures.

Rumsfeld in May announced a major reorganization of the Pentagon's space programs to increase the importance of space in strategic planning. However, talk of building a national missile defense system has been widely criticized by Russia and U.S. allies who say it would violate key security treaties. China and France have also urged maintaining the non-militarization of space.

Ziegler said it is pointless to begin debating whether a micropaint satellite or a space laser could be considered an offensive weapon, because ``there is no sense in making a policy if we don't even have a weapon.''

``Thinking is not a violation of any treaty,'' Ziegler said.

Robert Pfaltzgraff, a senior analyst for the Institute of Foreign Police Analysis in Cambridge, Mass., said planning for space-based warfare is essential.

``If they are not looking at all these possibilities they are not earning their keep as far as I am concerned,'' he said. ``I would hope that they are looking at all these technologies and more we do not know about. The Russians have historically looked at as many of these things as they could afford.''

In an interview with The Associated Press, Space Command planners laid out the 20-year plan they presented to the Air Force, though it is only a sketch of what's to come.

First on the agenda is a high-flying infrared sensor system to replace existing launch-detection satellites. The planners declined to say how much time the new technology could shave off an early-warning alert.

After the high-flying sensor system is deployed, a lower-level infrared system would be developed to guide defensive missiles to intercept attacking missiles. Both the high-flying and lower-level systems are in Space Command's plan for the next six years.

Planners don't expect to have space-based radar before 2012.

A longer-range plan calls for sending up a demonstration version of a laser around 2020, though how such a laser might be used in space has yet to be determined.

``Seventeen consecutive miracles are going to have to happen for us to get there,'' said Carpenter, noting Space Command has to compete with other services and even others in the Air Force for weapons money.

Also being considered is development of a shuttle that could carry weapons to space and then release them to descend on their targets. The method would avoid stationing weapons in space, a potential violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, considered a pillar of arms control and deterrence.

Operating from space has been a dream for planners.

From a budget standpoint, ``space is a cheap place to operate. There is no rent and no living costs,'' Lt. Col. Donald Magee said.

There are no plans to put troops in space, though. ``If we ever need boots on the moon we will call the Army,'' Ziegler said.

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

Service Heads Keeping Corporate Ways

By Roberto Suro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A23
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26245-2001Jun20?language=printer

By long-standing Pentagon tradition, new service secretaries promise to put aside the ancient rivalries among the Army, Navy and Air Force and to institute new management practices that will save money. President Bush's appointees made the ritual declarations at a news conference this week, and, echoing so many of this administration's appointees, they hailed the efficiencies of the private sector.

"We effectively are the CEOs of wholly owned subsidiaries of the Department of Defense," said Thomas E. White, who as secretary of the Army will be the top civilian in an institution that is 226 years old. Doing that "takes hands-on, directive-style leadership," said White, who came from Enron Corp., the Houston-based energy giant.

The new service secretaries, all of whom hail from big corporate jobs, have been assigned to make better use of the $300 billion or so spent on defense each year and to take advantage of new technologies to improve military capabilities, said Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense. He acknowledges that is not a novel mission.

"There have been shelves of studies recommending reforms and ways to be more efficient in acquisition and operations and in almost everything," Wolfowitz said. "And when asked the question 'Well, for all the studies, how much has actually been implemented?' I think the challenge is the implementation."

As a first step toward implementing change, Wolfowitz announced the creation of an entity within the Pentagon bureaucracy to be called the Senior Executive Council. Made up of the service secretaries, along with Wolfowitz and Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, the council will meet once a month with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. No other specific activities by the council were made known.

As an example of the business practices that would save significant sums, Navy Secretary Gordon R. England, who came from General Dynamics, offered a new acronym. The current use of a PPBS, Program Planning Budget System, will be augmented with an ABCS, an Activity Based Costing System. The result, he promised, will be that the services will be able to say how they spend their funds.

The Pentagon has been repeatedly scolded by the General Accounting Office for losing track of several billion dollars every year. The money gets spent but nobody knows how or where.

As an incentive for keeping track of their expenditures and saving wherever possible, the secretaries promised their services that any found money would be plowed back into military capabilities. Such practices may be common in the business world, but Congress, in effect a 535-member board of directors, likes to think the Constitution gives it the power to decide how tax money is spent.

Air Force Secretary James G. Roche, who came from Northrop Grumman, replied, "It will be sometimes difficult to do, and we will have to use the normal authorization and appropriations process because that's what our 535-member board of directors says."

WORDPLAY: Military slang is usually appropriately bellicose. Consider, for example, "laze and blaze," which is what tank gunners do when they use a laser range finder to scope a target and then quickly fire a round. In casual use, it can simply mean to get something done quickly and efficiently.

"Giving a warm fuzzy" seems like it would be more appropriate to a cartoon show. This term means that the result of an event was reassuring or confidence-building, as in, "the captain gave the sergeant a warm fuzzy in the AAR [after action report]."

But, be careful, it can also carry another connotation, giving someone a false sense of well-being. An investigative report on a Navy bombing accident in Kuwait last March concluded that the forward air controller had contributed to the mishap by giving the pilot a "warm fuzzy" when, in fact, the aircraft was off course.

----

Defense Reforms to Guard Against Emerging Threats
Concerns Include High-Speed Missiles, Official Says

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23748-2001Jun20?language=printer

A senior Defense Department official said yesterday that the Bush administration is trying to move beyond a debate over the ideal size of the military and is instead examining how to make it different to better deal with the emerging threats of the 21st century.

Speaking on the eve of major congressional hearings on defense reform, the official said top Pentagon officials also recognize the need to build support for their efforts to transform the armed forces.

"Unless we get some consensus on major change, major change isn't going to stick," the official said in an interview in his office with several reporters. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name.

The Pentagon is likely to move away from the "two major war" approach to determining the size of the armed forces, said the official, confirming earlier reports. The standard calls for a military that can fight two wars at once.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is scheduled to testify today before both the Senate and House Armed Services committees on the state of the administration's effort to reshape the military.

The hearings are expected to be unusually contentious, partly because many members of Congress have felt excluded from Rumsfeld's deliberations about how to change the military.

In addition, some members have criticized the administration's request for a supplemental bill to boost defense spending by $5.6 billion, far less than the services expected.

On top of that, some in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), were riled by the administration's surprise decision last week to order the Navy to stop using the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a practice bombing range by May 2003.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump (R-Ariz.) announced yesterday that he plans to hold hearings next week that will focus on how the administration made the Vieques decision.

As the senior Defense Department official described the state of Rumsfeld's reform effort, he said the last several months have been spent raising questions about how the military is organized.

Only now, he indicated, is the Pentagon starting to develop some answers.

The official all but dumped the two-war yardstick that has been used for the past decade to determine how big the military needs to be. He said it had been useful but, among other things, had focused U.S. strategy too much on operations in the Persian Gulf region and the Korean peninsula, where war was seen as most likely, and not enough on newer, "vaguer" threats.

Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have held an intense series of meetings in recent weeks to devise a replacement for the two-war approach, among other things.

"I think we can come up with a better one," the official said. "That's going to be the project of the summer."

Much of what Rumsfeld plans to say today about his emerging plans already has leaked or been hinted at in his public comments, the official indicated.

The official said the military needs to be able to deal more effectively with small nations that are acquiring precise, high-speed missiles. Partly because of that missile proliferation, the military shouldn't assume that it will have to fight from bases overseas, he said. It instead might have to launch long-range strikes or fight from ships on the sea, the official said.

He also indicated that the armed services need to be better equipped to defend against newer forms of attack, such as attempts to shut down U.S. computer networks.

"There is today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow," the official said in summary. "We have tended to focus rather heavily on tomorrow . . . without realizing how much we are spending today, or preparing for the day after tomorrow."

-------- OTHER

U.S. Courts Become Arbiters of Global Rights and Wrongs

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/national/21LEGA.html?pagewanted=all

Last year, five Chinese natives sued the former Chinese prime minister, Li Peng, in an American court for his role in the Tiananmen Square crackdown that killed hundreds of civilians in Beijing.

While visiting the United Nations in September, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was served with a civil suit saying he ordered killings, torture and terrorism in his country and seeking $400 million in damages.

In Brooklyn, a federal judge is considering legal claims of Canadians and Israelis in addition to Americans against a French railroad that transported people to Nazi death camps.

Those and many other kinds of cases reflect the growing use of the American legal system to judge rights and wrongs all over the globe.

The trend, which began in the mid- 1980's and has been accelerating in recent years, is strongest in human rights cases. But it extends to other areas of the law, like business claims under American antitrust, securities and racketeering laws and criminal prosecutions of foreign terrorists captured abroad.

"The cold war paradigm was the United States as global policeman," said Gregory J. Wallance, a lawyer at the international law firm, Kaye Scholer in New York, who has written about the trend. "The post-cold- war paradigm is the United States as global attorney."

Some of the cases are essentially symbolic, ending in huge civil verdicts that may never be collected. But others have led to criminal charges here, large civil settlements, or financial recoveries drawn from foreign property held in the United States.

There is some resentment over expansion of American legal power, but because many of the cases relate to human rights' claims, critics have had difficulty drawing attention to their concerns.

American lawyers have cast a wide net. Among others who have been sued in this country are the former President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Prince of Wales and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain.

The expansion of American legal power has been explained in recent years as the natural outgrowth of an interconnected world. But lately, some lawyers and legal scholars have begun to argue that the cases represent a sweeping change that is transforming American courts into institutions with international sway.

"What we are exporting now, just as Britain did in the 19th century, is our conception of law" said Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University. Last week, a federal judge awarded Mr. Neuborne $4.4 million in legal fees for his work on a series of cases against German companies and the German government by people forced into slave labor by the Third Reich.

A few American lawyers have made millions on the international lawsuits, while others are handling the cases largely to make human rights or political statements.

Some major legal changes have involved terrorism abroad. Laws passed by Congress in recent years and international treaties signed since the 1970's have expanded the powers of American courts to try terrorism cases.

A federal jury in Manhattan is hearing evidence in deciding the fate of a Tanzanian in the bombing of the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, killing 11 people. The jury last week rejected the death penalty for a Saudi in the bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 213 people.

The United States used treaty provisions that require countries to "prosecute or extradite" terrorism suspects to bring some of the defendants in the embassy bombings to this country.

The fact that American prosecutors tried the case is one sign of the changing views on international prosecution, several legal experts said. Historically, criminal prosecutions were mounted most often where the crimes occurred. In 1986, Italian courts convicted four Palestinian gunmen who had hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro off the Egyptian coast and killed an American, Leon Klinghoffer.

One reason for the change is "a much more expansive notion of U.S. prerogatives to protect its interests," said Ruth G. Wedgwood, an international law specialist at Yale.

One example of the new legal thinking was legislation passed by Congress in 1996, which for the first time permitted lawsuits in American courts against countries that the United States listed as sponsoring terrorism. Libya, Cuba and Iran are on the list. Before that, such suits were generally barred by American rules that protect governments from lawsuits in United States courts.

In February, the Treasury Department authorized the release of $96.7 million from Cuban assets frozen in the United States. The money went to the families of three Miami-based pilots who were shot down by Cuban fighter jets in 1996. The families of the pilots, who were members of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, had sued the Cuban government in federal court in Miami under the 1996 law.

Americans have always been able to sue foreign individuals who were in this country. But before a landmark ruling of a federal appeals court in New York in 1980, American courts were reluctant to get involved in disputes between foreigners involving events in other countries.

In the 1980 decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said a seldom-used law dating of 1789 authorized foreigners to sue other foreigners in this country when they claimed violations of international legal norms, like rules against murder or torture.

The 1980 case involved a lawsuit by a Paraguayan doctor against a former police official who, the court found, has tortured and killed the 17- year-old son of the doctor, who was a Paraguayan opposition leader.

Since then there have been dozens of other suits under the 1789 law, the Alien Tort Claims Act. And in the last few years cases have sought increasingly larger damage awards, said Jennifer M. Green, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which is handling many of the cases.

Last year, a jury in federal court in Manhattan ordered Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, to pay $4.5 billion in damages to people who were raped, tortured and killed in the Balkan conflict.

The scope of American judicial expansion is not limited to terrorism and human rights cases. American antitrust prosecutors have successfully argued that groupings of international companies are subject to American rules prohibiting collusive agreements to set prices even if only one member of the cartel sells products in this country.

Under such rules, executives from Belgium, Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and other countries have been convicted in American courts. The Clinton administration began a push to prosecute international price fixing, and the Bush administration is expected to continue that drive.

But globalism means there are two sides to such expansive notions. European regulators have started to apply their own laws to American businesses. Skepticism by European regulators has stalled several recent mergers by American companies, including General Electric's planned $45 billion acquisition of Honeywell International.

Some courts refuse to get involved in foreign matters. American courts declined, for example, to hear lawsuits against the Prince of Wales and former Prime Minister Thatcher, which claimed they had violated human rights in Northern Ireland and Libya.

But American courts are increasingly willing to stretch their authority. Among the cases that opened the door was a Supreme Court ruling in 1992 that said a Mexican charged with killing an American drug enforcement agent could be tried in this country even though agents had kidnapped him from Mexico.

Similarly, in 1991, a federal appeals court in Washington approved the trial of a man who federal prosecutors said was a Lebanese militia official, Fawaz Yunis, who was charged with hijacking a Jordanian plane in Beirut and was arrested while on a yacht in the Mediterranean.

These cases are a far cry, some lawyers say, from a New York federal court's refusal in 1987 to consider the multibillion-dollar lawsuits against the Union Carbide Corporation over the Bhopal chemical disaster in India.

In addition to court rulings, American legal values are also exported informally, Mr. Wallance of Kaye Scholer argued in an article last year. As an example he cited boycotts of clothing brands manufactured in countries that do not comply with American workplace rules.

So far, criticism of expanding ambitions of the American legal system has been muted. But some foreign governments have said they are offended by suits in this country, and some American legal experts warn that the United States is opening what could be a dangerous legal competition with other countries.

Other countries are already trying to expand the influence of their legal rules or to fight off the influence of America's legal system. Some European countries are resisting a proposed international agreement in The Hague that would make it easier to enforce judgments of American courts abroad.

If American diplomats and executives become entangled in lawsuits in other countries, the United States might start to view its legal expansionism in a different light, said Curtis A. Bradley, a law professor at the University of Virginia.

In early June, a Chilean judge said he would try to get Henry A. Kissinger, the former United States secretary of state, to testify about the disappearance of an American in Chile when the dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in the 1970's.

Jack L. Goldsmith, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said Americans have not considered the consequences of applying this country's law all over the world.

"The United States loves to export our values," Mr. Goldsmith said, "but not if it gives other countries the power to review what we do."

-------- alternative energy

Wisconsin utilities to power homes with cow manure

USA: June 21, 2001
Story by Eileen Moustakis
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11259

MILWAUKEE - Some Wisconsin utility companies are going to great lengths in terms of renewable energy programs.

Wisconsin Electric and Wisconsin Gas have teamed up with dairy farmers and Ag Environmental Solutions, LLC to create the Midwestern state's first cow-manure-powered plant, supplying electricty for more than 250 local homes.

Wisconsin's manure-to-energy facility will use a digester - a device that speeds up the decomposition of animal waste and captures escaping methane gas, which is then used for fuel to generate electricity.

Energy-strapped California and Washington state already are using such facilities.

"I've helped design, construct and operate power plants in Wisconsin for more than 30 years and this is definitely a first," Dick Grigg, Wisconsin Electric/Wisconsin Gas president and chief operating officer said Wednesday in a statement.

"I'm very proud that we've developed a way to turn our waste into renewable energy and protect the land for future generations," said Carl Theunis of Wrightstown, Wisc., whose Tinedale Farms has about 1,800 milking cows.

The methane gas is used to fuel a small power plant at Tinedale Farms, which produces 750 kilowatts, enough to provide electricity for about 250 homes.

Capturing methane from animal waste has environmental benefits. Methane is twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Capturing and burning it to produce electricity reduces its negative environmental impact while providing a reliable source of renewable energy.

Wisconsin Electric and Wisconsin Gas, the utility units of Wisconsin Energy Corp. , serve more than 1 million electric and more than 957,000 natural gas customers throughout Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

----

Hearst Castle converts to energy-wise buses

Thursday, June 21, 2001
By Comtex
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/06/06212001/hearst_44068.asp

LOS ANGELES - Hearst Castle(R) this week becomes the first California state park to operate a fleet of 100 percent natural gas-powered buses when it unveils 16 new clean-fuel buses June 23. The new buses will replace old diesel-powered buses and reduce harmful air emissions by up to 75 percent.

"These clean-fuel vehicles will help preserve the pristine nature of the San Simeon area while improving the quality of the park's transportation services," said Ed Redig, chief of historic preservation at Hearst Castle(R). The full-sized buses will transport nearly 1 million visitors annually from the visitor center to the hilltop Hearst Castle(R), a 10-mile round trip.

"This fleet of natural gas buses will improve air quality, reduce noise, save tax dollars and help eliminate reliance on imported oil," said Richard M. Morrow, vice president of customer service and marketing at Southern California Gas Company's Energy Transportation Services unit.

A new natural gas service line installed by Southern California Gas Company (The Gas Company) will bring natural gas to the new fueling station located at Hearst Castle.

"The environmental and health benefits of natural gas buses are numerous," Morrow said. "Emissions from natural gas buses are dramatically lower than diesel bus emissions. This means cleaner air."

The natural gas-powered buses are expected to reduce nitrogen oxides by 58 percent; hydrocarbons by 82 percent; and the amount of carbon monoxide by 84 percent. Particulate matter will be reduced by 77 percent.

"Ten years ago when the present bus fleet was acquired there were no clean-fuel alternatives available," said Morrow. Today the picture is entirely different as natural gas buses represent the technology of choice in transit applications."

The new natural gas buses will displace almost 400,000 gallons of imported diesel fuel with regionally produced natural gas. The new fleet will also reduce noise pollution by 10 to 12 decibels. "In terms of noise, natural gas buses are similar to the level of typical light duty trucks," Morrow added.

The unveiling of the new buses supports a movement by members of a clean-air partnership to improve air quality, enhance the quality of transportation services and preserve the pristine natural of the San Simeon area. Members of the clean-air partnership include Hearst Castle(R), California State Parks, San Luis Obispo Air Pollution Control District, the California Energy Commission and The Gas Company.

-------- death penalty

Death Penalty Council Denounces U.S.

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Europe-Death-Penalty.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The head of the Council of Europe derided the United States' use of the death penalty Thursday, calling it ineffectual against crime and a morally wrong choice that has put innocent people on death row.

Also at the first World Congress against the Death Penalty, which opened Thursday, the European Union's top foreign policy official, Chris Patten, denounced a campaign of executions by China, called the ``Strike Hard'' policy, which he called ``so horrifying as to be almost unbelievable.''

During a highly charged opening session, Walter Schwimmer, secretary-general of the Council of Europe, the continent's biggest human rights organization, cast aside his prepared notes and attacked U.S. policy.

``Do you know how many people in the United States are on death row?'' Schwimmer asked. ``No less than 3,700. Would anyone really believe that the death penalty is a tool to fight crime? If that would be true, the United States would be a country without crime and without violence.''

The three-day conference in Strasborg, France, opens in the wake of the federal executions in the United States of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and convicted murderer and drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza.

During a visit to Europe last week, President Bush came under heavy criticism from death penalty opponents. He insisted that ``the death penalty is the will of the people in the United States.''

In his remarks, Schwimmer cited the case of Joaquin Jose Martinez, a Spaniard who spent 37 months on death row for the slaying of a drug trafficker and a striptease artist near Tampa, Fla. He was acquitted early this month after a retrial.

``What would have happened if the execution some years ago had not been postponed? Would anybody think this execution had been justice?'' Schwimmer said.

Criticism at the conference also focused on China. The anti-crime campaign Hard Strike has already sent hundreds -- ranging from murderers, drug dealers to embezzlers -- to be executed after being paraded at public rallies. Foreign critics fear Chinese courts are rushing to judgment, condemning people on possibly shaky evidence or even forced confessions.

``The figures emanating from China about its use of the death penalty under the ``strike hard'' policy are so horrifying as to be almost unbelievable,'' said Patten in a statement prepared for address.

He also warned that in Iran the practice of executing women by stoning had resumed after a four-year lull. He said he had raised the issue with Iranian officials recently.

The 43-member Council of Europe, which organized the conference, has obtained a total ban or moratorium on executions in its member states. Abolishing the death penalty is also a requirement for membership in the 15-member EU.

-------- energy

IBM Computer Studies Fuel Efficiency

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-IBM-Supercomputer.html?searchpv=aponline

NEW YORK (AP) -- When it comes to innovations in speed and efficiency, cars are no match for computers.

In the past few decades, autos have shown little improvement in performance per gallon of fuel consumed. In the same period, computing performance has leaped more than a hundredfold without similar increases in use of electricity.

Now, computers are being tapped to help the languishing cars.

At a supercomputing conference in Germany, today, IBM will announce that it has built the world's second-most powerful supercomputer, which will be dedicated to researching fuel efficiency in automobiles and other energy-related problems.

The machine, theoretically capable of as many as 3.8 trillion calculations per second, will be installed at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Oakland, Calif., IBM announced.

The computer will be used to test computer models of internal combustion engines in hopes of finding a model that burns less fuel and emits fewer pollutants, said NERSC spokesman John Hules.

The NERSC machine will also be used in global climate modeling and research into fusion energy, proteins, the environment and biology, said Hules.

IBM builds more of the world's fastest supercomputers than any other company: 201 of the 500 fastest supercomputers are the product of Big Blue, according to the Top 500 List, maintained by researchers at the University of Tennessee and Germany's University of Mannheim.

Number two vendor, Sun Microsystems, counts 81 machines on the list.

In terms of computing power, the NERSC model trails only one existing machine: the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative White IBM supercomputer installed at the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

That machine is engaged in classified modeling of nuclear weapons explosions, said Hules.

--------

Governor Faults U.S. on Energy Refunds

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By JOSEPH KAHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/politics/21POWE.html

WASHINGTON, June 20 - In heated testimony before a Senate panel, Gov. Gray Davis of California accused federal regulators today of allowing power companies to "bilk our state" of billions of dollars.

Though those same regulators - members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - acted earlier this week to restrain electricity prices in California and the West, Mr. Davis said they had failed to force power companies to reimburse California for past overcharges.

"Californians are due billions of dollars in refunds for these excessive electricity prices," Mr. Davis, a Democrat, said. "It is unconscionable that FERC looked the other way while energy companies bilked our state for up to $9 billion."

Some Democrats, including many from California, welcomed the regulators' efforts, calling them belated but vital steps to lower electricity costs in California.

But Mr. Davis may be reluctant to ease up on his political assault, in part because it is working. He got some of what he has sought in recent months when regulators did an about-face and agreed to impose relatively broad controls on electricity prices until September 2002.

Republicans have softened their once resolutely hands-off approach to electricity price controls and show that they, too, care about California. Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, at the hearings today before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, said Mr. Davis had accused Republicans everywhere of causing the electricity crisis.

Mr. Thompson said he intended to "widen the net a little" and raise questions about how the governor himself had handled matters.

He said Mr. Davis ignored warnings that the state lacked sufficient supplies of electricity as long ago as 1999 and had bungled the response since then because he refused to pass rate increases on to consumers.

"How was it you seemed to let things get totally out of hand?" Mr. Thompson asked Mr. Davis. "Do you not accept responsibility for addressing these structural issues?"

Democrats, who now control the Senate, have echoed many of Mr. Davis's accusations. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the chairman of the committee, said he shared the concern that California was "owed substantially greater refunds" than the federal agency had mandated so far.

Governor Davis's political support, which waned as electricity prices soared, has rebounded recently. Polls show that more Californians - and Americans generally - agree with his oft-repeated calls for federal help in controlling energy prices.

Mr. Davis has framed California's difficulties as having mostly out-of- state causes, including what he describes as price-gouging by Texas- based power generators; a White House that will not help California; and Republican-appointed regulators who do not enforce laws requiring "just and reasonable" electricity rates.

When the commission expanded its efforts to monitor and limit excessive prices earlier this week, it also instructed the state's utilities and mostly out-of-state generating companies to negotiate settlements concerning the accusations of price- gouging. It gave them until July 9 to do so before an administrative law judge in Washington.

Mr. Davis demanded today that he be a party to any settlement discussions.

Federal regulators, who have the responsibility to determine "just and reasonable" electricity rates under a New Deal-era law, have so far not estimated how much of California's electricity bill was excessive. The state has paid several times more for electricity this year than it did in all of 1999.

The agency once said that generators might have charged $124 million more than could be justified in January and February. But they have not updated those figures to reflect potential overcharges in other months, and the agency has since radically revised how it calculates overcharges.

Though the federal agency has gradually stepped up its efforts to police the market, California has recovered almost nothing from generators. Even under the latest order, there is no set procedure for determining how generators that sell electricity for prices above the level deemed fair would refund money.

Spokesmen for several companies that sell electricity to California, including the Duke Energy Corporation and Dynegy Inc., said today that they would be willing to discuss settlements of the overcharges they have been accused of. Several other companies said they would wait for an analysis of the agency's order before commenting.

-------- environment

Cold Water Flow From Arctic to Atlantic Is Falling.

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/science/21ARCT.html

Scientists have detected a substantial drop in the last 50 years in the flow of cold deep sea water leaving the Arctic and pouring into the Atlantic between Iceland and Scotland.

Climate experts say the obscure current, flowing south 2,000 feet beneath the surface, is one of the engines that drive the worldwide oceanic conveyer belt that also carries sun-warmed surface water north toward the pole. Because the outflow of cold deep water has diminished, the influx of warm surface water that usually replaces it also has to have declined. That decrease could explain a recent cooling of some coastal regions near the Norwegian Sea, said the authors of the study, which is described in today's issue of Nature.

The study was conducted by scientists in Norway, Scotland and the Faroe Islands, 400 miles east of Iceland, and centered on the flow of water over a submerged ridge east of those islands. The changes there mesh with observations of major shifts in temperature, sea ice, currents and winds above the Arctic Circle and match some computer simulations of global warming. But the scientists noted that the natural cycles in the area between the Arctic and the Atlantic remained poorly understood. They said it was too soon to say climate change caused by human activity had changed the flow.

Other climate experts cautioned that it was premature to predict whether the change could have broader effects on Europe, because other influences besides sea temperature contribute to the generally mild conditions there.

"If I lived in the Faroes, I might be worried," said Dr. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. "But in Paris I wouldn't be worried."

Dr. Knut Aagaard, an oceanographer at the Polar Research Center of the University of Washington in Seattle, said the research benefited from a focus on a remote, but vital junction in the ocean's circulatory system, the fairly narrow passages between Greenland and Europe that link Arctic waters with the North Atlantic.

Enormous amounts of water affected by conditions far to the north flow through the gaps, Dr. Aagaard said, adding: "These constrictions give you a wonderful way to monitor what's going on over larger areas. If you want to know changes in a big building, stand by the front door and you'll get a feel for it."

One author of the study had the benefit of living and working in the Faroes. Dr. Bogi Hansen, an oceanographer at the Faroese Fisheries Laboratory, said instruments that tracked currents, salinity and temperature were placed on the ridge east of the islands.

The water flowing over that sill, he said, constitutes a submarine river 10 miles wide and more than 600 feet deep, with a flow twice that of all the world's freshwater rivers combined.

Detailed readings from the anchored instruments over five years were matched up with separate measurements taken nearby since 1948 from weather ships, providing a much longer-term estimate of shifts in the deep currents.

The amount of cold deep water in that time, Dr. Hansen said, has fallen 20 percent and is accelerating. "If you look at the graph," he said, "you see the decrease is much faster in the last five years than it was over the 50-year period."

But Dr. Hansen said the record was still not long enough to determine whether the change was linked to warming of the atmosphere from rising levels of greenhouse gases.

-------- genetics

Germany, France to Seek UN Ban on Human Cloning

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-germany.html?searchpv=reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) - Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and his French counterpart Hubert Vedrine said on Thursday that they would jointly sponsor a United Nations resolution aimed at banning human cloning.

``With the joint initiative, the ministers seek to establish in a legal instrument valid worldwide that reproductive cloning of humans is unacceptable and incompatible with human dignity,'' the German foreign ministry said in a statement.

Earlier this year Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori, who hit the headlines when he helped a 62-year-old woman have a baby, announced his intention of becoming the first scientist to clone a human being.

France adopted a draft law to ban human cloning in medical research on Wednesday, after months of soul-searching over the dangers and benefits of the latest scientific advance.

Germany, especially wary of the issue because of the Nazi experiment to create a master race using selective breeding, has engaged in a passionate debate in recent months on how far society should go in allowing science to alter nature.

On Wednesday, leading British scientists called for an international ban on human cloning.

In April, Britain became the first country to propose laws banning human reproductive cloning, aiming to ease public concern that the process could go terribly wrong.

Other countries, including the United States and Australia, are also considering bans on human cloning.

-------- health

Coca-Cola Joins AIDS Fight in Africa

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21AIDS.html

PARIS, June 20 - Coca-Cola, Africa's biggest employer, if affiliates are counted, says it will use its resources to combat AIDS on the continent.

The company announced, in partnership with Unaids, the joint United Nations agency, that it will use its advertising ability and its distribution network rather than contribute cash. For example, a spokesman said, the company might help Kenya design anti-AIDS advertisements and hand over use of its three big billboards in downtown Nairobi. Or it might carry literature on AIDS to 2,500 volunteer centers in Zambia.

Coke's formidable distribution network reaches every country in Africa except Sudan and Libya. And its soft drinks - along with soap, detergent, matches, candles, bleach, batteries and beer - are found in even the poorest village. Its marketing department is also capable of rolling out a new campaign like "Enjoy Coca-Cola" in 50 countries at once.

But the company has also had a somewhat contentious history in its 72 years on the continent. When it was pressed to quit South Africa under apartheid, for example, it moved its syrup operations to Swaziland but continued selling through affiliates. And four years ago, when it announced plans to expand its sales, it was criticized for prodding poor people to spend more of their scarce cash on a sugary drink with no nutritional value.

The company has only 1,500 direct employees in Africa, where 26 million people are infected - 70 percent of the world's 36 million H.I.V./AIDS cases. But it will try to educate another 100,000 people who work for its bottling and marketing affiliates. The company said it will pay for full medical coverage, including treatment with anti-retroviral drugs, for any of the 1,500 employees or their immediate family members who are H.I.V. positive.

The company will "take these practices to our bottling partners to show them the benefits," said Robert A. Lindsay, a spokesman, though he said the company would not pay medical coverage for those 100,000 employees of affiliates. It has also required all its regional offices to start prevention campaigns.

Mr. Lindsay said the company would lend logistics managers to charities to help them figure out routes for distributing literature, condoms or testing kits. He said the company would also allow charities to use space in its warehouses and trucks. But because the trucks are not refrigerated, the company cannot distribute drugs that must be kept cold. "We don't intend to create programs, but we'll help existing ones," he said. "We don't kid ourselves - we're a beverage company."

The company's offer to help distribute condoms has brought some criticism, Mr. Lindsay conceded. "Philosophically, we don't have an issue with moving them from point A to point B," he said, "but it's not as if we're going to be delivering a crate of Coke and a box of condoms." As an example, he said a company truck might haul a container of condoms from the port of Mombasa to a hospital in the Kenyan capital.

The company did not estimate how much money or how many employee hours it would spend on the effort.

Dominique de Santis, a spokeswoman for Unaids, said it is "too early to tell what impact it will have, but we're optimistic."

The partnership with Unaids is the first major initiative by the new Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, which was founded in Swaziland in this year.

-------- police

PG police to use Tasers over deadly force

June 21, 2001
By Arlo Wagner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20010621-22372600.htm

Waving a knife over his head as he dashed forward, John Boseman was able to take only two steps before Prince George´s County Police Sgt. Charles Bucky Mills pulled the trigger of his new Taser M-26 for a split second.

The knife-wielder fell immediately, before reaching Sgt. Mills. He lay on the mat in Prince George´s police headquarters in Landover for 10 seconds, long enough for officers to grab hold and restrain him.

It was all a fake, except for the Taser shot. The knife was a rubber dagger. Officer Boseman is a police computer forensic specialist who volunteered to be an M-26 target. Sgt. Mills is director of judgment enhancement training to help police deal with emergencies that threaten to get physical and deadly.

Chief John S. Farrell arrived yesterday just after the M-26 demonstration. He had come from the funeral for Metro Transit Police Officer Marlon Morales who was shot in the face while on duty the night of June 10.

"He was killed by some nincompoop out there," Chief Farrell said. Nevertheless, "The goal is to never use deadly force," he said, and the M-26 is a step toward that goal.

The M-26 Taser shoots out two darts, or probes, attached to filaments 21 feet long. The instant the probes strike the target, 26 watts flow through to paralyze the subject. The paralysis from a 5-second pull on the trigger lasts between 30 seconds and one minute, Officer Mills said.

"It doesn´t hurt," said Cpl. Tim Estes, police public information officer, who volunteered to take a 26-watt shot. "But you just can´t do anything."

The probes penetrate only one-quarter inch into a subject´s skin. The electronic jolt works even if it sticks into a layer of clothing, even a ballistics vest, Sgt. Mills said.

"It will get 99 percent of the people down," Sgt. Mills said, then demonstrated how it might be used to stop blockades.

Five officers, arm-in-arm, kneeled on the mat. A probe was attached to the outer arm of the two officers on the end. One touch of the Taser trigger and they all fell on their faces despite Sgt. Mills urging to "fight it as long as you can."

The Taser shock will not interfere with pacemakers, but will stop drug addicts who often seem to be immune to pain, Sgt. Mills said.

After two years of study, Prince George´s police bought 15 of the $370 Tasers. They have been ready for use in the holsters of patrol sergeants for two weeks. So far, not one Taser has been fired on duty. The 50 patrol sergeants transfer the electronic guns as they change shifts.

The Tasers also shoot out a confetti that lists the exact minute, hour and day of the shot. The information will be helpful as police prepare reports of the incident, and if subsequent investigations of police behavior are conducted.

In effect, the Tasers are a last resort. All 1,420 police employees have been trained in the last year to try to talk subjects into peaceful surrender, Chief Farrell said.

From the first, officers have been trained to have their firearms ready to stop subjects who are intent on violence, to protect innocent bystanders and to protect themselves. Gradually, less violent weapons are being used.

Prince George´s is the 800th jurisdiction in the nation, including the Baltimore city police and Fairfax County police and sheriff´s office, to employ the Tasers. Sgt. Mills said the Montgomery and Baltimore county police are evaluating the Taser.

The Tasers will supplement, maybe eventually replace, the pepperball shots that Prince George´s police have used since November when all other efforts fail to defuse potentially violent situations. The pepperballs, used 15 times in eight months, sting the flesh and eyes.

For the last eight months, Prince George´s police have also used the WRAP Restraint 21 times on subjects, frequently suicidal, who physically resisted. The canvaslike cushions prevent subjects from kicking and striking.

The effort to reduce the use of deadly and lethal force is slowly succeeding, Chief Farrell said. Violent police contact is "at a 15-year low," he said.

----

U.S., Mexico move to reduce migrant deaths along border

June 21, 2001
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010621-96518322.htm

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol and Mexico´s deputy director of protection and consular affairs have agreed to new measures to enhance the lifesaving capabilities of both countries along Arizona´s 350-mile international border.

Pledging to do everything possible to reduce migrant deaths and injuries, Border Patrol chief Gustavo De La Vina and Mexican Deputy Director Roberto Rodriguez Hernandez said the new agreement would include the deployment of additional resources to high-risk areas and will involve closer collaboration on mapping and electronic communications.

The pact, mapped out during a meeting last week in Tucson, Ariz., involving 30 representatives of both countries, will include additional binational search-and-rescue training.

"These binational meetings are a crucial part of the border safety effort," said Mr. De La Vina. "They give us an opportunity to share ideas that will help both countries better address this challenge."

"Both countries are committed to working to promote safe, legal, humane and orderly migration," said Mr. Rodriguez Hernandez.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, who attended joint U.S.-Mexico meetings on the agreement last month, said he was "fully committed to a safe and orderly border for residents, visitors and migrants." The Border Patrol, part of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, is overseen by the Justice Department.

The agreement comes in the wake of the deaths of 14 Mexican nationals whose bodies were found last month in the scorching Arizona desert east of Yuma. They were among a group of 26 who attempted to cross 70 miles of desert in temperatures that reached 115 degrees.

Border Patrol authorities said the group had spent five days wandering the desert after several suspected alien smugglers told them they were leaving for water but never returned.

Under the new agreement, the Border Patrol has assigned three additional helicopters and three pilots to the Tucson sector to expand the area´s fleet to 12 aircraft, including 10 helicopters.

Mr. De La Vina said the helicopters are valuable because they can take off and land in rugged terrain, "making them an important tool not only for surveillance but also for rescues."

In addition, he said, one of the helicopters in Tucson is equipped with infrared technology, enabling the Border Patrol to carry out nighttime search and rescue operations.

The Border Patrol and Mexican authorities also agreed on the need for additional training to enhance the effectiveness of future joint rescue efforts. Mr. De La Vina said the training will focus on skills ranging from mountain rescues to water survival.

Much of the training will be overseen by members of the Border Patrol´s Search and Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR) team. Given the resources of the teams in Tucson and San Diego, Mr. De La Vina said the BORSTAR program is being expanded to four other southern border sectors -- including Yuma and El Centro, Calif.

Eventually, he said, 50 Border Patrol agents from across the Southwest will take part in search and rescue training sessions in Southern California.

He said the agents will then return to their sectors to help establish local search-and-rescue programs.

Meanwhile, Mr. De La Vina said 23 members of the Tucson Border Patrol´s BORSTAR team have been reassigned to the sector´s Tucson main station a move that he said will enable team members to respond more quickly to any emergencies that arise in the Western desert.

He said that as a further safety measure, the Tucson sector has also temporarily been transferred an additional 30 Border Patrol agents from Nogales, Ariz., and Douglas, Ariz., to the Western desert.

Under the agreement, the Border Patrol also has:

• Sent five new all-terrain vehicles to its station in Ajo, Ariz., along with two infrared night-vision devices that Mr. De La Vina described as "vital in the effort to locate and rescue migrants who may be in distress."

• Assigned 63 Border Patrol officers now at the academy to the Tucson sector, a third of whom will be sent to stations responsible for patrolling the Western desert.

• Committed to work more closely with Mexican authorities on future public information campaigns to improve the effectiveness of outreach efforts aimed at making the danger of illegal border crossings more apparent.

The Border Patrol and Mexican authorities said in a joint statement after the Tucson meeting they would share information on suspected alien smugglers and work jointly to ensure that smugglers interdicted in the high-risk Western desert area "are subject to the highest scrutiny for possible prosecution."

----

Senators Urge FBI Changes

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Senate-FBI.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress should change how the FBI polices itself, empowering outside experts and internal watchdogs to take an unfettered look at an agency stung recently by several high-profile blunders, senators say.

``Unfortunately, the image of the FBI in the minds of too many Americans is that this agency has become unmanageable, unaccountable and unreliable,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is holding hearings on what needs to be done at the nation's premier law enforcement organization.

Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Wednesday that the Justice Department would conduct its own inquiry to ``identify and recommend actions dedicated to improving and upgrading the performance of the FBI.''

Ashcroft said his committee would be made up of top Justice Department officials and the heads of the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

However, Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said they would introduce a bill to create a commission of nongovernmental experts to look at the FBI and recommend ways to prevent mistakes such as the handling of Oklahoma City bombing documents.

People ``think if there were mistakes on high-profile cases, where there should have been extra care, what is going on with the lower-profile cases?'' Schumer said.

A string of missteps and what critics called a cover-up-the-mistakes mentality at the FBI have put pressure on Congress to take action. In the latest bungle, more than 4,000 FBI documents were withheld from lawyers for Timothy McVeigh, forcing Ashcroft to delay his execution. The FBI blamed the problem on glitches with computers and record-keeping.

Other controversies, such as the arrest of veteran FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen in February on charges of spying for Moscow for 15 years and the botched investigation last year of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, have dogged the FBI recently.

And on Wednesday, the FBI announced one of its security experts was arrested and charged with selling classified files to organized crime figures and others under investigation. James J. Hill was arrested Friday in Las Vegas after allegedly faxing classified information drawn from computer files to a private investigator in New York.

``If there is any unifying theme to these failures, it appears to be a failure of basic supervision, management and oversight,'' a former Justice Department inspector general, Michael Bromwich, said Wednesday.

Investigations of the FBI already are being conducted by the Justice Department's inspector general and by an independent panel of experts headed by former FBI and CIA Director William Webster.

Hatch said Ashcroft's committee doesn't negate the need for the commission proposed by him and Schumer. ``The inspector generals are great at doing factual investigations, but they are not designed to do strategic, long-term recommendations on these important policy and managerial issues,'' Hatch said. ``The blue-ribbon commission can fill that gap.''

Experts who have participated in previous FBI reviews complained that the agency is uncooperative with outsiders.

Former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., who investigated the FBI to find out what happened during the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, said while the FBI didn't commit any ``bad acts,'' some agents were not cooperative with his investigation. ``I think it is part of the culture, the idea of that FBI is not there to be investigated,'' Danforth said.

``Our experience at the FBI is by far our most contentious among law-enforcement agencies,'' added Norman Rabkin, the General Accounting Office's managing director of justice issues.

The Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn Fine, called for increased funding for his department and asked senators to remove a provision from the law that prevents his inspectors from investigating any FBI agent without first getting approval from the attorney general or his deputy.

Also on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would create a new independent inspector general who would look at only the FBI.

---

Ashcroft Orders Review of FBI
4th Investigation Opens as Senate Begins Hearings

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A23
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23753-2001Jun20?language=printer

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday ordered a wide internal review aimed at reforming the beleaguered FBI, which is now the target of four separate investigations after a series of embarrassing blunders.

The review, announced the same day the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on FBI reforms, also came amid growing demands on Capitol Hill for increased oversight of the troubled agency.

"The FBI has long been considered the crown jewel of law enforcement agencies," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). "Today, it has lost some of its earlier luster. The image of the FBI in the minds of too many Americans is that the agency has become unmanageable, unaccountable and unreliable."

In a memorandum yesterday to Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, Ashcroft ordered a "comprehensive review" to "identify and recommend actions dedicated to improving and upgrading the performance of the FBI."

The review will be conducted by the Strategic Management Council, a new long-range planning group headed by Thompson and including top Justice officials along with FBI, immigration, drug enforcement and prisons directors.

Ashcroft also requested that a private firm be hired to conduct a management study of the bureau's faltering computers, filing systems and personnel policies.

The overall review, Ashcroft said, is "in the spirit of enhancing the institutional integrity and performance" of the FBI.

The bureau has been hammered by high-profile controversies this year, including the arrest of accused spy Robert P. Hanssen and the failure to turn over thousands of pages of documents in the Timothy J. McVeigh case. Just this week, officials announced that an FBI security analyst in Las Vegas had been arrested for allegedly selling secrets to the Mafia and criminal defense lawyers for the past 19 months.

In addition to the review announced yesterday, the FBI is the target of two probes by the Justice Department's inspector general into the Hanssen and McVeigh problems. Former FBI and CIA director William H. Webster is also heading a panel that will recommend reforms to national security procedures after the Hanssen case.

Ashcroft has asked that those three investigations be completed by Nov. 1, with a final report from the internal review due by January.

The dueling probes come as FBI Director Louis J. Freeh prepares to resign this week, two years short of his 10-year term. The Bush administration is leaning toward naming San Francisco U.S. Attorney Robert S. Mueller III, an experienced Justice lawyer, to lead the bureau.

Freeh, who enjoyed strong support from congressional Republicans through much of his term, declined a request from Leahy to testify at yesterday's hearing, the first of a series to focus on FBI reforms. FBI officials declined to comment.

Also yesterday, lawmakers launched several measures aimed at increasing FBI oversight. Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) unveiled a bill that would create a blue-ribbon commission to conduct "a top-to-bottom review" of the bureau's problems. Hatch said the commission would be able to go further in its conclusions than the internal review ordered by Ashcroft.

"If there were mistakes on high-profile cases, where there should have been extra care, what is going on with the lower-profile cases?" Schumer asked.

In the House, the Judiciary Committee approved a budget bill that included an amendment from Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) creating a deputy inspector general focusing on the FBI.

At the Senate Judiciary hearing, Webster and several others portrayed the FBI as insular and unreceptive to outside scrutiny. Former U.S. senator John C. Danforth, who headed a probe into the deadly Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Tex., said the bureau's tendency to hide its mistakes has cost it dearly in public confidence.

Leahy and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) unveiled their own proposal to expand the powers of the current inspector general to investigate the FBI.

The current inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, and his predecessor, Michael R. Bromwich, also urged senators to expand the power of Fine's office to investigate the FBI. Current rules require the inspector general to seek permission from the attorney general or his deputy before launching a probe of the bureau.

Both also argued against a proposal by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) to create a separate inspector general for the FBI, supplanting the Justice Department's IG.

"The creation of a separate IG underlines its separateness and thus, in my judgment, moves in the wrong direction," Bromwich said.

---

Broad Review of F.B.I. Is Set as Senate Begins Hearings

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/politics/21BURE.html

WASHINGTON, June 20 - The Senate Judiciary Committee today held the first in a series of hearings into managerial and investigative lapses at the F.B.I., as Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a wide-ranging review of the troubled law enforcement agency.

Mr. Ashcroft's announcement of a Strategic Management Council for the Federal Bureau of Investigation came as senators on the judiciary panel offered proposals to tighten supervision of the agency. Among their suggestions was an inspector general for the F.B.I. who would be separate from the Justice Department's inspector general and an independent commission to investigate the bureau's operations.

At the hearing, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the committee's chairman, said the F.B.I. had lost its elite image among law enforcement agencies.

"Unfortunately the image of the F.B.I. in the minds of many Americans is that this agency has become unmanageable, unaccountable and unreliable," Mr. Leahy said. "Its much-vaunted independence has transformed for some into an image of insular arrogance."

Louis J. Freeh, the departing F.B.I. director, declined an invitation to appear at the hearing. Instead, Mr. Freeh attended the funeral of a Washington, D.C., transit police officer killed in the line of duty and delivered a farewell speech to employees at bureau headquarters. After his speech, F.B.I. workers lined up to be photographed with Mr. Freeh, who is resigning this week after eight years as director.

The Bush administration has yet to name Mr. Freeh's successor. Justice Department officials have said Robert S. Muller 3rd, the United States attorney in San Francisco, who was Mr. Ashcroft's temporary deputy attorney general, is the leading candidate.

But White House officials have said Mr. Bush has not decided on the F.B.I. post, a difficult job to fill with the bureau under fire for several problems.

Those include the arrest in February of Robert P. Hanssen, a senior F.B.I. agent, charged with espionage, and the belated disclosure in May of thousands of pages of bureau documents that should have been turned over to lawyers for Timothy J. McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

At the Judiciary Committee hearing, a panel of senior current and former government officials testified about their frustrations investigating F.B.I. activities. Several said they had encountered resistance from agents and supervisors in response to legitimate requests.

John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, who investigated the bureau's conduct in the 1993 standoff with the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Tex., spoke of what he said was a lack of cooperation from the agency.

"I didn't think there was a cover- up of a bad act, I think there was a cover-up of an embarrassment," said Mr. Danforth who was named by former Attorney General Janet Reno as a special counsel to investigate the F.B.I.'s belated disclosure that agents had fired incendiary devices during the standoff.

Mr. Danforth concluded that while agents had fired the flammable devices, the F.B.I. was not responsible for the fire or the deaths of about 80 Davidians. He said that if the problem was the existence of an "old boys network," then "it is important to replace these people."

"Otherwise, any reform would be sure to founder on everyday resistance from within," he said.

Others who testified at the hearing were William H. Webster, a former director of the F.B.I. and of central intelligence, who is conducting an internal review of the F.B.I.'s counterespionage efforts; Glenn Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general; Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general; and Norman Rabkin, managing director of the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigating arm.

-------- spying

Cuba Promises New Battle Over U.S. - Jailed Agents

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-cuba-us.html

HAVANA (Reuters) - President Fidel Castro's government pledged on Thursday a new ``battle for justice'' in the case of five Cuban agents facing lengthy jail sentences in the United States after their conviction on spying-related charges.

``I think this is a new battle by our people for justice, for our rights,'' Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told media at Havana airport before leaving on a trip to Jamaica.

His comments underscored early signs of a major political campaign from Havana on behalf of the five, who were convicted earlier in June by a Miami court. Cuba is casting them as heroes whose undercover work helped avoid violent attacks on the island by militant anti-Castro Cuban Americans.

The five, who allegedly belonged to the ``Wasp Network'' spy- ring dismantled in 1998, had infiltrated military installations and key Cuban American groups.

``I am sure our comrades unjustly jailed there today, their relatives and their colleagues, will receive all the support and solidarity of our people, and our diplomats,'' Perez added. ''We will do everything we can to ensure justice triumphs.''

Those words evoked memories of Cuba's last major political campaign -- the biggest in the Castro government's four-decade-old government -- during the custody dispute over 6-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez.

The battle to bring Elian back from the United States, which eventually happened in mid-2000 after a seven-month dispute, led to near-daily mass rallies and marches, blanket coverage by Cuba's state media, and a diplomatic offensive.

Since Elian's return, the structures of mass mobilization have remained -- with regular rallies usually focusing on denunciations of U.S. ``imperialism'' -- but Cuba has lacked a unifying ``cause celebre'' like the Elian case.

Diplomats said the case of the five agents lacked the same capacity to grab international attention as that of the photogenic Elian, but it might nevertheless give Castro another chance to take aim at his traditional enemies abroad.

Cuba's premise is that the five's intelligence work was a legitimate form of self-defense against alleged ``terrorist'' elements in Florida's largely anti-communist Cuban American community bent on plotting Castro's downfall by violent means.

``What we have certainly done is contribute to exposing terrorist plans and actions against our people, thus preventing the death of innocent Cubans and Americans,'' the five wrote from jail in a ``Message to the U.S. People'' released in Cuba.

One of the agents, Gerardo Hernandez, was found guilty of conspiracy to murder in connection with the shooting down of two exile planes by Cuban jets in 1996. He faces a life sentence.

Hernandez and two others were also convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, a crime that also carries a possible life sentence. Those three and the two other defendants were also found guilty of working as agents for a foreign government, a charge carrying a possible prison sentence of 10 years.

Cuban state media have launched themselves wholeheartedly into the incipient campaign on behalf of the five.

State TV is holding a series of nightly two-hour ``round- table'' programs, with Castro present in the studio, on the case. The series is named ``In the Entrails of the Monster.''

Newspapers have also taken up the cause, with Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) for example carrying pictures of the men on its front page Thursday under the banner headline: ''Innocent.''

Ironically, most Cubans, who do not have access to foreign media, knew nothing of the widely-publicized Miami trial of the five before Wednesday's start of Havana's campaign.

In a further twist, Cuba announced late Wednesday the capture at the end of April of three heavily armed Cuban- Americans who allegedly planned to launch sabotage attacks including one on the world-famous Tropicana nightclub.

The men were expected to be tried for ``terrorism,'' a charge which carries the death penalty in Cuba.

-------- terrorism

Berenson Is Convicted in a Second Trial in Peru

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21LORI.html

LIMA, Peru, June 20 - Lori Berenson, the 31-year-old New Yorker who has been held for more than five years in Peruvian prisons on terrorism charges, was convicted today by a civilian court of collaborating in a foiled terrorist plot to take the entire Peruvian Congress hostage and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The three-judge tribunal ruled that Ms. Berenson had rented a house in Lima with a co-conspirator for the express purpose of providing a base for a Marxist terrorist organization, bought various computer and communications gear for the group, and then used press credentials as a cover to scrutinize the halls of Congress and facilitate an eventual attack.

Ms. Berenson's second conviction was widely expected. She will be released in 2015 because she has already served more than five years. Upon release, she will be immediately expelled from Peru.

After the sentencing Ms. Berenson was handed a microphone by her lawyer and said, "I believe this is an unjust decision."

With her eyes beginning to tear up, she added, "I am innocent." She had been sentenced to life in prison after her first trial. Her parents and lawyer said they would appeal to the Peruvian Supreme Court and international human rights tribunals.

Seated with her legs crossed, Ms. Berenson took notes with a shaking hand as a court official read the charges. Then she arose to hear a clerk read a long review of the case, holding her hands clasped before her waist and swaying back and forth slightly.

Hours before her sentencing, Ms. Berenson was ushered into the court accompanied by a pair of female guards wearing bulletproof vests.

Given a final chance to defend herself, she pleaded her innocence in a measured 45-minute speech in fluent Spanish filled with references to the teachings of Pope Paul VI and the martyred Salvadoran archbishop, Óscar Arnulfo Romero, who argued for "preferential treatment of the poor."

Ms. Berenson appeared in a prison court that was especially arranged for a throng of journalists and their cameras. She was dressed in a pressed beige jacket, gray turtleneck, black pants and dangling fish earrings. She again refused to condemn the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or M.R.T.A., with which she was alleged to have collaborated. But she said she never knew of a rebel plot to attack the Congress, or even if the plot existed, or that her housemates were rebels.

"I am not a terrorist and I condemn terrorism," Ms. Berenson said in a voice that sometimes shivered in controlled emotion, raising her eyebrows and biting her lower lip from time to time to accent her points. "I have been treated as a symbol of political violence and terrorism for five years and that is an injustice."

Ms. Berenson said she strongly suspected that the verdict would not go her away, and she often looked to the cameras to appeal directly to the Peruvian people in an apparent effort to ease the way for an eventual pardon by the interim president, Valentín Paniagua, or the president- elect, Alejandro Toledo, who takes office July 28.

"I did not come to Peru to hurt anyone," Ms. Berenson said. "I have been in jail for believing in what I do but I continue to have faith in humanity and the Peruvian people."

Today's proceedings culminated a long road of unlikely twists for Ms. Berenson, who grew up in Queens and Manhattan, the daughter of college professors. As a young girl she was more interested in music and science than politics, until she went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1980's and discovered Latin America.

She protested the United States involvement in Central America, then dropped out of M.I.T. to go to Nicaragua and El Salvador. She became personal secretary for a Salvadoran rebel commander as the Salvadoran civil war was winding down.

Ms. Berenson was arrested in Lima in November 1995, hours before the police raided a four-story house she rented. The police met stiff resistance from rebels in the house and ultimately found 8,000 rounds of ammunition and 3,000 sticks of dynamite.

Three rebels and one police officer died in the shootout, and among the 14 terrorists captured was Miguel Rincón, third in command of the M.R.T.A.

Six weeks after her arrest, she was convicted of treason and sentenced to life without parole in a trial at which she faced hooded judges in a military court that did not allow her lawyer to cross-examine witnesses. She has spent the better part of the last five years in a freezing prison cell 12,000 feet high in the Andes.

But after years of pressure from Washington and a spirited campaign led by Ms. Berenson's parents, a military tribunal ruled last August that she deserved a retrial in a civilian court on the lesser charges of "terrorist collaboration" and "illicit association," with the prosecution requesting a 20-year sentence.

It is likely the new trial was granted as part of an effort by Peru's former president, Alberto K. Fujimori, now in exile, to improve relations with the United States as his government was crumbling.

Over the last three months, the prosecution offered essentially the same evidence presented against in her first trial, evidence gathered by a police force that human rights activists say frequently doctored evidence.

The prosecution argued, as it did in her first trial, that Ms. Berenson had posed as a foreign correspondent in order to rent a safe house for the rebels and to gain access to Congress accompanied by a photographer who was herself an underground terrorist. The rebel objective, the prosecution said, was to take the Congress hostage for an exchange of M.R.T.A. prisoners in jail.

The prosecution showed a forged Peruvian voting identification card bearing Ms. Berenson's photograph that was found in the M.R.T.A. safe house during the 1995 police raid. They showed a coded seating plan of the Congress, as well as printouts of several rebel documents with scribbled editing corrections, which police handwriting experts say are in Ms. Berenson's hand.

Ms. Berenson and her lawyer have suggested that the identification card and the scribbled corrections could be forgeries and that she never saw the printed documents before. Her lawyer said it was a conflict of interest to use police handwriting experts who took orders from police officials.

The prosecution and judges openly expressed skepticism that Ms. Berenson could have rented a house for a year inhabited by more than 15 M.R.T.A. rebels and hired a photographer who was the wife of a terrorist leader without ever suspecting the identities of the people she so closely associated with.

The presiding judge, Marcos Ibazeta, said a "spider web of coincidences" tied Ms. Berenson to the rebels.

But Ms. Berenson said the people she lived with gave false names, and that she never went up to the fourth floor where the terrorists preparing for a raid on the Congress were living because she respected their privacy and did not want to pry. She said she spent most of her time in a second, smaller apartment that she rented in the months before the raid.

The prosecution's principal witness against Ms. Berenson was Pacífico Castrellón, a Panamanian architect and painter who constructed a model and maps for the rebel Congress attack. He testified that she introduced him to Néstor Cerpa Cartolini, a M.R.T.A. leader, in Quito, Ecuador, before she and Mr. Castrellón went to Peru together. He said the rebels paid for their housing, car and food.

"This wasn't a woman who on a whim came as a tourist," said a prosecutor, Carlos Navas, in his closing remarks two weeks ago. "She came with the intent of collaborating with the M.R.T.A." But Ms. Berenson and her lawyer say that much of Mr. Castrellón's story is a lie because he wants a reduction in his own sentence in a new trial. Several convicted M.R.T.A. rebels have testified in court that Mr. Castrellón was a longtime collaborator and that Ms. Berenson knew neither of the plot to take over the Congress nor their true identities.

Some of the testimony given by several rebels in this trial has directly contradicted what they told police six years ago, but now they assert they were under duress during initial interrogations.

In her speech to the court, Ms. Berenson only apologized for appearing strident when she was first arrested, when she shouted, her fists clenched to her sides, "There are no criminal terrorists in the M.R.T.A.; it's a revolutionary movement!" That image has made her an unpopular figure in Peru to this day.

Today, she attempted to correct that remark by saying, "If I offended anyone, I apologize. That's not the impression I want to leave, nor does it represent who I am or what I think."

---

Lori Berenson Wrongfully Convicted Again by Flawed Peruvian Justice System

June 21, 2001
For Immediate Release
For more information,
contact: Gail Taylor 202-548-8480 or Bob Schwartz 212-475-3232

Lori Berenson was convicted and given a 20-year sentence this afternoon in Lima, Perú, of terrorist collaboration despite a lack of evidence and multiple due process violations in her trial. Although Berenson has consistently maintained her innocence, a panel of three judges ruled today that she is guilty.

None of the witnesses in the case confirmed the prosecution's accusations that Berenson was involved with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), including the prosecution's star witness Pacifico Castrellón. However, the prosecution is relying on much of Castrellón's testimony as a basis for keeping Ms. Berenson in jail, because he is the only witness that points out links between Berenson and the MRTA. Berenson denies any such connections. I am innocent of all charges against me. Neither of my trials, in the civilian or military court, has proven me guilty of any crime, she stated this morning in her closing address before the court.

Berenson maintained that she did not assist the MRTA and only became aware that some of her acquaintances in Lima were involved with the group after her arrest. All witnesses in Ms. Berenson's case have confirmed this statement, saying that they did not receive any support from her for their plans to attack the Peruvian Congress.

Berenson's parents, who have been in the courtroom for the past three months, addressed reporters outside the prison today after the verdict stating, Even before this trial began we knew that, as responsible and experienced observers worldwide uniformly recognized, a fair trial in Perú on terrorism charges in its special civilian courts under the present laws that were instituted by former President Fujimori and staffed by Fujimori appointees would not be possible. This was simply a retrial of the corrupt military proceedings of five and a half years ago.

Interestingly, Perú's judicial system is more on trial these past few months than Berenson herself, since the open hearings which began on March 20 have been broadcast on national and international television. It is apparent that Perú's judicial system remains flawed, and that due process guarantees are not automatically guaranteed, even though some basic international standards of due process are inherent in the Peruvian legislation.

Berenson was prejudged by the 3-judge panel before and during her open hearing in the courtroom and the media. She was not presumed innocent as Peruvian and international law require, but was considered guilty throughout the entire proceedings. Corrupt and incompetent court personnel also continues to be a problem in Perú; a state prosecutor who was responsible for drafting the charges against Ms. Berenson has since been fired for this reason. Still, Perú has a long way to go in improving its judicial system, and Berenson's case has only reaffirmed that to the world.

It's amazing that even though the entire world is watching, the Peruvian government gave Lori a sentence despite the fact that they were unable to produce evidence to prove she is guilty, stated Gail Taylor, National Organizer of the Committee to Free Lori Berenson in Washington, DC. Many in Perú are talking about what a crook [former President] Fujimori is, and yet there is not sufficient pressure to reform the judicial system and take out all of the illegal anti-terrorist legislation that he passed by executive decree after he overthrew his own government in 1992.

Lori taught us not to stand for that. She said that to be silent is to be an accomplice to the injustice. So we re not going to be silent, because someone has to be the voice for thousands of people who, like Lori, are being unjustly held in a system that doesn't treat people accused of crimes fairly.

Lori Berenson was convicted of terrorism under the Fujimori-Montesinos government and given a life sentence in 1996. After serving almost five years in extremely harsh conditions, her conviction was overturned. In the short time since Fujimori and Montesinos fled Perú in disgrace no structural changes have been made to the corrupt justice system Fujimori installed. The terrorist court that retried Berenson has been criticized internationally, as well as the anti-terrorist laws under which she has been convicted. The US State Department's report on human rights found that Perú's court system does not provide a fair trial for people charged with terrorism according to international standards.

Berenson's previous conviction in the Peruvian military courts was overturned last August because of new evidence that was presented, but instead of being released she was held with no charges as the civilian terrorist court case was being developed. Berenson's lawyer and independent legal observers documented at least twenty due process violations in the second trial.

--

Boston Globe supports Lori

"Although it makes possible her exoneration, the retrial in a Peruvian civilian court of former MIT student Lori Berenson on charges of ''terrorist collaboration'' flouts the principle that a defendant should not be subject to double jeopardy. The second trial also suggests that despite the fall of President Alberto Fujimori and his corrupt spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, Peru remains a sham democracy."

--

PLEASE ACT NOW TO SECURE LORI'S RELEASE Call your Member of Congress and ask them to sign on to the Dear Colleague letter: Lori's Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), along with Reps. Jim Leach (R-NY), Connie Morella (R-MD), and Maxine Waters (D-NY). They are asking that Members sign a letter to Peruvian President Paniagua asking for Lori's release.

The U.S. Congressional Switchboard telephone number is 202-224-3121.

Talking Points: 1) Lori Berenson has already served over 5 1/2 years under extremely harsh conditions. She was unjustly sentenced in January 1996 by a special military court for terrorism in Peru, and on June 20 she was unjustly sentenced by a special civilian court for terrorism. 2) She has repeatedly claimed her innocence, stating recently that, "I am innocent of all charges against me. Neither of my trials, in the civilian or military court, has proven me guilty of any crime." The original sentence was overturned for insufficient evidence, and using the same tainted evidence the prosecution has unjustly sentenced her again. 3) Her trial was unfair because of due process violations, judicial bias and prejudgment (considered by the public, press, and judges to be guilty before evidence was presented), and the use of tainted and fabricated evidence.

She should be released. Please join your colleagues in sending a message to the Peruvian Government that Lori Berenson should be released immediately. Call Orly Isaacson in Cong. Maloney's office: 202-225-7944.

Thanks!

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Final Court Statement of Lori Berenson, June 20, 2001

I am innocent of all charges against me. Neither of my trials, in the civilian or military court, has proven me guilty of any crime. The charges against me are still based upon the hearsay of a fellow detainee who is trying to be freed at my expense.

Since the very day of my arrest I have been called a terrorist, a term that has been used and abused in Peruvian society for far too many years, mostly because of the psychological impact of a concept that brings to mind indiscriminant violence designed to terrorize; irrational destructive violence; deadly, senseless terror. I am not a terrorist; I condemn terrorism; I always have.

I feel very sad for all direct and indirect victims of violence. The damage to a society goes beyond the physical and psychological impact of violence on its victims and their families. It leaves deep wounds, painful wounds, and it is very sad to watch a people endure it. Political violence harms a society because it is interconnected with the institutionalized violence criticized by important church authorities in the second half of the twentieth century. El Salvador's martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero gave his life in 1980 because of his criticism of what he called institutionalized violence, as did Bishop Juan Gerardi martyred in Guatemala. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of clergy and lay workers were assassinated for defending the poor and speaking the truth against social injustice and the institutionalized violence of hunger and poverty that is the horrendous daily peril of millions.

When on March 20 I said my case has been used as a smoke screen, that it is a political trial, it is because of the particular elements regarding my case and also, in general, the cases of all those detained and tried in the context of political violence. There is a very simple reason: the existence of insurgent or rebel movements in Latin America ­ and many other places in the world ­ has a lot to do with social and economic conditions. The government responds through state policy, albeit solely militarily or with other components, to draw attention from these conditions.

Thousands of Peruvians have suffered persecution, detention, torture, death as part of a state policy violating the human and fundamental rights of its population. After ex-President Fujimori's self-coup in 1992, constitutional law was violated by executive decrees made during a state of emergency. The congress and universities were closed, all forms of social organization and opposition were prohibited. The unconstitutional legislation included the antiterrorist laws that destroyed due process in civilian and military courts. But today in Peru and throughout the world it is common knowledge that the Peruvian state did more than violate human rights by closing democratic institutions and stomping on labor and social rights and leaving its people hungry. It is now common knowledge that behind the unconstitutional legislation and the manipulation of public opinion around certain issues like political violence was an extremely corrupt government that profited from the blood and sweat of its citizens, condemning them to live in hunger and misery. The dictatorship manipulated the judiciary to ensure the cover up of human rights violations and corruption. It wasn't an issue of particular judicial authorities, but the system itself and the legislation. In the cases of those tried for "terrorism" or treason, they were often condemned on the basis of hearsay and fabricated evidence. People were sentenced for refusing to admit guilt ­ regardless of whether or not they were guilty. They were condemned for not fingering others and for rejecting the psychological and social stigma of being called a "terrorist." Hearsay, supposed intentions, finger pointing or lack thereof, personal and political opinions ­ none of these constitute proof of any crimes.

I am aware that much of the Peruvian public has a very negative image of me, which in part is because of the anger I expressed, how aggressive I came across, when I was illegally presented to the press in January 1996. And I am aware how that image and those statements were manipulated to create a monster larger than life, so that later I personified twenty years of insurgent and state violence. This was part of the propaganda designed to make people forget how government policy and corruption impoverished the Peruvian people.

As I have stated in this trial, I regret having come across as such an angry or aggressive person, especially if it confused or offended the Peruvian people whom I really respect and love. The anger I showed was the result of my indignation upon seeing not only the violation of human rights and fundamental rights of the Peruvian people, but also the suffering I witnessed in DINCOTE and the farce of a trial I was undergoing. The mistreatment and outright torture of my fellow detainees form only a short chapter of the history of torture in DINCOTE or army bases that was a state policy. Even so, I think it was wrong of me to have expressed myself in that way, so angry. I should have said the same or similar things, but in a calmer way. However, I believe I was punished more for what I said. Not only was I given a life sentence, but also for over five years my name and image were used as a symbol of so-called "terrorism." The punishment was for not cowering to the system of injustice and for expressing my beliefs.

I am innocent of the charges against me. Even with the limitations of ex-President Fujimori's antiterrorism legislation that will sentence me today, this court has not proven the contrary.

Yes, I jointly rented a house with another person, but I did not do so with the idea or intent of doing so for the MRTA and there is no evidence to the contrary.

Yes, I did rent an apartment later that year, once the house had been sublet. I rented it and lived in it as witnesses from the apartment building have confirmed. I did not rent it to hide anyone or for any reason related to the MRTA, and there is no evidence to the contrary.

Yes, I did know on a social, human basis, several people who wound up being part of, or somehow related to the MRTA. I knew them with other identities and I had absolutely no reason to doubt the truth of who they said they were. They did not act in any way to make me think otherwise. Perhaps there is a cultural difference here, but it goes against my upbringing to snoop around in someone else's belongings or covertly visit their rooms, to interrogate them or pry into their private lives. I had already lived in several communal environments, both in the United States and abroad, and there is an issue of mutual respect, respect for other's space and privacy. One must mind one's own business. For these reasons, after subletting, I never went to the fourth level of the house nor did I go into any other room that was sublet. I never cooked for the MRTA nor brought food upstairs. I never led nor participated in indoctrination courses ­ not with or without a hood. No one has testified to the contrary. In fact the young people who had lived there all said ­ as do I ­ that they first saw me in DINCOTE or in prison.

Among my personal belongings the police found my computer, beeper, and the cell phone I rented. I used these things for work and recreational purposes. Unfortunately the books, the tapes, and my writings "strangely" disappeared. They would have provided concrete evidence of studies I was conducting and the articles I was writing. I did not obtain any "communications equipment," beepers, or computers for the MRTA and there is no evidence to the contrary.

I did not come to Peru to cause any harm. I was and am interested in Peru's history and Peru's future. The reason I wanted to write articles about Peru was precisely because I thought it was very important that people in the United States and elsewhere know more about Peru. Peru's cultural richness should be more greatly appreciated by all. I believe that cultural history should be considered useful in the present and looking toward the future. I was seriously writing those articles. The editors of the magazines have confirmed it. My notes, my interviews with various people prove it. I knew nothing about any supposed plan the MRTA may have had to seize the congress. To this day I know nothing about such a plan or even if it existed and if it existed, I certainly had nothing to do with it.

After hearing Miguel Rincon's testimony in this courtroom and the reading of Pacifico Castrell & oacute;n's statements at different phases of this process, I am absolutely certain that Castrell & oacute;n has told lies to save his own skin, not simply to hide any real participation he may have had in all of this, but especially to seek his own release by condemning others. His statements were the only basis of my sentence in the military court and were the basis of the prosecutor's accusations here. It is very common to shift responsibilities to others when trying to secure your release. Castrellón admitted to knowing many people who he described in detail and pointed a finger at. I don't know if he really knew these people or if they even existed because the only evidence of their existence is in Castrellón's statement. But certainly I have never, ever met any of the people he claims he met through me. Such claims are absolutely false. Some of the contradictions between Castrellón's statements and those of the other detainees support what Miguel Rincon said about Castrellón in this courtroom. When Castrellón was asked why Rincon called him an international collaborator, Castrellón said "Oh, that's part of their jargon, the same way he would have considered me to be a traitor." The concept of betrayal denoted having belonged to or shared something with a group of people or cause.

I am innocent of the prosecutor's charges of being a member of and a collaborator with the MRTA. In fact, by definition one cannot be both a member and a collaborator. I am neither and there is no evidence to the contrary.

I did not come to Peru to cause harm or damage to anyone or anything. I have always been deeply concerned with issues of poverty and social justice, and if I was interested in Peru' history and its people, it was with my best intentions. When I spoke about poverty five years ago during my press presentation, it was because the human suffering caused by social injustice is unfair, inhumane, and downright immoral. Poverty in Peru has gotten worse since my detention. Now people talk about more sectors of poor and higher percentages of extreme poverty. And no one can deny this. Not only that, politicians, the church -- everyone speaks of it. I have been very open and honest about this because it has been part of my way of life for many years -- I believe that when things are wrong, one should say they are wrong. One should speak out when faced with injustice. I am grateful I was raised that way, as I am also grateful that my family continues to support and promote those social and moral values, for all people. I am grateful for the help of my family and friends and especially for the presence of my parents in this courtroom throughout this trial.

I haven't hidden my opinions or my beliefs. I have been honest and transparent when expressing who I am and what I think. It has been a tremendous honor for me to be involved in social issues for many years. It has also been a great honor for me to work in a country like El Salvador, work with refugees, with students, and, particularly, on the peace process. I have nothing to be ashamed of. If I describe my work in El Salvador or say I like the music of Victor Jara who was cruelly assassinated by a dictatorship because of his beliefs, that does not make me guilty of a crime. On the contrary, I think that it makes it clearer who I am and what I believe. I have nothing but love for the Latin American and Peruvian people. I've been in jail many years now, but I still have great hopes and I'm still convinced that there will be a future of justice for the people of Peru and all humanity.

Lori Berenson
June 20, 2001

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Fourteen People Indicted in Khobar Towers Bombing

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/21CND-TERR.html

WASHINGTON, June 21 - After a five year investigation, a federal grand jury in Virgnia returned an 46-count indictment today charging 13 Saudis and a Lebanese man with the 1996 the truck bombing at the Khobar Towers apartment building in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American airmen and injured nearly 400 others.

The Saudis and the Lebanese national are members of the militant group Hezbollah, according to the indictment, which said that the organization is a terrorist group outlawed in Saudi Arabia that promoted violence against Americans.

But the indictment said that the attack was "inspired, supported and supervised" by unidentified officials in the Iranian government, although it did not accuse any Iranians of specific crimes nor it did it blame the Iranian government for the crime.

Nine of the 14 men were charged with 46 separate felony counts, among them murder, use of a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to kill Americans. Five others charged in the indictment were accused of bombing conspiracy which, according to the indictment, was motivated by the bombers desire to drive Americans out of Saudi Arabia.

F.B.I. Director Louis J. Freeh said that some of the Saudis have been charged with the bombing in Saudi Arabia are already in custody. But he said others remain at large. Efforts are underway to return the defendants to the United States, Mr. Freeh said, but it was unclear when or whether any of those charged will stand trial.

The charges culminated a five-year inquiry that at times seemed to falter and once seemed on the brink of shutting down because of the lack of Saudi cooperation in the case.

Federal prosecutors obtained the indictment with time running out. The five-year statute of limitations due to expire on Monday on attempted murder and conspiracy counts, which would have blocked the government from bringing those charges.

The indictment seemed designed to show that Iran was behind the attack without directly accusing any Iranian official or the Teheran government of legal culpability. But law enforcement officials said that the case remained open and they did not rule out charges against other people, including Iranians.

Almost from the start, the case has been buffeted by the shifting political dynamics between the United States and Iran, which some counterrorism officials in the Clinton Administration blamed shortly after the attack.

Relations with Iran have warmed in recent years with the moderate government of President Mohammad Khatami, although the Bush Administration has adopted a sterner tone toward Iran than the Clinton Administration.

Law enforcement officials said that American diplomats in the Clinton Administration demanded what law enforcement officials once described as a "smoking gun" evidence of Iranian involvement before they would accuse Iran of responsibility. But they said that the Bush Administration seemed less concerned about offending Iran, an more aggressive approach reflected in the indictment.

Still, the indictment carefully avoided any accusation of state sponsorship against Iran that could have provoked demands for military retaliation - a hostile and possibly irrevocable step that the Bush Administration is said to be reluctant to take.

The case has been a high priority for outgoing F.B.I. Director Louis J. Freeh. He pledged a full investigation, traveled to Saudi Arabia frequently, often on frustrating missions to obtain Riyadh's reluctant cooperation in solving the bombing.

Today, however, Mr. Freeh thanked the government of Saudi Arabia and praised it for its "invaluable assistance" and "genuine commitment" to solving the case.

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Shiites Early Suspects in Bombing

New York Times
June 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Khobar-Bombing-Saudi-Hezbollah.html

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Almost from the beginning, Saudi Hezbollah was suspected of involvement in the 1996 bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in their high-rise dormitory in the Khobar Towers on the outskirts of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Hezbollah, which was mentioned Thursday in the indictment of 14 suspects in the bombing, was founded by members of the desert kingdom's Shiite Muslim minority who fled into exile in the 1980s to escape what they said was persecution by the Sunni majority. Most were from Eastern Province, which lies along the Persian Gulf, opposite Iran.

Many of the exiles wound up in Iran, attracted by the success of the 1979 Islamic revolution by their fellow Shiites there. Initially, analysts have said, Saudi Hezbollah received financial assistance and military training in Iran. But later, Iran and Saudi Hezbollah denied any direct ties to one another.

Although the little-known Saudi Hezbollah was virulently anti-American, its main grievances were with the Saudi government. Like other militant Muslim groups, it denounced Saudi leaders for permitting U.S. troops to remain in the country after a U.S.-led military coalition ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's invasion force from Kuwait in 1991.

In 1993, when the Saudi government reached a tacit agreement with its restive Shiites, about 200 of the exiles returned home, according to a Saudi Shiite who said he helped negotiate the agreement.

The negotiator, whose role was verified by well-placed observers, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in March 1997 when he was living in exile in the United States. By that time, he said, Saudi Hezbollah looked to Iran for religious and political guidance, but there was no evidence of a direct Iranian role in the group's activities.

A statement issued in the name of Saudi Hezbollah denied any involvement in the Khobar bombing. The statement, which was faxed to The Associated Press in November 1996, also denied Saudi Hezbollah had any foreign affiliation.

``Hezbollah,'' which means ``party of God'' in Arabic, is a name that has been adopted by Muslim militants in several countries without necessarily implying any network. Lebanon's Hezbollah, for instance, has long denied any links to Saudi Hezbollah.

The name ``Hezbollah'' is drawn from the Quran, the holy scriptures of the Islamic religion, where it simply refers to those who defend their faith.

One of the most public links of Saudi Hezbollah to the Khobar bombing came in March 1997 when a Saudi Shiite dissident, Hani al-Sayegh, was arrested in Canada where he had sought refugee status. Al-Sayegh, who is now in his early 30s, opposed the Saudi monarchy and had studied theology in Iran, his family told the AP in 1999.

Canadian court documents identified him as a member of Saudi Hezbollah and alleged that he drove a car that signaled a bomb-laden truck when to pull up to the Khobar Towers complex.

In June 1997, Canada deported al-Sayegh to the United States, where the Americans tried to work out a deal where he would tell them everything he knew about the Khobar bombing in exchange for being allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of plotting to kill U.S. citizens in Saudi Arabia one or two years before the Khobar attack.

But on the eve of his anticipated guilty plea, al-Sayegh was hospitalized with an asthma attack and reneged on the deal.

In October 1999, al-Sayegh was deported to Saudi Arabia, where the Interior Minister, Prince Nayef, said al-Sayegh would be interrogated and placed on trial. There has been no public word on the status of that investigation.

-------- activists

Rolling Black Out

Date: Thursday 21 June Time: 7 - 10 p.m.
Place: Everywhere

In protest of Bush's energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation, and alternative energy sources, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer. Turn out your lights from 7 - 10 p.m.

Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 16:22:24 -0400 Subject: Activist Alert From: "Washington Peace Center" <wpc@igc.org>

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Idaho - Rainbows' permit request denied
Boise National Forest officials close down kitchens just as gathering gets cooking

Thursday, June 21, 2001
Betsy Z. Russell -
Spokesman-Review Staff writer
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=062101&ID=s980934&cat=sec

BOISE _ Forest Service officials have begun cracking down on illegal structures like makeshift kitchens and rock-and-mud ovens set up on the site of the Rainbow Gathering near here, citing people and ordering the structures removed.

The move, a first for the annual peace gathering that draws around 20,000 people to a national forest somewhere in the country each July 4, surprised and dismayed the Rainbows. The kitchens, each operated by a different Rainbow "family" and serving up its own attraction, from vegan food to popcorn to coffee, are a central feature of the annual event.

"That's silly, that's just plain silly," said Jeff Kline, a Washington, D.C., broadcasting executive who has been attending the gatherings since 1978. Kline, a scoutmaster, said, "I don't cite my kids for doing something wrong -- I would tell them how to do it right."

Kline signed a permit application this week designed to legalize this year's gathering in the Boise National Forest, but the Forest Service late Wednesday denied the application. Lowman District Ranger Walt Rogers said there was no time to consult with tribes about treaty issues or federal agencies about endangered species, since campers were already arriving for the gathering.

"If they had come forth much earlier, we may have been able to locate a suitable site," he said.

The permit denial and the crackdown on illegal structures came as the number of people camped at Bear Valley, about 100 miles northeast of Boise, more than doubled from 500 on Tuesday to 1,100 on Wednesday.

Carla Newbre, a 55-year-old crisis counselor from Eugene, Ore., who's been attending gatherings since 1979, said, "They have a bunch of people who have a very good record of working on problems, when we know what they are. We're not being allowed to do that, and that's very disturbing."

Buck Feist, an incident information officer for the Forest Service, said signs will be posted at the gathering site warning attendees that they're entering an illegal gathering area.

With thousands more Rainbows on their way to southern Idaho, some worried about how the Forest Service's moves will play out. Karen Zirk, a San Diego database administrator who's been going to gatherings since 1989, said Rainbows typically run temporary water pipes to carry water from springs to their kitchens, where it's boiled or filtered for drinking water.

"If we don't have kitchens, we don't have food that's prepared in sanitary conditions, we don't have drinking water," she said. "But we will have 20,000 people."

Added Barry Adams, a longtime Rainbow from Montana., "These people are not being allowed to get food, they're not being allowed to get water ... That's inhumane."

Sharon Sweeney, spokeswoman for the National Incident Command Team, a Forest Service group that deals with large gatherings like the Rainbows, said, "You're not allowed to build unauthorized structures on the national forests, or else people would build homes and things up there."

Sweeney acknowledged that the Forest Service hasn't taken that stance in past years, including the two previous gatherings she's worked. This time, she said, "this is probably the most sensitive area that the Rainbows have ever landed in."

The Bear Valley area has endangered salmon, steelhead and bull trout in its streams, along with some fragile meadows, gray wolves, lynx and wolverines.

Plus, she said, "It is time for the Rainbow Family to come to the table early, and let's work out these permit issues early on."

In recent years, the Forest Service has insisted that the Rainbow Family of Living Light submit a permit application signed by an authorized representative, but the loosely organized group, which has no structure or hierarchy, has balked.

"We're not an organization," Zirk said. "Who the Rainbow Family is is whoever shows up today ... I mean, everybody in the world is welcome."

Adams, 55, who's been going to gatherings for nearly 30 years, said, "We're not a group. This is a way, this is a path. ... It's an idea that everyone on earth is spiritually related."'

This year, after the Forest Service rejected two unsigned applications, Kline, 54, agreed to sign one.

"I don't represent anybody, but I thought it might be helpful," he said.

Garrick Beck, a Santa Fe businessman who's attended all but two of the gatherings since they started in 1972, said a court challenge of the permit denial is likely. Asked if the gathering might move elsewhere, Beck said, "Anything's possible," and added, "if they'd offer and alternate site, I guarantee we'd take a look at it."

Without a permit, the whole gathering is illegal, Sweeney said. As of Wednesday morning, 70 citations had been issued, mostly for traffic offenses but also for illegal structures, illegal gathering and drug offenses.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, called on the Forest Service Wednesday to deny the Rainbows a permit, saying they've "been ignoring laws that the rest of us have lived by for years" by holding their forest gatherings illegally.

However, the Rainbows' legal problems are fairly recent. They had permits each year until 1981, and then coordinated with the Forest Service on operating plans through the '80s, when several regulations dealing with the gatherings were enacted but then invalidated by courts.

The current regulation was enacted before the 1996 gathering, but the Rainbows did get permits in both 1996 and 1997. "The senator's contention that the Rainbows have ignored the law is simply wrong," said Beck.

At last year's gathering in Montana, the Forest Service identified three "leaders" at the event, including Adams, and charged them with gathering illegally. They were convicted, but are appealing.

"No one else has ever peaceably assembled quite the way the gathering does. It's a unique experience," Adams said. People volunteer for all needed tasks, he said, without any organization or direction. "It's their form of love."

The Lowman Ranger District of the Boise National Forest, where the gathering site is located, has issued closure orders preventing camping in a specific area along parts of Bear Valley Creek, and has also issued orders banning camping within 50 feet of running water, firewood collecting within 100 feet and latrines or wastewater pits within 300 feet.

The ranger district has also identified moist meadows as off-limits for parking, and others as more suitable. Rainbows said they welcome such direction.

Acting Boise National Forest Supervisor Anne Archie said she's worried about critical salmon spawning grounds and habitat on the site. "We put more than $6 million worth of habitat restoration in there," she said.

Plus, the Shoshone-Bannock and Shoshone-Paiute tribes have treaty rights to fish in the area. Sho-Ban biologists were at the site this week monitoring the fishery.

Zirk, 40, said the Rainbows are also very concerned about protecting the environment. "One of the common denominators of people who come to the gatherings is they do have a serious respect for the earth and strong desire to care for it appropriately," she said.

After both last year's gathering in Montana and the 1999 gathering in Pennsylvania, Forest Service officials reported that Rainbows helped clean up and rehabilitate the sites, and they recovered well.

Said Adams, "I'm not into endangering some of the last precious spaces and places. I'm into protecting habitat."

Betsy Z. Russell can be reached at (208) 336-2854, or by e-mail at bzrussell@Rmci.net.

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Tibet protest

June 21, 2001,
Embassy Row, by James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010621-83140812.htm

Two American students were arrested yesterday after climbing onto the Chinese Embassy and unfurling a banner demanding freedom for Tibet.

They said the action was the kickoff of a week of worldwide protests by Students for a Free Tibet against China´s bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Jason Buhle, 23, of Claremont, Calif., and Bianca Bockman, 20, of New York face misdemeanor charges of unlawful entry.

Before her arrest, Miss Bockman said, "We are here to send a message to the world that until Tibet is free China does not deserve the international distinction of hosting the Olympic Games."

The students said other protests will be held "from Los Angeles to Paris to Norway to India."

Miss Bockman and Mr. Buhle used a ladder to climb onto an overhang over the front door of the embassy on Connecticut Avenue, and unfurled a 17-foot-long banner that said "No China Olympics until Tibet is Free."

Uniformed members of the Secret Service responded to the protest, and D.C. firefighters used another ladder to get the students off the embassy.

"Certainly this is not something we like to see," said Chinese Embassy spokesman Zhang Yuanyuan. "The police did the right thing. They violated the law."

Mr. Zhang rejected charges that China invaded Tibet 50 years ago, insisting that China liberated the Himalayan region.

"We just recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet," he said.

The students noted that China has recently increased repression of democracy advocates in Tibet and accused China of genocide.

"Over 1 million Tibetans have been killed by starvation, torture or execution" since China´s invasion in 1949, they said.

"That´s ludicrous," Mr. Zhang responded.

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Berenson gets 20 years for rebel plot

June 21, 2001
By Drew Benson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010621-79765699.htm

Lima, Peru -- American Lori Berenson was sentenced by a Peruvian court yesterday to 20 years in jail as a collaborator with an outlawed Marxist rebel group in a plot to raid the national legislature.

She was acquitted of a parallel charge that she was an active member of the group.

The court said she would not be released until Nov. 29, 2015, after time served.

The 31-year-old New Yorker, who was convicted in 1996 by a hooded military judge and jailed for life as a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, was granted a retrial last year.

The prosecution had sought a sentence of at least 20 years. Berenson has protested her innocence, and her attorney has said he will appeal.

After delivering the verdict, presiding Magistrate Marcos Ibazeta ordered Berenson to stand while a court clerk read out the full case against her. The civilian court found Berenson guilty of "terrorist collaboration" with the Marxist movement.

Berenson, who stood calmly while the verdict was read, was found guilty of aiding the group by renting a house that served as their hideout, then posing as a journalist to enter Congress to gather intelligence with a top rebel commander´s wife.

Tupac Amaru had been planning a raid to seize Peru´s Congress, and Berenson had rented out the house the rebels were using to cache weapons and plan the raid.

The verdict came five hours after Berenson said in her closing statement: "I am not a terrorist.

"I am innocent of the prosecutor´s charges of being a member of and a collaborator with the MRTA (the Spanish acronym for the rebel organization)," she said. "I condemn terrorism, and I say that in every case."

Berenson has received little sympathy in Peru, which still remembers the bloody war against leftist rebels that wound down in the early 1990s.

The guilty verdict came as little surprise and ended her civilian retrial on terrorism charges after she spent more than five years in a series of Peruvian prisons.

Justice Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said earlier that the government would respect the verdict and that Berenson would serve out any sentence in Peru dimming hopes that she could receive a presidential pardon.

Berenson´s previous life sentence, handed down in 1996 on charges of being a rebel leader, was thrown out by the military justice system on Aug. 28.

During the 3-month-long trial, state prosecutors stuck to earlier accusations, including that Berenson had rented a house used as a training site by Tupac Amaru and posed as a journalist with a photographer, who turned out to be the wife of an MRTA rebel, to reconnoiter in the Congress.

Berenson stood before the court dressed in a tan blazer, charcoal turtleneck and black pants. Her calm, if at times defiant, 45-minute statement given with the assistance of one sheet of notes remained critical of social injustices in Latin America, her persecution for holding these beliefs, and what she deemed as "political terrorism" by the Peruvian government under President Alberto Fujimori.

"They punished me in two ways," Berenson said at one point of her final statement. "First with a life sentence, but more than this, they used me as a symbol of violence and terrorism for more than five years."

Berenson did not renounce or criticize the MRTA. Her sole apology came for her vehement behavior in the now-famous videotape, filmed 40 days after her arrest in late 1995, in which she defiantly shouted at the assembled press, "There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA. It is a revolutionary movement."

Yesterday´s verdict will be appealed to Peru´s Supreme Court.

Berenson has been in Latin America for 11 years. She dropped out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She sought out leftist groups she felt were the only effective fighters for justice for the masses of Latin American poor. In El Salvador, she served as a secretary to a top Marxist rebel leader during peace negotiations before going to Peru in 1994.

A year later, Peruvian anti-terrorism police arrested Berenson, then 25, on a Lima bus.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.

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CAN COPS LOOK THROUGH MY GARBAGE?

http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/arrests_and_searches/cops_search_garbage.htm

Yes. The U.S. Supreme Court decided this issue saying, in essence, that once papers, and other garbage have been thrown into a trash receptacle, it was considered "abandoned" property, and anyone, including governmental agencies, may claim ownership. If there's anything you don't want to come back and bite you, invest in a shredder.

Need A Lawyer? Find one at AttorneyPages.com

--------

Body bags stockpiled for G8 summit

21 June, 2001,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1400000/1400554.stm

The protests against G8 in Genoa have already begun Italian authorities have ordered 200 body bags as they step up preparations for a violent confrontation at next month's G8 summit in Genoa, say Italian media reports.

A room at the city's hospital will also be set aside as a temporary mortuary, said Italian news agency ANSA.

The reports come amid growing concern that the G8 summit will witness even worse confrontation than last weekend's European meeting in Gothenburg. Tens of thousands of protesters - from anarchists to Basque separatists - are expected to head for Genoa.

As well as the threat of street unrest, Italian authorities have been warned that attempts may be made on the lives of some of the world leaders present.

One threat passed on to Italy by the German secret service is of an assassination plan by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, aimed at US President George W Bush. Militant supporters of Bin Laden are said to planning a possible bomb attack.

President Putin's personal security will also be stepped up because of a possible threat from Chechen rebels, say his bodyguards.

Mr Putin's bodyguards have already visited Genoa and met the heads of special services from nearly all the countries being represented there, said Russian security chief Yevgeny Murov, head of the FSO.

"Each special service works out its own method of providing security these days. Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service renders enormous assistance to us, and we are in a permanent contact with them," he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

He said his agency was aware of the Bin Laden threat, and was making its Genoa preparations in the light of them.

"We view the threats as totally serious, but hope that with joint efforts we can solve all the problems," said Murov.

Leaders from Italy, France, Canada, the UK, Japan and Germany will also be at the two-day summit, which starts on 20 July.

Italian authorities are preparing a huge force of 20,000 police and soldiers, backed by the threat of tear gas, water cannon and a formidable array of military hardware.

A "ring of steel" will be imposed on the city. Railway stations and motorway junctions will be closed, and flights into Genoa diverted.

In the city itself, the streets around the summit venue have been declared as a "red zone", and will be blocked off by dozens of armoured vehicles. Outside the red zone, some areas will be set aside for protesters to make their views known.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he wants dialogue with the protesters, and stresses the legimitate right of people to make their views known, but he has warned them that violent extremists will be "isolated and not be allowed to do harm".

Aircraft carriers

As the security operation continues to build up, some organisers are still reported to be keen to switch the summit venue to a cruise ship, which would be moored safely out at sea somewhere along the Italian Riviera.

At least two conference leaders - President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac - are already planning waterborne accommodation. Both will stay on aircraft carriers while attending the summt.

Concern about security has deepened since events in Gothenburg, when Swedish police appeared to be overwhelmed by the scale and depth of violence.

A lavish dinner had to be cancelled and some delegations had to switch hotels after police said they could no longer guarantee their safety.

Three protesters were shot and dozens of police officers were hurt.



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