------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
"Discounted Casualties The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium"
Missile-shield test site gets OK
U.S., Russia Talk Missile Defense
U.S. Balks on Plan to Take Plutonium Out of Warheads
Reportage There's an H-bomb in our swamp

MILITARY
Empire or Not? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role
NATO Expected to OK Deployment
Defense Official Colombia Policy
DEA boosts its role in Paraguay
DEA Chief Tough on Medical Marijuana
Israelis destroy city apartment block to drive out Palestinians
Air Force Investigating Missile Fin
N.C. County Doesn't Want Bombing
Bush defends Pentagon budget boost

OTHER
Philippines turns to sun, waves and wind for power
Investigators probe risk of toxics to human reproduction
Engineers corps faces suit
A Step Forward for Genetic Engineering in New Zealand
Australia Gets Cell Research Center
U.S. hits Taliban over access to detainees
China Said to Remove Revered Tibetan Monk
EU May Hit U.S. With $4 Billion In Penalties
FBI Confirms Probe of Stolen Briefcase
A Growth Industry Cools as New York Prisons Thin
U.S.: FBI Team May Return to Yemen for Cole Probe

ACTIVISTS
Turkish Hunger Strikers Fear Police


-------- NUCLEAR


-------- depleted uranium

"Discounted Casualties The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium" Is Now Available!
Please spread the word: Let's ban DU!

From: Steve Leeper <leeps@mindspring.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:59:41 +0900

For more information or to ORDER THIS BOOK, please visit:
http://www.transnet-jp.com

950,000 Rounds, 320 Tons of Toxic, Radioactive Uranium

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the multi-national force led by the United States crushed the Iraqi army with overwhelming fighting power. During this short war, the US military lost 148 soldiers in actual combat. Families rejoiced when their victorious husbands, wives, sons and daughters returned home safely. But joy quickly turned to fear when many of those soldiers began complaining of physical problems. Thousands died. Radiation from DU munitions and a variety of chemical toxins had invaded and were destroying their bodies.

An award-winning look at DU

Akira Tashiro, senior staff writer for Hiroshima's daily newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun, spent four months talking to Gulf War veterans, investigating communities near DU factories and firing ranges, and exploring the battlefields of Iraq and Kosovo. His powerful interviews with real people suffering from DU exposure touched the hearts of the Japanese people and won him the JCJ Prize, Japan's highest award for journalistic excellence. Translated into English and posted on his newspaper's homepage, this work attracted 49,000 hits in two months.

This highly readable series of two-page stories is full of information on a topic as unknown as it is important, to us and those to whom we leave the planet.

-------- missile defense

Missile-shield test site gets OK

August 21, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010821-96772236.htm

The Pentagon has given the go-ahead for construction to begin in the next few weeks on a missile-defense test site in Alaska.

A $9 million contract for clearing trees and building roads and utilities in central Alaska was awarded Friday, Pam Bain, a spokeswoman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said yesterday.

"The site preparation will be limited to clearing and grading of the site and installing preliminary utilities and road structures," Miss Bain said in an interview.

Land clearing will begin "within a week or so," she said.

The construction was judged legal under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by Pentagon lawyers in charge of treaty-compliance decisions, she said. The United States currently has no defenses against long-range ballistic missiles.

The U.S.-Soviet ABM Treaty bans the building of nationwide missile defenses and limits construction of strategic missile defenses those capable of knocking out incoming long-range missiles -- to a single site.

The construction decision was made public Wednesday -- the day after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld returned from talks in Moscow with Russian officials on missile defenses and strategic arms cuts.

Russia is opposed to scrapping the ABM Treaty. The Bush administration has said it will seek changes in the pact, or withdraw from it, in order to be allowed to build effective missile defenses.

Mr. Rumsfeld was asked last week in a Los Angeles television interview why the Pentagon was moving ahead with the missile defense despite opposition from Russia and some European nations that want to preserve the ABM Treaty.

"There isn't any particular rush, except that we're engaged in a testing system, and the ABM Treaty prohibits testing in certain types of modes, and therefore we would not be able to experiment and do the research and development necessary to try to develop the ability to do that," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

The ABM Treaty may have made sense during the Cold War, but should now be "set aside" because there is a need for a system capable of countering missiles fired by rogue states, he said.

Victoria Clarke, the assistant defense secretary for public affairs, also said missile defenses are needed.

"We have several rogue states that are developing weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivery such as ballistic missiles," she told WAAM radio in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Friday. "It's a real threat -- it's a growing threat -- and it's a real obligation for us to try to develop a system to protect us from those threats."

The official construction announcement for the testing facility at the Army's Fort Greely, Alaska, base was published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

The notice stated that construction on a portion of the 661,000-acre military base would begin without a final Pentagon decision on the exact type of missile-defense system that will be built. Also, congressional appropriations for final construction of the system have not been approved, the notice said.

Still, the Pentagon decided to go ahead with the Alaska construction because "the Department of Defense has determined that it is prudent to proceed with site preparation, and without congressional budgeting."

The notice also said the Bush administration authorized the building of the test site after finding that "there is a ballistic missile threat to the United States, and that developing an effective missile defense system is dependent upon operationally realistic testing of [its] elements."

"Fort Greely is a potential deployment location in Alaska for ground-based interceptor silos, battle management command and control facilities, and other support facilities for the Ground Based Midcourse Element, formerly called the National Missile Defense system," the notice said.

The notice said that "in the event of a missile attack on the United States, the test bed at Fort Greely could potentially be used for ballistic missile defense."

However, there are no plans at present to test-fire an interceptor from the site, it stated.

The native Alaskan company Aglaq Construction Enterprises Inc. was awarded the contract, Miss Bain said. The company is located in Point Hope, in northeastern Alaska on the Chukchi Sea. The company also won part of a $7 million contract in July to help build the Cape Lisburne Long Range Radar Site by 2003.

A spokesman for Aglaq could not be reached for comment.

Fort Greely, a former Army base, is located in central Alaska about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks.

According to the official notice, the company will install two water wells and clear trees and debris for future construction of a single missile field and a main access road.

The testing site will allow the Pentagon's missile-defense office to find out whether interceptor missiles fired in a salvo against an incoming warhead will interfere with each other.

It also will be used to test communications between components of the missile-defense system and to test for fuel degradation in an arctic environment, the official notice stated.

The Pentagon has proposed spending $8 billion on missile defense in its latest budget proposal.

-------- russia

U.S., Russia Talk Missile Defense

August 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton met Tuesday with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov as part of a drive to win Moscow's approval for U.S. missile defense plans.

The meeting is part of a series of consultations that began after President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in July that missile defense would be linked to talks on cutting the nuclear arsenals of both countries.

So far, Russian officials say the Americans have not convinced them of the need to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty, which prohibits national missile defense systems. Russia says the treaty is a cornerstone of international security.

``We have not heard from the Americans a clear-cut explanation of what it is that is not to their liking in the treaty,'' said Andrei Nikolayev, head of parliament's defense committee, after talks with Bolton on Monday, according to the Interfax news agency.

Bolton's talks this week are to be followed by a September meeting in New York between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

U.S. Balks on Plan to Take Plutonium Out of Warheads

New York Times
August 21, 2001
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/international/21NUKE.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 - A program conceived by the Clinton administration to rid the world of 100 tons of American and Russian weapons-grade plutonium is likely to be abandoned by the Bush administration, according to people who have been briefed about the project.

Under the plan, which was first proposed in the mid-90's, 50 tons of American plutonium and 50 tons of Russian plutonium would be taken out of nuclear weapons and either converted into fuel for nuclear reactors or rendered useless for weapons by mixing it with with highly radioactive nuclear waste, a process known as immobilization.

When the plan was drafted, Clinton administration officials said the program would reduce the risk that the plutonium would fall into the wrong hands, where it could easily be turned into weapons.

By reducing the availability of weapons-grade plutonium, the project had the added benefit of bolstering treaties between the United States and Russia to cut the number of nuclear warheads deployed by each side, by making it harder to turn plutonium from decommissioned weapons back into warheads.

Bush administration officials deny that the program is dead, but acknowledge that it has difficulties, primarily financial ones.

"The issue is under review," said an administration official who would speak only if not identified. "We've made no secret of that. But no decisions have been made."

But the official continued, "It's no secret that there are a lot of equities to balance here."

One major equity, he said, is money. Early this year the Energy Department predicted a cost of $6.6 billion, about triple the initial estimates, to convert the American stocks to fuel for civilian nuclear reactors. It put Russia's cost at $1.76 billion, which is money Russia does not have.

The expectation under the Clinton administration was that the United States and other rich countries would help pay, but no concrete pledges were ever made.

In 1999 the Clinton administration did agree to pay a consortium of power companies $130 million to use plutonium that the government would convert into fuel. But the conversion factories are not yet built, and the conversion itself was contingent on an agreement with the Russians to take similar steps to dispose of plutonium from their weapons.

Despite the program's expected benefits, the Bush administration's proposed Energy Department budget this spring did not include the money needed to mix some of the plutonium with nuclear waste.

The second path - converting it to fuel for American nuclear reactors, the strategy the Clinton administration hoped would induce the Russians to do the same - also appears likely to be dropped soon.

"There is no enthusiasm for it whatsoever," said a Congressional aide who was briefed by officials of the National Security Council, referring both to the current strategy of immobilization and to conversion to reactor fuel.

The issue of what to do with plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons has haunted policy makers for years.

One particular fear is that the material from Russian weapons would be bought or stolen by terrorists or a "rogue" government who could construct a nuclear bomb. In recent years, the security of bomb materials in Russia has been improved markedly by joint Russian-American efforts, administration experts say.

Bush administration officials insist that they share the goal of disposing of American and Russian plutonium.

"There's no philosphical shift that says suddenly we're perfectly fine with surplus plutonium laying around - we're not," said an administration official familiar with the Clinton-era program. But, he added, conversion to fuel for existing reactors or mixing with waste are "not the only options for disposing of it safely."

As an alternative, the Bush administration appears to be considering a variety of untested technical options, including a new generation of nuclear reactors that could burn plutonium more thoroughly.

"They're trying to improve on it by giving up on getting started any time soon," said Matthew G. Bunn, a nuclear expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, who was an adviser to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Clinton administration. He and other experts are skeptical that a new generation of reactors, which was also mentioned in President Bush's energy plan as a way to dispose of nuclear waste, would ever be built. Construction on the last nuclear plants built in the United States country was begun more than 25 years ago.

"We're back at Square 1 with the program, and they're looking at imaginary options, like advanced reactors," said Tom Clements, executive director the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonprofit group that opposes the use of plutonium for reactor fuel. "For financial reasons, it's not going to be viable."

Though the administration is considering dropping the program to convert or immobilize weapons- grade plutonium, a separate Russian-American program to reduce the inventory of another Russian bomb fuel, highly enriched uranium, is continuing. In fact, uranium that was intended for Russian bombs now meets more than half the needs of American power reactors.

But diluting uranium to the type used in power plants is technically far simpler and cheaper than the process required for plutonium, which must be converted from the metal form used in weapons to a plutonium-uranium ceramic used in American power plants.

In fact, enriched uranium has economic value as reactor fuel, while converting plutonium appears to be a money-losing proposition.

Even so, Russian officials have said repeatedly that they view plutonium as an asset and would like to build new breeder reactors, so named because they produce plutonium faster than they consume the other main reactor fuel, uranium.

The end of the plutonium program would be mixed news for groups concerned with proliferation.

For example, the Nuclear Control Institute has pushed vigorously for immobilization and against converting plutonium to reactor fuel, which is known as mixed oxide, or MOx.

Officials of the institute say conversion to MOx is very expensive and would encourage international commerce in weapons material.

"We think their assessment of MOx is correct," said Mr. Clements, referring to the administration. "The problem is, it appears they've also rejected the cheaper alternative, which is immobilization."

--------

Reportage There's an H-bomb in our swamp

The Times (UK)
TUESDAY AUGUST 21 2001
BY EDWARD WELSH
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,7-2001290379,00.html

In 1958, a US warplane jettisoned a device in a marsh in Georgia. Was it a nuclear weapon? No, says the Pentagon. But new evidence has raised doubts Ken Wade is nudging his fishing boat through the narrow creeks that cut into the steamy coastal swamps of Georgia. Twenty yards away pelicans preen, but they are not his concern. Wade is here to point out the site that he believes to be the final resting place of a nuclear bomb, jettisoned 43 years ago somewhere off the mouth of the Savannah River by a disabled B47 aeroplane.

"In the middle of the grass, I once floated into a circle of clear water," he recalls, pointing towards the dense, red-tipped reeds stretching south of the river mouth. "If you step on the marsh, you would sink up to your waist. I believe the bomb landed in that spot and sank deep into the mud, creating a crater which over the years is being reclaimed by the grass."

Wade lives on nearby Tybee Island, where many of the 3,500 inhabitants believe that there is a fully primed nuclear weapon, 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, stuck somewhere in their muddy backyard. Even though Tybee welcomes three million visitors each year to its beach, the mayor and city officers continue to draw attention to the bomb by demanding that the Government digs it up.

In 1958 the US Air Force insisted that the bomber had jettisoned nothing more than a simulated weapon, used for training purposes - little more than a metal shell stuffed with TNT. But to the intense annoyance of the Pentagon, four decades later the issue is again tormenting it.

In the past year, enthusiasts with a passion for uncovering Cold War secrets have stumbled upon an official document, apparently inadvertently declassified, which states that the Tybee bomb was a "complete weapon". Furthermore, a former serviceman who loaded bombs on to B47s has emerged to contradict the Air Force's position.

Despite the Pentagon's firm denials that there is anything amiss, this new evidence has forced it to look into the possibility of searching for the missing bomb under the eyes of Georgia congressmen and the American media.

What is not in dispute is that on the night of February 4-5, 1958, a B47 bomber set out from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida with a Mark 15 Mod 0 on board. This was one of America's earliest thermonuclear bombs, containing 400lb of conventional explosives and uranium. The 7,600lb weapon was designed with a removable nuclear capsule, or plutonium trigger. The Pentagon insists that this key piece of equipment was not on board.

At 3.30am on February 5, the bomber collided with an F86 fighter jet in midair. The jet crashed after the pilot baled out, and the bomber crew made three unsuccessful attempts to land at Hunter army airfield outside Savannah.

The Pentagon says that because of damage to the aircraft, "its airspeed could not be reduced enough to ensure a safe landing", so permission was given to jettison the weapon to prevent a conventional explosion caused by a crash landing at Hunter.

At 7,200ft, the device was released "into the water several miles from the mouth of the Savannah River in Wassaw Sound, off Tybee Beach".

In the first few days after the collision, the Air Force did not mention that anything had been jettisoned. But some days later it was announced that "a portion of a nuclear weapon" had been released in the area. The Air Force added that there was no danger of a radioactive explosion, presenting one local newspaper with the chance to publish the headline "Jettison of Nuclear Weapon Here Disclosed".

It is easy to understand the Pentagon's embarrassment. The accident happened in the middle of the Cold War. In the previous October, the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik, beating the Americans in putting the first man-made object into space. This added to fears in Washington that Moscow had stolen a march in the development of intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

After refuelling, B47 bombers were capable of reaching the Soviet Union. Although the Pentagon insists that the bomber involved in the collision was on only a training mission, it accepts that in early 1958 other B47s were taking off from America with armed Mark 15s on board.

Off the Savannah River, an intensive search took place using ships with divers and underwater demolition teams. Local newspapers reported that the Air Force was anxious to recover the "portion" of the weapon it had admitted losing, for security reasons and because it was an "expensive part".

But after three square miles had been examined over more than two months, the search was called off and the bomb was officially declared "irretrievably lost". Major Harold Richardson, the bomber pilot, received the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving the aircraft and its crew, and the island returned to its insouciant ways. As the years passed, the Tybee bomb became just another of the martial tales recounted by locals during sleepy afternoons spent in hammocks.

This stretch of coast, where the American continent peters out in a series of steamy creeks, swamps and wooded sandbanks, was strategically important for a long time because the Savannah River was the gateway to the cotton fields of Georgia and South Carolina.

Pirates used Tybee as a haven for decades, and General James Oglethorpe, the Englishman who founded Savannah, built a small fort there in 1733. Forty-six years later, in one of the bloodiest battles of the War of Independence, American and French troops used Tybee as a base for their unsuccessful attempt to capture the city.

During the Civil War, Union forces, having stormed Tybee, forced Confederate forces on a nearby island to surrender. Only last year, a civil war mine was discovered at the river entrance.But with the demise of cotton after the civil war, the area became a backwater. Tybee has wooden houses reminiscent of the West Indies, and its inhabitants tend to rise early for church - and drink late. Butterflies the size of a hand fly between palm trees and live on oaks decorated with Spanish moss. Cranes, blue herons and marsh hens colonise the marshes, and bottlenose dolphins greet passing skiffs.

The backwoods calm was punctured this year by the arrival of Lt-Col Derek Duke, who claimed to have fresh evidence that a hydrogen bomb with the power to wipe out Tybee and Savannah and to send tidal waves up and down the East Coast of America did indeed exist in their midst.

The retired USAF pilot, who says that he ran a National Security Agency operation in Vietnam, agrees to meet me in the parlour of a fine mansion in one of Savannah's squares.

On first impressions it would be easy to dismiss Duke as an eccentric. A short man, nearer 60 than 50, he has an unnatural-looking head of black hair and seems to be obsessed with the Tybee bomb as an example of how the federal Government is bent on conspiring against Americans.

Originally from Savannah but now living and working as a flying instructor in nearby Statesboro, Duke also has a financial interest in the bomb. He has formed a consortium which has offered to find the device for the Pentagon at a cost of £600,000.

And last year, Duke, acting as a "clearing house" for information from other like-minded people, received the best piece of evidence to date to contradict the Pentagon's case that the Tybee bomb was unarmed.

In 1966 Chet Holifield, the chairman of the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, was angered by adverse publicity from that year's Palomares incident in Spain, in which another midair collision caused the temporary loss - for 80 days - of a nuclear bomb by the US Air Force.

To investigate, he held a hearing behind closed doors and asked Jack Howard, then assistant to Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defence, to provide the committee with a list of accidents in which nuclear weapons had been lost and never recovered. Howard's response referred to four accidents divided into two categories, one involving "complete weapons", the other "weapon-less capsules".

The Tybee bomb was included in the first category.

Howard's note, on paper from the Office of the Secretary of Defence and stamped "Secret", was declassified in 1994 and remained unnoticed until it was passed to Duke.

The amateur sleuth has also produced a witness. Howard Nixon worked as a crew chief loading nuclear weapons on to planes at Hunter airfield from 1957 to 1959. He says: "Never in my air force career did I load a nuclear weapon without installing a nuclear capsule in it first."

Duke's evidence reached Jack Kingston, the congressman for the Savannah area, who demanded that the Air Force should look again into whether there was a live nuclear bomb in his home district. The politician's intervention encouraged the Pentagon to reopen the case, commissioning the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counterproliferation Agency to carry out an inquiry into the possibility of making a new search for the bomb.

The Pentagon says that it went back and cross-checked receipts for delivery of the Tybee bomb to Major Richardson, and other documents, which confirmed that the device was unarmed.

Lt-Col Steve Campbell, a Pentagon spokesman, says that Howard, who now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, made a mistake by listing the Tybee bomb as a "complete weapon". "We have discussed this letter with Mr Howard and he agrees that the accident should have been categorised as one involving a 'weapon-less capsule'," the official says.

Duke remains unconvinced. "Are you telling me that the right-hand man to the Secretary of Defence, with all the resources of the Department of Defence, gets a detail like that wrong to a congressional investigation that is taking the issue of lost bombs very seriously?" he asks.

"McNamara would have eaten Howard alive if he had been that sloppy."

The Pentagon's newly commissioned inquiry concluded that there should be no attempt to find the device, and that it was best left wherever it was. As it was unarmed, it followed that there was no danger of a nuclear explosion off Tybee.

The spread of heavy metals leaching from the bomb was also a low risk, the inquiry said, and the conventional explosives, if left undisturbed, posed no hazard. However, if there were an attempt made to move the bomb, believed to be up to 15ft under the sea bed, there could be an accidential detonation of the TNT, which could seriously damage the regional aquifer and local drinking water supplies.

Lt-Col Donald Robbins, the deputy director of the Air Force's nuclear weapons agency, adds that loaders did not know what they were putting on to the B47 - this was known only to the crew. He also insists the bomb jettisoned that night was a simulated weapon. "There was no plutonium, no nuclear capsule, on board," he says.

Congressman Kingston accepted the findings of the latest inquiry but Tom Cannon, Tybee's city manager, remains unhappy. Sitting in Fannie's, a beachside eatery which attracts customers with an image of three female bottoms about to be nipped by a crab, he explains that his 21-year career in the Army, where he was involved in intelligence, has made him wary of taking the Pentagon at its word.

"One thing you learn is to use weasle words with the best," he says. "You tell me this: 40 years ago, why did they spend two months looking for a bomb if it was a fake?"

------- MILITARY

Empire or Not? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 21, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37019-2001Aug20?language=printer

People who label the United States "imperialist" usually mean it as an insult. But in recent years a handful of conservative defense intellectuals have begun to argue that the United States is indeed acting in an imperialist fashion -- and that it should embrace the role.

When the Cold War ended just over a decade ago, these thinkers note, the United States actually expanded its global military presence. With the establishment over the last decade of a semi-permanent presence of about 20,000 troops in the Persian Gulf area, they contend, the United States is now a major military power in almost every region of the world -- the Mideast, Europe, East Asia and the Western Hemisphere. And even though the United States is unlikely to fight a major war anytime soon, they believe, it remains very active militarily around the globe, keeping the peace in Bosnia and Kosovo, garrisoning 37,000 troops in South Korea, patroling the skies of Iraq, and seeking to balance the rise of China.

The leading advocate of this idea of enforcing a new "Pax Americana" is Thomas Donnelly, deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century, a Washington think tank that advocates a vigorous, expansionistic Reaganite foreign policy. In ways similar though not identical to the Roman and British empires, he argues, the United States is an empire of democracy or liberty -- it is not conquering land or establishing colonies, but it has a dominating global presence militarily, economically and culturally.

In some ways, the quiet debate over an imperial role goes to the basic question now facing American foreign policymakers: Was the military activism of President Bill Clinton -- from invading Haiti to keeping peace in Bosnia, missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan, and bombing Yugoslavia -- unique to his administration, or was it characteristic of the post-Cold War era, and so likely to be the shape of things to come?

The discussion of an American empire also helps illuminate the running battle for the last six months between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his Joint Chiefs of Staff over how to change the U.S. military. The defense secretary wants to prepare the armed forces to deal with the threats of tomorrow, and so hints at cutting conventional forces to pay for new capabilities such as missile defense. But the Joint Chiefs respond that they are quite busy with today's missions.

Siding with the chiefs, Donnelly, a former journalist and congressional aide, argues that "policing the American perimeter in Europe, the Persian Gulf and East Asia will provide the main mission for the U.S. armed forces for decades to come." He contends that the Bush administration has tried to sidestep this reality, and instead is trying to formulate a more modest policy in the tradition of the "realist" or balance-of-power views associated with Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft.

The Kissingerian course is mistaken, Donnelly says. He argues that the sooner the U.S. government recognizes that it is managing a new empire, the faster it can take steps to reshape its military, and its foreign policy, to fit that mission. Events of the last six months tend to support his argument: While Bush and his advisers talked during the presidential election campaign about withdrawing from peacekeeping missions in the Balkans, once in office they emphasized that they would not leave before European allies did, and they also faced the prospect of becoming more involved in a third Balkans mess, in Macedonia.

If Americans thought more clearly and openly about the necessity of an imperial mission, Donnelly argues, "We'd better understand the full range of tasks we want our military to do, from the Balkans-like constabulary missions to the no-fly zones [over Iraq] to maintaining enough big-war capacity" to hedge against the emergence of a major adversary.

Donnelly has few open supporters, even among conservatives. But he said he believes many people quietly agree with him. "There's not all that many people who will talk about it openly," he said. "It's discomforting to a lot of Americans. So they use code phrases like 'America is the sole superpower.' "

One of Donnelly's somewhat reluctant allies is Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel who is a professor of international relations at Boston University. Bacevich does not much like the idea of an imperial America. But like it or not, he says, it is what we have.

"I would prefer a non-imperial America," Bacevich said in an e-mail interview. "Shorn of global responsibilities, a global military, and our preposterous expectations of remaking the world in our image, we would, I think, have a much better chance of keeping faith with the intentions and hopes of the Founders."

But he went on to dismiss that as wishful thinking. Rightly or wrongly, he said, maintaining American power globally already has become the unspoken basis of U.S. strategy. "In all of American public life there is hardly a single prominent figure who finds fault with the notion of the United States remaining the world's sole military superpower until the end of time," he wrote in the current issue of the National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal that has been the major venue of the imperial debate. So, Bacevich concluded, "The practical question is not whether or not we will be a global hegemon -- but what sort of hegemon we'll be."

Until American policymakers candidly acknowledge they are playing an imperial role on the world stage, Donnelly and Bacevich argue, U.S. strategy will be muddled, the American people frequently will be surprised by the resentment the United States meets overseas, and the military will not be given the resources necessary to carry out its missions -- such as more troops trained for a "constabulary" role of peacekeeping and suppressing minor attacks, along the lines of the 19th century British military.

But Donnelly and Bacevich split on the ultimate cost of taking an imperialist course. Like many critics of empire, such as conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, who in 1999 wrote a book called "A Republic, Not an Empire," Bacevich worries that imperialism abroad could carry a high cost at home.

"Tom Donnelly sees all of that as really neat, exciting, return-of-the-Raj adventure," he said. "I see it as merely unavoidable, and suspect that we'll end up paying a higher cost, morally and materially, than we currently can imagine."

Donnelly responds that such concerns lack historical basis. He notes that as America has grown more powerful over the last 150 years, so too has it expanded domestic liberties, freeing its slaves and extending voting and other rights to women and minorities.

For an idea with so few public adherents, there are a surprising number of critics of taking up the imperialist burden. In a 1999 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, for example, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, then Clinton's national security adviser, argued that "we are the first global power in history that is not an imperial power."

Many of the critics believe that embracing an imperial stance would backfire precisely because of the foreign reaction it would provoke, or maybe already is provoking. "People have got our number," said Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, an independent think tank outside San Diego. He believes that the United States is pursuing an imperialist course, and that "Coalitions are forming left and right around the world to thwart it." He points to closer cooperation between Russia and China, to a united Europe that is becoming less of an ally and more of a competitor, and to the swift rise of the anti-globalization movement. Last year, Johnson published a book titled "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire." It was, he said, "ignored" in this country.

Joseph Nye, a former official in the Clinton-era Pentagon who is dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, has just completed another book denouncing the idea. In "Soft Power: The Illusion of American Empire," to be published next year, he argues that the notion that the United States is, and should strive to remain, the world's only superpower has become widely accepted among conservative commentators.

Nye says this hegemonic view pays too much attention to military might. "I think that people who talk about 'benign hegemony' and 'accepting an imperial role' are focusing too much on one dimension of power and are neglecting the other forms of power -- economic and cultural and ideological," he said. Overemphasizing U.S. military strength, he continued, ultimately would undercut those less tangible forms of power, and so curtail any effort to maintain an empire.

Along the same lines, Richard Kohn, a University of North Carolina historian, argues that most Americans wisely would reject an imperial role if it were put to them openly. "The American people don't have the interest, the stomach or the perseverance to do it," Kohn said. "A few bloody noses and they'll want to pack it in. They recognize that it would cost us our soul, not to speak of the moral high ground -- in our own minds most of all."

To his critics, Donnelly responds that they are arguing with reality, not with him: "I think Americans have become used to running the world and would be very reluctant to give it up, if they realized there were a serious challenge to it."

-------- balkans

NATO Expected to OK Deployment

August 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NATO-Macedonia.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- NATO's ruling council was expected to give its approval Wednesday for the full deployment of its mission to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia, after hearing from its top general that the alliance's conditions had been met, officials said Tuesday.

If the North Altantic Council approves the plan to deploy a full 3,500-member mission to the Balkan nation, troops could start moving immediately.

NATO officials and diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said outside a meeting Tuesday of the council that representatives immediately began consulting with their capitals after hearing from Gen. Joseph Ralston.

Ralston, the American Air Force officer who commands all NATO troops on the continent, had come before the council to brief them on his fact-finding trip to Macedonia. The purpose of his trip was to assess the security situation in the Balkan nation, and see whether the time was ripe to send a full 3,500-member mission to collect weapons held by ethnic Albanian rebels.

Ralston and Secretary-General Lord Robertson told the council, made up of ambassadors from each of NATO's 19 member countries, that all of the alliance's pre-conditions for deployment have now been met, said a diplomat, speaking on condition he not be identified. Ralston recommended moving as quickly as possible.

Both diplomats and officials said they expected the council to issue the official activation order for the deployment on Wednesday.

NATO posed four conditions for deployment of its force: a political agreement between the Macedonian and ethnic Albanian 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 conditions have been met. The alliance now is trying to determine if there is a durable cease-fire.

The Macedonian government said Monday the army would pull back from front-line areas where NATO forces are to collect weapons from the rebels, signaling a willingness to create a positive atmosphere.

Nonetheless, fighting that lasted into early Monday and an explosion at a 13th century Orthodox monastery Tuesday aggravated tensions and mistrust between the parties remained high.

-------- colombia

Defense Official Colombia Policy

August 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Colombia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top Defense Department official raised doubts Tuesday about whether the United States is on the right course in Colombia with its counter-narcotics and social and economic development policies.

``I think we as a country are not quite sure where we're heading,'' said Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

``I think there's a consensus that there's an important American interest,'' Rodman said, ``but there's not necessarily a consensus about what the right way to serve that interest is.''

Rodman, speaking to reporters, said an interagency policy review in search of alternate approaches is under way.

He said many in Congress are concerned about whether countering the flow of narcotics should be the main U.S. goal, or whether there is ``some wider stake we may have in the survival of a friendly democratic government.''

Congress provided $1.3 billion to Colombia last year for counter-narcotics activities and for social and economic development.

The Bush administration also is seeking increased funding for neighboring countries in the event that narcotics traffickers move their operations to these countries from Colombia.

-------- drug war

DEA boosts its role in Paraguay

August 21, 2001
By Jack Sweeney
STRATFOR.COM
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010821-14136715.htm

Since January, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has doubled the size of its office in Paraguay's capital, Asuncion.

U.S. Special Forces are training Paraguayan soldiers in anti-drug operations that closely resemble counterinsurgency operations, while hundreds of U.S. soldiers recently spent four months in Paraguay on an official "training exercise" in an area heavily used by Colombian, Brazilian and Bolivian drug traffickers.

The moves are part of a U.S. effort to expand its counterdrug, intelligence and military presence in Paraguay, an increasingly lawless state with a fragile economy, wobbly democratic institutions and deeply ingrained corruption.

But Washington will not be able to stop the spread of international criminal groups in Paraguay and may face increased attacks not only from criminal gangs, but also from Arab extremists living in Paraguay, if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates into all-out war. Paraguay has long been a home to Arabs linked to the Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad militias.

The goal of the Bush administration is to build an effective surveillance and interdiction fire wall across a major southern route in Paraguay that Colombian and Bolivian drug traffickers use to export cocaine to the United States and Europe. But the U.S. effort comes as Paraguay's political institutions are increasingly at risk of being overwhelmed by powerful international criminal organizations.

Crime syndicates from Colombia, Brazil, China, Lebanon, Italy, Russia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana are known to be operating in Paraguay. Many of these groups are believed to be associated with corrupt Paraguayan business executives, politicians and military officers tied to the ruling party, according to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources.

Paraguay has been a democracy in theory since Gen. Alfredo Stroessner's 35-year military dictatorship was toppled in a 1989 coup led by then-army chief Gen. Lino Oviedo. But the same political party that backed Gen. Stroessner, the Colorado Party, continues to rule Paraguay today.

The past 12 years have been the longest period of civilian rule in Paraguay's 190-year history. But economic growth has not improved under democracy, and political instability and corruption have intensified.

Since 1989, there have been four failed coup attempts against Paraguay's civilian governments, including another led by Gen. Oviedo in 1996. He has been a central protagonist in bloody internal power struggles within the Colorado Party that threaten the country's weak political institutions and that could trigger a fifth military coup attempt at any time. He is now under house arrest in Brazil and is resisting efforts to extradite him to stand trial in the assassination of Vice President Luis Maria Argana in 1998.

Gen. Oviedo could likely expect more lenient treatment on his return to Paraguay if Vice President Julio Cesar Franco succeeds in forcing out unpopular and ineffectual President Luis Gonzalez Macchi and installing himself as the country's leader.

Mr. Franco was elected with the backing of Oviedo supporters in a breakaway faction of the Colorado Party.

Meanwhile, Brazil's government is anxious to be rid of Gen. Oviedo because of his suspected involvement in drug trafficking and other organized criminal enterprises, as well as his reported leadership of corrupt military officials.

Over the past decade, Paraguay's entrance into the global economy has attracted international criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations that view the country as a safe location from which to conduct illegal operations.

As a result, Paraguay today is a strategic South American hub for international drug trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering and counterfeiting, among other crimes. Most of the crimes take place in Ciudad del Este, a lawless city of between 150,000 and 300,000 residents located at the confluence of Paraguay's borders with Argentina and Brazil, in an area called the triple frontier. Ciudad del Este is also a regional center for drug trafficking and arms smuggling.

The U.S. State Department estimates that Paraguay moves 10 metric tons of cocaine annually to Europe and the United States. Other estimates, however, range up to 40 metric tons annually.

Paraguay also produces some of the highest-grade marijuana on the continent and exports most of it to Brazil, which now ranks as the largest consumer market in Latin America for cocaine, heroin, marijuana and so-called "club drugs" like Ecstasy.

Criminal gangs in Paraguay also have ties to Colombia's largest rebel group. Paraguayan officials arrested a Colombian citizen in Ciudad del Este last year as he tried to arrange a cocaine-for-weapons swap on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Links between crime syndicates in Ciudad del Este and the FARC date from the mid-1990s at least, when Gen. Oviedo protected Brazilian drug trafficker Fernandinho Beira Mar, who was captured in southern Colombia last April while accompanied by FARC rebels.

In addition to the prevalence of international gangs, the Bush administration also has reason to be concerned about the longtime presence in Paraguay of Arabs linked to Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Last year, Paraguayan officials arrested a Lebanese national in Ciudad del Este who was subsequently linked to a Hezbollah cell believed to have bombed Israel's embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina in 1992 and 1994.

In April, the State Department warned that the governments of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina are not capable of preventing Islamic terrorist actions that could originate from Ciudad del Este. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates into all-out war, these groups could start attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets in South America.

The growing U.S. security presence in Paraguay may provide U.S. officials with more timely intelligence about drug trafficking, terrorist activities and other illegal activity in that country. But it won't safeguard Paraguay's economy and political institutions from being hijacked by international crime syndicates.

As Paraguay becomes increasingly lawless, organized criminal gangs and terrorists will find it easier to operate with impunity and will pose a growing threat to regional stability.

• Jack Sweeney is a senior analyst at STRATFOR, the global intelligence company. Its Web site is www.STRATFOR.com/wt_join.htm.

--------

DEA Chief Tough on Medical Marijuana
Hutchinson Will Focus on Enforcing Ban, Improving Informant Accountability

By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 21, 2001; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37943-2001Aug20?language=printer

The new head of the Drug Enforcement Administration said yesterday that he would enforce the federal ban on medical marijuana, wants to improve the accountability of paid confidential informants and intends to increase technology used in the war on drugs.

Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas, said he wants to "send the right signal" on medical marijuana. Federal law prohibits the sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes. But several states, including California and Oregon, allow people to grow it, dispense it and use it without fear of prosecution, which is considered a federal responsibility under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

"Currently, it's a violation of federal law," Hutchinson told reporters, who had gathered at DEA headquarters in Arlington for his swearing-in ceremony. "The question is how you address that from an enforcement standpoint.

"You're not going to tolerate a violation of the law, but at the same time there are a lot of different relationships . . . a lot of different aspects that we have to consider as we develop that enforcement policy."

Hutchinson, 50, a former federal prosecutor, takes over a federal agency with 9,000 employees and a $1.5 billion budget. As a congressman, he was a conservative who supported local drug courts, which offer alternatives to prison. He won the support of Republicans and Democrats during his confirmation hearings last month.

Hutchinson was a House manager during the Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton and was considered this year as a possible deputy attorney general. But ties to his alma mater, Bob Jones University, hurt his chances. The school, which awarded Hutchinson a bachelor's degree in 1972 and an honorary law degree in 1999, prohibited interracial dating until March 2000.

Hutchinson said that he wants to improve relationships with international law enforcement agencies to curb drug smuggling, and was encouraged by a decline in the use of cocaine in the United States. Cocaine use has decreased 75 percent in the last 15 years, he said.

Hutchinson also said that he wants to implement a stronger "check and balance" system for the use of confidential informants and other DEA activities. He cited the case of informant Andrew Chambers as the "perfect example" of why such a system is needed.

Chambers worked as a paid DEA confidential informant for 16 years. During that time he wrecked dozens of prosecutions of street-level drug traffickers by giving false testimony, but he received about $1.8 million from the government. He was removed from the DEA payroll in early 2000.

The DEA now has a central registry for informants so the agency knows when the informant is being used by other jurisdictions and where each person has testified, Hutchinson said.

-------- israel

Israelis destroy city apartment block to drive out Palestinians

Independant (UK)
By Robert Fisk in Beit Hanima
21 August 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=89839

An entire apartment block in one fell swoop. The Israelis tore it down in less than half an hour, the eight empty flats - each valued at £36,000 - the kindergarten and six ground- floor stores turned to rubble by two cranes and at least 50 soldiers and policemen. Ibrahim Golani, the Israelis claimed, was building illegally in the municipality of Jerusalem; for which read, illegally annexed east Jerusalem. It was the same old story.

Even as Palestinians were absorbing the news of two more dead Palestinian children in Gaza, the demolition was under way. Beit Hanina is about as middle-class as you can get amid the despair of what Yasser Arafat likes to call Palestine, and the little street already had three identical four-storey blocks. Mr Golani's sin, his cousin said, was to build after applying for planning permission - but without waiting for the municipality, which is dominated by right-wing Israelis, to grant him the relevant documents.

Yet for the Palestinians, this is not about "illegal" building. As Ahmed abu Moussa put it outside the pharmacy opposite the wreckage yesterday, the Israelis want to prevent young Palestinian couples living in the Jerusalem city limits. "If they go on destroying these houses - and it happens every month here now - they hope to force our people, who are desperate for homes, to buy land outside Jerusalem. But the moment they do that and go and live outside the city limits, the Israelis take away their residence cards for the city. So they can no longer live here. And Jerusalem becomes less Arab and more Jewish."

Things were less clear cut in Gaza yesterday after Samir abu Zeid and his two children, Inas, 7, and Sulieman, 6, were torn to pieces by an explosion at their home in Rafah. The Palestinians accused the Israelis of firing a missile into the building to kill Mr abu Zeid, a member of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Movement. The Israelis responded by first claiming the family had been killed by a stray Palestinian mortar shell fired at a Jewish settlement and then - a somewhat different story - that Mr abu Zeid had been making a bomb when it accidentally exploded, killing his children.

Within minutes, the Islamic resistance movement Hamas was threatening further suicide attacks in retaliation. "We have 'mujahadeen' inside the Zionist entity awaiting the signal to explode like an earthquake," a spokesman chillingly announced. Few Israelis doubt Hamas does have suiciders ready to strike again but, so far, not one has come from Gaza.

In Hebron, the tiny international observer force of EU monitors made the humiliating announcement that they would no longer patrol the small Jewish area of the city because their members had been attacked by Jewish settlers. Now their patrols will be confined to the larger sector, which contains 120,000 Palestinians - the community that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, says Mr Arafat "cannot control". No one, of course, asked whether Mr Sharon could control the settlers who had been stoning the European observers.

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

Air Force Investigating Missile Fin

August 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Miscue.html?searchpv=aponline

VALPARAISO, Fla. (AP) -- The Air Force was trying Monday to determine why the fin from a missile plummeted into a residential neighborhood, apparently almost hitting two children.

The 10-pound fin fell Friday from an unarmed missile being carried by an F-16 jet fighter during a landing approach to nearby Eglin Air Force Base, base spokesman Tech. Sgt. David Donato said.

No one was hurt and there was no property damage.

But Keith Cash told WEAR-TV on Saturday that the fin landed within 10 feet of his daughter and another child while they were taking a walk. He returned the fin to the air base.

``Our safety office ... has suspended the testing of this particular missile until the investigation is complete'' in about a week, Donato said.

The fin was from a high-speed anti-radiation missile, or HARM, that homes in on enemy radar. It is used to knock out radar-guided, anti-aircraft missile and gun installations.

The jet was returning from a weapons testing mission that did not call for the missile to be launched, Donato said.

--------

N.C. County Doesn't Want Bombing

August 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Lejeune-Vieques.html

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- Onslow County officials don't want the Navy to move its live shelling and bombing training to Camp Lejeune from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

A report by the Center for Naval Analyses identified the Marine Corps base as the top alternative to Vieques. President Bush has promised to pull the Navy out of Vieques in 2003, but opponents want the Navy to immediately stop bombing and shelling on its range on the island.

A resolution adopted Monday by the Onslow County Board of Commissioners asked that Lejeune be withdrawn from consideration.

It said the panel ``was ever-mindful of the vital role played by our military neighbors as the world's peacekeepers.''

However, the commissioners said residents already complain about noise and damage resulting from live-fire training conducted at Lejeune.

The resolution will be sent to the president.

---------

Bush defends Pentagon budget boost

August 21, 2001
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010821-2146423.htm

MILWAUKEE -- President Bush yesterday told Congress not to roll back the biggest military-spending increase since the Reagan administration, insisting the Pentagon needs the extra $39 billion for a missile-defense shield, pay raises, and better health care for veterans.

Addressing the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Mr. Bush appeared to be bracing for the Democrat-controlled Senate to slash military funding during the appropriations process, which begins next month. Democrats have been laying the groundwork by complaining that the president's tax reduction will cut so deeply into the federal surplus that there will be insufficient money to fund White House priorities.

"As we enter the appropriations process, I have great hopes, but no illusions," Mr. Bush told the veterans. "Washington has its own way of doing things, especially around the time of year when final appropriations are made.

"The spending bills are passed one after another -- 13 in all. Everybody in Washington knows there's a budget, but new spending gets thrown in along the way. Finally, when it's time to pass the last bill, they realize they're just about to go over the budget.

"And often, and sadly, the final bill has been the defense-appropriations bill," he said. "Therefore, defense appropriations has gone without adequate funding."

Mr. Bush promised the VFW a year ago that he would restore funding for the military, which had declined so significantly during the Clinton years that thousands of service members were forced to subsist on food stamps. Yesterday, he called on Congress to stop putting service members last among the nation's priorities.

"That's the old way of doing business; that's old style of thinking," the president said. "I have a better idea: Let's abandon the old ways of gamesmanship, standoffs and government shutdowns.

"Let us keep our priorities straight and start with the things that matter most to our country's security and our country's future," he said. "This year, let us have responsible spending from Day One and put the national security and education of our children first in line when it comes to the appropriations process."

Mr. Bush's remarks drew an enthusiastic response, with the crowd interrupting him dozens of times with applause.

There is little chance that Congress will cut education funding below levels requested by Mr. Bush. The president earlier this year called for an 11 percent increase in education, and Senate Democrats responded by nearly doubling last year's funding.

Instead, it is military spending that has the White House worried. Mr. Bush has repeatedly promised better pay and benefits to service members, who overwhelmingly supported him in last year's election. Yesterday, he tried to put public pressure on Congress to stand firm behind the military during the appropriations process.

"I hope you all watch very carefully; it's important that people pay attention to what goes on in Washington," the president said. "It will be an interesting signal about the priorities of the leaders of the United States Congress when they let those appropriations bills out to come to my desk.

"I'm confident I can work with Congress on appropriations, because we've worked closely together on other issues," he added. "We saw bipartisan votes on the budget itself. And they passed and I signed and the mailman is delivering the first major income-tax relief in a generation."

Mr. Bush was preceded to the podium at the Milwaukee Convention Center by Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi, who is conducting a review of the 600,000 pending applications for medical benefits, including 53,000 that have been pending for over a year. He said he never again wants to report to the president that a veteran died while waiting for a medical-benefits claim to be processed.

Mr. Bush agreed.

"My administration understands America's obligations not only to go to those who wear the uniform today, but to those who wore the uniform in the past -- to our veterans," the president said.

"Veterans in need of care have been kept waiting and thousands of veterans' claims have been delayed, or in some cases, lost in the bureaucracy. Many veterans have observed that the government seemed to work a lot more efficiently when it wanted something from them. When the draft board got your file, it worked efficiently.

"But now when you need health care, forms get lost and answers come late," he said. "That is no way to treat America's veterans. And that is going to change."

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Philippines turns to sun, waves and wind for power

Story by Cameron Dueck
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
SINGAPORE: August 21, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12089/newsDate/21-Aug-2001/story.htm

SINGAPORE - Sun-drenched beaches caressed by ocean breezes and gentle waves are more than a tourist attraction in the Philippines. They are natural resources that can be harnessed for energy.

Rising oil prices and the risks of relying on imported fuel have prompted the Philippines to explore solar, wind and tidal currents as well as natural gas for power generation.

The government has set a tentative target of producing about 520 megawatts of electricity from indigenous energy sources by 2011, which would account for about four percent of current installed capacity.

One MW can power up to 1,000 modern homes.

"Self-reliance would be the first reason, with the savings on the import of crude and contribution to the balance of payment picture," said the chief of the non-conventional energy division at the Philippines Department of Energy (DOE), Reuben Quejas.

"Of course in the longer term there are environmental considerations as well."

The Philippines imported 139.7 million barrels of crude and petroleum products in 2000, accounting for 46 percent of the country's energy needs, according to DOE statistics.

But sky-high crude prices last year pushed the oil import bill up to $3.7 billion, a jump of more than 60 percent on the $2.3 billion spent in 1999.

COUNTRY'S FIRST NATURAL GAS

Natural gas is leading the push for energy alternatives.

The Philippines' first commercial natural gas project, southwest of the main island of Luzon, will fuel three combined-cycle power plants with a total capacity of 2,700 MW.

The Malampaya gas field, developed by Shell Philippines Exploration, is expected to fuel 24 percent of the country's power needs by next year.

In 2000, oil accounted for 21 percent of power generation - down from 28.5 percent in 1999, coal 38 percent, geothermal 25 percent and hydroelectricity 16 percent, according to the DOE.

Now the search is on for home-grown energy alternatives.

Asia Power International, a private Manila-based company, is working with the DOE to build a 30 to 50 MW prototype power plant using tidal currents off the southern island of Mindanao.

Developers are trying to raise about $5 million to fund the project, which they hope to complete in three to four years.

The DOE is also exploring ocean-wave power and how to utilise differences in ocean temperatures for power generation.

Using more tried and tested technology, PNOC-Energy Development Corp (PNOC-EDC), the alternative energy arm of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co, is developing a 40 MW wind farm on the northwestern tip of Luzon.

The first of three phases of the wind farm is slated for completion in 2004 with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation financing the initial $54 million stage of the project.

"The advantage of harnessing wind for energy is that we're not importing that fuel any more, it is coming directly from a local source. This should help stabilise domestic (power) prices," said the head of special projects at PNOC-EDC, Alfredo Troncales.

The DOE has a tentative target of 400 MW of wind-generated power by 2011.

SOLAR POWER

Solar power has played a key role in the Philippines' rural electrification programme. Almost 20 percent of 41,995 "barangays" or villages were without electricity at the end of 2000. The government wants all villages to have power by 2004.

Many of these communities are too remote to be connected to the national grid, making small solar generators an ideal solution, Quejas said.

"The Philippines has plenty of sunshine. For electrification of the small villages (outside the grid), 80 to 90 percent of them are energised by solar," he told Reuters.

The Philippines' Department of Agrarian Reform and the Spanish government along with oil giant BP signed in March a $48 million solar project deal to bring power to 150 villages.

Biomass, or plant materials and animal waste, is another alternative fuel. Waste from coconut, sugar cane and rice processing are all under consideration with a tentative goal of generating 90 MW of power from biomass fuel by 2011.

Aside from strategic arguments, alternative fuels may also lower Philippine retail electricity tariffs. Philippine tariffs are among the highest in Asia at about 11 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour, according to recent report by Merrill Lynch.

Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand all have lower retail prices.

"The reason is mostly crude prices and the exchange rate," said the DOE's Quejas.

He pegged generation costs at a wind turbine equal to the average cost of about 1.9 pesos (3.5 U.S. cents) per kilowatt hour on the Luzon power grid, which distributes a combination of hydro, geothermal, coal and oil-fired power.

-------- environment

Investigators probe risk of toxics to human reproduction

Tuesday, August 21, 2001
By Environmental News Network
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/08/08212001/reproduction_44690.asp

Human reproduction, fetal and child development are vulnerable to chemicals in the environment and other environmental factors. New knowledge about the human genome is providing clues to how genes and the environment interact to cause developmental defects.

Now the chemical industry and the federal government have agreed to jointly fund research that will extend knowledge in this area. Over the next two years, $4 million will be spent to develop better data and test methods for understanding the effects of environmental factors and chemicals on human reproduction and fetal and childhood development.

An agreement between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), was signed late last month.

Through a series of meetings over the past year, the two organizations identified a mutual research goal -- to conduct multidisciplinary research on the mechanisms of action of potential developmental toxicants using state-of-the-art tools, including genomics and genetic animal models.

"On behalf of the members of the Council, I am proud and delighted to sign this Memorandum of Understanding with the NIEHS," said Fred Webber, ACC president and CEO. "Through this agreement we will jointly fund research grants to expand knowledge about the potential effects of chemicals on development."

The new agreement commits the council to provide $1 million and the federal institute $3 million to the joint project, enough to cover about 15 grants.

Studies suggest average male sperm counts have sharply declined over the decades. Breast cancer and testicular cancers appear to have increased.

About half of all pregnancies in the United States result in prenatal or postnatal death or an otherwise less than healthy baby. In its report, the National Research Council (NRC) estimates that exposure to toxic chemicals, both manufactured and natural, cause about three percent of all developmental defects. At least 25 percent might be the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors, scientists believe.

The National Research Council committee emphasized that all stages of human development, from conception to puberty, should be examined in toxicity studies, since all developmental periods are potentially susceptible to toxic agents. There is also a need to look at all adverse developmental outcomes, including growth retardation, behavioral effects, and death, the NRC panel said.

Through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the federal government already conducts research to discover how chemicals in the environment, including pesticides that mimic the hormone estrogen, might cause or stimulate these diseases.

NIEHS Director Dr. Kenneth Olden described the new deal as, "a collaboration between government and industry to improve the health of the American people by improving the quantity and quality of the data on potential developmental toxicants."

Scientists from NIEHS and from the Council will screen grant applications prior to an independent, NIH scientific peer review process. Applications ranked as having the highest scientific merit will be offered funding. This joint effort maintains the strict independence of the NIH peer review process in the assignment of a scientific merit evaluation measure for the research grant applications, the NIEHS said in a statement.

In accord with the NIH and Public Health Service policies, and other federal regulations, there is no restriction on publishing research findings from the grants funded by the NIEHS, whatever their outcome.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences already has The Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR), established in June 1998, which investigates potentially hazardous effects of chemicals on human reproduction and development.

The chemical industry's funding comes from the ACC's Long-Range Research Initiative (LRI). Established in 1999, the chemical industry has committed more than $100 million to this program over five years to increase knowledge about the potential effects of chemicals on human and wildlife populations and the environment.

The vast amounts of data that could be generated by testing thousands of chemicals for potential developmental toxicity will require new databases capable of organizing this information in a way that is useful for risk assessment.

The databases will include information from industry, academia, and government researchers, and be linked with existing databases of developmental biology and genomics, as well as those describing how drugs and chemicals are metabolized by the body.

--------

Engineers corps faces suit

August 21, 2001
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010821-79995110.htm

The National Wilderness Institute has notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it intends to sue the corps over its continued excessive dumping of sludge in the Potomac River.

Federal officials admit to piping the chemically treated sediment through C&O Canal National Historic Park and into the Potomac but maintain that they have the permits and that no legal violations are occurring.

The high levels of sludge are often being dumped under cover of night and violate the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), said Rob Gordon, director of the National Wilderness Institute.

The corps is discharging the sludge from the Washington Aqueduct at a rate as high as 45,000 milligrams per liter, as opposed to the maximum allowance of 30 milligrams per liter commonly enforced on many other water treatment plants, Mr. Gordon said.

The sludge is being dumped at one site above the Chain Bridge and two sites above Georgetown.

The National Wilderness Institute filed the mandatory notice of intent to sue July 26, but despite the notice, the corps continues to dump sludge on a regular basis. Most recently, Mr. Gordon snapped photographic evidence of a dump Thursday at the Chain Bridge and observed the process for several hours.

"An enormous black plume of sludge darkened more than half the river, and the stench was nauseating," Mr. Gordon said.

"Washington's dirty little secret is now out: The Army Corps of Engineers is poisoning the river and endangered species habitat, and it's got to stop," Mr. Gordon said, referring to habitats in the Potomac of the endangered short-nosed sturgeon.

Rep. John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Republican and a member of the House Resources Committee, called the photographs "deeply disturbing" and said the issue "clearly merits oversight" by Congress.

Mr. Gordon's group will sue the corps for violating the ESA and Clean Water Act after the 60-day notice-to-sue waiting period has expired Sept. 24.

The institute also is suing the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Marine Fishery, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Federal Highway Administration. The dumping also violates numerous park service regulations, Mr. Gordon said.

Thomas Jacobus, chief of the Washington Aqueduct, a division of the Baltimore District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the lawsuit involves "political and regulatory issues" on which he cannot comment.

Mr. Jacobus did say the aqueduct has a permit to conduct the discharge and confirmed that what Mr. Gordon witnessed Thursday was a sediment dump that contains alum. Mr. Gordon says alum is harmful to fish eggs and young fish.

However, the permit issued by the Environmental Protection Agency expired in 1994. The corps applied for an extension and is permitted to dump indefinitely unless the EPA sets standards for the discharges or issues a new permit with restrictions.

"We are in fact operating exactly in terms of the existing permit," Mr. Jacobus said. Mr. Gordon said the permit "allows them to discharge just about anything," but he said even minor rules are being broken.

"They have the most extraordinary permissive permit that has very little rules and stipulations for them," Mr. Gordon said.

A 1993 study showed that the dumping would not hurt fish or eggs, but another study is under way to determine toxicity of the discharges, and the EPA may recommend another method of disposing of the waste, Mr. Jacobus said.

If dumping is deemed harmful, the waste could be hauled out by trucks or flushed through the sewage system. However, Mr. Jacobus said, "if depositing in the river is no longer allowed, the consequences of all those truck operations have their own environmental consequences."

Ira Sabin, who has fished above Chain Bridge for 60 years, said dark brown masses of foam 6 inches high converge on his favorite fishing spots after fishermen report that a dumping has occurred.

"You just can't catch any fish when this happens," Mr. Sabin said. "I think it's a shame that the federal government is dumping this pollution."

The sludge is piped through the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park before being dumped into the river. Nearby, National Park Service signs ask visitors to report crimes against national park resources, including dumping and water pollution, along with violation details.

"I am reporting this crime," said Rep. George P. Radanovich, California Republican and also a Resources Committee member.

"This is the most egregious violation of both the Endangered Species and Clean Water acts I have ever seen, and the facts are indisputable," Mr. Radanovich said.

"The violator is the Corps of Engineers. The location is endangered species habitat in the Potomac. The date and time is for more than a decade. The special details are, unfortunately, that this dumping is done repeatedly, intentionally and with callous disregard for the law and the species," Mr. Radanovich said.

The National Wilderness Institute, a conservative environmental group, is a critic of the Endangered Species Act and its random enforcement by federal officials, but Mr. Gordon said that in this case "the violations are so egregious, everyone agrees it needs to be enforced."

Western lawmakers also are angry and frustrated over the double standard of federal laws being leniently applied inside the Beltway while harshly enforced in other states.

"The corps is making a mockery of the Clean Water Act and the ESA with its dumping of foam-covered sludge into endangered sturgeon habitat," said Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican.

-------- genetics

A Step Forward for Genetic Engineering in New Zealand

New York Times
August 21, 2001
By ALLAN COUKELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/health/genetics/21ZELA.html

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Aug. 20 - The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification has recommended that research on genetically modified crops and animals "proceed with caution," elating the nation's biotechnology interests while dismaying opponents of the technology, particularly the nation's influential Green Party.

The commission's report explicitly rejects the idea of a nation free of genetically modified crops and animals, saying it would not be in New Zealand's social, environmental or economic interests. Although it calls for a number of additional restrictions on genetic modifications, the report argues that the technology can be used "in a way that does not threaten New Zealand's `clean green' image."

The recommendations, issued late last month, are not binding, but if accepted by the government, they would ease restrictions on low-risk research done in laboratories and would tighten the regulatory regime around activities like the general release of genetically modified organisms. In particular, the commissioners called for a rule change that would enable the authorities to impose follow-up safety monitoring or to limit the scale of any release of genetically modified organisms.

They also called for more research on the potential for any release to affect soil and ecological systems.

The report, a wide-ranging inquiry into the technology's implications for health, environmental, legal, economic and cultural issues, is the first of its kind from an industrialized nation. It is expected to attract interest from other countries grappling with the controversies arising from biotechnology.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, who set up the panel in May 2000, said opponents must accept the fact that the commission "has not embraced their view on field trials and on crops." She said her government would study the report and make a decision in about three months.

Genetic engineering is controversial in New Zealand. No genetically modified crops have yet been approved for release, and even experimental field trials have been delayed since the commission first met.

Critics of the technology predict that it will lead to widespread environmental damage and health problems. Some, including many Maori groups that testified before the commission, oppose it on ethical or spiritual grounds. Others believe that New Zealand farmers can capitalize on the growing world market for organic produce, but only if the nation rejects genetic modifications.

The critics have won wide support. A commission survey showed that most New Zealanders were comfortable with genetic modification for medical purposes but saw "more disadvantages than advantages" in its use on animals or crops.

On the other side of the debate are the biotechnology industry, science organizations and farm groups that view transgenics as an important tool for improving the value and efficiency of New Zealand's agriculture and forestry industries.

The four commissioners - a doctor, a scientist, a bishop and a retired chief justice - held dozens of public meetings, heard expert witnesses from New Zealand and abroad, and worked through more than 10,000 submissions from the public. More than 100 individuals or groups presented evidence in formal hearings.

Representatives of industry said they would not object to the additional scrutiny recommended. "Field trials were going to be expensive anyway," said Dr. Ian Warrington, chief executive of HortResearch, a state-owned company that is using gene technology to improve fruit production. "It is a very good report," he said.

The report also calls for a new advisory body on ethical, social and cultural matters in biotechnology.

The commissioners said they recognized that greater use of genetically modified crops would create some problems. For instance, the report calls for a strategy that will allow both genetically modified crops and the continued production of organic honey, which requires no contact with pollen from genetically modified plants. But Pete Hodgson, minister of research, science and technology, conceded that it would be extremely difficult to keep the bees from those plants.

The full report is online at www.gmcommission.govt.nz.

--------

Australia Gets Cell Research Center

August 21, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Australia-Stem-Cells.html

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- The Australian government on Monday approved funds to set up a national center for advanced cell engineering.

Australia does not yet have a nationwide policy on the use of embryonic stem cells, and Industry and Science Minister Sen. Nick Minchin said the new center would have to comply with existing laws, which ban the harvesting of stem cells from human embryos and require them to be brought from overseas.

The center will be located at Monash University in the southern city of Melbourne.

Researchers believe that stem cells taken from very early stage embryos may lead to cures or treatment for incurable diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's and cancer, and perhaps to grow new organs.

The cells have medical potential because they have not yet specialized into any of the 220 cell types that make up the human body. Researchers hope to be able to induce the cells to develop into a particular cell type needed for transplant.

Minchin said it was hoped that scientific advances would mean stem cells could be obtained from adults, without the need to resort to use of embryos.

Researchers have recently discovered that stem cells are present in the bodies of adults, and some believe it may be possible to persuade other adult cells to regress to an unspecialized state and then to make them evolve into any desired type. Some scientists doubt, however, that it will be as easy to direct the growth of adult cells as it is to manipulate embryonic stem cells.

Australian state and federal governments are still trying to arrive at a joint position on stem cell research. Prime Minister John Howard has indicated such research may be permitted if surplus embryos created for couples during in-vitro fertilization and slated for destruction are used.

-------- human rights

U.S. hits Taliban over access to detainees

August 21, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010821-620418.htm

The United States yesterday accused Afghanistan's ruling Taliban of violating international norms by not allowing consular access to detained U.S. citizens, but it acknowledged there was little it could do to help two Americans jailed for proselytizing.

Calling the Taliban a "strange crowd," the State Department said the Kabul regime's handling of the matter was "insufficient" and "unacceptable."

"We have requested continued assurances from the Taliban that the health of the detainees is good, but what we want is access, so that we can make those determinations ourselves, so that we can see our nationals," said Philip Reeker, the State Department's deputy spokesman.

Washington failed to gain access to the Americans, and a U.S. official is scheduled to leave Kabul today, after a week of futile efforts to communicate effectively with the Taliban.

Officials in Kabul yesterday refused to extend the visa of the U.S. diplomat, David Donahue, consul general at the American Embassy in Islamabad, the capital of neighboring Pakistan, where he will return today, the State Department said.

"The Taliban have advised the consular officers to contact Taliban representatives in Islamabad to 'learn when the investigations of the detained aid workers have been concluded,'" Mr. Reeker said.

Mr. Donahue and diplomats from Germany and Australia arrived in Kabul last Tuesday to visit eight foreign aid workers from the German-based relief group Shelter Now. The Americans Dana Curry and Nicole Barnardhollon -- were arrested Aug. 3, and their four German and two Australian co-workers were detained two days later.

The three diplomats were issued one-week visas on Aug. 13 but were denied renewals yesterday.

"As consular officers, we often run into difficult situations," Mr. Donahue said in Kabul. "We will work for consular access to our detainees, and we will also work to ensure that they are taken care of and that their well-being is taken care of and that they receive the items we passed on to them."

During a meeting last week, low-level Taliban officials agreed to accept letters, personal items and food for the detainees.

The United States, which has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban, has been struggling to find an effective way to communicate with the regime in Kabul, recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The disconnect transpired even before the three diplomats were granted visas to Afghanistan.

The State Department kept insisting that Mr. Donahue's goal in Kabul was to visit the detainees. At the same time, the Taliban made very clear that the diplomats could meet with Taliban officials but would not be allowed to see the aid workers before the investigation was completed.

Nevertheless, Mr. Donahue remained in Kabul, hoping to persuade the Taliban officials to change their minds. But Mr. Reeker said Mr. Donahue wasn't even given a reason for being denied access to the detainees.

"We haven't got satisfactory responses to that," he said.

The penalty the detainees might face also is not clear, with the possibilities ranging from the death sentences provided for by Islamic law to expulsion.

The Taliban said last week the workers probably would receive five-year sentences if convicted, while the 16 Afghans arrested along with the foreigners would have to be executed.

The Taliban says materials confiscated from the office of Shelter Now support the charges against the workers. The detainees deny they were converting Muslims to Christianity.

Severe clashes between Taliban forces and opposition groups were reported yesterday, leaving four Taliban fighters dead.

The fighting erupted in Takhar province in northern Afghanistan, with the opposition saying it had captured 18 posts near the provincial capital, Taloqan.

Opposition officials, who blamed Taliban fighters for initiating the fighting after a lull of several weeks, were quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying the clashes began early yesterday and continued for seven hours

--------

China Said to Remove Revered Tibetan Monk

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 21, 2001; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35993-2001Aug20?language=printer

BEIJING, Aug. 20 -- A frail and aging Tibetan monk who presides over one of China's largest and most important Buddhist centers has apparently been removed from his remote mountain complex as part of a campaign by Chinese authorities to expel thousands of followers who had gathered there, a monitoring group reported today.

Khenpo Jigme Phuntsog, 68, a charismatic monk reputed to be the reincarnation of the teacher of the 13th Dalai Lama, the predecessor of the current Dalai Lama, was confined to his residence in June when the government began trying to force as many as 5,000 monks and nuns to leave his Serthar religious academy in the isolated Larung valley in western Sichuan province. But reports received by the London-based Tibet Information Network indicate Chinese authorities have since taken Khenpo Jigme from the sprawling monastic encampment for medical treatment at a clinic outside the valley.

He had originally refused to leave the complex, the group said, and his departure could make it easier for the government to clear away his students.

According to new accounts from witnesses, some of whom have fled China, as many as half the 3,000 nuns at the Serthar complex have been forced to leave, some after being ordered to denounce the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the group said. At the same time, other monks and nuns have threatened to commit suicide rather than leave Serthar, which had housed the largest concentration of monks and nuns in Tibetan areas and expanded over the years as new arrivals built their own accommodations, the group said.

Monitoring groups, witnesses and other sources say the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party organization that manages relations with religious groups, is directing the clampdown. An estimated 6,000 to 7,000 monks and nuns lived at Serthar, and the department's goal is to reduce the population to 1,000 monks and 400 nuns by October, these sources said.

The timing of the crackdown could complicate relations with the United States during President Bush's October visit to China. The Bush administration has said pressing for greater religious freedom will be a priority in its dealings with Beijing. China is in the midst of a nationwide squeeze on religion, jailing thousands of followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, razing hundreds of Christian churches and arresting Catholic clergy loyal to the Vatican.

Government officials did not answer their phones or return calls today, but an official with the Sichuan Religious Affairs Bureau said in June that monks and nuns were being forced to leave the academy "because of concerns about social stability and at the order of central authorities."

-------- imf / world bank / wto

EU May Hit U.S. With $4 Billion In Penalties
Commission Calls Tax Credits Illegal

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 21, 2001; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37578-2001Aug20?language=printer

BRUSSELS, Aug. 20 -- The European Union announced today that it would seek more than $4 billion in trade sanctions unless the United States amends a tax-credit program for American corporations that the World Trade Organization has declared violates international law.

The WTO judgment, reached by a panel of experts last month and made public today, found that billions of dollars' worth of special tax breaks offered to Microsoft Corp., Boeing Co. and hundreds of other U.S. exporters amounted to an illegal subsidy that discriminates in favor of American products.

The decision comes at a sensitive time for the world's biggest commercial powers. They are struggling to resolve festering bilateral disputes and reach agreement on an agenda for a new round of global trade talks while the economies of the United States, Europe and Japan suffer from a steep downturn.

The United States has warned the EU that pursuing the course of multibillion-dollar trade sanctions would provoke a wave of retaliatory measures by Congress that could disrupt global trade and plunge the world into an economic crisis.

U.S. Special Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick has likened any EU sanctions of that magnitude to "dropping a nuclear bomb" on the global trading system.

The Bush administration must now decide whether to appeal the decision, change the tax law or face sanctions on exports to Europe. Under WTO rules, the United States has 60 days to file an appeal. "We are weighing our options," said Richard Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. trade representative.

Earlier this month, chief executives of major U.S. companies that benefit from the law urged President Bush to appeal any negative ruling to buy more time to negotiate a solution.

Zoellick said in a prepared statement that he has been consulting closely with Congress and U.S. business executives. "In seeking a resolution, we are focusing on how to promote America's economic interests while fulfilling our WTO obligations," he said.

EU officials said they recognize the dangers of waging a major trade war with the United States at a time when the global economy seems particularly fragile. But they contended that the United States has the responsibility of bringing its tax regime into line with world trade rules.

The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism from European allies for its unilateral approach in challenging several international treaties, including those governing climate change, biological warfare and missile defense systems.

The United States has generally backed the authority of the WTO as the court of last resort in trade disputes. In several key cases -- notably over banana imports -- the WTO has sided with the United States against the European Union.

The latest case dwarfs other trade disputes, however, because of the size of the proposed sanctions. If WTO arbitrators agree with EU claims for $4 billion to $5 billion in damages, it will far surpass any commercial penalty applied by the Geneva-based organization since it took over the responsibilities of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The EU has been challenging U.S. tax breaks to exporters for years. The WTO acted on an earlier EU complaint by declaring that the Foreign Sales Corporation Act provided illegal export subsidies. That law allowed major exporters to shelter some overseas earnings from tax by funneling sales through offshore shell companies, called "foreign sales corporations," that were mainly in the Caribbean.

After Congress approved changes in November designed to conform to WTO rules, the EU complained that the amended law only increased the size of the tax breaks. The WTO panel agreed that the latest version was also illegal.

The EU's executive commission released a statement saying it was "fully satisfied" with the latest WTO ruling and now expects the United States to comply by making "wholesale changes" in the tax laws.

European Commission officials said the EU was prepared to delay applying any sanctions if the U.S. Congress agreed to consider new legislation that would change the tax laws. "We can hold off on this for as long as we like if we think that the U.S. is making a serious effort to change its law and bring itself into compliance, even by the start of the next tax year," said Stephen Gospage, a senior EU trade representative.

He said that if the United States decided to appeal the decision, the EU would press ahead by requesting WTO permission to impose the sanctions on American exports. "We are very confident that we can defend our position," Gospage said.

The outcome could depend on how Congress responds to calls for reform of the business tax system. The United States now applies a tax on worldwide company profits. But Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, favors a "territorial" system under which only domestic earnings would be subject to U.S. tax. He and other advocates say this approach would still benefit American companies while bringing the United States into compliance with WTO rules.

In their ruling, WTO judges said they would not offer an opinion on the relative merits of "worldwide" vs. "territorial" systems of taxation. They said it was up to Congress "to choose any kind of tax system it wishes -- so long as that system is consistent with WTO obligations."

-------- police / prisoners

FBI Confirms Probe of Stolen Briefcase
N.Y. Agent Questioned for Leaving Classified Documents Has Said He Is Retiring

By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 21, 2001; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37049-2001Aug20?language=printer

The head of the FBI's counterterrorism division in New York is under investigation for leaving his briefcase filled with classified information that was later stolen and found in another hotel, FBI sources said yesterday.

John P. O'Neill, a 31-year veteran of the agency with a reputation as a top-notch investigator, was attending an FBI conference last year in Tampa when he was paged. Surrounded by FBI employees, O'Neill left the soft-covered case near his chair and went to return the page, sources said. When he returned, the group had broken for lunch and the briefcase was gone.

"He didn't say to any employee, 'Keep an eye on this until I come back,' " an FBI source said.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft declined to comment on the matter yesterday.

O'Neill, the special agent in charge of national security for the FBI's New York field office, immediately reported the briefcase missing, sources said. The incident was first reported by the New York Times, which said the documents included a report on national security operations in New York.

The stolen briefcase, which was quickly recovered, is one of a string of recent embarrassments for the FBI, including a failure to turn over several thousand pages of material in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing case; missing FBI weapons; and the controversial investigation of Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee.

The thief, who has never been caught, took the briefcase to another hotel, left it and stole another case, sources said. When the owner of the second briefcase returned, he opened it and found documents he didn't recognize and called hotel security. Hotel security then reviewed the contents and realized the information was confidential and notified the local FBI.

"It probably looked to someone like a laptop," an FBI source said.

O'Neill's case was returned to him within 90 minutes after it was taken, sources said. "Nothing was tampered with," an FBI source familiar with the matter said. "I'm fairly confident the thing was retrieved intact."

The FBI does not allow documents to be removed from the office without authorization, according to Joe Valiquette, a spokesman in the FBI's New York office. He declined to say whether O'Neill had authorization. O'Neill has not been disciplined, Valiquette said.

O'Neill did not return a telephone call to his New York office yesterday. O'Neill, 49, began at the FBI as a civilian and became an agent in 1976, an official said. He announced last week that he was retiring at the end of this week, officials said.

O'Neill investigated the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last year and the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, in 1998. He also investigated Osama bin Laden, who allegedly operates terrorist camps in Afghanistan.

--------

A Growth Industry Cools as New York Prisons Thin

New York Times
August 21, 2001
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/nyregion/21PRIS.html?pagewanted=all

With the number of inmates in state prisons across the country either stabilizing or dropping after decades of explosive growth, New York is taking early steps to reduce its prison staffing significantly.

The Department of Correctional Services has frozen hiring at 36 prisons across the state, and hopes to eliminate 614 prison jobs through attrition by March, forcing corrections officers to begin to grapple with something they never imagined possible. New York City's plummeting crime rate might cost them their jobs if the goal is not met through attrition and might deliver a further blow to communities already braving a slowing economy.

The change in New York, where officials project the decrease in the inmate population to be about 9 percent, is threatening the livelihoods of people like Alan Ada.

In the mid-1980's, he surveyed his options in Cape Vincent, N.Y., a tiny resort town on the Canadian border, and decided to follow the calling of thousands of other young people upstate. Children of laid-off paper-mill workers and struggling dairy farmers, they chose a booming field that most never dreamed of, but that offered a steady salary, a pension and health insurance. Like them, he became a corrections officer.

New York City quickly proved him wise. Desperate to ease overcrowding in its jails, the city built a $90 million jail in Cape Vincent in 1988 near the banks of the St. Lawrence River and began flying inmates north on twice-weekly jet shuttles nicknamed "Con Air."

The new prison allowed Mr. Ada to get a steady job in the place where he was born and raised, a rare feat in Cape Vincent, a town of 2,400 in the Thousand Islands wilderness that falls silent when the leaves turn and the summer tourists depart.

As the number of inmates in New York soared in the 1990's, the state took over the prison, doubling its population and work force. Across upstate New York, shrinking rural communities and their legislators clamored and competed for prisons, a seemingly recession-proof industry. But the boom times are coming to a jarring end.

"Who ever thought crime would go down?" asked Tim Munroe, a corrections officer who has worked in the Cape Vincent Correctional Facility for 12 years. "Who ever thought we would run out of inmates?"

Officials in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Texas - states also experiencing declines in their prison population - said they had no plans to reduce their prison work forces. Experts caution that it is not yet known whether the nationwide prison population is dropping or simply stabilizing. But if the decline becomes a clear trend, hundreds of small, rural prison towns across the country could find themselves confronted by the same unnerving news as Cape Vincent.

"Regions and towns that have based their whole economies on prisons are going to be confronted with some really serious problems," said Michael Jacobson, a professor of criminology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "This is going to be a problem for the governor and Legislature. In the same way towns lobbied to open prisons, they are going to lobby against closing them."

In New York, a continued drop would bring a halt to what has served as a de facto economic development program in the state's isolated corners - prison growth. Assailed by critics as a shortsighted use of state resources and defended by supporters as necessary for public safety, New York's sprawling 70-facility, $2.4-billion-a-year prison system pours hundreds of millions of dollars into the upstate economy each year.

The dependence bred by nearly 30 years of unchecked prison growth is evident in isolated Cape Vincent, where deer nibble on grass near the prison, wild turkeys wander the roads and Canadian radio stations dot the airwaves. Prison employees expressed fear, anger and suspicion about the state's plan and complained of low morale and management problems. A group of corrections officers met with H. Carl McCall, the state comptroller and a candidate for governor, this month to express concerns about cutbacks.

The vast majority of officers interviewed asked not to have their names published because they feared losing their jobs. Corrections officers' salaries start at $33,000 and rise to $48,000 in 20 years.

"When they say the crime rate is down, it's just a political thing," scoffed Mr. Ada, one of several officers who questioned whether the rates are actually dropping. "I think it's just something for the politicians to make them look good."

Mr. Ada, who is also the local fire chief, complained that proposed changes in the so-called Rockefeller drug laws would further reduce the prison population, and he was convinced that crime continues unabated downstate. "All you have to do is look at the New York City news," he said.

The supervisor in Cape Vincent, Tom Rienbeck, said that the prison is the community's second-largest employer after its public schools, and that the state's goal of cutting 168 of the prison's 528 jobs through attrition would hurt.

"Anytime you lose that many jobs, it's something to worry about," Mr. Rienbeck said, adding that he, too, never dreamed the prison population would drop. "You always figure you're going to have criminals. It's like being a doctor, you figure there are always going to be sick people."

Mr. Rienbeck and corrections officers expressed worry that the state would not reach its goal through attrition and that layoffs would be necessary. "There are maybe a handful of people close to retirement," Mr. Ada said.

James B. Flateau, a spokesman for the Department of Correctional Services, said the Cape Vincent's prison has lost 26 officers, for example, through attrition since April 2000. The state's goal is to lose 117 officers and 51 civilian employees by next March, but Mr. Flateau emphasized that the figures are only targets. He said that the department expects to meet its goal statewide and that higher attrition in other prisons could make up for less in an area like Cape Vincent.

Groups that criticized explosive prison growth in the past are using the slowdown to again call for change. Jennifer Wynn, director of the Prison Visiting Project for the Correctional Association of New York, questioned the wisdom of making prisons such a large economic force in upstate New York.

"Since 1982, New York has opened 38 new prisons, every one of them in a rural upstate community that relies on prisoners - mostly poor people of color from New York City - to fuel the local economy," she said. "Maybe it's time to invest in more positive and sustainable industries than warehousing people."

Several upstate county governments may also have miscalculated. For the last decade, state prison overcrowding resulted in thousands of inmates serving their sentences in county jails instead of state prisons. After years of legal battles, the state now reimburses the counties for housing the inmates.

Some rural counties, seeking to make the arrangement profitable, built large jails with excess capacity. But with the prison population dropping, some sheriff's departments that run county jails are stuck with oversized centers with empty bunks.

"There are jails that overbuilt in anticipation of needing additional space for themselves and in anticipation of taking advantage of some extra dollars from the state," said Peter Kehoe, executive director of the New York State Sheriffs' Association. "Those people are beginning to worry."

The worry is palpable in Jefferson County, home to Cape Vincent, and neighboring St. Lawrence County. Hiring freezes are in effect in four of the five prisons, some of which are known as "cookie cutters," a reference to the speed and identical designs desperate corrections officials used as they scrambled to build them in the 1980's and 1990's.

Besides the hiring halt, 350 officers temporarily assigned to prisons in the two counties fear being moved to downstate prisons where their jobs are permanently assigned, according to Mr. Munroe, a former union leader in Cape Vincent who believes the drop in crime is real and good for society over all. He added that he did not believe anyone considered what would happen if the crime rate dropped. "There wasn't much forethought," he said.

Dozens of local men are already making the commute to downstate prisons. One corrections officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the hiring freeze put off his hopes of being able to work in a nearby prison. "Cape Vincent is my No. 1 jail," he said. "It's two miles from my house."

He drives two hours to a maximum security prison in central New York. There, he works double shifts for two to four days, sleeping in an apartment he shares with 12 other officers. He returns to Cape Vincent and works odd construction jobs during his days off.

But he and other local prison employees all enthusiastically endorsed theirs as a "clean industry" that produced steady employment and little pollution. No guards have been seriously injured since Cape Vincent's prison opened, they said, and no inmates have escaped.

With mills and other area businesses continuing to close, Mr. Ada regrets that his town did not agree to house more prisons in the boom times, saying, "It's supposed to be one of the more secure state jobs."

-------- terrorism

U.S.: FBI Team May Return to Yemen for Cole Probe

August 21, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-yemen-usa-fbi.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was working closely with Yemen to allow an FBI team to return to the country to resume its investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole warship, which killed 17 sailors.

State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said both countries remained committed to wrapping up the investigation into the bombing, but he glossed over questions about the reported frustration that U.S. investigators have toward the level of Yemeni cooperation.

``Both the United States and Yemen are committed to bringing the investigation of the USS Cole bombing to a successful conclusion,'' Reeker told reporters.

``Currently we are working together on logistical and administrative requirements as well as security arrangements in order to send an investigative team back to Yemen.''

He gave no timing for the return of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's team.

Six U.S. FBI investigators visited Yemen earlier this month to continue the investigation in cooperation with Yemeni authorities, but Reeker gave no details on their findings or any progress in the probe.

He did not comment directly on a New York Times story that quoted FBI investigators as saying the investigation had virtually ground to a halt because of Yemen's refusal to widen the probe to include Islamic activists.

He said only that U.S. investigators were ``still working very closely with the Yemenis and we are appreciative of their cooperation.''

``So we'll continue in that vein and see if we can get our investigative team back in,'' he added.

FBI spokesman Steven Berry declined to give any details about the earlier investigative trip to Yemen, saying only that the inquiry was ``ongoing'' and that the cooperation with the Yemeni government was ``sufficient.''

IMPASSE DENIED, DIFFERENCES ACKNOWLEDGED

A Yemeni official in Sanaa on Tuesday, however, denied the New York Times report about an impasse in the investigation, although he acknowledged the two sides had ``differences.''

Yemeni Interior Minister Rashed al-Alimi said in July that his country had completed its inquiry but has delayed bringing the case to trial at the request of the United States. Alimi did not say why Washington was asking for the delay.

The official also denied reports that the FBI team wanted to interview senior Yemeni officials to gather information about the perpetrators.

The New York Times quoted Yemen's foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qurbi, as saying Yemen was ``as committed to combating terrorism as the United States'' but felt it was time to wrap up the investigation and try the six men who were arrested soon after the bombing.

``As things stand now, we believe that the investigation is complete, and that it is time to hand over the file in the case to the prosecutor,'' the Times quoted him as saying.

A spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy could not immediately confirm the minister's comments, but said Yemen was confident that it had done its utmost to cooperate with the United States.

``We did the best we could,'' said spokesman Hasan Al-Shmori. ''We opened the country for cooperation with the U.S. government in this matter from the beginning, and we still honor this open cooperation with the United States.''

In June, U.S. Navy and FBI investigators were withdrawn from Yemen to an unspecified neighboring country because of what a U.S. official described as a credible security threat.

The USS Cole was severely damaged on Oct. 12, 2000, when a boat laden with explosives pulled alongside and detonated while the vessel was in port in Aden, Yemen, for refueling.

U.S. officials say Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan, may have been involved in the attack.

-------- activists

Turkish Hunger Strikers Fear Police

By Ben Holland
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, August 21, 2001; 9:37 AM
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40154-2001Aug21?language=printer

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- They are ready to die, but they fear their families may try to keep them alive against their will.

A hunger strike by leftist groups to protest prison conditions in Turkey is into its 11th month, and has already taken 31 lives. Strikers said Monday they fear police are pressuring their families to use force in a last desperate effort to stave off death.

Last week, Yildiz Gemicioglu - one of nearly 200 ex-prisoners and their relatives who have joined the hunger strike - was forcibly removed by about 20 relatives who burst into the Istanbul house where she was fasting. Other fasters say police encouraged Gemicioglu's family and even helped them take her away.

Turkey hopes to join the European Union and would like to end a hunger strike that revives European doubts over its human rights record with every death. But forcing the strikers to hospital would likely lead to violent clashes - like those which left 30 inmates and two soldiers dead last December, when security forces moved inmates to the new maximum-security prisons that sparked the protest.

That could heighten EU criticisms, mostly muted so far, and spread unease among a public that has shown little interest in far-left groups and is currently more concerned with the economy.

"The police are trying to use the families to break the resistance," said Dursun Ali Pekin, one of six ex-prisoners fasting in another house. "All our families have received the same calls. They say, 'Let's rescue your children, let's bring them back to life.'"

But Pekin, who has been fasting for 10 months, and other hunger strikers refuse to be rescued. They say they're determined to continue their death fast until the government agrees to abandon the new prisons, which have one- or three-person cells.

The government has passed a law that opens the prisons to civilian inspection, but there are no signs it is ready to give further concessions.

Pekin, like many of the hunger strikers, was imprisoned for membership in the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, before his release on health grounds two months ago.

The group, and other far-left organizations that are backing the strike, believe they have public support. Despite sympathy from human rights groups and trade unions, there are few signs of sympathy in a country stunned by an economic crisis that has brought massive layoffs.

On a makeshift bed outside another small house in Kucukarmutlu, sheltered from the summer rain by a sheet of plastic, Umus Sahingoz can only sit upright with the gentle help of her visiting sister and uncle, who prop her up with pillows.

"We started by saying we'd die if our demands aren't met," said Sahingoz, who has been fasting for more than 300 days. Hunger strikers often take sugared water and vitamins to prolong the fast. "No amount of pressure from the state or from our families will affect our decision."

Those demands include a return to larger cells - something the government says will never happen. Ministers say the old system allowed extremist groups to turn cells of up to 100 prisoners into training camps.

Sahingoz says her family understands her decision. Relatives of other hunger strikers say police have offered to intervene.

"The police ... said they could go in and rescue my son," said Muserref Sari, whose son Resit is fasting in the same house as Sahingoz. "I told them, my son's not a small boy, he's over 40 and he's there because he wants to be."


------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)

------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!