NUCLEAR
Austria Holds Off on Early Elections
UK Energy minister says nuclear still has a role
Concerns over Burma's nuclear plans
US panel okays steep duties on French uranium
Site sought for fusion project
Anti - Missile Rocket to Be Tested
U.S. Defends Arms Control Policies
U.S. Urges Tougher Moves Against Spread of Arms
Bush Official Asks Weapons Curb
Plutonium Conversion Set Under Arms Pact
U.S. Defends Arms Control Policies
MILITARY
Warlords arm Afghans in refugee camps
U.N. Monitors Warn of Afghan Missiles
Chinese enter Afghan arena
U.S. Forces Strike Al Qaeda Cell in Southern Afghanistan
War Shouldn't Bar U.S. Military Cuts
"On the Wish Lists"
Bush Official Asks Weapons Curb
Defense 'priority' for Bush
General Dynamics Profit Up
A War-Scrambled Budget: How the Agencies Fared
Czech Govt. to Buy Explosives Maker
U.S. Chopper Destroyed in Colombia
Iran Said to Assist Forces Opposing Kabul Government
Iraqi Antiaircraft Site Attacked for 2nd Time
U.S., British jets bomb anti-aircraft base in Iraq
Russia Warns U.S. Against Military Strike on Iraq
Lebanese warlord was key witness in Sharon case
Helen and Hamas
Hamas Said Developing Rocket
Fresh Spiral of Bloodshed in Mideast Conflict
Lebanon Accuses Israel of Killing Warlord Hobeika
Lebanese warlord was key witness in Sharon case
Pakistan Will Still Hold Elections in October
U.S. role in Philippines backed, but not by all
CIA rethinks rules that limit recruits
No 'reward' for Turkey
Pak help costs US $100 mn per month
POLICE / PRISONERS
Australia Softens Asylum Policy
Prisoner transfers to Guantanamo on hold: military officials
U.S. Appeals Court Reverses Ruling on DNA Testing
Britain Wants Captives Tried at Home
ENERGY AND OTHER
Shell buys out German solar partners
Bush energy plan said to help industry, not public
Senate Chairmen Seek Release of Energy Panel's Records
Antarctic Study Finds Warming Change
U.S. creates long-delayed Gulf War illnesses panel
U.N.: Wrong to Detain Asylum Seekers
ACTIVISTS
Pope Leads Prayer for Peace
Testimony on DC Antiterrorism Law
New Mexico Action Alert
PUBLIC CITIZEN URGES ENERGY SECRETARY TO RECUSE HIMSELF
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- austria
Austria Holds Off on Early Elections
By William J. Kole
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2002; 8:37 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30390-2002Jan24?language=printer
VIENNA, Austria -- Austria's far-right Freedom Party withdrew its call for early elections Thursday, easing a government crisis triggered by a dispute over the party's threat to block EU membership for the Czech Republic.
Freedom Party leader Susanne Riess-Passer, who serves as Austria's vice chancellor, said parliamentary elections would not be held before the Czech Republic holds its own elections this summer.
Thursday's announcement avoided what many had feared could be the imminent collapse of Austria's fragile coalition government.
"To quote from Mark Twain: 'The reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated,'" said Andreas Khol, parliamentary leader of the right-of-center People's Party, which has shared power with the Freedom Party since early 2000 in an uneasy coalition.
The standoff began after the Freedom Party - known for its anti-foreigner and anti-EU stance and its outspoken former leader, Joerg Haider - launched a campaign to pressure Czech officials to close the trouble-plagued Temelin nuclear plant just over the border.
More than 900,000 Austrians have signed a party petition warning the Czech Republic that if it doesn't shutter the plant, it could face an Austrian government veto when it eventually joins the European Union.
Although it backed off its call to move up September 2003 elections by a year and a half, Riess-Passer said the Freedom Party "will not ignore the results of the petition." The signatures represented more than 15 percent of the alpine nation's population.
"In the past days and weeks there has been massive tension, but we've held extensive talks to solve our problems," said Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of the People's Party. "We've decided to work together."
Schuessel and other Austrian leaders had accused the Freedom Party of mounting a xenophobic campaign aimed at stopping the EU from taking in the former communist nations of Eastern Europe. The Czech Republic and several other eastern countries are expected to join as early as 2004.
The standoff was roundly condemned around Europe on Thursday.
In a commentary, the Belgian daily De Standaard accused Haider, the governor of Austria's southwestern Carinthia province, of using Austrian concerns over Temelin to "realize his hatred of foreigners and prevent EU expansion."
The Freedom Party has gained influence in Austria by exploiting fears that hordes of jobless immigrants will pour into the country if the EU is expanded.
It won 27 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections in 1999. Within weeks, the EU slapped diplomatic sanctions on the Austrian government because of the party's isolationist and anti-Europe rhetoric. Those sanctions were lifted seven months later, in September 2000.
The party insists it is merely interested in seeing the Czech Republic close Temelin, which has been taken off-line repeatedly for a wide range of technical glitches.
Austria has no nuclear power plants, and Temelin's troubles have stoked fears that a Chernobyl-style reactor meltdown would endanger Austria, which lies just 30 miles to the south.
The Czech government insists the plant is safe.
-------- britain
UK Energy minister says nuclear still has a role
Reuters UK:
January 24, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14172/newsDate/24-Jan-2002/story.htm
LONDON - Britain's Energy Minister Brian Wilson said this week nuclear power would continue to have a role in the country's energy mix despite speculation about its future after a leaked government report.
"For the foreseable future nuclear power has a part to play in Britain's energy needs," Wilson told BBC radio.
The BBC said a leaked copy of the government's root and branch energy review said the nuclear power industry would be forced to pay for all its decommissioning and clean up costs.
Such a proposition could make investment in the sector unattractive since at present the government underwrites some of the multi-billion pound clean-up liabilities.
British Energy, the country's main nuclear generator which provides about 20 percent of the UK's electricity, maintained its nuclear power had a future in Britain.
"Our position is clear. We already internalise our own costs. The private sector can fund new build (of new nuclear power stations) on its own, but it needs a government framework to facilitate this," said a spokeswoman for the group which was privatised in 1996.
The government's energy review is due to be published shortly.
The issue of nuclear liabilities, the legacy of Britain's move into the atomic era in the 1950s, is complex since all the country's nuclear facilities, including power stations, were orginally built by the government or state-owned firms.
In November 2001 the government sought to clarify the issue when it set up the Liablities Management Authority to assume the 35 billion pounds ($50.13 billion) liabilities of BNFL and the seven billion pounds ($10.03 billion) liabilities of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.
-------- burma
Concerns over Burma's nuclear plans
Thursday, 24 January, 2002
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1778000/1778705.stm
International concerns have been raised over Burma's decision to build a nuclear reactor with help from Russia.
The United States, Europe and China say Burma is not adhering to advice from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on setting up a regulatory framework to ensure the safety of the nuclear plant.
The European Commission said without the intervention of a independent regulatory body, operational and maintenance standards might not be sufficient to prevent radioactive leaks.
The country's military government says the reactor is needed to produce Isotopes for the medical industry.
A BBC science correspondent says Burma's partner, Russia, does not itself have a good safety record, with three of its reactors having been shut down because of malfunctions in the past week alone.
-------- france
US panel okays steep duties on French uranium
Story by Doug Palmer
REUTERS USA:
January 24, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14170/newsDate/24-Jan-2002/story.htm
WASHINGTON - A U.S. trade panel this week gave final approval to import duties totaling more than 32 percent on shipments of more than $200 million worth of nuclear power plant fuel from France.
In a case brought by the United States Enrichment Corp. (USEC) in late 2000, the International Trade Commission (ITC) also voted 4-0 to approve final import duties of more than 2 percent on more than $200 million worth of enriched uranium from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.
One of the six commissioners was not present for the vote and a second commissioner recused herself.
The European Union has threatened to challenge any anti-dumping and countervailing duties imposed in the case at the World Trade Organization. The principle EU suppliers are the French government-controlled firm Eurodif SA and the British-Dutch-German consortium Urenco Ltd.
Despite concerns raised by the EU, the U.S. Commerce Department said last month it would seek final ITC approval to impose anti-dumping duties of 19.57 percent and countervailing duties of 13.21 percent on Eurodif and other French suppliers.
At the same time, Commerce dropped its anti-dumping investigation against Britain, the Netherlands and Germany and said it would seek countervailing duties of only 2.26 percent from those countries to offset government subsidies.
In a press release, USEC said the combined duty on imports from France would be 32.10 percent, slightly lower than the figure of 32.78 published by Commerce last month.
USEC and Urenco also said the duty on imports from Germany, Britain and the Netherlands would be 2.23 percent, rather than the published Commerce Department figure of 2.26 percent.
Maurice Lender, a spokesman for Urenco, said the lower figures were the result of last-minute consultations between Commerce and the affected companies.
Urenco also expects the duty on its shipments to apply only until the end of 2002, Lender said.
Of the four countries, France is the biggest supplier of enriched uranium to the U.S. market.
French sales to the United States in first nine months of 2001 totaled $130 million, compared to $212 million in all of 2000 and $263 million in all of 1999.
Provisional countervailing and anti-dumping duties have been applied to imports from the four countries since May and July, respectively, of 2001.
Commerce is expected to issue its final duty order in the case sometime around February 4.
USEC, which is the United States' only uranium enrichment company, has argued that unfair competition from Eurodif and Urenco was a threat to U.S. national and energy security.
In its original petition, USEC charged both companies with selling enriched uranium at below the cost of production and benefiting from government subsidies.
However the EU's executive body, the European Commission, has questioned the Commerce Department's method of calculating dumping and subsidy margins in the case, saying European government and industry views were largely ignored.
The new U.S. duties come as trade problems between the United States and the EU are again on the rise.
A recent WTO ruling in a dispute over tax breaks for U.S. exporters cleared the way for Brussels to impose sanctions on up to $4 billion worth of U.S. goods later this year.
At the same time, the EU and other suppliers face possible U.S. import restrictions on steel as the Bush administration mulls way to help struggling domestic producers.
-------- japan
Site sought for fusion project
Critics clamor about ITER feasibility, safety, costs
By ERIKO ARITA Staff writer
The Japan Times:
Jan. 24, 2002
From: "Citizen's Nuclear Information Center" <cnic-jp@po.iijnet.or.jp>
The government is expected to soon announce its candidacy to host an international nuclear fusion project, despite the concerns of citizens, lawmakers and scientists about its safety and feasibility.
The government regards the project as a promising new power source for a country that is lacking in natural resources and has suffered a series of accidents at its nuclear plants.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project envisions using nuclear fusion technology, the development of which remains in an embryonic state, to make electricity in a manner similar to the way the sun creates energy. It is altogether different from the nuclear fission technology used in conventional nuclear reactors.
The Council for Science and Technology Policy, the top government body in compiling the nation's science and technology policies, issued a report in December stating that it recognizes the significance of Japan hosting the ITER nuclear fusion project.
Some experts have estimated the project will cost 1 trillion yen. Others say it will run more. According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, it would cost 700 billion yen to host the project, compared with 300 billion yen if the country does not host but instead participates in a joint project.
Citizens and lawmakers Monday held a meeting to protest the project and submitted an appeal to the government to halt it.
"The nuclear fusion project would be a huge waste of money and a threat to the environment and the safety of residents at the site," said Renko Kitagawa, a Lower House lawmaker of the Social Democratic Party.
On Tuesday, a two-day intergovernmental meeting on the project kicked off in the Koto Ward of Tokyo. At the meeting, officials of the ITER participants -- Japan, Russia, Canada and the European Union -- held preliminary discussions about how to decide on a site for an experimental fusion reactor.
When heated to 100 million degrees, heavy hydrogen or tritium -- a radioactive isotope of hydrogen -- becomes plasma, causing atomic nuclei in the substances to collide and combine, producing energy. Plasma is a nonconductive, highly ionized gas. It is a phase of matter distinct from solids, liquids and normal gases. At present, the hydrogen bomb is the only practical use of nuclear fusion.
The project was first proposed in 1985 at a U.S.-Soviet summit. Although the U.S. backed out of the project in 1998 due to financial concerns, Washington has recently indicated it may rejoin the project.
The countries plan to decide on the site for the fusion reactor at a meeting to be held in France in May.
It will take 10 years to build the reactor and another 20 to operate it on an experimental basis, according to ministry officials.
Japan has been considering the use of nuclear fusion as an alternative energy source for some time. The government, hoping to "create a sun on the Earth," invested 594.8 billion yen in the development of nuclear fusion technology between 1968 and 2000, according to the ministry.
Three municipalities have announced their candidacies as host site. According to a report issued by the ministry in October, the towns of Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture, and the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture are considered the top candidates for the ITER project. The city of Tomakomai, Hokkaido, is regarded as less promising.
However, some residents of the candidate sites as well as nongovernmental organizations and scientists have lodged protests with the state and local governments bidding to host the project.
Tadahiro Katsuta, an employee of Citizens' Nuclear Information Center and an expert on nuclear science, questioned the safety of the project.
According to Katsuta, tritium can destroy DNA and produces radiation strong enough to pass through metal walls.
"It is dangerous to deal with even in a normal situation, and the impact of an accident at a reactor could be extensive," Katsuta warned.
Ryoichi Hirano, a member of a group of Aomori residents demanding the government stop transferring nuclear waste to the village of Rokkasho, criticized the central and local governments for promoting the project without fully informing local residents. Rokkasho is Japan's main dump site for nuclear waste.
According to a survey conducted by a private institute in the city of Aomori, less than 20 percent of those polled said they know about the project.
In the same survey, 41.1 percent of those polled in the prefecture said they are undecided about inviting the the project into Rokkasho. Some 36.1 percent said they are opposed to it and only 16.5 percent said they welcome the project. The poll was carried out in August on 285 people.
Hirano also criticized the prefecture for claiming the fusion project is safe when there is scant information to back its claim.
"(The prefectural government) is trying to make us blindly believe the project is safe and there is no problem," he said.
The feasibility of the fusion reactor has also been questioned by scientists, including Hiroaki Koide, a researcher at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.
It would be extremely difficult for scientists to develop technology to maintain the state of plasma of heavy hydrogen and tritium in a stable manner over a long period of time, which is essential to the project's success, according to Koide.
Other critics have pointed out that the fusion reaction itself is expected to require huge amounts of electricity, thereby making it an inefficient power source.
According to Katsuta of CNIC, it requires about of 500,000 kw of electricity to trigger an atomic reaction, which amounts to energy costs of about 10 million yen.
"Operating the reactor itself requires an extremely large amount of energy," Katsuta said, adding that, as a power source, "It is obviously not useful."
-------- missile defense
Anti - Missile Rocket to Be Tested
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 24, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Test.html or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34144-2002Jan24?language=printer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military plans to test a prototype anti-missile rocket over the Pacific on Friday and crash it into a dummy missile fired from Hawaii.
The test is part of the Pentagon's efforts to develop a range of ways to knock down long-range missiles before they hit the United States.
President Bush announced last year he was pulling the United States out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which bans such anti-missile systems.
While most recent tests have evaluated missile interceptors fired from the ground, Friday's test interceptor will be launched from a ship: The guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie.
The test will be the first to evaluate the ship-launched interceptor's performance in space, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Plans call for the interceptor to hit and destroy the dummy missile, but the purpose of the test is not to determine if the interceptor can actually hit an enemy missile, the Pentagon statement said.
Instead, officials will evaluate the interceptor's guidance system and make any changes for another test scheduled for this spring.
-------- treaties
U.S. Defends Arms Control Policies
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Disarmament-US.html
GENEVA (AP) -- The United States pledged to support global treaties to control weapons of mass destruction, but said Thursday some accords may need to be strengthened or replaced because of threats from terrorists and ``rogue'' countries.
``It has become fashionable to characterize my country as 'unilateralist' and against all arms-control agreements,'' Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament.
``Nonetheless, our commitment to multilateral regimes to promote nonproliferation and international security never has been as strong as it is today through numerous arms-control treaties,'' he said.
He said widespread criticism of the United States for pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Moscow fails to take note of changes in the world since the end of the Cold War.
``Although our Russian friends did not agree with our withdrawal decision, the world is aware of the close and growing relationship between our two nations,'' Bolton said.
Bolton said the chance of a nuclear attack by an individual country or terrorist group is now greater than the ``comfortingly remote possibility'' of a U.S.-Russian nuclear war.
``Almost every state that actively sponsors terror is known to be seeking weapons of mass destruction and missiles to deliver them at longer and longer ranges,'' he said.
Bolton didn't name any countries, but Iraq and North Korea are among the nations U.S. officials have accused of violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and pursuing other weapons of mass destruction.
Because of the new threats, Bolton said the conference -- deadlocked since it created the nuclear test-ban treaty in 1996 -- must redouble efforts to forge new treaties to control weapons of mass destruction.
He suggested that the conference should negotiate a treaty to halt the spread of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium that is needed to make nuclear weapons.
Iraqi Ambassador Samir al-Nima denied Iraq, which has refused to let U.N. weapons inspectors in since 1998, is pursuing nuclear weapons.
North Korean diplomat Ri Thae Gun also denied his country is developing nuclear weapons.
``We have no intention of attacking any country in the world unless we are attacked,'' he said. ``We will not tolerate any kind of threat or invasion. We will fight until the last person.''
Addressing concerns that the Bush administration is abandoning international treaties, Bolton cited several pacts he said the United States supports, including the chemical weapons ban produced by the conference in 1992 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
At the opening session of the conference Tuesday, Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov criticized the Bush administration for pulling out of the ABM treaty and accused it of torpedoing efforts to give teeth to a ban on biological weapons.
Bolton said the United States still supports the Biological Weapons Convention despite its withdrawal last year from six years of talks to create an enforcement mechanism for the accord.
He charged that the proposed mechanism was flawed and would ``actually increase the specter of biological warfare by not effectively confronting the serious problem of BWC noncompliance.''
In his speech, Bolton made no mention of the nuclear test-ban treaty, which was pushed by the Clinton administration but was rejected by the Senate.
He later told reporters that the Bush administration had no plans to resume nuclear testing -- halted by the United States in 1992 -- but added that ``there was a decision to try and upgrade our testing infrastructure.''
``If the strategic circumstances in world changed dramatically we would be in a better position in terms of our testing and research infrastructure than we are now,'' he said.
--------
U.S. Urges Tougher Moves Against Spread of Arms
January 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-usa.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States sought on Thursday to put pressure on states it said aided the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological arms, insisting they be held accountable for violating international commitments.
In a speech to the Conference on Disarmament, U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton vowed Washington would use ''every method at our disposal'' to ensure extremist groups did not get weapons of mass destruction.
The Geneva talks should make this a priority, he added.
``The September 11 terrorist attacks have made all too clear the grave threat to civilized nations that come from terrorists who strike without warning, their state sponsors and rogue states that seek weapons of mass destruction,'' he said.
Bolton accused Iraq and North Korea of violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and interfering with monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
These violations must cease and ``I caution those who think they can pursue nuclear weapons without detection by the IAEA -- the United States and its allies will prove you wrong,'' he told delegates from the 66-member countries of the Conference.
Iraqi and North Korean envoys to the talks, the world's main negotiating forum on arms control, denied the charges.
Conference negotiations have been deadlocked for more than three years over a proposed ban on all arms in outer space and a call to end production of nuclear bomb-making fissile material (plutonium and highly-enriched uranium).
Bolton reiterated U.S. opposition to the first, where it is almost a lone voice, but called for rapid action on the second.
The mood at the talks was soured by a U.S. move late last year to block efforts to clinch a tighter ban on biological weapons aimed at making the pact more easily verifiable.
Washington said the scheme would not work and could at the same time expose its defense and industrial establishments to spying. However, other states, including some allies, accused the United States of turning its back on multilateralism.
THREAT TO SECURITY
``He (Bolton) basically called for fighting terrorism with all methods, and to hell with the Conference, or it should only be an instrument for fighting terrorism,'' said a senior Western diplomat.
Bolton, who oversees international security issues, denied the ``unilateralist'' charge, insisting the U.S. commitment to multilateral nonproliferation regimes had never been as strong.
He stressed the United States regarded the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology as a ``direct threat to international security and will treat it accordingly.''
``The same holds true for nations that traffic in deadly chemical and biological weapons technology and missile systems,'' he added.
Conspicuous by its absence was any specific reference in the speech to Iran, which the United States has accused of trying to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
``There has been a warming of relations between the United States and Iran through the fight against terrorism. Maybe omitting them from the list this time was a way of saying thank you,'' another diplomat said.
Iraq's ambassador Samir Al-Nima accused Washington of double standards by ``falsely'' accusing Iraq of having a weapons program while saying nothing about Israel. Israel is widely suspected of having developed nuclear weapons, something the Jewish state neither confirms nor denies.
The undersecretary said that with few exceptions, extremist groups have not acquired and cannot acquire weapons of mass destruction without the support of nation-states. But at least a dozen nations -- which he did not name -- were not controlling their companies' involvement in missile proliferation.
--------
Bush Official Asks Weapons Curb
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Disarmament.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton called on the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament on Thursday to approve new curbs on the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Bolton, in a speech prepared for the conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said the spread of nuclear weapons technology directly threatens international security.
The Bush administration ``will treat it accordingly,'' he said, and ``the same holds true for nations that traffic in deadly chemical and biological weapons technology and missile systems.''
Bolton said North Korea, Iraq and other countries he did not identify were violating a worldwide ban on proliferation. He did not say specifically what actions the Bush administration might take.
At the same time, he defended the administration's approach to arms control, and President Bush's decision to withdraw from a treaty with Moscow that blocked development of a U.S. anti-missile shield.
Bolton said the administration is interested in treaties and arrangements that meet today's threats to peace and stability, not yesterday's.
Long paralyzed by disagreement, the Conference opened a new session Tuesday with allegations that the United States was unraveling the limited progress made in recent years to counter weapons of mass destruction.
Speaking of ``the overall gloomy picture of multilateral disarmament,'' Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov took the Bush administration to task for pulling out of the 29-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
He said the administration had also undercut efforts to put teeth in a ban on biological weapons.
But Bolton said the Bush administration was committed to working out arrangements with other nations to curb the spread of dangerous technology and to improve international security.
He said this included an existing treaty to ban biological weapons. But, Bolton said, new ways are needed to strengthen the pact, including tightening controls on exports.
Bolton, who is in charge of arms control and international security policy at the State Department, defended Bush's decision to withdraw from the 1972 treaty with Russia that banned national anti-missile defenses.
He said the administration intended to rely more on missile defenses and less on offensive nuclear forces, which Bush has pledged to reduce over 10 years.
``It is an undeniable fact that the United States simply has no defense against a missile attack on our homeland,'' Bolton said. ``While we do have a defense against shorter-range missiles, we have none against even a single missile launched against our cities. We must fill this void in our defenses.''
Bolton said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ``taught us not to underestimate the intentions of rogue states and terrorist groups.''
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a message to the conference this week, said the attacks ``reminded us that effective measures are needed, and need to be swiftly implemented, the eliminate the risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists.''
Bolton's speech, in effect the U.S. response, contained a pledge that ``the fight against terrorism will remain a top international security priority'' for the Bush administration.
He said too many nations are not doing enough to stop companies from exporting missile technology.
Companies in at least a dozen countries are involved in these activities, and the United States might punish the companies by restricting business with them.
``The United States calls on all countries to control missile-related transfers and ensure that private companies operating within their borders cease illegal missile transactions,'' Bolton said.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Plutonium Conversion Set Under Arms Pact
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Washington Post
Thursday, January 24, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28603-2002Jan23?language=printer
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced yesterday that the Bush administration will go ahead with a multibillion-dollar program to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium taken from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons under an agreement that calls for Russia to get rid of a similar amount.
The program, originally agreed to as a nonproliferation step in September 2000 during the Clinton administration, had been held up for more than a year while the Bush National Security Council staff reviewed its growing costs and other issues.
Abraham said all the surplus weapons-grade plutonium in the program would be converted to a mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) and used in nuclear reactors. The MOX approach has been attacked by some nonproliferation groups that say it encourages the production of additional plutonium as fuel for nuclear power reactors.
The Clinton administration adopted a second approach for two metric tons of the surplus plutonium that would involve immobilizing the radioactive material in protective glass logs for long-term storage. Abraham's decision eliminated that approach at a savings of $2 billion, the Energy Department said.
Overall, the proposed plan will cost $3.8 billion over 20 years, according to the department. "There is an increased urgency to move forward with the elimination of surplus weapons-grade material like plutonium," Abraham said, adding that he had chosen "proven technologies to eliminate this material."
Illustrating the controversy that will come over the decision, Tom Clement, executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute, said that public interest groups already are opposing Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for construction of two plants in South Carolina required for MOX conversion of the plutonium.
-------- us politics
U.S. Defends Arms Control Policies
By Alexander G. Higgins
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2002; 12:54 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31901-2002Jan24?language=printer
GENEVA -- The United States pledged to support global treaties to control weapons of mass destruction, but said Thursday some accords may need to be strengthened or replaced because of threats from terrorists and "rogue" countries.
"It has become fashionable to characterize my country as 'unilateralist' and against all arms-control agreements," Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament.
"Nonetheless, our commitment to multilateral regimes to promote nonproliferation and international security never has been as strong as it is today through numerous arms-control treaties," he said.
He said widespread criticism of the United States for pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Moscow fails to take note of changes in the world since the end of the Cold War.
"Although our Russian friends did not agree with our withdrawal decision, the world is aware of the close and growing relationship between our two nations," Bolton said.
Bolton said the chance of a nuclear attack by an individual country or terrorist group is now greater than the "comfortingly remote possibility" of a U.S.-Russian nuclear war.
"Almost every state that actively sponsors terror is known to be seeking weapons of mass destruction and missiles to deliver them at longer and longer ranges," he said.
Bolton didn't name any countries, but Iraq and North Korea are among the nations U.S. officials have accused of violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and pursuing other weapons of mass destruction.
Because of the new threats, Bolton said the conference - deadlocked since it created the nuclear test-ban treaty in 1996 - must redouble efforts to forge new treaties to control weapons of mass destruction.
He suggested that the conference should negotiate a treaty to halt the spread of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium that is needed to make nuclear weapons.
Iraqi Ambassador Samir al-Nima denied Iraq, which has refused to let U.N. weapons inspectors in since 1998, is pursuing nuclear weapons.
North Korean diplomat Ri Thae Gun also denied his country is developing nuclear weapons.
"We have no intention of attacking any country in the world unless we are attacked," he said. "We will not tolerate any kind of threat or invasion. We will fight until the last person."
Addressing concerns that the Bush administration is abandoning international treaties, Bolton cited several pacts he said the United States supports, including the chemical weapons ban produced by the conference in 1992 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
At the opening session of the conference Tuesday, Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov criticized the Bush administration for pulling out of the ABM treaty and accused it of torpedoing efforts to give teeth to a ban on biological weapons.
Bolton said the United States still supports the Biological Weapons Convention despite its withdrawal last year from six years of talks to create an enforcement mechanism for the accord.
He charged that the proposed mechanism was flawed and would "actually increase the specter of biological warfare by not effectively confronting the serious problem of BWC noncompliance."
In his speech, Bolton made no mention of the nuclear test-ban treaty, which was pushed by the Clinton administration but was rejected by the Senate.
He later told reporters that the Bush administration had no plans to resume nuclear testing - halted by the United States in 1992 - but added that "there was a decision to try and upgrade our testing infrastructure."
"If the strategic circumstances in world changed dramatically we would be in a better position in terms of our testing and research infrastructure than we are now," he said.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Warlords arm Afghans in refugee camps
By Andrew Bushell
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 24, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020124-63416088.htm
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Warlords in several Afghan cities have begun arming refugee camps since the arrival of international peacekeepers in Kabul, international aid agencies say.
Their goal is to maintain the power vacuum caused by the fall of the Taliban and maintain profits from drug sales and smuggling, according to officials of the interim government in Kabul.
U.N. security officials believe the warlords aim to check the influence of the Kabul government headed by Hamid Karzai. The officials say the warlords would see deployment of the peacekeepers in any other cities as an extension of Kabul's power. At present, the international force operates only in Kabul and surrounding areas.
Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Northern Alliance commander, began the trend of arming refugees in the areas surrounding the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, according to Haneef Ata of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a private organization helping refugees around the world. The practice quickly spread to other cities throughout Afghanistan.
Often the gift of a rifle and a few pounds of grain is enough to ensure loyalty from a dispossessed farmer. The vast majority of camps surrounding cities house people who have been driven from their homes by the recent war and by feuding between warlords eager to consolidate power.
The United Nations estimates there could be as many as 1.5 million such people in Afghanistan.
A U.N. security officer working in the southeastern city of Jalalabad, who asked not to be identified, said the camps contain large numbers of young men who are prime candidates to become foot soldiers in armies such as the one Gen. Dostum is building in the north.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, boys from 13 to 17 years old have been observed transporting Kalashnikov rifles wrapped in carpets that people in the camps are too poor to buy.
The most prominent example is the Sakhi camp outside Mazar-e-Sharif. It is one of 25 camps surrounding the city formed seven months ago by IRC.
Things were peaceful in Sakhi, according to Mr. Ata, until Gen. Dostum began to arm displaced Uzbeks in the 15,000-person camp.
Other warlords quickly followed suit. With three factions competing for power in Mazar-e-Sharif, the nights now are punctuated with the sound of small-arms fire as groups battle each other over territory.
Competition among Uzbeks, Hazaras and Tajiks has forced other minorities out of the camp and created a siege mentality evident in conversations with locals.
One relief worker in Sakhi, who declined to be identified, said, "In a way, we are kept hostage by the refugees. If we leave, thousands of innocents die, and if we stay, we support a situation which invites abuse by the violent."
At least 40 women are believed to have been raped in the past three months in the camp, according to local physicians. Because of the social stigma involved in reporting abuse, the actual figure could be many times higher.
IRC aid workers in Sakhi say they were threatened when they attempted to intervene.
One of the women, Iruma, said she was raped by 10 armed men who accosted her when she went out for grain one day. She was in a hospital for more than eight days after being brutally sodomized for more than 13 hours.
At least two female aid workers said they were threatened by men armed by Gen. Dostum.
Mazar-e-Sharif is divided among three competing warlords whose rivalry dates from the early 1990s: Gen. Dostum, who represents the Uzbeks; Commander Mohaqaq, representing the Hazara tribes; and Commander Uftad Ata, who represents the Tajiks and supports the faction led by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Foreign-aid workers interviewed in the area say similar problems are taking place elsewhere around the country.
U.S. Special Forces, with the cooperation of Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha, confiscated about 2,000 weapons from warlords in southern Helmand province yesterday, the Associated Press reported.
In Islamabad, Pakistan, a spokeswoman for U.N. agencies working in Afghanistan was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying lawlessness was hampering relief work in the country. The U.N. World Food Program said this week that gunmen had stolen 40 tons of food aid intended for people in drought-hit areas in northern Afghanistan.
Because the agreement establishing the interim administration for Afghanistan contains no provisions for the deployment of peacekeepers beyond 4,500 troops in Kabul, the projection of federal power has been left to be negotiated with warlords controlling the other cities.
Two attempts to exert central authority from Kabul in the past month have met with disaster.
In violation of a request from the interim government and the United States, Mr. Agha released seven senior Taliban ministers in early January.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, Gen. Dostum continues to run printing presses issuing counterfeit money despite government protests. No fewer than 20 local administrations in Afghanistan bicker over land and the right to tax commerce.
Gen. Ghulam Nassery, Afghan minister in charge of peacekeeping, said that unless the camps are disarmed, Afghanistan could devolve once again into civil war.
He said that in addition to the financial aid promised by Western nations, his country needs the right kind of people to secure the streets.
"I am ashamed to say, we need men who are not Afghans. We need the blue helmets - we need more than a hundred thousand of them," he said.
----
U.N. Monitors Warn of Afghan Missiles
Panel Says Taliban, Al Qaeda Remnants May Pose Conventional, Chemical Threat
By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28198-2002Jan23?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 23 -- The head of a U.N. committee monitoring sanctions against the Taliban said today that remnants of the Islamic movement and its al Qaeda supporters may possess surface-to-surface missiles capable of delivering conventional or chemical weapons.
Michael Chandler, a British official who heads the U.N. Monitoring Group on Afghanistan, said the Taliban had acquired at least 100 Scud missiles and four mobile Scud launchers before it was driven from power. Chandler also cited unspecified "reports" that the Taliban may have acquired stockpiles of weapons containing the nerve agents sarin and VX.
"They were there. Where are they now?" Chandler said. "Someone needs to go and find and catalogue these nasty things and either blow them up, demobilize them so they can't be used again or put them in somebody's safe hands."
While U.S. officials believe that the Taliban and al Qaeda have sought to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons, they have never contended that the groups have actually obtained any.
Chandler's agency told the 15-nation Security Council last week that it has not been able to verify what happened to the weapons.
In a report to the council, Chandler's sanctions panel said the Taliban may possess an unspecified number of Scud-B (R-17) missiles with a range of up to 180 miles and Frog 7 missiles with a range of up to 43 miles. It voiced concern that they could be used against a British-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.
"These missiles may be fitted with conventional, chemical or nuclear warheads," the report said.
The Security Council has not formally responded to the report.
The sanctions panel was established last October to help the council enforce an embargo on the Taliban militia then ruling Afghanistan. Its mandate has since been broadened to help the council crack down on the Taliban, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
It frequently relies on confidential information provided by U.N. members, foreign intelligence agencies, and international law enforcement and arms control agencies, diplomats said. Its report provided little evidence to back the suspicions that the Taliban and al Qaeda had acquired chemical weapons.
U.S. officials, however, say that the Taliban and al Qaeda have moved aggressively in seeking to obtain chemical and nuclear weapons. U.S. officials have provided journalists with copies of al Qaeda manuals containing instructions for the production of chemical weapons.
Jamal Ahmed Fadl, a former associate of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, told a New York jury last year that he had tried to buy a cylinder of uranium from a retired Sudanese military officer. He also said that al Qaeda and the Sudanese government had cooperated in an effort to develop chemical weapons in a Khartoum factory between 1993 and 1994.
----
Chinese enter Afghan arena
THURSDAY JANUARY 24 2002
The Times (UK)
FROM OLIVER AUGUST IN BEIJING
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2002039683,00.html
HAMID KARZAI, the interim Afghan leader, visited Beijing yesterday to forge a new alliance with China that is likely to limit Western influence in Afghanistan.
Mr Karzai met senior members of the Chinese leadership, including Zhu Rongji, the Prime Minister, who are believed to have offered their support if and when Afghan rulers want to rid themselves of foreign troops on their soil.
In recent months China has become alarmed by the growing number of American and European soldiers stationed near its western border. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Beijing has regarded Central Asia as part of its sphere of influence.
While supporting the US-led campaign to drive the Taleban from power, the Chinese leadership has also warned against a permanent presence of western troops in the region, fearing encirclement.
A Chinese government spokesman said: "We have taken note that the US side has expressed on many occasions that it does not hope to have a long-term military presence in Central Asia."
The spokesman said that Chinese leaders would discuss the US presence in Afghanistan with Mr Karzai. Privately, Chinese diplomats last month expressed relief that the Northern Alliance had refused entry to larger contingents of British and other foreign troops, despite the help provided to anti-Taleban forces just weeks earlier.
--------
U.S. Forces Strike Al Qaeda Cell in Southern Afghanistan
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-US-Wounded.html
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. Army special forces soldiers attacked an al-Qaida cell in southern Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Thursday, capturing and killing a number of the al-Qaida fighters. One American was wounded in the foot.
In Washington, Pentagon officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the U.S. soldiers had engaged the al-Qaida group in a gunfight, but they did not specify how many people were taken or killed. The officials said the American's wound was not life-threatening. They also would not describe the location of the gun battle, saying it may not be over.
In Kandahar, a statement by the U.S. command said the soldier, who was not identified, was wounded in the foot Wednesday night while ``conducting combat operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.''
Army spokesman Capt. Tony Rivers said here that the operation was ``a success,'' though he would not say why.
The injury was the first American battlefield casualty in Afghanistan since Army Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman was killed Jan. 4.
-------- arms sales
War Shouldn't Bar U.S. Military Cuts
By William D. Hartung
January 7, 2002,
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vphar072539178jan07.story
LESS THAN four months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, U.S. forces have Osama bin Laden on the run and George W. Bush's administration is earning praise for conducting "a new kind of warfare" in Afghanistan.
The question now is whether Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will seize this moment of widespread public support to restructure U.S. forces for the challenges of the future or whether he will abandon the administration's stated commitment to military reform in pursuit of enormous increases in his department's budget. Unfortunately, if Rumsfeld's boss has anything to say about it, the campaign to cut unnecessary weapons programs may become an unintended casualty of the war on terrorism.
In early December, Bush gave a speech at the Citadel designed to "set out the commitments essential to victory in our war against terror." It was a homecoming of sorts for Bush, who gave his first major address on defense policy at the Citadel more than two years earlier at the outset of his campaign for the presidency.
Most news coverage of the second speech focused on the president's pledge to move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a promise he fulfilled two days later when he formally notified Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States would withdraw from the agreement. But another striking element of the president's presentation was barely commented upon. Despite his assertion that the war on terrorism demands that we think differently about how best to defend the United States, Bush studiously avoided the most forward-looking element of his earlier speech at the Citadel.
A central theme of Bush's first Citadel speech was the need to move beyond a military force "organized for Cold War threats" in which there is "almost no relationship between our budget priorities and a strategic vision." To achieve this transformation, Bush argued for a shift toward weapons systems characterized "not by mass or size, but by mobility and swiftness." In order to make this happen, Bush spoke of the need to "skip a generation of technology."
Pursuant to the speech, Bush advisers started raising critical questions. Did the United States really need to spend $350 billion over the next two decades on three new combat aircraft - the F-22, the F-18E/F, and the Joint Strike Fighter? Did the 70-ton Crusader, billed as the Army's artillery system for the 21st century, meet the requirements for speed, mobility and ease of transport set out in Bush's new defense vision? Should the Navy continue to spend money on Cold War-style ships such as a new heavy destroyer and a next-generation attack submarine?
Unfortunately, the notion of cutting back current programs to make way for new concepts soon fell by the wayside, primarily due to lobbying by the military services, major contractors and members of Congress with vested political interests in systems built in their states or districts. As a result, there was no talk of skipping a generation of technology in the president's most recent speech at the Citadel, nor have any of these systems been canceled in the administration's fiscal year 2002 budget, which recently passed Congress.
In the meantime, ballistic-missile defense, an unproved and provocative program that has more to do with unilateralist ideology than carefully considered defense priorities, will receive a $2.5-billion increase, up to $7.8 billion this year. By contrast, new spending on the unmanned aerial vehicles that have been a critical element of the air war in Afghanistan will increase by only one-tenth that amount, or $250 million.
With tens of billions of dollars tied up in expensive Cold War relics, the only way to make room for investments in the systems the president claims are most urgently needed will be to ratchet up Pentagon spending at rates not seen since the first term of Ronald Reagan's administration. Counting the $20 billion in emergency funds provided to the Pentagon after Sept. 11, military spending for the coming year will be at least $363 billion, a $54-billion increase over last year.
Only a small fraction of this funding - including the roughly $1 billion-a-month cost of the war in Afghanistan and the new investments in unmanned aerial vehicles and "smart" bombs - is even remotely related to the war on terrorism.
Instead of seizing this historic moment to set new defense priorities, the Bush administration appears to be doing exactly what candidate Bush promised not to do - funding two military strategies at once, one for the Cold War and one for the future.
That's great news for weapons manufacturers such as Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, but it's an incredibly wasteful way to finance national defense.
Before he submits his military budget request to Congress later this month, Bush should reread his original speech at the Citadel and recommit his administration to the urgent task of reforming the Pentagon budget.
------
"On the Wish Lists"
Washington Post
Letter to the Editor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64832-2002Jan4.html
The Post's poll of public attitudes in the wake of Sept. 11 [front page, Jan. 1] noted that most Americans feel that the war on terrorism is "worth the expense," even though more than two-thirds of the respondents expect it to "shortchange other needed programs." These results might be different if more Americans knew that much of the funding authorized in the name of fighting terrorism is being set aside for pork-barrel projects with little or no relationship to anti-terror efforts.
Congress has signed off on more than $50 billion in additional Pentagon spending since Sept. 11. The war in Afghanistan has absorbed only a fraction of this new funding, roughly $1 billion per month.
Some new allocations -- such as $250 million in added funds for unmanned aerial vehicles that have been used extensively in Afghanistan -- are relevant to the fight against terrorism. But most of the new funds will go to finance projects long on the wish lists of the military services, key members of Congress and weapons contractors long before Sept. 11: the 70-ton Crusader artillery system; three new fighter plane programs; heavy destroyers, and nuclear attack submarines that cost more than $1 billion each. Most of these systems are ill-suited to the "new kind of war" against terror networks that the administration claims it wants to be prepared to fight.
Before the public can make an informed decision about whether the war on terrorism is worth the expense, there needs to be a thorough debate about the relevance of these new Pentagon expenditures to the actual tasks involved in preventing and responding to terrorism.
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG, New York
William D. Hartung
World Policy Institute
66 Fifth Ave. Suite 901
New York, NY 10011
(212)-229-5808, ext. 106
(212)-229-5579 (fax)
hartung@newschool.edu
----
Bush Official Asks Weapons Curb
By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2002; 6:58 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29928-2002Jan24?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton called on the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament on Thursday to approve new curbs on the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Bolton, in a speech prepared for the conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said the spread of nuclear weapons technology directly threatens international security.
The Bush administration "will treat it accordingly," he said, and "the same holds true for nations that traffic in deadly chemical and biological weapons technology and missile systems."
Bolton said North Korea, Iraq and other countries he did not identify were violating a worldwide ban on proliferation. He did not say specifically what actions the Bush administration might take.
At the same time, he defended the administration's approach to arms control, and President Bush's decision to withdraw from a treaty with Moscow that blocked development of a U.S. anti-missile shield.
Bolton said the administration is interested in treaties and arrangements that meet today's threats to peace and stability, not yesterday's.
Long paralyzed by disagreement, the Conference opened a new session Tuesday with allegations that the United States was unraveling the limited progress made in recent years to counter weapons of mass destruction.
Speaking of "the overall gloomy picture of multilateral disarmament," Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov took the Bush administration to task for pulling out of the 29-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
He said the administration had also undercut efforts to put teeth in a ban on biological weapons.
But Bolton said the Bush administration was committed to working out arrangements with other nations to curb the spread of dangerous technology and to improve international security.
He said this included an existing treaty to ban biological weapons. But, Bolton said, new ways are needed to strengthen the pact, including tightening controls on exports.
Bolton, who is in charge of arms control and international security policy at the State Department, defended Bush's decision to withdraw from the 1972 treaty with Russia that banned national anti-missile defenses.
He said the administration intended to rely more on missile defenses and less on offensive nuclear forces, which Bush has pledged to reduce over 10 years.
"It is an undeniable fact that the United States simply has no defense against a missile attack on our homeland," Bolton said. "While we do have a defense against shorter-range missiles, we have none against even a single missile launched against our cities. We must fill this void in our defenses."
Bolton said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "taught us not to underestimate the intentions of rogue states and terrorist groups."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a message to the conference this week, said the attacks "reminded us that effective measures are needed, and need to be swiftly implemented, the eliminate the risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists."
Bolton's speech, in effect the U.S. response, contained a pledge that "the fight against terrorism will remain a top international security priority" for the Bush administration.
He said too many nations are not doing enough to stop companies from exporting missile technology. Companies in at least a dozen countries are involved in these activities, and the United States might punish the companies by restricting business with them.
"The United States calls on all countries to control missile-related transfers and ensure that private companies operating within their borders cease illegal missile transactions," Bolton said.
-------- business
Defense 'priority' for Bush
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 24, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020124-93424000.htm
President Bush yesterday called for a $48 billion increase in military spending, the largest in two decades, even if it puts what he called "a strain on the budget."
Mr. Bush told a gathering of military reserve officers that rebuilding the armed forces, which had begun to atrophy during the Clinton era, will be the "first priority" of the budget he will submit to Congress on Feb. 4.
"The highest calling to protect the people is to strengthen the military," the president said at a Washington hotel. "And that will be the priority of the budget I submit to the United States Congress."
Although Democrats have been complaining that the upcoming budget will be the first in four years to run a deficit, Mr. Bush suggested that that is the price for "the tools of modern warfare." The defense budget would grow to about $380 billion if Congress approves those tools.
"They are expensive," the president said. "But in order to win this war against terror, they are essential.
"Buying these tools may put a strain on the budget," he added. "But we will not cut corners when it comes to the defense of our great land."
Asked whether Congress would approve the $48 billion increase, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said, "Well, I think it's too early to come to any conclusion about what the number ought to be."
The South Dakota Democrat also blamed the forthcoming deficit on the president's tax cuts enacted last year.
"We told you so," he said.
The budget, which the president will outline in his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday, also contains a major boost in spending for homeland security. This would allow the administration to complete the hiring of 30,000 new airport security workers.
"We'll hire an additional 300 FBI agents to help fight the war on terror," Mr. Bush said. "We'll ensure that state and local firemen and police and rescue workers are prepared for terrorism. And we will do more to secure our borders."
Some of the homeland defense funds are earmarked for the purchase of equipment to protect postal workers from anthrax. Others will fund research to fight bioterrorism. Still others will modernize public health laboratories so they can more effectively detect and treat outbreaks of disease.
The Bush budget's third priority will be an economic-stimulus package that has been stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Although Mr. Daschle signaled in a meeting with the president yesterday morning that he was ready to extend unemployment benefits, the president made clear in his speech that those benefits must be coupled with tax cuts in order to spur job growth.
"You know, our country is united when it comes to fighting a war," he said. "We need to be united when it comes to battling recession as well.
"It's time to set aside all the politics, all the posturing, to figure out how to take care of workers whose lives were affected because of the attacks on 9/11. But as we do so, always remember that people may want an unemployment check to help them through tough times, but what they really want is a permanent paycheck.
"And therefore, jobs ought to be the central core of any economic development plan that we can run out of the United States Congress."
During his closed-door meeting with Mr. Daschle, which was also attended by other congressional leaders, Mr. Bush countered recent Democratic arguments that Republicans are trying to exploit the war for political purposes.
The accusations arose in the wake of comments made by Bush adviser Karl Rove during the Republican National Committee meeting in Austin, Texas, last week.
"I have no ambition whatsoever to use this as a political issue," Mr. Bush said, according to a senior White House official. "There is no daylight between the executive and the legislative branches."
The official said nobody challenged the comments of the president, who was sitting in front of Mr. Rove in the Cabinet Room.
Later yesterday, Mr. Bush signed legislation to grant tax breaks to the families of victims of the terrorist attacks last year, including those who died of anthrax. The Victims of Terrorism Tax Relief Act also covers victims of the Oklahoma City bombing.
"This is a small gesture compared to the overwhelming generosity of the American people in times of tragedy," Mr. Bush said in the East Room of the White House, where he was surrounded by the families of victims. "Yet this will help to extend that generosity, because it exempts payments from charities to victims' families from federal taxes."
The speech yesterday to the military reserve officers was viewed as a warm-up to the president's first State of the Union address. Mr. Bush used the occasion to warn Congress that "there will be no room for misunderstanding" when he asks for more military funding.
"Those who review our budget must understand that we are asking a lot of our men and women in uniform, and we'll be asking more of them in the future," the president said. "In return, they deserve every resource, every weapon needed to achieve the final and full victory."
He added, "We will invest in more precision weapons, in missile defenses, in unmanned vehicles, in high-tech equipment for soldiers on the ground."
----
General Dynamics Profit Up
From Staff and Wire Reports
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page E02
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28642-2002Jan23?language=printer
General Dynamics said yesterday that it maintained solid earnings growth last year, with fourth-quarter net income of $246 million ($1.21 a share), up 12 percent from the $219 million ($1.09) profit it had in the same period of 2000.
The Falls Church defense, aerospace and information technology conglomerate reported sales of $3.5 billion for the quarter, up 30 percent from $2.7 billion a year earlier.
For all of 2001, General Dynamics posted $943 million ($4.65) in profit on $12.2 billion in revenue. The year before, the company earned $901 million ($4.48) on sales of $10.4 billion.
"This was another year of strong, steady performance," chairman and chief executive Nicholas D. Chabraja said in a news release.
The company suffered one major setback during the year, with the Justice Department and the Pentagon rebuffing its efforts to acquire Newport News Shipbuilding and awarding the deal to rival contractor Northrop Grumman Corp.
The General Dynamics Marine Systems business, which builds nuclear submarines as well as commercial tankers, was the one lagging performer for the company, with revenue declining 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.
But General Dynamics made other purchases -- notably ammunition maker Primex and Spanish battle-tank manufacturer Santa Barbara Sistemas -- that built up the company's Combat Systems segment, whose sales rose 93 percent in the fourth quarter over the same period of the previous year.
Sales of business jets rose at subsidiary Gulfstream Aerospace, including several to foreign governments for use as military special mission planes. And revenue at the burgeoning information technology segment at General Dynamics climbed 46 percent in the fourth quarter from the year before, boosted last fall by the acquisition of Decision Systems....
• USEC Inc., a Bethesda-based maker of enriched uranium for use in power plants, said pricing pressures on uranium led to a decline in net income in its fiscal second quarter.
USEC earned $9.5 million (12 cents a share) in the three months ended Dec. 31 on revenue of $560.1 million, compared with net income of $20.9 million (26 cents) on revenue of $387.1 million a year earlier.
For the first six months of its fiscal year, USEC earned $4.8 million (6 cents) on revenue of $860.6 million, compared with net income of $25.5 million (31 cents) on revenue of $613.9 million....
----
A War-Scrambled Budget: How the Agencies Fared
The Washington Post
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28268-2002Jan23?language=printer
Soon after taking office, President Bush submitted a relatively modest proposal for $661 billion to fund the 14 government departments, dozens of independent agencies and hundreds of programs from space and science research to road building and environmental protection. That would have been a 4 percent increase above President Bill Clinton's last budget. But Bush soon decided that he needed more money for his two priorities, defense and education, and before the year was over he had gotten an additional $18.4 billion for the Pentagon, and another $4 billion to help fund his education agenda.
Then came Sept. 11 and a scramble to provide money to fight a new war, beef up agencies involved in defending the United States against terrorists, and help New York and the Northern Virginia communities hit by the attacks. After a tussle in which Congress pleaded for more but the administration held firm, $40 billion in extra funds were appropriated for the emergency - only half of which was charged to the budget then being written.
The real spending impact is larger still because another $10 billion in emergency aid for the airline industry is not included in the total. And the figures also exclude billions of dollars of "emergency" spending on farm programs. In all, the president got about $706 billion, not including funds for such mandatory programs as Medicare and Medicaid. How the individual agencies fared follows below:
- Dan Morgan
Agriculture
President Bush asked Congress for $15.4 billion in new Department of Agriculture spending for 2002. He got what he wanted - and even a little more. Congress approved $16 billion in new spending for USDA, $600 million more than the president's request.
The biggest increase was for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, more commonly known as the WIC program. Lawmakers funded the program at $4.39 billion, $211 million above Bush's request.
Congress also added funds for the Agricultural Research Service ($152 million more than Bush's request) and farm-labor housing ($3 million), among other things. Neither the president's budget nor the spending bill made any big changes in the direction of federal subsidy programs for farms - that will be determined by the outcome of the ongoing debate on the farm bill, which would authorize farm programs for the next decade.
- John Lancaster
Commerce
Despite a Bush request for a 6 percent cut in Commerce Department spending, the department got $5.2 billion, up from $5.1 billion in fiscal 2001.
The administration had proposed "suspending" the Advanced Technology Program, which promotes research and development partnerships with high-tech enterprises, but Congress provided $184.5 million for the program, an increase over the $145.4 million it got in 2001. Republicans have derided ATP, a favorite of the Clinton White House, as excessive involvement by Washington in "picking winners and losers" among promising private ventures. Another winner was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which got about $3.3 billion; Bush had wanted a small cut from the 2001 level of $3.1 billion.
- Paul Blustein
Defense
Perhaps more than for any other part of the U.S. government, the Pentagon budget changed radically in the wake of Sept. 11.
The Bush administration had hoped that the fiscal 2002 budget of about $330 billion it introduced last year would set the military on the path of reform. With that in mind, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld launched a broad review of how to reshape the military to better address the new threats of the 21st century. But the review ended in a virtual stalemate. The top brass feared that Rumsfeld would pay for his priorities, such as missile defense, by cutting their priorities, like new weapons systems. Also, Congress was alarmed by Rumsfeld's push to close more military bases.
Then, just as the review was ending, the real world intruded with September's terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon itself. The defense appropriations bill provided for about $317.5 billion in new budget authority, including a military pay raise of 4.6 percent, $42.6 billion for 13 new F-22 fighters, $1.5 billion for development of the Joint Strike Fighter and $3 billion for the Navy's strike aircraft.
Congress also added $7.8 billion for missile defense - about $500 million less than Bush requested but more than previous spending, and about $880 million for a new counterterrorism account.
- Thomas E. Ricks
Education
Congress delivered $53.5 billion to the Department of Education, an increase of $11 billion over last year and $4.4 billion more than Bush had requested. The budget includes $48.9 billion in discretionary spending - $6.7 billion more than 2001 - and more than $4.5 billion in mandatory expenditures. The hike continues a series of budget increases for the department. Once targeted for elimination, Education's budget has more than doubled in the past five years.
The largest share of the increase - $3.4 billion - goes to funding Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education initiative, which increases funding for disadvantaged students, launches a new early literacy program and requires standardized tests in math and reading for all students in grades 3 through 8.
- Michael Fletcher
Energy
Congress saw what President Bush had proposed for the Department of Energy, and in many cases, raised the amount. For instance, instead of $5.3 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, Congress appropriated just under $6.1 billion to help take care of a backlog of needed maintenance at nuclear weapons facilities and laboratories. Congress also increased the budget for solar and renewable energy programs, for Energy's office of science and for environmental cleanups.
As requested, Congress also appropriated money for a program for research on cleaner ways to burn coal at power plants. The costs for the $150 million program are shared by industry.
- Martha McNeil Hamilton
EPA
Congress proved more generous than the administration in funding the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002, providing a minor boost in overall spending rather than the 6.4 percent cut proposed by the president.
Lawmakers also approved legislation to increase funding and strengthen efforts to reclaim hundreds of thousands of contaminated and abandoned industrial sites known as brownfields, one of Bush's top environmental priorities. Overall spending for the EPA rose from $7.8 billion to $7.9 billion, with most of that increase going for special grants to states to improve wastewater and drinking water treatment facilities. Congress rejected a Bush proposal that would have simultaneously cut back funding for federal enforcement of environmental laws while providing $25 million in grants to states for enforcement efforts.
- Eric Pianin
HHS
The Department of Health and Human Services received $61.6 billion for discretionary programs and about $407 billion for mandatory spending, mostly for Medicare and Medicaid programs. The president had requested about $11 billion for a new prescription drug plan for low-income seniors, but the program was not enacted.
The steep rise in funding for the National Institutes of Health, which began in 1998, continued: The president asked for $23.1 billion, an increase over the previous year, and Congress approved more than $23.4 billion. Bush asked for $64 million - $315 million over five years - for an initiative to promote "responsible fatherhood," but that program was not enacted.
- Judy Sarasohn
HUD
Bush proposed about $2 billion in cuts in key programs and special grants for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, but Congress restored most of them in giving HUD about $30 billion. The administration proposed a $28.5 billion budget, which included more than $3 billion in increased budget authority for Section 8 vouchers, to subsidize rental housing for the poor.
The president had proposed cutting the public housing capital program by $700 million, but Congress trimmed only $150 million. He wanted to eliminate the $25 million rural housing program, but lawmakers restored it. Congress granted Bush's desire to kill the $310 million drug-fighting grant program that dates to the administration of the president's father, but also increased the public housing operating fund by $253 million, making that money available to public housing authorities to help cover the same efforts. Bush had sought an additional 34,000 Section 8 housing vouchers, but Congress financed only 25,000.
- Ellen Nakashima
Interior
After steady increases during the Clinton administration, the Interior Department's budget did not change much last year. Overall, Bush requested $9.987 billion, a 2.1 percent cut, but Congress enacted $10.350 billion, a 1.4 percent increase.
Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton's top budget initiative was to seek a 500 percent boost to the Land and Water Conservation Fund for states, while consolidating a slew of specific grant programs that provide less flexibility. Congress kept the various grant programs, although it did approve a 60 percent increase for the fund. It also rejected Norton's proposal for a $69 million cut for the U.S. Geological Survey, a scientific agency. And it added a bit to the administration's requests for national parks and wildlife refuges.
Norton did secure funding to reward landowners for protecting endangered species, to help repair crumbling Indian schools and to enhance efforts to fight wildfires.
- Michael Grunwald
Justice
The Justice Department's budget authority increased 3 percent, to $21.7 billion this year, about $600 million more than Bush proposed.
The FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service budgets will remain nearly the same as last year - about $3.5 billion for each. The FBI received a $70 million increase to upgrade its computer system.
The Drug Enforcement Administration was given a $100 million boost, to $1.5 billion, while the Bureau of Prisons received a $300 million hike, to $4.6 billion, about $41 million less than Bush requested.
Bush requested that the Community Oriented Policing Services be cut from $1 billion to $855 million, but Congress kept it at $1 billion.
- Cheryl W. Thompson
Labor
All things considered, the Department of Labor did quite well in its discretionary budget for fiscal 2002. The president had requested $11.99 billion and Congress gave another $655 million, a 6 percent increase over his request. The biggest winners were in the areas of employment and training: The Employment and Training Administration received $495 million more than Bush's request of $9.66 billion and the department's program for dislocated workers was boosted by $166 million from the White House request of $1.566 billion. Both are areas that reflect the status of the economy.
The Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration also received a boost: Bush had asked for $110 million and Congress added another $1.9 million.
- Frank Swoboda
State
Congress added extra money for embassy security, childhood education and overseas AIDS programs in a $22.8 billion budget that topped the previous year's total by $1.2 billion. The administration got $200 million more than it sought in the foreign operations bill, which funds humanitarian aid and development assistance, among other projects.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who has pledged to improve the morale and effectiveness of his department, received more than $100 million to fund 360 new positions, primarily foreign service officers. At a time of increased terrorist threats, an extra $200 million was set aide for embassy security and construction.
Funding for the Agency for International Development is 10 percent greater than the administration requested, primarily for HIV/AIDS and education programs.
Congress budgeted $660 million for the Andean anti-drug initiative, $71 million less than the administration sought.
- Peter Slevin
Transportation
Congress approved $59.6 billion for transportation, $624 million more than Bush requested. One of the most hotly contested issues in the transportation bill came out in Bush's favor: Congress voted to open the Mexican border to Mexican trucks under the North American Free Trade Agreement, a measure contested by U.S. labor unions.
The legislation provides the first installment in a $10 billion program to replace the Coast Guard's older fleet of deep-water vessels. It also funds the newly created Transportation Security Administration to manage security at airports, railroads, highways and ports.
- Don Phillips
Treasury
Thanks in substantial measure to $600 million in emergency supplemental appropriations for counterterrorism activities, Treasury got $15.8 billion, 11 percent above the previous year and a hefty amount above Bush's initial request of $14.7 billion.
The Customs Service got the biggest chunk of the additional money - about $400 million, much of which went to improve policing of the U.S.-Canadian border. Bush had already proposed a $35 million boost for the agency's drug interdiction efforts and Congress added more to help spur modernization of its computer system.
Also receiving funding increases in the emergency supplemental measure were the Secret Service ($104.8 million) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ($31.4 million).
Congress gave Bush all but $5 million of the $396 million he requested for modernization of the computer systems at the Internal Revenue Service.
- Paul Blustein
Veterans Affairs
Congress gave the Department of Veterans Affairs everything it asked for, with a little bit to spare for veterans' health care. The VA budget includes 25 separate spending categories and lawmakers left 16 of those unchanged from the administration's budget request. They increased spending in eight categories and cut spending below the request in only one. The end result was a $51.1 billion appropriation, $463.1 million more than requested.
By far the largest part of the increase, totaling $351.4 million, was for the VA health care system, which Congress decided to beef up even more than the department sought. The only cut, of $897,000, was also in health care, but this trim of Bush's request affected only the VA headquarters staff in Washington, not the doctors and others who staff VA health care facilities in congressional districts across the country.
- Edward Walsh
--------
Czech Govt. to Buy Explosives Maker
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Czech.html
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- The Czech government has decided to purchase the producer of the plastic explosive Semtex to minimize the risks of its possible use for terrorist attacks, an official said Thursday.
Semtex, developed by the Explosia company for industrial purposes, was used in 1988 by Libyan terrorists to down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
Anna Starkova, a spokeswoman for the Trade and Industry Ministry, said the Czech state will acquire Explosia, the company that produces Semtex, for some $19.4 million.
She said the money will be deducted from a debt the company's current owner Aliachem, a chemical concern, owes the state.
``Moreover, Aliachem announced it was planning to abandon the production of explosives and had no intention to keep Explosia,'' Starkova said.
She said the purchase was recommended by the country's security council following the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11.
Explosia, located in Pardubice, 62 miles east of Prague, is the country's sole producer of industrial and military explosives. Its owner, Aliachem, confirmed the sale on Thursday.
``For understandable reasons, the state wants to have the production of explosives under its control,'' said Jindrich Krejci, a spokesman for Aliachem.
To prevent unauthorized use of Semtex, the producer developed a new version that loses its plasticity after three years. The previous version kept its plasticity for 20 years. The new version also contains additives that make it easily detectable.
-------- colombia
U.S. Chopper Destroyed in Colombia
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-US-Shootdown.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's military destroyed a U.S. government helicopter to keep it from falling into the hands of guerrillas who forced it down during an anti-drug mission, Colombian and American officials said Thursday.
Five Colombian police officers died protecting the downed UH-1N helicopter aircraft, and three Colombian soldiers were wounded. There were no Americans aboard the State Department helicopter when it was hit by ground fire last week.
The crew -- including Colombian police and a Peruvian pilot working for a private American company contracted by the U.S. government for the drug war -- was evacuated unharmed, the officials said.
Hovering above was a second U.S. Huey helicopter with a search-and-rescue team that included Americans and Colombians working for the same contractor that employed the Peruvian pilot, said Col. Carlos Rivera, deputy director of Colombia's anti-narcotics police. The team was not called into action, he said.
The helicopter was destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of the guerrillas, said a U.S. Embassy official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The downing of the helicopter and the deaths were reported on Jan. 18, the day they occurred, but officials did not reveal at the time that it was a U.S. government aircraft.
Charlene Wheeless, a spokeswoman for the contractor -- DynCorp of Reston, Va. -- confirmed by e-mail that the Peruvian pilot of the downed helicopter and ``Americans and third country nationals'' aboard the search and rescue helicopter are company employees. She did not provide more details on the crew.
The incident marked the second time rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have shot or forced down a counterdrug helicopter in less than a year. It illustrates the obstacles facing anti-drug efforts in the nation that produces most of the world's cocaine.
It also highlights the large role played by civilian contractors in the war against drugs, which Colombia is fighting with hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid for destroying crops and laboratories guarded by the FARC and other insurgent groups.
Some of the riskier jobs are being carried out by the contractors, many of them Americans -- including U.S. military veterans -- who have experience flying and repairing helicopters and crop dusters, or have worked as paramedics.
Last February, a DynCorp search-and-rescue team risked rebel gunfire to help rescue the crew of a downed Colombian police helicopter in the same area of southern Caqueta state where last week's combat occurred.
Critics say private contractors are used to avoid putting U.S. military personnel at risk, something that could sap American public support for the drug war in Colombia.
In last Friday's fighting, Rivera said, a crop duster and five helicopter escorts were on a drug-spraying mission over the coca-growing town of Curillo when FARC rebels fired machine guns from the ground. The town is close to the main stronghold of the 16,000-strong rebel group.
``We take hits almost every day,'' Rivera added.
Bullets ripped into the hydraulic system of one of helicopters, setting an oil light flashing and forcing its pilot to make an emergency landing by a riverbank.
A support helicopter -- a Black Hawk also provided by Washington -- landed, scooped up the damaged helicopter's four-man crew and left 16 police to guard the aircraft until reinforcements could arrive. Five were fatally shot by the estimated 200 rebels on the ground, and three soldiers were wounded when bullets pierced their rescue helicopter.
Rivera said police tried to land a repair crew to fix the downed helicopter and fly it out, but the rebels were too numerous. An air force plane was sent in to bomb the chopper from the air. Rivera said the Colombian government received U.S. authorization before destroying the helicopter.
-------- iran
Iran Said to Assist Forces Opposing Kabul Government
Generals Aided Warlords, Official Says
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28058-2002Jan23?language=printer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Jan. 23 -- Officials said they are increasingly concerned that neighboring Iran, which has been accused of political meddling in the border province of Herat, may now be bringing money, goods and weapons deeper into Afghanistan in an effort to undermine its new government.
Yusuf Pashtun, a top aide to the governor of Kandahar province, said tonight that two Iranian army generals had spent the past several weeks visiting Helmand, Nimruz and Farah provinces, distributing cash, goods and possibly arms to former warlords in an apparent effort to foment unrest.
"These steps are contrary to all international norms," Pashtun said. "Iran has sent these military officials to Afghanistan without our permission or even informing us. This may bring instability to the area and encourage warlords to rally against the central government."
Officials have been especially concerned about persistent reports of Iranian meddling in Helmand province, a vast rural region in southwestern Afghanistan adjacent to Kandahar where some former Taliban commanders and renegade local warlords are believed to be operating.
Pashtun denied reports that government troops from Kandahar were planning to travel to Helmand to repulse the Iranians, but said that Kandahar's governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, asked top officials from Helmand province on Monday to arrest any Iranians they found.
"We decided to ask [the Helmand officials] not to tolerate them any longer," Pashtun said. "We said, 'The next time you see them, arrest them.' " Although Helmand has its own governor, the new Kandahar administration has regional authority over six provinces including Helmand.
In an interview Saturday in Helmand's capital, Lashkar Gah, Gov. Sher Mohammed said that Iran had donated wheat, clothing and carpets to returning Afghan refugees in his province, but that to his knowledge it had not distributed money or weapons to any local commanders.
However, Mohammed said he was concerned about Iranian political involvement in the area. "Some Iranians came here, and I warned them not to come without passports," he said. "I warned them that if they interfere, we will take steps against them."
Unconfirmed reports of Iranians bringing money and weapons into Helmand have been circulating here for three weeks. Several militia commanders loyal to the Kandahar governor said in interviews they were extremely concerned about Iran's ability to foment violence and create instability in Helmand.
"Iran wants to start a holy war against America," said one militia commander interviewed at a military base. "There are old Taliban commanders there, and al Qaeda fighters. The Iranians are starting from Herat and moving into Helmand, passing out weapons. If the American forces leave here, this could become a real problem."
Although Iran and Afghanistan are major trading partners that share a 540-mile border, the two countries have long had tense relations, which were exacerbated during the five years of Taliban rule.
Iran is a country of Shiite Muslims, and Afghanistan is largely composed of Sunni Muslims. The Taliban is a radical Sunni movement.
Kandahar authorities said they were also concerned about the close Iranian connections of Ismail Khan, the powerful governor of Herat province. Khan lived in exile in Iran until last month, when he returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban collapsed. The U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, suggested last week that Iranian officials had supplied arms, money and trained combatants to Khan, just as it did when he was fighting the Taliban and, before that, the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. Khalilzad raised doubts about Khan's loyalty to the new Afghan central government, although Khan told reporters this week that he supported it.
"The cooperation of the Herat administration with Iran is beyond logical involvement," Pashtun said. "Any interaction with Iranian authorities should be [conducted by] the central government in Kabul. It is essential that the provinces remain loyal to the government and to the whole process."
Afghanistan's interim government, which took power in December, is a weak coalition of regional officials and former anti-Taliban militia commanders from various ethnic and tribal groups.
Some posts, such as Khan's, were awarded as political peacemaking gestures to individuals with armed followings.
A second political leader whose Iranian connections worry officials here is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan militia commander who lives in Iran and commands a following of exiled Afghan Islamic radicals. Pashtun said he feared Iran could influence Afghanistan negatively through Hekmatyar.
U.S. officials have recently warned Iran not to interfere in internal Afghan affairs. Several U.S. diplomats visited Herat this week to discuss the problems in the sensitive border province and explore the possibility of setting up a U.S. consulate.
Pashtun said he believed Iran had other motives for wanting to undermine the new Afghan government. For one, he said Iran may fear that the current Afghan political process, in which a national council guided by the former king is slated to choose a two-year government in June, may encourage royalists in Iran to agitate for the return of their monarchy.
A second motive, he suggested, was that Iran's conservative, theocratic rulers -- the country has two hierarchical structures, one led by a democratically elected president the other by a supreme religious leader -- are alarmed at the presence of Western military forces next door and uneasy at the prospect of Afghanistan entering the fold of pro-Western democracies.
"They see this as a threat; they can't tolerate a liberal presence in the area, and they fear the development of a more liberal, open society here," he said.
-------- iraq
Iraqi Antiaircraft Site Attacked for 2nd Time
Associated Press
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28691-2002Jan23?language=printer
MANAMA, Bahrain, Jan. 23 -- U.S. and British warplanes attacked antiaircraft batteries in southern Iraq today, the second raid on the site this week, the U.S. Air Force said.
The planes struck near Tallil, about 170 miles southeast of Baghdad, said a Saudi Arabia-based Air Force official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The same site was attacked Monday.
--------
U.S., British jets bomb anti-aircraft base in Iraq
The Associated Press
01/24/2002
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/01/24/iraq.htm
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - U.S. and British warplanes bombed an anti-aircraft base in southern Iraq on Thursday after coming under Iraqi artillery fire, a U.S. official said.
The attack happened at 3:45 p.m. on Al Faw Peninsula, 290 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Maj. Brett Morris, spokesman for the Joint Task Force Southwest Asia. He said all aircraft returned safely to base and a damage assessment was under way.
Later Thursday, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified Iraqi military spokesman as saying U.S. and British planes had attacked Iraqi "civil and service installations" in recent days.
Thursday's strikes marked the third time this year that coalition warplanes have returned fire on Iraqi forces and the second consecutive day that aircraft have come under Iraqi attack.
On Wednesday, coalition warplanes returned fire against an Iraqi military site near Tallil, 170 miles southeast of Baghdad.
U.S. and British planes have been patrolling the skies over northern and southern Iraq since after the 1991 Gulf War. The patrols were set up to protect Kurds and Shiite Muslims from Iraqi forces. Baghdad says they violate international law and has been challenging allied planes since December 1998.
--------
Russia Warns U.S. Against Military Strike on Iraq
January 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-iraq.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday that Moscow was opposed to any U.S. military operation against Iraq, offering crucial support to Baghdad in its confrontation with Washington.
In a further gesture of support after talks with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Ivanov said Moscow wanted sanctions against Iraq to be lifted.
Aziz arrived in Moscow Wednesday amid threats by Washington to use force against Iraq if it refused to allow in U.N. arms inspectors, who left Iraq in 1998 complaining they were being prevented from performing their duties.
``We will not submit to U.S. threats,'' Aziz told a news conference during a break in the talks. ``If we face aggression, we will defend our country.''
After the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in the United States, Russia joined the U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition and backed Washington's military operation in Afghanistan.
Moscow has repeatedly warned the West of the threat posed by Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers, accused by Washington of harboring Saudi-born militant Osama bin-Laden, held responsible for the attacks.
Russia has maintained close ties with Iraq and is trying to recover Soviet-era debts of about $9 billion. It is deeply suspicious of U.S. plans to extend military action to other countries suspected of backing international terrorism. Washington lists Baghdad among its prime suspects.
``The struggle against terrorism should be based on a firm legal basis and the U.N. should play a coordinating role in the joint international effort,'' Ivanov said. ``That is why Russia sees as unacceptable a mechanical spread of the anti-terrorist operation to any other country, including Iraq.''
``If such a thing occurred, this would not only weaken the anti-terrorist coalition but also help extremist forces which want to ruin this coalition and aim at using contradictions among its members to achieve their goals.''
RUSSIA WANTS SANCTIONS LIFTED
The dispatch of inspectors, intended to determine whether Baghdad held chemical and biological weapons, was part of the U.N. action against Iraq undertaken after the 1991 Gulf War to eject Iraq from Kuwait.
The action, authorized by U.N. Security Council resolution 681, also included economic sanctions against Iraq.
Asked if Baghdad was ready to bow to U.S. pressure and allow the inspectors back, Aziz said: ``If you want a solution, you have to want a package -- we support that.''
``We will carry out our obligations, but let others carry out their obligations in accordance with the U.N. Security Council's resolutions,'' he added.
Ivanov reiterated Russia's support for lifting sanctions against Iraq, which he described as ``counterproductive.'' He welcomed dialogue between Baghdad and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, started last year.
``Any solution should state clearly the prospects and conditions for lifting sanctions as envisaged in the U.N. Security Council's resolution,'' he said.
-------- israel / palestine / lebanon
Lebanese warlord was key witness in Sharon case
24 JAN 2002
Reuters.com
http://www.reuters.co.il/news2000/N2SOOU6D.HTM
Hobeika, killed on Thursday in a bomb attack, was a key witness in a Belgian war crimes lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a lawyer for Palestinian plaintiffs said.
The plaintiffs' lawyers said in a separate statement that Hobeika's killing was an evident attempt to undermine the case.
A Brussels appeals court is deliberating whether Sharon can be put on trial in Belgium under laws giving the country's courts powers to try foreigners for alleged crimes against humanity wherever they were committed.
The plaintiffs accuse Sharon of crimes against humanity over the 1982 slaughter by Hobeika's Israeli-allied Christian militia of hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps.
Hobeika, who had always denied responsibility for the killings, told Belgian senators just two days before his assassination that he was willing to testify in the lawsuit against Sharon. "We've obviously lost a key character in the story of Sabra and Shatila," leading Lebanese lawyer Chibli Mallat told Reuters. "He was a key witness."
The plaintiffs filed the complaint against Sharon last June.
In 1983 an Israeli inquiry found Sharon, defence minister at the time of the massacre, indirectly responsible for the killings by the Phalangist militia during Israel's invasion of Lebanon. It also said Hobeika helped direct Christian fighters who did the killing.
In a statement obtained by Reuters, the lawyers for the Palestinian plaintiffs in Belgium said of Hobeika's death:
"The elimination of a key protagonist, who had offered to assist with the inquiry, appears as an evident attempt to undermine the case, and reinforces the international campaign which seeks to prevent any examination before a neutral forum, of a crime against humanity which has remained unpunished."
In a surprise move on Wednesday, Sharon's Belgian lawyer called for the war crimes lawsuit against the 73-year-old Israeli leader to be switched from Brussels to a court in Lebanon.
The final court ruling in Belgium is due on March 6.
A Belgian senator who met Hobeika on Tuesday said he had repeated his innocence over the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
"He told us he was innocent, that he had documents to prove this," senator Vincent Van Quickenborne told Reuters, adding that Hobeika did not say who was guilty.
Born in 1957, Hobeika was a hated figure in many Lebanese political circles, including among his one-time allies in the Christian Lebanese Forces who regarded him as a traitor for switching his alliance to their enemy Syria during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.
----
Helen and Hamas
January 24, 2002
Inside Politics
Greg Pierce
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020124-83132595.htm
Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas stands accused of arguing "in support of terrorism." Her accuser: Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary.
At yesterday's White House press briefing, Mr. Fleischer was answering a question from CNN's Major Garrett about U.S. efforts for peace in the Middle East. Mr. Fleischer was discussing the recent Israeli seizure of a shipload of Palestinian terrorist weapons when Miss Thomas interrupted to ask, "Where do the Israelis get their arms?"
Mr. Fleischer began to answer, "There is a difference, Helen, and that is "
Miss Thomas interrupted again: "What is the difference?"
Mr. Fleischer said, "The targeting of innocents through the use of terror, which is a common enemy, for Yasser Arafat and for the people of Israel, as well as "
Miss Thomas: "When people are fighting for their land "
Mr. Fleischer: "I think the killing of innocents is a category entirely different. Justifying killing of innocents for land is an argument in support of terrorism."
----
Hamas Said Developing Rocket
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 24, 2002; 8:36 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34562-2002Jan24?language=printer
JERUSALEM -- An anti-Israeli militant group is developing a rocket with a range long enough to hit cities in the Jewish state, a Hamas leader said in an interview.
Moussa Abu Marzook told the CBS's "60 Minutes" that the rocket would have a range of six miles, and would be able to hit Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem from inside the West Bank.
CBS said the interview will be aired Sunday but a summary was released Thursday.
Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, has been responsible for dozens of attacks, including suicide bombings in Israel, killing dozens of Israelis and wounding hundreds during 16 months of Palestinian-Israeli violence.
Israeli military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel is aware of attempts by militant groups to develop weapons that can hit inside Israel.
There have been reports that Hamas is developing rockets named Qassem-1 and Qassem-2, and the Israeli military has said that short-range rockets were fired at Gaza targets along with conventional mortar shells, but their range did not approach six miles.
A longer-range rocket could hit several Israeli villages and the city of Ashkelon from inside Gaza, and from the West Bank, many Israeli cities and towns could be targeted.
Abu Marzook was interviewed in Beirut two weeks ago, the network said. "We want to resist the occupation with these missiles," he said. He added that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could not stop Hamas, since it has the support of most of the Palestinian people.
"If Arafat put an end to Hamas, who is he going to rule?" Abu Marzook said.
Arafat has declared an end to attacks on Israel, and local Hamas leaders said they would abide by the ruling but would continue strikes against Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza.
This week, after Israeli forces killed four Hamas activists in a raid on a bomb factory in the West Bank city of Nablus, a Hamas statement declared an "all-out war" against Israel, indicating that bomb attacks would be resumed.
Another Hamas activist was killed in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on Thursday in Gaza.
Abu Marzook distanced Hamas from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida, saying that "Hamas has a very clear-cut objective, to fight against the (Israeli) occupation."
----
Fresh Spiral of Bloodshed in Mideast Conflict
January 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel faced the specter of fresh Palestinian revenge attacks on Friday after its forces hit a Hamas militant in a deadly missile strike and killed two men the army accused of trying to attack a Jewish settlement.
The latest violence in the Gaza Strip played out a now-familiar drama of death and retribution that has eclipsed U.S.-led hopes to end a 16-month-old conflict that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
In a further sign of Washington's acquiescence to recent Israeli operations, the United States said it ``understood'' Israel's decision to confine Yasser Arafat to his West Bank headquarters, a move Palestinians say is aimed at toppling him.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced he had accepted an invitation by President Bush to meet in Washington on February 7.
It will be the right-wing prime minister's second visit with Bush in just over two months. Arafat has yet to meet Bush since the Republican president took office last year.
Adding to Middle East tensions, a car bomb exploded in Beirut on Thursday, killing Lebanese warlord Elie Hobeika, whose pro-Israeli Christian militia massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982.
Continuing a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks, Israel launched its harshest reprisal since a Palestinian gunman killed two women in Jerusalem's shopping district on Tuesday.
Helicopter gunships killed a senior militant from the Islamic group Hamas and seriously wounded two other Palestinians in a missile strike on a car in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday night.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, called it a ``drop in the sea of Israeli crimes'' and vowed a ``painful'' response.
``Israel has forgotten that there are retaliations to these attacks,'' he told Reuters. ``The message...is the Israeli government is fully responsible for what will happen to the Israeli people -- disasters as a consequence of these attacks.''
PALESTINIANS CALL FOR REVENGE
Hundreds of Palestinians shouting ``Revenge! Revenge!'' gathered outside the hospital where the wounded were taken.
Just hours later, an Israel tank opened fire on what the army described as a ``terrorist squad'' trying to infiltrate a nearby Jewish settlement in the Gush Katif bloc.
Israeli military sources said the men were hit by a tank shell after a gunbattle. Palestinian officials said only that the Israeli army told them it would turn over two bodies.
The militant targeted in the missile strike was identified as Bakar Hamdan, described by the Israeli army as Hamas's military commander in the Khan Younis area of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli security sources said he was hit because of his alleged role in numerous attacks on Israelis, including a raid that killed four soldiers in southern Israel on January 9.
Israel has killed dozens of militants under its internationally condemned policy of tracking and striking at people it says have been behind deadly assaults on Israelis during the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Palestinians call it state-sponsored assassination.
The last time Israel was linked to what it calls the ''targeted killing'' of a militant was just 10 days earlier, when Raed al-Karmi, a leader of a group linked to Arafat's Fatah faction, died in a bomb blast in the West Bank.
His comrades avenged his death by killing six revelers at a Jewish girl's coming-of-age party in northern Israel on January 17 and then spreading carnage in the heart of Jewish West Jerusalem earlier this week.
Hamas, the main group behind a recent wave of suicide attacks, vowed ``all-out war'' after Israeli forces killed four of its militants in a West Bank raid on Tuesday.
U.S. PRESSURE ON ARAFAT
The latest violence underscored U.S. pressure on Arafat to rein in militants plus Washington's reluctance to criticize
Israel's recent military operations against the Palestinians.
Israel has confined Arafat to his headquarters in Ramallah since last week when it tightened its ring of tanks around his compound. ``We understand Israel's need to take steps to ensure its security,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
At least 820 Palestinians and 248 Israelis have been killed since the uprising against Israeli occupation began.
In another sign of the deteriorating situation in the region, some Lebanese officials initially jumped to blame Israel for Hobeika's killing -- an accusation which Israel denied.
A Lebanese group saying it opposed Syria's continued grip on the country later claimed responsibility, calling Hobeika a traitor for his allegiance to Damascus.
Hobeika died shortly after saying he was ready to testify in a lawsuit in Belgium accusing Sharon of crimes against humanity. Sharon denies sanctioning the refugee camp massacres when he was defense minister.
----
Lebanon Accuses Israel of Killing Warlord Hobeika
January 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-lebanon.html
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon accused Israel of the car bomb killing of Lebanese Christian warlord Elie Hobeika, saying it was designed to undermine a war crimes lawsuit in Belgium against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Israel denied any role in Thursday's killing of Hobeika, whose pro-Israeli Christian militia massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982.
A Lebanese group saying it opposed Syria's continued grip on the country claimed responsibility in a faxed statement, calling Hobeika a traitor for his present-day allegiance to Damascus. The claim could not immediately be verified.
Famed for shifting loyalties, the dead man had no shortage of Palestinian and Lebanese enemies, but many in Beirut jumped to blame Israel whose invading troops surrounded the camps at the time.
``It is certainly Israel, for it is the one that has interest in removing Hobeika, the man who has the greatest deal of information on the file of the Sabra and Shatila massacre,'' Lebanese President Emile Lahoud told state television.
Hobeika died shortly after saying he was ready to testify in the Belgian case launched by Palestinians that accuses Sharon, who denies sanctioning the massacres when he was defense minister, of crimes against humanity.
The killing, about one mile (1.5 km) from the presidential palace in the Lebanese capital, occurred as Beirut prepared to host an Arab summit in March and revived memories of the 15-year-old civil war which ended in 1990.
``The perpetrators want to create a state of anxiety in the country and remind us of the booby-trapped cars era,'' Information Minister Ghazi al-Aridi told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
SECURITY INCREASED
He vowed the perpetrators would be hunted down and said security would be increased.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres dismissed Lebanon's charge that the Jewish state was behind the attack. ``It's totally unfounded,'' he said.
Hobeika, 45, was the first warlord to be killed since the end of the civil war. Three other people, including bodyguards, were killed in the Beirut explosion. Six more were injured.
After the civil war, Hobeika served as a government minister in various portfolios until 1998. At a news conference last year, he announced his willingness to testify against Sharon in the Belgian war crimes lawsuit to prove his own innocence.
In a statement issued in Brussels, Belgian senators who had met Hobeika on Tuesday called him a ``key protagonist who had offered to assist the inquiry'' and described his death as ``an evident attempt to undermine the case.''
The Palestinians' case was launched under laws giving Belgian courts powers to try crimes against humanity, wherever they have been committed. A Brussels appeals court is deliberating whether Sharon can be put on trial.
Hobeika commanded the Christian Lebanese Forces militia, which killed hundreds of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatila while Israeli troops, who invaded Lebanon in 1982, encircled the two camps.
A 1983 Israeli inquiry into the camp massacres said Sharon bore indirect responsibility and that Hobeika did not enter the camps, but helped direct Christian fighters who did the killing.
It said he spoke by walkie-talkie to a militia comrade who radioed to ask what to do with a group of 50 men and women. The inquiry quoted Hobeika as saying: ``This is the last time you're going to ask me a question like that, you know exactly what to do.''
After news of Hobeika's death, celebratory gunfire erupted in Palestinian camps in Beirut. ``The Lebanese men Hobeika led were worse than the Israelis,'' said one woman at Shatila camp. ''I saw them from the window cutting people to pieces.''
A group calling itself the ``Lebanese For a Free and Independent Lebanon'' said in a statement faxed to Reuters that it carried out the attack to warn Syria to get out of Lebanon.
Major anti-Syrian groups in Lebanon made no such claims, and could not identify the group named in the statement.
There was no immediate reaction from Syria, with which Hobeika maintained close ties. Damascus has thousands of troops in Lebanon and has effective political control.
Hobeika was also a hated figure among his one-time allies in the Christian Lebanese Forces, who saw him as a traitor for switching his alliance to Syria.
---
Lebanese warlord was key witness in Sharon case
24 JAN 2002
Reuters.com
http://www.reuters.co.il/news2000/N2SOOU6D.HTM
Hobeika, killed on Thursday in a bomb attack, was a key witness in a Belgian war crimes lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a lawyer for Palestinian plaintiffs said.
The plaintiffs' lawyers said in a separate statement that Hobeika's killing was an evident attempt to undermine the case.
A Brussels appeals court is deliberating whether Sharon can be put on trial in Belgium under laws giving the country's courts powers to try foreigners for alleged crimes against humanity wherever they were committed.
The plaintiffs accuse Sharon of crimes against humanity over the 1982 slaughter by Hobeika's Israeli-allied Christian militia of hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps.
Hobeika, who had always denied responsibility for the killings, told Belgian senators just two days before his assassination that he was willing to testify in the lawsuit against Sharon. "We've obviously lost a key character in the story of Sabra and Shatila," leading Lebanese lawyer Chibli Mallat told Reuters. "He was a key witness."
The plaintiffs filed the complaint against Sharon last June.
In 1983 an Israeli inquiry found Sharon, defence minister at the time of the massacre, indirectly responsible for the killings by the Phalangist militia during Israel's invasion of Lebanon. It also said Hobeika helped direct Christian fighters who did the killing.
In a statement obtained by Reuters, the lawyers for the Palestinian plaintiffs in Belgium said of Hobeika's death:
"The elimination of a key protagonist, who had offered to assist with the inquiry, appears as an evident attempt to undermine the case, and reinforces the international campaign which seeks to prevent any examination before a neutral forum, of a crime against humanity which has remained unpunished."
In a surprise move on Wednesday, Sharon's Belgian lawyer called for the war crimes lawsuit against the 73-year-old Israeli leader to be switched from Brussels to a court in Lebanon.
The final court ruling in Belgium is due on March 6.
A Belgian senator who met Hobeika on Tuesday said he had repeated his innocence over the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
"He told us he was innocent, that he had documents to prove this," senator Vincent Van Quickenborne told Reuters, adding that Hobeika did not say who was guilty.
Born in 1957, Hobeika was a hated figure in many Lebanese political circles, including among his one-time allies in the Christian Lebanese Forces who regarded him as a traitor for switching his alliance to their enemy Syria during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Will Still Hold Elections in October, Military Chief Says
New York Times
January 24, 2002
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/24/international/24CND-STAN.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 24 - Pakistan's military leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, confirmed today a plan to allow free elections for the national and provincial assemblies in October. But he also made it clear that he will remain in power as president and watch for signs of the corruption and chaos that led to military takeovers.
General Musharraf, who assumed power in a coup in October 1999, had promised to abide by a schedule laid out by the Supreme Court for a return to elections in three years. After the tumult of the last several months, in which he ended Pakistan's support for the Taliban and joined with the United States to destroy the movement then began a crackdown on religious militants, there had been some speculation about the schedule.
In recent weeks, his administration has announced new rules for elections and today, speaking at a human development meeting attended by Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, he re-affirmed the plan for a national vote in October.
Exactly what powers General Musharraf will wield as president, a post he says he expects to retain for five years after the seating of the new assembly, have not been spelled out, but today he said he expected that new efficiencies and anti-corruption measures taken in his three years of military rule would be continued.
"There will be checks and balances at the leadership level," he said, in an apparent warning to the politicians. It is the political leadership, he said, "which has been mismanaging, which has been involved in corruption."
General Musharraf has won wide popularity with his crisp, direct style and his recent drive to purge the country of sectarian violence and Islamic extremism. While some religious parties have expressed concern, many Pakistanis say they are glad to see an attack on growing violence and turmoil. He has also won belated praise from the United States and other world leaders, especially for his decision after Sept. 11 to end Pakistani support for the Taliban and join the international coalition against terror.
But in recent months, as he pursued changes here, opponents have often drawn attention to his lack of legitimacy, as a general who seized power.
He acknowledged that today. "We are functioning in the most democratic manner that this nation has ever seen," he said. But he added: "The negative is that I'm not elected. I recognize that."
His government has decreed an increase in the number of national assembly seats and reserved some for women and "technocrats." He has also ended a system in which non-Muslims had to run separately for a limited number of reserved seats, instead creating a unified national electorate.
The country's small Christian and Hindu communities have welcomed the change because it will reduce the stigma they suffered and because, although it may mean that they elect none of their own candidates, politicians in each district may have to listen to their concerns.
In the most controversial new rule, General Musharraf has decreed that only those with a bachelor's degree or higher education can run for office.
The ruling reflects the view in some elite circles that the country's politics have fallen into chaos because of the election of so many poorly educated people.
But the decision has triggered howls from politicians who may be barred from running and some political experts say it is unfair and undemocratic to impose such a restriction, especially in a country with a badly broken system of public education, and where a majority of the population is illiterate.
Pakistan's elected leaders have repeatedly been unseated by coups or accusations of corruption. The man General Musharraf unseated in 1999, Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League, was sent into 10 years' exile in Saudi Arabia.
Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party, was twice elected prime minister, but was dismissed on accusations of corruption and is now living abroad. She has declared her desire to return and run for office again but her husband is jailed here on corruption charges, and she could face charges as well if she returns.
-------- philippines
U.S. role in Philippines backed, but not by all
01/23/2002
By Paul Wiseman,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2002/01/24/usat-philippines.htm
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, facing a political furor over her decision to let U.S. special operations forces help Philippine troops hunt Islamic extremists, won the endorsement of her country's top national security body Wednesday.
The National Security Council, which includes key legislators, backed Arroyo's policy of letting U.S. advisers train Philippine troops pursuing the Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines.
But the issue won't die. The Philippine Senate is scheduled Thursday to open an inquiry into the role the U.S. military is playing.
Demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Manila burned Arroyo in effigy Wednesday to protest what they see as a threat to the Philippines' sovereignty. A protest also was held outside Philippine military headquarters here, where the incoming U.S. troops are being quartered.
The country's constitution bars foreign combat troops from Philippine soil. Arroyo's government says the U.S. troops are in the country only to conduct training exercises with Philippine troops tracking Abu Sayyaf, not to fight. But critics worry that U.S. troops will be drawn into battle against the Islamic extremists. More than 40 U.S. troops have arrived in Zamboanga and more are on the way.
The Abu Sayyaf - "Sword of God" in Arabic - is better known for kidnapping tourists and beheading civilians than it is for pursuing its stated goal of establishing an Islamic homeland in the southern Philippines. The group is holding an American missionary couple it kidnapped last year; it apparently executed U.S. tourist Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif. Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law is believed to have raised money for Abu Sayyaf by siphoning cash from an Islamic charity he ran in the Philippines.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former Philippine armed forces chief, says he is suspicious that what is ostensibly a training exercise is occurring so close to Abu Sayyaf-held territory on the island of Basilan. Traditionally, he says, such joint military exercises have been conducted far from hostile ground.
"The Americans may fire back in defense of themselves. Is there going to be any limit to the kind of response that can be taken by the American units?" Biazon asks.
"Will the Americans be allowed to call in B-52 bombers?" he adds. "What if the American troops here in the Philippines capture someone who has killed an American soldier? Will they be (taken) to Cuba? And if so, under what judicial system will they be tried?"
Biazon and others say Arroyo hasn't done a good job answering these questions. Some go further and accuse her of treason for violating the nation's constitution. They say she will let the U.S. troops conduct combat operations.
It is not clear exactly where the Philippine public stands on the issue. A poll released last week by the left-leaning IBON Foundation said 53% of Filipinos oppose "the direct participation of U.S. troops to fight the Abu Sayyaf."
But other polls have shown support for the U.S. role: A December survey by the polling organization Social Weather Stations, for instance, found that 64% of Filipinos were willing to let U.S. troops cross Philippine territory in pursuit of the war on terrorism. And there is widespread agreement that the Philippine military could use some help in its so-far futile effort to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf.
"We need assistance from U.S. troops. How can we defeat the Abu Sayyaf?" asks Manila office worker Karen Gayondato, 25.
Thousands of Philippine troops have been hunting Abu Sayyaf in the jungles of Basilan for months. The militants have always managed to get away, raising suspicions that corrupt Philippine commanders have accepted bribes to let them escape. Others, however, say the Philippine troops simply lack the equipment and training needed to overcome Abu Sayyaf's intimate knowledge of the jungle.
U.S. special operations forces are expected to train Philippine troops in aspects of warfare such as flying helicopters at night.
Many Filipinos say the priority should be getting rid of Abu Sayyaf, whose savagery has destroyed tourism in the south and scared off foreign investors. "This is basically a security problem and not a sovereignty problem," says Jarius Bondoc, a columnist with the Philippine Star newspaper in Manila.
"It's better to kill Abu Sayyaf," says Manila electrician Jojo DeMesa, 31. "We are tired of being harassed by terrorists."
-------- spies
CIA rethinks rules that limit recruits
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 24, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020124-13959384.htm
The CIA is reviewing whether to abandon 1995 restrictions that limit the recruitment of agents with unsavory backgrounds.
"The matter is under review," said a U.S. intelligence official, who noted that "the guidelines have already been relaxed."
The 1995 rules require all CIA officers in the field to obtain approval from CIA headquarters before recruiting foreign agents with histories of human rights abuses. They were passed by Congress under pressure from Democrats.
CIA clandestine service officers opposed the rules, saying they would hamper efforts to recruit agents and have a chilling effect on their spying activities. CIA spokesmen have said there hasn't been a negative effect on recruitment.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the rules were modified to permit CIA officers to again recruit foreigners with questionable pasts without first checking with Langley headquarters. But they are still required to report the recruitment efforts.
"The decision to use an individual with an unsavory background, because that individual committed serious crimes or human rights abuses, can be made in the field if that individual has insights about terrorist activities and threats," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
However, CIA headquarters must be informed within several days of the recruitment attempt or information-collection effort, "and a formal decision with respect to continued use rests with the deputy director for operations," the official said. The deputy director for operations is the CIA's senior official in charge of espionage operations.
"The restrictions have not been rescinded, but modified in a way that will speed our ability to obtain information that might be useful in the fight against terrorism," said a U.S. official.
The October decision was made by CIA Director George J. Tenet due to "the urgency of the situation."
A section of the fiscal 2002 Intelligence Authorization Act, signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 28, calls on Mr. Tenet to "rescind the existing 1995 CIA guidelines for handling cases involving foreign assets or sources with human rights concerns."
The law states new guidelines are needed that will "allow for indications and warnings of plans and intentions of hostile actions or events, and ensure that such information is shared in a broad and expeditious fashion so, that to the extent possible, actions to protect American lives can be taken."
In 1995, the restrictions were instituted after a Guatemalan army colonel on the CIA payroll was linked to the murder of an American. The CIA then fired about 1,000 of its agents and imposed the recruitment restriction.
The fired agents included Middle Eastern sources who could have provided information about terrorist operations.
L. Paul Bremer, head of a blue-ribbon commission that investigated terrorism policies in 2000, said the commission heard testimony from several CIA officers who said the restrictions hampered efforts to recruit terrorists and other intelligence sources.
The commission's report made public in June 2000 stated that "complex bureaucratic procedures now in place send an unmistakable message to Central Intelligence Agency officers in the field that recruiting clandestine sources of terrorist information is encouraged in theory but discouraged in practice."
The panel included 10 national security specialists, including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and former FBI Assistant Director John F. Lewis Jr.
-------- turkey
No 'reward' for Turkey
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
January 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020124-23453892.htm#2
Bruce Fein portrays Turkey as a champion of democracy and human rights ("To reap twice-blessed rewards," Commentary, Jan. 15). He doesn't mention, of course, that the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly condemned Turkey for massive violations of human rights against the people of Cyprus as a result of its 27-year-old illegal occupation of 37 percent of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
Instead, Mr. Fein advises the United States to reward Turkey for its cooperation in the war on terrorism by, among other things, urging the European Union to defer Cyprus' application for membership.
Mr. Fein forgets that the EU, at the highest level of decision-making, has made its position clear that, while desirable, settlement of the political problem is not a precondition for Cyprus' accession to the EU. Turkey's recent threats to annex the occupied part of Cyprus if Europe proceeds with Cyprus' accession have been met by a steadfast response that such behavior would strike a fatal blow to Turkey's own aspirations for EU membership.
In any case, Turkey's pronouncements on Cyprus' accession to the EU are irrelevant because it has no say on EU decisions. What Ankara needs to do is shift away from its anachronistic policy of belligerence toward neighboring countries. This means abandoning threats of annexation against Cyprus and withdrawal of its military occupation forces from the island.
The president of Cyprus and the leader of the Turkish-Cypriot community are currently engaged in a United Nations-sponsored dialogue toward peace. The United States and the EU have already voiced their support for these potentially promising talks.
Turkey's best move would be to support this peace process constructively so that it can lead to a comprehensive settlement that will end the forcible divisions of our country and its people.
ERATO KOZAKOU-MARCOULLIS Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus Washington
-------- us
Pak help costs US $100 mn per month
PTI
THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2002
Times Of India
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1498514695
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration's commitment to help cover Pakistan's military costs in support of US forces in Afghanistan already totals $350 million and is running into $100 million every month, media reports said.
The costs are far larger than previously disclosed and total hundreds of millions of dollars in still unpaid bills. The Bush administration, the report said, has been struggling to find a way to make money available and win approval of Congress, which "has been kept largely in the dark about the costs."
"This is not a disagreement between the US and Pakistan," a senior White House official told the 'Wall Street Journal', adding "we need to strike a balance between helping them out and reimbursing every cent they incurred."
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US, administration officials confirm that Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made oral commitments to help Pakistani military defray their operations.
Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe said he first became aware of the costs when US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin, raised the issue with him during a recent meeting in Islamabad.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
Australia Softens Asylum Policy
By Mike Corder Associated Press Writer Thursday, January 24, 2002; 6:24 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29820-2002Jan24?language=printer
ADELAIDE, Australia -- Australia agreed Thursday to resume processing the asylum applications of Afghan detainees involved in a hunger strike at an Outback detention center.
The decision followed reports from refugee advocates that at least 15 asylum seekers, including a 16-year-old boy, tried to hang themselves overnight at the Woomera internment camp. The government would only say four people, including a child, had been treated within the camp for harming themselves.
Babak Ahmadi, 32, a geologist from Iran, was released Thursday after 20 months in detention at Woomera. He said many asylum seekers were driven to such protests out of despair caused by their prolonged incarceration.
"How can a person sit in detention in the middle of the desert for two years?" he told The Associated Press. "Our emotions are crushed. Most people are mentally sick."
The government said the release of Ahmadi and 21 other refugees was unrelated to the protest. Their asylum applications had been approved and they all were given three-year visas to stay in Australia.
Ahmadi arrived in the southern city of Adelaide after a seven-hour bus journey and was dropped at a welfare office. He then checked into a backpacker's hostel at the end of the city's seedy night club strip. He said he did not know what his next move would be.
In December, the government announced it had stopped processing the asylum claims of some 2,000 Afghan refugees being held in Australian detention camps. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said the detainees may not have had grounds for asylum after the fall of the Taliban regime and the establishment of a transitional government in Kabul.
More than 200 mainly Afghan asylum seekers at Woomera are staging a hunger strike to protest the freeze on asylum claims and the time-consuming processing of applications. The strike at the former missile testing site in northern South Australia state entered its ninth day Thursday.
Some 42 detainees have sewn their lips together, while about 25 people had swallowed potentially lethal cocktails of shampoo and detergent in apparent suicide attempts, the immigration department said. Another 21 people had tried to injure themselves since Jan. 18, including the four people overnight, the department said.
John Hodges, chairman of the Independent Detention Advisory Committee, welcomed the government's decision to resume processing of Afghan asylum claims.
"There's got to be some give and take in a crisis," he said, adding the protesters were seeking only "small changes" to policy.
The government locks up all refugees, including children, in Spartan detention centers while their applications are processed. About 3,000 people from the Middle East, South and Central Asia are languishing in five camps across the country.
Early Thursday, government officials removed five children from the camp amid fears they could be abused by adult detainees. Two children had already had their lips sewn together by others within the camps, officials said.
South Australia state Human Services Minister Dean Brown said seven other children were being examined for signs of abuse.
In Melbourne, more than 50 protesters stormed a federal government building housing the Department of Immigration offices to protest the treatment of detainees at Woomera. One man was arrested, police said.
Leading welfare organizations wrote to Ruddock on Thursday expressing their concern for the situation at Woomera.
"We are highly concerned that there will be deaths soon in this facility," said the open letter.
----
Prisoner transfers to Guantanamo on hold: military officials
Thursday January 24,
Agence France-Presse
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020123/1/2ckeo.html also
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28172-2002Jan23?language=printer
Faced with mounting international criticism, the US military has put on hold transfers of prisoners from Afghanistan to the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, US military officials said.
The officials insisted the pause was not in response to the outpouring of concern over the prisoners treatment, but gave contradictory reasons for the action.
President George W. Bush was "perfectly satisfied" that the military was upholding US traditions of humane treatment of prisoners while protecting the troops guarding them, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"These are not mere innocents, these are among the worst of the worst," he said.
A spokesman for the US Southern Command in Miami, Florida, which is responsible for the base at Guantanamo, said the transfers of prisoners were being held up by deliberations within the US government over arrangements for an intelligence center at the base.
"We've been told they're going to pause the flow while they make these preparations to make sure everything is all right," said Steven Lucas, a spokesman for the command.
He said it was not known how long transfers from Afghanistan would be held up but "there's no reason to anticipate it's going to be a very long pause."
The center will include facilities for interrogating the prisoners and communications links for gathering and disseminating information.
Lucas said, however, the delay was related not to the intelligence center's physical plant, as other Pentagon officials suggested, but to "inter-agency coordination."
The government agencies involved "have to coordinate their activities, their crews and their staffing for operating a joint inter-agency intelligence center."
"I think it is probably not inappropriate to pause to make sure we're all set up to exploit any information that can be gained from these people in the most expeditious manner," he said.
The last flight carrying prisoners from Kandahar arrived at Guantanamo Bay on Monday, raising to 158 the number of captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained at the base.
Another 270 are being held by the US military in Afghanistan.
One Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that the transfers were being held up to complete construction of the interrogation facility and because they were running short of cells to put prisoners without doubling them up.
Lucas, however, said cell space was not an immediate concern.
"We will be continuing to bring detainees in as we have the capacity and capability to deal with them," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "SouthCom is working very hard to improve or increase the capacity to deal with detainees."
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday responded to criticism of the US handling of the detainees, insisting it was appropriate, humane and in keeping with international conventions.
Some US allies have expressed concern over the US decision to designate the detainees as "unlawful combatants" with no clearly defined legal status rather than as "prisoners of war" with specific rights under the Geneva Convention.
The prisoners, considered extremely dangerous by the Pentagon, have been flown to Guantanamo Bay in shackles, earmuffs and black-out goggles, restraints Rumsfeld said were reasonable.
A delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross visited the prisoners last week, but their findings are confidential.
The detainees are being kept under heavy guard at an outdoor detention facility in individual cells with a roof, concrete floor and chain-link walls.
They get three meals a day, showers, exercise and medical care, the Pentagon says.
----
U.S. Appeals Court Reverses Ruling on DNA Testing
By Brooke A. Masters
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27999-2002Jan23?language=printer
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that convicted felons do not have a constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing, reversing a groundbreaking opinion issued last year in the case of a Fairfax County man serving 25 years for a rape he claims he did not commit.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found unanimously that inmate James Harvey had failed to prove that Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. violated his civil rights by refusing to consent to DNA testing in the case.
Two of the three judges also found the court should not consider Harvey's claim of a due process violation because, the panel said, the inmate was trying to circumvent the limits on prisoners' appeals in federal court.
"Fashioning a new federal constitutional right that would govern all prisoners in all states is not a permissible way of addressing the question of post-conviction DNA testing," Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote for the majority. "Such relief must be conferred by either state or federal legislation or by the state courts acting under their own constitutions."
Post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated an estimated 100 convicted felons in the United States, but access to such lab work varies widely from state to state and historically has depended on the consent of prosecutors. Since Harvey's lawsuit was filed in August 2000 by the Innocence Project of Cardozo Law School, Virginia, Maryland and the District have all passed laws authorizing judges to order such tests in cases where they might prove inmates innocent of serious crimes.
The appeals court decision overturns a first-of-its-kind ruling by now-retired U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. that Fairfax must allow testing on the evidence from Harvey's 1990 rape and sodomy trial. In the case, two men dragged the victim, a mother of three, off Route 1 into a wooded area, where they raped and hit her. DNA testing was not done at the time of the 1989 rape, and the victim could not positively identify her attackers. However, a witness testified that Harvey had confessed to him.
Horan praised the appeals court's decision. "I oppose the notion that you have a constitutional right to have evidence examined after a trial. You have to have some standards," he said. "This is not an innocent man."
Innocence Project co-founder Peter J. Neufeld said lawyers are considering an appeal to the full 4th Circuit.
"The Innocence Project is disappointed that these federal judges concluded that truth and justice are not proper concerns of a federal court," Neufeld said. "We are confident that their position is not shared by the rest of the federal judiciary."
The 4th Circuit decision does not end Harvey's quest. He has also asked a Fairfax Circuit judge to order DNA testing under Virginia's new law that makes such analysis available to convicted felons in cases where the results could prove their innocence. A hearing was held on Harvey's request this month, but the judge has not yet ruled.
----
Britain Wants Captives Tried at Home
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Guantanamo.html
LONDON (AP) -- Britain would like the United States to turn over British terrorist suspects for trial at home, the government said Thursday, as international concern grew over the treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
We ``voice our protest against the action of the United States toward Taliban soldiers who were captured and jailed in Cuba,'' Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters. We ``consider their treatment to be inhumane.''
Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving leader, said his government would be sending a formal protest to the U.S. government.
International concern about the prisoners' treatment at the base, known as Camp X-ray, was sparked by U.S. Defense Department photos which showed the suspects kneeling while wearing earmuffs, mittens, blacked-out goggles and masks over their mouths and noses.
The United States said those pictures were taken just after the suspects arrived from Afghanistan, and that the earmuffs, mittens and masks were to protect them from noise and cold on the flight. The goggles were for security.
But protests continued to grow Thursday from some of Washington's closest allies on news of a presidential order that would allow non-American terrorism suspects to be ``tried by military tribunals and risk the death penalty.''
Washington has categorized the detainees as ``unlawful combatants'' instead of ``prisoners of war'' -- a legal designation that would invoke protections guaranteed in the 1949 Geneva Convention. The military also said that the detainees were not allowed lawyers during interrogations. The prisoners were being quizzed Thursday about terrorist training.
President Bush has brushed aside the criticism, telling legislators they ``should be proud'' of how the detainees were treated.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview that it was ``far preferable'' for any British suspects ``to come to the United Kingdom and face justice here.''
Straw's comments came after protests in the British press and parliament over the treatment of the 158 prisoners, including three British fighters held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on the eastern tip of Cuba.
In Strasbourg, France, the 43-nation Council of Europe, expressed reservations about the presidential order. It urged European governments to ensure the death penalty would not be sought before permitting any suspects to be extradited to the United States.
While British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to be personally drawn into a debate over whether the British prisoners should be tried at home, he acknowledged the possibility of a rift between Europe and the United States.
``I have a very simple world view which is that where Europe and America stand together on the same side most of the problems can be sorted out,'' Blair said. ``If they divide, if there is a rift, the world becomes a lot less stable.''
Germany this week called in the U.S. ambassador there to discuss prisoners' treatment. That meeting, on Tuesday, followed criticism by German politicians who expressed human rights concerns and said Washington was jeopardizing support for the war on terrorism.
Citizens from at least 10 countries, including Britain, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Australia, are currently being held on the base.
At Guantanamo on Thursday, a Navy cleric led al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners in prayers as interrogators prepared to quiz the detainees and sailors began erecting three wooden buildings that will house interrogation centers.
Officials on Wednesday postponed bringing other detainees from Afghanistan until investigators finish questioning the camp's current 158 inmates. Officials want to determine whether they should remain imprisoned on Guantanamo, should be sent to another country, or be returned to their homelands.
-------- OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Shell buys out German solar partners
REUTERS UK:
January 24, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14168/newsDate/24-Jan-2002/story.htm
LONDON - Oil and gas giant Royal Dutch/Shell yesterday said it would take over the interests of its two German partners in one of the world's largest solar power ventures.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed, but Shell, which holds 33 percent of Siemens und Shell Solar GmbH, said it had agreed to acquire both the 34 percent holding of engineering company Siemens and power utility E.ON's 33 percent stake.
Shell said the venture had about 15 percent of the tiny but fast growing world market for solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and panels.
PV technology uses sunlight to provoke a chemical reaction for the production of electricity.
Though still expensive to produce, it is seen as a key potential energy source that could reduce fossil fuel use and curb the emissions that are blamed for global warming and air pollution.
Shell last year said it would be spending between $500 million and $1 billion on renewable energy investments - mainly wind and solar - over the next five years.
-------- energy
Bush energy plan said to help industry, not public
Story by Tom Doggett
REUTERS USA:
January 24, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14171/newsDate/24-Jan-2002/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's energy plan will make the U.S. economy more dependent on oil and was designed to help Enron and oil companies, not the American public, a Democratic senator said this week.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a likely presidential candidate in 2004, fired the opening salvo in what was expected to be a bitter, partisan fight this winter over a national energy policy that is a legislative priority for both parties.
Republicans have endorsed a plan to boost oil supplies by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge while Democrats contend more conservation measures and stricter fuel efficiency for gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles can accomplish the same goal without ravaging the wilderness.
Kerry said the White House has not offered an agenda for energy independence but instead wants to help energy companies like Enron. The Houston-based firm, which had close ties to several Bush administration officials, ranked as the world's biggest energy trader before it filed for bankruptcy.
"Old thinking passed through the (White House) doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue far more often and easily than new thinking. Exxon Mobil , Enron or Chevron enjoyed an access bonanza at the expense of consumers," Kerry said in a speech to the Center for National Policy. The center is a nonprofit group headed by Leon Panetta, the former chief of staff for ex-President Bill Clinton.
The U.S. Senate, which returns from its holiday recess yesterday, is scheduled to begin debate next month on a Democratic-sponsored energy bill.
The Democrats prefer to keep the Arctic wildlife refuge closed and instead develop more renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, and implement energy conservation measures. The refuge, which stretches some 19 million acres (7.7 million hectares) on Alaska's northern coast, is home to polar bears, migratory birds and other wildlife.
The Republican-led House of Representatives last year approved a broad energy bill that would give oil companies access to the Arctic refuge as well as more than $33 billion in tax breaks and incentives.
Before the full Senate begins debate on its energy bill, the Senate Finance Committee will first approve between $10 billion and $15 billion in energy tax breaks and the Senate Committee Committee will strengthen mileage requirements for vehicles.
LABOR UNIONS BACK BUSH PLAN
The Teamsters Union told President George W. Bush last week it was close to getting the 60 Senate votes needed to add language to the energy bill opening the refuge and block a threatened filibuster by Democrats. The Teamsters back drilling because of the high-paying union jobs it would create.
Kerry is one of several Senate Democrats who have vowed to filibuster to death any bill to allow drilling in the refuge.
Even if the Arctic refuge was opened to drilling, it would not be at full production for some 20 years, Kerry said.
Government estimates say the refuge may hold up to 16 billion barrels of oil. The United States must import more than half the 20 million barrels of oil per day that it consumes.
"Obviously we all agree that reducing our dependence on foreign oil, especially oil from the politically toxic Middle East, is a necessity," Kerry said.
"But the American people want honesty about how you do it, not a false security blanket that promises something undeliverable in the short term and precious little amounting to real progress in the long term," he added.
But Kerry said if the entire Bush energy plan was implemented, the United States by 2020 would be more dependent on foreign oil than it is now. Foreign oil accounts for 60 percent of U.S. petroleum consumed today.
A better policy would be to increase mileage requirements for mini-vans and sport utility vehicles, Kerry said, adding that would save millions of barrels of oil a year.
A national energy policy should also develop more renewable energy like wind and solar, and set a goal of having 20 percent of U.S. electricity from renewable sources by 2020, he said.
Bush, who has called for funding for ways to make coal a cleaner fuel, was promoting his energy plan this week in West Virginia, the heart of coal-mining country.
"This nation needs an energy policy," Bush said. "Jobs depend on affordable energy. If there's (an energy) price spike or a disruption in supply, people may not have work."
The administration has also sought to link opening the Arctic wildlife refuge to national security, saying new domestic sources of crude oil are essential to U.S. interests.
"We're dependent on energy from some parts of the world, where sometimes they like us and sometimes they don't," Bush said.
---
Senate Chairmen Seek Release of Energy Panel's Records
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28133-2002Jan23?language=printer
Three Senate committee chairmen yesterday called for the release of White House records detailing development of President Bush's energy policy, and GOP Senate leaders signaled that the administration would back down from its nine-month refusal to provide the records.
In a letter yesterday, the chairmen expressed their support for the investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, to pursue its efforts to obtain meeting records of the White House energy task force, which was chaired by Vice President Cheney and produced Bush's energy policy.
The letter, to Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the GAO, escalates a congressional bid to discover whether Enron Corp. and other energy companies influenced the task force's recommendations, and how.
"Our concern is that we would be setting a dangerous precedent, and would be shirking Congress's oversight responsibilities if these questions are not asked, or if the administration is allowed to avoid answering them," wrote the senators, Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who is also chairman of the investigations subcommittee of Governmental Affairs, and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the Commerce Committee's consumer affairs subcommittee.
Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) first made the request of the GAO to get the meeting records last April, voicing concern that Bush campaign contributors shaped administration energy policy. Cheney's counsel, David S. Addington, said the requests were not valid because they came from minority members of committees, not the panels or their chairmen.
Yesterday's letter undermined that argument. "They're acting in their capacity as chairmen," Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt said.
The action increased the likelihood that the task force probe could merge with congressional investigations into the Enron bankruptcy. Both the Governmental Affairs and Commerce committees are investigating.
The GAO has said it will decide within the coming weeks whether to take the administration to court over its refusal to provide the records. Officials said the GAO has been shopping for law firms and had been hoping for a show of support from Congress such as yesterday's letter.
But the White House may relent before the GAO pursues legal action. Asked yesterday about the task force records, Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), the assistant minority leader, said, "I think all this information will come out in the very near future." Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) added: "I think Vice President Cheney is going to speak to that in the next few days, and I think that he will respond appropriately."
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, "There has been no change in the White House position at all." But he left open the possibility the matter could be reconsidered, noting: "I cannot make a prediction about any future and every future circumstance that may or may not come up."
-------- environment
Antarctic Study Finds Warming Change
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Lake-Warming.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A surprise discovery in Antarctic lakes could have important implications for global climate change: As the air got a little warmer, it set off a chain reaction that made the water warm three times faster.
That's important because if water gets even a degree warmer, the change can seriously impact plants and animals that live there -- in ways good or bad. Indeed, scientists found these polar lakes rapidly underwent ``extreme ecological change.''
The discovery, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, may prove a model for how global warming might ultimately affect waters in other parts of the world.
``I suspect this is an indicator of things to come,'' said lead researcher Lloyd S. Peck of the British Antarctic Survey.
The study may seem confusing in light of last week's news that parts of Antarctica appear to be cooling, not heating. But Antarctica is a huge continent and Peck studied lakes on the Antarctic Peninsula, a spot where scientists agree air temperatures have risen in recent decades five times faster than global average temperatures.
Experts on climate change called the study a good illustration of how local changes can have larger-than-expected consequences.
``We need to start thinking about how these types of temperature changes are going to affect our ecosystems,'' said Benjamin Preston of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which next week plans to release a report analyzing climate change's potential effects on U.S. aquatic life.
The polar lakes study suggests that maybe scientists should check whether smaller warming trends already are affecting places like the Great Lakes or Chesapeake Bay, he said.
Polar lakes are considered early detectors of environmental change.
Peck's group found that winter temperatures of 17 lakes on Antarctica's Signey Island increased by up to 1.3 degrees Celsius between 1980 and 1995. That doesn't sound like much -- but it was three times faster than air temperatures increased.
Photographic analysis shows Signey's permanent ice cover has receded by about 45 percent since 1951, the scientists report. In turn, ice covered lakes for 63 fewer days in 1993 than in 1980.
Extra time for water to absorb sunlight means more than just temperature change. First, runoff from nearby thawed ground increased nutrients in the lakes. Phytoplankton living in the water are extremely sensitive to light. That plus more nutrients made populations flourish.
This is an ``extreme response,'' Peck said. But, ``we expect environmental change in our own parts of the world,'' he added. Using polar lakes as a model should help scientists ``understand what's going on with rapid environmental changes elsewhere.''
-------- health
U.S. creates long-delayed Gulf War illnesses panel
Thursday, January 24, 2002
By Will Dunham,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/01/01242002/reu_46224.asp
WASHINGTON - More than a decade after the Gulf War, the U.S. government launched a fresh initiative Wednesday aimed at getting to the bottom of the mysterious illnesses suffered by an estimated one in seven veterans of that conflict.
The Bush administration announced the formation within the Department of Veterans Affairs of a 12-member advisory committee charged with sifting through medical research on so-called Gulf War syndrome, some of which has been all but ignored by the government until now.
The committee includes critics of past government efforts, including Dr. Robert Haley, chief epidemiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
The panel will not conduct or fund research. It will review existing work, make recommendations to Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi about areas where more needs to be done, and promote research that may lead to improved diagnosis and treatment of sick Gulf War veterans.
"There's been a lot of good work done in the past on this issue," said James Binns Jr., a Vietnam War veteran and former chairman of Parallel Design Inc., which makes medical devices and was acquired by General Electric in 2000. "What's been missing has been a concentrated effort to pull it together and to understand it and to follow up on it," he said.
Binns said the government in the past has treated Desert Storm veterans afflicted with unexplained ailments - perhaps linked to their service in the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces - as if their illnesses were all in their minds.
"These, by and large, are not a group of men and women who were prone to illness or prone to being hypochondriacs before they went into military service," Binns said. "There's substantial evidence that this problem is real. There are probable causes and even are promising avenues for treatment. And I wonder why the attitude hasn't been, 'Let's jump on this. Let's pursue these encouraging bits of research.' I say that's where I think we can make a difference."
Many of the nearly 700,000 U.S. Desert Storm troops say they suffer from conditions including pain in the muscles and joints, fatigue, nausea, and balance problems. Their children also appear to have a higher risk of birth defects.
Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Leo Mackay said his department "is committed to investigating all possible causes and treatments for Gulf War illnesses." He noted that the panel was made up of people with "diverse viewpoints," including members of the medical and scientific communities and activists on the Gulf War syndrome issue.
HALEY FOUND BRAIN ABNORMALITIES
Haley's research, finding subtle brain abnormalities among some ailing Gulf War veterans, was among the first to indicate a causal relationship between Gulf War service and the syndrome. His work got off the ground because of funding by Texas billionaire and maverick politician H. Ross Perot.
Congress mandated the creation of the panel in 1998, but nothing was done in the final two years of the Clinton administration before President Bush took office a year ago. Perot said, "The Clinton administration had one mission, and that was to ignore it because it would cost money."
The Department of Veterans Affairs last month said Gulf War military personnel apparently are nearly twice as likely as other veterans to develop the fatal neurological ailment amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The department said it would give additional benefits and compensation to veterans who served in the Gulf region during the war and later came down with ALS.
This was the first official acknowledgment of a scientific link between Gulf War service and a specific disease.
-------- human rights
U.N.: Wrong to Detain Asylum Seekers
January 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Asylum-Seekers.html
GENEVA (AP) -- Dramatic protests in an Australian detention center show that it is ``unacceptable and unnecessary'' to lock up asylum seekers while their requests are processed, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.
More than 200 mainly Afghan asylum seekers at the Woomera center in Australia's Outback are on a hunger strike to protest a government freeze on asylum claims. Dozens of refugees have sewn their lips together in protest while others apparently have attempted suicide.
``The things which have been happening in the detention center basically show you how desperate these people are. The trouble stems from the detention,'' said Kris Janowski, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The agency recommends that asylum seekers should be allowed to live in the community while their requests for asylum are processed, and that the processing should be carried out quickly.
Australia announced Thursday that it was restarting processing asylum claims for Afghans. It had stopped the process in December saying the detainees may not have grounds for asylum after the fall of the Taliban regime in their homeland.
Some 42 detainees have sewn their lips together, while about 25 people swallowed shampoo and detergent in apparent suicide attempts, the Australian immigration department said. Twenty-one other people reportedly had tried to injure themselves since Jan. 18.
Janowski said UNHCR was in daily touch with the Australian government, though U.N. officials have not visited the center.
Heinz Schurmann-Zeggel, Australia researcher for Amnesty International in London, said he had interviewed about 30 former Woomera detainees. Their biggest problem was a lack of information about how long detention might last and where they might go after being released.
``People can put up with a lot if they know what is the outcome or if they have an idea of when a decision will be made,'' he said. ``It is the uncertainty about the future which is the main determining factor in driving people mad.''
The Australian government locks up all refugees -- including children -- in detention centers while their asylum applications are processed. About 3,000 people from the Middle East, South and Central Asia are languishing in five camps, and processing their claims takes many months.
``We think that prolonged detention is unacceptable and unnecessary,'' said Janowski.
He said asylum seekers could be detained temporarily while their identities are established, but they should only be kept on a longer term basis for ``state security considerations of considerable proportions.''
-------- activists
Pope Leads Prayer for Peace
By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2002; 1:59 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32252-2002Jan24?language=printer
ASSISI, Italy -- Declaring that religious people must repudiate violence following the Sept. 11 attacks, Pope John Paul II led an extraordinary assembly of patriarchs and imams, rabbis and monks Thursday in this historic hilltop town in praying for peace.
Buddhist chants and Christian hymns resounded inside a huge plastic tent decorated with a single olive tree, a symbol of peace, in the home of St. Francis, the medieval monk associated with peace.
About 200 religious leaders accepted the pope's invitation to the daylong retreat and agreed on a joint, 10-point pledge proclaiming that religion must never be used to justify violence.
John Paul, looking down at a display of turbans, veils and yarmulkes from a red-carpeted stage, said religious leaders must fend off "the dark clouds of terrorism, hatred, armed conflict, which in these last few months have grown particularly ominous on humanity's horizon."
He called it "essential" that religious people "in the clearest and most radical way repudiate violence, all violence, starting with the violence that seeks to clothe itself in religion."
"There is no religious goal which can possibly justify the use of violence by man against man," the pope declared.
It was one of the largest gatherings ever of Christian groups, bringing together Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Quakers and Mennonites, among others, as well as Orthodox Christians led by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.
They joined representatives of 11 other religions: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Jianism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and followers of Tenrikyo and African tribal religions.
The Christians prayed together in the frescoed Lower Basilica of St. Francis, restored after a 1997 earthquake. Others were accommodated in the brick cells of nearby convent near the tomb of St. Francis, with crosses and other religious objects removed for the occasion. Muslims knelt on rugs and prayed in Arabic in a room facing Mecca.
While many of the Christian participants echoed the pope's message that religion must never be used to justify violence, others focused on different themes in their remarks, such as the need for dialogue among religions and of creating a more economically just world.
One of the Muslim representatives, Ali el Samman, representing the grand sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque and Islamic university, concluded his remarks by thanking the Vatican for its "honorable support of the Palestinian people."
Rabbi Israel Singer, head of the governing board of the World Jewish Congress, also referred to the Middle East conflict, saying there can never be peace until it is decided "whether land or places are more important than people's lives."
Singer was the only non-Christian to speak of the Sept. 11 attack, describing it as the work of "madmen who claimed to be acting in the name of religion."
Imam Mahmoud Hammad Ibrahim Sheweitah, a member of the Muslim delegation from Italy, was asked by reporters on the train whether Sept. 11 suspect Osama bin Laden was a good Muslim.
"We don't know. Because we only know about him from television," he replied. He said, however, that good Muslims could not be terrorists.
Assisi has twice before hosted papal prayer days: a daylong fast and prayer against nuclear war in 1986 and a rally for Balkan peace in 1993.
John Paul arrived on what Italian media dubbed the "train of prayers," bringing the religious leaders with him on a two-hour trip from the rarely used train station in the Vatican. Italy's state railroad gave the Vatican a seven-car train, each car bearing the Vatican's coat of arms.
About 1,000 police were deployed along the route, and two police helicopters flew low overhead. Italian media said the ancient town would be sealed off for the duration of the ceremony.
The pope, who suffers from the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, appeared in fine form all day, playfully waving his cane to the crowds as he left Assisi under a steady rain.
"He was positively glowing," said Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel. "He had so much spiritual energy. He sort of radiated it to everyone."
Kronish said he was going home "spiritually empowered" but that it would be difficult to know whether the event was a success.
"Does it resolve anything tomorrow? No it doesn't. Will it have impact in the long run? I hope so," he said.
Among the leaders attending the retreat was Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, the site of the World Trade Center attack. He called the event an attempt by the pope to "alert the world to the need to put an end to the conflict that is troubling us right now."
"Coming from New York, I am especially concerned," Egan said on the papal train.
Asked about Italian press reports that the pope would like to visit the trade center site while visiting North America in July, Egan replied "I'm sure they'll tell me sometime soon if it is true."
The pope's itinerary currently does not include a stop in New York.
[Those born on January 24th, celebrate "an extraordinary assembly of patriarchs and imams, rabbis and monks" gathered today pray for peace on Earth. et]
----
Testimony on DC Antiterrorism Law
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002
From: Carol Moore <carol@carolmoore.net>
Here's my testimony. I ended up deviating from the text because I got annoyed when two activist attorneys earlier got up and denied any activist violence at IMF/World Bank protests 2000. They did rightly denounce police arrests of hundreds of innocent people. Plus I threw in or took out a couple things which I can only approximate.
JANUARY 24, 2002 STATEMENT OF CAROL MOORE ON THE DC "ANTI-TERRORISM BILL" (B14-737) ROUGH VERSION OF WHAT ACTUALLY SAID.
I live in Ward 5 and have been a resident of Washington DC since 1987. I have been an activist in the District during most of those years, in various peace, civil liberties and libertarian groups, including the Libertarian Party and Libertarians for Peace. I also worked on the IMF/World Bank April 2000 protests that have been mentioned here today.
I certainly am serious about ending terrorist destruction of the District of Columbia. That is why I know this so-called Anti-Terrorism Law will be totally ineffective in doing so.
First, let's tell the truth about what happened in April 2000 during the IMF/World Bank protests. Anyone who watched television could see there were repeated attacks and assaults on police by officers. But why didn't the police arrest these people? Why did they arrest hundreds of innocent nonviolent protesters? Could it be there police provocateurs in the crowd?
This new anti-terrorism law won't stop these obnoxious anti-property, pro-socialist leftists from rioting in the streets, if rioting is what they want to do. But I can tell you these anti-terrorist laws already are doing a great job of scaring away nonviolent activists who are afraid they might get arrested and prosecuted for "materially supporting" someone else's street violence. They know that these laws will be enforced just like the drug laws are enforced which means too often prosecutors, or even the guilty themselves, accuse the innocent and the innocent end up doing hard time. How many grandmothers have gone to prison because their grandsons kept drug money in the house? Are these the kind of prosecutions we will see? When you drive away the nonviolent people, who is left to protest but the violent?
And you don't really think that this new anti-terrorism law will stop the inevitable nuclear destruction of Washington, DC, do you? Washington DC is about as beloved as Rome was 2000 years ago. But Rome's enemies didn't have nuclear weapons. You heard about the Chinese government video showing the World Trade Center and Pentagon destruction over and over again and repeating the message that the big bully United States got just what it deserved? Any city that has a billion Chinese and a billion Muslims rooting for its destruction is doomed! D-O-O-M-E-D.
There is only one thing that the DC Council can do to at least try to stop the inevitable nuclear destruction of this city: That is to pass resolutions calling for the United States government to stop bombing other countries under the guise of the war on terrorism. It should call for ending United States military intervention overseas and ending military aid to other nation states, especially in the Middle East. It should call for the end to US aid to Israel. It should take DC money out of all corporations that have military contracts.
If you want to stop terrorist destruction, forget this useless law. It will probably breed more terrorism than it prevents and put too many innocent people in prison for too many years. All this law will do is make it easier for police provocateurs to put innocent people in prison and stifle truly nonviolent protest and dissent.
--------
New Mexico Action Alert
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002
From: Greg Mello <gmello@lasg.org>
Dear colleagues --
1.Update: Monday's public meeting in the Capitol Rotunda about closing the big "Area G" nuke dump and holding public hearings was a success. Thank you to those who came!
In a related action, the NM Attorney General's office wrote a letter the next day requesting public hearings on the lab's environmental contamination, echoing our concerns. Stay tuned! Your work is having results!
2.Action Alert: Please come to the State Capitol on Friday, February 1, at 8:00 am, when the California state senate panel with oversight responsibility for Los Alamos will be there. These California legislators will hear from the lab directors and the arranged witnesses, as they always do, about how Los Alamos is wonderful, how much it benefits New Mexico, etc. But these legislators DO in fact know that the natives and the workers are a bit restless, and it would be very valuable to reinforce this message in many ways.
There is going to be a pro-forma public comment period, but it is only a few minutes long.
Many of you know that it is the University of California (UC) which has operated all of Los Alamos, including its hundreds of outfalls and disposal sites, since its inception. UC is now quite possibly the largest weapons of mass destruction (WMD) contractor in the world. These facts are not something that is going to be discussed by the lab directors and their representatives except in vague ("national defense") platitudes .
As far as the environment goes, it is UC, along with the Department of Energy (DOE), which a) refuses to close Area G, and b) substantially decides what is to be cleaned up (very little) and what is not (almost everything).
If you want to help us organize this event, contact Lydia Clark in our office, at 982-7747 or via email (lclark@lasg.org). Join with your friends! Bring your ideas!
--
New Mexico Action Alert
for January 21, 2002
From: Greg Mello <gmello@lasg.org>
Please join us, if you can, at the State Capitol on Monday, and help end nuclear waste disposal in northern New Mexico.
Please forward this message to your friends. If they wish to receive these occasional alerts, please email a request to us.
Where: The Capitol Rotunda
When: Monday, January 21, 4:30 pm
What: Press conference, informal get-together, and public meeting regarding 1) closure of the Area G nuclear landfill, and 2) the need for public hearings on cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Why: Chat with legislators, NM Environment Department officials, your friends, and various environmentally-friendly folks about why we need to stop nuclear waste disposal here. Send a clear signal that the unregulated and blatantly illegal disposal of tens of thousands of drums' worth of nuclear waste in our region is not something we want -- or, for that matter, will tolerate.
Hear a short presentation of what's going on, and why this should have stopped years ago, and hear officials respond, probably suggesting we should just wait a few more years for...what was that, exactly?
See big maps and photos of the contaminated sites. Maybe, order your own cool CD of detailed LANL maps of contaminated spots if you like.
It's not just about the environment, of course. Massive environmental violence is obviously connected to the weapons of mass destruction that create the waste, and to the violence, both overt and structural in the society that embraces them. They come -- and could go, if ask clearly enough -- together.
Background: On Tuesday 1/15, Study Group co-conspirators Lydia Clark, Greg Mello, and Dave Bacon delivered a letter signed by 27 prominent New Mexico environmental organizations to Secretary Pete Maggiore of the NM Environment Department (NMED), requesting an end to the disposal of nuclear waste in Los Alamos.
This letter, which will be posted at www.lasg.org, is the organizational counterpart to the citizens' "Can-Paign." The press release summarizing this letter is attached below.
The NMED has no intention of closing this nuclear dump (called "Area G"), and instead has issued a meaningless "cleanup" plan for LANL -- one which does not mandate cleanup for years to come, if ever -- and has now solicited public comment on it.
DOE, meanwhile, speculates in a relatively-recent report that the ultimate volume of nuclear waste "cleaned up" at LANL will be only about one-fifteenth of the volume of NEW nuclear waste generated and disposed at LANL over the next 70 years. The much-ballyhooed "cleanup" being purchased -- mostly, it is just being investigated -- at a cost (so far) of about $600 million, is in other words, just a small fraction of the planned contamination.
The "comment period" on this "plan" began just before Christmas and will end on Monday, January 21, after the meeting in the Rotunda.
To add insult to injury, NMED says this "comment period" is not really a comment period. They say there is no legal requirement to listen to the public, and that's why we put this phrase in quotation marks. Eight organizations wrote NMED requesting a public hearing on this matter, but were rebuffed. I am sorry to tell you this, but it is almost certain that and substantive public comments will be ignored by the NMED.
What is needed, instead of this charade, is 1) a public hearing on the cleanup plan, which must include, at the barest minimum, 2) a halt to further dumping.
We suggest you call Congressman's Udall's office (505-984-8950), asking for his help in obtaining these two ends. Further information can be found at http://www.lasg.org/2002cleanup/NMEnvironPln2002_a.html
Greg Mello and Lydia Clark
Greg Mello Los Alamos Study Group 212 East Marcy Street, #10 Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-982-7747 voice 505-982-8502 fax gmello@lasg.org
-----
PUBLIC CITIZEN URGES ENERGY SECRETARY TO RECUSE HIMSELF FROM YUCCA MOUNTAIN DEALINGS
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:14:00 -0500
From: "Lisa Gue" <LISA_GUE@citizen.org>
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Public Citizen today sent a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging him to recuse himself from responsibilities related to a proposal to build a nuclear waste repository in Nevada because of campaign contributions he has received from the nuclear industry.
The commercial nuclear industry is a long-time supporter of the controversial proposal to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and would directly benefit if the project were approved. Abraham accepted $82,728 from the nuclear industry during the last election cycle (1995 through Sept. 30, 2000), according to analysis by Public Citizen's Congress Watch. In addition, PoliticalMoneyLine's reporting of Federal Election Commission data show that in 1999-2000 alone, Abraham's contributions from major nuclear operators included, $9,000 from Florida Power and Light, $5,000 each from Southern Company and DTE Energy, and $3,000 from PECO (now Exelon), as well as $4,000 from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's lobbying association.
The energy secretary is required to evaluate the suitability of Yucca Mountain for a nuclear waste repository. Late last week, Secretary Abraham gave notice that he intends to favorably recommend the site to the president. Nevada's congressional delegation, governor and state legislature, as well as public interest, consumer advocacy and environmental organizations across the country strongly oppose the project on the basis of unresolved safety, environmental and policy issues.
Abraham's financial ties to the pro-repository nuclear industry pose a clear conflict of interest in his consideration of a Yucca Mountain site recommendation. To ensure fair and independent proceedings related to the proposed repository, Public Citizen is urging Abraham to immediately recuse himself from involvement in the Yucca Mountain project.
"We have grave concerns that Secretary Abraham cannot be objective in this matter," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "Already, the DOE Inspector General and the General Accounting Office have indicated that the government is acting prematurely in preparing a site recommendation in the absence of supporting data. We don't need a cheerleader for the industry to push this thing further."
The letter to Secretary Abraham can be viewed online at www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_waste/hi-level/yucca/articles.cfm?ID=6655.
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