* Albright Calls for U.S. Consensus on Arms Control
* NATO Assembly Knocks U.S. Senate on Test Ban Treaty
* Expert panel foresees delays in missile-defense system
* Report: Antimissile program hampered
* New Debate on Submarine Duty for Women
* Bill to Aid Lockheed Deal Advances
* Stone & Webster Nuclear Maintenance and Modification Contract Extended by Tennessee Valley Authority
* Cracks in a nozzle inside reactor-Iowa
* Paducah wildlife preserve
* Savannah River Site Redevelopment
* Forces in Washington Join to Avert Attacks
* The Industry Standard: Someone to Watch Over Me
* Today's Highlights in History:
* Power for Sale
How Is China Using U.S. Supercomputers?
* Who is Xiong Guangkai?
* Japan says aid to Pakistan still depends on CTBT
* New chief vows to make UNESCO efficient peace tool
* No Enduring Impact in Japan Nuclear Accident -IAEA
* Japanese Rocket Blown Up After Failing Orbit (Reuters)
* Japan Satellite Doesn't Reach Orbit (AP)
* S. Korea Develops New Missile (AP)
* S.Korea Denies Secretly Developing Missiles (Reuters)
* N.Korea, U.S. Delegates Begin Talks in Berlin
* North Korean Not Optimistic About U.S. Talks
* Russia threatens U.S. over missile treaty
* Russia, US leaders to discuss strategic cooperation
* Cuba Surprised by Russian Bomber Flight Plan
* NEWS ANALYSIS War in Chechnya Threatening U.S. Strategy Goals
* Top Iranian atomic official visits Russia
* Germany Eyes Nuke Industry Phase Out
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Albright Calls for U.S. Consensus on Arms Control
Reuters Sunday November 14 2:46 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991114/pl/arms_albright_1.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Madeleine urged U.S. politicians in remarks published Sunday to end their differences over the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), saying the world's remaining superpower had to be united on how to deal with nuclear threats.
In a commentary in the Nov 22 edition of Time which goes on sale Monday, Albright said the Senate vote last month rejecting the treaty had drawn universal shock from U.S. allies and friends.
She said approval of the pact would mean a joint effort by the United States and others in halting the development of more advanced nuclear arms which could fall into ``the wrong hands.''
``Unfortunately... the administration and congress have not yet agreed on a common post-cold war strategy for responding to these dangers,'' Albright said. ``But the world's leading nation cannot remain divided on how to respond to the world's gravest threats.''
She also referred to U.S. efforts to develop anti-missile missiles, known as the National Missile Defense (NMD) system, which Washington could decide as early as next summer to deploy despite the fact that they would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
Albright noted the ABM treaty would need to be amended, a step firmly rejected by Russia.
``Unfortunately, our consideration of NMD has aroused serious concerns not only in Russia but also in Western Europe, China and elsewhere,'' she said.
``I have repeatedly had to rebut fears expressed by my counterparts that the U.S. is intent on going it alone... These fears were fuelled by the vote on CTBT and especially by the view some senators expressed that efforts at nonproliferation are useless and naive.''
Albright acknowledged serious concerns among some senators about how to verify compliance with a test ban and to preserve a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent.
``It is plainly smart to anticipate that some countries will try to cheat on their obligations,'' she wrote. ``It is not smart to conclude -- as some do -- that if we can't guarantee perfect compliance with the rules we establish, we are better off not establishing rules at all.''
Albright said she hoped the Senate vote would serve as a ''wake-up call'' which spurred ``responsible leaders from both parties to come together and ensure the U.S.'s continued leadership in building a safer, stabler, freer world.''
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NATO Assembly Knocks U.S. Senate on Test Ban Treaty
Reuters 11:33 a.m. Nov 15, 1999 Eastern
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a2126LBY297reulb-19991115&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - NATO legislators on Monday roundly criticised the U.S. Senate for failing to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty and called on it to reconsider.
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly, meeting in Amsterdam, said in a resolution that it deeply regretted the 51-48 vote in Washington last month to reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
``The current moratorium on nuclear testing by the declared nuclear powers has not undermined the alliance's nuclear deterrent,'' the resolution said.
The assembly urged the United States Senate to reconsider its position on CTBT ratification as soon as possible, it added.
A handful of NATO parliamentarians, mostly U.S. members, voted against the resolution during a plenary session in Amsterdam. Numbers were not available because no roll call was taken, an assembly official said.
The assembly, consisting of 214 members from NATO's 19 member countries, has no legislative power, but its resolutions can send a signal to alliance governments.
The resolution, introduced by a Dutch assembly member, was revised in committee to remove language critical of the U.S. Senate and President Clinton.
Its original draft ``failed to give adequate consideration to the merits of the treaty before rushing to judgement.'' It also expressed disappointment that the Clinton administration ''put forth inadequate effort toward making a strong case as to why the treaty will advance American interests and the security of the alliance and the world.''
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Expert panel foresees delays in missile-defense system
November 15, 1999, By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/nation/nation1.html
A panel of defense experts say the Pentagon's high-risk program to build a national missile-defense system by 2005 is working, but the Clinton administration is failing to provide enough resources and the program has minor management problems. The 12-member panel headed by retired Air Force Gen. Larry Welch stated that the tight schedule for testing and development could lead to delays in deployment beyond the current target date of 2005. The panel's report said that despite the challenges of meeting a tight schedule, the Pentagon's Joint Program Office and the chief defense contractor for national missile defense (NMD), "have formulated a sensible, phased and incremental approach to the development and deployment decision while managing the risk."
A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Times. It is expected to be made public today by the Pentagon. The panel recommended improving management and adding resources. It also suggested adding more target platforms, such as aircraft-dropped or sea-launched test missiles, to improve testing. The Clinton administration's program for missile defense calls for developing system interceptors, radar, sensors and communications to identify, track and shoot down incoming warheads in three years and then deciding next summer whether to deploy the anti-missile shield by 2005. When the program was first announced in 1996, the administration said it would develop and possibly build the entire system by 2003. The Welch panel's report said the original six-year plan "was widely regarded as very high risk with no reasonable expectation of meeting the schedule." The Welch panel wrote its report before the Pentagon conducted its first successful test last month of a missile warhead intercept. The test over the Pacific involved a long-range missile warhead launched from California that was destroyed in space by a high-speed interceptor missile fired from a South Pacific island. The impact at speeds of 15,000 mph destroyed the warhead without an explosive.
The report said missile defense program officials have underestimated the difficulty of hit-to-kill technology, and it recommended that two decoys be removed from the first test. However, the intercept test in October was successful with two decoy warheads that were ignored by warhead tracking and interceptor missile-guidance systems, showing that hitting the dummy warhead while ignoring decoys can be done. The first intercept test was delayed several weeks, and the panel warned in its report that further testing delays could result in slowing down the entire program. "The administration and the Congress have determined that the urgency of the need justifies a high-risk schedule to be ready to deploy a limited national missile defense system," the report said.
The CIA warned in a recent report that the threat of long-range missiles is growing, and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen also has said in a recent interview that the danger of long-range missiles is increasing. After the program was stretched by two years to a target deployment date of 2005, "actual and anticipated delays in key events have compressed the program schedule," the report said. Further squeezing of the schedule could require adjusting the final deployment dates, it said.
"Care is needed to ensure that maintaining capability for an earlier emergency deployment [by 2003] does not detract from the focus on fielding a system in 2005 with the initial capability required," the report said. Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi Republican and a leading proponent of missile defenses, said in a floor statement last week that the report's suggestions for improving the national missile defense program are a "helpful critique." "Given the importance of this program, additional knowledge of its inherent risks will help [the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization] to structure and run the best program possible," he said. Mr. Cochran was chief sponsor of a bill signed into law by President Clinton last summer that said it is U.S. policy to deploy a national missile defense as soon as the technology is available. The panel's recommendation to buy additional hardware and conduct more ground tests "makes good sense," the senator said. Mr. Cochran said that because of North Korea's recent flight test of a Taepo Dong-1 long-range missile, "we don't have the luxury of time" for normal development and testing used by the Pentagon.
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Report: Antimissile program hampered
USA Today 11/15/99
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm
WASHINGTON - An independent panel says the Pentagon's development of an antimissile system continues to be hampered by inadequate testing, shortages of spare parts and management mistakes, The Washington Post reported. The 40-page report, forwarded to Congress by the Defense Department last week, said that delays have compressed the program's schedule against a politically imposed deadline. It recommended that if further delays occur, President Clinton should postpone a scheduled decision next summer whether to build the system, the newspaper said in Sunday editions. The project, a scaled-back version of the ''Star Wars'' program advocated in the 1980s by then-President Reagan, would erect a shield against ballistic missile attacks on U.S. territory at a multibillion-dollar cost.
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New Debate on Submarine Duty for Women
By STEVEN LEE MYERS New York Times November 15, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/11/15/news/national/navy-women-subs.html
Related Article
Female Cadets Gaining Sway at the Coast Guard Academy http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ny-coastguard-women.html
NORFOLK, Va. -- Women in the U.S. Navy today command warships and pilot combat jets off aircraft carriers, but there remains one part of the fleet where they cannot serve: aboard the nation's nuclear-powered submarines.
Now, an influential military advisory committee has reignited the debate over the exclusion, recommending that the Navy plan to revamp existing submarines and begin building new ones with the separate bunks and bathrooms necessary to allow women to join one of the service's most storied and traditional fraternities.
"It's important we re-examine what is still closed to women," said Mary Wamsley, the chairwoman of the group, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, the Pentagon's main body that recommends policies on the issues that face women in the armed forces.
The recommendation has provoked a flurry of protests from those inside and outside the Navy who believe that putting women side by side with men in the extraordinarily tight confines of a submarine would disrupt the crew and compromise its war-fighting ability.
It has exposed a significant rift between the Navy's civilian leadership, led by Richard Danzig, the secretary of the Navy, and some of its senior officers.
Danzig signaled support for integrating the submarine fleet in a speech to the Naval Submarine League last summer, but in the ensuing controversy over his remarks, he retreated. In the speech, he warned that the "submarine community" -- a tightly knit cadre of crewmen and officers -- risked becoming dangerously out of touch with society if it did not adapt to include women, as well as more minority submariners.
"The most Narcissus-like thing about creating something in your own image, about being in love with your own image, is the continued and continuous existence of this segment of the Navy as a white male preserve," he said.
But here in Norfolk, home port for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet and 12 of its 57 nuclear-powered attack submarines, the "white male preserve" has been largely unmoved by Danzig's concerns and the committee's recommendations. To them, the singular experience of spending weeks submerged in tense, claustrophobic conditions -- with little space and no privacy -- makes the introduction of women virtually unthinkable.
"I only know one way, the way I was brought up," said Cmdr. James Foggo III, the commanding officer of the USS Oklahoma City, an attack submarine. "I've been doing this for 18 years, and it works well."
Danzig's aides insist that he merely hoped to spawn a debate with his remarks last summer, not impose a change, but no sooner had he delivered the speech than the Navy's top admiral, Jay Johnson, flatly rejected the idea. "For us, for me as chief of naval operations, I do not intend to change," he said.
Navy officials have not publicly responded to the committee's recommendation, saying that they must first provide additional information the committee requested. The officials said the issue was not dead, noting that the Navy reviews the restrictions annually, but they emphasized that, for now, the service has no intent to lift them.
The advisory committee, however, said that the issue cannot wait -- not only because of questions of sexual equality, but also because of practicality.
Despite offering extra pay, the Navy has had difficulty recruiting enough men to serve aboard submarines, in part because of the more rigorous intellectual and psychological standards they must meet. Permitting women, who today make up 14 percent of the Navy's 370,000 personnel, would vastly expand the pool of potential recruits.
The Navy has also begun building the next generation of submarines, known as the Virginia class, which, like today's submarines, will have berthing areas designed for an all-male crew. Not including accommodations for women now, the committee said, would make installing them in the future significantly more expensive or keep women off submarines for decades to come.
"Because submarines currently in the fleet are expected to stay in service as long as 40 years, plans must be made now for gender-integrated crews," the committee wrote in its recommendations. "This would allow the assignment of the most highly qualified personnel regardless of gender."
Many of the arguments on both sides are the same as those made when the Navy first allowed women on support ships in 1978 and on combat ships in 1994. Since then, women have joined crews even on ships once considered too small for mixed crews, most recently the Navy's mine hunters.
The Navy prohibits women from serving in 33,000 positions, about 25,000 of which are aboard submarines. The other areas are in the Seals and in jobs that directly support Marine combat forces deployed aboard Navy ships.
Other navies, including those of Australia, Norway and Sweden, have removed sexual barriers on submarines, but U.S. Navy officials quickly point out that those crews are not subjected to the arduous cruises of American submarines, which can remain submerged for days or weeks at a time.
"In addition to personnel stress inherent in all combat vessels, submarine crews must endure long periods of submerged operations, unrelenting crowding, lack of privacy, infrequent communications with family and the outside world, no ability even to go topside for fresh air and a view," a 1995 assessment by the Navy said. That report also cited a higher incidence of health problems with women, among other things.
Ms. Wamsley and others dismiss those concerns. "It is ludicrous to say the living conditions and psychological conditions have more of an impact on women than on men," said Ms. Wamsley, the deputy chief of police in Commerce City, Colo.
Even proponents concede that submarines pose unique challenges for integration, all of which were evident aboard the Oklahoma City, whose crew is preparing to head to sea on a training exercise on Monday.
At 360 feet long, tip to tip, the submarine seemed impossibly crowded, even without its full crew. The Los Angeles class of submarines was built in the 1980s for a crew of 108; with additions like Tomahawk cruise missiles that require additional personnel, the Oklahoma City now has 145.
Passageways are so narrow that crewmen have to turn sideways to pass one another, chest to chest. The enlisted men share two bathrooms and sleep stacked three deep in racks small enough to make turning over problematic.
When at sea, the lowest-ranking crewmen have to share bunks, sleeping in shifts. To minimize that unpopular practice, known as "hot racking," the submarine has installed mattresses in its torpedo room. Only the commander and executive officer have private rooms, each no bigger than a closet.
"The thing about submarines is, space is a commodity," Foggo said, sitting in the officers' ward room, which serves as dining hall, conference room, chapel and, in case of medical emergencies, operating room.
Capt. Michael Tracy, chief of staff for the Atlantic fleet, said the constraints complicated the integration of women. Making submarines bigger would limit their speed and maneuverability, he said. Squeezing in additional bunks would mean losing something else, like weapons.
"Anything we give away for bunks, we're giving away combat capability," he said.
Even the seemingly simple alternative of putting women in the smaller of the submarine's existing enlisted-men's berthing areas would raise problems. A recent Navy report noted that fewer women would share one of the two bathrooms, forcing more men to share the other, raising questions of equality. That would also not answer the question of what to do with women who are officers.
Also, because of submarines' design, crewmen have to operate critical electronic, hydraulic and air systems that pass through berthing areas, meaning they would need access at all times to areas where women would sleep. Even the commander's room has a valve for the submarine's ballast tank, which can be operated only by reaching over his fold-out bed.
Then there is cost. The Navy estimates it would cost $300,000 per bunk to integrate submarines because of wholesale design changes that would be needed. Converting aircraft carriers costs $4,000 per bunk.
Still, some in the Navy think a change is inevitable. "If they want to make it happen, it can happen," one senior Navy official said. Another noted that Johnson's tenure as chief of naval operations ends in June, and the Navy's civilian leaders could raise the issue again under a new chief.
Even in the fleet, opposition is not universal. Aboard the Oklahoma City, Fireman David Cross, an enlisted man, said that as a matter of equality, it would be a good thing to introduce women into submarines' fraternal world. As for potential problems with privacy, he said, "It's just like anything else in life: You have to adjust."
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Bill to Aid Lockheed Deal Advances
By Peter Behr Washington Post, November 11, 1999; Page E09
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/11/147l-111199-idx.html
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s plan to purchase Comsat Corp. took a long step forward yesterday as the House approved legislation that would redraw the rules of international communications satellite competition.
An acquisition of Comsat has been barred by the 1962 Satellite Act, which established the Bethesda-based company as the sole U.S. member of the global satellite consortium Intelsat.
Lockheed has acquired 49 percent of Comsat for $1.2 billion in cash, and if the changes in the Satellite Act become law, it intends to purchase the remainder by exchanging Lockheed shares for Comsat's 1-for-1.
Lawmakers now will attempt to reconcile key differences between the House measure and legislation previously passed by the Senate, before Congress adjourns.
The stakes remain high for Comsat, Lockheed Martin, Intelsat and the rest of the satellite industry. A key provision of the House version--but not the Senate legislation--would permit telecommunications companies to invest directly in Intelsat, eroding Comsat's 22 percent ownership in the global satellite network. Comsat calls the provision an "unconstitutional seizure" of its Intelsat stake.
Both House and Senate measures could permit companies to purchase access to Intelsat satellites directly, without going through Comsat as is now the case.
Backers of the House legislation said that Comsat's dominance of U.S. use of the Intelsat network was unfairly limiting telecommunications competition.
"The world has changed . . . particularly in telecommunications and space technology. It's high time the law caught up with the reality," Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) said in introducing the measure yesterday. It passed on a voice vote after a sparsely attended House session agreed unanimously to take up the bill.
Intelsat opposes the House measure, asserting that the new rules that would be imposed on the 143-nation satellite consortium would leave it at a competitive disadvantage with commercial satellite services providers.
Lockheed has reason to see the measure pass, permitting it to acquire Comsat while its shares are near a 52-week low, analysts noted. "Check and mate, Lockheed emerges the winner," John B. Coats, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney Holding Inc., said in a report issued yesterday. But Lockheed also has a stake in protecting Comsat's future value from the erosion the House bill would cause, analysts added.
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Stone & Webster Nuclear Maintenance and Modification Contract Extended by Tennessee Valley Authority
Company Press Release Stone & Webster, Inc.
Monday November 15, 10:57 am Eastern Time
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/991115/ma_stone_w_1.html
BOSTON, Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Stone & Webster, Incorporated (NYSE: SW - news) announced today that its contract to provide most of the craft labor and staff support for repairs and improvements made at Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) nuclear plants during refueling outages will be extended through September 2002. TVA has approved a $188 million two-year contract extension.
This contract supplement brings TVA's main nuclear contract with Stone & Webster to $383 million. In 1996, TVA consolidated most of its nuclear power work for labor and service support for modification and maintenance activities. Stone & Webster was the successful bidder among 15 companies considered for bid on the contract. The contract involves TVA's three nuclear plants: Browns Ferry (in Alabama), and Sequoyah and Watts Bar (in Tennessee).
Highlights of Stone & Webster's successful partnership with TVA include its award in 1995 as TVA's Supplier of the Year. In 1994 Stone & Webster was named TVA's Diversity Partner of the Year. Recently, the Sequoyah plant completed a refueling outage and restart in 23 days with Stone & Webster's outage management assistance - a new record.
A major provider of nuclear services in the United States, Stone & Webster has furnished operations and support to more than 90 percent of the nation's nuclear facilities - including more than 35 domestic nuclear plants in the 1990s - and is the domestic leader in the supply of multi-station contract maintenance.
Stone & Webster is a global leader in engineering, construction and consulting for power, process, environmental/infrastructure and industrial markets.
SOURCE: Stone & Webster, Incorporated
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Iowa
USA Today Wednesday, November 10
http://usatoday.com/news/states/iamain.htm
Palo - A recent routing inspection of the Duane Arnold Nuclear Energy Plant found microscopic cracks in a nozzle inside the reactor. Alliant Energy spokesman John Gilman said the cracks are "well inside" two containment areas and pose no threat to workers or the public. They are being repaired. The plant has been shut down since Oct. 22 for routine refueling and detailed inspections. It is expected to reopen later this month.
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Kentucky
USA Today Wednesday, November 10
http://usatoday.com/news/states/kymain.htm
Paducah - A wildlife preserve next to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant will not be fenced by the U.S. Energy Department to keep people away from contaminated rubble piles, a citizens advisory committee was told. Officials said they never seriously considered fencing the 3,000-acre West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area. The fencing cost of $18 million would have been prohibitive and would not have solved the contamination problem, they said.
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South Carolina
USA Today Friday, November 12
http://usatoday.com/news/states/scmain.htm
Aiken - Economic development groups want to court a $750 million plant that would make radioactive isotopes used in medicine and create up to 5,000 jobs. The isotope plant would be built with federal help, but privately run, officials said at a meeting of the Savannah River Site Redevelopment Authority.
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Forces in Washington Join to Avert Attacks
New York Times November 15, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/11/15/news/washpol/dc-terrorism.html
WASHINGTON -- The large number of monuments, government buildings and diplomatic missions here, all symbolic potential targets for terrorists, has prompted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police forces to team up to deter attacks at the new year.
Greg Horner, a spokesman from the bureau's Washington field office, called the nation's capital a "target-rich environment" because of the embassies, monuments and federal agencies and the number of special events in the city.
To respond to threats of chemical, biological or nuclear terrorism, the F.B.I.'s field office has set up a "special weapons of mass destruction" counterterrorist squad called the National Capital Domestic Response Squad.
The squad includes a 50-member special weapons and tactics team, a bomb squad, a 20-member hazardous materials team and a medical unit.
Jim Rice, who leads the squad, said the group was working with law enforcement and security officials drawn from 12 local and federal agencies.
The agencies include the F.B.I.; the State Department; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Capitol Police; the Immigration and Naturalization Service; the Park Police; the Federal Protective Service; the Secret Service; the Washington Metropolitan Police Department; and the Metro transit police.
Additionally, the bureau's field office's terrorism unit maintains an Infrastructure Protection squad whose goal is to thwart terrorist attacks on computers.
Although counterterrorist squads exist in other cities, the National Capital Domestic Response Unit appears to be the nation's largest, said both Rice and Horner.
The unit has been trained to respond not only to possible terrorist threats as the year 2000 approaches but also to monitor the planning of major events, like the New Year's Eve celebration on the Washington Mall, that could be vulnerable to acts of violence.
"We have a home-ground advantage in terms of possible terrorist acts," Rice said.
The major agencies involved in all terrorist contingency plans are based in Washington, he said, adding, "We are developing contingency plans to make sure that all agencies involved in counterterrorism efforts can get a hold of each other in case the systems we normally use are down."
After a recent informal meeting of local and federal police forces involved in the National Capital Domestic Response squad, Maj. Dave Rohrer of the Fairfax County Police Department in suburban Virginia seemed reassured.
"We're confident everything should be fine," he said.
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The Industry Standard: Someone to Watch Over Me
By Matthew Yeomans Monday November 15 5:17 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991115/wr/standard_11.html
SAN FRANCISCO (The Industry Standard) - What has the world of espionage come to? There was a time when, if you were an evil communist government, or even a power-crazed villain with a fondness for Persian cats, the only way you could get close-up satellite pictures of U.S. nuclear bases was to do some good old-fashioned spying. Nowadays, you can just buy the photos off the Web.
In September, Denver-based Space Imaging blasted into e-business with the launch of its Ikonos satellite. Circling the globe every 98 minutes, it can deliver a close-up of any spot on the planet. Space Imaging, which has invested $750 million in the scheme, sees a niche in the novelty consumer market -- ''This proves it, honey, the pool next door is bigger than ours.''
But the real money will come from selling its detailed views to corporations, media organizations and, of course, foreign governments. A 1-meter black-and-white image will cost $29 per square kilometer, and the minimum U.S. purchase will be $1,000. International customers will be charged $2,000.
Essentially, says John Pike, a defense analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, Space Imaging is ``giving anybody with a dozen or a thousand dollars the same view of the world that the U.S. spy agencies have had for the last four decades.'' Previously, he notes, ``You had to buy a satellite to get your first picture -- clearly a serious barrier to entry when it cost a billion dollars.''
Now, if North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants a clearer idea of U.S. and South Korean military movements, he could conceivably charge it to his MasterCard.
To make sure that doesn't occur, Space Imaging has pledged to the U.S. government that it won't complete transactions with any powers suspected of terrorist activities. And the U.S. reserves the right to limit the distribution of pictures deemed a threat to national security.
Still, once this information is available over the Internet, it will be more difficult for Space Imaging, and the U.S. government, to control its use. The situation is enough to leave James Bond shaken, and stirred.
Or is it? If the Web gives consumers access to information to which just a handful of powerful state governments were once privy, then what are these intelligence communities now compiling on us? The answer, according to many privacy advocates, is chilling.
``There is a fundamental lack of control over intelligence agencies,'' says David Banisar, a senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. ``They tend to have a blank check to do whatever they want in terms of national security.''
In an interview with the BBC last week, the head of Australia's Inspector General of Intelligence and Security confirmed his country's participation in a shadowy global spying network, coordinated by the U.S. National Security Agency and known as Echelon. Both the U.S. and British authorities deny the existence of such a system.
New Zealand researcher Nicky Hager, the author of a critically acclaimed account of the spy network called ``Secret Power,'' described in Covert Action Quarterly the way ``the Echelon system is used to intercept ordinary e-mail, fax, telex and telephone communications carried over the world's telecommunications networks.''
Echelon, he wrote, ``works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and using computers to identify and extract messages of interest.'' It's possible that no e-mail message today goes unmonitored.
According to an April 1999 report on Echelon that the British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell compiled for the European Parliament, the U.S. has used Echelon to help American companies to compete for foreign business.
In one instance Campbell reported, the NSA allegedly snooped on bids from the French firm Thomson-CSF for a $1.3 billion contract in Brazil. Thomson was alleged to have offered bribes to the Brazilian government, but with the help of the NSA surveillance, the U.S. company Raytheon (which provides maintenance work for the NSA) was awarded the contract.
As EPIC's Banisar describes it, Echelon is no more than ``a sophisticated and intensive form of profiling.''
Its actions aren't all that different from the recently revealed actions of Real Networks. Last week, the Seattle-based company was forced to admit that it had been using an identification code in its popular RealJukebox software to secretly profile the listening tastes of its users. Real Networks has learned that its customers don't enjoy being snooped on. On Nov. 10, a second class-action lawsuit was filed against the company, accusing it of violating the privacy of millions of online music listeners.
Internet privacy advocate groups such as EPIC are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to halt online profiling, or at least establish a legal code of conduct for the profiling that advertisers and direct marketers see as crucial.
Still, it's interesting that in a nation that shows great disdain for government interference at nearly every level, few U.S. online consumers worry about private companies. Many still consider the Internet a novelty; if a company assures them that their privacy is respected, and offers them a bargain, most consumers will gladly surrender their personal information.
As for bugging your virtual jukebox -- well, that's the type of business espionage even Q would appreciate.
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Today's Highlights in History:
Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1999; 7:00 p.m. EST The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991113/aponline190015_000.htm
On this date:
On Nov. 14, 1969, Apollo 12 blasted off for the moon.
Ten years ago: The U.S. Navy, alarmed over a recent string of serious accidents, ordered an unprecedented 48-hour stand-down.
Five years ago: President Clinton, in Indonesia, met one-on-one with the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, winning pledges to keep the pressure on North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons program. U.S. experts visited North Korea's main nuclear complex for the first time under an accord aimed at opening such sites to outside inspections. Heavy rains and flooding from Tropical Storm Gordon swept across Haiti, killing several hundred people.
One year ago: Iraq said it would resume cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors, appearing to back down in the face of a threatened U.S. attack.
-------- china
Power for Sale
How Is China Using U.S. Supercomputers?
ABC News 11/13/99 By David Ruppe ABCNEWS.com
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/computers_991111.html
Nov. 13 - The Clinton administration in the past three years has approved for export to China hundreds of high-performance computers capable of aiding that country's nuclear and other weapons programs.
And while U.S. law requires the government to check up on the machines to make sure they are not used to improve China's military might, the Commerce Department, which is supposed to perform the checks, has conducted only a handful.
The latest publicly available statistics, for instance, show that 190 U.S. high performance computers, capable of performing 2 billion operations per second (or 2,000 MTOPS) or higher, were exported to China in fiscal year 1998 and are required, by law, to have such on site "end-use" checks.
But of those 190 HPCs, Commerce investigators completed a check on only one, according to a recent congressional report.
Repeated Concern
As many as 600 computers above 2,000 MTOPS were shipped by U.S. companies to China between 1996 - when the Clinton administration greatly relaxed export controls on the machines - and the end of 1998.
But reports show that as few as three of those were ever checked up on by Commerce.
"We have not done all of the ones that we want to," Commerce Undersecretary Bill Reinsch, whose Bureau of Export Administration would perform the checks, told ABCNEWS.com in a recent interview.
The problem has repeatedly raised concerns in Congress.
"Given the lack of a proven and effective verification regime, it is possible that [certain high-performance computers] have been diverted for unauthorized uses," said a report last spring by a bipartisan congressional committee specially tasked to assess the impact of U.S. exports to China.
The committee, led by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., warned that China could be using U.S. supercomputers to upgrade and maintain nuclear and chemical weapons, better equip its forces with aircraft and submarines, develop a reliable and accurate ballistic and cruise missile force, and improve its computer warfare, anti-submarine warfare and communications capabilities.
Chinese Refuse Checks
The main reason for the lack of checks, according to Reinsch, is that the Chinese government rejects requests to visit most of the computers, citing national sovereignty.
Under procedures established in June 1998, the Commerce Department must ask permission of its Chinese counterpart before U.S. inspectors can perform the checks.
"They don't say 'yes' to all of them," says Reinsch.
The checks involve sending teams of Commerce investigators, usually two or three people, to the various sites in a country where the computers are supposed to be housed, such as at banks, academic institutions and telecommunications centers.
The investigators seek to verify, among other things, that the machine is where it should be, has not been upgraded and is being used for the purpose Commerce approved it for, and not for military purposes, such as to design, manufacture or test of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
Those checks the Chinese have allowed did not turn up any evidence of improper use, Reinsch said.
But Reinsch acknowledged the Chinese may only be allowing checks on computers involved in approved purposes - and not those performing forbidden operations.
"By asking [to visit] all of them, we effectively allow them to pick and chose which ones they say yes to. And I don't have much doubt they're saying yes to the ones that are benign," said Reinsch.
No Time Limit
The checks are required by a 1997 law for all computers over 2,000 MTOPS exported to China and other "Tier 3" countries identified by the government as security or technology proliferation concerns.
But the law does not include a time limit for conducting the checks - and as a result, Commerce has not violated the law by failing to perform checks on most of the computers.
And since China says it will not allow checks more than six months after the equipment arrives, it seems unlikely most of the previously exported computers will ever be checked on.
Even if the checks were allowed, Reinsch says, Commerce doesn't have the funds to send investigators to check on the hundreds of high performance computers exported to China.
And even if U.S. inspectors were given access to computers designing weapons for the military, experts say, it would be difficult to determine how the computers are used when the inspectors aren't there.
More on the Way
Meanwhile, the Clinton administration continues to allow high performance computer exports to China and is planning a new regulation change in January, allowing even more powerful computers to go to Chinese civilian and military buyers.
China began buying American supercomputers after the Clinton administration significantly loosened export controls on the technology in 1996. Before that, experts say, the country had no high performance computers.
Since then, U.S. sales of computers between 2,000 and 7,000 MTOPS to the China have soared. While only 23 were exported in 1996, 123 were allowed in 1997, and as many as 434 were allowed for export during just the first three quarters of 1998.
The new regulations, which take effect in January, would raise the ceiling at which computer exports to Tier 3 countries would not require a Commerce Department license from 7,000 to 12,000 MTOPS for civilian recipients, and for from 2,000 to 7,000 MTOPS military recipients.
"Here we are [about to] raise the threshold standard again, and the Chinese are basically thumbing their noses at us again. And what are we going to do about it? We'll do nothing," says Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a frequent critic of the administration's technology export policies who served on the Cox Committee.
"Meanwhile, we've given China capabilities that they could never get on their own, to develop computerized weaponization programs, programs to design military technology, perhaps the capability to build a system ... that can do nuclear test simulations. And it was all handed to them," he said.
An Energy Department study released last year found that countries such as China, India and Pakistan could use 4,000 MTOPS computers to improve their nuclear weapon designs.
A Question of Definition
Today, desktop computers are sold with speeds above 2,000 MTOPS - and soon laptop computers just as fast could be available.
High performance computers with strategic importance, however, tend to differ from very fast desktop computers in a number of ways. For instance: HPCs tend to have tens or hundreds of processors while desktop machines have one or two processors; most of the latest high performance computer's are parallel processors, while most desk top machines are not; and HPCs have much more powerful memory access than desktop computers.
Such distinctions are not currently addressed by U.S. export law.
Leading U.S. manufacturers of high performance computers include Silicon Graphics Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., and Digital Equipment Corp., which was recently acquired by Compaq Computer Corp.
A Paper-Thin Agreement
The U.S. government has been negotiating with Beijing for more than 15 years to allow end-use checks on high-tech equipment sold to China.
Other countries - such as Israel, Russia and India - by and large have submitted to the checks.
But China, which in recent years has bought many more American supercomputers than all other countries combined, has opposed the U.S. government checking up on how those computers are used, citing concern for national sovereignty.
In a June 1998 agreement touted by the Clinton administration, China appeared finally to consent to allow the checks.
But the agreement, as it turned out, provided the Chinese broad discretion. According to one of the terms of the agreement, China could continue to refuse a check if it determined it would violate national sovereignty.
Also, China could refuse a check if it determined it would cost too much to send Chinese officials to accompany the U.S. investigators, or if the computer was not shipped with a Chinese "end-user certificate," documents the Chinese government said it would start issuing for supercomputer exports following the June 1998 agreement.
Checks were not performed for such reasons on 82 of the 190 supercomputers requiring checks in fiscal 1998, according to the Commerce Department.
Checks on another 105 were not performed because the exports were made prior to the June 1998 agreement, after which China said it would start allowing the checks, the agency reports.
Further, the agreement requires that checks be conducted by Chinese officials, not by U.S. representatives, and that checks cannot be performed six months after the machine arrives in China.
China's conditions on the checks, said the Cox committee report, "rendered the agreement useless."
---
Who is Xiong Guangkai?
By Edward Timperlake and William Triplett II, Washington Times November 15, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/opinion/ed3.html
In a recent issue, the Far Eastern Economic Review, reports that Gen. Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), will be visiting Washington in December. American military attaches at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing brag that the Xiong visit will restart the military-to-military relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC).
For a whole host of reasons, Gen. Xiong's visit represents both a challenge and an opportunity to the Republicans in Congress. First, as the chief spymaster of China, Gen. Xiong inherited and then perfected the most successful espionage operation against America in our nation's history. He knows all the answers to questions raised in the Cox report of earlier this year because they occurred at his direction.
Gen. Xiong, age 60, has been in the PLA's intelligence service since he was a teen-ager. In the 1960s and 1970s, he honed his craft as a military spy operating out of the PRC Embassy in Bonn. Now at the pinnacle of his career, all the PLA intelligence operations targeted on the United States lead to him.
Under the usual information-sharing arrangement, he also would know of the significant intelligence operations run by China's KGB, the Ministry of State Security. He would have a wide range of knowledge about the Loral-Hughes case, the theft of all of our nuclear weapons secrets from the National Labs, and the most recent McDonnell-Douglas case, just to name a few of his successes.
Gen. Xiong also was responsible for the successful effort to funnel illegal campaign contributions to the Clinton-Gore re-election effort in 1996. PLA Gen. Ji Shengde told Johnny Chung, "We like your President and we want him re-elected." Since Gen. Ji worked for Gen. Xiong, the "we" probably referred to him. At least some of Gen. Ji's $300,000 made its way through Mr. Chung to the Democratic National Committee.
Another of Gen. Xiong's military spies, Lt. Col. Liu Chaoying bragged to Mr. Chung of other conduits of money from PLA intelligence into Clinton-Gore. Certainly Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican, and Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, who chaired hearings into campaign contributions, would be interested in those details.
Earlier this year, Gen. Xiong turned up at an important meeting with the North Koreans. The relationship between the PRC and North Korea is like "lips and teeth," he declared. We know now the PRC and the North Koreans are in various joint ventures to sell weapons of mass destruction, and the missiles that deliver them, to terrorist nations in the Middle East.
Given the mafialike way that the PRC government is run, it would be unusual if Gen. Xiong or his family did not have a financial stake in that sort of trade. Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi Republican, and chairman of the Senate Anti-Proliferation Subcommittee, might like to ask about it.
Gen. Xiong is most famous for his threat to incinerate Los Angeles with nuclear destruction if the United States should come to the aid of democratic Taiwan. That's of interest to the entire Congress, given the overwhelming support for the Taiwan security legislation now making its way through the House. It's only heightened by the dramatic demonstration of mobile ICBMs at the 50th anniversary of communism in China. With the DF-31 and DF-41 together capable of reaching any city in America, his threat no longer is false bravado. It is real and in a crisis can be deadly.
What is less well known is Gen. Xiong's role at Tiananmen. In 1989, he was the head of the "Er Bu," the "Second Department," the PLA's military intelligence agency. This is the equivalent of the GRU from Soviet days. His agents ran a series of provocation operations against the students, mostly efforts to plant weapons on them in order to excuse the ensuing massacre.
In 1996, Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, held a hearing when one of the major Tiananmen Square generals came to visit President Clinton. Gen. Xiong would make a choice target for serious human-rights hearings in view of the PLA's continuing role as the prop holding up communism in China.
We have noted that the general has a very high energy level. These days, one of his major roles is handling the military-to-military relationship with the United States, a very controversial program. Legislation sponsored by Sen. Bob Smith, New Hampshire Republican, and House Republican Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, to restrict the program was passed by the Congress and signed into law by a very reluctant President Clinton this fall.
The Xiong visit should be seen for what it is: another in-your-face operation by Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore. Gen. Xiong hits every hot button issue in the China game-nuclear espionage, illegal campaign funding of Clinton-Gore in 1996, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Taiwan, human rights and the Tiananmen Square massacre, finally the military-to-military giveaway that Congress loathes. It's going to be interesting to see if the Republicans (and the Democrats) in Congress step up to the plate on this one and greet Gen. Xiong with a subpoena.
Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II are the authors of "Red Dragon Rising," published by Regnery, 1999.
-------- japan
Japan says aid to Pakistan still depends on CTBT
Reuters 08:51 a.m. Nov 15, 1999 Eastern
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1454LBY126reulb-19991115&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
TOKYO, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Japan reaffirmed on Monday that it wants Pakistan to sign the international nuclear test ban treaty before it resumes new loans which it froze after Islamabad's nuclear tests last year, a foreign ministry official said.
The official said that visiting Pakistani envoy Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, in talks with Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, said the new government of General Pervez Musharraf was ``making efforts'' to reach a decision on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ``at an early stage.''
While he welcomed Khan's comments, he said they alone were not enough to convince Tokyo to resume financial assistance.
"We would like them to first sign the CTBT,'' he said.
Japan is Pakistan's largest aid donor.
He reported Khan as saying the new Pakistani government would proceed with the issue in what it considered the right way, regardless of how arch-rival India dealt with it.
---
New chief vows to make UNESCO efficient peace tool
Reuters 07:27 a.m. Nov 15, 1999 Eastern By Francois Raitberger
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1208LBY051reulb-19991115&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
PARIS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Japan's Koichiro Matsuura, whose childhood was marked by Hiroshima's nuclear terror, took over as head of UNESCO on Monday, pledging to make it a tool of peace with an open and efficient management.
The 62-year-old former ambassador to Paris, who succeeds Spain's Federico Mayor, recalled in his maiden speech how as a boy he saw incendiary bombs rain down in 1945 on his hometown of Yamagushi, a two-hour drive from Hiroshima.
``Not far from us, the nuclear flash exploded twice...For those who survived such an ordeal, believe me, the words of peace, stubborn search for tolerance, world disarmament...cannot be hollow words,'' he told the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
Known as a tough manager, Matsuura pledged to re-focus an organisation often criticised for inefficient management and a bloated bureaucracy, and ensure that it was ``responsible and accountable to the world -- and to the world's taxpayers.''
The United States and Britain, two major contributors, left UNESCO in 1985 complaining of wasted resources and a pro-Third World bias. Britain has since rejoined.
Matsuura said he would do his best to ``persuade whose who would still stand outside to return, or newly join.''
``UNESCO must speed up structural reforms and heighten the efficiency and transparency of its management,'' Matsuura said.
He said he would streamline UNESCO's activities and focus on essential programmes -- ``our ongoing war on poverty through education and the nurturing of human resources.''
He also pledged that UNESCO would continue to champion free expression and try to help prevent the developing world missing out on the explosion of electronic information.
He also voiced concern at the widening gap between the few who master telecommunications and computers and the mass of those who do not and have become ``today's illiterate.''
Matsuura, whose critics say he speaks only of numbers and never of culture, was elected head of UNESCO last month, beating the Saudi envoy to London, Ghazi Algosaibi.
He took the oath in French at the organisation's Paris headquarters, solemnly swearing ``not to seek or accept instructions...from any authority external to the organisation.''
Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, a high school friend, had lobbied hard on Matsuura's behalf.
Matsuura's opponents fear he will avoid rocking the boat in order to please political interests in Japan.
---
No Enduring Impact in Japan Nuclear Accident -IAEA
Reuters Updated 10:47 AM ET November 15, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/991115/10/international-nuclear-japan
VIENNA (Reuters) - Japan's worst nuclear accident earlier this year resulted from human error and poor design at a fuel processing plant, but caused no significant contamination, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday.
In a preliminary report on the accident on September 30 at JCO Co's uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, 90 miles north of Tokyo, the United Nations' Vienna-based atomic watchdog said the accident should have no lasting effect on the surrounding environment or health of the local population.
JCO is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd.
"The accident was essentially an irradiation accident; it was not a contamination accident as it did not result in a radiologically significant release of radioactive materials," the IAEA said in a report published on its Web site.
The accident, which occurred when workers ignored proper safety procedures and triggered a nuclear chain reaction, or criticality, was ranked four out of seven on an international scale of nuclear events.
Level seven was assigned to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. Level four means there was little off-site risk.
The Japanese government says 69 workers were exposed to radiation, including two who remain in a critical condition.
"The accident...seems to have resulted from human error and serious breaches of safety principles and standards in combination with shortcomings in design, which together led to a criticality event," the IAEA said.
"Only trace levels of radionuclides were detected in the area shortly after the accident. The half-lives of the radionuclides are relatively short, so there is no residual contamination by this accident."
Three experts from the IAEA visited the area in mid-October and found radiation levels in residential areas to be at normal background levels.
The IAEA said investigations were continuing and could throw up new information regarding the radiation doses received by the workers and nearby residents.
"The accident was significant from the point of view of the health consequences for the three severely overexposed workers," it said. "It will most probably also have implications for the regulatory regime and safety procedures and safety culture at the JCO facility."
---
Japanese Rocket Blown Up After Failing Orbit
ABC News WIRE:11/15/1999 05:36:00 ET
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/world/reuters19991115_875.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese rocket carrying a satellite failed to reach orbit and was deliberately blown up about eight minutes after its launch on Monday, a spokesman for the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) said.
The Japanese H-2 rocket carrying a multi-purpose satellite for aviation control and meteorological observation blasted off from the Tanegashima space center in southern Japan at around 4:29 p.m. (0729 GMT).
But shortly afterwards the rocket's main engine stopped, forcing authorities to give up attempts at putting the satellite into orbit, the spokesman said. The rocket was then blown up.
It was not immediately clear why the engine malfunctioned.
It was Japan's second failure to place a satellite into geostationary orbit in nearly two years. In February 1998, an H-2 failed to properly launch a satellite, wasting an estimated 60 billion yen ($572 million).
The launch of the latest rocket, initially set for September 10, had been postponed due to a series of mechanical mishaps.
The multi-purpose satellite, which Japan bought from the United States for about 10 billion yen, was designed to provide the Transportation Ministry with a sophisticated aviation control system from next April.
Japan's space program has often been criticised for its high costs and frequent mishaps, attributed in part to the division of responsibility for the program among no fewer than five government ministries.
Each H-2 rocket launch to place a satellite into geostationary orbit costs close to 19 billion yen ($180 million), about double the cost of competitors such as the European Space Agency's Ariane rocket.
Japan announced in August that it was axing the smaller of its two domestic rockets, the J-1, in a cost-cutting move.
($1-105 yen)
---
Japan Satellite Doesn't Reach Orbit
By Shigeyoshi Kimura Associated Press Writer Washington Poat, Nov. 15, 1999; 6:12 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991115/aponline061205_000.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Japan-Satellite.html
TOKYO -- Japan's space program suffered a major setback today when a domestically made rocket developed engine trouble and was destroyed shortly after launch.
Orders to explode the rocket and its satellite payload in mid-flight were given by officials eight minutes after launch, according to Takashi Endo of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, or NASDA.
Endo said the rocket's main engine developed problems four minutes after the launch, and officials ordered it destroyed because they were concerned they might lose control.
The rocket was at an altitude of 28 miles when it was destroyed, and debris fell into the Pacific Ocean, the agency said in a statement.
"I would like to apologize deeply for not being able to answer to the hopes of Japanese citizens and those working on the project," space agency head Isao Uchida said in a statement.
Japanese media reported that it was the first time NASDA had ever given orders to destroy a rocket in flight.
The launch of the $95 million MTSAT satellite into orbit from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, 650 miles southwest of Tokyo, had been delayed three times.
The initial launch, set for Aug. 5, was called off because of a defective part in the domestically made H-2 rocket used to carry the satellite. A second attempt on Sept. 9 was delayed because of trouble with a cable that delivers power to the rocket.
On Sept. 20, trouble with a sensor that detects the depletion of liquid hydrogen forced a third postponement.
The satellite was to have been used to observe weather patterns and monitor aircraft, replacing the Himawari 5 satellite that officials say will only be operable until next March.
"MTSAT is essential for assuring flight safety and for weather observation. We expect to come up with a replacement quickly and launch it once again as soon as possible," Transport Minister Toshihiro Nikai said in a statement.
Japan's $2.4 billion space program is among the world's most ambitious.
Japan has successfully put a satellite in orbit around the moon and was the first country to dock two satellites in space by remote control. Concerned by the development of long-range missiles by communist neighbor North Korea, Japan has also vowed to launch the nation's first spy satellites in 2003.
But the space program has been plagued by bureaucratic wrangling, cost overruns and technical difficulties.
The unsuccessful launch today was the second caused by problems with the H-2 rocket, which is the centerpiece of Japan's satellite launching ambitions. Another H-2 failed to get its payload into orbit last February.
H-2 rockets had been launched successfully five times before that.
---
S. Korea Develops New Missile
Washington Post 11/15/99
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991115/aponline045845_000.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-SKorea-US-Missile.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea said today it has developed new short-range surface-to-air missiles and will begin deploying them in December. But it denied that it is trying to develop longer-range missiles in violation with an agreement with the United States. Seoul's Defense Ministry said the deployment of the first locally developed short-range missile - code-named Chonma, or Pegasus - will mark a milestone in South Korea's effort to improve its defense capability.
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S.Korea Denies Secretly Developing Missiles
By Reuters New York Times November 15, 1999 Filed at 4:19 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-ko.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean government officials dismissed as groundless on Monday a New York Times report that the nation was secretly developing longer-range missiles.
``It's not true, I notice that an official at our embassy in Washington already denied the allegation,'' said an official at Seoul's Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry.
The Times, citing U.S. intelligence analysts, said Seoul has built a rocket-motor test station apparently without telling Washington and conducted a test of a new missile that appears to violate agreements between the allies.
The United States and South Korea have a 20-year agreement that sharply limits Seoul's ability to deploy powerful missiles as a deterrent but media reports have said Washington might be willing to extend slightly the permitted range.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Robert Einhorn is due to hold talks about Seoul's missile program on Thursday and Friday with Song Min-soon, director-general of the North American Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
A foreign ministry official said South Korea wants to expand the range beyond the current 180 km (108 miles), but declined to say by how much.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung on a visit to Washington in June asked that the range be expanded to 500 km (300 miles), capable of striking almost anywhere in the north.
The South Korean government-backed Agency for Defense Development said on Monday the country has deployed locally-developed Chunma surface-to-air missiles with a range of 10 km (6.2 miles) in areas surrounding the capital.
The country announced the development and successfully test-fired the missiles in 1997.
The Times said South Korea is interested in developing longer-range missiles to be less dependent on the United States at a time when North Korea, with which it is technically at war, has made strides in its own missile program.
North Korea test-fired a three-stage missile last year, part of which flew over Japan, and intelligence reports suggested that Pyongyang at one point was preparing to soon launch another longer-range missile with the capacity to reach the U.S. states of Alaska and Hawaii.
North Korea also has No Dong missiles with a range of 600 miles (966 km) that could strike all of South Korea.
---
N.Korea, U.S. Delegates Begin Talks in Berlin
By Reuters New York Times November 15, 1999 Filed at 7:41 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-usa-kor.html
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/991115/07/international-usa-korea
BERLIN (Reuters) - The head of a North Korean negotiating team said he was not optimistic about the prospect of talks with U.S. negotiators which resumed in Berlin on Monday.
A delegation of North Korean officials arrived at the U.S. embassy shortly after 10 a.m. for the latest round of talks, which were as usual shrouded in secrecy.
U.S. officials declined to comment on the talks other than to confirm they were being held. The U.S. embassy in formerly communist east Berlin is just a few blocks away from North Korea's mission.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan told journalists in brief remarks on his way into the meeting that he was not optimistic about the negotiations.
``The prospects of the discussions are not so promising,'' he said through a translator. He did not elaborate and did not answer any questions as he entered the embassy.
U.S. special envoy Charles Kartman was due to lead the U.S. delegation while Gwan headed the delegation from the secretive, Marxist-ruled country.
NO BREAKTHROUGH EXPECTED
Diplomats do not expect any big breakthrough from the negotiations which follow a U.S. announcement in September that it was easing long-standing economic sanctions in exchange for North Korea's pledge to freeze long-range missile tests.
The United States wants firmer commitments from North Korea about restraining its missile and nuclear programs, a Western diplomat said last week.
North Korea was interested in benefiting from an easing of sanctions and moving toward normalizing ties, he added.
Japan, South Korea and the United States held consultations in Washington last week ahead of the talks to coordinate positions.
North Korea agreed to suspend missile tests during the last round of talks in Berlin in September after months of warnings from the United States and its Asian allies that dire consequences would follow another test of its Taepodong missile.
The United States is promulgating the necessary regulations easing a half-century ban on trade and investment with North Korea. Japan last week lifted a ban on direct charter flights to North Korea.
Japan had imposed the ban last year after North Korea fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific. Washington worries the next version of the missile could hit the continental United States.
The three countries, which regularly consult before and after negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, reaffirmed their commitment to the landmark 1994 Agreed Framework, which averted a showdown over North Korea's nuclear program.
North Korea agreed to mothball a Soviet-era nuclear reactor in exchange for two light-water nuclear power plants and fuel oil to tide it over till the plants are built. South Korea says it hopes to start construction on the reactors by year end, but North Korea has expressed frustration over the delays.
---
North Korean Not Optimistic About U.S. Talks
By Erik Kirschbaum Reuters Updated 1:48 PM ET November 15, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/991115/13/international-korea-talks
BERLIN (Reuters) - North Korea said on Monday it was not optimistic about its talks with the United States, but said a first day of meetings had been cordial and talks would resume on Tuesday.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said he held little hope for a breakthrough agreement in the latest round of negotiations aimed at improving relations between the United States and the secretive, Marxist-ruled country.
"The prospects of the discussions are not so promising," he said through a translator on his way into the meetings on Monday morning. Kim also did not saying anything after the two sessions of three hours each which ended on Monday evening.
U.S. officials declined to comment.
But Park Myogu Gu, head of the U.S. section of North Korea's foreign ministry, told journalists outside the U.S. embassy in Berlin at the conclusion of Monday's meetings that the talks had been conducted in a cordial environment.
"The negotiations today were held in a gentlemanly environment," he said through a translator. He did not answer any questions and quickly drove off in a car with Kim.
Kim did not talk to journalists on the way out. He was escorted to his car by Evans Revere, office director for Korean affairs at the State Department.
The two smiled briefly and shook hands in front of camera crews waiting behind a barbed-wire fence that surrounds the embassy.
The talks were scheduled to resume on Tuesday at 10 a.m. (0900 GMT) in the U.S. embassy. A further session was set for Wednesday at the North Korean mission, which is a few blocks away from the U.S. embassy in formerly communist eastern Berlin.
U.S. special envoy Charles Kartman was leading the U.S. delegation while Kim headed the North Korean delegation.
Diplomats said before the latest round of talks that they did not expect any big breakthrough from the negotiations which follow a U.S. announcement in September that it was easing long-standing economic sanctions in exchange for North Korea's pledge to freeze long-range missile tests.
The United States wants firmer commitments from North Korea about restraining its missile and nuclear programmes, a Western diplomat said last week.
North Korea was interested in benefiting from an easing of sanctions and moving toward normalizing ties, he added.
Japan, South Korea and the United States held consultations in Washington ahead of the talks to coordinate positions.
North Korea agreed to suspend missile tests during the last round of talks in Berlin in September after months of warnings from the United States and its Asian allies that dire consequences would follow another test of its Taepodong missile.
The United States is promulgating the necessary regulations easing a half-century ban on trade and investment with North Korea. Japan last week lifted a ban on direct charter flights to North Korea.
Japan imposed the ban last year after North Korea fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific. Washington worries the next version of the missile could hit the continental United States.
-------- russia
Russia threatens U.S. over missile treaty
USA Today 11/15/99
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#china
MOSCOW - Joining a chorus of officials sounding the alarm, a top Russian military officer threatened ''retaliatory steps'' on Monday if the United States moves forward with plans to build a national, anti-ballistic missile system. At issue is a U.S. proposal to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty so that both the United States and Russia can build missile-defense systems that protect against limited nuclear attacks. U.S. officials say the modification is meant to protect against nuclear strikes by so-called rogue states, such as Iraq and North Korea, but it has raised concern with other nuclear powers.
---
Russia, US leaders to discuss strategic cooperation
Reuters 01:57 p.m Nov 15, 1999 Eastern
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a2906LBY450reulb-19991115&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
MOSCOW, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The presidents of Russia and the United States will discuss arms issues and a nuclear test ban treaty at talks in Istanbul this week, a spokesman for Russian President Boris Yeltsin said on Monday.
Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton are to meet as part of a November 18-19 summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Istanbul.
``As far as the meeting with Clinton is concerned, then questions of strategic cooperation will be discussed,'' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin told Russian NTV television.
He said Russia had been worried by the U.S. Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on October 13.
Of the five declared nuclear powers only Britain and France have ratified the treaty, which would put an end to nuclear weapons testing, while the U.S., Russia and China have yet to do so.
Yakushkin said Yeltsin would probably soon send the nuclear test ban pact for consideration by the State Duma lower house of parliament but gave no precise date.
``Apart from this rejection by the (U.S.) senators, we are also very worried by attempts to change the ABM treaty system,'' he said.
Moscow has fiercely rejected Washington's proposals to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, which Russia calls the foundation of the Cold War arms control process.
The United States has said it would like to amend the agreement to allow it to build a national missile defence system, banned under the ABM treaty.
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Cuba Surprised by Russian Bomber Flight Plan
Reuters Saturday November 13 1:35 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991113/wl/cuba_russia_1.html
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba expressed surprise on Saturday at a tentative Russian air force plan to fly long-range nuclear-capable bombers to the communist-run island.
``It's really the first time I have heard anything like this,'' Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said of reports from Moscow of the planned air force exercises.
The latest edition of military weekly Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye quoted the head of Russia's long-range aviation forces, Mikhail Oparin, as saying such missions to Cuba and Vietnam were planned and would greatly surprise NATO.
A Russian air force spokesman later confirmed that if Moscow considers such missions essential, ``the military will do it.''
Cuba's foreign minister, speaking at a news conference in Havana, said he could not comment further on the matter until it had been discussed by the nation's ``maximum leadership'', normally a reference to President Fidel Castro.
``It's a matter of such importance that it would have to be analyzed of course,'' he added.
Earlier this year, Russia sent strategic bombers on long-range exercises right up to Alaska and Norway for the first time since the Cold War ended.
Before the break-up of the Soviet Union, Soviet strategic bombers used to fly regularly past Iceland and Newfoundland and parallel to the Atlantic coast of the United States to Cuba -- testing the readiness of U.S. air defenses along the way -- before returning home.
There was no suggestion that the Tupolev-16 planes would be based in Cuba or Vietnam, two countries where Russia still has signals intelligence bases and military personnel.
But even bomber flights to and from those countries could evoke memories of the Cuban missile crisis which ended in October 1962 when Moscow recalled Soviet missiles from the island after a tense stand-off with the United States.
U.S. military officials have said privately the move by Moscow could simply be muscle flexing by the proud and almost destitute Russian military.
---
NEWS ANALYSIS War in Chechnya Threatening U.S. Strategy Goals
By JANE PERLEZ New York Times November 15, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/111599russia-us-assess.html
WASHINGTON -- When President Clinton's foreign policy team gathered in the White House to discuss Chechnya recently, briefers from the Central Intelligence Agency explained the Russian military strategy in detail.
It boiled down to this: continued artillery and aerial bombardment of the breakaway republic; the destruction of the capital, Grozny, in an effort to flush out rebels, and the creation of even more civilian casualties and refugees, who are already spreading chaos through the Caucasus.
The session was held early this month after Clinton failed to win any concrete concessions on Chechnya from Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a meeting in Oslo. The session broke up, officials said, without any recipe for how to persuade Russia to modify its military tactics.
For the Clinton administration, the war in Chechnya has become an issue of how to balance Washington's strategic concerns about arms control and spreading of nuclear weapons with issues of human rights. Over all, the White House is trying to prevent the crisis in Chechnya from turning already cool relations with Moscow into a deep chill.
An administration official said the White House was wary of becoming too shrill in public about what are commonly called in private "reprehensible" Russian actions for fear of sacrificing Clinton's ambitious strategic agenda with Moscow. The administration has dismissed the idea of sanctions, officials say, though it has ratcheted up its complaints, and on Friday the State Department called Russia's "indiscriminate bombing" inconsistent with international standards.
In the most immediate sense, the Chechnya war is likely to cast a shadow for Clinton and European leaders as they gather for what was to be a harmonious summit meeting starting on Thursday in Istanbul. Two agreements -- one on human rights and another limiting military deployments in Europe -- are supposed to be signed at a moment when Russia has thousands of soldiers in the Caucasus carrying out a tireless assault in civilian areas.
"The more tension there is between the reality happening in the northern Caucasus and the principles of the documents being negotiated in Istanbul, the harder it will be to have a meaningful summit," said the deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott.
A more far-reaching consideration, according to senior administration officials, is the uphill negotiation with Russia on the amendment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that would allow Clinton to push ahead with his proposal of a limited missile defense system. Also at stake, administration officials said, is the passage in the Russian parliament of the Start III treaty, which requires cuts in Moscow's nuclear arsenal.
The Russian defense minister, Igor Sergeyev, harshly criticized Washington on Friday and accused the United States of supporting the Chechen rebels. "The United States national interests require that the military conflict in the north Caucasus, fanned from the outside, keeps constantly smoldering," Sergeyev said. He told an audience of Russian generals that Washington wanted to "weaken" Russian control of the Caucasus.
Such suspicions have been fueled in Russia by American attempts to persuade former Soviet republics in the region to build an oil pipeline that would skirt Russia and Iran. James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman, dismissed Sergeyev's remarks as "baseless."
The Chechnya war presents other difficult problems for the administration. The Russians argue that in the aftermath of war against Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, American complaints about human suffering are hypocritical and that Washington is applying a double standard over the use of military force. The problem extends beyond Russia's leadership, as the Kosovo war fed a deep feeling of anti-Americanism in the Russian population.
In addition, in the State Department, there is considerable unease -- a feeling of "impotence," one official said -- that the United States is standing by on Chechnya at the very moment that it is developing a policy to use military force on humanitarian grounds. Instead, the administration has subordinated that new policy to other interests, like arms control and preserving relations with Moscow.
The high point of the summit meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe this week was to be the signing of a revamped Charter for European Security, which says the human rights record of one member nation is the business of other members.
The charter does not carry the legal obligations of a treaty, but the signing of such a document while the Russians are clearly in violation of it is a situation the administration would like to avoid.
Similarly, the Americans and Russians hope to sign a revision of the treaty on conventional forces in Europe, which sets permissible levels of weaponry. Even though the updated treaty allows Russia to keep more weaponry in the Caucasus, Moscow acknowledges that it is over the new limits because of the war in Chechnya and promises to comply once it secures its objectives there.
Putin, whose popularity has soared among ordinary Russians because of his tough treatment of the Chechen rebels, has announced that he will be in Istanbul. The Russian media reported this weekend that Putin was likely to be intransigent at the summit meeting because of his electoral aspirations. It is not clear whether the ailing Russian president, Boris N. Yeltsin, will show up at all.
Almost daily, the administration has complained to Russian leaders -- and most powerfully in Clinton's meeting with Putin -- about the indiscriminate pounding of Chechnya. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain sent Putin a letter on Nov. 9 along similar lines, British officials said.
At the same time, Washington has said it understands when the Russians insist that they are fighting to protect their sovereignty against terrorists, who Moscow says are garnering support from groups abroad.
And officials here do not disagree that Russia was provoked into combat by Chechen fighters who staged military raids into the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan. Moscow also maintains that those militants were involved in the bombing of several apartment buildings in Russian cities, killing 292 civilians.
But the Russians bristle, officials said, when the administration argues that heavy-handed tactics are causing unnecessary suffering.
It is not unusual, administration officials said, for Russian diplomats to throw back at the Americans a parallel with Kosovo, where Russian entreaties against NATO's use of force were ignored. "They say that when you hurt civilians in Kosovo, it was called collateral damage and when we do that, you call it a violation of human rights," said an official describing the conversations. "And they add you were doing it in a foreign country and we are defending our own borders."
The administration counters that NATO was careful in trying to avoid civilian deaths in the bombing of Yugoslavia and that when they happened, they were made public. Further, the administration argues that the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia was aimed at the assets of a particular leader, Slobodan Milosevic.
In Oslo, Clinton urged Putin to start negotiations with moderate Chechen leaders, though he did not identify whom he had in mind, a senior administration official said. Moscow has turned down suggestions that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe be used as an intermediary.
"We don't have any easy answer here," a senior administration official said. "This is not like NATO expansion and Kosovo. In both cases, we thought we knew what the Russians ought to do, and by the way, they did it. Here we have a quite clear idea of what, for their own sake, they ought not to be doing."
Some mid-level administration officials as well as critics of the current policy have argued that Washington should punish Moscow by imposing financial sanctions. But this idea is regarded as a nonstarter, officials said.
They point out that the current loans from International Monetary Fund to Moscow, the next installment of which is expected to be some $4.5 billion, are intended to help Russia pay back the fund. Further, the administration is not about to create more financial troubles in Russia as parliamentary and presidential elections approach, a senior official said.
Moreover, the vast bulk of American financial aid is devoted to helping the Russians dismantle their nuclear arsenal, a project that Washington does not want to stop.
The State Department has drawn up proposals to encourage the Russian government to provide shelter and sustenance to an estimated 200,000 refugees who have fled the fighting in Chechnya for the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, where many of them are living in tents or rail cars in freezing temperatures.
Until last week, when Moscow allowed a European team into the region to assess the needs of the refugees, it had refused to grant Western aid workers access to the area.
The State Department has also increased money to the United Nations refugee agency and to the International Committee of the Red Cross for assisting the refugees. But the Russians remained resistant to foreigners working in the area, officials said.
-------- iran
Top Iranian atomic official visits Russia
Reuters 05:18 a.m. Nov 15, 1999 Eastern
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a0770LBY905reulb-19991115&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
TEHRAN, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The head of Iran's atomic energy organisation Gholamreza Aqazadeh left Tehran for Moscow on Monday to discuss progress in the Bushehr nuclear power plant project in southwest Iran, the official IRNA news agency said.
Aqazadeh will meet Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov in Moscow, it added.
Upgrading peaceful atomic cooperation between the two countries and bilateral cooperation in building new power plants will also be discussed, IRNA added.
Russia is building a nuclear reactor for the Bushehr power plant in a deal worth $800 million and has given approval for talks with Tehran on building three other nuclear power plants.
Iran's arch foe the United States, has often urged Russia to suspend nuclear cooperation with Iran.
((Tehran newsroom +9821 229 4856))
-------- germany
Germany Eyes Nuke Industry Phase Out
Associated Press Saturday November 13 4:57 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19991113/wl/germany_nuclear_power_1.html
BERLIN (AP) - Germany's coalition government is working on legislation that would phase out the country's nuclear power industry, even if consensus talks with operators of the nation's 19 nuclear power plants fails, a newspaper said Saturday.
According to an early release of a report in the weekly Bild am Sonntag's Sunday editions, Economics Minister Werner Mueller has made it known that legal experts are preparing the draft of a law that would stand up even if nuclear power operators appeal against it in the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, several thousands anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated in Berlin Saturday, demanding immediate shutdown of all of the country's nuclear power stations.
The protesters carried signs complaining that the year-old government coalition of centrist Social Democrats and environmentalist Greens had broken its promise to get out of nuclear power.
More than 100 demonstrators drove tractors in the column that passed through the Brandenburg Gate on its way to city hall after arriving from Dannerberg, a farm community 100 miles west of Berlin. The town lies near the site of old salt mines used to store nuclear waste and has been the scene of sometimes violent anti-nuclear demonstrations in past years.
According to Bild am Sonntag, Mueller said that the government, which has been trying to reach a consensus with nuclear operators since March, ``will pass a law contrary to the desires'' of the industry if an agreement isn't reached.
Even so, the first government-forced closure of a nuclear power plant would not come before elections in 2002, Mueller was quoted as telling the newspaper.
``There's not going to be a fall guy,'' he said.
Still, Mueller told the newspaper he sees a 50 percent chance of reaching a consensus.
Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, a Green, would like to see up to six of the 19 plants shut down by 2002. While both parties in the coalition agree on phasing out nuclear power, differences over the timing remain.