------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
WHO Team Will Study A Weapon's Toll in Iraq
Mini nuclear reactor could power apartment blocks
Russia, U.S. Keep Talking Despite Bush ABM Remarks
China concerned with Bush's plan to disregard ABM
From bombs and bullets to fauna and flora
DOE: Nuclear weapon cleanup will cost $147B
ABM Withdrawal Likely, But Not Set, Bush Says
POSITION CREATED FOR WATT PROTÉGÉ AT INTERIOR

MILITARY
NATO and Albanian Rebels Reach Agreement on Weapons Collection
China tests missile in war-game finale
Colombia Army Hunts Down Guerrillas
Hamas Calls for Equity in Death at Mass Rally
Israeli court accuses its soldiers
Myers Praised As Joint Chiefs Pick

OTHER
U.S. researchers argue for harnessing wind power
Ontario opens North America's biggest windmill
Death Row Inmate Is Freed After DNA Test Clears Him
Baltic Sea Region Cuts Toxic Discharges in Half
Stem Cell Research Faces FDA Hurdle
AIDS Activist No Longer Harassed
Chinese pay high cost for selling blood
U.S. to Help D.C. With IMF Security
Hearing Set in Wen Ho Lee Case
Ex-Guard's Prison Term Doubles After He Appeals
Retired Airman Charged With Spying



-------- NUCLEAR


-------- depleted uranium

WHO Team Will Study A Weapon's Toll in Iraq

By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Friday, August 24, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54710-2001Aug23?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 23 -- The World Health Organization will send a team of physicians to Iraq Monday to determine whether depleted uranium shells used by U.S. troops during the Persian Gulf War have caused an increase in Iraqi cancer rates.

The eight-member team hopes to lay the groundwork for the first major international study since the Gulf War into Iraqi patterns of cancer, kidney diseases and other congenital disorders, according to WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl.

"The Iraqis have been saying for a while that there has been an increase in cancers caused by depleted uranium," Hartl said. "If we have determined there has been an increase, then we will look at possible causes."

The United States used depleted uranium in tens of thousands of munitions during the 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The metal's extreme density helps projectiles penetrate armor.

The Pentagon maintains that depleted uranium, which is only 40 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium, poses no radiation threat to humans.

Hartl said the WHO has found no evidence linking leukemia to depleted uranium. But he said the U.N. health organization, which is based in Geneva, would try to determine whether Iraq's concerns about an upswing in cancer are legitimate.

He said the team would seek to establish a national cancer registry to obtain accurate statistics on cancer victims. Then, he said, the WHO might examine a wide range of possible causes, including Iraqi lifestyle, diet and environmental factors.

The success of the study, which could take years to complete, hinges on the agency's ability to secure funding from donor countries and gain complete access to health facilities from Iraqi authorities, he said.

-------- japan

Mini nuclear reactor could power apartment blocks

Friday August 24, 11:30 AM
New Scientist
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010824/12/c22hx.html

A nuclear reactor designed to generate power in the basement of an apartment block is being developed in Japan. In the past few months government-backed researchers have been testing a fail-safe mechanism for the reactor, which will close down automatically if it overheats.

The Rapid-L reactor was conceived as a powerhouse for colonies on the Moon. But at six metres high and only two metres wide this 200-kilowatt reactor could relatively easily fit into the basement of an office building or apartment block, where it would have to be housed in a solid containment building.

"In the future it will be quite difficult to construct further large nuclear power plants because of site restrictions," says Mitsuru Kambe, head of the research team at Japan's Central Research Institute of Electrical Power Industry (CRIEPI).

"To relieve peak loads in the near future, I believe small, modular reactors located in urban areas such as Tokyo Bay will be effective," he says. Kambe's research is being financed by the Japan's Atomic Energy Research Institute.

Liquid control

Unlike normal nuclear reactors, the Rapid-L has no control rods to regulate the reaction. Instead, it uses reservoirs of molten lithium-6 - an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that runs through the reactor core.

During normal operation the tube contains an inert gas. But as the temperature of the reactor rises, the liquid lithium expands, compressing the inert gas and entering the core to absorb neutrons and slow down the reaction.

The lithium acts as a liquid control rod. And unlike solid control rods, which have to be inserted mechanically, the liquid expands naturally when the core gets warm.

The Rapid-L uses the same principle to start up and close down the reaction. The reactor would be cooled by molten sodium and run at about 530 °C. Kambe's main concern now is to test the fail-safe system's long-term durability.

Public problem

The research "is part of the effort being made in the US and in Japan to develop reactors which do not need hardware to keep them safe," says John Gittus of the University of Plymouth. "Rapid power plants could be used in developing countries where remote regions cannot be conveniently connected to the main grid," says Kambe.

"The success of such a reactor depends on the acceptance of the public, the electricity utilities and the government," Kambe admits.

But Malcolm Grimston, a nuclear expert at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is sceptical that the Japanese people could be persuaded of the reactor's safety.

"There's nothing wrong with the concept," says Grimston. "But if the Japanese public won't now accept big reactors for safety reasons, then you have to wonder what the response would be building lots of small reactors in the middle of cities."

-------- treaties

Russia, U.S. Keep Talking Despite Bush ABM Remarks

August 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-russia-usa.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and the United States agreed Friday to keep talking about arms despite President Bush's frankest pronouncement yet that the treaty at the heart of their debate is dead.

Moscow painted a rosy picture of ties between the two countries and said arms talks so far had proved ``useful.'' But it set modest goals for future consultations, suggesting no breakthrough was in sight.

U.S. Under-Secretary of State John Bolton visited Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to wrap up the latest round in a month-long series of high-level consultations designed to bring the two sides closer on missile defense.

But U.S. officials have given Moscow scant room to negotiate the future of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Bush said Thursday Washington ``will withdraw from the ABM treaty on our timetable at a time convenient to America.''

Russia's Foreign Ministry made no direct reply to Bush's remarks. In a statement on Bolton's visit, the ministry said bilateral ties had shown a ``positive dynamic'' since Bush met President Vladimir Putin in June and July.

Consultations on strategic stability would continue, the statement said. But it described the aim of the future talks as ''to clarify positions, and possibly bring them closer together,'' modest language suggesting lukewarm expectations.

As the Bush administration makes its missile defense plans more explicit, speculation has shifted from whether Washington will scrap the treaty to when -- and whether Bush will act alone or somehow finagle last-minute Russian acquiescence.

Russia has long maintained that the ABM pact, signed between the United States and the Soviet Union, is the foundation for other international arms control accords and its abrogation would make the world a more dangerous place.

The treaty bans missile defense shields such as Bush wants to build to guard the United States from a perceived threat of rocket attack by ``rogue states'' such as Iraq or North Korea.

Russia says Washington exaggerates that threat and ignores the danger that a missile shield would spark an arms race, as countries felt pressed to expand missile programs in response.

Winning Russia's agreement to scrap the ABM treaty, rather than pulling out of it unilaterally, could make it easier for Bush to build support for his missile defense plans among skeptical Democrats at home and Western allies abroad.

But so far Washington has offered Moscow little in return.

TIME RUNNING OUT

Russian media have reported over the past week that officials in Moscow believe Washington will make a formal announcement withdrawing from the treaty by November.

Washington has avoided publicly announcing a deadline, but has made clear that time is running out.

The United States says it will make sure the treaty is no longer in force when it conducts tests that would violate the pact, planned to start in ``months rather than years.'' The treaty requires Washington to give six months' notice of withdrawal.

U.S. officials launched a diplomatic blitz a month ago. Bolton's visit follows trips to Moscow by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week and White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at the end of July.

Bush triggered the diplomatic exchange by agreeing with Putin last month to a long-standing Russian request that ABM's fate be discussed in tandem with cuts in offensive arsenals.

Friday's Foreign Ministry statement said Ivanov had ''expressed hope that Russia and the United States can reach a mutual understanding in the fields of strategic offensive and defensive arms, which, as the two countries' presidents charged, should be discussed in their unbreakable linkage.''

But Bush has not offered offensive stockpile cuts as an overt quid pro quo for Russian agreement on ABM. The White House says it cannot discuss numbers for such cuts until after the Pentagon finishes a review toward the end of this year.

Russia wants missile cuts to be enshrined in enforceable formal agreements, with mechanisms for verification. But Bush wants to cut arsenals with no new treaty or verification rules.

Despite the pessimism in the air, Andrei Kokoshin, a former head of Russia's advisory Security Council, said he expected the diplomacy to continue to the end.

``The Americans will search for some way of reaching an agreement with Moscow until the last moment,'' Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. ``There is still a field for battle, for maneuvers. It's not big, but it's still there.''

--------

China concerned with Bush's plan to disregard ABM

USA Today
08/24/2001
Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/08/24/abm-china.htm

BEIJING (AP) - China urged President Bush on Friday to heed international concerns and act cautiously after he said the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Bush is pushing plans to build a system to protect the United States from missile attack. Such systems, however, are banned under the 1972 ABM treaty. On Thursday, Bush said he would withdraw from the treaty "at a time convenient to America."

That worries China, which fears a U.S. missile shield would undercut the deterrent effect of China's small nuclear arsenal.

"China's position on missile defense is clear-cut and consistent," the Foreign Ministry said Friday of Bush's planned withdrawal. "We hope the U.S. government will seriously consider the position of the international community and proceed with caution."

China, joined by Russia and other opponents of Bush's missile defense plans, has repeatedly urged Washington to uphold the treaty.

The 1972 treaty, signed by Washington and Moscow, banned systems that could effectively shoot down incoming missiles, preserving the strategic balance of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. Many nations, including both Russia and China, still regard it as a cornerstone of international security.

Washington, though, says the accord is outdated and that it needs a shield to protect itself against feared missile attacks by terrorist nations.

Talks between U.S. and Chinese weapons experts over whether China is helping other countries develop missile technology ended with the American side wanting more answers, U.S. officials said.

The talks finished Thursday evening, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Beijing said Friday. But the embassy and China's Foreign Ministry refused to elaborate.

In Washington, the State Department said more talks were needed and that it was not "fully satisfied" with China's account of whether it is abiding by an agreement to control exports of missile technology.

Thursday's talks followed reports that Chinese firms provided missile technology to Pakistan and helped Iraq rebuild air defenses.

Vann Van Diepen, an acting deputy assistant secretary of state who specializes in nonproliferation issues, led the U.S. negotiators.

Meanwhile, a U.S. envoy's meeting with Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov ended Friday with no deadline set for when two nations must reach an agreement that overcomes their differences on the treaty.

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

From bombs and bullets to fauna and flora

USA TODAY
Friday, August 24, 2001
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010824/3574735s.htm

Because they were off-limits to the public for decades, top-secret facilities that produced nuclear and other weapons during the Cold War are now havens for wildlife -- despite the toxic waste.

Hanford Nuclear Reservation
Location: Central Washington state
Size: 586 square miles
Wildlife: Wild chinook salmon, Western sage grouse, peregrine falcons
Produced: Plutonium for nuclear weapons
Estimated cost of cleanup: $50.3 billion

Rocky Flats nuclear site
Location: Northwest of Denver
Size: 10 square miles
Wildlife: Cougar, deer, Preble's meadow jumping mouse
Produced: Nuclear weapons components using plutonium and uranium
Estimated cost of cleanup: $6.3 billion

Rocky Mountain Arsenal
Location: Northeast of Denver, adjacent to Denver International Airport
Size: 27 square miles
Wildlife: Bald eagles, deer, prairie dogs, burrowing owls
Produced: Mustard gas, incendiary weapons, nerve gas and pesticides
Estimated cost of cleanup: $2.5 billion

Savannah River Site
Location: Southeast of Augusta, Ga.
Size: 300 square miles
Wildlife: Alligators, bass, wood storks, red-cockaded woodpeckers
Produced: Plutonium and tritium
Estimated cost of cleanup: $50.3 billion

---------

DOE: Nuclear weapon cleanup will cost $147B

USA TODAY
Friday, August 24, 2001
By Tom Kenworthy
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010824/3574733s.htm

The Department of Energy characterizes cleanup of its nuclear weapons sites as ''the largest environmental-management program in the world'' and estimates it will cost $147 billion to accomplish from 1997 to 2070.

Restoration of the large sites, including Savannah River, Rocky Flats, and Hanford, are among the most complex and costly projects on the National Priorities List -- known as the Superfund list.

Created by Congress in 1980, the Superfund program is the government's principal means of cleaning up hazardous waste sites to protect the environment and human health. The Superfund list includes some, but not all, of DOE's 53 nuclear cleanup sites, as well as more conventional industrial facilities.

More than 1,400 sites have been placed on the Superfund list since 1980, and slightly more than half of those have reached what the government terms the ''construction completion'' phase. Yet many of those remain on the Superfund list because groundwater and surface water are still being treated.

Because of radiation risks, the cleanup of nuclear weapons sites presents special problems and often daunting technical challenges. Though each site is different, cleanup can involve everything from tearing down and disposing of contaminated structures to removing vast quantities of dirt to treating contaminated water left in temporary storage tanks.

Some low-level wastes from these sites are being deposited at a federal facility in New Mexico. The final disposition of high-level wastes such as spent reactor fuel remains uncertain, however, until a repository is selected.

DOE's plan for cleaning up the Savannah River site -- where plutonium and tritium were produced -- illustrates the scope and complexity of the task. It is divided into 84 separate projects that are projected to cost nearly $30 billion. As is the case with all of its sites, the amount of nuclear materials such as plutonium on the site is classified.

The job includes:

- Dealing with 16,000 cubic meters of what is known as transuranic waste, such as contaminated laboratory tools, sludge and materials from production facilities.

- Stabilizing and enclosing nearly 50 tanks containing high-level liquid wastes.

- Disposing 20 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel at a permanent repository.

- Treating and disposing of more than 130,000 cubic meters of high-level wastes.

-------- us nuc politics

ABM Withdrawal Likely, But Not Set, Bush Says

By Amy Goldstein and Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 24, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54164-2001Aug23?language=printer

CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 23 -- President Bush said today that the United States plans to "withdraw from the ABM Treaty on our timetable" to allow for the development of a missile defense system but has not yet set a deadline.

Bush's remarks about pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty come after senior U.S. officials failed in recent weeks to reach an understanding with their Russian counterparts about the future of strategic arms control.

Moscow has signaled it is open to limited amendments of the treaty to accommodate some testing of a missile shield but has balked at U.S. suggestions that the two countries agree to withdraw entirely.

Although Bush said the United States would withdraw from the agreement "at a time convenient to America," he added that officials "would consult closely with our allies in Europe as well as continue to consult closely with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin."

The president's remarks, however, created some confusion because Bush in one breath was addressing two separate issues: whether the United States intends to withdraw from the treaty and whether the administration has set a firm timeline.

Bush has previously advocated getting rid of the accord, and it remained unclear today whether he meant to signal that his administration has foreclosed the possibility of rewriting the accord to allow for the testing and deployment of missile defenses.

With the Pentagon estimating that testing of its missile shield program could violate the terms of the treaty in a matter of months, Bush's remarks held open the prospect that Washington could unilaterally pull out of the accord. That is an option some State Department officials worry will sour relations with European allies who are concerned about angering Moscow and upsetting the global framework of arms control.

An administration official said later that Washington has not ruled out amending the accord and is still discussing with Russia which method of moving beyond the treaty would be best.

"There has been no decision that withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is the only option," the official said.

Bush left no doubt, however, that the United States has yet to set a deadline for announcing any withdrawal despite comments this week by a senior U.S. envoy that November was the target for achieving an understanding with Russia.

"I have no specific timetable in mind," Bush said. "I do know that the ABM Treaty hampers us from doing what we need to do. And secondly, I do know that Mr. Putin is aware of our desires to move beyond the ABM Treaty, and we will."

The president sought to still speculation that the administration had decided to provide the six-month notice required for withdrawal from the accord around the time Bush is scheduled to meet Putin at his ranch here in November.

John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, said in an interview with a Moscow radio station this week that November was a target for making significant progress in strategic talks and that Washington would pull out of the treaty if an agreement remained elusive. He later added that he had not meant November to be a strict deadline.

Bush answered a few questions from reporters -- and many more from schoolchildren -- as he dropped in for the first time to meet with students and teachers at Crawford Elementary School, near his ranch where he is spending most of this month on vacation.

He said he planned today to speak with Argentina's President Fernando de la Rua about a financial relief package for that country, and that he would hold a "major news conference to discuss defense matters" Friday. He is expected to name Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The president reiterated his support for a "worker program of some type" to enable illegal immigrants from Mexico to hold jobs in the United States, but said he does not favor "blanket amnesty for illegals."

Asked whether he planned to watch the first interview tonight with Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Calif.), who has acknowledged an affair with missing intern Chandra Levy, Bush said, "No." Then he hedged.

"Probably not," he said. "I'll read about it."

Most of his 23-minute visit to Crawford Elementary's cafeteria, after an early-morning golf outing, offered the children and teachers of this town of fewer than 700 residents a glimpse into Bush's conception of the presidency's role and rhythms. "It's a pretty fast life I'm living these days," he said.

Standing before a microphone in front of the cafeteria stage, he was, by turns, chief moralizer (telling children to read more and avoid drugs and "excessive alcohol"), chief patriot (extolling public service) and a regular guy who said his fondest childhood memories were of summers playing Little League baseball in Midland.

Asked whether he ever got mad at Vice President Al Gore during last year's campaign, he replied: "Not really. No, I never did. . . . One of the things in politics you learn is you can't get mad at people."

He made a relatively rare reference to his 19-year-old twin daughters, saying "they're pretty independent little girls right now and they're both in college and that's good."

The president thanked the students, who returned to classes nine days ago, for allowing the White House reporters who accompanied him here to displace them from their gym, which has been converted into a makeshift press room while the president is in town.

"They are most of the time well-behaved," he said of the journalists. "Sometimes they exaggerate, sometimes they don't. But they're an important part of our democracy."

Sipress reported from Washington.

----

POSITION CREATED FOR WATT PROTÉGÉ AT INTERIOR

August 24, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, Under cloak of a Congressional recess, James Cason, a former developer and protégé of James Watt, was appointed Associate Deputy Secretary of Interior by Gale Norton on August 9.

Research by Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Earthjustice discovered that the position of Assistant Deputy Secretary has never existed under previous administrations and appears to be subverting Congressional approval of top agency officials.

"Apparently the Bush Administration has taken to creating new positions at Interior in order to ram more appointees with pro-extractive industries, anti-environmental interests down the throat of the American public," said Kristen Sykes, FoE Interior Department watchdog. "Like Norton and Griles, James Cason has been a soldier for moneyed interests who seek to exploit public lands for personal profit."

In 1986, Cason played a key role in the Interior Department's decision to resume selling titles to federal oil and shale tracts for $2.50 an acre, far below their market value. He then proceeded to approve the granting of titles to some 82,000 acres, even though Congress had made clear its intent to revise the program.

One set of claims, totaling 17,000 acres, was purchased by private developers for $42,000 and sold months later for $37 million.

Cason also approved a revision of federal audit regulations that would have saved 12 major oil companies millions of dollars in unpaid or underpaid royalties. According to press reports, Cason signed this deal on the stationary of the oil companies' attorneys.

According to the official job description obtained from the White House by FoE, Cason will have sweeping powers to act on behalf of Deputy Secretary of Interior J. Steven Griles without being subject to the scrutiny of the Senate.

In March 1989, Cason was a nominee for Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment under the first Bush Administration, but his nomination was derailed because of concerns over his anti-environmental views and allegiance to big business.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, remarked at the time, "I am deeply disturbed about reports that Mr. Cason has repeatedly advocated positions at the department of Interior that reduce returns to the taxpayer from federal resources and undermine sound protection of the environment."

"We already know that this Bush administration has become a second home for bureaucrats from the previous Bush and Reagan administrations," said Maria Weidner of Earthjustice's White House Watch. "But now they're filling positions with rejects from those administrations too."


-------- MILITARY

-------- balkans

NATO and Albanian Rebels Reach Agreement on Weapons Collection

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Macedonia.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- NATO and Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels reached agreement Friday on how many weapons the militants will hand over, and the alliance said it hoped to collect about a third of the arms by the end of next week.

Gen. Gunnar Lange of Denmark, the NATO commander in Skopje, did not release the weapons figure but told reporters that NATO and the rebels had agreed on a number and it was being submitted to the Macedonian government for review.

The government has hotly disputed the rebel National Liberation Army's claim that it has just 2,000 weapons, insisting the number is closer to 85,000.

``The first figures from the NLA were starting figures and not really credible, so they required some reassessments and further discussions,'' Lange said. ``I believe the numbers are now credible and close to our intelligence assessments.''

Lange said NATO's mission to collect and destroy the weapons would begin next week at about 15 collection points in the cities of Kumanovo, Tetovo and Debar. He predicted that a third of all the arms would be in NATO's hands by the end of the week.

Both the rebels and government forces were to begin withdrawing Friday from areas near the collection sites in order to provide NATO forces with some ``breathing space,'' Lange said.

NATO officials have been reluctant to speculate on weapons figures, arguing that the point of the mission is to build trust -- to persuade the ethnic Albanian and Macedonian sides to use the weapons handover as their first mutual confidence-building measure.

Underscoring the risks of the mission, scattered small-arms fire broke out overnight in Macedonia, police said Friday.

Police sources speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that gunfire was reported in northwestern Macedonia near Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city. No injuries were reported, and it was not immediately clear who did the shooting.

A Macedonian man was arrested Friday after he shot off a burst of gunfire into the air about one mile from an old metal factory used as a base by NATO-led troops providing logistics support for peacekeepers in Kosovo. Officials suggested the man was drunk.

Hundreds of NATO soldiers arrived Thursday for the British-led mission, but their preparations got under way amid some doubts that the operation will bring peace to the troubled Balkan nation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he had ``great doubts'' the British-led mission would be able to reconcile Macedonia's warring sides.

``Strictly speaking, to seize the arms is not the main task,'' Putin said on a visit to Ukraine, which has been criticized for selling helicopter gunships to the Macedonian government. ``The main task is to create conditions in which peace comes to this land.''

In Germany, the Cabinet approved a proposal to send soldiers to Macedonia to join the 3,500-member -led mission, but the action still faced a tough fight in parliament. Dissenting lawmakers worry that German troops could get caught in a quagmire if the NATO mission is extended beyond its 30-day deadline.

Adding to the overall uncertainty in Macedonia, a political crisis erupted Thursday when a key ethnic Albanian political party threatened to pull out of the broad-based government created in May to help the country avoid all-out war.

The Party for Democratic Prosperity objected to Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski's efforts to fire the justice minister, an ethnic Albanian, for failing to arrange the extradition of an alleged ethnic Albanian rebel leader detained in Germany.

NATO's ruling council authorized the mission despite scattered cease-fire violations recorded since Macedonia's political parties signed a peace accord Aug. 13. Although the ethnic Albanian rebels didn't sign the agreement, they have agreed separately with NATO to disarm.

-------- china

China tests missile in war-game finale

August 24, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010824-733518.htm

Chinese military forces carried out a flight test of a medium-range nuclear missile this week as the finale to China's largest nationwide war games in years, The Washington Times has learned.

A CSS-2 intermediate-range ballistic missile was fired from a test facility in northern China on Tuesday and tracked by U.S. military satellites to an impact area near the Mongolian border. The missile had a dummy warhead.

The launch coincided with the end of four months of large-scale military exercises that included amphibious-landing drills near Taiwan, long-range bomber maneuvers and information-warfare exercises by the Chinese military, according to U.S. defense officials.

While Dongshan island near Taiwan has been the scene of most of the exercises, Chinese military forces also conducted war games in other coastal locations and inland, said officials familiar with intelligence reports. "We have been seeing military operations all along the Chinese coast," said one intelligence official.

The exercises are the largest war games in recent years, involving tens of thousands of Chinese troops along with ships, tanks, aircraft and missiles.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the missile test.

The flight test was anticipated. U.S. intelligence agencies in the past two weeks spotted a CSS-2 erected on a mobile launcher several times, officials said.

The CSS-2, a liquid-fuel missile with a range of about 1,922 miles, is used to target Russia and India, according to an Air Force intelligence report produced several years ago.

The Chinese have about 40 mobile CSS-2 launchers.

The CSS-2 is being replaced with a shorter-range missile known as the CSS-5, according to the report.

Intelligence officials said the CSS-2 test preparations were photographed by a U.S. spy satellite.

A defense official said the exercises have been watched "extremely carefully" by the U.S. military and that they were significantly larger than past maneuvers.

"This has been an unprecedented use of military exercises to send a propaganda message to Taiwan," the defense official said.

The Dongshan exercises included a mock invasion of Taiwan with scores of ships and thousands of troops, the official said.

Peter Rodman, the assistant defense secretary in charge of Asian affairs, said earlier in the week that the exercises were not unusual.

Mr. Rodman said he did not see "an imminent threat of a conflict" from the maneuvers.

"They have done exercises on a regular basis," Mr. Rodman told reporters. "I'm sure they learned something from it. You know, they're modernizing their forces. They're exercising their forces."

The Pentagon is closely watching the war games "and perhaps we can learn something from that exercise, too," Mr. Rodman said.

A bomber division near Guangzhou, in southern China, conducted mock bombing raids using B-6 bombers, defense officials said. The exercises also were disclosed in China's military newspaper.

The B-6s flew long-range strike missions in early August against mock enemy targets.

The bombers also demonstrated China's new midair-refueling capability, which has extended the combat radius of its bombers, U.S. officials said.

Other exercises including paratroop drops at coastal locations, the officials said.

China also practiced carrying out computer attacks and defenses against such attacks during one part of the exercises, defense officials said.

China is building up its capacity for such "information warfare" and views the capability as a key strategic advantage in any future conflict with the United States over Taiwan, the officials said.

One unique feature of the Dongshan island war games was the use of commercial ships in military operations, the officials said. More than a dozen commercial ships, including freighters, were equipped with various artillery on decks and at least one carried multiple-rocket launchers.

The unorthodox outfitting of commercial ships with artillery is an indication that China's military is building up its naval forces in preparation for a future attack on Taiwan.

"The public display of artillery and tanks on merchant ships may look silly, but its not," said Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the private Jamestown Foundation.

"It is meant to exercise unconventional invasion methods, such as the conscription of hundreds or thousands of civilian merchant and fishing ships for an invasion of Taiwan. It conveys serious intent."

Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province, although the Taipei government considers itself the capital of the Republic of China. China has vowed to use force if necessary to retake the island.

Mr. Fisher said the flight test should not be discounted because the missile is one of China's older strategic weapons.

"Just because the CSS-2 is old doesn't mean it doesn't pose a threat to the United States or Taiwan," he said.

-------- colombia

Colombia Army Hunts Down Guerrillas

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-Army-Offensive.html

SAN JOSE DEL GUAVIARE, Colombia (AP) -- From a staging area in Colombia's coca-growing region, government troops mounted an operation to hunt down more than 1,000 leftist rebels.

The offensive is meant to demonstrate how the military -- stocked with U.S.-made combat helicopters and growing aid and training from Washington -- is faring in its battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest insurgency. But the week-old offensive is unlikely to prove decisive in Colombia's 37-year war.

It comes a week before the arrival of a high-level U.S. delegation, and with the spotlight on Colombian President Andres Pastrana over the rebels' misuse of a safe haven, twice the size of New Jersey, that he ceded to them in peace talks.

The rebels on the run near San Jose del Guaviare are believed to be hiding in the jungles to the east, cut off from their base and running low on food and supplies.

A half-dozen deserters say the guerillas are desperately trying to make their way back to the rebel's southern safe haven after their plan to attack towns and an army base in Colombia's southeast was foiled by a government counterattack -- one of the biggest in memory.

``They are running out of food. Their radios must be losing power. They have many wounded,'' said an army colonel commanding a brigade, who refused to give his name for security reasons. ``Our mission now is to eliminate them.''

Army troops seized a boat with 10 tons of food for the rebels Thursday, said Gen. Carlos Fracica, commander of the Rapid Deployment Force.

The military's success here and in other recent battles would have seemed impossible just a few years ago, when the 16,000-strong FARC was routinely battering Colombia's undertrained army.

But Washington's approval of a $1.3 billion aid package last year devoted to helping Colombia fight drugs may have helped turn the tide. Still, there are voices calling for U.S. military aid to be targeted directly against the rebels -- something critics worry will draw the United States into Colombia's brutal war.

A U.S. delegation is scheduled to arrive in Bogota next week, the first such visit since President Bush took office. The delegation is expected to raise concerns with Pastrana about the enormous jungle sanctuary he ceded in initial peace talks, a U.S. official in Washington said Thursday.

At the army base serving as the staging ground in San Jose del Guaviare, 170 miles southeast of Bogota, officers examined documents found on the corpses of rebels killed in the latest combat.

The rebel group's commander, Urias Cuellar, was killed last week along with dozens of other guerrillas, the army says. But the jungle has made it difficult to locate guerrilla casualties.

One seized notebook with a picture of a Barbie doll on the cover contained handwritten notes on explosives and tactics. Other documents showed the rebels intended to retake a strategic river corridor leading from their safe haven to the borders of Brazil and Venezuela, according to army spokesman Col. Paulino Coronado.

Government warplanes using night-vision gear began bombarding the rebel column August 13. The next day, helicopters began ferrying some 4,000 troops into the zone, lying along a river dividing Guaviare and Meta states.

An additional 1,800 men were to arrive in the area Thursday. The military says it has not relied on U.S. intelligence assistance in the operation.

-------- israel

Hamas Calls for Equity in Death at Mass Rally

August 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-hamas.html

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - The militant Islamic group Hamas vowed on Friday to reach an ``equity in death'' in the nearly 11-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israel.

``An eye for an eye, a soul for a soul. We want equity in death,'' said a speaker from Hamas at a rally of over 20,000 Palestinians in a sports stadium in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank city of Nablus.

In a show of solidarity, gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, drove through the crowd brandishing assault rifles.

Hamas has gained popularity among the Palestinian public since the uprising against Israeli occupation flared in September after peace talks stalled. Fatah officials attended the rally and members of the Al-Aqsa Brigades pledged to fight side by side with the Islamic movement.

One masked man said the Al-Aqsa Brigades would work with the Hamas military wing ``in resistance against occupation until victory.''

The gathering commemorated an Israeli air strike in the heart of the city which killed two senior Hamas officials, two children and four others in July, and underscored the vengeful mood on the streets of Palestinian cities.

Hamas political bureau head Khaled Meshal, addressing the rally by telephone from abroad, urged Arafat's Palestinian Authority not to pursue truce talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

``This (Arafat-Peres) meeting is helping only the enemy and the United States and I called on the Palestinian Authority and other Arab governments to stop communications with the enemy,'' he said.

Hamas, which opposes Israel's existence, has mounted a bombing campaign inside the Jewish state that has killed scores of Israelis since the revolt erupted.

The bombing missions have met with international condemnation, as has Israel's killing of some 60 Palestinian activists since the uprising began, many of them Hamas members.

Altogether, nearly 700 people have been killed in the past 11 months, more than 530 of them Palestinian and about 150 Israelis.

Some 20 young masked men dressed in the white and green clothes of potential suicide bombers paraded in front of a stage displaying what appeared to be real mortar bomb launchers and machineguns.

Mortar bombs are frequently fired at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip but have only been used once against a West Bank settlement to date.

Staged presentations mimicked the aftermath of suicide bombings, and Palestinians dressed as Jewish settlers led a donkey bearing a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

--------

Israeli court accuses its soldiers of stoning and humiliating civilians

Independent (UK)
By Phil Reeves in Jerusalem
24 August 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=90386

Israel's army has brought criminal charges against several of its own men for the first time since the start of an 11-month conflict in which its soldiers have shot dead hundreds of Palestinian protesters, beaten civilians, fired on journalists and threatened diplomats.

A military court has indicted four men from the Israel Defence Forces' Shimshon Brigade - permanently stationed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank - on charges of beating, stoning and humiliating Palestinians and smashing up their vehicles.

The case is shocking, even by the grim standards of the intifada, which has seen horrific human rights abuses by men in uniform on both sides. The four soldiers are not only accused of abusing Palestinian civilians, but of forcing a group of young Arab men under the threat of death to stand against a wall and beat each other up while they watched.

The alleged attack, on 23 July, was unearthed by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, and has drawn an unusually swift and decisive response from the Israeli authorities. Since the start of the intifada, Israel has suspended the practice of holding mandatory investigations by its military police whenever a Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza - other than guerrillas involved in attacks - is killed by an Israeli soldier.

Yesterday, Israeli troops in Gaza shot dead an 11-year-old boy who was throwing stones: the odds are overwhelmingly against the army taking any action against the soldier who pulled the trigger.

Human rights activists have received almost daily complaints of beatings by soldiers, and a mountain of evidence has emerged of Israeli troops shooting unarmed civilians, abusing Palestinians at checkpoints and doing nothing to stop settlers from attacking Arabs and their property.

Among the complaints levelled is one from the Foreign Office over an incident in which British officials travelling through the West Bank were stopped by a patrol and forced out of their vehicle at gunpoint. And yet many complaints have been ignored, and there have been fewer than a dozen official investigations. Those that have been launched have tended to drag on for weeks.

But the Shimshon Brigade case has yielded a different response from the army, producing indictments in less than a month. The men also face charges of trying to obstruct justice by co-ordinating their testimony, and lying to their brigade commander and Israeli police investigators.

Ya'el Stein, B'Tselem's research director, said: "We are very happy to see the army is taking this case seriously, but this is part of a phenomenon which we see all the time. We send them many cases about beatings and they do not do anything. They should not be treating this as an isolated incident."

B'Tselem's findings make shocking reading. Khaled Mershed Hassan Rawashdeh, a 36-year-old taxi driver, told its researchers that the soldiers ordered them to beat each other in pairs. He said: "They threatened to shoot anyone who didn't do it, and whoever wanted to be a martyr just had to disobey that order. So we began to beat each other with our fists in the head and the face ... This lasted for about 10 minutes. Then they told one of the men to beat us one by one. He refused, but the soldiers threatened to kill him on the spot."

A spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces, asked about the indictments, denied there had been a change of policy. "In this case we had more materials with which to bring an investigation and get results."

- Two Palestinians were killed yesterday while resisting Israeli soldiers who had entered Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank city of Hebron. Witnesses said Palestinian gunmen had surrounded troops in one area of the city.

The Israeli army said later it was withdrawing after briefly entering to destroy houses that had been used to fire on Jewish settlements below. An army spokeswoman said men from the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood had shot at and wounded an 11-year-old settler boy.

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

Myers Praised As Joint Chiefs Pick

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Myers-Profile.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, is a self-effacing delegator who extols the heartland as America's best hope and looks to the skies for its best defense.

Colleagues say Myers' tours in Asia and as head of the U.S. Space Command are just the right experience to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

``Ballistic missile defense is a priority with this administration, and this is a guy the secretary can bang ideas and concepts off of,'' said Gen. Merrill McPeak, the Air Force chief in the early 1990s, when Myers was one of his senior staff.

Myers, 59, would be the first airman to head the military since 1982, but McPeak said he defies flyboy cliches.

``There are fighter pilots who are hair-on-fire, kick-down-the-door, rip-your-face-off kind of guys -- I'm that kind of guy,'' he said. ``Dick is not. He's quietly effective. He gets an awful lot done without leaving fingerprints.''

President Bush was expected to nominate Myers Friday to become the new chairman after discussions with Pentagon officials on how to revamp the military. Myers must now be confirmed by the Senate.

Unsettled by a Pentagon that has fiercely resisted his plans to substitute space-based missile defenses for its favored ``two-war'' capability, Bush may have found a like thinker in Myers.

``We've been looking for someone who will bring the highest standards of excellence to the office, someone who is willing to think differently about the missions of our military,'' Bush said Thursday.

The Air Force chief told reporters earlier this month that the debate on Bush's plans to reduce forces and increase modernization was not split according to a strict military-civilian divide -- a hint that he favored Bush's position.

Myers has been among Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's closest advisers on the planned changes, and has joined talks with Russia aimed at lifting treaty restrictions on missile defenses, a cornerstone of Bush's defense policy.

While he has not explicitly endorsed Bush's plans, Myers' experience and past statements place him squarely in the corner of a space-based missile defense system.

As commander of the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado from 1998-2000, he heartily endorsed satellite defenses, even though three satellite launches famously failed on his watch.

Speaking last year to his alma mater, Kansas State University, he called satellite systems essential to modern warfare and cited ``the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that deliver them to our cities.'' He compared the airmen who guide the systems to World War II heroes.

He has made similar entreaties to Congress, quoting Gen. Douglas MacArthur last year in a Senate appearance: ``We must hold our minds alert ... to the application of unglimpsed methods and weapons.''

Myers also has experience in the Asian theater, useful to an administration that perceives China and North Korea as posing the greatest threat to American interests.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a Bush ally on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Myers' Asia experience would serve him well.

``This leads me to believe that he understands that China is probably our greatest next threat,'' he said ``He knows more about China and Asia than probably anyone else who would have been chosen.''

Ending his three-year stint as the commander of U.S. forces in Japan in 1996, Myers encouraged Japan to raise its military profile, citing the North Korean threat.

As commander in Japan, Myers was at first taken aback by local hostility after three U.S. servicemen in Okinawa raped a 12-year-old girl in 1995. Within a year, however, he had quietly persuaded Washington to cede 20 percent of the land U.S. forces used on the island, a concession that helped pacify the Okinawans.

Col. Don Black, Myers' chief spokesman from 1997-2000, said his ex-boss' strength is in delegation.

``He lets the staff, the people who work for him, know what his priorities and expectations are, and lets people do their job,'' said Black, who is now retired.

Myers and his wife, Mary Jo, were close to his staff, Black said, often having them over for dinner and parties.

Myers speaks affectionately of growing up in Merriam, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., calling it the heartland and ``my Kansas home'' and extolling its hard work and high values. A room in his high school, Shawnee Mission North, is named for him.

His family teases him for being petrified of aircraft as a child -- he was unnerved when a plane crashed near his home. His parents took him to watch takeoffs whenever they could so he could overcome his fears.

It worked: He enlisted in the Air Force in 1965 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps, and eventually flew combat missions in Vietnam.

Myers is a family man, Black said, but he noted the general's single concession to the fighter pilot image: his beloved Harley.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

U.S. researchers argue for harnessing wind power

Friday, August 24, 2001
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/08/08242001/reu_wind_44742.asp

WASHINGTON - Wind power, an abundant, clean and affordable alternative to coal, could become a leading source of U.S. electricity with the right political support and investment, researchers said Thursday.

Writing in the journal Science, Mark Jacobson and Gilbert Masters of Stanford University argue that wind power is both safer and cheaper than coal, the top U.S. energy source.

"There is no reason not to invest in wind at this point," Jacobson said in an interview. "Wind is so obviously cheaper if we look at total costs."

Wind-generated energy costs 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour - about the same as coal - but the indirect health and environmental costs associated with coal increase its costs to 5.5 to 8.3 cents per kilowatt hour, Jacobson said.

The researchers said coal dust kills 2,000 U.S. mine workers annually and has cost taxpayers about $35 billion in monetary and medical benefits to former miners since 1973.

Karen Batra, spokesperson for the National Mining Association, acknowledged that coal mining has an environmental impact, but said "we are all working toward a goal of reducing emissions and have made tremendous strides in reducing emissions in the past 30 years since the Clean Air Act."

Critics of wind power argue that the turbines - which look like giant propellers - have been linked to the accidental deaths of migratory birds that get caught inside the propeller blades, and that the turbines take up a tremendous amount of space. But Jacobson said these problems could be avoided by selecting sites out of migration paths and by paying farmers to put them on their land.

"Wind has trivial health and environmental problems associated with it in comparison with coal," Jacobson said.

Although wind power is the fastest growing source of energy in the world, the United States has been slow to use it because coal is so cheap and wind has received no government incentives, Jacobson said.

WIND POWER CURRENTLY A MINOR PLAYER

Wind power provides the United States with less than 1 percent of its energy, compared to 52 percent from coal, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Analysts say the U.S. market will see 1,500 megawatts of new wind power installed by the end of the year.

For America to catch up with major wind power nations such as Germany, Spain and Denmark, political backing by the Bush administration and Congress is essential, Jacobson said.

Jacobson said in order to build more wind farms in the United States, lawmakers must be willing to offer the same investment opportunities and tax incentives given to the more established coal, gas and oil industries.

The energy bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month focuses heavily on boosting domestic oil, coal and natural gas production, doing far less to promote wind power as an energy source. The Senate, still working on its version of the energy legislation, is virtually certain to focus on conservation and energy efficiency.

To help meet current U.S. energy demand, the authors propose building 225,000 turbines that would cost the U.S. government an initial $338 billion with a minimum of $4 billion annually for maintenance.

The United States could eliminate almost two-thirds of its coal-generated electricity under this plan and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels, say the authors. That goal is already envisioned by the 1997 U.N. Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which the Clinton administration signed but which the Bush administration has spurned.

"If you really want a massive change then you need to do something big," Jacobson said. "It's expensive but the wind turbines, which have an average life span of 20 years, would pay for themselves in that time."

----

Ontario opens North America's biggest windmill

Story by Julie Remy
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
CANADA: August 24, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12137/story.htm

TORONTO - Ontario Power Generation was set this week to put the finishing touches on what it claims is the tallest wind turbine in North America as it looks to develop more "green" energy.

The turbine, with a capacity of 1.8 megawatts - or enough to power for about 600 homes - is located beside the utility's Pickering nuclear power station, just east of Toronto.

Manufactured in Denmark, the turbine stands 117 meters (384 feet) tall, with 39-metre (128-foot) blades. It is part of a C$50 million ($33 million) strategy by the provincially owned company to develop new sources of renewable energy as it prepares for deregulation of the Ontario power sector.

"We are very serious with our green energy program because we know that the people of Ontario see it as a market that they would like to tap into," said spokesman John Earl.

"When the market opens, people will be able to choose their kind of energy ... and we want to make sure that we have sufficient renewable energy on hand to meet that market."

Earl said his company wants to quadruple its green energy supply by 2005, using a mix of wind, solar, hydro-electric and biogas sources.

Ontario Power is also studying the idea of a 10 MW wind farm in the Bruce Peninsula, on Lake Huron. One small turbine, about one-third the size of the Pickering unit, is already operational there and the firm is in talks with manufacturers to buy eight to 15 more, he said.

The head of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, an environmental lobby group, said the Pickering windmill should help reduce Ontario's dependency on coal-fired power plants.

"But because of Ontario's silly emissions trading system - allowing the power suppliers to increase certain emissions while reducing others - building wind turbines can lead to a net increase in pollution and make things worse," Jack Gibbons told Reuters.

The Pickering windmill will be officially inaugurated next Wednesday and connected to Ontario power's grid.

-------- death penalty

Death Row Inmate Is Freed After DNA Test Clears Him

New York Times
August 24, 2001
By RAYMOND BONNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/24/national/24DEAT.html

BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 23 - Charles Fain has been on death row for almost 18 years for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl who was snatched off the street in Nampa, a small town west of here.

But this afternoon, Mr. Fain, 11 days shy of his 53rd birthday, walked out of the maximum security prison here into the blazing sun, a free man. Two hours earlier, a state judge ordered the charges against him dismissed on the basis of DNA tests indicating that hairs found on the girl's body, which had been used to convict Mr. Fain, were not his.

"Sometimes it looked pretty dark," Mr. Fain said, but he said he had been confident he would be exonerated. "I'm 100 percent innocent. The day the crime happened, I was sound asleep at my dad's" house - 360 miles away in Redmond, Ore.

Mr. Fain had difficulty today using the seat belts in the car that drove him away from prison - they were not mandatory when he went to prison - held on tightly when he rode in an elevator to his lawyer's ninth- floor office and was uneasy walking on thick carpet. "I'm used to walking five steps forward, five steps back, then three steps to the side," he said, describing life in his cell.

Mr. Fain was convicted of the Feb. 24, 1982, kidnapping, rape and murder of the girl, Daralyn Johnson, after a forensics expert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation said microscopic examination - the standard test at the time - showed three hairs found on the victim's body were probably Mr. Fain's.

"Justice requires the action we have taken today," David L. Young, the Canyon County prosecutor, said today at a news conference in Caldwell, where the case had been tried. "It also requires that we do everything we can to solve this case."

Mr. Young added, "The killer has not yet been apprehended."

Today the Johnson family seemed to accept Mr. Fain's release.

"We would like to say we are in complete support of the judicial system and all those involved in the reinvestigation of this case," the family said in a statement. "We are confident that we will have closure and that all those involved will be brought to justice."

At least 96 people have been exonerated and freed from death rows in 22 states since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group in Washington that opposes capital punishment.

Six death-row inmates were exonerated in the first half of this year, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said in June. Mr. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has sponsored a bill to improve the quality of defense counsel and ensure the availability of DNA testing in capital cases.

The Johnson murder shook the residents of Nampa. The girl had been abducted as she walked to Lincoln Elementary School, then raped; her body was thrown in a ditch near the Snake River. It was not found for several days.

After seven months, the police were stymied. Then they picked up Mr. Fain. A Vietnam veteran who had served with the 101st Airborne, Mr. Fain had difficulty holding a job after his honorable discharge, bouncing between Idaho and Oregon. At the time of his questioning, he was living in Nampa, a block from Daralyn's house.

His address, and his light-brown hair - similar to that found on Daralyn's body - were the reasons he was called in for questioning, his appellate lawyers said in one filing.

Mr. Fain was among scores of men asked to give hair samples. An F.B.I. expert concluded that his were similar to those found on Daralyn.

A month later, the police interrogated Mr. Fain for more than two hours, then asked him to take a polygraph test; he agreed.

A state examiner of the test concluded that Mr. Fain was telling the truth when he denied involvement in the rape and murder. At the trial, though, prosecutors objected to introducing the polygraph results as evidence and the judge agreed.

Some of the most damning evidence against Mr. Fain was the testimony of two jailhouse informers. The men gave lurid details of what they said Mr. Fain had told them about what he had done to Daralyn.

It is not clear why the two men gave what now appears to be false testimony. One of Mr. Fain's appellate lawyers, Spencer McIntyre, said it showed how jailhouse informers manipulate the system, knowing that if they cooperate, the authorities will go easier on them - even without an explicit promise or deal.

One person who always contended Mr. Fain was innocent was Christine Harding, a librarian at the Redmond Public Library. She testified at his trial that in February 1982 he was a regular at the library, though she could not say unequivocally that he was there on Feb. 24.

"Awesome!" an elated Mrs. Harding exclaimed today when told the news in a telephone interview from Garden City, S.D., where she now lives. "Praise God. I just think it's pathetic so many years of Charles's life have been taken away from him that can't be given back."

But Richard Harris, the original prosecutor, said the DNA test had not shaken his view, citing the testimony of the two informers.

"It doesn't really change my opinion that much that Fain's guilty," Mr. Harris said. "The case was a circumstantial-evidence case. There was a myriad of circumstances that pointed in his direction."

The trial judge, James Doolittle, also said he had no doubt that Mr. Fain was guilty. "If I had had the slightest doubt, I certainly would not have imposed the death penalty," said Judge Doolittle, who is retired.

D. Fredrick Hoopes, an Idaho lawyer who has worked on the case for more than a decade, said such reactions reinforced the problems with the death penalty. "We just can't kill people who we are sure are guilty," Mr. Hoopes said.

Mr. Fain's parents died while he was in prison; he did not know where he would live or what he would do now. "One day at a time," he said at his lawyer's office. Asked what he would have for dinner, he said, "whatever they put on the tray." Then, realizing he was not going to be fed by authorities tonight, he said, "I'll have to start making decisions for myself."

-------- environment

Baltic Sea Region Cuts Toxic Discharges in Half

August 24, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-04.html

HELSINKI, Finland, The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission says it has reached its goal of reducing by half the discharges, emissions, and losses of hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea area.

Known as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), the commission presented a report today on the levels of toxic discharges and emissions during a meeting of the Heads of Delegations in Warsaw, Poland. The report investigated 72 selected hazardous substances.

These have been largely reduced since the late 1980s according to the report. "We appreciate the achievements by our contracting parties," said HELCOM chairman Peter Ehlers.

"But having reached the 50 percent reduction goal is only the first step in the right direction. We must reduce discharges, emissions, and losses of hazardous substances even further," he said.

The Baltic Sea

All the 72 substances in question harm the environment. They are toxic, persistent or accumulate in living organisms. Among them are pesticides, biocides, and heavy metals as well as organic compounds, which include dioxins and antifouling agents such as tri-butyl tin.

The goal to reduce 47 of such hazardous substances by at least 50 percent was declared in 1988 by the Ministers responsible for the Environment of all countries bordering on the Baltic Sea.

Within the past 13 years, the emissions of certain hazardous substances have been mastered by legal means as well as new production processes and retention systems. The use of leaded gasoline, for instance, has significantly decreased or even been phased out by now in all countries bordering on the Baltic Sea.

In other cases, deep socio-economic changes and stagnant industrial productions brought about the reduction of emissions, the commission says.

Still, high concentrations of hazardous substances in the Baltic marine environment are of concern, as stated in the recent "Fourth Periodic Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Region."

Having met the 50 percent reduction goal, the Helsinki Commission now aims to phase out the discharges, emissions and losses of selected hazardous substances by 2020.

Members of the Helskini Commission are: Denmark, Estonia, European Commission, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden.

-------- genetics

Stem Cell Research Faces FDA Hurdle With Mouse Cell Base, Tough Rules Apply

By Justin Gillis and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 24, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53580-2001Aug23?language=printer

Most or all of the human embryonic stem cell colonies approved for research funding under a new Bush administration policy have been mixed in the laboratory with mouse cells, which may create substantial hurdles for scientists trying to turn the colonies into treatments for Parkinson's disease, spinal-cord injuries and other ailments.

The cell colonies, or "lines," were created for early-stage research with no thought that they would become the only embryonic cells eligible for federal money. But that is the status President Bush conferred on them in his first prime-time address to the nation on Aug. 9.

The standard technique for creating human embryonic stem cell lines has been to extract cells from inside a microscopic embryo, then grow them atop embryonic mouse cells, known as "feeder" cells. The latter excrete some unknown nutritional or growth factor that helps the human cells stay healthy. Because they have been in close contact with mouse cells, the human cells pose a small but real risk of transferring potentially deadly animal viruses to people.

Because of that, under guidelines the Food and Drug Administration has been developing for several years, it would be difficult, though not impossible, to use the cells in human clinical tests.

Under the FDA rules, which are designed to prevent the accidental creation of a new plague, transplants of these embryonic cells into people would be treated as though they were "xenotransplants," or transplants of animal tissue. The guidelines impose stringent requirements on researchers and patients alike. They would likely rule out some groups of patients who might otherwise be eligible to participate in human stem cell tests -- notably, for instance, young diabetes patients whose disease can be treated in other ways.

The human embryonic stem cell lines reported in scientific literature were all grown in direct contact with mouse cells and might have picked up mouse viruses, which government officials acknowledged would bring them under the FDA policy.

Scientists are working on ways to grow human embryonic cell lines without using mouse cells, but any created after Bush's speech Aug. 9 would be ineligible for federal research money.

Patient groups and people who work with them expressed concern when told about the xenotransplant restrictions.

"This would be the exclamation point" on an already lengthy list of questions about the quantity and quality of the cell lines eligible for research funding under the Bush policy, said Kevin Ryder, a consultant to the American Cell Therapy Research Foundation, a New York foundation that supports research into many types of treatments using cells. "We would have a very difficult time getting those advanced into the clinical setting unless we get the FDA to make some exceptions down the road."

Most people on Capitol Hill are unaware of the issue, but as word of it began spreading late yesterday, some legislators expressed concern. "The president's going to have to make available lines of stem cells that will be available for the full measure of research anticipated," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) "If he doesn't, Congress will need to act to make that happen."

Jay Lefkowitz, a White House adviser who helped craft the Bush policy, said the administration was aware that the stem cell lines Bush approved for funding had been mixed with mouse cells and would come under the FDA's xenotransplant rules.

The White House concluded that the issue would not be a serious barrier at this stage, when scientists still need to do several years of fundamental laboratory work before human tests can begin, he said. By the time researchers are ready to begin those tests, he said, officials are confident that scientists will have found a way to grow stem cells without mouse cells, or will be able to work within the FDA's guidelines.

"President Bush has unlocked the door so that critical, basic research can be conducted in an area that is currently uncharted," Lefkowitz said. "To fulfill that mission, we believe the existing stem cell lines are more than adequate."

Opinion among scientists is mixed about how much of a problem the xenotransplant issue will be, but at the least, they say, it presents yet more practical difficulties in the execution of a policy already rife with them.

In the 15 days since Bush announced his policy, other lingering questions -- about how many cell lines exist, who owns them and how accessible they will be to academic scientists -- have gone largely unanswered by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services. NIH administrators are negotiating with companies and labs to try to work out many of the details. Congressional hearings are scheduled in two weeks.

In an interview, a senior NIH administrator and an FDA regulator acknowledged that the xenotransplant issue could pose hurdles but said it was premature to speculate about how serious those might be.

"There is so little experience with these cells," said Lana Skirboll, director of science policy at the NIH. "There's a lot that needs to be done. I just think the scientific community is in a position that we have a lot more to learn."

FDA administrators who developed the xenotransplant policy declined to comment. But they pointed to written reports and meeting transcripts going back five years that make their position clear. The documents, posted on the Internet, leave little doubt that stem cells grown by current techniques would be covered. Although the guidelines are not final, officials said the agency has been following them.

Some laboratories that work with stem cells appear to be unaware of the policy; others are operating under the assumption that it will be a large hurdle in creating treatments from any of the existing cell lines. "It could be a real killer," said George Daley, a stem cell researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Executives of BresaGen Inc., the U.S. unit of an Australian stem cell company, met with the FDA last spring and learned then that their four lines of human embryonic stem cells, all grown atop a layer of mouse cells, would be treated as xenotransplant products. "We were a little bit shell-shocked," said Allan Robins, senior vice president and chief scientific officer. "I think a lot of companies will see it as a large burden."

This view is not universal, however, even among scientists who oppose the Bush plan.

Hugh Auchincloss Jr., a surgeon at Harvard Medical School and chairman of an FDA committee that reviewed the xenotransplant issue, noted that the FDA policy, while stringent, is not an absolute bar to research. Indeed, several hundred patients have already participated in various types of xenotransplant tests, including the transfer of fetal pig cells into patients' brains in an attempt to treat Parkinson's disease.

Moreover, Auchincloss said, with enough time and lab work, scientists might be able to alleviate FDA concerns. He noted that human tests of stem cell therapies are probably years away, largely because scientists know so little about the cells.

In his speech Aug. 9, Bush said 60 genetically distinct embryonic stem cell lines had been derived by laboratories around the world and approved federal funding for work only on those cell lines. To reduce incentives for further destruction of embryos, he ruled out funding for any cell lines created after his speech.

Because they can be used to grow almost any kind of human tissue, which could then be used to repair ailing body parts, the cells offer considerable, but unproven, hope for cures. The cell lines were created from early-stage human embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics. Many anti-abortion activists, one of Bush's most important constituencies, oppose the research.

Several scientists have said publicly that they are working on ways to grow embryonic stem cells without mixing them with mouse cells. But no scientist has publicly claimed to have created an entirely new cell line by such a method before Aug. 9.

That has led most scientists familiar with the issue to conclude that all 60 lines were probably created using mouse feeder cells and will have to be treated as xenotransplant products.

"I don't think there's any one of the 60 lines that has not been derived using mouse embryonic feeders," said Daley, of the Whitehead Institute.

However, the possibility cannot be entirely ruled out until the location and details of all 60 cell lines have been disclosed.

The implications of treating most or all of the lines as xenotransplant products would be substantial.

The draft FDA guidelines make clear that labs researching stem cells will have to meet special burdens to win approval for any human test involving xenotransplantation. They will have to perform extensive research and documentation on their cells that go beyond normal FDA requirements, including elaborate study of potential animal viruses. At a minimum, this will introduce delay and extra expense.

Given the complexity of the FDA restrictions, Robins, the BresaGen scientist, predicted that few companies would plunge into human tests of stem cells grown together with mouse cells. He said those will be used for research for the next few years, but eventually companies will create new cell lines grown only on human feeder cells. They will do so either with private money or by overturning the Bush limitations on federal funding, Robins and other researchers predicted.

In fact, it appears the FDA restrictions have already set off a behind-the-scenes race among labs to create -- and patent -- alternative means of growing stem cells that don't depend on mouse feeders.

The only company that has publicly claimed success with a mouse-free technique is Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif. "We have accomplished it," said David Greenwood, the company's chief financial officer. But he declined to say whether Geron had managed to create any new stem cell lines using the technique before Aug. 9.

Several researchers predicted that if stem cells began to show promise, the politics would change, and they would win permission to work on new cell lines with federal money.

"If the research looks great and we're ready to go to human trials, we will need more stem cells," said Jeffrey Rothstein, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who works in the field. "We'll turn to the president or Congress and get them to do the right thing."

Staff writer Rick Weiss contributed to this report.

-------- health

AIDS Activist No Longer Harassed

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-AIDS.html

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- The threatening phone calls and summons by angry officials are over. Government leaders who once shunned her now smile and say hello in public.

The reversal represents a victory of sorts for Gao Yaojie, a retired gynecologist who publicized the spread of AIDS through illegal blood buying in rural villages in the central Chinese province of Henan.

After years of official attempts to conceal the deadly outbreak, the government is acknowledging that hundreds of villagers are infected and that dozens have already died.

Gao said a deputy governor of Henan even went out of his way last week to greet her at an art exhibition.

The government still hasn't broken down and told Gao she was right. But it has stopped treating her as if she were trying to reveal state secrets, Gao, 74, told The Associated Press by telephone Friday.

``It's so quiet now,'' she said. ``A couple of months ago, I was getting phone calls from government officials almost every day.''

Gao stumbled onto the hidden epidemic in 1996, when one of her patients tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.

Gao was able to link the infection to an illegal blood-buying industry in rural Henan. Since the 1980s, collectors had been paying villagers for their blood, extracting the valuable plasma and then reinjecting what was left back into donors' veins.

Donated blood was often pooled together, facilitating transmission of HIV.

Gao printed more than 300,000 flyers and 100,000 booklets to warn the villagers about the danger. She also paid for the treatment of infected children. She said she has spent more than $25,000 of her own money over the last five years.

Health officials at first ignored her and then grew hostile as her efforts drew Chinese and foreign media attention, she said.

In May, officials at the hospital where she had worked in Zhengzhou, Henan's capital, blocked her application for a passport to visit the United States to accept an award for anti-AIDS activism. Officials accused her of collaborating with ``anti-Chinese foreign organizations,'' she said.

But this month, the government abruptly reversed itself and announced it was sending a team of health officials to open a clinic in the worst-hit village, Wenlou. On Thursday, a vice minister of health said an April survey of 1,645 Wenlou villagers found that 318 -- or 19 percent -- were HIV-positive. Among villagers who sold blood, an even larger proportion were infected -- 244 out of 568, or 43 percent

Officials are now examining blood supplies in all hospitals and donor centers in Henan, the Health Ministry's newspaper -- Health News -- said Friday. Police also are searching for illegal blood-buyers, known as ``bloodheads,'' and government officials who helped them, it said.

``It's a good start that the government is beginning to acknowledge this problem and take action against it,'' Gao said.

``I am not sure how effective the crackdown will be or if the problem will just reappear after the campaign is over, but at least it's much better than before when the officials did nothing at all.''

--------

Chinese pay high cost for selling blood

August 24, 2001
By Cindy Sui
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010824-67125448.htm

BEIJING -- China admitted for the first time yesterday that tens of thousands of its citizens have been infected with the AIDS virus after selling their blood for money.

"The current statistics show that China at present has about 600,000 people with HIV infections and, according to our estimate figure, about 6 percent of those 600,000 people with HIV infections were infected through blood donations," Vice Minister of Health Yin Dakui told a news conference.

"The actual number should be about 30,000 to 50,000," Mr. Yin said.

He conceded that some experts believed that up to 100,000 people could be infected.

But independent analysts say the true scale of the tragedy, which has mainly afflicted impoverished rural areas in central China, could be far greater.

Yesterday was the first time the government had acknowledged that unsafe blood donations made up a significant percentage of infections, almost as high as infections from "unsafe" sex, which officials said make up 7 percent of total cases.

The government had insisted that most AIDS cases were from intravenous drug use, which it said was responsible for 71 percent of HIV infections.

Critics say the government had failed to recognize that many poor farmers might have contracted AIDS from selling blood.

Yesterday's news conference was also the first time the government had given figures about the scale of the scandal of infected blood, which was first exposed in 1999, but which the government refused to acknowledge until this month.

Beginning in the early 1990s, blood dealers used unhygienic methods to collect blood -- often pooling blood, extracting plasma to be used for blood products and then injecting the remainder back into the donors.

Some independent experts believe as many as 1 million people could have been infected in this way in the central province of Henan alone.

The scandal came to light in Wenlou, a village in central Henan, where scores of people who donated blood a few years ago have died in the past three years.

After initially ignoring the plight of the village, government doctors tested 1,645 persons in the village this year and found that 318 were HIV-positive, an infection rate of 19.33 percent, Mr. Yin said after the news conference.

Of the total tested, 568 had sold blood before 1995 and nearly half of them -- 244 -- were HIV positive, Mr. Yin said.

He declined to say whether the sample of 1,645 was a random sample from the village of 3,000 villagers.

An international AIDS expert familiar with China said the infection rate in Wenlou was staggering and had serious implications for the rest of China.

"From international standards, the fact that this rate comes from nonsexual transmission, makes it one of the highest rates recorded," he said. "Wenlou is not unique. My guess is there are hundreds of communities across China where a large proportion of people were engaged in plasma selling as a form of income."

He urged China to do a comprehensive study to gauge the extent of the problem.

Despite a government ban on blood sales, illegal blood stations still exist, experts said.

"Even last month, they caught a huge underground blood-purchasing ring. It's still going on now," the international health official said.

In regions with a serious HIV epidemic, three to four in every 10,000 blood transfusions result in HIV infection, Mr. Yin said.

China estimated that more than 600,000 people in the country were infected with HIV by the end of 2000.

In the first six months of the year, 3,541 HIV infections were reported, a 67.4 percent increase from the same period last year, and the number of AIDS cases reported was 231, a nearly three-fold increase from the same period in 2000, according to the Health Ministry.

But Mr. Yin said the number of HIV infections had increased at a steady rate, by 100,000 annually since 1997. He did not explain whether the increase in the first half of this year was due to recent discovery of new HIV cases from infected blood.

He said the government hoped to keep the total number of people with HIV from exceeding 1.5 million by 2010.

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

U.S. to Help D.C. With IMF Security

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-World-Bank-Protest.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government agreed Thursday to pay $16 million of the $30 million that the District of Columbia expects to spend on security for next month's World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings.

The federal money will help pay for out-of-town police officers and the protective gear and medical supplies they may need.

The district will pay $12.6 million for overtime for its own police officers, firefighters, emergency service workers and the public works crews that will have to clean up after the meetings.

Police say there could be over 100,000 protesters in the nation's capital for the Sept. 29-30 meetings. Authorities have grown increasingly concerned about violence, particularly after the protests in Genoa, Italy, last month during a summit of the world's industrial powers.

More than 1,300 people were arrested during world finance meetings in Washington in April 2000.

Deputy Mayor Margret Kellems said it was an agreement both sides could afford. ``The city has some money in its reserves. That gives us some flexibility,'' she said.

About 17,000 participants including heads of state, finance ministers, and journalists are expected for the meetings. What was originally supposed to be a weeklong event has been condensed to two days, with officials citing security as a factor.

The district's security plan involves 6,000 law enforcement officers and members of the D.C. National Guard. Hundreds of police recruited from state and local law enforcement agencies in the East would back up local and federal authorities.

``There's a solid plan in place. We believe the vast majority of protesters will be peaceful, not violent,'' said Charles Ramsey, the district's police chief.

Organizers of planned demonstrations against sued Monday in federal court, challenging police tactics they contend would violate their constitutional rights.

The suit alleges the proposed use of two miles of temporary fencing would create ``massive no-protest zones,'' relegating demonstrators to protest pits designed for only small numbers of people.

-------- police / prisoners

Hearing Set in Wen Ho Lee Case

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Wen-Ho-Lee.html?searchpv=aponline

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- The judge who apologized to former government scientist Wen Ho Lee at his sentencing has scheduled a hearing on whether to unseal documents to check if Lee was prosecuted because of his race.

Asian-American groups want to examine the sealed government documents for evidence of ethnic profiling in the Lee case. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Parker scheduled the hearing for Oct. 2.

``We have always been under the impression that Judge Parker takes this case very seriously and took very seriously the allegation of selective prosecution,'' said Diane Chin, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.

The San Francisco-based civil rights group filed a petition to unseal on June 6. It contends the documents may reveal that profiling was used in deciding to prosecute the Taiwanese-born Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen and former Los Alamos scientist. The Asian Law Caucus and American Civil Liberties Union supported the motion.

Lee was indicted in 1999 on 59 felony counts for transferring nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes, charges stemming from an investigation into possible Chinese espionage. Lee was not charged with spying and denied giving information to China.

Lee eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading sensitive material. Judge Parker said he was misled by prosecutors and apologized to Lee for the nine months he spent in solitary confinement. Lee was sentenced to time already served.

Lee has sued the government for allegedly leaking information to the media to portray him as a Chinese spy.

Last week, a Justice Department report criticized the Energy Department, which oversees the Los Alamos lab, and the FBI for the Lee investigation. The report, completed by federal prosecutor Randy Bellows, concluded that Lee was singled out for an investigation into suspected Chinese espionage because the Energy Department misled the FBI.

While the report said the DOE inappropriately targeted Lee, it concluded it was not because of his race.

--------

Ex-Guard's Prison Term Doubles After He Appeals

August 24, 2001
By AL BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/24/nyregion/24GUAR.html

A former Nassau County jail guard who pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges in the 1999 beating death of an unarmed inmate was resentenced yesterday to 27 years in federal prison, a term more than double his original sentence, which he had appealed.

The former guard, Patrick Regnier, was sentenced in May 2000 to 11 years and 3 months in prison for the Jan. 8, 1999, fatal beating of Thomas Pizzuto, 38, a heroin addict serving a 90-day sentence for a traffic infraction.

But Mr. Regnier and another former guard, Edward Velazquez, appealed the ruling on the ground that the judge should not have sentenced them under the guideline for voluntary manslaughter. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the conviction but directed the trial judge to clarify whether Mr. Regnier and Mr. Velazquez committed voluntary or involuntary manslaughter or second-degree murder, which carries a stiffer penalty.

Mr. Velazquez later withdrew his appeal, because of the risk that he could get a longer prison term, but Mr. Regnier did not.

And in resentencing Mr. Regnier yesterday in Federal District Court in Central Islip, Judge Jacob Mishler reaffirmed his finding last week that the underlying crime Mr. Regnier committed was second-degree murder.

"Judge Mishler decided that the defendant acted with the intent of someone who should be sentenced under the second-degree murder guideline," said Sanford M. Cohen, chief of civil rights litigation for the United States attorney's office for the Eastern District, in Brooklyn. "He determined that the assault occurred with malice aforethought."

Peter J. Tomao, who is Mr. Regnier's lawyer, said he immediately filed a notice of appeal of the judgment.

"We are saying that Judge Mishler did not apply the proper standard in ruling that Mr. Regnier is guilty of second-degree murder and that he improperly prevented us from presenting expert testimony on that issue," said Mr. Tomao, who argued that the evidence supported sentencing for involuntary manslaughter and a prison term of less than five years.

Mr. Regnier said on the witness stand yesterday that he had no intention of causing Mr. Pizzuto serious bodily harm, Mr. Tomao said.

Mr. Regnier also apologized to the Pizzuto family from the stand for putting them through this ordeal, said that he had no malice toward Mr. Pizzuto and asked the court to sentence him to a shorter term, Mr. Tomao said.

But the judge reaffirmed his finding from last Friday, when he said in open court: "Before they entered the cell, both Mr. Velazquez and Mr. Regnier intended to beat Mr. Pizzuto mercilessly and that there was malice aforethought and that Mr. Pizzuto begged and pleaded to them to stop the beating.

"They punched him. Velazquez punched him in the face and Velazquez said he slapped him. His left eye was black and blue. There were bruises all over his torso, his neck. And when they got through, Mr. Pizzuto was almost in a coma, lying in his bunk, around the floor, from the serious beating he had."

Five days after the assault, Mr. Pizzuto died of a ruptured spleen. His death focused widespread attention on the Nassau jail, in East Meadow, prompting a criminal investigation, governmental hearings and a change in management.

Investigators have said that the guards were annoyed by the repeated demands of Mr. Pizzuto, a heroin addict, for methadone. In the end, five convictions came of the investigation into his beating death.

Joseph Pizzuto, 40, of Hicksville, who is one of Thomas Pizzuto's three surviving brothers, said the sentencing yesterday was bittersweet. He said Mr. Regnier did not look at the family members in court when he apologized yesterday, but rather turned to the judge, which the family thought was disingenuous.

"It doesn't do anything to bring Tommy back or anything," Joseph Pizzuto said of the sentencing. "He still has a son, little Tommy, who will never see him. But at least we get a little justice. We are glad that Regnier finally got what he deserved. The other one got away with 11 years, so he got off easy."

-------- spying

Retired Airman Charged With Spying

August 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spy-Case.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal authorities have arrested a retired Air Force sergeant on spying charges, a government source said Friday.

The retired sergeant was taken into custody Thursday evening and was to appear in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Friday afternoon, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source declined to identify the person arrested, but said the individual lived in the Washington area and had recently left the service.

The arrest follows by several months the apprehension of former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, a longtime counterintelligence expert who pleaded guilty to spying for Russian over a period of 15 years.

Hanssen, a Vienna, Va., resident arrested in February after he left a package for his Russian handlers in a park near his home, agreed to cooperate with authorities last month under a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty.

Hanssen, a father of six, promised a full confession of his spying activities as part of the agreement and has been debriefing intelligence authorities during interviews conducted at his jail cell.

The source said the information that the retired sergeant is alleged to have leaked to foreign sources is not nearly as damaging to national security as the secrets Hanssen divulged to the Soviets and later to the Russians.

Hanssen provided Moscow with information about U.S. satellites, early warning systems, defense or retaliation against nuclear attack, communications intelligence and major elements of defense strategy, the government said.


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