------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
N. Korea's Kim Visits Siberia
Kursk Anniversary Revives Memories
Sub blast 'came from within'
Governor Threatens to Bar U.S. Plutonium Shipments
Rumsfeld in Russia: Less ABM, More Warm Ties

MILITARY
Macedonia braced for all-out war in Skopje
Allies Bomb Iraqi Air Defenses in Biggest Attack in 6 Months
Israel Breaks Up Protests at Seized Palestinian Office
Palestinians Find Heroes in Hamas
Puerto Rican Senator Freed
Exploring military potential of space
Pillsbury Space Food Scientist Dies
Marines Accuse Eight in Osprey Aircraft Probe

OTHER
How My Electric Car Saves the World
U.S. Acts Quickly to Put Stem-Cell Policy in Effect
Embryo research gearing up
Central America Teams Up to Buy AIDS Drugs
Tunisia Releases Human Rights Activist
The Wronged Man:
China Says U.S. Offer on Spy Plane 'Unacceptable'




-------- NUCLEAR

-------- russia

N. Korea's Kim Visits Siberia

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-NKorea-Kim.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- Kim Jong Il, North Korea's reclusive leader, visited a renowned Russian nuclear research center and watched a warplane demonstration Saturday, during a stop in Siberia on his train journey home across Russia.

Kim visited the Budker Nuclear Physics Institute and its particle accelerator and a thermonuclear synthesis facility near the city of Novosibirsk, 1,750 miles east of Moscow, the ITAR-Tass news agency and NTV television reported.

No details were released of the visit, which was closed to journalists and surrounded by the intense security that has marked Kim's Russia trip. It is just Kim's third foreign trip as leader of impoverished, communist North Korea.

The Interfax news agency reported that police asked people living near the House of Scientists, where Kim had lunch, to close their windows during his stay.

Later, the leader visited the Chkalov Aircraft plant, which makes Su-34 attack planes, where pilots flew a jet for Kim's benefit, ITAR-Tass said.

He also stopped at a factory that makes night-vision devices and visited the Siberian State Railroad Institute, the news agency said. Russian officials have shown interest in reviving a project to link the Trans-Siberian railway -- along which Kim is traveling -- with a proposed inter-Korea railway to handle trade from Asia to Europe.

Kim is to resume his journey home Sunday morning.

Kim left North Korea July 26 in a 21-car, Japanese-made train and wended his way across the Russian Far East and Siberia to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After their summit a week ago, Kim and Putin released a Cold War-style manifesto pledging to renew strategic and economic ties and denouncing the United States for its missile defense program.

During a brief stop in Novosibirsk on his way to Moscow, Kim was expected to greet the family of a Russian serviceman who had reportedly saved the life of his father, longtime North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. However, Kim did not leave the train. Kim reportedly promised to meet the family on his way back.

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Kursk Anniversary Revives Memories

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- Even as divers in the frigid Arctic prepare to raise the Kursk nuclear submarine, the first anniversary of its sinking has brought back memories of a bungled rescue effort and the mystery surrounding the disaster's cause.

Reluctant to acknowledge responsibility for the controversy and confusion that marred the salvage operation, the Russian government has focused on turning the operation to lift the submarine into a show of openness.

Last summer, in the days after the Kursk plunged to the bottom of the Barents Sea with 118 men aboard, Russian authorities released contradictory and often false information. They did their best to bar journalists from the disaster scene.

Now, as the anniversary approaches, officials have been pampering the media with excursions to the site of the salvage effort, regular news conferences and live reports on a government-sponsored Web page.

Russian officials are, however, limiting media access to the Kursk's home base, Vidyayevo -- the spot where relatives of the 118 people who died on the submarine are to gather Sunday for a remembrance ceremony.

It was a year ago Aug. 12 when the nuclear submarine went down, and in the days that followed family frustration and anger boiled over. Russian television channels showed one sailor's mother shouting at the Russian navy chief to shoot himself. She was then forcibly sedated and taken away.

Some relatives of the crew continue to blame naval chiefs for their decision to send the giant Kursk to practice in shallow waters and test an unstable torpedo.

After communications with the Kursk were lost during naval maneuvers on Aug. 12, 2000, the navy hesitated for hours before launching a search, perhaps wasting whatever time was left for the sailors who were trapped aboard. The government also rejected offers of Western aid, instead sending Russian mini-submarines to make repeated futile attempts to hook onto the submarine's escape hatch.

Days later, Russia invited foreign divers, who took several hours to open the hatch that the Russians couldn't open for an entire week.

Throughout the crisis, Putin remained at a Black Sea resort. He finally flew to Vidyayevo 10 days after the disaster and promised relatives he would raise the submarine and recover all the bodies.

The Russian president has defended his conduct during the crisis, saying foreign help wouldn't have arrived on time even if Russia had immediately asked for it. He has acknowledged that his failure to rush back from vacation was a public relations blunder, but insisted he remained fully in charge throughout the crisis.

``Putin has made the due conclusions from his mistakes, and increasingly heeded the public opinion, quickly responding to other emergencies that have followed the Kursk's sinking,'' said analyst Yevgeny Volk, director of the Heritage Foundation's Moscow office.

To this day, there are doubts about what caused the Kursk to go down.

The government has said the explosions which sent the submarine crashing to the seabed were triggered by a practice torpedo. But it remains uncertain whether it was caused by an internal flaw in the torpedo -- the theory favored by most outside experts -- or a collision, possibly with a foreign vessel.

The raising will cost around $70 million. The effort is considered unprecedented because of the Kursk's size: At 18,000 tons, it is one of the world's largest submarines.

Putin has said one of the main reasons for raising the Kursk is concern about its nuclear reactors. There have been no radiation leaks, but officials say they want to remove a potential risk to the area's rich fishing grounds.

Russian and foreign experts have dismissed environmentalists' concerns that the nuclear reactors would pose a danger during the lifting. The navy said the main danger comes from undetonated torpedoes, which could have survived the powerful explosion in the ship's bow. The fore part of the Kursk is to be sawed off to avoid a risk to the lifting effort.

The rest of the submarine is to be raised to the surface around Sept. 15. It will then be towed to a dock in the northwestern Russian port of Murmansk, where officials will remove any remains of the crew and the ship's 22 Granit cruise missiles.

--------

Sub blast 'came from within'

August 11, 2001
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010811-69517387.htm

One year after violent explosions sent the Russian submarine Kursk to the bottom of the sea, killing 118 sailors, a Russian admiral dismissed accusations that a collision with an American submarine was responsible for the disaster.

"It is very unlikely the submarine [Kursk] collided with something in deep waters," said Vice Adm. Sergei Lebedev told reporters at the Russian Embassy in Washington.

Asked if he ruled out Russian accusations last year that the Kursk had hit an American submarine that was monitoring Russian naval exercises in the Barents Sea, Adm. Lebedev said:

"It is unlikely there was a collision with another submarine because of the nature of the submarine [disaster]. Explosions came from within."

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said last November, after heading a government inquiry into the Kursk disaster, that it had collided with another submarine.

Then-Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Russia would soon be able to determine which submarine had hit the Kursk.

That, in turn, prompted a flurry of speculation in the Russian press that an American submarine had sent the Kursk and its sailors to an icy grave.

Russia recently began an attempt to raise the nuclear-powered Kursk from the seabed, about 300 feet down.

The salvage operation seeks to protect the ecology of the Barents Sea from nuclear contamination, determine the cause of the disaster and lay the bodies of the crew to rest, said Igor Neverov, deputy chief of mission at the Russian Embassy.

He announced that Russia is setting up a media center next month in Murmansk, home port of the Russian fleet, to allow reporters to view the operation and ride out to the recovery site.

Adm. Lebedev said the submarine is expected to reach the surface by mid-September.

Photos of the Kursk on the ocean floor after the Aug. 12 tragedy showed a heavily damaged forward section.

Mr. Neverov said Thursday that Russian officials have been investigating three possible causes for the tragedy:

• A possible deep sea collision.

• A sea mine left over from World War II.

• An emergency in the front of the submarine.

Adm. Lebedev said that while the three theories remain under investigation, "I believe the submarine went down because of an explosion in the front section. The reason for this happening will be identified after the submarine is lifted."

The front section of the Kursk will not be raised along with the rest of the ship because it was "almost completely destroyed" and the remaining portions will be cut away, the admiral said.

"After working on the rest, we will work on the front," he said.

Adm. Lebedev also rejected what he called "gossip" to the effect that the government has concealed notes written by sailors who survived the initial blasts that describe how the accident took place.

"It is not true," he said.

Russia has disclosed the contents of two notes found on sailors whose bodies were recovered by divers.

Both were far from the front where the explosions took place.

Among the possible explanations for the explosions is the malfunction of a torpedo, which might have gone off prematurely or become jammed in a torpedo tube and then ignited.

The admiral said that Russia was grateful for expressions of sympathy from Americans, especially those sent to families of the victims by American submariners and their families.

Russia has also proposed creation of a specialized high seas rescue service, using Russian and other naval resources, to assist in future accidents.

The Russians noted that while the Kursk was the fourth Russian nuclear sub to be lost at sea, the United States has also lost two nuclear submarines -- the Thresher in 1963 and the Scorpion in 1968.

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

-------- south carolina

Governor Threatens to Bar U.S. Plutonium Shipments

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/11/national/11PLUT.html?searchpv=nytToday

ATLANTA, Aug. 10 - Charging that a large shipment of plutonium from nuclear weapons may be on its way to permanent storage in his state rather than to the temporary stay needed for processing, Gov. Jim Hodges has ordered the South Carolina Highway Patrol to draw up plans for blocking the state's borders to federal trucks bearing it.

Mr. Hodges says the Bush administration has reneged on a plan worked out by the Clinton administration to move the plutonium out of the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C., after it is converted to power- plant fuel or encased in glass. Without a guarantee that the radioactive material will eventually be moved out of the state, he said in an interview today, he will "do whatever it takes" to keep it from coming in.

"I'll stand squarely in front of the trucks, if that's what it takes to protect the health and safety of our people," he said. "In the meantime, we've got a range of options, including roadblocks. We are not going to be stuck with permanent storage of plutonium in our state."

In a memorandum released by his office, Mr. Hodges ordered B. Boykin Rose, the state's public safety director, to evaluate options for highway roadblocks, a step that recalls Gov. Cecil D. Andrus's use of the Idaho state police in 1988 to block shipments of nuclear waste from the Navy to a processing plant in his state. Mr. Hodges said a federal lawsuit was another option being considered.

The Energy Department, which operates the Savannah River Site, a nuclear processing and disposal complex, said it hoped to continue discussing the issue with South Carolina officials to prevent confrontations at the border. Joe Davis, a spokesman for the department, said Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham promised on a visit to the complex this week that the plutonium would not be permanently stored in South Carolina.

"We're committed to making sure that the materials that come into the state leave the state," Mr. Davis quoted Mr. Abraham as saying.

But Mr. Hodges said that he was not satisfied with vague assurances and that he had not been given a detailed plan on how the waste will be removed. If the government moves to South Carolina all the plutonium that requires processing, he said, it will leave the state isolated, because no other state will want the material back.

"We will be left holding the proverbial bag," the governor wrote in his memorandum.

The two sides cannot even agree on when the first shipment of more than 50 tons of plutonium, from Rocky Flats, the shuttered Colorado nuclear weapons complex, will enter South Carolina on its way to the Savannah River Site, about 20 miles downstream from Augusta, Ga. Mr. Hodges said he believed that the trucks would begin coming in two weeks, but Mr. Davis said there would be no shipments until this fall.

The plutonium at issue was left over from the production of nuclear weapons. In 1996, the United States and Russia agreed to take equal amounts out of their nuclear stockpiles and either convert it to fuel for nuclear power plants or encase it in radioactive glass to keep it from being stolen.

But in May, citing budget pressures, the Bush administration said it would not yet begin the expensive process of stabilizing the plutonium and encasing it in glass. Instead, officials said, waste will be stored in containers at the South Carolina complex while the issue is studied further.

That infuriated Mr. Hodges, who said the state had contributed enough to the nation's nuclear program by allowing Savannah River to manufacture plutonium and tritium gas for bombs as far back as 1952. The state has no intention of being the storage site for warhead waste, he said, suggesting that it be stored instead in a state with many remote locations, like Nevada.

The end of the cold war allowed the government to shut down the original five reactors at the 310-square- mile Savannah River complex, and now the only plutonium manufactured there is used as batteries for space probes. But the site still plays an important role in storing and processing spent fuel and other waste.

The cost of processing the plutonium has grown sharply, however, precisely at a time when the Bush administration is looking for ways to cut the budget of most agencies, including the Energy Department. A confidential report from the department, made public on Thursday by the private Nuclear Control Institute, said the cost of the 22-year plutonium disposal program that resulted from the agreement with the Russians had now risen to $6.6 billion - a 50 percent increase over a 1999 estimate.

Mr. Hodges, a Democrat, said politics did not play a role in his stand, and added that he did not believe his state was being made a target for waste because he is a Democrat at a time when Republicans are in the White House. This afternoon, in fact, one of his most bitter political enemies, State Attorney General Charlie Condon, a Republican, issued a strong statement of support for his position, pledging to work with him to keep the government from forcing the state to accept nuclear waste.

-------- us nuc politics

Rumsfeld in Russia: Less ABM, More Warm Ties

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/11/international/11RUMS.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is about to travel 10,000 miles to Moscow and back for one day of talks on missile defense and nuclear reductions at which no agreements are expected - because, many officials believe, the outcome is preordained and the American position has prevailed.

On missile defense, the United States is unyielding.

President Bush has said that the treaty that limits American missile systems is obsolete and that he will not slow testing or deployment. It was Mr. Rumsfeld who wrote the report on ballistic missile threats that poured the fuel and lighted the fire under Republicans who support accelerated missile development and withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.

On strategic arms reductions, Moscow can barely sustain its current nuclear arsenal, anyway. Defense Department officials also say if current economic trends continue, Russia will be forced to slash its 6,000 warheads, to 2,500, 2,000 or even to 1,500 over the next decade or so, regardless of arms control consultations with the United States.

So what is on the table for the talks on Monday? What can be negotiated? Why is Mr. Rumsfeld bothering to go to Moscow?

"The idea is to build a new relationship between the United States and Russia, a relationship that will be entirely different from the relationship that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war," a senior Defense Department official said today. "And it's a relationship that will require us to be moving beyond some of the institutions of the cold war such as the ABM treaty."

Mr. Rumsfeld's trip fits into a schedule of rolling consultations between senior administration officials and their Russian counterparts on nuclear policy, proliferation, economic development and commercial cooperation ahead of Mr. Bush's next two meetings with President Vladimir V. Putin, in Shanghai in October and then at Mr. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., the next month.

Presidents Bush and Putin have instructed their national security teams to link consultations on missile defense with talks on reducing nuclear warheads, and the administration would certainly welcome a deal with Moscow to scrap the ABM treaty and slash both sides' warhead arsenals.

Russian agreement to such a bargain would certainly silence the vocal opposition to missile defense in Europe and among Congressional Democrats.

But if a deal cannot be struck, then Mr. Rumsfeld's trip can be cited as proof of Mr. Bush's good faith effort to bring along the Russians arm in arm as a respected strategic partner before the president moves ahead and invokes the six-month notification process allowed by the ABM treaty to withdraw from the pact.

The United States has planned an aggressive test schedule that by late next spring is widely expected to conflict with the treaty.

In Moscow, Mr. Rumsfeld will consult on nuclear issues, of course, but he will also conduct a bit of public diplomacy with the Russian news media, some personal diplomacy with Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov - and no small amount of straightforward American diplomacy.

The distinct channels by which the United States managed its relations with the Soviet Union and which traditionally gave the State Department dominion over arms control are blurring in this post-cold-war era of transforming relations with Russia, the senior Pentagon official said today.

"I think it's inevitable that there will be a fair amount of overlap," the official said. "What we're talking about fundamentally is a relationship, and when you have a normal and healthy relationship, the elements interrelate. And so the quality of political relations, economic relations and commercial relations have strategic significance. They're part of the issue of strategic stability."

As evidence of the overlap, Mr. Rumsfeld's entourage to Moscow includes Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, as well as John R. Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

In preparation for the meetings on Monday in Moscow, Mr. Feith led two days of talks at the Pentagon this week with a delegation of Russians headed by Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of staff.

One presentation was by Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, who reported on successful test last month of an interceptor to shoot down ballistic missiles.

The multimedia briefing on how the "kill vehicle" smashed into a dummy warhead high over the Pacific so focused the Russians' attention, officials said, that General Kadish was asked to return for a second day of questions and answers.


-------- MILITARY

-------- balkans

Macedonia braced for all-out war in Skopje

Saturday, August 11, 2001
Irish Times
From Nicholas Wood
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/0811/wor6.htm

MACEDONIA: Macedonia's security forces lost seven more soldiers yesterday, killed when their truck struck two landmines outside the capital, Skopje.

The attack, believed to have been launched by ethnic Albanian guerrillas, came just two days after the ambush of an army convoy in which 10 soldiers were killed, making this week the bloodiest yet in the conflict.

The explosion took place on a dirt road five miles north of the city.

Six soldiers died in the initial blast at 8 a.m. A seventh died on the way to hospital.

The deaths became immediate fuel for government hardliners who are in favour of waging an all-out war against the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (NLA, or, in Albanian, the UCK).

The Prime Minister, Mr Ljuko Georgievski, issued a statement saying Macedonia was capable of defeating the gunmen.

"Personally, I am convinced that with complete unity, and an avoidance of earlier mistakes, Macedonia has the strength to win the fight for its own defence," he said.

But later, the prime minister's office denied that Mr Georgievski had distanced himself from the peace deal.

"On the contrary, he is prepared, together with the other political leaders, to put his signature to the final agreement on Monday so the international public can get a clearer picture of who stands for peace and who stands for war in Macedonia," an official told Reuters.

An army spokesman said he believed the mines were "most probably laid on Thursday night or early on Friday".

Another spokesman said the mines had been laid on top of each other for maximum impact.

The troops had been on their way to replace a post on the border with Kosovo. Nine soldiers were injured.

The increased violence is also eroding hopes for a political settlement aimed at ending the crisis. A signing ceremony is due to take place on Monday, paving the way for Nato troops to come into the country to help disarm the rebel army.

Mr Georgievski's spokesman, Mr Antonio Milososki, said the NLA was clearly opposed to the peace deal.

"Instead of backing the peace agreement, the NLA is trying to find a reason to refuse it. The UCK is prepared to make a funeral of the peace agreement. This is a proposal for war," he said.

In Skopje, police were preparing for protests outside the parliament in reaction to the latest killings.

A curfew was announced for 9 p.m. Previous attacks have seen violent mobs run through the city centre, attacking Albanian businesses and Western institutions.

Before yesterday's mine attack, much of the country's attention had been focused on Prilep, in central Macedonia, home to several of the reservist soldiers killed in Wednesday's ambush.

Two funerals were held yesterday afternoon. The mother of one of the dead solders told Reuters: "I know he was not afraid. I want it to be mentioned in history: my child was a hero and he died heroically, and that's why he will live for ever." - (Guardian Service)

-------- iraq

Allies Bomb Iraqi Air Defenses in Biggest Attack in 6 Months

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/11/international/middleeast/11IRAQ.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - In the strongest attack on Iraq since February, American and British planes bombed three air defense sites in southern Iraq today, a response to Saddam Hussein's increasingly aggressive actions against allied pilots, the Pentagon said.

The raid came as the Bush administration began formulating a longer- term strategy against Mr. Hussein that is likely to include stronger air strikes and reinforced support for Iraqi opposition groups that favor dislodging him from power.

During the presidential campaign, foreign policy aides to George W. Bush criticized the Clinton administration's "containment" policy against Mr. Hussein, arguing that a more aggressive stance was needed. But that stance has not materialized so far, in part because of the decision to allow Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to try first for reform of international sanctions against Iraq.

That effort, intended to put more financial and weapons restrictions on Mr. Hussein but to give the Iraqi people greater access to consumer goods, floundered last month at the United Nations when Russia refused to sign on.

Another boost for a harder line on Iraq in the administration has come as officials in favor of such a policy have taken senior positions at the Pentagon and the National Security Council in recent months.

The strike today was not a result of the overall review of Iraqi policy that is now gathering steam and is expected to be completed by next month, officials said. Rather, the heavier than usual strike was part of an effort to protect the pilots who patrol the "no flight" zone.

The strike was carried out by about 20 American and British attack planes and 30 support aircraft, a Pentagon spokesman said. The planes hit a military communications center, a surface-to-air missile launching site and a long-range radar, said a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve Campbell of the Army.

The targets were in southern Iraq where a no-flight zone was established in 1991 to protect Shiite Muslims. The targets were in Wasit Province, 150 miles south of Baghdad, and in Dhi Qar Province, 270 miles south of the capital.

Last week Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Iraq had rebuilt its air defenses since allied aircraft hit radar and communications targets around Baghdad in February. Mr. Rumsfeld hinted then that more aggressive action would be needed than the routine patrols of no-flight zones in northern and southern Iraq.

Some Pentagon officials have stressed in recent weeks that the pilots were at a greater risk because of stepped-up efforts by Mr. Hussein to shoot down a plane and capture an American pilot. Iraq tried to shoot down a U-2 spy plane last month, the officials said.

The Iraq policy review now under way has been been given more urgency not only because of increased Iraqi measures to shoot down allied pilots but also because the sanctions reform effort at the United Nations stumbled.

Efforts are still being made to enlist Russia on sanctions reform, a senior administration official said today. But the administration's focus has now shifted to how to deal with the no-flight zones in the longer term and how to support Iraqi opposition groups intent on overthrowing Mr. Hussein, he said.

The effort to formulate the tougher line has run into opposition from Middle East experts at the State Department who argue that attempts to overthrow Mr. Hussein will further inflame moderate Arab countries already angered by what they perceive as Washington's support of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The advocates of a tougher Iraq policy argue that the best chance for Arab-Israeli peace will come when Mr. Hussein has been repulsed and the strength of the United States is unquestioned. According to this reasoning, the Madrid Conference of 1991, when Israel sat down with its Arab foes, was made possible because it came after the defeat of Mr. Hussein in the gulf war.

A senior official involved in the review described the State Department position as far from universally held in the administration. "I'm not persuaded that the Arab-Israeli conflict is of more consequence than Saddam Hussein," he said.

In shaping the Iraq policy, the official said it would be done in consultation with Washington's allies in the Arab world. "We're not looking for a United States go-it-alone policy," he said. It is also possible that the outcome of the policy review will be circumscribed by the difficulties of bringing about a change of regime in Iraq.

On the question of overthrow, the senior official said, "We are looking at that given the realities on the ground, where Saddam Hussein is, where the opposition is."

Ten senior members of the Bush administration, including Mr. Rumsfeld and Zalmay Khalilzad, who recently assumed the position at the National Security Council in charge of Iraqi policy, signed a 1998 letter calling on the Clinton administration to implement "a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power." The letter, which was sponsored by the Project for the New American Century headed by William Kristol, said that although the overthrow of Mr. Hussein would entail "dangers and difficulties, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater."

-------- israel

Israel Breaks Up Protests at Seized Palestinian Office

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinian legislators and other protesters marched toward the PLO headquarters in Jerusalem on Saturday, a day after Israel took over the compound, but were pushed back by Israeli police as scuffles and shouting erupted.

Police wrestled several demonstrators to the ground and took some away in headlocks. Some Palestinians threw stones at Orthodox Jews after one of the Jews sprayed mace at a Palestinian. One policeman with a bloodied face was taken away in an ambulance.

Elsewhere, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met with foreign envoys in the West Bank town of Ramallah and asked for international intervention in the conflict with Israel.

U.S. and Russian envoys, speaking in Damascus and Ramallah respectively, condemned Israel's takeover of the PLO headquarters, which came in response to a suicide bombing that killed 15 people, including the assailant, this week in Jerusalem.

In the Gaza Strip, two Palestinians died Saturday of gunshot wounds sustained a day earlier in a clash with Israeli soldiers. The two had been among a group of Palestinians throwing stones at soldiers at the Karni crossing point. In all, six Palestinians were wounded in the clash, and one remained in critical condition.

More than 560 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and more than 150 on the Israeli side since hostilities broke out in September.

Israel's takeover of the PLO headquarters, known as the Orient House, constituted its most direct challenge to Palestinian political aspirations in the city.

The Palestinians want to establish a capital in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, and they see the Orient House as the core of a future government complex.

In peace talks that broke down earlier this year, Israel's previous government, led by Ehud Barak, had offered the Palestinians a measure of control in east Jerusalem. However, the Palestinians said the offer did not go far enough.

The current government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says it will never relinquish control over any area of Jerusalem.

Speaking in Damascus, Syria, U.S. envoy David Satterfield said the takeover of Orient House represented a ``political escalation.''

His Russian counterpart, Andrei Vdovin, speaking after a meeting with Arafat in Ramallah, that it was a violation of earlier peace accords ``and complicates the situation more and more.''

On Saturday, a dozen Palestinian officials, including Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi and Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, marched toward the Orient House. They were pushed back by Israeli police who blocked access roads to the building with barricades.

A shouting match ensued at one of the barricades, and officers shoved Ashrawi and the others.

Ashrawi, short of breath after the scuffle, said Palestinians would protest outside the Orient House every day. ``This is our city ... and the Orient House is our house,'' she said.

Later, more protesters arrived, including activists from the United States and Europe. Police tore up signs and shoved the demonstrators down the street. Twelve demonstrators were arrested, including several foreigners, police said.

Palestinian officials said the takeover of the Orient House violated previous Israeli assurances that Palestinian institutions in east Jerusalem would not be harmed.

Israeli officials said the government was no longer bound by those promises because the Orient House was not being used for its original purpose of directing cultural activities and providing social services for Palestinians in east Jerusalem.

Israeli Public Security Minister Uzi Landau alleged that Palestinian security forces were using the Orient House and other institutions to plot attacks on Israelis.

The raid was also meant to cement Israeli claims to the city, Landau said.

``We will take every necessary action to keep the PLO out of Jerusalem,'' he said. ``Jerusalem is an Israeli city.''

--------

Palestinians Find Heroes in Hamas
Popularity Surges for Once-Marginal Sponsor of Suicide Bombings

By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 11, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60191-2001Aug10?language=printer

JERUSALEM, Aug. 10 -- The spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, whose Palestinian foot soldiers are blowing themselves up in Israeli cities, gets sleepy after lunch. His eyelids sag. He sighs and stifles a yawn. His answers are curt, and rendered in a tiny dull voice. He seems eager for a nap.

But there is nothing soporific about Sheik Ahmed Yassin's pronouncements from his office in Gaza City, or his justifications for the group's suicide bombers: They are clear and cold, and chilling to several million Israelis.

"We are a people not afraid of death, and when one of us dies, it's like a wedding day for him," Yassin said in an interview last week. "One who is martyred attains a very high spiritual level, and so his death is like a celebration -- we offer candy, sweets and cold drinks, because we know he'll be so high in heaven."

From his small office in a squalid Gaza neighborhood, Yassin -- 65 years old, in a wheelchair, hard of hearing and barely audible -- presides over the movement known as Hamas, the deadliest, most feared and most hunted terrorist group in the Palestinian territories.

Lately its popularity among Palestinians has been surging.

After a Hamas suicide bomber killed 15 people and wounded dozens in a central Jerusalem pizzeria Thursday, Palestinian boys clapped and chanted slogans in the streets of West Bank cities. Middle-class Palestinian professionals, including secular people formerly estranged from Hamas's fundamentalist Islamic agenda, sang the bomber's praises.

Everywhere, Palestinians pronounced themselves content, even thrilled, with the suicide bombing. After all, they said, Israel had attacked two senior Hamas leaders just a week earlier, and in the process killed two Palestinian children; now, revenge had been taken.

"What does Sharon expect from us -- to kill us and make our life impossible and then not see any Palestinian reaction?" said Azzam Abu Haleema of Gaza City, referring to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister. "What happened [at the pizzeria] is a result of Sharon's policy of aggression, massacres and killing."

Together with one or two other groups, Hamas is the spearhead of the Palestinian network of terrorists and guerrilla fighters who are engaged in a kind of shadow war with the Israeli army. In recent months, Israeli forces have assassinated more than a half-dozen Hamas militants, and have wounded or arrested a number of others.

But Hamas has drawn more blood. It was behind a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco that killed 22 people on June 1, and another at a mall in the coastal city of Netanya on May 18, in which five Israelis died. Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has given Hamas virtual carte blanche to operate, refusing Israel's demands that it crack down on the militant organization.

In the Middle East's atmosphere of hatred, murder and revenge, Hamas is in its element. The group's goal is an independent homeland in at least the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and, Israelis fear, on the territory of the Jewish state. Its strategy of "resistance," which disdains any peace negotiations and insists on confronting Israel with violence, has gone mainstream.

Once Hamas seemed marginal, its independence-or-death rhetoric too absolutist for many Palestinians. Today it is Arafat's Palestinian Authority, whose public declarations urge a return to negotiations, that appears out of step with public opinion.

That shift has become evident since the Palestinian uprising erupted last fall, leaving more than 660 people dead, three-quarters of them Palestinians. With every Palestinian funeral, and with every assassination, missile attack and shooting of teenage stone-throwers by Israelis, Hamas's appeal deepens and spreads, according to Palestinian and Israeli analysts.

"The Palestinian secular factions have found themselves moving toward the positions that Hamas has taken all along -- that the peace process is a waste of time, that negotiations are a waste of time, that the enemy understands only force, resistance and intifada," said Ziad Abu Amr, a Palestinian lawmaker and political scientist. "So everyone finds themselves driving toward positions that Hamas held all along, and tries now to imitate what Hamas has been saying and doing."

The effect is difficult to quantify but easy to see.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah today, several hundred Palestinians marched under fluttering green Hamas flags to the site of a Palestinian police station bombed by Israeli fighter jets overnight. Some were children as young as 5, who draped themselves with the flags like Superman capes.

There were Hamas leaders in the crowd -- intense, bearded men with ready political slogans -- but also secular middle-class Palestinians who are hardly the group's traditional constituents.

"For us it's an issue of national liberation, not religion," said Rebhi Suleiman, 45, a clean-cut Palestinian lawyer. "I don't support Hamas, I'm not religious, but if Hamas fights the occupation I have all the respect for Hamas. If the West is interested in the Islamic movement not gaining influence, then the [Israeli] occupation must end."

Mindful of the rising appeal of militant groups, leaders of Arafat's Fatah faction have lately proposed a Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups that have carried out terror attacks.

Arafat has not rejected the idea outright. But Hamas has balked, wary perhaps of overt association with Arafat's notoriously corrupt Palestinian Authority. Hamas leaders' prestige has been enhanced by its uncompromising program, divorced from grubby politicking and the failure of past Palestinian peace efforts.

"Our concern is not handing out cabinet ministries," said Jamal Tawil, 38, a Hamas leader in Ramallah. "Hamas wants to rearrange the Palestinian house from its roots and avoid the mistakes of the past."

It was Israel that in the late 1980s encouraged the emergence of Hamas, an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement that also means "zeal." Eager to cultivate a political opposition that would undercut Arafat's secular Palestine Liberation Organization, the Israelis pushed the Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip, which eventually gave rise to Hamas.

Combining Islamic fervor and ardent nationalism, Hamas gained popularity by brazen and bloody attacks on Israel. After Israel assassinated Hamas's chief bomb-maker, a man known as "the engineer," the group launched a horrific series of suicide bombings in early 1996 that killed dozens of Israelis.

On the streets of Gaza, and to a somewhat lesser extent in the West Bank, Hamas's status has been underpinned by a network of medical clinics, schools and welfare institutions that distribute free and subsidized food to the needy.

According to Yassin, the group distributes $2 million to $3 million in monthly handouts to the relatives of Palestinian suicide bombers; "martyrs" who have been killed by Israelis; and prisoners in Israeli jails. When pressed, he was vague about the provenance of the money, which, according to the State Department, comes mainly from Palestinians overseas, Iran and private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other moderate Arab states.

Under pressure from Israel and the West, Arafat cracked down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad following the suicide bombings in 1996. Scores of Hamas activists were jailed, and the terror attacks on Israel faded. But with the eruption of the Palestinian uprising last fall, Arafat released virtually all the militants. A wave of suicide attacks and other bombings followed.

"We are concerned about the increase in the popularity of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but we guess that Arafat has to be even more concerned about that," a senior Israeli army officer said in an interview. "Whenever you let a tiger go free out of its cage, at a certain moment the tiger itself decides what will be the next prey."

Israeli officials said their strategy of targeting Hamas and other militant leaders for assassination is driven by necessity and will be effective over the long term. In recent weeks, a number of attempted bombings inside Israel have either been thwarted by Israeli forces or failed when explosive devices blew up in the hands of militants. That, said Israeli officers, suggests erosion in the group's expertise.

"They failed because the real experts were missing," said the senior army officer. "So maybe it's not a decisive victory, but we guess there has been some deterrent effect."

-------- puerto rico

Puerto Rican Senator Freed

August 11, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Puerto-Rico-Vieques.html

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A Puerto Rican senator was released from a federal detention center Saturday after serving a 40-day sentence for trespassing on military lands to protest U.S. Navy bombing on outlying Vieques Island.

Norma Burgos, who favors U.S. statehood for Puerto Rico, was greeted by dozens of well-wishers outside the federal detention center in suburban Guaynabo.

``I thank you deeply for your support, that you have understood what I want for Puerto Rico, because I love this country too much to allow it to be mistreated or for its people to be mistreated,'' said Burgos.

In July, U.S. District Court Judge Hector Laffitte had originally imposed a 40-day sentence on Burgos, saying that as a lawmaker she set a dangerous example. Laffitte then added 20 days after arguing with Burgos in court, calling her ``defiant'' after she defended protesters' actions.

But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston threw out the additional sentence on Friday because Laffitte had not followed correct sentencing procedures, allowing for the early release, said Burgos' lawyer, Joaquin Monserrate.

On Friday, actor Edward James Olmos was sentenced to a 20-day term, the latest well-known figure imprisoned for trespassing during protests on Vieques.

Olmos and Burgos were among about 180 people detained during bombing exercises in April and May. Olmos trespassed onto the firing range in a fishing boat along with environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy and New York labor leader Dennis Rivera. Kennedy and Rivera were released this month after serving 30-day sentences.

Anti-Navy sentiment swelled after a civilian guard was killed by off-target bombs in 1999. The Navy has used inert ammunition since then. President Bush has promised to end the maneuvers by 2003.

-------- space

Exploring military potential of space

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 2001
THE TIMES OF INDIA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=332400371

WASHINGTON: A peep into the kind of revolutionary weapons of the future, which the Pentagon is developing to fight from space, makes it clear that future wars will bear no resemblance to wars of the past.

Warfighter I satellite, with size of a refrigerator, is one such weapon. Its camera features a new form of imaging called hyperspectral which distinguishes the subtle "light signatures" that separate a field of oats from barley and tells about the precise species of oats.

"Applying this capability to weapons, Warfighter I will be able to discern the unique light signatures of extremely specific things - like tanks hiding under trees or tanks covered in camouflage or tanks painted with a paint meant to make them not look like tanks," a report in the New York Times said.

Space planners envision a high-tech arsenal that will take full advantage of the military potential of space, ranging from the near-term possible to long-term notional kinetic energy rods, microwave guns, space-based lasers, pyrotechnic electro-magnetic pulses, and so on, it said. A microwave gun on board, a 200-pound micro-satellite could emit a pulse of microwaves and fry the electronics of the enemy satellite permanently.

The first launch of the micro-satellite, being developed by an NRI, Alok Das, head of the space vehicle directorate's Innovative Concepts group, is planned for this fall, The Times said. Experiments are also being conducted on a laser's effect on the body of a rocket spinning in flight.

The estimated cost of a space laser test is about $ 5 billion and actual testing in space is expected to take place by 2008, The Times said. Stating that unmanned aircraft are already a reality and will be widespread by 2025 in new roles, it said "the new fleet of pilot-free plans would be directed from space and would range from small devices permitting a squadron leader to see over a hill to much larger craft that could deliver powerful weapons to distant battlefields with tremendous speed."

"One notion for an unmanned space vehicle is strike star. It could loiter over an area of operations for 24 hours to deliver `stun bombs' producing overbearing light effects to disrupt and disorient groups of individuals," The Times said.

"Space is our next manifest destiny. We have to weaponize space before somebody else does or face the consequences," said Senator Bob Smith, Republican from N Wampshire. ( PTI )

--------

Pillsbury Space Food Scientist Dies

August 11, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Obit-Bauman.html

MINNETONKA, Minn. (AP) -- Howard Bauman, the man who led the Pillsbury Co.'s effort to design space food for astronauts, has died of complications from pulmonary disease. He was 76.

Bauman, who died Wednesday, was a Pillsbury food scientist for 36 years. His team designed food for 1960s space flights that could resist high temperatures and humidity, be thrown against walls without breaking and last 30 days without refrigeration.

One of Bauman's daughters, Vicki Zobel, said the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has in its space exhibit an example of the ``gunk-covered brownie cubes'' -- as a newspaper once described them -- that her father made decades ago.

Born in Woodworth, Wis., Bauman received a Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Wisconsin in 1953.

Bob Wooden, who worked as a scientist for Bauman, said Bauman's early efforts at Pillsbury led to ready-made doughs that would last up to 90 days in a refrigerator, compared to seven days in the 1940s.

But what made Bauman famous, Wooden said, was his work at Pillsbury on behalf of the space program in the early 1960s. NASA wanted food that was microbe-free, which led to Bauman's revolutionary efforts in food production and testing, he said.

When Bauman retired, in 1989 he was vice president of science and regulatory affairs for Pillsbury.

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

Marines Accuse Eight in Osprey Aircraft Probe
General Among Officers Cited For Role in Falsified Records

By Mary Pat Flaherty and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 11, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59804-2001Aug10?language=printer

A Marine Corps general and seven subordinate officers have been charged with misconduct for their alleged roles in falsifying maintenance records of the troubled V-22 Osprey aircraft, several Marine officers said yesterday.

The charges announced yesterday indicate the Corps suspects that commanders overseeing the Marines' Osprey squadron, based at New River, N.C., were involved in an effort to protect funding for the innovative tilt-rotor aircraft by minimizing chronic problems with the Osprey.

Maj. Gen. Dennis T. Krupp, 54, who has been a Marine for 33 years and commands the aircraft wing that includes the V-22 squadron, and the seven others face administrative hearings for violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The Marines announced the charges yesterday but did not identify the officers, their ranks and assignments, or the specific charges each must answer. However, sources familiar with the investigation identified the implicated officers to The Washington Post.

The Marine Corps grounded its fleet of Ospreys after two crashes last year that killed 23 Marines. A decision on when to begin full-scale production remains on hold.

According to sources, the accused include Lt. Col. Odin "Fred" Leberman, 44, the former commander of the Osprey squadron, and his immediate boss, Col. James E. Schleining Jr., 53. The remaining officers worked in maintenance, aviation logistics or supply positions for the Osprey, an aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like an airplane.

Krupp did not return messages left with his aides yesterday. An attorney for Schleining declined comment last night. Leberman's attorney said his client would decline comment until he has had an opportunity to review the decision.

The filing of charges against officers higher up the chain of command, and not just against Leberman, was a relief, one officer in the squadron said. "A lot of guys felt that way. My faith in the Marine Corps has been restored because we all know that a lieutenant colonel wouldn't do this on his own."

Leberman was removed as squadron commander and reassigned to a training job last January after he was secretly taped telling the squadron to "lie" on maintenance records to burnish the aircraft's image and show that it was ready to fly day in and day out. At the time, the Osprey program was facing crucial funding decisions and was reeling from the two crashes.

The secret tape, sent anonymously to superior officers by someone who identified himself as a mechanic in the Osprey squadron, prompted an investigation by the Defense Department inspector general's office and led to the charges announced yesterday. The IG's report and accident investigations concluded there was no link between the accidents and the allegedly falsified maintenance records.

The tape and a series of e-mails exchanged late last year among officers in the Osprey squadron's chain of command showed the keen interest that senior commanders took in the daily performance of the aircraft, according to a Washington Post review of the documents.

Squadron members and others who worked on the Osprey program also told The Post that computerized maintenance records for the Osprey were manipulated and, on occasion, removed from the record-keeping system to make it appear more Ospreys were ready to fly.

Marines inside and outside the squadron said in interviews that they suspected Leberman felt intense pressure to make a success of the Osprey, an aircraft the Marine Corps had viewed as key to its future.

Collectively the eight officers face charges of violating a general order, dereliction of duty, making a false statement and conduct unbecoming an officer. None of the officers was charged with all four violations but some face a combination of the violations, said Maj. Bryan Salas, spokesman at the Marine Corps Forces Atlantic in Norfolk, which announced the charges.

A ninth officer received a "nonpunitive" letter of caution for his role, which means he was officially counseled about his behavior but no record of that action will appear in his permanent file, Salas said.

The eight officers must inform the Marines by Aug. 17 whether they will proceed with the administrative hearings -- fact-finding proceedings in which officers can rebut charges in a private session -- or ask to move ahead with the first step in court-martial proceedings, which would amount to demanding a trial and eventually a public airing of the evidence against them.

The administrative hearings would take place before Lt. Gen. Raymond P. Ayres Jr., commander of the Marine Corps Atlantic Forces, Salas said.

If the officers are found guilty, they could receive letters of reprimand that go into their permanent files. Such letters can be used later to reduce an officer's retirement package by demoting him at retirement to the last rank he held honorably, military lawyers said.

The maximum penalties for the listed charges also include restriction on their movement and the potential for forfeiture of half of the officer's pay for two months, Salas said.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

How My Electric Car Saves the World

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By TREVOR CORSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/11/opinion/11CORS.html?searchpv=nytToday

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- My father would have had a few things to say to those automakers grumbling about government-mandated gas-mileage standards. He would have waved his fist in the direction of Detroit and thundered: "Global warming! Alternative energy!"

But I've learned there's more to getting good gas mileage than that. I now drive the most high-tech, fuel-efficient car humankind has ever created, and it turns out there's something even my dad could not have guessed. Good gas mileage could save civilization. I know it sounds odd, but it's true.

My father taught environmental policy at George Washington University and was co-recipient of a sustainable development award with Vice President Al Gore. He was an old-school environmentalist. He'd reuse an envelope 10 or 20 times - before recycling it. And when I was a kid in the 70's, he had the smallest car on the block: a miserly two-door Datsun. The car was the cutting edge of the subcompact craze. Its tiny engine tended to stall at stoplights, so Dad rigged a string from the accelerator pedal up to the dashboard. He'd yank on it when both his feet were occupied with the clutch and brake.

When the Datsun finally conked out, my father bought one of the first compacts built by Detroit, a Chevy Chevette. In the 80's he switched to an early Toyota Camry, which got even better mileage. He still had the Camry when I bought my first car - a sport utility vehicle.

I remember the pit in my stomach when he first saw it. The feeling that I had betrayed my father didn't go away even after I outgrew the S.U.V. My next car was a new American muscle machine: a Ford Probe GT. It was fast and had wide sticky tires and a gorgeous exhaust note. And it was plenty thirsty.

Then my father got sick. So did his Camry. The first operation to remove the throat cancer seemed like a success, and Dad turned his attention to buying a new car. He had sworn his next automobile would be one of those gas-electric hybrids, but they hadn't hit the market yet. So after decades of frugality, he opted instead for a little indulgence. He got a nice bottom-of-the-line BMW. The cancer came back. We mostly used the BMW to ferry him to radiation treatments after the second operation.

Dad didn't make it. I drove his new car for a while in his honor. Then my brother and I got a better idea. We sold it and bought a gas-electric hybrid. Now I drive a sleek Honda Insight. It's silver, and the rear wheels are covered over for extra streamlining. It has a tiny three-cylinder engine that turns off at traffic lights on purpose. It has brakes that produce electricity when you slow down. It goes 600 miles on a 10-gallon fill-up, and you never have to plug it in. My father would have loved this car.

But here's what I wish he could see: Everybody loves this car. Like most Americans, I thought I knew what I wanted - security, high up in an S.U.V.; escape, low down in a sports machine; status, in the comfort of a luxury cruiser. But these cars insulate us from our fellow human beings. When I started driving the Insight, I realized what we're missing.

Wherever I go in the Insight, people wave, shout, honk, roll their windows down, give me the thumbs up, pull alongside. They always smile. Boys playing ball have dropped their bats and mitts and run after me. Bicyclers in the Berkshires have flagged me over to the roadside to talk. Firemen have stopped polishing their fire engines to ask how the car works. In parking lots, people leave me exuberant notes or they wait for me to return so they can quiz me. Honda reports having sold 7,084 Insights by July of this year; they are still rare, and enticing.

Nowadays, when I get towed for a violation it's fun, because the grimy guy at the holding lot can't contain his enthusiasm. In the inner city where I live, a menacingly thuggish man recently pulled up in a low-rider. I was ready to retreat indoors, but he stopped me and said, "Hey, isn't that one of those hybrids?" We spent the next hour chatting about the experimental gas-electric car he'd built in college.

I think of my father every time I turn the Insight's key. If government-mandated gas-mileage standards require Detroit to put hybrid technology in S.U.V.'s, some of the work my father did to slow global warming may be strengthened. But if the automakers stop there, they'll be missing out. Global warming may hit us hard no matter what we do. In the meantime, somebody could make a lot of money selling cars that spread joy, friendship, community and hope. Those qualities may be even more important for getting us through than good gas mileage.

Trevor Corson is managing editor of Transition, a quarterly publication at Harvard University.

-------- genetics

U.S. Acts Quickly to Put Stem-Cell Policy in Effect

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/11/politics/11CELL.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Keenly aware of misgivings among patients' groups and scientists about the limits President Bush placed on federal financing for human embryonic stem cell research, the administration moved quickly today to put its plan into effect and announced that grant money would be available for the studies by early next year.

At a hastily convened news conference to offer details of the initiative, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said the National Institutes of Health had already begun creating a registry that will eventually list the self-sustaining cell colonies, called lines, that researchers will be permitted to study with taxpayer dollars. The White House says more than 60 of them exist worldwide.

"Now that the president has made his decision, we can go forward," Mr. Thompson said, adding: "Make no mistake. This is a bold step."

Still, the secretary acknowledged, there are hurdles to overcome before the research can begin. Because the universities and companies that have developed the cell lines have patents on them, Mr. Thompson said, there are still "very strong proprietary and patent issues to work through."

Mr. Thompson made his remarks flanked by some of the government's leading scientists, who proclaimed Mr. Bush's decision courageous and said it would open up a new era in medical research. One of them, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, "We can move forward now and do some real good for humankind."

Patients groups and stem cell experts said they were encouraged to see the administration moving forward aggressively, but remained frustrated that the president put a cap on the number of cell lines that could be studied with federal funds. They said these lines would not be sufficient to create therapies that would match the genetic diversity of the population.

And they were skeptical of Mr. Bush's assertion that 60 useful embryonic stem cell lines exist. Only a dozen or fewer cell lines have been described in published reports, and scientists say the quality of the others is unknown.

Also, they worried that the owners of the cell lines, many of them private companies, would impose tight restrictions on their research or freedom to publish their results. "I don't think it's in the national interest to have biotech companies tell federally supported researchers what research should or should not be done," said Dr. Douglas Melton of Harvard University, a leading stem cell expert.

Already, scientists and patient groups are looking ahead to the fall, when Congress is likely to hold hearings on Mr. Bush's plan.

"The good news is that the president has evaluated this research and that the administration is going to move forward quickly," said Lawrence Soler, chairman of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which represents patient advocacy groups. "But there are continuing legitimate scientific concerns about whether the existing stem cell lines will be adequate to make the therapies that we need."

Scientists regard embryonic stem cells as the foundation of a new era of regenerative medicine, in which the cells will be grown into varieties of human tissue that can be used to heal damage from injury or disease. The cells, which are extracted from human embryos when the embryos are as tiny as the tip of a sewing needle, have the potential to grow into any of the body's more than 200 different cell types.

But extracting the cells requires destroying the embryos, which are typically left over from in vitro fertilization attempts. Religious conservatives and abortion opponents, who regard human embryos as early human life, are strongly opposed to the studies. And Congress has imposed a ban on experimenting with human embryos.

Mr. Bush's plan will adhere to that ban, meaning no federal money will be used to experiment with embryos. Scientists will simply be able to work on the cells that have already been extracted. Critics argue that this is a distinction without a difference, but Mr. Bush charted a careful course that will allow the work to go forward.

Under his plan, taxpayer money may be used to study only those cell lines that already exist. The president ruled out financing for research on any new lines, on the theory that the government should not encourage the further destruction of embryos.

Despite those limits, experts said today that the president's decision might give a boost to stem cell research even before federal funding becomes available. Until now, academic scientists have generally steered clear of accepting private money for stem cell studies, fearing that they would jeopardize their federal grants by doing so.

At the University of Wisconsin, for example, Dr. James A. Thomson, the first scientist to isolate embryonic stem cells, set up a parallel laboratory off campus, with private money. R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the university who advised Dr. Thomson, said Mr. Bush's plan would eliminate "the chilling effect" that academic researchers felt.

Mr. Bush appointed a separate ethics council, to be led by Dr. Leon R. Kass, a noted ethicist at the University of Chicago. That council, whose members are yet to be appointed by the president, will not approve research but monitor scientific progress and advise Mr. Bush on ethical issues.

Some scientists are hopeful that, if the research shows promise, Mr. Bush may relax the restrictions he imposed.

But a senior administration official said today that Mr. Bush was firm in his decision to close the door on federal financing for any new cell lines. And Mr. Thompson declared Aug. 9, 2001, the cutoff date for the government registry. Any cell lines created after that will be ineligible.

The big surprise in Mr. Bush's announcement on Thursday was the news that 60 cell lines exist. Mr. Thompson said it was a surprise to him, too The administration learned of the number only within the past several weeks, he said, after he instructed Dr. Lana Skirboll, a science policy expert at the health institutes, to conduct an international survey.

Dr. Skirboll said she identified lines in five countries - Australia, India, Israel, Sweden and the United States - held by academic institutions and biotechnology companies.

Addressing concerns that the lines may be of poor quality, Mr. Thompson declared: "They're diverse, they're robust, they're viable for research."

In the United States, the major player in the stem cell field is the WiCell Institute, affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, which is willing to make its cells available for a fee of $5,000. But WiCell's parent organization, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which owns the embryonic stem cell patent, has licensing agreements with a biotechnology company, Geron, of Menlo Park, Calif. Geron has exclusive rights to develop stem cells into six types of tissue for commercial purposes.

In an interview today, Geron's chief executive, Thomas Okarma, dismissed the concern over intellectual property as a red herring, and said his company was eager to begin collaborating with university researchers.

And Dr. Okarma said the Wisconsin cells alone would provide American researchers "ample material" to work with.

"We have been extremely frustrated being the only game in town," Dr. Okarma said. "That's not the way you advance science. Let the cells out of the barn and let people kick the tires and they will see that this car runs."

--------

Embryo research gearing up

USA TODAY
08/11/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/august01/2001-08-11-embryo-gears-up.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The debate over stem cells is shifting to the halls of Congress, but the action is moving to the nation's laboratories as scientists begin the painstaking work of translating promise into actual treatments. President Bush's decision to allow limited federal funding for the research offered both comfort and angst to advocates on both sides of the debate. And it complicated the politics all around.

Bush may have satisfied just enough people just enough to stave off congressional action.

"The president probably bought himself some time," said Thomas Mann, an expert on Congress at the Brookings Institution. "Pressure will build again, but it will take some time."

At issue is research involving days-old human embryos, each one smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, left over from fertility treatments. Inside sit stem cells that can develop into any type of tissue.

Scientists say these cells could help cure many diseases, but in order to get them out, the embryo must be destroyed. For some who believe life begins at conception, this amounts to taking one life to try and save another.

Trying to thread an ethical needle, Bush said Thursday that he would allow federal funding for research on stem cell lines, but only those that have already been created. Each embryo can yield one stem cell line, which can continue replicating indefinitely.

At the National Institutes of Health on Friday, researchers were beginning to catalogue the existing stem cell lines, which officials now estimate at 60 worldwide. Around the country, scientists were beginning to hone their ideas for grant applications, which were expected to be submitted and awarded by early next year.

Dr. Harold Varmus, who led the NIH under President Clinton, predicted that hundreds of researchers would get into the field, even under limited federal funding. Ultimately, he predicted that the federal government would spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per year in this field.

Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, who directs the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, said the political turmoil surrounding this research dissuaded her from applying for federal funding when it was initially offered last year.

"Many investigators were in the same boat," she said. But now that the matter appears settled, she plans to submit a grant application.

Also Friday, President Bush defended his decision, saying he struck the right balance between the sanctity of life and the urgency of research, with enough funding to figure out whether promise will translate into a cure.

"I listened to a lot of people and did what I thought was right," Bush told ABC News from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "I think this is the kind of decision where it does require prayer. Prayerful consideration."

In Washington, both sides expected debate over the issue to resume in Congress when lawmakers return next month.

Research proponents make up a majority of the Senate and close to it in the House, and some have pledged to push for broader funding.

"Restrictions on this lifesaving research will slow the development of the new cures that are so urgently needed by millions of patients across America," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would continue to push his legislation allowing funding with few restrictions, a measure that could be attached to spending bills that will move through Congress this fall. And Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., urged Americans - especially those in wheelchairs or whose relatives suffer from Alzheimer's disease - to contact their representatives while they're home over the summer break.

But some important allies, anti-abortion Republicans who support the research, are not likely to challenge Bush's plan.

"We just have to watch this play out," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. He told reporters in Salt Lake City that he would like to see more stem cell lines available but Congress should hold back for now. "Let's give it a chance."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., predicted that "the Senate will want to take action" to open up more research funding. But he stopped short of saying he'll support it, and he praised the president's thoughtfulness.

On the other side of issue, many Christian conservatives were talking tough and warning the president that he can only go against them so many times.

Still, conservatives were markedly divided over Bush's move on stem cells. Some prominent anti-abortion groups and leaders welcomed it; others accused him of crossing a moral line. But any effort to ban funding outright didn't have the votes before Bush offered his compromise, and it would attract even less support now.

Rather, opponents hope to stave off any attempt to allow for broader funding.

"The next step would be to hold the line against any kind of coalition created to expand funding," said Deal Hudson, editor of the Catholic magazine Crisis and an informal adviser to Bush.

Ken Connor, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said it will be more difficult to argue against any embryonic stem cell research now that Bush has endorsed it in part.

"We have to help the Congress understand that nothing less than life itself is at stake," he said. "Unquestionably there's an uphill battle in Congress."

-------- health

Central America Teams Up to Buy AIDS Drugs

August 11, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-health-.html

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Six Central American nations will try to negotiate lower prices for AIDS drugs by buying together in bulk from major pharmaceutical companies, Honduran Health Minister Plutarco Castellanos said on Saturday.

``We agreed to design a strategy to negotiate joint purchases of anti-retroviral drugs and obtain discounts that will make them cheaper for consumers,'' Castellanos told reporters.

The decision was adopted during a Friday meeting of health ministers from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, in the Honduran city of Santa Rosa de Copan.

In Latin America and the Caribbean an estimated 1.8 million people live with HIV/AIDS, of the 36.1 million infected throughout the world. Honduras, with 15,870 HIV-infected people, accounts for some 60 percent of the cases of the disease in Central America.

Expensive drugs manufactured and patented by the world's pharmaceutical giants slow the course of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and have cut AIDS deaths dramatically in developed countries, but are too costly for many sufferers in poorer countries. More than half of Central America's 35 million inhabitants live in poverty.

``Individually our countries have had offers from different pharmaceutical companies for discounts and the idea is to negotiate one big package to obtain the lowest price possible,'' Castellanos said.

-------- human rights

Tunisia Releases Human Rights Activist

August 11, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-.html

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian human rights activist Sihem Ben Sedrine was released on Saturday after being detained for almost seven weeks for publicizing alleged torture and rights abuses in the country.

Ben Sedrine, spokeswoman for the human rights group the Tunisian National Council for Liberty and editor of the online magazine Kalima (Word), was arrested in Tunis on June 26 on her return from Europe.

She was remanded in custody pending further questioning and a future court appearance on charges of defamation.

She told Reuters that her release on Saturday afternoon was ''an unexpected pleasant surprise.'' Her husband Omar Messiri welcomed her release as ``a victory of solidarity over arbitrary power.''

Ben Sedrine said: ``Still, the question one should ask is why did I end up in prison in the first place?''

``This was a case of kidnapping by politicians who jail people that speak out against the wrongs of the country.''

There was no immediate comment from authorities on the reason for her release.

Ben Sedrine's arrest triggered an outcry from several local and international human rights groups, including the press watchdog Reporters Without Frontiers and Amnesty International.

France also expressed its concern over Ben Sedrine's fate and urged the Tunisian government to release her.

But Ben Sedrine said on Saturday there were still around 1,000 ``prisoners of conscience'' in Tunisian jails who should be released.

Human rights activists also argue that Ben Sedrine will not receive a fair trial when her case comes to court.

``There is a trial ahead,'' she said. ``It is not clear what it will be like, but I do know that the wonderful efforts and pressure (by human rights groups) will continue.''

``We will carry on our struggle for freedom and I intend to fully exercise my right to free speech and to denounce what's wrong with this country,'' she said.

Tunisia has repeatedly been accused of human rights abuses by local and foreign human rights groups.

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The Wronged Man:
C.I.A. Officer Mistaken for Spy Down the Street

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/11/national/11SPY.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Three months ago, the Central Intelligence Agency quietly reinstated a senior counterintelligence officer who had spent 18 months under investigation as a suspected Russian spy. There was no ceremony, no fanfare, no formal apology as he returned from professional exile. But in effect, the C.I.A was saying there had been a terrible mistake.

For the C.I.A. officer, whose job is so highly classified that even his name is secret, the aftershocks of his ordeal continue to be felt as he tries to resume a life free of suspicion. He requested that his name not be used in this article because he has been advised that he could lose his covert status if he is identified.

For a year and a half, he had lived under the shadow of suspected disloyalty as he was the target of an intensive investigation by the F.B.I. Then, on Feb. 18, the F.B.I. arrested one of its own: Robert P. Hanssen, a veteran F.B.I. agent and counter- intelligence expert, unmasking him as one of Moscow's most significant cold war spies. Law enforcement and intelligence officials now say that it was Mr. Hanssen, not the C.I.A. officer, who was the mole they had been hunting.

The C.I.A. officer was the wrong man, a victim of what officials describe as an extraordinary mistake. A freakish web of coincidences had led the investigators to think that the C.I.A. employee was a spy. Among other things, he lived down the street from Mr. Hanssen, jogged in the same park, was about the same age, and had even traveled with Mr. Hanssen.

Investigators now acknowledge that they wrongly suspected him.

Mr. Hanssen pleaded guilty to espionage last month and is being interrogated by the F.B.I.

Law enforcement officials say they believe that Mr. Hanssen knew, before his arrest, that the C.I.A. officer was under scrutiny. Knowing that the spotlight was focused elsewhere, the real spy felt less vulnerable to detection, the officials said.

Now, more than five months after Mr. Hanssen's arrest, the C.I.A. officer still regards his treatment by the F.B.I. as unfair. While the C.I.A. has brought him back from a paid leave to working full time, and, he feels, has treated him with some dignity, the F.B.I. has not officially cleared him or apologized.

The F.B.I. used covert surveillance, electronic eavesdropping, trash searches, lie detector tests administered under false pretenses, break-ins, interviews with his former wife and adult children, even sting operations set up by his colleagues, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials.

"The corrosive effects of the F.B.I.'s wrongful and indiscriminate accusations are incalculable and pervasive," said John Moustakas, a lawyer for the C.I.A. officer.

The investigation, Mr. Moustakas added, has been "emotionally devastating to both him and his family."

Today, an F.B.I. spokesman said the bureau had privately expressed regret over the investigation of the C.I.A. officer.

"We've acknowledged and expressed regret over the impact of the investigation of this person directly to his attorney," the spokesman said. "We continue to be in discussions with his attorney to resolve remaining concerns."

Mr. Moustakas said the officer had been cautioned by C.I.A. lawyers that if he were publicly named, he would risk losing his classified status as an employee working under cover. C.I.A. officials would not discuss the matter.

The intelligence officer authorized Mr. Moustakas, a partner in the Washington law firm of Shea & Gardner and a former federal prosecutor, to speak on his behalf to The New York Times. And the officer agreed to let a former associate and members of his family discuss the case.

F.B.I. officials said that although they were sympathetic to the C.I.A. officer and convinced of his innocence, they had a legitimate basis to investigate him based on available information and used legally accepted techniques. They said that they had been careful not to name him publicly, even though the investigation became well known within the C.I.A.'s closed world of intelligence.

"Everybody who knew about the investigation at the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. was convinced that he was the most logical suspect," said a senior law enforcement official. He added that he was convinced of the officer's guilt until late last year, when he first read secret Russian documents that unexpectedly shifted the focus of the investigation to Mr. Hanssen.

F.B.I. officials have been criticized for failing to suspect that the spy might be within the bureau's own ranks. Instead, they focused their attention on the C.I.A., even though it later turned out that Mr. Hanssen, one of their own counterintelligence experts, fit the profile of the elusive mole even more closely than the C.I.A. officer did.

The personal and professional resemblances between the C.I.A. officer and Mr. Hanssen are striking.

The C.I.A. officer lived on the street in suburban Vienna, Va., where Mr. Hanssen had lived during his early days as a Russian spy. The C.I.A. officer jogged in the same park that Mr. Hanssen often used to drop off materials for the K.G.B., leaving plastic garbage bags filled with secret documents under a footbridge in Nottoway Park.

The C.I.A. officer was about the same age as Mr. Hanssen, who is 57, and took at least one business trip with Mr. Hanssen on counterintelligence matters. The C.I.A. officer had once attended the same Latin Mass at the same Roman Catholic Church in Northern Virginia that Mr. Hanssen and his family attended.

And, like Mr. Hanssen, he was a career counterintelligence expert who had rare access to many of the same highly secret operations that the authorities have now accused Mr. Hanssen of betraying. One of those was the 1989 investigation of Felix Bloch, a State Department official who the F.B.I. believes was able to thwart their inquiry after he was tipped off by the K.G.B. that he was under suspicion. The F.B.I. believed that the mole they were hunting for was the person who had warned the K.G.B. about the Bloch investigation.

While under surveillance, the C.I.A. officer went to shopping malls and stores that were visited at the same time by Russian intelligence agents, whose movements are routinely monitored by the F.B.I.

In the upside-down world of counterintelligence investigations, innocent habits became incriminating actions, leaving the suspect no escape from his nightmare.

At one point, he kept a map of Nottoway Park, marking his jogging times from point to point. Investigators who found it during a surreptitious search of his house saw it as proof of his betrayal.

On Aug. 18, 1999, he was summoned to a cramped conference room at C.I.A. headquarters, where two F.B.I. agents shoved in front of him a copy of his old jogging map, stamped "Secret" by the F.B.I.

The map, the agents told him, was solid evidence that he was the Russian mole. The "X" marks and time notations were seen as telltale signs of where and at what time he had dropped off classified information. They called it a "spy map" and demanded that he confess. "How do you explain this?" one shouted.

"Where did you get my jogging map?" he asked in return.

In the four-hour F.B.I. interrogation, the C.I.A. officer offered to answer all questions without a lawyer, and to take a lie detector test. But his lawyer says the F.B.I. declined to take him up on the offer. He was escorted out of C.I.A. headquarters, stripped of his security badge and put on administrative leave.

The C.I.A. officer was a veteran of the shadow world. After serving as an Air Force intelligence officer, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1982, where he spent most of his career hunting Soviet spies.

He played an important role in identifying a deep-cover Soviet agent named Reino Gikman. Agents monitoring Mr. Gikman's phone calls traced a call from his house in Austria to Mr. Bloch's home in Washington. That call led to the government's 1989 investigation of Mr. Bloch.

But soon after the F.B.I. started investigating Mr. Bloch, he was warned by the K.G.B. With their investigation compromised, the F.B.I. was unable to arrest Mr. Bloch, who was eventually forced out of the State Department but was never charged with a crime.

The mystery of how the Soviets knew of the Bloch investigation haunted American officials for years afterward. When Aldrich H. Ames, another C.I.A. officer, was charged in 1994 with spying for Moscow, officials concluded that he could not have known about the Bloch case. They surmised that Mr. Ames was not Moscow's only mole.

The C.I.A. officer was rewarded for his work investigating Mr. Bloch, a former senior C.I.A. official said. But the C.I.A. officer's knowledge of the case later added to the suspicion that he was working for Moscow.

By the late 1990's, the United States received tips from Russian agents about somebody who had been spying for Moscow for years, and who had disclosed the Bloch investigation, among other things. The spy was said to have taken diamonds in partial payment, and to have used Nottoway Park to do business with the K.G.B. He was believed to be at the C.I.A.

To begin their search for a spy, F.B.I. and C.I.A. experts used a standard investigative approach: a "matrix," or database, matching clues about possible espionage against the profiles of American officers who had access to the material that was being purloined.

As they received more information, the investigators fed the tips into the matrix and narrowed the list of potential suspects. By 1998, they had narrowed the search down from more than 100 people to one prime suspect: the C.I.A. officer.

In an apparent effort to expose him, he was asked to join a supposedly sensitive joint operation involving a Russian agent who was about to come to the West, and who could solve the riddle of who sabotaged the Bloch case. But he was told that to join the team, he had to take a lie detector test. When he agreed, the investigators subtly probed his reaction to the possibility that the government would soon learn who compromised the Bloch investigation. He was told that he passed the test. But then he was told that the Russian defector was not arriving after all, and that he was no longer needed in the investigation.

In retrospect, the C.I.A. officer and his lawyer suspect that the operation was a ruse. Law enforcement officials would not discuss the matter.

Then in November 1998, a stranger appeared at the C.I.A. officer's home. Saying in an accent that the authorities were now aware of his espionage, the stranger handed him a written "escape plan." The man told him to be at a nearby subway station the next evening, and then quickly walked away. The next morning, the C.I.A. officer went to work and told the F.B.I. about the incident, describing the stranger for an artist to sketch. Law enforcement officials declined to comment on whether the incident was a sting operation.

By the spring of 2000, investigators had a lengthy classified report on the case, detailing the circumstantial evidence against the C.I.A. officer. It seemed tantalizingly close to proof, but contained no direct evidence that he had done anything wrong. F.B.I. officials now say that their agency, despite the confrontational tactics, was never close to arresting him.

Counterespionage officials began one more effort to recruit a source inside Russia who could finally identify the mole. That operation netted an unexpected return: a cache of documents from Russian intelligence files that law enforcement officials first thought would clinch the case against the C.I.A. officer.

Instead, the documents upended their thinking. The papers provided a detailed description of how Mr. Hanssen was recruited and how he operated. One law enforcement official remarked: "Was I surprised it was Hanssen" and not the C.I.A. officer? "I was stunned."

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China Says U.S. Offer on Spy Plane 'Unacceptable'

New York Times
August 11, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-china-u.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has rejected an offer by the United States to pay $34,576 in support costs for its spy plane as unacceptable after Beijing demanded $1 million, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

``The so-called decision is unacceptable to China both in its content and form,'' Zhang Qiyue, a spokeswoman for China's Foreign Ministry, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

U.S. officials said on Thursday that Washington had sent what it deemed an appropriate amount of money for costs incurred after a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter and made an emergency landing on the southern island of Hainan on April 1.

China held the 24-member EP-3 crew for 11 days after the collision in a standoff that strained U.S.-China relations in the first months of the administration of President Bush.

The plane was dismantled and flown back to the United States on July 3.

China had expressed the ``utmost dissatisfaction'' to the United States over the low payment and rejected the offer, Xinhua said.

``We urge the U.S. side to correct its erroneous decision and take into consideration the reasonable request of the Chinese side for an appropriate settlement of the payment issue,'' Zhang said.

Defense Department spokesman Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said this week that the Chinese demand for about $1 million for everything from food for the crewmen to support services for the plane was unrealistic.

``There was a particular dollar figure attached to each element of what the Chinese had given to us that they felt was appropriate,'' he said. ``We did not agree with each of those categories nor their dollar figures. So we took an independent look at that.''

``And where we felt that there was a fair value provided by the Chinese, we tried to provide a fair dollar value to that service. And that is what the total represents.''

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