No Link Between Ammo, Gulf Illness

By Tom Raum Associated Press Writer Friday, August 27, 1999; 3:31 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990827/V000144-082799-idx.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A presidential panel looking into Gulf War illnesses said Friday that it can't pinpoint causes of the ailments and recommended further studies into whether there are genetic reasons for why some troops got sick when others did not.

In an interim report, the Special Oversight Board on Gulf War Illness ruled out one suspected cause -- exposure to depleted uranium used in U.S. munitions. The panel agreed with independent studies that found no evidence for the uranium link.

The board, headed by former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., issued a series of recommendations designed to keep better track of those with diagnosed and undiagnosed Gulf War illnesses, make clearer information available to the public and lead to better federal coordination.

While the Defense Department ``has conducted a credible investigation into the causes of Gulf War illnesses,'' the board ``has not been shy about pointing out areas needing further improvement,'' Rudman said.

For instance, the report suggested that the Pentagon office on Gulf War illnesses had engaged in ``mission creep,'' expanding its responsibilities and publishing ``information papers'' that didn't relate directly to Gulf War illnesses.

The board also suggested declassifying certain intelligence reports on the war that might bear on the illnesses.

In a series of what it called ``observations,'' the panel said:

-- More extensive study into whether genetic predisposition to certain illnesses may explain why some Gulf War veterans with similar exposures are ill while others are not.

-- The government should try to correlate signs and symptoms of Gulf War illnesses with ``an age- and gender-matched general population sample.''

-- For future wars, the Pentagon should consider fitting soldiers with electronic identification badges so that satellites can track and record battlefield movements.

The report sought to settle the debate over the danger of depleted uranium, which coats U.S. artillery shells and bombs designed to penetrate tank armor. On impact, the shells create an airborne dust.

Some veterans groups have suggested hundreds of thousands of the men and women who served in the Gulf War had come in contact with depleted uranium. Some claimed to suffer from unexplained illnesses or increased cancer rates.

But studies by the Pentagon and Rand Corp., an independent research organization that specializes in military affairs, failed to find a link between depleted uranium and these illnesses, suggesting radiation levels in the substance are relatively low.

``The board agrees with the conclusion that the available evidence does not support claims that depleted uranium is causing the undiagnosed illnesses some Gulf War veterans are experiencing,'' the report said.

One veterans' group, the National Gulf War Resource Center, denounced the panel's findings on depleted uranium as ``incomplete whitewash and failure.'' The panel ignored research suggesting that the material ``settles in the bone, brain, kidney, lung, liver and testicles,'' the group said.

The panel was also criticized for not reaching any conclusions on whether contaminants from oil well fires in Kuwait contributed to the illnesses. The panel said it would deal with that issue in its final report.

As many as 30,000 veterans of the war have complained of mysterious maladies, including fatigue, joint pain and memory loss, that they claim are related to their service in the Gulf.

A final report is due in May.

---

Uranium ammo cleared in study

Kathleen Sullivan, Aug. 27, 1999, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER; Associated Press contributed
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1999/08/27/NEWS7373.dtl

No link found to Gulf War illnesses

A presidential oversight board said Friday there is no evidence to link undiagnosed Gulf War illnesses to exposure to depleted uranium ammunition - a conclusion that drew immediate fire from the nation's largest advocacy group for veterans of the 1991 desert war.

In an interim report released Friday, the Presidential Special Oversight Board on Gulf War Illness said it agreed with earlier studies by the Pentagon and the Rand Corp., which failed to find a link between exposure to depleted uranium - a radioactive and toxic metal - and ailments that doctors cannot diagnose among veterans.

The ammunition was used for the first time in combat by the United States in the Gulf War, but American soldiers were not warned that exposure to its dust and debris could be harmful.

"The board agrees with the conclusion that the available evidence does not support claims that depleted uranium is causing the undiagnosed illnesses some Gulf War veterans are experiencing," the report said.

The findings were harshly criticized by Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a Washington, D.C., group that has led the fight for medical care and compensation for ailing veterans and their families.

"This report is yet another in a long series of disappointing government whitewashes," Sullivan said. "Until independent medical research is launched, veterans will not receive answers as to why we are ill, and tens of thousands will be denied proper medical care. The board's work is unacceptable and incomplete."

More than 100,000 Gulf War veterans are sick, and about 30,000 have ailments that doctors cannot diagnose, he said.

Report is a "moral outrage'

Sullivan said the panel's failure to recommend independent research into the effects of exposure to the radioactive and toxic waste created by depleted uranium explosions was a "moral outrage."

He said the board failed to note that the Pentagon violated its own regulations during the war by failing to test troops after they fought on battlefields contaminated with depleted uranium or climbed on tanks blown up with the ammunition.

Sullivan said the board also failed to mention a recent Department of Defense report, which concluded that depleted uranium settles in the bones, brain, kidney, lung, liver and testicles.

He said about 400,000 troops may have entered contaminated areas, or lived in those areas for up to two months.

Overall, the board found that the Defense Department "has conducted a credible investigation into the causes of Gulf War illnesses," said former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., chairman of the panel.

Still, Rudman said, "The board has not been shy about pointing out areas needing further improvement."

The presidential panel issued a series of recommendations designed to keep better track of those with diagnosed and undiagnosed Gulf War illnesses and to make more information available to the public.

Report's other recommendations

Among suggestions of the interim report:

*The government should consider attempting to correlate signs and symptoms of Gulf War illnesses with "an age- and gender-matched general population sample."

*The Pentagon should study the feasibility of using electronic identification badges on military personnel in conjunction with fixes from the Global Positioning System, a satellite-based navigation system, "for battlefield location of the individual."

*A more extensive study should be conducted into whether genetic predisposition to certain illnesses may explain why some Gulf War veterans with similar exposures are ill while others are not....

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - From FlapsC@aol.com

COMITÉ PRO RESCATE Y DESARROLLO DE VIEQUES ("Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques") Box 1424 Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765 (787) 741-8651 / (787) 741-1717 e-mail: bieke@coqui.net

Contact: Robert Rabin (787-741-1717)

August 26, 1999 -

The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques ("Comité Pro Rescate y Desarrollo de Vieques" or "CPRDV"), a Vieques-based non-profit civic organization that seeks to demilitarize the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, informed today that the U.S. Department of Defense, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all the U.S. military branches have taken over two (2) months to answer a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the CPRDV on June 16, 1999 concerning the use of depleted uranium (DU) on Vieques, and to date have not provided any information.

By next Tuesday, August 31, a presidential panel is scheduled to issue a report to Defense Secretary William Cohen and to President Clinton on whether the US Navy should remain in Vieques, or leave the island. The CPRDV stated that allegations of use of depleted uranium (DU), napalm and other chemical weapons in Vieques by the US military, and subsequent admissions that the US Navy has indeed used such weapons in Vieques, have further ignited the furor and strengthened the demands against the US Navy's continued presence in Vieques.

Flavio Cumpiano, an attorney who represents the CPRDV in Washington, DC, explained that: "Pursuant to a FOIA request by the "Military Toxics Project" organization, the US Navy had to admit that on February 19, two U.S. Marine Corps Harrier planes fired 263 rounds of depleted uranium (DU), each round containing 148 grams of DU, over Vieques. The Navy called the event 'inadvertent' and Navy spokespersons subsequently characterized it as an one-time event." Cumpiano added: "Our Committee wanted to make sure that the US Government provide us with information concerning the use of depleted uranium on Vieques not just by the Navy or Marines but by any and all of the US military branches, by any foreign government, and by any U.S. and non-U.S. company or business, which has been authorized to conduct military exercises or practice or tests on or near the island of Vieques since 1985."

Cumpiano explained that although responses to such FOIA requests are supposed to be issued in twenty (20) working days, it has been over two (2) months since the CPRDV filed its FOIA request and, despite persistent inquiries, the only information the CPRDV has received so far is that its request has been referred to the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military branches. Cumpiano said that: "The use of depleted uranium and other chemicals in Vieques is a key concern for the people of Vieques, not just for health reasons, but also because it is further evidence of the long-standing callous disregard by the US military of the basic principles of justice and respect toward the people of Vieques. Unfortunately, the US military will not provide us with the information we requested until after the presidential panel issues its report and recommendation on the Navy's presence in Vieques and, most likely, after President Clinton decides whether the Navy stays in Vieques or finally leaves the island."

---

[I've been wondering why such pacifists as the Dorothy Day Catholic Workers in Washington DC were holding signs outside the White House for the Puerto Rico 16. The second-to-last sentence of this news story at last clarifies the situation: "... those offered clemency were not directly involved in fatal attacks." So what this is really about is correcting a judicial injustice?]

Freedom opposed for Puerto Ricans

USA Today, August 28, 1999
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm

NEW YORK - Federal law enforcement agencies are opposed to the leniency of 16 imprisoned Puerto Rican militants, the New York Times reported Friday President Clinton has offered to commute the sentences of the members of the FALN, a Spanish acronym for Armed Forces of National Liberation, in response to requests from human rights officials who argued that their sentences ranging from 15 - 90 years, were too harsh. The clemency petition for the independence activists was flatly opposed by the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons and federal prosecutors in the states of Illinois and Connecticut. Six people were killed and dozens injured - including several New York police officers - in attacks attributed to the group, but those offered clemency were not directly involved in fatal attacks. Accompanying the clemency conditions include that militants sign statements requesting commutation, renounce violence and abide by all conditions of release set by the law or the Parole Commission.

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Radiation makes patients too hot to handle-report

UK: August 27, 1999 Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=3387

LONDON - Patients undergoing radiation treatment for cancer or an overactive thyroid could be irradiating their partners, New Scientist magazine said.

Japanese scientists at Kanazawa University want stricter guidelines for treatment with radioisotope iodine-131 because they believe the patients' glands become radioactive and could endanger anyone living close to them for long periods.

"They argue that the level of radioactivity recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) below which patients can be safely discharged from hospital - 560 million becquerels - is five times too high.

"The limit should be reduced to 97 million becquerels, they say," according to the magazine.

Kichiro Koshida and his colleagues at the university called for the new guidelines after measuring the contact times and distances of 14 patients and nearly 40 of their family members over three days. They estimated the dose that would guarantee the relatives are below ICRP safety limits.

Keith Harding, a nuclear medicine consultant at City Hospital in Birmingham in central England, assured New Scientist that current guidelines are adequate.

He said using contact times to estimate radiation doses was inaccurate and tended to exaggerate exposure.

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Nuke snoop set up in Manitoba bush

WebPosted Fri Aug 27 01:48:29 1999
http://www.newsworld.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/1999/08/26/nuclear990826

PINAWA, MANITOBA - Scientists in Manitoba have their ears to the ground. Deep in the woods, they've just opened the world's first listening post for nuclear explosions.

The listening post is designed to detect nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, but not just from the air -- from underground or underwater, from anywhere in the world.

The quiet stability of the Canadian Shield makes the location perfect for detecting the tremors of a nuclear bomb.

Spread out on the forest floor are the most sophisticated microphone, barometric and seismic technology available, giving scientists confirmation of detonation.

Manitoba's is the first of many such stations. The final configuration will have 60 stations like this spread uniformly over the world.

The ability to verify nuclear detonations gives the United Nations the evidence needed to sanction any country not living up to the comprehensive test ban treaty of 1996.

The UN knows that both India and Pakistan, have recently tested nuclear weapons. But there may be others out there.

From now on, there's no possibility of conducting a nuclear test and getting away with it.

LINKS: Websites related to this story

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Provincial help sought to fund emergency plan
Nuclear plant communities appeal for money

By Stan Josey Toronto Star Durham Region Bureau Chief, August 23, 1999
http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED19990823/news/990823NEW04_CI-NUKE23.html

Some Ontario communities that host nuclear power plants say they need help implementing a new provincial emergency plan which aims to prepare for a Chernobyl-style disaster.

While the province wants municipalities to be ready for anything, officials said it is not prepared to foot the bill. ``We don't think it will cost anything extra,'' said Elaine Simpson, a spokesperson for the solicitor-general's ministry.

That angers Dr. Murray McQuigge, medical officer of health for the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound public heath unit, which must implement the emergency response plan for the area that includes the Bruce Nuclear plant.

Nuclear leak

He estimates the cost of the project is at least $15,000 for his area alone.

``It'll take 10 public health nurses to do this,'' he said. ``How they think I'm going to take 10 people out for a week to train them without additional costs is beyond me.''

While the province used to fund 75 per cent of the health unit's cost, it now pays only half, with the rest downloaded to municipalities.

The 1999 Nuclear Emergency Plan calls for immediate evacuation, medical treatment and counselling for victims of any disaster. The province wants a more rigourous approach because the old emergency plan didn't account for an immediate, uncontainable leak.

The potential risk to Ontario residents living near five nuclear power plants has been called catastrophic, and that has McQuigge worried. ``I certainly am not going to sleep well at night unless this kind of capability is in place,'' he said.

A provincial report on the safety of Ontario's nuclear reactors released several years ago warned that, in a catastrophic nuclear accident, thousands of people could be killed instantly, with many more susceptible to cancer and genetic defects affecting future generations.

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Russia Launches Military Satellite

Thursday, August 26, 1999; 12:48 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990826/V000185-082699-idx.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's Defense Ministry sent a satellite into orbit Thursday from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia.

The Kosmos-2366 military satellite lifted off on a Kosmos-3M booster rocket, Strategic Missile Forces spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.

The satellite was designed by the Polyot company in the Siberian city of Omsk. It was the second military satellite launched this month.

Russia's military has put up far fewer satellites in recent years because of chronic money shortages.

---

WAR AND PEACE Russians warn US of new arms race

Date: 21/08/99 By MARCUS WARREN in Moscow
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9908/21/text/world5.html

American plans to create a national anti-missile shield threaten to start a new arms race, Russia's leading disarmament official has warned.

Changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty could destroy the system of non-proliferation for weapons of mass destruction, Mr Grigory Berdennikov said on Thursday.

Russia would enhance its own strategic missile program if Washington created the shield, and the arms race would "spread into space", he said.

His comments underlined the gulf between Russia and the US over what Washington holds is the key issue of defence from surprise nuclear attacks by rogue states such as North Korea or Iran.

The two countries made little headway in talks in Moscow this week aimed at securing new strategic arms reductions and repairing relations damaged by the Kosovo crisis.

Russia proposed almost 50 per cent cuts in the number of nuclear warheads that would be allowed under a prospective Start III treaty. President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin agreed in June to try to revive the long-dormant arms control talks, which also include discussions on the unratified Start II accord and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. The first round of discussions ended with renewed Russian warnings against modifying the ABM.

The 1993 Start II treaty called for cutting the levels of nuclear warheads to between 3,500 and 3,000 on each side. But the Russian State Duma has not ratified it.

At a meeting in Helsinki in 1997, Mr Clinton and Mr Yeltsin set as a target for the next step, Start III, a ceiling of between 2,500 and 2,000 warheads for each side. However, a Russian official said Russia this week proposed slashing the maximum to 1,500 or fewer.

The new American plans for an anti-missile system complicated matters. Mr Berdennikov said they "could lead to the paralysis of all disarmament processes ... and renew the arms race".

If the US deployed a missile defence system, he said, Russia "will be forced to raise the effectiveness of its strategic nuclear armed forces and carry out several other military and political steps to guarantee its national security under new strategic conditions".

- The Telegraph, London, and Washington Post

---

Russia Bombs Retreating Militants

By Arsen Malayev Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 26, 1999; 2:36 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990826/V000256-082699-idx.html

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) -- Large-scale fighting between Russian forces and Islamic militants in southern Russia was mostly over by Thursday, though tensions remained high over reported attacks on breakaway Chechnya.

Russia's military said Thursday its jets pounded Islamic militants fleeing to Chechnya on Wednesday after a failed invasion of the neighboring region of Dagestan. But officials gave conflicting reports of whether the strikes hit the territory of Chechnya, which considers itself an independent state and vehemently resents military raids on its land.

The contradictory statements highlighted how volatile the remote Caucasus Mountains region remains despite Russian claims of victory in its two-week campaign against the rebels.

Chechen officials claimed Russian jets made 16 bombing runs on Chechnya against the militants Wednesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry's press center in Dagestan said that Russian jets bombed the militants within Chechnya. Later, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Air Force Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Kornukov denied that Chechen territory had been hit.

However, ``the Russian command reserves the right to deliver strikes on the rebels wherever they are,'' the Defense Ministry said.

The Chechen Foreign Ministry appealed to the United Nations on Thursday to investigate whether there were any ``terrorist'' bases in Chechnya to justify Russia's alleged bombing raids.

``Under the pretext of destroying terrorist bases, Russia is making missile and bomb strikes against settlements,'' Chechen Foreign Minister Ilyas Akhmadov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Moscow ``is preparing a new war against Chechnya,'' he said.

Russian jets have bombed rebel bases in Chechnya several times since Islamic militants seeking an independent state crossed the Chechen border into Dagestan on Aug. 7 and took at least six villages.

After weeks of bombardment by Russian forces, the rebels -- estimated at more than 2,000 -- had largely fled the region by Thursday, but handfuls of militants remained and were still waging attacks against local security forces.

Early Thursday, some 20 rebels clashed with police around the village of Andi for two hours. Casualties were not known for either side.

Russia's Col. Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, commander of the North Caucasus military district, said Thursday that 70 Russian army and Interior Ministry troops have been killed since the fighting began -- raising the previous death toll by 10. He also said nearly 2,000 rebels have been killed or injured, Interfax reported. Rebel leaders put their casualty figure at just 37.

Russian forces continued to clear the Botlikh region of mines and other traps laid by the militants before they left the villages. A Russian tank struck a mine outside Tando on Thursday, but it was not known if any servicemen were injured.

The fighting was the worst in Russia since government troops withdrew from Chechnya after a 1994-96 war with separatists, giving Chechnya de facto independence.

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Nuclear option: Aid for Russia?
Congressional office weighs U.S. help with 6 warning satellites; Degraded system dire risk

By Greg Schneider Baltimore Sun Staff
http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/editorial/story.cgi?section=cover&storyid=1150140215601

Feedback: http://www.sunspot.net/feedback.shtml

Russia apparently cannot afford to launch several new satellites for monitoring U.S. nuclear missile strikes, so the Congressional Budget Office has explored a truly strange gesture of post-Cold War goodwill:

Have the United States pay to put six of the satellites in orbit -- "enough to give Russia 24-hour coverage of U.S. missile fields," according to a CBO letter obtained by The Sun.

The Aug. 24 letter to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, weighs the pros and cons of such an action, which would seem to be an odd twist on generations of East-West mistrust.

But one expert said there is good reason to take the option seriously.

"Their early warning network is in pretty bad shape," said John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists. "My view is, we've got to do something here because it's an accident waiting to happen."

The United States and Russia have fleets of satellites that watch each other's nuclear arsenals for signs of attack. The United States has continued to update its network, and is spending billions to perfect a "star wars" system that could both warn of attack and knock enemy missiles out of the sky.

Russia's system, though, is so "seriously degraded [that it] poses risks to both countries," the Congressional Budget Office said. In 1995, the launch of a research rocket off the coast of Norway caused Russia's early warning system to go on alert for nuclear attack.

Such a situation could trigger a Russian nuclear launch before the false alarm was detected.

The two nations have explored waysof addressing the problem at least since last year, when another CBO study suggested giving Russia access to the U.S. early warning satellite system. Faced with considerable political pressure not to release such sensitive information to the Russians, Daschle asked the budget office to consider "nontraditional" alternatives.

Since then, according to the letter, the CBO has learned that Russia has built seven new early warning satellites, but "is unable or unwilling to devote the resources necessary to launch them."

The United States could buy Russian rockets -- which are less expensive than American rockets -- and launch six of the satellites for about $200 million, the CBO said.

The letter lists several arguments against the option, including the fact that if Russia were sufficiently worried about false alarms, it could cough up the money itself. In addition, the six satellites would not allow Russia to monitor launches around the globe, only in the United States.

And the option would not provide money for helping Russian institutes that design and build early warning satellites, meaning that the country's engineers could be driven from the field by lack of money.

But it could be argued that any investment in Russia's early warning system would be wise because "one of the greatest strategic threats the United States faces is inadvertent nuclear war caused by a failure in Russia's command-and-control system," the letter notes. Because the satellites are Russian-built, Moscow would trust their data, and cooperation on the project could lead to better relations on other early warning issues and arms control in general.

The CBO letter was written at Daschle's request on behalf of the budget office's director, Dan L. Crippen.

None of the letter's recipients -- Daschle and five other senators, including Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi -- could be reached last night for comment, nor could their staffs.

While the United States recently agreed to cooperate with Japan on missile defense research, paying to launch Russian satellites could be a far thornier political issue.

Pike, who has monitored nuclear weapons for many years, said he does not give the idea much chance of survival in Congress.

"In the current political environment, no," Pike said. "Simply because it would require a more mature understanding of the actual situation than is prevalent in Washington right now."

But he said assisting Russia with the project would be better than doing nothing.

"Given the alternative between the old way of doing things and this way of doing things, I would prefer to do it this way," he said. "We would be living in a much safer world."

---

NATO Declines Comment On Kosovo Spy Report

Updated 6:26 AM ET August 27, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990827/06/international-yugoslavia-spy

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO declined comment Friday on a newspaper report that a spy within its command structure had passed secrets about the alliance's operations in Yugoslavia to Russia

"We never comment on matters of security. That's the official line and we are not going to change that," a NATO official said of the report in the Scotsman newspaper.

The Scotsman report, which cited NATO sources, said leaked information included flight details for a bombing raid by U.S. stealth fighters, which enabled Serb forces to shoot down one of the planes.

The newspaper's sources said an officer attached to NATO passed the details to Russian intelligence services, which then told Belgrade that the target was a defense research base.

Earlier, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service also declined to comment on the report.

Russia strongly opposed NATO's 11-week bombing campaign against its Slav, Orthodox Christian brethren in Yugoslavia aimed at halting Serb repression against the mainly ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo.

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NATO Spy Passed Kosovo Secrets To Russians -Paper

Updated 3:36 AM ET August 27, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990827/03/international-yugoslavia-spy

LONDON (Reuters) - A spy within NATO's command structure passed top-secret information on the alliance's operations in the Kosovo conflict to Russian intelligence, which in turn told Belgrade, The Scotsman said Friday.

The paper, citing NATO sources, said the leaked information included flight plan details for a bombing by U.S. Stealth fighters, which enabled Serb forces to intercept and shoot down one of the planes.

The sources said a military officer attached to NATO passed the details on to Russian intelligence services, which then told Belgrade that the target of the raid was a defense research base.

Russia had strongly opposed the Western alliance's 11-week bombing campaign against its Slav Orthodox Christian brethren in Yugoslavia.

The Scotsman said the officer was arrested shortly after the Stealth fighter was shot down in late March, soon after the beginning of the NATO air strikes campaign. It said he was still being detained though his arrest had remained secret. His nationality was not given.

"We are not talking about an ideologue here but someone working purely for financial gain," the source told the newspaper.

It said that Russian intelligence officers were responsible for the tipoff to Serb authorities, and that Russian forces were therefore able to scavenge the site where the Stealth fighter had crashed.

"They were in a rush because they thought that the U.S. air force might try and bomb the crash site to destroy the evidence," the source said.

---

Russia, China Seek Closer Alliance

By Vladimir Isachenkov Associated Press Writer Wednesday, August 25, 1999; 3:54 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990825/V000411-082599-idx.html

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) -- Boris Yeltsin met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Wednesday and the two leaders signaled their desire to forge a closer alliance to counterbalance U.S. global clout.

The Russian president and Jiang met for one-on-one talks before taking part in a five-nation summit in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet state in central Asia. The summit's goal was to improve stability along China's lengthy border with Russia and three former Soviet republics: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan and Tajikistan.

After tension between Moscow and Beijing during the Cold War, relations have warmed considerably in this decade, and the leaders of the two countries meet regularly.

Moscow has made it clear it wants better ties in Asia since NATO's airstrikes against Yugoslavia this spring, which Russia staunchly opposed.

``The current summit is taking place in conditions of an aggravated international situation,'' Yeltsin said. ``Some nations are trying to build a world order that would be convenient only for them, ignoring that the world is multi-polar.''

Jiang made similar remarks in his speech.

``The process of forming a multi-polar world is difficult, but it has become an irreversible trend,'' he said.

Jiang did not mention the United States by name, but he appeared to refer to Washington when he said there was a ``new display of hegemony relying on force, and it has already drawn concern on the international scene.''

Russia and China had a falling-out in the late 1950s, but after the Soviet collapse relations between the two countries have improved considerably. China has become one of Russia's major trading partners and is a top client for its ailing military industry, purchasing billions of dollars worth of jets, missiles and submarines.

``The meeting between Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin took place in a very warm and friendly atmosphere,'' said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. ``Our relations are now at a peak and that meets the interests of both nations as well as the interests of regional and international stability.''

The five-nation summit was the fourth such meeting since April 1996, when the leaders first met in Shanghai and agreed on a series of confidence-building measures along the border.

``Russia has strategic interests in maintaining stability and security in Asia,'' Yeltsin said. ``We would like to see this region developing good neighborly links.''

The five leaders signed an agreement to cooperate on fighting crime and drug trafficking across their borders. Under previous agreements, the countries have reduced troop levels and limited military activity along their borders.

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Minister: Moscow Must Respond To US Anti-Missile Systems

MOSCOW, Aug 27, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=88229

Moscow must improve its nuclear weapons because of the development of US anti-missile systems, Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Lev Ryabov said Thursday.

He was quoted by news agencies here as saying that Washington had adopted a tough position in recent bilateral disarmament talks in Moscow.

"The development of an anti-missile defense system by the United States requires an improvement in Russian nuclear arms," Ryabov was quoted as saying.

Russian and US officials ended two days of talks here last week to try to advance disarmament efforts between the two nuclear powers, which have been at a standstill since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II was signed in January 1993.

Under START II, Russia and the United States are to reduce their nuclear arsenal to the level of 3,500 warheads each.

But the proposed negotiations hit a snag over US proposals to change the 1972 ABM treaty in line with pressure by Congress to boost anti-missile defense to face up to threats from so-called rogue states like North Korea.

Moscow accuses Washington of planning to unilaterally breach ABM, which places strict limits on the deployment of anti-missile defense shields.

Ryabov said the production of nuclear weapons in Russia today was on a scale 10 times smaller than during the Soviet period because of disarmament and the conversion of the defense industry to other purposes.

The development of state-of-the-art conventional weapons was not an alternative to nuclear arms, Ryabov was quoted as saying.

Although START II was passed by the US Senate in 1996, it has yet to be ratified by the State Duma lower house of parliament, which maintains that the treaty tilts the strategic balance in Washington's favor.

Speaker Gennady Seleznyov said in June that the Duma would vote on START II ratification late this year but he was downbeat about prospects for its approval. ((c) 1999 Agence France Presse)

---

Russia Fumes At US Over Disarmament And KFOR

MOSCOW, Aug 21, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=86965

Storm clouds gathered over US-Russian relations Friday after sharp differences emerged on nuclear disarmament and the Kosovo peacekeeping effort, two pillars of cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

Two months to the day after Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton buried the hatchet over the war in Yugoslavia at their Cologne meeting, senior Russian defense and foreign ministry officials made clear there was some lingering frustration with Washington.

General Leonid Ivashov, who heads the department of international cooperation at the defense ministry, railed against NATO's handling of KFOR, the Kosovo peacekeeping mission, and flatly asserted that two days of talks in Moscow on nuclear disarmament were a bust.

"I, contrary to the diplomats, will be frank," Ivashov told a news conference. "There were no results from the negotiations with the American military delegation."

At issue are efforts to get Russian ratification of the 1993 START II Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and to launch negotiations on START III to drastically reduce the number of warheads in the two countries' nuclear arsenal.

Nuclear disarmament, a centerpiece of relations between Moscow and Washington for decades, also serves as an indicator of the state of relations with progress on that front a sure sign of a thaw.

Yeltsin and Clinton agreed in Cologne to try to advance disarmament efforts which have been at a standstill since the signing of START II in 1993 but the Russian military and foreign policy establishment showed during the August 17-18 talks that they were not of the same mindset.

Moscow accused Washington of seeking to link START III to changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, as Washington seeks to upgrade its missile defenses.

"We were alarmed by the US attempt to link the signing of START III to changes to the ABM treaty," said Ivashov.

Washington argues that the changes are needed to ward off possible attacks from so-called rogue states like North Korea or Iran, which are allegedly developing long-range missile programs.

On Kosovo, Ivashov and Boris Mayorsky, the foreign ministry's envoy for the former Yugoslavia, suggested that Russia could pull its troops out of KFOR as a form of protest against NATO's handling of the mission.

Moscow maintains that KFOR troops are failing to take action to curb a Serb exodus from Kosovo and deter revenge attacks by returning Albanian refugees on Serb homes.

Russia is also worried by attacks on its peacekeepers that commanders have said were carried out by ethnic Albanian fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), who view the Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo as pro-Serb.

Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev has asked his US counterpart William Cohen to travel to Moscow in September to discuss his complaints over KFOR.

The twin disputes over disarmament and KFOR highlight the long road that lies ahead as US and western leaders seek to repair ties with Russia that were frayed over the Kosovo conflict.

"We are not in conflict but evidently we are not friends," said Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the US-Canada Institute, a Moscow think tank.

Kremenyuk said he expects very little progress to emerge from the second round of disarmament talks to be held in Washington next month because of lingering tensions over the NATO war in Yugoslavia.

"After the whole episode with Kosovo, the Russians feel that militarily they were disregarded and badly treated by NATO. The only way of making the NATO nations realize this is to remind them that Russia is a nuclear power," he said. ((c) 1999 Agence France Presse)

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Russia: Analysis From Washington -- An Explosion That Changed The World

By Paul Goble, Washington, 27 August 1999 (RFE/RL) -

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/08/F.RU.990827122227.html

The testing of the first Soviet atomic bomb 50 years ago this Sunday catapulted the USSR into superpower status and defined both the nature of the Cold War and the limits of international conflicts ever since.

On August 29, 1949, Soviet scientists exploded their country's first nuclear device not far from the city of Semipalatinsk in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. And while the bomb itself was relatively small, the fallout from its testing continues to affect not only the immediate region but the world as a whole.

This Sunday, residents from the area near the testing range as well as scientists and anti-nuclear activists will meet in Semipalatinsk to remember the more than 1.6 million people whose health was undermined by Soviet nuclear testing over the next 40 years.

But as significant as those consequences were on a human level and as great a claim as they have on the conscience of the world, the three geopolitical consequences of the August 1949 test are far greater.

First, the Semipalatinsk test broke the American nuclear monopoly, and as a result, the USSR became the second superpower. Even though Moscow could not compete with the West in any other way, its possession of the most frightening weapon of all time meant that no one could ignore its demands.

In the short run, that development meant that the West could no longer dictate to the Soviet Union as it had concerning Moscow's World War II-era occupation of northern Iran. In the longer term, it placed enormous burdens on both countries and exacerbated suspicions on both sides because of the role espionage played in the Soviet breakthrough.

Even today it means that the Russian Federation, as the Soviet Union's successor state, can claim a seat in the highest councils even where it is economically or politically unqualified in every other way. And that in turn has made Moscow ever more reliant on its nuclear arsenal precisely because these weapons are a symbol of power.

Second, the test 50 years ago defined the limits of the Cold War. The enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons as demonstrated by the American attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made each side more cautious in its dealings with the other.

On the one hand, this often meant that one or the other side was prepared to go to the brink in the expectation that the other side would blink. And on the other, it meant that officials in both Moscow and Washington began to learn what the limits were and began to define their relationship in terms of developing a nuclear control regime.

That was the basis for most East-West contacts during the Cold War, and those contacts in turn helped bring that frightening competition to an end. Indeed, one of the most difficult challenges for those involved in such talks has been the demise of the Soviet state, a demise that left them in some cases without an obvious interlocutor.

And third, the Soviet test a half-century ago this weekend -- by highlighting both the importance of nuclear weapons and relative ease of producing them -- encouraged other countries around the world to think about "going nuclear."

Few of them have succeeded, but the possibility that they could had an unexpected impact on Soviet-American relations: It gave the two sides a vested interest in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

Neither Moscow nor Washington wanted to see its own status diminished by such a development, and consequently the two rapidly came to recognize that they in fact had a set of shared values within their overarching competition.

That led to efforts on both sides to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, efforts which also contributed to overcoming some of the early suspiciousness which the Semipalatinsk test itself set off.

Those joint efforts have been remarkably effective, and where they have broken down -- as in the recent testing of nuclear devices by India and Pakistan -- both the impulse to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and the shared commitment to preventing their use has had the effect of restricting the likelihood that these weapons will in fact be used.

When the Soviet Union exploded its device in 1949, no one saw all these political possibilities, both good and bad. Now, they are more obvious. But the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons remains unchanged. And on this anniversary, coping with that fact remains unchanged as well.

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Cmdr.: AFOR out but NATO staying

Updated 1:49 PM ET August 26, 1999 By LULZIM COTA
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990826/13/international-nato

TIRANA, Albania, Aug. 26 (UPI) AFOR troops will leave Albania soon but 2,500 NATO troops will stay, says lieutenant general John Reith, AFOR commander.

In a news conference today, Reith told reporters that the international AFOR force welcomed by Albania during the Kosovo refugee crisis has completed its mission but that NATO will maintain a presence in the country.

"The humanitarian mission is over here, but NATO troops will continue with work in Tirana airport, the port of Durres and the road from Durres to Pristina via Kukes," he said.

Some 2,500 NATO troops will stay in Albania under the KFOR Communication Western Command, supporting the NATO troops in Kosovo. There have been 8,000 NATO troops established in Albania since the height of the refugee influx inApril.

AFOR delivered humanitarian aid and provided assistance and security to more than 450,000 ethnic Albanian refugees expelled from Kosovo by Yugoslav army, police and paramilitary troops.

Now there are only 7,000 Kosovo refugees left.

The NATO second mission in Albania will officially start Sept. 1 and will be led by Italian Brig. Gen. Pietro Frisone.

Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko has requested a long-term NATO presence in Albania to maintain stability in the region.