------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
One in six veterans 'has Gulf war syndrome'
German nuclear waste reaches French plant
The Reality of Missile Defense
Russia Sub Raising May Be Delayed
Nuclear Arms Data Get New Classification
Nuclear waste recyclers target consumer products

MILITARY
Some Welcome U.S. Army Plan in Asia
War College Details New Taiwan Attack Scenario
Palestinians Reclaim Their Town After Israelis Withdraw
Army Shifting Equipment to Asia
Army to Move Some Weapons Out of Europe

OTHER
Texas in big push to develop wind power
Canadian Alliance MPs call for ban on human cloning
Predictions on HIV Infections Made
AIDS Leads Causes of Thailand Deaths
Annan opens racism conference
FBI Statement on Wen Ho Lee Report
Report Details CIA Warning About Lee
2 U.S. Embassies In E. Europe Shut

ACTIVISTS
China Charges Activists Mu, Yan with Subversion


-------- NUCLEAR


-------- depleted uranium

One in six veterans 'has Gulf war syndrome'

31/08/2001
Telegraph (UK)
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/08/31/ngulf31.xml

ONE veteran in six who fought in the 1991 conflict in Iraq believes that he suffers with Gulf war syndrome, according to a study published today.

In a survey of 2,961 British veterans, 17 per cent complained of symptoms associated with the syndrome such as psychological distress, fatigue, headaches, joint pains and poor concentration.

But the most important factor associated with the belief was knowing another veteran who thought that he was a victim of the condition.

Those who had received multiple vaccinations against biological warfare agents before deployment to the Gulf were also more likely to believe that they suffered with the syndrome, according to the study conducted six years after the conflict.

The team at Guy's, King's and St Thomas's School of Medicine in London published its findings in the British Medical Journal after questioning veterans on their health, marital status, rank, cigarette and alcohol consumption, and exposure to hazards such as depleted uranium and oil well fires.

----

Call for more research into 'Gulf illness'

By Tim Butcher,
Electronic Telegraph - et@telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=006970654332523&rtmo=aeae2N2L&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/95/7/6/nngulf06.html

FURTHER research into alleged Gulf war syndrome among British soldiers who served in the Gulf conflict was called for yesterday by MPs and senior members of the Royal British Legion.

Col Terry English, of the Royal British Legion, said British Gulf veterans should be allowed to take part in an American study into the syndrome.

He said the Ministry of Defence should make funds available to allow them to contribute to the study being arranged by the Pentagon in which 15,000 Gulf veterans are to be compared clinically with 15,000 soldiers who did not serve in the conflict.

Medical opinion is divided on the syndrome. There is no doubt that some soldiers returned from the Gulf with a variety of ailments, including skin rashes, respiratory and heart problems, chronic fatigue and impotence.

What remains in doubt, however, is whether the ailments were caused by Gulf service. A number of possible culprits have been suggested such as radiation from depleted uranium shells or anti-chemical warfare inoculations.

Alf Morris, the Labour MP for Manchester (Wythenshawe) and a member of the Gulf War Group that recently visited the United States on a fact-finding mission, said it was wrong to ignore the ailment.

Some of the 500 British veterans who have ailments described as Gulf war syndrome have been granted Legal Aid to fight for compensation from the MoD. A ministry spokesman said the claims were being considered but initial research failed to show an above-average level of illness.

-------- europe

German nuclear waste reaches French plant

Friday, August 31, 2001
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/08/08312001/reu_waste_44818.asp
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12234/story.htm

ROUEN, France - A train carrying spent German nuclear fuel arrived at a processing plant in France on Thursday on schedule, despite pledges by environmental protesters to block the shipment, the rail company SNCF said.

The convoy containing 12 radioactive spent fuel rods reached the Valognes station near the La Hague reprocessing plant in northern France shortly after 2 a.m. (0000 GMT).

Some 20 anti-nuclear campaigners gathered on France's northeastern border with Germany on Wednesday as the shipment crossed into France, but they did not try to physically stop the train as protesters have done in the past.

Germany's transport of nuclear waste for reprocessing abroad resumed in April after a three-year interruption. This followed an agreement between the country's federal government and the power industry on the abandonment of nuclear energy by 2020.

As part of the deal, the reprocessing of fuel rods abroad will be allowed until 2005. In return, Germany has agreed to take back the reprocessed waste.

In the past, activists have chained themselves to the rail tracks ahead of the oncoming train, forcing it to stop and adding hours to its journey across northeastern France. They have so far not succeeded in stopping a delivery altogether.

-------- missile defense

The Reality of Missile Defense

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Reality.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When the subject is whether the United States needs a missile defense system, Rep. Mark Kirk harks back to a haunting night in the Pentagon's intelligence center.

As a Naval Reserve lieutenant commander, Kirk was the sole Navy man on duty when North Korea unexpectedly launched a test missile in 1993.

``Suddenly an alarm went off,'' Kirk, R-Ill., said recently of that sweat-soaked night. A dozen terrifying minutes passed before officials concluded the missile was not a threat.

Kirk was horrified that only two options were available in case of a real attack -- to let a U.S. city be destroyed and millions of Americans be killed with no response, or to retaliate and kill millions of foreigners as well.

Like Kirk, other lawmakers and administration officials, holding fast to the idea that experience is a great teacher, often cite their backgrounds and trips to far-flung lands to bolster their views on missile defense.

In Kirk's case, since that night in the Pentagon, he has advocated a third option: knocking the incoming missile out of the sky.

Most missile defense anecdotes come from the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, when Iraqi Scuds rained down on Israel and Saudi Arabia. One killed 28 Americans with a direct hit on a U.S. military barracks near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, recalled his trip to Israel with then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.

``We saw children walking to school carrying gas masks in gaily decorated boxes -- no doubt to try to distract them from the possibility of facing mass destruction,'' Wolfowitz told lawmakers. ``With those missiles, Saddam Hussein terrorized a generation of Israeli children, and almost succeeded in changing the entire strategic course of the Gulf War.''

Today, the United States has barely improved its defenses against such an attack, said Wolfowitz, a top cheerleader for President Bush's $8.3 billion missile defense plan for next year.

While Saddam's use of Scuds clearly left an impression on lawmakers who visited Israel, they drew differing conclusions.

Reps. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., now chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's military installations panel, and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the Government Reform Committee's top Democrat, went together to Israel a decade ago, arriving a day after a Scud attack.

``As we ventured into the airport terminal, we were handed a drugstore package with a gas mask and antidote to inject into your leg ... should a gas attack occur,'' Saxton said. ``That made us sit up pretty straight.''

The plastic-encased fourth floor of their hotel in Jerusalem ``made it so real to me,'' Saxton said, as did their visit to an elementary school ``where little gas masks were lined against the wall, on shelves; where little cribs had been encased in plastic in case of an attack.''

Saxton, who supports Bush's missile defense plan, said: ``Our families in this country aren't immune from that kind of thing either nowadays.''

Waxman has doubts about the program.

``As much as I would love to have a missile defense system, ... I've come to the conclusion that a national missile defense system is extraordinarily expensive,'' he said in an interview.

``It is unclear whether the technology would ever be successful on the massive scale envisioned.''

One example missile defense opponents cite is the Patriot air defense system that was intended to intercept the Iraqi Scuds, a far less complicated matter than trying to stop intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Early raves about its Gulf War performance ultimately were found to be greatly overstated: 39 Scuds hit Israel cities, and one devastated the barracks near Dhahran.

-------- russia

Russia Sub Raising May Be Delayed

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- The raising of the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine may be postponed for a week because rough weather in the Barents Sea has delayed preparatory work, a senior official said Friday.

The statement by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is in charge of the salvage operation, was the first official signal that the Kursk's lifting set for Sept. 15 could be pushed back.

The government remains committed to raising part of the Kursk this year but, with weather worsening this month, even a slight delay could thwart the operation altogether.

The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea on Aug. 12, 2000, killing its entire 118-man crew. Officials say they hope raising the Kursk will shed more light on the cause of the sinking.

Klebanov said officials were still sticking to Sept. 15 as the target date for raising the Kursk and they expected to wrap up the operation by Sept. 20-21, when the submarine is to be put in dry dock near the Arctic port of Murmansk. However, he said the date for ending the operation could ``theoretically'' be pushed back to Sept. 25-27, Russian news agencies reported.

The seas remained calm Friday, allowing the Dutch consortium in charge of the salvage effort to continue installing equipment for cutting off the Kursk's front section. A barge has lowered the first of two powerful anchors intended to fix a chain saw that will sever the front section before the rest of the submarine is raised to the surface.

Work is now underway to install the second anchor, said Russian Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo.

The first compartment, which was mangled during the explosions that sank the submarine, is being left on the sea floor because of concerns it could break away from the rest of the ship during the lifting. The Navy has also warned that the fore section could contain unexploded torpedoes.

-------- us nuc politics

Nuclear Arms Data Get New Classification
Wen Ho Lee Case Spawns 'Sigma 16' Level of Secrecy

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21891-2001Aug30?language=printer

The federal government has long classified documents as confidential, secret or top secret. Now, the Energy Department and the Pentagon are starting a category with a name James Bond would appreciate: Sigma 16. The new classification appears to be an outgrowth of the Wen Ho Lee case. The Taiwanese American scientist pleaded guilty to copying the equivalent of 400,000 pages of nuclear weapons-related information from computers at Los Alamos National Laboratory onto portable tapes.

But one of the many complications in Lee's case was that a great deal of that information had never been reviewed by security officials and formally classified. Instead, it was labeled "PARD," or protect as restricted data.

According to a report on nuclear security released this week by the General Accounting Office, the Sigma 16 classification will apply to documents "containing nuclear weapons design specifications that would permit the reproduction and function of the weapon" -- exactly the sort of information that Lee was accused of mishandling.

The report by the GAO, a watchdog arm of Congress, criticizes the Energy Department for the amount of time it has taken to agree on the new category, which will go into effect in October. At the same time, the old PARD category is being eliminated.

Technically, Sigma 16 will be a sub-group of sensitive compartmented information, or SCI. In the nuclear weapons world, there already are lower Sigma numbers that apply to specialized information available to limited numbers of people with a particular need for it.

Material labeled Sigma 16 will be treated by the government like other highly sensitive information: full background investigations for anyone with access to it, a single custodian to ensure accountability, an access list for those cleared to handle it, regular inventories and documentation of any reproduction, transfer or destruction.

After spending nine months in jail awaiting trial, Lee pleaded guilty to a single count of the government's massive indictment and was sentenced to the time he had already served. The government's case collapsed in part because other nuclear weapons scientists who reviewed the allegedly mishandled PARD material said it was not as important as the government claimed.

-------- us nuc waste

Nuclear waste recyclers target consumer products

USA: August 31, 2001
Story by Allyce Bess
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12219/story.htm

NEW YORK - Orthodontists could soon be giving their patients more than they bargained for with their brand new braces: a mouthful of radioactive waste.

Under a Department of Energy plan, braces aren't the only product which could contain radioactive waste. Zippers, lawn chairs, hip replacements and countless other consumer products could include trace amounts of waste taken from nuclear reactors or weapons complexes and recycled into scrap metal.

The Department of Energy (DOE) sees the recycling as a way to clean up waste at decommissioned nuclear plants and weapons facilities, but environmental groups call the idea ridiculous.

"It's hard to imagine a nuclear enterprise more tone deaf to public concerns or a more cockamamie scheme than taking radioactive waste and disposing of it in consumer products," said Dan Hirsch, president of nuclear watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap.

The energy department will spend the next 12 months to 18 months studying the environmental and health risks of the plan, having held 12 public hearings in six cities this summer, said DOE spokesman Joe Davis,

Critics say recycling radioactive waste, even at low levels, is reckless. But energy officials say that the government needs to look at all options for getting rid of the growing pile of hazardous wastes. Proponents of the plan say that by spreading small, non-lethal amounts into recycled scrap, the need for large waste dumps could be avoided.

CONCERN IS HEALTHY

A moratorium was placed on radioactive recycling last year by former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson after environmental groups protested the possible sale of 6,000 metric tons of contaminated nickel from the energy department's Oakridge nuclear facility in Tennessee to scrap metal dealers.

But under the Bush administration, the program is being revisited and the energy department is considering lifting the moratorium. But before that, it is required by law to conduct a thorough study on the safety risks of recycling radioactive waste.

The proposal does not specify any uses for scrap metal containing the radioactive waste, but metal industry executives say the material would go into the supply of scrap metal and could be used to make anything.

Even the study has proven problematic. The DOE recently dropped Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) - which it initially chose to conduct the study and prepared a report - because of its business partnership with British Nuclear Fuels Limited, the company that last year was going to contract with the government to help sell the waste from the Oakridge facility.

Hirsch of the Committee to Bridge the Gap said it was an enormous potential conflict of interest. SAIC's report "is quite dangerous in terms of arguing how much radioactivity would be acceptable for use in consumer products."

The energy department has not said who was hired to complete the study, but some are arguing that the level of radiation in any recycled materials would be too low to actually pose a health risk.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association representing some 260 companies in the nuclear power industry, has lobbied in favor of radioactive recycling and says the public may be overly concerned.

"Concern is healthy," said Felix Killar, director of material licenses for the institute. "But people need to understand the facts. This isn't truly radioactive waste. It's no more radioactive than any other material recycled in to consumer products."

Killar continues: "There isn't a place on Earth that is totally free of radioactivity."

A LITTLE RADIATION IS OK

John Wittenborn, attorney for the Metal Industries Recycling Coalition (MIRC), comprised of a variety of metal industry trade groups, says their polls indicate the public doesn't buy the idea that nuclear waste can be safely recycled into everyday products.

"We've spent a lot of time and effort to build the perception that products made from recycled materials are safe and good and that recycling itself is something that society should be in favor of," said Wittenborn, whose group strongly opposes recycling of radioactive waste into scrap metal.

Beyond the public image problem the industry would face in using the recycled waste, companies are concerned about the potential contamination of their mills and workers.

Wittenborn says it can cost from $5 million to $15 million to shut down, inspect by hand and then clean a steel mill that has registered radioactivity above a background level.

Recently, Wittenborn attended an energy department public hearing on the issue in Crystal City, Virginia where he presented his polling data and the metal industry's case.

In fact, those who have attended the hearings say most of the comments have opposed lifting the moratorium on radioactive recycling.

"The observer might ask 'Why does the DOE continue to propose to do this if no one is willing to come forward and testify on behalf of it?'" said Dan Guttman, executive director of President Clinton's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments,

"This is being cast as a question of convincing the hysterical public that a little radiation is OK."


-------- MILITARY

-------- asia

Some Welcome U.S. Army Plan in Asia

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Asia-US-Army-Reax.html?searchpv=aponline

TOKYO (AP) -- A U.S. Army plan to move some weapons from Europe to Asia was welcomed Friday by some officials and analysts in the Asia-Pacific region, but others expressed concern that the move could undermine reconciliation between North and South Korea.

On Thursday, U.S. Army Secretary Thomas White, the Army's top official, said it intends to move an unspecified amount of combat weaponry and equipment that is stored in Germany and Italy for use by troop reinforcements in the event of war.

White's aides said some of it may be stored on Diego Garcia, an island located in the Chagos archipelago, a British territory in the Indian Ocean that is 1,000 miles southwest of India.

White, who said no troops would be moved, called it another shift reflecting the Bush administration's realization that in the aftermath of the Cold War it makes sense to increase the focus on potential threats in Asia and the Pacific.

Those hot spots include North Korea, the heavily armed, hard-line communist state, and China, which has repeatedly threatened to attack Taiwan unless it becomes part of China.

Park Seon-sup, a researcher at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analysis in Seoul, said the U.S. shift in its global military strategy has been expected since the danger of a war in Europe has diminished, while the chances of a conflict in Asia have risen.

As a result, Park said, South Korea may even be willing to accept some new U.S. Army equipment to bolster the preparedness of the 37,000 American troops that are guarding the South against possible attacks by North Korea.

However, he said a large-scale deployment of more U.S. military equipment in South Korea could set back its efforts to improve its relations with the North. Park also said it could set off angry protests by South Korean citizens who already oppose the American bases.

In Taiwan, the reaction to White's comments was positive.

The Taiwanese generally welcome U.S. buildups in Asia that might help rein in China's growing military might. Although Taiwan and America do not have an official military alliance, U.S. troops would be the island's most likely defender if China ever acted on its long-standing threats to use force to unify the two sides, which split amid civil war in 1949.

On Friday, Yang Chih-heng, a military expert with the private Taiwan Research Institute, said Taiwan would welcome any U.S. move that would place the island under its shield of protection. By moving weapons and possibly troops based in Europe, the United States could deter further Chinese military expansion in the Pacific region without significantly increasing its defense expenditure, Yang said.

Officials in Hawaii and Guam -- a U.S. territory in the Pacific where the Air Force maintains a staging base for its aircraft -- also welcomed a move of U.S. Army equipment from Europe to the region.

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has long called for a greater security focus on Asia and the Pacific, noting such potential flashpoints as Indonesia, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula.

``When one looks at the trouble spots of this globe, you will find that there are more ... in the Asian sphere than the European,'' said Inouye, chairman of the defense subcommittee of the U.S. Appropriations Committee.

In Guam, John Ryan, spokesman for Gov. Carl Gutierrez, said a greater military presence there would help the island's struggling economy. U.S. military officials acknowledged last year that they may have cut back the military presence on Guam too fast in the mid-1990s, Ryan said.

White also said the Army may consider basing troops on Guam, which is about 1,600 miles from Tokyo.

-------- china

War College Details New Taiwan Attack Scenario

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21538-2001Aug30?language=printer

"War over the Taiwan Strait could some sooner rather than later," predicts a provocative essay just published by the Army War College.

That startling conclusion appears in the new issue of Parameters, the college's professional journal. Author Richard L. Russell, a professor at the National Defense University, calls for a reexamination of the conventional wisdom that China's armed forces are too technologically unsophisticated to launch a sustained, large-scale attack on Taiwan.

"China could use strategic surprise to compensate for shortcomings in military capabilities," Russell writes in the article, awkwardly titled "What if . . . 'China Attacks Taiwan!' "

Rather than begin with a slow buildup and then an amphibious assault, as many have predicted, he says, China instead might launch a surprise attack. In this scenario, Beijing could assemble its forces under the guise of conducting a routine if large annual exercise. Then it could open fire on Taiwan with a barrage of surface-to-surface missiles, aiming the attack on the island's civilian and military leadership.

While Taiwan's military was still reeling from that "bolt from the blue" attack, assault troops could seize airfields. Once the perimeters of those air bases were secure, more troops could be flown in.

Only then, Russell says, would China need to begin ferrying in troops for large-scale amphibious landings. But even those beach attacks could be executed before the United States was able to get forces in place to fulfill President Bush's pledge in April to do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan.

Russell's essay is just one part of a package of three unusually bellicose articles in the autumn issue of Parameters. Rather than have a balancing article arguing the opposite viewpoint, as often is done with controversial pieces, the magazine offers two companion essays pointing to other aspects of an emerging Chinese security threat.

One, looking at China's growing population and economy, asserts that "China's needs may . . . trigger outright wars over resources." The third calls for paying more attention to China's regional ambitions, saying that focusing too much on Taiwan "may be blinding us to new threats elsewhere."

TIME OUT: Pentagon infighting takes a breather as all sides vacation for a week before plunging into next month's battle over a proposed $18.4 billion boost to the fiscal 2002 defense budget.

Outgoing Air Force chief Michael Ryan defended Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying in an interview that, "I think that the secretary is getting a bum rap" from the news media.

"He is asking the right questions," said Ryan, who retires next week. "He is working as hard as a human can work on issues that are really tough, and he ought to get some credit for that."

But tension between the top brass and Rumsfeld's aides still lurks just below the surface, with much of it focused on Steven Cambone, who has run much of Rumsfeld's review of how to reshape the military. One Hill staffer reported that an Army general recently joked to him that "if he had one round left in his revolver, he would take out Steve Cambone."

Asked yesterday about that comment, Army Secretary Thomas E. White said, "It's his [Cambone's] job to ask tough questions, and put alternative views on the table . . . and not everyone appreciates that -- obviously not this Army general officer."

Some at the Pentagon predict that the services will quietly support a Senate push in September to move billions in the proposed budget amendment from national missile defense to strategic airlift. Some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior military officers dislike missile defense as an unrealistic pie-in-the-sky science project that siphons off funding for more pressing needs -- and all of them agree that more long-range military transport is needed.

TROUBLED WATERS: The USS Greeneville, which rammed and sank a Japanese fishing boat off Hawaii last February, killing nine civilians, ran aground earlier this week in Saipan. It suffered "minor damage" to its rudder and motor fairing, the Navy said. It is being inspected in Guam.

DOWNLOADING TROUBLE: Commodore Eric Lerhe, the chief of Canada's Pacific fleet, was fined $200 (Canadian) earlier this month for looking at Penthouse magazine's soft-porn Web site on a government computer while off duty. But Lerhe, 52, was restored to his command after his conviction at a court-martial on the charge of violating good order and discipline.

The 34-year-veteran of the Canadian military was suspended from his post in June, after he reported his own violation. He said he did so because a subordinate had been accused of looking at Maxim magazine on a government computer while off duty, and, Lerhe said, he was concerned that he would have to sit in judgment of that officer.

WEB WATCH: Anyone interested in learning how the U.S. military plans to fight in cities can find "The Handbook for Joint Urban Operations" on the Web at www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/other_pubs/juoh.htm.

"Given the current rate of urbanization, the potential of U.S. forces operating in urban areas is likely to increase," warns the handbook published by the staff of the Joint Chiefs.

While at times drenched in bureaucratese, the handbook provides a good summary of the lessons the U.S. military learned over the past decade in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia, and also watched the Russian military painfully learn in Chechnya. It notes, for example, that in Mogadishu, Somalis flew kites to interfere with U.S. Army helicopters.

Please send war plans, leaks and Web site nominations to: Pentagon@WashPost.com.

-------- israel

Palestinians Reclaim Their Town After Israelis Withdraw

August 31, 2001
New York Times
By CLYDE HABERMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/international/middleeast/31MIDE.html

BEIT JALA, West Bank, Aug. 30 - Exhausted but exultant, Palestinians emerged today from curfews and sleepless nights to reclaim neighborhoods in this town south of Jerusalem that had been taken over for more than two days by Israeli tanks and sharpshooters.

Just before dawn, the army pulled out of the center of Beit Jala and took up positions on the outskirts, ending Israel's longest military operation in territory controlled by Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

Nahil Shahwan, who runs a corner grocery on Virgin Mary Street, in the heart of this largely Christian town, peered tentatively outside her door at daybreak to see if it was true that the Israelis had gone.

When the army moved in early Tuesday morning, she said, soldiers burst into her house and took over a top floor from where they could spot, and shoot at, Palestinian gunmen down the street. She and 12 other family members were confined to a single room for more than 48 hours.

Those soldiers gave her back her house this morning while it was still dark. But Ms. Shahwan was not sure that the army had fully left town.

"When I opened the door today," she said, "I looked around and didn't believe they'd left, not until I saw the people coming into the street." She fingered a cross dangling from her neck. "I was crying the whole morning out of happiness."

With Secretary of State Colin L. Powell putting pressure on both sides and European Union officials working as middlemen, Israel's leaders agreed to end the foray into Beit Jala as long as Mr. Arafat did what they wanted: stop gunmen under his control from using the town to fire repeatedly on Gilo, a next-door Israeli neighborhood on Jerusalem's southern fringe.

That much was accomplished, at least for today. The Gilo-Beit Jala truce held, though fighting erupted once again in many other parts of the West Bank, killing several more people and wounding dozens of others.

To Palestinians, the Israeli withdrawal was a triumph. Hard-eyed young men with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders embraced in a central square. The fired into the air in celebration. Some people handed out sweets to passers-by to express their joy.

"We feel victorious," said Raji Zeidan, Beit Jala's mayor. "We feel that we proved that as long as there is occupation, there will be resistance. The only way to solve the problem is not with the army. This we can only call some kind of terror."

But in Gilo, residents say they are the ones who have been victims of terror, with their apartments and streets turned into a frequent shooting gallery for much of the last 11 months of fighting. If anything, their situation worsened right after the tanks rolled into Beit Jala. They were suddenly hit not by regular rifle fire but by mortar rounds fired in the West Bank.

Today, though, Gilo was quiet, and residents waited to see if it would last. Israeli officials warned that if the shooting resumed, their forces were prepared to move back into Beit Jala with even greater force.

To underline that point, two tanks sat on the edge of town, right next to a high school called the Hope School. Young Palestinians played soccer on a playground a few yards away. One boy rode a scooter near the tanks, waving at the soldiers as if dismissing them.

Clearly, the immediate question is whether the peace here holds. But officials on both sides looked to the possibility that this truce could become a springboard for negotiations that might bring calm to other areas.

For more than a week, there have been rumblings of a possible meeting between Mr. Arafat and Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to discuss how to arrange a genuine cease- fire, which has eluded the two sides for months. The fact that the two men worked out the Beit Jala deal in a series of phone calls was seen by some Israelis as not a bad start.

"If there will be a couple of days of quiet, it will advance the possibility of having a meeting between the two of them," said Gideon Meir, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official.

Advisers to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took a more cautious approach, being far more skeptical than Mr. Peres and his aides about Mr. Arafat's willingness to keep the peace. "We have shown that Arafat can control the situation," one official said. "If he wants quiet, there's quiet. It's a question of political will."

Nor did Palestinian officials act as if a new age had dawned. "We are ready to meet - we have no problem," Nabil Shaath, a Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, said, referring to possible Arafat-Peres talks. But the attitude for now, Mr. Shaath said, is "wait and see."

That the two sides have a long way to go before they see a broad cease- fire was evident today with new violence across the West Bank and Gaza.

In Hebron, Israeli soldiers and Palestinians shot at one another, and a Palestinian doctor, Musa Ikdemat, 47, was killed by a stray bullet as he sat in his clinic. In the West Bank town of Naleen, west of Ramallah, an Israeli man who regularly went to a cafe run by Palestinians was shot to death by masked gunmen as he sat at a table, waiting for his order.

It is unusual these days for either Israelis or Palestinians to cry for victims on the other side. But the cafe owner and his family said they had wept at the killing of the Israeli, Amos Tajouri, 60, whom they considered a friend.

For the people of Beit Jala, this was a day for taking stock.

Many had not slept much, if at all, for more than 48 hours. Others drifted back through the day from nearby villages where they had sought refuge after Israeli forces came in.

Workers repaired electricity and telephone cables that had been knocked down during the fighting, which left a Palestinian security officer dead and several people wounded.

Clipboard in hand, a Palestinian Authority employee went through the center of town making a checklist of the damage - shattered windows, shell-pocked walls, cars flattened by tanks. The very streets bore scars of the Israeli takeover: gouges in the asphalt from tank treads.

And people spoke of indignities they had endured.

Ms. Shahwan said that when the soldiers entered her house, one of them pointed a rifle at her son. "I pushed the rifle away," she said, "and told him, `Keep away from my son.' " Like others, she said the Israelis had also confiscated cell phones and identity cards, though those items were later returned.

Bishara Haroufi, who lives in an apartment above Ms. Shahwan's store, recounted how the soldiers had smashed his front door with their rifle butts, threatening to shoot him if he did not let them in. The dents in the door were plain. The Israelis also moved furniture around and ripped doors from cupboards, using them to prop up sandbags at windows used as lookout posts.

"We weren't free to move in our own house," Mr. Haroufi said.

Some Israelis were obviously well aware of the trouble they had caused ordinary people in Beit Jala. Before leaving one apartment this morning, soldiers apologized in a note that they left in the paws of a teddy bear.

In slightly misspelled English, it said, "We are truely sorry for the mess we made."

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

Army Shifting Equipment to Asia

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001; 5:28 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010830/aponline172844_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- The Army intends to move some of its weapons and other war-fighting equipment from Europe to Asia, reflecting a shift in strategic focus by the Bush administration, the Army's top official said Thursday.

No troops are moving yet, but Army Secretary Thomas White left open the possibility the service might expand or reconfigure its presence in the Asia-Pacific region while maintaining its basic commitments in Europe.

"There's been a heightened awareness or concern about the Pacific region," White said in an interview with a group of reporters. "It's been talked about a lot. I think we in the Army will have to look at that very closely, look at our stationing around the Pacific Rim."

He was asked whether the Army is considering, for example, basing troops on Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific where the Air Force maintains a staging base for its aircraft operating in the region.

"You have to see if there are opportunities for forward basing or engagement" on the Pacific Rim, he replied. "I think all the services are going to do that."

The Army has almost 29,000 soldiers based permanently in Japan and South Korea. Its other major overseas presence is in Europe, where about 65,000 soldiers are posted mostly in Germany.

If the administration were to decide to put more troops in the Asia-Pacific region as well as weapons and equipment, it inevitably would cause consternation among allies and others, White said.

"I suppose any time you make shifts in strategy and deployments, there's a lot of concern by a lot of different people," he said. "Consequently it will take time, if that's what the secretary (of defense) and the president decide to do." He emphasized that no such decisions have been made.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has made clear he believes the U.S. military needs to be oriented more toward potential threats in the Asia-Pacific region, not just the traditional worry about North Korea but also China. Rumsfeld has stressed, also, that putting more focus on Asia should not be interpreted as reduced interest in Europe.

When he visited Europe in June, Rumsfeld took pains to emphasize the U.S. commitment to NATO allies. He dismissed speculation that he favors reducing the U.S. troop presence in Europe, saying he didn't want to "cause tremors" unnecessarily by suggesting Europe was less important to the United States.

In Thursday's interview, White said the extent to which the Army increases its attention on Asia will depend on the outcome of Rumsfeld's lengthy review of U.S. strategy, which White said is not yet completed.

"If the Pacific becomes of greater importance than it typically has in the past, relative to Europe and the other regions of the world, you're going to re-examine the whole business" of troop positioning, he said. "We're doing that."

For starters, the Army intends to move war-fighting equipment now stored in Germany and Italy to locations in the Asia-Pacific region, he said.

"It's a signal, once again, that we're going to shift our available resources around to fit the strategy," White said.

He did not say how many weapons or how much equipment would be moved, but an aide said it would be enough to equip several combat brigades. A typical combat brigade comprises about 5,000 troops.

Col. Tom Begines, an Army spokesman, said equipment intended to support an Army battalion (about 1,200 soldiers) would be moved from Europe to South Korea, but he was unsure of other details.

Some of the equipment in Europe may be moved to Diego Garcia, where the Army already has weapons and equipment stored aboard ships, one White aide said. That British-owned island in the Indian Ocean now is used primarily as a forward base for Air Force B-52 bombers and support aircraft.

White said he was not familiar with other details of the intended move, such as the timing and exact locations. He did not say what kinds of weapons and equipment would be moved, but typically it would include armored vehicles, missile launchers, ammunition, fuel and other support equipment.

A trade publication, Inside the Army, reported Aug. 13 that an internal Army document described a plan for redistributing war-fighting stocks from Europe to existing caches in southwest Asia -- a region that includes Diego Garcia -- and in South Korea. It also said the Army lacked the money to make the moves this year.

In the interview Thursday, White also said he thought it unlikely that the Army would be required to cut forces as part of Rumsfeld's efforts to revamp the military and find savings to pay for modernization.

"I don't intend to cut force structure," White said, adding that he believed Rumsfeld agreed that the Army was already stretched thin with the existing force of 480,000 active-duty soldiers.

--------

Army to Move Some Weapons Out of Europe

New York Times
August 31, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/national/31ARMY.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 - In the latest sign that the military is shifting its focus toward Asia, the Army said today that it planned to move combat weapons currently stored in Europe to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The move would involve arsenals in Germany and Italy that store weapons for wartime use. Military officials said there were no current plans to transfer any of the Army's 65,000 soldiers stationed in Europe, though the idea had been discussed at the Pentagon.

But just moving weapons and equipment out of Europe, where the American military has been a major presence for decades, is likely to raise concerns among the European allies that the United States' commitment to their region is waning.

"It's a signal once again that we're going to shift our available resources around to fit the strategy as it evolves," Thomas White, the secretary of the Army, told reporters today at a breakfast meeting.

Since taking office, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has made clear he considers the Pacific to have rapidly growing military significance for several reasons: the rising power of China; the economic importance of South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore; the instability of Indonesia; and the development of long-range ballistic missiles in North Korea.

His views have fueled unease among the NATO allies and rumors in the Pentagon of imminent cuts in American military forces in Europe. More than once, Mr. Rumsfeld has had to assure the allies that NATO remained vital to American interests.

But Mr. Rumsfeld has also pressed the chiefs and secretaries of the armed services to begin studying ways to position themselves better for possible conflict in Asia.

The Army's decision to move so- called pre-positioned weapons from Europe to Diego Garcia is clearly one of the results. Officials said they could not immediately provide details on the amount and type of weapons being moved. The Navy stations cargo ships for transporting troops and equipment on the island, a British dependency that is 1,000 miles southwest of India, about equidistant from Indonesia and the Arabian peninsula.

"There is going to be a heightened awareness or concern about the Pacific region," Mr. White said. "I think we in the Army will have to look at that very closely, look at stationing around the Pacific rim and look to see if there are opportunities to posture ourselves better to respond to contingencies and future operational requirements in the region."

Mr. White acknowledged that there might be diplomatic fallout with Europe if the United States began reducing its military commitment on the continent.

"We will have to very deliberately engage NATO and our alliance partners in the Pacific and consult with them as the changes are made," he said. "Certainly there are strong strategic implications both on the political and military side that have to be dealt with as we change the posture, if that's what the secretary of defense and the president decide to do."

But Mr. White also said he would prefer not to remove any American soldiers from Europe, largely because they are well positioned for moving in and out of peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.

He also argued that even if large numbers of American troops were no longer needed to maintain stability in Europe, those European bases were ideally located for dispatching troops to hot spots elsewhere in the world.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Texas in big push to develop wind power

Friday, August 31, 2001
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/08/08312001/wind_44821.asp

HOUSTON - Texas, whose fortunes have long been tied up with its fossil fuel wealth, is defying its popular image as a state dominated by cigar-chomping oil barons and pushing hard to develop wind power.

Wind turbines are sprouting up on hilltops and mesas in the remote western expanses of the state, helping to offset the economic effects of declining production from aging oil fields.

Texas wind farms are still generating relatively modest amounts of energy compared with the state's oil and gas production, which remain the largest in the nation. But after a late entry into the wind business, Texas will soon overtake Minnesota and Iowa and rank second to California, an early mover that has shown little growth in recent years.

"It's beyond our wildest expectations and we're delighted," said Tom Smith of consumer and environmental group Public Citizen, which has been pushing for green power in Texas since the 1970s.

State legislation to promote renewable energy, plus improved technology that has reduced costs and a surge in natural gas prices last winter have all contributed to the Texas wind boom. As of July 2001, Texas had just under 200 megawatts of wind power capacity up and running and had an additional 900 megawatts planned, much of it slated to come on line by the end of the year, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

One of those projects, the 278 megawatt King Mountain wind farm in Upton County, near President George W. Bush's boyhood home of Midland, will be among the largest in the world and is backed by some big players from the traditional electric power industry. Owned by Florida-based energy firm FPL Group Inc., the facility will have 214 wind turbines and provide enough power for almost 140,000 homes. Most of its output will be sold under a 15-year contract to Houston-based Reliant Resources Inc.

STATE RULES PROMOTE RENEWABLES

Wind power has been boosted in Texas by legislation adopted in 1999 as part of the state's electricity deregulation effort. In the new competitive market that is scheduled to open up in 2002, retail electricity providers will be required to show that 1.5 percent of their power is derived from renewables by 2003, rising to 3 percent, or some 2,000 megawatts statewide, by 2009.

Penalties will be imposed on companies that fail to meet these requirements. Any type of renewable energy may be used, but in practice wind has proved to be the most economic solution because Texas has plenty of it, more than any other state except North Dakota, which has done relatively little yet to develop wind power.

Dallas-based TXU Corp. says it is well on the way to meeting the requirements after agreeing to buy electricity produced at the 150 megawatt Trent Mesa wind farm that American Electric Power Co. plans to complete soon near Abilene.

In all TXU has contracted to buy more than 1.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year from four Texas wind farms, enough to meet the needs of about 80,000 homes.

TXU Energy Vice President Charles Jenkins said the move into wind power reflects a clear desire by customers for greater use of renewables and the company's own desire to spread its risks.

"We've always had a good understanding that you need to diversify your energy sources," he said. In particular, soaring natural gas prices last winter caused many electricity companies to reconsider the predominance of that fuel in most of the industry's plans for new power plants.

COST OF WIND POWER FALLS

Improving economics have also made wind power more competitive. Costs have fallen from 38 cents per kilowatt-hour in the early 1980s to 3 to 6 cents today, which compares favorably with other sources of power, according to the AWEA.

Smith of Public Citizen says Texas could easily draw 10 percent of its power from wind turbines within 20 years while Christine Real de Azua of the AWEA says a six percent target for the United States as a whole should be attainable by 2020. TXU's Jenkins declined to predict whether Texas could eventually exceed the 3 percent target set for 2009, saying the world of energy was too uncertain to make such predictions.

Wind power has long been used in remote areas of Texas, where simple windmills were used to pump water and generate power until the rural electrification programs of the 1930s and 1940s. West Texas, with its wide open spaces, is a major beneficiary of the renewed interest in wind.

Doug May, responsible for economic development in Fort Stockton, which lies about 310 miles (500 km) west of San Antonio, said the surrounding county boasts five wind farms.

"Right now we have about 500 megawatts under development in Pecos County and that's about as much as we can handle with our current transmission capacity," he said.

Wind power is playing a modest but welcome role in reducing the area's dependence on the traditional mainstay of oil and gas as production from mature fields declines.

Construction of the wind farms provides work for local people and wind energy developers have donated $1.5 million, enabling the community to double the size of its technical training center and set up a program to train wind turbine technicians. Lease payments to land owners and future property tax payments will also pump money into the local economy.

CUSTOMERS SOUGHT IN BIG CITIES

Hundreds of miles to the East, residents of the big cities of Dallas and Houston will be able to get as much wind power as they want, when retail electricity markets in Texas open up to full competition in January 2002.

Austin-based Green Mountain Energy plans to offer a 100-percent wind power product to customers in those cities where it has been sponsoring ozone pollution reports on local radio and television to get its green-energy message across.

Green Mountain, in which oil giant BP Plc holds a 22.9 percent stake, expects its power to be about 5 to 10 percent more expensive than conventional offerings from its competitors.

General Manager for Texas Gillan Taddune said the extra cost reflects higher generation costs, but also the expense of acquiring customers from established and well-known utilities. "We've got to go and peel customers away one by one and that is an expensive endeavor," she said. So far Green Mountain has gathered over half a million customers in six states.

-------- genetics

Canadian Alliance MPs call for immediate legislated ban on human cloning

Canadian Press
Fri, Aug 31 11:11 AM EDT
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/cp/010831/11/canadian-alliance-mps

OTTAWA (CP) - Two prominent Canadian Alliance MPs are calling for the immediate introduction of legislation banning the cloning of human beings and the creation of embryos for research purposes.

Canada lags behind other major countries in developing a legislative framework for the new wave of biomedical research, Preston Manning and Diane Ablonczy said Friday in a letter to Health Minister Allan Rock.

"Most of the other countries are moving quite quickly in establishing the rules governing reproductive and genetic science but Canada is dragging its feet," Manning said in an interview.

"This is not in the public interest. Just from a safety standpoint there's certain rules that should be set down, particularly this ban on human reproductive cloning."

The government has introduced a draft bill on assisted reproduction for study by the Commons health committee, but the committee is not expected to make recommendations until the end of January.

Under that schedule, actual legislation wouldn't reach the Commons until late next spring, said Manning.

He said the government should move now on the issues where there is widespread agreement, such as a legislated ban on cloning, without waiting for the full regulatory bill to be debated and passed.

Manning and Ablonczy are also recommending:

- An immediate increase in the budget of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, including increased funding into the development of stem cells from non-embryonic sources.

- Immediate attention by the Commons health committee to defining the legal status of the embryo in Canada and establishing a regulatory mechanism for ensuring this status is respected by researchers.

- Acceleration of the work schedule of the health committee.

- Scheduling of a debate on the draft bill in the Commons early in the fall.

Conservative Leader Joe Clark has also called for quick passage of a law to ban cloning, saying that science is moving ahead of the political process.

A recent poll found that the overwhelming majority of Canadians oppose human cloning.

-------- health

Predictions on HIV Infections Made

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Drug-resistant-HIV.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The share of HIV infections that are drug-resistant will jump to 42 percent in San Francisco by 2005, according to a team of researchers.

Estimating the current rate of drug resistance at 28.5 percent, the group used a mathematical formula to calculate its likely increase over the next few years.

HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, is the agent that causes AIDS.

The work of the team, led by Dr. Sally M. Blower of the University of California at Los Angeles, is published in Friday's issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

The scientists calculated the increase in drug-resistant HIV since 1997 and used that to extend their forecast into the future.

The primary reason for the increase, they said, is the development of drug resistance in the virus during treatment. The transmission of drug-resistant strains remains low, they said, estimating that it will account for just 16 percent of new HIV cases by 2005.

``The good news is that transmission of drug-resistant HIV will not become a major public health problem,'' Blower said in a statement. ``The bad news is that the prevalence of drug-resistant HIV is already high and will continue to substantially increase.''

A complex combination of drugs is used to treat the disease, but this therapy demands a complicated dosage regimen that is difficult to maintain and often causes severe side effects.

According to the researchers, some physicians may unwittingly contribute to the drug-resistant epidemic if they don't recognize the risks associated with incorrect use of the medications.

``These drugs are as dangerous as chemotherapy,'' said Dr. James Kahn of the University of California at San Francisco, a co-author of the paper. ``General practitioners should not be using them. You really need a skilled HIV specialist to prescribe the medications and closely monitor the patient's adherence and response to treatment.''

In a commentary on the paper, Andrew Phillips of the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London said the findings shed light on a troublesome issue ``and strategies must be developed and applied now if we are to preserve AIDS therapies for the future.''

In their paper, the California team recommends steps to minimize drug-resistant HIV.

--Delay drug treatment as long as possible in order to maximize the medical benefit and reduce side effects and the likelihood of developing drug resistance.

--Create clinical centers of excellence for HIV/AIDS treatment to ensure proper use of drugs and limit the rate of acquired resistance.

--Develop therapies that are more effective for treating patients with drug-resistant viral strains.

--Reduce the amount of time a drug-resistant patient is on ineffective treatment.

--------

AIDS Leads Causes of Thailand Deaths

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Thailand-AIDS-Deaths.html

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- AIDS is the leading cause of death in Thailand -- not heart attacks or accidents as previously thought, health officials said Friday.

AIDS and related complications accounted for 16 percent of all deaths in 1998, said Dr. Chanpen Chuprapawan of the Health Ministry, after examining 20,000 deaths in six provinces.

Accidents, high blood pressure and cancer were other main causes of death, she said.

AIDS ``might have been the No. 1 killer for years, but we had been unaware because of a wrong system of recording data,'' Chanpen said.

Nearly 1 million people in Thailand, a Southeast Asian nation of 61.2 million, have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, since the beginning of the epidemic. Of them, 300,000 have died.

Government statistics previously placed heart attacks as the main cause of death in Thailand, followed by accidents. According to statistics for 1996, the latest year for which figures are available, 79 out of 100,000 people died as the result of heart attacks and 64 were killed in accidents.

But Deputy Public Health Minister Surapong Suebwonglee said those statistics were incorrect because of a flawed system of recording deaths in rural areas.

``Village headmen report most non-accidental deaths as being the result of the heart having stopped beating,'' which were recorded as heart attacks, he said.

``This led to a misconception that most Thais die of heart disease,'' Surapong said.

The Health Ministry has extended its research to 14 provinces nationwide. Preliminary results match those from the six provinces surveyed earlier, Chanpen said.

-------- human rights

Annan opens racism conference

August 31, 2001
By Chris Tomlinson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001831122144.htm

DURBAN, South Africa - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the World Conference Against Racism today with a plea for delegates from around the world to look beyond their individual disputes and develop an international plan to combat prejudice.

``If we leave here without agreement, we should give comfort to the worst elements in society,'' Mr. Annan told delegates from 166 countries and hundreds of human rights organizations. If an agreement is reached, ``we shall send a signal of hope to brave people who struggle against racism all over the world.''

The conference, taking place in the coastal city of Durban, has been plagued by controversy over efforts to condemn Israel for its treatment of Palestinians and demands for reparations for slavery and colonialism. ``Let us rise above our disagreements. The wrangling has gone on for too long,'' Mr. Annan said.

About a dozen heads of state listened to Annan's speech, including Fidel Castro of Cuba, Joseph Kabila of Congo and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was also at the conference.

However, the United States, Canada and Israel refused to send high-level delegations because of proposed wording in the conference's draft final document they considered anti-Semitic or anti-Israel.

Addressing the controversy, Mr. Annan said Jewish suffering during the Holocaust understandably made Jews sensitive to accusations of racism, especially when they coincide with the killing of innocent Jewish civilians.

``Yet we cannot expect Palestinians to accept this as a reason why the wrongs done to them - displacement, occupation, blockade, and now extra-judicial killings - should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them,'' Annan said to a wave of applause.

However, the conference's aim should not be to throw out accusations, but to secure a commitment from every country to draw up a national plan to combat racism, he said.

``Let us admit that all countries have issues of racism and discrimination to address,'' he said.

President Thabo Mbeki said oppressed people around the world had high hopes for the conference and urged the delegates to recognize the effects of slavery and colonialism.

``Our common humanity dictates that as we rise against apartheid racism, so we must combine to defeat the consequences of slavery, colonialism and racism, which, to this day, continue to define the lives of billions of people who are brown and black, as lives of hopelessness,'' he said.

About 10,000 demonstrators, many protesting the treatment of Palestinians by Israel and the slow pace of land redistribution in South Africa, marched through the streets of Durban as the conference opened.

-------- police / prisoners

FBI Statement on Wen Ho Lee Report

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Lee-Statement.html?searchpv=aponline

Statement from FBI spokesman John Collingwood about the government's conclusion that the FBI failed to discover flaws in its Wen Ho Lee spy probe in 1997 after receiving a secret CIA analysis that conflicted with Energy Department findings.

``Clearly our investigation should have included the technical discrepancies of the two nuclear weapons analyses. In 1997, because the investigation was stalled, (FBI Director Louis) Freeh was focused on preventing even greater damage to the weapons program and was fully engaged in helping the Energy Department establish a more vigorous counterintelligence effort. The Bellows report found the inaccurate predicate we received caused us to improperly narrow our focus. We adopted Bellows' recommendations and made other fundamental changes to avoid being in this position in the future.''

--------

Report Details CIA Warning About Lee

August 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Wen-Ho-Lee.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI ``fumbled an extraordinary opportunity'' to recognize its Wen Ho Lee spy investigation was off the mark after receiving a CIA analysis in September 1997 that challenged the underpinnings of the probe, secret sections of a government report show.

Then-Director Louis Freeh was among the FBI officials who received the CIA report, according to unreleased chapters of the government report into the bungled spy probe reviewed by The Associated Press.

Freeh jotted notes on the CIA report and understood its implications, but he did not ensure that his subordinates understood the significance, the report suggested.

``This (CIA) report could have and should have caused the FBI to re-examine the predicate for the entire Wen Ho Lee investigation,'' wrote Randy Bellows, the prosecutor who conducted the review of the government's handling of the Lee matter. Instead, it took three more years before a reassessment was done.

FBI Assistant Director John Collingwood said Thursday night that Freeh was focused on other issues -- guarding against additional losses of nuclear secrets -- at the time the CIA assessment was offered in 1997.

``Because the investigation was stalled, Freeh was focused on preventing even greater damage to the weapons program and was fully engaged in helping the Energy Department establish a more vigorous counterintelligence effort,'' Collingwood said.

But Collingwood said the bureau recognizes now it should have discovered flaws in the investigation much earlier, and has made significant changes -- including those recommended by Bellows -- to ``avoid being in this position in the future.''

Bellows did not return repeated phone calls to his office seeking comment since the government released two heavily censored chapters of the report earlier this month.

AP reviewed parts of the report that have not been publicly released because they contain classified information or sensitive investigative information, such as the CIA assessment.

The still-secret chapters also reveal that Freeh in 1997 told the Energy Department that it should withdraw Lee's security clearance as a scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico, given the suspicions he was a spy. However, Energy officials failed to heed the advice.

At a meeting in the fall of 1997, Freeh told Energy officials to take ``right off the table'' any concerns that pulling Lee's clearance might hurt the criminal investigation, according to notes of the meeting.

Lee in fact kept his clearance for many more months until investigators discovered he had transferred many of America's prized weapons secrets to unsecure computers.

Lee was held in solitary confinement for nine months and indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes. He was never charged with spying, and denied giving information to China.

Under enormous criticism about the way Lee was misportrayed and treated, the case crumbled and the scientist pleaded guilty to just one felony count of downloading sensitive material in exchange for cooperating with the FBI.

Bellows credited Freeh with recognizing early on that ``Wen Ho Lee's continuing access to sensitive nuclear secrets was a problem that needed fixing immediately.''

The report also credited Freeh with pushing hard to repair serious flaws in the Energy Department's counterintelligence operation designed to detect nuclear espionage.

But it also raised the tantalizing question why the FBI, from the highest to the lowest levels, failed to redirect a misguided spy probe in 1997 when the secret CIA assessment indicated the original Energy Department information that caused investigators to focus on Lee was flawed.

The FBI was ``handed and fumbled an extraordinary opportunity to discover the fact that the administrative inquiry fundamentally mischaracterized the predicate for the investigation,'' one secret portion of the report states.

The CIA report was hurriedly prepared in summer 1997 at the request of President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, to evaluate the accuracy of the Energy Department's assessment that Lee may have leaked to China secrets about America's prized W-88 nuclear warhead.

The CIA assessment disputed key elements of the Energy Department's findings, including the authenticity of a 1995 ``walk-in'' document suggesting China had secret information about the W-88 and the range of people who could have assisted China in such spying, the Bellows report said.

The report was faxed to the FBI on Sept. 11, 1997, and was included in briefing materials Freeh received as he familiarized himself with the case, the report said.

Freeh made notations on the CIA document indicating he understood the key issue -- that there was a ``fundamental contradiction between what DOE had told the FBI and what the CIA was telling the FBI.''

``But that point and its implications needed to be understood at a far lower level within the FBI,'' Bellows lamented.

The consequence, the report said, was that ``From May 30, 1996, until early 1999, the FBI investigated the wrong crime.''

-------- terrorism

2 U.S. Embassies In E. Europe Shut

Associated Press
Friday, August 31, 2001; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22174-2001Aug30?language=printer

The U.S. embassies in Bulgaria and Romania were closed indefinitely yesterday after threats against them.

State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said embassy officials wanted to review their security arrangements along with "information about possible threats."

The threats originated in the Middle East, said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The embassies could be reopened today, depending on the results of security checks.


-------- activists

China Charges Activists Mu, Yan with Subversion

August 31, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-china-charges.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Longtime Chinese pro-democracy activists Mu Chuanheng and Yan Peng were formally charged with subversion following their arrests several weeks ago, a spokeswoman for a human rights group said on Friday.

Mu and Yang were charged on Tuesday with incitement to subvert state power and both could face stiff prison sentences, said Julia Kao, spokeswoman for Human Rights in China, a New York-based group.

Officials at the Chinese consulate in New York were not immediately available for comment.

The human rights group will press the International Olympic Committee to pay close attention to China's human rights record as Beijing prepares to host the 2008 Olympic Games, Kao said.

``Human Rights in China will inform the IOC each time a Chinese citizen is penalized for the peaceful expression of their views,'' she said.

Mu was arrested in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao on Aug. 13 for protesting the detention of Yan, who was detained on July 11 on suspicion of illegal emigration, the group said.


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