------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
U.S. - Russia Center Opening Delayed
E.German nuclear waste site watched by govt
U.S. warns North Korea to stop missile tests
U.S. Missile Defense Protest Ends
Law Allows Pacts on A-Plant Taxes
U.S.-Russia Center Opening Delayed
Lawmakers Debate Economic Sanctions

MILITARY
Ex - Argentine President Menem Indicted in Arms Case
K-Mart halting ammunition sales:
Milosevic's refusal of counsel poses new legal questions
Yugoslav Government Steps Down
Peacekeepers Shift Kosovo Mission
Cypriots step up British base protests
EU Call on GE Could Hurt Relations
EU deals final blow to GE
GE-Honeywell:
Plan Colombia - This War is Unwinnable
Iraqi Diplomat at U.N. Seeks Asylum in U.S.
Sharon Defends Killings
An Open Letter to the People of Okinawa
RESIDENTS FED UP WITH U.S. MILITARY BEHAVIOR IN OKINAWA
Claim that war criminals have nowhere to hide
Texans cool to idea of becoming bomb target
First presidential address to Congress on the state of the Union
Cultivate Peace: An Excerpt from George Washington's Farewell Address

OTHER
Group calls for more renewable energy in Calif
U.S. Price Controls Are Said to Worsen Power Shortage
News Analysis: Japan's Ambiguity on Global Warming
Bush Aides Seek Compromise on Embryonic Cell Research
Falun Gong Deaths Set Off Dispute on Suicide Report
Desert Boot Camp for Youth Is Shut Down After a Death
THE U.S. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT TURNS 35
Ex-F.B.I. Man Said to Accept Spy Case Deal
Terrorist Details His Training in Afghanistan

ACTIVISTS
Dogged defence is no match for walking missiles
Berbers Pledge to Defy Ban, March in Algiers
Colombia Peace Activist Killed
Veteran defies court order
An occasion for free speech oratory
Camp Paradise: Police Bust Expected, Civil Disobedience Planned


-------- NUCLEAR

U.S. - Russia Center Opening Delayed

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-US-Nuclear.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- The opening of a Russian-U.S. center that would expand cooperation on preventing accidental missile launches has been delayed because of organizational problems following the change in the U.S. administration, a Russian official said Wednesday.

The new center was to open June 4, said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov. It was to come as an update to an initial early warning system that was set up last year by then-President Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin to improve safeguards against the accidental launch of nuclear missiles.

But the project has been delayed because the administration of President Bush apparently wanted to select its own team for negotiations with Russia, Sedov said.

``At present, a number of technical questions remain, which we didn't have time to discuss,'' he said.

``The Defense Ministry highly values the creation of this center for the strengthening of stability in the world,'' Sedov added.

No new date for the opening of the early warning center has been set.

Russian-U.S. talks on nuclear issues have recently been dominated by Washington's plan to create a national missile defense system. The plan would require amending or breaking a 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow sees as a cornerstone of world stability, and Russian fiercely objects to the plan.

-------- germany

E.German nuclear waste site watched by govt

GERMANY: July 4, 2001
Story by Vera Eckert
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11435&newsDate=4-Jul-2001

FRANKFURT - Germany's Saxony Anhalt state said yesterday a media report warning of increased safety risks at the Morsleben nuclear waste dump was a repetition of old news and the situation was under control.

"There is no acute danger, and there would not be an acute danger if parts collapsed," a spokeswoman at the Saxony Anhalt's economics ministry in the state capital Magdeburg told Reuters.

"There are no new facts...there has been long-term concern about the safety of the site and that is why it is being decommissioned."

Earlier, the Halle-based "Mitteldeutsche Zeitung" said parts of the repository presented a greater safety risk than previously thought and needed action to stop them collapsing.

It cited unpublished reports it had obtained from the relevant mining authority in Stassfurt between Halle and Magdeburg.

The report described a "slowly advancing process of damage to the central part of the site, leading to a progressive decline of safety."

Some vaults at the facility needed to be stabilised now, because rock salts in their ceilings were cracked and could otherwide crash down into hollow areas, the experts said.

Staff at the Stassfurt authority were not contactable yesterday, but the mininstry spokeswoman said her ministry oversaw the mining bureaux and was fully aware of the situation.

The site, an old salt mine, where Communist East Germany had stored nuclear waste since the late 1970s, continued to be used after German unification in 1991. But deliveries to the site, Germany's only final nuclear dump, were stopped in 1998 for safety reasons.

The site, which will undergo a proper closing-down process under supervision of the Federal Radiation Protection Agency (BfS) in Salzgitter, has been closely monitored since deliveries were halted.

The spokeswoman for the economics ministry said Saxony-Anhalt's environment ministry, which administered the implementation of German nuclear law, was studying whether the decommissioning process needed speeding up.

A process already underway of filling the entire site with ash from lignite-burning power plants to stabilise it would take at least 10 years, she said.

Morsleben houses 37,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste of which 10,000 cubic metres are in areas threatened by collapsing rock salt, the Stassfurt experts had said in their report.

In April, the BfS said two threatened chambers at the site had been filled with ash and more were to follow.

-------- korea

U.S. warns North Korea to stop missile tests

July 4, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010704-34263834.htm

The State Department warned North Korea yesterday not to resume its long-range missile flight testing program following reports of an engine test.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined to comment directly on a report in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times that North Korea conducted a ground test of a Taepodong missile engine last week.

"But on North Korea's missile activity in general ... we think those activities continue to pose a threat to regional security and stability and to U.S. friends, forces and interests," Mr. Boucher told reporters.

"We expect North Korea to abide by its moratorium on the launch of long-range missiles. We will continue to take steps to address North Korea's overall missile efforts and to work closely with other countries in doing so."

Mr. Boucher noted that a ground test is not a flight test.

"A flight test, of course, would be prohibited by the moratorium," he said. "It would be a very serious matter and contrary to the understandings between the two sides."

North Korea agreed in late 1999 to halt its long-range missile flight tests after having fired a Taepodong-1 over Japan in August 1998. The moratorium was extended in June 2000 while Pyongyang held talks with U.S. officials on its missile program.

U.S. intelligence officials told The Times that the engine test was detected late last week at a missile test facility near the town of Taepodong on North Korea's northeast coast.

Satellite photographs of the test site showed a pattern of burn marks from the rocket engine, which had been placed on its side.

The engine is used to power north Korea's long-range Taepodong-1 missile, or possibly a longer-range Taepodong-2, which U.S. officials believe can reach the United States with a nuclear, chemical or biological warhead.

One official said it was not clear why the test was carried out. It may have been to check the existing engine or for other unknown development efforts.

The test occurred less than a month after the Bush administration announced that it planned to continue talks with North Korea on its missile development and sales, its adherence to a 1994 nuclear arms agreement and its conventional military forces.

Mr. Boucher said U.S. and North Korean representatives met June 13 in New York "to arrange bilateral talks." But no schedule was set for the talks, which the new administration suspended while it reviewed past policy.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement issued on June 18 that new conditions for talks imposed by the Bush administration were "an attempt to disarm through negotiations."

Mr. Boucher said yesterday that the administration does not view the public statement as a formal response to the proposal for future talks.

"It doesn't respond to the request, and we think a private discussion deserves a private response," he said.

-------- missle defense

U.S. Missile Defense Protest Ends

The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 4, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010704/aponline225856_000.htm

LONDON -- Demonstrators who occupied part of a British radar base surrendered to police late Wednesday, ending a two-day protest against a proposed U.S. missile defense system.

The last two protesters descended from a radio mast inside the Menwith Hill military base in North Yorkshire at 10 p.m. and surrendered to police, according to the environmental group Greenpeace.

Greenpeace claims that base is one of two in Britain the U.S. military would need in order to be the "eyes and ears" of President Bush's missile defense system.

On Tuesday, about 100 protesters stormed inside the base's fenced-in grounds. Most were evicted later that day. By Wednesday afternoon, only two protesters remained inside. It was not immediately clear if there would be any charges filed against the protesters.

"The whole purpose of this event was to expose the role that Britain will play in the Star Wars program and we have done that to great effect," said Greenpeace protester Andy Tait.

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

-------- new york

Law Allows Pacts on A-Plant Taxes

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/nyregion/04POWE.html?searchpv=nytToday

ALBANY, July 3 - Gov. George E. Pataki signed legislation today allowing local governments to make long-term payment deals with the new owners of nuclear power plants in the state.

The law lets the local entities collect payments in lieu of taxes negotiated with the new owners of power plants. The payment arrangements can last 10 to 15 years.

"It is just a tool," said the chief sponsor of the legislation in the State Assembly, Sandra Galef, Democrat of Westchester County. "They don't have to do it."

Ms. Galef's district includes the three nuclear power plants at Indian Point. The New York Power Authority has sold its Indian Point 3 reactor to Entergy, which is also buying the other reactors from Consolidated Edison.

The local taxing entities around the plant have sought to establish payments in lieu of taxes with Entergy rather than charge property taxes based on the assessed value of the properties.

In recent years, utilities and industries in New York have won cases challenging the assessments as too high.

The alternative payments would be advantageous for nuclear plant owners because they will almost certainly make agreements to pay less than under an assessment process, Ms. Galef said. Local governments benefit because the payments mean stable and predictable revenue, she said.

-------- us nuc politics

U.S.-Russia Center Opening Delayed

The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 4, 2001; 10:24 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010704/aponline102419_000.htm

MOSCOW -- The opening of a Russian-U.S. center that would expand cooperation on preventing accidental missile launches has been delayed because of organizational problems following the change in the U.S. administration, a Russian official said Wednesday.

The new center was to open June 4, said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov. It was to come as an update to an initial early warning system that was set up last year by then-President Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin to improve safeguards against the accidental launch of nuclear missiles.

But the project has been delayed because the administration of President Bush apparently wanted to select its own team for negotiations with Russia, Sedov said.

"At present, a number of technical questions remain, which we didn't have time to discuss," he said.

"The Defense Ministry highly values the creation of this center for the strengthening of stability in the world," Sedov added.

No new date for the opening of the early warning center has been set.

Russian-U.S. talks on nuclear issues have recently been dominated by Washington's plan to create a national missile defense system. The plan would require amending or breaking a 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow sees as a cornerstone of world stability, and Russian fiercely objects to the plan.

----

Lawmakers Debate Economic Sanctions

By Carolyn Skorneck
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, July 4, 2001; 6:17 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010704/aponline181758_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- Ban investment in Cuba, even as foreign competitors scoop up big contracts. Punish foreign companies that do business with Iran and Libya. Cut foreign aid from countries to cover their unpaid New York City parking tickets.

Some members of Congress, while supporting multilateral economic sanctions, say slapping unilateral sanctions on countries has gotten out of hand, especially since these punishments often wind up hurting U.S. farmers and manufacturers while failing to change a foreign country's behavior.

"Almost all sanctions are ineffective," said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. "Sanctions have been imposed as an inexpensive foreign policy."

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., likened them to "a modern-day gunboat diplomacy" without guns or boats. "We don't like what you're doing, so we're going to put on a trade sanction or an embargo."

But some lawmakers defend them with vigor, demonstrated by overwhelming votes last month by a House committee to renew sanctions against Iran and Libya for five more years.

Unilateral U.S. economic sanctions target more than 75 of the world's nearly 200 countries, says USA Engage, a coalition of business and farming interests that oppose such sanctions. The coalition was formed in response to a burst of 26 new sanctions in 1996, many imposed by the new Republican majorities in Congress. There are about 100 separate sanctions, according to USA Engage figures.

The sanctions were prompted by such diverse concerns as nuclear proliferation, terrorism, whaling and fishing practices, intellectual property and labor rights, religious discrimination and human rights abuse.

Some targeted countries are obvious candidates: Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Yemen.

Others are not so obvious: Canada, Italy, Japan and Taiwan.

Although no new sanctions were imposed last year, critics of the system, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, want an overhaul.

"I don't know of any embargo that's ever been successful other than making people who put the embargo in place feel better," said Roberts, who is still rankled by President Carter's 1980 grain embargo against the Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan.

"Not one Russian troop ever left Afghanistan, and the effect of the embargo was like shattered glass on the American agricultural economy," Roberts said. "It took us a decade to get over that."

Lugar hopes to pass a bill that, among other things, would require any future sanction to have:

-A clear rationale provided by the president or Congress, whoever is seeking it.

-A sunset date so the government must take action to continue it, eliminating perpetual sanctions that outlive the reason they were instituted.

-A cost-benefit analysis to ensure it's worthwhile.

Lugar and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., say the bill should be broad to avoid political tripwires that accompany any attempt to adjust sanctions on a single country such as Cuba.

But they won't tilt again at the sanctions windmill unless the Bush administration will push the bill, since previous efforts failed for lack of cheerleading by the Clinton administration.

Powell has already implored lawmakers not to create new sanctions. His department is assessing what sanctions changes are needed.

The House International Relations Committee recently rebuffed Powell's plea to renew sanctions against Iran and Libya for just two years, instead of five, to give him more leeway. The 34-9 vote against the two-year limit was preceded by emotional debate.

America's "arrogant, authoritarian approach ... encourages and stimulates the radicalism that we find around the world, because they feel like we have no openness to their position," contended Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, pushing the two-year limit.

"Is it arrogant to sanction Timothy McVeigh?" Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., cried out. "Should we have had a dialogue with him? He killed 170 people. (Libyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi killed 270 people!" on Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The five-year sanction renewal was approved 41-3.

Such sanctions, said Dan O'Flaherty of USA Engage, rely on "the belief that the United States has the economic leverage to change other countries' policies without going to war, without costing us very much," but "there is virtually nothing that a country like Iran needs that it can't get from our competitors."

Incremental changes in sanctions have already begun, as many rock-ribbed Republicans chip away at the once sacrosanct Cuban embargo.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., sponsor of last year's successful bill allowing sales of U.S. agricultural products and medicines to Cuba, said he was surprised to find himself fighting the embargo, but did so to help American farmers.

Multilateral sanctions are another approach, but can require hard-to-negotiate agreements, as the U.N. Security Council found regarding Iraq. For example, a Russian veto threat prevented reworking of U.N. sanctions against Iraq on Tuesday.

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

Ex - Argentine President Menem Indicted in Arms Case

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-argenti.html

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Former Argentine President Carlos Menem and three top members of his 1989-1999 administration were indicted on Wednesday in a probe of illegal arms sales to Croatia and Ecuador, a spokesman for Federal Judge Jorge Urso told Reuters.

``Yes, he (Menem) has been indicted,'' the official told Reuters. Antonio Erman Gonzalez, who held four Cabinet posts including defense minister, and ex-army chief Martin Balza, both already under detention, were also indicted on Wednesday, the official said.

Former Foreign Minister Guido di Tella was also indicted but was not ordered to be detained, the official added.

Menem, 71, was placed under house arrest on June 7 in the investigation that implicates him, three former ministers, his former brother-in-law and his ex-army chief of having illegally sold rifles, cannons, shells and gunpowder to the two warring nations during Menem's time in power in the early 1990s.

The opposition Peronist Party leader is accused of leading an ''illicit association'' to sell weapons to Croatia in 1991 and 1993 despite a U.N. arms embargo and to Ecuador in 1995 while the Andean nation was in a jungle border war with Peru. Argentina was a peace guarantor between Ecuador and Peru.

If found guilty, Menem could face five to 10 years in prison. Menem has denied the allegations, although he and three ministers have acknowledged signing decrees authorizing arms shipments to Panama, a country that did not have an army at the time, and to Venezuela.

``ACT OF JUSTICE''

They deny any knowledge of how the arms found their way to countries at war and blame a state weapons plant and an Argentine arms dealer who has fled to South Africa to avoid prosecution.

``This was predictable. It was anticipated. The ex-president himself and his own lawyers expected this,'' Peronist Party congressman Daniel Scioli told reporters.

``You have to trust that this is an act of justice because it has been done by the justice system,'' said Ricardo Ostuni, spokesman for President Fernando de la Rua. ``But I think it's an issue that deserves attention, the country is portraying an image through these circumstances.

``I presume this wouldn't affect (the government), this is an issue that does not involve the government. Possibly this could become an inconvenience,'' Ostuni added.

De la Rua, whose attempts to rally Argentina out of a three-year economic downturn -- one of its worst crises in decades -- have stumbled, was forced to deny rumors on Wednesday of his impending resignation after a provincial governor from his own party said events had overwhelmed the president.

Because of his age, Menem has been held under house arrest at a friend's mansion in a wealthy Buenos Aires suburb since June 7 when Urso ordered him detained pending further investigation.

``The judge established visiting hours that I believe are between 10 in the morning and 8 in the evening,'' prosecutor Carlos Stornelli told reporters.

----

K-Mart halting ammunition sales:

The Globe and Mail, Toronto,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010704/aponline130858_000.htm

Good news from the land of the free. K-mart, the U.S. discount retailer, has decided to stop selling handgun ammunition in its more than 2,000 stores. The company made the decision after filmmaker Michael Moore and three survivors of the Columbine High School shooting complained that the easy availability of ammo was contributing to the rash of mass shootings in recent years.

Granted, in most civilized countries the very idea that bullets could be displayed on store shelves along with the gummi bears, shampoo and gardening shears would seem ridiculous. It's a capital crime in Malaysia even to possess a handgun bullet. In countries where possession is legal, customers usually must have a licence, or at least fill out some serious paperwork, before they can buy handgun ammunition.

But in the United States, where about 30,000 people a year are killed with firearms, almost as many as died in the Korean War, this is called progress.

-------- balkans

[Trial could last 10 years.]

Milosevic's refusal of counsel poses new legal questions

Wednesday July 4, 9:54 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010704/1/18llf.html

THE HAGUE, July 4 2001 (AFP) - Slobodan Milosevic's refusal to accept counsel and his rejection of the authority of the UN war crimes tribunal pose new and complex legal questions, experts said Wednesday.

After the deposed Yugoslav leader refused representation, saying he had "no need to appoint counsel to an illegal organ", the primary question puzzling experts is: what kind of defense will the former Serb president mount?

A lawyer who defended him in Belgrade, Zdenko Tomanovic, told journalists that Milosevic would continue to represent himself throughout the trial, adding that Milosevic was not "defending himself, but attacking the court".

The tribunal's statute gives a defendant the right to represent himself in court. But a sole defendant representing himself would be up against a 400-strong prosecutors' office, giving at the very least the impression of an unfair trial.

"It will be a fair trial in the sense that Slobodan Milosevic can enjoy all the rights of a defendant, but has voluntarily chosen not to exercise them," Avril McDonald, an international legal expert on human rights from the TMC Asser institute in The Hague, told AFP.

"It will be a shame if he doesn't defend himself and won't speak because the trial would not be able to cover all aspects of the case," she said.

This view is shared by Louise Arbour, the Canadian predecessor of the UN court's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte. She told the BBC that a defiant silence on the part of the former president would not make the trial easier.

Tribunal watchers have said they believe Milosevic could still appoint counsel at a later stage. His decision would influence the duration of his trial, which is already expected to last at least two years.

Del Ponte said Tuesday that "in the worst-case scenario, the trial could last 10 years. Some legal experts consider 10 years the minimum time needed."

A deciding factor in the length of the trial will be its scope.

Milosevic is currently charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1998-99 crackdown against the ethnic Albanian population in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

But the prosecution has already announced that it is planning to add charges in October for the former Yugoslav strongman's involvement in the 1991-95 war in Croatia and the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

Del Ponte also wants to add a charge of genocide, the gravest crime the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) can prosecute, for the crackdown on Kosovo Albanians.

"It's obvious that the charges will be more than those public now," said Florence Hartmann, the spokeswoman for the office of the prosecution.

It will be difficult for the prosecution to establish that Milosevic was at the head of the chain of command for Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia.

"That will be the most difficult. In Kosovo, Milosevic, as the president of Yugoslavia -- a country in an imminent state of war-- had the direct command over all the armed forces," Hartmann added.

Deputy chief prosecutor Graham Blewitt has said that he is "absolutely" convinced that the prosecution will have a very strong case against Milosevic for his crimes in Kosovo.

Milosevic is the first former head of state to appear before an international tribunal. His trial is a test case for international justice that will be closely watched all over the world.

----

Yugoslav Government Steps Down

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Yugoslavia-Politics.html

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Yugoslav lawmakers on Wednesday accepted the resignation of the prime minister and his Cabinet allies, who gave up their posts to protest Slobodan Milosevic's extradition to an international war crimes tribunal.

The resignation of the government led by Prime Minister Zoran Zizic drove a deeper wedge between Montenegro and Serbia, the two republics in the already fragile Yugoslav federation. The constitution calls for federal elections if a new government is not in place three months after a prime minister's resignation.

Zizic, a former Milosevic ally, told parliament that last week's sudden extradition of the former Yugoslav president ``destabilized the country.''

Saying Milosevic's extradition by the government of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, was ``illegitimate,'' Zizic said: ``There is no European country which would extradite its former president in this manner.''

Police blocked the downtown federal parliament building during the session, anticipating more rallies by Milosevic supporters who have been protesting his extradition to The Hague-based tribunal.

Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife and a lawmaker for her neo-communist Yugoslav Left Party, attended the session without taking part in the debate.

Politicians from Yugoslavia's smaller republic of Montenegro have promised to work with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to form a new government and resolve the political crisis.

Later Wednesday, Kostunica, who also opposed Milosevic's extradition to The Hague, met with his pro-democracy Serbian coalition and discussed the composition of the new federal government. His office said he would meet former coalition partners from Montenegro again on Thursday.

After the Wednesday talks, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said that Serbia's leadership agrees that the prime minister of the next Yugoslav Cabinet should again be from the ranks of Zizic's Montenegrin Socialist People's Party.

Djindjic said the likely candidate was Predrag Bulatovic, the party's leader, and that the restructured Yugoslav government should have two main tasks -- to draft a new constitution that redefines relations between the two constituent republics and prepare for the next federal elections.

Angered by Milosevic's handover, Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia has also urged the reshuffling of the Serbian government led by Djindjic, his rival. Media reports said that Kostunica's party would seek key police and justice ministerial posts.

Reflecting the split between the two leading Yugoslav politicians, Djindjic said Wednesday that replacing individual ministers is ``out of the question.''

``We can only speak about the removal of the whole government,'' Djindjic said.

Serbia is by far the larger of the two remaining republics in Yugoslavia and effectively determines Yugoslav policies.

----

Peacekeepers Shift Kosovo Mission

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Balkan-Mission.html

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Two years into their mission in Kosovo, U.S. forces have made a significant strategic shift, launching foot patrols in the mountains to cut supply lines to ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia -- and preserve the fragile peace in Kosovo.

While U.S. troops have mounted foot patrols throughout their deployment, the key difference is that U.S. forces since last month have been operating under specific orders to increase surveillance and interdictions along the rugged mountain border.

``There is no way to shut the border completely and there are many places they can get supplies from other than the Kosovo border,'' Col. Anthony Tata, deputy commander of the U.S. forces in Kosovo, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday outlining the new operation. ``But it is obvious based on the quantity of equipment we have received that we have had an impact.''

Since sending out the first patrols on June 7, U.S. forces based in Kosovo have intercepted and seized a convoy of five rebel SUVs and four mule trains -- all laden with arms, food, clothing and medical supplies, and all making their way to reinforce rebel lines in neighboring Macedonia.

They also have secured at least five caches of weapons hidden under brush, and detained 124 rebels.

So far, the rebels have not fought back, Tata said. One soldier, however, lost a foot last week when he stepped on a land mine.

NATO command in Pristina ordered the mission shift in June following a NATO-brokered peace that calmed fighting between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serb troops in the Presovo valley in neighboring Serbia, which borders the U.S. sector in Kosovo.

That success freed resources to launch the intensified patrols under the command of American Brig. Gen. William C. David at the same moment that the rebel Albanian insurgency in Macedonia intensified, Tata said.

The rebels are battling in northern Macedonia, near the Kosovo border, in what they say is a campaign for greater rights for that country's ethnic Albanian minority. The Macedonian government calls the rebels separatists trying to carve out an ethnic Albanian region.

``Gen. David's intent here is important. He wants to show resolve in assisting (Macedonia) by disrupting logistical and recruiting operations in our sector that are supported by the National Liberation Army,'' as the Macedonian rebel force is known, Tata said.

The U.S. mission to maintain security in Kosovo remains the primary goal, he said, adding: ``The movement and the smuggling is disruptive to the safe and secure environment in Kosovo.''

One particularly productive night in the Sar mountains, four U.S. infantry soldiers seized rebel Albanian SUVs maneuvering a muddy, mountaintop goat track toward the Macedonian border, blocking the lead vehicle in a ravine.

The impressive take on June 8 was a blow to the rebels' resupply efforts: rifles, machine guns, ammunition drums, mortar components -- plus uniforms, boots, bottled water, cans of food, bags of flour, medical supplies and 50,000 German marks -- or about $25,000 -- which Tata believes was the rebel payroll.

``This was a dangerous mission. Every rebel in these vehicles had a loaded weapon and there were 11 that they saw,'' Tata said. The four soldiers captured six without resistance; the others fled.

Helicopters moved in immediately to secure the area and prevent the rebels from regrouping and trying to retake the supplies. Ground forces followed, helping with the detainees and removing seized equipment.

That was the first success. A day earlier, patrols found four cases of mortar ammunition hidden beneath deadfall. Rather than securing the arms, they placed the cache under surveillance. On June 9, U.S. soldiers captured four rebels returning for the weapons.

Battalion commanders then turned their focus to mule trains spotted in the mountains near the border -- intercepting four in one weekend. The seizure included 10 rocket propelled grenades, 16 cases of 12.7 ammunition, 23 cases of explosive, 103 82 mm mortar rounds and 23 boxes of fuses, along with cans of chicken, bags of bread and brand-new boots.

The interdictions so far have focused on a radius of several miles where reconnaissance teams identified a heavily traveled network of foot paths.

``They have been operating in this area for a long time,'' Tata said. ``They have a very good information network. Everybody seems to be connected. The shepherd will report to the woodcutter that the U.S. forces are here. So you have to be somewhat crafty about how you develop your patrol plans.''

Tata saw evidence of the mission's success when he led last week's mission to escort rebel soldiers out of Aracinovo, a suburb of the Macedonian capital Skopje they held for two weeks. Rebels stores were low, he said, with possibly just a two-week supply remaining.

----

Cypriots step up British base protests

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010704-9539615.htm

AKROTIRI BASE, Cyprus -- Violent protests at British military bases on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus spread late yesterday as demonstrators pelted soldiers with sticks and stones over the arrest of a local member of parliament. Troops in riot gear faced an angry crowd of Greek Cypriots at the western base of Akrotiri as a row grew over the erection of huge telecommunications masts. Earlier, Greek Cypriots burst into a British police station at a military compound on the south of the island, demanding the release of the member of parliament, who had been arrested for trying to break into Akrotiri Royal Air Force Base.

-------- business

EU Call on GE Could Hurt Relations

By Martin Crutsinger
AP Economics Writer
Wednesday, July 4, 2001; 12:32 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010704/aponline123218_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- The European Union's decision to block General Electric's purchase of Honeywell is a setback for one of President Bush's early economic priorities: to set a better tone for trade relations with Europe.

Analysts said Tuesday that Europe's numerous critics in Congress were likely to add this development to a long list of grievances they hold against America's biggest economic competitor.

"Because this case is ending unhappily, there could be recriminations of various kinds," said Gary Hufbauer, trade expert at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.

Even before the formal veto announcement, various members of Congress were asking why the EU felt the need to block a deal that had received the blessing of American regulators.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has warned that his aviation subcommittee may begin looking into various mergers sought by European companies.

Rockefeller has also been a vocal critic of sales by foreign steelmakers in the United States at what the U.S. industry considers unfairly low prices.

Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, normally one of the leading proponents of free trade in Congress, recently complained about the EU's expected rejection of the GE-Honeywell action.

"My concern is that we don't have bad policies imposed on us as Europeans try to protect themselves from competition," said Gramm, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, which has oversight of mergers in the financial sector. One pending deal that could face additional scrutiny is the Swiss company Nestle's $10.1 billion purchase of the American Ralston Purina Co.

EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti told reporters: "I don't expect consequences for European companies.

"The fact that there has been a divergence in the conclusion on this important merger only underlines the importance of bilateral cooperation," said Monti, in Geneva for a meeting organized by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.

The Bush administration took office with a goal of reducing tensions over such issues as Europe's ban on American beef produced with growth hormones and barriers to sales by American banana companies. Europe had lost both cases before the World Trade Organization.

Just this weekend, the administration announced with fanfare that it was lifting punitive tariffs imposed in the banana case, hoping to build momentum for the resolution of other disputes.

But the WTO dealt the United States a major blow with a preliminary ruling that $4 billion in tax breaks for American exporters violate global trade rules. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has warned that imposition of such a huge sanction would be the equivalent of a setting off a nuclear bomb in the trade world. But even before the GE case, many experts wondered how a solution could be found short of sanctions.

"The GE case just adds to a long list of irritations on both sides of the Atlantic," said Jeffrey Schott, another global trade expert.

But a senior Treasury Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted that the EU decision would not cast a pall on economic talks this Sunday in Rome between U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and his counterparts from Japan, Canada and the major European economic powers.

The United States goes into those meetings already concerned that Europe is not doing enough to boost world economic growth.

While the White House refused comment on the GE decision, Charles James, assistant attorney general for antitrust, said in a statement, "Clear and long-standing U.S. antitrust policy holds that antitrust laws protect competition, not competitors. Today's EU decision reflects a significant point of divergence."

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently told Congress, "We don't try to protect the competitors. Our focus is solely on the consumer. That's not true in Europe.

"Given globalization, I think somewhere down the line we'll have to come to grips with this."

------

EU deals final blow to GE

July 4, 2001
By Carter Dougherty
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/default-200174234121.htm

European regulators dealt a final blow to General Electric Co.'s proposed $41 billion purchase of Honeywell International Inc. yesterday, marking the first time overseas authorities killed a proposed merger between two companies based in the United States.

The European Commission, which handles merger approvals for its 15 member countries, charged that the combination would have allowed GE, the world's largest company by market value, to choke off competition in the market for corporate jet engines and aircraft electronics.

"The merger between GE and Honeywell, as it was notified, would have severely reduced competition in the aerospace industry and resulted ultimately in higher prices for customers, particularly airlines," European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said.

The rejection prompted Honeywell's board last night to replace Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Bonsignore with former Chairman and CEO Lawrence Bossidy.

The European move was widely expected, but it signaled a particularly bitter end to the row between GE and European officials. In most cases, when a merger is likely to be blocked, the companies involved withdraw their application to avoid a high-profile rejection.

GE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch, who put off his retirement to shepherd the deal, expressed "profound regret" at the European decision, calling it a "setback."

Fairfield, Conn.-based GE needs the approval of European authorities to buy Morristown, N.J.-based Honeywell, just as European companies have to comply with American antitrust laws in the United States.

GE spokesman Gary Sheffer held out the possibility of an appeal in European Union courts. But few observers expected legal action could save the deal. Of the 15 mergers EU authorities have blocked over the last 10 years, six have been taken to court, none successfully.

The odds of a successful legal challenge are "very slim," said Ed Wheeler, an analyst with Buckingham Research Group.

Mr. Sheffer said GE will not submit a new merger plan to European authorities, which would restart the approval process.

European authorities objected to the deal on the grounds that GE, which had $130 billion in sales last year, would be able to use its dominance in the jet-engine sector to undercut European rivals Rolls-Royce PLC of Britain and Thales SA of France.

In particular, they feared GE would be able to package its own jet engines with Honeywell's avionics and finance sales through GE Capital Aviation Services.

On Friday, GE rejected Honeywell's proposal for last-ditch revisions to the deal that would have pared more than $1 billion from the takeover price. In return for a lower purchase price, Honeywell asked GE to divest more of its holdings to satisfy European concerns.

Mr. Monti sought to downplay the trans-Atlantic friction that has arisen from the European stance, preferring to emphasize his close links with American regulators.

"The European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have worked in close cooperation during this investigation," Mr. Monti said. "It is unfortunate that, in the end, we reached different conclusions."

The Justice Department approved the deal on May 2, under the condition that Honeywell sell off its helicopter-engine business.

Mr. Monti previously lashed out at what he called unjustified political pressure to approve the deal. Mr. Welch spoke to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card when the deal began to fall apart, and Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill heavily criticized European opposition in a Monday interview with The Washington Times.

European regulators have blocked only one other U.S. merger, between WorldCom and Sprint in 1999, but in that case they agreed with their American counterparts. The Department of Justice sued to stop the deal the following day.

The collapse of the GE-Honeywell link-up is a major defeat for Mr. Welch, 65, who postponed his April retirement as GE's highly successful CEO to see the Honeywell merger through to completion. GE veteran Jeffrey Immelt will succeed Mr. Welch.

Mr. Immelt told Bloomberg News yesterday that GE will purchase more companies in the future, despite the collapse of its bid for Honeywell.

"We'll continue to grow through technology and through acquisitions," said Mr. Immelt, named in November to succeed Mr. Welch.

GE shares fell 69 cents to $49.51 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange, while Honeywell shares gained 99 cents to $35.10.

------

GE-Honeywell:

Star Tribune of Minneapolis,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010704/aponline130858_000.htm

Americans seem puzzled and resentful that a merger of Honeywell International and General Electric Co. might come apart because of objections from the European Union. But they should not be surprised that global commerce brings global scrutiny, and, though the issues of this merger are ambiguous, they should probably welcome such scrutiny as a good thing.

Although the GE-Honeywell episode has gotten unusual attention, cross-Atlantic antitrust review is nothing new. In the last 10 years, the European Commission has reviewed nearly 350 mergers involving American companies. Interestingly, only 17 of these deals were blocked or withdrawn. American antitrust authorities, conversely, often review foreign mergers that would affect U.S. markets, and they have interceded in several. ...

If the GE deal falls apart because of European objections, it will raise the old fears that the United States is sacrificing sovereignty in the name of globalization. But the supporters of free trade can have no objection - a company that wants to deal in foreign markets should expect foreign scrutiny. And the foes of globalization should take solace - there may be many cases in which foreign regulators set the bar higher, not lower, than their counterparts in the United States.

-------- colombia

Plan Colombia - This War is Unwinnable

by Sir Keith Morris,
Wednesday, July 4, 2001
the Guardian of London
http://commondreams.org/views01/0704-05.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian

As UK Ambassador to Colombia , I watched the endless Anglo-US campaigns against drug traffickers and I know they will never work

November 1992, European Drugs Week: BBC's Panorama opened with seven minutes of Kenneth Clarke, the then home secretary, jumping out of helicopters to look at coca growing in the jungle and opium poppy being sprayed in the High Andes. Behind him there hovered, to the embarrassment of my children, a white-haired ambassador with a stick.

Thus started what the Colombians came to call "narcotourism". The chatter of the Colombian anti-narcotics police helicopters, with their machine guns at the ready and columns of smoke from burning mountains of cocaine, were used to show that the war on drugs was no metaphor.

When I accompanied Clarke that day, I believed there was a point to that war. In the years since, I have come to realize that the war is unwinnable, costly and counter-productive.

I was appointed ambassador to Colombia in 1990 knowing I had much to learn about the drugs trade. The Colombia I returned to 20 years after my first posting there had changed greatly, mostly for the better, with steady growth and substantial spending on education and health. Along with the end of the cold war, this should have helped bring about a negotiated end to the low intensity communist insurgency that had plagued the country from the mid-60s.

But instead of peace, Colombia saw a dramatic increase in violence and corruption as prohibition made cocaine a profitable commodity. Slumbering Marxist guerrillas prospered on the money the drug traffickers paid them to protect the cocaine laboratories. The traffickers also hired assassins to kill and intimidate, and paramilitaries to defend their ranches from the very guerrillas to whom they were paying protection money.

Under US pressure, the Colombians extradited drug traffickers to the US. In retaliation Pablo Escobar, then the world's seventh-richest man according to Forbes, launched a campaign of narcoterrorism. In one year, from August 1989, his assassins killed three presidential candidates, blew up an airliner with more than 100 passengers, set off dozens of car bombs and killed 200 policemen in Medellin alone.

So as I arrived in Colombia, the war on drugs seemed like self-defense. The US, the UK and other Europeans had just started to give help in training and equipment to the Colombians to counter the direct threat to the state that Escobar represented. It was meant to be part of a deal: as well as helping tackle supply we - the consumer countries - would crack down on the supply of precursor chemicals, check money laundering and reduce demand at home. At the time, we really believed that the war was winnable.

Some progress was made. The Colombian police responded well to help and advice. Escobar gave himself up when the threat of extradition was dropped. He escaped a year later but his organization was demolished and in December 1993 he was killed. But the Americans immediately started briefing that Escobar had long been a sideshow and that the real problem was the Cali cartel. After so much effort and many lives lost, the trade was still as great as ever. I began to wonder about the chances of success and also about the obsessive attitudes of our leading ally.

My concerns were justified. US policy on Colombia came to be dominated by drugs. Two days after President Samper was elected in 1994, he was accused of having accepted $5m from the Cali cartel to finance his campaign. US agencies had allegedly been involved in taping conversations. The American line when I left Colombia in late 1994 was that Samper would be judged on his performance against the traffickers. The Cali cartel was dismembered by mid-1995, but when members of Samper's own campaign, who were under investigation, implicated him in the drugs scandal, the US administration imposed sanctions, undermining confidence in what had been South America's most stable economy.

Morale in Colombia's overstretched armed forces was undermined as they saw their president attacked by their great ally. The only beneficiaries were the Marxist guerrillas and their rightwing mirror image, the paramilitaries. Ironically, it is only recently that the US has started to take the threat of communism in Colombia seriously again, and has taken steps to strengthen the army. But it isn't ideology that fuels Colombia's violence: it is the money from the illegal drugs trade.

Colombia has now been involved in anti-narcotics efforts under US pressure for 30 years: against marijuana in the 70s, cocaine in the 80s and 90s, and heroin in the 90s. And for the past 12 years there has been intense international cooperation. But as General Serrano, the highly respected former commander of the Colombian police told me in March, in spite of all that the flow of drugs has increased. The cost: tens of thousands dead, more than a million displaced people, political and economic stability undermined and the country's image ruined.

The attack on the supply side of the drugs trade was always bound to fail if the other elements - precursor chemicals, money laundering and demand - were not tackled too. But there seems to be no shortage of chemicals reaching the traffickers; there have been no striking results on stopping money flows; and demand has grown, with the habit now spreading to the producer countries too. There has been a cultural change which has led to the recreational use of drugs being seen by the younger generation as normal. It is now part of a global consumer society that demands instant gratification. Laws cannot change that. All they can do is create a $500bn criminal industry with devastating effects worldwide. It must be time to start discussing how drugs could be controlled more effectively within a legal framework.

Decriminalization, which is often mentioned, would be an unsatisfactory halfway house, because it would leave the trade in criminal hands, giving no help at all to the producer countries, and would not guarantee consumers a safe product or free them from the pressure of pushers. It has been difficult for me to advocate legalization because it means saying to those with whom I worked, and to the relatives of those who died, that this was an unnecessary war. But the imperative must be to try to stop the damage.

Some politicians have religious objections to any attempt at legalization Others still believe that if we persevere the war can be won; and there are many who will tell you in private that we are getting nowhere but believe that the electorate and certainly Washington would never buy radical change. I am not so sure. The younger generation views things differently and what is politically impossible today can become politically imperative tomorrow. I hope this government will at least agree to a serious debate on the subject. It deserves it.

Sir Keith Morris was UK's Ambassador to Colombia from 1990-94.

-------- iraq

Iraqi Diplomat at U.N. Seeks Asylum in U.S.

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/world/04IRAQ.html?searchpv=nytToday

UNITED NATIONS, July 3 - One of the highest-ranking Iraqi diplomats at the United Nations has asked for asylum in the United States, the police in New York said today. And a second Iraqi diplomat, who is thought to have disappeared about two weeks ago, may also be trying to defect, other envoys say.

The defector was identified by the police as Muhammad al-Humaimidi, the deputy chief of Iraq's United Nations mission. After Mr. Humaimidi turned himself in to the police in New York on Friday, he and his family were questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He and his family are thought to be in hiding, though neither the New York police nor federal officials would comment today on their whereabouts.

The second Iraqi, Fela Hesan al- Rubaie, who is the fourth-ranking diplomat at the Iraqi mission, has been unaccounted for since he and his family failed to show up for a flight they had booked from the United States to Iraq.

Diplomats said both men were completing their assignments in New York, where Iraq maintains its only full-fledged diplomatic mission in the United States. Because Iraq and the United States do not have diplomatic relations, Iraqi affairs are handled by the Algerian Embassy in Washington.

In New York today, the police said they had no information on the case of the second Iraqi, Mr. Rubaie, although Reuters reported that he had turned himself in to the F.B.I.

Bush administration officials in Washington said today that they did not know what motivated the defector, Mr. Humaimidi, to ask for asylum. They said perhaps he was afraid of returning to Iraq for some reason, or perhaps was experiencing morale or work-related problems within the Iraqi mission in New York.

One Iraqi expert in Washington said Mr. Humaimidi was believed to be related to senior members of the Baath Party, which has ruled Iraq with an iron grip for almost 40 years.

Both men, whose high rank allowed them to bring their families with them, held United Nations jobs that would have put them at the center of discussions on Iraqi strategy here, diplomats said.

In recent weeks the Iraqis have been arguing at the United Nations against changes in the "oil for food" program, which is aimed at stopping Iraqi smuggling and illegal importing of arms. They also repeated Iraq's vow never to allow international arms inspections to resume, the key to lifting sanctions against Baghdad.

A proposal by the United States and Britain to revise the terms of trade with Iraq and allow freer importing of civilian goods has been abandoned for five months because of objections from Russia. All sides have settled into what could be a long stalemate.

While most diplomats, including those close to the Iraqis, say President Saddam Hussein makes the major decisions about Iraq from Baghdad, the Iraqi mission handles the day-to-day contact with United Nations officials and Security Council members from a town house on East 79th Street off Fifth Avenue.

During the last week when the Security Council was debating how to proceed with the oil-for-food proposal, the diplomatic team was led by a visiting official from Baghdad, Riyadh al-Qaysi, an under secretary from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Qaysi, who spent more than two hours last Thursday criticizing the Security Council for its treatment of Iraq, canceled a meeting on Monday with Secretary General Kofi Annan without explanation. There is no evidence that Mr. Qaysi has been involved in the cases of the defectors.

Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Muhammad al-Douri, is refusing to comment on the defections, a staff member of the Iraqi mission said today in response to a telephone request for an interview. Earlier, Mr. Douri told The Associated Press that he would not confirm or deny the reports of diplomatic defections. "If someone wants to stay, what can we do?" he said.

The New York police say the defector, Mr. Humaimidi, walked into a police station on East 51st Street about 4 in the afternoon on Friday and asked for political asylum for himself, his wife, Layali al-Khatawi, and three children - two of them adults and the third a teenager. He told the police that he was the head of the Iraqi mission.

The police detectives immediately called their department's intelligence division. The detectives then went to Mr. Humaimidi's apartment on East 38th Street. He and his family were taken to be interviewed and debriefed by the F.B.I.

The Iraqi case follows the defection last year of a Russian spy posing as a diplomat. That intelligence officer, Sergei Tretyakov, defected in October, but the defection was not disclosed until January.

In the case of Iraq, American officials would be expected to look for information about possible Iraqi attempts to collect information that could be useful to illegal Iraqi weapons programs.

Khidhir Hamza, a high-ranking defector from Iraq's nuclear program, described in a recent book, "Saddam's Bombmaker," how Iraqis in the United States combed through American research centers and libraries for technical information not available in Iraq.

-------- israel

Sharon Defends Killings

Wednesday, July 4, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16065-2001Jul3?language=printer

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his advisers brushed aside U.S. criticism and said yesterday that Israel would stick to its policy of tracking down and killing suspected Palestinian militants.

Israeli television reported that top Israeli leaders authorized the military to step up the campaign of targeted killings. Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said the number of killings depended on Palestinian efforts to stop attacks. "The less they do, the more we have to do," he said.

A Palestinian official, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, called the Israeli policy "the biggest violation" yet of the faltering Mideast cease-fire.

Israel insists it will carry out pre-emptive strikes in a bid to prevent Palestinian attacks that have persisted despite the U.S.-brokered truce. Israel's deputy defense minister, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, who was part of the forum of Israeli leaders that met Tuesday, defended the policy.

"When we know of a terrorist who is a ticking bomb, meaning he is on his way, carrying explosives, to carry out an attack in Israel, it is incumbent on us to prevent it and that is what we do," she said.

Rabin-Pelossof, daughter of assassinated Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, was asked about media reports that Sharon was weighing a broad assault against the Palestinian Authority if the cease-fire collapsed entirely. "We have to consider all the existing options," she told Israel radio.

-------- japan

An Open Letter to the People of Okinawa

July 4, 2001
From: Dr. Joseph Gerson (JGerson@afsc.org),
Director of Programs, American Friends Service Committee, New England Regional

Friends,

Today, in towns and cities across the United States, Independence Day is being celebrated. Parades of marching bands, of students, of military veterans, and of civic organizations are celebrating life, their contributions to our communities, and their understandings of U.S. independence and freedom. Others are simply enjoying the "freedom" of leisure and the pleasures and security of family life. Tonight, in parks across the country, children, their parents and grandparents, friends and lovers will be awed as beautiful fireworks (first invented in China) illuminate our skies and spirits in the name of freedom and U.S. national independence. As part of the day's celebrations and commemorations, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and signed 225 years ago on this day, has been reprinted in major newspapers. It will be honored - usually without being read - in ways beyond imagination before today becomes tomorrow.

For those who truly appreciate that all people "are created equal"; that the suffering implicit in colonization, occupation and oppression is universal; and that the values of human freedom and security are equally universal, the news from Okinawa makes this a day of shame and bitter irony.

Once again, a U.S. soldier has attacked, violated, and brutalized a defenseless Okinawan woman. Once again representatives of the U.S. government are protecting U.S. warriors behind the arrogant and colonial protections of extraterritoriality. Once again, the lure of U.S. dollars and material security is leading desperate people (representatives of Shimoji and Irabu) to consider sacrificing the true security of their people and environment in the service of deadly and foreign militarism.

If they could, the heavens would weep.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence is rightfully among the world's most valued statements of human equality and human rights. It is an inspiring condemnation of colonialism, oppression and foreign military and political occupation. Its affirmation of human and communal freedom has inspired succeeding generations in many countries.

The Declaration gives statement to bitter experiences which Okinawans continue to endure in ways that were unimaginable in the pre-industrial age: the keeping "among us in times of peace standing armies without [our] consent"; "quartering of large bodies of armed troops among us", the occupier engaging "large armies...to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny..." As the Declaration explains, as has been the case for Okinawans, "In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury."

Yet, on this 225th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. government and its allies in Tokyo shamefully and unapologetically insist that the military colonization of your lives and communities continue, that you and your children remain vulnerable to its transgressions, and that your communities and resources serve the coercive U.S. global commitment to "full spectrum dominance" - including nuclear terrorism and threatened genocide and omnicide.

With deep pain and shame for the violations of those who speak and act in the name of the U.S. people, I add my name to those who call on the U.S. government to:

-turn the accused rapist over to Japanese authorities for trial and punishment

-end all extra-territoriality for all U.S. troops and citizens in Okinawa (and elswhere in Japan)

-stop all military exercises and preparations for war in Okinawa (and elsewhere in Japan)

-withdraw of ALL U.S. troops and bases from Okinawa (and elsewhere in Japan)

-clean up the environment where damage has been inflicted by U.S. military forces

-demonstrate profound regret and sincere apology by compensating the Okinawan people for the crimes and violations 56 years of military occupation

----

RESIDENTS FED UP WITH U.S. MILITARY BEHAVIOR IN OKINAWA

Okinawa Shimbun (News) Japanese Version
4 July 2001
Author: Reporters from Okinawa Shimbun (News)
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b41f90e7781.htm

(Translated from the original Japanese) "There has been another incident in the area known as "American Village" in Chatan Village, Okinawa, a place known as a tourist spot with a number of restaurants and night spots. This has involved an alleged rape this time.

Chatan Village: Arson. Stealing and breaking of personal goods. Vandalism to cars. These are all things that have come to mean Chatan Village recently.

These are all crimes of some of the U.S. military personnel that have escalated in this community since the beginning of this year. The comments from residents and shopkeepers is one in the same: "Enough! We want them to put a stop to it", everyone interviewed said.

This time the city is going into a powerful mode, coming out strongly asking for the neighboring US military bases to put a night curfew into effect, and the Chatan Village council adopting a stance requesting a reduction in US forces in Okinawa.

Chairman of the Chatan Council Mr. Tamashiro has said "since January this year, there has been no end to it (their antics). We are not going to stand for it any more. We are taking a strong stance toward the base and it's people since these things will not stop."

He also observed that in the area of the attack, lighting was very poor, and so the safety committee is going to make recommendations to create more safety in the area.

Another individual, living in Miyashiro Ward, chairman of the autonomy council Mr. Kempei Sunagawa, said: "It is one thing for them go go around and vandalize car hoods, etc, but if a rape occured on one of them, this is really an entirely different story. This is absolutely unforgiveable. And we are going to put a stop to it with a civil protection plan by our autonomous council."

The owner of a karaoke singing/drinking shop in the Mihama District said "It's not just the US military personnel who are causing us all kinds of headaches. The problem also extends to their dependents; these are kids coming out here, smoking marijuana, causing troubles and damage, and getting away with it. There is no end to these troublemakers going around throwing firecrackers at people in the street. I have seen cases where car windows have been damaged, and glass has been broken in storefront windows." He went on, "everytime, we call 110 (Okinawa Police) and all we get is "if we (police) are not on the scene, there is not much we can do about it, sorry."

The business and industrial promotion division of Chatan spoke up. "Here we go trying to develop the area of Mihama with incentives and encouraging businesses to come in here. Then (the US military) cannot behave off base and all of our planning and PR goes down the drain", he spat out in anger."

End of translated text.

Photo of commander of US forces in Okinawa Heilston today apologizing (again) in the latest string of US military personnel crimes in Okinawa in the last years that have included arson, vandalism, shoplifting, rapes of women and underaged minors, trespassing, attempted murder and assault.

New US Ambassador to Japan frmr Sen. Howard Baker, upon landing today at Narita Airport Tokyo, had to unfortunately and sadly perform his very first official act on an a rather negative note, which was to issue an airport apology to the people of the country to which he has been dispatched. Ambassadors Foley, Mondale, Armacost and Mansfield, before him, have also had to issue such apologies about behavior in Okinawa (highest per capita crime rates for US military bases, domestic or overseas).

Local tempers are flaring in the Okinawa Police force, the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the Japanese press over the alleged rape by (soon to be arrested and handed-over) USAF Sergeant Timothy Woodland (24) and his reported hasty retreat from the Chatan crime scene with his AF colleagues (although it is also reported in the J. press that a group of Marines came upon the scene and broke it up or otherwise made attempts).

-------- nato

Claim that war criminals have nowhere to hide,
self-serving claptrap of big powers

by Stephen Gowans,
July 4, 2001
http://www.mediamonitors.net/gowans14.html

In a report on Western countries preparing to offer more than a billion dollars to Yugoslavia at an international donors' conference, one newspaper blamed Yugoslavia's faltering economy on " a decade of civil war and corruption under (former Yugoslav President) Mr. Milosevic," as if the NATO "bombing missions that left the country's industrial and economic infrastructure in ruins," and the "western economic embargo," both of which the newspaper acknowledged, were of no consequence.

Holding two contradictory views but blithely carrying on as if no contradiction exists, the paper went on to say that public sentiment had turned against Mr. Milosevic, while pointing out that the new government "had to deal with 10,000 pro-Milosevic protesters outside his jail earlier this week."

Apparently, ordinary Yugoslav citizens can massively rally in defence of Milosevic, while still turning against him.

Apparently, industrial and civilian infrastructure can be devastated by outside forces, and the resulting economic ruin can be further exacerbated by an economic embargo, and still Yugoslavia's economic trials are entirely the fault of civil war and internal corruption.

And apparently, Western countries can offer $1.3 billion in loans that Yugoslavia will be expected to repay in full, with interest, to rebuild the economic and civilian infrastructure that Western governments themselves destroyed, and the loans are still "aid money" and a "reward."

Destroying civilian infrastructure, by the way, is a war crime, a point the newspaper failed to mention.

Imagine the bank destroyed your house, and when you applied for a mortgage to rebuild it, they called the mortgage a reward, demanded you sell off all your assets and insisted you turn over a son as a condition of receiving "aid." With the West's role in the ruin of Yugoslavia overlooked, and all blame laid on Milosevic, is it any wonder that the Western-backed and controlled Hague tribunal is, as one newspaper puts it, "widely seen by Yugoslavs as a biased 'kangaroo court'"?

Another newspaper says that no one who massacres civilians or commits crimes against humanity can be confident he will escape the reach of the law, Slobodan Milosevic, offered as a prime example. But the claim is massively contradicted by the continued freedom of dozens of leaders who've committed crimes against humanity and continue to do so with impunity, while others, Milosevic again, are indicted on trumped-up charges.

It would be more accurate to say that no one who breaches humanitarian law while in power and doesn't enjoy the favour of a Security Council member, or isn't the head of a Security Council government itself, is beyond the reach of the law. Who controls the law, is vital.

While the UN War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague is one way of denying some who commit crimes a place to hide, it gives Security Council members, through their veto, a perfect place to hide. Since they control the tribunal, and have a veto over it, heads of Security Council governments, and their allies, can commit war crimes aplenty, without the slightest fear they'll be indicted. That's why lists of leaders who are accused of committing war crimes and now have nowhere to hide, a list which includes Milosevic, doesn't include a single head of a Security Council country, or any of its strategic allies, though strong cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity can be made against Bill Clinton (Sudan, Afghanistan, Kosovo), Tony Blair, Gerhard Shroeder and other NATO leaders (Kosovo), Russian President Vladimir Putin (Chechnya), Israel's Ariel Sharon (the Sabra and Shatilla massacres for starters) and former Indonesian dictator Suharto (East Timor and the slaughter of up to a million Communists in Indonesia.)

When these leaders are indicted, the claim that war criminals can't hide may mean something. Today, the claim is no more than the self-serving clap-trap of big powers.

Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in Ottawa, Canada.

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

Texans cool to idea of becoming bomb target
State could replace Puerto Rico range

By JAY ROOT,
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM;
Wednesday, July 4, 2001
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/29935_texas04.shtml

AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander yesterday criticized a proposal to blast South Texas with the same bombs now being dropped on the Vieques Island training site in Puerto Rico.

Rylander, the first statewide elected official to speak out against the fledgling idea, also ordered an economic impact study and said she would make an aerial tour of the region in coming days.

"Bombing Texas beaches doesn't make much sense, period." Rylander said. "This is not the place to play war games."

Economic development officials in Kenedy County, just south of Corpus Christi, have acknowledged that they had been quietly promoting a 222,000-acre site near Baffin Bay. The proposal would include amphibious military landings on the Padre Island National Seashore, considered a state and national treasure.

Word first leaked out when the Washington Times reported that the South Texas site was being considered by the Bush administration as an alternative to Vieques, where the controversial exercises will end after 2003.

Environmentalists in South Texas were quick to slam the proposal. They cited, among other things, the danger to a fragile ecosystem that supports the endangered Kemp's Ridley turtles.

On Monday, commissioners in Kenedy County joined in with a unanimous vote condemning the idea.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has called the idea "an interesting concept" but says it's premature to take a position one way or the other.

"He has no indication from federal officials that South Texas is under serious consideration. If it turns out that it is, he thinks careful analysis of long-term and short-term impacts must be done and that the public needs the opportunity for full debate," Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said. "Without knowing full information, he would withhold judgment."

Rylander said she wants to look at the "cold, hard numbers" that flow from her study of the economic impact the project might have.

Some local officials have touted the proposal as a potential boon to the economy.

"While there may be some economic benefits in turning South Texas into a war zone, we must look at the impact on our environment and our quality of life," Rylander said.

She said she expects to have the study completed in two to three weeks.

----

[Ever wonder about the founding of the military-industrial complex? Here's how it all began.... et]

First presidential address to Congress on the state of the Union

Washington Times, July 4, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010703-923815.htm

Fellow citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives, I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity, which now presents itself, of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public affairs. The recent accession of the important State of North Carolina to the constitution of the United States (of which official information has been received), the rising credit and respectability of our country, and the general and increasing good will towards the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and plenty, with which we are blessed, are circumstances auspicious, in an eminent degree, to our national prosperity.

In resuming your consultations for the general good, you cannot but deriveencouragement from the reflection, that the measures of the last session have been as satisfactory to your constituents, as the novelty and difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further to realize their expectations, and to secure the blessings, which a gracious Providence has placed within our reach, will, in the course of the present important session, call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.

Among the many interesting objects, which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interestrequire, that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent on others for essential, particularly for military supplies.

The proper establishment of the troops, which may be deemed indispensable, will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it, it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy.

There was reason to hope, that the pacific measures, adopted with regard to certain hostile tribes of Indians, would have relieved the inhabitants of our southern and western frontiers from their depredations. But you will perceive, from the information contained in the papers, which I shall direct to be laid before you, (comprehending a communication from the commonwealth of Virginia,) that we ought to be prepared to afford protection to those parts of the Union, and, if necessary, to punish aggressors.

The interest of the United States requires, that our intercourse with other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to fulfill my duty in that respect, in the manner which circumstances may render most conducive to the public good; and, to this end, that the compensations, to be made to the persons who may be employed, should, according to the nature of their appointments, be defined by law, and a competent fund designated for defraying the expenses incident to the conduct of our foreign affairs.

Various considerations also render it expedient, that the terms, on which foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens, should be speedily ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.

Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to.

The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation. But I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement, as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home; and of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the post-office and post-roads.

Nor am I less persuaded, that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community, as in ours, it is proportionably essential. To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways; by convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration, that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people; and by teaching the people themselves to know, and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority, between burdens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.

Whether this desirable object will be the best promoted by affording aids to seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a national university, or by any other expedients, will be well worthy of a place in the deliberations of the legislature.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, I saw with peculiar pleasure, at the close of the last session, the resolution entered into by you, expressive of your opinion, that an adequate provision for the support of the public credit is a matter of high importance to the national honor and prosperity. In this sentiment I entirely concur. And to a perfect confidence in your best endeavours to devise such a provision as will be truly consistent with the end, I add an equal reliance on the cheerful cooperation of the other branch of the legislature. It would be superfluous to specify inducements to a measure, in which the character and permanent interests of the United States are so obviously and so deeply concerned, and which has received so explicit a sanction from your declaration.

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives, I have directed the proper officers to lay before you respectively such papers and estimates as regard the affairs particularly recommended to your consideration, and necessary to convey to you that information of the state of the Union, which it is my duty to afford.

The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed; and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our fellow-citizens the blessings, which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government.

GEORGE WASHINGTON
President United States of America New York

Washington delivered this address before a joint session of the House and Senate on Jan. 8, 1790.

---

[On the other hand....]

Cultivate Peace: An Excerpt from George Washington's Farewell Address

September 17, 1796 - Published July 4, 2001
by Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/washington1.html

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Group calls for more renewable energy in Calif

USA: July 4, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11420

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Wind, geothermal and solar energy could supply more than a quarter of California's electricity by 2010, a report issued by a public policy advocacy group yesterday said.

The report, issued by the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), called for the state to encourage their development by offering long-term contracts, subsidies and other incentives.

The report describes as wind, geothermal and solar as "truly clean" renewable energy sources. They currently represent about 8 percent of the state's production.

The largest current renewable energy source is hydropower at about 18 percent. The report, however, says that most of the electricity comes from largest dams "none of which is desirable for the goal of free-flowing rivers."

California, which faces the prospect of possibly hundreds of hours of blackouts this summer due to a chronic shortage of electricity, has been rushing to build gas-fired plants. Gas is the state's leading and fastest growing power source and supplies more than a third of California's electricity.

"The state has already approved more than enough of these (gas) plants and should now turn to developing renewable energy sources to satisfy future demand and retire old plants," the report said.

CALPIRG said wind could provide 14 percent of the state's electricity by 2010, up from about 1.5 percent currently, geothermal 10 percent (versus 6 percent) and solar 1.5 percent (compared with 0.4 percent).

California has signed numerous long-term contracts this year but has been seeking "firm power" which has prevented wind energy supplies from bidding. Wind's major weakness is that its production is both hard to predict and control.

-------- energy

U.S. Price Controls Are Said to Worsen Power Shortage

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/national/04NEVA.html

LOS ANGELES, July 3 - Officials in California and Nevada said today that the controls the federal government recently imposed on wholesale electricity prices throughout the Western states appeared to have caused some generators to withhold supplies, worsening power shortages this week.

The Las Vegas area experienced its first power blackouts on Monday. California avoided blackouts, but on Monday and again today it declared a Stage 2 alert, the second-most- severe of its categories of tight supplies.

Heat throughout the Southwest - Las Vegas recorded temperatures close to 120 degrees on Monday - and the closing of some Nevada power plants for repairs contributed to the problems. But state and utility officials said the federal price restraints, put in place on June 19 after months of vigorous debate, seemed to have had the perverse effect of reducing supplies when they were most needed.

That outcome appears likely to reignite the battle between the Bush administration and California's governor, Gray Davis, on the usefulness of price caps.

Before bowing to an outcry from the West, President Bush opposed price controls, saying they would worsen the shortages. He argued that the only way to solve California's energy crisis was an expansion in oil drilling and the construction of more power plants. Governor Davis insisted that, if set properly, caps would prevent the kind of price gouging that he says has enabled power generators to overcharge California by some $9 billion this year.

The price controls put in place last month, adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, are based on an enormously complex formula that has sown confusion in the markets. Under the process, the level at which the caps are set can change rapidly. Generators say the system is so complex and so changeable that they do not always know how much they will wind up being paid for a given amount of power.

Oscar Hidalgo, the spokesman for the Department of Water Resources, the California agency that buys most of the state's power on the wholesale market, said that confusion among the generators caused them to hold back about 600 megawatts of power - the equivalent of the output of about two large plants - at critical times on Monday.

"A lot of generators were telling us that they were uncertain what they would be paid, and so they didn't want to take the risk," Mr. Hidalgo said. "That's basically what pushed us into the Stage 2 alert on Monday."

Paul Heagen, a spokesman for the Nevada Power Company, the utility for most of Nevada, said that as conditions there worsened on Monday, some suppliers appeared at least to delay offering power, or may have even actually held back as much as 200 megawatts.

That critical shortfall at the peak demand, in late afternoon, contributed to about 45 minutes of blackouts, affecting some 10,000 homes in the Las Vegas area.

Mr. Heagen, too, said that uncertainty among the generators over how much they would be paid under the complex federal pricing formula had caused the problem.

"We know this was not the intention of the price controls, but they are having a chilling effect on supply," he said. The generators "don't know how much they're going to get paid for the power, so they are reluctant."

Cynthia Messina, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the utility, said the state was analyzing the data and had drawn no firm conclusions yet on what had occurred.

The confusion developed because the cap placed on prices changes periodically, depending on conditions.

Generally, the price is set at how much it costs the least efficient power plant in the state of California to produce electricity. That price is largely determined by the cost of fuel - typically natural gas - plus the plant's operating and maintenance costs.

Complicating matters is that because power plants can be pulled out of the system for maintenance or placed back on line, the least efficient plant - the one being used as the standard for pricing - can change. In addition, natural gas prices have tumbled in recent weeks, putting downward pressure on the caps.

But perhaps the greatest uncertainty lies in the fact that the cap is reset only when the California market is placed on a Stage 1 alert - that is, when supplies slip below 7 percent more than actual demand - for one hour or more.

When the alert is first called - by the Independent System Operator, the agency that manages California's power grid - the market naturally does not know whether it will last for minutes or hours. On Monday, the market slipped into Stage 1 and then to Stage 2, when supplies are less than 3 percent greater than demand, in less than an hour. Prices fluctuated sharply, falling from $91.87 to $70.49 a megawatt at the time of the first alert, to $81.18 to $89.30 and then back to $72, all because of quirks in the pricing formula and changes in market conditions.

As in California, the problems in Nevada are not likely to go away quickly. On Monday, the state was hurt by the fact that several large plants were down for repairs. But Nevada has also run into soaring demand for power, partly because of a spurt in growth and partly for reasons that the utility says it does not understand.

Mr. Heagen, the Nevada Power spokesman, said peak demand at the beginning of July 2000 was 3,280 megawatts; on Monday the peak was 4,250 megawatts. He said that about a third of that increase was a result of higher temperatures, and about a third a product of population growth.

The other third, he said, is a puzzle, but it does not appear that it will just go away.

-------- environment

News Analysis: Japan's Ambiguity on Global Warming

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/world/04JAPA.html

TOKYO, July 3 - Anyone interested in clearly understanding Japan's position on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming would search in vain through Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's statements over the last several days, during his first official overseas trip.

Mr. Koizumi's extraordinary popularity at home was built in part from his straight-shooter style - which differs significantly from that of recent predecessors, who were more often given to endless hedging. But from Washington to London to Paris, sometimes on the same day and within the same city, his position on what is probably the most ambitious international environmental agreement seemed to shift by the hour or the audience.

Whether deliberate or accidental, Mr. Koizumi's ambiguity appears to stem from a variety of causes.

To begin with, this is his first experience on the world stage.

Moreover the protocol - whose name comes from Japan's ancient capital, where its terms were hammered out nearly four years ago after a decade of arduous talks - represents a rare opportunity for Japan to take the pivotal position on an issue of major international importance. But because Japan has had little experience wielding such influence, it finds itself stuck between firmly formed and opposing schools of thought: those of the European Union and the United States.

Japan's self-image as a world power has become increasingly tied to environmental issues, which are loosely linked in the minds of the public with the country's postwar vocation as a kinder, gentler power, constitutionally at peace and devoted to assisting the development of poorer nations.

With important parliamentary elections scheduled for July 29, many opposition candidates, and even some members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, have turned support for the Kyoto Protocol and other environmental issues into campaign themes. Many newspaper editorials have also supported ratification of the protocol.

At the same time, Japan is as firmly attached to the United States - economically, diplomatically and in security terms - as perhaps any country. Going against its ally on a major issue like carbon emissions does not come naturally for Tokyo.

As a new, stirringly reformist prime minister, Mr. Koizumi has yet another important consideration: the need for support from Washington for his sweeping but risky economic restructuring. Mr. Bush gave Mr. Koizumi's plans a strong endorsement, which could prove useful for warding off critics at home.

Those strong crosswinds have brought an extraordinary sequence of shifts and nuance and near contradictions from the Japanese leader about the agreement, which establishes a timetable for strictly limiting the carbon emissions of industrial nations.

After the talks last weekend between Mr. Koizumi and President Bush at Camp David, Md., the Bush administration, which has rejected the protocol as "fatally flawed," all but claimed that it was indeed dead.

In support of that view, administration officials cited Mr. Koizumi's supposed pledge not to ratify the protocol without Washington - a decision that would leave the accord short of the minimum number of countries needed for it to take effect.

"When Japanese politicians go to the United States, they are just engulfed by the American atmosphere, and when they go to places like Camp David they forget their original positions and are often overwhelmed by the agenda of the American side" said Kaoru Okano, a political scientist and former leader of Meiji University. "When we saw Koizumi playing baseball with Mr. Bush, we knew he was totally immersed in the American environment."

But while still in Washington, Mr. Koizumi spoke of respecting the "spirit" of the protocol. And by the time he reached London, where support for the protocol is strong (as it is throughout Europe), Mr. Koizumi's language had become more affirmative still. Speaking to reporters there on Monday, he said he would "continue to talk to the Americans so that the Kyoto Protocol becomes an effective document."

Even that, however, was not the final word. Mr. Koizumi appeared to take another step backward on Monday, contradicting his own government's chief spokesman, when he denied that he had discussed possible revisions to the protocol with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that might make it acceptable to the United States.

The distance Mr. Koizumi has traveled in his various statements is all the greater when one considers that just last month, speaking before Parliament, he described Mr. Bush's opposition to the protocol as deplorable. During a photo session in Washington on Saturday, though, Mr. Koizumi praised Mr. Bush as someone who is "enthusiastic about environmental issues."

Perhaps reflecting that confusion, officials at Japan's environmental agency did not return telephone calls today seeking an explanation of the government's position.

Mr. Koizumi may be trying to avoid making a firm decision now, which will disappoint many at home and abroad. But for now his decision- making process seems to be subordinating strictly environmental considerations to the one issue upon which the prime minister has staked his political fortunes: economic reform.

"Koizumi's priority has been economic and structural reform," said Yuuri Onodera, an official with Friends of the Earth Japan. "The environment remains a relatively low priority in his blueprint. This is the first global environmental issue he has tackled, and he has not decided what approach to take.

"But the most important reason for his present position is that he needs the Bush administration's wholehearted support for his economic reforms."

-------- genetics

Bush Aides Seek Compromise on Embryonic Cell Research

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/health/04STEM.html

WASHINGTON, July 3 - As President Bush nears a decision on whether the government should pay for research on stem cells extracted from human embryos, his advisers are struggling to mold a compromise that would satisfy both patients' advocates, who say the experiments may save tens of thousands of lives, and religious conservatives, who say the studies are tantamount to murder.

The White House is considering several options, people familiar with the debate say. One choice is permitting federally backed experiments on a handful of cell types, called lines, that have already been identified, but banning public money to develop more. Another option is allowing the research to proceed until scientists are satisfied they have a sufficient number of lines to study. Yet another choice is giving government grants to groups that finance medical research, thus freeing their private money to pay for the stem cell work.

But reaching any compromise will be tricky. One option, pushed by conservatives, would be to maintain the ban on embryonic stem cell research while increasing financing for experiments on adult stem cells, which are obtained from blood and bone marrow and therefore pose no ethical objections.

Many scientists, however, argue that any restrictions on federal financing would restrict their ability to pursue promising treatments and potential cures for Alzheimer's disease, juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and a number of other disorders.

At the same time, the issue is creating strange political bedfellows in the capital, where some Republicans who fervently oppose abortion are calling on Mr. Bush to support the research.

"This doesn't fit into neat categories," said one senior White House adviser who often works with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, who has argued strongly against federal financing. "There are different types of coalitions forming."

Asked today when he would make a decision, Mr. Bush said simply, "In a while."

His advisers are even split on the question of when to make the decision. Mr. Bush meets with Pope John Paul II on July 23. The Roman Catholic Church is deeply opposed to experiments involving human embryos, even those created outside the womb, and Mr. Bush may want to have the matter settled beforehand so that he would neither offend Catholics by appearing to ignore the pontiff's entreaties nor appear to be influenced by the pope.

But others in the administration are arguing that the president should take his time, because the decision is both scientifically and politically complicated. "There's no reason to rush this," one White House official said.

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and an advocate of financing the research, has told associates that he believes time is on his side, and the longer the president takes to make a decision the more likely he is to allow some kind of research.

With Mr. Bush's approval ratings in the polls dropping, in part because the public views the president as too conservative, the stem cell decision has taken on greater significance.

So Mr. Bush and his aides are now re-examining Mr. Rove's initial advice. Before the issue turned into a heated political debate - with some, but not all, of the Republican leadership of the House writing Mr. Bush on Monday to urge that he reject federal financing - Mr. Rove had sided with the arguments of religious conservatives, who argue the experiments destroy nascent human life.

Mr. Rove's current view is something of a mystery. He has declined to return reporters' telephone calls, and while there are reports that he is involved in the search for a compromise, his views are being gleaned from tidbits of conversation.

But it is clear that some of the president's advisers fear that following Mr. Rove's initial inclination to satisfy Catholics and the right could further alienate moderates and independents who have already been disaffected from the administration. So they are giving greater consideration to the views of Mr. Thompson, who some aides say has been periodically dealt into the negotiations.

"The secretary and the president and his advisers are talking regularly," Tony Jewell, Mr. Thompson's spokesman, said today. "Beyond that, what the final result will be, is too soon to talk about."

Embryonic stem cells are generating great excitement among scientists because they have the potential to grow into any cell or tissue in the body, and therefore hold promise for repairing and replacing damaged tissues and organs. But the embryos, typically obtained from fertility clinics with the consent of couples who have created them, are destroyed.

The intense debate over the cells was merely a theoretical abstraction until three years ago, when Dr. James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin became the first to isolate them. Dr. Thomson's work was paid for by a biotechnology company, Geron, of Menlo Park, Calif. Federally financed scientists could not jump into the field, because of a Congressional ban on using taxpayer money for research on human embryos.

Last summer, to get around that ban, the Clinton administration issued a ruling that said the government could pay for research on cells derived from the embryos, so long as federally financed scientists did not work on the embryos themselves.

The Bush administration must now decide whether to overturn that ruling, let it stand or choose a course that is somewhere in between.

"I'm not surprised they are looking for a compromise," said Michael Werner, who advises the Biotechnology Industry Organization on bioethics issues. "But I think this is an issue where it will be very difficult to craft a compromise, because it means so much to both sides, so neither wants to concede much."

Indeed, part of the difficulty of reaching a decision is that no matter what the White House concludes, it will alienate some constituency. One plan that is generating discussion is the one to permit research only on existing cell lines. But abortion opponents say they would be outraged by such a move.

"We think it is unethical to use cells obtained by killing human embryos," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, "whether the killing is done yesterday or next week."

Scientists and patients' groups, meanwhile, would be outraged by that same plan, but for different reasons. They note that only about a dozen cell lines have been developed and say many more are needed to ensure that the cells have enough genetic diversity to be useful. In addition, such a plan might greatly enrich Geron, because that company holds intellectual property rights to six of the existing cell lines.

"This is not a compromise," said Dr. Gerald Fischbach, dean of the faculty of medicine at Columbia University and a former official of the National Institutes of Health.

No matter what the administration decides, the subject may end up in Congress. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, has introduced legislation to authorize the National Institutes of Health to pay for embryonic stem cell research, including experiments that involve the destruction of embryos.

And in an interview last week, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who has stated his support for stem cell research, said that while he would not go as far as Mr. Specter, he believed most senators would vote in favor of allowing some kind of research to go forward.

"If Congress, in its infinite wisdom, chooses to intervene," Mr. Hatch said, "well then, I think we are getting pretty close to that magic 60- vote number."

-------- human rights

Falun Gong Deaths Set Off Dispute on Suicide Report

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By CRAIG S. SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/world/04CHIN.html

SHANGHAI, Wednesday, July 4 - At least 10 followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement were reported on Tuesday to have died at a labor camp in northeast China last month, either in a group suicide or from torture.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said 10 women killed themselves to protest their treatment at the Wanjia labor camp outside Harbin in Heilongjiang Province.

A government spokesman in Beijing said early today that 14 followers had committed suicide at the camp. Another 11 attempted suicide but were stopped by camp guards, he said.

Falun Gong's Web site (www.minghui.org), based in the United States, was quick to denounce the rights group's report on Tuesday of a mass suicide, saying that 15 women at the camp had been tortured to death and that the camp had labeled their deaths suicide to cover up its crime.

Thousands of Falun Gong adherents have been sent to labor camps since the government banned the movement two years ago, arguing in part that it was a dangerous cult that had persuaded people to forgo necessary medical care or even kill themselves. Since the ban, there have been persistent reports of torture and deaths of followers by the authorities. Falun Gong's Web site says 236 followers have died as a result of confrontations with the police or prison guards.

The government has acknowledged a handful of deaths, but has attributed them all to natural causes or to suicide. And it says it thwarted several group-suicide attempts by followers. In May, the government took a group of Western reporters on a tightly controlled tour of Masanjia labor camp in northeastern Liaoning Province, which Falun Gong had also accused of torturing followers. The reporters saw nothing untoward.

Without independent reporting, it is impossible to determine which accounts are factual, and independent reporting on the subject is strictly forbidden.

Falun Gong's founder, Li Hongzhi, has spoken out against suicide in the past, though he has been silent on the subject after recent suicide reports, most notably the self-immolation of five followers on Tiananmen Square in January. Other Falun Gong members have denied that the five who set themselves on fire were actually followers, and charged that the government staged the event.

Meanwhile, Mr. Li's cryptic exhortations to followers on the Falun Gong Web site have grown increasingly strident, chastising those people who cannot endure torture or even death in defense of his cosmology, which holds that Falun Gong is engaged in a struggle with evil beings for the redemption or destruction of the universe.

"Even if a dafa cultivator truly casts off his human skin during the persecution, what awaits him is still consummation," Mr. Li wrote a few days after the labor camp deaths. Dafa means great law or dharma, and refers to Falun Gong, which can be translated as Law Wheel Practice. Consummation is an apparently transcendent event that is the goal of all followers.

"Any fear is itself a barrier that prevents you from reaching consummation," Mr. Li wrote.

No account of the labor camp deaths could be immediately verified.

A woman from the home village of Zhao Yayun, one of the dead followers identified in the reports, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that Ms. Zhao had indeed practiced Falun Gong and committed suicide.

"She died in jail," said the woman in Lequn, Heilongjiang Province, declining to give her name. "She killed herself - everybody is talking about it."

The human rights group quoted a relative of one of the dead women as saying that 16 Falun Gong followers tried a group suicide on June 20 and that 10 had died. It said the 16 were among 30 followers who had gone on a hunger strike in mid-June. The 16 hanged themselves with ropes fashioned from bedsheets after the camp extended their sentences by up to six months in punishment for the strike, the report said.

The human rights group said an officer from the township police station and a township official named Wang Guonan confirmed Ms. Zhao's death and the group suicide attempt.

The Falun Gong report, meanwhile, said that the women had all been tortured to death and that 15 had died. It said Ms. Zhao "died with injuries all over her body," but gave no information to substantiate the claim.

-------- police

Desert Boot Camp for Youth Is Shut Down After a Death

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/national/04BOOT.html

PHOENIX, July 3 - The authorities here are investigating how a 14- year-old boy died this week while participating in a rigorous boot- camp program for troubled youth in the desert west of Phoenix.

Medics were summoned to the camp, about 15 miles south of Buckeye, Ariz., on Sunday after supervisors called 911 saying the boy, Tony Haynes of Phoenix, was suffering from heat exhaustion. The temperature was well over 100 degrees when he died.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, who ordered the camp shut down, said in an interview today that his department was investigating the case as a "suspicious death" and that the possibility of child abuse by camp personnel was also under review. Investigators called to the scene said they saw bruises on some children enrolled in the program - observations that parents of other camp children confirmed in interviews.

"I've never heard any complaints about this camp before and I've talked to parents about it," Sheriff Arpaio said. "They seemed to like it. But these kids didn't get bruises falling off a platform."

The sheriff said this was the first time, as far as he knew, that the camp, run by a Phoenix nonprofit organization, America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association, had experienced any problems of this severity. But it is by no means the first camp of its kind where children have suffered serious injuries and even death.

Tony became at least the fifth young person in the last 10 years to die at a boot camp, including another teenager in Arizona three years ago. The camps are not regulated in Arizona and many other states. These so-called wilderness therapy camps for troubled children have been around for more than 50 years, most of them in western states, where acclimating to rugged conditions is a major part of a routine that attempts to break bad habits and replace them with new feelings of confidence, self- esteem and humility.

Several trade organizations have formed in recent years to help parents find reputable programs for their children and to help program operators adopt safe and measurable standards. For the most part, they operate without incident. But as each succeeding incident of injury and death shows, not all of the several hundred programs now operating have adequate safeguards.

Investigators here said they did not know enough yet about the Buffalo Soldier's camp or its owner, Charles F. Long II, 56, who claimed to be a former marine and police officer in the District of Columbia, to know whether the program was properly run and suitable for all participants.

Capt. Tim Dorn, the sheriff's department commander of investigations, said Tony was one of 40 boys and girls, ages 7 to 17, who were participating in a 14-week session.

At the time of Tony's death, Captain Dorn said, there was no medical personnel at the site, adding, "We still don't know if there is any on the staff." He also said that investigators could not determine whether camp personnel had adequate amounts of food and water available to the children. When investigators visited the camp on Monday, he said, the temperature was 120 degrees.

Several parents said children were forced to eat dirt, and teenagers who Mr. Long used as camp counselors "stomped on their chests," as one parent, Doreen Hurff, said. The Arizona Republic reported today that the boy who died had vomited dirt before he died.

Efforts to reach Mr. Long, who identifies himself as a colonel of the Buffalo Soldiers 10th Cavalry, were unsuccessful. He has an unlisted telephone number here, and messages left at the camp's business listing were not returned.

Most people listed as in-house management on the camp's Web site have military titles. One person listed as a captain is actually a retired Phoenix Police Department sergeant. R. Lee Fraley, a lawyer listed as the camp's corporate attorney, said he was stunned to learn that his name was on the site. He said he helped Mr. Long only once, with some trademark and copyright issues.

Tony's mother, Melanie Hudson, who lives in Phoenix, said she enrolled her child in the camp to help him control his anger. She said he had behavioral problems and had been on probation for shoplifting. Once, she said, he slashed her tires.

But her son never complained about the camp, which he had been attending since the end of March, Ms. Hudson said in an interview. "He had never said anything. He didn't like it. But he never said anything was wrong."

She added: "It was for Tony to get some self-respect and discipline and to become a better person. He had started to control his anger. He was trying to head down the wrong path, and we were trying to get him on the right one."

Ms. Hudson said the boy's therapist told him about the camp but neither knew anything about it.

Captain Dorn said that since the investigation began, parents of other children attending the camp have called, some to support Mr. Long's rigorous approach, others to criticize it as excessively harsh.

Dana Naimark, deputy director of the Children's Action Alliance in Arizona, a nonprofit research and advocacy group here, said the death at the boot camp, which she said was unknown to her, raised questions about such programs.

"Who's watching?" Ms. Naimark said. "Who is responsible for oversight of these programs?"

Ms. Hudson echoed the thought, saying parents should investigate any program in which they are about to enroll a child.

"If you think about a program like this, check it out," she said.

-------- spying

THE U.S. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT TURNS 35

From: Michael Evans <mevans@GWU.EDU>
Update, July 4, 2001
The National Security Archive <NSARCHIVE@hermes.gwu.edu>

-Nearly Two Million Requests Last Year at Cost of One Dollar Per Citizen

-Archive releases first annual "State of Freedom of Information" report

http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB51

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 4 ­ George Washington University's National Security Archive, the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, today released its first annual "State of Freedom of Information" report, 35 years to the day after President Johnson grudgingly signed the U.S. FOIA into law on July 4, 1966. The Archive study reported that:

- Federal agencies still resist obeying the letter of the law, especially the required response time of 20 working days (on one Archive request filed in 1990, the CIA took 9 years to deny 22 documents in full, and another 7 months to deny the appeal);

- Public use of the Freedom of Information Act continues to rise, with 1,965,919 FOIA requests filed with federal agencies in fiscal year 1999, the most recent data available from the Justice Department;

- Direct cost to the taxpayers for administering the FOIA amounted to $286,546,488 in fiscal year 1999, or about one dollar per citizen, according to the Justice Department data;

- Documents released under federal, state and local freedom of information acts sparked more than 3,000 news stories in 2000 and 2001 (according to the Archive's searches of on-line databases), exposing data of major public interest such as excessive mercury levels in canned tuna, enormous geographic variations in the prescription rates for Ritalin, a projected $4 billion cost overrun on NASA's space station, and the internal policy debate over intelligence sharing with Peru prior to the shootdown of an American missionary plane.

As part of the 35th anniversary report, the Archive posted today on its award-winning Web site, www.nsarchive.org, the key documents on the history of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, including President Johnson's half-hearted signing statement, excerpts from the Congressional Record debates of 1966, President Ford's veto statement on the FOIA amendments of 1974 and the ensuing Congressional debates, President Clinton's signing statement on the 1996 "E-FOIA" amendments, and the most recent General Accounting Office assessment of the FOIA and E-FOIA. Also included on the site are a User's Guide to FOIA, sample FOIA request and appeal letters, the addresses of every major federal agency FOIA contact, and guidance from the Archive's experts on how to use the FOIA.

The documents are available at the following URL:
http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB51

--------

Ex-F.B.I. Man Said to Accept Spy Case Deal

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/national/04SPY.html http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010704-712022.htm

WASHINGTON, July 3 - Robert P. Hanssen, a former senior F.B.I. agent, has agreed to plead guilty to spying for Moscow in exchange for a commitment from the government that it will not seek the death penalty against him, people familiar with the case said today.

A court hearing is scheduled for Friday in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., in which Mr. Hanssen plans to enter a plea, according to a statement issued today by the office of the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Preston Burton, one of Mr. Hanssen's lawyers, said Mr. Hanssen planned to plead guilty, people familiar with the case said.

Prosecutors have agreed to seek a sentence of life in prison, those people said.

After the plea, Mr. Hanssen is expected to undergo extensive debriefings by F.B.I. agents and other intelligence officials who want to find out the full extent of his espionage.

As part of the plea agreement, Mr. Hanssen's wife, Bonnie, is to be allowed to keep the survivor's portion of Mr. Hanssen's F.B.I. pension. Mr. Hanssen and his wife have six children.

The plea agreement in the Hanssen case had been widely expected, since officials said in mid-June that a deal was close to being completed.

"We believe this is an appropriate resolution to this case," Mr. Burton said today, "and it will benefit both the government and Mr. Hanssen and his family."

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the case today.

Mr. Hanssen, a 25-year veteran of the F.B.I. and a counterintelligence expert, was arrested on Feb. 18 after allegedly leaving a package of classified documents in a suburban Virginia park for his Russian handlers.

Early negotiations between prosecutors and Mr. Hanssen's lawyers over a possible plea agreement broke down after the government refused to commit to a deal that would spare Mr. Hanssen's life.

In May, a federal grand jury returned a 21-count indictment against Mr. Hanssen, charging that he had spied for Moscow for more than 15 years, providing the Soviet Union - and later Russia - with some of America's most sensitive secrets. Mr. Hanssen pleaded not guilty at a hearing in May, and a trial in the case was tentatively scheduled for October.

Negotiations between the defense and the prosecution resumed after top Bush administration officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, agreed that the only way the government could ever learn the extent of Mr. Hanssen's espionage was for him to agree to be debriefed.

Mr. Hanssen would have no incentive to talk if prosecutors did not agree to remove the death penalty from consideration.

Investigators gained an added incentive to talk to Mr. Hanssen after his wife told the F.B.I. that he had confided to her and to a Roman Catholic priest about 20 years ago that he had begun supplying information to the K.G.B.

Mrs. Hanssen told the F.B.I. that her husband insisted to her at the time that he was tricking the Russians and was not giving them information of significant value. But in exchange, he told her, the K.G.B. had already paid him approximately $20,000.

Her account suggested that his spying may have begun well before 1985, the year when the authorities previously believed he had first approached the Russians, and the earlier incident raises numerous questions about the extent of his activities.

-------- terrorism

Terrorist Details His Training in Afghanistan

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By LAURA MANSNERUS and JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/nyregion/04BOMB.html

An Algerian convicted of trying to carry out a terrorist attack in Los Angeles on the eve of the millennium celebration testified yesterday that he had received money and training at camps in Afghanistan that American officials say were run by Osama bin Laden.

Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian, described in detail his training in light arms, explosives, assassinations and techniques for blowing up "the infrastructure of a country." After more than six months of training in Afghanistan in 1998, Mr. Ressam testified, he returned to Canada with $12,000 in seed money to plot terrorist attacks against the United States, Islam's "biggest enemy."

In his testimony yesterday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Ressam did not mention Mr. bin Laden, the Saudi exile charged with conducting a jihad, or holy war, against the United States and its allies.

But in describing the origins of his plan to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport, he nonetheless confirmed the key outlines of the picture drawn by American intelligence of Mr. bin Laden's operations. He described a network of camps in which Algerians, Jordanians, Germans and others were trained and indoctrinated for terrorist missions around the world.

Mr. Ressam testified at the trial of Mokhtar Haouari, an Algerian accused of providing money and support for the plot to blow up the airport. In Los Angeles in April, Mr. Ressam was convicted of trying to bring explosives into the United States. He has since agreed to cooperate with prosecutors; his sentencing has been postponed to July 25.

Mr. Ressam's testimony, translated from Arabic by an interpreter, offered a rare insider's look at the design and attempted execution of a terrorist plot. His account depicted a decentralized structure in which militants were trained and given considerable latitude in selecting targets and missions.

In his testimony, Mr. Ressam said the camps were run by Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of a Palestinian whom American officials have identified as an important lieutenant to Mr. bin Laden.

American officials say Abu Zubaida reports directly to Mr. bin Laden and is in charge of recruiting for the camps. Mr. Ressam said Abu Zubaida arranged for his trip from Montreal to Afghanistan, providing him with Afghan clothes and an Afghan guide to take him from Pakistan to a camp called Khalden.

Mr. Ressam also described how, at the camps, he and others were made aware of orders to kill Americans that had been issued by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up the United Nations and other landmarks in the United States. He is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

Mr. Ressam recounted how and why he selected the Los Angeles airport as a target and how he planned to rehearse and carry out the bombing. The plot went awry on Dec. 14, 1999, when a border guard in Port Angeles, Wash., questioned him in a routine check. Mr. Ressam, who does not speak English well, panicked and tried to flee. He was arrested and the authorities found more than 100 pounds of explosives in his car.

Mr. Ressam said he had planned the operation for more than a year but was forced to improvise when two other Algerians in his terrorist cell were detained in Britain and others then backed out. He said he selected the Los Angeles airport because he had passed through there on a flight from Pakistan.

Mr. Ressam testified that he wanted to test security at the airport by leaving a luggage cart with a bag unattended.

Mr. Ressam said he was trained at two camps in Afghanistan, Khalden and Darunta. Both have been identified by American officials as integral parts of al-Qaeda, a terrorist group founded by Mr. bin Laden that is an umbrella organization for anti- American militants around the world. There was no mention of al- Qaeda in the testimony yesterday, but Mr. Ressam was asked whether Abu Zubaida belonged to a "terrorist organization."

"Yes," he replied.

The United States has been pressing Afghanistan, most of which is ruled by the Taliban, to close down the camps and evict Mr. bin Laden. The Afghans have refused and American officials recently warned the Taliban that they would be held responsible for any attacks against the United States organized from their country.

A senior Bush administration official said Mr. Ressam's account "demonstrates that Afghanistan, in fact, has turned into the most threatening terrorist sanctuary in the world today."

Mr. Ressam said he was among 50 to 100 men at the camp in Afghanistan. He described his training in light weapons and explosives and instruction in "urban warfare." Among the possible targets among "enemies' installations," he said, were power plants, airports, railroads and large corporations.

Later, he said, he went to another camp for training in explosives, and returned to Canada with ingredients including hexamine, a booster used in bombs, and glycol. He said he bought other components in Vancouver and made his own timing devices.

When asked why he chose an airport as a target, he said, "An airport is sensitive politically and economically."

After Mr. Ressam had outlined his plan, he was asked if he realized that many civilians would die. "Yes, I would try to avoid that as much as possible," Mr. Ressam replied.

"But no matter how you did that, many would die," said Joseph F. Bianco, an assistant United States attorney.

"Yes," Mr. Ressam said.

Mr. Ressam is the star witness against Mr. Haouari, whom he met in Montreal through friends in a circle of Algerian émigrés. He agreed just a few weeks ago, as his sentencing date approached, to cooperate with the government.

Mr. Haouari is charged with providing money and support to Mr. Ressam, as well as bank fraud.

In testimony yesterday, Mr. Ressam, 34, began the story of a career that took him from a job in his father's coffee shop in Algeria to his arrest in 1999 with a cache of explosives in his rental car.

He described a life of petty crime in Montreal, where he arrived as an illegal immigrant in 1994 "to improve my life situation."

"I lived on welfare and theft," he said. He said Mr. Haouari was dealing in stolen checks and passports and sometimes worked with him.

Mr. Ressam said that when he returned to Montreal from Afghanistan, he had been assigned to work with several other Algerians from the camps on general instructions to meet in Canada, rob banks and use the money to finance "an operation in America."

When his comrades failed to arrive in Canada, he testified, he worked mostly on his own.

He said that at the time, he and Mr. Haouari were working on a plan for Mr. Ressam to open a shop as a way to get information for counterfeit credit cards. He had told Mr. Haouari about the terrorist training camp, he said, and Mr. Haouari expressed interest in going, too.

He testified however, that he did not give Mr. Haouari details of the plan or identify the target.

"No, no, for security reasons I didn't want to tell him," Mr. Ressam said.

-------- activists

Dogged defence is no match for walking missiles
Greenpeace stroll onto base that is vital link in £100bn star wars system

Wednesday July 4, 2001
The Guardian

When you plan for months to invade the US base with the world's most sophisticated communications system, capable of intercepting and monitoring up to 2m emails and phone calls an hour, you expect to be apprehended before you even get there.

When you actually launch a pre-emptive strike on the base which could shortly become the eyes and ears of the proposed $100bn star wars system, you expect more than two men and a dog guarding the front door.

In fact the dog was sleepy and only turned up about 20 minutes after more than 120 volunteers and staff members of Greenpeace UK arrived at RAF Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, at precisely 5.15am yesterday morning.

The military policeman in his gate house blinked as the first bus arrived, followed by a van full of fancy dress, aluminium ladders and equipment. But he only reached for his phone when 20 people breezed past him to the theme tune from Mission: Impossible.

More followed. Within three minutes, 30 walking missiles and others were running around the base. Three guards and a colleague waved their arms and held a few activists.

As 80 more activists easily scaled the maximum security razor wire, the first group was running down First Avenue, past Menwith Hill's chapel and the pretty red-painted bungalows, towards the 20,000 gallon water tower.

Not a dog barked or a siren wailed. Crows wheeled overhead and a skylark sang. "It's surreal", said one Lancashire-based missile to another. "This is easier than getting into a public library. Call this security? This is a laugh."

The water tower team, having reached the top of the tower and waved their flags, waited. And waited. Nothing happened.

Down below, one "missile" was wandering around lost and had to be rescued.

Jo, from Norwich decided to put Greenpeace leaflets through letter boxes. A GI opened his front door 50 yards away. "I'll approach him slowly. We don't want to frighten him", she said. "Hello, good morning!" she called cheerily, but he went back indoors.

A jogger came past. "Ma'am, do you know you are being invaded?" she was asked. She didn't.

We wander around in the dawn mists. Nice place, Menwith Hill, even if it appears on no official maps. Mostly it is very ordinary. The mysteriously named Building 19 is, disappointingly, no more than a child development centre.

But 500 yards away, behind more security fences, are the 37 white "radomes" , or golf balls, which look like button mushrooms and hide sophisticated radar systems which can spot missiles coming from thousands of miles away.

New on the base, a little whiter, are two satellite-linked infrared systems designed to track missile launches around the world. These, critics say, are the first step to the US militarisation of space, or Star Wars.

If Britain agrees, Menwith Hill will become the front line in President George Bush's missile defence system, which will act as an offensive shield for the US.

"Without Britain, it cannot happen," said Steven Tindale, the former CND activist who now heads Greenpeace UK.

"But the British government has muzzled debate on the subject. Mr Blair is hiding behind the technicality that the US has not made a formal request to Britain. It's pathetically craven."

Greenpeace is convinced that Star Wars will speed up a new arms race. For once, it may have a sizeable chunk of the British and European political establishment on its side.

Many Labour ministers and senior military commanders are known to be sceptical about the project and 235 MPs, mostly Labour, have signed an early day motion condemning it. Feeling also runs high in Denmark and Germany.

Meanwhile half a mile away, two more Greenpeace teams of about 45 each had dashed across 400 metres of open ground. In five minutes one group of 20 had got over the second fence and was scaling the third, the last line of defence before the radomes and underground bunkers where the surveillance is thought to take place.

Five got over and ran for the radomes. The second group headed for a low building and got on its roof. "It was very tempting to to jump through the domes," Paul, a protester, said. "They are made of fabric."

Finally the base woke up, with dozens of alarms going off from every corner. Out came the the US military, without guns but steamed up. One GI went ballistic, screaming and shaking ladders as the activists climbed. A British military policeman took out a gun but put it back.

However, most were calm, according to the Greenpeace volunteers. "We're here to protect you lot" said one GI.

"They wanted to know if we were male or female missiles. Some took our invasion a bit personally, but they were mostly calm," said Claire.

By now many activists were hemmed in between the security fences, with up to 100 soldiers and others stopping them from coming over the wire. Some activists offered themselves for arrest, others climbed back over the fence and many were detained and then dumped outside.

"We have defeated the logic of the whole thing", Mr Tindale said yesterday.

"The fact that we were able to get over 100 volunteers into the base shows how easy it would be to take out US defences. There is no way that the most sophisticated electronic surveillance can guard against attacks by suitcase bombers."

Opposition to RAF Menwith Hill has been going on for more than 20 years with regular demonstrations, peace camps, blockades and questions in parliament. Yesterday, Helen John, who was sent to Cortonvale prison, Stirling, after breaking into the camp last December, said the action was "greatly needed."

Her view was echoed by the Labour MP Tam Dalyell: "Menwith Hill is the key to the whole star wars operation", he said.

But a Ministry of Defence spokesman said last night: "President Bush made clear that he has not decided what sort of missile defence system he will ultimately deploy. It is speculative to assume that that it will involve the use of UK sites."

He refused to comment on the security breach at Menwith Hill.

But the Liberal Democrat spokesman on defence, Paul Keetch, said: "Any peaceful forms of protest demonstrate the concern of people about current missile defence. It is disingenuous of the government to continue to pretend they have no policy on this issue."

Yesterday evening, there were still 12 people on the water tower and 17 on the roof. Two people had been charged with criminal damage.

The issue explained

Son of Star Wars (below)
Menwith Hill http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,516264,00.html

Interactive guide - National missile defence http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/flash/0,7365,434805,00.html

Useful links
Campaign to close Menwith Hill http://www.gn.apc.org/cndyorks/mhs/
Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/
Stop Star Wars http://www.stopstarwars.org/html/intro.html

--

Son of Star Wars

William Hague has backed George W Bush's plans for a national missile defence system. Here's our guide to the best sites on Dubya's pet project

Neil Perry,
Thursday January 18, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4116446,00.html

1. It all began with Ronald Reagan and his ambitious (some would say fantastic) 1983 plan for a space-borne missile defence system, known as the strategic defence initative, but quickly dubbed Star Wars.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/rr40.html
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4044954,00.html

2. The idea was immediately rubbished by many. Russia, fearing a nuclear attack, was particularly unhappy about it.

http://www.ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt061799b.html
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/documents.html
http://www-cgi.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/22/spotlight/

3. There was also concern that the lasers Star Wars would employ to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles could themselves be used as weapons.

http://www.prop1.org/inaugur/85reagan/86latime.htm

4. Star Wars transformed into a missile-to-missile system, theatre high altitude area defence (THAAD), rather than Reagan's space laser fantasy. The system relied heavily on America's bases in the UK, Fylingdales and Menwith Hill in the Yorkshire Dales.

http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/thaad.html
http://www.nukem.freeserve.co.uk/contents/localarea/menwith/

5. The problem was, after an obscene amount of money was spent on the project, Star Wars still didn't work. To prove otherwise, the Pentagon allegedly rigged some tests.

http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/usdefense/Hartung0999.html
http://www.webcom.com/peaceact/colossalfailure.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/060900-01.htm

6. But some companies, such as Lockheed Martin, weren't worried, as Star Wars was very good for business.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-00zza.html

7. Enthusiasm for the whole project slowly waned throughout the 90s, until President Clinton decided to revive the idea. Predictably, his decision was also ridiculed.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/bc42.html
http://www.lightparty.com/Peace/StarWars.html
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol4/v4n24star.html

8. Although some people still thought it was a good idea.

http://www.onlinecolumnist.com/071100.html

9. With the ascent of George W Bush, Star Wars - or the Son Of - is back on the agenda, now known as national missile defence.

http://www.bushcheneytransition.com/
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,180980,00.html
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/nmd.html

10. William Hague is behind the plan all the way. But is Tony Blair?

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Tories/story/0,7369,421784,00.html
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Labour/Story/0,2763,422822,00.html

----

Berbers Pledge to Defy Ban, March in Algiers

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-algeria.html

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Berber delegates from Algeria's troubled Kabylie region pledged again on Wednesday to defy a government ban and march peacefully in Algiers on Thursday.

Between 6,000 and 7,000 representatives from towns, villages and tribes in Kabylie plan to march to the presidential palace on what will be Algeria's 39th independence anniversary.

The move has set them on a collision course with the military-backed government, which has warned that it will not lift the ban on marches in the capital.

The march also threatened to end a recent lull in the social unrest that has rocked the vast North African country for the past two months, in which scores of young protesters have been killed.

``We deplore the contempt and the arrogance displayed by the prime minister in banning this peaceful demonstration,'' the delegates' Coordinating Committee said in a communique published on Wednesday in the local media.

Prime Minister Ali Benflis said on Monday there could be no reversal of the decision to suspend marches in Algiers, a ban imposed after a massive march organized by ethnic minority Berbers on June 14 turned into a bloody riot.

The committee said in its communique: ``The authorities will assume responsibility...for any crackdown on representatives of civil society who will present the legitimate demands of millions of Algerians.''

The marchers, led by two schoolboys, plan to hand over a 15-point manifesto.

Their demands include the withdrawal from Kabylie of paramilitary gendarmerie forces, seen as brutal and corrupt, a halt to punitive raids by gendarmes ransacking homes and shops and a special economic and social program for the region.

NEW OPPOSITION EMERGES

The planned march is an expression of a shift of popular support in Kabylie from traditional political parties to a network of local committees, analysts said.

The Coordinating Committee of Archs (tribes) is a loosely structured network, with no known leadership.

It was set up after the eruption of violent clashes in April between stone-throwing youths and security forces. Its members said it would last as long as it takes for its demands to be met.

Although the initial protests were sparked by the death in police custody of a Berber teenager, youths took to the streets to vent deep frustration over unemployment, housing shortages, police abuses and perceived widespread corruption.

``The committee has filled a gap at a time when people needed it the most, with the state and traditional parties showing their incapacity,'' a party official in Kabylie said.

Algeria's main opposition parties, the Socialist Forces Front and the Rally for Culture and Democracy, draw most of their votes from Kabylie, long an area opposed to central rule.

The two parties, however, have apparently failed to sway the committee's decisions and the government may welcome this.

The Committee has a rotating presidency but no spokesman.

''We opted for this horizontal organization, with no leadership and no spokesman, to avoid being manipulated by Le Pouvoir,'' said Zahir Benkhellat, a delegate from Akbou, 110 miles east of Algiers.

In Algeria, ``Le Pouvoir'' (the Power) means the secretive elite composed mainly of the military top brass believed to be behind all decision-making.

Committee members said they believed a return to a form of ''popular and apolitical'' organization stemmed from the youths' ''deep disappointment'' with the traditional political class.

``Our representatives have not lived up to our expectations... They just enjoy the privileges, and petty political disputes have kept them away from their duty: to respond to the people's concerns,'' said a delegate from Bejaia, 155 miles east of Algiers.

--------

Colombia Peace Activist Killed

New York Times
July 4, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Colombia-Activist-Killed.html

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A lawyer who worked as an adviser to a prominent Colombian peace group was abducted and killed over the weekend, police said Wednesday.

Colleagues of Alma Jaramillo, the slain lawyer who worked in poor communities in a northern war zone, have blamed a right-wing paramilitary militia for her death. No group had claimed responsibility.

Jaramillo's bullet-ridden body was found Sunday in the town of Morales in northern Bolivar state, near where she was reportedly abducted Friday amid clashes in the area between paramilitaries and rival leftist guerrillas.

``We are certain this was the paramilitaries,'' Melba Quijano, a spokeswoman for the Peace and Development Project in the Middle Magdalena Region, based in the nearby city of Barrancabermeja, told local Radionet Radio.

Interrupted phone service to the rural region on Wednesday made it difficult to immediately obtain more details.

The organization headed by Jesuit priest Francisco D'Roux has tried to maintain a neutral profile in promoting peace in the area around Bolivar state.

The region is a hotbed of conflict between guerrillas and rival paramilitaries. The groups are fighting for strategic territory and control over drug plantations fueling Colombia's 37-year armed conflict. Human rights activists have been assassinated in the past by rightist death squads.

-----

[This guy has a point, whatever your political persuasion. et]

Veteran defies court order

July 4, 2001
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010704-8503493.htm

George Andres of Jupiter, Fla., figures the price tag for flying his American flag in defiance of a court order for the past nine months is about $52,000.

Flying Old Glory from a pole he erected in front of his town house earned him disfavor from the neighborhood homeowners association, which took him to a judge who agreed that the pole violated the association's bylaws.

Circuit Judge Catherine Brunson ordered Mr. Andres to bring the pole down, calling it "an unauthorized improvement to the property."

"I wasn't going to just stop flying it, but I cut back to just federal holidays" said Mr. Andres, 64, a Korean War veteran and retired electrician from New York. "I mean -- what -- people can burn the flag, but they aren't allowed to fly it?"

Last week, Mr. Andres was hauled into court again for his defiance, with the former fire department chief facing 90 days in the local slammer. Instead, he was told to pay $100 for each day the pole was planted outside his home since the order in October to remove it.

Two members of the homeowners association said that was 73 days, and they had the pictures to prove it.

The crux of the judge's ruling was the pole Mr. Andres has planted, said Steven Selz, the West Palm Beach lawyer who represents the homeowner's association.

"It was never said that he could not fly the flag," Mr. Selz said. He contends that the association simply did not like the sight of the 15-foot flag pole in the middle of the otherwise demure settlement.

"He can fly that flag anytime," the lawyer said. "There are 17 others in the subdivision that do so, from a bracket on the side of their homes. I respect the fact that he's a very patriotic guy. But it's sad that it has come to this."

Countered Mr. Andres: "How can you fly a flag without a pole?"

The former Marine has made appearances on several talk shows, from IIlinois to Texas, and his feud has also drawn him support from Florida's 1.77 million veterans.

Mr. Andres has always had a flag pole. He lived 18 patriotic years with the flag unfurling daily from a pole in front of his previous home in nearby Martin County. Before that, he lived in upstate New York, the Stars and Stripes waving from a pole.

He moved to Indian Shores, a subdivision of 96 homes that run between $90,000 and $100,000, in 1998, although he owned a home there before moving in. He said he knew the rules and did the proper thing to ensure his flag, and pole, were OK.

"I get here, and they approve my flag pole," he said in his thick Brooklyn accent. "Seven months later, the board changes, and they tell me it has to go."

Mr. Andres cites a state law, under the state's provisions on homeowner's associations, that he believes allows his patriotism to go unfettered. Even against the wishes of his neighbors.

"It's constitutional," Mr. Andres said. "The federal law allows me to fly the flag. I think the judge missed that."

The judge did not return calls. The courtroom fight has rung up quite a bill. He figures $25,000 for his own attorney, which he has already paid; $25,000 for the homeowners association legal costs, which he was ordered to pay and at least $7,200 in fines.

He cannot afford to be such a rebel at this point, so the flag has sat, properly folded, inside his home since the fine was levied.

But, today, Independence Day, he will make an exception.

"I know it will cost me $100, but I'll fly it anyway," said Mr. Andres.

Added his wife, Ann: "How could they fine us for flying the flag on the Fourth of July?"

And there's more fight left in this aging veteran.

Next week, the supportive veterans are coming over to his neighborhood for a little rally.

"We expect 600 of them," Mr. Andres said. "On this little street. And we're going to raise the flag again."

----

An occasion for free speech oratory

William Murchison
July 4, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010704-5360280.htm

The great whirlwind that blew across the continent 225 years ago cleared ground for Americans to erect a monument of genius the Constitution. It is wondrous to behold. We call one of its more striking features the First Amendment. A glance its way, on this Fourth of July, might repay our trouble.

The First Amendment is terse, pithy. I quote one portion: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." In my own rumbustious profession, we live by that protection: the right to grab some alleged malefactor by the necktie assuming you can find an American wearing a necktie these days and say to him, "Whassa matter with you, saying a dumb thing like that?"

But the right inheres not only in high and mighty outlets of expression. It inheres in all of us. You and you and you and you: Sing it out. Vent your spleen. Pour out your praise. Thus we keep free.

I bring all this up because, being what we cantankerous humans are, we fail frequently to get this free-speech business exactly right. We tend to think of my speech, not yours.

This tendency is showing itself grotesquely in public. I call attention to just two instances. The first relates to political campaign financing. A bipartisan coalition led by Arizona's Republican Sen. John McCain and Wisconsin's Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold wants to regulate and limit political speech by telling you how much you can spend on it.

The McCain-Feingold movement has a serious chance of success. Worse, perhaps, the U.S. Supreme Court last week, in a Colorado case, upheld limits on what political parties may spend to back their own candidates.

The second instance relates to the Boy Scouts, whose right to set their own membership standards the Supreme Court has in fact affirmed most recently in a New York case.

The Scouts affirm heterosexuality as the moral norm for members and leaders. Straight up the wall this historic (not to mention scriptural) point of view sends gay rights groups and their backers. Some United Way organizations have cut the Scouts out, and citadels of enlightenment like San Francisco have sought to exclude the Scouts from access to public places.

This variety of persecution cuts straight across the intent of the First Amendment. What? Can't set your own membership requirements? Persecutors of the Scouts want the targets of their wrath to whimper "uncle." That ain't the First Amendment, my friends; it's social fascism. The persecutors are lazy bums. They don't want to argue and persuade; they want to pass laws saying, "Listen, there's just one right way of thinking, and that's ours."

The problem, be it known, is hardly without precedent. Our race, the human one, is wired for intolerance. We want it our way, not someone else's. That's because we're right right? Maybe and maybe not. The First Amendment enshrines the right to dispute such a question.

Nor has the Supreme Court, so wrong on campaign finance, gone over yet to the dark side. Last week, the court unanimously instructed state and local governments as to the limitations on their power to regulate tobacco advertising. The People's Republic of Massachusetts had banned cigarette ads visible from schools and playgrounds 1,000 feet away supposedly to protect children. Yeah, said the court, but what about adults and their right to receive the industry's messages?

Such are the perplexities that arise from attempts to fine-tune exceptions to free-speech rights: one excellent reason to avoid, whenever possible, the fine-tuning of opinion.

I'm biased, naturally. By the First Amendment I live daily the right to put forth a nutty viewpoint, the right of others to tell me just how nutty that viewpoint really is.

Let us, bound for our 226th year of independence, pause long enough to reflect upon what we have in the First Amendment. Our best guarantee of liberty, that's what.

--------

[While "insiders" gather for various worthy causes, there are some "outsiders" who are struggling simply for the right to sleep or serve people who are sleeping in public places. Here are some. Others may be found at Homeless People's Network: http://projects.is.asu.edu/pipermail/hpn/ et]

Camp Paradise: Police Bust Expected, Civil Disobedience Planned

Update: Wednesday, July 04, 2001
From: "Becky Johnson" <wmnofstl@cruzio.com>

Santa Cruz, Ca. - Preparations for the arrival of the Santa Cruz City Police are in full swing as the campers at Camp Paradise were told today by Homeless Resource Officer Eric Seilley that ticketing would begin on July 5th. "We had a deal with the City to stay a little longer and that we would be helped to find a place to go," said camp founder, Larry Templeton. "But now we are told the City Council has given no such direction to the police, so we expect ticketing to begin on July 5th with arrests and camp destruction 24 to 48 hours later."

Supporters are asked to bring empty boxes, plastic crates, and garbage bags.

Legal help, trucks and vehicles, and gasoline are all requested.

While Campers move out irreplacable items, many are staying to be ticketed, and ultimately arrested. Under MC 6.36.010 section C, setting up a campsite with the intention of spending the night is a $54 crime. This section is enforced 24 hours a day. While a ticket is an infraction, if campers refuse to move and are ticketed again within 24 hours, they will be arrested on a misdemeanor and taken to jail. "Where we will all plead "not guilty" demand a public defender and a jury trial using the necessity defense," explained Templeton. "For many of these people, there is no place for them to go to."

Vice-Mayor Christopher Krohn told KSBW the camp must be destroyed because of lack of sanitary facilities. Campers later saw Krohn urinating under the Highway One Bridge.

Homeless mother, Toni, was taken to Dominican Hospital today to deliver her second child. She, her husband, their 4 year-old son, and now newborn baby will have no place to live once the camp is destroyed. "Mayor Fitzmaurice married me on April 22, 2000," she reports.

Some supporters are moving in to join those who are ticketed and arrested.

"All are welcome," said Templeton.

Supporters are asked to call Mayor Tim Fitzmaurice at (831) 420-5020 and urge him to allow the camp to stay until another site is found. E-mail at citycouncil@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us or fax at (831) 420-5011. Please cc: at campparadise@hotmail.com

Directions to Camp Paradise: From Ocean St., Take Felker St. (near Denny's Restaurant) all the way to the end. Walk up the levee ramp onto the river levee. Take the first dirt path to the right & walk under the Highway One Bridge on the East Side of the river. Continue on up the path about 500 yds to the footbridge over the goldfish pond. Welcome to Camp Paradise!

For more info: Camp Paradise c/o Larry Templeton115 Coral St. Santa Cruz, Ca. 95060

Message # (831) 458-6020 ext. 105 or contact Becky Johnson at wmnofstl@cruzio.com



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