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NUCLEAR
Ukrainian lawmakers praise U.S. nuclear safety project
Hole in Ohio reactor vessel
Events Raise Nuclear Safety Questions
International Day of Action Against Depleted Uranium
German Grafenrheinfeld n-plant ready to return
FDA OKs New Device for Breast Cancer
South Korea KEPCO unit to build 8 new nuclear power plants
Nuclear Team in North Korea, but South Talks Off
Missile defense micromanagers
Putin, Bush Discuss Summit
Bush, Putin Note Progress on Arms Cuts Deal
Bush, Russia Chief Talk Nuclear Cuts
U.S. Diplomat Sees Nuclear Arms Deal at Russia Summit
European Human Rights Court rules in favor of Chernobyl worker's compensation
Sick Nuclear Workers Seek Aid
S. Carolina Airing Anti-Plutonium Ads
Congress Considering Solutions to Plutonium Controversy
Compensation program topic of demonstration
Waste Characterization Could Speed Hanford Cleanup
White House to Ask For Nuke Research
Ridge Hints at More Authority for His Office
Lobbying effort likely work of civilian
House panel beefs up spending bill
MILITARY
Where Al Qaeda's the Quarry, G.I.'s Are Elusive
Afghan Grave Site Yields Bodies Believed Linked to Bin Laden
Renegade Afghan Warlord Given Seven - Day Ultimatum
Israeli arms dealers
The US quietly wades into South Asia's rebel conflicts
U.S. Cites Cuban Bioweapons Effort
Havana pursues biological warfare
Anthrax Sent Through Mail Gained Potency by the Letter
How to Recognize Ebola Attack
Northrop Moves Closer To TRW Deal
UN condemns Colombia massacre as war crime
Official: Iran Developing Missile
Security Council OKs Iraq Sanctions
Sharon Proposes Bypassing Arafat in Future Talks
Explosion Occurred as Bush Met With Sharon in Washington
Bush Sends CIA Chief to Build Palestinian Security
Pakistan, U.S. to Discuss Border
Investigators at Odds Over Extent of F.B.I. Spy's Cooperation
Russian prosecutor extends detention
U.S. withdraws from treaty on International Criminal Court
U.S. Rejects All Support for New Court on Atrocities
$11 Billion Artillery System Is Dead, Officials Say
POLICE / PRISONERS
New Details Emerge From the Einstein Files
Saudi millions finance terror against Israel
F.B.I. Seeking Minnesota Man in Connection With Pipe Bombs
Tech Study Areas Concern White House
Pentagon Accounts for Terror Costs
ENERGY AND OTHER
Vermont Utility Customers Can Fund Renewable Projects
Enron Forced Up California Energy Prices, Documents Show
Biologists Sought a Treaty; Now They Fault It
Mouse Genome Is New Battleground for Project Rivals
Honeybee Shows a Little Gene Activity Goes Miles and Miles
Religion liberty panel hits home
ACTIVISTS
Freed Burmese Democracy Leader Proclaims 'New Dawn'
A Life of Albert Einstein
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Ukrainian lawmakers praise U.S. nuclear safety project
Tue May 7, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020507/ap_wo_en_ge/ukraine_us_nuclear_2
KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's parliament singled out a U.S. company Tuesday for developing what lawmakers called Ukraine's best investment project for improving nuclear security, a news agency said.
The fuel and energy committee of the Verkhovna Rada praised GSE Systems of Columbia, Maryland for its work at the Khmelnytskyi atomic plant assisting operators to detect minor malfunctions and prevent them from turning into serious accidents, the Interfax news agency said.
The company has teamed up with Russian and Ukrainian subcontractors under projects sponsored by the U.S. Energy Department to improve safety at all of Ukraine's nuclear power stations.
The report did not specify the amount of GSE's investment in Ukraine.
Ukraine was the site of world's worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986, when a reactor at the Chernobyl power plant exploded and caught fire, spewing radiation over much of Europe. Chernobyl was closed down for good in 2000.
Reactors at Ukraine's four nuclear power stations are frequently shut down for both planned and unscheduled repairs.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities shut down reactor No. 3 at the Yuzhna nuclear station for two days of scheduled repairs. Ten of the country's 13 reactors are currently operating.
----
Hole in Ohio reactor vessel, cracks in South Carolina plant raise big nuclear safety questions
Tue May 7, 2002
By H. JOSEF HEBERT,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020507/ap_wo_en_ge/us_reactor_worries_1
WASHINGTON - A nuclear reactor in Ohio is found to have a large hole nobody thought possible, burned almost through its 6-inch (15-centimeter) protective steel cover. Cracks of a type never seen before are discovered at a reactor in South Carolina, triggering widespread inspections.
Both events caught industry leaders and government regulators by surprise, and they are fueling new questions about aging nuclear power plants and plant inspection programs.
The cracks found early last year at the Oconee Unit 3 reactor plant in South Carolina and the hole discovered in March in the steel reactor lid at the Davis Besse plant in Ohio were in areas thought largely impervious to such problems.
"It was material degradation that wasn't expected," acknowledges Alex Marion of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group.
The 25-year-old Davis Besse reactor on the shore of Lake Erie is one of four nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Corp. It has been shut down since February, when a refueling and crack inspection program began and the hole in the reactor dome was discovered. The dome remains to be patched.
An inspection of most of the 68 other plants with similar designs and conditions reported no corrosion. But the regulators ordered special inspections at 14 reactors thought to be vulnerable to nozzle cracking because of their age.
Some senior officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are viewing the Davis Besse and Oconee discoveries as the most significant safety issue facing the nuclear industry since the Three Mile Island accident 23 years ago.
The steel reactor vessel, which encloses the reactor's core, has always been viewed as "a sacred component" that will not be breached, said Brian Sheron, the commission's assistant director for licensing and technology assessment. "This really challenges that assumption."
The problems at both reactors were discovered before they posed an immediate safety risk. A break through the reactor cover would have caused thousands of gallons (liters) of radioactive water to spew into the containment building, raising the risks of the core overheating and a potential meltdown and possible release of radiation into the environment.
Only a thin noncorrosive stainless steel membrane kept the hole at the Ohio reactor from bursting open. The cracks at the Oconee plant, owned by Duke Power, were less urgent. But had the crack expanded it could have caused the nozzle to separate, also causing a loss of cooling water inside the reactor, nuclear experts said.
Duke Power spokesman Tom Shiel said the cracks found in series of outages at the three Oconee reactors in late 2000 and early 2001 have been repaired. All three reactors will get new reactor vessel lids next year, he said.
Industry spokesmen said backup safety systems would have averted more serious problems, by pumping more water into the reactor than was being allowed to escape, keeping the nuclear fuel safe until the reactor could be shut down.
But that's true if everything worked perfectly, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and industry watchdog for the Union of Concerned Scientists. And that may not be the case if emergency pumping systems became clogged with debris, if other equipment is damaged or a gauge is misread by plant operators struggling to make sure the reactor core remains covered with water, he said.
At the very least, argue nuclear industry critics, the Davis Besse and Oconee incidents reveal shortcomings in how utilities inspect older power plants and how the NRC monitors them.
"The industry is trying to ensure safety while turning a profit, so they have competing interests that ... at times diverge," says Lochbaum.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org. Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org
----
Events Raise Nuclear Safety Questions
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Reactor-Worries.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Severe cracks found at one nuclear power reactor and the stunning discovery of a hole that nearly breached the six-inch steel dome of another facility are raising new questions about aging nuclear plants and whether they are being inspected closely enough.
The hole that went through most of the heavy reactor cover of the Davis Besse power plant in Ohio and the severity of cracks found about a year earlier at a reactor in South Carolina surprised federal safety regulators and the industry.
Both incidents have had plant operators scurrying to look for cracking in reactor control rod nozzles and, more recently, for corrosive boric acid on reactor domes. It was a government-ordered inspection prompted by cracks found in South Carolina in early 2001 that led to the discovery of the David Besse hole this past March.
A primary reason for the corrosion was the longtime escape through nozzle cracks of borated water from inside the Davis Besse reactor vessel, investigators have concluded.
So far, no one else is reporting the kind of corrosion found at the Ohio plant. While 14 reactors on a close-watch list have reported at least 62 nozzle cracks, most of them have been fixed and the rest are on a schedule for repair, industry and government officials said.
A spokesman for Duke Power says the 23 cracks found at its three Oconee reactors at Greenville, S.C., have been fixed.
Still, the discoveries have prompted new questions about aging nuclear power plants.
``It was material degradation that wasn't expected,'' acknowledges Alex Marion of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group. Still, he added, the problems should not affect relicensing since the problems are identified and being dealt with.
Some industry critics disagree.
``The concern here is that with this inherently dangerous technology, when it ages it becomes more and more unpredictable in terms of how rapidly things can break, leak and crack,'' argues Paul Gunter, an anti-nuclear activist and industry watchdog.
Most reactors have a 40-year license and a growing number of utilities are planning extensions.
FirstEnergy Corp.'s 25-year-old Davis Besse reactor on the shore of Lake Erie has been shut down since February, waiting for the hole in the reactor dome to be patched.
Like the reactor nozzle cracks found at the 28-year-old Duke Power-owned Oconee reactor, the hole at Davis Besse was discovered before anything serious could go wrong, nuclear experts said.
Still, federal safety regulators view the findings especially at Davis Besse so troubling that some senior officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission privately have characterized the cracking and corrosion as the most significant safety issue facing the nuclear industry since the Three Mile Island accident 23 years ago.
The steel reactor vessel, which encloses the reactor's core, has always been viewed as ``a sacred component'' that will not be breached, said Brian Sheron, the commission's assistant director for licensing and technology assessment. ``This really challenges that assumption.''
Only a thin noncorrosive stainless steel membrane kept the hole at the Ohio reactor from bursting open. And nuclear experts say if the cracks at the Oconee plant had been allowed to continue, the nozzle might have separated.
In both cases, thousands of gallons of radioactive water would have escaped from the reactor, raising the risk of the core's radioactive fuel overheating and -- in a worst-case scenario -- possibly a meltdown and a release of radiation from the larger concrete containment building.
Industry spokesmen said they are convinced backup safety systems would have averted more serious problems by pumping more water into the reactor than was being allowed to escape to keep the nuclear fuel safe until the reactor could be shut down.
But that's true if everything worked as planned, counters David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and industry watchdog for the Union of Concerned Scientists. If the emergency pumping systems becomes clogged with debris, if other equipment is damaged or a gauge misread as workers struggle to keep the fuel covered with water, a more serious accident might be unavoidable, he said.
The Davis Besse corrosion was caused by a buildup of boric acid from reactor cooling water that had been leaking from nozzle cracks since the mid-1990s. The first signs of corrosion appeared four years ago when rust began clogging filters, investigators said.
Despite a 1988 NRC directive to keep reactor lids free of boron, the layers of the powdery deposits hardened so much atop the dome -- where access is difficult because of space and radiation exposure -- that workers couldn't pry it loose.
``If this occurred in Russia we would be saying it could never happen here,'' former NRC Commissioner Victor Gilinsky wrote in a recent commentary on the Davis Besse discovery, calling it ``a narrow escape'' from a potential catastrophic accident.
But the company's engineers did not link the rust to safety-related corrosion and were assured that the boron powder was harmless since they believed heat from the reactor would evaporate any moisture.
But it is now believed the water leaking from the nozzle cracks, rather than evaporating, settled beneath the hardened layers of boron, providing enough moisture to turn the powder back into corrosive boric acid.
This produced ``a whole new phenomenon,'' says John Grobe, head of an NRC task force investigating the incident. ``This kind of corrosion has never been seen before on a reactor pressure vessel head.''
-------- depleted uranium
29th MAY - TARGET DEPLETED URANIUM
International Day of Action Against Depleted Uranium
Date: Tue, 7 May 2002
Reply-To: gmdcnd@gn.apc.org
Wherever Depleted Uranium is used in the world, military and civilian populations are left a legacy of raised cancer rates, birth deformities and long-term environmental contamination. Now is the time to take action to demand an immediate end to this "weapon of indiscriminate effect".
On the 29th May 2002 there is a call for an International Day of Action Against Depleted Uranium. Groups all over the world will be showing those who produce, promote and use depleted uranium that its risks are an unacceptable threat to life and a violation of international law. Whether as a group or an individual the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium is asking you to take action.
What is Depleted Uranium?
Depleted Uranium (DU) is a chemically toxic and radioactive metal that is used by armed forces in many countries for its dense properties that allow it to pierce armour and tanks. Used by UK and US forces the Gulf War and the US and NATO in the Balkans, it has been blamed for Gulf War Illness and the massive rise in birth deformities and childhood cancers in Iraq. The same patterns are now starting to be repeated in the Balkan region. As a recent UNEP report found, raised levels of DU are present long after fighting has stopped and can contaminate water and food supplies for returning civilian populations for many decades to come. And it is not just those in war zones who have something to fear. All those around DU production, mining, transportation and test firing ranges are also at danger from exposure to DU dust, and that includes a lot of people in the UK.
What Can You Do?
On May 29th why don't you visit or ring one of the organisations below to express your disapproval at their involvement in the use of DU? Many people may not know the dangers of DU and leafleting employees, visitors and those nearby can really raise awareness. CADU has prepared leaflets that we can send to you for this purpose. Please let CADU know if you are preparing an action or if you want to become involved with an existing one. Of course campaigning against DU is important at all times. Speak to your MP/MEP about their stance on DU, and if they support the EU moratorium on the use of DU, or hold a public meeting or stall.
UK Organisations Involved In The Production And Use Of DU
BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels Ltd) are involved in the production of depleted uranium and hold patents relating to DU products. Last year it was revealed that they were planning to dump 30 000 bags of DU, generated from the Springfield's BNFL site, at a rubbish dump at Freckleton, near Preston in Lancashire. Head office: BNFL plc, Group Office, H280 Hinton House, Risley, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 6AS Tel: 01925 833574 Fax: 01925 833545
Springfields BNFL: Springfields, Salwick, Preston PR4 0XJ Tel: 01772 763914 Fax: 01772 762470
Lancashire Waste Services is the waste company who have been allowing DU to be dumped at Freckleton with complete disregard for the well being of those who live nearby. LancashireWaste Services Ltd, Tustin Court, Portway, Preston, PR2 2YQ Tel: 01772 325500
Urenco is a company involved in uranium enrichment, which produces DU as a side product. They currently are thought to store 38,000 metric tonnes of DU. Head office: Urenco Limited, 18 Oxford Road, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, SL7 2NL Tel: 01628 486 941 Fax: 01628 475 867 Uranium enrichment site: Urenco (Capenhurst) Ltd, Capenhurst, Cheshire, CH1 6ER Tel: 0151 473 4000 Fax: 0151 473 4040
Rio Tinto is a British company that is involved in Uranium mining in Australia. This has been strongly opposed because it has destroyed the ancestral lands of Aboriginal people, affected the health of people living and working around the mines and is taking place within Kakadu National Park, which is a World Heritage Site. Head Office: Rio Tinto plc, 6 St James's Square, London, SW1Y 4LD Tel: 020 7930 2399
BAe Systems, formerly known as British Aerospace Ltd, is the world's largest arms manufacturer and is involving in producing DU components for tank ammunition and the AV-8B Harrier II which was used to fire DU ammunition in the Gulf region. It has a DU production and handling site at Featherstone, near Wolverhampton, which was the scene of a serious fire involving DU in 1999, which led to widespread fears of local contamination. Head Office: 6 Carlton Gardens, London SW1Y 5AD Tel: 01252 373232 Fax: 01252 383991. The Royal Ordnance Speciality Metals factory: PO Box 27, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV10 7NX, United Kingdom Tel: 01902 783939 Fax: 01902 783352
Rolls Royce, the engineering company, is the second biggest contributor to the UK Arms trade. They have been involved in the production of engines for the AV-8B Harrier jets which were used during Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War to fire DU munitions. Six million pounds of ordnance was dropped on the Persian Gulf. Head Office: Rolls Royce PLC, 65 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AT. Tel: 020 7222 9020 Fax: 01332 622 935. And showrooms around the country!
DU Firing Ranges Four firing ranges have been used to test DU munitions in the UK, with local people not told what is being tested there and munitions often left where they have fallen to corrode and pollute the environment. Eskmeals, Millom, Cumbria, LA19 5YR. Tel: 08700 100 942 Fax: 01252 393399 Kirkcudbright. Dundrennan army range, south west Scotland. West Freugh (Luce Bay), Stranraer, Dumfries & Galloway. Foulness Island, off the coast of Essex.
Army Recruitment Offices The MoD has a shameful record of exposing of exposing its soldiers to DU, and then refusing to care those harmed afterwards. Veterans suffering from Gulf War illness are still fighting for compensation as they battle with this debilitating illness. CADU has often visited Armed Forces Careers Offices to speak to those working there and possible new recruits and finds this a very successful action. There are Armed Forces Careers Offices all over the country. To find your local one visit: www.royal-navy.mod.uk and look under careers or contact CADU.
Most of these companies have many more branches and factories nationwide than can be listed here. If you are particularly interested in finding one in your area please do contact CADU for details.
If you would like receive some free leaflets for your action or just to find out more about Depleted Uranium please contact us or visit our website: Campaign Against Depleted Uranium Bridge 5 Mill 22a Beswick St Ancoats Manchester M4 7HS
Tel/Fax: 0161 273 8293 Email: info@cadu.org.uk http//:www.cadu.org.uk
-------- germany
German Grafenrheinfeld n-plant ready to return - government
REUTERS GERMANY:
May 7, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15833/story.htm
FRANKFURT - The 1,345 megawatt (MW) Grafenrehinfeld nuclear power plant is ready to rejoin the grid, the environment ministry in the southern state of Bavaria said yesterday, but declined to give a precise date.
"All necessary works and safety checks have been completed," the ministry said in a statement. "The ministry has therefore agreed to give permission for its restart."
But a ministry spokeswoman said the scheduling of the restart was up to the plant's operators.
Operator E.ON was not available for immediate comment on the status of recommissioning.
Annual maintenance works at the plant had been brought forward by a week after the unit was switched on April 2 because of a defect in the conventional part of the reactor.
Prior to the defect, maintenance had been tentatively scheduled to start on April 14 and end on April 30.
-------- health
FDA OKs New Device for Breast Cancer
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-Breast-Radiation.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More women who have a cancerous lump removed from a breast may soon have a new option for follow-up treatment: a way to radiate just the tumor site instead of the whole breast.
Targeted internal radiation, called brachytherapy, has long been available to men suffering prostate cancer, and some doctors had mastered ways to deliver radiation ``seeds'' deep into a breast as well.
But Proxima Therapeutics Inc.'s MammoSite is designed specifically for breast brachytherapy, and the Food and Drug Administration's approval Monday potentially opens the method to more widespread use in breast cancer patients.
Brachytherapy proponents welcomed the move, noting that MammoSite-style radiation treatment takes just five days instead of the seven weeks that external radiation can require. That lengthy follow-up treatment is considered one reason many women whose breast tumors are small enough and early enough to be removed via lumpectomy instead choose a more disfiguring mastectomy.
With MammoSite, ``what you have is an easier way of performing brachytherapy'' that may entice more doctors to offer it, said Dr. Frank Vicini of William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., who studied the device.
MammoSite consists of a spaghetti-like catheter with an inflatable balloon that is implanted at the tumor site when the tumor is removed. Later, a radioactive seed is inserted through the catheter, and a targeted dose of radiation is emitted through the balloon. Once the patient gets enough, the catheter is removed.
``You're restricting the radiation therapy only to the tissues most likely to harbor residual cancer cells,'' Vicini explained.
He has published a study suggesting that five years after treatment, women getting brachytherapy do as well as women who got external radiation.
But some doctors worry about brachytherapy because unlike external radiation, it doesn't hit cancer cells that may lurk in other parts of the breast.
That concern made the FDA throw in a hitch. Because Proxima submitted no data proving MammoSite therapy is as effective long-term as regular radiation, the FDA ordered Proxima to state that MammoSite isn't a replacement for the whole-breast radiation that today's cancer guidelines call for following a lumpectomy.
Although doctors can use an FDA-approved medical device any way they see fit, that would seem to leave potential users in something of a quandary.
``What's not apparent at the FDA is the number of women who do not get radiation therapy today'' in direct violation of guidelines that call post-lumpectomy radiation lifesaving, said Proxima CEO Tim Patrick.
Patrick cited a National Cancer Institute study that found 25 percent of lumpectomy patients didn't receive radiation, and noted that the chances of forgoing radiation therapy increased the farther a woman lived from a clinic that offered it.
Clearly those women are a niche for MammoSite, he said. As for wider use, ``the physicians will decide.''
The American Cancer Society estimates about 203,500 U.S. women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Oncologists say 70 percent will be potential candidates for lumpectomies.
-------- korea
South Korea KEPCO unit to build 8 new nuclear power plants
REUTERS SOUTH KOREA:
May 7, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15834/story.htm
SEOUL - The nuclear unit of state-run power monopoly Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) said yesterday it planned to build eight new nuclear power plants by 2014 on growing power demand.
The Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co plans to build the additional nuclear power plants with combined capacity of 9,600 megwatts (MW) by 2014 in line with South Korea's long-term plan to increase power generation capacity, the unit's spokesman, Shin Bo-kyun, told Reuters.
Four nuclear power plants with 1,000-MW capacity will be built between 2008 and 2010 one by one and the remaining four with 1,400-MW capacity between 2011 and 2014, Shin said.
The company has recently chosen the southeastern province of Kyongsan as a site for two of the plants, he said.
"We still need to conduct a further study on suitability of the site in terms of environment and so on. And we are also looking for suitable places for the other plants," Shin said.
The company expects the construction of the eight nuclear power plants to cost about 24 trillion won ($18.69 billion) in total, Shin said.
The company has 16 nuclear power plants which generated 112,133 gigawatts hours of electricity last year, covering about 40 percent of the country's total power demand, Shin said.
With four other nuclear power plants under construction included, the planned new power plants will almost double the company's total nuclear power generation capacity.
Of the four plants under construction, two in Youngkwang, Southern Cholla Province with 1,000 megawatts of capacity each will be completed this year and the other two with the same capacity in Uljin in 2004 and 2005, respectively, Shin said.
Analysts have forecast electricity demand would grow about nine percent this year versus a 7.6 percent rise last year.
KEPCO shares ended down 2.87 percent at 23,700 won yesterday versus a 3.48 percent loss in the benchmark index .
----
Nuclear Team in North Korea, but South Talks Off
May 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said a team from an international consortium at the heart of a crucial nuclear agreement had arrived on Tuesday for talks on how to push forward a deal to build atomic power reactors for Pyongyang.
Under a 1994 agreement, North Korea pledged to freeze a suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two safer light-water reactors built by the West.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the New York-based consortium set up to build the reactors, cannot deliver critical equipment until U.N. inspections verify the North has no stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. This point has proved a stumbling block in talks.
``A KEDO delegation arrived today by air to participate in the negotiations of experts for the implementation of the agreement of light-water reactors signed between the DPRK and KEDO,'' the North's official KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence report.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
It was not immediately clear what the agenda for the talks was, notably whether inspections would be discussed. A spokesman at the South Korean Unification Ministry said he was not aware of the visit. KEDO compromises the United States, South Korea, Japan, the European Union and other states.
The KEDO delegation's arrival came on the day the North was supposed to have started talks in Seoul on economic cooperation.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung urged North Korea on Tuesday to live up to the deal it struck with Seoul's special envoy last month and hold the talks as soon as possible.
North Korea said on Monday it was pulling out of the talks, after blaming South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong for making ``reckless remarks'' on a recent U.S. trip.
The envoy, Lim Dong-won, held five hours of talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il last month. They agreed to restart North-South contacts that had been stalled for months.
German politician Hartmut Koschyk told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday he and six other parliamentarians from the Bundestag lower house had not picked up signals North Korea was about to pull the plug on the talks during a visit to Pyongyang last week.
ASTONISHMENT
``I want to express our astonishment that the North Korean side canceled the economic talks planned for today,'' he said. ''We consider the cancellation to be a pretext.''
Political analysts said the North Korean decision to pull out of the North-South talks could carry a silver lining if it meant the North wanted to focus on talks with the United States. That assessment applies equally to KEDO talks, which have tended to go more smoothly than dialogue with Washington.
The pace of North Korea diplomacy has picked up in recent weeks. An EU team is expected to follow up later this month or in June on a ministerial visit last year, Koschyk told Reuters.
Sepp Blatter, the head of world soccer's governing body FIFA, was also visiting the North this week. KCNA said he met North Korea's number two leader Kim Young-nam.
South Korea is co-hosting the World Cup soccer finals with Japan from May 31 to June 30. North Korea did not even enter the qualifying tournament but Seoul has been keen to have at least a delegation from the North watch some of the matches.
Blatter's visit is complicated by sharp differences between him and the head of the South Korean Football Association, Chung Mong-joon, over how FIFA is governed.
On Wednesday, Chung, a FIFA vice-president, may announce his own trip to the North, soccer officials said.
Political analysts say that trip could be undertaken with Park Geun-hye, daughter of former military ruler Park Chung-hee. North Korea's KCNA news agency confirmed on Tuesday she would visit Pyongyang on Saturday.
Chung and Park are thought to be considering a joint third-party bid for December's presidential election. President Kim is in his last year of his single-term presidency.
The North's announcement pulling out of the talks was a blow to his efforts to revive his ``Sunshine Policy'' of engaging North Korea.
It also came just days after families divided since the 1950-53 Korean War met in a tentative start to renewed links and the United Nations raised the spectre of more malnutrition when it said it would have to cut back food supplies unless rich countries donated more cash for aid.
North Korea may also wish to avoid discussing a dam on its territory which the South says is in danger of collapsing and inundating southern regions.
KCNA reported on Tuesday the North's environment ministry had said the dam was built to be ``a monumental edifice of eternal value'' and was perfectly safe.
-------- missile defense
Missile defense micromanagers
Washington Times editorial
by Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
May 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/gaffney.htm
On June 14, the United States will complete its withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, clearing the way for the expeditious development and deployment of effective U.S. missile defense systems.
Unless, that is, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and a few other congressional Democrats have their way.
The problem arises from the fact that Mr. Levin is no longer simply one of the most liberal defense critics in his caucus. Today, he happens also to be the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Each spring, that committee and its House counterpart go through what is called the "mark-up" of legislation that authorizes appropriations for the Pentagon during the next fiscal year. Even during peacetime, the defense authorization bills that emerge from the Congress (usually late in the year) largely reflect the president's request and priorities. This is even more true during wartime periods, such as that in which we have found ourselves since September 11.
And so it was last year, when Mr. Levin initially sought to cut more than $1 billion from the budget George W. Bush had proposed to ready for deployment of a limited national missile defense. The senator seemed determined to do so, even after the attacks of September 11 validated the central point of Mr. Bush's argument for such a defense: There are people in the world determined to kill a great many Americans. Some of them are getting their hands on weapons (whether designed for the purpose or otherwise) capable of destroying thousands of us at a time - including the most efficient means of doing that, ballistic missiles equipped with weapons of mass destruction. It is, therefore, a matter of time before we are at the receiving end of such a deadly attack.
As an ideologically committed opponent of missile defense, Carl Levin remained unpersuaded by this logic. The senator nonetheless appreciated that he would have been soundly defeated had he brought to the Senate floor a bill mandating such deep cuts and chose to fight another day over funding for missile defense.
In the same way, and for the same pragmatic political reasons, a still-more-insidious Levin initiative died aborning after September 11: The Armed Services Committee's chairman decided not to pursue a plan to impose - via new legislative language - impediments calculated to preclude near-term deployments of effective anti-missile systems.
If President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld do not act quickly and decisively, however, such obstructionism may yet emerge from the Committee mark-up Mr. Levin will conduct over the next few days.
For example, Mr. Levin has suggested that each of the armed services be required to certify that expenditures by the Pentagon's independent Missile Defense Agency enjoy their full support and are more important than their own, individual priorities. This transparent divide-and-conquer stratagem would directly, and perhaps mortally, erode the defense secretary's ability to establish and execute programs for the Defense Department as a whole.
Chairman Levin has also expressed an interest in denying President Bush the ability to streamline and greatly accelerate the development and acquisition of missile defenses. Toward this end, he would like to subject this priority effort to the same unbelievably sclerotic bureaucratic arrangements - featuring numerous, ponderous program reviews known as "milestones" - that typically keep new weapon systems from coming on line in less than 12 to 15 years.
Even more obnoxious is Mr. Levin's reported interest in requiring the Pentagon to get prior congressional approval before missile defense programs are allowed to undergo such "milestone" reviews. Then, after defense officials have performed their review, he thinks Congress ought to have the right to second-guess the department's decision.
Such micromanagement is a sure-fire way to prevent anything useful from coming out of the billions of dollars President Bush is allocating to end our increasingly dangerous vulnerability to missile attack. It would also go a long ways toward frustrating the intended effect of withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. The combined impact would be to position Mr. Levin and others on the left to rail disingenuously in the future as they have in the past - namely, that there is not much to show for the money spent on missile defense, that the technology is not ready to deploy, that the costs and risks of doing so are too great, etc., etc.
Since Mr. Bush came to office, he has exhibited impressive steadfastness and the courage of his convictions with respect to missile defense. He made the case for getting out of the ABM Treaty. He worked skillfully to create conditions that all but eliminated any international turmoil when last December he actually exercised the United States' right to do so. And he has wisely rejected appeals from the Russians and the American left to enter into a new agreement with theKremlin aimed at limiting missile defenses in some fashion.
The historic and strategic significance of all of this may be substantially eroded, however, if he were now to allow determined congressional opponents like Carl Levin to strangle the missile defense program in unwarranted, counterproductive and politically/ideologically motivated red tape. To avoid this, Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld should put the Congress on notice forthwith: Any effort to continue the garroting effect of the restrictive ABM Treaty via legislatively mandated congressional micro-management will precipitate a presidential veto of the defense authorization bill.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.
-------- treaties
Putin, Bush Discuss Summit
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Bush on Tuesday discussed their upcoming summit, trade issues and cooperation in international affairs, including the regulation of regional conflicts, the Kremlin press service said.
``Both sides expressed their satisfaction with the process of coming to agreement on the basic documents that are planned for signing at the summit level,'' the press service said of the telephone conversation.
Negotiators from the two countries have been working hard in the run-up to the May 23-26 meeting in Moscow and St. Petersburg to reach agreement on reducing the number of U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads to between 1,700 to 2,200 each within 10 years. The United States now has 6,000 to 7,000 warheads, Russia about 6,000.
A senior U.S. diplomat in Moscow said Tuesday he expected the agreement would be ready for signing by the summit, though there are ``some details to be worked out.''
In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush called Putin and the two spoke for 15 minutes by phone. Bush said the negotiators were making progress toward an agreement on nuclear weapons and expressed hope that he and Putin could sign it in Moscow, according to Fleischer.
One outstanding disagreement is whether the warheads taken out of service are destroyed, as Moscow insists, or stored, as Washington wants.
The summit is also expected to produce a political statement on the U.S.-Russian strategic agenda, touching on missile defense, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, countering terrorism, and the need to have a firm economic underpinning to the bilateral relationship. Separate statements are expected on energy cooperation, the war against terrorism and possibly the Middle East, the diplomat said.
In Brussels, European Union sources said the Russians have suggested a meeting in Moscow of the ``quartet'' of four key Mideast players -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, European Union policy chief Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov -- in connection with the summit.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting would depend on the outcome of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to Washington.
In their telephone conversation, Putin and Bush affirmed their commitment to solving trade problems ``through constructive negotiations,'' the Kremlin press service said.
Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Alexander Vershbow, warned that Russia's monthlong ban on U.S. poultry imports earlier this year and its sluggish resumption of import licensing had hurt Moscow's chances to have the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment lifted in time for the summit. The Cold War-era legislation ties Moscow's trade privileges to its policies on Jewish emigration -- which is no longer an issue -- and its trading practices, which are.
Meanwhile, Russian legislator Alexei Arbatov on Tuesday accused the United States of trying to add Cuba, Syria and Libya to the ``axis of evil.''
He was responding to U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton's allegation Monday that Cuba was trying to develop biological weapons and transferring its technical expertise to countries hostile to the United States. Bolton did not identify the countries but noted that last year Cuban leader Fidel Castro had visited Iran, Syria and Libya.
Arbatov said Washington should share its information with the U.N. Security Council, the Interfax news agency reported.
``Russia might respond by pointing to similar threats from other countries, notably Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey,'' Arbatov was quoted as saying.
--------
Bush, Putin Note Progress on Arms Cuts Deal
May 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-russia-bush.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday their negotiators had made progress on a pact to cut nuclear arsenals by a third and said they hoped to sign it at a May 23 summit.
In a wide-ranging 15-minute telephone call initiated by Bush, the two leaders also noted the progress made by the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in its fight against ''international terrorists'' residing in the Pankisi Gorge near the Chechen border, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
``President Bush urged that Russia pursue a political settlement to the Chechnya conflict,'' he said. ``Finally, the two presidents discussed the dispute over poultry and the president urged a prompt resolution of that matter.''
Earlier this year, Russia suspended all imports of chicken and turkey from the United States, citing health concerns. The move disrupted about $640 million in U.S. sales.
In late April, Washington and Moscow agreed on a series of government and industry changes that ended the trade ban. Nevertheless, shipments have been slow to resume, fueling U.S. industry suspicions that Moscow's trade action was designed to protect its domestic poultry industry.
On arms control, the United States and Russia want a document to be ready when Bush visits Moscow and St. Petersburg later this month.
``The two presidents noted the progress their negotiators are making on an agreement to reduce offensive nuclear weapons, and expressed hope that the agreement would be ready for their signature when the president travels to Moscow at the end of this month,'' Fleischer told reporters.
After talks last week with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Secretary of State Colin Powell said there were still outstanding issues but added that he was encouraged.
``Hopefully, if the work continues at the pace that we have seen it in recent days, we might be there for the two presidents to sign an agreement,'' he said.
A more optimistic Ivanov told reporters there was a high probability of a deal.
Powell said Friday Russia and the United States had not yet decided whether the agreement should take the form of a treaty or a less formal executive agreement, which would not need parliamentary ratification.
But a senior U.S. official said the two sides were ``moving in the direction'' of calling the deal a treaty that would commit both sides to reducing their arsenals over a decade by about a third to between 1,700 and 2,200.
The decision to formalize arms cuts in a binding document, initially resisted in Washington, was supposed to help allay Russian fears about missile defense.
Bush announced in December that the United States was exercising its right to withdraw in six months from a 1972 Soviet-era pact that barred the building of missile defense systems like one being developed now in the United States.
Suspicious of treaties, the Bush administration is striving to keep the document to as few pages as possible, unlike the lengthy arms control agreements of the past.
The U.S. official said the current draft ran to five pages including bracketed areas that were still being debated.
--------
Bush, Russia Chief Talk Nuclear Cuts
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to express hopes of reaching agreement on nuclear weapons before their summit later this month.
Bush and Putin talked for 15 minutes, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. They discussed their May 23-26 meetings in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the Chechnya conflict and a dispute over U.S. chicken exports.
Bush urged a prompt resolution to the trade fight, Fleischer said.
U.S. and Russian negotiators are working on a plan to reduce, over 10 years, the number of long-range warheads they hold. The United States has 6,000 to 7,000 warheads and Russia has about 6,000. The goal is to lower those numbers to between 1,700 and 2,200 each.
Bush said the negotiators were making progress toward an agreement, and expressed hope that he and Putin can sign it in Moscow, Fleischer said. He also encouraged Russia to seek a political settlement to the Chechnya conflict, citing Georgia's progress in fighting terrorists in the Pankisi Gorge near the Chechen border.
--------
U.S. Diplomat Sees Nuclear Arms Deal at Russia Summit
May 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-russia-usa-summit.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian-U.S. summit later this month will be the last to be dominated by nuclear arms cuts and should then focus on how to draw the Kremlin further into the embrace of the West, a senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday.
President Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin, who meet in Moscow and St. Petersburg May 23-26, are likely to sign an agreement to slash nuclear warheads after making ``considerable progress'' in high-level talks Friday in Washington.
They are also expected to agree a declaration defining future cooperation, such as in the war on terrorism, and committing the United States to economic support for Russia, such as backing its bid for World Trade Organization membership, the diplomat told reporters.
``We are hoping for a turning point in terms of consolidating Russia's new, more westward orientation in foreign policy and a real major step forward in cementing its integration in the West,'' said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Putin, risking criticism at home from hard-liners, has pursued a strong pro-Western policy since the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner attacks in New York and Washington.
Swiftly throwing Russia's support behind Bush's war on terrorism, Putin raised no objections as U.S. forces deployed in Russia's Central Asian backyard to launch military operations in Afghanistan.
He has equally accepted the dispatch of U.S. military instructors to neighboring Georgia, closed down a major spy base in Cuba and indicated he would like a new agreement with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
IRAQ, IRAN AND CHECHNYA
The U.S. diplomat said the meeting would redefine traditional U.S.-Russia summit practice. ``It could be the last summit whose success is measured by achievement of arms control agreements.''
The Kremlin said that in a telephone conversation Tuesday the two men pledged to try to solve outstanding bilateral trade issues -- a reference to a bitter spat over Russian imports of U.S. poultry and a row over new U.S. import tariffs on steel.
The two men, who last met at Bush's Texas ranch in November, will cover a raft of other issues such as Russia's relations with Iraq and Iran -- regarded by Washington as part of an ``axis of evil'' -- and Moscow's often-controversial handling of the war in rebel Chechnya.
Russia's relations with Iraq, which Washington has tagged as a potential next target in the war on terrorism, will be a ''primary topic,'' he said.
He said that though Russia had doubts about the wisdom of military action against Baghdad, the United States was pleased Moscow was exerting pressure on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to allow in U.N. weapons inspectors.
On the issue of Russia's growing nuclear cooperation with Iran, he said Bush would press Putin to change course.
``We think this behavior is out of sync with Russian security interests first of all, that they are playing with fire given the proximity to Iran. But it also goes against Putin's emphasis on the need to fight international terrorism,'' he said.
On Chechnya, the United States is still concerned that Russian military tactics against separatist rebels often lead to large-scale civilian casualties, he said.
The diplomat said Washington hoped the death of rebel warlord Khattab, and other developments favorable for Moscow, would lead to fresh attempts for a political settlement.
NUCLEAR STOCKPILES TO BE REDUCED
The nuclear arms agreement will commit both sides to reduce their stockpiles over a decade to between 1,700 and 2,200 each.
A deal has been in jeopardy because of Russian objections to U.S. plans to store many of the warheads removed rather than destroying them.
But Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that both sides had been encouraged by the progress made.
The U.S. diplomat who spoke Tuesday said he could not spell out details of the impending arms agreement.
While there had been no changes to U.S. plans to store some warheads, Washington had expressed its readiness to provide ''additional forms of transparency that will give them (the Russians) confidence on a day to day basis,'' he said.
-------- ukraine
European Human Rights Court rules in favor of Chernobyl worker's compensation
Tue May 7, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020507/ap_wo_en_ge/european_court_russia_2
STRASBOURG, France - The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday told Russia to pay a worker who cleaned up the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site 3,000 euros (dlrs 2,743) in additional damages after stalling to pay his health bills.
Europe's top human rights court said that while a Russian court had initially awarded Anatoliy Tikhonovich Burdov 23,786,567 Russian rubles in 1997 (now worth dlrs 768,000 ) in damages for his work at Chernobyl in 1986, it failed to pay it out claiming it did not have the money to do so.
"It was not open to a State authority to cite lack of funds as an excuse for not honoring a judgment debt," the court said in its ruling. "The applicant should not have been prevented from benefiting from the success of the litigation in question on the ground of alleged financial difficulties."
Burdov worked at the Chernobyl site from Oct. 1986 until Jan. 1987 and suffered from extensive exposure to radioactive materials. He won compensation in 1991, but was never paid out in full.
After three appeals to regain the full sum in Russian courts, and only after taking the case to Strasbourg, did the Russian finance ministry step in to pay the full amount, the court said.
"This last payment took place only after the application to the European Court of Human Rights had been communicated to the government," the court said.
As member of the Council of Europe Russia is bound to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights and must also implement its court's rulings.
Russia was admitted to the 44-nation organization in 1996.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Sick Nuclear Workers Seek Aid
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sick-Workers.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48579-2002May7?language=printer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Members of Congress say an Energy Department proposal that's supposed to help Cold War-era nuclear weapons workers get compensation for their job-related illnesses instead will make it harder.
The draft rule, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, allows government contractors to contest compensation claims, a provision lawmakers say runs counter to the intent of a bill they passed.
``Under this rule, workers will never receive the justice that Congress -- on a bipartisan basis -- had intended for diseases and disability incurred while working at DOE facilities,'' House members wrote in a letter they planned to send Wednesday to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned to send a similar letter Wednesday.
The rule is aimed at the thousands of workers exposed to toxic substances at Energy Department facilities run by contractors. Those workers were not included in a year-old federal program that provides medical care and $150,000 to nuclear weapons workers exposed to cancer-causing radiation or silica and beryllium, which cause lung diseases.
Congress told the Energy Department to help workers file claims under state worker compensation systems, which vary and often have high burdens of proof for occupational diseases. The agency also is supposed to instruct its contractors not to fight the claims, reversing a decades-old practice.
But the draft rule allows contractors to contest the findings of medical panels tasked with determining whether workers got sick from on-the-job exposures.
``Their draft regulations are very contrary to what our intent was,'' said Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky. He also criticized a requirement that medical panels apply different standards for determining the cause of an illness, depending on the laws in each state.
Energy Department spokeswoman Dolline Hatchett said the agency would not comment on the rule until it was finalized, likely in a few weeks.
The majority of DOE contractors are self-insured, and the Energy Department reimburses them for worker compensation costs. That means if a contractor pays a claim, the agency would end up paying the bill.
A problem exists in cases where contractors have private insurance policies. The Energy Department has no contractual relationship with the private insurers, and cannot instruct them to pay claims. Worker advocates want the Energy Department rules to state that the agency will pay those claims too.
Lawmakers also are upset that, under the proposed rule, the Energy Department would reimburse contractors for some of the costs associated with contesting a claim.
``It seems to me as if it's providing an incentive to fight,'' said Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio.
If it's a question of money or authority to carry out Congress' intent, Abraham should ask Congress for help, Strickland said.
-------- south carolina
S. Carolina Airing Anti-Plutonium Ads
By Jim Davenport Associated Press Writer Tuesday, May 7, 2002; 10:35 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49629-2002May7?language=printer http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020508/ap_on_re_us/plutonium_standoff_2
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The governor is spending $100,000 of his campaign re-election fund to air TV commercials blasting the federal government's plan to ship plutonium through the state into Georgia.
Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges on Tuesday began running the 30-second ad that criticizes Energy officials for "breaking their promise" not to make South Carolina a nuclear dumping ground.
The ad shows Hodges at a practice blockade that may be used to block shipments, which could begin May 15. The ad urges residents to call Washington and tell federal bureaucrats "no plutonium dumping in South Carolina."
A spokesman for the Department of Energy said the shipments are a security matter and criticized the governor for using election funds on a nonpartisan issue.
"It is a well-established tradition in this country that matters of national security and foreign policy are viewed as nonpartisan and certainly should never be politicized for personal gain," spokesman Joe Davis said.
The DOE's plan is to ship weapons-grade plutonium to the Savannah River Site near Aiken, Ga., for conversion to nuclear reactor fuel. South Carolina officials worry the conversion program will never be funded and the plutonium will remain in the state indefinitely. Hodges sued the federal agency a week ago to halt the shipments.
Hodges and fellow Democrats also accuse Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a former GOP senator, of helping Republican Sen. Wayne Allard's re-election chances by moving the radioactive material from Rocky Flats to a site just over the Georgia border.
--------
Congress Considering Solutions to Plutonium Controversy
May 7, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-09.html#anchor1
WASHINGTON, DC, Legislation now before Congress attempts to address the concerns of South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges over planned plutonium shipments to his state.
Senator Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina Republican, introduced the Senate version of a bill that aims to settle a dispute between the state of South Carolina and the Department of Energy (DOE) over shipments from the agency's Rocky Flats facility to the Savannah River Site. Representative Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, sponsored the House version.
The legislation would codify part of a plutonium disposition agreement proposed by the DOE. Under the agreement, the DOE would build a facility in South Carolina to process the waste into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which would be shipped to and used at nuclear power plants.
If the facility is not producing at least one metric ton of fuel by January 1, 2009, the DOE would remove at least one ton of the plutonium from South Carolina and ship it to another site. If the DOE fails to meet this requirement, it would be fined $1 million per day up to $100 million per year until the requirement is met.
If by 2017, the MOX program is not operating successfully, then all plutonium remaining in the state shall be removed. An additional $1 million per day fine, up to $100 million per year, would be charged during the removal period.
The DOE says the bills would address "all of the concerns the state of South Carolina has raised regarding the plutonium disposition program."
Governor Hodges has pledged to block the shipments, using state troopers to blockade roads if necessary, until he receives assurances that the plutonium will not be stored in South Carolina after it is processed. On May 1, he filed a lawsuit against the DOE, seeking a stay against any plutonium shipments until the agency completes environmental studies which Hodges charges the DOE has illegally disregarded.
"While some progress has been made, the clock is ticking," Hodges wrote in a letter to the state's congressional delegation. "Unless we act now, plutonium could begin crossing our borders two weeks from today with no legal safeguards for our state."
The DOE hopes that the legislation introduced May 2 will persuade Hodges to rescind his lawsuit.
"We have engaged, for months, in bipartisan negotiations with South Carolina leaders to bring this matter to resolution," the agency said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the recent filing of a lawsuit by Governor Jim Hodges runs completely counter to any effort to work together to reach a solution. We hope that the Governor would join his own delegation in Congress and work to pass this legislation, and withdraw his ill timed, unnecessary and counterproductive lawsuit."
The bills introduced by Representative Graham and Senator Thurmond would levy fines of $1 million a day against the federal government if it has failed to convert at least one ton of plutonium into MOX fuel by 2011. To stop these penalties, the government would have to accelerate its fuel conversion process or move the remaining plutonium to another state.
"Quite frankly, intended or not, the Governor's lawsuit has chilled promising negotiations," said Graham. "We needed to introduce legislation before anyone could dismantle or walk away from their commitment to the concessions we've already won."
The DOE plans to begin shipments of plutonium from Rocky Flats before the end of May, to help meet a federally mandated schedule for closing Rocky Flats by 2006.
-------- tennessee
Compensation program topic of demonstration
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
by Paul Parson,
Oakridger
From: "Vina K Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
Looks like all those people frustrated with the compensation program for job-sickened nuclear workers will have a venue for voicing their displeasure. May 16 has apparently been designated Worker's Compensation Protest Day and will include a demonstration near the Oak Ridge field office for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.
"This will be a peaceful demonstration and intended to get the attention of those who are depriving us of medical help and compensation for sick workers," said Jerry Tudor, who is trying to organize the event.
Tudor, 55, who worked at the Y-12 National Security Complex, says he has prostate cancer and has been on disability since 1995. He added that he is struggling to get compensation after applying for the program in July.
The compensation program, which officially began July 31, 2001, provides medical care and a payment of $150,000 to sick workers or their survivors, if the workers were exposed to cancer-causing radiation or to silica or beryllium, which are linked to lung diseases. The program is administered by the Labor Department.
A group of sick workers gave the program a "D-minus" on a report card they issued to the Labor Department in February. Complaints about the program range from the number of medical problems it doesn't cover to the slow pace at which the Department of Energy has been operating in turning over "important" information relating to exposures.
Last week, David Michaels, a consultant to the Labor Department on the compensation program, visited Knoxville to inform a group of DOE-related officials about the more than $43 million that's been paid out to Oak Ridge employees or their survivors through the compensation plan.
Some published newspaper accounts of Michaels' talk have Helen Hardin, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, chanting "$40 million! $40 million!" when questions were asked about the unfairness of some of the compensation program's rules.
Tudor said he's glad Hardin tried to stir the questions back toward the positive aspects of the program because it inspired him to organize the demonstration.
"She has really built a fire under me," Tudor said.
The demonstration is expected to take place from 11 a.m. to noon on Thursday, May 16, near the compensation office, which is located at 800 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
"We'll stay as long as the people are able to," Tudor said. "There may be five of us there or 5,000."
Speaking of Wamp, whose congressional district includes Oak Ridge, he issued the following statement to the press after the $43 million figure was announced:
"It is so rewarding to know that in just the first few months, more than 40 million dollars have been paid to Tennesseans who became sick as a direct result of their national security work at Oak Ridge. This compensation could never make up for the illnesses the workers and families have suffered, but our country is officially recognizing their service and providing them with financial and medical help so many desperately need.
"The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program law that I cosponsored will help these Cold War workers whose health has been impacted by their exposure to harmful substances during their employment at DOE sites. These workers and their families need Congress's support to get early detection screening and compensation."
Paul Parson is the science and technology reporter for The Oak Ridger. He can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com.
-------- washington
Waste Characterization Could Speed Hanford Cleanup
May 7, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-09.html#anchor6
WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana, Researchers armed with a laser are learning how to condense millions of gallons of radioactive nuclear waste in leaky tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.
Their study is the first to describe the chemistry of waste formed by aluminum and alkaline, or caustic sodium compounds, mixing with high level radioactive material, said Cliff Johnston, lead author and Purdue University environmental scientist. This knowledge will be applied to the permanent disposal of the 53 million gallons of radioactive material held in 177 giant underground tanks at the Hanford site.
Most of the storage tanks are at least 50 years old, 30 years older than the original intended usage, according to the Tri-Party Agreement, a consortium of the DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology. Of the 177 tanks, 149 of them are have only one outer wall, and 67 of these single shelled tanks are suspected to have leaked an estimated one million gallons of high level waste.
The radioactive waste includes a combination of aluminum clad nuclear fuel rods and caustic solutions added to the storage tanks to break down the rods and minimize tank corrosion. In studying how the different aluminum compounds in the tanks transform from a soluble liquid to a solid form, the scientists also are learning more about how to handle the toxic waste.
"We've gained new information about the chemistry of aluminum in these very concentrated waste solutions," said Johnston, a Purdue agronomy professor. "The significance of that is related to two different areas: minimizing high level nuclear waste volume for permanent storage, and eventually determining what happens to the material when it leaks out of the tank."
Scientists want to be able to decrease the waste volume by evaporating as much water as possible, making transport easier and storage less expensive.
"In order to decrease the volume of the waste and deal with any that has leaked into the soil, we ultimately must learn the conditions necessary for the soluble forms of aluminum to be transformed into a solid," Johnston said.
Johnston and his team of researchers have developed a method using a laser to measure molecular vibrations so they can study the soluble forms of aluminum in waste material samples. The technique could test tank contents from a distance, and eliminate the need for samples to be removed from the tanks.
Congressional has ordered the DOE to begin moving the nuclear waste to permanent storage facilities by 2007. The Tri-Party Agreement has pledged to complete cleanup at Hanford between 2025 and 2035, 35 to 45 years sooner than planned.
For cleanup and testing at Hanford alone, the government is spending about $1.5 billion each year. The Savannah River Nuclear Reservation in Georgia stores an additional 35 million gallons of high level nuclear waste in tanks similar to those at the Washington facility.
The report was published on the "Environmental Science and Technology" Web site and scheduled to appear in the journal's June 1 print issue.
-------- us nuc waste
White House to Ask For Nuke Research
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration plans to ask Congress to expand long-term research into reducing the amount of nuclear waste produced by the U.S. nuclear energy and reduce the cost of disposal, the Energy Department said Tuesday.
Energy Undersecretary Robert Card said there is for now ``a riveting focus'' on getting approval for a waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But he added, ``We should be looking at science and technology that would reduce the cost.''
President Bush's decision in February to go ahead with the Yucca Mountain facility 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas was to face its first congressional test Wednesday. The House is expected to vote to override Nevada's veto of the president's decision.
The Senate will take up the matter this summer and is beginning the process with a series of committee hearings this month.
Anticipating congressional rejection of the veto, which would allow implementation of the Yucca Mountain disposal plan, Card said the department's focus for now is on getting a license application ready for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2004. Assuming the license is approved, the disposal facility is expected to open in 2010.
Card also said the administration will ask Congress for ``tens of millions of dollars'' on broader long-term scientific research into ways to reduce the volume of nuclear waste including research into technologies such as transmutation and waste reprocessing.
``The administration is on record as being willing to reopen the reprocessing issue,'' Card told members of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an advisory panel created by Congress.
The United States remains opposed to reprocessing used nuclear fuel because of the risk of nonproliferation. Last year, Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force recommended continued research into reprocessing technology.
Transmutation is an emerging technology that reduces the number of long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste, but no one has yet to perfect it, and it is widely believed to be too expensive to pursue now. Reprocessing or transmutation would reduce the amount of waste, but not all of it, so a disposal site still would be needed, Card said.
He and other Energy Department officials expressed confidence that Yucca Mountain will be approved not only by Congress but by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must issue construction and operating licenses.
The DOE officials made clear in remarks to the advisory board Tuesday that they expected many of the remaining technical uncertainties, including the specific design of the Yucca facility, to remain flexible well into the licensing process and, in some cases, beyond that.
For example, final decisions have not been made whether to pursue a ``hot'' design, in which wastes would be kept closer together, or a cooler design with wastes would more spread-out.
The advisory board has urged for some time adoption of a cooler design, arguing it would remove some uncertainties over the durability over thousands of years of the engineered waste package.
Card said Tuesday the department would keep both options open, although he favors a ``hot'' design.
Addressing another contentious issue, Card said he is confident a system will be developed for transporting the wastes to Yucca Mountain that is satisfactory to the states through which the waste would pass. Opponents of the Nevada site have argued it is too risky and dangerous to have thousands of nuclear waste shipments crossing the country on highways and by rail.
DOE officials said the department leans heavily toward primarily rail transport, although completion of a final transportation plan is not expected until next year.
``We want to jump-start the transportation issue,'' Margaret Chu, the new director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which oversees the nuclear waste disposal issue, told the advisory panel.
On the Net: Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board: http://www.nwtrb.gov/
Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: http://www.rw.doe.gov/homejava/homejava.htm
-------- us politics
Ridge Hints at More Authority for His Office
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
By Carl Cameron
Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,52099,00.html
We know we've got some work to do.
That's the message from Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who said in his most candid remarks to date that the Bush administration thinks his office and authority must be revamped.
"Do we believe that the present structure is adequate for the future?" Ridge asked at a morning speech. "By and large my sense is that there is a general consensus that it is not."
Renewing his call for a government-wide overhaul of domestic defense efforts in a little-noticed talk on trade and border issues, Ridge indicated his own Office of Homeland Security would probably be included.
"We need to take a look at restructuring government, probably perhaps restructuring the office itself," Ridge said.
Ridge has until now publicly acknowledged little more than that the color-coded terror alert system he implemented needs to be "tweaked." Both Republicans and Democrats have criticized the system as confusing and unworkable.
Ridge has privately suggested that, even though he attends Cabinet meetings, he faces resistance from various agencies because he is not an official Cabinet secretary overseeing a federal department. And on Capitol Hill, lawmakers say the problem is that while Ridge has expertise, he has no real authority.
"He understands the relationship between the federal government and the state and local governments," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., "which will be a key part of our homeland defense strategy, but he just does not have the tools to get the job done."
Graham and others support a bill to make homeland defense a full federal department, to be led by a Cabinet secretary. The White House began to signal its support for the idea several weeks ago.
The administration hopes to finalize a permanent plan for the Office of Homeland Security within the next month, then release its long-term national homeland defense strategy in July. Ridge and others concede that the report may stir some controversy, both within and outside the administration.
"It's not necessarily going to be a consensus document, I'm going to tell you that right now," Ridge said.
Ridge reportedly presented a plan in January to combine some federal agencies responsible for border security. But the plan was watered down, and was much smaller in scope than what Ridge wanted.
The homeland security director has also been criticized for not being more open with members of Congress. That issue came up again last week, when Ridge did not appear at an appropriations hearing. He appeared instead at a staged briefing for a few senators and a much larger contingent of reporters.
----
Lobbying effort likely work of civilian
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020507-49237930.htm
The Army's investigation into whether officials improperly lobbied Congress to fund the Crusader artillery system will likely find there was no top-level Army effort to undercut Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Instead, officials said in interviews, the submission of Crusader "talking points" to a House committee appears to have been the work of one Army civilian who had not been authorized to fax the document.
The Army's legislative affairs office initially created the draft for internal consumption, the sources aid. Officials said they do not expect any disciplinary action outside the legislative affairs branch.
In part, the mix-up stemmed from the timing of the cancellation decision. Mr. Rumsfeld's staff decided to ax the Army's $11 billion howitzer at the very time the House Armed Services Committee was writing a new defense budget that included a request from President Bush to continue funding the weapon.
"What you have is one guy who screwed up, and not the whole Army," said one defense official. The official and two other sources said Army Secretary Thomas White was not aware that the "talking points" document had been drafted or presented to some congressional aides and the press.
When Mr. Rumsfeld's staff heard about the document, "they started yelling for scalps," one source said.
Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's chief spokeswoman, announced Friday that the Army inspector general was investigating whether any Army officials were insubordinate in working behind the scenes against Mr. Rumsfeld's wishes.
Mrs. Clarke seemed to suggest Mr. White was not a party to the lobbying when she told reporters, "I can tell you we're confident that Secretary White and the IG will get to the bottom of any inappropriate behavior."
"One person did something stupid, knowing the stuff was a draft, and left fax numbers and markings on it," said another official. "White was unaware of it until he got a copy of it after everything blew up."
Investigators for the Army's Office of Inspector General already have interviewed Mr. White and Army officials in the congressional liaison office.
The imbroglio began last Tuesday afternoon when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz informed Mr. White that the Pentagon had decided to kill the Crusader. He asked the Army to prepare a study in 30 days on what technologies could be developed to do the job of suppressing the enemy.
Later that day, Mr. White returned a phone call to Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and a Senate Armed Services Committee member. A spokesman for Mr. Inhofe, who has vowed to save the system, quoted Mr. White as saying he was fighting to save the Crusader, a 155 mm cannon mounted on a tanklike armor chassis.
This exchange points out the difficulty in deciding whether an official was working against a stated Rumsfeld policy. By the end of Tuesday, there was not an official, final decision to kill the Crusader, only an intention to do so in 30 days pending a study. Under Pentagon tradition, a service secretary is normally free to make his case inside the building. Once a decision is final, he must salute.
"We don't think he did anything wrong in this," said Gary Hoitsma, spokesman for Mr. Inhofe. "We called him, and he called us back. There wasn't anything improper in that."
On Wednesday, the House committee worked on producing a 2003 defense bill of about $380 billion. The Army legislative affairs office received no official guidance that the Crusader was killed. So, some staffers drafted the talking points that are at the center of the inspector general's probe.
"They decided to support the president's budget because no one told them not to," said a defense official. "Legislative affairs made this decision independent of the Army."
The Senate Armed Services Committee starts writing its defense budget today. Mr. Inhofe plans to introduce an amendment similar to one approved by the House panel. It prevents the Pentagon from canceling the Crusader pending reviews that would not be completed until next year.
--------
House panel beefs up spending bill
May 7, 2002
By Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020507-23126128.htm
House appropriators yesterday proposed adding about $2.5 billion to a $27.3 billion emergency spending bill requested by the White House for fiscal 2002 for the war against terrorism and homeland security costs.
A draft of the proposal by House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young, Florida Republican, totals $29.8 billion.
The bill includes $1 billion to restore the Pell Grant program. Democrats in recent days have tried to exploit an estimated shortfall in the financial-aid program for college students.
The panel will consider the supplemental spending bill tomorrow. Mr. Young called it "a good, clean, responsible bill that will enjoy broad bipartisan support."
The White House has been urging lawmakers to keep the cost of the bill at the administration's request, although unofficial estimates of the committee's proposals in recent weeks had topped $35 billion. Mr. Young said the bill "largely reflects the president's request with some improvements."
"We have added additional funds for defense to pay for costs related to the mobilization of [National] Guard and Reserve forces and to cover operational expenses which include spare parts, training and equipment maintenance," Mr. Young said.
The committee's proposal would add $1.77 billion to the president's request of $14 billion for the Pentagon to conduct the war. Lawmakers would add $790 million for "unfunded personnel costs associated with force mobilization"; $621 million for training, spare parts and equipment maintenance; $100 million for "accelerated destruction of vulnerable U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles"; and $93 million to replace three MH-47 Special Operations helicopters destroyed during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Mr. Young's plan would fully fund the administration's request of $5.5 billion for New York, including $2.75 billion in disaster relief through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $1.8 billion in grants to rebuild mass transportation affected by the terrorist attacks.
Lawmakers are proposing to add $522 million to the administration's request of $5.8 billion for homeland security. Appropriators plan to cut $400 million out of the $4 billion requested for the Transportation Security Administration; Mr. Young said the "agency did not fully or timely justify" its budget request.
Much of the spending on homeland security would go for baggage screening at airports and port security costs.
The appropriators also propose a huge boost in spending for security at U.S. nuclear facilities. The White House requested $26 million but lawmakers want to add $352 million to that proposal, including $128 million for security improvements at Army Corps of Engineers facilities and $88 million for increased security needs at the Energy Department's nuclear weapons facilities.
Other major expenses in the Pentagon's allocation would include $7.2 billion for ongoing military operational costs; $4.3 billion for personnel costs, primarily call-up of Guard and Reserve personnel; and $1.6 billion for intelligence operations.
Congress approved $40 billion in emergency spending shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Trent Duffy, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said slightly more than half of those appropriations have been spent to date.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
BANNU JOURNAL
Where Al Qaeda's the Quarry, G.I.'s Are Elusive
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By RAYMOND BONNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/international/asia/07BANN.html
BANNU, Pakistan - This region is full of invisible Americans.
United States soldiers are everywhere, according to the small talk among residents in this dusty, chaotic outpost in a remote region where Al Qaeda forces are assumed to be hiding.
Maqbool Khan, a clean-cut man of 20, said the American troops arrived in helicopters several days ago. A computer science student, he took a keen interest in their presence because he is desperate to continue his studies in the United States. But he did not see the Americans, Mr. Khan swiftly added, because they were quickly hustled out of town in military vehicles.
Indeed, finding someone here who has actually seen an American soldier is almost as hard as finding Osama bin Laden himself.
American soldiers are definitely in this region, though how many and what they are doing is unclear - which is exactly as American and Pakistani officials want it, for reasons both military and political.
The troops are operating in the so-called tribal areas of Pakistan, a region of Pashtun Muslims who do not take kindly to outside military forces, not even Pakistani.
To keep the secrets, Pakistani authorities are simply not allowing journalists into the tribal areas. This sweltering town, with its three-digit temperatures and streets choked with three-wheel motorized cabs or horse-drawn carriages carrying women in black burkas, is as close as one can get.
For a week, a dozen or so American soldiers had a base of operations some 25 miles west of here, at a vocational school in Miram Shah, according to government officals and tribal leaders there. The small village is not far from the Afghan town of Khost, a base for American military operations.
Combined American and Pakistani forces raided several madrassas, or religious schools, in the last week, including one that was run by a former Taliban official, authorities in Miram Shah have said.
"It is very tense," Adil Khan, a van driver from the village, said of the situation. Shops close early, he reported, and the certainty about unseen Americans is accompanied by fear that the Americans may bomb villages in Pakistan as they did in Afghanistan.
There were as many as 15 American soldiers in his village, he said.
"I haven't seen them," he admitted. "But many other people have."
On Friday, the Americans pulled out of Miram Shah, moving down the road to Rezmak, officials said. Their target now, apparently, is Khaisor, a mountainous village reachable only by a two-hour trek on foot.
"Every Muslim in Pakistan is angry that the American soldiers are here," said Muhammad Nawaz, 53, the president of the transport union in Bannu. He was sitting on a rope bed, drinking tea, at the Marhaba Call Center, an open-air shop for people who do not have their own telephones.
Mr. Nawaz and several friends displayed no animosity toward an American visitor. But they had a litany of complaints about the United States and its policy toward Muslims.
"America is always talking about human rights," said Mr. Nawaz, who had a long black beard and a white cap. "But what is happening in Cuba, what is happening in Chechnya, what is happening in Palestine?"
How could they say America was against the Muslims when it had fought to protect Muslims in Bosnia? they were asked.
The answer was surprisingly swift: "If they are supporting Muslims in Bosnia, why not in Palestine?"
The unseen troops are not the only Americans who have passed through Bannu of late. Another American, with very different views of Muslim life, was here, and although now long gone his presence is still felt. This was where John Walker Lindh, the American captured with the Taliban, studied the Koran at a madrassa for six months before leaving last May. He is now in jail in the United States awaiting trial on charges of aiding Al Qaeda.
Two American investigators for Mr. Lindh's defense team were here on Friday, the head of the religious school said today.
The madrassa is just outside of town, down a few narrow roads with mud and adobe buildings tight against them. The director, Mufti Muhammad Iltimas, seemed to welcome a foreign journalist, offering lunch and tea. He was joined by two men with mustaches but no beards, making them look strangely out of place among the other men at the school, who wore long, unkempt beards.
While jovial, Mufti Iltimas was enigmatic, and parried most questions with questions of his own.
Asked whether he thought Mr. Lindh would get a fair trial in the United States, for example, he replied: "I have not read your Constitution. I do not know your legal system."
Mr. Lindh, at 20, was the oldest of the school's 40 students, whose ages range from 7 to 15, Mufti Iltimas said. He had come here after studying 17 months in Yemen, along with hundreds of radical young Islamic men from around the world..
Mufti Iltimas proudly showed the books that Mr. Lindh had brought with him. There were several Korans, plus works about Islam in Arabic and English, including "Alms Tax and Fasting" and "Purification and Prayer." His black suitcase is also still at the school, left behind when he headed across the border to Afghanistan.
After leaving, a reporter learned why Mufti Iltimas had been so evasive: a Pakistani in the town recognized his two other visitors as members of Pakistani intelligence.
Mufti Iltimas said he did not know if anyone from the Federal Bureau of Investigation had come to ask about Mr. Lindh. But he noted with a smile that there had been scores of foreigners asking questions. They claimed to be journalists, he said, but "How do I know?"
--------
Afghan Grave Site Yields Bodies Believed Linked to Bin Laden
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/international/07CND-AFGH.html
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, May 7 - Canadian troops and American criminal investigators have exhumed 23 bodies from a grave site in the Tora Bora mountains that they suspect was used to bury Al Qaeda fighters, perhaps including some who provided security for Osama bin Laden.
The bodies, found in martyrs' graves near the village of Al-e-Khel, are most likely those of senior bin Laden lieutenants killed in an airstrike while fleeing the area, said Lt. Col. Patrick Stogran, who conducted the search operation.
"I am hopeful that it was bin Laden himself, but the chances are he wasn't there," he said, after he and his troops returned to the Bagram air base, just north of Kabul. "I think the best we can hope for is that they were some of his key players, some of his senior lieutenants."
Villagers told the soldiers that they had collected the bodies from the valley floor after the airstrikes and buried them on a small knoll near the village. They told them there was one "very big man" among them, who had been buried in the most prominent position and that his body had been booby trapped, the commander said.
But the Canadians, who spent two days digging up the remains on Sunday and Monday, were disappointed. The bodies were swept for booby traps and then American investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Criminal Investigations Department measured the shrouded corpses and took hair samples for DNA testing from each of them.
Mr. bin Laden is known to measure well over six foot, and none of the bodies appeared to match that height, Capt. Philip Nicholson, commander of the site, said. The bodies were then immediately reburied where they were found. The DNA samples will be sent to the United States for analysis, the colonel said.
The sheer size and thoroughness of the Canadian-led operation indicate that the hunt for Mr. bin Laden and his top people continues and is serious. Four hundred troops of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry spent four days scouring the high ridges of the Tora Bora range, with the specific task of opening up caves sealed by earlier bombing and looking for bodies inside. One of the aims was to find those killed in the Dec. 15 air raid and open the cave near where they died.
American Special Forces and a number of local Afghan forces were also involved in the operation. One agent from the F.B.I., Mike Forsee, who has been on Mr. bin Laden's trail since the embassy bombings in Africa four years ago, was present, as were several men from the army's investigation department.
It remains unclear why coalition forces waited over four months after the airstrikes to inspect the upper reaches of the Tora Bora range. The United States spokesman at Bagram, Col. Bryan Hilferty, said that it may have been that resources were tied up in other fighting or that new or accumulated intelligence now suggested "it was a place to go and look at."
The mountains, which lie in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, were the scene of two weeks of heavy fighting and aerial bombing in December. It is the last place that Mr. bin Laden was traced to, according to United States intelligence. Radio intercepts caught him directing troops, it was reported at the time. He was then widely rumored to have escaped to Pakistan along with hundreds of his fighters. Pakistan's leaders have said, however, that they think Mr. bin Laden is dead.
On Dec. 15 a group of Al Qaeda fighters were spotted fleeing the village and making their way down to the valley floor, possibly to a cave. United States planes fired on the group and killed a number of them, Captain Nicholson said.
"The people were fleeing away from a battle," he said. "They were caught in the village by Afghan forces and a United States air raid. Bin Laden was located in the area at approximately the same time." The intelligence, the captain said, was "very reliable."
Some of the bodies were dressed in military fatigues or webbing, said Sgt. Jason Cooper, 32, who was one of those digging up the bodies. Most had probably died from shrapnel or percussion bombs, the commander said. "It was most likely his close protection team," Captain Nicholson concluded.
The Canadian soldiers spent three days blasting a mountain of fallen rock and dirt that had fallen in front of the cave entrance after it was bombed. But after three days of blasting the rubble to shift it, the engineers decided there was nothing there.
They learned about the grave site by chance when they ran into a pilgrim from Pakistan who had come to pray at the martyrs' graves. Muslims killed fighting a jihad are considered holy and many pilgrims visit their graves, in particular the sick, in the hope of a cure.
Villagers said they had been told to bury the bodies by a Taliban official and about two weeks after the strikes they retrieved them from the valley and buried them on the top of a small hill near the village, the captain said.
Some 750 to 1,000 people attended the funeral, many more than the 200 to 300 who live in the village, he said. The graves are decorated with multi-colored flags on tall poles and even electric lights, making them stand out from the dozens of other fighters' graves in the valley.
--------
Renegade Afghan Warlord Given Seven - Day Ultimatum
May 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-afghan-gardez.html
GARDEZ, Afghanistan - An Afghan warlord whose fighters rained hundreds of rockets on the eastern town of Gardez last month has been given a seven-day ultimatum to either surrender or face war, the provincial governor said on Tuesday.
Paktia governor Taj Mohammad Wardak told Reuters in provincial capital Gardez that renegade warlord Padshah Khan Zadran was a spent force grappling with mass desertions.
``The Gardez tribal council has issued a seven-day ultimatum from Tuesday to Khan telling him to either surrender or face war,'' Wardak said. ``Most tribes who supported Padshah Khan are deserting him.''
Wardak praised the role of ex-king Mohammad Zahir Shah, who returned from 29 years in exile in Italy last month, and who had called for elders of the tribes from the majority Pashtun ethnic group to resolve the standoff.
``The negotiations were done by Gardez elders under the guidance of the governor and at the request of the former king,'' Wardak said.
The ex-king returned to Afghanistan as a private citizen who interim leader Hamid Karzai hopes will act as a ``father figure'' and symbol of unity.
Karzai replaced Padshah Khan as Paktia governor with Wardak in February after the warlord became embroiled in fighting with a rival and was forced from Gardez, which he vowed to recapture.
Last month, Padshah Khan fired hundreds of rockets into the town, killing 30 people and wounding nearly 100.
He had boasted of a force of about 3,000 fighters who had helped in the U.S.-led war against remnants of the Taliban and shadowy al Qaeda network, whose leader, Osama bin Laden, was blamed for the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Padshah Khan has been accused of calling in U.S. air strikes on his rivals in neighboring Khost province by claiming they were al Qaeda or Taliban. More than 50 people were killed in the Khost bombing at the end of last year.
However, after the recent rocket attack, the U.S. military indicated its links with the warlord were under review.
Wardak said leaders of Padshah Khan's own Zadran tribe had turned against him, warning young men that if they joined the warlord their homes would be burned down.
U.S.-led international forces and Afghan allies launched an offensive in early October to root out bin Laden and punish his Taliban protectors. Taliban and al Qaeda forces withdrew from Kabul in November and from main southern strongholds in December.
Old rivalries have emerged in some places as warlords jockey for power in the wake of the Taliban defeat.
-------- arms sales
Israeli arms dealers differ over responsibility for shipment to Colombian paramilitaries
Tue May 7, 2002
By JUAN ZAMORANO,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020507/ap_wo_en_ge/panama_colombia_arms_2
PANAMA CITY, Panama - The Nicaraguan government, Israeli arms dealers and the U.S. government have denied knowing that a shipment of Kalishnikov rifles was headed to a Colombian paramilitary group that the U.S. government has branded as terrorist.
The U.S. State Department said it knew vaguely about the deal, but thought it involved only old weapons bound for collectors in the United States - not 3,000 Kalishnikov rifles headed for the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which has been implicated in some of the most brutal massacres of that country's civil war.
One of the four Israeli arms dealers implicated in the purchase of the rifles from a police stockpile in Nicaragua said he had been interested in sending weapons to the Congo, not Colombia.
Wes Carrington, spokesman for the State Department's Western Hemisphere section, said former Nicaraguan Interior Minister Rene Herrera had mentioned the trade to U.S. Ambassador Oliver P. Garza in early 2000.
Garza did not oppose it because his understanding was that the weapons were collectibles for the U.S. market. "That was the extent of our awareness of any kind of arms deal," Carrington said.
The presidents of Panama and Nicaragua were scheduled to meet late Tuesday or Wednesday in Costa Rica to share information and coordinate an investigation into the shipment. Until now, officials in the two countries have accused one another of lying and incompetence.
In Guatemala, authorities said Tuesday they had suspended the weapons-trading license of a company run by two Israelis that bought the weapons from the Nicaraguan police.
That company, known as GIRSA, said it had turned the weapons over to another Israeli-owned company in Panama, DIGAL, which was supposedly representing Panama's police forces, the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported.
Panama says GIRSA presented false documents certifying the guns were bound for Panama. GIRSA said it got them from DIGAL, El Tiempo reported. In any event, the ship carrying the weapons went straight to Colombia, where it was unloaded shortly before midnight on Nov. 10, according to Colombian investigators.
GIRSA's partners have refused to comment beyond saying that investigations would show they had nothing to do with the shipment to Colombia.
In a telephone interview from Africa with Panamanian reporters, DIGAL partner Shimon Yelinek acknowledged he had inspected the Kalishnikov rifles in Nicaragua, but backed away because of the "scandalously good" price being offered.
The Nicaraguans were offering to sell the rifles at dlrs 30 to dlrs 40 each, less than a tenth of their market value. Yelinek said he assumed the deal involved government corruption.
He said he had been interested in buying guns for the Congo.
Yelenik's Panamanian lawyer, Carlos Carrillo, said Yelenik ran an import-export business in the Congo, where an ongoing civil war has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
Government officials in Nicaragua have denied any knowledge that the weapons were headed for Colombia, and they have said they never contacted Panama to see if it was the real buyer of the weapons.
-------- asia
The US quietly wades into South Asia's rebel conflicts
Armed insurgencies in Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and Nepal have hit crucial turning points.
By Scott Baldauf
The Christian Science Monitor
May 07, 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0507/p07s01-wosc.html
KATHMANDU, NEPAL - In this lush Hindu kingdom tucked away in the shadow of Mt. Everest, a brutal Maoist insurgency has killed more than 3,500 people.
The fighting is escalating, and the casualties are mainly civilian. More than 1,700 Nepalis have been killed in the past four months alone, a greater number than in the previous six years combined.
The insurgency in Nepal is just one of three deadly conflicts in South Asia which have brewed quietly in the background of the Afghan conflict. But the lack of media attention is no indication of a lack of US involvement. In all three conflicts, which together have claimed tens of thousands of lives over the past two decades, US officials have quietly been applying pressure and support for peace talks, and, in the case of Nepal, a war against Maoist rebels.
• In Sri Lanka, the US has thrown its support behind a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire that's now in its fourth tenuous month, but the US has also sent emissaries to warn ethnic Tamil guerrillas to desist from terrorism.
• In the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, US diplomats are quietly pressuring both India and Pakistan to step back from their current war-footing, and resume talks over the Muslim-dominated state that they both claim.
• In Nepal, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba arrived in Washington yesterday to finalize a $20 million US military aid package - which reportedly includes counterinsurgency training by US special forces - to help fight against Maoists.
"All these conflicts have a common feature of not being at an end," says Kanti Bajpai, a national security analyst at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "Everyone is split and in doubt; everyone is waiting for everyone else to make the first move."
Nepal: the killing terraces
Of all the major conflicts in South Asia, Nepal's seems the furthest from resolution. The Maoist rebels, who declared a "People's War" in 1996, have accelerated their 10-year plan to overthrow the current monarchy and parliamentary system and replace it with an egalitarian "dictatorship of the proletariat." To date, nearly 3,500 Nepalis have died in the past six years, the vast majority of them civilians.
"The Maoists are today all over the place," says Ashok Mehta, a retired Indian Army general based in New Delhi, who has extensive contacts with the Nepalese Army leaders. "They just knocked off 22 police posts at will, and the state is unable to prevent them or respond."
Over the past five days, the poorly trained, poorly equipped Royal Nepalese Army appears to be making some successes, reportedly killing some 550 Maoists in the Maoist heartland in Western Nepal.
Despite a three-month cease-fire, following the June 1, 2001 royal massacre of King Birendra and much of his family, the Maoists have escalated the level of violence. In addition to attacking "hard targets" such as police stations or army patrols, Maoists have also attacked public services that benefit common Nepalis, such as village development offices, mini-hydropower plants, drinking water projects, airport towers, and telecommunication lines. Today, nearly one third of all Nepali villages have no local officials to run health or education programs; 17 out of 75 districts have lost phone service.
In addition, Maoists have begun rounding up citizens who they consider to be informers and executing them.
"They are attacking everything that used to be a success story in Nepal," says Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times, the main political weekly based in Kathmandu. "If you look at the broader picture, they're trying to use the year after the royal massacre to speed up their revolution. But it can be seen as a sign of desperation to put pressure on the government to get the public opinion to say, 'Enough is enough; let's have talks.' "
Last week, the shadowy Maoist leader Prachanda, alias Pushpa Kamal Dahal, called for immediate peace talks to halt any "foreign interference." Prime Minister Deuba rejected this call, however, saying that the Maoists must first surrender their arms. "No talks are possible with the followers of Pol Pot," Deuba said, referring to the Maoist-trained Cambodian leader.
Deuba's cabinet say US military assistance is necessary in present times.
"The threat to the law and order situation is so intense, threatening, and sophisticated that the [military] apparatus needs to be reinforced and modernized," said Prakash Sharah Mahat, Deuba's military adviser, to the Himalayan Times. As for the Maoists, he ruled out peace talks. "They are on the run. We need to give them a decisive push."
But there is a growing chorus building for talks, backed by businessmen, opposition leaders, and even a few members of Deuba's ruling party, including former Prime Minister Girija Koirala. In this view, every day of bloodshed weakens Nepal's chief industry - tourism. "The answer is simple: Clear up corruption and bring transparency to government, and the support for the Maoists will go away," says Bharat Basnet, a prominent social activist and tour operator in Kathmandu. "If we go on fighting, we will destroy Nepal."
Kashmir: battle fatigue
Farther west on the Himalayan mountain chain, in the valley of Kashmir, a group of Muslim separatists calling themselves the All Parties Hurriyat Conference have pushed for separation from India, although they agree on little else.
It was the brazen attacks of Kashmiri militants - a truck bombing of the state assembly in the summer capital of Srinagar last October, killing 40 people, and the Dec. 13 assault of India's parliament itself in New Delhi - that pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of war. At present, nearly a million Indian and Pakistani troops remain on a war footing along the Indo-Pakistan cease-fire line.
Yet in the valley itself, there are signs that militancy has lost its popularity among the shopkeepers, hoteliers, and taxi drivers who once made a living off of tourism. Daily newspapers regularly now show the bodies of Kashmiri militants, stacked like cords of wood. With no visible results from the armed militants - no "liberation zones," no shift of boundaries - there is a growing chorus for peace talks among separatists.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a leading separatist and perhaps the most powerful Muslim cleric in Kashmir, recently told his followers that it was his "duty to God to end the bloodshed in Kashmir." Many Kashmir-watchers say this may be an indication that Mr. Farooq may start pushing his fellow separatists to restart negotiations with the Indian government, or more shockingly, that he may decide to enter mainstream politics in the state elections this fall.
On the militant front, Kashmir's top indigenous militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, took Delhi by surprise on Friday by offering a cease-fire.
"Once India takes an initiative with will and good intentions, she will find us 10 steps ahead of her one step," wrote Moin-ul-Islam, deputy supreme commander of Hizbul, in the Srinagar-based newspaper Greater Kashmir.
Previous attempts to begin such a peace process have failed. Even so, a number of recent visits by top US diplomats, including US Secretary of State Colin Powell and last month's visit by the assistant secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, show that the US wants tensions eased between the two nuclear powers.
"America is paying attention, but they have to be a bit careful about how much pressure to apply," says Dr. Bajpai, the national-security expert. "India has balked at intervention in the past, so the lowest-key contact is with the Indian government. Still, the US is working with all three parties (India, Pakistan, and the separatists) very quietly, more forcefully with Pakistan and less forcefully with us."
Sri Lanka: a shaky cease-fire
On paper, Sri Lanka's cease-fire appears to be holding. On one side are ethnic Tamil guerrillas, who seek a separate nation in the north. On the other are the Sinhalese majority, who control the government.
But in the past two weeks, there has been evidence that the feared Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, have been using the cease-fire to rearm themselves. Two weeks ago, the Sri Lankan Navy captured three boats packed with heavy weapons destined for the northern Tamil stronghold of Jaffna peninsula. A fourth boat, stopped by Navy gunboats on Thursday, exploded while Sri Lankan Navy personnel tried to conduct a search of its contents. Tamil rebels rebuke the government's assertion that the boats were used for arms smuggling.
Some experts suggest that this peace process may succeed because of the advancing age of the chief Tiger commander, Velupillai Prabhakaran, who has led the insurgency for some 23 years. Last month, at his first meeting with journalists in 12 years, Mr. Prabhakaran said the LTTE "is for peace and a negotiated political settlement."
Yet if the Tamil Tigers are rearming, so is the Sri Lankan military. Last week, the military announced that it had begun recruiting once again, and retraining the troops they have.
Opinionmakers in Colombo, the capital, say that there is little likelihood of turning the current cease-fire into a lasting peace.
"I don't think anyone here takes the cease-fire seriously," says Roland Edirisinghe, an economist and political columnist in Colombo. "Mr. Prabhakaran wants to rearm and replenish his army, and he is regarded by Sri Lanka and India as a mass murderer who has killed nearly 20,000 Sinhalese, including 600 Buddhist monks." Prabhakaran is also blamed for the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and India wants to extradite him.
In addition, the war in Sri Lanka has raged so long now that it has become a prime driver in the economy, Mr. Edirisinghe adds. Nearly 1 million people get their incomes from war, as cooks, seamstresses of Army uniforms, and even as private guards (some 400,000 of them). "War is good for the economy," he says.
-------- biological weapons
U.S. Cites Cuban Bioweapons Effort
Security: Havana might be passing germ weapons know-how to 'rogue' states, official says.
By PAUL RICHTER,
LOS ANGELES TIMES STAFF WRITER,
May 7, 2002
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000032321may07.story
WASHINGTON -- A senior Bush administration official said Monday that U.S. leaders have underestimated the security threat posed by Cuba, and he issued a specific warning about the country's biological weapons program.
U.S. officials believe that Cuba has "at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort," said John R. Bolton, undersecretary of State for arms control and international security. And they fear that the Cubans might be passing on their germ weapons know-how to other "rogue" states, he said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy center in Washington.
The comments represent a marked toughening of the official line on Cuba. The Castro regime has long been listed by the U.S. government as a state sponsor of terrorism, and officials have said that Cuba was believed to have the capability to produce germ agents. But, until now, government officials have given this danger little emphasis. And they have not indicated that Cuba might be an important source of germ-weapon knowledge for other countries. The new warnings brought charges from some analysts that the administration was trying to strengthen its political support from anti-Castro Cubans in Florida and other conservatives. Florida is important to President Bush's reelection prospects, and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, is facing an election in November.
Bolton said that the worries about Cuba arise from its "well-developed and sophisticated" biomedical industry, which until 1990 had substantial support from the Soviet Union. The equipment used to manufacture pharmaceutical or agricultural products is considered "dual use," meaning that it can also be applied to create germ weapon agents, such as viruses and toxins.
Bolton said Cuba "has provided dual-use technology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support biological warfare programs in those states."
Bolton did not specify which nations Havana might have aided, but he noted that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited Iran, Syria and Libya last year. Bolton said that Castro told an audience at Tehran University, "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees."
U.S. officials have underestimated the threat posed by Cuba in large part because of the work of Cuban spies operating in the United States, Bolton declared.
He cited Ana Belen Montes, a longtime Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who pleaded guilty in March to spying for Cuba.
Montes was a contributor to a key 1998 Pentagon report that reviewed Cuba's military capabilities. The report concluded that the island did not pose a substantial security threat to the United States--though then-Defense Secretary William S. Cohen acknowledged that he was "concerned" about the germ weapons program.
"Why was the 1998 report on Cuba so unbalanced? Why did it underplay the threat Cuba posed to the United States?" Bolton asked. "A major reason is Cuba's aggressive intelligence operations against the United States."
There is disagreement over how much proof exists that Cuba is developing a dangerous germ weapons capability.
Stephen Johnson, a specialist on Latin American affairs at Heritage Foundation, said some Cuban migrants have pointed to such dangers.
Johnson said U.S. officials' suspicions have also been aroused by the fact that Cuba has spent millions on sophisticated biomedical gear, even though it often has shortages of basic medical products.
Some other analysts scoffed at the suggestion that Cuba could be trying to develop such weapons.
Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington research center on Latin American affairs, said there has been scant evidence that Cuba was developing such a program.
"This is just nuts," he said. "If [Bolton] has any evidence for this, he ought to make it public. Otherwise it's just a smear tactic."
Julia E. Sweig, deputy director for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based research center, said the remarks indicate that the Bush administration, under pressure from anti-Castro Cuban Americans to show stronger support for their cause, is looking for a way to make its Cuba policy more distinctive from the Clinton administration's.
She noted that President Bush is planning an address May 20 in Miami that is expected to make a major statement on Cuba.
"I would read this politically," she said.
----
Havana pursues biological warfare
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020507-46644.htm
The Bush administration said yesterday that it has "broad and deep" evidence that Cuba is developing offensive biological warfare capabilities and sharing them with "other rogue states."
In a speech titled "Beyond the Axis of Evil," John Bolton, undersecretary of state for international security and arms control, named Cuba, Libya and Syria as "states intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction" against which the United States would take action to prevent such arms from reaching terrorists.
President Bush included Iran, Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address to Congress in January.
"The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort," Mr. Bolton said at the Heritage Foundation. "Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support [bioweapons] programs in those states."
In a later interview, a senior administration official said Washington has gathered "broad and deep" evidence of Cuba's pursuit of such weapons but is "constrained" in what it can disclose publicly.
The official said the decision to go public with the charges reflects the effect the new assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Otto Reich, has had on the administration's Latin America policy. Mr. Reich was born in Cuba and came to the United States with his parents after the 1959 communist revolution.
Mr. Bolton said Cuba, which has been designated by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism, "has long provided safe haven for terrorists" and "is known to be harboring terrorists from Colombia, Spain and fugitives from the United States."
He said Cuban President Fidel Castro visited Iran, Syria and Libya last year and cited a speech at Tehran University in which he said, "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees."
Mr. Bolton said that for four decades, Cuba "has maintained a well-developed and sophisticated biomedical industry," supported by the Soviet Union until 1990.
"This industry is one of the most advanced in Latin America and leads in the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are sold worldwide. Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities conducted in these biomedical facilities," he said.
"We call on Cuba to cease all [bioweapon]-applicable cooperation with rogue states and to fully comply with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention."
While the administration supports the Biological Weapons Convention, as well as other international arms-control agreements such as the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, "experience has shown that treaties and agreements are an insufficient check against state sponsors of terrorism," Mr. Bolton said.
Cuba and Libya have ratified and Syria has signed the Biological Weapons Convention, but Mr. Bolton said Washington will not assume that "a country's formal subscription to U.N. counterterrorism conventions or its membership in multilateral regimes necessarily constitutes an accurate reading of its intentions."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agreed that treaties are not enough to ensure compliance, but he said the administration "has not introduced a fundamentally new approach and is emphasizing the name-calling strategy."
Mr. Bolton also accused the Clinton administration of "underplaying" the threat that Cuba poses to U.S. security and sharply criticized a 1998 government report that said Cuba "has a limited capacity to engage in some military and intelligence activities which could pose a danger to U.S. citizens under some circumstances."
He said a "major reason" for the "unbalanced" report was "Cuba's aggressive intelligence operations against the United States, which included recruiting the Defense Intelligence Agency's senior Cuba analyst, Ana Belen Montes, to spy" for Havana.
"Montes not only had a hand in drafting the report but also passed some of our most sensitive information about Cuba back to Havana," Mr. Bolton said. "Montes was arrested last fall and pleaded guilty to espionage on March 19."
----
Anthrax Sent Through Mail Gained Potency by the Letter
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/national/07ANTH.html?pagewanted=all
Keepening the mystery of the biological attacks that terrified the nation last fall, federal investigators have discovered that the anthrax sent through the mail, in general, grew more potent from one letter to the next, with the spores in the final letter to be opened - the one sent to Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont - the deadliest of all.
The finding has surprised and worried investigators, who say it poses a new riddle: was the culprit an amateur making gradual improvements through experimentation, a malevolent professional intentionally ratcheting up the potency of the germ powder, or someone else entirely?
It also suggests that after more than six months of painstaking effort, government experts investigating the anthrax strikes are still at sea. Part of the problem, they admit, is a lack of advisers skilled in the subtleties of germ weapons.
The discovery of the progressive potential deadliness of the anthrax is the latest conclusion of scientific testing that investigators are hoping will help crack a case that has baffled the F.B.I. since the first anthrax fatality: that of Robert Stevens, a photo editor at a Florida supermarket tabloid, who died on Oct. 5.
With five anthrax deaths linked to the contaminated mailings, the F.B.I. inquiry has consumed millions of hours of interviews, neighborhood sweeps and other detective work. For example, F.B.I. laboratory analysts matched the serrated ends of the strips of cellophane tape used to seal the anthrax letters. That meant that whoever sealed the letters, without leaving any fingerprints, tore off successive strips of tape from the same roll, officials said.
But investigators acknowledge that they still have no idea who is behind the tainted letters. So they are increasingly turning to science to unravel the mystery. Tests being conducted at several private laboratories may reveal the precise biological signature of the anthrax used in the mailings, helping to narrow the search for the laboratory from which it came.
Analyses of the anthrax sample and the chemicals used to coat it could leave telltale clues to the techniques and equipment used to manufacture the germ material.
Investigators previously believed that the anthrax sent to Mr. Leahy, the Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, were identical in strength. Each letter was mailed from Trenton on Oct. 9, 2001. Each had the same photocopied message inside.
But it turns out that the Leahy anthrax is finer, its spores having a smaller range of particle sizes, officials familiar with the federal investigation said.
"It could be that the final steps of the processing were done in steps," a senior government official said. "You take it so far, and take off a bunch. You go further, and take off another bunch."
Despite the increasing sophistication of the anthrax, investigators say they still judge that the deadly powder could have been made in any of thousands of biological laboratories, though getting the right starter germs would have been difficult.
An aide to Senator Daschle opened the letter on Oct. 15, and officials quickly warned that its anthrax was of high quality compared with earlier mailings, to news media offices in New York. The Leahy letter was impounded, along with all other Congressional mail, and was not discovered until Nov. 16. Investigators made painstaking safety and forensic preparations before opening it in early December.
The analysis of the contents of the Leahy letter is proceeding slowly, the investigators say, because they are learning the science as they go along and want to make sure that none of the scarce, lightweight but extremely valuable evidence is lost, corrupted or misinterpreted. They are getting help, they say, from scores of scientists across the nation.
"We'll have to take this into court," the law enforcement official said of the evidence. "We had to assure ourselves that we had a quality program."
A senior Bush administration official expressed sympathy for the F.B.I. because the inquiry had grown so scientifically complex and knowledgeable advisers are so few.
"They're having to review a lot of the initial takes on things," the official said. "There's an evolving picture. The bureau has gone back to scratch to invent the science."
It is sometimes hard even to do reappraisals. In the Florida case, no letter or residual powder was ever recovered, leaving many questions about the anthrax there.
Federal officials said the first wave of well-documented attacks with mailed anthrax - in letters from Trenton postmarked Sept. 18 to NBC News and The New York Post - was relatively crude. The powder was heavily contaminated, they said, with what biologists call vegetative cells - anthrax bacteria before processing in the laboratory turns them into hardened spores. Vegetative cells in dry anthrax powder are generally dead and therefore harmless, experts said.
By contrast, the tiny spores live in a dormant state. Individual ones are light enough to float easily in the air and, if inhaled, small enough to reach deep into human lungs, eventually germinating into bacteria and causing the respiratory form of the disease, which can be fatal. They can also cause the less dangerous cutaneous form if rubbed into the skin.
Last October, alarm bells rang when the Daschle powder was found to be nearly pure spores. The danger was driven home when nasal swabs came back positive for 28 people in the Senate Hart building, where the letter was opened.
The F.B.I. in early November characterized the Daschle powder as "much more refined, more potent, and more easily dispersed" than the New York media anthrax. The mailer's letters hinted at the danger. The media ones warned the openers to take penicillin. But the Daschle letter said flatly, "You Die Now."
As federal experts investigated the residual Daschle sample, they found the picture becoming fuzzier. On one hand, the concentration of the anthrax was extraordinarily high - roughly equal to that made in the abandoned American germ weapons program, a trillion spores per gram.
But federal experts now say the particles turned out to have a large size range. While single spores predominated, the experts said, some Daschle clusters ranged up to 40 microns wide - far too big to penetrate human lungs. A micron is one-millionth of a meter, and a human hair is 75 to 100 microns wide. The big clusters suggested the powder was far less than weapons grade.
Private experts disagree on just how much less. Ken Alibek, a former Soviet germ official who is now president of Advanced Biosystems, a consulting company in Manassas, Va., called the Daschle anthrax mediocre.
"It was not done with a regular industrial process," Dr. Alibek said in an interview. "Maybe it's homemade."
Recipes that antigovernment militia groups circulate at gun shows might suffice to make the deadly powder, he said.
But William C. Patrick III, a scientist who made germ weapons for the American military and is now a private consultant on biological defense, rated the Daschle anthrax as 7 on a scale of 10.
"It's relatively high grade," Mr. Patrick said, "but not weapons grade."
In addition to particle size, federal experts are investigating whether the anthrax powders have electrostatic charges that affect dispersal and chemical coatings meant to increase potency and shelf life.
Federal investigators saw the Leahy anthrax as an opportunity to clear up ambiguities and deepen the analysis. Since no powder had been lost in the letter's opening, they had more to work with. Still, the amount, typical of the tainted letters, was remarkably small - just 0.871 grams. A pat of butter weighs 10 grams.
Last week, government officials said the most recent analyses showed that the Daschle and Leahy powders were quite different, the latter finer and more uniform.
"You can characterize the Leahy as having a smaller particle range," one official said.
In general, he added, the ability of federal investigators to do deeper analyses because of the relatively large amounts of powder in the Leahy letter is producing "real interesting results."
A biologist aiding in the investigation said the increasing potency of anthrax in the letters might suggest that the attacker was a thief who stole several samples.
"Maybe he didn't pocket one vial but two or three, if we're assuming this was an opportunist," this scientist said.
Dr. Alibek raised another possible factor. The F.B.I., he said, needed to weigh the possibility that post office sorting machinery might have had an effect. "It could be an additional process of milling," he said, "like a mortar and pestle."
Experts said the Daschle and Leahy letters, starting at the same place in New Jersey on the same date and ending up at the same destination in Washington, appear to have taken similar if not identical postal routes. Dr. Alibek agreed but said the same sorter could apply more pressure to one letter than another. He added that the overall grade contrasts were probably caused by "different batches of the product, one more sophisticated than the other."
Investigators have also been studying the envelopes, officials say, and have found that the paper had very large pores - up to 50 microns wide. That is bigger than the largest Daschle anthrax clusters and suggests how the powder could easily escape individual letters to contaminate the general mails.
"It had to be one of the most porous materials," an official said of the attack envelopes compared with standard ones. "Whether that was by chance or design, I have no idea."
Bioterror Chief Leaving
WASHINGTON, May 6 - Dr. D. A. Henderson, who ran the worldwide campaign to eradicate smallpox two decades ago and re-emerged after the anthrax attacks to lead the government's effort to prepare for bioterrorism, is stepping down as director of the federal Office of Public Health Preparedness.
The 73-year-old Dr. Henderson, who said when he took the job that it would be temporary, will remain the principal science adviser to Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services. Dr. Henderson will be replaced at the health preparedness office by Jerome M. Hauer, who has been his deputy.
--------
How to Recognize Ebola Attack
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bioterrorism-Guidelines.html
CHICAGO (AP) -- A bioterrorist attack using Ebola or other so-called bleeding viruses could be especially insidious because the early symptoms seem so ordinary and there is no vaccine or approved drug treatment, experts say in new guidelines for doctors.
The guidelines, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, aim to help doctors recognize biological warfare agents that most have only read about in medical books but that seem more menacing after last fall's anthrax-by-mail attacks.
The recommendations deal with hemorrhagic fever viruses, whose most severe symptom is bleeding, under the skin or from body orifices.
The guidelines note that these viruses already have been turned into weapons by the former Soviet Union and the United States and could cause widespread illness and death.
The guidelines were created by the Working Group on Civilian Biodefense, which is composed of doctors and public health experts from the military, civilian government agencies and universities.
This is the sixth set of bioterrorism guidelines from the group, which previously published recommendations in JAMA for handling anthrax, smallpox and plague.
``Most of our health professionals are unfamiliar with these viruses and would be hard-pressed to provide a quick diagnosis,'' said Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician who has pushed for bioterrorism preparedness.
Still, health care workers should know a bioterrorist attack using these viruses would not be hopeless, said Dr. Luciana Borio of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, where the working group is based.
``We know that mortality can be diminished with good, meticulous medical care,'' said Borio, lead author of the guidlines. That would include steps to reduce fever and blood pressure, and the use of ventilators and anti-seizure drugs if needed.
But first doctors need to know what they are dealing with. Victims of Ebola and other hemorrhagic viruses, such as Marburg, Yellow fever and Rift Valley fever, can show early, flu-like symptoms within two to 21 days that can include fevers, facial redness, lethargy and headaches.
The more serious, telltale symptoms such as bleeding may take longer to develop. But there is no routine diagnostic test. Blood samples would have to be sent to one of only two federal laboratories nationwide that can test for the viruses.
Suspected victims would need to be hospitalized and isolated from other patients. Because of the highly contagious body secretions, health care workers would need heavy face masks or shields and goggles, double gloves and impermeable hospital gowns.
Ribavirin, a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for another ailment, is useful in only some types of hemorrhagic viruses and it is not widely available, according to the guidelines.
Dr. Neal Shipley, head of the emergency department at North General Hospital in New York City, said the guidelines are useful for doctors like him who would be on the front line in such an attack, but the advice needs to be accompanied by federal money for training and equipment.
``It's one thing to have the masks and suits sitting in someone's office. It's another thing to have personnel on every shift, 24-7, who know how to use them,'' Shipley said. As for the possibility of a bioterrorist attack, ``we're really crossing our fingers that it doesn't happen.''
-------- business
Northrop Moves Closer To TRW Deal
Companies Sign Confidentiality Pact
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42768-2002May6?language=printer
Northrop Grumman Corp. signed a confidentiality agreement with TRW Inc. yesterday, inching closer to a negotiated deal to buy the Cleveland aerospace and auto-parts firm that could end their nearly three-month impasse.
The confidentiality agreement will give Los Angeles-based Northrop access to TRW's nonpublic financial records, including detailed revenue projections. That information could prompt Northrop to raise its current $6.7 billion offer, which TRW executives have repeatedly turned down as too low.
It marks a critical turning point in the battle for TRW, which became contentious last week as both sides accused the other of misleading shareholders. The hostile takeover effort began in February with the sudden departure of TRW's chairman, which prompted Northrop to make a $47-a-share bid. TRW's board steadfastly rejected the offer even after it was raised to $53 a share and the assumption of $5.5 billion in debt.
To fend off Northrop, the third-largest defense contractor, TRW outlined its own restructuring plan and put itself up for sale. It also signed confidentiality agreements with other companies, raising the possibility that a rival bid could emerge.
But as the battle dragged on, investors and analysts increasingly looked to the companies to negotiate a friendly deal. "The significance of the confidentiality agreement is that the two sides have crept nominally closer together," said Scott W. Keller, an analyst at DealAnalytics.com.
The latest sticking point was a clause in the confidentiality agreement preventing Northrop from mounting another bid for TRW for three years if a deal could not be worked out. Northrop proposed a 75-day "standstill" provision. It is unclear how the issue was settled, but Northrop said in a statement that the terms "are acceptable to both companies."
"We are pleased that we have reached a mutually acceptable agreement with Northrop," Philip A. Odeen, TRW chairman, said in a statement. "The focus of our board has been on enhancing shareholder value and this will not change."
A negotiated deal had become increasingly important to Northrop's efforts. Last week, TRW's shareholders blocked the defense giant from acquiring a significant number of the company's shares as part of a hostile takeover. Under Ohio's strict anti-takeover laws, Northrop cannot pursue its bid without the support of a majority of TRW shareholders, which they lost by a "decisive" margin, according to TRW.
Northrop had raised the possibility of walking away if it lost the vote, but analysts predicted the defense giant would be reluctant to abandon TRW's military satellites and missile defense businesses -- both priorities of the Bush administration.
The absence of rival bidders also increased the pressure on TRW's board to come to terms with Northrop. "TRW management is looking weaker and weaker," Keller said.
The battle has been a windfall to TRW shareholders, which have seen shares rise nearly 40 percent since Northrop announced its interest. TRW gained 6 cents yesterday to close at $55.06 on the New York Stock Exchange. Northrop lost $2.75, or 2.2 percent, to close at $119.63.
-------- colombia
UN condemns Colombia massacre as war crime
Jeremy McDermott In Medellín
Tue 7 May 2002
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=491242002
THE United Nations yesterday condemned as a war crime the killing of 108 people in a Colombian church and said the government was partly to blame for the tragedy.
Battles still raged around the battered community of Bojayá where the 108, 45 of them children, died when a mortar bomb was lobbed into the church where they were seeking refuge from fighting between Marxist guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and right-wing paramilitaries. The people of this small town, in the remote jungle province of Chocó, yesterday managed to recover their dead, using lulls in the fighting to pick up their loved ones.
"Some of the bodies were so ripped up it was practically impossible to identify them. Many are just body parts, some have heads which we were able to identify," said one horrified doctor who had gone in with a rescue helicopters to evacuate wounded. The doctor, who preferred not to give her name, sat in a hospital in Medellín, almost unable to put into words the carnage she had witnessed.
In the middle of last week the fighting began between the two illegal armies, as the FARC tried to root out their hated paramilitary enemies from Bojayá. The terrified townsfolk headed for the only place they thought they would be safe, the church, the only substantial stone building in the impoverished community of wooden shacks.
But some paramilitaries were also using the building for cover and the FARC responded, lobbing a home-made mortar bomb into the church, which landed among the 500 people sheltering there. "One moment we were in the middle of incense and candlelight," said a survivor, who asked to be named only as Joaquín, from his hospital bed in Medellín. "Then there were bodies stuck to the walls, in pieces."
The UN have categorised the attack as a war crime and a UN representative in Colombia, Anders Kompass, also had some harsh words for the government, insisting that his office and that of the Colombian People's Defence organisation had long ago warned the government that the community was in grave danger and needed security force protection. He said the government was at the very least "guilty of omission".
However, more than five days after the first reports of heavy fighting were received, security forces have still not arrived in the community.
After mounting public outrage, President Andrés Pastrana visited Chocó's provincial capital, Quibdo, and assembled a 4,000-strong task force to retake the area. "This was a massacre, a genocide by the FARC, that attacked a civilian population that had taken refuge in a church," said Mr Pastrana. and he cheered on soldiers getting ready to move into the area.
But for the locals it was too little too late. They insist the warnings should have been heeded long ago and the region not abandoned to the illegal armies by the state. "The massacre has already happened and now Pastrana gets here," shouted Saúl Olaya, a Quibdo resident. "Children have arrived here severely burned. It makes you want to weep."
Scattered messages coming from Bojayá show that fighting is still going on, and the community is still at the mercy of the illegal armies. A group of marines moving up the River Atrato, the only transport artery in this part of Chocó, was ambushed by guerrillas from the banks and retreated after taking three casualties.
The army believes some 1,000 FARC guerrillas are in the area, faced off against 500 paramilitaries as they fight for control of the river, which winds down to the Caribbean coast and Panama. The illegal armies want to dominate the waterway and the drugs trade that uses it.
The people of Bojayá may not be safe for a long time yet.
-------- iran
Official: Iran Developing Missile
By George Gedda
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48571-2002May7.html
WASHINGTON -- Iran, with an assist from Russia and other countries, is developing a long-range missile that would give it the ability to strike NATO countries in Europe, a senior administration official says.
The Shahab-4 missile would initially have a 1,250-mile range but anticipated upgrades would allow it to reach Italy, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Greece, according to the official.
The development is worrisome to U.S. officials because Iran has been viewed by the State Department as the world's most active terrorist country. President Bush has identified Iran among three "axis of evil" members, with Iraq and North Korea.
Despite the emerging capability, an Iranian attack against American allies in Europe is considered highly unlikely because most of these countries maintain normal ties with Tehran, which they believe can help moderate Iran's behavior.
Older generation Iranian missiles, including the Shahab-3, have shorter ranges and are capable of reaching Israel, Turkey and U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
A U.S. defense official said Tuesday the Shahab-3 has a mixed record in tests and isn't thought to be completely reliable.
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, quoted by Iran's state-run radio Tuesday, said Iran was taking steps to improve "the destructive power, accuracy and range" of the Shahab-3.
Iran seems increasingly confident about its military prowess. This was apparent when strains developed with Israel after Israel's interception in January of a shipment of Iranian weapons to Palestinian areas.
At one point, Shamkhani warned that if Israel "carries out any military action against Iran, the response will be beyond the imagination of any Israeli politician."
Iran's missile development is proceeding hand-in-hand with efforts to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, U.S. officials say.
The senior official, commenting on condition of anonymity, said Iran's military buildup cannot be justified as a defense against neighbor and longtime rival Iraq, pointing out that the missiles Iran is developing could fly well beyond Iraq.
In a speech Monday, Undersecretary of State John Bolton highlighted Iran's progress in developing biological and chemical weapons. He also alluded to its "ongoing interest in nuclear weapons, and its aggressive ballistic missile research, development and flight-testing regimen."
A CIA report issued this year said Iran has been receiving missile equipment, technology and related expertise from Russia, North Korea and China.
Russia's role in assisting Iran seems at odds with the strong expressions of friendship and confidence Washington and Moscow have been demonstrating toward each other lately.
The mutual regard was evident last week during the visit to Washington of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and is expected to be on display when President Bush travels to Moscow on May 23 for a summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
Each side ascribes good will to the other even as disagreements remain, including U.S. doubts about Russian compliance with biological and chemical weapons treaties.
The administration has been highlighting the positive aspects of the relationship with Moscow while making only infrequent references to its concerns about Russia's ties with Iran.
The senior official who spoke about Iran, however, said these links are a series problem, "a piece of baggage that weighs down the relationship" with Russia.
"We're concerned that Russian technology and expertise is helping Iran to increase the accuracy and distance of their missiles, and that Russian technology and expertise is helping Iran develop fissile material," the official said.
-------- iraq
Security Council OKs Iraq Sanctions
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Iraq-Sanctions.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United Nations Security Council's five permanent members have agreed on a new system of sanctions against Iraq, the White House said Tuesday.
Spokesman Ari Fleischer announced the action in Washington. ``This is a step forward,'' he said.
He said the move would be discussed by the full Security Council and voted on this week.
Fleischer cheered the move as beneficial to the people of Iraq, but said they would not see the full benefit if Saddam Hussein ``continues to manipulate'' the oil-for-food program.
``He undermines the program with illicit oil sales and schemes to force buyers to provide cash kickbacks,'' Fleischer said.
The Bush administration has sought to overhaul Iraqi sanctions, saying the oil-for-food program has been exploited so often that the sanctions are like ``Swiss cheese.''
The changes will tighten controls over Iraq's efforts to acquire destructive weapons while allowing freer flow of humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people, Bush administration officials said.
The agreement ``retains and further focuses U.N. controls on items that Iraq could use to rearm,'' said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, while ``it effectively lifts U.N. controls on purely civilian goods.''
The changes will help make clear that ``the restriction and lack of distribution of civilian goods inside Iraq is not due to any outside controls, but rather to the behavior of the Iraqi regime,'' Boucher said.
The United States supported ending controls on some civilian items ``because they're not of any significant concern as far as Iraq's rearmament goes,'' he said. ``We ... want to focus the controls and focus the effort on making sure that Iraq does not acquire the wherewithal to rearm, or to make weapons of mass destruction.''
Russia, Iraq's closest ally on the Security Council and one-time opponent to revising the sanctions, played ``a very constructive role'' in developing the agreement reached Tuesday, Fleischer said.
Last November, Russia agreed to approve by May 30 a new list of goods that would need U.N. review before shipment to Iraq. In turn, the United States would discuss a comprehensive settlement of the sanctions, including steps that would lead to suspending the military embargo on Iraq.
Iraq was hit with strict sanctions after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The oil-for-food program began in 1996 to provide food and basic humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people, and evolved into a main element of the Iraqi economy after it was expanded to cover public services such as education and water supply.
Under the current structure of the oil-for-food program, most contracts for humanitarian goods are approved by a U.N. monitoring committee. Any of the 15 Security Council members can place an individual contract on hold.
Under the proposed system, all humanitarian contracts would be forwarded to two U.N. agencies responsible for dismantling Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The two agencies -- the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency -- would have 10 days to raise any objections.
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon Proposes Bypassing Arafat in Future Talks
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By TODD S. PURDUM with STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/international/middleeast/07SHAR.html
WASHINGTON, May 6 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel began talks with top Bush administration officials here today, outlining his vision of the next phase in Middle East peacemaking, which he says should bypass Yasir Arafat and offer only interim steps toward a Palestinian state, Israeli and American officials said.
"Everyone knows we're not going to start drawing lines on a border for permanent status and dividing Jerusalem," an Israeli official said today. "That's just a nonstarter today."
Israeli officials pressed their case against Mr. Arafat and continued to circulate documents that they say show payments by Saudi Arabia to the families of suicide bombers.
At the same time, King Abdullah II of Jordan and the Saudi foreign minister, also in Washington, pursued their own cause, including seeking backing for Mr. Arafat, in a day of closed-door diplomacy with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
In a speech here tonight to the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Sharon expressed relief that the United Nations had been forced to abandon a proposed fact-finding mission into Israel's actions in the Jenin refugee camp, calling Palestinian accusations of a massacre there "a Palestinian blood libel." He thanked President Bush and Secretary Powell for helping avoid the inquiry, saying, "They stood firm in order not to allow that Israeli soldiers will be interrogated."
Mr. Bush, who is to meet Mr. Sharon on Tuesday, repeated his sharp criticism of Mr. Arafat but did not echo Mr. Sharon's demands that the Palestinian leader be replaced, instead calling on him and other Middle East leaders "assume their responsibilities and lead."
"He has disappointed me," Mr. Bush told reporters during a visit to an elementary school in Southfield, Mich., speaking of Mr. Arafat. "He must lead. He must show the world that he believes in peace."
But he added, "In order to achieve peace, all parties - the Arab nations, Israel, Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority - must assume their responsibilities and lead."
In his speech tonight, Mr. Sharon offered no details of his ideas, but said Israel had faced "a brutal campaign of terror instigated and encouraged by the Palestinian Authority and its leader."
While not mentioning Mr. Arafat by name, he said, "A responsible Palestinian Authority that can advance the cause of peace should not be dependent on the will of one man." The "blood libel" mentioned in his speech was a term Mr. Sharon often uses. Before he began applying it to the accusations about Jenin, he accused Time magazine of blood libel in his libel suit against the magazine two decades ago.
In Israel, talks continued on how to settle the armed siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where more than 120 people have been holed up while Israel demands the handover of Palestinian militants on its most-wanted list. In return, Israel says it will withdraw from Bethlehem, the last major Palestinian-controlled area it still occupies in force.
The outlines of a deal were sketched late Sunday, but officials said Mr. Arafat had objected to Israel's demand that up to 13 men be exiled from the region, probably to Italy, holding out for deporting only four to six men. Israeli officials said they believed that Mr. Arafat was reluctant to give Mr. Sharon any kind of victory before his meeting with Mr. Bush, who has pressed hard for an end to the standoff.
In the meantime, Arab diplomats said they expected that Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia would meet with Mr. Arafat in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik this weekend to press him to rein in violence and pave the way for resumption of serious peace efforts.
But the unusually hectic round of meetings here served to emphasize the gaps separating Arab, Israeli and American positions. Israeli officials with Mr. Sharon's party issued an 85-page document they say offers proof of Saudi payments to the families of suicide bombers and to the Hamas terrorist group. The Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, issued a statement condemning the allegations as "totally baseless and false."
For days, Israeli officials have circulated such material and similar captured documents alleging Mr. Arafat's complicity in terrorist acts.
But Saudi officials took particular umbrage today. Prince Bandar expressed frustration that Mr. Sharon had not been more supportive of his kingdom's recent peace initiative calling for broad Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from occupied territories.
"The question is, when will Prime Minister Ariel Sharon take `yes' for an answer?" the prince said.
Neither the Israelis nor Bush administration officials would offer much detail about Mr. Sharon's expected discussions with the president, but they said enough to suggest there would be some disagreements.
Senior European and Arab officials have repeatedly said that any new peace effort will require a specific, phased timetable toward guaranteed creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli officials made it plain that Mr. Sharon was prepared at the moment to discuss only interim measures toward that goal, while Israel builds up security defenses and reserves the right to make strategic raids in Palestinian areas in the short term if violence continues.
"I think we're looking today to see what steps can be taken that we can agree on, that we can move forward on, steps that are toward the final solution but not the big deal," an Israeli official said. "In the framework of that, I think Sharon is willing to show flexibility. No one wants to close off talking about the final settlement." But, he added, Israel is not ready for those talks now.
"The flexibility that Sharon is going to offer is not going to come in a vacuum," the official said. "It's presupposed on cooperation on the security side. If the bombings begin again, we'll go right back in."
Secretary Powell met with Mr. Sharon in the prime minister's hotel suite for about 45 minutes, but the two men did not meet with reporters. Afterward, Mr. Powell said only, "We had a very good meeting."
American and Israeli officials said that Mr. Sharon had not brought up his dossier on Mr. Arafat in the meeting with Secretary Powell, and that it had come up only in passing in a later meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Secretary Powell, after meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan at the State Department, said he and Mr. Sharon had talked about how to improve security, rebuild Palestinian institutions and pave the way for a political solution to the conflict, but that the administration itself had not made final judgments about how to proceed.
"There were different points of view on that political dimension," Secretary Powell said. "And what we'll be discussing with our friends in the weeks ahead is the nature of a comprehensive settlement or settlement that would involve way stations on the way to a comprehensive settlement. We have not made a judgment on this, and that's why we're consulting with our friends."
After his own meeting with Secretary Powell at the State Department, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said he could not yet offer an opinion on a foreign ministers' peace conference on the Middle East proposed by the United States because too many details remained unknown.
Asked in Arabic if he intended to meet with anyone in Mr. Sharon's delegation while they are both here, Prince Saud replied first in Arabic and then in other languages: "That's no, nyet and nein."
--------
Explosion Occurred as Bush Met With Sharon in Washington
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Explosion.html
RISHON LETZION, Israel -- A suicide bomber set off nailed-studded explosives at an Israeli pool hall late Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding about 60, police said. It happened as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was meeting with President Bush to discuss peace talks with the Palestinians.
The attack in this city 10 miles south of Tel Aviv prompted Sharon to cancel a meeting with congressional leaders in Washington and to fly home early, an Israeli official said.
The blast came at 11:03 p.m. (4:03 p.m. EDT) in a three-story building in the heart of the industrial section of Rishon Letzion. Haim Cohen, a police commander in the city of 100,000, said the bomber walked right into the pool hall. "He entered all of a sudden into the hall and then he exploded."
This latest in a wave of suicide bombings was the first since April 12 when a bomber blew herself up at a bus stop in Jerusalem, killing six people while Secretary of State Colin Powell was in the region trying to end the violence.
Neither Sharon nor Bush knew about the attack during their meeting, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. After they were briefed, Bush offered Sharon condolences and registered "his disgust with this wanton waste of life," she said.
The attack came as efforts were being made to wrap up a deal to end the 36-day-old standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It would involve deporting some of the militants in the church, but many Palestinians strongly oppose deportation.
Al Manar TV in Lebanon said it received a claim of responsibility for the bombing from the Islamic militant group Hamas. But a Hamas spokesman, Mahmoud Zahar, told The Associated Press he could not confirm it. "If it is a martyrdom operation, it means that Israel has lost its war against the Palestinians and the Palestinian resistance has proved that it is capable of reaching the enemy everywhere," he said.
Since Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted in September 2000, there have been nearly 60 suicide bombings. An attack on March 27 that killed 28 people set off Israel's large-scale military operation in the West Bank two days later, aimed at uprooting what Israel called "terrorist infrastructure."
In a strong statement with a rare choice of words, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority called suicide bombings "terrorist crimes." It said it would "take firm and strict measures against those who are involved in this operation and will not be light-handed in punishing those who have caused great harm to our cause."
Public opinion polls have shown that many Palestinians believe suicide bombings are a legitimate weapon.
David Baker, an official at Sharon's office, blamed the Palestinian Authority. Speaking to The Associated Press, he said "it is clear that the Palestinian Authority has not given up its terror actions and has not given up its murderous path."
Outside the pool hall, young women and men cried as they looked up at the bombed-out building. Emergency workers tried to help many to ambulances as police investigators scoured the area for evidence.
Part of the ceiling on the top floor collapsed. A sign read "Sheffield Club, snooker, cafeteria." A shop called Baby World occupied the ground floor.
Israel's Channel 2 TV said no security guard was posted outside the hall, despite new rules ordering places of entertainment to provide security.
Meir Nitzan, the mayor of Rishon Letzion, said more than 60 people had been taken to hospitals, some in critical condition.
Yeruham Mandola, a spokesman with the Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom, said part of the three-story building had caved in. "Some of the wounded are trapped in the building," he said.
An Israeli woman identified on Israel Radio as Hanit Azulai said she headed home when she heard "a huge explosion."
"I turned the corner and I saw the whole building go up before my eyes."
Amit Elor, an off-duty soldier was just outside when the blast occurred, "All of a sudden we heard this loud blast with noises. I went in to help. It's simply shocking what is going on here."
It was not clear how the bombing would affect Israel's plans to withdraw from Bethlehem, the only Palestinian city where it still has a large military presence.
Israeli, Palestinian and international negotiators had discussed exiling 13 suspected militants in the church to Italy, but the deal was delayed Tuesday when officials in Rome said they hadn't received an official request.
A U.S. diplomat acknowledged the Italians had largely been kept in the dark.
All day, negotiators went back-and-forth over the deal to the 13 and transfer 26 others to Gaza, possibly under U.S. and British auspices.
One of the top wanted men inside the church, Abdullah Daoud, said he and the other 12 agreed to exile in Italy. Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the agreement was sealed and he had ordered troops to prepare to withdraw from Bethlehem.
Bush has been pushing for Israel to withdraw from all the Palestinian-run areas it has occupied since March 29.
Sharon wants to sideline Palestinian leader Arafat but the Bush administration believes Sharon should accept Arafat as the leader of the Palestinians.
Arafat came under sharp criticism at home for agreeing to the deportations -- considered by many Palestinians to be the bitterest of punishments.
A leader of Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank, Hussein al-Sheik, said approving exile set a dangerous precedent. The leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, called one of his followers inside the church, Aziz Abayat, and pressured him to reject the deal. "Sheik Yassin told us that ... anyone who accepts exile does not represent the movement's position," Abayat said.
The standoff in Bethlehem began April 2, when more than 200 people fleeing Israeli forces ran into the Church of the Nativity. About 75 have since emerged from the basilica.
Those remaining inside include the 39 gunmen, as well as civilians, clerics, policemen and 10 foreign supporters who slipped past Israeli guards last week.
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Bush Sends CIA Chief to Build Palestinian Security
May 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-usa-sharon.html
WASHINGTON - President Bush said after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday he was sending CIA Director George Tenet to the Middle East to work on building a new Palestinian security force.
Bush and Sharon both urged reforms within the Palestinian Authority, with the U.S. president urging the authority to adopt a constitution and Sharon saying reforms must precede any discussion of a Palestinian state.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan, U.S. to Discuss Border
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Pakistan.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Pakistani security team is to meet with U.S. anti-drug and law enforcement officials to discuss ways to tighten control over the country's 870-mile border with Afghanistan.
The officials will discuss extradition issues and ways to fight al-Qaida terrorists, drugs and money laundering, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday.
Pakistani officials in Islamabad said the talks on Wednesday are aimed at improving cooperation in the effort to stop narcotics smuggling out of Afghanistan and funding for the al-Qaida terrorist network.
The meeting is the first of a working group set up during Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's visit to Washington in February.
``The cooperation between the United States and Pakistan in these areas has been very close,'' Boucher said.
Pakistan has plans to set up more check posts and watchtowers to prevent illegal crossings from Afghanistan, Pakistani Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said in Islamabad before leaving for the talks.
But the participation of U.S. forces in the hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives in Pakistan's restive tribal lands along the border remains sensitive.
Musharraf said recently that only about a dozen U.S. specialists are in the area, but tribal leaders say many times that number are involved.
The Pakistani team will meet with State Department officials including Rand Beers, the assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement; counterterrorism coordinator Frank Taylor; and Bruce Swartz, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.
The Pakistani participants include the minister of interior and narcotics control, the ambassador and top law-enforcement officials, Boucher said.
After the meetings in Washington, some delegation members also will travel to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to help interrogate Pakistanis among al-Qaida and Taliban suspects imprisoned there, said officials in Islamabad.
-------- spies/spy agencies
Investigators at Odds Over Extent of F.B.I. Spy's Cooperation
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/national/07SPY.html
WASHINGTON, May 6 - A feud has erupted among federal counter-intelligence officials over whether the former F.B.I. agent Robert P. Hanssen has told the government the whole truth about his life as a spy for Moscow.
Mr. Hanssen has been interviewed 75 times by investigators over the last 10 months, but some experts are convinced that he is still lying about the extent of his betrayal.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it is satisfied with Mr. Hanssen's statements. But the inter-agency team named by the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, to determine the extent of the damage to national security caused by Mr. Hanssen's espionage, says it believes that he offered contradictory statements and claimed convenient memory lapses.
The split between the F.B.I. and the damage assessment team became public today when prosecutors said they had to weigh the arguments from the two sides to decide whether to continue to support Mr. Hanssen's plea agreement. While the prosecutors referred to both sides, they said they recommended to the judge that the agreement should stand, saying there was no way they could prove in court that Mr. Hanssen was lying.
Mr. Hanssen pleaded guilty in July to espionage in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., as part of a deal with the government in which prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in his case. In return for his cooperation with the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and other agencies, Mr. Hanssen is to be sentenced to life without parole. While the government says it wants to seize the money Mr. Hanssen made from his espionage, the agreement allows his wife to continue to receive benefits from Mr. Hanssen's F.B.I. pension and to keep their house.
But to ensure his cooperation, Mr. Hanssen's final sentencing was delayed until after he was debriefed by the government. Prosecutors retained the right to nullify the deal if they believed he was not telling the truth about his espionage.
In the end, the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which also investigated the Hanssen case, agreed with the damage assessment team that Mr. Hanssen had not told the full truth in his debriefings.
The damage assessment team "questioned Hanssen's claims of a poor memory as an excuse for either not engaging fully in the debriefing or as a means to hide facets of his activity," the sentencing memorandum states. "Similarly, the I.G. found that Hanssen's answers were often contradictory, inconsistent or illogical, and found Hanssen's cooperation concerning his finances, the significance of his espionage and his motives to be particularly problematic."
By contrast, the F.B.I. found that Mr. Hanssen "provided information during the debriefings that was identical or consistent with independent investigative results, and in some cases was previously unknown to us and damaging to himself." What is more, a commission led by the former F.B.I. director William H. Webster to review bureau security, which also interviewed Mr. Hanssen, agreed with the F.B.I. that it had no reason to believe that Mr. Hanssen was lying.
Plato Cacheris, Mr. Hanssen's lawyer, did not return a call to his office.
The argument among the investigators has clearly frustrated the federal prosecutors in the case, who laid out the competing positions among the experts in a sentencing memorandum made public Monday. The prosecutors said they were troubled by the complaints that Mr. Hanssen had not been fully cooperative, but said they did not have enough evidence to prove in court that Mr. Hanssen is lying. As a result, they recommended that a federal judge uphold the plea agreement and sentence Mr. Hanssen to life in prison.
But the debate in the intelligence community is not likely to die down any time soon, because Mr. Hanssen's case touches on so many other unresolved counter-intelligence mysteries dating to the cold war. Mr. Hanssen is believed to have begun spying in 1979, and he continued off and on until his arrest in 2001, making him one of the longest-surviving moles in history. He spied far longer than Aldrich H. Ames, a C.I.A. officer who was arrested in 1994 after spying for the K.G.B. since 1985.
Most experts now believe Mr. Hanssen did far more damage to the United States than did Mr. Ames. As investigators dug into Mr. Hanssen's case after his arrest, they were stunned to learn that he had first started spying six years earlier than they had originally believed.
Mr. Hanssen betrayed at least four Russian agents spying for the United States, and three of them were executed.
Mr. Hanssen revealed to the K.G.B. the existence of an eavesdropping tunnel built by the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency under the Soviet Embassy in Washington, and compromised dozens of F.B.I. technical operations and surveillance techniques.
The prosecution's sentencing memorandum states that Mr. Hanssen has cooperated to a considerable extent. In addition to agreeing to 75 interviews stretching over several hundred hours, he submitted to polygraph examinations conducted by two agencies, underwent psychological examinations and testing, and waived both a lawyer-client privilege and a priest-penitent privilege.
The unusual request that he waive his right to the sanctity of the confessional in the Roman Catholic Church came after his wife told the F.B.I. that she had persuaded Mr. Hanssen to talk to a priest after she had stumbled onto his espionage in 1980 or 1981. Together, the couple met with a priest affiliated with Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic group, in the New York area. Mr. Hanssen's wife told the F.B.I. that the priest had told Mr. Hanssen that if he gave the money he had received from the Russians to charity and stopped his spying, he did not need to turn himself in to the F.B.I. Mr. Hanssen did so, and stopped spying for several years, but resumed in 1985.
During his debriefings, Mr. Hanssen revealed that he confessed again to another priest in Indianapolis while he was traveling on business in about 1991. That is about the time Mr. Hanssen says he stopped spying again for several years.
----
Russian prosecutor extends detention of arms control researcher accused of espionage
Tue May 7, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020507/ap_wo_en_ge/russia_spy_trial_2
MOSCOW - A Russian arms control researcher accused of spying for the United States must stay in jail at least two more months while the investigation into his case continues, the Prosecutor General's Office ruled Tuesday.
Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov extended the investigation against Igor Sutyagin through June 30 at the investigators' request, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office said.
Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow's respected USA and Canada Institute, was arrested in October 1999 on suspicion of passing information on the development of new-generation submarines and the combat-readiness of Russia's nuclear weapons and missile attack warning systems to a British company allegedly set up as a cover for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites). Prosecutors have demanded he serve 14 years in a high-security prison.
Sutyagin has pleaded innocent, maintaining that the analyses he wrote were all based on open sources and that he had no reason to believe the British company was an intelligence cover.
A court in Kaluga, south of Moscow, had been expected to deliver a verdict in the case in December, but instead it instructed prosecutors to continue investigating. It ruled that Sutyagin should remain in jail, where he has been confined for two years in a 4-square-meter (4.8-square-yard) cell with five other inmates.
In March, Russia's Supreme Court rejected an appeal to free Sutyagin.
-------- un
U.S. withdraws from treaty on International Criminal Court
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020507-71388400.htm
The Bush administration yesterday pulled out of the U.N.-backed effort to create a permanent international court on war crimes, saying it recognized "no legal obligations" to the court.
The administration said it was acting because the court could become a tool for politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. servicemen and officials serving abroad.
"It's over. We're washing our hands of it," Pierre-Richard Prosper, the State Department's ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues, said of the 1998 treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC).
President Clinton signed the treaty in December 2000, just weeks before he left office, but neither he nor President Bush ever submitted it to the Senate for ratification.
Mr. Bush, who had long made clear his dislike of the treaty, stopped short of formally erasing Mr. Clinton's signature but informed U.N. officials yesterday that the United States "has no legal obligations" to the ICC because it intended never to become a party to the founding treaty.
The decision was hailed by conservatives long skeptical of the ICC but was immediately attacked by leading human rights groups and many of the 66 nations - including almost all of America's NATO allies - that had ratified the treaty.
Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, said the Bush administration "showed real courage and leadership today in refusing to sacrifice America's constitutional principles to those bent on creating a one-world government."
House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican, said the United States "simply cannot accept an international institution that claims jurisdiction over American citizens superior to that of our Constitution."
But officials in Canada, who spearheaded the effort to create the global court, expressed sharp disappointment at the decision, as did leaders of the European Union.
Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham told reporters in Ottawa, "I think there's a certain irony in the fact that the United States, which tends to extraterritorially apply its laws rather widely, is not willing to participate in a truly international consensus" for the ICC.
Officials in the State Department's office of international organizations and legal affairs office resisted the decision to withdraw from the court, a senior administration official said.
"Even now, some in the State Department are in denial about the president's action," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. William H. Taft IV, the State Department's top legal adviser, has been a key advocate of keeping the United States involved in the treaty.
The action is viewed as a victory for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "that has been long in coming," the official said. "This has been actively frustrated by the State Department bureaucracy."
Mr. Prosper, asked why the United States did not renounce Mr. Clinton's signature on the treaty, said Mr. Bush "made the decision not to aggressively attack or undermine the ICC. This was a better way to go."
But Mr. Rumsfeld made clear that the Pentagon would resist any efforts by the ICC to assert legal authority over U.S. armed forces.
"The United States will regard as illegitimate any attempt by the court, or state parties to the treaty, to assert the ICC's jurisdiction over American citizens," Mr. Rumsfeld said in a statement.
The product of years of negotiations, the ICC is designed to serve as a court of last resort to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes, "aggression" and other crimes against humanity, replacing the ad hoc systems of judicial panels set up for such crisis spots as Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Unlike the current Hague-based World Court, the ICC would not be restricted to cases involving governments. It could try individual citizens in cases referred by the U.N. Security Council, by the government of an ICC member or by the court's own prosecutors.
The United States is not alone in its doubts about the ICC.
Major powers such as China, India, Indonesia and Turkey have not signed the 1998 Rome treaty establishing the court, while Russia, Israel and Egypt are among those, like the United States, that have signed but not ratified the accord.
Backers say the court would intervene only when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute massive human rights violators.
But Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in a speech yesterday that U.S. efforts to define the court's mandate and check its powers were rebuffed consistently in negotiations.
Mr. Grossman said the ICC's potential to go after U.S. military personnel in "politicized prosecutions and investigations" could disrupt the Bush administration's global war on terrorism or other military and peacekeeping deployments around the globe.
"In the rush to create a powerful and independent court in Rome, there was a refusal to constrain the court's power in any meaningful way," Mr. Grossman argued.
Gary Dempsey, an international affairs specialist for the libertarian Cato Institute, said the administration's unwillingness to "unsign" the treaty was a reflection of the murky international legal landscape. But he said the U.N. letter "removed any doubts about our position that the treaty is beyond repair."
Tom Malinowski, head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, said the administration's move was a "purely symbolic step" that would not stop the ICC effort but would remove any U.S. leverage to shape the court's powers.
"The more real this court becomes, the sillier this decision is going to look," Mr. Malinowski said.
• Nicholas Kralev and Bill Gertz contributed to this report.
--------
U.S. Rejects All Support for New Court on Atrocities
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/international/07TRIB.html
WASHINGTON, May 6 - Bush administration officials said today that the new International Criminal Court should expect no cooperation from the United States, and that its prosecutors would not be given any information from the United States to help them bring cases against any individuals.
On the day the Bush administration formally renounced support for the treaty, as expected, Pierre-Richard Prosper, the State Department's ambassador for war crimes, said "If the prosecutor of the I.C.C. seeks to build a case against an individual, the prosecutor should build the case on his or her own effort and not be dependent or reliant upon U.S. information or cooperation."
Mr. Prosper was one of several government officials who fanned out today to explain the administration's decision to drop support for a treaty that democratic nations have ratified. In a letter to Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, the Bush administration said the Clinton administration's signature on the treaty creating the court was no longer legally binding.
"The United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty," John R. Bolton, an undersecretary of state, wrote to Mr. Annan in a one-paragraph letter. "Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations from its signature on the December 31, 2000."
Officials said that Mr. Bolton's statement was also intended to relieve the United States of obligations under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a 1969 agreement that requires states to refrain from taking steps to undermine treaties they sign, even if they do not ratify them.
The decision was a victory for a faction of policy makers in the administration who had argued that the treaty was flawed and dangerous. The group, led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, contended that the treaty would require the United States to cede some of its sovereignty to an international prosecutor who would be answerable to no one and could initiate capricious prosecutions of American officials and military officers.
Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, said he too believed the treaty had problems that required further discussion. But Mr. Feingold added that the sharp disavowal could harm American efforts to combat terrorism and would contribute to the mistrust of Washington in Europe and elsewhere, where some view the United States as quick to follow a unilateral path.
"Beyond the extremely problematic matter of casting doubt on the U.S. commitment to international justice and accountability," Senator Feingold said, "these steps actually call into question our country's credibility in all multilateral endeavors.
"As we continue to fight terrorism worldwide," he added, "we are asking countries around the globe to honor important commitments, to crack down on the financial and communications networks of terrorists and international criminals, and to share sensitive intelligence with the United States. This is not the right time to signal a lack of respect for multilateralism."
Mr. Rumsfeld said he believed that the court would be an obstacle to the fight against terrorism. He said the court would "necessarily complicate U.S. military cooperation" with countries that were party to the treaty by potentially opening American servicemen and women to prosecution. Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States would try to convince countries that would incur obligations to hand over Americans that any such action would be illegitimate.
"By putting U.S. men and women in uniform at risk of politicized prosecutions," Mr. Rumsfeld said, the court "could well create a powerful disincentive for U.S. military engagement in the world."
The decision produced widespread criticism from officials at several human rights organizations. Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said: "This will further aggravate Washington's closest allies who are the main supporters of this court. The administration is seeking to delegitimize it by casting doubt as to its credibility and effectiveness."
The court, which will soon begin work in The Hague, will assume jurisdiction over charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed after July 1 of this year. Until now, such courts have been set up on an ad hoc basis.
Mr. Prosper said the United States would not allow itself to become a safe haven for people sought by the court. Asked what the United States would do if it had custody of a non-American sought by the international court, Mr. Prosper said Washington might consider sending the suspect back to the country where the crime was committed.
-------- us
$11 Billion Artillery System Is Dead, Officials Say
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/politics/07PENT.html
WASHINGTON, May 6 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has decided to kill an $11 billion Army artillery system without further review, senior Pentagon aides said today. The decision sets the stage for a showdown with the weapon's influential supporters in Congress and the embattled Army secretary who fought to save it.
On Thursday, Mr. Rumsfeld and his top acquisition deputy, Edward C. Aldridge, said no final decision had been made on the artillery system, the Crusader. But the two officials warned that the program was in serious jeopardy and that the Army had 30 days to study alternatives if the program was canceled.
Today, a senior Pentagon official acknowledged that the statements might have left the mistaken impression that there might be some chance to rescue the program but that the decision was now final.
The Army would most likely have fewer than 30 days to recommend how it would spend the $475 million in the fiscal 2003 budget earmarked for the artillery system, the official said.
"The Crusader is dead," said the senior Pentagon official, adding that an official statement, perhaps from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, could be made as early as Tuesday. "The Army needs to come back and tell us how the funds will be used."
Lawmakers argue that the Crusader, a mobile artillery vehicle that would shoot 10 155-millimeter shells a minute up to 31 miles, would provide three times the firepower of the current Paladin system and could do it farther and faster with one-half the airlift requirement.
The Army, the proponents say, must have dedicated artillery firepower that is ready around the clock and in all weather.
Some Pentagon officials have suggested that accusations that some Army officials inappropriately lobbied Congress after learning last week of Mr. Rumsfeld's intentions could provide the pretext for pushing Army Secretary Thomas E. White out of his job.
Mr. White, a former senior Enron executive, had already come under criticism from consumer advocates and some lawmakers for not disclosing some of his holdings of Enron stock and for having had extensive contacts with Enron executives after he became Army secretary last May.
Mr. Rumsfeld has ordered the Pentagon inspector general to determine whether Army officials and members of Congress had inappropriate contacts on the program. The report is widely expected by the end of the week.
The Justice Department is investigating whether he traded Enron stock last year based on inside information. But House and Senate supporters of the Crusader say Mr. White and his aides did nothing wrong, and they are ratcheting up a major challenge to the Pentagon decision.
Critics and backers of the Crusader say the issue illustrates a major test of Mr. Rumsfeld's efforts to bend the individual armed services to his will by enforcing his priorities on weapons purchases.
At the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and in the military industry, visions compete on transforming how the military deals with threats and prepares for war.
"This is a classic struggle because no secretary has the final capacity to simply terminate a program with no one else having a say so," said Gordon Adams, the director of security policy studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University who was a budget official in the Clinton administration.
Congress has in the past forced the military to buy weapons that it did not want.
Dick Cheney, as defense secretary in the first Bush administration, tried several times to cancel the V-22 Osprey aircraft, but Congress overruled him.
Critics contend that the Crusader is too heavy at 40 tons, down from its original 82-ton design, to be sent quickly to hot spots with rugged mountainous terrain like Afghanistan.
Opponents say the military can provide more efficient fire support on the battlefield by using precision-guided bombs or artillery fire from flying gunships like the AC-130.
The House Armed Services Committee last week added language to the defense budget bill for fiscal 2003 that preserves the $475 million for the weapon and blocks cancellation.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is widely expected to do so this week.
The Pentagon has already spent $2 billion on the Crusader.
Aides to three major supporters, Senators Don Nickles and James M. Inhofe and Representative J. C. Watts Jr., all Republicans of Oklahoma, said today that their offices had received no updates from Pentagon officials since late last week. The Crusader would be assembled in Oklahoma, and many would be based at Fort Sill, Okla.
As tensions mounted today between Congress and the Defense Department, an equally unusual drama unfolded at the Pentagon. A war of words between aides to Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. White intensified.
Army officials suggested that a midlevel political appointee in the Army's Congressional liaison office was responsible for sending "talking points" in support of the Crusader to members of Congress shortly after Mr. Wolfowitz told Mr. White last week that the program would be canceled.
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon, Victoria Clarke, said that "without prejudging" the Army's inquiry, "if people try to blame some midlevel staffers, it would be inappropriate and wrong."
On Friday, Ms. Clarke left open the possibility that Mr. White would be punished for his role in trying to block the cancellation and that Mr. White and his aides were trying to embarrass Mr. Rumsfeld.
A spokesman for the Army, Charles A. Krohn, denied that Mr. White had any role in sending the talking points, but acknowledged that the timing of the lobbying campaign was "indescribably horrible."
Rumors that Mr. White had offered to resign gained new life over the weekend and swirled through the Pentagon corridors. Mr. Krohn said Mr. White had no plans to quit. Senior Pentagon officials said the secretary, a retired one-star Army general, had not been asked to resign.
Army officials said they had not been notified of any changes in their task to return in 30 days with a plan to cancel the Crusader and to use the money for other systems that would speed development of the next generation of weapons.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
New Details Emerge From the Einstein Files
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By DENNIS OVERBYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/physical/07EINS.html
He was the Elvis of science.
Women pursued him, celebrities sought him out, politicians courted him, and journalists followed him through the streets.
But, as Einstein was well aware, there was a darker posse on his trail. For many years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies spied on him, acting on suspicions as disturbing as a tip that he had been a Russian spy in Berlin; as vague as an unease with his support of civil rights and pacifist and socialist causes; and as goofy as claims that he was working on a death ray or that he was heading a Communist conspiracy to take over Hollywood.
The broad outlines of this history have been known since 1983, when Dr. Richard Alan Schwartz, a professor of English at Florida International University in Miami, obtained a censored version of Einstein's 1,427-page F.B.I. file and wrote about it in The Nation magazine.
But now new details are emerging in "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist," by Fred Jerome, who sued the government with the help of the Public Citizen Litigation Group to obtain a less censored version of the file. His book will be published this month.
The new material spells out how the bureau spied on Einstein and his associates and identifies some of the informants who said he was a spy.
The agents went through trash and monitored mail and telephone calls.
Those activities seemed routine to the bureau, Mr. Jerome said.
"It's like the agents got up in the morning, brushed their teeth, opened other people's mail and tapped some phones," he said.
The investigation turned up nothing. Nevertheless, the agency dogged Einstein's footsteps until his death in 1955, even cooperating with an investigation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to see whether he should be deported.
Mr. Jerome, a self-described "Red diaper baby" born and raised in New York City, is no stranger to the F.B.I. His father, a Communist Party official, was imprisoned for three years under the Smith Act, which made advocating the overthrow of the government a crime.
As a young journalist, Mr. Jerome covered the civil rights movement. In recent years, he has been a teacher and media consultant, founding the Media Resource Center, which puts journalists in touch with scientists. He contends that contrary to his image as a woolly-headed idealist, Einstein was a savvy and politically astute champion of the underdog who made hardheaded choices about what organizations he would support.
Einstein's political problems began as a youth in Germany, which he left in 1894 at 15, partly because of a visceral dislike of German militarization. He had just moved back to the country, to a post in Berlin, in 1914 when World War I broke out, and he made no secret of his distaste for the war. He was one of only four prominent intellectuals to sign an antiwar manifesto emphasizing the need for European unity, and he attended meetings of pacifist groups.
Einstein became an international celebrity in 1919, when observations of light bending during a solar eclipse validated his general theory of relativity, a rewriting the laws of space, time and gravity.
In the following years, Einstein lent his name and, occasionally, his presence to a variety of organizations dedicated to peace and disarmament. Such activities inspired an organization known as the Woman Patriot Corporation to write a 16-page letter to the State Department, the first item in Einstein's file, in 1932, arguing that Einstein should not be allowed into the United States. "Not even Stalin himself" was affiliated with so many anarchic-Communist groups, the letter said.
Nevertheless, Einstein moved to the United States and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., in 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany. Subsequently, his outspoken support for the antifascist forces in Spain raised hackles.
Horrified by the atomic bomb, Einstein spoke out after World War II in favor of world government. He feared the tyranny of a such an organization, he wrote in The Atlantic Monthly. "But I fear still more the coming of another war or wars."
He also helped Paul Robeson, the black singer, actor and athlete, organize a rally against lynching in 1946.
In the 50's, he made headlines by appealing for clemency for the Rosenbergs, sentenced to death for espionage, and for encouraging people not to testify before Senator Joseph McCarthy's subcommittee.
Although Einstein espoused socialist ideals, he was not the kind of man to owe allegiances or to trust mass movements.
"He was not a party animal," said Dr. Robert Schulmann, a historian who is the former editor of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. "Einstein was the kind of guy that was uncomfortable for all authorities. He's the kind of person you don't want in your organization."
It is hardly surprising, given that résumé, that the F.B.I. would be interested in Einstein, historians and biographers of Hoover say. The attitude was that liberalism was the first step toward Communism.
"Einstein is dangerous because he is sympathetic to the kinds of causes Communists were espousing," said Dr. Ellen Schrecker, a historian at Yeshiva University and the author of "No Ivory Tower, McCarthyism and the Universities." "They assume that Einstein is a man of the left; he's got to be dangerous."
This was not so crazy, said Dr. Richard Gid Powers, a historian at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the author of "Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover." The bureau had no choice but to watch Einstein, Dr. Powers argues, especially after the war, when officials worried that they were losing a "high-stakes game of propaganda" to the Soviets as luminaries like Einstein, Picasso and Charlie Chaplin criticized American policy.
"These people were way too smart to argue with," Dr. Powers said. "The only thing to do was to keep an eye on them."
A look at Einstein's file, available at foia.fbi.gov/einstein.htm, shows more about public - and bureau - attitudes toward scientific genius than toward the genius himself. No feat seemed beyond such a man, according to the file. Through a spokesman, the F.B.I. declined to comment specifically on the file, saying it was up to the public to evaluate the material. Mike Kortan of the bureau said that under the Freedom of Information Act the agency was required to release information from "an earlier era in our history when different concerns drove the government, news media and public sentiment."
-------- terrorism
Saudi millions finance terror against Israel
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 7, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020507-141329.htm
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will bring to his meeting today with President Bush captured documents that, his government says, show that the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry has paid millions of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers and to the terrorist group Hamas.
"The Saudis wanted to cover this up," said Col. Miriam Eisin, an Israeli intelligence official who provided copies of the documents to reporters at the Israeli Embassy yesterday.
The Saudi government gave $135 million in the past 16 months to help the families of suicide bombers and fund other aspects of the anti-Israel uprising, she said.
"The money goes to a list of 13 charities, and seven of them fund Hamas," which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization, Col. Eisin said.
Israel said it discovered the documents in mosques in the West Bank but got around to translating and reading them only after spending weeks working on Palestinian Authority papers captured from Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah.
Those documents, also made public by Israel, indicated that the Palestinian leader signed his approval to requests for payments of about $600 each to people accused by Israel of terrorism. A Palestinian official said those documents were forgeries.
Mr. Bush yesterday repeated his lack of faith in Mr. Arafat but insisted that the Israelis couldn't avoid dealing with the Palestinian leader in any peace process.
"He has disappointed me. He must lead. He must show the world that he believes in peace," Mr. Bush told reporters during a visit to an elementary school in Southfield, Mich.
Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a statement released last night, called the Israeli charges against his country "totally baseless and false."
"These allegations are a smoke screen intended to distract attention away from the peace process. Israel wants to discredit Saudi Arabia, which has been a leading voice for peace," he said.
The Saudis have had some success in influencing Bush administration policy. After a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in Crawford, Texas, in late April, Mr. Bush phoned Mr. Sharon three times to press him into accepting the compromise that ended the confinement of Mr. Arafat in Ramallah last week.
Some of the documents released by Israel yesterday bore the letterhead of the "Saudi Arabian Committee for Support of the Al Quds Intifada," headed by Saudi Interior Minister Naif Ibn Abed al Aziz.
That same committee recently collected $109.56 million in a telethon to back the Palestinians.
"This committee, according to the captured documents, transferred large sums of money to families of Palestinians who died in violent events, including notorious terrorists," said an Israeli report describing the documents.
The documents indicated payments of about $5,000 each to the families of Palestinians killed in the intifada. One list of 102 persons had the names of eight suicide bombers marked in yellow, indicating an awareness of what they had done.
U.S. and Israeli officials previously had said Iraq was paying sums ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 to the families of those who died in the intifada, but this was the first time Israel had directly accused the Saudis of funding suicide bombers.
"If the Saudi policy is to fund suicide bombers, they cannot be part of the peace coalition," said Israeli Education Minister and Sharon aide Limor Livnat, speaking at the embassy yesterday.
Prince Bandar, in his statement, said Saudi Arabia "is committed to helping the 3 million Palestinians who are victimized by Israeli violence," including "killings, displacements, imposition of starvation and siege."
"This help includes financial assistance to the families of victims distributed through humanitarian organizations, such as the United Nations, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. This does not mean that Saudi Arabia is paying suicide bombers," he said.
The release of the documents complicates the Bush administration's plan for a Middle East peace conference this summer, which includes a major role for the Saudis.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday told the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith that the U.S. strategy had three elements: ending violence, rebuilding accountable Palestinian institutions and taking political steps to resolve the conflict.
"We are working on a meeting to be held later in the summer where we can begin to bring together the different ideas, the different visions that exist with respect to security, with respect to economic development and with respect to a political way forward," Mr. Powell said.
At the same forum, Mr. Sharon said Israel "is at war and fighting for its home," again comparing his country's battle with the Palestinians to the U.S. fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.
He also thanked the United States for helping "to get us out of this trap" and avoid a U.N. inquiry into accusations of a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. "We were blamed. There was no massacre. No one has the right to put us on trial," the prime minister said.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal was cool to the idea of a peace conference at a meeting with Mr. Powell later yesterday.
"The conference or a meeting is not an objective in itself; it depends on what that meeting includes," he told reporters outside the State Department. "But it is not a bad idea if the content is the proper content."
Mr. Powell also met yesterday with Jordan's King Abdullah, after which he told reporters that his summer peace conference would "not be a one-time meeting."
--------
F.B.I. Seeking Minnesota Man in Connection With Pipe Bombs
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/national/07CND-PIPE.html
WASHINGTON, May 7 - Federal officials said today they are looking for a 21-year-old college student from Minnesota in connection with the pipe bombs found in rural mailboxes over a vast stretch of the country since Friday.
The student, Luke John Helder, 21, of Pine Island, Minn., is "a person of interest that we would like to question," F.B.I. agent Jim Bogner said at a news conference in Omaha this afternoon.
Mr. Bogner did not say why Mr. Helder is being sought, but he did not call him a "suspect."
The University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wis., said Mr. Helder is enrolled there as a junior majoring in art and industrial design, according to The Associated Press.
The announcement that Mr. Helder is a focus of the investigation came a day after a pipe bomb was found in a mailbox in Amarillo, Tex., with a letter attached. It was similar to 17 pipe bombs found in four other states, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.
At a news conference in Amarillo, the Postal Inspection Service described the explosive devices as three-quarter-inch steel pipes with a nine-volt battery attached. Plastic bags containing letters filled with anti-government propaganda accompanied the devices. The agency emphasized that the bombs did not move through the mail.
Most of the 17 earlier bombs, found in the Midwest and Colorado, were accompanied by anti-government notes that warned, "More `attention getters' are on the way." Information on the notes can be viewed on the F.B.I. web site: www.fbi.gov.
There have been no arrests and no injuries reported since six people were hurt Friday. The authorities said anti-government notes found with most of the earlier devices were nearly identical. Profiling experts had said whoever wrote them was probably an older American man.
The F.B.I. said today that the first 16 bombs clearly came from the same source and all carried similar anti-government letters, and that the 17th bomb, found Monday in south-central Colorado, was consistent with the others. Hundreds of miles separate some of the locations where bombs were found.
There was considerable confusion among law enforcement agencies on what kind of person Mr. Helder is. Earlier today, a police spokesman in Lubbock, Tex., described him as armed and dangerous.
But Mr. Bogner said he could not confirm that Mr. Helder is armed. "He has been described as an intelligent young man with strong family ties," Mr. Bogner said.
"We do not want to see him harmed," the agent said.
Mr. Bogner said Mr. Helder is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. He was believed to be driving a Honda Accord with a Minnesota license tag numbered EZL 873, the agent said.
Mr. Bogner held up a picture of Mr. Helder showing a smiling face under light brown hair. The Associated Press said reporters had congregated in front of the Helder family home in Pine Island, which is in southeastern Minnesota about an hour's drive southeast of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
--------
Tech Study Areas Concern White House
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terrorism-Foreign-Students.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Responding to educators' criticism, the Bush administration said Tuesday a federal panel will screen some foreign college students and help determine whether they can study courses deemed sensitive to national security.
Administration officials outlined the program in a meeting with college educators who had expressed misgivings about President Bush's order last fall to restrict foreigners from pursuing certain technology and science areas.
Under the plan, Immigration and State Department officials will refer some cases to a new interagency advisory panel.
The Interagency Panel on Advanced Science and Security will review perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 visa applications a year of students or researchers from overseas who want to enroll in what the administration described as ``uniquely available'' courses of study in science and technology.
``The goal of IPASS would be to ensure that international scholars do not acquire uniquely available'' technology at ``U.S. institutions that may be used in a terrorist attack,'' said James Griffin, assistant director for social, behavioral and education sciences at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
``We're not talking about all international students and all science areas, but rather those who are going into advanced programs,'' Griffin said.
The reviews would cover some of the students and researchers in two categories: Those seeking to come to the country to study and those who are already here and want to move into graduate or postgraduate areas of study with technology that is available only in the United States.
The administration still must decide what subject matter or research will fall under the restrictions but pointed to a State Department list of 16 topics already reviewed for visa applications.
Educators welcomed news of the plan.
``We're very encouraged by the meeting,'' said Jon Fuller, senior fellow at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
``The main emphasis is on using the process to deny visas to people who, because of their background and intended course of study, are suspect,'' Fuller said.
``We wanted a plan that focused on a major field of study rather than on a specific course, and we wanted the emphasis on stopping people before they entered the U.S. This plan does that,'' said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 public and private colleges and universities.
In an hourlong meeting with administration officials, the educators offered their expertise to define what technologies are unique to the United States and could be turned to harmful uses.
On Capitol Hill, Congress moved toward final approval of another aspect of the war on terrorism, a measure requiring the immigration service to establish a foreign-student tracking system that records the acceptance of aliens by educational institutions, the issuance of student visas and the enrollment of aliens at schools.
In regard to the student reviews in sensitive coursework, the new system formalizes a process in place at the State Department regarding the possible illegal transfer of sensitive technology.
The State Department has a technology alert list that points to 16 high-tech areas that consular officers should be wary of when examining reasons for a visa applicant's planned visit.
Topics include study involving lasers, high-performance metals, navigation and guidance systems, nuclear technology and missile propulsion.
When President Bush issued a broadly worded directive to set up the plan last October, Hartle said, ``We feared a highly invasive bureaucratic approach. The ultimate nightmare was that a government official would go through every course catalogue and identify courses that students from certain countries could not take.''
The Bush administration plan ``does not involve a checkoff list for specific courses or a blanket exclusion saying that no students from Saudi Arabia can study religions,'' Hartle added.
--------
Pentagon Accounts for Terror Costs
May 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Afghan-Cost.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Defense Department has spent more than $12 billion on the war against terrorism since last September, the Pentagon's chief financial officer told lawmakers Tuesday.
The Pentagon already has committed to spend about $14 billion of the $17.4 billion Congress provided for the anti-terror campaign shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Defense Department Comptroller Dov Zakheim said. President Bush has asked for another $14 billion to fight the terror war through the end of September.
Zakheim and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee, whose chairman complained that lawmakers were being kept in the dark about details of the war's cost. The appropriations panel hopes to send a supplemental war funding bill to the full Senate by the end of the week.
``It's very important to have this information this week, and we won't take no for an answer,'' said the chairman, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
Zakheim told Byrd that his office had sent detailed figures on war spending to committee staffers on Monday.
Byrd said he supported the Defense Department's efforts in the war on terrorism but wanted to make sure the Pentagon did not waste any of the money earmarked for the war effort. He said some money set aside for waging recent conflicts was instead spent on ``golf course memberships, sightseeing tours, cappuccino machines and ceremonial chinaware.''
Zakheim said the war accounts have controls that ``makes it a little more difficult to push the paper,'' but give officials ``more scrutiny over how the money is spent.''
Another Democrat on the panel, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, said he was concerned about the war's effect on federal spending.
``I think it's wrong, wrong, wrong to say that we've got a war on now and we've got to run a deficit, and by the way, the war's never going to end,'' Hollings said.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Vermont Utility Customers Can Fund Renewable Projects
May 7, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-07-09.html
COLCHESTER, Vermont, Green Mountain Power and environmental group Clean Air - Cool Planet (CA-CP) have joined forces to build new renewable energy resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Through two programs, called CoolHome and CoolBusiness, the partnership will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by helping construct a new wind turbine and a Vermont farm methane system to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels is the primary source of the greenhouse gases, including CO2, that contribute to global warming.
For a one time donation of $60, CoolHome participants will help offset six tons of CO2 emissions - the amount of an average Vermont home's annual heating fuel and electricity use. With the CoolBusiness program, businesses learn how much CO2 emissions they cause and choose the amount they wish to offset.
"By helping build new renewable energy sources, we can neutralize the impact of our own energy use by causing reductions in fossil fuel emissions," said Adam Markham, executive director of CA-CP.
All money donated will go directly to CA-CP for renewable energy programs. To help get the ball rolling, Green Mountain Power has offset a year's worth of CO2 emissions - 290 tons - from both powering and heating its corporate and operations facility in Colchester.
"Offering this program to our customers is a natural extension of our corporate commitment to protecting the environment," said Stephen Terry, senior vice president of Green Mountain Power. "We already have an energy supply mix that is unusually low in emissions, and now our customers can choose to lessen the impact of the total energy use in their home."
"We also hope that other electric utilities will consider this new voluntary program as they develop ways customers can fight global warming," Terry added.
The CoolHome program will help build the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Wind Turbine Project in South Dakota, the first Native American owned and operated large scale wind turbine. It will displace electricity that would otherwise come from burning coal upwind from Vermont.
About half of the CO2 emission reductions will come from a new farm methane project in Bradford, Vermont that will eliminate lagoon storage of manure, and capture and use methane gas. The project will avoid direct emissions of methane gas and will displace fossil fuel use for the space and process heat.
CA-CP plans to work with Vermont based NativeEnergy to acquire the emission reductions. NativeEnergy helps link businesses and individuals that wish to reduce their global warming impacts with projects that reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions by creating new renewable power sources.
"Even though Vermont's electricity mix is a relatively low CO2 emission source, we can help place wind turbines in other areas that are not as fortunate, and utilize those reductions to offset the CO2 emissions from our heating and other fossil fuel use," said Tom Boucher, president and CEO of NativeEnergy. "The Vermont farm project can directly address local farm waste and energy use right here at home."
-------- energy
Enron Forced Up California Energy Prices, Documents Show
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and JEFF GERTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/business/07ENRO.html
WASHINGTON, May 6 - Electricity traders at Enron drove up electricity prices during the California power crisis through questionable techniques that company lawyers said "may have contributed" to severe power shortages, according to internal Enron documents released today by federal regulators.
Within Enron, the documents show, traders used strategies code-named "Fat Boy," "Ricochet," "Get Shorty," "Load Shift" and "Death Star" to increase Enron's profits from trading power in the state. The techniques also added to electricity costs and congestion on transmission lines, according to the documents.
The documents - memorandums written in December 2000 by lawyers at Enron to another lawyer at the company - also describe "dummied-up" power-delivery schedules, the submission of "false information" to the state, and the effective increasing of costs to all market participants by "knowingly increasing the congestion costs."
The memos, which provide the first inside look at the complex trading strategies Enron used in California, give strong ammunition to state officials who have long argued that Enron and other power marketers manipulated the state's market and played a crucial role in the crisis that cost California consumers and utilities tens of billions of dollars in 2000 and 2001.
Tonight, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she would ask Attorney General John Ashcroft "to pursue a criminal investigation to determine whether in fact federal fraud statutes or any other laws were violated" by Enron's energy-trading activities. Federal prosecutors are already conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Enron's accounting, which falsely increased reported profits but ultimately led to the company's filing for bankruptcy protection in December.
Enron agreed to sell its energy-trading unit earlier this year to UBS Warburg, the Swiss bank. Nearly all of Enron's senior executives, and most of its board members, have departed in the last six months.
Enron's senior management learned of the documents in late April, and the company's board decided during a meeting on Sunday to waive attorney-client privilege and turn the memos over to investigators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a person close to the company said. The company has also informed the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the attorney general of California about the documents.
At a noon meeting today, lawyers for Enron gave the memos to investigators from the regulatory commission, which is looking into whether Enron manipulated energy markets in the West. The agency released the documents a few hours later.
In a letter sent by officials at the commission today to Enron, investigators at the agency said the documents described how Enron traders were "creating, and then `relieving,' phantom congestion" on California's electricity grid. The documents also detail what investigators described as "megawatt laundering," in which Enron bought power in California, resold the power out of the state and then bought the power back and resold it back into California - all to circumvent price caps in the state meant to clamp down on soaring power prices.
"These documents prove that these companies can manipulate the market," said Loretta Lynch, the president of the California Public Utilities Commission. "Enron prevented California from seeing these documents for years, and now we know why."
Ms. Lynch said the documents supported her argument that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should leave in place temporary electricity price caps, introduced last June, which state officials say have played a large role in reining in prices last summer. "I don't see how FERC can remove the boundaries they put in place on our market last June," she said.
An outside lawyer for Enron, Robert S. Bennett, said he could not comment on the trading strategies described in the documents. "Because we have sold the trading unit and the people with the knowledge of trading practices are no longer with the company, we do not know what the true facts are, and we do not know which parts of the memoranda are correct and which parts are incorrect," Mr. Bennett said tonight.
But he emphasized that the company had agreed to waive that attorney-client privilege because it was trying to cooperate with the various investigations into Enron's business practices. "These memoranda came to the attention of the board and current management in late April, and the board instructed its counsel to not assert the attorney-client privilege and produce these documents to the appropriate government entities," Mr. Bennett said.
Another memo written by a separate group of lawyers for Enron sometime in 2001 - apparently in January or February, after soaring wholesale power prices in California pushed the state's largest utilities to the brink of insolvency - tried to play down the trading strategies described in the December 2000 memos.
In this later memo, which was written to prepare Enron for the "various investigations and litigation" it faced because of the California power crisis, the lawyers repeatedly tried to diminish or cast doubt on the conclusions drawn by Enron's own lawyers in the earlier memos.
"Some of the information" in the earlier memos "which resulted in some erroneous assumptions and conclusions, cannot be supported by the facts and evidence which are now known," the later memo stated.
In one trading strategy described in the December 2000 documents, Enron would buy electricity from a state-run power exchange for $250 a megawatt-hour - the maximum under price caps imposed within the state - and resell it outside California for almost five times as much.
"Thus, traders could buy power at $250 and sell it for $1,200," according to one memo. In that document, the Enron lawyers acknowledged that such activity could be playing a big role in causing electricity shortages in the state, but they suggested that was not a significant concern.
"This strategy appears not to present any problems," the memo stated, "other than a public relations risk arising from the fact that such exports may have contributed to California's declaration of a Stage 2 Emergency yesterday."
The "Death Star" strategy, as described in the memos, allowed Enron to be paid "for moving energy to relieve congestion without actually moving any energy or relieving any congestion."
And the "Load Shift" strategy allowed Enron to generate about $30 million in profits in 2000 using techniques that, according to the documents, included creating "the appearance of congestion through the deliberate overstatement" of power to be delivered in one part of the state.
In the past, Enron officials said the California power crisis was caused by the state's deeply flawed electricity deregulation plan, the lack of new power-generation capacity and by temporary factors, like a drought that drastically reduced available hydropower. Even some economists who believe price manipulation was widespread say these other factors also played a significant role in the soaring prices.
But Enron executives always insisted that absolutely nothing their traders had done contributed to the crisis. In an interview last year, Enron's former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, dismissed accusations that manipulation was even partly to blame for California's troubles.
"Every time there's a shortage or a little bit of a price spike, it's always collusion or conspiracy or something," Mr. Lay said in the interview, which was also taped for an episode of " Frontline" on PBS. "I mean, it always makes people feel better that way."
-------- environment
Biologists Sought a Treaty; Now They Fault It
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/earth/07TREA.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
A treaty enacted nine years ago to conserve and exploit the diversity of species on earth is seriously impeding biologists' efforts to catalog and comprehend that same natural bounty, many scientists say.
They say the treaty has spawned paralyzing biological bureaucracies built on the widespread belief that any scientist collecting samples - whether for a drug company or a dissertation - is bent on stealing genetic material and making a fortune.
As a result, biologists say, in many tropical regions it is easier to cut a forest than to study it.
"Something that was well intentioned and needed has been taken to an illogical extreme," said Dr. Douglas C. Daly, a curator of Amazonian botany at the New York Botanical Garden, who has worked in Brazil for 20 years in partnerships with Brazilian scientists, but recently had to wait a year and a half for a new research visa.
"The net result has been that it's kept biologists out of the forests," Dr. Daly said. "That plays into the hands of the forces of uncontrolled development. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no biologist there to hear it, it definitely doesn't make a sound."
Some officials in restrictive countries have begun to concede as much. For example, Brazil, which in 2000 stopped all exports of biological samples, even to Brazilians working abroad, has convened a National Council of Genetic Resources charged with finding a way to resume controlled exchanges.
The parties to the treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity, met last month in The Hague and adopted voluntary guidelines aimed at distinguishing between "bio-prospecting" and basic science. But the parties, numbering 183, have yet to negotiate the details, and even after they are complete, signers are free to maintain existing rules.
The United States was involved in the talks, and the Clinton administration signed the treaty. But the Senate, lobbied by agriculture and drug companies, has never approved it. The Bush administration is reviewing whether to pursue ratification.
Scientists and some officials from restrictive countries agree that the solution is a regulatory system that is more streamlined for scientists who cede any right to profit from their findings. But creating such a system may be nearly impossible, because many universities, botanical gardens and other research institutions, besides conducting basic studies, also seek to exploit discoveries and, sometimes, have partnerships with drug companies.
In many countries, the fight against what is called biopiracy has proved politically popular, linking the interests of conservative nationalists, indigenous tribes and antiglobalization groups. In the hinterlands, the police and, sometimes, rural villagers have detained or chased out scientists.
Over the decades, there have been just enough examples of furtive expropriation of natural resources to fuel such fears, scientists say. Those include Brazil's loss of its rubber monopoly to Britain in the 19th century - rubber trees thrived in British-controlled Malaysia - to recent efforts by some companies to commercialize substances from tropical plants and animals without seeking permission or paying royalties.
Some countries are so eager to thwart biological thievery that they are going beyond the vague terms in the treaty.
At a meeting in February in Cancún, Mexico, representatives of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and nine other countries - together controlling perhaps 70 percent of the world's biological diversity - formed the Group of Allied Mega-Biodiverse Nations. The coalition would, among other activities, certify "the legal possession of biological material" and negotiate terms to transfer it.
Existing and proposed restrictions in countries with biological resources are all aimed at controlling research by drug and biotechnology companies. But evidence has grown that they are harming the most basic field work, even observational studies of wildlife in which nothing is taken away. The restrictions not only affect northern scientists' probing southern forests, but also local scientists.
Dr. Ricardo Callejas, a professor at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia, specializes in the 2,000 species in the black pepper family. Dr. Callejas said fears of biological theft seemed particularly intense in South America, adding that it was "much, much easier to get permits for collecting in the Philippines and Vietnam" than in Colombia.
His discipline is taxonomy, basic analysis of the subtle differences among species and a field with little commercial appeal. Even so, Dr. Callejas said, he and his graduate students had been accused of biopiracy and booted from one village while on a collecting trip. He added that he longed to collect in a dizzyingly rich area in western Colombia, the Choco forests, but that the treaty had made the effort impossible.
"If you request a permit," Dr. Callejas said, "you have to provide coordinates for all sites to be visited and have to have the approval from all the communities that live in those areas. Otherwise, go back to your home and watch on Discovery Channel the new exciting program on dinosaurs from Argentina. I am still waiting after 14 months for a permit for collecting in Choco."
Delays, fees and research restrictions in countries like Brazil and provinces like Sarawak, the Malaysian part of Borneo, have caused many scientists simply to abandon the critical, difficult work of charting the still largely unexplored maze of species.
In some cases, scientists have been detained and their collections destroyed. In the Brazilian Amazon in 1998, an American geographer studying the forest for hints of ancient cultivation methods was placed under house arrest by the federal police in Santarem, and his boat, equipment and samples were seized.
The scientist, Joseph M. McCann, who now teaches at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, had all the appropriate permits and visas. He said that he eventually got back his gear and the title to his old riverboat, but that most of the collection of pressed plants rotted because the police had stored it outside. The plants had been destined for a Brazilian herbarium, not a pharmaceutical laboratory, he said.
Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers have been affected most of all, from both developing countries and from the North.
At the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, André M. Amorim, a visiting botany professor from the State University of Santa Cruz in Bahia, Brazil, has had trouble completing his doctoral research because of the ban on shipping even the tiniest leaf fragment.
His work focuses on Brazilian lianas and related vines and shrubs, and it requires advanced molecular and genetic analysis using equipment in New York.
"This is a real problem when Brazilian researchers are working in other countries," Mr. Amorim said.
In some places, restrictions have forced biologists to pack up and leave or to avoid the least-studied regions like the Amazon, where the classification of species lags, and focus on more accessible places like Hawaii or Puerto Rico.
In Sarawak, Dr. Navjot S. Sodhi of the National University of Singapore abandoned a project to survey the bird species in several national parks after tighter research restrictions took effect in 1998.
"Sarawak is the best place on earth to work, because there's so much rain forest left and the people are so nice," Dr. Sodhi said. "They provided free workers to help us, and we trained them in return and hired local guides. We were only collecting blood samples from birds to look for parasites and also collecting bird feces to study their diets."
But word spread that a potential AIDS drug had been discovered in the region. New rules greatly complicated his program, he said. "Now, to collect bird feces we had to get an export permit."
Officials began harassing his students.
"I couldn't take the nonsense any more, and we pulled out," Dr. Sodhi said. "I was willing to sign anything saying that we were not doing any bioprospecting."
But there was nothing to sign.
Officials at some companies that are sifting ecosystems for potential profits say it is appropriate that scientists from universities and other academic institutions play by the same tight rules.
"Academics have been kind of naïve to the question of ownership of genetic material," said Eric J. Mathur, senior director for molecular diversity at Diversa, a company in San Diego that works around the world to find enzymes and other substances that could make valuable drugs or other products. "They think that under the guise of academia they can do whatever they want. But if their work results in any kind of invention - and most come serendipitously - you can be sure their institution will want to own it and make money from it."
Mr. Mathur said that the last year or so had finally seen the biodiversity convention "start to come of age." In a growing number of countries, he said, the general precepts of the convention have translated into workable contracts that, for the first time, clarify who owns what and how any benefits will be shared.
But many scientists and some officials say there is clearly the need for a system with two tracks, to separate and simplify work that clearly has no commercial application.
The impetus for the treaty, scientists note ruefully, arose largely from biologists, who in the late 1980's powerfully promoted the notion that rain forests could turn out to be medicine chests for the world. But the promise has rarely turned into profits, with just a handful of drugs and products reaching markets.
"It's never really panned out and was totally oversold," said Dr. George Amato, director of the conservation genetics program at the Bronx Zoo.
Dr. Amato's program has frequently been stymied in helping foreign researchers identify animal species and strains through using genetic analysis, because no material can be sent abroad. In one such effort, aimed at identifying a strain of yellow-headed Amazon parrots, the DNA ended up being tracked down in a stuffed museum specimen.
The worst side effect of the biology restrictions, many experts say, is that young researchers are being driven away from important ecosystems and fields of study.
In 1999, Christiane Ehringhaus, a German botanist pursuing a doctorate at Yale, was teaching Brazilian students and studying plants in the state of Acre in the Brazilian Amazon when newspapers implied that she was collecting seeds and insights from indigenous people in pursuit of potential drugs.
Although she is still in Acre, Ms. Ehringhaus said the resulting difficulties had prompted her to abandon botany altogether and shift to social and economic studies.
"First," she said, "they drove me completely away from medicinal plants and now from plants, period."
Prof. John H. Barton of the Stanford Law School, an expert on the biodiversity treaty, said the biggest weakness in the pact was its focus on biology as property. "It is much more about sharing the profits from genetic resources than it is about conserving biodiversity, about science," Professor Barton said.
Around the world, that focus has translated into warped expectations and suspicions, Dr. Callejas said in Colombia.
"I have trouble convincing my closest friends that what I do is because of passion, curiosity, a desire to know more about a group of organisms," he said.
Everyone around him, he added, is convinced, with all the talk of property rights and miracle drugs, that it is about money.
"The convention," Dr. Callejas said, has produced a "distorted view of what science is and who scientists are. And so now, we are the problem, not the solution."
-------- genetics
Mouse Genome Is New Battleground for Project Rivals
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/life/07MOUS.html
Leaders of the public consortium of academic centers that decoded the human genome announced yesterday that they had also decoded the mouse's genome, a tool of great value in interpreting that of people. But the consortium directors' news release neglects to mention that their rival, Dr. J. Craig Venter, the former president of Celera Genomics, decoded the mouse genome more than a year ago.
The mouse's genome is surprisingly similar to that of people, despite the evolutionary distance between them, and possesses counterpart versions of many human genes. Celera packaged the mouse with the human genome in its database so as to help compete with the consortium, whose human genome sequence has always been free. But in catching up with Celera, the consortium can now make the assembled mouse genome freely available, as well.
Scientists are usually scrupulous in acknowledging prior work lest they seem to be claiming credit for the achievements of others. The credit for decoding the human genome is a particularly delicate matter, however, because a Nobel Prize is expected to be awarded for the work and the prize can be split only three ways.
In March this year, three members of the consortium published an attack on Dr. Venter in The Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, arguing that his human genome sequence was assembled with the help of positional information from the consortium's effort, an accusation that Dr. Venter and colleagues strongly denied in their reply. The issue was raised by Dr. Eric Lander of the Whitehead Institute in e-mail messages to a reporter last year and was the subject of an article that May.
The three authors of the Proceedings article were Dr. Robert H. Waterston, head of the genome sequencing center at Washington University, St. Louis; Dr. John Sulston of the Sanger Center near Cambridge, England; and Dr. Lander. Dr. Waterston, Dr. Lander and Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Center, are the principal sponsors of yesterday's news release on the mouse genome.
In interviews, Dr. Collins and Dr. Waterston said they did not dispute that Dr. Venter had indeed decoded the mouse genome earlier, but both said they had not seen the data. "There's a rumor it exists," Dr. Collins said, adding that Celera's mouse genome was available only to subscribers. When asked why Celera was omitted from the consortium's mouse announcement, he said, "It wasn't on our minds to ding Celera."
Dr. Lander could not be reached for comment, but a spokeswoman said, "I don't think we claim that ours is the first one."
Dr. Venter frequently makes explicit criticisms of the consortium, and chided Dr. Collins only last week in a speech at Yale for refusing to finance his early work on genomes.
Dr. Waterston said the March article "dealt with a serious issue - we can't stifle scientific debate."
Dr. Venter was unable to comment because his yacht was in choppy waters near Bermuda, a spokeswoman said. But Dr. Mark Adams, a close colleague of Dr. Venter at Celera, said the consortium's mouse work showed an effective use of the genome decoding method favored by the Venter team, known as the whole genome shotgun technique. "I can certainly hope that this demonstration of the power of the whole genome shotgun technique will put to rest their griping about the human genome assemblies that were published last year," he said.
The decoding of the human genome may well be worth a Nobel Prize, but the Swedish committee is also believed to shy away from controversial issues. With so much acrimony flying from the genome biologists' sandbox, the Stockholm electors may be inclined to wait at least until the dust has settled.
--------
Honeybee Shows a Little Gene Activity Goes Miles and Miles
May 7, 2002
By NATALIE ANGIER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/life/07BEE.html
Midway through a honeybee's fleeting, bittersweet, and, yes, busy little life, a momentous transformation occurs: the 2-week-old worker must abandon her cloistered career as a hive-keeping nurse, and venture out into the world to forage.
She must learn to navigate over great distances at 12 miles per hour, select the finest flowers, assemble bits of pollen and droplets of nectar into a load nearly as heavy as she is, and then find her way back home. Once there, she must convey the coordinates of her discovery to her sisters in the classic cartographic waggle, the bee dance.
And all this behavioral complexity is packaged in a brain no bigger than the loop of a letter b printed on this page.
Now researchers have identified a crucial genetic component of the great bee leap from homer to roamer. They have discovered that just before the transition, the activity of a gene aptly named the foraging gene increases sharply in the parts of the bee brain that absorb and interpret visual and spatial information.
That molecular surge is clearly the key to the vocational switch. When the scientists fed young bees sugar water laced with a drug that stimulated the foraging gene prematurely, the bees assumed their hunting post far ahead of schedule.
The new research builds upon previous work in fruit flies, and demonstrates that, at least among insects, relatively tiny shifts in gene activity can have striking effects on behavior. The work also suggests that one way to explore the combustible field of behavioral genetics is by looking at creatures that possess an impressive array of skills, as bees do, yet that are sufficiently far from human beings to discourage anybody from glibly misapplying the results.
Dr. Gene E. Robinson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his colleagues reported their findings in the April 26 issue of the journal Science.
"There are very few examples of complex behaviors being tied to a single gene," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta. "This happens to be one of the coolest." Dr. Fred Gould, a professor of entomology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, said: "When you're looking at physiology, it can be pretty obvious if a genetic change affects renal function, or causes blindness. But behavior has seemed more amorphous." The new work, he said, "gives me a lot of hope that we'll be able to make progress in understanding the genomics of behavior."
How far that progress will extend remains to be seen, of course. Dr. Robinson said that while there was an equivalent of the foraging sequence in the DNA of humans and other mammals, "one thing we are not talking about here is the shopping gene."
Dr. Robinson and his colleagues were inspired to examine the foraging gene in bees by recent results from the laboratory of Dr. Marla B. Sokolowski at the University of Toronto. The Canadian team discovered that there were two alleles, or variants, of the foraging gene in fruit flies, one more active than the other. Flies inheriting the active form developed into so-called rovers, flitting about widely in search of food, while those bestowed with the less vigorous forage allele matured into sitters, content to lounge around and eat whatever fruit was in the immediately vicinity.
Bees and flies are separated evolutionarily by 300 million years, yet Dr. Robinson saw the two fly styles as rough analogies for the two stages of being a bee. As nurses responsible for cleaning up the hive and brood care, bees were like sitter flies; when the bees turned to foraging, they became like rover flies.
Isolating the bee version of the foraging gene (and finding only a single variant of it), the Robinson group determined that the gene affects bee behavior, not from the start, as it does with flies, but in stepwise fashion.
For the first two weeks of bee life, the gene is relatively silent. For the second two weeks of its life, the gene is busy indeed, activated with particular vigor in the optic lobes and the so-called mushroom bodies of the bee brain. The mushroom bodies, named for their resemblance to the fungus, are the main centers for processing a multitude of sensory signals, including those involved in sight, balance and orientation - exactly the facilities that a bee must call on in her new responsibilities as breadwinner.
To demonstrate that the upswing in foraging gene activity was not simply a result of the bee's growing older, but instead was linked to the new behavioral demands, the researchers manipulated hive population dynamics. They removed the foragers, leaving only nurses behind. With no bees bringing home the essential ingredients for honey, some of the nurses turned to foraging precociously. And though they were only days old, rather than weeks, their foraging gene had snapped to life.
Similarly, the researchers were able to recruit nurses to the foraging trade early by feeding them a compound that stimulated the foraging gene.
The researchers have a basic idea of how the foraging gene operates. Using its instructions, a cell generates a protein called a protein kinase, which plunks little molecular bundles onto other proteins in the cell, altering their shape and thus their function. Hence, the real question about the foraging gene is, what proteins does its specified protein interact with? And how does all that molecular commotion end up putting the buzz in a bee's bonnet?
One way to begin sorting out the many genetic players in a bee brain, as well as a bee body, Dr. Robinson said, is through a bee genome project, deciphering all the subunits of bee DNA as has been done, more or less, with the human genome.
The National Institutes of Health is now deciding which genomes of which species are worth decoding in their entirety. Among the candidates are chickens, dogs, sea urchins, cows, freshwater turtles and an assortment of nonhuman primates.
Dr. Robinson believes in his bees. "With a honeybee, you get a lot of bang for your buck," he said. "It has a modest-sized genome, yet it has sophisticated behavior, it learns, it's highly social and because it's an insect, there's a possibility we can understand it in great depth."
-------- human rights
Religion liberty panel hits home
May 7, 2002
By Larry Witham
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020507-95805524.htm
A panel created by Congress to monitor State Department enforcement of U.S. foreign policy on religious liberty yesterday said the administration has ducked legal requirements to criticize and sanction the worst nations.
"Actions taken by the executive branch in response to serious violations of religious freedom have been sporadic," said the annual report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The State Department is required to issue an annual report every fall naming "countries of particular concern" and recommending any sanctions. For three years, five countries - Burma, China, Iran, Iraq and Sudan - have made that list but no extra sanctions were placed on them beyond earlier U.S. policies, the new report said.
The panel asked the State Department to designate Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan as the worst violators and to monitor India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam more closely.
Acknowledging the foreign policy burdens of building coalitions to fight terrorism, the commission said the United States is still required by the new International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) to confront regimes that allow religious persecution.
A State Department official said the report has "not been assimilated" yet by the administration, which meanwhile has a "strong working relationship" with the commission.
"This will be read carefully," the official said. "I'm sure there will be disagreements over some of the criticisms."
The report, issued at a news conference, said the State Department's annual religious liberty report lacks detail on governments suspected of violations and any U.S. actions, political or economic, taken against those nations.
"The Annual Report leaves the impression that the [State] Department is without a plan as to how to implement IRFA's central statutory purpose," the report said.
Under IRFA, Congress set up the commission to prod the State Department, which historically is reluctant to address religious issues and confront other nations on internal affairs.
The nine-member commission said no increase in sanctions "provides little incentive" for the worst countries to relieve the oppression. The commission urged the administration to "use the full range of available policy tools, especially in the case of China and Sudan, to take additional action."
Yesterday's report, which is required each May, surveyed religious liberty violations in 22 nations, ranging from violence in North Korea, India and Indonesia to laws outlawing sects in France and Russia.
"The fight against terrorism is an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to rule of law and human rights," the report said, suggesting that the United States may overlook violations to solidify the anti-terrorism coalition.
During its three years, the commission - which has its own ambassador and is made up of human rights, legal and religion experts - has held several Capitol Hill hearings and its staff has gone abroad on fact-finding tours.
In the process, foreign governments have confused its independent role with the State Department's office, which has tended to "blur the distinction" between the two, the report said.
"The State Department has been less than helpful in assisting the Commission in meeting with representatives of foreign governments during their visits to Washington," it said.
The State Department ambassador position, vacant for a 11/2 years, was filled Thursday when John Hanford was sworn in. The report said the office and embassies abroad need an "increase in staffing" to fulfill the law's mandates.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Freed Burmese Democracy Leader Proclaims 'New Dawn'
New York Times
May 7, 2002
By SETH MYDANS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/international/asia/07BURM.html
BANGKOK, May 6 - Radiating joy and confidence, the woman known throughout Myanmar as the Lady stood before a cheering crowd today for the first time in years and proclaimed, "It's a new dawn for the country."
Freed this morning after 19 months of house arrest in the capital, Yangon, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, 56, the leader of the pro-democracy movement, said it was time to move forward from a period of fence-mending to the beginnings of substantive change in the country, the former Burma.
After a year and a half of what were called confidence-building talks with the military leadership, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said, "The next step is discussions about policy." In remarks televised throughout much of Asia, she offered no specifics but said her task now was to do "everything I can to make sure that democracy comes to Burma."
Clearly that will mean slow and careful moves rather than the confrontations that have marked her relations with the country's junta since it nullified a parliamentary election in 1990 in which her party, the National League for Democracy, won 82 percent of the seats.
In a signal of an emerging new relationship, the government spokesman, Col. Hla Min, said there would be no restrictions on her movements and activities, "because we are confident that we can trust each other."
It appeared from the events reported and statements made today that Myanmar was moving into a tentative new phase of its history after the more than a decade of political and economic paralysis that followed the 1990 election.
"Basically, that's history," said David I. Steinberg, a professor at Georgetown University who is a leading expert on Myanmar. "It was unfortunate, but in the 12 years since that time they've had a political stalemate. And that stalemate seems now to be in the process of breaking, and that's progress."
That also seemed to be the assessment of the events in Myanmar by the United States, which tends to be sensitive to the views of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. The latest State Department report, issued in February, dropped the customary reference to the nullified election and spoke instead of a process of democratization and improvement of human rights.
In her remarks today, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said, "We look forward to moving on." Diplomats and other analysts said by telephone they did not expect any high-profile moves in the near future. Both sides are expected to tread carefully as they feel their way to a new accommodation.
An early gauge of the new climate will be whether the government keeps its promise to free large numbers of political prisoners, which human rights groups estimate at up to 1,500. In particular, dozens of members of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's party who were elected to Parliament remain in prison.
"I and my party have been disappointed by the slow rate of the release of political prisoners," she said at a news conference in Yangon. "Their release is not only important in humanitarian terms but also political terms."
Other major steps still remain to be taken. One of the most difficult, perhaps, would be opening the government-controlled press to opposing viewpoints. Another task on the agenda would be to hold a national convention to draw up a new constitution. The convention, the next formal step in creating a new government, has been stalled for a decade, since Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters withdrew in protest against its control by the military.
The changes now under way appear to have been forced on the junta by a combination of factors. They include tough economic sanctions, international isolation, pressure by Malaysia and other fellow members of the Southeast Asian regional grouping and the unflagging popularity of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi despite the government's efforts to marginalize and defame her.
In the long term, if the process of compromise does move forward, analysts said, it is difficult to guess at the future political shape of the country. A central tenet of nationhood for the military, since independence from Britain in 1948, has been the unity of the state. It is unlikely to yield to the demands of Myanmar's many ethnic minority groups for independence or autonomy, Mr. Steinberg said.
Nevertheless, any new government will need to address issues of minority rights; both the military junta and Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's party are dominated by ethnic Burmans. The military is likely to insist on its autonomy within the state, Mr. Steinberg said, along with veto power over a variety of policies, particularly those that affect its huge economic holdings.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi made clear today that her release was only a step in a slowly emerging process of dialogue and potential cooperation.
"The contacts between us will carry on, but we have made no specific arrangements," she said.
Within her own National League for Democracy, no new policy decisions have been made for the moment, she said, adding, "The N.L.D. has always said it wants to be flexible to get an outcome that's most favorable to the people of Burma."
It may be, as she said, a new dawn for the country, but dawn is only the start of the day. "We only hope the dawn will move forward very quickly into full morning," Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said.
--------
TIMELINE
A Life of Albert Einstein
May 7, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/_07EINSTEIN_timeline.html
1879 Born in Ulm, Germany.
MID-1890'S Leaves Germany and renounces his citizenship.
1901 Einstein becomes a citizen of Switzerland and promptly flunks army physical.
1905 Publishes special theory of relativity with the famous formula E=mc2.
World War I
1914 In April, Einstein moves to Berlin; when World War I breaks out four months later, he signs antiwar petition "Appeal to Europeans."
1915 Joins antiwar club "Organization for a New Fatherland," which is later declared illegal.
NOV. 1915 Announces general theory of relativity, with gravity as warped space-time.
1918 Provides a refuge in his apartment for Dr. Georg Nicolai, left, a pacifist, biologist and "appeal" author, who deserted the German army and later escapes to Denmark.
War's End
1919 Observations of solar eclipse show bending of light, confirming general relativity.
1920 Laughs from balcony as relativity is denounced at right-wing meeting in Berlin.
1921 Visits U.S. with Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader, to raise money for a Hebrew University to be built in Jerusalem.
1922 Joins the League of Nations Committee on Intellectual Cooperation; Russian Communist Party denounces relativity as reactionary; Einstein receives the 1921 Nobel Prize.
1925 Joins Gandhi in manifesto against compulsory military service.
1933 Hitler assumes power; Einstein accepts appointment at Institute for Advanced Study, moves to Princeton.
SEPT. 1933 Einstein tells London Times, "I have never favored Communism and do not favor it now."
FEB. 5, 1937 Says he is "ashamed" at lack of support for Loyalist Spain in Spanish Civil War.
1939 Writes to President Franklin D. Roosevelt calling attention to possibility of atomic bomb.
World War II
JUNE 22, 1940 Praises America in speech, saying, "In this country, it has been generations since men were subject to the humiliating necessity of unquestioning obedience."
JULY 26, 1940 Denied security clearance for Manhattan Project.
OCT. 1, 1940 Becomes a U.S. citizen.
1943 Works as consultant for Navy on high explosives.
MARCH 1945 Writes another letter to President Roosevelt introducing Leo Szilard, who wants to talk him out of dropping the bomb. Roosevelt dies before reading it.
AUGUST 1945 U.S. attacks Japan with atomic bombs.
Cold War Years
MAY 1946 Einstein agrees to head Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, which raises money for antinuclear organizations.
SEPT. 1946 Servies as co-chairman of American Crusade to End Lynching.
1947 Writes to Secretary of State George C. Marshall urging world government as the best deterrent against nuclear war.
1948 Praises ideas of Henry Wallace, right, an advocate of disarmament and Progressive Party candidate for president.
MARCH 1949 Life magazine lists him among "dupes and fellow travelers."
MAY 1949 Publishes defense of socialism in Monthly Review magazine. "The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism."
JAN. 30, 1950 In response to Russian atomic bomb, President Harry S. Truman announces crash program to build hydrogen bomb.
FEB. 2, 1950 Klaus Fuchs, right, is arrested for atomic espionage.
FEB. 12, 1950 Appears on Eleanor Roosevelt's new television show warning that hydrogen bombs could result in the annihilation of life on earth.
FEB. 23, 1951 Attends birthday party for W. E. B. DuBois, the historian and co-founder of the N.A.A.C.P., who is under indictment for refusing to register as a foreign agent.
1952 Is offered the presidency of Israel but declines.
1953 Urges clemency for the convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
JUNE 12, 1953 Advises William Frauenglass, a New York schoolteacher, to refuse to testify before Senator Joseph McCarthy's panel.
APRIL 11, 1955 With Bertrand Russell, issues manifesto urging nations to renounce nuclear weapons: "There lies before us, if we choose, continued progress in happiness, knowledge, wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?"
APRIL 18, 1955 Dies in Princeton.
Sources: "The Einstein File," by Fred Jerome; "The Expanded Quotable Einstein," collected and edited by Alice Calaprice; "Einstein: A Life," by Dennis Brian.
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