------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
General Dynamics Extends Offer
Fears in Europe as Bush shelves treaty
Official Warns of Iran Weapons
Games of war play up need for shield
The treaty that's putting a damper on Bush's missile-defense plans
New Patriot missile test called 'partial success'
Europe rebuffs plan to drop ABM Treaty
And now, the sub also rises
Too funny to be real
CALIFORNIA NUCLEAR PLANT TO BOOST POWER OUTPUT
Nuclear Waste Plan Shelved
WHITHER PLUTONIUM: A WASTE WORTHY OF WORRY?

MILITARY
U.N. Meets on Small Arms Trafficking
Disarmament Treaty - Makers Face Deadlock
U.S. Takes Strong Stance on Arms
Croatia in Turmoil After Agreeing to Send 2 to Tribunal
U.S. Offers Troops to Macedonia
China decides to allow U.S. warships to dock in Hong Kong
The C.I.A.'s China Tilt
Group Criticizes Colombia Guerrillas
Some Lawmakers Urging U.S. to Speed Exports of Satellites
Evidence of D.C. Toxins Unheeded
Patriot Intercepts, Destroys Jet
Senate Debates Defense Spending

OTHER
BILL PROPOSES TAX CREDIT FOR HOME WINDMILLS
TotalFinaElf Seeks Permit for Wind Farm in Belgian Waters
A Bug in Wind Power's Promise
China's grim spectator sport
Putin Speaks Against Death Penalty
Ga. Court Hears Electric Chair Debate
Foreigners Glance
Putin Upholds Russia's Death Penalty Moratorium
EPA finalizes ethanol rule to cut Midwest fuel cost
Carbon Sinks Won't Solve Global Warming
EU Urges Japan to Ratify Kyoto Treaty
Sufferers Consider Stem Cell Research
Company's Silence Countered Safety Fears About Asbestos
102 Inmates Escape Brazil Prison

ACTIVISTS
ROBERT KENNEDY JR. JAILED FOR VIEQUES PROTEST
Iran Police Stop Protests on Raid Anniversary


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- business

General Dynamics Extends Offer

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-General-Dynamics-Newport-News.html

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) -- General Dynamics said Monday it is extending its pending tender offer for shares of Newport News Shipbuilding common stock.

The Falls Church-based defense contractor extended its offer until midnight, July 20. The earlier deadline was July 6, and General Dynamics says about 20.3 million Newport News shares were tendered by then.

The number of Newport News shares tendered is more than a majority of its 31.4 million shares outstanding, and General Dynamics said it is awaiting government approval to complete the acquisition.

In a merger worth $2.1 billion, General Dynamics is offering $67.50 per share for the shipyard, which designs and constructs nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for the Navy and services ships in the Navy fleet.

Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics' primary competitor for Navy shipbuilding contracts, has also offered $2.1 billion for Newport News, giving shareholders the opportunity to sell their shares for $67.50 each or exchange them for shares of Northrop Grumman.

In midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Newport News shares were unchanged at $61 a share, while General Dynamics was up 61 cents to $75.34 and Northrop Grumman was up 18 cents to $80.90 a share.

-------- europe

Fears in Europe as Bush shelves treaty

Monday, July 9, 2001
From Patrick Smyth,
Washington Correspondent - Irish Times

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/0709/wor10.htm

THE US: European concerns at the US administration's go-it-alone tendencies will have been reinforced this weekend by White House confirmation that it hopes to see the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) die in the Senate.

But US officials insist they do not want to see a resumption of testing, currently suspended by the nuclear powers under a voluntary moratorium.

The treaty, whose rejection in the Senate in 1999 was a bitter blow to former president Clinton, was repeatedly denounced as "fatally flawed" by President Bush during the election campaign.

It is now trapped in limbo in the Senate from which it cannot be withdrawn without the latter's approval, the legal office of the State Department has told the US administration.

But the treaty requires a two-thirds majority for ratification, far more than the Democrat-controlled Senate can muster.

The White House now hopes it will simply languish in the Senate while US diplomats press allies to accept that its ratification is a dead duck. At the forthcoming G8 summit in Genoa, for example, they will be working to avoid the customary language in the final declaration expressing hope that the treaty will be ratified quickly. As recently as December, NATO ministers said "we remain committed to an early entry into force of the CTBT".

The administration's hardening approach will hardly come as a surprise to allies but will feed concerns about the US's attitude to proliferation and to international treaties in the wake of its repudiation of the Kyoto protocol on climate change and Mr Bush's expressed desire to tear up the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty to allow him to proceed with missile defence.

Republicans have criticised the CTBT as undermining the US confidence in its stockpile of untested nuclear weapons and because they say it is largely unverifiable.

The director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, Mr Daryll Kimball, has warned the New York Times that "the continued US failure to follow through on its CTBT commitments leaves the door open to a global chain reaction of nuclear testing, instability and confrontation in the future".

Any suggestion that the US would breach the testing moratorium is likely to set off a major international furore as France's President Jacques Chirac discovered in 1995 when he announced French tests near the Pacific island of Mururoa, opening up a wide rift with even his closest European ally, Germany.

Although the administration insists it has no intention to test, there were reports last week of a decision to fund an upgrade of the Nevada test facilities.

Just routine, officials said.

Support for the repudiation of the treaty from within the military is not, however, to be taken for granted.

In January, just before Mr Bush took office, Gen John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented a report to Mr Clinton urging the US to ratify.

Gen Shalikashvili, who spent 10 months conducting a review of the treaty, interviewing nuclear experts, weapons designers and senators, concluded that ratification would increase national security, and the security benefits of the treaty would outweigh disadvantages.

More than 150 countries have signed the CTBT, but it can come into force only when 44 potentially nuclear-capable countries ratify it.

Diplomats, gun activists and weapons makers from around the world gather in New York today for a two-week conference aimed at stemming an illegal trade in small arms blamed for half a million deaths a year.

"These arms are doing incredible damage in cities, and in war-torn areas, and I hope we can get the manufacturers and governments to work with us in controlling the flow of these illicit arms," the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan said. The conference is due to adopt a global action plan against small arms trafficking by delegates from the United Nations' 189 member-nations. - (Reuters)

-------- israel

Official Warns of Iran Weapons

The Associated Press
Monday, July 9, 2001; 10:37 PM
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38641-2001Jul9?language=printer

ANKARA, Turkey -- Israel's defense minister told Turkish officials Monday that Iran could have nuclear weapons in four years.

"I mentioned to our friends, the Turkish leadership, that we are more than worried about the very rapid development taking place regarding nuclear weapons," Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters. "As far as we know by the year 2005 they will, they might, be ready."

Ben-Eliezer also said that Iranian missiles could reach any point in the Middle East, a prospect that worries both Israel and Turkey. He did not elaborate on his knowledge of Iran's nuclear or missile programs.

U.S. officials have been arguing in favor of developing a missile defense system, saying one of the reasons for such a system would be to protect against incoming missiles from states such as North Korea or Iran.

Ben-Eliezer said that he discussed the possibility of selling to Turkey Israel's Arrow missile, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Staunchly secular Turkey regards Islamic fundamentalism as one of the greatest threats to the country and has expressed concern over Iran's weapons buildup.

He said he discussed defense cooperation and the possibility of co-producing anti-tank missiles with Turkey.

Israel and Turkey have held joint naval exercises and Israel is currently helping to refurbish Turkish air force F-4 warplanes.

Last month Israeli pilots trained over Turkish skies, in another sign that their U.S.-backed relationship is deepening.

American plans for a missile defense system were also raised during Ben-Eliezer's visit. Turkey and Israel have both signaled initial support for the plan.

-------- missile defense

Games of war play up need for shield
Results used to sell U.S. missile defense

By John Diamond
Washington Bureau
July 09, 2001
http://www.chicagotribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-0107090250,00.html

WASHINGTON The Pentagon has conducted hundreds of crisis-simulation war games to understand how an enemy armed with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and long-range missiles might use them against the United States.

Now, top aides to President Bush are using some of the findings to build a case for a $60 billion missile defense system. With a missile shield, they argue, a president will be free to intervene in regional conflicts against heavily armed foes such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq without worrying about losing an American city.

But the results of the exercises, conducted in military classrooms and defense seminars during the past six years, also raise significant questions about whether missile defense answers the emerging threat.

The war games show that potential attackers worry first and foremost about whether their aggression will provoke massive U.S. nuclear retaliation. Structured to predict how an enemy will think, the games show that the Cold War doctrine of assured destruction weighs more heavily than the existence of a missile shield in adversary calculations.

So-called rogue states seek long-range missiles as a threat to keep Washington worried, the exercises found. But participants playing the role of enemy military advisers were far more likely to recommend other, less provocative ways to strike the United States. That's because U.S. satellites can detect a missile launch, giving an attack a "return address" that makes massive retaliation inevitable.

Interviews with planners of the war games and an examination of some of the documented findings show the extent of the U.S. military's effort to get inside the heads of potential enemy leaders such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein or North Korea's Kim Jong II (the name as published has been corrected in this text).

"The gaming has focused on encouraging these groups to think as an adversary might," said John Reichart, head of the National Defense University's Center for Counter-Proliferation Research. "Our focus is chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means of delivery. ... How do you deter potential aggressors? How are they going to employ nuclear, chemical or biological weapons? What's the effect of these weapons?"

In the war games, run by the counter-proliferation center, an adversary state has decided to invade a neighbor and wants to keep the U.S. out of the conflict. A dozen or so officers play the roles of military adviser to the adversary leader, proposing strategies for using missiles and chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

About 4,000 national security officials and military officers up to the two-star rank have participated in the simulations. A few of the war games have involved participants from NATO countries and other allies such as Japan.

The findings gleaned from these simulations have shaped thinking at the highest levels of Bush's national security team. One war games architect, Robert Joseph, is now a senior adviser to Bush on the National Security Council, specializing in missile defense. And it was no accident that Bush chose Washington's National Defense University, the Pentagon's premier academic center, as the site for his first major address on missile defense.

Reichart and other war games specialists acknowledge that a room filled with U.S. and allied military officers, because of a wide gap in cultural and political environments, might not make the same decisions as, say, a team advising Saddam Hussein. But repeated runnings of the exercise have produced remarkably consistent results among the Pentagon teams.

One point has emerged with clarity and become a key element in the Bush administration's argument for missile defense. Adversaries such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq want long-range missiles because they believe the threat they pose will intimidate the U.S. into steering clear of crises and conflicts in their regions.

"Their object is to keep us out, to prevent us from coming to the assistance of our key allies," a senior administration official familiar with the war games said.

`Tools of coercion'

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told lawmakers earlier this month that "the regimes seeking ballistic missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons see them not only as weapons to use in war, but as tools of coercion--means by which they can intimidate their neighbors and prevent others from projecting force to defend against aggression."

Pointing to his father's experience leading the coalition in the Persian Gulf war, Bush has raised the question: What if Saddam Hussein had a nuclear warhead and a long-range missile? Would the U.S. still have fought to liberate Kuwait?

"When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the world joined forces to turn him back," Bush said. "But the international community would have faced a very different situation had Hussein been able to blackmail with nuclear weapons."

Viewed in that light, "ballistic missile defense is not simply a shield but an enabler of U.S. action," concluded a study by Rand, the think tank.

The war games show that adversaries take into account whether the U.S. has a missile shield. Participants playing the role of U.S. or allied leaders like having a missile defense, saying it gives them more options for responding to a threat.

But the war games have not studied whether a president armed with a missile defense would deploy troops to a foreign war given the realization that if the enemy launched missiles, some probably would get past the shield.

Players in adversary roles looked for ways to threaten or strike the U.S. that would fall below the threshold of what would prompt nuclear retaliation by the U.S. An "enemy" in a war game who possessed nuclear weapons tended to be more willing to use chemical or biological weapons because their nuclear capability made it more difficult for the U.S. to retaliate.

In that sense, the war games planners concluded, old-fashioned deterrence was not completely reliable. But the games suggested that such an adversary would choose means other than missiles.

"A real concern is that a hostile state might execute covert [nuclear, biological or chemical] attacks on civilian populations using either its own special operations forces or relying on a terrorist group," according to one Pentagon report on the exercises.

Up to now, the missile defense debate has focused on whether the technology will work and on the impact of the missile shield on relations with Russia.

Critics say that the marginal benefits of missile defense are outweighed by the potential harm to U.S.-Russian relations. Despite U.S. disclaimers that the program is aimed at small, "rogue-state" enemies, Moscow regards missile defense as a long-term threat to its nuclear deterrent.

Bush is trying to sell Russia and European allies on the idea that rogue states pose a threat to them as well as the U.S.--a blackmail threat as envisioned in the war games could work just as well against Paris or Moscow as New York. But Moscow so far is showing no enthusiasm toward a U.S. weapons system whose main purpose appears to be to open the door to U.S. military intervention around the world.

Strategic case questioned

As the results of the war games become better understood, critics are beginning to question Bush's strategic argument for missile defense and whether the system will deliver the military freedom of action that Bush claims, to a degree that justifies the cost.

Will American taxpayers invest billions in a defensive system designed not so much to shoot down missiles as to give a president freedom to intervene in foreign conflicts? Assuming the new missile defense is not 100 percent perfect, what president would call an adversary's bluff, deploy troops to a regional crisis and hope that the imperfect missile defense would be enough?

"Unless you come up with a perfect missile defense--and let me assure you, no missile defense will be perfect--that defense will do little or nothing to guard against nuclear blackmail," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Bush administration, by contrast, has been talking about how no missile defense can be expected to be perfect.

"What we're trying to do with missile defense is change the calculus of Baghdad and Pyongyang that they can keep us out," said the senior administration official. "You don't need a perfect defense for that."

----

The treaty that's putting a damper on Bush's missile-defense plans

The Seattle Times Company
Nation & World
Monday, July 09, 2001
By Deb Riechmann The Associated Press
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=treaty09&date=20010709

WASHINGTON - In Moscow in 1972, Richard Nixon gazed across a table at Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who was doodling pictures of missiles on a notepad. Near midnight three days later, they signed a historic arms-control agreement that President Bush now says is past its time.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (ABM) is an oddity of sorts in the world's nuclear-weapons rulebook. While most treaties try to restrain weapons of attack, the ABM limits weapons of defense.

That's the problem for Bush, and why he's willing to leave the treaty behind.

Bush's hopes to build a missile-defense system can't be realized under the ABM treaty as worded. Moscow, as well as some U.S. allies, don't want to let the treaty go.

The agreement:

• Prohibits either side from deploying a missile defense that covers its entire territory.

• Allows each side to have one defensive system to protect a national capital or a missile-launch site.

• Permits either party to withdraw from the treaty on six months' notice, although some U.S. officials argue the agreement is already null because the Soviet Union no longer exists.

The rationale of negotiators in 1972, and of opponents of Bush's plan today, is this: If either side builds a system that could defend its entire region from incoming missiles, the other side would amass more weapons to try to overwhelm it.

Even as Nixon was trying to get the treaty, he was promoting research on a modest U.S. missile-defense system. Because the Soviets already had a system, he said, a U.S. counterpart would give him bargaining leverage.

"In that sense," he said, "we had to have it (missile defense) in order to be able to agree to forgo it."

Nixon and Brezhnev were negotiating two treaties at once in that 1972 summit - the ABM agreement and the SALT I treaty limiting offensive nuclear weapons. The talks, in the midst of the Cold War, were delicate.

Brezhnev "used a red pencil to sketch missiles on the notepad in front of him as we discussed the timing and techniques of control and limitation," Nixon recalled about one negotiating session.

When Nixon proposed ways to make sure neither side cheated, Brezhnev seemed to take offense. "If we are trying to trick one another, why do we need a piece of paper?" he asked, according to Nixon's recollection.

After dinner ended on May 26, 1972, with a flaming baked Alaska, the two leaders toasted the signing of both treaties.

With the ABM treaty allowing one anti-missile site each, the Soviets chose to defend Moscow. The United States chose to defend missile silos in Grand Forks, N.D.

"The idea was that we would defend our offensive missiles against any attack so we would have a second strike to hit back if they ever attacked us first," said John Rhinelander, who helped draft the treaty.

Ineffective and costly, the North Dakota system was shut down in the 1970s by Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary then and now.

Research for a missile defense has gone on for years. President Johnson called his program Sentinel. Nixon's smaller program was known as Safeguard.

Ronald Reagan took it to a higher level with his Strategic Defense Initiative, which others dubbed Star Wars. President Clinton, who favored a more limited missile defense than Bush, deferred essential decisions on the plan until he was out of office.

Bush's program, while some details are coming out, so far lacks a name.

----

New Patriot missile test called 'partial success'

July 9, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/07/09/patriot.missile/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon termed Monday's test of the upgraded Patriot missile system "a partial success" after one missile hit a pilotless plane and another missed a dummy warhead.

The test of the Patriot PAC-3 ( Patriot Advanced Capability-3) was conducted Monday morning at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

"Preliminary test data indicate a successful intercept of the more difficult jet aircraft, which was emitting radar jamming signals, and a miss of the ballistic missile target," a statement from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Army said.

The Pentagon said the test was designed to use two Patriot missiles to simultaneously engage two targets: a theater ballistic missile and a remotely piloted jet aircraft emitting radar-jamming signals.

The theater ballistic missile engagement was at short range and medium altitude; the aircraft engagement was a long-range, low-altitude mission.

"Today's test was more stressing than all previous tests," said Col. Tom Newberry, manager of the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Project, in a Pentagon statement. "Prior to today, the missiles were dropped, vibrated and heated to represent severe handling of 30 years in stockpile. For test purposes today, only one PAC-3 missile was fired at the ballistic missile target.

"In actual combat two PAC-3 missiles may be fired at these targets to ensure their destruction," Newberry said. "This concept of a two-missile, shoot/shoot intercept was successfully demonstrated previously in March 2001. Extensive post-mission analysis will be conducted to determine if further modifications to the PAC-3 system are required prior to full-rate production."

The PAC-3 missile is a high-velocity, "hit-to-kill" missile and is the next generation Patriot missile being developed to provide increased defense capability against advanced tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hostile aircraft.

Unlike earlier Patriot missile explosive warheads, the PAC-3 missile literally collides with its target in midair at extremely high speed, destroying the target and neutralizing its payload.

The PAC-3 missile successfully has completed nine flight tests before Monday's test.

The Patriot program is managed by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in Washington and executed by the Army Program Executive Office for Air and Missile Defense and the Army Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Project Office in Huntsville, Alabama.

Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control of Dallas, Texas, is the prime contractor responsible for the PAC-3 missile segment.

Raytheon Systems Co., the Patriot system prime contractor, is the system integrator for the PAC-3 missile segment.

The Hera target used in Monday's test is managed by the Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville.

----

Europe rebuffs plan to drop ABM Treaty

July 9, 2001
By Bruce I. Konviser
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010709-9748608.htm

PARIS -- Several Western European nations joined Russia's allies yesterday in calling for continued adherence to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, dealing a rebuff to a U.S. congressional delegation and demonstrating again that the United States faces an uphill battle to win foreign support for its missile defense plan.

The show-of-hands vote came during a parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), comprising legislators from 55 member states.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican, representing the United States, had sought to delete a paragraph in a draft resolution on European security that called on "participating States to maintain adherence to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty."

The Bush administration believes the Cold War-era treaty must be amended or abrogated in order for the United States to go ahead with its plans for a national missile defense.

Russia and its allies from Eastern Europe and Central Asia all opposed the Republican senator's amendment, as expected. But more troubling for the United States was substantial support for the ABM Treaty from across Western Europe.

There was no formal record of the show-of-hands vote, but a quick count showed the Bailey amendment was defeated by an almost 2-1 margin. The German delegation voted unanimously against the amendment while the British, the United States' staunchest allies in Europe, split their votes.

Much of the support for the U.S. position came from new members of NATO such as Poland, and aspiring NATO members such as Slovakia, which can ill afford to anger NATO's most powerful member.

During a debate before the vote, the European delegates voiced numerous complaints about Mr. Bush's missile defense plan and the way it has been presented. Among other things, they said:

• Washington's unilateral action has the feeling of a "dictat."

• If Washington has credible evidence of the threat of a limited missile attack from a rogue state, it hasn't shared it with its allies.

• A limited missile defense could provoke an arms race.

• The United States appears to be abandoning a security pact that has kept the peace for nearly 30 years without another security arrangement to replace it.

"We are strongly against [the Hutchison amendment.] There is no replacement for the structure of the ABM Treaty," said Rita Sussmuth, a member of Germany's right-of-center Christian Democratic Union who called for the United States to engage Russia in constructive dialogue over security concerns.

Mrs. Hutchison told the OSCE's security committee that the United States already was consulting with Russia on the missile defense plan. "We have no problems concerning dialogue regarding ABM and missile defense," she said.

But Andras Barsony, the Hungarian who drafted the original document, told The Washington Times he believed the Bush administration's talk of "dialogue" and "consultation" was little more than lip service.

"You can't do it through CNN," he said, accusing U.S. diplomats of simply telling American allies what they were planning to do "without giving a chance to answer."

Uta Zapf, a Social Democrat and chairman of the German parliament's committee on Disarmament and Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, was equally dismissive of the American approach.

"We don't want to do away with any treaty until a proper solution has been found. To break the ABM Treaty because you think three rogue states [might pose a threat in the future] is not the way. I don't see the need to spend $180 billion to stop three small states," she said, referring to North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

British delegation chief Bruce George, a Labor Party member of Parliament, abstained on the Hutchison amendment.

"I'm waiting to see the debate in the U.S." before deciding on the issue, he explained in an interview.

-------- russia

And now, the sub also rises
Russia this week begins a controversial recovery of the Kursk, a sunken nuclear sub.

TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2001
By Fred Weir (fweir@online.ru)
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/07/10/p1s2.htm MOSCOW

Like a horror film that keeps generating sequels, the "Return of the Kursk" will be riveting Russians to their TVs this summer. A hastily assembled international operation to raise the giant submarine - which sank under still-unexplained circumstances during war games in the Barents Sea last August - will begin site work this week.

If successful, the unprecedented $80 million effort will recover not just the wreck, but also the remains of many of the 118 crew members, bringing emotional closure for their families. It will also boost the credibility of President Vladimir Putin, who broke with Russian tradition to pledge that the vessel would be recovered, regardless of cost.

But experts warn that Moscow's aggressive timetable may have greatly heightened the dangers of a new accident. Workers will apply an untested technique to lift the 20,000-ton Kursk - with two unstable nuclear reactors and as many as nine unexploded torpedoes on board - amid notoriously treacherous Arctic water currents and weather conditions.

"The Kursk, and particularly its reactor compartment, is in an unknown state after a year of pressure and saltwater corrosion. No one can predict what the strains of hauling it up in unpredictable seas might do," says Yuly Gladkeyevich, an expert with the independent AVN military news agency.

In late May, the Kremlin dumped a consortium of three international salvage firms, because their engineers insisted the September deadline was too risky. "The companies would not compromise the safety of its crews and equipment, nor of the wreckage, its victims, or the environment in order to rush for this year's completion," said a statement issued by the consortium of Heerema, Smit, and Halliburton.

The Russian government engaged one of the firms, Smit International, and a Dutch heavy-lifting company, Mammoet, after they pledged to bring the Kursk up quickly. A team that includes British, Norwegian, Russian, and Dutch divers and support staff arrives this week to start working on the wreck.

In the first stage, a massive robot chainsaw will shear off the entire forward section - where the disaster occurred. It will be left on the seabed for possible recovery later by the Russian Navy.

Experts say cutting away the damaged bow is a hair-raising plan. "There is a big risk here," says Alexei Yablokov, Russia's most respected ecological activist and president of the independent Center for Environmental Policy. "The probability is quite high that some of the pipes and wiring that comprise the emergency-shutdown system of the reactor could be affected."

Despite the Navy's assertion that it will inspect and "cleanse" the wreckage before the robot saw is activated, other dangers remain. "No one is sure exactly how many torpedoes are still in the Kursk's fore section, or how the vibrations from the saw may cause them to shift," says Viktor Litovkin, military expert with the independent weekly newspaper Obshaya Gazeta.

One explanation for the Kremlin's haste could be a fear that if the wreck - which lies in relatively shallow international waters - is not removed, the US or another country might salvage it. Among other things, the Kursk had 24 super-secret Granit Cruise missiles and their launchers aboard.

But political pressure may be the main reason. "This is all being done to fulfill Putin's promise that the Kursk will be raised," says Mr. Gladkeyevich. "The president cannot stand the loss of credibility. The whole operation would be unnecessary otherwise."

And if anyone was hoping for an explanation of how the Russian Navy's most advanced - and reputedly unsinkable - atomic-powered attack sub was destroyed, they may be disappointed. "This operation is not designed to find the answers to what happened, as that would only raise too many embarrassing questions about the chronic neglect, incompetence, and unpreparedness that plagues our armed forces," says Mr. Litovkin.

International experts believe a torpedo mishap or missile test gone awry are the likliest causes. But Russian officials continue to speak about a foreign spy sub ramming the Kursk. Other theories include a collision with a World War II-era mine or sabotage by Chechen guerrillas.

The next phase of the recovery operation, set for September, poses a new set of risks. A huge pontoon fitted with 20 powerful winches will be deployed to haul the Kursk to the surface. "If the submarine should fall onto its side, the reactor's emergency systems could stop functioning," says Mr. Yablokov. "An uncontrolled atomic reaction cannot be ruled out."

If successfully raised, the Kursk will go to a naval dry dock beneath the pontoon - and never be seen up close by observers. "The secrecy regime will be observed in full," Igor Dygalo, spokesman for the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet told an online press conference. "This is a military operation, not a civilian one, and security will be a primary concern."

"The government is going to carefully control all information about this, so that any unpleasant facts can be edited out," says Gladkeyevich. "We don't know why the Kursk sank now, and we're not likely to find out even after they've brought it back."

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

Too funny to be real

From: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@home.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 19:45:52 -0400

But I swear that it is!

The NRC's Office of Human Relations could not think of anyone to nominate for the American Nuclear Society's award of Nuclear Energy's Role in Sustaining Quality of Life. Here is the letter:


March 6, 2001

Mr. K. K .S. Pillay, Chair Honors and Awards Committee American Nuclear Society 555 North Kensington Avenue La Grange Park, Illinois 60526-5592

Dear Mr. Pillay:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission appreciates your invitation to submit nominations for the ANS Special Award for Nuclear Energy's Role in Sustaining Quality of Life.

Although we have no nominations for this year, we look forward to participating in your awards program in the future.

Sincerely, /RA/ Paul E. Bird, Director Office of Human Resources

-------- california

CALIFORNIA NUCLEAR PLANT TO BOOST POWER OUTPUT

July 9, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2001/2001L-07-09-09.html

SAN CLEMENTE, California, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved a request by Southern California Edison Company and San Diego Gas & Electric Company to increase the generating capacity of the two San Onofre nuclear power plants by 1.4 percent, or about 16 megawatts of electricity per unit.

The upgrade will help California meet some of its power shortfalls, which have led to several incidents of rolling blackouts during periods of peak energy demand since the beginning of the year.

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a jointly owned enterprise between Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, and the cities of Riverside and Anaheim. SONGS now provides almost 20 percent of the power to more than 15 million people in Southern California - enough power to serve 2.75 million households.

The power uprate at the nuclear facility, located near San Clemente, will increase the generating capacity of each unit to about 1,090 megawatts of electricity. The facility intends to implement the power increase early this month, without taking the reactors offline.

The application for the increase in power was submitted to the NRC in April. The brief, three month review period by the agency reflects efforts to improve the timeliness of the review process for this type of request.

The NRC's safety evaluation of the requested power uprate for the units focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations and technical specification changes.

-------- utah

Nuclear Waste Plan Shelved

Tuesday, July 10, 2001
BY JIM WOOLF
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/07102001/utah/112487.htm

Envirocare of Utah announced Monday it is delaying action on a plan to accept radioactive wastes that could be thousands of times "hotter" than those now accepted at its Tooele County disposal site.

The decision appeared to have been influenced by recent private conversations between company officials and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.

Natalie Gochnour, the governor's spokeswoman, disclosed Monday that Leavitt used the meetings to "express concerns" that granting approval for Envirocare to bring in additional radioactive waste could undermine his efforts to prevent the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute tribe from building a storage site for spent fuel from nuclear power plants across the nation.

Blocking the Goshute project has been one of Leavitt's top priorities.

"Word was on the street that the governor and the Legislature had no intention of approving it," Tooele County Commissioner Teryl Hunsaker said Monday. Loss of the project would be an economic blow to Tooele County, he said.

Envirocare's decision to delay the project came moments after the Utah Division of Radiation Control decided the company's plan for handling and disposing of the waste meets all the technical requirements of state and federal law and issued a license for the facility. That left one large obstacle for Envirocare: persuading the Legislature and Leavitt to approve the project.

But Envirocare President Charles Judd announced he wasn't going to take that final step, saying it would be "an extremely difficult task" to get final approval while the public is engaged in a heated debate over the unrelated Goshute proposal to store spent nuclear fuel rods on tribal land in western Utah.

Although the wastes Envirocare wanted to accept -- mainly contaminated materials from power plants, labs and hospitals -- are far less radioactive than the spent fuel sought by the Goshutes, Judd said, opponents and competitors, "assisted by some members of the news media, have deliberately confused the people of Utah about the huge differences between the two proposals."

Judd said the "public perception problem" has become so large that approval "is just not possible under this scenario."

The project isn't dead, however.

Judd said he intends to hold onto the five-year state license and see whether the political climate improves.

"I'm not saying this will never happen," Judd said. "But it won't happen under the current scenario. I won't commit to what may happen in the next five years. The technical review is done and the license will stay in place. But it is not valid until we get approval from the governor and the Legislature."

Bill Sinclair, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control, said he was "shocked, stunned, surprised and flabbergasted" that Envirocare decided to temporarily shelve the project after his staff spent two years reviewing the application. He had seen no evidence that Envirocare was having doubts about proceeding.

Opponents of Envirocare's proposal were pleased but cautious about Monday's decision to delay the project.

"We should not become complacent about this issue," said Claire Geddes, spokeswoman for Utah Legislative Watch. "Now is the time we should start pushing the state for a comprehensive policy on nuclear waste coming into Utah, regardless of its level" of radioactivity.

Jason Groenewold, spokesman for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said this could be nothing more than a political maneuver by Envirocare.

"I wonder if this isn't just a smokescreen to try to convince the public this project isn't going to go through, and then they'll try to sneak it through at the last minute," he said.

The state license issued to Envirocare still is subject to a 30-day appeal period. People who disagree with the state's technical approval can challenge the decision before the Utah Radiation Control Board and later the courts.

-------- us nuc waste

WHITHER PLUTONIUM: A WASTE WORTHY OF WORRY?

Dallas Morning News
Editorial
07/09/2001
From: "Bob Schaeffer" <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>

Sure, America is troubled by its tons of low-level radioactive waste and worried about its long-term care. But think big - terroristically speaking. High-level nuclear waste is the stuff of movies. All that plutonium that can be retrieved from spent reactor fuel and excess weapons grade plutonium is enough to build thousands of huge bombs. Lex Luthor is in his element.

Nuclear countries facing the dilemma of what to do with their highly radioactive waste have discussed options from reprocessing to burial. One major problem stands out: security. Someone could pilfer the stuff.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a novel idea. Put all the plutonium in a museum, a Plutonium Memorial. If all the plutonium were in one place, it would have to be well protected.

The magazine even has a design contest at w.thebulletin.org/contest/rules.html.

Will this be the museum where you send your worst enemy to get him glowing? Maybe, but the magazine requires technical details be followed since plutonium can become rather nasty if mishandled.

Just think about the endless possibilities (the stuff exists for thousands of years). Marvel Comics could underwrite the building, Donald Trump could develop it and Russia and China could compete for the site (but wouldn't it be more fun in France or Acapulco?). Consider it a monument to our age and the nondegradable waste man has generated.

Stephen Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin, says, "It's a serious contest. Do we expect a memorial to get built? No." But he says it gets people thinking about the very real problem of nuclear waste. Yes, it does.

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

U.N. Meets on Small Arms Trafficking

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Arms-Trafficking.html?searchpv=aponline

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations opened a conference Monday on illegal trade in small arms -- a billion-dollar business that U.N. officials say fuels wars and crime and is implicated in 1,000 deaths a day.

More than 500 million small arms and light weapons -- one for every 12 people on the planet -- are available on black markets and are often put in the hands of child soldiers.

``Their availability can sustain and exacerbate conflict. Their illicit proliferation erodes the authority of legitimate but weak governments,'' said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, opening the conference.

Frechette said small arms were involved in ``well over a thousand deaths every single day.''

Representatives from 189 nations as well as advocates on both sides of the gun-control debate sat down together at the United Nations for two weeks to discuss all aspects of the illicit small arms trade.

Getting an agreement by July 20 on ways to halt the lucrative business of trafficking in pistols, assault rifles and machine guns is going to be tough, diplomats and arms experts say.

Some countries want to ensure that their profits are not touched. Others oppose interference in their right to self-defense.

As a result, the program of action -- a nonbinding document to be adopted at the end of the conference on July 20 -- is unlikely to include any of the tough measures in the latest draft.

``I think that perhaps the document is not going to be as strong as we would have liked, but it is a step in the right direction,'' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.

Arms trafficking is the second largest illicit business after drugs.

Former Argentinian President Carlos Menem, former Peruvian spymaster Vladimir Montesinos and the son of former French President Francois Mitterand are among the high-profile people currently under investigation for illegal arms trafficking.

The illegal trade in small arms stands at about $1 billion, according to the U.N. Development Program. The conference will also discuss legally exported arms, which often find their way into countries awash in violence.

Afghanistan is home to 10 million light weapons, the United Nations estimates. In West Africa, 7 million small arms are circulating in countries such Sierra Leone and Angola, devastated by years of civil war. Another 2 million are available in war-torn Central Africa.

The more controversial topics to be discussed at the conference include controls on the manufacturing, transfer, and possession of small arms, standardized export criteria and marking and tracing practices.

The United States is likely to reject a proposal in the draft that calls for small arms to be supplied to governments only.

``If, at some point, the United States determines it is in their interest to supply arms to a group somewhere, then they want to retain the right to do so,'' said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.

The United Nations defines small arms as revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and light machine-guns. Light weapons include heavy machine-guns, mortars, hand grenades, grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns and portable missile launchers.

Many of those weapons are used in ``The Art of Peacemaking,'' a startling, 5-ton sculpture designed by two Canadian artists that was unveiled Monday at the start of the conference.

The weapons, supplied by police and governments around the world, include sub-machine guns confiscated from Nicaraguan children, a 7-inch-long rubber bullet from Northern Ireland, AK-47s used in South Africa and pistols fired by street gangs in Los Angeles.

On Monday, representatives from 24 nations will address the conference, including John Bolton, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

--------

Disarmament Treaty - Makers Face Deadlock

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Disarmament-Deadlock.html?searchpv=aponline

GENEVA (AP) -- As the United Nations meets in special session Monday in New York in hopes of curbing illegal trade in small arms, global talks to control ``the big stuff'' -- weapons of mass destruction -- are hopelessly stymied.

``We are in a deadlock and may be on the eve of a new arms race,'' said Jozef Goldblat, a widely published disarmament expert who has followed arms negotiations closely for 42 years.

U.S., Chinese and Russian differences over missile defense and other ways to curb nuclear weapons have virtually shut down the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva since 1996, Goldblat and other disarmament experts and negotiators told The Associated Press.

``The conference convenes in order to set a date for their next meeting,'' Goldblat said. ``That's their only business.''

The Conference on Disarmament has been stuck since it wrote the nuclear test ban treaty in 1996, capping its previous success in banning chemical weapons.

China and Russia want to ban an arms race in outer space -- an obvious reference to U.S. missile defense plans. The United States wants to stop production of nuclear bomb-making material. And many other countries want a nuclear disarmament treaty.

Gone is the atmosphere of the early 1990s, when the conference was the center of much of the world's efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction thanks to the cooperation that followed the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War.

``On the big stuff things are pretty grim,'' said one disarmament expert. ``We're waiting for the Americans to say how they're going to pull out'' of the efforts to put teeth into the treaty banning germ warfare.

The United States is eager to protect its biotech industry from losing commercial secrets and doesn't think a verification system could work anyway, the experts say.

Western officials suspect China and Russia don't want anyone to find out what they're doing on biological warfare, although there is no proof they are doing anything. India, Cuba and Libya might also have germ warfare programs, experts say.

The United States and other nuclear powers reject across-the-board nuclear disarmament and say a step-by-step approach is all that can be accomplished.

But one of those steps already negotiated -- the test-ban treaty -- is far from going into effect, with crucial states like the United States, China, India and Pakistan yet to ratify.

Worse, said Goldblat, is talk by some in the United States about resuming nuclear testing.

If the United States resumes test explosions, nations like China, Russia, India and Pakistan could be expected to follow suit, he said.

The new arms race would be more dangerous than the Cold War, Goldblat said.

India-Pakistan tensions over competing territorial claims would make those countries much more likely to start a nuclear war than the United States and Soviet Union ever were, he said.

Adding to the negotiators' woes, the U.S. Senate rejected the test ban treaty in 1999 after the Clinton administration had pushed it through.

Washington says the next logical step for the conference is negotiating a cutoff in production of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium needed to make nuclear bombs.

But support for those talks has waned because of developments outside the conference, experts said.

One such development was the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, with pinpoint bombing that included the Chinese Embassy. It alarmed China and Russia and put many nations on guard lest they one day become targets of U.S. attacks, they said.

--------

U.S. Takes Strong Stance on Arms

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Arms-Trafficking.html?searchpv=aponline

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- At the opening of a U.N. conference on small arms Monday, the United States said it would oppose any plan that interferes with the legal weapons trade or the right of citizens to own guns.

The Bush administration believes the best way to curb trade in small arms and light weapons is to get every nation to adopt tough U.S.-style regulations on exports, weapons transfers and brokers, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told delegates to the conference.

``The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms,'' Bolton said.

Finding a way to halt the illegal trade in small arms and light weapons -- responsible for millions of deaths worldwide -- will be tough for nations with vastly divergent stances. Some want to ensure profits are not touched, others oppose interference in their right to self-defense.

Still, 189 nations sat down together Monday, along with advocates on both sides of the gun control debate, to discuss ways to halt the lucrative business U.N. officials say fuels wars and crime and is implicated in 1,000 deaths a day.

Two hours after the conference opened, the United States rejected several elements of the draft program of action, asked that others be modified and had its own ideas of what constitutes small arms.

``If the conference can concentrate on the central issue of the flow of illicit weapons into areas of conflict, then I think there's broad room for agreement,'' Bolton said at a news conference. ``But if it drifts off into areas that are more properly the subject of national-level decision-making then I think there will be difficulties.''

Some delegates expressed dismay with the U.S. position.

``I was amazed by the U.S. representative's remarks. It sounded like he wanted the conference to collapse,'' said Rubem Cesar Fernandes, of the International Network on Small Arms, a non-profit arms control group.

The more controversial topics at the gathering include controls on the manufacturing, transfer and possession of small arms, standardized export criteria and marking and tracing practices.

Norway called for a legally binding document and Iran said it wanted a halt in weapons supplies to non-states. The United States opposes both.

``There are many delegations that have their views ... but I think there is enough good will so that in these coming two weeks, we can sit together and try to find consensus and solutions,'' said Camilo Reyes, Colombia's U.N. ambassador and the conference president.

More than 500 million small arms and light weapons are available -- one for every 12 people on the planet.

Rachel Stohl of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information authored a study on the impact of small arms on children and found a ``definite link between these weapons and the use of child soldiers.''

``Armed groups give them to kids and anyone strong enough to hold them becomes a soldier,'' Stohl told The Associated Press.

At about $1 billion annually, illegal small-arms trafficking is the second-largest illicit business after drugs, according to U.N. figures.

``The problem is not so much the dollar value as the vast supply, which makes small arms very inexpensive to purchase,'' said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette. ``In some places an AK-47 assault rifle can be bought for as little as $15, or even a bag of grain.''

Those weapons often find their way into countries awash in violence.

There are 10 million light weapons in Afghanistan, the United Nations estimates. In West Africa, 7 million small arms are circulating in countries such as Sierra Leone and Angola, devastated by years of civil war. Two million more are available in war-torn Central Africa.

The United States rejected many hot-button issues, including a proposal that calls for small arms to be supplied to governments only.

``The United States believes that the responsible use of firearms is a legitimate aspect of national life,'' Bolton said, adding that Washington would not accept any ``measures that would constrain legal trade and legal manufacture of small arms and light weapons.''

The conference should be concerned with strictly military arms ``that are contributing to continued violence and suffering in regions of conflict around the world,'' Bolton said.

``We separate these military arms from firearms such as hunting rifles and pistols which are commonly used and owned by citizens in many countries.''

The United Nations defines small arms as revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles, submachine guns, assault rifles and light machine-guns. Light weapons include heavy machine-guns, mortars, hand grenades, grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns and portable missile launchers.

A startling 5-ton scupture unveiled Monday is made of weapons including submachine guns confiscated from Nicaraguan children, a 7-inch-long rubber bullet from Northern Ireland, AK-47s used in South Africa and pistols fired by street gangs in Los Angeles.

-------- balkans

Croatia in Turmoil After Agreeing to Send 2 to Tribunal

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By CARLOTTA GALL with MARLISE SIMONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/09/world/09CROA.html

BELGRADE, Serbia, July 8 - Croatia's Western-leaning government found itself confronting collapse and potential civil unrest today after it decided this weekend to send two of its citizens to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The government, Croatia's first in 10 years not dominated by nationalists, made the decision after pressure mounted since Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, was transferred to the tribunal on June 28.

On Friday the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, visited the government in Zagreb and demanded that they live up to their obligation to hand over high-ranking suspects indicted a month ago.

Croatia has already handed over a dozen ethnic Croats from Bosnia who were indicted for crimes committed during the 1992-1995 war there.

The new indictments remain sealed. But they are believed to question the conduct of Croatia's own generals and the campaign referred to by Croats as the Homeland War, which led to the consolidation of an independent state.

In recent months, the very hint that Croatia's own senior generals and war heroes might be indicted by the tribunal set off street protests drawing tens of thousands.

Four members of the cabinet resigned after the government's decision Saturday evening, which came after eight hours of sometimes stormy debate. Prime Minister Ivica Racan now faces a collapse of his government and a possible no-confidence vote in Parliament.

The four ministers who resigned were Goran Granic, deputy prime minister; Jozo Rados, the defense minister; Goranko Fizulic, the economy minister; and Hrvoje Kraljevic, the science and technology minister.

They are all members of the Social Liberal Party, the second-largest party in the governing coalition. If their walkout causes a split in the coalition, it may precipitate new elections.

Today President Stjepan Mesic gave his backing to the government decision in a statement and called on Croats to "maintain peace and dignity."

"It is known that during the war, there were crimes on the Croatian side, too," he said in the statement. The tribunal did not try "nations, but suspects," he went on.

"The Croatian nation should not and will not be a hostage to those who bloodied their hands, bringing shame upon Croatia's name - no matter what credits they might have otherwise."

Mr. Racan said his government, which faced possible isolation from the rest of Europe if it failed to meet its obligation to the tribunal, "preferred to choose the way of cooperation to that of confrontation."

The government's decision would come into force immediately, he said, but it was not clear when and how security forces would arrest the suspects.

The largest association of war veterans fiercely denounced the decision and threatened to use "all means available" to fight the transfer of the two Croats, including mass protests and road blockades. In February, this group gathered over 100,000 supporters in Split to protest a local court's prosecution of Mirko Norac, a former general, for war crimes.

"The persecution and decision to extradite Croatian generals is a trial against the foundations of the Croatian state," the association's leader, Mirko Condic, said, as quoted by The Associated Press. "We demand that the Croatian Parliament dissolve the cabinet and call elections."

The names of the two suspects indicted have not been disclosed. But Croatian news media, including the state news agency HINA, have speculated that the tribunal has charged two army generals, Ante Gotovina and Rahim Ademi, with crimes committed against Serbs at Medacki Dzep in 1993 and during a 1995 offensive by Croatian forces, called Operation Storm, that recaptured lands held by Serbian rebels.

While the transfer of Mr. Milosevic and Mrs. Del Ponte's visit to Zagreb added pressure on the government, investigators at The Hague said the indictments were actually long coming.

The investigations of war crimes allegedly committed by Croatian forces began as long ago as 1996. Former President Franjo Tudjman was one target of investigators, but this line of inquiry ended when he died in December 1999. The latest indictments were issued on June 5.

Soon after receiving the indictments, the prime minister sent a sharp protest letter to the tribunal in which he objected to some of the language and demanded that several charges be withdrawn, according to lawyers at the tribunal.

Politicians in Zagreb, too, said today that the indictments contained what they saw as "unacceptable qualifications, including genocide and ethnic cleansing."

Mrs. Del Ponte, in her visit to Zagreb on Friday, reportedly explained that the indictments could not be changed because they were legal documents, confirmed and signed by a tribunal judge. Future trials would have to establish whether the charges were justified, she is said to have explained.

By the end of the meeting, she had apparently persuaded Mr. Racan. He committed himself to order the arrests, but said he would first have to call a cabinet meeting.

"The ultimate test of any government or state is the surrender of any suspect," Mrs. Del Ponte said. "There is never a good time for any government to make difficult decisions," she said, insisting that "Croatia fulfill its obligations."

Lawyers close to the tribunal said the focus of at least one of the indictments deals with Operation Storm, the 1995 Croatian offensive.

In just four days in August that year, the Croatian military and police regained territory that had been held by Serbs since 1991. The offensive drove more than 200,000 Serbs from their homes and farms in the Krajina region.

Canadian military officers who were present during the offensive have told tribunal investigators that "indiscriminate" and "unnecessary" shelling of civilians took place. The number of people killed is not precisely known.

European diplomats and military analysts have long believed that American military gave their tacit blessing and may even have helped plan the operation, which became a turning point in the Balkan wars.

For many Croats the offensive amounted to a liberation of their territory. But tribunal investigators have described the operations as ethnic cleansing and compared them to actions taken by Serbs as they sought to create "ethnically pure territories" in Bosnia. But this time the victims were Serbs.

Until now, no senior Croatian political or military leaders had been indicted for war crimes against Serbs, a main reason why Serbs have charged that the tribunal is biased against them.

--------

U.S. Offers Troops to Macedonia

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Macedonia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States has offered troops to a potential NATO mission in Macedonia - but only in a supporting role, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.

Speaking with reporters following a Pentagon meeting with French Defense Minister Alain Richard, Rumsfeld was questioned about potential NATO involvement in disarming ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia.

Rumsfeld pointed out that discussions on the issue are still taking place among the NATO allies.

``The arrangements between the parties in Macedonia have not been completely concluded and of course, any NATO activity would be dependent upon the resolution of those understandings which are currently being negotiated,'' Rumsfeld said.

He said the United States has offered to aid with logistics, such as transportation, food and medical support, and intelligence gathering.

Rumsfeld added that ``a number of other countries have indicated they would participate in various ways, and of course it all depends on the situation on the ground in Macedonia.''

For his part, Richard said the two had ``a good discussion on a range of issues,'' and that their talks had been ``very rich and very complete.''

Pentagon officials have welcomed negotiations to end a four-month rebel insurgency in Macedonia that is being brokered by NATO and European Union officials.

The plan is an attempt to reconcile the country's majority Macedonians, who are mostly Slavs by origin, and its minority ethnic Albanians, who bitterly complain they are treated as second-class citizens. Although the ethnic Albanian rebels are not involved in the talks, the negotiations could lead to the rebels' disarming under the supervision of NATO peacekeepers.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said last week that there are about 500 U.S. troops in Macedonia, some of whom could aid in a potential disarmament effort. They are primarily logistics specialists helping the U.S. peacekeeping effort in neighboring Kosovo.

-------- china

China decides to allow U.S. warships to dock in Hong Kong

The Associated Press,
July 9, 2001
http://printerfriendly.abcnews.com/printerfriendly/Print?fetchFromGLUE=true&GLUEService=ABCNewsCom

HONG KONG (AP) China has granted permission for a pair of American warships to dock in Hong Kong, a U.S. official said Monday, reversing a two-year stance just days before the International Olympic Committee votes on which city will host the 2008 Olympics. Beijing is among the top contenders for the event.

China had refused requests for 10 U.S. ships to stop in Hong Kong since NATO's 1999 accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Most recently, in May, Beijing refused clearance for an anti-mine ship carrying 1,400 personnel to enter the port.

But China notified the United States last week that two smaller anti-mine ships can stop here from July 25-30, U.S. Consulate spokeswoman Barbara Zigli said.

She would not comment on China's possible motives for allowing the smaller ships to dock.

"We view it as evidence of Hong Kong's special status and openness as an international city," Zigli said in a telephone interview.

The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to vote Friday on which city will host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing is considered the leading contender, with Toronto and Paris serious challengers.

The permission was granted Thursday, shortly after the pieces of the U.S. spy plane that collided with a Chinese fighter jet on April 1 were flown away from China's Hainan Island. The U.S. crew was detained on Hainan, where they had made an emergency landing, for 11 days.

The decision to allow the warships would appear to indicate a lessening of the tensions that flared over the spy plane crisis that claimed the life of a Chinese pilot.

The warships intending to come to Hong Kong are the USS Guardian and USS Patriot, each carrying crews of 82, Zigli said.

Although Hong Kong was returned from Britain to China four years ago, it retains a great deal of local autonomy and Western-style freedoms and capitalism remain in place.

Beijing is firmly in charge of defense and foreign affairs, however, and it has in the past barred U.S. Navy ships to show unhappiness with China's often-touchy relationship with the United States.

----

The C.I.A.'s China Tilt

New York Times
July 9, 2001
ESSAY
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/09/opinion/09SAFI.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON -- "New Beijing, Great Olympics" is the slogan entrancing the International Olympic Committee. If I.O.C. boss Juan Antonio Samaranch prevails, Beijing will be the site of the 2008 Games; thus will the I.O.C.'s financial corruption find its soulmate in China's savage political corruption.

The world of sport is poised to condone the regime's imprisonment of U.S. citizens and residents, encourage its crackdown on dissidents in a modern version of "scholar pitting," and reward the recent systematic torture and murder of more than 220 peaceful adherents of the Falun Gong.

President Bush's reaction is to shrug and say that where our Olympic athletes compete is of no concern to him. He then pays lip service to human rights by mentioning the arrests of Americans to President Jiang Zemin toward the end of a phone call.

Why the kowtow? Apparently Bush feels the need to do penance for having blurted out a commitment to help Taiwan defend itself in case of invasion, an overdue change of policy out of which the State Department is still trying to wriggle.

Another reason is a dumb diplomatic deal: in return for Bush's acquiescence in the Beijing Olympics - sweetened by our release of $80 million of frozen Iraqi money to pay China for dual-use telecommunications equipment shipped to Saddam Hussein - the Chinese agreed to support Colin Powell's bid for "smart sanctions" in the Security Council. (The Chinese knew the Russians would block Powell's plan with their veto threat, and so got plenty for nothing.)

But the basic reason for Bush's waffling on China is this: the White House has long been getting a warped assessment of the Chinese threat from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Thanks to a national-security scoop by Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, we learn that a commission of outside experts - reluctantly appointed by the C.I.A. at the behest of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, then chaired by Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama - recently concluded that our intelligence community suffered from an "institutional predisposition" to misinterpret data from China.

The commission led by retired Gen. John Tilelli, former commander of our forces in South Korea, and including Harvard's Stephen Rosen, Princeton's Aaron Friedberg, former Ambassador (and C.I.A. hand) James Lilley and recently named Pentagon official Peter Rodman, held that C.I.A. analysts had "overreached" in minimizing China's military threat.

Based on the most sensitive data, the competitive analysis is highly classified. It follows by six months another secret report to the Pentagon by the defense strategist Andrew Marshall criticizing major "intelligence gaps" befogging our Asian assessments. The Senate ought to release sanitized versions of both reports.

The director of central intelligence is likely to resist such disclosure of institutional weakness. George Tenet, the Middle East diplomat who returns to Langley, Va., from time to time to warm the D.C.I.'s chair, will fight tooth, nail, cloak and dagger against the appointment of a long-term, internal "Team B" to challenge complacent China evaluation.

Decades ago, such an in-house alternative view shook up the agency's assessment of the Soviet Union's strength and intentions. Following up Gertz's story, I find support for a new "Team B" on Senate Intelligence; Tenet, once its staff director, knows he can grumble but must go along.

Indicator of Senate action: on July 2, four G.O.P. senators aware of both reports petitioned the president to deny waivers of "Tiananmen sanctions" against shipping new communications satellites to China.

Although China promised to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime and pledged last Nov. 21 not to assist any country to develop nuclear- capable ballistic missiles, senators reminded Bush that "China has continued to transfer missile equipment and technology in contravention of both the MTCR and its November pledge."

Will this constrain the kowtowing? Hawks hot for maintaining sanctions and starting Team B will be chilled to learn that the leading candidate to chair the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is Brent Scowcroft. He's the guy the last President Bush sent to Beijing in secret, just after the massacre in Tiananmen Square, to tell Jiang not to be upset at what we had to say in public.

-------- colombia

Group Criticizes Colombia Guerrillas

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Colombia-Rights.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A leading human rights group called on the leader of Colombia's largest guerrilla army Monday to stop kidnapping and killing civilians and to provide better treatment to captured soldiers and police.

Human Rights Watch said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, should protect the rights of an estimated 90,000 people living in its Switzerland-sized safe haven in southern Colombia.

``Without the necessary attention to upholding the rules of war, it will be all the more difficult to build the confidence and trust necessary between the parties to bring Colombia's long and bloody conflict to an end,'' it said.

The letter to FARC leader Manuel Marulanda was dated Tuesday and released Monday. It was signed by Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the rights group's America's division.

International human rights groups have repeatedly denounced abuses in Colombia, but they often focus on right-wing paramilitaries, who are blamed for most of the country's massacres, and the military, which is seen as protecting them.

Colombia's government has accused the groups of ignoring abuses by FARC and the other major guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army.

But Human Rights Watch has been critical of FARC, especially since Colombian President Andres Pastrana gave the guerrillas the safe haven at the start of peace talks in 1999.

In its letter, the group said FARC ``is responsible for the killings and abductions of civilians, hostage-taking, the use of child soldiers, grossly unfair trials, cruel and inhuman treatment of captured combatants and forced displacement of civilians.''

It also criticized FARC for using crude gas cylinder bombs that cause indiscriminate injuries and for attacking medical workers and facilities ``in blatant disregard of international law and the most basic standards of respect for human life.''

FARC calls its kidnappings ``retentions'' and characterizes them as a legitimate war tactic against the Colombian elite. It has pledged to scale back its recruiting of children and its use of gas cylinder bombs, but there is no evidence it has done either.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana has tried to negotiate an end to Colombia's 37-year guerrilla insurgency, but talks with FARC have moved slowly and he has only 13 months left in office.

Human Rights Watch praised FARC's release of nearly 400 police and soldiers last month and said it hopes the conflict will soon end.

Neither FARC nor the Colombian military is seen as strong enough to defeat the other. FARC is believed to be well-funded, financing its insurgency largely through kidnapping and by protecting drug traffickers.

Much of the $1.3 billion Colombian aid package approved by the U.S. Congress last year is for providing helicopters and training for three Colombian Army counternarcotics battalions so they can fight guerrillas involved in trafficking.

-------- space

Some Lawmakers Urging U.S. to Speed Exports of Satellites

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/09/world/09SATE.html

WASHINGTON, July 8 - Prodded by the satellite industry, members of Congress who demanded a tougher review of satellite sales around the globe just three years ago are now trying to speed up the process.

The proposal has been put forward by two California representatives, Howard L. Berman, a Democrat, and Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, each with strong aerospace constituencies. They are proposing a transfer of the agency responsible for approving satellite sales abroad, to the Commerce Department from the State Department. The measure is the latest twist in a debate over how rigorously Washington should protect American satellite technology.

In 1998, after critics charged that the Clinton administration let China learn the secrets of top American companies, Mr. Berman supported legislation that stripped licensing authority from the Commerce Department, which was seen as eager to promote sales, and gave it to the State Department, which treats satellites like weapons systems.

At the time, Mr. Rohrabacher said that because of what he called laxness by the Clinton administration, ``every man, woman and child may well have been jeopardized.''

Now he and the measure's other sponsors argue that an understaffed and overly cautious State Department has hamstrung an industry that is important to California's economy and to military readiness.

``It was never my intention or Congress's intention that the high-tech industry should be hampered in their commerce by overregulation,'' Mr. Rohrabacher said.

The White House is studying the bill and has not formed its opinion yet, said Mary Ellen Countryman, a spokeswoman.

The bill would have the effect of providing fast-track licensing for members of NATO and other allies, while subjecting sales to China and other countries to more rigorous review. Mr. Rohrabacher portrayed the measure as fine-tuning. ``I don't consider this at all a reversal of my position,'' he said.

Critics of the proposal say the State Department is best equipped to consider the broader implications of a satellite sale or launching. The critics include prominent Republican voices on military and security affairs, including Senators John W. Warner, Jesse Helms and Richard C. Shelby.

``There is more of a national-security-based review that comes out of the State Department,'' said Gary Hoitsma, a spokesman for Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who has criticized the bill. ``That's our main concern.''

Another critic, Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, said it was ``close to being an oxymoron'' to designate the Commerce Department, a trade promotion agency, as the national security watchdog.

American aerospace companies have complained that they are losing their dominant share in a $56 billion annual market of sales and services. A decade ago, industry officials say, the American industry accounted for 75 percent of sales of commercial telecommunications satellites; that dwindled to 45 percent last year, as Europeans got more orders.

Industry officials attribute much of the problem to onerous procedures at the State Department. European companies sell with less red tape, advocates of the bill say.

They note that revenues for foreign manufacturers climbed 11 percent last year, while that of American suppliers fell 9 percent.

The American companies want the Commerce Department to approve or deny licenses within 30 days, or within 90 days if another department raises objections.

State Department officials admit that they have been swamped by license requests since taking charge two years ago. Last year, the department's staff of 23 licensing officers completed about 46,000 applications. By contrast the Commerce Department, with 51 officers, reviewed about 11,000 applications.

Despite the shortage of officers at the State Department, the General Accounting Office found that the average time required by both agencies to process licenses in general was similar: between two and three months for sensitive items that must be submitted for interagency review.

Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., assistant secretary of state for political affairs, said the State Department's performance would improve as new employees arrive.

In 1996 President Clinton moved the licensing authority from the State Department to Commerce. At the time, Mr. Clinton was aggressively promoting American exports and pursuing better commercial and diplomatic ties with Beijing.

But two failed launchings in China in the 1990's highlighted the risk of technology transfer, and three American companies came under fire. The three - Hughes Space and Communications, which was acquired last year by cobiBoeingcoei; coeiLoralcobi Space and Communications; and cobiLockheed Martincoei - faced charges that they had passed sensitive information or materials to China.

Loral is now the subject of a criminal investigation for possibly providing the Chinese with sensitive information about how to improve their rockets. And last year Lockheed Martin agreed to pay $13 million to the federal government because a company it acquired was accused of helping a Hong Kong company with ties to the Chinese government to perfect its rocket motors.

An investigation led by Representative Christopher Cox, Republican of California, concluded in 1999 that such incidents had compromised national security. The Cox commission unanimously recommended that the State Department be solely responsible for licensing satellites. By then, Congress had already ordered the shift.

But in their rush to crack down on China, lawmakers approved legislation that did not distinguish between sales to close allies and sales to potential adversaries.

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

Evidence of D.C. Toxins Unheeded
New Findings Back '86 Warning to U.S. On Buried Weapons

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 9, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33850-2001Jul8?language=printer

The federal government had strong evidence 15 years ago of possible buried chemical weapons and dangerous ground contamination in an upscale section of the District, but failed then and in subsequent years to fully investigate the threat, according to a review of government records and court filings.

Federal analysts who studied old aerial photographs in 1986 warned the Army of potential burial sites left from chemical weapons testing based at the American University campus during World War I. The Army did not dig for the munitions or take soil samples. With the Environmental Protection Agency's approval, Army officials said nothing to the District government or residents in the Spring Valley section of Northwest whose homes sat atop the possible dumps.

The 1986 analysis was largely accurate, new findings of contamination confirm. Two of the sites identified then are now the focus of an investigation into whether illnesses in Spring Valley are related to soil contamination left by the World War I testing, particularly from arsenic, a carcinogen that is a byproduct of chemical weapons and is present in some areas at toxic levels.

At one site, a former testing trench on Sedgwick Street, city officials are studying reports of unusual deaths and illnesses -- including aplastic anemia -- among residents. New soil test results last month found arsenic at four properties atop the former trench, including some as high as twice the level at which the EPA recommends emergency removal. A second site on the AU campus includes an area where the school opened a child care center in 1993. Even higher arsenic levels found in the playground earlier this year forced the center to move.

"The Army caused people from 1986 to the present to be exposed to unacceptable levels of contamination that they could have identified and corrected 15 years ago," said Don Campbell, a former District environmental scientist who spent years trying to get the Army to deal with contamination.

The Army did not publicly reveal the existence of the 1986 analysis until 1993, after chemical munitions were accidentally uncovered in Spring Valley. The Army's failure to notify the District and neighbors in 1986 violated federal laws and military regulations, an internal Army audit concluded in 1995, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Notifying the city and residents might have caused "potential economic as well as political and social consequences, such as diminished property values, community uproar and fear," according to the audit.

"Maybe it wasn't the best decision, but it was the one we made," said Lewis Walker, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army who oversaw the 1986 investigation.

Documents and interviews further show that the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA found elevated levels of arsenic in some soil after the 1993 discovery. But both agencies concluded that no cleanup was needed.

The EPA found arsenic in two locations on the AU campus in 1994 at levels where the agency recommends soil removal because of a potential cancer risk, EPA documents show. But the agency applied a higher threshold -- one that did not consider the cancer dangers associated with arsenic -- and reported that the contaminants were not a health risk.

"What we were focusing on at the time was the noncancerous effects," said Drew Lausch, an EPA official who oversaw the Spring Valley project at the time. "There was more certainty with the noncancerous levels."

Furthermore, the Corps of Engineers missed contamination during its 1993-95 inquiry because of faulty testing methods, documents show. The Corps of Engineers subsequently gave the neighborhood a clean bill of health, a finding endorsed by other federal agencies.

That is no longer its conclusion.

The Corps of Engineers returned in 1999 at the city's insistence and began finding levels of arsenic at several locations as high as 20 times the EPA's removal guideline. The Corps of Engineers is back in Spring Valley indefinitely. Under pressure from residents and local officials following accounts in The Washington Post and the Washingtonian magazine, the Corps of Engineers recently launched an extraordinary effort to test all 1,200 residential properties in Spring Valley for contaminants. New findings continue to surface, including seven bottles containing lewisite or mustard -- both deadly chemical agents developed during World War I -- that the Army dug up last week in a yard on Glenbrook Road. The chemicals were still toxic.

Bailus Walker Jr., the chairman of a health advisory panel appointed by the city to examine Spring Valley health issues, said members are "not comfortable" with a preliminary health analysis of cancer rates in Spring Valley because of the methodology and want more data. At the panel's recommendation, more tests will be done to determine whether unusual illnesses are linked to exposure to chemical contaminants through gardening or playing.

Meanwhile, the EPA's criminal division, along with the FBI, the Justice Department and military investigators, is looking into whether officials can be charged with making false statements about the cleanup operation, which ended in 1995.

Corps of Engineers and EPA officials say that the 1986 and 1993-95 evidence did not warrant taking more steps than they did. But others involved say that federal agencies shied away from more aggressive steps because of concerns about expense and property values.

"Cost should not have been an object, because this was people's lives," said Campbell, who added: "You're not dealing with property out in the plains of Kansas. These are back yards where you have children playing in the dirt."

Geza Teleki, 57, a resident of Spring Valley since 1973, says he believed federal officials when they first said there was no health risk. "By 1994, they were telling us they'd taken care of the problems," Teleki said.

Now, Teleki wonders about the trembling of his hand, his joint pain, his wife's hair loss and neighbors with cancer. He wonders about the hours he and his wife have spent gardening and the high number of deformed cicadas they found one year in their yard.

"We have a whole slew of medical symptoms which have not been resolved," Teleki said.

Spring Valley is one of Washington's most exclusive neighborhoods, its hilly and tree-lined streets home to well-connected government officials, including future presidents.

It was built on tainted ground.

After U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917, the trustees of American University offered the government rent-free use of the 92-acre campus at Massachusetts and Nebraska avenues NW, then surrounded largely by fields and woods. The Army decided it would be a fine site to experiment with chemical weapons.

Hundreds of toxic substances, including mustard gas, lewisite, cyanide phosgene and arsenic, were developed or tested over several hundred acres by more than 1,200 chemists and engineers. Toxic materials -- including large amounts of arsenic -- were released into the air and onto the soil, Army records show.

When the war ended in November 1918, there were few regulations about how to dispose of chemical weapons, because the environmental consequences were largely unknown.

One Army regulation did permit the burial of chemical munitions if they were leaking, but there was enough understanding of the dangers that the regulations specified that the leaking munitions should not be buried near water.

A March 1919 Army memo directed the chemical weapons research division "to ship the bombs, incendiary and smoke and shells" used at Spring Valley to Edgewood Arsenal, an Army installation in Maryland. "Most of the useful stuff was shipped to Edgewood," said Jeff Smart, an Army chemical weapons historian.

But an unknown amount of munitions was buried on site.

"What we're finding would indicate there was a lot left down there," Smart said.

There is a tantalizing passage in a 1921 AU publication reporting the disposal of $800,000 worth of munitions: "Permission was given to go far back on the university acres, to dig a pit . . . bury the munitions there, and cover them up to wait until the elements shall melt with fervent heat."

There is also a 1918 photograph of a soldier leaning over a Spring Valley pit, near which sit approximately 20 five-gallon glass or ceramic containers. A note on the back says: "The bottles are full of mustard, to be destroyed here. In Death Valley. The hole called Hades."

As memories of the war receded, details of the testing did, too.

In 1986, AU embarked on the largest construction project in its history, the Adnan Khasshogi Sports and Convocation Center. A preconstruction examination of the site's history found the 1921 university publication's reference to a chemical weapons burial pit on campus, and a study by the university's history department also concluded that there was a very good possibility that chemical weapons were buried on campus.

AU officials debated whether to notify federal officials, confidential university documents show, and ultimately contacted the EPA in April 1986. The EPA regional administrator, James Seif, responded that any inquiry was the Pentagon's responsibility. An Army explosives team surveyed the site, its presence explained in a school announcement as "routine," based on the campus's previous military use. There was no mention of buried chemical weapons.

As part of its inquiry, the Army found the 1919 memo ordering munitions shipped to Edgewood Arsenal, which suggested that little or nothing had been buried. It also had the 1921 AU article but dismissed it as fantasy.

Then there were the aerial photographs, from 1918 and 1927, which were analyzed by the EPA's Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center. In July 1986, the center gave the Army a report identifying the location of two possible burial pits. The report also described suspect areas on the AU campus, in an area that included an athletic field and fraternity houses.

No soil was tested at any site, even though the Army's knowledge of the risks posed by buried chemical munitions had expanded greatly. Since at least World War II, the Army had known they could leak, according to Smart, the Army chemical weapons historian.

Army investigators concluded that buried munitions could not be ruled out but that there was not enough evidence to take further action. The Army did not relate its conclusion to city officials, residents or a development company building homes in Spring Valley.

Sandra Grosso, an AU vice president and counsel who died in 1994, argued in 1986 that the Army and the university should go public, but she was overruled, her sister said. "She was vocal that needed to be brought out," Debbie Klauser said. "She was always coming home irritated because it wasn't."

Lewis Walker, the deputy Army secretary who takes responsibility for the decision to end the 1986 inquiry, said in a recent interview that notifying neighbors "was given consideration" but rejected -- in consultation with AU and the EPA -- because "it wasn't necessary." He said he was unaware of the 1995 Army Audit Agency's finding that notification was required by law.

Campbell, the former city official, said that if the District had known about the 1986 findings, "we would have required a significant investigation, without a doubt."

Lt. Gen. Richard Groves, a former Corps of Engineers official, said "it was the Army that failed here," according to his sworn statement in a lawsuit the development company filed against the Army in 1996. "Its failure to act upon the significant traces and indicators of cause for concern, identified by the analyst, is inexcusable."

AU officials say now that they did not know all of the 1986 findings. "We were depending on [the Army's] interpretation of the content," said David Taylor, a university spokesman.

In December 1988, the Eagle, AU's student newspaper, reported that "toxic agents" left over from chemical testing might be buried near campus, but that the Army had not notified those whose houses sat on possible burial sites. An Army spokesman told the paper that evidence showed that "all the chemicals were removed" and "if there were any left, it would be experimental quantities."

In January 1993, Spring Valley's past came tumbling out when an employee of a home-building company dug up an unexploded chemical weapons shell. Within hours, troops from Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground arrived by helicopter with gas masks, and dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes as a three-week emergency cleanup uncovered 43 chemical rounds.

The location: 52nd Court, one of the sites that had been pinpointed by the 1986 Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center study as possible burial pits.

The Army's subsequent investigation and cleanup in Spring Valley, called Operation Safe Removal, was closed by Lewis Walker on June 2, 1995. The Corps of Engineers sent residents letters reporting that "no further action is warranted or necessary to protect human health or the environment."

A Post review shows numerous flaws in that cleanup:

• The Corps of Engineers missed contamination by testing soil at the wrong depth. After taking samples on Sedgwick Street in 1993, the Corps of Engineers reported no contamination. But it did not test soilat the surface or at the bottom of the former trench, levels at which city analysts say they would have been more likely to find contamination. New tests found elevated levels of arsenic at four homes.

• The Corps of Engineers used a metal detector suited to finding burial pits, not single munitions. When the Corps of Engineers recently buried 10 metallic objects as a test, the detector was unable to find a single one, documents show.

• The Corps of Engineers said arsenic levels in soil at AU and elsewhere were elevated but not significantly different from levels elsewhere in Spring Valley, and therefore could be naturally occurring arsenic. But much of Spring Valley might have been contaminated by the open-air testing in 1917-18, skewing background levels, city officials said.

• The Corps of Engineers said the city had agreed in 1995 that the situation was safe. But it did not consult with the city's Environmental Regulation Administration, the designated point of contact. Instead, the Corps of Engineers sent its findings to the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness, which lacked expertise and did not pass along the findings, officials said.

Campbell said he was shocked when he attended a Corps of Engineers presentation for Spring Valley residents in 1995. "I could see what I consider unacceptable levels of soil contamination were being left in place," he said.

District scientists began a review of the investigation and encountered resistance from Corps of Engineers officials, they said. In 1996, the city gave the Corps of Engineers a report warning of "an immediate threat to the health and safety of residents" in Spring Valley.

It recommended that soil be tested throughout the 600-acre area and that surveys be done with magnetometers and ground-penetrating radar. "Serious questions remain over the adequacy of the search for unexploded ordnance as well as the survey for residual contamination from the toxic substances used in the research," the city report said.

Citing soil samples that tested about 20 times higher than the EPA's removal guidelines for arsenic, the city also asked for a health survey to learn "if there is any elevated incidence of any disease."

In January 1998, the Corps of Engineers responded with an enormous report attacking the city's assertions -- at times mocking them -- and rejecting the notion of a continuing problem. It was supported by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which said that the arsenic and other metals in Spring Valley did not represent a threat and concluded in a report that year "that the potential for these substances to contaminate soils at the American University has been appropriately addressed."

Campbell said he told Agency for Toxic Substances officials that they were reviewing flawed numbers but that "they didn't want to hear that."

It all might have ended there, except the Corps of Engineers had agreed in its 1998 reply to the city that it had looked in the wrong place for one of the possible burial pits and would recheck. The Corps of Engineers said its reevaluation was based on "new information," but it was actually information it had had for years: the photograph showing the soldier burying mustard gas. Family members of the soldier had turned it over to the Army not long after munitions were discovered in 1993.

In January 1999, the Corps of Engineers began excavating the new site: the South Korean ambassador's property on Glenbrook Road. More than two years later, it remains a wasteland. Extremely high levels of arsenic found there and at the home next door were just the first in a series of disturbing discoveries.

The major investigation and cleanup that has ensued could stretch on for years. City officials -- long at odds with federal agencies -- now say they believe the Army and other agencies are addressing the contamination in a forthright manner.

But Teleki, the longtime resident, said that for many neighbors, trust is gone. "My confidence in these people has dropped through the floor," he said.

--------

Patriot Intercepts, Destroys Jet

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Tests.html?searchpv=aponline

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. (AP) -- A Patriot missile intercepted and destroyed an F-4 remote-control fighter plane using radar-jamming signals Monday. A second Patriot failed to hit an incoming missile.

The two tests of the Pac-3 lasted 12 minutes Monday morning, White Sands Missile Range spokesman Jim Eckles said.

``It was a partial success,'' he said. ``The Pac-3 successfully shot down the F-4, which was engaged in jamming (and) flying at low altitude.''

The two tests were conducted simultaneously, with ``four items in the air at the same time -- two Pac-3s each flying against separate targets. One Pac-3 hit its target, and the other Pac-3 missed its target,'' he said.

The F-4 test was the first time the Army had fired its latest-generation Patriot at a fighter airplane.

The other Patriot test firing was aimed at a Hera target missile which was designed to simulate an incoming ballistic missile for the purposes of the test.

The dual flight test was the 10th in a series for the Pac-3.

The Pac-3, short for Patriot advanced capability, is meant to destroy targets by colliding with them at high speed, rather than using an explosive warhead. It is designed to defend against tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and enemy aircraft.

The previous nine flight tests, involving only target missiles or drones, were successful, Army officials have said.

--------

Senate Debates Defense Spending

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Spending.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate neared passage Monday of legislation providing $6.5 billion for defense and widely varying other programs, a bill that has become a prop in the partisan battle over the shrinking federal surplus.

Senate approval was expected as early as Tuesday for the measure, which is mostly for the Pentagon but would do everything from helping the poor pay summer cooling bills to contributing $100 million to the United Nations' effort to halt the spread of AIDS. The House overwhelmingly passed a similar measure last month.

With lawmakers filtering back to the Capitol after their weeklong July 4 recess, senators used a voice vote Monday to add $20 million to help farmers in the Pacific Northwest's Klamath Basin. The government has reduced water available for irrigation by about 1,400 California and Oregon farmers there amid a drought and concerns about endangered fish species.

The backdrop of the spending bill debate is projected federal surpluses, which while still huge are shrinking because of the slumping economy and the cost of President Bush's recently enacted $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., one of the measure's chief authors, said the spending bill's price tag is ``not one thin dime above the president's request.'' That remarks highlighted Democratic efforts to escape White House accusations that excessive congressional spending is why budget surpluses are in peril.

``Before the ink is even dry on the president's signature on that tax bill, we may find ourselves headed back into the deficit ditch,'' Byrd added on the Senate floor, repeating the Democratic charge that the tax cut was too large.

But at the White House, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer pointed his finger back at the Capitol.

``The real threat to budget surpluses come from spending,'' Fleischer told reporters.

Both parties agree the surplus in fiscal 2001 -- which runs through Sept. 30 -- will be close to $200 billion. But most of that is from Social Security, money both parties have pledged to leave alone.

Democrats say that thanks to the tax cut and the weaker economy, a $17 billion portion of the remaining surplus that comes from Medicare will be drained. Republicans have denied that. Democrats and many Republicans consider it politically perilous to tap into the Medicare surplus.

The Senate bill, covering the remaining months in fiscal 2001, would provide $5.9 billion for the Pentagon and for Energy Department nuclear weapons and defense activities. Included is money for higher than anticipated fuel costs, higher salaries, the military's health care system, repairs to the bomb-damaged USS Cole, and development of the airborne laser and other weapons systems.

Other funds include $300 million to help low-income families pay air-conditioning and heating bills, double Bush's request, and $116 million for the Treasury Department's costs of processing the rebates that the tax bill promised millions of taxpayers this year.

The bill also includes $84 million to compensate uranium miners and residents who were sickened by radioactivity following Cold War-era nuclear weapons testing in the Southwest.

Senators from Kansas, Idaho and Georgia were expected to gain approval of a provision barring the Pentagon from retiring 33 long-range B-1 bombers based in those states for the remainder of this fiscal year. The issue would be rejoined later.

With most senators absent, Monday's slow-moving debate saw Byrd add $3 million aimed at reducing animal cruelty and criticize the man convicted last month for angrily snatching Leo, a small dog, from his owner's car and tossing him into traffic.

Byrd called Andrew Burnett ``this monster'' and added, ``It makes one ponder the question, doesn't it, which was the animal, Burnett or Leo.''

Meanwhile, Pentagon documents show the administration expects to save $284 million next year from the withdrawal of 800 U.S. peacekeeping troops from Bosnia that began in March. It was the first time a dollar figure had been assigned to that withdrawal. The Pentagon proposed several areas for savings to accompany its recent request for an $18.4 billion defense increase for 2002.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

BILL PROPOSES TAX CREDIT FOR HOME WINDMILLS

July 9, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2001/2001L-07-09-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would provide a tax credit for residential wind generators.

Representative J.C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican, sponsored the legislation, which would provide a 30 percent investment tax credit for the units. The Home and Farm Wind Energy Systems Act (HR 2322) is cosponsored by Republican Representatives Wes Watkins and Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, and Vernon Ehlers of Michigan.

"We think it's a great way to create an energy alternative for homes, for farms and small businesses," said Watts.

The current cost of residential wind turbines is hindering their sales, Watts said. A tax incentive that lowers the up front cost of the machines should boost sales, helping manufacturers to increase their volume and lower costs.

"Home owners, small businesses and farmers are squeezed by energy costs, especially in California and the northeastern U.S.," Watts said. "Wind power, solar, nuclear and petroleum sources are all needed to solve the country's energy problem. We need to raise the consciousness of the American people on the importance of wind power."

A typical 10 kilowatt residential wind turbine costs about $32,000 and takes about 15 years to pay for itself in terms of lowered electricity costs, said Mike Bergey, president of Bergey Windpower of Norman, Oklahoma, a leading small turbine manufacturer.

Since the state of California passed a 50 percent rebate for home wind units last year, Bergey said, 70 percent of his company's sales have been to customers in California.

Randy Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), applauded Watts' proposal.

"Small wind turbines have been overlooked for far too long as a potential contributor to our nation's energy supply," Swisher said. "In terms of energy produced per dollar expended, they are one of the best options for homeowners and small businesses to consider. Hopefully, a tax incentive will help make that happen."

----

TotalFinaElf Seeks Permit for Wind Farm in Belgian Waters

July 9, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/jul2001/2001L-07-09-02.html

PARIS, France, The giant oil and chemicals company TotalFinaElf is planning to build a wind generation facility in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Belgium.

Through its subsidiary Fina Eolia S.A./N.V., TotalFinaElf has applied to the Belgian Electricity and Gas Regulatory Commission for a concession to build and operate a wind farm in Belgian waters.

With this project, the company says its intention is to support the development of electricity generated from renewable energy sources, in line with targets set by the European Union and the Belgian State Department of Energy and Sustainable Development.

The project calls for the installation of 40 wind turbines at a distance of eight to 17 kilometers from shore, in two lines perpendicular to the coast to minimize the visual impact.

The city of Brugge, Belgium adjacent to the Port of Zeebrugge (Photo courtesy Port of Zeebrugge)

If approved, the turbines will be connected to the onshore power transmission grid by a subsea cable that will make landfall near the Port of Zeebrugge.

The company says that the proximity of the proposed route to existing undersea pipelines and cables will minimize the project's impact on the seabed and on existing fishing zones.

The wind farm would be installed and commissioned in two 50 MW phases, one in 2003 and the second in 2004. The installed capacity will be enough to supply electricity to an estimated 150,000 people, the company said.

The concession application is the first stage in a one year authorization process that will include further studies to assess the environmental impact on the sea, as well as on fishing, shipping and tourism. The studies will be carried out in close cooperation with local communities, local, regional and national authorities and other concerned parties.

TotalFinaElf said engineering studies are moving ahead to validate technological choices and to determine more accurately the required investment. The final investment decision will depend upon the introduction of an appropriate tariff structure.

TotalFinaElf has operations in more than 100 countries, from oil and gas exploration and production to the refining and marketing of refined products as well as international trading in both crude and refined products. TotalFinaElf is a major player in the chemicals markets, through its branch Atofina.

TotalFinaElf said it is committed to "leveraging its expertise" in the offshore oil industry to develop this renewable energy project.

----

A Bug in Wind Power's Promise

SCIENCE Notebook
Monday, July 9, 2001; Page A07
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34006-2001Jul8?language=printer

Engineers have long been baffled by the fact that the power of wind-power turbines can drop dramatically while operating in high winds. Researchers have finally found an explanation -- bugs splattered on the blades appear to be to blame.

Gustave P. Corten and Herman F. Vedkamp of the Energy Center of The Netherlands studied the air flow over turbine blades that had been "artificially roughened on their leading edges" to mimic the build-up of dead bugs. They found that their alterations mimicked the effect of dead bugs.

"These potentially catastrophic power glitches can be prevented simply by cleaning the blades," the researchers wrote in the July 5 issue of Nature. "It is likely that accumulation of ice or dirt on the blades could create distinct power levels in high winds the same way as insect contamination."

-------- death penalty

China's grim spectator sport

July 9, 2001
By Calum MacLeod
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010709-81903762.htm

BEIJING -- In its bid to win Friday's vote for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing has promised to build eight spanking new sports stadiums.

But in China this spring, authorities have been using older stadiums to stage mass sentencing rallies that publicly condemn prisoners to death.

From April to June this year, turnstiles across the country spun faster than ever in a killing spree denounced by Amnesty International as an "execution frenzy" and "huge waste of human life."

During the past three months, China has executed at least 1,751 persons -- 30 more than the rest of the world managed over the past three years.

The human rights watchdog counted the executions from 2,960 death sentences handed down during the ongoing "Strike Hard" campaign against crime.

While the death toll threatens to break even China's bloody records, Amnesty believes the real figure could be much higher, for national statistics on the death penalty are guarded as state secrets.

The accounts that do emerge tell a familiar tale of public humiliation and summary justice.

Judicial procedures, hardly thorough at the best of times, are speeded up to move suspects from trial to execution in mere days.

Political prisoners, and even minor criminals who would earn light sentences at other periods, have received the death penalty during this fourth "Strike Hard" crackdown since 1983.

On their final morning, condemned prisoners are displayed at sports stadiums or public squares, held in leg irons with their heads forced low in shame. Several years ago, the potential Olympic football venue, Beijing's Workers Stadium, hosted such macabre events.

In most other Chinese cities, invited audiences, often several thousand strong, are still required to watch the sentencing, and learn to obey the law and the government.

At the end of the show, the prisoners are paraded in People's Liberation Army trucks, the tumbrils of the Chinese Communist Party, on the way to the firing squad.

Death may not be the final punishment in some cases. There are persistent charges of organs being harvested without prior consent.

Last week a Chinese doctor seeking asylum in the United States testified to peeling the skin at least once from a still breathing man. China rejects his testimony as lies.

The frequent imposition of capital punishment was among multiple human rights abuses listed by the European Parliament in a resolution passed on Thursday opposing Beijing's Olympic bid.

Critics argue the country remains too undemocratic to warrant the Olympian-sized stamp of approval. Other observers hope the award of the Games will increase pressure for change.

In its own bid literature, Beijing predicts that while membership in the World Trade Organization will open the doors to business in China, the Olympic Games will open the country to all humanity.

The optimistic view is that the Games will inspire more humanity within the Chinese government and set a seven-year timetable for at least some improvements.

Although some officials in Beijing say their ultimate goal is abolition, no one expects the death penalty to disappear within that time frame.

"China is going through transition," said Beijing lawyer Zhang Xinshui of the Jinding law firm. "There is more social unrest, injustice and a widening income gap. The crime rate is rising, and terrible crimes are more common. Most Chinese believe in the saying, 'Kill someone, and pay with your life.'"

But the death penalty also applies to a wide range of nonviolent offenses, including 20 types of economic crime. Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, one of the West's favorite Chinese leaders, is a firm proponent of execution to punish the corrupt officials threatening the success of his reform program.

Reducing that scope is the most realistic goal of lobbying groups like the British foreign secretary's Death Penalty Panel, which explains London's pro-abolition stance to Chinese government officials.

"China has a long tradition of capital punishment," said Mr. Zhang, the lawyer. "While living standards and educational levels are still low, there is no way it can be abolished. It remains the ultimate deterrent. Like nuclear weapons, the death penalty shouldn't be used lightly, but it is powerful by its presence."

Amnesty counters that rising crime rates show the failure of the death penalty as an effective crime deterrent.

----

Putin Speaks Against Death Penalty

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Death-Penalty.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin expressed strong opposition Monday to the death penalty, saying Russia should not restore executions despite public support for them.

``The state must not claim the right to take human life away, which belongs only to the Almighty,'' Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with World Bank President James Wolfensohn, according to the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies.

Russia introduced a moratorium on the death penalty in 1996 as a condition for entrance to the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights watchdog. Russia has not banned capital punishment entirely.

Putin said he understands why opinion polls show most Russians support reviving the death penalty, blaming the view on the turmoil of the past decade since the collapse of the Soviet system.

Wolfensohn arrived in Russia on Sunday to open a conference on court reform and expressed support for Putin's pledges to overhaul Russia's cumbersome, often corrupt judicial system.

--------

Ga. Court Hears Electric Chair Debate

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Electric-Chair-Georgia.html

ATLANTA (AP) -- Opponents of the electric chair told the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday that electrocution causes a lingering, disfiguring death and thereby violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

``We do not need burning flesh, disfigurement, cooking of the brain, the smell of burning flesh at 145 degrees Centigrade,'' attorney Stephen Bright said. ``That might have been acceptable a few years ago ... but today the state has available lethal injection.''

For 90 minutes in three cases, the court heard legal arguments and graphic details of how electricity kills. Lawyers arguing the cases clashed on whether those put to death in the electric chair experience pain.

The court has indicated it is troubled by the continued use of electrocution in Georgia. State law provides an automatic switch to lethal injection if the court rules the electric chair illegal.

Attorney Thomas West showed the court a photograph of Larry Lonchar, taken shortly after he was put to death in 1996 for killing three people to avoid paying a gambling debt. The electric chair's skullcap had seared a broad, red mark along his forehead.

West said electrocution leaves burn marks on heads and ankles, where electrodes are connected, and on the feet and up the legs.

Defense experts believe the condemned person is conscious for some period of time and experiences ``excruciating pain'' during electrocution, Bright said.

Susan Boleyn, an attorney for the state, insisted that the electricity produces ``instantaneous unconsciousness'' and declared: ``Unequivocally there is no way a person being electrocuted is able to feel pain.''

Georgia legislators have already decided that anyone sentenced to death for crimes committed after May 1, 2000, will be executed by injection. But those convicted of crimes committed earlier are to die by electrocution.

One woman and 129 men are on Georgia's death row. Fifty-six people await trial for crimes committed before May 1, 2000, that could result in death sentences.

In a ruling last October, the Georgia high court dismissed claims that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment but signaled it was troubled by use of the electric chair.

Justice Norman Fletcher, now chief justice, wrote that some justices had ``grave concerns about the humaneness of electrocution'' and would confront the issue if presented with ``sufficient'' evidence.

Alabama and Nebraska are the only states that use the electric chair as the only means of execution.

--------

Foreigners Glance

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Foreigners-Glance.html

Countries with citizens on U.S. death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center:

Mexico 48
Cuba 6
Colombia 3
Germany 3
Jamaica 3
United Kingdom 3
Canada 2
El Salvador 2
Estonia 2

The following have one each:

Argentina, Bangladesh, Belize, Cambodia, Croatia, France, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong (China), Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Spain, Tonga, Trinidad, Thailand, Vietnam.

--------

Putin Upholds Russia's Death Penalty Moratorium

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-crime-r.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin, invoking the God-given right to life, said on Monday that Russia had to uphold its five-year-old moratorium on the death penalty despite widespread calls to reinstate executions to fight crime.

Opinion polls show that up to 80 percent of Russians favor doing away with the ban on the death penalty, introduced in 1996 to meet the membership requirements of the Council of Europe.

Leading supporters of restoring capital punishment include writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel prize-winning chronicler of Josef Stalin's Gulag camps, and the Russian commander battling separatists in Chechnya, Gennady Troshev.

``The state should not assume the right which only the Almighty has -- to take a human's life,'' Putin said in televised remarks from a Kremlin meeting with World Bank President James Wolfensohn. ``That is why I can say firmly -- I am against Russia reinstating the death penalty.''

Putin, often accused by opponents of tilting toward populist policies, said he was aware of public opinion on the death penalty but believed that state-sponsored cruelty did nothing to fight crime and only engendered new violence.

``There is only one way of fighting crime and that is to make punishment inevitable,'' he said. ``For that, the state must be effective.''

Though executions have not been carried out since 1996, the death penalty remains on the statute books. The Council of Europe, a human rights and pro-democracy body, has said that failure to abolish the provision could put Russia's membership in doubt.

Russia, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed to public approval in Stalin's purges, has a long history of violence by the state against its citizens.

Calls to reinstate capital punishment have resounded in recent weeks, particularly in view of unabating violence in Chechnya, where troops die almost daily from separatist attacks.

Solzhenitsyn said earlier this year that Russia needed the death penalty at the moment ``for the sake of saving the nation and the state.''

-------- energy

EPA finalizes ethanol rule to cut Midwest fuel cost

USA: July 9, 2001
Story by Tom Doggett
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11469&newsDate=9-Jul-2001

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday it finalized a rule temporarily issued in March to relax pollution regulations and allow more corn-based ethanol to be blended into gasoline in Chicago and Milwaukee.

The policy change was intended to keep fuel prices from spiking by making it easier for oil refineries to use ethanol in cleaner-burning gasoline.

Motor fuel sold in the two cities can contain larger amounts of pollutants known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are released when ethanol is used.

When added to gasoline, ethanol increases the evaporation rate of fuel, causing more VOC emissions, but ethanol reduces carbon monoxide emissions. Both pollutants play a role in ozone formation.

The VOC standard was raised to 0.3 pounds per square inch Reid vapor pressure - which measures the volatility of fuel - from the previous 0.2 pounds.

The Renewable Fuels Association, which represents U.S. ethanol makers, applauded the EPA's action when the temporary rule was issued in March and urged the same relaxed standards for St. Louis, Louisville and Cincinnati.

Roughly half of gasoline supplies in those three cities are blended with ethanol, the trade group said.

"Farmers across the country will benefit from this effort to fully recognize the impact of carbon monoxide (tailpipe emissions) on ozone formation and ethanol's full air quality benefits," Eric Vaughn, president of the pro-ethanol trade group, said at the time.

However, the EPA said it would not extend the relaxed standards to other areas because Chicago and Milwaukee are the only major cities that depend exclusively on ethanol-blended gasoline.

The EPA requires most major U.S. cities to use cleaner-burning gasoline during the hot summer months to reduce smog and air pollution. Illinois and Wisconsin refiners typically blend ethanol with a special kind of highly refined gasoline to achieve the stricter standards.

-------- environment

Carbon Sinks Won't Solve Global Warming

New York Times
July 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-environment-c.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Forests and farmlands cannot be relied on to soak up environmentally damaging greenhouse gases, and cuts in emissions are the only long-term way to reduce global warming, scientists said on Monday.

A new report by Britain's Royal Society said too little is known about how much farmlands and forests, so-called carbon sinks, can absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

Carbon sinks will be a major issue in Bonn next week when environmentalists and policy-makers resume international climate talks, which have been jeopardized by the withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto agreement on global warming.

In its report, the independent body of top scientists said better methods are needed to verify the impact of carbon sinks on global warming. Reducing the amount of CO2 from burning fossil fuels should be the main way to reduce global warming.

``These carbon sinks are of rather limited size and also will only work for a relatively short duration, a few decades. That means they can't make a major contribution to reducing carbon emissions and solving the global warming problem,'' said Professor John Shepherd, an author of the report.

SHORT TERM SOLUTION

Carbon sinks and emissions trading, essentially a market for buying and selling the right to pollute, were the main stumbling blocks at the failed United Nations conference on climate change in The Hague last year.

The United States, Japan, Canada and Australia wanted more emphasis on carbon sinks in achieving the CO2 emission cuts set in the 1997 Kyoto protocol on global warming. The pact commits developed nations to cutting emissions of CO2 by an average of just over five percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

Officials gathering in Bonn on July 16 for two weeks will try to get the talks back on track, despite the withdrawal of the United States earlier this year.

Shepherd, the director of Britain's Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, said carbon sinks were diverting the talks from the main issue which is cutting emissions.

According to the report, carbon sinks and soil absorb about 40 percent of CO2 emissions and could soak up as much as 45 percent.

But it added that the maximum that could be absorbed would only be equivalent to a quarter of that needed by 2050 to prevent major rises in global temperature.

``Our view is that the argument is being diverted into what is really a rather unproductive area and people should get back to talking about carbon emission reductions at source by use of renewable (fuels) and whatever else they think is necessary,'' said Shepherd.

The scientists also warned that in the future carbon sinks could become a source of CO2. They could release greenhouse gases, such as methane.

``The primary benefit of land carbon sinks is that they can be effective immediately and provide a financial incentive for the preservation and sustainable use of forests and agriculture land,'' the report said.

But the long-term solution must be cuts in CO2 emissions through energy saving and replacing fossil fuels with renewable and nuclear energy.

--------

EU Urges Japan to Ratify Kyoto Treaty

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-EU-Climate.html

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese officials pledged to help the European Union try to persuade the Bush administration to embrace the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming, but stopped short of saying Japan would ratify the 1997 agreement if the United States does not.

Urged by a visiting EU delegation to ratify the protocol as soon as possible, Japanese officials said Monday that their country plans to abide by the tenets of the pact, which requires industrial nations to reduce their output of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide by specific amounts.

However, the European delegation failed to persuade the Japanese government to commit itself to ratification regardless of what the United States does, EU officials in Brussels said.

``There is a lot of common ground as far as the environmental objectives are concerned (but) strong differences remain over how to deal with the United States' position,'' said EU spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde.

In a meeting with EU envoys, Japanese Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi stressed that the participation of the United States, the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide, is crucial to the treaty's success, officials said.

The United States signed the Kyoto Protocol under President Clinton, but it was widely opposed in Congress. Shortly after George Bush took office, his administration said it would not pursue ratification, calling the agreement ``fatally flawed'' because it sets mandated reductions in emissions and does not require developed nations to make cuts.

Japan has tried to play the role of mediator between the United States and treaty supporters in Europe since then, pledging to negotiate changes in the protocol in a bid to cajole the Americans to sign on.

``We'll have to walk a difficult path,'' in persuading the U.S. government to support the treaty, Kawaguchi told a news conference. ``But we should continue our efforts until the last minute.''

Despite its opposition to the Kyoto agreement, the Bush administration has pledged to continue to discuss pollution-control efforts with other nations.

Meeting with Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Lena Hjelmwallen, Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka asked the EU to show flexibility at an international conference on global warming in Bonn, Germany this month.

-------- genetics

Sufferers Consider Stem Cell Research

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Stem-Cells-Promise.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Diabetes robbed Adam Singer of the ability to open a jar of juice for his young sons.

The 41-year-old Singer also knows the disease could kill him. But he's fought diabetes for 23 years and he's ready to fight five or 10 more, convinced that embryonic stem cell research will be cleared for federal funding and some day be used to cure him.

``The disease deteriorates the body nice and slowly,'' said Singer, a commercial real estate agent from Potomac, Md., near Washington. ``It seems to me that it's an easy choice to make -- take a shot at saving lives and making life easier for people.''

But the moral questions over supporting stem cell research are hardly easy for everyone.

Ron Heagy has spent two decades in a wheelchair; his view is different from Singer's.

``I'm not opposed to walking again. I'm just opposed to the process,'' says Heagy, 39, a quadriplegic motivational speaker who runs an Oregon camp for disabled youth. He told Congress he opposed federal money for embryonic stem cell research even if that research meant the eventual repair of his spinal cord, damaged in a surfing accident when he was a teen-ager.

At issue are the master cells found in embryos that can generate all the other tissues of the body. Scientists believe if doctors could learn how to control stem cells, they possibly could cure diseases like Alzheimer's, diabetes, or Parkinson's, or even repair spinal cords.

Abortion opponents find it unacceptable because to harvest the stem cells requires the death of an embryo, which many regard as human life.

Since 1996, the government has banned federal funding of research that would harm, damage or destroy human embryos. But the Clinton administration decided in 1999 to allow federal money to pay for stem cell projects as long as the cells were extracted by researchers not receiving federal funds.

President Bush will soon decide whether to reverse the Clinton administration compromise.

Singer continues to have faith in a science that ``I'll never understand even if someone sits me down for a week.''

Scientists believe that embryonic stem cells, more flexible than those extracted from fully developed humans, could renew ailing organs or prevent ailments, once researchers study them enough to figure out what causes certain cells to become abnormal and cause a malady in the first place.

Joan Samuelson was a trial lawyer with a busy practice until Parkinson's disease hit in her 30s. The brain disorder caused her left hand to shake so badly in court that she'd sit on it to keep her tremors from influencing juries against her clients.

Samuelson, now 51, has taken regular doses of synthetic dopamine for a decade. She dreams of a day when stem cells could be developed into replacements for the failed neurons in her brain that no longer produce enough dopamine, a chemical that translates information into movement. Roughly 1 million Americans have Parkinson's' disease.

``What I need is brain repair,'' said Samuelson, of Healdsburg, Calif., who's now a full-time Parkinson's' activist. ``The medication is believed to accelerate cell deterioration. So you're making a bit of a deal with the devil.''

Samuelson and Singer generally disagree with assertions that an embryo -- a pencil dot-size clump of cells -- should have full individual rights and therefore be shielded from the research. But they say moral questions carry some weight and any decision on stem cell research deserves careful debate.

``I can't tell anyone that they're wrong for how they feel on this issue,'' said Singer.

Says Samuelson: ``I'm sick and desperate and in need of rescue, but I'm also an ethical person.''

-------- health

Company's Silence Countered Safety Fears About Asbestos

PROTECTING THE PRODUCT / A special report.
New York Times
July 9, 2001
By MICHAEL MOSS and ADRIANNE APPEL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/09/business/09GRAC.html?pagewanted=all

When asbestos was labeled a killer 30 years ago, one company moved to cash in.

W. R. Grace and other chemical makers had long been adding asbestos to their fireproofing sprays, because the silky-white fibers helped insulate steel. But as competitors ceased production on the news that those fibers could lodge in the lungs and cause cancer, Grace reported a "research breakthrough."

Grace said it had devised a "completely asbestos-free" fireproofing spray. "The health and environmental aspects," its news release announced, "are overpowering."

The financial aspects were certainly impressive. Before long, W. R. Grace & Company went from minor player to giant in the fireproofing business. For nearly two decades, the new formula was sprayed onto the skeletons of office buildings, schools and hotels across America.

Only one thing: Grace's new product was not completely asbestos-free. A little-known kind of asbestos, tremolite, laced the ore used in the spray. And while Grace knew this, for years it kept that knowledge largely hidden from workers who applied the fireproofing and clients who wanted their buildings asbestos-free, according to confidential company documents obtained by The New York Times.

This is not a replay of the familiar asbestos story, in which vast quantities of a "miracle product" were used to insulate a generation of buildings, only to be unmasked as a carcinogenic catastrophe. The story of Grace's fireproofing, with the brand name Monokote, is far more ambiguous, raising questions about how a corporation should act when there is deep concern, but no scientific certainty, about a product's safety.

Much less asbestos made its way into Grace's new spray than into its old product - less than 1 percent, compared with 12 percent, the company says. To Grace, the contamination was insignificant - like "gold in sea water," one former company official said. But many government scientists feared that asbestos might be unsafe at any level. Even small amounts like those in Monokote, they argued, should be outlawed.

Against that backdrop - and just when environmental awareness was becoming a potent force in public opinion - Grace pursued a strategy of silence. From 1970 until the late 1980's, even as it fought a series of other environmental battles, Grace maneuvered to keep its fireproofing business alive in the face of stiffening regulations and rising health concerns, internal company documents and interviews with current and former employees show.

When the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency proposed an outright asbestos ban in the early 1970's, Grace successfully lobbied for a threshold just high enough to keep Monokote on the market. When workplace-safety officials proposed limits that Monokote could not meet, Grace's arguments helped delay them for years. Then, Grace used Monokote's legality to justify calling it asbestos-free.

Grace declared bankruptcy in April, citing the costs of lawsuits involving products other than the new Monokote.

The company was brought to the brink of disclosing the asbestos content of Monokote more than two decades ago, in 1977. With builders and architects hearing ever-louder rumors of "a tremolite problem," Grace officials met secretly at company offices in Cambridge, Mass. There, documents show, they weighed the risks and stayed the course. While silence increased the danger of being sued, they calculated, disclosure could have meant the end of Monokote. So, they decided, customers who inquired if Monokote contained asbestos were to be told that it did not.

Over the years, documents show, Grace gave that answer in a variety of ways that stopped just short of absolute denial. Sometimes it said Monokote could "be used as a non- asbestos containing fireproofing material" and said laboratory tests had found no asbestos; other times, it said the amounts that were detected posed "no unreasonable health risk." But however Grace turned it, the message was the same: Monokote was effectively asbestos-free.

In the silence, workers using the reformulated Monokote say they stopped wearing the cumbersome respirators designed to block asbestos fibers. "With the asbestos-free, we wore paper masks," said Harry D. Starratt, a retired sprayer from Andover, Mass. "There was never supposed to be harm in it."

Even now, experts say, workers demolishing buildings fireproofed with the new Monokote typically would not use respirators, though their exposure is probably considerably lower than that of the workers who applied it.

Scientifically, the jury is still out. As with many carcinogens - including arsenic in drinking water, the subject of renewed debate in Washington - any danger from exposure to low levels of asbestos has neither been proved nor disproved.

Even so, there has been a growing belief among scientists that any amount poses a risk, and gradually, the government's labor-safety agency has lowered exposure limits. By current rules, Monokote at times would have shed triple the number of asbestos fibers allowed, according to Grace's records.

That level, federal researchers estimate, translates into more than 10 deaths for each 1,000 laborers who used the spray daily over their working careers. While as many as 40 people could have been exposed to the asbestos at any of tens of thousands of construction projects, those most at risk were the dozen or so who mixed and applied the spray. (The danger is minuscule for people who merely work in buildings containing the spray, scientists say.)

"A single exposure to a product that contains less than 1 percent may not necessarily cause a problem," said Dr. L. Christine Oliver, assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who has testified in lawsuits against asbestos companies. "But if these exposures continue over time, and they probably will if the individuals aren't warned that they contained asbestos, then there is a risk."

Grace defends the two versions of reformulated Monokote it sold in the 1970's and 1980's. The company says that it fully informed regulators of the contamination, and that the asbestos content always remained within legal limits. As for the workers who applied Monokote, the company argues that their cumulative exposure was not great enough to pose a danger. In the late 1980's, the company stopped using the tainted ore and produced a new Monokote that was truly asbestos-free.

"They were safe when they were manufactured and applied and remain safe today," a lawyer for the company, Thomas D. Yannucci, said of the previous Monokote versions. Grace, he added, "has never misrepresented the asbestos content."

While the Monokote story is just now coming to light, other Grace products containing tremolite have already become the focus of public concern. Homeowners have accused the company of covering up dangerous levels of tremolite in insulation, which Grace denies. Grace is also facing lawsuits from people who developed asbestos-related illnesses after working with the ore or living near company plants. In Libby, Mont., where Grace mined most of the ore, about 80 people have sued after becoming ill. Grace says it took steps to limit its workers' exposure.

For years, Grace had weathered litigation from the old-style fireproofing laden with asbestos. This spring, with the new court battles over tremolite and a plunging stock price, Grace filed for bankruptcy protection in hopes of forcing plaintiffs and banks alike to stand in line.

The Opportunity: Capitalizing on Growing Fear

Hardly anyone was worrying about asbestos in 1963 when Grace bought the Libby mine. It produced vermiculite, a handy material that lined pools, insulated attics and loosened garden soil.

Then researchers began making headlines with their growing consensus that asbestos could cause cancer, and by 1970, many cities began restricting its use.

In that climate of fear, Grace saw an opportunity for its reformulated Monokote, which used vermiculite and a cellulose fiber instead of added asbestos. "This is no time to be gentle, timid or really too diplomatic," Grace told its sales force. "You must move quickly."

Monokote did have downsides. The excess settled like powder on steel, was notoriously slippery and could clog the sprayers. But Grace had one overriding pitch: "As you are aware," a 1973 sales letter declared, "Zonolite Monokote types #4 and #5 do not contain asbestos."

About that time, Grace convinced the E.P.A. that the asbestos Monokote did contain was little enough. Grace said it needed as much as 1 percent asbestos to keep its sprayers flowing well, and that the danger of small amounts had not been proved, according to government records. Some in the building industry called the resulting 1 percent threshold "the Grace rule."

The E.P.A. measured asbestos by weight, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which protects workers, used what it felt was a better standard - the number of fibers released into the air. That is because even tiny amounts by weight could produce many fibers. At the time, OSHA's research branch wanted a limit of 100,000 fibers per cubic meter. A worker typically breathes between four and eight cubic meters of air in an eight-hour day.

But under pressure from Grace and other companies, the agency instead adopted a five-million-fiber limit and lowered it only gradually to the current level of 100,000. At each step, Grace would argue that it was spending millions to clean asbestos from its vermiculite but that the proposed level would either cost too much or be technically impossible.

Initially, Grace argued that there was no health risk in tremolite, whose fibers are shorter and stiffer than those of the common chrysotile asbestos. But the company itself was amassing evidence to the contrary. More than 40 percent of Grace's Montana miners were contracting asbestos-related diseases after 10 years of work, as were 28 percent of its processing workers, company memorandums show.

In 1976, Grace hired a researcher, William E. Smith, to inject hamsters with tremolite from Libby. One in 10 developed tumors, Grace documents show. Then, Dr. Smith suggested injecting a fresh group with smaller amounts, to test Grace's assertion that a safe level could be found. Grace rejected his proposal, interviews and documents show. "I guess they felt they had the answer," said Dr. Smith, now retired. "The material was carcinogenic."

Grace declined to comment on Dr. Smith's research.

But while Grace never showed that asbestos at some level was safe, government scientists could not pinpoint the level at which it began to cause harm. So the safety agency based its danger estimates - that 3.4 in 1,000 workers would die at the 100,000- fiber limit - on mathematical models that extrapolated from known risks at higher levels.

Those estimates had not changed when the safety agency finally adopted the 100,000-fiber limit in 1994. What had changed, former agency scientists say, was the financial equation: with asbestos virtually obsolete, the cost of compliance would no longer exceed the health benefits.

The Debate: Threat Depends on Who Is Testing

Just how much asbestos Monokote contained became a matter of who was measuring.

The raw vermiculite had as much as 26 percent, according to E.P.A. records, and Monokote was about one-third vermiculite ore. Grace has said that processing removed all but a trace. The company provided laboratory reports showing none or as little as 0.001 percent in Monokote.

Other Grace documents show higher amounts. For example, in 1973, a company research executive pegged the average at 0.2 to 0.5 percent and wrote that samples could go higher because the tremolite was distributed unevenly.

But Grace argued that those counts were deceiving, because much of the tremolite came not in fibers but in chunks, which it believed would not lodge perilously in the lungs. A former Grace scientist, Julie Yang, developed her own way of sorting out the fibers.

"If you look only from the top, it looks like a fiber," she said. But from another angle, what appeared to be a fiber might be the edge of a chunk, she said. Her counts were about half those of other labs, she recalls.

The debate over what constitutes a true fiber continues. At the time, Ms. Yang's methods drew objections from a laboratory co-worker, who protested to a superior, "As you can see by the very low counts, we would not be able to use it to compare ourselves to any outside party."

From time to time, Grace records show, independent laboratories measured as much as 5 percent asbestos. Grace disputed those findings, and while some laboratories stood firm, the company in 1983 forced asbestos experts at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine to recant their finding of 1 percent asbestos in Monokote at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. A television news broadcast of the incident reported that several other Monokote samples were asbestos-free.

When it came to testing the air that workers breathed, Grace had trouble meeting the proposed OSHA limit. In 1977, the only year of that decade cited in a testing summary provided by Grace, Monokote exceeded the 100,000-fiber level at four of five work sites, rising as high as 310,000.

While other company records indicate that levels may have gone even higher, Grace said any count should be viewed as a maximum, since glass and other elements could be mistaken for asbestos.

By the mid-1980's, fiber levels dropped below the proposed cap, as the company improved its methods of purifying the ore, the Grace testing summary shows.

The Concerns: Weighing Risks and Disclosure

By 1977, Monokote was America's leading fireproofing material. Grace estimates that it was used on 60 percent to 80 percent of the roughly 150,000 steel-frame structures built during the 1970's and 80's.

To Grace's leaders, though, that success seemed increasingly tenuous. They could not prove Monokote was safe. There were the health problems in Libby and concerns about the safety of other vermiculite products. And there were the whispering advertisements.

A competitor, the United States Mineral Products Company, had stayed in the fireproofing business by replacing asbestos with a mineral wool. Now it was running advertisements in a trade magazine asking, "Will your supplier certify his materials are absolutely free of asbestos?"

Grace called top executives together to tackle "the tremolite problem." Some of the confidential records of those meetings, turned up by lawyers suing Grace, were cited in an article on Grace's attic insulation last year in The Boston Globe.

"There was a great deal of contingency planning in case we were forced to shut down by regulatory authorities or due to our compliance problems," recalled a former Grace executive, Elwood S. Wood, who defended his role and the company.

In an 18-page strategy memorandum, he noted that labeling Monokote and other vermiculite products as containing asbestos would severely dampen sales. Then he looked at the other side of the equation.

"The risk of liability to customers is heightened by the decision not to label our products," he wrote. "Based on advice of corporate counsel, this risk is categorized as moderate. Moreover, it seems unlikely that bona fide cases of personal harm could be well documented considering the pattern of use and exposure levels of our customers."

So, according to company records and interviews with current and former officials, Grace hewed to its policy of nondisclosure, even as it began the search for fireproofing that did not use vermiculite.

Grace decided that it would advise the government of the contamination. It adopted a different stance for the public. For products made entirely of vermiculite, like the attic insulation, builders, laborers and consumers would be told about the tremolite only if they inquired. As for Monokote and other products partly made with vermiculite, employees were to respond that they were "non-asbestos products," documents show.

In one memorandum, a company official labeled the strategy the "Miranda statement," after the Supreme Court ruling requiring that suspects be advised of their rights. Only in this case, Grace was advising its sales crew to remain silent.

A Grace spokesman, William M. Corcoran, declined to comment directly on the strategy. Without specifying when the company began to do so, he said Grace had responded to customer requests by providing laboratory reports that found "trace or lesser amounts of asbestos in the product samples tested." He added, "Thus, the overriding fact remains that the asbestos content of those products is so minuscule that they cannot and do not pose any health risk to anyone." What Grace failed to report to its customers, though, were the tests that had found significantly higher asbestos levels.

Still, word was seeping out, sometimes through safety sheets warning buyers of the pure vermiculite about tremolite contamination. In 1980, the O. M. Scott & Sons Company was using the Libby vermiculite in fertilizer when a number of workers fell ill. The company insisted on switching to vermiculite that Grace mined in South Carolina, which apparently was uncontaminated by tremolite.

Grace itself considered using that ore for a cleaner Monokote when California proposed a strict no-asbestos rule, a company document shows. But the state backed off.

In 1986, the University of Virginia Medical Center stopped using Monokote on a construction project after learning that the asbestos content was "unexpectedly close" to federal limits, university officials said.

When it lost a Seattle contract that called for an asbestos-free spray, Grace did not press the issue. "If Grace pursued legal action in this case, our position that Monokote complies with no-asbestos specifications would certainly come into question," a company lawyer wrote in a confidential memorandum.

Another official wrote at the time, "Don't forget, we will win the war."

But Grace was fighting such battles monthly, former company officials said, and state and federal officials began pushing for disclosure of any amount of a harmful substance. In 1986, in what appears to be the first such disclosure, Grace mentioned tremolite in safety sheets sent to companies using Monokote.

A year later, Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, now one of the world's largest architecture firms, noticed the change and stopped using Monokote in its projects.

Donald O. Francke, a former vice president at the firm, remembers the sense of betrayal. "When Grace argued that by 'none' it meant 'only a little,' we said to them, 'If that's what you really meant, that's what you should have said,' " he recalled.

In the early 1990's, full disclosure of contaminants became the industry standard. Today, as part of a broad look at the hazards of fibers, the E.P.A. is planning to re-examine its 1 percent threshold for asbestos.

The ramifications of Grace's legal strategy remain to be seen. Grace says it knows of no asbestos-related lawsuits in connection with the reformulated versions of Monokote. Building owners interviewed for this article were generally unaware of the tremolite issue.

As for the workers, many like Harry Starratt brought legal claims, saying that their lungs had been damaged by the old Monokote spray. Until speaking with a reporter, Mr. Starratt did not even know that the new Monokote also had some asbestos, and he has no way of knowing if it compounded his health problems.

Mark H. White had a special reason to wear only a paper mask on the job in 1975. His father, Kevin White, then Boston's mayor, had banned asbestos sprays. "It burns me that that's the way this company acted," Mark White said.

His risk is probably tiny, since he worked construction for just one summer. But many others used Monokote for years. And since asbestos- related disease takes upwards of 40 years to develop, the clock is still ticking for them, the ones who worked construction only after they thought asbestos was history.

-------- police / prisoners

102 Inmates Escape Brazil Prison

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Brazil-Prison-Break.html

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- More than 100 inmates escaped from Latin America's largest prison complex by tunneling through a wall and into the city's sewer system, officials said Monday.

The inmates began escaping though a yard-long tunnel hole they had dug through the wall of Carandiru prison at about 10:00 a.m. Sunday, prison officials said officials.

The escape was discovered when a guard on top of the prison wall noticed an inmate disappearing into the hole and fired three warning shots.

``People living in the neighborhood were calling saying they saw men climbing out of manhole covers,'' said a Sao Paulo police officer who declined to be identified. So far, 35 of the escaped convicts have been recaptured.

The majority of the escaped convicts were members of the First Capital Command, a organized crime group working within Brazil's prison system.

Last February, the group announced it's existence with a wave of simultaneous uprisings at 28 prisons and jail houses across Sao Paulo state. At Carandiru, they took more than 7,000 visitors hostage, before releasing them unharmed.

Sunday's escape was the largest in the troubled prison's history. The previous record was on May 9, when 52 prisoners escaped, also though a tunnel that opened into the sewer system.

Violence is a constant in the grossly overcrowded Carandiru complex, which was built for 3,200 inmates, but now holds close to 8,000.

Carandiru is notorious throughout Brazil for the 1992 massacre where police gunned down 102 inmates to quell an uprising.

Sao Paulo State Gov. Geraldo Alckmin said earlier this year that he intended to close Carindiru before the end of next year, but this would depend on the completion of new facilities.

-------- activists

ROBERT KENNEDY JR. JAILED FOR VIEQUES PROTEST

July 9, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2001/2001L-07-09-09.html

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for trespassing during an April protest against U.S. Navy bombing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Kennedy, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and founder of Riverkeeper, an organization dedicated to revitalizing the Hudson River in New York, traveled to Vieques to participate in protests against the Navy's training exercises on the island.

The exercises are blamed for littering the Navy owned portion of Vieques with bomb fragments and unexploded ordinance, and destroying coral reefs in coastal waters. Training was halted in April 1999 after a stray bomb fired by an F-16 fighter killed base security guard David Sanes Rodriquez and injured four other Puerto Ricans.

After an agreement was negotiated between former President Bill Clinton and former Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Rossello to hold a referendum regarding whether the training could continue, the Navy resumed exercises on Vieques this spring, though without using live ammunition.

Kennedy was among a group of protesters, many from New York State, who trespassed on Navy land in April as part of a demonstration of support for Puerto Rico's opposition to the ongoing exercises. He was sentenced to spend 30 days in jail, as were New York labor leader Dennis Rivera and five other protesters.

Norma Burgos, a senator in the Puerto Rican legislature, was sentenced to serve 60 days after arguing to the court that the Navy, not the protesters, should be put on trial.

Vieques lies about seven miles southeast of the eastern end of Puerto Rico and is about 20 miles long and four miles wide at its widest point. The U.S. Navy purchased about 22,000 of the island's 33,000 acres for $1.5 million during the 1940s.

----

Iran Police Stop Protests on Raid Anniversary

New York Times
July 9, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-st.html

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Security forces arrested about a dozen people in the Iranian capital Tehran on Monday to enforce a ban on demonstrations on the second anniversary of a violent police raid on a university hostel.

Riot police and hardline Islamic militia were out in force outside Tehran University, a hotbed of student protests, to prevent any rallies from taking place.

Witnesses saw militiamen arrest about a dozen people to disperse a crowd of curious bystanders and prevent any rally.

Militiamen, apparently fearing demonstrators would gather if they left, finally dispersed in the evening after riot police assured them on loudspeakers that no student demonstration would be allowed.

Authorities had banned rallies after last year's protest led to clashes between students and militiamen.

The 1999 raid followed an attempt by the police and vigilantes to suppress a pro-democracy student demonstration. One person was killed and dozens were injured.

The pro-reform Office to Consolidate Unity (OCU), Iran's largest student group, held a quiet campus gathering earlier on Monday to mark the event which led to some of the worst unrest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Several hundred students attended the peaceful meeting, held in the same dormitory where the attack took place, and heard reformist politicians denounce right-wing violence.

More radical students had called for a rally despite the official ban.

The anniversary has prompted new calls by student leaders and reformist politicians for ``justice'' and an end to right-wing violence.

Hardline police officers initially implicated in the dormitory attack have largely been exonerated and vigilantes who severely beat up the students are roaming free.

The OCU has set up a photo exhibition of the victims of the attack in Tehran University as part of a ``no to violence'' campaign.

``Our message is to negate violence and all other irrational behavior,'' newspapers quoted student leader Mehdi Tabatabai as saying.

The conservative daily Tehran Times joined reformist voices in seeking justice for the victims of the raid.

``Two years on, students are left humiliated and betrayed,'' it said. ``A once lively student movement is just a memory now.''

Hundreds of students were arrested during the unrest in Tehran and the northwestern city of Tabriz.

At least six are still serving long sentences in prison. Four were initially given the death penalty but the sentences were later commuted.

``The situation is very ironic,'' said a political analyst who asked not to be named. ``The police and vigilantes are walking free while the students, who were beaten up, have been convicted as counter-revolutionaries.''


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