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NUCLEAR
U.S. Ports Alerted to Missing Iridium
Plane Crashes;
Better Ties Seen as Key To Nuclear Inspections
Powell May Hold Talks With N. Korean Foreign Minister
Russia to expand nuclear aid to Iran
Russia Plans 5 More Nuclear Plants in Iran
Russia to Go on Building Nuclear Reactors in Iran
Bad Press Hinders Democrat Herrera in Key Nevada Race
What A Waste
Where Should We Put Nuclear Waste?
House Bill's Key Facets
What the President Would Get
MILITARY
Israel Arrests Spotlight Arms Sales
U.S. to Taipei: Step up military spending
Brazil Employs Tools of Spying to Guard Itself
Pakistan Seizes Nearly One Ton of Afghan Hashish
Iran Leader Says Would Make U.S. Regret Any Attack
Four Israelis and One Palestinian Die in Surge of Violence
Washington Invites Palestinians for Talks
Jenin and its aftermath: a soldier's diary
Peres has doubts about Sharon as peace partner
F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region
Killings roil Army base
POLICE / PRISONERS
Foundations are in place for martial law in the US
Greece Says Shopkeeper Was Founder of Terror Group
U.S., Russia Group Fights Terror
ACTIVISTS
from Bogotá Colombia
Evangelical Leaders Ask Bush to Adopt Balanced Mideast Policy
------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
U.S. Ports Alerted to Missing Iridium
By SETH HETTENA
Associated Press Writer
JULY 27, 2002,
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=NATIONAL&SLUG=MISSING%2dIRIDIUM
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A small pellet of radioactive material disappeared just south of California's border with Mexico, prompting the U.S. Customs Service to put its inspectors on alert.
Mexican authorities confirmed Friday that an inch-long capsule of iridium-192 disappeared from a truck in Mexico earlier this week. It was unclear whether the equipment was stolen or fell off the truck.
As a precaution, the Customs Service notified agents at five border crossings in California, spokesman Vince Bond said. He said radiation detectors at ports of entry had not reported any large radiation readings.
``There's no indication that there's any reason for concern whatsoever,'' said San Diego police spokesman David Cohen.
Although not harmful if used properly, there has been concern that iridium and other commonplace radioactive materials could be used to create a radiological ``dirty bomb.''
Mexico's state civil protection director, Gabriel Gomez Ruiz, said that the capsule should not pose any danger to the public. The material is enclosed in a secure fireproof container designed to withstand heavy blows, he said.
``This container is very difficult to open because of the security measures that have been taken with it,'' he said.
Officials from the Mexican state of Baja California launched an effort to recover the 8-inch by 6-inch cylinder containing the capsule of iridium-192, which was used by Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company, to X-ray its pipelines.
Iridium-192 emits potentially hazardous gamma rays commonly used to check welded joints in structures such as oil pipelines. The capsule was lost from a truck between the Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Tecate, about 70 miles east of San Diego, Ruiz said.
``We have no indication that this is headed for the border to be smuggled across,'' said Lauren Mack, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
----
Plane Crashes;
70 Killed at Ukrainian Air Show
By Marina Sysoeva
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, July 27, 2002; 11:12 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9592-2002Jul27?language=printer
KIEV, Ukraine -- A fighter jet slammed onto the tarmac and sliced through a huge crowd watching an air show Saturday, killing at least 70 spectators and injuring 111 in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, emergency officials said.
The two pilots ejected and survived, the Defense Ministry said, just before the Su-27 crashed and erupted into a massive ball of flame that engulfed onlookers at Skniliv Airport.
The plane was in the sky for about two minutes, but then it appeared to go silent and headed toward the ground and banked left - its wingtip clipping trees and touching another plane on the ground before it crashed.
The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the cause of the accident, but its western operation command said engine failure was the preliminary cause of the crash.
The weather was good at the time.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said the death toll could still rise because many of the injured were in critical condition. The explosion sent fragments of the plane showering over the spectators.
"I could only grab children and hold on. We were thrown away and hands and legs were flying all around us," said one spectator, Zinovy, who did not give his last name. He and his child were injured.
The pilots appeared to eject from the plane at a very low altitude. Parents frantically searched for missing children and were asking that officials use the public address system to call out their names.
"The fire has been extinguished, but there's lots of blood," said Oleksandr Kachkovskyi, an aide to the head of the Lviv regional administration.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma cut short his vacation and flew to Lviv. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Kuchma, the presidential press office said in Moscow.
Kuchma also ordered the secretary of the Defense and Security Council, Yevhen Marchuk, to head for Lviv and lead the government commission investigating the case.
The plane was conducting complicated aerial maneuvers at the show, marking the 60th anniversary of a local air force unit.
The Su-27 has been in service since 1985. Its speed and maneuverability made it one of the key planes in the former Soviet air force, and it resembles the U.S. F-15 Eagle fighter with two rear stabilizers and twin engines. The Su-27's NATO code name is "Flanker."
The program at the air show featured Su-27 and Mig-29 warplanes, as well as gliders, light-engine planes and parachute jumping, Interfax said.
A Sukhoi Su-30 jet - a similar twin-engine design to the Su-27 - crashed at start of the Paris air show in 1999, but the two pilots ejected and no one was injured.
One of the most deadly crashes at an air show was at a U.S. air base in Germany in 1988, when Italian jets performing a complicated maneuver collided and spiraled into the crowd, killing 70 and injuring at least 400.
Ukrainian officials are especially sensitive about air accidents after last October when an errant missile fired from a Ukrainian military base shot down a Russian plane, killing all 78 people on board, most of them immigrants to Israel.
-------- korea
Better Ties Seen as Key To Nuclear Inspections
N. Korea Still Balks As Plant Proceeds
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8138-2002Jul26?language=printer
NEW YORK, July 26 -- North Korea is unlikely to allow inspections to assess its nuclear weapons potential until relations with the United States improve, said the head of a U.S.-led project overseeing construction of a nuclear power plant in North Korea.
The Bush administration has demanded North Korea agree to the inspections now, suggesting it is violating a 1994 pact that calls for construction of the power plant in return for the inspections.
But the agreement also calls for measures to improve ties between the two countries, and relations have become worse in the past two years, said Charles Kartman, executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a consortium of the United States, Japan and South Korea, which is overseeing the power plant's construction.
North Korea "is not going to give up its hypothetical nuclear capability unless it gets something of equal value to them, and what they agreed to was improved relations with the United States," Kartman said in an interview in New York.
Meanwhile, KEDO is prepared to pour concrete for a pair of nuclear reactors being developed in return for North Korea's promise to halt its nuclear program. A ceremony is planned for Aug. 7.
Kartman said he expected Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly to lead a U.S. delegation to Pyongyang, but he predicted North Korea would want a higher level of political dialogue with Washington to allay its suspicions that the United States seeks to destroy its government. For its part, the administration said it is prepared to engage at a higher level if the preliminaries go well.
Kartman's comments are at some odds with the administration, which has held out North Korea's failure to agree to a schedule of inspections as one reason President Bush branded the government part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq. Washington has insisted the inspections must go forward promptly, and critics in the administration have suggested that North Korea's failure to comply is reason to scrap the whole power plant project.
Many Bush administration officials have never liked the 1994 "framework" deal, made during the Clinton administration, and have sought a way out of it.
The agreement "has not won over a lot of converts" in the Bush administration or Congress, Kartman acknowledged.
But Kartman, a former U.S. diplomat who dealt with Pyongyang in the Clinton years, said that "the consequences of abandoning it would be to revert to the conditions of 1994 -- unstable and dangerous."
The inspections are to be carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has estimated they will take about three years.
---
Powell May Hold Talks With N. Korean Foreign Minister
Welcoming Pyongyang's 'Positive Statements' and Overtures Toward South, Secretary Hints at Possible Meeting in Brunei
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8572-2002Jul27?language=printer
SIGONELLA, Italy, July 27 (Saturday) -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell opened the door Friday night to the first high-level contact between the Bush administration and North Korea, saying he was "not ruling out" a meeting with Pyongyang's foreign minister when both attend an Asian summit next week.
"It's an open question right now," Powell told reporters traveling with him on the first leg of an eight-day, eight-nation swing through South and Southeast Asia. "We'll see."
Powell said the North Koreans had made "what I consider some very positive statements" in the last several days, beginning Thursday with an apology for a deadly naval clash with South Korea late last month and a proposal to resume talks with Seoul, which a spokesman for South Korean President Kim Dae Jung welcomed.
Early Friday morning, North Korea announced it was ready to begin a direct dialogue with the United States.
"We welcome that, and we will be following up on that," Powell said before a refueling stop at this U.S. naval installation en route to New Delhi.
Earlier, Bush administration officials did not rush to accept the proposal from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, whose response to the U.S. desire for wide-ranging talks on military matters and weapons proliferation has been erratic. Even before the gun battle in a disputed area of the Yellow Sea that killed five South Korean sailors and wounded 19, Kim Jong Il had declined to agree to the dates proposed by the State Department.
"On the whole, they seem to want to get past" the incident "and get the dialogue going," one well-placed U.S. official said as the administration evaluated North Korea's actions. "It's an interesting present, but we haven't yet put it through the scanner."
Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun will both attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Wednesday and Thursday in Brunei. Administration officials had said earlier this week that there were no plans for the two to hold bilateral talks there.
The meeting would follow a year of false starts and harsh words between the two, and coincides with a burst of diplomatic activity on the Korean peninsula. Paek's trip to Brunei will be bracketed by visits to both Pyongyang and Seoul by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan. Both are expected to discuss the flare-up of tension that began on June 29, when a North Korean navy ship strayed into southern waters, sparking the shootout that left the five South Koreans and an unknown number of northerners dead.
North Korea immediately blamed the South and the United States for the incident, while Seoul accused Pyongyang of planning a deliberate attack.
The last significant U.S.-North Korean meeting occurred nearly two years ago, when then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright traveled to Pyongyang for discussions on North Korea's nuclear program and its development of long-range missiles. After a discussion within the new administration, where many argued there should be no resumption of the dialogue, President Bush announced in June 2001 that he was prepared to continue it.
Powell followed up at last year's ASEAN summit, telling a North Korean representative that Washington was ready to talk "anytime, any place," about both its own concerns and Pyongyang's.
When there was no response, relations fell into a deep freeze, punctuated by mutual suspicion and hitting bottom with Bush's inclusion of North Korea in the "axis of evil," along with Iraq and Iran, in his State of the Union speech last January.
Last spring, however, North Korea suddenly informed Washington it would welcome a visit by a U.S. envoy. Although the administration delayed responding, it proposed last month that James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, travel to Pyongyang July 10. But there was no reply, and the U.S. offer was withdrawn after the naval incident.
On Wednesday, Pyongyang again accused Washington, saying the clash was "attributable to U.S. insistence" on what North Korea considers an illegal maritime border set as part of the 1953 North-South armistice. But that statement was abruptly followed by Thursday's "expression of regret" for the entire incident and offers to resume dialogue with Seoul, and Friday's offer to start talks with the United States.
"The president's policy has been that we are open to a dialogue," Powell said. "We have now had another turn of the wheel, and we'll follow it up."
Staff writer Peter Slevin in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- russia
Russia to expand nuclear aid to Iran
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020727-20217931.htm
Russia yesterday announced a dramatic expansion of its cooperation with Iran on building nuclear power plants, ignoring Bush administration concerns that the program could help Iran build a nuclear bomb.
The 10-year proposal for cooperation on nuclear power and oil exploration appears to have caught the U.S. government off guard. President Bush had appealed personally to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Iranian program in May, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told a Senate hearing just two weeks ago that Washington and Moscow had "made progress" in recent months in dealing with the issue.
Russia's $800 million contract to build a nuclear reactor just outside the southern Iranian port of Bushehr has been a prime irritant in rapidly improving U.S.-Russian relations. Iran is part of President Bush's "axis of evil" and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow earlier this week issued another pointed warning to the Kremlin about its ties to regimes hostile to the United States.
"Russia has to avoid letting its desire for commercial gain end up hastening the day that [Iran, Iraq and North Korea] can pose a threat that could not only destabilize their own region but undermine the security of the entire world," Mr. Vershbow said.
Yesterday's 12-page draft proposal, approved Wednesday night by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, calls for Moscow to build as many as six nuclear reactors in Iran at Bushehr and at a second site in the city of Akhvaz.
In addition, Russian and Iranian energy firms would team up to expand oil drilling and exploration in the Caspian Sea region, improve transportation links, jointly produce a new passenger aircraft and cooperate on the launch of an Iranian communications satellite.
A State Department spokesman yesterday had no immediate comment on the Russian announcement but said he expected the topic to surface during yesterday's private talks of a top-level U.S.-Russian anti-terrorism panel that met in Annapolis.
Jon Wolfsthal, a top nonproliferation official in the Energy Department in the Clinton administration and now an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the Russian announcement "very worrisome and very surprising."
"It's definitely the opposite of what a lot of people were saying, that the Russians were ready to pull out of Bushehr altogether because of U.S. pressure," he said.
Mr. Powell, testifying July 9 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told lawmakers, "We think we are on the right path to making sure that the Russians don't continue to engage in this kind of activity."
Three days later, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev told reporters in Moscow that he did not see any future nuclear cooperation with Tehran after the current Bushehr reactor comes fully on line, which is expected in two years.
"We see no other future work with Iran besides [Bushehr]," Mr. Rumyantsev said.
But both Russia and Iran have repeatedly dismissed fears by the United States and Israel that the power plant at Bushehr could aid Iran's quest to obtain weapons-grade plutonium for military use.
The Bush administration also worries that the Bushehr project could provide a conduit for Russian nuclear specialists to be recruited into Iran's nuclear military effort.
Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Sunday that the Bushehr plant was being built to meet civilian needs and that the work was strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But in a sign of the strategic value Iran places on the Bushehr complex, The Washington Times in May reported that several batteries of U.S.-made Hawk surface-to-air missiles had been placed around the site.
Mr. Wolfsthal said the Bushehr project has provided huge revenues to the cash-strapped Russian nuclear-power ministry and that neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration has been able to persuade the Russians to drop the project.
"Russia has a lot of real incentives to cooperate with Iran, financially, politically, geopolitically," he said. "So far, all they've had from the United States are promises."
Question marks remain over the extent of the new Russia-Iran cooperation, despite yesterday's announcement in Moscow.
The program approved by Mr. Kasyanov is only a draft proposal and still must be formally signed by top Russian and Iranian officials. The Russian news agency Interfax, citing diplomatic sources in Moscow, said yesterday the draft document could be approved by the two countries before or at a meeting of a joint economic cooperation commission set for Tehran in September.
---
Russia Plans 5 More Nuclear Plants in Iran
U.S. Has Sought an End To Current Construction
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7800-2002Jul26?language=printer
MOSCOW, July 26 -- Russia outlined plans today to build five more nuclear power reactors in Iran over the next decade, a sharp expansion of cooperation with Tehran in defiance of U.S. pressure to abandon support for Iran's nuclear program.
The plan for additional civilian reactors could severely strain the closer ties between Moscow and Washington forged in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. While the two countries lately have smoothed over most of their other disputes, today's announcement made clear that Russia has drawn the line at Iran.
Russia has been constructing a 1,000-megawatt, light-water reactor for Iran at Bushehr for years and consistently refused to drop the $800 million project, insisting it would serve only civilian purposes. U.S. officials, however, fear that Russian assistance could make it easier for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and have lobbied in vain to stop the venture.
Russia's plan for five additional reactors was included in a broad 10-year blueprint for how to enhance economic, political and scientific ties with Iran, a document approved by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Wednesday and released today. Iranian and Russian officials have talked about building more reactors since 1996, but now the Russians have moved the idea closer to reality by enshrining the goal on paper, to be presented to Tehran in September.
No contracts have been signed, and given Russia's fitful construction record at Bushehr, no new reactors are likely in the near term. The document suggested that three additional reactors could be built alongside the original at Bushehr, which is slated to be operational by late 2003 or early 2004.
The document also confirmed a proposal for a second plant at Ahvaz, where two reactors could be built. All told, it would mean billions of dollars for Russia's nuclear power industry.
"To a large extent, this is about money," said Dmitri Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research organization. "No one here wants to establish Iran as a nuclear power, but there are many people here who believe Iran is likely to become one with Russia's help or without. It's useful to have a finger in the pie."
President Bush has said Iran is part of an "axis of evil." But Russia views Iran as "a good citizen of the region, or not much worse than the others," Trenin said. Iran, he noted, has not tried to expand its influence to the north or play a disruptive role in Chechnya, where Islamic separatists have fought two wars against Russian troops.
Russian officials have said their work with Iran has violated no international rules. "I don't think we're doing anything illegitimate," said Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies in Moscow. "Whether it is politically correct is another question."
Despite the provocative nature of today's announcement in Moscow, the Kremlin appeared to be trying not to exacerbate the conflict with the United States. Russian officials withheld news of the document's signing for two days and issued it on a Friday evening after much of Moscow had left for country dachas for the weekend. No Kremlin official appeared on television to talk about the issue.
The development came just a day after President Vladimir Putin hailed the new era of friendship with the West. "Russia has completely left the confrontational period in international relations, and the countries of the world can view Russia as not only a partner but also as an ally in resolving key problems of the present era," he said Thursday at a ceremony accepting credentials of new ambassadors.
But Putin has been more steely when pushed on Iran. At his summit with Bush in Moscow in May, Putin embarrassed the American president when the topic came up at a news conference. Bush confidently told a questioner that Putin would give public assurances "that I think will be very comforting for you to listen to," only to have Putin adamantly defend the Bushehr project and point the finger back at the West for helping Iran's missile program.
"The vested interests on Iran in Russia are very powerful," Trenin said. "Even if Putin wanted to, he might not have the capacity to stop them."
--------
Russia to Go on Building Nuclear Reactors in Iran
New York Times
July 27, 2002
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/27/international/middleeast/27RUSS.html
MOSCOW, July 26 - The Russian government, brushing aside the Bush administration's concerns, indicated today that it planned to continue building new nuclear reactors in Iran like one that American officials have repeatedly warned could be used to develop nuclear weapons.
Russia's assistance in building a nuclear plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr, near the Persian Gulf, has been a nagging irritant in relations with the United States for years. It produced the sourest note in otherwise friendly meetings between President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin here in May.
While administration officials have pressed Russia to break its contract to complete a 1,000-megawatt reactor at Bushehr, a document approved this week by Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov and announced today outlined plans to build three more reactors at the site.
The document also indicated that Russia would offer to build two more reactors at a new nuclear power station at Ahwaz, a city about 60 miles from Iran's border with Iraq.
That appeared to contradict remarks earlier this month by Russia's atomic energy minister, Aleksandr Y. Rumyantsev, who said the cooperation with Iran in developing its nuclear-power industry would end with the project at Bushehr.
Russia, like Iran, has repeatedly dismissed the American concerns about the project, insisting that it was a purely civilian effort to develop new energy sources. But the Bush administration, which has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, fears that the Iranians will use Russian equipment and expertise to pursue a secret program to produce nuclear weapons that could threaten Europe and the United States.
Russia's plans were released on the government's official Web site today, without public comment, as part of a draft outlining potential areas of economic, industrial and scientific cooperation with Iran over the next 10 years.
The prospect of more Russian assistance is certain to provoke new warnings from the United States and may undercut the close relationship that has developed between Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
In recent months Russian officials have sought to defuse the Bush administration's complaints, saying Russia would insist that Iran return the plutonium produced as a byproduct of nuclear power generation to prevent it from being used in weapons. After their meetings in May, Mr. Bush said Mr. Putin had assured him that Russia would press Iran to allow extensive international inspections of the plant.
Iran has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has previously said it will cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees the world's civilian nuclear power programs.
In Washington, administration officials said Russian cooperation with Iran's nuclear energy program would be on the agenda next week when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham leads an American delegation to Russia to discuss energy and nuclear proliferation issues.
"Our concerns with regards to Russian cooperation with Iran on the issue of Bushehr are well known," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "We have expressed them in public as well as in private directly to Russian President Putin. And we will continue to work with Russia on proliferation issues of concern."
After today's announcement, the chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Dmitri O. Rogozin, said Russia's plans should not hurt relations with the United States since Moscow shared Washington's worries. "Neither Russia nor the United States is interested in other countries' use of peaceful nuclear technologies for military purposes," he told the Interfax news agency.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Bad Press Hinders Democrat Herrera in Key Nevada Race
By Mary Clare Jalonick
CQ Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 24, 2002; 7:50 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59289-2002Jul24?language=printer
LAS VEGAS -- Despite summertime temperatures topping 100 degrees this week, Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera was out knocking on doors in Las Vegas in his role as the Democratic candidate in Nevada's new 3rd Congressional District.
One elderly woman -- listed on the campaign's voter contact sheet as a lifelong non-voter -- threatened to call the police on him, but Herrera explained he had a permit. Some residents said they remember him from his county commission campaigns.
One man, an 80-year-old registered Democrat, was excited to talk to Herrera about his worries that Medicare would not pay for his wife's wheelchair. Herrera wrote down his phone number and promised to get back to him.
But a bumper sticker on the man's car, reading "We support the police," was a reminder of one of Herrera's headaches in his campaign against Republican Jon Porter in the politically competitive, urban/suburban district that fast-growing Nevada gained in congressional reapportionment.
The Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs revoked its endorsement of Herrera on July 17, citing recent controversies that have been circulating around the candidate.
Herrera said he is disappointed about the action, but still supports the police and will do everything he can to help them.
... [see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59289-2002Jul24.html] ...
Turning the Focus to Issues
When asked about the controversies surrounding him, Herrera responds quickly then turns the talk to issues....
Herrera is trying to find a way to gain the political high ground on what is arguably the biggest issue in Nevada politics right now -- the legislation, signed Tuesday by President Bush, to establish the Yucca Mountain site in the Nevada desert as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump.
Though both 3rd District candidates strongly oppose the Yucca siting, Herrera argues that Porter is tainted because he took campaign money from members of the Republican leadership who supported the decision, and claims that Porter never asked any of them to vote "no."
"That speaks directly to his judgement," said Herrera.
But Ralston said Herrera's Yucca positioning probably will not work.
"I don't think it's an issue," he said. "Since the Senate vote and Bush's signing it into law, people think the Yucca debate is over, and they don't want to hear about it any more." ...
The campaign money competition between the two candidates is almost even.
According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Herrera raised a total of $1,348,526 for the cycle and had $822,221 on hand as of June 30. Porter had raised $1,234,588 and had $803,758 on hand.
Source: Congressional Quarterly CQ Daily Monitor
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
-------- us nuc waste
[To reply - mailto:OPED@washpost.com]
What A Waste
Saturday, July 27, 2002
Washington Post Letters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8066-2002Jul26?language=printer
The July 18 KidsPost story "Where Should We Put Nuclear Waste?" [see below] gave kids some big-time misinformation. Please tell Fern Shen that used fuel from nuclear reactors is nowhere near as dangerous as she says.
The used fuel would be somewhat radioactive after 10,000 years, to be sure, but so feeble that it would pose no danger at all. Shen could have told the kids that, for example, after only about 1,000 years the waste's radioactivity would be less than the amount of natural radioactivity already in the land near the repository.
"It can eat through flesh and cause cancer and birth defects," she says. Scary. But we safely handle larger quantities of other hazardous materials (such as household lye, arsenic and mercury) that can eat through flesh and cause cancer and birth defects.
"About 3,000 people live and farm in the area, some as close as 12 miles away [from the repository]," she says. Twelve miles is a long way. Realistically those people are not in danger.
"The government has spent about $8 billion so far studying the site," she says. Misleading. That's not taxpayer money. It has been collected by the utilities from electricity consumers to pay for waste management.
Shen says that an accident on the way to Yucca Mountain "would be serious." Nonsense (although many people believe it). She should have pointed out that accidents involving a gasoline tanker can be far worse than what could happen with the incredibly sturdy fuel casks.
She refers to "last summer's big fire in a Baltimore train tunnel, where the containers would have melted, spilling their dangerous cargo." But it will be strict policy, we hear, as well as common sense that no flammable cargo will be near enough to a fuel cask to trap it in such a fire.
Finally, she writes, "Yucca Mountain would be full by 2034." That's true, under current plans. But with good preparations, advanced reactors will be making electricity before then by consuming the plutonium and most of the other long-lived components of the used fuel. Then there will be lots of room down there to store the real waste: the fission products, which will be harmless within 500 years.
-- George S. Stanford
-- Gerald E. Marsh
The writers are retired reactor physicists with the Argonne National Laboratory.
•
Your paper has now authoritatively reported that nuclear waste can "eat through flesh." Normally such claims are found in the racks next to supermarket checkout stands. The safe transportation and disposal of spent nuclear fuel deserves more accurate reporting.
Opponents to nuclear energy have been promoting fear of a terrorist attack during spent fuel transportation as a strategy to defeat the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. But spent nuclear fuel is an inert, ceramic solid that is extremely hard to mobilize, even if a shipping container could be breached.
Unlike with chemical and biological agents, prolonged exposure would be required to create any noticeable health effects, and first responders can readily determine where the materials are by using simple instruments. Spent fuel transport need not and should not be the focus of our limited anti-terrorism resources in a world where more than 70,000 hazardous chemical tankers traverse U.S. roadways every day.
When one sees the assertion that spent fuel is "among the deadliest substances known to man," one rarely finds any accurate description of how spent fuel might actually hurt people. More importantly, one never finds any comparison of the worst we can possibly envision for spent nuclear fuel to the known effects that equivalent quantities of fossil fuel have on people, the environment and global climate.
At its minimum possible capacity, the Yucca repository displaces the consequences of burning more than 4 billion tons of coal. The benefits of not using that coal should have been the major topic of your article.
--
Where Should We Put Nuclear Waste?
Per Peterson
TheBIGStory
An Occasional Look at Something Everyone Is Talking About
Thursday, July 18, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22365-2002Jul17?language=printer
What do you do with trash that can kill people or make them very sick -- trash that will stay lethal for 10,000 years?
Bury it 1,000 feet underground at a place in Nevada called Yucca Mountain.
That's what the government wants to do with radioactive waste piling up at America's nuclear power plants.
Thanks but no thanks, say many Nevada residents. They and environmental groups believe the nuclear waste could leak into people's drinking water or spill out of a truck or train on its way to Nevada.
Last week the U.S. Senate voted in favor of using Yucca Mountain. But the battle is not yet over, say opponents, who have vowed to keep fighting.
Fern Shen takes a closer look at the controversy.
What is high-level nuclear waste, and why is it a big problem?
It's the used-up uranium fuel rods from nuclear power plants, and it is among the deadliest substances known to man.
Nuclear power plants use the energy produced when atoms are split apart to heat water, which turns turbines that generate electricity. Each rod is a 14- to 18-foot metal tube filled with uranium pellets.
While a rod powers the plants for about 18 months, it's dangerous for 10,000 years. It can eat through flesh and cause cancer and birth defects.
Nuclear power plants have been storing old fuel rods in big, swimming-pool-like concrete tanks. This cannot continue, say the people who run the plants.
For one thing, about 40,000 tons of waste have been created, and the plants are running out of space to store it. And as it piles up, there's a greater chance the "hot" waste could leak through the ground and into the water under the Earth's surface.
What does the government want to do?
Officials considered shooting the rods into space, or dropping them into deep ocean trenches. But they finally decided on deep underground burial.
The Department of Energy and President Bush support a plan to put all the waste in one central spot -- Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It's a dry, barren-seeming place. But about 3,000 people live and farm in the area, some as close as 12 miles away.
The plan is to encase the used-up fuel behind layers of metal and lead and ship it to Yucca Mountain -- most of it by train, some by truck.
Would the waste stay put and not seep out over 10,000 years?
Yes, say supporters. The government has spent about $8 billion so far studying the site, drilling into the mountain, figuring out ways to encase the waste. Groundwater there is very deep and the hard, granite-like rock would act as a natural barrier.
No, say critics, who point out that there's also a lot of porous volcanic rock at the spot, through which water could travel. Another complaint is that there has not been enough testing to prove the containers won't leak over such a long time. And they worry that the area is prone to earthquakes.
What happens if there's an accident on the way to Yucca Mountain?
That would be serious. The shipments are highly radioactive, and they would pass by train or truck through 43 states.
Yucca's fans point out that the nuclear industry has a good transportation record, that there have never been any major accidents moving nuclear material.
Yucca's foes point to last summer's big fire in a Baltimore train tunnel, where temperatures reached as high as 1,500 degrees. If that train had been carrying nuclear waste, according to one study, the containers would have melted, spilling their dangerous cargo.
If the waste isn't sent to Yucca, what could be done with it?
Some Yucca opponents suggest storing the waste more safely at each plant and just leaving it for now. Others think the idea of a central, long-term burial chamber is good, but that a better site should be found. Of course, people have been talking about Yucca for the past 20 years, and even if the plan goes ahead, the Nevada location won't be able to accept any waste until 2010.
The country's 131 nuclear plants generate 20 percent of the country's electricity. And at the rate new nuclear waste is being produced -- 2,000 tons each year -- Yucca Mountain would be full by 2034.
-------- us politics
House Bill's Key Facets
Saturday, July 27, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8183-2002Jul26?language=printer
The House bill to create a Department of Homeland Security would launch the biggest reorganization of the federal government in more than 50 years. It would create a department with 170,000 federal employees and a projected $37.4 billion budget.
The legislation:
• Moves all or part of 22 federal agencies into one organization focused on preventing and responding to terrorist attacks. These include the law enforcement arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; the Coast Guard; the Customs Service; the Transportation Security Administration; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the Secret Service; and a number of smaller components now housed within the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services and Justice.
• Gives the department's secretary new flexibility to hire, discipline, move and cross-train employees.
Extends the deadline for the installation of equipment to detect explosives in baggage at the nation's airports by one year, to Dec. 31, 2003.
• Limits private manufacturers' liability for new products developed to fight terrorism.
• Establishes a privacy officer and an Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to protect citizens from intrusions by government and the private sector.
• Bars the federal government from issuing national identification cards.
• Prohibits public release of sensitive information provided by private businesses about vulnerabilities to terrorism.
---
What the President Would Get
Saturday, July 27, 2002
Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8142-2002Jul26?language=printer
Following are key elements of the House-Senate compromise trade package:
Trade Promotion Authority:
• Gives the president the authority to negotiate international trade agreements subject to a single yes or no vote by Congress without amendments.
• Sets overall negotiating objectives, including to: reduce trade barriers, strengthen dispute settlement procedures, improve adherence to international labor and environmental standards, protect U.S. trade remedy laws, and reduce barriers to U.S. agriculture products.
• Makes it a goal to reduce tariffs and barriers that decrease market opportunities for U.S. companies for the service industry, intellectual property, electronic commerce and textiles.
Trade Adjustment Assistance:
• Extends from 52 to 78 weeks the period Americans who lose jobs are paid to allow recipients to complete training.
• Extends eligibility to some secondary workers, such as those who supply goods to manufacturers.
• Extends benefits when manufacturing plants move to countries that have free or preferential trade agreements with the United States.
• For the first time extends health insurance to dislocated workers. Workers would be eligible for a 65 percent refundable tax credit to be used to pay for federal or state-based group coverage options.
• Increases the training budget from $140 million to $220 million.
Andean Trade Preferences Act:
• Through 2006, provides low tariffs for selected products from the Andean nations of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
Generalized System of Preferences:
• Through 2006, authorizes the president to give preferential duty treatment to goods from developing countries.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Israel Arrests Spotlight Arms Sales
July 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Weapons-for-Sale.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The arrests of 10 Israeli men on suspicion of selling 50,000 stolen bullets to Palestinian militants has put the spotlight on a long-running furtive trade that helped arm the Palestinians both before and during their current uprising.
Despite the deep-rooted bitterness of the Mideast conflict, some Israelis, apparently motivated by the prospect of quick money, are funneling weapons and ammunition to the Palestinians with the knowledge they may be used against Israeli citizens.
In two separate cases announced over the past week, all of those detained were current or former members of the security forces who apparently tried to exploit their access to ammunition stockpiles. Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said a number of similar cases had arisen in recent years, though he did not have figures.
In addition, a Palestinian arms smuggler told The Associated Press he bought hundreds of pilfered Israeli M-16 military rifles and large quantities of ammunition over the past eight years, most of it supplied by Israelis.
In a continuing investigation, police announced the arrest of a policeman this past week, bringing the number of detainees to 10. Army Radio said stolen ammunition was found in his home.
In Israeli eyes, the biggest shock is that most of the suspects lived in Jewish settlements on the West Bank -- places that have come under frequent Palestinian attack and whose residents harbor strong anti-Palestinian sentiments.
``It has the appearance of treason, if you suppose that a terrorist may be using a weapon or bullets sold to him by Israelis,'' said Boaz Ganor, head of the private International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism. ``But it isn't done because of ideology. It's a criminal act done for profit.''
The army and police suspect the men, including two sets of brothers, stole crates of M-16 ammunition from the military and sold it over the past three years to a Palestinian member of the Tanzim militia. Israel accuses Tanzim of carrying out dozens of deadly attacks on Israelis.
Police investigator Avi Kalif was quoted in the newspaper Maariv as saying one suspect, Sela Amar, acknowledged he could have helped arm Palestinians who recently attacked the settlement where he lives.
``I take into account that it could be those bullets were used by the terrorists to carry out the attack on our settlement,'' Kalif quoted Amar as saying.
But Amar told the newspaper: ``I did not sell ammunition. I did not deal with Arabs. They can cut off my arm and my leg if I did such a thing.''
Amar is one of three suspects from Adora, in the southern West Bank. A trio of Palestinian gunmen slipped into the small community April 27 and staged a house-to-house shooting spree, killing four Israelis, including a 5-year-old girl shot in her bedroom.
In the settlement, home to about 50 families, community secretary Yitzhak Sevita said residents were stunned by the arrests of their neighbors.
``I have known them since they were kids. It is hard, very hard, for me to believe this,'' he said.
Moshe Cohen, described as the main suspect, reportedly said he was coerced by Palestinians into the deal.
``The Palestinians knew our addresses, and said that if we wouldn't supply them with ammunition, they would murder me and my family,'' Cohen told investigators, according to the newspaper Yediot Ahronot.
In a second case, two soldiers were arrested last week on suspicion of trying to break into a munitions depot in Kfar Saba, in central Israel, to steal arms they intended to sell to Palestinians, police said.
Palestinian militants are no match for the Israeli army, yet have had ample stocks of rifles, bullets and bombs for hundreds of attacks during the nearly 2-year-old uprising.
When Israel accused Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of trying to smuggle weapons from abroad earlier this year, Arafat said imports were not necessary -- plenty of arms could be bought directly from Israel.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, at the rough-and-tumble Balata refugee camp, a Palestinian arms smuggler related how he exploited his connections as a policeman and a member of Arafat's Fatah movement to buy arms from Israelis over the past eight years.
The smuggler, who insisted his name not be used, said that after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, he quickly grew disillusioned by widespread corruption he witnessed among Palestinian officials and by his salary of $250 a month.
He said he began buying weapons on the black market, mostly from Israeli sources. His leading supplier was a man he knew only as Itzik, who lived near Tel Aviv and was willing to venture into Nablus in the quieter times of the mid-1990s for lunchtime meetings.
Itzik was arrested in 1997 for selling arms to Palestinians, but the smuggler said he never ran out of Israeli sellers, even after the latest Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
In his biggest single purchase, the smuggler bought 60 M-16 assault rifles, paying $1,500 for each and doubling the price when he sold them to Palestinians.
He typically sold to ordinary Palestinians eager to own weapons after Israeli troops pulled out of their cities. But he also acknowledged selling to a Palestinian militia that he declined to identify.
``In the Balata camp, you couldn't find a house without a weapon,'' he said.
He said he never dealt directly with an Israeli soldier, but understood many of the weapons had been stolen from military armories and worked their way into the hands of his Israeli contacts.
Before the Palestinian uprising began, he said, he would not sell to common criminals or to the militant Hamas movement, because he did not want to aid people the Palestinian police were supposed to be keeping in check. He said he dropped those restrictions after the uprising began.
Initially, he was still able to buy guns from Israeli dealers. But he said that proved increasingly difficult as contacts between Israelis and Palestinians grew scarce, and in recent months he's only been able to buy bullets.
-------- asia
U.S. to Taipei: Step up military spending
Pentagon tells delegation they must try to match China's capabilities
Posted: July 27, 2002
By Jon Dougherty
WorldNetDaily.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28423
Officials from the Pentagon have told a delegation of visiting Taiwanese legislators that they are concerned about the island democracy's declining defense budget at a time when rival China is upgrading and modernizing its forces.
U.S. military brass urged the delegation to rethink Taiwan's defense budget and to prioritize the improvement of the island's defensive capabilities against neighboring China, as well as "set clear priorities to develop those capabilities," the Taipei Times reported yesterday.
During the July 24 briefing, U.S. officials said they were mindful of Taiwan's current budget restraints and economic problems. But the "highly unusual" briefing for the 32-member delegation - which occurred on the last of a three-day visit to Washington - came on the heels of a Pentagon report detailing China's "strategic posture" and describing Beijing's quickening air, land and sea modernization programs.
U.S. officials, as well as independent analysts, believe China is modernizing not only to retake Taiwan by force but also to fend off an expected U.S. intervention.
"In our talks with [the U.S. government], Congress and think tanks, everybody was concerned about the Pentagon report," said deputy delegation leader Chou Ching-yu. "People are hoping that Taiwan will gain the self-defense capability to be strong enough to counter that threat."
The briefing dealt with the findings of the Pentagon report and Taiwan's ability to defend itself against a growing Chinese military capability.
U.S. military officials, during the briefing, "recognized that Taiwan, as with other parts of the world, is in an economic slowdown," said Chou. "However, we still hope that Taiwan will move quickly to improve our capabilities, and they gave encouragement to Taiwan in that regard."
One item discussed during the briefing was the U.S. pledge by the Bush administration last year to sell Taiwan eight new diesel submarines as a way for the Taiwanese navy to keep its ports, harbors and shipping lanes open, in case China tried to blockade them.
But the U.S. no longer builds diesel subs, having long ago opted for nuclear-powered vessels. Taiwan has requested the subs be built there, but U.S. officials have yet to agree to that.
Nevertheless, the delegation appeared receptive to U.S. guidance, as lawmakers praised Washington's recommitment to the island's defense.
"In the past, the United States would not sell submarines to Taiwan because submarines would be considered offensive weapons," said legislator Parris Chang. "(But) now the United States wants to (because this would) expand Taiwan's deterrent capability."
"This is a very important shift in American strategy," he said. "This is certainly one very important message I feel I have learned from this trip."
The delegation announced plans to hold an international conference on peace and security in Asia, to be held in Taipei in January. It will be sponsored by Taiwanese lawmakers and the Congressional Taiwan Caucus - formed in April to advance the island nation's interests in the U.S. Congress and in Washington, D.C.
Lawmakers from more than a dozen Asian countries, as well as other nations, will be invited to attend.
Richard D. Fisher Jr., a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation and author of the think tank's weekly China Brief, told WorldNetDaily that in terms of matching China's military modernization effort, "Taiwan needs everything."
And, he said, "as a matter of policy," Taiwan has for the first time called for its military to possess "a rather limited offensive capability that targets a very specific but important part of [China's] ability to attack Taiwan."
When asked which military capabilities should be upgraded first, Fisher said that wasn't an easy question to answer.
"You have to understand Taiwan is in a very difficult spot right now," he said, "trying to accomplish two things at once, either of which would be a very tall order." He said Taiwan is "pushing through the most fundamental political-military reform program in its history, as it attempts to modernize to a next generation of military systems," to match China's growing power.
"The political-military system is today under extreme stress, but there are many good things that could come from this," he said, noting that one major reform is to place the military under civilian leadership.
China modernizing forces
Fisher said "Taiwan is working to improve upon" the quality of all of its military forces, but the Pentagon report suggested China is advancing its own capabilities more quickly.
"China's force modernization, weaponry, pilot training, tactics, and command and control are beginning to erode Taiwan's qualitative edge," said the July 12 report.
Pentagon analysts said the number of modern Chinese fighters will soon surpass those of Taiwan, while China also has made vast improvements in its "SRBM (short-range ballistic missile) force [which] could be used to soften Taiwan's air defenses and disrupt airbase operations. ..."
"Over the next several years, given current trends, China likely will be able to cause significant damage to all of Taiwan's airfields and quickly degrade Taiwan's ground-based air defenses and associated command and control through a combination of" attacks using SRBMs, land attack cruise missiles, special operations forces "and other assets."
Earlier published reports say China has deployed some 360 short- and medium range ballistic missiles at various bases in military districts facing Taiwan. Eventually, analysts say, China wants to deploy as many as 600 missiles that Fisher says could be used to "saturate" Taiwan in a pre-emptive attack.
Meanwhile, China is also improving its naval and air forces.
While Taiwan fields only two operational submarines - and waits for a promised delivery of eight more, sometime by the end of the decade - the Chinese navy has scores of semi-modern submarines, including a new class of nuclear-powered missile boats that can deliver nuclear-tipped warheads.
And though Taiwan's air force holds a slight qualitative edge, China's $2 billion acquisition of modern Su-30MKK and Su-27 fighters from Russia, coupled with its effort to upgrade and modernize its own JH-7 fighter bomber, means that Taiwan's fleet of F-16s and French-made Mirage 2000-5s will soon be matched plane-for-plane, analysts say.
In terms of ground forces, China's "sole ... advantage is its overwhelming size," but Pentagon analysts said even that advantage could be negated if Beijing cannot get its forces to Taiwan.
"Taiwan's ground forces will maintain an edge for combat on the main island unless China expands significantly its fleet of medium- and heavy-lift amphibious ships and develops a robust amphibious logistics infrastructure," said the Pentagon report.
But, the report added there was "little discussion" of improving amphibious capabilities "in the available Chinese literature" examined by Pentagon analysts.
"In support of its overall national security objectives, China has embarked upon a force modernization program intended to diversify its options for use of force against potential targets such as Taiwan," concluded the Pentagon report, "and to complicate United States intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict."
Part of that complication effort, WorldNetDaily reported July 13, is the development of weapons systems capable of interdicting or destroying the U.S. Navy carrier battle groups that would most likely be sent immediately in defense of Taiwan.
Still, "the primary driver" of Beijing's modernization effort is the preparation "for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait," the Pentagon said.
Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter and columnist for WorldNetDaily, and author of the special report, "Election 2000: How the Military Vote Was Suppressed."
-------- brazil
Brazil Employs Tools of Spying to Guard Itself
New York Times
July 27, 2002
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/27/international/americas/27BRAZ.html
MANAUS, Brazil, July 26 - For as long as Brazil has been a nation, outlaws of every type, from gold smugglers and slave traders to drug traffickers and gun runners, have taken refuge in the Amazon, the world's largest jungle wilderness, secure in the knowledge that they could not be tracked down.
As of today, though, that shelter is no longer guaranteed. A new American-financed, $1.4 billion system of radars and sensors has begun monitoring activity in a 1.9-million-square-mile area of trackless rain forest and rivers that is larger than half the continental United States.
The system is so sophisticated and comprehensive that Brazilian officials now boast they can hear a twig snap anywhere in the Amazon.
The Amazon Surveillance System will allow Brazil to determine for the first time exactly who is flying through the airspace, whether commercial aircraft or drug dealers. It will also enable the authorities to track illegal logging and deforestation more efficiently, detect foreign guerrilla incursions, protect Indian lands and inhibit the smuggling of rare and endangered animal and plant species.
"This is a historic moment for Brazil," the minister of defense, Geraldo Quintão, said on Thursday during a ceremony here inaugurating the system, which was officially put into operation today. "It transcends the simple unveiling of a government project," he said, allowing Latin America's largest country to "protect our land borders, preserve our natural riches and make the state a presence in our most remote areas."
The system includes 900 listening posts scattered on the ground all over the Amazon. But its backbone consists of 19 radar stations, 5 airborne early-warning jets and 3 remote-sensing aircraft, all of which will feed information via satellite to command centers in this Amazon capital and two others, Belém and Pôrto Velho.
"Because this is a radar system, we will be able to operate day and night, rain or shine," said Gen. Teomar Fonseca Quírico, the project director, making a contrast with satellites. From a height of 33,000 feet and a distance of up to 125 miles, he said, the system can track an image of something as small as a human being.
When first conceived more than a decade ago, the system was meant to answer growing foreign criticism that Brazil was not doing enough to protect the Amazon's delicate environment. But with cocaine production exploding in surrounding countries and a long war against leftist guerrillas worsening in Colombia, the military and drug-interdiction aspects of the project have become more important.
According to a State Department report issued early this year and hotly debated in Brazil, the United States "is now the only nation clearly consuming more cocaine than Brazil." A leading drug trafficker in Rio de Janeiro, Fernandinho Beira Mar, was arrested last year in Colombia in what authorities called a guns-for-drugs scheme involving left-wing guerrillas.
The United States is already working to monitor the western Amazon to close it to drug traffickers flying northward from Bolivia and Peru, said Luís Bittencourt, a Brazilian military analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
With Brazil building more barriers on the other side, he said, "this could create an iron circle to impede those flights."
The Brazilian government has said it is willing to share the intelligence with its neighbors. After inaugurating the project here, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso flew to Guayaquil, Ecuador, for a conference of South American presidents that began today where, he said, he would reiterate that offer and discuss how it might be carried out.
"Brazil is not selfish," Gen. Alberto Cardoso, the government's national security adviser, said in an interview in Brasília.
On Monday Colombia's president-elect, Álvaro Uribe, who takes office early next month, met in Brasília with the president and with General Cardoso. Mr. Uribe has vowed to intensify the war against left-wing guerrillas, who operate in areas bordering Brazil and are also involved in the drug trade. President Cardoso said "combating narco-traffickers" in the border region was one of the topics they discussed.
It is less clear, though, to what degree Brazil intends to share information with the United States. In remarks to reporters after the inauguration, General Quírico said that as of now, the intelligence-sharing offer applied "only to Amazon countries, and if the information is to be passed on to third countries, that is a matter for the Foreign Ministry to consider."
The radar system is being financed largely with a loan from the United States Import-Export Bank, with some funds from Sweden. The contract for the construction was awarded to an American company, the Raytheon Company, after intense lobbying by the United States. That led to speculation in the Brazilian press that the radar was really part of an American plot to seize control of the Amazon and its riches.
To support the system, the Brazilian Air Force plans to deploy as many as 99 aircraft. In 1998 the Brazilian Congress approved legislation permitting the shooting down of aircraft violating Brazilian airspace. But the implementing decrees have still not been announced, much to the frustration of the air force.
"There is no advantage in having a radar system that can see airplanes transporting drugs and arms, and at the same time being unable to force those planes to land," Mauro José Miranda Gandra, a former air force minister, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Brazilian officials said one reason for the delay was concern in the United States that innocent planes could be mistaken for those of drug dealers and shot down, as occurred in Peru last year. Because much of the radar technology and software is American-made, Washington fears it could be held responsible.
General Cardoso said Brazil planned to continue to discuss the issue with several countries, including the United States. "We have the capacity to shoot down planes, but it is important that this be properly regulated, and discussions have been stop-and-go precisely because of the delicacy of the problem," he said.
-------- drug war
Pakistan Seizes Nearly One Ton of Afghan Hashish
July 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-crime-pakistan-drugs.html
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's drugs squad said on Saturday it had seized 2,002 lb of hashish smuggled into the country from neighboring Afghanistan, the third major haul in less than two weeks.
An official of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) said the hashish was found in a house in the village of Gardak, some 12 miles west of the town of Bulada, bordering Iran.
He said the seizure was made on Friday, foiling a plan to transport the drugs to Iran by camel.
Last week, Pakistani troops confiscated more than 2.4 tons of Afghan hashish and 44 lbs of opium in two separate raids in southwestern Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is one of the world's leading producers of opium, from which heroin is made. It is also a major producer of hashish.
Officials in Pakistan say drug production and export are continuing in Afghanistan despite the presence of U.S. and allied forces there and efforts by the interim government to curb the trade.
-------- iran
Iran Leader Says Would Make U.S. Regret Any Attack
July 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-usa.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday his country would make the United States regret any attack on the Islamic Republic, which Washington has branded part of an ``axis of evil.''
Khamenei's latest warnings came amid calls in the United States for a change of regime in Iran due to Washington's growing doubts about the ability of moderate President Mohammad Khatami to deliver promised reforms.
``The Americans know that if they opt for military intervention, this nation would give them a response to make them regret it,'' Khamenei told a public meeting, quoted by the state media.
``The Americans cannot do as they did in 1953 because the Iranian people are faithful to Islam and the revolution and alert in the face of plots,'' he said, referring to a CIA-backed coup against Iran's elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq to bring the former shah to power.
The shah's regime was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution and months later Washington broke ties with Iran after radical Islamists stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took staff hostage.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers said Thursday they wanted Congress to go on record calling for a new regime in Iran, which they said posed a more serious threat than Iraq.
They said their demand mirrored a shift in President Bush's policy toward Iran.
The White House has denied it was dropping a five-year effort to reach out to Khatami, elected in 1997 as a reformer, but administration officials say their focus will be directed at Iranians pushing for change.
-------- israel / palestine
Four Israelis and One Palestinian Die in Surge of Violence
New York Times
July 27, 2002
By JOEL GREENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/27/international/middleeast/27MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, July 26 - Palestinian gunmen ambushed two Israeli cars today on a road south of the West Bank city of Hebron, killing four Jewish settlers and wounding two others. A couple and their teenage son were among the dead.
The attack, a day after another settler was shot and killed in the West Bank, was part of a surge in violence after an Israeli warplane dropped a bomb into a crowded Gaza neighborhood early Tuesday that killed a Hamas leader and 14 other people, 9 of them children.
Several Palestinian groups have vowed to avenge those deaths, disrupting efforts said to have been under way to arrange a cease-fire by the factions.
Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group linked to Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for today's ambush as it did for Thursday's fatal shooting. Fatah's militia, Tanzim, had been preparing to announce a unilateral cease-fire before the Israeli bombing in Gaza, according to accounts by Palestinian officials and Western diplomats.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said at a news conference today that talks had been held before the bombing between a Palestinian official and representatives of Hamas and another militant group, Islamic Jihad, about a proposed six-month suspension of violence.
Since the Gaza bombing, there has been a flare-up of mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli military posts and settlements in and around the Gaza Strip. One rocket landed in a kibbutz in southern Israel on Thursday night, but caused no harm, and an anti-tank missile was fired today at a bus carrying settlers on a road southwest of Gaza City, causing damage but no casualties.
The double ambush south of Hebron occurred on a road bypassing the city that is used by Jewish settlers to reach their communities.
Gunmen who apparently came from the village of Yatta drove to an intersection known as Zif junction and waited for passing Israeli cars, security officials said. The attackers opened fire on a van carrying a family from the Jewish settlement of Psagot, near Ramallah, killing the couple and their teenage son, and wounding two other children. The attackers then sprayed gunfire at another passing car carrying a settler from Hebron, killing him.
Israeli troops pursuing the gunmen carried out searches in Yatta, which was put under curfew, the army said.
In a radio interview shortly after the killings, Tzviki Bar-Hai, the leader of the settlements council in the Hebron area, scoffed at the uproar in Israel this week over the civilian deaths caused by the bombing in Gaza. "For two years we've been in a war in which mothers and parents and children are being killed," he said. "The people of Israel have to understand that in a war you don't play nice. Anyone who gets near a terrorist, woman or child, should know that he will bear the responsibility."
Elsewhere in the West Bank, a Palestinian was killed in Qalqilya when Israeli soldiers occupying the town opened fire as they searched houses, residents said. A bullet struck the man in the head as he stood near a window in his kitchen, a resident reported. The army said it was investigating the incident.
Israeli forces are occupying seven of the eight major West Bank cities, which they entered more than a month ago after back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem. They have imposed round-the-clock curfews, keeping 700,000 Palestinians confined to their homes with occasional breaks to buy food.
Earlier today Israeli troops entered Gaza City and blew up buildings the Israeli Army said were used to manufacture rockets. The raid, in the Zeitun neighborhood, was the deepest ground penetration into the city by Israeli forces in nearly 22 months of violence.
Several tanks, at least one bulldozer and ground troops took part in the raid. The army said that soldiers blew up three buildings housing 22 shops used to make Qassam rockets. Gunmen fired at the Israelis, and at least two Palestinians were wounded in exchanges of fire. A Palestinian police post was also demolished, and a few other buildings were destroyed or damaged, according to reports from the scene.
Hours later, Palestinian militants fired an anti-tank missile at a bus carrying Jewish settlers on a road between the settlement of Netzarim and a border crossing into Israel, the army said. There were no casualties, but the bus was damaged.
Thousands of supporters of Hamas marched in the streets of Gaza, vowing revenge for the deaths in Tuesday's bombing of the Hamas leader, Salah Shehadeh, as well as an associate, his wife and daughter, and 11 other civilians. "Our response will be like an earthquake," Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, a Hamas leader, told the demonstrators. Loudspeakers blared threats of attacks across Israel.
Security has been tightened in Israeli malls and other public places in anticipation of possible retaliation. In Jerusalem today, police officers were posted at roadblocks on busy streets.
--------
Washington Invites Palestinians for Talks
July 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mideast.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior Palestinian official said on Saturday the United States had invited senior Palestinian cabinet ministers to Washington for talks with top officials there early next month.
It would be the most senior contact between the U.S. administration and Palestinian Authority officials since President Bush called last month for Yasser Arafat to be sidelined as Palestinian leader.
Palestinian cabinet minister and senior negotiator Saeb Erekat said the delegation would include himself and new Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al Yaha, who is in charge of the Palestinian security forces.
There was no immediate confirmation from the United States.
The talks would take place on August 5 and 6, Erekat told Reuters. He said they would focus on the latest developments in the region. Palestinian Trade Minister Maher al-Masri would also be in the delegation, he said.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops backed by helicopters scoured the southern West Bank in search of Palestinian gunmen who killed four Israelis, including a Jewish settler couple and their child, in an ambush near Hebron late on Friday.
Soldiers searched the village of Yatta and surrounding areas where the militants are believed to have fled after ambushing two vehicles with a hail of bullets.
Abu Dhabi Television said it had received a claim of responsibility from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group with links to Arafat's Fatah movement.
FEARS OF SURGE IN VIOLENCE
The attack raised fears of a new surge of violence after an Israeli air strike that killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza City on Tuesday, including nine children and Salah Shehada, the commander of the military wing of Hamas.
Israel's killing of Shehada in a missile strike that flattened his house in a crowded neighborhood of Gaza City drew vows of revenge from militant groups.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine the strike was ``one hundred percent a mistake.'' ``The outcome shows clearly we used the wrong weapon,'' Peres said of the one-ton missile used in the strike. ``Mistakes have happened in other wars -- look at Kosovo or Afghanistan. The biggest mistake is war itself.''
The U.N. Security Council put off until Monday its debate over an Arab-backed resolution demanding Israel withdraw from seven Palestinian-ruled cities occupied after a wave of suicide bombings last month.
The council delayed the vote after the United States said the resolution must also condemn three Palestinian groups behind a suicide bombing campaign against Israel.
The U.S. -- which has a veto in the 15-member council -- also said the resolution would need to include a demand for an improvement of the security situation as a precondition for any Israeli withdrawal to positions held before a Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
Palestinian U.N. observer Nasser al-Kidwa called the U.S. stance an ``unreasonable'' one that ``would not help building a consensus in the council.''
In an apparent gesture to ease tension with the Palestinians, Israel will hand over $15 million of frozen tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority on Monday, Israel Radio reported.
The transfer would likely take place in a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian finance ministry officials, it said.
A Palestinian man died of wounds received during a gun battle in the northern Gaza Strip earlier this month, bringing the toll to at least 1,468 Palestinians and 564 Israelis killed since the uprising began in September 2000 after peace negotiations became deadlocked.
-------
Jenin and its aftermath: a soldier's diary
July 27, 2002,
by Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem,
UK Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-366360,00.html
An Israeli soldier, left, recalls the ambush in which 13 of his unit died in Jenin refugee camp; survivors openly voice dissent in a documentary premiere at the Jerusalem Film Festival
"WE lost. They lost. Everyone lost," the Israeli soldier concludes from on top of his armoured vehicle, waving vaguely at the smoking remains of Jenin behind him. "It's one of those really original football matches that both teams lose."
The scene is from Jenin Diary: The Inside Story - a documentary shot by an Israeli reservist from the company that lost 13 soldiers in a Palestinian ambush in Jenin refugee camp on April 9.
Its maker, Gil Mezuman, 30, shot 40 hours of film on a hand-held camera, cut to 65 minutes for its premiere before a capacity audience at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
One of the final scenes shows his disorientated unit wandering aimlessly around its camp, still traumatised after the deaths a few days earlier.
Some of those filmed openly question the tactics used, and even the Army's right to be in Jenin. Others can no longer fight a campaign in which they no longer believe.
"Personally, I'm finished with the Army. The next reserve call, I won't be here," vows ponytailed Altshuler, unable to forgive himself for not challenging the orders that led his commander and friends to their deaths.
"Those who believe in it, let them continue," mutters Kobi, insisting that he will never again be a combat soldier. "I'll do what I believe in."
A filmmaker and cameraman by profession, Mr Mezuman and his unit were sent to Jenin after the Passover suicide bombing which killed 29 Israelis in Netanya and launched Israel's huge military invasion of the West Bank.
Assigned to a camp outside Jenin during the first eight days of savage house-to-house combat, he was not present at the ambush. It was the Israeli military's subsequent decision to switch tactics and raze houses with armoured bulldozers that led to howls of international outrage, although allegations of a massacre were undermined later by the final official death toll of 23 Israelis and 52 Palestinians.
The film shows survivors in shock: thousand-yard stares, forgotten cigarettes smouldering between fingers, and heads slumped as the soldiers learn that they must postpone their grief because they are being sent straight back into Jenin.
One man, lying in a hospital bed, giggles as he recalls pulling out a grenade to kill two Palestinians searching the house below him, then frantically trying to push the pin back in as he realised he was about to slip into unconsciousness and blow himself up.
It also portrays the soul-searching of articulate, well educated reservists willing to expose every detail of their unit's performance to minute scrutiny in an internal inquiry they insist on holding. Although cleared by the Israeli censors, with deletions to protect operating procedures and a tantalising hint of drug-taking, it contains searing criticisms of the Israeli military machine.
What it lacks, crucially, is footage of the ambush itself and anything outside the Israeli military perspective. Jenin is glimpsed only occasionally as the company moves hastily through the shattered streets, or from from windows through which Israeli soldiers spray gunfire, and no Palestinian appears in the entire film.
Time and again the soldiers question why they were not better equipped and why they did not have dogs to detect the explosives that killed the commander, Oded Colomb, and their friends as they cleared a booby-trapped house.
There are also bitter complaints that the Army appeared to have been taken by surprise by the level of Palestinian resistance, and had prepared as if for "a drill".
"It is unclear what motivated Oded to move down those alleyways at that particular time. It is unclear why a reserve division entered Jenin and it is unclear why the Army conquered Palestinian land," the platoon commander, Avner, tells the camera.
Others angrily accuse the sceptics of being "wise guys after the fact" and forgetting the suicide bombings that killed 100 Israeli civilians in the month before Jenin.
"Life isn't black and white, there is lots of grey in between," shouts one religious reservist at his disaffected colleagues. "Each day without Israeli casualties is our victory."
Mr Mezuman said: "The film is about our trauma; if we were prepared properly; if we did well. Many of us had feelings of guilt and fear about surviving when others died, and some are clearly in shock.
"I have given our point of view of the war. If you want to understand the full story, you need to see the two sides. I know there are two stories, but I can only tell my own."
----
Peres has doubts about Sharon as peace partner
AFP
SATURDAY, JULY 27, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=17289575
BERLIN: Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres has admitted that he is unsure whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could be a credible partner for peace in the Middle East conflict, according to an interview to be published here Monday.
In response to a statement that "many Israelis doubt whether Ariel Sharon could be a partner for peace," Peres told the German weekly Der Spiegel: "Me too, I have my doubts."
"But what should I do about them? Collect them?" he asked afterward, adding: "As long as I feel able to change something and balance (the situation), I will stay" in the Sharon government.
The Labour party minister renewed his regret over Monday's raid on Hamas military chief Salah Shehade in which 14 other people were also killed. Peres called it "an error of judgement, a 100-percent mistake."
"The result clearly shows that we used the wrong weapon. The bomb was more destructive than it was useful," he said.
Peres had first said on Wednesday that "a mistake happened during the raid on Shehade.
-------- us
F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region
By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8131-2002Jul26?language=printer
For Renny Rogers, it was strange enough that military jets were flying low over his home in Waldorf in the middle of the night. It was what he thinks he saw when he headed outside to look early yesterday that floored him.
"It was this object, this light-blue object, traveling at a phenomenal rate of speed," Rogers said. "This Air Force jet was right behind it, chasing it, but the object was just leaving him in the dust. I told my neighbor, 'I think those jets are chasing a UFO.' "
Military officials confirm that two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled early yesterday after radar detected an unknown aircraft in area airspace. But they scoff at the idea that the jets were chasing a strange and speedy, blue unidentified flying object.
"We had a track of interest, so we sent up some aircraft," said Maj. Douglas Martin, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado, which has responsibility for defending U.S. airspace. "Everything was fine in the sky, so they returned home."
At the same time, military officials say they do not know just what the jets were chasing, because whatever it was disappeared. "There are any number of scenarios, but we don't know what it was," said Maj. Barry Venable, another spokesman for NORAD.
Radar detected a low, slow-flying aircraft about 1 a.m. yesterday, according to a military official. Controllers were unable to establish radio communication with the unidentified aircraft, and NORAD was notified. When the F-16s carrying air-to-air missiles were launched from Andrews, the unidentified aircraft's track faded from the radar, the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pilots with the D.C. Air National Guard's 113th Air Wing, which flew the F-16s from Andrews, reported nothing out of the ordinary, NORAD officials said.
"It was a routine launch," said Lt. Col. Steve Chase, a senior officer with the wing, which keeps pilots and armed jets on 24-hour alert at Andrews to respond to incidents as part of an air defense system protecting Washington after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Rogers remains convinced that what he saw was not routine. "It looked like a shooting star with no trailing mist," he said. "I've never seen anything like it."
----
Killings roil Army base
July 27, 2002
AP
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020727-99696824.htm
FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Four Army wives at Fort Bragg have been killed over the past six weeks, purportedly by their husbands, prompting the Army to announce yesterday it will re-evaluate the base's family-counseling program.
"It's mind-boggling," said Henry Berry, manager of family-advocacy programs at Fort Bragg. "To be absolutely honest, I was completely caught off guard. We're going to look at these cases to prevent them from happening in the future."
Two Fort Bragg soldiers killed their wives in murder-suicides, and two others were charged with murdering their wives. Three of the soldiers were from the Army's special operations and had just returned from Afghanistan; the fourth was from an airborne unit and had not been sent into action.
Counselors are available in the field for special operations troops, and soldiers are counseled before they leave on assignment and before they return home, said Col. Jerome Haberek, chaplain for the Army special operations units at Fort Bragg.
Base officials said no domestic-abuse deaths involving base personnel have occurred in the past two years.
The string of family deaths, which all occurred off the base, started June 11, when Sgt. 1st Class Rigoberto Nieves fatally shot his wife, Teresa, and himself in their Fayetteville bedroom. Sgt. Nieves, who had been back from Afghanistan just two days, had recently requested leave to resolve personal problems, officials said.
Sheriff's investigators said Jennifer Wright was strangled June 29. Her husband, Master Sgt. William Wright, reported her missing two days later. On July 19, he led investigators to her body, buried in a shallow grave in a field near Fayetteville, and was charged with murder.
Sgt. Wright, who had been back from Afghanistan for about a month, had recently moved out of the family's house and was living in the barracks.
On the same day that Sgt. Wright was arrested, Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Floyd shot his wife, Andrea, then killed himself in their Stedman home.
The Fayetteville Observer reported that Sgt. Floyd was a member of Delta Force, the secretive anti-terrorism unit based at Fort Bragg. He returned from Afghanistan in January.
In the fourth case, Sgt. Cedric Ramon Griffin was charged with stabbing his estranged wife, Marilyn, at least 50 times and setting her home on fire July 9. Sgt. Griffin was in an engineering battalion.
Fort Bragg is the Army's headquarters for Special Forces and special operations soldiers. It has sent hundreds of soldiers into the fight against terrorism.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
Foundations are in place for martial law in the US
By Ritt Goldstein
July 27 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/1027497418339.html
Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration and national security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment camps and martial law in the United States.
When president Ronald Reagan was considering invading Nicaragua he issued a series of executive orders that provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with broad powers in the event of a "crisis" such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad". They were never used.
But with the looming possibility of a US invasion of Iraq, recent pronouncements by President George Bush's domestic security chief, Tom Ridge, and an official with the US Civil Rights Commission should fire concerns that these powers could be employed or a de facto drift into their deployment could occur.
On July 20 the Detroit Free Press ran a story entitled "Arabs in US could be held, official warns". The story referred to a member of the US Civil Rights Commission who foresaw the possibility of internment camps for Arab Americans. FEMA has practised for such an occasion.
FEMA, whose main role is disaster response, is also responsible for handling US domestic unrest.
From 1982-84 Colonel Oliver North assisted FEMA in drafting its civil defence preparations. Details of these plans emerged during the 1987 Iran-Contra scandal.
They included executive orders providing for suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.
A Miami Herald article on July 5, 1987, reported that the former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida's deputy, John Brinkerhoff, handled the martial law portion of the planning. The plan was said to be similar to one Mr Giuffrida had developed earlier to combat "a national uprising by black militants". It provided for the detention "of at least 21million American Negroes"' in "assembly centres or relocation camps".
Today Mr Brinkerhoff is with the highly influential Anser Institute for Homeland Security. Following a request by the Pentagon in January that the US military be allowed the option of deploying troops on American streets, the institute in February published a paper by Mr Brinkerhoff arguing the legality of this.
He alleged that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has long been accepted as prohibiting such deployments, had simply been misunderstood and misapplied.
The preface to the article also provided the revelation that the national plan he had worked on, under Mr Giuffrida, was "approved by Reagan, and actions were taken to implement it".
By April, the US military had created a Northern Command to aid Homeland defence. Reuters reported that the command is "mainly expected to play a supporting role to local authorities".
However, Mr Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security, has just advocated a review of US law regarding the use of the military for law enforcement duties.
Disturbingly, the full facts and final contents of Mr Reagan's national plan remain uncertain. This is in part because President Bush took the unusual step of sealing the Reagan presidential papers last November. However, many of the key figures of the Reagan era are part of the present administration, including John Poindexter, to whom Oliver North later reported.
At the time of the Reagan initiatives, the then attorney-general, William French Smith, wrote to the national security adviser, Robert McFarlane: "I believe that the role assigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the revised Executive Order exceeds its proper function as a co-ordinating agency for emergency preparedness ... this department and others have repeatedly raised serious policy and legal objections to an 'emergency czar' role for FEMA."
Criticism of the Bush Administration's response to September11 echoes Mr Smith's warning. On June 7 the former presidential counsel John Dean spoke of America's sliding into a "constitutional dictatorship" and martial law.
Ritt Goldstein is an investigative journalist and a former leader in the movement for US law enforcement accountability. He revealed exclusively in the Herald last week the Bush Administration's plans for a domestic spying system more pervasive than the Stasi network in East Germany.
-------- terrorism
Greece Says Shopkeeper Was Founder of Terror Group
By Brian Murphy
Associated Press
Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8164-2002Jul26.html
ATHENS, July 26 -- Greek police struck again today at the crippled November 17 terrorist group and picked up another prized suspect: an unassuming shopkeeper accused of helping to create Europe's most elusive urban guerrilla band.
The arrest of Nikos Papanastasiou, 50, apparently topples another pillar in a group that completely outwitted authorities during a 27-year reign of bombings, robberies and murder.
It also adds to the surprisingly common face emerging from an organization that carried a reputation for fanatical secrecy and ruthless precision. Papanastasiou had run a souvenir shop in central Athens. Another alleged November 17 co-founder, 58-year-old Alexandros Giotopoulos, says he worked translating French texts.
Other suspected members caught in a rapid-fire series of raids in the past weeks include a bus driver, a religious icon painter and an elementary school teacher.
Today, a hospital telephone operator, Pavlos Serifis, accused of being November 17's second in command, told police that Giotopoulos was the gunman who killed the CIA's Athens station chief Richard Welch in 1975 -- the slaying that first brought attention to the group.
Serifis, 46, admitted being a lookout in the Welch attack, police said. The extent of Papanastasiou's involvement in the Welch killing and others was not immediately clear. A 20-year statute of limitations means that no one can be directly charged with slayings before 1982, including Welch's.
Police suspect that Papanastasiou and Giotopoulos helped forge the ultra-left mentality of November 17 during the dying gasps of the 1967-74 military junta in Greece. The group takes its name from the day in 1973 that tanks and troops crushed student-led protests.
After the Welch slaying, November 17 went on to claim 22 more victims, including three other Americans. It last struck in June 2000 with the killing of British defense attache Brig. Stephen Saunders.
Police had not been able to crack the group until a botched bombing attempt June 29. It left an injured man -- a suspected November 17 operative -- who began to talk. Suddenly, police launched raids around the country.
More than a dozen suspects have been arrested. Authorities have hinted that more could come.
--------
U.S., Russia Group Fights Terror
July 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A U.S.-Russian group formed to deal with terrorism and similar problems spreading from Afghanistan to the former Soviet republics has begun its new and expanded job of working on such threats anywhere.
Specialists from the two countries said terrorists remain an immediate threat not only in Afghanistan and nearby but as far afield as Southeast Asia and East Africa.
A focus, however, was still the former republics in Central Asia that have opened their bases to American military units to facilitate the Afghan war.
``The U.S. side reiterated that the United States has no intention of establishing permanent military bases in Central Asia but does plan long-term security relationships with the countries in the region,'' the State Department said in a statement Saturday.
The Americans began arriving after the Sept. 11 attacks as the Bush administration built a force to pursue Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and the ruling Taliban militia that harbored it.
The U.S. forces' arrival caused unease among many politicians in nearby Russia. The Russians became more dismayed and worried when Washington announced a ``train and equip'' project in the Republic of Georgia's lawless Pankisi Gorge, one of the places al-Qaida fighters are thought to have fled to.
The gorge is a dozen miles from Russia, almost abutting the breakaway Russian region Chechnya, whose fighters Putin says have been trained by al-Qaida.
President Bush and President Vladimir Putin, in meetings in Texas in November and Moscow in May, came to broad understandings that quieted much of the open opposition.
In Moscow, they redesignated the joint group that had been dealing with the Afghanistan-Central Asia problem as the U.S.-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism and told its leaders to expand its scope globally.
Friday's meeting, in Annapolis, Md., was the first since then.
``The delegations discussed a range of key regional issues, including recent developments in Afghanistan, Central Asia, India/Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Yemen,'' the statement said. ``They underscored the need to cut off sources of terrorist financing.''
One source of financing that has defied efforts to defuse it, the statement said, is illegal production of heroin and other narcotics.
``The proliferation of Afghan illicit opiates throughout Central Asia continues to undermine counterterrorism efforts in the region and fuel terrorist organizations,'' the statement said.
Participants commended Afghanistan's transitional government for trying to stop the trade but said the United States and Russia must take the lead to get stronger narcotics interdiction and better cross-border law enforcement cooperation in the region.
The two sides ``discussed certain issues'' involving Iraq and Iran, the statement said.
``They agreed on the importance of strengthening U.S.-Russian cooperation in addressing the threats posed by nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism,'' it said. ``The agreed that these issues require the highest priority attention'' using all intelligence and law enforcement tools.
-------- ACTIVISTS
from Bogotá Colombia
From: "Jonah House" <disarmnow@erols.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 14:34:16 -0400
I remain in touch with a nun from the religious community of which I was a part for 13 years. She is a native of Colombia and has been involved in the struggle for justice in her country for more than 35 years (the wonder is that she is still alive). From time to time she sends me pieces of information that lift my heart. I share one with you today that I hope will also lift your heart and help us all to know that while the situation in Colombia often seems impossible, perhaps we need to change our definition of "possible and impossible!"
Last Thursday 20,000 women from all around the country marched down Bogotá's carrera 7a- something like fifth ave.-, from the equivalent of Central Park to Bolivar´s Square where we all gathered asking for an end to this war and saying we will not bear sons or daughters for war: "Not one more man, nor one more woman, nor one more penny towards war. We ask for PEACE. It was sooo impressive! There were no closed fists or yelling, rather singing and orderly walking along with some dancing down the avenue and into Bolivar's square where a Peace statement was read and the a beautiful concert was offered by a sort of classic rock group. This march crowns a seven year organizing effort with local marches every year. The idea is to keep growing in awareness and numbers in every town and city.
Thanks for reading; thanks for caring; thanks for all you are doing on behalf of the people of Colombia. Liz McAllister
---
Evangelical Leaders Ask Bush to Adopt Balanced Mideast Policy
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page B09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8135-2002Jul26?language=printer
A group of prominent evangelical Christians, challenging the view that their community is solidly behind the Bush administration's Middle East policy, has urged President Bush to adopt an evenhanded stance affirming "the valid interests" of both Palestinians and Israelis.
In a July 23 letter to Bush, 59 theologians, community activists, pastors and college professors assert that "the American evangelical community is not a monolithic bloc in full and firm support of present Israeli policy."
They ask the president "to move boldly forward so that the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for their own state may be realized."
The letter, accompanied by a request to meet with Bush, represents an unusual challenge by leading evangelicals to the position staked out by the religious right, which has been vocally pro-Israel.
"What's unusual," said signer Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., is that the letter "is going straight to the political authorities and saying: 'Hey, there are some of us who are not quite in sync with the loudest voices. And if you're motivated by a desire to please the evangelical community, you've got to know that some of us are not pleased by the heavy-handed favoring of the Israeli side in all of this.' "
Gary M. Burge, professor of theology at Wheaton College in Illinois and chairman of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, said he and other signers want Bush to know that "Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, just to take two names, do not represent the evangelical voice of America. They represent a segment . . . but not the majority."
The administration's stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is widely seen as tilting heavily to Israel and has pleased conservative Christian evangelicals, one of the Republican Party's most important constituencies.
"We very much appreciate them taking their time to share their concerns with us," White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said of the letter. "As for a meeting with the president, we will give it all due consideration."
The letter, which also was sent to U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, condemns Palestinian suicide bombings and "violence against Israeli citizens" as well as the Israeli military occupation and "the continued unlawful and degrading Israeli settlement movement." The "theft of Palestinian land and the destruction of Palestinian homes and fields," the letter states, "is surely one of the major causes of the strife that has resulted in terrorism."
The actions of both sides in the conflict should be judged by "biblical standards of justice," the evangelicals wrote, adding that "significant numbers of American evangelicals reject the way some have distorted biblical passages" to underpin "uncritical support . . . of the Israeli government."
Mouw said there was "theological confusion" on the religious right about some passages in the Bible, which are interpreted as requiring Christians to give unalloyed backing to the Jewish state because "it's part of God's plan for history."
But "if you take the Old Testament seriously," Mouw said, "the prophets, who were pro-Israel, knew God would never bless Israel if it did not do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before God. And bombing little Palestinian kids in order to get at one leader . . . and then claim it was a successful military operation -- that is not doing justice and that is not showing mercy."
Other signers of the letter include Craig Barnes, senior pastor of Washington's National Presbyterian Church; Cheryl J. Sanders of the Howard University School of Divinity; Tony Campolo, president of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education; Gordon MacDonald, chairman of World Relief of the National Association of Evangelicals; David Neff, editor of Christianity Today; Eugene F. Rivers, a Boston community activist; Ronald J. Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action; and Richard Nikkel, head of Prison Fellowship International.
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