------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Four Injured in Nuke Plant Accident
Report Cites Unaccounted Plutonium
Britain planned nuclear war on back of envelope
Baghdad holds meeting on depleted uranium impact
US, New Zealand at Odds Over Ships
Russia, Iran to Complete Reactor Deal
Powell Prepares for US - Russia Summit
Professor Set to Call Off Boycott
Aides Tour Proposed Nuclear Site
Weapons Plant Modernization Begins
Abraham Campaigns for Yucca Mountain Waste Repository

MILITARY
Guerrilla Attacks May Rise in Warmer Days, U.S. Says
U.S. Troops May Keep Order in Afghan Countryside
South Korea to buy 40 Boeing fighters
Lockheed Martin To Study Big Target Rocket Concepts
Gas Masks Provided to Ala. Residents
Court upholds drug-use eviction
Justices Rule Drug-Eviction Law Is Fair
India Passes Antiterror Bill Over Protests About Rights
India: Allies or Instigators?
15 Reported Killed in Suicide Bombing in Israeli Hotel
N. Korea Open to More Ventures
Past haunts Eastern, Central Europe
Pakistani Schools Expel Hundreds
Russian troops in Chechnya revolt
U.S. Forces Keeping Busy

POLICE / PRISONERS
Indian police disperse Kashmir protest

ENERGY AND OTHER
Two Biomass Pilot Projects Approved
UK makes 20 mln pounds available to grow solar power
Documents Show Energy Official Met Only With Industry Leaders
Thai villagers urge Japan-funded power plants scrapped
Energy sought greens' advice
CDC issues steps to fight supergerms



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- accidents and safety

Four Injured in Nuke Plant Accident

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 27, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuke-Plant-Accident.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26374-2002Mar27?language=printer

ATHENS, Ala. -- Four electricians were badly burned after a high-voltage breaker at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant malfunctioned, officials said.

No radioactivity was released in Tuesday's incident, which left Fred Pendergrass, David Letson, Ed Minyard and Dan Young with burns and other unspecified injuries. Their conditions were upgraded from critical to satisfactory condition Wednesday at University Hospital in Birmingham.

Officials said an electrical arc jumped out of a 4,160-volt breaker in the Unit 3 turbine room, burning the four.

The Tennessee Valley Authority-run plant had been shut down for routine maintenance earlier Tuesday. It's unclear what the workers were doing.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the incident.

``My main concern right now is that everyone understands there's no nuclear threat,'' said Lee Helms, Alabama's emergency management director.

The plant, about 95 miles north of Birmingham, suffered a major electrical fire in 1975 after workers using a candle to search for air leaks ignited insulation on cables in a reactor control room.

----

Report Cites Unaccounted Plutonium
Amounts Sufficient to Create 'Dirty Bomb,' Official Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22352-2002Mar26?language=printer

The Energy Department cannot fully account for small amounts of potentially dangerous plutonium provided under a 1954 Atoms for Peace program to 33 countries including Iran, Pakistan and India, according to an inspector general report released yesterday.

Some of the plutonium, which was packed in sealed capsules, contained between 16 and 80 grams of the radioactive material and "would be a serious health hazard if damaged," an official familiar with the report said.

"They would be able to create a dispersal device," the official said, referring to "our concern being the dirty bomb."

Although it would take more than six pounds of plutonium to create a nuclear explosion, the chemical explosion of radioactive material in a "dirty bomb" could spread minute amounts of plutonium that, if inhaled or ingested, could be fatal, said Thomas B. Cochran, a physicist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Energy Department inspector general report noted that the plutonium capsules sent overseas were supposed to be followed through a Sealed Source Registry, but that program was discontinued by the Reagan administration in 1984.

The capsules, which were distributed under the Atoms for Peace program until the late 1970s, were intended for use in calibrating radiation-measuring devices or for research.

The Clinton administration disclosed in 1996 that the United States had distributed abroad "approximately two to three kilograms of plutonium mostly in the form of sealed sources to foreign countries since the late 1950s."

Among the other countries that received sealed plutonium capsules were Brazil, Israel, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Greece, Colombia, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and Vietnam.

At that time it was unclear as to the ownership of the plutonium capsules because some were only loaned to foreign governments and others were actually transferred. The report says "it has inconsistent historical data regarding the ownership of the material."

Robert S. Norris, a researcher for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said yesterday that U.S. nuclear assistance to Iran and India under the program helped those governments' efforts to build a bomb.

"The Atoms for Peace program was designed to put a good spin on the atom," Norris said, "and instead it has helped Iran and India to start their bomb programs."

Although relatively small amounts of plutonium are involved, Energy Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman said in his report, "Recent world events have underscored the need to strengthen the control over all nuclear materials, including sealed sources." He added, "In the wrong hands, these sources could be misused."

-------- britain

Britain planned nuclear war on back of envelope

Story by Ed Cropley
REUTERS UK:
March 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15209/story.htm

LONDON - Britain's early post-World War Two nuclear defence strategy was mapped out on scraps of paper, using the roundest of round numbers and elementary schoolboy sums, according to classified files released yesterday.

The dossier of top secret letters dating from 1947 and now opened by the Public Record Office, reveals that the tradition of the British amateur extended even to planning a nuclear holocaust.

Viscount Portal of Hungerford, Britain's Controller of Atomic Energy at the Ministry of Supply, heard that the military wanted a stockpile of 1,000 British atom bombs by 1957 in readiness for a possible all-out nuclear war.

But his beleaguered department could churn out enough plutonium for just 15 bombs a year, so he asked top brass if 1,000 were really necessary.

Citing top government scientific adviser Sir Henry Tizard, Air Chief Marshal Lord Tedder replied that "the round figure of 1,000 (is) a reasonable estimate of what would be required to constitute a 'valuable deterrent' to war."

Tizard, a respected physicist and founding father of radar, had arrived at the figure using the guesstimate that it would take 25 atom bombs to devastate Britain.

"The geographical area we have in mind is some 40 times the size of the UK, and 25 x 40 = 1,000," Tedder explained, coyly declining to make explicit mention of the Soviet Union.

Atom bomb production could not begin before 1952, they agreed, meaning Britain would have to make nearly one a day to meet the 1957 deadline - an impossible task given the parlous state of her economy.

Tedder therefore mapped out a new timeline on a tiny scrap of paper: they should start with 15 bombs in 1952 and then double production every year for five years, giving a grand total of 945 bombs by the end of 1957.

Portal's reply was more realistic: "It seems to me that in the present state of the country, it would be a very long time indeed before production at anything like this rate could be achieved," he replied.

In the end Britain became a full nuclear power in October 1952 - after the United States in 1945 and the Soviet Union in 1949 - but the papers give no hint of how many devices were actually built by 1957.


-------- depleted uranium

Baghdad holds meeting on depleted uranium impact

REUTERS IRAQ:
March 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15228/story.htm

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government opened a conference yesterday to examine the effects on health of depleted uranium munitions used by U.S.-led forces during the Gulf War, which it says have caused a rise in cancer in Iraq.

"The conference is to meet the urgent need for researchers and specialists in Iraq and other countries to define negative impacts of DU weapons on humans and the environment," Education Minister Fahad Salim al-Shaqra said in his opening speech.

Experts at the two-day conference, organised by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, include researchers from Egypt, Thailand and Yemen.

Shaqra said cancer among children and congenital deformities had increased in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraq out of Kuwait after it invaded its oil-rich neighbour.

"The rate of cancer cases among under-15s has registered a 120 percent increase from 1997 to 1990, likewise the rise in leukaemia cases was 60 per cent for the same year," Shaqra said.

He added cancer among children had almost trebled from four cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 in 1999. Congenital deformities in Basra, southern Iraq, increased four-fold from 1990 to 1999.

"The rate cancer increased among children in 1999 was 242 per cent, whereas leukaemia cases increased by 100 per cent in the same year compared with 1990's figures," Shaqra added.

Shaqra said incidence of cancers of the breast, thyroid gland and lymphatic system also rose.

An Iraqi vet said on Saturday thousands of fish that have died at fish farms near Baghdad were poisoned by munitions used by British and U.S. forces.

DU munitions were first widely used in the Gulf War - declassified U.S. documents show U.S. forces fired about 944,000 cigar-sized rounds against Iraqi armour in Iraq and Kuwait.

DU combusts on impact with its target, making it highly effective at piercing tank armour.

Last year, the World Health Organisation began an in-depth study into the health impact of the shells used in Iraq.

But in November, after lobbying from Washington, the U.N. General Assembly voted against an Iraqi proposal for a U.N.-backed study into the effects of depleted uranium used in the Gulf War.

A report by Britain's Royal Society scientific organisation published earlier this month said top soil in areas heavily contaminated with depleted uranium should be removed and water quality should be monitored for any contamination.

-------- new zealand

US, New Zealand at Odds Over Ships

The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21427-2002Mar26?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- Disagreement persists between the United States and New Zealand over a ban that keeps nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand's waters, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday.

"Disagreements between close friends are not that unusual," he said after a meeting with Prime Minister Helen Clark. Clark also discussed the matter with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

She again discussed it in a meeting with President Bush, but did not elaborate afterward with reporters.

New Zealand has protested Bush's decision to slap tariffs on imported steel, and Clark said she also talked trade with Bush. She said little about that aspect of the conversation aside from noting that New Zealand Trade Minister Jim Sutton will raise the issue with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in May.

New Zealand exports about $25 million of finished steel to the United States each year. Australia announced shortly after Bush's decision that 85 percent of its steel exports to the United States would not be affected by the new tariffs.

Clark also promoted a proposal for a bilateral agreement that would increase trade between the United States and New Zealand. She said it would boost American exports to her country by 25 percent.

Powell thanked Clark for help New Zealand has provided in the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

"New Zealand and the United States have gone through many challenges and crises and conflicts together," Powell said. "We are at it again now."

Asked if the nuclear ban was unfinished business between the two countries, Powell replied, "There is a disagreement that continues."

Successive U.S. administrations have urged New Zealand to drop the policy, but Clark said last week she had no intention to do so.

The Sept. 11 attacks showed that terrorist groups are prepared to "do almost anything" to advance their cause, Clark said.

"Therefore a nuclear-powered vessel in your harbor presents a rather interesting target for such groups," she said.

Clark said she had been well received in Washington and had discussed a wide range of international issues with Powell.

-------- russia

Russia, Iran to Complete Reactor Deal

March 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear.html

MOSCOW -- Russia will finish building a nuclear power plant in Iran despite U.S. opposition and is considering a tentative North Korean request for a similar plant, Russia's top nuclear official said Wednesday.

The reactor Russia is building at an unfinished nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, will be completed by 2005 as planned, Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said at a news conference.

The United States has repeatedly urged Russia to abandon a 1995 contract with Iran to complete a nuclear reactor at Bushehr worth about $800 million, saying the project could help Iran build a nuclear bomb.

Russia denies that, saying the reactor can only be used for civilian purposes and will remain under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

``Iran has signed all required international agreements and undertaken full obligations on transparency and checks ... and unfailingly fulfilled them,'' Rumyantsev said.

The controversy over Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran and U.S. claims that Russian companies have leaked missile technologies to Tehran is a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations amid overall improvement.

Rumyantsev said its cooperation with Iran poses no threat of nuclear proliferation. He said a Russian law passed last year strengthened nonproliferation guarantees by allowing spent fuel from nuclear power plants abroad taken back to Russia for reprocessing.

``We will ship nuclear fuel to Iran under the contract, which envisages that the spent fuel will be taken back to Russia,'' Rumyantsev said. ``There has been no other cooperation that could help Iran build nuclear weapons.''

On a conciliatory note, he said Russia views the U.S. concerns with ``great attention'' and hopes for a ``compromise that would help strengthen confidence and peace while allowing Russia to reap economic benefits.''

But he also said his ministry was looking at a tentative request from North Korea for the construction of a nuclear power plant. That could anger the Bush administration, which suspects North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. In January, Bush labeled North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' seeking weapons of mass destruction.

``We are holding discussions and trying to find out whether it would be economically feasible,'' Rumyantsev said. ``But these are only discussions without any specific foundation.''

North Korea recently threatened abandon a 1994 agreement with Washington in which it froze two Soviet-designed reactors suspected of producing weapons-grade plutonium in exchange for U.S. oil shipments and the construction of two replacement reactors of a type that cannot can produce weapons-grade plutonium. The reactors have not yet been installed.

-------- treaties

Powell Prepares for US - Russia Summit

March 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Spain early next month to push forward nuclear arms-reduction plans for the coming U.S.-Russia summit.

The European Union's semiannual ministerial meeting in Madrid also will give Powell the opportunity to consult with European allies on the war against terrorism, the State Department said.

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, scheduled to hold talks in Moscow in May, spoke by phone Wednesday to discuss the two nations' work toward an agreement on offensive strategic arms reductions.

``Both leaders expressed their intention to make progress on key issues in anticipation of their May meetings in Moscow and St. Petersburg'' and noted the Powell-Ivanov session will help advance that work, White House spokesman Sean McCormack said.

McCormack said Bush used the 20-minute conversation to ask Putin for a ``quick resolution'' of Russia's current ban against U.S. chicken exports, suggesting that the matter was standing in the way of a ``positive economic agenda for the summit.''

As part of his April 8-11 travels, Powell will stop in Berlin for a series of meetings with German leaders on the anti-terror war and European issues.

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

Professor Set to Call Off Boycott

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 27, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lab-Boycott.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24278-2002Mar27?language=printer

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- A professor who urged Asian-Americans not to apply for jobs at U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories in response to the firing of Wen Ho Lee says he's ready to call off the protest in exchange for promised workplace changes.

Ling-Chi Wang said Tuesday he is prepared to start a recruiting drive if an agreement to change hiring practices and improve working conditions, now pending before officials in Washington, is finalized.

``I think the labs realized they had a real serious problem,'' said Wang, who initiated the boycott two years ago.

The plan was submitted on Monday by the Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia laboratories to the National Nuclear Security Administration for approval, Los Alamos spokesman John Gustafson said.

Gustafson would not discuss the plan's contents. Wang said he had not read the final draft and could not comment on specifics.

In general, he said, he expects it to address racial profiling and discrimination as well as recruitment, retention and salary parity, and provide for promotion and research opportunities for minority employees.

Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Taiwan, was arrested in 1999 and indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes. The nuclear scientist denied passing secrets and was never charged with espionage.

The government's case ultimately fell apart, and after nine months in solitary confinement, Lee pleaded guilty to a single count of downloading sensitive material and was freed. The judge in the case apologized to Lee.

Lee's supporters claimed he was a victim of racial profiling.

The boycott was endorsed by Asian-Pacific Americans in Higher Education and the Association of Asian American Studies.

After the boycott took effect, a number of Asians left the labs and officials reported fewer applications from Asian graduate students. But administrators said it was possible that outside factors, such as the dot-com boom, played a role.

Wang said that lab officials have been looking into the treatment of Asian-American employees and have made some promotions in recent months.

At Los Alamos, there are three Asian-Americans in top management positions now, compared with none five years ago.

-------- nevada

Aides Tour Proposed Nuclear Site

By Larry Margasak
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, March 27, 2002; 2:34 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26336-2002Mar27?language=printer
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Congress.html

WASHINGTON -- For a few hours trudging through the Nevada mountain where the government wants to store nuclear waste, dozens of congressional aides and a few of their bosses got two or three days in Las Vegas - at the nuclear industry's expense.

Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have taken trips to Yucca Mountain that were paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an Associated Press check of congressional travel records found.

The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress' approval later this year for Yucca Mountain as the nation's storage site for radioactive waste.

"Staff people say this is a great deal," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., one of many Nevada officials fiercely opposing the site. "They have dreams of their trip to Las Vegas. If you just went to Yucca Mountain and came home, it would be an ugly trip."

The trips to Vegas are considered fact-finding missions - meaning they can be paid for by special interests under congressional rules. The review of congressional records shows the Nuclear Energy Institute spent more than $208,000 on the trips since 1999.

The records don't detail the activities for each trip. Several congressional aides did describe theirs - provided their names not be used for fear they'd be punished for embarrassing their bosses.

"We went to a show. I'm not sure who paid," one aide said. "Liquor was free in the casino," another added. A third congressional worker said he spent an afternoon in the hotel wave pool, while a fourth recalled an industry-paid dinner at a spectacular revolving restaurant with a view of Vegas. Aides were reluctant to say how much they gambled.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visited Yucca Mountain at the industry's expense last year. He spent one night in Las Vegas and defended those who stay longer.

"Our staffs are not the highest paid government people in the world. If they get a chance to learn on the issue and to spend a few days (in Vegas), I have never seen that as a problem," he said. "Staffers who have gone found it educational and enjoyable."

The Nuclear Energy Institute has been paying for trips to Yucca since the early 1990s. The tab for each trip varies with the airfare and number of days, but the cost for a staff member is usually between $1,000 and $2,000. The industry didn't provide money for gambling or shows.

Spokesman Steve Kerekes said NEI wants to influence congressional and state officials to support the Yucca site but only spends a fraction of its $28 million annual budget on the trips.

"We try to put together a full schedule for those folks while recognizing they have the right to have a little bit of time to decompress," he said.

Kerekes said the institute targets lawmakers and aides from states with nuclear power plants. "One would hope that members' constituents would understand their desire and expect them to be on an issue like this," he said.

The industry needs a permanent storage site for some 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now held in facilities across the country. President Bush in February recommended the use of Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, but he doesn't have the last word.

Nevada officials are likely to ask Congress in April to uphold an expected veto by Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. The state also has challenged the decision in federal court.

Both sides have hired big-name lobbyists.

The anti-Yucca Mountain forces hired two former White House chiefs of staff, Kenneth Duberstein from the Republican Reagan administration and John Podesta, who worked for Democrat Bill Clinton.

A coalition of industry groups also hired a prominent Democrat and a well-known Republican. The Democrat is former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and the Republican is another former presidential chief of staff, John Sununu from the administration of the first President Bush.

House and Senate aides said they took the Yucca visit seriously, writing reports or providing briefings for their bosses. But they acknowledge the personal time in Las Vegas makes the trip enormously popular.

One aide said he arrived at his casino hotel in the early afternoon and stayed at the wave pool until early evening, when the industry presented a slide show on Yucca safety.

The presentation showed how the storage casks for radioactive waste could survive a drop from a crane or a violent, head-on crash.

The next day, staff members donned hard hats and safety glasses as they traveled deep into Yucca Mountain by rail car. They watched workers conduct moisture tests, string wires and check meters and temperatures. Energy Department officials answered questions.

The staff members then were driven to the top of the mountain to view a mammoth rock-cutting machine. By dinner time, they were back in Las Vegas.

The following day, staff members could leave or stay another night.

One aide said three our four of the 20 aides in his group skipped the Yucca tour and went golfing.

On the Net:
Additional information on Yucca is available on the politics page at http://wire.ap.org
U.S. Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site is http://www.ymp.gov/
Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org

-------- tennessee

Weapons Plant Modernization Begins

March 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Plant.html

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- Workers began dismantling a rusty guard tower at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant Wednesday, a symbolic first step in modernizing the 59-year-old facility involved in building weapons ranging from the Hiroshima bomb to the MX missile. The $4 billion modernization of the Y-12 plant includes rebuilding facilities that date back to 1943 and building a giant warehouse to house stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium. Most of the uranium is now stored in at least five locations around the complex owned by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The warehouse will be as big as four football fields and hold up to 32,000 cans and drums of bomb-grade material.

``It will be a concrete, heavy structure, seismically resistant. But the key features of it are designed to keep the bad guys out'' said Bill Brumley, of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.

``While uranium itself is radioactive and toxic, the real concern we have is with theft,'' he said.

The 20-year modernization plan also calls for consolidating the number of buildings.

Many of the 650 buildings on the high-security reservation date to the Y-12's World War II's roots as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project.

The Y-12 plant enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan in 1945.

-------- us nuc waste

Abraham Campaigns for Yucca Mountain Waste Repository

March 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-27-09.html#anchor4

WASHINGTON, DC, A single, secure storage site is the best disposal for the nation's most dangerous radioactive wastes, argued Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in an opinion piece published Tuesday in newspapers around the nation.

Abraham used the piece to counter critics of the proposed high level nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

"Critics of the decision to select Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation's permanent site for nuclear waste are asking us to believe ... that the current temporary surface storage system for high level nuclear waste is preferable to the permanent underground solution offered by the Yucca Mountain site," wrote Abraham.

Abraham said the planned repository will protect radioactive wastes from accidents and terrorist attacks better than any of the current above ground storage sites.

"More than 161 million people live within 75 miles of one or more nuclear waste sites, all of which were intended to be temporary," he wrote. "We believe that today these sites are safe, but prudence demands we consolidate this waste from widely dispersed above ground sites into a deep underground location that can be better protected."

After 24 years of study, at a cost of more than $4 billion, "the scientists concluded that Yucca Mountain would be safe," Abraham wrote. "In fact, extensive studies prove the repository will secure this material so well that tough Environmental Protection Agency standards will be met for 10,000 years."

Last month, President George W. Bush gave his approval to the Yucca Mountain site, urging Congress to approve the planned repository.

Critics of the Yucca Mountain project warn that no scientific studies can prove that the repository will remain intact and protect the wastes for the 10,000 years required by the regulations authorizing its construction.

Another major concern is the transportation of high level radioactive waste across the nation by road and rail, which critics warn could prove a tempting terrorist target.

Abraham scoffed at that idea in his opinion piece.

"So far as terrorists are concerned, why wouldn't they first attack stationary, above ground facilities that lie in known locations near heavily populated cities, rather than wait 10 years until the material is being moved - in secret - in secure containers surrounded by heavily armed guards?" he asked.

Abraham added that the wastes will end up being moved regardless of whether the Yucca Mountain site is completed. He pointed out that the Goshute Indian Tribe in Utah, in consortium with a group of electric utilities, "is moving forward on approval of a temporary above ground nuclear waste storage site on its reservation."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold hearings on the Goshute's proposal beginning April 8 and continuing for more than a month. For a schedule of the meetings, click here.

"Whether or not the Goshutes are successful, sooner or later others will open new sites, and this material will move," Abraham concluded.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Guerrilla Attacks May Rise in Warmer Days, U.S. Says

By THOM SHANKER
New York Times
March 27, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/international/asia/27MILI.html

WASHINGTON, March 26 - The Bush administration is concerned that the approach of warmer weather in Afghanistan may signal a sharp rise in guerrilla attacks on American and allied troops, senior officials say.

Significant numbers of fighters for Al Qaeda and the Taliban are thought to be regrouping in a mountainous stretch of eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border. As the peaks and high mountain passes thaw, those fighters will be able to move more freely in small groups - which makes it harder to detect, track and attack them, officials say. Other scattered cells of adversaries are believed to remain in the south and west.

Military planners say the war is undergoing a significant transformation from the early battles for such strategic cities as Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul, where the United States promoted proxy Afghan armies to force Taliban and Qaeda troops to mass along front lines, where they could be smashed by air. Future battles could also be different from the missions to encircle and sweep opposing forces from mountain redoubts at Tora Bora, when many fighters escaped, and in the Shah-i-Kot region, when smaller numbers managed to slip away.

"Obviously, you'd like to have them in one big cluster and be able to mount an attack and do as much damage as you can," Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr., an Air Force officer who works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said today. "When they get in smaller clusters, it makes it a bigger challenge to locate them, track them. And each one of those small pockets, you have to develop a plan of attack. It makes it a little bit more intense from our perspective."

The war is crossing a new threshold, Pentagon and military officials said today, to small-unit guerrilla actions. "This is the war they've always wanted," one Pentagon official said of the opposing forces.

Qaeda and Taliban fighters appear to have learned that they have no safety in numbers, and stand little chance when fighting from fixed combat positions like trenches or caves. In trying to hold their ground, Qaeda and Taliban troops present what one Pentagon official called "a visible, lucrative target."

But operating in smaller, mobile units, opposition forces could inflict mounting losses on American and allied troops in guerrilla actions. Spring is a likely time for those attacks to increase.

"It is much easier to get around in that country in the springtime and in the summertime, for both sides, for both U.S. coalition and the enemy," General Rosa said.

George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, warned of increased attacks by remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, "As spring emerges, we'll see, maybe, more activity on their part." That view was supported by Maj. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army officer in command of ground forces in Afghanistan, who said spring is "the campaign season. We expect to see some increased enemy activity."

Pentagon officials stressed that planning was well under way and deployments already ordered to combat exactly that threat.

The United States has about 5,200 combat troops in Afghanistan, with 1,700 Royal Marines from Britain scheduled to arrive within a week. A half-dozen A-10 attack jets have been flown to an air base at Bagram.

The A-10 is a slow, highly agile jet with an armored belly to protect its pilot and arsenal - a 30-millimeter Gatling gun that can shoot 3,900 rounds a minute - from ground fire. It will be used to strike vehicles, trenches, caves and troops on the move, targets that have also been assigned to Apache helicopter gunships, many of which were heavily scarred by ground fire during the recent operation in Shah-i-Kot.

The most important question, one Pentagon official said, is one that cannot be answered: What is Al Qaeda's goal on the ground right now in Afghanistan?

"They can't believe it can still be a safe haven for them, but we don't know whether their goal is simple survival, or mounting harassing operations, or regrouping for something else," this official said.

Pentagon and military officials said the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters appeared to have regrouped by communicating via a series of "runners" used to carry messages throughout the country, and that satellite telephones were used by some troops and low-level officials - but rarely by any senior leaders, and even then most often in code, since they were aware of the surveillance capabilities of the United States.

Also intriguing, officials said, is the assessment that Al Qaeda may have devised a set of "rallying points" either before or shortly after the United States opened this first front in the war on terror. Those locations would enable troops to regroup with a minimum of communications.

Senior officials expressed caution about any estimates of remaining Qaeda or Taliban fighters. Local Afghan sources have proved unreliable or have deliberately inflated numbers to draw American attention, and money, to desired regions.

--------

SECURITY PATROLS
U.S. Troops May Keep Order in Afghan Countryside

New York Times
March 27, 2002
By DEXTER FILKINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/international/asia/27AFGH.html

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 26 - President Bush's envoy to Afghanistan suggested today that American military forces might intervene in local conflicts in the absence of international troops stationed around the country.

The envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, reiterated White House opposition to expanding the international security force from Kabul to other Afghan cities. But he left open the possibility that without such forces in place, the responsibility for settling disputes between local warlords could land on the American military.

"We have assets and forces in all of these places," Mr. Khalilzad said in a news conference at the American Embassy here. "One of the things they do is discourage this sort of thing."

Although American forces have not assumed such duties in Afghanistan, Mr. Khalilzad said, "this could be added."

His remarks followed the announcement last week by Vice President Dick Cheney that the White House would oppose the expansion of the international force to other parts of Afghanistan. Mr. Cheney said many of the countries that had contributed troops to the 4,500-member British-led force were reluctant to send more.

His announcement was met with disappointment by officials of the interim Afghan government, who have been trying to convince the United States, Britain and France that an expanded force is essential to help maintain order in their war-ravaged land. Since the Taliban collapsed last year, regional warlords with their own armies have been clashing throughout the country as they stake out new territory.

While the vice president's decision seemed to quash the Afghans' request, Mr. Khalilzad's remarks today seemed to suggest a short-term alternative: that American forces now in Afghanistan hunting Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters might turn their attention to settling domestic disputes among warlords.

In at least two incidents this year, American forces have made their presence felt.

Earlier this year, American special forces in Mazar-i-Sharif intervened to keep the peace between the forces of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and those of Gen. Ostad Atta Muhammad in northern Afghanistan, commanders on both sides say. The two armies fought a major skirmish in February near the town of Shulgareh, about 25 miles southwest of Mazar-i-Sharif.

In January, American fighter bombers maintained a constant vigil overhead when fighting broke out between rival warlords near Gardez in the southeast. The American forces did not intervene.

The suggestion by Mr. Khalilzad that American forces may take on some security role seems to match the most recent proposals being floated by Afghan officials.

Since Mr. Cheney announced his opposition to an expansion of the international force, some Afghan officials have privately suggested that small foreign forces of perhaps 100 soldiers, stationed in each of Afghanistan's large cities, could prove as useful as having several thousand.

"Perhaps they could put a small number of troops, for example, 100 in Mazar-i-Sharif, because of their symbolic importance," said the Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah.

Some warlords say the symbolic value of the American presence is hard to match. Interviewed at the time of the factional fighting in Gardez, Zakim Khan Zadran, a local warlord, said he and his comrades were always mindful of the American forces nearby.

"Everybody is worried about the B-52's," Mr. Zadran said.

The international force, made up of troops from Britain, Italy, Germany and other countries, was put in place after the collapse of the Taliban and was intended to forestall the kind of anarchy that destroyed Kabul in the mid-1990's.

The soldiers, authorized to use deadly force, patrol the city's streets and often work in tandem with the local police. In its three months on the job, officials here said, the force has sharply reduced the murder rate. Despite a handful of incidents in which members of the international force fired on Afghans, and in one case killed a man, their presence has so far provoked little in the way of anti-Western sentiment.

Still, disorder has begun creeping back into the rest of the country, where many warlords pledge nominal allegiance to the central government while building private armies and looting local businesses. Afghan leaders fear that if the country deteriorates further, they will lack the forces to confront warlords on their own and the country might once again slide toward civil war.

-------- arms sales

South Korea to buy 40 Boeing fighters

World Scene
March 27, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020327-83798818.htm

SEOUL - South Korea has chosen to buy Boeing Co.'s F-15K fighter jet over the French Rafale for a bitterly disputed major defense deal, Yonhap News Agency reported today.

The Defense Ministry would not comment on the report, but a spokesman said "there will be a formal announcement on the contract soon."

Defense Minister Kim Dong-Shin took part in a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday that media reports said would decide the $3.2 billion FX project to buy 40 fighters. Boeing and Dassault have been fiercely disputing the contract.

-------- business

Lockheed Martin To Study Big Target Rocket Concepts

Sunnyvale -
March 27, 2002

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, a business area of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, has been awarded a four-month, $600,000 contract by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USASMDC), Huntsville, Ala., to study the development of a flexible family of reliable, target launch vehicle concepts under the Missile Defense Agency's Enhanced Target Delivery System (ETDS) program.

The ETDS study is in response to the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) need to develop and field a next-generation target system that is capable of launching larger, more massive target vehicles with heavier and more complex payload suites for future ballistic missile defense testing.

The new target system must address a variety of engagement scenarios, including launching from remote, unimproved land-based sites, as well as from sea-based and air-based platforms.

Other key elements to be addressed by the study are mission flexibility, decreased launch cycle time, and realistic emulation of current and projected threat systems.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems has extensive experience in launch system design, development and launch operations on such successful programs as the Multi-Service Launch System (MSLS) long-range target vehicle, Fleet Ballistic Missiles, and the Athena, Atlas and Titian launch vehicle programs.

"We are pleased to have the opportunity to provide SMDC and MDA with truly innovative target launch vehicle solutions for the U.S. military's missile defense testing requirements," said Tom Morton, vice president, strategic missile programs for Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

"Our solution will leverage Lockheed Martin's strong leadership and unmatched experience in target and space launch vehicles and strategic and defensive missile systems for this very important effort."

Under the terms of the study contract, Lockheed Martin will assess the feasibility of conducting launch operations from various sea-based and airborne platforms and remote launch ground sites and deliver a set of flexible design approaches to USASMDC in support of the MDA Consolidated Targets Program. The study effort does not include the preliminary design review.

Related Links
LM Missiles & Space Operations http://www.lmms.lmco.com/
LM Astronautics Operations http://www.ast.lmco.com/
SpaceDaily http://www.spacedaily.com/

-------- chemical weapons

Gas Masks Provided to Ala. Residents

March 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Incinerator.html

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The federal government will pay for gas mask-like safety gear for thousands of people who live near an incinerator where the Army will burn deadly nerve agents, the governor's office said Wednesday.

As many as 35,000 people in eastern Alabama could receive the protective hoods and training under an agreement reached in Gov. Don Siegelman's lawsuit over the chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said many details remain to be worked out.

``We have not settled on any numbers,'' said Mary Hudak, a FEMA spokeswoman in Atlanta.

In return for the government's pledge to provide $7 million for the gear and training, the state will withdraw its request that a judge block the opening of the incinerator, Siegelman spokesman Rip Andrews said.

Siegelman filed suit last month to halt operation of the $1 billion incinerator.

The protective hoods, which function like gas masks but are larger and simpler to use, would be given to people who live nearest the incinerator.

The money would also be used to purchase gear for as many as 500 police, firefighters and emergency management workers who would respond to any accident at the incinerator, said Mike Burney, emergency management director for Calhoun County.

An estimated 75,000 people live within about nine miles of the incinerator, situated about 60 miles east of Birmingham.

``Even a small accident could be catastrophic,'' Burney said.

While the military has destroyed aging nerve agents at incinerators in the Pacific and the Utah desert, the Anniston installation is the first to be located in a populated area.

The Army plans to begin test burns of nerve gas in September.

-------- drug war

Court upholds drug-use eviction

By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020327-833574.htm

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the entire family of a drug user can be evicted under the one-strike law passed to put down a drug dealer's "reign of terror" in public housing.

The high court reversed a decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that called the government position "absurd" and had blocked enforcement of a law passed after President Clinton proposed it in his 1996 State of the Union message.

"It is not absurd that a local housing authority may sometimes evict a tenant who had no knowledge of drug-related activity," said the decision written for the court by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

The government argued that federal law required all leases to include an agreement for eviction "when a member of the tenant's household or a guest engages in drug-related criminal activity, regardless of whether the tenant knew, or had reason to know, of that activity."

The opinion rejected the arguments of four elderly tenants ousted from an Oakland, Calif., project and said, "We agree with [the government]." The vote was 8-0. Justice Stephen G. Breyer did not participate in the case because his brother was the trial judge.

The Supreme Court ruling means 1.2 million tenants of the nation's 3,200 public-housing developments may be held individually responsible for a housemate's drug use, whether at home or elsewhere, or a guest's on-the-premises drug use even if the evicted person has no knowledge of the violation or no control over a guest at the apartment.

"This is a great victory for families in public housing who want to be free from those who infiltrate their community with drugs or commit violent crimes," the Department of Housing and Urban Development said in an unsigned statement.

"As the Supreme Court said, a tenant who cannot control drug-related crime by a household member threatens the health and safety of all residents," HUD said.

Gideon Anders, who heads the National Housing Law Project based in Oakland, said he was discouraged but not surprised by the outcome because February's argument went badly.

"We're not all able to control every family member we may have any more than the country has been able to control the drug problem. To take away from elderly, innocent people the significant benefit of subsidized public housing is an unfortunate situation and speaks volumes about how we enforce laws in our country," Mr. Anders said.

Similar challenges to the law are pending in other courts, whose decisions now will be guided by yesterday's ruling.

Some housing-policy organizations argued that such tools were needed to keep drug problems from becoming worse in public housing, but tenant-support groups fought the action.

"The only way they can get away with it is because it affects poor people," said Sheila Crowley, head of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The decision allows all housing authorities to enforce the provision and frees the Oakland Housing Authority to resume eviction proceedings against:

•Pearlie Rucker, 64, ordered out with her mentally disabled daughter, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild because the daughter was found in possession of cocaine three blocks from their apartment.

•Willie Lee, 72, and Barbara Hill, 64, evicted from their separate apartments after their grandsons, who lived in the unit, were caught smoking marijuana together on the project's parking lot.

•Herman Walker, 76, a disabled man ordered to leave his home of 10 years because his hired caregiver and two guests had cocaine in his apartment.

The decision effectively converted what tenant advocates portrayed as a civil-rights claim into a tenant-landlord dispute resolved by endorsing no-fault eviction under terms of a lease all tenants must sign.

"This was never a civil-rights issue even though it was sometimes portrayed that way. It was always a matter of a contract setting the terms and conditions under which public-housing tenants occupy their dwellings," said William F. Maher of the Housing and Development Law Institute, which headed a coalition supporting the government stand.

He said the parking-lot cases were not so remote as they were made to seem. Mr. Maher said the drug use occurred outside an eight-unit building in a neighborhood of private homes whose residents reported it.

"Public housing, if it's to be welcomed in a nice, orderly neighborhood, cannot tolerate drug houses on their premises," Mr. Maher said.

It would be unreasonable to subject the government to an "innocent owner defense" when the government is in the role of "landlord in a public housing project," the court said.

A HUD official could not say how extensively local housing authorities use the provision required in leases, under which agencies are permitted to act but not required to do so.

"HUD doesn't run housing; it funds it. Evictions are basically a part of day-to-day management, so HUD doesn't require local housing authorities to report evictions to the department," the official said, insisting that no statistics were available to determine the number of evictions based on illegal drug activity or other causes, such as nonpayment of rent.

"You're not going to have two standards. It's got to be one standard that applies to all," Gary T. Lafayette, attorney for the Oakland Housing Authority, told the court when the case was argued in February.

In its 7-4 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the Clinton plan contradicted the intent of Congress, whose members "did not intend to authorize the eviction of innocent tenants."

The Supreme Court opinion said legislative history was not binding on the court but disputed what it said was the 9th Circuit's selective reading of that history.

----

Justices Rule Drug-Eviction Law Is Fair

New York Times
March 27, 2002
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/national/27EVIC.html

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court today interpreted a federal drug law to permit the eviction of public housing tenants for drug use by any household member or guest, even drug use that takes place outside the apartment without the tenant's knowledge.

The 8-to-0 decision overturned a ruling by the federal appeals court in San Francisco, which had interpreted the provision of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 to bar the eviction of "innocent" tenants who had neither knowledge of nor control over their family members' drug use.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said its interpretation was necessary to avoid the serious constitutional question that would be raised by depriving tenants of their property without proof of individual wrongdoing.

But the law raised no constitutional issue and its terms were clear, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said for the court today in a 10-page opinion. Justice Stephen G. Breyer did not take part in the case because his brother, Judge Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court in San Francisco, was the judge who granted an injunction in 1998 to stop the Oakland Housing Authority from evicting four tenants who challenged the provision the authority had included in their leases to comply with the federal law.

There was nothing unusual, let alone unconstitutional, about "no-fault evictions" of tenants who failed to meet a condition of their lease, Chief Justice Rehnquist said. In signing the leases, the tenants agreed to make sure that no "drug-related criminal activity" would take place "on or near the premises" and agreed that they faced eviction if the lease was violated.

Civil rights organizations had filed briefs in the case, Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, No. 00-1770, to argue that the policy was unfair and would lead to increased homelessness. That no member of the court either agreed with or felt moved to acknowledge these arguments was a measure of the current court's relative conservatism.

A brief filed by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, on behalf of a coalition of civil rights and tenants' rights groups, described evictions undertaken by housing authorities around the country that it characterized as "horror stories" of "draconian enforcement." The brief said "a tenant who has a fleeting connection to the alleged perpetrator of a crime is put at risk because of conduct that only the most paranoid or clairvoyant tenant could possibly have foreseen."

The four plaintiffs who challenged the evictions in Oakland included two whose grandchildren, who lived with them, were caught smoking marijuana in a housing project parking lot; one whose daughter was found with cocaine three blocks from the apartment; and a disabled 75-year-old man whose caretaker was found with cocaine in his apartment.

Chief Justice Rehnquist said that Congress's intention to give public housing authorities the right to evict "innocent owners" like these was unambiguous, as shown by the statute's reference to "any drug-related criminal activity." He said, "This any drug-related activity engaged in by the specified persons is grounds for termination, not just drug-related activity that the tenant knew, or should have known, about."

The chief justice said the policy was a reasonable one, given that drug use presented a threat to other residents of a public housing project, regardless of whether the responsible tenant knew about it.

The New York City Housing Authority, the country's biggest local housing agency, said today that the court's decision would strengthen its policy, which it described as "zero tolerance for drugs and violent criminal activity."

Gerri Lamb, a tenant leader who heads the New York City Housing Authority Council of Residents Presidents, said that in practice, the authority often allowed a family to remain if the offending relative was excluded from the residence.

But Corinne Carey, a New York lawyer who represents families fighting drug evictions from public housing, said the authority's approach resulted in breaking up families and undermining an addicted family member's chances for recovery.

"Stable housing is the key component for anyone struggling with addiction," Ms. Carey said.

Dan Abrahamson, director of legal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which filed a brief in the case, said that the policy and the court's interpretation of it reflected "the criminal justice approach to drugs that has failed us for 20 years."

Linda Greenhouse, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting, answers readers' questions on Supreme Court rules and procedure in this column, available exclusively on NYTimes.com. Email Ms. Greenhouse a question at scotuswb@nytimes.com with "Supreme Court Q&A" in the subject line and your name and town in the message. Questions will be answered only in the column and only when they are of general interest.

-------- india

India Passes Antiterror Bill Over Protests About Rights

New York Times
March 27, 2002
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/international/asia/27INDI.html

NEW DELHI, March 26 - After caustic debates during a rare session of both its houses, the Indian Parliament passed a broad antiterrorism measure tonight.

Leaders of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., defended the bill, which curbs some individual rights, saying it was needed because of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian soil. They cited a "proxy war" led by Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Opposition members, waging an impassioned fight, warned that the law, known as the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, or P.O.T.O., would be used against ordinary citizens and religious minorities, but not members of the hard-line Hindu groups that enjoy favor with the B.J.P.

"The real purpose of P.O.T.O. is to use this draconian legislation against your own citizens," said Kapil Sibal, a Congress Party member of Parliament and constitutional lawyer, to prolonged heckles from pro-government forces on the floor.

The antiterrorism law authorizes police officers to detain suspects for up to 90 days without a trial and to accept testimony from unidentified witnesses. It will also allow the police to arrest any suspected member of groups that are defined by the government as terrorist, as well as anyone suspected of offering support, financial and otherwise, to such groups.

The measure applies both to citizens and foreigners.

The bill was brought before a joint session of Parliament after failing last week in the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. It had already passed in the lower house, the Lok Sabha. The coalition government led by the B.J.P. called the joint session, counting on the numbers to be in its favor. A joint session has been called only twice before in this nation's 54-year history.

Tonight, after a nine-hour debate punctuated by shouts and appeals for calm from the speaker of the house, the bill was approved, 425 to 296. For the B.J.P., whose coalition government was strained only last week by discontent in the party's hard-line Hindu base, its passage was a political boon, however temporary.

On the ground the bill may be limited in its usefulness. More than half of the states are controlled by B.J.P. opponents, and they are unlikely to carry out the law.

Critics maintain that the law will effectively suspend a fundamental premise of the Indian judicial system: the presumption of innocence. Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center, an advocacy group here, compared it to taking away from American citizens their Miranda protections, the laws requiring the police to advise suspects of their constitutional rights.

"This is a day when the bells are going to be tolling for a lot of us," Mr. Nair said.

The law was introduced after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and was already in force under a presidential ordinance. Just a day ago the head of a Kashmiri separatist group, Yasin Malik, was arrested under its tough provisions, sparking demonstrations on the streets of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir. It was scheduled to expire on April 6 had it not been passed by Parliament.

A similar law, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, lapsed in 1995, amid widespread criticism that it had been ineffective and abusive. The new law will be in effect for five years.

Speaking in its defense today, the home minister, L. K. Advani, argued that in times of war certain individual rights had to be suspended. More than 61,000 Indians have been killed in terrorist attacks, he said.

"We cannot score a decisive victory against terrorism unless special laws like this are adopted," Mr. Advani said.

Opponents repeatedly raised the situation of Gujarat, the western state racked by more than three weeks of violence between Hindus and Muslims. Those charged with setting ablaze a train there carrying Hindu hard-liners were charged under the terrorism ordinance. But people arrested in connection with reprisal attacks against Muslims were not.

After intense criticism, the state government dropped the terrorism charges late last week, maintaining conventional criminal murder and arson charges against the accused in the train fire.

But that did not stop opposition members from seizing on the Gujarat episode to try to defeat the antiterrorism bill.

The measure, they said, contains only a vague definition of what constitutes a terrorist group. Unlike the previous law, missing from the latest measure is a clause that defines as terrorist any group that seeks to disrupt "harmony" among different groups. Congress Party leaders said that would have applied to radical groups that belong to the same set of Hindu nationalist organizations as the B.J.P.

----

India: Allies or Instigators?

Tim Phares
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/27/85708.shtml

Trouble is brewing again in South Asia, as India and Pakistan move troops to their border. The recent violence in Gujarat, in which over 540 people have been killed, has merely heightened tensions.

It follows an attack by Muslims on a train full of Hindu activists headed for Ayodhya, where the BJP government in India is seeking to build a Hindu temple on the site where the most revered mosque in India was destroyed by Hindu militants a few years ago. It was reported that the passengers were taunting the Muslims by chanting slogans about rebuilding the temple.

Unfortunately, India, which proclaims itself "the world's largest democracy," has made moves that undermine America's war on terrorism. Indian military maneuvers have forced Pakistan to divert troops from the border with Afghanistan to the Line of Control in Kashmir, creating a potential opening for terrorists to escape.

On January 2, Tony Blankley wrote in the Washington Times that India is sponsoring cross-border terrorism in the Pakistani province of Sindh.

Journalist Tavleen Singh has reported in India's leading newsmagazine, India Today, that the Indian government created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which the U.S. government has identified as a "terrorist organization."

According to Internet journalist Justin Raimondo, the Indian Defense Minister, George Fernandes, raised money and arms for the LTTE.

Pakistan and minorities within India's borders charge that India is seeking hegemony in the South Asian subcontinent. Certainly its deployment of new missiles that can reach deep into Pakistan and its tests that began the nuclear escalation in the region suggest that this may be true.

While India blames Pakistan for the attack on its Parliament, President Pervez Musharraf says he has evidence that the Indian government itself was responsible. No Indian soldiers were killed, just guards, workers, and other lower-caste people.

The book "Soft Target," written by Canadian journalists Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star and Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail, shows that India blew up its own airliner in 1985, killing 329 people, apparently in order to blame Sikhs for the atrocity and create a pretext for more violence against them.

It shows that the Indian Consul General in Toronto pulled his daughter off the flight shortly before it was due to depart. An auto dealer who was a friend of the Consul General also cancelled his reservation at the last minute. Surinder Singh, director of North American Affairs for the External Affairs office in New Delhi, also cancelled his reservation on that flight.

The Consul General also called to finger a suspect in the case before the public knew that the bombing had taken place. The book quotes an agent of the Canadian State Investigative Service (CSIS) as saying, "If you really want to clear the incidents quickly, take vans down to the Indian High Commission and the consulates in Toronto and Vancouver, load up everybody and take them down for questioning. We know it and they know it that they are involved."

India has a long record of anti-Americanism. On May 18, 1999, the Indian Express reported that Mr. Fernandes, the Defense Minister, organized and led a meeting with the ambassadors from Red China, Cuba, Russia, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Iraq to discuss setting up a security alliance "to stop the U.S."

India votes against the United States at the United Nations more often than any country except Cuba. It had a long-term friendship with the former Soviet Union and supported its invasion of Afghanistan.

India's implicit support for terrorist activity is consistent with its internal behavior. It has a record of repression of minorities that undermines its proclamation of democratic values.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads a 23-party coalition, is a branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), an organization founded in 1925 in support of the Fascists.

The governing ideology of the BJP and all the branches of the RSS is Hindutva, the subjugation of society, politics, and culture to Hinduism. Last year, a cabinet member said that everyone living in India must either be a Hindu or be subservient to Hinduism. And in New York in 2000, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said, "I will always be a Swayamsewak." This is the ideology behind the attacks on Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, and other minorities.

The target of choice these days seems to be Christians. Human-rights organizations report that more than 200,000 Christians in Nagaland have been killed by the Indian government.

On February 17, the Associated Press reported an attack on a Catholic church on the outskirts of Bangalore in which several people were injured. The assailants threw stones at the church, then broke in, breaking furniture and smashing windows before attacking worshippers. The February 25 issue of the Washington Times reported another church attack in which 20 people were wounded.

In February, two church workers and a teenage boy were shot at while they prayed. The boy was injured. Two Christian missionaries were beaten with iron rods while they rode their bicycles home. A Christian cemetery in Port Blair was vandalized.

These attacks continue a pattern of oppression of Christians that has been going on since Christmas 1998. Since then, members of the RSS have murdered priests, raped nuns, burned churches, and committed other atrocities with impunity.

The RSS published a booklet last year detailing how to file false criminal cases against Christians and other religious minorities. The RSS objects to the presence of missionaries in India.

The missionaries are having a good deal of success in converting members of the lower castes, especially Dalits, also known as "Untouchables." This removes the lower-caste people from the stratification of the caste system, which is essential to the Hindu religion and social structure.

RSS activists also burned a missionary and his two sons to death while they slept in their jeep. They surrounded the jeep and chanted "Victory to Hannuman," a Hindu god. Now the Indian authorities have found a single individual to blame and they are moving to throw the missionary's widow out of the country. In 1997, Indian police broke up a Christian religious festival with gunfire.

In 1994, the U.S. State Department reported that the Indian government paid out over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing members of the Sikh minority. In the same year, the Indian newspaper Hitavada reported that the Indian government paid the late governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, the equivalent of $1.5 billion to foment terrorist activity in Punjab and in Kashmir.

According to the book "The Politics of Genocide," over 250,000 Sikhs have been killed by the Indian government's forces. According to human-rights groups, Indian forces have killed over 75,000 Muslims in Kashmir and thousands of other minorities, including Dalit "untouchables," Tamils, and other groups.

A report issued last year by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR) showed that India admitted to holding 52,268 political prisoners. Amnesty International reports that tens of thousands of other minorities are also being held as political prisoners.

These prisoners continue to be held under a law called the "Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act" (TADA), which expired in 1995. It empowered the government to hold people virtually indefinitely for any offense or for no offense at all.

According to many reports, some of these political prisoners have been in custody for almost two decades. Amnesty International reported last year that tens of thousands of minorities are being held as political prisoners. On February 28, 42 Members of the U.S. Congress wrote to President Bush asking him to work for freedom for these political prisoners.

MASR also co-sponsored with the Punjab Human Rights Organization an investigation of the March 2000 massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chithisinghpora. It concluded that Indian forces carried out the massacre. A separate investigation conducted by the International Human Rights Organization came to the same conclusion.

As Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Cal., said on the floor of Congress on August 2, 1999, "for the people in Kashmir and Punjab and Jammu, India might as well be Nazi Germany."

In the words of Narinder Singh, a spokesman for the Golden Temple, the seat of the Sikh religion, who was interviewed in August 1997 by National Public Radio, "The Indian government, all the time they boast that they are secular, that they are democratic. But they have nothing to do with a democracy, nothing to do with a secularism. They just kill Sikhs to please the majority."

In the March 4 issue of Forbes, Steve Forbes compared India to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, arguing that as a multinational state, India is inherently unstable. Prior to the British conquest of the subcontinent, there was no political entity called India. It was a series of princely states brought together by the British.

The Kashmiri people were promised a referendum on their status in 1948, but that vote has never been held. The Sikhs, who were supposed to receive independence, have never had any of their representatives sign the Indian constitution. Instead of respecting "the glow of freedom" that Nehru and Patel promised the Sikhs, the government declared them a "criminal class" as soon as the ink was dry on the constitution. Currently, 17 freedom movements are going on within India's borders.

Some Members of Congress have called for sanctions against India and for an end to American aid. Some have also endorsed self-determination for the peoples seeking freedom from India through a plebiscite on independence.

While these events seem unlikely to occur any time soon, the Indian government has held negotiations with the freedom fighters in predominantly Christian Nagaland. Home Minister L.K. Advani recently admitted that if Kashmir achieves freedom (which now seems more likely than ever), it will cause India to break apart.

Some experts have predicted that within a decade, neither India nor Pakistan will exist in its current form. The Indian subcontinent will continue to be a region that bears close attention by American policymakers.

-------- israel / palestine

15 Reported Killed in Suicide Bombing in Israeli Hotel

March 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Explosion.html

NETANYA, Israel (AP) -- A suicide bomber blew himself up in a hotel dining room in this Israeli coastal resort on Wednesday as guests gathered for a Passover Seder, the ritual evening meal ushering in the Jewish holiday. Police said 15 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to the Arab television station Al-Jazeera. The claim by Hamas' military wing, Izzedin al-Qassam, could not be verified independently.

The attack threatened to derail the latest U.S. truce mission, which survived two suicide attacks last week. An adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that while Israel was trying to reach a truce, it would have to reassess its policy in light of the latest attack.

The blast went off Wednesday evening, when the dining hall of the Park Hotel along Netanya's boardwalk was crowded with guests marking the Passover Seder. A suicide bomber entered the hotel and crossed the lobby to the dining hall, where he blew himself up, said a local police chief, Aharon Franko.

The explosion tore through the ground floor of the hotel, blowing out walls and overturning tables and chairs. Bits of rubble and wires dangled from the ceiling. Some of the wounded were seen staggering out of the lobby, which was plunged into darkness by the explosion.

One man with blood dripping from his face was covered by a blue blanket. An elderly woman, her face also bloodied, sat on the sidewalk, attended to by several people.

Witnesses said they saw five bodies lined up on the pavement, some of them dismembered, including that of a woman in festive holiday clothes.

Police said 15 people were killed and more than 100 wounded -- one of the deadliest suicide bombings in the past 18 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Netanya, about 30 miles north of Tel Aviv and 10 miles west of the West Bank town of Tulkarem, has been a frequent target of Palestinian attackers in the past 18 months of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

The city's mayor, Miram Feyerberg, said it was impossible to prevent such attacks. ``This is a city that can be infiltrated from many different directions. It's simply unbelievable,'' she said.

On March 9, two Palestinian gunmen tossed grenades and opened fire at a hotel in Netanya, killing a 9-month-old Israeli girl and wounding more than 30 other people. Police killed the attackers. The Al Aqsa Brigades, a group linked with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the earlier attack.

Israeli police had been on high alert for possible attacks during the Passover holiday, with more than 10,000 officers deployed in potential trouble spots.

The country's police commissioner, Shlomo Aharonishki, said it was impossible to prevent all attacks. ``Even with more policemen and a broader deployment, we cannot block the centers of the cities,'' he said. ``This attack is more evidence of that.''

It was not immediately clear whether the attack would derail the truce mission of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni. Israel has said repeatedly it could not tolerate more attacks on its civilians. Earlier this week, Sharon convened his security Cabinet to discuss possible options in the event the truce mission fails. One idea raised was a large-scale military operation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel has held Arafat responsible for the string of recent attacks, saying he has done nothing to rein in militants.

Raanan Gissin, a Sharon adviser, said the attack ``will require us to reevaluate our overall policy.''

``We are still working to achieve a cease-fire to which we are fully committed, but if the Palestinians have decided to choose the road of terrorism ... then we have to decide what measures we will take,'' Gissin said.

There was no immediate Palestinian comment.

The bombing came just hours after Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah presented a new peace initiative at the Arab summit in Beirut, offering Israel normal relations with the Arab world in exchange for a complete withdrawal from the territories it occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.

Arafat, who remains confined to the West Bank by Israel, embraced the initiative in a televised speech and said he hoped it would be adopted by the summit.

-------- korea

N. Korea Open to More Ventures

By Sang-Hun Choe
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, March 27, 2002; 9:38 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24749-2002Mar27?language=printer

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Wednesday it would "readjust its economic foundations," opening the isolated, hunger-stricken country for joint ventures and cooperation with foreign countries and international organizations.

North Korean Premier Hong Song Nam made the new policy statement in a report to the North's rubber-stamp legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly, which was convened to discuss the government's 2002 budget and policies.

"The main thrust of this year's economic construction is to make full preparations for technical improvement and modernization of the national economy as a whole while readjusting the country's economic foundations in keeping with the practical demand," Hong said.

He said North Korea needs to "improve trade and economic cooperation and widely conduct joint ventures and collaboration with different countries and international organizations."

Such statements departed from the North's ruling philosophy of juche, or "self-reliance," which had guided the country of 22 million people into diplomatic isolation and resulted in a famine that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since the mid-1990s.

In recent years, North Korea has opened diplomatic ties with a series of European and other countries and called for more foreign trade while guarding its totalitarian regime from outside criticism.

"All the officials should become fighters devotedly defending and carrying out the party's policies with intense loyalty to the leader," Hong said, referring to the country's supreme leader, Kim Jong Il.

North Korea's economy shrank sharply after the collapse of the former Soviet Union stripped it of key trade partners and aid providers. The problem was aggravated by consecutive years of bad weather since 1995, forcing the country to depend on outside handouts to feed its people.

President Bush called North Korea part of an "axis of evil," accusing the communist country of developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. North Korea also remains on the U.S. State Department's list of countries deemed supportive of terrorism.

Such a labeling bars North Korea from benefiting from cheap loans from the World Bank and other international financial institutions.

Also Wednesday, North Korea's finance minister, Mun Il Bong, proposed a 2002 budget of roughly $10 billion, a 2.3 percent increase from last year, said the North's official Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Seoul.

Of the budget, 42 percent will be used to modernize the country's mining, agriculture, power and metal industries and improve railways.

The North's central government will allocate 14.4 percent of the budget, or $1.46 billion, to its 1.1 million-member military, the world's fifth largest.

The North's total budget is less than the $12.6 billion South Korea plans to spend on its 650,000-member military alone this year. The South's government has a $86.5 billion budget for this year.

Many North Korean military units run their own farms and factories to earn cash and supply their own food.

The 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty, and the border is sealed and heavily armed.

-------- nato

Past haunts Eastern, Central Europe

By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 27, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020327-14729352.htm

BUCHAREST, Romania - Governments across Eastern and Central Europe suddenly find their dreams of a bright future in NATO and the European Union mired in battles over their nationalist pasts.

Slovakia's populist former prime minister, loathed by the West, makes a strong comeback bid for power.

A Hungarian law offering benefits to ethnic Hungarians beyond the country's borders angers several neighboring governments.

The Czech government's treatment of ethnic German and Hungarian residents in the immediate aftermath of World War II becomes an issue in Prague's bid for EU membership.

Many of the disputes reflect domestic political tensions as a number of countries hold elections.

Hungary, for example, has so far staunchly defended its so-called "status law" as it faces tight parliamentary elections next month in which the small, ultranationalist Hungarian Justice and Life Party could hold the balance of power.

But the disputes have taken on a larger significance, as countries such as Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria angle for invitations to join NATO at a November summit in Prague.

All three, plus Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are also negotiating furiously with the European Union in hopes of being asked to join in the next expansion, set for 2004.

Asked during a visit to Bucharest this week about nationalist eruptions in the region, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage seemed to take the trends in stride.

"Nationalism is not unknown in our own country," Mr. Armitage said. "The democratic process is as neat, clean and elegant as the making of sausage.

"The snapshot picture may not be so nice, but over time the direction becomes clearer."

But even Mr. Armitage referred to Vladimir Meciar, the nationalist former prime minister of Slovakia, whose party tops the polls going into September's elections, as allied with the "forces of darkness."

Citing political and economic abuses dating from his terms in the 1990s, U.S. officials have all but declared that they will veto Slovakia's NATO bid if Mr. Meciar returns to power.

That possibility provided one nervous subtext to a conference of the nine formal candidates to join NATO, which wrapped up here yesterday.

Leaders of the hopefuls - the three Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, plus Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania - avoided mention of ethnic disputes in a concluding declaration yesterday, which embraced President Bush's call for a "robust" enlargement offer in November.

Privately, however, many appeared resigned to Mr. Meciar's comeback, a return that could scramble calculations that as many as of seven of the nine - which excludes Macedonia and Albania - will be accepted by the 19-nation NATO alliance.

Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase argued in an interview that the revival of regional disputes could provide an opportunity as well as a headache for the European Union and NATO candidates.

He said that the Hungarian laws "were not built according to European standards," but that Romania, which has a sizable ethnic Hungarian population, used quiet diplomacy to resolve the tensions.

"Instead of creating a psychological war situation, we simply said these measures were not up to European standards," he said. The two countries signed a bilateral memorandum on the status law in December.

Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said the unexpected re-emergence of decades-old ethnic disputes was not the beginning of an era of instability but the end of one.

The looming prospect of NATO, and especially EU membership, "has caused something of a rush to settle some outstanding historical issues before accession," he said.

"What this is, in reality, is a swan song for traditional nationalism as we've seen it in Central Europe," he said.

Jim Rosapepe is a former ambassador to Romania under President Clinton and now a Washington-based private investor.

"I think unhealthy nationalism and ethnically divisive debates are something you always have to be wary about, especially in this part of the world," he said.

But, he added, "You also shouldn't overstate the case. Every country has its xenophobic elements, but I don't see that in any of the countries of this region they are poised to take over. That these countries are trying to deal with these issues only makes their case to join NATO stronger, not weaker."

-------- pakistan

Pakistani Schools Expel Hundreds

March 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Deportation.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani religious schools have sent home hundreds of foreign students this month under a government order aimed at curbing the number of young men who might be recruited by al-Qaida, school officials said Wednesday.

The Jan. 12 order from Pakistan's military-led government told students at the religious schools, known as madrassas, to leave the country if they did not have student visas and other documents in order by March 23.

About 700,000 Islamic militants, mostly Afghans, are believed to be studying in Pakistan's 7,000 to 8,000 madrassas. Thousands of madrassa students crossed into Afghanistan last year to fight against the United States and its allies.

The Interior Ministry said Wednesday that, in general, the madrassas were cooperating with the government order and that it had no immediate plans to search schools for lawbreakers.

The Jan. 12 order was issued the same day President Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced a crackdown on Islamic militant groups as part of the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign. Violence surged in Pakistan after the arrests of 2,000 militants and the closure of extremist groups' offices.

A large number of students are leaving the madrassas because their embassies are not helping them, afraid of being seen as supporting Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers, said Salim Ullah Khan, who is in charge of supervising madrassas in Pakistan.

``We know hundreds of students, mostly Afghans, have left madrassas while others are struggling to legalize their stay,'' Khan told The Associated Press.

One noted religious school, the Darul Aloom Haqqania near the northwestern city of Peshawar, has expelled 700 Afghans and some Arabs because they were unable to secure the proper paperwork, said Maulana Hamidul Haq, a senior official at the school.

``We have not given admission to any foreign student this year,'' Haq said.

The country's spy agencies suspect that many schools still have connections with extremist groups, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. But the schools argue the government has singled them out unfairly.

``We did not send any student to participate in jihad and those who went there had taken this decision own their own,'' said Maulana Latfur Rehman, a school official in the eastern city of Lahore.

At his school, Jamia Zia-ul-Aloom, 18 Afghan students were asked to leave Pakistan to avoid arrest.

``These students sobbed and cried when asked to leave,'' Rehman said.

-------- russia / chechnya

Russian troops in Chechnya revolt

By Marcus Warren in Moscow
27/03/2002,
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/27/wchech27.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/03/27/ixworld.html

A WAVE of revolt is sweeping through Russia's military elite as troops refuse to act as "cannon fodder" in the continuing war in Chechnya.

Outraged by poor pay, incompetent commanders and antiquated equipment, a growing number of soldiers from specially trained Interior Ministry units are threatening to disobey orders to serve in the rebel republic.

In the latest case of open insubordination, members of an elite paramilitary squad from the northern city of Cherepovets have given their superiors until next week to heed their demands.

An ultimatum to their commanders, published across a whole page of Komsomolskaya Pravda, a national newspaper, yesterday, ridiculed Moscow bureaucrats for claiming that there is no war under way in Chechnya, just a "counter-terrorist operation".

Their protest came to light on the same day that Russia released figures showing that 3,220 soldiers have been killed and nearly 9,000 injured in two and a half years of fighting in Chechnya. The Cherepovets soldiers' defiance is only the most recent example of a collapse in morale among Interior Ministry troops - professionals, unlike the conscripts serving in the army - ordered to deploy to the North Caucasus.

Units from Syktykvar, Kaliningrad, Murmansk and Vologda, all cities in Russia's north or north west, have all protested at the length and conditions of their tours of duty in Chechnya so far this year. Among their grievances are efforts by their commanders to cut their bonuses for being involved in combat.

The Cherepovets ultimatum goes further, heaping scorn on "Moscow clerks", the officers commanding operations in the region and corrupt pro-Russian Chechen officials.

Troops posted to Chechnya had to take their food, water and bedding with them as supplies were "pitiful", the Cherepovets unit said.

Russia maintains an 80,000-strong force in Chechnya to assert its authority over the war zone but a shortage of combat-ready units has put severe strain on the military.

-------- us

U.S. Forces Keeping Busy

By Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23815-2002Mar27?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- Although they haven't had any big gunbattles with al-Qaida lately, the more than 5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan have had plenty to do.

With Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar still unaccounted for, American soldiers are hunting for top terrorist leaders and remaining clusters of enemy fighters. Others are keeping equipment running smoothly, collecting information from bombed-out caves and helping to train future members of an Afghan national military.

The biggest job is trying to track down remaining al-Qaida or Taliban fighters who have either hid in Afghanistan's rugged countryside or left the country and returned.

American and coalition forces haven't had any "direct action contact" with Taliban or al-Qaida forces in more than a week, Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr. told reporters Tuesday. Still, U.S. pilots flew 150 sorties over Afghanistan Monday and Tuesday, said Rosa, senior operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Some of those flights are to gather intelligence and others are for "close air support standby, in case we find pockets of enemy resistance," Rosa said.

U.S. forces are watching known enemy hide-outs to see if anyone returns to them, as well as actively seeking out hostile forces. A group of A-10 Thunderbolt II jets is now based north of Kabul at Bagram to quickly respond to any fighting.

The A-10 can fly low and slow to attack troops, vehicles and tanks with bombs, missiles and a 30 mm machine gun.

Intelligence specialists and other troops are scouring the ruins of caves and buildings where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters lived. They are looking for evidence that could lead to other gatherings of enemy forces, other potential terrorist targets or connections to the Sept. 11 hijackings and other past terrorist acts.

Several cave complexes were searched over the weekend, said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"In addition to small arms, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, we also discovered a couple of computers, some manuals, a couple of passports, phone lists, maps, and bomb-making notes," Myers said at a Pentagon news briefing Monday. "We're going to continue to exploit these items as we get them."

That means analysts will examine the material, translate it, test it and try to figure out what it means.

American troops also are holding 213 detainees in Afghanistan. Troops are not only interrogating the prisoners but also guarding them, feeding them and attending to their medical needs.

Special operations forces are working with various regional Afghan warlords, looking for information on the al-Qaida and Taliban as well as helping to lay the groundwork for a national Afghan military.

U.S. troops have offered some basic military training, and plans call for 125 to 150 Army Special Forces soldiers to begin 10-week training courses for the Afghan army.

Military police are providing security for their fellow troops in Afghanistan, where even America's Afghan allies can be heavily armed and edgy. Other troops have the less glamorous but still important jobs of keeping vehicles and aircraft running, directing supply chains or digging and maintaining latrines.

On the Net: Military's Operation Enduring Freedom site: http://www.centcom.mil/operations/enduring-freedom/ef.asp


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Indian police disperse Kashmir protest

World Scene
March 27, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020327-83798818.htm

SRINAGAR, India - Police fired tear gas from armored jeeps yesterday to disperse stone-throwing protesters demanding the release of a Kashmiri independence leader arrested on terrorist charges.

Yasin Malik, leader of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, which favors the Himalayan region's separation from India, was arrested as he held a news conference Monday after police detained a woman with $100,000 in cash reportedly intended for him.

Mr. Malik was hospitalized yesterday after his first court appearance, his sister, Laali Malik, told the Associated Press.


-------- ENERGY AND OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Two Biomass Pilot Projects Approved

March 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-27-09.html#anchor4

CHICAGO, Illinois, Switchgrass may soon create energy in Illinois and Oklahoma and promote a cleaner environment, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Tuesday.

During a meeting in Chicago with more than 300 area farmers and agribusiness representatives, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the agency has approved two Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) biomass pilot projects for the two states.

"Both projects promote the use of a renewable fuel and a cleaner environment," said Veneman "The grass is easily obtained compared to coal, a fossil fuel. Burning switchgrass instead of coal reduces the amount of coal-related pollutants emitted into the air."

Veneman visited Chicago to meet with farmers and to tour the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

As part of a project called "Converting Illinois CRP Grass Biomass Into Energy," switchgrass will be harvested from a CRP project located in the Illinois River watershed near Havana, Illinois. Biomass from the switchgrass will then be pelletized and used to help fuel traditional coal energy power plants.

In Oklahoma, the "Converting CRP Grasses into Energy Pilot Project" is working with partners to locate markets for agricultural biomass. The project is also studying methods of combining CRP grass pellets with Oklahoma's high sulfur coal to determine if a lower sulfur product can be developed and marketed to power companies.

The grass includes Old World Bluestem and some native grass mixtures grown on CRP acres in a five county area in the Oklahoma panhandle.

Funded by the USDA and operated by the Farm Service Agency, CRP helps farmers and ranchers plant native trees and grasses on private land to improve the health of watersheds and other sensitive areas.

The Illinois and Oklahoma CRP biomass pilot projects join four other CRP biomass pilot projects approved on March 21, 2001. The prior projects include developing warm and cool season grasses as a source of renewable energy in Iowa, growing of hybrid poplar trees on CRP to be used for biomass energy in Minnesota, growing willow biomass crops in New York, and producing switchgrass for sale to a local cooperative's coal fired fluid bed combuster that is used for burning alternative fuels in Pennsylvania.

--------

UK makes 20 mln pounds available to grow solar power

REUTERS UK:
March 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15219/story.htm

LONDON - Britain yesterday said it was offering 20 million pounds ($28.47 million) to kick-start the installation of solar panels across the nation's rooftops in a bid to increase solar power by tenfold within three years.

The government's move to encourage the use of solar cells or photovoltaics (PV) is part of its wider programme to lift renewable energy generation and to curb carbon emissions, blamed by many scientists for contributing to global warming.

Approving the grants, Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said she hoped the money, which forms part of the 100 million pounds pledged in November 2001 by Prime Minister Tony Blair to fund renewable energy development, will help cut the cost of solar technology over the next three years.

"This money will not only contribute to the UK achieving its ambitious environmental goals, but also help the UK photovoltaic industry develop the technology to allow us to compete for this massive global market," she said in a statement.

The high cost of PV, poor demand and lack of aggressive government support have been put forward as reasons why Britain lags so far behind other industrialised countries in the solar power league table.

Installed PV capacity in 2000 was only about two megawatts in the UK compared with Japan where 100 megawatts of solar panel is put onto buildings' roofs every year, Britain's Photovaltaic Association says.

A typical medium-sized power station produces about 500 megawatts of power.

Experts say the cost of installing solar panels on an average family house would be about 10,000-12,000 pounds making it years before the system paid its way.

In late 2000 the government announced its Climate Change Strategy aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent by 2010. Ministers set a target to generate 10 percent of the country's electricity from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, by the end of the decade.

At present only 2.8 percent of Britain's power comes from renewables, most of which is accounted for by hydro power and wind.

-------- energy

Documents Show Energy Official Met Only With Industry Leaders

New York Times
March 27, 2002
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and NEELA BANERJEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/business/27ENER.html

WASHINGTON, March 26 - As he helped the Bush administration write its national energy report last year, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham heard from more than 100 energy industry executives, trade association leaders and lobbyists, according to documents released by the Energy Department.

Mr. Abraham did not meet with any representatives of environmental organizations or consumer groups, the documents show.

In a press release on Monday night, the Energy Department summarized the secretary's calendar by saying that Mr. Abraham met with 36 industry representatives on task force matters. Most news organizations reported that figure today.

But Mr. Abraham actually met with 109 representatives of energy industry companies and trade associations, according to a comprehensive review of his daily calendar from late January 2001 to May 17, 2001, the day the White House released its national energy report. Many of the executives were leaders of corporations that were among the most generous financial supporters of President Bush's presidential campaign and the Republican Party.

Among the individuals and groups that met with Mr. Abraham, 18 contributed a total of $16.6 million to the Republican Party since 1999, nearly three times what they gave to the Democratic Party, according to an analysis of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Jill Schroeder, spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said the department came up with its figure of 36 industry representatives meeting with Mr. Abraham based on executives who had asked to discuss the work of the task force with Mr. Abraham, who was an influential task force member. But many of the other meetings not counted by the Energy Department also dealt with the executives' interest in topics covered by the national energy policy.

"He's the energy secretary, he meets with these folks about energy issues," Ms. Schroeder said. "It's his job."

Energy Department officials also pointed out that Mr. Abraham occasionally rebuffed energy industry executives. Officials said 23 requests for meetings from industry leaders were denied. Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former top executives of the Enron Corporation, were among the executives who were turned away, officials said. But on March 29, 2001, Mr. Abraham met with two other Enron executives, Joe Hartsoe and Linda Robertson.

And Mr. Lay met with Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the task force, on April 17, 2001, to discuss energy policy and the California energy crisis. David Addington, counsel to Mr. Cheney, has said that altogether, Enron executives had six meetings with task force staff members in 2001.

A coalition of nearly 30 environmental groups asked to meet with Mr. Abraham to discuss the energy policy on Feb. 20, 2001. Energy Department officials declined the request, citing Mr. Abraham's "busy schedule," department officials said.

But in the days following, Mr. Abraham met with numerous industry representatives, including a top executive of the American Coal Company; the chairman of UtiliCorp United, a power company now known as Aquila Inc.; executives from a half-dozen utility companies; executives from a half-dozen nuclear power corporations and the corporate leaders of ExxonMobil, BP/Amoco, Shell, ChevronTexaco, Anadarko Petroleum and Ashland Inc.

Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, said today: "News flash - no surprise to anybody, the secretary of energy meets with energy-related groups."

Over three days in late February 2001, Mr. Abraham met with six petroleum executives, a railroad executive and the leader of a coal producing company. On Feb. 21, he met with executives of five oil companies, including David O'Reilly, the president of ChevronTexaco, and Steven Miller, the president and chief executive of Shell Oil Company.

The next day, Feb. 22, Mr. Abraham met with John W. Snow, the chief executive of the CSX Corporation, one of the nation's largest railroad companies. According to Mr. Abraham's calendar, the meeting's topics included "the role coal plays in electric utility generation, mountaintop mining and the National Energy and Environmental Technology Act."

Mr. Abraham also met with a number of energy industry lobbyists, including Haley Barbour, who represents utility companies, and Tom Kuhn, the executive director of the utility industry trade group, the Edison Electric Institute.

Mr. Abraham's calendar was among the 11,000 pages of documents that Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups said today demonstrated that the administration sought the advice of utility companies, oil companies and the producers of natural gas, coal and nuclear energy in developing its energy policy.

Congressional Democrats and environmental groups have long argued that the administration relied on advice from industry leaders while spurning environmentalists who were arguing for conservation, renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures. Today, the groups said that Mr. Abraham's calendar has proved that suspicion.

"The documents indicate that great deference was given to energy industry executives and lobbyists and almost none was given to the environmental industry and the concerns of consumer groups," said Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, the legal watchdog group and one of several groups that sued executive branch agencies for the documents' release.

The boxes of documents released by the Energy Department include hundreds of internal e-mail messages that are heavily edited. Other apparently benign e-mail messages are entirely blank; some blank pages have tantalizing titles like, "Importance: High." The Energy Department also failed to print out e-mail attachments; one was titled "proposed energy policy language."

Energy officials cited an array of exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act, including internal deliberations about policy and personnel matters.

Leaders of the two groups that sued to get the documents said today that they would ask federal judges to review the full texts of the edited documents and press for their complete release. They also complained that the Energy Department refused to release an additional 15,000 pages of documents.

"There is a lot missing," said Sharon Buccino, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, another organization that sued to get the records. "We have 11,000 pages of scrubbed, purged and sanitized documents. Even despite those efforts to hide the documents, they are littered with evidence of industry access."

Ms. Schroeder said that all outside documents submitted to the Energy Department were made public. "What we have withheld is not any kind of communication between D.O.E. and anyone on the outside but discussions inside the administration about what the report should say," she said. "It is standard practice not to produce information about such discussions."

The documents include papers from industry representatives about the relationship between gasoline consumption and air pollution. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers noted in a report to the Energy Department on March 22, 2001, that "fuel economy standards are an ineffective energy policy."

The federal task force essentially accepted that argument. Instead of calling for new fuel efficiency standards, it recommended only that new standards receive further study.

And the energy policy report warned that increases in fuel efficiency had to be done "without negatively impacting the U.S. automotive industry."

The Energy Department noted that the National Mining Association asked for an overhaul of the New Source Review program, an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that requires power plants, oil refineries and other industrial plants to meet new emissions standards when they undertake a major upgrade of operations. The energy industry has fought the regulation for years, claiming it lacks clarity.

The Bush administration is now trying to overhaul the rule, a move that has touched off debate between the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, and within the agency itself.

Ms. Schroeder said that other Energy Department officials met five environmental and consumer groups - the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, Resources for the Future and the American Wind Energy Association. And she said five other groups did not respond to a request for comments, including the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace.

Gary Skulnik, a Greenpeace spokesman, said yesterday that "a low-level staffer called us on March 22, 2001, and gave us 24 hours to provide any input we had on energy policy." The organization decided not to scramble to meet the tight deadline.

"If they were serious about getting input," Mr. Skulnik said, "that was certainly not the way to go about it."

--------

Thai villagers urge Japan-funded power plants scrapped

REUTERS THAILAND:
March 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15223/story.htm

BANGKOK - Hundreds of Thai villagers surrounded Government House yesterday calling on the prime minister to scrap plans for two Japanese-funded power plants in southern Thailand.

The coal-fired plants, partly funded by Japanese firms, have come under fire from environmentalists and residents of nearby fishing and agricultural communities.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has promised to make a ruling on the schemes by mid-April.

"We are here to tell the prime minister that we don't want the plants built," Jaroen Wataksorn, a protest representative, told reporters outside Government House.

Some 300 people took part in the noisy but peaceful demonstration.

Thailand's National Energy Policy Office (NEPO) has said the projects, planned by Union Power Development and Gulf Power Generation, are necessary to maintain power reserves in the face of growing industrial and household demand.

Thaksin, who went to Prachuab Kiri Khan province, 280 km (175 miles) south of Bangkok, to meet protesters in January, has said the plants could be given the go ahead if they prove new technology will limit their environmental impact.

NEPO has said Thailand's energy reserve margin could fall as low as 2.35 percent in 2007, from 30.5 percent, if the plants are scuppered.

Union Power Development is 29 percent owned by Japan's Tomen Corp. Hong Kong Electric holds 26 percent, while Japan's Chubu Electric Power, Toyota Tsusho Corp and Thailand's Union Energy each own 15 percent.

Gulf Power is 50 percent owned by Thailand's Electricity Generating Plc, 49 percent owned by Electric Power Development of Japan and one percent owned by Thai firm Mitsiam International Ltd.

The Japanese government owns two thirds of Electric Power Development with the rest split among nine Japanese power utilities.

-------- environment

Energy sought greens' advice

By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 27, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20020327-71573628.htm

The Bush administration sought the advice of environmental groups in drafting its energy plan, but several declined to participate or suggested that Bush officials check their Web sites for information, just-released documents show.

A month and a half before President Bush's energy plan was announced, the Energy Department contacted Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, the World Resources Institute, Resources for the Future and four other groups to discuss conservation and energy efficiency.

However, an unstated number of other environmental groups rebuffed administration overtures.

"Not all organizations were responsive. Several did not return phone calls and messages," including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Energy Department said in an August 2001 letter to the General Accounting Office, which was released Monday night.

The NRDC is one of the groups that has accused the Bush administration of leaving environmentalists out of the drafting process and sued to obtain copies of internal documents showing whom Bush officials consulted in drafting the energy plan. The NRDC submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in April 2001, a month before the energy plan was released.

NRDC spokesman Elliott Negin said yesterday that after receiving a call from "low-level" Energy Department staff, the group referred them to a previously written report, "A Responsible Energy Policy for the 21st Century," because it was given only 24 hours to provide its recommendations.

He said the Energy Department contacted environmental groups well after it sought the advice of industry groups and only because it was "getting hammered" in the press for excluding conservation from its energy strategy.

The NRDC, Sierra Club and about a dozen other groups tried to arrange a meeting with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham by letter on Feb. 20 but were told that he was "too busy," Mr. Negin said.

Fifteen leading environmentalists finally did get a meeting on April 4 with Andrew D. Lundquist, the director of the energy task force. But "nothing substantive" was discussed, and the meeting was only "a sop" to environmentalists, Mr. Negin said.

Included among the 11,000 pages of documents released late Monday by the department were stacks of papers from the Wilderness Society, AARP, Sierra Club, NRDC and other consumer and environmental groups, which the department said were carefully studied by staff.

Also included were position papers and memos provided by industry groups such as the American Gas Association, American Petroleum Institute and Nuclear Energy Institute. The documents show extensive exchanges of e-mails with some industry representatives, though most of the substance of that correspondence and the correspondence within the administration was whited out.

The schedules of Mr. Abraham and his top staff show that they met primarily with industry officials, executives, members of Congress and other government officials, and had no meetings with environmentalists or consumer groups.

Not provided in Monday's release from the administration were the schedules of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman, the administration's main liaison with environmentalists and an important member of the task force.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the environmental agencies met "routinely" with the advocacy groups. "It's no surprise to anybody that the secretary of energy meets with energy-related groups," he said.

The department said it denied 23 requests for meetings from industry representatives, including Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron Corp. Much of the litigation aimed at forcing the release of the documents has been justified as serving the investigation into abuses at Enron, which in December filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The documents show that the administration sought the advice of industry groups on such issues as how to increase the output of gasoline at refineries, how to increase the efficiency of the nation's electrical grid and where geological stores of natural gas are most likely to be found in the continental United States.

The administration also considered touting industry accomplishments, such as an innovative Texaco coal-gasification plant and a Reliant clean-coal power plant as examples of future energy technologies.

However, the wish lists that industry groups presented to the administration rarely appeared to be incorporated in full into the plan. Rather, the administration appeared to adopt selected federal subsidies, legislative proposals and regulatory rollbacks proposed by the businesses.

The administration says, for example, that it included only four out of 25 recommendations from the American Petroleum Institute and two out of 20 recommendations from the National Mining Association.

By contrast, it says it adopted nearly half of the 17 recommendations in the NRDC's report. But Mr. Negin said that that "probably is the biggest lie since the Nixon administration" and that the administration is using "Enron accounting."

-------- health

CDC issues steps to fight supergerms

Around the Nation
March 27, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020327-97870020.htm

ATLANTA - The government issued new guidelines for doctors and hospitals yesterday to slow the growth of so-called supergerms - powerful bacteria that develop resistance to overused antibiotics.

An estimated 1 million hospital infections and tens of thousands of deaths are blamed on drug-resistant germs each year.

Among the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Avoid infections by limiting the use of catheters, and don't overuse antibiotics.


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