------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Australia signs nuclear waste treaty with Argentina
German RWE says fuel rod dropped at Biblis nuke
A Uranium Mine's Mother Lode of Reality
Russians Defend Kursk Plans
VA Plans to Expand 'Atomic Vet' Payments
Hodges: Bush turning state into nuclear dump
Compensation for Victims of Radiation Sickness
In Chinese, Unexpurgated Powell

MILITARY
China warned on sales of arms
China Defends Itself on Missiles
Saddam Warns Americans to Go Home
Israel Revokes Policy of Restraint
U.S. Not Sure if Israel Broke Law
Fire Sweeps Kazakstan Military Depot
Three Protesters Arrested in Vieques
Vieques Fence Divides Bombing Range
Pentagon May Reduce Size of Troops
$250 Million to Repair USS Cole

OTHER
Union wins Australian state backing for wind power
Fossil Fuel, Nuclear Power Plants too Risky
Honduran Govt. Probe Mine Pollution
Despite Warnings, 3 Vow to Go Ahead on Human Cloning
Germany, France Work to Ban Cloning
West Shoshone Leaders Appeal to UN
U.S. asks to meet with jailed Christians
Police Use of Force in Genoa Raises Outcry Weeks Later
Italian Police Chief Admits Some Police Used Excessive Force
Jewish Scholars on Panel Assailed by the Vatican
Rebels in Black Robes Recoil at Surveillance of Computers
Spy in F.B.I. Is Said to Have Given Secrets to 2 Soviet Agencies
Panel Supports CIA Venture Fund

ACTIVISTS
Suspicious Colombian Town Blocks Peace Activists
Algeria Cops Block Berber Protesters
Falun Gong Practitioners Begin March



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- australia

Australia signs nuclear waste treaty with Argentina

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Wed, 8 Aug 2001
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-8aug2001-63.htm

Australia and Argentina have signed a nuclear energy treaty based on Argentina's responsibility for building a new research reactor in Sydney.

The cooperation treaty was signed in Canberra by the Foreign Ministers of the two countries.

The treaty was signed by Argentina's Dr Adalberto Giavarini and Alexander Downer.

It will cover the Argentine company constructing a replacement for Australia's only nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights south of Sydney.

Australia presently sends spent fuel to France for reprocessing, but the treaty obliges Argentina to do the processing work if France becomes unavailable.

The agreement allows export of Australian uranium to Argentina, which becomes the 26th country with a bilateral safeguards agreement with Australia.

-------- germany

German RWE says fuel rod dropped at Biblis nuke

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
GERMANY: August 8, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/11942

FRANKFURT - German utility RWE said on Tuesday it was in talks with nuclear safety experts on how to recover a radioactive nuclear rod which was dropped in an accident on Monday at the Biblis nuclear plant.

The rod was dropped while it was being transferred into a container intended for shipment to the French nuclear waste reprocessing plant in La Hague.

"We are discussing the problem now with experts and will wait for their decision on what to do with this fuel rod," RWE Power spokesman Ernst Mueller told Reuters.

"The head of the fuel rod became detached when we were transferring the rod under water from the eight-metre deep storage pool into the transport container," he added.

The fuel rod is almost five metres long and is now floating four metres under water.

The spokesman said the accident did not cause any radioactive leak.

Germany's Green Party for the state of Hesse, in which the Biblis plant is located, demanded a full investigation into the incident.

It is the second mishap involving fuel rods at the reactor this year.

The 1,240 megawatt (MW) Biblis B reactor was built in 1972 and began generating electricity in 1976 and is one of two units.

The older unit, 1,240 MW Biblis A was built in 1970 and began operating in 1974.

-------- russia

A Uranium Mine's Mother Lode of Reality

By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43611-2001Aug7?language=printer

KRASNOKAMENSK, Russia - Look down into the enormous hole and play a mind game: From this giant excavation into the rolling Mongolian steppe, less than 25 miles from the spot where the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian borders intersect, came the uranium that went into most of the Soviet Union's thermonuclear warheads, the ones aimed at the United States during the Cold War. The thought occurs that this gigantic hole, nearly a mile long, three-fourths of a mile wide, and 330 yards deep, would resemble the holes that exploding hydrogen bombs might have created in downtown Washington.

But that's just a daydream. In reality this hole, a giant pock mark in the steppe, is visible evidence that this remote corner of Siberia has been home for three decades to one of the world's largest uranium mines and processing plants. Mountains of tailings scattered across the steppe are another piece of evidence. The company town of Krasnokamensk, built from nothing at all to house 65,000 isolated people, is a third.

Uranium mining isn't what the Russian adventurers who conquered Siberia had in mind. They came for furs - sable and fox. Sable was the most prized accessory in the courts of Europe. Two pelts of black fox could be traded in 17th Century Russia for 50 acres of land, a cabin, five horses, 10 head of cattle, 20 sheep and dozens of chickens. Most of those adventurers were cossacks, a hearty breed of Russians who had pioneered the fertile South in earlier centuries, where they (alone among their countrymen) avoided the system of serfdom that helped hold back Russian development for so long. Cossacks elected their own leaders, and took great pride in their self-sufficiency and energetic determination. Amazingly, the Cossacks who conquered Siberia did so in less than 70 years, moving 3,000 miles from the Ural mountains to the Pacific Ocean, across an expanse that in the modern world spans five time zones. They reached the Pacific in 1648.

There are still fox and sable in Siberia, in much smaller numbers than 300 years ago. But today's wealth is in Krasnokamensk's uranium, Chita's forests, Buryatia's gold, Irkutsk's natural gas, Norilsk's palladium and Surgut's huge reservoirs of oil. Siberia's wealth is Russia's wealth; without it, Russia's future would be grim. But with it the Russians have a chance to regain a considerable part of the stature and influence in the world they have lost in the last ten years-provided they can learn how to exploit these riches effectively.

Poisonous Lakes

If anyone ever offers you a day trip to Krasnokamensk, the wise response might be "nyet, spasibo" - no thanks. Not that it isn't a great adventure to come to this moonscape on the edge of the world, where the grassy steppe looks like split-pea soup spiced with flakes of pepper (the brown spots caused by a terrible drought this year). But to make the trip to and from the nearest outpost of civilization - Chita, capital of the gargantuan Chita oblast of southernmost Siberia - you need an uninterrupted 26-hour day.

We set out from Chita at 4 a.m. Chita Oblast (most of Russia's provincial jurisdictions, many of them bigger than powerful countries, are called oblasts) is part of the great expanse of Russian territory that was closed to foreigners in the Soviet era. Westerners in Moscow used to wonder if the Soviet authorities closed such places out of fear that traveling foreigners might learn real state secrets, or out of embarrassment for what they might see. Our trip here lends support to the "embarrassment" camp.

The view from the window of our van was considerably worse now than it would have been ten years ago. Like most of Siberia, Chita is in the midst of an economic depression fully the equal of America's in the 1930s. Seventy percent of the oblast's economic enterprises have collapsed since the Soviet Union disappeared. Abandoned factories, crumbling before your eyes, are a common sight. Even the surviving enterprises look like they are crumbling - reminders of the staggering infrastructure problems the new Russia faces.

The road to Krasnokamensk is a narrow ribbon of asphalt most of the way, its surface varying from smooth to potholed to a jaw-rattling washboard and back to smooth again - except during the last 100 miles or so of a trip about 450 miles long. That last stretch, leading to what was recently the world's largest uranium processing and mining facility (it now ranks fifth), is a dirt road, and not even a good road, but rather one packed with stones the sizes of tennis and golf balls. Most travelers, we learned, use the train to get to Krasnokamensk, a 15-hour journey from Chita, but a smooth one. (Soviet-era air service to the city is now a dim memory.)

This could be the Russian definition of a company town. Without "the enterprise," as everyone here calls it (its real name is the Krasnokamensk Hydroelectrical Factory), this would be pristine steppe, as it was before the 1960s. And when the uranium runs out, perhaps in as little as 25 years, it will likely be impossible to sustain this community at all.

We were met by German Nikolayevich Kolov, 42, the deputy administrator of the city and until several years ago the chief engineer of the enterprise. Wary at first - the enterprise was still closed to outsiders, he said - he agreed that we could tour key installations from the outside. But without the general director's permission we could not be shown any interiors, and the general director was out of town.

That tour took us to the big hole, the first mine in Krasnokamensk, which was exploited for 20 years until almost fully depleted. Now ore is mined from underground seams, more than two dozen of them in the area. The hole, dry and empty, looks like the foundation for an enormous, un-built building. (Environmental activists in Chita say there are persistent rumors that some of the nuclear wastes Russia has agreed to accept, for large fees, from other countries could end up here.) Nearby, vast hills of tailings, at least 500 feet high, dominate the landscape.

From another high vantage point on a hill several miles from the hole we could see three big lakes created to hold the liquified waste produced by uranium processing. These wastes contain sulfuric acid used to separate uranium from its ore, and radioactive traces of uranium and other heavy metals. According to Paul Robinson, research director of the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albequerque, NM, and an expert on uranium extraction who was invited to Krasnokamensk in 1996, the enterprise's then-chief ecologist acknowledged there was a problem with leakage from the ponds (lined with clay and plastic) that hold these wastes. The city's drinking water was threatened, Robinson was told.

The enterprise was badly burned by a documentary made in 1994 by a team from Greenpeace, which came to Krasnokamensk pretending to be journalists from Swedish television. Greenpeace charged that the enterprise flagrantly violated accepted norms for dealing with uranium, exposed its workers to unnecessary danger, and allowed some residents of the city to live in homes whose radon levels were many times higher than is considered tolerable for humans. Robinson concluded that while the enterprise has significant environmental problems, the Greenpeace report was exaggerated. (Click here for Robinson's report on "Impacts of Uranium Mining in Krasnokamensk")

In their conversations with us, city and enterprise officials spoke at length about the extensive safety precautions they take. But they also acknowledged that people still live in a part of town where radon levels are sometimes astoundingly high, and said that for years the enterprise has been trying to get authorities in Moscow to pay to relocate those people.

Vodka and Dancers

Kolov, a six-footer who could easily tip the scales at 300 pounds, insisted that we accept his hospitality, and his insistence carried a good deal of weight. So on to the Alfa Restaurant, a city-owned enterprise recently spiffed up. In the big cities now, the restaurants are in private hands, sometimes very talented ones, but capitalism is moving slowly in Siberia. In Krasnokamensk the Soviet Union still survives, in spirit if not in fact. When the enterprise recently celebrated is 30th year in full operation, the most productive workers won cars - the modern version of a Soviet medal. Enterprise employees are still sent on free vacations to nearby "resorts."

The spread at the Alfa was extensive. Kolov, it soon became evident, welcomed the visit by foreigners as an excuse to tuck into some local specialties himself, including a bit of vodka. At his instruction, members of a famous local dance company had been invited to the Alfa to put on a demonstration of their considerable talents for the visitors. They went through half a dozen costume changes and danced to blaring recorded music in impressive synchronicity.

Over dinner Kolov disclosed a secret. "We're building a church," he revealed, an ambitious Russian Orthodox cathedral with seven onion-shaped cupolas, right in the heart of downtown. It will cost 400 million rubles (or about $15 million), the cost to be shared equally by four backers: the church, the enterprise, the city government and the oblast government. Kolov expects the church to cause quite a sensation when people realize what it is.

Return

Viktor, our driver, went out in search of two new spare tires, and at 8 p.m., after much jovial conversation involving Kolov, his press secretary and a local journalist who could not stop bragging about the tomatoes grow in Krasnokamensk, we were back in the van.

About 20 miles out of town on the dirt highway back to Chita, a colossal moon the color of pale butter appeared suddenly above the rolling steppe, rising in the gray dusk of a long Siberian day. Under the nearly-full moon, the pale green and brown steppe - part of the land that nurtured Genghis Khan and his descendants, once the world's greatest warriors - seemed for that moment to be boundless, infinite. But it wasn't - in barely nine hours, we were back in Chita.

--------

Russians Defend Kursk Plans

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Russia-Kursk.html?searchpv=aponline

LONDON (AP) -- Russian officials defended their plans Wednesday to leave the front part of nuclear submarine Kursk on the seabed though it may contain the most important clue to the cause of the disaster.

Unexploded torpedoes in that part of the wreckage could cause another disaster if an attempt is made to raise it, said Vice Admiral Mikhail Barskov, deputy commander in chief of the Russian Navy. He is in London with a group of Russian officials to launch a Web site about the Kursk recovery.

``It is possible that in compartment No. 1 there could still possibly be a partial explosion. For us, it is undesirable to connect the lifting of the submarine with the possibility of an explosion,'' Barskov told a news conference.

Barskov also said that the Russian Navy was studying the possibility that a leak of hydrogen peroxide, which is used to propel torpedoes, may have been responsible for the explosion that sank the Kursk on Aug. 12, killing all 118 crew members.

The British Broadcasting Corp, which plans to screen a documentary on the Kursk disaster Wednesday night, said British experts have pointed to hydrogen peroxide as the likely culprit.

The BBC said it has seen secret documents that an experimental torpedo using hydrogen peroxide was the likely cause of the sinking of the British submarine HMS Sidon in which 13 men died in 1955. While Britain stopped using the propellant after the accident, Russia continued to use it, said Igor Spassky, who designed the Kursk and almost all of Russia's nuclear submarines.

``We have reviewed the British data,'' said Barskov of the theory that the chemical was behind the Kursk disaster. ``We didn't reject this option.''

Russian officials have previously said that the first explosion, which sent the Kursk crashing to the bottom, was likely caused by an explosion of a practice torpedo in one of the nose tubes.

The Russian government is still investigating what prompted the blast. Theories have ranged from an internal malfunction, collision with a World War II mine or a Western submarine.

After the Kursk hit the ocean floor, several dozen of its torpedoes detonated, sending a fireball and shock wave through the hull, killing most of the crew. Some military experts believe that the cause of the disaster can never be fully determined unless the fore section is studied.

Russian officials gave the update on the recovery effort to foreign journalists in London at the launch of an English language Web site, www.kursk141.org, dedicated to the Kursk recovery effort.

The Web site aims to provide information more openly, officials said, in part a reaction to the fierce criticism that the Russian government came under last year for its slow and bumbling response when the Kursk sank during maneuvers in the Barents Sea.

``We have learned from the past,'' said Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin. ``A year ago, for sure, it would have been better if we had supplied more information and more quickly.''

Barskov said that in the next 24 hours, a specially equipped barge will arrive above the Kursk to begin the challenging phase of cutting the badly damaged fore section from the rest of the ship, an operation he said should be completed by Sept. 15.

The submarine will then be connected by cables to 26 hydraulic lifts anchored to a giant pontoon, which will tow the Kursk to the Arctic port of Murmansk.

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


VA Plans to Expand 'Atomic Vet' Payments

Associated Press
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45719-2001Aug7?language=printer

Thousands of veterans exposed to cancer-causing radiation during atomic tests conducted decades ago could find it easier to get compensation under a new regulation aimed at giving them the same treatment as civilians.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is to publish today in the Federal Register a proposed rule covering vets who were stricken with cancers of the lungs, colon, bone, ovary, brain and central nervous system and who were present at certain atomic bomb exercises, served at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the post-World War II occupation of Japan or were prisoners of war in Japan.

"Atomic vets" already receive compensation for 16 types of cancer, including leukemia and cancers of the thyroid, breast, stomach, liver and esophagus. The new rule recognizes more diseases and expands the list of places where veterans may have been exposed, making their benefits comparable to what civilians have been receiving since last summer, said VA spokesman Jim Benson.

"It's a perfect example of justice denied way too long," said Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.), who pushed for the expansion of the benefits.

Officials expect to receive 92,000 claims from surviving vets and 48,000 from dependents. They estimate the cost of the program over 10 years at $769 million.

Publishing the rule opens a 60-day comment period after which officials could incorporate comments or amend the rule. It would then be subject to another 90-day comment period before becoming final.

-------- south carolina

Hodges: Bush turning state into nuclear dump

By James T. Hammond
CAPITAL BUREAU jhammond@greenvillenews.com
Wednesday, August 8, 2001 - 8:12 pm
http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2001/08/08/2001080810159.htm

COLUMBIA - The Bush administration has "reneged" on President Clinton's promises for long-term disposal of bomb-grade plutonium and is quietly trying to make South Carolina the nation's de facto repository for the highly radioactive substance, Gov. Jim Hodges charged Wednesday.

Hodges said the Department of Energy plans to ship an unspecified amount of plutonium from its Rocky Flats, Colorado, facility to the Savannah River Site near Aiken.

DOE plans to close the Colorado facility to save $600 million.

Hodges said he is prepared to do "everything necessary" to prevent the shipment unless a permanent storage plan is approved or the material is converted to fuel for commercial nuclear power generators.

The Democratic governor wouldn't specify what he thinks are his options. But he noted that an Idaho governor once set up Highway Patrol roadblocks at the state line amid a dispute with DOE over shipment of nuclear materials.

U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Joe Davis responded that DOE is fully committed to addressing Hodges' concerns, and crafting a long-term disposal plan for the plutonium.

But he declined to commit the department to previous plans to either encase the weapons-grade material in steel and glass, or to use it as fuel in commercial nuclear reactors. Either plan aims to render the material useless for future weapons production.

"There are no magic bullets here and the issues won't be resolved overnight. But we're committed to achieving a clear strategy to deal with plutonium," Davis said.

"It's a shell game," Hodges said. "They clean up plutonium by moving it around. But the pea is going to end up in South Carolina."

"People may say in Charleston or Greenville, why should I care? Well, folks, it's going to be coming by your house and on your highways to get to Aiken," the governor said.

Hodges said the stony silence he has encountered in inquiries to U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham make him suspicious that the Bush administration is quietly planning to concentrate all of the 30 to 40 tons of plutonium scattered across nuclear weapons facilities nationwide in a single state - South Carolina.

Hodges met with Abraham in Providence, Rhode Island on Monday, and Abraham is due to tour SRS today.

The DOE spokesman said Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Jessie Roberson plans to meet with Hodges' aides today. And Abraham will address SRS employees this afternoon.

U.S. Sen. Ernest Hollings said last month on the Senate floor that "South Carolina was promised that this plutonium would only be treated at SRS, not stored for a significant amount of time."

Hollings said he blames the Bush administration "for providing a budget that is woefully inadequate to provide for plutonium disposition activities at Savannah River."

"If an agreement cannot be reached, you can rest assured this will not be the last time this issue is raised on the Senate floor," the Democratic senator said.

Hollings has amended the energy appropriations bill in Congress to restore $159 million for clean-up at SRS, his spokesman Andy Davis said, an amount that would maintain the current clean-up schedule.

Hollings told the Senate last month that Bush's proposed budget cuts would delay one plutonium disposition program "indefinitely."

Hollings submitted an amendment to require a DOE plan to dispose of the plutonium in consultation with the state of South Carolina.

U.S. 5th District Rep. John Spratt has offered an amendment that would require DOE to pledge a definite plutonium disposal plan and timetable before shipping the material to South Carolina.

"The Rocky Flats plutonium has been scheduled to come to South Carolina for a long time. I just want DOE to have an exit strategy. I basically want to keep them honest," Spratt said.

Long-term solutions are to either "immobilize" the material for permanent storage elsewhere, or to convert it to mixed oxide (MOX) fuel that can be used as fuel in commercial nuclear power generators. Either strategy, renders the substance useless for future use in nuclear weapons, and reduces its danger to the population.

Hodges said the Clinton administration's disposal plan "was good news for SRS, because they already were dealing with the clean-up of the vestiges of the Cold War. It would give them new jobs and a new mission. We were okay with that option."

Remnants of the plutonium would have been shipped to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for permanent storage, under the Clinton administration plan.

"Now the Bush administration has sent word they are having second thoughts about the MOX fuel process, and has cited questions about the immobilization option. In addition, they plan federal budget cuts for clean-up operations already under way," Hodges said.

"It worries me that we may see these shipments of plutonium to South Carolina, without the Yucca Mountain issue unresolved. And with Sen. Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada who is the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate said he would keep it from happening, my fear is they will ship all this plutonium here with no finality or definition for converting it."

-------- utah

Compensation for Victims of Radiation Sickness Coming Soon

Wednesday, August 8, 2001
BY JIM WOOLF
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/08082001/utah/120459.htm

Money owed to 185 Utahns who became sick as a result of exposure to radiation during the Cold War should be arriving in mid- to late October, Rep. Jim Matheson announced Thursday.

The Utahns are eligible for $10.2 million under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. But the money has not been available for more than a year because of federal budgeting errors. Members of Utah's congressional delegation help- ed get funding restored in a supplemental spending bill that President Bush signed July 24.

"Finally, the government has kept its word to the people betrayed by the secrecy and deception that characterized this dark chapter in the history of the West," said the Democrat. "While I am sorry it took so long to keep faith with our citizens -- and some have died waiting for justice -- I am relieved to stand here today, not just with an empty promise, but with results."

RECA provides between $50,000 and $150,000 to people who developed certain illnesses after being exposed to radiation from either open-air weapons testing or the mining, milling or transportation of uranium ore. So far, more than 1,500 Utahns have qualified for compensation under the 11-year-old law, and most were paid without delay. Claims from another 900 Utahns are being processed. Matheson's father, former Utah Gov. Scott M. Matheson, died of a cancer that might have been triggered by radioactive fallout, the congressman has said.

Matheson did not mention any other members of Utah's congressional delegation -- all Republicans -- during a press conference on the steps of the Utah State Capitol, but they were heavily involved in the process of restoring funding.

"Everybody knows the difference between a show horse and a workhorse, and the credit for solving the RECA funding issue belongs to the team effort put forward from start to finish," said Jeff Hartley, spokesman for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Cannon introduced legislation earlier this year to restore the funding, said Hartley. Sen. Bob Bennett, a member of the Finance Committee, helped get it added in the Senate version of the spending bill. The money wasn't included in the House version of the bill, but Cannon and Bennett helped persuade Republican leaders to include the funding in a compromise between the two versions.

"Congressman Matheson brought Democrats to the table, which helped," Hartley said. "But certainly he understands that without a team effort RECA would not have been funded, and I can't imagine that in his press conference that he suggested that the credit was his alone. Surely, he's above such blatant politicking."

In an interview after the news conference, Matheson said he wasn't trying to take credit for solving the funding problem on his own. "There are a lot of folks who recognize the importance of this issue," he said. "This isn't just me talking. There are a lot of people in Washington who think this is the right thing to do."

Matheson said he and several Western Democratic colleagues had a "big impact" on the funding decision. jwoolf@sltrib.com

-------- us nuc politics

In Chinese, Unexpurgated Powell

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page A17
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45717-2001Aug7?language=printer

Chinese television viewers, thanks to some clumsy censorship, did not see all of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's remarks on human rights during his recent interview there.

But it turns out Internet types can find his full comments on The Peoples' Daily Web site, which put up the transcript, including the excised portions, late Friday. (For Chinese-speaking Loop Fans, that would be www.people.com.cn).

The move, said State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher, appears to be a response to Washington's strong protests over the cuts, which were a violation of an agreement the Chinese made with the U.S. Embassy to air the interview in its entirety.

The interview's posting on the site of the official newspaper of the Communist Party, Boucher said, would lead other publications to feel free to use the complete interview, ensuring broad readership of Powell's comments.

So just click on the site, go to the section in question, read it and wait for the knock on the door.


-------- MILITARY

-------- china

China warned on sales of arms

August 8, 2001
Agence France-Presse
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010808-160230.htm

SHANGHAI -- A U.S. delegation led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. began a four-day visit to China yesterday by warning Beijing to abide by an agreement on missile proliferation.

The visit by Mr. Biden, Delaware Democrat, and other members of the committee follows a report in The Washington Times that China sold missile components to Pakistan -- a sale that would violate a November accord under which China committed not to export ballistic missile components that are restricted by a global anti-missile pact.

"We want to know that China is willing to abide by whatever agreements that they make, not only to the letter of the law but in the spirit of the agreement," Mr. Biden told reporters in the eastern Chinese city of Shanghai.

Mr. Biden is heading the four-member delegation on a four-day visit to China that will include meetings with President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji.

While there are deep divisions on the Senate committee about the level of economic and political engagement the United States should have with China, there is consensus about the dangers of China's sales of nuclear technology, he said.

Exports of missiles and components by Chinese state firms to potential U.S. adversaries or unsettled regions of the world is one of the most contentious issues in the fractious U.S.-China relationship.

"There is little disagreement among us as to whether an agreement was made to refrain from such activity that appears to have been broken," Mr. Biden said.

Broken promises on weapons sales cast doubt on China's commitment to follow through with bilateral trade agreements once the country accedes to the World Trade Organization, he said.

China's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, denied yesterday that it had sold forbidden missile components to Pakistan, saying the report in The Times in Monday's editions was "not worth commenting on."

"This American newspaper always disseminates irresponsible and groundless rumor aimed at slandering China as a proliferator," the ministry said in a statement.

Mr. Biden said the United States could continue to work on the issue of proliferation. "I don't start from the premise that we have a hostile relationship. We have a difficult relationship," he said.

Mr. Biden said senators would urge Mr. Jiang to pressure North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to abandon his nuclear ambitions and to work with United States to prevent an arms race on the Korean peninsula or between India and Pakistan.

"Jiang Zemin must understand that it is not in China's interest, in our interest or in North Korea's interest to have a long-range nuclear capability," he said.

Mr. Biden said that if North Korea were to acquire such a capability it would likely upset the balance of power in the region, prompting Japan to question its current military status and making it easier for President Bush to get domestic approval for a missile shield.

The four-member delegation, which also includes Sens. Paul S. Sarbanes, Maryland Democrat; Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican; and Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, began its China visit by meeting with students at Shanghai's prestigious Fudan University.

The senators will fly to the coastal resort of Beidaihe to meet with Mr. Jiang, Mr. Zhu and Defense Minister Chi Haotian today and will discuss weapons sales, human rights, regional security and trade, Mr. Biden said.

--------

China Defends Itself on Missiles

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-US.html?searchpv=aponline

BEIJING (AP) -- President Jiang Zemin told visiting U.S. senators Wednesday that China has ``kept to the letter'' of promises not to export missile technology to Pakistan and other countries, one of the lawmakers said.

Jiang said China doesn't want to see North Korea develop a long-range missile capability, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Biden said missile proliferation was one of many issues raised in a two-hour meeting with the Chinese president. They also discussed Taiwan, religious freedom, legal reform and China's recent detention of Chinese-born scholars and writers with U.S. ties, he said.

Biden's four-member delegation also talked with Defense Minister Chi Haotian and other officials in meetings they said totaled four hours in the seaside resort of Beidaihe, where Chinese leaders are holding an annual policymaking gathering.

Accompanying Biden were fellow senators Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.; Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.; and Arlen Specter, R-Pa. They stopped in Taiwan earlier in their six-day trip and plan to visit South Korea.

Biden said they asked Jiang about new allegations that Beijing has sold missile technology to Pakistan, breaking a promise last year not to encourage weapons proliferation by making such sales.

``He was very formal in saying that China has kept to the letter of all its agreements, and we agreed to disagree,'' Biden said. ``He made the point that he didn't want to see an arms race.''

Jiang ``specifically indicated he did not want to see North Korea obtain a ... long-range missile capability,'' Biden said.

A Chinese company identified by a U.S. newspaper as the seller of missile components to Pakistan denied the allegation Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corp. insisted it was involved in legitimate engineering projects, Xinhua said. It said the company described the reports by the Washington Times as ``groundless and a sheer fabrication.''

The senators described their talks with Jiang as amicable and candid, though Biden said other officials were ``mildly recalcitrant, in terms of their attitude about everything in China was perfect and basically everything in America was imperfect.''

Delegation members said they emphasized to Jiang a direct link between weapons proliferation and U.S. trade and economic ties. Specter said he had noted that when Congress last October gave China permanent normal access to U.S. import markets, he opposed it out of concern that Beijing was supplying missile technology to Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Specter said lawmakers support closer trade and economic ties to China, ``but we wouldn't do it if our national interests were threatened by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.''

The senators said they discussed with Jiang the recent detentions of academics and writers -- some of them American citizens -- and the lack of legal protections in the Chinese legal system.

Jiang ``was very candid in saying that China's judicial system left much to be desired and needed to be worked on,'' Biden said.

Specter said they also raised the issue of religious freedom and China's often violent, 2-year-old crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement. He said Jiang responded that the group was a dangerous cult that had destroyed more than 1,000 families.

``That was one point where we did not see eye-to-eye,'' the senator said.

-------- iraq

Saddam Warns Americans to Go Home

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-US.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- President Saddam Hussein accused American officials of lying about the reasons behind U.S. airstrikes on Iraq and warned the United States on Wednesday to ``take your aircraft and your battleships home.''

Saddam's comments, in a nationally televised speech marking the 13th anniversary of the end of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran, came a day after U.S. President Bush called the Iraqi leader a ``menace'' and defended U.S. bombing strikes on Iraq as a necessary response to Iraqi provocations.

``They are saying Iraq is threatening the aggressive American aircraft that violate Iraq's air and trespass upon its skies and the sanctity of its sovereignty, its land, its people and its wealth. This is what their leader is saying,'' Saddam said.

``How strange it is that those politicians still imagine that people can be deceived by these lies,'' he said.

Saddam, whose desire to one day shoot down an American plane patrolling Iraq's skies is well known, also delivered a warning in his 70-minute speech.

``If you care to keep your pilots and your planes from harm by the fire of the weapons of the active fighters, the believers of the great Iraq, then take your aircraft and battleships home and stop your violence toward Iraq,'' he said.

On Tuesday, U.S. Air Force planes bombed near the northern city of Mosul. Iraqi officials said civil and service installations were hit; the U.S. European Command said an air defense site was hit in self-defense after Iraq launched surface-to-air missiles and fired anti-aircraft artillery. Iraq reported no casualties.

During a vacation in Texas, Bush said Tuesday that ``Saddam Hussein is a menace and we need to keep him in check and we will.''

U.S. officials, however, said the strike near Mosul was not a planned attack in response to a recent near-miss Iraqi attack on a U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane.

Wednesday was an official holiday in Iraq, with Iraqi TV and radio broadcasting patriotic songs, words of praise for Saddam and programs commemorating Iraqi battle victories in the Iraq-Iran war.

Saddam spent a good part of his speech praising the 10-month-old Palestinian uprising, calling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ``my brother, the freedom fighter.''

He advised Palestinians to pay little attention to ``terrorist statements'' circulated by Israel and supported by the United States. And he urged Washington to ``stop your evil-doer, the Zionest entity (Israel), from its criminal acts toward Palestine, the Arabs and the sacred places of the believers.''

-------- israel

Israel Revokes Policy of Restraint
Soldiers Allowed To Open Fire First

By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44206-2001Aug7?language=printer

JERUSALEM, Aug. 7 -- The Israeli army, determined to offer a tough response to Palestinian attacks, has given soldiers the green light to open fire without the somewhat restrictive guidelines it announced this spring, military officials said today.

Palestinian officials said the army's more permissive rules of engagement signaled a fresh escalation in the bitter 10-month conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which has left 650 people dead, three-quarters of them Arabs.

The army's new policy permits Israeli troops to shoot at Palestinians who appear to be preparing an attack even if they have not opened fire. The policy replaces one announced in May, under which soldiers were supposed to hold their fire unless their lives were threatened by Palestinian rioters or gunmen whom they could identify.

Describing the shift in policy, an army official said: "Before, we said you had to identify very clearly the danger and the target if somebody's shooting at you in order to fire back. Now, if you see three men with guns trying to prepare an ambush, you have the right to engage them before they open fire at you."

Army spokesmen stressed that the new regulations, reported today in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, do not constitute a fresh offensive against the Palestinians, and were set with self-defense in mind. They said the new rules were needed because of a doubling of Palestinian attacks, to 40 or so incidents a day from about 20 last spring, according to the army's tally.

"It's something which has been forced on us by the situation, and not something that we wanted to do," said Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, an army spokesman. "It's not a change of overall policy."

But Palestinians said the army's rules of engagement have never changed, and that Israel's announcement of a policy of restraint this spring was just a public relations move.

"We don't regard these so-called new regulations as new because as far as we're concerned there was never any change in the army's acts or measures," Ahmed Qureia, speaker of the Palestinian parliament, told the Reuters news agency. "The Israeli soldiers never stopped killing Palestinians or assassinating them. This new announcement comes as part of the Israeli government's efforts to escalate its violence."

Although Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared what he called a unilateral cease-fire in May, daily firefights have continued throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also declared a cease-fire in early June, but after a few days that, too, made little difference.

In the last few weeks, the violence has intensified, with each side blaming the other. Israeli officials said the Palestinians provoked them by staging more ambushes and mortar, sniper and grenade attacks; the Palestinians said Israel's campaign of assassinations, including three in the last week, has prompted a violent reaction.

In the Haaretz article, Israeli army officers sought to explain the tougher guidelines. One was quoted as saying: "This is not the same as the period nine or 10 months ago. We won't react with massive fire in response to a single bullet fired at us or turn a Palestinian neighborhood into a ghost town. . . . If there's another escalation, it's important that it happen because of them and not because of us."

Meanwhile, an Israeli businessman was found shot to death near his villa in Amman, the capital of Jordan, today, fueling fears that Palestinian-Israeli violence could spill into neighboring countries, Reuters reported. Yitzhak Shnir, 51, a diamond trader, was gunned down near the entrance to his home in a well-to-do area of Amman on Monday night. His body was found in a pool of blood this morning, Jordanian officials said.

The killing might have been related to a financial dispute, the officials said. But Israeli officials said they believed it was political, noting that a previously unknown Islamic group took responsibility for the murder, saying Shnir was an agent of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and urging Arabs and Muslims to defend Palestinians.

In the northern West Bank today, an Arab citizen of Israel was killed in an ambush. He was said to be supplying information about the Palestinians to the Israelis.

--------

U.S. Not Sure if Israel Broke Law

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Mideast.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Confronted with Arab allegations, the State Department said Wednesday it had reached no conclusions on whether Israel was violating U.S. law in using American helicopters and other equipment in raids against Palestinian militants.

``It's an issue that is raised, but there's no determination regarding the legal implications of the use of U.S. weaponry,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

But apart from a legal judgment, the spokesman again condemned Israel's policy of targeting terrorism suspects for assassination.

``We do not believe that targeted killings is a good policy,'' Boucher said. ``We think it's wrong, and we think it's a terrible tragedy for many of the people that are affected by it.''

Israel contends its tactics, including its use of American helicopters, are in self-defense against terrorists who have slain scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Countries that purchase U.S. weapons are supposed to restrict their use to self-defense and not to transfer the arms to another country without U.S. consent.

As the conflict deepens, President Bush and his senior advisers are resisting Arab and European demands that the United States play a more assertive role in the conflict and again try to launch the two sides on a peacemaking path, even amid the fighting.

The administration's policy is to defer peacemaking moves until calm is restored.

``The issue for us is whether the parties take the steps that are necessary to stop the cycle of violence and to get back to a security that's formed by cooperation,'' Boucher said.

The longtime U.S. mediator Dennis B. Ross, who left the government before the onset of the Bush administration, urged it to hold both sides publicly accountable for violations of the cease-fire agreement that Central Intelligence Director George Tenet worked out in June with Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Ross, a key U.S. player in Middle East peacemaking, said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had told him last year ``we've got to find a way to live together.''

But Ross, speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he did not believe Arafat will conclude an agreement with Israel to end their conflict.

``I believe he is capable of launching the process, but he is not capable of concluding it,'' Ross said.

Reviewing the summit President Clinton hosted last July at Camp David, Md., Ross said Palestinian negotiators offered several important concessions to Israel.

These included retention by Israel of some of the West Bank where a majority of Jewish settlers would remain, and Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem still under Israeli control, Ross said.

But, Ross said, Arafat in meetings with Clinton never revealed his position on a deal and, in fact, ``invented new mythologies that were not helpful.''

Among them, Ross said, was that there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ``was prepared to make decisions; Arafat was not,'' Ross said.

Clinton ``was genuinely angry (that) he had heard nothing from Arafat in 15 days,'' he said.

-------- kazakstan

Fire Sweeps Kazakstan Military Depot

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Kazakstan-Ammunition-Fire.html

ALMATY, Kazakstan (AP) -- Fire swept through a depot holding most of the Kazakstan military's ammunition Wednesday, exploding shells and sending rockets flying for several miles. A village was evacuated but there were no immediate reports of injury.

Ammunition was still detonating in a dramatic fireworks display early Thursday, 10 hours after the fire broke out, said Meiram Iskakov, head of the emergencies department of the Karaganda province in central Kazakstan. But, he added, ``The frequency of the explosions is lessening.''

The fire at the Soviet-era depot started at 3:50 p.m. Wednesday. Rumbles from huge explosions alarmed the city of Balkhash, a regional capital of 150,000 about 30 miles northeast of the depot, prompting many residents to hide in basements in panic, officials said.

Authorities sent fire engines from around the region and ordered a small field hospital set up nearby.

Officials said the cause of the blaze hadn't been determined. Kazakstan's Defense Ministry refused to comment on the fire, or say how many people were stationed at the depot or how much ammunition it stored. The regional administration spokesman said the depot contained ammunition for the entire ground troops and the air force of the former Soviet republic.

About 200 villagers from Orta-Derisin, 8 miles from the depot, were evacuated to Balkhash, but the remaining residents refused to leave because they didn't want to abandon livestock, Iskakov said.

He said no casualties were reported among civilians, but it was unclear if any troops stationed at the depot were killed or injured.

The water supply to Balkhash was interrupted because the fire has disabled a power line providing electricity to the water pumps at Lake Balkash.

-------- puerto rico

Three Protesters Arrested in Vieques

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Puerto-Rico-Vieques.html

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Puerto Rican police on Wednesday arrested three people who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at two sailors in a jeep to protest U.S. Navy bombing on Vieques island.

The firebombs -- tossed by the protesters from civilian land -- missed the vehicle, which was patrolling the fence guarding Navy land. The firebombs burned a patch of grass, causing no injuries, said Vieques Police Commander Jose Caldero.

``This is far from an act of civil disobedience,'' said Police Chief Pierre Vivoni. ``This is a criminal act that could cause death.''

Charges were not immediately filed against the two women, who police described as university students, and one man. The bombs were made from glass bottles, filled with gasoline and rags, Caldero said.

The Navy claims Molotov cocktails have been thrown before but no arrests had been made until Wednesday.

Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Goode said protesters threw three Molotov cocktails at Navy personnel and also launched two flares at them. She said no one was injured.

``They have crossed the line into becoming violent,'' said Goode.

--------

Vieques Fence Divides Bombing Range

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Vieques-The-Fence.html

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- On one side, protesters hack away at the chain-link barrier they see as a symbol of oppression. On the other, Navy security patrols work furiously to repair breaches and prevent trespassers from reaching their bombing range.

The 4-mile fence -- part chain-link, part razor-wire rusted by salt spray -- defines life on Vieques, which has been divided since the Navy acquired more than two-thirds of the outlying Puerto Rican island in 1941 and began training shortly after.

Sporadic clashes escalated into mass protests two years ago, after off-target bombs killed a local guard on the range.

``Our enemy is that fence,'' says Miguel Angel Vazquez Ortiz, 58, who said he lost the lease to his rental home while serving a 30-day sentence for trespassing on the range. ``Our aim is to tear the fence down, to cross it and show them that we won't let up until the bombing ends.''

Hundreds of protesters have been jailed. Since the most recent exercises began last week, 65 protesters have been arrested and more than 400 feet of fence have been cut.

The ``civil disobedience'' campaign takes it toll. Protesters have quit jobs and missed work to man demonstrations. Many have spent months in federal prisons.

On the Navy-owned eastern end of the island, recruits spend weeks in makeshift security camps amid mosquitoes and heat, enduring the taunts of protesters who sometimes toss rocks at patrols.

The sailors sleep and shower in ``Tent City,'' a clearing where they use latrines and eat combat rations for security stints of up to 30 days. An exercise room, a snack-food store, a television set and a pool table are the only luxuries.

Unlike other U.S. military installations, Navy sailors on Vieques cannot leave Camp Garcia for recreation or shopping. After the mass protests broke out, the military declared civilian areas of Vieques off-limits to sailors, confining them to Navy land.

``I would consider Vieques like a combat situation,'' said Lt. Carlos Anthony Pinero of New York City. ``The fence line is very, very dangerous. You always have to be on your toes, always stay on the lookout.''

Those responsible for Navy security -- most aged 18 to 24 -- patrol the fence line in 12-hour shifts, using jeeps and trucks.

Pinero said duty on Vieques is unpopular because of the inevitable clashes. On Wednesday, three protesters were arrested for throwing homemade firebombs over the fence.

``I think there's a group that wants to go out there and have their voices heard, but there's also a violent group breaking the law and destroying property,'' said Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr Katherine Goode.

Sugar cane and cattle once were thriving industries on Vieques, which had a population of 22,000 before the Navy arrived. Now the population has shrunk to 9,100, many say because the Navy's presence has stunted the economy and stifled fishing and tourism. Unemployment is high, hovering above 12 percent according to official statistics and above 20 percent according to islanders.

President Bush says the Navy training will end by 2003, but the protesters say that's not soon enough.

``My days are consumed by the struggle against the military presence,'' said Nilda Medina, 55, as she peeled garlic and diced peppers for Puerto Rican sofrito sauce, to be used in a meal she was preparing for the protesters. Medina quit her teaching job last year to help run a makeshift protest camp.

Robert Rabin, 54, the curator of a Vieques museum, says he misses weeks of work to lead protests with Medina, his wife.

``Vieques has a long tradition of struggling against the powerful for its peoples' rights,'' said Rabin. ``This is a heroic island, and it will stand firm until it's free of the Navy.''

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

Pentagon May Reduce Size of Troops

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Military-Cuts.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is considering reducing the size of the military to free money for modernization, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

In looking for savings, said Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, ``at the end of the day, you do have to look at personnel. It's one of the most expensive parts of what we do.''

He quickly added, however, that it would be ``pennywise and pound foolish'' to cut the number in uniform if it meant losing the best-trained, most skilled people. ``This force management problem is a very real one,'' he said.

Wolfowitz made his comments during a Pentagon news conference to discuss progress in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's comprehensive review of the military, a once-in-four-years exercise required by Congress. Known as the Quadrennial Defense Review, it is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 30.

Wolfowitz said Rumsfeld would meet that deadline, but he added that some issues would not be resolved entirely for months afterward.

At a separate news conference, David Chu, the Pentagon's personnel chief, said Rumsfeld also is studying whether to do away with the ``up or out'' system that requires officers either to be promoted or to retire.

Rumsfeld believes some individuals are being forced to leave due to mandatory retirements when they are in their prime, Chu said. Another subject for study is the current practice of moving people into new assignments every two or three years. Rumsfeld has called this practice ``mindless.''

Rumsfeld hopes to have a strategic plan for the department's personnel issues by spring of next year, Chu said.

Rumsfeld's review has created strains between the military leadership and senior civilian officials in the Pentagon. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Wednesday that he welcomed this tension because it helped separate good ideas from bad ones.

``It is a passionate debate,'' he said, but it has not been strictly a civilian-military divide.

Asked whether the Rumsfeld review would result in troop reductions, Wolfowitz said it was too early to know. He declined to confirm a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday that some Rumsfeld aides have proposed a plan that would cut as many as 2.8 of the Army's 10 divisions -- or about 56,000 troops -- and eliminate 16 of the Air Force's 61 fighter squadrons, as well as cutting one or two of the Navy's 12 carrier battle groups.

Wolfowitz said Rumsfeld on Tuesday was presented with two alternative approaches on the issue of force size. He would not provide any details. The Journal said the other alternative was to make no cuts.

The administration has spent months trying to fashion a strategy for accelerating the military's modernization, based largely on Rumsfeld's belief that it needs to strengthen its capabilities in some areas -- like missile defense, counterterrorism, intelligence gathering and defenses against cyber attack.

A central question, apparently still unanswered, is whether Rumsfeld will decide to cut the size of the military as a way to pay for the improvements.

The military has 1.4 million members on active duty.

Many in Congress have made clear they would strongly oppose any cuts in the size of the military.

Some prominent retired Army officers also have spoken out publicly against troop reductions. Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired Army four-star general who served as President Clinton's drug policy chief, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week that cuts in ground forces are highly likely.

``Not because we have too many planes, ships and ground troops; not because we have a guiding strategy that makes such a decision reasonable; but because it is a convenient and cost-effective course of action to take,'' he wrote.

--------

$250 Million to Repair USS Cole

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-USS-Cole.html?searchpv=aponline

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- The estimated cost to repair the bomb-damaged USS Cole is nearly $250 million, about one-quarter of the ship's price tag, a government official said Wednesday.

The Navy guided-missile destroyer was bombed in a terrorist attack nine months ago. The explosion killed 17 U.S. sailors and blew a hole 40-by-40 foot hole in the hull.

Pat Dolan, spokeswoman for the Naval Sea Systems Command, said the $249.8 million estimate includes repairing structural damage, repairing weapons and retraining the crew.

The ship was equipped with the Aegis combat system, which can track 100 targets simultaneously and is capable of anti-air, anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare.

By mid-September, the Cole will be reloaded with equipment and placed in the water at the Northrop Grumman Ingalls Shipbuilding. It is expected to leave in the spring.

U.S. authorities continue to investigate the bombing.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Union wins Australian state backing for wind power

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
AUSTRALIA: August 8, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/11934

MELBOURNE - The Electrical Trades Union won support on Tuesday from the Labor state government of Victoria to promote wind power development as a new source of jobs, but continued a "green" work ban on the building of key new gas-fired plants in the state.

The left-wing union met with state treasurer John Brumby and Pacific Hydro Ltd , which last month opened an 18 megawatt wind farm at Codrington in western Victoria and has proposed another wind farm which is up for state approval.

The union wanted to ensure that any tenderers to build the Portland wind farm would help create new jobs in the state.

"On any people who tender for this Portland project, we will be insisting absolutely that the wind generators that go in this state from here on in are made in Victoria, wherever possible," said Electrical Trades Union secretary Dean Mighell.

"The regional job opportunities, Brumby acknowledged, are just fantastic for us," he told Reuters.

Brumby said the state was committed to gas-fired generation, critical for meeting summer demand spikes, as well as wind power.

"We will work with the companies like Pacific Hydro and the union to develop a viable wind generation industry where equipment is manufactured in Victoria creating the maximum number of local jobs," Brumby said.

Despite winning the state's support for its wind power campaign, the union said it would keep its work bans on new gas-fired peaking plants in place until it was convinced that the turbines were acceptable to local communities.

Environmental groups have criticised the inefficiency of the open cycle gas turbine technology in the new power stations and said they would waste finite Victorian gas resources, but the government said the gas-fired generation was essential.

"The green bans are unhelpful and the government is hopeful that they will be lifted in the near future," Brumby said in a statement provided to Reuters.

The new gas-fired plants are needed to keep Victoria and neighbouring South Australia from falling below minimum power reserve levels in the next few summers.

In Victoria Edison International unit Edison Mission Energy has started civil work on a 300 MW gas-fired power station in the La Trobe Valley.

AES Transpower Australia Pty Ltd plans to add 500 MW for start-up over the next 18 months and The Australian Gas Light Co plans 200-250 MW of new generation, with half to be available this summer.

-------- energy

Fossil Fuel, Nuclear Power Plants too Risky

August 8, 2001
Register-Guard
From: Millie and Stan Thompson <stanleyt@efn.org>

President Bush's energy plan, apparently accepted and backed by the House of Representatives, is an attack on all future generations: my grandchildren and yours. They will never visit a pristine park, or live in a clean environment.

Southern California has experienced recent "rolling blackouts" of power. To prevent this happening again, in California and elsewhere, our President and his advisers propose to build many new fossil-fuel plants. They, and the nuclear power industry, also want to build a new generation of nuclear plants. Some of us are appalled at the prospect of their entering either line of venture.

Most of our electrical energy is still generated by the consumption of fossil fuels. The burning of these fuels for space heating, generation of electricity, and propulsion of vehicles generates massive amounts of carbon dioxide, trapping heat from the sun in the earth's atmosphere, leading to catastrophic global warming. Among other harmful effects, the world's glaciers will melt, raising the level of the surface of the sea, perhaps flooding Florida.

The world's supply of fossil fuels, including coal and petroleum products, was built up over millions of years of evolution. Energy curves show our use of petroleum products continuing to rise steeply while the rate of discovery appears to have passed its peak. The ready supply of petroleum products will have been exhausted in the period of one lifetime, depriving all future generations of its many benefits.

The nuclear power business is an economic failure, dependent for its continuance on subsidies from governments desiring plutonium and tritium for nuclear bombs. All nuclear power plants ordered by US utilities since 1973 were subsequently canceled. There are in the United States a collection of over 100 aging nuclear power plants, generating perhaps 20 percent of our electrical energy.

Nuclear promoters claim falsely that the nuclear business does not generate carbon dioxide. Among other requirements, power reactors generally demand "enriched" fuel, having a higher ratio of fissionable uranium-235 to non-fissionable uranium-238 than the 140th fraction provided in natural uranium. The enrichment is done in vast "diffusion plants" which use great amounts of fossil energy, thereby generating carbon dioxide.

Nuclear reactors manufacture tons of plutonium and other lethal radioactive materials. Earth is supposed to be 4.5 billion years old. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, a short time compared with the age of the earth but forever compared with a human lifetime. Naturally occurring plutonium has now become almost non-existant. Because of the virtual disappearance of many such radioactive perils, life forms on earth had become marginally safe from radiative destruction.

But now reactors have made over 1000 tons of plutonium, plus other devastating radioactive materials, and are still producing. This represents a reversal of part of the beneficial effects of evolution. There is no method for eliminating or storing these dangerous residues of reactor operation safe from future contact with living beings. All engineering creations are subject to failure. Nuclear power plants are particularly vulnerable because they are too complicated for complete analysis. Reactor failures are unacceptable, as demonstrated by Chernobyl. Reindeer meat was discarded in Lapland and milk in Italy. Birds died in a bird sanctuary in California and elsewhere where rain brought down the radioactive cloud encircling the world. Ukrainian children suffering leukemia and thyroid difficulties were given relief in camps in New Zealand and elsewhere.

But American reactor designers and builders believe they are smarter than the Russians. In their arrogance they have now designed "inherently safe" reactors with which to replace the present fallible versions. There is no way to check the validity of their claims but to build thousands of nuclear power plants. They really ask, "How can we be certain that fossil and nuclear power ventures will ruin the earth's atmosphere for all future generations unless we build them?"

The public has in the past too readily accepted assurances concerning "safe" reactors. I mention here only two, SL-1 and Ft. St. Vrain.

SL-1 (Stationary Low-Power Reactor), a very small, water-moderated-and-cooled reactor, was designed to be so simple and "inherently safe" that it could operate unattended on the polar ice caps. On January 3, 1961, at the Reactor Test Station in Idaho, its test version was shut down for routine maintenance by a three-man night crew. A nuclear explosion contaminated the reactor building, and killed the three men, leaving one of them hanging from the ceiling, impaled on a control rod.

More recently, a high temperature gas-cooled power reactor (HTGR) built for the Colorado Public Service at Ft. St. Vrain, could not be brought to power because of excessive power oscillations which worsened as power was increased. This reactor, like some newly proposed versions of the "inherently safe" Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), was composed of graphite spheres containing the reactor fuel. It appears that some members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fear that "inherent safety" of proposed PBMRs may be too quickly assumed.

Must we allow our President and his "experts" to carry out their ventures? I believe we should moderate our greed for energy while we investigate the development of "softer" sources, including solar energy.

Dr. A. Stanley Thompson of Eugene retired after a career in academia and industry, working on aviation projects, thermal power plants and nuclear reactors. In his last position, he was a professor of mechanical engineering at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

---

COMMENTS ON NUCLEAR POWER

By: A. Stanley Thompson
Second Edition
January 1, 1998
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CoNP/

INTRODUCTION
A Nuclear Pilgrim's Progress

Before 1946 I worked as an engineer on steam and gas turbine power plants. In 1946, after nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I entered the field of "peacetime" nuclear power. As an engineer I wanted to be part of the development of this new "safe" source of electrical energy "too cheap to meter." In 1963, because of safety and economic concerns about nuclear power, I quit the development of nuclear power. Now, in 1997, after over fifty years of observation, I am convinced that human beings lack the capacity to protect life on our planet from the perils of man-made nuclear devices. My common sense feelings, supported by my engineering analyses, recommend that no more reactors be built and that presently operating reactors be terminated as soon as possible.

I have become an anti-nuclear engineer. I once felt alone in that capacity. When I testified for the designation of Eugene as a nuclear-free zone, the mayor of the City asked whether I had a prejudice against nuclear energy. I told him, "No, I have an educated opinion about it."

I have been labeled by a nuclear promoter as a nuclear paranoid, a designation which I willingly accept. I believe anyone who isn't paranoid about nuclear energy doesn't know how bad the situation is, and how detrimental its continuation will be for all future generations. A discerning newspaper editor characterized my writing about nuclear matters as "a diatribe against the whole nuclear industry," a description which I honor as wholly consistent with my being a nuclear paranoid, concerned with the welfare of my grandchildren and their progeny.

I am at odds with most of the nuclear establishment, and I am no longer alone in that position. It is difficult for people on the nuclear payroll to differ in any material way with stated establishment positions, until they are ready to quit or be fired. The coverups of mistakes in the nuclear business have been many. But some technical people have turned against the reactor business for reasons similar to mine, and now write and speak against the use of reactors. Their information on the perils of nuclear power is available to the public in newspapers, books, magazines, and on the internet. I have listed some pertinent books below.

Many people protest the making of nuclear bombs. Some of them are beginning to realize that peacetime nuclear reactors are potential, and sometimes actual, supporters of bomb ventures. More and more lay people are protesting the performance of nuclear reactors and the problems of radioactive waste which have been forced on their attention. I welcome their company in the struggle against nuclear power.

The decision whether to cease and desist from nuclear power should not be left to the nuclear "experts." They, and their supporting military nuclear adventurers, have a vested professional interest in its continuation. That crucial decision can be made only by a citizenry as aware as possible of military and civilian nuclear perils, but with a primary vested interest in the continuation of grandchildren and their progeny. People who are not nuclear experts must trust and use their own power of observation, noting that (1) commercial nuclear power is an economic failure without the government subsidy which it gains because of its potential support for military ventures, (2) nuclear reactors, like all complicated technical devices, will occasionally fail, (3) failure of a reactor, as demonstrated at Chernobyl, inflicts abiding radioactive damage on populations and their environment, and (4) successful reactors accumulate an unsafe everlasting radioactive burden for all future generations to accommodate.

What follows is my analysis of the situation which leads me to my anti-nuclear stance. My report is in four sections:

The first section, entitled, "Nuclear Power Kills," discusses the unacceptable radioactive dangers of nuclear reactors and their materials and processes.

There have been many serious accidents. Nuclear enthusiasts would prefer, if allowed to do so, to ignore the dire consequences of nuclear accidents. They maintain that only 31 people, rather than thousands, died as the Chernobyl accident ruined thousands of acres of productive land forever. They deny the high probability of similar, or worse, reactor accidents in the future.

Even a "successful" reactor, which comes to the end of its precarious life with no accidents, has mass-produced several core loadings of violent radioactive poisons to be disposed of into the otherwise life-sustaining environment. These newly created poisons represent an intolerable reversal of part of the evolutionary process which over millions of years has left us a marginally safe level of radioactivity in which to live.

Some powerful military interests around the world want us to build and sell nuclear power plants even though they are an economic fiasco, as well as a menace to all life. The continuation of "peacetime" nuclear power greatly supports their continued development of nuclear weapons.

The second section of this report, entitled "My Nuclear Career," relates my personal experiences with the nuclear engineering assignment which I readily accepted so long ago.

At that time, my analysis of the design problems of nuclear reactors indicated interesting ideas to try, along with dangers and uncertainties to be investigated and forestalled. The reactor promoters, with their vested interest in a disappearing weapons market at stake, wanted as rapidly as possible to establish a nuclear power business, to sell and build reactors without wasting time on considerations of danger, or economics.

In 1963, I left nuclear power, convinced that it was to be a failure, foisting off onto the public uneconomic nuclear power and the grave radioactive threats which were being ignored.

The third section is entitled "Instability in Nuclear Reactors." Reactor designers like to say that "a nuclear reactor cannot blow up like a bomb." I apologize that part of my discussion is technical. I've tried to make it logical. The "experts" base their belief in stable reactors on optimism and an incomplete and misleading technical analysis. For the "experts" I must point out that their technology could bring them and us closer to the disturbing truth about nuclear power - that it is too complicated and too lethal to be trusted to the "experts."

I present in sequence some nuclear factors which, to the "experts," assure power stability in a nuclear power plant. Then I discuss some mechanical factors which can disastrously demolish reactor stability, even if not the confidence of reactor promoters. Combining these factors into a unified system, I investigate one form of instability which has probably helped wreck reactors, spreading their deadly radioactive loads into the environment.

The fourth section is entitled "A Model of Reactor Kinetics." This is an adaptation of the technical paper of the same name, written with the help of my son, Bruce Thompson, and published in the nuclear trade journal, Nuclear Science and Engineering, in September 1988. This paper supports the stability considerations of the previous section.

The concept of power instability has been largely ignored by nuclear promoters. If no more reactors were to be built, our stability studies would have no importance. A reactor, bad or good, which has not been built presents no danger. If the reactor promoters are allowed to commit the ultimate folly of building more nuclear power plants, some lingering trace of prudence would suggest that our study of power instability be seriously considered, and greatly extended.

Stop Nuclear Power and Nuclear War As an engineer developing nuclear power I observed a lack of concern for the potential of nuclear power to destroy life. I believe that my sensitivity to the perils of human use of nuclear processes was enhanced because I took seriously my original assignment to develop "good" nuclear reactors.

Follow my technical discussions only as far as you wish. Please reserve your right to protect our grandchildren based on your own observations of nuclear developments and mishaps as they develop. I enter a plea that, for the sake of your grandchildren and mine, you seriously consider an all-out fight against the continuation of nuclear energy in all of its various "peacetime" and military forms.

I will be pleased if I succeed in sharpening your awareness of the potential harm of continuing nuclear ventures, either civilian or military.

Books
Nuclear Age, by John May, Greenpeace Books, Pantheon Books, New York, 1989.

Nuclear California, Greenpeace/Center for Investigative Reporting, San Francisco, 1982.

Forevermore, by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, W.W. Norton, New York, 1985.

We Almost Lost Detroit, by John G. Fuller, Reader's Digest Press, 1975.

Exposure, The Chugoku Newspaper, Kodansha International, Japan, 1992.

Metal of Dishonor, International Action Center, 39 West 14th St., #206, New York, NY 10011, 1997.

Radwaste, by Fred C. Shapiro, Random House, 1981.

Deadly Deceit, by Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman, Four Walls Eight Windows, PO Box 548, New York, NY, 1990.

Normal Accidents, by Charles Perrow, Basic Books, Inc.,New York, 1984.

Meltdown, by Daniel Ford, Simon & Schuster, 1986.

The Plutonium Business, by Walter C. Patterson, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1984.

Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards, by Mason Willrich and Theodore B. Taylor, Ballinger, Cambridge, WA, 1974.

-------- environment

Honduran Govt. Probe Mine Pollution

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Honduras-Mine-Pollution.html

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Honduran authorities and environmental groups are investigating claims that a Canadian-owned mine is releasing heavy metals and pollutants into the country's only lake.

Honduras' cash-strapped government is seeking to boost mining, while local Indian and environmental groups are pushing for tougher pollution restrictions and a ban on the use of cyanide in mines.

The focus of the probe, launched Tuesday, is the mountain lake of Yojoa, 55 miles from Honduras' border with Guatemala, where officials say fish have become unfit for human consumption due to high levels of lead and cyanide.

Federal prosecutors say pollution is coming from the El Mochito mine in the mountains above the lake. They asked a court to close it and issue an arrest warrant for Robert Byrd, the Canadian manager who runs the mine for the American Pacific Co.

``American Pacific Co. dumps its waste into a stream that flows into the lake, affecting more than 100,000 residents of the area,'' prosecutor Liliana Santos said.

A government study found unacceptably high levels of lead and cyanide in fish caught in Yojoa, Santos said.

Gordon Bub, chairman of American Pacific's Ontario, Canada-based parent company, Breakwater Resources Ltd., said his company's mine isn't responsible, though trace amounts of such chemicals can be found in discharge water.

``We test our discharge water, and people have full access to that information,'' Bub said in a telephone interview. ``The levels (of pollutants) are well within established North American and World Bank standards.''

A court near the lake has still not granted prosecutors' request for a closure order or the arrest warrant, but the pressure led the company to close its regional offices in Tegucigalpa, the country's capital, and head to Miami.

Santos said the goal of the legal action ``is to demand the company rehabilitate the lake and the polluted streams.'' But Breakwater Vice President John Bracali said the lake's main problems come from erosion caused by deforestation, and a lack of sewage treatment in communities around the lake.

The El Mochito mine was operated by an American company, Rosario Mining Co., between 1920 and 1987, when it was sold to the Canadian firm.

``The investigation comes at a moment when the government is making an effort to attract foreign mining investment,'' said Tulio Monterroso, president of the Municipal Association to Protect Lake Yojoa.

``What's vital is not the investigation itself, but that we Hondurans decide to protect our own lake.''

In the last few years, the Honduran government has lowered taxes on mines and granted mining concessions -- mainly to foreigners -- equivalent to about half the nation's territory. That has raised fears of massive evictions of local communities and of land becoming unusable for other purposes.

-------- genetics

Despite Warnings, 3 Vow to Go Ahead on Human Cloning

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/health/genetics/08CLON.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - Despite warnings from leading experts that the experiments in human cloning would inevitably lead to babies that are deformed, or die soon after birth, a fertility doctor, a chemist and a scientist-entrepreneur nevertheless vowed today to press ahead with separate efforts to create the first cloned human being.

"This will be done," said the chemist, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, who directs a company in the Bahamas and is a member of a religious sect, the Raelians, for whom human cloning is a goal.

The entrepreneur, Dr. Panayiotis Michael Zavos, who runs laboratories in Kentucky, conceded there were hurdles to be overcome but said, "We are determined to get there."

Drs. Boisselier and Zavos made their remarks at a symposium convened by the National Academy of Sciences, an independent research organization that has established a panel of experts to study the science of cloning. They were joined by Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility specialist who gained notice in the mid-1990's by using in vitro fertilization to help a 62-year-old woman have a baby.

Because all three operate in secret, it is difficult to assess how serious they are or whether their assertions are realistic. Only Dr. Boisselier hinted that she had tried human cloning, and even she stopped short of saying she had done so.

Some scientists at the symposium complained privately that by inviting the cloning proponents to appear at the meeting, the academy had given them a platform they did not deserve. These scientists were clearly disturbed by the proponents' remarks.

"I think they are serious," said Dr. Alan Colman, director of PPL Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that collaborated in the creation of Dolly the sheep, the first and most famous clone of an adult mammal. "I think they will fail, but one of the problems about the fact that they do it all in private is that we won't hear about the failures."

The comments of the cloning proponents, coming a week after the House of Representatives voted to ban cloning even for medical research, will undoubtedly inflame the debate over the wisdom of creating babies that are genetic replicas of adults. But while the House debate focused on the ethics and morality of cloning, today's discussion focused almost exclusively on science.

The consensus among the panel and most of those who testified before it was that cloning people was not safe, given that when clones were born a high proportion died soon after birth and many survivors were plagued with genetic problems.

"We are seeing a great range of abnormalities," said Dr. Ian Wilmut, who as director of the Roslin Institute in Scotland led the effort to clone Dolly. "We should expect a similar outcome if people attempt to produce a cloned human."

Dolly's birth was announced in 1997. In the years since, scientists have succeeded in cloning five species of mammals: sheep, goats, pigs, mice and cows. Dr. Wilmut said 18 percent of cloned mice died; among goats, the figure is 38 percent.

Those numbers, however, did not appear to deter the proponents of human cloning.

Cloning, also called nuclear transfer, involves taking genetic material from an adult's cell and slipping it into a woman's egg whose nucleus has been removed. In theory, the technique could be used to treat infertility in cases in which the man cannot produce sperm. That is the scenario that Dr. Antinori said he envisions. Dr. Zavos said he would use cloning only to help infertile couples who could not conceive in any other way.

But Dr. Boisselier went further, saying cloning was a basic human right. "It is our own choice to use our genes the way we want," she said.

The three cloning proponents said they would screen embryos for genetic abnormalities; but animal cloning experts countered that there was no way to test a cloned embryo in advance to predict whether it will result in a healthy birth. When Dr. Boisselier claimed to have devised such a test, Dr. Alan Trounson, an Australian embryologist, dismissed her assertion as "ludicrous," adding, "I don't think that is at all possible."

Gatherings at the National Academy of Sciences, which advises Congress on scientific matters, are usually staid affairs. But today's seminar was more like a circus than an academic gathering; at one point, a horde of television cameras followed Dr. Antinori to the bathroom.

On stage, the debate was passionate. When Dr. Mark Siegler, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago who teaches bioethics, asked Dr. Zavos what it would take to dissuade him from cloning a person, Dr. Zavos replied, "If we cannot do it right, we will not do it."

Dr. Siegler complained that he was not satisfied with that answer. "Well," Dr. Zavos said angrily, "that's all you're going to get."

Dr. Irving L. Weissman, a professor of cancer biology at Stanford University and chairman of the panel of experts, suggested that today's meeting served as a warning of sorts to Dr. Zavos and the others.

"This was one way to inform them of the animal science," Dr. Weissman said. "Now they're informed."

Although cloning for reproduction is legal in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has asserted jurisdiction over human cloning experiments and has received a written agreement from at least one scientist, Dr. Boisselier, not to pursue them in this country.

An American investor in Dr. Boisselier's company, Clonaid, recently pulled out, and its lab in the United States has closed. But she said the cloning would continue in another country, which she would not name.

And R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, told the panel that cloning attempts would go on, regardless of whether the United States or any other country makes it a crime.

"We haven't been able to outlaw human slavery yet," Professor Charo said, "let alone human cloning."

--------

Germany, France Work to Ban Cloning

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-France-Cloning.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Germany and France have launched a campaign for a U.N. treaty to ban human cloning, which they say is unacceptable and incompatible with human dignity.

The U.N. ambassadors from the two nations presented Secretary-General Kofi Annan with a letter requesting that their initiative be included on the agenda of the new General Assembly session, which begins next month.

Germany and France also circulated a proposed resolution Wednesday asking the General Assembly to create a special committee to draft a legally binding international convention banning human cloning.

``The German-French initiative is aimed at internationally banning the reproductive cloning of human beings and at establishing ethical barriers against related research,'' said a joint statement from the U.N. missions of the two countries, which delivered the letter to Annan on Tuesday.

The European neighbors are also embarking on diplomatic efforts to win global support for their initiative, the statement said.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to make all human cloning illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $1 million in fines.

In Washington on Tuesday, researchers told a meeting of scientists they would try to clone human beings soon despite widespread ethical objections and arguments that it is medically risky.

``The cloning plans are inhuman and irresponsible,'' Germany's research minister, Edelgard Bulmahn, said in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung daily being published Thursday.

``Freedom of research finds its borders where human dignity is affected,'' she added, predicting that the chances of passing a worldwide ban are good.

-------- human rights

West Shoshone Leaders Appeal to UN

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-US-Indian-Rights.html?searchpv=aponline

GENEVA (AP) -- A group of American Indians appealed for the United Nations to condemn what they said were abuses of their ancient land rights by the U.S. federal government.

Leaders of the Western Shoshone said Tuesday they hoped a U.N. panel would back their case that the American government is trying to chase them off their ancestral territory, causing them physical, economic and cultural hardship and violating U.N. human rights treaties.

``We are here hoping that the international community can put pressure on the United States to stop its discriminatory conduct against the Western Shoshone people,'' said tribal elder Carrie Dann.

The Western Shoshone tribes -- numbering about 6,600 -- live mainly in the western states of Nevada, California, Idaho and Utah.

Dann and her sister Mary have been a focal point of a dispute over land since the government sued them in 1974 for grazing livestock on federal land.

The Shoshone delegation said the U.S. government has authorized the use of environmentally damaging cyanide for gold mining and approved military testing and nuclear waste storage on Shoshone lands.

Some 85 percent of Nevada is federal land, and the Nevada Public Lands Act aims to sell it off to private companies, the Shoshone said.

The Shoshone have asked a U.N. panel -- the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination -- to condemn the United States, arguing that the U.S. action amounts to racism.

A ruling by the committee in 1999 gave hope to indigenous groups around the world by declaring that Australia should suspend implementation of new land rights laws as they discriminated against Aborigines.

The committee has been reviewing a report by U.S. authorities on the government's compliance with an international anti-discrimination treaty which the United States ratified in 1994. The panel is expected to issue its ruling on the U.S. compliance report next week.

On Monday the U.S. Justice Department's newly confirmed civil rights head Ralph Boyd Jr. responded to the panel's questions about the Shoshone case.

Boyd said that U.S. law stated that ``as a result of European discovery the Native Americans had a right to occupancy and possession, but that tribal rights to complete sovereignty were necessarily diminished by the principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it.''

At issue is the so-called 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley between the Western Shoshone and the United States, which took 23.6 million acres of land away from the tribes. Tribal leaders argue that the treaty -- which they say was one of friendship -- simply granted the United States limited access to the land and did not cede it to the federal government.

In 1979 the Supreme Court ruled that the Ruby Valley treaty had made the U.S. government the trustee of the Shoshone, entitled to negotiate compensation for the land on their behalf.

The court also approved a government offer of $26 million to the tribes. The compensation package has accumulated interest and is now worth $130 million.

Dann said the Shoshone would never accept money for their land, because they believed it was sacred.

--------

U.S. asks to meet with jailed Christians

August 8, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010808-92283135.htm

The United States yesterday applied to send an official based in neighboring Pakistan to Afghanistan in a bid to free two Americans facing the death penalty for proselytizing, but has received no response to its request from the ruling Taliban.

Meanwhile in Kabul, the Afghan capital, officials said they had strong evidence that 24 foreign and local aid workers, arrested Sunday, were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity and would be punished under Islamic law.

In addition to the U.S. citizens, Dana Curry and Nicole Barnardhollon, four Germans, two Australians and 16 Afghans are among the detainees, who were working for the German-based relief group Shelter Germany, which claims organizational ties to the American humanitarian organization Shelter Now International (SNI).

A consular officer from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, has applied for a visa for a possible visit to Afghanistan later this week in order to meet with the detained Americans, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

"We are pulling every lever and pushing every button that we can to try to get information, try to see to the welfare of these people," he said. "But I don't want to detract from the responsibility that the Taliban has for seeing them safe and sound, for letting us look after their welfare, and for letting them depart and return to their families."

Mr. Boucher said Washington had "stayed in touch" with the Taliban office in Islamabad, since the United States has no diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, but hadn't heard back. Pakistan is one of only three nations that recognize the Taliban government, which controls 90 percent of the country.

Confusion over SNI and Shelter Now yesterday clouded efforts to shed more light on the workers' mission in the impoverished country. SNI, a Christian humanitarian agency based in Oshkosh, Wis., said it has nothing to do with Shelter Germany the agency that sent the jailed workers to Kabul. But Shelter Germany's Web site describes itself as a "branch" of SNI.

"The German organization has sometimes used the name Shelter Now without SNI's permission, thus creating the confusion surrounding this incident," said SNI's executive director, Norm Leatherwood.

He said that, while SNI does work in Afghanistan, it was in no way connected to the 24 workers.

"The work of SNI is always done with the permission of the host country's government and in a manner which respects the laws and values of those countries," Mr. Leatherwood said. "SNI has a firm policy of providing assistance without regard to race, ethnicity, or religious background and with no expectation that beneficiaries will convert to Christianity."

Another SNI member said Shelter Germany had asked SNI not to release information about the Braunschweig, Germany-based organization.

In Kabul, a senior Taliban official told a news conference the detainees were in good health and their review would take only a few days.

Mohammed Salim Haqqani, deputy minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, showed reporters computer disks containing Christ's life story in the local Dari language as evidence collected from Shelter Germany's Kabul office.

He also showed an English and a Dari copy of the Bible, a book on Christianity, a timetable for a radio broadcast of the aid agency and what he called a written confession of a foreign female staffer of the group.

"Are these not valid and strong evidence?" Mr. Haqqani asked. "They gave children good food and money and then made them listen about Christianity."

He said there was no need for any foreign aid agency to visit the detainees or for any foreign lawyers and prosecutors to get involved. Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar would make the final decision on the workers' fate, he added.

The Taliban also said that 59 children who had been taught by the arrested workers had been sent to a correctional facility, where they would remain until all traces of Christianity were removed.

In Washington, Mr. Boucher said the United States was working with Germany and Australia to solve the problem.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer rejected the Taliban's charges and asked for Pakistan's help in pressuring Kabul. Islamabad is believed to have some influence with the Taliban, although the movement ignored its appeal not to destroy ancient Buddha statues earlier this year.

Mr. Boucher said the outcome of the situation is in the hands of the Taliban.

"It's incumbent upon the Taliban to treat these people safely and fairly, and to let us see after their welfare," he said. "This is an important topic for all the foreign community and all the people who are concerned about the situation in Afghanistan."

• Arne Delfs contributed to this report.

-------- police / prisoners

Police Use of Force in Genoa Raises Outcry Weeks Later

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By MELINDA HENNEBERGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/international/08ITAL.html

ROME, Aug. 7 - More than two weeks ago, Susan Hager received a telephone call in Portland, Ore., about her daughter, a student who had stopped off in Genoa to join protesters at the Group of 8 summit meeting on her way to a junior year abroad program in Siena.

"Her friend had found her bloody belongings" at the Armando Diaz school complex in Genoa where protesters had been staying, Mrs. Hager said. There, in the early hours of July 22, 92 young people were dragged from their beds by squads of Italian anti-riot police officers who beat and jailed them.

Sixty of those demonstrators - originally described by Italian officials as marauding anarchists but in more recent official reports as mostly peaceful - were injured in the raid. At least two dozen were hospitalized, including Mrs. Hager's daughter, Morgan, and two other Americans.

Witnesses described students crouching as they were kicked, pummeled with clubs and thrown down stairs, and emergency room doctors said a number of the injured would have died without treatment. Television crews arriving on the scene later filmed pools of blood and teeth knocked out during the raid.

It was a day or two "before we knew our daughter wasn't in a coma," Mrs. Hager said. But Morgan Hager, 20, an honors student at the University of Oregon, had cuts and bruises from her ankles to her neck and three broken bones in her hand.

Almost as painful as the news about her daughter, Mrs. Hager said, was the sense that most Americans remain unaware of the brutality of the raid, which Italian officials originally justified by saying that protesters at the school - made available to nonviolent demonstrators - had been harboring members of the violent Black Bloc anarchists.

Four Americans remain in jail, including Susanna Thomas, a Bryn Mawr student and Quaker from Warren, N.J., who was arrested with an Austrian theater group as it was leaving Genoa.

Outrage about the police behavior has built across Europe, where the issue has become a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Thousands of people have marched in protest, governments have expressed concern and newspapers have been filled with accounts of police brutality. One young Italian man was shot dead in the protests at the summit meeting, about 200 people were injured and some 300 were arrested.

There have been major demonstrations in Paris, London, Geneva, Rome, Berlin, Belgrade and Athens, where riot police officers used tear gas to disperse several thousand people en route to the Italian embassy. In Amsterdam last week, about a dozen protesters managed to take over the Italian consulate and hung a banner out front: "Italy Tortures G- 8 Detainees."

Spain's European Affairs Secretary, Ramon de Miguel, called the scenes a replay of fascism. Hans- Christian Ströbele, a European deputy from Germany, said the Genoa police reminded him of "the military dictatorship in Argentina."

Hermann Lutz, chairman of the European Police Union, told the German television network ZDF that as he watched the riots on television he thought "it had to have been in some kind of dictatorship or in Eastern Europe or in Cuba, but not among us in the middle of Europe."

Germany's Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, a left-wing activist in his younger years, has called his Italian counterpart, Renato Ruggiero, to urge the Italian government to investigate police actions. Twenty- one Germans are among the 39 people still being held in Italian jails.

One German who was also arrested in the raid at the school in Genoa, a man who asked that he not be identified, described his ordeal in a statement issued by his lawyer, Dagmar Vogel, in Oberhausen, Germany: "I was hit in the head, the back, and the legs and a hard hit on the head. My skull flattened. I bled badly. I lay in my own blood bath and didn't move at all." After 2 a.m., he was arrested while still in the hospital, and was not allowed to sleep or make telephone calls, he said. During four days of detention, he said he was forced to stand with his hands against a wall for hours, harassed about going to the bathroom and taken from one location to another.

Ms. Thomas was arrested along with two dozen members of the Austrian group Publix Theater. According to the respected Austrian weekly Profil, the conservative Austrian government initially dismissed reports of police brutality and sent Italian officials reports in which Publix performers had been characterized as violent anarchists. But Profil said those reports predated an economic summit meeting in Salzburg in July at which the group protested peacefully with street performances. After reading a full investigation by the Austrian consulate general in Milan, Foreign Minister Benita Maria Ferrero-Waldner is reported to have requested that Italy transfer home the 16 remaining Publix members.

In a summary of the Austrian consulate's report to the Austrian Foreign Ministry, posted on Profil's web site (www.profil.at/aktuell), several members of Publix described being arrested at gunpoint, strip searched, beaten and berated by officers who shouted in English, "I break you!" and "You monster!"

Ms. Thomas's family has complained that the United States government has not done nearly enough in speaking out against what went on.

"The U.S. is conspicuous by its absence in the list of nations that have protested to the Italian government over the imprisonment and the behavior of the Italian police in their handling of the protests in Genoa," her father, Rick Thomas, said in a message on the family's web site.

A spokesman for the American Consulate in Milan said, "We're doing all we can."

Even some members of Italy's center-right coalition now concede that something went terribly wrong in Genoa, though they continue to point fingers at the left, saying that the former center-left government was responsible for planning security for the summit meeting.

Italian courts have opened at least half a dozen separate investigations into various allegations of police brutality, and a parliamentary inquiry began today.

Testifying at a Senate hearing in Rome, Genoa's leftist mayor, Guiseppe Pericu, said Mr. Berlusconi's government should shoulder the full blame for police misconduct.

Mr. Berlusconi has also been criticized recently for suggesting that he would like to get out of being host to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, scheduled to meet in Rome in November.

Interior Minister Claudio Scajola has removed three top police officials who ran security operations at the summit meeting, but has not apologized. "A state must never lose the monopoly on the use of force," he said recently, "and the ability to guarantee the safety of a summit."

But other members of the government coalition have criticized Mr. Berlusconi directly.

"It is not possible that the head of government goes to Genoa four times, and preoccupies himself only with flower pots, dirty laundry and building facades," Domenico Fisichella, a senator of the far-right Alleanza Nazionale, said in a radio interview on Monday, referring to Mr. Berlusconi's comments before the meeting that the city was unsightly.

"Who was taking care of the problems of public order?" Mr. Fisichella asked. "Who evaluated the impact? Why were necessary precautions not taken? It's too easy to liquidate a few functionaries and consider the question closed."

--------

Italian Police Chief Admits Some Police Used Excessive Force During Summit

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/08WIRE-ITAL.html

ROME -- The chief of Italian police acknowledged Wednesday that some police units used excessive force against protesters during the Group of Eight summit in Genoa last month.

Gianni De Gennaro, the head of police, also said preventive action to isolate and stop the violent anarchists known as Black Bloc -- who were considered mainly responsible for the riots -- was "below expectations."

Police were unable to quell the violence during the July 20-22 meeting that saw the first death of an anti-globalization protester to date, more than 200 injured and about 300 people arrested. The violence caused millions of dollars in damage to Genoa.

Allegations of police brutality have come from home and abroad. Protesters in Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere have claimed they were beaten up by police, strip searched and denied food, phone calls or access to their consulates after their arrests.

De Gennaro, who was speaking before a parliamentary fact-finding commission set up to investigate the violence, said the actions begun by "violent criminals" had led "in some cases to an excess in the use of force from certain units."

Three top law enforcement officials, including De Gennaro's deputy and the superintendent of Genoa police, were removed from their posts by the government last week.

De Gennaro estimated there were about 2,500 anarchists on the streets of Genoa during the summit -- 500 Italians and the rest from Germany, Greece, Spain, Britain and the United States.

He said, however, that the black-hooded anarchists couldn't be considered solely responsible for the violence, as numerous other protesters joined the riots.

During the summit, there were more than 100,000 anti-globalization activists championing a variety of causes.

-------- religion

Jewish Scholars on Panel Assailed by the Vatican

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44212-2001Aug7?language=printer

PARIS, Aug. 7 -- The Vatican today accused some Jewish historians on a joint Catholic-Jewish research commission of having "a clear propagandistic goal to damage the Holy See" as they press for access to its World War II archives.

The historians have leaked "distorted and tendentious news" and are guilty of "irresponsible behavior," said the statement, issued with Vatican approval by the Rev. Peter Gumpel, a German Jesuit priest.

The statement came in response to an announcement last month from the five-member commission, set up in 1999 to study the role of the Pope Pius XII and the Holy See in Europe during Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, that it could not continue its work until examining unpublished documents in the archives.

Gumpel said it was "false" that the Vatican was withholding information, but that 3 million pages of documents remained uncatalogued and were thus unusable by scholars.

His statement was condemned by U.S. Jewish groups. "It is essential for the Jewish and Catholic scholars to continue their work in disclosing the Vatican's role during the Holocaust, which must consist of impartial analysis of all relevant historical records so that the truth may emerge," Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. "Unfounded accusations can only create further delay."

American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen said Gumpel's "acerbic" statement "serves only to fortify the questions remaining in the minds of many Jews over Pius's precise role during World War II."

The row underscores one of the most serious rifts between the Roman Catholic Church and Judaism -- the question of whether the Vatican did all in its power to help stop the Holocaust or, as some Jews and historians suggest, whether there was complicity between the church and the Third Reich.

At the center of the dispute is the role of Pius XII, who became pope in 1939. The church has begun work toward beatifying Pius, the first step toward sainthood. The priest who issued today's condemnation of certain of the commission's Jewish members -- no names were given -- serves as Pius's postulator, the official making the case for beatification.

The commission was created to foster understanding between members of the two faiths. It originally had three Catholic scholars and three Jewish scholars, but one of the Catholics has resigned. Members have been working with 11 volumes of archive documents that the Vatican published from 1965 to 1981, and want access to the rest.

The Vatican has given no indication of when that might be possible and said it is standard procedure for historical archives to catalogue material before scholars are allowed access to it.

Commission members have been divided on how hard to push. "The Vatican does not respond well to pressure," the Rev. Gerald P. Fogarty, a historian at the University of Virginia, said in an interview. "When you put pressure on them, they simply flood the moats and pull up the drawbridges."

He expressed sympathy for the church's position. "I know what the problem is in organizing" the papers, he said, adding that he "had it on high authority that perhaps the whole archives could be made available up to 1945."

Fogarty said that a Jewish member of the commission leaked a preliminary report, angering people at the Vatican. He said that he supports getting full access, but was willing to continue the commission's work without that access. He lost out to other commission members who favored stopping, he said.

Michael Marrus, a Jewish commission member and a historian at the University of Toronto, said he was "dismayed" by Gumpel's statement. "We have tried in a very respectful way, in a very restrained way, to make the case that scholars needed access to this material," he said. "There is no effort that I know of to disparage the Catholic church or to conduct a negative campaign."

In his statement, Gumpel defended the efforts of Pius during the war, saying the pope "made every possible effort to save as many lives as possible, without any distinction" as to their religion.

Last year, a book by British historian John Cornwell, "Hitler's Pope," depicted Pius -- born Eugenio Pacelli -- as a latent anti-Semite whose moral indifference led him to collaborate with the Nazis. Pacelli was papal representative to Berlin and Vatican secretary of state before the war. Cornwell paints Pacelli as obsessed with diplomacy and indifferent to mounting evidence of Hitler's atrocities.

In another account published last year, "Hitler, the War, and the Pope," author Ronald J. Rychlak portrays Pius as a sympathetic figure with limited means who did all he could to save lives without also endangering Catholics in Hitler's Germany.

Staff writer John Burgess in Washington contributed to this report.

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Rebels in Black Robes Recoil at Surveillance of Computers

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/technology/08COUR.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - A group of federal employees who believed that the monitoring of their office computers was a major violation of their privacy recently staged an insurrection, disabling the software used to check on them and suggesting that the monitoring was illegal and unethical.

This was not just a random bunch of bureaucrats but a group of federal judges who are still engaged in a dispute with the office in Washington that administers the judicial branch and that had installed the software to detect downloading of music, streaming video and pornography.

It is a conflict that reflects the anxiety of workers at all levels at a time when technology allows any employer to examine each keystroke made on an office computer. In this case, the concern over the loss of privacy comes from the very individuals, federal judges, who will shape the rules of the new information era.

The insurrection took root this spring in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco and the largest of the nation's 12 regional circuits, covering 9 Western states and two territories. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the ultimate governing body of the courts, is to meet on Sept. 11 to resolve the matter.

The conflict between the circuit judges and the Administrative Office of the Courts, a small bureaucracy in Washington, deteriorated to a point that a council of the circuit's appeals and district judges ordered their technology staff to disconnect the monitoring program on May 24 for a week until a temporary compromise was reached. Because the Ninth Circuit's was also linked to the Eighth and Tenth Circuits, the shutdown affected about a third of the country and about 10,000 court employees, including more than 700 active and semiretired judges.

Leonidas Ralph Mecham, who runs the Administrative Office of the Courts, and who ordered the monitoring of all federal court workers, said in a March 5 memorandum that the software was to enhance security and reduce computer use that was not related to judicial work and that was clogging the system. A survey by his office, he wrote, "has revealed that as much as 3 to 7 percent of the judiciary browser's traffic consists of streaming media such as radio and video broadcasts, which are unlikely to relate to official business."

Officials in the judicial branch on both sides of the issue provided several internal memorandums written as the dispute continued over the weeks.

After the shutdown, Mr. Mecham complained in a memorandum that disconnecting the software was irresponsible and might have resulted in security breaches, allowing unauthorized outsiders access to the judiciary's internal confidential computer network. "The weeklong shutdown put the entire judiciary's data communication network at risk," he wrote on June 15.

Mr. Mecham warned in that memorandum that on the days before the software was disabled, there were hundreds of attempts at intrusion into the judiciary's network from places like China and Iran.

But Chief Judge Mary Schroeder of the Ninth Circuit responded that the concerns were overblown and that the circuit's technical people carefully monitored computer activity during the week that the software was disabled.

In a June 29 memorandum, she said that there was no evidence that the electronic firewall used to block hacking had been breached and suggested that Mr. Mecham had exaggerated the potential of a security breach because having hundreds of attempted breaches per day was routine and routinely blocked.

The Ninth Circuit disconnected the software, she wrote, because the monitoring policy was not driven by concern over overloading the system but Mr. Mecham's concern over "content detection." Many employees had been disciplined, she noted, because the software turned up evidence of such things as viewing pornography, although they had not been given any clear notice of the court's computer use policy.

Moreover, she wrote, the judiciary may have violated the law.

"We are concerned about the propriety and even the legality of monitoring Internet usage," she wrote. Her memorandum said that the judiciary could be liable to lawsuits and damages because the software might have violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which imposes civil and criminal liability on any person who intentionally intercepts "any wire, oral or electronic communication."

She noted that the Ninth Circuit had ruled just this year that the law was violated when an employer accessed an employee Web site. In fact, the issues of what is permissible by employers have produced a patchwork of legal rulings and the matter has never been addressed directly by the Supreme Court.

Judge Alex Kozinski, a member of the Ninth Circuit appeals court, drafted and distributed an 18-page legal memorandum arguing that the monitoring was a violation of anti- wiretap statute.

Judge Kozinski, widely known for his libertarian views, said the court employees who were disciplined, an estimated three dozen, could be entitled to monetary damages if they brought a lawsuit.

A spokesman for Mr. Mecham said that the software could not identify specific employees but workstations. When unauthorized use was detected, Mr. Mecham's deputy, Clarence Lee Jr., wrote to the chief judge of the district, urging that the employee who used the workstation be identified and disciplined. One such letter includes an appendix listing the Web sites that employee had visited, some of them pornographic. There is no evidence that any alleged abuse of the system involved judges.

Judge Kozinski said: "Aside from my view that this may be a felony, it is something that we as federal judges have jurisdiction to consider. We have to pass on this very kind of conduct in the private sphere."

Prof. Jeffrey Rosen of the George Washington University Law School, author of a recent book on privacy, "The Unwanted Gaze" (Vintage 2001), said, "It's fascinating that the courts have to grapple with these issues so close to home." The law is evolving, he said, adding: "This drama with the judges reminds us of how thin the privacy protections are. There's a real choice right now whether e-mail and Web browsing should be regarded like the telephone or a postcard."

Judge Edwin L. Nelson, who is chairman of a judges' committee that deals with computer issues, said in an interview that his group met last week and drafted proposals to deal with monitoring. Judge Nelson would not discuss the proposals but they are almost certain to resemble policies used in the rest of the federal government, in which clear notice is given to computer users that they may be monitored.

Jim Flyzik, vice chairman of an interagency group that considers computer privacy issues in the federal government, said that each department had its own policy but that clear and unambiguous notification of monitoring was usually an element.

In the private sector, a survey by the American Management Association this year found that 63 percent of companies monitored employees' computer use.

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Spy in F.B.I. Is Said to Have Given Secrets to 2 Soviet Agencies

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/national/08AGEN.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - Robert P. Hanssen, the former F.B.I. agent, has told the bureau that he spied for two different Soviet intelligence agencies during different periods of his long espionage career, and investigators now believe that decision may have helped protect him from being caught earlier, law enforcement officials said today.

Mr. Hanssen, who pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow last month, is being debriefed by counterintelligence experts. In the first disclosures of what he has revealed, law enforcement officials said he had told the bureau that he began spying in 1979, six years earlier than the agency had believed when he was arrested in February. Mr. Hanssen is said to have spied from 1979 through 1981, quit, and then begun to spy again in 1985.

He has told the F.B.I. that when he began spying in 1979, he volunteered to provide information to the G.R.U., the Soviet military intelligence agency, law enforcement officials said. At the time, Mr. Hanssen was a new counterintelligence agent in the F.B.I.'s New York field office.

When he began spying again in 1985, Mr. Hanssen volunteered to the K.G.B., this time in Washington, officials said. To try to protect his identity, he volunteered anonymously by sending a letter to a K.G.B. officer who worked in the agency's Washington residency, or station.

Officials said they could not determine whether his decision to volunteer the second time to a different Soviet intelligence service was a deliberate attempt to confuse the Soviets, but the officials said they believed that the move helped to ensure that Moscow did not learn his identity.

By approaching the K.G.B. instead of the G.R.U. the second time, the Soviets probably did not associate him with the earlier spy the G.R.U. had in New York, American officials believe.

Just as bitter bureaucratic tensions have historically existed between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. within the United States intelligence community, it is possible that turf battles between the G.R.U. and the K.G.B. could have made it more difficult for Moscow to identify Mr. Hanssen as its spy. It is possible that the G.R.U. may not have shared with the K.G.B. everything it knew about the spy who had volunteered in New York.

F.B.I. investigators are now convinced that the K.G.B. never learned Mr. Hanssen's identity. That continued anonymity to his Russian handlers made it far more difficult for American intelligence officers to recruit a Russian source who could identify Mr. Hanssen as a spy.

Mr. Hanssen is believed to have been one of Moscow's most important spies inside American intelligence during the last years of the cold war. He disclosed the identities of at least three Russian spies working for the United States, and two of those agents were later executed. He also revealed to the K.G.B. the existence of a secret eavesdropping tunnel that the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency had built under the Soviet Embassy in Washington.

Mr. Hanssen was arrested on Feb. 18 at a park in suburban Virginia after leaving a package of classified documents for his Russian handlers.

At the time of his arrest, the bureau believed Mr. Hanssen had started spying in 1985. A Russian source had provided a copy of K.G.B. files on the anonymous spy, which showed the spy had volunteered in 1985. The disclosure that Mr. Hanssen first worked for the G.R.U may help explain why the K.G.B. files did not show his earlier spying.

Mr. Hanssen began spying for the G.R.U. soon after he was transferred into the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence operations in New York in 1979. His wife has told bureau investigators that she discovered what he was doing during that period.

Mrs. Hanssen has told the bureau that she convinced her husband to go with her to see a Roman Catholic priest. At first, the priest told Mr. Hanssen to turn himself in, according to Mrs. Hanssen. But the next day he called back and said Mr. Hanssen should give the money from the Russians to charity.

Mr. Hanssen subsequently told his wife that he had given the money to Mother Teresa in small installments. Mr. Hanssen also promised his wife that he would end his relationship with the Soviets. He did break it off for a few years, but then began again in 1985, this time with the K.G.B.

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Panel Supports CIA Venture Fund
Agency Still Slow to Embrace New Technology, Report Says

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page A17
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45718-2001Aug7?language=printer

The CIA's unclassified venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, should continue as the agency's "technology accelerator," a panel of business executives said yesterday, concluding that it has invested in emerging technologies at small firms that "would not have considered contracting with the government."

The panel, made up of representatives from a nonprofit group called Business Executives for National Security, said In-Q-Tel has invested $30 million in cutting-edge information technologies that should help the CIA cope with an explosion of digital information.

But in a 77-page report, the panel said significant reforms must be made -- particularly within the CIA -- if innovation spawned by In-Q-Tel is ever to transform the way the agency collects, analyzes and disseminates information gathered externally and generated from within.

CIA Director George J. Tenet, who formed the oversight group at the direction of Congress, must now intervene to "make the CIA leadership accountable for encouraging and nurturing a cultural change that accepts solutions from the 'outside world,' " the panel said.

While In-Q-Tel has proven itself capable of delivering "technology innovation to the CIA" in its first two years, the panel found, "it is not clear . . . that the CIA has a timely and efficient process to 'insert' that technology into the agency's [information technology] architecture."

As many as six internal panels with "multiple levels of review," the report said, have been involved in reviewing In-Q-Tel technologies before any of them have found their way into the CIA workplace.

C. Lawrence Meador, an MIT-trained computer technology entrepreneur who headed the panel, said the group started out skeptical about a venture capital fund financed by $28 million a year in federal subsidies.

But even private-sector venture capitalists on the panel, he said, came to endorse the logic behind In-Q-Tel's creation -- that the CIA needed a new, nonsecret mechanism for tapping into the dynamism of Silicon Valley.

Meador acknowledged that the report's most pointed criticism was aimed at the CIA, which the panel found lacks a clear information technology strategy.

"George [Tenet] could have gotten mad at me for spending half the paper talking about him and CIA," he said. "But he basically responded in a very positive and supportive way to every recommendation."

Gilman Louie, In-Q-Tel's chief executive, said Tenet's recent appointment of a chief information officer under Executive Director A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard has already strengthened ties between In-Q-Tel and the agency.

"Just by having one door to knock on to get answers, we should be able to deal with that problem," said one senior CIA official. "I think In-Q-Tel has the potential to be a real home run."


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Suspicious Colombian Town Blocks Peace Activists

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-colombi.html

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Seventy international peace activists trying to deliver food aid to a war-torn region of northern Colombia were forced to alter their route on Wednesday after suspicious townsfolk refused to let them pass, organizers said.

Boatloads of activists from 11 nations spent Tuesday holed up in the river port of the small town of San Pablo in the south of Bolivar Province trying to convince local people to allow them to pass through on their mission to deliver food aid to 30,000 families as part of their three-week ``life caravan.''

But local protesters accused the activists -- 55 foreigners and 15 Colombians -- of being sympathizers with leftist guerrillas fighting a 37-year-old war and refused to let them out of the port, activists said.

The Spanish government earlier in Madrid said the caravan members had been kidnapped, but this is false, they said.

``They were never kidnapped. Unfortunately the local community wouldn't let them in because they said that they would help the guerrillas,'' a spokeswoman for the caravan said in Bogota.

San Pablo has a heavy presence of illegal far-right paramilitary groups -- arch foes of the leftist rebels.

The caravan had planned to distribute food in nearby countryside that has long been a stronghold of the Marxist National Liberation Army, known by the Spanish initials ELN, which has engaged in heavy fighting with the paramilitaries and army in recent months.

The activists had originally planned to travel to San Pablo and then split into two groups: with one going overland and the other continuing north via the River Magdalena to the port of Morales. But now the whole caravan will head for Morales.

``Right from the beginning there has been pressure on us not to do this,'' Spanish caravan member Gonzalo Gonzalez told Colombian radio.

Most of the activists -- who include members of European parliaments, diplomats, academics -- are from Spain, but others are from the United States, Brazil, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Ireland.

They are not being escorted by Colombia's armed forces during their three-week mission, which began on Aug. 2.

About 40,000 lives have been lost in the last decade alone of Colombia's conflict. The government of President Andres Pastrana has so far failed to make much progress in peace talks with the ELN and with a larger Marxist force, the FARC.

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Algeria Cops Block Berber Protesters

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Algeria-Protest.html

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- Police used armored cars and barriers to block Berber protesters from entering Algeria's capital on Wednesday, preventing a planned demonstration against the military-backed government.

Only a handful of demonstrators were able to slip into Algiers. Scuffles broke out as some protesters tried to force their way through roadblocks. Organizers said several protesters suffered slight injuries and dozens more were arrested.

The planned demonstration was the latest show of popular discontent in this North African nation, where economic hardship and the deaths of dozens of protesters during riots in the eastern Kabyle region this year have generated frustration.

Kabyle is home to Algeria's Berbers, who claim to be the original inhabitants of Muslim North Africa. They make up nearly one-third of Algeria's 30 million people and have had tense relations with authorities for decades.

Many of the protesters were blocked on roads leading from the mountainous Kabyle region to Algiers.

Berber leaders called the demonstration to coincide with the start of the World Youth Festival, which is expected to draw up to 15,000 participants to Algeria over the next few days.

Protesters had planned to march to a city sports stadium, where the festival's opening ceremony was to be held later Wednesday.

In June, authorities banned all demonstrations in Algiers after one million people took to the streets in a protest. Police used water cannon and tear gas to break up the crowds, and at least four people were killed.

That demonstration came after months of almost-daily riots across the Kabyle region. At least 60 people were killed and 2,000 injured in the street battles between youths and riot police.

The riots began in April after a Berber student was shot and killed while in police custody. Protesters want more recognition for the Berber population, but the unrest has also become a way for Algerians to demand action against widespread poverty and corruption.

Kabyle is now relatively calm, but Berber protesters have staged several demonstrations around Algiers.

In a report last week, a government-appointed commission criticized the way the police handled the riots. It said police provoked protesters by shooting live ammunition into crowds, beating people and shouting obscenities.

Unrest in the Kabyle region comes on top of an Islamic insurgency now in its ninth year. The uprising erupted after the army canceled 1992 legislative elections that a Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win.

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Falun Gong Practitioners Begin March

New York Times
August 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Hong-Kong-Banned-Sect.html

HONG KONG (AP) -- Members of the Falun Gong meditation group, banned in mainland China but not here, began a three-day protest Wednesday calling for the release of a Hong Kong resident who they say is detained in Beijing.

About 30 people marched 5.2 miles in sweltering weather to Hong Kong's main train terminal on Victoria Harbor, urging China to free fellow Falun Gong member Chan Yuk-to.

The group plans similar marches Thursday and Friday. Afterward, it intends to present a petition to the local Chinese liaison office, said Kan Hung-cheung, a Falun Gong spokesman.

Lau Yuk-ling, Chan's 58-year-old mother, led the silent march. She wore a yellow t-shirt printed with ``S.O.S.'' in red letters and held a placard showing her son's photo that read: ``My son is not guilty,'' and ``Release my son.''

``I am not doing this just for my son, I am doing this for all those innocent Falun Gong practitioners who are being kept in jail and suffering from torture,'' Lau said before setting out.

Falun Gong claims that at least 263 members have been killed in the Chinese crackdown on the popular meditation movement. Thousands of adherents are in jails and labor camps and many have been forced to renounce their beliefs since the government banned the sect in 1999, denouncing it as a public menace and threat to Communist Party rule.

Hong Kong residents, however, enjoy more freedoms under an autonomy arrangement agreed to when Britain returned the colony to China four years ago.

Lau and other Falun Gong members said police detained Chan last month, and have not informed the family of the reason.

Officials from Hong Kong's Immigration Department and Security Bureau have said they were contacting Beijing regarding Chan's case. Inquiries to the central government's liaison office went unanswered.

Falun Gong combines slow-motion exercises and meditation with a philosophy drawn from Taoism, Buddhism and the often unorthodox ideas of founder Li Hongzhi.

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