------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Emotions Flare as Germany Marks 40 Years of Wall
Rumsfeld Puts Missile Plan on Table Monday in Moscow
Our Best Defense
Moscow's Differences With U.S. Apparent During Talks
Taiwan says no to referendum on nuclear plant
Rumsfeld Unable to Sway Russians on ABM Treaty
Rumsfeld In Moscow For Talks
Putin Resists Joint ABM Treaty Withdrawal
The Senate and the World

MILITARY
S. Koreans Seek Compensation From US
Political Leaders Sign Peace Accord in Macedonia
Macedonian PM accuses UN-run Kosovo of waging war
Calif. Drug Users Get Treatment, Not Jail
Israeli army buildup reported near Jenin
Israeli Troops Beat Journalists
Astronauts Move Into Space Station
Plan faces wide opposition
USS Cole Repairs Halfway Complete
The Arithmetic of Bombing

OTHER
Pacific Hydro seeks 75MW wind farm approval
Calif. Sues EPA Over Ethanol
Bush pledges not to expand stem-cell funds
Dolly's doctors hit cloning of humans
Australia rejects applications for secret GM crops
Justice Department Probes FBI
Number of People in State Prisons Declines Slightly
Energy Misled FBI on Lee



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- germany

Emotions Flare as Germany Marks 40 Years of Wall

August 13, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-germany.html

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans flew flags at half staff and laid wreaths Monday to mark the 40th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall that divided the city for a generation and became a potent symbol of the Cold War.

In the early hours of August 13, 1961, some 40,000 East German soldiers and police rolled coils of barbed wire along the border to the West to stop a flood of refugees. Berliners awoke to find themselves cut off from family, friends and jobs.

The focus of the commemorations was the some 200 East Germans killed trying to cross what their rulers called the ''anti-fascist protection barrier'' and the many more who died trying to get across the frontier between East and West Germany.

But this year's anniversary has been hijacked by political bickering ahead of city elections in October.

As Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder laid a wreath of red roses at one of the few segments of Wall still standing, he was booed and jeered by those angry that his Social Democrats (SPD) might form a coalition in the Berlin city hall with the successors to East Germany's communist SED.

``Traitor!'' shouted one. ``The only good communist is a dead one!'' yelled another protester as bodyguards ringed Schroeder.

``The fact that we remember what happened puts us in a situation, no matter what our political affiliation, that we make sure that something like this never happens again,'' Schroeder said at a nearby documentation center on the Wall.

EMOTIONS RUN HIGH

Earlier, members of a group representing victims of the repressive East German regime carried away two wreaths laid at the Wall by the reformed communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and trampled on the flowers. Police carried away one man.

``It is a disgrace,'' said campaigner Gustav Rust, 61, wearing a prison uniform and handcuffs to symbolize the nine years he spent in East German jails. ``It is unbelievable that the SPD are going to join forces with the communists. They are forgetting the suffering of all their comrades.''

``I understand such emotions,'' said Christian Democrat leader Angela Merkel, herself a former East German who slammed the potential ``Red-Red'' coalition in Berlin at a conservative rally Sunday at the former Checkpoint Charlie border crossing.

Tourists are often disappointed how little of the 96-mile Wall still stands, yet it endures in many minds and Germany remains divided economically, emotionally and politically between a heavily subsidized East and wealthy West.

``The easterners complain so much. It will never stop being called East and West,'' said Hilda Laven, 75, a West Berliner who lived close enough to the Wall to hear the patrol dogs barking.

The PDS only wins about six percent nationwide, but it is the second-most popular party in the former East behind the SPD and is still the most popular party in eastern Berlin. The party has said it regrets the Wall but has not made a full apology.

``We regret the injustice that the SED has to answer for. A state which locks up its people is neither democratic or socialist,'' the party said in a statement this week.

But conservative former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who oversaw German reunification in 1990, condemned the party. ``The bulk of PDS members and important functionaries have not learned anything from history,'' Kohl told Bild newspaper. ``And now they do not have the courage to say it was a wall of disgrace.''

While easterners make up less than a fifth of Germany's 82 million population, the fact many still lack the firm political affiliations of their western counterparts makes the region a key battleground ahead of national elections due next autumn.

Schroeder starts a two-week tour to the eastern states later Monday in an attempt to win support in the region where unemployment is about 18 percent -- double that in the west.

PAINFUL MEMORIES

But many Berliners were not interested in the political point-scoring and wanted to remember the families torn apart, the persecution and their joy when the Wall fell in 1989.

Bells tolled outside a chapel built in the former death strip, the 30-meter (yard) wide piece of land filled with mines and self-firing rifles between the inner and outer segments of Wall. The chapel was built to replace a church blown up in no-man's land by the East Germans.

Several hundred gathered in the pouring rain to watch politicians lay their wreaths on Bernauer Street, which became famous when residents jumped from buildings in the East to the street that lay in the West as the Wall went up.

``It was a terrible time. We were locked in. We didn't think we'd live to see the Wall fall,'' said westerner Helga Keel, 70.

Others had more mundane concerns. ``My main worry was how I would get hold of the Western comics I loved,'' said Gerhard Balzert who was 13 when the Wall went up and was later imprisoned by the East Germans for smuggling Western literature.

-------- missile defense

Rumsfeld Puts Missile Plan on Table Monday in Moscow

New York Times
August 13, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/13/international/europe/13RUMS.html?searchpv=nytToday

MOSCOW, Aug. 12 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld arrived today to discuss a new strategic military framework with Russia, after admitting it won't be easy.

Making his first visit to Moscow as defense secretary, Mr. Rumsfeld said no breakthroughs were expected toward his goal of deploying missile defenses and reducing strategic arsenals.

He is to hold a day of talks with Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov on Monday, and Mr. Rumsfeld said the consultations should be viewed as fitting into "a process over a period of time." Speaking on his plane here, he said, "It is not something that just happens, that two countries spend 50- plus years hostile and then suddenly accommodate to a new set of relationships."

"We all tend to be rooted somewhat into our past," he said. "You sit down with people, and you constantly see behavior patterns and words that reflect a cold-war construct. And it seems to me that it's time to put them behind us."

In explaining the administration's arguments for ending the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, Mr. Rumsfeld said it was also in Russia's interest to deploy a missile defense system exceeding the limits of the pact, which its supporters describe as a cornerstone of strategic stability.

"If you look 10 years ahead, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the people of Russia would become fans of missile defense," said Mr. Rumsfeld, who wrote the report on ballistic missile threats that is the bible for advocates of a system.

"As the proliferation continues and as more and more countries demonstrate a weapon of mass destruction capability and an ability to deliver it, people's attitudes about this are going to change. They're going to see that it is desirable to be able to have the capability to deal with relatively small numbers of these things."

Defense Department officials have been closely following a debate within the Russian military over how to stretch its rubles, and how best to divide the spending between conventional and nuclear forces.

One faction argues for continued investment in nuclear forces, as much to maintain the claim to Russia's superpower stature as for deterrence at a time when both Moscow and Washington are talking of a transformation in their nuclear relationship, the American officials said.

The other argues for devoting more resources to modernizing conventional forces to meet Russia's real threats, mostly along its southern border, Pentagon officials said. The Russia military budget grew by 8 percent in 2000, Defense Department officials said, as the government had more money coming in from oil exports, and is up about 5 percent this year, at 220 billion rubles, or about $8 billion to $10 billion.

In comparison, the White House has requested $329 billion in military spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Defense Department officials say President Vladimir V. Putin cannot long afford to keep his conventional forces at current levels, nor his strategic forces. And over the next decade the Russians will be forced to greatly reduce the 6,000 warheads in their arsenal, to 2,000 or less, regardless of the outcome of arms control talks, American officials predict.

Mr. Rumsfeld will be unable to give his Russian counterpart a detailed timetable for the deep cuts in the American nuclear arsenal that President Bush has said he wants to explore, because the administration has not completed its analysis. Mr. Rumsfeld said specific recommendations are not likely for some months.

President Bush and President Putin have scheduled two meetings, in Shanghai in October and at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., in November. The nuclear review is due to be completed by December.

Though Mr. Rumsfeld is making his first trip to Russia in the Bush administration, he made nine trips to the Soviet Union, the first in 1974 when, as White House chief of staff, he accompanied President Ford to Vladivostok for meetings with Leonid I. Brezhnev. That meeting proved to be a breakthrough in limiting the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons.

--------

Our Best Defense

August 13, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/13/opinion/L13MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday

To the Editor:

Conservatives and liberals alike should be wary of the alarmist rhetoric of Americans for Missile Defense (news article, Aug. 6). The coalition's spokesman, Jeffrey Baxter, suggests that we need a missile defense rather than diplomacy: "When I look at people in North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Iran, understand folks, these folks don't sit around and watch `Seinfeld' and eat Milky Way candy bars all day."

Is he suggesting that digesting American popular culture is a prerequisite for rational thought?

It is misleading to suggest that missile defense is an issue for conservatives to rally around. America prides itself on values of freedom and democracy, and assisting, rather than bullying, other countries. A better defense is to strengthen trust and cooperation among people and countries. ZACHARY ALLEN Program Director Global Security Institute San Francisco, Aug. 6, 2001

--

To the Editor:

"The Myth of a Perfect Defense," by Caleb Carr (Op-Ed, Aug. 7), has already been proved to be true. Remember the U.S.S. Cole? It had the perfect defense: expensive radar arrays capable of detecting enemy planes or missiles perhaps 50 miles away, and rockets capable of shooting them out of the sky far from their target. And what did the terrorists do? They motored alongside in a little dinghy and nearly sank it.

Why are we so naïve to believe that a terrorist state will choose to spend untold millions of dollars developing a long-range missile (which will alert us every time it is tested and risk a pre-emptive strike) when it could pack even a full-sized atomic bomb into any of the thousands of containers that enter our harbors daily? In two weeks it could "mine" our major cities while we smugly scan the skies for incoming missiles, protected by our $100 billion Maginot Line.

RON SHEFF Great Neck, N.Y., Aug. 7, 2001

-------- russia

Moscow's Differences With U.S. Apparent During Talks

New York Times
August 13, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/13/international/13CND-RUMS.html?searchpv=nytToday

MOSCOW, Aug. 13 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld met with President Vladimir V. Putin and his defense minister today for talks that threw into sharp relief the Russians' disagreements with Washington over whether to deploy missile defenses, how to slash nuclear arsenals and if arms control negotiations can even be the tool to bridge their differences.

It was a day in which Mr. Putin spoke of negotiations, and Mr. Rumsfeld spoke of consultations to create a new relationship in which treaties are unnecessary.

When Sergei B. Ivanov, the Russian defense minister, said any deployment of missile defenses must be tightly linked to reducing warheads, Mr. Rumsfeld only agreed that the two issues were related.

"We still think that the ABM Treaty is one of the major important elements of the complex of international treaties on which the international stability is based," Mr. Ivanov said.

Later Mr. Rumsfeld said, "We do have a specific proposal, and that is that the Antiballistic Missile Treaty be set aside and new arrangements between our two countries be established so that we will in fact be able to take steps to no longer be vulnerable to handfuls of ballistic missiles."

Welcoming Mr. Rumsfeld to the Kremlin today, Mr. Putin said that the ABM Treaty is unequivocally a part of the security relationship between the two countries, and that it is bundled with current treaties limiting nuclear arsenals.

"For us, it is unconditionally linked with both the Start II and Start I treaties," he said, referring to strategic arms reduction treaties negotiated between the United States and Russia. "I would like to underline that."

If the two countries are to move forward in the current talks, Mr. Putin said, Russia requires specifics on proposed levels of offensive weapons, a timetable for those cuts, understandings on verification techniques and transparency and agreed confidence-building measures.

In essence, Mr. Putin was demanding detailed and formal negotiations. Mr. Rumsfeld demurred.

Afterward Mr. Rumsfeld said, "With respect to how these discussions and consultations will evolve, I think that's an open question." Mr. Rumsfeld argued that the absence of cold war hostilities makes arms negotiations unnecessary.

President Bush, after meeting Mr. Putin in Genoa last month, ordered his national security team to move ahead with consultations with Russia on deploying missile defense and reducing arsenals. The President envisions a framework of relations that would dispose of treaties and seek to more broadly and more loosely bind the United States and Russia through trade as well as military ties.

A senior Defense Department official said today that "the dialogue is proceeding as we expected it would."

Mr. Rumsfeld emphasized that he would not be able to discuss specific American proposals for cutting offensive nuclear arsenal on this trip, because the Pentagon's strategic review will be completed only "in the next month or two."

Asked to describe the direction the in which the review would push the American arsenal, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "There is no doubt in my mind that we'll be able to go down to substantially lower numbers."

Mr. Rumsfeld also said the United States cannot possibly brief the Russians on its exact missile defense plan that is only now in the initial stages of research, development and testing. The administration's tentative schedule for missile defense testing is widely expected to violate limits in the ABM Treaty by late spring.

The mission of Mr. Rumsfeld and his team was to illustrate the administration's broader approach to security ties with the Russians, and the defense secretary trumpeted the virtue of investment, and how a stable, democratic Russia with America as a partner could entice Western capital.

Should no bargain be struck with Russia toward scrapping the A.B.M. Treaty, the intense schedule of meetings here by many members of the Bush cabinet will be displayed as evidence of a sincere effort by the administration to win Russian agreement to jointly abandon the treaty - before the President moves forward to do just that.

-------- taiwan

Taiwan says no to referendum on nuclear plant

TAIWAN: August 13, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/11997

TAIPEI - Taiwan's cabinet had decided against holding a referendum on the fate of a controversial nuclear power project to avoid further polarising the island's divided public opinion on the issue.

Chiou I-jen, secretary-general of the cabinet, said Premier Chang Chun-hsiung had decided not to hold the referendum on the US$5.5 billion, 2,700-megawatt project alongside parliamentary and mayoral elections take place on December 1.

"We decided against it not for the sake of economic or other reasons but mainly because the sense of uncertainty will be beyond our control," Chiou said. "We apologise for unable to keep our promise."

The administration bowed to pressure from the opposition-controlled legislature to resume construction of the nuclear power station, the island's fourth, after a three-month political stand-off.

Chang of the anti-nuclear Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) halted construction of the plant last October without consulting the parliament, infuriating the opposition parties which favoured the project and badly shaking business confidence.

It was forced to restart the project earlier this year, which in turn angered environmentalists - one of the DPP core areas of support.

A referendum would have set a precedent certain to alarm Beijing, which fears the island may one day use a popular vote to determine whether to declare independence.

Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must eventually be reunified and has threatened to attack if the island declared independence.

The controversial plant was initiated by the previous Nationalist Party administration, which argued that its planned 2,700-megawatts of electricity was vital for continued economic growth.

But environmentalists say Taiwan lacks the ability to process nuclear waste or deal with potential accidents.

The Nationalists were routed by DPP's Chen in presidential elections last year, ending their five-decade grip on the presidency on the island.

-------- treaties

Rumsfeld Unable to Sway Russians on ABM Treaty

August 13, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international/arms-russia-usa.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Russia rejected calls by visiting U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday to abandon a landmark nuclear deterrence pact so that Washington could develop a missile defence.

Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said Rumsfeld had failed to convince him that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty banning national missile defences should be scrapped.

``The existing, multi-layered system of strategic security which exists in the world today fully meets Russian needs,'' Ivanov told reporters.

``And we feel no compunction to leave...any treaty or accord which we currently have,'' he said.

Ivanov was speaking at a Kremlin news conference after a meeting with Rumsfeld and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier, Rumsfeld said George W. Bush's administration would move ahead with research on missile defence even if such a step violated the ABM treaty.

He said the agreement had outlived its usefulness after the end of the Cold War.

Putin told reporters before the meeting that Moscow considered ABM closely linked to the START-1 and START-2 nuclear arms reduction treaties.

Russia wants to go far beyond the current START-2 treaty which would cut the arsenals of each country by half to about 3,500 warheads.

RUSSIA NEEDS ANSWERS

Putin said he was pleased the two countries were proceeding with talks on last month's agreement between him and Bush to link discussions on offensive and defensive nuclear systems.

``We hope that the high level of Russian-U.S. talks will lead to solutions in the field of offensive weapons and defensive systems,'' Putin said.

He said Russia needed answers from Washington on new and lower thresholds for the number of nuclear weapons on both sides, as well as suggestions on verification and transparency in cutting nuclear arsenals.

Ivanov said verification would become a major issue once offensive and defensive capabilities were linked.

``What we are trying to do is create a change, a whole new configuration in the U.S.-Russian strategic relationship by looking at both offensive and defensive nuclear systems at the same time,'' he said.

``But if you reduce nuclear confrontation and you start reducing nuclear warheads you will need verification, verification becomes that much more important.

``Beyond that we now have to also look at how we look at offensive systems and link them very carefully to defensive systems -- and this becomes a very, very complicated algorithm.''

The United States has said its development of a planned missile defence could soon threaten to break ABM constraints.

But Ivanov said that talks with Washington could go on for some time. ``I don't see any possible way we can take something that complicated and do it in a couple of months,'' he added.

RUSSIAN DEMANDS NO SURPRISE

At a later forum with academics and Russian defence experts, Rumsfeld stressed that his Moscow talks had covered a wide range of issues from economic ties to jointly fighting terrorism.

``I don't want to shock or surprise anybody, but the truth is that our relationship is considerably broader and deeper and more complex than missile defence,'' he said.

In the Kremlin, he said Washington would have no trouble agreeing with Russia on verification of nuclear cuts although it has not decided yet on how far they could be reduced.

A senior U.S. defence official, speaking to reporters who travelled with Rumsfeld, said Ivanov's demands to mate talks on offensive and defensive weapons and provide specifics from the U.S. on potential nuclear missile cuts had come as no surprise.

``The dialogue is proceeding as we thought it would,'' said the official, adding that ``it was a lively exchange between President Putin and Secretary Rumsfeld.''

Interfax news agency said more Russian-U.S. consultations were planned next week.

--------

Rumsfeld In Moscow For Talks
Focus on ABM Treaty, Warhead Reductions

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 13, 2001; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2172-2001Aug12?language=printer

MOSCOW, Aug. 12 -- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld arrived here today for talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on missile defense and nuclear force reductions, expressing confidence that the United States and Russia can ultimately fashion a new strategic relationship.

"We've gone a good distance on the conventional side," Rumsfeld said to reporters on the plane en route to Moscow. "There's no reason we can't go a good distance on the nuclear side. It's in their interest and in our interest."

But Rumsfeld stopped well short of describing how far the United States might be willing to go in reducing its arsenal of 7,000 nuclear warheads, saying only that a review is underway at the Pentagon that will take months to complete.

"We want to have the lowest possible number that makes sense for this country," Rumsfeld said, noting that the Bush administration has already announced its plan to eliminate 50 Peacekeeper missiles and convert missiles aboard two Trident submarines from nuclear to conventional.

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed last month to hold discussions linking missile defense and cuts in both countries' nuclear warheads, calling for extensive consultations between U.S. and Russian national security officials. The Rumsfeld-Ivanov talks Monday, and others involving diplomatic officials in the weeks ahead, are meant to set the stage for further meetings between Bush and Putin in the fall.

But the road to a November summit at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., may not be smooth. While the Bush administration wants both countries to mutually withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so it can pursue its ambitious missile defense agenda, Russian officials say will discuss missile defense_but will not walk away from the pact.

The ABM Treaty prohibits the construction of national missile defenses so that neither nation is tempted to build more and more missiles to overwhelm those missile shields. Bush administration officials have said that their plans for testing ship-based radars against long-range missiles and for constructing interceptor missile silos at Fort Greely in Alaska could violate that prohibition within months.

The issue of offensive reductions could prove equally vexing. While Putin has proposed deep reductions in both countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads, and Bush has talked of a deep unilateral reduction in U.S. warheads, powerful forces in Congress and the Pentagon have expressed concern.

In meetings at the Pentagon last week, Russian defense officials, led by Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of Russia's general staff, pressed hard but got no answer on how far the Bush administration was willing to go on offensive reductions.

Russian officials have also complained that they do not understand what kind of missile defense system the Bush administration ultimately intends to deploy, since its missile defense agenda calls for ambitious testing of ground-, sea-, air- and space-based technologies for shooting down missiles in their ascent, mid-course and terminal stages.

Rumsfeld acknowledged the Russians' complaints. But he said: "It's not knowable, what we're going to deploy, because we're in a testing mode."

Rumsfeld said he was pleased to be talking directly to Ivanov. "He's a thoughtful person," Rumsfeld said. "He is apparently close to the president. It is a big advantage that he speaks English, so you can get a better feel for a person, than you might if it's all done through translation. It's a very good thing that a person who is close to President Putin happens to be minister of defense."

Ivanov, 48, a former KGB general who served overseas as a spy for 20 years, is widely viewed as Putin's closest aide. While he is not considered a hard-liner on missile defense, Ivanov showed a combative side toward the West, and the United States in particular, before he became Russia's first civilian defense minister in March.

Since then, he has moderated his tone. After meeting with Rumsfeld in Brussels following a ministerial meeting at NATO headquarters in June, Ivanov said they had reached an understanding "that there are not only more threats facing us now in the 21st century, but they are multifaceted, much more so than they were in the past."

The two nations, he noted at the time, "don't have absolutely identical views" about how to counter those threats. But he added: "There is nothing tragic or terrible about that."

More than a year earlier, when he met in Washington with Clinton administration officials on the question of missile defense and possible changes to the ABM Treaty, Ivanov, then the Kremlin's Security Council chief, said Moscow understood the United States' growing concerns about a missile attack by North Korea. He implied at the time that amending the ABM Treaty to allow for greater missile defense testing might be worth considering.

Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who was national security adviser during the Clinton administration and who had extensive dealings with Ivanov and Putin, said he is convinced the Russians would be willing to amend the ABM Treaty to allow for more extensive missile defense testing.

But the Bush administration will have a hard time persuading the Russians to do anything, he predicted, without giving them some idea of the missile defense system they ultimately plan to build.

"What they're saying is, we want to pursue all the way up the technology curve, we want to see what we can develop, and then we'll tell you what we want to use it for," Berger said. "There's a deal to be had, if Bush wants to change the treaty. If he wants to terminate the treaty, it's far more difficult."

----

Putin Resists Joint ABM Treaty Withdrawal
Russian Leader Pushing for Arms Reductions Instead

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 13, 2001; 5:01 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3683-2001Aug13?language=printer

MOSCOW, Aug. 13 - President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials presented stiff resistance today to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's efforts to secure joint withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, telling him that treaty commitments on national missile defense and on reducing strategic nuclear arsenals are "unconditionally linked."

After meeting with Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov at the Kremlin, Rumsfeld said the talks focused on ways both nations could "move beyond" the ABM Treaty so the Bush administration could pursue its ambitious missile defense agenda.

But Putin told reporters that Russia will not withdraw from the 1972 ABM treaty and said he wanted to "underline" its connection with both the START I and START II treaties on strategic missile reductions.

Ivanov, who hosted additional talks with Rumsfeld at the Ministry of Defense, said Russia feels "no compunction to leave one or any other treaty or accord which we currently have signed" and called for comprehensive negotiations on a new "series of limits."

Putin noted that he and President Bush had agreed last month in Genoa, Italy, to link consideration of the administration's missile defense plan with steep reductions in both countries' massive nuclear stockpiles.

He called today for clearly defined "thresholds" for missile defenses and cuts in offensive warheads and said any new agreement would require provisions to assure transparency and verification.

"We now have to look at how we limit offensive systems, and how we link it very carefully to defensive systems," Ivanov said. "And it becomes a very, very complicated algorithm. To do that in just a couple of months I don't see any possible way to take something that complicated and do it in only a couple of months. We need to talk about it. We are talking about it. We are talking very energetically and actively about it."

Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials have said the administration's plans for missile defense tests and construction of testing facilities in Alaska would "bump up against" the ABM treaty within months, not years.

Rumsfeld said today that the Bush administration will announce within a month or two how sharply it plans to reduce the U.S. arsenal of approximately 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads and added that he had no problem simultaneously discussing both nuclear reductions and missile defenses with the Russians. But he made it clear that the issues were merely related, not linked -- meaning that the United States would not promise to eliminate a certain number of warheads in return for changing or scrapping the ABM treaty to allow further missile defense research, development and testing.

Last month, John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told Congress that a new security framework with Russia would not involve "formal agreements with hundreds of pages that count every warhead and pound of throw-weight. These are not going to be traditional arms control negotiations with small armies of negotiators inhabiting the best hotels in Geneva for months at a time."

The ABM treaty was negotiated by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in 1972 to prohibit precisely the kind of nationwide defenses against long-range missiles that the Bush administration wants to construct. During the Cold War, missile defenses were seen as destabilizing in that they encouraged the United States and Russia to build more missiles to overwhelm those defenses.

President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the START I treaty in 1991 calling for each side to limit its offensive nuclear weapons to 6,000 each. While Russia's arsenal is now at approximately 6,000 warheads, the United States has 7,000 warheads and is still in the process of reaching the START I limit.

START II was signed by the former President Bush and President Boris Yeltsin in early January 1993. It calls for each side to reduce its arsenal to between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads, but it has not gone into effect because the Russian parliament attached conditions that have not yet been met.

Ivanov noted today that Russia has made it clear on numerous occasions that it favors both sides reducing their arsenals to around 1,500 warheads each. Rumsfeld said he would recommend a number to President Bush within one or two months as part of a nuclear forces review underway at the Pentagon. But he said that the question is complicated by numerous factors. The number of warheads, he said, must be viewed in terms of possible future threats and alliances by rogue nations with nuclear capabilities.

"The other problem you have is that classes of weapons may become unsafe and unreliable," he said. "In the United States, we don't have people who make weapons these days, they're mostly retired. And we're many years from being capable of producing nuclear weapons, so that's a problem."

Rumsfeld began the day by meeting with a group of Russian journalists, who pressed him on missile defense issues and the accuracy of a report on ballistic missile proliferation he directed in 1998 at the behest of Congress.

Rumsfeld defended the report, which now serves as a foundation of the administration's ambitious missile defense agenda. The report said that several rogue nations could develop ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States and Europe over the next five years, Rumsfeld said, and that is precisely what has come about.

"North Korea has tested a three-stage ballistic missile within that time and demonstrated the very thing that people said states like North Korea and Iran were not capable of doing -- taking Scud [missile] technology and modifying it for multiple-stage ballistic missiles," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld said the report also noted that there are other means beyond long-range ballistic missiles that rogue states could use to deliver chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, including ship-launched missiles fired from much shorter range.

"A rogue state has done that -- they have fired a ballistic missile from a ship," Rumsfeld told the reporters, explaining that the identity of the nation in question is classified.

Furthermore, Rumsfeld said, states interested in developing ballistic missile capabilities can move their weapons to other nations in closer proximity to their targets, or they can test their weapons in other nations to mask what they are developing. "That is currently being done," he said.

-------- us nuc politics

The Senate and the World

August 13, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/13/opinion/13MON1.html?searchpv=nytToday

Americans concerned about the direction of President Bush's foreign policy are looking to the Senate for relief. Last week, the Democratic majority leader, Tom Daschle, outlined an alternative, more internationally minded view of America's role in the 21st-century world. If Mr. Daschle and his colleagues in the Democratic majority have the gumption to follow the example of J. William Fulbright, the Arkansas senator who used the Foreign Relations Committee as a battering ram against the Vietnam War, they can make White House policy more accountable to public opinion and more in line with America's broader national interests.

No foreign war now inflames domestic politics. But the Bush administration's haste to erect a missile shield before the technology is perfected, its shortsighted hostility to important international treaties and its scorn for the environment threaten to undermine American influence and damage relations with Russia, China and European allies.

The modern presidency has come to dominate American foreign policy by taking maximum advantage of the constitutional authority vested in the office, especially that of commander in chief. In a dangerous and complex world, the management of American diplomacy and military forces should rest primarily with the president.

But the founders wisely provided for close Senate involvement in foreign affairs, through the Congressional power to declare war and review financial requests, and the Senate's mandate to ratify treaties and confirm ambassadorial and other appointments. Through a deft use of these and other prerogatives, Mr. Daschle and committee chairmen like Joseph Biden at Foreign Relations and Carl Levin at Armed Services can help steer the government toward more enlightened policies.

The Democrats, with the help of Republican moderates, need to lay out the clear philosophical differences that distinguish them from the administration. Mr. Daschle's speech pointed the way, emphasizing the importance of working closely with allies, helping Russia and China build market democracies and leading efforts to fight infectious diseases, fend off environmental threats and reduce dangers from nuclear and biological weapons.

Senators should use public hearings to challenge administration policies, propose alternatives and present them to the country for debate. To that end, Mr. Daschle is working to coordinate the efforts of Mr. Biden, Mr. Levin and chairmen like Bob Graham at the Intelligence Committee and Patrick Leahy at the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. He needs to hold the Democrats to a clear set of priorities. Senators will not play a constructive role if they intervene in day-to-day diplomatic issues that must be left to the president and the secretary of state.

Arms control is particularly urgent, with the White House prepared to cast aside the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty without adequate public debate or consultation with Russia. The administration's discussions with Moscow may eventually yield an agreement to modify or set aside the treaty. The Senate can encourage that outcome by denying the Pentagon money for activities that clearly violate the ABM Treaty while approving a robust program of research and flight tests.

Under Senator Biden's direction, the Foreign Relations Committee should hold extensive public hearings on the foreign policy implications of rushing to build an antimissile system, including the risk of igniting a new arms race with Russia and China. At Armed Services, Senator Levin should direct an exacting examination of Pentagon weapons and strategy plans and budget requests.

At Appropriations, Senator Leahy will have increased power to press for the vital causes he has championed over the years, like increasing spending to combat H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa, attaching strong human rights conditions to American military cooperation with Colombia and Indonesia, and lifting the gag rule the White House has imposed on recipients of American family planning aid that use their own money to advocate abortion.

House Democrats also plan to challenge administration policies and to try to build bipartisan coalitions to block the abandonment of the ABM Treaty. But the main arena for foreign policy debate will be the Senate, as the new Democratic leadership seeks to reclaim that institution's historic role in helping to guide international relations.


-------- MILITARY

-------- asia

S. Koreans Seek Compensation From US

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-US-Military.html

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- More than 2,000 South Korean villagers sued their government Monday, seeking compensation for ``unbearable'' noise from U.S. bombing exercises near their village.

In the lawsuit filed with a Seoul civil court, the 2,222 villagers demanded $15,300 each in compensation for decades of suffering from noise from the Koon-ni bombing range near their village on South Korea's central west coast.

The suit followed a court ruling in April that ordered the Seoul government to pay 14 other villagers roughly the same amount each. It was the first court ruling holding the Seoul government responsible for mental damages to villagers because of the U.S. military.

The 2,222 who filed Monday represent all the remaining residents of the village. The South Korean government appealed the ruling, but villagers were confident the verdict would be upheld.

If the ruling stands, the South Korean government will discuss with the U.S. military how to split the compensation.

``We were encouraged by the trial court ruling in April. We're sure that it will be upheld through the Supreme Court,'' said Chun Man-kyu, spokesman for the villagers of Maehyang-ri, where the range is located.

The villagers claimed to have suffered for decades from unbearable noise from a U.S. bombing range near their village.

In the April ruling, the Seoul Civil Court said the noise during a U.S. bombing exercise is twice that permitted by law for residential areas.

About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to cope with military threats from communist North Korea. The range, located 50 miles southwest of Seoul, has been used exclusively by the U.S. Air Force since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

-------- balkans

Political Leaders Sign Peace Accord in Macedonia

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Macedonia.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- Macedonia's rival political leaders signed a landmark peace accord Monday aimed at ending six months of bloody conflict and clearing the way for NATO troops to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels.

Political leaders representing the Balkan country's Macedonian majority and its minority ethnic Albanian population formally endorsed the agreement, which gives ethnic Albanians a larger share of power in the police ranks, parliament and education.

The deal also paves the way for NATO to send in 3,500 troops, including Americans, to disarm the rebels -- a potentially risky mission that the alliance insists it will only launch if a cease-fire is sustained.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, who attended the signing, said he would convene a session of NATO's ruling body Monday night in Brussels. He said he hoped the alliance could move ``very swiftly indeed'' on launching the mission.

There were no reports of fighting during the day Monday, but before dawn Macedonian troops and ethnic Albanian rebels clashed in heavy fighting -- even after the government called a cease-fire Sunday evening.

The rebels, who launched their insurgency in February, were not involved in the negotiations that led to the peace deal. Their political leader, Ali Ahmeti, has said the insurgents would abide by the accord, although some commanders have expressed pessimism over it.

Robertson and European Union envoy Javier Solana watched as President Boris Trajkovski and the leaders of the four largest parties, two ethnic Albanian and two Macedonian, signed the accord. The two mediators -- Francois Leotard of France and James Pardew of the United States -- also signed the 15-page document at Trajkovski's residence.

Robertson called the deal ``a remarkable moment for the history of Macedonia. This day marks the entry of Macedonia into modern, mainstream Europe.''

``It's a good sign,'' President Bush said of the signing, speaking to reporters at his ranch in Texas. ``But now they need to lay down their arms so we can implement'' the deal.

Robertson said there must be a ``durable cease-fire'' and a clear commitment from the rebels to disarm before NATO troops can be deployed. He gave no timetable for deployment.

The British-led mission, dubbed Operation Essential Harvest, would last 30 days and would include troops from the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Robertson was to brief the North Atlantic Council, which must approve the mission. The council was not expected to decide during the Monday night session. Military advisers were to arrive in Skopje on Tuesday to review logistics, Robertson said.

Sources close to the talks said the signing ceremony was postponed for over an hour because of last-minute bickering over an ethnic Albanian demand that the accord spell out amnesty for all rebels who did not commit war crimes during the fighting. The demand was accepted.

``After this day, there should be no reason for fighting,'' said Pardew.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council called a meeting Monday to endorse the peace deal and ask all parties to abide by it.

The militants say they seek more rights for ethnic Albanians, who account for about a third of Macedonia's population of 2 million. The Macedonian government contends the rebels simply want to seize territory.

After a weekend of heavy fighting, Macedonia's government reinstated a cease-fire that had gone ignored over the past two weeks. Trajkovski ordered government forces to stop shooting Sunday ``to show goodwill and give a chance'' to the peace deal, state television reported.

Still, fighting continued overnight in the north. Heavy detonations could be heard until 3 a.m. throughout Skopje.

The army accused the insurgents on Monday of firing mortars and machine guns at police positions near the rebel strongholds of Slupcane and Orizare.

On Sunday, troops backed by tanks and warplanes fought the rebels on the outskirts the capital and several other fronts.

Government troops Sunday pounded the ethnic Albanian village of Ljuboten, just three miles north of Skopje, with mortars and tank fire.

A rebel spokesman who goes by the name of Besniku, or Faith, said about 50 ethnic Albanian civilians had been killed over the last three days alone, but could not estimate rebel casualties.

--------

Macedonian PM accuses UN-run Kosovo of waging war

Monday, August 13 1:43 AM SGT
Agence France-Presse
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/afp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010813/world/afp/Macedonian_PM_accuses_UN-run_Kosovo_of_waging_war.html

SKOPJE - Macedonia's Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski accused the United Nations protectorate of Kosovo of waging war against his country, in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made public Sunday.

Georgievski said in a message read in Macedonian on state television that 600 members of a militia supported by Kosovo's international administration had crossed into Macedonia on Saturday and attacked government forces.

"I, personally, consider this an official declaration of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in Kosovo," Georgievski said.

"This is an unprecedented event in international politics, in which a sovereign and democratic country has been the object of aggression from an international protectorate of the United Nations," the letter said.

The hardline Macedonian leader repeated Skopje's longstanding criticism of Kosovo's NATO-led peacekeeping force, accusing it of allowing ethnic Albanian fighters to cross the border with impunity.

Both Georgievski and President Boris Trajkovski, who wrote separately to NATO Secretary General George Robertson to complain about the incursion, accused the rebels of firing shells from bases within the UN-run province.

Georgievski attacked Kosovo's chief UN administrator, Hans Haekkerup, urging Annan to "think about releasing him from his duties".

Macedonian forces on Saturday exchanged fire with a group of ethnic Albanian rebels near the village of Radusa, two kilometres (one mile) south of the republic's frontier with Kosovo.

Government officials said that the rebels had crossed from Kosovo 15 kilometres (nine miles) northwest of Skopje and surrounded a police unit.

The KPC was set up by NATO and the United Nations in 1999 to provide employment for former guerrillas of the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.

The unit -- which receives funding, training and equipment from Western countries -- was supposed to be an unarmed civil defence militia, but its members have frequently been implicated in criminal activity inside and outside the province.

KPC leaders make no secret of their ambition to one day form the basis for the army of an independent Kosovo, but have denied involvement in the six-month ethnic Albanian uprising in Macedonia.

Trajkovski called on NATO and the United Nations to shut down the KPC's training camps, state television reported.

Georgievski and his nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party are due to sign a peace accord Monday with the leaders of Macedonia's three other main democratic parties -- including two representing ethnic Albanians.

The government in Skopje on Sunday called a unilateral ceasefire to prepare the ground for the signing, but Georgievski warned that the rebels were not ready to make peace.

"Today when the political parties in Macedonia are one step towards signing the peace agreement, the Albanian paramilitary groups organised by the KPC continue with their aggression," the letter said.

"That confirms that they don't want any kind of agreement and it shows that they are not interested in peace," he said.

-------- drug war

Calif. Drug Users Get Treatment, Not Jail

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 13, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2264-2001Aug12?language=printer

LOS ANGELES -- In a dreary courtroom at the end of the hall, Crystal Davis shuffled her slippered feet, rearranged her shackles and mumbled to the judge, "Yes, your honor," as she pleaded guilty to possession of 0.02 grams -- a crumb -- of cocaine.

In a few hours, Davis would be free from county jail. Whether she would be freed from the drugs that have brought havoc to her life is unknown.

But instead of serving months or years behind bars, the 29-year-old crack cocaine user would be ordered to attend five to 10 hours a week of group therapy, individual counseling and 12-step study classes.

California, known for its strict three-strikes penalties and its prison construction spree, has made a U-turn in the war on drugs. The felons are now patients.

Despite widespread opposition by the state's political leadership, voters last year passed Proposition 36, and starting July 1, all people convicted of simple drug use or drug possession -- even for the hardest substances, such as heroin and cocaine -- were no longer sent to jail, but instead had to be released and offered drug treatment.

It is estimated that 36,000 drug users a year -- and perhaps many, many more -- will be diverted from jail to treatment, enough to delay the construction of at least two new state prisons.

The money saved on incarceration will be spent on rehabilitation, making dollars available for the first time for treatment on demand -- about $120 million a year.

Although drugs have certainly not been legalized in California, drug users have essentially been decriminalized.

With the exception of Arizona, which passed a similar measure requiring treatment instead of jail in 1998, no state has more lenient drug use and drug possession laws than California. While other states and cities have adopted "drug courts," where some drug offenders are diverted from jail to treatment, the California experiment is being played out on a grand scale.

"It's a complete revolution," said Dave Fratello, one of the authors of Proposition 36. "We've changed the way drug abusers are seen by the system. Before, some people got some treatment. Now, everybody gets treatment, even the most hopeless cases."

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan agrees: The system has been profoundly altered. "People who went to jail or prison last month are now going back into the community and hopefully into drug treatment," he said in an interview in July. "The people have spoken. They wanted us to try something else."

Outside a courtroom recently, a drug defendant who had just begun treatment under Proposition 36 and who asked that his name not be used, was enthusiastic about the new law, but also realistic.

"For me? I've used on and off for 10 years," said the cocaine abuser in his thirties, who said he worked as a mechanic. "I've been sober and then I used again. I can stay clean. But some of these other people? They're junkies, man, and crack heads, they live on the streets, and nobody is going to take their drugs away."

Then he hesitated. "But you know? Maybe they might clean up their act. They deserve a chance, and it's not any worse than sending them to prison."

No one knows how successful Crystal Davis or any of the other tens of thousands of convicted drug users will be. Critics of Proposition 36 worry that the already overtaxed criminal justice system and community treatment centers will be overwhelmed, that committed addicts will resist help and abuse their freedom, and that not nearly enough money has been appropriated for such things as drug testing or residential treatment, which some hard-core users might need.

The experiment will be closely watched, as the backers of Proposition 36 are currently polling and working to put similar proposals before the voters in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Missouri. Support for the drug reform measures has come from three wealthy men: financier George Soros, University of Phoenix founder John Sperling and insurer Peter Lewis.

An early examination of the implementation of Proposition 36 in Los Angeles, which has the largest addicted population in the state, is revealing.

Crystal Davis was arrested for possessing cocaine while she was on probation for an earlier drug conviction, the possession of a crack pipe. A presentence report written by the probation office before Proposition 36 took effect recommended that Davis, who has a long criminal record of drug charges, be sent to state prison.

Her attorney, public defender John Alan, assumed that before Proposition 36, his client would have been sentenced to a minimum of six months in county jail. "She probably would not have gotten the maximum, but you never know," Alan said.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner Ronald Rose, who presided over her case, said later that a defendant such as Davis, with a long history of drug convictions and a demonstrated unwillingness to pursue treatment, would have definitely gotten county jail time, perhaps even a year or two in prison.

"I believe you can stop using drugs," Rose told her at her hearing. "It's going to be a very, very difficult thing. But you can do it, and we are here to help you."

Rose ordered Davis and two other drug defendants, who were all shackled together, to appear at the Homeless Health Care center near downtown Los Angeles within 24 hours to meet with their probation officer and undergo evaluation to decide the appropriate level of treatment. Davis will be on probation for three years and will likely be ordered, after evaluations, to undergo outpatient drug treatment for nine months.

"All three of you are going to be released," Rose said. "The odds are that one of you isn't going to make it, and then you'll be going to state prison." And then they were led away by the bailiff, due back in court in three weeks to have their progress evaluated.

A report done for the California legislature last year estimated that a total of 36,000 people would be diverted from jails to treatment each year under Proposition 36. But that number might prove to be conservative.

In Los Angeles, a task force assembled to implement Proposition 36 estimated that 14,000 to 20,000 offenders in Los Angeles County alone would be eligible for treatment.

To handle this volume, the county arranged for 18 judges to hear nothing but Proposition 36 cases. Defendants who are deemed eligible -- meaning they have not committed any violent crimes in the last five years -- and who plead guilty or are convicted of drug use or possession, are released and placed on probation, usually for three years.

Their first step is to attend a Community Assessment Service Center, like Homeless Health Care or Tarzana Treatment Center.

"I sit down with them, explain how it works and then off they go," said probation officer Ray Causly, who works at Tarzana. "After that, my contact with them is minimal." From there, they move down the hall into a treatment program.

Before Proposition 36, Causly would meet with drug offenders on probation three or four times a month. "Now, that's all handled by counselors," he said. Asked whether he thought the new approach, described by a probation official as "kinder and gentler," would work, Causly said, "I give it a 50-50 chance. What we've done is decriminalize the individual, offer them help, and then step back and let treatment do its thing, and see if it works."

In the past, some offenders were sent to drug courts, which offered treatment instead of jail time. The success rate was high in Los Angeles, with as many as seven of 10 abusers completing their programs and staying clean. But the number of people who went through drug court was small -- only about 5 percent of the eligible drug defendants in Los Angeles -- and preselected for potential success by judges and prosecutors.

Now, everybody is offered treatment -- even users with dozens of drug arrests. Some judges and prosecutors worry that the toughest addicts will simply refuse treatment.

At the Tarzana center, counselor Monica Weil is the first person the Proposition 36 clients see after the probation officer. She administers a standard test, the Addiction Severity Index, which measures how much treatment a client should have. An occasional cocaine user, who has a job and a supportive environment, would be classified as a Level One. Weil estimates that about 80 percent of the Proposition 36 clients would be Level Ones.

A crack addict living on the streets, with multiple arrests and perhaps a psychiatric disorder as well, would be considered a Level Three.

Treatment for a Level One would entail four or five one-hour meetings a week for three months, while treatment for Level Three addicts might include several days of detoxification, followed by a month of residential treatment and then 10 hours of meetings a week for nine months.

There was widespread concern before Proposition 36 became law that the existing treatment centers would be overwhelmed, but that has not been the case in Los Angeles. The centers are busier, and they are scrambling to hire more counselors, but they are managing their growing caseload.

If the convicted users fail to stay sober, and stumble in their recovery, the court gives them another chance. If they fail again? They are given yet another chance. On their third strike, they can be sent to jail or prison.

"There is still a carrot and a stick," probation officer Causly said. "It just takes a lot longer before we pull out the stick."

Crucial to the treatment, say the judges, probation officers and many counselors, is money for repeated, random drug testing -- funds that have not yet been appropriated.

"Trust only takes you so far. Then you want to test them. A lot," said Ken Bachrach, clinical director at the Tarzana Treatment Center. "That is what this program is. Treatment. Treatment takes time. People screw up. They fail. They try again. The public should understand. They need to be patient. Because this is addiction we're talking about."

-------- israel

Israeli army buildup reported near Jenin

USA TODAY
08/13/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/08/13/israel.htm

JERUSALEM (AP) - Palestinians closed their shops in a general strike Monday and demonstrators scuffled with Israeli police, demanding that Israel give back the PLO headquarters in Jerusalem. Despite two Palestinian suicide bomb attacks in four days and the Israeli move to expel the Palestinian presence from east Jerusalem, Israel sought to renew contacts for a truce. But Palestinians said Israel was building up its forces around Jenin, from where the suicide bombers left for recent attacks in Israel. The Israeli military had no comment.

Outside Orient House, the PLO headquarters seized by Israel after a suicide bomber killed himself and 15 other people in Jerusalem, dozens of Palestinian and foreign demonstrators - most of them Europeans - wrestled with club-wielding Israeli police and tried to raise Palestinian flags. Ten protesters were arrested.

Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said resistance to Israeli rule is now focused on Jerusalem.

"There will mass protests, demonstrations and all types of activity until Israel gets the message," she told The Associated Press.

The United States has criticized the Israeli takeover of Orient House as "political escalation." Arab nations have expressed fury with the move, which the Israelis say is designed to reassert their authority in all of Jerusalem.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and other territories. Israel annexed east Jerusalem days after the war, unlike the other areas. Though the annexation has not been recognized by any other country, Israel insists the whole city is its capital.

The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to create.

Except for demonstrations, streets were deserted in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip as merchants shuttered their shops and government employees stayed home in the general strike.

"Jerusalem is ours," shouted about 2,000 Palestinians marching in the West Bank city of Nablus. About 3,000 Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza City, burning a coffin labeled "Sharon," a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Sharon, meanwhile, permitted Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to resume contacts with senior Palestinian officials.

In an interview with AP, Peres denied media reports that Sharon had told him not to speak to Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat.

"I have the right to meet every person I think I have to, including Chairman Arafat," Peres said.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio he held out little hope.

"I doubt whether it will be possible to arrive at an agreement with Arafat. I think he is leading his people to a catastrophe," Ben-Eliezer said.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, about 1,500 mourners chanted "revenge, revenge" as they buried a 7-year-old Palestinian girl witnesses said was killed by Israeli army fire in an overnight exchange with Palestinian gunmen.

The firefight came just hours after a Sunday evening suicide bombing injured 20 people in a restaurant in a suburb of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa. The assailant, from the militant group Islamic Jihad, was killed.

On Thursday, a member of the militant Hamas group blew himself up in a packed restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, killing himself and 15 other people.

In response, Israel took over Orient House and raised its flag from the building's roof, in a direct challenge to Palestinian claims to the traditionally Arab part of the city. Israeli forces also took over Palestinian offices in a nearby suburb, Abu Dis.

Early Monday, Israel closed the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in response to frequent shooting by Palestinians in the area, the military said.

--------

Israeli Troops Beat Journalists

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Reporters-Beaten.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli soldiers on Monday beat two members of an Egyptian television crew at a West Bank checkpoint, with the camera rolling throughout.

The military accused the journalists of provoking the attack, but swiftly disciplined one of the soldiers involved.

The crew was filming at an army roadblock near the Kalandia refugee camp between Jerusalem and Ramallah, when soldiers shouted at them to leave the area.

After the reporters withdrew about 60 feet from the roadblock, a soldier approached cameraman Abdel Nasr Ebdon and kicked him in the groin as he was filming.

When Egypt TV reporter Tarek Abdel Gaber approached an officer at the roadblock to ask why Ebdon had been assaulted, Gaber was shoved and slapped by another soldier.

As the tape kept rolling, the first soldier returned to Ebdon and repeatedly kicked him until he fell to the ground. The officer at the roadblock did nothing to stop the attack.

``These soldiers do not respect the uniform they wear,'' Gaber said, shaken after the incident. In a past incident, soldiers had cut up his Israeli government-issued press card, he said.

An army statement said that it was the second time in the past two weeks in which the crew had ignored the instructions of guards at the same checkpoint, but it went on to say that the behavior of the soldiers was ``wrong and completely unacceptable.''

The statement said that one of the soldiers involved was given a 21-day prison sentence, suspended for two years, and suspended from command positions.

Since the beginning of the current round of violence last September, the Foreign Press Association has handled more than 40 complaints about Israeli soldiers attacking reporters. No replies have been directly received from the military.

-------- space

Astronauts Move Into Space Station

AUGUST 13, 15:49 EDT
By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
Associated Press
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=SCIENCE&PACKAGEID=SPACEstations&STORYID=APIS7DS2UKG0&SLUG=SPACE%2dSHUTTLE

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts moved into the international space station on Monday for a four-month stay.

For the first time in five months, an American was in charge again at space station Alpha. NASA and the Russian Space Agency are taking turns providing the commander.

Astronaut Frank Culbertson, replacing cosmonaut Yuri Usachev as skipper, helped attach a moving van to his new home that contained food, clothes, a sleeping bunk and science experiments. It was his first official duty at the orbiting outpost.

Culbertson drove the switches that locked the Italian cargo carrier, named Leonardo, onto the space station. The carrier, packed with 7,000 pounds of gear, was lifted from space shuttle Discovery's cargo bay by robot-arm operator Patrick Forrester.

It took longer than planned to hook up Leonardo, a $150 million cylindrical module making its second space flight. The astronauts had to wait for the proper lighting and then took their time to make sure the carrier was lined up perfectly.

Coincidentally, the installation took place as the linked shuttle and station soared more than 240 miles above Italy. The astronauts received a three-minute warning before they flew over Mount Etna so they could gaze down at the volcano.

``Excellent work on timing the ... install to occur over Italy,'' Mission Control told the astronauts. ``I wish we had the national anthem here.''

Once emptied, Leonardo will be loaded with trash, removed from the space station and returned to Earth for another flight. The module last flew in March, when it hauled up supplies for Usachev and his crewmates, Jim Voss and Susan Helms.

The three were dropped off in March for what should have been a four-month stay. But they ended up spending an extra month at the space station because of problems with the newly installed robot arm.

Monday was their 158th day in space. By the time they return to Earth aboard Discovery next week, they will have spent 167 days aloft.

Culbertson and his crewmates, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, won't be back until December. They are the third crew to live aboard the space station; the first was led by American astronaut Bill Shepherd, from November until March.

Before the two latest space station crews could swap places, they had to exchange custom-fitted Russian spacesuits and custom-built seat liners for the Russian lifeboat that's docked at the complex.

They will spend the rest of this week discussing emergency procedures and computer and communication systems, and sharing advice on space station life.

Culbertson, 52, a retired Navy captain, is making his third space flight and his first one in eight years. He is a former space shuttle commander and space station manager.

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

Plan faces wide opposition

August 13, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010813-6004592.htm

When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld convened a high-level Pentagon meeting Aug. 4, the goal was to win a consensus from the nation's highest military officers on cutting the U.S. military in exchange for requiring it to do less.

But what Mr. Rumsfeld found that Saturday was the civilian secretaries and four-star officers standing shoulder to shoulder. They voiced opposition to reducing a force already shriveled since the Cold War by a million active duty troops, to 1.37 million.

"The meeting did not go well," said an Army officer who was briefed on the session. "It ended early."

Pentagon sources said Army Secretary Thomas White made the point that the civilian leadership had not reduced Army commitments anywhere abroad, yet persisted in suggesting a smaller Army. Air Force Secretary James Roche objected to cutting fighter squadrons.

The sources said Mr. Rumsfeld remained noncommittal on whether he would endorse any reductions.

Positions have so hardened that Mr. Rumsfeld's aides do not meet as often with the service chiefs on Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) matters.

Four days later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met with the media to provide an update on the ongoing review. He proclaimed the Joint Chiefs of Staff had reached a consensus that the military must change to meet 21st-century threats. But Mr. Wolfowitz, who with Mr. Rumsfeld jointly leads the QDR's senior-level review group of service secretaries and the Joint Chiefs, did not specify what type of change.

Pentagon officials and congressional defense aides said in interviews that the consensus does not include agreement on cuts in Army divisions, Navy carrier battle groups or Air Force air wings.

"The leadership of the Army has sent very powerful signals they're going to resist this," said the Army officer, who asked not to be named.

"All the service chiefs are opposed," said a senior congressional defense aide who regularly consults with the top brass.

The staffer said the generals are having a difficult time convincing Mr. Rumsfeld's aides, particularly Stephen Cambone, deputy undersecretary for policy, of the risk to regional stability and of increased casualties if the force is cut.

Subsequently, Mr. Rumsfeld hosted a Tuesday meeting of the senior panel. The next day, while Mr. Wolfowitz briefed reporters, the service chiefs were wrestling with six questions from Mr. Rumsfeld. The answers may determine whether the military faces the first significant downsizing since President Clinton's first term.

The defense secretary asked the chiefs whether heavy-armor Army units could be taken out of Europe without increasing the risk of war. And he asked if reducing demands on U.S. presence abroad could result in reducing force structure. In other words, said a Pentagon official, if the Navy no longer was required to keep a carrier in the Mediterranean Sea full time, could it then go below its 12-carrier fleet?

Pentagon sources say that nowhere is the opposition more fierce than inside Army corridors. Army Secretary White, a Vietnam combat veteran and retired one-star general, is adamantly opposed to a cut of two divisions unless he gets firm commitments to curtail missions. His soldiers, he argues, are already stretched thin around the globe.

In fact, just last month Mr. White and Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee they may need another 40,000 soldiers.

"Given today's mission profile, the Army is too small for the mission load it's carrying," Gen. Shinseki testified. Added Mr. White, "I am very nervous about shifting down any further."

The Army thought this battle was behind it. Its generals fought a winning last-minute struggle four years ago against a two-division cut (roughly 60,000 combatants and support troops from a 477,000 active roster) during the last QDR. With a new Bush team vowing that "help is on the way" for an overextended military, the Army did not expect a repeat showdown.

"We thought this administration is about strengthening the military, not cutting it to reach a number for the Office of Management and Budget," said Jayson Spiegel, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States and a deputy assistant Army secretary during the Clinton administration.

"We would have hoped that when it was first raised Rumsfeld would have said 'Don't come back to me with this,'" Mr. Spiegel said. "The CINCs [regional commanders in chief] need all the capability they can have. They need a robust ground combat capability and the Army strength is pretty thin as it is."

Therein lies the rub. How can Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides trim a force that went on a record number of war and peace-enforcement missions in the 1990s and is required to maintain big footprints in South Korea, Japan, the Persian Gulf, Western Europe, the Balkans and the open seas?

One answer would be for Mr. Rumsfeld to change the current two-war requirement, which dictates the current 1.37 million force, to a lesser capability. This shift could allow troops to leave Europe, where roughly 100,000 are stationed.

Army sources said civilian planners are looking the hardest at abolishing one of two Army divisions in Europe, either the 1st Infantry or 1st Armored divisions. A pullout could trigger further reductions in support brigades back home.

"[The] threat in Europe is, I think, indisputably lower than the threat in other parts of the world," Mr. Wolfowitz said last week.

If Mr. Rumsfeld opts for some form of a "win-hold" requirement, the "hold" scenario may be applied to South Korea, where massive U.S. air power and a much-improved South Korean army would be counted on to blunt an invasion until American forces achieved victory in another theater. The current requirement of fighting and winning two major regional wars nearly simultaneously envisions possible conflicts in the Persian Gulf and the Korean peninsula.

Reducing Army soldiers in Europe would be "absolutely devastating," said a retired four-star general. "Our ability to be at the table at NATO is based in a large measure on our force presence in Europe," he said. "With the European Union going its own way, which we're already seeing, I think that the NATO military alliance is already in some jeopardy."

The QDR report is due in Congress by Sept. 30, meaning Mr. Rumsfeld must decide soon on scrapping the two-war capability so planners can make final decisions on force size and which major weapons to buy.

Troop cuts would provide some of the billions of dollars Mr. Rumsfeld needs to buy new weapons. Big boosts in defense spending appear out of the question for now, with the $1.3 trillion tax cut and the economic slowdown reducing federal revenues. A certain number of lawmakers oppose significant troop cuts, while others would object to terminating aircraft procurements that benefit their districts.

--------

USS Cole Repairs Halfway Complete

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cole-Repairs.html

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) -- The torn and twisted section of the USS Cole has been cut away and replaced with a new steel skin, and the small army of 500 workers who have been working around the clock are halfway done with repairs.

The destroyer was ripped open and 17 of its crew were killed by a terrorist bomb on Oct 12 in the port of Aden, in Yemen.

Petty Officer 2nd Class David Copeland says America's enemies will get a clear message when it sails again:

``You can hit us but you can't beat us. You did what you did but now we're back,'' Copeland said during a tour Monday of the partially repaired destroyer at Northrop Grumman Ingalls Shipbuilding.

Copeland, who was asleep when the Cole was attacked during a refueling stop, is one of 300 crew members who will be aboard the Cole when it returns to sea in April.

Damage was so extensive to the Cole that it had to be returned to the United States aboard the Norwegian heavy-lift ship Blue Marlin.

Mike Chapman, an Ingalls employee and the general ship superintendent for the Cole, said he'd seen photos of the damage and thought he was prepared for the ship's arrival -- until he saw the gaping hole.

``I cried,'' said Chapman, 61, who was in charge of initial construction of the Cole. ``Then I got mad because someone did that to us.''

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

Pat Dolan, public affairs officer with the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, has said her agency expects the final repair tab to be $249.8 million -- about one-quarter its orginal cost.

--------

The Arithmetic of Bombing

By William M. Arkin
Washington Post
Monday, August 13, 2001; 12:00 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60612-2001Aug10?language=printer

"We won't do something as dumb as the way we unveiled the B-1 thing," Secretary of the Air Force James Roche assured a Capitol Hill audience on July 19. The June decision to eliminate 33 B-1 bombers, Roche said, was "done in a terrible way and we apologize. We regret it."

Well, regret the announcement at least. Though the Pentagon has succeeded in spinning Congressional opposition as proof positive that transformation is oh so difficult, and the Air Force has had time to develop its line of attack, browbeating skeptics to appear to be old school troglodytes, doesn't change the reality that Roche's defense still makes no sense.

The justifications being offered-the savings or the future of airpower - don't stand up to scrutiny. I'm left with the stinking impression that the Air Force is only too happy to bale out of a program the Rumsfeld team has marked for cutting in order to pave the way for the airplanes and platforms it really wants in the future. Hey, that's transformation, the Sages argue. It just may not be either smart defense economics or strategy.

Creative Accounting

The Bush administration wants to cut the B-1 forces and "take the savings to modernize the remaining 60 B-1 bombers so that they'll be effective weapons," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a C-SPAN interview on July 22.

It is a claim that drives B-1 defenders crazy. However you cut it, they say, B-1 modernization is required, and expensive, but no more expensive than that planned for B-2 or B-52 bombers. The bill for modernizing 93 B-1 aircraft in the next five years, they say, will come to $2.614 billion, or $28 million per aircraft. This compares favorably with the B-52 modernization bill of $2.796 billion ($37 million per aircraft) and the B-2 modernization bill of $2.053 billion ($98 million per plane). "The B-1 is the most cost-effective bomber to modernize," says a defender, "much more `bang for the buck.' "

In terms of effectiveness, the argument continues, the B-1 is the least expensive airplane to fly, beating both F-16 and F-15E fighters, and the two other bombers. Why? In the world of Pentagon creative accounting, when all of these planes are loaded with the maximum number of satellite guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), the "cost per target killed" (don't you love Pentagon lingo) is about $1,500 per JDAM flight hour for the B-1. That compares to $2,000 for the B-52, $3,000 for the B-2, $4,500 for the F-16, and $12,000 for the F-117 stealth fighter. The reason is that the B-1 carries 24 JDAMs compared to 16 on the B-2 and two to four on the fighters. Eliminating 33 B-1's, conclude advocates of the plane, will retire 15 percent of the Air Force's bombing capability to save exactly .21 percent of the budget.

Bombs Away

All this arithmetic might be dismissed as Washington snake oil were it not for the fact that Roche and company sell a vision of America's future bombing capability that is based on their own dubious numbers.

"In our long range strike aircraft," Roche told Congress on July 25, "we see a situation where within a few years we can, using just half the ready force, deliver between 1,800 and 2,000 either 500- or 1,000-pound highly precise weapons on fixed targets per sortie."

The Air Force's argument is that with just half the reduced bomber force of the future, some 2,000 Joint Direct Attack Munitions or other precision weapons will be able to be delivered per day against any set of fixed targets. This is about 16 times the amount all weapons delivered in Yugoslavia, by 58 bombers in comparison to 500 airplanes.

What is more, Roche says, "when we go to the small-diameter weapons," 250 lb. bombs currently being developed, "we're talking about 5,000 weapons in one sortie. We've basically solved the fixed-point problem."

But does anyone really think that the Air Force could sanely find targets, and then do the bomb damage assessment for 1,800 or 5,000 precision-guided bomber weapons per day? Roche says that to actually target all of these weapons present a "minor intellectual problem." I agree. But if you are merely counting weapons on target, the B-1 has a lot going for it.

What Kind of Fools Are These?

The Air Force did a comprehensive study of long- range bombers at the direction of Congress in 1998. It concluded that, of course, they needed exactly the number of bombers they then possessed: 93 B-1s, 21 B-2s and 76 B-52s. Since then, others have also been heard from, not only pushing the newly created capability of the intercontinental bomber force to deliver large amounts of smart weapons, but also lauding the B-1.

One example is a classified RAND corporation report in April 2000 entitled "Fighter and Bomber Force-Mix Options for Future Military Operations" The report analyzed B-1's versus more F-22's or more Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs) currently under development, concluding that the B-1's "long range and high payload provide a cost-effective means to deliver ordnance to the enemy" and that would "be effective in [the] most difficult scenario." The conclusion? "Buy sufficient JASSMs," that is, the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (with a range of 200-plus nautical miles). By fiscal 2004 the B-1s will be able to carry 24 of them, more than any other airplane.

Another B-1 fan: Retired Gen. Richard E. Hawley, the Air Force bomber and fighter commander from 1996-1999. He wrote in the journal Strategic Review earlier this year that bombers with smart weapons should be given a new lease on life. "Emerging anti-access threats should compel a reconsideration of our overwhelming reliance on attack fighters to project combat power when our interests are threatened," Hawley says.

When I contemplate a bomber force loaded with smart weapons hitting "fixed targets," I see a future war in which dozens of high performance airfields (in say, Iraq or North Korea) are put out of action, with potential enemy airplanes stuck on the ground or destroyed outright. With the very capability Roche says the Air Force is building in the bomber force, adversaries are likely to lose the use of their air forces because they will have no where to fly them from. In such a scenario the super-duper F-22 fighter jet seems kind of redundant.

Before the hate mail flows in from F-22 diehards, I'm merely pointing out the dangers of concocted arithmetic. But I do have a sense that the Air Force leadership is willing to give up whatever Rumsfeld and company want-- as long as the Air Force gets its new generation of F-22s, JSFs, and something known as the "Notional Global Rapid Attack System" to be procured in the next decade.

"I fear that our technological edge is waning," Gen. John Jumper, the new Air Force Chief of Staff, said at his confirmation hearing on August 1. Time and again, he said, "Our best pilots flying their airplanes beat our best pilots flying our airplanes." In other words, we just gotta have the F-22. I'm not sure whether we should be alarmed about our supposed pitiful technology or depressed by the elasticity of the military's ability to argue any side of any issue.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Pacific Hydro seeks 75MW wind farm approval

AUSTRALIA: August 13, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/11995

MELBOURNE - Power generator Pacific Hydro Ltd said last week it had lodged planning applications for a 75 megawatt wind farm at Buangor in western Victoria, but the project hinged on development of local turbine manufacturing.

The company last month opened the 18.3 MW Codrington wind farm on Victoria's west coast. Its proposed 150 MW to 200 MW Portland Wind Energy Project is awaiting environmental approval.

Pacific Hydro said it had invited tenders from four wind turbine companies to begin Australian manufacturing if its Portland proposal cleared the approvals process.

"Since we started building the Codrington wind farm the Australian dollar devalued about 15 percent so the economics of importing has changed," Pacific Hydro managing director Jeff Harding told Reuters.

"Our Portland project presents a project of sufficient size to justify local manufacturing."

Companies short-listed to set up Australian wind turbine manufacturing are Enron Corp , Vestas Wind Systems , NEG Micon and Bonus.

Harding said it was hoped the Portland project would clear government regulatory approvals by early next year.

"We hope to have construction start on the Portland wind farm project by the middle of next year," he said.

Clearance of the Portland project would pave the way for the company to move ahead with the Challicum Hills Wind Farm project at Buangor.

Harding said the company had lodged a town planning application with the Ararat Council and it was hoped the project could begin in 2003.

A number of companies are looking at building wind farms, particularly in Australia's southern states, partly due to Federal government legislation requiring retailers to increase their use of renewable electricity.

Pacific Hydro shares ended down nine cents at A$3.99 last week while the broader market was down 0.45 percent.

-------- energy

Calif. Sues EPA Over Ethanol

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Ethanol-Lawsuit.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California officials are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in hopes of reversing a decision requiring vehicles in the state to use the gasoline additive ethanol.

The lawsuit, filed Friday afternoon in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, calls on the agency to waive rules requiring ethanol to be added to most of the state's gasoline. Ethanol adds oxygen to gasoline to make it burn cleaner.

Gov. Gray Davis has ordered that MTBE -- the only oxygenate available besides ethanol -- be phased out by 2003 because it pollutes ground water. State officials argue that California can meet federal air-quality goals with non-oxygenated, reformulated gasoline.

The EPA's oxygenate requirement is ``a straitjacket mandate that will drive up gas prices while increasing air pollution,'' Davis said in a statement. ``The potential for harm to Californians, both economically and environmentally, leaves me no choice but to fight back with guns blazing.''

California produces 5 million to 7 million gallons of ethanol a year, a far cry from the estimated 600 million to 900 million gallons it would need to comply with the rules. Officials say the ethanol requirements would make the state dependent on the Midwest, which grows the corn used to make most ethanol.

Winston Hickox, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said California's ethanol needs could create supply problems and send prices skyrocketing.

Representatives of two environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Clean Air Trust, also said at the news conference that requiring ethanol could do more harm than good to California's air.

Studies have shown that while ethanol blends reduce carbon monoxide levels, they increase levels of oxides of nitrogen.

EPA officials in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco did not return several calls seeking comment Sunday.

The EPA has contended that under the Clean Air Act, it lacks the authority to grant the state's request. Federal officials have said the state hasn't proven that complying with the oxygenate requirement would increase air pollution.

-------- genetics

Bush pledges not to expand stem-cell funds

August 13, 2001
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010813-16867362.htm

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush will not expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research beyond existing stem-cell lines, regardless of how scientifically valuable such research might prove, administration officials said yesterday.

Mr. Bush himself hardened his opposition to the further destruction of human embryos yesterday, declaring in a New York Times op-ed column that "it is unethical to end life in medical research."

"We do not end some lives for the medical benefit of others," the president wrote from his ranch. "For me, this is a matter of conviction: a belief that life, including early life, is biologically human, genetically distinct and valuable."

It was the second time since Thursday, when he gave a televised address to the nation, that Mr. Bush outlined his beliefs about when life begins. Although he has long maintained that life begins at conception, he revealed on Friday that this includes embryos created in petri dishes. Yesterday, he went a step further by explicitly stating that such life "is biologically human."

Although some Democrats and liberal Republicans in Congress vowed yesterday to expand federal funding of stem-cell research, several administration officials said Mr. Bush would stick to his decision to fund research only on 60 stem-cell lines from embryos that have already been destroyed.

"This president will not equivocate," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on NBC's "Meet the Press." "He made a very strong statement on that."

White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., appearing on "Fox News Sunday," added: "We think there's more than enough lines for this embryonic stem-cell research to go forward."

Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Mr. Bush went too far by approving federal funding of stem cells from embryos that have already been killed. Appearing on ABC's "This Week," he called the existing stem-cell lines "ill-gotten goods."

"For the government to allow funding for this experiment makes the government complicit in what we consider to be wrongdoing," Bishop Fiorenza said.

But Mr. Thompson, who is Catholic, emphasized that there is nothing immoral about trying to fight diseases through research on stem cells if the decision to kill the embryos is already in the past.

"Are we just going to throw them in the garbage can and say there's nothing that can be done on them? You can't put them back together," he said on NBC. "Allow the research to continue."

Appearing later on CNN's "Late Edition," he emphasized that such research should not be expanded to include stem cells from embryos killed in the future.

"The president is very strong in his position, that he has indicated that no federal research dollars will be used for the derivation, the destruction of any future embryos," Mr. Thompson said. "And I think that that is a moral decision that this president's made, and he's not going to cross that."

But crossing that line would be precisely the most ethical course because it might help cure diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, according to Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican.

"Every day we lose, we're losing lives," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." The liberal Republican said he and Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, will sponsor legislation to expand federal funding of stem-cell research to include viable embryos from in vitro fertilization.

But some conservative members of Congress urged Mr. Bush to wield his veto pen against such legislation. Mr. Bush, entering the second week of his monthlong vacation here, continued to defend his decision on stem cells.

"Stem cell research takes place on a slippery slope of moral concern where much biomedical research is and will be conducted," he wrote in the New York Times. "We must keep our ethical footing."

He added: "Caution is demanded, because second thoughts will come too late. As we work to extend our lives, we must do so in ways that preserve our humanity."

Although Mr. Bush's decision last week was limited to the question of research on embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics -- which elicits public ambivalence -- he linked the issue to two practices that are far less popular.

By expanding the discussion to include cloning and the creation of embryos strictly for research purposes, the president sought public support for his opposition to the further destruction of embryos from in vitro clinics. Mr. Bush continued to assail these two other practices yesterday, even though he announced his opposition to them long before Thursday's nationally televised speech on embryos from in vitro clinics.

"My administration supports legislative efforts to prohibit the cloning of human beings for any purpose, and also to prohibit the production of human embryos solely to be destroyed in medical research," the president wrote.

Mr. Bush, who said on Saturday that he is praying he made the right decision, went to church yesterday with first lady Laura Bush at First United Methodist in Crawford. The church bulletin listed a "Thought for the day: Every time God closes a door, he always opens a window."

Although Pastor Don Elrod did not specifically mention the stem-cell debate, he prayed for the president and asked God for guidance on thorny issues.

"Precious heavenly Father, when you call us, we don't always know where we are going," Mr. Elrod said. "We've become like aliens in a strange homeland that we know nothing about sometimes. Let us remember that we are your flock. And let us hear Jesus' voice saying, 'Don't be afraid.'"

--------

Dolly's doctors hit cloning of humans

August 13, 2001
By Alasdair Palmer
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010813-93476536.htm

LONDON -- The doctors responsible for cloning the sheep Dolly say they are outraged by scientists who plan to press ahead with attempts at human cloning, calling any such attempt intolerable.

Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian gynecologist, and Dr. Panayiotis Zavos, an American "andrologist," announced last week that they would start work on creating the first human clone "in the next 30 to 60 days."

They insisted that the first cloned human baby will be born next year.

But Ian Wilmut, the scientist who stunned the scientific world by leading the effort that produced Dolly, said in an interview: "To try cloning on humans today would be criminally irresponsible. The problems are far too serious."

Dr. Harry Griffin, another scientist at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland, where Dolly was created, dismissed reports that, five years after her birth, Dolly has aged prematurely, is weak, cannot walk properly and suffers from intestinal problems.

"None of that is true," he said. "The truth is that Dolly is physically a normal 5-year-old sheep. She's been pregnant three times and produced six healthy lambs, so no problems there."

But Dr. Griffin utterly rejected any suggestion that Dolly's good health meant the cloning of humans could go ahead safely. "There are dozens of problems," he said tersely.

To understand those problems, you first have to understand a little about "single nuclear transfer," the process by which Dolly was created and which Drs. Antinori and Zavos are proposing to use to clone people.

Cloning is possible because of the strange and surprising fact that each cell in the body has the capacity to make every other cell: It contains a copy of the complete set of instructions needed to build everything.

It used to be thought that once a cell had adopted a particular function -- once it had become part of the liver or the brain or the lining of the stomach -- it was impossible to "reprogram" it to build anything else. But Dolly proved that it could: She came from a single cell taken from the udder of a 6-year-old Finn Dorset ewe.

The seven steps to a clone are, in theory, relatively simple. First, you need an unfertilized egg -- a human one if a human is to be cloned, a sheep's egg if it is to be a Dolly. Second, you have to remove the DNA sequence -- that is to say, the set of genetic instructions for building every part of the adult organism -- from the nucleus of the egg. The Scottish doctors simply sucked it out with a pipette.

Third, you need another cell, to fuse with the egg. That cell could come from anywhere in the body of the human or animal to be cloned, because practically every cell contains the complete set of chemical instructions needed for creating that particular individual. Step four is the insertion of that single cell into the egg.

Step five requires the fusion of the new cell and the egg. This is the crucial step that "switches on" the cell's DNA -- the 30,000 to 40,000 genes which dictate the building of a new body -- and persuades it to start the manufacture of an embryo. The process normally requires the application of a small electrical current.

"That's what happened in the creation of Dolly," said Dr. Griffin. "It mimics the changes that happen when sperm fertilizes an egg."

The sixth step is to implant the egg, now flush with genetic material, into the womb of a sheep -- or woman. If that implantation is successful, the egg will divide and develop, so that after nine months, in the case of a human, step seven occurs: the birth of a clone.

While the theory is simple, there are practical problems and difficulties with every one of those steps. "There are dozens of unknowns with even sheep," said Dr. Griffin. "There are certainly going to be vastly more with humans."

To begin with, cloning has a success rate of about 1 percent or less.

"We had to implant 277 eggs to get one cloned sheep," said Dr. Griffin. "Other laboratories that have cloned mice and pigs report similarly high rates of failure.

"Now -- laying aside the serious ethical problems associated with treating human embryos in this way -- where are you going to get that number of human eggs to create them from? There simply isn't a surplus anywhere. I don't see how Drs. Antinori and Zavos could possibly legitimately get hold of the number of eggs they would need even to start."

Step two -- the removal of DNA material from an egg -- would not in itself be any more difficult with a human cell than it is with one from a sheep. The trouble is not with the technical manipulation, but with its effects -- no one knows what they are, except that they are almost certainly likely to be bad. The same is true of steps three to five.

The manipulation of the genetic material certainly has adverse effects on how accurately the cellular machinery works. Dolly may be in good shape, but she seems to be exceptional, more of a lucky fluke than anything else.

The majority of cloned animals have something wrong with them. They die in the womb, or soon after birth. Typical defects are malfunctioning lungs, a heart that doesn't work as it should, an imperfect immune system and abnormal size.

The scientists have theories about why so many clones seem to go wrong. One is that molecules attached to the genetic material which are important in ensuring that only some genes are "switched on" at any given location in the body (so that, for instance, your brain cells are in your head, rather than in your stomach), are scraped off or damaged when the cell to be cloned is manipulated by the experimenters. Manipulation by experimenters is inevitable, not just when DNA is removed from the egg, but also when the new cell is inserted into it.

The process disrupts development in other ways. Kevin Eggan, a professor at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that even when they look normal, many cloned animals have damaged or imperfectly copied genes, which, in people, could result in serious mental problems.

"Disruption of those genes in humans," he said, "could cause retardation, among other difficulties."

Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch, a colleague of Mr. Eggan's, cautioned that there are between 30,000 and 40,000 genes in the human genome.

"Any one of them is, in principle, a target for faulty programming in the cloning process. We have no idea how many are adversely affected by it, and there's no way at present to find out. Tiny copying errors can have horrible consequences."

--------

Australia rejects applications for secret GM crops

AUSTRALIA: August 13, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/11996

CANBERRA - The location of genetically modified (GM) crop trials in Australia will be published on the Internet after a regulator last week rejected applications to keep the sites secret from anti-GM activists.

Six organisations requested secrecy over the location of GM field trials, fearing disclosure could lead to sabotage by opponents and thus endanger the farmers involved.

But the country's gene technology regulator said none of the applications met conditions to justify not disclosing the sites.

"I could not, therefore, approve any of the applications submitted to me," acting gene technology regulator Liz Cain said in a statement.

Under an interim voluntary monitoring system, a total of 120 GM crop field trials, each with several sites around Australia, had previously been approved without their locations being disclosed.

But new laws, which came into effect in June, meant the location of GM experiments, dominantly run by Monsanto Co and Aventis, could be kept secret only if they were proven to be "commercial in confidence".

That means the organisations have to prove that disclosure would threaten their ability to make a profit.

Cain said the applicants were unable to prove their profits would be threatened, and also failed to show there would be damage to the environment, to human health and safety or to property if the crop locations were made known.

Concerns about secrecy surrounding GM crops have risen after breaches of voluntary guidelines on the containment of GM material in South Australia and Tasmania.

Australia commercially produces GM cotton but so far produces no commercial GM food crops. Aventis has 30 GM food trials underway and Monsanto about five, mainly of canola.

Other trials are being conducted on poppies, grapes, lupins and cotton by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and universities.

Cain said Monsanto, La Trobe University, the University of Queensland, Pacific Seeds, the University of Western Australia and GlaxoSmithKline, had filed applications for secrecy.

Monsanto spokesman Brian Arnst said the decision was disappointing and the company would lodge an appeal.

"We were acting for the growers who wanted confidentiality as many of them have concerns about perceptions in the community or stigma over growing GM crops," Arnst told Reuters.

"Some came back to us saying they would prefer to keep confidentiality because they were worried about trespassers on to their property."

Appeals against the decision can be lodged within 28 days, after which time details about the sites would be placed on the Internet.

-------- police / prisoners

Justice Department Probes FBI

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Investigation.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI is under the microscope, facing a barrage of investigations into everything from alleged threats against whistleblowers to lost weapons.

It's quite a switch for an agency that is used to doing the investigating and operates largely in secret. The scrutiny is coming from all directions. Congress, the Justice Department and outside experts are looking into a series of bungles that have dogged the FBI in recent years.

FBI officials say the bureau is cooperating fully with investigators.

``While it's a significant burden, FBI employees understand the need for this oversight and at the same time are fulfilling their law enforcement and national security responsibilities,'' said spokesman Mike Kortan.

The scrutiny and a steady stream of headlines extolling the latest blunder have taken a toll on morale, observers say.

``It's something very different from what they are accustomed to,'' said Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department official who investigated problems with the FBI laboratory. ``The spotlight is on the FBI.''

FBI officials were bracing for the release Monday of portions of a review highly critical of the bureau's handling of the Wen Ho Lee case.

Lee, who had worked on top-secret nuclear weapons programs since the 1970s, was indicted on 59 felony charges alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes. He spent nine months in solitary confinement, but all but one charge against him was eventually dropped.

At least six other investigations into the FBI under way. Officials confirmed last week that the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, an internal watchdog, is investigating allegations of retaliation against agents assigned to look into the bureau's handling of the 1992 standoff with white separatists in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

As part of the inquiry, Inspector General Glenn Fine is looking into allegations that senior FBI officials are immune from disciplinary measures and punishments imposed on lower-ranking agents.

The Senate Judiciary Committee also is scrutinizing an alleged double standard that protects top managers from punishment.

Lawmakers are especially interested in whether the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, which for years had primary responsibility for investigating wrongdoing at the bureau, helped foster a double standard.

Robert Mueller, the newly installed FBI director, said the bureau would admit its mistakes, correct them and hold agents and senior officials accountable under his leadership.

He'll inherit a dizzying array of inquries when he takes over Sept. 4.

The inspector general is also investigating:

--The FBI's performance in detecting and investigating Robert Hanssen, a veteran agent who has admitted spying for Russia

--Why the FBI failed to turn over documents to lawyers for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. That incident forced Attorney General John Ashcroft to postpone McVeigh's execution nearly a month.

--How the FBI keeps track of weapons, laptops and other equipment following the FBI's disclosure that hundreds of guns and computers are missing. One gun was used in a murder.

Not all of the inquiries have gone smoothly. Fine's investigators initially encountered problems obtaining documents from the FBI early in the Hanssen investigation, said sources familiar with the probe, speaking on condition of anonymity. They said the bureau now is cooperating.

Meanwhile, a commission headed by former CIA and FBI director William Webster is investigating the Hanssen matter and the Justice Department has hired consulting firm Arthur Andersen LLP to study the FBI's management structure.

All of these findings will be reviewed by a team of top Justice Department officials who are doing their own assessment of the FBI and will make recommendations to Ashcroft about how to best overhaul the bureau.

--------

Number of People in State Prisons Declines Slightly

New York Times
August 13, 2001
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/13/national/13PRIS.html

The number of inmates in state prisons fell in the second half of last year, the first such decline since the nation's prison boom began in 1972, says a Justice Department report released yesterday.

The decline was modest, a drop of 6,200 inmates in state prisons in the last six months of 2000, or 0.5 percent of the total, the report said. But it came after the number of state prisoners rose 500 percent over the last three decades, even growing each year in the 1990's as crime dropped. The total number of people incarcerated in state and federal prisons, local jails and juvenile detention centers was 2,071,686 at the end of 2000, the report said.

"I think it is a very significant development," said Alfred Blumstein, a professor of criminology at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the nation's most respected experts on prisons. "It is really the first change in direction in 30 years in the march towards incarceration."

Experts attributed the drop to several factors: the continuing decline in crime, which began in 1992; new attitudes about offering drug offenders treatment instead of locking them up; and a greater willingness by parole officers to help parolees instead of sending them back to prison for minor infractions.

"If this trend continues, it could be a real change in the most important vector that has been driving the American criminal justice system for 30 years," said Franklin Zimring, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley. It has been the explosive growth of prisons, more than efforts by the police, or changes in the law or tougher sentences by judges that has been "the most dominant characteristic of the American criminal justice system" in the last three decades, Professor Zimring said.

In 1972, he noted, after 50 years of stability in the incarceration rate, 200,000 Americans were in state and federal prisons. Now 1.3 million are.

Law enforcement officials and criminologists cautioned that the drop in the second half of 2000 was not long enough to make a trend. In fact, for all of 2000, counting state and federal prisons, the number of inmates actually grew 1.3 percent, the report said. But that is well below the average growth rate of 6 percent in the 1990's and the lowest rate of increase since 1972, the report said.

At the end of 2000, there were 1,236,476 people in state prisons and 145,416 federal prisoners.

What seems to be happening, said Allen J. Beck, the main author of the report, which was released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is that the rate of growth in prisoners has been slowing for several years and has now reached a point where it is stable. It is too early to tell whether the slowdown will continue and lead to a real decline in the number of inmates, Mr. Beck said.

He said he did not yet believe the number would drop substantially. Thirteen states experienced a decline in their number of prisoners for the full year, he said, led by Massachusetts, with a drop of 5.6 percent, New Jersey, down 5.4 percent, New York, down 3.7 percent, and Texas, down 3.2 percent. In each of these states, short-term factors accounted for the declines, like a drop in arrests or more lenient parole policies, Mr. Beck said.

But if the decline continues, it could benefit state budgets because prisons have been the fastest growing item of state spending over the last 20 years. In a number of states, including California, spending on prisons has depleted money for state colleges and universities.

In the last decade, states built prisons with 528,000 new beds, the report found. At an average cost of $50,000 per bed, building prisons cost the states $26.4 billion, Mr. Beck said. In addition, the annual operating costs for state and federal prisons now run about $30 billion, Mr. Beck said.

But a decline in the number of inmates could be bad news for private prison companies, whose stock prices depend on a steadily growing number of inmates, and for some prison guards unions, like the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. The association has been the biggest contributor to a number of California politicians and the most powerful force in the state pushing for tougher sentencing laws, like California's "three strikes and you're out" statute.

John Ferguson, the president and chief executive office of the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest for-profit prison company, said he had seen some "softness in demand" in Texas, or a decrease in the number of inmates. But Mr. Ferguson predicted that in the long term the private prison business would continue to flourish because the federal prison system was projected to continue to grow.

In addition, he said, some states like Alabama, which are keeping state prisoners in local jails, will have to move them to regular prisons, and some states with very old prisons will find it cheaper to replace them with privately run prisons.

The report also said that among the 1.3 million people in state and federal prisons there were 428,000 black men 20 through 29 years old, or 9.7 percent of the total black men in that age group. That compares with 2.9 percent of Hispanic men and 1.1 percent of non-Hispanic white men in that age group who were in prison.

The report said there were 44,000 whites in prison for murder, compared with 70,700 blacks, and 50,700 whites in prison for drug offenses, compared with 144,700 blacks; there are 33,800 whites in prison for robbery compared with 97,300 blacks. Blacks make up 12 percent of the United States population. The racial disparities are more pronounced than they appear in these figures, Professor Blumstein said.

The even greater over-representation of blacks in prison than the number being arrested for drug crimes is partly a result of the tougher sentences for crack cocaine than for powdered cocaine, Professor Blumstein said. Crack is more commonly dealt by blacks, and powdered cocaine is more commonly dealt by whites.

But the discrepancies also reflect differences in prior arrest records and some level of racism, he said.

The three states with the highest incarceration rates, the report found, were Louisiana, with 801 prisoners per 100,000 residents; Texas, with 730 inmates per 100,000; and Mississippi, with 688 inmates per 100,000. The states with the lowest incarceration rates were Minnesota, with 128 inmates per 100,000 residents; Maine, with 129 inmates per 100,000; and North Dakota, with 158 inmates per 100,000.

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Energy Misled FBI on Lee

August 13, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Wen-Ho-Lee.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI wasted four years investigating nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee because it failed to correct misleading information provided by the Energy Department, according to a report prepared for the government. The Energy Department's inquiry in 1996 ``was a deeply flawed product whose shortcomings went unrecognized and unaddressed due to the FBI's own inadequate investigation,'' said the report on China's acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets. It was prepared for the Justice Department by former federal prosecutor Randy Bellows. ``Had either the FBI or DOE done what it should have done, the FBI could have been investigating in the year 1996 what it is now investigating in the year 2000,'' said two heavily censored chapters of the report released Monday.

The information the Energy Department gave the FBI had been transformed by the department ``from a broad identification of potential suspects to a virtual indictment'' of Lee and his wife, said the report. A judge ordered the chapters released as part of a lawsuit by former Energy Department counterintelligence chief Notra Trulock.

Trulock contends two Energy Department investigators defamed him when they said the Taiwanese-born Lee was targeted because of his race. The report says he was not, but criticizes DOE for singling out Lee without considering other suspects. The FBI ``actively pursued corrective action to improve and enhance its counterintelligence program'' when it received the Bellows report, the bureau said in a statement.

The Energy Department said, ``this administration continues to strengthen our security procedures,'' adding that it will review the report in case other policy changes are necessary. ``The message communicated to the FBI was that the FBI need look no further within DOE for a suspect. Wen Ho Lee was its man,'' the report said. ``The FBI never should have accepted this message, as is.''

The Energy Department also misled the FBI by inaccurately representing the findings of a panel of nuclear scientists and weapons analysts assembled to assess whether China had breached U.S. weapons security. The Kindred Spirit Analytical Group (KSAG) concluded that there was a high probability that U.S. intelligence had helped China ``avoid blind alleys in their own research and development.'' ``What KSAG concluded, however, and what the FBI would be told these DOE experts concluded, were two different matters,'' the review states, and ``resulted in the FBI spending years investigating the wrong crime.''

DOE officials were reviewing the report Monday. Lee's attorneys were traveling and could not be reached. ``The abysmal handling of the initial phases of this case caused serious harm and delay in resolving fundamental questions about a grave compromise of our nuclear secrets,'' said Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has looked into several problems at the FBI, said the report ``shows what can happen when investigators focus too narrowly.''

Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert for the Federation of American Scientists, which has supported Lee, said the Energy Department's focus on Lee as a suspect may have allowed a real spy to slip away. ``They both did an exceptionally unprofessional job in handling this very serious problem,'' he said of the department and the FBI.

Lee, a former nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was held in solitary confinement for nine months and indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes. He was not charged with spying, and denied giving information to China. He eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading sensitive material.

The judge in the case said prosecutors misled him, and he apologized to Lee. Former President Clinton also said Lee's imprisonment ``just can't be justified.'' Lee has sued the government for allegedly leaking information to the media that made it appear he had spied.

On the Net: Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov FBI: http://www.fbi.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov Wen Ho Lee supporters: http://www.wenholee.org

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