------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Stamp honors father of the atomic bomb
China, Pakistan Deny Missile Trading
White House: Not Condoning China Nukes
Iraq, WHO agree method for depleted uranium probe
Pakistan's Restraint
U.S. leaking missile plans--on purpose
Nuclear power isn't 'clean'; it's dangerous
Group Seeks Strict Rules on Beryllium
Putin, Sizing Up Bush, Says the Retinue 'Makes the King'

MILITARY
Longer Balkans Mission 'Essential'
Rebels stockpile up to 30 times the weapons collected by
US adopts 'Contras policy' in communist Belarus
An Enforcer Who Sees the Human Side of Drug Battles
Four Explosions Rock Jerusalem
Sharon to Seek Putin Help to End Mideast Violence
Serbian families given legal aid to sue over TV studio bombing
Air Force Fighter Crashes Near Vegas

OTHER
Taiwan Researchers Clone Island's First Cow
New Stem Cell Issue as Congress Returns
Race Conference Seeks Deals on Middle East and Slavery Issues
Israel set to pull out of racism conference
A Tempting Site for Spies' Eyes

ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace: the phenomenon
Legislative/Toast Card Up-date



-------- NUCLEAR

Stamp honors father of the atomic bomb

September 3, 2001
BY JIM RITTER STAFF REPORTER
Chicago Sun Times
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-fermi03.html

Fermilab scientists thought it was a long shot when they asked the U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp honoring the lab's namesake, Enrico Fermi.

Fermi directed the first nuclear chain reaction, designed atom smashers, helped build the atomic bomb and won the Nobel Prize. But he doesn't have the commercial appeal of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and other pop culture icons commemorated by the postal service.

To the scientists' surprise, the stamp was approved, and it will be issued during the upcoming centennial celebration of the great physicist's birth on Sept. 29, 1901.

Fermilab, near west suburban Batavia, is planning a symposium, and the University of Chicago, where Fermi worked, will hold a stamp ceremony, lectures, a Fermi memorabilia display and a Web site contest. The high school student who develops the best Enrico Fermi Web site will win $700.

During the 1930s, Fermi and colleagues in his native Italy bombarded uranium with slow neutrons. Fermi later realized he had split the atom. Fermi won the Nobel Prize in 1938 for that work. His family accompanied him to Sweden to receive the prize, and he took the opportunity to escape Italy's fascist regime.

In 1942, Fermi came to the University of Chicago, where he built the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. The experiment, under the west stands of the university's Stagg Field, led to atom bombs and nuclear power plants.

In a chain reaction, a uranium atom splits apart, releasing neutrons. These neutrons smash into other uranium atoms and split them apart, releasing more neutrons, which split more atoms, and so on. Fermi's crew created a chain reaction by assembling a large pile of purified uranium. When an occasional atom spontaneously split apart, the neutrons it emitted would hit other atoms. The pile also contained graphite bricks, which controlled the speed of neutrons, and control rods, which stopped the chain reaction by soaking up neutrons.

Fermi conducted the experiment on Dec. 2, 1942. At 3:36 p.m., he looked at the instruments, computed the increasing neutron counts on his slide rule and announced, "the reaction is self-sustaining." Then he uncorked a bottle of Chianti.

After World War II, Fermi established the Institute of Nuclear Studies at the U. of C., later renamed the Enrico Fermi Institute.

He helped design the university's synchrocyclotron, at the time one of the world's most powerful atom smashers.

Fermi was among the few physicists who excelled at both theory and experiment. He also was a popular teacher, said retired U. of C. physicist James Cronin, who took several of Fermi's courses.

"He was an extremely clear teacher," Cronin said. "All of the principles he talked about were very simple."

Fermi died in 1954. In 1969, the Fermi National Accelerator, better known as Fermilab, was named in his honor.

The Fermi stamp shows a 1948 photo of the physicist at his chalkboard. The stamp also depicts a model of the carbon atom. Graphite is a form of carbon, and without it, Fermi could not have produced the chain reaction that ushered in the Nuclear Age.

-------- china

China, Pakistan Deny Missile Trading

September 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Pakistan-US-Sanctions.html?searchpv=aponline

BEIJING (AP) -- A state-owned Chinese company and the Pakistani government on Monday denied U.S. accusations that they have been trading in missile technology.

An executive of China Metallurgical Equipment Corp. said it had made sales to Pakistan, but only of civilian equipment, while Pakistan's Foreign Ministry called the sanctions ``regrettable and without any justification.'' It accused Washington of being more critical of Pakistan's military industries than those of its rival, India.

On Saturday, the United States accused the Chinese company of violating a Chinese commitment not to spread missile technology. Sanctions imposed bar U.S. companies from launching satellites on Chinese rockets and providing help to China's satellite industry.

``Our company firmly obeys the relevant regulations of the Chinese government,'' said an executive in the general manager's office of the Chinese company. He would give only his surname, Wang.

The firm is accused of exporting technology in a category that includes flight-control systems for missiles and rocket components. Wang denied that, saying, ``All of the equipment that we export to Pakistan is for civil use.''

However, he wouldn't give any details of the company's business dealings with Pakistan.

The company's Web site says it sells equipment for mining, communications, power generation and heavy industry. It makes no mention of weapons but says the company supplied equipment for a copper and gold mine in Pakistan.

Pakistan's foreign ministry echoed an earlier denial from its state-run National Development Complex, which was accused of buying the technology.

``Pakistan has not received any technology or equipment from China,'' the foreign ministry said in a written statement.

The Pakistani company already has been under U.S. sanctions since 1998, when the country conducted underground nuclear tests to match similar tests by rival India.

Washington's latest accusation comes less than two months before President Bush is to make his first visit to China.

Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Beijing in July and told Chinese leaders the United States thought China wasn't abiding by its arms agreement. A team of U.S. experts visited Beijing last month for talks on proliferation, and American officials said afterward the talks ended with some of their questions unanswered.

Last month, another Chinese firm, China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corp., denied a report in a U.S. newspaper, The Washington Times, that it provided missile technology to Pakistan. The Chinese foreign ministry also dismissed the reports as ``groundless rumors.''

Many countries are concerned about the costly nuclear and missile arms race between Pakistan and India, who have fought three wars since they were carved out of British India in 1947.

The Pakistani foreign ministry complained Washington is targeting only Pakistani companies, while no action is being taken against its big neighbor.

During the Cold War years, Pakistan was considered a close ally of the United States, particularly during the 1979 invasion of neighboring Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union.

But with the end of the Cold War, relations between Pakistan and the United States soured. Washington stopped all humanitarian and military aid in 1990 to press Islamabad to roll back its nuclear program, but Pakistan refused.

--------

White House: Not Condoning China Nukes

September 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-China.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration denies that its plan to update China on U.S. missile defense plans is a signal it condones a nuclear weapons buildup by Beijing.

China will get an update on the American plans before President Bush visits Beijing next month as the United States tries to convince other countries that the proposed shield is not a threat, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Sunday.

``This is part of the administration's outreach to China and other nations such as Russia to discuss with them the reason why we are developing a missile defense system and how it is designed to protect us from rogue nations or accidental launches,'' Fleischer said in a telephone interview.

He denied the administration was courting China's support of the missile defense system in exchange for U.S. acceptance of a nuclear or military buildup by Beijing, as reported Sunday by The New York Times.

U.S. policy remains unchanged in discouraging China and other nations from testing and building nuclear arsenals, Fleischer said.

Rather, he said, officials want to convince China and others that U.S. plans for a missile shield would counter threats from rogue nations rather than compromise their defense systems.

Some critics have said the U.S. missile defense system would prompt China and other nations to improve their arsenals.

The United States might raise the future possibility of underground tests being resumed in both nations, according to the Times and The Washington Post.

Initial Capitol Hill reaction to those reports was critical.

``I would not like to see the Chinese expand their nuclear capabilities,'' Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Sunday on CBS' ``Face the Nation.'' ``I think it is much too soon to even think about matters that offset our missile defense.''

Fleischer said, however, the White House is pursuing missile defense ``separate and apart'' from China's desire to expand its limited arsenal of nuclear missiles. ``The United States has made it clear and continues to make it clear that a military buildup there is not necessary.''

He also said there was no change in U.S. policy on the testing of nuclear weapons, now precluded by a worldwide moratorium. ``We have no plans to resume testing,'' the spokesman said.

``The president thinks it is important to consult with our allies and other nations,'' he added.

China is ``the coming colossus of the world and a superpower,'' said Specter, just back from a trip to China. ``I would not want to see them become any more powerful in the nuclear line. I think we ought to formulate our policy in many different ways to try to avoid just that.''

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said on CNN's ``Late Edition'' that the United States ``ought to try to continue to put pressure on the Chinese and others not to have offensive weapons buildup. Our entire approach ought to be to reduce the nuclear threat, not increase it.''

Fleischer said the system is intended to protect the United States and its allies from hostile nations with missile capabilities such as Iran, Iraq and Libya.

``Other nations have nothing to worry about from American development of a missile defense system,'' he said. ``It will protect the peace in the world ... when the real threat to peace are these rogue nations.''

China fears the missile shield would undercut the deterrent effect of its small nuclear arsenal.

A missile shield, now in its early stages of development, would knock enemy missiles out of the sky before they reach the United States.

China now has some two dozen missiles aimed at the United States; experts say that number could increase tenfold over the next 10 years.


-------- depleted uranium

Iraq, WHO agree method for depleted uranium probe

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
IRAQ: September 3, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12246/newsDate/3-Sep-2001/story.htm

BAGHDAD - A team from the World Health Organisation concluded last week initial talks with Iraq on the methodology to research a possible link between cancer and depleted uranium weapons used by Western forces in the Gulf War.

The Iraqi News Agency said Iraqi officials agreed to allow the WHO team to conduct field research and have access to the mainly southern areas that were bombarded using depleted uranium shells in the 1991 war.

The team, whose mission is expected to last two years, will also launch a comprehensive study to assess the state of public health in Iraq since the war, which together with U.N. sanctions drove Iraq's economy, education and public health system to collapse.

Baghdad says depleted uranium, which is used to harden shells so they can pierce heavy armour, is behind a growing environmental disaster and a sharp rise in cancer cases and birth defects.

Official newspaper al-Thawra last week quoted studies saying that the US-led coalition used 944,000 depleted uranium shells on Iraq during the Gulf War.

Fears about the health risks to troops using depleted uranium weapons arose after six Italian soldiers died of leukaemia following exposure to weapons while serving in the former Yugoslavia.

Other European nations including France, Spain and Belgium have also reported an increase in cancer cases among soldiers exposed to depleted uranium, but NATO says there is no scientific evidence to link the illnesses to the controversial weapons.

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan's Restraint

New York Times
SEP 03, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/opinion/L03PAKI.html?pagewanted=print

To the Editor:
Re "India and the Bomb" (editorial, Aug. 28):

You stress nuclear restraint in South Asia, but end up advocating the same double standard that is mainly responsible for the failure of all nonproliferation efforts in the region. While you urge American "appeals" to India to restrain its nuclear weapons program, you advise Congress to continue nuclear sanctions on Pakistan, even though you acknowledge that it was India's nuclear tests in 1998 that forced Pakistan to respond. Selective policing of the nonproliferation regime is the problem, not the solution.

The question of nuclear sanctions on Pakistan should not be confused with other issues. President Pervez Musharraf has announced a detailed road map for the restoration of democracy by October 2002. Pakistan's cooperation with international counterterrorism efforts is well known.

Pakistan continues forcefully to advocate nuclear restraint so that South Asia can avoid a destructive arms race and our resources can be spent on urgent economic and social objectives.

MALEEHA LODHI Ambassador of Pakistan Washington, Aug. 28, 2001

-------- missile defense

U.S. leaking missile plans--on purpose

September 3, 2001
BY ANJETTA MCQUEEN
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-mcd03.html

WASHINGTON--China will get an update on U.S. missile defense plans before President Bush visits Beijing next month as the United States tries to convince other countries that the proposed shield is not a threat, the White House said Sunday.

''This is part of the administration's outreach to China and other nations such as Russia to discuss with them the reason why we are developing a missile defense system and how it is designed to protect us from rogue nations or accidental launches,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in a telephone interview.

''It is something we are hoping they will support because it is not aimed at China,'' he said. ''The president thinks it is important to consult with our allies and other nations.''

Fleischer denied that the Bush administration was courting China's support of the missile defense system in exchange for U.S. acceptance of a nuclear or military buildup by Beijing, as reported in Sunday's New York Times.

The White House is pursuing missile defense ''separate and apart'' from the issue of China's desire to expand its limited arsenal of nuclear missiles, Fleischer said. ''The United States has made it clear and continues to make it clear that a military buildup there is not necessary.''

He also said there was no change in U.S. policy on the testing of nuclear weapons, now precluded by a worldwide moratorium.

''We have no plans to resume testing,'' Fleischer said.

The United States might raise the future possibility of underground tests being resumed in both nations, according to the Times and the Washington Post.

Initial Capitol Hill reaction to those reports was critical.

''I would not like to see the Chinese expand their nuclear capabilities,'' Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday on CBS' ''Face the Nation. ''I think it is much too soon to even think about matters that offset our missile defense.''

China is ''the coming colossus of the world and a superpower,'' said Specter (R-Pa.), who added he had just returned from a China trip where he talked with government leaders. ''I would not want to see them become any more powerful in the nuclear line. I think we ought to formulate our policy in many different ways to try to avoid just that.''

-------- nuc power

Nuclear power isn't 'clean'; it's dangerous

By Helen Caldicott,
9/3/2001
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/246/oped/Nuclear_power_isn_t_clean_it_s_dangerous+.shtml

AMONG THE many departures from the truth by opponents of the Kyoto protocol, one of the most invidious is that nuclear power is ''clean'' and, therefore, the answer to global warming.

We heard this during the last round of talks in Bonn, and we can expect to hear more of the same as we move closer to the next round of Kyoto talks that are coming up in Marrakesh in October and November.

However, the cleanliness of nuclear power is nonsense. Not only does it contaminate the planet with long-lived radioactive waste, it significantly contributes to global warming.

While it is claimed that there is little or no fossil fuel used in producing nuclear power, the reality is that enormous quantities of fossil fuel are used to mine, mill and enrich the uranium needed to fuel a nuclear power plant, as well as to construct the enormous concrete reactor itself.

Indeed, a nuclear power plant must operate for 18 years before producing one net calorie of energy. (During the 1970s the United States deployed seven 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants to enrich its uranium, and it is still using coal to enrich much of the world's uranium.) So, to recoup the equivalent of the amount of fossil fuel used in preparation and construction before the first switch is thrown to initiate nuclear fission, the plant must operate for almost two decades.

But that is not the end of fossil fuel use because disassembling nuclear plants at the end of their 30- to 40-year operating life will require yet more vast quantities of energy. Taking apart, piece by radioactive piece, a nuclear reactor and its surrounding infrastructure is a massive operation: Imagine, for example, the amount of petrol, diesel, and electricity that would be used if the Sydney Opera House were to be dismantled. That's the scale we're talking about.

And that is not the end of fossil use because much will also be required for the final transport and longterm storage of nuclear waste generated by every reactor.

From a medical perspective, nuclear waste threatens global health. The toxicity of many elements in this radioactive mess is long-lived.

Strontium 90, for example, is tasteless, odorless, and invisible and remains radioactive for 600 years. Concentrating in the food chain, it emulates the mineral calcium. Contaminated milk enters the body, where strontium 90 concentrates in bones and lactating breasts later to cause bone cancer, leukemia, and breast cancer. Babies and children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults.

Plutonium, the most significant element in nuclear waste, is so carcinogenic that hypothetically half a kilo evenly distributed could cause cancer in everyone on Earth.

Lasting for half a million years, it enters the body through the lungs where it is known to cause cancer. It mimics iron in the body, migrating to bones, where it can induce bone cancer or leukemia, and to the liver, where it can cause primary liver cancer. It crosses the placenta into the embryo and, like the drug thalidomide, causes gross birth deformities.

Finally, plutonium has a predilection for the testicles, where it induces genetic mutations in the sperm of humans and other animals that are passed on from generation to generation.

Significantly, five kilos of plutonium is fuel for a nuclear weapon. Thus far, nuclear power has generated about 1,139 tons of plutonium.

So, nuclear power adds to global warming, increases the burden of radioactive materials in the ecosphere and threatens to contribute to nuclear proliferation. No doubt the Australian government is keen to assist the uranium industry, but the immorality of its position is unforgivable.

Dr. Helen Caldicottis founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. This column originally appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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

Group Seeks Strict Rules on Beryllium

September 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Beryllium-Exposure.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A watchdog group wants government to lower the amount of the metal beryllium that U.S. workers can be exposed to while on the job. The metal has been linked to a fatal lung disease.

Public Citizen, a nonprofit group founded by Ralph Nader, argues that the current standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are lax and put workers at risk.

The metal is used in electronics, recycling, machining and dental industries because it is lightweight and resilient. Public Citizen wants the exposure standard for beryllium particles changed from 2 micrograms per cubic meter to 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter.

``OSHA's failure to adopt a standard that will protect workers from unnecessary beryllium exposure is unconscionable,'' said Peter Lure, director of Public Citizen's health research group. ``Every day the agency ignores this issue, tens of thousands of workers are needlessly exposed to this life-threatening hazard.''

Public Citizen said it was filing a petition with OSHA seeking the changes. OSHA spokeswoman Bonnie Friedman said the agency had not received the petition as of Friday afternoon and declined to comment on it.

Public Citizen is also asking for rules that would mandate annual blood testing for all workers who deal with the metal.

Beryllium disease once was associated primarily with the defense industry, where the metal was used in nuclear weapons, but it is increasingly common among workers in private and consumer industries.

The disease, caused when the metal's dust slowly damages the lungs of people who have been exposed, is rare, incurable and often fatal.

The number of beryllium disease cases among workers in private industries has increased in the past few years, according to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, a leading respiratory disease hospital.

The Labor Department is providing compensation for workers who contracted beryllium disease while working at weapons plants. The law provides medical care and $150,000 to sick workers.

-------- us nuc politics

Putin, Sizing Up Bush, Says the Retinue 'Makes the King'

New York Times
September 3, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/international/europe/03RUSS.html?searchpv=nytToday

MOSCOW, Sept. 2 - President Vladimir V. Putin said this weekend that he believes that George W. Bush has a strong reliance on a powerful circle of aides, but that this circle is still struggling over its priorities, especially in regard to the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

In an interview with a Finnish newspaper held Saturday before Mr. Putin's departure for Finland today, the Russian leader was asked to evaluate the first seven months of the Bush administration. He said he found his American counterpart "a comfortable and substantive partner," but at the same time added that he had come to believe in the "correctness of the expression that it is the retinue" of aides "that makes the king."

"Of course, it is he who makes the final decision," Mr. Putin added, according to a transcript of the interview issued by his press service, "but we have a feeling that his team has not determined some priorities yet."

Only when they do, he added, "will our dialogue take on a substantive character."

The Russian leader seemed to confer a negative judgment on the quality of consultations that have been under way since the two leaders met in Slovenia and Genoa this summer. Moreover, his remarks indicated that Russian officials sense that the debate in Washington over how to proceed with missile defense is still under way and may undergo further change as the White House contemplates a battle in Congress over funding for a $60 billion project whose effectiveness has been intensely debated.

An influential Russian legislator said here tonight that Russian officials have been urging Mr. Putin to take a "more measured tone" in speaking publicly about Mr. Bush's plans on missile defense.

"Frankly, I do not think it is in our interest to stir up an excessive dust storm on this subject," said Vladimir P. Lukin, a deputy speaker of the Russian Parliament and former ambassador to Washington. Whatever Washington does, Russia's nuclear deterrent will remain unaffected by American missile defenses for at least 10 to 15 years, he said, "so we have no need to be hysterical."

"It is the American authorities who are interested in destroying this treaty," Mr. Lukin continued, "They must deal with the problems this creates with their opposition in Congress, with their allies, with China as it increases its nuclear buildup; it is your problem how to avoid stimulating an arms race with India and Pakistan."

And, he added, "if they have the money to build the most excessive response to the least probable threat situation, that's O.K."

Since his first meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Putin has met with each of Mr. Bush's principal advisers: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who accompanied Mr. Bush to Slovenia in June; Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security aide who traveled to Moscow in July; and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who visited here in August.

Russian officials complained during the summer that they were confused by the variety of statements from Washington on whether the Bush administration plans to negotiate a new strategic accord to replace the ABM treaty and to cut nuclear stockpiles further, or whether it is preparing to act alone.

Last month, a senior State Department official, John R. Bolton, traveled to Moscow and said in a radio interview that Washington wanted Russian agreement to amend the ABM treaty by the time Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin meet in November in Crawford, Tex. Without such an agreement, Mr. Bolton said, the United States reserved the right to withdraw under terms of the treaty.

But Mr. Bolton asserted the next day that Washington was not laying down any deadlines. Two days later, Mr. Bush stepped in and said the United States "will withdraw from the ABM treaty on our own timetable at a time convenient to America," but he added that he had no "specific timetable in mind."

Speaking to the Finnish interviewer, Mr. Putin expressed concern that the United States under Mr. Bush might be taking the position that "America is so strong that it does not need any negotiations and any agreements." He said this represents the "most extreme" and "toughest" approach to international relations.

Despite those concerns, Mr. Putin said Russia would not overreact if the United States did decide to withdraw from the ABM treaty. Moscow would continue to work in its foreign policy to rebuild its economy while maintaining "good-natured" relations with its neighbors and main partners. He added that "we, for sure, consider the United States one of them."

If the United States decides to abandon the treaty approach, Mr. Putin said, "Well, what is to be done? If this is the way, we can only throw up our hands. But even in this event, we will not whip up any hysteria."

In the case of NATO's planned expansion, to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the Russians did lobby vigorously against the increase, only to look powerless when they lost the argument. In the interview on Saturday, Mr. Putin coined the new watchword of the Russian leadership - "calm."

Over the last several days, both Mr. Putin and his minister of defense, Sergei B. Ivanov, have repeated this mantra in public statements, refraining from warning that Russia could react to a missile shield by putting multiple warheads on a new generation of its missiles.

With the new tone, Mr. Putin appeared to be speaking to a European audience, framing Russia's position as reasonable, consistent and stable, while suggesting that the Bush administration was teetering on recklessness.

"You said that Europe is somewhat concerned about the relations between Russia and the United States," Mr. Putin told the Finnish journalist Saturday. "I would like to calm you down. Russia, at least, is not doing anything that would complicate the international situation."

"We don't violate any of the obligations that we undertook," Mr. Putin said. "We are told that something got obsolete like 1972 ABM treaty. It's not what we say, it's what we are told. We disagree that this treaty is obsolete; nevertheless, expressing good will, we are ready for negotiations."


-------- MILITARY

-------- balkans

Longer Balkans Mission 'Essential'

Sky News
Monday September 03, 2001
http://www.sky.com/skynews/storytemplate/storytoppic/0,,30200-1028296,00.html

The US has admitted that Nato may be in Macedonia beyond the 30-day limit set by the alliance.

And James Pardew, US envoy to Macedonia, said not only would the mission probably get longer, but the force would get bigger, and the task would be expanded.

Sceptical

"I think an international presence to stabilise the situation in larger numbers than we have there now is probably essential in the near future," he said.

Analysts have been sceptical of the 30 days Nato said it would take to disarm Macedonia's rebel NLA, and said once in the country, it would be dificult to withdraw and risk the country tipping back towards war.

Around 1,900 British troops are leading Operation Essential Harvest, whose job is to collect and destroy the NLA's weapons as part of a peace deal between the rebels and the government.

But Pardew said there may be a need for a continued military presence in Macedonia to help keep the peace and provide security for international monitors in the region.

Uncertain

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said Nato ministers were discussing how the international community could help stabilise Macedonia after the planned end of the 30-day mission.

Asked what form the help might take, he replied: "It is something that will obviously have to be looked at in the light of the success of the operation to collect weapons."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw indicated last week that soldiers might remain in Macedonia, saying: "My best bet is the decision will stand and at 30 days this operation will come to... an end, but I can't be certain."

--------

Rebels stockpile up to 30 times the weapons collected by Nato

The Herald (UK)
IAN BRUCE
Sept 3rd
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/3-9-19101-0-18-20.html

THE Albanian rebel army which last week handed over more than 3000 weapons to British and French soldiers in Macedonia still has 30 times that amount of firepower stashed in hidden caches, and could resume hostilities within days if the fragile ceasefire breaks down.

A secret Nato intelligence report claims that the self-styled National Liberation Army still has up to 8000 modern assault rifles, 25,000 second world war-vintage firearms, 55,000 pistols, more than 200 heavy machine-guns, 200 sniper rifles, about 50 anti-aircraft missiles, and 300 anti-tank missiles.

It also has 200 mortars and a stock of 5000 landmines. Most are concealed in mountain caves or buried in cellars or under manure piles in remote villages.

The report tallies almost exactly with the Macedonian government's own intelligence estimate of the NLA's 90,000 available arms, and supports the accusation that the collection of hardware is a token gesture at best.

The NLA claims that it could field six "brigades" numbering about 16,000 fighters. Nato sources say the total is closer to 2500, although in an emergency, substantial reinforcements from the former Kosovo Liberation Army would infiltrate from the neighbouring province.

Nato troops on the mountainous border detained almost 200 suspected guerrillas crossing into Kosovo from Macedonia last week as Operation Essential Harvest got under way.

There are also at least 2000-3000 "second echelon" members of the NLA, non-combatants who carry out reconnaissance, supply, and communications jobs, and do not wear uniform. A source said: "These volunteers are not front-line guerrillas, but most of them possess weapons.

"There was a gun culture in the Balkans before the Americans enshrined the right to bear arms in their constitution in 1776. Every Albanian male and most Slavs own rifles.

"When Albania's government collapsed in 1997, upwards of 500,000 military-grade rifles and machine-guns were looted from army barracks.

"These are now scattered all over the region. Many were used to oppose Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999.

"On the other side, when the ethnic Albanian uprising started six months ago, a panicked Macedonian government handed out hundreds of assault rifles to Slav civilians, ostensibly to allow them to defend themselves.

"In practice, it allowed certain groups of hardliners to form paramilitary units whose only purpose is to terrorise their ethnic Albanian fellow-countrymen if the opportunity arises."

The NLA is not, however, alone in retaining its capacity for further conflict. Macedonia has sent helicopter crews to Ukraine to be trained to fly and fight Hind-D helicopter gunships.

The five Hinds bought from Ukraine this year have been manned by Ukrainian "volunteers" during the periodic government offensives against rebel enclaves north of Tetovo, the country's second city.

This ageing but still highly effective aircraft was nicknamed "The Devil's Cross", because of its shape, by Afghan mujahideen during their guerrilla campaign against Russian occupation in the 1980s.

The mujahideen learned to fear the Hind more than any other weapon because of its ferocious array of rockets, cannon, machine-guns, and grenade launchers. Helicopter gunships are specifically designed for counter-insurgency.

Meanwhile, Macedonia's parliament will today resume a key debate necessary to move along the peace effort with the Albanian rebels, putting the process back on track after a day in limbo when speaker Stojan Andov suspended discussion.

Andov had insisted on a presidential guarantee that everyone who fled fighting could return home safely. Up to 120,000 people remain displaced by the fighting.

-------- belarus

US adopts 'Contras policy' in communist Belarus

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 03 2001
The Times (uk)
FROM ALICE LAGNADO IN MOSCOW

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001303768,00.html

THE US Embassy in Belarus has admitted that it is pursuing a policy similar to that in 1980s Nicaragua, in which anti-government Contra rebels were funded and supported.

President Lukashenko, a dictatorial Communist, is heading for victory in presidential elections on Sunday.

In an unusual admission, Michael Kozak, the US Ambassador to Belarus, said in a letter to a British newspaper that America's "objective and to some degree methodology are the same" in Belarus as in Nicaragua, where the US backed the Contras against the left-wing Sandinista Government in a war that claimed at least 30,000 lives. Mr Kozak was not available for comment.

Washington said recently that allegations of state-sanctioned death squads operating in Belarus, Europe's last bastion of communism, were "credible". Two former state prosecutors, who have been granted political asylum in America, have said that victims were murdered with a special pistol and buried in a cemetery in Minsk.

The ambassador's disclosure has coincided with moves by the Bush Administration to gain increased political influence in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and with reports in several European newspapers, which said that former US servicemen believed to be working for the CIA were escorted with Albanian guerrillas from a village in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia earlier this year.

Earlier in his career, Mr Kozak served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs under Presidents Reagan and Bush, working in Panama, Nicaragua and El Salvador, and was Ambassador to Cuba. While Mr Kozak was serving in Nicaragua, Mr Reagan famously compared the Contras to the French Resistance fighters.

President Lukashenko is popular and most Belarussians fear that a new, pro-Western leader would bring the poverty experienced by many Russians and Ukrainians after the transition to a market economy.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in Minsk told The Times that the embassy helped to fund 300 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including non-state media, but did not fund political parties, since that is banned by law. He admitted that some of the NGOs were linked to those who were "seeking political change".

-------- drug war

PUBLIC LIVES
An Enforcer Who Sees the Human Side of Drug Battles

New York Times
September 3, 2001
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/politics/03LIVE.html

WASHINGTON - IT was an invitation that Asa Hutchinson could not refuse: "I want you to go to a rave with me, Dad."

Mr. Hutchinson's initial reaction was no surprise for a congressman who had just been nominated to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration. "It's a bad idea," he told Seth, his 18- year-old son, to go to a rave, a huge, all-night party fueled by earsplitting, hard techno music and, often, club drugs like Ecstasy and methamphetamines.

But Seth persisted, arguing that not all ravegoers are drug users, and Mr. Hutchinson, sensing a father-son moment and an interesting learning experience, relented.

"It's a parent-son thing for me at this point," said Mr. Hutchinson, 50, whose vibe is more - way more - crisp and clean-cut than grunge and hipster-cool.

Before long, his son had posted his father's appearance on the rave's Web site, and the rave's promoter had asked to meet the congressman. Hours before he was set to go, the drug agency got wind of it, tracked him down and waved him off.

"Not a good idea," Mr. Hutchinson said he was told. "The promoter was going to get arrested that night for distributing 1,000 pills of Ecstasy."

Talk about an auspicious start at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

As its new director, Mr. Hutchinson hopes to make the fight against club drugs one of his priorities. Club drugs, he said, are more difficult to intercept than some other drugs because they come in pill form and are easier to conceal.

It was just three months ago that the former Arkansas congressman, who is respected and lauded by both Republicans and Democrats, got a call from the White House, asking if he was interested in the job. A former United States attorney in Arkansas who had developed some expertise on drug issues, Mr. Hutchinson said the thought had not crossed his mind, and while he believed in the mission, he was not sure he wanted to give up his House seat.

"I need a call from the president," he told the White House adviser. When it came, he said yes to President Bush on the phone. "I'm old- fashioned that way," Mr. Hutchinson added. "I don't believe you turn the president down."

Born in Bentonville, Ark., Mr. Hutchinson grew up on a farm, one of six siblings. His father and mother started a local Christian radio station and the Benton County Christian School, and Mr. Hutchinson attended Bob Jones University. Mr. Hutchinson, who is easygoing and unshakable, also graduated from the University of Arkansas Law School. He is married to Susan Burrell and has four children and one grandchild, Asa IV.

Mr. Hutchinson made his most notable mark in the House as one of the impeachment managers who prosecuted President Bill Clinton in his 1999 Senate trial. His performance was viewed by lawmakers in both parties as thorough and deliberative without seeming overly partisan. The former president was not the first Clinton Mr. Hutchinson had prosecuted. In 1984, he sent Mr. Clinton's half-brother, Roger Clinton, to prison on cocaine charges.

Mr. Hutchinson glided through his Senate confirmation hearing. His brother, Senator Tim Hutchinson, introduced him and said kind things, as expected. But his foe during the impeachment proceedings, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, one of Mr. Clinton's chief defenders, also showed up to praise him. And Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Mr. Hutchinson a man of "integrity and intelligence."

"It was one of the most gratifying things that happened to me in Congress," Mr. Hutchinson said of the cascade of compliments.

But his new job ranks high in the thankless and difficult category. It might remind some of the portrayal in the movie "Traffic" of a tormented, but fictional, White House drug adviser. (Mr. Hutchinson's job is part of the Justice Department.)

What Mr. Hutchinson hopes to bring to the job, which he started this month, is a sense that drug trafficking and drug use are about real people and complex, everyday situations, he said. He knows this firsthand. A nephew committed suicide at 16 after being addicted to drugs. His parents had sent him to rehabilitation several times, but the problems persisted.

"It's extraordinary the battles people face when it comes to substance abuse and addiction," Mr. Hutchinson said.

Although he does not play down the law enforcement side of his job, which he calls essential in deterring drug dealing and drug use, he is just as quick to underscore the need for drug education and rehabilitation, especially for nonviolent offenders. "You're not going to arrest your way out of this problem," he said. "The risk itself is not enough."

And it is especially important in this job, he said, "to see the human side of it and for the public to understand that you see the human side of it."

As for the drug agency's international presence, Mr. Hutchinson said that fighting drugs abroad, in places like Colombia, Mexico and the Netherlands, was a crucial piece of the puzzle.

While the drug agency often gets a bad rap, Mr. Hutchinson said his predecessors and their drug policies had not failed. Drug use is down, despite a recent upward spike.

"It's difficult because we have changing leaders, and they change focus," he acknowledged. "Consistency is lacking. That's the biggest thing - to keep America engaged."

-------- israel

Four Explosions Rock Jerusalem

September 3, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international/mideast.html?searchpv=reuters

JERUSALEM, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Four bombs exploded in Jerusalem and Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a Palestinian intelligence post on Monday, overshadowing efforts to arrange a new round of Middle East truce talks.

Despite the latest violence, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he might meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on the sidelines of a business conference in Italy on Friday in hopes of arranging a ceasefire after nearly a year of violence.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana was due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Arafat separately on Monday to pave the way for possible talks.

``We are here to work as close as possible, as intensely as possible to see if that meeting can take place,'' Solana told reporters in the West Bank city of Jericho.

Arafat and Peres shared the Nobel Peace prize in 1994 for their role in reaching interim peace accords, but recent meetings between them have done little to curb the violence.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist group, claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem bomb blasts, which slightly injured five people a week after Israel assassinated its leader in a missile strike.

Three of the bombs exploded in Jerusalem's French Hill, parts of which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. One exploded in a car, injuring two passersby, another blew up near an apartment building and a third under a truck.

The fourth bomb exploded beneath a truck in the Jewish settlement of Gilo, injuring three people. Attacks on Gilo, built on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, are especially sensitive because most Israelis regard it as part of Jerusalem.

GUNSHIP ATTACK

Israeli helicopter gunships responded to the bombings by launching a missile strike against the office of the Palestinian General Intelligence service in the West Bank town of Dura, near Hebron. Witnesses said three people were slightly wounded.

The missiles punched holes in the roof of the one-storey building, wrecking the offices within. Several cars parked outside were reduced to charred, mangled wreckage.

The Israeli army said the strike was its answer to Monday's bombings and attacks across the West Bank the day before.

Two Israelis were shot and wounded in separate shooting incidents on Monday, Israeli police said. One was identified as a settler shot near the West Bank city of Hebron.

The death toll in 11 months of bloodshed crept higher when 25-year-old Palestinian Khaled Awaja died of wounds sustained during an Israeli raid in the Gaza Strip three days earlier, medical officials said.

At least 551 Palestinians and 157 Israelis have been killed since the start last September of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank after peace talks stalled.

Telephone diplomacy between Peres and Arafat last week led to an Israeli withdrawal from parts of the Palestinian-ruled town of Beit Jala near Jerusalem after a two-day reoccupation intended to stop gunmen using it as a position to shoot at Gilo, a short distance away across a shallow valley.

HOPES FOR A CEASEFIRE

Peres said the Palestinians would decide if a business conference near the Italian city of Milan was the proper venue for a meeting after Arafat returned from a U.N. conference against racism in Durban, South Africa.

Asked if the two would be able to arrange a ceasefire, Peres told Army Radio: ``That is my hope.''

Speaking to reporters after meeting Jordanian leaders in Amman on Monday, Arafat said there were no concrete plans yet for talks with Peres. ``The important thing is what we will discuss (at any meeting),'' he said.

Peres has dampened expectations for any breakthrough, as have Palestinian officials.

``It has to be well-prepared and it has to be a certain idea to continue in the future,'' Solana said. ``This is not easy and therefore we don't want to create expectations that may not be realised.''

Israeli diplomacy was also focused on the U.N. racism conference, from which it was considering withdrawing unless wording condemning Israeli policies against Palestinians as racist was removed from draft resolutions.

Peres said the Israeli delegation would follow the lead of the United States, which was also threatening to pull out.

Israel sent a low-level delegation to the conference in Durban to protest against language called for by Arab states accusing Israel of ``apartheid'' and ``crimes against humanity.''

U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos said on Sunday that Norway had proposed a compromise resolution acceptable to Washington.

A parallel global meeting of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) branded Israel a ``racist apartheid'' state on Sunday for its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

--------

Sharon to Seek Putin Help to End Mideast Violence

September 3, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-russia-sharon.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will urge Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to persuade Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to halt 11 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Sharon arrived in Moscow late on Monday ahead of the Kremlin talks after meeting E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who is trying to facilitate a meeting later this week between Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on the crisis.

The Palestinians blame Israel for the spiraling violence which has cost the lives of more than 700 people and pushed trust to new lows.

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said that Sharon would also use his visit to press Russia to stop the transfer of nuclear and missile know-how to regional rival Iran.

``His main aim is to persuade Putin, who is his personal friend, to put pressure on Arafat to stop the violence,'' Pazner told Reuters.

``Second, he wants Russia to make a major effort to stop the transfer of Russian technology toward Iran, to try to prevent Iran building a nuclear bomb, and missiles, which could carry the bomb all over. There's a sizeable amount of Russian technology that has been going for years to Iran.''

One potential embarrassment has been removed, however, with the cancellation of a visit to Moscow by the Iranian defense minister during Sharon's stay. No new date was announced.

Tehran does not recognize Israel and calls for its destruction as the only solution to the Middle East problem.

BOLSTER ECONOMIC TIES

Sharon also hopes to strengthen economic and political ties with Moscow on his first trip to Russia since his election in February on a promise to increase Israelis' security.

``It is very important to strengthen Israel's relations with Russia,'' Sharon told Russian reporters in Israel.

His reputation as Mr. Security has won Sharon popularity among the large community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who make up more than one million of Israel's six million population and helped him to a landslide election victory.

Sharon, who leaves Russia on Thursday, is also have talks with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and the speakers of Russia's two houses of parliament.

Moscow, a co-sponsor of the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, has been trying to play a bigger role in the Middle East, where its influence has waned since the end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Russia hopes to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to implement a blueprint for ending violence and resuming peace talks drawn up by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.

The Mitchell plan has failed to take effect and a cease-fire agreed by both sides with U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet in June is in tatters.

Palestinians expect no major progress from Sharon's talks in Moscow, but a Palestinian delegation is expected in Russia later this week to discuss the outcome of Sharon's visit.

-------- nato

Serbian families given legal aid to sue over TV studio bombing

By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
03 September 2001
Independent (uk)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/europe/story.jsp?story=92018

The families of victims of the Nato bombing raid on a Belgrade television studio have been given legal aid to sue the United Kingdom and 16 other countries over allegations that the attack was illegal under European law.

A Colchester law firm has been instructed by the Serbian families to help win compensation and secure a ruling that would define the parameters for future Nato operations. At a test case to be heard by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg next month, British lawyers representing the Nato member states will challenge the court's jurisdiction before denying accusations that the countries breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

The families' lawyer, Tony Fisher, said the legal aid had been awarded by the European court to help pay for legal representation to respond to Nato's "preliminary observations".

The attack on the studios in April 1999 was part of a 78-day bombing campaign designed to force the Yugoslav government of former president Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw its forces from Kosovo and stop the persecution of ethnic Albanians. Nato justified its attack on the television station, in which 16 died and at least 16 were injured, by saying that it was broadcasting propaganda that was being picked up and retransmitted by Western media.

Most of the casualties were production workers and one was a make-up artist. Among the victims was Ksenija Bankovic, 26, a video technician. Her mother and father are one of the four families who together with one survivor are taking the legal action.

Mr Fisher, whose firm was instructed because of its close links with the internationally renowned human rights centre at Essex University, said his clients had brought the action against 17 Nato states which "took part in or approved the attack". The two other member states of Nato - the United States and Canada - are not subject to the jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The families claim the European Nato members breached the right to life and right of freedom of expression protected under the Convention. The application was first initiated by the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.

The British Government and other Nato members have been asked to answer questions about what alternative action was open to them before they sanctioned the bombing. They have also been asked whether the attack constituted a use of "lethal force which was strictly necessary".

Under the court's rules, all 17 respondent states have now appointed a French judge as the "common interest" judge to help co-ordinate the case.

Mr Fisher said he hoped to receive further funding from the court to attend a preliminary hearing scheduled to take place on 24 October. He said the families' case was a "purely legal one" without political overtones.

British lawyers have already told the court that because the former Yugoslavia was not a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights the case was outside its jurisdiction.

The day after the attack Robin Cook, who was Britain's Foreign Secretary at the time, defended the action. "It is not enough for us simply to disrupt the poisonous propaganda of Milosevic," Mr Cook said. "It is just as important that we enable his people to learn the truth."

Tony Blair also defended the bombing. "These stations are part of Milosevic's apparatus of dictatorship and power which is used to do ethnic cleansing in Kosovo," he said.

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

Air Force Fighter Crashes Near Vegas

September 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Fighter-Crash.html

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A fighter jet crashed during a training exercise Monday, about 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

The pilot of the A-10 Warthog Thunderbolt II ejected just before the jet crashed into a mountain in the Arizona's Virgin River Gorge, said Mike Estrada, a spokesman for Nellis Air Force Base, where the jet took off.

The pilot was rescued by a Las Vegas police helicopter and returned around to Nellis, where he was being treated for minor injuries, authorities said.

No other crew members were on board.

The crash occurred in a scenic but remote area near Interstate 15. Several motorists traveling on the highway said they witnessed at least three fighter jets flying around the contours of a canyon before spotting smoke and flames coming from the crash site.

Neither the pilot nor the downed jet are based at Nellis. Estrada said the pilot was participating in a training exercise, but he did not immediately know where the pilot was based or where he was headed.

Civilian firefighters responded to the crash site, where about 10 acres were burning.


-------- OTHER

-------- genetics

Taiwan Researchers Clone Island's First Cow

September 3, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-taiwan-cloning.html?searchpv=reuters

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's first cloned calf was successfully delivered at the weekend, a top scientist said on Monday.

The calf named ``Hsubao,'' meaning ``Livestock Treasure,'' was born on Saturday on a farm in the southern county of Tainan.

Two other cloned calves are due to be born soon, one in October and the other in January, Wang Cheng-taung, director general of the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute of the cabinet's Council of Agriculture, told Reuters.

Wang said Hsubao represented a major step in Taiwan's cloning research and the delivery comes five years after Scotland's Roslin Institute created Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal.

Wang said Hsubao was created using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technique, which involves scraping the nucleus out of an egg and replacing it with the nucleus, which carries most of the DNA, of another cell.

Dolly as well as mice, pigs, cows and other animals have been cloned this way.

The Livestock Research Institute and the National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science began joint cloning research in 1999. Last year, they implanted 23 embryos in 23 recipient cows, three of which became pregnant.

Wang said mass cloning would have to wait because the success rate is one out of every 10 somatic cell transplants.

``We have to raise the success rate up to at least 40-50 percent if we want to commercialize,'' Wang said.

--------

New Stem Cell Issue as Congress Returns

New York Times
September 3, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/health/03CELL.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - In the weeks since President Bush decided to permit federal financing for certain studies of human embryonic stem cells, an enormous shift has occurred in the public debate. No longer does it revolve around whether the research is ethical. Now the question is whether Mr. Bush's plan is adequate to support the science.

The administration will be forced to address that question this week when Congress returns from its summer recess. On Wednesday, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, is scheduled to testify at the first of three hearings the Senate has planned to explore whether Mr. Bush's restrictions on stem cell research would hamstring scientists in their search for treatments and cures.

"The concern is that the door has been opened, but it hasn't been opened quite far enough," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which will hold a session on Wednesday.

Mr. Bush struck a careful compromise that he said would encourage potentially lifesaving research but discourage experiments on human embryos, which are destroyed in stem cell experiments. He confined public financing to work on those stem cell colonies, or lines, created before 9 p.m. on Aug. 9 - the moment he announced his decision to the nation in a televised speech.

Whether Congress has an appetite for legislation to expand Mr. Bush's policy is unclear. Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is a strong supporter of stem cell research, says he intends to attach an amendment to an appropriations bill that would allow scientists using federal money unfettered ability to conduct stem cell experiments.

Such a far-reaching measure might gain support in the Senate but is unlikely to pass the House, where a more moderate bill is pending. At the same time, the stem cell issue could get tangled up with a related one, human cloning. In July, the House passed a broad bill banning cloning, not only for reproduction but also for medical research.

In the Senate, Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, is pressing for similar legislation, but his bill faces an uphill battle.

"I think it's going to be a legislative free-for-all," Mr. Specter said.

For his part, Mr. Bush is determined not to let his delicate stem cell compromise unravel. He has vowed to veto any legislation that goes beyond the parameters he specified.

"This shouldn't be a political brawl," said Bill Pierce, a spokesman for Mr. Thompson. "This should be about moving the federal government forward to fund basic scientific research on stem cells. Let's not lose sight of that."

That the discussion is occurring at all, however, reflects how much the public discourse on embryonic stem cell research has changed in a short time. Lawmakers, patients, scientists and bioethicists all say they are struck by how far Mr. Bush has moved the debate. They note that even President Bill Clinton, who issued a rule that would have permitted a broader array of stem cell studies, did not bring the power of the bully pulpit to the issue.

"By virtue of his speech, President Bush has fundamentally declared that it is ethical not only to do this research but to fund this research," said R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Wisconsin. "So the debate has shifted from whether the research is ethical to a debate about how to go about it. That is a profound shift."

Opponents of stem cell studies are deeply troubled by this shift, but they say it seems inevitable that the federal government will pay for some stem cell research.

"I don't think that there is any point in trying to get Congress to have a more restrictive policy than the president has outlined," said Richard Doerflinger, who represents the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes all stem cell studies. "The real debate will be whether he can hold on to the restrictions that he has articulated."

Stem cells, the human body's primordial master cells, have the potential to develop into any type of cell or tissue - for example, insulin-producing cells that might treat diabetes. Scientists hope eventually to use the cells to create replacement tissues and organs for people who are sick or injured.

The cells are extracted from human embryos when the embryos are five or six days old, still small enough to fit on the head of a pin. But many people regard the embryos as nascent human life. So the research has been controversial and confined to the private sector until now.

The National Institutes of Health, the agency charged with putting Mr. Bush's policy into effect, says it has identified 64 stem cell lines in five countries - Australia, India, Israel, Sweden and the United States - that meet the president's criteria. In unveiling the administration's plan, Mr. Thompson said of the lines, "They're diverse, they're robust, they're viable for research."

But that assertion is being questioned now that more has become known. National Institutes of Health officials, who are preparing a registry that will list the 64 lines and their biological characteristics, now acknowledge that some are in the very early stages of development, and may not prove useful even for basic science. Scientists have used mouse cells to feed the growth of the human stem cells, which is a standard laboratory technique but raises concerns about whether the cells will be suitable for transplanting into people. And because the cell lines are in private hands, intellectual property issues must be resolved before government-financed scientists can work with them.

Mr. Bush's decision has no effect on research in the private sector. The real issue, said Harold E. Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center and a former director of the National Institutes of Health, is not the quality or number of lines, but the fact that scientists cannot use federal money to study new ones that will be developed with private money.

"What everyone is concerned about are these time limits," Dr. Varmus said. "What happens when, six months from now, someone has a line that behaves better with respect to what you are trying to study, and you can't work with those cells?"

Senator Kennedy and other lawmakers said they were anxious to hear the views of prominent researchers like Dr. Varmus and others before deciding whether legislation is necessary.

"I've been in a listening mode," said Representative Jim Ramstad, Republican of Minnesota, who has introduced a bill that would adopt Mr. Clinton's policy, permitting research on new cell lines.

Before the summer recess, Mr. Ramstad and Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, gathered signatures from 202 House members, including 40 Republicans, in support of Mr. Ramstad's measure. He said he had private commitments from 12 other Republicans.

A crucial question now is whether those Republicans, as well as Republicans in the Senate who support stem cell research, notably Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Bill Frist of Tennessee, will stick by the president.

Senator Hatch recently praised Mr. Bush for making "a studied, principled decision" but added, "I would have gone further in some areas and reserve my right to seek changes in the administration's policy if warranted."

Mr. Frist declined to be interviewed on the topic.

Time may be on Mr. Bush's side, at least in the short term, but the issue could become more problematic in the long run. Stem cells are delicate and tricky to grow, and very few researchers around the world have worked with them. So it will take time, experts say, for researchers to learn how to handle the cells. And it could be months, at a minimum, before their experiments determine the usefulness of existing cell lines.

"All the talk in the world cannot determine whether the lines are usable and the kind we need," said Paul Berg, emeritus professor of cancer research and biochemistry at Stanford University. "The only way one will know is to have them in the lab and begin to work with them."

So for now, a number of lawmakers are taking a wait-and-see attitude; rather than rush in to alter Mr. Bush's plan, they would rather give researchers a chance to study the cells and revisit the issue in a year or so. That could put Mr. Bush in a politically uncomfortable position. By the time he is running for re- election in 2004, more lines will undoubtedly have been created in private companies and university laboratories overseas, and scientists and patients groups may be demanding that the president reconsider.

"Patients are in a great hurry, legitimately," said Dan Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research, an advocacy group in Washington. "When it looks like treatments and cures are going to be held back, patients and their advocates are going to raise a ruckus."

-------- human rights

Race Conference Seeks Deals on Middle East and Slavery Issues

September 3, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-race.html

DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - Israel hit back at its Arab critics at a world conference against racism Monday, accusing them of encouraging racial hatred and seeking to hijack the United Nations meeting for political ends.

Speaking on the fourth day of the conference, the head of the Israeli delegation said references to Israel in draft texts were ``the most racist declaration in a major international organization since the Second World War.''

Ambassador Mordechai Yedid had particularly harsh words for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who had told the conference on the opening day that Israeli actions in the occupied territories amounted to ``ethnic cleansing.''

He said that Arafat had delivered a message of hate.

Diplomats are desperately trying to find middle ground between Israel and the United States, which object strongly to the draft declarations, and Arab and Islamic states which want Israeli action in the West Bank and Gaza Strip condemned.

Demands by many African states for an outright apology and reparations from former slave-trading countries for 400 years of human trafficking have been resisted by Washington and several -- but not all -- European states which fear a rash of possible litigation.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who left Durban on Saturday, has warned that the whole event may fail unless the rows over slavery and the Middle East are resolved.

Neither the Europeans nor the Africans are fully united even within their own groups on the slavery issue, with some African states, notably Nigeria, ready to drop demands for reparations in favor of more general promises of aid.

APOLOGY DEMANDED

But all the African states are holding out for a formal apology for the transatlantic traffic in which some 12 million slaves were shipped to the Americas.

``A majority of us believe that the past of the slave trade can only be settled in two stages, firstly through an apology, which is an affirming of one's humanity, and secondly through reparations,'' Namibian Foreign Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab told Reuters.

He was speaking after a special meeting of the so-called Africa Group on the margins of the World Conference Against Racism being held in this South African port city.

A Senegalese delegate told Reuters that tempers had run high at the meeting. ``It's a very emotive issue. The session was very heated,'' he said.

The United Nations called the conference to map out an international strategy for tackling racism around the world, but attention has focused heavily on the Middle East.

Current conference texts refer to Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories as ``a new apartheid'' and a ``crime against humanity.''

Norway, which brokered the 1993 Oslo peace accord between the Palestinians and Israel, has been asked to seek compromise wording acceptable to Arabs and Israel and Washington.

``Discussions are still going on but for us the language of hate must be removed,'' Israeli government delegation spokesman Noam Katz told Reuters. Israel, like Washington, has warned it could simply abandon the conference unless this is done.

HIJACKING CONFERENCE

Pressure to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has increased with the past 11 months of violence, in and around the occupied territories. More than 700 people -- 551 Palestinians and 157 Israelis -- have been killed since a Palestinian revolt erupted last September after peace talks had hit deadlock.

``A group of states for whom the terms racism, discrimination and even human rights simply do not appear in their domestic lexicon have hijacked this conference,'' Yedid said.

Yedid, a senior foreign ministry official, said the conference had been convened to combat the ``pernicious evil'' of racism but this goal was being sacrificed to a political agenda.

He warned that the loser if the conference failed would not be Israel but the millions of victims of racism around the world who were looking to Durban for a sign of hope.

--------

Israel set to pull out of racism conference

September 3, 2001
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010903-21250240.htm

DURBAN, South Africa -- The Israeli delegation last night threatened to walk out of a U.N. conference on racism if anti-Israeli language is not dropped from conference documents.

"We hope for efforts to find a compromise formula," Mordechai Yedid, the head of the delegation, told reporters yesterday. "But there is no political will" from the Palestinians.

He refused to say when the decision whether to depart would be made. Other members of the Israeli delegation, however, said they were feeling increasingly pessimistic after listening to speeches from key Arab leaders, including Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Specifically, the Israelis are trying to find neutral language to substitute for more than two dozen objectionable paragraphs in the political declaration and the program of action that are to be adopted by conference participants. The signatories are to promise to fight racism and xenophobia around the world.

"We think our red lines should be no hate language and no singling out of Israel and no condemnation," Mr. Yedid told reporters last night.

The violence in the Middle East has overshadowed the proceedings in Durban, with frustrated Arab nations using the racism conference as a forum to attack what they call "the racist practices of Zionism."

Other passages in the draft documents refer to Zionism as apartheid and a crime against humanity.

Conference organizers have appointed Norway as an intermediary to seek out language that all parties can agree to.

"It will be difficult, but not impossible," said Sverre Bergh Johansen, head of the Norwegian delegation. "It is too soon to talk about progress."

But Rep. Tom Lantos, California Democrat and a member of the U.S. delegation, said last night that the United States was satisfied with a Norwegian-crafted draft, and had recommended it to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

That draft is said by delegates to be three paragraphs that endorse peace in the region and a return to the negotiating table. But the Israelis have not committed to it yet and, more importantly say delegates, neither have the Palestinians.

A forum for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which is running parallel to the racism conference in Durban, yesterday issued its own conference document that equated Zionism with racism and called for Israel to be sanctioned as a "racist, apartheid state."

The document also asked the United Nations to prosecute Israel for war crimes and acts of ethnic cleansing.

The NGOs' declaration was rejected by many of the participating groups. Jewish groups walked out of the all-night meeting in anger while several others, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, will hold a press conference today to dissociate themselves from it.

This is not the first time a U.N. conference has condemned Zionism. The United States and Israel boycotted two earlier U.N. racism conferences, saying they could not participate while a resolution by the U.N. General Assembly condemning Zionism as racism was still on the books.

That was rescinded in 1991. Both the United States and Israel reluctantly agreed at the last minute to send midlevel delegations to this conference, saying it was important to be constructively engaged.

Members of both delegations have been active in all the drafting meetings, and an Israeli delegate is scheduled to speak from the conference podium today.

Mr. Yedid said his government was increasingly concerned about its relationship with the United Nations, which created the state of Israel in 1948.

The world body also called for the creation of a Palestinian state in General Assembly Resolution No. 242, and mandated restitution for those who were displaced by either.

"We are very concerned about Israeli-United Nations relations," Mr. Yedid said. "We have made it clear to the secretary-general and [High Commissioner for Human Rights] Mary Robinson."

He said that Israeli "is at a critical juncture" with the organization after recent, rancorous debates about the Middle East in the General Assembly, Security Council and Human Rights Commission.

-------- spying

A Tempting Site for Spies' Eyes
Recent Case Rekindles Doubts About Posting Classified Data on the Web

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 3, 2001; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33605-2001Sep2?language=printer

Former Air Force Master Sgt. Brian P. Regan's alleged attempt to sell to Libya documents he downloaded from Intelink, the U.S. intelligence community's classified Web site, has reopened long-standing doubts about putting all that secret data in one place.

Several top counterintelligence officials argued against Intelink's creation in 1994, warning that it could become a gold mine for spies. But their concerns were outweighed by the benefits of intelligence-sharing and by the online system's safeguards, including its automatic recording of exactly which government workers view what information.

Those records were vital to the FBI investigation that resulted in the Aug. 23 arrest of Regan, 38, as he was about to board a flight to Switzerland. He worked at the National Reconnaissance Office, the Pentagon agency responsible for the nation's intelligence satellites, and his responsibilities in the Air Force had included helping administer portions of Intelink, according to government officials.

The Regan case demonstrated that Intelink "has audit capability to track down its users, but it gives people very wide access to intelligence," said Paul Redmond, a former head of CIA counterintelligence who was one of the system's original critics. "Once again, it calls into question whether Intelink is golden for spies."

In 1994, Intelink was described by then-Deputy Defense Secretary John M. Deutch and then-CIA Director R. James Woolsey as "the strategic direction for all intelligence dissemination." They announced it would be a collaborative service that would allow U.S. intelligence agencies and military commands to contribute and receive data.

From the beginning, the participants included all of the major intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, NRO, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Drug Enforcement Agency, and the main Pentagon commands.

Today, an authorized user could call up a map of Europe, place a cursor on Macedonia and put in queries about military force levels or weapons proliferation. Instantly, the user would get back communications intercepts supplied by the NSA, troop numbers from the DIA and on-scene commanders, and reports on proliferation from the CIA.

The user, however, would have been required to sign on with a password, allowing the Intelink server to determine the level of classified information to which the user was entitled. Although Intelink contains data ranging from unclassified to secret and even to top-secret "sensitive compartmented information," or SCI, a user can gain access to material only at the level permitted by his or her password.

"Not everyone can get everything," a user said.

And, as Redmond noted, Intelink's sophisticated audit system records the user, the time he or she logged in and logged out, the requests for materials, the documents retrieved and any changes made to them.

In Regan's case, the Intelink audit enabled investigators to show not only the time in the evening when the then-Air Force intelligence specialist, now retired, accessed a secret CIA report, but also that it had been printed out, according to an FBI affidavit.

Thousands of intelligence community employees participate in managing and adding data to Intelink. Its headquarters are at Fort Meade, home of the NSA. John Brantley, who directs the overall Intelink operation from there, occasionally writes a column for the Web site called "View from the Summit," according to an Intelink user.

Analysts at the intelligence agencies use Intelink as a basic research tool to pull together the most recent information, including satellite imagery and other technical data, on subjects that interest them. Hot spots, such as the Middle East, North Korea and the Balkans, are highlighted on main screens, with links to classified background data that can be reached through attached search engines.

In 1996, Emmett Paige Jr., then assistant secretary of defense for command, control and communications, predicted that Intelink's users would become "extraordinarily diverse, eventually encompassing all areas of U.S. government operations that can benefit from integrated intelligence support and collaboration."

At the same time, Paige noted the contradiction that is reflected by the Regan case. Intelink, he said, enables many government employees to have "a range and variety of information and services never before available to them," improving their "mission performance." But some intelligence tasks "cannot be assisted by Intelink because sufficient need-to-know protection for sensitive sources and methods or operations cannot currently be provided," he added.

Paige said he hoped that protective Intelink access controls could be developed. But Redmond and other counterintelligence specialists believe the Regan case shows that weaknesses will always exist.


-------- activists

Greenpeace: the phenomenon

Date: 9/3/2001 2:33 AM
From: Rod Macrae, Rmacrae@ams.greenpeace.org

By Gerd Leipold, International Executive Director, Greenpeace.

On 15 September Greenpeace marks the thirtieth Anniversary of the expedition that led to the birth of the organisation. Then, it was a big idea to stop US nuclear testing at Amchitka, off Alaska. Now, with a unique global reach, it's still all about the future. And the need for Greenpeace to continue its global fight to save the environment is ever more urgent. It is time to take back the planet.

It was a small beginning and one that promised to be little more than a footnote in the history of the environmental movement. Yet, when the Phyllis Cormack set sail from Vancouver in the afternoon of 15 September 1971, something quite new was launched: a force for change. In the years that followed Greenpeace would become a global symbol for people seeking to challenge those who pollute and damage the planet.

It's hard to imagine that from such small, even disorganised, beginnings, Greenpeace has become an organisation with the ability to shake established power brokers and influence the international environmental agenda. But that is what it has done.

Greenpeace cannot claim to have single-handedly changed people's thinking about the world they live in. However, in adopting its special non-violent, direct action approach of 30 years ago it set a pattern for others to follow, not just in the environmental world, but beyond.

All over the world voices of protest have been heard: by politicians, governments and businesses. Arguments that would otherwise be dismissed have been listened to and accepted. In countries where the opinions of those in power were dominant and seldom challenged, the right to have an opinion and take action has become accepted, even established.

In Lebanon, ravaged by civil war in the 1970s, in the Soviet Union and later Russia, in China and in Turkey to name only a few, Greenpeace has pioneered civil, peaceful protest. It has shown that, when something is important enough, it makes a difference to stand up for principle and challenge the decision-makers.

Also in countries where democratic rights have long been established, Greenpeace has developed a new style of campaigning and shown there are effective ways to raise a voice, to be heard, to make a difference. Our activists have been jailed, our campaigns have changed laws, but in the end it is the arguments that underpin Greenpeace's actions that have won the day.

The news media has, of course, recorded these changes as incidents and events. They are already history. Only when reflecting on how things may have looked today had Greenpeace not existed at all, can you start to realise the impact it has made.

For instance, how many of the world's whales would have been hunted to extinction?Sustained Greenpeace pressure transformed the International Whaling Commission from an organisation allocating whaling quotas into a body protecting whales. It went on to ban commercial whaling. In the 1990s Greenpeace pressed further, calling for a sanctuary around Antarctica. In 1994 the IWC created one.

Many other examples demonstrate how Greenpeace arguments, often criticised at the time, have come to be accepted reasons for governments and industry to change. How much greater would be the risk from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, nuclear fuel shipments, toxic wastes or ozone-depleting CFCs? Would the Antarctic have the protection it enjoys today without the campaign Greenpeace launched in the 1980s? Would the nuclear industry still be dumping their radioactive waste in the high sea? Would the rich nations have accepted the ban on the export of hazardous wastes to developing countries. It is hard to say with certainty, but on all these issues Greenpeace has campaigned with a determination, conviction and vigour which is helping to guide the world to a more sustainable, environment-friendly future.

Today, with 30 years of experience behind it, Greenpeace can say it has as clear a mission as the crew members of the first expedition. We want to protect and save the global environmental "commons"; ensure there is a world our children can live in without risks from polluted water, air, land and food.

To rise to this challenge, Greenpeace has grown to become a global organisation. One of its greatest visionaries David McTaggart, who died earlier this year, understood the significance of globalisation' long before the phrase came into common use, and was instrumental in expanding Greenpeace into eastern Europe and later Asia.

The need for global leadership is clear. The United States has retreated to a position of short-term political expediency, pulling back from its global responsibilities on environmental issues. President George W. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol shows that he has chosen to listen to the partisan voices of corporate America. However imperfect, the Protocol remains a vital mechanism for addressing the damaging effects of global warming, and its rejection by President Bush is a fundamental lack of leadership from the world's only superpower.

With a presence in 39 countries, Greenpeace continues to campaign on many fronts. It has a project based in the heart of the Amazon where industrial logging interests are plundering timber and destroying the precious eco-system. In taking the lead in opposing the attempts by the biotechnology industry to introduce genetically engineered crops into agriculture, it has alerted the world to the potential threat that uncontrolled releases pose to wildlife, bio-diversity and even human health.

These are roles Greenpeace undertakes today. But neither Greenpeace nor the environmental movement as a whole can achieve everything alone: others must play their part. Globalisation may be making a minority richer, stronger. But with such gains come responsibilities. Political and business leadership comes hand in hand with responsibility. That means caring for the global threat of climate change, taking a lead in measures to reduce its effects; taking a lead in establishing controls and eliminating the resource-depleting and polluting habits of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a stark choice world leaders face: continuing to treat the world as a never ending plunder box, or accepting the obvious reality that it is not.

Greenpeace is committed to being there to hold to account those who should be accepting this leadership. In 30 years time, it may be too late to take action. That is why in looking towards the next 30 years Greenpeace can say with unchallenged legitimacy, we are here for all our futures'. It is time to take back the planet.

Rod Macrae Communications Director Greenpeace International Keizersgracht 176 1016DW Amsterdam Tel: + 31 20 5236230 Fax: + 31 20 5236212 Mob: + 31 652 091 960 e-mail: rod.macrae@ams.greenpeace.org http://www.greenpeace.org

--------

Legislative/Toast Card Up-date

Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 12:59 AM
Brink Campaign [mailto:prgrm@backfromthebrink.net]

Dear Brink Supporter,
Please forward this message to your contacts.

FYI, Representatives Markey (D-MA) and Taushcer (D-CA) have introduced HR 2718 the "Peacekeeper (MX) Missile Stand-Down-Act" to take Peacekeeper (MX) missiles off of high-alert status in FY 2002.

While President Bush supports retiring the MX missiles, the Air Force estimates this could not happen until 2004-2006. HR 2718 would take nuclear missiles off high alert in one year-2002 and would set a precedent for standing-down nuclear weapons.

We want to flood the House and Senate with "Toast Cards" with the slogan, In the Time it Takes to Make Toast, We Could All Be toast: It's Time to Take Nuclear Weapons Off Hair-Trigger Alert.

Each set of "Toast Cards" has a pre-addressed card for your Senators and Representative, and room for your personal message and return address. We encourage you to write one.

If you have not yet mailed in your cards, or would like to order your 100 FREE toast cards, this is a great time to do so.

So far 55,000 sets of toast cards (165,000 total) have been distributed to the grassroots to be mailed into Congress.

The goal is to have 300,000 cards delivered by the first week in September when we will hold a press conference on Capital Hill.

Order up to 100 FREE cards today by return e-mail to prgrm@backfromthebrink.net

Thanks for your support.

Esther Pank
Back from the Brink Campaign
6856 Eastern Avenue, NW, # 322
Washington DC 20012
202.545.1001 ph
202.545.1004 fax
brinkprogram@backfromthebrink.net
www.backfromthebrink.org



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