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Digest 119, originally sent Wed Jun 30 04:30:10 1999

There are 9 messages in this issue.

Topics in today's digest:

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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:36:57 -0400

Subject: NucNews-6 6/29/99 -

19. Salmon close to radiation Plutonium byproduct found near Hanford Reach spawning beds

Karen Dorn Steele - The Spokane Spokesman-Review, June 27, 1999 http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=062799&ID=s600296&cat=

In the shadow of Hanford's old H Reactor, salmon jump as scientist Norm Buske's Geiger counter chatters.

This swirling stretch of the Columbia River -- near the White Bluffs that overlook Hanford Reach -- is home to the spawning beds of fall chinook salmon, who return here from the ocean.

At the edge of this productive fishery, Buske has made a potentially ominous discovery: radioactive Strontium 90 at 25 times safe levels in mulberry bushes whose roots reach into the river.

The radiation was found only 100 feet from some of the salmon beds.

Strontium 90, a byproduct of plutonium production, is a highly toxic element that attacks bone marrow and takes 38 years to decay to half its original strength.

Hanford contractors have already detected a spike of hexavalent chromium, a powerful chemical and carcinogen, in the river at this very spot. It's below H Reactor's old retention basins, where radioactive cooling water and damaged fuel rods were dumped during the Cold War.

The chromium is coming from a plume under Hanford in concentrations 25 times higher than what is known to harm juvenile salmon, according to a 1996 study for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Buske's discovery this spring raises the stakes: Has Strontium 90 followed the same gravelly channel into the river as the chromium?

Hanford officials say there's probably no problem. Others aren't so sure.

known to harm juvenile salmon, according to a 1996 study for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Buske's discovery this spring raises the stakes: Has Strontium 90 followed the same gravelly channel into the river as the chromium?

Hanford officials say there's probably no problem. Others aren't so sure.

"This is a big deal," said John Erickson, director of radiation protection for the Washington Department of Health. "It's a hot issue whenever salmon are involved."

Buske's discovery is "extremely unsettling and of serious concern," said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, the largest organization of commercial fishermen on the West Coast.

Eighty percent of fall chinook in the Columbia River come from the Hanford Reach, as do 25-30 percent of all the salmon caught in Alaska, Spain said.

There's no evidence that Hanford radiation is reaching salmon or their spawning beds, but Buske's findings warrant a thorough government investigation, Spain said.

"People don't need to worry that fish in the Hanford Reach are radioactive, but this cannot be ignored," Spain said. "We owe it to our industry and to consumers to seriously address this."

Buske reported his data in a June 23 draft report for the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group with offices in Washington, D.C., and Seattle that monitors Hanford cleanup efforts.

Buske is being paid $30,000 for his nuclear sleuthing for a year, said Tom Carpenter of GAP's Seattle office.

Although the Strontium 90 measurements are preliminary, the discovery "raises public concerns for the health of an important salmon stock," the GAP report says.

Washington state officials are working with Buske and DOE to decide what to do next, Erickson said.

"It may include verification of (Buske's) results and a state sampling plan," Erickson said.

Buske alerted Hanford and state officials to his recent findings. On Monday scientists from Hanford contractor Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and DOH accompanied Buske to the shorelines of the H Reactor.

Buske used his Geiger counter to point out the most radioactive bushes. Then the scientists gathered samples of mulberries and leaves for further radiation analysis back in their labs.

Battelle conducts environmental monitoring programs at Hanford for DOE.

Battelle's samples won't be available for 30 days, said Ted Poston, manager of the laboratory's surface environmental surveillance program.

"In my opinion, I think the risk (to salmon) is very low," Poston said. Strontium 90 in Hanford ground water doesn't reach dangerous levels, Poston said.

DOE officials also think the salmon are safe. They've traced a plume of Strontium 90 under H Reactor to the river's edge, but no farther.

Ground water samples from near the H Reactor in 1997 showed only two radiation hits over the 8-picocurie per liter drinking water limit, said Arlene Tortoso, DOE's ground-water project manager in Richland.

"I don't see any danger to the salmon at this point," Tortoso said.

DOE is containing the chromium plume with a pump-and-treat system. It has removed 61 kilograms of chromium from ground water near H Reactor since 1997, Tortoso said.

"We are now preventing most of it from reaching the river," she said.

But DOE hasn't sampled the mulberry bushes below H Reactor where Buske found the Strontium 90, she said.

Hanford's officials are ignoring radiation that trickles through the porous soils below the reactors, concentrates in the mulberry bushes, and reappears in river springs, Buske said.

When he discovered "hot" mulberry bushes near another reactor (N Reactor) last year, DOE's response was to chop down the bushes, Buske said. He calls that reaction "killing the messenger."

Buske, who holds master's degrees in physics and oceanography and once worked for Greenpeace, has been returning to Hanford's springs since 1983.

He and his former spouse, mathematician Linda Josephson, discovered hundreds of additional submerged springs leaking Hanford pollutants beneath the river -- springs that Hanford contractors hadn't detected.

Hanford sits atop two massive bars of gravel, a legacy of the last Ice Age when gigantic floods from ancient Lake Missoula repeatedly surged through Eastern Washington.

Engineers from the Manhattan Project, the top-secret mission to build an atomic bomb during World War II, ignored Hanford's geology.

They chose the site because it was far from enemy airplanes and provided abundant river water to cool the world's first plutonium production reactors.

H Reactor was one of eight original Hanford reactors built from 1948 to 1955 to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Contaminated cooling water from the reactors was held in large ponds to allow some of the radiation to decay to safer levels and then was dumped back into the river -- a practice that would be illegal today.

Hanford's water table is 300 feet below the Pasco gravels in a layer of basalt called the Ringold Formation. Channels scoured in the Ringold basalt flow east toward the river -- and are the source of Hanford's current river contamination problems.

Early Hanford officials were highly optimistic about how long it would take for the radioactive and chemical pollutants to reach the river. In the early 1950s, they estimated "travel times" of 50-180 years.

They were wrong.

The first contaminated ground water from Hanford that went beyond the boundaries of the nuclear reservation was detected in January 1956. It had only taken seven years for radiation in the ground water to reach the river, according to a 1963 Hanford report.

Last week, the nation's leading scientific oversight board said more attention should be paid to Hanford's impact on the Columbia.

In a June 24 report, the National Academy of Sciences faulted DOE for not moving quickly enough to clean up contamination along the Hanford Reach.

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Nuclear byproduct near spawning beds A study claims strontium 90 from Hanford has reached to within 100 feet of fall chinook breeding grounds Monday, June 28, 1999, By MICHELLE MANDEL of The Oregonian staff http://www.oregonlive.com/news/99/06/st062810.html#TOP

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20. Energy Department resumes truck shipments from Ohio to Nevada

Ohio Business Journal, June 28, 1999 http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/023355.htm

CINCINNATI (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Energy resumed truck shipments of radioactive waste on Monday from its Fernald cleanup site to the department's Nevada test site, after a shipment leaked in 1997.

The lone truck left the Fernald site, 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati, and will arrive in Nevada Thursday, said Gary Stegner, a spokesman for the Fernald field office.

When the shipments get back into full gear, an average of 15 truckloads will be dispatched each week carrying radioactively contaminated trash, soil and empty containers once used to transport low-level radioactive wastes.

The Energy Department was harshly criticized after the last truck shipment from Fernald leaked a nonradioactive fluid near Kingman, Ariz., in December 1997 en route to Nevada. The shipments were suspended until this week.

Criticisms by Nevada public officials prompted Energy Department administrators to adopt tighter restrictions for the containers used to ship the wastes and to follow a 170-mile longer route that avoids the Hoover Dam and downtown Las Vegas.

``We want to be good neighbors, so we're willing to go the extra miles to avoid congested areas,'' said Kathy Carlson, manager of the Energy Department's Nevada operations.

The shipments now will be housed in containers with a different, sturdier design, department officials have said.

The new Nevada route for the wastes follows Interstate 80 to Wendover, the U.S. 93 alternate to Ely, U.S. 6 to Tonopah and U.S. 95 to Mercury, Nev.

Fernald processed uranium for the government's production elsewhere of nuclear weapons from 1951 until work stopped in 1989 to concentrate on cleanup of wastes and contaminated soil at the 1,050-acre site.

The cleanup operation has sent 5.3 million cubic feet of radioactive material to the Nevada disposal site since 1985. Of the estimated 20 million cubic feet of waste to be shipped from Fernald for disposal during the next 10 years, about 3.4 million cubic feet is to be sent to the Nevada site, Energy Department officials said.

The cleanup of wastes at Fernald and the dismantling and demolition of former uranium processing buildings are still producing waste. Officials say about 80 percent of the expected 110 million cubic feet of waste will be permanently stored at Fernald in newly-dug, permanent ground disposal cells. Two of those seven cells are already in use.

Of the remainder, about 80 percent will be sent by rail -- in shipments that began this spring -- to the privately managed Envirocare disposal facility about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Fernald's most hazardous materials will be treated during the next seven years and shipped to the Nevada test site.

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21. LANL Storage Facility Falls Short of Purpose

By Ian Hoffman Journal Staff Writer, June 27, 1999 http://www.abqjournal.com/scitech/1lanl06-27.htm

For more than $20 million, here is what U.S. taxpayers got: virtually nothing.

What they were supposed to get was a high-tech tomb for tons of nuclear weapons-grade plutonium and other metals inside a top-security area at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Yet quietly, the U.S. nuclear-weapons establishment has scuttled the Nuclear Materials Storage Facility, or NMSF. Los Alamos' NMSF is no casualty of the end of the Cold War, however. It was, by all accounts, killed primarily by incompetence.

The NMSF was so deeply flawed, so poorly designed that it reportedly could never store even a few pounds of plutonium when "completed" in 1987. U.S. Department of Energy executives pulled the plug on NMSF a few weeks ago.

They plan to spend more money figuring out what went wrong, why the cost of fixing NMSF doubled in two years to nearly $114 million, more than five times the original construction cost.

But NMSF's most fundamental flaws, the reasons its storage vault never opened, are clear from DOE in Los Alamos reports:

* If you worked at NMSF, there was a good chance you would be irradiated. To reach the storage vault, workers hauling containers of nuclear materials would walk past the desks of office workers. Office workers also had no radiation shielding from the storage vault, which vented unfiltered air into their offices as well.

* The vault was designed so containers of weapons metals were too close, and cooling air could not remove the heat of their radioactive decay.

* The loading-bay doors are too narrow. This means the government's "Safe-Secure" tractor trailers for hauling nuclear-weapons parts could pull in, but not open their doors.

* The roof is cracked and could not support its proposed cover of dirt in an earthquake.

* NMSF's concrete is weakening prematurely.

* A special "Placite" wall paint to make decontamination easier is peeling off the walls.

* Two gas-fired furnaces intended to be walled off by concrete were instead located inside the storage area, increasing the risk of an explosion in a room full of plutonium.

So who wasted millions on a useless building? In short, almost everyone involved, a LANL official says.

Rising expense

"There's enough blame to go around," said Scott Gibbs, Los Alamos National Laboratory's program director for nuclear-weapons materials and manufacturing. Gibbs inherited the unusable NMSF recently and led the last study on fixing it.

Some blame goes to architecture and engineering giant Burns & Roe Inc. and to Santa Fe construction contractor Davis and Associates, DOE investigators found. But most of the blame lies with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Energy and the operator of the national laboratory, the University of California. They were to design NMSF and manage its construction.

"There were enough things wrong to share the blame among DOE, the Corps and the university," Gibbs said. "Nobody covered themselves with glory."

Laboratory managers and their overseers at the Energy Department still were unwilling for at least 12 years to cut their losses and walk away. So the 30,000-square-foot NMSF persisted, drawing Congress to appropriate at least $10 million in the last decade for studies and design reviews.

In each, reports show the pricetag to rebuild NMSF jumped -- from at least $13.5 million in 1992, to $45.3 million in 1996, to $56.7 million in 1998 and finally to more than $100 million.

Those costs were for gutting and rebuilding the entire facility, possibly expanding its maximum storage capacity from 7.25 tons of weapons materials to as much as 27.5 tons.

Yet Energy officials classified the project as "routine maintenance" and "air-conditioning repairs." Those classifications allowed the project to avoid full-scale environmental reviews that may have opened the rebuilding of NMSF to broader public debate and possible litigation.

By late December, NMSF rebuild costs were estimated to go much higher.

The reasons are somewhat vague, but higher standards for nuclear facilities such as better electrical feeds and more concrete walls to shore up the facility against earthquakes played a role.

"None of these are very fancy changes, not very exciting really," Gibbs said. "But when you're modifying a facility to standards expected by the public of nuclear facilities today, it takes a bit of rigor and quite a bit of money to do that."

These added perhaps $20 million, but fall short of explaining why the final repair estimates ran over $100 million.

"We're going back and looking at this project to do a formal 'lessons learned,' " Gibbs said, using DOE's term for dissecting failed projects. "We're going to look at why we're seeing this growth (in rebuilding costs)."

'Cost overruns'

In any event, it was clear Congress would never fund anything like $100-plus million.

"It's become increasingly obvious to both the laboratory and the DOE that we need to look at a different solution. It's too expensive for what we want to do there," said Earl Whiteman, a top-ranking DOE weapons official in Albuquerque.

When Gibbs' group at Los Alamos sent the final total estimate of $114 million to the Energy Department in mid-May, they supplied ideas for alternative kinds of nuclear-materials storage.

For example, Los Alamos could move a wall inside the nuclear-materials vault at its nearby Plutonium Processing and Handling Facility. No cost estimates are available, Gibbs said, but they probably will run to several million dollars at a minimum.

This would buy five to 10 years of storage. After that, the Energy Department probably will look elsewhere for storing radioactive weapons metals, such as a proposed new facility at Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.

DOE's Whiteman prefers that kind of "off-site storage" to spending much more money at Los Alamos.

"It's not as if we wanted to store a lot of material at Los Alamos," he said.

This gets to the heart of NMSF's most basic problem, as far as Greg Mello is concerned. As head of the Los Alamos Study Group, Mello has watched the NMSF's evolution and demise more closely than anyone outside the government and Los Alamos.

"They never needed it. The mission was inflated from a fantasy to a necessity and they said disaster would occur of they didn't get it," Mello said. "We've never found any evidence that the 12-year delay in completing this facility has harmed the laboratory in any way. If this facility was really needed, something would have been done a lot sooner."

A General Accounting Office study indicates the NMSF is symptomatic of what is the Energy Department's difficulty in running and delivering construction projects on time and within budget.

Auditors for the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found that DOE never finished 31 of 80 major projects from 1980 to 1996, after spending $10 billion on them. Three of the 15 completed projects are not being used for their intended purposes.

"The NMSF saga is just the latest in a series of Los Alamos and DOE cost overruns and poor management of its largest construction projects," said Mello. "It's too bad there is no effective evaluation of these projects before they begin, before tens of millions of dollars are spent."

The NMSF is being used somewhat: About 20 weapons-program employees work in its offices. As for the storage vault, Los Alamos and Energy officials are mulling ideas such as storing classified documents or non-nuclear weapons parts there.

"We've actually got several good proposals from people. The problem is selecting the right one," said Gibbs. "It will not sit idle."

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22. AEP Announces Plan to Restart Cook Nuclear Plant; Units Scheduled to Return to Service in April and September 2000

07:16 a.m. Jun 25, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- American Electric Power Company Inc. (NYSE: AEP) today announced that its board of directors has approved a comprehensive plan to restart the idle Cook Nuclear Plant. Unit 2 is scheduled to return to service in April 2000 and Unit 1 is to return to service in September 2000.

The announcement follows a comprehensive systems readiness review of all operating systems at the Cook plant. Plant officials shut down both units of the facility, located in Bridgman, Mich., in September 1997 because of questions raised during a design inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

E. Linn Draper Jr., chairman, president and chief executive officer of AEP, said, "After evaluating the difficult choices facing the future of the Cook plant, AEP management and its board of directors determined that restarting the plant is the best decision for our shareholders, customers and employees. The restart plan is comprehensive, realistic and deliverable and we are confident that it can be completed on schedule and on budget. Our confidence is based on the caliber of the team managing the restart effort, its effective working relationship with the regulatory authorities and the consistency of the timing and cost estimates of our plan with other comparable successful restarts."

The company said that expenditures associated with the restart will total approximately $574 million, of which $192 million has already been spent. These costs will be accounted for primarily as expenses in 1999 and 2000. The company expects the outage and restart effects to reduce AEP's earnings per share by about 27 cents a share for the first half of 1999, another 37 cents per share for the second half of 1999, and $1.15 per share in the year 2000. A portion of 1999 restart costs have been deferred, so the earnings impact for 1999 is less than it would otherwise have been. The company indicated that the financial impact of this restart plan will not affect the company's dividend.

Before making its decision, the board evaluated whether to restart the plant or to shut it down completely. In examining the restart option, the board considered cost estimates derived from a thorough readiness review by an experienced management group, the newly strengthened controls set in place to manage the project, and the likelihood that the anticipated expenditures would be recoverable in a competitive marketplace.

In addition, the board considered the opportunities for improved operational performance that could be achieved from a successful restart, as well as the likelihood that the actions taken to qualify the plant for restart also will enable it to satisfy the NRC's rigorous requirements for relicensing and extended operation. Based on its evaluation, the board concluded that the risks associated with restart were manageable and appropriate, particularly when compared to the alternative of shutting down the plant, writing off the investment and losing significant sales opportunities.

Draper added, "We have brought together seasoned nuclear executives to develop and implement the restart plan. They are unparalleled in experience and success in restarting idle nuclear facilities, truly a world-class team of highly experienced engineers and experts. Most of the key members have helped to direct successful plant restarts and all have effective working relationships with regulators and the industry that will contribute to the efficient and effective implementation of the restart plan."

Bob Powers, AEP's senior vice president of nuclear generation said, "We have undertaken the most comprehensive, rigorous review of the Cook operations since the plant first came on line, in continuous contact with the NRC. During the course of our review, the team has uncovered many engineering and design issues that were masked by the successful operation of the Cook plant. Fortunately, all of these issues have been successfully dealt with in other restart programs and none will require untested solutions or major plant modifications."

The company had previously indicated that it will replace a steam generator for Unit 1 before that unit would be returned to service. The expected costs of replacement have been set at approximately $165 million, of which $68 million has already been spent. These costs will be accounted for as a capital investment unrelated to the restart.

"When the units are returned to service, Cook plant will be a more efficient and more predictable producer of energy and revenue," Powers said. "Moreover, as a result of the scope and thoroughness of the restart effort, the plant will be in the best possible position to satisfy the NRC's stringent requirements for relicensing and extended operation," he added.

"The decision to restart Cook, like the decision to merge with Central and South West Corp. (NYSE: CSR) and to acquire Louisiana Intrastate Gas, underscores AEP's long term strategy of growing our already substantial energy commodity business by building a diversified portfolio of operations from a variety of fuels and strategically located geographic sources," Draper noted. "Restarting Cook and qualifying it for relicensing and extended operation expands the range of that portfolio," he added.

E. R. Brooks, chairman and chief executive officer of Dallas-based CSW, AEP's merger partner, said, "We continue to believe in the strategic logic of this merger. We will continue with AEP to assess developments at Cook in the context of the overall transaction. The current projections by AEP for the Cook plant have not altered our continuing support for the transaction. We are continuing to cooperate fully in the activities necessary to achieve successful completion of the merger."

AEP, a global energy company, is one of the United States' largest investor-owned utilities, providing energy to 3 million customers in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. AEP has holdings in the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Australia. Wholly owned subsidiaries provide power engineering, energy consulting and energy management services around the world. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio. On Dec. 22, 1997, AEP announced a definitive merger agreement for a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction with Central and South West Corp., a public utility holding company based in Dallas.

This press release contains statements that are forward looking within the meaning of Section 21 E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward looking statements reflect numerous assumptions and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Key factors that could have a direct impact include various events that could impact the successful execution of the restart plan, such as the timing and the nature of actions by the NRC and other regulatory bodies, potential new plant modifications not foreseen at this time which could extend the outage further, the impact of the outage and restart activities on earnings, and other factors described in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

News releases and other information about AEP can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.aep.com . SOURCE American Electric Power

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Message: 2 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:36:44 -0400

Subject: NucNews-7 6/29/99 -

23. Governor and Attorney General Seek Tougher Protections Against Nuclear Waste Terrorism

06:01 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

CARSON CITY, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1999--On behalf of Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa today filed a petition with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking that the existing regulations governing the security and safety of spent nuclear fuel transportation be reexamined and strengthened.

Specifically, the petition seeks to have the NRC reevaluate its requirements for safeguarding spent fuel shipments in light of the changing nature of threats involving domestic terrorism and sabotage, including the greater accessibility of new and powerful armor piercing weapons.

"It has been nearly two decades since the Commission reviewed the regulations designed to ensure the physical protection of spent fuel shipments, and we believe that many of the assumptions these rules are based upon no longer reflect real world conditions," explained Del Papa.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the responsibility, under federal law, to certify that shipping containers and other elements of the transportation system used to ship spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste on highways and railroads can, in fact, protect the public and the environment from the very real and evolving threat of attacks by terrorists. These rules have not been revised since the 1970s and do not take into account the availability of modern weapons and delivery systems that could be used by terrorists and others not only on the shipments themselves, but also on bridges, tunnels and rail lines throughout the country.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy and commercial shipping container manufacturers are striving to place larger payloads (a four-fold increase in the amount of spent fuel) in nuclear waste shipping casks in order to reduce the number of shipments required. However, the use of these new, larger casks may result in weaker containers due to the need to meet legal weight restrictions for use on highways and rail lines, thereby making shipments even more vulnerable to attack.

Del Papa pointed out that the purpose of the petition is to encourage the NRC to conduct needed risk and consequence assessments of existing safeguards and security regulations to determine if changes need to be made, publish new proposed rules for public comment, and ultimately make necessary modifications to the rules.

"I would encourage other states, local governments, Indian tribes, and public interest groups concerned about the security and safety of nuclear materials transportation to join with us in this rulemaking process. In our opinion the current regulations expose the public - not just in Nevada, but in almost every state in the country - to potentially unacceptable levels of risk when it comes to the transportation of highly radioactive materials."

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24. Nuclear Power Industry Works To Allay Y2K Fears

01:52 a.m. Jun 28, 1999 Eastern, By Deena Beasley http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The nuclear power industry, aiming to allay public fears of power outages and radiation leaks, has stepped up efforts to make sure plants are not vulnerable to the year 2000 computer bug.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will release next week a report on exactly how ready each of the nation's 103 nuclear power reactors are for the millennium date change. Nuclear reactors account for about 20 percent of all U.S. power generation.

The millennium problem arises because many older computers record dates using only the last two digits of the year. If left uncorrected, such systems could treat the year 2000 as the year 1900, generating errors or system crashes next Jan. 1.

Most U.S. nuclear plants were built in the 1960s and 70s -- before the onset of the present digitalized age, noted Ralph Beedle, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group.

``All of our plant shutdown systems are analog,'' said Robert Haverkamp, manager of the Y2K project at Southern California Edison Co.'s San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Clemente, Calif.

Nevertheless, Edison has, over the past 18 months, meticulously tracked down and remedied all plant systems determined to be vulnerable to the date change, he said.

``We will be reporting full readiness to the NRC on June 30,'' Haverkamp said.

But operations-related systems at about 10 of the 103 reactors are not expected to get a clean bill of health until later this year, Beedle said.

The trade group did not identify which plants are not yet up to snuff, but emphasized that all are set to undergo maintenance work after power demand has peaked for the summer.

``Two weeks ago, energy was selling for $1,300 a megawatt hour. If the plants were taken off line now, rates would go up and consumers would not be very happy,'' Beedle said.

Like most nuclear reactors, the two operating units at San Onofre are connected to the regional electricity grid, which brings in the necessary power for cooling the plant and preventing any threat of meltdown.

As part of everyday operations, critical systems at nuclear plants are designed with ``fail safe'' conditions, which automatically shut the plant down if they are not met.

``Even if our worst fears come true and the grid goes down at midnight on December 31 and we have a station blackout, the reactor shuts down safely and we can restart after the clock changes,'' Beedle said.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), which oversees delivery of electricity in the United States and Canada, said in March the industry had completed more than 75 percent of the required testing and remediation of its systems and nearly all were expected to be up to speed by June 30.

Fewer than 3 percent of all components failed Y2K testing, with most errors occurring in systems, such as schedule logs, that would not cause the lights to go out, NERC said.

As a back up, the NRC requires every nuclear reactor to have on site at least two diesel-powered generators to provide emergency power in case of a failure in the grid connection.

If, for some random reason, those units were also to fail, nuclear operators have established backup contingencies. Edison, for example, has determined two transmission paths, one from San Diego and one from Hoover Dam in Arizona, that could quickly supply the plant with emergency power.

Officials said special attention has been paid to making sure that bureaucratic conditions for plant operations will be met at the time of the date change.

``Plants are shut down on a regular basis for administrative reasons, but we want to eliminate the possibility of having to take a unit off line for relatively unimportant reasons,'' Beedle said.

Some critics, however, have questioned the standard of readiness the nuclear power plant operators are being held to as well as their compliance with the standards.

``There are a number of workarounds that are being done in place of upgrades to a complete rollover from December 31 to January 1,'' said Paul Gunter, director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service's Reactor Watchdog Project.

He also complained that a lot of the compliance standards derived by both the industry and the NRC were determined for economic, rather than safety, reasons.

``A number of the plants already have problems with their design documentation,'' Gunter said. ``Y2K is another straw on this camel's back.''

The nuclear watchdog group has petitioned the NRC to conduct emergency preparedness drills, require additional backup power supplies at nuclear plants and shut down any plants that cannot prove themselves free of the Y2K bug.

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25. CIA Head: 'No Excuses' For Chinese Embassy Bombing

Updated 12:04 AM ET June 29, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/00/news-china-cia

NASHUA, N.H. (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Monday offered "no excuses" for the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade to a group of New Hampshire businessmen.

CIA director George Tenet told the Nashua Chamber of Commerce that he "would not hide behind excuses such as strained resources or time pressures. It is precisely when the pressure is intense... that the president and the American people expect us to provide the best intelligence available. Clearly, in the case of the Chinese embassy, that did not happen. No excuses."

New Hampshire congressman Charles Bass, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, had invited Tenet to be the dinner's guest speaker.

The House and Senate intelligence committees are reviewing information from the CIA, State Department and Pentagon related to the May 7 Chinese Embassy bombing that killed three people and wounded 20 others.

The incident sparked anti-U.S. protests in China and further strained relations between the two countries.

The United States repeatedly has apologized to China for the bombing. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering recently traveled to China to explain what happened, but China said the explanation was unconvincing.

The United States has blamed a series of errors, including outdated CIA maps and databases that did not show the embassy had moved to a new location. The intended target, a Yugoslav military procurement office, was located nearby.

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Clinton Says Misspoke On China Spying Scandal

01:00 a.m. Jun 26, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton said Friday he misspoke earlier this year when he said no security breaches occurred at U.S. nuclear research laboratories during his administration.

A congressional report last month said China had acquired U.S. secrets about seven nuclear weapons and the neutron bomb through 20 years of espionage. China has denied it stole U.S. nuclear secrets.

``First of all, there has been a 20-year problem with lax security at the labs,'' Clinton said at a press briefing. ``And what I said was that I didn't suspect that any actual breaches of security had occurred during my tenure.''

But since he made that statement, it had been revealed that Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was fired in March, downloaded information from classified computers into his personal computers, Clinton said. Lee has not been charged with any crime.

``That's something we know now that I didn't know then,'' Clinton said.

``But I think my choice of wording was poor. What I should have said was I did not know of any specific instance of espionage, because I think that we've been suspicious all along,'' Clinton said. ``I have to acknowledge I think I used a poor word there,'' he added.

``We did not have any specific instance, as we now do, of the off-loading of the computer,'' Clinton said.

On March 19, Clinton said if China stole U.S. nuclear secrets it did not happen on his watch.

``To the best of my knowledge, no one has said anything to me about any espionage which occurred by the Chinese against the labs during my presidency,'' Clinton said in March.

``And if I have misstated this in any way because I don't remember something, then I will tell you that. But I don't believe that I have forgotten,'' he said then.

---

China Denies Embassy Bombing Victims Were Spies

Updated 12:57 AM ET June 29, 1999, By Benjamin Kang Lim http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/00/international-yugoslavia- journalists

BEIJING (Reuters) - China denied Tuesday a U.S. newspaper report that two of three Chinese citizens killed in the NATO bombing of Beijing's embassy in Belgrade last month were spies, not journalists.

"The status of the three journalists are clear," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said by telephone.

"No matter what lies the U.S. media fabricate, it cannot exonerate the United States of responsibility for bombing the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia," the spokeswoman said.

The New York Times reported last Friday that two of the three killed in the May 7 embassy bombing were spies, not journalists as China has said.

One of the victims worked for the official Xinhua news agency and the other two, a husband-and-wife team, worked for the Guangming Daily.

A U.S. official has said the bombs dropped by U.S. B-2 stealth bombers "hit a part of the embassy that was involved in intelligence gathering."

Asked to comment on the New York Times report, a spokesman for Guangming Daily said: "It's sheer nonsense."

"The New York Times report does not conform with reality," a spokesman for Xinhua said.

The United States has apologized to China for the bombing, which also wounded about 20 other people.

Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering traveled to China this month to explain what happened, but Beijing said the explanation was "unconvincing."

China's state media and many ordinary Chinese are convinced the bombing was deliberate. It sparked anti-U.S. protests across China and further strained bilateral relations.

The United States has blamed a series of errors, including outdated maps and databases that did not show the embassy had moved to a new location. The intended target, a Yugoslav military procurement office, was located nearby.

Monday, George Tenet, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), offered "no excuses" for the bombing.

Tenet said he "would not hide behind excuses such as strained resources or time pressures."

"It is precisely when the pressure is intense...that the president and the American people expect us to provide the best intelligence available. Clearly, in the case of the Chinese embassy, that did not happen. No excuses."

Last Thursday, Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon said an intelligence analyst at the CIA tried to warn colleagues and military officers in Europe that the intended target was not at that location, although he did not know the Chinese embassy was there.

Last week, a German newspaper quoted the leader of Serbia's main opposition party as saying he suspected Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic had received an offer of political asylum from China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the report. Milosevic has been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, which is based at The Hague in the Netherlands.

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26. Clinton says he will appoint Dicus as NRC chairman

01:03 p.m Jun 21, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

WASHINGTON , June 21 (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton said he intends to appoint Commissioner Greta Dicus as the new chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to replace outgoing agency head Shirley Jackson.

Dicus, of Hot Springs, Ark., has served on the commission since 1996. She previously served as Arkansas liaison with the NRC and as commissioner of the Central States Low-Level Waste Compact Commission. She also was a member of the Governor's Low-Level Radioactive Waste Advisory Group.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group, supported the appointment and praised Dicus' technical expertise in the nuclear sector.

Jackson was to leave her position at the end of this month. The NRC said Dicus does not need Senate confirmation to become chairman because she already serves on the commission.

----------------

27. Automatic Shutdown at Nine Mile Two Nuclear Plant 05:29 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern

SYRACUSE, N.Y., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The Nine Mile Point Unit Two nuclear plant automatically shut down today at 3:41 p.m. due to a malfunction in a device that controls water levels in the plant, according to officials at Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. (NYSE: NMK).

An estimated restart date will be determined after a complete assessment of the cause of the shutdown.

Niagara Mohawk operates and is a 41 percent co-owner of Nine Mile Two, a 1,140-megawatt plant. Other owners are: New York State Electric & Gas Corp. (18 percent), Long Island Power Authority (18 percent), Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. (14 percent), and Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. (9 percent). The plant is located in Scriba, N.Y., approximately 40 miles north of Syracuse.

Niagara Mohawk is an investor-owned energy services company that provides electricity to more than 1.5 million customers across 24,000 square miles of Upstate New York. The company also delivers natural gas to more than 500,000 customers over 4,500 square miles of eastern, central and northern New York. SOURCE Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.

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RG&E Statement on Sale of Nine Mile Nuclear Assets

09:57 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Reacting to today's announcement that Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. and New York State Electric and Gas Corp. made an agreement to sell their interests in the two Nine Mile nuclear generating facilities to AmerGen Energy Co., Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. (RG&E), (NYSE: RSG) which is a part-owner of one of the units, stated that there are a number of issues to be considered to determine whether such sales would be in the best interests of RG&E customers and shareholders at this time.

RG&E, which owns a 14 percent interest in the Nine Mile 2 unit, indicated that it intended to participate fully in the public policy debate regarding the future of nuclear generation in New York, including the regulatory proceedings before the state Public Service Commission, concerning the sale of the Nine Mile units. SOURCE Rochester Gas and Electric Corp.

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Niagara Mohawk and NYSEG to Sell Nuclear Assets to AmerGen Energy

07:56 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

SYRACUSE and BINGHAMTON, N.Y., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. will sell its ownership of the Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 nuclear plants, and New York State Electric & Gas Corp. (NYSEG) will sell its ownership of the Nine Mile 2 nuclear plant, to AmerGen Energy Company, a joint venture of PECO Energy Company and British Energy, under an agreement announced today.

Niagara Mohawk is a wholly owned subsidiary of Niagara Mohawk Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NMK). NYSEG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy East Inc. (NYSE: NEG).

At closing, Niagara Mohawk will receive $63.55 million in proceeds based on its 41 percent ownership share of Nine Mile 2 and NYSEG will receive $27.9 million in proceeds based on its 18 percent ownership share. Niagara Mohawk will also receive $71.7 million for Nine Mile 1. Niagara Mohawk and NYSEG may receive additional payments through a financial sharing agreement based on actual market prices through 2012.

The sale furthers Niagara Mohawk's and NYSEG's strategies to exit the generation business and advances AmerGen's efforts to become a premier operator of nuclear plants in the United States.

"The sale of our nuclear assets is another step toward creating a competitive generation market, a key component of our PowerChoice plan to reduce rates and provide customer choice," said William E. Davis, Niagara Mohawk's chief executive officer. "This sale will also protect customers and shareholders from unforeseen operating and decommissioning costs. In addition, the sale to AmerGen puts the plants in the hands of a proven operator committed to pursuing growth in the nuclear generation business. That is good news for the plants' employees and the region's economy."

Michael I. German, president and chief operating officer of NYSEG said: "This sale is in the best long-term interest of NYSEG's customers and the State of New York. It helps insulate our customers from further rate increases and brings a world-class operator of nuclear plants into New York state."

AmerGen was formed in 1997 as a joint venture by PECO Energy, of Philadelphia, and British Energy, of Edinburgh, Scotland, to purchase and operate nuclear plants in the United States. Both companies have a strong commitment to the future of nuclear power and share similar operational cultures involving people, processes, safety and reliability.

"We are pleased to announce an agreement to add Nine Mile Point and its excellent operating staff to our portfolio of AmerGen generation assets," said Dickinson M. Smith, chief executive officer of AmerGen. "When the sale is completed, our business goals will be to operate the units with a total commitment to safety, to provide reliable, efficient energy for the region for many years to come, and to continue Niagara Mohawk's tradition of being a good, involved neighbor in the community."

Dr. Robin Jeffrey, AmerGen president and executive director of British Energy's North American ventures said: "Nine Mile Point will be our largest potential acquisition to date, and it marks real progress in our North American strategy. We are committed to delivering shareholder value and growth, and we are confident both units at Nine Mile Point will play a significant role as AmerGen realizes its commercial potential in North America's electricity market."

As part of the agreement, AmerGen will offer to continue employment to the approximately 1,330 employees at the two plants and will accept the current collective bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 97.

The agreement also calls for Niagara Mohawk and NYSEG to purchase electricity from AmerGen at negotiated prices for three years from Nine Mile 2. A similar five-year agreement is in place between Niagara Mohawk and AmerGen for electricity from Nine Mile 1.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, New York State Public Service Commission, and other regulatory bodies must approve the sale. Completion of the sale is expected early next year.

AmerGen will assume full responsibility for the decommissioning of Nine Mile 1 and its eventual ownership share of Nine Mile 2. The decommissioning fund will be pre-funded to a fixed amount by the sellers, with all potential costs above the fixed amount paid by AmerGen.

Nine Mile Point is a two-unit boiling water reactor site. Nine Mile 1, a 614-megawatt unit, began producing electricity in 1969. Nine Mile 2, a 1,140-megawatt unit, began producing electricity in 1988. Niagara Mohawk operates both plants. The plants are located in Scriba, N.Y., approximately 40 miles north of Syracuse.

In addition to Niagara Mohawk and NYSEG, the other Nine Mile 2 co-owners are: Long Island Power Authority (18 percent), Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. (14 percent), and Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. (9 percent). Their ownership shares of the plant are not included in the sale. Options available to the co-owners include matching the AmerGen offer, participating in the sale, or retaining their ownership interest. Niagara Mohawk is the operator and sole owner of Nine Mile 1.

Niagara Mohawk, a subsidiary of Niagara Mohawk Holdings Inc., is a regulated energy delivery company with the largest service territory in New York State. The company serves more than 1.5 million electricity customers and more than 540,000 natural gas customers across 24,000 square miles.

NYSEG is a subsidiary of Energy East Corporation, an energy delivery, products and services company doing business in New York, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. NYSEG supplies, markets and delivers electricity to 817,000 customers and natural gas to 243,000 customers across more than 40 percent of upstate New York.

PECO Energy is an electric and gas utility serving 1.5 million electric customers in the five-county Philadelphia area and 400,000 natural gas customers in four suburban counties. It is one of the nation's largest nuclear utilities, producing more than 33.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 1998 at its Limerick and Peach Bottom generating stations. PECO Energy has set new nuclear performance standards in safety, availability and capacity factors, efficient refueling outages, and low operating and maintenance costs.

PECO Energy also owns and operates coal, natural gas, oil, landfill gas and hydro power plants. PECO Energy's Power Team operates a 24-hour energy trading floor with transactions in 47 states and Canada.

British Energy provides more than 20 percent of Britain's electricity and is the U.K.'s largest generator. It owns and operates 15 nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, with 9,600 megawatts of generation, including seven advanced gas-cooled nuclear stations and one pressurized water reactor station. In July 1996, British Energy was successfully privatized through a public offering of stock. The company has distinguished itself on nuclear operations through its outstanding safety record and by reducing costs and increasing output and profit following privatization, it has market capitalization equivalent to $5.9 billion (U.S.) and has approximately 5,100 employees.

J. P. Morgan & Co. Inc. acted as financial advisor to the sellers. SOURCE Niagara Mohawk

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Amergen buys NY power plants from Niagara Mohawk

02:51 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AmerGen Energy Power Co., a Scottish-American joint venture, said Thursday it will buy two Nine Mile Point nuclear power plants in upstate New York for about $163 million.

AmerGen, an equal partnership of Pennsylvania-based PECO Energy Co. and British Energy Plc of Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 1997 to take advantage of the deregulation of the U.S. power generation market by buying and operating power plants.

Niagra Mohawk Holdings Inc. subsidiary Niagara Mohawk Power Corp, which owns 100 percent of the Nine Mile 1 unit and 41 percent of the Nine Mile 2 unit, will receive a total of $135.25 million from the sale.

New York State Electric & Gas Corp., a subsidiary of Energy East Inc. , will receive $27.9 million for its 18 percent ownership of Nine Mile 2.

Niagara Mohawk and New York York State Electric & Gas have said they plan to exit the power generation business.

As part of the agreement, AmerGen will offer to continue employment to the 1,330 employees at the two plants. The deal is expect to close in first quarter 2000, pending regulatory approval.

AmerGen's chief executive officer, Dickinson Smith, said the company would talk to the other Nine Mile 2 owners about acquiring the remaining stakes in the plant. Long Island Power Authority owns 18 percent of the plant, Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. owns 14 percent, and Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. owns the remaining nine percent.

AmerGen in July, 1998, acquired the Three Mile Island Unit One in Pennsylvania. Since then, it agreed to purchase the Clinton nuclear station in Illinois and is negotiating with Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. about the possible purchase of Vermont's only nuclear power station.

Niagara Mohawk is taking the opposite course, selling off its power generation assets to pay off debt as part of a sweeping reorganization.

Earlier this month, Niagara Mohawk closed the $355 million sale of its Huntley and Dunkirk coal-fired electric generating stations to NRG Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Northern States Power Co. It has also sold its 72 hydroelectric generating plants to an affiliate of Orion Power Holdings Inc. for $425 million.

AmerGen said it will assume full responsibility for the decommissioning of Nine Mile 1 and its eventual ownership share of Nine Mile 2.

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- Seventh message - _________________________

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Message: 3 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:36:33 -0400

Subject: NucNews-8 6/29/99 -

28. Clinton Could Veto Nuclear Waste Bill-Official

01:01 a.m. Jun 26, 1999 Eastern By Patrick Connole http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton likely would veto compromise legislation on nuclear waste storage pending in the Senate because it would cut out the Environmental Protection Agency from setting radiation regulations, a Department of Energy official said Friday.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week approved a bipartisan bill aimed at ending years of wrangling between the federal government and nuclear utilities by having the DOE assume control of radioactive spent fuel at reactor sites.

About 38,000 tons of waste currently are stored at U.S. reactor sites. That amount is expected to double in the coming years.

Republicans had said the legislation was a breakthrough because it dropped a demand for construction of a temporary waste storage site at the Nevada Test Range before a permanent site was constructed. The White House opposes temporary storage.

However, the DOE official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Senate bill remained troublesome mainly due to the EPA being replaced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the steward for setting radiation standards.

EPA standards on allowable radiation exposure limits are considered more rigorous by the White House and environmentalists than those of the nuclear agency.

``Definitely we were pleased by its improvements, because they dropped interim storage. But we have a problem with it. They took the EPA out of the standard-setting role and gave it to the NRC,'' said the DOE official.

``This is probably a killer issue,'' he added, saying a presidential veto would be likely.

The Senate energy bill would open a proposed permanent site in Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas as soon as 2007, three years earlier than previously envisioned. The site is undergoing scientific study before a final assessment is made in 2001.

The bill would allow the energy secretary to enter into settlements with utilities to resolve claims relating to the government's failure to remove the waste.

Nuclear plant owners have sought for years to force the DOE to take waste off their hands, as required by law, and free them from the costs of storing highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods at more than 70 of the 103 working U.S. nuclear power plants.

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29. Protecting 'Human Guinea Pigs'

http://www.drkoop.com/hcr/trials/g-pigs_2.html http://www.drkoop.com/hcr/trials/g-pigs_3.html

In 1963, a New York hospital allowed some elderly ill and feeble patients to be injected under the skin with cancer cells to study immune response. Patients were not told what the injections were--just that their "resistance" was being measured. Nothing came from this ill-conceived effort, which was intercepted and stopped soon after it began, with none of the patients getting cancer.

That same year, in the classic thalidomide case, officials learned that some U.S. physicians had obtained and were using thalidomide for what they believed was a therapeutic use. Thalidomide was not approved in the United States then, and the physicians' actions amounted to uncontrolled testing of the drug in pregnant women. Only a few infants with birth defects resulting from exposure to the drug were born in this country, compared to several thousand in Europe, because an alert FDA medical officer, Frances O. Kelsey, M.D., Ph.D., prevented the drug from being made widely available here.

In early 1994, the federal government released documents detailing hundreds of radiation experiments performed on thousands of civilians and military personnel decades ago, apparently in some cases without adequate knowledge or consent. Experiments included giving food mixed with tracer doses of radioactive substances to subjects and injecting infants with radioactive iodine. Energy Department Secretary Hazel O'Leary has spearheaded efforts to make the details of these experiments public.

These are worst-case examples of failure to inform and protect human subjects used without their knowledge in drug testing and medical experimentation. They are not remote historical events. The cancer injections were stopped more than 30 years ago. The radiation experiments occurred in the 1940s and 1950s.

Such disregard for the rights and welfare of patients is far less likely today. Review boards at hospitals and research institutions throughout the country make sure participants are fully informed and willing before studies ever get under way. Known as Institutional Review Boards, or IRBs, these committees of experts and lay persons also review the research as it goes along. Watching these watchers are the FDA and other federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, whose rules now protect those taking part in medical research.

In 1976, the FDA issued regulations requiring IRB review of all studies using institutionalized subjects. Regulations amended in 1981 require all studies needing an FDA research permit to be reviewed and approved by an IRB before tests on humans can begin, whether or not subjects are in an institution.

Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., professor of medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert on medical ethics, says that using human subjects to advance scientific knowledge is acceptable "as long as there is informed consent and the rights of the subjects are respected."

In an instructional videotape prepared by the FDA, Pellegrino says persons entering a study must be told they are "willing volunteers" who can stop or even leave the study at any time if they become stressed or apprehensive, or suffer too great discomfort, or simply wish to go no further.

The first responsibility of the physician is to "do no harm," and there are few who set out to violate that principle. But at the extreme of those who did were scientists convicted at the 1946 Nuremberg trials of conducting experiments on concentration camp inmates. From those trials came the Nuremberg Code, a 1948 formal statement on medical ethics that led to present standards in the United States and elsewhere which protect human research subjects.

Informed consent was a requirement of the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendments to the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. A signed consent document was not required, only a notation in the chart that verbal consent had been obtained. A 1967 FDA policy statement outlined the consent process and required consent to be obtained in writing for early stages of research.

The U.S. Public Health Service in 1966 defined the right of subjects to be told about the benefits, risks and purpose of the research for which they are volunteering. It made this "informed consent" a condition of PHS funding for research grants.

A decade later, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research developed principles governing research involving people and made recommendations concerning IRBs. In 1981, the FDA revised regulations, expanding the requirement for written informed consent to all studies of products the FDA regulates.

Before it will approve a new drug or device for marketing, the FDA requires evidence of the product's safety and effectiveness from the manufacturer. The evidence comes first from tests with rabbits, rats and other laboratory animals, then from "clinical trials" in human volunteers. The process from the first tests to final approval can take a number of years.

Persons taking part in clinical trials are not necessarily patients in hospitals and institutions. Many are patients of private practitioners involved in clinical research. Many are not patients at all, but are healthy individuals who have been recruited for a study through a newspaper ad, poster, or other source. FDA's IRB and informed-consent regulations ensure that research subjects are informed and willing participants and that their health and safety are not unnecessarily endangered.

An IRB is composed of at least five people with varying backgrounds who are generally knowledgeable through training or experience in the research areas likely to be considered. Racial, ethnic and other interests must be represented, and at least one member must come from a nonscientific discipline, such as law or the clergy, and at least one must not be affiliated with the research institution. Maintaining a diverse membership helps an IRB stay objective.

The IRB meets to review the protocol, or research plan, for the proposed project and may approve or disapprove it or--as happens most frequently--make changes before granting approval. It also must review and approve or modify and approve the informed consent form to receive research subjects. The IRB also conducts continuing review at least annually while research is under way.

IRB review ensures that:

Risks to subjects are minimized. Procedures must be used that are consistent with good research design and do not expose subjects to unnecessary risk. If the subject is a patient, the study must be designed and conducted in a way that does not adversely affect the patient's progress. Informed consent is obtained and documented from each subject or the subject's legal representative. Selection of subjects is fair and equitable, and there are safeguards to protect subjects, such as the mentally retarded, who may not be able to look out for their own interests. Risks to subjects are reasonable in relation to expected benefit to those subjects and the importance of the knowledge that may be gained. Provisions exist to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain data confidentiality.

IRB also ensure that appropriate additional safeguards are in place to protect the rights and welfare of vulnerable populations, such as women, children, prisoners, those with mental disabilities, and persons who are economically or educationally disadvantaged.

Periodically, the FDA inspects IRB records and operations to certify that approvals, human subject safeguards (including informed consent), membership, and conduct of business are what they should be. Sometimes these inspections yield evidence of problems, such as in 1993 when FDA imposed penalties on a large California university IRB for infractions that included failure to report deaths.

Informed consent--the key element in protecting the rights and welfare of study subjects--is not simply a matter of having the subject sign a piece of paper. It requires that the researcher:

give the subject adequate information about the study respond fully to the subject's questions and be certain that the subject understands all the risks and responsibilities that participation entails ensure that the subject (if a patient is receiving treatment, for example) is aware of other options, along with their advantages and disadvantages obtain the subject's voluntary consent to take part.

Researcher and subject should discuss the study and the subject's role in it until both are satisfied that the subject can make an informed decision about whether to participate.

In July 1993, the FDA released new guidelines for including women and minorities in clinical research. The guidelines promote recruitment of women and minority participants and foster understanding of cultural nuances. In March 1994, the National Institutes of Health published guidelines implementing a new statutory requirement that women and minorities be adequately represented in federally funded research. IRBs, together with investigators and institutional officials, will play important roles in ensuring compliance with these guidelines.

How an IRB fulfills its role can be seen in a Georgetown University study into the effects of strenuous exercise on blood clotting. The study involved healthy young female runners recruited through the campus newspaper. Runners had blood drawn before and after treadmill exercise, with the fibrin (blood-clotting) time recorded. Blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration also were recorded.

Participants knew that findings might help determine whether exercise is desirable for persons recovering from heart attacks. The study also benefited participants by allowing them to better understand their own physiology when running, an aid when deciding whether to stay in competition. Also, participants and their doctors were informed of any health problems that showed up in the study.

Before approving the study, the IRB at Georgetown asked that participants be told that the study followed earlier successful research of male athletes; that the total blood drawn would be one-quarter that of a routine blood donation; and that, although it was a low-risk study, emergency equipment would be on standby. The IRB found it a big plus that the physician doing the research had gone through the blood and treadmill test herself when the study was designed.

Pellegrino stresses that study subjects must not be coerced or misled by researchers, who often do not realize how little the subjects understand. He says that patients receiving treatment who are asked to join a study "can easily confuse the experiment with their treatment." He also acknowledges that some scientists feel IRB review "somehow interferes with that research."

The FDA does not require that subjects be compensated if there is injury or other unfavorable result. But in any study that involves more than minimal risk, subjects must be told before they enter the study whether compensation and medical treatment will be provided and what that compensation will be or how to obtain information about it. The institution or IRB must establish a compensation policy before a study is begun.

An additional layer of review sometimes used is an independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board. At periodic intervals during clinical research, this board reviews accumulated data and makes recommendations on continuation or modification of the study.

Present FDA policy requires that only under certain circumstances may sponsors charge clinical investigators or research subjects for investigational drugs. A firm intending to charge for experimental drugs must first justify the charges to the FDA. Companies sponsoring research with investigational medical devices, however, may generally charge the investigator for the cost of the device. The investigator in turn can pass that charge along to the patient, but no profit is to be made from the experimental drug or device. Patients must be told before they enter a study if they will be charged for services or products as a result of taking part in the study, and the IRB must be aware of and approve such proposed charges. The consent document must list all charges attributable to the study.

Taking part in a research project does not waive any of the subject's legal rights, including privacy rights, since study records are confidential. However, the FDA can inspect and copy medical records as part of its approval process for drugs and devices. Usually, the agency doesn't need the names of individual subjects--only study results.

FDA regulations permit emergency use of a test article (drug or device) without prior IRB review, provided such use is reported to the IRB within five working days. Any subsequent use, however, must have prior review and approval. This means that an investigator may, in a life-threatening emergency, use a device or administer a course of treatment to a patient without prior IRB review, but a second use must be reviewed by the IRB at the hospital or other institution. This was done in the 1980s at the University of Arizona Medical Center, when a Copeland artificial heart not yet approved by the FDA was used in a patient for three days as a "bridge" until a human replacement heart could be found.

If a project carries little or no risk, FDA regulations permit an IRB to use an "expedited review." This means that the research can be reviewed and approved by the chairman or senior members without convening the full IRB. Minor changes in an existing project also can be approved through an expedited review.

Institutions engaged in research involving humans will generally have their own IRBs that review work done on the premises or elsewhere by the staff of the institution. However, the IRB need not be "on site" at the institution as long as it is available to review that institution's research. An IRB in a hospital, for example, is not required to review studies done outside the hospital's jurisdiction, but the IRB may do so if the hospital is willing.

IRB members usually are not paid for their services, but there is nothing in the regulations to prevent it. Any payment should be a fixed amount and not contingent upon a favorable review. Travel and other expenses may be reimbursed.

The FDA relies upon the careful review of the responsible IRB to ensure that research studies are not unnecessarily risky and are valid endeavors. Human subjects are informed about the research and agree to participate voluntarily in an approved consent process. Together, these two activities serve to protect the rights and welfare of research participants.

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30. Anthrax Vaccine Could Be Dangerous

By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Anthrax-Vaccine.html

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A high-ranking military leader has acknowledged that the mandatory anthrax vaccination for American troops can be potentially dangerous, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today.

Citing military documents, the paper reported Army Secretary Louis Caldera agreed in September that the government would accept the burden of potential liability claims by service members against the vaccine's manufacturer.

According to a memo signed by Caldera, the vaccine ``involves unusually hazardous risks associated with the potential for adverse reactions in some recipients and the possibility that the desired immunological effect will not be obtained by all recipients.''

Caldera also said there is no certainty that the anthrax used in tests to gauge the vaccine's effectiveness ``will be sufficiently similar to the pathogen that U.S. forces might encounter'' during warfare, the paper reported.

Department of Defense officials last week insisted that the vaccine is safe, despite wording in Caldera's letter, the paper said.

Army Col. Dick Bridges, a senior Defense Department spokesman, said the agreement was ``legalese'' and likened it to a newspaper buying libel insurance.

``You don't expect to libel anyone, but you can't say it's never going to happen,'' Bridges said.

The Army is the lead agency in acquiring the vaccine for all of the armed forces. Caldera's decision to shift liability to the government may mean that Michigan-based BioPort Corp. would not have to pay for lawsuits contending the vaccine caused adverse reactions in recipients or failed to protect service members.

The manufacturer has a single-source contract with the government to produce about 6.3 million doses of the vaccine.

Caldera's acknowledgment of the vaccine's potential dangers comes at a time when the Pentagon is conducting an educational campaign to assure service members that the vaccine is safe.

``This is another stunning example of the misleading and false statements made by senior military leaders about the vaccine's safety,'' said Marc Zaid, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who helped represent five Marines in Twentynine Palms who have refused to take the vaccine.

``It appears to indicate either the service members are just and correct in their reasons for refusing the shots, or the Army has blatantly distorted the true picture of the vaccine's safety,'' Zaid said.

The Pentagon started the $130 million anthrax inoculation campaign in March, with plans to inoculate nearly 2.5 million active-duty personnel and reservists with six injections over an 18-month period, to be followed by a booster annually.

According to the Pentagon, more than 220,000 members of the military have been immunized and about 200 have refused. Forty-two of those who had the vaccine reported adverse effects. All recovered.

On Monday, two Marines were convicted of disobeying a lawful order by refusing to take the anthrax vaccine.

The courts-martial completed prosecutions of five servicemen at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. All were convicted.

Lance Cpl. Michael McIntyre, 22, of Mount Vernon, Wash., was given 30 days in confinement and a bad-conduct discharge. Lance Cpl. Jared Johnston, 19, of Henryetta, Okla., received 25 days in confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.

The previous three Marines received similar sentences.

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31. Hackers Hit Army, Weather Site

By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Army-Hacked.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Computer hackers apparently used a well-publicized software flaw to vandalize the U.S. Army's main Internet site for as long as nine hours before anyone noticed. Other hackers attacked a federal weather site early today.

The moves were the latest in a string of electronic attacks launched recently against high-profile federal government Web sites, including those run by the White House, the Senate and the FBI.

Hackers vandalized the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Internet site for its Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., early today.

Joe Schaefer, director of the NOAA Storm Prediction Center, said the attack also crippled the agency's e-mail system. He said he expected the site to be repaired later today.

Schaefer said the attack prevented emergency management officials nationwide from using the Web site to check the center's forecast today for thunderstorms and tornadoes.

``The Internet is an unofficial way to distribute that information, but a lot of people have come to rely on it,'' Schaefer said. ``It's a quick, easy way to get data.''

The weather service attack was first reported by the Attrition Internet service, which tracks hacker activities.

The Army said it replaced the altered page at the www.army.mil site early Monday and said no internal systems were otherwise affected.

``There were no security breaches,'' Army spokesman Jim Stueve said.

Administrators believe the hackers hit the Army site between 8 p.m. Sunday and 5 a.m. Monday. Stueve said the site was repaired within one hour.

The vandalized page announced that the attack ``has a purpose ... to settle rumors'' about the demise of the loosely organized hacker group that also claimed responsibility for a similar attack on the White House site last month.

Another message hidden within the altered page's computer code urged people who saw it to ``trust very few people.''

The attack comes just months after Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre announced stepped-up internal security procedures to protect against hackers, but Monday's electronic break-in apparently took advantage of a flaw in commercial, off-the-shelf software.

The Army's computers use popular Internet software from Allaire Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., which warned customers in an e-mail security bulletin as recently as May 19 to remove sample programs and computer code installed by default into a particular directory created by its software.

It also urged customers to completely remove the vulnerable directory, but a security notice currently on the Army's Web site indicates that directory still exists on its computers and remains actively used.

The ``Cold Fusion'' flaw drew widespread attention among computer security experts, especially after hackers distributed step-by-step instructions on exploiting the software problem.

The Army said only that it was investigating the attack. The FBI, which normally investigates electronic assaults against government systems, said the matter had been turned over to the appropriate authorities but declined to say whether it was involved in the probe.

The attack comes in the wake of several others on prominent government Internet sites, including those of the White House, FBI and Senate earlier this year. Military pages have long been favorites of hackers.

``They're always the target,'' said Keith Rhodes, a director in the information management division of the General Accounting Office, the investigative branch of Congress. ``It's almost like a rite of passage. You have to bust a (military) site to have any credibility.''

Just last week, experts told the House Science Committee's technology panel that managers at many federal agencies fail to consider computer security adequately and have too few employees with sufficient training.

Rhodes, who was among those testifying last week, said Monday that the Defense Department's computer-security expertise is uneven.

``They're the best and the worst in computer security,'' Rhodes said. ``They've got some real pros, some of the best in the business. But the DOD is huge ... and some of the areas in the Department of Defense don't have very good security.''

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[Noteworthy]

32. USA Today, June 29, 1999 (Washington DC) http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm

Are Bill, Hillary heading to Capitol Hill?

... Only one ex-president, Andrew Johnson, has served in the Senate after leaving the White House.

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... Andrew Johnson, the only other U.S. president impeached and acquitted....

"Johnson Impeachment Provides Lesson" Washington Post, February 13, 1999 Associated Press

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White House Says Clinton Not Running For Senate Updated 4:13 PM ET June 28, 1999 WASHINGTON (Reuters) http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990628/16/news-clinton-senate

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16. Russia may build 3 nuclear plants in Iran -agency

01:39 p.m Jun 28, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???"

MOSCOW, June 28 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin gave the go-ahead on Monday for discussions with Iran on building three nuclear power plants in that country, Interfax news agency said.

It said the Atomic Energy Ministry had made the proposal but did not say when the talks might start. Officials were not immediately available for comment.

Russia is already building a nuclear reactor for Iran in the Gulf port of Bushehr in a deal worth $800 million.

The United States and Israel have often urged Russia to suspend nuclear cooperation with Iran, fearing that Tehran might use the technology to develop nuclear weapons.

Washington has imposed sanctions on a string of Russian scientific institutes and companies which it says are helping Tehran to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Moscow denies the charges, saying all its nuclear cooperation with Iran is of a strictly civilian nature.

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Iran Building Its Own Fighters - Jane's

Updated 12:33 PM ET June 28, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990628/12/international-arms-iran

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has begun series production of a locally developed fighter called the Azarakhsh (Lightning), according to Jane's Defense Weekly.

In an article released ahead of publication Tuesday, the authoritative British journal said production of the fighter had been disclosed by Iranian air force General Habibollah Baghal in remarks to Tehran newspapers.

Baghal also claimed that a locally designed Dorna (Lark) trainer aircraft had entered production, Jane's said.

The Azarakhsh is a light fighter and ground attack aircraft in the F-5 class but slightly larger, weighing around 8,000 kg (3,600 lbs) and with a payload of 4,000 kg.

It has an Iranian-designed radar with "certain critical components" of Russian origin.

"Sources claim that it is a highly capable aircraft despite its conventional design," Jane's said.

It said a previously unknown aircraft, resembling a U.S.-built F-5 fighter but with shoulder mounted air intakes, had been seen on several occasions but Iran had not confirmed whether or not it was the new fighter.

The bulk of Iran's air force comprise U.S. types, such as the F-14A Tomcat, the F-5 Tiger II and the F-4 Phantom II, which were delivered before the 1979 overthrow of the Shah.

These were supplemented by Iraqi aircraft of Soviet and Chinese origin flown to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War. It remains unclear how many of the U.S. supplied and former Iraqi aircraft are serviceable.

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17. Annan Urges Muslims, West To Bridge Cultural Rift

Updated 1:00 AM ET June 29, 1999, by Dominic Evans http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/01/international-un-annan

OXFORD, England (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed Monday for Muslim and Western nations to adopt a new "world ethic" embracing cultural diversity and bridging fault lines between them.

Praising Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's "farsighted" call for a dialogue between Islamic and Western civilizations, Annan said contacts between the two cultures should be "a dialogue of mutual respect."

"We must accept -- even cultivate -- the presence of different traditions within each region of the world, and indeed within each society," Annan said in a speech to Oxford's Center of Islamic Studies.

He said the Muslim-Western divide was one of the most prominent cultural rifts between nations, fueled by bitterness among many Muslims at perceived overbearing Western power.

"Today colonialism has ended, but many Muslims still resent their manifest inequality with the West in power politics. Many of them have a sense of defeat and disadvantage," Annan said.

"Their resentment has been fed by the unjust treatment of the Palestinians and, more recently, by atrocities committed against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia," he added.

The world should heed Muslim wishes for their religion and culture to be respected, but respect could not be earned by military power, Annan said.

"Modern societies are too closely linked with each other, and modern weapons are too terrifyingly destructive, for interaction between modern civilizations to take the form of armed conflict," he said.

"Today's dialogue must be a peaceful one."

But Annan said Muslim and Western nations should also embrace their own cultural diversities, pointing to millions of Muslims living in the West today and the vibrant mix of cultures which contributed to early Islamic civilization.

Societies both in the West and Muslim world could not survive as closed blocs of monolithic cultures, he said.

"I do think it is vital that we preserve and cherish diversity wherever we can. But not...by identifying 'civilizations' with geographically distinct blocs," Annan said.

"Most of us feel that America's openness and diversity are its best qualities, and that if it tried to impose cultural conformity it would be embarking, like other great powers before it, on the road of decline," Annan added.

"The dialogue among civilizations must be a dialogue within societies as well as between them," he said. "And it must be a dialogue of mutual respect."

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18. Turkish Court Sentences Ocalan To Death

Updated 6:33 AM ET June 29, 1999, By Ercan Ersoy http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/06/international-turkey-ocalan

IMRALI ISLAND, Turkey (Reuters) - A Turkish court condemned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan to death Tuesday for leading a 14-year-old separatist campaign that killed over 29,000 people.

Ocalan, standing with his hands folded behind his back in a bullet-proof glass box in the Imrali prison island courtroom, showed no reaction as senior judge Turgut Okyay told him he must hang. The verdict, however, will reverberate around Turkey and raise fears of Kurdish activist violence in western Europe.

"(He has) murdered thousands of innocent people without regard to babies, children, women or the elderly," said Okyay, wearing a traditional black robe with high, scarlet collar.

"His activities constitute a serious, immediate and great danger to the country," he added.

The mustached Ocalan, dressed in a brown double-breasted jacket with open neck shirt, listened to the judge impassively, his eyes darting from side to side occasionally. The sentence read, he was led away to his cell as the courtroom erupted in a rendering of the Turkish national anthem. Mothers of soldiers killed in fighting raised portraits of their sons.

Germany, which has a large Turkish Kurdish population, said it regretted the death sentence. "I appeal to Kurds to remain calm and not get swept up by ill conceived actions," Interior Minister Otto Schily said.

Switzerland said execution would "provoke a new spiral of violence in Turkey (and) the rest of Europe."

The political arm of Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said that conflict could now spread inside Turkey. "This means attacks on economic targets," a spokeswoman said from London.

Police have stepped up security across Turkey, fearing retaliation by the PKK guerrilla group Ocalan founded as a marxist "vanguard."

During the month-long trial Ocalan has swung between breathtaking declarations of loyalty to the republic he had so long fought, and threats of thousands more deaths if he is hanged. He offered to bring his fighters down from the mountains if spared the rope but spoke of 5,000 suicide bombers willing to die for him if he mounted the gallows.

"I do not accept the charge of treason," he said in brief remarks before sentencing. "I believe I've struggled for the unity of the land and a free life...I extend greetings to all."

The public mood appears at present to be strongly in favor of carrying out the execution, probably on Imrali Island, where he has been held since his capture.

But Ocalan's case must pass first to the appeals court and then to parliament for ratification.

The nationalist parliament elected in April, partly as a result of elation over the capture of Ocalan, seems certain to pass the law necessary for the first hanging since 1984.

Ocalan's chief hope of salvation lies with the European Court of Human Rights -- a body not know for its swift action. An appeal to Strasbourg, even if given priority, could take anywhere from six to 18 months.

Ocalan, his hair cut shorter than in his days of liberty and his mustache greying now, rarely showed signs of excitement during the month-long trial. He surprised allies as well as foes by acknowledging guilt over the many deaths in his campaign.

"I share your pain," he said on one occasion, bowing repeatedly to weeping women in the courtroom holding pictures of their dead soldier sons. Rarely, however, did his gaze stray toward them. He sat for the most part absorbed in his own thoughts or listening attentively to judges and lawyers.

"I hope the verdict is auspicious for our people," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said.

Ocalan has long been a focus of tension between Turkey and a European Union it sees as spurning its aspirations to join.

Germany has already warned Turkey's membership hopes would be damaged if Ocalan is hanged and Italy has taken a strong stand over the death penalty internationally.

Italy and Germany were at loggerheads with Turkey late last year after Ocalan, driven from cover in Syria by a vigorous Turkish diplomatic campaign, was arrested at Rome airport.

Italy refused to extradite him to Turkey, citing its opposition to the death penalty, and Germany declined to press an arrest warrant issued years before. Ocalan, with Turkey on his heels, fled again, via Russia and Greece, finally seeking sanctuary at the Greek embassy in Nairobi.

How Ocalan was played into the hands of Turkish agents there is still a matter for speculation. But when first pictures of Ocalan, blindfolded and handcuffed on a Turkish aircraft were broadcast to a stunned nation there were few questions.

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Governments, Rebels Denounce Ocalan Verdict

Updated 8:31 AM ET June 29, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/08/international-ocalan-reac tion

LONDON (Reuters) - Governments and international organizations Tuesday swiftly denounced the death sentence imposed by Turkey on Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, while his guerrilla fighters warned of revenge attacks if the penalty were carried out.

European governments, especially in Germany, appealed for calm but braced for violent protests by followers of Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) among their large immigrant communities from Turkey.

"A warning has already been made about spreading the war to the west (of Turkey) and hitting strategic targets," a spokeswoman for the PKK's political arm told Reuters. "This means attacks on Turkey's economic targets. The war will spread inside Turkey."

In Vienna, another PKK political spokesman said: "This ruling will pave a new and dangerous road for the conflict...in Turkey and the whole Middle East."

Ocalan was condemned to death for leading a 14-year separatist campaign that killed more than 29,000 people.

German Interior Minister Otto Schily said in a statement that he hoped Turkish President Suleyman Demirel would review the court decision.

"I appeal to Kurds to remain calm and not get swept up by ill-conceived actions, but instead put faith in the appeals process and the European Court for Human Rights," Schily said.

In Rome, the leader of the biggest party in Italy's ruling coalition blasted Ocalan's sentence on as "absurd and very grave," and called on European governments to act to save his life.

Walter Veltroni, chairman of the Democrats of the Left party to which Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema belongs, said the death sentence irreparably compromised Turkey's relationship with the rest of Europe.

"We are asking for immediate action by the Italian government and by other European countries to save Ocalan's life and to help find a political solution to the Kurdish problem," Veltroni said in a statement.

NATO allies Turkey and Italy engaged in a fierce diplomatic row after Ocalan sought refuge in Rome in a blaze of publicity last November. The rebel leader eventually left Italy and was arrested by Turkish special forces after he had been sheltered briefly in the Greek embassy in Kenya in February.

Greek government spokesman Nickos Nicolaou said: "Turkey must prove that it is in line with the principles of the EU and other international bodies on justice matters."

A government statement in Switzerland warned that executing Ocalan "would provoke a new spiral of violence in Turkey as well as in the rest of Europe and would not contribute to a peaceful solution of the Kurdish question."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin told a news briefing: "We know that, although capital punishment has not been abolished by legislation in Turkey, that country has not carried out any death sentences since 1984."

"We hope that the high principles of humanity will not be breached in the case of Ocalan either," he said.

As news of the Turkish court ruling became known, Kurds gathered for protests in cities across Europe, including in Moscow, Paris, Bonn and Strasbourg, home of the 41-nation Council of Europe.

The Council noted the Turkish president had taken part in a pledge at the group's last summit meeting in 1997 to abolish the death penalty or uphold the existing moratoria on executions.

"This is an historic achievement which must be upheld," the Council said in a statement. "We are confident that the Grand National Assembly will defend Turkey's good record in this field."

Human rights group Amnesty International questioned the legality of the death sentence against Ocalan and urged a retrial.

"The death sentence was passed at the conclusion of a trial that violated both national law and international standards for a fair trial," London-based Amnesty said in a statement.

"Abdullah Ocalan should be tried before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal."

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Kurdish Rebel Links Revolt to Repression by Turkey

By STEPHEN KINZER, June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/062499turkey-ocalan.html

STANBUL, Turkey -- Speaking in his own defense at his treason trial, Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan said Wednesday that repressive measures imposed by the Turkish government had driven him and his followers to take up arms.

Ocalan said restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language had led him and many other Kurds to conclude that they had to fight to preserve their culture and heritage.

"These kinds of laws give birth to rebellion and anarchy," he told judges at the prison island of Imrali, where he has been the only inmate since his capture in February. "Even the smallest obstacle is enough to spark an uprising. The most important of these is the language ban. It provokes this revolt.

The way to resolve this problem is to develop Kurdish as a normal language for private conversation and broadcasting."

At Wednesday's court session, Ocalan spent about 30 minutes reading from a statement. He said he was not pleading for his life, but warned that if he is hanged, "a lot of blood will flow in Turkey, and this could lead to a military coup."

The war that Ocalan has waged has cost more than 30,000 lives and made him the object of intense hatred. It has also made him a heroic figure to many Kurds who live in Turkey's southeast.

If he is convicted, as is universally expected, the law requires that he be sentenced to death. On the first day of his trial he accepted the charges against him, admitting that fighters under his command had carried out all the attacks attributed to them by prosecutors, in addition to "many more you haven't mentioned."

A verdict is expected quickly. "If the defense is completed Friday, the verdict may be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday," said presiding judge Turgut Okyay on Wednesday.

It is uncertain whether the expected death sentence will be carried out. On the opening day of his trial in May, Ocalan said that if he is allowed to live, he will try to persuade his fighters to lay down their arms. In exchange, he said, the Turkish government should allow them to "enter the political system."

When Ocalan's fighters began their armed campaign in 1984, Kurds in southeastern provinces were subject to arrest if they were heard speaking their language in public. Kurdish music was banned, and schoolchildren were beaten if they spoke Kurdish rather than Turkish.

Those restrictions have been eased, and Kurdish conversation is now heard throughout southeastern Turkey. Cassettes of Kurdish music are easily available. But there are still no Kurdish-language schools, and even classes for adults who wish to learn the language are banned. Nor does the Turkish government permit television programming in Kurdish.

The government maintains a "unitary state," and officials have repeatedly asserted that encouraging the Kurdish language would increase ethnic consciousness and lead to other demands that could ultimately split the nation.

Partly as a result of Ocalan's appeal for reconciliation, the near-hysteria that accompanied his capture and return to Turkey appears to have calmed. Newspapers and television commentators that had spent weeks competing to denounce him in ever-more lurid terms have turned their attention elsewhere.

There has been no lack of news to divert their attention. National elections in April led to the formation of an odd coalition government between two parties, some of whose members had spent years shooting and bombing each other. A woman who was elected to Parliament scandalized the country by trying to take her oath of office while wearing a Muslim head scarf. In recent days debate has been raging about the leader of a religious sect who, depending on one's point of view, is either providing good education to thousands of needy students or secretly plotting to overthrow the secular republic.

In this climate, it may be easier for civilian and political leaders to decide not to push for Ocalan's quick execution.

"Some people are saying that maybe the best thing would be to let this case just hang in the wind, if I can put it that way," said a foreign diplomat who has been closely following the trial. "Convict the guy, sentence him to death and then don't do anything else. There are more than 100 other people in Turkish prisons who have been under death sentences for years. Ocalan might simply be added to that list."

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A Peace Overture in Turkey

June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/06249924thu3.html

The case of the Kurdish rebel chief, Abdullah Ocalan, confronts Turkey's leaders with a critical choice. The special state security court trying Mr. Ocalan for treason is expected to hand down its verdict in the next few days. He has acknowledged most of the charges against him and his conviction is virtually certain, with a mandatory penalty of death by hanging. But for weeks Mr. Ocalan, whose 15-year campaign of terrorism and violence has resulted in some 30,000 deaths, has been proposing a deal. Spare his life, he says, and he will work to persuade his militant followers to negotiate a peaceful solution to the Kurdish revolt.

Mr. Ocalan's offer should be tested. He ought to pay for his crimes. But lengthy imprisonment, not hanging, is the appropriate punishment. Ankara should not pass up what could be a rare chance to end Turkey's most corrosive political problem.

Mr. Ocalan says he now believes violence has become a dead end and that Kurdish rights can best be protected by a democratic Turkish state. He envisions a peace based on expanded freedom to use the Kurdish language in schools and broadcasting and says he is ready to urge his followers to lay down their arms and work peacefully for such reforms.

Any death sentence issued by the security court must be successively reviewed by an appeals court, Turkey's Parliament and President Suleyman Demirel before it can be carried out. Turkish politicians will be reluctant to spare Mr. Ocalan's life because he is reviled by the non-Kurdish majority. Many Turks also fear that greater language rights for Kurds could fray national unity. But the quick execution of Mr. Ocalan that some politicians now clamor for would also strain that unity, and could set off new outbursts of Kurdish violence in Turkey and abroad.

Over the years, Turkey's harsh response to even nonviolent Kurdish activism has led to severe human rights abuses. Writers, journalists and elected officials have been arrested and peaceful political parties banned. These abuses have made Turkey a pariah in Europe and set back its ambitions for European Union membership. In response to Mr. Ocalan's violence, the country's armed forces have devastated Kurdish-inhabited areas of southeastern Turkey, razing villages and driving tens of thousands of refugees to Ankara and Istanbul.

Mr. Ocalan now offers a realistic chance of ending this conflict. Turkey should spare his life and see whether he can deliver.

Correction

An editorial last Saturday discussing recent rulings by two Federal judges, Stephen Williams and Douglas Ginsburg, on the Administration's clean air policies misstated Judge Williams's first name and misidentified the court on which they sit. It is the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, not the Second Circuit.

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Stopping America's Most Lethal Export June 23, 1999 Oscar Arias) New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/06239923aria.html

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Subject: NucNews-4 6/29/99 - Mideast -

14. Israeli court says Vanunu could spill more secrets

09:31 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

JERUSALEM, June 24 (Reuters) - An Israeli court went public for the first time in the case of jailed nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu on Thursday to say it could not return him to Italy for fear that he would spill more secrets.

Judges made the ruling earlier this week in response to a petition by Vanunu who asked to be returned to Italy where he was seized by Israeli agents in 1986 for trial in Israel.

They released the judgment on Thursday, ending 13 years of silence over the case of Vanunu, a former employee at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor.

``The petitioner has many secrets locked in his heart and the state is concerned that if he is returned to the said country he will disclose those secrets in violation of the law,'' judges said in the brief ruling.

Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years for espionage after telling Britain's Sunday Times newspaper that Israel had built more than 200 atomic bombs in Dimona.

Israel as a matter of policy makes no comment about its nuclear programme.

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FOCUS-Israeli court to publish Vanunu rulings

10:57 a.m. Jun 21, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

JERUSALEM, June 21 (Reuters) - Israel's High Court will go public with rulings in the case of nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu for the first time after 13 years of secrecy, a Justice Ministry official said on Monday.

The court rejected on Monday petitions brought by former nuclear technician Vanunu to release protocols of his 1986 conviction and to return him to Italy, where he was seized by Israeli security agents and brought to trial in Israel.

Departing from precedent, however, the court said it would publish on Tuesday its rulings rejecting the petitions.

Justice officials have never released judgments or protocols from hearings on Vanunu, 45, a onetime employee at Israel's Dimona reactor, reputed to be a nuclear arms factory.

He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage after telling Britain's Sunday Times newspaper that Israel had built more than 200 atomic bombs in Dimona. Israel as a matter of policy makes no comment about its nuclear programme.

In the past the court has issued only brief statements about rulings. This time, the prosecution said it was not opposed to the court publishing the judgments with certain deletions. ``We are ready to consider this and we said we would censor parts that are barred from publication and all of the rest we would be ready to publish, obviously with the consultation of the relevant security elements,'' said lawyer Dvora Chen, of the state attorney's office.

Vanunu spent his first 11 years in solitary confinement but has since been allowed to consort with other prisoners. A parole board rejected his request for an early release last year.

``Now his situation is much better. Taking him out of solitary confinement certainly contributed to his emotional balance,'' Vanunu's attorney Avigdor Feldman said on Monday.

- Computers have revolutionized military concepts, planning and execution in Israel: aiming artillery shells, positioning tanks, isolating fighter plane targets and spying on the enemy. In training exercises, their precision ends morning-after arguments.

In one recent exercise witnessed by The Associated Press at the desolate Negev Desert base of Tseelim, the lightweight, computerized trucks showed how things have changed from the recent past, when massive tanks crushed desert weeds on maneuvers.

Lt. Col. Yaron trudged grimly through the sand, giving a wide berth to Cpl. Noa Marun's vehicle, which blocked a path after being knocked out by a practice tank firing lasers. Yaron's reckoning would come later, when a computerized reconstruction of the mock battle pre-empted the old fist-shaking arguments over who shot whom.

Israel has a decisive edge over Arab armies in computerized weapons systems, said Ariel Sobelman of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. But he warned that the gap can be closed quickly with ``off-the-shelf'' computer purchases.

About 80 computer-carrying vehicles bounced over the dunes in the early-morning desert maneuver. Commanders like Yaron directed their movements. Soldiers carried out the orders, and specialists, mostly women, drove.

Wearing a dusty uniform and a floppy army-issue hat, Cpl. Lee Baum, 19, an immigrant from Montreal, Canada, said she and the others took a truck driving and computer course to learn to operate the ersatz tanks. ``It's the most amazing thing I ever heard of,'' she said.

The bitter end for Marun's truck was a message on her computer screen: ``tank knocked out by cannon fire.'' The cannon was a laser gun on a vehicle like hers.

Visibly tired after a night of driving through the desert, Marun, 19, took off her protective helmet, revealing neatly-cut blond hair, and jumped off the truck.

Still inside, two Israeli soldiers were getting used to the idea that they were dead. ``I don't know where it came from,'' said the tank commander, Avi, about the laser-simulated shell that destroyed his tank.

Later, in the headquarters hot seat, Yaron could see exactly where it came from. From the signals sent back by the trucks and soldiers, the Tactical Training Center's computers reconstructed the battle, minute by minute, on a movie screen.

In the pre-computer days, a commander like Yaron could have insisted that Marum's tank wasn't really hit, that it wasn't ambushed like the others, that it did the shooting.

Before the Tactical Training Center started operations last October, explained Col. Avi Ashkenazi, ``90 percent of the time was wasted'' sorting out conflicting claims of whose tanks were where, and who won.

``The main advantage of this system is that there are no more arguments,'' said Ashkenazi, commander of the center. The new simulations also improve training and save wear and tear on real tanks.

In a movie theater-style debriefing room, Lt. Col. Moshe, Yaron's instructor, clicked his laser pointer and highlighted a line on the screen on the wall. Little blue squares on the map represented enemy tanks. The lines showed their cannon fire.

As the computerized image of the battle progressed, superimposed on a detailed map of the battlefield, red squares representing Yaron's tanks were wiped out as he led them into an ambush.

``Our mistake was not reporting the position of the enemy tanks when we spotted them,'' admitted Yaron, squirming slightly in his front-row seat.

One tank survived by straying two miles off into the desert. As Moshe replayed the battle, a red square representing the tank drifted slowly toward the left edge of the map, far from the action. ``Maybe he thought that was a flanking maneuver,'' Yaron joked.

His next task was to convene his officers in the same room, run through the battle with them, go over his and their mistakes and learn how to overcome them.

On the sandy battlefield, Captain Ido Dar, 24, one of Yaron's infantry commanders, predicted that the computerized replay would show that his unit was ``pretty good.'' That got a cheer from his soldiers.

If it showed up mistakes, he said with a weary smile, ``it's better if we make them here than in a real war.''

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15. U.S. bombs Iraqi targets in Northern No-fly zone

June 28, 1999 Web posted at: 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT) From CNN Correspondent Patty Davis http://cnn.com:80/US/9906/28/us.iraq/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. planes acting in self-defense bombed an Iraqi military command and control site southwest of Mosul, Iraq on Monday, the Pentagon's European Command said.

The U.S. pilots dropped laser-guided bombs after they were targeted by Iraqi radar and anti-aircraft artillery between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Iraqi time, officials said.

The damage is being assessed by the U.S. European Command.

The action marked the ninth time this month that coalition planes enforcing the Northern No-fly Zone have been either targeted by Iraqi radar or fired upon from the ground by Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery and then responded, officials said.

The U.S. aircraft are part of Operation Northern Watch.

There was no damage to the coalition aircraft, which returned safely to their base in Incirlik, Turkey.

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Iraq says over 1 million die due to U.N. sanctions

June 22, 1999 Web posted at: 1:26 PM EDT (1726 GMT) http://cnn.com:80/WORLD/meast/9906/22/BC-IRAQ-HEALTH.reut/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- Iraq said Tuesday that more than 1 million Iraqis had died due to the trade sanctions the United Nations imposed on the country for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"The mortality rate among Iraqis due to the...sanctions totaled 1,159,807 citizens," the official Iraqi News Agency INA said, quoting health ministry statistics.

According to these statistics, diseases like inflammation of the respiratory system, diarrhea, malnutrition, high blood pressure, diabetes, and malignant tumors were among the causes of death.

Statistics said the infant mortality rate totaled 92.7 cases for every 1,000 deliveries, and that 117 women died in childbirth for every 1,000 deliveries.

The statistics showed that in 1998 there was a marked increase in communicable diseases such as polio, whooping cough, measles, cholera and others in comparison to 1989. It blamed the increase on a lack of medicine and food.

The ministry report said there was an increase in the weight of newborn babies, many of which are below 5.5 lbs.

U.N. sanctions do not prohibit medical imports, but the government lacks money to pay for them because oil exports are curtailed.

Since December 1996, the U.N. has allowed Iraq limited oil sales over six months on a renewable basis to buy food, medicines and other relief goods.

---

Iraq says British proposal would make sanctions 'permanent'

June 23, 1999 Web posted at: 7:34 p.m. EDT (2334 GMT) http://cnn.com:80/WORLD/meast/9906/23/iraq/

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's vice president on Wednesday denounced a British-Dutch proposal that would suspend sanctions against Iraq if Baghdad met specific disarmament requirements.

"Iraq rejects them without any discussion or comment because the British plan only makes the embargo permanent," said Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. "Any step should not fail to lift sanctions clearly on Iraq when it meets all its obligations."

Informally backed by the United States, the British draft would require that Iraq submit to arms inspections and be certified that it has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction.

In return, sanctions restricting Iraqi exports, including oil, would be frozen for 120-day periods.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to discuss the British resolution on Monday, as well as rival proposals from China, Russia and France that would lift sanctions entirely after a new arms control body is established to monitor Iraq's banned weapons.

"We look forward to that process and giving the council a new collective approach on Iraq that will take us forward," said Britain's U.N. ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock.

Iraq, however, has criticized the council's discussions, saying they mean nothing unless they involve Baghdad.

"I said that in any agreement or formula there should be consultation with Iraq," Ramadan said.

The council has been deadlocked on Iraq since the United States and Britain launched airstrikes in mid-December over Baghdad's refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. Iraq has banned inspectors of the U.N. Special Commission from returning.

The U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq after its troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

---

UN defends decision to exclude UNSCOM in Iraq

June 25, 1999 Web posted at: 6:58 PM EDT (2258 GMT) http://cnn.com:80/WORLD/meast/9906/25/BC-IRAQ-CHEMICALS-UN.reut/

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- Alleging a U.N. laboratory in Baghdad contained dangerous substances, the United Nations on Friday defended its decision to send a team to Iraq without experts who set up the laboratory.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Iraq would not allow a team with experts from the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), which has been out of Iraq since mid-December U.S.-British bombing raids, to enter the country.

"The Iraqi inspections program is premised on the assumption that Iraq will cooperate with UNSCOM and the United Nations," he said in answer to queries. "UNSCOM is not in there today because Iraq has denied them access."

At issue were proposals last month by UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler to send experts to Iraq for the first time in six months to dispose of chemical and biological samples left behind when inspectors left Baghdad last December.

The request escalated into a political controversy when, a few days after Butler spoke to Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office, Russia called the Security Council into an emergency session to accuse UNSCOM of endangering lives of U.N. staff who lived in the same compound as the laboratory.

UNSCOM, which denied the materials were dangerous, proposed the team include two of its experts as well as those from a Swiss government laboratory involved in the Baghdad operation.

Russia, which wants UNSCOM abolished, said experts should include those from the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as well as diplomats, which is what the United Nations apparently decided to do.

In Baghdad on Thursday, Prakash Shah, the U.N. special envoy in Iraq, said that Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, had agreed to a 10-12 member team to remove the materials, including Baghdad-based foreign diplomats. U.N. sources said this would include Russia's ambassador.

Shah said the only UNSCOM official permitted into the laboratory would be Jaakko Ylitalo, now in Bahrain after serving as administrator of UNSCOM's Baghdad centre.

In the Hague the OPCW said it was willing to send four chemical weapons experts to Iraq. Diplomats said there were some misgivings over the organisation's mandate and that the OPCW's board would discuss it again on Wednesday.

Some Western diplomats said the United Nations had followed Iraq's recommendations for the team, which could set a precedent for the future. But neither the United States and Britain intend to raise the matter in the Security Council, saying it would needlessly prolong a secondary issue.

UNSCOM, in charge of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, has denied the materials were unsafe but wanted to remove them before potential power failures in the summer.

Butler told the council the laboratory contained tiny quantities of chemical agents used to calibrate equipment, which he said "do not represent a threat, even in case of an accident," as well as some 2.2 pounds (one kg) of mustard gas recovered from Iraqi shells.

But Eckhard said "it has been reported that there are dangerous substances there by our Iraq program personnel who are working in the same building." The United Nations administers a large humanitarian program in Iraq.

---

UN'S IRAQI U-TURN Iraq gets own way with inspection

Date: 26/06/99, Sydney Morning Herald, By JUDITH MILLER at the United Nations http://www.smh.com.au:80/news/9906/26/text/world20.html

The United Nations has agreed to send a team to dismantle a laboratory in Baghdad but, in a victory for Iraq, the team does not include experts from the special commission charged with disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Prakash Shah, the UN Secretary-General's special envoy to Iraq, said on Thursday in Baghdad that Iraq had agreed to allow a team of 10 or 11 "totally independent and neutral" experts to remove small amounts of toxic substances left behind in a lab when inspectors left the country last December.

Several diplomats at the UN said they were troubled by the precedent of permitting Iraq to choose UN inspectors, but a spokesman for the Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said: "Cleaning up this lab has nothing to do with limiting the special commission's mandate." It was a matter of safety, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Annan appears to have abandoned an earlier effort to find a temporary chief who is not an American to head the embattled special commission, known as UNSCOM.

Spokesmen for the Secretary-General, who was in Russia on Thursday on an official visit, would not discuss who Mr Annan had asked to temporarily replace Mr Richard Butler.

Members of the Security Council had also objected to other suggested candidates, including members of the commission that oversees UNSCOM, diplomats said.

Even Mr Sergey Lavrov, Russia's representative here and UNSCOM's harshest critic, preferred to see an American temporarily in charge rather than someone new who might give the impression that Russia had softened its hostility to UNSCOM.

The developments come as the Security Council has been attempting to close a deep rift over policy towards Iraq. Russia, China and France have favoured an immediate lifting of sanctions against Iraq.

---

Richard Butler outspoken, independent advocate

08:56 a.m. Jun 27 1999 Eastern By Evelyn Leopold http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???"

UNITED NATIONS, June 27 (Reuters) - Chief U.N. arms inspector Richard Butler, who leaves his post on Wednesday, has always been a controversial figure -- outspoken, single-minded and ready to take risks.

But he has rarely drawn as much fire as during his two-year tenure as executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), in charge of disarming Iraq. He will join the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations in mid-July.

While his soft-spoken predecessor Rolf Ekeus, now Sweden's ambassador in the United States, was sometimes attacked by Iraq as a ``liar'' and a follower of Washington's policies, Baghdad called Butler a ``mad dog'' and began vilifying him almost daily just months after he assumed his two-year post in July 1997.

Russia and China, sympathetic to Baghdad, wanted him fired for allegedly colluding with Washington in a report that gave the United States the basis for air attacks against Iraq in December. Since then Russia's U.N. ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, has attacked him personally and relentlessly.

``I ask you to think of this: is it about me as a personality, or is it about substance? The substance is the disarmament of Iraq,'' Butler said in an interview.

But the accusations did not stop. News reports alleged UNSCOM helped Washington plant spies to undermine Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime, a charge he disputes: ``Have we facilitated spying? Are we spies? Absolutely not.''

Colleagues say Butler played it ``by the book'' but since the bombing raids UNSCOM inspectors have not been allowed in Iraq.

Butler, 57, admits that playing the role of the pit bull made him a fair number of enemies. But he maintains that he is an easy target for those who want to avoid discussing the real issue.

``Do I get up people's noses? I wouldn't deny it,'' he said.

``But nothing seems to make heart beat quicker or the temperature rise higher than when an attempt is made to take away the adult toys -- the heaviest of weapons,'' he said.

Ironically Butler's background is anything but war mongering. He has worked for years in disarmament and is close to peace movements. He has criticised arsenals of atomic arms weapons among nuclear weapons states.

To his supporters, he is a gifted envoy who scorns the diplo-babble common at the United Nations. Even his detractors, who accuse him of having a massive ego, acknowledge his formidable intellect.

Clovis Maksoud, former representative of the Arab League at the United Nations, regards Butler as one of the ``brightest diplomats'' ever.

But he contended that Butler made the inherently controversial tasks of conducting UNSCOM inspections even more controversial by ``the rhetoric and manner in which he used it.''

John Bolton, who served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for international organisations under former President George Bush, said: ``Certainly Butler was a colourful and entertaining participant, aggressive and argumentative. But his personality did not determine the ultimate outcome.''

As Australia's U.N. ambassador (1992-1997), Butler had an extraordinary record of pulling together disarmament resolutions in the General Assembly. He was instrumental in getting the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995.

Later that same year he led the campaign for a resolution deploring nuclear tests by France and China after a bitter debate in which he accused Paris of conducting an underhanded campaign among its former African colonies.

And in 1996 he led an audacious move to have the General Assembly endorse the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which failed to win consensus in the Geneva Disarmament because of Indian opposition.

But he also made enough enemies that his 1996 bid for Australian membership on the Security Council failed. Australia lost to Portugal.

Raised on the beaches of Bondi in New South Wales, Australia, Butler, over six-feet tall (1.8 metres), surfed and played rugby and cricket. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Sydney University and the Australian National University respectively.

He comes from a family of classical musicians, is a trustee of the Australian National Gallery and is familiar with Persian mystic poetry. ``But the most precious thing to me on a personal level is music,'' he says.

In 1964 he joined the Australian Atomic Energy Commission and then the prime minister's office and the external affairs department in 1966 where he received the nickname of the ``Black Prince'' while he was a junior diplomat.

``I've never understood that. I'd like to think it was because I was tall, dark and handsome then,'' he quipped.

He has been posted to Paris, Vienna and served in Australia's U.N. mission between 1970 and 1973.

Butler is married to Barbara Evans, an art historian, with whom he has two sons, now attending university in the United States. He met his wife, an American, at the United Nations 26 years ago when she was a U.N. employee.

He was previously married to Susan Ryan, a former Australian Labour Party senator with whom he had a daughter, who is living in Australia, and a son, now in the United States.

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Message: 6 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:37:30 -0400

Subject: NucNews-3 6/29/99 -

10. 1972 Treaty Shouldn't Bar Deployment

By Tom Raum, Associated Press, June 28, 1999; 6:51 p.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990628/V000878-062899-idx.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States should not be bound by a landmark 1972 arms-control treaty in moving toward deployment of a national missile defense system, the Clinton administration's top arms-control official said Monday.

John Holum, acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that deployment decisions should be based on what best serves the national interest.

His comments, which echoed those of congressional Republicans, followed Russian President Boris Yeltsin's agreement earlier this month to consider reviewing the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which bans both American and Russian missile-defense systems.

The threat of a nuclear attack by a rogue nation ``is clearly very prominent'' as an area of concern, far more so than just a few years ago, when the administration believed such a threat was still years in the future, Holum said.

The Clinton administration earlier opposed moving ahead with a large-scale missile defense program, saying it would violate terms of the treaty.

But in a compromise with congressional Republicans, President Clinton last spring agreed to support legislation committing the nation to a missile-defense system. Top Republican leaders were to rally Tuesday on the Capitol steps to applaud Clinton's signing of that measure.

``In light of new estimates on the ballistic missile threat, in particular from North Korea and Iran, national missile defense is now closer to becoming another integral part of our strategy against proliferation,'' Holum testified.

Holum appeared at a nomination hearing to be the first person to serve in the new post. He had served since 1993 as director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, but that agency went out of business on April 1 when its functions were merged with the State Department.

Holum's nomination was expected to be approved by the panel, perhaps as early as Wednesday, when it also votes on the nomination of Richard Holbrooke to be United Nations ambassador.

The administration says it will make decisions on missile defense system details next June.

Rather than blindly following the ABM restrictions, ``I believe our missile defense should be geared toward threat'' and toward technical feasibility, Holum said. ``We want it to work.''

The administration still intends to withhold from the Senate modifications to the ABM treaty agreed to in 1996 by Clinton and Yeltsin, Holum said.

He reiterated the administration view that the modifications, mainly dealing with impact on the agreement of the breakup of the Soviet Union, should be delayed until after Russia ratifies a 1993 treaty calling for reduction in nuclear warheads.

After delays caused by airstrikes against Iraq and Yugoslavia, the Russian Duma may consider the so-called START II measure when it reconvenes in September, Holum said.

``We fully expect the Russians to ratify START II,'' he said.

Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and other Senate Republicans have complained about the administration's tactics, and wanted the ABM modifications submitted to the Senate immediately.

However, Yeltsin's agreement to reopen the part of the agreement dealing with missile defense has appeared to ease some of the GOP objections.

---

U.S. Missile Defense System Sought

By Tom Raum, Associated Press, June 29, 1999; 2:53 a.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990629/V000136-062999-idx.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Revised estimates of nuclear missile capability, particularly of North Korea and Iran, add new urgency to development of a national missile defense system, the Clinton administration's top arms-control official said.

``Cold war disciplines are gone. Technology is more widely available,'' John Holum, acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, told a Senate confirmation hearing.

House Republican leaders were to rally on the steps of the Capitol today to applaud President Clinton's signing of a GOP-sponsored bill committing the United States to a national ballistic missile defense against limited attack, as might be launched by a small nuclear power.

Since Congress passed that bill in May, two developments have occurred on the missile-defense front:

--Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed, for the first time, to consider reopening the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to consider easing that prohibition against either American or Russian nationwide ballistic missile defense systems.

--After six straight failures, a $3.8 billion experimental missile defense system scored its first hit in a test at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, shooting down an incoming test rocket.

Holum, in testimony Monday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voiced strong support for deploying a missile defense system.

He said a 1998 report by a panel headed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had ``a profound impact'' on Clinton administration policy.

The Rumsfeld panel concluded that North Korea and Iran could develop long-range missiles within five years and probably are secretly doing so.

Even if a missile defense is outlawed by the 1972 ABM treaty, national interest dictates that the United States move ahead in planning for such a system anyway, Holum said, echoing views of Republican members of the committee.

The threat of a nuclear attack by a small power ``is clearly very prominent'' as an area of concern, far more so than just a few years ago, Holum said.

President Clinton vetoed an earlier bill committing the nation to a missile-defense system. But in a compromise with congressional Republicans, he agreed this year to support similar legislation, the bill he signed.

``In light of new estimates on the ballistic missile threat, in particular from North Korea and Iran, national missile defense is now closer to becoming another integral part of our strategy against proliferation,'' Holum testified.

Holum appeared at a nomination hearing to be the first person to serve in the new post. He had served since 1993 as director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, but the agency went out of business on April 1 when its functions were merged with the State Department.

The panel was expected to approve the nomination, perhaps as early as Wednesday, when it also votes on the nomination of Richard Holbrooke to be U.N. ambassador.

The administration says it will make decisions on details of a missile defense system next June.

Rather than blindly follow the ABM restrictions, Holum said, ``I believe our missile defense should be geared toward threat.''

---

June Target Date Set for Missile Defense Accord with Russia

By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, June 29, 1999; Page A09 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/29/058l-062999-idx.html

The Clinton administration hopes to have an agreement with Russia by next June on modification of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that would permit the United States to go ahead with a limited national missile defense system, a senior State Department official said yesterday.

John D. Holum, President Clinton's nominee to be undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that "sometime in the next weeks or perhaps months," the Pentagon will decide what a national missile defense against a limited attack would look like.

Once that decision on the "architecture" is made, Holum said, "Our intention is to complete an agreement on permitted national missile defense . . . by next June, when there would be a deployment decision" by Clinton.

Holum added: "It's important that the decision on architecture will be made based on the threat, based on security considerations. Then we'll decide what amendments to the treaty are needed and how to approach the treaty. We're not saying protect the treaty, so tailor the defense to fit the treaty."

The schedule could slip, a White House spokesman said yesterday, because the Pentagon wants to complete four tests before making its recommendation to the president.

At their recent meeting in Cologne, Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed that later this summer a U.S. team would present to Russia the modifications to the ABM treaty needed to permit the proposed system.

Holum, who headed the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for six years before it was merged into the State Department, said he believed that no matter what the proposed U.S. missile defense system looked like, it would require ABM treaty changes.

Holum also said the system's architecture "should be geared toward the threat, also geared toward the technology that we have available to meet the threat . . . [and] based very heavily, obviously, on the recommendations of the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs on what they feel will be an effective defense."

Responding to a question submitted by committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Holum said he thought the administration would delay submitting to the Senate for approval 1997 amendments to the ABM treaty agreed to by Clinton and Yeltsin.

-----------

11. North Korea slams U.S. missile plan at U.N. forum

08:18 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern By Stephanie Nebehay http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

GENEVA, June 24 (Reuters) - North and South Korean diplomats clashed angrily at a United Nations disarmament meeting on Thursday, with North Korea accusing The United States of developing an offensive nuclear weapons system.

The closing session of the U.N. Conference on Disarmamment was dominated by a clash between the delegations of North and South Korea, who traded accusations of military provocation on their divided peninsula.

North Korean ambassador Ri Tcheul angrily denounced a ``U.S. armada'' heading for the region following a naval skirmish in the Yellow Sea last week between South and North Korean navy boats, the first since their 1950-53 war.

``The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, desiring peace and security, is prepared to have anyone touching its territory pay a very high price,'' Ri told the 61-member state body.

``Since we are under constant threat of nuclear weapons, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea backs the principle that all nuclear arms must be destroyed as soon as possible,'' he said.

North Korea's envoy attacked a U.S. plan, backed by Japan, to develop an ambitious national missile defence system. The scheme would be land-based, but probably use space sensors to provide early warning of enemy or accidental launches.

``The country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, with powerful military forces, and another, the first victim of the nuclear war, are jointly developing this dreadful action.

``It is nothing other than an offensive weapon system designed to maintain military supremacy...'' Ri said.

South Korea's delegate accused North Korea of ``continuous intrusions,'' but said his country was determined to pursue its policy of engagement with Pyongyang.

U.S. ambassador Robert Grey took the floor briefly at the conference to support ``my Korean ally'' in Seoul.

The United Nations disarmament body ended its second session of 1999 with dim prospects of launching negotiations on nuclear fissile material at its final session starting in July, diplomats said.

Earlier, India's envoy expressed frustration at the six-month impasse at the Geneva arms forum. ``We express our deep disappointment at the current situation,'' envoy Savitri Kunadi said in a speech.

``The current impasse in efforts for the CD's programme of work are related to the inflexible positions of a few delegations that have prevented agreement being reached on the two outstanding issues -- nuclear disarmament and outer space.''

Diplomats said she was referring to the three Western nuclear powers -- the United States, Britain and France.

The three have refused to launch negotiations aimed at total elimination of nuclear weapons, arguing that arsenals are being cut under U.S.-Russian pacts. The United States is the only member opposed to setting up a CD committee on outer space.

The CD holds its final session from July 26-September 8.

``Prospects are very dim for a breakthrough. This year is a write-off,'' said a western diplomat.

---

North Korea Still Evaluating U.S. Proposals -Envoy

11:46 a.m. Jun 26, 1999 Eastern, By Jean Yoon http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. envoy said Saturday North Korea was still considering a package of proposals presented to Pyongyang during last month's visit there by special U.S. envoy William Perry.

``North Koreans are still weighing very richly detailed discussions Dr Perry had with them in Pyongyang,'' Charles Kartman told reporters after his meeting with South Korean foreign minister Hong Soon-young.

Perry's proposals included normalization of diplomatic relations with Pyongyang and an end to economic sanctions.

Kartman arrived in Seoul Friday to brief South Korean officials on his two-day talks with North Korea in Beijing over Pyongyang's suspected nuclear ambitions.

In the Beijing meeting, Kartman was to have presented the preliminary results of a U.S. inspection of what Washington had suspected was a nuclear weapons complex in North Korea.

Washington has said it has found nothing so far to suggest Pyongyang had violated a pledge to freeze its nuclear programs in exchange for fuel oil and safer nuclear power plants.

Kartman said in Seoul the U.S. inspection of the Kumchang-ri site was ``very successful,'' but more examinations were necessary.

``We do not know every single fact there is to know about North Korean intentions at Kumchang-ri, and because there are still some small areas that require follow-up we have every intention of continuing with the visit in May 2000,'' he said.

Washington demanded access to the Kumchang-ri site after U.S. intelligence agencies noticed considerable underground activity there, which raised fears that Pyongyang was resuming a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 accord with the United States.

Kartman said the United States was ``watching closely'' possible movements by North Korea for another missile test.

North Korea test-fired a rocket that soared over northern Japan and into the Pacific Ocean last August, and there are now concerns Pyongyang may soon test even longer-range missiles.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth said Thursday any new North Korean missile test would have ``very serious consequences'' for Pyongyang's relations with Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Kartman also stressed the need for strong bilateral cooperation in dealing with the North after a recent series of North Korea-related developments.

``(Minister Hong and I) both feel that this is a period in which there seems to be a lot going on in respective dialogue with North Korea and we'll try to make sure that they are complimentary to each other,'' he said.

North and South Korea resumed their first governmental talks in more than a year Saturday after four days of false starts and postponements by Pyongyang.

A South Korean delegate said the two sides had ``exchanged views'' on their deadly naval clash in the Yellow Sea last week and the issue of reuniting Korean families divided by the world's last Cold War frontier. The two sides agreed to meet again Thursday.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce rather than peace agreement.

In the first conciliatory move from Pyongyang since the naval clash, North Korea released Friday a South Korean tourist accused of tempting North Koreans to defect.

But the United States said Friday an American has been arrested in North Korea for ``alleged violations of law.''

---

Japan asks G8 support for N.Korea aid project

12:39 p.m. Jun 19, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

COLOGNE, Germany, June 19 (Reuters) - Japan's Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi asked other Group of Eight leaders on Saturday for financial support for a project to encourage North Korea to abandon nuclear arms development.

``Prime Minister Obuchi told a working session of the G8 summit that he would like to see financial cooperation from other G8 nations for the project,'' a Japanese delegation official said.

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO), set up by Japan, the United States, South Korea and the European Union, is promoting the programme, which calls for construction of light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.

The reactors will replace the hermit communist state's graphite-moderated nuclear reactors, which produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Of the total construction cost of $4.6 billion, Japan is set to provide $1.0 billion to KEDO through the Export-Import Bank of Japan.

Obuchi also commented on the recent raising of tensions around the divided Korean peninsula.

``The recent naval clash between South and North Korea was regrettable and Japan supports South Korea's policy of settling the issue through bilateral talks,'' Obuchi said.

South Korean warships sank a North Korean gunboat and heavily damanged several others on Tuesday in the first naval clash between the Koreans in the Yellow Sea since their 1950-53 war.

-----------

12. China Passes Law on Stationing Army

By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-Macau-Troops.html

BEIJING (AP) -- Macau can call for Chinese troops to maintain security after the crime-troubled enclave reverts to Chinese control this December, state media reported.

The troops are allowed under a new law, passed Monday by China's legislature, governing the garrison Beijing will station in Macau.

The law also allows Macau to call on Chinese troops to help with disaster work and law enforcement, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Monday.

China has said it will station People's Liberation Army troops in Macau for defense and as a demonstration of sovereignty when the tiny gambling enclave reverts to China Dec. 20, ending 442 years of Portuguese rule.

The new law says the troops ``will not intervene in local affairs,'' Xinhua said. But if necessary, Macau's government can ask Beijing ``to let the troops help maintain security and do disaster work and exercise relevant law enforcement,'' Xinhua reported.

Although some of Macau's 450,000 residents fear Beijing will curb freedom after the handover, many hope the new government -- with China's support -- will crack down on gang crimes linked to Macau's lucrative gambling industry.

Eighteen people, some of them government and police officials, have been killed in gang-related shootings there this year.

The law is similar to one governing the 4,700-strong garrióïî?ŠÃèéîá óôáôéïîåä éî Èïîç Ëïîç áæôåò ôèå Âòéôéóè ãïìïîù òåöåòôåä ôï?ŠÃèéîåóå òõìå éî ±¹¹*(r)?Š‰ Ìéëå Èïîç Ëïîç Íáãáõ éìì âåcome a ``Special Administrative Region'' of China after the handover, with a high degree of autonomy from Beijing.

-----------

13. Clearing Kosovo Mines May Take Five Years - Expert

Updated 12:58 AM ET June 29, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/00/international-yugoslavia- mines

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. government expert said Monday that it would take between three and five years to clear all the mines from Kosovo, which he called "one of the world's most dangerous real estates."

Donald Steinberg, President Clinton's special representative for global humanitarian demining, also said that with the clearing process just starting, it was too early for Kosovo's Albanian refugees to return to their homes.

"Regrettably, we estimate that mines will be an everyday fact in life of the Kosovar people for as many as three to five years," he told reporters.

A State Department official said six U.S. demining teams would go to Kosovo in seven to 10 days. A British demining team has been operating in the region for two weeks.

Despite NATO's and humanitarian groups' mine awareness campaigns, about half of the refugees who left the province have gone back since the end of NATO bombing.

Steinberg said that since then, two dozen people, including peacekeepers, had been victims of land mines.

Mine awareness campaigns and emergency clearance in places like schools and markets must be the priority of teams in Kosovo, he added.

Steinberg said the U.S government was committed to working with the United Nations, NATO and humanitarian organizations to ensure that the "tragedy already suffered by the Kosovars is not multiplied by the tragedy of numerous land mine accidents."

-----------

American Hostage Freed in Chechnya

By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-American-Freed.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- An American missionary and teacher was freed Tuesday after more than seven months of captivity in Chechnya.

Herbert Gregg was abducted Nov. 12 in Makhachkala, capital of the Caucasus republic of Dagestan. He was taken to the breakaway republic of Chechnya, where he remained until his release, the Interfax news agency said.

The agency said Russian Interior Ministry troops conducted the operation to free Gregg, a 30-year veteran of international church work from Mesa, Ariz. The report said no ransom was paid and gave no other details of Gregg's release.

An official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow confirmed that Gregg had been set free. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States had no information about his medical condition.

Gregg, 51, and his wife Linda had been teaching English to university students in Dagestan for four years under the auspices of the Illinois-based Evangelical Alliance Mission when he was kidnapped after a basketball practice.

Their work was financed by the Church of the Redeemer in Mesa and the Scottsdale Bible Church in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Hundreds of Russians and foreigners have been kidnapped in and around Chechnya in recent years by gangs seeking ransom money, and dozens remain in captivity.

Chechnya has been running its own affairs since Russian troops withdrew two years ago after its 1994-96 war. No country has recognized Chechnya's independence, and Moscow insists the territory is still part of Russia.

----------- Diana Ingram

Date: 25/06/99 Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9906/25/text/obituaries.html

The rainbow flag of the peace movement draped the coffin of Diana Ingram, a handsome, gallant woman with an influential role in Australia's peace movement and in care for ex-prisoners and the homeless, who has died aged 50.

Born Diana Chapman, she was adopted with her sisters, Barbara and Alison, by the Howlett family, and grew up in Granville.

She excelled at sport, particularly swimming, and was a pioneering board rider - on a Malibu - in the early 1960s.

She worked as a tram conductor from the Randwick depot before marrying Englishman Michael Ingram, when she was 18. They had three children; Paul and John were born in England, Caroline in Sydney. But by the mid-1970s Ingram had decided the English class system was not for her children and the family returned to Australia.

Ingram went back to studies - arts/law at Sydney University - taking baby Caroline to lectures when she couldn't afford a babysitter. She didn't complete her final year, perhaps because she felt that becoming a lawyer would mean working for people not with them.

Ingram's passion for the peace movement was matched by a love of the environment, celebrated with her extended family during camping and sailing trips.

She became an integral part of Greenpeace, representing the early Australian office on the international board. She helped found the Sydney Peace Squadron, and was involved in it at every level, from confronting nuclear warships on Sydney Harbour to keeping the books and running its shop. She was a fearless media spokesperson for The Squid, as the Peace Squadron was known, and often organised legal aid for arrested protesters.

Ingram took navigation and other courses, and in 1988 set sail in a protest yacht for Mururoa to campaign against French nuclear testing, but was foiled by huge gales.

In 1990 she toured in a delegation committed to the removal of US bases from Australia and New Zealand.

She was active in protest campaigns against uranium mining at Roxby Downs in South Australia and others at the US base at Nurrungar. She was at the forefront of the huge Palm Sunday and Hiroshima Day marches in Sydney in the late 1980s - and was full-time organiser of two Hiroshima Day marches.

Early in 1991 she took a leading role in protests against the US bombing of Iraq, marching at the head of a 60,000-strong Sydney rally. She also joined thousands in Canberra in a campaign to stop AIDEX, an international arms bazaar. There were mass arrests, and Ingram was resolute at the police centre, organising legal representation and support for those detained.

She became increasingly involved in criminal justice issues and was office coordinator at the Breakout activist centre for several years.

She visited the worst sections of the toughest NSW jails, bringing her sense of outrage to lonely cells. Whether in court or through vigorous exchanges with the bureaucracy, she worked selflessly and steadfastly for "her men" - voiceless, homeless ex-prisoners and alcoholics.

Eight years ago she faced a diagnosis of breast cancer with her usual courage and determination, writing her action plans to change the hospital system - and her own health. Ingram worked several days a week until she was admitted to hospital for the last time.

Many will remember her. Others who never knew her will benefit from her work for peace and justice.

- Hannah Middleton

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- Third message - _________________________

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Message: 7 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:38:00 -0400

Subject: NucNews-0 Brief 6/29/99 -

[Please address replies to articles to the original publisher. Your help in refuting false information appreciated!]

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Peace Action's Nuclear Abolition Petition can now be signed online at www.peace-action.org/abolition_petition.html Please circulate this message widely. We are collecting as many signatures as possible to present to Presidential candidates in the 2000 election.

1. Loch's Physicist Introduces ELF Landmine Technology to International Nuclear Conference in Greece 12:17 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? AUSTIN, Texas, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Renowned physicist Dr. Henry Blair introduced the new ELF landmine detector technology to the international nuclear community yesterday morning on the Greek island of Crete, according to R.B. Baker, chairman of Loch Harris, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: LOCH).... Further information about ELF may be found at http://www.lochharris.com/chemtech.htm on the Loch Harris Web site. SOURCE Loch Harris, Inc.

2. Uzbek plant revises gold JV, eyes uranium project 07:19 a.m. Jun 28, 1999 Eastern By Shamil Baigin http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? ... The company also announced that it would soon set up a uranium mining joint venture with French giant Cogema.... -- Teachers strike closes Niger schools 09:53 a.m. Jun 22, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? ... Niger, an impoverished Sahelian nation, is struggling with severe economic problems because of depressed prices for its mainstay uranium exports and a foreign debt of some 850 billion CFA francs ($1.3 billion) which is heavy for its sm all budget....

3. Lithuania may begin Ignalina N-plant closure in 2005 10:17 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? VILNIUS, June 24 (Reuters) - Lithuania could begin closing the first bloc of the controversial Ignalina nuclear power plant in 2005, though the entire decommissioning of the Soviet-era plant may take 20 years, a senior government official said on Thursday....

4. Children from Chernobyl Radiation Zone Arrive in Bay Area for Summer Home Stays for Ninth Summer in a Row 05:06 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 25, 1999--For the ninth summer in a row, children who live in areas contaminated by the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident are arriving in the Bay Area for a six-week summer home stay.... Web address: http://www.chernobylkids.com -- France sees no German bar to Ukraine reactors 09:40 a.m. Jun 20, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

5. German nuclear firms reject pull-out compromise 11:17 a.m. Jun 22, 1999 Eastern, By Mark John http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? BONN, June 21 (Reuters) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government and Germany's top utility firms on Tuesday failed to reach agreement on winding down the country's nuclear sector, despite a new compromise bid by Bonn....

6. French electricity utility sees no Y2K blackout 10:59 a.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern By David Clarke http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) - France's electricity utility EdF said on Wednesday it was confident its power grid would not break down on the eve of the millennium and if nuclear plants were temporarily shut down, there would be no danger....

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7. Clinton asks Congress to back Canada nuclear pact 05:24 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton asked Congress Thursday to approve a 30-year extension of an agreement with Canada on civilian uses of nuclear energy.... ``Canada ranks among the closest and most important U.S. partners in civil nuclear cooperation,'' Clinton said in a message to Congress. ``Continued close cooperation with Canada in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy ... will serve important U.S. national security, foreign policy and commercial interests,'' Clinton said.

8. FEATURE - Nuclear age born from ashes of 1940s war 10:04 p.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern, By Elaine Lies http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? HIROSHIMA, Japan, June 24 (Reuters) - What Hiroshi Hara remembers most about the bombing of Hiroshima is the voices of the dying, begging for water in the scorching August heat. -- LOOSING THE NUCLEAR GENIE 10:32 p.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? By July, the United States had already decided to call for Japan to surrender unconditionally or take its chances. But when the Potsdam Declaration demanding surrender was finally issued on July 28, Japan made no formal reply. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb has stirred decades of controversy.... -- 1941-1950 The nuclear genie flies from the ashes of war 10:06 p.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - The ... fifth in a series of chronologies focusing on the events of each decade of the 20th century.....

9. Russian Jets Tested Over North Pole Monday, June 28, 1999; 11:07 a.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990628/V000519-062899-idx.html MOSCOW (AP) -- Long-range Russian bombers flew over the North Pole and test fired strategic missiles during recent military exercises, a defense official said Monday.

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10. 1972 Treaty Shouldn't Bar Deployment By Tom Raum, Associated Press, June 28, 1999; 6:51 p.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990628/V000878-062899-idx.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States should not be bound by a landmark 1972 arms-control treaty in moving toward deployment of a national missile defense system, the Clinton administration's top arms-control official said Monday.... -- U.S. Missile Defense System Sought By Tom Raum, Associated Press, June 29, 1999; 2:53 a.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990629/V000136-062999-idx.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- Revised estimates of nuclear missile capability, particularly of North Korea and Iran, add new urgency to development of a national missile defense system, the Clinton administration's top arms-control official said.... -- June Target Date Set for Missile Defense Accord with Russia By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, June 29, 1999; Page A09 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/29/058l-062999-idx.html The Clinton administration hopes to have an agreement with Russia by next June on modification of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that would permit the United States to go ahead with a limited national missile defense system, a senior State Department official said yesterday....

11. North Korea slams U.S. missile plan at U.N. forum 08:18 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern By Stephanie Nebehay http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? GENEVA, June 24 (Reuters) - North and South Korean diplomats clashed angrily at a United Nations disarmament meeting on Thursday, with North Korea accusing The United States of developing an offensive nuclear weapons system. -- North Korea Still Evaluating U.S. Proposals -Envoy 11:46 a.m. Jun 26, 1999 Eastern, By Jean Yoon http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. envoy said Saturday North Korea was still considering a package of proposals presented to Pyongyang during last month's visit there by special U.S. envoy William Perry.... -- Japan asks G8 support for N.Korea aid project 12:39 p.m. Jun 19, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? COLOGNE, Germany, June 19 (Reuters) - Japan's Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi asked other Group of Eight leaders on Saturday for financial support for a project to encourage North Korea to abandon nuclear arms development......

12. China Passes Law on Stationing Army By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-Macau-Troops.html BEIJING (AP) -- Macau can call for Chinese troops to maintain security after the crime-troubled enclave reverts to Chinese control this December, state media reported....

13. Clearing Kosovo Mines May Take Five Years - Expert Updated 12:58 AM ET June 29, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/00/international-yugoslavia- mines WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. government expert said Monday that it would take between three and five years to clear all the mines from Kosovo, which he called "one of the world's most dangerous real estates."...

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14. Israeli court says Vanunu could spill more secrets 09:31 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? JERUSALEM, June 24 (Reuters) - An Israeli court went public for the first time in the case of jailed nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu on Thursday to say it could not return him to Italy for fear that he would spill more secrets.... -- FOCUS-Israeli court to publish Vanunu rulings 10:57 a.m. Jun 21, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? JERUSALEM, June 21 (Reuters) - Israel's High Court will go public with rulings in the case of nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu for the first time after 13 years of secrecy, a Justice Ministry official said on Monday.... -- Computers Help Israel War Maneuvers By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Israel-Laser-War-Games.html TSEELIM, Israel (AP) -- Vehicles resembling garbage trucks maneuver through desert brush, firing silent lasers from empty pipes that function as tank cannons, sticking out of fiberglass siding. Computerized data -- not supervisors running around with pen and paper --determine who fired first.....

15. U.S. bombs Iraqi targets in Northern No-fly zone June 28, 1999 Web posted at: 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT) From CNN Correspondent Patty Davis http://cnn.com:80/US/9906/28/us.iraq/index.html WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. planes acting in self-defense bombed an Iraqi military command and control site southwest of Mosul, Iraq on Monday, the Pentagon's European Command said.... -- Iraq says over 1 million die due to U.N. sanctions June 22, 1999 Web posted at: 1:26 PM EDT (1726 GMT) http://cnn.com:80/WORLD/meast/9906/22/BC-IRAQ-HEALTH.reut/index.html BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- Iraq said Tuesday that more than 1 million Iraqis had died due to the trade sanctions the United Nations imposed on the country for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.... -- Iraq says British proposal would make sanctions 'permanent' June 23, 1999 Web posted at: 7:34 p.m. EDT (2334 GMT) http://cnn.com:80/WORLD/meast/9906/23/iraq/ BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's vice president on Wednesday denounced a British-Dutch proposal that would suspend sanctions against Iraq if Baghdad met specific disarmament requirements.... -- UN defends decision to exclude UNSCOM in Iraq June 25, 1999 Web posted at: 6:58 PM EDT (2258 GMT) http://cnn.com:80/WORLD/meast/9906/25/BC-IRAQ-CHEMICALS-UN.reut/ UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- Alleging a U.N. laboratory in Baghdad contained dangerous substances, the United Nations on Friday defended its decision to send a team to Iraq without experts who set up the laboratory.... -- UN'S IRAQI U-TURN Iraq gets own way with inspection Date: 26/06/99, Sydney Morning Herald, By JUDITH MILLER at the United Nations http://www.smh.com.au:80/news/9906/26/text/world20.html The United Nations has agreed to send a team to dismantle a laboratory in Baghdad but, in a victory for Iraq, the team does not include experts from the special commission charged with disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.... -- Richard Butler outspoken, independent advocate 08:56 a.m. Jun 27 1999 Eastern By Evelyn Leopold http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???" UNITED NATIONS, June 27 (Reuters) - Chief U.N. arms inspector Richard Butler, who leaves his post on Wednesday, has always been a controversial figure -- outspoken, single-minded and ready to take risks....

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16. Russia may build 3 nuclear plants in Iran -agency 01:39 p.m Jun 28, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???" MOSCOW, June 28 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin gave the go-ahead on Monday for discussions with Iran on building three nuclear power plants in that country, Interfax news agency said.... -- Iran Building Its Own Fighters - Jane's Updated 12:33 PM ET June 28, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990628/12/international-arms-iran LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has begun series production of a locally developed fighter called the Azarakhsh (Lightning), according to Jane's Defense Weekly....

17. Annan Urges Muslims, West To Bridge Cultural Rift Updated 1:00 AM ET June 29, 1999, by Dominic Evans http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/01/international-un-annan OXFORD, England (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed Monday for Muslim and Western nations to adopt a new "world ethic" embracing cultural diversity and bridging fault lines between them....

18. Turkish Court Sentences Ocalan To Death Updated 6:33 AM ET June 29, 1999, By Ercan Ersoy http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/06/international-turkey-ocalan IMRALI ISLAND, Turkey (Reuters) - A Turkish court condemned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan to death Tuesday for leading a 14-year-old separatist campaign that killed over 29,000 people.... -- Governments, Rebels Denounce Ocalan Verdict Updated 8:31 AM ET June 29, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/08/international-ocalan-reac tion -- Kurdish Rebel Links Revolt to Repression by Turkey By STEPHEN KINZER, June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/062499turkey-ocalan.html STANBUL, Turkey -- Speaking in his own defense at his treason trial, Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan said Wednesday that repressive measures imposed by the Turkish government had driven him and his followers to take up arms.... -- A Peace Overture in Turkey June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/06249924thu3.html --- Stopping America's Most Lethal Export June 23, 1999 Oscar Arias) New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/06239923aria.html

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19. Salmon close to radiation Plutonium byproduct found near Hanford Reach spawning beds Karen Dorn Steele - The Spokane Spokesman-Review, June 27, 1999 http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=062799&ID=s600296&cat= In the shadow of Hanford's old H Reactor, salmon jump as scientist Norm Buske's Geiger counter chatters.... -- Nuclear byproduct near spawning beds A study claims strontium 90 from Hanford has reached to within 100 feet of fall chinook breeding grounds Monday, June 28, 1999, By MICHELLE MANDEL of The Oregonian staff http://www.oregonlive.com/news/99/06/st062810.html#TOP

20. Energy Department resumes truck shipments from Ohio to Nevada Ohio Business Journal, June 28, 1999 http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/023355.htm CINCINNATI (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Energy resumed truck shipments of radioactive waste on Monday from its Fernald cleanup site to the department's Nevada test site, after a shipment leaked in 1997....

21. LANL Storage Facility Falls Short of Purpose By Ian Hoffman Journal Staff Writer, June 27, 1999 http://www.abqjournal.com/scitech/1lanl06-27.htm For more than $20 million, here is what U.S. taxpayers got: virtually nothing. What they were supposed to get was a high-tech tomb for tons of nuclear weapons-grade plutonium and other metals inside a top-security area at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yet quietly, the U.S. nuclear-weapons establishment has scuttled the Nuclear Materials Storage Facility, or NMSF. Los Alamos' NMSF is no casualty of the end of the Cold War, however. It was, by all accounts, killed primarily by incompetence....

22. AEP Announces Plan to Restart Cook Nuclear Plant; Units Scheduled to Return to Service in April and September 2000 07:16 a.m. Jun 25, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- American Electric Power Company Inc. (NYSE: AEP) today announced that its board of directors has approved a comprehensive plan to restart the idle Cook Nuclear Plant. Unit 2 is scheduled to return to service in April 2000 and Unit 1 is to return to service in September 2000.

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23. Governor and Attorney General Seek Tougher Protections Against Nuclear Waste Terrorism 06:01 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? CARSON CITY, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1999--On behalf of Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa today filed a petition with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking that the existing regulations governing the security and safety of spent nuclear fuel transportation be reexamined and strengthened....

24. Nuclear Power Industry Works To Allay Y2K Fears 01:52 a.m. Jun 28, 1999 Eastern, By Deena Beasley http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The nuclear power industry, aiming to allay public fears of power outages and radiation leaks, has stepped up efforts to make sure plants are not vulnerable to the year 2000 computer bug....

25. CIA Head: 'No Excuses' For Chinese Embassy Bombing Updated 12:04 AM ET June 29, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/00/news-china-cia NASHUA, N.H. (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Monday offered "no excuses" for the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade to a group of New Hampshire businessmen.... -- Clinton Says Misspoke On China Spying Scandal 01:00 a.m. Jun 26, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton said Friday he misspoke earlier this year when he said no security breaches occurred at U.S. nuclear research laboratories during his administration.... -- China Denies Embassy Bombing Victims Were Spies Updated 12:57 AM ET June 29, 1999, By Benjamin Kang Lim http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990629/00/international-yugoslavia- journalists

26. Clinton says he will appoint Dicus as NRC chairman 01:03 p.m Jun 21, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? WASHINGTON , June 21 (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton said he intends to appoint Commissioner Greta Dicus as the new chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to replace outgoing agency head Shirley Jackson....

27. Automatic Shutdown at Nine Mile Two Nuclear Plant 05:29 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern SYRACUSE, N.Y., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The Nine Mile Point Unit Two nuclear plant automatically shut down today at 3:41 p.m. due to a malfunction in a device that controls water levels in the plant, according to officials at Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. (NYSE: NMK). -- RG&E Statement on Sale of Nine Mile Nuclear Assets 09:57 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Reacting to today's announcement that Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. and New York State Electric and Gas Corp. made an agreement to sell their interests in the two Nine Mile nuclear generating facilities to AmerGen Energy Co., Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. (RG&E).... -- Niagara Mohawk and NYSEG to Sell Nuclear Assets to AmerGen Energy 07:56 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? -- Amergen buys NY power plants from Niagara Mohawk 02:51 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? NEW YORK (Reuters) - AmerGen Energy Power Co., a Scottish-American joint venture, said Thursday it will buy two Nine Mile Point nuclear power plants in upstate New York for about $163 million.

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28. Clinton Could Veto Nuclear Waste Bill-Official 01:01 a.m. Jun 26, 1999 Eastern By Patrick Connole http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv??? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton likely would veto compromise legislation on nuclear waste storage pending in the Senate because it would cut out the Environmental Protection Agency from setting radiation regulations, a Department of Energy official said Friday....

29. Protecting 'Human Guinea Pigs' http://www.drkoop.com/hcr/trials/g-pigs_2.html http://www.drkoop.com/hcr/trials/g-pigs_3.html ... In early 1994, the federal government released documents detailing hundreds of radiation experiments performed on thousands of civilians and military personnel decades ago, apparently in some cases without adequate knowledge or consent. Experiments included giving food mixed with tracer doses of radioactive substances to subjects and injecting infants with radioactive iodine. Energy Department Secretary Hazel O'Leary has spearheaded efforts to make the details of these experiments public. These are worst-case examples of failure to inform and protect human subjects used without their knowledge in drug testing and medical experimentation. They are not remote historical events. The cancer injections were stopped more than 30 years ago. The radiation experiments occurred in the 1940s and 1950s....

30. Anthrax Vaccine Could Be Dangerous By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Anthrax-Vaccine.html SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A high-ranking military leader has acknowledged that the mandatory anthrax vaccination for American troops can be potentially dangerous, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today....

31. Hackers Hit Army, Weather Site By The Associated Press, June 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Army-Hacked.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- Computer hackers apparently used a well-publicized software flaw to vandalize the U.S. Army's main Internet site for as long as nine hours before anyone noticed....

[Noteworthy]

32. USA Today, June 29, 1999 (Washington DC) http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm Are Bill, Hillary heading to Capitol Hill? ... Only one ex-president, Andrew Johnson, has served in the Senate after leaving the White House. - ... Andrew Johnson, the only other U.S. president impeached and acquitted.... "Johnson Impeachment Provides Lesson" Washington Post, February 13, 1999 Associated Press -- White House Says Clinton Not Running For Senate Updated 4:13 PM ET June 28, 1999 WASHINGTON (Reuters) http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990628/16/news-clinton-senate

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Message: 8 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:37:39 -0400

Subject: NucNews-2 6/29/99 -

7. Clinton asks Congress to back Canada nuclear pact

05:24 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton asked Congress Thursday to approve a 30-year extension of an agreement with Canada on civilian uses of nuclear energy.

Clinton asked lawmakers to extend the current agreement, which expires Jan. 1, with automatic extensions in five-year increments after that unless either party objects.

``Canada ranks among the closest and most important U.S. partners in civil nuclear cooperation,'' Clinton said in a message to Congress.

``Continued close cooperation with Canada in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy ... will serve important U.S. national security, foreign policy and commercial interests,'' Clinton said.

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8. FEATURE - Nuclear age born from ashes of 1940s war

10:04 p.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern, By Elaine Lies http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

HIROSHIMA, Japan, June 24 (Reuters) - What Hiroshi Hara remembers most about the bombing of Hiroshima is the voices of the dying, begging for water in the scorching August heat.

``Doctors said not to give them any because it would hurt them more, so all you could do was turn your face and walk away,'' he said, recalling August 6, 1945.

``I'll never forget those voices crying 'water, water, water.'''

Nearly 200 of Hara's junior high school classmates, working less than a kilometre from ground zero -- the spot above which the bomb detonated -- perished instantly.

``You couldn't tell who was who, they were all burned so badly,'' he said.

For the citizens of Hiroshima and, on August 9, Nagasaki, the dropping of the atom bomb ushered in years of suffering.

For the rest of the world, the nuclear age that dawned in the fireball above Hiroshima would cast long shadows of fear for decades to come.

``Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear, such a realisation that the future is obscure and survival is not assured,'' said renowned CBS News correspondent Edward R. Murrow at the time.

DECADE DAWNS GRIMLY AMID FLAMES OF WAR

Survival also seemed far from assured in the early years of the decade.

Virtually all of Europe, and much of North Africa, was under the control of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, while Japanese forces extended their holdings into a vast expanse that, at its peak, stretched from Myanmar (Burma) to the tip of the Aleutian island chain off Alaska and as far south as New Guinea.

Epics of heroic endurance played out around the globe.

Britain suffered through months of near-constant German bombing, while scores in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) starved in a Nazi blockade that lasted 900 days.

Millions, mostly Jews -- six million of whom died -- suffered in Nazi-run extermination and concentration camps throughout Europe. Following liberation, many survivors fled the continent for Palestine, where the state of Israel was founded in 1948.

In the Philippines, the Bataan Death March claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Allied prisoners of war.

Both prisoners and locals from conquered Asian nations died under harsh conditions as forced labourers, while thousands of women were forced to serve as sex slaves to Japanese troops -- actions that created anti-Japanese feelings throughout Asia which still complicate diplomacy.

Some 55 million people, both military and civilians, are estimated to have died by the time the war ended in 1945.

AXIS OVERCONFIDENCE IN 1941

Even as early as 1941, both Germany and Japan were making what turned out to be crucial blunders.

On June 22, the Germans invaded Russia across a vast 1,800 km (1,118 miles) front stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea.

Although the Germans made substantial gains several times, they proved unsustainable, with the savaging from the Red Army and a vicious Russian winter playing a key part in their country's ultimate collapse.

As part of a series of lightning strikes around Asia, Japan attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

This precipitated the entrance of the United States into a war from which it had stood aside, ending its isolationist days for good and eventually leading to its self-assumed role of world policeman.

TIDE TURNS SLOWLY BUT SURELY

Gradually the tide began to turn.

The Japanese navy lost three carriers in less than five minutes on June 4, 1942, in the Battle of Midway. Another sank later that day. It was a blow from which they never recovered.

On October 23, British and Commonwealth forces began a successful offensive against German and Italian forces at El Alamein in Egypt, while victory at Stalingrad in January 1943, after heavy fighting, spelled the beginning of the end in Russia.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was forced to resign on July 25, 1943, and Italy surrendered on September 8.

The ``D-Day'' invasion of June 6, 1944 -- the largest sea-borne invasion in history -- saw Allied troops land in France at the start of a push through Europe.

The ``Battle of the Bulge'' counter-offensive in December postponed the final reckoning, but the writing was on the wall for the Third Reich as 1945 began.

In a bizarre twist of fate, three leaders of the major warring powers died within a month of each other that spring.

Roosevelt died of a stroke on April 12, Mussolini was murdered on April 28, and Hitler committed suicide on April 30.

The last remaining Axis leader, Japan's Emperor Hirohito, would die an old man in January, 1989.

On May 7, Germany surrendered.

Meanwhile, Japanese forces had been forced back across the Pacific in a brutal island-hopping campaign. The July 1944 fall of Saipan paved the way for saturation bombing of Japan itself, which started later that year.

The battle of Okinawa, which began in April 1945, killed 12,000 U.S. soldiers, took around 250,000 Japanese lives and left the home islands vulnerable. That summer, amid a flurry of negotiations, both sides girded themselves for an invasion.

---

LOOSING THE NUCLEAR GENIE

10:32 p.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

By July, the United States had already decided to call for Japan to surrender unconditionally or take its chances. But when the Potsdam Declaration demanding surrender was finally issued on July 28, Japan made no formal reply.

President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb has stirred decades of controversy. The aim given in 1945 was to prevent millions of deaths, both military and civilian, if Japan was invaded.

Some historians question the necessity, saying an exhausted Japan was already teetering on the brink of surrender.

Others suggest the U.S. sought to impress Russia with the power of its new weapon.

Theodore ``Dutch'' Van Kirk, navigator on the Hiroshima mission, told the Japanese Asahi Shimbun:

``I have regretted Pearl Harbor. I regret all the deaths that happened on Guadalcanal, on Bataan, on Okinawa, on Iwo Jima.

``I regard the use of the bomb as an act of war...I regret all of these things and I wish that they had not had to happen.''

HIROSHIMA, THEN NAGASAKI

On August 6, the bomb exploded 580 metres above Hiroshima at 8:15 in the morning. Temperatures at the centre of the vast fireball are said to have reached 300,000 degrees.

Paul Tibbets, commander of the bomber ``Enola Gay'' -- named after his mother -- said later: ``Where I had seen a distinct city laid out 31,000 feet below us, there was only partial evidence of a city because the whole centre was covered by a black, boiling mess. It was just tumbling and rolling down there.''

Roof tiles grew spongy and glass melted, while shadows of people were burnt onto buildings in the white flash of the bomb.

Survivors groped through a landscape of smoke and flame.

Akiko Takakura, who was 300 metres from ground zero, said the scene reminded her of Buddhist paintings of hell, ``except in the paintings of hell there was green. Hiroshima was only brown, black and red. And in the midst of this people were screaming.''

As many as 150,000 -- out of a population of 350,000 -- died by the end of 1945. Thousands more succumbed to injuries and illness later. A standard greeting months after the bomb was ``Has your hair fallen out yet?'' -- a reference to radiation sickness.

As of August 6, 1998, some 207,045 had died.

Nagasaki was bombed on August 9, and Japan surrendered six days later.

In an immediate sign of how times had changed, the Emperor himself, long revered as a deity, informed his people by radio that the war was over. Many could not believe they were actually hearing his voice.

BIRTH OF A NEW WORLD ORDER

The post-war years saw a spate of new nations and alignments.

This was especially true in Asia, where many peoples gained inspiration from seeing their European colonisers routed by the Japanese. India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, while Indonesia and the Republic of Korea were established in 1948.

In a burst of idealism, the United Nations was established in San Francisco in June 1945 to prevent further world wars -- a goal so far achieved. But only five years later its members found themselves embroiled in the Korean War under the leadership of the United States.

In place of fascism, Communism loomed to many as the new and growing menace.

The foundation of Communist states in Eastern Europe, the partition of the Korean Peninsula and the 1949 establishment of the People's Republic of China caused alarm in many Western capitals.

In the 1947 Truman Doctrine, the United States set out the early principles of its quest to ``contain'' Communism -- which would eventually lead it into the quagmire of the Vietnam War.

THE ARMS RACE BEGINS

The uneasy standoff between the two sides was shattered on August 29, 1949, when Russia exploded its first atomic bomb -- a fact discovered only through chance by a U.S. plane carrying out routine scientific research.

Truman and his administration delayed an announcement until September 23. As hail from a sudden thunderstorm pounded on the roof, a statement was released to reporters -- who broke the nose off a stuffed deer in their race to phone in the news.

This mix of drama and comedy would prove, in retrospect, emblematic of the nuclear arms race that ensued.

Upping the ante late in 1952, the United States exploded an even more destructive thermonuclear bomb, the H-bomb. Russia followed less than a year later.

``Radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities,'' said Albert Einstein.

As fear swept the United States, some families built their own bomb shelters. A generation of school children learned to ``duck and cover,'' diving under their desks and shielding their faces in air-raid drills.

Misinformation was legion. Some people advocated shaving dogs and cats to prevent their fur from becoming radioactive, while others recommended lead girdles and lead-foil brassieres.

In 1957, the Russian launch of Sputnik, the first earth-orbiting satellite, foreshadowed the development of inter-continental ballistic missiles, which allowed either country to attack the other without leaving their home shores.

Although a number of crises -- most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 -- would lead to treaties limiting and then banning actual test explosions, the arms race would not calm until the crumbling of Communism at the end of the 1980s.

Other countries also developed atomic weapons -- Britain in 1952, France in 1960, China in 1967, India in 1974. Last year, as the end of the millennium approached, Pakistan also joined the nuclear club.

While more than 100 countries signed the U.N.-sponsored Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), India and Pakistan have refused, saying the pact favours established nuclear powers.

Subcritical tests, meaning those stopping just short of an actual reaction, are still carried out. More than 2,000 tests of all kinds had been conducted in the post-war era to early 1999.

``For humans, nuclear weapons are absolute evil,'' said Hiroshi Hara in Hiroshima. ``But humans developed them, so they can rid the world of them. It is my prayer that the 21st century will be the century in which this happens.''

---

1941-1950 The nuclear genie flies from the ashes of war

10:06 p.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - The following is the fifth in a series of chronologies focusing on the events of each decade of the 20th century.

1941:

May 10 - Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, flies from Augsburg and parachutes into Scotland in an apparent attempt to negotiate a peace deal. He is arrested and imprisoned.

June 22 - Operation Barbarossa begins when more than 150 German army divisions invade Russia across an 1,800 km front between the Baltic and the Black Sea.

December 7 - Japanese planes attack the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, destroying many aircraft and ships and precipitating U.S. declaration of war on Japan.

1942:

October 23 - British and Commonwealth forces led by General Bernard Montgomery launch a successful offensive against German and Italian forces under Rommel at El Alamein, Egypt.

1943:

January 31 - In the beginning of the end for German forces in Russia, German Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders to the Russians at Stalingrad.

July 25 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is forced to resign after a meeting of his Grand Council. King Victor Emmanuel appoints Marshal Badoglio as prime minister. Italy unconditionally surrenders on September 8 1943.

1944:

June 4 - Rome is liberated by allied troops with U.S. General Mark Clark leading the way into the city. Historic sites are left intact.

June 6 - Operation Overlord, the landing of Allied forces on the coast of Normandy, France, takes place. ``D-Day'' is the largest sea-borne invasion in history.

August 25 - Paris is finally liberated when the local German commander General Choltitz surrenders to the Allies.

1945:

April 12 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. president for a record four terms, dies in office. Vice President Harry Truman takes over and completes his term of office.

April 28 - Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator, is executed by partisans near Lake Como one day after his capture.

April 30 - Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun commit suicide in the underground bunker in Berlin. On May 7 the instruments of the surrender of German forces in World War Two are signed by General Jodl.

June 5 - The Allied Control Commission takes control of Germany, dividing it into four occupation zones.

June 26 - The United Nations Charter is signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, succeeding the League of Nations. It became effective on October 24.

July 16 - U.S. tests the first atom bomb, codenamed ``Trinity,'' in the New Mexico desert.

August 6 - An American B-29 bomber drops an atomic bomb on Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.

August 14 - Japan accepts the Allies' terms of unconditional surrender, thus ending World War Two.

1946:

June 4 - General Juan Peron is inaugurated as president of Argentina.

October 16 - Top Nazi war criminals are hanged at Nuremburg. Among them are foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. Hermann Goering commits suicide in his prison cell hours before he is due to be executed.

1947:

February 20 - Lord Louis Mountbatten is named as the last Viceroy of India.

June 5 - U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall announces his plan to help Europe recover financially from the effects of World War Two.

July 19 - Burmese premier U Aung San and six other ministers are assassinated.

August 15 - The Indian Independence Bill comes into force, setting up the two independent states of India and Pakistan.

November 29 - The U.N. General Assembly votes to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab land.

December 30 - King Michael of Romania is forced to abdicate when the Romanian People's Republic is proclaimed.

1948:

January 30 - Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, is assassinated by a Hindu extremist. His murder is followed by widespread rioting.

February 25 - In Czechoslovakia, President Edvard Benes accepts the resignations of non-Communists from his cabinet giving the Communists legal control of the government in what was called the ``February Coup.''

May 14 - The state of Israel is proclaimed at 4 p.m., eight hours before the British mandate in Palestine ends. Arabs promptly invade in a War of Independence to last six months.

June 21 - Columbia Records introduces the first successful long-playing records made of Vinylite plastic.

June 26 - Western allies launch airlift of essential supplies to West Berlin two days after Soviet forces block all traffic to the three Western sectors.

August 15 - South Korea becomes independent and is formally proclaimed as the Republic of Korea with Syngman Rhee as its first president.

November 2 - Harry S. Truman wins the U.S. presidential election confounding all the polls.

1949:

April 4 - The North Atlantic Treaty setting up a mutual defence alliance is signed in Washington by the foreign ministers of the 12 participating powers.

May 23 - West German state is founded in British, French and U.S. occupation zones.

June 6 - ``Nineteen Eighty-Four,'' George Orwell's vision of a wrld ruled by Big Brother, is published.

August 29 - Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb.

September 30 - The Berlin Airlift, under which the U.S. and Britain kept Berlin supplied against a Russian blockade, ends after 277,264 flights which carried 2,323,738 tons of supplies.

October 1 - The People's Republic of China is formed with Mao Zedong as its head.

October 7 - Communist East German state is founded in the

Soviet occupation zone.

1950:

June 25 - Korean War erupts when communist North Korea invades South Korea, U.N. sends forces.

September 15 - In the Korean War, the U.N. landing at Inchon proves decisive in driving North Korean troops out of the south.

------------------

9. Russian Jets Tested Over North Pole

Monday, June 28, 1999; 11:07 a.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990628/V000519-062899-idx.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- Long-range Russian bombers flew over the North Pole and test fired strategic missiles during recent military exercises, a defense official said Monday.

The exercises involving Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers were conducted last week as part of military exercises code named ``West 99,'' air force spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The planes made 15-hour flights which took them over the Atlantic before heading to the Arctic and crossing the North Pole, the spokesman said. Long-range missiles were test fired and hit targets in southern Russia, he said.

The six days of exercises, aimed at testing Russia's ability to withstand an attack along its western border, were among the largest maneuvers held in recent years.

More than 30 ships, several nuclear powered submarines, 10,000 troops and a number of aircraft from Russia's Baltic Fleet took part in the exercises, which ended Saturday, the Defense Ministry said Monday

Army units in western Russia and Belarus were also involved in the maneuvers.

Russia insisted that the maneuvers were not connected to NATO's bombing raids in Yugoslavia, which officially ended June 16. But Moscow sees NATO as a threat, and the alliance's campaign raised calls in Russia to boost military spending.

Moscow vehemently opposed NATO's air war against Yugoslavia and played a prominent role in mediating a peace plan for Kosovo.

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_____________________

- Second message - _________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________

Message: 9 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 22:37:47 -0400

Subject: NucNews-1 6/29/99 -

Peace Action's Nuclear Abolition Petition can now be signed online at www.peace-action.org/abolition_petition.html

Please circulate this message widely. We are collecting as many signatures as possible to present to Presidential candidates in the 2000 election.

-------------

1. Loch's Physicist Introduces ELF Landmine Technology to International Nuclear Conference in Greece

12:17 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

AUSTIN, Texas, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Renowned physicist Dr. Henry Blair introduced the new ELF landmine detector technology to the international nuclear community yesterday morning on the Greek island of Crete, according to R.B. Baker, chairman of Loch Harris, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: LOCH).

Today, Blair presented his formal paper, "A Man Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Based Landmine Detection and Location System," to the 6th International Conference on Applications of Nuclear Techniques and fielded questions afterward. More than 100 scientists have registered for the conference, which is under the auspices of The Office Of National Drug Control Policy -- The White House, NCSR Demokritos, and Western Kentucky University.

Rodney Boone, CEO of both Loch Harris and ChemTech, accompanied Blair to the conference, along with Loch's Chief Financial Officer Mark Baker, who reported on Blair's introductory speech in an international conference call yesterday afternoon.

Blair, who developed the ELF for Chemical Detection Technology, Inc. (ChemTech), subsidiary of Austin-based Loch Harris, was invited to the already closed conference program at the insistence of Dr. Vlado Valkovic, chairman of Croatia's Ruder Boscovic Institute. Valkovic executed an agreement last month between Croatia and ChemTech to collaborate on development of the ELF through the live field test phase, scheduled in Croatia in January.

Chairman Valkovic introduced Blair to the group, saying, "We're excited to be working with Loch's ChemTech in the laboratory and field testing of the ELF system."

Valkovic is betting heavily on the ELF to help locate the estimated 1.2 million landmines left over from the Croatian civil war.

Further information about ELF may be found at http://www.lochharris.com/chemtech.htm on the Loch Harris Web site. SOURCE Loch Harris, Inc.

----------

2. Uzbek plant revises gold JV, eyes uranium project

07:19 a.m. Jun 28, 1999 Eastern By Shamil Baigin http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

NAVOI, Uzbekistan, June 28 (Reuters) - Uzbekistan's Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Plant (NGMK) is considering changing the terms of a proposed gold mining project with Britain's Oxus Resources Corp because of low gold prices, NGMK said on Monday.

The company also announced that it would soon set up a uranium mining joint venture with French giant Cogema.

NGMK chief engineer Yevgeny Tolstov told journalists low prices for gold had prompted the company to suggest changes to a gold mining project with Oxus.

``We cannot set up a joint venture when world prices are at their lowest,'' Tolstov said. ``So we have suggested a different approach -- that of underground mining.''

``Oxus has agreed to conduct a new feasibility study within the next six months,'' he added.

Under the original project Oxus and NGMK, the Central Asian nation's leading gold producer, were to restructure a 1995 joint venture, Amantaitau Goldfields, using open-pit methods. Project costs were estimated at $196 million.

Oxus had already in March submitted a pre-feasibility study for developing the Amantaitau and Daugystau fields in the Kyzylkum desert. Reserves at the sites are estimated at 300 tonnes of gold.

The fields were earlier to have been developed by Canada's Cameco Corp and Britain's Lonrho Plc but the companies pulled out due to the falling gold prices.

But Tolstov said NGMK was considering upping its presence in the uranium market because prices for the metal were expected to rise after 2000.

He said a joint venture agreement with Cogema was likely to be signed at the end of the year. The project would have an annual production capacity of 1,000 tonnes of uranium with expected investments of ``tens of millions of dollars.''

NGMK, situated in the Kyzylkum desert 400 kilometers (280 miles) from the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, is the country's only producer of uranium. It expects to produce 2,200 tonnes of uranium in 1999, up from 2000 tonnes last year.

But gold, alongside cotton, provides the bulk of Uzbekistan's revenues. The country is believed to produce about 80 tonnes of gold annually, of which NGMK mines 90 percent.

((Tashkent Newsroom +7 3711 361958 moscow.newsroom+reuters.com))

---

Teachers strike closes Niger schools

09:53 a.m. Jun 22, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

NIAMEY, June 22 (Reuters) - Schools across the West African state of Niger were closed on Tuesday at the start of a four-day strike by teachers demanding pay arrears, witnesses said.

Niger, an impoverished Sahelian nation, is struggling with severe economic problems because of depressed prices for its mainstay uranium exports and a foreign debt of some 850 billion CFA francs ($1.3 billion) which is heavy for its sm all budget.

The 18,000-strong union representing teachers in the former French colony called its members to strike over non-payment of their salaries for March and April.

Public sector strikes are common and the latest is the third by teachers since soldiers seized power in the country last April, prompting angry Western donors to freeze aid.

-----------------

3. Lithuania may begin Ignalina N-plant closure in 2005

10:17 a.m. Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

VILNIUS, June 24 (Reuters) - Lithuania could begin closing the first bloc of the controversial Ignalina nuclear power plant in 2005, though the entire decommissioning of the Soviet-era plant may take 20 years, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Deputy Economics Minister Viktoras Valentukevichius told reporters after a meeting of a working group looking at the closure of plant that a hard date for the closure would be put to the government and parliament, possibly as early as next week.

``The working group will suggest the government and parliament consider a concrete date for decommissioning the Ignalina plant. The first bloc could be decommissioned in 2005 or 2007 with closure of the whole plant taking around some 20 years,'' he said. The Soviet-built Ignalina, which operates two RBMK reactors similar to the one that caused the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, has become one of the main obstacles for Lithuania in its bid to join fast track talks for EU membership. The EU has pressed hard for a firm date for the plant's closure, the earlier the better. But Lithuania, the world's most nuclear power dependent country, has said it cannot complete the task on its own.

Valentukevichius said closure of the entire plant could cost between 13-15 billion litas ($3.25-3.75 billion), adding the tiny Baltic nation would need help beyond financing with the decommissioning if it were to take place.

``Lithuania will not be able to decommission the plant with only its own resources as we will need both international financial and technical support,'' he said.

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4. Children from Chernobyl Radiation Zone Arrive in Bay Area for Summer Home Stays for Ninth Summer in a Row

05:06 p.m Jun 24, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 25, 1999--For the ninth summer in a row, children who live in areas contaminated by the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident are arriving in the Bay Area for a six-week summer home stay, thanks to the generosity of host families in Marin and Sonoma who will be at the San Francisco Airport's international terminal to meet them.

The children, who live in the Republic of Belarus, are from 7 to 12 years old. During the children's stay, their host families treat them as one of their own children, including them in the family's summer activities, and socializing with the other Marin and Sonoma families who host Belarussian children during scheduled and informal get-togethers. They will also sample a variety of American culture, from Frisbees, to hot dog cook-outs, to visits to Disneyland.

The youngsters come to California under the auspices of the Chernobyl Children's Project (CCP), a registered nonprofit based in Petaluma CA made up of a network of unpaid volunteers. CCP founders, Connie and Cliff McClain of Petaluma, established the program after a trip to Belarus in 1990 acquainted them with the difficult conditions the children of that nation must face. Since 1991, in collaboration with a Belarussian charitable fund, the CCP has been part of a worldwide grass-roots effort that has brought an estimated 150,000 children living in areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy for summer homestays in 19 countries.

According to the McClains, the project's operating principle is simple: introduce the Belarussian children into homes filled with a family's love and laughter. Nourish and strengthen them with clean food and water, which helps overcome the accumulative effects of living in a radioactive environment. And send them back to their own families with a sense of hope that the world has not forgotten them. The children are accompanied by English-speaking Belarussian adults who also participate in the program as translators, although host families inevitably report that they quickly establish a close bond with the children despite the language difference.

In addition to arranging host families, the CCP conducts substantial fund-raising to cover the children's transportation costs, as economic difficulties in Belarus preclude financial support from sources in that nation. Through the generous donations of several Bay Area corporations, the program was able to continue this summer thanks to contributions from Autodesk, Bechtel, Fair Isaac, and O'Reilly & Associates, among others.

The children arrive Friday, June 25, on Aeroflot flight 323 at 8:30 a.m. at the San Francisco Airport, International Terminal. Flight arrival updates are available by calling: 650/615-9278. Web address: http://www.chernobylkids.com

---

France sees no German bar to Ukraine reactors

09:40 a.m. Jun 20, 1999 Eastern http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

COLOGNE, Germany, June 20 (Reuters) - Germany will not block Western plans to fund new reactors in Ukraine despite complaints from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's anti-nuclear coalition partners, French President Jacques Chirac said on Sunday.

The German Greens, who have ruled with Schroeder's Social Democrats since last September, want the Group of Seven richest nations to fund instead gas-fired power stations to replace capacity to be lost as the disaster-hit Chernobyl plant closes.

As a result, Schroeder, who chaired this weekend's World Economic Summit in Cologne, has stalled putting up German money to make good on commitments made by his predecessor to take part in a $1.2 billion scheme to help the Ukrainian power industry.

A final G7 agreement on funding the reactors had been due at the summit, but the group allowed Schroeder time to make a visit to Kiev on July 7 to try to persuade Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma to change his mind and build non-nuclear power stations.

``Between you and me, my belief is he has absolutely no chance of persuading President Kuchma,'' Chirac told a news conference after the summit.

Since Schroeder had accepted that the top priority was to close Chernobyl -- something Ukraine will not do without ensuring replacement electricity -- the chancellor would then have to agree to finance the two new reactors, Chirac said.

``The priority of priorities is closing Chernobyl and so he will be able to accept financing the two reactors,'' he said.

Schroeder, when asked about his visit to Kiev, told a separate news conference he did not want to prejudge the issue.

The Greens have committed the new German government to closing down Germany's own nuclear power industry and argue that it would be inconsistent and dangerous to finance new plants abroad.

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5. German nuclear firms reject pull-out compromise

11:17 a.m. Jun 22, 1999 Eastern, By Mark John http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

BONN, June 21 (Reuters) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government and Germany's top utility firms on Tuesday failed to reach agreement on winding down the country's nuclear sector, despite a new compromise bid by Bonn.

To the displeasure of his ecologist Greens coalition allies, Schroeder has offered to spread the withdrawal over 25 years in a bid to preempt potentially huge compensation claims from industry over the move.

But new talks between Schroeder and the country's four main nuclear providers made no headway on the new deadline, which is far less ambitious than the near-immediate pullout the Greens and many of Schroeder's own party want.

``We are looking for an agreement that is dependent on the operational life of each plant,'' a spokeswoman for utility giant Veba (VEBG.F) said after the talks at Schroeder's chancellery in Bonn.

A government spokeswoman said there had been progress during the talks and that a new meeting had been scheduled. She did not say for when it was set and gave no other details of the talks.

Economics Minister Werner Mueller, a close Schroeder ally and former power industry executive brought into politics to negotiate the move, last week proposed a phase-out of the country's 19 reactors that would start in 2003 and be complete by 2024.

Under the plan, nuclear waste shipments would be allowed to continue until 2004, meaning Germany's nuclear plants would not have to risk reneging on existing contracts with reprocessing companies in France and Britain.

In return, the nuclear providers -- including Veba, RWE (RWEG.F), Viag (VIAG.F) and Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG -- would agree to refrain from legal action over the closures.

But the Veba spokeswoman said the nuclear firms were still unhappy on a number of scores, including how Bonn planned to tax reserves set aside for plant closures, and about a continued ban on waste shipments following a safety scare last year.

A commitment to withdraw from nuclear power, which currently provides around a third of Germany's requirements, has been a major headache for Schroeder since taking power last October.

Not only has it triggered rows with the Greens, who have accused him of backpedalling on the move, but it has created tensions with Britain and France over the loss of lucrative private sector contracts to reprocess German nuclear waste.

Germany's nuclear providers, who together provide around a third of the country's power requirements, have so far managed to stall legislation setting out a timetable for the pullout.

If it does come at all, they want the withdrawal to reflect as much as possible the natural running-down time of their reactors, so it will affect their business little.

Leading Greens and even members of Schroeder's SPD on Tuesday made it clear that even if industry accepted a deal based around Mueller's compromise proposals, they could not.

``This isn't a withdrawal from nuclear power any more,'' said Greens environment spokesman Reinhard Loske. ``It's almost as if we are letting it gradually reach its expiry date.''

Other anti-nuclear parliamentarians argued that with the 2024 deadline, some reactors would have been in operation for 35 years -- longer than any other reactor in the world.

--------------

6. French electricity utility sees no Y2K blackout

10:59 a.m. Jun 23, 1999 Eastern By David Clarke http://www.dogpile.com - infoseek newswires - "nuclear plutonium uranium radioactiv???

PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) - France's electricity utility EdF said on Wednesday it was confident its power grid would not break down on the eve of the millennium and if nuclear plants were temporarily shut down, there would be no danger.

Andre Merlin, EdF deputy executive in charge of transmission system access, told a news conference that while there was no such thing as zero risk, ``a general breakdown of the electricity system because of the millennium bug is today ruled out.''

EdF began checking its electronic and computer systems in late 1995 for potential problems linked to the Y2K computer bug and carried out three trouble-free tests in May this year.

The millennium problem arises because many older computers and programmes record dates using only the last two digits of the year, and, barring correction, could treat the year 2000 as the year 1900, triggering system crashes.

EdF's conclusions sit uneasily with a May report from the French Institute of Nuclear Safety (IPSN) which said a generalised electricity grid failure was ``plausible'' and that the safety of nuclear plants was in jeopardy from the bug.

IPSN said on Wednesday it had nothing to add to its report other than to say that perhaps EdF, which runs the nuclear plants, had the benefit of additional information. The IPSN is a technical body which reports to the nuclear safety authority.

France relies more than any other nation on nuclear power and also supplies many of its neighbours. Some 75 percent of electricity produced comes from nuclear power, although this can climb as high as 90 percent during the summer.

Merlin said localised grid problems could arise for numerous reasons -- from having to isolate a plant temporarily to a lightning strike on high-voltage cables -- but said this was a risk EdF faced all the time.

``We consider that New Year's Eve should be similar to any other day of the year,'' Merlin said at a new, high-tech EdF nerve centre which opened this week just north of Paris.

For nuclear power stations, he said if there were a drop in frequency in high-voltage links from a nuclear reactor, the first step would be to try to isolate the plant from the grid.

If this failed, as is the case one time in four, the plant would be shut down and auxiliary functions, such as pumps and coolers, would be powered by another high-voltage line or diesel motors. Solid fuel generators would back up these motors.

Isolating or closing down a nuclear plant temporarily does not pose problems ``either for nuclear safety, or the electricity system'' and is by no means unusual, he said.

EdF said on a normal New Year's Eve electricity consumption was about half production capacity but could be lower this year if firms reduce output to avoid potential Y2K risks.

EdF said, however, it would ensure all its water reservoirs were fully stocked if extra power from water-powered turbines were needed and solid-fuel generators would also be on standby.

As for links with other countries through the UCPTE network, stretching from Morocco to Hungary, Merlin said EdF could stop exchanges if necessary. He added that UCPTE members would meet in Frankfurt next week to define procedures for New Year's Eve.

((Paris newsroom tel +331 4221 5339, fax +331 4236 1072, paris.newsroom+reuters.com))