------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
U.S. proposal for faster cleanup of uranium plant worries critics
IRAQ DIARY
European activists protest sanctions against Iraq
Fifth reactor appears to be gaining support in Parliament
U.S. awaits word on talks from North Korea
Russia to build 10 nuclear reactors abroad in next decade
U.S. Technology Aids Al-Qaida Hunt
Critics of US say nuclear bunker-buster would not be clean bomb
Underground Cleanup Accelerated at INEEL
Gov't, Idaho Agree on Waste Cleanup
ENTERGY CONSIDERING NEW NUCLEAR PLANT IN MISSISSIPPI
Radioactive Particles Found on Nuclear Workers
Washington Nuke Plant Probed
Energy Secy Urges Congress to Back Yucca Waste Site
Daybook
Energy Sec. Defends Nuke Waste Site
Bush: 'Axis' will follow Taliban
Powell leaves Israel after a fruitless visit

MILITARY
Errant U.S. Bomb Kills Four Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan
On a War-Torn Road, Hints of a Longed-for Peace
U.S. priorities in Asia transformed since Sept 11
Bush Pushes Colombia Aid Expansion
Back in Jenin, Refugees Hope to Find Survivors
Putin Confirms Military Reforms Needed
16 Police Officiers Killed in Chechnya Blast
U.S. general visits Ukraine for anti-terrorism talks
Northern Command To Defend the U.S.
Rumsfeld Defends Strategy Used in Tora Bora Last Year
Pentagon realigns military structure
Congressman Says Military Misled Him

POLICE / PRISONERS
Workers told to consent to search
FBI supervisor in Oklahoma City probe to step down
INS: Keep Detainee Info Secret
Somalia 'success' blunts al Qaeda campaign

ENERGY AND OTHER
Offshore Wind Farm Approved for Windiest Country in Europe
German MVV seeks Europe-wide renewables expansion
Landmark UK offshore wind farm wins approval
North Ireland offshore wind power plan hits snag
Michigan Governor to Offer Energy Research Plan
Oil firms don't need Alaska refuge to drill - Democrats
Power Plant Emissions Blamed for Premature Deaths
Senate Kills Bush Plan for Alaska Drilling
Study Sees 6,000 Deaths From Power Plants

ACTIVISTS
I.M.F. Urges Calm Protests
World Bank - IMF Protests: Glance
World Bank - IMF Protesters Get Ready
Call Your Senators To Stop Yucca Mountain Now
Actions in Japan, April 20



-------- NUCLEAR


-------- depleted uranium

U.S. proposal for faster cleanup of uranium plant worries critics

Thursday, April 18, 2002
AM courier journal
By James R. Carroll jcarroll@courier-journal.com
Louisville Courier-Journal
From: "Mark Donham" markkris@earthlink.net

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department wants to revamp its cleanup plan for the Paducah uranium plant to finish the job sooner, but critics fear the change means doing and spending less to remove contamination.

The critics say the government is trying to dodge responsibility for fouling the water, soil, air and wildlife around the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which for years processed uranium for nuclear weapons.

The Energy Department has described its plan to overhaul the cleanup in more positive terms, saying the work would accelerate ''through streamlining and risk reduction.''

State officials are skeptical of the plan, which proposes to start with a ''clean slate'' at Paducah but appears to point to less spending and fewer opportunities to hold U.S. officials accountable for failing to meet deadlines.

''It makes a great PowerPoint presentation, but I'm not very big on eyewash, as we used to call it,'' said James Bickford, state secretary of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet.

''One of the concerns I have is starting with a 'clean slate,' '' he said. ''That bothers me a lot. . . . The clean slate and acceleration don't match.''

The 12-page outline of the new cleanup plan, obtained by The Courier-Journal, has yet to be made public. It was presented by the department at a March 21 meeting in Lexington with state and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials.

Energy Department officials refused several requests by The Courier-Journal to answer questions about the changes, such as what is meant by ''clean slate,'' how the agency intends to speed up complex projects that have yet to yield measurable results, and how programs first estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars now appear to be far cheaper.

''We continue to work closely with our partners in Kentucky and the EPA on an accelerated cleanup strategy,'' department spokesman Joe Davis said. ''Our goal is to accelerate risk reduction and cleanup. We believe we can do it, but there are still details to be worked out.''

Bickford said the state has not formally responded to the plan.

''We are in the process of going through all this and trying to figure out what some of this stuff means,'' he said. ''I don't want to slam-dunk them right now until I fully understand this.''

According to the new plan, the department would have a deadline of 2006 for addressing all significant contamination of the site. The previous deadline was 2010, a date that independent analysts, state officials and Kentucky lawmakers have doubted could be met under existing cleanup spending levels.

To meet the new date, key elements of the original plan would be altered.

For example, the new plan envisions redefining ''clean.'' Saying it intends to address ''real risk reduction to human health and the environment,'' the plan calls for applying ''commercial standards'' to cleaning up the site, standards that could be less stringent and less costly than EPA or state requirements.

Also, under original estimates, the removal and disposal of radioactive and hazardous waste buried at the plant -- including some uranium that catches fire when exposed to air -- is supposed to cost $535 million.

The new plan says burial areas would be ''stabilized and under enhanced monitoring'' with spending set at $9 million through 2006.

The plan also alters spending on other work. For example, demolishing two unused contaminated buildings originally was set to cost $92 million. Now, the department says it can get rid of those two -- and as many as 15 more -- for only $63 million more.

About $93 million will go to the Paducah cleanup this year.

As recently as two years ago, the department estimated that cleaning up Paducah would cost $1.3 billion through fiscal 2010.

The plan with the 2006 completion date puts the total cleanup cost at $482 million -- excluding removal of some inactive buildings by 2010.

Taking out this year's $93 million in cleanup spending and President Bush's proposed $73 million for next year, that would leave $316 million to spend for cleanup in fiscal 2004, 2005 and 2006.

The cost of ongoing monitoring of contamination that isn't cleaned up isn't stated in the new plan.

The state already is upset over the Energy Department's fiscal 2003 budget plan that Bickford said would end federal support for Kentucky's monitoring of soil, air, water and wildlife around the Paducah plant.

Overall, the White House is seeking to slash such spending by $20 million.

The department also has balked at setting completion deadlines for cleanup work leading to 2010, the state has charged.

But the new plan seeks ''fewer enforceable milestones'' from the EPA and the state -- essentially, dates by which the government would have to complete various work.

''I have an asterisk next to that one,'' Bickford said.

----

IRAQ DIARY

Jo Baker (Pandora DU Research Project) &
Bernie McPhillips (Gulf Vet)
From: davey garland thunderelf@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002

Looking out over the Tigris River from our hotel window as it flows through central Baghdad, it is hard to imagine what military planners in Washington and London might have in store for this most beautiful, ancient and civilised of cities. Our international solidarity delegation of 122 people arrived in Iraq on Sunday, April 14th. We have come to see for ourselves the effects of the 12-year embargo and the results of previous military action, including the use of depleted uranium weapons. We have visited the Saddam Hussein Teaching Hospital where doctors and medical students struggle to help their patients with pathetic amounts of medicine and medical equipment. Seeing incubators in the premature baby wards rendered unusable for lack of complimentary parts, reminded us of the fabricated story of Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti children out of incubators, which helped persuade public opinion to back the 1991 war. Now the reality is that many Iraqi babies die because of lack of incubators and the doctor told us they were kept in the wards purely as a psychological prop for the mothers. Dr. Selma Taher from the University Medical Centre told us of the increase in genetic deformities in children all over Iraq. She is convinced that it is due to the radiological weapons used by the allies during the bombings and is very frustrated that she does not have the materials to make a proper diagnosis. Only once has she received material for culture in the past 12 years and that was from the World Health Organisation in 1996. She told us of many cases, including that of three children in the same family born with no limbs at all and no previous history of genetic abnormality.

Since the Gulf conflict of 1991, environmental and human health problems have resulted in the deaths of over 1 million innocent civilians in Iraq. The exposure rates to external Gamma radiation were measured in 110 regions of the study area and 77 soil samples were collected and tested by gamma-rays spectrum using high purity Germanium detector. The average exposure rate shows an increase as high as 11.38 and 10.11 uR.hr-1 in Mosul City and Nineveh Province respectively, indicating the presence of radiological pollution. The laboratory results also show elevated concentrations of Ra-226 (an indictive nuclide for the presence of Uranium).

There is no doubt that the embargo is crippling the lives of Iraqi people. A minimum of goods arrives in Iraq under the oil for food deal. The economy has collapsed and the majority of people have no work or earn pitiful wages. The private sector is growing slightly and there are more goods in the shops but one seldom sees any customers. All the country's life support systems were bombed in the Gulf war, including water and sanitation, power generation, schools, hospitals and civilian shelters. For Iraq to truly recover, the whole infrastructure will have to be rebuilt. The suffering is immense and people here are terrified at the prospect of another war. This is the real terrorism. The heart of it lies in Washington and London, not Baghdad and Kabul.

The US Congress recently passed the "Law of Liberation" for Iraq. Who does the US want to liberate Iraq from???? They are not at war with anyone at the present time. The only war Iraq is suffering is the war by sanctions on medical and much needed emergency supplies required to help the citizens regain some of there dignity and humanity!


-------- depleted uranium

European activists protest sanctions against Iraq, oppose talk of war

Thu Apr 18, 2002
By SAMEER N. YACOUB,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020418/ap_wo_en_ge/iraq_europe_4

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Calls for "no more wars," a lifting of U.N. sanctions on Iraq and answers from America and Britain on the use of depleted uranium munitions during the 1991 Gulf War were made Thursday by a visiting European delegation to Baghdad.

"We are here to claim that we do not want a new war and we call for the lifting of the embargo, which has caused great suffering for Iraqi people," Veronique De Keyser, a Belgian socialist member of the European Parliament, told the Associated Press Television Network during a protest at the U.N. Development Program headquarters in Baghdad.

Speculation is rife that the Bush administration wants to attack Iraq in a bid to oust its leader, Saddam Hussein. A pretext for any such operation is Saddam's reluctance to allow U.N. inspectors into Iraq to verify if it has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction, a requirement for the lifting of tough U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

As European protesters held banners with slogans saying "No More Wars" and "Stop Sanctions," De Keyser told reporters that Washington should hold talks with Baghdad and help rebuild Iraq instead of launching a new war, because "the solution for this crisis cannot be a war ... it must be dialogue."

A 130-person European delegation - comprising lawmakers, doctors and Gulf War veterans - arrived in Baghdad April 14 on "a solidarity visit" aiming to study the impact of the sanctions and illnesses linked to depleted uranium munitions used by U.S.-led forces in 1991.

Iraq has demanded the sanctions be lifted, saying it has met all U.N. requirements. The sanctions, Baghdad says, have crippled Iraqi health services.

On Wednesday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said his country and the United Nations will set a new date for joint talks by Thursday on the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq.

The impact of the sanctions and the legacy of the depleted uranium munitions still sours Iraqi relations with the West. Baghdad claims depleted uranium is responsible for an increase in Iraqi cancer rates and birth defects. The World Health Organization was planning to investigate the allegations, while NATO countries have repeatedly denied the ammunition could have triggered cancer in their soldiers.

British Gulf War veteran Bernard McPhillips criticized the U.S. and British governments for "still denying that the depleted uranium is harmful to people."

McPhillips, who says he is suffering from an illness linked to the munitions, told The Associated Press that he was gathering information on depleted uranium to "help contaminated war veterans and the Iraqi civilians."

U.S. aircraft used NATO munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. The munitions, favored because they have the rare ability to pierce tanks, were also used during the 1991 Gulf War.

-------- finland

Survey: Fifth reactor appears to be gaining support in Parliament

Thu Apr 18, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020418/ap_wo_en_po/finland_nuclear_power_2

HELSINKI, Finland - A month before Parliament votes on the construction of what would be Finland's fifth commercial nuclear reactor, a survey released Thursday indicates lawmakers may narrowly approve the controversial measure.

In the 200-member Parliament, 94 legislators said they agree, while 88 were against and 18 were undecided, according to a poll by YLE radio news.

In 1993, lawmakers rejected a similar measure by a vote of 107-90.

The national broadcaster did not give a margin of error or say when the survey was conducted.

The five-party government approved an application for the construction of a new reactor in January, but the decision requires Parliament's approval. A vote is set for next month.

Finland has two atomic power stations, each with two reactors, which produce about a third of the country's electricity. One is at Olkiluoto, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, the other at Loviisa, 90 kilometers (55 miles) east of Helsinki.

The site of a fifth reactor has not been decided, but it likely would be constructed at one of the two existing sites.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority has renewed security requirements for nuclear plants demanding protection against strikes by commercial and military aircraft.

-------- korea

U.S. awaits word on talks from North Korea

Thu Apr 18, 2002
By Paul Eckert
Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020418/wl_asia_nm/asia_100754_1

SEOUL - The U.S. ambassador to South Korea said on Thursday Washington is still awaiting word from communist North Korea on resuming dialogue despite indirect signs Pyongyang wants fresh talks.

U.S. President George W. Bush has branded North Korea part of an "axis of evil" for trying to develop and proliferate weapons of mass destruction but during a February visit to Seoul, he called for talks and said he had no intention of attacking the North.

Thomas Hubbard, who has long experience negotiating with North Korea, said the United States hoped contacts would pave the way for talks on outstanding questions, including missile proliferation and a 1994 nuclear agreement.

"Ambassador (Jack) Pritchard will engage in talks with the North Koreans whenever they are ready," Hubbard told a news conference. Pritchard is the U.S. ambassador for Korean affairs.

Recent U.S. and South Korean visitors to North Korea said Pyongyang was willing to receive Pritchard soon.

"We have not heard from them yet directly on that subject, but as we've said we're prepared to meet any time, any place," Hubbard said.

"What we're looking for is a first general meeting with the North Koreans and then hopefully was can agree on a formula for ongoing negotiations," he said.

KEY 2003 DEADLINES

When Bush took office, he put dialogue with the North on hold and reviewed predecessor Bill Clinton's policy. Bush then resumed the call for dialogue in June.

Despite the change of U.S. administration, "the one thing that hasn't changed...is that our intentions vis-a-vis North Korea are peaceful, that we wish resolve our problems and our concerns through dialogue," Hubbard said.

The two Koreas have been technically still at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.

Next year brings a set of key deadlines South Korea fears could spark crises without renewed U.S.-North Korean talks.

Western countries helping to provide two nuclear reactors to the North under the 1994 Agreed Framework pact want Pyongyang to allow agreed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) checks.

"North Korea needs to begin the process of coming to terms with the IAEA soon if the project is going to continue without delay," Hubbard said.

U.S. EXPECTS NEW GENERATION

A presidential election in South Korea in December will usher in a new government in February.

South Korean media have suggested the United States is uncomfortable with the ruling party's leading candidate, Roh Moo-hyun, because he has voiced opposition to Seoul's defence alliance with the United States.

Roh, 56, a former human rights lawyer who leads most opinion polls ahead of the December race, has distanced himself from stances he took when he was a dissident fighting military rule.

Washington expected "a new generation may have new approaches to the relationship with the United States", Hubbard said.

But he said there was no sign any candidate wanted to alter ties with the Washington, which has 37,000 troops in the country.

"Judging by what they have said publicly and privately during this campaign and in the lead up to it, I believe that all of the major candidates support the continuance of the U.S.-Korea mutual Defence Treaty and the continued presence of U.S. forces in Korea," Hubbard said.

-------- russia

Russia to build 10 nuclear reactors abroad in next decade

Thu Apr 18, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020418/ap_wo_en_ge/russia_nuclear_reactors_1

MOSCOW - Russia plans to build 10 nuclear reactors in foreign countries over the next decade, Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Bulat Nigmatulin told Interfax news agency on Thursday.

"Russia is already building five nuclear reactors abroad, including in China, Iran and India," he was quoted as saying. "In the future, we can expect to build another five nuclear reactors."

He did not name which other countries might be interested.

The cost of building a nuclear reactor is about dlrs 800 million to dlrs 900 million, Nigmatulin said.

Russia's dlrs 800 million deal to build a nuclear reactor in the Iranian city of Bushehr has angered the U.S. administration. The United States has warned it could help Iran build nuclear weapons.

However, Moscow has refused to drop the deal, saying the light-water reactor couldn't be used for developing a nuclear bomb and would remain under international control.

-------- terrorism

U.S. Technology Aids Al-Qaida Hunt

By Dafna Linzer
Associated Press Writer
Friday, April 19, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12957-2002Apr19?language=printer

In the tiny towns that dot the Pakistani mountains east of the Afghan border, small shops that seemingly offer residents little more than dusty packs of cigarettes and canned goods are stocked with one more essential - computers with Internet access.

It is from this area, in northwest Pakistan, that U.S. intelligence in recent weeks has picked up on increased communications among al-Qaida members, according to U.S. officials.

Shortly after Sept. 11, intelligence experts argued that America should have been infiltrating groups such as al-Qaida instead of sinking its budget into satellite imagery, communications interception and reconnaissance equipment. But as the war on terrorism enters its seventh month, America's technological expertise may be paying off as it tries to root out a computer-savvy foe.

"Abu Zubaydah used the Internet from Faisalabad in Pakistan when he was captured," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief. Abu Zubaydah, the no. 3 in Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization, is the highest ranking al-Qaida member in U.S. custody.

He was caught by Pakistani and U.S. authorities in a joint raid on a hide-out in Pakistan on March 28. Pakistani intelligence officials have said quietly that a mobile phone call Abu Zubaydah made to al-Qaida leaders in Yemen led to his arrest.

When the suspected kidnappers and killers of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl sent e-mails that included his photographs in January, U.S. investigators traced the communication to an Internet service provider in Karachi whose computer logs led them to a key suspect.

Fahad Naseem denied sending any e-mails on Jan. 27 and Jan. 30, the same dates that the Pearl photographs were sent. But the records showed otherwise and when police confiscated his computer they found the e-mails on his hard drive. He was arrested Feb. 3, three days after the second e-mail was sent.

During interrogation, Naseem gave police the names of three other suspects, including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born militant thought to have orchestrated the kidnapping.

Knowing where Pearl was abducted helped narrow the search. But with al-Qaida cells allegedly operating around the globe, the search can be much harder, especially when the Internet offers so many ways to hide.

Providers of free e-mail, such as Yahoo and Hotmail, require no real information from a user. Messages can be kept secret with encryption, a digital technology that encodes the information on one end and reads at another using a special algorithm.

Even messages that seem meaningless to terrorism trackers can be treacherous. Experts have said that al-Qaida may be using steganography, a process that hides one message within another or somewhere in a picture file.

"You need some kind of intelligence, such as in the Pearl case," said Chris Aaron, the editor of Jane's Intelligence Review. "In the past, the focus was on identifiable targets such as Iraq or Russia, whereas when dealing with a target such as al-Qaida, it's harder to know what to target. You still need the human intelligence in order to know what to target," Aaron said.

Electronic mission aircraft being used in Afghanistan can detect, pinpoint to a certain area and jam satellite uplinks. But unless the call is intercepted, there is no way to know if the satphone user is an al-Qaida member in a cave or a journalist calling in a story from a valley nearby.

The transmissions coming from Northwest Pakistan, where many of bin Laden's foot soldiers are believed to have fled, may be more definitive.

"There is a concentration of al-Qaida in Pakistan along the border areas and if Internet use there is up, it's only because of the large numbers of al-Qaida there," Cannistraro said.

And the signs that supporters are trying to keep the organization alive are growing.

The FBI's cybersecurity unit posted a bulletin on its Web site in January warning that "a computer that belonged to an individual with indirect links to Osama Bin Laden contained structural architecture computer programs that suggested the individual was interested in .... dams and other water-retaining structures."

The National Infrastructure Protection Center's site also said that "al-Qaida members have sought information on water supply and wastewater management practices in the U.S. and abroad. There has also been interest in insecticides and pest control products at several web sites."

In early February, the London-based Al-Quds newspaper published excerpts from an Arabic-language Web site that claimed to represent al-Qaida. An article on the site, hosted by Geocities, which is owned by Yahoo! Inc, bragged that the group carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, warned of further violence and outlined an ideological future for the organization.

The author of the article had not been previously identified, but intelligence experts say that the writer may be less important than the message.

"This a blueprint for the future of al-Qaida, and it indicates that there are a lot of people out there still ready to support its aims," said Yigal Carmon, the former head of Israeli counterterrorism and the president of MEMRI, a research institute which translates, disseminates and analyzes Arab media.

Al-Qaida operatives were computer savvy before PCs were household fixtures in the United States - something which has helped them and helped the United States.

In 1995, authorities in the Philippines seized a computer from Ramzi Yousef - the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing - and found a treasure trove of information and plans, including one to attack a nuclear facility in the United States.

A computer purchased by a Wall Street Journal reporter in Afghanistan included the movements of an al-Qaida operative which were similar to those of Richard Reid - accused of trying to ignite explosives in his shoes during a trans-Atlantic flight in December.

Ahmed Ressam, convicted of plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport in 1999, said during court testimony that the one thing a colleague needed to pack when heading off to Afghan training camps was a computer.

"Internet communications have become the main communications system among al-Qaida around the world because its safer, easier and more anonymous if they take the right precautions and I think they're doing that," Cannistraro said.

EDITORS: Associated Press Writer Brian Bergstein contributed to this report.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Critics of US say nuclear bunker-buster would not be clean bomb

April 18, 2002
By Robert Holloway
Agence France Presse
From: David Culp <david@fcnl.org>

UNITED NATIONS--Critics of US nuclear policy said that bombs designed to destroy targets deep underground would spew enough radioactive fallout to kill tens of thousands at street level.

The United States does not have such weapons, but a Pentagon report leaked March 15 said "new capabilities must be developed to defeat emerging threats such as hard and deeply buried targets" including stocks of chemical or biological arms.

The Pentagon's nuclear posture review, sent to Congress in January and published on the Internet by GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington think tank, dominated discussion at a two-week UN committee meeting which ends Friday. Larry Korb, a former US assistant secretary of defense and now Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations, said "the new weapon would not be a low-yield tactical nuclear weapon" but would be qualitatively different.

David Culp, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby in Washington, said that, contrary to the official US image, a "bunker-buster" would not explode with minimal fallout.

The two men were speaking Wednesday at a diplomats seminar attended by AFP.

Culp said the envisaged weapon was an existing B-61 or B-83 warhead, modified with a ground-penetrating casing and carrying a 300-kiloton charge (equivalent to 300,000 tons of TNT).

That is 15 times greater than the bomb which flattened the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945, and "would create a huge crater and throw up lots of dust," he said.

He estimated that such a warhead, used against an underground target in downtown Baghdad, would cause between 10,000 and 40,000 deaths within 24 hours due to radioactive poisoning.

"It would not be a clean nuclear weapon; there is no such thing," he said.

Iraq is one of seven countries mentioned in the Pentagon report as potential targets of US nuclear missiles.

Culp said advocates of bunker-buster bombs argued that the high temperature of a nuclear explosion would incinerate chemical or biological toxins and thus eliminate the risk of their dispersal by other forms of blast.

The report has worried many attending the UN committee, called to prepare the next review of the 1970 Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), due in 2005.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, described the report as "a canary in a coalmine," intended to test the atmosphere of negotiations.

"Delegates have been wondering how to respond, since it is not yet a policy document," he said.

One concern is that the United States might end its 10-year-old moratorium on nuclear testing in order to develop the bunker-buster.

The administration of US President George W. Bush has already made clear its hostility to the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the resumption of testing could deal a fatal blow to the NPT.

"Would it require testing?" Culp asked, adding: "That is a question that not even our government knows the answer to."

The bunker-buster "would be a new weapons system with a new capability, using parts of old warheads," he said.

Even in the 1990-91 Gulf War against Iraq, "there was never any talk of using nuclear weapons," Korb said. "Today, there is talk of using them to go after terrorist targets, for example."

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

-------- idaho

Underground Cleanup Accelerated at INEEL

April 18, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-18-09.html#anchor5

WASHINGTON, DC, A settlement between the Energy Department (DOE) and the state of Idaho will speed cleanup of buried wastes at the Pit 9 area of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL).

The DOE said it has also reached an agreement to move forward with a comprehensive technical study of cleanup options for the entire 88 acre Subsurface Disposal Area at INEEL.

The settlement, which includes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, establishes a $5 million reserve fund that could be tapped by the regulators if the DOE fails to meet future commitments on the Pit 9 buried waste retrieval demonstration project. The DOE also agreed to pay Idaho $800,000 for potential delays under the previous Pit 9 cleanup schedule.

Under the agreement reached Wednesday, the DOE will excavate 80 to 100 cubic yards of buried transuranic waste in the one acre Pit 9 by October 31, 2004. DOE has already met one milestone in the new agreement by completing preliminary design on the project. Construction is scheduled to begin in June.

Transuranic waste consists of clothing, tools, rags, debris, residues, and other disposable items contaminated with radioactive elements, primarily plutonium.

A new glovebox excavator approach in Pit 9 will allow the DOE to complete the excavation demonstration 67 months faster and at 37 percent less cost than was envisioned using the old design submitted by the DOE to its regulators. Work that INEEL scientists and engineers have performed in Pit 9 over the past couple of years to locate and verify areas of contamination supported the use of the simpler, faster excavator design.

"This agreement is an important step forward in our efforts to clean up the site," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "DOE will begin pulling waste out of Pit 9, and will evaluate all options for cleaning up the larger 88-acre disposal area containing other buried waste. We are firmly committed to getting the job done, and working with Governor [Dick] Kempthorne and the state to address long term scientific missions at the site."

The agreement also sets out a new schedule for a feasibility study of alternatives for cleaning up the entire Subsurface Disposal Area. The study will include data and operational experience gained from the Pit 9 demonstration project.

The ultimate cleanup decision is expected to be made in 2007. in 2007.

----

Gov't, Idaho Agree on Waste Cleanup

The Associated Press
Thursday, April 18, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5628-2002Apr18?language=printer

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- The federal government will begin within two years cleaning up buried radioactive waste in south-central Idaho and will pay a series of fines if it misses more deadlines, under an agreement reached Wednesday.

The cleanup at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory's Pit 9 has been delayed repeatedly since the late 1990s. The Energy Department and state started talks a few months ago.

"This is a major breakthrough toward removing buried waste from Idaho because for the first time we have a commitment tied to on-the-ground performance instead of studies and more paperwork," Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said.

The agreement calls for the Energy Department to remove plutonium-contaminated material from one section of Pit 9 between March and October 2004. The 80 to 100 cubic yards of buried waste will be repacked in drums and removed at an estimated cost of $75 million.

The results will allow officials to assess how best to finish the project, estimated at $10 billion. The state wants all the waste removed and sent to a federal dump in New Mexico, but the Energy Department contends it still has the option of stabilizing the waste in the ground.

The waste was buried in the 1950s and '60s at the site 40 miles northwest of Idaho Falls. It is contaminated with plutonium from the nation's weapons programs.

Under the agreement, the Energy Department will pay $800,000 in fines to the state for earlier delays. An additional $5 million will be set aside for possible future payments if deadlines are missed.

Kempthorne said the money would fund environmental projects.

-------- mississippi

ENTERGY CONSIDERING NEW NUCLEAR PLANT IN MISSISSIPPI

Associated Press,
April 18, 2002
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/04/04182002/ap_46961.asp

Entergy Corp. has notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it is considering building a nuclear power plant in Port Gibson, Miss. Entergy officials said the company will take at least three years to decide whether to build the plant. Entergy Nuclear, a subsidiary of the New Orleans–based utility, this week became the third company to notify the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of plans to seek an "early site permit" for a new nuclear plant. President Bush last year called on energy companies to resurrect the nuclear power plant construction business, which has been dormant since the mid-1980s after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.

-------- ohio

Radioactive Particles Found on Nuclear Workers

April 18, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-18-09.html#anchor2

OAK HARBOR, Ohio, Microscopic radioactive particles were recovered from four individuals, their clothing, residences and hotel rooms after they left the damaged Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Wednesday.

The incident happened in March, but the NRC did not make it public until this week.

Radiation protection personnel at the Davis-Besse plant were notified on March 22 by the Oconee nuclear facility in South Carolina that radioactive particles were found on a worker's sleeve. The worker was undergoing a new employee interview and processing for work at the Oconee facility, and had last worked at Davis-Besse.

FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company operates the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio. The company's investigation has determined that a total of 13 discrete particles were recovered from four individuals, their clothing, residences and hotel rooms in Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

The individuals had worked on steam generators at Davis-Besse, which shut down in mid-February for a refueling outage. During that shutdown, workers removing boric acid corrosion deposits from the reactor vessel lid found that the acid had drilled a six inch deep hole in the lid, leaving just 3/8 inch of stainless steel between the reactor and the containment building.

A senior health physicist from the NRC's Region III Office has been dispatched to the Davis-Besse plant to assess the possible dose consequences to the four contract employees who visited Davis-Besse before traveling to other sites and to evaluate the company's investigation into the matter. FirstEnergy is attempting to determine how the particles were transported off site.

Preliminary dose calculations by FirstEnergy suggest that the tiny particles will not cause any ill health effects to the workers or to members of the public. The particles are believed to be byproducts of the fission process with low levels of radioactive activity.

-------- washington

Washington Nuke Plant Probed

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Safety.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10008-2002Apr18?language=printer

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- Nuclear regulators are investigating a safety violation that could have caused bursts of potentially fatal radiation at a plant that makes fuel assemblies for commercial reactors.

The violation occurred last week at the Framatome Advanced Nuclear Power plant, but did not result in an accident.

Site manager Bob Link said an employee poured radioactive uranium oxide powder into a 45-gallon barrel that was missing a safety device to prevent an uncontrolled nuclear reaction and releases of potentially deadly radiation. The employee realized the mistake, and reported it.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission began an investigation this week.

Two or three barriers, either chemical or physical, are generally put in place to prevent such accidents. In the Framatome incident, a second barrier was missing.

The plant is operated by Framatome ANP Inc., one of the world's largest builders of nuclear plants.

On the Net:
http://www.framatome-anp.com

--

"With a combined workforce of 13,000 skilled individuals, Framatome ANP is now the world's premier nuclear supplier."

http://www.framatome-anp.com/data/view/3912.html

Photo: Sunflowers facing nuclear power plants:
http://www.framatome-anp.com/data-publisher/gabarits/datafiles/3912-picture1-DOWNLOAD.jpg

-------- us nuc waste

Energy Secy Urges Congress to Back Yucca Waste Site

April 18, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-energy-yucca.html

WASHINGTON - U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday urged a House panel to overturn Nevada's veto of a plan to bury 70,000 tons of nuclear waste within its borders, and warned that failing to do so leaves the country without an alternative plan to store the waste.

``There is no alternative at that point'' if Yucca Mountain is not overturned in Congress, Abraham told the House Energy subcommittee.

``Failure to do that leaves (the government) with the responsibility of the waste and no plan to address that responsibility,'' he said.

Republican Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn vetoed the project last week, leaving the U.S. Congress 90 working days to sustain or override him. The move marked the first time a U.S. governor has taken advantage of a 1982 federal law giving veto power over a U.S. nuclear waste disposal plan.

Nuclear power plants produce more than 20 percent of the country's energy, and many waste storage tanks are nearly full. The government has been slapped with several lawsuits for failing to meet a 1998 deadline to open a permanent nuclear waste storage site.

The proposed Yucca Mountain site, about 90 milesnorthwest of Las Vegas, would permanently hold 70,000 tons of radioactive material generated by the nation's nuclear plants.

President Bush endorsed the site in February, but environmental groups and state officials have argued that transporting the radioactive material cross-country could contaminate groundwater and endanger nearby residents.

The Republican controlled House is widely expected to overturn the veto with a simple majority, leaving opponents hoping for a 60-vote majority in the Senate, which is typically required for most major legislation.

``We've got some policy tricks up our sleeve that you will see,'' Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican opposed to the project, testified before the subcommittee. ``We remain confident we will win.''

HIGH BURDEN OF PROOF

The U.S. government has been laboring for more than two decades, spending some $4 billion to conduct tests to ensure safety issues surrounding transportation and storage of nuclear waste in a central location.

Abraham continued to rebuff criticism that the Yucca Mountain project has failed to address these and other safety issues such as terrorist attacks.

``Nothing that has been advanced in terms of criticism of the project comes close to meeting what I would think would be a high burden of proof...to abandon the project,'' he said.

Abraham told the subcommittee he was confident the project is backed by ``sufficient science'' and would be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ``in the later part of 2004.''

If the independent NRC approves the Yucca Mountain plan, the facility could be opened by 2010. Officials estimate that on average, fewer than one shipment of radioactive waste would be transported each day.

Many states, nuclear power plants, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other supporters have hired lobbyists to promote their case on Capitol Hill. For their part, opponents on Tuesday embarked on a massive media blitz to campaign against the plan.

----

Daybook

April 18, 2002
Washington Times
TODAY'S HEADLINERS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020418-505394.htm

Nuclear waste hearing - 9:30 a.m. - House Energy and Commerce energy and air quality subcommittee holds a hearing titled "A Review of the President's Recommendation to Develop a Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada." Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn testify. Location: 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-2927.

--------

Energy Sec. Defends Nuke Waste Site

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10971-2002Apr18?language=printer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Thursday that killing the Yucca Mountain project would leave the federal government without a plan for solving the nation's radioactive waste problem.

``There is no alternative at that point,'' Abraham told a congressional panel. ``We go back to square one to see what comes next.''

Urging Congress to move ahead with the Nevada burial site for nuclear waste, Abraham warned that energy companies would develop their own plans for transporting and disposing of waste from nuclear power plants.

``Do we want to do it in a coordinated national plan or on more of an ad hoc basis?'' he said at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on energy and air quality.

Abraham's first public defense of the Bush administration's recommendation that the Nevada desert site become the long-term home for nuclear waste also included a plea to skeptical members of Congress to move the project ahead in spite of their reservations.

Approving the Yucca Mountain depository would allow the Energy Department to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to operate the facility beginning in 2010. Up to 77,000 tons of highly radioactive material generated by commercial nuclear power plants and the government's weapons program would be stored 900 feet beneath the desert.

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, under special rules devised by Congress, rejected Bush's designation of Yucca Mountain 10 days ago.

Congress must ratify Bush's decision within 90 days or find a new burial site for high-level nuclear waste, now stored at 131 sites around the country.

Consolidating the waste was a major factor cited by committee members who support the project.

``You're well-served to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket,'' Rep. Tom Sawyer, D-Ohio, said, quoting Mark Twain.

Nevada's congressional delegation, united in its opposition to Yucca Mountain, urged defeat of the project because of questions about the site's safety and the risks of transporting radioactive material across the country.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the shipments of spent nuclear fuel through population centers would be ripe targets for terrorists. ``We've heard that terrorists are looking for dirty bombs,'' Ensign said. ``Well, these are dirty bombs.''

But Abraham, who faced mostly friendly questioning, countered, ``The presumption is that al-Qaida or some other terrorist group would wait 10 years ... when they already know where it is today at 131 sites.''

On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Subcommittee on energy and air quality:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/subcommittees/Energy--and--Air--Qua lity.htm

-------- us politics

Bush: 'Axis' will follow Taliban

April 18, 2002
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020418-931680.htm

President Bush said yesterday that Afghanistan's former Taliban government is just "the first regime to fall in the war against terror" as he cited a continued threat from "axis of evil" nations bent on unleashing weapons of mass destruction.

In a speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, the president said the United States will not rest until terrorist organizations worldwide are defeated.

"A small number of outlaw regimes today possess and are developing chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. They're building missiles to deliver them, and at the same time cultivating ties to terrorist groups," Mr. Bush said.

"In their threat to peace, in their mad ambitions, in their destructive potential and in the repression of their own people, these regimes constitute an axis of evil and the world must confront them," he added.

The president did not refer specifically to Iraq, Iran or North Korea, the nations that constitute what he termed an "axis of evil" in his Jan. 29 State of the Union address. However, he said the terror network al Qaeda, having lost its Taliban sponsor in Afghanistan, is seeking help from rogue nations.

"We must prevent al Qaeda from moving its operations to other countries. We must deny terrorists the funds they need to operate. We must deny them safe havens to plan new horrors and indoctrinate new recruits," he said.

Delivering an update on the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush said the campaign is far from over. He pledged not to make the same error as other nations that have been engaged militarily in the mountainous country.

"As the spring thaw comes, we expect cells of trained killers to try to regroup, to murder, create mayhem and try to undermine Afghanistan's efforts to build a lasting peace," Mr. Bush said.

"We know this from not only intelligence, but from the history of military conflict in Afghanistan. It's been one of initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. We're not going to repeat that mistake," he added.

"We're tough, we're determined, we're relentless. We will stay until the mission is done."

At the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, said the United States has not achieved its goal of crippling al Qaeda's leadership.

"Many of us have said that this country is not safe while bin Laden is still at-large," Mr. Daschle said. "The bottom line is that we've got to find him."

"Out of the 12 major al Qaeda leaders, we've only found two. So al Qaeda, currently, is apparently still at-large, still capable of inflicting real harm on the United States. And I think our job ought to be what President Bush said it was last fall: we need to find bin Laden, we need to find the al Qaeda leadership and we need to deal with them directly," he said.

The president said the recent capture of a top al Qaeda leader, Abu Zubaydah, is proof that the anti-terror campaign is working.

"He's not plotting and he's not planning anymore. He's under lock and key, and we're going to give him some company. We're hunting down the killers one by one," Mr. Bush said.

The president also said that the ground war in Afghanistan has allowed U.S. troops to gather evidence of atrocities committed by the Taliban regime.

"We find mounting horror, evidence of horror. In the Hazarajat region, the Red Cross has found signs of massacres committed by the Taliban last year, victims who lie in mass graves. This is the legacy of the first regime to fall in the war against terror," Mr. Bush said.

"These mass graves are a reminder of the kind of enemy we have fought and have defeated. And they are the kind of evil we continue to fight," he added.

Speaking at the George C. Marshall ROTC Award Seminar at VMI, Mr. Bush repeatedly recalled the Army general's work as secretary of state in rebuilding Europe and Japan after World War II.

"The war against terror will be long. And as George Marshall so clearly understood, it will not be enough to make the world safer. We must also work to make the world better," Mr. Bush said.

As he has done on earlier occasions, the president also advocated aiding Afghanistan in the development and training of its own army. He called on world leaders to help the nation develop a stable government.

"By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall. Marshall knew that our military victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings," he said.

The president praised nations that have accepted U.S. aid in the global war against terrorism - among them the Philippines, Georgia and Yemen - and pledged that any nation "that needs our help will have it."

"No nation can be neutral. Around the world, the nations must choose. They are with us, or they're with the terrorists," Mr. Bush said.

• Dave Boyer contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.

--------

Powell leaves Israel after a fruitless visit

April 18, 2002
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020418-20242638.htm

JERUSALEM - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell left Israel yesterday, disappointed after six days of intensive shuttle diplomacy: He was unable to negotiate a cease-fire, win Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank or persuade the Palestinian leadership to halt the terror campaign against the Jewish state.

"Only with the end of the incursion, and with the engagement in security talks, can a cease-fire be achieved in reality as well as rhetoric," he told reporters. He said he would be back to try again, but a senior State Department official told reporters on the flight home it would be at least two to three weeks before a return trip could even be considered.

Undersecretary of State William Burns will remain here, while U.S. regional envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni and CIA Director George J. Tenet - who drafted a plan to increase Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on security - would return "in the near future."

Judging from the expressions of frustration on all sides, it may be some time before Mr. Powell returns.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was said to be livid after Mr. Powell left his ravaged compound yesterday morning. He appealed to other nations to press the Israelis to withdraw and free him from the crumbling military building where he has been held for three weeks.

"I have to ask the whole international world, excellency President Bush, the United Nations, is this acceptable?" he asked. "That I cannot go outside from this door? Is this acceptable? For how long?"

Nearly screaming with anger, he said: "Do you think this will not reflect in the whole stability and peace in the Middle East?"

Dore Gold, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, blamed the Palestinians for Mr. Powell's limited results. "Secretary Powell goes away with a tangible Israeli timeline to withdraw its forces from Palestinian cities and bring the current operation to a close," he said. "Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat has not reciprocated, has not offered a meaningful cease-fire."

In the past two days, Israeli troops entered predominantly Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and imposed a curfew. The army also returned tanks and soldiers to several villages from which they were earlier withdrawn.

Tank fire was reported yesterday from the Jenin refugee camp, scene of the heaviest fighting of the Israeli military operation. The shooting forced civilian medics digging through the rubble in search of bodies or survivors to halt their work.

In Geneva, officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross called for international search and rescue teams to be sent to the camp, saying some residents reported having heard cries from under the rubble.

A spokesman told Reuters news service there had been no response yet from Israel, where officials were observing the nation's independence day yesterday.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was to have been briefed by Mr. Powell yesterday in Cairo, abruptly canceled the meeting, saying he was "indisposed," U.S. officials said. Instead, the secretary met with Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher during a quick stopover on his way home to Washington.

President Bush nevertheless praised Mr. Powell's efforts on a difficult mission and urged leaders in the region to make good on promises to fight terrorism.

"The Palestinian Authority must act - must act - on its words of condemnation against terror," the president told cadets at Virginia Military Institute. "Israel must continue its withdrawals, and all Arab states must step up to their responsibilities." All parties, he said, "have a responsibility to stop funding or inciting terror."

Mr. Powell said nothing substantive could happen until the Israelis withdraw.

"We could have a cease-fire declared today," Mr. Powell said. "But what would it mean while one side is still pursuing an operation that they are bringing to a close, but they have not yet brought to a close, and the other side is not yet in a position to respond because the incursion has not yet ended?

"So cease-fire is not a relevant term at the moment, but it will become relevant, I believe very quickly, when the incursion ends."

Mr. Powell took Mr. Arafat to task for not taking a decisive and meaningful stand against suicide bombings and other forms of aggression against Israeli civilians.

"We are disappointed with Chairman Arafat's performance," he said. "We believed all along that he could have done more, and I have made it as clear as I can to him that we are, and have been, disappointed with his performance and it is time for him to make a strategic choice."

He said he warned Mr. Arafat that Washington was not alone in expecting him "to make a strategic choice and lead his people away from violence."

The Palestinian Authority issued a statement Saturday afternoon - a full day after the latest lethal bus bombing in central Jerusalem - condemning violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

That statement was rejected by the Israelis and received by the United States as insubstantial without corresponding action to make it meaningful.

One area where Mr. Powell's visit may have helped is on Israel's northern border with Syria and Lebanon, where Hezbollah gunmen have not fired rockets onto Israeli territory for nearly a week.

The secretary visited both countries on Tuesday to deliver a stern message.


------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Errant U.S. Bomb Kills Four Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan

New York Times
April 18, 2002
By TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/international/18CND-CANA.html

Four Canadian soldiers taking part in a nighttime live-fire exercise were killed in Afghanistan when an American F-16 fighter mistakenly dropped one or two precision-guided bombs on the area, Pentagon and Canadian officials said today.

In Ottawa, the Canadian defense minister, Art Eggleton, called the deaths shocking and "a terrible tragedy" in an interview with the Canadian Press news agency.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told Parliament that a joint investigation with the United States was under way and he assured the families of those killed and all Canadians that questions surrounding the incident "will be answered."

In an earlier statement, Mr. Chrétien said President Bush had called him to offer his condolences. Defense Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld delivered a similar message to Mr. Eggleton, who told Reuters: "There is no question of outrage on our behalf. It was an accident, but we need to know what happened."

According to Pentagon officials it appeared that the pilot did not know he was flying over a restricted area, and that fire from the exercise made him believe he was under attack. The pilot was not part of the training exercise, said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, the liaison between the Pentagon and Central Command in Tampa, Fla. A Central Command spokesman declined comment on the possible cause of the bombing while an inquiry is under way.

"Everybody wants the answers," Mr. Eggleton added. "The government wants the answers, the families want the answers. We want to know soon."

The Canadian troops were part of an 800-strong contingent serving in Afghanistan under United States command as part of Washington's campaign against terrorism.

Eight soldiers were also wounded in the incident, about 10 miles south of their base in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold.

Canadian forces are fighting alongside American and European troops trying to hunt down remnants of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization and holdouts from the Taliban militia. The soldiers were members of the 3rd Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based near Edmonton, Alberta.

"How this can happen is a mystery to us," Canada's defense chief, Lt. Gen. Ray Henault, told reporters in Ottawa. "Without a doubt, there was a misidentification."

At the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, Maj. Bryan Hilferty, a United States military spokesman, offered his condolences to the victims.

"We do everything we can to mitigate risk," he told reporters. "We try to make sure we have all sorts of procedures, tactics and techniques in place to mitigate risk. But unfortunately, it's an inherently dangerous business."

In his address to the House of Commons, Mr. Chrétien said: "The campaign against terrorism is the great global struggle for justice in the 21st century. As in all conflicts of the past, Canada has been on the front lines."

"The Canadian armed forces have set themselves apart with their valor, daring and skill," he said. "Words cannot fully express the pride that all Canadians have felt at the exemplary way they have carried out their duty."

-------- asia

JAFFNA JOURNAL
On a War-Torn Road, Hints of a Longed-for Peace

New York Times
April 18, 2002
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/international/18LANK.html

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, April 11 - Highway A-9, a narrow, rutted road that cuts through this country's Tamil heartland, was once known as the highway of death. Today, it could as easily be called a museum of war.

Solitary carved pillars of what were once holy shrines stand like ancient ruins. Next to a shimmering lagoon is the rusting hulk of a tank.

Beyond a coconut grove is a skeleton of a town, its homes no more than a pile of debris and wild bougainvillea, its rows of tea shops and grinding mills smothered.

Along this road lies the detritus of Sri Lanka's ferocious civil war. Since 1983, the rebel army, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has fought for a homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority in this Sinhalese-majority island nation. More than 60,000 people have been killed.

A gossamer promise of peace now hangs over this land. Under a cease-fire agreement signed in February, the A-9 has been cleared of mines. One stretch of highway, linking the rebel-held swamp and jungle called Vanni to the government-held Jaffna peninsula to the north, reopened only four days ago - a rare suture for a torn country.

Today, a few buses ply the road, stuffed with passengers and suitcases and crates of fish. Men and women are coming back to look at their homes. In some towns, a few shops are back in business. The reopening of the highway has allowed goods to be ferried from one end of the island to the other and enabled people to visit their kin. It has also unearthed astonishing artifacts of ruin.

In Vavuniya, just south of rebel-held land, a sign promises information for "persons disappeared due to war." Farther north, in Kilinochchi, now effectively the capital of Tiger territory, the roof of the government college has been blown off. Just beyond Elephant Pass, the strategic gateway to Jaffna, a statue of the Virgin Mary is precariously perched on a pedestal without the shrine walls that once protected her.

Hindu temples have fared similarly: their inner sanctums are overrun with weeds, crumbling pillars revealing only a head or an arm of a deity.

On this day, Jesu Nesan, 56, had made a scorching two-day bicycle ride along the A-9 to have a look at his house in Pallai, one of a string of small towns annihilated by war. The destruction here, he recalled, began about 11:30 on the night of March 26, 2000. The Tigers advanced from a lagoon behind his house and stormed a Sri Lanka Army artillery unit in front. Mr. Nesan and his family fled to Point Pedro, on Jaffna's northern tip, carrying only what they could on their backs.

Today was his first day back home. There was little to see. A bed frame lay in his bedroom along with an overturned sewing machine stand. The kitchen was in charred ruins. Looters, he said, had probably scooped out his belongings, as if his house were a ripe papaya.

But Mr. Nesan, a public health worker, was not complaining. He was lucky to be alive, he said. Nearly a dozen of his neighbors were not. "House is gone," he said. "Never mind." He wiped his brow and mounted the powder blue seat of his bicycle to head back home.

There is still talk of a Tamil homeland - Tamil Eelam, it is called - along this road. But there is also another desire expressed now - a weary, aching want for peace.

"We've had enough" is how M. Vivekanandan put it in Chavakachcheri, a town that once was home to 19,000 families. He sat on the sidewalk, a typewriter perched on a small table, drafting applications for government compensation on behalf of the town's shop owners.

On this scorching afternoon, J. Dharmendra carried a rainbow-colored parasol as she inspected the repairs on her home in Chavakachcheri. It had been two years since she had fled, carting her paralyzed mother in a wheelchair.

Today, she said, she is determined to return home. She may also be prepared to forgo a separate Tamil homeland, so long, she said, as she can live with the rights of a free citizen. "People are prepared to accept rights equal to Tamil Eelam," she said. "We'd like to live in our own motherland with equal rights that the Sinhalese have."

The Tigers' chief, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, has hinted at something similar. Declaring his support for a political resolution to the ethnic conflict, he suggested a solution short of secession: perhaps some form of Tamil administration in the northern and eastern Tamil belts of the country, he offered, could provide a framework for peace. Such an agreement would legitimize a structure already in place; the Tigers effectively rule the land in their control.

The prospect of any alternative to secession comes as fabulously good news to the Sri Lankan government. A senior government official described Mr. Prabhakaran's pledge as significant for the peace talks that are scheduled to begin in Thailand in the coming weeks. "It's a different road altogether," said the official, who did not want to give his name for fear of jeopardizing the negotiations.

Given their record of ruthlessness, the Tigers' latest pledges of peace have met with considerable skepticism here. Yet even some of their former victims - opposition Tamil political parties whose leaders have been eliminated by the Tigers, for instance - have said they would not oppose the Tigers' efforts.

Over the last week, the Tigers have opened offices for what they call their "political wing" in several government- and rebel-held towns. They came to Jaffna looking to rent a house and seeking the help of E. Saravanapavan, the managing editor of a Tamil newspaper. He considered that a change worth noting.

They are seeking to rent a place, he said, not just to break down a door and take it over.

--------

U.S. priorities in Asia transformed since Sept 11

Thu Apr 18, 2002
By Raju Gopalakrishnan
Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020418/wl_india_nm/india_69534_1

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - A U.S. soldier hefting an M-16 rifle almost half her size and her blonde hair tucked into a cap stands guard at the entrance to a military camp in the guerrilla-infested south of the Philippines.

It's long after the end of the Cold War when such events were commonplace, but Washington sees no qualms in handing out the imprimatur of approval to a coup leader in Pakistan seeking to legitimise his rule.

And Malaysia's prime minister, whose deputy was jailed for sodomy and abuse of power in trials Washington has labelled politically tainted, will be received at the White House only a few years after he was vilified by the previous administration.

U.S. priorities in Asia have been transformed since Washington revamped its foreign policy objectives after September 11. The complexities of most bilateral relationships gave way to the imperative of the war on terror.

U.S. money and equipment are flowing in for the favoured, and Asian leaders earlier deemed unacceptable or not important enough are being feted. Senior envoys from Washington make regular trips to the region, reversing a slowdown after the 1997/98 financial crisis took Asia off the radar screens of U.S. policy-makers.

But not all relationships in Asia have improved. Communist North Korea (news - web sites) is still deemed evil, as President George W. Bush (news - web sites) repeated on Wednesday.

And the question mark over ties with China never went away, despite a brief period of bonhomie in the immediate aftermath of September 11.

"American unilateralism has clearly re-established itself since the Taliban fell," said Beijing Foreign Studies University professor Mei Renyi, referring to fresh U.S. overtures to Taiwan and renewed criticism of Beijing over human rights since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan (news - web sites).

"I'm not that optimistic about the current direction of ties."

Analysts say the United States now has two overriding strategic objectives -- countering terrorism, mostly of the Islamic radical variety, and making sure China does not pose a threat in the future. In some parts of Asia, both objectives are being met at the same time.

PHILIPPINES, INDIA

Some of the most dramatic policy initiatives have been taken in the Philippines, an old ally of Washington which had fallen more or less by the wayside after it threw out the U.S. military from bases in the country in 1992.

Hundreds of U.S. troops are in the Philippines now, many of them to help train the local military in fighting the Muslim guerrillas who plague the south.

Washington has linked one guerrilla group to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York, and the deployment represents the biggest movement of U.S. troops overseas after Afghanistan. But the Philippines is also on the doorstep of the Chinese mainland and is an important stopping-off point for the U.S. Pacific Command based in Hawaii.

The United States always needed to engage India after it exploded a nuclear device in 1998, matched within days by arch-rival Pakistan. Sanctions were imposed on both nations for proliferation, but these were eased post-September 11.

"A growing U.S. policy is to engage with countries which have unresolved disputes with China to contain China," said Bharat Karnad, strategic affairs expert with the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

"You can have all of Southeast Asia and the Far East, but they lack the substance. Not that India can take on China singly, but it has a lot of the power characteristics that China has -- size, muscle, human resources and a good strategic location." In Pakistan, the United States staged its most visible turnaround of policy as the support of General Pervez Musharraf was crucial for the war in Afghanistan. From a pariah, Musharraf became a hero overnight as he backed U.S. initiatives.

"It was pure expediency. Pakistan's geographical position made it a key player in U.S. military operations, and it still is," said Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

In recent weeks, Washington has offered only the very mildest of criticism to Musharraf's bid to keep power for five more years through an April 30 referendum opposed by Pakistan's main political parties and much of the establishment as unconstitutional.

The implicit support is virtually a scene-by-scene repeat of the 1980s, when Pakistan's then military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq, was Washington's darling as he backed efforts to overthrow the Soviets in Afghanistan.

HOLD OUR NOSES

"One of the criticisms of America during the Cold War years was that we would make a deal with the devil in order to defeat communism," said former U.S. Ambassador John Mallot.

"In order to combat terrorism after September 11, we are ready to hold our noses again and meet people who abhor and step on every principle the United States has believed in for the past 200 years."

Mallot was referring particularly to Malaysia, where he was ambassador until 1998. He is a strong critic of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who drew U.S. ire for the trials and subsequent jailing of his deputy, Anwar Ibrahim.

James A. Kelly, assistant secretary of state, said after a visit to Kuala Lumpur this week that Muslim-majority Malaysia was a beacon of stability in the region. No mention was made of Anwar and Mahathir is scheduled to visit the United States in May.

Neighbouring Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population, is also slowly making its way back into Washington's good books although a suspension of military aid remains after Jakarta was charged with rights abuses during the 1999 East Timor (news - web sites) independence struggle.

Adam Ward, research fellow for Asia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said while the war on terrorism had changed U.S. imperatives in many nations, the attitude to larger ones like China and India were consistent.

"It's a re-ordering of priorities in the short to medium term, a kind of pragmatic or expedient thing that they need to do," he said of Washington's Asia policies. "But in many cases, especially with the bigger countries, the Americans have been quite firm.

"In the case of some countries, the issues that were brought to the fore in American policy in the past are maybe retreating slightly to the background because the administration is preoccupied with the overwhelming agenda to clamp down on terrorism.

"That requires a kind of rhetorical shift. But whether this marks a long-term change in the administration's behaviour, I would really have my doubts."

-------- colombia

Bush Pushes Colombia Aid Expansion

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Pastrana.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush told Colombian President Andres Pastrana on Thursday that helping the South American country defeat drug traffickers is part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

``My biggest job now is to defend our security and to help our friends defend their security against terror,'' Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with Pastrana.

Pastrana said Colombia and the United States ``are fighting a common enemy that is narcotrafficking and narcoterrorism.''

Bush has asked Congress to remove restrictions that bar Colombia from using U.S. helicopters and other drug-fighting assistance against leftist guerrillas in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which the State Department has branded a terrorist group.

``These aren't 'so-called terrorists,' these are terrorists. ... They've captured people. They're after Andres,'' Bush said.

``By fighting narcotrafficking, by the way, we're fighting the funding source for these political terrorists. And sometimes they're interchangeable,'' he added.

Pastrana met later with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick on their joint efforts to win Senate passage of legislation to renew the Andean Trade Preference Act, which expires May 16.

The act is designed to help Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru expand trade as an alternative to drug cultivation and trafficking. Pastrana called it a ``vital component in the fight against drugs,'' and Zoellick emphasized its renewal and expansion remains a White House priority.

On Capitol Hill, Bush's linkage of Colombian troubles to the war on terrorism was greeted with skepticism at a hearing of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, which is considering Bush's additional request for nearly $600 million in anti-terror aid to Colombia.

Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., asked Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage what Colombia has to do with the U.S. war on terrorism.

``We do believe this is part of the war on global terrorism,'' Armitage replied.

``We know ... FARC is targeting Americans, and not just targeting officials and infrastructure in Colombia.''

Along with $35 million in emergency anti-terrorism support, Bush wants $439 million in longer-term aid and $133 million to help Colombia stop guerrilla attacks on an oil pipeline, reduce kidnappings and rebuild bombed police stations.

The United States has given Colombia $1.7 billion in the past two years to further Pastrana's $7.5 billion, six-year, anti-drug initiative.

``We want to join'' Colombia's fight, Bush said. He praised Pastrana for a ``valiant effort'' against all forms of terror and expressed confidence that it will succeed with ``the right help from America.''

At the House hearing, Rep. Steven Rothman, D-N.J., questioned whether money requested to protect the pipeline was intended for that purpose or actually might pay to build up Colombia's anti-insurgency forces.

Possibly both, Armitage said.

``They are in a real tussle ... for survival,'' he said. ``We want to train another battalion that will effect that type of security. Could those forces be used in counterinsurgency? Absolutely. Could they also be used to protect the pipeline from insurgents? Absolutely.''

Colombian peace talks with FARC collapsed in February. Since then, bombings blamed on FARC have hit major cities and targeted Pastrana's likely successor in the May 26 elections, Alvaro Uribe, who has pledged to crack down on terror.

Bush and Pastrana discussed reports that FARC is operating out of Venezuela, which is the midst of political turbulence.

Pastrana said he has made formal inquiries of the Venezuelan foreign minister. ``We want answers, if these guys are or are not in Venezuela,'' Pastrana said.

-------- israel / palestine

CASUALTIES
Back in Jenin, Refugees Hope to Find Survivors

New York Times
April 18, 2002
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/international/middleeast/18JENI.html

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank, April 17 - Thousands of Palestinians poured back into this demolished refugee camp this afternoon when Israeli forces briefly seemed to have withdrawn. Under a blazing sun, they began clawing at mounds of rubble with backhoes, shovels and their bare hands.

Some searched for people they thought might be buried alive beneath buildings flattened by Israeli bulldozers. Others simply hoped to bring dignity to the dead.

Among them was Muhammad Abu Khurj, 75, who had returned to look for the remains of his sister, who had been killed in their house on April 5 in an Israeli missile attack. He himself had been ordered to leave the camp two days later by Israeli troops. Now he walked into his bullet-pocked home and forced his aged legs up four flights of stairs. Entering a room on the top floor, he looked panicked.

"They moved her! They moved her!" he said. "Do you see her blood?" he said, frantically pointing at the blood stain. "This is her blood!"

Then he spotted something in the corner and lifted up a piece of carpet covering it. Underneath was the body of a woman. Her curly gray hair teemed with maggots. Mr. Khurj left the room in silence.

As he searched for someone to help him with the fetid body, he seethed. "Sharon will regret this," he said referring to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Sharon will regret this."

Today's digging did little to clear up the dispute over how many fighters and civilians lie entombed in Jenin. About 6:45 p.m., Israeli armored vehicles re-entered the area, firing machine guns in the air and sending people running for cover. The bodies of five fighters were found by Palestinians today, as well as body parts of civilians.

Frustration among Palestinians is soaring over the slow pace of international and Israeli efforts to recover bodies in this camp, which to Palestinians has rapidly become hallowed ground.

Teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross have removed only 14 bodies in the last three days and say they are hampered by a lack of bomb-disposal and search-and-rescue teams. Israeli officials, who have tightly restricted access to the site since fighting ended eight days ago, say military search-and-rescue units are at work there, but none were seen today during a six-hour tour of the area.

Palestinians took matters into their own hands this afternoon.

Municipal work crews used backhoes to tear into a mound of rubble that was believed to lie on top of a cave sheltering Palestinian fighters and possibly civilians. Nearby, a group of Palestinian Red Cross workers formed a line where people passed chunks of concrete from a collapsed house hand to hand. In one spot, a woman pawed through the pile of rubble that was once her home, wailing as she pulled bits of clothing from the dirt.

The decaying body of Mr. Khurj's sister appears to be one of the clearest examples to date of a civilian having been killed in an Apache helicopter missile attack. There is an enormous hole in the wall of her bedroom and a two-foot-wide crater in the floor. Shards of a missile, including one with labels in English describing "firing temperature" and "cooling temperature," littered the floor. Near the hole in the wall was a pool of dried blood. Mr. Khurj said the missile struck in the middle of the night on the third day of the attack. It killed his sister instantly. Israeli soldiers who later occupied the house ordered him to leave.

At dusk, a group of boys who were part of the throng made another discovery that suggested civilians died in the attacks. They walked through the crowd cradling an object they said they had pulled from the rubble of a house struck by a missile. Wrapped in a black cloth was the charred remains of a foot so small it appeared to be that of a child.

This morning, two Palestinian men covered their mouths as they dug out body parts from the rubble of a house bulldozed by the Israelis. They hoisted them in the air to make their point that people had been in the buildings, showing what appeared to be a foot and a leg. An hour later, a Red Cross team removed several crushed body parts from a nearby street.

Just after 1 p.m., a Palestinian ambulance driver working with the Red Cross emerged from a building carrying an elderly woman on his back.

The woman, Afifeh Suleyman Daoud, lived alone only 20 yards from houses that had been bulldozed. She said she had been in her house for the last 15 days and survived on food and water from neighbors.

Palestinians fleeing the camp have said that a paralyzed young man and a handful of families hiding in their houses were buried alive by Israeli bulldozers. Israeli officials say they issued clear and repeated warnings over megaphones to residents to leave the camp, particularly in areas where houses were bulldozed. But Ms. Daoud, who is blind and partly deaf, said she had never heard any Israeli orders to leave the camp, or the bulldozers flattening houses nearby.

Frightened and disoriented, her blank eyes stared at the ambulance's ceiling this afternoon as she muttered a single phrase.

"Take me back to my house," she said. "Take me back to my house."

-------- russia / chechnya

Putin Confirms Military Reforms Needed

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Military.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8315-2002Apr18?language=printer

MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reaffirmed his pledge to gradually transform the underfunded Russian military from a conscript to an all-volunteer force but said it was not clear how long the reform would take.

``The transfer to a professional army, along with a reduction of the length of conscript service, is a clear priority,'' Putin said in his state of the nation address. But, he added, ``the reduction of conscript service cannot be accomplished in one year.''

Putin has ordered the military to trim its ranks and draw up a plan for phasing out the draft, but top military officials want to preserve the bulky Soviet-era military structure and have been slow to work out specific guidelines.

Col.-Gen. Vladislav Putilin, the Defense Ministry's top mobilization official, said Thursday the military must switch Russia's air force, air defense, navy, missile forces, special forces and permanent readiness units of the ground forces to full volunteer staffing by 2010.

The transition will cost $5.7 billion with the minimum monthly wage of a contract soldier $177, Putilin said, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.

Putilin said the military must speed up the transfer to a professional army because the nation's poor demographic and health situation will cause the number of conscripts to drop by half after 2005.

Putin said in his Kremlin speech Thursday that the military would make some units fully professional this year as a pilot project.

--------

16 Police Officiers Killed in Chechnya Blast

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Chechnya.html

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia (AP) -- Rebels ambushed federal forces on Thursday, detonating a land mine underneath a convoy of riot police and then opening fire on the crippled line of cars, killing at least 21 police in a bold attack.

The blast occurred just 300 feet from Chechnya's main police headquarters in the capital, Grozny, and was the most deadly attack yet on the republic's fledgling police force.

It also came just hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his state of the nation address and represented a significant triumph for rebel groups.

The first bus in the convoy hit a remote-controlled mine, and rebels then opened fire on the line of vehicles, said an official in the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration. An Associated Press reporter in Grozny said the gunfire lasted for about 15 minutes. RTR state television reported that the onslaught came from a nearby high-rise building.

Fourteen Chechen officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded, the official said on condition of anonymity. Four officers later died of their wounds.

A car sent to reinforce the convoy also hit the mine, killing three officers and wounding one, the official said.

Russian TV footage showed the mangled shell of a bus and a truck, as well as charred police identity documents collected at the site.

The attack, which came a day after 11 Russian servicemen were killed and 13 wounded in two rebel attacks in the Shatoi region, appeared to have taken the Russian military by surprise. Mine explosions are frequent across Chechnya, but are rarely followed by prolonged gunfire.

Military intelligence officers had predicted an upsurge in rebel activity in May, concentrated in the rugged mountains of the south, and had taken steps to start reinforcing those Russian positions, the Chechen administration official said.

But the military and police were working under their normal regime in Grozny and in Shatoi, a mountainous region 28 miles south of Grozny.

During his state of the state address Thursday, Putin told the country again that ``the military stage of the conflict can be considered over,'' and it is time to move on to reconstruction of the region's infrastructure and judicial system.

But while large-scale combat ended for the most part in 2000, the rebels continue to pick off federal troops daily in surprise attacks that sap the military's morale.

After the Grozny ambush, Russian troops immediately fanned out across the capital, blocking all main roads. Bislan Gantamirov, deputy premier of the Chechen government, told Interfax news agency that five suspects had been detained, one after being wounded by gunfire.

NTV television reported that 12 reporters and cameramen from the local Chechen television station had been detained.

The largest previous attack on police occurred in August, when rebels ambushed a joint Chechen-Russian police patrol in the northern Shchelkovskaya region, killing 11.

The police force is still being formed to take over law enforcement duties from Russian troops that rotate in and out of the breakaway republic, and it has become a special target of rebels, who have vowed to kill Chechens who cooperate with Moscow.

Russian troops fought a 1994-96 war in Chechnya but were forced into a humiliating retreat, leaving the region with de facto independence. They returned in 1999 after rebel incursions into neighboring Russian regions and after apartment-house bombings blamed on the rebels killed more than 300 in Russian cities.

-------- ukraine

U.S. general visits Ukraine for anti-terrorism talks

Thu Apr 18, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020418/ap_wo_en_ge/ukraine_us_terrorism_1

KIEV, Ukraine - A military delegation led by Gen. Montgomery Meigs, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, was in Kiev on Thursday for two days of talks with Ukrainian military officials on peacekeeping operations and combating terrorism.

Among the issues Gen. Meigs will address with the Commander of the Ukrainian Army, Colonel-General Alexander Zatynaiko, is the joint Ukrainian-Polish peacekeeping battalion that is part of the multinational force in Kosovo, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Gen. Meigs and other U.S. military experts are slated to visit the headquarters of Ukraine's Ground Forces Command and will discuss the nation's military reforms.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and declared itself a neutral country after gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It has taken part in NATO's Partnership for Peace Program for nonmember countries.

Ukrainian troops have also participated in U.N. peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone.

-------- us

Northern Command To Defend the U.S.
Pentagon Reveals Shifts in Structure

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 18, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4858-2002Apr17?language=printer

Responding to the terrorist attack on the nation last September, the Pentagon yesterday unveiled a new organizational structure that creates for the first time a command charged with defending the continental United States.

Defense officials have discussed the plan to establish the Northern Command frequently in recent months, but some of the details, such as the location of its headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, outside Colorado Springs, had not been divulged.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hailed the reorganization as "undoubtedly the most significant reform of our nation's military command structure" in more than 50 years.

Before last September's attacks, he said, the U.S. military was almost entirely focused on countering distant threats, not on defending the homeland. "The Pentagon's job had been to look out, not to look at internal threats, but to look outside," he told reporters at the Pentagon. "So our radars were pointed out, our eyes were looking out, and the people looking here were the state and local law enforcement officials, the FBI, the various first responders."

In addition to supporting civilian authorities, the Northern Command will have responsibility for defending U.S. airspace and coasts. But it has not been determined which forces, if any, will be assigned to it on a permanent basis, said Pentagon officials who briefed reporters on details of the planned changes.

The new command also is assigned formal responsibility for coordinating military relations with Canada and Mexico. Until now, the two neighbors had not been assigned to any single U.S. military headquarters. As reported previously, Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, the chief of the U.S. Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has been chosen to head the Northern Command.

In another shift, the U.S. European Command is being given responsibility for dealing with Russia. The move amounts to another recognition that the Cold War is over. In the past, no single headquarters was charged with dealing with Russia or the Soviet Union, because during the Cold War the Pentagon saw the Soviet Union as so great a threat that it required a global response from the U.S. military. Even after the Cold War ended, oversight of military dealings with Russia rested with the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a less meaningful move, the U.S. Pacific Command was given responsibility for Antarctica.

Pentagon officials emphasized that this was not a step toward militarizing the southernmost continent, which is forbidden by treaty, but a recognition that the U.S. military frequently provides help with rescue and supply missions there. Those support flights originate in New Zealand, which is in the Pacific Command's area, so that Honolulu-based headquarters was given the Antarctica account.

There had been some talk in the Pentagon that two other commands, the Space Command and the Strategic Command, which oversees strategic nuclear weapons, would be merged. But that issue has been put off for additional study, officials said.

As described by Rumsfeld, the Northern Command's basic mission will not be to fight, but to support civilian authorities in case of another terrorist attack. Essentially, it designates a place in the military that local, state and federal officials can call for help in a crisis.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, said Rumsfeld, it is likely that "there was not good unity of effort." With the opening of the new command, planned for Oct. 1, "we'll have a focus . . . that will allow us to provide what's needed at the right time to the right federal agency or perhaps a state agency."

----

TACTICS
Rumsfeld Defends Strategy Used in Tora Bora Last Year

New York Times
April 18, 2002
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/international/18MILI.html

WASHINGTON, April 17 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reaffirmed his support today for the battle plan used to flush Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters last year from the mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan, and denied reports that the administration had concluded that Osama bin Laden was there but was able to escape.

"We have seen repeated speculation about his possible location," Mr. Rumsfeld said during a news briefing at the Pentagon, referring to Mr. bin Laden. "But it has obviously not been verifiable. Had it been verifiable, one would have thought that someone might have done something about it."

Mr. Rumsfeld defended the decision to rely extensively on allied Afghan fighters for the ground mission at Tora Bora, even though the shortcomings of those local troops were clear in advance.

"We made a conscious decision, the United States government, that there were organized Afghan forces on the ground that could be helpful to us," he said.

"Did we think they would function exactly the way United States armed services organized units would function? No. We knew they would function differently.

"And we said to ourselves, `O.K., on balance, how do we feel about that?' And the answer was, `Well, we feel pretty good about it. Let's go ahead and use them.' "

Mr. Rumsfeld was responding to questions prompted by an article today in The Washington Post saying that the Bush administration had come to a conclusion that Mr. bin Laden had been in Tora Bora and that a decision not to commit American ground troops then to hunt him was the greatest mistake of the war.

The article was the latest in a number of accounts that have reported that Mr. bin Laden had survived the bombing assault on Tora Bora and other Afghan mountain regions, and that he was probably still in the remote terrain that straddles the border with Pakistan.

As has been the case with his responses to previous news stories, Mr. Rumsfeld refused to say that mistakes were made in the planning or execution of the Tora Bora mission, or that a true opportunity to grab or kill Mr. bin Laden had been lost.

But many Afghan warlords who assumed the role of local commanders complained at the time that the Americans had allowed dozens of Al Qaeda fighters, and possibly Mr. bin Laden, to escape by failing to seal the border as the bombing began.

Even senior American military officers have said they sought to learn from the hard lessons of Tora Bora, in which the United States relied on Afghan proxies who did not press the attack or seal escape routes.

In a subsequent mission to sweep Taliban and Al Qaeda holdouts from another border region around Shah-i-Kot, an operation code-named Anaconda, the United States tried to ensure that exits from the mountainous region were blocked by sending in the largest commitment of American ground troops to a single mission in the war.

Other officers involved in the Afghan campaign stressed that the Tora Bora mission suffered from having been mounted so quickly. This was necessary, they said, because Taliban and Al Qaeda forces collapsed far more rapidly than expected.

In Afghanistan today, four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight wounded when an American F-16 warplane dropped one or two 500-pound bombs on them during a routine training exercise with American forces near Kandahar, the Canadian military announced.

Of the eight wounded, two had life-threatening injuries, the news agency Reuters reported.

There was no immediate comment from American officials. Earlier today, an American soldier was shot in the face by an unknown assailant in Kandahar, military officials said. The soldier, whose name was withheld, was said to be in stable condition.

--------

Pentagon realigns military structure

April 18, 2002
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020418-85229724.htm

To better manage homeland defense, the Pentagon is changing the way it assigns war-fighting responsibilities at home and around the world, defense officials announced yesterday.

"Today, our country faces an era of the unexpected," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in announcing a realignment of the military's command structure. "We must be ready to win today's global war on terror, but, at the same time, prepare for other surprises and uncertainties that we will most certainly face in the 21st century."

The change sets up a new command - called Northern Command, or NorthCom - that will begin operating on Oct. 1. It is expected to be headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, Mr. Rumsfeld said in a press conference with Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It will be responsible for defense of U.S. territory, including the waters off the East and West coasts. Under the existing command arrangement set up after World War II, responsibility for U.S. territory was shared by numerous commands.

Until the suicide hijackings of September 11, the military had never been organized to defend against threats emanating from inside the country.

Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers stressed that in all cases in which Northern Command's forces operate inside the United States they will be in support of federal, state or local civilian agencies and will not be in command. That is consistent with U.S. law prohibiting the military from taking a law enforcement role.

"Some in the past have worried that creation of a command that covered the United States of America could be inward-looking; nothing could be further from the truth," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The creation of NorthCom means that we now have the command assigned to defend the American people where they live and work and it will be functioning in a supporting role to civil authorities as occasions arise."

Mr. Rumsfeld said many aspects of how the new command structure will be implemented have yet to be decided, including whether Northern Command would be in charge of U.S.-based missile defense sites.

President Bush is expected to nominate Air Force Gen. Ralph Eberhart as the first commander of Northern Command.

The new approach is supposed to streamline a command structure that is complex and, in many respects, rooted in a Cold War-era approach to fighting standing armies, air forces and navies in predictable parts of the world.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, for example, is in charge of air defense of the United States and Canada. That will not change. The Northern Command commander will also head NORAD.

In the new plan, Northern Command will have overall responsibility within the military for homeland defense. On the civilian side, it will coordinate with the White House's Office of Homeland Defense.

"It will help us keep the edge we need to quickly adapt to the uncertainties that lie ahead," Gen. Myers said.

A commander in chief of a major command takes presidential orders from the secretary of defense through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 1986 law that created this system also required that the command structure be reviewed at least every two years. The last time changes were made was in 1999 under Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

Among other changes:

•The commander of European Command, Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, will become responsible for managing military-to-military relations with Russia, except for the Far East military districts. European Command will remain in charge of all U.S. forces in Europe, as well as parts of Africa and the Middle East.

•Pacific Command, based in Hawaii, will add Antarctica to its geographic area of responsibility, although that does not involve military operations. Pacific Command also will manage military-to-military relations with the Far East military districts of Russia.

--------

Congressman Says Military Misled Him

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Afghan-Trip.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military prevented a congressional delegation from visiting a city in Afghanistan earlier this month by issuing false warnings of a security threat, the leader of the delegation said Thursday.

The Pentagon denied it had misled the congressmen.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said somebody in the chain of command ``just made up the existence of supposed intelligence reports'' to keep his nine-member House group from going to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

``At some level this reflects an arrogant disregard for Congress and its oversight responsibilities,'' Rohrabacher said in a memorandum to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

``Congressional oversight should not simply be determined by the military,'' Rohrabacher wrote. ``That is asking for abuse and diminishes the rightful role of Congress.''

Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Hansen said Central Command and the office of the Secretary of Defense were working closely with congressional leaders to coordinate visits by lawmakers.

``The itinerary was influenced by Central Command evaluation of factors related to operational interference, the security of U.S. military personnel and certainly the security of the traveling party and the congressional delegation,'' Hansen said. ``Any suggestion to the contrary is false.''

Rohrabacher said the lawmakers talked to CIA and other intelligence sources in the area and were told that reports of a security risk in Mazar-e-Sharif were not accurate.

``People on the ground told us it was safe to go,'' said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. ``It raised the question of whether their intent was to look after our safety or whether there was some other issue involved.''

The group had planned to meet with powerful Afghan warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum in Mazar-e-Sharif. Instead they were diverted to Uzbekistan and the meeting never took place.

Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, said the speaker had been in contact with the Pentagon when the trip took place and ``leaned very hard on them to make sure they (the congressmen) were given as much access as possible.'' He said Hastert ``believed at the time that the Defense Department made the right decision'' in restricting their travel.

Another member of the delegation, Rep. Edward Schrock, R-Va., said he had spent 24 years in the Navy and was reluctant to second-guess the military's decision on a safety issue. He said the last thing he wanted to do was put at risk the military personnel who might be assigned to protect the lawmakers.

Rohrabacher said he had raised the issue Wednesday with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when the secretary was on Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers about the war on terrorism. ``I was satisfied that he took our concerns seriously,'' Rohrabacher said.

Rumsfeld's visit to Congress eased some criticisms, particularly from Democrats, that the Bush administration was not keeping Congress adequately informed about developments in the war on terrorism and the Mideast crisis.

``Partly as a result of our raising the issue, we are back to a little more routine contact,'' Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Wednesday. ``So I'm satisfied with the current -- and I emphasize current -- level of consultation, and hopefully it'll stay that way.''


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Workers told to consent to search

April 18, 2002
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020418-1333496.htm

Justice Department and FBI employees with access to secret or highly sensitive information have been told that, as a condition of employment, they must consent to warrantless searches of their offices at any time.

In the wake of the arrest of FBI Agent Robert P. Hanssen as a Russian spy, the employees were required to sign individual waivers granting the searches or face the cancellation of their security clearances.

The confidential waivers, sent earlier this year by Justice Department Security Chief Jerry Rubino, were approved by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

A top FBI official told a Senate panel last week that despite ongoing security upgrades since the Hanssen arrest he could not guarantee that other spies are not operating within the FBI.

Assistant Director Kenneth H. Senser, who heads the FBI's security division, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the bureau is "still at a substantial risk" of being compromised by FBI agents and other employees with access to key internal documents.

The waivers, first reported by ABC News, say the searches would be conducted only after the attorney general or the deputy attorney general had determined there was evidence that the employee:

•Is or may be disclosing classified information in an unauthorized manner.

•Has incurred excessive debt or has acquired a level of affluence that cannot reasonably be explained.

•Had the capability and opportunity to disclose classified information that is believed to have been lost or compromised to a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.

•Has repeatedly or significantly mishandled or improperly stored classified information.

The three-page waiver said Justice Department and FBI security authorities are looking to prevent the release of information that could compromise an ongoing espionage investigation, reveal state-of-the-art technology or identify employees of a foreign power who are providing intelligence data to U.S. officials.

Hanssen, the 27-year FBI agent who pleaded guilty to espionage charges and is now co-operating with federal prosecutors in assessing the damage he caused, went undetected while making extensive use of the bureau's computerized case management systems to deliver secret documents to his Russian handlers.

Arrested by FBI agents Feb. 18, 2001, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of selling U.S. intelligence secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia beginning in October 1985. The government also said Hanssen conspired with agents from the Soviet KGB and its successor intelligence agency, the SVR, to deliver "information relating to the national defense of the United States."

Three Russian counterintelligence agents working for the United States were arrested as a result of his information and two of them were executed.

According to the waiver, Justice Department and FBI security authorities can search an employee's workplace, including locked briefcases and "electronic storage media whether owned by the government, by the employee, or by a third party."

The searches can be announced or unannounced, and can occur during the workday or after hours.

The order applies to any workplace on Justice Department property.

The FBI recently ordered polygraph tests for more than 200 employees who handle sensitive information and has since expanded that number to more than 700.

A report by former FBI and CIA Director William H. Webster, delivered last week to the Senate, said senior executives paid little attention to significant deficiencies in the bureau's internal security system, internal security concerns were given a low priority, security training was virtually nonexistent and management problems led to internal security breakdowns.

--------

FBI supervisor in Oklahoma City probe to step down

April 18, 2002
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020418-17055958.htm

The FBI supervisor targeted for disciplinary action in the bureau's failure to turn over thousands of pages of documents in the investigation of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh plans to retire April 30.

"I will be retiring from the FBI after almost 32 years," Agent Danny Defenbaugh wrote in an e-mail Tuesday to colleagues. "I have been so fortunate to live a dream beyond my dreams. I plan on staying in the area and beginning my search for a new and challenging career."

Mr. Defenbaugh, who served as inspector in charge for the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and heads the FBI's Dallas field office, was not available yesterday for comment. He recently denied any wrongdoing in an interview with reporters in Dallas, but said it was apparent the FBI needed to change how it dealt with information.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the FBI, said that while Mr. Defenbaugh's retirement marked the end of "many years of dedicated service to this country and the FBI," his error in judgment in the handling of the McVeigh documents called for consequences.

"Mr. Defenbaugh's retirement highlights my longtime concern about the slow-moving investigatory and disciplinary process for senior FBI officials," Mr. Grassley said. "Too often, senior FBI agents manage to get out the exit door before the curtain falls.

"Much remains to be done to ensure that senior FBI officials are held accountable to the same standards as the rank-and-file agents." he said.

The discovery by Mr. Defenbaugh that records had not been turned over in the McVeigh case came in January 2001 but was not reported to top Justice Department officials until the week before McVeigh's scheduled May 2001 executio.

The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General recommended in a March 19 report that Mr. Defenbaugh and three other agents be disciplined for the FBI's failure to turn over the McVeigh documents.

The Inspector General's Office, in a report, praised Mr. Defenbaugh's "illustrious" career and his leadership in Oklahoma, but recommended that he be disciplined for delaying too long in notifying his superiors that the records had not been handed over.

Sources close to the case said yesterday that FBI officials in Washington had requested additional information on the report and that some type of sanctions were pending.

Last May, shortly before the first media reports that the McVeigh documents were missing, Mr. Defenbaugh told a Dallas television station that despite various investigations into FBI mistakes and blunders, none had targeted the Oklahoma City bombing probe.

"There hasn't been one of the Oklahoma City bombing case - and the reason why is because that was done correctly and properly. Every time you hear criticism of the FBI, you never hear about the Oklahoma City bombing case," he said.

The next day, he told his bosses at FBI headquarters that the McVeigh documents had not been turned over.

Mr. Defenbaugh had been awarded the Justice Department's highest honor for his work on the Oklahoma City bombing.

• Hugh Aynsworth in Dallas contributed to this report.

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INS: Keep Detainee Info Secret

April 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Detainees.html

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- The Immigration and Naturalization Service has ordered state and local governments not to release the names of people detained since Sept. 11, a move that drew sharp criticism from civil liberties officials.

INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar said releasing the names could endanger national security and the detainees. The INS said federal law supersedes any state or local claims to the information.

Ziglar's order puts in writing arguments the INS and Justice Department have used for months in arguing that the names should not be made public. According to the most recent INS count, there were 327 detainees in custody in mid-February, most of them in jails in northern New Jersey.

The order came five days before a deadline set by a New Jersey judge for the Justice Department and authorities in Hudson and Passaic counties to release the names of detainees being held in their jails.

``This is the government codifying its right to secretly arrest and detain people,'' said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the Newark chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Attorney General John Ashcroft ``is showing his total disregard for the state court ruling,'' Jacobs said. ``This guy is totally out of control. It's something more likely to happen in Afghanistan or some other lawless country.''

The ACLU says it wants the names so it can offer the detainees legal representation and assess how well they are being treated while in custody.

Justice Department spokesman Dan Nelson did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Thursday.

Earlier this week, civil rights attorneys sued Attorney General John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials, alleging widespread abuse of hundreds of Middle Eastern men detained on immigration violations after Sept. 11.

-------- terrorism

Somalia 'success' blunts al Qaeda campaign

April 18, 2002
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020418-18137231.htm

Pentagon officials believe Somalia is an early success in the 6-month-old war on terrorism, as diplomatic pressure and intensive surveillance have prevented al Qaeda from re-establishing operations on the Horn of Africa.

The United States is so pleased with developments that it has reduced the amount of aerial spying over Somalia and scaled back the amount of military training devoted to a potential conflict there, a senior administration official said this week.

"We took a good look and decided it was overrated," the official said.

Somalia is one example of what officials believe are significant early achievements in the anti-terror war.

A U.S.-led military campaign has removed Afghanistan as a base for Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to plan and mount attacks on America. Bin Laden is believed to be neutralized, either dead or wounded and on the run somewhere in eastern Afghanistan or Pakistan.

In the Philippines, American-backed army troops are tightening the noose relentlessly on an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, Abu Sayyaf, on the country's southern Basilan island. Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activity second only to Afghanistan, has agreed to host Army Green Berets. The soldiers will show local authorities how to continue to attack al Qaeda terrorists roaming the country's ungoverned northern border.

"I think they've accomplished a great amount; there is still a lot to do," said Ivan Eland, a military analyst at the Cato Institute. "They took out the regime that was providing a sanctuary for al Qaeda. And they also knocked out a lot of the terror infrastructure in that country."

Mr. Eland also credits the military and CIA with killing bin Laden's top operations chief, Mohammed Atef, and the capture last month of Abu Zubaydah, a top al Qaeda official, who may know where scores of terror cells exist around the world and what they are planning.

The analyst said his main criticism is that President Bush is putting troops in too many countries and thus detracting from the main goal of smashing al Qaeda and eliminating bin Laden and his top aide, Ayman al Zawahiri.

"This idea that everybody is a terrorist is a big problem for me," Mr. Eland said. "Most of the groups on our terrorist list don't attack the U.S. We are fighting everyone's battle for them."

In the Philippines, Adm. Dennis Blair, who as head of U.S. Pacific Command is running the operation to train local troops, said great progress has been made.

"I drove to an area where Basilan citizens are returning to homes they had left months before because of the terrorism practiced by the Abu Sayyaf group, and I saw new homes being built," Adm. Blair told reporters Tuesday.

"I saw a new mosque that was built by the citizens of Basilan, and the Philippine armed forces," he said. "I talked to Philippine soldiers and U.S. soldiers who were working together in order to restore security for the people of Basilan. So I have been very, very encouraged by the progress that has been made in six months."

Somalia had been a major trouble spot as the war in Afghanistan began Oct. 7. Al Qaeda operators had run camps there, and Pentagon officials privately talked of the country as the next war theater. Bin Laden once put his operation headquarters in the Sudan and sent his terrorists south into Somalia to train recruits. The country appeared to be fertile ground for an al Qaeda relocation.

The Army readied Special Forces teams to enter the country and help local authorities root out al Qaeda cells. U.S. Central Command in Florida stepped up surveillance flights of Navy P-3 Orions, and coalition warships inspected vessels heading across the Arabian Sea from Pakistan.

But an administration official said that, as of this week, intelligence reports on al Qaeda in Somalia are at best "sketchy" and "conflicting."

"On the whole, whoever is there is probably not al Qaeda and not worth the effort," the official said.

The administration is not eager to return American GIs to Somalia, an improverished nation where warlords have fiercely controlled swaths of territory. A 1993 U.S. mission to feed thousands of starving Somalis went awry when warlord fighters turned on American troops and prompted President Clinton to end the operation.

Yusuf Hassan Ibrahim, Somalia's foreign minister in a transition government trying to unify warring factions, said in an interview he sees no reason for terrorist-hunting troops to enter Somalia again. He said American representatives have toured the country and found no active terror camps.

"We cooperated with the international community to find out whether there are camps for al Qaeda or not," Mr. Ibrahim said. "It is a positive assessment. There are no camps in Somalia."

Mr. Ibrahim, the transition government's foreign minister, said he also dispatched aides to inspect the country and collect information from nomadic tribesmen. No trace of camps turned up, he said.

"Even the term 'al Qaeda' is the first time the politicians have heard about it," he added. "There's no justification for United States forces to attack. There is no threat of camps existing in the country."

Asked whether bin Laden would be welcomed in Somalia, Mr. Ibrahim said, "Absolutely not."

U.S. officials are concerned about the Somali Islamic Union, or al-Ittihaad al-Islamiya. This group contains Islamic extremists who want to impose a Muslim government on the country.

A defense official says Somalia's lack of a central government or adequate security forces makes it "a potential haven for some al Qaeda terrorist members."


-------- ENERGY AND OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Offshore Wind Farm Approved for Windiest Country in Europe

April 18, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-18-02.html

LONDON, United Kingdom, The single largest offshore wind farm in the United Kingdom won approval Wednesday from Energy Minister Brian Wilson.

Thirty-eight wind turbines will be installed by Powergen Renewables Offshore Wind Ltd. at Middle Scroby Sands some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) off the coast of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.

The wind farm will generate 76 megawatts of power, providing enough green electricity for 52,000 homes, "a significant step forward for the wind industry," Wilson said.

The Scroby Sands offshore wind farm will consist of up to 38 two megawatt Vestas V80 turbines.

Powergen has been studying the site since 1995 and says, "It has a relatively benign wave and tide climate, is close to good port facilities and a strong electrical grid network. Just as important, the wind farm proposal has the enthusiastic support of the local authority. Great Yarmouth Borough Council and Norfolk County Council have both expressed full support for the scheme, for which we are very grateful."

Work on the development is scheduled to begin next winter for completion by November of 2003.

The Powergen project is the first offshore windfarm development to be approved from the 18 potential sites identified by developers who successfully pre-qualified last year for Crown Estate seabed leases.

Studies have been undertaken in relation to birds, seals and the deep ocean organisms. Powergen says the order of the construction program has been designed to minimize any disturbance to seals in the region during pupping and moulting.

The wind farm is unlikely to disturb local little terns as it sited far enough away from the breeding and feeding areas. The turbine foundations are expected to act as artificial reefs and provide added habitats for deep ocean and fish populations.

Three studies were carried out relating to the Scroby Sands to establish the wave climate, coastal stability and potential for sand movement. Powergen says the maximum impact of the wind farm structures on the sand bank would be "negligible in terms of the existing and natural processes," the studies show.

Powergen was instrumental in the construction of the UK's first offshore wind farm one kilometer from Blyth, Northumberland which was completed in November 2001. The project is a joint venture between Powergen Renewables, Shell, Nuon and AMEC Border Wind, and comprises two Vestas V66 two megawatt turbines.

The UK is now poised to exploit the potential of offshore wind, Wilson predicted Wednesday at a major conference organized by the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA).

"Offshore wind in the UK can make a major contribution to climate change objectives, to secure electricity supplies, and to our economic well being through job creation and exports. I am very pleased that this potential is beginning to be realized," he said.

Powergen says the Scroby Sands wind farm could directly prevent the release into the atmosphere of 97,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas linked to climate change, as well as about 860 tons of sulfur dioxide and about 290 tons of nitrogen oxides, both components of acid rain.

In his keynote speech Wednesday to the BWEA Offshore Wind 2002 conference at the Paragon Hotel,