-------- NUCLEAR (by country)

-------- bulgaria

Citibank Loans $77M to Bulgaria

Associated Press
July 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/f/AP-Bulgaria-Citibank.html

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- New York's Citibank approved a loan of $77 million Monday to help Bulgaria upgrade two reactors at its only nuclear power plant.

The loan has a five-year grace period and will require two payments, at 10 years and 12 years. Citibank opened a branch Friday in Bulgaria.

Finance Minister Muravei Radev, who signed state guarantees for the loan, said the money would help the plant proceed with a modernization project for its two 1,000-megawatt reactors, which were installed in 1987.

The plant, located near Kozlodui, 125 miles north of Sofia, also has four 440-megawatt pressurized water units that were brought online between 1974 and 1982 and lack safety containment systems.

Bulgaria has bowed to European Union pressure to shut down the oldest two of the reactors by 2003 -- two years before the scheduled end of their 30-year life spans.

An international consortium including Germany's Siemens AG, France's Framatome and Russia's Atomenergoexport has won a bid for the bulk of the $380 million upgrade program for the 1,000-megawatt reactors. The remaining work will be done by U.S.-based Westinghouse.

-------- business

Patents

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By SABRA CHARTRAND
http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/071000patents.html

EACH human body generates a column of slightly warm air that originates at the tops of the feet, swirls and rises, gathering speed and increasing in volume, staying with us as we move through the day and ascending the length of our torsos until it flows from the tops of our heads in an invisible geyser of air altered by movement and body temperature.

As this envelope of warmer air surrounds us and rises, it carries with it the skin particles that are continuously shed from our bodies.

Gary Settles has named this phenomenon the "human thermal plume." Mr. Settles, a scientist at the Penn State Research Foundation, says all people produce such an air column. And he has patented a system for sampling each person's plume to detect the presence of illegal drugs, or chemicals that might be used in weapons or explosives.

He has designed a portal similar to the metal detectors common at airports and courthouses. As people pass through, a sample of the air from each thermal plume would be analyzed to see if the person was carrying a bomb or other contraband.

Mr. Settles says his invention produces a socially acceptable, equal-opportunity inspection because it can sample molecules around every passenger in an airport without singling out individuals according to race or other characteristics. The system makes it practical to inspect everyone, he says, instead of selecting only a random number of travelers. That's because everyone continuously sheds microscopic flakes of skin.

"It has been found that the entire outer layer of skin is shed every one or two days," his patent application explains. "It turns out that some millions of skin flakes are shed by the average person every minute."

The flakes, he says, are tiny enough to pass through the weave of clothing and light enough to be swept up immediately into the air plume. "The air heated by the skin, being warmer and less dense than the surrounding air, rises naturally according to Archimedes' Principle," he says. "This generates a human boundary layer. For a standing person, the boundary layer begins at the ankles and travels up the legs and torso, growing thicker and faster as it moves." By the time it reaches the chest area, this layer of air is several centimeters thick and moving quickly. It forms the same way regardless of height, weight, or the amount or style of clothing, and every surface of the body contributes skin flakes to the moving air.

"Thus, any location where explosives might be concealed, such as the ankles, legs, thighs, waist, arms," he says, "all contribute about equally to the buoyant airstream which eventually rises above the body to form the thermal plume."

Mr. Settles' detector is a partly enclosed structure with a funnel-shaped collector above the heads of people who pass through and pause a few seconds. A fan or blower would draw the human thermal plume into a filter or particulate separator, where it would be analyzed in an ion mobility spectrometer, a device measuring electrons, for the presence of explosive molecules.

The sensor would be able to detect minute traces of plastic explosives that are imperceptible to metal detectors. Currently, specially trained dogs can sniff those small amounts, and hand-held wands or treated cloths wiped across a suspect surface can also isolate them.

But Mr. Settles thinks that neither wipes, wands nor dogs can realistically inspect the great number of travelers in an airport. He says his system would not require any contact with people being tested.

Mr. Settles says his invention could also be used to detect smuggled money, narcotics, chemical or biological warfare agents, nuclear substances like uranium, or other hazardous material. And he maintains that the skin flakes could provide samples of human DNA, though his patent says nothing about the privacy concerns that would be raised by such a feature. Mr. Settles received patent number 6,073,499.

-------- china

A Counterproductive Approach to China
Unilateral sanctions not only don't work, they anger our allies and undermine American jobs.

By Thomas J. Donohue
Monday, July 10, 2000; Page A19
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/10/010l-071000-idx.html

Albert Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That's been the U.S. approach to unilateral sanctions. In the past century, we've imposed unilateral sanctions 120 times against country after country, hoping that one day they would achieve their stated purpose of destroying economies or destabilizing governments. They never do.

It's time for the United States to wake up to reality--unilateral sanctions don't work. Instead of punishing our enemies, unilateral sanctions isolate America from its allies, provide ammunition to dictators to prop up their regimes and shut out U.S. companies and their workers from markets around the world.

Despite their failure to effect change in unfriendly governments, some members of Congress are proposing unilateral sanctions schemes that will end up hurting American farmers, manufacturers and workers. Americans should be particularly concerned about the proposed China Nonproliferation Act (S. 2645) sponsored by Sens. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.).

The Thompson-Torricelli bill would trigger elaborate and counterproductive unilateral sanctions against the Chinese government and any person, company or group operating in China when there is credible information that they are violating nonproliferation agreements or U.S. export laws. Preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a laudable goal, but imposing unilateral sanctions on China won't help achieve it. The Thompson-Torricelli bill is fundamentally flawed.

First, it's unnecessary. The president has ample legal authority to impose U.S. sanctions on foreign entities for weapons proliferation. The United States has specific regimes for every major nonproliferation area covered by these proposed sanctions, including missiles--nuclear, chemical and biological--and advanced conventional weapons. These laws have been strictly enforced. The Thompson-Torricelli bill actually could hinder U.S. efforts to prevent proliferation by politicizing the process of determining violations.

Currently, the president has the authority to impose sanctions for nonproliferation violations when he has hard evidence of wrongdoing. That evidence comes from military and intelligence sources spanning several federal agencies--the same agencies that brief members of Congress. Under the Thompson-Torricelli bill, the president would need only "credible information," increasing the risk of imposing U.S. sanctions on the basis of incomplete or erroneous information. In addition, the legislation would, in effect, require annual congressional votes second-guessing whether the president should have imposed sanctions and allowing Congress to overrule his decisions.

Second, the Thompson-Torricelli legislation could deal a devastating blow to U.S. exporters by putting their eighth-largest export market, China, at risk. The bill tries to sanction China by restricting U.S. Export-Import Bank financing and credit guarantees. These programs enable U.S. companies to compete on a level playing field in overseas markets such as China.

Restrictions on these credit guarantees would deal a devastating blow to American farmers, who are in a serious economic downturn because of the steep drop in U.S. farm exports to Asia. Losing China--which the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects could account for one-third of growth in U.S. farm exports--would be a major setback.

In short, Thompson-Torricelli sanctions won't strengthen U.S. leverage. Instead, the bill would ensure that China buys European aircraft, Japanese cars, Canadian wheat and Australian beef--all of which benefit from subsidized export financing.

Third, the Thompson-Torricelli bill would end up isolating the United States, not China. Decades of experience suggest that our European and Asian allies will not support unilateral U.S. sanctions. Consequently, U.S. security will suffer by inciting hostility from our key allies and China against U.S. nonproliferation objectives. Ultimately, the bill would undermine U.S.-Sino relations.

Because the bill defines "person" to include the foreign parent of a U.S. subsidiary, it invites U.S. sanctions on our allies, which will object to application of U.S. export controls and sanctions to their companies.

Unilateral sanctions are a poor substitute for solid foreign policy. The right approach to preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction is to enforce current laws, engage China at all levels, gain multilateral support from our allies and recognize that unilateral sanctions don't work.

The Senate should reject the Thompson-Torricelli legislation, which is being rushed through Congress without appropriate deliberation. If it wants to advance America's national security, the Senate should pass permanent normal trade relations for China, which will bring the Asian giant under the world's rules-based trading system and broaden our engagement and our ability to bring about positive change.

The writer is president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

----

Cohen off to repair relations with China

Washington Times
July 10, 2000
By Bill Gertz
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000710224736.htm

NEWS ANALYSIS

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen leaves today for China hoping to jump-start the Pentagon's stalled military diplomacy program, which so far has done little to coax the People's Liberation Army into being more open or friendly.

Defense officials said privately that China several times turned down offers to conduct joint military exercises with U.S. forces to practice humanitarian relief or search and rescue operations.

The PLA also has balked at conducting simple indoor military exercises, known as the "Sand Table" seminar program, the officials said.

"The Chinese said, 'We don't conduct exercises with anyone,' " said one official.

However, a senior defense official who briefed reporters on the secretary's Asia trip said cooperating in military, humanitarian and disaster relief and the tabletop exercises are areas the Pentagon hopes will be resumed.

"The purpose of the visit to China is threefold: to promote our military-to-military relationship with China, as part of our overall bilateral relationship; to conduct high-level policy dialogue on a broad range of global, regional and bilateral issues; and thirdly, to improve our lines of communication between our two leaderships," the official said.

The only event scheduled is the signing of a memorandum on the environment. However, officials familiar with the agreement said it lacks substance and is nothing more than a call for further discussions on the issue.

Mr. Cohen will meet officials in Beijing tomorrow through Thursday and travel to Shanghai on Friday. He is scheduled to spend the weekend in Sydney, Australia, with defense officials there before returning to Washington July 17.

The four-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai will be the first by the defense secretary since military-to-military contacts were cut off after the errant U.S. bombing raid on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during the Balkan air war last year.

Despite numerous U.S. apologies, including several by President Clinton, China continues to view the bombing as a deliberate attack designed to embroil China in the European conflict.

China's announcement of the visit was muted. An official Foreign Ministry statement said Mr. Cohen is visiting as a guest of Defense Minister Chi Haotian to "hold talks and exchange views . . . on issues of mutual interest."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi told reporters in Beijing the visit by Mr. Cohen is important for relations between the two countries.

However, in a preview of what Mr. Cohen can expect to hear from senior officials, Mr. Sun criticized the United States for the embassy bombing and U.S. plans for a national missile defense.

"We are still demanding that the U.S. side face the severity of this bombing incident and carry out a full investigation into this matter leading to a satisfactory explanation," Mr. Sun said. The bombing by U.S. B-2 bombers killed three Chinese officials and injured 20 others. It was "a gross violation of Chinese sovereignty, greatly hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and undermined China-U.S. relations," Mr. Sun said.

Mr. Cohen told reporters in Florida last week that he will "try to get back on track our military-to-military relations with the Chinese to explore ways in which we can cooperate on a military basis by discussing potential peacekeeping activities, talking about making the so-called rules of the road as far as our forces are concerned in humanitarian de-mining, other types of peaceful activities that we can cooperate on."

"We have an opportunity to explore these during the course of our meetings," he said.

As for Taiwan, Mr. Cohen said he would remind the Chinese that reconciliation with the island should be "through peaceful means, not through either military action or military intimidation."

On national missile defense, Mr. Cohen said he will tell the Chinese that no final decision on deployment has been made. But should the decision be made to deploy the missile defense, "it's not designed to pose a threat to Chinese strategic systems," but is aimed at countering missile proliferation by North Korea and Iran.

"I believe it's important for the United States to have a capability to defend the American people against such a limited type of attack or the threat of attack, or an unauthorized or accidental type of launch," he said. "That will be the message that I will deliver to the Chinese government."

The Chinese rejected requests from Pentagon officials to visit the Central Military Commission headquarters near the Forbidden City in Beijing, and also would not allow Mr. Cohen to see the PLA's General Staff offices, also in Beijing.

In January 1998, Mr. Cohen was permitted to see a military air-defense site, but it was an older facility. Some Pentagon officials said afterward this was part of a strategic deception program to fool the Pentagon into viewing Chinese military capabilities as outdated and non-threatening.

Since last year, China has stepped up attacks on the United States as a dangerous "hegemon" bent on splitting or destabilizing it. The official newspaper the People's Daily said in June 1999 that the United States and Nazi Germany "are exactly the same" in their "ambition to seek hegemony." The newspaper said the use of U.S. missiles against civilians in Yugoslavia was the same as Hitler herding Jews into concentration camp and killing them with cyanide gas.

Chinese animosity toward the United States has prompted many in Congress to question the Pentagon's military diplomacy. "I am concerned that China's intention toward the United States may be more threatening than is widely accepted," said Rep. Floyd D. Spence, South Carolina Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "If so, current administration policy may be reinforcing China's behavior and setting the United States and China on a collision course."

Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon China specialist who has written two books on Chinese military and strategic writings, told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this month that China has rejected Pentagon efforts to encourage more openness on military matters.

"The Chinese are very proud of their level of secrecy," he said, noting that estimates of China's annual military spending range widely from the official Beijing figure of $10 billion to American China scholars' estimates of between $50 billion and $200 billion.

Mr. Cohen will hold meetings with Gen. Chi, the defense minister, and also is expected to meet Zhang Wannian, the head of the powerful Central Military Commission. He also is scheduled to meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and will give a speech before a group of military officials at China's National Defense University.

-------- depleted uranium

Ecological Effects Of War On Yugoslavia
Bombs In Yugoslavia

From: GMTilden@aol.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 07:46:49 EDT
ecotoday@aol.com 6-27-00

The following scientific, non-Propaganda report details the health effects of NATO electronic warfare and Uranium bombing during the recent war. Please read and reflect, scientifically and morally. War remains humanity's most destructive activity. No matter how much people on this list may object, the effects of electronic warfare and environmental warfare, along with the boy-toys - must be confronted if they are to be avoided in the future.

Alfred Webre, Vancouver, BC

From Dr. Janet M. Eaton, NB, Canada:
Dear All:

The following contains two e-mails from Dr. Aleksandra Veljovic of the Cancer Foundation , Yugoslavia, sent to me in response to my requests for

1] information on the health consequences of NATO Bombings and

2] specific information on the recent conference held in April in Yugloslavia on "Consequences of Ecological Catastrophe on the Health of the Balkan Population."

Dr. Aleksandra Veljovic also forwarded by attachment to her first e-mail : "A Report of Current Cancer Epidemiology in Serbia based on Available Data " December 1999 which is not yet available on their website which is still under construction. In the section of this report entitled "Projection of Malignant Diseases", the authors note that "when the bombing of Yugoslavia started, the environment of the population of Serbia was greatly altered. The destruction of petrochemical and fertilizer factories, refineries and electro-energetic systems released cancerogens in the air: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen hydroxide, hydrocarbons, pyralene, vinyl-chloride-monomer, lead and other. Many cancerogens have polluted water flows. Excessive radiation is present in the form of uranium oxide from impoverished uranium. ..... It is hard to predict what kind of chemical reactions will take place in the air, soil or water. As a consequence of decreased quality of life and a life style in deprivation, it is reasonable to expect a much higher trend of increase of malignant diseases, both in terms of incidence and mortality."

They also note that long term effects will be visible in 5 to 15 years while suggesting: " It is our job to warn the population of the possible consequences in the future." [See also #3 below for Introduction]

The enclosed information may be useful for those attempting to determine the health consequences for the civilian population of Yugoslavia of NATO's aggressive and illegal bombings of petrochemical and chemical installations and their use of depleted uranium weapons.. Dr. Veljovic's e-mails also shed light on the on-going economic sanctions against Yugoslavia and the NATO bombings of medical and health care infrastructure [some 147 building in all ] and the deprivation these actions have caused in regard to basic medical and health care services and in depriving a whole people of the right to be healthy and to live to anticipated old age.

All the best, janet

--

1] Message #1 from Dr. Aleksandra Veljovic

From: "Fondacija protiv raka" kbcbkosa@ptt.yu
To: "Janet M Eaton" jeaton@fox.nstn.ca
Subject: Need for information on cancer increase etc for IAC Trib
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:11:07 +0200

Dear Ms Janet Eaton,

I would like to thank you, on behalf of Cancer Foundation and my country, for your engagement in fighting for justice and peace in this world, which is not such a grateful task nowadays.

Since last year, almost immediately after the bombing, during which 147 objects (buildings) functioning as health care institutions were totally or partially destroyed and were unusable for the diagnostics and treatment of patients, most of our hospitals and primary health care institutions lack most of the basic and essential medicaments, infusion solutions, sutures, and 70% of the drugs normally provided in our pharmacies are nowhere to be found, especially citostatics. Obtaining a simple blood count has become almost impossible in more than a half of our otherwise relatively modern and advanced health centers. Surgeons are using linen for sutures as they did 80 years ago, since the regular catgut is far too expensive and this leads to additional problems with respect to postoperative patient care and rehabilitation. Old people have no means to buy medication with their very small pensions. Only in January, in a very short time, almost 2000 people died from the flu pandemic and corpses waited to be buried for 10 or more days since there was not enough room to bury them --people died in numbers in a very short time from pneumonia and the consequences of a severe flu, which the doctors in other non-sanctioned countries were able to treat.

The WHO UN charter guarantees the availability of basic health care needs to all, hopefully by year 2000, and here they are in a position of depriving a whole people of the right to be healthy and to live to be at least 74. Not to mention the high level of stress to which people in this country were exposed during all period of sanction and especially during the NATO bombing. Considering all above, we are faced with a severe cancer problem since the incidence of cancer is doubled! I am sending you, as an attachment, our Cancer Epidemiology Report with the projection for malignant diseases to year 2020, which will provide you, I hope, with useful information for your paper. This report has evaluated our present cancer epidemiology situation, based on available data, which are currently incomplete due to difficulties in a proper registration of malignant diseases, so we can expect that the true numbers are much more higher.

Once again, thank you for your consideration and please, feel free to contact me should you be needing any other data.

Best regards and best of luck in your further activities,
Aleksandra Veljovic, MD

Cancer Foundation Yugoslavia 11080 Belgrade Serbia, Yugoslavia Tel: (+381) 11 3010-721 Fax: (+381) 11 606-520

--

2] From: "Fondacija protiv raka" kbcbkosa@ptt.yu
To: "Janet M Eaton" jeaton@fox.nstn.ca
Subject: Re: Thank you again! Date sent: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 11:51:26 +0200

Dear Ms Janet Eaton,
Once again we will try to help you.

First of all , I want to give you more information about the Conference which Mr Radoje Lausevic has told you about and was organized by Cancer Foundation Yugoslavia. We forget how important our health is until we are in situation to seek for medical help.

Economic crisis in our country has provoked crisis in health care as well (as I wrote to you yesterday). Hospitals are unable to fulfill the needs of all patients seeking for advice, check up or treatment.

Also, it limits the actions of prevention services. Nowadays it is very hard to make sure that all patients get adequate hospital care, to perform all the necessary diagnostic procedures and to provide necessary treatment. Series of new diagnostic procedures have been developed to enable early detection of malignant diseases, but still number of early detected cases of cancer does not increase as expected. That is why Cancer Foundation has been established.

The opening of Cancer Foundation Yugoslavia was promoted by Medical Center "Bezanijska kosa", one of the most eminent health centers in Yugoslavia, in which our office is situated. Our team consists of physicians, molecular biologists, oncologists and health care and prevention proffesionals and we all participate in the actions of Cancer Foundation, as well as people of good will, ready to help the ones who need help.

One of our actions was the organization of the first international symposium with the topic: Consequences of Ecological Catastrophe on the Health of the Balkan Population. Most eminent physicians, biologists and nuclear scientists took part in it. We are preparing the book which will include all their reports, and we hope that it will be published in the autumn, so I think that this will be something you are looking for. Till then, I am sending you, as an attachment, the address book of all participants, so that you can make individual contacts due to your interests. We still do not have our web site but we are working on it, so be sure that I will contact you the very moment it is completed. Be free to quote our Cancer Epidemiology Report, hoping that this will help your philanthropic struggle. Best regards and feel free to contact me for any other data,

Aleksandra Veljovic, MD

Cancer Foundation Yugoslavia
Bezanijska kosa bb 11080
Belgrade Serbia, Yugoslavia
Tel: (+381) 11 3010-721 Fax: (+381) 11 606-520

--

3] A Report of Current Cancer Epidemiology in Serbia Based on Available Data Belgrade, December 1999

Introduction

This is a Report on cancer epidemiology based on available data in Serbia today put together on the basis of separate reports given by some of most renowned Serbian oncology professionals. The report contains data on the current status of health care institutions in Serbia dealing with cancer patients, the epidemiological situation of malignant diseases in Serbia based on the mortality and morbidity statistics, the survival rate and the regional variations of malignancies on this territory.

Greater Manchester and District Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (GM&DCND),
One World Centre, 6 Mount Street,
Manchester, M2 5NS, UK
Tel: +44 (0)161 834 8301, Fax: +44 (0)161 834 8187,
E-Mail: gmdcnd@gn.apc.org

NEW CADU CONTACT DETAILS PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU) can also be contacted at the above address and fax number, BUT the phone number is: +44 (0)161 834 8176

The CADU web site is: www.cadu.org.uk

*Should you wish to receive the quarterly CADU mailing by E-Mail please send a message to the above E-Mail address

-------- india / pakistan

'U.S. missile test won't affect Indian n-plans'

The Hindu
Monday, July 10, 2000
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/07/10/stories/01100007.htm

VARANASI, JULY 9. The Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, today said the United States' National Missile Defence (NMD) system will not affect India's nuclear programme and our delivery system is yet to reach the inter-continental level.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Fernandes said, ``India's nuclear weapon system has a limited reach and the country does not have Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) which were to be checked by the U.S. National Missile Defence System.'' He refused to speculate the effects of the NMD system on India's nuclear weapon in future.

He said Russia and China were the countries which would be affected by the U.S. programme and they had expressed their concern over the move.

The Defence Minister said the U.S. move would drastically change the nuclear arms balance in the world and could start a new arms race. The U.S. decision-makers had propounded the concept of 'balance of terror' and `Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)' and the latest move was bound to dismantle these concepts and the existing power balance, he added.

He said that besides Russia and China a large sections of the U.S. elite, especially scientists and peace activists, were also opposing the NMD system terming it `dangerous' and wastage of money.

Mr. Fernandes said the failure of the latest NMD test demonstrated that the programme was impractical and would create discord among nuclear powers.

Kargil victory day

The nation would observe `Kargil victory day' on July 26, the first anniversary of India's decisive triumph against last year's armed intrusion in the Kargil sector, the Defence Minister said.

He said the armed forces had called upon the public to light a lamp in every home as a tribute to the valiant soldiers who sacrificed their lives defending the borders.

A detailed nationwide programme for celebrating the day would be announced soon, he added.

`U.K. credibility at stake'

The Defence Minister said Britain's credibility was at stake on the issue of delivery of naval aircraft sea harrier and spare parts of the sea king helicopters to India.

Mr. Fernandes said Indian Navy was facing difficulties due to non-delivery of spare parts (gear boxes, rotor heads and blades) by Britain.

But the British Government was not to be blamed as the United States was pressing it not to supply the spare parts on the pretext of continuing sanctions against India.

---

Indian visit expected

Washington Times
July 10, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-2000710215032.htm

The United States expects Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to visit President Clinton in mid-September, according to U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Celeste.

The ambassador mentioned the possible visit in remarks to reporters in Calcutta on Friday, during which he also underscored the strong ties between the United States and India. He said the only problem is with India's nuclear program. India conducted nuclear tests in 1998, which led Pakistan to also detonate a nuclear device.

"The only place there is going to be an inhibition would be in military relationship. That is built around our ongoing dialogue about nonproliferation. But otherwise I see this to be a robust, growing partnership," he said.

-------- korea

US Wants 'Constructive' Talks on N.Korea Missiles

Yahoo News
Monday July 10 2:48 AM ET
By Chisa Fujioka
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000710/ts/korea_north_dc_2.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/071000/korea_us.sml

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday that it was looking forward to constructive dialogue with Pyongyang at crucial talks on curbing North Korea's missile program.

The two sides will address the development, deployment, testing and export of North Korean missiles during the three-day talks being held at the U.S. embassy in the Malaysian capital.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation Robert Einhorn said the talks were being held against ``a positive, promising backdrop.''

Washington has recently eased economic sanctions against North Korea after almost 50 years.

``Since our last round the North Korea has embarked on a policy of extending contact with the outside world,'' Einhorn said in a brief statement to reporters before the start of the talks.

``We are looking forward to detailed constructive discussion on issues that we believe have an impact on the security of the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large,'' he said.

U.S. and North Korean officials have met on and off in Europe and the United States for the past six years after U.N. nuclear inspectors sounded the alarm that Stalinist North Korea's civilian atomic power plants could be a front for an arms program.

On the nuclear issue, the two countries last met for six days of talks in Rome in May where North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear programs in return for fuel oil and western-designed nuclear power stations.

Alarmed By Missile Launch

North Korea launched a three-stage missile over Japan's main island of Honshu in August 1998, unnerving Japan and the United States.

North Korea promised Washington last year not to proceed with further testing of its long-range Taepodong ballistic missile and the United States quickly lifted some trade barriers.

Although it has reined in Pyongyang's nuclear program, Washington remains deeply concerned about North Korea's missile development, estimating that it could build a rocket capable of delivering a bomb over an American city by 2005.

This has driven a U.S. campaign to develop a missile shield defense system which is opposed by Russia, China and the United States' NATO allies who fear it would undermine existing arms control agreements.

After the ground-breaking summit between North and South Korea last month, the U.S. said it should still maintain a military presence on the Korean peninsula even if the two Koreas eventually reunify.

The United States has 37,000 troops in South Korea.

Washington also wants North Korea to stop delivering missiles and missile parts to other countries, including Pakistan and Middle Eastern states, which has been a major source of hard currency for Pyongyang.

Earlier talks on the issue had stalled as North Korea demanded at least $1 billion annually to suspend its missile exports while the United States refused to offer concessions.

---

U.S. Eyes 'Constructive' Talks on N.Korea Missiles

Reuters
July 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-usa-kor.html

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday that it was looking forward to constructive dialogue with Pyongyang at crucial talks on curbing North Korea's missile program.

The two sides, addressing the development, deployment, testing and export of North Korean missiles, ended the first day of their three-day talks being held at the U.S. embassy in the Malaysian capital.

No statement was issued afterwards, and an U.S. embassy spokeswoman said she could not comment on the development of the dialogue.

Earlier, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation Robert Einhorn said the talks were being held against ``a positive, promising backdrop.''

Washington has recently eased economic sanctions against North Korea after almost 50 years.

``Since our last round the North Koreans have embarked on a policy of extending contact with the outside world,'' Einhorn said in a brief statement to reporters before the start of the talks.

``We are looking forward to detailed constructive discussion on issues that we believe have an impact on the security of the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large,'' he said.

Einhorn greeted the North Korean delegates with handshakes on arrival at the embassy and greeted them with a chat as they returned to resume talks after lunch.

U.S. and North Korean officials have met on and off in Europe and the United States for the past six years after U.N. nuclear inspectors sounded the alarm that North Korea's civilian atomic power plants could be a front for an arms program.

On the nuclear issue, the two countries last met for six days of talks in Rome in May where North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear programs in return for fuel oil and western-designed nuclear power stations.

ALARMED BY MISSILE LAUNCH

North Korea launched a three-stage missile over Japan's main island of Honshu in August 1998, unnerving Japan and the United States.

North Korea promised Washington last year not to proceed with further testing of its long-range Taepodong ballistic missile and the United States quickly lifted some trade barriers.

Although it has reined in Pyongyang's nuclear program, Washington remains deeply concerned about North Korea's missile development, estimating that it could build a rocket capable of delivering a bomb over an American city by 2005.

This has driven a U.S. campaign to develop a missile shield defense system which is opposed by Russia, China and the United States' NATO allies who fear it would undermine existing arms control agreements.

After the ground-breaking summit between North and South Korea last month, the U.S. said it should still maintain a military presence on the Korean peninsula even if the two Koreas eventually reunify.

The United States has 37,000 troops in South Korea.

Washington also wants North Korea to stop delivering missiles and missile parts to other countries, including Pakistan and Middle Eastern states, which has been a major source of hard currency for Pyongyang.

Earlier talks on the issue had stalled as North Korea demanded at least $1 billion annually to suspend its missile exports while the United States refused to offer concessions.

---

U.S.-N. Korea Missile Talks Start

Associated Press
July 10, 2000 Filed at 6:16 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-NKorea-Missile-Talks.html

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- U.S and North Korean officials warmly greeted each other Monday before resuming talks about the communist nation's missile program, and the top American negotiator said the meeting was being held against a ``promising backdrop.''

``We would be prepared to move step by step toward a fundamentally improved relationship with'' North Korea, said Robert Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, at the beginning of the three-day meeting.

Relations could improve, he said, ``as the North Koreans address issues of concern to the United States and its allies, particularly the nuclear missile questions we have.''

The North Korean delegation was led by Jang Chang Chon, head of the country's U.S affairs bureau. He did not speak to reporters.

There was no comment at the end of the day's talks, but the officials were seen chatting and smiling as they left. They were scheduled to reconvene Tuesday at the U.S. embassy.

When the two sides met in Pyongyang in March last year, North Korea rejected a U.S. demand to halt its missile development and exports. Pyongyang said it would never change its missile policy under pressure from the United States -- a position maintained during three previous rounds of talks in New York and Berlin since 1996. North Korea also reportedly demanded $1 billion annually for three years to compensate for losses from curbing missile exports.

But the talks in Kuala Lumpur were being held in a positive atmosphere, due partly to the June summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

In the last year, North Korea agreed to a moratorium on tests of long-range missiles in exchange for an easing of U.S. sanctions. It also opened official talks with Japan, moved to establish diplomatic relations with many countries in Asia and Europe, and joined a security forum of Southeast Asian nations.

``All of these developments provide a positive, promising backdrop to the talks we are about to have here,'' Einhorn told reporters. ``We had a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward North Korea during that period, led by former secretary of defense Bill Perry. That review produced a new framework for U.S. policy toward North Korea.''

North Korea has developed its own missile technology from Soviet Scud missiles. Its Taepondong missiles are known to have a range of over 900 miles. In mid-1998, Pyongyang rattled the region by test-firing a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.

On Saturday, the United States failed in a test of the Pentagon's proposed missile defense project, which aims to protect America against attacks by small potential nuclear states like North Korea.

Analysts said if Pyongyang agreed to curb its missile program, it could weaken the major U.S. rationale for its proposed missile defense shield or Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system.

``With this rapprochement and with the North Koreans coming out of their shell, it undermines the rationale for the TMD,'' said Andrew Tan, an analyst at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

That would also please China, which is vehemently opposed to the U.S. missile defense plan.

The United States still identifies North Korea as the world's No. 1 exporter of missile equipment and technology and accuses it of providing Pakistan and Iran with technology to test medium-range missiles.

-------- russia

Russians Warn Dropping ABM Treaty Would Cause Anarchy

NewsMax.com
Monday, July 10, 2000
Stephan Archer
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/7/7/182310

Bilateral safeguards regarding Russian and American nuclear weapons will be compromised and unofficial nuclear states will plunge into nuclear anarchy if the United States abandons the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, warns Colonel-General Vladimir Yakovlev, commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Force.

In an interview with Nikolai Poroskov of the Russian Information Agency Novosti, the colonel-general stated that if the United States develops a national missile defense system and leaves the 1972 ABM Treaty, the move will violate all major agreements between the two countries on nuclear weapons. The undermined treaties would include SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), SALT II, START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), START II and possibly START III.

Likening a U.S. departure from the 1972 ABM Treaty to the destruction of a building's foundation, Yakovlev said that such a move by the United States would dismantle the current system of verification inspections, which includes hundreds of visits by both sides, and all but stop the current notification that both sides give each other on training launches. During the interview, he also expressed concerns that "threshold states" and unofficial nuclear states would be susceptible to nuclear anarchy.

President Vladimir Putin, perhaps in response to the U.S. debate over a national missile defense system, suggested the creation of a common European ABM system during a resent visit to Italy. Regarding the European system, Yakovlev commented that Russia had the technical means necessary but not the money.

He also said his country was abiding by the 1972 ABM Treaty. For example, he said Russia's space-based early warning systems and ground-based lasers all meet treaty requirements.

Further questions by the journalist indicate issues regarding possible nuclear conflicts and national defense systems are pervasive topics among the Russian people.

For example, Poroskov asked Yakovlev about the Memorandum on Agreement on the Establishment of a Joint Center for Exchange of Data from Early Warning Systems and Notifications of Missile Launches (JDEC). The agreement, signed by President Clinton and Putin during their meeting in Moscow, says both countries will provide processed launch information to the JDEC. The provided information must include data about missile launches in China, India and NATO partners.

Regarding JDEC, Poroskov asked the colonel-general if the agreement would provide for a mutual notification between the two countries in case of a nuclear conflict. Yakovlev said JDEC would not be created to prevent nuclear conflict.

Further questioning by Poroskov brought up questions on what the United States is doing with its weapons-grade plutonium once it is removed from warheads, as required by treaty. The United States has been storing the plutonium so it can be quickly returned to its "rightful place" if needed, Poroskov said.

Known as the "return potential," the loophole does not amount to any kind of military-strategic superiority and can be easily liquidated by START III, Yakovlev assured Poroskov.

The apparent concern in Russia about a return of the Cold War may explain some other events in Russia.

According to Segodnya, the daily newspaper published by Vladimir Gusinsky's Media Most, Putin has reportedly spoken in favor of reinstating the old hymn of the Soviet Union. Sergei Mikhalkov, reports Segodnya, co-wrote the lyrics for the hymn and isn't against rewriting them.

Gusinsky was recently arrested and released but remains under federal investigation for allegedly embezzling government funds.

A KGB veterans group has also recently sent a letter to Putin, who himself is a veteran KGB officer, asking that the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky be restored. Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet Union's first secret police agency and a forerunner to the KGB.

A public opinion poll by Public Opinion Foundation, a leading polling company that has, in the past, worked on contract with the Kremlin, found that 60 percent of the respondents were in favor of re-erecting the Dzerzhinsky statue, while only 21 percent opposed the move.

This is a significant increase from the end of 1998, when the State Duma called upon the city of Moscow to restore the statue. Forty-five percent of Russians at that time supported restoring "Iron Felix," while 36 percent opposed the move.

A final question by Poroskov for the colonel-general may state better than any other Russia's feelings toward a U.S. plan for a national missile defense system.

Yakovlev was asked if he believed that the latest U.S. plan indicates America has dropped the concept of mutual assured destruction in favor of a concept of guaranteed U.S. survival.

Yakovlev simply stated that mutual assured destruction, an idea taken up in the 1960s, is a myth. Assured survival, he said, is a continuation of the myth.

---

Clinton, Putin Discuss Summits

Associated Press
July 10, 2000 Filed at 1:46 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Clinton-Putin.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton spoke by phone Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in preparation for their meeting in Japan later this month.

Putin initiated the 15-minute call, said White House national security spokesman P.J. Crowley. Putin told Clinton of his plans to stop in China and North Korea on his way to Okinawa, site of the annual economic summit of leading industrialized nations, and Clinton told Putin of his Mideast peace summit beginning Tuesday at Camp David, Md.

``It was the second time that President Putin has picked up the phone and called President Clinton, so that is evidence they are establishing a businesslike relationship,'' Crowley said.

Crowley said Clinton and Putin agreed to continue their discussion of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, ``particularly with respect to Iran,'' during their Okinawa session. Putin noted Saturday's failed test of the U.S. missile defense system, and both leaders said they would discuss missile defense in Okinawa as well, Crowley said.

The two leaders also discussed Chechnya, with Clinton telling Putin ``there had been a lot of concern in Congress'' over rescheduling Soviet debt with the Chechen conflict continuing, Crowley said.

Putin thanked Clinton for his executive order last month that cleared the way for resumed shipments of processed Russian uranium to the United States.

--------

Russians Arrested for Stealing Missile Parts

July 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-crime-r.html
By Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's FSB domestic security agency arrested a group suspected of stealing gold- and platinum-coated circuit boards from a high-tech anti-aircraft missile system, RIA news agency reported Monday.

The agency said the group, which included two servicemen, were arrested over the last two months in the Far Eastern Jewish Autonomous Region -- a small province on the Chinese border set up by the then-Soviet Union as a Jewish homeland in the 1930s.

The detainees were suspected of stealing the circuits from an S-300 mobile anti-aircraft missile system.

-------- ukraine

Flooding Closes Chernobyl Reactor

Associated Press
July 10, 2000 Filed at 8:50 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Ukraine-Chernobyl.html

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- The only working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down early Monday due to flooding caused by a strong storm.

Workers started pumping water out of the reactor early Monday morning, said a statement from the Chernobyl press service. Several hours later, the reactor's energy level was reduced and then shut down.

There were no changes in the radiation level, the statement said.

Oleh Holoskokov, a spokesman for the plant, said the decision to shut down the reactor was made after a diesel generator aimed at keeping the reactor in safe operating mode was flooded. He said the reactor would be restarted July 17.

Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, when a reactor at the plant exploded and caught fire in 1986.

The explosion contaminated broad swaths of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and spewed a radioactive cloud across Europe. At least 8,000 people have died as a result of the disaster, most of them from radiation-related diseases. An estimated 3.4 million people in Ukraine alone still suffer from its effects.

President Leonid Kuchma, facing mounting international pressure, has promised to shut down reactor No. 3 for good on Dec. 15. Shutting down the plant safely is expected to take years.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- connecticut

TMI cover-up

From: "Paul M. Blanch" pmblanch@home.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:22:53 -0400

Dr. Bertell:

You don't know me but may have read about me in the Time magazine cover story in February 1996 and also the front page of the Wall Street Journal in March 1998. I am a prominent whistleblower who uncovered major corruption within the NRC and my employer Northeast Utilities. As a result of events I uncovered at Millstone, Northeast Utilities was almost bankrupted, and the NRC extremely embarrassed.

I was one of the expert witnesses at the TMI litigation and agree with you there was a major cover-up of vital information. The presidential commissions, the NRC and the DOE are all aware of this cover-up. As an expert witness, I had access to the all the original records. I have documented evidence, which I have given to the NRC, that the primary containment was breached shortly after the hydrogen explosion that occurred on March 30, 1979. This breach occurred at a time when the radioactivity in the containment was close to its peak. Preliminary estimates indicate that as many as 40 million curies may have been released during the following hours. The NRC and the licensee estimated the maximum of 10 million curies of releases.

Not one of the studies ever even questioned the data that was readily available as it could have alarmed members of the general public. Contact me if you have any questions.

Paul M. Blanch 135 Hyde Rd. West Hartford, CT 06117

-------- new mexico

Radalert Techniques - Los Alamos

From: "Paula Elofson-Gardine" pelofson1@home.com Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 12:48:06 -0600

Well, I can safely say that I know that it has been documented that there is plutonium in the fecal pellets of the deer that frolic in and around Rocky Flats, snakes, vegetation, and our "infamous" actinide uptake in cattle study that we found. It's everywhere, you don't have to look very far to find something. I agree, great presentation of hand held monitor techniques & applications.

Now you have to ask...if DOE has overwhelmed the Radalert manufacturer with orders so it's backlogged 3 weeks, is that good or bad? IT could be attributed to 2 things here:

1) DOE thinks this is a great little monitor, and couldn't wait to get some for their folks...or

2) DOE is freaking out over our organizing citizen rad monitors and wants to study it figure out the limitations, or to argue against it's efficiency.

Which do you think it is? Could be both. Went to a RF local council of governments meeting this am. Just like at other toxic sites, they are argueing over whether to make Rocky Flats OPEN SPACE, with hiking trails for the kiddies, or a WILDLIFE REFUGE, where they can take the kiddies for cool school tours. ARRRRGH! This happened at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where there were veritable pools of pesticides/chemical warfare agents, Agent Orange, the whole banana. Geez (slap on the forehead), what does it take for these goof balls to get it? DUH, maybe we might actually want the next generation to have better surviveability and health?

Yours, P.

----

Fire damage makes lab a better neighbor

Chicago Sun-Times
July 10, 2000
BY TOM KENWORTHY GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/nuke10.html

SANTA FE, N.M.--For decades, the Los Alamos National Laboratory has operated behind a nearly impenetrable wall of secrecy.

Now, in the aftermath of a May wildfire that scorched thousands of acres on the 43-square-mile reserve and raised fears of nuclear contamination among residents, lab officials are trying to be better neighbors.

During the weekend, lab officials talked about the fire, the possibility that it spewed toxins into the air and the threat that summer rains will wash nuclear and other pollutants into the Rio Grande.

They even opened the door to suggestions that ordinary New Mexico citizens be included in monitoring the contamination.

"It was unprecedented for our whole community," said Leslie Larsen, co-producer of the conference sponsored by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety that drew several hundred environmental activists to a hotel in Santa Fe.

Officials from the Energy Department and the Los Alamos lab are scrambling to prevent a potential disaster when the summer rains come to the reserve, which sits beneath once-forested hills on a mesa surrounded by steep canyons.

The Cerro Grande fire turned the hills above Los Alamos into a slick highway for runoff, which could rush through hundreds of contaminated sites at the lab and wash pollutants into the Rio Grande.

Because of lax environmental controls in the early days of the nation's nuclear bomb program, workers at the lab routinely dumped water laced with plutonium and other contaminants directly into the canyons. The amount of tainted soil in the canyons is estimated to be the equivalent of a football field half a mile deep.

"We have a real environmental problem here in terms of contamination of the canyons," said Steven Reneau, a lab official.

A $28 million effort is under way to control water coming off the Santa Fe National Forest and to prevent it from eroding hundreds of contaminated sites. The Army Corps of Engineers soon will begin pouring concrete for a dam in Pajarito Canyon that will be 70 feet high and 390 feet long and will cost $6.8 million.

Aerial seeding of 20,000 acres of destroyed forest has already occurred. Volunteers have raked hillsides to break up the hardened forest floor so it will soak up rainwater. Rock and metal weirs have been erected around contaminated sites, and hundreds of cubic yards of tainted dirt have been removed from Los Alamos Canyon.

"What we are trying to do is contain the contamination, and if we can't contain it, remove it," said Ted Taylor, a restoration project manager at the lab.

At risk is the Rio Grande, New Mexico's most important river and the source of drinking and irrigation water for millions of residents.

"Our concern now is for our lifeblood," said Dominic Arquero of the Chochiti Pueblos. "This is what our families drink every day."

No one can predict how strong the monsoon rains will be, but after a scare June 28, lab officials are taking no chances. A storm that day dropped nearly an inch of rain, and the runoff exceeded predictions, said Lee McAtee, a lab environmental official.

Such concern is long overdue, said Robert Alvarez, a former Department of Energy official who now heads the Nuclear Policy Project in Washington, D.C. The fires at Los Alamos and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state "are among the most serious nuclear emergencies ever to happen in the United States and should serve as a wake-up call," Alvarez said.

Acknowledging the long-standing adversarial relationship between the lab and activists here, lab environmental official McAtee promises a better dialogue. In that spirit, he conceded at the conference that, though sensitive monitoring equipment could not measure the small amounts, pollution from the lab certainly was released into the air during the fire. "We've got a lot more in common than we have differences," McAtee said. "We all want a clean environment."

That prompted grudging praise even from longtime lab opponents.

"It takes tremendous courage for them to come out," said Shannyn Sollitt, an activist with a group called Cranes for Peace. "I think they've gotten it that there's no trust between the people and the lab."

---

Fear Of Flooding In Los Alamos
Town Could Face Severe Damage In Wake Of Fires
Heaviest Rainfall Expected Over Next Two Months
$50 M Spent On Mountains To Guard Against Mudslides

CBS
July 10, 2000
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,213901-412,00.shtml

LOS, ALAMOS, New Mexico (CBS) Just eight weeks ago flames roasted roughly 47,000 acres in and around Los Alamos, N.M., leaving behind a thick layer of impenetrable soot.

Now, CBS News Correspondent Maureen Maher reports, the town that lost more than 200 homes to what was the state's worst fire ever is bracing for potentially disastrous flooding.

Barry Imler of the National Forest Service can predict the scenario when the water comes. "It will go through the ash to the soil, and everything on top of the soil will wash down the hill."

And over the next two months is generally when Los Alamos gets more than half of its annual rainfall.

Suzanne Maez' home narrowly escaped the fire. She says family members worry they may not be as lucky with the floods. "I will say, 'oh I wouldn't worry 'bout it, nothing's going to happen' - and I'll turn around and the kids tell me - 'well, that's what you said about the fire.'"

In an effort to bridge the dangerous gap between fire and water, an army of rangers and residents alike sawed, hand raked and spread straw over 6,000 acres. More than one million gallons of liquid mulch was being sprayed across the mountainside.

Collectively, some $50 million has been spent sprucing up the mountains, trying to protect what lies below them - residents from not one, but two towns, several Indian reservations and of course, the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"We don't believe there is any sort of health concern," said Lee McAtee, an environmentalist with the lab.

A 100-foot high concrete wall is being erected, among other efforts, to reduce the risk of radioactive run-off. But with the lab's recent track record, McAtee admits convincing the public may not be easy.

"I would say, don't be afraid, but, do people - are people going to believe me? Probably not."

At this point, it's less about what residents believe, and more about what they hope for, and what they're hoping for now, according to resident Suzanne Maez, is moderation.

"Every time it rains, we just hope it doesn't rain too much."

---

Woes spur migration to U.S.

Washington Times
July 10, 2000
By August Gribbin THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200071022324.htm

The explosive growth of cities around the world - especially the rise of huge, nation-sized Third World metropolises - has U.S. scientists and officials worried.

They're troubled by the prospect that these "megacities" - defined as places with more than 10 million people - will increasingly serve as incubators of disease, economic disruptions and endless political crises.

Importantly, authorities fear sprawling Third World cities that lack clean water, sewage disposal, health care and adequate municipal services will swell the already large, continuing flow of illegal immigrants seeking better lives in the United States.

There is ample evidence that desperate migrants will sell themselves into servitude or risk their lives to enter developed countries.

There are the recent accounts of 58 Chinese found suffocated in a truck in Dover, England; the death of Chinese migrants found in a cargo container at the port of Seattle; the discovery of illegal immigrants forced into servitude in New York and California sweatshops; and official reports that as many as 50,000 women and girls are smuggled into the United States each year to serve the sex trade.

The wonder is that so many of the rural poor in developing nations are so misinformed, frustrated and gullible that they believe false rumors the city will provide them with good jobs, schooling, fewer hardships and a higher standard of living.

But they do. And people keep crowding into places like Sao Paulo, Brazil (more than 16 million); Bombay (now officially called Mumbai), India (more than 15 million); and Lagos, Nigeria (more than 11 million).

It's expected that by 2015, Shanghai will harbor more than 23 million people; Jakarta, Indonesia, 21 million; Sao Paulo and Karachi, Pakistan, 20 million each; Beijing, 19 million; and Mexico City, 18.8 million.

"The cities are magnets, and the attraction is hope," says urban specialist George Bugliarello, chancellor of the Polytechnic University of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a leading member of the National Research Council.

Third world explosion

Today, the Third World has 10 of the world's 15 megacities. In just 14 years, as more children are born and impoverished peasants continue to abandon the countryside, developing nations will harbor 22 of the globe's 26 really huge metropolitan areas.

American officials contend that, as a humanitarian nation, the United States must help ballooning Third World cities cope. They explain that it's in the country's self-interest to do so. Indeed, many consider it a matter of national security.

So the United States is undertaking new efforts to provide counsel and expertise to foreign governments - even though the speed with which the megacities have grown and the sheer size of the phenomenon have caused some to question how much good that can do.

From 1975 to 1995, the population of Bombay grew nearly 121 percent to 15,138,000. It is expected to grow to 26,218,000 in the next 15 years - a 73 percent rate of increase that will give it a population larger than the combined populations of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Likewise, between 1975 and 1995, the number of Lagos' inhabitants grew 211 percent to 10,287,000. That number is expected to increase to 24,640,000 by 2015, a 139 percent rate of increase.

In 1970, 80 percent of the populations of developing countries lived in rural areas, where the living may have been frugal and hard, but the air was fresh, the water relatively clean and disease spread comparatively slowly. Now just about half of the world's population resides in the countryside.

Some 2.5 billion people now live in cities. It's predicted that in 30 years, the number of city dwellers will double to 5 billion, with 70 percent in cities of the developing world.

David Hales of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) stresses the speed of city growth when he muses, "I have a son 8 years old. When he was born, there were more people living in cities of the world than on the entire planet when my father was born in 1911."

Many hundreds of thousands of those living in vast areas of Bombay, Jakarta, Karachi, Mexico City and similar spots live where packed, narrow streets have open sewers. Or no sewers.

It's common in such places for large families to live without water or electricity in houses made of scrap pillaged from dumps and to sleep on dirt floors. In such places, toddlers play in piles of filth, breathing toxic air and swatting insects. Such poorly managed cities with scant municipal services become incubators of disease.

Dawning realization

The news media and charitable organizations have made Americans aware these conditions exist. But as Mr. Bugliarello says, Americans are "just beginning to understand that such conditions are destabilizing, and that what happens in one huge foreign city can directly affect them."

Mr. Bugliarello and others point out that tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS spread quickly in packed megacities and from there to the developed world. They say that within hours, air travelers or immigrants can transport contagion to the United States.

In a written statement, J. Brian Atwood, administrator of USAID, says that as cities of the developing world expand, "There is the danger that unmanaged urban growth will lead to economic, social and environmental crises. This is a matter of concern to developing and developed countries alike."

And Mr. Hales, head of USAID's Global Environment Center, puts it this way: "Look at the more obvious security issue first. There are many cities where living conditions are unbearable. Two-thirds of Africa's urban population lacks clean water and two of five have no access to sanitary facilities. One third of those in Asia have no clean water and two-thirds lack sanitary facilities. Just one in four kids born in urban areas of developing countries receives a high school education. Functional illiteracy is high.

"I'm not an alarmist. But when you have a large number of people whose dominant characteristic is poverty and lack of hope, you have a large population that's ripe for civil unrest."

U.S. officials contend the mountains of untreated human waste and industrial discharges from megacities pose a contamination threat, and already there is evidence of widespread air pollution from tens of millions of residences and factories burning soft coal.

"Ozone depletion and global warming are worsened by megacities, but the effects are not limited to those cities. It's not just a matter of national security, it's a global problem," says Vassar College's Jill Schneiderman. Miss Schneiderman is a professor of geology and geography and editor of "The Earth Around Us," a new study of environmental issues.

To cope with some of the many problems megacities face, USAID has an Urbanization Task Force that, for a few years, has been promoting and funding a program called Making Cities Work. The agency sends specialists to Third World nations to train officials in city management, public health, economic growth and, among other things, disaster preparedness and recovery.

"We encourage mayors and others to commit to democratic values. We urge the participation of civil society in problem-solving because that's how people get needs met," Mr. Hales says.

Specialists attack problem

At the spring meeting of the 35,000-member American Geophysical Union in the District of Columbia, specialists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey and Mr. Bugliarello outlined their initiatives for dealing with megacity development.

Los Alamos, for example, runs a project called the Urban Security Initiative. It consists of a team of environmental engineers, geologists, software designers, natural-hazards specialists, mathematicians, hydrologists, civil engineers and transportation experts, among others.

They are creating sophisticated computer software that presents city officials with graphic simulations to utilize when formulating expansion plans and for developing and testing responses to natural and man-made crises. The gamelike simulations show the possible effects of various calamities and possible interventions.

Project director Greg A. Valentine gives an example. He says his team used Dallas as a model to show how airborne toxic pollutants from a truck tanker crash, terrorist attack or other chemical accident would circulate and spread through city corridors.

The simulation demonstrated how cars driven through plumes of pollution spread the effects for miles into suburbs and airports. So for the first time, officials around the world can observe the consequences of such a disaster, spot places where help might be most needed or hardest to reach and form strategies for avoiding confusion and duplication of effort.

Some developing cities sit in earthquake-prone areas, or are near volcanoes. Thus the team used nuclear-test data and historic records to produce action simulations of what happens during quakes and eruptions. Even now officials in Naples, Italy, are using the Los Alamos software to plan against the day when Mt. Vesuvius again turns ornery.

For its part, the U.S. Geological Survey runs the Urban Dynamics Project, which makes available its mapping expertise and ability to trace the effect on the land of metro growth. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency is working with the State Department overseas to help foreign officials see the need for building codes. Importantly, FEMA is helping those officials to understand the kinds of laws and policies necessary to protect residents.

In all, there are 19 U.S. agencies toiling to find ways to cope with the rise of megacities. It's a challenge all concede is huge, but one that the USAID's Mr. Hales insists "is not intractable."

However, Miss Schneiderman, the Vassar professor, puts that appraisal in context. She says, "You've got to be hopeful. If we can't believe we can make constructive change, where are we? We might just as well lie down and quit now."

-------- ohio

Lawyers for nuclear plant workers want judge to step down

Evansville Courier & Press
07/10/00
By The Associated Press
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200007/10+nuclear071000_news.html+20000710

Lawyers in a $10 billion dollar federal liability lawsuit against the operators of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant want the judge supervising the case to step aside because of a possible conflict.

A decade ago, in private law practice, U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell represented Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin and Union Carbide, past operators of the plant and defendants in the current lawsuit. Russell was fighting claims of workers who said they were injured at the uranium-enrichment plant.

In the case, 700 plant workers and former workers and their families claim they were sickened or injured through years of unknown exposure to toxic substances there. Extensive contamination from radioactive waste or other substances has been found at the plant.

The circumstances "mandate the disqualification of Judge Russell," wrote plaintiffs' lawyer Douglas H. Morris of Louisville in a June 30 motion asking Russell to step aside from the case.

"The extensive prior relationship (Russell) has with the defendants and their counsel in matters closely related to those before the court creates the appearance of partiality and will cause the lay public to question the sanctity of these proceedings," the motion said.

Russell could not be reached for comment.

In a statement he filed in court May 30 - eight months after the case was assigned to him - Russell disclosed his past ties to plant operators and said he previously had mentioned it to lawyers in the case.

Russell's disclosure followed an inquiry about his involvement in such cases in mid-May from The Courier-Journal, which had been researching past workers' compensation claims brought by plant employees. At the time, Russell declined to comment.

A trial has been tentatively scheduled for Jan. 15, 2003.

-------- washington

Classified Work at DOE Lab Stopped

Associated Press
July 10, 2000 Filed at 7:52 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Lab-Security-Lapse.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon12.htm

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- Classified work at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was temporarily halted after a secret document was mistakenly photocopied and left in an unsecured but locked office.

The security breach occurred June 29 when an employee at the lab in Richland copied several unclassified drawings along with a classified one in a secure area, then took the papers to an office outside the secure area and left them locked up there, lab spokesman Greg Koller said Monday.

The lapse was discovered the next day by another employee, and lab staff reported it to the U.S. Department of Energy, Koller said. The employee involved in the lapse was not disciplined.

``These security concerns happen occasionally,'' Koller said.

A security stand down, in which managers meet with staff to review security procedures involving classified projects, was ordered July 3. Some classified work has resumed and the remainder should start again later this week, Koller said.

The security flap comes on the heels of the national uproar over a security breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In May, a huge wildfire threatened the lab where two computer hard drives with information used to disable nuclear weapons went missing before the site was evacuated. The breach was not reported to DOE for more than three weeks. The hard drives later reappeared mysteriously in June.

In December, former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was charged with illegally copying top-secret nuclear weapons files. He is in jail awaiting trial.

The Northwest lab is operated by Battelle for the DOE. It does classified work both at the Hanford nuclear reservation and at its main campus just south of the reservation.

The incident occurred as a range fire swept across the nearby Hanford nuclear reservation, but the security lapse was unrelated to the blaze, Koller said.

---

Secret Work Halted at Lab After a Lapse

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/071000pacific-nw-labs.html

WASHINGTON, July 9 -- Classified work at the federal government's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has been suspended as a result of a security lapse, according to Energy Department and laboratory officials.

Laboratory officials suspended all classified work at the installation in Richland, Wash., after an employee discovered a classified document had been left in an unclassified but locked office for about a day. Officials said classified work was stopped on July 3, after the classified document was discovered in an unclassified area on June 30.

While some classified work has resumed, most secret operations at the laboratory remain suspended, and some employees have been shifted to unclassified work while an investigation is conducted, the officials said. Managers have been meeting with employees who work on classified projects "to reinforce security awareness," Greg Koller, a spokesman for the laboratory, said.

The security lapse at Pacific Northwest appears to have been minor, but officials responded aggressively because it came so soon after the publicity over lax security at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. At the New Mexico laboratory, two computer hard drives containing nuclear weapons data disappeared from a vault this spring, only to reappear behind a copying machine after the opening of an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Also, Wen Ho Lee, a former Los Alamos scientist, is awaiting trial on charges that he downloaded vast amounts of nuclear weapons data from the classified computer network at Los Alamos.

The Pacific Northwest laboratory is one of nine national laboratories, but its scientists do not design nuclear weapons. Instead, the laboratory, which has about 3,500 employees, focuses on environmental science. Only about 13 percent of its research is considered classified.

Mr. Koller said the classified document was believed to have been misplaced on June 29 when a laboratory employee copied what he thought were unclassified drawings, and then placed them in an office outside the classified area. On June 30, another employee discovered that one of the drawings was actually classified, and notified laboratory officials.

No one at the laboratory has been disciplined as a result of the incident, Mr. Koller said.

-------- new york

Nuclear Fuel Market Goes On Line With UraniumOnLine.com

UraniumOnLine.com
July 10, 2000
http://www.uraniumonline.com/nynco/Press_Releases/press_releases.html

New York --U.S. utilities that generate electricity from nuclear power plants are entering the world of e-commerce to buy fuel for their reactors. New York Nuclear Corporation (NYNCO), a nuclear fuel brokerage company founded in 1982, is now operating UraniumOnLine.com (UOL), the only nuclear fuel electronic marketplace in the world. Nuclear fuel auctions within UOL are private and open only to qualified buyers and sellers.

Until now, nuclear materials were procured using cumbersome and time consuming methods. Information about material availability and prices was limited. But with its second on-line auction, UOL has moved the nuclear fuel market into a new age. The July 6 auction of 125,000 pounds of uranium began at 9:01 a.m. and closed twenty-two minutes later. Uranium prices during the past year have fluctuated from between $10.40 to the current UOL auction result of $8.18 per pound. The auction reflected a typical spot nuclear fuel market transaction in terms of quantity and delivery requirements.

"Nuclear fuel prices have always been difficult to determine because important details of transactions are often unknown," explained NYNCO President Joseph McCourt. "The published prices that are currently used by the industry involve a fair amount of guess work. With UOL, the market can actually see what the deal is and what exactly buyers and sellers are bidding. We believe with UOL the multi-billion dollar international nuclear fuel industry will finally have a specialized trading platform capable of handling procurement with low transaction costs and complete price transparency. Moreover, UOL will, with the help of its worldwide clients and its in-house nuclear fuel expertise, provide the nuclear fuel industry contractual and other standards that will define and greatly facilitate nuclear fuel trade around the world."

Nuclear fuel is used by the world's 430 nuclear power plants to supply approximately 20% of the world electricity needs.

About New York Nuclear Corporation: NYNCO, with offices in New York, Washington, Atlanta and Preston, England, has offered brokerage services to the commercial nuclear power industry since 1982 and has concluded transactions involving millions of kilograms of uranium, uranium hexafluoride conversion services, and uranium enrichment services. Its worldwide client list includes most nuclear utilities and uranium producers and processors.

For more information, contact:
In North America: Becky Battle (404) 876-9454 (rb@nynco.com)
In Europe: Andrew Crockett 441772200320 (ac@nynco.com)

-------- us nuc politics

Scientist Is Not Subtle In Taking Shots At Missile Shield

By Elaine Sciolino
New York Times
July 10, 2000

WASHINGTON -- The left lens of his eyeglasses is missing. The pocket of his multicolored sports shirt bulges with plastic rulers and scraps of paper. And his rolling suitcase holds more charts and manuals than clean shirts and toiletries.

Theodore A. Postol knows how to play the role of the rocket scientist that he is. He also knows how to infuriate Washington officialdom.

Dr. Postol, a big, bearded 54-year-old physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has combined evidence, emotion and expletives in his crusade to prove that a proposed $60 billion missile shield for the United States is based on faulty science, fantasy and outright fraud.

The Pentagon insists that his assertions are based on outdated information and ignorance of classified materials. Dr. Postol's scientist friends insist that he is one of the country's most learned ballistic missile experts and credit his research group at M.I.T. with groundbreaking analysis.

Still, even his closest colleagues acknowledge that Dr. Postol suffers from a problem that has little to do with science and a lot to do with style. As a scientist, he brings laserlike precision to his work. But as a diplomat, he has all the subtlety of a Gatling gun.

"This is a weapons system that is supposed to protect our families from nuclear attack, and these guys at the Pentagon are lying about its performance," Dr. Postol said during a visit to Washington last week. "They know nothing, nothing. But they wrap themselves in the flag and point at me and say, 'You're not defending the country.' So I don't care who I offend".

Indeed, in Dr. Postol's view, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, the head of the Pentagon's ballistic missile office, are "technically illiterate" about missile defense. Condoleezza Rice, the chief foreign policy adviser for Gov.

George W. Bush of Texas, is "not interested in the truth." Leon S. Fuerth, the national security adviser for Vice President Al Gore, is "uninformed and shows no interest in becoming informed".

Richard Garwin, a renowned physicist known for being politically independent and outspoken himself, said of Dr. Postol: "Ted is a sound, original and energetic scientist who has done great work in this field. But diplomacy and Ted Postol are an oxymoron. Many, many times I have told him, 'You will be more effective if you are more controlled and edit your language.' ".

Dr. Postol noted what his good friend had said and explained: "I am a very polite person with people on the street, with taxi drivers.

But if you talk about people with responsibility in government and they show no interest in the truth, I'm not going to say, 'They're nice people but they don't know the details.' "

The second of three children, Dr. Postol grew up in a decaying neighborhood of Jewish immigrants in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He said his father, a welder, beat him from the time he was a toddler. His mother, who worked in an Army data communications center, was "a genius who basically lived for her children," Dr. Postol said.

Although he was not interested in the basics of elementary education and had trouble reading, he recalled, he began building spaceships in kindergarten. "When the teacher asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I said, 'I want to study the stars.' "

Dr. Postol discovered physics as an undergraduate and then a graduate student at the institute, which he attended on scholarship.

"I was blessed with a tremendous physical intuition," he said.

Exempted from the draft because of an eye ailment, Dr. Postol stayed away from protests of the Vietnam War. Seminars by teachers who had helped build the atomic bomb made him a passionate critic of nuclear war.

But he has not always been an outsider. He worked in the 1970's at an Energy Department nuclear lab, then co-wrote a study on MX missile basing for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He studied submarine warfare from 1983 to 1984 for the chief of naval operations.

"Working in the Pentagon turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life," he said. "The sky was the limit. I could pretty much get into everything. I could learn whatever I wanted about nuclear war plans, ballistic missiles, early warning".

Dr. Postol also learned to respect the military, he said. "The military officer would never abandon the battlefield without taking his wounded with him. The academic would say, 'You're on your own.' "

In the high-tech world, he is a rare bird: an institute professor with no outside consulting income. "I have a rich wife," he joked, referring to the woman with whom he has lived for 17 years, a senior official at an investment company. They have never married and have no children.

Dr. Postol has angered the Pentagon many times before, most dramatically when he successfully challenged the "success" of the Patriot missile in shooting down Iraqi missiles in the Persian Gulf war. But he still holds security clearances that give him access to classified material. ("I don't use them anyway," he said. "They're useless.")

And despite his opposition to the missile defense plan, he said that if the United States was determined to build it, he would help develop what he believes is a more feasible approach: a boost-phase technology that would shoot at enemy missiles in the first few minutes after launching. "I don't like missile defense," he said, "but if we have to have it, let's have a system that works".

----

OnPolitics Live: Vice President Gore

Monday, July 10, 2000
Washington Post Online
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/00/politics/freemedia071000_gore.htm

Vice President Gore is set to accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at the convention in Los Angeles in mid-August. As the campaign focuses more on the issues, Gore must continue to search for a way to project his own image while capitalizing on the successes of the Clinton administration.

How does Gore formulate his policies? What should voters know about him? What do you want to know?

Vice President Gore joined "Free Media" for a live discussion from the trail in Connecticut on Monday, July 10, to talk about the campaign, the polls, the issues and his vision for the country. The transcript follows:

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Free Media: Good afternoon, Vice President Gore, and welcome. Given the failed test this weekend of the missile defense system, many of our readers have written in to ask you about it. This first question is from....

Bloomington, Ind.: What effect have the results of the recent test of the proposed National Missile Defense system had on your opinion of the short-term necessity of its deployment? Your opponent, Gov. Bush, seems to favor a very robust system, despite technological and diplomatic odds, which leads me to hope your position will remain more open, and based on the true need and viability, not domestic political sentiment.

Vice President Gore: OK. Here we go. I favor an effort to develop a limited missile defense system -- and not a massive "star wars" system (for reasons I'll briefly describe) -- because our country will probably face a new threat later in this decade from a small arsenal of relatively unsophisticated ICBMs in the hands of a so-called rogue state. The failure of the test last Friday night doesn't mean that such a system is impossible to build, although the specific lessons from the failure will have to await a more thorough analysis. The much larger, space-based star wars approach that Gov. Bush is committed to is far more difficult to design and build, far more expensive to purchase, less likely to work, and is calculated to destroy existing arms control arrangements with the Russians which have calmed down the old arms race for the last 28 years, ever since the ABM Treaty was signed.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: What is your stand and what is your presidency wont to do with regard to war, famine and AIDS in Africa? What priority is given to this issue in your agenda?

Vice President Gore: AIDS in Africa is a developing pandemic which requires a much more powerful response from the entire world. There is a major conference underway right now in South Africa to zero in on the best ways to help. We need more research to find a cure and a vaccine; we need more funding for treatment; and we need more funding for prevention. I began this year with a speech to the UN Security Council announcing a doubling of the U.S. commitment -- which was already by far the largest in the world -- but we need to do much more still.

Fort Bragg, N.C.: I am a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division and I am curious as to how you would react to the situation in the Middle East if the peace talks fail. It seems that they are already faltering and I am worried that I might be deployed to participate in a war that does not directly concern this country in any way.

Vice President Gore: My hope and prayer is that these talks will succeed. Bear in mind that Israel has never asked for help from American soldiers. Israel is our closest ally in the region and the only true democracy, and we will always support her.

Oakton, Va.: Vice President Gore: In your debates with Bill Bradley, you criticised him for being soft on gun control and advocated additional gun control measures in an effort to stem gun violence (such as trigger locks, licensing, and so forth).

Can you tell us how ANY of your proposed measures would have prevented the Columbine attack?

I note that the acquisition and use of the weapons in that attack were already illegal, yet did not prevent the attack. How are your proposals going to have an EFFECTIVE impact on already-illegal gun use -- particularly when many current gun laws are going largely unenforced (such as the Clinton/Gore administration's failure to prosecute ANY illegal gun purchases under the Brady Law).

Vice President Gore: I admire the way Bill Bradley spoke eloquently about this issue and others. I always said - even during the heat of the primaries - that it was an honor to be in the same race with him. He and I actually agreed on most, though not all, of the proposed solutions to the gun issue. And the woman who played a key role in purchasing the guns used in Columbine said recently that if the changes in the law which I and others have proposed had been in effect, she probably would not have ahead with the purchase.

Los Angeles, Calif.: Hello... What's your take on the fact that the next elected president may appoint two, three or maybe up to four Supreme Court justices (and how that could affect the composition of the Supreme Court for a generation). And, what differences could you point to between what could be your choices as opposed to George Bush's?

Vice President Gore: I support a woman's right to choose and Gov. Bush has promised to do everything he can to restrict it. Roe v. Wade was recently upheld by a 5-4 vote. The justices appointed by the next president will clearly determine whether it is overturned or not. In meetings with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, Gov. Bush apparently said something that they interpreted as a commitment to appoint justices that will overturn Roe, because afterwards they said they had heard everything they needed to hear and were very pleased with his position on the Supreme Court and Roe. I will protect and defend a woman's right to choose.

Alexandria, Va.: Have you given serious thought to choosing a woman as your vice presidential candidate? If so, who are you considering?

Free Media: There are many such questions today about possible running mates. Where do you stand in your selection process?

Vice President Gore: Thanks for all the advice people are offering about a running mate. I'm trying to keep the whole process private and dignified, out of respect for the men and women I am considering. As a result, I have declined to mention - or either confirm or deny -- specific names.

Boulder, Colo.: Al Gore, you control between $500,000 and $1 million worth of stock in Occidental Petroleum. You are in a unique position of using your influence to stop Occidental from drilling on land in Colombia that belongs to the U'wa people. You could prevent 5,000 indigenous people from committing mass suicide. If you were to speak out against the drilling, the American people would applaud this decision. You have told many concerned activists that you are, "working on it." What steps have you taken to ensure that this tragedy will not occur? What can we expect from you and your commitment to environmental causes if you were to be elected? Can we trust you to keep the big oil companies from having their way?

Vice President Gore: Actually, I don't own any stock in Occidental. Nor do I "control" any stock. When my father died 18 months ago, I was named "executor" of his estate -- a position which has one and only one duty: to see that the terms of the will are abided by. In discharging that responsibility I saw to it that the stock he left for the benefit of my mother was transferred to a trust that is supposed to provide for her and her care. The trustee has the responsibility of managing the assets of the trust (which is about $500,000). I do not.

Philadelphia, Pa.: Will you continue President Clinton's policy of opposing any bill which would restrict "partial birth abortions"?

Vice President Gore: I have said (as President Clinton has also) that I would sign a measure prohibiting that procedure -- so long as it contained an exception allowing a doctor to protect the life or health of the mother. Proponents of the legislation have thus far been unwilling to include such a provision. I hope they will change their minds. If they do not, then yes, I would veto it.

Columbus, Ohio: In light of the recent reminder of our economic dependence on foreign oil, what long-term actions will you develop to reduce the US dependency on foreign energy sources?

Vice President Gore: Two weeks ago I spent the entire week outlining a comprehensive plan to make our nation less dependent of foreign oil and the big oil companies. We should use tax credits to encourage the speedy adoption of new technologies that use far less energy and generate far less pollution.

New York, N.Y.: If Fidel Castro were to live another 25 years, which is possible, can you conceive of the possibility of your opening up to Cuba since he no longer has the threat of the cold war Soviet Union backing him up?

Vice President Gore: I favor only openings to the Cuban people -- not to the Castro government. Incidentally, you can find more detail on virtually all of these exchanges on my campaign Web site algore2000.com webster. Also, you can register to vote online at http://www.algore2000.com/briefingroom/releases/pr_0710_nat_1.html

Swarthmore, Pa.: Excuse me if this seems like a softball question. But we have the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years, the lowest inflation rate in something like 50 years, wages are growing at the fastest pace since the 1960s, the stock market has risen more than 20% in each of the past FIVE years. Given these kind of numbers, it seems amazing that you have consistently trailed George W. Bush in the polls for the past 12 months. What's wrong with your campaign, and what do you plan to do about it?

Vice President Gore: I'm really enjoying the campaign and I think it's going great. I have always felt that the polls are virtually meaningless at this stage. But eight months ago I was 15-20 points behind and now most of the recent ones show the race tied or within the so-called margin of error. I really think the people are convinced that there is way too much emphasis on polls; they want this election to be about the big choices we face: How do we keep our prosperity and progress? How do improve our schools, expand access to affordable, high-quality health care, clean up the environment in ways that create a lot more good, high-paying jobs, pass meaningful campaign finance reform, etc.

Manhattan, Kan.: With current scientific knowledge of the Yucca Mountain Permananent Waste Repository, will you recommend that the site be built if elected as president?

Vice President Gore: We don't have the results of the full scientific analysis yet. The decision should be based strictly on the science and not on politics.

Portland, Ore.: Why do you support capital punishment?

Vice President Gore: I support it for particularly heinous crimes because I believe there are some offenses for which it is just. I know that many feel it does not really have a deterrent effect, but I think it probably does. I want to add, though, that I strongly support the use of the new DNA techniques that can make our criminal justice system fairer and more accurate. I have been surprised at the large number of errors found in the Illinois system and in some other places. I am also concerned about the allegations that race has played a role in some verdicts -- and I support the ongoing efforts in the Justice Department to ascertain whether or not that is true. I deeply respect those who are opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds, but I do support it.

Free Media: That is our last question for Vice President Gore today. Many thanks to him for his time, and thanks to you for your many excellent questions.

Vice President Gore: Thank you all. Let's do it again sometime soon.

Free Media: How did Vice President Gore do? What questions do you wish he had answered? What's your opinion? http://www.delphi.com/wppolitics/messages?msg=802.1

----

Clinton Follows Carter's Footsteps to Camp David Process Begun in '78 Is Coming Full Circle

By John Lancaster
Washington Post
Monday, July 10, 2000; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/10/047l-071000-idx.html

Alone in his study at Camp David's rustic Aspen lodge, Jimmy Carter gazed out the window at Maryland's Catoctin Mountains and bowed his head in prayer. After 10 days, peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had broken down, apparently for good. Aides began drafting a speech for Carter announcing that the Camp David summit had failed.

The speech was never delivered, of course. The 1978 talks ended in a triumph for American diplomacy, setting the stage for Egypt's landmark peace treaty with Israel and laying the foundation for U.S. efforts to broker a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, whose 52-year struggle over land and identity is the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Now history has come full circle. On Tuesday, President Clinton will attempt to complete the process that Carter began at Camp David, returning to the presidential retreat with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat with the goal of forging a so-called permanent status settlement by the two parties' agreed-upon deadline of Sept. 13.

As if the task were not already difficult enough, Barak's governing coalition appeared headed for collapse yesterday as three parties announced that they were deserting him out of fear that he would give too much away to the Palestinians. Opposition parties, meanwhile, scheduled no-confidence votes today in the Israeli Knesset. Even if Barak survives the no-confidence votes, the crumbling of his coalition on the eve of the Camp David summit could undercut his ability to negotiate with the Palestinians by leaving him in charge of a minority government.

Following Carter's example, Clinton is making a leap of faith--gambling that the right combination of carrots and sticks will nudge the two leaders toward closing wide gaps over basic issues such as borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem. With just six months left in office, the president has concluded that the gradual approach to peacemaking that began with the 1993 Oslo accords--with its prescription for incremental land transfers, economic cooperation and other trust-building measures--has outlived its usefulness and that the time has come for hard choices.

"We have been locked in a chain of hostilities for the last 52 years with the Palestinians," said one of two well-placed Israeli officials who briefed reporters on the talks Thursday. "We feel that a moment of truth is here."

The stakes could hardly be higher. With Arafat having vowed to declare a state by Sept. 13 even in the absence of an agreement, U.S. and Israeli officials--and, for that matter, the Palestinians themselves--fear that a failure at Camp David could trigger armed clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian security forces. That prospect has prompted talk in foreign policy circles that Clinton may ultimately pursue a partial settlement--in effect, another set of Oslo accords--that defers action on the critical question of Jerusalem but avoids crisis by keeping the diplomatic wheels turning.

For now, however, neither party is willing to discuss such an outcome in public, insisting that they are traveling to Maryland with open minds and a genuine desire to settle their conflict once and for all. In Thursday's briefing, for example, one of the Israeli officials said Barak might agree to hand over the Jordan Valley--long regarded as an essential buffer against attacks on Israel from the east--to the Palestinians in phases in return for adequate security guarantees.

In the same vein, the official suggested that Barak was prepared to redraw the boundaries of Jerusalem to incorporate Palestinian areas--thus providing Arafat with the potential to fulfill his long-held dream of a capital in the holy city--in exchange for the absorption into Israel of nearby Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

"Everything about Jerusalem is on that table at this summit," the official said, adding that Barak is "prepared to go the extra mile on this topic."

At least when addressing Palestinians, Arafat has continued to sound a hard line, insisting that Israel hand over all of Gaza and the West Bank, which it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War, and grant Palestinian refugees the "right of return" to homes they lost when Israel was founded in 1948. But the Palestinian leader has shown more flexibility in private, according to a senior State Department official who speaks with him often; some analysts do not discount the possibility of a breakthrough.

"Unofficially, there's been a loosening of positions, and there are contours that are emerging on the major issues," said Shibley Telhami, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who also holds the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. "It's a gamble, but it's an inevitable gamble. . . . There is a reasonable chance that it could work."

The story of the first Camp David summit is instructive. Ever since Egypt's unsuccessful attempt to recover the Sinai Peninsula from Israel in the 1973 October War, U.S. mediators had pursued a "step-by-step" approach to Middle East diplomacy, seeking to ease tensions through modest confidence-building measures. Then came Sadat's historic 1977 decision to break with his fellow Arab leaders and travel to Jerusalem, where he addressed the Israeli Knesset.

But Sadat's bold initiative was followed by stalemate, raising fears in Washington of another slide toward war. In Carter's view, "this was the first time an Arab leader had been willing to take that kind of a risk, and if it came to naught, Lord knows how long it would be before Sadat or any other Arab leader would be willing to try it again," recalled Jody Powell, Carter's press secretary at the time.

So Carter invited the two leaders to Camp David, hoping that secluded talks in an intimate setting--coupled with the prospect of generous American aid to both parties--could fulfill the promise of Sadat's trip to Jerusalem. As Carter wrote in his memoir, "Keeping Faith," "I was convinced that if we three leaders could not resolve the very difficult issues, some of which had never been addressed forthrightly, then no group of foreign ministers or diplomats could succeed."

U.S. officials made elaborate preparations, supplying Carter with thick briefing books on each leader and arranging for Egyptian and kosher chefs to cook for the two visiting delegations. Each leader stayed in his own cabin, with Carter often strolling between them to present new proposals. One day he took Begin and Sadat on a tour of the nearby Gettysburg battlefield.

It was a diplomatic high-wire act that came perilously close to disaster. According to Carter's account, Begin's insistence on maintaining Jewish settlements in the Sinai infuriated Sadat, who at one point packed his bags and arranged for a helicopter to pick him up. Carter, too, grew exasperated with the hard-line Israeli. "You are as evasive with me as with the Arabs," he told Begin in one heated exchange. "The time has come to throw away reticence. Tell us what you really need."

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser, it was only after Carter threatened to publicly blame Israel for the collapse of the talks that Begin finally relented on the settlement issue. Begin's concession helped save the summit. In March 1979, Sadat and Begin returned to Washington to sign the peace treaty that restored the Sinai to Egypt and paved the way for the first exchange of ambassadors between Israel and an Arab state.

In theory, at least, the Camp David accords also laid the groundwork for establishing Palestinian self-rule. But Begin proved far more resistant on that front than he did to returning the Sinai to Egypt. Indeed, Sadat's decision to make peace with Israel with the Palestinians still living under Israeli occupation made him a pariah among fellow Arab leaders and set the stage for his murder by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981.

Clinton will now try to complete the task that Carter began. Under terms of the Oslo accords, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators began discussing a final peace settlement in 1996, although their efforts on that front did not begin in earnest until last September. But in recent months the talks have "reached a plateau," said one of the Israeli officials who briefed reporters Thursday.

No one expects Clinton's job to be easy, not only because of the complexity of the issues but also because he is laboring under a tight deadline. "Carter had two years to go," Brzezinski noted. "Clinton has five months. . . . That puts pressure on him."

"Everybody knew that if the conference broke down, we were quite prepared to blame someone and take the political heat," Brzezinski added. "I'm not sure with elections so near the same degree of credibility attaches to Clinton."

On the other hand, the consensus among foreign policy experts and administration officials is that Clinton probably had little choice but to convene a summit now--perhaps to be followed by another such meeting next month--given the looming September deadline and Barak's growing political troubles at home. "I think it's a risk worth taking, because right now we are on a drift toward crisis," said Richard N. Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and the former top Middle East specialist in the Bush White House.

Besides the threat of blaming one side or another if the talks fail, Clinton also has substantial carrots to offer. Israel, for example, is eager for high-tech American weaponry; the Palestinians will expect a generous international aid package--paid for by the United States, Europe, Japan and Saudi Arabia, among others--and last week floated a figure of $40 billion as compensation for refugees.

Eager to avoid blame if the talks fail, Israeli officials have sought to project an image of moderation and flexibility, a theme that came through strongly in the briefing for reporters Thursday.

One of the briefers, for example, made clear that Barak has no intention of signing an agreement that restores Israel's 1967 borders, as Arafat has insisted. On the other hand, the official said that Barak is prepared to turn over outlying Jewish settlements in the West Bank, with the proviso that the Palestinians "acknowledge the right of Jews to live in those areas" under Palestinian rule if they choose.

Few settlers, of course, would likely remain in the West Bank under those conditions. By making their departure voluntary, however, Barak would avoid the politically embarrassing spectacle of Israeli troops forcibly removing settlers from their homes.

Barak will not accept a right of return for Palestinian refugees, the official said. But he is prepared "to show empathy" for the refugees' plight and to "talk about family reunification" in cases where refugees can show they have relatives living inside Israel, the official said.

Jerusalem is widely regarded as the toughest issue. But here, too, Israeli officials are hinting at creative solutions linked to the incorporation of nearby West Bank settlements into Jewish areas of the city. "This implies opening up the borders of Jerusalem and that implies lots of interesting possibilities--full stop," one of the officials said.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Greenpeace fails to block U.S. missile test

USA : July 10, 2000
Story by Sarah Tippit
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7395

LOS ANGELES - The $100 million test of a planned U.S. National Missile Defence system went ahead early on Saturday, despite attempts to disrupt it by the environmental group Greenpeace.

The missile was launched after midnight EDT (0400 GMT) but failed to hit its target, the Pentagon said.

Activists who infiltrated Vandenberg Air Force Base and an island near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean were arrested, Greenpeace said on Friday night. There were no injuries.

Officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base would not confirm that activists were inside the bases or near the launch site, from where the U.S. military tried to shoot down a dummy missile warhead launched into space as part of a U.S. plan to build a missile defence system.

"We are responding to ongoing security issues and we're not at liberty to discuss them at this time," Air Force officials said in a brief statement issued on Friday night.

To stop the launch, Greenpeace spokesman Steve Shallhorn said that three activists had been hiding on the Vandenberg base since last Wednesday and four more entered on Friday morning. The seven had planned to appear near the launch site to block the missile test, he said. A Greenpeace spokeswoman said Friday night that the seven had been arrested by Air Force personnel.

Three activists were also sent to Meck Island at the Kwajalein Atoll where the interceptors are based, Shallhorn said. He said two of the activists were believed to have been arrested on the island.

Air Force officials declined to comment on reports of arrests at Vandenberg or at Kwajalein.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Mary Macnutt told Reuters that their mission was to urge President Bill Clinton to cancel the missile test and the entire Star Wars programme.

"According to the Air Force's own safety procedures the missile cannot be launched with people in that part of the base," she said.

The environmental and anti-nuclear group also sailed a Dutch ship toward the off-limits area on Thursday.

By Friday night, the 164-foot (50-metre) Dutch vessel Arctic Sunrise, with 24 passengers aboard, had entered waters off the coast of Vandenberg, which had been designated a "hazard zone" by the U.S. Air Force, which mandates the area be clear of ships prior to the test. Some of the passengers were debarking in inflatable boats while holding large banners stating: "Stop Star Wars."

Greenpeace activist Miranda Holmes told Reuters the protesters were covering as wide an area as possible with their vessels. "We plan to occupy the zone as long as we can."

Vandenberg spokesman Maj. John Cherry said the Air Force was aware that the ship had reached the hazard zone.

"We have warned them that is an area ... where debris will fall in the course of a normal launch and it's not a good place to be. We will take into account that they're there as we go through the countdown tonight."

Cherry said Air Force officials apprehended one person late on Thursday just inside the base's border, eight miles (12.8 kms) from the launch site "which would cause no delay in tonight's launch."

Cherry said about 70 Greenpeace protesters held a rally outside the base last Saturday and that "a handful" had been holding a vigil outside the base since Wednesday.

----

Missed! $100M Foul-Up For Star Wars
Report From On Board Greenpeace's 'Arctic Sunrise'

Common Dreams News Center
Monday July 10, 2000
London Observer
by Antony Barnett
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/070900-01.htm

Two hundred miles off the coast of California, a red flash exploded on the Pacific horizon. Within seconds the fireball grew, blasting through the heavens at up to 15,000mph.

As it blazed past the constellation of Aquilla, the $100 million (£68m) comet left a trail of weapons-grade graffiti on the night sky. America's most ambitious Star Wars military exercise had begun.

Yesterday's Pentagon experiment marked a new chapter in the arms race. China and Russia expressed fury at Bill Clinton's decision to test the technology and pledged to step up their efforts to build their own missile shields.

America insists the new technology - which will allow it to attack any target on the surface of the earth with impunity - is vital to its defence. But there is one snag: it does not work.

Embarrassed Pentagon officials were forced to admit yesterday that they had failed to destroy a target warhead in space in the third test of its proposed National Missile Defence system.

'We did not intercept the warhead tonight. We are disappointed,' Air Force Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, director of the missile defence effort, said after the weapon failed to separate from its booster rocket and intercept the dummy warhead over the Pacific Ocean.

'It tells me we have more engineering work to do,' Kadish said. 'We had good confidence in this. This is rocket science - things do happen.'

On board the Arctic Sunrise, where eight campaigners had been sailing around the exclusion zone in inflatable dinghies watching anxiously as the missile roared overhead, no one could quite believe the news at first. Could the nation that had just demonstrated to us its awesome power have simply missed?

The radio cracked again. The answer was a clear 'Yes'. As the last faint traces of the missile's afterglow disappeared from the night sky, bottles of beer were opened in celebration in the ship's mess.

Maria, a Greenpeace activist from Moscow aboard the Arctic Sunrise, said: 'I don't know why, but seeing this missile come over our heads like that, I still feel scared. How can man make something so evil and so beautiful at the same time?'

As he clambered out on to the deck of the Arctic Sunrise, wearing an orange survival suit, one said: 'It serves them right. Fantastic.'

It was the second failure in three tries for the system. The miss could weigh heavily in a decision by Bill Clinton later this year on whether to begin building a new radar system in Alaska for a limited missile defence network in the face of bitter objections from Russia and China.

Kadish told a Pentagon press conference that the 'hit- to-kill' weapon fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific at 12:40 a.m. Washington time (04.40 GMT) did not separate from the second stage of its lift-off rocket. The weapon had no chance of intercepting a warhead launched about 20 minutes earlier from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, 4,000 miles away.

Under-secretary of Defence Jacques Gansler said he felt the design of the planned NMD system 'is pretty solid', but declined to say what recommendation Defence Secretary William Cohen might make to Clinton in coming weeks as to whether the system can be deployed by 2005.

Clinton is caught between opposition from Moscow and Beijing, who fear that a mature and successful US anti-missile system could neutralise their nuclear arsenals, and pressure from conservatives in the US Congress for quick deployment and limited protection against threats from such states as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

Prominent scientists and former US government officials have also warned the president that the technology is so immature that it would be folly to begin building a system that could cost anywhere from $30 billion to $60bn.

After detailed technical data from Saturday's test is analysed by the Pentagon, Boeing and Raytheon, William Cohen is scheduled to relay a recommendation to Clinton in coming weeks on NMD's immediate future. Clinton says his decision will also consider a pending detailed intelligence analysis of the threat from emerging potential enemies such as North Korea as well as US ties with its European allies, China and Russia.

Europe fears a new arms race begin if the United States breaks the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty by building even a limited system.

---

Star Wars: 50 Reasons To Say No Editorial

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
St Louis Post Dispatch
http://www.postnet.com/news
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070800-102.htm

FIFTY Nobel laureates have joined the chorus of critics calling upon President Bill Clinton to scrap plans for the proposed $60 billion National Missile Defense system.

Mr. Clinton should heed this unusual warning from this group of informed and distinguished scientists, who include Hans A. Bethe, chief architect of the atomic bomb as well as about half of all living American Nobel laureates in science. Labeling the plan wasteful and dangerous, their letter is well-timed. Late tonight, the Pentagon will spend $100 million on a test that is itself highly questionable.

The first two tests of the proposed system had disappointing results. Now it appears this third test, which may be the basis of Mr. Clinton recommending the initial building phase, is stacked for success. Theodore A. Postol, a professor of science and national security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former science adviser to the chief of naval operations on ballistic missile technologies, has unsuccessfully urged the White House to investigate an alleged cover-up of what he describes as a major flaw. Mr. Postol contends that data from the first test flight in 1997 prove that the ground-based interceptor couldn't tell an incoming weapon from a decoy.

Although a communications system has been added, most of the decoys used in earlier failed tests have been removed, leaving a single, 6-foot balloon that is one of the easiest decoys to distinguish from the warhead. This, Mr. Postol says, is the equivalent of "rolling a pair of dice and throwing away all outcomes that did not give snake eyes."

Even the Pentagon admits that the tests, which involve one missile, one interceptor and one communications system, do not simulate actual attacks that would likely involve many incoming warheads, each with multiple decoys, as well as a worldwide network of satellites and computers.

Reasons to reject the system go beyond the most fundamental one of whether it will work or not. Mr. Clinton's cadre of experts is far from united on the question of whether countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq pose enough of a nuclear threat to warrant such a defense. And the timing of Mr. Clinton's decision -- sometime this fall -- is too easily interpreted as politically motivated to portray Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore as a hard-liner on defense.

The most troubling danger is that the system will cause China to dramatically increase its small nuclear arsenal, setting off an arms race with nearby India and Pakistan. Fearing just such an unpredictable development, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also have asked Mr. Clinton to delay his decision.

The president should not commit tens of billions of dollars unless there is a greater consensus that the missile defense system will work, is needed and will decrease, not increase, chances of nuclear destruction. When 50 Nobel laureates talk, we all should listen.

---

Clinton's Embrace Of Missile Defense System Moves World Closer To Nuclear Brink

Common Dreams
Monday July 10, 2000
by MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/
by Eric Alterman
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070400-108.htm

On Friday, the U.S. Air Force will launch an interceptor from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific to knock a single dummy warhead fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California out of the sky, at about 144 miles above the earth and travelling at a speed of 12,000 miles per hour. It will do so, not under simulated conditions of battle but with full knowledge of every move and counter-move the single target intends to take - as if it had been given the opposing team's playbook months in advance. If the hit is successful, and most likely even if it isn't, Bill Clinton will likely give a "limited green light" to begin work on a national missile defense system.

WHY WOULD CLINTON give a go-ahead even in the event of failure in a test to highly choreographed it makes the Bolshoi ballet look like a punk rock mosh pit? The decision, you see, has precious little to do with defense and everything to do with politics.

SHAMEFUL AND DANGEROUS

Of all the shameful acts Bill Clinton has committed since becoming president in 1992, none is quite as galling as his administration's decision to roll over and play dead before the defense industry's missile defense campaign. Oh I haven't forgotten about "that woman, Miss Lewinsky." But that was private Clinton, not public Clinton - a fact that saved his presidency in the end. Personally, I don't find anything terribly shameful (or unusual) about lying about adultery. But purposefully endangering the nation, deliberately destroying decades of arms control progress, and knowingly wasting tens of billions of dollars all because he does not want the hassle of opposing the Republicans on a program so desperately desired by their patrons in the weapons-building business - this is a political crime of the highest order.

MONEY AND POLITICS

The case for a national missile defense has always been driven exclusively by money and politics, rather than any kind of hard-headed analysis, as Frances FitzGerald clearly demonstrates in her magisterial history of the program, "Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War," FitzGerald reminds us that in 1983, when Reagan, whose hard-line anti-Soviet policies had by then given rise to the largest antinuclear movement in cold war history, personally - and almost in secret - wrote an insert to a routine defense speech. Reagan called on the scientific community to turn its great talents to the cause of world peace and to give us a means of rendering nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete." He did so because he knew that ever since 1946, opinion polls had demonstrated that most Americans share the misimpression that scientists could easily develop a defense against nuclear missiles if would only they put their minds to it. Indeed, in most surveys, voters seemed to think we already had a defense.

CORPORATE WELFARE

This fundamental lack of understanding has allowed a spending program to mushroom that has so far proven to be the most generous form of welfare ever devised for wealthy corporations. Despite its abject failure to achieve anything of note in terms of solving the myriad technological (to say nothing of political and diplomatic) problems involved in creating a missile defense that would make Americans any safer, the program has grown like one of those mutant monsters in a cheap Japanese horror movie: It has become unkillable.

Too many powerful people have a vested interest in keeping it going regardless of its success. And while the Pentagon has repeatedly been proven to have faked results and created phony tests hoping to make them easier to pass than any conventional missile launch, these revelations have done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the program's backers.

NOTHING TO SHOW

In its campaign to see the program continued regardless of its results, the Pentagon has frequently done its best to silence critics by removing their right to see the classified data needed to analyze it. The defense industry spent tens of millions to finance think tanks and public relations campaigns designed to drown out the honest assessments of expert opinions and to build up the coffers of Congressmen who could be counted upon to approve its funding regardless of progress. The result so far has been the most expensive government research program in human history with essentially nothing to show for it. Seventeen years and $60 billion later, we still can't hit a bullet with another bullet in space - when the other side is using routine decoys and countermeasures.

A WORLD AT RISK

Seventeen years and $60 billion later, we still can't hit a bullet with another bullet in space.

What we can do, however, and are likely to do - even with the Clinton administration's limited, $30 billion plus plan - is to endanger our own security. Beginning work on the planned system requires a unilateral interpretation of the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that will infuriate Moscow and require concessions in many other areas. The Russians may go along, ultimately, if we buy them off, because their missile program is so big they can be assured that we will never be able to defend ourselves against it with any confidence. But what about the Chinese? While Clinton administration officials are speaking exclusively about a system that can defend us against the launch of a missile by so-called rogue nations that right now do not have the proper technology to do so, it turns out that the system is perfectly poised to defend against the small delivery system the Chinese currently employ.

The Clinton administration seems to think it can convince the Chinese not to begin an arms race necessary to retain its deterrent against the United States because its intentions are pure. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Walter B. Slocombe admitted to a reporter, "We don't deny to the Chinese that the system has some capability against Chinese missiles, but that is not what it is designed to do." And once China increases the size of its nuclear force, then so, in all likelihood, will India. Next, like clockwork, will come Pakistan. Does anyone really think the United States will be safer after inspiring another nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent? Will Taiwan feel safer once China increases its nuclear forces?

COWARDICE AND COMMON SENSE

And just who are the enemies here anyway? North Korea is currently making up with South Korea and Iraq is believed to be decades away from having the necessary nuclear delivery technology. Much more frightening is the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, which are easy to deliver, and which the United States refuses to join the rest of the world in helping to contain - owing to the fears of the Republican right about intrusive inspections.

The really sad part of this is that virtually everyone in the administration connected to this decision should know better. The missile defense system in question cannot protect Americans but it can make us far more insecure. But the politics are such that all the passion is on one side and it's the same side as all the money. In such a fight, with so cowardly a president, common sense just doesn't have a chance.

Eric Alterman is a columnist for The Nation and a regular contributor to MSNBC on the Internet.

---

Anti-Missile Test Is Rigged by Sandy Grady

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
Miami Herald
http://www.commondreams.org/views/Anti-Missile%20Test%20Is%20Rigged
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070700-102.htm

To fix a baseball game, it helps to have the pitcher lob tosses that a hitter couldn't miss. To rig a football game, you might tip the defense that every running play would go inside left tackle.

In sports, chicanery brings the wrath of district attorneys and howls from Las Vegas bookies. But in the surreal world of anti-missile defense -- with its big corporate bucks and political pressure -- a fixed game rates a shrug. It doesn't seem to bother anyone that today's ballyhooed flight test of a prototype missile interceptor over the Pacific Ocean is semiphony.

A flash of light and a direct hit will signal Bill Clinton to start moving dirt for a $60 billion missile shield in the remote Aleutian Islands. Fair enough -- if the test weren't as rigged as the 1919 ``Black Sox'' World Series.

In real life, a nuclear ICBM attack might strike with dozens of warheads surrounded by decoys, giving defenders seconds to sort out the chaos. The test, however, has been dumbed down like a tee-ball for Little Leaguers.

Let's see, a slowed-down, 37-year-old Minuteman II missile will fly a familiar route from California to the Kwajalein atoll. According to chief tester Philip Coyle, the intercept crew will know exactly the ``timing, direction and countermeasures.'' They'll even hear a countdown of the launch. And a radar beacon will be attached to the Minuteman. I guess they couldn't hang a red lantern around the target.

In truth, most anti-missile tests are highly suspect. Back in the '80s, the Pentagon even had a bomb to blowup the target vehicle in case of a miss.

The bigger truth is that success or failure in the ``Potemkin'' test will be a meaningless sham. If the defense blows it, there'll be 16 more tests at $100 million a shot. Nothing will stop what I'd call the ``Grandson of Star Wars.''

Since Ronald Reagan's dreamy March 23, 1983, speech -- ``I call upon the scientific community to render these weapons impotent and obsolete'' -- Washington junkies have been hooked on Star Wars illusions. I heard Edward Teller, the Dr. Strangelovian father of the H-bomb, expound his nutty idea for a nuclear explosion in space to trigger a laser beam. I was once numbed by ex-Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham bloviating about Brilliant Pebbles -- hundreds of tiny interceptors floating in space like ping-pong balls. Reality never dampens fantasies.

In her superb new book, Out There in The Blue -- Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War, Frances FitzGerald marvels at the unkillable anti-missile mojo: ``The persistence of the push for deployment was phenomenal. It survived declining defense budgets. It survived a fall-off of public interest so complete newspaper readers thought the program died. It survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.''

What in 2000 keeps Grandson of Star Wars thriving? Well, politics surely. Newt Gingrich's Contract for America pushed missile defense. So Clinton and now Al Gore don't want to look soft on defense. George W. Bush has upped the ante to build a system that ``defends 50 states, our allies and our forces overseas.''

Don't underestimate the lobbying muscle of defense contractors Boeing, Raytheon, TRW and Lockheed Martin, who love those multimillion contracts. Don't discount the hard-right think tanks.

But if Clinton gives a ``limited green light'' to start building the Aleutian Island site, say goodbye to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia. Do Star Wars backers doubt that China, which supposedly has stolen U.S. high-tech magic, could build hundreds of missiles to overwhelm the system?

In the vicious circle, offense wins.

More mystery: Grandson of Star Wars roars ahead with zero focus by public or Congress. ``There's no real debate,'' Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., says. ``Eighty percent of my colleagues are not paying attention.''

It's a wasteland. Folly keeps repeating. Gentleman, start your rigged test countdown . . . For ``Grandson of Star Wars,'' the fix is in.

---

INTERCEPTOR MISSES MISSILE; DECISION MAY BE DELAYED

Friday night's test of missile defense technology failed, making it far more likely that the decision on whether to implement a national missile defense system will fall on President Clinton's successor, according to The New York Times. (http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/071000missile-test.html)

"The practical effect of the failure is that whatever decision the president makes, it will now be easier for the next president to modify," one senior official said. Another added: "Whether you think the whole thing is a good idea or a bad one, we're running out of time" to make much of a difference while Clinton is still in office.

In "National Missile Defense: Examining the Options," (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-337es.html) Charles V. Peña and Barbara Conry discuss a realistic view of the challenges of deploying missile defense.

In "George W. Bush's Vision for Nuclear Security: Vestiges of the Cold War," (http://www.cato.org/dailys/06-01-00.html) Director of Defense Policy Studies Ivan Eland explores the presidential candidate's plans for missile defense.

In a recently released Foreign Policy Briefing, Eland urges policymakers to make proposed national missile defense systems truly national by limiting their scope to the United States and not include any allies. (http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-058es.html)

----

Future of Missile Shield up in the Air

NewsMax.com
Monday, July 10, 2000
UPI
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/7/9/203148

WASHINGTON - The failure of America's third ground-based anti-ballistic missile test over the Pacific Ocean this weekend looks certain to herald an intense new debate over the future of the proposed Alaska-based ABM interceptor system.

A warhead launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific failed to destroy a Minuteman missile fired 4,300 miles away from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California just after midnight Saturday.

President Clinton still is expected to decide before the November presidential election whether to go ahead with deployment. The system is proposed to protect the continental United States from one or a few nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) fired by rogue states.

The failure of the test puts Clinton in a dilemma. He and top administration analysts have repeatedly shown reluctance to push ahead with anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense programs over the past seven and a half years. But the president knows that such systems are popular with the American public and that the threat of nuclear missiles being fired at U.S. cities is growing by the year with the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).

Since Clinton's heir, Vice President Al Gore, continues to trail his popular Republican challenger, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, in virtually all opinion polls, the president does not want to risk handing Bush a dynamite issue by rejecting any proposals for ABM defense.

But the failure of the test Saturday looks certain to intensify the pressures on Clinton from arms control advocates and strategic analysts whom he admires not to start construction work on the Alaska system.

National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said the failure of the latest interception test "will have to be taken into account as we make a judgment of technical feasibility" on whether or not to deploy the 100 ground-based interceptors that the Alaska program would eventually require.

Three interception tests of the system have been conducted over the past year. Two out of the three were been abject failures - the one Saturday and an earlier test in January.

Critics charge that even the one test in October that the Pentagon said was a success took place under unrealistic and controlled favorable circumstances.

Critics also note that more than $100 billion has been spent on ABM research in the past 19 years since former President Ronald Reagan launched his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), popularly known as "Star Wars." Yet the Untied States remains defenseless against any nuclear missile that would be fired at it.

In fact, many aerospace industry analysts who have worked on ABM technologies are adamant about two key issues, one of which is uncomfortable to opponents of ABM defense and the other unpalatable to its advocates.

First, they say the technology to develop such a system is highly practical and achievable, given sufficient political will and financial resources.

Second, they warn that the cost of developing the program is likely to be extremely high, and that the optimistic "short cut" programs such as putting ABM interceptors on U.S. Navy Aegis missile cruisers and stationing the ships off major cities is untried, undeveloped and likely to fail.

Many administration insiders believe Clinton will try to finesse the highly controversial issue of whether or not to go ahead with the Alaska program, showing his usual political skill. They believe the president will announce groundbreaking moves on the system that would not cost much money and in fact would not commit the U.S. government to building the system, which could be operable by 2005. This would, they believe, defuse the issue until after the presidential election in November.

Then, if Gore wins, he would be able to grasp the politically unpopular thorn that Clinton has avoided and either ax the Alaska program or defer it until more testing could be done.

The Alaska program has never looked inviting to foes or even to advocates of ABM defense.

Its critics charge that it has enraged Russia and China and driven them closer together. Beijing and Moscow repeatedly have warned they would interpret the development of such a system as a hostile and irresponsible act that would upset the global balance of power.

Within the past week, Russian leaders have warned they would respond to such an initiative by deploying a new wave of ICBMs that could threaten the United States and that could swamp the partial ABM interceptor system.

"Russia will always have the means to counteract any U.S. anti-missile system," three-star Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's international department, said in Moscow Saturday after receiving news of the U.S. test failure.

"Experts in anti-missile defense, both Russian and American, are pretty well aware it is impossible to create an absolutely safe system," Ivashov said.

Champions of ABM defense don't like the Alaska system either.

They argue that it would have too few warheads and would not use all the technology available to build a credible defense system. They also argue that the interceptors would be deployed far too far away from Eastern Seaboard and Southern U.S. cities to be credible, and that it would be useless against any threat from Russia or China.

Advocates of the U.S. system also note that any successful program would require at least 20 such tests and possibly dozens of them. Seventeen more "hit to kill" tests are already scheduled for the next five years.

Supporters of the ABM interceptor being developed by the Raytheon and Boeing Corps. also note that the Minuteman development program in the 1950s had well more than a dozen test failures before it finally started to go right. Yet Minuteman is repeatedly cited as a model example of the successful development of an important new strategic missile technology.

However, such arguments are unlikely to deter longtime opponents of ABM development. Only last week, 50 Nobel Prize-winning U.S. scientists sent President Clinton a letter urging him not to order deployment. They said in their letter that the scheme would enrage Russia and China and offer "little protection" for the United States.

The American Physical Society, the world's largest organized group of physicists, also has called on Clinton not to approve the program, at least until more tests have been carried out.

This more moderate, although still cautious, position has also been supported by Clinton's own former defense secretary, the widely respected William J. Perry, who masterminded the dramatically successful Stealth aircraft technology program. It is also advocated by former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. He has been mentioned as a possible defense secretary for Gov. Bush if he wins the November election.

Administration insiders say they still expect Clinton to take this course.

It would save the president from the controversy of axing the program. And it still allows him to appear prudent in awaiting more comprehensive test results before committing himself to it in the face of so many arguments against it.

Whatever happens, America's cities look likely to remain defenseless against nuclear missile attack for the foreseeable future.

---

Cohen Plays Down Failed U.S. Missile Defense Test

Yahoo News
Monday July 10 7:38 PM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000710/ts/arms_missile_dc_2.html

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Reuters) - Defense Secretary William Cohen on Monday played down the failure of a crucial test for a proposed national missile defense, saying the glitch was in a ``routine'' area and not in the more sophisticated rocket science behind the plan.

``It (interception) didn't happen because of a failure for something that's quite routine, not because of the science involved toward the interceptors,'' Cohen said in his first public response to the failed test. ``It would have been helpful to have this test succeed,'' he added.

Early Saturday morning the much-anticipated test failed because the so-called ``kill vehicle'' did not separate from its booster rocket. The trial never progressed to testing if the weapon could find a dummy warhead in space and smash it out of the sky.

It was the last test before Cohen's deadline, now four weeks off, to make a recommendation to President Clinton on the technical feasibility and cost of the system. Clinton will decide the next step later this year.

Russia and China are adamantly opposed to the system, which is aimed at shielding the United States from attacks from so-called ``rogue'' states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and U.S. allies in Europe are worried it could lead to a renewed arms race.

Cohen said the test failure did not automatically mean he would recommend against moving forward with the system.

``What I have to do is to await the full report, all of the analysis... So at this point I'm just going to withhold any judgement,'' Cohen told reporters traveling with him to China.

``The test itself was a disappointment but it was one of those failures that was least expected, something that was routine,'' Cohen said.

``Most of the other elements appeared to be working quite well with the exception of the failure of the decoy to inflate and the separation of the kill vehicle,'' he said.

``The failure here was not the failure of the most sophisticated elements of it,'' he said. ``That's something that's not fatal to the program, and so I would reserve the judgement until I get all the way through the analysis.''

If a decision is made to move forward, there would be at least another 12 to 15 tests before the system would be deployed. In the previous two kill vehicle interception tests, one succeeded and one failed.

Development of the missile defense system is being tied to a deadline of 2005, when U.S. intelligence estimates North Korea will have a missile capable of hitting U.S. soil.

``They (North Korea) have indicated that they are not going to resume, for the time being at least, testing of the longer-range missiles, but that could be either suspended and could go forward whenever they choose to do so,'' Cohen said.

``We cannot adjust or calibrate whether or not we are going to go forward with an NMD program based upon what the North Koreans may say from time to time,'' he said.

``I think that it's clear that based on what they have done in the past that they could achieve a long-range capability by 2005,'' Cohen said.

The proliferation of missile technology to countries the United States considers hostile such as Iraq was a factor in the need for a missile defense, he said.

``We never want to have the United States put in the position of being blackmailed ... and prevented from carrying out our security interests in the conventional way,'' he said.

``I believe that any president would want to assure the American people that we would not be prevented or intimidated from carrying out our national security interests,'' Cohen said.

Cohen planned to broach with Chinese leaders the issue of missile technology proliferation, including U.S. suspicions that China is sending technology to Pakistan -- an accusation both countries deny.

``Just generally speaking we are concerned about the transfer of (missile) technology to Middle East countries and to Iran specifically,'' he said, adding he was not accusing China of currently supplying Iran with technology.

Asked if China had stuck to a commitment to stop exporting cruise missile and nuclear technology to Iran, Cohen replied: ``To the best of my information, yes.''

---

May The Shield Be With You
The Reagan-era Star Wars program lives on and may yet destabilize the new world order

Time Magazine
JULY 10, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 2
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/toc/0,3392,1101000710,00.html
BY CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,49028,00.html

The post-cold war world, Americans worry more about dotcom stocks falling on the NASDAQ than they do about missiles falling from the sky. For those who do fear nuclear holocaust, however, there is http://www.protectamericansnow.com. There you can get your very own "Customized Missile Threat Profile." Just type in your ZIP code, and the program will tell you which countries purportedly have the ability to hit your community with intercontinental ballistic missiles--and which countries may soon have the power to make your life that kind of nightmare. The site was masterminded by Frank Gaffney, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, who now runs a group that supports the installation of an antimissile shield to protect the U.S. "Take Action!" the site urges. "Your government does not provide you with any protection against missile attack from these and other countries."

The heart of Ronald Reagan's 1983 Star Wars program lives on, kept beating by a mix of election-year politicking, behind-the-scenes defense-industry puppeteering, and a fiercely committed group of conservative think tanks and antimissile-system advocates. It has propelled the National Missile Defense (NMD) system toward this Friday's scheduled test over the Pacific and is likely to move its development forward no matter the result. Pentagon officials liken the congressional push to deploy such a system to the early 1980s' fervent but vain effort to implement a "nuclear freeze" on the U.S. military. But they say missile-defense advocates appear to have a better chance of winning this time.

Not surprisingly, defense contractors too have a major interest in an NMD system, especially since its ultimate cost is estimated at more than $30 billion. The four largest weapons contractors--Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW--together received more than $2.2 billion in missile-defense research-and-development money over a recent 21-month span, according to a report issued by the World Policy Institute. In 1997 and '98, the latest years for which figures are available, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW spent $35 million on lobbying. Boeing is even readying a television campaign touting the need for missile defense.

But defense contractors don't really have to worry about politicians' turning off the funding spigot. They maintain that lawmakers' support for deployment remains solid and won't be weakened by test failures. Moreover, the issue is thriving in the presidential campaign. In May, George W. Bush unveiled his plan for combining unilateral arms cuts with a national missile system far more extensive--and expensive --than the one the Clinton Administration is considering. While Clinton's plan calls for the initial deployment of some 100 land-based interceptors at one site, Bush's yet-to-be-detailed plan envisions many more interceptors at numerous sites on land and at sea. Says Bush: "Our nation needs a new approach to nuclear security that matches a new era."

This particular new approach will certainly mean a new era in strategic thinking. The construction of NMD would be a violation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. If Clinton pushes forward with the as yet unproven NMD, not only will security relations with Moscow be upended but a new era of strategic instability with China and other nations may also emerge.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been traveling around Europe lobbying hard to undermine support for the U.S. antimissile shield--and making dire predictions of a "new arms race." America's European allies are concerned too. Senior European diplomats argue that if the U.S. creates a national missile defense, European reaction will be, "What are we going to do? How are we going to defend ourselves?" It will be badly received in Europe. And though China has only around 20 ICBMs, Beijing has threatened to build more if the U.S. goes ahead with NMD. Last week 45 U.S. experts on China wrote Clinton urging him to put off NMD, arguing that it would be viewed in China as "a sign of increased hostility." Says Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser: "We have operated 40 years on deterrence. If we're going to abandon it, we need to determine what it will be abandoned for."

Proponents of NMD say it is justified because of a new threat, one posed by so-called rogue states like North Korea and Iran that are acquiring increasingly sophisticated missile technology capable of delivering not only nuclear warheads but also biological and chemical weapons. In short, Moscow is no longer the only danger. "Today the world is no longer bipolar," says Henry Kissinger. "Today the threats have moved into different areas. Deliberate vulnerability, when the technology is available to avoid it, cannot be a strategic objective, cannot be a political objective, and cannot be a moral objective of any American President." In 1995 Clinton vetoed legislation that would have required the deployment of a missile shield by 2003, saying there was no threat justifying such a deployment. But in 1998, North Korea test-fired the Taepo Dong-1, a long-range, three-stage missile that indicated Pyongyang was well on its way to building a missile capable of reaching U.S. soil. And so, last year, Clinton signed the National Missile Defense Act into law. It calls for the construction of an antimissile system "as soon as technologically possible."

The roguishness of states, however, is in the eye of the beholder. North Korea has moved to thaw relations with South Korea. For that matter, the State Department has announced it will no longer use the term rogue state and instead will substitute the more benign description "state of concern." In a new book, Rogue States and U.S. Foreign Policy, Robert S. Litwak, a former National Security Council staff member, argues that the term distorts policymaking by demonizing whole countries. Just a handful of nations make up the nuclear club, and these aspiring members are under constant scrutiny. "The ballistic-missile threat is confined, limited and changing relatively slowly," argues Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project, which is part of the nonprofit Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The NMD's limitations are still severe. (See previous story.) Critics argue that simple countermeasures by enemy states--such as the use of radar-absorbing materials or balloon decoys--may be enough to foil the U.S.'s pricey shield. Rogue states looking to deliver bombs could simply send them in on cargo ships or in suitcases. One of the few skeptics in Congress, Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has proposed an amendment to next year's defense-authorization bill requiring that the missile shield be given more realistic tests employing the countermeasures that foes would be likely to use.

The NMD issue has led to a flurry of diplomatic byplay. Putin is offering to cooperate with NATO on a "boost-phase" antimissile system that would shoot down large missiles on their way up (easier to target with the fiery exhaust plume trailing them) rather than when their much smaller warheads are in mid-flight, as in the U.S. plan. Putin's proposals are sketchy, but Europeans, worried about being left out of a U.S. shield, are listening. American officials advise caution and note that Moscow does not have the financial wherewithal for such a scheme.

Clinton may play a waiting game on missile defense. He might choose to start clearing ground for one of the first phases of NMD, a radar station on Shemya, on the westernmost tip of Alaska. But he might hold off actual construction, technically avoiding a breach of the ABM treaty while keeping the U.S. on a timetable to build NMD before any "states of concern" are projected to have long-range missiles. Senate majority leader Trent Lott has indicated that he wouldn't mind seeing the NMD decision put off until the next Administration. For now, it seems, the question will remain on hold as the Pentagon awaits the results of this Friday's carefully choreographed antimissile test.

How the World's Missiles Stack Up These states--nuclear powers and wannabes alike--can rain destruction from afar Russia has about 6,000 deployed warheads, the target set by the START I treaty. More than half of them are fitted on to some 750 long-range missiles (ICBMs).

North Korea tested an ICBM (Taepo Dong-1) in 1998 but said last September it would halt further tests on account of diplomatic concerns. It may have enough nuclear material for one or two bombs.

Iran conducts nuclear-weapons research and has acquired ballistic-missile technology from Russia and China. Without continued U.N. surveillance, Iraq may have the bomb in 5 to 10 years.

In May 1998 the rivals tested nukes (India had joined the club in 1974). Pakistan has about 25 nuclear weapons, India roughly 80. Both have short-range missiles.

Beijing has about 20 ICBMs and as many as 400 warheads overall. It is not shy about saying that it has the capacity to build more but is preoccupied with internal stability and regaining Taiwan.

Israel has deployed as many as 100 short-range missiles. It is tight-lipped about its nuclear program but may have enough material for about 80 warheads.

---

Play it safe

USA Today
07/10/00- Updated 08:10 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/edtwof.htm

If it were a matter of the national pastime instead of national security, the concept of a missile defense system would be heading for the showers right now, having swung and missed three times in a row. But after the failure Saturday of an anti-missile interceptor to destroy its test target, a hasty decision either way is unwise. The strategic threat posed by "rogue" states such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq is very real. So even before the telemetry has been fully assessed, the decision is plain: Proceed with testing, but not yet with construction.

As it stands, the debate features unpersuasive arguments on both sides. Critics brush off the dangers posed by neonuclear states. But advocates have yet to justify the system's $60-billion cost or the potential damage the system could do to other arms-control initiatives. Russia and our European allies, for instance, fear an anti-missile system would violate existing arms-control treaties and obstruct new ones, including the Start III accord to limit nuclear warheads.

In this nation, opponents argue the system is too expensive, too easily defeated and not required. The retaliatory power of the U.S. arsenal will deter rogue attacks, as it deterred Saddam Hussein from using chemical weapons in the Gulf War, say such critics as John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists. Maybe, but what if not?

There's no need to rush, anyway. The administration had hoped to decide by late summer so construction could start next spring. Under that timetable, the system could be finished by 2005, when North Korea is expected to have a missile able to hit U.S. territory. There is also political pressure to make a decision soon to spare the presidential candidates a thorny debate.

But North Korea is abiding by a ban on missile testing, which should slow its own technology. And as the test Saturday showed, the proposed system has much to prove. That being the case, prudence dictates that before committing tens of billions to a system that uses even more complex technology, we be sure it is both feasible and effective. Test by all means. But for the moment, do no more.

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Gore Opposes Bush on Missiles

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/10cnd-veep.html

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- Vice President Al Gore said Monday the failure of a test for a national missile defense system does not mean the idea is doomed, and he criticized the version supported by presidential foe George W. Bush as "more expensive and less likely to work."

Gore, typing his answers to questions on the Internet, said Bush's proposal is "calculated to destroy arms control agreements with Russia that have calmed down the old arms race for the last 28 years."

The Democratic presidential contender answered the online questions -- using The Washington Post's Web site -- before giving a speech at Connecticut State University criticizing a "do-nothing-for-people" Republican Congress and saying the situation could get worse if Bush is elected president.

The Bush camp said it was "pretty amusing" that Gore was trying to persuade the Texas governor to get Congress moving on issues where the Clinton administration could not.

On missile defense, Bush has said he is determined to push ahead toward a system to protect the United States and its allies even if Russia opposes it as a violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. "We'll find out how good of a diplomat I am," Bush has said.

Gore wants Russia to amend the treaty to allow a more limited system covering the 50 states.

On Saturday, the Pentagon's proposed missile defense project had its second failed interception in three tries. Gore said the failure "doesn't mean that such a system is impossible to build, although the specific lessons from the failure will have to await a more thorough analysis."

Such a system is important, Gore said, because the United States "will probably face a new threat later in this decade from a small arsenal of relatively unsophisticated ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) in the hands of a rogue state."

In the Internet session, he also was asked about choosing a vice presidential candidate (he wants to keep the process "private and dignified"); how he would react if Middle East peace talks fail (it's his "hope and prayer" they won't) and why his campaign has continued to trail Bush in polls despite economic prosperity.

"I have always felt that polls are virtually meaningless at this stage," he responded. He added that he had been further behind early in the race.

"Race" came out "reace" in his version.

His speech at Central Connecticut State University -- delivered to 400 students and teachers in a campus auditorium and listening in a tent outside -- began what is expected to be a weeklong effort to tie Bush to a Congress that Gore says is beholden to special interests.

He asked his audience, "Will we allow entrenched interests to dig in their heels even deeper, to put their own interests ahead of the public good, to take over the presidency as well as the Congress?"

He urged Congress to pass "real bipartisan" legislation to protect patients' rights, not "fig-leaf legislation to protect insurance company profits," to provide prescription drug benefits to senior citizens, to close a gun-sales loophole, to raise the minimum wage and to pay women a fair wage.

He urged Bush to get involved. If not, he said, Bush is just as beholden to special interests, and if he is elected president, "the do-nothing Congress could then become the do-the-wrong-thing Congress."

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer called Gore's remarks "pretty amusing."

"The sitting vice president of the United States admits he's not strong enough to lead the Congress, so he asks the governor of Texas to do his work for him," Fleischer said. "Harry Truman said 'the buck stops here.' Al Gore asks, 'to whom can I pass the buck?"'

After a monthlong feel-good "Prosperity and Progress Tour," Gore had intended to continue to focus on the positive -- this week on welfare-to-work initiatives. He scrapped that to go back on the attack in an effort to capitalize on issues he says the Republicans have stalled action on.

Gore was appearing late Monday in New York at a fund-raising dinner for the Democratic National Committee.

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Test failure another setback for system

USA Today
07/08/00- Updated 12:31 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssat01.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The latest setback for the Pentagon's missile defense project - its second failed intercept in three tries - raised new doubt Saturday whether President Clinton will approve a quick push for a national anti-missile system.

Clinton has said he will decide in several weeks whether to stick with the current Pentagon timetable of building a missile defense for use as early as December 2005.

''This is something we will have to take into account as we look at the technical feasibility of this program,'' said P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House.

''The president awaits the secretary's analysis and recommendation and will make a decision on deployment later this year,'' he said Saturday.

The failure early Saturday suggests to some analysts that the Pentagon needs more time.

''Logically, you do regroup after something like this and you don't go forward with the existing schedule,'' said Anthony Cordesman, a defense specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The rocket took off as scheduled from Kwajalein Atoll at 12:40 a.m. EDT Saturday, about 21 minutes after the target missile was launched 4,300 miles to the east at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. But the warhead-busting ''kill vehicle'' never separated from the booster rocket, so it never activated the sensors it uses to hunt down its target.

The interceptor passed harmlessly by the target, and few of the critical technologies of missile defense got put to the test.

The reason for the failure was so unexpected that the three-star Air Force general in charge of the project told reporters minutes afterward that it was ''not even on my list'' of potential malfunctions.

The blame was placed on the booster rocket, made by Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space. It was supposed to release the kill vehicle from atop its second stage exactly 2 minutes and 37 seconds into flight.

The $100 million test was the third attempt at an intercept and the second to fail. The first failure, in January, was blamed on moisture inside the kill vehicle that prevented it from using heat-seeking devices to ''see'' its target.

In addition, the Mylar polyester balloon sent aloft with the target missile from Vandenberg to act as a decoy never inflated, Kadish said. That alone would have diminished the value of the test, even if the kill vehicle had worked properly.

The decoy was meant to simulate the kind of evasive measures an attacking country like North Korea might use to fool a U.S. missile defense system.

The test was plagued with problems from the start. The launch from Vandenberg was delayed by two hours because engineers discovered weak batteries powering the electronic signals that are sent from the missile to ground controllers to pinpoint where the anticipated intercept occurred.

Despite the problems, supporters of missile defense are expected to view the outcome as evidence the Pentagon needs more money for a project already expected to cost at least $36 billion over the coming 20 years.

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said in an interview Friday that Congress has made its intent clear by making it law that a national missile defense system be deployed as soon as technologically feasible.

''The deployment decision should be positive,'' Cochran said. ''We should make a decision to deploy.''

Cochran said he had no doubt that Congress would approve spending what it takes to build the system.

Vice President Al Gore, the presumed Democratic nominee, favors Clinton's approach of pursuing a limited defensive system that would protect only the 50 U.S. states. His expected GOP rival, George W. Bush, supports a broader, more ambitious system designed protect the United States as well as its allies.

The first phase of construction, if approved by Clinton, would be for a high-powered ''X-band'' radar on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. It would be the most powerful tracking and detection radar in the world.

An initial set of 20 missile interceptors - to expand by 100 by 2007 - would be based near Fairbanks, Alaska, with the command and control center at Colorado Springs, Colo.

Besides the questions of cost and technical feasibility, a U.S. president will have to decide yet another sticky question: whether to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which explicitly bans national missile defenses. That choice likely will be left to Clinton's successor.

The Clinton administration has tried to get Russia to agree to amend the treaty to allow missile defenses. So far, the Russians have refused. China also strongly opposes the U.S. missile defense plan.

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Decision on Defense System May Fall to Next President

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/071000missile-test.html

WASHINGTON, July 9 -- Senior advisers to President Clinton said today they still expect him to make a decision this summer on whether to proceed with a missile defense system, but they acknowledged that the failure of a major test on Saturday made it far more likely that Mr. Clinton's successor would ultimately decide the fate of the huge project.

"Obviously, this does go to the question of technical feasibility or how far along the system is," Samuel R. Berger, Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, said today on the CBS show "Face the Nation." He left open the possibility that Mr. Clinton could decide to defer construction of the antimissile system, which would be designed to ward off limited attacks by countries possessing only a few nuclear weapons.

"The practical effect of the failure is that whatever decision the president makes, it will now be easier for the next president to modify," one senior official said. Another added: "Whether you think the whole thing is a good idea or a bad one, we're running out of time" to make much of a difference while Mr. Clinton is still in office.

The flaw that doomed the test had nothing to do with the most sophisticated elements of the system, which are supposed to track an incoming missile, differentiate it from a limited number of decoys and intercept it before it hits the United States. Instead, the 130-pound interceptor failed to separate from the booster rocket that would have sent it speeding toward its target. As a result, the "kill vehicle" got nowhere near the target.

The dismal result fueled the arguments of those who say the defense system is a waste of money and will disturb relations with Russia and China. At the other end of the spectrum, it also gave fuel to supporters of the project who argue that Mr. Clinton's plan is insufficiently ambitious.

"The technological piece of this is not yet in place," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who is a strong supporter of missile defense, also appearing on CBS. "The cost obviously is not in place. I don't think we've brought our allies on -- I don't think we've handled that very well -- and how we're dealing with the Russians and Chinese on this are important."

"So therefore it's only responsible in my opinion to allow the next administration working with the new Congress to start making these decisions," he added. Some lawmakers in both parties made the same point today.

At a news conference a week ago, President Clinton said he expected to make a decision about the next step in "a few weeks." Mr. Berger appeared to extend that deadline today, saying he still expected a decision this summer. He said the Pentagon would have to make a full assessment of what went wrong, based on data beamed back to earth before the interceptor plunged into the ocean.

One lesson Pentagon planners and the White House may draw from the test is that any missile defense system may require a significantly larger fleet of antimissile rockets than currently planned.

The Air Force learned this lesson in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger accident, when military leaders concluded that the shuttle flights would not be frequent enough to lift their spy satellites into space. They shifted the satellite launches back to unmanned rockets.

But the failure rate of those launches was higher than initially expected.

Moreover, the arithmetic of offensive and defensive missile launches almost always favors the country initiating an attack. Even if half or more of its rockets are intercepted, an attack can be considered a success.

But if even a few rockets make it through a defensive shield -- leading to a nuclear disaster that takes thousands of lives -- the shield may well be considered a failure.

For that reason, several advisers to Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, are urging him to support a system that edges back toward President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" dreams rather than President Clinton's limited defense.

Mr. Clinton's plan, one of Mr. Bush's advisers said, was designed to "come up with the smallest possible program to meet the standard, and it never had a strategic context." It was chiefly intended, he argued, to protect Vice President Al Gore from the charge of being too soft on defense.

Whatever Mr. Clinton decides in coming months, said the adviser, "we have to go back and look at the strategic logic."

That reassessment could also examine the nuclear threat that the system would deter. The failure of this test may only encourage nations like China, which is believed to have only two dozen intercontinental missiles, to vastly increase their arsenals in order to overwhelm any defensive system.

On the other hand, any new president may have to reassess the nature of the threat from what the State Department previously called "rogue nations." North Korea's recent opening to the South has prompted questions about whether its leaders may be rational enough to be deterred by the prospect of a retaliatory attack -- much as the old Soviet Union was during the cold war.

Referring to North Korea, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said today: "The threat is not at all clear to me."

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Scientist Is Not Subtle in Taking Shots at Missile Shield

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/071000lives-missile.html

WASHINGTON -- The left lens of his eyeglasses is missing. The pocket of his multicolored sports shirt bulges with plastic rulers and scraps of paper. And his rolling suitcase holds more charts and manuals than clean shirts and toiletries.

Theodore A. Postol knows how to play the role of the rocket scientist that he is. He also knows how to infuriate Washington officialdom.

Dr. Postol, a big, bearded 54-year-old physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has combined evidence, emotion and expletives in his crusade to prove that a proposed $60 billion missile shield for the United States is based on faulty science, fantasy and outright fraud.

The Pentagon insists that his assertions are based on outdated information and ignorance of classified materials. Dr. Postol's scientist friends insist that he is one of the country's most learned ballistic missile experts and credit his research group at M.I.T. with groundbreaking analysis.

Still, even his closest colleagues acknowledge that Dr. Postol suffers from a problem that has little to do with science and a lot to do with style. As a scientist, he brings laserlike precision to his work. But as a diplomat, he has all the subtlety of a Gatling gun.

"This is a weapons system that is supposed to protect our families from nuclear attack, and these guys at the Pentagon are lying about its performance," Dr. Postol said during a visit to Washington last week. "They know nothing, nothing. But they wrap themselves in the flag and point at me and say, 'You're not defending the country.' So I don't care who I offend."

Indeed, in Dr. Postol's view, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, the head of the Pentagon's ballistic missile office, are "technically illiterate" about missile defense. Condoleezza Rice, the chief foreign policy adviser for Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, is "not interested in the truth." Leon S. Fuerth, the national security adviser for Vice President Al Gore, is "uninformed and shows no interest in becoming informed."

Richard Garwin, a renowned physicist known for being politically independent and outspoken himself, said of Dr. Postol: "Ted is a sound, original and energetic scientist who has done great work in this field. But diplomacy and Ted Postol are an oxymoron. Many, many times I have told him, 'You will be more effective if you are more controlled and edit your language.' "

Dr. Postol noted what his good friend had said and explained: "I am a very polite person with people on the street, with taxi drivers. But if you talk about people with responsibility in government and they show no interest in the truth, I'm not going to say, 'They're nice people but they don't know the details.' "

The second of three children, Dr. Postol grew up in a decaying neighborhood of Jewish immigrants in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He said his father, a welder, beat him from the time he was a toddler. His mother, who worked in an Army data communications center, was "a genius who basically lived for her children," Dr. Postol said.

Although he was not interested in the basics of elementary education and had trouble reading, he recalled, he began building spaceships in kindergarten. "When the teacher asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I said, 'I want to study the stars.' "

Dr. Postol discovered physics as an undergraduate and then a graduate student at the institute, which he attended on scholarship. "I was blessed with a tremendous physical intuition," he said.

Exempted from the draft because of an eye ailment, Dr. Postol stayed away from protests of the Vietnam War. Seminars by teachers who had helped build the atomic bomb made him a passionate critic of nuclear war.

But he has not always been an outsider. He worked in the 1970's at an Energy Department nuclear lab, then co-wrote a study on MX missile basing for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He studied submarine warfare from 1983 to 1984 for the chief of naval operations.

"Working in the Pentagon turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life," he said. "The sky was the limit. I could pretty much get into everything. I could learn whatever I wanted about nuclear war plans, ballistic missiles, early warning."

Dr. Postol also learned to respect the military, he said. "The military officer would never abandon the battlefield without taking his wounded with him. The academic would say, 'You're on your own.' "

In the high-tech world, he is a rare bird: an institute professor with no outside consulting income. "I have a rich wife," he joked, referring to the woman with whom he has lived for 17 years, a senior official at an investment company. They have never married and have no children.

Dr. Postol has angered the Pentagon many times before, most dramatically when he successfully challenged the "success" of the Patriot missile in shooting down Iraqi missiles in the Persian Gulf war. But he still holds security clearances that give him access to classified material. ("I don't use them anyway," he said. "They're useless.")

And despite his opposition to the missile defense plan, he said that if the United States was determined to build it, he would help develop what he believes is a more feasible approach: a boost-phase technology that would shoot at enemy missiles in the first few minutes after launching. "I don't like missile defense," he said, "but if we have to have it, let's have a system that works."

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Both parties tell Clinton to press missile defense

Washington Times
July 10, 2000
By Joyce Howard Price THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000710224521.htm

Democratic and Republican senators yesterday urged President Clinton to press ahead with a missile defense system and let his successor decide whether to deploy it.

The advice came one day after a test in which a "hit-to-kill" missile did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket and failed to intercept and destroy a dummy warhead in space over the Pacific Ocean.

"President Clinton, notwithstanding this disappointment on Saturday morning, ought to decide to at least keep the process moving forward," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, told interviewers on "Fox News Sunday."

Mr. Lieberman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the president should at least authorize the beginning of the construction of radar facilities on Shemya Island in the Aleutians.

"That may mean nothing more than putting out the contract to turn the earth in Alaska for bids from contractors and then to let the incoming president next year decide whether we should actually begin to turn the earth," said Mr. Lieberman, who noted that no deployment decision has to be made before 2003.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed that the next president should make the call.

"The technological piece of this is not yet in place," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation" program. "The cost obviously is not in place. I don't think we've brought our allies on, I don't think we've handled that very well, and how we're dealing with the Russians and Chinese on this are important.

"So therefore it's only responsible in my opinion to allow the next administration working with the new Congress, to start making these decisions."

National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger said the latest failure will be an "important" factor in deciding whether the system should be deployed. Mr. Clinton plans to make that decision by late summer or early fall after hearing recommendations from Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Mr. Berger.

"Clearly the failure of the test on Saturday is important in assessing how far along this system is technologically. . . . Obviously, this does go to the question of technical feasibility," Mr. Berger said yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

The missile defense system -estimated to cost $60 billion - has been tested three times, failing twice. Few, however, think the results spell the end of the project.

"Too much has been made of this test over the weekend," Mr. Lieberman said. He called the failure "disappointing," but said, "There are more tests to come . . . there are 16 more tests in the program."

Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, who appeared on Fox, agreed tests of the system should continue. "We need it. . . . We've had one successful test, and a couple of unsuccessful tests. We're simply going to have to continue until we perfect it."

The senator, who chairs the Government Affairs Committee, said: "I'm more concerned the president will cut a quick deal for an inadequate system than I am that we don't have the technological capability of perfecting the system."

Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican and a member of the intelligence committee, said the latest test mishap "really didn't establish that the program can't work.

"The thing that failed in this test is something that we've done hundreds of times before . . . it's not something that technologically we don't know how to do," Mr. Kyl said.

The enthusiasm so many lawmakers have for the missile defense system is not surprising. Last year, Congress adopted a statement of policy that said the United States would develop a national missile defense as soon as it's technologically possible.

"We've decided that we want to protect our people from incoming missiles. And that's the right decision, and we ought to pursue it," said Mr. Lieberman, who is believed to be under consideration as a running mate for Vice President Al Gore, the prospective Democratic presidential nominee.

Mr. Lieberman asked whether the enactment of that legislation, which the administration also supported, means that the system will go forward no matter what.

The law, he said, stipulates that it is U.S. "policy to develop a national missile defense" and "deploy when it's technologically possible." Nevertheless, he said, the law is "subject to the annual authorization and appropriation process, meaning we'll always make priority decisions."

The system is meant to protect the United States from missiles fired by rogue nations, such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

The CIA has said North Korea could be capable of such an attack by 2005, and system advocates want it to be in place by then.

Russia and China strongly oppose such a plan, and many of the United States' NATO allies find it worrisome. They fear it would trigger an arms buildup.

On CBS yesterday, Mr. Berger reiterated that Mr. Clinton would be considering four criteria in deciding whether to go forward with the missile system - the threat of missile attack, technological capability, the system's cost, and the impact on allies and the arms race.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, is concerned about a repudiation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the United States signed with the former Soviet Union in 1972. That treaty prohibits either party from developing a national missile defense system. "Right now, you have China with 18 intercontinental missiles . . . if we break the ABM Treaty, they are going to go to 250 to 500 overnight," he said.

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Missile Defense Misadventures

New York Times
July 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/00/07/10/editorial/10mon1.html

The failure of Saturday's test of the Clinton administration's prototype missile defense system should be the clinching argument for delaying any construction of such a system until the next presidential term. More rigorous testing, and patient diplomacy, will be needed before a decision can be responsibly taken. In practical terms, those requirements should defer building a missile defense system at least until the next president takes office.

Designing a missile shield that could protect against limited attack from erratic states like North Korea, Iran or Iraq is reasonable. But the prototype system now being tested has not yet been shown to be sufficiently reliable to protect American cities. In the three tests so far, the interceptor twice missed the mock incoming warhead and produced one partial success. The failure on Saturday came from a breakdown in one of the system's simplest components. The sophisticated interceptor vehicle failed to separate from its booster rocket. As a result, none of the high-tech sensors the interceptor uses to hunt down its target were activated. One of the biggest uncertainties is the doubt expressed by many scientists as to whether the interceptor rocket, or kill vehicle, can be fooled by cheap, balloon-like decoys. That question remains unanswered.

Given the latest test failure, Washington has every reason not to rush its decision on building the system, especially since ordering construction now would unravel existing arms control treaties. Negotiations with Moscow are continuing on amending the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to accommodate a defensive system. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has proposed his own version of a shared missile defense, which deserves further consideration. China and Europe also have serious concerns about America's current missile defense plans.

The administration's original goal was to have a system ready to use by 2005, the year by which intelligence agencies estimate North Korea might be able to reach Alaskan or Hawaiian soil with a few crude nuclear armed missiles. But whether North Korea is likely to do so is also an important consideration. Since last fall, North Korea has been observing a moratorium on long-range missile tests. Other potential threats, like Iran and Iraq, are considered many years away from being able to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.

That leaves no compelling reason for ordering construction other than the perception that doing so might shield Al Gore from Republican attack. Partisan political considerations should not drive such an important defense decision.

-------- MILITARY (by country)

-------- biological weapons

The Germ of New Weapons: Genetic Code Creates Danger

By Udo Ulfkotte,
July 10, 2000
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)
www.faz.com

FRANKFURT. In the months leading to the announcement on June 26 that a rough draft of the human code had been completed, some doctors grew uneasy over the prospective effects such an advance would have on warfare.

Some of these doctors, members of the British Medical Association, painted a dark picture last January about the dangers of genetic weapons. The association envisioned weapons that could target only those with certain genetic markers and said: "From a genetic point of view, there are more similarities between different people and peoples than differences. But the differences are there, and these individual or combined differences can be used to distinguish members of one ethnic group from those of another." Adding a darker tone to their views, the scientists predicted that a genetic weapon could be used to only destroy white people, black people or Arabs.

Such predictions lead to several questions: Are civilian research projects like the Human Genome Project supplying the basic knowledge required for such "ethno-weapons"? Can killer viruses be adapted to target certain peoples?

Scientists working for Western secret services and the military say it will hardly be possible in the foreseeable future to modify viruses or bacteria to produce a weapon that can differentiate between different ethnic groups, noting that the currently known genetic differences between individual groups of peoples are too small. Therefore, it seems that the militaries of the world are unlikely in this decade to fight on a genetic battlefield with weapons for which there is no defense. Nevertheless, once scientists can read the "Book of Life," this nightmare vision could become reality within decades.

If someone knows which ethnic groups are genetically susceptible to certain illnesses and also knows how to protect themselves with a vaccination from such weapons, they could also use this knowledge for warfare. And with this knowledge, the very same person could also create new -- to date unknown -- pathogens. As was the case in nuclear research, advancements in the field of genetics are also a source of new dangers for the long term.

Even without any detailed knowledge of the human genetic code, militaries long have been interested in biological weapons. In 1970, the U.S. journal Military Review published a report that detailed U.S. efforts during the 1950s. According to the magazine, U.S. military scientists tried to tailor the Valley Fever virus to the Afro-American target group because they had a tenfold likelihood of dying from this illness than white people. It is also known that Soviet researchers were working on a weapon of genetically modified pathogens that would target only Chinese people. This kind of research still continues to be carried out in many countries around the world, such as North Korea, China, Taiwan, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

In the 1990s, in a study titled Deployment of Armed Forces 2020, the German military pointed to the future dangers of biological weapons "against genetically different groups of peoples." These kinds of warfare agents would be harmless to an attacker's own soldiers but would prove to be lethal for people from another genetic group. The study may have been drawn up amid reports about research being carried out in South Africa that at the time unexpectedly forced its way into public knowledge.

The South African Truth Commission, which investigated the country's apartheid system, brought to light certain details of a biological weapons program carried out during the era. The report stated that the former head of the South African program, Wouter Basson, misused scientific findings to test biological weapons that would only kill black people. Cholera pathogens (sprayed as an aerosol) -- one of South Africa's many areas of experimentation -- were intended, as far as possible, to kill only black people. Other research was dedicated to making black women infertile.

Other governments were interested in the weapons technology research carried out by the South Africans, including -- allegedly -- Israel. Twelve kilometers (7.5 miles) south of Tel Aviv in Nes Tsiona is the Israeli secret research center for chemical and biological weapons, where the effectiveness of the latest weapons is tested on horses, pigs, dogs and monkeys. It is also where the Israelis produced the chemicals used by the Israeli secret service Mossad in 1997 during its failed attempt to kill the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan.

When in November 1998 the British newspaper the Sunday Times published details of the Nes Tsiona research project under the headline "Israel develops an ethnic bomb," the Israeli government reacted with outrage and denied everything. The research, the Israelis said at the time, was of a purely defensive nature. Israel was not developing biological weapons in Nes Tsiona, they said, but was rather attempting -- in cooperation with the researchers -- to find a way of protecting themselves from these weapons. But the Federation of American Scientists noted that if someone were working defensively in the field of biotechnology and biotechnical weapons, they could also put their findings to offensive use. FAZ Jul. 10

-------- colombia

U.N. Envoy Tries to Aid Peace Effort in 'Unique' Colombia War

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/071000colombia-un.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, July 5 -- He organized the "Norwegian channel" that led to a peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians, and has had a hand in peace talks from Central America to Central Africa. Now, as a United Nations emissary in Colombia, Jan Egeland is leading efforts here to solve a a 35-year conflict unlike any he had ever seen.

"What is unique in Colombia compared with most other processes is the size and scale of the armed actors and armed conflict, and the size of the black money associated with drugs and other criminal activities," Mr. Egeland said in an interview here. "So the sources fueling the conflict are bigger than they have been in many other places, and that makes it more challenging."

Officially, Mr. Egeland's title is merely that of special adviser to the secretary general on international assistance to Colombia. But after six months on the job, Mr. Egeland, 42, has emerged as a trusted intermediary between the Colombian government and left-wing guerrilla groups, which until recently agreed on one thing: They did not want any foreigners in the negotiations.

"In Colombia we have always had the fear that internationalizing the peace process would also mean internationalizing the conflict, so we were suspicious of outsiders wanting to enter," said Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, a former interior minister. "So Egeland's presence here is a good thing because it means a barrier has been breached."

Mr. Egeland, who has been a journalist, deputy foreign minister of Norway and a Red Cross official, is careful to play down his own role.

"We have no formal third party role vis-à-vis the Colombian conflict, nor are we seeking one," he said. While acknowledging that he is in constant contact with both sides, he cautioned, "It may be premature to say that we are facilitating any kind of peace process because none of the parties have asked anyone to really play that kind of an activist role."

Still, Mr. Egeland has been instrumental in "attempting to get the guerrillas out of the jungle and into the modern world," said Cynthia Arnson, editor of a new book "Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000). As in Guatemala, she noted, here you had "a guerrilla movement that was so isolated politically and had operated so long in clandestinity that it had lost touch with politics and public opinion and needed to be reacclimated."

While both the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Guatemalan guerrillas were nearly bankrupt when they began peace talks, here the two main insurgent forces are flourishing as a result of their links with drug trafficking, kidnappings and extortion. In addition, the biggest group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has formally been given control of an area the size of Switzerland, and now seems to want to deal with the government on almost a state-to-state level.

"Our situation is very odd and ambiguous, in that there is a coexistence between the government and the guerrillas that I don't see elsewhere," said Mr. Cepeda Ulloa. "That makes Egeland's job more difficult, in that the guerrillas think it perfectly natural to ask the state for territory or the international community for financing."

But Mr. Egeland said that in some other respects, the issues being confronted here are not as intractable as elsewhere. "It is more difficult to negotiate Jerusalem than agrarian reform in Colombia," he said. "One of the positive aspects of Colombia compared with other places is that the parties are not necessarily so much poles apart on some of the issues as many believe."

At the moment, the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the other main left-wing guerrilla group, the Army of National Liberation, are engaged in separate but parallel negotiations with the government. But "later on," Mr. Egeland said, "there should be a convergence" of the two sets of talks because "in the end there is only one country and society to reform."

In an essay in "Herding Cats," a new book about peacemaking, (U. S. Institute of Peace Press, Washington, 1999), Mr. Egeland writes that he agrees with the refusal of the government here to negotiate with right-wing paramilitary groups because they are "criminal terrorist organizations that should only be met with to discuss the laying down of arms." His opinion is that "the random killing of fellow citizens in a society should not lead to negotiations in the presidential palace."

But in an interview here, he softened his tone somewhat. The paramilitaries have "little political content, and a big human rights violation content," he said, so "they should be treated differently from other actors." But "one should not be categorical about leaving anyone in or out" of the negotiations, he added.

Such a pragmatic approach would be a concession to the political realities prevailing here. Previous efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict have foundered at least in part because there was nothing to prevent right-wing death squads from killing guerrillas who had agreed to lay down their arms.

"My sense is that some point down the road the paramilitaries have to be brought into the peace negotiations," said Dr. Arnson, who is deputy director of the Latin American program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

"At what time or circumstances is open to question, but you can't convince the guerrilla movements to re-enter the political process so long as their members are subject to elimination," he said, alluding to the death squads.

Thus far, the Clinton administration has kept a distance from the peace negotiations here because of a ban on contacts with the guerrillas and on the theory that, as one official in Washington put it, any formal involvement "might well be more harmful than helpful." But the State Department welcomes Mr. Egeland's presence "as the injection of another element, curbing rebel misbehavior," and said it would not oppose a more prominent role for him.

For his part, Mr. Egeland is reluctant to discuss assuming a mediator's role or to speculate about a timetable, other than to caution that the situation here could just as easily deteriorate as improve. "It is terrible here, and it could get much worse," he said, before adding that "part of my job is to be an optimist."

In one sign of progress, the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces group exchanged proposals on July 3 for a cease-fire. Mr. Egeland said that while "one should not be overly optimistic about them agreeing," he did expect the talks to produce some sort of accord that would halt the killing of civilians.

"This should happen this year," he said. "It would be another great defeat for all of us if it doesn't happen this year."

-------- drug war

Drug Trafficking Hot Spots

UNDER THE HOOD A LOOK AT THE INNER WORKINGS OF GOVERNMENT
Monday, July 10, 2000; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/10/100l-071000-idx.html


The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 authorized the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, currently Barry R. McCaffrey, to designate places in the United States as high-intensity drug trafficking areas. The program funds anti-drug initiatives that combine federal, state and local law enforcement. The list of areas has grown substantially since the first five were designated in 1990.

Fiscal 2000 budget (millions)
Southwest border $46.0
South Florida 14.2
Los Angeles 13.9
Washington / Baltimore 12.4
Midwest 11.9
New York / New Jersey 11.0
Houston 9.6
Puerto Rico / U.S. Virgin Islands 9.1
Rocky Mountains 8.5
Gulf Coast 6.0
Appalachia 6.0
Chicago 5.3
Milwaukee 4.5
Northwest 4.0
Atlanta 3.8
Philadelphia/Camden 3.6
Lake County, Ind. 3.0
North Texas 2.6
Northern California 2.5
Southeastern Michigan 2.5
Central Florida 2.5
New England 1.0
Central Valley California 0.8
Hawaii 0.7
Ohio 0.7
Oregon 0.6
Other 4.8
Total 191.2

High-intensity drug trafficking areas and year added to list

Northwest 1996
Oregon 1999
N. California 1997
Central Valley 1999
Los Angeles 1990
Southwest border 1990
North Texas 1998
Hawaii 1999
Houston 1990
Rocky Mountain 1996
Milwaukee 1998
Chicago 1995
Midwest 1996
Gulf Coast 1996
Lake County 1996
Southeast Michigan 1997
Ohio 1999
New England 1999
New York/New Jersey 1990
Camden / Philadelphia 1995
D.C./Baltimore 1994
Appalachia 1998
Atlanta 1995
Central Florida 1998
Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands 1994
South Florida 1990
For more information: www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov

----

US Pressures Colombia To Use Biological Drugs Warfare

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
Irish Times
http://www.ireland.com/
by Ana Carrigan
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070800-104.htm

The government of Colombia has agreed, under US pressure, to test a disease-causing fungus against Colombian coca plantations, according to the New York Times. This would add biological warfare to the arsenal of President Andrés Pastrana's controversial peace and counter-narcotics campaign, the US-backed "Plan Colombia".

This plan, which proposes a big military element in the war against Colombian drug cultivation, was under discussion by EU and other industrialised nations yesterday in Madrid.

Many European countries are concerned about this military emphasis, and the news that an environmentally questionable element is also involved will add to their concerns.

The US State Department confirmed on Thursday that the Colombian government had agreed to test the plant-eating fungus known as fusarium oxysporum.

It was recently rejected as being too dangerous to use against marijuana plantations in the US.

From Madrid, the Colombian Environmental Minister, Mr Juan Mayr, denied that Colombia had agreed to test the fungus. In a letter to the New York Times, Mr Mayr claimed he had been misunderstood by a journalist.

However, critics charge that the US has made its $1.3 billion military aid contribution to Plan Colombia conditional on agreement to the tests. Opponents of the US aid package have noted that, in the final version of the legislation, the US Congress eliminated earlier Senate restrictions on the use of pesticides.

Last March, Congressman Ben Gilman, one of the leading promoters of Plan Colombia in the US Congress, tacked an amendment onto the aid bill that required the Colombian government to agree to implement a strategy to eliminate total coca and poppy production within five years using, "tested, environmentally safe" fungal plant killers, namely fusarium oxysporum.

The bill, signed last week by President Clinton, seeks to commit the Colombians to proceed with a two-year research programme that will introduce the fungus into the fragile ecosystem of the Colombian Amazon.

Environmentalists and botanists are up in arms. They say the plant-killing fungus, which remains in the soil for many years, could mutate to attack other plants in one of the most biodiverse regions of the globe.

The fungus could not only prove environmentally fatal, but may also be damaging to the health of people with weakened immune systems, such as is common among poor, badly nourished Colombian coca farmers.

---

Vietnam All Over Again: The Colombia Drug War

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/globe
by David Nyhan
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070700-101.htm

Small, poor, remote country.

History of political instability. Rich people still screwing over poor people as they've done from the Year One. Decades-old guerrilla war that began with machetes and shotguns now escalating to big-time weapons. US government sends money. Political advisers. Military advisers. More money. Now it's two kinds of military helicopters. Haven't we seen this movie before? The Americanization of Colombia's civil-drug war looks and smells like Vietnam all over again. Twenty-five years after Saigon fell like a rotting plum from the grasp of Uncle Sam and the corrupt and incompetent South Vietnamese regime, we're trying the same dumb thing all over again.

Oh, did I mention the herbicide? Just as we blanketed Southeast Asia's jungles and peasantry with Agent Orange, we're getting ready to contaminate the hillside drug crops of Colombia with herbicide.

All in the name of preventing American drug addicts from smoking, swallowing, snorting, shooting, and otherwise making themslves first very high and then very low with cocaine and heroin.

We are exporting the wrong solution to a problem we won't face up to right here at home. Money is no object. Here, we pay any price, bear any burden, right? Wrong. The $1.3 billion Congress just approved for Colombia on the Clinton administration's say-so is good money after bad.

The loot was wrapped up in one of those fiendishly concocted congressional stews: big bones for farmers; medium-sized cutlets for emergency aid for hurricanes and forest fires from last year; lavish dollops of this and that for lobbyists from here and there; add a little pork, a lot of seasoning to kill the smell, and, presto, you have an omnibus spending bill that legislators want in an election year to grease their return to the trough.

So the money for Colombia was on rails. It was wired. There was no way you were going to stop it. Too many lawmakers were turned into sausage-makers, grinding up the scraps to serve up one giant kielbasa of a spending bill, pork sausage by the trainload. Too many of our solons had catheters running into their gluteus maximus from the intravenous bank labeled ''pork/saline solution.'' A drip here, a drip there, and now 60 brand-new US military helicopters are on their ponderous way south, ready to zap guerrillas on the orders from somebody in Bogota.

If there was a sound track to accompany this script, it would be the ''duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh'' of ''Jaws,'' the ominous incantation of something very bad about to unfold. Yet again we embrace a pricey, high-tech solution to a problem that is rooted in human nature, not in the chemistry lab of the herbicide cooker-uppers. I am not some fungicidal maniac on the point. I've never been anywhere near Colombia. But we're making their problems our problem - big mistake. Our drug fighting civil servants, our military, and our biological warfare researchers have concocted this scheme, and the environmental people are dubious in the extreme, according to yesterday's New York Times exclusive unmasking the program.

Because of the exquisite vulnerability of the politician - any politician - to the deadly taunt of being ''soft on drugs,'' many otherwise sensible legislators panic and bolt when confronted with honest choices about the human propensity to self-dose with mind-altering chemicals.

This particular virus is at its most virulent in election years, peaking in the fall. So rare is the congressman who proclaims that this whole approach is a fraud, a massive, expensive, hollow, and cynical exploitation of parental fears designed to reward cunning lobbyists and careerists in cushy slots. It won't work. Can't work.

It's the wrong war, in the wrong hemisphere. The enemy is within, not without.The enemy is human nature. The problem, dear Brutus, is not within our stars but in the gene pool of frail and fragile drug addicts here who will lie, cheat, steal, and murder for a chemically induced endorphin rush.

Because our politicians refuse to recognize the drug debacle is a crisis of demand and not of supply, we externalize the problem. We are trying to build a fortress around Colombia and contain the problem there. It cannot work. What about Mexico? Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle? There are not enough soldiers and helicopters and narco informers to keep track of the flow. We already know we cannot keep contraband narcotics out of our maximum security prisons. How are we going to do it in a jungle 6,000 miles away?

The most honest and practical solution is to decriminalize the use of all narcotics. Tax its distribution. Furnish detox beds for everyone willing to try to shake the demons. And recognize there will be casualties. Just as some Americans cannot tolerate alcohol and kill themselves, we'll have to accept drug-related slow-motion suicide.

Some will say ''never!'' But that same old old argument will pitch global society into an ever deepening cycle of corruption, exploitation, and erosion of honest government if we allow the fantastic flows of drug money to gain more traction. Human nature cannot resist the lure of fortunes to be made dealing drugs illegally. The poor farmers who get more for coca leaves than coffee beans will keep doing it no matter how many choppers fly overhead.

And our addicts will keep snorting, shooting, and swallowing what they crave until their inner spritual emptiness is filled. We can poison the Andes and slaughter peasants and reelect the same tired politicians every other year. It's Vietnam redux: If it's not working, double the tonnage.

David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.

---

U.S. Bets on Colombia Drug Strategy

Associated Press
July 10, 2000 Filed at 3:42 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Colombia-Getting-Ready.html

TRES ESQUINAS MILITARY BASE, Colombia (AP) -- Rebels guarding drug crops will have at least one tough commander breathing down their necks when a controversial U.S.-backed counter-narcotics offensive begins.

Gen. Mario Montoya is eager to get into action with U.S. combat helicopters and about 3,000 troops trained by U.S. Special Forces under a new $1.3 billion U.S. aid package.

``If they have links to the drug trade, we will attack them,'' the general barked into a megaphone to foreign journalists last week.

But some experts doubt the military will be able to retake the thick jungles of Colombia's Amazon basin from the armed groups that run a lucrative protection racket in this South American country's cocaine trade.

The aid package passed by the U.S. Congress includes 60 Blackhawk and Huey helicopters, trainers, high-tech intelligence and communications equipment and night-vision gear.

The U.S.-trained troops will be sent to secure coca-growing areas, allowing low-flying planes to spray the plants with herbicides and soldiers to destroy laboratories that turn coca leaves into cocaine.

The rebels have vowed to arm coca farmers and say they might even use surface-to-air missiles to combat the campaign.

``The guerrillas will try everything they can to defend their business,'' Montoya said.

Military operations will be run out of Tres Esquinas, a base perched above a river dividing Caqueta and Putumayo, two southern states that produce two-thirds of Colombia's total coca crop.

But even with U.S. aid, striking into jungles swarming with at least 2,000 well-armed rebels of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is a tall order for a military that has largely been on the defensive.

Hundreds of soldiers and police died in attacks during the past four years by the wealthy, 15,000-strong FARC, which now controls about a third of the countryside.

The most humiliating defeat occurred just east of Tres Esquinas in March 1998, when the FARC ambushed a 150-man counterguerrilla squad, killing at least 63 soldiers and taking dozens more prisoner.

Such debacles convinced Washington that Colombia's military was in trouble -- although U.S. officials insist the aid package is for fighting drugs, not the insurgency.

The defeats exposed failings in military leadership, tactics and intelligence-gathering that Colombia's generals say they're working to overcome.

``We learned a lot of lessons,'' Montoya said, citing basic tactics like not camping in the same place too long and the importance of moving at night and sleeping during the day.

``We've grown a lot and we've improved technically, physically and tactically to be able to carry out this mission and to avoid failures,'' he added.

U.S. Special Forces have already trained one 1,000-man anti-narcotics battalion, and two are expected to be ready before the end of the year.

Colombian Army Maj. Jose Parra, the second-in-command at Tres Esquinas, said the Green Berets have showed the importance of practicing skills, like shooting or rappelling from a helicopter, until they sink in.

``In our culture,'' Parra said, ``We tend to practice once, twice, maybe three times and then we think we're ready.''

The military has fared better of late -- reducing casualties by pulling back vulnerable units and using its air advantage to strafe rebel columns from the air. Troops under Montoya's command routed a FARC unit in Caqueta last week, the military said Monday.

But whether Washington's big gamble is a safe bet or a losing proposition won't become evident until the newly trained and equipped counter-drug battalions get into action.

Critics say the aid may draw the United States into a quagmire, but proponents believe that, aside from stemming the flow of drugs into the United States, it may shore up Colombia's beleaguered democracy and force the rebels to make peace.

``In all honesty, everybody here in Washington has got their fingers crossed,'' said Myles Frechette, a former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia who supports the aid package.

-------- fiji

Fiji Villagers Riot After Rebel Speight Wins Deal

New York Times
July 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/071000fiji-pact.html

SUVA, Fiji, July 10 -- Villagers on a small Fijian island burned down a masonic lodge and tried to overrun a police station on Monday, apparently acting in support of nationalist rebel leader George Speight, the military government said.

The violence erupted hours after Speight won a deal to abolish a military-appointed civilian administration in exchange for the release of 27 hostages who include deposed ethnic Indian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Speight and his followers have held the hostages since May 19 in support of their demands that ethnic Fijians should dominate government.

"A mob burned down a masonic lodge near the sea in Levuka about 4:30 a.m. (1630 GMT Sunday)," Major Howard Politini told Reuters. Levuka is part of the Lomaivitti group of islands some 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Suva.

The villagers saw the lodge as an anti-Christian symbol and a reminder of the British colonial era, Politini said.

After setting the lodge ablaze, about 40 people tried to attack the nearby police station but were turned back after police fired warning shots, Politini said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Speight's supporters have staged a series of protests around the Pacific island nation over the past week.

About 30 pro-Speight protesters have been holding around 25 hostages in a police station in the village of Korovou, about an hour's drive from Suva, while 100 landowners were occupying a military base on Vanua Levu, Fiji's second largest island.

Deal to Free Hostages

The accord Speight signed on Sunday with military chief Frank Bainimarama allows the rebels who overthrew the Pacific nation's elected government to have some influence in choosing a new administration in exchange for the release of the 27 prisoners held in Suva.

Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, and other members of his multi-ethnic former cabinet being held hostage were to be freed on Thursday.

Speight made plain he was undeterred by international condemnation in demanding the exclusion of Indians from power.

"It's a path that began in a manner that the world at large and particularly Commonwealth nations do not condone and do not accept," he said after signing the accord on Sunday.

"I firmly believe in my heart that Fiji can only be a peaceful place and a happy place and a prosperous place if the interests of Fijians are made central and paramount to our decision-making and if they are completely fulfilled," he said.

Speight and his core group of supporters have been granted amnesty from any acts of treason carried out during their coup attempt.

Army Chief Bows Head

Bainimarama spent most of the signing ceremony with his head bowed, avoiding eye contact with the rebel leader.

Earlier, Speight's supporters sang hymns and shook hands with people by the side of the road, wishing them peace, as the rebel leader entered the building where he signed the accord.

One woman among the festive crowd told reporters: "It's the will of the people. We are with George."

Speight had refused to accept an interim government chosen by the army and this administration will be disbanded on Thursday.

In line with Speight's demands, the accord empowers the influential tribal elders' group, the Great Council of Chiefs, to choose a president and vice-president and to have a say in naming a civilian government.

Speight said he was confident the chiefs would name Ratu (chief) Josefa Iloilo, the rebels' candidate, as president.

Free elections are not expected for up to two years.

Speight seeks to further entrench indigenous Fijian land rights and effectively exclude ethnic Indians from power.

Indians were first brought to Fiji in the 19th century by the British colonisers to work in the sugar cane fields and now make up about 44 percent of Fiji's 800,000 population.

Historian Brij Lal, who helped draft the multi-ethnic constitution that Fiji has now abandoned, said of the accord: "It's an outstanding success for George Speight and a spectacular failure for the military."

Lal, now a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, told Reuters Speight's success risked sending a dangerous message to other volatile countries in the South Pacific. He noted a coup attempt last month that inflamed a long-standing ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands.

-------- iraq

Denis Halliday: Iraq Sanctions Are Genocide

Common Dreams
Monday July 10, 2000
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/index.html
by Michael Jansen
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070700-103.htm

Every time Washington suspects that Iraq is making gains in the propaganda war over sanctions, reports emanate from the US capital claiming that Baghdad continues to be a global menace and must be "contained" by the blockade.

The latest yarn alleges Iraq is testing short-range missiles.

Down around the third or fourth paragraph the writer admits that such missiles do not violate the terms of "the Mother of All UN Resolutions," which lays down what sort of weaponry Iraq can have: short-range missiles with a range of 150 kilometers are permitted.

Some reports infer that Iraq is also redeveloping medium-range missiles in violation of the resolution. But this has been categorically denied by Scott Ritter, the US citizen who formerly served on the UN Special Commission which monitored Iraq's arms of mass destruction.

Ritter, writing in the current issue of Arms Control Today, an independent journal published in Washington, says that Iraq now has no banned arms of any importance.

Nevertheless, US and British warplanes continue to bomb Iraqi targets on an every-other-day basis and insist that the punitive sanctions regime must be maintained until Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. This unending belligerency against Iraq has now caused the most respectable of the opposition groups, the Iraqi National Accord, to pull out of the umbrella grouping, the Iraqi National Congress, which is meeting in London this week to work out a new strategy to topple Hussein.

One of the reasons given by the Accord for withdrawing from the Congress is its close connection with the US Central Intelligence Agency, Congressional leaders and the Clinton administration. All are viewed by ordinary Iraqis living under sanctions as their inveterate enemy rather than Saddam. The Accord clearly realized that membership in the Council is not only counterproductive but also pointless because it will never be in a position to oust Saddam's regime.

This being the case, Denis Halliday, the former UN humanitarian coordinator in Baghdad who resigned in 1998 to protest against the sanctions, is now offering Washington and London an alternative to their murderous sanctions policy. He is proposing a 13-point plan which includes the resumption of UN monitoring of Iraq's weapons program; imposition of "smart" sanctions on arms-producing states to prevent Iraq from obtaining prohibited weaponry; an end to the "demonization" of Iraq and its president; dialogue with Baghdad; lifting of economic sanctions; release of oil equipment to repair the country's severely damaged oil industry; investment in the devastated economy; postponement of reparations payments which consume 30 percent of gross oil revenues; and an end to the daily Anglo-US bombing sorties which Iraq says have killed 300 of its civilians and wounded more.

Halliday, who had made a career in the UN and held the rank of assistant secretary-general before he resigned, admitted to this correspondent in an interview that he was not "very happy" with his plan. But he said it had been designed to "help Washington and London to get out of this dreadful mess they have gotten themselves into" by insisting on sanctions until Saddam disappears from the scene.

While he agrees that Saddam's presence at the helm permits Washington and its loyal acolyte, London, to continue the punitive sanctions regime, Halliday thinks there are "a few people" in Washington who want to bring sanctions to an end. These people, he said, have come to realize that the US, and specifically the Clinton administration, could "be blamed for crimes against humanity, including possibly genocide" because of the sanctions.

Halliday is not very optimistic about the US changing its policy under either of Clinton's potential successors, Vice-President Al Gore or Texas Governor George W. Bush, who have shown themselves more hawkish on Iraq than Clinton.

"What I'm working on now is trying to get other governments ... to put pressure on Washington to change its policy" before Clinton leaves office in January 2001, he said. "In much of the world there is outrage amongst parliamentarians over the continuation of economic sanctions."

He believes that these anti-sanctions parliamentarians could reinforce the position of the 70 "courageous" US congressmen who have taken a stand against the blockade. These lawmakers understand, he said, that the "human calamity" caused by sanctions "isn't serving the best interests of the US or Europe."

In his opinion, the UN will never again be able to impose the sort of "illegal" sanctions Iraq has endured for the past 10 years. "What is happening in Iraq is a complete breach of international humanitarian law," he stated. It amounts to "punishing a people in order to get at their ruler."

Indeed, he believes that the sanctions provisions in the UN Charter will have to be "rewritten" so that no other population is ever targeted in the way the people of Iraq have. He defines the Iraqi sanctions as "genocide" because "if you look at the convention on genocide, it requires intent."

To sum up his thinking: since the Security Council, under US/UK pressure, persists with sanctions knowing what impact the embargo is having on the Iraqi populace, one cannot but conclude that the council is responsible for the murder of 7,000 Iraqis a month, 5,000 of them children under the age of five.

-------- ireland

British troops face-off with N Ireland loyalists in Drumcree

Yahoo News
Monday, July 10 9:56 AM SGT
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000710/world/afp/British_troops_face-off_with_N_Ireland_loyalists_in_Drumcree.html

PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland, July 10 (AFP) - Hundreds of Protestant loyalist protesters faced-off against British troops and police in Drumcree hill near Portadown overnight Sunday.

Dozens of police and troops equipped with shields and helmets took up positions in front of the protesters in a field on the outskirts of Portadown -- southwest of Belfast -- after preventing them from completing their traditional Orange march through Portadown's mainly Catholic nationalist sector.

The night-time stand-off was illuminated by helicopter searchlights and the headlights of armoured Land Rovers stationed nearby.

In the same area hours earlier, the security forces prevented the Protestant Orangemen from marching along the Catholic Garvaghy Road.

The base of the hill at Drumkree was transformed into a virtual army camp.

The parade is a highpoint of the Orange marching season, from Easter to mid-July, when Protestants celebrate ancient military victories over Catholics.

Traditionally, Orangemen, wearing bowler hats and orange sashes and marching to the sound of pipes and drums, parade down the Garvaghy Road,.

The parade has proved a flashpoint for violence in previous years.

The appearance behind the massive steel and barbed-wire army barricades of loyalist paramilitary leader Johnny Adair, a former prisoner accused of murdering Catholics, added to Sunday's tension.

Stones and golf balls were hurled towards the armoured cars.

One man was arrested after spray-painting slogans on a bridge guarded by the military.

Up to 10,000 supporters looked on as Orange leaders stood at the barricades to condemn the independent Parades Commission, which banned them from marching down their traditional route.

They also renewed an appeal to Orangemen to stage a peaceful province-wide protest for four hours from 4:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Monday, calling for their "religious and civil liberties" to be restored.

Harold Gracey, leader of the Portadown District Orange Lodge, appeared to invite supporters to stay at the barricades after the parade, but urged them to remain peaceful. "Do not desecrate the Sabbath," he said. "Our cause is just, our stand is honourable, our protest dignified."

But as rain began to fall, many supporters began to disperse.

Nightfall brought further incidents, including a group of 100 loyalists seening to get round the bridge, festooned with barbed wire, which leads to Garvaghy Road.

As Sunday's parade passed the barricades, hundreds of Catholics looked on, protected by patrolling armoured cars, police in riot gear and rolls of barbed wire.

Garvaghy Road residents say the march is outdated and provocative in the supposedly new era of power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

A regional government, re-established in May, brings together pro-British Protestant Unionists and Catholic nationalists and republicans, who want a united Ireland.

Hardline unionists warned the protest was not just about the parade but about the future of Northern Ireland.

They are angry that members of Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's (IRA's) political wing, were allowed to join the new Belfast government.

Thousands of police and troops were on standby across Northern Ireland following a week of nightly violence during which they have come under attack with petrol bombs and rocks by loyalists protestors. Roads have been blocked, cars hijacked and torched and Catholic homes attacked.

Tension mounted further when a car bomb exploded early Sunday in Stewartstown, 24 kilometres (15 miles) north of Portadown. No-one was injured but windows were shattered in a local church and nearby homes.

---

Upsurge in Protestant Violence Rocks N.Ireland

Yahoo News
Monday July 10 11:35 PM ET
By Louise McCall
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000710/wl/irish_leadall_dc_52.html

BELFAST (Reuters) - An upsurge in hardline Protestant violence rocked Northern Ireland overnight and militants called for more protests on Tuesday against a ban on a key Protestant march through a Roman Catholic area.

Police fired a water cannon and used batons in clashes with rioters in Portadown, the town southwest of Belfast that has been the focus of more than a week of violence, shaking the British province's fragile peace process.

In the capital Belfast and several other areas, rioters hurled petrol bombs and torched hijacked vehicles.

The violence followed the authorities' decision to ban the Protestant Orange Order from marching through a Catholic enclave at Portadown last Sunday.

The BBC reported that six people were rushed to hospital after a petrol bomb attack on an Orange Order hall at Aghalee in the province's northern county of Antrim. Four men wearing balaclavas were said to have carried out the attack.

Militant Orangemen vowed to step up protests against the Portadown ban as Protestants prepared to stage province-wide parades on Wednesday, the climax of their annual ``marching season'' celebrating centuries-old battlefield victories over Catholics.

They brought Northern Ireland to a near halt on Monday afternoon by calling on supporters to stage a four-hour protest across the province.

Protestants Set Up Road Blocks

Belfast and other towns were peppered with road blocks manned by Protestants angry at the ban on Orangemen marching through Portadown's Catholic Garvaghy Road area.

Shops and offices closed early so employees could get home safely.

The Portadown wing of the Orange Order called for more protests on Tuesday, urging Protestants to take to the streets between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

``We're calling for short, sharp intermittent protests throughout the country at different times...just to remind people that this isn't all over yet,'' said spokesman David Jones.

Sectarian tensions intensify each year in the run-up to July 12, the anniversary of the day when William of Orange, leader of the Protestants, triumphed over the Catholic forces of deposed King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Catholics say the parades and marches are insulting and provocative.

Mainstream politicians representing both the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority have condemned the violence and insist they will not be deflected from trying to seal a lasting peace based on the 1998 Good Friday accord.

Recent political efforts -- including the re-establishment of a power-sharing, home-rule government -- had appeared to be making progress in drawing a line under three decades of sectarian conflict that killed 3,600 people.

The Irish Republican Army and other leading guerrilla groups are observing cease-fires while the politicians talk, but renegade gunmen and bombers have carried out sporadic attacks.

Last month, the IRA allowed international monitors for the first time to inspect some of its secret arms dumps to support its pledge that it had put its weapons ``beyond use'' in line with the demand that guerrilla groups on both sides disarm.

Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Mandelson, urged the leaders of the Orange Order to condemn the violence. ``Every stone, every petrol bomb, every missile thrown at police today will set back the Orange Order cause,'' Mandelson said.

---

Protestant demands, car bombing raise N. Ireland tensions

CNN
July 10, 2000 Web posted at: 1:50 a.m. EDT (0550 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/07/10/n.ireland/index.html

PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland -- Northern Ireland was bracing itself for more street demonstrations Monday, hours after Sunday's controversial Portadown parade by members of the Protestant Orange Order passed off without incident.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/07/10/n.ireland/n.ireland.portadown.lg.jpg

Demonstrators took to the streets in several Protestant communities following the march, pelting police with rocks and firecrackers. Barricades of burning cars and furniture blocked streets in at least two Belfast neighborhoods and police said they seized nail bombs in Larne to the north.

The latest violence began after Orange Order members staged the tense but peaceful march near a Roman Catholic neighborhood in Portadown.

An estimated 2,000 members of the Orange Order made the three-mile march from Portadown to the Anglican Drumcree Church, the spiritual home of the conservative Protestant brotherhood. After attending services in the church, marchers moved to a 20-foot-high metal barricade erected by the military and police at the entrance to Garvaghy Road.

Authorities ban marchers from Catholic neighborhood

Authorities have refused to allow the Orangemen passage down the road, which goes through a largely Catholic neighborhood. Residents consider the march triumphalist and deeply insulting.

Marchers, who argue it is their right to parade down the road, delivered a letter protesting its closure to police.

Orange Order members have pledged that they will eventually get their way and be allowed to march down Garvaghy Road. They have vowed to stage further protests this week.

On Sunday Portadown's senior Orangeman, Tom Gracey, said that the British government had in the past been forced to change policy when faced with street violence.

"So I would say to our people: continue," he added.

Car bomb rocks predominantly Catholic community

Hours before the Portadown march, a car bomb rocked a nearby, predominantly Catholic community.

A car bomb exploded shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday outside a Royal Ulster Constabulary station in Stewartstown, about 10 miles north of Portadown. The RUC is Northern Ireland's predominantly Protestant police force.

A passerby suspicious of the car reported it to the police, who were able to clear the area before the bomb exploded. One child suffered cuts from flying glass.

No one claimed immediate responsibility for the bomb. Police said they suspect it was the work of the radical IRA splinter group known as the Real IRA. The Irish Republican Army is complying with a cease-fire.

"Although it's too soon to be definitive, we would assess that (the bomb was) probably the work of the Real IRA," RUC Chief Ronnie Flanagan told the BBC.

March recalls old victories

Sunday's march from Portadown marked the traditional high point of the annual marching season and is the most contentious. The 80,000-strong Orange Order marches to commemorate victories hundreds of years ago by the Protestants over the Catholics.

After an independent commission last week banned the marchers from going down the Garvaghy Road, protesters clashed repeatedly with police. Masked men burned cars and threw gas bombs and stones at police and the military.

Authorities were determined Sunday that no Orangemen would walk down the road.

More than 1,000 riot police and soldiers manned armored barricades at all entrances to the road. An army helicopter hovered overhead, monitoring the marchers' progress.

CNN Correspondent Nic Robertson, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

---

Protestant Protests in Ulster Begin Peacefully but Turn Violent

New York Times
July 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/071000ireland-protest.html

POORTADOWN, Northern Ireland, July 9 -- A demonstration by the Orange Order, a traditional Protestant organization, over a ban on the group's marching route through a Catholic neighborhood began peacefully today, but was marked by violent protests and clashes with soldiers in the evening.

Accompanied by bands of accordion players and drummers, Orangemen in ceremonial bowler hats and orange sashes marched from the center of Portadown to the Drumcree church before they were stopped by a barricade. The British Army had erected the 20-foot-high steel-and-concrete barrier to prevent the men from returning to town along a route that took them down the Garvaghy Road, in a largely Catholic residential neighborhood.

Some 2,000 Orangemen and supporters rallied for an hour after the blocked march as religious leaders offered up prayer and political invective. Despite pouring rain, hundreds of supporters remained at the scene after the rally.

Later, the crowd grew again, to about 1,000 demonstrators, who clashed with the soldiers, throwing bottles and stones and trying to break through the barricade.

"We are here this morning with one aim: to have our civil and religious liberties restored," said the Portadown Orangemen's leader, Harold Gracey, who called for province-wide protests on Monday.

Protestant parades throughout July commemorate ancient victories over Catholics. The most famous is the Battle of the Boyne, where King William IV of England defeated the forces of the Catholic King James II in 1690. It is celebrated on July 12.

Protestants were blocked from marching through the Catholic neighborhood two years ago, leading to an extended sit-in at Drumcree. Meanwhile, a power-sharing home-rule government including both Protestants and Catholics has begun functioning in Northern Ireland.

This year's period of tension before the so-called marching season included bonfires, carjackings and confrontations with the police by people who said they were supporting the Drumcree cause. The actions began in Belfast last Sunday and continued through the week.

Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Mandelson, accused Protestant paramilitary organizations of hijacking the Portadown Orange Order's cause for their own ends. "The time for legitimate protest is behind us," he said.

Johnny Adair, a Protestant paramilitary leader who was recently released from prison, appeared at the Drumcree parish church of the Church of Ireland on Tuesday, contributing to fears of further violence. He showed up again today.

In two incidents early today, an Orange Order hall in nearby Cookstown was burned in an attack attributed to arson, and a car bomb in nearby Stewartstown shattered windows in homes. Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Northern Irish police force, said the car bomb was probably the work of a dissident republican group called the Real I.R.A.

At the rally today, Mr. Gracey refused to distance himself from the week's disturbances. "I'm not in the business of condemning violence," he said.

The protests did not go uncriticized by Protestants, though. The Church of Ireland's primate, Robin Eames, archbishop of Armagh, condemned the standoff, saying, "I see nothing of Jesus Christ in the nightly actions on Drumcree Hill or in the roads and streets of Northern Ireland night by night."

-------- u.s.

Soldier Kills Kosovo Boy in Accident

Yahoo News
Monday July 10 6:52 PM ET
By Linda Bucinca
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000710/ts/yugoslavia_child_dc_5.html

ZLATARE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier in Kosovo accidentally shot a seven year-old ethnic Albanian boy on Monday who later died from his injuries, the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said.

The boy was shot near the village of Cerkes Sadovina in eastern Kosovo, KFOR said. He was rushed to hospital at Camp Bondsteel, the main base for U.S. forces in Kosovo.

``Doctors worked feverishly to save his life, but despite maximum efforts by the surgeons and staff, the boy was pronounced dead at 2:45 pm (1245 GMT),'' a KFOR statement said.

U.S. forces returned the body of the young boy, Gentrid Rexhepi, to his family. Female relatives crowded into a room and wailed with grief as the body was put on display at the family home in the village of Zlatare.

The boy's father, Deli Rexhepi, said he bore no grudge against the peacekeepers.

``We have no hard feelings. They didn't mean it,'' Rexhepi told reporters.

KFOR commander Lieutenant General Juan Ortuno of Spain and Brigadier General Randal Tieszen, the commander of Kosovo's U.S.-led eastern military sector, expressed their condolences.

``I am sure every one of my soldiers will be shocked and deeply saddened at this tragic accident,'' Ortuno said.

Members of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority generally have a friendly attitude toward KFOR, and U.S. soldiers in particular, viewing them as liberators who ended years of repression by Serb forces.

Rexhepi said his son had been staying in a nearby village with relatives during his school holidays when the tragedy happened.

Children had been watching U.S. forces repair a school fence when a soldier accidentally let off a burst of three rounds from his weapon, KFOR said. Local people led reporters in darkness to a large patch of blood near the fence where the boy was shot.

The boy's father said he understood that the soldiers wanted to be friendly to local youngsters.

``The children are traumatized. They want to be close to them... But, what can I say, they (the soldiers) weren't careful enough,'' he said, his voice sometimes choking with emotion.

KFOR entered Kosovo in June last year after NATO's bombing campaign drove Serb forces out of the province. The peacekeeping force has more than 40,000 soldiers, around 5,600 of them from the United States.

---

U.S. Military Slowing Anthrax Vaccinations - Cohen

Yahoo News
Monday July 10 6:56 PM ET
By Charles Aldinger
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000710/ts/military_anthrax_dc_1.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is temporarily slowing its program to inoculate all 2.4 million active and reserve troops against deadly anthrax biological agent because of a shortage in vaccine, Defense Secretary William Cohen said on Monday.

But Cohen also said the Defense Department will push to at least continue vaccinating all troops headed for high risk areas such as the Gulf and South Korea until a new plant, already built to produce the vaccine, is certified by the Food and Drug Administration.

The key problem is that the plant completed in Lansing, Mich., last year by BioPort Corp. to make fresh anthrax vaccine, has not been approved by the FDA to begin production. Meanwhile, stored supplies of fully-tested vaccine are running short.

``Unfortunately, we are beginning to run low on tested and certified doses from the stockpile, forcing us to slow our vaccination efforts,'' Cohen said in a statement on the Defense Department Web site.

``As soon as a sufficient supply of effective and safe vaccine is available, we will expand the program, ultimately vaccinating all members of the active and reserve force,'' the secretary added.

About 455,000 out of 2.4 million U.S. active and reserve troops have been inoculated to date in a controversial and mandatory two-year-old program. But the FDA last year found at least 30 problems at the new BioPort plant and has not yet given approval for it to begin production.

Meanwhile, no anthrax vaccine is being produced in the United States.

``Details are still being worked out,'' on the new pace of the program, which has been using about 4,500 doses daily, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters on Friday.

Cohen told reporters traveling with him on a trip to China on Monday that his recommendation would be to continue top priority for shots to those deployed to Southwest Asia and South Korea, which ``should carry us through the end of the year, hopefully.''

The Pentagon said last week that the military might have to quickly slow down a mandatory program to inoculate all troops against anthrax.

Since the program was begun, 1.8 million doses have been used by the military and 455,000 troops have received at least one of a series of three anthrax vaccinations to provide protection against a deadly biological agent for which there is no known cure.

The program has been controversial, with small numbers of troops being punished for refusing to take the shots. Some critics in Congress have called for a halt until the shots are proved to be completely safe.

But Cohen emphasized again in his Web site message that the vaccine had been proven safe and noted that both he and Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had taken the series of shots to prove it.

``We put safety first when we started the vaccination program two years ago. I am putting safety first again today,'' he said.

While the Defense Department has hundreds of thousands of older doses of anthrax vaccine in storage, Cohen has demanded stringent, time-consuming inspection of that supply before it is used.

A department spokesman said last week that the military had only about 190,000 approved doses on hand -- a 42-day supply at the previous pace of inoculations -- and was testing another 194,000 doses in storage for purity and safety.

---

Cohen to Cut Back Anthrax Vaccines

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/10cnd-anthrax.html

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska -- The Pentagon's controversial program of vaccinating all troops against anthrax will be cut back immediately to conserve dwindling vaccine supplies, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Monday.

Cohen said inoculations will be limited mainly to those troops who already are taking the series of anthrax vaccine shots and those who are preparing to deploy to the Middle East and South Korea -- where, in the Pentagon's estimation, the threat of exposure to the deadly anthrax virus is greatest.

Cohen discussed his decision during an interview with reporters traveling with him to China. His plane stopped to refuel at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

A relatively small, but increasingly vocal, number of military members are refusing to take the vaccine. They fear potentially damaging side effects, although the Pentagon insists the vaccine is safe. Some members of Congress have urged Cohen to end the program until a safer vaccine is found.

The Pentagon's only vaccine supplier, Bioport of Lansing, Mich., has not yet gained Food and Drug Administration certification for its new manufacturing plant.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said last week that the Pentagon had only about one month's supply of vaccine on hand, at the current rate of inoculations. An additional batch of vaccine in storage has yet to receive FDA approval for use, so Cohen had to decide on how to proceed.

Cohen said he decided to reduce the inoculation program "in a way that preserves the program itself until such time as we can get certification of additional supplies."

There are now about 100,000 doses available, Cohen said, adding that it should last until the end of the year. By that time, Bioport's new manufacturing plant should be certified, the Pentagon hopes.

Anthrax is a naturally occurring virus. Dry anthrax spores, when inhaled, can be deadly to humans.

---

U.S. Military Imposes Curfew on Troops Stationed in Okinawa

New York Times
July 10, 2000
By STEPHANIE STROM
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/10cnd-curfew.html

TOKYO, July 10 -- In a concession to local concerns about the behavior of American soldiers stationed in Okinawa, the United States military has banned the drinking of alcoholic beverages between midnight and 5 a.m. and confined its personnel to base during those hours.

The curfew was imposed after a hit-and-run accident involving a staff sergeant stationed at the United States Air Force's Kadena air base early Sunday morning. A pedestrian was injured in the accident and the sergeant was later caught. Investigators said it appeared that alcohol was involved.

This latest incident follows an apology from the highest-ranking American military official in Okinawa after a Marine was arrested last week for allegedly entering a house and molesting a 14-year-old girl who was sleeping.

"The goal of this policy is to enhance discipline among service members and prevent the recurrence of liberty incidents," the United States military said in a statement today.

Japanese officials have asked the United States military to take concrete steps to address the problem of crimes committed by its servicemen, an issue that has long bedeviled relations between local residents and the government of the prefecture and between the prefecture and the central government. "The fact that another incident of this sort has occurred at a time when we were already seeking tighter official discipline is regrettable," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa during a regularly scheduled news conference.

The two most recent alleged crimes occurred at a particularly sensitive time for the Japanese government, which is doing its utmost to ensure that the Group of 7 summit meeting of world leaders scheduled for July 21 through July 23 in Okinawa will come off without a hitch.

Police forces around the country have been staging drills in preparation for any trouble that might occur, and the national government has been working feverishly to end a dispute with the U.S. trade representative over charges imposed by the dominant telephone carrier.

President Clinton's participation in the summit meeting will be the first visit by an American president since the United States returned Okinawa to Japan in 1972. Last week, Japan was treated to the sight of Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston of the United States Marine Corps, the highest-ranking American officer here, bowing deeply to the prefecture's governor in a display of contrition.

Some 26,000 of the 48,000 United States military personnel in Japan are stationed in Okinawa. Residents of the island have long complained that the force presents an unfair social and economic burden.

---

U.S. serviceman arrested in Japan

Washington Times
July 10, 2000
World Scene
http://208.246.212.80/world/ed-column-2000710213825.htm

NAHA, Japan - Police arrested a U.S. Air Force serviceman on suspicion that he drove through a red light yesterday and hit a pedestrian, the latest in a string of reported crimes on the southern island of Okinawa involving the U.S. military.

Sgt. Johnny S. Miller, stationed at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, was arrested later in the day when he returned to the street corner where he hit 27-year-old Takeya Higa, said police official Jun Yogi.

Sgt. Miller, 21, fled after hitting Mr. Higa, who was knocked unconscious. A friend who was with the victim gave police the car's license plate number, said another officer, Akira Toyama. Sgt. Miller later told police he was the one who hit Mr. Higa, Mr. Toyama said.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Navajos Plug In to Solar Power
New Program Brings Affordable Electricity to Reservation

By Michelle Rushlo
Associated Press
Monday, July 10, 2000; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/10/063l-071000-idx.html

On the breezy grass plains where generations of Joanne Jackson's family have been born and raised, a wood bungalow with faded tan paint is alive with electricity.

The three-room house was built years ago in this western part of the Navajo Nation using her husband's veterans benefits. And though it had white plastic outlet plates on the walls and lights in the ceiling, they were merely decorative--until September.

It was then that Jackson, 62, and her husband, Raymond, 82, became the first inhabitants of the Navajo Nation to get power through a solar generator program whose founders hope to eventually deliver power throughout American Indian reservations.

Of the 37,000 occupied structures on the Navajo Reservation, 9 percent have electricity and 14 percent have utility gas, according to 1990 Census Bureau statistics. Most other Navajos cook and heat with wood, coal or fuel oil.

Large spreads of open land frequently separate the homes on the reservation, which at 4.8 million acres covers an area slightly smaller than New Jersey.

The rambling expanses make hooking into the power grid eye-poppingly expensive. Stringing power lines costs roughly $30,000 per mile, according to Arizona Public Service--an impossible sum for most families in this region where the unemployment rate hovers around 50 percent.

By comparison, a one-kilowatt solar generator, which can provide for basic needs, costs roughly $10,000.

The solar systems are ideal for Indian reservations because they are less expensive than power lines and don't tear up the landscape, said Gregory Kiss, president of Native American Photovoltaics, the nonprofit corporation that helped install the Jacksons' system.

NAPV, launched a year ago with a $220,000 federal grant, started a lease-to-own program in the southwestern portion of the reservation, offering families one-kilowatt systems. The solar generators provide enough power to fuel a refrigerator, lights, television, water pump and computer for an average family of four.

It costs the Jacksons nothing to own the generator--it was installed so they can show others how it works--but normally a one-kilowatt system would cost $50 per month through the program. A family would agree to a three-year lease and, if they choose to buy it at that time, the money paid toward the lease would be applied to the purchase price.

The program, still in its infancy, should have 20 systems installed in by the end of summer, said Kiss, a New York architect who specializes in integrating solar systems into buildings.

Other government programs and individual homeowners have installed thousands of solar generators on the reservation over the years, Kiss said, but many generators do not function today because they were never maintained.

The maintenance required for the systems is minor. The solar-charged batteries, which are similar to golf cart batteries, need water and occasional service, Kiss said. But without that maintenance, the systems die. In some cases, the Navajos have not been taught how to maintain the systems.

To combat that and provide badly needed jobs on the reservation, NAPV will train unemployed Navajos to service and maintain the systems periodically. Kiss is hoping to eventually create a self-sustaining industry. "We're trying to make the program behave like a distributed service," he said.

So far, the Jacksons, who received their generator as a demonstration system, are thrilled. They have a refrigerator for the first time, sparing repeated trips in an old pickup truck 10 miles down the dusty rutted road from their home to the market. She keeps a few tomatoes and soda cans in the small refrigerator, smiling proudly as she shows it off to visitors.

"I like the whole system," Joanne Jackson, who speaks primarily Navajo, said through a translator. "I have been really wanting a refrigerator."

Anna M. Frazier, whose duties in this Navajo community of 2,000 are similar to that of mayor, said many of the roughly 1,200 Dilkon residents have no power. Electricity will mean that Navajo children can do their homework at night and maybe one day access a computer, she said.

For Joanne Jackson, it means her husband can safely descend the rough wood steps at the front of the house by porch light at night. It's a minor convenience in an urban area but an enormous help here, where the nearest street light is 30 miles away.

"The porch light is on," Jackson said. "That's one thing I like."

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

World Bank won't fund Tibetan project

USA Today
07/10/00- Updated 08:36 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#peace

WASHINGTON - World Bank directors on Friday rejected a contentious loan to China to resettle 58,000 farmers on traditionally Tibetan lands in the face of strong opposition from the United States, other governments and human rights groups. The bank said in a statement that Chinese authorities told the directors they intend to come up with $40 million on their own to carry out the project. The statement said a majority of the banks 24 directors ''did not agree to adopt (bank) management's recommendations'' for the project, which would require additional social and environmental studies over the next 15 months before providing funding.

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Environmental rules for U.S. trade
Administration hopes to set standards for trading partners

MSNBC
07/11/00
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/431387.asp

WASHINGTON, July 11 - The Clinton administration took a step Monday that will subject future trade agreements to tougher environmental reviews, maintaining that free trade and environmental protection can go hand in hand.

'The administration has clearly felt our pain and has decided to do something about it. But there are some major holes in this proposal.'

- DANIEL SELIGMAN Sierra Club

"WHEN IT COMES to trade and the environment we don't have to choose one or the other," U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said in releasing the draft guidelines that follow a presidential executive order last fall.

President Clinton in November directed the government to assess the environmental impacts of future trade deals.

At the time, the administration was hoping to blunt criticism of upcoming negotiations by the World Trade Organization in Seattle aimed at launching a new round of global trade negotiations.

Thousands of demonstrators came to Seattle in December to highlight their arguments that the WTO does not consider the impact of trade agreements on the environment or worker rights. The WTO discussions ended in failure when the 135 nations could not agree on an agenda for a new round of trade talks.

Daniel Seligman, director of the Responsible Trade Program for the Sierra Club, said the administration's procedures are a good first step but did not go far enough.

"The administration has clearly felt our pain and has decided to do something about it," he said. "But there are some major holes in this proposal."

LIMITS ON REVIEW

Seligman said there is no requirement that the draft texts of future trade agreements be released to the public, making it "impossible for the public to provide adequate comment."

The proposed guidelines will be published Tuesday in the Federal Register and the administration will seek public comment on them at hearings Aug. 2 and 3 in Washington.

George T. Frampton Jr., acting chairman of the president's Council on Environmental Quality, said the administration hoped to have the new guidelines in place soon.

He said that implementation of the November executive order remains a "high priority" of both Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, who made the initial announcement that the administration would require environmental reviews of future trade agreements.

Gore, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has come under attack from environmental activists for his support of the administration's trade liberalization policies.

-------- spying

Putting More Energy into Counterintelligence

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post
Monday , July 10, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A5758-2000Jul8

The Department of Energy's attempts to improve counterintelligence awareness training at the nuclear weapons laboratories have "failed dismally." Its polygraph program has yet to gain "even a modicum of acceptance." And its claims about fixing counterintelligence are "nonsense."

So the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence opines in a report released last month on counterintelligence capabilities at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories, citing a culture at all three facilities that is "profoundly antithetical toward counterintelligence and security."

Weapons scientists at the labs take umbrage at such strong rhetoric, having played no small role in winning the Cold War. But the HPSCI report minces no words, bearing the indelible signature of its principal author, Paul Redmond, the straight-talking former CIA chief of counterintelligence.

Redmond's conclusions about the lab's cultural problems seem predictable enough from someone with his background in spy hunting, as does his support for polygraph testing. But his report is interesting precisely because, in many other ways, it isn't predictable at all.

He is harshly critical of the initiatives emanating from DOE headquarters but nonetheless credits the department for having made "a good but inconsistent start in improving its CI [counterintelligence] capabilities."

He faults headquarters for producing CI training materials that were "bureaucratic, boring, turgid, and completely insufficient," yet he lauds Edward J. Curran, a career FBI counterintelligence expert now serving as DOE's counterintelligence chief, as "ideal" for the job "because of his extensive CI experience at the FBI, his rotational assignment at the CIA, and his persistence and determination."

And far from signing off on every last "reform" initiative coming out of Congress, Redmond quotes Curran as opposing the new National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), created by Congress last year expressly to improve security and counterintelligence at the labs.

Given the NNSA's semi-autonomous status within the DOE, Redmond writes, Curran believes "he will have only a policy role and no actual authority" over the labs' counterintelligence programs.

As for the DOE's polygraph program, Redmond is an ardent proponent of the "lie detector" but concedes that there are "rational" reasons for scientists at the labs to oppose being polygraphed, since the tests invariably produce "false positives" – indications that people are lying when, in fact, they are not.

The real culprits here are officials at DOE headquarters, Redmond argues,who initially proposed an overly broad polygraph program, appeared to flip-flop in scaling it back, and never succeeded in "explaining the importance and utility of the polygraph program" as a counterintelligence tool.

Curran to Redmond: Flattery will get you nowhere

Unfortunately for Redmond, the only participant in this raging debate over counterintelligence at the weapons labs blunter than he may be Curran himself.

In a recent written rebuttal, Curran emphasizes a point Redmond makes but does not underscore – DOE's current CI program began with President Clinton's issuance of Presidential Decision Directive NSC 61 in February 1998. That was 13 months before the still contentious allegations of Chinese espionage at Los Alamos broke in the press and touched off a political furor among Clinton's Republican critics in Congress.

The report of the HPSCI's Redmond panel, Curran said, "is poor counsel."

Redmond's criticism of DOE's CI awareness training, Curran said, ignores virtually all of the department's substantive work, including 100 interviews with weapons scientists aimed making CI training more meaningful to them.

The department has also used foreign defectors to lecture scientists on ways in which foreign intelligence services can be expected to target them when they travel abroad. And all traveling scientists, Curran said, are now briefed about CI threats before they travel to sensitive countries, and debriefed when they return.

But Redmond's "most illogical guidance," according to Curran, came in his conclusion that DOE officials must "sell" the need for improved CI, not to mention the department's polygraph program, to scientists at the labs.

Curran said 600 lab scientists have now taken DOE's polygraph "without one false positive result." The current program, which involves far fewer scientists than originally proposed, Curran added, takes into account 105 written comments and 87 oral comments from lab employees last year.

"The research and knowledge involved in manufacturing nuclear weapons is vital to U.S. national security," Curran said. "The need to protect this information from unauthorized disclosure is self-evident, and the secretary of energy should not be placed in a position of asking 'Mother, May I' of the department's laboratories when he is implementing measures he deems appropriate to protect U.S. national security."

Resisters beware

Curran took a similarly hard-line stance in testimony last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying polygraphs are necessary to unmask spies like former CIA officer Aldrich H. Ames.

His words were warmly received. At the end of the hearing, Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) asked him to send the committee documentation of polygraph resistance at the labs.

The exchange rang alarm bells at the labs, where some scientists at Los Alamos's X Division, its nuclear warhead design facility, have signed an open petition to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson that says, "We believe that the vast majority of X-Division employees cannot justly be subjected to polygraphing."

One scientist at Livermore asked in a widely disseminated email,"Is there any reason to think that the signatories to the polygraph petition will be part of a list of resisters to security measures that Ed Curran will submit to the United States Senate? If so, this has ominous overtones."

Fueling the fire

One of those leading the charge at the labs against polygraph screening is George W. Maschke, a former military intelligence officer and captain in the Army reserve who now works as a translator at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. While not a weapons scientist, Maschke is in regular email contact with numerous lab employees, many of whom have read his critique of DOE's counterintelligence polygraph, "The Lying Game: National Security and the Test for Espionage and Sabotage" .

Maschke, 36, is a fervent polygraph opponent, to say the least. He wanted to become an FBI agent specializing in counterterrorism but failed the bureau's pre-employment polygraph. While most of those who fail the test get hung up on questions about past recreational drug use, Maschke said the bureau concluded he had committed espionage: an FBI polygrapher told him he was lying when he denied ever passing classified information to unauthorized individuals.

"I was one of the very few spies they've ferreted out," Maschke said.

Maschke's main beef with the polygraph, he said, is that it's no more scientific than astrology. It's too easy for real spies to beat the test through simple countermeasures, he said, and it's so inaccurate that relatively large numbers of truthful subjects will inevitably be falsely accused of lying – so-called "false positives."

Congress remains unpersuaded

In the wake of the latest security scandal at Los Alamos involving two missing computer hard drives containing top secret nuclear weapons data that have since been found, the House voted recently to dock the pay of any Los Alamos employee who refuses to undergo a polygraph test. The House Armed Services Committee went even further, passing legislation requiring polygraphs for any lab scientists with access to unclassified but "restricted" data, which would mean thousands more employees would be subject to the test.

Vernon Loeb, a Washington Post staff writer who covers national security issues, writes his biweekly IntelligenCIA column exclusively for washingtonpost.com. His newspaper column, Back Channels, is also carried by this Web site. Loeb answers questions from readers in monthly online discussions. He can be reached via e-mail at loebv@washpost.com.

----

Deja Vu: Spies Versus Activists

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/
by Tom Ferrick Jr
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070900-106.htm

Hey, man, ready for a flashback? It's a '70s moment, brought to you by unknown spies who look and act like law-enforcement officers.

Jittery over the protests planned to coincide with the Republican National Convention, some cop-like folks have begun spying on the groups. And they've been none too subtle about it.

One target is Unity 2000, which has written Police Commissioner John F. Timoney complaining about surveillance.

The group says that two guys have been photographing Unity 2000 members for weeks as they arrive at and depart from meetings at the headquarters of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in the 1200 block of Race Street, a notorious den of suffragettes.

The two guys were also spotted there by my colleague Tom Ginsberg, who reported on the surveillance in these pages on Thursday. When asked who they were and what they were doing, they declined to comment.

For the record, the police deny they are behind the spying. As a department spokeswoman huffed at reporter Gwen Shaffer in City Paper: "What makes them think the people taking pictures are police officers?"

Let me ask this: Just who might it be - Knights of Columbus?

Rizzo's spies

Excuse me if I doubt the denial.

Philly cops have a history of spying on protesters. For years, the man behind it was Police Commissioner, later Mayor, Frank L. Rizzo - the Big Snoop himself, who had cops compile dossiers on suspected enemies of the state.

The list was vast: African American activists of every stripe; kids in Maoist collectives in Powelton Village; earnest Socialist Workers peddling their papers at antiwar rallies. There was even room for Rizzo's political opponents and pesky reporters.

Like most of us, Rizzo loved to gossip. And he did it with a knowing wink, as if he had the goods tucked away in a file. Did he? You got me. A lot of times, this "intelligence" consisted of old newspaper clips and unverified rumor. Pretty cheesy stuff.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In 1976, Rizzo became convinced bad guys were going to throng to Philadelphia to disrupt the bicentennial celebration. He fulminated over terrorists. He even asked the White House to send the 82d Airborne to help quell the disorders. Wisely, it refused - though the National Guard was alerted.

No secrets, no lies

The result: He scared away everyone. Protesters, families, street vendors, marching bands. The celebration fizzled. At a time when Philadelphia could rightly stake a claim to national attention, Rizzo made it an asterisk. God bless him, I miss him.

But that was long ago.

Want to gather intelligence on the groups planning protests at the GOP National Convention today? There's no need to spy. Go to their Web pages. Unity 2000 has one. R2K. The Mumaniacs. And they are bursting with "intelligence" - names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of organizers and coordinators. (My favorite: Philadelphia-Direct Action Group has a coordinator for Puppetry/Creative). They give schedules of their protests. They list media contacts.

These are not clandestine operations. These are not secret cabals. These groups yearn for publicity. Their goal is to get face time on the tube, to counteract the happy talk inside the First Union Center.

In short, they want to exercise - hold on, I have a copy of the Constitution somewhere on my desk - "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Philly cops say they are not spying on Unity 2000? Fine. But why settle for a simple denial?

Send a patrol car out and tell those guys to disperse. If they refuse to move along, arrest them for harassment.

---

Philadelphia Political Activists Under A Mysterious Gaze Men with cameras have been seen keeping tabs on protest meetings. No one is claiming responsibility.

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10 , 2000
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://web.philly.com/content/inquirer/
by Thomas Ginsberg
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/070600-03.htm

One man held a cigarette. The other held a camera. Together they kept constant watch on the Race Street rowhouse where activists were planning their peaceful protest for the Republican convention.

Why they were there, nobody is saying.

Four weeks before the huge GOP event, the prospect of raucous protests and civil disobedience has created mini spy dramas on the streets of Philadelphia.

Unidentified men with cameras have been seen openly watching and photographing at least five protest meetings in the past month, including one last Thursday observed by The Inquirer.

Simple, unobtrusive surveillance from a public street is not illegal or unprecedented, and, unlike undercover work in a private meeting, it does not require a court order.

Still, the men doing the surveillance have refused to identify themselves or their mission. Police officials say the men are not from the Police Department. FBI officials declined to comment.

That has left activists to come up with their own answers.

Jody Dodd, an organizer at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, whose Race Street office was watched throughout June, said she believed the city police were responsible.

"It's being done to engender fear, and I find it silly," said Dodd, whose 85-year-old peace group is helping the Philadelphia Direct Action Group, an umbrella protest group brought together for the convention. "PDAG is not a forum for property destruction. . . . They should be focusing their cloak-and-dagger games on the real wing-nuts, and they're not in our meetings."

The surveillance became so open and steady last month that the American Civil Liberties Union, at the request of the league, sent a letter to city officials reminding them that former Mayor W. Wilson Goode issued a directive in 1987 prohibiting any police surveillance or infiltration without the approval of the police chief and city's managing director.

City police have stepped up preparations for dealing with possibly disruptive protests at the Republican convention in the wake of large demonstrations in Seattle last November and Washington, D.C., in April.

Lt. Susan Slawson, a spokeswoman for Police Commissioner John F. Timoney, said city police were not behind the surveillance, which has taken place from a loading dock at the Convention Center.

"Putting somebody on the roof or in a loading dock would be violating" the 1987 directive, Slawson said.

"We are in no way violating it."

"We don't confirm or deny..."

The 1987 directive does not, however, apply to other law-enforcement agencies. Dozens of agencies are now working on security for the convention, ranging from state police, to U.S. Capitol Police, to the U.S. Secret Service, to the FBI.

An FBI spokeswoman in Philadelphia, Linda Vizi, declined to comment on the possibility of federal surveillance ahead of the convention.

"We don't confirm or deny investigations, no matter what they are," Vizi said.

None of the officials would speculate on how such photographs might be used, how the targets might be picked, and what behavior could provoke surveillance.

In recent weeks, a tip sheet distributed to Philadelphia-area security officials made clear that police consider white, middle-class youths among the most likely anti-corporate protesters.

The tip sheet, provided to The Inquirer by a security firm on condition of anonymity, says the Police Department would like to be notified if there "is a significant increase in the population of predominantly young white males and females in a particular area, especially those who dress in rag-tag clothing and dye their hair in multi-colors."

"No need for this"

In the surveillance last Thursday, two men stood for at least a half-hour inside a covered loading dock at the Convention Center directly across Race Street from the Women's International League office, where activists were holding a meeting that had been widely advertised on the Internet.

Both men were dressed in T-shirts and calmly refused to answer any questions posed by an Inquirer reporter, photographer and later by several activists.

At one point, the man with the camera, when asked whether he knew what was happening inside, answered: "I got no beef with them."

He answered other questions with silence.

The group's organizer, Dodd, reported other instances - on June 7, 12, 15 and 19 - in which she said different men were seen photographing people entering the office for protest meetings that had been advertised on the Internet.

Robert Butera, president of the Convention Center, said the center had not arranged for any surveillance of the league office and had not been informed of police using its loading dock for surveillance.

Amy Kwasnicki, an organizer for the Philadelphia Direct Action Group, which has used the league office, said some members of the protest group also had reported that people dressed too well to be street people had been rifling through trash in front of their West Philadelphia homes.

"There's no need for this," Kwasnicki said. "We're not preparing for war, but it seems like the cops are."

---

Is Big Brother Watching At Work? Companies Use Snoop Software To Track Employees E-mail, Web-Surfing, Personal Software Open To Scrutiny Lack Of Electronic Privacy Laws Give Workers Little Recourse

CBS
July 10, 2000

WASHINGTON (CBS) Ever get the feeling you're being watched? There's a good chance you are. As CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports, three out of four companies admit to spying on their employees.

Your boss could be secretly tracking your every move at work including phone conversations, where you go on the Internet, even the contents of personal e-mails.

Roy Young sells and uses the snooping software called Silentwatch. "I will never have to leave my office to find out what an employee is doing, if he's working at his desk, and what he's working on," says Young.

Using the software, Young's computer can see and record every display, every keystroke from up to 16 workers' computers at once.

It's the electronic equivalent of having the boss peer over your shoulder, and it's a billion-dollar business. With the Internet at so many fingertips, employees are often spending more time at work but getting less work done.

An office manager, wishing to remain anonymous because he doesn't want his workers to know he's using special snooping software, spoke to CBS News. He captured one employee who turned slacking off into an art. "He'd send an e-mail to one friend, it's like 'ah, I got it great here, you really don't have to do any work here; you can pretty much goof off all day long.' You know, he even went on to say this is what he does in the morning, 'I get here and get the coffee and just run around making myself look like I'm doing things.'"

The slacker was fired, along with 10 percent of the company's small work force, based on the results of electronic eavesdropping.

The stealth software bears nefarious names like Disk Tracy, and Investigator.

Using Investigator, Maurice Woodard of Diamond State Recovery Services can see every character his employees type. "He's asking questions about getting back and forth home from work," Woodard recites as he tracks a personal e-mail chat in progress. "And then he starts to use expletives in this particular section. We would obviously not be happy that people would use that kind of language."

Ironically, that same private conversation would have been off limits to the boss if it had taken place on the telephone. But there's no privacy protection for computer communications. And that's raising serious ethical questions.

Rhonda Wieben, an insurance adjuster, installed personal software on her company laptop. "I didn't know that it was against company policy," says Wieben. "This was to help me so that I could keep up on my work load in my own time, and so it wasn't like, you know, surfing the 'net or doing things on company time."

By snooping on her computer, the company found the unapproved software and fired her after eight years on the job.

"It was devastating," recounts Wieben.

Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union has gotten several calls from individuals who say their employers have violated their privacy rights. "Unfortunately, the law doesn't recognize those privacy rights and for the most part, we have to advise those employees that there isn't anything we can do for them under the law," says Steinhardt.

Privacy advocates say employers should at least tell workers if they're being monitored. Even the creator of the Investigator software, Richard Eaton agrees. "I mean, if your purpose is to stop abuse, then tell them. If your purpose is to embarrass and humiliate them, then by all means don't tell them."

It's the new, hard truth of the electronic age: the place where you spend more time than anywhere except home is the place where you have the least privacy.

-------- terrorism

Barriers to go up around monument

USA Today
07/10/00- Updated 08:36 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#peace

The Washington Post reports Monday that the federal government is working on a plan to place a circular metal barrier around the Washington Monument to prevent terrorists and vehicles from approaching it. Officials say the $3.6 million barrier, funded by Congress, should be in place by next summer. The barrier will be the first of its kind protecting a national monument in Washington, D.C.

---

Romancing the mullahs

Washington Times
EDITORIAL • July 10, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/ed-house-200071016567.htm

What affection the Clinton administration seems to have for dictators and thugs. First it delivered Elian Gonzalez to the arms of Fidel Castro, operator of the longest running gulag since Stalin. Now it wants to return a human rights activist, Mahnaz Samadi, to the fatal embrace of Iranian mullahs at the same time, coincidentally, that the U.S. State Department courts them politically.

Today the 35-year-old Miss Samadi is scheduled to appear at a deportation hearing in Arlington on charges that she was once part of an anti-mullah military group that sought to undermine the regime. More specifically, says the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), she "carried out orders of [her] superiors and prepared units under [her] command for coordinated attacks designed to liberate Iran."

Liberating Iran doesn't exactly sound like a crime to anyone outside the administration. The State Department itself has designated the Iranian regime a state sponsor of terrorism. But in March, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright began making conciliatory noises toward the Iranians in a diplomatic initiative to make friendly with government "moderates" there. Suddenly Miss Samadi, not the regime, finds herself a target of U.S. justice, shackled in irons and strip-searched, awaiting possible deportation to Iran and, once there, a possible, even probable, death sentence.

It was to escape just such treatment that Miss Samadi originally fled to the United States. Imprisoned for four years in Iran because of her opposition to the country's clerical regime, Miss Samadi says she was forced to witness the torture of her older brother. Eventually he was executed, as was another brother. Miss Samadi says she too was tortured but ultimately released. In 1994 she made her way to the United States and gained asylum. She spent most of the next six years lobbying members of Congress about human rights abuses in Iran.

Her more recent problems started when she was arrested in Canada in connection with an invalid visa and deported to the United States in April. U.S. officials arrested her at the border and jailed her as a terrorist. Why the sudden hostility? INS officials say the only reason she gained asylum in the first place is that she lied on her application; she failed to acknowledge that for about seven months in 1993, she was a member of the anti-mullah National Liberation Army (NLA). Why that should matter now isn't clear. The State Department declared the NLA a terrorist organization in 1997 (a designation that many members of Congress challenge), three years after Miss Samadi arrived in this country. By then she was no longer a member of the group anyway, and she has spent her time in the United States without incident.

A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers has risen to Miss Samadi's defense. More than 60 have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno demanding her immediate release. New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli's comments are typical. "Sending messages to foreign governments should not involve the taking of people's lives," he said. "She faces certain death. This is outrageous. It cannot be permitted to happen."

The administration should free her now. If it wants to romance the mullahs, the administration should send flowers, not Miss Samadi.

---

Tanzanian Pleads Innocence in U.S. Embassy Bombing

Yahoo News
Monday July 10 1:59 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000710/wl/tanzania_bombing_dc_1.html

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Reuters) - A Tanzanian man pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of being involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam in 1998.

Rashid Salehe Hemed, one of six suspects sought by police for the bombing that killed 11 people and wounded more than 70, was charged with conspiracy to murder in Dar es Salaam's High Court. He said he was innocent.

A simultaneous bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on the morning of Aug. 7 killed over 200 people and injured 5,000 more.

Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, is wanted by the United States over the explosions at the two embassies.

Prosecutors say tests on Hemed's clothes and on the interior of a car he was using matched substances used in manufacturing the bomb.

The other five suspects are still at large.

The trial was adjourned but no new date was given because of security concerns.

-------- y2k

Y2K Blip Cost Region Plenty
Communities Still Face Bills, Computer Glitches Despite Bug's Mild Bite

By Matthew Mosk and Stephen C. Fehr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 10, 2000; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/10/117l-071000-idx.html

While the momentous flip of the calendar six months ago rendered Y2K a dud, the passage of time is revealing that, in some places, the cure might have been more meddlesome than the disease.

In one Maryland county, expensive computers and software bought to fortify against disaster have been plagued by embarrassing glitches. In the District, $10 million in cost overruns from Y2K fixes at one point threatened to undo the city's balanced budget.

"It appears as though [the Y2K effort] has been terribly mishandled," said Barbara Samorajczyk (D-Annapolis), a member of the County Council in Anne Arundel, where officials were recently asked to cough up $2.5 million more to cover the latest unexpected computer costs. "Now we are paying for it."

Fast-growing Anne Arundel--a suburban county that entertains dreams of becoming the region's next high-tech hub--has experienced more computer difficulties than most: One bug in Arundel's new software prompted computers to count $11 million in assets as money that the county still owed contractors. The glitch led an outside auditor to mistakenly report that the county's books were woefully out of balance.

Another blunder--committed while data was manually transferred from the old system--prevented scores of checks from going out to county vendors, leaving suppliers angry over delinquent bills.

Then county officials got a look at the latest estimates for the Y2K work. According to the county auditor, costs have reached $12.6 million--50 percent more than initially budgeted.

Costs for Y2K upgrades also have soared in the District, where a $171 million computer conversion began later than in other jurisdictions in the area and only after federal officials intervened. The District replaced most of its obsolete computer system.

In the race to make the Dec. 31 deadline, officials worked so fast that they did not track spending, according to a recent outside audit of D.C. finances.

That prompted International Business Machines Corp., a chief contractor in the project, to sue the District in February, seeking $28 million that had reportedly gone unpaid for months.

D.C. officials disputed the bill but agreed to pay after IBM threatened to cut off some data processing services, including printing unemployment checks.

Officials in the District and in Anne Arundel have acknowledged their post-Y2K problems but have quickly noted that they undertook drastic reconstruction of antiquated computer networks over a very short time.

"There's no question we've had trouble," said John R. Hammond, Anne Arundel's budget director, who oversaw the county's computer upgrade. "But in large part, that's because this was a very ambitious overhaul."

Officials in Montgomery, Prince George's and Howard counties, as well as in the Virginia suburbs, all said their computers were working smoothly and within budget.

"We were right on target," said George Kohut, an information technology program manager who oversaw Fairfax County's $4 million Y2K effort.

In 1995, when Anne Arundel officials heard gloomy forecasts about the Year 2000 bug, they decided to replace the county's entire billing and accounting systems.

At the time, salaries for the county's 4,200 employees still were being recorded on 3-by-5-inch index cards, and county computers looked like relics.

"These were the old green screens," Hammond said. "When it came time to start training people, they didn't know a mouse from something a cat chases."

In 1997, Anne Arundel signed contracts with IBM and with Denver-based consultant J.D. Edwards & Co. to install a new payroll system, new financial management software and a new tax and utility billing system. Trouble set in almost immediately, county officials said.

First, county computers were not powerful enough to handle the new software. Then the software needed to be customized to meet county needs. With New Year's Eve approaching, Hammond said, there was tremendous pressure to get a completed system up and running.

Even without the time pressure, such sizable upgrades are notorious for snags, he said. When Maryland officials spent $35 million to install new purchasing systems in 1995, they encountered so many bugs that three state buildings nearly had their water shut off by mistake, and a Georgia oil company cut off heating fuel to 40 Highway Administration buildings because the state had stacked up $50,000 in overdue invoices.

Anne Arundel's problems were comparable. With computers failing to handle the purchase orders, contractors started flooding county officials with phone calls, complaining that they had not been paid.

"We heard from vendors in every county department," said Andrew Carpenter, a spokesman for County Executive Janet S. Owens (D). "It became a widespread problem."

While most glitches have been addressed, Anne Arundel has not completely resolved its Y2K financial problems, and the District only recently has.

Spokesmen for J.D. Edwards and IBM said their companies did not contribute to the problems, and they said the initial cost estimates were not set in stone. Hammond said he plans to confront the companies for "promising the system would do things that it just didn't do" and ask for renumeration.

District officials said last week that they used money from a tax settlement to cover the $10 million in overruns, which initially posed problems when they tried to balance the fiscal 2000 budget.

In both jurisdictions, officials have tried to focus on the upside of Y2K.

D.C. chief technology officer Suzanne Peck said the Y2K program led to a technology revolution in city government that would not have happened otherwise. The purchase of computers, for example, will speed the implementing of electronic government, through which residents will be able to register vehicles and renew parking permits, among other things.

"Y2K has given technology a momentum and visibility that hopefully will continue," Peck said.


-------- activists

-------- activists

Priority 1 Alert!! The Defense Authorization bill could come to the Senate floor this week or next.

Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 16:32:05 -0400
From: jbridgman@peace-action.org
This alert comes from Friends Committee on National Legislation.

"MINI-NUKES" THREATEN NUCLEAR TESTING MORATORIUM: Sens. Warner (VA) and Allard (CO) have introduced a provision in the FY 2001 Department of Defense Authorization Bill (S 2549) which threatens the nuclear testing moratorium. This provision, if passed, would require the Secretaries of Defense and Energy to undertake a study and report on the "defeat of hardened and deeply buried targets," a reference to weapons that are able to burrow deep into the ground to destroy buried targets such as bunkers. These weapons would likely contain low-yield nuclear warheads, or "mini-nukes." Developing this new weapon design will require nuclear testing. Though this provision simply calls for a study of this new weapon, it is not as benign as that. Sens. Warner and Allard have made clear their intention to pursue nuclear testing of new weapons designs.

If the United States breaks the global moratorium on nuclear test explosions to develop new nuclear weapons, the moratorium will collapse. With the collapse of the moratorium, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will almost certainly dissolve. Other nuclear powers will also resume nuclear testing. Some non-nuclear states will feel emboldened to join them. Sens. Warner and Allard's provision will have started up the engines for a new and probably more dangerous nuclear weapons arms race. No one will be the winner at that finish line.

ACTION: Urge your senators to save the nuclear test moratorium by opposing the Warner-Allard provision (Section 1018, "Report on the Defeat of Hardened and Deeply Buried Targets") in the FY 2001 Defense Authorization bill. At present, there is no amendment to strike the provision. Urge your senator to offer such an amendment and to publicly oppose the provision.

James C. Bridgman Research & Resource Coordinator Peace Action Education Fund mailto:jbridgman@peace-action.org http://www.peace-action.org 202.862.9740x3041 fax: 202.862.9762 1819 H St., NW, #425 Washington, DC 20006

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This Sunday, July 16, Remember "Trinity" at Aegis, Moore

Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000

What started at "Trinity" 55 years ago is now Aegis and "Star Wars"...

On July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in a area of desert known as "Jornada del Muerto" - Journey of Death or Dead Man's Trail -

the world's first atomic bomb was tested. This coming Sunday, July 16, 2000, in a remote cornfield in South Jersey, the Brandywine Peace

Community invites you to remember the start of the nuclear age at another weapons test site - the Lockheed Martin/U.S. Navy Aegis Warship testing base ("the cruiser in the cornfield"), on Centerton Rd., Moorestown, NJ.

Beginning at 7:30pm this Sunday, the group will hold a candlelight vigil and sundown service that will include: readings, bell-tolling, the audio broadcast describing the first atomic bomb test, its use on

the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the start of the nuclear age. The ceremony will conclude with the stringing of yellow CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS tape across the main entrance to Aegis warship facility.

Cruise missile firing Aegis warships are at the center of the naval strike force in the Persian Gulf as part of the ongoing war of nearly daily attacks and economic sanctions against Iraq. In Moorestown, NJ, Lockheed Martin produces the radar and battle command systems for Aegis cruisers and destroyers and, as part of the Navy's Theater-Wide Ballistic Missile Defense system, is developing High-Powered Discrimination radar for use aboard Aegis cruisers.

Aegis: "the Star Wars of the Sea"...

Aegis, often called the "Star Wars of the Sea", because of its multiple tracking and attack capabilities, has recently become the centerpiece for the Navy's Ballistic Missile Defense [BMD] or "Star Wars" plan. The Navy's plan calls for the placement of Aegis cruisers and destroyers around the world to simultaneously track and attack multiple incoming missiles. For this BMD/"Star Wars" scheme, Lockheed Martin is also developing a longer-range interceptor missile for use on up to 50 Aegis warships.

The candlelight vigil and sundown service on July 16th will be the first in a series of protests and nonviolent resistance at Lockheed Martin in the Delaware Valley marking 55th anniversary of the start of the nuclear age.

On Wed., August 9/Nagasaki Day, a peace vigil and service of remembrance with two survivors ["Hibakusha"] of the Nagasaki bombing will be held in front of the Lockheed Martin complex on Mall Blvd. (behind the King of Prussia Mall), Valley Forge, PA, beginning at 11am, the time of the Nagasaki bombing. The service will also feature a "die" dramatizing the consequence of Lockheed Martin's weapons profits. People will then process to the company's main entranceway and commit nonviolent civil disobedience on the property of the world's largest weapons corporation, the U.S.'s #1 international arms dealer, and the U.S.'s chief nuclear bomb contractor.

Those interested in participating in the nonviolent civil disobedience on August 9 need to call the Brandywine Peace Community by July 25th to find out the date, time, and place of the preparation meeting.

Hope to see you this Sunday in Moorestown, NJ.
For more information: Brandywine Peace Community, (610) 544-1818.

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Nine Greenpeace Activists Arrested In Protests At Both Ends Of The Failed Star Wars Test

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Greenpeace USA Jon Walter on ++31-653504731 Louise Edge on ++44-7801-212 993 Photos and video are available

http://www.greenpeaceusa.org

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA - July 8 - Following today's failed missile test launch Greenpeace has repeated its call for President Clinton to reject plans for a new "Star Wars" missile defense system.

Initial reports stated that the anti-missile weapon failed to intercept a Minuteman II rocket over the Pacific Ocean. Two of the three tests of the system have now failed.

"The failed test just emphasizes what a failure in judgment the whole Star Wars program is," said Greenpeace nuclear disarmament campaigner, William Peden.

"No amount of tests, threat assessments or diplomatic double speak can ever justify Star Wars. The fact is, if it is allowed to go ahead, this program will ignite a new nuclear arms race. The US administration must heed the strong opposition from around the world that will only continue to grow," said Peden.

The Minuteman missile was fired at 4.18 GMT Friday from Vandenberg Air Force base, north of Santa Barbara, California, after being delayed for 2 hours 18 minutes. Air Force officials claimed that the delay was due to a battery problem. Greenpeace volunteers were still in the Vandenberg base at the time.

Greenpeace conducted a series of internationally coordinated actions against the test over a number of days in the run up to the launch. Volunteers entered the launch areas at both Vandenberg in California and Meck Island, part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where the failed kill vehicle was fired from. In addition the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise entered the test exclusion zone off the California coast.

Seven Greenpeace volunteers entered the Vandenberg on foot, three on Wednesday and the rest on Thursday night, and made their way close to the launch pad for the Minuteman II missile. They were eventually arrested just hours before the final missile launch and were charged with trespassing before being released.

Meanwhile the crew of volunteers aboard the MV Arctic Sunrise sailed into one of the five hazard zones designated in a Notice to Mariners (NOTAM) and launched four inflatable zodiacs. These were areas where stage one of the Minuteman II missile was to be jettisoned. The ship remained in the area when the missile was launched despite Greenpeace calls several hours before the launch to Vandenberg in which they provided their exact coordinates. Negotiations continued until minutes before the launch. Aboard the 164 foot Dutch-registered Arctic Sunrise, are 23 people, including volunteers from United States, Russia, France, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, India, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Cook Islands and Turkey.

A third team of two volunteers attempted to occupy the launch site for the interceptor missile which was fired from Meck Island, part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. They were also arrested and charged with trespass. Greenpeace volunteers around the world also mounted protests against the Star Wars test including China, Russia and Canada.

Outside Vandenberg's front gate, Greenpeace also set up an around the clock vigil, with disarmament experts on hand to provide background information to the public and the media. Greenpeace also launched a special website, www.stopstarwars.org, which offers people around the world a chance to send letters directly to President Clinton voicing their opposition to the Star Wars program.

http://www.stopstarwars.org

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7 Political Conventions to Make L.A. Party Central Activism: Democrat, Reform, Shadow, Mothers' and People's gatherings are just part of the August slate.

Los Angeles Times
Monday, July 10, 2000
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/elect2000/pres/lat_dnc000710.htm

The people behind the People's Convention--veteran leftists who hope to build something like a third-party movement in Los Angeles in August--are concerned about being overshadowed by the Shadow Convention's celebrity-studded roster.

The folks organizing the Homeless Convention are scrambling to house the 1,000 homeless people scheduled to attend their affair.

Reform Party planners are wary that Pat Buchanan supporters, who chanted "lock and load" at the last party meeting, might get rowdy during their party's convention in Long Beach.

And let's not even get into the traffic problems that other convention is going to cause as thousands of delegates and reporters pile into Staples Center on the edge of downtown Los Angeles.

So many conventions, so little time. There will be seven conventions--as well as an anarchists' conference--in the space of one week in Los Angeles County this summer, as all manner of groups try to snatch their share of the Democratic National Convention's spotlight. That event, the sun in the solar system that is this summer's convention season here, is expected to draw 15,000 members of the world media to Los Angeles Aug. 14-17.

"The fact that there are so many conventions going on shows that people are waking up," said Frank Tamborello, who is helping organize the Homeless Convention.

There may be another explanation, less heartening for the organizers of many of the events intended to highlight progressive causes.

"The left is just not a solidified mass the way the right is," said Denise Robb of the L.A. Greens, a local group of Green Party members that has endorsed both the People's and Homeless conventions. "It seems like there's an awful lot of activity going on, and it would be easier if there was just one thing we could go to."

Rich Convention, Poor Convention

Not all the conventions are created equally. While the Democrats were raising $1 million for their effort at Mayor Richard Riordan's house last month, People's Convention organizers were begging for money from a sparse audience at the Freedom Socialist Party meeting.

And though the city will cordon off several blocks around the DNC site, the organizers of the Homeless Convention are struggling to find lots to use for their event. One prospect fell through when a local business had second thoughts about donating its parking lot after getting a look at the Laker championship melee.

Certain conventions have more cachet. Speakers at the Shadow Convention--which will address campaign finance reform, the growing divide between rich and poor and the drug war and is organized by author and commentator Arianna Huffington--include comedian Bill Maher and Warren Beatty.

"Warren Beatty's going to be at the Shadow Convention?" asked Reform Party member Judy Duffy of Westminster, who is coordinating logistics for her party's convention. "Hmm, maybe I should go to that one."

That sort of talk, however tongue-in-cheek, steams the organizers of the People's Convention, who say their event will address issues affecting common people, not just millionaires and celebrities.

Indeed, People's Convention organizers take an almost perverse pride in their scant funding, savoring a $50 contribution from a man who receives Social Security and arguing that they will be the only representatives of working people this August.

The event is scheduled for Aug. 10-12, a time picked so that participants can join the massive DNC demonstrations slated to begin Aug. 13. Organizers are hoping for a debate among third-party candidates running on such tickets as the Socialist and Workers World parties, among other events. The schedule is still being worked out, but organizer Dele Ailemen said the first day will highlight local issues, the next will focus on the two main political parties in the U.S. and the third will be centered on global issues.

Casey Peters of the Peace and Freedom Party said the People's Convention is expected to draw up to 1,000 people and is intended to create a unified, progressive agenda for the Southern California region, catapulting third-party candidates onto municipal ballots.

"We are also planning a convention for next year as well, which won't be in the shadow of another major convention," Peters said.

From Aug. 10 to 13, the Reform Party will gather in Long Beach to nominate its president and vice president.

Reform Party organizers say they too scheduled their affair to draw media who come to Los Angeles for the Democratic National Convention. They hope to outdo the main event at least in terms of suspense: Though Al Gore already has locked up his party's nomination, the Reform Party will not reveal the results of its national primary until the convention is underway.

Previous Reform Party gatherings have attracted some rowdy participants, and planners have increased security for the event, expected to draw 5,000 to 6,000 people.

"Somebody said maybe we should rent Kevlar jackets at the door," spokeswoman Donna Donovan quipped. Then, naturally, she put the best spin on the event. "The idea that there's a convention that isn't scripted for TV--ours certainly isn't--should be intriguing."

Meanwhile, somewhere in Southern California--the site hasn't been selected--another convention that isn't planned for prime time will take place. Technically, it's a conference rather than a convention, but the annual North American Anarchists Conference has generated a lot of talk.

That's because the Los Angeles Police Department has flagged it as a possible trouble spot after a handful of self-proclaimed anarchists smashed windows during protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle.

"We don't see any policing requirements for any of those [alternative] conventions except for the alleged anarchists' convention," LAPD Cmdr. Dave Kalish said. "That's because of their publicly stated beliefs and tactics."

Coordinators of the conference bristle at what they are calling a police misinformation campaign about anarchist ideology. In fact, said Matt Hart, an anarchist who is coordinating the conference and ensuing demonstrations during the DNC, the gathering will give anarchists from around the country a chance to discuss their ideas instead of tactics.

Though the conference, which is expected to draw up to 1,000 anarchists and runs Aug. 11-17, usually takes place in Eugene, Ore., Los Angeles anarchists thought the city would be a logical place for this year's event. According to the conference's Web page, most of the discussion will occur through Aug. 13, giving participants time to take to the streets during the Democratic convention.

"We figured it'd be a good time to have a conference," Hart said, "since there are a lot of people coming down" for the expected DNC protests.

That's what the Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness thought when it began organizing its Mothers' Convention for the morning of Aug. 12, the Saturday before the DNC begins.

The comparably brief convention, said organizer Suzy Harrington, will ratify a platform on how to reform welfare reform. "Right now the policies and programs are not effective," she said. "The clock needs to stop on time limits" for receiving aid.

Once the DNC officially begins on Aug. 14, three other conventions will swing into high gear.

The Shadow Convention, which will also assemble in Philadelphia during the Republican National Convention two weeks earlier, will feature speakers on its major themes during the day and satirical commentary on the DNC's doings in the evenings by such comics as Maher and Al Franken.

Its organizers say they are not surprised that backers of other events are sending barbs in their direction.

"One of the marks of doing something that works is that people are taking potshots at you," said co-founder and Internet entrepreneur Peter Hirschberg.

He and Huffington said that many grass-roots groups such as Common Cause are working on the convention. Their convention in Patriotic Hall--also the site of the Mothers' Convention and only a few blocks south of Staples Center--will feature displays, workshops and an auditorium where 800 people can cram in to watch the main events.

Housing Homeless Delegates

Ted Hayes is also thinking about crowds. The veteran homeless activist is hosting his Homeless Convention on the other side of the 110 Freeway from Staples Center, in the tiny homeless enclave of Dome Village.

The event is designed to highlight the gap between rich and poor and formulate a national agenda to combat homelessness. It is quite a logistical headache, though; Hayes is trying to arrange food, shelter and medical care for the 1,000 homeless people from around the nation he expects to assemble.

The city has forced Hayes to alter the route of his planned nightly marches, but Hayes said officials have been cooperative and he expects it all to work out--and possibly become a model for future political conventions.

"Whatever sort of convention is going to be in town," he said, "there needs to be a convention right next to them for the poorest of the poorest."

Last but not least in the convention plans--among the poor and the rich; the wry and the earnest; the conservative, the liberal and the anarchistic--are the young. The Youth Convention has experience at being a counterpoint to mainstream political affairs. It began during the conventions in 1996 as an effort to create a platform for youths' needs.

Organizers poll youth leaders on their Web site (www.youthlink.org) to determine the issues and canvass young people nationwide. This year the platform will be hammered out in Philadelphia and approved in Los Angeles.

The New York-based organization coordinating the convention, Youth in Action, says it has not finalized its speakers list, though it hopes to get the presidential candidates to address the 500 or so youth delegates. Its schedule isn't set, but the event will run the same days as the DNC and one session will be held at Patriotic Hall, courtesy of the Shadow Convention.

And like the others setting a course for Los Angeles this summer, the Youth Convention organizers say this is their chance to be heard.

"Our convention," said organizer Akilah Watkins, "is the vehicle we're using to give young people an opportunity to get their voices out."

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For Decades, Family And Friends Have Been Asking Me, "Sylvia, Why Are You Such An Activist?"

Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/
by Sylvia Metzler
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070900-102.htm

For decades, family and friends have been asking me, "Sylvia, why are you such an activist?" Before I had time to come up with a complete answer for them - or myself - they began to ask me another question: "Why are you still an activist?" At age 62, facing Social Security, Medicare and arthritic knees, I decided to tackle these questions before dementia sets in, too.

To explain the "why," I'll start with the "what": to stop war, racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, capital punishment and other assorted horrors and to promote peace, justice, sisterhood and other non-negotiables. The "how" includes meeting, petitioning, lobbying, marching, fasting, getting arrested and shaving my head.

Much of this horrified my parents, who posed the "why" question often. When I replied that they were my mentors, they were shocked and insulted. But my dad was a labor organizer and a Democrat in a Republican stronghold. My mother went to Cheyney University for her master's degree in special education and socialized there with her black professors and fellow students. There is no doubt in my mind that they set the example for me as a child.

My career as an activist continued to be influenced by other caring and courageous role models. While I was still supporting the Vietnam War (known as the American War in Vietnam), Jeff and Ann McConaughy, my pastor and his wife, were holding lonely vigils on street corners in Norristown, handing out literature against the war. After the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a black woman named Julie Robinson challenged groups of white people to look at our personal and institutional racism. The staff at Eagleville Hospital and Rehab Center, where I worked for five years, pushed me to examine the other "isms."

People like them motivated me to take my first steps as an activist - against war, racism, nuclear weapons and the slumlords of Norristown. Those steps led me to places I never dreamed I would go. Each step seemed to take me deeper into an understanding of the injustice and hypocrisy in the world around me and emboldened me to take more risks to change the status quo.

Initially, I was also influenced by the teachings of my church. Over the years, I have become agnostic, but my belief in the sacredness of all life and my love for the earth continue to propel me to work for a better world.

Now, after 30 years of activism that has taken me to live in Nicaragua and Central America for two years and to reside in Kensington and North Philadelphia for eight years, I see that some of my fellow activists have retired. Some have burned out, some have pressing health and family problems and some have sold out.

So what keeps me going as I continue to go to meetings (ad nauseam), write and agitate for children, organize for universal health care and against the death penalty, and march for debt forgiveness for poor countries like Nicaragua?

Part of it is luck and life's circumstances. I am single and live alone; my children are raised. I have a good job with a comfortable income, so I can work part-time. I have good friends in the struggle who are like family with their love and support.

The other component is that my consciousness has been raised and my conscience has been jolted by an escalating series of revelations over the past 30 years. I know too much now to be able to turn back or to remain silent. To do so would be to die spiritually.

My mother used to protect herself from becoming senile by playing bridge. Unfortunately, it didn't work for her. Maybe building bridges will work for me.

Sylvia Metzler of Philadelphia will be joining the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care, a coalition of 40 organizations that is sponsoring a march and rally in support of universal health care, on July 29. The march begins at 11 a.m. at Franklin Square, Sixth and Arch Streets, with the rally at LOVE park, 16th Street and JFK Boulevard, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 267-253-5074 or visit

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Common Dreams News Wire
Monday July 10, 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 6, 2000 6:18 PM
CONTACT: Voices in the Wilderness
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/

Dan Handelman, Ann or Bruce Huntwork Voices in the Wilderness/Portland (503) 299-4798
Rick McDowell, Voices in the Wilderness (978) 544-9021
Michael J. Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan (313) 961-7728
Kurt Berggren, Attorney-at-Law (Ann Arbor) (734) 996-0722
Nancy Chang, Center for Constitutional Rights (212) 614-6420
US Pays Settlement, Returns Items Seized From Activist Who Violated Iraq Embargo In 1997
http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/0706-08.htm

PORTLAND, OREGON - July 6 - An activist seeking to end the U.S./U.N. sanctions on Iraq declared victory today as he reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. government regarding the return of informational materials seized by Customs in 1997 after he travelled to Iraq. As part of the agreement, the U.S. has agreed to pay Dan Handelman of Portland $15,000 in lawyers' fees and damages, as well as returning all the materials seized including film and videotape. Handelman went to Iraq with three other members of Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to ending the embargo on Iraq, to deliver medicine to children's hospitals. The trip was in open violation of U.S. laws and the U.N. sanctions, which prohibit the delivery of medicine to Iraq without a permit. The embargo was imposed in 1990 prior to the "Gulf War," and has been responsible for the deaths of at least half a million people in Iraq.

http://www.rdrop.com/%7Evitwpdx/settlementagreement.html

Handelman's attorneys, Kurt Berggren and Mike Steinberg of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and Nancy Chang of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, argued that these items are protected under the First Amendment of our Constitution. Customs, however, was arguing that the materials were "goods or services of Iraqi origin"--even though the actual film and videotape were bought in the United States. In late March, Customs returned all the materials, even items which Handelman did not dispute were "of Iraqi origin."

"It was not my intention to sue the government; I only wanted my materials back so I could continue educating the public about the devastating effect of sanctions on the people of Iraq," said Handelman. "The fact that they returned my items only after being faced with a legal challenge is a sign they know their policy is flawed. This agreement is effectively a chip in the 'intellectual embargo' that has been placed on Iraq."

http://www.rdrop.com/%7Evitwpdx/lawsuit.html

Handelman, whose organizing work includes volunteer videography for cable access productions, released a seven minute video including statements from a variety of aid workers who were in Iraq, an Iraqi woman who lost her family in the "Gulf War"; and Iraqi Doctor; and images of the deteriorating conditions in the hospitals, which were formerly among the finest in the Arab world.

Although the outcome is not a formal court ruling that information is exempt from the embargo, this settlement will deter other such attempts by the government to confiscate First Amendment materials from those traveling to Iraq. Meanwhile, the group Voices in the Wilderness, including Handelman, still faces the possibility of a total of $163,000 in fines as outlined in a December, 1998, pre-penalty notice from the Treasury Department. The fines are for delivering medicine to Iraq without government approval, spending money in Iraq, and for Handelman, for exporting blank videotapes and film to Iraq and then importing the same items to the U.S.

A number of items were returned along with the five video tapes and three rolls of film: One is a piece of cardboard containing Iraqi stamps purchased at a flea market in Jordan; another is the label from an Iraqi water bottle, which has no intrinsic value on its own, except that it was mentioned specifically in the pre-penalty notice and in a subsequent article in the New York Times.

Voices in the Wilderness has sent over 25 delegations to Iraq. Beginning July 12, members of the group will be living in southern Iraq for two months in violation of U.S. law. The U.S. continues to bomb in Iraq's "no-fly zones" on an average of once every three to five days. UNICEF and other agencies estimate 4500 Iraqis die each month as a result of the embargo. For more information or to arrange interviews after the news conference, please call Voices in the Wilderness/Portland at 503-299-4798, any of the attorneys in this case, or Rick McDowell of Voices in the Wilderness at the numbers above.

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Globalization's Arch Enemy: Since The Roquefort Hit The Fan, Farmers In Southern France Have Been Fighting Mad

Common Dreams News Center
Monday July 10, 2000
Toronto Globe & Mail
http://www.globeandmail.com/
by John Lloyd
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070500-103.htm

Something important happened last week in France -- a demonstration against globalization. Nothing new under that sun, of course. There have been demonstrations against globalizations aplenty in the past year, in London, Geneva, Washington, Bologna and, most famously, in Seattle.

Seattle, where the demonstrators as good as wrecked the World Trade Organization get-together, was pretty important. Why make a fuss about another one, especially since this latest protest was utterly peaceful, and it was in a small town, Millau, about 80 kilometres north of Montpellier in the south of France.

Millau is on a river, the Tarn, in which people swim of a summer's morning. The hills of the Larzac district roll into it, enfolding it in a pretty valley. The town is big enough to have cinemas, a theatre, a good library, bookshops where you can browse and cafés spilling onto every pavement, where the wines of Bordeaux to the west and Langedoc-Roussillon to the south are savoured. The sheep in the hills about it give the blue-seamed Roquefort cheese.

In this idyll, a number of ingredients came together, like the making of a dramatic French meal, to profoundly affect the direction of the debate on globalization. For in Millau, the local became global and the global local. The place itself produced a reaction rooted in the conditions of the people. And it meant that protest -- easily represented as a bunch of anarchists smashing U.S. restaurant chains -- had a solid base from which it could build a structure of thought and action that encircle the globe. The protestors of Washington, London and Seattle often were local -- but their cities lived by the process of globalization. The people of Millau were suffering from it.

The place itself was the first ingredient. One of France's earliest cinema geniuses, Jean Vigo, made the film Zero for Conduct (1933), an anarchic vision based on the Millau boarding school to which he, a poor orphan, had been sent. There's a modest plaque dedicated to Mr. Vigo outside Millau's central cinema -- which was showing the latest U.S. version of Roman history, Gladiator, when I was there.

In our own times, one of the longest-running and most successful actions against the French state occurred just north of the town, when farmers and others opposed, throughout the 1970s, the extension of a military camp in the Larzac district. They won in 1981, and pride in the achievement is part of the local lore.

The second ingredient is Roquefort. The strong, tangy cheese made from sheep's milk has been a staple for centuries; much of it is exported, with rich markets in the United States. Last year, the U.S. government slapped 100-per-cent import duties on a range of foods and products in retaliation for European Union bans on genetically modified foods. Roquefort was one such product. And José Bové was one Roquefort producer. The individual in this case has a history of protest, and is the strongest ingredient in the recipe.

Mr. Bové, now 47, is no ordinary "peasant" (as he likes to call himself). Indeed, he is full of contradictions. The man who opposes the latest scientific breakthroughs in gene technology was the son of scientist parents; he who now leads a movement against Americanization spent his earliest years in the United States, when his parents were at the University of California at Berkeley.

But he was always a rebel. He objected to military service, writing a precocious teenage letter to the Minister of Defence detailing his objections. On the run from the police when he failed to get an exemption, he came to Larzac. His military service commuted to community work, he stayed to become a sheep farmer. He was one of the leaders of the protest against the camp extension and was a militant anti-nuclear protestor, especially against French nuclear tests in its colony of New Caledonia.

But it was the smashing of "McDo's" last year which gave him world fame. He was one of the organizers of the Confederation des Paysans, which brought together small farmers badly hit by price cuts and the growing power of French -- and international -- agribusiness. The Roquefort cheese embargo was the last straw: A few hundred of the producers marched on the building site on the southern periphery of the town where the latest McDonald's was going up. According to Mr. Bové, they had a "festive deconstruction" of the partly built restaurant. In the words of the local franchisee, it was a "wrecking party."

Mr. Bové was charged which malicious damage and put in jail: He refused to post bail and stayed in longer than most of the other nine militants charged with him. He knew -- and openly admitted -- the value of being photographed in manacles and issuing statements from behind bars. He had struck a blow for the people of the Larzac. More -- he had, as a Frenchman, taken on the power of the most visible of the U.S. multinationals (never an unpopular posture, in this, the most prickly of European countries on the subject of American hegemony).

The French have made up a word, "malbouffe," or "bad grub." Fast food of all kinds is "malbouffe" in a country -- and in a region -- that takes its eating and drinking seriously and which recognizes that food has to be both slowly made and slowly enjoyed.

Thus any "restaurant" that lays down to its staff that every hamburger must be cooked for no more nor less than 43 seconds, and whose customers often seem to be competing to see how much food they can cram into themselves in the shortest time, is a standing affront. To choose McDo's as the symbol of Americanism, globalization, oppression and malbouffe was thus both natural (what else was more visible?) and inspired (what else drew together more strands of French public and private life?)

Two kinds of freedoms were at issue. The supporters of José Bové, who descended on Millau in their tens of thousands last weekend to be present at the trial of Mr. Bové and his nine comrades, carried banners saying "Le Monde n'est pas une marchandise" (the world is not for sale -- also the title of Mr. Bové's bestselling book) -- adding "et moi non plus" (neither am I).

They also carried placards saying "No to liberal globalization" -- a protest against the free-trade policies that, they believe, favour the strong and especially the U.S. against the weak. They hate the World Trade Organization, which promotes free trade and whose meeting in Seattle last year was the focus of the protests.

Indeed, they see this find of "freedom" as oppression -- oppression of customs, or ways of life, of jobs, of culture. That which governments and corporations see as a liberal world, they see as a dictatorial one -- the dictatorship of General Motors, run by IBM, entertained by Hollywood and fed McDonald's and Coca-Cola. The Millau fiesta was a fusion of all of these anxieties and hatreds and losses. It was the cry from the heart of a state that sees itself as the guardian of a way of life: which genuinely, at every level, thinks that America can be evil.

The trial of José Bové and the "McDo's 10" will not bring in a judgement until later this summer. I left Millau on the overnight train to Paris and whiled away part of the night with a teacher who was travelling from Montpellier. He was a careful, measured man in his 50s, who sternly took Mr. Bové to task for an action that was violent and showed no respect for property. "Do I then burn the books with which I don't agree?" he asked. But he also observed: "Bové expressed something real. It should be expressed. I see in my pupils, at times, a terrible passivity: a desire to do no more than watch TV and play computer games. I thank God my children grew up and went to university before computer games, which are all violent, and all American, even when they have French soundtracks."

It is a new version of the old (American) truth: that all politics are local. But it has a new twist. Local politics are now global. Nowhere -- not the rural peace of Millau, nor the ruined factories of the Ukraine, nor the humming software plants of Ireland, nor the coffee fields of Kenya, nor even the hungry collective farms of North Korea -- is now untouched by half-understood processes happening far away, incomprehensibly and out of all control, even by one's own government.

José Bové, with his curved mustachios, his open grin, his small farmer's muscled arms, is one of "us" who still understands "them." He has made himself a bridge between the directly experienced and the distantly apprehended. He is the local internationalized. And thus his little local difficulty is now a global issue -- and will continue to be, as we rocket on into new worlds.

John Lloyd, a former editor of The New Statesman and Moscow bureau chief of the Financial Times, is now based in London.

---

USA Today
07/10/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Iowa

West Des Moines - Members of the University of Iowa's Students Against Sweatshops staged demonstrations to protest stores they say sell apparel made in sweatshops. The group passed out leaflets and held rallies in front of stores Saturday in West Des Moines, Williamsburg, Cedar Rapids, Coralville and Davenport.

---

Confederate-clad protesters picket NAACP convention

Washington Times
July 10, 2000
By Steve Miller THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000710221625.htm

BALTIMORE - A dozen demonstrators - 10 dressed as Confederate soldiers - trundled out of their chartered bus and into the glare of public attention yesterday.

The nine men and one woman, clad in the steamy, gray wool of the Southern army and the grim expressions of those with an unpleasant task, were guarded by the police as they marched in a circle on the opening day of the NAACP's 91st annual national convention.

The protest, sponsored by the newly formed Southern Party of Georgia, was aimed at getting the nation's largest civil rights organization to rescind a 1991 resolution calling for the removal of the Confederate flag and symbols from all government property.

"This is just the beginning, the start of what we can do," said John C. Hall Jr., organizer of the march. Mr. Hall and co-organizer Michael Reed wore suits - for credibility, Mr. Hall said.

Large groups of conventioneers stood outside steel barricades that were made into a pen for the protesters. Kweisi Mfume, NAACP president, said Saturday that the conference would take up such issues as enlisting voters, improving public education, school vouchers and the Confederate flag.

The scheduled speakers include presidential hopefuls George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore as well as civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton said yesterday black men and women must not stop fighting for rights because "there are still more black men in jail then there are as cops."

The convention is expected to draw 10,000 people.

The Confederate protesters, who arrived shortly after 10 a.m., took their place 100 yards from the main entrance of the Baltimore Convention Center.

Some bystanders were angered; more snapped photos.

"When I was a little girl in Mississippi, these kind of people wore sheets," said Naomi Rainey, a teacher from Long Beach, Calif. "This is still improper. It's like going to a funeral in a prom dress."

Some detractors told the protesters to go home. The demonstrators came from Georgia, Virginia, and even a few miles away in the Baltimore suburbs.

Michael Chandler paid $25 and drove 11 hours from his home in Blue Ridge, Ga., to meet the Confederate bus in the District of Columbia - all to get gussied up in dusty, Civil War regalia and carry a sign that said "Stop NAACP Bigotry."

"I'm not a rebel," asserted Mr. Chandler, a slight man with a red beard going to gray. "But I'm defending the Constitution. Instead of the NAACP spending money on getting rid of the Confederate flag, why aren't they trying to address illegitimate children and people smoking crack?"

He and his colleagues represented several Southern heritage groups, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the League of the South.

They seemed to relish their chance to speak with the mostly black spectators, some of whom were as curious as they were surprised at these people clad in museum relics.

"I have nothing against you personally," convention attendee Flo Roach said to one of the demonstrators. "But you don't understand why this is offensive?"

"No ma'am, could you explain it to me?" the soldier said.

Others were clearly upset by the presence of the protesters, shouting them down and jeering them as they walked by.

"You are going to live with us," Nessie Panton of New York City yelled to them. "We are here to stay."

Mr. Mfume said later that he saw the protest group as he was walking through a skywalk that looked onto the sidewalk, but he would not talk to them.

"I think they know where I'm coming from, and I know where they're coming from," Mr. Mfume said. "I'm not going to condemn their right to picket."

He also wondered if the dispute was a misunderstanding. "We've never said they can't fly the flag. We just said they can't fly it on public buildings, as in South Carolina. If they want to fly it at home, on the back of their car, wherever, that's property rights, which I support. That's not our business."

Julian Bond, NAACP board chairman, was less diplomatic during a Saturday press conference: "These people are beneath contempt. I'm not going to spend a minute talking about them."

He called them "apologists for slavery."

Mr. Sharpton exhorted over 300 luncheon attendees to make sure that any personal success does not inhibit black people from "[fighting] those in high places."

"We still have a big fight," said Mr. Sharpton, president of the National Action Network in New York. "This is the first generation that will give its kids less than they had. . . . We have lost our way. . . . trying to get along with those in power."

--------

OneList digest:

1. Experts view radium study with caution
From: magnu96196@aol.com

2. Bad faith Enrichment Corp. has proved untrustworthy
From: magnu96196@aol.com

3. Dumping Fees
From: magnu96196@aol.com

4. Options for toxic trash dwindling S. Carolina landfill to close in 2008
From: magnu96196@aol.com

5. Northern states sending garbage to S.C. megadump
From: magnu96196@aol.com

6. SRS teams with area colleges
From: magnu96196@aol.com

7. Hanford plutonium canisters repaired
From: magnu96196@aol.com

8. Audit says Hanford cleanup delays are 'significantly' increasing risks
From: magnu96196@aol.com

9. Environmentalists Protest Gore
From: magnu96196@aol.com

10. MOVING AHEAD WITH AIRBORNE LASER
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>

11. Flooding Closes Chernobyl Reactor
From: magnu96196@aol.com

13. Has questions for the JCPES
From: magnu96196@aol.com

14. Responds to Porter letter on Carson
From: magnu96196@aol.com

15. Smaller N-reactors promoted Scientist says lead-cooled N-plants ideal
From: magnu96196@aol.com

16. Classified Work at DOE Lab Stopped
From: magnu96196@aol.com

17. Bush under fire in toxic waste battle Dump opponents allege abuse
From: magnu96196@aol.com

18. US DEFENCE SECY COHEN IN SYDNEY, 15/16 JULY PLS SIGN/SEND
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

19. Bush under fire in West Texas toxic waste battle
From: Winston Weeks <wweeks@mail.aros.net>

20. NucNews 00/07/11 - Daybook; Prez Candidates; 7/16 and 7/18 Announcements
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

21. FORMER NRC EXPERT HAS DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE THAT PRIMARY CONTAINMENT WAS BREACHED AT 3 MILE ISLAND & 40 MILLION CURIES MAY HAVE BEEN RELEASED
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

22. Fw: Delaying Cleanup at Hanford Increases Risks
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

23. Fw: more on mini-nukes
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

24. CHINA GREETS COHEN WITH BLAST
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>

25. U.S. judge takes himself off uranium-plant workers' liability suit
From: magnu96196@aol.com

-------

Message: 1
From: magnu96196@aol.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 13:35:37 EDT

Experts view radium study with caution
By Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel staff
July 9, 2000
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/jul00/radium10070900a.asp

Waukesha - Although a city-funded study concluded that bone cancer is not more prevalent in Wisconsin communities that have radium in their water, at least two experts say the study should not be used as evidence to relax federal radium standards.

An official with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were too many "inherent limitations" in the study and that "no reasonable conclusions should be made on the basis of this study."

"This study should not be used to inform any regulatory decision regarding radium levels and drinking water standards," Thomas Sinks, the associate director for science at the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health in Atlanta, wrote in a review of the study's preliminary findings.

Another expert, with the California Health Department, said he was impressed by the study but was concerned because it didn't look at other cancers associated with radium exposure.

"A finding of no increased risk of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) only does not necessarily mean that radium standards can be relaxed," wrote Daniel Smith, of the California Department of Health's Environmental Health Investigations Division.

But officials with the Medical College of Wisconsin and the state Division of Public Health defended the study, which they are conducting for the Waukesha Water Utility. The city estimated it would have to spend $50 million for its water system to meet the existing standard.

"That's one person's opinion," Henry Anderson, chief medical officer with the Division of Public Health, said of the comments from other experts who examined the study in a "peer review."

Although the study does have limitations, Anderson said, it was "well-done" and didn't find any "major problems" with radium levels in the water.

The study concluded there is "no evidence" that "radium at current levels in Wisconsin drinking water has resulted in excess cases of osteosarcoma."

Waukesha officials are using the $200,000 study in an attempt to get the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to loosen its standards for radium in drinking water. The natural radioactive element is found in deep underground aquifers. The officials already have filed the preliminary results with the EPA in Washington, D.C.

As early as November, the EPA could begin enforcing a radium limit of 5 picocuries per liter of water. That standard was established in 1976 but never fully enforced.

Waukesha water averaged 11.6 ppl last year. City officials want the limit raised to 20 picocuries each for radium 226 and radium 228. A picocurie is a measure of radioactivity, or the pace at which a radioactive element such as radium decays.

Waukesha is among 600 communities nationally, including 50 in Wisconsin, that are in violation of the radium limit.

Other Wisconsin communities that would have to upgrade their water systems to meet the current standard include Johnson Creek, Fond du Lac, Mukwonago, Eagle, New Berlin and Peshtigo.

Sinks, Smith and other experts were asked by researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Division of Public Health to comment on the preliminary results of the research. That is a normal part of a study to point out its strengths and weaknesses.

The comments will be included in the final report, which is expected to be completed later this month.

Waukesha commissioned the study in November 1998 to determine whether there is a relationship between radium in water and the occurrence of cancer.

The study focused on 320 Wisconsin residents with an initial diagnosis of bone cancer between 1980 and 1997. The study also used data from the state Department of Natural Resources on radium measurements in drinking water from across the state between 1978 and 1999.

For each case of cancer, another 10 people were selected at random as controls based on ZIP codes. But those individuals were not tested for actual exposure to radium.

Sinks said that is one shortcoming. Another is that people move, which would make it difficult to determine the amount of radium exposure, he said.

"This study really demonstrates that they could not find anything," Sinks told a reporter. "With so many inherent limitations, the study would be unlikely to find it anyway."

Sinks acknowledged that the study's conclusions were consistent with the data provided and that the team of researchers were "good investigators" who did a "reasonably good job with what they had."

-----------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 13:48:03 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Bad faith Enrichment Corp. has proved untrustworthy
July 10, 2000
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/jul00/344033.html

Cynicism runs deep in the beleaguered southern Ohio town of Piketon these days, and why shouldn't it?

Not a year after learning that workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant were unknowingly exposed to highly radioactive plutonium during the Cold War and only a few months after layoffs were announced, the community was hard hit with the announcement that the 2,000-employee uranium-enrichment plant will close next year. Bad news in an already economically depressed area.

Bad news but not surprising news.

Two years ago, the public United States Enrichment Corp., which oversaw the plant and its sister facility in Paducah, Ky., was privatized -- a boon for Wall Street, which made many millions of dollars in the transaction, but a bust for workers, who suspected downsizing was coming. A pledge that neither plant would be shut before 2005 was taken by many with a grain of salt.

And rightly so as it turns out.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has promised to try to shift as many workers as possible into federally funded jobs cleaning the site, and there is certainly much cleaning to do. But even that promise inspires little excitement yet. Cleaning up the 3,700-acre plant site will take years, to be sure. But it also will take hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars that Congress has yet to appropriate. The money would be well- spent, from public health, environmental and, as a bonus, economic-development perspectives. Congress should see the wisdom in this.

Richardson also said he will recommend changes in the government's relationship with USEC, including possibly replacing the corporation as the government's agent in a key Russian arms-control deal.

For years, USEC has been in charge of a key U.S.-Russian arms deal that involves culling uranium from thousands of Russian nuclear warheads -- an arrangement that helped keep the volatile cargo out of dangerous hands, gave Russia a source of desperately needed cash and provided the United States with nuclear fuel.

William H. Timbers, president and chief executive officer of USEC, has told Richardson that the company is trying to renegotiate the Russian deal. Before privatizing, management insisted it could carry out the Russian deal while operating both the Piketon and Paducah plants.

Nothing that USEC has to say can be taken to heart anymore. It appears USEC can't be trusted to keep its word. It's high time for an investigation, as Gov. Bob Taft has suggested, of whether this company has operated in good faith.

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

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 13:52:23 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Dumping Fees
July 10, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/07102000/public_f/65807.htm

In a letter published by The Salt Lake Tribune in 1997, just before the Utah Legislature met, I stated that Tooele County received 5 percent of the gross revenue, which amounted to $4 million from Envirocare for permission to dump low-level nuclear waste in that county.

This indicates that Envirocare's gross revenue amounts to at least $80 million per year. In my letter, it was suggested that Utah charge a fee of 30 percent of the gross revenue for dumping this waste on state property, which will ruin this ground for any future development. Thirty percent would amount to approximately $24 million which could be used to finance the state education system, foster child services and reduce property taxes.

A bill was introduced by a member of the Legislature stating a fee should be charged, but was not passed. Why? Because 58 members of the Legislature, both Republicans and Democrats, as well as Gov. Leavitt received campaign funds from Envirocare. Also, Envirocare hired some high-priced lobbyists to further prevent the bill from passing.

In The Salt Lake Tribune in April 2000, it was stated by Envirocare that the present system disposes 40 curies of radioactive elements a year. If the license is approved by the Legislature to increase Envirocare's disposal of higher levels of nuclear waste, they would dispose of 50,000 to 100,000 curies per year. Since Envirocare would receive a higher price for this class of material, their profit would increase considerably.

Comparing 40 curies presently processed per year at $80 million, 50,000 curies would amount to an astronomical amount of money. If the Legislature gives Envirocare a license, they should charge a fee of 30 percent of Envirocare's gross revenue to cover any problems associated with this material, as well as take care of the state's education system, foster children's program and decrease Utah property taxes.

South Carolina charges a fee of $235 per cubic foot for low-level nuclear waste. The money received from this fee has improved South Carolina's education system tremendously. It has also been used for welfare, highway improvement and other projects. Receiving this money has allowed them to decrease the property taxes and other state taxes.

There is no reason, if the license for Envirocare is granted, that this state should not receive a healthy fee from them. If Private Fuel Storage obtains a license to store spent nuclear fuel in Skull Valley, the same kind of fee should be charged. Citizens of Utah are really not interested in storing more nuclear waste here, but if it cannot be prevented, let's make these companies pay for dumping on Utah. The states producing this nuclear waste should provide a place in their own state to dispose or store it. Don't dump it on Utah.

RAY F. GOUGH Salt Lake City

--------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 14:00:41 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Options for toxic trash dwindling S. Carolina landfill to close in 2008
July 10, 2000
Michael Hawthorne Dispatch Environment Reporter
Source: http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/jul00/344003.html

Black barrels filled with low-level radioactive waste from research projects at Ohio State University sit in a nondescript campus warehouse, waiting to be hauled to a licensed dump.

OSU's options for disposal soon will be whittled to a single facility. For the second time in a decade, a South Carolina landfill plans to restrict shipments of the toxic trash from nuclear power plants, universities, drug companies and hospitals.

Unlike five years ago, when then- Ohio Gov. George V. Voinovich pushed unsuccessfully to build a large disposal facility in the Buckeye State, generators of low-level radioactive waste aren't warning that they face a crisis.

The last threat to close the Barnwell, S.C., dump prompted power plants, research centers and other producers to reduce the waste generated. They also reduced their costs by sending what remains to a Tennessee company that compacts the waste before shipping it to Barnwell.

"We're shipping far less than we did a few years ago,'' said Bob Peterson, OSU's radiation safety officer. "That doesn't mean the research has stopped. We've just gotten smarter about how we deal with the waste.''

Among other things, scientists use radioactive materials to trace how other substances move through the human body. Much of OSU's waste consists of contaminated clothing and instruments used in medical research, diagnosis and treatment, some of which can be stored on campus until it loses its radioactivity and can be sent to a conventional landfill.

Low-level radioactive waste also includes tools, clothing and resin filters used in nuclear-power plants but not spent fuel rods or other highly radioactive materials.

Ohio and five other states -- Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin -- spent $5 million on a failed effort to build a regional dump for low-level radioactive waste.

The leadership of the multistate effort said the dump no longer was needed, but political opposition from environmentalists and community activists was strong in Ohio and in other states that scuttled plans for similar facilities across the country.

Holmes Brown, a Washington, D.C., consultant who advised the regional waste compacts, said most producers are flocking to another dump in a Utah desert that recently applied to take all types of low-level radioactive trash.

The South Carolina facility also will remain open to other states until 2008, although the state plans to discourage shipments by increasing its dumping fees.

"If prices start to go up too much, you might see people start talking about building another facility,'' Brown said. "But we still face the same problems. New disposal sites are incredibly expensive to build and politically troublesome projects to undertake.''

Battelle, another Columbus-area generator of low-level radioactive waste, already is shipping to the Utah dump, said Frank Hood, the company's vice president for environment, safety and health.

Electric companies once were the chief proponents of building regional dumps, as well as the biggest producers of low-level waste. They backed off as they began to dramatically reduce the amount of waste produced.

Ohio's two nuclear-power plants, for instance, shipped 2,400 cubic feet of low-level waste last year, down from 17,000 cubic feet in 1998, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

Medical institutions now account for 85 percent of the low-level waste generated in Ohio.

"It's certainly not a crisis for us as long as the Utah facility is open,'' said Todd Schneider, spokesman for Akron-based FirstEnergy, owner of the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear-power plants.

South Carolina is moving to shut off access to the Barnwell dump to leave space for waste created when that state's nuclear-power plants are decommissioned.

It's unlikely that Ohio would host a waste facility if pressure builds again for regional dumps. In addition to political opposition, one study found that 80 percent of the state is not geologically or hydrologically suited to safely contain the waste while it slowly decays.

----------

Message: 5
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 14:05:36 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Northern states sending garbage to S.C. megadump
July 9, 2000, in The State.
By JOHN MONK News Columnist
http://www.thestate.com/headlines/a1docs/monk09f.htm

BISHOPVILLE -- In the past year, and with little public notice, South Carolina has become a major destination for out-of-state household garbage. Three years ago, South Carolina took in about 400,000 tons of out-of-state garbage.

This year, it will accept about 1 million tons -- much of it shipped quietly by rail to tiny Lee County, 40 miles northeast of Columbia.

The increase comes as South Carolina is taking steps to soften its reputation as the nation's burial ground for two other kinds of waste: radioactive and hazardous.

In Barnwell County, South Carolina is restricting nuclear waste imports. In Sumter County, the state is trying to shut a major hazardous-waste facility.

But in Lee County, a private company is operating a mega-dump -- the largest of 19 S.C. garbage landfills.

From Northern states, the trash is shipped in rail cars to the city of Florence in the Pee Dee. The cars are sealed, but stink from rotting garbage sometimes escapes. From Florence, a train carries the waste through Darlington County to a site south of Bishopville in Lee County.

Lee County has had South Carolina's largest dump since August.

Then, Allied Waste Industries of Arizona won state permission to expand its Lee County site to accept 1.27 million tons of trash a year, up from 454,000 tons.

The new amount -- 1.27 million tons -- is four times the trash produced each year by the 500,000 residents of Richland and Lexington counties.

Another way of looking at the Lee landfill's huge size: It is large enough to handle the garbage from almost 2 million people a year -- half South Carolina's population.

Allied is one of the nation's largest waste-disposal firms. It operates 340 collection sites and 148 transfer stations in 42 states. The company declined repeated requests for comment and a tour of its Lee landfill.

"They have nothing to gain by talking to you," says state Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, a critic of landfills. "They don't need to schmooze with the community now that they've got it in their clutches."

Despite Allied's secrecy, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control officials, who do random inspections of the Lee County trash, say much of it comes from New Jersey and Massachusetts.

However, since Allied has transfer stations in those states, the trash could be coming from anywhere, including New York City, which has big problems disposing of the 11,000 tons of waste it generates every day. In the next few years, New York is expected to ship huge amounts of garbage out of state.

Controversy and profit. Lee County officials love the landfill, which covers 200 acres and rises 120 feet in spots, because of the money it generates.

Officials say Lee is a poor county -- 29 percent of its residents live below poverty level -- that needs the $2 million in cash and benefits Allied pays each year to operate the dump.

But environmentalists are horrified. They say lax state laws have allowed South Carolina to become a magnet for the nation's garbage.

"We are subsidizing New Jersey, Massachusetts and other states by allowing them to trash our state," Leventis says.

High landfill costs up North make South Carolina a cheap and easy place to bury garbage -- even with railroad shipping expenses.

Allied makes big profits burying out-of-state waste in South Carolina for two reasons: Rural land is cheap, and costs are low at a high-volume megadump.

"When you go from processing a few hundred tons daily to a few thousand, there are tremendous cost savings for the operator," says Bill Ferrell, a Clemson associate professor who has studied landfill costs.

In South Carolina, at a landfill like Lee County's, the cost to bury trash is about $20 to $30 a ton. In Massachusetts, it can cost up to $100 to bury a ton. In New York and New Jersey, the cost is $70-plus a ton.

Almost daily, garbage trains arrive at the Lee County dump. Many have 40 or more cars, each holding some 20 tons of compacted trash.

In fact, the local railroad, the S.C. Central Railroad, recently got an $8 million upgrade of some 17 miles of Lee County track to handle the weight of the imported garbage.

Lee benefits. Lee County officials say the county receives approximately $1 for every ton buried at the landfill, about $1.3 million a year. By comparison, the county's budget is $7.3 million a year.

Allied also picks up and buries for free the trash for all Lee County residents. That's a savings of about $500,000 a year.

"It really helps," says Lee County Council Chairman Charles Arthur Beasley.

The $8 million Allied and the railroad company spent upgrading local railroad track is also a plus, Beasley says. "Now, when we go to recruit industries, we've got a rail system that can handle almost any type hauling," Beasley says.

Others say the landfill hurts South Carolina in many ways. Leventis says all landfills eventually leak. "It's a time bomb," he says.

DHEC officials say they have a system of monitoring wells that can catch leaks. The Lee dump is safely operated, they say.

But Columbia environmental lawyer Bob Guild says lax state laws have created a situation where out-of-state corporations can buy land cheap, install a high-volume dump and make big profits.

"We've created a waste vacuum that literally sucks waste in from out of state," Guild says.

Once the state gives permission to build a landfill, it has to accept all waste shipped to it, as long as the waste is within the landfill's permitted capacity.

However, DHEC officials say they believed state law would keep landfills moderate or small-sized. They believed that the law, in effect, directed landfills to be built largely on the basis of local need. (All new landfills must be approved by DHEC.)

Hole in the law. However, a loophole in the law allowed some counties -- seeking extra money -- to invite private companies to set up high-volume landfills. Under state law, private companies must get county approval to operate a landfill. In an arrangement as in Lee County, Allied makes the profits and pays the county fees.

However, as of June 23, a new DHEC rule limits landfills to accepting only the tonnage of waste generated within 75 miles of a landfill. (A week before the rule went into effect, DHEC approved a 700,000-ton-per-year landfill in Union County, between Spartanburg and Columbia.)

Under the new rule, it's harder -- but still possible -- to build megadumps in South Carolina, DHEC solid-waste director Art Braswell says.

Meanwhile, nine counties in the Pee Dee region, including Florence and Horry, are trying to start a 400,000-ton-a-year landfill in Florence County.

Most of these nine counties now use the Lee landfill. But they worry Allied will begin raising rates. They also worry that at some point, Lee County's landfill will be full and have to shut down.

"We don't want to be at the mercy of the big boys," says Florence County Council Chairman Tom Smith.

DHEC officials say they might refuse to grant a permit for the proposed Florence landfill. It is within 75 miles of Lee County's landfill, as well as Richland County's landfill. "They are going to have a tough time demonstrating need," Braswell says.

In part, that's because South Carolina has plenty of landfill capacity.

Its 19 landfills are allowed to take in 7.6 million tons a year. But state residents only generate 3.6 million tons of household waste each year.

But that leaves plenty of room for out-of-state trash to come our way.

Meanwhile, environmentalists see problems resulting from South Carolina's open-arms garbage policy.

"We need to stop creating capacity in South Carolina for other states' waste," says Jane Laureau of the S.C. Coastal Conservation League.

Leventis says DHEC doesn't really know what is being imported in all those railroad cars. Despite DHEC's assertions its inspections can catch illegal waste, Leventis says those efforts are insufficient.

"The people in New York and New Jersey regard us as a rug they can sweep stuff under," Leventis says.

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

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 14:17:31 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

SRS teams with area colleges
July 10, 2000
The Associated Press
http://www.thestate.com/headlines/regiondocs/10srs.htm

AIKEN -- The Savannah River Site is teaming up with three of South Carolina's predominantly black colleges in the hope that future graduates will want to work at the nuclear weapons complex. Allen University in Columbia, Morris College in Sumter and Voorhees College in Denmark are getting new lab equipment and a revamped environmental-science curricula. Students and professors also are getting the opportunity to perform research in the field.

SRS gets help with some of its worst environmental problems and, it hopes, first crack at scientists who graduate from the three schools.

"We have needs for environmental scientists in coming years for our cleanup activities," said Mel Buckner, a senior consultant for the site's research and development lab, Savannah River Technology Center. "We would expect to hire some of the students.

"We also would hope some of the students would go on to graduate studies and come back to the site to do their graduate work and thesis work."

The two-year arrangement will cost about $2.5 million, Buckner said.

Students likely will research methods of removing or stabilizing heavy metals in the site's soils, said Morris James, a technology-transfer specialist at SRS. Interns also will study the site's wetlands to help determine their role in the cleanup.

The schools get graduates who are better-prepared to enter the job market, said Collie Coleman, executive vice president and academic dean at Voorhees.

"It's an opportunity to further strengthen our infrastructure, to further develop faculty, and to provide our students with hands-on research with accomplished researchers so that they can blend theory with actual application," he said. "We see it as win-win."

It is the second program at SRS aimed at predominantly black colleges. The site's Environmental Sciences Field Station lets students from 27 schools in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas earn college credit by taking classes in the field. The students also may be eligible for internships in the future.

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Message: 7
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 14:21:03 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Hanford plutonium canisters repaired
7/10/2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2000/0710/Story2.html

Hanford recently finished fixing 15 plutonium containers that showed the most potential to rupture and leak.

The Plutonium Finishing Plant either had repacked the plutonium or baked it into a more benign powder about a week and a half ago, finishing an overdue check that began in March of all containers of scrap plutonium in a vault at PFP.

Those checks and subsequent repair work are to prevent the small canisters from bulging and leaking -- allowing plutonium particles to escape.

A February memo by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board noted about two-thirds of the cans of plutonium had not been checked for the potential to leak in the past 10 years. Since March, that work has been done, leading to remedial work on the 15 containers, said Pete Knollmeyer, Department of Energy assistant manager for nuclear materials and facilities stabilization.

The PFP has 4.4 tons of plutonium mingled among 19.6 tons of scrap material left over from its Cold War production. The facility's mission is to convert those 4.4 tons into safer forms of plutonium by mid-2004.

This plutonium is in several forms, requiring several methods to convert each type into a more benign material.

The bulk of the plutonium consists of small chunks stored in sealed, airtight containers, which are inside slightly bigger airtight containers.

But this leads to a dilemma.

If a sealed container actually is airtight, that means the plutonium uses up all the trapped oxygen to make plutonium oxide rust. That creates a vacuum that sucks in the sides of the can, increasing the risk of its top popping off.

If the canister is not airtight, and outside air finds its way into the innermost container, that feeds the plutonium oxide layer around the metal, expanding it to push out the container's walls to cause a crack.

Besides examining paperwork, the primary way to see if the plutonium oxide is growing is to weigh each container. A weight gain of 5 grams means follow-up checks are needed.

The paperwork exams identified 35 cans to be X-rayed and checked further. After that, problems were confirmed with 15 containers.

Four had plastic inside them. Plastic's chemical makeup includes hydrogen, which could catch fire in an enclosed air space holding radioactive material. The plastic was removed.

Two cans showed contamination on the outermost canister.

Nine showed weight gains of 5 grams or more.

Of these 15, eight were opened, the plutonium oxide rust was brushed off, and the metal was repacked in special stainless-steel containers filled with inert helium gas that won't react chemically with plutonium. The metal is to stay in those containers until they are shipped for final disposition at DOE's Savannah River site in Georgia several years from now.

The other seven cans held pockmarked and ragged metal that required baking into a safer powder in ovenlike "muffle furnaces."

When the 15 canisters were opened inside gloveboxes, four had pieces of metal that shot sparks just above their surface and glowed red like charcoal briquettes for up to 412 hours. The reaction was anticipated, and safety precautions were in place. Two sparking and glowing chunks were baked and two repacked.

The PFP plans to start in a few months to brush off plutonium oxide layers from the plutonium in the rest of the canisters -- repacking them in helium-filled new containers. That work is scheduled to be done in 2001.

In the PFP's other plutonium stabilization measures:

-- Four slightly bigger muffle furnaces are scheduled to join the five existing ones next January.

-- A process is expected to go online in September to convert plutonium in most of the PFP's liquids into tiny granules to be filtered out.

Already, the PFP has a "vertical calciner" converting some plutonium-laced liquids into powder, but this method cannot handle most of the PFP's impure plutonium solutions.

-- Hanford is mixing contaminated and broken plutonium-button molds with a cementlike substance. Some ashlike debris from this work will be packed inside tubes and eventually sent to underground storage in New Mexico.

-- Hanford has a small amount of very radioactive and unstable plutonium bound within 2-inch "polycubes" of plastic polymers, which could emit flammable gases in a muffle furnace.

Changing how the ovens heat up enables them to neutralize the polycubes. This work will be done when the muffle furnaces have slack time.

-----------

Message: 8
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 14:24:14 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Audit says Hanford cleanup delays are 'significantly' increasing risks
July 10, 2000
by The Associated Press
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/html98/hanf10m_20000710.html

RICHLAND - Delays in the 30-year, $50 billion effort to clean up hazardous wastes at the Hanford nuclear reservation are increasing risks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, an Environmental Protection Agency audit says.

Part of the problem is that regulators - the EPA and the state Ecology Department - have failed to enforce deadlines set under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the 560-square-mile site.

Major delays in pumping and treating Hanford's most-dangerous wastes could extend the nation's costliest nuclear cleanup by as much as 19 years beyond the original 2028 deadline, says the yearlong audit by EPA Regional Inspector General Truman Beeler.

The delays "significantly increase" the risk of leaks from old tanks into ground water or air, the internal report says.

The document, filed in March, was obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a whistle-blowers group with offices in Washington, D.C., and Olympia, through a public-records request.

The report criticizes the Ecology Department and EPA's regional office in Seattle for lax enforcement, and urges them to pick up the pace to protect public health and safety.

The Energy Department has inadequately funded treatment of the tank problems and has repeatedly missed deadlines to address the hazards they represent, the audit says.

The EPA and the Ecology Department say they're trying to improve oversight.

"We concur in full with both the facts as presented in each finding and with the associated recommendations," said Ecology's Mike Wilson and EPA's Richard Albright in a joint letter to Beeler.

Officials from Hanford's Office of River Protection, which oversees the tanks, weren't available Friday to respond to the audit, a DOE spokesman said. Hanford offices were closed yesterday, and calls to officials went unanswered.

"DOE's history of poor performance, the significance of the environmental problems . . . and the cost of the cleanup program" underscore the need for better management, the report says.

Since the audit, the Ecology Department has asked EPA "to help counter (Department of Energy) resistance," Wilson said.

"The key now is whether Ecology will take action to correct the problems identified by the audit," said Lea Mitchell, PEER's Olympia director.

For decades, Hanford's primary mission was making plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Now it is cleanup.

The audit, conducted from November 1998 to January 2000, focuses on 177 underground tanks at Hanford that contain 60 percent of the government's most-lethal radioactive waste - leftovers from the Cold War arms race.

At least 1 million gallons of highly toxic and radioactive waste in 67 of Hanford's 149 old single-wall tanks has already leaked, some reaching ground water.

The single-wall tanks - built from the 1940s through the 1960s - were designed to last about 20 years. About 58 of them don't have effective leak-detection systems, the report says. And the 28 newer double-shell tanks will exceed their design life by 2028.

Tank leaks and billions of gallons of more diluted contaminants "could reach the Columbia River in as little as 20 years and continue for the next 5,000 years," the report says.

The audit identified numerous delays and management failures:

The Ecology Department has failed to compel Hanford to meet deadlines. So plans to stabilize the most fragile tanks have been delayed nine years, to September 2004.

BNFL Ltd., the British company that was overseeing the design of plants to convert wastes into glass, was fired this spring after submitting a $15.2 billion estimate - more than double the original $6.9 billion estimate. That threatens the 2001 deadline for starting glass-plant construction, and final treatment of tank wastes will take up to 19 years longer than predicted - possibly until 2047 - the report says.

The Ecology Department hasn't resolved flammable-gas hazards in the tanks and was slow to flag a hydrogen-gas buildup in million-gallon double-shell tank SY-101, considered one of the most dangerous.

At least 25 tanks are estimated to be generating enough hydrogen gas to cause a fire if ignited. If a fire occurred, "there is the potential for up to 22 latent cancer fatalities from direct radiation and inhalation of radioactive contaminants," the report says.

The Ecology Department has failed to conduct adequate safety inspections on the tanks.

The tanks will have to be used "significantly beyond" deadlines set by an August 1999 U.S. District Court-supervised consent order governing cleanup, the report says.

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

Message: 9
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 15:49:35 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Environmentalists Protest Gore
July 10, 2000
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press Writer
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000710/14/news-gore-protest

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Environmental demonstrators chained themselves together in front of the entrance to Al Gore's campaign office here Monday and hung protest banners on the building.

Gore promotes himself as a friend of the environment and is author of "Earth in the Balance." But the protesters said they saw little difference between him and his Republican presidential rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

About 100 members of the group Earth First! danced and chanted in the foyer of the campaign offices - 160 miles east of Gore's national headquarters in Nashville - with some climbing up to hang banners reading "Presidency for Sale" and "End Corporate Governance."

Four protesters chained themselves together and sat in front of the office doors. Knoxville police persuaded the other demonstrators to go outside while they spoke with the chained protesters, who eventually left and avoided arrest.

Gore's campaign staff remained inside. Among them was Wade Till, chairman of the Knox County Democratic Party, who said, "They ought to be dumping on Bush because he is the guy who is in the hands of the oil companies and the ones who really hurt the environment."

Earth First! leader Daniel Patterson said Gore has refused to endorse the end of logging on public land, and his family owns 500,000 shares of Occidental Petroleum, which the group says threatens the environment with drilling in South America.

"Things don't match up," Patterson said. "We are here to say that Gore cannot take the environmental vote for granted."

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Message: 10
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 17:01:33 -0400
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>

Air Force keeps eyes wide open with Airborne Laser Aircarft
By LAWRENCE SPOHN
Scripps Howard News Service
July 10, 2000

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Named for the mythological giant with 100 eyes, the U.S. Air Force's Argus aircraft has returned to its Albuquerque hangar after weeks of eyeballing the world's hot spots.

"We fly at 480 mph and we make 6,000 readings per second," said Capt. Pat Kelly, an Argus flight-test engineer.

The readings, which include temperature, air speed and atmospheric distortion, are considered crucial to national defense, specifically to ensuring the success of a leading anti-missile defense system, the Air Force's Airborne Laser Aircraft.

Being developed at Kirtland Air Force Base here, the $1.2 billion Airborne Laser is being outfitted with a powerful laser, computers and optics that the Air Force says will make it a deadly adversary for tactical missiles that might be launched by rogue nations, such as North Korea or Iraq.

Not surprisingly, Argus has made its atmospheric measurements for the Airborne Laser in the vicinity of those countries.

The Airborne Laser is scheduled to conduct its first missile tests in 2003 and could be battle-ready shortly thereafter.

Although its proponents see it as the weapon of the future, officially the Air Force advertises it as part of a national, multi-service, anti-missile defense umbrella. Eventually, the Air Force wants Congress to fund a fleet of Airborne Laser missile killers at an estimated cost of $11 billion.

The Argus is a C-135E aircraft freighter that costs about $2 million per year to operate.

Earlier this summer, Argus spent some 150 hours flying at as high as 47,000 feet in the dark skies near the Korean Peninsula and in the Persian Gulf, collecting huge volumes of data in the third trip in a seasonal series aimed at detecting even minute atmospheric changes over the course of a year.

Underneath the nose of the aircraft is a special anemometer that uses wires finer than a human hair to measure temperature to an accuracy of one-thousandth of a degree.

The information is currently being analyzed at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland, said Wayne Wasson, Argus flight-test program manager.

"They have all the equations," he said, noting "they know a lot more than we do and designed all the special equipment on board (Argus). They tell us what they need. We go get it, bring it back, and they figure what it all means."

The answers are vital to the Airborne Laser, which Wasson explains needs precision information on the variables in the atmosphere to make sure its laser tracks on target and destroys an enemy missile at the speed of light.

"It's a high-altitude killer of missiles and it has to find them as quickly as possible off the ground and knock them down at low angles of incidence," he said.

Air Force officials have said they also believe they can adapt the laser to shoot down cruise missiles that hug terrain on the way to their targets.

Argus' data will be put into an Airborne Laser atmospheric library that will make it possible for the laser gunners to fine-tune the weapon for atmospheric peculiarities around the world, he said.

"It'll probably all be automatic," he said. "Once they tell the computers where they are, it will all be locked in and boom. It'll just go out there, get the specifics and do it."

Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk globalnet@mindspring.com

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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 17:34:08 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Flooding Closes Chernobyl Reactor
July 10, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000710/06/news-ukraine-chernobyl

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The only working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down early Monday due to flooding caused by a strong storm. Workers started pumping water out of the reactor early Monday morning, said a statement from the Chernobyl press service. Several hours later, the reactor's energy level was reduced and then shut down, the statement said.

There were no changes in the radiation level, it said.

Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, when a reactor at the plant exploded and caught fire in 1986.

The explosion contaminated broad swaths of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and spewed a radioactive cloud across Europe. At least 8,000 people have died as a result of the disaster, most of them from radiation-related diseases. An estimated 3.4 million people in Ukraine alone still suffer from its effects.

President Leonid Kuchma, facing mounting international pressure, has promised to shut down reactor No. 3 for good on Dec. 15. Shutting down the plant safely is expected to take years.

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

Message: 13
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 19:22:35 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Has questions for the JCPES
July 10, 2000
Source: http://www.oakridger.com/

To The Oak Ridger:

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies at a recent meeting announced their intentions to review and condense three reports to four or five pages for presentation to the public:
1) the ORHASP Dose Reconstruction Report,
2) the 1998? Annual Site Environmental Report and
3) the Scarboro Community Environmental Study.

These reports are important to the image of Oak Ridge and, hence, to its future. Two of these three reports deal not with Scarboro but with Oak Ridge Reservation impacts on the rest of Oak Ridge as well as the ORR environs.

In the past, the JCPES has effectively excluded the non-Scarboro residents by acting through organizations of limited membership or by neglecting meeting announcements. They have also refused the offer of help of several non-Scarboro residents in these problems.

Due to the possibly broad interest in these reports and their controversial content, any meetings to discuss these reports should be community-wide meetings and the summaries should receive prior circulation so meaningful questions and comments can be prepared by the public.

It should also be noted that the ORHASP Report is currently under an extensive, technical peer review and to present a public summary prior to its completion would be ill-advised. It also is very dubious that this report can have any meaningful summary, even for the public, in few pages.

In the SCEJC meeting of October 1998, Dr. Bailus Walker promised that the Joint Center would do many things to educate the Scarboro community about environmental contamination and public health but none of these have occurred.

Further, it must be asked why the JCPES has never presented and explained, in a report, the results of the Scarboro Community Survey that was completed earlier this year. The taxpayers invJCPESested more than $500,000 in the DOE grant to the and it seems they deserve more than 15 pages of summaries of other people's work.

Since these summaries will probably be given after the JCPES's grant extension has expired and they are no longer present, there will be no other forum to rebut their conclusions except in the local press.

Alfred A. Brooks Jr. 100 Wiltshire Drive

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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 19:24:17 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Responds to Porter letter on Carson
July 10, 2000
http://www.oakridger.com/

To The Oak Ridger:

A while back, Walter Porter, who is a certified industrial hygienist, wrote a letter to the editor in which he criticized Joe Carson, who is nationally recognized as a Department of Energy whistleblower.

In his letter, Mr. Porter characterized Mr. Carson as a "horn tooter" rather than a whistleblower, and said "to see him described as 'professional' nauseates me!" Mr. Porter also speculated about Mr. Carson's motives for blowing the whistle.

Mr. Carson is a Department of Energy nuclear safety assessor (formerly a nuclear safety inspector) and professional engineer. I would say he qualifies to be called a "professional," and I don't see why that would make Mr. Porter ill.

As for whether he is a horn-tooter, just for the sake of argument let's say that's true. So what? The purpose of tooting one's horn is to call attention to one's self, which is not necessarily an ignoble thing. If you're driving, you toot your horn to alert others of a hazard.

I see Mr. Carson's horn-tooting or whistleblowing or whatever one chooses to call it as a valuable public service, because it increases awareness of issues that need to be addressed. I can't think of any wrong that was ever righted because people decided to keep quiet.

Ironically, after calling Mr. Carson a horn-tooter, Mr. Porter proceeded to say, "I, for one, would have had the backbone to have resisted any pressuring efforts from management should the need ever have arisen." Sounds like horn-tooting to me!

Then Mr. Porter makes the amazing claim that in his "30 years tenure" (at the DOE plants?), he never once felt any pressure to change or soften his findings or recommendations. I had to wonder how that could be, given that beginning in 1983, DOE admitted and continues to admit many bad public health practices. Then one of my acquaintances told me a very interesting story.

Seems in the early '80s, when Mr. Porter was a member of the Anderson County school board, he gave "expert" advice to the school board that asbestos not be removed from Clinton Junior High and the Norwood school, that it instead be sprayed with a coating and left in place, and that no action be taken in regard to the fact that in 1979 and 1980, friable asbestos had been scraped off the ceiling of the gymnasium of the Lake City school by teachers and students who had been wearing no protective equipment of any kind. (Later, a medical monitoring program was put in place for those teachers and students.)

According to my research, the 1979 EPA "Orange Book" on asbestos had stated, "No safe level of exposure has been established ... . Removal completely eliminates the source of exposure to asbestos and is, therefore, a permanent solution."

In addition, my sources indicate that in the late '70s/early '80s, federal dollars were available to the schools only for asbestos removal, not for abatement in place.

I therefore find it hard to understand why Mr. Porter would have advised the school board as he did at that time. I wonder if that's the kind of thing to which Mr. Carson refers when he uses the term "incompetence" in reference to DOE safety professionals -- a usage Mr. Porter deems "absurd" and "blasphemous." (I thought blasphemy only applied to something one considered holy.)

Apparently, other people disagreed with Mr. Porter's advice about asbestos in the county schools. In 1983 there was a school board meeting where, according to former School Superintendent Terry Webber, someone from the EPA in Atlanta came to give recommendations on the asbestos problem.

Mr. Porter, who was no longer on the school board, attended the meeting, as did a young man named Ed Slavin, who was a reporter for The Appalachian Observer.

According to Mr. Slavin and Superintendent Webber, Mr. Slavin publicly reminded Mr. Porter of his prior "expert" recommendations to the school board on the asbestos problem in light of the fact that the school board was now planning to close Clinton Junior High and Norwood to remove the asbestos.

As told to me by Mr. Slavin and Superintendent Webber, Mr. Porter jumped up and tried to physically attack Mr. Slavin, who was sitting in a student desk. David Stuart, who was then county attorney, had to restrain Mr. Porter.

Interestingly, that same year, The Appalachian Observer was instrumental in bringing to light DOE's "loss" of several million pounds of mercury from the Y-12 Plant. This, the exposure of the largest mercury pollution event in history, could be said to have started the "downward slide" of negative publicity about Oak Ridge.

And what a coincidence that Mr. Slavin, who was the target of an attempted physical attack by Mr. Porter in 1983, has been an attorney with the law firm that has represented Joe Carson in some of his "whistleblower" actions against DOE, and now Mr. Carson is the target of a verbal attack by the same Walter Porter.

I will have to agree with Mr. Porter on one thing, though: I do think Mr. Carson has an agenda. It's an agenda increasingly shared by people in the Oak Ridge community and at DOE facilities throughout the nation, where people are mad as hell about the failure of DOE and its contractors to live up to their responsibilities to protect the health and safety of the workers, the environment, and the public.

Further, I'm increasingly impatient with people like Mr. Porter who seem to be little more than (1) horn-tooters in their own right and (2) apologists for DOE and the contractors. They may see themselves as defenders of Oak Ridge, but I believe they are doing more harm than good.

Pam Watson 134 Jarrett Lane

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

Message: 15
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 19:47:34 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Smaller N-reactors promoted
Scientist says lead-cooled N-plants ideal for developing countries
Jennifer Langston
Post Register
Source: http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=061200&ID=s814109&cat

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- It's probably fair to say few nuclear engineers have seriously thought about using reactors to make tofu.

But Eric Loewen, an Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory engineer working on a new generation of lead-cooled reactors, has a broad vision of what they could do for the world.

He'd love to design small nuclear reactors that would bring more than electricity to developing countries.

The power plants could produce clean drinking water in the Third World, using gamma rays to kill bacteria. Instead of releasing waste heat into the environment, it might be diverted to help a local business make tofu.

Those kinds of partnerships could build trust in the plant, he said, with local people acting as independent overseers to make sure it runs properly.

"The next generation should really be aimed to do more for the community than make electricity," said Loewen. "These are the things I think nuclear engineers and the white lab coats need to be thinking about."

Loewen, who began working at the INEEL last July, is researching how to prevent corrosion in a new generation of lead-cooled nuclear reactors.

The reactors would be smaller, cheaper, safer and would produce less waste than the ones operating today. They might not be politically palatable in this country, but other parts of the world may invest in improved nuclear reactors.

"You could put one in the Third World and burn it for 15 years without refueling," Loewen said.

Liquid lead has several advantages over water, which has traditionally been used as a coolant in this country's commercial power plants.

Lead is much denser, which means you can make the reactor smaller while removing the same amount of heat from the radioactive core to make electricity. The metal also makes a better radiation shield.

Neutrons also move much faster in lead than in water. For starters, that means the fuel in the reactor core would last much longer. It would also allow the splitting of radioactive elements in spent nuclear fuel at the same time.

"The neat thing about lead is that the neutrons bounce around a lot," he said. "Because of that, you can put old nuclear waste in there and burn it up."

Metal-cooled reactors aren't new, although almost no research has been done in this country with lead since the 1950s. But liquid lead has its own flaw, which Loewen is trying to overcome. It eats away the metal pipes or vessels that it flows through.

"The lynchpin of the whole thing is corrosion," he said. "It's still not really licked."

----------

Message: 16
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 20:02:29 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Classified Work at DOE Lab Stopped
July 10, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2000/jul/10/071000024.html

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- Classified work at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was temporarily halted after a secret document was mistakenly photocopied and left in an unsecured but locked office.

The security breach occurred June 29 when an employee at the lab in Richland copied several unclassified drawings along with a classified one in a secure area, then took the papers to an office outside the secure area and left them locked up there, lab spokesman Greg Koller said Monday.

The lapse was discovered the next day by another employee, and lab staff reported it to the U.S. Department of Energy, Koller said. The employee involved in the lapse was not disciplined.

"These security concerns happen occasionally," Koller said.

A security stand down, in which managers meet with staff to review security procedures involving classified projects, was ordered July 3. Some classified work has resumed and the remainder should start again later this week, Koller said.

The security flap comes on the heels of the national uproar over a security breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where two computer hard drives with information used to disable nuclear weapons were determined to be missing in June before turning up mysteriously the next day. The breach was not reported to DOE for more than three weeks.

In December, former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was charged with illegally copying top-secret nuclear weapons files. He is in jail awaiting trial.

The Northwest lab is operated by the private company for the DOE. It does classified work both at the Hanford nuclear reservation and at its main campus just south of the reservation.

The incident occurred as a range fire swept across the nearby Hanford nuclear reservation, but the security lapse was unrelated to the blaze, Koller said.

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

Message: 17
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 20:20:37 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Bush under fire in toxic waste battle
Dump opponents allege abuse of political clout
Kristen Tichenor Daily Texan Staff
http://www.dailytexan.utexas.edu/webtexan/today/2000071001_s07_Dump.html

A toxic waste dump in West Texas is at the center of the latest battle between environmentalists and Gov. George W. Bush.

Texas environmental groups allege that the operator of the dump, Waste Control Specialists, has used the political influence of its CEO to buy its way into the billion-dollar radioactive waste dumping industry.

Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, CEO of WCS, was named Bush's largest campaign contributor by The Houston Chronicle in May 1999 after donating more than $800,000 between 1995 and 1998.

Environmentalists contend that WCS was able to gain exemptions to their radioactive waste storage permit, allowing them to dump radioactive waste, because of Simmons' political connection to Bush.

"I think the exemptions have everything to do with Simmons' contributions; the big political players get what they want," said Erin Rogers, coordinator of Texas Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental activist group.

WCS is planning to lobby the Texas Legislature again to allow the dumping of low-level radioactive waste at its Andrews County site in West Texas, but the bill has been rejected in three previous sessions.

Meanwhile, WCS has obtained 14 amendments to their license to store the low-level waste, enabling them to dump it even though the state of Texas is not authorized to issue permits to dump radioactive waste.

Low-level radioactive waste includes items that have been contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation, and comes from nuclear reactors, industry and research facilities, government sources, and medical facilities, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC oversees the storage and disposal of radioactive waste.

The NRC classifies low-level waste containing radioactive medical material as not particularly hazardous unless inhaled or consumed, but considers low-level radioactive waste from water processed at nuclear reactors capable of causing exposures that could lead to death or an increased risk for cancer.

"Representatives don't want our state to become a dumping ground, but the [Gov. George W. Bush] appointees at the [Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission], in addition to the Health Department, are in essence allowing them to skirt the law," Rogers said. "If you give enough money in Texas, you don't have to be bothered with little things like license and health permits."

The TNRCC, through a three-person, Bush-appointed committee, is authorized to give licenses to hold radioactive waste, but is no longer authorized to give license to dump it, according to Ruth McBurney, director of the division of licensing, regulation and standards at the TNRCC.

"Our acceptance of WCS's application for a permit [to store radioactive waste] was based on a scientific assessment of their facility, and not on any political pressure," McBurney said.

The manager of WCS's Document Specialist Division was unwilling to disclose information about the types of permits they held or the functions those permits allowed them to perform, routing questions to the Public Affairs Office.

The WCS Public Affairs office, which according to the company's receptionist reports directly to Simmons, would not comment about the allegations or about the types of permits the company holds.

Board member Bill Addington of the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund, a group that successfully deflected the construction of a Department of Energy contracted radioactive waste dump in Sierra Blanca in West Texas, spoke of the amount of money involved in the disposal of nuclear waste.

"Simmons heavily influences the government, and may have had an influence on the Sierra Blanca decision because WCS wanted access to all of the waste," Addington said.

"The DOE's radioactive waste is the mother load of nuclear waste and worth $300 billion," he said.

WCS needs an actual license to dispose of radioactive waste in order to gain permission to dump DOE radioactive waste. It has unsuccessfully lobbied to gain a license in the past three legislative sessions.

Bush, the leading Republican presidential candidate, accepts Political Action Committee funds, while his Democratic counterpart Vice President Al Gore does not. According to an analysis by FECInfo, a group based in Washington D.C. that tracks campaign money, 20 PACs set up by electric companies with nuclear power plants have given Bush $61,670 between January 1999 and June 2000.

Ray Sullivan, Bush campaign spokesman, denied allegations that Waste Control Specialists's low-level waste storing permit, or the amendments that allow it to dump the waste, have anything to do with Simmons' campaign contributions.

"The decision about permits is made by individuals Bush bases his public policy positions on what he thinks is best for Texas," Sullivan said. "These are just more partisan political attacks, a part of the election process sure to increase as the governor increases his lead over Vice President Gore. These allegations are silly, misguided and partisan."

Robert Zapp, the mayor of Andrews, said he supported WCS and considered it a safe addition to the area.

"We've gone to the Glen Rose Nuclear Reactor and to Texas Tech University to talk to environmentalists, and they are supportive of it when you use the word 'nuclear,' people get worried, but the level of nuclear waste there is probably safer than what you have in your house," said Zapp. "We've dealt with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material from the oil wells here for years, the WCS land is good for nothing else but waste, and WCS is very careful and responsible."

"My son's [biological] radioactive levels have actually dropped since starting to work there in 1997," he said.

But Peggy Pryor, Andrews resident and president of a local environmental organization, is afraid that the low-level radioactive waste will contaminate the city's drinking water. Andrews gets its water from the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in the country, located 10 miles from WCS.

"WCS contends that the dump is not above the Ogallala Aquifer, but I think it is. Our water comes from underground and our water table increases with rainfall. We are a dry area, but this year we have already reached our rainfall level," Pryor said.

The Texas Tech study, which concluded that WCS does not tap into the Aquifer, was paid for by WCS.

Professor Alan Dutton of the UT Bureau of Economic Geology also released a report last March that said Tech researchers failed to substantiate their assertion with any scientific documentation.

During the last Legislative session when WCS was trying to form a compact to dump radioactive waste, these water findings were still under dispute at the hearings.

The NRC did not grant the company permission to dispose of its radioactive waste and withheld information about who in the organization believed that the TNRCC was authorized to do so.

"This is an internal aspect of operations I'm not willing to go into it. The NRC did not authorize WCS to dispose of the waste. That is the best information we have," said Sue Gagner, NRC public affairs officer.

--

RADIOACTIVE

* The State of Texas is not authorized to give out permits to dispose of radioactive waste.

* Waste Control Specialists has earned 14 amendments to their permit to store radioactive waste, enabling them to dispose of low-level radioactive waste without a permit.

* Texas environmentalist groups allege that WCS has used the political power of its CEO, Harold Simmons, to gain permission to dispose of radioactive waste.

* Simmons was named as Gov. George W. Bush's largest campaign contributor by The Houston Chronicle in 1999.

For More Information

* Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC): www.nrc.gov
* Waste Control Specialists (WCS): www.wcstexas.gov
* Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC): www.tnrcc.texas.gov
* Department of Energy (DOE): www.doe.gov
* Public Employees for Environmental Responsiblity (PEER): www.peer.org

---------

Message: 18
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 13:21:48 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

US DEFENCE SECY COHEN IN SYDNEY, 15/16 JULY
PLEASE SIGN AND/OR SEND THE LETTERS BELOW

Dear Australian NGOs,

US defence Secretary William Cohen will be in Sydney talking to foreign minister Downer and defence minister John Moore on the 15th and 16th.

A vigil will be held outside where he is staying (probably the intercontinental Hotel in Sydney) from 12 noon to 2pm Sunday. (organised by Dennis Doherty and myself)

Talks will be held on Monday in HMAS Kuttubul in Potts Point.

In the meantime, I am urging people who are in any way concerned over what NMD might do to the global disarmament agenda to:

Fax our foreign minister Alexander Downer on 02-6273-4112 (or on 08-8370-8166 if you are in SA) Fax Cohen himself on 1-703-695-1149.

If you are an organisation, please sign the letters below as well as sending one yourself along similar lines.

There is a short letter to Cohen, a short letter to Downer re Cohen, and the same sample letter that I have been circulating round the whole planet for people to send to Clinton, Cohen, Bush, and Gore.

Happy faxing!

After faxing Downer and Cohen, You may want to use the two websites below to fax Clinton as well.(this is for free)

Greenpeace now has a website from which you can send a fax about BMD to Clinton. it is:

http://www.stopstarwars.org/

You should also visit the 'Dont Blow it' website at http://DontBlowit.org. from which you can send the president a free e-postcard.

--

1) SHORT SAMPLE LETTER FOR AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE AND NGOS TO SEND TO COHEN (PLEASE ALSO SIGN IT IUF YOU ARE AN NGO)

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE SA,
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE SYDNEY
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE S. COAST
PAX CHRISTI NSW
SYDNEY ANTI-BASES COALITION
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT W.A.,

RE: NMD

WILLIAM S. COHEN, DEFENCE SECRETARY, UNITED STATES, +1-703-695-1149
cc
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Alexander Downer 02-6273-4112, 08-8370-8166, 6261-2151.
US EMBASSY CANBERRA, 02-6214-5970,6214-5930
US CONSULATE SYDNEY 9373-9125

Dear Defence Secretary Cohen, I am writing in view of your trip to Australia.

No doubt the subject of NMD formed part of your discussions in Beijing.

The organizations named above, and signed below, wish to point out that the Australian Senate on 29th June, passed a motion in which it called on your country:

1)Not to deploy a national missile defence system.

2)Called on the US and Russia to proceed with the early implementation and entry into force of START-II and negotiation of START-III as soon as possible,

3)Called on you to outline how you will implement the final document of the NPT Review Conference requirement that nuclear weapons play a diminishing role in security policies,

4)Urged the US and Russia to maintain the integrity of the ABM treaty.

The failure last Saturday of the NMD test, indicates that an NMD system cannot make a positive contribution to the security of the US or its allies including Australia.

Concern over the possible deployment of NMD has been expressed by the UN Secretary General, Russia, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Sweden, and Non-Aligned Movement and the New Agenda Coalition. 50 US Nobel prizewinners including some of the most respected names in Physics, have urged you not to proceed with NMD.

Accordingly we too, urge you to take note of the Australian Senate resolution and not to proceed with NMD.

Signed:

John Hallam, Friends of the Earth Australia
Irene Gale AM, Australian Peace Committee SA., Adelaide
Babs Fuller- Quinn, Coordinator, Australian Peace Committee Sydney,
Doreen Borrow, Australian Peace Committee South Coast,
Jack Forward, Central Coast Peace Forum,
Dennis Doherty, Pax Christi New South Wales,
Hannah Middleton, Sydney Anti-Bases Coalition,
Jo Vallentine, People for Nuclear Disarmament Western Australia,
Pauline Mitchell, Secy., Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament,(CICD) Melbourne,

--

2)LETTER FOR AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE AND NGOS TO SEND TO FOREIGN MINISTER DOWNER (PLEASE ALSO SIGN IT IF YOU ARE AN NGO)

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE S.A.,
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE SYDNEY
SOUTH COAST PEACE COMMITTEE
CENTRAL COAST PEACE FORUM
PAX CHRISTI NSW
SYDNEY ANTI-BASES COALITION
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT W.A.,
ATTN
ALEXANDER DOWNER 02-6273-4112, 08-8370-8166
CC
DFAT, 02-6261-2151
SENATOR LYN ALLISON, 02-6277-3087
SENATOR MEG LEES, 02-8295-8911
LAURIE BRERETON 9349-8089

RE: VISIT OF US DEFENCE SECRETARY WILLIAM COHEN

Dear Alexander Downer,

The organizations named above and signed below are writing with respect to the imminent visit of US Secretary for Defence, William S. Cohen, to urge you to make the strongest possible expressions of concern with respect to US proposals to deploy a National Missile Defence (NMD) system, which when tested over last weekend, failed completely.

National Missile Defence has been criticized as being at the same time, both ineffective, probably physically impossible, and at the same time destabilizing.

Expressions of strong concern over it have been made at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, by UN secretary General Kofi Annan, by the European Union, France, Germany, Sweden, Portugal, by the Non-Aligned Movement, by the New Agenda Coalition, and others.

Russia has threatened that if the US violates the ABM treaty, as deployment of NMD would, it will 'tear up' arms control agreements to date. China will almost certainly greatly increase the size of its currently minimal nuclear deterrent force if NMD is deployed. Both these developments will lead the world back to nuclear arms- racing.

Within the US, 50 US Nobel prizewinners (Half the Nobel prizewinners in the US) have written to President Clinton to ask that NMD not proceed. The American Physical Society, the top physics body in the US, has expressed the almost unanimous opinion that NMD as proposed is physically impossible.

The Australian Senate on 29th June, passed a motion calling on the US not to proceed with NMD.

It called for:

1)The US Not to deploy a National Missile Defence (NMD) system.

2)Called on the US and Russia to proceed with the early implementation and entry into force of START-II and negotiation of START-III as soon as possible,

3)Called on nuclear weapons states to outline how they will implement the final document of the NPT Review Conference requirement that nuclear weapons play a diminishing role in security policies,

4)Urged the US and Russia to maintain the integrity of the ABM treaty.

In view of both the clearly destabilizing effects of the deployment of NMD and of its highly problematic technical aspects which mean that it will make no contribution (or a negative one) to the security of either the US or US allies including Australia, we urge you to make the very strongest representations to defence Secretary Cohen when he visits this coming weekend.

Signed John Hallam, Friends of the Earth Australia,
Irene Gale AM, Australian Peace Committee SA,
Babs Fuller-Quinn, Coordinator, Australian Peace Committee Sydney,
Doreen Borrow, Coordinator, South Coast Peace Committee,
George Gotsis, Coordinator, Greek Peace Committee, Sydney,
Jack Forward, Central Coast Peace Forum,
Dennis Doherty, Pax Christi New South Wales,
Hannah Middleton, Sydney Anti-Bases Coalition,
Jo Vallentine, People for Nuclear Disarmament Western Australia,
Pauline Mitchell, Secy., Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament, Melbourne,

--

3)SAMPLE LETTER FOR WHOLE PLANET TO SEND TO BILL CLINTON, WILLIAM S. COHEN, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, BUSH, GORE, AND RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEES.

(Do not sign this. It is to give you more ideas as to what to write to Cohen and to Clkinton if you would like to write to Clinton)

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1-202-456-2461,
SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 1-202-647-6047
SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE, WILLIAM S. COHEN 1-703-695-1149 cc George Bush Al Gore

Dear President Clinton, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, and Presidential candidates,

I am writing to urge you not to proceed with proposals for a national ballistic missile defence system. Missile defence schemes respond to a nonexistent or exaggerated threat, are not the solution to real threats, make the rest of the US's security environment less safe, sabotage nuclear disarmament efforts to which the US is legally committed along with the rest of the world, and show contempt for the opinions of US allies and the rest of the world.

At the recent NPT Review Conference, the US together with 187 other countries, signed a final declaration that commits it to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Plans to deploy a missile defence system threaten that vital goal, to which the US is legally committed.

At the very same conference, the UN Secretary General, and representatives of Russia, China, the UK, France, Sweden, the European community, the New Agenda Coalition and the Non- aligned movement have all expressed strongly that they believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of global strategic stability. They do not think it should be modified to allow a missile defence system, still less abrogated unilaterally. On your recent European trip, leaders of Europe and Russia have made the same point. America simply cannot ignore the strongly repeated opinion of the whole world, that the ABM treaty should not be modified to permit BMD.

Furthermore:

1)The threat that the national missile defence system is supposed to address, namely that of missile - equipped so- called 'rogue states' is in all likelihood, nonexistent.

2) A state that really wished to inflict serious damage on the US would probaby rather smuggle a nuclear explosive device into a US city by means that are more reliable and more difficult to trace than missiles.

3)There are serious doubts as to whether this system can work at all, or as to whether any missile defence system can ever work. The problems posed even by relatively simple decoys are probably technically insoluble.

4)National (and theatre) missile defence schemes are unsustainably costly, and cost estimates are likely to rise without limit.

Instead of pursuing missile defence, it is vital that the US focus on real solutions to global strategic security. The highest priorities have to be the elimination of as many warheads as possible under any START-III agreement with Russia, and the removal of strategic missile forces from high alert status as advocated by the Canberra Commission, subsequent UN resolutions and the final NPT declaration.

In this respect, the commitment of Candidate Bush to deep cuts in warhead numbers and to reductions in alert status are worthy of support. Commitments to costly and dangerous missile defence schemes are worthy only of opposition.

Yours Sincerely, Signed ....

John Hallam
Friends of the Earth Sydney,
17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042
Fax (61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903
nonukes@foesyd.org.au
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd

-----------

Message: 19
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 05:24:33 -0600
From: Winston Weeks <wweeks@mail.aros.net>

Bush under fire in West Texas toxic waste battle
July 10, 2000
By Kristen Tichenor
Daily Texan U. Texas-Austin
http://news.excite.com:80/news/uw/000710/university-education-31

(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas -- A toxic waste dump in West Texas is at the center of the latest battle between environmentalists and Gov. George W. Bush.

Texas environmental groups allege that the operator of the dump, Waste Control Specialists, has used the political influence of its CEO to buy its way into the billion-dollar radioactive waste dumping industry.

Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, CEO of WCS, was named Bush's largest campaign contributor by The Houston Chronicle in May 1999 after donating more than $800,000 between 1995 and 1998.

Environmentalists contend that WCS was able to gain exemptions to their radioactive waste storage permit, allowing them to dump radioactive waste, because of Simmons' political connection to Bush.

"I think the exemptions have everything to do with Simmons' contributions; the big political players get what they want," said Erin Rogers, coordinator of Texas Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental activist group.

WCS is planning to lobby the Texas Legislature again to allow the dumping of low-level radioactive waste at its Andrews County site in West Texas, but the bill has been rejected in three previous sessions.

Meanwhile, WCS has obtained 14 amendments to their license to store the low-level waste, enabling them to dump it even though the state of Texas is not authorized to issue permits to dump radioactive waste.

Low-level radioactive waste includes items that have been contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation, and comes from nuclear reactors, industry and research facilities, government sources, and medical facilities, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC oversees the storage and disposal of radioactive waste.

The NRC classifies low-level waste containing radioactive medical material as not particularly hazardous unless inhaled or consumed, but considers low-level radioactive waste from water processed at nuclear reactors capable of causing exposures that could lead to death or an increased risk for cancer.

"Representatives don't want our state to become a dumping ground, but the (Gov. George W. Bush) appointees at the (Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission), in addition to the Health Department, are in essence allowing them to skirt the law," Rogers said. "If you give enough money in Texas, you don't have to be bothered with little things like license and health permits."

The TNRCC, through a three-person, Bush-appointed committee, is authorized to give licenses to hold radioactive waste. But it is no longer authorized to give license to dump it, according to Ruth McBurney, director of the division of licensing, regulation and standards at the TNRCC.

"Our acceptance of WCS's application for a permit (to store radioactive waste) was based on a scientific assessment of their facility, and not on any political pressure," McBurney said.

The manager of WCS's Document Specialist Division was unwilling to disclose information about the types of permits they held or the functions those permits allowed them to perform, routing questions to the Public Affairs Office.

The WCS Public Affairs office, which according to the company's receptionist reports directly to Simmons, would not comment about the allegations or about the types of permits the company holds.

Board member Bill Addington of the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund, a group that successfully deflected the construction of a Department of Energy contracted radioactive waste dump in Sierra Blanca in West Texas, spoke of the amount of money involved in the disposal of nuclear waste.

"Simmons heavily influences the government, and may have had an influence on the Sierra Blanca decision because WCS wanted access to all of the waste," Addington said.

"The DOE's radioactive waste is the mother load of nuclear waste and worth $300 billion," he said.

WCS needs an actual license to dispose of radioactive waste in order to gain permission to dump DOE radioactive waste. It has unsuccessfully lobbied to gain a license in the past three legislative sessions.

Bush, the leading Republican presidential candidate, accepts Political Action Committee funds, while his Democratic counterpart, Vice President Al Gore, does not. According to an analysis by FECInfo, a group based in Washington D.C. that tracks campaign money, 20 PACs set up by electric companies with nuclear power plants have given Bush $61,670 between January 1999 and June 2000.

Ray Sullivan, Bush campaign spokesman, denied allegations that Waste Control Specialists's low-level waste storing permit, or the amendments that allow it to dump the waste, have anything to do with Simmons' campaign contributions.

"The decision about permits is made by individuals. Bush bases his public policy positions on what he thinks is best for Texas," Sullivan said. "These are just more partisan political attacks, a part of the election process sure to increase as the governor increases his lead over Vice President Gore. These allegations are silly, misguided and partisan."

Robert Zapp, the mayor of Andrews, said he supported WCS and considered it a safe addition to the area.

"We've gone to the Glen Rose Nuclear Reactor and to Texas Tech University to talk to environmentalists, and they are supportive of it when you use the word 'nuclear,' people get worried, but the level of nuclear waste there is probably safer than what you have in your house," said Zapp. "We've dealt with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material from the oil wells here for years, the WCS land is good for nothing else but waste, and WCS is very careful and responsible."

"My son's (biological) radioactive levels have actually dropped since starting to work there in 1997," he said.

But Peggy Pryor, Andrews resident and president of a local environmental organization, is afraid that the low-level radioactive waste will contaminate the city's drinking water. Andrews gets its water from the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in the country, located 10 miles from WCS.

"WCS contends that the dump is not above the Ogallala Aquifer, but I think it is. Our water comes from underground and our water table increases with rainfall. We are a dry area, but this year we have already reached our rainfall level," Pryor said.

The Texas Tech study, which concluded that WCS does not tap into the Aquifer, was paid for by WCS.

Professor Alan Dutton of the UT Bureau of Economic Geology also released a report last March that said Tech researchers failed to substantiate their assertion with any scientific documentation.

During the last Legislative session when WCS was trying to form a compact to dump radioactive waste, these water findings were still under dispute at the hearings.

The NRC did not grant the company permission to dispose of its radioactive waste and withheld information about who in the organization believed that the TNRCC was authorized to do so.

"This is an internal aspect of operations I'm not willing to go into it. The NRC did not authorize WCS to dispose of the waste. That is the best information we have," said Sue Gagner, NRC public affairs officer.

---------

Message: 20
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 08:17:12 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

Subject: NucNews 00/07/11 - Daybook; Prez Candidates; 7/16 and 7/18 Announcements

1) Washington Daybook, by FIND/AFP and The Washington Times. http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000711215727.htm

9:30 a.m. - House Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee holds a hearing, "Weaknesses in Classified Information Security Controls at DOE's Nuclear Weapons Laboratories." Location: 2322 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-2927.

10 a.m. - Armed Services special oversight panel on Department of Energy reorganization holds a hearing on implementation issues related to the establishment of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Location: 2212 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-4151.

11 a.m. - Resources energy and mineral resources subcommittee holds a hearing to examine laws, policies and practices of the Interior and Energy departments relating to payments to their employees from outside sources. Location: 1324 Longworth House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-2761.

Land mines conference - all day - Physicians for Human Rights and the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines hold a conference on land mines. Location: Washington Court Hotel, 525 New Jersey Ave. NW. Contact: 202/543-1094.

First Monday 2000 rally - 1 p.m. - The Alliance for Justice and Physicians for Social Responsibility sponsor a rally to start First Monday 2000, a major anti-gun violence event and national day of action scheduled for Oct. 2, 2000, to spark discussion and activism to reduce gun violence. Attorney General Janet Reno participates. Location: National Education Association, 1201 16th St. NW. Contact: 202/371-1999 or 202/822-6070.

----

2) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

VICE PRESIDENT GORE - Travels to Little Rock, Ark.

George W. Bush - Royal Oak and Detroit, Michigan 12:00 p.m. - Judson Center, 4410 West 13 Mile, Royal Oak, MI, 248/549-1719 6:15 p.m. - : Michigan Republican Party's Max Fisher Dinner, Marriott Detroit Renaissance Center, Ballroom on 4th floor, 400 Renaissance Center, Detroit, MI, 313/568-8000

Ralph Nader - Baltimore, MD 2:45 pm - Address to the delegates NAACP National Convention Convention Center Baltimore, MD

Pat Buchanan - New York 2:00 PM - Fundraiser/Reception at The Princeton Club, 15 West 43rd Street, NYC, NY

----

3) JULY 16, 2000 - US CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION TO COMMEMORATE TRINITY

Sunday, July 16, will mark the 55th anniversary of the world's first nuclear test, Trinity," on Mescalero Apache land near Alamagordo, New Mexico. As part of the ellowship of Reconciliation's 40-day People's Campaign for Nonviolence, the US CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS will commemorate this solemn anniversary by conducting a vigil on the Mall in Washington, DC from 2 - 4 pm, to remind the American public that nuclear weapons research, development and testing is ontinuing today. The vigil will debut a spectacular, huge new banner, made by Bay area graphic artist, Susan Dembowski, which lists in alphabetical order all 1000+ US nuclear tests, from Trinity to the most recent subcritical. (The next subcritical test at the Nevada Test Site on Western Shoshone land is expected in August.). While holding the banner, participants will read aloud the names of the tests as part of a litany of "remembrance for the nuclear age." The vigil will conclude with the sounding of a World Word II-era air raid siren.

Groups around the country are encouraged to organize their own Trinity commemorations. The complete list of tests and the litany of "remembrance for the nuclear age" are available upon request, by e-mail or fax, from Western States Legal Foundation (wslf@earthlink.net) or the Atomic Mirror (pamela@atomicmirror.org). Later in the week, a press release will also be available. PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOUR GROUP IS PLANNING AN EVENT so we can include it in the release.

IMPORTANT: If you know people who will be in Washington, DC on July 16 and who would be available to join the vigil please let us know, and help us to get in touch with them. The banner, in seven sections, requires at least 14 people to hold it! The Fellowship of Reconciliation's 40-day People's Campaign for Nonviolence in Washington D.C. from July 1 through August 9 is calling for an end to our culture of violence and injustice, for disarmament, and for the creation of a culture of nonviolence and justice. The US CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS is the US section of the Abolition 2000 Global Network. Western States Legal Foundation is serving as its interim clearinghouse. If your group received a US AMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS Resource Booklet (yellow cover) in the mail a few months ago and hasn't yet sent back the enclosed questionnaire, please do so now! Or, let us know if you need another copy and we'll send one along.

WE HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON!! -- Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation and Pamela Meidell, The Atomic Mirror, on behalf of the Coordinating Committee of the US CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, 1440 Broadway, Suite 500, Oakland, California 94612 USA, Tel: + 1 (510) 839-5877, Fax: + 1 (510) 839-5397

-------

4. JULY 18 - Come Protest the STAR WARS SCANDAL

* US Capitol * East House Lawn * Tuesday, July 18 * 11 am - 12 Noon

Join Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Peace Action and our 50-foot mock nuclear missile as we protest wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on a weapon that won't work.

Led by Rep. Kucinich, 53 representatives wrote FBI Director Louis Freeh on June 15, 2000 to request a special investigation into the alleged coverup of faulty Star Wars tests revealed by MIT professor Ted Postol. Dr. Postol's letter to the White House has been classified and he has since been visited by Defense Security Officers in an attempt to further silence the truth.

It's Time to Blow the Lid Off . . . . . . the Star Wars Rush to Failure

For more information, contact Peace Action at 202.862.9740x3002. For information about PAEF's missile stop tour, click here: http://www.peace-action.org/missile_stop.html.

James C. Bridgman Research & Resource Coordinator Peace Action Education Fund mailto:jbridgman@peace-action.org http://www.peace-action.org 202.862.9740x3041 fax: 202.862.9762 1819 H St., NW, #425 Washington, DC 20006

--------

Message: 21
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 07:16:01 -0400
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

FORMER NRC EXPERT HAS DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE THAT PRIMARY CONTAINMENT WAS BREACHED AT 3 MILE ISLAND & 40 MILLION CURIES MAY HAVE BEEN RELEASED

Dr. Bertell:

You don't know me but may have read about me in the Time magazine cover story in February 1996 and also the front page of the Wall Street Journal in March 1998. I am a prominent whistleblower who uncovered major corruption within the NRC and my employer Northeast Utilities. As a result of events I uncovered at Millstone, Northeast Utilities was almost bankrupted, and the NRC extremely embarrassed. I was one of the expert witnesses at the TMI litigation and agree with you there was a major cover-up of vital information. The presidential commissions, the NRC and the DOE are all aware of this cover-up. As an expert witness, I had access to the all the original records.

I have documented evidence, which I have given to the NRC, that the primary containment was breached shortly after the hydrogen explosion that occurred on March 30, 1979. This breach occurred at a time when the radioactivity in the containment was close to its peak. Preliminary estimates indicate that as many as 40 million curies may have been released during the following hours. The NRC and the licensee estimated the maximum of 10 million curies of releases. Not one of the studies ever even questioned the data that was readily available as it could have alarmed members of the general public. Contact me if you have any questions.

Paul M. Blanch 135 Hyde Rd. West Hartford, CT 06117

----

Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 08:48:36 -0400 From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: PLEASE FAX/ WRITE PRESIDENT CARTER: DR. ROSALIE BERTELL'S SIGNED, NOTORIZED STATEMENT RE ONGOING 3 MILE ISLAND COVERUP BY JIMMY CARTER

Today, July 10, 2000 is the second anniversary of Dr Rosalie Bertell's signed, notorized statement below. Jane Rickover also had a statement signed and notorized [see http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/rickover.html] as to President Jimmy Carter's ONGOING cover up of the accident at 3 Mile Island which, if all information were to be disclosed concerning the accident, would have ended commerial nuclear power in the United States. This would have brought a major slow down if not halt to commercial nuclear power internationally. This ONGOING cover up & lie can be exposed only if WE fax and write President Carter, no call or e-mail but DELUGE President Carter with FAXES and WRITTEN, snail mailed letters to the following address:

Fax Jimmy Carter at: FAX: 404-331-0283

Write President Carter at:
1 Copenhill 453 Freedom Parkway Atlanta, Ga. 30307

If anyone can get this to the 1,990 victims of the 3 Mile Island Accident who are still trying to legally pursue this case and have them fax and/or write both individually and collectively petition Jimmy Carter that may greatly help Carter to open up about this. If Carter still does nothing, perhaps a demonstration can be arranged at the Carter Center at this outrageous, contemptous display of utter disregard for Democracy by the former President and ongoing perpetrater.

-Bill Smirnow

http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell.html

Dr. Rosalie Bertell is the President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, and an epidemiologist by proffesion. She is also an expert in the health effects of low level radiation. Dr. Bertell received the Right Livelihood Award [Alternative Nobel Peace Prize] in 1986. She can be reached at: IICPH@compuserve.com Phone:416-260-3404 Below is Dr. Bertell's signed, notorized statement of July 10, 1998 concerning the ongoing cover-up of the Three Mile Island Accident. Remember this coming March 28th is the 2oth Anniversary of the TMI Accident.Dr. Bertell's signed, notorized statement says:

"I feel that former President Jimmy Carter should come forth with all of the facts surrounding the Three Mile Island Accident, especially those which involved the radiation release and the dose to the public. This disclosure should, moreover, be in language which can be easily and correctly understood by the public, and not massaged to hide the truth.After the accident, for example, I found that the dose officially assigned to the public, was called: "measured dose to the public from the accident" - where "measured" meant it only included the dose after the rate matres were in place the third day after the accident began; "accident" meant that the radiation dose received during the same time period in 1978 when the TMI reactors were all operating and there was Chinese nuclear test fallout, could be subtracted.

President Carter was and continues to be by his silence, complicit in keeping the true facts of the Three Mile Island Accident from the American and world public.While it may have been legally although not morally, permissible to withold this information in 1979 under the guise of national security needs, now that the Cold War is over it is no longer credible that the US government protect the nuclear industry at the cost of the lives and health of its citizens.

As I, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, stated in my e-mail to President carter of February 10,1998 [enclosed], President carter was and is involved ithe cover up of the Three Mile island Accident, and in particular the serious health damage to the people who lived nearby. I was on the Citizen's Advisory Council to the Blue Ribbon Panel set up by Preident Carter to investigate the TMI accident.The members of this public panel did not have FBI clearance, with the possible exception of Dr. Kemmeny who had worked on the Manhattan Project. The staff, selected from those who worked for the NRC or DOE, did have such security clearance, and therefore they were able to withld any information they or their superiors wanted to declare "classified:, from the Panel. The nuclear weapon program demanded that workers and the military personnel handle this radioactive material and the nuclear ordance, therefore health effects of radiation could be classified for national security to prevent rebellion.

At the first meeting of the Citizen's Advisory Council to the Kemmeny Commission, I brought up this potential problem and asked what provisions had been made for the Commission members to have security clearance so that they might have full access to the truth about the accident. Another Advisory Council Member asked who was in charge of reactor operations during the accident. These two questions were never answered, and they were enough to cause the dissolution of the entire advisory panel. In fact, Dr. Kemmeny even stated publicly to the press that we had never been invited to Washington [although the Commission paid our air fare and hotel bills]. The Industry Advisory Council to the Kemmeny Commission continued to function during the invetigation.

The nuclear industry has frustrated the litigation of all of the serious health claims of the TMI exposed people, in spite of the Supreme Court's ruling in 1997 that these claims must be heard.Lawyers for the nuclear industryare gloating that they are "invincible" before the Courts. Using dirty tactics, they have managed to eliminate all of the expert witnesses which the victims had engaged to bring their cause before the Court, subsequently causing the cases to be dismissed for lack of witnesses. There may be as many as 2,000 people who have not had their grievances heard by the courts. This dismissal, after the Supreme Court Ruling, as accomplished througha judge's ruling, not through the court hearing which the people had been promised. The people have still, almost 20 years after the accident, not had their day incourt!

It is my opinion that former President carter should come forth and make the truth known so that the court cases for the victims can be reopened. I believe that it shouild also be made a court ruling that defendants, such as the nuclear industry, should not be allowed to declare their own witnesses the official spokespersons for a branch of knoweldge, able to define for the court the methodologies which they accept and practice as the only legitimate ones! It was such a ploy that was used to dismiss the TMI plaintiff's witnesses. This is blatant violation of justice and of the human rights of the victims.It is especially abhorrent in the questions of health efects of radiation, a field of public health which was usurped by the nuclear physicists under the exigencies of potential nuclear war after World War II. Professional Health Physicists are not required to have any training in biology, public health or any medical discipline. Their methodologies are very limited and unacceptable to many professionals in the fields of epidemiology, occupational and public health.

{Signed] Dr. Rosalie Bertell

Notorized by Michele D. Guy July 10, 1998

PLEASE SAVE, COPY, & SPREAD THIS MESSAGE AS FAR & WIDE AS POSSIBLE. TRY CALLING YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPERS, TV STATIONS, RADIO STATIONS AND HAVE THIS ONGOING COVER UP PRINTED AND/OR BROADCAST.

Thank/Bless You All,

-Bill Smirnow

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Message: 22
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:43:35 -0700
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

Delaying Cleanup at Hanford Increases Risks
HANFORD CLEANUP DELAYS RAISE RISKS
The Associated Press
Monday, July 10, 2000

RICHLAND -- Delays in the 30-year, $50 billion effort to clean up hazardous wastes at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are increasing risks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, said an audit from the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general.

Part of the problem is that regulators -- the EPA and the state Ecology Department -- have failed to enforce deadlines set under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the 560-square-mile site.

"We are facing big delays out there, due in part to funding and in part to DOE having (dragged) its feet," Ecology's Mike Wilson said Friday.

Major delays in pumping and treating Hanford's most dangerous wastes could extend the nation's most expensive nuclear cleanup by as much as 19 years beyond the original 2028 deadline, says the yearlong audit by EPA Regional Inspector General Truman Beeler.

The delays "significantly increase" the risk of leaks from old, compromised tanks into groundwater or air, the internal report said.

The document, filed in March, was obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility -- a whistle-blower group with offices in Washington, D.C., and Olympia -- through a public-records request. The Chronicle and Spokesman newspapers in Spokane reported its contents in yesterday's editions.

The report urged the EPA to give the tanks a high priority and keep the cleanup on track.

It criticized Ecology and EPA's Seattle office for lax enforcement and urged them to pick up the pace to protect public safety.

The Department of Energy has inadequately funded treatment of the tank problems and has repeatedly missed deadlines to address the hazards they represent, the audit said. EPA and Ecology said they're trying to improve oversight.

Wilson and EPA's Richard Albright said in a joint letter to Beeler, "We concur in full with both the facts as presented in each finding and with the associated recommendations."

The EPA audit "didn't tell us a lot we didn't already know, but we hope it draws attention to the frustrations we face," Wilson said Friday. "It also points out things we could do better, and we are addressing those issues."

Officials from Hanford's Office of River Protection, which oversees the tanks, weren't available Friday to respond to the audit, a DOE spokesman said.

Hanford offices were closed yesterday, and calls to officials rang unanswered.

"DOE's history of poor performance, the significance of the environmental problems . . . and the cost of the cleanup program" underscore the need for better management, the report said.

Since the audit, Ecology has asked the EPA "to help counter DOE resistance," Wilson said.

For decades, Hanford's primary mission was making plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Now it's cleanup.

The audit, conducted from November 1998 to January 2000, focuses on 177 underground tanks at Hanford that contain 60 percent of the government's most lethal radioactive waste -- leftovers from the Cold War arms race.

At least 1 million gallons of highly toxic and radioactive waste in 67 of Hanford's 149 old single-wall tanks have already leaked, some reaching groundwater.

The single-wall tanks -- built from the 1940s through the '60s -- were designed to last about 20 years. About 58 of them don't have effective leak-detection systems, the report said.

And the 28 newer double-shell tanks will exceed their design life by 2028.

Tank leaks, plus billions of gallons of more diluted contaminants poured into the ground since 1945, "could reach the Columbia River in as little as 20 years and continue for the next 5,000 years," the report said.

The audit identified numerous delays and management failures:

Ecology, charged with enforcing federal hazardous-waste laws at Hanford, has failed to compel the reservation to meet deadlines, so plans to stabilize the most fragile single-wall tanks have been delayed nine years to September 2004. Most of the delays involve concerns about gases and other chemical reactions inside the tanks.

BNFL Inc., the British company that was overseeing the design of plants to convert wastes into glass, was fired this spring after submitting a $15.2 billion estimate -- more than double the original $6.9 billion estimate. That threatens the 2001 deadline for starting glass-plant construction. Tank-farm contractor CH2M Hill will supervise the project for the rest of this year. Final treatment of tank wastes will take up to 19 years longer than predicted -- possibly until 2047 -- the report said.

Ecology hasn't resolved flammable-gas hazards in the tanks and was slow to flag a serious hydrogen-gas buildup in million-gallon, double-shell tank SY-101, considered one of the most dangerous. Ecology could have moved faster on SY-101 but left a safety job empty for over a year.

The job was filled in April. Ecology and a panel of national experts assembled by the DOE have made major progress recently with SY-101, said Tony Valero, Ecology's tank-waste-storage manager in Kennewick.

At least 25 tanks are estimated to be generating enough hydrogen gas to cause a fire if ignited, the report said. If a fire occurred, "there is the potential for up to 22 latent cancer fatalities from direct radiation and inhalation of radioactive contaminants," the report said. And the longer the waste stays in the tanks, the higher the probability of fire.

Ecology has failed to conduct adequate safety inspections on the tanks. Wilson said the agency has been focusing on upgrading the worst tanks, rather than inspecting all of them.

EPA Region 10 shares in the blame because it hasn't pushed Ecology to enforce federal hazardous-waste laws, the audit said.

The tanks will have to be used "significantly beyond" deadlines set by an August 1999 U.S. District Court-supervised consent order governing Hanford cleanup, the report said.

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Message: 23
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:43:12 -0700
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

more on mini-nukes
From: marylia <marylia@earthlink.net>
Tuesday, July 11, 2000 7:11 AM

Hi colleagues. Just a short note to follow on my comments regarding stopping the current mini-nukes language in the Senate bill. I hope you all understand that as important as stopping that provision is (and it is important!), a lot of mini-nuke research has gone on and will continue in the weapons design labs (Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia). Stopping this latest Senate attempt to facilitate even more mini-nuke R&D must be part of overall efforts to (1) change U.S. nuclear weapons policy, (2) stop the U.S. nuclear weapons program, called Stockpile Stewardship, in all its nefarious aspects, and (3) achieve the disarmament we promised in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty! Peace, Marylia

Marylia Kelley Tri-Valley
CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94550
<http://www.igc.org/tvc/> - is our web site, please visit us there!

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone (925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the Abolition 2000 global network for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the U.S. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Back From the Brink campaign to get nuclear weapons taken off hair-trigger alert.

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Message: 24
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:33:25 -0400
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>

China Greets Cohen with Anti-Missile Blast
Tuesday July 11 5:15 AM ET
By Paul Eckert

BEIJING (Reuters) - China greeted the arrival of Defense Secretary William Cohen on Tuesday by urging Washington to drop plans to build anti-missile defense systems that have united China and Russia in opposition.

``We urge the United States to drop as soon as possible this plan, which does not serve its interest and harms that of others,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi told a news conference.

China is bitterly opposed to plans to build a National Missile Defense (NMD) system to protect vulnerable parts of the United States from missile attacks and a Theater Missile Defense system (TMD) to shelter U.S. and allied troops in Asia.

Beijing fears such an umbrella could cover Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province that must be re-united with the mainland, and says the system would spark an arms race in Asia.

Beijing got no comfort on the TMD issue last weekend, when a senior U.S. arms negotiator said the United States had not ruled out sheltering Taiwan under the Asian missile defense umbrella.

``We don't rule out the possibility that some time in the future Taiwan may have TMD capabilities,'' U.S. arms control adviser John Holum said after two days of talks in Beijing.

Holum spoke to reporters on Saturday after the first arms control talks in more than a year between the United States and China, during which a U.S. test of the proposed NMD system failed.

Cohen Undaunted By Test Failure

The timing of the much-anticipated test added insult to injury for the worried Chinese.

The test failed because the so-called ``kill vehicle'' did not separate from its booster rocket. The trial never progressed to testing whether the weapon could find a dummy warhead in space and smash it out of the sky.

Cohen, in his first public response to the failed test, told reporters on his way to China the failure did not automatically mean he would recommend against moving forward with the system.

He must make a recommendation to President Clinton in four weeks on whether to go ahead with the NMD system.

``What I have to do is to await the full report, all of the analysis ... So at this point I'm just going to withhold any judgement,'' Cohen told reporters traveling with him.

Russia and China are adamantly opposed to the system, which is aimed at shielding the United States from attacks from states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. U.S. allies in Europe are worried it could lead to a renewed arms race.

``No matter what the United States says, it will not change China's opposition to the anti-missile defense program,'' said Chinese spokesman Sun.

China Fears Global Balance Upset

Asked about reports China's senior arms negotiator said NMD would force Beijing to change its policy on nuclear disarmament, Sun said: ``We will determine our disarmament policy in accordance with the development of the anti-missile system.''

The Guangzhou Daily quoted China's top disarmament diplomat, Sha Zukang, on Tuesday as saying the NMD meant that ``China could not help but take a more cautious approach toward joining nuclear disarmament efforts.''

Development of the missile defense system is being tied to a deadline of 2005, when U.S. intelligence estimates North Korea will have a missile capable of hitting U.S. soil.

China has said it fears the NMD system would upset the global strategic balance and reduce the value of its modest nuclear deterrent capability.

Cohen planned to broach the issue of missile technology proliferation with Chinese leaders, including U.S. suspicions that China is sending technology to Pakistan -- an accusation both countries deny.

``Just generally speaking we are concerned about the transfer of (missile) technology to Middle East countries and to Iran specifically,'' he said, adding he was not accusing China of currently supplying Iran with technology.

Holum said he failed to bridge gaps with China over alleged Chinese sales of missile technology to Pakistan.

The New York Times said last week China had stepped up shipment of special steels, guidance systems and technical expertise to Pakistan.

Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk
globalnet@mindspring.com

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

Message: 25
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:29:34 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

U.S. judge takes himself off uranium-plant workers' liability suit
July 11, 2000
The Courier-Journal Home Page
By JAMES MALONE, The Courier-Journal
Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2000/0007/11/000711uran.html

PADUCAH, Ky. -- Just six weeks after saying he saw no conflict of interest, a federal judge has stepped aside from hearing a uranium-plant-related lawsuit against companies he once represented in private practice.

The case involves a liability suit seeking billions of dollars in damages for workers who claim they were sickened or injured at the Paducah uranium-enrichment plant. The workers contend they were exposed to toxic substances at the plant, where there is extensive contamination from radioactive waste and other substances.

In an order dated Friday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell of Paducah wrote that "upon reflection, the court realizes some of the parties are well known to the judge." And because the community is small, Russell wrote, he is "well acquainted with personnel employed at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant" and "cannot help but believe that some of these persons may possibly be key witnesses or even decision makers in this litigation."

Russell, who as a lawyer handled workers' compensation cases for companies that formerly operated the plant, said he still believes his previous representation of some of the defendants did not create a conflict and did not require him to step aside.

The plaintiffs' attorneys had claimed a perception of unfairness was created by Russell's previous legal work.

In his order, Russell explained that "potentially, facts may develop that would create an appearance of partiality on (my) part as the litigation develops." He added that he did "not want facts to develop in the litigation that would require recusal so late that any party would be prejudiced by the ruling."

Legal ethics experts questioned earlier by The Courier Journal agreed that Russell's prior representation was not a conflict of interest.

Russell said he will refer the case to Charles R. Simpson, the chief federal judge in the state's Western District, for reassignment. The case is tentatively set for trial in January 2003.

The plaintiffs -- 700 current and former employees and their families -- are seeking class--action status for a $10 billion case against Lockheed Martin, Martin Marietta and Union Carbide, all former operators of the uranium plant. The suit also names as a defendant General Electric, which operated the Hanford Reservation at Richland, Wash., and nuclear weapons reactors. The suit alleges that nuclear fuel shipped from Hanford to Paducah to be re-energized from 1953 to 1977 contained highly radioactive contaminants.

--

Comments:

There are other even stronger issues on conflicts of interest in this case. A lawyer named Egan is the attn of record and has clients like WCS. Egan has been selling WCS services in Paducah, and WCS has been trying to cut deals with USEC to put a plant in Texas next to WCS. The negative publicity of this case hurts USEC and makes them vulnerable to buy outs, take overs, and leverage dealing.

Egan has clients that were former USEC Health Physics persons and now work for WCS. There is a tritium allegation that appears misplaced towards USEC in this case.

Egan is also highly connected with playing up radiation over and above the more pressing health issues of HF and fluorides emissions. This was aided by Bob Alvarez playing this up in the Wash Post also.

Lots of conflicts in this case.