------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Nuclear Plant to Be Sold to Entergy
Czechs support Temelin n-plant despite failures
Japan Marks WWII Surrender Amid Controversy
Lt. Gen. Discusses Missile Defense
'Hit - To - Kill' Technology Not Sure Thing
Miscommunication in Moscow
Why Russians Fear Missile Defense
NUCLEAR DISASTER IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN, OFFICIAL SAYS
Western Governors Attack N-Waste Risks

MILITARY
Macedonia Deployment Moves Forward
IRA training Colombian guerrillas
29 Puerto Rican Officers Arrested for Drugs and Corruption
Palestinian Militia Leader Ambushed and Killed
A New Israeli Show of Force, Near Bethlehem
Sharon calls off raid at Peres' urging
Macedonians Say They Meet Rules for NATO Troops
Pentagon Tries to Keep Its Airwaves
Pentagon OKs F - 22 Fighter Production
GAO: Army Chemical Sites Pose Risk
Small firms to supply berets
Region's Army Posts To Restrict Public Access

OTHER
E.P.A. Postpones Decision on Revising Pollution Rules
Researchers Discount a Caution in Debate Over Cloned Humans
30 Police Charged in Puerto Rico Drug Probe

ACTIVISTS
G - 8 Protest Energized Freed American
Iraqis Protest for Palestinians
CLIMATE ON-LINE: TAKE ACTION TO STOP THE NUCLEAR COME-BACK:



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- business

Nuclear Plant to Be Sold to Entergy

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Entergy-Nuclear-Plant.html?searchpv=aponline

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Entergy Corp. (news/quote) announced a deal to buy the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant for $180 million.

Vermont Yankee and Entergy said the cash deal includes $145 million for the plant and its assets and $35 million for its nuclear fuel.

The face value of the deal is worth nearly twice what AmerGen Energy Co. of Kennett Square, Pa., bid in February for Vermont's only nuclear reactor. That deal was rejected by Vermont regulators, who said the price was inadequate and questioned the long-term power purchase agreement it contained.

Vermont Yankee, owned by a consortium of New England Utilities, ended up abandoning that deal and put the plant, located in Vernon, up for sale through an auction, which Entergy won.

Officials said comparisons of the two deals were difficult because each included different offers for nuclear fuel and power purchase contracts, among other details.

If state and federal regulators approve the sale, Yankee would become the 10th nuclear plant owned by New Orleans-based Entergy, the fifth in the Northeast.

``We expect to realize significant operating efficiencies since Vermont Yankee is a sister plant to our Pilgrim plant in Plymouth, Mass., and our FitzPatrick plant in Oswego County, N.Y.,'' Wayne Leonard, Entergy's chief executive, said in a statement announcing the sale.

Entergy said it would keep Vermont Yankee's 450 employees on staff at their current salaries and with comparable benefits.

The plan calls for Entergy to continue operating the 540-megawatt Yankee plant through 2012, when its current operating license expires. It also requires Entergy to commit to selling electricity to Yankee's current utility owners at average annual prices ranging from $39 to $45 per megawatt hour through the life of the current license.

That would also commit those utilities to purchasing electricity from Yankee, although the sales contract provides an adjustment if wholesale power prices should fall significantly.

Entergy officials said they would be likely to seek to extend the Yankee license beyond 2012.

The deal still needs to be reviewed and approved by the Vermont Public Service Board, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other regulatory agencies. Entergy and Yankee said they expected the sale to be completed by next spring.

-------- czech republic

POLL - Czechs support Temelin n-plant despite failures

CZECH REPUBLIC: August 15, 2001
REUTERS


PRAGUE - Two thirds of Czechs support the launch of the highly controversial Soviet-designed nuclear power station Temelin, which has soured Czech relations with Austria and Germany, a poll showed this week.

The station, marred by a series of technical glitches, restarted the first of its planned two reactors on Sunday after three months of repairs.

A July poll by the CVVM agency showed that 69 percent of Czechs support full activation of the plant, a slight dip from 71 percent in October of last year. The ranks of the plant's opposers grew to 22 percent from 16 percent last year.

The controversial $2.5 billion station, about 60 km (40 miles) from the German and Austrian borders, has been a source of tension between the Czech Republic and its neighbours who say it does not conform to Western safety standards.

Anti-nuclear Austria has said Temelin may be an obstacle on the Czech Republic's path to join the European Union, and has been blocking progress on the energy chapter of the entry negotiations since last year.

Temelin has been equipped with a U.S.-made control system. Its operators say it is absolutely safe and would meet U.S. standards.

-------- japan

Japan Marks WWII Surrender Amid Controversy

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 15, 2001; 11:35 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14436-2001Aug15?language=printer

TOKYO, Aug. 15 - Fifty-six years after the fighting ended, Japan still wrestled today with history, as top government officials marked the anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender and critics charged that the country has not squarely faced its wartime past.

South Korea's president lashed out at the Japanese government, and protests continued to ripple throughout Asia over the visit Monday by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a shrine for the war dead. Even as Koizumi appealed today for understanding and spoke strongly for peace, his actions provoked scuffles and fistfights at the Yasukuni Shrine.

"How can we make friends with people who try to forget and ignore the many pains they inflicted on us," said South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, in biting words from a man who had led his country toward closer ties with Japan in the past three years.

"How can we deal with them with any degree of trust?" he demanded, speaking in Seoul on Korean "Liberation Day," marking the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

Koizumi responded later, appealing to meet with Kim and others to mend strained ties. He said he wanted to explain his actions to those who feel his visit to Yasukuni Shrine, the symbolic heart of Japan's nationalist right-wing, was an insult to the people who suffered in the last century under Japan's conquests in pursuit of a "Greater East Asia."

"We have a responsibility to not be isolated from the international society. We must maintain and develop friendly relations with our neighboring countries to build eternal peace in the world," said Koizumi, speaking earlier in the day at the official ceremony attended by the emperor and empress, top government officials and families of those killed in the war.

But Japan's Asian neighbors, who have long seethed at what they consider insufficient remorse on the part of the Japanese, mounted criticism of Koizumi's visit to the shrine.

Protesters in South Korea burned posters of the Japanese prime minister. North Korea called the visit a "criminal act." Diplomats in Seoul suggested they will challenge Japan at various international meetings to come, adding their voice to criticism from China, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Even as Koizumi spoke at the secular - and comparatively noncontroversial - formal ceremony today, the divisions caused by his Monday visit were being played out nearby at the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine, run by nationalist Shinto priests, honors all of Japan's war-dead since 1868, including 14 of the country's top convicted war criminals who were hanged or died in prison after World War II.

Five cabinet members paid visits to the shrine today, further fueling criticism from abroad that Koizumi's government is sympathetic to the political right-wing. On the shrine grounds, ringed by police, right-wing politicians and academics alternately praised Koizumi for his Monday visit and railed against him for backing away from his pledge to come to Yasukuni today, an emotion-laden anniversary throughout east Asia.

Some old veterans strutted through the grounds in pieces of their old military uniforms. Right-wing toughs, who flaunt their nebulous ties with the underworld, skirmished with police and with leftist and Korean demonstrators who dared to protest at Yasukuni. Several police and protesters were kicked and beaten, but there was no report of serious injuries.

Right-wing activists then spread out in Tokyo in their trademark black, curtained buses, nationalist music and slogans blaring from loudspeakers. Some shouted justifications for the war. One slogan on a bus read: "It was not a war of aggression."

Others who gathered at the Yasukuni Shrine said they rejected those politics and came only to honor loved ones or colleagues who had died in the war.

"I lost beloved soldiers," said So Takeya, 83, a captain at the end of the war. "Every country has its patriots. We have ours."

Those who were old enough to remember Japan's surrender in 1945 stood reflectively, heads bowed, as a tape recording was played of the Emperor Hirohito's speech on Aug. 15, 1945. The recording brought back the reedy - and until then, largely unheard - voice of the man revered as a deity, as he appealed to his defeated subjects to carry on "by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable."

Not far away, his son, the Emperor Akihito, demonstrated the more public, and pacifist, post-war role of the emperor in Japan. Speaking at the official government ceremony before a mound of commemorative flowers, Akihito expressed "deep sorrow" for those who died in the war.

"My sincere hope is the disaster of war will not be repeated again. With all the Japanese people, I express my heartfelt condolences to the people who died in the war or at the warfront, and pray for the best development for Japan and the peace of the world."

Precisely at noon, those at the Yasukuni Shrine stood for one minute of silence to honor Japan's 2.3 million military personnel and 800,000 civilians who died in the war, followed by the swelling notes of Japan's melancholy national anthem.

"We have clearly stated that Japan will never repeat what we did in the past," said Toyojiro Kato, 85, clutching fading old photos from the 10 years he spent on Japan's China front in the war. He had been brought back to the main island of Japan to prepare for "the final battle" against America when Japan surrendered.

"We now want peace," he said. "That message needs to be shared and repeated."

-------- missile defense

Lt. Gen. Discusses Missile Defense

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the Pentagon's missile defense programs said Wednesday he is not fully confident in the ``basic functionality'' of the anti-missile system that successfully intercepted a mock warhead in space last month.

That is why the next test of the system, scheduled for October, will be a replay of the July 14 test, with no additional complexities such as putting more decoys aboard the target missile, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told a group of reporters.

The anti-missile system he referred to is called a ground-based interceptor. It is designed to destroy an intercontinental-range ballistic missile during the mid-course of flight, before its warheads re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. It is one of several missile defense approaches the Pentagon is researching and, of those designed to hit long-range missiles, it is the most technically advanced.

Kadish said he was pleased with the July test, in which the interceptor, using what is called ``hit-to-kill'' technology, destroyed the target missile 144 miles above the Pacific Ocean by steering itself into the missile's path and colliding at a combined speed of 4.6 miles per second.

``It is still not totally comfortable for me to say that we can make the hit-to-kill technology work consistently, even in that simple scenario,'' Kadish said, adding later, ``We still need some more reliability in there.''

The intercept was the second in four tries. The first success, in 1999, was followed by two failures, the second of which led to former President Clinton's decision last summer not to go ahead with deployment of the system.

The Pentagon at some point will make the intercept tests more challenging, and Kadish had said immediately after the successful July test that the next one might include more decoys, which release from a missile's re-entry vehicle while traveling through space to try to fool the interceptor.

He said Wednesday that the additional complexities probably will not be included until 2002.

Kadish said he is not worried about the interceptor's ability to distinguish between a decoy and the real warhead.

``I am worried that we have the reliability we need in his system's basic functionality,'' he said.

He noted that the July test was the first to use an in-flight communications system aboard the interceptor, a technology which allows the interceptor to receive navigation data from ground-based radars.

``We need a little bit more comfort there,'' he said.

--------

'Hit - To - Kill' Technology Not Sure Thing - Pentagon

August 15, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-arms-usa-missiles.html?searchpv=reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the Pentagon's push to build a shield against ballistic missiles said on Wednesday he did not yet have complete confidence in the ``hit-to-kill'' technology that has destroyed two dummy warheads in four tests since 1999.

As a result, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said he planned to stick to virtually the same, one-decoy scenario for the next $100 million integrated flight test, due in mid- to late-October.

A prototype interceptor fired from Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands smashed a dummy warhead into pieces no bigger than six inches on July 14, the first hit for the U.S. missile defense program since October 1999.

``It is still not totally comfortable for me to say that we can make hit-to-kill technology work consistently ... even in that simple scenario,'' Kadish said at a breakfast with defense reporters.

Such technology -- akin to hitting a bullet with a bullet -- is the furthest along of those the United States is exploring to protect against incoming warheads, including lasers aboard modified Boeing (news/quote) 747 aircraft and sea-launched interceptors that Kadish said may be five to 10 years from being ready to shoot down missiles in their ``boost'' phase.

On the other hand, he said he was confident in the eventual ability to distinguish a true target from decoys of the type a foe likely would use to try to slip a missile possibly tipped with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons through any future U.S. defenses.

``We are working very hard to make this a layered defensive system against states of concern,'' he said. By adding possible sea-, aircraft- and space-based bulwarks to the defensive shield, the Bush administration was complicating the counter-measure problem greatly for its foes, he added.

Kadish said he expected to phase more realistic countermeasures, such as multiple decoys, into ``hit-to-kill'' tests as early as next year. In the past two tests, the 4.5-foot (1.4 meter), 120-pound (54 kg) ``kill vehicle'' distinguished the dummy warhead from a single 5.5-foot (1.7 meter) Mylar balloon decoy.

During much of the July 14 test over the Pacific, the target signaled its location to the interceptor with a beacon that the Pentagon described as necessary only to make up for the lack of an advanced ``X-band'' radar that the United States plans to build later.

``We don't like (relying on such a beacon) but that's the way it is'' until the X-band radar is up and running, Kadish said.

Boeing (BA.N) is the lead system integrator for the ground-based missile defense effort. TRW (TRW.N) builds the system's battle command, control and communications system. Raytheon (news/quote) (RTNa.N) builds the kill vehicle. Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) is the prime contractor on the current booster system.

The Pentagon has said it plans to carry out four more missile defense tests in fiscal 2002 starting with the one due in October. The U.S. testing plans and construction of a new test facility in Alaska would ``bump up against'' the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty within months, not years, the Bush administration has said.

The ABM Treaty was negotiated between the United States and the old Soviet Union to ban the kind of nationwide defenses against long-range missiles that President Bush wants to build. Such defenses were seen as destabilizing during the Cold War, inviting both sides to try to overwhelm the other. Russia wants to preserve the treaty. Bush says it is a ``relic'' that should be scrapped or amended.

Kadish told reporters that preparing Fort Greely, Alaska, as a new missile defense test site -- including clearing trees and leveling the ground -- may begin by the end of this month. Such initial work has been judged ``treaty-compliant'' by the United States, he said.

-------- russia

Miscommunication in Moscow

New York Times
August 15, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/15/opinion/15WED2.html?searchpv=nytToday

After all the bonhomie between George W. Bush and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, the frosty arms talks between American and Russian officials in Moscow this week were disappointing. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Mr. Putin seemed to speak past each other on the core issues. Mr. Putin sought specific numbers and timetables on American nuclear arms reductions and missile defense plans. Mr. Rumsfeld wanted to limit the conversation to vaguely defined consultations. It was just an opening dialogue, but it did not augur well for Mr. Bush's and Mr. Putin's declared plan to link talks on offensive and defensive weapons.

After the two presidents conferred in Genoa in June, it appeared that Washington would seek to win Russian agreement to loosening the restrictions of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty in exchange for significant reductions in both sides' offensive nuclear arsenals. That would allow both nations to enhance their security by eliminating unneeded cold- war weapons and by developing new missile defenses - without tossing out the ABM treaty, which has helped preserve the peace.

Mr. Rumsfeld came to Moscow with a different brief. He seemed interested in only the broadest consultations, devoid of details. If that is all Mr. Bush intends, he would be passing up an important opportunity to achieve his goal of helping both countries move beyond their cold-war relationship.

Even by the most optimistic technological assumptions, a reliable missile defense system is still years away, as are the threats it is meant to counter. Last month's successful interception of a dummy warhead was encouraging, but as additional details have been released, it has become clear that it was far from a realistic simulation of an enemy attack. A navigation beacon helped guide the interceptor rocket toward its target, only one decoy balloon accompanied the dummy warhead and the interceptor's "kill vehicle" was preprogrammed to distinguish the heat signature of the warhead from that of the decoy. An actual enemy missile would not make itself such an inviting target. By the Pentagon's own account, many technical problems must be solved before even a limited system can be built.

The Bush administration should be working to promote further offensive reductions, instead of threatening to withdraw from the ABM treaty and risk initiating a new nuclear arms race. Washington and Moscow are no longer military foes. But the risks of plutonium theft or accidental launch through a breakdown of Russia's crumbling command and control networks are a real and continuing threat to American security.

Washington needs to make a more serious effort to negotiate a deal with Moscow that links the future construction of missile defenses with immediate reductions in offensive missiles.

--------

Why Russians Fear Missile Defense

By Alexander Altounian
Wednesday, August 15, 2001; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12320-2001Aug14?language=printer

Why is Russia so afraid of national missile defense? At the meeting in Slovenia this past spring between presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader made it clear he still regards missile defense as a "threat" to Russia.

After the American delegation returned to Washington, Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, repeated that the United States would proceed with missile defense with or without Russia. The next day Putin told American correspondents that in that case, Russia would eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal by "mounting multiple warheads on our missiles" to ensure that it would be able to overwhelm such a shield. Just this week, Putin and other Russian officials told the visiting American defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that they were not interested in his proposals for a joint withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

As a Russian journalist I have a certain understanding of why my country reacts the way it does to missile defense. Russia is a nation that possesses nuclear weapons and is a member of the club of "untouchable" states. The mutual relations and behavior of members of this club are based on the presumption of mutual assured destruction in the case of a military conflict between two nuclear powers.

In recent years the United States and the international community have involved themselves in the internal conflicts of a number of different countries. But no one threatens to invade countries that possess nuclear arms -- obviously because of the possibility of nuclear retaliation.

If, however, one of the countries with nuclear weapons should succeed in constructing a reliable nuclear shield, then the traditional rule of mutual assured destruction would be broken. This country would be able to take a more aggressive stance toward the other members of the nuclear club -- which could include trying to "solve" their "internal" problems, and even using conventional weapons as an argument.

Many reasons against national missile defense have been expressed in the United States in recent months: It has a bad track record, is very costly and could destroy the ABM Treaty. Russia and others even threaten a new arms race if it is put into place. But why should Russia, which has no thought of threatening America with its nuclear arms, care if America wishes to protect itself? Has it any sound reason for being fearful? The answer is yes, it has.

In the past 10 years the United States has enjoyed the position of being the only remaining world power. During this time, the idea of an overseas invasion in order to protect human rights and defend U.S. interests has gradually become an acceptable and even commonplace understanding among the American political and security elite. Who, then, will decide whether Russian military atrocities in Chechnya threaten U.S. interests? Ultimately, it is the American president. For Russian generals and politicians, who still fear their old enemies and imagine many plots, there are plenty of reasons to be suspicious. Like China, Russia suffers from a number of conflicts, both internal (Chechnya) and external (in the case of Georgia). This is a country that is more than ready to use its army to handle not only its own people but its neighbors as well.

International involvement in the cases of Tibet (for China) and Chechnya (for Russia) has usually been limited to political notes and "tough" questions posed by Western leaders during overseas meetings. By contrast, with interventions in places such as Serbia, Somalia or Iraq, Western-initiated military involvement has become almost routine.

Until recently, no member of the nuclear club has had to fear an external invasion aimed at stopping violations of basic human rights. Successful future deployment of a national missile defense could change this reality.

The Russian government might reasonably expect that its "national interests" in new areas of influence -- new bases in Georgia, Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union -- could be limited by the threat of NATO intervention.

Given the emergence of this new reality, it is surprising to me that the Bush team, at least on the rhetorical level, does not even try to camouflage its ambitions. Thus, for example, in February, during the annual Munich conference on Security Policy, Rumsfeld insisted that no one with peaceful intentions should fear missile defense.

These sentiments may sound peaceful to some, but to Russian generals and politicians, they are deeply disturbing. Who, they wonder, will decide whether Russia's "intention" to conquer Chechnya is "peaceful?" Who is to consider the extent of the humanitarian abuses, whether they are "severe and large-scale" or only "mild and small-scale." The American president will be the one to decide. And in the event he decides large-scale abuse has taken place, what is the next step?

On May 1 President Bush cited the war with Iraq as an argument for national missile defense: The alliance that rolled back Iraqi aggression, he said, "would have faced a very different situation had Hussein been able to blackmail [us] with nuclear weapons." That's one reason, Bush said, why the United States should build a national missile defense.

The logic of the president's argument is clear: The United States needs missile defense so it will be free to enter into a possible conflict without fear of being threatened by nuclear retaliation.

This is exactly the situation both Russia and China fear: an invasion to defend the independence of Georgia, or Taiwan, or to stop a "genocide," or whatever else the American president might take as evidence of a lack of "peaceful intentions." This is why the Russians fear missile defense.

The writer is a senior lecturer in the journalism department of the University of the Russian Academy of Education. He is currently a research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

--------

NUCLEAR DISASTER IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN, OFFICIAL SAYS

From:ecodefense@online.ru
Tuesday, August 14, 2001 7:53 PM

PRESS-RELEASE
Moscow, August 15, 2001 (Wednesday)
For more information and copy of letter call: 2784642, 7766281
Vladimir Slivyak, ECODEFENSE!

Greens discloses the letter from Chelyabinsk governor to Russian prime minister on the threat of nuclear catastrophe

International environment group ECODEFENSE! disclosed today the letter to Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov written by the governor of Chelyabinsk region Petr Sumin, who said his region is on the threshold of new nuclear disaster. Chelyabinsk governor demanded immediate action to solve the problem of radioactive pollution in water.

This is consequence of the operation of "Mayak" nuclear reprocessing plant, which dumped its radioactive waste into rivers over last 40 years. Letter sent on July 10, 2001, it never appeared in mass-media.

"It is no doubt that such letter must be disclosed because it contains information on serious threat to millions of Russian citizens," said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of ECODEFENSE!, environmental group working to stop dangerous nuclear power projects in Russia. "There is one more important part in this letter. Instead of working to solve the problem of nuclear waste, governor Sumin wants to build another disastrous giant - South-Ural nuclear plant. Bringing situation to final absurd, Mr. Sumin says new nuclear plant will solve existing environmental problems".

The Sumin' letter says: "It becomes more and more dangerous to use the Techa river' cascade, serving to "Mayak" facility of Minatom (Ministry of atomic power). Open water reservoirs contains about 400 million cubic meter of radioactively contaminated water; level of this waters is about to become dangerous". Another part of letter says: ".. building of the South-Ural nuclear power plant allows to solve this problem effectively".

Presently, amount of high-level radioactive waste, such as spent nuclear fuel, accumulated at Russian nuclear plants estimated at 14,000 ton. Amount of medium- and low-level radioactive waste just can not be calculated across the country because it's large and not all of locations are known. Instead of working to get rid of 400 million c/m of radioactive waste, Chelyabinsk authority proposes the plan that will increase the amount of nuclear waste in the region as a result of new nuclear plant operation.

Earlier in 2001 federal government decided to open the national border for foreign spent nuclear fuel to be stored or reprocessed in Russia. "Mayak" is the only reprocessing facility operating in Russia, its reprocessing line was started in 1970s. Capacity of the plant is 400 ton per year, but through 1990s plant was reprocessing no more than 150 ton of spent nuclear fuel annually. According to the plant source, it needs modernization that costs about $ 600 million. Large territory near "Mayak" facility is still contaminated as a result of 1957 accident which comparable to Chernobyl. On September 29, 1957, the tank containing radioactive waste exploded, releasing several millions of Ci of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Thousands of people were resettled, thousands of square kilometers were polluted. There is special federal program to rehabilitate this territory exist in Russian budget, but it's not clear what kind of programs implemented in its framework.

"Mayak" must be shut down as soon as possible; just nothing can be compared to this facility by the level of danger it presents. Amount of radioactive waste stored at "Mayak" is equal to 8 Chernobyl releases", said Vladimir Slivyak. "More it operates - more plutonium will be generated out of spent fuel reprocessing. Russia doesn't need this plutonium, it already have more than enough, so it's unlikely that this material will ever be properly watched and protected".

-------- us nuc waste

Western Governors Attack N-Waste Risks

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
BY JUDY FAHYS
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/08152001/utah/122785.htm

Western governors, fearful that spent-fuel shipments will attract terrorists or sabotage, have asked the federal government to update its studies on the risks of transporting nuclear waste.

Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn persuaded other members of the Western Governors Association to back their nuclear waste resolution on Tuesday, the final day of the association's annual meeting, held this year in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

The resolution thrust the governors into the contentious national debate about nuclear power. While nuclear-power advocates are pushing to stow the nation's nuclear wastes in facilities proposed for Utah and Nevada, the two states have tried to highlight the risks involved in hauling lethally dangerous waste past the homes of about 50 million Americans on its way to national storage and disposal sites.

A consortium of eight utilities is seeking a federal license to store spent nuclear fuel at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City in Tooele County. The site would be a parking lot for waste en route to a permanent disposal facility, presumably at Yucca Mountain, Nev., about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.

Industry and many federal energy policy-makers support the sites as a way to deal with nuclear waste and to expand the nuclear-power industry.

The governors' resolution is, in effect, only a suggestion because the governors' group does not have any legal authority. Still, it will be sent to some of Washington's most influential policy-makers, the secretaries of Energy and Transportation, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The governors' group pointed out that a contractor report prepared in the 1970s estimated a spent fuel shipment sabotaged in an urban area "could result in hundreds of early fatalities and thousands of latent cancer fatalities, and economic losses in the billions."

They also said current analyses fall short because they do not account for modern weaponry nor radiation releases that might result from a terrorist attack.

"The NRC should conduct a comprehensive assessment of the consequences of attacks that have the potential for radiological sabotage," the resolution says, "including attacks against transportation infrastructure used by nuclear waste shipments, attacks involving capture of a nuclear waste shipment and use of high-energy explosives against the cask, and direct attacks upon a nuclear waste shipping cask using anti-tank missiles."

fahys@sltrib.com


-------- MILITARY

-------- balkans

Macedonia Deployment Moves Forward

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Macedonia.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- NATO leaders presented a proposal to their national governments for the partial deployment of a 3,500-member military mission to Macedonia, moving forward Wednesday with a plan the alliance hopes will pave the way for peace in the Balkan nation.

The alliance's ruling council set a 6 p.m. (noon EDT) deadline for any of NATO's 19-member governments to object to the plan. If they do not, the council will authorize deployment of the mission's headquarters, communications and other essential support elements -- about 400 personnel.

Macedonia's government, meanwhile, on Wednesday formally approved the deployment of NATO troops, and President Boris Trajkovski asked parliament to amend the constitution to give the ethnic Albanian minority more rights in line with a peace accord signed Monday.

``The Macedonian government today made the decision to give permission to NATO to deploy,'' Foreign Minister Ilinka Mitreva said.

Macedonian lawmakers will ratify the amendments three days after NATO informs the government that the rebels have been disarmed, state television reported.

The 3,500-strong British-led force would collect and destroy arms and ammunition held by the rebels. The 30-day mission, dubbed Operation Essential Harvest, would include troops from the United States and 11 European nations.

The exact number of American troops has not been determined, officials at the Pentagon said. But they will be mostly support units and will be drawn largely from forces already in the area, in Kosovo and Bosnia.

NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur said a decision to deploy partially does not imply a similar later decision on deployment of the entire task force. That decision will only be made after NATO determines that there is a durable cease-fire.

``We are in a very active dynamic,'' Brodeur said. ``Things are moving quickly. It's been very positive since the signature of the agreement. Lots of things have happened and we are encouraged by what has happened so far.''

If the council approves the partial deployment, another meeting will be held later this week or possibly on Monday to discuss full deployment.

Once the mission is approved and a permanent-cease fire is established, the deployment will last about 10 days, said Maj. Gen. Gunnar Lange of Denmark, a senior NATO representative in Skopje. ``We will have preliminary training and we will establish (weapon) collection points. Within 30 days, we expect to complete the mission.''

NATO set four conditions for sending to troops: a political agreement between the parties, a NATO-Macedonia agreement setting out the legal basis for the deployment, an agreement with the rebels for turning in weapons, and a cease-fire.

The first three have been fulfilled. Despite the signing of the peace agreement on Monday, however, sporadic violence has continued.

The Macedonian Defense Ministry said Wednesday there was fighting overnight between the insurgents and government forces in the second-largest city of Tetovo and surrounding villages.

The ministry said ethnic Albanian rebels attacked Macedonian security forces deployed near the city's soccer stadium, and around Sara Mountain and other villages near Tetovo and in the Kumanovo area, north of Skopje. Government forces returned fire. There was no word on casualties.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson had been pressing the ambassadors to move quickly to keep up the momentum of the political agreement.

Once NATO gives the activation order, the first elements can be on their way almost immediately.

The British, who will lead the Macedonia mission, say the headquarters group could start deploying over the weekend.

The initial deployment is expected to be drawn from Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade.

The complete deployment of troops from Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the United States, would take about two weeks, though the first weapons collection could begin earlier.

NATO officials insist that this is a very narrowly defined mission and will involve collecting weapons being turned in voluntarily. It is not a mission to disarm the Albanians.

Monday's peace deal, which came after six months of bloody conflict, gives ethnic Albanians a larger share of power in the police, parliament and education.

On Tuesday, NATO reached deals with the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanians on the deployment of alliance soldiers and the disarming of rebels in this impoverished country.

The rebels officially declared they intend to hand in about 2,000 weapons, a figure NATO is trying to persuade the Macedonian government to accept.

NATO and ethnic Albanian officials said the insurgents pledged to hand in their weapons to the British-led force.

-------- colombia

IRA training Colombian guerrillas

August 15, 2001
By Steve Salisbury
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010815-738753.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The Colombian government has arrested three Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas accused of training Marxist rebels how to build sophisticated bombs to target cities.

The accusations, leveled Monday following the weekend arrests in Bogota, prompted fears of a turn to urban terrorism by Colombia's largest insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Colombian authorities said the three guerrillas had spent five weeks in the 16,000-square-mile truce zone that the government ceded to the FARC as a peace gesture.

Defense Minister Gustavo Bell, in announcing the arrests on Monday, also said the presence of the IRA in the truce zone proves that the FARC has turned the zone into a sanctuary for international terrorism.

The charges against the suspects, identified by Colombian authorities as Martin John McCalley, William Monaghan and David Bracken, mark the latest blow to President Andres Pastrana's efforts to negotiate an end to the hemisphere's oldest Marxist insurgency.

In the 21/2 years since Mr. Pastrana gave rebels control of the truce zone, efforts to engage the FARC in peace talks have proved to be dismal failures.

The first two IRA guerrillas were positively identified, but Bracken appears to be an alias used by the most senior member of the group and the only one who speaks Spanish.

"What is important to note is that we have information evidently showing that FARC clandestine urban milicianos went to the Distension Zone to receive training from these Irish individuals," said one Colombian official.

On June 30 and July 1, the IRA suspects entered Colombia by different travel routes from Europe, said intelligence officials who offered additional details:

After making contacts with FARC urban guerrillas, known as milicianos, the suspects traveled to San Vicente del Caguan, the main city in the FARC-controlled truce zone, where they remained until Saturday.

The suspects were spotted giving explosives training to the FARC in two different training sites, one near the village of La Macarena and one near San Vicente del Caguan.

One of the primary missions of the suspects was to help the FARC improve its use of explosives and the accuracy of their mortars.

FARC mortars typically consist of propane gas cylinder tubes modified to fire smaller propane gas cylinders filled with explosives a system pioneered by the IRA two decades ago.

The suspected IRA instructors taught FARC artillery support squads how to adjust mixtures of charges to maximize the weapons' accuracy and lethal effect.

Earlier this summer, the FARC's military commander, who uses the name Mono Jojoy, publicly vowed to increase guerrilla attacks in cities.

Shortly afterward, Colombian military intelligence detected FARC attempting to find tactical specialists from other international terrorist groups, including the IRA.

Colombian intelligence sources said people of other nationalities, including Libyans and Palestinians, have been spotted in the Distension Zone helping the FARC in military training.

In return for IRA help, officials said, the FARC could be providing the IRA with anything from drugs to money to black-market arms.

Officials said tests on the clothing of the three turned up traces of four different kinds of explosives, as well as cocaine and amphetamines.

FARC rebels are involved in cocaine production in Colombia, which earns them hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

-------- drug war

29 Puerto Rican Officers Arrested for Drugs and Corruption

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Puerto-Rico-Police-Drugs.html

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Officials arrested 29 Puerto Rican police officers on federal drug charges following a 14-month corruption investigation.

``The indicted officers offered protection to undercover agents seeking help in moving drug shipments,'' said Marlene Hunter, the FBI agent in charge of Puerto Rico, said Tuesday.

Twenty-eight of the officers were charged with conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine and with carrying firearms while committing a drug offense, Hunter said. The other officer was indicted on the conspiracy charges. Three civilians were also accused of conspiracy.

The police officers -- including some from elite anti-drug squads -- were from police departments in the capital of San Juan, the central city of Caguas and east-coast Fajardo and Humacao.

Hunter said the officers typically assisted in alleged drug drop-offs while carrying service handguns, wearing uniforms and agreeing to help the vehicles avoid searches.

All the suspected officers were suspended from their jobs, said Police Superintendent Pierre Vivoni. They are being held in a federal detention center in suburban San Juan awaiting bail hearings.

If convicted, the 32 suspects face sentences of up to life imprisonment and up to $4 million in fines, Hunter said.

-------- israel

Palestinian Militia Leader Ambushed and Killed

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- Israeli undercover troops shot to death a Palestinian militia leader in an ambush in Hebron on Wednesday, hours after Israeli paratroopers took positions at the entrance of another West Bank town in a warning to Palestinian gunmen.

The militia leader, Emad Abu Sneineh, 25, was killed by a burst of fire as he got out of a car near his home, said Nabil Abu Sneineh, a relative. The shots were fired by undercover troops from a parked blue-and-white truck, which then drove into the Israeli-controlled sector of the city, the witness said.

Israeli security officials would not comment by name, but said privately that Abu Sneineh was killed by elite Israeli forces because he had been heavily involved in shooting attacks on Israelis in Hebron since the start of Israeli-Palestinian fighting 10 months ago. Israeli troops made no attempt to arrest him, the officials said.

Abu Sneineh was a local leader of Tanzim, a militia linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. There were intermittent exchanges of fire between Tanzim gunmen and Israeli troops in Hebron in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, but it was not immediately known whether Abu Sneineh had participated.

Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Abu Sneineh ``had a lot of blood on his hands,'' but would not comment on Israel's role.

In recent months, Israel has killed more than 50 Palestinians, most suspected militants, in targeted attacks. Israel has said that killing the militants was often the only way to stop attacks on Israelis.

The Palestinian Authority said Israel engaged in terrorism, and that such killings ``shut the doors to possible political solutions.'' Cabinet Minister Nabil Amr said the Palestinians want the U.N. Security Council to debate the latest Israeli actions.

The targeted killings have been widely condemned, including by the United States, Israel's leading ally.

Sharon's office, meanwhile, announced that Israel has arrested several members of the militant Islamic Jihad group on suspicion they were planning to carry out a major suicide bombing near the Israeli port city of Haifa.

The suspects, residents of the West Bank town of Jenin, told investigators they had hidden a bomb in Israel. Sharon's office said Israeli agents found and defused the explosives.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber from the Jenin area blew himself up in a cafe near Haifa, injuring 20 Israelis. In response, Israeli tanks entered Jenin on Tuesday in the first raid of a Palestinian town since West Bank population centers were handed to Palestinian control in 1995. Israel has said it wanted to pressure the Palestinian Authority to arrest militants before they could strike.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker called Israel's incursion ``provocative.'' President Bush said he was worried violence would escalate. Arafat ``must clamp down on the suicide bombers,'' Bush said Tuesday, ``and the Israelis must show restraint.''

Tuesday evening, Israeli troops and armored personnel carriers took position at the entrance to the West Bank town of Beit Jalla, following a heavy exchange of fire between Palestinian gunmen and soldiers protecting nearby Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed to Jerusalem.

Israeli troops stopped short of entering Beit Jalla. It was not clear whether Israel had intended to enter the town, and the incursion was aborted at the last minute, or whether the troop buildup was intended as a warning from the start.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he did not act under pressure from the United States or Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres when he decided to hold off on immediate retaliation for the shooting attacks on Gilo.

``I decided to give a chance to the quiet that was promised by the other side,'' Ben-Eliezer said. ``Information reached me that Yasser Arafat is making every effort to stop it (the shooting), and it stopped.''

Sharon met with the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, David Satterfield, on Tuesday evening and told him Israel would no longer tolerate shooting attacks on Gilo, Israeli officials said.

Earlier in the day, Sharon had warned that if violence continues, ``the Palestinians will lose additional assets, and they have something to lose.''

--------

A New Israeli Show of Force, Near Bethlehem

New York Times
August 15, 2001
By CLYDE HABERMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/15/international/middleeast/15ISRA.html

JERUSALEM, Wednesday, Aug. 15 - Israeli tanks took up positions near the outskirts of Bethlehem and adjoining towns early today, seemingly poised to enter Palestinian- ruled areas of the West Bank for a second straight day.

For three hours before dawn on Tuesday, the Israeli Army lunged far into the Palestinian-controlled city of Jenin in a show of force after a series of terrorist attacks inside Israel. The army then withdrew.

This new tactic seemed about to be used again this morning in the Bethlehem area in an Israeli effort to stop Palestinian gunmen from firing at the Gilo neighborhood on Jerusalem's southern edge.

Anticipating an assault similar to the one in Jenin, Palestinian police officers evacuated their posts on Tuesday. But several hours after being mobilized, the Israeli forces stopped short of going into Bethlehem or the nearby towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahur, all under Palestinian control. They did, however, move into, and impose curfews on, at least three Palestinian villages that remain under Israeli security control as part of agreements reached in the mid-1990's.

Those agreements divided the West Bank into various types of zones: areas fully under Palestinian authority, areas under complete Israeli authority and areas where the Palestinians have civil rule but Israel retains military control.

Presumably any Israeli effort to enter Bethlehem would have strong reverberations, not only because of its political status but also because of its significance as the place where tradition said that Jesus was born.

Nonetheless, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has begun taking a sterner stand in the conflict with the Palestinians that began last September. In particular, he warned on Tuesday that the shooting at Gilo from neighboring Beit Jala had to stop.

"If the violence continues, the Palestinians will lose more assets, and they have something to lose," Mr. Sharon said.

Exchanges of gunfire have become almost routine between Beit Jala and Gilo, which lies on land that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War. To Palestinians, it is part of the West Bank, even though Israel considers it just another neighborhood.

The shooting grew intense on Tuesday after the Israeli Army's thrust into Jenin, with the crackle of gunfire echoing across Jerusalem. The situation prompted Mayor Ehud Olmert of Jerusalem to say that Jenin was an example of how the army should deal with Beit Jala. "There must be a massive land action that will straighten out all that is going on in the area," Mr. Olmert said.

"We have reached a point where we can't continue this way," he said. "I think the government realizes this. I think the government's response in Jenin last night is a hint of a change in the pattern."

Violence continued elsewhere, too. Palestinian gunmen were said to have lightly wounded an Israeli woman and a 2-year-old girl as they drove near Hebron in the West Bank. In Bethlehem, three Palestinians were reportedly wounded in gun battles with Israeli soldiers.

--------

Sharon calls off raid at Peres' urging

August 16, 2001
By Abraham Rabinovich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010816-80805889.htm

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon aborted a military attack on a village near Bethlehem early yesterday following public remarks by President Bush and a last-minute appeal from Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, according to Israeli radio.

It marks the second time this week that Mr. Sharon has moderated his policies under pressure from Mr. Peres, who has hinted he is close to pulling his Labor Party out of the governing national unity coalition.

In a new attack, however, Israeli undercover troops fatally shot a Palestinian militia leader in an ambush in Hebron. Israel has assassinated more than 50 Palestinians in recent months, but usually with rockets or remote-controlled devices.

Israel sent troops and armored vehicles into five villages between Jerusalem and Bethlehem after midnight yesterday after Palestinian gunmen had fired for five hours at the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo in Jerusalem from the adjacent Palestinian village of Bait Jalla.

But what began like a repeat of the previous night's attack on Palestinian Authority buildings in the town of Jenin ended abruptly when the forces withdrew from the villages less than half an hour after entering them.

Israeli radio said Mr. Sharon had called off the operation because of a last-minute request by Mr. Peres, who earlier in the week prevailed on the prime minister to allow him to reopen cease-fire talks with the Palestinians.

Agence France-Presse quoted a senior political leader saying plans to attack Beit Jalla were aborted after the United States condemned the previous night's raid in Jenin as "provocative."

Israeli radio said Mr. Peres invoked the American criticism in arguing that an incursion would be politically damaging.

Sharon aides said that there had been no direct American request to refrain from military action and that Israeli troops were still prepared to enter Bait Jalla if the Palestinians resumed firing on Gilo.

Mr. Sharon, addressing a conference of police officers in Jerusalem earlier on Tuesday, had pledged that the firing on Gilo "will not continue."

During the day, Israeli troops took over three buildings at the edge of Bait Jalla, a step that seemed to presage a broader operation. Security sources said plans had been drawn up during the day for sending ground forces into Bait Jalla but that "it was decided to give the Palestinian Authority another chance to calm things down."

Mr. Bush on Tuesday had called for an end to the cycle of violence. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "must clamp down on the suicide bombers and the Israelis must show restraint," he said.

Commenting on the situation for the third successive day yesterday, Mr. Bush again called for restraint on both sides.

"The parties must make up their mind that peace is preferable to war," he said in Albuquerque, N.M. "Mr. Arafat must do everything in his power to discourage the suicide bombings and the Israelis must be restrained in their response."

Mr. Peres, meanwhile, has been urging Mr. Sharon to drop his insistence that all violence must end before there can be substantive talks with the Palestinians.

Political analyst Hanan Kristal was quoted earlier in the week saying Mr. Sharon had agreed to permit new talks on the limited issue of a cease-fire only after becoming convinced that Mr. Peres would pull his party out of the coalition.

The Palestinian militia leader slain yesterday was Emad Abu Sneineh, 25, who died in a burst of gunfire as he got out of a car near his home. Nabil Abu Sneineh, a relative, told the Associated Press that the shots were fired by undercover troops from a parked blue-and-white truck, which then drove into the Israeli-controlled sector of the city.

Israeli security officials would not comment by name but privately told AP that Mr. Sneineh was killed by elite Israeli forces because he had been heavily involved in shooting attacks on Israelis in Hebron. Mr. Sneineh was a local leader of Tanzim, a militia linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

-------- nato

Macedonians Say They Meet Rules for NATO Troops

New York Times
August 15, 2001
By IAN FISHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/15/international/europe/15MACE.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia, Aug. 14 - The combatants in Macedonia agreed today to meet two of the major conditions for deploying 3,500 NATO troops, putting pressure on the alliance's leaders to act quickly so that the war here will not escalate further.

Today, the ethnic Albanian guerrillas who have been battling government soldiers for six months agreed formally to disarm under NATO supervision. And quietly, the Macedonian government agreed to extend the promise of an amnesty for the fighters, a top government official said tonight.

These were two top conditions set by the NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson, for sending troops here on a limited mission to collect weapons and, in theory, to end this war in its early days.

The alliance's directing body, the North Atlantic Council, is scheduled to meet on Wednesday and could approve, as early as then, sending in the soldiers, to be headed by the British military.

On Monday, when the parties signed a peace agreement under heavy Western pressure, it was not clear whether any conditions could be met in days, weeks or longer. But tonight the official said the government had already completed what NATO wanted.

"All preconditions are met," he said, "and we are waiting for the deployment of troops in Macedonia."

NATO officials must still determine if the cease-fire is being observed, and tonight the government reported what it said were 24 violations on the side of the rebels. The fighting was described as relatively contained.

The alliance is also putting itself under heavy pressure to act, particularly in light of the swift escalation of violence in the days leading up to the formal signing of the peace pact.

The extent of the fighting - as well as the dangers of months or years of more war - was clear today in a village just north of the capital, Ljuboten, where today the bodies of five ethnic Albanian men lay unburied.

Villagers said that the men - not wearing uniforms, all with bullet wounds in their back - were five of seven civilians whom Macedonian soldiers gunned down there on Sunday afternoon.

Tension in the village was already high because, on Friday, eight Macedonian soldiers were killed near Ljuboten by anti-tank mines. On Sunday, after two days of heavy shelling, villagers say the soldiers went on a rampage, burning at least three houses, several cows, barns and tractors, arresting young men in large numbers and threatening to kill people simply because they were ethnic Albanians.

"They said, `We're going to kill you all,' " Qani Jashari, 65, said as he stood over the body of one of two sons killed on Sunday. "They said, `As long as there are Albanians here, we're going to kill them.' "

Villagers said that two of the dead men, including a 70-year-old, were shot after being dragged from the cellars where they were hiding from the shelling. The three others, they said, were shot as they ran away from soldiers burning the house where they were hiding.

Government officials denied that the men were civilians, saying that in a guerrilla war fighters often hide in regular clothing. These five men, one official said, had been armed and killed when they came into the village from nearby hills.

The government's spokesman, Antonio Milososki, said the accusations were the work of foreign groups who he said had sided with the ethnic Albanians.

"This is one more trap for Macedonia's democratically elected government, to be accused about the repression of the poor Albanians who are fighting for human rights," he said. "There is no other way to find a justification for the rebel movement."

This is the first time, in six months of low-level warfare, that Macedonian forces had been accused of shooting civilians, and a rise in civilian deaths has been a major fear of human rights groups.

NATO officials have argued that they need to deploy quickly in part to avoid a spiral of civilian casualties as happened in the two other Balkan wars, in Bosnia and in Kosovo. So far the overall deaths have been comparatively low, about 130 reported dead, and most of them combatants.

When NATO approves final plans for this mission, the force will include troops from Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the United States.

On Monday, the leaders of the ethnic Albanians, who make up as much as one-third of the population, and the majority Slavic Macedonians signed a broad peace deal aimed at granting greater rights to Albanians.

The deal would, in theory, remove the root causes of the war and usher in NATO. But a raft of procedural issues still needed to be overcome, no simple matter in a nation as divided as Macedonia, with a government that is itself split into more moderate and hawkish camps.

The deal would allow Albanians greater participation in several ways. It would make Albanian an "official" language in areas where Albanians make up more than 20 percent of the local population.

By 2003, 1,000 Albanians would join the national police force of 6,000 officers, now almost entirely Macedonian. The pact would also devolve power to localities and remove from the Constitution most references to Macedonians as the principle ethnic component of the state. Today, NATO negotiators secured the formal agreement of the rebels, known as the National Liberation Army, to disarm. Perhaps more significant was the amnesty, offered without publicity by President Boris Trajkovski to the rebel leader, Ali Ahmeti, who signed his acceptance today, the government official said. The offer was on behalf of the entire government, the official said.

An amnesty is important because without it, rebels would not have an incentive to give up their arms.

In the hurry to get NATO troops on the ground, the conditions for deployment appear to be shifting slightly. Initially, officials here said an amnesty would have to be formally approved before troops would arrive.

Now, it turns out that Parliament, not the president alone, must approve the amnesty, and NATO officials say they do not have the time to wait for the several weeks that would take. The offer today implies that the president and the rest of the government pledge to get the amnesty deal passed in Parliament, the official said, and in turn the guerrillas would begin to disarm before then.

In general, the amnesty, and the entire peace plan, depend on the approval of Parliament, and many Slavic Macedonian members have voiced strong public opinions against making peace with the guerrillas.

Another possible wild card is a group calling itself the Albanian National Army, which claims that it was responsible for an ambush last week in which 10 Macedonian soldiers were killed.

Many experts question the existence of the group, saying that it may be members of the N.L.A. going by a different name to deflect responsibility for the attack and to make its leaders look more moderate.

But today the group issued a communique saying that it did not recognize the peace agreement and would go on fighting for all Albanians in southern Europe who live in Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Greece to be united in one state.

"The Albanian National Army will be the guide for the war of national liberation," the statement said.

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

Pentagon Tries to Keep Its Airwaves

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Airwaves-Adversaries.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is facing a homegrown adversary: a communications industry that wants a slice of the military's airwaves for new products for gadget-happy consumers.

Parents want to keep tabs on children by cell phone. People want their e-mail wherever they go. Wayward drivers want satellite-linked maps to find their way home.

Those don't sound like military problems, but the products need airwaves. And the Pentagon is having to play defense to hang on to a piece of the sky coveted by the communications industry, even as its own spectrum needs keep growing.

``In Kosovo, we had one-tenth the number of people that we did in the Gulf War, and we used 100 times the bandwidth,'' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a House committee.

Airwaves are crucial in the latest high-tech war scenarios, which rely on machines over manpower to win battles with few casualties. The Pentagon uses the airwaves to communicate with more than $100 billion worth of defense and intelligence satellites and to guide precision weapons to their targets, among other things. Airwaves also would be key to a planned missile defense system.

But the wireless industry has its eye on the same bandwidth, and the industry and its supporters in Washington say the Pentagon should sell access.

Only then, they argue, can the new generation of mobile communications come fully into its own, bringing ``the Internet as we know it today to your nearest wireless device,'' in the words of Travis Larson of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.

But there is plenty of resistance to the idea of sharing the Defense Department's bandwidth.

``The explosion of wireless technologies threatens to push military equipment off prime radio frequencies just as we're spending billions to link our forces on the digital battlefield,'' says Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the Government Reform Committee.

Defense officials say that sharing the space would create interference. Also that it would take a decade or longer and cost billions to send up new satellites and otherwise accommodate mobile consumer communications.

Former President Clinton directed federal agencies in October to determine whether existing government and commercial users could be relocated from their current frequencies to take care of the new wireless needs.

No decisions have been reached, partly because of Pentagon resistance.

And a congressionally set September 2002 deadline for an auction of new bandwidth licenses for wireless services might be delayed. The Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department -- which oversee commercial and federal use of the airwaves, respectively -- missed a July deadline for determining where the space will come from.

Meanwhile, an international organization is working to designate the same slices of airwaves around the globe for wireless services, enabling people to travel anywhere and get the same services they have at home. One band the group has selected for that purpose is the 1755-1850 MHz range.

The Pentagon is the primary occupant of those airwaves in the United States and wants to stay there, maintaining its uplinks for more than 120 satellites. Moving all defense systems out would take until 2017, officials say.

Larson, of the wireless trade group, contends the Pentagon could make lots of money if it sold some bandwidth, noting that the sale of a much smaller spectrum this year earned $17 billion.

But U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Robert M. Nutwell expressed skepticism about ``win-win scenarios,'' predicting lawmakers would divert any such earnings to nonmilitary uses.

And there's still the question of where the military would go.

Not all bandwidths are created equal. The under-3 gigahertz spectrum range, where the military is now located, is jam-packed because it is so useful, allowing mobile communications to penetrate foliage and buildings, Nutwell said.

At higher ranges, communications can require more power, transmissions may have to be outdoors and signals may even be foiled by rain, he said.

--------

Pentagon OKs F - 22 Fighter Production

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Air-Force-Fighter.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon said Wednesday it has given the Air Force the go-ahead to begin the first production run of F-22 Raptors, the stealth fighter meant to replace the F-15.

The decision, which had been in doubt for months, includes an Air Force pledge to put an additional $5.4 billion into the program, reflecting projected cost increases, Defense Department officials said.

The total F-22 program cost is about $60 billion.

The Air Force had planned to build 339 of the planes, including several test aircraft, but under a revised plan it will build 295 unless it can show during the initial phase of production that the per-plane cost is lower than the Pentagon's estimate. If the production costs are lower, then the Air Force may be allowed to build more than 295.

Officials did not explain the exact per-plane cost estimates.

The Pentagon decision is for what it calls ``low-rate initial production,'' starting with 10 aircraft for $2.1 billion that already is in the 2001 budget, and then 13 more to be financed in next year's budget.

In all, about 90 aircraft would be built in the initial production phase, said Pete Aldridge, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology. Thereafter, full-rate production would begin.

The plane's builder, Lockheed Martin Corp., has built seven F-22s for test purposes. Five are undergoing flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and one is at Lockheed's plant at Marietta, Ga. The seventh has been retired. Three more test aircraft are to be delivered to the Air Force by the end of the year.

The decision to go ahead with the initial production run was made by a special review board headed by Aldridge.

At a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, Aldridge said the F-22 had shown it is a high-performance aircraft that will meet all the requirements set by the Air Force. It is designed for ``air superiority,'' which the Air Force defines as being able to defeat an enemy's air defenses -- in the air and on the ground -- in order to shield more vulnerable bombers and ground-attack fighters.

``The aircraft's performance is absolutely what we want,'' Aldridge said.

On Tuesday, Air Force Secretary James G. Roche urged that the F-22 move into production despite cost overruns.

``It works. It works, gang,'' he told a group of reporters. He noted that the program has been in development for two decades. ``It's time to get on with it.''

Early this month, the General Accounting Office reported that production of 339 of the planes would cost from $2 billion to $9 billion more than the $37.6 billion Congress specified as the cap for the program.

Aldridge said the cost of acquiring the planes is now estimated at $45 billion, up from the $37.6 billion. That does not include research and development money already invested in the program.

Last week, officials said X-rays had found 7-inch cracks in the tail of one of the six F-22 test planes, but the cause had not been determined.

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GAO: Army Chemical Sites Pose Risk

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Chemical-Weapons.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of people who live near sites where the Army stores deadly chemicals are potentially at risk from a spill or other emergency because of a lack of protections.

A study by the General Accounting Office found communities in seven states have not met critical emergency preparedness milestones and that three of those states -- Kentucky, Alabama and Indiana -- still have a long way to go.

``There should be no doubt after this report that we're not where we should be and we have a tremendous amount of work to get to that point,'' said Rep. Bob Riley, R-Ala.

The Army has stockpiled nearly 30,000 tons of deadly chemicals at eight sites around the country. Two stockpiles are near state borders, meaning communities in 10 states could be affected by an emergency.

The chemicals are to be destroyed by 2007 as part of an international chemical weapons treaty, although an internal Army memo made public last spring said the program was as much as 11 years behind schedule.

The Army created the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program in 1988 to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state and local governments to come up with plans to protect the roughly 1 million people living near the sites. The goal for implementation of the plans was 1998, but none of the states met it.

Last year a small drop of the deadly nerve agent sarin leaked from a smokestack at the chemical storage and incineration facility in Tooele, Utah. When inhaled, sarin constricts the lungs and can halt breathing. Though no one was injured, the incident prompted members of Congress to ask the GAO to update a 1997 report on emergency preparedness at the sites.

The latest report found progress has been made. Utah, Maryland and Washington were deemed fully prepared for an emergency. Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois and Oregon fell just short of compliance. Since the GAO report was completed, Colorado has finished its final emergency preparations, said Dan Civis, chief of the army program.

``I believe these communities are much better prepared to handle emergency response than they were 10 years ago,'' he said, adding, ``I believe there's still room for improvement.''

Alabama, for example, has not settled on an emergency response plan and has not done enough to educate the public, the report said. It does not have any ``over-pressurized'' facilities -- public buildings designed to keep out clouds of chemicals.

In Kentucky, only about half of the 13 hospitals that would take patients exposed to chemical agents have the antidote to the agents. And 35 buildings in Kentucky need to be turned into over-pressurized facilities.

Alabama's lack of preparation comes despite twice as many federal dollars being spent there than any other state. The program has spent nearly $108 million there, compared to less than $50 million in Oregon and Utah and about $35 million in Kentucky.

``There are some unique problems in Alabama that other sites do not face,'' said Lee Helms, acting director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. ``We have more people at risk in Alabama than anywhere else in the country.''

About 30 percent of all the people living near the chemical sites are in the area around Anniston, Ala.

GAO Report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01850.pdf
FEMA: http://www.fema.gov/
Chemical Weapons Working Group: http://www.cwwg.org
Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization: http://www-pmcd.apgea.army.mil/

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Small firms to supply berets

August 15, 2001
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010815-184.htm

The Pentagon is preparing to give small business a $50 million boost by awarding new contracts to supply the Army with 3.9 million berets over the next two years.

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has designated the two Army beret contracts as a small business set-aside, meaning only small firms will be eligible to compete for the contracts, Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, announced yesterday.

"This decision is truly a victory for small business," Mr. Bond, ranking Republican member on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, said in a statement yesterday.

The Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia has confirmed the plan and verified that the contracts will be open for bidding until Oct. 9. It is estimated that the berets could cost about $7 each, making the contracts worth about $50 million, or $25 million per supplier.

The beret contracts "will make a real impact on the small-business community," Mr. Bond said. "I applaud the Pentagon's decision to give small manufacturers a fighting chance to produce berets for our servicemen and women."

The decision to outfit the entire Army in black berets has been a source of contention since it was announced by the Clinton administration last October.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's decision to replace the Army's standard green cap was denounced as a blow to the morale of the Army's elite airborne Rangers, who had the exclusive right to wear the black beret as an emblem of honor for decades.

"To give that headgear to every soldier in the Army is disrespectful" to the Rangers, Jimmy Dean, secretary of the Special Forces Association, said in October. "A soldier must earn that right [to wear the beret], not be given it from off the street."

In addition to the Rangers wearing them, berets were also standard wear for other special units, including the Army's Green Berets and the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division, who wear maroon berets. In a compromise, it was later announced that Rangers would switch to tan berets.

Gen. Shinkseki said he wanted to have the entire Army wearing the black berets by June 14, the 226th birthday of the Army, as "a symbol of unity, a symbol of Army excellence, a symbol of our values."

The beret dismay spread to Capitol Hill in March when it was learned that the DLA had bypassed a "buy American" policy to purchase the berets from a British firm with manufacturing facilities in communist China and other foreign countries. Under pressure from Congress, the Army halted distribution of the foreign-made berets and has mothballed 618,000 of them in a Pennsylvania warehouse.

In the deal announced by Mr. Bond yesterday, two beret contracts are to be awarded, with each of the two firms providing half of the berets.

Options to extend the contracts include an additional 1.35 million berets, to be delivered over a year, and second and third options of 984,000 berets, each to be delivered over a year. Total beret production, if DLA exercises all options, could mean a total 7.2 million berets produced by small manufacturers.

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Region's Army Posts To Restrict Public Access
Officials Fear Crackdown Will Affect Relations, Traffic

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2001; Page B01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12250-2001Aug14?language=printer

The Army is preparing to sharply restrict public access to its posts across the Washington region, a major -- and probably permanent -- change that some officials warn could cause traffic gridlock near the installations.

The Army will soon begin erecting barriers to close many roads leading into Fort Meade and Fort Belvoir, funneling traffic to a few roads that will be staffed by guards.

Visitors who for decades were able to go onto the posts freely -- stopping at several Anne Arundel County public schools on the Fort Meade compound or the popular officers' club at Fort Belvoir -- would now need passes to enter the installations.

The move is part of a nationwide security crackdown ordered by Army leaders concerned about terrorism. Navy, Marine and Air Force installations in the area, some of which have limited access, are not affected.

Alarmed local officials warn that traffic could back up onto important commuter routes, particularly Route 1 in Fairfax County, and they say they have not been properly briefed on the plans. Two Fairfax County supervisors asked yesterday that the Army delay implementing the change, scheduled to take effect Sept. 4 at Fort Belvoir.

"The unintended price of the plan could include gridlock that shuts down movement in the area and keeps even vital fort staff from getting to the post in the event of an emergency," said a letter sent by Supervisors T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee) and Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) to members of Virginia's congressional delegation.

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), whose district includes the post in southern Fairfax, said he will meet with Army and county officials this month to discuss the issue.

With thousands of workers arriving and departing from the posts about the same time every day, Army officials acknowledge that there probably will be significant bottlenecks, particularly in the first few weeks, before people adjust routines and workers register for vehicle decals with military police.

"Regardless of what we do, there are probably going to be some problems," said Maj. Gen. James. T. Jackson, commander of the Army's Military District of Washington.

The changes will probably affect how civilians interact with the installations. For instance, churchgoers at Fort Belvoir lacking military IDs will need to register with military police. Those hosting wedding receptions and other events at the officers' club will have to obtain temporary passes for all guests.

"That's what they have to do to get into the White House," Moran said. "I hope this won't discourage the involvement the community has had with Fort Belvoir."

Fort Belvoir, with 20,000 workers and 5,000 residents, has been an open post for more than a quarter-century. The Army will soon close 20 access points permanently, leaving six manned gates, two of which will be open round-the-clock.

"We're not walling ourselves in from the community," said Jackson, whose command oversees four forts in the immediate area. "People who want to come in will be able to come in. It's just that we want to know who you are and where you're going.

"The fact is, there are probably some people who want to come on post who shouldn't," he added.

Army officials said they will be briefing officials on the changes and responding to concerns.

But several elected officials said they know little of the plans and should have been consulted earlier so that highway officials and other experts could review the plans. "It hasn't been thought through," said Kauffman.

The changes are to begin Monday at Fort Meade, which has approximately 25,000 workers and 6,700 homes on the post. While part of the installation that hosts the National Security Agency has closed access, the rest of the post has been open for decades. The Army will close seven access points, and keep four open full time and four others open part time.

"I guess we'll have to wait and see," said Anne Arundel County Council member Bill D. Burlison (D-Odenton). "I'm sure there will be complaints."

Fort Meade has an additional problem. It is home to seven public schools, which teach students from both on and off the post. Two of the schools have their own access and are sealed off from the rest of the post. The Army is working with school officials to issue parents or guardians identification cards allowing them to drive to the other five schools. In addition, two major east-west routes that run through the post, Routes 175 and 32, are often used as shortcuts by motorists.

The impact probably will be less severe at Fort Myer in Arlington and Fort McNair in the District, which have limited access. But the increased security could create dangerous bottlenecks there, as well. For example, Hatfield Gate, a main entry point onto Fort Myer, is a short distance from major commuter routes. "If we back up there, we get out to Washington Boulevard, which is a high-speed road, and we have concerns," Jackson said.

Fort Belvoir will be holding exercises the next two Tuesdays to test the changes.

The new security rules grew out of terrorist attacks in recent years, including the Oklahoma City bombing, the Khobar bombing of Air Force quarters in Saudi Arabia, and the attack on the destroyer USS Cole. "We've had events around the world that have caused people to raise eyebrows," Jackson said.

An Army study this year found that its posts have a more relaxed posture than the bases of any other service. Approximately half of the Army's installations in the United States have had open-post policies during the past 30 years, officials said.

Under the changes at Army posts, military police will send drivers without proper base registration to a visitors center to request a guest pass. Soldiers, employees, retirees and others who are on a post routinely should already have decals on their vehicles.


-------- OTHER

-------- environment

E.P.A. Postpones Decision on Revising Pollution Rules

New York Times
August 15, 2001
By JOSEPH KAHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/15/politics/15POLL.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 - The Bush administration delayed its decision on how to overhaul a major antipollution program today as top officials struggled to devise a new strategy that could ease the regulatory burden on the energy industry without being viewed as an environmental rollback.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would not issue a reassessment of an air pollution rule by Aug. 17, as President Bush ordered it to do this spring. The agency said the review would be postponed until September, when the administration also plans to propose a comprehensive strategy to control pollution in a more flexible and less intrusive way.

The delay shows how jittery the administration has become as it seeks to carry out some elements of Mr. Bush's national energy strategy. The president announced the plan with fanfare in May, but his administration has come under steady fire from Democrats and national environmental groups as tilting too much in favor of industry supporters at the expense of clean air and water.

Jeffrey Holmstead, the environmental agency's assistant administrator for air and radiation, said the review had been delayed because the administration wanted to present a broad pollution-control strategy as a whole, rather than announcing policies in pieces and potentially giving critics more opportunities to attack the administration.

"It has quickly become apparent that environmental groups will portray any changes in this program as changes that will kill people," Mr. Holmstead said. "We want to lay out our vision for a multipollutants strategy and show that we will achieve better environmental protection at lower cost."

Several other agency officials said that an additional reason for the delay was that E.P.A. and Department of Energy officials did not agree on whether the program under review, known as new source review, substantially inhibits energy production - and did not agree on how much it needs to be changed.

Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, has favored a thorough overhaul that would greatly reduce the program's burden on utilities and oil companies and potentially end some existing enforcement actions, these people said. Christie Whitman, the E.P.A. administrator, proposed more modest revisions - many of which were originally considered by the Clinton administration - that would make the program more flexible but preserve existing lawsuits and enforcement actions under the rule, they said.

Spokesmen for the E.P.A. and the energy department said that there was no significant split between the Cabinet agencies over the issue and that they continue to work closely on the review of the program.

New source review requires the installation of the latest pollution control equipment whenever new power plants, refineries and industrial facilities are built or substantially upgraded. Established by the Clean Air Act of 1970, it is aimed at curtailing smokestack emissions from some 22,000 facilities nationwide, including primary sources of pollutants like nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury.

Mrs. Whitman has said she hopes to phase out new source review and some other enforcement programs as they apply to utilities by consolidating them in a broad multipollutant strategy, which the administration intends to announce in September.

The strategy would set tighter limits of national emissions of major pollutants, but allow utilities to trade credits among themselves - in effect, letting the market dictate how the limits are met. The system is more flexible, proponents say, and would require less plant-by-plant enforcement.

"This fall, we will put forward an ambitious proposal that will reduce air pollution from power plants significantly more than the existing system," Mrs. Whitman said in a statement today.

Rebecca Stanfield, a clean air attorney for the Public Interest Research Group, said the administration bowed to political reality by delaying its decision on the fate of new source review after more than 120,000 people wrote the agency in support of the program.

Ms. Stanfield said she doubted that the upcoming multipollutant strategy would serve as an adequate replacement for the program, which environmentalists say has forced big pollution reductions and saved lives.

"Such a proposal will only serve as a smoke screen behind which the E.P.A. is poised to weaken or eliminate key enforcement tools of the current Clean Air Act regulatory scheme," she said.

Utilities have led the charge to have new source review overhauled. They argue that in the Clinton administration the E.P.A. used new source review as a backdoor way of forcing coal-fired power plants to install expensive technology or to shut down. They say that even minor renovations and upgrades to plants can trigger scrutiny under the program, discouraging investments that might increase output or improve efficiency.

Some industry lobbyists said the delay caught them by surprise because they anticipated the administration was prepared to announce at least a general commitment to fix what they see as flaws in the new source review program. But they said they still expected the Bush administration to act on their concerns.

"Better to have a clear and complete set of facts on which to base this decision than to adhere to a 90- day deadline and risk a rush to judgment," said Dan Riedinger of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility industry group.

Several E.P.A. officials said they had been prepared to issue a narrow report on Aug. 17 that assessed how the program impedes energy supplies, people at the agency said. A draft of that report stated that new source review had discouraged some investment in energy production, but that the negative effects were relatively modest, these people said.

The agency also discussed a variety of ways to change the program, many of them similar to changes discussed in the Clinton administration. Those proposals were not expected to be presented formally until later.

-------- genetics

Researchers Discount a Caution in Debate Over Cloned Humans

August 15, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/15/health/genetics/15CLON.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 - In the highly charged debate over human cloning, experts cite deformities and deaths in cloned animals as evidence that making genetic replicas of people would be dangerous. Now scientists at Duke University are challenging this idea.

The researchers found that human beings possess a genetic characteristic that prevents fetuses from growing overly large, a major problem in the cloning of sheep, cows, pigs and mice. They say this subtle genetic difference also makes people less vulnerable to cancer.

"We are protected from cancer and also it is going to be easier to clone us than a mouse or a sheep," said Dr. Randy Jirtle, a professor of radiation oncology at Duke University Medical Center who is an author of the study. He said he was not advocating cloning as a means of reproduction, adding, "We are just presenting information."

But leading experts in animal cloning disputed Dr. Jirtle's conclusions. They said fetal overgrowth is not the only problem they must contend with and cautioned against interpreting the Duke study to mean it would be safe to create babies by cloning.

"The authors have allowed themselves to over-interpret their interesting results," said Dr. Ian Wilmut, who as director of the Roslin Institute in Scotland led the effort to clone Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult.

The Duke study, published in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal Human Molecular Genetics, comes just one week after Dr. Wilmut and other scientists gathered at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington for an all-day symposium at which three researchers said they would attempt to clone humans.

Opponents of reproductive cloning worry that these researchers may rely on the Duke study to make their case. "They have used anything, however peripheral or tangential, to advance their cause," said Dr. Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center, a bioethics institute. "But it makes their claims that they are going to clone a healthy child no more plausible than before."

The study traced the evolution of a particular gene that governs the suppression of tumors, and also fetal growth. Dr. Jirtle said sheep, pigs, mice and virtually all nonprimate mammals inherit only one functional copy of this gene because of a phenomenon known as imprinting. But humans, he said, inherit two working copies, making abnormalities much less likely.

-------- police / prisoners

30 Police Charged in Puerto Rico Drug Probe

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2001; Page A03
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12092-2001Aug14?language=printer

Thirty current and former police officers were arrested yesterday in Puerto Rico on charges of protecting cocaine dealers, the largest police corruption case ever brought by the FBI, the Justice Department said.

Prosecutors allege that the officers from the Police of Puerto Rico, the equivalent of a state police force, warned drug traffickers of police raids, prevented searches by other officers and assisted in the transportation of drugs. The officers also allegedly gave advice on "how to avoid the tracing of fingerprints at a crime scene," the Justice Department said.

In exchange, the officers allegedly received cash payments of $3,000 to $28,000 each.

The 29 current officers, who range in age from 21 to 43, are each charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and carrying firearms while committing a drug offense. The charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison and potential fines of up to $4 million, officials said.

One former officer and two civilians -- a jail guard and an employee at police headquarters -- also face drug conspiracy charges.

Puerto Rico is a major crossroads for cocaine originating in Colombia. After the investigation began in June 2000, FBI agents were stunned by the breadth of police corruption, officials said.

"We started out relatively small, and it just kept building," said Marlene M. Hunter, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Juan office. "It's safe to say we were rather surprised by the extent of the problem."

FBI officials described the undercover investigation as the largest police corruption case in the bureau's history. In Cleveland in 1998, more than 50 people working in police and corrections departments were convicted of taking payoffs from drug dealers. But only 18 of those defendants were police officers, the FBI said.


-------- activists

G - 8 Protest Energized Freed American

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Italy-Summit-Arrests.html

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- An American woman detained after riots at the Group of Eight summit, said Wednesday that her three-week incarceration in an Italian prison strengthened her resolve to fight injustice and racism.

Susanna Thomas was among 20 people ordered released by a Genoa court Tuesday -- 15 Austrians, three Americans, a Slovak and a Swede. The 21-year-old from New Jersey called for all ``political prisoners'' to be freed and vowed to continue her fight.

``My primary work right now is to work for the release and support of the Genoese political prisoners and all political prisoners all over the world,'' she told The Associated Press at Vienna's airport, where she arrived a day after her release from the Voghera prison outside Milan.

Thomas, a Quaker, said she was particularly concerned about the legal status of members of the Austrian political street theater company, Publix Theater, with whom she was arrested.

``I hope that all the people who have worked for my release will continue to keep international attention on the plight of political prisoners all over the world,'' she said.

Thomas, a student at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, stayed Tuesday night at the home of her lawyer, Gilberto Pagani, and left for Vienna on Wednesday. She said she would visit friends for a few days before flying home to see her parents in Warren, N.J.

Pagani identified the other two Americans released Tuesday as Andre Patrick Stoffel, of Illinois, born in 1978, and Brian Sating, of Ohio, born in 1965. Their hometowns were not available.

Thomas was arrested July 22 with members of Publix Theater as the group left Genoa in a caravan of vehicles. Thomas had previously traveled with the group in Europe but was working in Genoa as a journalist and translator.

Police alleged the Publix Theater group had conspired with violent anarchists known as Black Bloc -- considered responsible for the riots -- before and during the July 20-22 summit.

Police seized knives, black clothes, cell phones and flagpoles in their vehicles. The actors denied any connection to the violence, saying the items were used in their street performances during the summit.

Most of those released Tuesday were part of the theater group. Pagani said Italian authorities had issued an expulsion order for all 20 detainees. Austrian Embassy officials said that the 15 Austrians would be deported to the border.

Lawyers say the charges against them have not been dropped, and they still could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

``We are extremely happy to know that our daughter will be released,'' said Susanna's father, Rick Thomas, in a telephone interview soon after his daughter was ordered freed.

Thomas said she was well treated in prison, and spoke kindly of a priest who visited inmates.

``We sang and danced and shared things and generally took care of each other,'' she said of her fellow detainees. ``We shared a toothbrush. We shared soap, chocolate, cigarettes and all the little things that make life pleasurable. And most of all, we shared support.''

She said her experience had galvanized her to keep fighting racism and ``doing what I have always done, which is talk to people and try to understand why they do what they do,'' she said.

She voiced a motto of the Publix Theater group, ``No border, No nation, No deportation,'' and said while her release had ended this phase in her case, her fight ``has just begun.''

The judges Monday refused to consider the cases of five others -- three Austrians, one Slovak and one Australian.

Defense lawyer Andrea Sandra said Tuesday that the latest releases lent hope to the other five. He said they would probably be questioned Friday and might be free by the end of the week.

--------

Iraqis Protest for Palestinians

August 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Protests.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Wednesday, waving guns and calling for the ``liberation of Palestine'' under the leadership of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

``Here we come Saddam ... here we come Jerusalem,'' read banners held by demonstrators as they marched under a scorching sun, pounding drums and clapping.

``God is great. We're all with you,'' other signs read.

The demonstrations came a day after Saddam urged Iraqis to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

Some of the protesters were volunteers in the so-called ``Jerusalem Army,'' formed by Saddam in October in opposition to Israeli control of Jerusalem.

One protester, 50-year-old Mohammed Jassim, brought a rifle to the rally in Baghdad. ``Liberating Palestine from the Zionists will, God willing, happen by the hands of the Iraqis under the leader Saddam Hussein,'' he said.

More than 7 million men and women -- roughly one-third of Iraq's 22 million population -- are said to have volunteered for the forces.

Saddam, whose 1990 invasion of Kuwait led to the Persian Gulf War, has cast himself as the defender of Arab Jerusalem -- earning him support among those Arabs who accuse their leaders of not doing enough to support Palestinians in the conflict with Israel.

Wednesday's rallies also gave Iraqis the chance to criticize the United States and Britain, the main supporters of economic sanctions imposed on Iraq following the Kuwaiti invasion.

``The U.S. aggression is going on south and north of Iraq. No one tells them 'no.' Only Iraq tells them 'no,''' said wheelchair-bound Abdel Salam Jadoe as he clutched a portrait of Saddam.

U.S. and British planes patrol no-fly zones in Iraq's north and south, often attacking what they say are military sites that Iraq uses to fire at allied aircraft.

Iraq claims the planes bomb civil and service installations and regards the no-fly zones as illegal.

Seif Eddin al-Mishhadani, an official for Iraq's ruling Baath Party, hailed the demonstrations as ``a loud cry in the face of Israeli aggression, in the face of the United States and in the face of Britain.''

--------

CLIMATE ON-LINE: TAKE ACTION TO STOP THE NUCLEAR COME-BACK:

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001
From: Green cat <greencat@MailAndNews.com>

Tell the UK Government to reject British Nuclear Fuels's new plutonium factory at Sellafield in Cumbria

>> INTRO >>
The nuclear industry sees climate change as a chance to reverse in its otherwise declining fortunes. It is lobbying hard in world capitals to establish support amongst political leaders, even though every year stockpiles of highly radioactive waste including deadly plutonium continue to grow.

>> IMMINENT DECISION >>
In Britain, state-owned BNFL is seeking permission to open a new nuclear fuel plant called the Sellafield Mixed Oxide (MOX) Plant in Cumbria. The company could get the go-ahead in the next few weeks. If it does, then plutonium - the material used to make atomic bombs - will be exported around the world to countries like Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. The MOX plant is the first stage in BNFL's plan to stay in business and start constructing new nuclear power plants in the UK and overseas.

Friends of the Earth believes approval for the plant would be unlawful. The company has spent £460M building the MOX plant yet independent consultants recently advised Minister that the plant would at best recover less than half that amount. Nuclear projects that lose money cannot be said to be 'justified' under European law.

>> TAKE ACTION >>
Friends of the Earth is campaigning to have the application to run the Sellafield MOX Plant thrown out. You can help us achieve this by sending your objection by email to the UK Environment Secretary, Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP before Friday 24 August 2001. A draft message is provided via the link below.

http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/email_beckett/

Stopping the MOX plant is an important part of stopping the expansion of nuclear power. Thank you for your valuable support in taking this action.

Sincerely, Mark Johnston Energy Campaigner Friends of the Earth http://www.foe.co.uk
--------



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