------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
India Cautiously Welcomes China's Anti-Proliferation Pledge
Insurers keep eye on costs of scanning tests
China avoids U.S. sanctions over missile sales
A Parting Deal With China
China Pledges Not to Aid International Missile Development
Boeing gets another shot at satellite launches
China Escapes U.S. Arms Sanctions, Iran, Pakistan Hit
China Pledges No More Missile Deals
China promises not to sell missiles
U.S. Hails China on Missile Pledge
China to Stop Selling A-Arms Delivery Systems
U.S. Waives Proliferation Penalties On China
Beijing avoids sanctions for sales of arms technology
Pakistan protests new U.S. sanctions
India Hopes China Will Honor Arms Control Pledge
ABM: Putin moots compromise
U.S. threatening sanctions on Russia
Russia Drops Pledge Not To Arm Iran
Hanford loses out to Idaho for plutonium project
Price tag goes up for cleanup at Paducah plant
Lars-Erik Nelson, 59, Writer Of Columns at The Daily News
Workers to get cut of Piketon power sale
Ohio
Hanford reactor will stay closed
Fast Flux reactor headed for shutdown
Test Nuclear Reactor Is to Remain Closed
Hanford reactor won't be restarted
NUCLEAR REPORT CARD
Rocky Flats sends most waste

MILITARY
Arafat Criticizes U.S. for Arming Israel
China defends lower priority for human rights
MULTINATIONAL DRUG BUST
IRAQ: CLAIMS OF A `HIT'
MYANMAR: GO-AHEAD FOR LAWSUIT
RUSSIA: BLAIR'S VISIT
Syria asked to confirm Iraqi oil deal
U.N. war-crimes chief pushes Yugoslav case
CHECKPOINT SAPPER JOURNAL
NAVY WON'T BE REPAID BY GAY MAN
States
Republican hope fades for military vote tally

OTHER
Agency to Halt Endangered Species Listings
Agency: Legal costs endanger species
States
The Kyoto myth
Giuliani in Washington to Block Police Suit
Inconsistencies Examined in Officers' Trial Testimony
Police May Raise Spending 25% for Anticrime Program
Los Angeles Settles Lawsuit Against Police
LAPD shooting victim gets $15 million
L.A. to pay $15M in police corruption case
Nebraska
Software to Track E-Mail Raises Privacy Concerns
Report: Carnivore could be abused
But Not Everyone Approves
Suspect in Terror Case Is Mistreated, Wife Says

ACTIVISTS
Emergency Alert on Climate Treaty Negotiations
Clock Ticking at Climate Conference
A Final March for Hosea Williams, and Many Tributes
Grape Boycott Called Off
Idaho
Judge bars buffer zone at abortion clinics
Anti-election activities in Montreal and Quebec City


-------- NUCLEAR

India Cautiously Welcomes China's Anti-Proliferation Pledge

Inside China Today
Nov 22, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=223288

NEW DELHI -- (Agence France Presse) India on Wednesday cautiously welcomed a pledge by China to enforce strict export controls against missile proliferation, saying it hoped Beijing would stick to its commitment.

The Indian foreign ministry, reacting to a waiver of U.S. sanctions against China, said in a statement that it hoped "effective implementation of the agreed measures would mark a step in the right direction.

"India has several times in the past voiced its grave concern about missile proliferation and the adverse impact this has on the security environment of our region.

"Such missile proliferation has unfortunately in recent years continued despite assurances to the contrary," it said. "It is our expectation that this process of proliferation will be halted and we shall ... not have any grounds for complaint in future."

India, which fought a brief but bitter border war with China in 1962 and three wars and a border conflict with Pakistan, staged nuclear tests in 1998 citing regional security threats.

The tests were followed by a riposte by Pakistan, earning both South Asian countries a host of sanctions from the U.S. and other countries.

The United States, accusing Pakistan and Iran of receiving missile technology from China, imposed sanctions against them Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Washington also announced the lifting of similar sanctions against China after Beijing issued an anti-proliferation statement saying it would no longer assist countries in building ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

"The new sanctions will actually have very limited economic effect, but they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs," a U.S. official said in Washington, referring to Pakistan and Iran.

Last year, the U.S. National Intelligence Council said it had concluded beyond doubt that China had transferred nuclear-capable M-11 missiles to Pakistan early in the 1990s.

Suspicions of continued Chinese aid to "countries of concern" in Asia are still lingering.

--- USA Today

Insurers keep eye on costs of scanning tests

Nov. 21, 2000
By Julie Appleby,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/life/health/hcare/lhhca135.htm

It's not just prescription drugs anymore.

The next jump in health care insurance premiums may be fueled by the soaring use of scanning tests used to detect cancer, heart disease, fractures and thinning bones.

"It's certainly an area a lot of managed care companies are wrestling with," says Gary Frazier, managing director of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown.

Some insurers report 15% to 20% annual increases in the use of X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) scans and certain cardiac exams. Already, more than two dozen health plans have hired outside firms to help get a handle on costs, meaning more scrutiny of who qualifies for the tests.

Even so, growth in the use of the tests isn't likely to decline. It's being driven by an aging population, new and better scanning equipment, patients demanding the tests after seeing advertisements and time-pressed doctors looking for quicker diagnoses.

"The industry right now is booming," says Ted Opie, a general manager at GE Medical Systems, whose $7.5 billion imaging equipment division is seeing 20% annual increases in orders.

For doctors and consumers, the boom means more and better tests, but also increased oversight by insurers, who determine when tests are considered "medically necessary."

"What we're really after is being able to ensure appropriate care for patients," says Frank Apgar, senior medical director at Blue Shield of California. The insurer is one of 18 that have hired National Imaging Associates of Upper Saddle River, N.J., to help manage radiology services. Another firm offering similar services is MedSolutions of Nashville, with eight insurers under contract.

For the past year, Blue Shield doctors considering sending patients for non-emergency diagnostic scans have called National Imaging first for consultation and authorization.

Apgar says there are good medical reasons not to rush into certain tests. "With CT scans, there's a significant amount of radiation," Apgar says. "It's important for patients to discuss with their doctors, 'Do I need this test?' "

Initially, National Imaging estimated that Blue Shield patients used diagnostic radiology services 20% more than expected based on averages calculated by the firm. After a year of requiring prior approval, Blue Shield found that 10% to 14% of the requests were either denied or withdrawn - a measure of how many may be unnecessary.

Some national radiology experts say tests aren't being ordered unnecessarily.

"The unlikely explanation is that physicians have suddenly decided to order exams on a whim," says Dietder Enzmann, head of radiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "I don't see a great deal of tests being ordered that don't seem to be indicated."

-------- china

China avoids U.S. sanctions over missile sales

CNN
November 22, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/11/21/china.missiles.02/index.html

BEIJING -- The U.S. State Department has gone ahead with sanctions against Iran and Pakistan but decided Tuesday to spare China, their suspected partner in deals that may have boosted their nuclear capability.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/11/21/china.missiles.02/map.china.gif

China avoided U.S. sanctions by vowing on Tuesday not to sell missiles or components to countries developing nuclear weapons.

The sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, ranging from guns and mortars to cargo planes, were announced Tuesday but took effect November 17.

Senior State Department officials told CNN the decision to impose the sanctions was based on evidence of a series of missile transfers from China to the two countries in the early 1990s.

China says it will improve controls

Chinese officials said Tuesday they will improve controls to stop unlicensed transfers of missile technology, and will publish a comprehensive list of "missile-related items and dual-use items" under export restrictions.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said Tuesday.

China agreed two years ago not to transfer entire missile systems.

The goal of the sanctions "is not to put someone on or off the hook ... (but) stop exports of missiles," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "That's what really matters, and that's what we have achieved."

Sanctions against companies lifted

U.S. officials said the State Department will also lift sanctions that have already been imposed on certain Chinese companies, and begin considering approving licenses for China to launch U.S. satellites.

"China will exercise special scrutiny and caution, even for items not specifically contained on the control list," Sun said Tuesday.

China, he added, will take into consideration whether an item could be diverted to missile programs before issuing export licenses.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," Boucher said.

Vow caps years of talks

China's pledge and Washington's response capped years of negotiations that intensified after they resumed in July following a 14-month suspension by Beijing. China had suspended the talks in anger over the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

The negotiators met again earlier this month and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the matter during last week's meeting of Pacific Rim economies in Brunei, Boucher said.

State Department officials said the missiles China sold to Pakistan and Iran were M-11s -- also known as category 1 missiles under the Missile Technology Control Regime, or MTCR -- and can travel more than 300 kilometers (186 miles.)

China also sold missile-related technology and missile components to Pakistan and Iran, the U.S. officials said.

Chinese leader agrees to restrain regime

In addition to the alleged transfers to Pakistan and Iran, U.S. officials have suspected China of providing missiles and related technology to Libya and North Korea.

China has denied transferring missiles or related technologies to other countries. Beijing showed a renewed interest in controlling the spread of missiles after Pakistan and India traded tit-for-tat nuclear test explosions in 1998.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed later that year during a summit in Beijing with U.S. President Bill Clinton to abide by, but not sign, the 13-year-old control regime. The MTCR is a voluntary institution of countries pledging missile restraint.

CNN State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---

A Parting Deal With China
Clinton Declares, Immediately Waives Ballistic Missile Proliferation Sanctions

ABC News
10/22/00
By David Ruppe
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/chinamissilepolicy_001122.html

Nov. 22 - In a most unusual maneuver, the Clinton Administration imposed economic sanctions on China for allowing missile technology to go to Pakistan and Iran - and then immediately waived them.

The waiver was prompted, officials said, by a new vow from Beijing to stop allowing destabilizing ballistic technologies to other countries.

The sanctions, which would have restricted the use of Chinese missile technology for U.S. commercial satellite launches, were required by law if the U.S. government had evidence of Chinese ballistic missile proliferation.

State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher, during a regularly scheduled briefing, described the proliferation the U.S. government believes occurred, including the transfer of complete ballistic missiles to Pakistan.

Boucher said the Administration's waiver was made "in consideration of" newly announced Chinese policies against allowing the spread of ballistic missile technology and a strengthening of its export control system.

Can Beijing Be Trusted?

The waiver was criticized by a long-time Republican critic of the administration's China proliferation policy.

"Their arms control record is a dismal disaster, and for them to say that China has made this new promise is absolutely ridiculous," said Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. "It's laughable, except for the severity of what they're doing."

"There is no reason to believe that China will be any more truthful in its promises on non-proliferation than it has been in the past," said Larry Wortzel, director of the Asian Studies Center at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"It comes at a time when the Congress is out of town, when the nation is transfixed by elections. I think that it is a response probably to an awful lot of campaign financing," he said.

The State Department's Boucher conceded the success of the waiver would depend on whether China lived up to its commitments.

"Its value ultimately will depend on whether those commitments are implemented fully and conscientiously," he said.

China's 'Commitment'

Boucher specifically cited a statement made Tuesday by China's foreign ministry spokesperson, which he said reflected a "clear policy commitment" not to assist other countries to develop ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons, and to improve its technology controls.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Boucher said that stated "commitment" was part of deal with the Chinese - negotiated over several years - whereby the U.S. would not impose sanctions required by China's past assistance to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran.

"What we've done here is to work out an arrangement that commits China not to assist other countries in the development of missile technology ... to put in place comprehensive missile-related export controls," he said.

China's Prior Violations

The United States for years has tried to discourage countries with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons from spreading those destabilizing technologies around the globe.

Despite those efforts, some Chinese entities had previously transferred to Pakistan what the United States considers the most destabilizing types items such as "complete missiles," their major subsystems or their production facilities, according to Boucher.

Boucher also said components of materials used to make ballistic missiles and subsystems were also transferred to Pakistan, and similarly serious technology was transferred to Iran.

There has been great tension over the past year between Pakistan and India, each of which tested nuclear weapons and have test-fired ballistic missiles that could deliver them.

Reluctance to Sanction?

The sanctions announced Tuesday, of course, were never imposed.

"Obviously, you can't waive sanctions that aren't in place. In this particular case, the imposition and the waiver occur at the same time," said a State Department official on condition of anonymity.

Rep. Weldon says he and others in Congress have tried unsuccessfully for years to get the Clinton administration to implement tough sanctions against China for suspected transfers of ballistic missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

"I did a floor speech two years ago where I documented 37 violations of existing arms control treaties by China and Russia. The administration imposed the required sanctions twice," said Weldon.

"The other 35 times with China and Russia the administration pretended the violation had not occurred or they said they did not have enough evidence," he said.

Boucher was not asked to address why the administration only now - when the Chinese agreed not to proliferate any longer - decided to impose these particular sanctions.

The State Department official who would not be identified would not say if the administration had any new information on Chinese proliferation. The source said only that such information on proliferation "was developing over time."

"As information was developing, we were talking to the Chinese about our concerns, and why we though that exports of this kind were regionally destabilizing," the official said.

Boucher disputed a suggestion by a reporter the United States was letting China off the hook.

"I would make the argument that the goal here is not to put somebody on the hook or off the hook. The goal here is to end sales of missiles and missile-related components," he said.

Pakistani, Iranian Entities Sanctioned

Boucher also announced the United States will impose two-year sanctions against certain Iranian and Pakistani entities that received the Chinese technology, and that those sanctions would be announced shortly.

Those entities included a subsection of Pakistan's Ministry of Defense: the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and its sub-units.

But Boucher suggested those sanctions would not be a big deal for either country.

"Because of the ongoing U.S. embargoes against Iran and pre-existing U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, the new sanctions will actually have very limited economic effect, but they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

Victory for U.S. Companies

The waiver was received warmly by the U.S. satellite industry.

"I think it kind of re-enforces the things that we've been saying all along, which is that satellites were never the problem here, it's always been about launch technology and missile technology," says Clayton Mowry, Executive Director of the Satellite Industry Association.

He says U.S. satellite manufacturers have been concerned about losing market share to European companies and the potential Chinese market for telecommunications services.

According to Boucher, the sanctions would have prohibited discussions on extending a 1995 U.S.-China agreement regarding international trade and commercial launch services. Washington several months ago had decided against negotiating a new agreement to replace the 1995 one which expires next year, he said.

"If the sanctions had been imposed upon the Chinese entities, one consequence would have been to preclude commercial space interactions, like launches of U.S. satellites on Chinese rockets," said Boucher.

The State Department also will resume processing license applications for American satellites to be launched on Chinese rockets. The applications were put on hold in February over concerns Chinese companies had continued exporting missile-related materials to Pakistan and Iran.

Some have argued that allowing U.S. companies to launch satellites on hired Chinese rockets can help China improve military missile capabilities.

"The FY 1999 Defense Authorization Act, and the Cox Commission report, and the indictment of the Loral Corp., and the grand jury investigation still of Hughes Corp. make it very clear that providing satellite assistance to China increases China's ability to target the United States.

---

China Pledges Not to Aid International Missile Development

Fox News
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By Christopher Bodeen Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/world/112200/china.sml

China has made its strongest commitment to date not to sell nuclear missile technology abroad, winning an immediate promise from Washington to forgo possibly bruising sanctions and to boost commercial space cooperation.

The deal between the two countries is aimed at curbing missile proliferation and should head off punitive legislation aimed at China in the U.S. Congress. Both sides hope it will put to rest a long and contentious issue between Washington and Beijing.

Minutes after China made its pledge late Tuesday in Beijing, the State Department praised the move as helping "achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security."

Both sides reap immediate benefits. China wins a reprieve from U.S. sanctions against Chinese companies suspected of transferring dangerous missile technology. It also gains a promise from Washington to begin processing licenses for commercial space cooperation, including the launching of U.S. satellites by China.

For its part, the United States is freed from imposing sanctions that could undermine fragile ties with Beijing and wins assurances that Pakistan, Iran and North Korea won't be benefiting from any new Chinese missile technology.

"This is China's clearest and most complete statement on missile proliferation," said Phillip Saunders, a China proliferation expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "If there are loopholes, it's not evident."

China also hopes the step will head off planned legislation in Congress requiring the U.S. president to report on Chinese missile technology transfers and potentially level sanctions for violations.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi, in remarks carried by China's Xinhua News Agency, said Clinton administration officials have opposed the legislation and will recommend the same position to the next president.

China's pledge, made in comments by Sun, moved it closer to full compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime - a 13-year-old agreement signed by 32 countries that restricts transfers of missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, along with their components.

Beijing agreed two years ago not to transfer whole missile systems, but has taken a more ambiguous approach to components and technology that could end up as parts of systems.

Under the agreement, China will for the first time publish a list of restricted missile-related and dual-use items. Controls to stop unlicensed transfers of missile technology will be improved and transfers to countries developing nuclear-capable missiles will be subject to special scrutiny even if export of the technology isn't banned outright, Sun said.

Although Sun did not mention specific countries, Washington has suspected China of aiding the missile programs of Pakistan, Iran and North Korea since the early 1990s and has in the past imposed sanctions on Chinese companies.

Evidence has grown about Beijing's transfers of missile technology. Intelligence reports over the past two years have sketched continuing Chinese assistance to Pakistan since the early 1990s. A CIA report in August also found that Chinese firms sent missile-related items, raw materials and other assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Experts say China has progressively committed to wider and more specific controls following years of nudging by the Clinton administration. After Pakistan and India traded nuclear test explosions in 1998, Beijing showed renewed interest in controlling the spread of missiles.

However, Beijing has publicly denied ever transferring missiles or related technology to foreign countries.

Pakistan responded in similar form on Wednesday, reiterating denials that it bought missile technology in defiance of international agreements. Pakistan possesses a minimum nuclear deterrence that needs neither American nor Chinese technology to sustain it, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.

In its response to the Chinese announcement, the State Department said new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China in the past.

---

Boeing gets another shot at satellite launches
Clinton, China make agreement to boost commercial space cooperation

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF and NEWS SERVICES
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/business/boe225.shtml

BEIJING -- China has made its strongest commitment to date not to sell nuclear missile technology abroad, winning an immediate promise from the United States to forgo possibly bruising sanctions and to boost commercial space cooperation.

The agreement, announced yesterday by China and the Clinton administration, will allow U.S. companies, including Boeing, to apply again for licenses to launch satellites on Chinese rockets.

However, The New York Times quoted unnamed State Department officials as saying Boeing Space and Communications, the former Hughes Electronic Corp. subsidiary based in Southern California, and Loral Space and Communications would not be affected by the sanction waiver.

The two companies, which were at the forefront of satellite launches in China, are being investigated to determine whether they improperly advised the Chinese on rocket design in the mid-1990s without obtaining State Department licenses.

The companies have denied any wrongdoing, but officials said they will not be able to apply for licenses until the cases are resolved.

Loral, however, said yesterday it may be among the first companies to benefit from the decision. "On the face of it, this sounds like a terrific breakthrough for the U.S. satellite business," said William Wright, president of Loral Space Systems Asia-Pacific.

Boeing said it needed time to analyze the accord. "Boeing will monitor all developments closely," said Connie Custer, communications manager for the company's government relations office in Washington, D.C.

"We will comply with all government regulations," she said. "But it is premature for us to talk about the actions that Boeing will take."

Boeing Space and Communications, the nation's top satellite manufacturer, is headquartered in Seal Beach, Calif.

---

China Escapes U.S. Arms Sanctions, Iran, Pakistan Hit

Inside China Today
Nov 22, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=222831

WASHINGTON -- (Reuters) The United States said on Tuesday it was waiving sanctions against China for past missile technology transfers to Iran and Pakistan but imposing them on these two states for receiving the equipment.

http://www.reuters.com

"The U.S. side has decided to waive sanctions under U.S. law for past Chinese assistance to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran, and to resume certain commercial space interactions with China," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

"Sanctions have been imposed upon Pakistani and Iranian recipients of the Chinese assistance," he added.

China was liable for sanctions because of the transfers of technology including whole missiles, in Pakistan's case, or in Iran's, of components to make them, Boucher said.

But President Bill Clinton, who leaves office in January, had granted a waiver because China's foreign ministry had pledged to clean up its act on arms technology exports.

A senior State Department official said that in the case of Iran, China's pledge to control exports "can certainly make a big impact in terms of slowing down developments".

He said the shorter the range of missile, the less Iran's dependence on foreign technology. "If they want an advanced missile capability, the horse is not yet out of the barn."

CHINESE RECOVERY, SLOW IRANIAN THAW

U.S.-Sino relations have been gradually recovering since last year when U.S. jets on a NATO mission against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic hit China's embassy in Belgrade in a bombing the United States has always said was accidental.

Though Boucher said the sanctions would have little impact on Iran because of an existing embargo, the announcement was unlikely to improve the tone of a diplomatic "pas-de-deux" as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refers to efforts to improve ties with reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

Boucher said existing sanctions also spelled limited impact on Pakistan, but that the new ones sent "a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

India and Pakistan are subject to U.S. sanctions because of their tit-for-tat nuclear tests of 1998.

Iran remains among seven nations labeled by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism for its opposition to the Middle East peace process, a designation which robs it of much U.S. aid.

What the United States calls Iran's desire for weapons of mass destruction also boosted arguments in the United States for a missile defense shield which would cost tens of billions of dollars to build but Clinton has deferred to his successor.

Boucher said the waiver meant the United States could resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation with Chinese companies, and talks on extending a 1995 deal on international trade and commercial launch services.

But the U.S. government would impose a two-year ban on export licenses for commerce-and state-controlled items in all new U.S. government contracts on several entities in Iran and Pakistan, and their subunits and successor bodies.

In Iran, the Defense Industries Organization, defense ministry and Armed Forces Logistics Command were affected.

In Pakistan, the affected bodies were the defense ministry and Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission.

Boucher said Beijing's foreign ministry had given a clear policy commitment not to help other states to develop ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear weapons.

It also pledged to improve its export control system, including publishing at an early date a full list of missile-related items, including dual-use ones, Boucher added.

He said the waiver depended on Beijing keeping its promise. "In that connection, while the United States is waiving sanctions that would otherwise be imposed for past transfers to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran, the waiver does not apply to any transfers that might occur in the future."

He added, "We're confident that the next administration will follow this question closely."

---

China Pledges No More Missile Deals
U.S. won't impose sanctions for exporting technology to other nations

San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
Norman Kempster, Los Angeles Times
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/11/22/MN52960.DTL

Washington -- The Clinton administration agreed yesterday not to punish China for exporting ballistic missile components to Iran and Pakistan after Beijing promised to end all future technological cooperation with countries trying to develop missile weaponry.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Chinese promise -- if kept -- would bring Beijing into "the international nonproliferation mainstream" after years of insisting that it had the right to sell missile parts and some other weapons technology to any country willing to pay for them.

Boucher said the administration had determined that China's sales to Iran and Pakistan would require sanctions under U.S. law. But he said Washington agreed to waive the regulations to acknowledge the Chinese pledge, which was hammered out during protracted negotiations.

But Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., a longtime critic of President Clinton's policy of engagement with China, said the administration traded a waiver of U.S. law for a vague promise that may not be kept.

"We are all agreed that winning compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime is good policy," Cox said in a telephone interview, referring to an international accord to limit exports of missile technology. But, he complained, "the waiver of U.S. law is in exchange for virtually the same promise that (China) made in October 1994 and then violated."

The moves, announced about the same time in Washington and Beijing, marked a substantial warming in U.S.-China relations, which were badly damaged when U. S. bombs erroneously hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia last year.

Among other steps, officials said that China will, for the first time, publish a comprehensive list of "missile-related items and dual-use items" whose export will be restricted.

"This is China's clearest and most complete statement on missile proliferation," said Phillip Saunders, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons transfers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "If there are loopholes, it's not evident."

In addition to holding off on mandatory sanctions, Boucher said, the administration agreed to resume consideration of the use of Chinese rockets to launch U.S.-manufactured satellites. U.S.-China cooperation on satellites was suspended after a controversy over charges that in 1996, American companies gave U.S. secrets to China to help the Beijing regime determine why a Chinese rocket exploded during the unsuccessful launch of a U.S. satellite.

At the same time as it was relaxing its attitude toward China, the administration imposed sanctions on the military and space agencies of Pakistan and Iran for receiving the Chinese technology. Boucher said the sanctions prohibit new U.S. government contracts with either government's military and space programs.

But, he said, the restrictions will have very limited economic impact because such transactions are already banned by an existing U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier sanctions against Pakistan in response to its 1998 nuclear tests.

"But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs," Boucher said.

A senior State Department official said that if China lives up to its pledge, it will certainly slow Iran's missile development program. He said Tehran is able to build short-range missiles on its own but needs help if it wants to produce longer-range rocketry.

---

China promises not to sell missiles

Florida Today
November 22, 2000
By Charles Hutzler Associated Press Writer
http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000b/112200a.htm
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/6/news/docs/036707.htm

BEIJING (AP) -- China promised Tuesday not to sell missiles or components to countries developing nuclear weapons, easing tensions with Washington over long-suspected Chinese assistance to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

A statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

"China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Sun said that China will improve controls to stop unlicensed transfers of missile technology and -- for the first time -- publish a comprehensive list of "missile-related items and dual-use items" whose export will be restricted.

For countries developing nuclear-capable missiles, "China will exercise special scrutiny and caution, even for items not specifically contained on the control list," Sun said. He added that before issuing export licenses, China will consider whether an item could be diverted to missile programs.

Although Sun did not mention specific countries, Washington has suspected China of aiding the missile programs of Pakistan, Iran and North Korea since the early 1990s and has in the past imposed sanctions on Chinese companies.

In response to China's statement, the U.S. State Department announced it would forgo imposing sanctions on Chinese companies previously involved in spreading the dangerous technologies and would begin processing licenses for commercial space cooperation, including the launching of U.S. satellites by China.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.

China's pledge and Washington's favorable response capped years of negotiations that quickened since they resumed in July following a 14-month suspension by Beijing in anger over the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

Boucher said negotiators met again earlier this month in Beijing and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed proliferation with Chinese officials at last week's meeting of Pacific Rim economies in Brunei.

"This is China's clearest and most complete statement on missile proliferation," said Phillip Saunders, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons transfers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "If there are loopholes, it's not evident."

Since the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration has tried to persuade Beijing to bolster arms controls and join international agreements while trying to avoid punishing China with broad sanctions that could undermine ties.

China has responded positively, progressively committing to broader and more specific controls, Saunders said, adding that while Beijing's "record has not been perfect, it has improved."

Evidence has grown about Beijing's transfers of missile technology. An intelligence finding last year determined that China transferred nuclear-capable M-11 missiles to Pakistan in the early 1990s. A CIA report in August said unspecified Chinese assistance to Pakistan continued in 1999. The report also found that Chinese firms provided missile-related items, raw materials and other assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

China has publicly denied ever transferring missiles or related technologies to foreign countries. After Pakistan and India traded nuclear test explosions in 1998, Beijing showed renewed interest in controlling the spread of missiles.

At a Beijing summit with President Clinton later that year, Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed to abide by, but not sign, the Missile Technology Control Regime -- a 13-year-old agreement signed by 32 countries that restricts transfers of missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

But U.S. arms control negotiators have said that China has interpreted the agreement narrowly, agreeing not to transfer whole systems but taking a more ambiguous approach to components.

China's statement on Tuesday appears to address those concerns while steering clear of formally joining the missile control pact. Sun, the Chinese spokesman, said that in drawing up a list of restricted items China will consider the practices of other countries.

---

U.S. Hails China on Missile Pledge

Associated Press
November 22, 2000 Filed at 3:20 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-China.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/001122/03/int-us-china

WASHINGTON (AP) -- China's promise to not help other countries develop ballistic missiles could slow down Iran's ambitious weapons program, U.S. officials say.

But like a similar pledge by Russia, which has not blocked all assistance to Iran, the pledge announced in Beijing and welcomed at the State Department is only as good as China's willingness to implement it, the officials said Tuesday.

Still, the administration responded by immediately waiving economic sanctions on Chinese companies suspected of assisting Pakistan and Iran in the past.

``This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

As a result, the United States will resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation between American and Chinese companies, including the launching of U.S. satellites in China, Boucher said.

The two countries also will resume negotiations on extending a 1995 agreement on international trade, he said.

However, Boucher said, new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China.

In Iran, the sanctioned entities are the Defense Industry Organization, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and their sub-units.

The sanctioned entities in Pakistan are the Ministry of Defense and the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and their sub-units and successors.

Boucher said this means that for two years all new U.S. government contracts will be denied to the Pakistani Ministry of Defense, Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and there will be no imports of their products into the United States.

The new sanctions will have very limited economic effect because of a U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, Boucher said. ``But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs.''

U.S. officials are not minimizing the promise, especially since it follows a similar pledge by North Korea not to export technology to countries for ballistic missile programs.

China's promise not to sell missiles or components to countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could ease tensions with Washington over long-suspected aid to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

The statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

``China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in the statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

---

China to Stop Selling A-Arms Delivery Systems

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22MISS.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - The Clinton administration and China said today that China had pledged to stop selling missile parts or the equipment needed for missile production to countries developing nuclear weapons.

In exchange, Washington agreed to waive economic sanctions for past sales of such matériel to Iran and Pakistan, the State Department said. This will allow American companies to apply again for licenses to launch satellites on Chinese rockets.

The agreement would help bring China into line with international standards restricting missile-related exports, officials said. They said that step, like membership in the World Trade Organization, would push China to be more responsible.

But in announcing the accord, which President Clinton and President Jiang Zemin reviewed at their meeting last week in Brunei, officials cautioned that China's pledges have yet to be enacted. "This looks good on paper," said one senior official involved in the talks. "What we'll have to watch is implementation," a job for the next administration.

The most promising aspect of the accord, officials said, was China's commitment to adopt an export-control list under which Beijing would require Chinese companies to get licenses to export "equipment, materials and technology that can be directly used in missiles, as well as missile-related dual-use items."

But the Chinese failed to specify what penalty companies would suffer if they exported without licenses.

It was also unclear how thoroughly the export-control list would be in compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime. That agreement, which restricts sales of specific missiles and missile parts, was signed by 32 countries, but not China.

China's continued export of missile production facilities to Pakistan has been of particular concern in Washington since the nuclear tests by Pakistan and India in 1998.

The issue complicated White House efforts to win Senate passage of a bill this year granting China permanent normal trade relations, especially after American intelligence agencies reported that China exported a few dozen long-range missiles to Pakistan in 1992 and sent missile production facilities in the 1990's. Among the items China sent to Pakistan after the 1998 nuclear tests were specialty steels and guidance systems.

The announcement today, in effect, confirms those Chinese exports, which under American law required sanctions. The administration said today that while technically it was imposing the sanctions, it was waiving them in view of the new pledges.

For American companies, the immediate effect will be the unfreezing of licence applications to launch American satellites on Chinese rockets. Applications were frozen in February because of concerns that Chinese aerospace companies were exporting missile-related materials to Pakistan and Iran.

Many American companies, from cellular telephone networks to international television conglomerates, are waiting in line for satellites to be sent into orbit, and China has expressed eagerness to offer low-cost services.

Two American companies at the forefront of satellite launches in China, Hughes Space and Communications International and Loral Space and Communications, will not be affected by the waiving of sanctions, officials said, because they are under investigation to determine whether they improperly advised the Chinese on rocket design in the mid-1990's without obtaining licenses. The companies have denied any wrongdoing, but officials said they would not be allowed to apply for licenses until the cases are resolved.

In the past, Washington has twice imposed sanctions on China for its proliferation of missiles.

Each time the sanctions were lifted on the strength of promises made by Beijing. In 1991 sanctions were imposed on China for assisting Pakistan's missile program in the late 1980's; they were lifted a year later. In 1993 sanctions were imposed for China's help to Pakistan for the building of M-11 missiles; they were removed in 1994 when China agreed to comply with the main provisions of the technology control regime.

In light of China's past record, the agreement today was greeted with some skepticism. Senator Fred Thompson, Republican of Tennessee, said, "Once again, the Clinton administration appears to be rewarding China for promises made instead of promises kept."

A Democratic staff aide said the "jury was still out." But the agreement appeared, for the first time, to rule out any kind of Chinese assistance for missile programs in other countries, the aide said.

Yet the accord merely says in its first paragraph that China has no "intention" of assisting, in any way, any country to develop ballistic missiles that can be be used to deliver nuclear weapons, the aide said.

At a State Department briefing, a senior official was asked if the administration was letting China off the hook. In reply, the official argued that having made the "legal determination" that China had indeed exported missiles, exports that required sanctions, the administration then chose to waive the penalties.

"The purpose of the law after all is not to impose penalties," the official said. "The purpose is to encourage better nonproliferation behavior."

---

U.S. Waives Proliferation Penalties On China

Washington Post
Wednesday, November 22, 2000 ; Page A20
By John Lancaster Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48973-2000Nov21.html
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858829s.htm

The Clinton administration yesterday announced the waiver of penalties against China for supplying missile parts to Iran and Pakistan, after Chinese officials formally pledged to end the practice. Republicans promptly accused the administration of rewarding China for a mere promise, rather than concrete action.

Administration officials said China would be exempted from sanctions even though the United States has determined that Chinese companies have exported ballistic missile components and technology to Iran and Pakistan. Among other things, the exemption will permit U.S. and Chinese companies to resume cooperation on commercial space ventures, including the launching of satellites.

The announcement of the waiver was timed to coincide with a declaration yesterday by the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing that "China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons." China pledged to implement a formal system of export controls, including restrictions on "dual-use" technology with military and civilian applications.

Administration officials described the Chinese declaration as a major diplomatic milestone. "You've got for the first time a very clear and unequivocal Chinese statement opposing the proliferation of missiles," said a senior official involved in formulating the deal. "On paper, they've really been very specific about the kinds of steps they're prepared to take."

At the same time, the official added, "All of us recognize that the key here is going to be implementation."

That concern is sure to resonate in Congress, where some Republicans have accused the administration of looking the other way as China peddled missile technology abroad. Critics expressed doubts yesterday as to China's sincerity and questioned why the administration waited until after the presidential election to make the controversial announcement.

"Once again, the Clinton administration appears to be rewarding China for promises made instead of promises kept," Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.), a frequent critic of administration nonproliferation efforts, said in a statement. "China has an abysmal track record at living up to nonproliferation agreements. However, rather than sanctioning China for its repeated violations, this administration has again chosen to lower the bar."

Administration officials said the timing of the announcement was dictated by the fact that the deal was not formally closed until President Clinton met last week with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on the margins of an economic summit in Brunei.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the U.S. and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement. "In consideration of China's commitment to strengthen its missile-related export control system, we have decided to waive economic sanctions required by U.S. law for past assistance by Chinese entities to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran."

Chinese missile exports have long been a source of tension in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. In 1994, China pledged to stop selling M-11 missiles to Pakistan; it also has pledged to abide by the principles of the Missile Control Technology Regime, which China has not formally joined. Nevertheless, administration officials say, China has continued to supply missile technology--including motors, materials and guidance systems--to Iran and Pakistan.

A senior administration official yesterday described Chinese sales to Pakistan's ballistic missile program as "quite significant" and somewhat less so in the case of Iran, which gets most of its missile-related technology from North Korea and Russia. Iran also is believed to be pursuing a nuclear capability.

Eager to avoid an open breach with Beijing, especially given its desire to promote free trade with China, the administration has instead pursued a path of quiet persuasion. But its efforts have been complicated by China's anger over American arms sales to Taiwan. Last summer, for example, Chinese officials made clear that they had little interest in curbing their missile-related exports so long as Washington was considering the sale of theater missile defenses to Taipei.

But a series of high-level meetings appears to overcome those differences, at least in part. In an unannounced trip to Beijing earlier this month, Robert Einhorn, the assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation affairs, and Gary Samore, a nonproliferation specialist on the National Security Council, worked out details of the agreement with their Chinese counterparts, officials said. Clinton and Jiang then gave it the final go-ahead last week.

Notwithstanding its irritation over Taiwan, China had a powerful incentive for cooperating: The imposition of sanctions would have barred U.S.-Chinese cooperation on commercial space ventures, such as launches of U.S. satellites on Chinese rockets, which are a major source of hard currency for China. The administration had suspended such cooperation pending the outcome of the sanctions review.

---

Beijing avoids sanctions for sales of arms technology

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-20001122223041.htm

The Clinton administration announced yesterday that it will not impose sanctions on China for selling missile technology and components to Iran and Pakistan, although it did impose sanctions on those countries for purchasing the equipment.

U.S. officials said they waived the sanctions in exchange for a promise from a Chinese government spokesman to curb further sales, the third time since 1992 that the U.S. government has lifted or waived sanctions based on Beijing's promises to curb further sales of missile-related goods.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said in a statement, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, that "China has no intention to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. government welcomed the statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security," he said.

"Given the relationship between missile nonproliferation and peaceful space cooperation, the United States will now resume the processing of licenses that are necessary for commercial space cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese companies, such as launching U.S. satellites in China," Mr. Boucher said.

Mr. Sun's statement strongly resembled statements made by Chinese government officials in 1992 and 1994 when U.S. sanctions for China's sales of missiles and know-how were waived.

"While it's encouraging that the Clinton administration has finally at the twelfth hour decided to adhere to U.S. law in imposing sanctions, it is utterly discouraging that they decided to waive those sanctions and secured nothing from the Chinese other than a repetition of worthless pledges they made in 1992 and 1994," said a Senate aide involved in weapons-proliferation issues.

The sanctions imposed on Pakistan and Iran block all export licenses to those countries for two years. Those sanctions are not likely to have much effect on the countries because of their limited trade with the United States.

The action, announced by the State Department, means U.S. satellite companies will be able to launch more U.S. satellites on Chinese rocket boosters, a practice that has resulted in the improper sharing of U.S. missile technology by at least three U.S. manufacturers.

U.S. intelligence officials have said the missile know-how improved the reliability of Chinese nuclear missiles, including more than a dozen the CIA believes are targeted on U.S. cities.

The U.S. waiver came under a law that requires sanctions on nations engaged in missile and related technology sales to nations that are not part of the 29-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

China promised in the past to abide by the terms of the MTCR without becoming a formal signatory.

Numerous U.S. intelligence reports have indicated China's sales have continued unabated for several years.

The CIA stated in its semiannual report to Congress made public in February that China was continuing to sell missile goods to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, despite pledges not to do so.

With regard to Pakistan, the report concluded that "some ballistic missile assistance continues." The report also stated that China was involved in missile-related transfers to Libya and Syria.

Two U.S. satellite makers, Loral Space & Communications Ltd., and Hughes Electronics, currently are under federal investigation for improperly sharing missile technology with China in the mid-1990s.

Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz was one of the largest contributors to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and lobbied aggressively to loosen controls on satellite exports to China.

A third U.S. company, Lockheed Martin, agreed in June to pay a fine of $13 million for the company's role in improperly sharing missile-related technology with China.

Mr. Boucher said that if China implements its latest commitment, it would be "another important step by China to join the international nonproliferation mainstream."

Sanctions could be imposed on China in the future if it does not live up to the latest promises, he said.

Mr. Boucher said the transfers involved Chinese "entities" that sold complete missiles, major subsystems or production facilities to Pakistan.

Other officials said the reference was to China's sale of M-11 missiles to Pakistan and related production assistance.

Other Chinese firms sold transfers of less significant missile-related components or technology to Iran, he said.

In lifting sanctions on China in 1994, the State Department said China had agreed it will "not export ground-to-ground missiles" barred under the MTCR.

China's foreign minister at the time, Qian Qichen, stated in Washington that after the U.S. sanctions are lifted, "China will make the commitment not to sell the missiles."

The Bush administration in 1992 announced it was lifting missile sanctions after Beijing issued a promise not to sell missiles to nations outside the MTCR.

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan protests new U.S. sanctions
Measures imposed for missile technology deals with China

MSNBC
11/22/00
REUTERS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/493324.asp?cp1=1

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 22 - Pakistan said on Wednesday U.S. sanctions on Islamabad over alleged missile technology transfers from China were not justified and urged Washington to lift them. The appeal came after the U.S. waived sanctions against China for its part in the transactions.

"WE CONSIDER these measures unwarranted and unjustified," foreign ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan told Reuters, denying Pakistan had received technology which contravened international guidelines on missile technology transfers.

He was commenting on the imposition of sanctions on Pakistan and Iran unveiled by the United States on Tuesday. Washington said the two countries had received missile technology from China in the past.

"It is our hope that the U.S. will review the decision and remove these latest sanctions as well as those which it had imposed ... two years ago," said a statement from the foreign ministry spokesman's office, referring to sanctions slapped on the country after it carried out nuclear blasts in May 1998.

Khan said Pakistan and China have repeatedly stated no such transfers had taken place and therefore there was no need for the trade curbs.

CHINA ESCAPES SANCTIONS

China was liable for sanctions because of the transfers of technology including whole missiles, in Pakistan's case, or in Iran's, of components to make them.

But on Tuesday, U.S. President Bill Clinton, who leaves office in January, granted a waiver of the sanctions because China's foreign ministry had pledged to clean up its act on arms technology exports.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the waiver meant the United States could resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation with Chinese companies, and talks on extending a 1995 deal on international trade and commercial launch services.

He said the waiver depended on Beijing keeping its promise. "In that connection, while the United States is waiving sanctions that would otherwise be imposed for past transfers to missile programs in Pakistan and Iran, the waiver does not apply to any transfers that might occur in the future."

He added, "We're confident that the next administration will follow this question closely."

NUCLEAR PROGRAM 'INDISPENSABLE'

The sanctions on Pakistan include a two-year ban on exports from the United States to Pakistan's defense ministry and Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission.

Khan said it was too early to say what impact the restrictions would have on Pakistan. "But there is very little technology we receive from the United States these days," he added.

The statement said Pakistan had an indigenous missile development program which was a part of the country's nuclear deterrent and that it was "indispensable" to its security.

"This program will be maintained and will not be affected by any discriminatory regimes," it said.

The United States poured billions of dollars in aid and military supplies into Pakistan during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979.

But a year after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Washington suspended aid and imposed sanctions because of suspicions about Pakistan's nuclear program.

Islamabad's nuclear tests, matching atomic blasts by its arch-rival India, led to worldwide condemnation and further trade and investment curbs, some of which have since been lifted. The U.S. also imposed sanctions against India for the nuclear tests.

At the time of Tuesday's announcement of the sanctions, a U.S. spokesman said the new measures sent "a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missiles programs."

China China has about 20 nuclear missiles capable of reaching the U.S., an arsenal regarded as primarily defensive. However, some believe a limited missile shield would be enough to invalidate China's small arsenal and spur Beijing to launch into a major nuclear weapons buildup.

Source: MSNBC.com and NBC News

---

India Hopes China Will Honor Arms Control Pledge

Reuters
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-india-c.html

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India noted China's pledge to clean up its act on arms technology exports on Wednesday, and said it hoped it would no longer have grounds to complain about missile proliferation in its region.

India, which has repeatedly accused China of aiding Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs, was responding to Washington's announcement that it was waiving sanctions against Beijing for past arms technology transfers to Iran and Pakistan.

``India has, several times in the past, voiced its grave concern about missile proliferation and the adverse impact that this has on the security environment in our region,'' the foreign ministry said in a statement.

``Such missile proliferation has unfortunately, in recent years, continued despite assurances to the contrary.''

India has fought two wars with Pakistan and one with China since its independence from Britain in 1947.

In 1998 it carried out a series of nuclear tests, citing perceptions of regional threats as the motivation for its decision to go openly nuclear. Pakistan responded within weeks with experimental blasts of its own.

The United States said on Tuesday that it was waiving sanctions against China, which it said had been imposed because of the transfers of technology, including whole missiles in Pakistan's case and components to make them in Iran's case.

``We hope that effective implementation of the agreed measures would mark a step in the right direction,'' India's foreign ministry said.

``It is our expectation that this process of proliferation...will be halted and we shall, after due assessment, not have any grounds for complaint in future.''

-------- russia

ABM: Putin moots compromise

The Hindu
11/22/00
By Vladimir Radyuhin
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/11/22/stories/03220002.htm

MOSCOW, NOV. 21. The Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, has voiced readiness for compromise with the U.S. on the controversial issue of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, while reaffirming Moscow's opposition to scrapping it.

``We believe that the destruction of the ABM Treaty can destabilise the situation in the world, but we are ready to look together for ways of resolving the problem,'' Mr. Putin told reporters after talks with the visiting British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair.

Mr. Putin's offer of further talks on the ABM Treaty appears to be linked to a new compromise proposal put forward last week by the Russian strategic forces commander, Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev. Admitting that it would be difficult for Moscow to persuade Washington not to deploy anti-missile defences in violation of the ABM Treaty, Gen. Yakovlev proposed including anti-missile systems into agreed limits on strategic weapons and introduce an unchanging general indicator of such weapons, so that a country wishing to increase one component in the equation would have to cut back on another. Mr. Putin has also proposed slashing Russian and U.S. nuclear warheads from the 3500-level under the START-2 treaty to 1500 warheads or less for each side.

Mr. Blair's one-day visit to Moscow was apparently aimed at working out an agenda for Britain's mediation between Russia and the U.S. on missile defences and strategic arms. The British Prime Minister, who was the first world leader to develop a close working relationship with Mr. Putin, is clearly anxious to cast himself in the role of a European bridge between Russia and the U.S. The Russian and British leaders have met for an unprecedented five times since Mr. Putin's election last March, and Mr. Blair today defended his close interaction with the President.

The two leaders also discussed a plan actively promoted by Mr. Blair to set up European peace-keeping forces, which Russia sees as a welcome alternative to NATO forces.

---

U.S. threatening sanctions on Russia for reneging on deal not to export arms to Iran

Seattle Times
Nation & World
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
The Associated Press
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=russia23&date=20001122

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia for reneging on a 1995 deal struck by Vice President Gore to halt Russian arms exports to Iran.

Administration officials confirmed yesterday that Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sent a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright four days before the presidential election declaring that as of Dec. 1, Russia would no longer abide by the agreement.

In response, the administration is threatening to impose targeted sanctions on any Russian government agency or private business that sells restricted weaponry to neighboring Iran.

"We've told the Russians at the highest level that there will be consequences, including the possibility of sanctions if it proceeds with its plan," said White House spokesman P.J. Crowley. "We're troubled by the Russian decision. It could have serious implications for our security in the Mideast and the security of our friends and allies."

Despite Russia's commitment over the past five years to refrain from selling sensitive weapons and technology to Iran, the U.S. intelligence community says those sales have continued at an aggressive pace. Administration officials now fear Russia's decision to abrogate the deal between Gore and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin will open the floodgates for the sale of nuclear and chemical weaponry and know-how, as well as missile technology to Iran.

"Numerous Russian entities have been providing Iran with dual-use industrial chemicals equipment and chemical production technology that could be diverted to Tehran's offensive chemical-weapons program," the CIA reported to Congress last month.

Public word of the setback came a day after the United States and China reached a deal to curb Chinese export of missile technology to such countries as Iran and Pakistan.

The deal Gore struck with Chernomyrdin became controversial in the closing weeks of Gore's presidential campaign. Republicans seized on news reports that the agreement contained a secret "aide memoir" that waived sanctions on Russia for selling Iran less sophisticated weaponry. Republicans charged Gore with deliberately keeping Congress in the dark about an agreement that lawmakers would almost certainly have opposed.

Gore responded that the "secret" portion of the agreement with Russia had been described to journalists and lawmakers at the time. He emphasized that the agreement allowed Russia to sell Iran only antiquated weaponry that would not upset the balance of power in the region, while banning the sale of more sophisticated missile and nuclear technology.

The flap took up valuable time in the Gore's campaign home stretch but did not appear to cause serious damage. Democrats dismissed the Republican criticism as pre-election politicking.

But the collapse of an agreement with Russia to prevent weapons proliferation points to what critics of the administration say has been a consistent weakness of U.S. dealing with Russia and China. The administration has been naive in reaching agreements with Moscow and Beijing that those governments have then failed to uphold, the critics charge.

The Clinton administration is trying to convince Russia to adhere to the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal and White House officials held out some hope that Moscow could yet be convinced to abide by its earlier commitments.

In the letter to Albright, which remains classified, Ivanov complained that publicity about what was supposed to have been a secret addendum to the agreement undercut the viability of the deal. Albright sent Ivanov what officials described as a brusque letter of reply. The two have had rocky relations on many issues over the past year.

Last week, President Clinton pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue, warning Putin of the possibility of sanctions and urging him to reconsider his decision. The administration was hoping to reverse Russia's position before the collapse of the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement became public. But administration officials confirmed the developments after the Ivanov letter was disclosed Wednesday in a column in The Washington Post.

Republicans, who were from the beginning sharply critical of the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal, said that its demise now requires a stern response from Washington.

"It comes as no great surprise that Russia has abrogated its commitments under the secret Gore-Chernomyrdin deal," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who chaired hearings on the deal. "Russia never adhered to those commitments in the first place. It continued to transfer weapons to Iran and, in fact, signed at least $200 million in new deals after signing the aide memoir."

Republicans, citing U.S. intelligence reports, say that purportedly antiquated weaponry sold to Iran under the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal has included a Russian Akula-Class submarine.

Russian export controls on more sophisticated arms sales have had only limited impact on the flow of weapons and technology to Iran, according to the CIA.

Also, the CIA reported, Iran is seeking nuclear-related technology "from a variety of foreign sources, especially Russia."

The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since the hostage crisis of the late 1970s. Over the past few years, overtures from both Tehran and Washington have suggested an interest in both countries in renewing ties at some level.

But the State Department continues to list Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring nation. Also, the administration is concerned that Iran is seeking to enhance its military capability not just to discourage any renewal of hostilities to Iraq but also to pose a threat to Israel and check the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf.

---

Russia Drops Pledge Not To Arm Iran

Associated Press
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Russia.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/001122/16/news-us-russia

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia has notified Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that it will no longer observe a 1995 pledge not to sell tanks and battlefield weapons to Iran, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

Russia gave as its reason that the pledge it had made to Vice President Al Gore in 1995 had been made public during the presidential campaign, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The note was received by Albright a few days before the election, and the Clinton administration is trying to get Russia to change its mind, warning that if it sold the weapons to Iran the United States would impose sanctions, the official told The Associated Press.

Russia said it would no longer abide by the pledge after Dec. 1, which gives the administration time to try to persuade the Kremlin to change its mind, the official said.

An account of Russia's action appeared Wednesday in a column by Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post.

Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, R-N.Y., said in a statement: ``It is now obvious why the administration was so evasive with regard to its secret arrangement with Russia.''

Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said ``such a misguided policy of acquiescence to Russian arms transfers to Iran has not been able to withstand public scrutiny and has now collapsed of its own weight.''

He urged the administration to punish Russia quickly with economic sanctions.

Gore came under severe attack from Republicans during the campaign and from a group of former senior officials in Republican and Democratic administrations. He was accused of acquiescing in dangerous arms sales to Iran.

The Democrats responded that the agreement with former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin effectively curbed Russia's sale of dangerous weapons to Iran.

The Russian action surfaced a day after announcement by China that it would not help Iran and Pakistan develop ballistic missiles. U.S. officials welcomed the pledge and said it could slow down Iran's ambitious weapons program.

But they said a similar pledge by Russia had not blocked all assistance to Iran, and China's promise would have to be implemented to be worthwhile.

Still, the administration responded by immediately waiving economic sanctions on Chinese companies suspected of assisting Pakistan and Iran in the past.

``This development can strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to achieve our common objective of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that threaten regional and international security,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

As a result, the United States will resume processing licenses for commercial space cooperation between American and Chinese companies, including the launching of U.S. satellites in China, Boucher said.

The two countries also will resume negotiations on extending a 1995 agreement on international trade, he said.

However, Boucher said, new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian and Pakistani military and civilian groups for receiving ballistic missile technology from China.

In Iran, the sanctioned entities include the Defense Industry Organization, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.

The sanctioned entities in Pakistan include the Ministry of Defense and the Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and their sub-units.

Boucher said this means that for two years all new U.S. government contracts will be denied to the Pakistani Ministry of Defense, Space and Upper-Atmosphere Research Commission and there will be no imports of their products into the United States.

The new sanctions will have very limited economic effect because of a U.S. embargo against Iran and earlier U.S. sanctions against Iran and Pakistan, Boucher said. ``But they do send a strong signal that the United States opposes these countries' missile programs.''

China's promise not to sell missiles or components to countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could ease tensions with Washington over long-suspected aid to Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

The statement, released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was China's most explicit pledge to date on refraining from spreading missile technology. It covered not only whole missile systems, which Beijing agreed not to transfer two years ago, but also dual-use components that could be used in other technologies.

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

-------- idaho

Hanford loses out to Idaho for plutonium project

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/plut22ww.shtml

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- A type of plutonium used to power spacecraft will be produced in Idaho rather than at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state, Energy Department officials have decided.

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory was selected to produce plutonium-238, the most radioactive form of the element, and the extraction process will be handled at a plant in Tennessee, the department announced Tuesday.

Heat from the radiation is used to generate electricity and "keep things from freezing up," laboratory spokesman Brad Bugger said.

The plutonium-238 will be used on the spacecraft the National Aeronautics and Space Administration wants to send to Pluto after 2020.

The decision includes shutting down, decontaminating and decommissioning the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford, which also had been considered for the work.

The Snake River Alliance, a nuclear watchdog group, was relieved that the recovery process will not be done in Idaho. That process produces a great deal of liquid, radioactive waste, director Gary Richardson said.

Laboratory officials say producing the plutonium is no different from making other medical and commercial isotopes at the site's Advanced Test Reactor.

"We handle radioactive isotopes of all types on a regular basis," Bugger said.

An isotope is a form of an element with a slightly different nuclear configuration. Nuclear weapons typically use plutonium-239.

The reactor is the only operating reactor at the laboratory. It also performs research on fuel for the Navy's nuclear powered ships.

-------- kentucky

Price tag goes up for cleanup at Paducah plant

Evansville Courier & Press
11/22/00
By The Associated Press
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200011/22+price112200_news.html+20001122

PADUCAH, Ky. - Cleanup of radioactive metal drums from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant will exceed the $7 million bid by about 40 percent, officials said.

The Energy Department, which owned the plant for 50 years, has agreed to pay the higher amount, said Greg Cook, a spokesman for cleanup contractor Bechtel Jacobs Co. The cost is still below the department's internal estimate of $12 million to clean up the drum pile.

But an environmentalist who heads the community advisory board that monitors the Paducah site said the cost overrun, while not significant in terms of the entire cleanup budget for the plant, is still troubling.

"A 40 percent overrun, if you talk about the entire cleanup over a number of years, is probably something that would raise eyebrows," said Mark Donham of Brookport, Ill. "It's pretty significant if you carry that over the entire contract."

The cost of the four-month project escalated primarily because much more "non-conforming" material - mostly different types of drums and other metal pieces - was discovered in the pile than engineers thought would be there, Cook said. The material had to be tested before being packed for shipment and disposal.

Various government estimates have said it will take from $3 billion to $5 billion to clean up the Paducah plant of radioactive materials and cancer-causing solvents that leaked into the soil and tainted underground water supplies.

When work began on the drum mound, it stood 40 feet high and nearly covered the space of a football field. Bechtel Jacobs contracted the job to the United States Enrichment Corp., which leases parts of the plant to enrich uranium for use as nuclear power plant fuel.

The drum removal project was troubled from the start. It faced repeated equipment breakdowns, and the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection cited it for excessive dust and impeding access by state inspectors. Those allegations are pending, said Walter Perry, an Energy Department spokesman.

Engineers had estimated that the drum pile's "non-conforming" material - primarily other types of drums and metal pieces - would fill five storage boxes and five barrels. It ended up going in 129 storage boxes and 24 barrels, Cook said.

But Cook said tests showed most of the additional material was suitable for shipment to the same Utah disposal site designated for the drums. Because the questioned material had to be shredded and crushed for shipment, work is "not quite over yet," he said.

-------- new mexico

Lars-Erik Nelson, 59, Writer Of Columns at The Daily News

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22NELS.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Lars- Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News who covered and commented on the collapse of Communism and other events that shaped history, died on Monday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 59.

The cause of death was apparently a stroke, his family said.

Mr. Nelson joined The Daily News's Washington staff in 1979 and was bureau chief for about a decade before becoming a columnist for Newsday in 1993. In 1995, he returned to The Daily News as a columnist. He also wrote for The New York Review of Books.

Mr. Nelson defended President Clinton early on as the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, investigated Mr. Clinton's actions in connection with Monica Lewinsky. In late July 1998, amid growing evidence of a relationship between Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Nelson said the president should ask to be impeached to clear the air.

"Yes, impeachment would create a constitutional crisis," he wrote, "but a constitutional crisis fought in the sunshine is better than these termites nibbling at the presidency in the dark."

But a few weeks later, just after Mr. Clinton had finally acknowledged his dalliance with Ms. Lewinsky, Mr. Nelson skewered both the president and his pursuers: "His worst political enemies are so loathsome, so greedy, so filled with venom that any alternative, even a moral pygmy, looks better."

And last spring, Mr. Nelson condemned Mr. Starr, asserting that the president's nemesis had presided over "a bumbling, overzealous, endless search for a crime, any crime, that could be pinned on a target that had been chosen in advance: Bill Clinton."

Mr. Nelson could be tough on journalists, too. He wrote that The New York Times had been alarmist in its coverage of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the scientist who was dismissed from his job at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory for mishandling nuclear secrets. Mr. Nelson thought The Times had been too credulous in accepting the views of people who saw a serious national security threat in Dr. Lee's behavior. The scientist eventually pleaded guilty to one of 59 charges.

A native of New York City, Lars- Erik Nelson graduated from Bronx High School of Science (where he was a hurdler) and from Columbia with a degree in Russian.

Shortly after beginning his career at The Daily News, Mr. Nelson won a Merriman Smith Award, named after the longtime reporter for United Press International, for writing under deadline pressure.

Before joining The Daily News, Mr. Nelson worked at The New York Herald-Tribune and The Record of Bergen County, N.J. He was a Reuters correspondent from 1967 to 1977 in London, Moscow, Prague, New York and Washington and was briefly a diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek.

Mr. Nelson devoured books and could converse on subjects as disparate as 17th-century shipbuilding and 20th-century baseball. He enjoyed music and loved to paint, as did his father, Arthur. He was fluent in Russian, competent in Polish and Czech and knew more than a smattering of French, Italian and Japanese.

Last summer, Mr. Nelson and his daughter, Amanda, were in Prague, where he had covered the Soviet suppression of Czechoslovakia's "Prague Spring" experiment in liberalization in 1968. Amanda Nelson said her father believed not that the West had won the cold war but that the Communist system had collapsed because of it was inefficient and corrupt at its core.

He is survived by his wife, the former Mary Cantwell, known as Goody; his daughter, who lives in Philadelphia; a son, Per Kristian, of Arlington, Va., and his mother, Freda, of Spring Valley, N.Y.

He is also survived by his final column, which appeared in The Daily News today. It was about the fight over Florida's electoral votes.

"Exactly two years ago, lawyers were trying to take a President away from us," he began. "Yesterday, they were trying to give us one. And both times, we, the voters in this great democracy, could only watch."

-------- ohio

Workers to get cut of Piketon power sale
Profits from an electricity deal will go to laid-off employees and the community

Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/nov00/505343.html

WASHINGTON -- A multimilliondollar dispute over the electric power allowance of southern Ohio's uranium-enrichment plant was resolved yesterday in what is being called a win-win deal benefiting workers and the community.

The fight concerned whether USEC, the privatized federal corporation that runs the Piketon plant and will shut down the facility in June, should reap $44 million from the sale of excess power this summer.

The power was obtained at a cheap rate by the Department of Energy in a contract with the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. and turned over to USEC at privatization.

State regulators yesterday approved a plan in which USEC gets to keep much of the money in return for giving $2 million to a local economic development organization and committing up to $18 million for severance benefits for workers laid off when USEC ceases operations.

USEC has agreed to contribute $2 million in July to the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative. However, USEC has to obtain only $18 million worth of surety bonds to ensure that laid-off workers get regular severance benefits plus an additional payment of $8,400 per worker.

But if all goes as hoped, the company will not have to pay much from those bonds, which will stay in force until Sept. 30, 2003.

That is because the U.S. Department of Energy has proposed a $630 million plan to save some 1,200 jobs with such initiatives as keeping the plant on cold standby, launching a new technology pilot program and expanding cleanup efforts. USEC also plans to keep about 300 workers for shipping operations.

That would mean most workers at the plant, which enriches uranium for use as commercial nuclear power-plant fuel, would be able to slide into new jobs after USEC stops manufacturing material at Piketon. Others now may find voluntary retirement packages more attractive. And USEC would get to keep most or all of its $18 million.

"It is my sincere hope that all of the efforts I have described will have put in place an insurance policy that the workers never need to cash in,'' said Gov. Bob Taft in a letter endorsing the deal sent Monday to Alan R. Schribner, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

"We started out with absolutely nothing. We've gotten something quite significant,'' said Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, who in August sought to block the proceeds of the power sale from going to USEC. "It's a good deal.''

Officials of the union that represents many of the Piketon workers echoed those sentiments, crediting Taft, Strickland and Ohio Republican Sens. Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich for helping forge the deal.

If not for those officials, "USEC would have transferred all of the $44 million to its shareholders and none of the benefits would have gone to southern Ohio,'' said Dan Minter, president of Local 5689 of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union.

But USEC pronounced itself content yesterday as well.

"It is a win-win for everyone,'' said Elizabeth Stuckle, USEC spokeswoman.

---

USA Today
11/22/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Ohio

Columbus - State regulators approved a plan for the operator of a uranium enrichment plant in Piketon to reinvest $2 million for local economic development. The U.S. Enrichment Corp. also will make $18 million available for workers who may be laid off at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The money will come from the sale of surplus electricity.

-------- washington

Hanford reactor will stay closed
The nuclear facility's permanent closure ends some hopes for its use in cancer and space research

oregonlive.com
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By Brent Hunsberger of The Oregonian staff
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/11/n4_hanf22.frame

Federal officials plan to shut down a dormant reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation whose proposed restart had raised hopes for new cancer treatments and space exploration but also the ire of conservationists and anti-nuclear activists.

U.S. Department of Energy officials said Tuesday that the agency would permanently close the Fast Flux Test Facility beginning next year, provided Energy Secretary Bill Richardson makes the decision final in January before leaving his post.

"Using our current facilities, we expect to meet the nation's foreseeable needs for years to come," Richardson said.

The facility, the department's most modern research reactor, was built in the 1970s to test advanced nuclear fuels and components. In 1992, the Energy Department deemed the 400-megawatt reactor unnecessary and put it on standby at an annual cost of $40 million.

Since 1996, officials have discussed restarting the reactor. Last year, Richardson began a broad study of its possible uses. Ideas included supplying NASA with plutonium for space missions and producing medical isotopes to diagnose and treat cancer and other illnesses.

Energy Undersecretary Bill Magwood said Tuesday the proposal lacked support from private industry and other federal agencies.

The decision was a victory for conservationists and Democrats from the Northwest's congressional delegation, who pressured Richardson to scrap the reactor.

It was a bitter pill for researchers and the Richland, Wash., area, which would have gained an estimated 1,000 new jobs from the reactor's restart.

Proponents cite a recent market analysis by Frost & Sullivan showing that demand for medical isotopes to be used in treating illnesses grew by 32 percent last year, twice as fast as expected. Most medical isotopes used in the United States must be imported, researchers say.

Robert Schenter, a scientist for Battelle and a board member of Citizens for Medical Isotopes, pledged to work in coming months to change the department's stand. Battelle operates the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at Hanford.

"The cancer patients and their families are not going to surrender to this decision," Schenter said. "As these better treatments, using medical isotopes, come on line, there's going to be a major demand. We'll have to rely on foreign reactors."

Conservationists hopeful

Conservationists praised the decision as a much-needed boost for cleanup at Hanford, where the Energy Department plans to spend $100 billion over 50 years ridding the site of nuclear and other hazardous wastes.

They said they remained wary that a new administration might overturn Richardson's upcoming decision.

"I want to say yes, we're excited, we have a victory," said Greg deBruler of Columbia Riverkeepers. "But at the same time I am cautious. He's waiting for the final day, practically."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

You can reach Brent Hunsberger at 503-221-8359 or by e-mail at brenthunsberger@news.oregonian.com.

---

Fast Flux reactor headed for shutdown

Seattle Times
Local News : Wednesday, November 22, 2000
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=nwdigest23&date=20001122

WASHINGTON - The test nuclear reactor at Hanford that has been dormant since 1992 will not be restarted to produce plutonium for space missions and isotopes to treat cancer.

Instead, if the Energy Department finalizes a proposed rule in January, the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be shut down beginning next year.

The possibility of restarting the reactor lacked support from the private sector and other federal agencies, said Bill Magwood, an Energy Department undersecretary.

In 1999, the Energy Department began a broad study of possible uses for the reactor, which was built in the 1970s to test advanced nuclear fuels and components. The agency in 1992 deemed the reactor was no longer needed.

Oregon and Washington state Democrats have urged Energy officials not to restart the reactor, saying that even the Energy Department had found no need for plutonium or medical isotopes the FFTF would produce. In addition, nuclear waste generated from the restarted facility could not be adequately stored, they said.

---

Test Nuclear Reactor Is to Remain Closed

New York Times
November 22, 2000
National News Briefs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22NATI.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (AP) - The Energy Department said today that a test nuclear reactor in Washington State that has been dormant since 1992 would not be restarted to produce plutonium.

If the Energy Department makes final a proposed rule in January, the reactor, the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, will be shut down beginning next year.

The possibility of restarting the reactor lacked support from the private sector and other federal agencies, said Bill Magwood, a department under secretary.

Energy officials were considering using the reactor to supply NASA with plutonium for space missions and to produce medical isotopes to diagnose and treat cancer and other illnesses. It was built in the 1970's to test advanced nuclear fuels.

Oregon and Washington Democrats have urged energy officials not to restart the reactor, saying that even the Energy Department had found no need for the plutonium or medical isotopes it would produce.

---

Hanford reactor won't be restarted

USA Today
11/22/00
Page 17A Nationline
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858907s.htm

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson decided that a test nuclear reactor in Washington state that has been dormant since 1992 should not be restarted to produce plutonium and isotopes to treat cancer. If the Energy Department goes ahead, the Fast Flux Test Facility reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be shut down next year. ''The missions, while of great interest . . . were not concrete enough to proceed at this time,'' said Bill Magwood of the Energy Department. The FFTF staff at Hanford is ''very disappointed,'' said director Bruce Klos. But FFTF opponent Gerald Pollet was pleased. ''Richardson's decision honors the desire of the public to put the cleanup of Hanford first and foremost instead of adding more waste to the nation's most contaminated area,'' he said. Hanford was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, the 560-square-mile site in southeast Washington state is trying to clean up the radioactive and hazardous waste created during 40 years of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear arsenal. -- Patrick McMahon

-------- us nuc politics

NUCLEAR REPORT CARD; PRESIDENT CLINTON GRILLED ON WBAI; COLOMBIA: MORE MONEY, MORE WEAPONS, MORE DRUGS

Wed, 22 Nov 2000
"Frida Berrigan" <BerrigaF@newschool.edu>

After the holiday we HOPE to bring you our analysis of the new president elect, and the most expensive presidential campaign in history, our take on pending arms sales, and much much more!!

Stay Tuned,
Bill Hartung Michelle Ciarrocca Dena Montague Frida Berrigan

NUCLEAR REPORT CARD: Abolition 2000 issued its "Annual Progress Toward a Nuclear Free World" report card late last month, announcing an abysmal total grade of 20 out of a possible 120 points. I would be afraid to bring those grades home to mother. The report card tracks progress on Abolition 2000's eleven points. On many key issues, namely ceasing to produce and deploy new nuclear weapons, ratification of a Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, prohibitions on new nuclear research and testing in the laboratory, countries were given a 0 out of 10 grade.

On a few issues, the nations of the world made progress and were rewarded with higher grades. Progress was made in recognizing and upholding the 1996 World Court decision on the illegality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, and for that a 6 of 10 grade was given. The report concludes with a quote from Albert Einstein, "For there is no secret and no defense, there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world." Abolition 2000's report card is a great tool for arousing that understanding.

You can download the Report Card at http://www.abolition2000.org/reports/reportcard2000.html or email Pamela Meidell at Atomic Mirror to request a PDF file info@atomicmirror.org

PRESS FOR CONVERSION: The current issue of this Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) publication is centered around the theme "Nonviolent Resistance to War and Injustice." There is not enough room to list all the great articles and resources in this issue, but suffice it to say it is worth picking up. People's historian Howard Zinn has an article entitled "A Noble Tradition of U.S. Nonviolent Resistance," Gener Sharp from the Albert Einstein Institute writes on "Methods of Nonviolent Action." If you'd like to learn more visit COAT's website at www.ncf.ca/coat or contact Richard Sanders at 613-231-3076 ad207@ncf.ca

PRESIDENT CLINTON GRILLED ON WBAI: One of the most exciting post-election web gleanings is the transcript of Democracy Now host Amy Goodman's impromptu half hour interview with President Bill Clinton. She "caught" Clinton as he was making election day tree shaking calls to radio stations. The full transcript can be read or listened to at http://www.democracynow.org.

President Clinton answered a barrage of questions on the death penalty, the Middle East violence, but finally lost his temper when Goodman suggested that he was partly responsible for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader's popularity "for having driven the Democratic Party to the right." "Now you listen to this," Clinton fumed, "the other thing that Ralph Nader says is that he is as pure as Caesar's wife on the environment," and proceeded to rattle off the administration's accomplishments. Goodman then countered with questions on the administration's passage of NAFTA and its continued support of sanctions against Iraq. The questions came fast and heavy, and were challenging, well informed and refreshingly "combative," suggesting that Amy Goodman would have been a breath of fresh air as moderator of the Bush/Gore debates.

COLOMBIA: MORE MONEY, MORE WEAPONS, MORE DRUGS New Report from GAO Highlights Difficulties with Plan Colombia

In October of 1999, at the urging of the U.S., Colombian President Andres Pastrana unveiled his ambitious $7.5 billion counternarcotics effort known as Plan Colombia, with hopes of reducing drug production by 50% over 6 years. Pastrana indicated that Plan Colombia would also focus on advancing the peace process, improving the economy, reforming the judicial system, and supporting democratization and social development. But as the Center for International Policy has pointed out, while Pastrana has stated only 25% of Plan Colombia would benefit Colombia's armed forces, so far 75% of the US contribution has been targeted for the military.

The Colombian government pledged $4 billion of its budget to the plan (which, considering Colombia's economic situation is an astronomical figure), and pleaded with other governments to assist with the remaining $3.5 billion. Now, more than a year later, the U.S. has agreed to provide $1.3 billion for counter-drug activities, of which $862 million will go to Colombia, while European nations have pledged, at best, $200 million in aid.

Yet despite record increases in U.S. military assistance to Colombia over the past five years, a new report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) reveals that coca cultivation and production have more than doubled during the same time period and Colombia has also become a leading producer of heroin. As for Plan Colombia, "the total cost and activities required to meet the plan's goals remain unknown, and it will take years before drug activities are significantly reduced." Winifred Tate, senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), points out, "Instead of learning from past decades of misguided military follies, U.S. policy towards Colombia continues to focus on expanding military operations."

The GAO report focuses on the U.S. aid package for Plan Colombia (and previous counternarcotics efforts) and details the difficulties and problems encountered. Some of the report's findings include: (see link to report below in resources)

ˇ U.S. assistance has been of limited utility because of long-standing problems in planning and implementing this assistance. For example, helicopters provided to the National Police and the military have not had sufficient spare parts or the funding to operate and maintain them to the extent necessary for conducting counternarcotics operations. ˇ The Colombian government has not demonstrated that it has the detailed plans, management structure, and funding necessary to effectively implement its programs and achieve stated goals. ˇ The challenge of reducing drug-related activities has become more difficult as the two largest insurgent groups (FARC and ELN) and paramilitary groups have expanded their involvement in drug trafficking. ˇ U.S. Embassy officials stated that the National Police have not always provided necessary documents, such as budgetary and planning documents, to determine if the National Police are using the resources in accordance with eradication and interdiction plans. ˇ According to U.S. Embassy officials, despite extensive training and other efforts to have the Colombian National Police develop a management program that would ensure a more effective aerial eradication program, little progress has been made.

The report's findings are nothing new: a multi-billion dollar military aid package is unlikely to make more than a dent in Colombia's drug production, but will continue deepening U.S. involvement in Colombia's 40-year civil war, which has claimed 35,000 lives in the past ten years alone. While the GAO report examined the financial and logistical issues plaguing U.S. efforts to stem drug production in Colombia, an article in the Fall 2000 World Policy Journal by William LeoGrande and Kenneth Sharpe delves into the deeper reasons why Plan Colombia will fail.

First, despite administration's assurances that the U.S. aid package to Colombia is to combat drug trafficking, "no one in Colombia believes that, and no one in Washington ought to either." Beefing up the Colombian armed forces is premised on the notion that a stronger Colombian army will force the guerrilla groups to the peace table. As LeoGrande and Sharpe point out, this didn't work in El Salvador, why does the U.S. think it will work in Colombia's 40-year war? Instead, "a billion dollars of US aid turned that [El Salvadoran] army into a large, well-equipped, politically powerful force that murdered noncombatant civilians with impunity for over a decade . . . the war ended when the army finally recognized that it was unwinnable - a conclusion it reached when the US cut military assistance by 50 percent, threatened to end it entirely, and threw its full diplomatic weight behind the peace process."

Secondly, LeoGrande and Sharpe note that the U.S. aid package doesn't take into account the problem of the paramilitary groups, which are heavily involved in drug trafficking and have links to the army. Like in El Salvador when the Reagan administration tolerated the death squads because they were viewed as being "an essential weapon in its war against the left," the article speculates that in Colombia too, it is likely that the U.S.'s focus on the war against the guerrillas will cause Washington to turn a blind eye to the "army's other partner in this dirty war."

Although we're still waiting to see who will be the next president of the United States, one thing is certain, neither candidate is likely to stray from the failed and favored military approach to dealing with the drug problem. The issue did not generate any attention during the three presidential debates and neither candidate has been outspoken on the issue. Both Bush and Gore support Plan Colombia and an increase in U.S. assistance to Colombia. On a positive note, both candidates have acknowledged the need for more domestic drug treatment and prevention programs, yet how they would advance this idea in a resistant Congress is unclear.

But, the question of who will take over for Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey when he officially resigns his post on January 6, 2001 will have an even greater impact on the future of U.S. drug policy. McCaffrey's repeated claims that we're winning the drug war are wearing thin. The situation in Colombia notwithstanding, domestically, drug use by junior high students has increased by 300%, prevention and treatment programs are constantly shortchanged, and the prison population is exploding with more than 400,000 non-violent drug offenders in prison. The list goes on.

The U.S. should be encouraging the peace process in Colombia, not fanning and fueling the war. As LeoGrande and Sharpe aptly put it, "Even if the United States defoliates every acre given over to growing coca, burns every laboratory, and destroys every last gram of Colombian cocaine, it will have won a hollow victory. The drug business will simple move elsewhere, as it always does. But it is the people of Colombia who will pay the price for the inability of the United States to face the fact that its 'war' on drugs can only be won at home."

COLOMBIA RESOURCES: World Policy Journal, Fall 2000, "Two Wars or One? Drugs, Guerrillas, and Colombia's New Violencia," by William M. LeoGrande and Kenneth E. Sharpe (www.worldpolicy.org/journal/leogrande.html) - Join the online interactive discussion.

The Center for International Policy is an invaluable resource for activists wanting to learn more about US aid to Colombia (www.ciponline.org/colombia/aid/).

NACLA, September/October 2000, 'Report on Colombia' - includes articles on Colombia's two major guerrilla groups (FARC and ELN), the paramilitaries connections to both the drug traffickers and Colombia's armed forces, the ongoing peace process, displaced Colombians, and biowarfare in Colombia, - www.nacla.org

State Department's September 11 report to Congress on progress toward human rights goals (required by the aid package law) at www.ciponline.org/colombia/aid/091101.htm

General Accounting Office - New report: US Assistance to Colombia Will Take Years to Produce Results - www.gao.gov/new.items/d0126.PDF

-------- us nuc waste

Rocky Flats sends most waste

Denver Rocky Mountain News
November 22, 2000
Suburban briefs
http://insidedenver.com/news/1122sbrf9.shtml

GOLDEN - The former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant shipped more radioactive waste to disposal sites this year than any other Department of Energy site, according to cleanup officials.

Rocky Flats sent 42 shipments containing 279 cubic meters of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Transuranic waste consists of clothing, tools, rags, debris, residues and other disposable items contaminated with radioactive elements, mostly plutonium.

Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons for 40 years. It was closed in 1989 after chronic safety problems and because of the end of the Cold War.

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

Arafat Criticizes U.S. for Arming Israel

Reuters
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/mideast-egypt-arafat.html

CAIRO, Nov 22 - Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat attacked the United States on Wednesday for supplying Israel with weapons used to kill Palestinians while trying to broker Middle East peace at the same time.

``The most serious thing of all...is that the weapons used (by Israel) are American -- American helicopters, American fighter planes, American armoured cars, American missiles, American shells, American bombs,'' Arafat told reporters.

``The responsibility for this is with America, the main sponsor of the peace process...(because) part of its weaponry is used in attempts to exterminate the Palestinian people.''

Arafat, who held talks with President Hosni Mubarak earlier, was speaking after a meeting of the Cairo-based People's Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada.

He had been due in Cairo on Tuesday, but postponed his trip after Israeli missile strikes on Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip in reprisal for Monday's bomb attack on a Jewish settler school bus in Gaza that killed two Israelis.

After the Israeli missile attacks, Egypt withdrew its ambassador, Mohammed Bassiouny, from Tel Aviv.

The United States has urged Egypt to reconsider its decision, saying Cairo's ``engagement'' with Israel was needed to restore calm after eight weeks of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen, on a Middle East tour, met Mubarak after the Egyptian leader's talks with Arafat, but cancelled a planned news conference afterwards.

Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said after Mubarak's talks with Arafat that the ambassador's recall gave ``a serious signal that there are limits.'' Egypt also wanted to signal that it ``supports and will continue to strive for a just and balanced peace.''

He said Egypt and the Arabs should not make war on Israel, but could not stay silent in the face of ``continued aggression.'' Israeli scare tactics were not working because ``Palestinian children are still resisting Israeli forces with rocks.''

Moussa said future Egyptian-Palestinian consultations would explore ways to revive the peace process, which has collapsed during the recent clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinians armed with stones, petrol bombs and sometimes guns.

Cairo's recall of its envoy was the biggest diplomatic blow to Israel since the violence flared on September 28. At least 251 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.

Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 after fighting four Middle East wars. It has long played a key role in facilitating peace negotiations.

Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994 and Mauritania forged full relations with the Jewish state in 1999.

-------- china

China defends lower priority for human rights

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
By Martin Fackler ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-20001122224927.htm

BEIJING - The United Nations' top human-rights official and senior Chinese leaders differed publicly yesterday over civil liberties, a day after signing an agreement to cooperate on improving Beijing's rights protections.

An exchange at a conference on economic rights underscored the differing approaches between China and the United Nations despite their agreement Monday to cooperate.

Opening the conference, Communist Party Politburo member Li Tieying insisted human rights were relative, an argument the party leadership has long used to give economic development priority over rights.

"Each country and each ethnicity has the right to determine its own system for protecting human rights based on its own special conditions," Mr. Li said.

When her turn came to speak, Mary Robinson, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged China to accept "the universality of human rights" - a concept underpinning two U.N. rights treaties that Beijing has signed but not ratified.

President Jiang Zemin echoed Mr. Li's argument when he met with Mrs. Robinson, telling her China has "its own way of promoting and protecting human rights," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Moving Beijing toward implementing the two treaties - one on economic, social and cultural rights, the other on civil and political rights - was a key goal of the new agreement, which rights groups immediately criticized as ineffective.

Under the memorandum signed by Mrs. Robinson and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya, China agreed to U.N.-sponsored seminars on reforming its police, court and labor camp systems. The first meeting, set for February, will touch on police powers to send suspects to forced-labor camps for up to three years without trial.

Mrs. Robinson hailed the agreement as nudging China closer to standards set out in the two rights pacts. But rights groups faulted the agreement for doing no more than calling for workshops and not committing China to change.

"China could use this pretense of cooperation to muzzle U.N. monitoring procedures and public criticism of its human-rights situation," New York-based Human Rights in China said in a statement.

Mrs. Robinson conceded that the agreement "won't change everything overnight" but said criticism should be mixed with efforts to help China implement reforms needed for ratification of the two rights pacts.

During an 80-minute meeting with Mr. Jiang, she also raised concerns over China's treatment of Tibetans and of the banned Falun Gong sect.

In another sign of continued obstacles, Mrs. Robinson said she inconclusively pressed Chinese leaders during her two-day visit to allow unfettered access by a U.N. special monitor on torture. The monitor's planned visit last year was scotched after China put limits on his activities.

Although China is trying to make its police force more law-abiding, reports of torture and other abuses persist. A rights group reported yesterday that two more Falun Gong members died in custody, raising the death toll among followers in the 16-month-old crackdown to at least 70.

Yang Guijun died Oct. 15 in Shandong province after a weeklong hunger strike to protest beatings, and Li Wenrui, a trade official from the northeastern city of Harbin, died Nov. 9 in Beijing in what police called a suicide, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.

-------- drug war

Morrock News, Weds., Nov. 22, 2000
THE MORROCK NEWS DIGEST
Fast, free and independent http://morrock.com
WEDNESDAY :: NOVEMBER 22, 2000 :: EMAIL EDITION

MULTINATIONAL DRUG BUST: Police in 32 countries have arrested 2,876 suspects and seized 20 tons of cocaine in drug raids over the past three weeks, officials said. Besides the cocaine, police rounded up 29 tons of marijuana, 82,170 tablets of ecstacy, 100 tons of chemicals for drug-making, and 197 guns, and burned 9 square miles of fields of marijuana, opium poppies and coca plants.

-------- iraq

New York Times
November 22, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22BRIE.html?pagewanted=2
MIDDLE EAST

IRAQ: CLAIMS OF A `HIT' Iraq said its antiaircraft defenses hit one of a group of Western warplanes patrolling the north of the country. "Evidence indicates that one of the hostile planes was hit while the rest were forced to flee to their bases in Turkey," a spokesman said. There was no immediate comment from American or British military authorities, whose planes patrol no-flight zones in southern and northern Iraq. (Reuters)

-------- myanmar

New York Times
November 22, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22BRIE.html?pagewanted=2

MYANMAR: GO-AHEAD FOR LAWSUIT Although she did not attend the hearing, the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi lost a round in court when a judge ordered that a lawsuit over her property should proceed. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's brother is suing her for half- ownership of the home where she has lived for 12 years as she defies the military junta. Seth Mydans (NYT)

-------- russia

New York Times
November 22, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22BRIE.html

RUSSIA: BLAIR'S VISIT No. 5 Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, in Moscow for his fifth meeting in a year with President Vladimir V. Putin, said that he counted Mr. Putin as a friend and that close relations with Russia were "a risk well worth taking." Mr. Putin said that he no longer sees a threat in Europe's plans for a common military force, and that he is willing to discuss further arms-control measures. Michael Wines (NYT)

-------- u.n.

Syria asked to confirm Iraqi oil deal

USA Today
11/22/00
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858829s.htm

The U.S. State Department asked the Syrian government whether it could confirm reports that Iraq has resumed pumping oil through a pipeline to Syria without United Nations approval. The United States is seeking to stop the erosion of U.N. sanctions imposed against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

A Syrian oil official said about 150,000 barrels a day of Iraqi crude were flowing through the line. Iraqi oil exports are monitored under a U.N. oil-for-food program that allows Baghdad to export a fixed value of crude to finance humanitarian imports.

---

U.N. war-crimes chief pushes Yugoslav case

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-20001122211754.htm

NEW YORK - Declaring that former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic must stand trial, the United Nations' chief war-crimes prosecutor said yesterday that the world should insist Belgrade surrender him.

"Milosevic must be brought to trial before the international tribunal. There simply is no alternative," prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told an open U.N. Security Council session.

She made clear that Mr. Milosevic would be the main topic of her visit with the new Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, who invited her to Belgrade in the near future. Barred from visiting under Mr. Milosevic, she will reopen the tribunal's office in Belgrade.

-------- u.s.

CHECKPOINT SAPPER JOURNAL
G.I.'s in Kosovo Are Judges, Jailers, and Much More

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/world/22KOSO.html

CHECKPOINT SAPPER, Kosovo - "What we do here," said Lt. Patrick Grow, "could affect the president of the U.S. in three minutes."

Kosovo is more or less at peace, but only because it is ringed by NATO steel and patrolled by NATO troops. Here in the American sector, Lieutenant Grow and his men of the First Armored Division are part of the United States Army's efforts to keep the tensions between Kosovo's Albanian majority and Serbian minority from spilling over to the rest of Serbia.

The solution the Army has found - making its men part detective, part judge and part jailer - illustrates the difficulty of peacekeeping in a difficult land.

As the lieutenant spoke, his men, in full battle gear, searched an Albanian family in a friendly but efficient way, keeping watch over the dirt road that crosses their position.

Checkpoint Sapper, on the ridge of the hills forming Kosovo's eastern border here, is an impromptu fortress, a warren of low green-sandbag walls with tanks dug in around it, their guns pointing down onto the roofs of Dobrosin, a village of Kosovo Albanians in the Presevo Valley below.

The village is only 300 yards down the road, but no American soldier can admit having set foot in it because it is on the other side of Kosovo's border with the rest of Serbia. The first checkpoints of the Serbian police are over another ridge about 3,000 yards away, so the village in effect is in a no man's land.

The Americans say they have not detected any change in the vigilance and behavior of the Serbian units since Vojislav Kostunica replaced Slobodan Milosevic as the Yugoslav president in early October. Serbia is the major part of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo remains technically a province of Serbia.

Dobrosin, a collection of about 50 houses full of woodcutters, shepherds and farmers, is fertile territory for a group that calls itself the Army for the Liberation of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac. The group wants the Presevo Valley detached from Serbia and given to Kosovo, which it hopes will one day be an independent country with an Albanian majority.

Shifting Balkan borders is not on the agenda of the foreign diplomats and soldiers who keep the uneasy peace. Inside Kosovo, though, the rebels of tiny Dobrosin have sympathizers. Weeks ago one of their burly leaders, asked by journalists if he was smuggling guns past Checkpoint Sapper, unzipped his vest and pulled out fat wads of German 500-mark (about $250) notes. "We don't need to smuggle," he boasted. "We buy them from the Serbs."

At the Liberation Army's Dobrosin checkpoint downhill from Checkpoint Sapper, the guards, helmetless and wearing ragged bits of khaki and camouflage, were evasive when foreign journalists asked to interview Vebi Hidari, who the Americans say is their second-in-command. "He's away," one said. "We can't say exactly when he'll be back."

What they did not admit was that Mr. Hidari was in the stockade at Camp Bondsteel, the American headquarters. His detention was part of the unusual policy adopted by American troops and the NATO commanders of the peacekeeping force here to hobble the Liberation Army.

In June and July, American tank gunners using thermal sights repeatedly saw patrols from Dobrosin enter the woods east of the village at night, heading for the Serbian lines.

A few minutes later, firing could be heard. Mortar rounds were spotted flying out of the woods, and then Serbian mortars firing back. Then the men from Dobrosin would run back out, emerging under the umbrella of the American guns.

But the United States Army could not go down into Dobrosin to stop what it was observing. Instead, the soldiers became investigators; they began thoroughly searching men who came through the checkpoint, looking for weapons and also for identity cards, passes or other clues that they were members of the group.

Using translators, soldiers here started grilling other residents who drive tractors and cars through. Gunners watched Dobrosin through high-power sights for men in uniform who later approached the checkpoint in civilian clothes. Sensors were strung along the hills to discourage fighters from sneaking through the woods to get into Kosovo.

Whenever a suspected member came through, he was taken into a tent with a video camera, asked to sign a statement admitting membership and offered a choice: to stay on one side or the other - the valley or Kosovo.

"We served 17 or 18 of these things, and it got their attention," said Lt. Col. Michael C. Cloy, commander of the sector that includes Checkpoint Sapper.

The first time men are caught on the "wrong" side of their choice, they get a warning. The second time they are jailed for 72 hours, and the third time for up to 30 days.

The first to get three strikes was Mr. Hidari.

The legality of the 30-day detentions without trial, which are routine in military operations and in the makeshift system of justice operated in Kosovo by the United Nations, was sharply questioned in an Oct. 18 report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Colonel Cloy was sent a copy of that report only two weeks later, and said that pending a review by his unit's legal specialist and possible new orders, the policy at the checkpoint would remain unchanged.

Bernard Kouchner, the United Nations representative in charge of Kosovo, said he had acceded to American demands that the detention of Liberation Army commanders be prolonged, adding that "it's quieter in the valley than it was before."

In the American sector, preventive detention has also been used to restrain an Albanian caught once near a grenade attack and another time sneaking into a courtyard with a silencer-equipped pistol, Colonel Cloy said.

Military justice, whether to prevent border war or stop urban killings, is trying at least to imitate American civil rights, he said.

"These people are used to `the man' picking them up, bopping them on the head and giving them an attitude adjustment," Colonel Cloy said, alluding to a decade of tough Serbian police repression of the Albanians after Mr. Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. "We don't do that, because it's wrong, and the American public wouldn't tolerate it.

"No one's showed up to complain."

---

Morrock News, Weds., Nov. 22, 2000
THE MORROCK NEWS DIGEST
Fast, free and independent http://morrock.com

NAVY WON'T BE REPAID BY GAY MAN: Tommie Watkins, now 25, resigned from the U.S. Naval Academy under what he said was homophobic pressure, and later acknowledged being gay. Military policy requires officer trainees to repay the government for their education of they drop out or are expelled, but after months of legal twists and turns, the Navy has finally abandoned its attempt to collect the money. Watkins got the word Tuesday that he won't have to pay. "It's kind of ironic," he said, "because the Navy says its core values are honor, courage and commitment. It seems like I had to exhibit those qualities to win this case.''

---

USA Today
11/22/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Alabama

Anniston - Calhoun County officials rejected the Army's proposed emergency response plan for the Anniston Army Depot that includes ordering some residents to stay in their homes. The local strategy has been to evacuate the area near the depot if there is a chemical release. The Army's new "shelter-in-place" proposal came after a study suggested the evacuation strategy was flawed.

Kentucky

Louisville - City leaders say they stand by their decision to honor a local veterans' advocate despite reports that he lied about his military career. Roy Thurman, 58, was given Louisville's 2000 Liberty Award on Veterans Day and lauded as a Marine Corps pilot shot down three times in Vietnam. But the Marines say Thurman was a Marine sergeant who was never in Vietnam.

---

Republican hope fades for military vote tally

Washington Times
November 22, 2000
By Dave Boyer THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-20001122225217.htm

Hope faded for Republicans yesterday that Florida officials would reconsider disqualified overseas absentee ballots in the presidential election, as counties shrugged off the state attorney general's advice for a recount.

"It's not a legal opinion," said Democrat Bill Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections, of the attorney general's advisory. "We were already aware of the issue, and the Orange County canvassing board is currently not scheduled to reconvene."

State Attorney General Robert Butterworth, co-chairman of Vice President Al Gore's Florida campaign, called upon election officials yesterday and Monday to reconsider ballots that were rejected at the behest of the Gore team because of various technicalities, such as the lack of a postmark.

Many of those ballots came from U.S. military personnel stationed abroad. The Gore team has been rocked by accusations that it systematically sought to discredit military absentee ballots in Florida.

But many county elections officials said they were bound by law not to reconsider the rejected absentee ballots, and noted that Mr. Butterworth's opinion was not binding legally. Republicans yesterday decried Mr. Butterworth's efforts as toothless posturing to salvage the Gore campaign's image.

Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, said Democrats "realize it bothered a lot of Americans that they would target the military for their own personal political gain."

A Republican close to the Bush campaign said yesterday of Mr. Butterworth's actions, "It's all show. [Mr. Butterworth] has no authority. It is nothing but more of a charade."

Mr. Bush, the Republican nominee, won the absentee ballots by a 2-to-1 ratio, extending his lead in the overall statewide tally to 930 votes. But Bush aides believe the Republican lost another 300 to 800 votes because of what they call the Gore team's coordinated, systematic challenges to the absentee ballots.

At a rally in Miami yesterday, Republican Reps. Steve Buyer of Indiana and John E. Sweeney of New York called on state officials to reconsider the overseas absentee ballots.

"The state of Florida should also extend their respect to the men and women who wear the uniform and are serving our country abroad," said Mr. Buyer, a member of the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees. "Floridians serving in uniform, who may live and work in dangerous locations around the world, should not be disenfranchised because of circumstances requiring the delivery of their ballots without a postmark."

Mr. Buyer congratulated the state attorney general for "seeing the light" in calling for the overseas ballots to be reconsidered. But the congressman also acknowledged that Mr. Butterworth had created more confusion about whether to include ballots that were not signed and dated.

"He issued an opinion yesterday that said if it didn't have a postmark, it should be counted," Mr. Buyer said. "But he also said that it should be signed and dated. Now, where do we go from here?"

Miss Tucker said the overseas absentee ballots do not have a space for a signature or date.

"I'm still uncertain what practical effect this has on anything," she said of Mr. Butterworth's advisory.

Mr. Buyer said any overseas ballot that was received by a local canvassing board on or before Election Day should be counted.

"Military personnel cannot control the means by which their ballots are delivered," he said. "And that's why the attorney general, I think, tried to do some damage control here, and I want to applaud him for his efforts."

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, a candidate to become secretary of state if Mr. Bush wins the presidency, also weighed in on the issue this week. He told reporters at a dedication at Fort Hamilton, N.Y., on Monday that he was "troubled" by the wholesale rejection of military ballots.

"We shouldn't disenfranchise our GIs if there's anything we can do to avoid it," Mr. Powell said. "All those GIs in Broward County, Florida, are going to learn that 75 percent of their absentee ballots were thrown aside. At the same time, we're trying to divine the intent of dimples on the other ballots."

As the Democrats continued to suffer public-relations fallout over the rejected military votes, they called in one of their party's decorated war veterans, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, to defend the Gore campaign.

"I saw irresponsible things being said by the Bush campaign that the vice president was stealing votes, that there's election fraud, that somehow that he's incompetent to be commander in chief," Mr. Kerrey said. "Those are all reckless, they're irresponsible and they're wrong."

Mr. Kerrey said military personnel often are to blame for casting incorrect ballots. "In the military, we accept responsibility for our mistakes," Mr. Kerrey said. "We don't blame it on somebody else.

"If I'm not prepared, and I didn't get the word, and I come to my commanding officer and say, 'Gee, I'm sorry, captain, I didn't get the word,' my commanding officer will say, 'Lieutenant, failure to get the word is no excuse.' In the day after these [ballot] accusations are made, what we're discovering is signatures are not there, voter IDs are not there, addresses are not there, witnesses aren't there. Personally, I think the military should not be treated any differently than any other citizen," he said.

Mr. Kerrey offered this challenge to Republicans: "If they want to bring a legal case, let them bring a legal case."

A law firm in Texas plans to do just that. Attorney Philip Jones of San Antonio said yesterday he will file a class-action lawsuit within days to enable disenfranchised military personnel overseas a chance to vote.

Mr. Jones, who specializes in veterans' issues, said in an interview that he has been inundated this week with e-mail messages from servicemen and women abroad who complained that they did not receive absentee ballots as requested.

While the case does not center specifically on Florida, Mr. Jones said, "hundreds" of the messages he has received are from Florida residents stationed overseas.

"We're asking for these people to be allowed to vote now," he said.

Also yesterday, Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, called for "immediate" congressional hearings on absentee voting for overseas military personnel.

"Events in Florida have indicated our military voting system may be open to partisan manipulation by candidates willing to put ambition ahead of patriotism," Mr. Barr wrote to the House Government Reform Committee.

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

Agency to Halt Endangered Species Listings

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/science/22SPEC.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - The Fish and Wildlife Service said today that it could not add more wildlife to the endangered species list until next fall because it had to spend so much time and money defending lawsuits from environmentalists.

The decision means that about 25 species being considered for the list will have to wait until this fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, 2001, an agency spokesman, Hugh Vickery, said, adding that exceptions would be made for species in imminent danger of extinction.

The service is swamped by lawsuits from environmental groups demanding "critical habitat" designation for some of the 1,225 species already listed as threatened or endangered. Such designations extend federal regulations to areas that are needed for the recovery of a species, even if it does not live there.

Environmentalists criticized the decision, with David Hogan of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson saying, "Fish and Wildlife is playing serious politics, and the loser is America's endangered wildlife."

The species that will have to wait for possible listings include the Mississippi gopher frog and the coastal cutthroat trout.

---

Agency: Legal costs endanger species

USA Today
11/22/00
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858907s.htm

Litigation costs have forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to stop evaluating whether rare plants and animals deserve to be added to the endangered species list, the agency's chief said. ''Our court orders and our court settlements . . . have totally wiped out our entire allocation'' for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, said agency Director Jamie Rappaport Clark. Most of the lawsuits concern the agency's failure to undertake the costly, time-consuming process of identifying the lands critical to recovery of species already declared endangered or threatened. -- Traci Watson

---

USA Today
11/22/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Florida

St. Augustine - Game officials are investigating the shooting deaths of two whooping cranes, which are among the rarest birds in the world. The Audubon Society has put up a $500 reward for information on who fired the shots Sunday in a field just west of St. Augustine. Only 25 mating pairs of whooping cranes are known to live in Florida and only about 200 pairs across the USA.

Oregon

Portland - The federal government has revised guidelines for protecting rare plants and animals in the Northwest's old growth forests. The new plan drops 60 species from the list of plants, animals and other forest life that biologists must identify before logging can begin on national forests and other federal land.

---

The Kyoto myth

Washington Times
EDITORIAL • November 22, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/ed-house-2000112203242.htm

Preoccupied with the ongoing presidential election controversy, few Americans realize that a potentially much more significant decision is being made on their behalf in The Hague. Global bureaucrats meeting at the Dutch city are hammering out enforcement mechanisms for the Kyoto Protocol - an environmental treaty negotiated in Japan three years ago that could cripple the U.S. economy and reduce the standard of living for average Americans in a profound and lasting way.

The Kyoto Protocol is designed, ostensibly, to combat the supposed problem of "global warming." Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Americans would have to curtail their use of energy sufficiently that an overall reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 5-7 percent below 1990 levels is achieved. The reduction in industrial/economic activity needed to get to this goal would entail massive new energy taxes or draconian rationing schemes; there is simply no other means by which a reduction in CO2 of the magnitude demanded by the Kyoto Protocol could be achieved. A reduction of economic/industrial activity of that massive can be described simply, in one word - depression.

Now, perhaps the impoverishment of nearly 300 million Americans (and countless others) could be justified if, indeed, a man-made environmental apocalypse was imminent. It is not. The whole body of "global warming" evidence rests on skewed and politicized data fed into highly questionable computer models designed to spit out the most calamitous result, even when such a result is the least realistic scientifically.

The Kyoto Protocol has its origins in the so-called U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a body suffused with political leftists working hand-in-glove with such groups as the Environmental Defense Fund. Mild and even-tempered language in various full reports about mankind's influence on global warming has been selectively edited and "summarized" in a way that was and is highly misleading - courtesy of IPCC extremists. Terms such as "discernible human impact" and "stronger evidence" have been bandied about to the always receptive news media.

One problem is that almost all of the warming observed by scientists and upon which the theory of human-caused "global warming" rests occurred between 1900 and 1940 - in other words, when industrial activity was far less (and less regulated) than it has been from 1940 onward. If "global warming" were, in fact, a man-made event, we should expect to see rapidly rising temperatures post-1940. But we do not. Environmental radicals have seized upon the handful of summers that were warmer than usual to frighten the public, but these are normal fluctuations, according to scientists.

It's true, however, that overall temperatures seem to be rising slightly - by 2.5 to 4.5 degrees. But this may well be a natural process (we are actually at the tail-end of a "Little Ice Age") and far less than the almost 12-degrees predicted by the worst-case scenario IPCC computer models. Yet it is the most extreme and scientifically insupportable positions that are being accepted as fact and used as the basis for bullying the United States into accepting the terms of a treaty that could efface the economic gains of the past decade - and then some.

-------- police

Giuliani in Washington to Block Police Suit

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/nyregion/22POLI.html

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani traveled to Washington yesterday to meet Attorney General Janet Reno and federal prosecutors from Brooklyn in a last-ditch effort to forestall a civil rights lawsuit accusing the city of failing to discipline brutal police officers effectively.

Accompanied by the police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik; the city's corporation counsel, Michael D. Hess; and several city lawyers, Mayor Giuliani met for about two hours with Ms. Reno; Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for Brooklyn; and several Justice Department officials, the mayor said.

The United States attorney's office has been negotiating with the city for more than a year on changing the way the department handles brutality cases and on imposing a federal monitor to oversee the disciplinary process. The prosecutors contend that lapses in the department's procedures have let brutal officers go unpunished, fostering a climate of brutality in the department and allowing routine violations of citizens' civil rights.

Their conclusions stem from an investigation begun in 1997 by Ms. Lynch's predecessor, Zachary W. Carter, after Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was tortured in a police station house. The federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who have conducted the inquiry with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, have said they will sue if they fail to reach a negotiated settlement with the city.

The mayor, a staunch supporter of the Police Department, has acknowledged in recent months that there was merit to the findings of the federal inquiry, saying that there had been problems with some departmental procedures in brutality cases. But he has taken issue with the changes proposed by federal authorities and, in some measure, the means to implement them.

Speaking yesterday at Gracie Mansion after returning from Washington, the mayor said he had requested the meeting with Ms. Reno, and he praised her several times for her careful attention.

"She gave us a great deal of time, she was very attentive, very conscientious," Mr. Giuliani said. "I think the meeting lasted about two hours, and it was a full and complete discussion of our position, some of the other positions, and if we can reach a resolution of it, we would be very happy."

The mayor would not comment on what specifically was discussed. When he was asked whether anything definite had come out of the meeting, he said: "There is nothing definite after the discussions. The attorney general has to make a decision about whether they want to bring a lawsuit or not. And it'll take some time."

Ms. Lynch would not comment, and a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Kara Peterman, would confirm only that the meeting had taken place.

The investigation was undertaken under a federal civil rights law passed in 1994 in response to the videotaped police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. Under the law, the prosecutors in Brooklyn are required to seek a negotiated settlement with the city before they sue to seek changes.

At the meeting yesterday, the city's presentation in the attorney general's conference room included charts and other displays describing the city's case, several officials said.

Also at the meeting were the second- and third-ranking officials in the Justice Department: the deputy attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr.; and the acting associate attorney general, Daniel Marcus. Also present was the assistant attorney general, Bill Lann Lee, who heads the Civil Rights Division, officials said.

Ms. Lynch's top aide, Alan M. Vinegrad, the chief assistant United States attorney, and Mr. Carter, who has continued to play a role in the negotiations since leaving the United States attorney's office for private practice last year, also attended, officials said.

---

Inconsistencies Examined in Officers' Trial Testimony

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By RONALD SMOTHERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/nyregion/22ORAN.html

NEWARK, Nov. 21 - Defense lawyers for the five Orange police officers accused of federal civil rights violations in the beating and abuse of a suspect who died in police custody zeroed in today on a significant conflict between the accounts of two policemen.

The two officers are the prosecution's main witnesses to what took place on April 11, 1999, in a crowded stairwell in police headquarters. There, Officer Keith Jackson testified last week, officers beat the suspect, Earl Faison, 27, and directed pepper spray into his face just before he was taken to a hospital.

Mr. Faison had been spotted, chased and brought in by officers who were investigating the shooting death three days earlier of a colleague, Officer Joyce Carnegie.

Today, Officer Jackson's partner, Officer Anthony Tortorella, corroborated in Federal District Court here nearly every detail of Officer Jackson's description of how one officer, Brian Smith, 31, sprayed the pepper spray into the face of Mr. Faison, who was handcuffed and lying on the stairwell floor.

But in a departure from his partner's testimony, Officer Tortorella said he did not see one of the officers charged, Tyrone Payton, 34, rifling Mr. Faison's pockets, removing bills, holding them up and shouting, "Someone give this to Joyce's mother."

The robbery of Mr. Faison is one of the charges in the indictment of the five officers, and the conflict between the two witnesses - who have both testified that they were standing side by side, viewing the same events - is likely to aid defense lawyers' efforts to create reasonable doubt about their clients' guilt.

The discrepancy was brought out in cross-examination by Peter Willis, the lawyer for Officer Smith, who suggested that any money found on Mr. Faison was taken by Officer Tortorella.

"Are you a thief?" asked Mr. Willis, and when the witness answered no, he quickly reiterated Officer Jackson's version of events, given in testimony a week ago. "I didn't hear you mention seeing Payton take money out of Faison's pocket and hold it up."

"I didn't see that," Officer Tortorella answered.

In addition to Officer Smith and his brother Thomas Smith, 38, a retired lieutenant, the defendants are Andrew Garth, 31, and Paul Carpinteri, 36.

Defense lawyers were more successful in highlighting conflicts between Officer Tortorella and his partner than they were in tripping up Officer Tortorella over inconsistencies in his own testimony and the statement he made to investigators in 1999. It was then, he testified on Monday, that he decided to tell the truth.

But the questioning of Officer Tortorella also presented the prosecution with a rare opportunity when defense lawyers opened up an avenue of questioning, asking the officer with whom he had discussed his initial plans to lie to federal agents looking into Mr. Faison's death.

Under redirect questioning by an assistant United States attorney, Luis Valentin, Officer Tortorella was asked about such conversations, and told of agreeing separately with Brian Smith and Thomas Smith to tell versions in which each of them was left out.

---

Police May Raise Spending 25% for Anticrime Program

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By KEVIN FLYNN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/nyregion/22COND.html

The Police Department is planning to increase spending on Operation Condor by at least 25 percent, according to figures released yesterday in a City Council hearing at which officials said the department needed such programs to keep the crime rate going down.

The first deputy commissioner, Joseph Dunne, defended the department's plan to spend up to $105 million this fiscal year on Operation Condor, in which officers focus on narcotics and quality-of-life offenses. He called the program, which started this year, an essential tool that has helped reduce crime by 5 percent.

Over all, crime is down 67 percent over the last seven years. "We think that without Condor it would be very, very difficult to continue the decrease in crime," Mr. Dunne said after a meeting of the Public Safety Committee.

The vote of confidence in the program comes just weeks after the department re-evaluated its effectiveness. The program has been criticized for its expense and because, some critics contend, the patrols it finances are too often focused on low- level offenders.

Most Condor patrols were canceled for 10 days in October to see what would happen. When crime increased by slightly more than 1 percent, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced that the program would be continued and expanded.

The department now puts 1,000 officers a day on Condor patrols, Mr. Dunne said, up from 500 a day several months ago.

During the last fiscal year, during which the program operated for the six months ended in June, Condor cost $39 million, officials said. On an annual basis, it would have cost $78 million, and the department has proposed spending $100 million to $105 million this fiscal year.

If the department spends all the Condor money it plans, the program will account for a third of the police overtime budget, which is now expected to reach a record $260 million this year. Three years ago, the department spent $146 million on overtime.

City Council members have consistently asked why the department spends so much on overtime when its force of 41,000 is the largest in history and crime is down. Much of the overtime, officials have said, has been incurred because of special events, like the Subway Series and subsequent Yankees victory parade. In addition, they have said that programs that produce arrests create additional overtime because officers often have to stay late while the arrest papers are processed.

From January to June, officers on Condor patrols made 47,100 arrests, officials said. In the new fiscal year, which is slightly more than four months old, the number of arrests by officers being paid with Condor overtime has increased to 69,743.

After the hearing, Councilman Sheldon Leffler, chairman of the committee, said he had seen no evidence that drops in crime were necessarily a result of Condor or that it was cost-effective.

---

Los Angeles Settles Lawsuit Against Police

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22ANGE.html

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 21 - The City of Los Angeles agreed today to pay $15 million to a man who said police officers shot him in the head and chest and then framed him in the attack.

It was the single largest police misconduct settlement made in Los Angeles.

Members of the City Council voted unanimously to approve the settlement with Javier Francisco Ovando, a former gang member whose injuries left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Mr. Ovando was the first man freed from prison in the police corruption case in the Rampart Division, the worst ever in Los Angeles.

Mr. Ovando was shot during a 1996 raid involving Officer Rafael Perez and his partner, Officer Nino Durden. Officer Perez has said they shot Mr. Ovando, then Mr. Durden planted a gun on him and accused him of trying to attack them.

Mr. Ovando was sentenced to 23 years in prison, based on the officers' testimony. He served two years and six months before his conviction was overturned last year at the request of the district attorney's office, and he was released.

Mr. Perez and Mr. Durden are at the center of the Rampart case, which erupted last year after Mr. Perez, who was accused of stealing cocaine from a Los Angeles Police Department evidence locker, turned informant and began detailing pervasive corruption in the Rampart station house, which patrols the mostly Hispanic neighborhoods near downtown Los Angeles.

"The bottom line here is clearly there was some egregious misconduct on the part of the Police Department here, and we have an extremely, severely injured individual who has sued the city," Councilman Mike Feuer said in urging his colleagues to approve Mr. Ovando's settlement.

On Friday, Council members voted to approve a $10.9 million deal to settle 29 other federal civil rights lawsuits stemming from the case.

More than 60 other cases still await litigation, and more are expected to be filed.

---

LAPD shooting victim gets $15 million

USA Today
11/21/00- Updated 09:22 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndstue11.htm

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The City Council unanimously approved a $15 million settlement Tuesday for a man whose paralysis in a police shooting has come to symbolize the largest police scandal in Los Angeles history.

Javier Francisco Ovando, 23, was shot in the back by officers who then allegedly planted a gun on him to deflect blame.

He served more than two years in prison for assaulting an officer before his conviction was thrown out last year after the disgraced ex-officer at the heart of the scandal said he and his partner planted a gun on Ovando after shooting him.

The settlement is the largest in the scandal so far and is nearly three times the amount given to 1991 beating victim Rodney King. Ovando's legs are paralyzed.

''This gives him very good compensation,'' said Gregory Moreno, Ovando's attorney. ''We were looking for a reasonable amount of money for him to get on with his life and put the pieces back together.''

The settlement brings to nearly $30 million the amount Los Angeles has agreed to pay victims of the scandal. About 70 lawsuits are pending.

Councilman Mike Feuer said the settlement was necessary because the city stood ''very little chance of prevailing'' in a jury trial. Mayor Richard Riordan called it a fair resolution ''to a terrible miscarriage of justice.''

''Now we must put this behind us, and look forward to the future by implementing police reforms that ensure this will never happen again,'' he said.

The corruption scandal is centered in the Rampart police station's gang-fighting unit, whose members allegedly beat, robbed and even shot suspects.

An investigation has led to charges being dismissed or overturned in about 100 cases and the convictions last week of three officers. It also was a catalyst for an agreement that provides federal oversight of police department reforms.

The scandal came to light after ex-officer Rafael Perez, who was arrested for stealing cocaine from a police evidence room, cooperated in exchange for a lighter sentence and immunity from other charges.

Perez told investigators that he and his former partner, Nino Durden, were staking out an apartment building when Durden drew his gun and shot Ovando. Perez said he also opened fire.

The two then planted another gun on Ovando and claimed he tried to attack them, Perez said.

Durden has pleaded innocent to attempted murder charges and is awaiting trial.

The portion of Ovando's lawsuit against Perez is still pending, his attorney said. A separate lawsuit on behalf of Ovando's 3-year-old daughter, Destiny, also is pending.

---

L.A. to pay $15M in police corruption case

USA Today
11/22/00
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858907s.htm

The city of Los Angeles will pay $15 million to a man whom police officers allegedly shot in the head and chest and then framed for a crime he did not commit, the City Council decided unanimously Tuesday. It was the largest police misconduct settlement in Los Angeles history. Javier Ovando, whose injuries left him paralyzed from the waist down, was the first man freed from prison in the Rampart police corruption scandal. Officials say Ovando was shot during a gang raid in 1996 by Officer Rafael Perez and his partner, Nino Durden, who then planted a gun on Ovando and accused him of trying to attack them. He was sentenced to 23 years based on their testimony and served 2 1/2 years before his conviction was overturned last year.

---

USA Today
11/22/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Nebraska

Pawnee City - Embattled Pawnee County Sheriff Art Baldridge wants someone from outside the county to investigate his office's operations. Baldridge, the target of a recall petition, called for an unbiased outside investigator. The county's board of commissioners claims Baldridge violated employment rules by firing an office deputy without its approval and hiring his own wife to replace her.

Rhode Island

Providence - The police union overwhelmingly voted to ask Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr. to resign his post. The officers are angry over an ongoing FBI investigation of police promotions and other department operations.

-------- spying

Software to Track E-Mail Raises Privacy Concerns

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By AMY HARMON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/technology/22NET.html

It was during a recent job search that Donald Bell gave in to the temptation to bug his own e-mail. Mr. Bell, 55, had e-mailed dozens of résumés to prospective employers and received scant response. Naturally he wondered: was he being rejected, or had his messages gone unread?

Anyone who has been left hanging knows it is the sort of nagging question that is rarely answered. But thanks to a furtive application of a feature common to the latest e-mail programs, Mr. Bell was able to learn, undetected, that the intended recipients were indeed opening his messages. With a service he found on the Internet, he could even tell precisely when a recipient read his e-mail messages and if the message was sent on to anyone else.

"It feels a little naughty, because you can't do this with postal mail," said Mr. Bell, who has since started his own company in San Francisco and sometimes uses the e-mail service to check whether colleagues forward messages that he considers confidential. "But e-mail is a different animal. You have to just reach into your heart and decide what you're going to do."

Mr. Bell is not alone in taking advantage of new e-mail software that makes certain kinds of monitoring easy and nearly imperceptible. At a time when many Internet users have come to grips with advertisers' tracking their anonymous trail of clicks across the World Wide Web, the frontier of the electronic privacy wars is shifting to the more personal realm of the e-mail "in" box.

Marketing companies now regularly keep tabs on which prospective customers open their e-mail solicitations, and at what time of day, arguing that consumers benefit because the information is used to devise more personalized promotions. Individuals who have used e-mail tracking services say they feel entitled to monitor their own correspondence in a medium where it is so easily passed along or ignored.

But privacy advocates contend that such practices open a new window of surveillance on a traditionally private sphere of communications. They compare it to having someone who leaves a message on your answering machine - a telemarketer, say, or your mother - alerted the moment you listen to it. More troubling, they say, is that the same technology can be used to match a recipient's e-mail address with previously anonymous records of the Web sites visited from that person's computer.

Connecting the data collected through files known as cookies with an e-mail address, the privacy advocates argue, will be irresistible to marketers seeking to identify the buying habits and personal tastes of individual consumers. The linked databases, they say, could also be consulted by law enforcement agencies, insurance companies, employers and others who would need only an e-mail address to look up a record of an individual's activities on the Web.

"You can buy 50,000 addresses of people who subscribe to The New Yorker," said Richard M. Smith, chief technology officer of the Privacy Foundation. "But you don't know what articles they're reading in it, or what books they've bought or what medical problems they've been researching lately. That's very much a possibility within this technology."

The technology in question is seemingly innocuous: the ability of the latest e-mail programs to send and display images. E-mail senders use the feature, based on the Web's computer language, to create colorful messages known as HTML mail.

But many also use it to embed tiny images that are invisible to the recipients. Marketers call them pixel tags and say they are used to gauge the success of e-mail campaigns. Privacy advocates prefer a more ominous name - Web bugs.

The instant someone opens an e-mail message that contains instructions to display a graphic file, his or her computer automatically fetches the image from a specified location on the Internet. By adding a unique identifying code to those instructions, a sender can record when a particular recipient retrieves the image, and, thus, when the e-mail message is opened.

Subsequent retrieval of the image can tell the sender how often the message is reopened, and sometimes whether it has been forwarded (though not the precise forwarding address).

Direct marketers, the most frequent users of the technique, say it is akin to the standard practice among Internet advertisers of tracking which banners Web surfers click on.

"I don't see any privacy issues there because the data is secure and never sold," said William Park, chief executive of Digital Impact, an e- mail marketing company that has designed campaigns for dozens of clients. "From the marketing perspective, if you're not opening that e- mail it might be we're sending it on the wrong day of the week, or the subject line is really boring, or the subject line is really cryptic."

The emergence of HTML mail may well make reading e-mail messages more like visiting a Web site, with all the attendant privacy risks. But for many Internet users, such risks may seem more acceptable on the Web than they do in their "in" box.

Sophisticated Internet users know that when they click on a Web advertisement they are probably exposing themselves to scrutiny, and that it is possible to reject the files that record such behavior.

But few are aware of the tracking capability of HTML mail. And while some e-mail programs, like Microsoft Outlook and Eudora, give users the option of screening images out, others, like America Online 6.0 and Web-based Hotmail do not.

Some recipients of e-mail newsletters say they do not mind if the sender knows when they open a message, particularly if the aim is to alert them to a sale or a new product. But others argue that it violates their right to communicate, or not, without being observed. And particularly in a country where postal mailboxes are protected by federal law, the notion that reading e-mail messages is no longer a private act may prove disconcerting.

"We would shudder if regular letters were implanted with secret signals that alerted their senders when they were opened," said Jeffrey Rosen, author of "The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America" (Random House, 2000). "It seems to invade both the privacy of the home and in some sense the privacy of the mind."

Still, the practice is becoming more common. About 60 percent of e- mail users have software that can read HTML mail, according to the online research firm Jupiter Media Metrix, a number expected to grow significantly as America Online users install version 6.0, the first update to include the feature, released last month.

As advertising on Web sites proves increasingly ineffective, many companies like Eddie Bauer and Borders are relying more heavily on e-mail solicitations whose value lies in part in the ability to track recipient response. How many subscribers actually open e-mail has also become an important measurement by which e-mail newsletter companies like Lifeminders sell advertising. Companies that send unsolicited bulk e-mail use tracking to increase the value of their address lists by weeding out those who never open their messages.

And individuals can use Postel Services, the Korean company whose service Mr. Bell used to learn the fate of his job applications. Messages routed through its servers have tiny graphic files appended before being sent on. When the recipient opens the message, Postel is alerted and in turn alerts the sender.

Soobok Lee, the company's founder, said about 30,000 people had used the service since its introduction in May, in addition to several companies that had purchased licenses to track all of their correspondence. The first 30 messages a month are free, after which Postel charges 2 cents a message.

But whatever the utility or etiquette involved in monitoring the opening of a single e-mail message, it is the potential for that act to open a door to far more personal information that some find most unsettling.

The main object of concern is advertising companies like DoubleClick, Engage and 24/7 Media that already track the Web travels of tens of millions of Internet users, anonymously, by way of cookies.

The first time someone visits a site where DoubleClick places advertisements, for instance, the company deposits an identifying code - No. 1234, say - on the visitor's computer. After that, every time the computer with cookie No. 1234 visits one of the several thousand sites that contract with DoubleClick, the company records the visit.

DoubleClick and others use the information gleaned from cookies to choose which advertisement from the hundreds of clients they represent is most suited to an individual's tastes. They may know, for instance, that No. 1234 has recently visited sites related to quitting smoking, sport utility vehicles and the Green Party - but they have generally had no way of knowing who No. 1234 is.

The opportunity to identify the person behind the cookie comes when one of the advertising firms sends HTML mail to a consumer on behalf of a client, tagged with a unique identifier to track when it is opened. When the recipient opens such a message, the cookie code is exposed to the sender's server computer, which can compare it with those stored in its own database. At that moment, No. 1234 could be revealed as joe@computer.com.

After drawing scrutiny this year from the Federal Trade Commission, the major advertisers have vowed to refrain from linking personally identifiable information to anonymously collected data without permission from the consumer. But privacy advocates say consumers may consent unwittingly, and they note that voluntary privacy policies are easily modified.

Another practice, which involves using e-mail as a kind of Trojan horse to deliver a cookie file, recently prompted the Michigan attorney general's office to warn that it would sue one Web site, Evite, under the state's Consumer Protection Act unless it began to inform consumers.

Party organizers use Evite, a San Francisco-based online invitation service, to send e-mail HTML invitations. In addition to collecting the official R.S.V.P.'s, Evite is able to tell the organizer who opened the mail without responding, and who did not open it. Those who open the invitation receive a cookie from Evite, which would not otherwise be possible unless they visited its Web site.

Privacy advocates speculate that the company could "rent"the cookie and the e-mail address it is associated with to other sites.

Evite's chief executive, Josh Silverman, declined to be interviewed, citing continuing negotiations with the Michigan attorney general. He said in a statement that the cookies Evite delivered were not linked to addresses.

But Nick Ragouzis, a technically savvy business consultant in San Francisco who discovered Evite's invisible pixel in an invitation he received recently, said that alone was enough to make him feel his privacy had been invaded.

"I don't really care that they know I opened this particular message," Mr. Ragouzis said. "But they never asked me. And there would be other messages that I would care about. I feel I should be asked."

Mr. Ragouzis said he told the host of the party, Jad Duwaik, to refrain from sending him future Evite invitations and asked that he stop using the company's services altogether. But Mr. Duwaik, who organizes networking events for entrepreneurs, said the information provided by Evite about how many of the invitees open the messge helped him gauge interest in his parties.

"It's something I feel uncomfortable with as a consumer," Mr. Duwaik said. "But as an organizer it's just too useful to give up."

---

Report: Carnivore could be abused

USA Today
11/22/00- Updated 01:03 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A review by a private contractor of the FBI's Carnivore e-mail surveillance tool concludes that the FBI should continue to use the system, but raised the possibility that it could be abused to grab more data than a court allows. The review, was posted on the Justice Department's Web site, is the result of a monthlong, $170,000 contract to provide an independent analysis of the controversial surveillance system. But some civil rights advocates and a key lawmaker accused the authors of bias.

The report, prepared by the Illinois Institute of Technology's Research Institute and Chicago-Kent College of Law, recommends that the FBI make some changes in the Carnivore program so it's easier for agents to use and less open to possible abuse.

''In the current Carnivore software,'' the report says, ''it is possible to select filter settings that may not be appropriate or even technically feasible,'' including a selection that would ''collect all information that is available on the local area network.''

Carnivore also lacks ''individual accountability,'' the authors say, because each action is not traceable to a specific FBI technician. ''Given that chain-of-custody for the collected evidence is important, it should be important to know who set up the collection and when it was set up,'' the report said.

But even with its limitations, the report said, Carnivore is more precise in allowing agents to focus on narrowly defined, specific data than off-the-shelf network monitoring software. This can prevent agents from getting more information than they're allowed under court direction, the report suggested.

Critics immediately blasted the findings and noted that several senior members of the review team have worked for the Clinton administration and federal agencies in several administrations.

''We continue to believe that this was not an independent study,'' said Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. ''Most of the truly independent institutions declined to bid for the contract.

Calling the review a ''fuzzy snapshot of Carnivore,'' Steinhardt noted that Carnivore's technology is constantly evolving, so that new versions may have more sweeping capabilities than reviewed in the study.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, a longtime Carnivore critic, called the findings ''questionable'' and said the choice of the reviewers dictated the tone of the report.

Henry H. Perritt, who led the review team, shrugged off the criticism and insisted his team was independent.

''This is an old criticism,'' Perritt said in an interview Tuesday. ''We had access to whatever we wanted. ... We had some actual court orders, and we talked to people in the field who used the system and grilled them on how they go about setting it up and deploying it. ''We had ample opportunity to find out how the thing is used.''

Dr. Donald M. Kerr, head of the FBI's cybertechnology unit, said in a statement that he is ''pleased with the findings and the constructive recommendations'' in the report, and that the review should help the public have a ''clearer understanding of the facts'' of Carnivore.

The report also recommended that the FBI ''work toward public release of Carnivore source code,'' the internal blueprints of the system.

And the reviewers shed light on the Carnivore's sister programs, Packeteer and CoolMiner, which are used to analyze the data collected by Carnivore. Collectively, the three programs are referred to as the ''DragonWare Suite.''

----

But Not Everyone Approves

Wired
Nov. 22, 2000 PST
Reuters
mailto:?subject=... But Not Everyone Approves
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40342,00.html

WASHINGTON -- House Republican leader Dick Armey added his voice Wednesday to those accusing an outside review panel of whitewashing a controversial FBI cyber surveillance tool.

"The Department of Justice stacked the deck for this report," said Armey, a Texas Republican known as a champion of smaller, less intrusive government. "It selected reviewers and set the rules in order to ensure they would get the best possible review."

The system, known as Carnivore, is used by the FBI to keep court-ordered tabs on a criminal suspect's e-mail traffic, Web surfing and instant messages. Armey and other critics, including civil liberties groups and privacy advocates, have raised concerns about whether the cybersnooping may constitute a breach of the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

In a draft technical report released Tuesday night, the IIT Research Institute said Carnivore should be fine-tuned to protect routine online communications from interception. But the institute, tapped by the Justice Department to complete the $175,000 study, called the Carnivore system potentially "more effective in protecting privacy and enabling lawful surveillance" than alternatives.

When correctly used, "it provides investigators with no more information than is permitted by a given court order," said the institute, an arm of the Illinois Institute of Technology. The seven-member panel that prepared the draft report included several people with strong ties to law enforcement and the Clinton administration, critics have charged.

In his statement, Armey said: "This important issue deserves a truly independent review, not a whitewash."

Richard Diamond, an Armey spokesman, said the newly elected Congress that takes office in January would continue its oversight of Carnivore.

"We don't really know who's going to be running the Department of Justice and that makes a big difference," he added, referring to the still-undecided presidential election.

Attorney General Janet Reno ordered an independent review of Carnivore's inner workings after a stir in Congress. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Colgate, head of the review panel that will make recommendations to Reno, defended the institute as fully independent and said its draft report demonstrated this.

In addition, the public is welcome to comment on the draft, available at the Justice Department's website, as a prelude to the institute's presentation of a final version of its review on Dec. 8, he said in a telephone interview.

Colgate said the institute had also scrutinized a test model of the next version of Carnivore, which "probably will begin being used shortly after the new year."

Stephen Smith, the IIT Research Institute project manager for the review, said in a telephone interview: "I would ask people to read the report and decide for themselves if it is fair."

In its report, the institute found inadequate audit trails for pinning down individual accountability for actions taken during use of Carnivore. Colgate said the problem was being addressed in the system's next version.

He said his panel would make recommendations to Reno on "improvements that need to be made in the system" after taking account of the institute's suggestions. David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said nothing in the report released on Tuesday addressed the fundamental legal and constitutional questions surrounding Carnivore.

"The problem with Carnivore is that it gives the FBI access to the communications of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Internet users," he said. "It's not sufficient for the bureau to say, 'Trust us, we won't do anything wrong.' Most users want more of an assurance than that."

The American Civil Liberties Union said the choice of the institute "guaranteed a pat on the head" to Carnivore. "This report is, at best, a fuzzy snapshot of Carnivore, and it will be obsolete in two months when the FBI comes out with the next version of Carnivore," said Barry Steinhardt, the ACLU's associate director.

-------- terrorism

Suspect in Terror Case Is Mistreated, Wife Says

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By LOWELL BERGMAN and BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/nyregion/22TERR.html

The wife of one of the defendants in a government terrorism prosecution says federal jail officials in Manhattan have been retaliating against her husband ever since two other defendants in the case were accused of stabbing and critically injuring a guard.

Her husband, Wadih El-Hage, has not been accused of any role in the stabbing. But April El-Hage said by phone this week that as a result of actions taken against him by the authorities, his mental state has deteriorated sharply in recent weeks. Mr. El-Hage no longer recognizes his lawyer, his wife said, nor does he remember that he has a family.

Mr. El-Hage and three co-defendants are awaiting trial in January on charges of participating in a global terrorist conspiracy led by the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, which the authorities say included the 1998 bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa. The blasts killed more than 200 people and wounded thousands of others.

Since the stabbing, Mr. El-Hage and two of his co-defendants have been held in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal jail in Lower Manhattan. The government has barred the defendants from communicating with all outsiders except their lawyers and family members.

Mrs. El-Hage and a second family member said they were told by Mr. El-Hage's lawyer that since the stabbing on Nov. 1, Mr. El-Hage has lost all of his privileges in the jail, that his cell was emptied of his possessions, including pictures, books and papers, and that he was prevented from making scheduled phone calls to his family.

"I am speaking out because people on death row have more rights than my husband," said Mrs. El-Hage, who lives in Arlington, Tex., with the couple's seven children. She said the government had "already convicted my husband in the press, and they are punishing him in prison."

"Then," she said, "they will put him on trial."

Jail conditions have been an continuing issue in the prosecution of Mr. El-Hage and his co-defendants, who have all pleaded not guilty. One day last month, for example, Mr. El- Hage told a judge in Federal District Court in Manhattan that he was so upset at repeatedly being strip- searched before visits to court that he wanted to plead guilty, even though he did not believe he was guilty. The judge, Leonard B. Sand, refused to accept the plea.

Mr. El-Hage's lawyer, Sam A. Schmidt, had no comment yesterday. A court filing shows that he won a court order last week for Mr. El- Hage to be examined by a psychologist. A spokesman for the United States attorney, Mary Jo White, also would not comment.

Robert Brooks, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, said, "We stand by the decisions made by the court and the attorney general." The restrictions, which were sought by the government and upheld by the court, were imposed under a rarely used federal rule that allows limits on an inmate's communications with outsiders to prevent "acts of violence and terrorism."

In the phone interview, Mrs. El- Hage said that since the stabbing of the guard, Louis Pepe, officials at the federal jail have treated Mr. El- Hage so harshly that he has had a near breakdown. "They have made him mentally disabled," she said.

The other family member, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Schmidt, the lawyer, told the family that when he went to visit Mr. El-Hage last week, his client did not recognize him.

Mrs. El-Hage also complained that officials have prevented her husband from seeing his family.

Mrs. El-Hage's complaints come just a week after defense lawyers in the case complained to Judge Sand about their lack of access to their clients since the stabbing.

Mr. Pepe is in critical but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Prosecutors maintained in earlier court papers that the restrictive conditions of confinement were necessary because the defendants posed a continuing threat. Prosecutors say that Mr. El-Hage was the personal secretary to Mr. bin Laden, was a senior operative in his terrorism conspiracy to kill Americans abroad and lied to a grand jury. He has not been accused of a direct role in the 1998 attacks on the embassies in Africa.

-------- activists

Emergency Alert on Climate Treaty Negotiations! Act now!

Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 18:01:46 GMT

Dear Mac McLean: You can take action on this alert either by email or preferably on the web at: http://actionnetwork.org/take-action.tcl?key=29017A13329B1122121212C192

Here's what this alert is about:

Emergency Alert on Climate Treaty Negotiations! Act now!

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

This week, environment ministers and heads of state from over 140 countries have gathered in The Hague, Netherlands to negotiate implementation rules for the Kyoto climate change treaty. This is a critical time for our environment; the rules written this week could determine the future of world action to stop climate change.

Although just three days of negotiations remain, the discussions are deadlocked. We believe that only direct intervention from President Clinton himself will provide the change of atmosphere needed to effect positive change on global warming. Through this action alert we hope to generate thousands of faxes requesting direct intervention by the President to move the Treaty forward. Please help us plead our case by sending the following letter by fax to the White House.

Sincerely,

Steve Cochran Director of Strategic Communications Environmental Defense

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

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB: If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this alert by going to the following URL:

http://actionnetwork.org/take-action.tcl?key=29017A13329B1122121212C192

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA EMAIL: Just choose the "reply to sender" option on your email program, and edit the letter below as you wish. You must include the whole letter in your response including "-YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER BELOW-" and "-END OF LETTER-". Please do not add your name and address to your letter. Action Network automatically does this for you.

We STRONGLY encourage you to make edits directly to our sample letter below, and put the alert talking points into your own words. An individualized letter is worth ten computer generated letters. Of course, hundreds of unedited letters will still create a large impact, so please reply even if you don't have time to personalize the letter.

Your letter will be addressed and sent to: President Bill Clinton

-------YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER BELOW---------

This week, environment ministers and heads of state from over 140 countries have gathered in The Hague, Netherlands to negotiate the rules for implementing the Kyoto climate change treaty. These negotiations require your direct intervention.

Just three days remain before negotiators will end the current round of talks on halting global warming. As time runs out, the negotiations remain deadlocked over the most critical issues. Despite US leadership in creating the innovative emissions cap and trade model embraced by the Kyoto Protocol, this and other vital elements of the Protocol are in real danger of being undermined. Without the strong rules originally proposed by the United States delegation, the Kyoto climate change treaty will become a paper tiger.

Unfortunately, the US itself added to the current deadlock when it proposed an approach to carbon sinks that would weaken the US emission reduction target by 20 percent. Negotiators from other countries--particularly European nations--and the developing world have responded by calling for rules to undermine the flexibility mechanisms and compliance requirements that are essential to the environmental success of the cap and trade foundation upon which the Protocol itself is built. The situation is deteriorating, and we will all lose if no one breaks the deadlock.

The keys to an effective treaty are:

* Rejecting the inclusion of "business as usual" reductions from domestic carbon sinks. * Rejecting the use of cost caps or cost "safety valves" that allow businesses to simply pay to pollute. * Rejecting quantitative ceilings or other restrictions on the use of emissions trading. * Ensuring full accountability for industrialized nations that fail to meet their reduction targets. * Ensuring ecological criteria for reforestation and forest conservation in developing countries that use the Clean Development Mechanism. * Excluding the crediting of nuclear power in the CDM.

Mr. President, even if you cannot attend the negotiations, a strong statement from you to the Conference of the Parties and direct interventions with your counterparts from other nations represented here are vital to success in combating global climate change. Please reiterate the US commitment to meeting the target negotiated at Kyoto and emphasizing the environmental and economic benefits of the hard emissions cap and flexible mechanisms that your administration has worked so hard to make a reality.

-------END OF LETTER-------------------------

Sincerely yours,

Mac McLean 1448 Fairmont Street Washington, DC 20009

---

Clock Ticking at Climate Conference

Associated Press
November 22, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Climate-Conference.html

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Demonstrators disrupted a major conference on global warming Wednesday with dozens of protesters staging a sit-in and a cake thrower targeting the top U.S. negotiator.

The uproar came as discussion at the U.N. climate conference focused on how to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, blamed by much of the scientific community for global warming.

Key contentious issues include how far countries should be able to use the carbon dioxide absorbed by forests and agricultural lands against emission reductions targets and to what extent nations should be able to buy their way into complying with their targets.

But the high-level talks were disrupted when several dozen environmental activists entered the high security building, broke into a committee meeting and staged a sit-in. Conference President Jan Pronk said equipment was damaged and small fires were set in the building.

In an apparently unrelated incident, a woman pressed a chocolate cream cake into the face of the chief U.S. negotiator, Under Secretary of State Frank E. Loy as the American delegation gave its daily press briefing. The woman then calmly walked out of the room.

A second woman then stood up on a chair and screamed at the delegates before being escorted out by a conference technician. Her words were indecipherable. Conference officials said the identity of the women were unknown.

``On the eve of Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie would have been a more traditional choice, but what I really want is a strong agreement to fight global warming. I'm headed back to the negotiating table right now with that aim,'' Loy said after the incident.

He then excused himself and the briefing was called off.

Environmental activists sitting outside the meeting room told The Associated Press they sneaked into the building to disrupt proceedings because they believed the goal of the meeting had betrayed the spirit of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The protocol committed the developing world to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels.

The U.N. conference, which involves delegates from more than 180 countries, has two days left to decide how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Kyoto agreement.

They environmental activists said they were not connected with the women who disrupted Loy's briefing, nor with any environmental organization.

Dutch police said they had arrested around 100 protesters Wednesday near The Hague's central train station. The activists were planning to march to a number of embassies to protest against nuclear energy, but did not have a permit.

Protesters in the conference building said they believed the negotiations were watering down environmental protection.

Conferees are debating different ways that nations can use to meet their emission reductions targets.

One strategy includes the idea of international trading of emissions credits, where countries who will have no trouble meeting their goal could sell their surplus credits to those who are struggling to meet the target. The United States wants unlimited trading in credits.

Another mechanism involves a voluntary compliance fund, where parties can pay into a fund that will act as an agent to buy foreign credits to help them meet their emissions targets.

``They are woefully inadequate at addressing the issues,'' said Kim Webster, one of the group's protesters from England. Webster accused delegates of avoiding the ``real'' issues and called on them to increase spending on renewable energy sources.

``They need to stop talking about how to make money from climate change,'' she said.

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A Final March for Hosea Williams, and Many Tributes

New York Times
November 22, 2000
By KEVIN SACK
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22WILL.html

ATLANTA, Nov. 21 - Hosea Williams's last march took a familiar route today, down Auburn Avenue and past Atlanta's citadels of power, first the state Capitol and then City Hall. As usual, he wore his protest clothes - denim bib overalls, a long- sleeved red shirt and matching sneakers.

But rather than leading the march, bullhorn in hand, Mr. Williams was carried this time, borne upon a wooden wagon that was drawn by a pair of mules. His bronze coffin was blanketed with an American flag, and as it proceeded on its two-and-a- half-mile trip, thousands of spectators craned their necks to see, raised their cameras above their heads and then fell in behind the cortege.

The scene was deliberately evocative of the 1968 funeral of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Mr. Williams served as a top lieutenant and civil rights organizer. But unlike Dr. King, who was killed at 39 by an assassin, Mr. Williams died of cancer last Thursday at 74.

Throughout a day of remembrance and tribute, there was a certain poignance that Mr. Williams, one of the movement's most energetic demonstrators, had died of illness and age and not of the sudden violence that took so many of his colleagues. Before his nearly four-hour funeral in the new sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which stands across Auburn Avenue from Dr. King's former pulpit, one civil rights veteran after the next walked past his open coffin.

Some acted as if they were looking in a mirror. Some said as much.

"The sadness is that if Hosea can die, all of us must," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said in his eulogy. "He exposes our mortality."

Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who marched beside Mr. Williams in Selma, Ala., on Bloody Sunday, peered into the coffin and lingered silently before moving on. Surrounded by cameras, Mr. Jackson, who was with Mr. Williams in Memphis when Dr. King was killed, bent to kiss his old friend's face and to pat his belly.

They are graybeards now, figuratively and literally, the aging lions of an accomplished generation. With each month, it seems, another one passes: James Farmer, a founder of the Congress of Racial Equality; Daisy Bates, who shepherded the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School; Aaron Henry, the N.A.A.C.P. leader who stirred things up in Mississippi; Albert Turner, the Alabama organizer who helped plan the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Others, like Andrew J. Young and Dick Gregory, both of whom offered testimonials today, are battling the same disease that afflicted Mr. Williams.

Born in Florida to blind parents, Mr. Williams committed his first significant act of rebellion at age 12 when he ran away from the tobacco plantation where he was working. He would become a veteran who was seriously wounded in World War II, a college graduate who worked as a chemist, the field marshal of the civil rights movement, a state legislator, city councilman and county commissioner, and a crusader for the poor.

In 1970, he began serving a free Thanksgiving dinner to 100 of Atlanta's hungry and homeless in a local church. The program now serves more than 30,000 people who gather at the city's baseball stadium. Contributions have poured in since Mr. Williams's death, and today's speakers said that Thursday's meal would serve as a fitting tribute.

With his screechy James Brown voice and his roguish lifestyle, Mr. Williams was one of the true characters of the civil rights movement. His eulogists today celebrated his "uniqueness," as they put it, and encouraged their listeners not to let his drunken-driving arrests, his jail terms or his reputation as a ladies' man obscure what he had achieved.

Mr. Gregory said that Mr. Williams "took the invisible and made them visible." Mr. Young said that, "like Jeremiah, Hosea had a fire shut up in his bones." Mayor Bill Campbell of Atlanta called him "a warrior for justice."

Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater delivered condolences from President Clinton. Representative Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican who was often at odds with Mr. Williams, came to show his respect. He left shortly after Mr. Jackson delivered a eulogy that transformed quickly into a political attack on Gov. George W. Bush and the Republicans.

In tribute, many of those who filled all 1,700 seats at Ebenezer wore Mr. Williams's trademark red-shirt-and-overalls uniform, and pins reading "Hosea's Homecoming."

The front rows were filled by Georgia's governor, its two United States senators, and a large number of other elected officials. But Mr. Williams presumably would have been just as cheered more by the scene several pews back, which were filled by homeless men.

"You see all these public officials here," one man observed with a chuckle. "I bet Hosea picketed every one of them at one time or another."

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Grape Boycott Called Off

New York Times
November 22, 2000
National News Briefs By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/national/22NATI.html

KEENE, Calif., Nov. 21 (AP) - The United Farm Workers union ended its 16-year-old boycott of California table grapes today.

The union's co-founder, Cesar Chavez, who died in 1993, had called for the boycott in 1984 to focus on the spraying of dangerous pesticides.

"Some goals of that boycott have already been met," the union's president, Arturo Rodriguez, said in a letter. "Cesar Chavez's crusade to eliminate use of five of the most toxic chemicals plaguing farm workers and their families has been largely successful."

The union also held two boycotts against California table grapes in the 1960's and 1970's.

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USA Today
11/22/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Idaho

Boise - Activists have agreed to drop a lawsuit holding up $121 million in road work in exchange for a state and local financial commitment to control pollution. The deal keeps northern Ada County off the federal list of air quality violators, making it eligible again for federal road money.

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Judge bars buffer zone at abortion clinics

USA Today
11/22/00
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001122/2858907s.htm

The Massachusetts attorney general's office said it might appeal a federal judge's ruling that bars the state from enforcing its new law creating buffer zones around clinics that perform abortions. Some legislators say the ruling differs from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said a protest-free buffer around clinics doesn't violate First Amendment free speech rights. The judge ruled that Massachusetts' law was different because it applies only to the clinics, and it allows their employees to approach patients in the buffer.

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Anti-election activities in Montreal and Quebec City

November, 22, 2000
VOTEZ BIEN, VOTEZ RIEN!

MONTREAL, -- In just five short days, like sheep to slaughter, millions of so-called citizens of the Canadian state will be heading to the polls to exercise their "right" to choose the men and women who will invariably screw them over for the next 3-5 years.

Elections Canada, ever mindful of increasing voter apathy, especially among youth, has been running ads in a desperate bid to reverse the consistent trend of low voter turnouts. Meanwhile, cities and towns across Canaduh are replete with glad-handing politicians, tedious media coverage, excessive election advertising, not to mention the increasing level of hot air that, despite the cold weather, is about as welcome as a kick to the groin.

Beyond the mainstream drivel about elections, diverse and spontaneous anti-electoral and pro-democracy efforts have arisen in Quebec, building on previous abstention campaigns during elections and referendums. The anti-election efforts, while autonomous, share several common themes: the belief that genuine democracy resides in extra-parliamentary organizations and collectives that positively reflect values of mutual aid, solidarity and self-activity; the idea that electoral politics, as well as parliamentary democracy, are sham processes that only serve to reinforce prevailing power structures; and the confidence that encouraging effective resistance and revolt to capitalism and the state is invariably more valuable than some "x" on a ballot every couple of years.

One organized anti-election effort is occurring in Quebec City, where two local anarchist groups -- le Groupe anarchiste Emile-Henri and le Collectif libertaire le Maquis -- are sponsoring an abstention campaign. On election night, they are holding an anti-election party at the appropriately named "Sacrilege" bar on St-Jean Street near Vieux Quebec (across from a church).

The campaign includes a publicly displayed and signed declaration in favour of real democracy and against parliamentary elections, as well as a poster depicting a naive "Foghorn Leghorn" caricature obliviously voting into a ballot box that is really a KFC bucket bearing the image of Colonel Sanders. The poster is accompanied by the caption: "Don't be the turkey of the farce ..." ["Ne soyez pas le dindon de la farce."]. The poster can be viewed at <http://montreal.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=129>.

Some activists at Laval University in Quebec City are planning street theatre on election day. Actors, blindfolded and gagged, will be robotically placing ballots into a box in a futile and never-ending circle.

The posters and theatre in Quebec City are not the only anti-election agitprop that has appeared in the past weeks. Election signs on the major highway between Quebec City and Montreal (a 2-3 hour stretch) have been systematically covered with graffiti. Posters have also in Montreal reading "Elections are useless." Another depicts a ferris wheel with logos of the major political parties in Quebec. The latter poster can be viewed at <http://montreal.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=115>.

A relatively new anarchist publication in Montreal, "Le Trouble", has also dedicated space in its recent issue to anti-election articles and images. A photo of an electric chair is accompanied by the caption: "Yes, democratic institutions are reformable ... with new chairs in parliament! Against elections and for electrons!" An editorial, with the title "Vote well, don't vote" [Votez bien, votez rien!], advocates "acting" instead of "electing" ["agir au lieu d'elire"] and ends with the rhyming declaration, "to the social question, no electoral solution" ["A la question sociale, pas de solution electorale!"].

A lesser known local endeavor is the Montreal chapter of the Edible Ballot Society (EBS), part of a larger initiative in the Canadian state. The EBS originates in the province of Alberta, home to major dinosaur remains, as well as real living fossils in the form of right-wing wingnuts like Premier Ralph Klein and Stockwell Pray, the leader of the Canadian Reform Alliance Party (CRAP).

Perhaps in reaction to the particularly wretched kind of politician produced locally, several EBS activists in Alberta ate their ballots at advance polls, and intend to engage in more ballot destruction on election day. The EBS motto is: "Don't vote, it just encourages them!" Chapters exist across Canaduh.

Montreal EBS efforts have been modest, including a sticker and postering campaign. The poster is accompanied by the slogan, "Never mind the ballots!" The overall EBS webpage is at: <http://edibleballot.tao.ca>

The efforts in Quebec and Canaduh resemble recent anti-electoral and pro-democracy efforts in the U$A and elsewhere. The "Anarchists Against Voting" website <http://www.infoshop.org/voting.html> and the "Direct Democracy, not Election Hypocrisy" effort <http://www.directdemocracynow.org> provide more detailed information.

All of the anti-election/pro-democracy efforts in Quebec are distinctly hostile to political parties, even the marginal ones like the Marijuana Party (aka the "Bloc Pot"). Local anarchists have been known to taunt the merry-marijuana crowd with the words, "If you want to smoke pot, don't change the government, change the world."

However, some local anti-election activists have confessed certain sympathy for a newly formed Montreal-based political party called the Parti Populaire des Putes (the People's Prostitutes' Party). The PPP is comprised of sex workers and former sex-workers that organized this summer against a campaign by businesspeople and right-wing residents targeting drug users, street workers and homeless people in Montreal's Centre-Sud neighborhood. The neighbourhood, in Montreal's east-end, is slowly being gentrified.

The PPP's campaign slogan provides some insight into their view of parliamentary democracy: "Vote for the PPP, and elect a REAL whore to Parliament."

Like the members of the PPP, the individuals and groups involved in anti-electoral efforts in Quebec are actively involved in local grassroots campaigns, groups and collectives. They are activists and organizers working against poverty, police brutality, ecocide, racism, sexism, prisons and capitalist globalization, while promoting solidarity efforts and alternative forms of organization and social change.

Many of the anti-election activists will be involved in a community squat project in Montreal that will be publicly revealed in December, as well as organizing against the Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec City next April. More info on these issues will be forthcoming in the coming weeks and months. ---- by Jaggi Singh jaggi@tao.ca Montreal (November 22, 2000) for a-infos, indymedia, act-mtl, damn and others anti-copyright

anti-election websites: Anarchists Against Voting: <http://www.infoshop.org/vote.html> Direct Democracy, not Election Hypocrisy: <http://www.directdemocracynow.org> Edible Ballot Society: <http://edibleballot.tao.ca>

Quebec anti-election contacts: Edible Ballot Society (Montreal): lombrenoire@tao.ca Le Groupe anarchiste Emile-Henri (Quebec City): emile.henri@sympatico.ca Le Collectif libertaire le Maquis (Quebec City): lemaquis@moncourrier.com Le Trouble Newspaper (Montreal): letrouble@yahoo.fr

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