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NUCLEAR
U.S.-Europe Group Wants to Build Nuclear Fuel Plant in U.S.
China tests missile
U.S. Scans Shipments for Radiation
U.S. Equipment Sent With Foreigners
Cheney Visits Nuclear Sub
Bush Gets Counterterror Tour and Pushes His Security Plan
Finding the Scary in the Merely Messy
Vt. Yankee Nuke Plant Sale to Go On
Bush Signs Bill on Storage of Nuclear Waste
Bush Clears Way for Nevada Nuclear Waste Dump
Bush Signs Nev. Nuke Waste Site Bill
Bush tells Congress to enable security
Farrakhan warns U.S. on Arafat, Saddam
Highlights of Anti - Terror Bill
MILITARY
Rumsfeld Calls Civilian Deaths Relatively Low
Congo and Rwanda Reach Tentative Peace Pact
Indian Arms Plan Worries State Dept.
Bush Weighs Israel Air Defense Deal
Europe and U.S. Vie for Fighter Contracts
Cash crunch pushes Sri Lanka to peace
Report: Britain Not Ready for Attack
UK Fails to Overhaul Security After Sept 11 - Report
Boeing, EADS Link in Defense System
China objects to U.S. sanctions
San Francisco May Grow Its Own Pot
Israeli Airstrike Kills 15
Hamas Vows to Avenge Israel's Gaza Missile Strike
Gaza Attack Reveals Civilian Deaths
Israel Criticized for Gaza Airstrike
White House Rebukes Israel for Attack, Calls It 'Heavy-Handed'
U.S., Pakistan to Resume Defense Talks
Turmoil unlikely to shake U.S. plans
U.S. Equipment Sent With Foreigners
Operation TIPS: Give it a chance
Need to explain the coming war
POLICE / PRISONERS
Police Oppose 'Attempted' Crimes
Work for the chain gang
ENERGY AND OTHER
Asian officials mull shift to clean energy sources
Chemical Leak Kills Fish in Ill.
U.S. Accused of Trying to Derail Anti - Torture Pact
ACTIVISTS
Police, Protesters Clash in Manila
A Professor's Activism
Relatives: Chinese Dissidents Missing
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- business
U.S.-Europe Group Wants to Build Nuclear Fuel Plant in U.S.
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/business/worldbusiness/23URAN.html
WASHINGTON, July 22 - A consortium of European and United States nuclear companies said today that it would apply soon for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a $1.1 billion plant for processing reactor fuel, the first in this country in half a century and one of the largest private nuclear projects here since the 1980's.
The plant would enrich uranium for use in power plants, using a technology that consumes about 5 percent as much electricity as the one now used in the United States. It would break a domestic monopoly held by USEC Inc., formerly the United States Enrichment Corporation, which runs an Atomic Energy Commission plant in Paducah, Ky., that was privatized in July 1998.
USEC announced a month ago that it would also seek to build a plant but that it would first have to modernize a prototype plant tested in the 1980's.
The consortium's proposal poses a serious threat to USEC, some experts said. "As a business, they are dead," Thomas L. Neff, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of USEC. In the 1990's, Dr. Neff came up with the idea of buying weapons-grade uranium from Russia and diluting it for use in United States reactors, a job once done by the Energy Department and now done by USEC. If USEC does not build an enrichment plant, he said, it will become merely a broker of the Russian uranium.
Patrick C. Upson, the chairman of the consortium, said, "We have a significant head-start on the technical side."
But USEC executives said their technology would be even better.
"USEC remains the leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel in the United States market, and we're on track to be enriching uranium using new advanced gas centrifuges by the end of the decade," a spokesman for the company, Charles Yulish, said. "We expect our technology to be proven the most efficient in the world."
The company wants to incorporate advanced composite materials into the Energy Department's older centrifuge design. When the plant was privatized four years ago, the company said it would seek to commercialize an enrichment technology using lasers, but it later dropped the idea.
USEC has shut down one of two plants it took over, and it has kept itself afloat partly by winning a trade case and forcing tariffs on two European suppliers that it accused of taking government subsidies. But a plant built here using European technology would face no such tariffs.
USEC has also raised revenue by taking electricity it had bought under long-term contracts, intending to use it for enrichment, and selling it in peak demand periods.
The consortium raising the challenge includes Urenco, a British-Dutch-German company that uses a technology called gas centrifuge to enrich uranium; the Cameco Corporation of Canada, the world's largest uranium supplier; the Westinghouse Electric Company and Fluor Daniel, which are active in many areas of the nuclear industry; and affiliates of three companies that operate power reactors in the United States: Exelon, Entergy and Duke Energy.
The same group, but with a different United States utility partner, tried several years ago to build a plant in Louisiana, but it gave up because of opposition at the site.
This time, Mr. Upson said, the partnership will seek to build at a site that is already licensed for nuclear uses.
Industry experts say the group is looking at sites in Lynchburg, Va.; Wilmington, N.C.; and Erwin, Tenn. All have been used for uranium enrichment. Environmental advocates in Erwin have already organized to oppose that choice.
The consortium, still known as Louisiana Energy Services, said it would pick a site soon.
Enrichment means raising the proportion of uranium-235, the kind that is easy to split in reactors. Natural uranium is about 0.7 percent uranium-235. The problem is that the dominant type of uranium, uranium-238, is chemically identical; the only difference is in the weight. USEC's plant, built in the 1950's, uses a method called gaseous diffusion, in which uranium, converted to gaseous form, is forced through a barrier, with one type slightly more likely to pass through than the other. The European technology uses a centrifuge.
Enrichment is measured by "separative work units," or S.W.U.'s, and the United States market is about 11 million units a year. USEC meets more than half of United States demand by blending down Russian bomb uranium. USEC also enriches uranium at the plant in Paducah. It shut down a plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, with a capacity of 10.5 million units.
The consortium plans to build a plant that would begin operation in 2007 or 2008 and reach a capacity of 3 million units a year in 2012.
USEC shares closed at $7.06, down 10 cents.
-------- china
China tests missile
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020723-368019.htm
China recently test-fired a medium-range missile that contained numerous dummy warheads designed to defeat missile defenses, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
The launch of a CSS-5 medium-range missile occurred in early July from a missile base in southern China, said officials familiar with the intelligence report.
Intelligence analysts said the multiple dummy warheads on the test are a sign that Beijing's military is preparing to counter regional missile defenses in Asia such as those being worked on by Japan and the United States.
The CSS-5 was tracked from the test site to an impact range in western China after a flight of about 1,300 miles.
Satellite photographs of the impact range where the missile's dummy warheads hit showed that in addition to its main warhead, there were six or seven dummies that the Pentagon calls "penetration aids."
The dummy warheads are intended to fool the sensors of missile-defense systems that guide interceptor missiles to it.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the report.
The Bush administration has made building missile defenses a priority, and President Bush has withdrawn the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to help speed the development of missile-defense systems, which have been described as hitting a bullet with a bullet because of the high speeds involved.
China has been upgrading its aging CSS-2 intermediate-range missile force since the late 1990s with the more advanced CSS-5s, also known as the Dong Feng-21, or DF-21.
The missile tested earlier this month is believed to be a more advanced version of the CSS-5, known as a Mod 2.
The CSS-5 is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead with an explosive yield of up to 300 kilotons, or the equivalent of 300,000 tons of TNT. It also can carry a conventional high-explosive warhead.
A 1997 report by the Air Force National Air Intelligence Center said the CSS-5 was being deployed near China's borders to provide target coverage of Russia, Central Asian nations, India, Japan, South and North Korea, and the Philippines.
The CSS-5 and CSS-2s are deployed at Tonghua, near North Korea; at Lianxiwang, near Taiwan; at Jianshui, near the China-Vietnam border; and at Datong in central China.
Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the Jamestown Foundation, said the DF-21 is a major weapons system for use by China against U.S. forces in Asia or against Taiwan.
Mr. Fisher said the warhead on the CSS-5 is precision-guided and probably uses Global Positioning System satellites to find its targets.
"We've known since 1996 that this missile had a terminally guided warhead that is capable of extreme accuracy," Mr. Fisher said. "The emergence of penetration aids all points to the [CSS-5] as a highly survivable and accurate missile that will have the capability of defeating future American theater missile defenses."
Mr. Fisher said the CSS-5 is part of a Chinese missile buildup that includes hundreds of CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range missiles that have been deployed opposite Taiwan.
A Pentagon report made public July 12 stated that China's missile buildup began before Beijing saw the deployment of U.S. missile defenses.
"But China likely will take measures to improve its ability to defeat the defense system in order to preserve its strategic deterrent," the report said. "The measures likely will include improved penetration packages for its [intercontinental ballistic missiles], an increase in the number of deployed ICBMs, and perhaps development of a multiple-warhead system for an ICBM, most likely for the CSS-4."
The most likely regional missile defense to be deployed by U.S. forces in Asia is the sea-based Navy system built around Aegis battle-management systems on guided-missile cruisers and destroyers.
Japan's government is researching a sea-based missile defense for its Aegis ships, and Taiwan's government also has called for developing a joint missile defense with the United States and Japan to defend against China's missiles.
The Pentagon report said the Chinese military's Second Artillery, the branch in charge of missiles, "is continuing the replacement of the liquid-propellant CSS-2 [intermediate-range ballistic missiles] with the solid-propellant, mobile CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile]."
The CSS-2 also has been viewed by defense analysts as a weapon for China's military to use against U.S. warships, including aircraft carriers.
The report also said China is extending the range of its long-range missiles.
"China is in the midst of a ballistic-missile modernization program that is improving its force, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in all classes of missiles," the 56-page Pentagon report said.
"This modernization program will improve both China's nuclear deterrence by increasing the number of warheads that can target the United States, as well as improving its operational capabilities for contingencies in East Asia," the report said.
The Taipei Times reported on July 15 that China test-launched two CSS-5 missiles from mobile launchers in Jiangxi province, in south-central China, to target sites in Gansu province in the northwest. The newspaper quoted unidentified defense sources.
U.S. intelligence officials said only one of the launched CSS-5s was tracked.
The Pentagon report stated that China will replace by mid-decade all 20 of its older CSS-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles with longer-range versions known as CSS-4 Mod 2s. China also is developing three new solid-fuel ICBMs, known as the DF-31, extended-range DF-31 and a submarine-launched DF-31.
The first DF-31 has been flight-tested successfully several times, and the two newer variants will be deployed sometime in the middle to later years of this decade, the report said.
-------- terrorism
U.S. Scans Shipments for Radiation
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 23, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Dirty-Bombs.html or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52685-2002Jul23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Specially equipped trucks are scanning unopened shipping containers at U.S. borders for radiation emissions from so-called dirty bombs, Customs and corporate officials said Tuesday.
They are part of a battery of new equipment being dispatched to border agents to help prevent terrorists from smuggling into the country a bomb that would spread radioactive waste over populated areas, U.S. Customs Service officials say.
``We are getting this equipment out as fast as we can,'' said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the Customs Service.
Twenty-four such trucks are being used in the United States, its manufacturer said. American Science and Engineering Inc. displayed one of the $2 million vehicles in Washington in part to get Congress' attention as lawmakers consider legislation to improve domestic security.
``There is a realization of how careless we've become in handling radioactive material,'' said Ralph Sheridan, AS&E's chief executive.
The trucks approach one end of a container, extend a giant arm, or boom, over and partway down the other side of the structure and begin the scan. The scanning truck then moves forward at six inches per second, as X-ray images of the container's contents light up a video screen monitored by an analyst.
In Tuesday's demonstration, the truck emitted a high-pitched alarm when it detected radiation emitted from a particle the size of an M&M.
The technology, Sheridan said, would not harm stowaways or the drivers of trucks pulling the containers. Further, he said, the procedure is faster than a physical inspection and does not slow down the flow of commerce.
Sheridan said the 24 trucks currently in use are at the national borders and the ports of Boston; Long Beach, Calif.; and West Palm Beach, Fla. Two U.S. military installations, which Sheridan would not identify, also use the trucks to scan arriving containers. They are ``part of a much larger procurement'' to be ordered by the government.
Another 24 trucks have been deployed at ports around the world, in Egypt, Britain, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and other countries, Sheridan said.
Boyd said the equipment is just one of an array of new hardware the Customs Service is deploying. More than 9,000 radiation-detecting pagers will be issued to every customs inspector by January, he said.
In addition, inspectors will use handheld isotope identifiers, which when passed over a suspicious item can identify the type of radiation being emitted -- for instance, whether it emanates from cesium or uranium.
Boyd said the Customs Service also uses X-ray vans to detect radiation.
On the Net:
U.S. Customs Service: http://www.customs.ustreas.gov
--------
U.S. Equipment Sent With Foreigners
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Port-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The military has transported cannons, Black Hawk helicopters, nuclear protective gear and other sensitive equipment on foreign ships with alien crews, government investigators have found.
Some crew members were found to be from countries with known terrorist activities.
``The equipment could fall into the hands of individuals or groups whose interests run counter to those of the United States,'' Raymond Decker, director of defense capabilities and management for the General Accounting Office, said Tuesday.
The equipment could be used in terror attacks on military or civilian targets, Decker told the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, veterans affairs and international relations. Or it could be destroyed or tampered with, preventing U.S. troops from carrying out their missions, he said.
As part of an investigation into security of seaports used by U.S. forces, GAO reviewed overseas deployments of equipment from three military installations in 2001.
In wartime, more than 95 percent of equipment and supplies needed for military operations are sent by sea.
The danger of unconventional threats at seaports was highlighted by the Oct. 2000 terror bombing of the USS Cole. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed when a dinghy loaded with explosives rammed the Navy destroyed as it refueling in the Arabian peninsula country Yemen.
GAO, Congress' investigatory arm, found that the Pentagon either relinquishes control of its equipment or has insufficient information about handlers during sensitive activities. Controls were found lacking for movement of equipment from installations to ports by private trucking and railroad carriers, transfer of equipment into ships by civilian port workers and transportation of equipment overseas by private shippers with civilian crews.
GAO did not review the Pentagon's evaluation of private truckers and rail carriers, who are required to secure the equipment they transport. But the transfer of accountability to such third parties ``creates a gap in DOD's oversight of its assets between installations and ports,'' Decker said.
At seaports, the equipment comes under military control, but civilian workers, stevedores and longshoremen handling it have limited screening and background checks, GAO said. Congress is considering port security improvements, including better screening and tighter access restrictions.
From ports, the equipment sometimes is shipped on foreign-flagged vessels, GAO said. The Pentagon prefers commercial shipping to government vessels because it's cheaper and more efficient, it said, and U.S.-flagged ships aren't always available or adequate for a particular job.
Crew lists are reviewed for security threats. Still, GAO found crew members from countries with known terrorist activities transporting Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 155 mm towed howitzers; Black Hawk helicopters; .50-caliber machine guns; night-vision equipment; body armor; and nuclear, biological and chemical protective gear. The report did not name the countries.
The ships' manifests did not show that armed Pentagon personnel were on board, although maintenance personnel sometimes were, it said.
Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Privratsky of the Military Traffic Management Command, which organizes and coordinates the movement of cargo for the military through seaports, said deployments are tightly controlled, with equipment scanned for accountability purposes at several points.
However, the command lacks enough port security resources of its own, he said, and ``we rely on local port police, law enforcement or contract security forces to fill in the gaps.''
On The Net:
GAO: http://www.gao.gov/
Subcommittee: http://www.house.gov/reform/ns/
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Cheney Visits Nuclear Sub
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cheney-Submarine.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49719-2002Jul23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday toured a nuclear submarine named after his home state.
Cheney was in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to tour the USS Wyoming and be briefed about the Navy's nuclear program, spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise said. The event was closed to the press and public.
``He wanted to spend some time on a nuclear sub. He hasn't been on one since he was defense secretary,'' she said.
Cheney, who was in Alabama on Monday, was returning to Washington late Tuesday.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- illinois
Bush Gets Counterterror Tour and Pushes His Security Plan
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/politics/23BUSH.html
ARGONNE, Ill., July 22 - President Bush came today to a national laboratory that is a direct descendant of the one where scientists pioneered the work that led to the development of the atomic bomb. There he declared that new technologies to detect anthrax, sniff biological attacks in buildings and help contain panic after an attack would help win "the defining conflict of the 21st century."
Mr. Bush is the first president ever to visit the the laboratory, Argonne National, created here on the outskirts of Chicago four years after Enrico Fermi's experiment at the University of Chicago produced the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
Now the laboratory's mission is being redefined by the Bush administration to focus much of its work on counterterrorism, and the White House used the visit here today to press Congress to finish the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security by Sept. 11.
Under Mr. Bush's plan, most operations of the national laboratories, which are now under the Department of Energy, would move to the new department, along with agencies that guard the borders, keep track of immigrants and respond to national emergencies.
"We're depending on you to develop the tools we need to lift the dark threat of terrorism for our nation," Mr. Bush told several hundred employees of the Argonne laboratory in a blazingly hot courtyard. "I'm here to look in the eyes of those who possess the genius and the creativity of the American people."
It was Mr. Bush's second trip in four days to rally the effort against terrorism. On Friday, he visited Fort Drum, N.Y., home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, which helped rout the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and then cleared caves thought to be Al Qaeda hideouts.
But today's trip had a more specific purpose: Mr. Bush was trying to stop influential committees in Congress from picking apart his plan to consolidate government agencies in the new department.
Mr. Bush vigorously defended his proposal to give the secretary of homeland security broad powers to redirect millions of dollars to projects without Congressional approval, something the executive branch does not usually enjoy.
"We need the freedom to manage," Mr. Bush said. The Coast Guard must be part of the new department, he said, despite some movement in Congress to keep it in the Department of Transportation.
Mr. Bush took a brief tour of the laboratory to view technologies developed here and at sister laboratories, including Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. It turned into something of a science fair for counterterrorism inventions, with Mr. Bush moving from exhibit to exhibit.
After the tour, Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, who oversees the laboratories, said, "I feel a little bit like Q in the old James Bond movies." He was referring to the fusty scientist who outfitted Bond for his missions.
But if Q's inventions were designed to get British agents out of lethal situations, Argonne's are intended to save cities.
One creates a computer model of what would happen to traffic, important buildings, the electric grid and natural gas pipelines if terrorists struck. Mr. Bush saw a simulation of an attack in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that would strike facilities and highways he knows from his days as governor of Texas.
The NEST teams from the Department of Energy, which detect and dismantle nuclear weapons, showed him their detection equipment. Scientists from Los Alamos showed off their system to track the identity and origin of a biological agent like anthrax.
The Argonne lab here has designed portable sensors that can detect a biological attack at outdoor events and the prototype of a system to warn of a chemical or biological attack in offices or subways. Argonne has also developed and licensed production of a foam to neutralize some biological and chemical agents.
-------- new york
Finding the Scary in the Merely Messy
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By MARC SANTORA
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/nyregion/23GARB.html
It was the third time this month: radiation was detected on a New York City garbage truck.
The driver was told to leave it on a lonely patch of asphalt at the Greenpoint Transfer Station in Brooklyn. A call went out to the Sanitation Department's Environmental Police Unit, and Detectives Carlos Rodriguez and Brian Morgan had the job of finding out if the radiation was the result of something mundane, or something sinister.
At one time, the worst things the specially trained environmental police were called to deal with were corrosive acids, toxic asbestos, contaminated needles and medical waste.
But in the age of radiation threats from dirty bombs, the 10 men on the team have begun to feel that they are on the front lines in the defense of New York. If someone had radiological terrorism in mind and any of the material he used ended up in the waste system (something experts say would be likely if the criminal were not extremely careful) the environmental police would be the first to see it.
Last Wednesday afternoon, shortly after receiving the call, the detectives, dressed in protective gear, went to work sweeping the vehicle. First, Detective Morgan ran a radiation detector slowly up and down the side of the truck. The detector made a slow clicking noise. Then, as he came around the back, the clicking picked up pace - he was getting warmer. As he made his way to the opposite side of the truck, the needle jumped and the staccato clicking went berserk.
He had found the hot spot.
Detective Rodriguez moved in with a more sophisticated gamma radiation detector, the one that would tell them exactly what it was they had on their hands.
The reading came back: iodine-131, used in nuclear medicine like chemotherapy.
That was a relief. It was almost certain that it came from a benign source. This was just another cleanup job.
Iodine-131's short half-life (the time it takes for half the isotope to decay) is about eight days, making it relatively easy to discard. This truck would be parked at a holding station in Brooklyn where it would sit for about a month, enough time for the iodine isotope to decay to the point of harmlessness.
"Fortunately, the majority of the radiation we get is iodine-131," said Ed Brescia, the industrial hygienist in charge of health and safety issues for the squad.
Still, every call could be a clue pointing to an evil plot. Each case has to be treated accordingly.
"Every agency has their role to play," said Mr. Brescia. "And I see this as being ours."
While United States Customs agents are just beginning to use radiation equipment at airports and the New York City police are now monitoring the bridges and tunnels for traces of radiation, the environmental police have been checking for radiation for three years. (The city started testing for radiation when it began shipping its garbage out of state. Commercial dumps have tested for radioactive material for years.)
The radiation monitors that check trucks at transfer stations are not sophisticated enough to determine what types of radioactive material set off the alarms. That is where the environmental police come in.
Calls for radiation contamination are infrequent, a few times a month at most. But hidden in the 30,000 tons of garbage New Yorkers throw out every day are plenty of other types of toxic trash.
The corrosive acids, particularly hydrofluoric acid, are the most dangerous, said Lt. Patrick Flynn, who heads the unit.
In 1996, Michael Hanly, a garbage collector, unknowingly came across hydrofluoric acid tossed out with the trash. "He was out on collection and he picked it up and threw it into the truck," said Mr. Brescia. "The blade on the hopper crushed the bottle and it sprayed him." Mr. Hanly was killed. Officials never found out who had illegally discarded the acid.
About a month ago, there was another close call.
"We had a contractor who tried to dump hydrofluoric acid with the normal trash," Mr. Brescia said. While the man tried to hide it under some trash bags, the collector noticed the skull and crossbones on the white five-gallon drum before he tossed it into the hopper. The environmental police were called and they tracked down the culprit.
Last year, 55 sanitation workers were injured after coming across hazardous materials, everything from toxic substances to needles, said Lieutenant Flynn.
The environmental police are part hazmat team and part Columbo. Typically, they investigate an illegal disposal by walking the trash backwards. After pinpointing what has been dumped, they begin the thankless task of digging through all the surrounding refuse for clues, looking for documentation, hoping to find what Detective Morgan calls "the golden bag." Bills and magazines can provide addresses, but even a book of matches with a phone number can be a starting point. The environmental police have a successful prosecution rate of over 90 percent, officials say.
New York City used to hold Household Hazardous Weekends, so people could legally get rid of trash they didn't know how to discard. But for budgetary reasons, the program was canceled about eight years ago. Homeowners with toxic material are now left in somewhat of a lurch.
They can call a private company to take the stuff away but this can be expensive. The city does allow people to take some dangerous trash (motor oil, latex paint, thermometers, batteries and the like) to one of five special disposal sites in the city. The locations, and answers to what can and cannot be thrown into the trash, can be found through the Sanitation Department's Action Center: (212) 219-8090.
But sometimes people just need to use common sense, said Lieutenant Flynn, citing a recent example: "Someone called and said, `I have a bottle of Drano. How do I get rid of it?' " (Answer: Pour it down the drain.)
The environmental police do not put as much effort into chasing down everyday people throwing away pool chemicals, oil-based paints and pesticides as it does on citing building contractors, medical offices and hospitals.
The unit is working on a big case involving illegal asbestos dumping at the old Electric Circus disco on St. Marks Place, said Detective Butch Fanara, who is leading the investigation. The club used to be a trippy hangout in the late 1960's. Recently, a new owner has been renovating the place. Officials say that the old building was filled with asbestos, and instead of properly removing it, someone put the asbestos in unsealed containers in an attempt to sneak it out. A suspicious neighbor alerted the police, who contacted Mr. Flynn's team. They are now making a case against the owner and figuring out just how much asbestos was removed.
Since the environmental police unit was created in 1983, it has most often been called in to handle medical waste. Sometimes the treacherous trash is as straightforward as improperly discarded needles. Other times it is stranger.
These days, radiation may be the most frightening thing out there. Last September, after the attack on the World Trade Center, the environmental police got a call that radiation had been detected in a Sanitation Department truck. Expecting iodine-131, everyone was shocked when the follow-up reading showed radium-226.
"It was pretty scary," said Mr. Brescia. They notified the Department of Health and got to work. After pinpointing the contaminated trash, they began to search the surrounding material for clues.
The investigation led them to a school on the Upper West Side where teachers had recently cleaned out an attic. It turned out they had thrown away a star map from the 1940's. It was common in those days to use radium-226 to make the stars glow.
-------- vermont
Vt. Yankee Nuke Plant Sale to Go On
By David Gram
Associated Press Writer
Monday, July 22, 2002; 9:32 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46996-2002Jul22?language=printer
MONTPELIER, Vt. -- The sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant isn't dead yet.
The plant's owners said Monday they had reached a deal with Entergy Nuclear that will let the $180 million sale go forward. The agreement was designed to lessen the impact of a condition placed on the sale by state regulators that Entergy said it could not accept.
"Our agreement today allows both the buyer and the seller to meet the conditions set by the (Public Service Board) and to move forward with the sale," said Ross Barkhurst, Vermont Yankee's president and chief executive.
Monday's agreement came after a year of negotiations and board hearings, and just 10 days before a previously agreed-to drop-dead date: if the deal didn't close by July 31 it was off, parties to it had said.
Jackson, Miss.-based Entergy announced last week that it would not go forward with the purchase if it came with a key condition attached by the board when it approved the sale on June 13.
That condition required that any surplus in the fund set aside to pay for dismantling the plant when it is retired be returned to ratepayers. Entergy had negotiated an agreement with the Department of Public Service, which represents consumers before the board, that any decommissioning fund surplus would be split 50-50 between Entergy and ratepayers.
After days of negotiations, Vermont Yankee and Entergy said they decided to allow any extra decommissioning money that had been put into the fund by Vermont ratepayers to be returned to them when the plant's dismantling is completed.
The key phrase was "Vermont ratepayers," they said - 45 percent of Vermont Yankee is owned by out-of-state utilities; those ratepayers would not share in the decommissioning fund surplus, under Monday's agreement.
Instead, Vermont Yankee's two major Vermont owners, Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power Corp., said they would pay a combined $1.5 million to the plant's out-of-state owners to compensate their ratepayers for any gain they might hope to make from a decommissioning fund surplus.
The decommissioning fund currently stands about $300 million; about $135 million of that is attributable to contributions made by other New England ratepayers.
Vermont Yankee is located in Vernon and generates about 510 megawatts of power. It went into operation in 1972. Its license is currently set to expire in 2012, but Entergy has said it wants to seek an extension from federal regulators if it takes control of the plant.
Entergy is a subsidiary of Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, the nation's third largest power generator. Entergy Nuclear operates nine reactors in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Massachusetts and New York.
It agreed last year to buy Vermont Yankee for $180 million in a deal that called for the Vermont utilities to buy the plant's power output for the next 10 years.
-------- us nuc waste
Bush Signs Bill on Storage of Nuclear Waste
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Yucca-Mountain.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush formally approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump on Tuesday, ending a 20-year political fight and shifting the battle to the courts.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called Bush's signature on Yucca Mountain legislation ``an important step forward on the way to a comprehensive policy for dealing with our nation's nuclear waste.''
Yet Bush signed the measure with no fanfare. Reporters were not allowed to witness the bill-signing and no one from Nevada's congressional delegation was invited.
Nevada officials, who fought bitterly against the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, acknowledged they had lost a round, but pledged to block it through lawsuits. The state has five pending.
``Our best chance in defeating Yucca Mountain is in the federal courts, where impartial judges will hear the factual and scientific arguments as to why Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to store this nation's high-level nuclear waste,'' said Kenny Guinn, Nevada's Republican governor.
Four lawmakers, all strong backers of the project, attended the signing: House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican from the state with more nuclear reactors than any other; Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho; Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La.; and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.
Bush hopes the move will pave the way for more nuclear energy production. It was included in the White House's long-term national energy strategy, released last year, and Bush endorsed the project in February.
The Energy Department still needs a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which could take five years.
Government planners have set a 2010 opening date, but even some Yucca Mountain supporters admit that may be too optimistic. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has said the target cannot be met.
Nevada's senators tried for months to rally their colleagues against the Yucca dump, hoping concerns about thousands of waste shipments crossing 43 states would sway some lawmakers.
One in three Americans lives within five miles of a nuclear waste transport route, and one in seven lives within a mile, the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group said Tuesday.
``The truth is, this doesn't make American safer, it creates a whole new level of risk,'' said EWG President Ken Cook. ``It's a shame the president lied to the people of Nevada and rushed to pay back the nuclear industry rather than relying on sound science.''
But Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, a leading proponent of the dump, insisted Congress was guided by ``sound science.''
``After more than $4 billion and 24 years of scientific research, it's clear that Yucca Mountain is well-suited and the licensing process should proceed,'' he said.
The Bush administration and other Yucca site supporters said leaving radioactive garbage at 131 power plants and defense sites in 39 states would pose an even greater risk than hauling it to Nevada, saying waste has been transported for years without radiation releases.
Environmentalists concerned about transporting the waste have dubbed Yucca Mountain the ``mobile Chernobyl'' -- a reference to the nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union.
``Why are we rushing to judgment on this?'' asked Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, a Las Vegas anti-nuclear group. ``We should wait for the science to be done.''
Johnson said she was heartened by a Senate subcommittee vote Monday that cut from $525 million to $336 million the money Bush sought for work at site. The panel was headed by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a foe of Yucca Mountain.
``President Bush campaigned in Nevada on the promise that he would let sound science determine the fate of the Yucca Mountain site,'' Reid said. ``He signed his name to a document today clearly betraying that promise in exchange for protecting the interests of the powerful energy industry.''
On the Net:
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
--------
Bush Clears Way for Nevada Nuclear Waste Dump
July 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-bush-yucca.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Risking a backlash by Nevada's voters and a drawn-out court fight, President Bush on Tuesday formally designated Yucca Mountain the burial ground for the nation's deadly nuclear waste.
The resolution, which Bush signed behind closed-doors, overrides Nevada's veto of the administration's plan to put the country's first permanent nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the move, after 20 years of scientific study, was ``an important step forward on the way to a comprehensive policy for dealing with our nation's nuclear waste.''
But he conceded that legal challenges lay ahead as Nevada politicians and activists, citing safety concerns for the region's 1.4 million people, pledged to keep fighting the $58 billion project any way they can.
``I have always believed that our best chance in defeating Yucca Mountain is in the federal courts, where impartial judges will hear the factual and scientific arguments as to why Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to store this nation's high-level nuclear waste,'' said Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican.
The Republican president signed the resolution in the Oval Office without the fanfare that the White House usually arranges for such events. Aides said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, key lawmakers and Teamsters President James Hoffa attended the private ceremony. The resolution won final congressional approval earlier this month.
Sen. Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and a leading proponent of the site, said the decision to use the Nevada location was based on ``sound science, not politics.'' He urged the White House to move forward with the project as soon as possible to secure ``our nation's domestic energy supply.''
The U.S. Energy Department still must apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the project, a process that could take years as the state of Nevada and other opponents of Yucca Mountain gear up for a fight.
'A SCIENTIFICALLY FLAWED PROJECT'
``Unlike Congress, the NRC is required to examine all the science,'' Guinn said. ``The nuclear energy industry will no longer be able to use its political power and dollars to push ahead a scientifically flawed project.''
The Yucca Mountain facility is scheduled to open in 2010, a date even supporters say is likely to slip because of legal and regulatory challenges. It would hold 77,000 tons of radioactive material that the Environmental Protection Agency says must be isolated for 10,000 years.
``The successful completion of the Yucca Mountain project will ensure our nation has a safe and secure underground facility that will store nuclear waste in a manner that protects our environment and our citizens,'' Fleischer said.
Bush himself offered no comment.
There are about 100 nuclear power plants across the country. Spent fuel from these plants is highly radioactive and is stored at 131 sites in 39 states. Many storage tanks are nearly full, and the government has faced lawsuits for failing to meet a 1998 deadline to open a permanent storage site.
Nevada filed several lawsuits to try to stop the project before and after Bush accepted a recommendation by Abraham in February to build the facility in the state.
Opponents, including a number of environmental groups, argue that Yucca Mountain and shipments of nuclear waste to it would provide an inviting target for terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The highly radioactive material will be shipped by rail or truck, crossing as many as 43 states and 109 cities with populations of at least 100,000 people.
Proponents of Yucca Mountain, including many big businesses, contend that it would be safer to have the waste in one place rather than scattered at facilities nationwide.
Public opinion polls show that up to 83 percent of Nevadans oppose the project, and some analysts say the dispute could cost Bush the state in the 2004 election. Bush carried Nevada in 2000.
``President Bush campaigned in Nevada on the promise that he would let sound science determine the fate of the Yucca Mountain site. He signed his name to a document today clearly betraying that promise in exchange for protecting the interests of the powerful energy industry,'' said Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.
Opening a new front in the state's fight against the dump, a Senate appropriations subcommittee chaired by Reid on Monday cut $189 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear waste disposal program.
-------- us politics
Bush Signs Nev. Nuke Waste Site Bill
By Scott Lindlaw
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, July 23, 2002; 11:31 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49835-2002Jul23.html
WASHINGTON -- After two decades of study and fervent protests from Nevada, President Bush signed a bill Tuesday making Yucca Mountain the nation's central repository for nuclear waste.
"The successful completion of the Yucca Mountain project will ensure our nation has a safe and secure underground facility that will store nuclear waste in a manner that protects our environment and our citizens," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in a statement.
The project had been studied for more than 20 years, and Bush signed the measure with no fanfare. Reporters were not allowed to witness the bill-signing.
The House and Senate voted earlier this year to entomb thousands of tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain - in the desert some 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Nevada's senators, who tried for months to rally their colleagues against the Yucca waste dump, argued that the issue was much broader than Nevada. They hoped concerns over thousands of waste shipments crossing 43 states would sway some lawmakers, but they were defeated.
Bush has long backed Yucca Mountain as a repository site, formally recommending it in February.
Nevada filed a formal protest - as was its right under a 1982 nuclear waste law - leaving it for Congress to make a final decision. The House approved it in May, the Senate this month.
The state has five lawsuits pending against the project, and the Energy Department must still get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That process could take up to five years.
Even some Yucca supporters admit that plans to open the site by 2010 may be too optimistic.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he was convinced that 77,000 tons of waste destined for Yucca could be stored there safely for the tens of thousands of years that it will remain highly radioactive.
The Bush administration and other Yucca site supporters said leaving the radioactive garbage at 131 power plants and defense sites in 39 states would pose an even greater risk than hauling it to Nevada. And they said waste has been transported for years without radiation releases.
But critics, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., complained that there were still "far too many questions" about the Yucca site and transportation safety issues
Environmentalists dubbed the planned waste shipments "mobile Chernobyl" - a reference to the nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union. They see a disaster in the making as the radioactive cargo moves past major cities, over bridges and through tunnels on its way to Nevada.
Abraham promised a transportation plan before the end of next year and said stringent safety requirements will provide an "effective first line of defense" against terrorist threats. "We've proven we can move it safely," he said after the Senate vote.
On the Net:
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
--------
Bush tells Congress to enable security
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020723-643116.htm
ARGONNE, Ill. - President Bush yesterday demanded that Congress "give up some of its turf" in order to establish a Department of Homeland Security, saying creation of the new agency is essential to secure the safety of Americans.
In a speech to 1,000 workers at Argonne National Laboratory, the president said quick action by Congress will prove lawmakers are serious about "doing everything we possibly can to protect innocent American lives."
"What I'm telling you is, I understand that these changes won't be easy for some in Congress, but for the sake of the security of the American people, Congress needs to give up some of its turf, and recognize turf is not nearly as important as security for the people - security for the American people," Mr. Bush said to loud applause.
"We're in new times, folks. We're in a different world. We face an unprecedented threat, and we cannot respond with business as usual," he told the workers, who are developing technology that will be employed in detecting, preventing and responding to terrorist attacks.
Mr. Bush has proposed consolidating nearly 100 federal agencies that now oversee some portion of domestic defense into a new department. Versions of his plan this week are moving through the House and Senate, where a key committee is expected to take up the bill tomorrow.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey said Sunday that the president could have the bill on his desk by the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"It's very possible. I can't guarantee that, but that is a real possibility. And wouldn't it be lovely to send that message to the terrorists?" the Texas Republican said. Several Democrats, however, say they want to go slowly to make sure the new department is well planned and able to function.
While Mr. Bush is optimistic Congress will quickly act on legislation ranging from trade-promotion authority to the creation of the new department, his spokesman had some harsh words for lawmakers.
"Common sense suggests, get these items finished this week so they don't jam themselves up for when they return in September and October," Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.
With the House set to go on summer recess Friday, and the Senate set to depart the following Friday, the spokesman said there is just enough time to get things done.
"It's not atypical for Congress to wait until the last second to get things done. But Congress is sure cutting it close," Mr. Fleischer said.
Mr. Bush spoke outside a building that houses the Advanced Photon Source (APS) - a massive particle accelerator large enough to encircle a Major League baseball stadium - that applies light 1 million times brighter than an X-ray. With the beam, the lab can identify an agent such as anthrax in less than three minutes.
For instance, researchers at the facility recently used the APS to determine the structure of "Edema Factor" - one of three toxins that makes anthrax a deadly biohazard and that is being used to help create an antidote for the toxins.
During his brief visit, Mr. Bush watched demonstrations of high-tech devices being designed to thwart terror attacks, including a chemical sensor that detects cyanide gas, a biochip that can determine the presence of anthrax and a portable device that finds concealed nuclear materials.
"The American people need to know we've got a lot of brainpower working on ways to deal with the threats that we now face as we head into the 21st century," Mr. Bush said.
"Our scientific community is serving on the front lines of this war by developing new technologies that will make America safer. And as you tackle new scientific challenges, I want you to know, our government will stand by your side."
Mr. Bush said creation of the new Department of Homeland Security will aid in accountability and ensure that all agencies are communicating to prevent another terrorist attack.
"We need to have an effective strategy of mating up our brainpower with the problems we face, so as to stay on the cutting edge of technological change necessary to protect the homeland," he said.
The president said Republicans and Democrats should come together for the good of the country.
"This Department of Homeland Security is not a good Republican idea, it's not a good Democrat idea, it's simply an American idea, and they need to get their work done," he said to loud applause.
----
Farrakhan warns U.S. on Arafat, Saddam
By Andy Olsen
The Washington Times
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020723-32514064.htm
Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, sharply criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East yesterday, urging the Bush administration to leave Yasser Arafat alone and warning that a military strike on Iraq would be an "attack against God Himself."
He denied again a report by the Iraqi News Agency quoting him as having said during a visit to Baghdad that American Muslims were praying for an Iraqi victory over the United States.
Mr. Farrakhan, who returned earlier this month from a "peace mission" to Africa and the Middle East, told reporters that an atmosphere of American "patriotism" is trying to vilify him as an enemy of the nation.
"The only victory that I and the people of this mission prayed for was peace. I would never go on a peace mission and pray for a war."
Mr. Farrakhan said that President Bush's opposition to Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, had only strengthened support for him and stirred up anti-American anger.
"If America fails to use her heavy leverage in a positive way to bring about peace, the conflict will widen and American interests will be damaged," he said.
Mr. Farrakhan, who advocates a full Israeli pullout from the West Bank, urged U.S. and United Nations officials to supervise the creation of a Palestinian state.
Asked about the Palestinian suicide bombings, he condemned what he said were dire circumstances that left Palestinians with no choice but terrorism. "When people reach that level of despair, they do what they think they must do."
Mr. Farrakhan met with high-level Iraqi officials in the latest of several visits he has made to Iraq over the last decade. He said any military strike on Iraq "would increase hatred for the American administration" and would cause a popular uprising.
A spokesman from the White House declined to comment on prospective war plans. The United States and the United Nations have had sanctions in place against Iraq since the Gulf war ended more than 10 years ago.
Mr. Farrakhan has decried those sanctions, which U.N. officials say they will not lift until weapons inspectors are allowed into the country.
He said he would offer a detailed summary of his trip to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, along with advice not to attack Iraq and an appeal to refrain from calling for a new Palestinian leader to replace Yasser Arafat.
--------
Highlights of Anti - Terror Bill
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Spending-Highlights.html
Highlights of the compromise anti-terrorism package the House passed Tuesday.
--Size: $28.9 billion, compared to $27.1 billion proposed by President Bush. The money is for the federal fiscal year that runs through Sept. 30.
--Defense and intelligence: $14.5 billion. Includes money for troops' pay, National Guard and Reserve expenses, aircraft repairs, modifying snipers' rifles.
--Domestic security: $6.7 billion. Includes $3.85 billion for Transportation Security Administration; $528 million for Coast Guard; $175 million for FBI; $151 million in grants for equipment and training for first responders; $33 million for animal and plant health inspections; $158 million for protection of nuclear weapons facilities.
--New York: $5.5 billion. Includes $1.8 billion to rebuild destroyed transit systems; $783 million for economic redevelopment around World Trade Center site. Combined with previously provided money, this meets Bush's pledge to provide $20 billion to the city.
--Foreign aid, diplomacy: $2.1 billion. Includes $200 million for Israel; $50 million humanitarian aid for Palestinians; about $35 million for Colombia; up to $134 million in disaster aid for Afghanistan; $10 million for Muslim exchange students; $1 million to help develop independent news organizations in Pakistan; up to $12 million for Indonesia; $55 million in military aid for the Philippines.
--Other: Includes $31 million for added Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement; $16 million to help northeastern fisheries; $2 million for Smithsonian Institution to buttress security of thousands of animal specimens stored in flammable alcohol.
--Savings: About $3 billion, including cuts from job training, Transportation Security Administration, defense, export assistance, new construction for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
--Other: Drops House-passed provisions boosting Medicare reimbursements for some hospitals in three districts in New York and Pennsylvania where GOP House members face tight re-election races; includes House-passed language helping South Carolina textile interests.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Rumsfeld Calls Civilian Deaths Relatively Low
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/international/asia/23MILI.html
WASHINGTON, July 22 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan might have been the most accurate ever undertaken, resulting in fewer deaths of innocent civilians than any air war in history.
"It's an unfortunate fact of war that, inevitably, innocent civilians are killed," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "This has been true, true throughout the history of warfare, and it remains true even in this age of advanced technology and precision-guided munitions."
Speaking at a Pentagon news briefing, he added: "We can take some comfort in the knowledge that this war has seen fewer tragic losses of civilian life than perhaps any war in modern history. We can also take pride in the fact that coalition forces have gone to extraordinary lengths not only to avoid civilian deaths but to save civilian lives."
Mr. Rumsfeld spoke one day after The New York Times published a long report detailing on-site reviews of 11 locations in Afghanistan where airstrikes killed as many as 400 civilians. The reviews suggested that American commanders had sometimes relied on incorrect information from local Afghans. Also, the Americans' preference for airstrikes instead of riskier ground operations has cut off a way of checking the accuracy of the intelligence.
The reviews, conducted over six months, found that the Pentagon's use of overwhelming force meant that even when truly military targets were located, civilians were sometimes killed.
Mr. Rumsfeld said today that the Pentagon had no official figure for civilian deaths from the American attacks, noting that "it is exceedingly difficult to get into an area immediately, find out exactly what the casualties were, and come up with something that one feels confidence in by way of an estimate."
He cautioned, too, that "almost consistently, the numbers that we have been able to find, or anyone else has been able to find, have been less than what the initial reports were."
Mr. Rumsfeld rejected assertions that America and its allies had been duped into attacking innocent civilians or had fallen prey to false tips from warlords or other regional leaders hoping the American military would kill rival fighters.
"The idea being that some local faction in Afghanistan would tell either other Afghan forces or U.S. forces or coalition forces that an Al Qaeda or Taliban were located someplace, and in fact, it wasn't, it was the enemy of those local Afghan forces that was located there, not necessarily Taliban or Al Qaeda - I know of no instance where that's happened," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld opened his briefing with a summary of the administration's campaign against global terror, balancing the tragedy of innocent civilian deaths against the rout of Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan.
"Today the Taliban are no longer in power; Al Qaeda is on the run," he said. "The humanitarian crisis has been averted, and the Afghan people have been liberated. And Afghanistan is once again a free nation."
Describing the hunt for Al Qaeda outside Afghanistan, Mr. Rumsfeld said that in the last two weeks, Pakistan had captured a small number of suspected terrorists. One of those now in custody may have served as a senior Al Qaeda finance official, although his exact identity has not yet been determined, he said.
Questioned about potential future operations in the campaign against terror, including action against Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld complained again today about unauthorized release of information to reporters, declaring that Pentagon employees who handle sensitive documents "like they're paper airplanes" belong in prison.
He was asked about a July 5 article in The Times, which reported preliminary planning on ways the United States might attack Iraq to topple President Saddam Hussein. The Times said it was briefed by someone who was familiar with the planning and unhappy with its direction.
Calling the leak inexcusable, Mr. Rumsfeld ordered an investigation to try to determine its source, "notwithstanding the cost," he said today. "And I am pleased I did."
He made it clear that the investigation was not focused on The Times, but on the source of the information.
The Times said it was satisfied that the article "was consistent with responsible citizenship."
"We took appropriate steps to determine that while addressing matters of legitimate public concern, we were not jeopardizing current or prospective military operations," a spokesman for The Times said.
-------- africa
Congo and Rwanda Reach Tentative Peace Pact
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/international/africa/23CONG.html
JOHANNESBURG, July 22 - African officials announced tonight that they had reached a tentative agreement that might end the four-year war that has ravaged Congo.
Under the agreement, which was brokered after five days of talks in South Africa, the Rwandan government promised to withdraw its soldiers from Congo, while Congolese officials vowed to stop harboring the guerrillas who threaten Rwanda's security.
Congolese officials said they would disarm and demobilize more than 12,000 guerrillas in a process that would be verified by the United Nations. Rwanda, which occupies and controls most of eastern Congo, said that would make it feel secure enough to withdraw its thousands of soldiers.
The agreement has yet to be signed by the presidents of the two countries, and a schedule for the demobilization and troop withdrawals has yet to be agreed on. But both sides said they hoped that they were close to ending a war that has left more than two million people dead. Officials said they believed that a final agreement could be signed within a week.
"We are upbeat here in Kinshasa," Kikaya bin Karubi, Congo's information minister, said in a telephone interview tonight.
"We reached this agreement after very long and painful negotiations," Mr. bin Karubi said. "I'm feeling good. I hope this is the start of stability and peace in my country."
Joseph Karemera, Rwanda's ambassador to South Africa, said the deal represented "a new spirit and a new commitment" to stop the fighting. He said his government would work to persuade the Rwandan-backed rebels to stop battling the Congolese government of President Joesph Kabila.
The war, which has devastated the mineral-rich Central African nation, has been dubbed "Africa's first world war," because it has involved six foreign armies, various rebel groups and several militias.
The main enemies of Mr. Kabila's government have been Rwanda and Uganda. Its main supporters have been Zimbabwe, Angola and thousands of Hutu from Rwanda, including members of militias responsible for the 1994 genocide in that country.
The warring factions were motivated by various political and security issues. But parties on all sides looted gold, diamonds, timber or coltan, a rare material that goes into making cellphones, from Congo's soil. A peace agreement signed by most parties to the fighting in 1999 gave hope, but the war continued.
But in recent months some of the parties have moved toward peace. Three months ago the Congolese government and a Ugandan-backed rebel group negotiated a power-sharing agreement and stopped fighting. Under the accord, Mr. Kabila is to lead an interim government and the movement's leader is to fill the new post of prime minister.
Officials say Angola and Namibia have withdrawn their troops. Zimbabwe has said it will do the same. Uganda and Burundi have also withdrawn, although Uganda has occasionally sent troops back in.
But until now, Rwanda has refused to leave, citing a threat from militiamen who are believed to be hiding in eastern Congo.
-------- arms sales
Indian Arms Plan Worries State Dept.
Powell Ready to Voice Concern on Intent to Buy Missile Defense System From Israel
By Peter Slevin and Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 23, 2002; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46961-2002Jul22?language=printer
As tensions run high between India and Pakistan, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is prepared to tell the Indian government during his upcoming trip to New Delhi of his objections to India's proposed purchase of a sophisticated missile defense system from Israel.
State Department officials, anxious to prevent India and Pakistan from slipping into war, fear that the sale of the Arrow Weapon System could exacerbate friction between the two countries and provide other nations with a justification to peddle missile technology.
"We have concerns about the introduction of more missiles into this area," a senior department official said. "It could be destabilizing."
Backers of the proposed Israeli sale, including supporters in the Pentagon, cite U.S. allegiance to Israel and President Bush's pledge to enlist U.S. allies in missile defense development. These proponents argue that defense cooperation with India could improve U.S.-India ties. They say it could also reward the Indian government for its retreat from confrontation with Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
The administration's analysis of the Israeli proposal to sell the Arrow system is not complete, but the idea has received fresh attention in recent days and is undergoing high-level consideration, a senior Pentagon official said. The State Department official said the administration expects to advise the Israelis of its views "fairly soon."
Meanwhile, India has requested information about the American-made Patriot antimissile weapon, manufactured by Raytheon Co. A company executive said Raytheon will brief Indian officials about the Patriot's capabilities as early as next month.
"Were India to proceed with an investment in missile defense, one thing is certain: Pakistan will respond in some fashion, either by increasing its offensive capability to counter such a defensive shield or by pursuing its own form of missile defense wherever they could obtain it," said Karl F. Inderfurth, who had been an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration. "That is an iron law of the action-reaction cycle in South Asia."
The Arrow Weapon System allows Israel to defend against short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles. Because the program was developed in partnership with the United States, U.S. approval is required for sales to other countries. Israel has said it would like to sell to India and Turkey.
"It's been our position that it makes sense economically and strategically to export to India," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy here, who said Israel agrees with the need for delay while tensions are high.
Senior State Department officials are united against the sale for geopolitical and arms control reasons, sources said. A prime concern is the message such a sale would send to Russia, China and other weapons exporters at a time when an administration priority is a reduction in arms proliferation.
An Arrow sale may violate the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an agreement among more than 30 countries that seeks to limit the spread of missile technology. "We have some issues we need to sort through, particularly how the sale relates to the MTCR. That's an open question," said the Pentagon official. "We certainly understand India's interest in missile defense."
Defense Department officials who favor Israel's proposal include backers of Israel, which would stand to profit handsomely, as well as supporters of the administration's missile defense plans. U.S. officials are about to embark on missions to Europe and Asia to discuss partnerships in the long-term development project. Bush contends missile defense will be a force for stability around the world.
Raytheon has set up Patriot systems in eight countries since the rocket interceptors were first rushed into service during the 1991 Persian Gulf War to combat Iraqi Scud missiles.
Meanwhile, the administration advised Congress this week that it intends to sell arms to Pakistan and India. Pakistan would buy six C-130 cargo planes in what would be the first major military sale since sanctions were lifted last year in return for its cooperation in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban.
India wants to buy parts for military equipment, such as helicopters, warplanes and radar systems. Sanctions barring U.S. military assistance were imposed in 1998 after India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons.
--------
Bush Weighs Israel Air Defense Deal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52558-2002Jul23?language=printer or
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-India-Arms.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is taking a hard look at Israel's potential sale of a modern missile defense system to India.
The Arrow Weapon System, which is designed to help Israel defend itself against short-range and medium-range missiles, was developed in partnership with the United States.
As a result, sale of the system needs the approval of the United States.
While tensions between India and Pakistan have eased, ``introduction of weapons systems have to be made with a larger perspective than this week's events or last week's events,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday.
Israel and India, finding common ground in their struggles against terrorism, have drawn closer in recent years. The sale of the Arrow system could strengthen those ties, as well as improve U.S.-Indian relations.
``At this point, we have not given a definitive answer to the Israeli request, but we continue to discuss the issue in Washington,'' Boucher said.
The United States is committed to controlling the proliferation of offensive missiles and other weapons that can deliver weapons of mass destruction.
The Arrow system is designed for defense.
The Bush administration is trying to develop its own defenses against missiles and has said it would like friendly nations to be shielded as well.
But Boucher said of the potential Arrow sale, ``If you can build a missile for defense you can build it for offense.''
Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev said, ``The issue of the Arrow for India has not been under discussion with the U.S. government over the last month.''
Noting that the missile was developed jointly with the United States, Regev said, ``Israel will not do anything unilaterally. Everything will be done, if at all, with U.S. approval.''
Secretary of State Colin Powell visit India at the end of the week. He also will go to Pakistan. His aim is to improve U.S. relations with both countries and try to accelerate an easing of tensions over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
--------
Europe and U.S. Vie for Fighter Contracts
July 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-airshow.html
FARNBOROUGH, England (Reuters) - The United States and Europe went head to head in a multi-billion-dollar battle on Tuesday to sell their fighters to air forces around the globe.
In a dogfight to decide who will reap the richest dividends from a defense spending bonanza, the Eurofighter Typhoon was pitched against the Lockheed Martin F-35 at the Farnborough air show, the biggest aviation showcase of the year.
The stakes are high. The September 11 attacks sent civil aviation into a tailspin and for the battered industry, defense is now the one bright spot in overcast skies.
Lockheed Martin sang the praises of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, history's biggest warplane project, which is set for its first delivery in 2008.
The fighter is intended to be not only deadly but cheap to buy and to run. ``The cornerstone of the F-35 is affordability,'' the company pledged at a ceremony to mark the participation of seven partner countries in the program.
``We look forward to seeing our strong relationships flourish as we build a terrific fighter aircraft,'' U.S. Air Force Major General John Hudson said after the Bush administration had campaigned for partners around the world from Canada to Turkey.
But Eurofighter GmbH -- a collaborative project launched by Britain's BAE Systems Plc, Finmeccanica SpA of Italy and EADS, representing Germany and Spain -- is fighting back.
EUROFIGHTER DELAYS
After Eurofighter's Typhoon roared over Farnborough in an impressive display of twists, turns and swooping dives, Britain's Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told Reuters: ``It is an absolutely fantastic airplane.
``I am completely thrilled with it and I have just talked to the pilots and it keeps getting better and better.''
After struggling for an initial export order to establish market credibility, Eurofighter received a timely boost this month when Austria decided to buy 24 in a $1.76 billion deal. Greece could be next.
Eurofighter has been dogged by delays. It was meant to enter service a decade ago but design changes, technical hitches and disputes among the partners stalled the timetable.
Boeing Co lost out to Lockheed Martin over the JSF -- the most lucrative contract in U.S. military history. But it is now bullish on prospects for its advanced navy fighter jet, the Super Hornet, seeing long term global sales of 700 to 1,100 planes.
Test pilot Ricardo Traven called the plane ``the most agile fighter plane in the world. There is absolutely no risk to me.''
BOEING ORDER On the civil aviation front, the show did offer a glimmer of hope: All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd. (ANA), Japan's second biggest airline, said it would buy 14 Boeing jets in a $1.46 billion deal, its first new plane order since Sept. 11.
And Boeing's arch rival Airbus rejected accusations by its U.S. competitor that it was making planes that airlines didn't want and said carriers had canceled orders for only three of its jets this year in the post-September 11 slump.
-------- asia
[The old "starve 'em into submission" technique. Generations of suffering. et]
Cash crunch pushes Sri Lanka to peace
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020723-986378.htm
Sri Lanka's prime minister said yesterday that a U.S. cutoff of fund transfers from Tamil expatriates in the United States since September 11 has forced the Tamil Tigers to sue for peace after a 20-year struggle in which 80,000 people died.
"Many [Tamils in the United States] had to contribute when they asked them to do so - there was pressure," Ranil Wickremesinghe told The Washington Times in an interview in advance of his meeting tomorrow with President Bush.
"The money helped the LTTE a great deal. But they were not able to get the money across in the last year," he said, using the acronym for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers.
According to the State Department, which has declared the Tamil Tigers a terrorist group, the organization "exploits large Tamil communities in North America often through false claims or even extortion."
After September 11, President Bush issued an executive order blocking assets of the Tigers and 188 other groups linked to terrorism.
Canada, Britain and Australia followed suit and barred the flow of funds to the Tigers and several front groups.
The leader of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran, declared a cease-fire and opened peace talks with the Colombo government this spring because of the international climate opposing terrorism, the prime minister said.
"They have no other option," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. "The LTTE realized the world situation is not favorable to them."
Like other militant separatist or religious movements that used terrorism as a tool, the Tiger spokesmen abroad contended that they were a persecuted Hindu minority fighting a legitimate struggle for their rights.
But inside the island nation off India's southeast coast, the Tigers murdered all their Tamil centrist opposition, massacred ethnic Singhalese and sowed terror.
The 15-million-strong majority Singhalese discriminated against the 3 million Tamils over language and economic development and religious issues, but it paled against the terrifying slaughter of the past 20 years.
The Tigers assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a campaign rally in India in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.
European Nordic nations are monitoring the current cease-fire and the peace talks.
The next round of talks, originally set for May, has been put off until August because the Tigers want to see whether the Colombo government carries out its promised withdrawal of troops from Tamil temples and schools by Aug. 2, 160 days after the cease-fire agreement was signed.
The Tigers also are to open the road from the Jaffna Peninsula in the north to the central city of Kandy, under the agreement.
The Tigers in 1983 began a bloody struggle to create a separate Tamil state in the north and northeast.
At first aided by Indian security officials, the Tigers later turned against India when it sent a peacekeeping force to pacify the rebellion in 1988.
A series of Sri Lankan leaders sought to make peace with the Tigers, but all efforts collapsed into fresh violence marked by massive car bombings in Colombo as well as massacres of government troops when captured and of ethnic Singhalese who fell into Tiger hands.
The Tigers would commit suicide when captured by biting on cyanide capsules they wear around their necks. They also recruit boys and girls as young as 13 to serve as fighters.
Mr. Wickremesinghe said yesterday that he is willing to meet with Mr. Prabhakaran. "The challenge for the LTTE is to become a political organization," he said.
The government's goal in the talks will be to keep the country unified but to "devolve" power downward to the regions, granting Tamils control of social, economic and cultural affairs in their regions.
However, all regions would still be under central control, and appeals from local laws would be heard by the supreme court in Colombo, he said.
Mr. Wickremesinghe will be the first Sri Lankan leader since 1984 to meet an American president when he meets Mr. Bush. He also will meet Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
He will ask for military training by U.S. Special Forces. Sri Lanka is already receiving some spare parts and nonlethal military equipment. The island is the site of a major U.S. Voice of America transmitting tower.
Mr. Wickremesinghe will also request trade advantages, such as opening up the U.S. market to Sri Lankan exports of textiles and other goods.
-------- britain
Report: Britain Not Ready for Attack
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 23, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Security.html or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53859-2002Jul23?language=printer
LONDON (AP) -- Britain is unprepared to respond to a major terrorist strike and must improve training and be more vigilant about tracking weapons of mass destruction, a House of Commons committee warned Wednesday.
Bureaucratic foot-dragging and departmental turf battles have slowed government efforts to better prepare for an emergency, the Defense Committee said in its harshly worded assessment.
``We do believe that there has been a lack of grip and direction on the part of central government,'' said committee chairman Bruce George, a Labor Party legislator.
``We are concerned that central government has not responded to the scale of the complexity of the challenge posed by international terrorism.''
The lawmakers said fire and ambulance crews lacked the training and equipment necessary to respond to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack.
``Now that there is a real threat of (such an) attack on a scale not previously planned for, the government must provide the additional resources needed,'' the report warned.
Home Office Minister John Denham, responding to the report, said Britain was much better prepared to prevent and respond to a major attack than before Sept. 11.
``Building on our experience of fighting terrorism over the last 30 years, we have ensured that the U.K. has in place tried and tested crisis management plans to deal with a major emergency,'' he said.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said security had been tightened at airports and nuclear power plants. The spokesman also said emergency anti-terrorism legislation passed in December and a crackdown on terrorist funds showed the government was addressing the issue.
The committee said the military's role in responding to an attack was not clearly defined and warned that radio equipment crucial in disaster response could have ``unknown but potentially fundamental vulnerabilities.''
The report said the government had failed to adequately review its disaster preparations since Sept. 11 and called for a strong central body to coordinate the work of departments involved in emergency planning.
It said the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, set up before the terrorist attacks to deal with disasters, was hobbled by department turf battles.
The legislators also said the government wasn't being urgent enough about detecting weapons of mass destruction. They said Britain could be vulnerable to terrorists using shipping containers to smuggle in weapons of mass destruction, and urged further examination of security at nuclear power stations, ports and on Royal Navy vessels.
``The catastrophic scale of the potential consequences of a terrorist attack by these means ... requires us fundamentally to re-examine our security measures,'' the report said. ``And to do so promptly.''
--------
UK Fails to Overhaul Security After Sept 11 - Report
July 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-britain-security.html
LONDON - Britain has failed to overhaul internal security since September 11 and is poorly equipped to deal with a similar attack, a hard-hitting parliamentary report said on Wednesday.
It said the threat of an attack on British navy ships was a ``real one,'' which the Ministry of Defense should urgently look at.
Airforce bases should also be moved closer to London, it said, although the decision to shoot down a civilian aircraft should only be taken by ministers.
And port security should be reviewed because of the ``catastrophic'' consequences of an attack using shipping containers.
In its report, the cross-party Defense Select Committee concluded there had been ``inadequate central coordination and direction'' in reassessing security.
The government had ``confused activity with achievement,'' and had failed to undertake a comprehensive review of how Britain could react to a disaster like the suicide airline attacks on New York and Washington.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has unswervingly backed the United States' ``war on terror'' since September 11. That could make Britain a target of militants, security sources say.
``We do believe that there has been a lack of grip and direction on the part of central government,'' committee chairman Bruce George said in a statement. ``We are concerned central government has not responded to the scale and complexity of the challenge posed by international terrorism,'' the veteran member of Blair's Labor Party said.
George said there had been no fundamental shake-up of Britain's home defense and security, with individual government departments instead allowed to make their own arrangements.
In contrast, President Bush had created a new homeland security department to oversee all activities.
LIST OF CRITICISM
The committee produced the report after months of taking evidence from ministers, officials and independent experts.
A spokesman for Blair responded that a number of measures had been taken since September 11, notably tighter security for aviation, nuclear sites and research laboratories.
``We have done a lot but there is more to be done,'' he said.
The committee conceded much had changed in terms of counter-terrorism and civil contingency planning, but reeled off a list of criticisms.
The government's Strategic Defense Review of the armed forces had failed to offer any fundamental re-evaluation post-September 11, it said.
And its Civil Contingencies Secretariat, a co-ordinating body created last year to plan for and deal with emergencies, had also fallen short, the committee said.
``Instead of using its unique position at the heart of government to lead a strategic response it seems to have become bogged down in the details of the plans of individual departments,'' it said.
It concluded that 10 months after the U.S. attacks, the government must quickly publish civil contingencies legislation and introduce it in the next session of parliament.
-------- business
Boeing, EADS Link in Defense System
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Boeing-EADS.html
FARNBOROUGH, England (AP) -- In an unusual partnership of aerospace rivals, Boeing Co. and the parent of its European competitor Airbus said Tuesday they've agreed to cooperate in the joint development of anti-missile defense systems.
Boeing and the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., known as EADS, have signed a memorandum of understanding to share in efforts to design defenses against ballistic missiles for the United States and its allies. They announced the deal at the Farnborough International air show at Farnborough, just south of London.
``U.S. and European industry came together today to show unity of purpose and appreciation of a common global threat. We will work together on ballistic missile defense -- adding a new dimension to trans-Atlantic cooperation,'' Boeing chief executive Phil Condit told a news conference.
Boeing said it has reached a similar agreement with Italian aerospace company Alenia Spazio.
As prime contractor in the project with EADS, Boeing would be responsible for the development and integration of much of the ground-based equipment, including radars and command, control and communication systems. It also would be responsible for linking these defenses with satellites.
Neither Boeing nor EADS said how much it would spend on the project, nor how they will divide up the work.
``Right now it's just a framework, and inside this framework both companies will sort out how things will be done,'' said Heinrich Grossbongardt, a Boeing spokesman.
``What is behind it is that the U.S. government has asked that European partners should take part in missile defense,'' he said.
The announcement came amid U.S. President George W. Bush's continuing effort to build support among America's allies in Europe for the creation of a viable system of anti-ballistic missile defenses.
``We believe ballistic missile defense to be an important focus in the shifting defense environment, and key to ensuring peace in the free world,'' said EADS joint chief executives Philippe Camus and Rainer Hertrich. ``EADS will bring its proven expertise to the table.''
The deal represents the most significant partnership so far between EADS and Boeing. The two companies have partnered for several years on smaller projects, including marketing of the Meteor air-to-air missile.
EADS owns 80 percent of Airbus, Boeing's only major competitor in the commercial aircraft business. Britain's BAE Systems owns the remaining 20 percent stake in Airbus.
EADS also holds 75 percent of the space company Astrium, 100 percent of the helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter, 43 percent in the Eurofighter jet fighter program, 37.5 percent in the missile company MBDA, and 100 percent of EADS Launch Vehicles, which is involved in Ariane and French ballistic missiles.
-------- china
China objects to U.S. sanctions
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020723-90284050.htm
China spoke out yesterday against U.S. sanctions imposed last week on nine Chinese companies suspected of transferring sensitive technology to the Middle East.
"We strongly object to sanctions imposed on China based on U.S. domestic law," said Xie Feng, press counselor at the Chinese Embassy, during his first U.S. news conference.
"China has always supported the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Xie said. "In fact, we have been looking toward the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of all weapons of mass destruction."
The Washington Times reported Friday that new sanctions on the Chinese involved three cases of sales of advanced conventional arms and chemical and biological components to Iran between September 2000 and October 2001.
It was the fourth time since September that the United States has penalized Chinese companies for transferring arms-related material or technology to Iran.
The sanctions bar the unidentified companies from doing business with the U.S. government or American companies.
Objections to the sanctions were also raised in Beijing.
"We have a series of laws and regulations in place, and strictly enforce the rules on exporting such items," said a Foreign Ministry statement faxed to news agencies. "The Chinese side objects to the United States' unjustifiable sanctions."
While generally praising recent progress in U.S.-China relations, Mr. Xie dismissed reports that a rapid increase in Beijing's defense spending was creating a "China threat," as stated in two recent American reports.
"The threat to Sino-U.S. relations, the threat to world peace doesn't lie in China but rather in these people who have fabricated this China threat," he said, insisting China's history proves it is a peaceful, non-expansionist country.
Two commissions, one a Pentagon panel and the other a congressional group, recently described China as a potential military and economic threat.
Mr. Xie also repeated a call for a halt in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan (officially called the Republic of China), saying such sales infringe on China's sovereignty and pose a "serious threat to China."
The U.S. must "stop selling sophisticated arms to Taiwan, stop any official contacts with Taiwan, stop sending wrong signals to Taiwan," he said.
Mr. Xie would not address published reports that President Jiang Zemin may be reconsidering his intention to step down as general secretary of the Communist Party in September.
Nor would he comment on reports that a Communist Party Congress scheduled for September would be postponed.
On a positive note, Mr. Xie welcomed bilateral cooperation on terrorism, saying that "terrorism should be combated everywhere it appears, such as in East Turkestan."
That is the historic name for a part of the western, mostly desert region of Xinjiang, home to a Muslim people called the Uighur who, since the 19th century, have staged periodic uprisings against Chinese rule.
China says Uighur rebels should be included in the worldwide war on terrorism, though this view is not generally accepted in the United States.
-------- drug war
San Francisco May Grow Its Own Pot
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Marijuana-City.html
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Frustrated by the government's determination to shut down medical marijuana clubs, San Francisco is thinking about growing its own.
The Board of Supervisors voted late Monday to put a measure on the November ballot that would have city officials explore the possibility of growing marijuana on publicly owned lots and distributing it to ill patients.
Supporters said the program could double as job training for the unemployed.
``I don't think it would be all that dramatic a venture,'' said Supervisor Mark Leno, who proposed the idea with three colleagues.
California was the first state to approve the use of marijuana for medical ailments, in 1996.
San Francisco already issues medical marijuana use cards to patients who have a doctor's permission. Police here have refused to participate in any raids and last year city leaders declared San Francisco a sanctuary for medical cannabis use.
Leno said the city health department or another agency could distribute city-grown pot. He said he drafted the proposal because the Drug Enforcement Administration remains determined to close down medical marijuana clubs across California.
When DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson spoke here in February, Leno was protesting out front with a bullhorn.
``If the federal government is going to continue to harass and shut down these clubs, then I think it's the city's responsibility to take action,'' he said. ``If 60 or 70 percent of voters say 'yes,' the supervisors would be on very solid ground knowing that voters would be with us.''
Cultivating, possessing and distributing marijuana are illegal under federal law. DEA spokesman Richard Meyer if San Francisco began growing marijuana, it could expect a crackdown.
``Unless Congress changes the law and makes marijuana a legal substance, then we have to do our job and enforce the law, whether or not it's popular,'' he said.
San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who has supported medical marijuana clubs, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
Medical marijuana advocates lauded the ballot measure.
``The real fight we've been having is distribution,'' said Wayne Justmann, who's been HIV positive for more than 15 years, carries the first city-issued ID card and operates one of San Francisco's 11 remaining pot clubs.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Airstrike Kills 15
Hamas Military Leader Assassinated in Gaza Missile Attack
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 23, 2002; 11:39 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48578-2002Jul23?language=printer
JERUSALEM, July 22--An Israeli F-16 warplane fired a missile into a Gaza City neighborhood tonight and killed at least 15 people, including a militant Hamas leader, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.
More than 100 people were reported injured in the blast. Many bodies were buried under the rubble of five destroyed houses, and body parts lay scattered across the debris, according to witnesses in the affected neighborhood in the densely populated center of Gaza City.
Israeli security sources said the target of the attack was Salah Shehada, a founder and leader of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas. The Israeli military and Hamas officials reported he was killed.
His wife and three of his daughters were also killed in the attack.
Shehada has been on Israel's most-wanted list and had dodged an Israeli assault on his house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun last December because he was not home at the time. His group has claimed responsibility for a number of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli civilians.
[In Washington, White House press spokesman Ari Fleischer criticized the Israeli action because of the loss of "innocent life," the Associated Press reported.]
["This heavy handed action does not contribute to peace," Fleischer told reporters, and added that Israeli officials were being told of U.S. concerns.]
The missile attack against Shehada came just hours after his close associate, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, said his organization would consider stopping suicide attacks if Israel withdrew from reoccupied West Bank cities, stopped destruction of Palestinian houses and halted missions to hunt and kill Palestinians accused of attacks on Israelis.
Yassin, one of the more unyielding Palestinian voices, told Palestinian and Arab reporters in the Gaza Strip, "Once the occupation [of West Bank cities] and all those measures against our people stop, we are ready to totally study stopping martyrdom operations in a positive way." A martyrdom operation is the term commonly used by Hamas for a suicide bombing.
But within an hour of the attack, a leader of the Hamas political wing, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, stood amid the debris of the destroyed houses and declared the organization would seek revenge against Israelis: "We will hit them hard," he vowed. "They will be targeted, them, their houses and their families."
Streets throughout Gaza City and other towns in the Gaza Strip erupted in anger, with protesters vowing revenge against Israel and firing guns into the air, witnesses said.
Palestinian sources said the missile strike was precise and appeared to be based on accurate intelligence. Shehada had been in hiding since the December attack on his house and had been changing locations almost nightly to avoid detection. Sources said he had gone tonight to visit his wife and children at the house. They had been living separately from him in hopes of avoiding an attack.
In a recent interview, Shehada told a Palestinian television reporter that he expected to be killed by Israeli forces; he told his wife that she would likely be targeted as well.
Shehada helped establish the Hamas military wing as the organization was getting started in 1988, during an earlier Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, and was held in an Israeli prison for 12 years because of his Hamas activities. He was released only a few weeks before the current uprising began in September 2000.
The attack in Gaza came soon after some Israeli officials had begun making conciliatory gestures, which, taken with Yassin's comments, raised hopes of easing the tension and bloodshed.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government reopened the university offices of a prominent Palestinian official in Jerusalem, announced it was considering pulling troops out of two West Bank cities and backed away from threats to deport the families of Palestinians accused of terrorism.
"There's a lot of pressure on them [the Israeli government]," said Sari Nusseibeh, the senior Palestine Liberation Organization representative in Jerusalem and president of the preeminent Palestinian center of higher learning in the city, Al-Quds University.
"They felt there was a limit to what they can do," he said, referring to the reversal of his situation. "People were not turning a blind eye to everything."
Despite President Bush's outspoken support for Sharon, the White House was harshly critical of Israel's decision to close the administrative offices of the 6,000-student university two weeks ago. Nusseibeh, as an academic and Palestinian leader, is viewed in international circles, as well as among many Israeli officials, as a moderating influence in Palestinian politics.
Israeli Public Security Minister Uzi Landau had ordered the administrative offices closed, accusing Nusseibeh of using them to conduct work for the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli government, citing the Oslo peace accords of 1993, seeks to prevent Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority from conducting political activities in Jerusalem.
The Israeli government, which captured the eastern portion of Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, has declared sovereignty over the entire city and made it the Israeli capital. But the Palestinian Authority has claimed the eastern part as the capital of a future Palestinian state, making anything the Palestinians do there politically sensitive.
Nusseibeh, who has denied the Israeli allegations, was allowed to return to his office after signing a declaration that he would "not hold any Palestinian Authority activities or any activities on its behalf" at the university.
European nations have voiced growing impatience with Israel's month-long reoccupation of major Palestinian cities in the West Bank and the isolation of dozens of nearby villages. Human rights organizations have expressed growing alarm at shortages of food, medical care and other necessities in the besieged Palestinian communities.
Raising hopes the situation could improve, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said earlier in the day that Israeli forces could be pulled out of the southern West Bank cities of Hebron and Bethlehem if the Palestinian Authority could assume responsibility for preventing attacks on Israelis from the towns.
Peres also said Israel has released about $20 million in tax revenue collected from Palestinian workers and frozen since the uprising began.
--------
Hamas Vows to Avenge Israel's Gaza Missile Strike
July 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html
GAZA - The militant Islamic group Hamas has vowed to avenge Israel's killing of the commander of its military wing and 14 other Palestinians, including nine children, in a missile strike in the heart of Gaza City.
At least 145 Palestinians were also wounded when an Israeli fighter slammed a warhead into the home of militant leader Salah Shehada in a crowded neighborhood early on Tuesday. The dead included a two-month-old baby.
The attack drew rare criticism from Washington which joined the European Union, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a slew of countries around the world in condemning the strike.
Israel said the attack was an unavoidable step to protect its people from suicide bombers. Israeli officials said the army had incorrect intelligence information showing that Shehada was alone in the apartment at the time.
They said Shehada was behind a wave of suicide bombings that had killed dozens of Israelis over the past two years and was planning a series of large-scale suicide attacks to take place in the next 72 hours.
Gaza City rang out with bursts of automatic machinegun fire at a funeral attended by about 300,000 people, at which a man held aloft the tiny body of a baby wrapped in a flag as masked men chanted: ``Death to Israel! Death to America!''
Residents said there had been no warning, not even the sound of a plane before the missile attack, which left the neighborhood a picture of devastation.
Dazed residents stumbled through dust and debris, looking for loved ones who might still be trapped in the wreckage.
Israel described the attack as one of its most significant blows against Palestinian militants waging an uprising for an independent state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, while expressing regret for the loss of civilian life.
But Hamas's vows of revenge raised the possibility of another upsurge of violence -- after a month of relative calm -- endangering a fragile new dialogue between Israel and Palestinian moderates.
Shehada, head of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades, was killed a day after Hamas's spiritual leader, wheelchair-bound Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said it would consider halting suicide attacks if Israel withdrew from occupied West Bank cities.
But Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior Hamas official, said on Tuesday: ``Hamas's retaliation will come very soon, and there won't be only just one (attack)...After this crime, even Israelis in their homes will be the target of our operations.''
INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
Within hours of the attacks, Palestinian militants fired rockets and mortar bombs at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and Israeli towns nearby, causing minor damage.
Gun battles also erupted in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Ramallah which have been reoccupied by Israeli troops for almost a month after Palestinian militants killed 26 people in back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem.
Officials at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital said 15 people had been killed in the raid -- including Shehada's wife, a daughter, his deputy commander and nine children apparently from neighboring homes hit by the missile.
The civilian casualty toll drew swift condemnation by the United Nations and European Union.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said there had been signs that a deal to end a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings within Israel was within reach before the Israeli strike.
The United States, Israel's main ally, which has been reluctant to criticize the Jewish state's offensive against the Palestinians in recent weeks, called the strike ``heavy handed.''
``This was a deliberate attack on this site, knowing that innocents would be lost as a consequence of this attack,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Inside a local mortuary, medical workers identified lumps of flesh retrieved from the wreckage of Shehada's home.
``This is a crime. No normal-minded, conscientious and feeling person could imagine such a massacre,'' Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told reporters at his West Bank compound, surrounded by Israeli troops.
SHARON SAYS STRIKE ``GREAT SUCCESS''
Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war and handed over the main towns to Palestinian self-rule under interim peace deals in 1994-95. But Israeli troops and Jewish settlements are present in swathes of the territories.
The Israeli army said Shehada was behind hundreds of attacks, including one of two bus bombings that killed 26 Israelis in Jerusalem last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described the strike as a ``great success'' but said he regretted the deaths of civilians. He added that Israel must be on full alert for Hamas reprisals.
Israeli and Palestinian officials have been holding talks focused on easing the hardships of 700,000 Palestinians under army curfew and blockades since Israeli forces reoccupied seven West Bank cities last month.
At least 1,467 Palestinians and 559 Israelis have been killed in the uprising, which began in September 2000 after negotiations for a final peace treaty deadlocked.
--------
Gaza Attack Reveals Civilian Deaths
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Mideast-Civilian-Casualties.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The deaths of more than a dozen innocents in an Israeli air strike aimed at a Hamas leader Tuesday underlined a tragic aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli fighting -- civilians are often the victims on both sides.
Israel killed 15 people, including Salah Shehadeh, a founder of the Islamic group responsible for dozens of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians, and a Hamas colleague. But the building that collapsed on top of him also killed his wife and daughter, while eight children and three adults died, apparently in nearby buildings.
Civilian deaths have been common since fighting erupted in September 2000 -- killing to date 1,789 people on the Palestinian side and 578 on the Israeli side.
The Palestinians say about 900 of their dead were civilians, a figure the Israelis dispute.
In a report issued last month, Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism said 568 Palestinian and 420 Israeli civilians had been killed. If correct, that would show that although Israelis have the higher proportion of civilians from the total number killed, the Palestinians did lose more civilians.
However, the figures offered by both sides show that the proportion of civilian deaths is considerably higher on the Israeli side -- a logical result of the fact that most Israeli casualties come in suicide bombings in cafes and buses, shooting sprees on streets, and other such terror attacks.
Israel claims there is a moral difference between such intentional killings of civilians and the deaths of Palestinian innocents as an unintended consequence of military actions -- especially actions they see as conducted in self-defense.
A senior Israeli military source said a previous planned strike on Shehadeh was called off at the last minute because it was feared innocents were present.
But Palestinians and even many Israelis questioned how the military could have expected not to harm civilians when just after midnight on Tuesday, it dropped what was reportedly a one-ton explosive -- however precise the missile carrying it -- on a crowded Gaza City neighborhood.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said the attack was a war crime and cautioned that Israel was entering a ``new phase of disregard for the fundamental principles of law and morality.''
Hamas officials have long said the deaths of Palestinian civilians at the hands of Israel justify their own targeting of Israeli civilians.
``The rules are made by the Israelis,'' Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab said in March. ``They are not making any distinction between women and children. They bomb with their airplanes, all people in all places.''
The Tuesday attack was the first time Israeli planes dropped such a bomb on a neighborhood, killing Palestinians. In the past, warplanes have hit empty buildings, like security headquarters, with bombs.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told the Cabinet on Tuesday that Israeli military intelligence had reported that no civilians were with Shehadeh at the time of the attack. ``We express sorrow for the harm to them,'' he said, according to a statement from his office.
Beyond moral questions are practical goals: to many Palestinians, the grisly suicide bombings have emerged as the equalizer against Israel's far mightier military, an effective means of making Israel pay for their grievances.
In 72 suicide bombings during the current conflict, 254 Israelis have been killed -- and the country has suffered a devastating economic blow as tourism has been crippled and normal life badly disrupted.
The bloodiest attack came on March 27, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Park Hotel in the seaside city of Netanya, killing 29 people who were sitting down to a festive meal at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. That attack drew Israeli retaliation in the form of a six-week assault on the West Bank in which about 300 Palestinians were killed -- with the sides in inevitable disagreement over how many had been armed and how many were civilians.
The issue is complicated by the fact that both sides define civilians in different terms.
Many Palestinians say Israeli soldiers, even if they are riding a civilian bus, are legitimate targets; many also refuse to see Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as civilians. Israel has killed Palestinian policemen even as they sat quietly guarding a post, since it says the security forces have been involved in terror attacks.
Tuesday's was only the most recent case of innocents dying in the more than 50 ``targeted killings'' of Palestinians Israel accuses of terrorism.
In another case, an Israeli missile attack on a car in the West Bank town of Ramallah in March, targeting a local militant; five Palestinians were also killed, including the militant's wife and children.
--------
Israel Criticized for Gaza Airstrike
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Holding up the flag-wrapped body of a 2-month-old girl, tens of thousands of Palestinians marched Tuesday to bury their dead after an Israeli airstrike killed a top Hamas leader and 14 civilians, including nine children. The Islamic militant group vowed revenge.
President Bush called the Israeli missile strike ``heavy-handed,'' joining other world leaders in sharp criticism of the attack, which leveled an apartment building and destroyed other nearby buildings in a crowded neighborhood of Gaza City overnight. Palestinian doctors said more than 100 people were wounded.
The Israeli prime minister hailed the operation, which successfully targeted Salah Shehadeh, the top commander of Hamas' military wing, Izzadine el-Qassam.
``This operation was in my view one of our biggest successes,'' Ariel Sharon told Cabinet ministers. ``We hit perhaps the most senior Hamas figure on the operational side,'' Sharon said of Shehadeh, who was jailed first by Israel, and then by the Palestinians, from 1988 to 1999.
However, some Israelis criticized the attack, warning that the killing of a top Hamas commander would trigger a surge of suicide bombings in retaliation.
``The death of innocent children will only encourage more desire for revenge and motivation for more terror attacks,'' said member of parliament Ran Cohen, a reserve colonel in the Israeli military.
Israel linked Shehadeh to Hamas' deadliest suicide bombings, including a March attack at a Netanya hotel that killed 29, a June 2001 disco bombing in Tel Aviv that killed 21, and an August 2001 bombing at a Jerusalem pizzeria that killed 15.
Israel TV said the bomb weighed a ton, unusually large for a mission to kill a single militant. In dozens of previous operations, Israeli forces have used helicopters to fire missiles at vehicles or rooms in a building, or set off small bombs in vehicles. Palestinians said Israel dropped a large bomb in an attempted killing in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis on July 14.
In the past, one-ton bombs have been dropped on large, empty structures to destroy them. In March, when an Israeli plane dropped such a bomb on Arafat's empty headquarters building in Bethlehem, windows rattled in Jerusalem, five miles away.
In Gaza, tens of thousands crowded the streets in an emotional and angry funeral procession for Shehadeh and the other victims of the Israeli airstrike.
As wailing relatives held aloft the youngest victim wrapped in a Palestinian flag, the infant's face and black hair visible between the folds, gunmen fired rifles in the air and called for revenge.
For hours, the huge crowd of Palestinians marched through the streets toward the cemetery, waving flags of various Palestinian groups, chanting slogans against Israel and threatening suicide bombings in retaliation for the killing.
``Do you want peace with the Jews?'' asked an activist with a loudspeaker. ``No!'' the crowd responded.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called the attack a ``disgusting, ugly crime, ... a massacre no human being can imagine.'' Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the strike a ``horrible act'' with ``no ethical, moral or even military justification.''
In a rare U.S. criticism of Israel, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said ``this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace.''
The office of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said ``Israel has the legal and moral responsibility to take all measures to avoid the loss of innocent life.'' Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh called it ``a crime against international law and morally unworthy of a democracy like Israel.''
A single powerful bomb dropped by an Israeli F-16 warplane destroyed the three-story apartment building where witnesses said Shehadeh, 48, and his family had been living for the past three days, as well as four other buildings nearby.
The blast left a huge pile of smoking rubble in the midst of a poverty-stricken, crowded Palestinian neighborhood. Relatives and friends frantically joined rescue workers digging through the wrecked buildings for survivors.
Israel said it had intended to kill only Shehadeh. ``According to the information which we had there were no civilians near him and we express sorrow on the injuries to them,'' Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel's Cabinet, according to a statement from his office.
Senior military sources said the military believed erroneously only one other person was in the building with Shehadeh, fellow Hamas militant Zahar Salah Abuhsein.
Besides Shehadeh and Abuhsein, Shehadeh's wife and a daughter were killed in the building, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. They said the other victims were probably killed in adjacent buildings, which the planners of the operation had believed would not be seriously damaged.
Israeli officials suggested the military also underestimated the damage that would be caused to nearby buildings, where many people were hurt.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks, including suicide bombings, during nearly two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence. Israeli military sources said Shehadeh had been planning a multiple suicide bombing in a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians said Arafat was close to an agreement with Hamas to stop attacks on Israeli civilians and the airstrike would sabotage the deal.
Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Israel knew agreement was near, but Sharon sabotaged it because ``his only solution is violence and more violence.''
Even so, a senior Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity said that the Palestinians still stood by a proposal for a cease-fire that was presented to Israeli officials in a meeting last weekend.
According to the proposal, which was made available to the Associated Press, Israel would end its occupation of Palestinian cities, withdraw to the lines that existed before violence erupted in September 2000, release prisoners and stop killing terror suspects.
In exchange, the Palestinians would restructure their security services, resume security cooperation with Israel, collect illegal weapons and arrest militants.
In nearly 22 months of fighting 1,789 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 578 on the Israeli side.
Before the bloody airstrike, Hamas officials said they would consider stopping suicide bomb attacks if Israel withdrew from Palestinian towns and cities and stopped its killing of suspected militants. Palestinians charge that the targeted operations amount to Israeli assassination of their leaders.
--------
White House Rebukes Israel for Attack, Calls It 'Heavy-Handed'
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/international/23CND-PREX.html
WASHINGTON, July 23 - President Bush issued one of his sharpest rebukes against Israel today, denouncing as "heavy-handed" the attack that killed a Hamas leader and expressing regret over "the loss of innocent life."
"This heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace," said the president's chief spokesman, Ari Fleischer. "This message will be conveyed to Israeli authorities, and the United States regrets the loss of life."
At least 14 other people, including several children, were killed in the missile attack that killed Salah Shehadeh, a founder and the top commander of Hamas's military wing. Scores of others were wounded.
While he emphasized that Mr. Bush remained a strong supporter of Israel over all, Mr. Fleischer underscored the criticism by rejecting any comparison between the strike against the Hamas leader and those American operations in Afghanistan that have killed civilians.
"It is inaccurate to compare the two, because the United States, because of an errant bomb, a mistake in a mission, has occasionally engaged in military action that very regrettably included losses of innocent lives," Mr. Fleischer said.
By contrast, he said, the Israeli operation "was a deliberate attack on the site, knowing that innocents would be lost in the consequences of the attack."
Asked how the administration could be so sure that Israel knew that civilians were in the building, Mr. Fleischer replied, "These were apartment buildings that were targeted."
The Israeli Embassy immediately responded with a defense of the operation. "Like the government of the United States, the government of Israel regrets the loss of innocent civilian lives," an Embassy spokesman, Mark Regev, told The Associated Press. "However, our military action against one of the most dangerous Hamas terrorist leaders was a justified action of self-defense."
The White House reaction was markedly different from the administration's response to other recent Israeli military operations, especially those following attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers. In those instances, Mr. Bush has generally urged Israel to show as much restraint as possible but has emphasized that he recognizes the country's right to defend itself.
The Bush administration also rebuked Israel for its recent closing of the Jerusalem office of a leading Palestinian moderate, Sari Nusseibeh.
Despite the sharp rebuke today, Mr. Fleischer said, "Again, this president has been and will continue to be a lead defender of Israel around the world and will speak out about Israel's right to self-defense. This is an instance in which the United States and Israel do not see eye to eye."
In his most important statement on the Middle East, Mr. Bush reversed policy on June 24 and declared that the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, had to be replaced before there could be real progress toward peace in the region - a goal the White House has repeatedly said it embraces and will work to achieve.
-------- pakistan
U.S., Pakistan to Resume Defense Talks
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-US-Defense.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Representatives of the U.S. and Pakistani militaries met Tuesday about resuming regular defense dialogue suspended four years ago because of Islamabad's nuclear weapons program, Pakistan's Defense Ministry said.
Air Force Col. Jeffery Paulk met with Rear Adm. Irfan Ahmad in Rawalpindi, a city next to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, to prepare for the resumption of talks later this year, the ministry said in a statement.
The statement did not say where and when the talks will be held.
The renewed dialogue -- known as the Defense Consultative Group -- was a sign of warming military ties between the two countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan told The Associated Press.
``Obviously, it's a good thing,'' he said.
Ties have been improving since Islamabad was quick to allow American forces to use bases here for operations against the Taliban and the al-Qaida terror group after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
The resumption of the talks was first announced during a February visit to Washington by Pakistani ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The United States suspended the talks and other military ties in 1998, when Pakistan exploded its first nuclear weapon, raising fears of atomic war with rival India.
Before that, the military talks had been held twice in Washington in 1995 and 1997 and once in Pakistan in 1996.
-------- turkey
Turmoil unlikely to shake U.S. plans
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020723-82361056.htm
Turkey's political crisis complicates but would not undermine a U.S. military move against neighboring Iraq, regional security specialists say.
The minority government of ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit faces an all-but-certain Nov. 3 election, 18 months ahead of schedule. The leader of one of the three ruling coalition parties yesterday threatened to resign if Mr. Ecevit tried to delay the poll.
With Turkey in the midst of a deep economic crisis, the 77-year-old Mr. Ecevit tried to backtrack over the weekend on promises to hold early elections.
NATO-member Turkey provided critical support for the U.S.-led Persian Gulf war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1991. The Bush administration has been seeking similar support, or at least acquiescence, from Ankara as it ponders a new strike to oust Saddam.
Mark R. Parris, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and now a senior policy adviser at the law firm Baker, Donaldson, Bear and Caldwell and a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the United States and Turkey have a long history of coordination on security issues even in uncertain political times.
"Obviously, this kind of turmoil causes you to look twice to see what's up," Mr. Parris said. "But the bottom line historically has been that we find ways to work profitably with Turkey no matter what the political conditions."
The conservative Muslim Justice and Development Party has the largest single base of support in the polls at 20 percent, but party leader Recep Erdogan has rejected the "Islamist" label Mr. Ecevit and other opponents have tried to pin on his party.
Mr. Parris said the Turkish political landscape is notoriously volatile and that even if Mr. Erdogan makes it into the government, he will be under strong pressure to prove to the United States and to Turkey's powerful military that he is a reliable ally of the West.
Anthony H. Cordesman, a security analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that Mr. Ecevit's political troubles are not centered on Iraq.
"You don't see a real violent clash of ideologies here. It's more like a power struggle between various Turkish politicians," he said.
Mr. Ecevit's only coalition is divided over proposed reforms, including abolition of the death penalty, as Turkey bids to join the European Union. Mr. Ecevit also has been harshly criticized for his handling of the economy.
All of Turkey's major parties share Mr. Ecevit's reluctance to support U.S. military action in Iraq, fearing further economic losses, regional turmoil and renewed efforts by ethnic Kurds in southern Turkey to link with Kurds across the border in Iraq in a renewed push for an independent state.
Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, in a visit to Ankara last week, gave the most explicit assurances to date that the United States would protect Turkish interests in any post-Saddam Iraq.
"A separate Kurdish state in [northern Iraq] would be destabilizing to Turkey and would be unacceptable to the United States," Mr. Wolfowitz said in a speech Wednesday in Ankara.
Mr. Cordesman said political upheaval in Turkey ultimately could benefit U.S. military planning, if a stable government is elected and a newly formed pro-Western centrist party takes power in November.
-------- us
U.S. Equipment Sent With Foreigners
By Melissa B. Robinson
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, July 23, 2002; 8:27 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52912-2002Jul23?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- The military has transported cannons, Black Hawk helicopters, nuclear protective gear and other sensitive equipment on foreign ships with alien crews, government investigators have found.
Some crew members were found to be from countries with known terrorist activities.
"The equipment could fall into the hands of individuals or groups whose interests run counter to those of the United States," Raymond Decker, director of defense capabilities and management for the General Accounting Office, said Tuesday.
The equipment could be used in terror attacks on military or civilian targets, Decker told the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, veterans affairs and international relations. Or it could be destroyed or tampered with, preventing U.S. troops from carrying out their missions, he said.
As part of an investigation into security of seaports used by U.S. forces, GAO reviewed overseas deployments of equipment from three military installations in 2001.
In wartime, more than 95 percent of equipment and supplies needed for military operations are sent by sea.
The danger of unconventional threats at seaports was highlighted by the Oct. 2000 terror bombing of the USS Cole. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed when a dinghy loaded with explosives rammed the Navy destroyed as it refueling in the Arabian peninsula country Yemen.
GAO, Congress' investigatory arm, found that the Pentagon either relinquishes control of its equipment or has insufficient information about handlers during sensitive activities. Controls were found lacking for movement of equipment from installations to ports by private trucking and railroad carriers, transfer of equipment into ships by civilian port workers and transportation of equipment overseas by private shippers with civilian crews.
GAO did not review the Pentagon's evaluation of private truckers and rail carriers, who are required to secure the equipment they transport. But the transfer of accountability to such third parties "creates a gap in DOD's oversight of its assets between installations and ports," Decker said.
At seaports, the equipment comes under military control, but civilian workers, stevedores and longshoremen handling it have limited screening and background checks, GAO said. Congress is considering port security improvements, including better screening and tighter access restrictions.
From ports, the equipment sometimes is shipped on foreign-flagged vessels, GAO said. The Pentagon prefers commercial shipping to government vessels because it's cheaper and more efficient, it said, and U.S.-flagged ships aren't always available or adequate for a particular job.
Crew lists are reviewed for security threats. Still, GAO found crew members from countries with known terrorist activities transporting Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 155 mm towed howitzers; Black Hawk helicopters; .50-caliber machine guns; night-vision equipment; body armor; and nuclear, biological and chemical protective gear. The report did not name the countries.
The ships' manifests did not show that armed Pentagon personnel were on board, although maintenance personnel sometimes were, it said.
Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Privratsky of the Military Traffic Management Command, which organizes and coordinates the movement of cargo for the military through seaports, said deployments are tightly controlled, with equipment scanned for accountability purposes at several points.
However, the command lacks enough port security resources of its own, he said, and "we rely on local port police, law enforcement or contract security forces to fill in the gaps."
On The Net:
GAO: http://www.gao.gov/
Subcommittee: http://www.house.gov/reform/ns/
-------- propaganda wars
[To reply - mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Operation TIPS: Give it a chance
Bruce Fein
July 23, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020723-36851594.htm
Operation TIPS should be given a chance to prove its anti-terrorism worth. It is an impending Department of Justice pilot program to encourage private citizens in the ordinary course of business to report publicly observable suspicious activity to homeland security agencies.
Detractors of TIPS are demanding an abortion before TIPS' birth, denouncing it as an updated version of George Orwell's "1984," an army of government-sanctioned Peeping Toms, or an Un-American equivalent of East Germany's despised Stasi.
On Friday, a House special committee on homeland security headed by Majority Leader Dick Army, Texas Republican, approved legislation that would scuttle TIPS.
Civilized societies are invariably bedeviled by the search for an enlightened balance between law enforcement and privacy. The right to privacy - the right to be left alone from government snooping or unreasonable searches or seizures is not absolute. Conspiring in the home to poison a municipal water supply is punishable. Warrants based on probable cause may be issued to search the home to thwart the suspected conspiracy.
Law enforcement, like privacy, is also a matter of degree. Thus, government cannot order the construction of all houses with transparent glass to assist in detecting crime from the sidewalk. Neither can it do away with the presumption of innocence, the right against compulsory self-incrimination, or the ordinary requirement of warrants before criminal searches, even though the limitations enable an indefinite number to circumvent justice.
A sensible demarcation line between privacy and law enforcement requires scrupulous attention to detail. The gravity of the targeted crime, the potential for abuses, the encroachment on seclusion and the danger of equating nonconformity with criminality should be considered.
Contrary to its shrill critics, Operation TIPS is not facially indefensible as a contribution to defending the American people from terrorism. It should, however, be reviewed by Congress at six or 12 month intervals to determine whether its anti-terrorism achievements outweigh any abuses, including gratuitous inroads on cherished privacy.
The TIPS program is slated for Department of Justice inauguration next month in 10 pilot cities. It seeks volunteers whose jobs take them through neighborhoods, along coasts and on highways or public transit - for instance, truckers, mail carriers, train conductors, ship captains and utility employees. They will be asked to report through a central phone number any activity in public view (but not in the home or other private domains) suggestive of terrorism or related mischief because deviant from what is customarily observed. No serious invasion of privacy is at stake.
As the Supreme Court has underscored, what is exposed to public view can be employed by police to investigate or to prosecute without infringing reasonable expectations of privacy.
The TIPS program may prove worrisome, nevertheless, on various counts. Participants might exploit the reporting system to conduct vendettas against personal enemies. Government files on dissidents or the unorthodox may be maintained to smear or intimidate reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover's abuses.
Utility workers or repairmen may report what they see in the home - for example, multiple copies of the Holy Koran - despite the TIPS injunction to stick solely to what can be seen in plain view by the public. A volunteer whose report does not occasion a rapid Justice Department reaction might decide to take the law into his own hands.
On the other hand, the simple knowledge that TIPS is under way may deter. Terrorists will not know the details of its efficacy. Moreover, experience teaches that the lion's share of terrorists are untutored in American customs or mores; they are prone to leave "fingerprints" observable by TIPS volunteers as they plot their abominations.
The potential abuses of TIPS can be addressed by statutory prohibitions. Civil fines should be imposed on participants who knowingly or maliciously report information derived from private places or to further a personal grudge. Additionally, no person with a history of violence or comparable anti-social conduct should be eligible for TIPS.
Community vigilance can work in particular cases, as in the apprehension of the suspected kidnapper and killer of Samantha Runnion, a 5-year-old girl in Stanton, Calif. According to published reports, Orange County Sheriff Michael Corona said thousands of tips from the public and help from the news media in circulating a description of the suspect brought quick resolution of the manhunt. Sheriff Corona urged that the stream of information that poured in from callers continue despite the suspect's arrest, and added, "You [the news media and the public] have been our allies all along. This in no way concludes our investigation. We are still trying to make sure we bring this man to justice." The TIPS program is different from capturing the suspect in Samantha's case because the earmarks of terrorist plotting are elusive. The program thus might yield all chaff and no wheat. But no stone should be left unturned in our fight to thwart a second edition of September 11. With proper safeguards, isn't a carefully monitored experiment with TIPS justified?
Bruce Fein is general counsel for the Center for Law and Accountability, a public interest law group headquartered in Virginia.
----
[To reply - mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Need to explain the coming war
Steve Chapman
July 23, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020723-21999130.htm
President Bush sent a top aide last week to explain to Turkish leaders why Saddam Hussein needs to be removed and why they should support U.S. measures to achieve that goal. Great idea. Why not try it with Congress and the American people?
The president and his aides have been dropping hints about their intention to take out Hussein since September, and few people in Washington have expressed any objections. Last month, House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt went out of his way to endorse an attack on Iraq. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, Delaware Democrat, has said pretty much the same thing. In the current climate, nobody wants to sound insufficiently warlike.
But now some people on Capitol Hill are suggesting that Congress ought to do something besides salute the flag and applaud the president. Both House and Senate committees are planning to hold hearings on Iraq later this summer to consider the wisdom and practical requirements of the whole undertaking. And how has the White House responded? By telling Congress to take a long walk off a short pier.
The administration has informed those pipsqueaks at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that it won't even let any of its officials participate in the hearings to make the case for attacking Iraq. Why? Because, as one Bush insider told the New York Times, "President Bush has still not decided how to achieve his state goal of removing President Saddam Hussein, and that military plans must remain secret."
Well, nobody is asking the Pentagon to put out a news release announcing the date and zip code where the 82nd Airborne will be landing. For that matter, the president is welcome to take his time figuring out the best method to usher Saddam into the next world. But those modest limitations are no reason the American people can't be apprised of what will be involved if we decide to invade a sovereign nation whose government has weapons of mass destruction.
This is, after all, a matter of some importance to the well-being of the American people. They might like to hear the pros and cons before the war begins - rather than discover them afterward. This is not a case where we find ourselves under military attack and the president has to act quickly, without wasting precious time yakking. The Iraq invasion has been under consideration since the first days of the Bush presidency. And administration officials say it may not happen until next year.
While they're keeping mum at home, they've shown no reluctance to air the issue with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah of Jordan. Apparently these secrets are safe with foreign despots. It's only democratically elected American lawmakers who can't be trusted.
We could profitably use the months ahead for a full national discussion of this looming war. But Mr. Bush and his advisers prefer to spend the months ahead energetically suppressing discussion.
The secrecy rationale is a convenient excuse for a president who thinks Vice President Richard B. Cheney's shoe size ought to be classified. Mr. Bush regards "public information" as a contradiction in terms. But it's not Congress that's the real threat to secrecy. The Pentagon's war plans were splashed all over the front page of the New York Times just a couple of weeks ago, and it's safe to assume they came straight from the Pentagon.
If he reads the American papers, Saddam now knows we may hit him with tens or hundreds of thousands of troops coming from the north, south and west, and from land, sea and air. You think that's a big surprise?
Congress is not really interested in publicizing facts that might help Saddam repel an invasion. But some members might like to know what exactly makes his removal so critical all of a sudden. They could ask how many Americans may die for this purpose, and whether the gains justify the sacrifice. Lawmakers might also try to find out what we expect to replace Saddam with, how easy that chore will be, and how long American troops will have to stay in Iraq.
It's not likely that after hearing the answers, lawmakers will rise up in opposition. In fact, most members would probably trample each other to show their support for military action. The consensus that would most likely emerge in both Congress and the citizenry would be stronger for being based on knowledge rather than ignorance.
Surely the administration could come up with a persuasive case that would bring the nation together with a commitment to do whatever is necessary.
Or maybe not.
Steven Chapman is a nationally syndicated columnist.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
Police Oppose 'Attempted' Crimes
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attempted-Crimes.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense attorneys and police, often at odds on criminal justice matters, have a surprisingly unified message for Congress: back off a plan to create thousands of new crimes.
The House voted last week to make any attempt to break a federal law a punishable act. The proposal, approved with little notice in Washington, could cause headaches around the country, lawyers and law enforcement officers say.
The bill was passed against a backdrop of high-profile prosecutions in terrorism and corporate scandals. Supporters contend it modernizes the law and will add to prosecutors' arsenal.
Americans can already be punished in most states for attempted crimes, like attempted murder. And they can be penalized under some federal crime laws even when they don't complete the deed.
There are penalties for trying to evade taxes and attempting to obstruct justice -- part of the law used to prosecute accounting firm Arthur Andersen for shredding and doctoring Enron Corp.-related documents.
The House proposal, which has been criticized by some Senate Democrats, would create a broad category of ``attempted'' federal crimes. Critics say it creates a hazy type of crime, open to interpretation by prosecutors and juries.
``What's the next step, mind-reading probes?'' asked Marcia G. Shein, a federal criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta, Ga. ``They're appeasing the public with hysterical reactions.''
Malcolm McMillin, sheriff in Jackson, Miss., said, ``I don't think this country wants us to move closer to a police state.''
``We need to work harder enforcing the laws we have,'' McMillin said.
The Fraternal Order of Police, a police labor organization with 300,000 members, also opposes the change.
``It's scary and it's at variance with common sense,'' said Jim Pasco, the group's executive director. ``It creates literally thousands of crimes.''
The organization is concerned that police officers could find their behavior analyzed for attempted federal civil rights violations.
The plan was added to a bill that cracks down on corporate wrongdoers. A spokesman for House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said it is similar to laws in 47 states.
House Republicans and Senate Democrats will meet later to try to get a compromise on the fraud bill.
Under the House version, every federal crime would have a partner provision covering the ``attempted'' crime, which would carry the same penalty as the crime itself.
``This goes everywhere from attempted murder to attempted mislabeling of hot dogs,'' said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. ``That may be just a bit broad for this legislation, so I suspect that will have to change.''
Anne M. Coughlin, a University of Virginia criminal law professor, said Congress is ``saying don't even think abut trying to do one of these things.''
Prosecutors have a difficult time now putting together successful fraud cases, she said. ``The notion that you're going to fix the corporate fraud situation by suddenly passing `attempt' statutes is just ludicrous,'' said Coughlin. ``It's a cheap solution.''
New York defense attorney Kathryn Keneally said prosecutors already ``have a pretty large tool box with a lot of good tools.''
--------
[Good grief, look who the Times dragged in.... to reply - mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Work for the chain gang
Edwin Meese/Eric Holder
July 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020723-46185399.htm
While the question of homeland security has justifiably focused congressional attention on the effectiveness of consolidating security tasks in a new $40 billion department, another $40 billion public-safety issue (the operating costs of the nation's prisons), is also before Congress. At stake is arguably the most powerful weapon prison administrators have to do their job - job-training and work programs.
As attorney general and deputy attorney general in Republican and Democratic administrations, we saw firsthand the rehabilitative impact of job training and work programs, and how real work in prison provide real jobs and success after prison. In short, these programs work. Therefore, the pending reform legislation before Congress (H.R.1577) is important to us.
No one questions the need for prison programs that work. Every day this year, some 1,600 inmates leave prison. Are they ready? In June, the Department of Justice published data on recidivism rates. By following 272,111 state inmates released in 1994, researchers found that 67.5 percent were re-arrested within three years.
Federal Prison Industries' (FPI) past achievements of providing valuable job training to inmates earned it support from Congress and Democrat and Republican administrations alike. Lately, FPI's reputation in Congress has been tarnished. Some critics claim FPI is an agency insulated by its original 1930s business model and unable to change. They say FPI has unfairly competed against businesses, displaced civilian workers and expanded its authority without congressional approval. FPI supporters deny these charges and offer evidence that FPI has taken significant precautions to avoid harm to the private sector.
Given the importance of job- training and work programs and this congressional environment, legislation must: reform FPI with a job training and work model for the 21st-century workplace, with real safeguards to avoid harm to American workers; and allow for sufficient new job training and work. H.R.1577 is a major step forward toward the first objectives. It does not adequately address the second.
H.R.1577 needs two changes. First, we should let employers - only employers that certify that they cannot find enough workers - train and employ inmates. This training and employment should be done through a limited pilot program that will not let FPI sell in the commercial market. The AFL-CIO reports 2 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 1998, many to offshore locations. This pilot can, in a small way, reduce this transfer of jobs offshore.
Second, the bill may unnecessarily restrict the states in a manner that could kill many state programs, discourage new initiatives and cost the states millions of dollars. Before passing legislation that would restrict these programs, hearings should be held. If these programs are operating effectively and consistent with the corrections aims of FPI, states should be free to act. With these changes, H.R.1577 is a winner. The amended bill preserves reforms FPI that critics seek, and provides training and work that FPI supporters want.
The private sector will support the amended bill, as it supports similar state pilot programs, because they help remedy an urgent need of employers - skilled workers. A National Association of Manufacturer's report reveals that even during last year's downturn, manufacturers still couldn't find enough production workers with "basic employability skills." This shortage will get worse. The Employment Policy Foundation projects growing shortages to reach 12.4 million job openings by 2021.
H.R.1577 has passed out of committee. It may go to the floor for a vote this week. As amended, H.R.1577 should pass. Taxpayers spend some $40 billion a year for prisons and, as noted above, most inmates fail when they leave prison. Not passing H.R.1577 as amended means not strengthening one of the best tools we have to reduce this failure rate, to reduce crime and to increase public safety.
Like other domestic security agencies, FPI is today a source of controversy in Congress. But the importance of FPI's function is not controversial. Providing training and work opportunities has bipartisan support because these programs are especially important to those who are in the greatest need - unskilled, lower-income and disadvantaged individuals who disproportionately make up our inmate population.
This broad support is not new. Twenty years ago last December at the University of Nebraska Law School, Chief Justice Warren Burger laid out the case for inmate work with a powerful idea: "When society places a person behind walls and bars, it has a moral obligation to do whatever can reasonably be done to change that person before he or she goes back into the stream of society." We agree, and hope that Congress will too. • Edwin Meese was attorney general in the Reagan administration. Eric Holder was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Asian officials mull shift to clean energy sources
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
By The Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/07/07232002/s_47921.asp
BANGKOK, Thailand - Energy officials from across Asia gathered Monday in Thailand to study ways to reduce air pollution that leads to global warming, a U.N. official said. Climate experts from the Asian Development Bank are advising participants on how to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, said Pranesh Saha, energy chief for the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
Some 50 participants from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Vietnam are taking part in the five-day workshop that ends Friday. Of those, China and India faced the most serious challenges in finding clean energy sources and cutting pollution, said Saha.
Carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels accounts for 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Twenty percent of the global demand for gas and oil comes from Asia, according to the United Nations.
-------- environment
Chemical Leak Kills Fish in Ill.
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Dead-Fish.html
URBANA, Ill. (AP) -- At least 80,000 fish were killed when workers cleaning a boiler at the University of Illinois flushed toxic levels of ammonia into the Urbana sewer system.
The fish were found along a 10-mile stretch of a Salt Fork River tributary in central Illinois. It took more than a week to count the bodies of the smallmouth bass, sunfish and other fish; about half were minnows.
Employees at a university power plant were cleaning the boiler on July 11 when they flushed the chemical into the sewer system.
The Urbana sewage plant was expecting the release but was not equipped to handle the high levels of ammonia, officials said. An attempt to divert the chemical failed.
``It's definitely a heavy kill for this kind of waterway,'' said Tim Schweizer, spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources.
University and state authorities were investigating to determine possible penalties and what can be done to prevent a recurrence.
-------- human rights
U.S. Accused of Trying to Derail Anti - Torture Pact
July 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-un-usa.html
UNITED NATIONS - Human rights groups accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to derail a new draft international treaty against torture that has taken a decade to negotiate.
The treaty, which is to be debated in the U.N. Economic and Social Council beginning on Wednesday, would set up an international system of inspections for all sites where prisoners were held, to insure that torture was not taking place.
The United States opposes the draft and plans to seek a vote demanding that negotiations be reopened, U.S. officials said.
Amnesty International denounced the U.S. strategy as ``appalling.''
``To reopen negotiations at this time could only lead to watering down the text, so that it will fail to fulfill its aim -- to prevent torture and ill-treatment still so prevalent around the world,'' said Martin McPherson, the head of Amnesty International's legal program.
``Yet again the (George W.) Bush administration is on a collision course with its allies over an important new mechanism to protect human rights,'' said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
The U.S. stand was the latest in a wave of go-it-alone actions that have infuriated Washington's closest allies, including rejection of the Kyoto pact on global warming and the treaty creating a new International Criminal Court aimed at combating genocide and war crimes.
The U.S. plan to try to reopen negotiations on the anti-torture pact puts it in the company of treaty foes including Cuba, Iran, China and Nigeria, human rights activists said.
Among backers of the treaty as drafted are most European Union, Latin American, Caribbean and African states, they said.
INFRINGEMENT ON STATES' RIGHTS
U.S. officials said Washington was seeking a renegotiation of the anti-torture text because it would infringe on states' rights by authorizing international inspections of state prisons without the approval of state governments.
The United States also had procedural objections, the officials said.
While Washington wanted to work by consensus -- in essence requiring unanimous support for any step, the Economic and Social Council rules require only majority support for approval, they said.
The text was drafted by a working group of U.N. member-nations and has already been approved by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission.
To take effect, it must now be approved by the 54-nation Economic and Social Council and then the 189-nation U.N. General Assembly. Afterward, it must be signed and ratified by enough governments, with the required number set by the treaty itself.
The pact would supplement an existing Convention Against Torture which went into force in 1987 and was ratified by the United States in 1994.
But the Bush administration has been embarrassed recently by widespread criticism of its treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda detainees at a U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A heated international debate erupted after the release of photos of the tightly manacled and blindfolded detainees, who were captured when the United States invaded Afghanistan following Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
It was not yet clear whether the Economic and Social Council's 54 members would embrace or reject the U.S. plan, U.N. diplomats and rights activists said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Police, Protesters Clash in Manila As Arroyo Urges Closer U.S. Ties
By Paul Alexander
Associated Press
Tuesday, July 23, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46891-2002Jul22?language=printer
MANILA, July 22 -- Police used water cannons and truncheons to battle thousands of protesters today, as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo pledged in a speech to end poverty in a decade, work more closely with the U.S. military and arrest criminal kingpins.
The demonstrators called for her resignation and demanded an end to the U.S. counterterrorism exercise underway in the southern Philippines.
Referring to the U.S. mission, aimed at helping Philippine troops wipe out the Abu Sayyaf Muslim separatist group, Arroyo said the global anti-terror coalition has helped break "the cycle of terrorism and criminality."
She said the United States will conduct more exercises to boost the poorly trained Philippine military's capabilities. About 1,000 U.S. troops are in the Philippines as part of the current six-month exercise, which ends July 31. The Abu Sayyaf has been loosely linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
"We shall enhance our strategic relationship with the United States through continuing training exercises to sharpen our soldiers' capabilities to move and communicate, to fix and finish off their targets," Arroyo said.
Arroyo also urged the Philippine Congress to quickly pass an anti-terrorism bill now under consideration.
During the speech, her second state of the nation address, Arroyo sought to reassure a country battered by economic woes and crime, outlining a vision for a classless society. She also tried to woo jittery foreign investors, calling the Philippine economy the third-best in Asia.
Formerly vice president, Arroyo was swept to power in January 2001 by mass protests that ousted her now-jailed predecessor, Joseph Estrada. There is widespread speculation that she will seek a six-year term in a presidential vote in 2004.
During her speech, Arroyo focused significantly on issues of law and order. High-ranking smugglers will be treated as economic saboteurs and face capital charges, she said. Criminal syndicates, Arroyo said, will be prosecuted as threats to national security and drug lords as enemies of the state.
"I am determined to build a strong republic by breaking the back of terrorism and criminality," she said.
Protest leaders said 10 of their companions were arrested.
--------
A Professor's Activism Leads Investigators to Look Into Possible Terrorism Links
New York Times
July 23, 2002
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/national/23PROF.html
TAMPA, Fla. - To his family and friends, Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida, is an innocent victim of a government witch hunt. News reports based on a lengthy F.B.I. inquiry into his support for Islamic causes prompted the college to suspend him from his tenured post last fall, and this year, to begin a process to fire him.
Muslim and civil liberties groups complain that Mr. Al-Arian, who has denied having ties to terrorists and has never been charged with a crime, is being persecuted for his activism for Palestinian rights.
But to law enforcement officials who have investigated him for seven years, Mr. Al-Arian was a major fund-raiser for a terrorist group that funneled money to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Based in Damascus, Syria, and supported by Iran, the group has conducted suicide attacks in which scores of Israelis, and at least one American, have been killed or wounded.
According to previously undisclosed Justice Department documents, federal investigators have been trying since 1995 to trace at least $650,000 that Mr. Al-Arian and several associates helped send overseas in the late 1980's and 1990's. They suspect, but have not been able to prove, that some of the money went to the Islamic Jihad, and they have asked Israel to help track the funds.
Israeli officials said in recent interviews that they now have evidence that some of the money was sent in 1993 to an account of another man at the Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv. The Israeli officials said that the man later transferred $8,000 from that account to the families of four terrorists who were convicted by Israel for their roles in an attack by Islamic Jihad in 1992. They said it was not clear if Mr. Al-Arian knew how the money was used.
Since Sept. 11, an investigative team in Tampa has been poring over material collected in a search of Mr. Al-Arian's home and offices in 1995. But in an interview last fall, Mr. Al-Arian, who is not a United States citizen, said that he had never associated with terrorists in the United States or abroad. "I don't know a single group that funnels money to terrorist organizations," he said.
Asked recently about the alleged money transfers described in the documents, Mr. Al-Arian, 44, responded in an e-mail message: "I'm really sick and tired of all these rehashed allegations. I've decided not to talk about any allegations/fabrications/lies because if it's not you today it's someone else tomorrow. This must stop."
Since Sept. 11, Congress has toughened the antiterrorism laws, and Mr. Al-Arian's case is one of several long-running Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiries into Muslim organizations in suburban Chicago, Dallas and northern Virginia that are suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups.
Mr. Al-Arian, who has taught at the university since the mid-1980's, ran an Islamic charity and a think tank in Tampa in the early 1990's. He initially came under scrutiny after news reports revealed that the charity had sponsored Islamic conferences at which he and other speakers shouted "Death to Israel," "Damn America," and called for donations to support continued attacks in Israel. The authorities said some of the speakers were leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Mr. Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, who ran the think tank, has been held in jail for much of the last five years awaiting deportation. No criminal charges have been brought against him either, and advocates of academic freedom have rallied to the defense of both men and criticized what the government has described as secret evidence against them.
Much of that evidence appears to be in the previously undisclosed documents. The documents, reviewed by The Times, include two lengthy F.B.I. summaries of the information gathered against Mr. Al-Arian and a 22-page request for assistance sent to Israel in late 1999.
According to the documents, investigators believe that Mr. Al-Arian's ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad are more extensive than previously disclosed. In one document, investigators wrote that they suspected that Mr. Al-Arian operated "a fund-raising front" for the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine from the late 1980's to 1995, and that many of those from whom he solicited funds "were told that the monies would be used for terrorist acts against Israel."
One of the documents said investigators also had information suggesting that Mr. Al-Arian was a member of the governing body of the Islamic Jihad, and that the search of his home had turned up two hitherto unseen drafts of the group's fiery manifesto.
Mr. Al-Arian also appeared to have made a trip to Iran in August 1991, according to a copy of a frequent-flier account statement included in one report. A copy of a check shows that a year later, his charity received a $4,000 contribution from the Iranian government.
But Mr. Al-Arian said in an e-mail message that he had never visited Iran and was unaware of any such contribution to his charity, the Islamic Committee for Palestine, also known as the Islamic Concern Project.
Mr. Al-Arian has said that his charity raised tens of thousands of dollars in the early 1990's and that most of the money was sent to help orphaned children in Palestine refugee camps. But according to the F.B.I. documents, investigators believe that Mr. Al-Arian and his associates sent more money than that overseas, and they still cannot tell where much of it came from or where it went.
Among the documents was a typed letter, addressed to a Saudi Arabian company, that inquired about buying a fertilizer that investigators said could be used in explosives. The letter was sent in 1996, a year after the search of Mr. Al-Arian's house. It was not signed but had a section stating that it was from Mr. Al-Arian.
Mr. Al-Arian said, however, the letter had been sent by Mr. Al-Najjar, his brother-in-law, who was trying to help with a business venture.
Despite the long-standing inquiry, a spokesman for the American Muslim Alliance, a Washington-based coalition of Muslim-American groups, called the university's effort to fire Mr. Al-Arian "bigotry and prejudice against the entire Muslim community."
In June, the American Association of University Professors, a Washington-based academic group, also criticized the university's action. William Van Alstyne, a professor at Duke University School of Law, who heads a committee investigating the issue, said in an interview that he had not met with federal investigators or tried to determine independently whether Mr. Al-Arian had ties to Islamic Jihad.
But even if the government were to accuse Mr. Al-Arian of a crime, Mr. Van Alstyne added, an indictment, "though a serious matter, would not establish wrongdoing."
"It would be wrong to terminate him from a public institution just on the basis of that," he said.
Tom Gonzalez, a private lawyer representing the university, disagreed with Mr. Van Alstyne, saying that the university had followed its own procedures in suspending Mr. Al-Arian. "We think there clearly are grounds for taking the action that has been taken," he said, adding that a final decision on Mr. Al-Arian's dismissal had not been made.
The F.B.I. opened the criminal investigation of Mr. Al-Arian in 1995, when Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, a professor whom Mr. Al-Arian had helped bring to Tampa and appointed head of the think tank, abruptly left and re-emerged in Damascus as the new head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Mr. Al-Arian said repeatedly that he was shocked to learn that his colleague was "anything other than a scholar."
In a report issued on Tuesday on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's impact on Israel, the American Jewish Committee called the group "one of the most influential terrorist groups operating from Gaza and the West Bank," and a group that has developed extensive support networks in the United States. The report, written by Yehudit Barsky, a senior researcher, describes Mr. Al-Arian as a "founder" of Islamic Jihad and concludes that the groups he incorporated in Florida were "front organizations" for it.
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Relatives: Chinese Dissidents Missing
July 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Missing-Dissidents.html
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Three Chinese pro-democracy activists, including a prominent exiled dissident, disappeared during a trip to Vietnam and have not been heard from in almost a month, a family member said Tuesday.
Wang Bingzhang, who lives in the United States, was traveling with Zhang Qi, a U.S. resident, and Yue Wu, who lives in France.
In 1998, China expelled Wang after he ended nearly two decades in exile and returned under an alias to help dissidents form an underground opposition party.
``We really don't know where they are or who got them, so I am really worried at this point,'' said Wang's daughter, Wang Qingyan, of the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel.
She said she last heard from her father in an e-mail on June 20, but he gave no details of his travels.
State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said Tuesday that the U.S. consulate in Vietnam is looking into Wang's whereabouts.
The Chinese and Vietnamese embassies in Washington did not immediately return calls Tuesday.
The three activists told friends they were going sightseeing along the border between Vietnam and China, Wang Qingyan said.
On June 26, Wang Bingzhang called a friend in Cambodia, promising to call him again in three days, the friend said. The next day, the friend said, he received two calls from Wang's cell phone, but there was no one on the line when he answered.
The friend, Fang Yuan, reached Tuesday at his home in Australia, said he believes Wang was arrested trying to sneak into China.
``He was thinking about breaking into China for a long time and preparing for it,'' Fang said.
Wang was a medical student in China when he started speaking out against the Communist government and was jailed in 1966 and 1967, eventually going into exile in Canada in 1979. He lived in New York during the 1980s, publishing the pro-democracy magazine China Spring and organizing the Chinese Alliance for Democracy.
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