------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Indecent Explosives
Waste shipment from German n-plants postponed
German Cabinet to pass nuclear phaseout law in September
Kashmir Conflict Handicaps Pakistan
Kashmir Controversy Shadows Talks
Turkey welcomes joint missile-defense offer
Pentagon to Seek Money for Testing Missile Defense
Anyone for missiles?
U.S. Plans Missile Defense Test Sites in Alaska
DOE official says Hanford not taking enough wastes
State set to hit DOE with weekly fine
Crucial test for Bush
Bill focuses on nuclear waste fund
N-fuel process, cleanup stir activists

MILITARY
Croatians Protest Move to Turn In War Crimes Suspects
Colombia Military Applauds Report
Anti-Coca Fumigation Takes Toll in Border Area
Punishment was "so harsh" that it was unconstitutional
U.S. Policy Stance Surprises Iran
Israelis Demolish Palestinian Buildings
Israeli Army's Demolition Tactics Spark Violence
Jamaican Leader Deploys Army in Capital
NATO reluctance holding up arrests of Karadzic and Mladic
U.S. Troops Offered for Macedonia
'Cleansing' Operation in Chechnya Blasted by Moscow-Installed Chief
U.S. Fights U.N. Accord To Control Small Arms
U.S. rebukes U.N. gun control proposals
Patriot Intercepts, Destroys Jet
Policy by Obituary
Norton Spurs House Probe Of Cleanup Of Chemicals
3 Die in Marine Helicopter Crash
Military Leaders Back Base Closings
Panel: Pentagon System Needs Changes
Senate OKs $6.5B Spending Measure

OTHER
MINNESOTA ORDERS UTILITIES TO USE RENEWABLE ENERGY
Rosy outlook for wind power as new markets emerge
Ark. Court Takes Death Row Stance
Judge Rejects a Plea to Shut a Power Plant
Group Warns on Superfund Limits
Superfund Cleanup Effort Shows Results, Study Reports
EPA Hears 'Clean Air' Opinions
Green groups blocking help for poor nations - UN
Scientist's Stem Cell Work Creates Uproar
National Cancer Institute to Buy Access to Rival's Genome Data
Rights Group Lists Abuses by Guerrillas in Colombia
Mexico Must Wipe Out Widespread Torture - Amnesty
Fox Urged to Uphold Pledge on Justice Reforms
Poland Tries to Atone for Wartime Slaughter of Jews
I.M.F. Warning on Asian Recovery
Turkey Seizes Banks to Help Placate IMF, Win Cash
The Declining Terrorist Threat
Second Embassy Bomber to Be Sentenced to Life in Prison

ACTIVISTS
D.C. Braces For IMF Protests This Fall
Actor Redford slams Bush on the environment
Tibet Activists Oppose Beijing Bid in Moscow


-------- NUCLEAR

Indecent Explosives
Nuclear Weapons States, Who They Are And How Many Weapons Each Possesses

by Carah Ong
Revised January 2001; retrieved July 10, 2001
http://www.abolition2000.org/issues/indecent-explosives.html

Estimates of the global nuclear stockpile range from a low of 24,700 to a high of 33,307 suspected nuclear weapons. Below is a country by country breakdown of nuclear stockpiles. Estimated totals for US and Russia warheads include those in active, operational forces as well as retired, non-deployed warheads awaiting dismantlement and weapons in reserve.

Declared Nuclear Weapons States (5)

China: China has 290 suspected strategic nuclear weapons, with an emphasis on land-based missiles, and 120 non-strategic nuclear weapons for a suspected total of 400-410 nuclear weapons. China currently has only one working ballistic missile submarine. Information about China's tactical nuclear weapons is limited and there is no official evidence of their existence.

France: France has an estimated total of 400-482 strategic nuclear weapons. The French arsenal is currently undergoing a widespread modernization, including its sea-based deterrent force. In January 2000, France deployed a second Triomphant class submarine and a third is expected to enter into service in 2001. France also plans to deploy two more by 2007. Each submarine carries 16 missiles with 6 nuclear warheads on each.

Russia: Russia has 6,000 suspected strategic nuclear weapons and between 7,000 and 15,000 suspected non-strategic nuclear weapons for a suspected total of some 13,000-20,000 nuclear weapons. Although Russia has made dramatic reductions since the end of the Cold War, some nuclear modernization continues. In 2000, the Russian Duma signed and ratified START II. However, its entrance into force is dependent on US plans to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) system. Also, President Vladimir Putin made an offer to US President Bill Clinton to reduce strategic weapons to 1,000-1,500 each, a number below proposed START III levels of 2,000-2,500. Russia maintains some 2,000-2,500 nuclear weapons on high-alert status, ready to launch at a moment's notice.

United Kingdom: The United Kingdom's nuclear capability has been concentrated on its Trident submarine fleet under the command of the British Royal Navy. The submarines are powered by nuclear reactors and the missiles in the UK Trident submarines are leased from the US. British nuclear weapons are incorporated into NATO strategic planning and are dependent on targeting information from the US. According to the UK Strategic Defense Review, there is always "one submarine on patrol at a time, carrying a reduced load of 48 warheads." There are 58 missiles in service and a "stockpile of less than 200 operationally available warheads." Each warhead has an explosive yield of 100 kilotons, which is approximately 5 times the destructive power of the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

United States: The United States has 7,300 suspected strategic nuclear weapons and between 4,700 and 11,700 suspected non-strategic nuclear weapons for a suspected total of 10,500-12,000 nuclear weapons. The US is the only country to station land-based nuclear weapons outside of its borders. Nuclear modernization continues in the US with scheduled modifications on B-2's and sea-launched ballistic missiles. The US also has plans to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) system, despite warnings from Russia, China and even some allies that such a system will initiate a new arms race. Like Russia, the US also maintains some 2,000-2,500 nuclear weapons on "hair-trigger" alert, ready to launch at a moment's notice. Although the Department of Defense (DoD) claims that these weapons are not targeted at any specific country, the missiles can be assigned a target on short notice.

Defacto Nuclear Weapons States (3)

India: India has a suspected stockpile of separated weapons-grade plutonium to produce at least 85 to 90 weapons. It also has a ballistic missile submarine, "Sagarika," under development with aid from Russia.

Israel: Israel has enough estimated weapons-grade fissile material to produce 100 suspected nuclear weapons. Israel also has three Dolphin class submarines and is reportedly developing submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) capability.

Pakistan: Pakistan has a suspected capability of between 15 and 25 nuclear weapons.

Potential Nuclear Weapons States

Iran: Iran is suspected to be actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but as of yet is not considered to have nuclear weapons capability.

Iraq: Iraq is suspected to be actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but as of yet is not considered to have nuclear weapons capability.

Libya: Libya has a theoretical capability of delivering nuclear weapons in the form of Scud and FROG missiles and missiles delivered by medium-range Tu-22 bombers.

North Korea: According to US, Chinese and Russian intelligence sources, North Korea has as many as 10 operational nuclear warheads for its missiles and two nuclear devices that can be carried by truck, boat or aircraft.

The remaining countries in the world have NO nuclear weapons. There are 433 nuclear reactors worldwide. There are 44 countries with nuclear reactors. Any country with a nuclear reactor is considered to have the capability to produce nuclear weapons. Further information on nuclear stockpiles available at:

Center for Defense Information http://www.cdi.org Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament UK http://www.cnduk.org Carnegie Endowment for International Peace http://www.ceip.org US Brookings Institute http://www.brook.edu The Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists http://www.bullatomsci.org

-------- germany

Waste shipment from German n-plants postponed

GERMANY: July 10, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11483

HAMBURG - The transport of nuclear waste from two north German reactors for reprocessing in La Hague, France that was due to start in the early hours of Tuesday morning has been postponed, a police statement said yesterday.

A spokesman for the Hamburg branch of the north German border police (BGS) said the shipment (of five containers) had been called off.

The BGS spokesman gave neither a reason for the cancelled shipment nor a new timeframe.

The environmental protection group Greenpeace said the waste transport had likely been postponed because of the funeral of Hannelore Kohl, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's wife, who committed suicide last week.

"For the security of the sad event, police from many states have probably been brought together in Rhineland Pfalz," a Greenpeace spokeswoman said.

A funeral is planned for Kohl's wife at the cathedral in Speyer.

After a break of several years, nuclear waste shipments from Germany to France resumed last April.Further shipments have been made to the waste processing plant at Sellafield in north-west England.

The transport was made possible again when at the end of March Germany broke a four-year long interruption on the return of nuclear waste from La Hague to the temporary storage site in Gorleben, Germany.

Germany plans to phase out nuclear power by around 2020.

----

German Cabinet to pass nuclear phaseout law in September

GERMANY: July 10, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11487

BERLIN - The German Cabinet is likely to pass in September the so-called Atom Consensus - the law to decomission nuclear energy - which it will then pass on to Parliament, the German Environment MInistry said in a statement yesterday.

Germany plans to phase out nuclear power by around 2020.

A hearing is planned for August 6 between industry associations and experts, the ministry said, adding that the nuclear consensus had been sent to the state governments, associations and experts for comment.

The Government and energy suppliers formally signed the nuclear consensus agreement four weeks ago, according to which the operational life of Germany's 19 nuclear power plants has been limited to around 32 years.

The consensus also states that shipments of nuclear waste for reprocessing in France and Britain should end at the latest by July 1 2005.

The waste should then be restricted to storage at temporary sites until a central end-storage facility has been built.

The consensus increases the cost of accident cover to be paid by nuclear energy suppliers almost 10-fold to 2.5 billion euros.

The Environment Ministry said the nuclear consensus could be read on its homepage (http://bmu.de).

-------- india / pakistan

Kashmir Conflict Handicaps Pakistan

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Pakistan-View.html?searchpv=aponline

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- One compelling reason for President Pervez Musharraf to resolve the dispute over Kashmir is that the conflict has aggravated some of Pakistan's biggest problems.

Since Pakistan was carved out of India after British rule ended in 1947, Kashmir has ignited two of three wars between the foes and spurred a costly arms race that has turned the two desperately poor nations into nuclear powers.

In Pakistan, where most of the 140 million people are impoverished, about a quarter of the annual budget goes to defense, sapping resources that could go to economic improvement, education and social welfare.

The $2 billion annual defense spending also has guaranteed the powerful position of the military -- for more than half its 54-year history Pakistan has been ruled by the army. The military role in politics would seem to make Musharraf, a decorated general, an unlikely peacemaker.

But a Kashmir solution could help him achieve the goals he set when he came to power in a 1999 coup -- reviving the economy and fashioning a real democracy from the country's corrupt political system.

Musharraf, who is trusted by his military peers, also has greater authority to negotiate over Kashmir than a civilian government and has less to fear from an army backlash.

The Pakistani leader said in a recent interview that the country's first nuclear test in 1998 -- shortly after India exploded its second nuclear test -- added a new dimension to the conflict.

Having the bomb ``certainly puts a certain seriousness on both sides,'' Musharraf said. ``One ought to consider this issue of our being nuclear very seriously.''

While any quick resolution of the Kashmir dispute is improbable, the sides could agree on ways to reduce tensions and boost trade.

It could be a step toward Musharraf's promise of economic growth -- and a step toward his being remembered as a peacemaker, rather than as yet another military dictator.

--------

Kashmir Controversy Shadows Talks

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-India-Pakistan.html?searchpv=aponline

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Pakistan and India have played down high expectations for the upcoming summit on the Kashmir Valley -- over which the two nations have twice gone to war -- but their leaders have enormous personal stakes in the encounter.

Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup and recently named himself president, needs to establish credibility as a statesman. His rule has pushed Pakistan more into economic and political isolation, even as India has risen in the global marketplace and secured strategic ties to the West.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in poor health and near the end of a long political career, could seal his place in history if he becomes the first Indian leader to embark on a lasting peace with its longtime foe.

The two leaders begin their meeting with official ceremonies, a private visit and a state banquet Saturday in New Delhi. On Sunday, they depart for Agra where -- with the Taj Mahal as a backdrop -- they'll hold formal talks. After another session Monday morning, Musharraf will visit an Islamic shrine in Ajmer in India's Rajasthan state before heading back to Islamabad.

They have much to accomplish in those three days.

``Their first goal is to have the appearance of a successful meeting, for both domestic and foreign policy reasons,'' said Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Both countries know that successful talks could be the last hurdle to the lifting of American and Japanese economic sanctions, in place since the two neighbors launched rival nuclear tests three years ago.

``Personally, this could be Vajpayee's last chance for a breakthrough and a historical accomplishment -- or at least the beginning of one -- and Musharraf badly needs the credibility as president,'' said Cohen, a former State Department official and presidential adviser on South Asia.

While both governments have declared the summit agenda to be private, Vajpayee has said Kashmir will be discussed and Musharraf has said it will be the top issue.

``The core issue is Kashmir, and we ought to set a definite direction for its solution and maybe a time frame toward achieving it,'' Musharraf told The Associated Press and Associated Press Television News in a recent interview.

``If there is sincerity on both sides, one can achieve a result in under one year,'' he added. ``We must squarely address the Kashmir issue ... because it will unlock all other problems.''

The other issues likely to be discussed could include an Iran-India natural gas pipeline that must pass through Pakistan; measures to reduce the risks of nuclear war; Afghanistan and terrorism in the region; improved trade and the lowering of tariffs; and the resumption of cricket matches between the two countries.

Still, Kashmir will rule the summit.

Though it is unlikely that New Delhi or Islamabad will budge from their positions on Kashmir -- both claim the entire province -- they could take steps to mitigate the harsh conditions for 12 million Kashmiris and some half-million Indian and Pakistani security forces posted in the region.

A cease-fire line known as the Line of Control, drawn after the last war between the two countries in 1971, now splits the Kashmir province: two-thirds rests with India, the remainder with Pakistan.

Since 1989, Islamic militants have fought for a merger with Pakistan or independence. Some 30,000 people have been killed, according to the Indian government, though human rights activists put the number at twice that.

India accuses Pakistan of promoting cross-border terrorism by supporting the militants. Islamabad claims it only provides moral and diplomatic support to the Islamic guerrillas who train in Pakistan.

Defense and political analysts believe that some concessions on Kashmir will be made, as well as a time frame decided for further talks. They believe the leaders will call for renewed restraint in Kashmir, an agreement to reduce the flow of weapons and militants from Pakistan, and establishment of a commission to prepare for further talks.

``India will not do anything to encourage separatism, but autonomy within an `Indian Kashmir' should be explored in future meetings and negotiations,'' said Cohen.

Pakistan and Kashmiris have demanded that India recognize a 1948 U.N. resolution granting their right to a vote on whether to remain in India, join Pakistan or be independent.

Others, such as the chief minister of Jammu-Kashmir state, want to turn the current Line of Control into an international border and consider some autonomy for Kashmir within the framework of the Indian constitution.

The nuclear tests conducted by both countries in May 1998 also gives impetus to their talks.

The nuclear buildup and increasingly violence in Kashmir led former President Clinton to call South Asia the most dangerous place on earth, and both India and Pakistan would score points with the West by minimizing the nuclear threat.

``It's attractive to them at this point because it's one of those things that looks good to the Western community,'' said Kanti Bajpai, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He said he expects the leaders to at least announce a nuclear hot line.

``Nuclear confidence building is easy and non-controversial, compared with Kashmir,'' said Cohen. ``But don't expect anything dramatic. Both are still contemplating the size and shape of their arsenals.''

-------- missile defense

Turkey welcomes joint missile-defense offer

By Arieh O'Sullivan,
July 10, 2001
Jewrusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/07/10/News/News.30083.html

ANKARA - Faced with a growing Iranian missile threat, Turkish defense officials have welcomed an Israeli offer to help set up a joint missile-defense umbrella employing the Arrow anti-ballistic system.

In a one-day visit to Turkey yesterday, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said it was agreed to seek US approval to sell the Arrow anti-ballistic rockets and the powerful Green Pine radar system to Turkey. The Turks said they were keen on the idea, Israeli defense sources said.

Israeli and Turkish officials have been discussing the matter for months, but it was only publicized yesterday.

The missile shield was just one of a number of breakthroughs for lucrative defense deals the visit managed to achieve.

The most promising of these is an offer to upgrade 170 Turkish M-60 tanks and co-production of the advanced Gil anti-tank rocket, defense officials said.

Israel also said that the offers to sell Turkey a spy satellite as well as attack helicopters were resurrected after France and the United States blocked the transfer of military knowhow due to Turkey's alleged human rights abuses.

"The purpose of this visit is mainly to strengthen the strategic ties between both countries and to encourage joint projects between the defense establishments," Ben-Eliezer said.

The defense minister added that land forces from both Israel and Turkey would soon hold joint maneuvers.

This follows three years of joint naval maneuvers and intensive joint exercises between the two air forces.

"The air forces train together, the navies train together, and I hope that soon the land forces will also train together. This strategic cooperation is coming to life," Ben-Eliezer said.

Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz is scheduled to pay a long overdue visit to Turkey on July 26. Defense ties have become so strong that the IDF recently raised the number of military attaches from one to three.

As Israel's second-most important strategic ally after the United States, Ben-Eliezer said he told his Turkish counterparts that Israel expects Iran to get hold of nuclear weapons in 2005, and Teheran has recently completed successful tests for the 1,300-km range Shihab 3 surface-to-surface missile.

"Just imagine that a nuclear weapon would be in the hands of what we call fundamentalist elements that will endanger not only Israel but in my opinion the whole of the Middle East and definitely the free world," Ben-Eliezer told reporters after his meeting with Turkey's powerful chief of staff, Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu.

Israel wants Turkey to purchase and deploy the Green Pine radar, the radar from the Arrow anti-ballistic missile defense system, against the Iranian threat.

But Turkey is undergoing a severe financial crisis and the lucrative multi-billion dollar defense deals that Israel had hoped to cash in on now appear frozen.

In fact, the purpose of former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak's trip here last August was to get negotiations back on track. But 11 months later, nothing has been decided and Israeli defense sources said that the Turkish military has not even earmarked funds for a theater missile defense system.

Still, Turkish Defense Ministry Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said the visit by Ben-Eliezer was a "stimulating point in our relations." The Turkish defense minister said the meeting yesterday "would bring a momentum to our bilateral and military relations."

Turkish officials also assured Israel that its firms had not been eliminated from at least four major tenders potentially worth over $4 billion.

The major deal is one by Israel to upgrade 170 Turkish M-60 tanks in a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Israel is in competition with the US-based General Dynamics. Later this week, a delegation of Israeli experts on the tank upgrade will be coming to Turkey to talk price.

A second offer made by Israel was to jointly develop and produce the Gil anti-tank rocket. In a bid to sweeten its offers, Israel has proposed to Ankara that they then sell the Gil to a third country, senior Israeli defense officials said.

Another project resurrected during Ben-Eliezer's visit was the military intelligence satellite based on the Israeli Ofek 3.

France won the bidding on that deal last year, but Turkey canceled that agreement in retaliation for France's accusations that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenians. Israel Aircraft Industries is expected to resubmit its offer, worth some $270 million, when the tender is reopened.

The final deal involves a joint venture with Russia to sell Turkey 145 attack helicopters in a deal worth about $1.5 billion. Turkey had already announced it chose the US-based Bell firm, but has kept the Russian-Israeli consortium as the second option should Congress refuse the transfer of technology licenses to Turkey. There are indications that this may happen.

"I am not the man who came to sign deals now," Ben-Eliezer said.

But in closed-door meetings, the defense minister, accompanied by top defense officials, reviewed the $1 billion in defense deals already made with Turkey and went into details over the items on the agenda now.

"Having this giant country behind us not only as our friends, but as a strategic supporter is a great asset," Ben-Eliezer said.

----

Pentagon to Seek Money for Testing Missile Defense

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/politics/10MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, July 9 - The Pentagon is preparing to ask Congress for money to build a missile defense test site in Alaska that could also become the command center for a working antimissile system as early as 2004, military officials said.

If it becomes operational, the site will be a clear violation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which allows some testing of antimissile technology but forbids deployment of a shield against long-range missiles in any state except North Dakota.

Despite that, the proposal has won qualified support from some influential arms control advocates and missile defense skeptics, suggesting that it could blunt Democratic opposition in Congress to President Bush's missile defense plans.

John B. Rhinelander, a lawyer who advised ABM negotiators in 1972 and is a leading arms control advocate, said in an interview that the new Pentagon proposal was so limited in scope that the Russians were not likely to worry that it could effectively counter their nuclear force of about 6,000 weapons. The Pentagon plan calls for installing 10 or fewer interceptors at Fort Greely, near Fairbanks.

As a result, Mr. Rhinelander argued, the Russians may be willing to amend the ABM treaty to allow deployment of such a small system even as close to their borders as Alaska. That would allow the Bush administration to claim victory while keeping the current arms control system largely intact.

"I think this is a more ingenious plan, and one that does less violation to the treaty, than anything I can think of," Mr. Rhinelander said. "Ten launchers is peanuts. The Russians will object initially, but hopefully they will accept this concept. And we will have this behind us. Basically the treaty will be preserved, with this one wrinkle."

But many other arms control advocates have attacked the proposal as an effort by the administration to deploy a missile defense system quickly under the guise of improving testing. Many Democrats have urged the Pentagon to conduct more realistic tests on antimissile technology, while conservative Republicans have demanded immediate deployment of a rudimentary system.

"I think they are trying to trap us in our own rhetoric," an aide to one Democratic senator said.

Joseph Cirincione, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "I think it's a transparent ploy to abrogate the treaty. There is no compelling reason to put a test site in Alaska."

Under the Bush plan, which has been outlined in briefings to reporters and Congressional aides but not yet detailed in budget documents, the Pentagon would build missile test sites on Kodiak Island, off Alaska's southern coast, and at Fort Greely in central Alaska. The Wall Street Journal reported on the plan today.

The plan calls for using launch sites on Kodiak to fire target missiles toward the continental United States and interceptors to shoot down test missiles coming toward Alaska from either California or Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. Those flight tests would more realistically simulate the speed and trajectory of weapons launched from, say, North Korea, than do current tests, in which missiles are launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California toward Kwajalein, Pentagon officials said. The next flight test between Vandenberg and Kwajalein is scheduled for Saturday night.

In a more controversial element of the plan, the Pentagon would also build silos and missile storage facilities for about five interceptors at Fort Greely, which military planners view as the likely base for a system of ground-launched interceptors capable of defending the nation. Pentagon officials say Fort Greely would initially be used as simply a storage site and command center for launching test missiles from Kodiak.

But if development of antimissile technology proceeded on schedule, the Bush administration would consider declaring Fort Greely a working missile defense system as early as 2004, if there was credible evidence of a missile threat to the United States, Pentagon officials said.

"If you face an emergency and had some confidence in these interceptors, then they could be used as an emergency missile defense," said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

The Pentagon is also expanding testing on other missile defense technologies, including a laser that would be mounted on the nose of a Boeing 747 and interceptors that could be launched from Navy destroyers. If those technologies developed quickly, they also might be put into operation in the next four to five years, Colonel Lehner said.

The Pentagon is still drawing up the detailed budget documents that will spell out how much money it needs to start work on the Alaska sites. The Bush administration is seeking to increase spending on missile defense by 57 percent, to $8.3 billion, mostly for research and development.

Pentagon officials said the Defense Department might ask Congress for permission to begin work soon, to take advantage of the final weeks of Alaska's short construction season. Such work would probably be limited to cutting trees and grading landscape, the officials said.

Some arms control advocates contend that under the ABM Treaty, the United States must seek Russian approval to build new test sites. They also assert that any work on such test sites will violate the treaty if the sites are intended to become part of a working missile defense system.

But some experts say that the treaty is not clear on those issues, meaning disputes are likely to rage no matter what the administration does.

"It is a question that doesn't have an answer," said Amy Woolf, a defense specialist for the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency of Congress, when she was asked if building a test site at Fort Greely would violate the treaty.

"Whatever we say, the Russians are likely to disagree with," Ms. Woolf added. "It's a question of how you want to handle the political fallout from that."

Some powerful Democrats, including Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have said they will oppose any defense appropriations that might violate the ABM Treaty. Mr. Levin's office said today that he had not received enough information about the Alaska proposal to know whether it would violate the treaty.

In a sharp exchange during a committee hearing last month, Mr. Levin repeatedly asked Mr. Rumsfeld whether any action in the 2002 budget might violate the treaty. Mr. Rumsfeld initially said no, but then qualified his answer.

"One or more of the activities may - eventually will, the good Lord willing - run up against the treaty and be a violation," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

"Before that happens," he continued, "we would have been in discussions with the Russians. And we fully intend that we would have fashioned some sort of a framework to move beyond the treaty."

Missile Test Is 1 for 2

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M., July 9 (AP) - The Pentagon reported partial success today in a test of the Patriot missile system, with one of its interceptors destroying a remote-controlled F-4 fighter plane that was using radar-jamming signals, while a second Patriot failed to hit an incoming missile.

The F-4 test was the first time the Army had fired its latest-generation Patriot, the Pac-3, 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.

----

Anyone for missiles?

EDITORIAL •
July 10, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010710-77709544.htm

Within days of last month's Russian-American summit in Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin held an extraordinary, nearly three-hour news conference in Moscow with American correspondents. Reminiscent of the inevitable conclusions that his two predecessors had eventually adopted, Mr. Putin made a rather startling statement. Referring to an interview the previous day in which U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made it explicitly clear that the Bush administration would pursue national missile defense (NMD) with or without Russia's cooperation or approval, Mr. Putin reacted thusly: "When we hear that the programs would go with us or without us, well, we cannot force anyone to do the things we would like them to," the former Soviet KGB colonel acknowledged, adding, "We offer our cooperation. We offer to work jointly. If there is no need that such joint work is needed, well, suit yourself."

Suit yourself? In effect, Mr. Putin has finally publicly acknowledged his predicament. Facing an American president determined to test the limits of missile defense, Mr. Putin has admitted -- no doubt, ever so reluctantly and bitterly -- that Russia lacks any veto power whatsoever. Notwithstanding the horrible social conditions he confronts, Mr. Putin desperately seeks to cling to the one thing -- intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying multiple, independently targetable warheads -- that he mistakenly believes will confer superpower status upon his otherwise decrepit nation. Unable to veto America's pursuit of national missile defense, Mr. Putin is now attempting to bluff the United States into abandoning the promising future of NMD. At his news conference, he threatened to abandon the START II treaty, which would eventually ban intercontinental missiles with multiple warheads.

If Mr. Putin is half as bright as American press reports suggest he is, he surely must know that he is holding a losing hand. These missiles were an instrument of the Cold War. The Soviet Union's ballistic missiles carrying multiple warheads gained great currency because of their potential use as first-strike weapons designed to destroy their American counterparts in their silos. As a matter of fact, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called Mr. Putin's bluff when he sent Congress the revised blueprint for defense spending in fiscal 2002. Mr. Rumsfeld has proposed eliminating all 50 of America's Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles, which carry 10 first-strike warheads each, long before START II would require their destruction.

If Mr. Putin wants to spend his very scarce rubles expanding a missile force America's limited NMD would not threaten for at least 25 years, by his own estimate, and, indeed, would not even be designed to deter, well, let him. In the meantime, let us not hear anything about writing off Soviet-era debt or more loans from the U.S.-financed International Monetary Fund, even if the prices of natural gas and oil, which are the only commodities keeping the Russian economy afloat today, collapse, as they inevitably will one day. It is simply shocking, to say nothing of being utterly self-defeating, that the Putin regime would desperately cling to such an outdated notion of superpower status while every other institution and trend in Russia is in a state of accelerated destruction. Clearly, Mr. Putin's press notices are way off the mark. He can't be anywhere near half as bright as he is said to be.

----

U.S. Plans Missile Defense Test Sites in Alaska

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-mi.html?searchpv=reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Tuesday it was planning a ``much more robust'' missile-defense test program to be expanded to sites in Alaska.

The possible new test sites at Fort Greely and Kodiak Island in Alaska would be part of a vast Pacific ``test bed'' meant to allow for more realistic intercept tests, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, a Defense Department spokesman, said.

He ducked the question of whether any such Alaska sites, once operational, would violate the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, which allows some testing of anti-missile technology but bars providing a ``base'' for such a defense in the United States and the old Soviet Union.

Russia, China and many U.S. allies oppose any change in the ABM treaty on the grounds it could trigger a new arms race as countries rush to offset neutralized missile forces.

President Bush has said he wants to move beyond the treaty to cope with what he calls a growing threat of the ballistic missiles in the hands of unpredictable foes. His proposed 2002 defense budget submitted to Congress on June 27 seeks $8.3 billion for missile defense, a nearly 50 percent increase over the current budget.

Currently, the only integrated tests of interceptors designed to shoot down long-range missiles are launched from a U.S. test range in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

In the three flight tests so far, interceptors launched from Kwajalein have succeeded only once in smashing a dummy warhead-tipped Minuteman 2 booster fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

HITTING A BULLET WITH A BULLET

The next such $100 million integrated test -- often equated with hitting a bullet with a bullet -- was to take place Saturday night. It will feature a more realistic ``balloon'' decoy than the last test, on July 7, 2000, Quigley said.

Quigley denied critics' claims that the proposed opening of the Alaska test sites -- with funds being sought for the fiscal year starting October 1 -- was part of a Bush administration drive to deploy a rudimentary national missile defense quickly under the guise of improved testing.

``I think if the country needed it, you would certainly consider such an option as viable,'' he said, referring to the possible defensive use of the system even before developmental testing was wrapped up.

Quigley cited the case of an aircraft known as JSTARS, which was still under development and testing when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. ``And yet when the nation needed its capabilities during the Gulf War, it was pressed into service and did quite well,'' he said.

But the administration's motivation was not to be ``somehow sneaky or less than forthcoming here'' about its plans for deploying missile defenses, he said.

``We intend to conduct a much more robust test program and to develop the research and data and analysis that you need to test out different means of providing missile defense,'' he said.

Quigley said the Alaska test sites would clear the way for more ``challenging interception geometries'' than currently available from Kwajalein and Vandenberg Air Force base.

``Add a third point, to give me that triangle, and I have flexibility in my testing,'' he said.

Boeing Co is the lead system integrator for U.S. missile defense. TRW Inc builds the battle command, control and communications system. Raytheon Corp. builds the ''exoatmospheric kill vehicle'' and Lockheed Martin Corp. is prime contractor on the current booster system.

The project is estimated to cost as much $60 billion for the land-based leg of interceptors, radar stations and battle management stations.

The Bush administration has said it plans to build a ''multi-layered'' shield involving ground-, sea- and possibly space-based systems. It is also working on a laser that would be mounted on a Boeing 747 aircraft.

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

-------- washington

DOE official says Hanford not taking enough wastes

Tue, Jul 10, 2001
By John Stang
Tri-City Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/0710-2.html

In the past two years, Hanford and the Nevada Test Site have received only 48 percent of the federal low-level radioactive wastes that they could have handled, according to a recent federal report.

That means the Department of Energy needs to become more cost-efficient in routing those wastes to the two sites, said a DOE Inspector General's report released last week.

While Hanford and Nevada already receive low-level radioactive wastes from several DOE sites, both expect to see wastes from additional sites by late 2002.

However, the Inspector General's recommendations do not signal any major change in DOE's long-term plans, said a DOE official in Washington, D.C., who spoke on condition her name not be used.

In February 2000, DOE picked Hanford and Nevada as the permanent storage sites for its low-level radioactive wastes and most of its mixed wastes.

Low-level wastes are mildly contaminated items such as clothing, rubble, tools and chopped-up equipment. Mixed wastes are low-level wastes that also contain dangerous chemicals.

A state cannot regulate the flow of federal low-level wastes to DOE sites. But Washington has the authority to regulate the federal government's mixed wastes. Currently, Hanford accepts low-level wastes but not mixed wastes.

For more than a year, Washington has tried in vain to legally link the importation of federal low-level wastes with DOE's progress on building a much-delayed tank waste glassification plant at Hanford. The state still is researching the issue, said Sheryl Hutchison, spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology.

Meanwhile, DOE has said it will not add any sites to those sending wastes to Hanford until an environmental impact study is completed and a formal decision is made on its recommendations. A draft study is to be done by April 2002, with a final decision six months later. Permitting issues then will have to be addressed.

Nevada's permitting path is somewhat different, but the timetable likely will be similar to Hanford's, the DOE official said.

The recent Inspector General's report reviewed low-level wastes created at DOE sites nationwide and examined how efficiently they are handled.

The report concluded:

-- Hanford and Nevada are capable of disposing of 1.6 million cubic feet of low-level wastes a year. Those two sites handled 819,449 cubic feet in 1999 and 747,974 cubic feet in 2000 -- 48 percent of their capabilities.

-- Four DOE sites in Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois and Colorado are storing at least 2 million cubic feet of low-level wastes that are to go to Nevada or Hanford. And 918,000 cubic feet of the wastes have been sitting for five to 20 years. Some wastes are stored in older containers that are more likely to break or leak.

-- DOE has no master plan on how to budget for and ship low-level wastes from its other sites to Nevada and Hanford. Right now, individual DOE sites allocate money, store and ship wastes according to each location's needs without considering the overall picture.

-- Hanford and Nevada use different requirements to determine if another DOE facility can ship wastes to them.

The Inspector General's report recommended DOE assemble a nationwide master plan and use the same acceptance criteria at Hanford and Nevada. It also said DOE should fund both of the low-level waste burial sites directly instead of the two sites allocating their own money. This would ensure those disposal facilities are not overfunded or underfunded, the report said.

DOE is working on a plan to put the recommendations into action, but no timetable is set.

----

State set to hit DOE with weekly fine

Tue, Jul 10, 2001
By John Stang,
Tri-City Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/0710-1.html

The state plans to fine the Department of Energy, assuming it misses a July 31 deadline to begin construction on plants at Hanford to turn high-level radioactive wastes into glass.

How the state will levy the fine still is undecided, but Washington's Department of Ecology plans to penalize DOE for missing the Tri-Party Agreement deadline, said Sheryl Hutchison, an Ecology Department spokeswoman.

DOE declined to comment on the expected fine, saying it would be premature to do so.

Hanford's worst environmental problem is 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks. The Tri-Party Agreement, a legal pact governing Hanford's cleanup, requires DOE to start building plants by July 31 to covert those wastes into glass. The first wastes are supposed to be turned into glass by 2007.

DOE had hired BNFL Inc. to build the glassification plants but fired that company in June 2000 after its cost estimates skyrocketed from $6.9 billion to $15.2 billion. That termination and the six months needed to hire Bechtel National as BNFL's replacement guaranteed that the July 31 deadline will be missed.

DOE and Bechtel now hope to begin construction of the plants sometime between April and December 2002.

For the past several months, DOE has tried to convince the state to postpone the July 31 legal deadline. But the state refused because it wants to keep pressure on the federal agency.

Under the Tri-Party Agreement, the state can fine DOE up to $5,000 for the first week after a missed deadline, and up to $10,000 for each subsequent week until the problem is fixed.

That means DOE could face a potential maximum fine of $515,000 if the glassification project begins a year late.

The state also has long threatened to file a lawsuit against DOE if the glassification project stumbles behind schedule. But Hutchison said the state views a fine and the threatened lawsuit as separate issues.

The state is closely watching whether enough money is budgeted for the glassification project in the 2002 budget before deciding whether to file a lawsuit, Hutchison said.

-------- us nuc politics

[This needs a reply. mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com. et

Crucial test for Bush

Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
July 10, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010710-374117.htm

Saturday's New York Times reported that "President Bush has resolved to let the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) languish in the Senate, where its supporters concede they do not have the votes to revive it." If correct, this disclosure represents good news and bad news.

The good news is that, as president, George W. Bush is hewing to the same line he took with respect to the CTBT as a candidate for the White House: The treaty's permanent, "zero-yield" ban on all underground nuclear testing is unverifiable and incompatible with American security. A majority of the U.S. Senate reached the same conclusion in 1999 when it voted to reject ratification of President Clinton's test ban treaty the most stunning repudiation of an arms control accord in history.

The bad news is that, according to the Times, Mr. Bush has been persuaded by State Department lawyers that "a president cannot withdraw a treaty from the Senate once it has been presented for approval." They evidently assert that "Senate rules require a two-thirds vote to ratify the treaty . . . or to send the CTBT back to Mr. Bush for disposal."

This is ridiculous. The Senate has spoken on this treaty, with 17 more votes than the 34 needed to block ratification being cast against it. That should be a sufficient basis for Mr. Bush to serve notice that he considers the CTBT to be ineligible for further consideration and effectively -- if not, strictly speaking, mechanically -- withdrawn from the Senate's docket.

Unfortunately, this is not an academic point. Every Senate Democrat voted for the CTBT, a troubling testament to their caucus' discipline even at the expense of national security. All other things being equal, Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden may well be tempted to score political points with their base at Mr. Bush's expense by resuscitating the CTBT. Their calculation could be that, even if the votes are still not there for this defective accord, the Democratic Party can make inroads with moderates and independents if it can tag President Bush as recklessly enamored of nuclear weapons and a serial eviscerator of treaties (along with the Kyoto Protocol and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty).

The danger is that Mr. Bush will be further encouraged by such political maneuvering to translate one of his campaign pledges into worrisome presidential direction. During a major foreign policy address at the Citadel and subsequently, the then-Texas governor declared his willingness to make deep and unilateral reductions in U.S. nuclear forces.

During its first six months in office, the Bush administration has been actively considering how responsibly to implement that and related proposals. There seems little doubt the president will indeed shortly unveil a plan that goes well beyond elimination of the MX intercontinental ballistic missile and the reduction by one-third of the B-1 bomber force unveiled two weeks ago.

The trouble is that, the smaller the size of our nuclear arsenal, the more important it becomes that the remaining weapons are safe, reliable and effective as a deterrent. Those currently in the inventory are either at or approaching the end of their design life.

Unfortunately, we have no scientifically rigorous and certain way of ensuring the safety and viability of nuclear weapons without at least realistic, low-yield underground explosive tests. What is more, making long-overdue efforts to replace those weapons with nuclear devices appropriate to the 21st century (for example, capable of holding at risk deep-underground bunkers favored by the Third World dictators we most worry about deterring in the present era) will, moreover, require some developmental testing.

Thus, while the exact size and strategic implications of the Bush strategic stockpile can only be guessed at just now, one thing already is clear: If the president fails to make clear that the downsizing and restructuring of the American strategic deterrent must be accompanied by the maintenance and modernization of those forces that will be retained -- and, of necessity, a resumption of limited underground nuclear testing -- he will be missing the best opportunity we are likely ever to have to explain the need for and to secure popular support of those initiatives.

This will, of course, require abandonment of the moratorium on nuclear testing forced upon President Bush the Elder in 1992 and affirmed by his son even as the latter denounced the CTBT. Accordingly, Mr. Bush and his representatives must stop pledging to perpetuate that arrangement as was done, for example, most recently by NATO foreign ministers at their meeting in May in Budapest. Their final communique read, in part, "As long as the CTBT has not entered into force, we urge all states to maintain existing moratoria on nuclear testing."

To be sure, this language represents a significant improvement over the previous formulation favored by the Clinton administration -- namely, "We remain committed to an early entry into force of the CTBT and, in the meanwhile, urge all states to refrain from any acts which would defeat its object and purpose." Still, it is not enough for Mr. Bush to replace his predecessor's efforts to pretend that the Senate had not rejected the CTBT with an open-ended commitment to continue to deny this country a diagnostic and developmental tool essential to the maintenance of the sort of deterrent we need today and of which we will likely have even greater in the years ahead.

By coupling his decision to reduce the number of nuclear weapons the United States will retain with an announcement that the nation will resume the testing needed to ensure that its deterrent remains safe, reliable and competent, George W. Bush can secure a two-fer: First, he can take, under the most favorable circumstances imaginable, a step that his adversaries at home and abroad would dearly like to make politically costly for him. And, two, he can thereby act constructively to "defeat the object and purpose of the CTBT" and thus establish beyond a doubt that America will not be precluded from doing what it must for its national security, and that of others around the world who rely upon our nuclear umbrella.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. was responsible for nuclear weapons policy in the Reagan Defense Department. He now is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.

-------- us nuc waste

Bill focuses on nuclear waste fund

By STEVE TETREAULT
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jul-10-Tue-2001/news/16503173.html

WASHINGTON -- Members of the House Energy Committee are preparing legislation that aims to make it easier for the Energy Department to gain funding it needs to keep a proposed Nevada nuclear waste repository on track.

The bill would remove budget restraints from a special fund used to pay for studies and possible construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Taking the nuclear waste fund "off-budget" would remove it from spending limits that Congress sets each year through the appropriations process, enabling program managers to claim as much as they may need.

"By moving the nuclear waste fund off budget, this bill takes a large step toward insulating the fund from competition from other federal programs," House staff said in a printed analysis.

Opponents of the move, including officials from Nevada, say the budget change would make it more difficult to keep tabs on the Yucca Mountain program through the congressional "power of the purse."

The nuclear waste provision is a small part of a new energy bill that also boosts hydroelectric power, coal technology and state and federal energy conservation programs.

The bill was written by leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La.; senior Democrat John Dingell., D-Mich.; and Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Rick Boucher, D-Va., a panel spokeswoman said.

A draft of the legislation was circulating Monday. The House energy and air quality subcommittee, headed by Barton, was scheduled to begin discussing it today and Wednesday.

The Bush administration was not involved in negotiations for the bill, but was kept informed, said Samantha Jordan, a committee spokeswoman. The nuclear waste section mirrors a provision that passed the committee in the last Congress, Jordan said. That bill eventually stalled short of passage.

Supporters of the concept say Congress still could review how the Energy Department spends its money, but would have less need to limit how much is spent from the fund.

The fund, built from utility fees, has raised about $17 billion since its inception almost 20 years ago and has paid for most of the roughly $7 billion spent so far on the nuclear waste program. The fund contains about $9 billion now.

Jordan said the legislation would "put a fence" around the nuclear waste fund, ensuring its contents would be spent on the repository and not other federal programs.

"It removes it from being able to be used for anything else in the budget," she said. "It opens up the path for DOE to be able to use the money."

Congress has reduced the Energy Department's budget for Yucca Mountain over the past five years by millions of dollars, forcing program delays.

Backers of the budget change say the squeeze will get only tighter when repository construction will require the department to request more than $1.2 billion annually from the fund beginning in fiscal 2005.

At recent committee hearings, Barton and Dingell have urged that the nuclear waste fund be removed from the budget constraints. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said the Bush administration has been seeking ways to gain access to the account.

At least three other House committees are scheduled to focus on energy bills this week, two months after the Bush administration issued a report calling for legislation and policies to encourage energy exploration and conservation.
--------

N-fuel process, cleanup stir activists

ROBERT KIRKHAM
July 10, 2001 Buffalo News
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20010710/1036000.asp

WEST VALLEY - Reprocessing irradiated fuel is too costly and creates more waste than can be effectively recycled to power the nation's nuclear reactors, according to activists who spoke out Monday. The activists were protesting a proposal that would resurrect the practice of reprocessing and another that would cut funding of cleanup efforts at sites such as West Valley. They met in a parking lot at the West Valley Demonstration Project, overlooking a former commercial reprocessing facility's waste-burial grounds.

The site bustled with activities around structures used for the last 20 years to clean up waste created in atomic-energy production in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. The price tag for that effort has approached $1.5 billion and will grow once a final decision is made for closure of the state-owned site.

Also in view were two rail cars loaded with specially engineered and cushioned casks containing 125 highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel assemblies awaiting shipment to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory near Pocatello.

The activists displayed a crude and rusty life-size version of these containers, bearing scrawled slogans: "Stop Mobile Chernobyl" and "This cask holds up to 40 times the lasting radiation of Hiroshima."

The organizers said a 13-member coalition is behind the effort to haul the replica along a designated 2,300-mile rail route to Idaho in hopes of raising the awareness of nearby residents. Their action is a call for continued federal funding of cleanup efforts at West Valley and similar sites, along with an end to the generating of radioactive waste. In a statement, the group insisted on full cleanup of former reprocessing wastes before beginning discussions on future reprocessing and nuclear fuel production under the name suggested by the Bush administration energy plan, "pyro-processing."

"We represent groups standing together to oppose the administration's plans to build more reactors. It has never been more obvious that reprocessing doesn't work and we have more waste to get rid of," said Carol Mongerson of the West Valley Coalition on Nuclear Wastes.

David Pyles, a member of the Northeast Coalition on Nuclear Pollution and a former lab supervisor at the West Valley reprocessing facility for six years, said that his experiences proved the inefficiencies of reprocessing and contended that West Valley's workers received the highest exposures to radiation of any nuclear workers anywhere.

"Of the 660 metric tons of reprocessed fuels, 600,000 gallons of high-level liquid radioactive waste were created, and 3,900 cubic meters of high-level solid waste," Pyles said. He also recalled that 42 ruptured fuel rods and 819 grams of plutonium were buried in drums on the site. Dug up later, the waste had leaked from the drums, he added.

This summer's real-life transport will complete one step, postponed for various reasons in the 1980s and '90s, in the removal of what remains of the West Valley site's spent fuel stores, once numbering 750 fuel assemblies. While most were returned to their utility companies of origin by 1986, those awaiting shipment came from a facility in Michigan and from Ginna, an upstate New York reactor. They have been kept in a 35-year-old underwater storage pool that many believe is not fail-safe.

The chosen railroad route will take the fuel rods on a four-day, 2,300-mile journey out of West Valley to Ashford Junction and Machias, then southward along Route 16 through Olean and Emporium, Pa. The route eventually turns westward, passing through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming, and ending in Idaho.

The activists said they think that the shipment is a test to prepare the way for future movements of larger quantities of nuclear waste materials now being stored at power plants in the Northeast.

John Chamberlain, a public relations official at the West Valley Demonstration Project, where cleanup efforts have been under way since 1981, said the casks will be part of a seven-car train pulled this summer by a single Union Pacific locomotive. The date is being guarded for security reasons, not as part of any coverup, he said, adding that emergency responders in communities along the route will be informed and the train will be tracked by satellite at all times.

"Technically, it's all loaded, and Idaho is ready to receive it," Chamberlain said.

Tim Judson of the Citizens Awareness Network's Central New York Chapter in Syracuse, contended that people of color and Native Americans living in poor rural communities are being targeted to assume liability and risk for this and other wastes. He said that these people already are hosts to most of the Northeast's power plants and that their communities have been chosen as the transportation route to remove the waste.


-------- MILITARY

-------- balkans

Croatians Protest Move to Turn In War Crimes Suspects

By Davor Huic
Reuters
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38809-2001Jul9?language=printer

ZAGREB, Croatia, July 9 -- Prime Minister Ivica Racan sought new political allies to keep himself in power today after several cabinet ministers quit his coalition government to protest a decision to hand over two top suspects to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The embattled prime minister of the former Yugoslav republic received a possible boost, however, when a general unofficially named as one of the war crimes suspects appeared ready to surrender.

Racan, whose reformers ended hard-line nationalist rule in Croatia 18 months ago, asked for a confidence vote from parliament after his main partners, the Social Liberals, walked out. The vote is scheduled for Sunday.

Political analysts said Racan can probably muster the 76 votes he needs to survive even if all 23 Social Liberal parliament members side with the nationalist opposition, led by the Croatian Democratic Union of late president Franjo Tudjman.

Details of the two indictments served by the tribunal a month ago are secret, but Racan said that if Croatian Gen. Rahim Ademi was one of those charged, the general would appear before the tribunal voluntarily. Croatian media outlets have named the two as Ademi, the highest-ranking ethnic Albanian in the Croatian army, and retired Gen. Ante Gotovina.

Gotovina, a former member of the French Foreign Legion, was the field commander in a key Croatian army offensive that wrested occupied territories from Serbian rebels in 1995. Both men are regarded as war heroes by many Croatians, who believe the 1991-95 war for independence from Yugoslavia was a purely defensive exploit.

Many Croatians interviewed today disagreed with the government's decision to hand over the suspects. "Knowing how many crimes the Serbs committed, there should be 100 Serbs handed over to the tribunal for one Croat, to get a proper balance," said Daniela, a 30-year old unemployed molecular biologist.

But an elderly retiree, who declined to give her name, offered a more hesitant view. "There is something to it," she said. "I don't believe we Croats are such saints that we never did anything wrong in the war. I therefore support the government's decision."

Failure to hand over the two unnamed suspects would probably bring international sanctions on Zagreb. That was Racan's main argument in trying to sell the decision to the public.

The main opposition is likely to come from right-wing veterans groups, who have threatened to erect roadblocks and disrupt traffic before the vital summer tourist season. Racan warned them he was prepared to use force to keep order.

-------- colombia

Colombia Military Applauds Report

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Colombia-Guerrillas.html

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's military has applauded a new international human rights report focusing on abuses by leftist guerrillas, calling it a vindication of the charges they have been making for years.

Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based monitoring group, issued a 20-page letter on Monday containing a detailed critique of rebel abuses including kidnappings, child recruiting, harsh treatment of war prisoners and the use of indiscriminate missiles.

The letter was addressed to Manuel Marulanda, the founder and chief of Colombia's largest insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is fighting a 37-year-old war against the state.

A FARC spokesman reached by telephone Tuesday inside the rebel-held demilitarized zone refused to comment on the report.

Although international human rights organizations have criticized the rebels in the past, the Human Rights Watch letter was unusual in its singular focus on the guerrillas.

The Colombian government and armed forces have frequently accused human rights organizations of bias in reporting mainly on abuses committed by the military and loosely allied rightist paramilitary groups.

But speaking to reporters late Monday, armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias said the Human Rights Watch letter ``pulls together what we have been repeatedly saying about the aberrant violations of international humanitarian law by the FARC, the assassinations, the recruitment of minors, (and) the drug trafficking.''

A former government peace negotiator, Luis Guillermo Giraldo, said the report ratified his view that ``the Colombian guerrillas have lost moral support and are heading for greater national and international isolation.''

President Andres Pastrana has been widely criticized for his concessions to the rebels. He ceded to the FARC a Switzerland-sized southern region at the outset of the talks as an incentive for them to come to the negotiating table.

The report by Human Rights watch cites reports of abuses in the zone and urges greater respect for some 90,000 civilians living there.

Antonio Navarro, a former guerrilla who is now a congressman, welcomed the human rights report, but said he doubts there will be much progress on human rights while Colombia's armed conflict rages on.

-------- drug war

ECUADOR-COLOMBIA: Anti-Coca Fumigation Takes Toll in Border Area

Kintto Lucas,
Inter Press Service,
July 10, 2001
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=2969

Colombia's Environment minister, Juan Myer, maintains that aerial fumigation of coca plantations causes ''no real harm,'' though the environmental group Ecological Action stated Wednesday that the practice has meant health problems for more than 6,000 people living along the Ecuador-Colombia border.

QUITO, Jul 5 (IPS) - Colombia's Environment minister, Juan Myer, maintains that aerial fumigation of coca plantations causes ''no real harm,'' though the environmental group Ecological Action stated Wednesday that the practice has meant health problems for more than 6,000 people living along the Ecuador-Colombia border.

''The effects of the fumigation are evident in the 36 symptoms of illness present in the border communities,'' reported Adolfo Maldonado, a Spanish doctor who participated in conducting a study sponsored by the Quito-based Ecological Action.

Every one of the Ecuadorian residents living within five kilometres of the Colombian border presented symptoms of pesticide- related ailments, he said. At 10 km, the portion of the population affected fell to 89 percent.

The people suffering the impact of the coca-eradication efforts on the Ecuadorian side of the border number nearly 2,000, while there are an estimated 4,000 on the Colombian side, according to the study.

As part of Plan Colombia, an anti-drug trade and pro- development plan championed by Colombian President Andrés Pastrana, that country's military forces have been spraying coca plantations in the department of Putumayo, located on the Ecuadorian border and home to an estimated 60 percent of the country's coca fields.

Ecological Action's report seeks to refute the statements made by Myer, who stated Tuesday that glyphosate, the herbicide used in the aerial spraying, causes no real problems for human health or the environment.

According to the Colombian minister, just 15 percent of the glyphosate used in Colombia goes toward eradication of coca, the raw material for cocaine production. The rest, he said, is utilised in wiping out weeds in plantations of sugarcane and of other crops.

The research conducted by the environmental group includes an analysis of the substances implemented in the fumigation of coca plantations and the effects of these chemicals on the health of the residents of Ecuador's Amazon province of Sucumbíos, on the Colombian border.

The herbicide used contains RoundUp Ultra, manufactured by the agro-chemical transnational Monsanto, with the active ingredient glyphosate. Cosmo-Flux 411F is added to the RoundUp. Both are highly toxic, says the environmental organisation.

Lucía Gallardo, head of Ecological Action's biodiversity campaign, pointed out that RoundUp Ultra contains 26 percent glyphosate, instead of the one percent recommended for use as an herbicide.

''That percentage is exceptionally dangerous to human health, but even worse is the use of Cosmo-Flux, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency has classified as 'extremely toxic','' Gallardo told IPS.

Ecuador's Ministry of Environment, meanwhile, has formed a commission - with delegates from the ministries of Health, Defence and Foreign Relations - to assess the problems that have arisen along the country's northern border since Plan Colombia was launched last year.

The commission will turn to the Pan-American Health Organisation for assistance in conducting its evaluation, the results of which will determine what course Ecuador's government will take with respect to the aerial fumigations, announced Environment minister, Lourdes Luque.

But Luque stressed that no damages have been incurred in the Ecuadorian region bordering Colombia as a result of the spraying and she described Ecological Action as an ''extremist'' organisation.

For her part, Gallardo defended her group's research, saying ''it confirms what the residents and the border authorities had already reported.''

Environment minister Luque is ''turning a blind eye to an obvious reality,'' she added.

''It would be important for the minister to visit the areas affected and not just speak from her office, because her attitude and that of the Colombian minister (Myer) contradict the principles they claim to defend,'' said the activist.

Myer and Luque made their statements during the Andean Conference of Environmental Authorities, held Monday and Tuesday in Quito, an event that also drew Venezuela's assistant minister of environment, Alejandro Hitcher, and the ambassadors of Peru and Bolivia in Ecuador.

The Andean countries - Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela - together are home to 25 percent of the planet's biodiversity and share a common destiny in the natural heritage that they must protect, Luque said.

Also entering the debate on coca fumigations is the Ecuadorian Congress. Its International Affairs Committee has asked the National Polytechnic University and the Central University to study the effects of the herbicide on human health and the environment in the area along the Colombian border.

The Committee's chairman, Hugo Moreno, said it is imperative to determine whether harm is being caused in Ecuador by the chemicals used in the fumigation of coca plantations in the nearby areas of Colombia.

''If human ailments are verified, the national government will be called upon to provide the corresponding reparations to the farmers and peasants of that area,'' he said. (END/IPS/tra-so/kl/mj/ld/01(END)

----

Punishment was "so harsh" that it was unconstitutional

NATION IN BRIEF
Tuesday, July 10, 2001; Page A07
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38835-2001Jul9?language=printer

• LITTLE ROCK Arkansas -- A federal appeals court threw out a life sentence against a man for possession of $20 worth of cocaine, saying the punishment was "so harsh" that it was unconstitutional. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave Arkansas 90 days to decide whether to re-sentence Grover Henderson, 54, or free him after finding that "it denies reality and contradicts precedent to say that all drug crimes are of equal seriousness and pose the same threat to society."

-------- iran

U.S. Policy Stance Surprises Iran

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-US.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Iran has been surprised by the tone so far of the Bush administration and hopes the United States will change its policy to take more ``positive'' steps toward Iran, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi was on his first visit to the United States since pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami was re-elected in a June landslide. Some Iranian reformists said a big Khatami win would bring a renewed push for improving relations between the United States and Iran.

At the same time, Iranian officials had hoped Bush -- with ties to U.S. oil companies -- would end sanctions restricting American companies' investment in Iran.

But last month, Congress voted to extend sanctions for five years. Tehran was also angered by U.S. statements blaming Iranian officials in the 1996 bombing of an American military barracks in Saudi Arabia.

``We were certainly surprised because everyone was expecting the administration when it came to office to make a change ... in a positive way,'' Kharrazi said during a speech at Colombia University.

He said Congress' extension of sanctions was a ``negative symbol'' and that the Bush administration could have worked ``more seriously to change the law.''

``The desire in the United States' private sector to do business in Iran is a concrete reality that cannot be ignored,'' Kharrazi said.

``We are waiting for the review of the policy of the United States toward Iran, something the administration is engaged in. Therefore until we hear something positive ... we have to wait,'' he said.

The Bush administration has also cooled on former President Clinton's attempts to open dialogue with Iran. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the offer of dialogue with Iran was off the table. The United States has demanded Iran stop alleged support for terrorism before it can take any further steps.

Khatami has advocated improving relations with the United States, which were severed after militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. But he had rejected Clinton's offer of direct dialogue, seeking instead increased cultural exchanges.

-------- israel

Israelis Demolish Palestinian Buildings

WORLD In Brief
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Associated Press
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38836-2001Jul9?language=printer

JERUSALEM -- Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed 10 buildings in Gaza early today, entering the Palestinian territory for the first time since a cease-fire went into effect last month, Palestinian security officials said.

The incursion came hours after Israeli bulldozers leveled 14 Palestinian homes on the edge of Jerusalem, one of the largest such operations in years.

The actions further shook the truce, which began on June 13 and led to a reduction in violence, but never fully took hold. Earlier, the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, had pledged again to stop Palestinian attacks, but then a suicide bomber struck in Gaza. However, the explosives-laden truck he was driving blew up before it reached an Israeli outpost. The bomber was killed but no one else was injured.

The Israeli operation in Gaza was accompanied by a heavy exchange of fire at the Rafah refugee camp. Doctors said five Palestinians were wounded.

Using mosque loudspeakers, leaders called people out to defend the camp, and Palestinians opened fire on the Israeli forces. The Israelis withdrew after several hours, said the officials, requesting anonymity.

The camp, next to the border with Egypt, has been the source of daily grenade attacks on an Israeli army base nearby.

Maj. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaidie, the Palestinian security commander, called the Israeli operation a "dangerous violation of the cease-fire."

Yesterday, bulldozers leveled homes under construction in the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat, on the northern edge of Jerusalem. Shuafat is in the disputed section of Jerusalem which Israel occupied in the 1967 war and later annexed, and where the Palestinians want to establish the capital of their future state.

--------

Israeli Army's Demolition Tactics Spark Violence

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

RAFAH REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israeli army bulldozers demolished homes and shops in a Palestinian refugee camp early Tuesday, triggering a two-hour battle with Palestinian gunmen and sending civilians running for cover, some still in their pajamas.

Five Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were wounded.

Palestinians said it was the first major incursion into Palestinian territory since a U.S.-brokered truce was declared last month.

Israel denied the territory was Palestinian-controled, saying it has security control over the part of the Rafah refugee camp where the homes were knocked down because it borders the Israeli-Egyptian border and is close to military installations.

An Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, said 10 to 15 homes were demolished and that they were not inhabited. Rafowicz said the homes had been used as firing positions by Palestinian gunmen who regularly targeted Israeli troops.

But Palestinian officials from the nearby town of Rafah said 26 homes, most of them one-story shacks, as well as 12 shops, were demolished in the Israeli raid, leaving 155 people homeless.

Rafah residents said they were woken by the sound of bulldozers at about 1 a.m.

Mohammed Abu Libdeh, an engineer, said he saw the bulldozers from his bedroom window, knocking down his neighbor's house.

He said he grabbed his wife and five children and ran to his parents' home which was a few yards farther away from the border. However, the bulldozers approached that house as well, and the family ran for cover again. Abu Libdeh said the Israeli troops withdrew at about 4 a.m.

``The only thing I have left is the red shirt I am wearing,'' Abu Libdeh said Tuesday morning, standing on the rubble of his two-story home, his 11-year-old son Salim by his side. ``I spent all my savings to build this house.''

Salim searched for remains of his computer in the debris, but could only find the keyboard, next to a broken TV screen and remains of a refrigerator.

The demolished homes covered an area several hundred yards square, and dozens of residents were trying to retrieve belongings after daybreak.

Fatmeh Radwan, 42, was tugging at a sack of white flour she had bought a day earlier with what she said were her last $15. However, the sack was stuck in the rubble, and the flour had already been dirtied by sand.

Radwan said she lost a four-room house she shared with her husband and nine children. She said she and her family fled in their pajamas, under fire. ``How can I convince my children not to join clashes while they face a dark future, and our small house has been destroyed,'' she said, crying.

During the demolition campaign, 22 hand grenades and two anti-tank grenades were hurled at Israeli soldiers, the army said. One of the army bulldozers was hit by an anti-tank grenade, and three soldiers were wounded, including one seriously.

At one point, Palestinian security forces joined the battle. In all, five Palestinians were wounded, including several gunmen.

Nighttime raids on Palestinian positions and neighborhoods in Gaza were frequent before the cease-fire, negotiated by CIA director George Tenet. Palestinian security commander Maj. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaida called the Israeli operation a ``dangerous violation of the cease-fire.''

In other developments Tuesday, a Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia met over the weekend with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Qureia relayed a message to Peres that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has reissued an order to Palestinian security forces to do everything they can to enforce the cease-fire, the official said.

Palestinian officials said Arafat spoke of making arrests and preventing militants from entering Israel, as part of implementing the cease-fire.

In a phone call late Monday to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for ``constant international pressure ... to bring about the end of Palestinian terror, violence and incitement,'' Sharon's office said.

Sharon is insisting on seven days of total calm before starting a process that is to lead to renewal of peace negotiations. U.S. diplomats say a ``100 percent effort'' by Arafat to stop the violence would be enough, but State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday, ``Frankly, we're still looking for that.''

-------- jamaica

Jamaican Leader Deploys Army in Capital

WORLD In Brief
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Associated Press
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38836-2001Jul9?language=printer

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Jamaican Prime Minister Percival J. Patterson ordered army troops into the streets across the island, trying to restore calm after three days of politically charged violence that has killed at least 20 people.

Helicopters roared overhead and armored personnel carriers rumbled through the capital, Kingston. Throughout the country, opposition supporters erected roadblocks, accusing the government of unevenly enforcing the law by sending police and soldiers into their strongholds.

-------- nato

NATO reluctance holding up arrests of Karadzic and Mladic: ICTY

Tuesday July 10, 1:22 AM
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010709/1/18zps.html

THE HAGUE, NATO reluctance is delaying the arrests and extradition from Bosnian of wanted war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both of whom are believed to be protected by crack Bosnian Serb soldiers, prosecution sources at the UN war crimes tribunal have charged.

The sources, who demanded anonymity, said a pledge made last week by the Bosnian Serb prime minister, Mladen Ivanic, that his administration was ready to hand the two fugitives over to the tribunal was nothing more than an empty public relations ploy.

Mladic, the military commander of the Bosnian Serb forces during Bosnia's bloody 1992-1995 war, is protected by a special unit of the RVS, the Bosnian Serb military, the sources said.

The unit protecting Mladic is "paid from the RS government budget after being on Belgrade's payroll," one source close to the prosecution told AFP. "Bosnian Serb President Mirko Sarovic and the defence ministry know it."

Tribunal sources also said Sarovic and another minister were in regular contact with Karadzic, the entity's wartime political leader.

Mladic and Karadzic are believed to be moving freely in the Republika Srpska (RS), which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) now considers to be the last sanctuary for war crimes suspects, the source said.

The comment comes after neighbouring Serbia's decision to hand former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic over to the UN tribunal for trial and a pledge of similar cooperation from Croatia.

Sarovic has remarked that his forces would be powerless to arrest war crimes suspects even if the RS adopted a law on cooperation with the ICTY.

Karadzic and Mladic, who are seen as war heroes by large segments of the Bosnian Serb population, have been indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in the so-called ethnic cleansing campaign targeting non-Serbs during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

To add to the hurdles to their arrest, the 20,000-strong SFOR peacekeeping force in Bosnia is seen as being reluctant to apprehend the two -- a reluctance that has been heavily criticised by ICTY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.

"They only do the easy arrests, if there is the least complication, it's another matter entirely," she told the Spanish paper El Pais.

Tribunal insiders believe, however, that NATO soldiers can locate Karadzic and Mladic, but say the pair move around frequently, complicating any operations planning and efforts to avert SFOR casualties.

This reluctance has left the tribunal with doubts about the political will of NATO countries to arrest indicted war crimes suspects, a source in the prosecutor's office explained.

In a bid to speed up arrests, Del Ponte has called for a special team to track down fugitives in the former Yugoslavia.

They would pass on information to SFOR, and if the NATO troops on the ground would still fail to make the arrests they would have a lot more trouble explaining their reluctance.

----

U.S. Troops Offered for Macedonia

Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38820-2001Jul9?language=printer

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 yesterday.

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

European Union and NATO officials are brokering negotiations aimed at ending a four-month rebel insurgency in Macedonia. The goal is to reconcile the country's majority Macedonians, who are mostly Slavs by origin, with its minority ethnic Albanians, who complain they are treated as second-class citizens.

Participants in talks in Macedonia reported the sides were far apart on the Western-backed plan to reconcile the two groups.

-------- russia

'Cleansing' Operation in Chechnya Blasted by Moscow-Installed Chief

By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38823-2001Jul9?language=printer

MOSCOW, July 9 -- Russian troops unleashed a massive "cleansing" operation in Chechnya last week that has prompted new allegations of brutality and so angered even the Kremlin-installed administrator of the breakaway region that he blasted the military today for "a large-scale crime against civilians."

As new details emerged about the violent roundup of more than 1,000 civilians in several Chechen villages, Akhmad Kadyrov, the Moscow-appointed and usually uncritical Chechen administrator, unexpectedly rebuked the Russian military, detailing "outrages" against the local population that included extortion, grenade-throwing in classrooms and the disappearance of some of those rounded up.

"Not a single bandit was detained, not a single rifle was confiscated," Kadyrov said. "But civilians," tens of thousands of whom fled the Russian troops, "were humiliated, insulted and robbed."

Initially, top Russian officials brushed off complaints about the roundups, with Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov on Friday calling them "tough but necessary special operations." But after a group of local officials appointed by Moscow quit in protest over the roundups, and Kadyrov unleashed his criticism this morning, the state-run Interfax news agency reported late today that prosecutors would look into "alleged excesses" and bring in special teams on Tuesday to investigate.

The roundups occurred in apparent retaliation for rebel action that resulted in the deaths of five Russian policemen. The Russian operation, which took place in three villages near the border with Ingushetia, sent an estimated 26,000 Chechens fleeing from refugee camps to the neighboring region.

There is still conflicting information about what happened in the villages of Kurchaloi, Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya, but most accounts agree the operations targeted men, who were rounded up for supposed document checks and held for hours -- on their knees in many cases, according to Kadyrov. Many said they were beaten or tortured; others said they were not released until their families paid bribes. Still others have disappeared and are feared dead.

Over the weekend, Russian television aired interviews with several who fled the "mopping up" operation. "All the men aged between 13 and older, up to 60 years old, were rounded up. There were dead and wounded," one refugee told NTV. "And afterward they sent their mediator, who said, 'One hundred dollars for each man, if you want to have them back alive. If the money is not paid, all of them will be killed or maimed.' "

In his rare attack on Moscow's conduct of the war, Kadyrov described an almost rampage-like action by Russian soldiers, in which they stole money from village schools, threw grenades into basements and attacked the villagers. In Kurchaloi, for example, 11 people remained in the hospital after having been beaten and eight residents were missing, according to Kadyrov.

"Efforts to restore stability and create conditions for the return of refugees have been brought to naught by the thoughtless and criminal conduct of those who ran the operations in those villages," he said.

Human rights activists have described a pattern of more frequent and dangerous civilian roundups in Chechnya recently, even before last week's operation. "The level of arbitrary detentions we are now seeing is unprecedented," the international group Human Rights Watch said in a statement last week.

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

U.S. Fights U.N. Accord To Control Small Arms
Stance on Draft Pact Not Shared by Allies

By Colum Lynch Special to
The Washington Post
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38049-2001Jul9?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS, July 9 -- The Bush administration announced today that it opposes a U.N. draft accord on the international sale of small arms, warning that it might constrain the legitimate weapons trade and infringe on the right of American citizens to bear arms.

John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, said at the outset of a two-week U.N. conference on small arms trafficking that the United States would not support many of the ideas under consideration -- such as a ban on private ownership of military weapons, including assault rifles and grenade launchers.

"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.

His declaration pits the United States against some of its major allies, including the 15-member European Union, on one of the most important arms control initiatives at the United Nations since the campaign to ban land mines, which Washington also opposed. The Bush administration previously has been criticized by some allies for opposing other treaties, including the Kyoto accord on global warming, the nuclear test ban, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an accord to establish an International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Bolton's remarks set the stage for what are likely to be contentious negotiations by more than 150 countries to hammer out a voluntary pact to begin to curb the international trade in small arms. The United States is the leading exporter of such weapons, selling about $1.2 billion of the $4 billion to $6 billion worldwide total in 1998, according to the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based organization.

The nonbinding draft accord calls for efforts to stop small arms from fueling civil conflicts around the world. It envisions a system for marking and tracing all small arms, including those sold by governments and legitimate arms merchants.

"The illicit trade cannot be tackled without involving the legal arms trade," said Jozias van Aartsen, foreign minister of the Netherlands.

But the negotiations already have become mired in a dispute over the definition of "small arms and light weapons" that would be subject to international scrutiny. The U.N. defines small arms as revolvers and automatic pistols, rifles, submachine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns. It considers light weapons to include heavy machine guns, mortars, hand grenades, grenade launchers and shoulder-fired missile launchers. The Bush administration favors a narrower definition.

"Small arms and light weapons, in our understanding, are strictly military arms," Bolton said. "We separate these military arms from firearms such as hunting rifles and pistols, which are commonly owned and used by citizens in many countries."

Yet Bolton made it clear that the United States does not want to prohibit all private individuals from purchasing military arms, because that "would preclude assistance to an oppressed non-state group defending itself from a genocidal government."

Despite its shortcomings, Bolton said, the United States strongly supports measures in the 12-page draft "calling for effective export and import controls, restraint in trade to regions of conflict" and other safeguards to reduce the sale of arms to conflict zones. But he favored leaving it up to national governments, not the United Nations, to decide how to achieve those goals.

"The vast majority of arms transfers in the world are routine and not problematic," Bolton said. "We do not support measures that would constrain legal trade and legal manufacturing of small arms and light weapons."

The United States has banned the domestic manufacture, sale and possession of certain types of semiautomatic assault weapons since 1994. But the National Rifle Association and key officials in the Bush administration, including Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, have opposed the ban. Bush himself opposed the legislation when it was passed by the Congress in 1994, according to news accounts in Texas papers.

The campaign to curb arms trafficking has been strongly endorsed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who favors even tougher restrictions than contained in the current proposal. The United Nations estimates that there are more than 500 million firearms in the world, and that they are used to kill at least half a million people each year. More than 80 percent of the victims are children and women, it says.

The tough statement by Bolton was greeted with polite silence by European diplomats, including some who viewed it as further evidence of U.S. contempt for the United Nations.

"The content of the speech was what we expected, but the tone was quite negative -- and surprising, because it wasn't necessary," said one European envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.) defended Bolton's statement, saying the administration is right to prevent the U.N. from infringing on U.S. sovereignty.

While the United States viewed the draft accord as too far-reaching, Joost R. Hiltermann, executive director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch, said the accord should have called for binding regulations.

"It's the latest treaty on the list of international commitments the United States does not want to sign onto," Hiltermann said. "What's ironic is that the United States has fairly good export practices; it has fairly good laws on the books, but it doesn't want to globalize them."

----

U.S. rebukes U.N. gun control proposals

By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 10, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010710-15728787.htm

NEW YORK -- The United States laid down a stern assessment of international gun-control efforts yesterday, telling scores of governments and the United Nations that Washington will not accept any limits on civilian possession or arms transfers already allowed under U.S. law.

"The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures abrogating the constitutional right to bear arms," Undersecretary of State John Bolton said.

His remarks were a vivid contrast to most of the other speeches made on the opening day of an international conference to limit the flow of illicit small arms and light weapons, and were quickly criticized by gun control advocates and even other nations.

"Like many countries," Mr. Bolton said, "the United States has a cultural tradition of hunting and sport shooting. We, therefore, do not begin with the presumption that all small arms and light weapons are the same or that they are all problematic."

He warned delegates that Washington cannot accept any program of action that includes restrictions on civilian ownership of military-style weapons, limits production or sales that fall within U.S. laws or restricts sales to opposition forces.

Instead, he advocated focusing efforts on regions of conflict and instability.

The new Small Arms Survey finds more than 500 million small arms and light weapons around the planet -- enough, it says, to provide one weapon for every 11 persons. Analysts say that 90 percent of all illegal guns start out as legal ones, requiring a more comprehensive solution to a problem that claims an estimated half-million lives a year.

Mr. Bolton rejected any controls on legal weapons, emphasizing the need for strong export controls to keep powerful guns out of the wrong hands.

"We strongly support measures calling for effective export and import controls, restraint in trade to regions of conflict, observance and enforcement of embargoes, strict regulation of arms brokers, transparency in exports, and improving security of arms stockpiles and destruction of excess," Mr. Bolton said.

"These measures, taken together, form the core of a regime that, if accepted by all countries, would greatly mitigate the problems we all have gathered here to address."

Gun control is such an emotional issue in the United States that the United Nations on Thursday had to issue a special fact sheet explaining why the nonbinding conference would not seek to take the legally obtained revolvers and hunting rifles out of American holsters and gun racks.

Despite such assurances, several anti-U.N. demonstrations were scheduled yesterday.

And in West Mead, Pa., gun smith and gun dealer Darrell Sivik burned a U.N. flag to protest what he sees as "a 15-day gun-confiscation conference."

A similar flag-burning was to have taken place in Las Vegas at sunset yesterday. "Look, it's an emotional issue in our country," Mr. Bolton told reporters yesterday afternoon.

The U.S. position puts Washington on something of a collision course with some of its closest allies, who advocate stronger international controls on gun sales and more aggressive restrictions on the legal gun trade.

American concerns over small arms and light weapons is well known to U.N. officials, foreign governments and disarmament advocates. Nonetheless, several said yesterday that they were dismayed at how harsh the American statement was.

"He must accept the need for national action, for regional action," said one European diplomat, who dismissed the tone of the speech as "the Bolton factor." He said it was strange that the United States would find itself more closely allied with arms producers such as China and India than with the European Union.

"This is very strongly worded," said Loretta Bondi, advocacy director of the Fund For Peace, a U.S. group. "These red lines were enunciated as red lights."

Amnesty International yesterday condemned the United States, Russia and China -- the world's biggest arms manufacturers -- for watering down or eliminating language in the draft that would highlight the role of small arms in human rights abuses.

In his statement yesterday on behalf of the European Union, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel stressed the need to rein in illicit weapons while they are still legal.

"It is our duty to consider the legal aspects directly involved in this illicit trade," said Mr. Michel. "We need to take steps to reduce the number of weapons."

The European Union and several Asian nations yesterday pressed for strong follow-up measures, a tacit acknowledgment that this particular conference isn't going to yield a strong or sustainable agreement. The United States prefers ad hoc sessions devoted to specific aspects of the problem.

About 120 nations are participating in the U.N. Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

They are to craft a nonbinding program of action to curb the flow of illicit small arms by the conference's July 20 conclusion.

While diplomats in New York talked about reducing stockpiles, governments around the world took concrete steps in a U.N.-created "day of destruction," burning or otherwise nullifying surplus weapons in Cambodia, Mali, Brazil, the Netherlands and other nations. In Pristina, Yugoslavia, the U.N. Development Program yesterday destroyed 500 small arms.

No such events were staged at U.N. headquarters, although a 5-ton sculpture made of discarded weapons and ammunition was displayed for visitors.

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

Patriot Intercepts, Destroys Jet

The Associated Press
Monday, July 9, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010709/aponline171613_000.htm

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. -- 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.

----

Policy by Obituary

New York Times
July 10, 2001
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/opinion/10FRIE.html?searchpv=nytToday

Let's do a quick test. I'll mention a name and you tell me what comes to mind. Ready? Secretary of State Colin Powell . . . Quick - what comes to mind? Well, actually nothing.

Now the fact that Mr. Powell's tenure so far doesn't conjure up anything doesn't make him a failure as secretary of state. It's way, way too early for such judgments. Sometimes the best policies involve doing nothing, because there's nothing to be done. But there are two basic ways to do nothing. One is to rely on biology, the other is to rely on creative diplomacy, and for now the Bush foreign policy is more biology than diplomacy.

A biological foreign policy means that you have run out of ideas or political room to maneuver for how to deal with a certain foreign leader, so your whole approach is waiting for that leader to die. Biology!

The most obvious case of biology in U.S. foreign policy today is Cuba, where nine U.S. presidents have been boycotting the country and waiting for Fidel Castro to die. But the fact is, the Bush foreign policy is also to wait for Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat and Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, to die and be replaced by more pragmatic figures.

One problem with a biological foreign policy is that bad guys can live long: Mr. Castro is said to have given up smoking cigars and is eating yogurt; Mr. Arafat takes regular naps and puts only honey on his cereal. Another problem with biology as foreign policy is that it enables these leaders to divert attention easily from their actions to ours. So the U.S. is blamed for starvation in Iraq, lack of development in Cuba or the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

If the Bush team prefers to do nothing in certain places, let's at least do nothing creatively, so the pressures are on the rogues, not us.

On Iraq, let's stop messing around with "smart sanctions" designed to let more goods into Iraq while weeding out military items. The states surrounding Iraq that would have to impose such smart sanctions have no economic incentive to do so. And the Arab world wouldn't give America any more credit for smart sanctions than dumb ones. It's a half-measure. If we're not going to go to war against Saddam, let's at least put a serious offer on the table that puts all the focus on him: let's offer Iraq full diplomatic relations with the U.S. in return for full intrusive U.S. inspections of Iraq's weapons facilities.

The real issue is weapons inspections, and it has gotten totally and dangerously lost. If we are just going to wait for Saddam to die, let's at least create a context in which all the world sees that it is his insistence on developing and hoarding weapons of mass destruction that is the problem.

On the Arab-Israel front, a great power like the U.S. does not belong arranging cease-fires. This has allowed Mr. Arafat to turn everyone's attention away from the fact that he rejected a peace plan put forward by the Clintonites that offered Palestinians 95 percent of what they wanted. The Bushies should say to Mr. Arafat that the U.S. will get re-engaged if he accepts the Clinton plan, or a Bush adaptation of it. The focus should not be on whether Mr. Powell is serious about mediating but on whether Mr. Arafat is serious about a deal.

On Cuba, we should long ago have lifted the embargo so Cubans could see that the reason their economy is so backward is not because of the U.S. blockade but because of Mr. Castro's idiotic Marxism. On North Korea, the Bushies have raised the bar so high in their talks with Kim Jong Il - to restrict his missile production - that it appears they don't really want a deal and are just waiting for him to die. Mr. Kim can export a lot of missiles while we wait for him to die.

The one area where the U.S. did not rely on biology - but on force, incentives and creative diplomacy - was in Serbia. There we created a context where all the focus was on whether the Serbian people would allow Slobodan Milosevic to be their leader. Slobo wanted to make us the issue, and we made him the issue.

The U.S. can't choose the leaders of Cuba, Serbia, North Korea, Iraq or Palestine, but we can do more than wait for them to die. We can create a context that puts greater pressure on these leaders to make better choices, a context that puts all the blame on them, not us, if they don't and a context that may not solve any of these problems but at least strengthens us with our allies and the people in these countries.

----

Norton Spurs House Probe Of Cleanup Of Chemicals

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37954-2001Jul9?language=printer

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said yesterday that the cleanup of World War I chemical weapons in the Northwest Washington neighborhood of Spring Valley may have to be placed under independent control because of concerns that for 15 years the federal government failed to fully investigate evidence about potential chemical burials.

At Norton's request, a U.S. House of Representatives' subcommittee overseeing the District will hold hearings about what she termed "decades of apparent suppression of facts and perhaps even falsification." The hearings are tentatively set to begin July 27.

"The federal government and its various agencies have a lot to answer for, and they may have to answer for it in the worst way," Norton (D-D.C.) said.

The Army Corps of Engineers, working with the Environmental Protection Agency, is conducting a large-scale investigation of contamination left by World War I chemical weapons testing based at American University.

Norton said that it is impossible to have full confidence in the Corps' investigation because of "emerging evidence of everything from incompetency to dishonesty." The Washington Post reported yesterday that recent findings of arsenic contamination correspond with locations flagged as potential burial spots by federal analysts in 1986.

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 residents in 1986 violated federal laws and military regulations, an internal Army audit concluded in 1995.

The Post also reported that the Corps and the Environmental Protection Agency found elevated levels of arsenic in the soil after the 1993 discovery. Both agencies concluded that no cleanup was needed.

"We have to ask the agencies involved to explain themselves," Norton said. "What is clear before they even open their mouths is that they have not divulged all that they knew. I should not have to read about this in the newspaper."

Thomas C. Voltaggio, acting administrator for the EPA's Region III, which includes the District, expressed concern yesterday about any actions that might slow soil sampling underway in Spring Valley.

"While this site has a history which is part of a disturbing legacy of problems with addressing contamination resulting from federal facilities, I think that everyone involved believes that we are currently on the right track," Voltaggio said.

Theodore J. Gordon, chief operating officer for the D.C. Department of Health, said he supported Norton's call for hearings. City environmental scientists had to press the Army for years to do more thorough soil sampling in Spring Valley before the Corps returned in 1999. "We think it's appropriate for Congress to get the full picture," he said

But Gordon questioned whether an independent agency is needed to oversee the cleanup, saying that the Corps has been "forthright" since returning to the site.

Gordon said he was concerned by The Post's report that the EPA found arsenic in two locations on the AU campus in 1994 at levels above those at which the agency recommends soil removal because of a potential cancer risk. 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.

"I find that information somewhat disturbing," Gordon said. "I think an independent review is appropriate."

Gordon said his office also is cooperating with an investigation by the EPA's criminal division, which, along with the FBI, the Justice Department and military investigators, is looking into whether federal officials can be charged with making false statements in connection with an earlier Spring Valley operation, which concluded in 1995 that no further cleanup was needed. Department employees have been interviewed by the FBI and the EPA's inspector general's office, he said.

The Army pledged to cooperate with Norton's inquiry. "We've attempted to conduct a clear and transparent investigation," said Maj. Michael Peloquin, the Corps' Spring Valley site commander.

----

3 Die in Marine Helicopter Crash

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Marine-Helicopter-Crash.html

SNEADS FERRY, N.C. (AP) -- A Marine Corps helicopter crashed into a river during a mock nighttime ship landing, killing three Marines and injuring two.

The CH-46 Sea Knight went down in the New River near Camp Lejeune Marine about 11 p.m. Monday.

``They don't know if it was mechanical or human error,'' said 1st Lt. Clint Cascaden, a Marine spokesman. ``There were no reports that the aircraft so much as squawked'' before the crash.

The pilot and co-pilot were hospitalized in stable condition. The bodies of three crew members were pulled from the river by divers early Tuesday. Their identities were not immediately released.

The tail of the helicopter was visible in the river about 500 yards offshore.

The CH-46 was one of two helicopters practicing a night ship landing.

The exercise required the helicopters to touch down near the river on a metal platform meant to simulate the deck of an amphibious ship, said Capt. Alan Crouch, a Marine spokesman. One helicopter had landed and was waiting for the second one, which crashed.

The platform is about the size of a football field, and has lights and is painted to look like a ship deck.

The CH-46 is used mainly for carrying troops.

The same model crashed in 1999 during a training flight 15 miles off San Diego, killing seven Marines from Miramar Naval Air Station.

A CH-46 was also involved in a 1996 collision of two Marine helicopters at Camp Lejeune. Fourteen people were killed.

The Marines' aging fleet of CH-46s was scheduled to be replaced by the VS-22 Osprey, a helicopter-airplane hybrid. But the changeover has been delayed because the Osprey has had numerous problems, including two crashes last year that killed 23 Marines.

--------

Military Leaders Back Base Closings

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Defense-Spending.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The leaders of the nation's four military services enthusiastically endorsed closing excess bases as they proclaimed their need for more money than the $329 billion President Bush requested for next year.

``Absolutely. Yes, sir,'' Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mike Ryan told the Senate Armed Services Committee when asked Tuesday if he agreed with Bush that there are too many bases. ``The Air Force is over-based for the force structure it has today.''

The service has saved $4 billion to $5 billion a year from previous closures, Ryan told committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.

The other services' chiefs and civilian secretaries seconded that support. However, Marine Corps Gen. Jim Jones said he had the least to offer in terms of excess bases, and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vernon Clark said major Navy bases are already packed, so smaller support facilities would have to be targeted.

Various chiefs expressed concern about the aging of their equipment -- from planes to ships -- that has forced cannibalization and expensive repairs just to keep things moving.

The helicopter crash Monday night near the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base ``reflects the aging of our equipment,'' Jones said, saying the chopper was at the very end of its extended life. However, he conceded no cause has been determined for the crash. Three Marines died and two were injured.

``For too long we have deferred modernization,'' said Clark, adding, ``It now poses a serious risk to our future.''

He said the Navy of 316 ships cannot be sustained at current funding levels, and it could drop to 230 ships. Clark testified he needs about $34 billion in acquisition a year; the budget calls for $24.6 billion.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut passed earlier this year is forcing constraints on needed defense spending.

``We have a constitutional responsibility to provide for a common defense,'' Lieberman said. Yet, the testimony shows ``we're not giving enough.''

His examples of what he considers problems include:

--Army procurement appears to increase $200 million to $11.2 billion. But that includes $714 million in a ballistic missile defense program shifted to Army authority, so real Army procurement would drop by about $500 million.

--Air Force research and development is slated to get $1.4 billion, which is $100 million below current spending and equals only 2.1 percent of the service's total budget. The Defense Department's total budget devotes 2.7 percent to research and development.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said he would support some increases in defense spending.

``I'm not going to blow the budget out of the water to support some projects 20 years down the pike,'' he said.

Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Max Cleland, D-Ga., denounced the decision to cut the Air Force B-1 bomber fleet by one-third and eliminate those now operated at Air National Guard bases in Kansas and Georgia. Officials presented the change as a cost-saving measure.

Guard members should not be ``jerked around,'' Roberts said, adding that the decision to move the planes was done with ``more stealth, by the way, than any plane has.''

Air Force Secretary Jim Roche apologized for the decision's abruptness: ``We didn't want to do anything Draconian to anyone.''

Bush's order last month for the Navy to withdraw in 2003 from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques prompted criticism.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said the March deaths of five soldiers in Kuwait was due in part to a lack of live-fire training at Vieques, where the Navy recently has been using dummy bombs.

``I would not agree with that assessment,'' said Navy Secretary Gordon England. ``The last thing I want to do is put our men and women in harm's way.''

England said officials will be able to find another site that, combined with yet undetermined new technology, will make up for the loss of Vieques.

--------

Panel: Pentagon System Needs Changes

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Pentagon-Financial.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A panel tapped by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Tuesday for a radical transformation in how the Pentagon manages its financial systems.

``Current Department of Defense financial accounting does not provide relevant, reliable and timely information to adequately support management decision-making,'' Stephen Friedman told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

Friedman, the retired chairman of senior partner of Goldman Sachs & Co., led one of more than a dozen study groups commissioned by Rumsfeld. Their goal was to help the Bush administration set policy on such topics as reshaping U.S. nuclear forces, improving the lives of the military's men and women and transforming the military to a more mobile force.

That panel called for a wide range of reforms that include developing standard systems to be used throughout the department; targeting certain projects for major savings under the guidance of the Pentagon Comptroller; getting Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to change certain accounting rules to simplify record keeping and accounting; establishing two new offices under the Comptroller to initiate and implement new ``architecture'' for financial management.

Noting that many reports in the past have called for similar changes, Friedman said his group made use of such earlier studies, as well as the many critiques of the Pentagon's financial situation issued by the General Accounting Office.

But to make any change work, he said the top leadership of the building must be committed to it, and it is an effort that could take a decade to accomplish.

``The good news is that this is do-able,'' Friedman said. ``The senior leadership of the department has made this a priority.''

--------

Senate OKs $6.5B Spending Measure

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/news/AP-Congress-Spending.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate approved $6.5 billion more this year for defense and other programs Tuesday after Democrats and Republicans blocked each other's efforts to protect Social Security and Medicare trust fund surpluses.

The spending measure, approved by a 98-1 vote, is for the remaining three months of fiscal 2001 and is dominated by $5.9 billion for the Pentagon and the Energy Department's nuclear weapons work.

An additional $600 million is for cooling and heating aid for the poor, bolstering security at the upcoming Salt Lake City Olympics and a slew of other domestic activities. These included $84 million to compensate miners and civilians sickened by nuclear weapons testing in the Southwest in the early days of the Cold War; $100 million to help the United Nations' fight against AIDS in Africa; and $116 million to process and mail rebates to taxpayers this year included in the $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut President Bush signed into law last month.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., cast the sole dissenting vote. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., was absent.

The House approved a similar bill in June. Leaders hope a compromise measure can be sent to Bush next week.

Added late Tuesday by voice vote were items senators won for their home states. These included $1.4 million by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to combat a disease afflicting California oak trees, and a temporary prohibition against the Air Force retiring 33 long-range B-1 bombers based in Kansas, Georgia and Idaho for the remaining months of fiscal 2001.

Debate over the bill also featured the year's first effort to roll back part of the tax reduction. By a 94-3 vote, senators crushed an effort by Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., to eliminate the refund checks that the Treasury expects to begin mailing to taxpayers later this month.

And by 50-49, senators rejected an attempt by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to strip $33 million from the measure for the costs of an upcoming mailing telling taxpayers they will soon get rebate checks. Republicans said the letter would be informative, while Democrats called it a costly effort to claim credit for Bush and Congress.

By 54-43, the Senate rejected a Republican proposal that would have automatically triggered across-the-board spending cuts if the Social Security trust fund were to be eroded. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, the sponsor, called his plan ``a firewall against irresponsible spending.''

But Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said, ``I call it the Republican broken safe, because there's not a penny reserved for Medicare.''

Minutes earlier, senators voted 54-42 to block a Democratic plan requiring the assent of 60 of the 100 senators to approve tax cuts or new spending that would eat into the projected surpluses of Social Security and Medicare.

Both votes were nearly along party lines.

So-called lock box plans have failed to make into law before, and Tuesday's votes were no surprise. Even so, with partisan finger-pointing escalating over who is to blame for dwindling surplus projections, each party's proposal allowed it to claim it opposes raids on popular programs for the elderly and disabled.

Democrats have blamed the tax cut for draining federal surpluses that could otherwise be used for schools, defense and other programs. Combatting that view, Vice President Dick Cheney left a lunch with GOP senators to tell reporters that the tax cut has proven ``absolutely vital'' in keeping the economy from slumping even further.

Though the slower economy and enactment of the tax cut have shrunk projected federal revenue collections, this year's surplus is still expected to be close to $200 billion. The surplus for fiscal 2002, which starts Oct. 1, seems likely to be the same size or bigger.

But about three-fourths of the projected surplus comes from Social Security, money that both sides agree should not be used for other spending or to pay for tax cuts. An additional $28 billion of this year's surplus is projected to come from Medicare, which Democrats and some Republicans also consider untouchable.

As a result, there is a chance that further tax cuts, new spending or a continued slowdown of the economy might end up eroding Medicare or Social Security trust funds this year and next.

Citing that danger, Voinovich proposed the GOP plan for shielding the Social Security trust fund. But most Democrats opposed it because spending reductions would be triggered even if tax cuts or a slower economy were eating into Social Security.

The Democratic alternative raised the ante by protecting Medicare, not just Social Security. But many Republicans argue that Medicare surpluses should be used to create new prescription drug benefits and to otherwise overhaul the health-insurance program. In fact, Bush's 2002 budget and the GOP-written budget that Congress approved this spring might not be able to afford to revamp Medicare without dipping into Medicare funds.

Meanwhile, a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee approved a measure providing $111.3 billion for housing, veterans, the environment and other programs in 2002.

The GOP-written bill would eliminate the Americorps national service program, a favorite of former President Clinton that Bush proposed continuing. A Democratic effort to revive the program is expected in coming weeks.

The full Appropriations Committee later approved a $15.2 billion foreign aid bill after blocking a Democratic effort to shift money from drug-fighting efforts in Colombia to international children's health programs. It also approved a $38.5 billion measure financing the Commerce, Justice and State departments.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

MINNESOTA ORDERS UTILITIES TO USE RENEWABLE ENERGY

July 10, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2001/2001L-07-10-09.html

SAINT PAUL, Minnesota, Minnesota has become the latest state in the U.S. to direct its utilities to purchase a percentage of renewable energy.

Governor Jesse Ventura signed the bill authorizing the renewables portfolio, bill SB 772, in June. The legislation requires electric utilities in the state to offer voluntary options to their customers to purchase power generated from renewable sources or "high efficiency, low emission distributed generation, such as fuel cells or microturbines fueled by a renewable fuel."

Under the new law, rates charged for green power can reflect any premium paid to generate electricity from renewables. Utilities may generate their own supplies or purchase credits from a renewable energy provider certified by the Public Utilities Commission.

The law says utilities must obtain at least 10 percent of their retail energy from renewable sources by 2015. However, that requirement is non-binding.

Minnesota is a leader in developing ethanol, a renewable alternative fuel made from corn and other agricultural products.

"We're proud here in Minnesota to be known as the pioneer of the ethanol industry," said Governor Ventura during a June 20 speech to the Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Trade Show in Saint Paul. "For the last two decades, we have worked hard to build up this industry as a way to help our farmers get more money for their corn, while at the same time protect our natural resources and reduce our reliance on foreign fuel."

Ventura noted that Minnesota now has 14 ethanol plants, which produce 250 million gallons of ethanol each year.

----

Rosy outlook for wind power as new markets emerge

DENMARK: July 10, 2001
Story by Birgitte Dyrekilde
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11489

COPENHAGEN - The wind power sector is seen advancing by leaps and bounds over the coming decade as new countries enter the wind map, delegates said at the end of a five-day wind energy conference and exhibition in Copenhagen.

"Growth rates are diminishing along with the bigger market. But if the right framework is in place we might see very rapid growth in new markets within a few years," said Birger Madsen, head of BTM windpower consultancy on Friday, citing the French and Italian markets as potential growth drivers.

BTM predicted the number of installed wind turbines would rise 19 percent annually over coming 10 years.

This year would show an extraordinary 40 percent growth, primarily due to a boom in the U.S. wind power market ahead of the expiry of the favorable production tax credit by end-2001.

In the past five years the number of megawatts installed worldwide has jumped 28 percent per year on average.

"From 2006-2010 European growth rates will flatten out and growth should be ensured by new markets in South America, Asia and eastern Europe," Madsen said.

So far the global windpower market has been driven by Germany, Spain and Denmark - accounting for more than 60 percent of all installed wind turbines in the world last year, while North America held 15 percent.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) estimates the world wind power industry's value at 4.5 billion euro ($3.78 bln) last year and this figure is projected to rise to 80 billion euro by 2020.

It expects wind power to increase five-fold in Europe by 2010 to at least 60 gigawatts, five gigawatts of which will be offshore, reducing carbon dioxide emission by 3.2 percent in 2010 compared to 1990-levels.

Europe will by 2010 have installed at least 150 gigawatts of wind generators, a third of those at sea, the EWEA adds.

According to the U.N. Kyoto protocol on climate change which the European Union supports, Europe must cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average eight percent in the same period.

WIND DISPLACING GAS

At present windpower accounts for a tiny quarter of a percent of the worldwide generation of electricity but this share is seen growing to 1.8 percent by 2010 as the number of wind farms increase generation to 145 gigawatts.

By that time, the present number of installed wind turbines worldwide will have risen almost rise eight-fold, BTM predicted.

"Wind is displacing gas in Europe and will replace coal-fired plants in China and India," said Andrew Garrad, head of British wind engineering company Garrad Hassan and Partners Ltd.

But some analysts said future growth requires continued political support.

"Wind is so big today, because of political goodwill and subsidies. In three to five years from now I believe wind will be competitive with conventional energy," said Chief Executive Torben Bjerre-Madsen at Danish manufacturer NEG Micon.

The world's wind turbine market is led by Danish Vestas Wind Systems , Spain's Gamesa , German Enercon and Denmark's NEG Micon . Denmark is the sector's world pioneer, with more than 14 percent of electricity consumption covered by wind power.

-------- death penalty

Ark. Court Takes Death Row Stance

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Automatic-Appeals.html

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- The Arkansas Supreme Court says it will automatically review death row cases even if the condemned inmate doesn't want anyone to try to save his life.

The rule adopted Monday is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, according to Melissa Cantress of the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va. Other states with the death penalty provide for automatic reviews if the inmate desires one.

The court raised the idea in December 1999, ruling that a defendant's right to waive appeals won't keep the court from reviewing all death-row cases.

The declaration was part of a 4-3 decision in the case of Robert A. Robbins, whose execution the justices stayed even though Robbins wanted to die for the 1997 slaying of his former girlfriend. Earlier this year, four days before his execution date, Robbins hired a new lawyer and filed an appeal in federal court.

Under the new rules, the court directs circuit clerks to file notices of appeal on behalf of defendants within 30 days of their conviction.

Among the elements the court will review is whether the death sentence was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor, and whether evidence supports the jury's finding of aggravating circumstances.

-------- energy

Judge Rejects a Plea to Shut a Power Plant

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By JOSEPH P. FRIED
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/nyregion/10POWE.html

A state judge in Staten Island refused yesterday to halt the operation of a new mini-power plant in the borough. The ruling means that the plant and nine others at the heart of the Pataki administration's plan to prevent blackouts in New York City this summer will be used, at least for now.

A state appeals court is still to rule on a separate challenge - whether the New York Power Authority skirted the state's own environmental-assessment requirements in building the plants, eight of which are already in operation in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Test runs at the Staten Island plant began Friday. The 10th plant, in Brooklyn, is still under construction.

With yesterday's ruling by Justice Philip G. Minardo of State Supreme Court, the Power Authority has won two of three challenges to the plants at trial-level courts. Justice Minardo rejected neighboring homeowners' arguments that the Power Authority had inadequately assessed the Staten Island plant's potential for air pollution.

But he did direct the authority to "continue monitoring air quality at this facility on a regular basis for a period of at least three months." The results of the monitoring, he said, should be provided to the plaintiffs in the suit, including a homeowners' association representing the surrounding Rosebank area and adjacent Clifton.

The judge also recommended that the Power Authority "consider some form of compensation" to homeowners and businesses closest to the plant who take steps to reduce the impact of noise from the plant.

The ruling did not surprise many in the Rosebank neighborhood, a mix of one- and two-family homes where many residents sounded resigned to what they see as an eyesore and a health hazard.

"We all thought that was going to happen, because once it's built it's not like they're not going to use it," said Margaret Ratel, 41. "We knew around the middle of May that this wasn't going to be stopped. That doesn't mean we're not upset about it."

Michael Petralia, a spokesman for the Power Authority, said he would not speculate about the outcome of the Court of Appeals case, but he said "it's helpful that there's another decision out there that says we acted appropriately" in assessing the plants' environmental impacts on their communities.

The 10 plants in the city, and an 11th operating in Brentwood, in Suffolk County, cost $510 million and house gas-turbine generators that each provide 44 megawatts of power, or enough to provide electricity to about 44,000 homes. State officials have said the plants, which have been swiftly built in recent months, will also help avert sharp jumps in electricity prices like those of last summer.

But neighbors who oppose the plants - and are backed by local officials and groups like the New York Public Interest Research Group and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest - have contended that the state failed to follow state laws in assessing the plants' environmental impact and placed most of them in poor neighborhoods.

The Power Authority has denied that.

In April, a State Supreme Court justice in Queens ruled that the state had violated the environmental siting requirements for the two plants in that borough. But that same month, a State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn ruled that the state had heeded the requirements in placing all the plants except the one on Staten Island. The Staten Island site was not included because it was the subject of a separate suit, which Justice Minardo ruled on yesterday.

In his decision, Justice Minardo concluded that the Power Authority had "conducted a very comprehensive study of the potential air pollution" before finding that there would be no significant environmental impact. But his was the first ruling to direct the agency to continue monitoring air quality.

Michael McMahon, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said they would appeal.

City Councilman Jerome X. O'Donovan, whose district includes the Rosebank site and who spearheaded the court challenge to the plant, called yesterday's ruling a "partial victory" for the plant's opponents because of the judge's order for continued air-quality monitoring and his recommendation that the Power Authority help residents and businesses in the moderate-income neighborhood pay for noise-abatement steps.

Mr. O'Donovan also said that the tussle over the site was bound up with borough politics. Mr. O'Donovan is the Democratic candidate for borough president, and he accused the Republican incumbent, Guy V. Molinari, of working to persuade the Power Authority to choose the current site after it had considered another one elsewhere in Rosebank.

Mr. Molinari, who is precluded by term limits from seeking re-election, denied that, saying he had never discussed the final site selection with the Power Authority.

Many residents in Rosebank said they felt helpless to do anything about the plant. Others worried about property values or the health of their children.

Omar Torres, 51, a maintenance worker and father of two who lives on Bay Street, directly opposite the plant, said he might sell his house.

"I know I'd lose a lot of money. The value is lower now," he said, stretching his arm toward the plant. "Look at this view."

-------- environment

Group Warns on Superfund Limits

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Superfund-Spending.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government costs for cleaning up toxic waste sites under the Superfund program are expected to far outstrip money available in a special fund, a report to Congress warned.

The report said that despite expectations by some lawmakers that Superfund cleanup costs would decline with work completed at many sites, costs are not expected to ramp down for another eight years.

``There's a lot more work to be done ... and its going to be more expensive than people had anticipated,'' said Katherine Probst, an author of the report released Tuesday by Resources for the Future, a Washington-based environmental think tank.

The report estimated the government will spend on Superfund cleanup programs $14 billion to $16.4 billion between 2000 and 2009, with annual costs of between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion.

At the same time, the special fund for government cleanup programs has declined to about $650 million and likely will run out in 2002. This year, for the first time, more money was spent on Superfund from general tax revenues than from the fund which came from special taxes on the oil and chemical industries.

Congress rescinded the special Superfund tax after 1995, causing fund surpluses to be gradually depleted. The tax poured about $1.3 billion a year into the fund prior to 1996.

``The central question now facing Congress is whether there is enough money in the Superfund to continue to pay for the program,'' the report said.

Tax opponents have argued that the tax is not needed because spending on the Superfund program would quickly decline as work is completed at most of waste sites.

While the report by Resources for the Future does not take a position on whether to the resume the tax, Probst said ``it's clear there's not enough money left to pay for 10 more years of ...(cleanup) work.''

``It's not realistic to think the costs of Superfund are going to decline much in the next 10 years,'' said Probst, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future.

Congress had requested the study to help lawmakers determine whether the Superfund tax should be resumed. If the fund runs out of money, more and more of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund costs will be covered by general tax revenue.

As of last month, there were 1,076 cleanup sites, excluding those owned by the federal government, on the Superfund priority cleanup list. At 739 sites the EPA has declared that construction and waste removal activities had been completed.

Some of these sites also may require more work, however, according to the study. An examination of 99 of the sites where work supposedly had been completed found that at half of them the remedies were ``not fully implemented, not fully functioning as designed or are unlikely to meet cleanup objectives.''

The priority list also is expected to grow, although the researchers said the number of additional sites, their size and the cost of cleanup are difficult to predict.

An additional 61 sites are already waiting to be added soon and more are expected to be included in years to come.

The study did not cover sites owned by the Energy Department or other federal agencies, nor hundreds of other toxic waste sites being cleaned up under state programs.

The study's cost estimates also did not include money being spent by private parties found responsible for the waste, which experts believe accounts for about 70 percent of the total cleanup expenditures at Superfund sites.

The EPA Superfund expenditures, covered by the study, are used to manage the program and pay for cleanup at so-called ``orphan'' sites where no one has been found to be responsible for the contamination or where the responsible parties have failed to act.

---

Superfund Cleanup Effort Shows Results, Study Reports

By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38784-2001Jul9?language=printer

The federal Superfund program has begun to pay dividends after more than two decades of controversy and uneven performance, with more than half of the nation's worst toxic waste dumps either cleaned up or no longer posing threats, according to a new study.

Yet the number of toxic or hazardous sites requiring federal attention continues to grow, and Congress will have to spend at least $14 billion to $16.4 billion over the coming decade just to keep pace with the problem. The study, prepared by the policy think tank Resources for the Future and released yesterday, was commissioned by Congress as part of a reassessment of the Environmental Protection Agency program and its long-term costs.

Until recently, the Superfund program was sharply criticized by state officials, industry leaders and conservative Republicans for the slow pace of its cleanups, the amount of red tape involved, and the size of penalties assessed against business and industrial polluters to help offset the government's cleanup costs. Now, however, a number of the EPA's critics -- including the General Accounting Office -- have lauded the more recent successes of the program.

As of late last year, according to the study, about 57 percent of the more than 1,280 toxic waste dumps on the EPA's national priority list -- other than polluted federal or military property -- had been designated "construction complete" or free of any immediate threats to humans.

However, the cleanup list is expected to grow by as many as 50 sites each year in the coming decade, according to the study. And it remains unclear whether Congress intends to continue to fully fund the program.

Superfund has been controversial virtually from the time it was created. As conceived by Democrats in 1980, the program provided the EPA with the legal and financial tools to clean up the nation's worst toxic waste dumps. Under the program, costs that the government couldn't directly assign to polluters were covered by a federal trust fund financed by taxes imposed on industries assumed to contribute to the pollution, such as oil, gas and chemical companies.

During the Reagan administration, Rep. John D. Dingell (Mich.) and other congressional Democrats attacked the EPA for hamstringing the program. When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they promised to finally overhaul Superfund, to free businesses and innocent parties from the seemingly endless rounds of litigation that sprouted from Superfund liability provisions. The Clinton administration initially pledged its support for change, but the effort stalled. Interest in reshaping the program was revived by a string of well-publicized Superfund horror stories.

Former Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) vowed to make revamping the Superfund program a top priority, but pressure to pass new legislation diminished after the EPA instituted its own set of changes in a bid to make the program more fair to businesses and more efficient.

The corporate taxes that financed Superfund cleanups expired at the end of 1995, which left the program with a substantial trust fund but no annual stream of revenue. Eventually, this made it increasingly dependent on annual appropriations from Congress.

The government spends about $1.54 billion a year to operate the Superfund program, and Congress would need to continue spending at roughly that level in the coming decade to sustain the program at current levels. According to the Resources for the Future study, state-sponsored Superfund programs lack sufficient financial resources to assume the cost of major federal cleanups.

Neither the Bush administration nor congressional leaders have proposed to either reinstitute the taxes or undertake comprehensive change in the Superfund program, which likely would trigger efforts by conservative critics to gut the legislation.

Instead, Congress is attempting to complete work this year on revisions to a subsidiary of the Superfund program, which would provide more funding and legal incentives for states to clean up 500,000 abandoned industrial sites known as brownfields. The Senate approved brownfields legislation April 25 by a vote of 99 to 0, and the House is considering its own version of the bill.

"Currently, a wary truce exists between those who would leave [Superfund] liability and cleanup provisions intact and those who do not want to reinstitute the authority for the taxes that filled the coffers of the trust fund," the study concluded.

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), a conservative GOP leader, agreed with that assessment last week. Speaking about the reauthorization of the Superfund program, he said, "I don't see the time or the politics to allow it this year. Given the stalemate, we will probably work on it piece by piece."

-----

EPA Hears 'Clean Air' Opinions

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Government-Power-Plants.html?searchpv=aponline

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Environmentalists told federal regulators Tuesday that an air pollution rules are not enforced well enough, but power industry officials complained that the enforcement is too restrictive.

Both sides testified in the first of four planned hearings nationwide on how the Clean Air Act should be applied to repairs and upgrades of power plants.

At issue is the Environmental Protection Agency's ``new source review'' program. The program, incorporated into the Clean Air Act in 1977, was begun to ensure that new sources of pollution -- new power plants, for example -- do not hinder progress toward cleaning up the nation's air.

The agency is assessing whether the program could be changed to encourage more efficient use of energy resources while maintaining air quality.

Environmentalists told a panel of four EPA officials Tuesday they are worried that the Bush administration's review of the new source review program will lead to watered-down enforcement of clean-air laws. That would benefit power generating companies but place public health at greater risk, they said.

``When President Bush proposes to weaken enforcement of NSR, we are outraged,'' said Glen Brand, a Sierra Club spokesman from Cincinnati. ``The only problem with NSR is that it's not adequately enforced.''

Power industry officials said, however, that the government is applying the regulation to routine maintenance and replacement work, and also has started applying the requirements retroactively to older generating plants.

That makes plant maintenance schedules longer and more costly, which makes it harder to meet demand for electricity, they said.

``If the change in policy reflected in these enforcement actions was universally applied, it would cause major disruption in routine maintenance schedules, curtailing power output,'' said former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot. He spoke for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of electric generating companies.

Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. is concerned that the EPA's revised NSR enforcement could force its main plants into longer shutdowns for maintenance, company lawyer Doug Weber told the EPA officials. In such cases, the company would have to use less-efficient backup units that cost more to operate and pollute more, he said.

Weber said that would increase emissions and customers' bills. FirstEnergy operates 16 generating plants and serves 2.2 million customers in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The evaluation of the new source review program was ordered by an energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. In May, the task force proposed a plan to increase supplies of oil, gas and nuclear energy, and predicted the need for 1,300 new power plants.

Hearings are planned for Thursday in Sacramento, Calif., July 17 in Boston and July 20 in Baton Rouge, La. The EPA is to report to the president by Aug. 17.

-------- genetics

Green groups blocking help for poor nations - UN

UK: July 10, 2001
Story by Elizabeth Piper
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11486

LONDON - Western environmental groups are blocking ways to ease hunger in the poorest parts of the world by stifling the development of genetically modified foods, the lead author of a United Nations report said.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, lead author of the U.N. Development Programme's annual Human Development Report, said green groups had failed to consider how gene-spliced crops could help people out of poverty by revolutionising agriculture and food production.

"The developing world needs these technologies as soon as possible and European countries and campaigners are slowing everything up," Fukuda-Parr, director of the Human Development Report Office, told Reuters.

"I think that first world environmental groups should put on the hat and shoes of farmers in Mali who are faced by repeated crop failure."

She said Europe and Japan, where there was what she called an effective moratorium on gene-modified crops, had little need for pest-resistant crops and cheaper food as most consumers seemed happy with stocked supermarket shelves.

But their contentment and increasing fears over the new technology should not prevent poor people benefiting from drought-and pest-resistant crops, she said.

"For European consumers and for Japanese consumers, there is really very little to be gained from having genetically modified food. We don't need lower prices for food and we don't really need a longer shelf-life for our tomatoes," she said.

"But it is a very different challenge that some countries are facing when faced with food shortages, chronic low rainfall and chronic crop failure."

She challenged environmental groups to produce hard evidence to back up their fears that gene-modified food was unsafe for the countryside and a threat to public health.

Green groups say GM crops, spliced with foreign genes to help them resist drought or ward off pests, will create superweeds, contaminate traditional crops and change the face of the countryside by killing off other flora and fauna.

"The first thing to remember is that scientific evidence for health and environmental harm is quite limited and very weak," she said, adding that the public sector should be more involved in developing and testing new GM crops to make the technology more accessible to poorer nations.

"But we are not saying poor people should be guinea pigs."

She urged people to open up the debate and see the development of biotechnology from poor countries' point of view.

"I think in Europe and Japan an extreme position has been taken," she said.

"Biotech has tremendous potential for...agriculture, to address these problems of hunger and malnutrition and food and security in Africa and other areas of the world and its potential should not be underestimated."

The Human Development Report 2001 is due to be officially released by the U.N. Development Programme in Mexico City on Tuesday.

----

Scientist's Stem Cell Work Creates Uproar

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/health/10CELL.html?pagewanted=all

MADISON, Wis., July 6 - When Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, he granted the journalist Edward R. Murrow an interview, appeared in a photo spread in Life magazine, and became an American hero virtually overnight. When Dolly the sheep was cloned, her creator, Ian Wilmut, was featured in news magazines and on television programs around the globe.

Few people, by contrast, have ever heard of James A. Thomson. And that is just the way Dr. Thomson likes it.

Three years ago, Dr. Thomson, a developmental biologist at the University of Wisconsin, became the first person to isolate stem cells from human embryos. Nobel laureates praised his work as a breakthrough that might revolutionize modern medicine. Conservatives and some religious leaders, notably Pope John Paul II, denounced it as immoral.

Now President Bush is considering whether to permit federal financing for the research; current law bans spending taxpayer dollars on such work. And here in Wisconsin, where a private foundation affiliated with the university holds the lucrative patent rights to the cells Dr. Thomson discovered, some legislators are contemplating a ban on future embryonic stem cell work.

At the vortex of the controversy is an intensely private, soft-spoken scientist who, by all accounts, including his own, has thought carefully about the ethical implications of his research, as well as the inevitable publicity. That he might wind up in the spotlight so worried Dr. Thomson, he said, that he almost decided not to pursue the work that, many scientists say, holds out the hope for curing diseases as varied as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes.

But in the end, he said, with characteristic understatement, "I just decided it would be important enough to do it."

Everything about Dr. Thompson appears to curve inward. He is stoop- shouldered, with perpetual stubble on his chin, a man who clearly cares little for the trappings of appearance. In the laboratory, he wears rumpled oxford-cloth shirts, khaki pants and a Timex watch with a Velcro band; he dressed no differently when he was called to testify before the United States Senate, an experience that, he admits, left him "scared to death."

He shuns most interviews, and all requests to appear on television. ("I don't own a television," he explains, "so why should I support a media I don't like very much?") He shares few personal details, save that on long car trips he often catches himself singing, "The City of New Orleans," a song about a train. He also likes to hang glide. Asked to describe him, his colleagues inevitably chose the same word: quiet.

"I'm sure Jamie feels like he would just like to crawl back into his hole and just do science," said Dr. Jon Ordorico, a transplant surgeon at Wisconsin who is collaborating with Dr. Thomson. As R. Alta Charo, a Wisconsin bioethicist whose counsel Dr. Thomson has sought, said, "He wasn't made for this event."

Because embryonic stem cells have the potential to grow into any cell or tissue in the human body, scientists say they hold great potential for repairing damaged tissues or organs. But to extract them requires that the embryos be destroyed, and so every year since 1995, Congress has attached language to its appropriations legislation to ban taxpayer financing of the work.

The ban requires Dr. Thomson to straddle parallel worlds. He works primarily out of the university's primate center, a pale pink stucco two- story building in an out-of-the way neighborhood of squat apartment houses and clapboard homes here in Madison. This is his federally financed laboratory, where he studies stem cells derived from the embryos of rhesus monkeys and marmosets.

But when he conducts research on human cells, he must move to an entirely different laboratory. This one is paid for by the WiCell Research Institute, a corporation set up as a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the nonprofit group that holds the patent to Dr. Thomson's work. The location of the WiCell laboratory has never been disclosed, and it is strictly off limits to reporters.

"We are concerned about the safety of our employees," explained Carl E. Gulbrandsen, the foundation's managing director. "There are some very radical groups that practice terrorism nowadays."

For $5,000, WiCell will send out two tiny vials of human embryonic stem cells to any legitimate scientist who agrees to abide by the institute's restrictions, which include a prohibition on using the cells to create a person. So far, WiCell officials say, about 30 requests have been filled and 60 requests are pending. But in this country, the cells cannot land in any laboratory that buys so much as a light bulb with federal money.

Here in Madison, academic researchers have another option: they can work out of the WiCell laboratory. But the facility is cramped, Dr. Thomson said, and so while scientists across the campus are clamoring to collaborate with him, only a handful can.

"This in itself is more damaging than the lack of federal grant money," he said. "It really restricts who can do the work and who can't."

The son of a certified public accountant and a secretary, Dr. Thomson grew up in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. As a child, he said, he dreamed of becoming a scientist, having gained experience with a brother who was adept at "blowing things up." But then, he said, "I think most little kids want to be a scientist."

One of the great mysteries of life, of course, is how human beings develop from a single cell to an incredibly complex organism, and this is where Dr. Thomson's interests lie. Now 42, he came of age at just the right time to pursue this line of inquiry; in 1980, biologists extracted embryonic stem cells from mice, opening up a whole new look at the development of mammals.

Embryonic development, however, is far different in mice than in people, and so Dr. Thomson eventually turned his attention to isolating the stem cells in another species closer to humans: the rhesus monkey. In 1991, he took a job at the Wisconsin primate center.

Interested more in research than teaching, he signed on as a staff scientist and began training as a veterinary pathologist, which he said he hoped would provide him some "job security." (Owing to his discovery, he has since been promoted to assistant professor, the lowest rung on the academic ladder.)

As he grew closer to isolating the monkey cells, Dr. Thomson said, it became clear to him that the next step would be to do the same in humans. So he sought the advice of Dr. Charo and another Wisconsin bioethicist, Dr. Norman Fost.

"He has been fanatically attentive to the ethical issues," Dr. Fost said. "We are lucky that the guy who is the pioneer in all this is such a responsible, thoughtful person."

For Dr. Thomson, the moral questions about embryo experimentation were not difficult to resolve; he concluded that research was the "better ethical choice," so long as the embryos, created by couples who no longer wanted to use them to have children, would otherwise be discarded.

But he was worried that stem cells might be misused to clone people - a fear that, he said, eventually abated in 1997, when Dr. Wilmut demonstrated by cloning Dolly that embryos were not needed because clones could be produced from adult cells. And he did not like the idea that he might become a public person. So he contemplated leaving to someone else the research in human embryos.

But in 1995, days after he published his findings in primates, Geron, a biotechnology company in Menlo Park, Calif., offered to finance the human research. Dr. Thomson, who said he has no financial ties to the company, and owns no stock in it, accepted. Today, Geron retains licensing rights to Dr. Thomson's patents, and is entitled to commercialize his discoveries.

Here in Wisconsin at least, Dr. Thomson's fear about becoming a public figure has been realized. In 1999, the year after he announced he had isolated stem cells in humans, Tommy G. Thompson, who was then governor, invited Dr. Thomson to the Capitol in Madison and singled out the researcher for praise. Dr. Thomson described it as a brave move.

Now, the former governor is Mr. Bush's secretary of health and human services, and is pressing the president to permit taxpayers to finance research on stem cells. But because the National Institutes of Health, which Mr. Thompson oversees, has refused to release grant money for the research, a number of scientists, Dr. Thomson included, are suing him. The case is titled Thomson v. Thompson.

Here in Madison, meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce, hoping to boost a fledgling biotechnology industry, has come out in support of the embryonic stem cell work. But the State Legislature is considering a ban on experiments that might create additional cell types, or lines - a proposal that is similar to a compromise being considered by Mr. Bush.

"Some people say, let's go slow on legislation," said the proposal's author, State Representative Sheryl Albers, a Republican. "I say let's move a little slower on stem cell research, but not cut it off altogether."

As the debate continues, Dr. Thomson is trying to focus on his work. "In the fullness of time," he predicted, "the research will go forward. The question is how quickly it will go forward, and where it will be done."

--------

National Cancer Institute to Buy Access to Rival's Genome Data

By NICHOLAS WADE
July 10, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/health/10GENO.html

Celera Genomics said yesterday that it had signed up its first customer from the inner ranks of its rival in the race to decode the human genome. The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, has signed an agreement to allow its researchers access to Celera's genome database.

The cancer institute's sister center, the National Human Genome Research Institute, led the consortium of academic centers that started the Human Genome Project. The consortium's data about the human genome is available for free from GenBank, the database operated by another N.I.H. agency, the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Both at the N.I.H. and the Wellcome Trust, its English partner in sequencing the human genome, there has been considerable resistance to paying for the researchers they support to have access to Celera's genomic data when their own data is free. But part of the N.I.H. has now yielded, suggesting there is something of value in Celera's database that is not yet available in GenBank.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, was attending a meeting yesterday and could not be reached for comment. Other scientists said a principal reason for the National Cancer Institute's decision to subscribe might have been the availability of Celera's assembled mouse genome.

The versions of the human genome that are available publicly and from Celera may not be so different, but the mouse genome is an enormous aid to interpreting the human genome, because the two mammals have genomes of the same size and similar structure. The consortium has generated a large amount of mouse data but has not yet assembled the decoded fragments of DNA in the correct order.

Dr. J. Craig Venter, the president of Celera, which is based in Rockville, Md., said that the agreement with the National Cancer Institute opened the way for all the other institutes in N.I.H. to sign up, and that he hoped the Wellcome Trust would follow suit.

"As people get past the petty politics they find substantial value in our database," Dr. Venter said.

The subscription to Celera's database will cost about $10,000 for each cancer institute researcher who uses it, Dr. Venter said.

As part of a long-term strategy, Celera switched its DNA decoding machines from human to mouse DNA at the earliest possible moment so it could offer its customers both genomes.

Dr. Venter suggested that the N.I.H. should cease its own effort to sequence and assemble the mouse genome because the work duplicated what Celera had already done.

"N.I.H. could provide a subscription to every scientist in the U.S. to see the complete annotated mouse genome for less than it costs them to sequence it," Dr. Venter said.

-------- human rights

Rights Group Lists Abuses by Guerrillas in Colombia

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/world/10COLO.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, July 9 - The largest rebel group here regularly violates the rights of noncombatants by attacking civilians, kidnapping for ransom, recruiting children and focusing on medical workers, all in spite of the group's occasional pledges to abide by some international rights norms, Human Rights Watch says in a new report.

Written as a 9,000-word letter to the rebel leader, Manuel Marulanda, the report says the organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has increased attacks on civilians by using homemade gas-cylinder bombs, notoriously inaccurate weapons that are usually aimed at police outposts but often destroy whole neighborhoods.

The rebels are also responsible for disappearances, the mistreatment of prisoners and the executions of people judged in unauthorized courts to be enemy collaborators, Human Rights Watch said. The report is to be issued on Tuesday in Washington. The rebels received a copy last week.

The findings have been compiled as Colombia remains locked in an increasingly brutal conflict in which massacres of civilians, displacements of villagers and abductions are weekly occurrences. Groups like Human Rights Watch fault the right- wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary organization financed by landowners to attack rebels, for most abuses.

But the rebel force, or FARC, is increasingly responsible for rights violations, said José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch.

In an interview last week, Mr. Vivanco, who signed the letter to Mr. Marulanda, said the rebel group had often used the principles of international humanitarian law for its own purposes. Examples cited included the rebels' calling on the government to agree to a prisoner exchange or pushing for the army to track down paramilitary gunmen.

Rebel leaders who met with Human Rights Watch researchers have said international standards represent "elite interests" and are not applicable here. "We've come to the conclusion that they're using international humanitarian law as just part of a P.R. operation," Mr. Vivanco said by telephone from Washington. "It's part of their rhetoric. But they have shown no will, no intention whatsoever, to enforce those principles in practice."

Human Rights Watch, which researched the report in trips here last summer and this year, said evidence showed that the rebels executed a member of Congress, Diego Turbay, and six other people on Dec. 29, 2000, an attack that the group has denied.

The report also criticized the guerrillas for "grossly inappropriate punishment" against two rebels believed responsible for the deaths on March 5, 1999, of three Americans who were visiting an Indian tribe. Rebel leaders told Human Rights Watch that the two were sentenced to dig a 55- yard-long trench and clear land. American officials have asked, in vain, for the two to be handed over.

Human Rights Watch, which visited rebel-controlled territory in southern Colombia, said the force had "established a pattern of abducting civilians suspected of supporting paramilitary groups, many of whom are later killed." Last year, the force killed 496 civilians after having accused many of being paramilitary or government sympathizers, according to a leading Colombian rights group cited by Human Rights Watch.

The report calls "particularly repugnant" the use of children as combatants and spies. Human Rights Watch notes that rebel leaders have said they will not use children younger than 15. Despite some welcome developments like the demobilization of 62 children in February, large numbers of fighters are under 15, the rights group said.

Mr. Vivanco noted that his was Human Rights Watch's first letter written directly to Mr. Marulanda. It represents, Mr. Vivanco added, a trend by rights groups and others to "hold the top guys accountable for the actions of their troops."

--------

Mexico Must Wipe Out Widespread Torture - Amnesty

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-.html

LONDON (Reuters) - The human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday torture was widespread in Mexico and called on President Vicente Fox to wipe it out.

``Torture is still used to extract confessions and secure convictions in the context of poorly developed and ineffective criminal and forensic investigation services,'' Amnesty said in a statement.

``Allegations of torture are hardly ever properly investigated and those responsible are virtually certain never to face justice,'' the group added.

London-based Amnesty accused Mexican courts of perpetuating torture by routinely accepting evidence obtained under duress and disregarding allegations of torture.

The group cited the case of Alfonso Martin del Campo Dodd, sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder. Amnesty said he confessed to the crime after being stripped, threatened and beaten and having a plastic bag placed over his head.

The police officer responsible for Dodd's interrogation was fired and banned from public office for three years, but was never charged with a crime.

``Cases like this are testimony to the need for radical changes in the way the judicial system operates, as well as for firm measures to put an end to the widespread impunity that almost invariably shelters torturers,'' Amnesty said.

The group also criticized Mexico for using military courts to investigate allegations of torture against members of the military.

``All cases of torture, independent of whether the victims are military or civilians, must be handled by civilian justice,'' the group said.

--------

Fox Urged to Uphold Pledge on Justice Reforms

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By TIM WEINER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/world/10MEXI.html

WASHINGTON, July 9 - In the basement of a federal police barracks in Mexico City nine years ago, a dozen officers nearly beat the life out of Alfonso Martín del Campo, according to the officer who led the questioning.

They forced Mr. del Campo to sign a prepared confession to the killings of his sister and her husband. He immediately repudiated it. But his confession, if that is what it was, has been upheld three times by Mexican courts, where statements extracted by torture are legally admissible.

Now 35, Mr. del Campo is in the eighth year of a 50-year sentence, and there are many similar cases in the Mexican justice system.

In Mexico, torture and the concocting of confessions have long been a crude but effective tactic for an untrained and overwhelmed police force. For President Vicente Fox, the problem of how to attack lawbreakers without breaking the law remains paramount in a nation where 95 percent crimes are never solved.

Mr. Fox has promised an end to the traditions of torture and impunity. He has also promised to review the cases of three "prisoners of conscience" named by Amnesty International, the human rights group, as Mexico's most prominent victims of trumped-up political charges. In a report to be published on Tuesday, Amnesty is urging Mr. Fox to carry out those promises and to begin by revamping the justice system. In Mexico, Amnesty says, "allegations of torture are hardly ever properly investigated, and those responsible are virtually certain never to face justice."

In the countryside, unofficial political bosses have long ruled villages by force and fear. Soldiers have taken law enforcement roles at the federal and state levels, and when they torture people, they are judged by military courts, which rarely produce justice in such cases, Amnesty says. "Impunity for human rights violations in Mexico is endemic," the group writes.

Although the report differs little from previous assessments of human rights in Mexico, Amnesty U.S.A.'s Latin American advocacy director, Andrew Miller, said some factors had changed, if only on the surface, since Mr. Fox took office.

"The discourse has gotten a lot better," Mr. Miller said. "The climate is friendlier. Concrete improvements. We haven't seen that."

Mr. Fox and his aides have pledged "to put Mexico at the forefront of the world movement toward the protection of human rights, a place it should have always kept," in the words of Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castañeda.

Mr. Fox's special ambassador on human rights, Mariclaire Acosta, whose assignment includes ending torture, acknowledged that terminating the practice would require "enormous political will" and "an overhaul of the justice system."

The will may be there. But Mr. Fox's government has so far not found the way, said William F. Schultz, executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. "It is imperative that words translate into definitive actions that produce immediate and tangible results," Mr. Schultz said.

Amnesty International's "prisoners of conscience" in Mexico include Brig. Gen. José Francisco Gallardo of the army and two farmers, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera.

General Gallardo was arrested in November 1993 on charges that he had slandered the armed forces by criticizing military abuses against civilians. The charges were dismissed a year later. Yet he remains in prison.

Mr. Montiel and Mr. Cabrera protested wildcat logging by local political bosses. They were imprisoned in May 1999 on gun and drug charges, despite official findings that they had been tortured and framed. There are no signs that Mr. Fox's government is moving to free them.

--------

Poland Tries to Atone for Wartime Slaughter of Jews

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Poland-Massacred-Jews.html

JEDWABNE, Poland (AP) -- Poland's president begged forgiveness Tuesday for a wartime massacre of hundreds of Jewish villagers by their Polish neighbors 60 years ago, but he insisted Nazi occupiers were behind the bloodshed and the nation bore no collective guilt.

The tempered apology is part of Poland's struggle to repair Polish-Jewish relations and overcome decades of communist propaganda that taught Poles to believe they were heroic victims -- not collaborators -- in Nazi atrocities.

``This was a particularly cruel crime. It was justified by nothing. The victims were helpless and defenseless,'' President Aleksander Kwasniewski said at a rain-soaked ceremony in the gritty northeastern farm village of Jedwabne.

``For this crime, we should beg the souls of the dead and their families for forgiveness. This is why today, as a citizen and as president of the Republic of Poland, I apologize.''

For decades a monument in Jedwabne blamed World War II Nazi occupiers for rounding up as many as 1,600 Jews and burning them alive in a barn on the edge of town on July 10, 1941.

The truth that Poles committed the killings sparked painful national soul-searching when it was revived in a widely publicized book last year.

Survivors and relatives of the victims welcomed the president's gesture.

``It was very good what they did here, so that Poles could know that they did it themselves,'' said Jakub Pecynowicz, 84, a massacre survivor who now lives in Israel. ``I'd like to thank him for coming here today and doing what he did.''

Rabbi Michael Schudrich, an American who leads Warsaw's Jewish community, also praised the ceremony but said he was disappointed no leaders of Poland's Roman Catholic Church attended. Poland is 90 percent Catholic.

``It's not a step backward,'' Schudrich said of the church's decision not to send an official representative. ``It's just missing a chance to make a big step forward.''

Catholic officials said the church had done its part at a special ceremony in May asking forgiveness for Jedwabne and all wrongs by Catholics to Jews during World War II.

Though Kwasniewski's apology was straightforward, his insistence that the killing was ``committed with Nazi permission, at Nazi inspiration'' could lend support to some right-wing groups who blame German invaders and say there is no reason to apologize.

A passage was removed from a new monument after Jewish leaders protested. The inscription still angers many because it fails to state explicitly that Poles did the killing.

Kwasniewski also dismissed any collective guilt for the massacre. ``We cannot speak of collective responsibility burdening with guilt the citizens of any other town or the entire nation,'' he said. ``Every man is responsible only for his own acts.''

After Kwasniewski's speech in the town's market square, participants in the ceremony solemnly retraced the final footsteps of the massacre victims to the edge of town.

There the new concrete monument is surrounded by knee-high granite stones marking the foundations of the old barn. Cantor Joseph Malovany of New York led prayers for the victims.

The Jedwabne wound was reopened last year with the publication of ``Neighbors,'' by Polish emigre historian Jan Gross. Gross, who teaches at New York University, drew on witness accounts and court records to document the killings.

Though some right-wing groups dispute his account, it seems to have left little doubt in the minds of many officials. A full government investigation is due to be completed later this year.

On the other side of town, victims' relatives wandered through the old Jewish cemetery and reflected on the day's events. A man played Yiddish folk songs on a classical guitar; a woman knelt before a crumbling tombstone, scraping away at decades of moss with a twig.

For Judith Kubran, of New York, it was a day to remember the aunts, uncles and cousins she never had a chance to meet.

``We've really come here to grieve for our families who were lost and to start the healing process,'' Kubran said.

-------- imf / world bank

I.M.F. Warning on Asian Recovery

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By DON KIRK
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/business/10IMF.html

SEOUL, South Korea, July 9 - A senior official for the International Monetary Fund warned today that the structural reforms demanded by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan could undermine long-term regional efforts to recover from the economic crisis of 1997 and 1998.

Stanley Fischer, the second-highest official at the fund, said Mr. Koizumi's proposals for cutting public works and shutting down financially weak banks and companies might "deal with the problems in the short run" but they risk adding to the problems of a region already hurting from economic problems in the West as well as Japan.

As Asian countries teetered on the edge of a new economic slump caused by declining stock markets and faltering exports, Mr. Fischer said in an interview that "the role of the Japanese economy in this region should not be underestimated."

The Japanese, he said, "should be out there running a more expansionary policy" to soften the impact of the cutbacks in public spending and massive credit that are the cornerstone of Mr. Koizumi's program.

"With Japan weak, with export markets weak, it's very hard for the countries that were in crisis four years ago," said Mr. Fischer, who as the fund's first deputy managing director has been responsible for many of the programs that braced up Asian economies.

"It's going to be a tough time before export markets turn around," he said, citing the weak market for semiconductors as one factor. "Semiconductors affect East Asia very badly."

Mr. Fischer, visiting Korea today and Japan tomorrow on his last look at the region before he leaves the I.M.F. in September, discussed Korea's problems as high-tech stocks continued an alarming decline.

In Tokyo, Kyocera, the largest company on the Nikkei, declined 2.7 percent, helping to drive the exchange down half a percent to 12,239.68, its lowest closing since March 19. In Seoul, Samsung Electronics, Korea's largest electronics firm, fell 3.5 percent, while the Korea composite index declined 3.2 percent to 560.00.

Although chronic slow growth in Japan and a declining stock market in the United States were partly to blame for market troubles here and in other Asian countries, Mr. Fischer berated Korea for prolonging its own difficulties by providing easy credit for companies that should either merge with competitors or go out of business.

"I'm really worried about aspects of what Korea is doing," he said. "They've got to get themselves out of the financial sector. They've got to stop guaranteeing things front, right and center."

Mr. Fischer declined to cite specific examples, but others have criticized government support for such troubled giants as Hyundai Engineering and Construction, part of the Hyundai Group, and Hynix Semiconductor, both of which are saddled with several billion dollars in loans maturing this year.

Mr. Fischer also criticized government ownership of banks, some of which have taken over companies unable to pay their debts. He said he hoped the government would soon sell SeoulBank, which it has repeatedly supported with public financing to cover its debts.

Mr. Fischer, who coordinated the fund's negotiations with Korea, rated Malaysia as second to Korea in carrying out reforms but said Thailand had "begun to run out of steam," the Philippines "has some tough going with uncertainties" and Indonesia needed "strong political leadership" to realize its potential.

--------

Turkey Seizes Banks to Help Placate IMF, Win Cash

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-turkey-.html

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey, battling to revive its economy, seized control of five struggling private banks on Tuesday to demonstrate resolve in cleaning up its ailing banking sector and help unblock urgently required IMF loans frozen for the last week.

The early morning move did little to settle the stock market which dropped up to seven percent in afternoon trading on fears of political instability. Dealers nervously awaited a meeting of landline monopoly Turk Telekom to review its board.

The IMF has urged Turkey to hasten banking reform and change the makeup of the newly-appointed Telekom board, which it feels lacks the private sector experience to carry out privatization. Telekom was due to meet at 1400 GMT and is expected to approve two new members.

IMF sources in Washington said the $1.562 billion loan could be released as soon as Wednesday if Turkey takes all the necessary measures.

Attempts to sort out differences with the IMF on Tuesday coincided with a debt auction that reflected, in maximum yields of 95 percent, dwindling political confidence. The Treasury met 82 percent of nominal bids, selling a net 710.8 trillion lira in what are for Turkey relatively long-term eight-month bills.

``The rate was high but within expectations,'' said one trader at a private bank.

A Telekom official told Reuters shareholders had voted to increase the number of board directors to nine from seven and alter the law allowing a person other than Telekom's general manager to head the board.

The banking watchdog said in a faxed statement it had seized Bayindirbank, EGS Bank, Kentbank, Tarisbank and Sitebank. Kent and Bayindir rank as medium-sized banks, the other three are small operations.

BANKS AT ROOT OF CRISIS

The five banks join 13 the watchdog had previously seized, although many of them have been merged in preparation for sale. Turkey has promised the IMF it will sell off or close down all banks under watchdog receivership by the end of the year.

Bayindir Bank is jointly owned by Banca Turco Romana and Bayindir Holding. Bayindir Holding, in turn, owns a majority share in the Romanian Banca Turco Romana (BTR).

In May, Bayindir Holding said it was in talks with potential buyers to sell its Romanian subsidiary.

Kent Bank has a share in Kazakistan Int. Bank, of Kazakhstan and in Albania's National Commercial Bank. Bayindir Bank also controls Altima Financial Services of Dublin.

The head of the banking watchdog said he hoped to straighten out the accounts of the five banks without asking the treasury to further increase the domestic debt load.

Rehabilitating public banks and the 13 banks the watchdog already controls has cost 45,152 trillion lira (around $34 billion at current rates) in new debt since late last year.

``The initial plan is for us to try to make do with our own resources, of which we have a certain amount,'' banking watchdog head Engin Akcakoca told CNN Turk television.

A proliferation of small banks which had flourished in the high inflation environment of the 1990s, living largely off high yields in government debt, ran into trouble as interest rates began to come down after launch of an IMF anti-inflation program in 2000.

Their troubles contributed to a liquidity crunch, a virtual freeze in interbank lending, that triggered a November crisis and a subsequent crisis in February that shook the economy, slashing the value of the lira by a half against the dollar.

In another move which will help Turkey to clear the way for the delayed IMF loan tranche, banking watchdog head Akcakoca said the sale of two banks -- Demirbank and Sumerbank -- under receivership would be finalized by the end of next week.

The main share index finished 5.67 percent down at 9,469.46 points. There was only one deal on the interbank market at 1,310,000 to the dollar, little changed from 1,307,000 to the dollar at Monday's close.

-------- terrorism

The Declining Terrorist Threat

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By LARRY C. JOHNSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/opinion/10JOHN.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON -- Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.

None of these beliefs are based in fact. While many crimes are committed against Americans abroad (as at home), politically inspired terrorism, as opposed to more ordinary criminality motivated by simple greed, is not as common as most people may think.

At first glance, things do seem to be getting worse. International terrorist incidents, as reported by the State Department, increased to 423 in 2000 from 392 in 1999. Recently, Americans were shaken by Filipino rebels' kidnapping of Americans and the possible beheading of one hostage. But the overall terrorist trend is down. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, deaths from international terrorism fell to 2,527 in the decade of the 1990's, from 4,833 in the 80's.

Nor are the United States and its policies the primary target. Terrorist activity in 2000 was heavily concentrated in just two countries - Colombia, which had 186 incidents, and India, with 63. The cause was these countries' own political conflicts.

While 82 percent of the attacks in Colombia were on oil pipelines managed by American and British companies, these attacks were less about terrorism than about guerrillas' goal of disrupting oil production to undermine the Colombian economy. Generally, the guerrillas shy away from causing casualties in these attacks. No American oil workers in Colombia were killed or injured last year.

Other terrorism against American interests is rare. There were three attacks on American diplomatic buildings in 2000, compared with 42 in 1988. No Americans were killed in these incidents, nor have there been any deaths in this sort of attack this year.

Of the 423 international terrorist incidents documented in the State Department's report "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000," released in April, only 153 were judged by the department and the C.I.A. to be "significant." And only 17 of these involved American citizens or businesses.

Eleven incidents involved kidnappings of one or more American citizens, all of whom were eventually released. Seven of those kidnapped worked for American companies in the energy business or providing services to it - Halliburton, Shell, Chevron, Mobil, Noble Drilling and Erickson Air-Crane.

Five bombings were on the list. The best known killed 17 American sailors on the destroyer Cole, as it was anchored in a Yemeni port, and wounded 39. A bomb at a McDonald's in France killed a local citizen there. The other explosions - outside the United States embassy in the Philippines, at a Citibank office in Greece, and in the offices of Newmont Mining in Indonesia - caused mostly property damage and no loss of life. In the 17th incident, vandals trashed a McDonald's in South Africa.

The greatest risk is clear: if you are drilling for oil in Colombia - or in nations like Ecuador, Nigeria or Indonesia - you should take appropriate precautions; otherwise Americans have little to fear.

Although high-profile incidents have fostered the perception that terrorism is becoming more lethal, the numbers say otherwise, and early signs suggest that the decade beginning in 2000 will continue the downward trend. A major reason for the decline is the current reluctance of countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya, which once eagerly backed terrorist groups, to provide safe havens, funding and training.

The most violent and least reported source of international terrorism is the undeclared war between Islamists and Hindus over the disputed Kashmir region of India, bordering Pakistan. Although India came in second in terms of the number of terrorist incidents in 2000, with 63, it accounted for almost 50 percent of all resulting deaths, with 187 killed, and injuries, with 337 hurt. Most of the blame lies with radical groups trained in Afghanistan and operating from Pakistan.

I am not soft on terrorism; I believe strongly in remaining prepared to confront it. However, when the threat of terrorism is used to justify everything from building a missile defense to violating constitutional rights (as in the case of some Arab-Americans imprisoned without charge), it is time to take a deep breath and reflect on why we are so fearful.

Part of the blame can be assigned to 24-hour broadcast news operations too eager to find a dramatic story line in the events of the day and to pundits who repeat myths while ignoring clear empirical data. Politicians of both parties are also guilty. They warn constituents of dire threats and then appropriate money for redundant military installations and new government investigators and agents.

Finally, there are bureaucracies in the military and in intelligence agencies that are desperate to find an enemy to justify budget growth. In the 1980's, when international terrorism was at its zenith, NATO and the United States European Command pooh-poohed the notion of preparing to fight terrorists. They were too busy preparing to fight the Soviets. With the evil empire gone, they "discovered" terrorism as an important priority.

I hope for a world where facts, not fiction, determine our policy. While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.

Larry C. Johnson is a former State Department counterterrorism specialist.

--------

Second Embassy Bomber to Be Sentenced to Life in Prison

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By SHERRI DAY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/nyregion/10CND-TERROR.html

A second terrorist convicted of 11 counts of murder in the 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a federal jury in Manhattan decided today in the penalty phase of the trial.

The verdict was reached after the jury of seven women and five men could not agree on the death penalty for the bomber, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian. Federal law required that the jury reach a unanimous decision in order to apply the death penalty.

Judge Leonard B. Sand of Federal District Court in Manhattan has scheduled the sentencing for Sept. 19 for Mr. Mohamed.

While the jurors unanimously found that Mr. Mohamed knowingly participated in the bombing, they did not unanimously support the prosecution's argument that he posed a continuing threat to the lives and safety of others.

Seven of the 12 jurors felt that executing him would make him a martyr - the same position they took last month in sparing the life of one of Mr. Mohamed's co-defendants - and that life in prison was a harsher punishment.

"We're happy, we're relieved," said David A. Ruhnke, one of Mr. Mohamed's lawyers. "We're grateful for the jury's verdict."

"We felt that if there was any place in the U.S. where we could get a fair trial, it would be right here in New York City," Mr. Ruhnke said.

David Stern, another of Mr. Mohamed's lawyers, said that Mr. Mohamed was "grateful that he's being given a chance to live his life and to prove to people that he's not what he's being portrayed as."

Defense lawyers also said the jury's decision should encourage the government to go after the high-ranking terrorists when seeking the death penalty, instead of "foot soldiers" like Mr. Mohamed.

Prosecutors had no immediate comment.

In May, the same jury found Mr. Mohamed and three other men guilty of participating in a global plot to kill Americans in the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Tanzania. Prosecutors said the conspiracy was masterminded by Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile who is believed to be living in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban.

In addition to conspiracy charges, Mr. Mohamed and Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-`Owhali, 24, were also convicted of murder in connection with the bombings.

The sentencing trial for Mr. al-`Owhali, who was held responsible for the murders of 213 people at the American embassy in Kenya, began in late May. On June 12, the jury deadlocked on the death penalty for Mr. al-`Owhali, which automatically meant he would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury's forewoman said they decided against death by lethal injection because it was a "very humane" clinical procedure. She said they felt Mr. al-`Owhali would suffer more in prison and feared that killing him could make him a martyr.

A week later, prosecutors began to argue for the death penalty for Mr. Mohamed, reasoning that life in prison was an inappropriate sentence for the man who helped to make the bomb that killed 11 people and injured dozens of others. Mr. Mohamed, who admitted his role in the attacks, also rode in the truck that delivered the bomb to the embassy and, in the months before the bombing, rented a house with another conspirator that was used as a bomb factory.

As in the case against Mr. al-`Owhali, the jury was asked to weigh aggravating factors in favor of executing Mr. Mohamed against mitigating factors, or reasons for not applying the death penalty, provided by the defense.

Throughout the sentencing trial, prosecutors tried to persuade jurors that if Mr. Mohamed were not executed he would be a threat to prison staff because of his role in a Nov. 1 assault on a prison guard, Louis Pepe. Mr. Pepe, a 43-year-old security officer at the Manhattan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, was almost fatally stabbed in the eye with a sharpened black comb while he escorted Mr. Mohamed's cellmate, Mamdough Mahmud Salim, back to their cell. Mr. Pepe was also stabbed in the forehead with a sharpened brush. He is partially paralyzed, has damaged speech, limited vision and a blood clot that could be dangerous, a doctor testified.

The prison's security videotape was broken at the time of the attack and statements from other prison guards have been inconsistent. Defense lawyers said Mr. Salim, who is awaiting a separate terrorism trial and has been indicted in the incident, was solely responsible for the altercation. No charges have been filed against Mr. Mohamed.

In his closing statement on July 2, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, urged the jury to authorize putting Mr. Mohamed to death. He said that Mr. Mohamed "has ice in his veins" and that he "killed in cold blood, and will again if given the chance."

Mr. Fitzgerald also cited testimony by the F.B.I. in which Mr. Mohamed admitted that he celebrated the bombing and said he wanted to participate in others. As Mr. Fitzgerald called on the jury to invoke the death penalty against Mr. Mohamed, the terrorist's mother wept so loudly that she had to be escorted from the courtroom.

In a nod to the earlier verdict against the other bomber who faced the death penalty, Mr. Fitzgerald told the jury to try to reach a unanimous verdict, "one way or the other." A split decision would automatically result in life without the possibility of parole.

Throughout the trial, the defense sought to portray Mr. Mohamed as a low-level gofer who knew very little about the bombing conspiracy. Defense lawyers also asked the jury to consider his young age, 25, at the time of the attack and tried to humanize Mr. Mohamed by allowing members of his family, who are from Zanzibar, to testify on his behalf.

As his mother, Hideya Rubeya Juma, whom he had not seen since before the bombings in 1998, his twin sister and his older brother spoke on his behalf, Mr. Mohamed wept quietly. They described him as an even-tempered athlete and a good student. One woman, who gave Mr. Mohamed a job as cook in her family's fast-food restaurant after he fled to Cape Town, said he was the "kind of guy that we would marry to our daughters."

The defense also argued that Mr. Mohamed should not be sentenced to death since other terrorists who have committed acts of terrorism in concert with Mr. bin Laden were spared execution or life imprisonment because of plea bargains with American authorities.

Through his lawyers, Mr. Mohamed expressed remorse for his actions, but refused his right to take the witness stand when given the opportunity to do so by the judge.

Even before the sentencing phase of the trial began, defense lawyers had argued to have the proceedings stopped. They referred to a recent ruling by the highest court in South Africa, which said that Mr. Mohamed should have never been extradited and sent to the United States - after his arrest in Cape Town in 1999 - without assurances from the United States that he would not face the death penalty. South Africa has abolished the death penalty.

In closing statements to the jury, David Stern, another of Mr. Mohamed's lawyers, also addressed the issue of martyrdom. "Send him to jail and he'll be quickly forgotten," Mr. Stern said. "Kill him and you guarantee him immortality."

After the verdict was read, defense lawyers telephoned Mr. Mohamed's family in Zanzibar to tell them about the decision. They were "very grateful and happy," the lawyers said.

But Louis Pepe's sister, Eileen, said she was disappointed with the verdict. However, she said she was not surprised since the trial was held in New York City.

"Because of the liberalness of our thinking, we just can't put people to death," she said. "We put Timothy McVeigh to death, but this wasn't enough - maybe because it wasn't on our soil."

In trying to impose the death penalty on Mr. Mohamed and Mr. al `Owhali, American prosecutors had sought for the first time, to execute terrorists who had committed acts of terrorism against Americans on foreign soil. The last federal execution that took place in New York was in 1954.

Two other men were also convicted of conspiracy charges stemming from the American embassy bombings in 1998. Mohammed Saddidq Odeh, 36, was found guilty of aiding and abetting murder in the embassy bombings in Kenya. He faces life in prison with out the possibility of parole. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Wadih El-Hage, 40, also faces life without parole for his conviction on terrorism conspiracy charges. The government has acknowledged that Mr. El-Hage had no role in the bombings.

-------- activists

D.C. Braces For IMF Protests This Fall
3,600 Officers Sought From Region, Beyond

By Arthur Santana and Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38050-2001Jul9?language=printer

D.C. police are recruiting 3,600 officers from nearly a dozen other cities and counties to help handle what they expect to be the greatest number of protesters Washington has seen since the Vietnam War.

Police officials say they need to double their force because they expect as many as 40,000 protesters to descend on the city for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank at the end of September and beginning of October.

At the last such protests in the District, during the April 2000 meetings, demonstrators clashed with police, and sections of downtown were cordoned off for several days of meetings.

This time, District police say, they expect many more protesters, and they want to handle them and maintain their usual coverage of the city.

Meanwhile, protest organizers said last night that nothing they plan warrants a massive police presence.

In the last few weeks, D.C. police have asked for the largest contingent -- 1,000 -- from the New York City Police Department.

Other departments called for assistance include Baltimore, Charlotte and Philadelphia, said Executive Assistant Chief Terrance W. Gainer. D.C. police also expect to call area agencies, such as those in Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George's counties. State patrol forces from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania will also be tapped, as in the past, he said.

"Reaching out to those other big cities that far away is a new approach," Gainer said. "We wanted to augment the resources we have here. We've heard some estimates that they'll have 30,000 or 40,000 protesters."

Police expect protesters to convene downtown, especially around the World Bank and IMF buildings at Pennsylvania Avenue and 18th and 19th streets NW. "And we'll need to double the size of our agency to handle that while at the same time providing a police presence in the rest of the city," Gainer said.

The protesters advocate various causes and say World Bank and IMF policies victimize workers and contribute to poverty in developing nations. Protests in 2000 were characterized by mass arrests.

Gainer said that it's unclear what jurisdictions will be willing to commit officers and how many they will offer. He said that the department has not ironed out how to pay for the help.

"It will be in the millions of dollars," he said, adding that D.C. police plan to pay the visiting officers' regular salary, overtime, room and board.

Meanwhile, New York officials said they are close to lending their cooperation. "We're taking a look at it," said New York police spokesman Tom Antenan. "It's not official, but it looks like it's going to happen."

He said New York officers would be asked to voluntarily head south for the meeting -- from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 -- and the anticipated protests.

Antenan said that New York City hasn't offered so many officers in recent memory but that the temporary recruitment, which would be treated like paid detail, would not be felt in the city of 40,000 uniformed officers.

Cmdr. Michael Radzilowski, head of the D.C. police special operations division -- who is to retire Friday after 31 years with the department -- will pass the command to Cmdr. Jose Acosta.

Radzilowski said he expected Washington to see the most protesters since the Vietnam War.

"It's going to be of that magnitude," Radzilowski said.

Gainer agreed, saying, "It will very well be the largest protest group with potential for violent overtones.

"Many of the protesters are strong-willed but have no intention of destroying property," he said. "But there are other groups that are hell-bent on destruction of business property and doing battle with police and trying to bring the city to a standstill, and we won't permit them to do that."

Radzilowski said police have begun to monitor protesters' Web sites to gauge their strength. "All the information that we're getting right now is from the Internet," he said.

He said he hoped to meet with protesters, as he did in 2000, to discuss diminishing the threat of violence.

"Hopefully, we can come to a meeting of the minds," he said.

Protest organizers who could be reached last night said they plan nonviolent, education-focused demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank.

The police "are the ones who are preparing for war and are preparing to create problems. It is not us," said Njoki Njoroge Njehu, director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, an activist group that is a leading critic of the IMF and World Bank.

Njehu said police overreaction would create a combative environment for what are planned as noncombative protests.

"There's no evidence given what happened here last year that proves that police need to take these kind of excessive measures," Njehu said. "It's way out of scale."

She said police have a false stereotype of the protesters who will be on the streets. She described the anti-globalization protest movement as "grandmothers and grandfathers. It's high school kids. It is rank-and-file union members. It is all kinds of different people."

Organizers said it's too early to estimate how many will take part.

"There's millions, if not billions, who are displaced by IMF and World Bank policies around the world," said Stephen Kretzmann, an organizer with the Mobilization for Global Justice, one of the main coalitions coordinating the protests. "We definitely expect some of them to show up."

Kretzmann said adding officers adds to the potential for police misconduct. "We saw lots of arbitrary arrests last time around . . . lots of police misconduct, and we're concerned," he said.

Protest activities are planned from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, including a mass rally Sept. 30 in downtown Washington.

----

Actor Redford slams Bush on the environment

GERMANY: July 10, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11490

BERLIN - Robert Redford has called President Bush "ignorant" on the environment and urged other nations to keep pressure on the United States at a global climate conference next week.

Redford, who has become an active environmentalist aside from his acting and directing, told the German weekly magazine Stern that Bush was oblivious to the extent the United States squandered natural resources compared to other countries.

"Bush doesn't have a clue," Redford said, adding that Bush was unaware "we are all living in a global village."

Redford said he felt the president relied too much on advisers who joined his administration from industry and military backgrounds.

"They are blind and deaf to the changes over the last 40 years," he said. "It's a tragedy because we could really learn a lot from other countries."

Climate talks start in Bonn on July 16. Delegates will discuss how to proceed after the United States rejected the Kyoto agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

----

Tibet Activists Oppose Beijing Bid in Moscow

New York Times
July 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-olympic.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Tibetan activists joined hands with Russian politicians on Tuesday to oppose Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics despite apparent efforts by the Chinese embassy to stop them.

They also accused the Russian government of bowing to pressure from Beijing by refusing to grant a visa to China's most famous exiled dissident, Wei Jingsheng, who had planned to protest against the bid in Moscow.

With three days to go until the International Olympic Committee chooses between Beijing, Toronto, Paris, Osaka and Istanbul, the activists said granting China the Games would give it a carte blanche for further human rights abuses.

Ngawang Gelek, chairman of the Tibet Culture and Information Centre in Moscow, said media reports had misquoted Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, suggesting he did not oppose the Beijing bid.

Gelek, the Dalai Lama's personal representative in Russia, quoted the Tibetan leader as saying China deserved the Olympics in principle only because of its size and population.

``However, the present situation is that the human rights situation in both China and Tibet is deteriorating day by day,'' he continued.

``If the Olympics are awarded to Beijing, that will send a wrong message to the Chinese people, so that means it is not appropriate, not appropriate, to award the Olympic Games to Beijing at this time.''

DALAI OPPOSES BEIJING BID

The Dalai Lama was reported as saying on a recent trip to the United States that China should be allowed to stage the Games if it would advance the cause of human rights.

Those words have had considerable impact on the IOC, according to one senior IOC member.

But Gelek dismissed the idea that granting Beijing the Olympics would make it more accountable.

``There is no hope that the situation will improve,'' he said.

The Tibetan activists said the Chinese embassy in Moscow had sent an official to tell the Russian Union of Journalists not to allow the news conference on their premises.

``They gave two reasons -- firstly because of the coming visit of (Chinese president) Jiang Zemin and secondly because of the IOC vote on July 13,'' said Tashi, Gelek's deputy.

The Chinese embassy and visiting officials from the Chinese Foreign Ministry were not available for comment.

But Beijing bid officials said the activists did not represent the Tibetan people, who they said were united in their support for Beijing.

Wang Wei, Secretary General of the Beijing Bid Committee, also suggested awarding Beijing the Games might help to improve human rights in China.

``With the Games coming to China, it will be a boost to our economy, to our social progress including many areas like education or including human rights,'' he told reporters.

RUSSIA BLOCKS DISSIDENT

The activists said Wei had been refused a Russian visa because Beijing had pressed Moscow not to sour the atmosphere ahead of a visit by Jiang next week.

A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Wei was sent into exile in the United States after serving an 18-year sentence from 1979 to 1997 for advocating multi-party democracy.

He was among 20 high-profile dissidents released in 1993 when Beijing was bidding for the 2000 Games.

Russian parliament member Sergei Kovalev and Transnational Radical Party Coordinator Nikolai Khramov also urged the IOC not to grant the Games to Beijing.

Kovalev, a former dissident and human rights campaigner said a Beijing Olympics would bring back memories of the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany.

``Did that do any good for humanity?'' he asked.


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