-------- good news

New Rules on Organic Foods

New York Times
March 9, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/09thu3.html

In late 1997 the Department of Agriculture proposed rules that would have established a nationwide certification program for organic foods. During the 90-day comment period that followed, it became clear just how badly the department had stumbled. Rather than heed the advice of its own National Organic Standards Board, the agency would have allowed the use of irradiation, sewage sludge and genetically modified organisms in the growing and preparation of foods to be called organic. Whatever one thinks of those particular practices, they are hardly what most people would consider "organic." The outcry from consumers and organic farmers forced reconsideration.

On Tuesday the agency released a Revised Proposed Rule. It is a dramatically improved document that may signal a significant new direction at Agriculture. To quote the department's own press release, the new rule "specifically prohibits the use of genetic engineering, sewage sludge, and irradiation in the production of food products labeled 'organic.' " It also offers a strict standard defining what constitutes an organic food, a step that should do a great deal to enhance consumer trust that a food labeled organic really is organic.

For raw products to be deemed 100 percent organic, for example, they must be grown or manufactured without added hormones, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. The new rules do not reflect a judgment on the relative safety or quality of organic foods as compared with conventional foods. Rather, they govern marketing claims.

The department's response to the community of organic farmers may herald a welcome new sensitivity to a sector of the farming world that has suffered from official neglect. The Clinton administration now needs to approve a final rule before it leaves office. The Agriculture Department should take what it has learned in developing these regulations -- especially the act of listening intently to farmers -- and apply it to other programs that affect small farmers. For their part, consumers and farmers should recognize the power they wield when they work together.

--------activism

Mexican Students End Occupation

Yahoo News
07:39 AM ET 03/09/00
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564843713-a9b

MEXICO CITY (AP) _ More than 100 striking students have ended a two-day occupation of the administration building at Latin America's largest university, heading off a second showdown with federal police.

The seizure Monday of the administration tower at the University City campus of National Autonomous University revived tensions only a month after federal police raided the 270,000-student campus to end an 11-month seizure by striking students.

Federal Interior Secretary Diodoro Carrasco warned on Tuesday that officials might again send police to remove the strikers. University officials said the occupation of the building also would prevent them from paying tens of thousands of workers on Friday.

The decision to leave the building Wednesday night followed a long meeting by strikers and scuffles with some Mexican reporters whose television stations or newspapers the strikers have accused of being biased against their cause.

During the day, students seized a federal policeman whom they accused of trying to ``kidnap'' one of the strike leaders, Enrique Cisneros. Cisneros convinced the students to release the officer after several hours.

The Interior Secretariat said the officer had been trying to carry out arrest warrants against those responsible for seizing the building.

The original student demands for a rollback of a tuition increase and other sweeping reforms have been joined by calls for the release of several hundred students arrested in last month's raid. As the strike developed, many strikers proclaimed it a struggle against global free-market economics.

--------australia

BREAKING STORIES : Weekly Archive
Senate disarmament demands 'unrealistic': govt

Australian Broadcasting Corporation News
Thu, 9 Mar 2000 16:19 AEDT
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-9mar2000-73.htm

The Australian Senate has passed a motion deploring the stagnation of nuclear disarmament and warning of a new arms race.

Government senators opposed the vote, saying the nuclear weapons powers will ignore unrealistic demands.

The Senate motion calls for real progress at the five-yearly review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which begins in New York next month.

Opposition Senator Peter Cook says nuclear disarmament has stalled.

"There appears to be little political will to overcome the current impasse," he said.

The motion was passed 33-27.

The manager of government business in the Upper House, Senator Ian Campbell, says the government opposed the wording because of unrealistic demands on the nuclear powers.

"The government believes the best way to pursue this is bilaterally between the US and Russia," he said.

---

Nuclear risks: myths and reality
Date: 09/03/2000

Most Australians can speculate on or dream about a "doomsday" scenario. Surrealistic visions of death and destruction were the Harbour Bridge to collapse during peak hour or the devastating impact of a large comet striking and destroying Canberra might create waves of fear and apprehension.

Behind such unlikely dramatic events are physical laws and mathematical probabilities. Those activists who wish to induce fear into an Australian community can ignore or manipulate these physical laws and mathematical probabilities and use pseudo-science to create an environment of terror and a distrust of all legitimate authority ("Why Sydney should be worried about Lucas Heights", Herald, March 2.)

It is most unlikely that such cerebral manipulation would cause the people of Sydney to cease crossing their harbour or the people of Canberra to leave their desirable habitat. But for anti-nuclear activists it is all a piece of cake.

If you do not want a research reactor at Lucas Heights you write about meltdowns, radiation leakage, nuclear waste, unacceptable risk and cover-up. You make use of the emotive impact behind these words, throw in as much innuendo and as many "what ifs" as possible, abandon the laws of physics, radiation biology and mathematical probability and the resulting climate of fear enables you to achieve your socio-political objectives.

Residents of Sutherland Shire are frequently assailed with pseudo-science concerning the supposed "danger" inherent in operating Sydney's High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR), the only research reactor in the country, and the even "greater danger" of replacing it with a new facility.

Last year, two of Australia's highest profile anti-nuclear activists wrote letters to an Australian newspaper in an endeavour to trigger "radiation phobia" over a HIFAR fuel handling incident which released some radiation. Relying on public ignorance of radiation physics, they tried to fabricate a scenario implying grave danger to workers and the public as the consequence of the incident.

Letters from the chief executive of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and a union representative of the workers involved in the incident told the true story. In fact, the radiation did not take place in the HIFAR building. The maximum doses received were well within the prescribed constraints for nuclear workers and were comparable to those which travellers might receive at 10,000 metres on a flight from Sydney to Melbourne.

The assessment of nuclear risk is a favoured strategy of Australia's radical activists, self-promoting eco-politicians with hidden agendas. It does not matter whether the infrastructure project is a uranium mine, a new research reactor, a nuclear waste repository or a potential nuclear plant for the production of greenhouse-friendly electrical energy. The radical activist will construct a threatening risk scenario to suit an eco-political objective. In this, informed realism, nuclear physics or the laws of probability play no part.

For more than three decades the Australian community has been assailed with false perceptions of danger or high risk emotively linked with such words as radiation, research reactor and uranium. In the absence of sound education and informed realism, some will react to this with fear and anger. In some personalities the cerebral manipulation may even lead to a phobia.

A phobia can be loosely defined as the reaction of the human psyche to an exaggerated or magnified sense of risk. Most Australians would be terrified of a chance encounter with a tiger, crocodile or snake in their suburban streets or gardens. If the same sense of fear persists when we visit the zoo and see the animals or reptiles in their enclosures, we may possess a phobic predisposition which could lead to a neurosis.

For nearly two decades, the London in which I lived and taught boasted five research reactors within 20 kilometres of Australia House. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology which I frequently visited housed its HIFAR-type reactor in the middle of its campus, a campus with 20,000 students in the heart of beautiful Cambridge, a suburb of Boston. Florida State University at Gainesville had a large nuclear engineering faculty with marvellous experimental facilities including a split-core research reactor. The main risk factor on campus was the occasional terrestrial excursion of alligators from their pond habitats nearby.

Of the five London research reactors, three were at educational institutions and two were operated by large industrial groups. My own was housed in a laboratory in the heart of the densely populated East End within two kilometres of one of the great teaching hospitals of the world. It was a highly prized research facility of great interest to scientists, engineers and medical researchers. Students were proud to show it to their parents and friends. They all seemed to survive the experience, and some of them are now operating bigger and better research reactors in Japan, Korea and Indonesia.

I have continued my close association with both power reactors and research reactors. Sponsored university research kept me on top of the HIFAR reactor for over 20 years. All this time I was keenly aware of the significant risks associated with the daily return drive to Lucas Heights from Kensington, and at certain times of the year the additional risk of a magpie attack as I walked through the beautiful grounds of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation from the main gate to the research facility.

My health is good and I do not glow in the dark. I look forward to the time when the darkness of nuclear ignorance in Australia is dispelled by good policy and sound education.

Australians should be pleased that at long last the HIFAR research reactor will be replaced by a new facility. This will mean that there will be a continuation of the production of valuable medical and industrial radio-isotopes.

University researchers will have access to neutron beam techniques for crystallography and radio-chemistry studies. And the operation of the reactor and measurements of its nuclear and physical parameters will help prepare scientists and engineers for the ever increasing role of peaceful nuclear energy in the new millennium.

Leslie Kemeny is the Australian member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy.

--------britain

Uncovered: their man in Tokyo

Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 09/03/2000
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0003/09/text/world12.html

London: British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) pays the British foreign office $US785,000 ($1.2 million) a year to have its own man working inside the British embassy in Tokyo, with a diplomatic passport and negotiating on behalf of the Government with the Japanese on nuclear trade, it has been revealed.

Mr Tom McLaughlan, who appears on the official diplomatic list, holds one of the most senior posts at the embassy as Counsellor (Atomic Energy).

His brief is to advise on British nuclear interests and to increase trade with Japan's nuclear industry.

The foreign office in London said Mr McLaughlan, who has been in the post since 1995, was answerable to its officials rather than BNFL. Previously he was director of communications in BNFL's London office, and is expected to return to a more senior job next year.

The foreign office on Tuesday sought to play down the BNFL connection, saying that it had a well-established practice of second-ments from the private sector.-2

Britain's diplomatic difficulties with Japan over the revelation recently that BNFL falsified safety data on nuclear shipments to the country will not be eased by the disclosure.

The Japanese science and technology agency was not prepared to comment on Tuesday, but a spokesman for Kansai, a private company involved in the nuclear industry, said it was not aware that an embassy official was an employee of BNFL. On Tuesday night a political row was developing over the disclosure. Labour MP Mr Alan Simpson, said: "I am flabbergasted; it is outrageous. It is the sort of thing that might have happened in the worst days of the dying Conservative government ... It must be stopped."

William Walker, professor of international relations at St Andrew's university, in Scotland, who discovered that BNFL was paying the foreign office, said senior executives in Japanese nuclear utilities had told him they had no way of communicating with the British Government, "because of the BNFL man at the embassy". "I thought this was wrong and wrote to the foreign office about it, but never received a reply," he said.

The Guardian

--------canada

Canada Reveals Visit

International Herald tribune
Paris, Thursday, March 9, 2000
by North Koreans Reuters
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/THU/IN/reply.2.html

OTTAWA - A delegation of North Korean officials has finished a secret visit to Canada in another sign of gradually thawing relations between the isolated Stalinist state and the West.

A Canadian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Wednesday that the delegation had visited Ottawa on a fact-finding tour March 2 to 7 after a similar visit by Canadian officials to Pyongyang in December.

''The officials had informal talks in both instances. Thus the visits were fully consistent with the absence of formal diplomatic relations between Canada and North Korea,'' said the spokeswoman, Marie-Christine Lilkoff.

News of the visit broke the same day that U.S. and North Korean diplomats began talks to prepare for the first visit to Washington by a high-level Pyongyang official since the country was founded 50 years ago.

Both delegation leaders - the U.S. special envoy to North Korea, Charles Kartman, and the North Korean deputy foreign minister, Kim Gye Gwan - declined to comment before their meeting began at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York.

Preparations have been under way for months for the official visit, which would be a landmark in the gradual process of ending North Korea's isolation from the rest of the world and easing tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula. Some details and dates for the visit have not been decided.

The Communist government in Pyongyang has not yet said who the high-level visitor will be, but this could be announced during the New York talks, according to U.S. officials.

The visit would be in return for a trip to Pyongyang by William Perry, a U.S. special presidential envoy and former defense secretary, in May 1999. Mr. Perry was preparing a report on how the United States should handle North Korea.

Washington is seeking firmer commitments from North Korea about restraining its long-range missile testing program and closing possible loopholes in a 1994 nuclear agreement. Under the deal, Pyongyang agreed to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for a consortium of several countries building two nuclear power reactors in the northeastern part of the country and providing interim supplies of power.

For its part, Pyongyang wants the United States to ease trade restrictions and move toward normalizing diplomatic ties with North Korea, which was backed by China in the 1950-53 Korean War while Washington supported South Korea.

A U.S. State Department official said last week that conditions for North Korea's removal from the U.S. list of ''state sponsors of terrorism,'' would also be discussed in New York this week.

--------china

China Warns on U.S. Sales to Taiwan

Associated Press
March 9, 2000 Filed at 7:40 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-US.html
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564843724-b52

BEIJING (AP) -- China called today for the immediate cancellation of U.S. plans to sell air defense equipment to Taiwan, warning that such sales inflame already tense relations.

But at the same time, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao urged Congress to grant Beijing permanent low-tariff trade rights. President Clinton submitted legislation to Congress on Wednesday to establish permanent normal trade relations with China.

Zhu expressed ``deep concern'' over the Pentagon's intention to sell 162 Hawk intercept guided missiles for $106 million and items needed to reconfigure Taiwan's TPS-43F air surveillance radar.

Noting that the planned sale comes at a ``crucial moment'' in relations between China and the United States and China and Taiwan, Zhu urged Washington to ``fully recognize the seriousness of its arms sales to Taiwan and correct its error immediately and stop all weapons sales.''

Recent Chinese threats of war against Taiwan ahead of the island's March 18 presidential election have heightened tensions. China also is angry at a U.S. congressional bill that would strengthen relations between the U.S. and Taiwan militaries.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing regards the island as part of its territory. Washington recognizes China's claim to Taiwan, but also is obliged by U.S. law to help the island defend itself.

``The U.S. side keeps on violating its commitments by selling a large amount of sophisticated weapons to Taiwan persistently,'' Zhu said. ``It constitutes a severe encroachment on China's sovereignty and flagrant interference in China's internal affairs.''

The Pentagon said the radar and missile sale will help modernize and upgrade Taiwanese air defenses but would not affect the basic military balance in the Asia-Pacific region.

While warning against the sale, Zhu called for Beijing to be granted normal trade rights without conditions.

The legislation Clinton submitted to Congress would scrap a contentious annual review of low-tariff trading rights for China. A U.S. promise of permanent trading privileges was part of a market-opening deal struck last year to allow Beijing to join the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based group that makes world trade rules.

Zhu hinted that Beijing might not implement last year's deal if the trading rights are not granted permanently.

Normal trading rights ``should be passed completely and in a `once and for all' manner,'' Zhu said.

``If this issue cannot be steadily resolved it will be detrimental to the interests of U.S. enterprises in China and also not conducive to the U.S. competition with the other WTO members on the Chinese market.''

Zhu said China hopes to discuss the trading rights with U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman when they visit.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Bill Palmer said both trips were planned for mid- to late April.

------

On the Net:
Chinese government, http://www.china.org.cn/English/index.html
Taiwan Defense Review, http://www.tdreview.com/free2.html

---

Queasy fruits of appeasement Amos Perlmutter

Washington Times
March 8, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/comment2-03082000.htm

China will become a superpower in the early decades of the 21st century. The present leadership of China is striving to achieve hegemony politically, economically and militarily. Chinese civilization is one of the oldest and greatest in history. Chinese science and technology were well developed long before Europe awakened during the Renaissance.

There is no reason that the economic reform of China will not make China an important information power. In a country of 1.3 billion people - and with such intelligent, competitive people - 1 percent of the population would be sufficient to make a Chinese Silicon Valley that will compete successfully with the rest of the world in e-commerce and e-technology. In this uncharted and unpredictable information revolution, we can predict that the Chinese will become serious rivals. The momentum of the economic reform that began with Tang Tsaiping in the 1980s continues to grow, as does China's military expansionism.

China's strategic goals could not be more transparent than in the white paper that was released by China on Feb. 21. The document directly confronts Taiwan, repeating ad nauseum the basis for the one-China policy, de facto and de jure. "The one-China principle has been evolved in the course of the Chinese people's just struggle to safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and its basis, both de facto and de jure, is unshakable."

The target of this quote is obviously Taiwan. Unabashedly, the document states, "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. All the facts and laws about Taiwan prove that Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory."

Taiwan's response to China is no less belligerent, rejecting Beijing's "unilateral definition" of a one-China policy.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) document states further that it is an effort "to influence the ROC [Republic of China - Taiwan] presidential election."

There is no question that both the PRC and ROC have disturbed the status quo in the Straits of Taiwan that was established during President Nixon's visit to China in 1972 - known as the Shanghai Communique.

This skirmish was not predicted by the Clinton administration, which was caught unprepared. The Clinton administration's carrot-stick policy toward China - lobbying for its entry into the World Trade Organization while speaking against its violations of human rights - has failed. Congress, especially the Republican majority, is impatient with the president. The Republican majority supports Taiwan's request for super weapons, arguing that the Taiwanese must create a new shield against China's expansionist aspirations.

The Taiwanese are also testing American resolve by requesting strategic weapons in the form of four guided missile destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class, the SPY-1 multifunctional radar system and Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles. The Republican majority, supported by a considerable number of Democrats, is behind the Taiwanese request.

The administration is divided between the Pentagon, which justifies the request, and senior officials of the State Department and the National Security Council, who see it as "an unnecessary and risky provocation of China." The president has yet to weigh in. This indecision is leaving the China policy to Congress.

President Clinton continues his predecessor's appeasement of China.

The Chinese snubbed a recent senior U.S. delegation to China, headed by the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Ralston, by meeting them with low-ranking officers. This act of disrespect only demonstrates Chinese arrogance. In view of the president's inability to make up his mind on what governs U.S. policy on China, it is not surprising.

However, foreign policy abhors a vacuum. Instead, Congress has stepped in. The New York Times enumerated congressional actions taken on China over the Clinton administration's objections. Here are two actions related to a PRC challenge to Taiwan:

(1) The Taiwan Strait report: "A rider to the fiscal 1999 defense appropriations bill requires the Pentagon to produce an annual report on the balance of military forces across the Taiwan Strait."

(2) Limiting military exchanges: "a rider to the fiscal 2000 defense authorization bill limiting the kinds of weaponry and exercises that the U.S. military can show to visiting People's Liberation Army officers."

A 21st-century policy on China must be founded on an alliance with U.S. allies and China's neighbors, rivals and competitors. The United States must play a role in a political and diplomatic encirclement of China, and provide India, Taiwan and South Korea with the weapons necessary to deter Chinese expansionism.

Until the Chinese descend from their pedestal of arrogance and lower their level of expansionist aspirations, U.S. policy must support China's neighbors. This arrangement should be defensive in nature, but it will signal to China that the United States no longer tolerates its behavior on Taiwan. This must be conceived before China becomes a military nuclear superpower.

It is unfortunate that the Republican contenders are vague on China. George W. Bush's statement that China is not a partner, but a competitor, is only a preamble to a long-range policy. It is essential that China enters the WTO, but it is also essential that, as a growing power, they have an obligation to the international community to behave according to the prevailing norms. A firm U.S. China policy would create the ability to influence China to prevent escalation in the Taiwan Strait and discourage China's aggressive orientations.

Amos Perlmutter is a professor of political science and sociology at American University and editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

---

China President Discusses Taiwan

Yahoo News
03:20 PM ET 03/08/00
By RENEE SCHOOF Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564827025-671

BEIJING (AP) _ President Jiang Zemin, in an unusual exchange with reporters studded with references to classical poetry, suggested Wednesday that Taiwan's independence would bring war despite China's reluctance to fight.

But the conversation also showed that despite seemingly growing divisions, fears and threats, the people of Taiwan and the mainland share a common culture.

Taiwanese reporters twice used Jiang's love of poetry to get his attention _ in separate appearances with Chinese legislators from Macau and, later, Hong Kong.

``Is it 'beacon fires for three months?''' a reporter called out, quoting lines from a 1,200-year-old poem by Du Fu that are well known to Chinese and refer to war.

Jiang, who rarely talks to foreign reporters but likes to show his erudition, rejected the suggestion that China was fanning the flames of war.

``I don't feel that way. Our policy is consistent,'' Jiang said.

If there were a Taiwan-China war, ``would it be like 'cooking with a big fire?''' a reporter ventured at the second meeting. The line refers to a fight between brothers in the 600-year-old novel ``Romance of the Three Kingdoms.'' The emperor tells his brother Cao Zhi his life will be spared if he quickly thinks up a poem.

Cao Zhi's poem: ``If the stem is used to cook the bean, the bean will cry in the pot. We were born from the same root. Why do you want to cook me with such a big fire?''

``My understanding is that you, if you pursue Taiwan independence, then that means 'cooking with a big fire,''' Jiang said.

Jiang told the reporters he was optimistic China and Taiwan would be reunited.

Taiwan has been directly under China's rule for only four of the last 100 years. The two sides split the last time in 1949 when the Communists ousted Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists from the mainland.

Still, China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has long said it might use force if Taiwan declared independence or foreign powers meddle. In February, the government added a third scenario for possible attack _ if Taiwan indefinitely puts off talks on reunification.

The new threat was widely seen as an attempt to pressure candidates in Taiwan's March 18 presidential election.

When reporters asked Jiang what would happen if Chen Shui-bian, candidate of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, wins the election, the Chinese leader evaded.

Asked if he was afraid of foreign intervention, he drew a laugh by saying: ``The Chinese people have never been scared of evil spirits.''

He said ``of course'' he wants to go to Taiwan, but giggled when asked when.

``We'll have to wait and see,'' he said. ``Do you think I could go there with things the way they are at the moment?''

--------imf/wto/world bank

I.M.F. and World Bank Blueprint

New York Times
March 9, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/09thu1.html

More than half a century after their creation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank could use some fresh thinking about their operations. Thanks to a Congressional commission that unveiled its recommendations about the institutions yesterday, there are some bold new ideas to consider. Some of the suggestions are ill conceived, but others deserve serious consideration by the United States and other nations that belong to the two organizations.

One of the biggest and best ideas in the report is a call to cancel the crushing debt of the world's poorest countries. If the commission does nothing else but spur the United States and its allies to get behind this plan, it will have accomplished a lot.

The 11-member, bipartisan commission voted unanimously to strip the I.M.F. of all but one task: extending emergency loans to countries whose currencies come under attack. The job of fighting poverty would be turned over to the World Bank. This is a sound idea that would produce a clearer division of responsibilities.

The commission would end the current practice of making I.M.F. bailouts contingent on the acceptance of strict and sometimes harmful economic policies dictated by the fund after a country falls into financial crisis. Instead the fund would require countries to qualify for future loans by opening up their banking systems and taking other steps that could help prevent a crisis. This would have the added advantage of allowing the fund to react more quickly when trouble develops.

These recommendations are constructive, but go too far. Countries that do not pre-qualify for assistance would be unable to get loans in a crisis. A less drastic reform would allow the fund to extend loans to wayward countries, but at a higher interest rate. The report also errs in limiting emergency loans to eight months. Neither of these defects would be hard to fix.

As for the World Bank, the commission would justifiably eliminate lending to countries whose credit ratings permit them to tap private capital markets. It would concentrate the bank's money on fighting poverty in the world's 80 or so poorest countries. The commission also recommends that the bank use grants rather than loans to pay for its programs. To vaccinate children, for example, the bank would solicit bids and pay for the vaccines itself as they are actually delivered. The idea is to reduce corruption and waste. Switching to grants would require more money from the donor countries -- which the report strongly advocates. This may be possible, but is far from assured.

Congress is not expected to act on the report soon. But some politicians are already denouncing the commission, wrongly, for dismantling the I.M.F. and the World Bank. The danger is that political squabbling will squander an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to reach an important agreement. The I.M.F. and World Bank need to sharpen their focus and improve their programs. The first step toward these goals is to lift the debts that keep desperately poor countries trapped in poverty.

---

Germans Try for 2nd Time to Fill Post at the I.M.F.

New York Times
March 9, 2000
By JOSEPH KAHN
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/030900imf-us.html

Related Articles
Report Seeks Big Changes in I.M.F. and World Bank (March 8, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/030800imf-congress.html

New Candidate Proposed for I.M.F. (March 8, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/030800imf-chief.html

WASHINGTON -- Defying warnings that history might repeat itself, Germany began a diplomatic offensive to install one of its nationals as head of the International Monetary Fund and received a generally lukewarm reception today in both Europe and the United States.

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder began lobbying European neighbors and the United States to support Horst Köhler, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to head the I.M.F. But Mr. Schröder misjudged, if he expected that his nation's allies would quickly rally around the new German candidate after the first one he promoted was forced to give up a four-month quest to lead the monetary fund.

President Clinton pointedly declined to endorse Mr. Köhler in a telephone conversation with the German chancellor Tuesday. White House officials said the president had a friendly conversation with Mr. Schröder in which he took a neutral position on Mr. Köhler's qualifications for the job.

European officials also have not rushed to Germany's side. Italy's foreign minister, Lamberto Dini, delivered a frank public assessment in which he said that Mr. Köhler was "less than had been hoped for." A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said Europe had not rallied behind Mr. Köhler, who once served as a close aide to Helmut Kohl, Mr. Schröder's longtime rival and predecessor as chancellor.

French and Portuguese officials made much more positive comments. But it seemed unlikely that Germany could forge an immediate Europewide consensus that Mr. Köhler ought to be the region's unified choice to lead the I.M.F.

It is possible that Germany's decision to throw its considerable political heft behind a new candidate and campaign publicly for him will work this time.

Some German allies, including the United States, are eager to avoid the impression that they are picking fights with Germany, and Mr. Köhler is widely considered a better choice than the previous candidate, Caio Koch-Weser, Germany's deputy finance minister.

But it also seemed possible that Germany, by choosing a person who does not top the lists of Europe's most qualified and politically prominent financial officials, had set itself up for another stinging defeat. That is especially true because both European and American officials have put a high priority on finding someone who can quickly command support and end the prolonged and divisive search for an I.M.F. managing director.

Late last week, the 182 member nations of the I.M.F. rebuffed Germany when they denied Mr. Koch-Weser, a close ally of Mr. Schröder, a majority of their votes in an informal poll. Mr. Koch-Weser had the backing of the 15-nation European Union, which has named every I.M.F. managing director since the financial institution was created just after World War II. But Europe's support was tepid, and Mr. Clinton went public with his vow to stop the German's candidacy after months of quiet diplomacy failed to dissuade Germany from promoting him.

The United States and other critics had argued that Mr. Koch-Weser, a 25-year veteran of the World Bank and a specialist in poverty relief, did not have the political stature or the financial expertise to head the I.M.F., which has been likened to a world central bank.

Mr. Koch-Weser's lack of experience in finance or monetary policy was considered glaring because the I.M.F. has been under pressure -- from Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, among others -- to focus primarily on its role as a crisis-manager for nations hit by temporary financial panic. Critics have urged that it get out of the business of providing long-term loans, development assistance and poverty relief, the sorts of programs that are the specialty of the World Bank.

Mr. Köhler has considerably more financial expertise than Mr. Koch-Weser and is better known around Europe. But like Mr. Koch-Weser he has also spent much of his career overseeing development and aid programs, suggesting that he does not have the ideal background to counter some of the criticisms aimed at his fellow German.

Mr. Köhler, 57, was long allied with the Christian Democratic Union, the party that Mr. Schröder defeated when he took power last year. He served as an economic assistant to Mr. Kohl.

In the early 1990's, Mr. Köhler served in the No. 2 position at Germany's finance ministry, the position Mr. Koch-Weser holds today. In that job, Mr. Köhler helped manage Germany's financial relations with Europe at a time when the region was working out the details of monetary union. But he was better known for helping to arrange the terms of unification with the formerly Communist East Germany, and then overseeing a huge injection of public funds aimed at rebuilding the region. He also had a stint in the private sector, managing Germany's federation of savings banks.

Mr. Köhler now heads the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a mini-World Bank that backs development projects and businesses in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He took the post just after the quasi-public bank wrote off tens of millions of dollars worth of loans when Russia, its leading client, defaulted on its debt in the summer of 1998.

Clinton administration officials have declined to comment on Mr. Köhler's candidacy. Moreover, they seem determined to avoid a repeat of their role in defeating Mr. Koch-Weser, when Mr. Clinton publicly played the heavy while some European countries hid their true feelings behind the veil of European solidarity.

But administration officials were also hoping that Europe would select a candidate who would obviate the need for extended debate. Among the several senior politicians in Europe talked about as potential candidates are the current and former British chancellors of the exchequer and the Italian finance minister.

"We support a European candidate, a candidate of maximum stature, who can generate a consensus in Europe and support from developing countries," the White House spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said today when asked about Germany's push for Mr. Köhler.

---

Clinton lobbies for Beijing on normal trade

Washington Times
March 9, 2000
By Carter Dougherty
http://208.246.212.80/business/news1-03092000.htm

President Clinton called on Congress yesterday to promote the development of democracy in China by giving the Asian giant permanent normal trade status.

In a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in the District of Columbia, Mr. Clinton pledged to pull out all the stops in an effort to win congressional approval for permanent normal trade relations (NTR) with China, a move that would pave the way for Beijing to join the World Trade Organization.

Mr. Clinton's impassioned case for his administration's policy of "strategic engagement" with China came as the White House sent legislation to Congress that would extend permanent NTR to China.

"[I]f you believe in a future of greater openness and freedom for the people of China, you ought to be for this agreement," Mr. Clinton said. "It's an historic opportunity and a profound American responsibility."

The speech was part of a concerted campaign by the White House to win the trade status. Mr. Clinton has met with numerous members of Congress about the issue, and Cabinet officials plan to take a group of undecided House members to China in an effort to secure their support.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey yesterday predicted that the China trade legislation eventually would pass the House, where pro-trade forces face their toughest battle to win the support from the chamber's Democrats since their failed effort to pass "fast-track" trade-negotiating authority in 1997.

"I expect and intend to see us pass" the legislation, the Texas Republican told reporters yesterday. Republicans will "work with the president in every possible way and figure any way we can to get the job done," probably in June. House Minority Whip David E. Bonior, Michigan Democrat, has said that opponents have almost enough votes to kill the legislation in the lower chamber.

The Clinton administration wants Congress to abolish the annual review of China's trade status and extend it permanent NTR this year. The change would allow the United States to bring China into the WTO under the terms of a landmark trade agreement negotiated in November.

China has NTR status, but it must be renewed in a controversial House vote each year.

The bill the White House sent to Congress would give the president the authority to extend permanent NTR to China once Beijing is admitted to the WTO, provided China does not back away from the conditions included in last year's deal.

To join the WTO, China must wrap up individual agreements with other member nations on their access to the Chinese market. And existing WTO members, acting together, must approve China's plans to comply with other trade rules.

Trade officials from the United States and other countries have said that it is not clear when these talks would conclude.

Rep. Philip M. Crane, the House's top Republican for trade legislation, said the bill is a "good first step" in signaling that the White House is serious about passing permanent NTR for China.

"The president has worked hard on this agreement, and now he must work equally hard to secure enough members in his party to pass this plan later this year," the Illinois Republican said.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, Sens. Paul Wellstone, Minnesota Democrat, and Ernest F. Hollings, South Carolina Democrat, urged their Senate colleagues in a letter not to seek a quick vote on the bill.

"We believe this legislation is much too important to be rushed in this fashion," they wrote.

Some NTR supporters have suggested that the Senate act on the legislation quickly to generate momentum for a House vote, though Senate aides have downplayed this strategy.

Mr. Wellstone and Mr. Hollings also demanded that the Clinton administration make public the details of the U.S.-China trade deal so that the issues surrounding NTR can be "seriously examined in extensive floor debate."

Though it has revealed many details of the agreement, the administration has refused to release its text, citing the need to support other countries' ongoing negotiations with China.

In his one-hour speech, Mr. Clinton laid out a comprehensive case for approval of permanent NTR, arguing that it is the best contribution the United States can make to support forces in China trying to open up that country.

Rejecting permanent NTR for China "would be a gift to the hard-liners in China's government who don't want their country to be part of the world," Mr. Clinton said.

"By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products, it is agreeing to import one of democracy's most cherished values - economic freedom," he said.

Though China has at best a spotty record of complying with bilateral trade agreements, Mr. Clinton argued that a multilateral group like the WTO offers a better chance of enforcing trade deals with China than does American pressure.

"We're still better off having a system in which actions will be subject to rules embraced and judgment passed by 135 nations," he said.

Mr. Clinton also placed WTO membership for China in the context of a long-term U.S. foreign policy that has sought to entice China into joining the world community on a basis acceptable to the West.

"For 30 years, every president, without regard to party, has worked for a China that contributes to the stability of Asia, that is open to the world, that upholds the rule of law at home and abroad."

He conceded that only the Chinese, and not WTO membership, can create positive change in China. But he argued that the economic liberalization required by WTO rules represents the best hope for a political opening in that authoritarian nation.

"The more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people, their initiative and their imagination," he said. "And when individuals have the power not just to dream but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say."

The president also reviewed the economic benefits of the agreement, which the administration consistently has highlighted as the main argument for permanent NTR.

The WTO agreement "requires China to open its markets, with a fifth of the world's population . . . to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," he said. "All we do is agree to maintain the present access [to the U.S. market], which China enjoys."

---

China's Strategy

New York Times
March 12, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/letters/l12chi.html

Related Articles
China's Threat to Taiwan: Likelihood of Attack Deemed Low (March 7, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030700china-taiwan-assess.html

To the Editor:

In "Behind China's Threats" (front page, March 7), you note that China's military options for attacking Taiwan "remain limited and impractical."

There are other means to victory, as taught by the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. He wrote, "Weapons are ominous tools to be used only when there is no alternative" and "to subdue the enemy's army without fighting is the acme of skill."

How do you do that? By attacking the mind of the enemy, he said, by intimidating him, subverting his will to fight, dividing him internally and from his allies.

ALBERT L. WEEKS Sarasota, Fla., March 7, 2000

--------india

India Warns Chinese Over Nuclear And Missile Assistance To Pakistan

Inside China Today
Mar 8, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=141242

NEW DELHI, -- (Agence France Presse) India has warned China that its assistance to Pakistan's nuclear and missile program is threatening regional stability, a foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

"We did convey our concerns that China's assistance to Pakistan's nuclear and missile program had an adverse impact on regional stability to which we have been obliged to respond in an responsible and restrained manner," R.S. Jassal said.

Jassal was briefing reporters after the two countries wound up a first-ever, two-day meeting on security issues in the Chinese capital Tuesday that was intended to help break down decades of mistrust.

"We conveyed to the Chinese side our overall security objectives, including our nuclear policy," Jassal said.

China has bluntly refused to weaken its opposition to India's nuclear weapons program.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said recently that India should implement "comprehensively and seriously" a UN Security Council resolution asking India to roll back its nuclear weapons programme.

Relations between the world's two most populous countries took a nasty downturn after India conducted a series of underground nuclear tests in May, 1998.

Beijing was furious as India sought to justify the tests by pointing to a perceived threat from China's nuclear arsenal.

Jassal said the Indian side in Beijing had emphasised the importance of being "sensitive" to each other's sovereignty, "including the sovereign right of the country to determine its own security needs and to take whatever steps are essential for national security requirements."

According to Jassal, both sides agreed that differences should not be an impediment to dialogue.

"They agreed that the dialogue process should be sustained and strengthened," he said.

Analysts say China has been taking the lead among the permanent members of the UN Security Council -- which also includes Britain, France, Russia and the United States -- in pressing India to suspend its nuclear program.

China, along with the other four members of the Security Council, is a nuclear weapons state recognized by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

In a bid to repair the damage done by the tests, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh visited Beijing last June, when both sides agreed to start up the security dialogue.

The Indian side at the talks was led by the foreign ministry's joint secretary in charge of disarmament affairs, Rakesh Sood, and the Chinese side by director general of its foreign ministry Asian department, Zhang Jiuhuan.

The next round will be held in India "at a date convenient to both the sides," Jassal said.

The two countries fought a brief but bloody war in 1962 over a terrotorial dispute.

India says China still holds 40,000 square kilometres (16,000 square miles) of its territory in Kashmir, while Beijing lays claim to part of the far-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Indian President K.R. Narayanan plans to visit China in May to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations with Beijing. ((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)

---

India, China to talk despite differences

The Hindu
03/09/00
By C. Raja Mohan
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/03/09/stories/0109000c.htm

NEW DELHI, MARCH 8. India and China have agreed to continue their just-initiated security dialogue despite deep differences over nuclear non-proliferation and arms control.

A spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs here said India and China have decided that these nuclear differences ``should not be an impediment to dialogue which is the only means for their resolution''.

The spokesperson was briefing the press here on the first-ever nuclear consultations between India and China that concluded on Tuesday in Beijing. The talks, according to him, took place in a ``frank and cordial'' atmosphere.

However, when it comes to the nuclear question, the Sino-Indian divergence is deep enough for some plain-speaking from the Indian side. Two issues are of great concern to India - China's attempt to pressure India into giving up its nuclear weapons programme and Beijing's long-standing assistance to Pakistan's nuclear and missile programmes.

The Government is certainly not pleased about Beijing's continual references to the United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 1172, passed in June 1998 following the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. It calls on New Delhi and Islamabad to renounce their programmes to build nuclear weapons and missiles.

Although most of the great powers, including the U.S, have stopped focusing on this resolution, China continues to harp on it. While the U.S. is looking for a way to reconcile India's nuclear security interests with the imperatives of global non- proliferation regime, China seems to be calling for an Indian submission to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime.

New Delhi has also been disappointed by the frequent Chinese calls on the Clinton administration to be firm on nuclear issues with India. Questioned on the Chinese position, the spokesperson said the Indian delegation ``conveyed to the Chinese side its views'' on the UNSC Resolution 1172, and ``emphasised that sensitivity to each other's security concerns was necessary for a productive dialogue''.

Rejecting the demand of the UNSC Resolution, the spokesperson said it is the ``sovereign right'' of a country to ``determine its own security needs and take measures essential for its national security requirements''.

India, according to the spokesperson, also strongly conveyed its concerns that China's assistance to Pakistan's nuclear and missile programmes had an ``adverse impact'' on regional stability to which India has been ``obliged to respond in a responsible and restrained manner''. The Indian delegation to the talks was led by the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Rakesh Sood. The delegation also called on Mr. Yang Wenzhang, a Vice- Minister in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

----------- iraq

STUDENT CALL TO LIFT IRAQ SANCTIONS
From the Student Peace Action Network

From: <awaldref@peace-action.org>
March 9, 2000

Dear fellow anti-Iraq sanctions activists,

I commend you for your continued effots to push for the lifting of economic sanctions against Iraq. There is a lot goint on tight now: the pro-sanctions letter in Congress, a new House bill that would allow humanitarian aid to Iraq, and numerous high profile editorials and news programs focusing on the sanctions.

I want to alert you to an important day of action coming up in April for and by students who wish to lift the sanctions.

On April 14, 2000, the Student Peace Action Network is sponsoring a National Student Day of Action to Lift the Economic Sanctions on Iraq.

THE ACTION: Students will be gathering at post offices nationwide on April 14 to protest the sanctions by sending food, medical and school supplies to Iraq. US Postal Regulations prohibit the transfer (mail) of anything of value and exceeding 12 ounces to Iraq. By attempting to send your package to Iraq, you will be committing an act of civil disobedience and educating others about the brutal sanctions on Iraq.

We have chosen this day because of its proximity to tax-day, April 15 - a day when many American citizens will be mailing their tax returns. This is our chance to describe to them and to the media the conditions in Iraq and US complicity for the deaths of 5,000 to 6,000 people each month.

CAMPAIGN TO END THE SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ

When U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was asked about the loss of innocent lives caused by the economic sanctions against Iraq, she replied, "We think the price is worth it."

Secretary Albright is wrong. Opposition to Saddam Hussein and his regime does not give the United States the right to starve Iraq's population. Clearly, the sanctions against Iraq are both politically ineffective and morally wrong.

We are mobilizing concerned student and youth activists to hold the U.S. government accountable for the unjustified and unnecessary loss of Iraqi lives and to end these economic sanctions!

PLEASE ENDORSE OUR ACTION!

The Student Peace Action Network invites you to endorse our National Student Day of Action to Lift the Sanctions on Iraq. If you send us your support by Friday, March 17, we can be sure to include your organization's name on our organizing packet and flyer. We are hoping to generate good media attention to this national coordinated student effort for justice and peace.

Spread the word! Please invite student activists in your organizations to join us in this common struggle!

To endorse, please reply to this message or email Amber Waldref at span@peace-action.org

ORGANIZING PACKET We provide you with all the materials and support you need to commit your nonviolent act of civil disobedience. For more information and an organizing packet, including exciting Iraq postcards, please contact Amber:

Amber Waldref SPAN National Coordinator 1819 H St. NW Suite 425 Washington DC 20006 ph: 202.862.9740 x 3051 fax: 202.862.9762 span@peace-action.org

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17 Arms Experts Are Named for U.N. Panel on Disarming Iraq

New York Times
March 9, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/030900iraq-inspect.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 8 -- Seventeen international arms experts have been chosen for a new commission, led by Hans Blix of Sweden, that is charged with completing the disarmament of Iraq.

The Security Council has until Thursday to comment on the names proposed by Secretary General Kofi Annan before the appointments are formally made.

The new panel, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, is replacing the United Nations Special Commission, or Unscom, which began the process of disarming Iraq in 1991 after the Persian Gulf war. Iraq, which has to be certified free of prohibited weapons before international sanctions imposed in 1990 are lifted, stopped cooperating with Unscom almost two years ago and has not signaled that it will allow a successor organization to operate there.

Among the new commissioners are three -- from Britain, Canada and Finland -- who were also Unscom commissioners. The American commissioner on Unscom, Charles Duelfer, who was also its deputy chairman, resigned last week. The United States apparently decided not to renominate him.

The American representative on the new board will be Robert Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, who has 25 years' experience working on arms control in government, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The list of commissioners, forwarded to the Security Council by Jayantha Dhanapala, the under secretary general for disarmament who participated in the selection, has fewer strictly technical experts or scientists and more political appointees drawn government arms-control offices.

Together, they will serve as an advisory board to Dr. Blix, a Swedish lawyer and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who became the new chief arms inspector for Iraq on March 1. He is a full-time chairman. The commissioners are part-time consultants.

The panel is considered more broadly representative of the United Nations membership than Unscom, which was dominated by experts from industrial nations with advanced weapons systems. The new body has members from Argentina, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Senegal and Ukraine, as well as from Canada, Finland, Germany and Japan. All five permanent members of the Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are represented, as is the United Nations department of disarmament affairs.

Dr. Blix, who said at a news conference last week that he intended to use the commission as a sounding board, is creating a work plan and an organizational chart, which are not expected to be completed until early next month. At that point, Dr. Blix, the United Nations and the commission's full-time staff will be faced with the challenge of selling the plan to President Saddam Hussein.

In Washington, David Albright, president of the independent Institute for Science and International Security and a former nuclear inspector in Iraq, said that based on Dr. Blix's record in North Korea in the early 1990's, he might surprise critics who still held him responsible for earlier missing a secret Iraqi program as director of the atomic energy agency.

"In North Korea, it was quite clear that Blix knew he had to be extremely determined," said Mr. Albright, who is writing a book on the clandestine North Korean nuclear program.

---

Going nowhere on Iraq

Boston Globe
3/9/2000
By Scott Ritter
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/069/oped/Going_nowhere_on_Iraq+.shtml


Hans Blix, the newly appointed executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Commission, has his work cut out for him. He takes over the difficult task of disarming Iraq from the now defunct United Nations Special Commission. In addition, he finds himself in a political firestorm over economic sanctions against Iraq.

These sanctions are the foundation of the Clinton administration's efforts to contain Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Under new Security Council resolutions that created UNMOVIC, economic sanctions can be suspended (not lifted) only after Blix finds Iraq to have fully complied with its disarmament obligation. Even then, all proceeds from the sale of oil would be controlled by the Security Council.

This arrangement is unacceptable to Iraq, which has refused to cooperate with the new disarmament agency. In light of this, the Clinton administration has proclaimed that economic sanctions will be locked in place for the foreseeable future, despite compelling evidence that these sanctions are responsible for massive suffering on the part of the Iraqi population.

Even if Iraq did agree to cooperate, Blix has a tough job. I spent seven years as a senior weapons inspector with UNSCOM, and can testify to the frustration of trying to disarm Iraq. Blix inherits the task of overseeing the ''quantitative disarmament'' of Iraq - that is, accounting for every last vestige of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

There is no latitude for inspectors to accept anything less than 100 percent disarmament, which, given the combined effect of the passage of time and Iraqi intransigence, leaves the inspectors in the nearly impossible position of trying to prove a negative. The reality that, from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed has been ignored. The chemical, biological, nuclear, and long-range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless.

Iraq did not readily submit to this disarmament. Iraq concealed the fragmented vestiges of its past weapons program. However while these documents and disparate components would be useful if Iraq were to try to reconstitute a weapons of mass destruction manufacturing capability, on their own they represented a viable threat to no one.

However, it is the policy of the Clinton administration to maintain economic sanctions until Saddam Hussein is removed from office. This means that weapons inspections will be supported only so long as they legitimize the continuation of economic sanctions. This is the reality faced by Blix, and understood by Iraq.

Unfortunately, the Clinton administration has no viable vision for Iraq beyond containment through continued economic sanctions. Its policy of regime removal has no chance of success. The Iraqi opposition is plagued by deep internal divisions, and has no meaningful constituency inside Iraq.

America's fumbling embrace of these ineffective exiles-in-waiting guarantees that Saddam Hussein will remain in power for the foreseeable future. It also assures that no progress toward the resumption of meaningful arms control in Iraq will take place, thus condemning the people of Iraq to continued torment with no hope of relief.

The Clinton Iraq policy is morally bankrupt. There can be no honor in a policy that has resulted in the doubling of the infant mortality rate in Iraq and that leads to the death, through malnutrition and untreated disease, of 5,000 children under the age of 5 every month.

It is time for a new approach toward Iraq, one which builds upon the concepts of diplomatic engagement. Trading the lifting (not suspension) of economic sanctions for the resumption of meaningful inspections would represent an important first step. Earlier this year, Iraq opened the door for compromise by indicating its willingness to deal with weapons inspectors if the Security Council agrees to an immediate lifting of sanctions. The Clinton administration, locked into its failed policies of the past, is unable and unwilling to take advantage of this diplomatic opening.

It will be up to the next president of the United States to solve the Iraqi problem. This is an issue that the candidates should be debating. Unfortunately, they all have indicated that they will support a continuation of the policy of containment through economic sanctions. Such policy formulations only guarantee that the next administration will keep stumbling deeper into the Iraqi quagmire. The American people, and the people of Iraq, deserve much better.

Scott Ritter is the author of ''Endgame: Solving the Iraqi Problem Once and For All.''

---

Oil prices in the sanctions balance

Washington Times
March 9, 2000
Gwynne Dyer
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/comment3-03092000.htm

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has publicly told Hans von Sponeck, until recently the U.N. official responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid to Iraq, to shut up about the horrendous impact of sanctions on that country so long as he is drawing a U.N. paycheck. However, that will come to an end pretty soon - and probably so will sanctions. Only it will be Western concern for oil prices, not for the plight of ordinary Iraqis, that finally ends the sanctions.

Mr. Von Sponeck resigned from his post in mid-February, saying he could not stay because he believed that the sanctions were unfairly harming Iraq's civilian population. The U.S. and British governments, the most enthusiastic supporters of sanctions, were furious: "I think an article in the Iraqi press praising his approach to his work is ample evidence of his unsuitability for this post," said James Rubin of the State Department. But Mr. Von Sponeck's predecessor, Dennis Halliday of Ireland, walked out of the job two years ago saying exactly the same thing.

It's almost 10 years since the United Nations imposed a total ban on trade with Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. After the liberation of Kuwait, the trade sanctions were extended until all of Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons had been found and destroyed. Since that task was never satisfactorily completed, the sanctions were never lifted - and Iraq began its long descent into poverty.

The sanctions have utterly destroyed the Iraqi middle class. Women have been driven out of the work force as jobs disappeared and as the formerly irreligious Saddam decided that his best chance of riding out the storm was to wrap himself in the green banner of Islam. Worst hit were the children: A report by the U.N. Children's Fund estimates that the death rate for Iraqi children under age 5 rose from 56 per thousand births in 1984-89, before the Gulf war and sanctions, to 131 per thousand in 1994-99.

There is disagreement about how much of the damage to the health services actually stems from U.N. sanctions and how much from Saddam's choice to spend his limited funds on his own priorities: weapons, palaces and rewards for his key supporters. Some even accuse him of deliberately letting children die in order to generate anti-sanctions propaganda.

But the larger question is what sanctions are really for, given the growing evidence that total elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was simply not in the realm of the possible. The U.N. Special Commission charged with tracking down Saddam's hidden weapons was withdrawn in November, 1998, with Iraq claiming that some of the agents were Western spies and the Western powers saying that Saddam was systematically hindering the commission's work. (Both accusations were true.)

As a face-saving measure, the United States and Britain began regular attacks on Iraqi military targets: During 1999, they conducted around 15,000 sorties over Iraq, dropping thousands of tons of bombs. The United States claims 200 military installations have been destroyed; Iraq claims that 200 civilians have been killed. (Again, both allegations are probably true.) But behind this pantomime, the West has started to move toward ending sanctions.

The goad has been oil prices, which have soared from only $10 a barrel in late 1998 to more than $32 this week, mostly because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has succeeded in restricting its members' output. The best way to persuade OPEC to open the taps and bring the price back down into the $20s is to threaten it with a flood of Iraqi oil on the market. So in December the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1284, offering Baghdad an end to all sanctions in return for a new arms inspection mission in Iraq.

The new mission, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, would be a toothless body that posed no real threat to Saddam's hidden weapons. It is mainly another face-saving device for the West, as is the provision that the embargo will only be lifted if a 120-day inspection turns up no hidden weapons. But Saddam immediately rejected the package. He smells blood now, and he wants a clearer victory.

As oil prices kept on rising, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nizar Hamdoon warned in late January that his country might stop exporting oil entirely. Maybe Saddam is overplaying his hand, as he has in the past. But when it's election year in the United States and the party in power is afraid that rising oil prices will kill the economic boom, I'd put my money on Saddam.

Gwynne Dyer is a columnist based in London.

--------japan

Japan Thinktank Raps China Over Missile Defense

Inside China Today
Mar 9, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=141318

TOKYO, -- (Reuters) A Japanese government thinktank has hit out at China for its opposition to a proposed U.S.-Japan missile defence system, saying Beijing is overly concerned with preserving its military hegemony in the region.

China has voiced strong opposition to the missile system, currently being jointly studied by Japan and the United States, partly out of fears that it will be extended to include Taiwan, which it views as a renegade province.

But in its annual East Asian Strategic Review, the National Institute for Defense Studies, a research arm of Japan's Defense Agency, said the U.S.-Japan project would not affect the region's strategic balance.

"TMD (Theatre Missile Defense) is purely a defensive weapon and will not destabilize (Japan's) strategic relations with its neighbors," said the report, released late on Wednesday.

TMD has its roots in America's "Star Wars" anti-ballistic missile research of the 1980s. Tokyo decided to study the system proposed by the United States to help shield the region from missiles after North Korea launched one over Japan in August 1998.

China has repeatedly accused Tokyo and Washington of exaggerating the North Korean threat as an excuse to project their dual military strength in the region, throw a protective arm around Taiwan and contain China's rise as a world power.

"The Chinese criticism shows nothing but fears that China's unilateral military supremacy over Japan by deploying ballistic missiles could be threatened," the annual report said, in an unusually blunt criticism of Japan's neighbor.

It added that Beijing had no right to criticize the high-tech defense system as it had yet to clear up allegations that it has been engaged in ballistic missile sales, the report said

"It is not acceptable that...(China) criticizes a country which possesses no ballistic missiles for conducting research on TMD."

U.S. officials have said they believe Iran obtained between 100 and 200 Chinese land-and sea-launched anti-ship missiles over the seven years to 1997.

China, currently engaged in bitter disputes with the United States over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and Beijing's missile build-up, has also criticized the tightening of U.S.-Japan military ties, symbolized by the enactment last year of new defense cooperation guidelines.

Under the guidelines enacted last year, Japan can take on a more wide-ranging military role in cooperation with the U.S. during emergencies in areas surrounding Japan.

--------pakistan

Seek specific guarantees, Senators tell Clinton

The Hindu
Thursday, March 09, 2000
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/03/09/stories/03090003.htm

WASHINGTON, MARCH 8. After consistently urging the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, not to travel to Pakistan for fear of sending the wrong messages, leading members of Congress are now asking him to make sure that he gets specific guarantees from Gen. Pervez Musharraf on democracy, terrorism and non- proliferation.

``Recognising that the President has made the decision to go to Pakistan, I expect him to demand concrete actions towards restoring democracy, curbing terrorism and non-proliferation. I continue to be troubled by Pakistan's relationship with organisations that have been linked to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines jet... I hope the President will use this opportunity to address our concerns on security'', said Mr. Sam Gejdenson, the Ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.

The Democrat from Connecticut, who introduced a resolution last October condemning the military coup in Pakistan, has made the point that despite many assurances to the contrary, Gen. Musharraf has taken no steps towards democracy and has further unravelled Pakistan's constitution and undermined the judiciary and the legislature.

``The return of democracy should be the main item on the agenda when President Clinton meets with Gen. Musharraf during the stopover in Pakistan'', said Mr. Gary Ackerman, co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, stressing also that the junta in Islamabad must take ``verifiable steps'' to stop the proxy war against India, especially in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

``I will impress upon the administration that India continues to bear the brunt of fundamentalist terrorism emanating from across its western border. India is one of the biggest victims of state- sponsored international terrorism... Kashmir and its peace loving people have become victims of cross-border terrorism. This murderous phenomena should be fought most decisively by all civilised societies and governments'', the Democratic lawmaker from New York said in a statement.

Hoping that Mr. Clinton's visit will offer an opportunity for some ``straight talk'', the New Jersey Democrat, Mr. Frank Pallone, wants discussions on Islamabad's need to dramatically change its course in a number of key areas. ``It is important that President Clinton express to Gen. Musharraf that the U.S. is very concerned about Pakistan's role in fomenting instability in Kashmir, about the links between Pakistan and terrorist organisations and about Pakistan's role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technology'', Mr. Pallone said.

Arguing it was not right to acknowledge a military government with such a high level visit, Democratic Congressman from the State of Washington, Mr. Jim McDermott, said that he hoped Mr. Clinton will use the opportunity to press Gen. Musharraf on his ``languishing plans to restore democracy to Pakistan'' and that it is the President's duty to demand a return to the rule of law and full democracy.

Talking to the New York Times, the former American Ambassador to Pakistan, Mr. Robert Oakley, said too much energy has been spent on focussing on the question of whether Mr. Clinton should go to Pakistan, rather than on what will be achieved.

``Musharraf is not one to back down in the face of U.S. pressure. If he's prepared to send a message to the Indian Prime Minister through Clinton privately that he's willing to take credible steps on Kashmir'', then the visit might be worthwhile, Mr. Oakley said.

UNI reports:

Several pro-Pakistan Congressmen, including Mr. Dan Burton and Mr. Tom Campbell (both Republican) and Mr. Tim Johnson (Democrat) talked of U.S. mediation in Kashmir in their statements welcoming Mr. Clinton's decision to visit Islamabad.

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US Ties With Pakistan, India Urged

03/08/00
By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Maintaining contact with both India and Pakistan could be ``extremely important'' to U.S. national interests, the State Department said Wednesday in defending President Clinton's decision to add Pakistan to his tour of South Asia this month.

Spokesman James P. Rubin noted that Clinton's contacts with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last summer helped defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

Clinton, who is scheduled to depart Washington on March 18 and return the following weekend, will spend several hours in Pakistan after a much longer stay in India. A stop in Bangladesh also is planned.

The president made his decision to go to Pakistan after an internal debate about the propriety of visiting a country where the military seized power from an elected government in October.

In addition, there are U.S. concerns about Pakistani support for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which harbors reputed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Also of concern are the ties between Pakistani authorities and Islamic militants trying to oust India from the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Rubin said Clinton does not intend to mediate the Kashmir conflict, a stand certain the please India because of its unbending opposition to any outside intervention in the dispute. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir.

Their differences over the Himalayan region took on a new dimension when both engaged in underground tests of nuclear devices in 1998.

The United States and Pakistan enjoyed close Cold War ties but there has been a deterioration of late, as Rubin noted.

``We have made clear our concerns about democracy, made clear our profound concerns about not enough being done to combat terrorism. And we've made clear our profound concerns about nonproliferation,'' he said.

At another point, he said, Clinton is going to Pakistan ``because the United States is a friend of the Pakistani nation. It is not because he approves of or acquiesces in the government of the General (Pervez) Musharraf.''

Meanwhile, Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi expressed hope Wednesday that Clinton's visit will pave the way for some type of U.S. role in resolving Indo-Pakistani disputes.

``We want to try to set in motion a peace process,'' she told reporters.

The two countries have never resolved disputes on their own and make progress only when there is third party intercession, Lodhi said.
___

On the Net: State Department's Bureau of South Asian Affairs: http://www.state.gov/www/regions/sa/index.html

The CIA World Factbook's entry on Pakistan: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/pk.html

---

India Isn't Happy at Clinton's Changed Itinerary, but Pakistan Is

New York Times
March 9, 2000
By CELIA W. DUGGER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030900india-us.html

Related Articles
Clash Over India Led to Coup, Pakistan's Ex-Premier Testifies
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030900india-pakistan-rtrs.html

Clinton Decides to Visit Pakistan, After All (March 8, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030800clinton-pakistan.html

Fears Encircle War Games on India-Pakistan Border (Feb. 18, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/021800india-pakistan.html

Maps
Pakistan From Merriam-Webster.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/nytmaps.pl?pakistan

India From Merriam-Webster.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/nytmaps.pl?india
NEW DELHI, March 8 -- Indian officials reacted today with understated disgruntlement to President Clinton's decision to call briefly on their adversary, Pakistan, after a five-day tour of India this month.

Pakistani officials were happy and relieved.

In a telephone conversation, India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, warned Mr. Clinton on Tuesday night that Pakistan's military rulers would use his decision to claim legitimacy for their coup on Oct. 12 -- and that is what happened today. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the army chief who has ruled Pakistan since the coup, told a Reuters reporter in Islamabad that Mr. Clinton's decision "vindicates the legitimacy of my government's stand and gives credence to our aim to put things right in our country."

President Clinton's decision came after weeks of infighting in his administration. White House officials said the purpose of the trip was not to sanction the coup, but to deliver a message to the military rulers that they should restore democracy, ratchet down the tensions with India and ban an Islamic fundamentalist group that the United States has accused of terrorism.

While Prime Minister Vajpayee was not surprised by the decision, which had been expected, and though he is aware that India will still be the main event on Mr. Clinton's South Asia trip, he was nonetheless displeased.

The Indians have campaigned to isolate Pakistan since an Indian Airlines commercial flight was hijacked Dec. 24 with what India maintained was Pakistani military sponsorship. Indian diplomats have been pressing the United States to declare Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism and lobbying Mr. Clinton to bypass Pakistan on his trip.

When the president finally made his decision on Tuesday, he called Mr. Vajpayee to break the news before announcing it publicly. H. K. Dua, spokesman for the prime minister, said Mr. Vajpayee told the president that his visit to Pakistan "would give the military regime a signal of support." Still, Mr. Vajpayee assured Mr. Clinton that he would be warmly welcomed here.

Officials in Pakistan, which is smaller and economically weaker than India, sought to put a bright face on the president's decision to stop for a few hours in Islamabad. They said they believed that Mr. Clinton would use his influence to help them resolve their half-century-old dispute with India over the territory of Kashmir.

"I have a good feeling that President Clinton will urge India to also take the path of negotiations and a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute," Tariq Altaf, a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Office, said today.

Though Mr. Clinton has repeatedly stated that the United States will not mediate the Kashmir conflict until India welcomes its intervention -- something India has adamantly refused to do -- he has also repeatedly said that South Asia is one of the most dangerous places on earth because of India and Pakistan's festering, violent clash over Kashmir.

Javed Jabbar, an adviser to General Musharraf, told reporters in Multan, a city in the Punjab, that the talks between Mr. Clinton and Pakistani officials would focus on Kashmir and other basic issues. He called the president's decision to visit "important for peace and progress in South Asia and it justifies our stand."

He also said it was a blow to India's prime minister, who "has been continuously trying to malign Pakistan and encourage the U.S. to declare it a terrorist state."

---

Pakistani Leader Hails Clinton Visit

Washington Post
Thursday, March 9, 2000; Page A22
By Sheree Sardar Reuters
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/09/180l-030900-idx.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 8-Pakistan's military ruler today welcomed President Clinton's decision to include Islamabad on his tour of southern Asia and linked it to efforts to solve the 52-year Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf said he was "very pleased" with the White House announcement to include Pakistan, which was not on the original itinerary because of Washington's disapproval of a military takeover here in October.

He interpreted the announcement as a gesture of support for his administration, which seized power Oct. 12 in a bloodless coup and promised to end corruption and energize the economy.

The trip "vindicates the legitimacy of my government's stand and gives credence to our aim to put things right in our country," Musharraf said.

He linked Clinton's visit later this month to attempts to find a peaceful solution to the issue of Kashmir, the divided Himalayan region that has triggered two of the three wars between India and Pakistan and brought them to the brink of a fourth last summer.

"It also shows Mr. Clinton's desire to resolve the Kashmir problem and to bring peace to our region," he said.

"We are confident that the U.S. president will utilize this visit to engage in efforts to resolve the Kashmir dispute, which is the root cause of tensions in South Asia," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said later.

Musharraf and the government of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, which he overthrew, have placed considerable weight on U.S. influence to resolve the conflict, despite India's rejection of any third-party mediation.

Clinton, who is to visit India and Bangladesh beginning March 20, promised last July 4 to take a "personal interest" in the settlement of a dispute that has attracted world attention since the rivals conducted nuclear tests in 1998.

Clinton made that pledge when Sharif visited Washington during efforts to end a 10-week military standoff between Pakistani-backed infiltrators and the Indian army in the Kargil mountains of Indian Kashmir.

Pakistan pulled back what it called "freedom fighters" battling Indian rule of Kashmir and what India called a shadowy force that included and was led by Pakistani regular troops.

---

Clinton Explains Stop in Pakistan

Yahoo News
01:11 PM ET 03/09/00
By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564848572-cb4<CENTER></CENTER>

WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Clinton said today ``it would be a grave mistake'' to view his upcoming visit to Pakistan as an endorsement of the military coup that overthrew a democratic government last year.

The president said he decided to go because he believes that ``America's interests and values will be advanced if we maintain some contact with, or communications with the Pakistani government.''

Clinton is to stop in Pakistan after a five-day visit to its arch-rival, India, later this month. White House officials say the Pakistan visit will be limited to just a few hours but will include a meeting with army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the nation's military ruler.

The administration had debated for weeks whether Clinton should go to Pakistan, and if so, what message that would send. The fear was that Musharraf would see it as conferring legitimacy on his government.

``It's certainly not an endorsement of the military coup,'' Clinton said during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters on the South Lawn.

``I think it would be a mistake not to go,'' the president said.

``But it would be a grave mistake for people to think my going represents some sort of endorsement of the nondemocratic process which occurred there. That's not true.''

He said the United States would have greater influence on the future direction of Pakistan, in terms of restoring democracy and avoiding dangerous conflicts in South Asia, by keeping channels open.

``After all, Pakistan was our ally throughout the Cold War.

Since I've been president, Pakistan on more than one occasion has helped us to arrest terrorists, often at some risk to the regime.''

---

Pakistan stop 'historic'

Washington Times
March 9, 2000
Embassy Row
By James Morrison
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-03092000.htm

Pakistan Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi hailed the news that President Clinton intends to include her country on his visit this month to India and Bangladesh.

"The president's visit to our region could be truly historic if it leads to promotion of peace and security in South Asia and facilitates a just and durable settlement of the Kashmir dispute based on the wishes of the Kashmiri people," she said in a statement.

Mr. Clinton is expected to spend about four hours in Pakistan and meet the military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. He will spend five days in India and one in Bangladesh.

--------russia

Moscow Jet Crash Kills Nine

Associated Press
March 9, 2000 Filed at 11:59 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Plane-Crash.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- A private passenger jet crashed today while taking off from Moscow's main airport, killing all nine aboard including an oil company president and a journalist who did work for CBS' ``60 Minutes,'' officials said.

The Yak-40 aircraft, on a charter flight from Moscow to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, rose to an altitude of about 150 feet, then plunged to the ground just beyond the end of the runway, officials said. There was no indication what caused the crash, they said.

Among the victims were journalist Artyom Borovik, and Ziya Bazhayev, president of the Oil Alliance company, said Alexander Melnikov, a spokesman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

The crash also killed the plane's two other passengers and five crew members, ministry spokeswoman Marina Ryklina said.

Sheremetyev airport was closed immediately after the crash, and incoming planes were diverted to other airports. It was reopened about two hours later.

Police said the aircraft's flight recorders had been recovered and were being examined, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. So far, investigators are studying ``technical aspects of the tragedy,'' and foul play has not been ruled out, airport security officers told the news agency.

The Moscow Transport Prosecutor's office opened a criminal investigation to see whether there were violations of safety rules.

The flight commander, Sergei Yakushkin, was an experienced pilot with more than 7,000 hours of flying time, according to Rudolf Teimurazov, the deputy chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee.

The Yak-40, a medium range Soviet-era aircraft that carries 20-30 passengers, had been in operation for 24 years and was to be taken out of service next year, Interfax reported.

Borovik, a well known Moscow journalist, was also a special Moscow correspondent and interpreter for ``60 Minutes,'' appearing on the show four times between 1991 and 1995.

In his first ``60 Minutes'' piece, he collaborated with CBS newsman George Crile on a story that garnered tremendous publicity about a laboratory in Russia called ``Room 19'' where the brains of Lenin and other revolutionary leaders were pickled in jars.

``It was emblematic of how hopelessly bureaucratic and secretive things were and characterized the decline of the Soviet system,'' said ``60 Minutes'' spokesman Kevin Tedesco.

In 1992, he also became the first Russian journalist to win the U.S.-based Overseas Press Club's highly prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award.

He subsequently did several stories for ``60 Minutes'' about the continuing nuclear capabilities of Russia even after the fall of Communism.

------

On the Net: Yak-40 information:
www.bird.ch/Russians/Yak40/YK40P01.html

--------ukraine

Ukraine Urges Russia, U.S. To Resolve ABM Treaty Row

Russia Today
Mar 9, 2000
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=141569

GENEVA, -- (Reuters) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk urged Russia and the United States on Thursday to resolve their dispute over a proposed U.S. national missile defense system.

In a speech to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, he said that a country's moves to lessen the threat of a missile attack from a rogue state "should not contradict its treaty obligations" under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

The United States, which will decide in the next months whether to build a national missile defense system to protect U.S. cities from attack by states such as Iraq and North Korea, is seeking Russian agreement to modify the landmark 1972 treaty.

Russia and China strongly oppose amendments to the pact limiting such systems. They argue that the ABM is a cornerstone of global nuclear deterrence which the building of an anti-missile defense would destroy.

"Ukraine keeps an intent eye on the situation around the ABM treaty," Tarasyuk told the U.N. arms control forum in Geneva.

"We believe that possible actions of a party to the ABM Treaty in order to decrease the threat of a missile attack from a rogue state should not contradict its treaty obligations.

"We call upon the USA and Russia to find a mutually acceptable solution of this problem, to avoid negative effect on the START I and START II," Ukraine's foreign minister added.

DUMA TO VOTE SOON ON STALLED START II

Russia's Duma, the lower house of parliament, is due to vote soon on the stalled START II arms-reduction treaty. Signed in 1993 and later ratified by the U.S. Senate, it outlines deep cuts in long-range strategic nuclear weapons.

"Now it is imperative to achieve START II entry into force and resume talks on START III," Tarasyuk said.

Top U.S. and Russian arms-control officials met in Geneva last week for their latest round of confidential talks on ABM and START III, which both sides say are inextricably linked.

Ukraine, once the world's third-largest nuclear power, gave up nuclear weapons installed on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The former Soviet republic of about 50 million people is squeezed between the growing European Union and NATO military alliance to the west and a suspicious Russia to the east.

"We fully realized that clinging to the nuclear legacy would seriously jeopardize our independence, destabilize the world order and lead to international isolation," Tarasyuk said.

"Presently Ukraine is actively integrating into the European and Euro-Atlantic structures, maintains good relations with its neighbors and is an acknowledged net contributor to European security - all this being done without any need for nuclear weapons," he added.

The U.N. arms control forum, the world's only multilateral body of its kind, has 66 member states including the five official nuclear weapon states - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - as well as nuclear-capable India and Pakistan.

--------us nuc waste

Friends of OPEC

Washington Times
March 9, 2000
Kenneth D. Smith
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/smith-20000309.htm

When the Soviet Union collapsed a decade ago, then-Sen. Al Gore didn't have much time to celebrate. He could already see a new enemy, the environmental equivalent of Warsaw Pact troops landing on the Jersey shore: automobiles. Yes, automobiles. "We now know," he wrote in 1992, "that their cumulative impact on the global environment is posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront."

The problem is that cars, like humans, exhale carbon dioxide, and allegedly threaten to contribute to global warming. In his book "Earth in the Balance," Mr. Gore set out to barrage the enemy with a volley of regulations and taxes. He called in particular for a tax on the carbon content of fossil fuels to discourage their use and regulations requiring greater auto fuel efficiency. U.S. lawmakers, somewhat less fearful of the auto invasion, declined his call to arms. But Clinton administration environmental policies, for which Mr. Gore has been only too happy to claim credit, have helped bolster the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and, in effect, given Mr. Gore what Congress would not: substantially higher gas prices.

Those prices have hit $1.50 a gallon around the country in recent weeks as OPEC, the most powerful cartel since the teachers union took over education, slowed oil production a year ago to jack up fuel costs and gouge American consumers. Analysts say the price could hit $2 a gallon by the summer driving season. Such prices could force consumers, few of whom are as wealthy as the Clintons and Gores, to seek out smaller, gas-sipping econoboxes that go further on a tank of gas. That downsizing would put their safety at greater risk in auto accidents - a grim barter in blood for oil - doesn't seem to bother the vice president or any other environmentalist.

Messrs. Clinton and Gore have helped make all this possible. In 1995, both the U.S. House and Senate passed legislation that would have opened a tiny portion - one-hundredth of 1 percent - of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The U.S. Geological Survey has raised estimates of the amount of oil under that barren ground to as many as 16 billion barrels - a sum that could replace all the oil coming from Saudi Arabia for 30 years. (You remember Saudi Arabia? The country that used American servicemen and women to hold off Saddam only now to reward this country with extortionate gas prices? The same.)

Local Eskimo groups, who hoped to use money from the project to fund new schools and hospitals, backed the legislation. Workers wanted it for the jobs it would provide. Governments wanted it for the tax revenues it would generate. One might even argue it would be good for the environment since it would make the United States less reliant on the kind of tanker traffic that occasionally results in an Exxon Valdez-like oil spill. But the administration vetoed the bill on environmental grounds anyway. Two years ago, it also withdrew from possible oil and gas leasing more than 80 percent of the outer-continental shelf.

But the administration didn't stop there. It has done its best to block the possible opening of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada - in defiance of both science and law - threatening the well-being of a significant source of energy in this country. More recently, it has set Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner off on a legal jihad against coal-fired Southern and Midwestern utilities. Their emissions allegedly threaten downwind areas with acid rain, deforestation, Christian fundamentalism and so on. Again, there is no basis in science for such fear-mongering, but the larger point is that Mr. Gore's agenda is already under way. He called for "prospective bans" on old technologies in "Earth in the Balance," and he's doing his best to get them.

The effect is to make the United States that much more dependent on foreign oil. During this administration, this country's imports of foreign oil have risen from 48 percent to 56. And OPEC is now taking it to the bank.

What did Mr. Gore think would happen? In his book, he offered a boutique energy plan, a Strategic Environment Initiative (get the play on Strategic Defense Initiative?) filled with environmentally friendly sources of energy like windmills and solar power. He also called for energy conservation through use of mass transit and long-lasting light bulbs. Alas, windmills have turned out to be much more efficient at killing endangered species and other birds who blunder into them than producing power, and most people have discovered that mass transit, even when it's running, isn't terribly convenient. Perhaps that's why the vice president and other high-ranking officials tend to make their way around Washington in sport-utility vehicles rather than Metro.

Most people wouldn't mind the hypocrisy, but when administration policies make it more expensive for mere citizens to get around as easily as politicians, they may not be so appreciative. The next time they fill up on $1.50 a gallon gas, they should be sure to thank Mr. Gore. OPEC certainly is.

E-mail: smithk@twtmail.com

Kenneth Smith is deputy editor of The Washington Times editorial page.His column appears on Thursdays.

-------- us nuc weapons

Biden Joins G.O.P. in Call for a Delay in Missile-Defense Plan

New York Times
March 9, 2000
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/00/03/09/news/washpol/clinton-defense.html

Related Article
Missile Test Is Rushed, Pentagon Official Says (Feb. 15, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/021500missile-tests.html

WASHINGTON, March 8 _ Adding weight to a growing bipartisan movement, a senior Democratic senator has warned President Clinton that he should leave the decision on deploying a national missile-defense system to the next administration.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democrat from Delaware who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told an audience of scientists on Friday at Stanford University that he did not believe that the North Korean missile threat was sufficient to warrant a vastly expensive system that was not technically proven.

Further, Mr. Biden said deploying the system could not only severely upset relations with Russia, but also encourage China to increase sharply its warheads, prompting an arms race in Asia.

Mr. Clinton is scheduled to make a decision on a national missile-defense system in the summer. His top arms negotiators have been talking to the Russians over six months about deploying the system in a way that Moscow might find acceptable.

Mr. Biden stated his opposition after Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska on the Foreign Relations Committee, called for a delay until a new president took office.

Henry A. Kissinger recently wrote that an election year was not the time to proceed on national missile defense.

Mr. Biden, who amplified his comments on Monday in an interview, also cited election year politics as a reason for postponing a decision. Mr. Biden said that he disagreed with White House advisers who say Vice President Al Gore and the Democrats need to proceed with the system to inoculate themselves against Republican criticism of being weak on national defense and that the Democrats would be most successful by campaigning on the strength of the economy, and not allowing the Republicans to turn the focus to foreign policy.

"This is going to cost $30 billion, and there has been no national debate," Mr. Biden added. "This doesn't make sense absent public debate."

In explaining his opposition to Mr. Clinton's making a far-reaching foreign-policy decision under such time pressure, Mr. Biden said he was particularly uneasy with the missile-defense system because he thought that it would essentially mean withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.

That treaty, which its advocates regard as the cornerstone of arms control, forbids a missile-defense system that protects an entire nation. The administration has been trying to persuade acting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to amend the ABM treaty so that Mr. Clinton could decide on a system without scrapping the pact. Russia has shown few signs of agreeing.

In his interview, Mr. Biden said he had an alternative idea to answer the threat from North Korea's Taepo Dong missiles, which are believed to be able to deliver strategic warheads to the United States.

Mr. Biden said an Aegis sea-based system with missiles based off the North Korean coast would let the United States intercept the missiles in their ascents. Such a system would not endanger the whole fabric of arms control or threaten nonproliferation safeguards in the way that a national missile defense would, Mr. Biden said.

When Mr. Biden spoke at Stanford, former Defense Secretary William S. Perry was in the audience. Mr. Perry has also expressed reservations about the system's being the best way to counter the threat of long-range missiles from North Korea and in Congressional testimony favored the sea-based system off North Korea.

---

Pentagon Strikes Back on Charge of Fake Anti-Missile Tests

International Herald Tribune
Paris, Thursday, March 9, 2000
The Associated Press
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/THU/IN/missile.2.html

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has defended its missile-defense program against accusations that TRW, a top contractor in developing the system, faked results of important tests and overstated a vital component's effectiveness.

''I don't believe we have overstated the results of this program,'' a Defense Department spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, said Tuesday. Nina Schwartz, a former TRW engineer, has alleged that the company doctored results from computer and flight tests of its anti-missile sensor in order to make the sensor look better to the government, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The allegations are contained in a false-claims suit filed by Ms. Schwartz.

President Bill Clinton is to decide this summer whether to begin deploying a multibillion-dollar national missile defense system. Its cost and impact on arms-control agreements have come under increasing scrutiny.

TRW built the sensor for a Boeing ''kill vehicle,'' or warhead, to be sent on a missile into space. There, it is supposed to intercept enemy missiles, distinguish them from decoys an adversary might use to protect its intercontinental missile, and then destroy the missile.

Ms. Schwartz alleges that computer tests showed the sensor does not work nearly so well as proclaimed.

Moreover, she says, a June 1997 flight test of how well the sensor detected a missile in space did not fare as effectively as TRW contended.

Ms. Schwartz said the Pentagon had planned nine dummy warheads in the tests but cut back to one after it realized how difficult the task was.

---

Today in Congress

Washington Post
Thursday, March 9, 2000; Page A06
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/09/173l-030900-idx.html

SENATE

Armed Services--9:30 a.m. Energy Department's FY 2001 budget request for atomic energy defense activities. Energy Sec. Bill Richardson. 222 Russell Office Bldg.

---

Satellite Launch OK'd; Rocket Will Miss Pacific Atoll

Space.com
posted: 07:43 am EST 09 March 2000
By Andrew Bridges
Pasadena Bureau Chief
http://www.space.com/space/launches/pacific_launch_000309.html

The launch of a U.S. government research and development satellite got a green light late Wednesday after officials determined a portion of the rocket used to ferry the spacecraft into orbit will not endanger a tiny inhabited south Pacific atoll when it falls to Earth.

The Department of Energy's Multi-spectral Thermal Imager (MTI) will now blast off aboard a Taurus rocket at 4:23 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday (9:23 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The satellite had been scheduled for a February 28 launch. However U.S. Air Force officials called the launch off after French Polynesian officials voiced concerns that the rocket's second stage could impact one of the French overseas territory's 120 islands -- the best known of which is Tahiti.

The 10-foot (3-meter) stage - technically the rocket's third - typically falls within a 300-square-mile (780-square-kilometer) impact zone.

Initially, the U.S. Air Force thought the French Polynesians were referring to Maria, a tiny atoll that is listed in United Nations documents as being uninhabited.

However, the island in question was actually the inhabited atoll of Marutea, which the French Polynesians pointed out lies within the rectangular box indicating where the stage would likely come down to Earth.

After poring over data, officials agreed that Marutea lies within the box - but not within an elliptical area within that box that represents the actual drop zone, said 1st Lt. Colleen Lehne, of the Air Force Space and Missile Center.

"To simply things, they expand the ellipse into a rectangle, giving it specific longitude and latitude lines to make it easier for seamen and mariners to avoid the area," Lehne said. "That's when atoll Marutea came into play."

Lehne said she was uncertain how the Air Force confused the two islands.

Treaty monitoring and science

Once in orbit, the 1,305-pound (587-kilogram) satellite is designed to peer down on Earth, using a telescope to "see" in 15 spectral bands - ranging from visible to long-wave infrared.

The satellite should test the ability to spot from space the telltale signs of weapons production, such as cooling ponds alongside nuclear reactors and traces of dust associated with the processing of uranium ore.

Coincidentally, one of the closest islands to Maria is Muroroa, where the French have tested nuclear weapons since 1966.

Confirmation that MTI can spy from space on sites that are readily identifiable from the ground could then lead to future satellites that could be pressed into the hunt for previously unknown or undisclosed weapons factories across the globe.

The satellite will also be able to map chemical spills, vegetation health and volcanic activity. More than 100 researchers drawn from 50 different defense and civilian agencies intend to work on MTI-gathered data.

The launch, the fifth of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus rocket, will be carried live on SPACE.com.

The launch window opens at 4:23 a.m. EST (9:23 GMT) and remains open until 4:50 a.m. EST (9:50 GMT) on Sunday.

----------- us nuc facilities

Inspector General Finds Nuclear Agency Misled Congressman

Nuclear Regulator Allowed Industry - Not Public - to Review Commission Policy Paper

Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project
For Immediate Release:
Contact: James Riccio (202) 546-4996 Angela Bradbery (202) 588-7741

March 9, 2000
http://www.citizen.org - cmep@citizen.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- An Inspector General report finding that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) invited a nuclear industry group to help shape policy and later misled a congressman about the matter reinforces the widespread contention that the agency does the bidding of the industry at the expense of the public, Public Citizen said today.

The report, released today, found that the NRC misled Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) regarding the release of an internal commission policy paper to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). The NRC shared the paper, which addressed the NRC's policy governing generic communications, with the NEI and provided the institute with an exclusive opportunity to review and comment on it. The NRC told Markey's office that the draft was simultaneously made available to the public when in fact it wasn't, the report said. In fact, the NRC never solicited public comment on the document.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has abdicated its regulatory responsibility to the nuclear industry and excluded the public from the process," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. "The NRC is supposed to be regulating the nuclear industry, not the other way around."

Because these policy papers are the primary decision-making tool of the commission, Public Citizen believes that it is improper for the nuclear industry to have an exclusive opportunity to review and alter their contents. Allowing NEI to review and alter NRC's policy papers is in direct conflict with at least two of the NRC's "principles of good regulation," which include independence and openness, Hauter said. At the very least, the NRC should withdraw the document unless and until all interested parties have an opportunity to review it and provide comment, she said.

"The NRC gives little more than lip service to the notion of public participation while simultaneously leaking internal commission documents to the nuclear industry and then proceeds to lie about it to Congress," said James Riccio, senior analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. "It is no wonder that the NRC has garnered the disdain and mistrust of the public it is supposed to represent and protect."

The IG report, entitled "Misleading NRC Response to a Congressional Request for Information Concerning Circumstances Surrounding the Release of Draft SECY - 99-143," states that "information contained in a July 19, 1999, letter signed by Chairman Dicus to Congressman Markey was inaccurate and misleading." The letter from interim NRC Chairman Greta Dicus "inaccurately depicts that between April 7 and 22, 1999, the NRC staff simultaneously provided the draft SECY to NEI and the public."

The report determined that the inaccurate information given Markey's office was "built on erroneous information" supplied by someone involved in the development of the draft document. The information was not verified before being sent to Markey's office. Further, more accurate information was available but was not given to Markey. The report determined that NRC staff "did not exercise due care" in ensuring the accuracy of the information.

"Unfortunately, the NRC is neither independent nor open, and neither objective nor unbiased," Riccio said. "This investigation reinforces the public's perception that the NRC has been thoroughly corrupted and captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate."

###

For more information about consumer issues, please visit Public Citizen's Web site at www.citizen.org.

--------

Today in Congress - SENATE

Washington Post
Thursday, March 9, 2000; Page A06
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/09/173l-030900-idx.html

Environment and Public Works--9 a.m. Clean air, wetlands, private property & nuclear safety subc. Oversight hearing on Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 406 DOB.

----------

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/3/9/11.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 9, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES MADELYN R. CREEDON AS DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR DEFENSE PROGRAMS, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

The President today announced his intent to nominate Madelyn R. Creedon as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security Administration at the Department of Energy.

Ms. Madelyn R. Creedon, of Indianapolis, Indiana, is currently Counsel for the Minority Staff of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and is responsible for the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. From 1995-1997, she served as Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy for National Security Programs. Ms. Creedon was General Counsel for the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission from 1994-1995. From 1990-1994, she was Counsel for the Majority Staff of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Previously, Ms. Creedon spent ten years as a trial attorney and Acting Assistant General Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Energy.

Ms. Creedon received a B.A. degree from the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana and a J.D. degree from St. Louis University School of Law.

The Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security Administration at the Department of Energy directs the nation's nuclear weapons research, development, testing, production, and surveillance programs. This individual also is responsible for the management of defense nuclear waste and byproducts and oversees research in inertial confinement fusion.

-------

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/2/1/23.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
February 1, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES EDWARD MCGAFFIGAN, JR. AS A MEMBER OF THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

The President today announced his intent to nominate Edward McGaffigan, Jr. as a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Mr. Edward McGaffigan, Jr., of Arlington, Virginia, has been a member of the NRC since August 1996. From 1983 to 1996, Mr. McGaffigan served on Senator Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) staff in a variety of capacities. Throughout the thirteen and one half years, he supported the Senator's work on defense policy, technology policy, personnel and acquisition reform, and non-proliferation and export control policy. >From 1981 to 1983, Mr. McGaffigan served as a senior policy analyst and later as Assistant Director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, overseeing international scientific cooperation and export control matters, while holding a dual appointment on the National Security Council staff. From 1976 to 1983, Mr. McGaffigan was a member of the Foreign Service, where he carried out various assignments within the State Department dealing with U.S.-Soviet relations and politico-military issues. From June 1974 to September 1974, Mr. McGaffigan worked at the RAND Corporation where his work included evaluating Japanese science and technology issues.

Mr. McGaffigan holds a master's degree in physics from California Institute of Technology, a master's degree in public policy from Harvard, and graduated summa cum laude, with a B.A. in Physics from Harvard University.

The NRC is responsible for ensuring adequate protection of the public health and safety, the common defense and security, and the environment with respect to the use of nuclear materials for civilian purposes in the United States. Activities licensed and regulated by the Commission include commercial nuclear power reactors, non-power research, test and training reactors, fuel cycle facilities, medical, academic and industrial uses of nuclear materials, and the transportation, storage and disposal of nuclear materials and waste.

--------- nevada

Energy secretary hopes for waste pact this session Compromise needed on bills

Thursday, March 09, 2000
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By Tony Batt Donrey Washington Bureau
http://www.lvrj.com/cgi-bin/printable.cgi?/lvrj_home/2000/Mar-09-Thu-2000/news/13130100.html

WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Wednesday he still hopes to cut a deal with Congress this year that would speed nuclear waste storage in Nevada.

"We (were) close to a deal in the Senate, and, hopefully, the House can revive this," Richardson told the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee.

"The speaker (Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.) has spoken to me about this issue," he said. "I'd like to get this issue resolved because there's waste all over the place, and we're anxious to get it done."

Calls to Hastert and House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, were not returned Wednesday. At least one lawmaker influential on energy issues, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, has said he is recommending the House move forward on nuclear waste.

If the House chooses to proceed on nuclear waste this year, it would vote on a bill that drew stronger opposition from the Clinton administration and Nevada than a measure passed last month by the Senate on a 64-34 vote.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., declined to name his source but said he was told Wednesday there are no plans to advance nuclear waste legislation in the House.

"There is no enthusiasm in the House Commerce Committee to take up the Senate bill, and there is not much support in the (nuclear power) industry for the House bill," Gibbons said.

Steve Unglesbee, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the industry continues to talk to the House Republican leadership about the need for nuclear waste legislation.

"We're simply trying to make the point, in talking to leadership, that if they want to take up the House bill, fine. If they want to take up the Senate bill, fine," Unglesbee said. "But the clock continues to tick, and the suits are still out there."

Unglesbee was referring to lawsuits by utilities against the Department of Energy for missing a Jan. 31, 1998, deadline for moving spent nuclear fuel rods to a permanent storage facility. Richardson has acknowledged that the lawsuits, which could total up to $80 billion, are a big reason why he wants to reach an agreement with Congress on how to proceed with nuclear waste disposal.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court's ruling that the utilities are due compensation, but the Energy Department does not have to move the waste.

The House bill, passed by the Commerce Committee by a 40-6 vote in April, would require interim storage of nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site by June 30, 2003. The Senate bill does not require interim storage but would require permanent storage by 2007 at a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

If the House passes its nuclear waste legislation, members of both chambers would engage in conference negotiations to resolve differences with the Senate bill. A completely different bill could emerge in a compromise that could avoid a veto threat, particularly if Richardson participates in conference negotiations.

Whatever happens, Barton, the chief sponsor of the House bill, remains confident about the ultimate disposition of 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste.

"It's going to Yucca Mountain. It's not a question of if but when," he told The Hill, a weekly newspaper that covers Congress.

-------- new mexico

GOP Accuses Reno on Espionage Probe

Associated Press
March 9, 2000 Filed at 3:09 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-Espionage.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government investigation of alleged Chinese nuclear spying at Los Alamos National Laboratory was ``inept'' and ``incredibly lax,'' a report from a Republican senator said.

A GOP colleague immediately criticized the report from Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said Specter's report ignored key evidence, while Specter vowed to ``raise some hell'' with Grassley.

Specter's Wednesday report faulted Attorney General Janet Reno for rejecting the FBI's 1997 request to bug the home and office of Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos scientist charged last year with mishandling U.S. nuclear weapons secrets. The report said Reno's refusal hampered the investigation of Lee and allowed him to continue to transfer secret nuclear weapons data to his home computer and portable data tapes.

``It is difficult to comprehend how officials entrusted with the responsibility for protecting our national security could have failed to discover what was really happening with Dr. Lee, given all the indicators that were present,'' Specter's report said.

Lee was fired a year ago and indicted in December on 59 felony counts of mishandling classified information at the New Mexico weapons lab. He has pleaded innocent. The indictment does not accuse Lee of giving secrets to China or any other country.

Grassley, a fellow member of the Senate Judiciary Committee task force on the issue, disagreed with Specter. In a letter to Specter, Grassley noted that no other task force member signed on to the report.

``I am concerned about the content of the report and its failure to reflect the full record, and about the haste of issuing the report despite an incomplete investigation,'' Grassley wrote.

Specter defended his report and said he was drafting a memo to ``raise some hell'' with Grassley.

``I think he's wrong, that's all,'' Specter said of Grassley.

The schism could damage GOP efforts to use Chinese espionage as an election-year issue against Democrats, but Specter said Grassley's letter ``shows it's not partisan, when you have Republicans who are willing to look at both sides of it.''

A Democratic colleague, Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, said he agreed with most of Specter's conclusions, including the criticism of Reno.

``It is inexplicable and will always remain a mystery to me'' why the warrant application was denied, Torricelli said. ``If there was damage to national security, we will never know if the granting of that application would have prevented it.''

Another member of the task force, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Reno was correct in not approving the warrant application because there was insufficient evidence.

Reno told the Senate panel last June that there was not enough evidence at the time to support wiretapping Lee, noting that the Taiwan-born scientist was once investigated and cleared for alleged improper contacts with Taiwan.

Specter released the report to gather support for a bill he wrote to change the way the Justice Department handles warrant applications in espionage investigations. Grassley and Torricelli are co-sponsors of that measure.

The bill would require the attorney general to personally decide on warrant applications if the FBI or CIA directors or the defense or state secretaries ask for it.

----


Senator Strangelove

New Mexico's Pete Domenici is doing everything he can to ensure the future of all things nuclear.

by Bill Mesler
November/December 1999
http://www.motherjones.com:80/mother_jones/ND99/domenici.html

Pete Domenici is a man on a crusade. The senior senator from New Mexico wants to change the way Americans think. For far too long, Domenici preaches, we have let our beliefs about nuclear energy be governed by fear rather than a recognition of all the good that it brings to the world. So the powerful six-term legislator, chairman of both the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, is wielding his considerable clout for the promotion of all things nuclear.

In frequent public appearances at colleges, industry gatherings, and international forums, Domenici can't seem to find enough good to say about nuclear energy. He has praised food irradiation while questioning the dangers of low-level exposure. He has attacked Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines as "having a questionable impact on safety" while "their impact on the price of nuclear energy is far more obvious." He has called for publicly funded education initiatives to counter "misleading slogans from the antinuclear groups." He has described the Kyoto Protocol restricting greenhouse gas emissions as a virtual mandate for nuclear power. Last November he even told an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that he was "surprised no environmental group has championed nuclear energy" and that it should be "viewed as an environmentally preferred electricity source."

Domenici delivers the gospel of nuclear power with such evangelical single-mindedness that last year he went to Russia to give a July 4 address to the almost surreally named Youth and the Global Political Challenges of Plutonium conference and -- without ever mentioning the name Chernobyl -- claimed that nuclear energy helps in the "protection of vital freedoms."

In the words of his chief of staff, Steve Bell, the senator is dedicated to "rekindling a national debate on nuclear power." Domenici and his staff have a term for the philosophy they try to promote every day. They call it the "new nuclear paradigm."

"What the new nuclear paradigm means is this," explains Bell. "If you are going to be in a world in which the use of nuclear energy is severely constrained, what new things do you think government ought to encourage and science ought to do to make a world in which nuclear weapons and nuclear waste are acceptable? We have done an extraordinary amount of work to make that happen."

Bell isn't exaggerating. In 1998, concerned that the NRC's regulations were too stringent in general, Sen. Domenici threatened to cut the commission's budget by $90 million. This year, he was instrumental in securing more than $27 million to reevaluate the health effects of low-level radiation and to research a plan to reduce the half-life of plutonium waste (a byproduct of nuclear weapons development) by bombarding it with high-energy proton beams in a linear accelerator at Los Alamos, New Mexico. An independent audit of the plan by MIT noted that while it would cost at least $40 billion, the effect on the nation's nuclear waste problem would be minimal -- if the plan even worked.

"He has anointed himself the savior of the U.S. nuclear industry," says physicist Ed Lyman, scientific director of the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Control Institute, a nonprofit research center focused on the problem of nuclear proliferation. "He has this notion that if he can funnel enough money into various projects he can rekindle the moribund nuclear industry."

Nothing better demonstrates Domenici's effectiveness in promoting his new nuclear paradigm than his salvation of the nation's weapons labs. Two of the Department of Energy's three weapons labs -- Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories -- are in New Mexico and are crucial to its economy, providing high- paying jobs in a state otherwise dependent on agriculture and mining. According to census figures, only Arkansas and West Virginia have lower median incomes. Revered as "Saint Pete" at the labs, Domenici has been able to safely navigate America's nuclear weapons program through the fall of the Soviet Union as a superpower, the pressure in Washington to balance the budget, and the election of a cost-cutting, supposedly small-government- oriented, Republican Congress in 1994.

In spite of all these factors, Domenici hasn't just preserved funding for the weapons labs; he has actually managed to secure significantly more money for them. During the Cold War, the Department of Energy (DOE) spent an average of $3.7 billion annually (adjusted for inflation) on nuclear weapons research and development, testing, and production. Today, the annual cost of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), which replaces those Cold War efforts, stands at $4.5 billion. "Would there be a Stockpile Stewardship Program today if it wasn't for Pete Domenici?" Bell asks rhetorically. "The answer is no."

In a sense there are two Pete Domenicis. the first is the fiscally conservative chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who has earned praise from both sides of the political aisle for his pragmatic approach to policymaking. This is the public man, the one Democrats are attracted to: the man who so incensed Ronald Reagan in 1983 by his criticism of then-Budget Director David Stockman's "voodoo economics" that the normally mild-mannered Gipper smashed a telephone into a wall. This is the senator known for backing mental-health initiatives, education spending, and the rights of immigrants.

Then there is the other Pete Domenici: the consummate pork-barrel politician who "brings home the bacon," as the New Mexico Business Journal put it when it named him the state's most influential man in 1995. This is the staunch defender of New Mexico who has made his state, proportionately, the No. 1 recipient of federal largesse in the nation, largely by assuming the role of gatekeeper of America's nuclear weapons program. For every dollar that New Mexico sends to Washington, it gets back about two in federal funding, an average of $7,200 per resident. Bell, who has worked for congressional heavyweights Howard Baker and Bob Dole, boasts that his current boss will be remembered as "the single most effective legislator in the last quarter of the 20th century."

Domenici's power in Congress helped him raise nearly $3.5 million for his most recent reelection campaign (1996), although he perennially wins his seat by a landslide. More than $425,000 of that came from political action committees and individuals tied to energy and defense-related companies, including Lockheed Martin, which manages Sandia, and General Electric, a leading developer of nuclear technology.

The weapons labs and their subcontractors have also been generous participants in those election efforts; from 1991 through 1996, individuals and PACs tied to the labs and their defense work put more than $165,000 into the senator's campaign coffers.

The labs also provide Domenici with a full-time "science adviser," Peter Lyons, a physicist at Los Alamos whose $159,000 annual salary is paid by the labs. Many of those who have dealt with Lyons believe him to be a member of Domenici's staff -- a public servant -- not a paid employee of the labs. The American Gas Association's guide to congressional staff even lists him as an "energy legislative assistant" to Domenici. "It is unfair to the taxpayer that you have a person like Pete Lyons in that position," says one Los Alamos physicist, who asked not to be identified, adding that Lyons is there to "protect the interests of the University of California," which manages Los Alamos.

The Department of Energy describes the SSP as necessary to maintain the "safety and reliability" of the nation's nuclear arsenal without compiling data through actual test explosions. Critics say that kind of language is little more than a smoke screen to mask the program's real purpose: to maintain the status quo of nuclear weapons design and testing through the use of supercomputers, subcritical nuclear testing, and other sophisticated simulations.

From the beginning, the SSP has been tied to the prospect of getting Senate support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which President Clinton signed in 1996. It would take a two-thirds Senate vote to approve the treaty, a proposition that has become increasingly remote. If the Senate does not approve it, the United States' efforts to rally international support for the treaty will ring hollow. And without Domenici to coax reluctant Republicans, approval will almost certainly not happen.

"If we were going to sign on to the CTBT, both the executive and the Senate would have had to be satisfied that [guaranteeing a reliable arsenal] was achievable," explains Charles Curtis, who, as former deputy secretary of energy, helped draw up plans for the SSP. "The SSP was that means." Domenici, in turn, would ensure that funding for the program was kept high. "This program emerged at a time when we were facing very significant fiscal disciplines," says Curtis. "Domenici played an essential, pivotal role in providing the fiscal funds on an annual basis."

Christopher Paine, a senior analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, helped craft early versions of legislation to ban nuclear testing when he was an aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy in the late '80s. He says that when the CTBT was being formulated by the Clinton administration, he "observed firsthand how when Pete Domenici whistled, everybody jumped.

"The administration was trying to craft a bipartisan compromise on testing," says Paine. "They did that by giving Domenici everything he wanted on the SSP." It turned out to be a dream come true for the laboratories.

Critics point out two fundamental problems with the SSP. The first is that it pushes the limits of allowable testing under the CTBT. "We have signed treaties that are intended to slow down and end the arms race," says Lowell Ungar, an aide to Rep. Ed Markey (D- Mass.), one of the most vocal SSP critics in Congress. "In its present form the program appears to be continuing it. It is damaging to tell others not to develop nuclear weapons when your own program continues."

Outsiders see the U.S. program as ongoing because we continue to conduct controversial subcritical nuclear tests. Carried out at the Nevada Test Site, which Lockheed Martin co-manages, these tests are nearly identical to normal nuclear weapons tests. High explosives are used to generate a controlled nuclear reaction, which is suppressed before reaching the full, critical stage of a nuclear blast. Data from the test can then be used to predict the dynamic profile of a full explosion.

Critics say this clearly subverts the treaty, which calls for the "cessation of all nuclear weapon test explosions and all other nuclear explosions, by constraining the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and ending the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons." Indeed, when India staged its nuclear test last year, it issued a press release saying it would only sign a "truly comprehensive international arrangement which would prohibit underground nuclear testing of all weapons as well as related experiments described as 'subcritical.'" The European Parliament has similarly voiced its disapproval of subcritical tests.

The second criticism of the SSP is that it is simply a waste of money. Today it boasts such projects as the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, a supercomputer-development plan, which, according to the General Accounting Office, may eventually cost more than $5 billion (and which Chris Mechels, a former Los Alamos computer systems manager, describes as likely to "be obsolete before it is even created"). Another project is the Dual- Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamics Test (DARHT) facility, a pair of high-intensity-X-ray machines used to simulate the effects of nuclear explosions. Originally slated to cost $110 million and be ready earlier this year, DARHT will have ballooned to about $260 million and will be only partially complete by year's end. "Their budgets," says Mechels, "are just an exercise in wishful thinking. Los Alamos is notorious for never bringing in anything on budget and on time." Construction costs alone for planned SSP facilities at the Los Alamos lab will total about $1.2 billion over the next few years.

Some say the emphasis on fancy gadgets for virtual testing is counter to the program's goal of maintaining a reliable nuclear arsenal. "The main thing you have to be able to do is refabricate nuclear weapons," says Frank von Hipple, who was assistant director for national security in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy when plans for the SSP were drawn up. "You don't need to design new nuclear weapons. We are doing things we don't need to do as part of a political deal to get the laboratories to accept a comprehensive test ban."

Von Hipple, now a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University, also criticizes the agreement to keep annual funding set at an artificial $4.5 billion. "In effect, there was a deal made and it was enforced at the National Security Council without any focus on what the money was going to be spent for," von Hipple says. "The overall total was seen as a political number. That is not the way ordinary programs are reviewed. Programs are supposed to be justified on what they are supposed to accomplish."

But critics admit that prospects for curtailing the SSP are slim. Few legislators have the political capital to challenge Domenici. And the administration remains beholden to him as long as ratification of the test ban is pending. Domenici, meanwhile, remains noncommittal on whether he will support the CTBT, although he has said in no uncertain terms that he will not support the treaty without vigorous funding of the SSP.

Nowhere is Domenici's blind support for New Mexico's labs more evident than in his efforts to keep alive a giant accelerator project at

Los Alamos. The lab's first experience with giant accelerators was during the Reagan administration's failed Star Wars program. And while using accelerators to destroy missiles is an idea few think will come again, Domenici finds ways to keep the project going. "Any nuclear waste bill that is moving through Congress in this day and age, Domenici looks at and asks, 'Will this be the train that will pull along the accelerator project?'" says Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a disarmament-advocacy group based in Santa Fe.

One plan was to convert the accelerator project into a tool to produce tritium, a radioactive gas essential to the trigger mechanism of a nuclear bomb. Because of decay, the tritium in each weapon must be replaced every 12 years. This year, however, the DOE found a cheaper solution: It would use a specialized reactor that could produce tritium for a fraction of the cost of using the giant accelerator. But Domenici has still managed to keep the accelerator funded at $10 million per year for at least the next several years -- as a backup option.

The latest scheme is the Accelerator-Driven Transmutation of Waste (ATW), in which the giant accelerator would be used to bombard plutonium with X-rays, making it more radioactive but reducing its half-life. MIT's analysis of the project notes that even with full funding over 40 years, only a tiny portion of America's plutonium could possibly be transmuted. "This really is a way for some pronuclear fanatics to revive failed and dangerous breeder technology," says Anna Aurelio, a staff scientist at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "It would cost an enormous amount of money and divert scarce taxpayer funds away from programs that could be good for the environment."

But to Los Alamos, it would mean an extra $40 billion in funding over 60 years. So despite MIT's damaging evaluation, Domenici managed to secure $15 million in this year's Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill to continue ATW research.

The senator's quest to forge a nuke-friendly world will no doubt continue until, in Steve Bell's words, "nuclear energy will be an absolutely important element whenever people talk about clean air and clean water." So while the rest of the world protests on Hiroshima Day and worries about the next Chernobyl, Pete Domenici works to bring about a new -- presumably safer and cleaner -- nuclear future. It all sounds disturbingly like those carefree days of the 1950s, when the nation had high hopes for nuclear energy -- the days when Eisenhower was president, the Nevada Test Site buzzed with activity, and the atom was still king.

--------- ohio

Appropriators asked to devote another $16 million to health screenings

By KATHERINE RIZZO
The Associated Press
03/09/00
http://flash.cleveland.com/cgi-bin/clv_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/OHIO_NEWS/o0275_AM_OH--UraniumPlants

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Extra money for health screenings of workers at uranium plants in Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky, was up for debate Thursday in the House Appropriations Committee.

Committee members were considering a $9 billion addition to the current year's spending, including $10 million to buy medical equipment and conduct health screenings.

The Energy Department previously had reshuffled its budget to make $3 million available to begin testing current and former workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio and Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee.

Workers sought the tests after it was revealed last summer that they unwittingly were exposed to high radiation levels from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, said Appropriations Committee members were receptive to the extra spending request "once the legitimacy of the need was explained."

"It is obviously the right thing to do," he said.

Another part of the supplemental appropriation would add an additional $16 million to this year's cleanup budgets at the Ohio and Kentucky sites, Strickland said.

The money would be divided fairly evenly, and be in addition to about $46 million already appropriated for decontamination and decommissioning work at the plants where uranium used to be processed for nuclear weapons. It now is prepared for use by electricity-generating plants.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Capitol Hill, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, that it would investigate possible national security repercussions in the event that either the Piketon or Paducah plant close.

Poor financial performance by the company that runs the plants has raised the possibility of closures, and Voinovich said he was concerned about America retaining its ability to maintain a domestic supply of uranium.

-----

Fernald cleanup deadline moved up

By Bill Straub,
Cincinnati Post Washington Bureau
06-13-97
http://www.cincypost.com/news/1997/fernal061397.html)

WASHINGTON - Radioactive material will be removed from the Fernald nuclear plant site by 1999 and groundwater will be restored by 2005 under an accelerated cleanup plan devised by the Department of Energy.

As part of a systemwide proposal released Thursday, the department recommended spending $6 billion annually between now and 2005 to thoroughly remediate the former weapons plant in Crosby Township that played a vital role in the nation's Cold War buildup, along with 131 other sites in 31 states and one territory.

Cleanup would be ''significantly delayed'' under an alternate plan that calls for spending $5.5 billion annually, according to a draft report entitled Accelerating Cleanup: A Focus on 2006, issued by the department to generate public comment.

The package, according to Al Alm, the department's assistant secretary for environmental management, calls for completing the cleaning of all Ohio nuclear sites tied to the federal government by 2006, including the Mound Plant near Miamisburg, Batelle Laboratories in Columbus and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which will continue to operate while waste is shipped off-site.

The deadline for Fernald is complicated by the fact that the department is looking for a company to replace California-based Fluor Daniel, the on-site contractor that failed to comply with required procedures regarding performance and financial systems, according to a General Accounting Office review.

Energy Undersecretary Thomas Grumbly announced in March that Fluor Daniel would be replaced. The change could come this month.

The Fernald cleanup plan calls for construction and operation of an on-site disposal facility, decontamination and decommissioning of buildings, soil excavation and the transfer of waste to a storage facility in Nevada.

Remaining nuclear material, uranium, enriched urbanium and depleted uranium, should be removed by 1999. Groundwater and the Little Miami aquifer are expected to be restored by 2005.

The Military Production Network, an alliance working on cleanup issues, criticized the package, saying it maintains a ''reliance on unfounded assumptions, inaccurate assertions and inadequate public participation . . . ''

-------- south carolina

South Carolina

USA Today
03/09/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
http://usatoday.com/news/states/scmain.htm

Aiken - Job losses at the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex in the next few years are inevitable as the federal government tries to cut costs, Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says. Executives at Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which operates the site, have said there may be some layoffs, though the company said it would offer early retirement incentives to about 580 employees.


----- tennessee

DOE to begin shipping nuclear waste to Nevada

March 9, 2000
By Frank Munger,
News-Sentinel Oak Ridge bureau
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/6286.shtml

OAK RIDGE -- The Oak Ridge office of the U.S. Department of Energy will begin next month shipping nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site -- the desert base once used for A-bomb explosions. The decision provides a new option for disposal of nuclear wastes that have been stored in Oak Ridge for years or even decades.

Federal officials here are thrilled.

"It took me two days just to stop dancing," Clayton Gist, DOE's team leader for waste management, said of the news, which was received about a week ago.

The decision was applauded outside DOE as well.

"We're overjoyed ... We will go out on the road and wave flags (as the trucks pass)," said Norman Mulvenon of the Local Oversight Committee, which represents local governments in the region on DOE environmental issues. Mulvenon, chairman of the LOC's citizens advisory panel, said reducing the waste inventory in Oak Ridge should free up money for other environmental projects.

The first shipments will involve 20-ton concrete monoliths, which contain low-level radioactive wastes associated with old reactor operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The monoliths were created in the 1980s when workers removed liquids from the lab's waste storage tanks and solidified the radioactive material with concrete.

About 250 of the monoliths are stored at ORNL, and Gist said they will be transported by truck to Nevada and buried during the next couple of years. There will be one monolith per truck, and initially there will be one shipment per week. Those shipments may increase to two or three per week next year, he said.

The first shipment is scheduled for April 14, Gist said.

Future trips to the Nevada Test Site may include radioactive scrap metal from the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, classified metals being stripped from old uranium-processing buildings at the former K-25 site, uranium oxides currently stored at Y-12 and sludge from waste ponds at ORNL.

Jackie Kittrell, a lawyer with the American Environmental Health Studies Project, said she's concerned DOE might be blithely sending its nuclear waste to another community without regard to contamination issues there.

"While (NTS) appears to be a desolate, flat wasteland, there are people living around the site," Kittrell said, "and there already has been a tremendous burden on the groundwater in that area."

Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, will oversee the waste shipments to Nevada. Weskem, a subcontractor, is expected to handle the packaging, loading and transportation. The monoliths, for instance, will be loaded into special shipping casks.

Most waste apparently will be sent to Nevada by truck, but Gist said DOE is considering other options -- including use of rail lines. Although the Nevada Test Site doesn't have a rail spur, waste could be sent by rail most of the way and then loaded onto trucks for the burial ground, he said.

Bob Sleeman, a waste official with DOE, said the cross-country shipments should be safe and pose little risk to the environment, even if there's an accident.

"There are no liquids to be released or anything," he said.

Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.


------ washington

FFTF restart hit hard in state caucuses

March 9, 2000
By Annette Cary
Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar7.html

More than 250 resolutions were passed in caucuses across Washington on Tuesday opposing the restart of Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, according to Heart of America Northwest.

The Seattle environmental group distributed sample resolutions and information opposing FFTF restart before Super Tuesday.

It was "the standard old drivel they always seem to spew," said Jim Price of Kennewick, Democratic chairman of the 8th Legislative District. "They're using scare tactics."

Price received one of the sample resolutions and responded by e-mailing the other district chairmen in the state, advising them to get their information on the Hanford reactor from Tri-City-area residents, "the people who know it best."

"Our position is these guys are trying to pass an agenda that is not in the best interest of the district, the state or the country," Price said.

He's been talking with other Democratic district chairmen about FFTF at quarterly meetings, "building relationships and trust," he said. He's hopeful that he'll be allowed to make a case for FFTF on the state level and points out that Democrats Gov. Gary Locke and Sen. Patty Murray have both supported a medical mission for FFTF.

The resolutions opposed to FFTF were mostly passed in Democratic caucuses, said Gerry Pollet of Heart of America. However, some Republican caucuses in the Seattle area also passed resolutions, he said.

Not only did the resolution pass in Western Washington caucuses, but it also was approved in some caucuses in Spokane, Walla Walla and Grant counties, he said.

State Democratic and Republican party officials didn't have information Wednesday on resolutions passed at the thousands of neighborhood caucuses and couldn't confirm Heart of America's numbers.

DOE is studying whether FFTF should be restarted for several nondefense uses, including making isotopes to be used in new ways to treat cancer and heart disease.

The sample resolution from Heart of America pointed out the reactor would be used to make plutonium and that more radioactive waste would be added "to the health threats already posed by Hanford's waste."

It also said "desperately needed cleanup funds" are being used to maintain FFTF.

However, supporters of restarting FFTF have pointed out money to maintain the reactor has come from DOE's nuclear energy budget and not from its cleanup budget.

And although plutonium might be made at the reactor, it would not be the type of plutonium that can be used for nuclear bombs, but the type used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to power space missions.

Benton and Franklin county Democrats have supported restarting FFTF. As recently as October, the Benton County Democratic Central Committee passed a resolution calling for a restart and pointing out the United States is importing more than 90 percent of reactor-produced medical isotopes used here.

Franklin County Democrats are expected to consider a resolution supporting a restart at their April 29 county convention.

Pollet said Heart of America had asked Al Gore, the probable presidential candidate for the Democrats, to take a stand on FFTF, but he did not respond.

George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, said in Pasco that the production of medical isotopes seemed an "exciting opportunity." Although he stopped short of endorsing a restart, Bush said cleanup and producing isotopes at FFTF were separate issues.

-------

Hanford salaries far more than Tri-City median

Hanford News, March 9, 2000
By Melissa O'Neil Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar10.html

Gary Lysher figures a house would cost 25 percent more to build if he paid his construction crew Hanford wages.

It'd be $15 an hour vs. $23 an hour for a journeyman-level construction worker, said Lysher, project manager for the Ashley-Bertsch Group, a general construction company in Kennewick.

Lysher knows he could make more than his $35,000-or-so yearly income if he went to Hanford. But he's traded higher wages for what he considers a stable job with a comfortable salary and the latitude to take ownership of a project.

And that's the view Lysher shares with his laborers, because Hanford wages always are tempting. "I don't think you're going to change that," he said.

A long-standing perception is people who work on the Hanford nuclear waste cleanup project outside Richland earn more than their counterparts in the Tri-City private business sector.

The disparity issue came to the forefront in late January, when the U.S. Department of Labor released a study saying the average Tri-Citian earns $18.72 per hour, or $38,900 a year. That average didn't include people working for farms or federal agencies but did not exclude Hanford's federal contractors.

State Employment Security Department statistics show the perception is reality. Most Hanford workers do earn a lot more than other Tri-Citians.

The Tri-City average monthly wage is about $2,340 - or $28,080 a year - including Hanford, farm and all nonfarm jobs.

The average Hanford wage, though, is about $4,730 - or $56,760 annually. That includes on-site contractors, the Department of Energy and the Energy Northwest nuclear power plant.

Remove Hanford's high pay and the farm industry's low pay, and the Tri-City average settles at about $2,130 a month - $25,560 a year.

The higher wages aren't meant to spite locally owned businesses, Hanford contractors say. Nor are they directly intended to draw reluctant applicants to the desert.

Instead, the leading justification for higher wages - primarily for professions like scientists and engineers at Hanford - is the workers needed have unique skills found on a more costly national market. It's supply and demand.

The situation is different for workers such as secretaries, janitors or electricians, who must qualify for a security clearance and might work around radioactivity. Their pay often is determined by union contract or by government-set prevailing wages - pay scales that apply to other government work such as airport terminal repairs or low-income public housing construction.

Harry Lacher, salary administration manager for Fluor Hanford, said contractors try hard to make sure their wages are in line, locally and nationally, depending on the job.

"Higher than what? Yeah, we're higher than McDonald's, but we're hiring engineers," Lacher said. "We have to compete, same as everybody else.

"We have Ph.Ds. We're going to pay a premium for those, the same as everywhere else. Again, it's what you compare to."

Lacher said Fluor Hanford wages for so-called nonexempt jobs, such as bookkeepers, are matched to the Tri-City market. He and others referred to a salary survey of large Tri-City companies - from Hanford contractors to Boise Cascade's paper mill - done by Siemens Power Corp. Siemens said its survey, however, hasn't been updated since 1997, mainly because not enough of the companies "invited" to participate were willing to share their salary data. Also, few companies have asked for an updated survey.

The salary study used by the Tri-City Area Chamber of Commerce is a list of median wages done by the Employment Security Department. It's found on the Internet at www.wa.gov/esd/lmea

Hanford contractors aren't the only Tri-City companies offering salaries of $50,000 and up - a few even reaching six figures.

It takes big paychecks to attract and retain top-notch computer programmers, engineers and scientists at Tri-City companies with clients nationwide.

"We're competing for people on a national scale, even an international scale," said Patricia Irving, president of InnovaTek. She left Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1995 to start InnovaTek's parent company.

"I haven't found (salaries) to be an issue as much as the fact that the cost of living here is more attractive to people, and the Pacific Northwest region in general is more attractive. That's really why I'm able to attract the caliber of scientist I need here."

Her 12 employees hail from Washington, D.C., Tennessee, a Seattle biotech company and the Hanford site. Instead of the money, Irving finds herself struggling to match Hanford's health care benefits.

She counters by offering stock options in her privately held company, which is developing a small device that detects and collects fungi, bacteria, viruses and other pollutants - like anthrax - that cause diseases and damage respiratory systems.

Roy Wiprud said he mainly competes with Puget Sound software companies for employees. He is president of CCSi - Credit Card Solutions Inc. in Richland, developing and installing purchasing card software. Purchasing cards are special credit cards employees use to buy supplies without wading through the paperwork of a purchase order.

Like Irving, Wiprud said he offers a stock-option program in hopes of hiring and keeping talented people. "You still pay the wages. It's a supply and demand situation," he said.

"What we've found is, for the most part, the people who leave the Hanford area aren't looking to go back - especially in software, it's such a big world out there."

Still, Wiprud has lost computer programmers to Hanford. PNNL, for example, pays an average $68,100 for a full-time computer scientist or analyst.

"What people look for at Hanford is stability. But they all know the only way to get a decent raise at Hanford is to leave and come back. We've been victims of that," Wiprud said.

Wiprud said he'd prefer to hire Tri-Citians, but only one other business here writes programs in the same computer language. "That gives us a limited gene pool, although we have robbed from them."

And once he gets a big-city person to settle in the Tri-Cities and realize the water is safe to drink, he said "they love the area."

Informatics President Arnold Whipple Lara said a great deal of his time is spent making sure the project management company offers competitive pay.

"It's not our experience that Hanford and its salaries for, say, engineers or technicians, is really out of sync with what I would call that industry. Especially not from an engineering standpoint," Lara said. "Some of the site (jobs) are actually lower in many regards to the salaries that could be gained on the outside."

Meier Enterprises, an 18-year-old architecture and engineering firm in Kennewick, employs about 45 people. President Terry Meier said he pays as much as he can, but most of his civil engineers make pretty close to the state median of $51,000 vs. the Tri-City median of $61,800. Hanford benefits also are impossible to match.

"It's hard for us, as small business, to compete," Meier said. "If a person is going after they money, they'll work out on the site. We like to offer more diversification, more freedom. We don't have the rigors of the paperwork, etc., they need to deal with there. That's why we keep people."

Meier Enterprises focuses on commercial work. "For us, it's just more fun, although about 40 percent of our revenue does come from Hanford projects," Meier said, adding he's working hard to broaden the company's clientele.

Informatics employs about 300 people nationwide. Lara figures he pays an engineer with 10 years of experience between $55,000 and $60,000 - the same as Hanford engineers. He estimated a smaller engineering firm doing non-Hanford work pays closer to $45,000.

"We're not talking about a big pool," he said. "We're talking about a small industry - so small, everyone almost knows everybody. A limited number of people have the skills and expertise to operate in this arena."

Lara said maybe 50,000 people are qualified to work on commercial or government nuclear projects such as Hanford or Energy Northwest.

"It's almost a whole different labor set," Lara said. "One of the indicators of that is there's a ton of ex-Hanford professionals who still live in Richland and are commuting all over the country as consultants. I have three on my street alone.

"We do have quite a few former Hanford people."

Lara said many have learned new ways to apply their Hanford skills. He pointed out one of his employees is former DOE Richland Manager John Wagoner.

"It's resilience for the Tri-Cities," Lara said. "What we have going for us is we have people that have excellent experience. They're trained, educated and they want to stay in the Tri-Cities."

---

Blue-collar employers hampered by competition with Hanford pay

Hanford News
This story was published March 9, 2000
By Melissa O'Neil Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar11.html

Tri-City companies employing engineers, scientists and computer programmers appear able to deal with the high salaries paid at the Hanford site.

But the disparity between Hanford and the rest of the Tri-Cities really appears to affect the businesses trying to hire and keep secretaries, machinists and other vocational folks who build, fix and clean things.

"When a new company moves to town, they locate out there (at Hanford or north Richland) and the next thing we know, we're missing three or four people," said Dave Wood, vice president of contracts for Wheco, a Pasco business that restores cranes and heavy equipment.

It's the money, followed by better medical benefits, higher-matching 401(k) programs and a work schedule with more holidays, he said.

"We can't compete," Wood said. "We know when we go looking for people, we have a hard time if a guy's been paid $26 or $27 an hour for a job that maybe on the outside (of Hanford) only pays $18 or $20 an hour."

That's $55,100 annually vs. $39,500, before taxes.

"It really makes it tough on the small business guy out here," Wood said, adding there's no way Hanford is going to give every worker a 30 percent pay cut to even the playing field. For the record, though, most of the comparable Hanford jobs are in unions with negotiated pay scales, security clearances and require work around radioactive waste.

"The problem's been here forever," Wood said. "I've been here almost all of my life, and it probably will always continue to be a problem. It's one of the reasons I don't think the Tri-Cities ever will attract a major manufacturer, because they won't pay those kind of wages. They're looking for a place like Spokane with a good labor base in the $12- to $15-an-hour range."

Many Hanford site job openings are posted on the Internet at www.hanford.gov/opportunities.html

Not all of them list a pay range - Fluor Hanford, for one, refused to disclose even average wages.

Bechtel Hanford, the environmental restoration contractor, recently had full-time openings on the Internet for a lube and tire man, paying $33,730 to $39,684 a year; journeyman millwright, $30,100 to $50,150 a year; and journeyman carpenter, $46,725 to $49,180 a year.

Energy Northwest union workers such as mechanics, electricians and health physics technicians earn $52,000 a year.

The Tri-City median wage for a secretary is about $25,000 - a number supported by various businesses, who listed wages of $10 to $14 an hour. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory calculates its average salary for a full-time secretary at $29,578, equal to $14.22 an hour.

Sandi Strawn, vice president of Dependable Janitor Service in Kennewick, employs about 50 people to wash windows, clean toilets and vacuum floors.

"We've never been able to come close to what janitor wages are on the site because they'd be paid at (union wages)," Strawn said. "It's totally beyond what we can afford to pay, or what our customers would bear.

"We don't even worry about it anymore. We can't. It's apples and oranges," she said. "The real issue for us and for many small businesses - service businesses - is the minimum wage issue."

Minimum wage went up this year to $6.50 an hour, cutting into already slim profit margins for businesses that hire from a low-skill pool. Entry-level janitors start at that level, which at 40 hours a week equates to $13,520 a year, plus benefits.

Wage disparity aside, Strawn sees Hanford playing a larger role in the Tri-City economy.

"There are so many things we wouldn't have, and that wouldn't be in the Tri-Cities, if we didn't have Hanford," she said. "We're much stronger because of Hanford. We've had to work harder. That could be said for any kind of business you're in.

"If you never have any challenges, you tend to get soft."

---

Hanford elk 'triumphant' as roundup ends

Hanford News
This story was published March 9, 2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar9.html

Hanford's elk roundup ended chaotically Wednesday as 60 animals smashed through a corral fence and escaped.

Three elk were trampled in the melee and were destroyed and butchered by Wanapum tribal members.

The final tally for this spring's roundup was 150 elk that were captured and trucked to Washington's Selkirk and Blue Mountain ranges. Twenty of those animals were moved last month after testing for disease and radiation exposure.

Wildlife officials had hoped to trim Hanford's herd of 800 elk by 200 this spring. The reason is to reduce damage the animals have been doing to neighboring farmlands and to the fragile shrub-steppe habitat of the 120-square-mile Fitzner-Eberhardt Arid Lands Ecology Reserve on the Hanford Reservation.

Wednesday was the third straight day a helicopter was used to herd elk into a quarter-mile-long funnel trap leading to a corral.

Initial roundup efforts failed Monday when the elk balked at going through the opening into the corral. But Tuesday, about 150 animals were trapped after modifications were made to the trap.

Most of those animals were trucked to the transplant sites, but 20 that were held overnight were released back on the ALE after wildlife officials decided they were too stressed to be moved.

Then, about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, the helicopter succeeded in driving a herd of about 60 into the trap.

But when they entered the corral, they kept going, battering down two of the 12-foot-high metal fence sections and running off into the sagebrush.

"They just didn't stop," said Kathy Criddle, spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the ALE for the Department of Energy.

"The elk were triumphant today," she added.

That will be it for this spring's elk roundup, and the trap is to be dismantled this week.

It is likely similar roundups will be attempted in 2001 and 2002. However, the state and federal wildlife agencies and the Department of Energy have not decided yet what their next move will be.

Their goal is to eventually trim the ALE's elk herd to 300 to 350 animals. Before this week, at least 800 elk, more or less, lived on the ALE, where hunting is not allowed.

If left unchecked, the elk population was predicted to grow to about 1,000 this year.

---

Wild Elk Stampede in Washington

Associated Press
March 8, 2000 Filed at 9:06 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Elk-Stampede.html
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564833417-f68

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- About 60 wild elk corralled from the arid shrubland of south-central Washington stampeded from their corral on Wednesday, thwarting government efforts to stem the herd's population.

No injuries were reported.

Three elk were trampled, then destroyed.

A helicopter had herded the elk from the Rattlesnake Hills into the figure eight-shaped corral on Wednesday morning, the second day of what officials had billed as the state's largest wildlife roundup.

``It all went perfectly, like yesterday,'' said Kathy Criddle, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman. ``Then they busted through the fence, knocked about 20 feet down, and they all escaped.''

Wildlife managers had hoped to round up 200 elk this week from the 120-square-mile Arid Lands Ecology Reserve, on the western edge of the Hanford nuclear reservation.

They ended up with 130 elk -- half of which were transported to the Selkirk Range of northeastern Washington, and half to the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington. Another 20 elk had been moved to the mountains in February.

The relocation program is part of a plan to manage the size of the fast-growing Hanford elk herd, estimated at nearly 1,000 head.

Officials say the animals pose a threat to fragile shrub vegetation on the no-hunting reserve, and have wandered outside its boundaries to eat nearby farmers' crops.

Over the next three years, wildlife managers hope to move 500 elk out of the herd, which could double in size every four years if left unchecked.

---

Worries over Hanford 'burping' tank appear to be at end

Hanford News
This story was published March 9, 2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar8.html

Hanford's infamous "burping" tank apparently has run out of gas.

CH2M Hill Hanford Group finished a third round of pumping out Tank SY-101 last Thursday - removing enough liquid wastes and gas to probably cure the indigestion suffered by the site's most troublesome underground radioactive waste tank.

The 200 West Area tank has been a major Hanford headache since the 1980s.

Although 714,000 gallons of liquids and sludges remain inside, enough gas has been vented and rising crust eliminated to turn Tank SY-101 into a run-of-the-mill, giant radioactive waste tank - one of 177 in central Hanford, CH2M Hill and Department of Energy Office of River Protection officials said Wednesday.

Originally, Tank SY-101 held 1.12 million gallons of wastes. Their chemical composition caused highly volatile hydrogen gas to build up near the bottom to belch upward. That increased the risk of a spark setting off an explosion or fire.

Hanford fixed that problem in 1993 by inserting a giant mixer pump to constantly churn the wastes. But that mixing caused tiny microbubbles of gas to get caught in the wastes' surface crust. And that caused the crust to thicken, moving the wastes higher.

The double-shelled outer wall curves upward into a dome. The inner wall stops about where the outer wall starts to curve, leaving a gap between the tops of the inner and outer walls.

The expanding crust rose 10 feet, bringing it within 2 feet of that gap, increasing the risk overflow between the two walls. And that would increase the risk of leaks.

So in December, CH2M Hill pumped 89,000 gallons of waste out of SY-101 into the neighboring double-shell Tank SY-102. Then workers added water to SY-101 to break up the crust and dilute the wastes. In January, workers pumped out another 240,000 gallons of waste and added more water.

This month, the company finished pumping another 286,000 gallons and added a little more water.

The bottom line is the wastes' surface dropped from a height of more than 36 feet within the tank to about 23 feet. And the crust shrank to about 20 inches and is more porous so it cannot trap gas.

Final pumping also unleashed a significant amount of hydrogen, ammonia, nitrogen and nitrous oxide gases, which then were released from the tank through vents, said Craig Groendyke, the Office of River Protection's SY-101 project manger.

Additional water is supposed to be added next week. Then, Hanford's scientists will watch the tank for at least 90 days to make sure the gas problem is gone, said Groendyke and Richard Raymond, CH2M Hill's SY Tank Farm project manager.

-------- spying

China boosts spy presence in U.S., CIA, FBI report

Washington Times
March 9, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/news5-030900.htm

China's spy services are stepping up military spying against the United States while using Chinese students as intelligence agents and "political influence" programs to manipulate U.S. policy, a joint CIA and FBI report says.

"Chinese attempts to obtain U.S. military and military-related technology . . . have increased since the early 1990s," the counterintelligence report stated.

"Beijing continues to view the United States as one of its major targets for political collection," according to the report sent to Congress in January but released yesterday. A copy of the five-page unclassified report was obtained by The Washington Times.

Chinese spying "focuses on the foreign policies and intentions of the United States as well as information on U.S. leaders and sensitive bi- or multilateral negotiations," the report said.

Regarding political influence activities, the report said China is continuing to work on "building political influence in the United States."

Stepped-up influence operations date to 1995, when Beijing began directing resources toward influencing Congress and building greater overall political influence in the United States. The operations followed the June 1995 visit to the United States by Taiwanese President Lee Tenghui.

That year, Beijing set up its Central Leading Group for U.S. Congressional Affairs that sought to increase support for Chinese goals.

China's government is trying to influence Congress through visits to China by members, lobbying of ethnic Chinese voters and prominent U.S. citizens, and "engaging U.S. business interests to weigh in on issues of mutual concern," the report said.

As for military espionage, the United States continues to be the "main target" of spying by the intelligence arm of the People's Liberation Army, known as the Military Intelligence Department (MID).

China focused on gathering military-related technology after seeing the impressive U.S. high-technology warfare actions in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and last year's Kosovo operations, the report said.

Most military spying is done overtly by Chinese attaches posted to embassies and consulates. However, the report states that since 1987 the FBI and Customs service have stopped "at least two MID/ PLA clandestine collection operations in the United States."

The attaches collect intelligence from "contacts" with U.S. officials and from publications as well.

Chinese spies are continuing to obtain valuable intelligence from U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, the report states.

"PRC scientists, through mutually beneficial scientific exchange programs, gather [science and technology] information through U.S. national laboratories," the report said.

Cooperative exchange programs by the laboratories have created "new vulnerabilities" for U.S. high-technology information, the report states.

"These vulnerabilities emphasize the significant difficulty the United States encounters in detecting PRC espionage activity," the report said.

No mention was made in the report of the ongoing spy probe of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee. Mr. Lee is suspected of passing nuclear warhead secrets to China and has been charged with mishandling extremely sensitive data on U.S. nuclear weapons.

The secret and public versions of the report were sent last week to the House Intelligence Committee by CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Louis Freeh. The report was required under legislation passed by Congress.

The report mentions the FBI case involving Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Peter H. Lee, who gave China secret information about the neutron bomb - which kills with radiation instead of a large blast -in 1985 and 1997. Lee pleaded guilty to espionage in 1997.

Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said during a Senate hearing Tuesday that Lee was sentenced only to community service and served no jail time despite his involvement in "a very egregious case involving the disclosure of nuclear secrets in 1985 and the disclosure of certain materials about detecting submarines in 1997."

Mr. Freeh said during the hearing that the FBI and other security agencies view Chinese spying "with the utmost seriousness."

Asked if the threat from Chinese spies is serious, Mr. Freeh said, "Yes, sir, absolutely."

China also is engaged in economic espionage against U.S. companies, the report said. Chinese spies have targeted private company information and trade secrets, "particularly advanced civilian, military and dual-use and bio-technology," as a top priority, the report said.

China's civilian MSS spy agency is particularly active against U.S. businessmen and Westerners in China "where MSS officers can be aggressive," the report said.

Chinese spies often exploit the "shared ancestry" of so-called overseas Chinese with access to commercial or government secrets, the report said.

According to the FBI and CIA, professional military and civilian intelligence officers play a small part in the China's spying efforts.

"Some of the thousands of Chinese students, scientists, researchers and other visitors to the United States also gather information, working mostly for government-controlled end-user organizations and other scientific bureaus, research institutes and enterprises," the report said.

The Ministry of State Security, however, assists these institutions by "matching their information needs with assets the service has developed in the United States and elsewhere," the report said.

Most intelligence collected by Chinese nationals abroad is gathered legally through "open sources," such as U.S. university libraries, research institutions, the Internet and other databases.

The report described the information as "highly valued yet unclassified" data.

The report said some Chinese businesses in the United States "are a platform for intelligence collection activities." Chinese firms provide "cover" for spies, it said.

"These collectors enter the United States to gather sensitive and/or restricted proprietary [and] trade secret information or to act as a liaison to consumers of intelligence back in China," the report said.

The activities of Chinese spies were described as "low-key and singular in nature," frustrating FBI counterspy efforts.

China also is engaged in "propaganda and perception management" against the United States, using government-owned or -controlled press. The report identified the newspaper supplement Wen Wei Po as "a favored outlet for reaching ethnic Chinese audiences, whose perspectives in turn can influence the broader public's views of China," the report said.

The main spy agencies for Beijing were identified as the Ministry of State Security, which conducts collection and counterespionage in China and abroad, the MID, which gathers military and technical secrets, and the PLA's Liaison Department, charged with spying on Taiwan.

---

NATO Denies Spy Leaked Kosovo Plans

Yahoo News
02:01 PM ET 03/09/00
By SUZAN FRASER
Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564849358-df9
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#talks

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) _ NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson on Thursday denied reports that a spy within NATO headquarters passed information to Serbia on planned air strikes during last year's Kosovo campaign.

``We have no knowledge and no evidence that the air tasking order was ever leaked to the Serbs,'' Robertson told reporters.

``We were always sensitive to security and that meant that throughout the campaign we were consistently reviewing security.''

The British Broadcasting Corp. released details Thursday of a documentary alleging that a mole supplied information on the allies' strike plans and flight paths in the first two weeks of the air campaign, allowing Serbs to move troops and equipment away from intended NATO targets.

``Results of the air campaign speak for themselves. The NATO air cover did all that it was asked. The refugees are now home, underlying the success of the air campaign,'' Robertson said.

NATO launched its 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia in March 1999 to force President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown against ethnic Albanians in the southern province of Kosovo.

Serb forces shot down a U.S. stealth bomber during the conflict.

The BBC program, ``Moral Combat: NATO at War,'' claims that an internal classified report prepared for senior U.S. defense officials concluded that the Serbs had information on air raids and reconnaissance flights. The program is to be broadcast Sunday.

The BBC said it had been given information on the case by sources in the U.S. Air Force.

It said that initially 600 people at NATO headquarters had access to details of the strike plans, but the leaks stopped immediately after that number was cut back to 100 people.

Robertson acknowledged that security measures included ``progressively restricting information to those who needed to know.''

Speculation ran rife about the nationality of the alleged spy. Liberal Democrat Party defense spokesman Menzies Campbell told the BBC that some Czech intelligence officers working for NATO were ``in fairly intimate contact with old friends in Moscow,'' the possible route of information to Belgrade.

The BBC documentary says Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander, suspected that information was leaking and ordered an investigation.

The BBC interviewed Clark for the documentary, asking if there was a spy at NATO headquarters. ``Absolutely not,'' Clark responded.

Asked whether there was a spy ``in NATO,'' he replied. ``I don't think so.''

It is not the first time spy allegations regarding Yugoslavia have been made.

In 1998, A French army major was arrested on charges of spying for Yugoslavia while he was chief of staff for the French delegation at NATO headquarters in Brussels, months before the air campaign began. He was released by a French appeals court.
___=

On the Web: NATO web site: http://www.nato.int

---

Former Kosovo Student Leader Tried

Yahoo News
10:53 AM ET 03/09/00
By KATARINA KRATOVAC Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2564846454-b57

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) _ A former spokesman for Kosovo's disbanded rebel organization went on trial today on charges of terrorism and conspiracy against the state, the Yugoslav media reported.

Albin Kurti, who was a student leader before becoming a spokesman for the Kosovo Liberation Army, could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted at the district court in the central Serbian city of Nis, the independent Beta news agency said.

Also today, a court in the southern Serbian town of Leskovac sentenced two ethnic Albanians to prison terms for allegedly belonging to the KLA and taking part in its attacks on Serb police and army during the Kosovo rebellion.

Avni Shalla, 38, received a 12-year prison sentence for an attack in 1998 in which one policeman was killed and another wounded. Ismet Beqirai, 41 was sentenced to 18 months for joining the KLA in May 1998.

At the start of his trial in Nis, a prosecution statement said Kurti, who was among thousands of ethnic Albanians arrested by Serb police during NATO's 78-day bombing campaign last year, aided the ``creation of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army gangs with the ultimate goal to secede the province from Serbia and Yugoslavia and establish an independent state.''

Kosovo is an Albanian-majority province in Serbia, the dominant of the two republics in Yugoslavia. It has been run by the United Nations and the NATO-led peacekeeping force since the NATO bombing ended a Serb crackdown and forced Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to pull out his forces.

The prosecution statement said Kurti ``organized first-aid courses'' among Kosovo's Albanian students with the purpose of ``assisting wounded KLA members and donating blood.''

Kurti, who waived his right to an attorney but was given legal defense by the state, was defiant.

``This court has nothing to do with truth and justice. It only serves the regime of Slobodan Milosevic,'' Kurti, who identified himself as a citizen of the Republic of Kosovo, was quoted as saying.

Kurti said he did ``not recognize this court but only a court of my people.''

``Kurti appeared rational and spoke coherently'' and bore no visible signs of physical mistreatment, Goran Georgijev, a representative of Serbia's Humanitarian Law Center, told The Associated Press.

Kurti first became a prominent figure among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians in 1997-98 when, as an electronics and engineering graduate of the then-outlawed ethnic Albanian university in the provincial capital, Pristina, he became the leader of an independent student union.

The union staged numerous rallies and marches, protesting Serbia's repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Kurti, always at the front of marching students, was arrested and beaten by Serbian police at one such rally. The police later released him.

Abandoning the student organization, Kurti moved on in 1998 to become the spokesman for the Pristina office of the KLA, the guerrillas who were battling Serb police and striving for the province's independence.

At the trial today, Kurti acknowledged his role in the student union, which he said was struggling for a ``free university'' and against the Serb regime.

After the opening statements, the trial was adjourned until March 13.
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On the Net: The Human Rights Watch Kosovo page: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/index.shtml