------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
WSJ accuses Pakistan of exporting N-technology
Missile Defense Site To Be Cleared Soon
Russian Rocket Goes Off Trajectory
Envoy Gives Russia Target On ABM Pact
U.S. Says November Key Deadline in ABM Talks
U.S. Sets Deadline for Settlement of ABM Argument
U.S. May Exit 1972 Missile Treaty
Yucca Mountain Can Meet EPA Radiation Standards, DOE Reports
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site meets safety standards
Oak Ridge Lab, IBM Strike Deal
Helms to Retire From the Senate
Weapons-grade plutonium disposal costs soar

MILITARY
Papers Show U.S. Knew of Genocide in Rwanda
Secret arms supplies for Macedonia
Deployment of Troops to Macedonia Approved by NATO
NATO Troops Arrive in Macedonia
Macedonia: Rebels Have More Arms
U.S. recovers intact missile
IRA/Cuban/Venezuelan Involvement in Colombia
Israeli Security Minister Proposes Nazi-Style Tactics
Seven Palestinians Killed
Kennedy Wanted to Be First on Moon
U.S., S. Korea Fight Over Court Case
Tiny U.S. planes spy as GIs avoid danger

OTHER
Wild Antarctic Winds to be Harnessed for Power
France and Germany Jointly Seek a Ban on Cloning Humans
Argentina Gets $8 Billion Aid From the I.M.F.
World Bank Leader Receives A Critical Accounting
G8 Police Brutality Probe Continues

ACTIVISTS
URGENT ACTION ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN
South Korean Employees Rally
NCI should study the effects of nuclear fallout



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- india / pakistan

WSJ accuses Pakistan of exporting N-technology

By Amir Mateen,
The News International, Pakistan
Wednesday August 22, 2001
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has been proliferating nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and Iraq, alleges a report in the influential Wall Street Journal. "UN inspectors dismantling the Iraqi nuclear programme have found evidence that the plan for Iraq's nuclear bomb was a Chinese design provided by Pakistan," the report says.

This is the first time that Pakistan has been accused of proliferating nuclear technology. There have been hints from the US administration, mouthed recently by Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, about Pakistan's alleged role in proliferating nuclear technology. However, Pakistan denied the charges.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Inamul Haq during his recent address to Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington specifically reiterated Pakistan's commitment to further strengthen controls on the nuclear technology proliferation.

The report goes on to say that "Pakistan is also a proliferator, a conduit through which Chinese weapons technology has been fed to Iran, Libya and Iraq". The Journal writes that Pakistan is likely to succeed in modernising its nuclear arsenal with plutonium bombs and produce warheads for its missiles aimed at India and elsewhere, it said.

A US Congressional report, issued this week, also hinted about "some developing countries" that may acquire missile technology from China. "With a need for hard currency, and some military products - especially missiles - that some developing countries would like to acquire," the study said, "China can present an important obstacle to efforts to stem proliferation of advanced missile systems to some areas of the developing world where political and military tensions are significant."

-------- missile defense

Missile Defense Site To Be Cleared Soon

Washington Post
Wednesday, August 22, 2001; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43737-2001Aug21?language=printer

The Pentagon has awarded a $9 million contract for a private firm to begin clearing ground this month for a missile defense test site in Alaska.

Aglaq Construction Enterprises Inc. of Point Hope, Alaska, was awarded the contract to clear trees and build an access road on a 135-acre site at Fort Greely, an Army post about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks.

"We expect work to begin within about a week. We hope it can be completed by mid-December. But that depends on the weather," said Pam Bain, spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Bain added that the test facility, including a command-and-control center and a handful of "hit-to-kill" projectiles, would not be completed until 2003 or 2004.

-------- russia

Russian Rocket Goes Off Trajectory

August 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Rocket.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- A Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile went astray in a training exercise Wednesday and landed in the desert of neighboring Kazakstan, a news agency reported, quoting a Russian military official. Nobody was hurt.

The rocket was fired from the Ashuluk military base near the port of Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea about 800 miles south of Moscow, the Interfax news agency said, quoting Alexander Drobyshevsky, a spokesman for the Russian air force.

It went off its planned trajectory and landed in the desert in Kazakstan. There were no injuries or damage, Drobyshevsky told Interfax.

The S-300 missile is one of Russia's most modern weapons, capable of shooting down aircraft and incoming missiles at ranges of up to 120 miles. Russian officials have claimed it is superior to the U.S. Patriot system used during the Gulf War.

-------- treaties

Envoy Gives Russia Target On ABM Pact
Pressure Mounts for Agreement on Shield

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 22, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44007-2001Aug22?language=printer

MOSCOW, Aug. 22 (Wednesday) -- A top U.S. arms control negotiator suggested Tuesday that if Russia did not agree to allow development of a national missile defense system by November it would face unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, visiting here for consultations with Russian officials, said the two sides should demonstrate "meaningful progress" by the time Russian President Vladimir Putin visits President Bush at his Texas ranch in November. Otherwise, he held out the prospect of invoking a clause in the 1972 treaty permitting either side to back out with six months' notice.

"We don't want to violate the treaty," Bolton said in an interview to be broadcast on Russian radio today. "If, although we wouldn't like this, we do not manage to come to an agreement with Russia, then we will have to use our right outlined in the treaty not to violate it but to withdraw from it."

The Bush administration recently notified Congress and embassies around the world that its work to develop a nuclear missile shield would come into conflict with the ABM Treaty in "months, not years." Russia has asserted that the planned construction of a test facility in Alaska would violate the terms of the pact.

Bolton's remarks, as translated from a Russian transcript, did not appear to set a hard deadline but Bush administration officials have expressed concern that Russia might regard talks on missile defense as an opportunity for unending discussion and have stressed that they will not let them drag on indefinitely.

"I suppose the two presidents will be disappointed if we do not achieve meaningful progress on this question" by the time they get together in Crawford, Texas, in November, Bolton said. "But we are not looking at this as some kind of official deadline. We will try to achieve as much as possible."

Reached by telephone here in Moscow this morning, Bolton said his remarks to the radio station should not be interpreted as a specific time limit. "The idea that there was ever a November deadline is just wrong," he said. "We haven't set a hard deadline, and it would certainly not be for me to come to Moscow to do that."

But he added, "We have certainly said to them in the consultations this week . . . that work on the ballistic missile system is progressing. . . . That testing and development program inevitably brings you up against the limits of the treaty sooner or later."

Bolton's visit to Moscow is the latest in a series of high-level consultations since Bush and Putin met in Genoa, Italy, in July and agreed on a framework for discussions. The two leaders decided to link discussions about Bush's missile defense program with Putin's desire for mutual cuts in strategic offensive nuclear warheads.

Since then, Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have traveled to Moscow to explore the parameters of a possible agreement that would redefine the international security policy for the world's two dominant nuclear powers. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in New York on Sept. 19 and Rumsfeld will get together again a week later with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

So far, though, the talks have made little evident progress and new tension has appeared at various points. After Rumsfeld returned to Washington and said in a television interview that Russia was still captive to a Cold War mentality, the Kremlin fired back that the defense secretary's remarks were a "bad joke" and suggested that Rumsfeld and his colleagues were the only ones stuck in the past.

The ABM Treaty, signed by Leonid Brezhnev and Richard M. Nixon during the detente era, permits each country a single missile defense site but prohibits development of a national system as envisioned by Bush.

The Bush plan calls for testing ground-, air- and sea- and space-based systems designed to intercept ballistic missiles in their ascent, mid-course and terminal phases.

Russia strongly opposes abrogating the treaty, arguing that it serves as the building block for international security by preventing either side from feeling invulnerable from nuclear retaliation. While Bush maintains his system would be targeted at "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iraq, Russia worries that its own nuclear arsenal eventually could be neutralized.

Bolton gave an interview in English to Ekho Moskvy radio, which then translated it into Russian and provided a transcript. No English-language transcript was immediately available. His remarks were first reported by the New York Times.

According to the radio station's transcript, Bolton said that Washington was satisfied with the discussions so far and emphasized the desire to work together with Moscow to find a way to get around the ABM Treaty or to jointly withdraw. "Our two presidents want to take bilateral relations to a new level," he said. "As a result, all of our meetings in Washington and in Moscow are an attempt to formulate the possibility of closer cooperation."

Told about the interview, officials in Washington tried to defuse the notion of a specific deadline. An administration official said Bolton's comments were meant only to convey to Russia the "sense of urgency" that Bush has about replacing the treaty with a new arms-control framework.

The official said U.S. negotiators also hope to make measurable progress before the two presidents meet in China in October. "You want to have the big issues ready to be discussed," the official said. "The last three weeks of discussions have been intensive. It's been positive, and we believe we have made some progress. We want this to move as quickly as possible."

A senior defense official added, "I've not heard any discussion that comes up with a date of November that has any relevance," a senior defense official said.

The official said that it is conceivable that a decision could be made to give Russia the required six-month notice in November for withdrawing from the treaty, if missile defense activities planned for the spring of 2002 warranted notification. But the official stressed that the entire issue of ABM compliance is being studied by a review group, which has not yet reached any firm conclusions.

While the Pentagon this week awarded a $9 million contract for clearing land at Fort Greely in Alaska for a planned missile defense test site, officials do not believe cutting down trees constitutes a treaty violation. Russian officials have said they would consider the pouring of concrete for planned missile silos at Fort Greely, near Fairbanks, a treaty violation. But it is not clear that construction money for the site will be included in fiscal 2002 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has indicated that he might be unwilling to approve any segment of the administration's $8.3 billion missile defense request for fiscal 2002 that would put the nation in violation of the treaty. That request represents a 57 percent increase over current spending on missile defense.

Staff writers Vernon Loeb and Mike Allen in Washington contributed to this report.

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U.S. Says November Key Deadline in ABM Talks

August 22, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-russia-usa.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States plans to withdraw unilaterally from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty if no compromise on its missile defense plans is reached with Russia by November, a U.S. negotiator said Wednesday.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who had held several days of arms talks in Moscow, said crucial decisions had to be made at a November summit between President Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

``I think the presidents will be disappointed if by then we fail to make significant progress, giving them nothing to discuss at their Texas meeting,'' Bolton told Ekho Moskvy radio in remarks dubbed into Russian.

But Russia dug in its heels over the issue, reaffirming its ''position of principle'' to preserve the treaty.

``The Russian delegation put the main emphasis on further reductions in strategic offensive weapons while preserving the ABM treaty in its current form,'' Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Bolton's Moscow meetings.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a source close to the talks as saying Moscow was not planning to make public statements on Washington's missile defense timetable.

``It is worth waiting for an official statement by Washington as it is still not clear what kind of system the United States wants to build and in what form it will announce its withdrawal from the ABM treaty,'' the source said.

WASHINGTON TO QUIT ABM ANYWAY

Bolton said Washington preferred to see Russia subscribe to its plans to abandon ABM but would quit it unilaterally if Moscow failed to adopt its position.

``The United States wants to find a common solution with Russia -- either jointly to abandon the agreement or find a way, also jointly, to step beyond the restrictions and limitations imposed by it,'' Bolton told Ekho Moskvy.

``Otherwise ... we will have to make use of our right, fixed in the treaty, to leave it,'' he said. The treaty requires any side wishing to abandon it to serve a six-month withdrawal notice.

The Russian source told Interfax: ``The American side made it clear it would withdraw from the ABM agreement together with Russia, or unilaterally, and it (Washington) intends to make an announcement to that effect in October-November this year.''

Moscow and Washington engaged in intensive negotiations after Bush and Putin last month reached a loose agreement to link cuts in nuclear arsenals to missile defense.

The agreement seemed set to pave the way for Moscow to soften its stance on ABM while securing the major arms reductions it needs to free up money for military reform.

But the two sides' positions have since diverged.

In a stark warning to Moscow that it should soften its position or end up empty-handed, Washington announced Tuesday that it had given the go-ahead to begin clearing ground this month for a missile defense testing site in Alaska.

But the Interfax source said Russia felt that Washington's views of a future global security system were hazy and that it had no concrete proposals in the field, except scrapping ABM.

Bolton said Russia, which has complained the United States was keeping it in the dark about the shape and scale of its missile defense system, now had enough data from Washington.

Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in September.

--------

U.S. Sets Deadline for Settlement of ABM Argument

New York Times
August 22, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/international/22MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday

MOSCOW, Aug. 21 - A senior Bush administration official said today that the United States had given Russia an unofficial deadline of November to agree to changes in the Antiballistic Missile Treaty or face a unilateral American withdrawal from the arms control accord.

Speaking in an interview on Russian radio that will be aired on Wednesday evening, the official, John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said after two days of talks with Russian officials that the United States plans to resolve its strategy for withdrawing from the treaty before Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, visits Mr. Bush this fall.

It was the first time a member of the Bush administration has set a time limit for consultations that Mr. Bush pledged to undertake with American allies, and with Russia and China, before acting on his campaign pledge to develop a new national missile defense system. Such a system contravenes the 1972 treaty, which was the first United States- Soviet arms control agreement and was seen as the keystone of detente during the cold war.

In July, a senior Pentagon official told members of Congress that an antimissile testing program would be "bumping up against" the ABM Treaty in a matter of months.

American withdrawal from the treaty, six months after a formal notification to Moscow, would pave the way for the start of construction of a missile defense test site in Alaska. Ground-clearing for missile silos and a command center at Fort Greely, 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks, is to begin this week, a Pentagon spokesman announced today.

Pam Bain, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said the administration intends to begin building the missile silos as early as April.

The Pentagon has also said a number of tests are planned for early next year that might conflict with the treaty, including using ship-based radar systems to track intercontinental ballistic missiles.

A senior Pentagon official expressed surprise tonight when told of Mr. Bolton's remarks in Moscow, saying he did not know of any decisions by the administration to give a six-month notification of withdrawal in November.

"I've never heard anyone say that before," the official said.

John Rhinelander, a lawyer who advised ABM negotiators in 1972 and is a leading arms control advocate, said Mr. Bolton's remarks suggested that the administration was looking for excuses to withdraw from the treaty unilaterally.

"The Russians will never agree to jointly withdrawal from the treaty," he said. "They will force us to violate it. And we are doing that by manufacturing tests in which we intentionally violate the treaty."

Mr. Rhinelander had suggested earlier that the Russians may be willing to amend the treaty to allow deployment of a small system in Alaska.

Mr. Putin warned in June that a unilateral American withdrawal from the treaty, which he describes as "the cornerstone of strategic stability," would negate 30 years of arms control accords, set off a new arms race among aspiring nuclear powers and force Russia to build a new generation of missiles with multiple warheads, something that Moscow had pledged not to do.

Mr. Bolton was in Moscow to follow up on strategic discussions that have intensified since Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin held their first summit meeting in Slovenia in June.

He was also preparing for a September meeting between Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Russia's foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov.

Mr. Bolton also said other administration officials would be visiting European capitals this week and NATO headquarters in Brussels to inform European leaders about the administration's plans to develop missile defenses, military budget expenditures and planned reductions in strategic forces.

Excerpts of Mr. Bolton's remarks were released by the radio station Echo Moscow tonight. Mr. Bolton, who did not return a telephone call to his hotel room, has scheduled a news conference on Wednesday evening.

In the radio interview, he said the Bush administration "doesn't regard" the November deadline "as any kind of any official deadline - we will try to achieve as much as we can" by the time Presidents Bush and Putin meet.

"If, though we don't want it, we don't manage to come to an agreement with Russia, in this case we will have to use our right envisaged by the treaty not to violate it, but withdraw from it," he was quoted in the interview as saying.

Making light of the unofficial deadline Washington was imposing, Mr. Bolton said the "by November" time frame had been set because, "I think the presidents will be disappointed if by this time we don't reach significant progress and they won't have anything to talk about at the meeting in Texas."

Mr. Bush has invited the Russian leader to visit his ranch in Crawford, Tex., in November.

But there were other developments today in Washington suggesting that the November deadline is closely connected with Bush administration plans to move forward with missile silo construction in Alaska and more elaborate antimissile tests that might otherwise violate the ABM Treaty.

Mr. Bolton also elaborated on the Bush administration strategy to withdraw from the 1972 accord without bringing down a torrent of criticism from European allies and other countries who fear that Mr. Bush's approach to missile defense is needlessly destabilizing.

"We explicitly stated that we were not going to violate the ABM Treaty," Mr. Bolton said in the interview. "We also don't want to attract criticism for such a violation while we are in the process of development and testing of possible antimissile systems," he said.

He stressed that the United States "wants, together with the government of Russia, to find a way out - either by some way of withdrawing from the treaty together or some way, also together - to go beyond the framework of limitations imposed by it."

In talks with Russian officials this week, Mr. Bolton suggested that he had been promoting the idea of reaching a "gentleman's agreement" that would be considered "a no less serious thing than a documented treaty" to allow the United States to escape the current limitations against testing missile defenses.

But most signs were that Russian officials have held firm. Russian Foreign Ministry officials have made a series of statements in recent weeks that they do not expect substantive talks with Washington on further strategic arms reductions and missile defense to begin before the end of the year.

On Friday, Marshal Igor D. Sergeyev, former minister of defense and now a special adviser to Mr. Putin, criticized Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for televised remarks in which the American defense chief said Russia was still a captive of the "cold war mentality and fear and apprehension and concern about the West."

"I think it was a poor joke by the chief of the Pentagon," Marshal Sergeyev said, adding that Russia has no veto over Washington's right to withdraw from the treaty. He added, "the role of the deterrence factor of nuclear missile weapons" will have to be redefined in such a world.

And, he added, for America, "There is a very long road that has not been properly studied yet from the declarations about deploying a national missile defense to its actual deployment."

A number of European leaders, including Mr. Putin, have recognized the potential threat of ballistic missile attack from rogue nations - though most do not see an imminent threat.

Many leaders have urged Mr. Bush to proceed more cautiously to ensure that neither Russia nor China feel threatened or isolated by missile defenses. Russia and China signed a friendship and military cooperation treaty in July.

Mr. Putin has urged Mr. Bush not to abandon three decades of arms control accords without first negotiating some new strategic framework that would replace them.

--------

U.S. May Exit 1972 Missile Treaty

August 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- The United States hopes to reach an agreement on missile defense with Russia before a November summit, but is prepared to use its right to unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty if necessary, a top U.S. official said in a Russian radio interview.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Washington would prefer to come to a joint decision with Russia and that he hoped progress would be made before President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in November.

The interview was conducted with the Echo of Moscow radio station Tuesday and was to be broadcast Wednesday evening. A Russian translation was posted on the station's Web site, and an English-language transcript was made available to The Associated Press.

The Bush administration proposed that both countries jointly withdraw from the ABM treaty, but the Russian government rejected that approach when it was presented by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Moscow on Aug. 13.

Russia is opposed to dismantling the treaty, which it calls a cornerstone of international security and which prohibits national missile defense systems. But the United States says it will go ahead with building a missile defense system because of potential nuclear threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran.

``If, contrary to what our preference is, we're not able to reach agreement with Russia, then at some point in the not too distant future we would exercise our express right under the treaty to give notice of withdrawal,'' Bolton said. ``But withdrawal, of course, is not violating the treaty.''

The treaty allows each side to withdraw from it six months after notifying the other side of its intentions.

The question of withdrawing from the treaty is linked directly to the Pentagon's timetable for accelerating its testing of various missile defense technologies.

At some stage -- perhaps next spring or early summer -- the Pentagon hopes to begin construction of interceptor missile silos at Fort Greely, Alaska.

Bolton was in Moscow this week as part of a series of consultations that began after Bush and Putin announced in July that missile defense would be linked to talks on cutting the nuclear arsenals of both countries.

The Russian delegation emphasized the need to make cuts in strategic weapons ``on the condition that the ABM treaty is preserved in its current form,'' according to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Asked by the interviewer whether U.S. officials were aiming to make progress on the issue before a meeting between Bush and Putin tentatively planned for November, Bolton said that was the hope.

``I would imagine the presidents would be disappointed if by that time we have not achieved significant progress and they won't have anything to talk about at their meeting in Texas,'' he was quoted as saying.

He added: ``The real issue, I think, is the deepening of the political and economic conversations between the two governments, and that alone would be substantial progress. But we'll just have to see what happens by November.''

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Wednesday it would be wrong to conclude from Bolton's remarks that the Bush administration has set a November deadline for resolving the treaty issue.

Quigley acknowledged that the Pentagon's missile defense activities planned for 2002 include some that may violate the treaty. But the administration has not decided if it will avoid the violations by withdrawing from the treaty or by altering or delaying the banned activities, he said.

Washington hoped to avoid that choice by reaching an agreement with Moscow to set aside the treaty and create a new security framework under which both sides could pursue missile defenses, he said.

Russian officials repeatedly have complained that they lack concrete information on U.S. missile defense plans, but Bolton said Washington had presented a tremendous amount of information to the Russians about a Defense Department review of offensive weapons and about funding proposals to the U.S. Congress.

``We also have provided a very substantial amount of information about what our ballistic missile development program has already accomplished and what its plans are for the next year or 18 months, elaborating in very considerable details for our Russian counterparts the kinds of systems that we're exploring and the kinds of capabilities that we'll have,'' Bolton said.

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

-------- nevada

Yucca Mountain Can Meet EPA Radiation Standards, DOE Reports

By Cat Lazaroff
August 22, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-06.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a new report assessing the performance of the proposed high level nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain against strict safety standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The report concludes that the Yucca Mountain site "would likely meet" the agency's radiation protection standards.

Aerial view of Yucca Mountain, Nevada (Three photos courtesy U.S. Dept. of Energy)

The report will not end the controversy surrounding Yucca Mountain, the only site now being considered as a permanent repository for the nation's spent nuclear fuel. Environmentalists have long maintained that the site, located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, would be unsuitable as a geologic repository, arguing that deadly radioactive contaminants would eventually leach out into groundwater flowing under the site.

In June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final health and safety standards for the amount of radiation that could be permitted to escape from the Yucca Mountain repository. The standards are intended to address all potential sources of radiation exposure from groundwater, air and soil.

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the standard, which limits radiation exposure to nearby residents to no more than 15 millirem per year from all pathways, could result in "about twice the exposure of just living in a brick house for a year."

Inside Yucca Mountain, a researcher prepares to test the rock for its ability to contain radiation.

The new Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation report released this week by the Department of Energy (DOE) finds that the site "would likely meet Environmental Protection Agency radiation protection standards and proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations for protecting people and the environment."

But environmental groups and some scientists say the standards proposed by the EPA and the NRC are insufficient to protect either the public or the environment.

"A stringent standard is vital to protect public health and safety in the vicinity of the proposed repository," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with the environmental group Public Citizen, after the EPA finalized its standards. "The EPA's rule affords inadequate protection to the people of Nevada and steers national nuclear waste policy in a dangerous direction."

Researcher examines cores drilled from the interior of Yucca Mountain.

Public Citizen is part of a coalition of groups that oppose the Yucca Mountain site, and has filed a lawsuit challenging aspects of the EPA's safety standards for the repository. Other members of the coalition include Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, Citizen Alert, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Nevada Desert Experience, and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

The EPA standard "undermines the purpose of radiation protection standards, by presuming that a repository at Yucca Mountain will not contain nuclear waste throughout the thousands of years it remains dangerous," said John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator with Citizen Alert. "Exposure limits are built around expected levels of radioactive contamination leaking from the dump, thus establishing a regulatory framework for legalized nuclear pollution in Nevada."

Of particular concern to the coalition is an unregulated zone stretching for 12 miles (18 kilometers) around the proposed repository, in which the 15 millirem standard would not apply. The coalition says the EPA included the unregulated zone to circumvent legal requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The unregulated zone weakens the effect of the standards by allowing DOE repository designs to rely on dilution and dispersion - rather than containment - of radioactive waste, the groups said.

Technicians test the suitability of Yucca Mountain to contain the radiation from thousands of tons of high level nuclear waste. (Two photos courtesy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCWM))

The groups argue that radiation escaping from Yucca Mountain could contaminate an aquifer beneath the site that is a critical source of water for irrigation, dairy farming and drinking water. Though the EPA has set a separate, four millirem per year safety standard for groundwater supplies around Yucca Mountain, groundwater beneath the 12 mile unregulated zone around the site would not be required to comply with that standard.

"We have advocated a protective standard at all stages of the process leading up to this rule being finalized. We are now bringing this issue before the courts because our concerns have not been addressed," said David Adelman, senior attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council. "We cannot accept a rule that sets artificially weak standards to allow a fundamentally flawed project to move forward."

The DOE report released Tuesday describes the preliminary results of the DOE's evaluation of whether Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for a nuclear waste repository. Before the site can be approved by Congress and President George W. Bush, the Energy Department must decide whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a suitable site.

"Any decision regarding a permanent repository for this nation's nuclear waste will be made based on sound science," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "The measures I am taking today are designed to assist me in this effort. I am committed to making sure that we arrive at the right decision for America."

Abraham has directed the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management to send the preliminary site evaluation to all stakeholders in the process - including opponents of the Yucca Mountain site - and is asking them to provide comments. The study will be forwarded to a number of leaders in the scientific community for addition input.

Deep inside Yucca Mountain, scientists inject a mixture of compressed air and a tracer gas into a borehole to test how fast fluids and gases move through the rock

The Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation, along with hundreds of supporting documents, have been available online at the Yucca Mountain Science Center at: http://ymp.gov/. The DOE says it has posted all relevant data to help the public review Yucca Mountain data and make informed comments on the proposed site.

The DOE will hold several public hearings in Nevada next month to solicit public comments. The agency has also extended the public comment period until September 20.

Hearings have been scheduled for:

September 5, Suncoast Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas September 12, Longstreet Inn and Casino, Armagosa Valley September 13, Bob Ruud Community Center, Pahrump

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Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site meets safety standards, study says

Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2001,
San Jose Mercury News
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/yucca22.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Department of Energy study concludes that the proposed Yucca Mountain burial site for nuclear waste would comply with stringent radiation protection standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency said in June that radiation exposure from groundwater near the site must be no more than 4 millirem per year. Overall radiation from all sources from the site would be capped at 15 millirem. (The average chest X-ray is 20 millirem.)

``The results of the site suitability evaluation indicate that it would meet the strict safety standards outlined by EPA,'' Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said Tuesday.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had previously said he expected that the Yucca Mountain site would meet the requirement. In issuing the preliminary site suitability report, Abraham said the Energy Department is inviting comments from opponents and others with a stake in the nuclear waste dump.

Abraham intends to make a final recommendation to President Bush by the end of the year, Davis said.

A staunch opponent of the Yucca Mountain proposal, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the new report is more evidence of the department's bias toward entombing the nation's nuclear waste about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

``It confirms that my vote against Spencer Abraham as energy secretary was the right one,'' Reid said. ``He has a preconceived notion about where nuclear waste should go.''

The site is the only one in the nation under study as a repository for the nation's 77,000 tons of highly radioactive commercial and military nuclear waste.

-------- tennessee

Oak Ridge Lab, IBM Strike Deal

By Duncan Mansfield
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010822/aponline191902_000.htm

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- Oak Ridge National Laboratory and IBM Corp. have struck a pair of agreements that will bring one of the world's fastest computers to Oak Ridge and put government researchers on the team developing IBM's massive Blue Gene supercomputer of the future.

The Oak Ridge lab will roughly triple its computing capability with the addition of an IBM supercomputer nicknamed "Cheetah" capable of making 4 trillion calculations per second.

The Department of Energy facility also will help develop what the lab's computer sciences director, Thomas Zacharia, describes as "the next incarnation of computing" - an IBM supercomputer capable of 1,000 trillion calculations a second.

The Oak Ridge lab's role in Blue Gene will be designing software and applications programs to make the massive number-cruncher go.

"It is sort of like, there is no point in having a Ferrari if you don't know how to drive it," Zacharia said Wednesday.

The Oak Ridge lab has established expertise in three areas - biotechnology, materials sciences and climate study - that are a perfect match for these new endeavors in supercomputing.

The "Cheetah" will be key to the lab's new five-year, $20 million research project with Los Alamos National Laboratory to design computer models that can predict climate change.

Cheetah will rank among the five most powerful supercomputers in the world when it is completed in 2002.

Meantime, Oak Ridge will work with IBM designers on the even faster Blue Gene research. The project has a goal of 2004.

At 1,000 trillion calculations per second, Blue Gene would be 100,000 times faster than the average desktop PC.

It would also be massively quicker the current world beater, IBM's ASCI White at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - a 12.3 trillion-calculations-a-second supercomputer used mainly to simulate how the nation's aging nuclear weapons arsenal would function if launched.

Besides climate studies and "nanoscale" materials sciences, the Blue Gene project is being targeted at human gene research, the so-called folding of proteins and the search for new medicines.

On the Net:
http://www.ibm.com
http://www.ornl.gov

-------- us nuc politics

Helms to Retire From the Senate
Decision Colors 2002 Race for Control

By Helen Dewar and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 22, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42202-2001Aug21?language=printer

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), one of the most powerful conservatives on Capitol Hill for three decades and a former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, plans to announce today that he will retire when his term expires in 2003, sources said yesterday.

Helms, who will turn 80 in October, has suffered from a variety of health problems in recent years and has been considering for months whether to run for a sixth term. His family has been pushing hard for him to return to North Carolina.

The senator's office declined to comment, but other sources, including Republicans here and in North Carolina, said Helms is planning to announce his retirement tonight on WRAL-TV in Raleigh, where he worked as a political commentator before running for the Senate. Helms aides began telling key Republicans of his plans late yesterday.

Helms's retirement would deprive the Senate of one of its most ardent champions of conservative causes, ranging from fighting communism to promoting school prayer and combating pornography. A man of bold colors and few pastels, he aroused strong passions on the left and the right and delighted as much in the fury of foes as he did in the adoration of friends. He appeared to mellow a bit in recent years but retained most of his sharp edges.

"It's a cliche to say it, but it is obviously the end of an era," said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. "He embodied the notion that there was an American conservative movement, a body of politicians and polemicists and grass-roots organizations that most of the time, on most issues, worked together [and] who had a distinctive take on where the country was and where it should go. I think that movement does not exist anymore and Helms's departure exemplifies that fact."

Helms's retirement throws another element of uncertainty into what is expected to be an extraordinarily close contest for control of the narrowly divided Senate next year. Helms was always vulnerable, but he always survived. With an open seat at stake only two years after Democrat John Edwards unseated Republican Lauch Faircloth, Democrats believe they have a good shot at the seat, although Republicans appear to have a more formidable lineup of prospective candidates.

Elizabeth Hanford Dole, a North Carolina native and former GOP Cabinet secretary who ran for the party's presidential nomination two years ago, has let it be known she might run if Helms does not, and Republican strategists said yesterday that polls show she has strong support. They said they anticipate an effort by party leaders to discourage other people from running. "You'll see a major push to get her to run," one strategist said.

Other possible GOP candidates include Faircloth, former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot and Rep. Richard Burr.

Only one Democrat has announced for the seat, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, but state Rep. Dan Blue and businessman Mark Erwin are considering running. There was speculation yesterday that former governor Jim Hunt, who once challenged Helms, might be enticed into the race. Former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles has declined to run.

Just as Helms's departure ends an era in the Senate, it may mark a passage in southern politics, said Earl Black, a political scientist at Rice University. "I think Helms decided early on that he would win or lose with an undiluted conservatism that offered nothing to blacks and [has] been able through his political skills to make that work," Black said. "But it's a style of politics that is on its way out. I don't see anyone in North Carolina making a political career the way Helms did."

The only other senator who has announced he will retire next year is another conservative icon, Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).

Helms was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and quickly became a hero to the GOP's ascendant right wing, earning the title of "Senator No" for his skills and zeal in blocking initiatives ranging from arms control treaties to federal financing for controversial art, often in opposition to less conservative figures in his own party.

A guerrilla fighter and proud of it, Helms frequently used audacious tactics to bring his causes before the Senate. He put colleagues on the spot politically even though he often failed to prevail on votes.

For many years, Helms used his seat on the Foreign Relations Committee to pursue his own right-leaning foreign policy, especially in opposition to what he regarded as leftist regimes in Latin America. He was a relentless foe of Cuban President Fidel Castro and was chief sponsor of the Helms-Burton legislation that tightened trade and other constraints on U.S. relations with Cuba.

But Helms gradually moved from rambunctious back-bencher to the center of the action, especially after he took over as chairman of the Foreign Relations panel after the GOP's capture of Congress in 1995. He lost the chairmanship and became ranking Republican when Democrats took control of the Senate in June.

As chairman, he continued some of his one-man wars, such as blocking the nomination of fellow Republican William F. Weld, then governor of Massachusetts, as ambassador to Mexico in 1997, in part because of Weld's liberal social views. And he was among those most responsible for the Senate's defeat of the nuclear test ban treaty in 1999.

At the same time, however, Helms established friendly relations with then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and worked with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), now chairman of Foreign Relations, in reorganizing foreign policy agencies and releasing debt payments to the United Nations.

Last year, Helms, one of the foremost congressional critics of the United Nations, led the Foreign Relations Committee on its first official visit to the world body.

But the old Helms is not gone. He infuriated the Bush administration by holding up several Treasury Department nominations in hopes of winning trade concessions favorable to North Carolina's textile industry, yielding after minor concessions from the administration. He also helped lead a fight this spring to keep school districts from barring the Boy Scouts because they exclude gays.

-------- us nuc waste

Weapons-grade plutonium disposal costs soar

CBC News (Canada)
Wed Aug 22 09:35:30 2001
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/08/22/mox_fuel010822

WASHINGTON - Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. will continue its tests on using weapons-grade plutonium as fuel in a nuclear reactor despite recent rumblings that the United States is about to pull out of the program.

Tests currently under way in Chalk River, Ontario, are evaluating how MOX fuel burns in a Candu reactor.

MOX fuel is plutonium oxide mixed in small amounts with uranium oxide.

Canada agreed to test the fuel in the reactors at Chalk River in an effort to find ways to dispose of the surplus stocks of weapons-grade plutonium in Russia and the United States now that they have dismantled large portions of their nuclear arsenals.

In the mid-1990s, an ambitious program was announced that would dispose of 100 tons of plutonium either by burning it as fuel or otherwise rendering it useless. One goal of the program was to keep the plutonium off the black market - and out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states.

After a recent report said the cost of the program had soared to $6.6 billion, some experts in the field are anticipating Washington will back out.

Ed Lyman of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington says it's hard to know what will happen next.

"I think the role that Canada could play in plutonium disposition is much less certain," he said. "It never was very certain."

Indeed, the Canadian commitment to the process doesn't extend beyond the testing already under way. AECL is only testing the fuel to see if it works.

That prompted some critics of the program to say it amounts to little more than a potential pitch for AECL sales people.

But when Canada agreed to do the testing, then foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy said it was a good idea, and the right thing to do.

And until an official decision comes from the U.S. Congress that the program is being scrapped, the testing will go on at Chalk River.


-------- MILITARY

-------- africa

Papers Show U.S. Knew of Genocide in Rwanda

New York Times
August 22, 2001
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/international/africa/22RWAN.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 - Newly declassified government documents show that several senior United States officials were aware of the dimensions of the genocide in Rwanda in early 1994, even as some sought ways to avoid getting involved.

The 16 documents, released today by the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University, provide new details of the deliberations within the Clinton administration from April through May 1994 as the killings took place. By the end of June, an estimated 800,000 people were killed by government-backed militias.

The general contours of the inability and unwillingness of the United Nations and its members, notably the United States, France and Belgium, to help stop the killings have been widely reported. The United Nations studied the debacle in detail, and its top officials have acknowledged serious mistakes.

President Clinton, during a visit to Rwanda in March 1998, expressed deep remorse about his administration's inaction. He said people in distant offices, like himself, did not appreciate what was happening on the fields of Central Africa.

But the disclosure today suggests, for example, that some officials knew the potential for mass slaughter in Rwanda. In addition, once it began on April 6 - after the Rwandan president was apparently assassinated when his plane was shot down - several of them tried to persuade their superiors to act.

One of them was Prudence Bushnell, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. In a memorandum dated April 6, she warned her superiors, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher, that the killing of the Rwandan president that day would probably produce widespread violence and that the "military intends to take over power temporarily."

A cable dated April 29 shows that Ms. Bushnell spoke on the telephone with Col. Théoneste Bagasora, a Rwandan official who was later identified as a leader of the massacres. She told him Washington was aware of his actions and urged him to end the killings.

"This shows that our officials knew who to call three weeks into the killing," said William Ferroggiaro, the editor of the documents for the National Security Archive. "Ms. Bushnell, to her credit, made this initiative. She discovered who was responsible, even though you wouldn't know it by his title." Colonel Bagasora has since been charged with crimes against humanity and is awaiting trial.

Mr. Christopher did not return a telephone call. Officials at the United States Embassy in Guatemala, where Ms. Bushnell is ambassador, said she was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

The documents also form the basis for an article in the September issue of The Atlantic Monthly by Samantha Power, the executive director of the human rights center at Harvard University.

Her article, which examines how American policy makers behaved during the massacres, concludes that American officials allowed the genocide to occur out of a combination of disinterest in Africa, a preference for negotiations over military intervention, and the residual trauma from the recent deaths of 18 American peacekeepers in Somalia.

The documents also provide more details behind the American government's decision to avoid calling the killings genocide.

One document, dated May 1, 1994, summarizes a meeting of several unidentified officials who were analyzing the Rwanda situation. The meeting ends with a warning against branding the massacres genocide.

"Be careful," the document reads. "Legal at State was worried about this yesterday. Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually `do something.' " "Legal" refers to the legal adviser at the State Department and U.S.G. is the United States government. The officials worried that if "genocide" was used, Washington would have to act because it is a signatory to antigenocide conventions of 1948.

Other documents show that some officials pressed Mr. Christopher to authorize the use of the term genocide. A memo from Toby T. Gati, assistant secretary of the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, concluded that genocide had indeed occurred. Similarly Joan Donoghue, of the legal adviser's office, concluded in a memo disclosed today that genocide had taken place.

Using the Gati and Donoghue memorandums, several senior officials urged Mr. Christopher to authorize the use of the term, arguing that failure to do so would undermine American credibility, and contending that it would not force Washington to act.

In response, Mr. Christopher authorized officials to say that "acts of genocide had occurred." Mr. Ferroggiaro said Mr. Christopher did not flatly call the slaughter genocide until June 10.

-------- arms sales

Secret arms supplies for Macedonia

The Times (UK)
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22 2001
BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR AND ANTHONY LOYD IN SKOPJE
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001291747,00.html

HUGE planeloads of arms from Ukraine and Russia are being delivered secretly at night to Petrovac airport in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as part of a build-up of arms by the Government, according to Western defence sources.

On the eve of Nato's operation to start collecting "one weapon" from each member of the 2,500 to 6,000-strong ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army, the Macedonian Government, with no part to play in the disarmament process, is rapidly increasing its stockpile of weapons.

Yesterday a bomb partially destroyed a 14th-century Orthodox monastery near Tetovo, northwest Macedonia. The Government accused ethnic Albanian rebels of launching the overnight attack and said that it could have serious consequences for the "ceasefire" that has reduced the level of fighting over the past week.

Western monitors said that it was unclear which side had planted the explosives. "It's rather suspicious," a diplomat in Skopje said. "The NLA is not known to have attacked religious sites before. If you wanted to pick one way to screw up the peace agreement, this would be one of them."

Under pressure from the European Union in recent peace negotiations, Ukraine, Skopje's main arms supplier, had agreed to consider suspending arms shipments to Macedonia, but since the settlement was signed giant Antonov transport planes have been spotted landing at night at Petrovac, defence sources said.

However, the NLA is also continuing with its arms-smuggling routes to ensure that, if the peace deal breaks down, it will have its own supply of weapons.

The Nato-led Kosovo Force (Kfor) has had significant success in catching smugglers using mountain trails to ferry weapons for the NLA from the Yugoslav province into Macedonia. In the past two months Kfor soldiers have seized more than 600 rifles, 49,000 small arms rounds, about 1,000 anti-tank weapons, 650 mortar rounds and 1,400 grenades and mines, as well as nearly 500 people and 24 horses and mules. It is estimated that there are still 600,000 weapons in Albania available for sale on the black market, stolen when the country slid into chaos in 1997.

Yesterday it emerged that the NLA has acquired three, not two, Russian T55 tanks as part of its armoury. Two are with the NLA's 115 Brigade at Radusa and the third is with 114 Brigade at Nikustak.

At Nato headquarters in Brussels yesterday, although all 19 Nato ambassadors indicated their support for Operation Essential Harvest, the 30-day arms-collection mission, they adopted the "silence procedure", which delays a formal announcement for up to 24 hours to allow any government to raise last-minute objections.

General Joseph Ralston, Nato's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, was said to be optimistic when he briefed North Atlantic Council ambassadors on the feasibility of committing 3,500 troops, predominantly British and French, to oversee a rebel disarmament.

-------- balkans

Deployment of Troops to Macedonia Approved by NATO

New York Times
August 22, 2001
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/international/europe/22CND-NATO.html

BRUSSELS, Aug. 22 - NATO formally gave the go-ahead today to its full 3,500-soldier mission to disarm rebels in Macedonia as a noon deadline passed without objections by any of the member countries.

About 400 headquarters troops from Britain and Czechoslovakia are already in Macedonia, and the remaining 3,100 "could start this afternoon," NATO's secretary general, Lord George Robertson, said.

The mission commander, Brig. Gen. Barney White-Spunner of the British 16th Air Assault Brigade, hopes to start collecting the first weapons as early as next week, Lord Robertson added.

Calling the launching of the mission "an important day for NATO and an even more important one" for Macedonia, and emphasizing that "There is no solution in violence - only death, destruction, dissolution and poverty," the secretary general emphasized that the mission was still "not the end of the road."

A successful conclusion, he said, would be the passage of constitutional changes now before Macedonia's Parliament. Those would allow greater use of the Albanian language and greater ethnic Albanian participation in ruling and policing the divided country. The rebels will also get amnesty under the proposed peace deal.

To that end, NATO hopes the presence of its troops will make the rebels feel safe enough to surrender some arms, which will embolden the Parliament to pass some reforms, which will then encourage more arms dropoffs, and so on. Since the bills were introduced in Parliament on Aug. 13, the political process is due to be completed at the end of September, roughly the same time that the mission by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is due to end.

Though Lord Robertson did not mention it, the world will no doubt measure the mission by whether peace reigns between the ethnic Albanians and the the government, which is dominated by Slavic Macedonians, after the NATO troops leave.

Government hard-liners and Macedonian nationalists are voicing open distrust of the rebels, saying they will hide their best arms. A small group has even been blocking road and rail tracks between Macedonia and Kosovo, trying to thwart the deployment of NATO troops and their resupply from bases in Macedonia.

The rebels, meanwhile, want NATO to stay indefinitely, fearing that the government will try to recapture villages that the rebels now hold.

Reluctant to get involved in another open-ended operation like those in Kosovo and Bosnia, NATO authorized the mission to last only a month from the beginning of weapons collection, and Lord Robertson reconfirmed today that he did not wish to extend it.

"I'm confident that the time laid down has been thought through," he said.

"This is not some figure spirited out of the air."

It would, he conceded, be "very difficult to find a consensus" for an extension among NATO's 19 nations, which stretch from the United States to the Czech Republic and Turkey, and from Portugal to Sweden.

The American role will be limited to about 300 troops doing aerial and satellite reconnaissance, transport, communications and medical work.

Germany, which is contributing 500 troops, has not yet received formal approval from the German Bundestag. That vote is expected later this week. But Lord Robertson said he expected no problems with it, and that the 500 could be replaced by other countries if necessary.

--------

NATO Troops Arrive in Macedonia

August 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Macedonia.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- NATO authorized the deployment of 3,500 allied troops to Macedonia, hoping the mission to collect and destroy rebel arms will nudge Macedonians and ethnic Albanians along the road to reconciliation.

The first troops in the main force, a contingent from France, arrived in the Macedonian capital on Wednesday afternoon. An advance party of 400 troops has already been in place since the weekend, following an earlier decision by NATO's ruling council.

The bulk of the main body of troops can be on the way within 48 hours. Full deployment is expected within 10 days to two weeks.

The United States will play a behind-the-scenes role, relying on troops already in Kosovo and Macedonia. Several hundred Americans will participate, focusing on limited logistical duties.

Once the entire force is in Macedonia, the clock will start ticking on NATO's self-imposed 30-day time limit for the mission.

``Today is an important day for NATO and an even more important one for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,'' said NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson. ``We are taking an historic step forward also to provide stability and security in the whole Balkans region.''

He said mission commanders could begin picking up rebel weapons at collection sites scattered across rugged mountain territory as early as next week.

Macedonia's government welcomed NATO's decision on Wednesday and pledged its cooperation.

``We have big expectations from NATO's mission,'' said Stevo Pendarovski, an adviser to Macedonian President Boris Trajkovksi.

An ethnic Albanian rebel spokesman known as Besniku also cautiously welcomed the decision, ``provided that NATO will be evenhanded with both sides.''

``If not, we still have arms in our hands -- and more importantly, we have the will of the Albanian people to go until the end in order to gain their rights,'' he said.

The rebels took up arms six months ago, claiming they wanted more rights for the ethnic Albanian minority. NATO moves in under a peace accord signed last week by the country's ethnic Albanian and Macedonian leaders.

On Tuesday, the North Atlantic Council -- made up of ambassadors from NATO's 19 member nations -- authorized Gen. Joseph Ralston, supreme allied commander in Europe, to launch the full mission despite scattered cease-fire violations. They gave members until noon Wednesday to object. None did, and when the deadline passed the authorization was automatic.

``The decision made today by this alliance is the right one, but it's also a difficult one,'' Robertson said. ``There are risks involved. But members of the alliance have nevertheless agreed to send their troops because they know that the risks of not sending them are far greater.''

Ralston will carry out the deployment, to be led by Britain, with about 1,800 troops, and another 1,700 drawn from 10 other European nations and the United States.

Britain's Defense Ministry said up to 700 men from the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment would fly out ``as soon as possible.'' Greece, which has pledged about 350 troops, said it will begin deployment on Thursday.

The Bush administration has made no secret of its desire to disengage from the Balkans, although it has promised not to make any dramatic troop reductions without consulting with its European allies. U.S. troops in Macedonia will likely play a behind-the-scenes role, such as monitoring unmanned reconnaissance flights, rather than collecting weapons

Roughly 9,000 Americans remain on patrol in Europe's most volatile region -- 500 in Macedonia, 5,000 in Kosovo and 3,500 in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Robertson said NATO has an explicit agreement in writing from the ethnic Albanian rebels that they will disarm.

``We must have confidence that those who have given their word will go ahead and do so,'' the secretary-general said, adding that the exact number of weapons to be collected has not yet been determined.

The Macedonian government claimed Wednesday that ethnic Albanian insurgents have an arsenal vastly greater than previously estimated, adding potential complications to NATO's arms-collection mission.

The Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces, said the rebels have 10 times more firepower than previously believed -- about 85,000 weapons, not counting individual rounds of ammunition. The rebels say they have only 2,000 weapons.

``The number of weapons is not something that I'm willing to go into at the moment,'' Robertson said. ``We are assessing the estimate that has been put forward by the ethnic Albanians. The total will have to be realistic. It will also have to be based on quantity and quality of the armaments.''

The NATO mission, known as Operation Essential Harvest, will deploy troops to several locations. Headquarters will be near Skopje. One battalion will be northwest of Skopje and others will be at Petrovec Airport, Kumanovo and Krivolak.

Several sites will be established for collecting weapons. Locations probably will change frequently. Most of the weapons will be transported to a central point, from which they will be taken to Greece and destroyed.

Although violence in the country has subsided, an explosion early Tuesday rocked Sveti Atanasi Orthodox church in the town of Lesok, just five from Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city.

On Wednesday, Macedonian security forces admitted they had destroyed a mosque in the village of Neprosteno over the weekend. Sources speaking on condition of anonymity said the rebels were using the building as a sniper nest.

--------

Macedonia: Rebels Have More Arms

August 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Macedonia-Arms.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- Macedonia's government on Wednesday claimed that the country's rebels have 85,000 weapons -- far more than the 2,000 the militants say they'll hand over to NATO's new disarmament mission.

The announcement was a sign of the possible difficulties ahead for the 3,500-member NATO force, which began deploying Wednesday with the arrival of dozens of French soldiers.

Getting the two sides to agree on how many guns to turn in will be the alliance's first major challenge in an operation fraught with risks. Military and diplomatic officials want a deal before the weekend -- providing they can apply enough pressure to persuade both sides to accept a figure.

NATO officials rejected the latest government tally as political posturing by hard-liners. The mission's top military commander, Maj. Gen. Gunnar Lange, declined to speculate on the dispute, arguing that collection process itself was more important than the actual number of weapons handed in.

``The rebels can re-arm. They can start fighting again,'' Lange said. ``It's a lot more important that the trust and confidence that comes with the political process ... give them no wish to re-arm and start fighting again.''

NATO's ruling council last week authorized about 400 advance troops to lay the groundwork for the British-led Operation Essential Harvest, and on Wednesday it approved the full deployment despite continued sporadic violence.

Hundreds of NATO soldiers will be pouring into the troubled Balkan country in the coming days, moving quickly to take positions for the start of collections next week.

Both ethnic Albanian and Macedonian leaders welcomed the troops, who are coming as part of a peace deal to end an insurgency that began six months ago. Once their mission gets under way, it is envisioned to last 30 days.

The peace accord envisions a staggered process in which a cache of weapons is handed over in exchange for political steps by the government. Since the weapons are to be handed over in three installments, a figure must be agreed on in advance.

The rebels took up arms in February, saying they were fighting for greater rights for Macedonia's minority ethnic Albanians, who account for about a third of the country's population of 2 million. Although the rebels have said they are ready to give up their struggle, the government fears they will fight on for a state of their own.

The Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces, said the rebels have 10 times more firepower than they previously believed -- some 85,000 different weapons in all, not counting individual rounds of ammunition. The rebels say they have only 2,000 weapons.

The new figures, which police said came from fresh intelligence reports, suggested that the rebel arsenal includes 9,000 assault rifles, 8,000 handguns of various calibers, 10 howitzers of various calibers and 20,000 hand grenades.

Macedonian Defense Ministry spokesman Marjan Gjurovski dismissed the suggestion that the government was exaggerating the numbers.

``To say there's a million of pieces is wildest exaggeration,'' he said. But, alluding to the militants' vastly lower estimate, he added: ``To say there's only 2,000 pieces is ridiculous.''

NATO officials said they were confident that a mutually acceptable number would be reached.

``We know this process will not be easy,'' Lange said of the overall mission. ``But we also know this is the best chance the citizens of Macedonia have of avoiding a civil war.''

Violence in the country has subsided, but on Tuesday an explosion shook Sveti Atanasi Orthodox church in the town of Lesok.

On Wednesday, Macedonian security forces said they had destroyed a mosque in the town of Neprosteno over the weekend. Sources speaking on condition of anonymity said snipers were using the building for cover.

--------

U.S. recovers intact missile

August 22, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010822-3893424.htm

The U.S. military has secretly recovered an unexploded Tomahawk cruise missile from northern Albania that was left over from the 1999 Kosovo bombing campaign.

Pentagon officials said yesterday the long-range cruise missile was disarmed and its unexploded warhead removed by a four-member team of bomb experts in the past several days.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Tomahawk was discovered by an Albanian national earlier this month in northern Albania. It was under a flight path indicating it had been targeted against Serbia.

The U.S. European Command, which is in charge of military forces in the area, was notified of the missile late last week, and dispatched a four-member explosives ordnance team to check it out, Adm. Quigley said.

A second Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the bomb disposal team removed the unexploded warhead and other components over the weekend.

"The missile had not armed itself and we don't know why it went down," this official said.

The downed Tomahawk could have been an intelligence boost for foreign powers, such as China, which are seeking to match U.S. long-range missile attack capabilities. U.S. officials said Tomahawk technology -- primarily the turbofan engine and Global Positioning System guidance package are sensitive military equipment.

China is working on a long-range cruise missile and recently tested an air-launched version for the first time. Chinese intelligence agents succeeded in recovering some parts of a Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM guided 2,000-pound bomb, that mistakenly blew up China's embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

However, U.S. intelligence officials believe that both Russia and China have had access to a Tomahawk as the result of earlier missile failures in conflicts in the Middle East and operations in Southwest Asia. Officials said the missile probably was not discovered sooner because it went down in a remote area of the country known as the Albanian Alps.

The missile was one of scores of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles fired from U.S. ships and submarines in the Adriatic Sea during Operation Allied Force in the spring and summer of 1999. The conflict began March 24, 1999, and ended June 20, 1999.

The operation's goal was to drive Serbian military forces from Kosovo, where they were accused of the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovar Albanians.

According to the Pentagon's after-action report on Kosovo, 218 Tomahawk missiles were fired during the campaign. The missiles were armed with both high-explosive warheads and submunitions -- those that drop between 150-200 smaller bomblets.

All those fired in the Kosovo bombing campaign were Tomahawk Block III missiles, which are equipped with an electronic jam-resistance guidance system and a smaller warhead for increased range. The missile has a range of about 690 miles.

The Tomahawks used in Kosovo were fired from two U.S. Navy battle groups and one British submarine in what the Pentagon called "quick reaction strikes" that were not hindered by the bad weather that plagued flight operations.

"Target types ranged from traditional headquarter buildings and other infrastructure targets to relocatable targets such as aircraft and surface-to-air missile launchers," the report stated. "Tomahawk was often a weapon of choice for targets with the potential for high collateral damage, and was used to attack numerous targets in Belgrade."

-------- colombia

IRA/Cuban/Venezuelan Involvement in Colombia

Robert Villa
NewsMax
Monday, Aug. 20, 2001
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/8/19/211055.shtml

BOGOTA, Colombia - On Saturday, Aug. 18, orders for the capture of 40 foreigners with criminal and terrorist records who have entered Colombia were issued by the attorney general's office. While the names were not released, the countries of origin were announced to be Cambodia, China, Croatia, Cuba, El Salvador, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.

In the past week, the involvement of urban terrorism experts from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and various Cuban and Venezuelan military operatives specializing in artillery and anti-air operations has alarmed Colombia's military. Rumors of involvement of the Basque independence guerrilla group, ETA, have also surfaced but have yet to be confirmed.

Despite repeated concerns regarding the true commitment of both Cuba and Venezuela to the peace process, the current president of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, has been die-hard on involving both groups in negotiations, due to their ideological closeness to the guerrillas.

The President's Peace Commission even planned for the eventual participation of a contingent of Cuban soldiers that would be members of a U.N. verification team in northern Colombia. The team would have been responsible for verifying the good conduct of the guerrillas in a distension zone controlled by the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN).

Negotiations with the ELN failed last week, however, due to the government's failure to produce a timeline acceptable to the guerrillas.

A U.N. verification team was never created for the present distension zone already occupied by the Frente Armada Revolucionaria de Colombia (FARC). That zone, created in 1999, has since become the national headquarters for FARC training, kidnapping, coca growing and military operations.

Formerly, the United Nations and the European Union both had given their support to the creation of the zone, putting aside concerns about illicit activities, but in the past month and a half, a U.N. vehicle has been stopped by the FARC and a member of a U.N. team kidnapped, three Germans have been kidnapped and held in the zone, and many U.N. and E.U. diplomatic missions are making plans to leave. Denmark has already closed up shop.

The appearance of foreign insurgents in Colombia is nothing new. Since the 1948 creation of the Organization of American States, which occurred in Bogota, foreigners have been attempting to overthrow the Colombian government, long a strong ally of the United States. On April 9, 1948, a popular Liberal Party leader was assassinated just as the OAS's first meeting to organize was being convened. The result was massive rioting that shook Bogota for several days, leaving nearly 5,000 dead.

The leaders of the FARC, which traces its origins back to this time, have always lamented that they did not take advantage of the opportunity presented by the rioting, known as the Bogotazo. A young Fidel Castro took part in the rioting. At the time he was supposedly affiliated with a group of Peronistas who were participating in a youth conference.

No one knows for sure who pulled the trigger in the assassination, but speculation has long centered around Soviet involvement because the U.S.S.R. feared that the OAS would create an unshakeable sphere of U.S. influence in the Americas.

Cubans have been involved in Colombia since the 1960s, when a group of leftist students, professors and priests took to the mountains, following the foco theory of Fidel Castro, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the other proponents of the Cuban revolution. The foco theory insisted that a Communist revolution could be inspired by taking to the mountains, instructing the natives on the importance of overthrowing the regime, and then coming down from the mountains to take the cities.

The ELN dates from this epoch, and while the great majority of the young idealists who founded the ELN were killed in Colombia as they were in other Latin American countries where the foco theory was attempted, Cuban aid long sustained the organization.

Based in northern Colombia, Cuba has lately been involved in the peace process, which had continued unabated until last week in Caracas, Venezuela, under the watchful supervision of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Those talks were broken off last week, however, and in the past few days the ELN has launched a series of attacks crossing through Venezuelan territory to attack Colombian border posts.

General Fernando Tapias, commander of Colombia's armed forces, stated that "the objective of the FARC is to strengthen its war against the cities, and they know that they need to learn new strategies and technology." Their "urban offensive," declared last month, was inaugurated with an attack on several of the government's maximum security prisons. The FARC stated that if the government refused a prisoner exchange as part of the peace negotiations, the guerrillas would simply seize the prisons.

There is little question that the FARC has the funds available to pay for international aid in training its soldiers. The Colombian attorney general's office placed the guerrillas' income for the year 2000 at between $500 and $700 million. One military official stated that "they have the money and drugs sufficient to pay for the most sophisticated weapons, training and the highest technology in the world for communications and terrorism."

Three IRA explosives experts were detected leaving from three distinct points in Europe by European intelligence, and were followed closely by Colombian officials until they attempted to leave the country, whereupon they were apprehended. The Colombian police have reviewed their records and found that the same three IRA operatives have repeatedly entered the country since 1991.

The incident has sparked unrest in the United Kingdom as well as in Colombia, due to concerns that the IRA is taking payments in arms or drugs. The IRA has resisted the last few British proposals for disarmament.

Colombia's police in charge of immigration have now raised earlier estimates of at least 20 Cuban military experts to close to 30. This development is also disturbing, due to the supposed commitment of Cuba to the Colombian peace process. Working together with these Cubans are "at least 10" Venezuelan ex-military personnel.

Artillery experts from the two countries are probably training the guerrillas in the creation of new rocket attack methods. For the last 20 years, the FARC and ELN have both used a homemade gas canister rocket that, due to its inaccuracy, has wreaked more havoc on civilians than on military bases.

Anti-aircraft missile experts from Cuba and Venezuela are probably working on the seven anti-aircraft missile bases that have been detected under construction in the distension zone. Armaments tracking detected the arrival of Stinger and Redeye anti-aircraft missiles from Syria several years ago. More shipments of anti-aircraft missiles and launchers have probably been made by the Russian mafia, closely linked to the FARC because of its unique ability to pay in highly lucrative cocaine, which Russia distributes throughout Europe.

A partially completed submarine was discovered last year in central Colombia. The small but highly sophisticated sub was designed to transport drug shipments. The engineering plans were in Russian.

The final destination of the IRA terrorists is still uncertain. Within five days the Colombian attorney general's office should determine whether they will be tried in Colombia or deported. The Bush administration has still made no comment on the case, other than to say that it supports the Pastrana administration's continuing efforts for peace and that it will be watching how the case progresses.

Cuba, for its part, is denying the presence of Cuban troops. Cuban chancellor Aymee Hernandez said in Havana, "It's a great fallacy, the whole world knows that there are no Cubans there [in Colombia]."

-------- israel

Israeli Security Minister Proposes Nazi-Style Tactics against Palestinians

From: Nabil Mohamad <nmohamad@adc.org>

Tuesday, August 21, 2001 Elul 2, 5761
By Akiva Eldar,
Ha'aretz, Israel

To understand why Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is relaxed about American pressure, one should read a bit of what Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage, a friend of the Bush family, had to say to an interview.

Asked when and under what circumstances the U.S. would stick its feet into the mud of the Middle East, Armitage said "One thing I think we've all learned - and you don't have to be a Middle East negotiator to take this lesson home - is that you can't want peace more than the two parties want peace.

"If you really think about it, what does Mr. Clinton think about having spent the waning days of his presidency locked in at Camp David to no effect? Or Ehud Barak, who found himself losing an election because of it? Or four prime ministers of Israel who in recent years have been perplexed by the search for peace?" Armitage summed it up by saying that "when the opportunity is right, we'll try to seize it. To describe it right now, I'm incapable [of saying] what exactly would be the right moment."

And if that's not enough to make clear why the Americans told Osama al-Baz, right hand man to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to tell Arafat he can forget about international observers for the moment, take a look at the latest polls. According to a CNN and USA Today poll, 65 percent of Americans think the administration's job is to tell the Israelis and Palestinians to get along with each other on their own. Only 32 percent support active U.S. involvement. Support for Israel is at 41 percent compared to 13 percent for the Palestinians. But most - 46 percent - don't care which side is nicer.

Al-Baz tried to frightened his Washington hosts by warning that if they don't restrain Sharon, their embassies and interests in the Middle East will be endangered. He told them that pro-American Arab regimes are losing support in the street. Al-Baz, whose Israeli friends know is torturing Arafat on the terror issue, went home with the message that if Egypt doesn't do more, not only will Bush not touch Sharon, but his vice president, Dick Cheney, and his friends in Congress will be happy to deal with the aid the American taxpayer sends Egypt.

Enjoying every minute

Sharon's dive in the public opinion polls wasn't evident on his face on Sunday, say some ministers. They're under the impression that he is enjoying every minute of the job that fell into his hands. True, he didn't really have an answer to the questions raised by Industry Minister Dalia Itzik: "What do you conclude from the fact that Arafat is not a partner? Look what's happening to the economy and the trade agreements with Europe. Where's it all going? Where are the painful concessions you talked about?"

Sharon was restrained. So what if he's not exactly a leader for peace? The leader of the free world is waiting with him in the bleachers for Arafat to stop the violence, Yedioth Ahronoth and Ma'ariv announce in their headlines: "Sharon: We found the way to deal with the security problem," and Shimon Peres is waiting for the phone call from Ramallah. And as an added safety precaution against Bibi Netanyahu, the former Likudniks known as the Center Party joined the Sharon government.

No wonder that the political vacuum around Sharon is filling up with peace plans, like the unilateral separation proposed by Itzik, Haim Ramon and Dan Meridor. Peres thinks it's a terrible plan, and if there's no agreement, no fence will stop Palestinian shells on their way to Israel. Peres has his own plan. If Arafat would just meet with him, the foreign minster won't conduct - heaven forbid - political negotiations, but the chairman would get a peek at the Oslo Agreement's stepdaughter. The foreign minister believes that if Arafat - of course without political negotiations - halts the fire, Peres can sell it to Sharon. Peres tells reporters that he's sticking to his view that Sharon doesn't want his swan song to be fire and smoke. Peres believes there's fire behind the smoke around the promise of "painful concessions."

Peres' plan is based on the assumption that Sharon is ready to suffer the terrible belly ache of Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state in Area A. Peres' plan also is counting on Sharon getting used to saying farewell to large swaths of Area C, along with resumption of final status negotiations (and not ongoing, long-term, interim deals according to Sharon's original plan, which was rejected by the Palestinians). Peres' plan also includes the assumption that Ehud Barak, who claims he left no stone unturned at Camp David, turned over a few extra ones, like Jerusalem and the Right of Return. Peres wants to offer Arafat a postponement in dealing with the symbols and slogans - sovereignty in Jerusalem and the right of return - and instead immediately get to work on the real problems of Jerusalem's Arabs and the refugees in the camps.

Former Meretz minister Ran Cohen's plan integrates the idea of "Gaza first," known to both the prime minister and foreign minister, and "Bibi first," which bothers both Sharon and Peres. Cohen proposes that they bypass Netanyahu and the radical right and go straight to the public, which according to the polls won't shed a tear over Netzarim. In a letter to Sharon and Peres, Cohen suggests declaring a national referendum, within 45 days, over a full withdrawal from Gaza, and recognizing its borders as the borders of the first part of the state of Palestine. Arafat would commit to the UN Security Council that by the time of the referendum he would put an end to the violence and take control over all the armed organizations. At the same time, Israel would halt its fire and implement all the agreements it signed in the West Bank. The Prime Minister's Office told Cohen yesterday that his proposal was given to the "appropriate authorities."

Family therapy

K., a Theresienstadt survivor, was distraught to the point of tears. "What's happening to us?" she asked. "Did you hear the deputy public security minister, Gideon Ezra? I can't calm down. Now he's proposing on television to execute the families of the Palestinian suicide bombers." K. said Ezra didn't invent the system in which relatives are punished for the sins of their fathers or sons. She remembers it well from the 1940s in occupied Europe. But her Hebrew is not very good, and maybe she didn't really understand what was said. Otherwise it's impossible that the Jewish state let such things go right past its ears.

But K. wasn't wrong. Here are excerpts from an interview with Ezra broadcast Sunday night on state television in the New Evening (Erev Hadash) program. And none of his colleagues in the government protested.

Geula Even: "What idea do you have to chill the motivations of the suicide bomber. You said something about harming their families. What does that mean."

Ezra: "I'm talking about there being a conversation between a psychologist with every one of those suicide bombers and the psychologists will check what brought them to suicide."

Even:"You mean the ones who are caught."

Ezra"The ones who are caught. To learn about those who go out in the future. If, for example, it turns out from the three [in Israeli custody] that harming their family would have prevented them from going out on a suicide mission, that's a possible answer..."

Even:"Just a minute, you're saying that if it turns out that by killing the father of a suicide bomber it would prevent him from going to a discotheque to blow himself up, then the parents should be eliminated?"

Ezra:Absolutely. You have to understand that we paid a price in children and elderly and babies ... the suicide bomber should know that his family will be wiped out, and that's better then him going out, and nobody will get killed and there will be peace."

Historian Prof. Moshe Zimmerman of Hebrew University says the Nazis used to arrest the families of people suspected of trying to undermine the regime or harm its officials. "The method had a name - sippenhaft. They used it, for example, when they caught the conspirators against Hitler in July 1944. You know that if you act against the state, the entire family will suffer. In the occupation areas, they made wide use of the method. If someone shot a German soldier, he knew that if the assassin wasn't caught, 50 people would hang."

But if Ezra is looking for help from some of his former colleagues in the Shin Bet to provide him with folklore about suicide bombers, he might end up with a better method than the family treatment plan he's suggesting. Someone at the Shin Bet no doubt noticed the sermon, broadcast on Palestinian TV, from the Sheikh Il'ijun Mosque, as preached by Sheikh Isma'il al-Adouan: "The shahid, if he meets Allah, is forgiven his first drop of blood; he's saved from the grave's confines; he sees his seat in heaven; he's saved from judgment day; he's given 72 dark-eyed women; he's an advocate for 70 members of his family." If nobody at the Shin Bet has seen it, it's available through the Middle East Media and Research Institute.

So who knows, Mr. Ezra. Maybe the family would hurry their dear son on the way to the protektzia up there. Fortunately, Sharon has meanwhile announced that he has found a way to deal with the security problem.

----

Seven Palestinians Killed

By Mohammed Daraghmeh
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010822/aponline192313_000.htm

NABLUS, West Bank -- Seven Palestinians died Wednesday in an upsurge of violence in the West Bank and Gaza, including an apparent Israeli attempt to kill two top Hamas leaders.

Israeli helicopters in Gaza fired missiles at cars carrying the region's top Hamas bomb-makers and commanders, Mohammed Deif and Adnan al-Ghoul, but they escaped unharmed, according to Israeli media and Palestinians at the scene.

Killed in the attack was al-Ghoul's 21-year-old son, Bilal, a member of the Palestinian Authority's security force, Palestinian security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli military said the helicopters hit "terrorist cells engaged in mortar bombings."

Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahar said it was "an Israeli attempt to assassinate a senior member of Hamas." Deif has been on Israel's wanted list for five years. He is considered the brains behind many of the bloodiest Hamas bomb attacks inside Israel. Al-Ghoul is said to be a master bomb-maker.

A crowd gathered around one of the burned-out cars. People shouted "Death to Israel" and "Death to Sharon," referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and waved assault rifles in the air as an Israeli helicopter flew overhead.

In the other violence, five Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire early Wednesday near the West Bank city of Nablus. The two sides gave differing accounts of how some of the deaths occurred .

Israel said a special army unit discovered Palestinians planting a bomb alongside a West Bank road and opened fire, killing two. Later other armed men came to the scene, and the soldiers killed three of them.

The Palestinian security sources confirmed the first group was planting a bomb and the Israeli troops killed two. The sources then said a second, unarmed group of Palestinians began looking for wounded and the Israelis fired again, killing two of them and a passerby.

Thousands marched with the bodies of the five through the West Bank city of Nablus, and dozens fired in the air, causing another tragedy - a man was critically wounded when a bullet hit him.

In southern Gaza, another Palestinian was killed in unclear circumstances. A doctor said Mahmoud Jasser, 23, died in an explosion, but other Palestinians said he was shot by an Israeli sniper.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, an Israeli tank advanced into Palestinian-controlled territory and destroyed a police station, Palestinians said, after a firefight at the entrance to Psagot, a nearby Jewish settlement. No casualties were reported.

Israeli army bulldozer knocked down another Palestinian police post near the West Bank town of Jenin after an exchange of fire, the military said.

Also Wednesday, Israel fired two ground-to-ground missiles at a Palestinian police post in Gaza, destroying it and wounding seven policeman, Palestinians said. The military said the attack was retaliation for a mortar shell fired toward an army post.

Since fighting erupted last September, 584 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 152 on the Israeli side.

The spike of violence overshadowed efforts to bring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres together for talks on a new truce.

Peres, visiting his native Poland, said he would begin making arrangements for the meeting when he returns to Israel.

"I shall meet with Mr. Arafat rather soon, but the date has not been fixed," Peres told reporters.

On Tuesday, Arafat suggested that they meet in Berlin. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, standing next to Arafat in Ramallah, appeared surprised by the idea, but agreed to it.

Over the past three days, Fischer has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders to help arrange truce talks. Peres has proposed a gradual truce to be implemented first in relatively quiet areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Jerusalem, Fischer counseled caution. "This meeting must be carefully prepared," he said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, owners of a Jerusalem restaurant wrecked in a Palestinian suicide bombing two weeks ago said they will rebuild it. The bomber killed himself and 15 other people Aug. 9 at the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem.

In a statement, the local managers of the U.S chain said the Jerusalem eatery "has a symbolic significance that goes beyond the commercial aspect." The boarded-up storefront has become a site for prayers and memorials since the attack.

-------- space

Kennedy Wanted to Be First on Moon

AUGUST 22, 16:13 EDT
By JAY LINDSAY
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7E214OO0

BOSTON (AP) - President Kennedy went toe-to-toe with the chief of NASA to try to convince him that beating the Russians to the moon should be the agency's top priority, according to newly released White House tapes.

Kennedy and NASA Administrator James Webb had a long and sometimes abrupt exchange in a November 1962 meeting in which Kennedy stressed the Cold War political importance of winning the space race.

``We hope to beat them to demonstrate that, starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God we passed them,'' Kennedy said in the 73-minute tape released on Wednesday by the John F. Kennedy Library.

The conversation breaks no new historical ground but is rare and fascinating for its candor, said Maura Porter, an archivist at the library.

``You don't get someone like James Webb who was willing to make an argument (with the president) in a pointed way,'' Porter said.

The meeting came 18 months after Kennedy's famous challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon. In a May 25, 1961, speech to Congress, he declared: ``I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.''

Vice President Lyndon Johnson and several NASA officials were also at the Nov. 21 meeting in the Cabinet Room, which was called to discuss additional funding for NASA and how it would speed up the space program.

The president asked Webb if he considered the moon landing NASA's top priority.

``No sir, I do not,'' Webb replied. ``I think it is one of the top priority programs.''

Kennedy responded that it should be the top priority.

``This is important for political reasons, international political reasons,'' the president said. ``This is, whether we like it or not, an intensive race.''

Webb cited unknowns about whether men could even survive weightlessness, and argued that further scientific study should be broadly focused on gaining ``pre-eminence in space,'' not just a moon landing.

Kennedy dismissed Webb's argument, saying that NASA's technology may be superior to the Russians' but that it is more important to the public to get to the moon.

Kennedy also referred to the ``fantastic'' amounts of money spent on the space program, and said a commitment to the first moon landing is needed.

``Otherwise, we shouldn't be spending this kind of money because I'm not that interested in space,'' he said.

Porter noted the meeting was held just weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The exchange showed that, following the crisis, Kennedy was more interested in the space race as a tool in the Cold War than as a means for scientific discovery, she said.

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

U.S., S. Korea Fight Over Court Case

By Sang-Hun Choe
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, August 22, 2001; 12:34 PM
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46414-2001Aug22?language=printer

SEOUL, South Korea -- The U.S. military on Wednesday rejected a South Korean court order for one of its American civilian employees to stand trial on charges of dumping toxic chemicals into a river.

A bailiff from the Seoul District Court visited the military headquarters in central Seoul to deliver the court summons for Albert McFarland, a 58-year-old civilian employee of the U.S. command.

The U.S. military refused to accept the summons, saying the Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Seoul allows the U.S. side to have jurisdiction over the McFarland case. SOFA governs the legal status of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to guard against communist North Korea.

"When a person violates both the U.S. and South Korean laws, and if his act or omission occurred in his duty, SOFA says the U.S. side has the right to exercise primary jurisdiction," said Lee Ferguson, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

Seoul claims that SOFA allows South Korea jurisdiction over the case because McFarland is a civilian.

McFarland was accused of ordering the dumping of 24 gallons of formaldehyde into the Han River, a main source of drinking water for 12 million people in Seoul, early last year.

The case became known to the South Korean public after one of McFarland's Korean subordinates at an American military mortuary reported it to a local environmental group.

The case triggered anti-American protests, with activists demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The U.S. military has insisted the dumped embalming chemical posed no threat to public health or to the environment since it was treated in a sewage system and diluted with waste water.

Environmentalists say formaldehyde can cause cancer after long exposure and can kill aquatic creatures when dissolved in water.

----

Tiny U.S. planes spy as GIs avoid danger

August 22, 2001
By Danica Kirka
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010822-3448950.htm

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- With his miniature spy planes at 16,000 feet and guided by remote control, U.S. Army Capt. Daniel Dittenber's pilots camped on the ground aren't exactly in any danger.

That's just the way the Bush administration likes it. Putting hardware instead of humans into harm's way is especially appealing to Washington as the United States joins NATO's newest foray into the Balkans, a mission to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia.

NATO's ruling council was expected to approve that mission today and clear the way for the full deployment of 3,500 troops after the alliance's supreme commander in Europe recommended it yesterday during a session in Brussels.

The mission comes at a time when the Bush administration is trying to get American troops out of the Balkans, never mind sending more in. So U.S. troops will play a behind-the-scenes role.

Only several hundred Americans will participate, focusing on limited logistical duties. Capt. Dittenber, a 26-year-old officer from Turner, Mich., says the photographs his unit's reconnaissance aircraft will take should play an important part in the risky mission.

"We keep an eye out for them. We make it possible for them to see the bad guy around the corner," he said.

Unlike the NATO-led mission in Kosovo -- where the U.S. military charged in on the first wave and settled in so firmly that its massive base, Camp Bondsteel, has been nicknamed the Balkan Battlestar Galactica -- Americans are taking a back seat this time.

Roughly 9,000 Americans remain on patrol in Europe's most volatile region -- 500 in Macedonia, 5,000 in Kosovo and 3,500 in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- with no end in sight.

The Bush administration has made no secret of its desire to disengage from the Balkans, although it has promised not to make any dramatic troop reductions without consulting with its European allies.

It will be the Europeans who will pick up rebel weapons at collection sites scattered across rugged mountain territory where firefights have raged since the insurgents took up arms six months ago, saying they were fighting for more rights for Macedonia's minority ethnic Albanians. After a peace deal signed last week expanded those rights, the rebels say they're prepared to hand in their weapons.

NATO has said it will deploy the full force only when it is confident that the cease-fire is viable and lasting. Gen. Joseph Ralston, speaking to the North Atlantic Council yesterday, said waiting would be riskier than deploying now.

Although violence in the country has dramatically subsided, an explosion early yesterday rocked an Orthodox Christian monastery in the town of Lesok outside Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city.

A church at the monastery complex, Sveti Atanasi, crumpled behind its twin-towered facade. Blue-toned frescoes of saints lay in heaps of rubble, exposed to the elements for the first time in decades.

Macedonia's culture minister, Ganka Samoilova-Cvetanovska, blamed the rebels, who started assaults on the village last month. The rebels denied responsibility.

"Attacks on places of worship are totally unacceptable and undermine the efforts of all those who are striving to restore peace and stability," NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said in a statement.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Wild Antarctic Winds to be Harnessed for Power

August 22, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-04.html

CANBERRA, Australia, Australia is embarking on an ambitious $US2.3 million program to take wind power further than it has ever been, by harnessing Antarctic gales for full scale electricity generation.

A wind farm is to be built at Mawson in Eastern Antarctica to meet much of the station's energy demand by slicing turbine blades into the katabatic winds that howl off the polar ice cap daily.

Towers will be built to withstand gusts of up to 300 kilometers per hour, and generate power in winds up to 130 kilometers per hour before they automatically shut down. Such demands are higher than anywhere else, according to project officials.

Ice and stars at the South Pole (Photos courtesy Michael Burton, School of Physics, University of New South Wales)

"No existing turbine does this," said Peter Magill, of the Australian Environment Department's Antarctic Division. "The average wind we have at the site is potentially the strongest in the world. It was very difficult to find a manufacturer who was willing to sell us a turbine that could stand that."

Under the project, three 34 metre high towers, each capable of generating 300 kilowatts of power, will be built at Mawson among existing station buildings that line a horseshoe shaped granite natural harbour. Construction is to start next summer, and be completed the following season.

The 30 metre diameter blades will be built to chew through average annual winds of 43 kilometers per hour (kmh). This compares to what the Australian Bureau of Meterology said was an average annual wind speed of 5.0 kmh in central Melbourne, and 9.6 kmh at Sydney Airport.

Like other turbines, Mawson's will be designed to 'feather' their blades - exposing less surface area as winds strengthen. But whereas the latest generation of machines internationally shuts down automatically at winds of around 90 kmh, these will be built to continue.

"No other machine currently operating in the world would carry on at these speeds," said Alan Langworthy, managing director of the contracted firm, Powercorp. "This is the leading edge."

Among the engineering challenges, project builders must first come up with a way of fixing the towers through concrete into Mawson's granite so they are stable. The maximum gust recorded in 50 years of Australian occupation of the station is 252 kmh.

The towers and machinery to be built by German company Enercon will look similar to any that might be found today outside a European town.

Mt Erebus and Castle Rock, Antarctica

But Langworthy said they would have to be strengthened, not only against the wind, but the effects on steel of cold temperatures. Their inner workings must also be sealed against the entry of fine blizzard blown snow.

He said the Enercon machines also had advantages because they were gearless, instead using a ring generator that rotated at the same speed as the propellor. The computer-linked "brains" of the machine is being developed by Darwin-based Powercorp, which has partnered Enercon in large scale Australian projects.

Most nations in Antarctica are experimenting with wind power in, but Mawson's will be ten times the capacity of the next largest, a 30 kilowatt machine at a German station.

Currently up to 800,000 litres of special Antarctic blend diesel fuel is shipped to Mawson yearly to generate light, power and heat. This project is intended to replace up to 80 per cent of fuel-generated power, and Mr Langworthy said technology was being developed to take it the next step towards 100 per cent replacement.

Australian Environment Minister, Senator Robert Hill, said the use of diesel power at Australia's three Antarctic stations was far from ideal. "The use of fossil fuel requires that it be transported from ship to shore and stored at stations before being used, and while we have minimized the risks of spillage, it is always there," Hill said.

The single major spill at an Australian station occurred at Casey in 1990, when 90,000 litres leaked out of a storage tank, forcing expeditioners out in minus 20 degree temperatures to attempt a clean-up.

Environmental assessment of the wind power project was conducted internally by the Australian Goverment, rather than being submitted for international approval through Antarctic Treaty mechanisms. Magill said the assessment concluded there was little risk of bird strike, from either ground nesting snow petrels or predatory skuas.

Published in cooperation with The Antarctican - http://www.antarctican.com

-------- genetics

France and Germany Jointly Seek a Ban on Cloning Humans

New York Times
August 22, 2001
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/international/europe/22GERM.html?searchpv=nytToday

BERLIN, Aug. 21 - The French and German governments have come together in a request to the United Nations to approve a measure seeking a worldwide ban on human cloning for reproductive purposes.

In a joint statement, the two nations have called on Secretary General Kofi Annan to present their proposal to the General Assembly, which meets in September. They urge the creation of a working group to draft a convention that would ban reproductive cloning as an offense "to human dignity."

The two countries say they hope and expect that their proposal, made early this month, will get backing from the Bush administration. While Mr. Bush has said his administration would allow limited stem cell research, he has expressed strong opposition to human cloning.

The French and Germans hope that an anticloning convention would be one international treaty that President Bush would choose to support, after he infuriated much of the Continent by pulling back from treaties about global warming, missile defense and biological warfare.

A recent opinion poll of Europeans by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and The International Herald Tribune found unhappiness with Mr. Bush strongest in France and Germany. Solid majorities of those polled in both countries - 65 percent in Germany and 59 percent in France - said they disapproved of his handling of foreign policy.

While the two countries agree on cloning, they differ in their laws about cloning stem cells for research.

The French have been most outspoken in condemning human cloning, with Health Minister Bernard Kouchner telling Le Monde that "we have to ban the photocopying of human beings right now" and that it is "simply morally unacceptable to create life while hijacking its very meaning."

But the French have only now drafted legislation that will specifically ban human cloning for reproduction, while the Germans banned cloning - and anything that smelled of Nazi-era euthanasia and eugenics - more than 10 years ago.

The joint French-German proposal is as important for its diplomatic impact as its scientific one, officials from both countries said in interviews. After conflicts that arose over voting rights for nations of various sizes in an expanded European Union at a summit meeting in Nice last December, France and Germany moved quickly to increase and emphasize their cooperation.

The French in particular have wanted to keep the Germans from playing too independent a role in Europe, or from drawing closer to Britain or the new candidate countries in Central Europe at the expense of France.

Foreign Ministers Joschka Fischer of Germany and Hubert Védrine of France met in Paris on June 21 and laid the ground for renewed comity and cooperation.

"A French-German initiative like this is a first," said Bernard Valero, the deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, describing the joint proposal on cloning. "After Nice, we decided at the highest level to increase and develop Franco-German cooperation on many issues, from the Middle East and mad cow disease to Macedonia, immigration and cloning."

A German Foreign Ministry official agreed, saying: "From the European perspective, cloning is a worthwhile issue on which it's safe to find common ground, both with the French and the Americans. It's a Franco-German initiative and a worthwhile goal."

With an informal European Union mandate, Mr. Fischer is currently in the Middle East, where he has been working to bring together Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister. Today there were announcements that they were prepared to meet soon on how to put a cease-fire into effect.

Mr. Valero pointed out that Mr. Fischer will be in Paris again next week to have further meetings with Mr. Védrine about the Mideast, Macedonia and other issues.

On the cloning issue, the German legislation, passed in 1990, bans all genetic research on embryos. There has been a debate about a potential loophole that might allow scientists to import stem cells grown elsewhere, but experimentation on such cells is forbidden in any case. In vitro fertilization is allowed, but only to aid conception; embryos not used are frozen for later use or discarded, and even testing of embryos before they are used to check for genetic flaws is forbidden.

In France, the draft legislation, expected to be voted on next year, will revise 1994 laws on bioethics. If passed as written, the law would explicitly ban human cloning for reproduction for the first time, but it would permit therapeutic cloning and also allow - and control - scientific research on in vitro embryos and stem cells. Any embryos used in research must be formally deemed to be no longer intended to produce a child.

The law would require the couple who originated the embryo to consent explicitly to its use for scientific research and would also create a new commission to provide advice, guidance and control.

In Germany, there was a small furor at the end of May when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a pragmatic Social Democrat, spoke of the need for the nation to remain modern and to create jobs. Gene technology, he argued, produces new drugs, more jobs and new opportunities, and he argued for the possibility of scientific research on in vitro embryos. He also suggested that testing the embryos before they are used could prevent the birth of sick or deformed children.

President Johannes Rau, however, although also a Social Democrat, argued vehemently against such research. "Eugenics, euthanasia and selection are labels that are linked to bad memories in Germany," he said. "Where human dignity is affected, economic arguments do not count."

Mr. Schröder has set up - and handpicked - a commission of 24 scientists, philosophers, clergymen and other experts to guide the debate over bioethics.

What is driving the ethical and political debate in Europe is simply the advance of science, the German ministry official said. "In the last half year, suddenly cloning and sophisticated biomedical research on embryos has become scientifically possible and affordable," he said. Everyone is struggling with the ethics of this new world, he suggested, but especially the Germans, with their particular burden of the Nazi past.

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

Argentina Gets $8 Billion Aid From the I.M.F.

New York Times
August 22, 2001
By JOSEPH KAHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/international/americas/22ARGE.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 - After nearly two weeks of negotiations, the International Monetary Fund announced tonight that it would provide up to $8 billion in emergency aid to Argentina to stabilize its economy.

The agreement came after protracted talks between Argentina and the Bush administration, which had sought to use Argentina's financial crisis to demonstrate a new, skeptical approach to financial bailouts that breaks with what administration officials view as an overly accommodating stance by the Clinton administration.

The package provides incentives for Argentina to reach agreement with creditors to restructure part of its $128 billion foreign debt.

Under the plan, Argentina would get $5 billion in loans as early as September, but the other $3 billion would be delayed unless the country reschedules its debt payments. The fund, which typically makes loans to help ensure troubled nations that they can pay their debts and defend their currencies, has not previously made such rescheduling an integral part of a rescue package.

The plan could put pressure on American banks and other lenders to take losses on bonds and loans to Argentina, though fund officials say that any restructuring under their three-year plan depends on voluntary cooperation by all parties, and that it is not an absolute condition of the loans. Thus the plan offers a carrot but no stick.

Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill has used Argentina's case as a way to demonstrate that the administration will back bailouts only when a nation takes painful steps to grapple with its financial woes before seeking emergency help - and then only when there is a high probability that the aid can sustain the recipient through tough times.

But by supporting the Argentina rescue, the administration has departed from its own expressed reluctance to allow repeated bailouts.

Argentina received $13.7 billion in I.M.F. aid eight months ago, at the end of the Clinton administration, and Bush administration officials had suggested that they were not willing to make any new loans.

That position proved difficult to maintain as economic malaise spread round Latin America. Mexico has officially fallen into recession. Brazil's economy has slowed to a standstill, and its weakening currency and rising debt forced it to seek new loans from the fund last month.

Argentina's problems are more serious. Its economy has been shrinking for three years. Its debt burden, though not enormous relative to its overall economy, has become unsustainable as exports slump. Residents, fearing a financial collapse, are moving assets out of the country at an increasing rate; investors have shifted $9 billion out since Argentina's latest round of difficulties began in June.

President Bush has made improving political ties to Latin America a centerpiece of his foreign policy and has said he wants to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement to form a hemispheric free-trade zone.

Those goals are threatened, at least temporarily, by economic weakness across the region.

Even so, Mr. O'Neill and other Treasury officials took a tough line with Argentina when it sent a delegation to Washington earlier this month seeking an infusion of aid. Treasury officials initially declined to commit to any new aid, those involved in the talks said.

It is not unusual for the United States, the largest single shareholder in the fund, to play an important role in shaping an emergency aid package to a large developing country.

But several people involved in the talks said the administration's role was especially intricate in this case, with many late-night sessions held in Treasury offices rather than at I.M.F. headquarters nearby.

Bush administration officials pressed a team led by Daniel Marx, Argentina's finance secretary, to come up with ways of reorganizing Argentina's finances and debt payments so that it could survive without fresh loans.

If there were to be new loans, they wanted Argentina to demonstrate that the money would be instrumental in sustaining the nation even beyond the usual terms of three years, those involved in the talks said.

The effort to revise the fund's approach to Argentina in the middle of a crisis led to some tension between officials of the I.M.F and the Treasury. Mr. O'Neill also ruffled some diplomatic feathers with his frank comments about his reluctance to support new loans.

"We're working to find a way to create a sustainable Argentina, not just one that continues to consume the money of the plumbers and carpenters in the United States who make $50,000 a year and wonder what in the world we're doing with their money," Mr. O'Neill told CNN late last week.

La Nación, a leading Buenos Aires newspaper, wrote in an editorial on Monday that Mr. O'Neill's comments were "outside all norms of respect and protocol." Stock prices plummeted and interest rates soared this week on speculation that Washington would not back new aid.

Treasury officials declined to comment tonight on the negotiations.

Some outside analysts are sympathetic to the administration's tough- love approach, in large part because they view Argentina's problems as intractable. Not only does it have a debt burden that threatens to overwhelm its ability to pay interest, beginning later this year; it also has a rigid currency system that fixes its peso to the dollar. Some economists say the system has undercut the competitiveness of its companies.

"I think it's a real long shot that new aid would be of use without restructuring the debt and devaluing the currency," said Morris Goldstein, a former I.M.F. official who is now at the Institute for International Economics, a research organization in Washington. "You have to do one or the other, and maybe both."

Administration officials have backed Argentina's desire to keep its currency system in place. But they focused on debt restructuring as the price of American support for new loans.

The new plan takes a step in that direction, though it seems unlikely to result in a wholesale debt reorganization - akin to a bankruptcy proceeding - that some economists feel is needed.

Given the sensitivity of the I.M.F. in recommending a debt reorganization that could result in losses for foreign investors, the wording of tonight's announcement was cautious.

Argentina is "considering the possibility of a voluntary and market- based operation to increase the viability of Argentina's debt profile," Horst Kohler, the managing director, said in a statement. "As these discussions bear fruit, I.M.F. management would be prepared to recommend bringing forward the remaining $3 billion under this augmentation to support such an operation."

Other elements of the new aid package are more traditional. The fund, as it often has in the past, is requiring Argentina to tighten its fiscal belt, reducing both central and provincial government spending to meet the goal of a "zero deficit" law approved by the Argentine Congress on July 29.

Other conditions include improving tax collection and strengthening the banking system, Mr. Kohler said.

--------

World Bank Leader Receives A Critical Accounting

By Nora Boustany
Washington Post
Wednesday, August 22, 2001; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43799-2001Aug21?language=printer

The September/October issue of Foreign Policy carries an investigative piece that is sharply critical of World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn's style of personalized management and costly embrace of trendy ideas.

The article, with a cover title of "The Man Who Broke the Bank?" and an inside headline of "Who's Minding the Bank?" was written by Stephen Fidler, U.S. diplomatic editor of the Financial Times, who began the project late last year and said by telephone from London yesterday that he had interviewed and made use of more than 100 primary sources in his reporting.

Fidler writes that the bank's potential for expanding and influencing the path of the global economy has not been realized in Wolfensohn's tenure, a time when the bank's potential influence "seemed to be on the verge of an unprecedented expansion."

The report credits Wolfensohn with being the hardest working president the World Bank has had and its brightest and most passionate leader since Robert McNamara. But it also describes Wolfensohn's ego, his temper and his inability to deal with those challenging his views.

Those traits, the magazine says, have diffused the bank's focus and sense of mission as a tool for development and have driven out some of its best staff members.

Without a clear mandate or well-defined products, the institution finds itself in crisis and awash in criticism.

The article also assails some of the bank's shareholder nations, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany, for behaving like absentee owners who ignore the bank except on particular occasions that serve their pet objectives. Many in the bank say Chinese political sensitivities killed a controversial anti-poverty project in western China last year, rather than real concerns about the program, according to Fidler. A World Faiths Development Dialogue to involve the world's faiths in the development process has cost the bank up to $1 million at the same time that cuts have been made in essential operating expenditures, according to Devesh Kapur of Harvard University, who is coauthor of an official history of the World Bank.

To his critics, Wolfensohn has promoted favorites, ignoring bank regulations on staff advancement and prompting talentedsenior staff to leave. They also say he has caved in to New Age economic fads and interest groups, sacrificing the bank's intellectual integrity. Fidler said yesterday that Wolfensohn "gets shocked when people disagree with him, he sees it as a kind of betrayal from a family member."

Wolfensohn's defenders point out that he has weeded out fiefdoms and apparatchiks and that his programs have contributed to raising the level offemale enrollment in schools,reduced infant mortality rates and raised life expectancy.

"It represents some of the battleground over the future of the bank. Do we move forward with the new development agenda of empowering poor people, reaching out to civil society and moving beyond the simple economic analysis or do we turn the clock back to the top-down economic focus of the eighties?" asked Caroline Anstey, chief of media relations at the bank. "This article represents the view of those who would like to turn the clock back and to change the Wolfensohn agenda," she charged.

In the article, Wolfensohn makes a strong defense of the bank and its direction. "Put me aside for the moment and say I'm useless, egocentric, insecure, all the things you want to say, but don't damage the institution because you want to damage me."

Into the Fire

Barely out of the frying pan of Washington during his country's turbulent recent history, outgoing Indonesian Ambassador Dorodjatun Kuntjoro was thrown into the fire of sorting out economic matters in President Megawati Sukarnoputri's new cabinet. On Aug. 9, Kuntjoro, a seasoned financial wizard and Asian analyst was appointed coordinating minister for economy, which involves the orchestration of 14 ministers. The appointment of a high-voltage team prompted the Business Times of Singapore to write that Megawati "passed her first economics exam with flying colors."

Cuban Stopover

State Department officials are somewhat annoyed that Venezuelan Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila, who is expected in Washington Sunday, is first visiting Cuba, according to diplomatic sources. Davila is scheduled to meet John Maisto, special assistant to the president, and is hoping to see Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, the sources said.

-------- police / prisoners

G8 Police Brutality Probe Continues

August 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Italy-Summit-Aftermath.html

GENOA, Italy (AP) -- An initial 20 police officers have been placed under investigation over allegations of police brutality during last month's Group of Eight summit.

Genoa prosecutors made the decision Tuesday and indicated that more police officers would be added to the group.

The top prosecutor, Francesco Meloni, acknowledged that the probe was looking at ``those members of the police forces who have committed serious abuses.'' But he declined to disclose how many would be placed under investigation or their identities.

He said prosecutors would continue investigating the actions of violent protesters as well.

The 20 officers were part of the 140-strong force that raided a school housing protesters in a pre-dawn blitz July 22, the La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera newspapers reported Wednesday.

The raid has become one of the most controversial episodes during the violence-marred summit, with 93 people arrested, 61 of whom were hospitalized before being jailed.

The group under investigation includes Arnaldo La Barbera, who was removed from his post as head of Italy's anti-terrorism department in the summit's aftermath.

Protesters have said that they were brutally beaten during the raid, some clubbed in their sleep. Blood stained the school walls, and computers and windows were smashed.

Police maintained that some of those injured had been hurt in earlier confrontations in the streets. They also said one protester tried to knife a policeman but that the officer was unhurt because he wore a bulletproof vest.

The police officers being investigated will not be summoned for questioning before Sept. 15.

Over 300 people were arrested during the July 20-22 summit, which saw one 23-year-old protester shot dead and over 200 injured. Most of the detained were later released.

On Wednesday, prosecutors also questioned some Germans still in custody in Genoa. They are suspected of being members of the violent anarchist movement known as the Black Bloc. The anarchists have been blamed for most of the clashes with police and acts of vandalism in the city.


-------- activists

URGENT ACTION ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:46:44 -0400

MOTHERSALERT HOME PAGE
http://www.mothersalert.org

"Vision 2020"
http://www.af.mil/vision/

Your action is needed now. The Department of Energy (DoE) is taking the next step to make Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a permanent high-level radioactive waste repository. The site is situated on sacred Western Shoshone land. The DoE has just released a new report entitled "The Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation" (YMP PSSE). You can visit http://www.ymp.gov to request a copy of the full report. Citizens can write in comments about the report and the Yucca Mountain project or attend public hearings on the issue before the Secretary of Energy makes his recommendation to the President George W. Bush.

This email contains the announcement from the Office of Civilian Radioactive Management on the release of the YMP PSSE and the scheduled public hearing dates and times. For more background information on the YMP, visit http://www.shundahai.org and http://www.ymp.gov.

Even if you can't attend the public hearings, you have the opportunity to write in your comments on the project before the comment period closure. Written comments must be received by September 20, 2001.

Carah Ong

[Federal Register: August 21, 2001 (Volume 66, Number 162)] [Notices] [Page 43850-43851] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr21au01-54]

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management

Site Recommendation Consideration Hearings and End of Public Comment Period; Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation

AGENCY: Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Department of Energy.

ACTION: Notice of public hearings and public comment period closure; document availability.

SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (the Department) announces the scheduling of public hearings on the possible recommendation by the Secretary of Energy to the President of the Yucca Mountain Site in Nevada for development as a spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste geologic repository, pursuant to Section 114(a)(1) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), as amended. The Department also announces the availability of the Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation (PSSE) for the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada and the date for the closure of the public comment period on the Secretary's consideration of a possible site recommendation.

DATES: Public Hearings are scheduled for the following dates, locations and times: September 5, 2001: Suncoast Hotel and Casino, 9090 Alta Drive, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89144, 5:00 pm--9:00 pm--

[[Page 43851]]

Poster Session; 6:00 pm--9:00 pm--Hearing. September 12, 2001: Longstreet Inn and Casino, Highway 373, Armagosa Valley, Nevada 89020; 5:00 pm--9:00 pm--Poster Session; 6:00 pm--9:00 pm--Hearing. September 13, 2001: Bob Ruud Community Center, 150 Highway North #160, Pahrump, Nevada 89048, 5:00 pm-9:00 pm--Poster Session; 6:00 pm- 9:00 pm--Hearing. The public also may submit written comments on the Secretary's consideration of Yucca Mountain for a potential site recommendation to the President. Written comments will be accepted for consideration if received by September 20, 2001. Comments received after September 20, 2001, will be considered to the extent practicable.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be addressed to Carol Hanlon, U.S. Department of Energy, Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, (M/S #025), P.O. Box 30307, North Las Vegas, Nevada 89036-0307, or provided by electronic mail to YMP_SR@ymp.gov. Written comments should be identified on the outside of the envelope, and on the comments themselves, with the designation: ``Possible Site Recommendation for Yucca Mountain.'' Comments can also be submitted by facsimile to 1-800- 967-0739. Copies of any written comments, and documents referenced in this notice may be inspected and photocopied in the Department's Freedom of Information Act Reading Room located at the Yucca Mountain Science Center, 4101B Meadows Lane, Las Vegas, Nevada, (702) 295-1312, between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, except for Federal holidays. Documents referenced in this notice may also be found on the Internet at http:// www.ymp.gov and at http://www.rw.doe.gov. For more information concerning public participation, please refer to the Opportunity for Public Comment section of this notice. Copies of the PSSE and other supporting technical documents may be requested by telephone (1-800-967-3477) or over the Internet via the Yucca Mountain Project website using the document ordering form at http://www.ymp.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, (M/S #025), P.O. Box 30307, North Las Vegas, Nevada 89036-0307, 1-800-967-3477.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

On May 7, 2001, the Department announced in the Federal Register (66 FR 23013-23016) the initiation of a public comment period on the Secretary's consideration of the Yucca Mountain site for recommendation as a spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste repository. In conjunction with the initiation of the comment period, the Department issued a report, the Yucca Mountain Science and Engineering Report (YMS&ER), summarizing the scientific and technical information compiled by the Department to date outlining the preliminary design and performance attributes of a potential geologic repository at the Yucca Mountain site. This report was provided to inform the public and facilitate public comment and review on the technical and scientific information and analyses forming the basis for the Department's consideration of a possible site recommendation. With this notice, the Department announces the issuance of another report, the PSSE, that also is intended to inform the public and facilitate public review and comment on a possible site recommendation. The PSSE contains a preliminary evaluation of the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site for development as a geologic repository based on the Department's proposed site suitability regulations, to be codified as 10 CFR part 963. The preliminary evaluation described in the PSSE is based on information contained in the YMS&ER, supplemented by the most recent available technical information.

II. Opportunity for Public Comment

A. Participation in Comment Process

Interested persons are invited to participate in the comment process by submitting written data, views, or comments with respect to the possible recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site. The Department encourages the maximum level of public participation possible in this process. Individuals, coalitions, states or other government entities, and others are urged to submit written comments on technical, policy or other issues related to the possible recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site.

B. Written Comment Procedures

The Department invites the public to comment on a possible recommendation for the Yucca Mountain site. Written comments should be identified on the outside of the envelope, and on the comments themselves, with the designation: ``Possible Site Recommendation for Yucca Mountain.'' In the event any person wishing to submit written comments cannot provide them directly, alternative arrangements can be made by calling 1-800-967-3477. All comments postmarked by the closing date of the public comment period will be considered by the Department before a decision is made on the potential site recommendation. Comments postmarked after the closing date will be considered to the extent practicable. All comments submitted will be available for examination at the Yucca Mountain Science Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pursuant to the provisions of 10 CFR 1004.11, any person submitting information or data that is believed to be confidential, and which may be exempt by law from public disclosure, should submit one complete copy, as well as two copies from which the information considered confidential has been deleted. The Department of Energy will make its own determination of any such claim and treat it accordingly.

C. Public Hearings

At the beginning of this notice, the Department has indicated where and when there will be public hearings for the site consideration process. As required by the NWPA, the Department will hold these hearings in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain to inform and receive comments from those in the vicinity of the site. These hearings will not be trial-type evidentiary hearings that require a lawyer. They will be informal, and the Department intends to use a facilitator in an effort to ensure they are fair and productive.

Issued in Washington, DC on August 16, 2001. Lake Barrett, Acting Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. [FR Doc. 01-21088 Filed 8-20-01; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

----

South Korean Employees Rally

The Associated Press
Thursday, August 23, 2001; 9:07 AM
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51096-2001Aug23?language=printer

SEOUL, South Korea -- About 800 South Korean unionized workers employed by the U.S. military held a rally Thursday demanding their conditions be improved and opposing any withdrawal of U.S. troops.

They also demanded that the U.S. military stop using cheaper subcontractors to replace full-time local employees.

The Korean Employees Union of the U.S. Forces Korea, which claims 18,000 members, organized the rally outside the main U.S. military base in central Seoul.

In a statement, the union criticized local civic groups that demand the pullout of U.S. troops. It said the demand threatens workers' livelihoods and weakens South Korea's defense against communist North Korea.

The union said it may hold more rallies in the future.

Some small South Korean civic groups have held noisy rallies outside the U.S. military headquarters, demanding the withdrawal of 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea. They say the U.S. military presence raises tensions with North Korea and hurts efforts for reconciliation on the divided Korean peninsula.

----

NCI should study the effects of nuclear fallout

Letter to Editors:
Richard L. Miller - mailto:rmiller@legis.com

I noticed that a bill was introduced [into U.S. Congress] calling for nuclear disarmament [HR-2503, see http://prop1.org/prop1/hr2503.htm].

However, it appears that nuclear testing will resume anyway. Thus, I would like to suggest a modest proposal:

BEFORE such testing begin, the NCI should study the effects of nuclear fallout such as would be ejected from the underground test sites. The study would be based on past fallout deposition (data which they have already published) which fell on US counties (and DC) in the fifties and sixties. The study should be simple: It should include:

1. an evaluation of all 125 Hicks tables radionuclides produced by an atomic detonation;

2. a statistical evaluation of deposition rates against 40 common cancers by decade and by gender for each county at risk (all of them). The statistical evaluation should include as a minimum:

a. Spearman rho

b. Poisson regression (similar to what was published in the NCI Journal Nov 1998 c. Multiple adaptive regression splines

d. Pooled standard error

e. Logistic regression

I131 accounts for only 2 percent of the radionuclides from fallout. Those that should be studied should include: Be7,Au198, Au199, Mn54, Co60, Fe59, Ag109, Nb95, Nb95m, Sr89, Sr90, Y90, Y91, Pb103, U239, U240, Am241, Cm242, Zr95, Rh106-Ru106, Ce144-Pr144, I-130, I-132, I133, I135, Na24 and Tb161.

The values should be evaluated for associations with female colon cancer, female lymphosarcoma, female breast cancer and male stomach cancer. The N should be at least 500, and the years should be 1979-1998 (age-weighted, standard year: 1970).

While that sounds like a daunting task, it would essentially amount to a replication study of the research results in my latest book, The US Atlas of Nuclear Fallout 1951-1962. If you would like a copy, I will be happy to send one along. (The data is derived from DOE documents applied to exponential curves which in turn are based on the 1997 NCI data.) A complete description can be found on the Amazon.com website. Please enter Atlas, Nuclear and Fallout. Or, click on the following URL:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1881043118/qid%3D998193874/103-9917351-8185427

Kindest Regards,
Richard L. Miller 281-367-8863


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