------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Russian Sub Work Moving Slowly
Pentagon Predicts Clash Over ABM Is Coming in 2002
Tribe, environmentalists fear opening of uranium mine
Strike vote looms Thursday at uranium plant
Bush Receives Pentagon Briefing

MILITARY
Paper: China to Hold Military Drill
Chinese 'civilian' satellite a spy tool
Israeli Missiles Kill 2 Hamas Leaders
2 Responses to Israeli Attack
Israel's undercover assassins
A Town of Tents and Civil Disobedience
Military Chief Urges Space Weaponry
Much-Maligned B-1 Bomber Proves Hard to Kill
Pentagon stuck with berets
Two U.S. carriers now in Persian Gulf

OTHER
What the Toxics Release Inventory Tells Us about Power Plant Pollution
Energy Executives Urge Some Gas-Emission Limits on Bush
E.P.A. to Proceed on Dredging Plan for Hudson PCB's
House Backs Ban on Human Cloning for Any Objective
Stem Cells Are Used to Produce Insulin
Stem Cell Research Guidelines OKd
Israel Researchers Grow Heart Cells
Use of Shelters by Families Sets Record in New York
'Totalitarian clock' warns of police state
Profiling bill sees no consensus
Again, China Indicts Scholar Tied to U.S.


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- russia

Russian Sub Work Moving Slowly

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- Preparing to raise the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk is taking longer than hoped because divers must do much of the work by hand instead of using robots, the operation's commander said.

Divers continued work Wednesday on cutting holes in the Kursk's thick steel hull, to which huge cables will be attached to lift the submarine from the Barents Sea floor in mid-September. The Kursk suffered two explosions and sank during exercises last August, killing all 118 men aboard.

``In the beginning of the operation we thought everything would be considerably quicker and smoother,'' Vice Adm. Mikhail Motsak was quoted as saying in an interview on the pro-Kremlin Strana.ru website late Tuesday.

He said planners had hoped to cut the holes mostly using remote-controlled robotic equipment. But clearing out the space between the inner and outer hulls -- filled with pipes, air pressure canisters and supports -- has proven too difficult, and divers instead have been operating cutting equipment by hand, he was quoted as saying.

Motsak also warned that the seals around torpedoes in the front section of the submarine may have been damaged. Divers will slice off the mangled front compartment, where the main explosion took place, before lifting the rest of the submarine because of concerns about remaining torpedoes inside.

Expressing irritation, Motsak said naval and air surveillance have been active in the region, even though Russian naval officials have cordoned off an area around the Arctic operation site of 20 nautical miles in diameter.

The seas have been rough in the region and winds are forecast to get stronger in coming days, navy spokesman Igor Dygalo was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the plant that built the Kursk is working out ways to use the Kursk's weapons systems after it is raised, said Raisa Elimelakh, spokeswoman for the Sevmash factory in the northern city of Severodvinsk. She said Wednesday that the project was still in early stages and had no details.

The Kursk was one of Russia's newest submarines, and its loss was a major blow to the impoverished military.

Russian officials have said a key reason for the costly lifting operation is to try to determine what caused the disaster. Russian officials have said the explosion was set off by a practice torpedo, which they say was likely was triggered by a collision with another vessel. Foreign experts say the explosion likely was caused by an internal malfunction.

The Kursk has two nuclear reactors aboard, but Russian nuclear experts have denied any possibility of a radiation leak during the salvage effort.

-------- treaties

Pentagon Predicts Clash Over ABM Is Coming in 2002

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/international/01MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, July 31 - A Pentagon agency has determined that aspects of the administration's plans to test missile defenses next year would probably clash with the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.

The finding raises questions about whether the Bush administration will redesign the tests, postpone them or withdraw from the treaty, which prohibits the development and restricts testing of defenses against long-range ballistic missiles.

Democrats in Congress have threatened to block financing for programs that might conflict with the ABM treaty. On Wednesday, House Democrats plan to offer an amendment to cut $1 billion from the proposed $8.3 billion missile defense plan for 2002 and transfer that sum to conventional weapons programs.

The Pentagon declined to provide details on what aspects of the testing plan might conflict with the treaty. But military officials have pointed to two possibilities, building a test site in Alaska and using sea-based radar to track the missiles.

A spokesman for the Pentagon, Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, said the findings by the agency, the Compliance Review Group, were considered tentative and would be studied by senior officials in the Pentagon, White House and State Department before decisions were made on revising or delaying tests. The administration has said it prefers not to withdraw from the treaty but would instead seek to negotiate a new pact with Russia. Those talks have begun.

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

-------- arizona

Tribe, environmentalists fear opening of uranium mine near Grand Canyon

Las Vegas SUN
August 01, 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/archives/2001/aug/01/080110078.html

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - The Sierra Club claims land near the Grand Canyon that's sacred to the Havasupai Tribe is a target of the Bush administration's plan to expand energy production.

The tribe itself is at least equally upset about the possibility, though the company owning the uranium site in question says it has no plan to open the mine.

"That's our aboriginal homeland," said Matthew Putesoy, the tribe's vice chairman. "We claim that as our origination, where the very first Havasupai people were born ... from one of our great-great grandmothers. Grandmother Canyon, we call her.

"We say were tied to the universe from that area," said Putesoy, whose tribe's lands border the sprawling Grand Canyon on the south. "They're drilling right in the abdomen of our Mother Earth."

The Bush energy plan calls for 1,300 new power plants across the country by 2020 and for an expansion of nuclear power.

In a statement dated Monday, the Sierra Club said part of that plan includes operating the Canyon Mine 15 miles from the Grand Canyon in the headwater drainage of Havasu Creek. The site is within the Kaibab National Forest.

The mine was been built a few years ago but hasn't been operated. The Forest Service approved its construction after looking into its environmental impact, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected tribal opposition in upholding the permit.

Cathy Schmidlin, a public affairs officer for the Kaibab forest, said the company that built the mine is defunct and that Vancouver, B.C.-based International Uranium Corp., which operates three mines in Arizona, is the current owner.

Its U.S. headquarters is Denver, and Ron Hochstein, president and CEO of International Uranium, said there's no immediate cause for alarm.

"There is no plan to restart the Canyon Mine at this time," he said. "Uranium prices have to improve significantly before we could consider restarting that operation."

Hochstein declined to comment on the tribe's cultural concerns.

Nonetheless, Rob Smith of the Sierra Club said mine illustrates the potential for problems for Arizona under the Bush energy plan.

"The emphasis on building lots of new power plants means Arizona will stand to be a big loser," Smith said.

"Arizona could become an energy sacrifice zone if big power plants are the main thrust of a national energy policy. This means loss of natural and cultural areas, using up our water, polluting our air."

Smith, the club's southwestern representative in Phoenix, said Arizona has another of the 21 natural areas nationwide about which the club has great concern.

That other one is the recently designated Ironwood Forest National Monument near Tucson in southern Arizona.

Asarco Inc., a giant producer of copper and other metals, wants to trade land in order to expand a mine into the monument. Environmentalists contend doing so would harm the habitat of an endangered species, the desert pronghorn antelope.

Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity claims the land that Asarco wants is critical to reproduction and survival of the last population of desert bighorn sheep.

Additionally, there are plans for a power plant nearby and to run a transmission line through the monument, the Sierra Club pointed out.

Mexico City-based Grupo Mexico acquired New York-based Asarco in 1999. The company's mining includes operations in Montana and Arizona.

-------- kentucky

Strike vote looms Thursday at uranium plant

Evansville Courier & Press
August 1, 2001
By The Associated Press
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200108/01+strike080101_business.html+20010801

PADUCAH, Ky. - About half the workers at Paducah's U.S. Enrichment Corp. plant - the nation's only uranium production facility - will vote Thursday whether to go on strike.

"The union has received USEC's last, best and final offer for settlement for a new contract," David Fuller, president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union Local 5-550, said Tuesday. "It's not really acceptable in its present form."

The union represents the plant's more than 700 hourly workers except for the guards, Fuller said. The plant employs 1,500 workers.

A five-year contract that union members had been working under expired at 7 a.m. Tuesday. The earliest the workers could go on strike is 7 a.m. Friday, Fuller said.

"In a situation like this, a strike is certainly in the picture," Fuller said. "It's a possibility."

USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle, however, said Tuesday she is confident there will be a resolution. "We will continue to work with the union until we reach a contract satisfactory to both of us," Stuckle said.

A key issue is whether USEC has the right to terminate a proposed five-year contract with workers within one year if it is not successful in meeting certain terms to buy uranium from Russia, Fuller said.

Fuller said he considers the Russian bargaining issues to be "a little bit of a slap in the face" because the union, along with community and congressional leaders, worked hard to help resolve the issues before contract talks.

But Stuckle, in a prepared statement, said the provision is a necessity.

"This is a five-year contract proposal, but will only be renewed after the first year if USEC remains sole executive agent and receives a market-based pricing contract with Russia," Stuckle said.

In June, production was stopped at USEC's uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, because of a market glut for nuclear plant fuel. The company chose to keep the Paducah plant open and to buy uranium from Russia's decommissioned nuclear warheads.

Other disputed issues in the proposed contract pertain to overtime compensation and medical benefits, Fuller said.

But Stuckle said USEC is offering "an attractive and very competitive economic package, including increases and enhancements to salary and pension, while maintaining a very attractive medical plan."

During three separate meetings Thursday, union leaders will tell workers whether they recommend accepting the contract offer.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush Receives Pentagon Briefing

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/news/AP-Bush-Pentagon.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior military leaders at the Pentagon Wednesday for a briefing on U.S. nuclear forces in preparation for decisions on reducing the number of nuclear weapons, officials said.

The officials, who discussed the meeting on condition of anonymity, said it was held to inform the president of nuclear strategy details rather than to seek his approval for near-term weapons cuts.

The meeting in Rumsfeld's office lasted about 90 minutes, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. He declined to provide other details beyond saying Bush was briefed on Rumsfeld's reviews of U.S. defense strategy and force restructuring. He would not say whether it involved nuclear forces.

Other officials said Bush received a detailed briefing from Adm. Richard W. Mies, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for all U.S. strategic nuclear forces. The briefing was designed to explain the many complexities of U.S. nuclear forces, including the relationship between the makeup of those forces and targeting requirements, the officials said.

Also attending the briefing was Vice President Dick Cheney and the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as well as Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff.

Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed at their summit meeting last month in Italy to move forward with talks on nuclear force reductions while also discussing U.S. plans to build missile defenses.

The United States and Russia agreed to reduce strategic nuclear weapons to between 3,000 and 3,500 each -- about half current stockpiles -- under a START II treaty that took years to negotiate but has not been fully ratified. Putin says he wants to cut back to 1,500 each, or even lower, and Bush has said -- within committing to any specific number -- that he sees room for cuts below 2,500.

The Pentagon is in the midst of a congressionally required review of its nuclear forces that is due to be finished late this year.

An important question in considering whether and how to cut and reconfigure the forces is whether to retain all three legs of the force -- air-, land- and sea-based missiles. These form the nuclear ``triad'' that has been the basis of U.S. strategic nuclear planning for decades.

-------- MILITARY

-------- china

Paper: China to Hold Military Drill

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-War-Games.html

HONG KONG (AP) -- The Chinese military will soon hold its ``largest, most advanced'' war games on an island opposite Taiwan, the China-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po reported Wednesday.

The pro-Beijing newspaper said tens of thousands of troops had been training during the past three months on Dongshan island, off the southeastern coastal province of Fujian.

Top military leaders would preside over comprehensive joint military exercises there ``in the near future,'' it said.

``The military drill will be the Peoples' Liberation Army's largest and the most technologically advanced exercise,'' the report said.

The report came as the 2.5 million members of the People's Liberation Army celebrated its Aug. 1, 1927 founding with vows to remain loyal to China's communist leadership.

In late July, China's air force conducted exercises near the island while Fujian-based fleets conducted combat drills. Land-to-air missiles were also being tested in Fuzhou, Wen Wei Po said.

The front-page report showed a high-ranking officer standing inside a model, apparently of the area near Dongshan, with dozens of military vessels aligned in battle positions.

China's military does not comment on its activities.

A Taiwan Defense Ministry spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said China routinely holds exercises during the summer. The reported drills appear to be routine and not threatening to Taiwan, the spokesman said.

Taiwan was the first to warn about the Chinese war games, two months ago.

China and Taiwan split amid a civil war on the mainland in 1949. China says it will attack Taiwan if the island declares formal independence or drags its heels too long on talks over a reunion.

Marking the 74th anniversary of the founding of China's communist army, Defense Minister Chi Haotian reiterated Beijing's pledge not to renounce force as a way to bring Taiwan under Beijing's control.

A report by the state-run China News Service, also carried on Wen Wei Po, cited Chi as saying the army would rely more heavily on science and technology to strengthen the national defense.

Chi said the army should strengthen training in science and technology and speed up defense technology and weaponry development.

--------

Chinese 'civilian' satellite a spy tool

August 1, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010801-80450317.htm

China's military has deployed a new reconnaissance satellite that is being used to target U.S. forces in the region, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The satellite is Beijing's first high-resolution imaging satellite and is disguised as a civilian earth monitoring system, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The satellite secretly has been designated as the Jianbing-3, officials said. Its public name is Ziyuan-2 (ZY-2). Ziyuan means "resource."

The satellite was launched Sept. 1 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launching Center in the northern Shanxi Province. The official Xinhua news agency described the satellite as a civilian "remote sensing" system.

The news agency said the satellite would be used primarily in territorial surveying, city planning, crop yield assessment, disaster monitoring and space science experimentation.

Xinhua made no mention of its military spying role.

An official familiar with intelligence reports on the launch said it is "a photoreconnaissance satellite used exclusively for military purposes."

The satellite is being used by China's military for planning combat operations, such as targeting missiles at U.S. forces in Japan and elsewhere, and preparing for both missile and aircraft strikes on Taiwan, an island nation that Beijing views as a breakaway province.

"Contrary to officially announced civilian missions, this spacecraft is actually a high-resolution imagery satellite that is producing images of military targets in the areas surrounding China," the official said.

"What has been described as a civilian earth sensing satellite is actually a military bird," the official said, using the intelligence term for a satellite.

U.S. intelligence officials said the new satellite is believed to employ digital-imaging technology to relay pictures to ground stations, instead of photographic film sent back in canisters, a method used on past Chinese satellites.

The digital imagery capability is raising questions among U.S. intelligence officials about whether the Chinese obtained advanced American imagery technology covertly for the satellite.

Earth sensing satellites normally are used to monitor environmental changes or to help explore for natural resources on the ground.

The resolution of the satellite is less than U.S. reconnaissance satellites but comparable to the clarity produced by several U.S. and European commercial imagery satellites now in use.

Those satellites produce pictures with a resolution of about 9 feet. The resolution means that the satellite produces photographs capable of showing objects that size in detail.

Officials said the reconnaissance satellite has raised questions about China's opposition to Japan's announcement that it plans to deploy a series of military satellites in the coming years. Beijing views the development of military spy satellites as leading to a rearming of Japan.

Taiwan's defense minister, Wu Shih-wen, expressed concerns shortly after the satellite launch that the system would be used for military purposes. Taiwan's military is monitoring the satellite, he said.

China's official SpaceChina Internet site said the satellite was designed and built by the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and was developed indigenously. The satellite is said to be more advanced than earlier sensing satellites and is expected to have an orbital life of two years.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Orbital Information Group at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt said the satellite orbits the Earth every 94.3 minutes in an elliptical orbit of 305 miles by 294 miles.

Officials said the camera on the new satellite provides more than three times the resolution of an earlier satellite designated as the ZY-1, which is an earth sensing satellite.

The Jianbing-3 is in a lower orbit than the ZY-1, the officials said. The lower orbit is another indication that the satellite has a higher resolution than other Chinese sensing satellites.

Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military, said the new satellite would be Beijing's first electro-optical imaging satellite.

"This satellite has at least five-meter resolution, which is more than sufficient for strategic targeting," said Mr. Fisher, who is writing a book on China's military.

Mr. Fisher said it is likely that the new satellite was developed as part of China's space cooperation with Brazil.

"For example, the high-speed real-time data transfer technology may have come from Brazil," he said.

China is expected to field several high-technology space platforms, he said, including higher resolution imagery satellites, electronic signals intelligence satellites and military communications satellites.

U.S. intelligence officials disclosed to The Times last year that China in January 2000 had launched its first military communications satellite, part of a new command-and-control network designed to link its forces for combat.

"These will be netted to airborne and ground-based sensors to give [People's Liberation Army] ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft and ships a seamless tactical-to-strategic targeting capability," Mr. Fisher said. "This is bad news for Taiwan, and bad news for the American forces that may have to come to Taiwan's defense."

-------- israel

Israeli Missiles Kill 2 Hamas Leaders
Young Brothers On Sidewalk Are Among 8 Slain

By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 1, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12379-2001Jul31?language=printer

NABLUS, West Bank, July 31 -- Israel shifted its campaign of assassinations to a new level today, killing two senior political leaders of the radical Islamic Resistance Movement and six others, including two children, in a missile strike in this West Bank town.

Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least two antitank missiles into the local office of the group, known as Hamas, killing the eight Palestinians and triggering firefights, mortar attacks, ambushes and cries for revenge across the Israeli-occupied territories.

The strike against the Hamas leaders, Jamal Mansour and Jamal Salim, marked a shift in Israeli policy since its forces began assassinating Palestinian figures last fall. Until now, many of the targets were suspected to be armed militants -- warlords, gunmen and bomb-makers. But Mansour and Salim, heavyset, bearded men in their early forties, were prominent West Bank political figures with formidable Islamic constituencies. Although they had been jailed in the past by Israel and, more recently, by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, both men were well-known public figures, attending funerals, giving interviews and running a network of welfare programs and medical clinics organized by Hamas.

Both were ardent proponents of attacks on Israel, and Israel had long urged that they be incarcerated by the Palestinian Authority. Israel said that attacks by Hamas, including suicide bombings, had killed 37 Israelis in the past 10 months of violence.

Two other Palestinians -- a policeman and an Islamic militant -- were also killed today, in the Gaza Strip, making the death toll of 10 the highest since a Palestinian suicide bomber sent by Hamas killed 21 people outside a Tel Aviv disco two months ago.

Tonight, seven Israeli motorists were shot in the West Bank northwest of Jerusalem in two separate ambushes. One of the victims, a woman, was severely wounded, and two others were in serious condition.

Both of the dead Hamas leaders were decapitated by the missiles, which slammed though a pair of third-floor windows and into their office in a residential district in central Nablus, a Palestinian-run town about 30 miles north of Jerusalem.

"Today is a day of one of our most important successes," said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.

Sharon's office said in a statement that the Hamas leaders had "perpetrated terrorist attacks in the past and were in the process of planning further terrorist attacks." The statement also expressed regret for the deaths of the two children, brothers age 7 and 10 who were waiting for their mother on the sidewalk below the Hamas office when the missiles struck.

The Palestinian Authority declared two days of official mourning for the victims. The spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, said in Gaza City that Israel had crossed "a red line," and he vowed revenge. A Hamas spokesman, Abdul Aziz Rantissi, declared, "With this action, Israel has opened the gates of hell."

Israeli officials were braced for a wave of suicide and car bomb attacks for which Hamas has become notorious.

In an official statement faxed to foreign correspondents in Jerusalem this evening and attributable only to "Israeli sources," Mansour was said to have "led the implementation of the terrorist attacks policy of [Hamas]. He gave the direction, defined the targets and the method, created the required organizational infrastructure and sent the Hamas militant operatives" on bombing missions.

Mansour was the father of five small children and a popular figure whose friends, neighbors and constituents admired him as a generous and committed man.

"All Palestinians loved him so much," said Mohammed Hassan, 26, a grocer who was Mansour's neighbor. "He was so good to people."

The United States has consistently criticized Israel's assassination policy, which has claimed at least 40 lives since last fall, and the White House condemned today's attack as "provocative." But the condemnations have become routine, and they have been consistently ignored by Israeli officials.

After today's strike, Uzi Landau, Israel's public security minister, said, "I want to see nonstop attacks and I want Arafat to feel pressure."

The attack occurred in an instant, just after 2 p.m. on a sun-soaked afternoon. The seven-story building and the surrounding neighborhood trembled from the force of two thunderous blasts that came just seconds apart. Windows in neighboring buildings blew out, causing people to be cut by flying glass, and pedestrians were thrown to the ground. Shrapnel flew in all directions, gouging hundreds of small holes in the targeted building's facade.

A block away, Rida Koni, 20, a shoe salesman, was staggered by the blast but uninjured. A short time later, he noticed that a pebble-size bit of shrapnel was embedded in the cell phone nestled in his pants pocket.

The interior of the Hamas office, identified by a plaque at the front door as the Palestine Center for Study and Media, was a tableau of carnage. Medics who reached the scene within minutes said body parts, brain matter and blood were blown in all directions, interspersed with the debris of shattered furniture and office equipment and Koranic wall posters. No one in the room, an open-plan office no larger than a small classroom, survived.

In addition to the two Hamas leaders, the dead included Mansour's two bodyguards as well as Fahim Dawabshe, 31, a Hamas militant who had been jailed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to Israeli sources, he has been on the Jewish state's wanted list for several years, and in interviews had defended Hamas's use of terrorism.

A Palestinian journalist was also among the dead. Mohammed Bishawi, 25, had come to interview Mansour for the official Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jedida, according to a relative who saw him on the street minutes earlier.

On the sidewalk, Bilal Abu Khadr, 10, and his 7-year-old brother were waiting for their parents when the missiles hit. Their mother, Nadia, who had persistent pains in her leg, was at the physical therapy clinic located just below the Hamas office, as was their father, Mohammed. The boys died instantly in the blast, probably hit by shrapnel.

Yossi Sarid, the dovish opposition leader in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, was among the few Israelis to criticize the attack.

"When you give an order to shoot missiles at a seven-story building in the middle of a crowded city . . . there has to be a real miracle not to hit innocent people," Sarid said. "So it would be better to exercise restraint, better judgment and be more careful.

"Now we say they killed children, and they say we killed children, and how will the international community see any difference?"

--------

From White House, State:
2 Responses to Israeli Attack

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 1, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14166-2001Jul31?language=printer

The State Department "strongly deplored" an Israeli helicopter attack yesterday on the office of a militant Palestinian group that killed eight people, including two children, but the White House issued a more measured statement urging that both sides abide by a U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement.

This marked the second time in as many days that the White House was more reluctant than State to weigh in aggressively on the mounting turmoil in the Middle East. On Monday, the White House played down the prospect that the United States would soon send monitors to the region, an initiative that American diplomats have been trying to sell to Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Former American diplomats attributed the gap between the State Department and the White House to their different audiences. While State does daily business with foreign governments alarmed by Israeli tactics and the surging violence, the White House has its sights on domestic politics and the sensitivities of a pro-Israel Congress.

"I see a White House that is very reluctant to move ahead in a way that crosses the wires of its domestic agenda," said Edward S. Walker Jr., who was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs until this spring.

The comments by Bush administration officials came as they grappled with the reality that a truce brokered two months ago by CIA Director George J. Tenet has failed to take hold and a breakthrough in peace talks seems remote.

At the State Department, which has repeatedly criticized Israeli assassinations of suspected Palestinian militants, officials used especially tough language yesterday after the attack on a Hamas political office in Nablus.

"We deeply regret and strongly deplore the killing of civilians," said State Department spokesman Charles F. Hunter. "We condemn terror in the strongest possible terms. The Israeli action today, however, was excessive. The attack represents an escalation, is highly provocative and makes efforts to restore calm much more difficult."

Hunter said yesterday's violence represented a "new and dangerous escalation" and warned, "Both sides should recognize that down the path of escalation and retaliation lies disaster." He added that Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage had raised American concerns about the killings with Israeli cabinet secretary Gideon Saar, who began a visit to Washington yesterday.

Shortly after State Department officials issued their condemnation of Israeli tactics, President Bush made a far more restrained statement.

"I wish the levels of violence were lower than they are today. A couple of weeks ago it looked like we had made progress, and then the violence spiked. That means the United States will continue to stay actively involved and urging there to be calm and urging both parties to resist the temptation to resort to violence," Bush said.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called for the two sides to follow recommendations for restoring mutual confidence that were made by an international commission led by former senator George J. Mitchell (D-Maine). "When the president talks about a cessation of violence and a cease-fire, it means no killing of anybody. And of course that applies to civilians," Fleischer said.

A day earlier, Fleischer had also struck a different tone than his counterparts in Foggy Bottom. He said U.S. monitors would not be sent to the region until after a lasting cease-fire had taken hold and the United States, working with other governments, had made progress in carrying out the Mitchell panel recommendations. "Only at that time will the question of monitors possibly come up," he said Monday.

Hunter, by contrast, spoke the same day of moving "as quickly as possible into the next phase of the Mitchell committee process." Under the plan envisioned at the State Department, the administration would dispatch a team of about 10 monitors once it was able to win agreement from the sides.

Samuel W. Lewis, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said the White House and the State Department have long had different considerations when confronted with Middle East violence. The State Department is more likely to reflect the concerns that American diplomats hear from European and Arab capitals about Israeli infractions of international law. The White House is more attuned to American politics and the impact that a policy critical of Israel could have on domestic priorities.

He said this tension is likely to increase as the Palestinian uprising draws a sharper Israeli response. "The more bloodshed there is, the more the United States will face a dilemma of this kind," Lewis said.

Walker said State has been "way out in front" in criticizing Israel for extrajudicial killings. Yet as long as Israeli officials spot daylight between State and the White House, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government is unlikely to temper the practice, according to Walker, who is president of the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev said the raid on Hamas "was active self-defense. We're stopping them from continuing to attack us."

The White House, meanwhile, is hesitant to pursue a Middle East policy that could offend Congress and undercut Bush's domestic agenda, especially when the balance of power on Capitol Hill is so delicate, Walker said.

The pro-Israel sympathies of Congress were most recently manifest on Thursday when a House Middle East subcommittee peppered William J. Burns, Walker's successor, with questions about why the administration was not taking a harder line with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

-------

Israel's undercover assassins

BBC News
Wednesday, 1 August, 2001, 20:54 GMT 21:54 UK
Paul Wood
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1469000/1469145.stm

BBC Jerusalem correspondent Paul Wood looks into the murky activities, including "targeted military actions", or assassinations, of Israel's security services.

Inside a Palestinian courthouse on Wednesday a crowd gathered, cheering and shouting "God is Great" as three men were sentenced to death for collaboration with Israel.

They had been convicted of helping Israel's security services assassinate a leading Palestinian activist last year.

Such killings are carried out by the Israeli army, or by Shin Bet, Israel's security services, known to Israelis as the Shabak.

The Shabak is thought to have a large network of Palestinian agents on the West Bank.

This allows Israel to identify those it says have carried out, or will carry out, "terrorist" bombings".

"Targeted military actions" - what the Palestinians call assassinations - are the result.

Other methods

Sometimes this is tank fire, or rockets fired from helicopter gunships, as happened in Nablus recently when eight Palestinians, including two children, were killed.

There are other methods. In Bethlehem, eyewitnesses said a local Islamic Jihad commander had a narrow escape when four men threw off Arab disguises and opened fire with Uzis. The four were assumed to be from Shin Bet.

In another operation, an Islamic militant on the West Bank died when the headrest in his car blew up. Explosives had been placed inside by someone assumed to be a Palestinian agent of Shin Bet.

Israeli security experts say that Shabak has a large number of fluent Arabic speakers, able to pass themselves off as Palestinians and go freely about the West Bank.

New recruits to these elite units are said to have to pass a test by going to a Palestinian market and talking to shoppers without raising any suspicions.

Detained spies

The Palestinian Authority says Israel has carried out at least 60 assassinations since the intifada, or uprising, began 10 months ago. The PA says it has foiled many more attempts by Israel's secret services to kill senior Palestinian officials.

Khaled al-Qidra, attorney-general for the Palestinian security courts, said a number of "spies" had been detained. He said Israel provided collaborators with sophisticated equipment to track down Palestinian activists.

An Israeli Defence Ministry spokesman, Yarden Vatikay, said: "Israel has no policy of assassination, but will continue to arrest and attack those who pose a threat to Israeli lives."

The Israeli security cabinet met on Wednesday and decided to continue with the policy of "pin-point military strikes". The alternative, some Israelis say, would be all-out war with the Palestinians.

Threat to Arafat?

In recent weeks, a rising tide of newspaper leaks has revealed a debate within the Israeli Government and the highest reaches of the army and Shin Bet.

The question is: Should Israel launch a devastating military attack aimed at destroying the Palestinian Authority and ejecting Yasser Arafat?

Early in July, the Israeli newspaper, Maariv, even published excerpts of what it called a top-secret Shin Bet document presented to the Israeli Prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

Some interpreted the document as a call for Yasser Arafat himself to be assassinated.

According to Maariv, the security agency concluded: "Arafat the man is a severe threat to the security of [Israel]. The damage from his disappearance is less compared to the damage from his continued survival."

Avoiding war

Others within Israel's security agencies argued that any attempt to dislodge Mr Arafat could backfire, resulting in an even more radical Palestinian leadership, possibly run by Islamic militants.

According to accounts of a key Israeli cabinet meeting last month, Mr Sharon has firmly rejected talk of attacking the PA or removing its leader.

"You're all big heroes with all your advice," he's supposed to have told right-wingers clamouring for an all-out military assault.

"At the end of the day, the responsibility is mine. This region is not going to war."

For the time being, that means the policy of assassinating Palestinian militants will continue - and that means a pre-eminent role for the Shabak and their agents.

-------- puerto rico

A Town of Tents and Civil Disobedience

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By DAVID GONZALEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/national/01PUER.html

GUAYNABO, P.R., July 31 - The groups that have taken sides over the Navy firing range on Vieques have more than their ideologies to mark their turf. In a twist on the idea of a political camp, they have set up a Hooverville with flags, tents, sleeping bags, field kitchens and outhouses.

A tent city that is home to several dozen people has taken root on the grassy knolls and sidewalks outside the federal prison here that is home to 15 of the protesters who have been arrested at the Navy firing range on Vieques. At least a half-dozen groups of different political beliefs have claimed their own small piece of land by the highways, exit ramps and roads that crisscross the area. They keep vigil while playing dominoes, chatting or chanting and waving to those imprisoned inside.

The groups include Navy supporters who have a lone, empty tent far from the main settlement on one side of the issue and church groups, students and advocates for Puerto Rican independence on the other. Some have elaborate setups, with resident artists, a stage and a library. Others, like the students, sleep in tents set on wooden pallets or huddle at tables or in hammocks under a leaky plastic tarp.

Many have been inside the prison themselves for civil disobedience. Now on the other side of a security fence topped by coils of razor wire, they vow to stay until the last protester is freed.

"We are not comfortable here, but that is not the purpose," said Carlos Pérez Figueroa, 36, who spends his time at the student camp. "We are here so when somebody inside looks out the prison windows, they see us. I was in there. You feel hopeless and miss your loved ones. But when you know there are people in the camps outside who are not comfortable and sometimes hungry, you do not feel alone."

Huge flags flap on the lampposts on surrounding streets and roads. It was the latest sign of the battle of the flags that had erupted in recent weeks as supporters and opponents of bombing in Vieques staked their positions.

A United States flag, planted by supporters of Puerto Rican statehood and guarded by police officers, is by the highway, set off by a buffer zone ringed by yellow police tape. An enormous Puerto Rican flag stands in front of the prison, near a small platform decorated with yellow ribbons.

Although there have been some incidents of flag stealing, the police said there were no serious disturbances at the camps. One officer, who would not give his name, said that as far as he was concerned people were free to be on public property. However, when asked who owned the sprawling patch of land outside the prison, he shrugged and said, "The independence party?"

His mistake might be understandable, since the independence group has been there the longest. Its first members arrived in May soon after their leader, Rubén Berríos, was sentenced to 120 days in prison. The independence camp includes a stage where bands play on weekends, an electric generator and a stocked kitchen where volunteers cook rice, beans and roasted pork.

"We are here for the long haul," said Heriberto Marín, a leader of the independence camp.

To the side, a church group has an open-air chapel for nightly prayer meetings. Nearby, another group has set up a long shack, which it is expanding to make room for friends and relatives who come to visit prisoners. Tents almost abut concrete barricades along the highway shoulder, next to an improvised shower stall.

"You have to take care of people day and night," said Disraelly Gutierrez, a teacher who has lived at the camp since mid-June. "Whoever comes here, we'll take care of them."

Many people here are emboldened by the recent referendum where a majority of Vieques residents voted to demand the Navy's immediate departure. They said that if bombing resumed this week, as expected, more people would be arrested. Young people camping along the fence near the women's wing of the prison said they were already learning about civil disobedience so they could protest.

On Monday night, members of the island's pro-commonwealth party, independence advocates and even a few statehood supporters gave speeches and waved arms and banners outside of the prison's women's wing. Several floors up, seven women in silhouette could be seen jumping, waving and blowing kisses.

Today, Zoraida Figueroa, one of those who had been at the prison's window on Monday night, was released after serving her 30-day sentence. The first thing she did was to visit one of the camps to thank those who had been out there every night.

"This camp causes me to feel such great emotion," Ms. Figueroa said. After savoring hugs and a hot lunch, Ms. Figueroa looked around the camp that she said would now be her home, perhaps one with a holdover from her previous one.

"I want to buy a uniform like I wore inside," she said. "That way, when the guard comes out, he can see me and know I'm still there."

-------- space

Military Chief Urges Space Weaponry

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 1, 2001; 11:22 AM
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16537-2001Aug1?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force's top general said Wednesday the military eventually will need forces capable of defending American interests in space, particularly U.S. satellites.

Gen. Michael Ryan, the Air Force chief of staff, told a group of reporters that as the United States becomes more dependent on space for reconnaissance, communications and navigation, the nation's need for space weaponry will increase.

"Eventually we're going to have to have the capability to take things out in orbit," he said. He said he favored developing anti-satellite weapons, which the Pentagon has worked on for years but never deployed.

Asked whether he saw a need for space-based weapons, as opposed to ground-based or airborne weapons capable of fighting in space, Ryan said, "I think eventually we may need to do that."

Ryan said military and commercial satellites give the United States a large advantage over most other nations.

"We have to in some way be able to protect those assets, at least defensively," he said. "And that leads you to the thought that if you're going to be up there trying to protect them defensively, where do you cross the line into offensive operations.

"Historically, wherever commerce has gone and our national interests have gone, so have gone our forces - on land, sea, in the air, we tended to exploit the realm we were dependent upon. I would suggest that sometime in the future here we're going to have to come to a policy decision on whether we're going to use space for both defensive and offensive capabilities."

On other topics, Ryan said he was encouraged by the Bush administration's proposal to increase the 2002 defense budget by $18.4 billion, even though that was less than what the military had hoped for.

"It's better than a blow to the face with a dull ax," he said.

Ryan also said he favors closing more military bases. He said the Air Force has 10 percent to 20 percent more base capacity than it needs. He did not say how many bases he thought should be closed.

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

Much-Maligned B-1 Bomber Proves Hard to Kill

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/national/01BOMB.html?searchpv=nytToday

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. - For most of its relatively short and often bumbling life, the B-1 has been the strategic bomber even the Pentagon has loved to hate.

Even before the last B-1 rolled off the assembly line in 1988, the Air Force had determined that the plane was vulnerable to Soviet air defenses. A 1991 study found it could not fly in snow because it had no effective de-icing equipment. Engine problems sidelined it during the Persian Gulf war. And in 1999, the Pentagon delayed using B-1's over Yugoslavia until enemy defenses had been suppressed by aging B-52's and other aircraft.

"It's a 20-year-old system," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said in recent testimony before the House. "It's not stealthy. It's designed for the cold war. It has been headed towards expensive obsolescence."

But for all the B-1's shortcomings, the Bush administration, in its effort to identify savings in the $329 billion Pentagon budget, is finding it difficult to kill.

In June, the Pentagon proposed mothballing about a third of the 93- plane B-1 force. Immediately, members of Congress, businessmen and Air National Guard officers from states with B-1 bases began furiously organizing against the move. Thanks to their efforts, the House Armed Services Committee is expected to approve a Republican amendment prohibiting cuts to the B-1 force in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Whether or not the amendment survives, the battle over the B-1 has become more than a budget fight. It has emerged as the first major test of Mr. Rumsfeld's ability to bring sweeping changes to the military, as President Bush pledged in last year's campaign.

Many military experts had viewed the B-1 - which was originally intended to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union - as the kind of cold- war weapon Mr. Bush had envisioned for early retirement. But now, those experts are framing the question differently: If Mr. Rumsfeld cannot replace the B-1, what can he replace?

"Congress is saying, if you think retiring B-1's is difficult, wait until you try to cut an Army division or carrier battle group," said Michael G. Vickers, director of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

The Pentagon has justified the cuts by saying it needs to spend $1.5 billion over the next six years to make essential upgrades to the B-1 force. Those proposed upgrades include modernizing computers and refitting the planes to carry cruise missiles, a move that helped prolong the life of the B-52's, a bomber the B- 1 was supposed to replace. By retiring 33 B-1's, the Air Force could save enough money to pay for the improvements to the remaining 60 aircraft, officials said.

But the plan has met with scorn from members of Congress - many of them Republicans - from Georgia, Kansas and Idaho, where the B- 1's slated for retirement are based. Those lawmakers have argued it makes little sense to cut 33 long- range, supersonic bombers when the administration is emphasizing the importance of air power in striking distant targets in Asia.

B-1 backers also accuse the Pentagon of playing politics with the bomber. The Air Force has proposed consolidating five B-1 units into two bases: Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, President Bush's home state, and Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, represented by the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle.

"I am discouraged, I am frustrated and I am angry," Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, yelled at Mr. Rumsfeld in a recent hearing, waving a document he claimed was the Air Force's internal political analysis of the B-1 plan.

What makes the B-1 a particularly hard target for budget cutters is that it incites two of Congress's deepest fears about changes to the military: job losses and base closings.

Under the Air Force plan, Robins Air Force Base in central Georgia and McConnell Air Force Base outside Wichita, Kan., would each lose their nine B-1's, while Mountain Home Air Force Base in southern Idaho would lose its seven planes. Dyess would lose eight B-1's, shrinking its squadron to 32. Ellsworth would keep all 26 of its jets. Two B- 1's are stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in California for testing.

In Georgia and Kansas, the B-1 squadrons are manned by Air National Guard units that each employ about 1,200 people, about half of them full time. Although the Air Force has said it would try to find them new work, many fear that they will eventually lose their jobs even though all the bases losing B-1's have other flight units.

Those fears are not unfounded because guardsmen do not transfer every few years, as active duty troops do, but are permanent residents of their communities. Several members of the 116th Bomber Wing at Robins said they had quit active duty service to join the guard so they could settle in central Georgia. The wing, they said, was so tight-knit that more than a dozen children of guardsmen joined their fathers in the unit.

To those guardsmen, losing the B-1 mission is like working in a factory scheduled to close, and many cried when news of the B-1 plan was announced last month.

"We live in Georgia, this is our home," said Maj. Mike Verhage, 33, a weapons systems officer and father of two who began working on B-1's right out of flight school. "We don't salute smartly and get reassigned."

Col. George T. Lynn, commander of the 116th, said the Air Force's decision to take away the wing's B- 1's seemed perplexing because the Pentagon just spent $60 million building new hangars for the planes at Robins. He also argued that Guard units, because they have older, more experienced personnel, tend to be more cost-effective and reliable than their active-duty counterparts.

"We feel this plane is as good as any bomber," Colonel Lynn said.

In Warner Robins, news of the B-1 plan has fueled worries among the town's nearly 50,000 residents that the base will become a target for closure, as it was in 1993. Along Route 247, a commercial strip of car dealerships, fast-food restaurants and pawn shops that runs through the middle of town, business owners said customer traffic dropped sharply just after the B-1 announcement.

"When people hear about losing the B-1, they think of base closings," said Claude Watson, Jr., the owner of a hardware store. "And when they think about base closings, they right away squeeze real tight onto their money."

Virtually since it was born, the B-1 has had a history of design flaws, equipment failures and crashes. First approved by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, the B-1 was designed to penetrate Soviet air space by flying great distances at speeds of more than 800 miles per hour while jamming enemy radar and closely hugging the ground.

President Jimmy Carter killed the project in 1977, but President Ronald Reagan revived it four years later. In 1985, the first operational B-1, now officially known as the B-1B Lancer, was delivered to Dyess Air Force Base, but the event was marred when bolts from the plane's air-conditioning system broke loose and damaged two of its four engines. Over the next three years, three of the $200 million bombers crashed.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the B-1's mission as a nuclear bomber came into greater question, prompting President George Bush to order the planes refitted - at a cost of $3 billion - to carry conventional weapons like cluster bombs and heat-seeking missiles.

Still, critics inside and outside of the Pentagon say the bomber remains too costly to operate and too unreliable to be worth saving. "Who would want this bomber?" asked Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group.

"The problem," she added, "is every inefficiency has a patron."

--------

Pentagon stuck with berets

August 1, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010801-11600004.htm

The Pentagon has been unable to unload more than 618,000 Chinese-made black berets banned for use by American Army soldiers, and is keeping the $4 million worth of headgear in a warehouse in Pennsylvania.

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), a Pentagon purchasing agent, had considered selling the berets to surplus stores, but officials said that option is unlikely because the made-in-China hats would probably end up on the heads of U.S. soldiers. This would make for an awkward fit since the Army chief of staff and senior Defense Department officials prohibited their use in May.

"That's why we didn't go through normal distribution and held onto them because they would migrate back to the Army," said Col. Sanford McLaurin, a DLA spokesman. "We definitely don't want that to happen."

Congressional sources said the DLA has sent feelers to foreign buyers and U.S. federal agencies, but found no takers for the berets.

The DLA's decision last year to waive a federal "buy America" law and purchase Army berets overseas, including from communist China, created an uproar among members of Congress and veterans groups. The DLA defended the decision by saying contracting with foreign plants was the only way to meet an Army deadline to have all 1.3 million Army soldiers in black berets by the service's birthday in June. In all, the Army wants an initial buy of 4.76 million berets at a cost of $30 million.

Opposition became so intense that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz announced in May that no Army soldier will wear berets made in China. Gen. Eric Shinseki, who announced the universal beret policy last October, says black berets will symbolize the Army's transformation into a lighter force able to deploy faster to world hot spots.

Col. McLaurin said selling the Chinese-made berets to foreign countries is among six possibilities suggested by an official DLA review. Each requires a business case study scheduled for completion next month before a final disposition decision is made.

The six options: destroy the berets; transfer them to other agencies; sell to foreign buyers; donate them to schools or some other non-profit organization; sell to surplus stories; or keep them in storage permanently. Col. McLaurin said the surplus store option is a long shot.

"We are now figuring out the best possible action to do with them," he said. "To be a good steward of the taxpayers' dollars you'd like to get something back for those berets."

Debate surrounding the Chinese-made beret debacle is continuing. Today, a vote is set in the House Armed Services Committee on an amendment from Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland Republican. His bill, which has 50 House co-sponsors, would prohibit the Army from spending any money to buy or distribute berets until an ammunition shortfall is made up. An aide said Mr. Bartlett will propose the amendment if committee Chairman Bob Stump, Arizona Republican, does not make it part of his original bill.

Col. McLaurin said DLA is making good progress in finding American plants to make berets in addition to the lone U.S. supplier, Bancroft Cap Co. in Arkansas. He said one U.S. firm has bought the antiquated equipment needed to make one-seam berets, a style preferred by soldiers because they can ply the hat to sit properly atop the head.

Only Bancroft has the machinery in the country to make one-seam berets.

--------

Two U.S. carriers now in Persian Gulf

August 1, 2001 Posted: 6:09 PM EDT (2209 GMT)
By Jamie McIntyre
CNN Military Affairs Correspondent
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/01/us.carriers.gulf/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon sources confirmed Wednesday that a second U.S. aircraft carrier has arrived in the Persian Gulf in what Navy officials describe as a routine rotation.

The second U.S. aircraft carrier doubles, at least briefly, the available sea-based firepower at a time when the Pentagon is contemplating airstrikes against Iraq's air defenses.

Sources told CNN the USS Enterprise arrived in the southern Gulf on Wednesday and will soon join the USS Constellation, which is about to end its scheduled tour of duty.

The rotation of the two carriers is expected to take about a week, according to Navy officials. The USS Enterprise will be joined by its slower escort ships within a few days, sources said.

Meanwhile, senior Bush admini stration officials met at the White House Wednesday to discuss Iraq policy, and sources told CNN the United State is making plans for to respond to Iraq's stepped-up campaign to shoot down a U.S. or British plane enforcing the no-fly zones.

Iraq appears to be bracing for an attack. Over the past week it dispersed some missiles, radars and aircraft into a more defensive posture, according to Pentagon sources.

That includes moving some radars near Baghdad above the 33rd parallel, outside the southern no-fly zone where the U.S. bombs with some frequency.

Pentagon officials would not confirm details of the planning, including the scale or timing of an attack.

"We reserve the right to strike targets at a time and a place in a manner of our choosing," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Tuesday.

The last time the United States attacked above the 33rd parallel was on February 16, 2001, when more than 60 U.S. and British planes, including two-dozen strike aircraft, attacked five targets that included more than 20 radars.

Quigley said Tuesday that President Saddam Hussein "is trying his darndest to bring down a coalition aircraft."

He said in the southern no-fly zone there have been 370 "provocations" by Iraqi gunners so far this year, compared to only 211 in 2000.

The Pentagon defines a "provocation" as an incident in which Iraqi air defenses fires artillery or missiles at coalition planes, or targets them with hostile radar.

In the northern no-fly zone there have been 62 "provocations" so far this year, compared to 145 in 2000.

There have been no U.S. bombing raids on Iraq since July 17, when U.S. planes hit an anti-aircraft site in southern Iraq.

President Bush was at the Pentagon for a briefing Wednesday, but senior Pentagon officials said the topic was nuclear force levels, not Iraq.

-------- OTHER

-------- energy

Toxic Power
What the Toxics Release Inventory Tells Us about Power Plant Pollution

By National Environmental Trust for Clear the Air,
the National Campaign Against Dirty Power
August 2000
http://cta.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=18980

Written by Thomas E. Natan, Jr. Ph.D, Research Director, Richard Puchalsky, Research Associate, and Mark Wenzler, Environmental Counsel, National Environmental Trust.

Executive Summary

Newly released EPA information on toxic air emissions shows that electric utilities are the biggest polluters in the US - far outstripping industries such as chemical manufacturing and refining. Utilities claim that their toxic releases - while large in the aggregate - pose no threat to the public. However, neither the electric utilities nor EPA have examined potential long-term risk to children, the elderly, and people with respiratory illnesses. Both EPA and the electric utility industry have also failed to analyze the impact of power plant toxic chemical emissions on particulate pollution, an enormous public health concern.

The Toxic Release Inventory, or TRI, is our nation's premiere database of information on how much toxic air, water and land pollution is released each year by various industries. A serious gap in this compendium was recently closed when, after years of resistance, coal- and oil-burning electric utilities were finally forced to disclose their air, land and water pollution. When EPA released the newest data to the public in May 2000, electric utilities instantly became known as the biggest toxic air polluters in the U.S.

This report is the first in-depth analysis of the quantity and nature of coal- and oil-burning power plant toxic pollution brought to light in the Toxic Release Inventory. It demonstrates that electric utility emissions can and do in fact present serious public health concerns. It also shows that special pollution exemptions for power plants have contributed to the massive quantity of toxic materials released by the electric power industry.

-------- environment

Energy Executives Urge Some Gas-Emission Limits on Bush

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By ANDREW C. REVKIN and NEELA BANERJEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/business/01EMIT.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all

With President Bush continuing to oppose international or domestic restrictions on gases linked to global warming, among the losers are energy companies that favor government action and have already spent millions on voluntary efforts to cut emissions.

Given little credence by the White House despite large expenditures on lobbying and longstanding ties to administration officials, these companies are shifting their focus to Congress, where several bills that would impose emissions restrictions are being debated or prepared.

But in that effort, the companies face formidable opposition from other energy concerns and trade groups that are fighting against any limits.

"There's an enormous amount of lobbying going on," said Rob Long, vice president for government affairs at the National Mining Association. "It's a three-ring circus."

Among the companies that want the United States to embrace some form of greenhouse-gas limits are oil producers including the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and BP, as well as power-generating companies like Cinergy (news/quote), AEP and Entergy (news/quote), all of which have moved to reduce their own emissions.

Another company holding this view is the Enron Corporation (news/quote) of Houston, whose chairman is Mr. Bush's friend Kenneth L. Lay. Enron was the largest contributor among energy companies last year to the Republican Party.

These companies, which include some of the world's biggest producers and users of fossil fuels, have concluded that limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse, or heat-trapping, gases are inevitable. They say that by packaging reductions in greenhouse gas emissions with other environmental measures, like cutting other power plant emissions, they could win concessions on other pollution rules.

And to plan long-term investments, they want the predictability that comes from quick adoption of clear rules, although more flexible ones than those agreed to in Bonn a week ago by 178 countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol, the worldwide climate agreement that President Bush rejects.

Most of these businesses share Mr. Bush's view that the Kyoto agreement could hurt the United States economy and that it unfairly requires emissions reductions only of big industrial nations. But many officials of these companies said Mr. Bush had blundered by rejecting the agreement outright instead of trying to repair it.

"What businesses want is policy certainty," an environmental expert for a large international energy company said. "Bush has injected only turbulence."

For all their wealth, power and influence, though, these companies say they have been cut out of discussions at the White House. The only ideas that have risen to the highest levels there are those of companies staunchly opposing limits on emissions, according to lobbyists, government officials and executives.

The Bush administration denied last night that it was excluding any options or ideas in trying to develop an approach to global warming. A White House spokeswoman, Claire E. Buchan, said: "We are taking this issue very seriously. We're listening to constituencies who represent all perspectives."

In contrast to executives of companies seeking limits on the gases, people representing companies opposed to restrictions, including Exxon Mobil (news/quote) and many coal companies, said they thought that their message was resonating.

Fredrick D. Palmer, executive vice president for legal and external affairs at Peabody Energy of St. Louis, one of the world's largest coal producers, said it was not really necessary to lobby the Bush administration on the issue, because Big Coal's interests and the administration's views were in sync from the start.

"We don't need to be talking to the White House to know what they want," Mr. Palmer said. "I understand the importance of fossil fuels to the American people. Dick Cheney understands that. The president understands that."

For the moment, the two corporate camps - which have dominated the discussion, with environmental groups largely locked out - have turned to Congress, where an array of influential members from both parties is hoping to seize the initiative in policy making.

Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont, the independent and new chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has said that global warming is his top priority. Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, has joined with Senator Robert C. Byrd, the veteran Democrat from West Virginia, a leading coal-producing state, in introducing a bill aimed at controlling emissions. Mr. Stevens has recently expressed deep concern about the apparently growing damage in his state from climate change.

The energy industry now is focusing its efforts on the energy legislation moving through the House. But company executives and lobbyists are also meeting with members of Congress and administration officials to shape the discussion over a variety of impending emissions measures and proposed changes in regulations.

In mid-August, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to make recommendations to the White House on how to reduce releases of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury from power plants.

And Mr. Jeffords plans to hold meetings with industry, environmentalists and agency officials in September to seek a consensus on a bill to control the three pollutants, along with ways to limit carbon dioxide, the dominant greenhouse gas.

The one thing so far that unifies the energy industry is its opposition to the Jeffords emissions bill in its current form, mainly because it stipulates that old power plants install the latest technology to clean up emissions within five years. Power producers say that the timetable is too stringent and that such a change would disproportionately hurt the Midwest, where most of the power is generated by older coal-fired plants that are targets of the legislation.

Beyond that, the industry separates into distinct camps. For energy companies willing to accept some limits on warming gases, one goal is to firm up a market for tradeable credits earned by companies that make sharp cuts in emissions or plant or protect forests, which absorb carbon dioxide.

For such credits to have value, a limit on emissions must exist, the company officials say. Aware of corporate resistance to mandatory limits, some energy industry executives and lobbyists have proposed that the government sponsor a voluntary program to reduce emissions. Once enrolled, companies would have to meet mandatory goals on reductions of greenhouse gases.

"We haven't said there must be mandatory caps on CO2," said Jeffrey Keeler, director of environmental strategies at Enron. "But it's been proven that voluntary programs don't work well; that's why we are where we are today. We can have limits from the top down and not endanger the economy."

Whether the Bush administration will accept even voluntary limits remains to be seen. And later this year, the White House will again be the focus of policy making.

Businesses that share the view Mr. Bush expressed in March, when he rejected any binding limits on the warming gases, whether in a global accord or federal legislation, say they are confident that there will be no big shifts.

For example, Mr. Long, the mining association official, said he was perplexed by those companies that want to reduce carbon dioxide, which his group and its allies do not see as a pollutant or a threat to the environment.

"I think some of this is the hangover from the Clintonian era, when some of these emissions changes seemed inevitable," he said. "And I think some people got locked into that mind-set. I think the world changed in January. It can't have escaped their notice that the new president won't support constraints on CO2."

One of the staunchest foes of limits on carbon dioxide is the Southern Company of Atlanta, whose nuclear and coal-fired plants span Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, and whose donations to the Republican Party last year were second only to Enron's.

The company recently enlisted Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, as a lobbyist. Mr. Barbour mainly works to loosen enforcement of environmental regulations affecting utilities, though other Washington lobbyists said that he had also argued against action on reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Mr. Barbour did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment.

Power companies trying to find a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions think they have greater sway with Congress than they have with the White House. "The closer we get to midterm elections," a utility executive said, "both sides of the Hill will feel a high degree of vulnerability on environmental issues, and some will retreat from the White House if they feel they need to."

In the meantime, opponents of emissions limits are not assuming that the Kyoto accord is dead, despite its having been greatly weakened by the rejection from the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Their lobbyists were out in force at last week's negotiations in Bonn, and they said they would keep working to defeat the international agreement, which is still subject to ratification in scores of countries. Among other things, they plan to keep pressure on the Bush administration to propose no alternatives - particularly anything resembling a limit on greenhouse gases.

"The protocol is like the Titanic," said Glenn Kelly, executive director of the Global Climate Coalition, which has fought against the Kyoto agreement using contributions from industries that regard gas restrictions as a threat.

Eventually, he said in an interview in Bonn, the Kyoto Protocol will hit an iceberg, but that will not be the end of the matter. "After it sinks," he said, "there are still going to be lifeboats that survive to be picked up by the next ship that comes along."

--------

E.P.A. to Proceed on Dredging Plan for Hudson PCB's

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By KIRK JOHNSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/nyregion/01DRED.html

The federal Environmental Protection Agency's administrator, Christie Whitman, has agreed to go ahead with a plan issued in the closing days of the Clinton administration requiring the General Electric Company to spend more than half a billion dollars to dredge PCB pollution from the Hudson River, according to officials at the agency.

The draft order, which will become official in 30 days after a government review, will set into motion the biggest environmental dredging plan in United States history, after more than two decades of disputes over the science of dredging and the political, economic and moral issues of corporate responsibility.

The order to dredge a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson north of Albany is a huge defeat for G.E., which had spent tens of millions of dollars fighting the proposal. The question of dredging the Hudson had also become a test for the Bush administration, which has been pilloried in recent months by environmental groups for its policies on energy and the international efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're staying the course," said a senior official with the agency, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It's time to move on, and we're committed to cleaning up the river."

The official said that White House officials had been briefed about Mrs. Whitman's decision, and that in the next 30 days, New York State and federal agencies that would have a role in the cleanup, including the Interior Department, would have an opportunity to comment. No changes in the plan are expected, the official said.

There was no immediate indication of whether President Bush had been briefed on the agency's decision.

The company's vice president for corporate environmental programs, Stephen D. Ramsey, declined to comment on the draft order, saying G.E. did not have adequate information yet.

After the Clinton administration approved the preliminary cleanup proposal in December, the plan entered a public comment period that extended through the early months of the Bush administration. Environmental officials said that they had to extend the comment period because of the huge volume of people and organizations that wanted to respond, and that it had taken until this week to analyze all the information.

The draft order closely follows the Clinton administration proposal, which would require G.E. to pay for the removal, or remove by itself, about 2.65 million cubic yards of river bottom of the Hudson from the Troy Dam to the Thompson Island Pool, about 35 miles north of Albany.

An estimated 1.1 million pounds of PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, which have been linked to cancer in humans and various disorders in wildlife, were spilled or dumped into the river by G.E. from its plants along the upper Hudson from the mid-1940's until 1977, when the chemicals were banned. The draft order, as did the Clinton administration plan, proposes to remove about 100,000 pounds of the oily chemical from the river. Much of the PCB's that entered the river are believed to have dispersed by now.

The new draft order will create a few changes in how the cleanup will proceed. E.P.A. officials said that the changes were intended as improvements but that they could delay the cleanup. Officials said that unlike the Clinton plan, the draft order would create a staged cleanup process, and that performance would be reviewed at each phase. Among the issues that will be examined are noise, odor, effect on river traffic, and especially the question of resuspension - that is, whether the dredging process itself stirs up PCB's from the river bottom mud and recontaminates the water.

The possibility that dredging could somehow backfire and repollute a river that by many measures is cleaner than it has been in generations became a nagging fear expressed by many people living near the proposed dredging areas. Officials at the environmental agency said last night that the draft plan took those concerns into account.

They said that if the performance reviews found that PCB's were actually being freed from the bottom mud, the dredging process would be re-evaluated. A major change in a cleanup order, once it has been issued, could require the entire plan to be redrafted, and officials said that resuspension, if it occurred, could be a big enough problem to force a redrafting.

"Yes, there are some unanswered questions about all of this," a senior E.P.A. official said. "But the agency believes it's time to move forward, and our own scientists have said we won't learn everything until we do some of this stuff. What's different here is that we're trying to respond to the concerns of the impacted communities."

General Electric, which waged an extensive public relations campaign against the dredging, as well as a far- flung scientific effort to investigate how PCB's behave under the changing conditions of a river bottom, had contended that the Hudson was essentially cleaning itself by entombing the chemicals under successive layers of silt. Declining levels of the pollutant had been measured in fish caught in the river, the company said, a sign that a natural process was at work.

Company officials, and allies of the company, also argued that the technology of dredging, especially on a scale envisioned by the federal plan, was far from foolproof and that active dredging was therefore both dangerous and unnecessary. E.P.A. scientists, in defending their plan over the last eight months, agreed that PCB levels had declined in the river fish, but said the improvement had leveled off in recent years, indicating that only full removal of the chemical would entirely solve the problem.

Under the federal Superfund law that the government has applied on the Hudson, a final order for a cleanup cannot be challenged in court, and E.P.A. officials said last night that they planned to begin preparing the engineering design for the project as early as September, a process that is expected to take up to a year.

But there are major questions remaining about who would actually do the work - G.E. or the government - and E.P.A. officials said there were several issues within that part of the order that could bring the parties into court and produce delays.

Specifically, G.E. could agree to do the work itself. If it declined to do that, then the government could proceed with a cleanup itself, or get a court order requiring G.E. to do the work, and it is that court order that could be challenged, E.P.A. officials said.

-------- genetics

House Backs Ban on Human Cloning for Any Objective

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/politics/01STEM.html

WASHINGTON, July 31 - After an impassioned debate that pitted the promise of cures for disease against the horror of making babies that are genetic replicas of adults, the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin today to ban cloning, not only for reproduction but also for medical research.

The bipartisan 265-to-162 vote came after lawmakers rejected a less restrictive measure that would have prohibited making babies by cloning while leaving open the door for "therapeutic cloning" experiments in which scientists would create embryos that could be used to treat disease.

Therapeutic cloning is legal in Britain. The far-reaching bill the House adopted, which is backed by President Bush, would not only prohibit it, but would also outlaw the sale of treatments developed from it.

"I think the House spoke very, very loudly today that this is morally and ethically inappropriate," said Representative Dave Weldon, a Florida Republican who was the bill's chief sponsor. "It clearly sends a message that there is a place we don't want to go, and that is the manufacture of scientific embryos for research."

The cloning debate is tangled up with another scientific controversy steeped in politics, that of embryonic stem cell research. The House action - the first time lawmakers have voted on cloning - comes as President Bush is weighing whether to permit federal financing for studies on stem cells derived from human embryos, and it complicates both the politics of the debate and the business of stem cell science.

President Bush praised the House vote.

"The moral issues posed by human cloning are profound and have implications for today and for future generations," he said in a statement issued by the White House. "Today's overwhelming and bipartisan House action to prohibit human cloning is a strong ethical statement, which I commend. We must advance the promise and cause of science, but must do so in a way that honors and respects life."

But the vote against cloning does not necessarily dim the prospects for Congress to approve federally financed stem cell research should President Bush come out against it. Lawmakers say that is because those studies would be limited to cells extracted from embryos that would otherwise be discarded by fertility clinics, which does not seem as extreme to many people as therapeutic cloning.

"People see a difference between the idea of stem cell research and cloning," said Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who voted for the less restrictive measure. "The idea of cloning is very terrifying because it is creating a copy of another human being. I think members haven't looked at all the nuances."

Stem cells are extracted from human embryos, when they are tiny clusters of no more than 300 cells; the work attracts intense criticism from abortion opponents and religious conservatives because the embryos, which they view as human life, are destroyed by the experiments. Because stem cells can grow into any type of tissue in the body, scientists regard them as the building blocks of a new era of regenerative medicine, in which doctors will heal patients using their own tissues.

But to realize the full promise of stem cells, many experts say, the cells must be compatible with patients' immune systems. That is their rationale for therapeutic cloning; by creating embryos that contain patients' own DNA, they say, they could develop tissues that would be an exact match for patients.

Already, a Massachusetts company, Advanced Cell Technology, has announced its intention to conduct therapeutic cloning experiments; that work would become illegal should the House bill become law.

"It is disappointing that we are not having a more reasoned debate," said Mike West, the company's chief executive, in an interview tonight. He described the discussion on the House floor as "two hours of rampant misinformation."

Representative James Greenwood, the Pennsylvania Republican and sponsor of the bill that would have permitted therapeutic cloning, described the House vote today as "flat-earth kind of thinking," and added, "It has no basis in science, and it's not compassionate."

The bill, which makes cloning a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison, faces uncertain prospects in the Senate, where Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, has introduced similar legislation. Mr. Brownback proclaimed today's vote in the House "a great day for humanity" and said that while he did not have a count of senators who might stand with him, he was working to build a "left-right coalition."

That kind of coalition helped the bill pass the House; 63 Democrats joined with 2 independents and 200 Republicans to assure the bill's passage. Some of these lawmakers favor stem cell research on frozen embryos, but have drawn the line at therapeutic cloning.

Some lawmakers say this kind of line-drawing will enable conservatives to support stem cell research without fear of reprisal from abortion opponents. "It gives them the ability to say, `I'm a reasonable person, I'm not a crazy, I don't want human cloning," said Peter Deutsch, Democrat of Florida and a co-sponsor of the Greenwood bill.

Biotechnology industry officials described today's vote as a step backward for medical research. And abortion opponents saw it as an important victory.

"The House has acted to block the creation of embryo farms," said Douglas Johnson, a spokesman for the National Right-to-Life Committee. "But the biotech firms will begin this ghoulish industry soon unless the Senate also acts."

There is broad consensus among lawmakers that human cloning, the creating of babies that are identical genetic copies of adults, is morally repugnant. And many lawmakers today warned that if therapeutic cloning went forward, scientists would step onto a slippery slope that would inevitably lead to cloning people.

"The world is waiting for the United States to set the moral tone against this experimentation," said Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin. "If scientists are permitted to clone embryos, we can look forward to embryo farms where embryos will be stockpiled and mass marketed."

Backers of Mr. Greenwood's measure, however, argued strongly that banning therapeutic cloning would be akin to denying life-saving therapies to millions of Americans who suffer from diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and a variety of other ailments.

Even so, health advocacy groups, which have been waging a vocal campaign to persuade Mr. Bush to permit federal financing of embryonic stem cell research, were noticeably quiet on the cloning bill. Some saw the House vote as a foregone conclusion.

"What is unfortunate is that cloning conjures up these images of Frankenstein and horrible science, and it is really just a pejorative term for cell therapy," said one advocate for patients, who spoke on the condition that she not be named.

She added: "Some of the members of Congress we have worked really hard to get on our side on embryonic stem cell research are either unsure of where they are on cloning, or are against it, and we don't want to alienate those members."

To clone, technically, means to copy. But cloning was barely on the radar screen of policy makers and scientists until 1997, when scientists in Scotland announced they had cloned a lamb, Dolly, from an adult sheep.

The following year, the Senate considered legislation that would have banned cloning, but Democrats blocked the Republican-backed measure from coming up for a vote.

Cloning challenges the conventional wisdom that embryos must be created from the union of egg and sperm. And so today's debate sounded at times more like a discourse in theology than a political discussion, with lawmakers expounding on matters like whether embryos created through cloning are embryos at all.

"It is not an embryo," insisted Mr. Deutsch, of Florida. "It is not creating life by any definition of creating life."

Mr. Weldon replied, "That's like saying Dolly is not alive."

--------

Stem Cells Are Used to Produce Insulin

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/health/01INSU.html

WASHINGTON, July 31 - Researchers in Israel reported today that they had coaxed human embryonic stem cells into producing insulin in tissue culture, a finding that could lead to a treatment for Type 1 diabetes.

The study comes at a time when President Bush is considering whether to allow federal financing for research involving human embryonic stem cells. It was reported in the journal Diabetes, published by the American Diabetes Association.

Stem cells from embryos are known for their ability to be transformed into virtually every cell type. Some scientists hope to harness this quality by transplanting stem cells to take the place of lost insulin-secreting cells in patients with Type 1 diabetes, also called juvenile diabetes.

In the recent work, stem cells were derived from a human embryo days after fertilization and transformed with chemical prodding in tissue culture into a mass of cells possessing characteristics of the pancreatic cells that secrete insulin, the researchers said. The research was done at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa and at the Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and was led by Suheir Assady.

Dr. Christopher Saudek, president of the American Diabetes Association and a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, called the findings exciting.

"People have talked about the possibility that human stem cells could be made to produce insulin," he said. "But here it is being demonstrated."

More than one million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, which can strike children, and even adults, suddenly, making them dependent on daily insulin injections. People with the disease face complications like heart disease, stroke, amputation, blindness and kidney failure.

---------

Stem Cell Research Guidelines OKd

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Stem-Cells.html

TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese Cabinet panel approved guidelines for stem cell research Wednesday, a move likely to allow laboratories here to start studies on building tissue from embryonic cells by the end of the year.

The Cabinet's bioethics panel rubber-stamped a set of conditions on stem cell research that is expected to be formally approved by the Science and Technology Agency later this month, said an official of the Cabinet's Council for Science and Technology Policy.

The guidelines stipulate that embryonic cells used in research would be taken only from those made for fertility treatment that would otherwise be discarded, said Takahiro Hayashi.

Research on cloning humans or creating sperm and ova would be strictly banned. Safeguards would be set up to protect private information and selling stem cells would be prohibited, Hayashi said.

Hayashi said that if all goes according to plan, scientists could start stem cell research by the end of the year.

``It depends on when exactly the approval process is completed,'' he said. ``But there are several research institutions that are already anxious to start work. If full approval comes by September, it would take about two or three months after that to review applications to start research.''

Stem cells are the building blocks for all human tissue. In the United States, President Bush is considering whether to permit federal funds for medical research on stem cells taken from human embryos.

He came under intense pressure from Pope John Paul II in a meeting last month to ban all forms of stem cell research.

Scientists hope that the cells could be used to produce healthy tissue for people with debilitating diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes, as well as spinal cord injuries.

Several Japanese institutions, including prestigious Tokyo University, are planning to start experiments on stem cells, although the Cabinet guidelines say that only basic research will be allowed for the time being.

Biotechnology is a controversial topic in Japan, where religious beliefs blocked approval for organ transplants from brain dead patients until four years ago.

In May, Japan's first birth from a surrogate mother triggered a nationwide debate, with Japan's most popular broadsheet, the Yomiuri, saying in an editorial that the birth may ``trespass on the domain of God.''

However, Japan has taken a leading role in clone research, with institutes cloning cows and other animals on a regular basis. Japan passed a law last year banning human cloning.

On Tuesday, the United States Congress voted to prohibit cloning of human embryos, even for research aimed at finding cures for Alzheimer's and other diseases.

--------

Israel Researchers Grow Heart Cells

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Stem-Cells.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli scientists announced Wednesday that they have succeeded for the first time in growing heart cells from human embryonic stem cells, a day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban human cloning in any form.

Research using human embryo stem cells has come under fire on moral grounds, even though scientists say it could be used to find cures for diseases like Alzheimer's, which are considered incurable today.

Israeli researchers grew heart cells that can beat spontaneously, according to a report published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Itzhak Kehat and Lior Gepstein of the Technion Institute of Technology and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa said the cells they grew have electric and mechanical characteristics of young heart tissue.

In adults, heart attacks resulting from blockage of coronary arteries cause heart tissue to die. The tissue cannot be regenerated, leaving permanent damage.

The scientists said their research carries the promise of repairing the damage by transplanting cells that would regenerate the affected area. However, they said, more research is necessary to determine whether the new cells would survive long enough to work effectively, and how to prevent rejection.

Professor Raphael Beyar, dean of the Technion's medical faculty, said in a statement that the Israeli research is only a first step, but that ``the potential treatment of heart disease with cell transplantations is simply huge.''

In the United States, President Bush is considering whether to permit federal funds for medical research on stem cells from human embryos.

On Tuesday, the House voted by a wide margin to reject human cloning and cloning of human cells for research. Bush praised the votes, calling them ``a strong ethical statement, which I support.''

The House vote is only one step toward creating a human cloning ban, and a companion bill in the Senate is still pending.

Some researchers say that stem cells taken from cloned human embryos could possibly be used to help treat patients for heart disease and other disorders.

-------- human rights

Use of Shelters by Families Sets Record in New York

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By NINA BERNSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/nyregion/01HOME.html

The number of homeless families lodging nightly in New York City's shelter system has risen higher than ever and the trend is accelerating, city officials said yesterday. With a critical shortage of low-cost housing, and applications for shelter running 30 percent higher than last year, officials say they expect new records to be set this winter.

No single factor explains the startling growth in homeless families in New York, which has been echoed in cities around the country, including Washington, Chicago and Oakland, Calif. But city officials and national researchers said likely explanations include housing costs driven higher in an economic boom, followed by a slowdown that has hit poor families harder in an America cutting welfare and a new reluctance by landlords to accept subsidized tenants.

By July, there were a record 6,252 families, with 11,594 children, in temporary beds, city figures show. Overall, there were 20,655 members of homeless families in the shelter system, surpassing the previous peaks of the late 1980's and mid-1990's, when about 18,700 people in 5,700 families were in temporary shelter. Current figures reflect an increase of more than 1,000 families since July 2000 alone.

"This is off the charts," said Leonard Koerner, the city's chief assistant corporation counsel, who has been defending the city's homeless policies in court.

At the Emergency Assistance Unit in the Bronx, New York City's sole access point for homeless families seeking shelter, city figures show a number of applicants at levels not seen since the recession of the early 1990's. But with the city no longer supplying the stream of low-cost housing that absorbed thousands of families from the shelters in the past, fewer people are leaving the shelter system even as hundreds more crowd in each month.

Among them yesterday were Elizabeth Marrero, 29, and her two children, Bianca, 7, and Peter, 8, who have been shuttling between short- term beds and the unit since July 19.

"There's people sleeping on the floor, kids crying, the place is dirty - it's like a nightmare," Ms. Marrero said. "If I would have a place to go I wouldn't put my kids through this."

She added that her son had been unable to attend summer school for lack of a stable place to live, and would have to repeat the third grade.

New York City has the only shelter system in the nation that operates under a court-ordered right to shelter for the truly homeless. On a typical night in July, it gave beds to 28,029 people, including 5,682 single men and 1,692 single women.

The number of single adults in the municipal shelters traditionally rises in cold weather, so by the end of the year, city officials and advocates for the homeless predict, the number of homeless people in the shelter system will exceed the previous high of 28,737, recorded in March 1987. That level spurred the Koch administration to begin a 10-year effort to get permanent housing for the homeless.

"This is completely careening out of control," said Mary Brosnahan Sullivan, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. "The next mayor may be sworn in on Jan. 1 with an all-time high in the number of homeless. How shocking that is at the end of an economic boom."

The boom itself has played a role, by raising rents to levels even many working families cannot pay, city officials and advocates agreed. Even as housing costs stay high, families at the bottom now seem to be catching the brunt of a national slowdown in the economy. And in a recent change in policy, the Giuliani administration is now scrambling to add low-cost permanent housing to the mix, but city officials say they are having little success.

Hundreds of Section 8 vouchers, federal subsidies that bridge the difference between income and a moderate rent, are going unused, Mr. Koerner said, because landlords are rejecting them despite city bonuses and a streamlined bureaucracy.

"It's not peculiar to New York City," Mr. Koerner said. "It may be a function of the good economy - they're treating Section 8 as tenants of last resort."

Martha Burt, an authority on homelessness who directs social service research programs at the Urban Institute in Washington, said similar complaints were echoed by providers of homeless services in 25 research sites around the country this spring.

"There is nowhere in this country that anybody can find housing with what you can pay under Section 8," she said. "All over the country that is the story, and getting people placed is extremely difficult. New York City, with its right to shelter, is actually experiencing something closer to the truth than other communities whose actual delivery of family shelter is limited by the resources the community is willing to supply, and whose level of requests is limited by people's knowledge that they will be turned away."

But advocates for the homeless in New York attribute much of the current problem to the lack of low-cost housing initiatives since thousands of tax-delinquent apartments were rehabilitated under the Koch administration's 10-year plan.

The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which had produced 1,500 apartments a year for the homeless at the peak of the Koch plan, provided only 117 apartments in a nine-month period last year, city officials told the City Council recently.

Mayor Giuliani and his predecessor, David N. Dinkins, both turned away from the use of hotels as family shelters in the 1990's, and most regular shelter is now provided by private nonprofit groups by city contract. But under pressure from court orders to stop leaving homeless families to sleep on the floor of the Emergency Assistance Unit, the city has sharply increased the use of temporary beds.

Last month the city had more than 2,100 families in hotels and "scattered site" shelter, paying landlords the equivalent of $3,000 a month for night-to-night apartments.

"The city has created an incentive and a market for landlords to rent apartments for three times what either a federal subsidy or a city subsidy would cover," said Steven Banks, director of the Homeless Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society. "The city's put itself in this bind by neglecting the housing needs of low- income and working families for eight years."

Last January, Judge Helen E. Freedman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan found that more than 700 people were crowded into the Emergency Assistance Unit daily, including children missing school because only one-night beds were provided for them, and that as many as 32 families a night were left to sleep on the floor or on benches.

In April, the judge found that the city had redoubled its efforts, and extracted a promise from Mr. Koerner to show a steady reduction of families repeatedly shuttled to different shelters for a few hours of sleep.

But Mr. Koerner said yesterday that city plans had anticipated an 8 percent increase in homeless families applying for shelter, not a 30 percent rise.

Monday night, 8 adults and 14 children were left to sleep on the floor of the Emergency Assistance Unit. They were still there yesterday morning when the Marrero family returned from a temporary shelter placement in Queens to reapply.

"I felt so sorry for them," Ms. Marrero said.

So did Bianca, her daughter. "I'm hoping they'll replace us somewhere where we know we'll be all right," Bianca said. "The worst thing is when your friends see you they, like, tease you and stuff - `You're in the shelter, you don't have no home.' "

-------- police / prisoners

'Totalitarian clock' warns of police state
Group develops way to measure level of liberty worldwide

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 1 2001
By Jon Dougherty
WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23865

"Warning: Police states are known to be hazardous to your health."

Or, at least, that's what one pro-liberty group believes. And to help freedom lovers the world over keep track of where they stand in regards to the level of liberty that remains, the group has come up with a unique measuring "device" - a "Totalitarian Clock."

Based on the creation of The Doomsday Clock, which was developed in 1947 by the publication "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" to track the world's nuclear weapons threat, the Concerned Citizens Opposed to Police States, or CCOPS, has produced its clock to measure "the march of the police state, primarily in the U.S., but also in other English-speaking countries."

And, the group believes, it's getting late.

According to the group's website yesterday, the clock currently reads "9:45 p.m." The time is a reflection of the condition of freedom "between the ratification of the Bill of Rights (dawn of freedom) and a totalitarian police state (midnight)," says the group.

"While the atomic clock always hovers within a few minutes of midnight for the sake of drama, we decided to set a more realistic measure," said information on the website. Because of that approach, the nuclear Doomsday Clock has been adjusted "fewer than a dozen times in its 50-plus year history."

"With government growing rapidly and news of tyrannical developments racing across the Internet, we adjust our clock several times a month, as new developments require," the group added.

Hartford, Wis.-based Aaron Zelman is the group's executive director. He said CCOPS sets the time on the clock according to criteria he and co-author Claire Wolfe laid out in their book, "The People vs. The State."

"We keep our eyes out for news in 10 categories ... and adjust the clock forward or backward, depending on the nature and significance of the news," Zelman writes.

Those categories are:

Gun rights Globalism Privacy Education Health and welfare Wars and "crises" (including the war on drugs) Law, executive orders and regulations Ruthlessness (police brutality and militarization) Public-private partnerships against liberty (state-corporate fascism; abuses by non-profit organizations and lobbying groups)

Zelman says there are two criteria used to determine the size of the move of the hands on the Totalitarian Clock - severity of the news and "how wide an impact it has."

For example, if a single act of brutality committed by a city police officer goes unpunished, he says, the clock might move forward one minute. But, if the U.S. Supreme Court "issues a judgment that OKs some form of Bill of Rights abuse as a national policy, the digital 'hands' might move forward five minutes, ten, or more."

"A law that decreases privacy or diminishes gun rights in California might jump the clock forward substantially because of the number of people affected and because California influences the rest of the nation," said information posted on the website.

With each change in time, CCOPS "summarizes" the news event that triggered the move and, on its website, the group provides a link to the original news story.

"We hope the CCOPS Totalitarian Time Clock will run steadily backwards toward the hour when the Bill of Rights once again governs America - when Americans once again value freedom over police-statist illusions of security," Zelman wrote. "But we're not holding our breath. Neither should you."

According to the group's mission statement, it and its members work "to oppose the formation of police states anywhere in the world."

"Opposing police states and preventing them from arising anew are powerful ways to protect every individual's rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness," the statement said.

Zelman, who is also executive director of another group, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, says the concept of using a clock was chosen because it's easy to understand.

"Americans have become what I call 'visual animals,'" he told WND. "In other words, if you can paint a picture for people, it helps them grasp the concept a little better."

He said though he has a number of books set to be published that "tell how horrible things are," he feels "if you can give people a picture, you're able to keep their attention a little longer."

Asked what events would cause him to move the clock forward to midnight, Zelman said, "We're not there yet, but a number of things - such as a treaty the destroys the Bill of Rights or massive gun registration schemes - would get us real close."

"If people can fight back, we're still not at midnight," he added.

Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter and columnist for WorldNetDaily, and author of the special report, "Election 2000: How the Military Vote Was Suppressed."

--------

Profiling bill sees no consensus

08/01/2001
By Toni Locy,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/august01/2001-08-02-profiling.htm

WASHINGTON - Racial profiling by law enforcement is abhorrent, everyone testifying at a Senate hearing Wednesday agreed. But the hearing also showed that there is much disagreement over how to define racial profiling, how widespread a problem it is and what should be done about it.

Democrats and Republicans, academics and policing experts, and officers and chiefs clashed over a bill sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and several other lawmakers. The bill would require state, local and federal law enforcement agencies to implement policies to stop police from targeting minorities in stops and searches.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer testified that they - and just about every other African-American they know - are well aware of what it's like to be stopped on a street in a white neighborhood, to be suspected of being a criminal and to be treated like one.

"It's one of these little issues that have been eating away at people," Conyers said.

Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina signaled the Bush administration's concerns with the proposal. Although "well-intentioned," the bill's provisions are flawed because they are "unnecessarily controversial" and "unjustifiably punitive," Hatch said.

The administration is pushing for further study of the issue, which President Bush identified in his State of the Union address as a problem. Attorney General John Ashcroft, when he was a senator from Missouri, supported more analysis.

The 297,000-member Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union, calls Feingold's bill as offensive as racial profiling itself.

"It is wrong to think a person a criminal because of the color of that person's skin," union Vice President Steve Young said. "But it is equally wrong to think a person a racist because of the color of his or her uniform."

The bill defines racial profiling as "the practice of a law enforcement agent relying, to any degree, on race, ethnicity, or national origin in selecting which individuals to subject to routine investigatory activities," such as traffic or pedestrian stops and border inspections.

Reuben Greenberg, police chief of Charleston, S.C., said most police officers know racial profiling is wrong and illegal. "It's a very, very small problem," he said.

The legislation would require police agencies to collect figures on traffic stops, pedestrian-police encounters and other "routine investigatory activities" and submit them to the attorney general for analysis.

The data also could be used against police departments in civil lawsuits. The suits could not be used to collect money damages but for injunctive relief to stop a particular practice or policy. Agencies that do not comply could lose federal money.

Feingold denied that his proposal is punitive - or that it assumes all police officers engage in racial profiling.

"That's just not true," the senator said.

-------- spying

Again, China Indicts Scholar Tied to U.S.

New York Times
August 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Detained-Scholars.html

BEIJING -- Chinese authorities have formally arrested a U.S. citizen detained on suspicion of espionage but might delay his trial until President Bush's visit in the fall, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Wu Jianmin, detained in China since April, was formally arrested this week on charges of endangering state security, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it could not confirm the report. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. Formally arresting Wu would bring the 46-year-old scholar and reporter closer to trial.

China's detention of Wu and other U.S.-linked scholars over the past year strained ties with Washington and unsettled academics who regularly visit China for research.

To ease tensions, China last week freed three of the scholars, smoothing a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to Beijing last weekend.

Wu, a U.S. citizen, was detained on April 8 and was being investigated on suspicion that he spied for Taiwan, according to the U.S. Embassy. China alleged that the scholars released last week also spied for Taiwan.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing still regards the island as part of its territory. The two rivals actively spy on each other.

The Information Center said Wu's case was being handled by prosecutors in the southern province of Guangdong. It said he is being held in the provincial capital, Guangzhou. A U.S. consular official last visited Wu on July 25.

The Information Center said it did not expect China to try Wu until before Bush's expected visit in October. It speculated that China would then expel Wu to try to improve China-U.S. relations and deflect criticism of its human rights record.

According to democracy activists, Wu is a former teacher at the ruling Communist Party's Central Party School and a reporter. He reportedly left for the United States in 1988, published a book about the Chinese government following pro-democracy protests in 1989 and lived in New York City.

Meanwhile, one of the scholars freed last week, Qin Guangguang, left China on Wednesday, said a friend who asked not be identified. He said Qin telephoned him to say he was leaving but did not say where for. A message on the telephone answering machine at Qin's home in the Chinese capital said simply, ``We are not in Beijing.''

Qin, a Chinese citizen with residency rights in the United States, had remained in China after his release on medical grounds to visit family in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The other two freed scholars, Gao Zhan and Li Shaomin, left China for the United States last week. Li, however, was allowed to return this week to Hong Kong, the largely autonomous Chinese territory where he teaches marketing and lives.



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