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NUCLEAR
Antiterrorism bill scraps nuclear safety funding
25 years since signing of Vienna Convention
NUCLEAR PLANT IS CLOSED BY SEAWEED
Depleted Uranium:
Grisly US crimes raise questions on Gulf War illness
Officials say missing Uranium not harmful
Three Sites Remain Radioactive from Bosnian War
Most of France would prefer no nuclear power: poll
Train loaded with nuclear waste arrives in Germany
Iraq Accepts United Nations Resolution
Arms Inspectors in Iraq Will Use High-Tech Gear
North Korea Won't Give Ground in Nuclear Flap
North Korea Demands US Sign Non-Aggression Pact
Pakistan's N. Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny
Russia to remove all spent nuclear fuel from Kola
Typhoons being repaired to operate until 2010
County Exec Suggests Takeover Of Indian Point
Hansen's Effort to Block Nuclear Waste Dies
Homeland Bill Gets Boost
Pakistan-N.Korea Tie Seen as Tricky Issue for Bush
Bush wins on homeland security bill
Finishing homeland security
Congress Moves Toward Approving Security Agency
Congress Sends Bush Defense Authorization Bill
MILITARY
Ethiopia faces famine
Bulgaria Blocks Illegal Arms Sale;
America Wants to Use Biological Weapons on Iraq
Troops could replace firefighters
India to be world's tech hub, says Bill Gates
States seek to salvage global ban on germ weapons
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca
Iraq Trying to Procure Atropine, An Antidote to Nerve Agents
U.S., EU dismiss Iraqi objections to U.N. resolution
Iraq's Parliament Rejects U.N. Resolution
War plan calls for air strikes
Israel Mounts Major Raid on West Bank Town
CIA team in Turkey to plan capture of northern Iraq
Jordanian police hunt for weapons
Iran tense as Iraq is pressured
NASA Proposal Calls for Space Plane
Hellzapoppin' at the Pentagon
Cheerleaders, put on your gas masks
The Pentagon's Path From Osama to Saddam
Spokesman Is Assigned to U.S. Military Command
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Ashcroft's Law West -- and East -- of the Pecos
Briton accused of hacking military computer network
ACLU seeks immediate release of government surveillance records
ACLU Seeks U.S. Surveillance Records
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca Leaves Crop, Farmers in Its Dust
Excerpts From Purported Bin Laden Tape
Purported Bin Laden Tape Lauds Bali, Moscow Attacks
New Recording May Be Threat From bin Laden
ENERGY AND OTHER
Electrabel to buy wind parks from Gamesa
Solar power to light gloomy London bus shelters
Energy Department Focuses on Hydrogen
California Town Launches Diaper Recycling
Staples to Sell Eco-Friendly Products
Heart re-starter approved for homes
Growth Hormone Alters Aging
ACTIVISTS
A Call to Arms By an Enemy of War Against Iraq
Protests Grow in Iran Over Death Sentence for Professor
Protests Grow for Iranian Professor
Access to Bishops Limited
Bishops Turn to Writing Antiwar Policy
Up to Four Protesting Students Die in Clashes With Afghan Police
Protests Start in Sydney Over WTO Mini - Summit
Army Corps Silences Whistle - Blower
Fifteen Arrested in Sydney Anti-WTO Protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Antiterrorism bill scraps nuclear safety funding
Igor Kudrik,
2002-11-13
Bellona
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/icebreakers/27150.html
OSLO - In the wake of the hostage drama in Moscow, the Russian government intends to spend more on the anti-terrorism campaign and scrap funds for federal nuclear safety programmes.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
The Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, drafted a 7bn rouble bill - equivalent to $233m - for additional funding of the Russian security forces. The amount was later reduced to just over 3bn roubles by the Russian cabinet. Other budget items, such as security at strategic sites, will be increased, contributing to the overall rise in security funds.
But the increase will cut other spending; among these are funds earlier agreed for nuclear safety projects in the Russian Federation.
One of the projects to have its funding slashed is Lepse - a storage ship filled with damaged spent nuclear fuel assemblies moored outside Murmansk at the Kola Peninsula.
The Lepse project
Lepse background
The Lepse project has been dragging since 1994, when Bellona in co-operation with Murmansk Shipping Company, or MSCo, - the commercial operator of Russia's nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet - facilitated the EU Commissioner's visit to Murmansk, which brought the first international funding to the project.
Lepse has onboard 639 spent nuclear fuel assemblies, which have been stored there for 20 to 37 years. The conditions onboard are considered to be a health hazard for the personnel. This prompted Bellona to finance onshore cabins for the dilapidated ship's crew to reduce risks to their health. Even though Lepse is being constantly monitored, it has an aged hull and is located in the Kola Fjord area, a region of heavy shipping, which presents a risk to the environment in case of accident.
The urgency of Lepse's remediation has been recognised by international experts and governments. But only this year the final framework agreement was signed to release funds and to start working on the ship. Two years will be spent on paper work - preparation of the project on how to unload damaged fuel assemblies from the ship's hold with the use of robotics. This work and the eventual unloading operation will be funded by western donors, including the EU and Norway.
But there are other expenses to take care of, such as keeping the ship afloat. This year, MSCo received 50m roubles to maintain the ship from the federal budget. A larger sum was in the federal budget for the year 2003, but now the chances of getting the funding are slim, the money will be transferred to the security forces, Bellona's sources at MSCo say.
In the long run, the Russian side is also to foot the bill for managing the fuel after it is extracted from Lepse and put onshore, as well as decommissioning the ship. There are other sources to possible funding, but these depend on the signing of the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme for the Russian Federation (MNEPR).
MNEPR to be discussed at Putin's visit to Oslo Northern Dimension The Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) is an initiative aimed at co-ordinating efforts to tackle environmental problems in north-west Russia, especially environmental problems from radioactive waste. MNEPR should be signed to release NDEP funds - Bellona's Position Paper. read on " MNEPR was to become a universal agreement between Russia and other states wising to contribute to nuclear safety projects in north-west Russia. The agreement was to regulate tax exemption, nuclear liability and other issues in international nuclear safety projects. Despite the good idea supporting the agreement, negotiations between Russia and potential donor states have been carried out for years without result.
The last issues remaining to be discussed relate to value-added taxes. As soon as this problem is resolved, the first part of the 62m euro-fund pledged by the European countries can be spent on projects in north-west Russia.
MNEPR, according to Russia's Foreign Ministry, is on the agenda when Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrives in Oslo for the one-day visit on November 12th.
But signing MNEPR may not be enough for the eventual release of the funds. Russia has to be also one of the contributors and allocate 10m euros of the 62m fund. So far, Russia has only pledged to do so, without giving a final confirmation. Such a confirmation may be complicated, considering the new spending earmarked for the security forces included in Russia's 2003 budget.
Other nuclear programmes are in danger The discussion of the 2003 budget is still pending in the Russian State Duma, but the initial reactions indicate that there will be no major opposition to cuts in nuclear safety. So far, there have been no reports on other specific nuclear safety projects to be buried in 2003, but those are usually the first candidates to be deleted as the past 10-year experience shows.
At the same time the Russian Ministry for Nuclear Energy, or Minatom, which has responsibility for managing radioactive waste, is prioritising commercial projects, or so it thinks, such as building new nuclear power plants and developing nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure; including the grand plan to import foreign spent nuclear fuel to the Russian Federation for storage and eventual reprocessing. What it hopes for is unclear. Miantaom's development of projects and obtaining international funding for them has been slow and some times such projects were simply stalled.
----
25 years since signing of Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage
2002-11-13
Bellona
http://www.bellona.no/en/20393.html#27125
The Russian State Duma should ratify the Convention this month. At present more than 30 countries, including former Russian republics Georgia, Armenia, At present more than 30 countries, including former Russian republics Georgia, Armenia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Moldova have ratified the Convention . It is planned to establish an intergovernmental insurance "pool" to secure the risks of radiation accidents. Its main tasks will be to create common conception in the field of nuclear insurance, common policy towards foreign insurers, integration in the world system of nuclear insurance and protection of the investors. The project is however hampered, as Russia has not ratified it yet although it was signed on May 8, 1996. The Vienna Convention was adopted on April 29, 1963 at the international conference and was open for signature on May 21, 1963. Its objective is to establish minimum standards to provide financial protection against damage resulting from peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It entered into force on 12 November 1977. The party operating the installation is fully responsible for the possible incident. The compensation limit has been recently increased up to $400 million.
-------- britain
NUCLEAR PLANT IS CLOSED BY SEAWEED
Heather Greenway
Scottish Daily Record,
Nov 13 2002
From: Christine Patronik-Holder - patronikholder@safeenergy.org
SCOTLAND'S biggest nuclear power station was crippled last month by a seaweed invasion.
The Torness plant in East Lothian was forced to close for a day when the weed wreaked havoc on a reactor.
Politicians were stunned that the power station had to close, not for a breakdown in scientific engineering, but for the seaweed clogging up a pipe.
Green MSP Robin Harper said: "If Scotland's nuclear industry grinds to a halt because of seaweed, what hope is there for its future ?
"It again shows that the nuclear industry is unreliable."
The reactor had only been up and running for three weeks when seaweed blocked the pipe which takes in seawater used in a cooling process.
Both reactors were forced to close in the summer because of cooling problems and fears were raised about British Energy's future.
The closure triggered the company's current financial crisis.
A red-faced British Energy spokesman said: "We thought we were home and dry with Reactor One until the seaweed got stuck in the intake pipe.
"When that happened, it triggered a safety mechanism which shut down the reactor for a day until we could clear away the weed.
"Once the blockage was cleared and we could take in water, we started the reactor again."
Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "It's laughable that British Energy is blaming nature - not itself - for this latest breakdown."
-------- depleted uranium
Depleted Uranium:
UN Confirms Radioactivity in Bosnia
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru,
2002-11-13
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/13/39419.html
The United Nations Environment Program task force inspecting Bosnia-Herzegovina have claimed that DU can create an increase of uranium concentration 100 times natural that of levels in groundwater. Three sites have been declared as radioactive and have been cordoned off.
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has claimed that 10,800 rounds of DU ordnance were fired into its territory by NATO aircraft during the Bosnian War in 1995. This weaponry is coated with Depleted Uranium to give shells a greater penetration into their target. Despite numerous claims by NATO that this weaponry is safe, there have been a growing number of scientific reports which would suggest that this is not the case. Inhalation of DU dust has been stated to be the cause of raised levels of cancer in areas where DU has been deployed, namely in Southern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and southern Yugoslavia. In Iraq, up to 500,000 children have died in the area targeted by DU during the Gulf War of cancer-related illnesses.
Pekka Haavisto, the Chairman of the UNEP team in Bosnia, declared that "We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks". He added that the areas where radiation has been detected should be abandoned until they are decontaminated.
The team has admitted that there are potential hazards to people who come into contact with DU. Meanwhile, World Health Organisation experts have been visiting hospitals in Bosnia, performing tests on patients who claim to have been contaminated by DU. The UNEP team has warned that troops should not be deployed in the areas contaminated.
The more NATO denies that DU is dangerous, the more evidence is overturned which states the contrary. In deploying DU, NATO blatantly disregarded the terms of the Geneva Convention, which states that weapons that leave a lasting on the battlefield must not be deployed. NATO is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and, were the world order based upon justice, its leaders would be liable to stand trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
This, however, will never happen because the United States of America considers that its citizens are above international justice, leaving this country a free reign to go globe-trotting on a gung-ho mission of arrogance and abject disrespect for international norms of behaviour.
----
Grisly US crimes raise questions on Gulf War illness
By Sarah Edmonds
13 Nov 2002
AlertNet / Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05284168?view=PrinterFriendly
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The Beltway sniper, the University of Arizona gunman, the Fort Bragg murders, the Oklahoma City bomber.
The terrible and unfathomable crimes behind the headlines vary widely but all share a common thread that researchers say may merit a closer look: With the exception of one of the four Fort Bragg killings, all are alleged to be have been committed by veterans of the 1991 Gulf War.
There are too many unanswered questions to draw broad conclusions about whether the men connected with these crimes were suffering from the illnesses that research has shown afflict some 25 to 30 percent of the 697,000 U.S. Gulf vets.
However, studies have turned up evidence of injury to the brain in some ill veterans of the conflict, including damage to the deep brain structures where personality is determined.
What caused this damage, and other symptoms vets describe, isn't clear, but researchers have said possibilities could include environmental toxins, low-level nerve agents, depleted uranium, oil fires, mustard gas, stress as well as vaccines given to soldiers to guard against biowarfare and nerve gas.
Dr. William Baumzweiger, a California neurologist and psychiatrist who specialized in Gulf War ailments, said he was not surprised that so many of the high-profile crimes were tied to Gulf veterans. "Gulf War veterans have a very high frequency of turning to violence to deal with frustration," he said.
A TERRIBLE TOLL
Baumzweiger testified for the defense at the trial of Gulf veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson, convicted last year of the 1998 murders of his girlfriend and her three children in Florida.
But Hutchinson does not win the prize for infamy in this group. That goes to Timothy McVeigh, executed in 2001 for the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.
September and October of this year brought two more high-profile cases involving veterans.
John Allen Muhammad, along with a young accomplice, has been accused of killing 10 people in and around Washington D.C. He is also charged with shootings in Louisiana and Alabama and could be linked to others.
Then in late October, failing Arizona nursing student Robert Flores, who served in the Army during the Gulf War, mowed down three of his professors before shooting himself.
Earlier in 2002, four servicemen allegedly killed their wives at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the base home to the storied 82nd Airborne Division. Three of the four were Gulf War veterans.
Last week, a military team probing the Fort Bragg deaths blamed marital woes, deployment stress and reluctance to seek counseling.
"REASONABLE HYPOTHESIS"
Privacy Act rules make it impossible to find out if any of the Gulf veterans in these high-profile crimes ever officially complained of symptoms, and researchers are unaware of any statistics that indicate that rates of violence among Gulf veterans are higher than the general populace or than other combat veterans.
One researcher, who declined to be identified, said of speculation about a link between Gulf War illnesses and the crimes: "It's a very reasonable hypothesis and it's reasonable because these people came back with personality change, difficulty controlling anger and so forth."
"The question is over 10 years, what is the expected incidence of violent shooters, violent criminals, in the population of 695,000 former military people? I don't know the answer to that. Nobody knows ... although these are such high-profile crimes, you'd expect that the incidence of that would be extremely rare," he added.
Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans' advocacy group, said more study of Gulf War ailments is clearly needed.
"Do Gulf War veterans as a whole demonstrate psychotic, homicidal, suicidal behavior? I don't think so. Are there individuals that have demonstrated those? Yes, absolutely," he said, adding that while the vast majority of those who suffer from Gulf War ailments will never turn violent, he receives despairing letters and telephone calls daily from sufferers.
In an emotion-choked voice, Robinson read from one such letter, written by a veteran in jail for a vehicular homicide that killed a close friend. It said in part: "I'm nervous all the time. I feel like my body is doing 200 miles an hour. I am always fatigued, my body shakes and sweats. I believe that because of the physical symptoms, I am a basket case. Anxiety and depression rule my life."
NOT JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1999 -- the latest year for which the data are available -- just 16 people aged 25-49 committed murder per 100,000 population.
There is no breakdown according to military service.
"There is no evidence to support the notion that Gulf War veterans are more violent than any other group," said Barbara Goodno, a spokeswoman at the Defense Department.
"We should be careful not to jump to conclusions. Approximately 697,000 veterans served their country in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. It would be an injustice to them to automatically link the aberrant acts of a few to their military service," she added.
But enough questions linger that with the country teetering on the brink of another conflict with Iraq, researchers think these violent crimes may merit further study.
"These high-profile shooters, that looks like it could be something new. And certainly the Gulf War personality change thing could account for it," the researcher said.
The U.S. government does not acknowledge a Gulf War "syndrome" -- a group of signs and symptoms adding up to a unique condition. It admits there are a number of illnesses that have emerged in veterans of the conflict but until recently it has put these down to psychology.
Symptoms can include difficulty with concentration, thinking and memory, severe body pain, chronic diarrhea, sleep disturbances, night sweats, hot flashes and personality change, said Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, a member of the research advisory council on Gulf War illnesses to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"It's common for these guys to have become (different)," Haley said. "Their wives will tell you, 'This isn't the guy who went over. He's had a personality change.' And they typically come back (with) difficulty controlling temper, often depressed, withdrawn, not wanting to be around other people, difficulty dealing with complex environments."
Haley said it is "too big a leap" to go from this to a conclusion that Gulf War brain injuries could be prompting this small group of men to commit terrible crimes.
POTENTIAL BREAKTHROUGH
According to a report the advisory committee issued to the Department of Veterans Affairs in June, the ailments of veterans of the relatively short conflict "cannot be adequately explained by deployment stress, wartime trauma or psychiatric diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder."
This year's advisory committee report said neurological problems are a key category of Gulf War illnesses and that there is enough evidence "to conclude that this line of inquiry represents a potential breakthrough that could be pursued."
Last month, Veterans Affairs issued a statement citing the research on a possible neurological link and committing $20 million in fiscal 2004 to further study. The department will set up a brain-imaging center to probe the issue.
"It's not inconceivable that certain individuals may have severe neurological impairment," said veterans' advocate Robinson. "I can't sit here and tell you that that's the reason they commit crimes. But ... what we do need to do is continue the research that the VA has said it is going to authorize."
----
Officials say missing Uranium not harmful
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=28004275
HYDERABAD: A 7.35-kg block of 'depleted uranium'which is missing from the Central Crime Station (CCS) poses no danger to human health, officials have assured.
The block of depleted uranium-molybdenum alloy, seized two years ago by the police,was stored in the CCS store room along with two other pieces,weighing about 35 kg in all. The material had been part of recovered property in a theft case.
According to the police, the CCS hired a few persons recently to whitewash the premises and the workers said to have removed the material along with other scrap during the process. Dispelling any fears of radioactivity from the missing block, additional commissioner (crime) M Alagar said experts of the Nuclear Fuel Complex had said that the material did not have any radio-activity left.
The police seized the pieces from two scrap dealers, Mohd Ghouse Mohiuddin and Md Khaza Moinuddin, who collected it from the Bibi Cancer Hospital, Malakpet, in Nov. 2000. The hospital had disposed off the metal as scrap.
----
Three Sites Remain Radioactive from Bosnian War
November 13, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-13-02.asp
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Three sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina that were targeted with weapons containing depleted uranium during the mid-1990s are still radioactive enough to pose a risk to human health, a team of 17 experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said Tuesday.
In response to a request by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a team assembled by the UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit carried out its scientific assessment in October.
American soldier holds a Scud missile containing depleted uranium (Photo courtesy U.S. Deployment Health Support Directorate)
Using sensitive instruments to measure surface radioactivity at 14 sites, the UNEP team confirmed the presence of radioactive "hot spots" and pieces of DU weapons at three locations - the Hadzici tank repair facility, the Hadzici ammunition storage area and the Han Pijesak barracks.
In addition to the 14 sites that were examined, the team could not to enter one site on their list due to safety concerns over nearby landmines.
The team took some 200 environmental samples - including 47 surface soil samples, three full soil profiles, three penetrators, one full DU bullet, 24 air samples, 42 water samples, and samples of lichen, bark, moss, mushroom and vegetables - to be analyzed for radioactivity and toxicity at laboratories in Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Depleted uranium (DU) is a byproduct of nuclear power which has been used in heavy tank armor, anti-tank munitions, missiles and projectiles. The substance has 60 percent of the radioactivity of natural uranium and "significant chemical toxicity," according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
NATO fired more than 10,000 rounds of DU ammunition during the air strikes in 1994 and 1995. U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft fired approximately 10,000 30mm DU rounds, some 3.3 tons of DU, at 12 sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994-1995, according to the U.S. Deployment Health Support Directorate.
Pekka Haavisto measures radioactivity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Photo courtesy UNEP)
Pekka Haavisto, who heads the UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit, is a former Finnish environment minister. He warned that two of the sites - the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks - have not been cleaned of radioactive materials and dust although people are working in these facilities.
"The UNEP team detected DU related materials and DU dust inside buildings that are currently used by local businesses or, in the case of Han Pijesak, by troops as storage facilities," Haavisto said.
Haavisto said UNEP will approach the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina about cleanup of the radioactive sites.
"When people are working in buildings that have not been decontaminated, unnecessary risks are being taken, and, therefore, we will discuss with the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities the need for decontamination inside the buildings currently in use as a first precautionary step," he said. "Such a job should be carried out by experts."
A medical sub-team composed of the experts from WHO and the U.S. Army Center visited three hospitals and examined medical data and statistics in the national and regional ministries of health, with their full support.
Bombed out church in Hadzici (Photo courtesy http://www.spc.org.yu/)
In parallel to the medical sub-team, an expert on radioactivity from the International Atomic Energy Agency assessed the overall situation on radioactive sources in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This included regulations on handling, radioactive sources in use and storage of radioactive wastes.
UNEP team members found that members of the general public are not aware of what DU ammunition looks like and the dangers it can pose.
UNEP will discuss with the national civil protection authorities the possibility of offering an easy-to-read flyer on the issue to de-mining personnel, local authorities involved in DU work, and interested members of the public.
The UNEP DU assessment is funded by the governments of Italy and Switzerland. The final results will be published in a UNEP report in March 2003.
-------- france
Most of France would prefer no nuclear power: poll
London
Platts
13Nov2002
http://www.platts.com/nuclear/index.shtml
Most French people would like to do without nuclear power, according to a poll Wednesday. 61% of those polled "don`t want this energy used in the future," according to results of the IFOP poll carried exclusively in French daily Le Monde. Some 62% would pay between 3% and 10% more for their electricity to "help abandon nuclear power," according to the poll of 1005 people aged over 18.
At the same time 59% of those polled think "nuclear is the cheapest way of producing electricity" and two thirds believe abandoning it would have "negative consequences" for France's exports, economic development and France`s energy independence. The poll, commissioned by French electricity industry leaders, also found that most were "sceptical of the quality of official information" on nuclear.
-------- germany
Train loaded with nuclear waste arrives in Germany
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11132002/reu_48934.asp
WOERTH, Germany - A train carrying reprocessed German nuclear waste crossed the border from France Tuesday and police said they were expecting thousands of demonstrators to try to slow its passage to a storage site.
German police said there had been no disturbances so far to the transport of the 12 containers filled with 1,300 tons of reprocessed nuclear waste on their way to temporary storage in the north German town of Gorleben.
But police said they were expecting many thousands of antinuclear activists to try to prevent the train from reaching Gorleben, north of Hanover. The train arrived in Woerth after crossing the border from France Tuesday afternoon.
There have been reports of minor injuries in scuffles between police and demonstrators in Gorleben this week.
The 660-yard long train left the French reprocessing plant of La Hague Monday and is expected at its final destination Wednesday.
Protesters gathering near Gorleben and said they were determined to make the final leg of the journey as difficult - and expensive - as possible.
Hundreds of police from several German states were securing the tracks along the way, trying to prevent protesters from blocking the train's path.
During the last transport a year ago, protesters chained themselves to the tracks and delayed the train by several hours.
"We have a smaller police force in place this time, but are prepared for a more violent confrontation," a police spokesman said. Some 15,000 police were needed to guard the route last year in the largest peacetime security operation in post-war German history.
Security costs have reached some 23 million euros (US$23.20 million) in past years.
-------- inspections
Iraq Accepts United Nations Resolution;
Weapons Inspectors Leave for Baghdad on Monday
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/13CND-IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 13 - Iraq said very reluctantly today that it would "deal with" a Security Council resolution obliging it to disarm and allow United Nations weapons inspectors to begin work, but it also denied that it possessed any prohibited weapons.
Most Security Council nations welcomed Baghdad's statement, which came two days before a deadline set in the resolution that the council unanimously approved last week. Iraq's response came in a nine-page letter that its United Nations ambassador, Muhammad al-Douri, delivered today to the office of Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The White House dismissed as fabrication Saddam Hussein's contention that Iraq possesses no weapons of mass destruction.
Earlier, shortly before the Iraqi envoy announced that Baghdad had accepted terms of the resolution, Mr. Bush told reporters at a cabinet meeting that he was firm in what he expected.
"Zero tolerance - about as plain as I can make it," he said. "We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period."
A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the administration was taking a cautious approach to Iraq's promise to comply. "We have heard this before, and now it's time to see it by their actions," he said.
In pages of hostile language, the Iraqi letter calls the United States and Britain, allies who wrote the resolution, "the gang of evil" and accuses them of manipulating the Security Council with "the biggest and most wicked slander" against Iraq.
In the text, Baghdad provides the bare minimum expression of agreement to allow the inspections to go forward under the tough terms of Resolution 1441.
But it was enough for the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Anan, who said after meeting with President Bush in Washington that Iraq had met the first deadline set out in the resolution.
"Iraq has accepted," Mr. Annan said outside the White House. "I think the word, the acceptance and inviting the inspectors to come in, is there, so we take it that they have accepted it."
Mr. Annan said that the first inspectors would head for Iraq on Monday and that he and President Bush had agreed that their reception would be the first true test of Iraq's compliance.
"The issue is not the acceptance but performance on the ground,"` he said. "I urge the Iraqis to cooperate with them and to perform. I think that is the real test we are all waiting for.
"The president is determined that the disarmament will take place and that we should press ahead with our plans."
As Mr. ad-Douri arrived at the United Nations this morning to deliver to deliver the letter, he told reporters: "The letter is saying that Iraq will deal with the Security Council Resolution 1441 despite its bad contents. We are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable. We are eager to see them perform their duties in accordance with international law as soon as possible. This is the essence of the letter.
"We explained in the letter the whole Iraqi equation dealt with here within the United Nations activities," Mr. al-Douri went on. "So we tried to explain our position, saying that Iraq have and have not and will not have any mass destruction weapons." He added that Iraq therefore had no concerns about the inspectors' return to the country.
In answer to a reporter's question, he said, "Iraq is clean, yes."
Asked why Iraq had accepted the resolution after so adamantly opposing the idea, Mr. al-Douri said it was "the right time to give the answer right now."
"We choose always the peaceful ways and means," he continued. "And this is part of our policy, vis-à-vis to protect our country, to protect our nation, to protect the region also from the threat of war, which is real. And everybody knows about it."
Similar comments were made in Baghdad, where a television announcer, reading from an Iraqi Foreign Ministry message to Mr. Annan, said: "We would like to inform you that we have decided to deal with the resolution 1441 despite the bad intentions included in it.
"We are ready to receive inspectors to carry out their mandate in making sure that Iraq has not produced mass destruction weapons while they were absent from Iraq since 1998."
Following the Iraqis' statements, United Nations officials in Vienna said that the first weapons inspectors would leave for Iraq on Monday.
The Security Council unanimously adopted the resolution last Friday after months of diplomatic lobbying by the Bush administration, which had threatened to attack Iraq if the United Nations failed to act.
Resolution 1441 gives Iraq a "final opportunity" to comply with disarmament resolutions and establishes a rigorous regimen of inspections, giving United Nations inspectors immediate access to any site they want in Iraq. The text warns of "serious consequences" if Iraq commits any other violation - meaning war. But such violations must be reported by the inspectors to the Council, which will meet to decide the next step.
The Security Council had given Baghdad until Friday to respond to the resolution.
The Iraqi Parliament, called into special session to discuss the issue, rejected the resolution on Tuesday but left the way open for Mr. Hussein to accept it.
--------
Arms Inspectors in Iraq Will Use High-Tech Gear
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/middleeast/13INSP.html
In the four years since United Nations weapons inspectors left Iraq, the digital revolution has made their gear smaller, lighter, faster, more precise and easier to use. Millions of dollars in commercial and antiterrorism funds are accelerating the rush of technology, opening new vistas for weapons sleuthing.
Experts say the advances are giving the inspectors a technical edge in the hide-and-seek world of Iraqi weapons, as well as new leverage to disarm Iraq.
Among the new developments are these:
¶Commercial spy satellites so powerful that their photos can reveal details of factories, buildings and arsenals.
¶Miniature sensors that can constantly monitor the air, water and soil for telltale signs of weapons of mass destruction.
¶Newly portable germ detectors that can quickly check installations for anthrax, plague and other deadly biological agents.
¶Powerful radar systems that can penetrate the ground to scan for signs of tunnels and underground bunkers.
Human knowledge and experience will still be paramount in any inspection regime, Hans Blix, head of the United Nations inspection teams, recently told trainees in Vienna, according to transcripts made public by the United Nations. But, he went on, "powerful new means of verification" are now coming into play.
His view was supported by military analysts who pointed out that if the equipment can find strong evidence of prohibited weapons work, rather than weak or ambiguous clues, that could prove important in making the case for action against the government of President Saddam Hussein.
But even as Mr. Blix hailed technology's new power, military analysts emphasize that Iraqi weapons makers have had four years to refine their deceptions and thoroughly understand the United Nations approach.
As one Defense Intelligence Agency expert, John Yurechko, said recently of the Iraqis, "They now have experienced the inspection regime" and have whetted skills to counter it.
Weapons inspections began in Iraq in 1991, but after repeated failures of cooperation between the United Nations and Baghdad, the inspectors left in December 1998, hours before the United States and Britain began three days of air strikes.
Four years later, questions abound over what Baghdad has done during the inspection hiatus. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a worst-case estimate, says Iraq may be rebuilding its nuclear program, renewing production of deadly nerve agents like sarin and VX, and racing to make germ weapons.
"Most elements are larger and more advanced than before the gulf war," the agency said of Baghdad's germ warfare effort.
Before the 1991 war, according to the United Nations, Iraq made at least 5,125 gallons of botulinum toxin, the deadliest substance known to science, and 2,245 gallons of anthrax agent - enough to kill everyone on earth several times over.
The United Nations now has about 250 experts trained to search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. About 100 of them will be on the mission at any one time.
Some weapons experts say the technical edge may help newer inspectors compensate for their relative lack of experience.
But Tim McCarthy, who went to Iraq 15 times as a missile inspector and now works at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, was cautious about the new technologies, pointing out that they could also beguile with the hope of quick breakthroughs while ultimately wasting time and financial resources.
"There's lots of whiz-bang gadgets out there, and sometimes they don't get you to the central issues," he said.
A vital tool, Mr. McCarthy added, is the interview. Hundreds of Iraqi scientists are thought to know about programs to develop biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, and inspectors who interview them must develop the knack to detect a lie.
"It comes down to the nose," Mr. McCarthy said.
United Nations officials would not describe the new surveillance technologies in detail, for fear of tipping their hand. For example, Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said making public the exact specifications for, say, a laser sensor, might let the Iraqis develop ways to confuse it.
"The sensors are much more sensitive," Mr. Buchanan said. "Camera resolution is better. Equipment that might have needed a room now might fit into a briefcase."
The general advances, experts said, are driven by the same digital revolution that has drastically increased the power of computers, cellphones and cameras. In tandem with these changes, new interest and redirected government financing have brought rapid advances in weapons detection.
"Four years ago the interest in defending against chemical and biological arms wasn't nearly as great," said K. David Nokes, head of national security programs at the Sandia National Laboratories, based in Albuquerque, N.M.
Germ detectors, too, have dramatically improved. The most accurate ones map a microbe's genetic material with the same kind of equipment used to decode the human genome. In 1998, when the inspectors left Iraq, only large laboratories could do such analyses.
But by 2001, after years of biodefense funding, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had perfected a two-pound device known as Hanaa, for Hand-Held Advanced Nucleic Acid Analyzer, which can recognize a microbe by its DNA, helping eliminate identification failures and false positives.
"Having sensitive detection technology like Hanaa is very useful," said Page O. Stoutland, a Livermore counterterrorism official. "The traditional way is to take lots of samples and then send those home. But that takes days or weeks to sort out."
By contrast, he said, Hanaa, now being made commercially, works in about 20 minutes, "letting you go back quickly if you get an interesting reading."
Miniaturization has also shrunk radiation detectors, which can help track nuclear materials. The inspectors have acquired two types made by Quantrad Sensors, a company in Madison, Wis. Its portable Ranger unit can detect several radioactive isotopes, while its Alex unit can identify a wide range of metals with potential nuclear uses.
"They're simple to use," said Martin Janiak, the company's head. "You turn them on and go."
As for the new commercial satellites, which came into being in 1999 and now number a half-dozen, their cameras can see objects on the ground as small as two feet wide, revealing roads, buildings, pipelines, bridges, tanks, jets and missiles. The United Nations is using images from at least two of the commercial craft, officials said, and began experimenting with them about two years ago.
While countries at times supply the United Nations with images from their own reconnaissance satellites, a United Nations report last year praised the new self-reliance. "Material from multiple sources," it said, "serves to provide the commission with a broader and independent assessment capability."
In September, after studying photos of Iraq, weapons inspectors identified several nuclear-related areas of new construction or other unexplained changes. "We are very curious to see what is under the roof," said Jacques Baute, leader of the nuclear inspectors.
A newer technology on the horizon is pilotless reconnaissance drones, which the Security Council has allowed under the resolution adopted last Friday on new Iraq inspections. Among other things, the American military has used the drones for photographic surveillance.
Private experts said drones or piloted surveillance craft might carry gear to help the inspectors find underground bunkers, a top issue on the agenda.
Last year, an Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said in an interview that he personally worked on secret installations for biological, chemical and nuclear arms in underground vaults. Other Western intelligence has echoed that theme.
Special radar systems can penetrate the ground. Other devices can detect variations in the earth's gravitational field, revealing underground voids. Still other sensors can detect magnetic fields generated by electrical gear in tunnels up to 100 feet deep.
Tim Brown of GlobalSecurity.org, a private group in Alexandria, Va., said it was very likely such equipment would be used in Iraq. "If they don't go in with something like that," he said, "they're not going to be perceived as serious."
In a talk last month in Vienna, Mr. Blix of the United Nations said the new inspections, aided by the new technologies, could be thorough but not perfect in ferreting out hidden Iraqi arms.
"It is not possible to examine every square meter in a big country, or every basement, or every computer program, or archive, or every truck on the road," he said. "All that is attainable is a high degree of assurance that there are no malign bugs or bombs."
-------- korea
North Korea Won't Give Ground in Nuclear Flap
November 13, 2002
By Eric Hall
Reuters
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID=1728582#
HONG KONG - North Korea said on Wednesday it would not make the first move to defuse a dispute over its nuclear weapons program, and insisted Washington sign a non-aggression pact first.
Consul General Ri To Sop, North Korea's top diplomat in Hong Kong, also told Reuters that any move to halt crucial shipments of oil to Pyongyang would be considered a hostile act. He did not elaborate.
"We want the United States to legally guarantee a non-aggression treaty, then our side is ready to address the U.S. security concerns," Ri said in an interview.
His statement was a strong reassertion of Pyongyang's position ahead of a key meeting on the oil shipments issue on Thursday between the United States, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union.
At the meeting in New York, the United States will try to halt essential oil exports to North Korea for its admission that it still had an active nuclear weapons program, in abrogation of a 1994 agreement.
Asked whether Pyongyang would withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty if oil shipments were stopped, Ri said: "I cannot give you an exact answer but I can say this is another hostile act... the neighboring countries are talking about not stopping."
Washington has said Pyongyang clearly violated the 1994 agreement to freeze the nuclear weapons work in exchange for oil shipments and two light water reactors that cannot be easily used to produce weapons-grade material.
But the United States has not yet managed to line up clear support from Japan, South Korea, Russia and China to force Pyongyang to comply.
South Korea said earlier Wednesday it favored continuing oil shipments through the winter to the beleaguered North Korean economy.
Since October, when the United States presented North Korea with evidence it was enriching uranium, which is part of the process in making an atomic bomb, Pyongyang has not only admitted it was doing so, but has stressed that it was part of its sovereign right to defend itself.
Ri would not confirm or deny that his country had a working nuclear weapon, or one that could easily be armed or delivered, but added: "So, U.S. pressure to scrap or dismantle our nuclear weapons ... is completely absurd logic."
"Now we have our defensive capabilities to defend our sovereignty and our right to existence...against the hostility from the United States."
Asked what concrete steps North Korea would take if the United States agreed to its insistence on a non-aggression treaty, Ri said: "This would be discussed."
"The U.S. assertion that the DPRK (North Korea) should halt first the nuclear program means a surrender... Since a surrender means a death, it can only lead to a confrontation," Ri said.
But he added: "Now, we are ready for war or dialogue. We prefer dialogue but we will not move first. We will not beg for recognition from the hostile side."
----
North Korea Demands US Sign Non-Aggression Pact
VOA News
13 Nov 2002,
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=C4328558-E8E1-40F6-82B1D6C3E0981271
A North Korean diplomat says Pyongyang will not answer U.S. concerns about its nuclear program until Washington signs a non-aggression pact. The comment by North Korea's Consul-General in Hong Kong, Ri To Sop, comes as a U.S.-led consortium, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, prepares to meet Thursday in New York to discuss the future of fuel oil deliveries to the communist state.
Mr. Ri told reporters Pyongyang wants dialogue with the United States, but will not address U.S. security concerns until Washington signs a non-aggression treaty.
U.S. diplomats said last month that North Korea has admitted violating a 1994 agreement in which Pyongyang pledged to halt its nuclear development program, in exchange for energy assistance. In response, Washington reportedly plans to call for KEDO, which comprises the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, to stop fuel oil deliveries to North Korea.
But South Korea's Unification Minister told reporters that fuel oil deliveries should continue until at least January.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.
----
Pakistan's N. Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny
Aid to Nuclear Arms Bid May Be Recent
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45961-2002Nov12?language=printer
The Bush administration has evidence that suggests Pakistan assisted North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program as recently as three months ago, much later than previously disclosed, according to sources in the administration and on Capitol Hill.
While the administration has taken a hard line against North Korea, demanding that it verify it has dismantled its efforts to enrich uranium before U.S. officials engage in further discussions with the communist state, it has taken a much softer tack against Pakistan. Publicly, officials have suggested that if Pakistan, a key ally in the war against terrorism, had provided help to North Korea in the past, it changed its behavior after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.
But in reality, U.S. officials say, the administration believes Pakistan continued to trade nuclear technical knowledge, designs and possibly material in exchange for missile parts up until this summer, when the administration concluded North Korea was secretly trying to construct a facility to enrich uranium for a bomb. Administration officials would not discuss the extent of the evidence, but they said it involves highly suspicious shipping trade.
"Let's put it this way: There were still shenanigans going on three months ago," an administration official said. Intelligence officials who have briefed members of Congress have also disclosed the administration's concerns that Pakistan's illicit nuclear trade continued well into this year.
Pakistan's involvement in North Korea's program has put the administration in an extremely delicate position. Under U.S. law, if the president determines that a country has delivered nuclear enrichment equipment, material or technology without international safeguards, the United States must suspend economic and military aid. Such sanctions were imposed against Pakistan in 1979, but last year President Bush waived them and other nuclear-related sanctions after the Pakistani government agreed to help in the fight against al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban militia after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Rather than press Pakistan for a full accounting, U.S. officials said they have noted the latest evidence -- which Pakistani officials have argued is innocent -- and believe they have put Pakistan on notice that future violations will not be tolerated. Intelligence officials plan to closely scrutinize transactions between Pakistan and North Korea.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has personally guaranteed that questionable transactions with North Korea will cease, and U.S. officials believe he would like to halt the nuclear leakage. But they also question whether he has full control of all entities that could be doing business with North Korea. "In the end, we may find he is only partially truthful," the official said.
Several experts said it will be difficult to understand the scope of the North Korean program -- which by some estimates would not be operational for several years -- unless the administration demands that Pakistan disclose exactly what it might have provided to North Korea.
"We have asked North Korea to verifiably dismantle its nuclear enrichment program," said Robert J. Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation in the Clinton and Bush administrations and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "How will we know if North Korea has done that unless we know precisely what Pakistan has transferred to North Korea?"
Pakistani officials publicly insist that they have not helped the North Korean program in any way.
"No material, no technology ever has been exported to North Korea," said Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States. "I can assure you there is no way we would underestimate the seriousness of such an international breach."
Qazi said that while Pakistan has engaged in trade with North Korea, "nobody can tell us if there is evidence, no one is challenging our word. There is no smoking gun."
Last month, U.S. officials confronted North Korea with their conclusion that it had a covert nuclear program. Then, North Korea unexpectedly admitted it.
Pakistan produces highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, and U.S. officials have long suspected that Pakistani nuclear scientists had disturbing ties to the North Koreans.
In the face of Pakistan's vehement denials, U.S. officials have been publicly anxious not to suggest that Musharraf, who seized power in 1999 in a bloodless coup, is anything but a close friend and ally.
Indeed, asked last month about reports that Pakistan provided assistance to North Korea's program, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer did not confirm the reports but noted: "Many things that people may have done years before September 11th or some time before September 11th, have changed. September 11th changed the world and it changed many nations' behaviors along with it."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has been careful publicly not to suggest when Pakistan may have helped North Korea. Instead, he said that as recently as last month, he spoke to Musharraf "about the need not to assist North Korea in any way and have any kind of relationship with North Korea now that would give them the wherewithal to develop those kinds of weapons or the means to deliver them."
Powell said he purposely did not dwell on past behavior because "the past is the past and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. I'm more concerned about what is going on now. We have a new relationship with Pakistan."
Leonard Weiss, a former Senate staffer who specialized in nonproliferation issues, said there is "no question" that, under a 1976 law known as the Symington amendment, Pakistan would qualify for sanctions if it aided North Korea's program. But he said that if officials decide not to probe too deeply, "they avoid the political problem of having to give them a waiver."
-------- russia
Russia to remove all spent nuclear fuel from Kola Peninsula within 6 years
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11132002/ap_48938.asp
MOSCOW - Russia will remove all the spent nuclear fuel currently stored on and near the Kola Peninsula, an Arctic region bordering on Norway, within the next six years, the governor of the region said.
Murmansk region governor Yuri Yevdokimov said that the government had instructed the Defense Ministry and Atomic Energy Ministry to clean up the fuel that had been used by Russia's nuclear submarine fleet, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday. Yevdokimov's comments came while President Vladimir Putin was in Norway on a state visit.
In July, the European Union, Russia, and Norway pledged an initial 110 million euro (US$109 million) to support a cleanup fund to rid Russia's northwestern coast of nuclear waste from the submarines.
Norway has financed construction of a special train to carry nuclear fuel from submarines; helped build a radioactive waste recycling facility in Murmansk, about 1,450 kilometers (906 miles) north of Moscow; and taken part in renovating a spent nuclear fuel storage site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian-Norwegian border, ITAR-Tass said.
A representative of the Norwegian-based environmental group Bellona said Tuesday that the organization expects progress during Putin's visit on the preparation of a framework agreement meant to avert the danger of nuclear pollution in the Barents Sea and the White Sea off northwestern Russia, the Interfax news agency reported.
"Western governments, particularly Scandinavian governments, are concerned about the danger posed by what is called the world's largest nuclear cemetery, the Barents Sea, in which dozens of submarines with nuclear reactors have been dumped," Interfax quoted Igor Kudrik, a Bellona manager in St. Petersburg, as saying.
Norway suggested drafting and signing the agreement, called the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program for Russia, in 1999, Kudrik said.
Bellona says there are about 100 Russian submarines with 300 nuclear reactors aboard in the waters of the Kola Peninsula, Interfax reported. It said Norwegian environmentalists estimate the total cost of cleaning up the peninsula and the nearby Russian region of Arkhangelsk at $2 billion.
----
Typhoons being repaired to operate until 2010
Igor Kudrik, Andrey Mikhailov,
Bellona
2002-11-13
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/vessels/27221.html
OSLO-SEVERODVINSK - Russian navy may face nuclear-free seas by 2010; repairs Typhoon class submarines to use them as test platforms for weapons, which are still in design.
A Typhoon class submarine in Severodvinsk. Bellona archive http://www.bellona.no/data/b/0/27/22/9_1407_1.jpg http://www.bellona.no/data/b/0/27/23/0_1407_1.jpg
A Typhoon class submarine - Arkhangelsk (TK-17) - left the docks of Sevmash shipyard (Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk county) and headed to its home base in Zapadnaya Litsa at the Kola Peninsula on November 9th 2002. The submarine has been under repairs and upgrade for one year.
The first submarine within Typhoon class - TK-208 - commissioned in 1981 has been under repairs in Severodvinsk since 1990. Its repairs and upgrade seem to near the end as the submarine was taken out of the dry dock and is undergoing pre-sea trial testing. During this long 12-year resting period submarine's ID-number TK-208 was replaced with name Dmitry Donskoy. The sea trials of the submarine are scheduled for spring 2003.
The longish repairs of Dmitry Donskoy were apparently not caused only by the lack of funding. As recently as this year Russian admirals started to refer to Dmitry Donskoy as to the submarine of the forth generation. This submarine built in early 1980 belonged at that time to the third generation. No submarines of the forth generation have been constructed in Russia so far.
A Typhoon class submarine - Arkhangelsk (TK-17) - left the docks of Sevmash shipyard (Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk county) and headed to its home base in Zapadnaya Litsa at the Kola Peninsula on November 9th 2002. Severodvinsk There were also reports that Typhoons, or at least upgraded Dmitry Donskoy, will be used as testing platforms for new weaponry.
The type of weaponry is a big dilemma for the Russian navy, however.
It all started, when the first forth generation submarine - starting from this year it is referred to as the fifth generation submarine - Yury Dolgoruky, Borey class armed with ballistic missiles, was laid down at Sevmash in 1996.
The initial plans suggested that Yury Dolgoruky would be carrying Bark missiles. The maker of Bark class missiles was the Makeev Design Bureau, which designed almost all Soviet/Russian sea-based ballistic missiles. The Bureau had been working on this missile since 1982. The Bark-class missiles were a dramatically modified version of the SS-N-20 currently installed on Typhoon class submarines. But after a number of unsuccessful tests, Bark missiles were discarded in 1998. The design of a new ballistic missile system was given Moscow Institute of Thermo-equipment (MIT), which designed land based solid fuel ballistic missiles of Pioneer, Topol and Topol-M classes. The new missile system was nicknamed Bulava-30.
Back in 1996, it was said that Yury Dolgoruky would completed in 2002. Today a new date - 2007 - is set, given Bulava-30 is ready by that time.
And here enter Typhoons. Out of six originally built Typhoons, three, as Russia's Navy officials maintain, are slashed for decommissioning. In 1996, TK-12 and TK-202 and in 1997 TK-13 were taken out of regular service and placed on reserve.
TK-202 arrived to Severodvinsk first week of July 1999 for decommissioning. The work on this submarine is being funded by the US Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or CTR. This autumn spent nuclear fuel was to be unloaded from TK-202 reactors at the Zvezdochka shipyard (Severodvinsk) defuelling site. The construction of the defuelling site was also financed through CTR. TK-12 and TK-13 are lining up for their turn to be scrapped.
The remaining three Typhoons, TK-208, TK-17 and TK-20 may be used to ensure that by 2007 Russian navy is not having nuclear-free-seas situation and finally commissions the fifth generation submarine.
Programme until 2010 According to Russian daily Vremya MN, the funding of the Russian navy until 2005 will focus on keeping in operation the existing submarines, including SSBNs of Delta-III class in the Pacific and Delta-IV class in the Northern Fleet. Along with that the funding to complete Yury Dolgoruky should be provided in full. But 2010, a serial production of Borey class submarines should start, as suggested by the current programmes.
The share of the navy in the defence budget, however, has not exceeded 11 to 12% during the past years. The naval lobby has been trying hard to raise navy's budget allocations up to 25%, but so far those attempts have not been successful. Given the current state of affairs, the strategic forces of the Russian Federation are slowly migrating towards the shore. At least the land-based strategic forces have a modern missile system - Topol-M - which the navy lacks so far for the reasons mentioned above.
Putin's favouritism of the naval forces has proven during the years of his presidency to be more of PR-related, rather than having any practical application. The bulk of the funds earmarked for the navy go to ensure the timely payments of allowances, whereas only a small fraction is spent on development.
Typhoon class submarines - overview K-no. (fabric no.) Ship yard -Laid down -Launched Active service -Start date -End date Accidents/Incidents Present condition
TK-208 (Dmitry Donskoy) Sevmash 30/06 1976 23/09 1979 12/12 1981 1986: Reactor cleaning unit leakage 1987: Reactor cleaning unit leakage The submarine has been under upgrade and repairs at Sevmash shipyard since 1990. Repairs intensified in 2000, but the submarine is still at the shipyard. Scheduled to enter service in spring 2003
TK-202 Sevmash 01/10 1980 26/04 1982 28/12 1983 1996 No data Under decommissioning with CTR funds at Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk since 1999. Defueling started in June 2002.
TK-12 Sevmash 27/04 1982 17/12 1983 27/12 1984 1996 No data Laid-up in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-13 Sevmash 05/01 1984 30/04 1985 30/12 1985 1997 No data Laid-up in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-17 (Arkhangelsk) Sevmash 24/02 1985 Aug 1986 06/11 1987 in service No data Repaired at Sevmash 2001-2002. Based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-20 Sevmash 06/01 1986 Jul 1988 Sep 1989 In service No data Based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
County Exec Suggests Takeover Of Indian Point
Spano Wants Plant To Go From Nuke To Gas
November 13, 2002
NBC
http://www.wnbc.com/news/1783877/detail.html
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said Wednesday that the county is considering taking over the Indian Point nuclear power plants and replacing them with gas-fired generators.
Spano, saying the eventual cost could run into the billions of dollars, announced he was budgeting $500,000 for a study to investigate how the county could buy or condemn the twin power plants in Buchanan. The reactors' safety and security has been a hot-button issue in Westchester since last year's terrorist attack on neighboring New York City.
"Replacing Indian Point's nuclear reactors will make us all feel safer," he said. "If we buy the facility -- or if needed, condemn it -- and replace it ... we can be masters of our own fate."
Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Corp., the owner of the plants, said the company "expects to operate Indian Point for a long time to come" as a nuclear power site.
He said he expects Spano's study to show that "electric rates would rise through the roof" if the county took it over.
Spano said Westchester voters would make any final decision, in a referendum. He acknowledged there were many questions about such a conversion, and "that's what the study is for."
-------- utah
Hansen's Effort to Block Nuclear Waste Dies
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
BY ROBERT GEHRKE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
From: Bruce Baizel <baizelb@earthlink.net>
WASHINGTON -- Rep. James Hansen's backdoor bid to stop the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah's west desert died Tuesday after House and Senate negotiators dropped his provision from the final version of a defense bill.
The Utah Republican quietly slipped language into the Defense Authorization Bill that would have created 500,000 acres of wilderness in Utah's west desert, beneath the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range.
The wilderness designation would have blocked shipments of highly radioactive waste to a proposed temporary storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. But the provision was opposed by environmentalists, who said the wilderness language was too weak and gave too much power to the Pentagon.
Democrats were furious that Hansen usurped the normal committee process and crammed his language into the bill. Electric utilities that operate nuclear reactors that produce the waste also lobbied against the measure.
"Utah had its last, best chance to stop the introduction of dangerous, high-level nuclear waste into our community and they let their radical wilderness agenda stop it," Hansen said in a statement. Hansen's language became one of a handful of sticking points that bogged down the defense bill, despite having the support of the Defense Department, the White House and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.
A number of compromises were offered, including one that would have merely directed the Pentagon to study the impact of storing nuclear waste beneath the bombing range and the potential health and safety effects if there is an incident on the range.
"We offered every compromise in the book and we answered every concern, but it appears they would rather have 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in our back yard than give an inch on their extreme position on wilderness," Hansen said.
On Tuesday, lead negotiators from the House and Senate decided to trash the controversial measures -- including Hansen's proposal -- in order to get a bill passed as Congress meets in a short postelection session this week.
Hansen is retiring at the end of the year and without his seniority and position on the key House defense and resources committees, it could be difficult to bring back similar legislation next year.
Larry Young, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), said Hansen overreached with his proposal and angered too many important members of Congress with his backdoor tactics.
"It was doomed to failure because he took on too many opponents simultaneously," Young said. "It's bittersweet to see the outcome. It was a bad public lands provision that he inserted into the House version. It needed to be stopped and it was. In the process he's willing to sacrifice public safety."
Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of electric companies, is seeking a license to store 44,000 tons of highly radioactive fuel from commercial power plants on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation, 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. State officials and Utah's congressional delegation have been searching for ways to block the proposal.
Hansen pointed to the recent crash of two F-16s as evidence of the danger of storing nuclear waste on the test and training range. Young said his group supports the concept of using wilderness designations to stop the nuclear waste shipments. But the group objected to Hansen's language, which would have allowed the military to close parts of the wilderness areas, given the Secretary of Defense veto power over land uses, and would have prevented the wilderness designation of lands that SUWA says should be considered.
-------- us nuc waste
Homeland Bill Gets Boost
3 Key Senators Agree to White House Plan for Department
By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45457-2002Nov12?language=printer
The drive to create a federal Department of Homeland Security, one of President Bush's top priorities since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drew close to fruition yesterday as key senators agreed to a slightly revised version of the White House's proposal.
The breakthrough came when three centrist lawmakers -- Sens. John Breaux (D-La.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) -- agreed with some apparent reluctance to a White House plan to resolve a dispute over worker rights, which had held up the bill for two months. The developments, on the opening day of Congress's post-election session, reflected Bush's dramatically enhanced clout since Republicans expanded their House majority and won control of the Senate in last week's elections.
With GOP leaders embracing the deal and Democrats not standing in the way, the House could approve the legislation as soon as today. The Senate, under Democratic control for several more days, could grant final approval later this week or early next week.
The agreement would give Bush nearly all the flexibility he sought to bypass civil service rules in hiring, firing and promoting the 170,000 workers from 22 agencies that would be combined into the new department. The president also could waive collective bargaining rights when national security was deemed to be at stake.
The White House made modest concessions. Government unions, for example, would get a bigger role than Bush originally wanted in handling disputes over work rules and a limit on collective bargaining waivers. Unions would have 30 days to respond to proposed work rule changes. If no agreement is reached, the department would have to send a letter to Congress explaining the dispute, which would allow for congressional protests.
Another 30 days would be allowed for mediation. But in the end, the department could implement changes it saw fit. The department would have to issue findings in writing before bargaining rights could be waived, and waivers would be limited to four years, allowing for review by a new administration.
The proposal drew a sharp dissent from the American Federation of Government Employees, the large union of federal workers. "The American public needs to know that the president's so-called compromise . . . is a Trojan horse," said union President Bobby L. Harnage. "It has nothing to do with improving security. All it does is strip federal workers of the right to defend themselves in the workplace."
The three centrist senators, who earlier offered a compromise with stronger worker protections, said the new proposal recognizes political realities while improving earlier White House positions. "This was the best we could get, knowing it would pass" anyway, Breaux said.
The bill also would allow commercial airline pilots to carry firearms in their cockpits, a proposal passed earlier by the House and Senate in separate bills.
But it does not include a Senate-approved provision calling for an independent blue-ribbon commission to look into the nation's preparedness for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. A move to include the commission in separate intelligence legislation has also stalled.
The compromise came as the 107th Congress reconvened for a lame-duck session to wrap up unfinished business. The 108th Congress will convene in January, with Republicans deposing Democrats in the Senate and expanding their majority in the House.
In yesterday's first order of business, Vice President Cheney swore in Dean Barkley as the interim senator from Minnesota. Barkley, an independent, was appointed to succeed the late Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.) for the rest of the current Congress after Wellstone was killed in a plane crash Oct. 25.
Barkley declined to align himself with either party, which had the effect of keeping Democrats in narrow control of the chamber for a few days at least. Republicans will take over later this month when Missouri certifies last week's results in which James M. Talent (R) ousted Sen. Jean Carnahan (D) in a special election.
Most of the Senate's day was taken up with tributes to Wellstone, whose empty desk stood covered in black and topped with a vase of white flowers. Barkley hailed Wellstone's "unrelenting energy to fight the fight" and said he planned to carry on Wellstone's effort to expand insurance coverage for mental illnesses during his few days as a senator.
Despite optimism about passing the homeland security bill, two of Bush's other priorities -- spending bills for the current fiscal year and terrorism insurance legislation -- appeared to have little chance in the lame-duck session.
After meeting with Bush at the White House, House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.) told reporters that the bill to provide federal support for buying insurance against terrorist attacks is likely to go over to the next Congress. It has been held up by a dispute over limitations on punitive damages in lawsuits.
Instead of passing appropriations bills, Watts said, Congress will probably approve temporary funding through early January, when the new Congress will convene.
But Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.) said he was "very hopeful" that long-delayed legislation to overhaul bankruptcy laws will be approved. He said he also sees a "melting of the iceberg" on judicial nominations in the Senate, where Republicans have objected to Democrats' blocking of some of Bush's appointees.
-------- us politics
Pakistan-N.Korea Tie Seen as Tricky Issue for Bush
Reuters
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51138-2002Nov13?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's tough line on North Korea's nuclear weapons program differs sharply from its delicate approach toward Pakistan, a U.S. ally in the anti-terror war who some suspect has provided Pyongyang with key technology.
Despite Pakistan's reported role in Pyongyang's program, there is no indication President Bush or the Republican-led Congress plan to impose sanctions or any other punishment on the South Asian nation.
Quite the contrary.
Pakistan has received more than one billion dollars worth of direct and indirect U.S.-backed assistance since signing on as a pivotal player in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, war against al Qaeda and other extremist groups.
"Republicans will go along with the administration in trying to stay focused on the war on terrorism and Pakistan is important on this," said a Republican Senate source.
"I don't think people will want to take the administration on," he added, in explaining why no punitive action toward Pakistan is expected on Capitol Hill.
In contrast, the administration is pushing to have the international community suspend if not halt outright heavy fuel oil shipments to the North Korea and to inflict other economic and diplomatic pressures that would force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
U.S. concerns about Pakistan's nuclear arms capability and weapons-related exports to so-called rogue states were once a centerpiece of relations between Washington and Islamabad.
Such worries were muted after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with U.S. officials saying that if Pakistan had troubling entanglements before, it has changed.
CONCERNS REVIVED
But these concerns surfaced again after the stunning revelation last month that North Korea has a nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States.
Pyongyang's program involved producing highly enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
It was discovered when Washington learned the Stalinist regime was trying to acquire large amounts of high strength aluminum that could be used in gas-centrifuge facilities, one of several technologies for producing enriched uranium.
U.S. officials and experts say Pakistan is a likely source of technology and expertise for North Korea.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday the United States has evidence suggesting Pakistan assisted North Korea's nuclear program as recently as three months ago -- much later than previously disclosed.
If true, it could call into question Pakistan's commitment to the war on terrorism. Bush last January branded North Korea part of the "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.
It could also confront the administration with a difficult choice. Under U.S. law, the president must suspend economic and military aid if a country transfers nuclear technology to nuclear programs without international safeguards.
Pakistan was sanctioned for such behavior in the past but penalties were waived after the anti-terror war began. It denies making nuclear-related transfers to North Korea.
NO PROOF
On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official took pains to make a case that the administration had no conclusive proof of Pakistan's involvement with North Korea.
"There's no evidence that the government (in Islamabad) was helping (North Korea) within the last three months or before," he told Reuters.
"That's not to say they might not have...I'm not saying we are convinced there is no Pakistani government involvement," he said.
He said the implication of the Post story is "we know (Pakistan) is involved and we're not saying it publicly because it would upset the Pakistanis. But the fact is, while we know the technology North Korea is using is the same as Pakistan, that doesn't mean that is proof the government is involved."
North Korea could have acquired its expertise and materiel from other sources, said the official, who left open the possibility the culprit might be Pakistani individuals or entities rather than the government itself.
The lab operated by Abdula Qadir Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's bomb, was sanctioned by Washington in 1998. As head of the nation's nuclear program, he made the Ghauri as a carbon copy of North Korea's Nodong missile.
Khan is alleged to have established front companies and smuggling operations to gather and sell nuclear gear and blueprints. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf forced his resignation last year.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said last month he was assured by Musharraf "Pakistan is not doing anything" now to aid Pyongyang. But Powell would not discuss the past.
The Clinton administration sometimes drew what some argue are similar distinctions with China, contending the government was unaware of weapons-related transfers by various entities and individuals and could not control them all. This approach was harshly criticized by some Republicans now in power.
Frank Gaffney, an influential Republican defense analyst, said he generally believes "we should be demonstrating to people there are costs for doing these sorts of things."
But he said "it's tricky with Musharraf (because) he's one of the few reeds we're leaning on" in the anti-terror war.
One approach might be to punish only the Pakistani intelligence services "which I suspect is up to its eyeballs in this thing," Gaffney suggested.
----
Bush wins on homeland security bill
By Joseph Curl and Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021113-14803141.htm
President Bush, capitalizing on the Republicans' historic victory in last week's congressional elections, yesterday won the battle with the Democrat-controlled Senate over his plan to create a Department of Homeland Security.
Senate Democrats led by John B. Breaux of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska signed off on a White House-backed proposal, which is expected to pass overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, where it has been bogged down for weeks.
"No one wants to be on record opposing homeland security," a Senate Republican leadership aide said of Mr. Bush's plan to consolidate more than 100 federal agencies into one umbrella department to oversee the security of Americans.
The revised bill is expected to pass the House today, but procedural hurdles will slow the bill in the Senate. The leadership aide said Republicans hoped it would receive a vote by Friday, but it could be tied up until early next week.
The breakthrough came after Republican congressional leaders met at the White House yesterday with Mr. Bush, who has made its passage the top priority of the lame-duck session.
Mr. Bush opened the meeting by telling the lawmakers they should "see the election for what it was" and get working quickly on homeland security and terrorism insurance, said a senior White House official.
The White House last night voiced cautious optimism.
"We remain hopeful that Congress will get legislation to the president before they leave," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said.
With nearly 75 percent of Americans supporting the creation of a Homeland Security Department - a key factor in the 2002 elections, in which Republicans bucked decades-old trends and picked up seats in both congressional chambers - Democrats capitulated.
Now that Republicans will take over the Senate, Mr. Breaux and Mr. Nelson, along with liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, saw the inevitability of the department's creation.
"In the end, most members of the Senate want to pass homeland security," said the three senators, who conceded the Republican takeover of the Senate puts the party in a superior negotiating position.
"We will vote for this proposal when it reaches the Senate floor," they said in a joint statement last night.
Their shift gives supporters of the Homeland Security Department 52 votes, a majority in the 100-member Senate.
One senior Bush administration official said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle gave up his opposition because he didn't want a prolonged fight over what he now sees as a lost cause.
"With the president's wins last week in the House and the Senate, he now knows this is a big-time loser," the official said.
Ranit Schmelzer, spokesman for Mr. Daschle, said the senator believes the measure's worker protections do not go far enough, but he would bring the bill to the Senate floor because the new department is needed. She said the bill appears to have enough votes to pass the Senate.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, had used parliamentary procedures before the election to put the biggest roadblocks in front of the new department. Aides to Mr. Byrd did not know last night whether he would try to slow passage of the legislation.
The president's proposal, passed this summer by the House, has been bottled up for months in the Democrat-controlled Senate, which wanted to prevent the president from suspending some bureaucratic job protection for the 170,000 employees of the planned department.
The president's proposed legislation calls for the creation of an umbrella department to combine more than 100 federal agencies from 22 departments, including the Border Patrol, Secret Service and Coast Guard.
Mr. Bush demanded the power to suspend certain job-protection benefits for federal employees if they stood in the way of protecting Americans. He wants to be able to exempt unionized workers from time-consuming collective-bargaining agreements and bypass civil service rules in promoting, firing and transferring workers.
"The enemy moves quickly, and America must move quickly," Mr. Bush said in a speech earlier yesterday at the District's Metropolitan Police Department Operations Center. "To meet the threats, I must be able - and future presidents must be able - to move people and resources where they're needed, and to do it quickly, without being forced to comply with a thick book of rules."
Much of the language remains in flux but the compromise was summarized on a one-sheet briefing paper.
The proposal contains a national-security waiver that retains the president's discretion to exempt agencies and subdivisions from collective bargaining when it conflicts with the president's ability to protect homeland security. However, the president is required to notify Congress of his reasons for exercising this authority 10 days before it takes effect.
Under the new proposal, unions must get 30 days' advance notice, would have an opportunity to object and could take their case to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. But if no agreement is reached, the department could carry out its initial intentions, aides said.
In a nod to Democrats, the legislation would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted - flexibility that administration officials have argued they will need.
•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
----
Finishing homeland security
EDITORIAL •
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021113-280771.htm
As he criss-crossed the country on behalf of Republican candidates in the waning days of the campaign, President Bush repeatedly emphasized the importance of Senate passage of his proposal to create a new Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Bush's forceful criticism of the Senate's failure to join the House (which voted overwhelmingly in September to approve a clean homeland security bill ) played a key role in the defeat of two incumbent Senate Democrats - Max Cleland of Georgia and Jean Carnahan of Missouri. Their successful Republican challengers, Rep. Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and former Rep. Jim Talent in Missouri, made Mr. Cleland and Mrs. Carnahan's failure to cooperate with the president on this issue central features of their campaigns in final weeks before the election.
In the wake of the Republicans' remarkable showing at the polls, the president has continued to drive home the point that it's time for the Senate Democrats and Republicans to join the House in passing a homeland security bill he can sign.
Ever since Sept. 4, when the Senate took up the homeland security bill being pushed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Majority Leader Tom Daschle, that chamber has been the major stumbling block to passage of reform legislation. The problem has remained the same: The Democratic Senate, acting with the support of powerful unions like the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, has attempted to force Mr. Bush to choose between two alternatives. He would sign homeland security legislation that would have stripped him of powers that every president since Jimmy Carter has had codified in law - to exempt from union control Homeland Security Department employees working in sensitive national security-related areas. Or, he would get no bill at all.
Before the election, supporters of Mr. Bush, led by Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican, and Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat - the only Senate Democrat to break with his party's leadership and side with Mr. Bush on the issue - sought in vain to work out a compromise with Democrats Sens. Benjamin Nelson and John Breaux (negotiating on behalf of Mr. Daschle) and the lone Republican not to support Mr. Bush: Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee. As the two sides neared agreement on the issue, however, Mr. Daschle and the unions killed the deal. That was before the election.
After the Republican victory at the polls, Mr. Daschle and the unions appear to have relented somewhat, and serious negotiations over a compromise resumed last weekend involving the Gramm-Miller and the Breaux-Nelson team. It is possible that a new compromise deal could reach the House floor today and the Senate floor by the end of the week.
Now, it is only a matter of time before this new department becomes a reality. The leading obstacle right now appears to be outgoing Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, a staunch opponent of Mr. Bush's homeland security bill, who may try to prevent it from being voted on - just as he did the Iraq resolution last month. Mr. Byrd's office told The Washington Times yesterday that the senator has made no decision on this issue. It's time for Mr. Daschle to do what he did last month on Iraq: Move immediately to ensure that this essential piece of legislation is wrested from Mr. Byrd's clutches and voted on.
----
Congress Moves Toward Approving Security Agency
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/politics/13CND-CONG.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - The House today hurriedly approved a revised Homeland Security bill that reflected a new agreement with the White House altering civil service rules, brushing aside Democratic objections that it had added several last-minute provisions benefiting businesses and Republican interests.
Changing an earlier vote, the bill would now allow American companies that have moved offshore in order to evade taxes to contract with the Homeland Security department. It would also add protection against liability suits for airline screening companies and many other businesses that contract with the department.
Having approved the largest issue in the post-election session, House members also passed a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating through January. Many members of both parties had hoped the House would pass at least a few of the pending appropriations bills the government uses to keep operating, but House leaders said they would take up the bills once the new Congress convenes next year.
As expected, Republican House members elected Tom DeLay of Texas, formerly the majority whip, to the new post of Majority Leader. Many members said his influence over the caucus could make him the most powerful majority leader in decades, exceeding even the House Speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, who nominally outranks him.
Democrats are set to conduct their leadership elections on Thursday, and are likely to choose Nancy Pelosi of California, now the minority whip, as their leader. This morning, however, a new candidate for the job emerged, demonstrated the continuing disagreements among the Democrats over how to respond to their losses in last week's midterm elections. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, a moderate Democrat who has served since 1983, said she would run for the position in the hopes of drawing votes from members who object to Ms. Pelosi's emphasis on fund raising.
"We will never raise more money than the Republicans - never," said Ms. Kaptur, who is generally considered a liberal but opposes abortion rights. "We must elevate the non-money wing of the Democratic Party and create populist symbols to convey our message."
Ms. Kaptur joins Harold Ford of Tennessee in contesting the Democratic leadership election, for which Ms. Pelosi claims to already have sufficient support to win.
--------
Congress Sends Bush Defense Authorization Bill
November 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-congress.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Pentagon readied for possible war with Iraq, Congress on Wednesday sent President Bush a $393 billion defense authorization bill that expands benefits for combat-injured veterans, but falls far short of the sweeping increases veterans groups sought.
The Senate approved by a voice vote the final bill that the House of Representatives also passed unanimously on Tuesday as Congress rushed to wrap up a lame duck session by week's end.
The compromise worked out with the White House allows military retirees with any disabilities resulting from enemy fire or with major disabilities from combat-related activities including hazardous duty and simulated battle training to receive full retirement and disability payments.
The bill also authorizes programs of the Pentagon including operations in Afghanistan, clears the way for a 4.1 percent pay raise for military personnel, and frees money to help control material in Russia and elsewhere that could be used for weapons of mass destruction.
``We stand poised on the brink of possible military action'' against Iraq, said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat. ``This bill will provide the men and women in uniform with the tools that they need and the pay and benefits that they deserve.''
The Pentagon already is getting a nearly 12 percent funding boost for Bush's military buildup and the war on terrorism from a defense budget bill that Congress passed before it recessed for the Nov. 5 election.
The last-minute deal on military benefits eases a long-standing ban on veterans receiving both disability payments and pensions in full, but is short of the phaseout or repeal of the ban for all veterans with service-related disabilities sought in earlier House and Senate bills.
DOLLAR-FOR-DOLLAR
Currently there is a dollar-for-dollar reduction from retirement pay for each dollar received in disability pay.
Levin said the compromise would cost about $2 billion over 10 years, compared with the $18.5 billion cost of the original House plan and the $58 billion cost of the Senate plan which the White House said were unacceptable.
Heading into the Nov. 5 congressional elections, Democrats made a campaign issue of Bush's threat to veto higher veterans' benefits and the bill stalled until the lame duck session.
The panel's top Republican, John Warner of Virginia, said that with current budget deficits the final deal ``was a balance and I think we came out about where we should be, establishing a beach-head on this issue.''
Warner, the incoming committee chairman after Republican election wins gave them control of the Senate, said he would hold hearings on a possible further easing of the ban.
He also said he planned hearings on whether the doctrine against having the military engage in local law enforcement should be relaxed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The final defense bill rebuffed much of the Pentagon's demand for broad exemptions from environmental rules, but did exempt it from protections for migratory birds during training activities if it avoided unnecessary killings.
It also contains compromises struck earlier this year to fund Bush's program to develop a national missile defense program but under increased congressional oversight, and to back the Pentagon's decision to kill the 40-tonself-propelled Crusader howitzer, but save a number of jobs and technologies from the $11 billion program.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Ethiopia faces famine
By Tim Butcher
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-11484280.htm
JOHANNESBURG - A famine several times worse than the 1984-85 disaster is looming over the Horn of Africa, threatening more than 15 million people with starvation, the Ethiopian prime minister has said.
"The facts speak for themselves," Meles Zenawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Monday. "During the famine we had in 1984-85, the number involved was roughly a third to one half of the number of people involved now. So if that was a nightmare, this will be too ghastly to contemplate."
If his prediction proves accurate, millions could die on a scale not seen in Africa since the crisis that revolutionized humanitarian fund raising in 1985.
While governments dithered, the public pledged millions of dollars at Live Aid events. Images of emaciated Ethiopian children with bloated stomachs, too tired to brush flies away from their faces, were shown extensively on TV, prompting an unprecedented response.
Bob Geldof, the motivating force behind Live Aid, said news of an imminent famine in Ethiopia showed government-to-government aid programs had once again failed.
"Live Aid, if it did nothing else, put this at the top of the political agenda, and yet we see 15 million people dying in one country alone. That's frankly untenable. It means that all your nostrums hitherto haven't worked."
Attempts to raise humanitarian aid to head off any new crisis are likely to be hampered by "donor fatigue" among Western nations, which have already given generously this year to relieve a famine in southern Africa. Ironically when that famine was declared, aid experts reported that food aid had been offered by the Ethiopian government, which then claimed to have a surplus. That now appears premature.
The main cause of the crisis is the failure of two seasonal rains. "The current drought is unique because the short rains and the long rains have failed," Mr. Meles said.
Normally Ethiopia has two rainy seasons, a short season from February to April and a longer one from June through September. This year the short season failed and the longer one began late and finished early.
The World Food Program, the United Nations' main humanitarian relief agency, warned last week it could run out of food aid for Ethiopia as early as next month unless governments respond quickly with aid.
The Red Cross and the Red Crescent societies began a $11 million appeal Monday to help 120,000 people already suffering in Ethiopia.
U.N. agencies in Ethiopia estimate more than 6 million Ethiopians - or one person in six - are threatened by the drought. But according to Mr. Meles, as many as 15 million Ethiopians could be at risk.
Even though a peace treaty ended the 1998-2001 war with neighboring Eritrea, strained relations between the two sides continue to hamper humanitarian work in the region.
During the last major emergency relief operation before the war, more than 80 percent of incoming aid passed through Eritrean ports, which are now off limits to shipments bound for Ethiopia.
-------- arms sales
Bulgaria Blocks Illegal Arms Sale;
Ukraine Hedges on Iraq Arms Probe
World In Brief: EUROPE
Reuters
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46293-2002Nov12?language=printer
Bulgaria Blocks Illegal Arms Sale
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria, a candidate for membership in NATO, has uncovered and halted illegal exports of weapons parts to Syria, the government's press office said yesterday. Syria is on a U.S. State Department list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism.
Terem, a state-owned plant, sold parts for armored personnel carriers via Turkey under a contract signed with a Washington-registered company, according to the government's press office and a report by BNR state radio, which quoted the National Service for Combating Organized Crime.
The Balkan state, repeatedly criticized for violating arms embargoes over the past decade, has worked hard to improve its image by preventing sales to blacklisted states in a bid to secure an invitation to join NATO, whose leaders convene next week in Prague.
Western diplomats have warned Bulgaria, once a major Soviet bloc arms exporter, that any indiscriminate arms sales might hurt its chances for membership.
--
Ukraine Hedges on Iraq Arms Probe
Reuters
KIEV, Ukraine -- A Ukrainian official, citing the need to keep state secrets, said the country could offer only limited cooperation with a U.S.-led probe into charges it sold arms to Iraq.
The United States says its relations with Ukraine have been plunged into a "crisis of confidence" over what it has described as Ukraine's failure to prove it did not sell an aircraft detection system to Baghdad in breach of U.N. sanctions.
Steven Pifer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, last week said U.S. and British experts investigating the alleged sale had received limited cooperation from Ukraine.
But Viktor Medvedchuk, President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, said the United States had no right to expect Ukraine to breach its national interests and state secrets.
"We are ready to cooperate further with the experts if Ukraine's national interests as a sovereign state are respected," he said. "They should take into account the fact that we have national interests and state secrets."
"Under these conditions, we will be ready to continue our work with experts to seek answers to their questions and to show once more that Ukraine is not involved in a sale or a transfer of arms to Iraq."
-------- biological weapons
America Wants to Use Biological Weapons on Iraq
Good for the goose, but not good for the gander
2002-11-13
Dmitry Litvinovich
PRAVDA.Ru
Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/13/39446.html
The American government is concerned about the information that Iraq ordered a large quantity of medicines from Turkey. Those medicines are allegedly capable of protecting Iraqi soldiers from chemical weapons.
The Iraqi order was for 1.25 million atropine doses, as the New York Times wrote. The size of that order is a much larger than the quantity that could satisfy medical needs. This drug is usually used on to treat heart attacks. However, it can also be used as to protect people from chemical weapons. It can be particularly used to protect people from nerve gas poisoning.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher claimed that the United States is very concerned about Iraq's order of atropine, which was made beyond the scope of humanitarian needs. Boucher suggested that such a large purchase of medicines might testify to Iraq's preparation for chemical warfare.
For the time being, it is not known if Iraq already purchased the antidote or just placed an order. The Turkish government stated that they do not know anything about such order. Atropine is not included on the list of drugs banned by the international embargo on Iraq.
It is quite possible that the situation described by the New York Times is true. However, it is not ruled out that a group of American gentlemen and one lady (Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice) simply went mad over the fact that Saddam ruined their game plan.
It is an open secret that Americans are developing new kinds of biological and chemical weapons. This information periodically appears in the press. Therefore, there can be one conclusion made: the United States did not stop such programs at the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, America increased funding for these illegal programs. We are also certain that Russia has not stopped such programs. The mysterious gas that was used during the storming of the theater in Moscow proves this very well. Nevertheless, America's policy in this respect is rather surprising. The United States claims that the so-called "axis of evil" continues to develop "weapons of mass destruction," whereas America itself is absolutely pure and clean and has nothing like that at all.
In addition, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has recently published an article about the gas that was used to destroy the hostage-takers in Moscow. It was particularly said that the Russian gas was nothing in comparison with the Pentagon's secret experiments. The author of that article wrote that America has cluster bombs that spray gas. Genetically altered anthrax spores that can withstand antibiotics are also being created. There are also cocktails of gases developed: blends of drugs, tear gas, and pepper gas. There is also supergas, the shells of which can be shot from a mortar.
The newspaper referred to information that was received from two British scientists. They said that it is the USA and Great Britain are working on the new generation of chemical and biological weapons. Below, we present some facts.
First, the CIA has been conducting secret research in the field in order to catch up with Russians, who never observed the chemical weapons treaty of 1997. Washington expressed protest in July of the current year against the inspections of the international organization (the UN Committee for Chemical Disarmament) that were meant to guarantee the supervision of the fulfillment of the above-mentioned treaty. The United States even forced the chairman of that committee resign, thinking that he was too "pro-Iraq." The Pentagon has a department for non-lethal arms, which denies any secret developments. However, the budget for the development of chemical and biological weapons was considerably increased for the year 2005.
The US Defense Department has acknowledged the use of sarine nerve gas in one of Hawaii's forest reserves in 1967, when the Cold War was underway. It was a part of the experiment with chemical and biological weapons within the framework of Project 112. The project was implemented from 1960 until 1970. The Pentagon performed 150 tests for checking the efficiency of new weapons of mass destruction.
The recent confession of the US Defense Department is meant to warn American veterans that they could have been subjected to chemical weapons back in those days. Yet, the Pentagon did not say which military units were implicated in those tests, or if there were any casualties. Some of these tests were carried out onboard US Navy ships. The Pentagon sent letters to some 1.4 thousand naval veterans, recommending them to undergo medical examinations.
-------- britain
Troops could replace firefighters
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-78749895.htm
LONDON - Britain announced plans yesterday to deploy 19,000 troops in the face of growing terrorist threats after firefighters refused to postpone a nationwide strike starting tomorrow.
"This strike certainly endangers British citizens," Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, who ordered the soldiers to man fire stations and other emergency services, told the British Broadcasting Corp.
"Many who are now to act as firefighters should have been training for the defense of the world against rogue states like Iraq and against al Qaeda," he said.
The Firemen's Union walked out of talks with the government yesterday, labeling an 11 percent raise over two years as "derisory." The deal was offered to induce more modern practices and extra duties, and was far higher than for any other sector of government employees.
The nationwide firefighter's strike comes at a time when the government is issuing unprecedented warnings of attacks by terrorists through truck bombs being driven onto cross-channel ferries.
Britain has also revealed plans to send thousands more troops to the Persian Gulf within the next three weeks to bolster war preparations there.
A spokesman quoted Prime Minister Tony Blair as describing the firefighter's strike plan as "wrong, unjustified and unnecessary." He also warned that the strike "has the potential to be very damaging" to the country's security and well-being.
Mr. Blair was widely expected to face the unions down rather than accede to costly pay settlements that could derail his economic policy, analysts said.
The strike by 50,000 firefighters -only the second time that firefighters would go on national strike - presents the biggest industrial challenge to the Blair administration since it was swept to power two elections ago.
With a plethora of other state employees, such as mail carriers and teachers, also engaged in or considering industrial action, Britons are recalling the famous "Winter of Discontent," a series of strikes by public service workers in 1978 and 1979, which brought down a previous Labor government.
The strike would last two days. However, further strikes, each lasting eight days, would follow Nov. 22 and Dec. 4 and Dec. 16 unless the increasingly bitter dispute is settled.
Other workers, including those with the London Underground, could refuse to work if they believe their safety is at risk.
Unions have said they will support members taking action, which could spark disputes across British industry.
On Monday security guards and independently managed firefighters at the country's major airports announced a series of one-day strikes starting Nov. 28, also over pay. That raised the specter of travel chaos in the weeks around Christmas.
-------- business
India to be world's tech hub, says Bill Gates
PTI
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=28152740
BANGALORE: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday that India was on course to becoming a global hub for 'mission-critical activity' in software as it was increasingly earning a reputation for its quality work and delivery on time.
Addressing developers here, Gates, on his maiden visit here, said two-three years back, if companies decided to do their mission critical work in India, it was then considered to involve enormous risk but no longer.
Gates said that in the last couple of years, Indian companies such as NASDAQ-listed Infosys Technologies Limited, based here, had built a worldwide reputation and earned a name for delivering quality work on schedule.
In the next few years, he predicted, firms in the US and Europe would be sure to insist that Indian companies be considered for doing all mission-critical work.
-------- chemical weapons
States seek to salvage global ban on germ weapons
Story by Richard Waddington
REUTERS SWITZERLAND:
November 13, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18561/story.htm
GENEVA - Talks to strengthen a global ban on biological weapons resumed this week after a year-long break amidst mounting pressure on Iraq to disarm or face a U.S.-led military strike.
But despite warnings that galloping advances in biotechnology have sharply raised the risks of germs being used as weapons of war, states were expected to do little more than agree to keep meeting in coming years.
Members of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) were picking up the pieces of their treaty a review conference last December was suspended in disarray, with the United States refusing to continue negotiations on new, tougher rules, including onsite inspections.
The BWC outlaws the use, production and stockpiling of biological or toxic weapons, but unlike other international weapons treaties, it has no verification mechanism to enable members to check on cheating.
Washington rejects inspections because it says they would expose its industrial and military installations to spying without giving assurance treaty violations would be detected.
The move by the United States, which has accused fellow members Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea of violating the treaty, brought years of discussions on a legally binding new protocol to the 30-year-old pact to a shuddering halt.
In its place, delegates from the 146 states to have ratified the BWC are studying a five-point plan by conference chairman Tibor Toth of Hungary, whose main aim is to ensure continued meetings ahead of the next review conference which is not scheduled until 2006.
"This is a rescue operation. It is the result of my sustained efforts to bridge differences between the delegations," Toth told a news conference.
HEATED DEBATE
Under the Toth plan, members would meet annually to thrash out specific issues, such as making treaty violations a criminal offence in individual countries, but there would be no further talk of inspections or protocols.
Washington had wanted the Geneva meeting to do no more than agree to meet again in 2006. If the debate got heated, as last year, it had threatened to accuse more treaty members of violations in addition to the four states already fingered.
Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea all deny having or having sought biological weapons.
But Iraq is known to have been seeking germ weaponry before United Nations inspectors were sent in to track down its weapons programme at the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War. Last Friday, the U.N. Security Council ordered Baghdad to give unfettered access for a new series of inspections or face the consequences.
Diplomats said the Toth plan could win widespread support because the only alternative was continued deadlock.
Although the United States was officially sticking to its demand to halt all talk until 2006, they said they were confident that Washington could back the plan as long as there was no attempt to add other elements.
In an effort to plug some of the gap left by the failure to agree any verification system for biological weapons, a group of eight non-governmental organisations (NGOs) announced a new international monitoring network to track moves in bio-weaponry.
-------- colombia
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca Leaves Crop, Farmers in Its Dust
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45987-2002Nov12?language=printer
LA HORMIGA, Colombia -- Three months of the most intensive U.S.-sponsored aerial spraying to date has devastated coca crops in this key cocaine-producing region of southwestern Colombia.
The spraying has covered more than 115,000 acres of coca here in Putumayo province since President Alvaro Uribe took office on Aug. 7, sending herbicides down on nearly the entire crop in the world's richest coca-producing farmlands. The aerial assault has accomplished what several previous Colombian governments employing more benign measures have failed to do: virtually eliminate the large and small coca crops in Putumayo. Past spraying had reduced coca cultivation only temporarily, until peasants replanted the lucrative crops. But the sustained intensity of this round appears to have killed many farmers' incentives to try again. More than a dozen coca farmers interviewed along a 40-mile stretch of fertile river valley, many of whom had experienced spraying at least once before, said they did not plan to replant coca and risk losing time, money and the food crops that are frequently grown alongside it.
If that holds true, the results would represent the first lasting success for the $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug aid package for Colombia. The aid, mostly in military resources, has been concentrated in this remote province, 350 miles south of the capital, Bogota. The damage to these coca fields might not immediately reduce the amount of cocaine arriving in the United States, much of which is already in the international pipeline, but the supply could decline in the year ahead if the drug crop does not return, authorities said.
The success, however, has come at a high cost for thousands of peasants who live here on small farms cut out of the jungle.
"It is all gone here," said one farmer, Juan Carlos Gaviria, 52, whose three acres of coca in the village of Achapos Sinai were sprayed in August. "It is no longer profitable for us to plant this. But the problem is that this hasn't just ended coca, but everything else too."
The U.S.-backed anti-drug program, Plan Colombia, has traced an uneven course over the past two years. Until this point, the military resources and a special U.S.-trained anti-drug brigade have failed to make a lasting dent in an industry that supplies 90 percent of the cocaine reaching the United States. Nor has the program's $100 million-plus investment in a broad variety of social development projects, from road-building to crop-substitution incentives, constructed a substitute economy for impoverished farmers such as Gaviria, as had been promised on paper.
The goal of the plan, originally envisioned as a $7.5 billion effort funded by the Colombian, U.S. and European governments, was to cut coca production in half by 2005.The strategy, it was hoped, would dramatically reduce international cocaine supplies. In addition, it was hoped that the pressure on cocaine-producing areas would force the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as the largest rebel insurgency is known, to negotiate an end to its protracted war against the government once it was deprived of its principal source of financing.
The results so far are unclear. The CIA has estimated that Colombia's coca crop rose 25 percent last year, to nearly 420,000 acres, while the United Nations detected an 11 percent decline. However, both those figures reflect events that took place before the all-out spraying campaign here.
U.S. anti-drug officials, who have long identified spraying as the most effective weapon, had repeatedly said real progress would not materialize until the full complement of more than 20 OV-10 and T-65 spray planes and nearly 80 helicopter escorts foreseen in the aid package arrived to wage a war of attrition against coca farmers. The majority of those resources are now in place, and U.S. officials said they hope to spray more than 300,000 acres of coca over the next 12 months, a third more than in 2001.
Just as important, U.S. officials have found a reliable ally in Uribe, who came to office promising a broader war against the guerrillas. Uribe's predecessor, Andres Pastrana, won the aid package from the Clinton administration, but he frequently suspended spraying because of worries that its harsh effects were undermining international support for Plan Colombia, particularly among Europeans, and complicating peace talks with the FARC, which eventually collapsed. Uribe apparently has no such worries.
Government and national police estimates put Putumayo's coca cultivation at between 105,000 and 125,000 acres at the end of last year. Uribe said recently that 115,000 acres of coca have been sprayed in Putumayo since he took office, more than half the national total for last year. Farmers here estimate that 80 percent of the coca has been killed as a result of daily spraying that began July 31, after the deadline for thousands of peasants who signed on for U.S. alternative development assistance to yank up coca crops.
But it remains to be seen whether the spraying in Putumayo will push coca cultivation to other provinces, as it has in the past. The U.N. analysis reported that coca crops exist in 22 of Colombia's 32 provinces, almost double the number from three years ago. Development officials and farmers here say that Nariño province, just next door, is experiencing a spike in coca cultivation; it has become the country's fourth-largest coca-producing province since Plan Colombia began.
To avoid such movement, Plan Colombia promised to replace the illegal economy here by investing in roads, schools and health clinics, and by providing seed money to help farmers abandon coca for other crops. But the effort has not generated much support from local farmers, who view the alternative development help as too little and too slow in arriving.
Here in the Guamuez River valley, 4,000 families signed up last year for stopgap aid packages worth $800 in livestock, feed and seedlings for legal crops to tide them over while they pulled up their coca. But only 702 of those families complied with the July deadline to destroy their illegal crop.
Those families represent 22,000 acres of coca; they are now planning community projects such as collective dairy farms, fish farms and hearts-of-palm processing plants. In addition, more than 100 projects to build roads and bridges are underway to help farmers get legal crops to market in a region with few paved tracks. But those who did not comply with the agreements are no longer eligible for help, so thousands of families have been left without obvious livelihoods after being sprayed.
"Many received the original aid, but they did not meet the terms of the agreement," said Nidia Toro, a regional adviser for Plante, the government agency managing the alternative development program. "Many of them are larger producers, who don't live here and don't want to pull it up, and have made others in the area suffer as a result."
The spraying stopped this month, farmers and development officials here said, as the rainy season's low storm clouds began to make flying difficult. Farmers here said it was also likely that the spray planes ran low on targets.
These hills, once glowing with the brilliant green of coca, have been left a burned brown. In a tour of the area, it was hard to find a coca field intact along a swath of jungle and pasture stretching from El Placer in the west to Ancura in the east, a region that once accounted for as much as 40 percent of Colombia's coca production.
Many farmers here are already planting legal crops where coca once grew, in spite of the benefits cutoff, while others are preparing to do so. In the past, farmers used small, thatched shelters to protect coca seedlings from the spraying to facilitate quick replanting. Now many of those shelters cover palm, yucca and plantain seedlings.
Some large coca fields near the city of La Hormiga are reemerging after being cut back by farmers in a last-ditch effort to keep them going. Living coca fringes some large fields, and a few deep narrow valleys that are difficult targets for the spray planes brim with the head-high shrubs. But much of it is dead or dying, driving out many peasants who once produced it.
Whole villages have been abandoned, like the empty collection of cinder-block houses that once made up the hamlet of Los Angeles. Most residents packed up their few belongings and headed to neighboring Nariño, or t