NUCLEAR
U.S. intelligence report predicts threats to 2015
Growing risk seen of attack on U.S.
Canada hears Putin's criticism of U.S. missile defense, but not persuaded
Putin in Canada to build image
U.S. plan risky, Putin tells Canada
Pentagon To Look Into Asian Military
Study Looks at Dangers Shaping World of 2015
2015 Outlook: Enough Food, Scarce Water, Porous Borders
Asia Wary of Bush Missile Proposal
Cuba and Russia Abandon Nuclear Plant, an Unfinished Vestige of the Soviet Era
Russian, Canadian Leaders Get Down to Formal Talks
Putin, Chretien discuss nuclear arms
Russia's President Visits Canada
Putin meets with Canadian leader
White House Releases Highlights of U.S.-EU Cooperation
China: Buying a Better Army
China Eager to Work With Bush
Clinton to decide whether he'll visit North Korea
Blast of cold Russian air awaits Bush team
Culture of Cancer
Computer age dawned in a big, bulky way
DOT Paves Way for Atomic Waste/Material in Everyday Items
Rare Isotope Accelerator
Los Alamos Flunks a Security Test
States
First canister moved to dry storage at Hanford
Powell insists defence rests on 'Star Wars'
Bush and Powell proclaim 'uniquely American internationalism'
Bush positions on top campaign issues
Powell commits US to missile shield
A Higher Threshold for U.S. Intervention Means Adjustments Abroad
A Dual Path in Diplomacy
Clinton Considers N. Korea Visit
Woman in the News: Condoleezza Rice
Bush seen likely to be tough on China
Genetics Firm Buys Mammoth IBM Supercomputer
MILITARY
Voters set trends in approach to drugs
Georgia
Beyond acronyms Philip Gold
Consider Putin's priorities
U.N. Recalls Staff From Afghanistan
Deadline looming as Clinton wavers on world court treaty
World applauds Powell, Rice selections
Virginia
Earthquake study center needs home
Rice well-suited for Bush inner circle
Inside the Beltway
OTHER
Is wind power a cheaper option than solar?
Wis. boxcar fire contained
EPA fines United Airlines $68,695
NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS
Mr. Bush's Environmental Choices
A Crucial Decision for the Meadowlands
Help the Everglades
States
Panel wants tighter biotech control
Panel Backs Stronger Rules for Some Food
Engineered Plants
France: Parliament stands up to IMF/WB
Metro Briefing
Indiana
Former prisoner Pope returns home
An American in Russia
Pardoned Pope heads home from Russia
Clemency for Pollard
Terrorists said major U.S. threat
Terrorists seen as threat in coming years
ACTIVISTS
Common Sense Security
ZAP ACTION - White House 11:00 AM Today
Millions for democracy
Polish nurses rally for more pay
MANHATTAN: POE HOUSE ARREST
-------- NUCLEAR
U.S. intelligence report predicts threats to 2015
CNN
December 18, 2000 Web posted at: 7:46 p.m. EST (0046 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/12/18/security.threats.reut/index.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- As President-elect George W. Bush prepares to take office, a new intelligence report Monday predicted more sophisticated "terrorist" tactics and a growing threat of missile attack in the next 15 years.
"Between now and 2015 terrorist tactics will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to achieve mass casualties," said the unclassified report, "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts."
"We expect the trend toward greater lethality in terrorist attacks to continue," the report said.
The intelligence community and outside experts teamed up to produce the report which said the threat of "terrorism" sponsored by hostile countries was likely to diminish over 15 years, while the threat from independent operators was likely to increase.
"The trend away from state-supported political terrorism and toward more diverse, free-wheeling, transnational networks -- enabled by information technology -- will continue," the report said.
"Some of the states that actively sponsor terrorism or terrorist groups today may decrease or even cease their support by 2015 as a result of regime changes," the report said.
State-sponsored terrorism was expected to decline partly because Iran, North Korea and Cuba had a significant chance for regime changes by 2015, John Gannon, chairman of the National Intelligence Council which compiled the report, said.
Decisions to deal with the national security environment that may emerge in 15 years would have to be made now by the new administration, he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Most immediate threat
"The most immediate threat is the weapons of mass destruction," Gannon said, referring to chemical or biological weapons. "There's a growing threat from the small adversary or the non-state actor or the terrorist group in terms of weapons of mass destruction capability," he said.
The potential for "terrorist" groups to use chemical, biological or radiological weapons increases, Gannon said.
"In the information environment we're in they're going to have greater access to general information, to specific technologies on how to build bombs, to finance across borders ... and they're going to be able to cover up what they do more efficiently in this kind of environment," he said.
"They are probably more likely to actually use these weapons than organized states," he added.
The United States was shaken by the October 12 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in which a small boat exploded alongside the warship, killing 17 U.S. sailors.
U.S. investigators have been trying to determine whether the attack had ties to Saudi-exile Osama bin Laden, whom the United States has blamed for allegedly masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.
"Middle East and Southwest Asian-based terrorists are the most likely to threaten the United States," the report said.
Predicts Palestinian state
The report predicted establishment of a Palestinian state by 2015 and that Israel would have attained "a cold peace" with its neighbors with limited social, economic and cultural ties.
Changing military capabilities would be among the key factors that would determine the risk of war, it said.
In South Asia, for example, "that risk will remain fairly high over the next 15 years," the report said. India and Pakistan are "both prone to miscalculation," it said, and both would continue to build their nuclear and missile forces.
The total Russian force by 2015 would probably be below 2,500 nuclear warheads, the report said.
China by 2015 will have deployed tens to several tens of missiles with nuclear warheads targeted against the United States, and hundreds of shorter-range ballistic and cruise missiles for use in regional conflicts, the report said.
"A unified Korea with a significant U.S. military presence may become a regional military power," the report said.
Without unification, North Korea could cloud regional stability, it said. North Korea probably has one, possibly two, nuclear weapons, and it could have "a few to several" intercontinental ballistic missiles deployed by 2005, the report said.
Iran could test an intercontinental ballistic missile as early as 2001, and Iraq could test one capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States before 2015, the report said.
---
Growing risk seen of attack on U.S.
Chicago Sun-Times
December 18, 2000
BY VERNON LOEB
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/sec18.html
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/monday/news_a3d3da05835a71780011.html
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/monday/news_a3d3da05835a71780011.html
WASHINGTON--The risk of a missile attack against the United States involving chemical, biological or nuclear warheads is greater today than during most of the Cold War and will continue to grow in the next 15 years, according to a new global threat assessment by the National Intelligence Council.
The report, scheduled for release today, also concludes that potential terrorist attacks against the United States through 2015 "will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to achieve mass casualties. We expect the trend toward greater lethality . . . to continue."
Nevertheless, the United States will remain "unparalleled" in its economic, technological, military and diplomatic influence by 2015, the report says, remaining in "the vanguard of the technological revolution from information to biotechnology and beyond."
The 68-page document, "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future with Nongovernmental Experts," represents an attempt by the U.S. intelligence community to look beyond its secret sources and involve academia and the private sector in forecasting world trends over the next 15 years.
The 15-member council is based at CIA headquarters under agency Director George J. Tenet and focuses on broad strategic assessments.
"This is the most we have done with outside engagement," council Chairman John Gannon said. "When you get into issues like natural resources, demographics, science and technology, we really had to depend upon a lot of expertise out there."
Gannon said the combined thinking of outside experts and U.S. intelligence has left him generally optimistic about the next 15 years, despite what the report identifies as key uncertainties--including China, Russia, the Middle East, Japan and India.
"The United States is going to be in a very strong position in 2015," Gannon said.
A robust global economy coupled with greater international cooperation could reduce armed conflict and help alleviate the effects of population growth, poverty and water shortages by 2015, the study says.
But in a section that presents alternative scenarios, the study says it is possible that globalization could divide the world into haves and have-nots, fueling "frustrated expectations, inequities, and heightened communal tensions" while triggering the spread of organized crime and biological or nuclear weapons.
Washington Post
---
Canada hears Putin's criticism of U.S. missile defense, but not persuaded
CNN
December 18, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/12/18/canada.putin.02.ap/index.html
OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin got most of what he wanted Monday in Canada -- agreements on closer cooperation, support for joining the World Trade Organization -- but was unable to persuade Prime Minister Jean Chretien to reject a proposed U.S. missile defense plan.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/12/18/canada.putin.02.ap/index.html
The two leaders, continuing discussions that began over dinner Sunday night after Putin arrived from Cuba, met for 90 minutes Monday followed by a news conference, then lunch and a state dinner.
Putin's trip completed his agenda of meeting one-on-one with all the other G-8 leaders in his first year in office as he tries to invigorate a struggling economy and recapture some of Russia's Soviet-era status as a world power.
On a crisp, windy day that caused Russian and Canadian flags lining the streets to snap and flutter, Putin mixed the protocol of a state visit with his own diplomatic posturing on major issues confronting his country, Canada, and the neighboring United States.
He made clear that Russia considered the U.S. plan for land-based missiles to intercept incoming missiles a threat to world security because it would alter the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
"We believe deployment would no doubt damage significantly the established system of international security," Putin said in Russian, later adding: "This would ... absolutely change the balance of power in the international arena, and this itself is a threat."
Putin and Chretien agreed in a joint statement that the ABM treaty was "a cornerstone" of global stability and nuclear nonproliferation that should be preserved and strengthened. Chretien, however, stopped short of matching Putin's opposition to the U.S. missile defense plan, saying it was too soon to tell.
Canada fears the U.S. plan would spark a new round of weapons proliferation. The issue is politically sensitive, due to Canada's status as a NATO ally, northern neighbor and key trading partner of the United States.
Chretien noted Canada was in a "geographic bind" because of its location between the United States to the south and Russia across the North Pole. Questions about whether the system can work and how the incoming U.S. administration of George W. Bush would proceed on the matter must be answered before final decisions can be made, he said.
"Our preoccupation and the preoccupation of everybody is to make sure that the stability that exists at this moment is not undermined by the (U.S.) plan," he said.
The issue dominated a 20-minute news conference that followed the signing of agreements on expanded air services between the countries and increased cooperation between Russian and Canadian provinces and territories. Canada and Russia also issued joint statements on strategic stability, cooperation in the Arctic and northern regions, and Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization.
Canada agreed to help Russia develop laws needed for WTO membership and to increase WTO-related training programs for Russian officials.
The statement on the Arctic and northern regions included plans for a Canada-Russia "North-to-North" conference next year to discuss issues and opportunities.
By hosting Putin and a Canadian summit with the European Union on Tuesday, Chretien -- in power since 1993 and recently elected to a third straight term -- is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between his guests and the United States.
Putin touched on that, saying Canada's physical location made it a natural intermediary on the missile defense issue. Both Putin and Chretien called for continuing discussions with the United States on the issue.
The two leaders also discussed trade, with Putin saying Russian economic reforms including a new tax system and customs duties should improve the trade environment. Since the Russian economic crisis of 1998, Canadian exports to Russia fell to $116 million last year from $ 255 million in 1997.
"The assurances I received from the president is that the situation will be much more normal," Chretien said.
After a state dinner Monday night, Putin was to address a business lunch Tuesday in Toronto before returning to Moscow. Chretien was to host French President Jacques Chirac and European Commission President Romano Prodi on Tuesday for the Canada-EU summit.
---
Putin in Canada to build image
Russian leader wants help opposing U.S. missile system
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Monday, December 18, 2000
By TOM COHEN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/putn18.shtml
OTTAWA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Canada yesterday for a visit aimed at strengthening his nation's role among world powers and enlisting Ottawa's support in opposing a proposed U.S. missile defense system.
Tomorrow, European Union leaders come to Ottawa for a Canadian-EU summit as Canada finds itself in the diplomatic spotlight this week.
Putin was to meet with Prime Minister Jean Chretien and other Canadian officials today, then address business leaders in Toronto tomorrow before returning to Moscow.
Putin's trip completes his goal of visiting or meeting with every head of state in the G-8 club, which comprises the United States, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, England and Canada. His diplomacy has helped Russia gain a standing in the group, a crucial step toward rebuilding a struggling economy and trying to offset U.S. dominance.
By playing host to Putin and the EU-Canada summit, Chretien is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between his guests and the United States.Putin arrived in Canada from Cuba. Although the United States imposes sanctions on Cuba, Canada defies trades and holds full diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Now Putin wants Canada to join Russia in opposing a U.S. proposal for a new North American missile defense system, an idea supported by President-elect Bush.
The missile defense system could provoke Bush's first international dispute. Russia deeply opposes its development, which it says would breach a 28-year-old anti-ballistic missile treaty.
Putin told Canadian journalists in Moscow last week that Canada could help resolve the dispute by joining Russia in opposing the U.S. plan.
"The lower the level of nuclear conflict between the main nuclear states, the better," Putin said. "That's why we call upon the world community and our partners in the nuclear club to act together to ease the nuclear confrontation."
Canada also has expressed concern the U.S. plan could cause a weapons escalation, but has refrained from openly rejecting it.
Putin will try to jump-start Russia-Canada trade, which has tapered off since the 1998 Russian economic crisis.
---
U.S. plan risky, Putin tells Canada
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MONDAY • December 18, 2000
Tom Cohen - Associated Press Monday, December 18, 2000
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/monday/news_a3d3da92f60e00041092.html
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=putin18&date=20001218
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=121800&ID=s897043
Ottawa --- Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Canada on Sunday for a state visit aimed at strengthening his nation's role among world powers and enlisting Ottawa's support in opposing a proposed U.S. missile defense system.
Putin is to meet with Prime Minister Jean Chretien and other Canadian officials today, then address business leaders in Toronto on Tuesday before heading back to Moscow.
Also Tuesday, European Union leaders come to Ottawa for a Canadian-EU summit as Canada finds itself in the diplomatic spotlight this week.
Putin's trip to Canada completes his goal of visiting or meeting with every head of state in the G-8 club, which includes the United States, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, England and Canada. His personal diplomacy has helped Russia gain a standing in the group, a crucial step for Putin's efforts to rebuild a struggling economy and try to offset U.S. dominance in the post-Soviet era.
By hosting Putin and the EU-Canada summit, Chretien --- who will be the longest-serving G-8 leader when President Clinton steps down in January --- is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between his guests and the United States.
Putin arrived in Canada from Cuba. While the United States maintains sanctions against Cuba, Canada defies its powerful southern neighbor by trading with the Communist island and holding full diplomatic relations.
Now Putin wants Canada to join Russia in opposing a U.S. proposal for a new North American missile defense system, an idea supported by President-elect George W. Bush.
The missile defense system could provoke Bush's first international dispute. Russia is deeply opposed to its development, which it says would breach a 28-year-old anti-ballistic missile treaty. Russian leaders fear it could ignite another arms race, which their beleaguered economy can't afford.
Putin told Canadian journalists in Moscow last week that Canada could help resolve the dispute by joining Russia in opposing the U.S. plan.
''The lower the level of nuclear conflict between the main nuclear states, the better,'' Putin said. ''That's why we call upon the world community and our partners in the nuclear club to act together to ease the nuclear confrontation.''
Canada also has expressed concern the U.S. plan could cause a weapons escalation, but has refrained from openly rejecting it.
Putin will try to jump-start Russia-Canada trade, which has tapered off badly since the 1998 Russian economic crisis.
Trade with Russia comprises less than 1 percent of Canada's total, with Canadian exports to Russia falling to $116 million last year from $255 million in 1997.
A central point of discussion when French President Jacques Chirac and European Commission President Romano Prodi visit Tuesday is expected to be a proposed EU rapid reaction military force.
The EU, stepping into the defense arena for the first time, is creating the 60,000-member force to be used in peacekeeping and humanitarian crises when NATO as a whole does not want to get involved.
The new force would have access to NATO resources, such as planning capacity, intelligence and communications.
Canada, a NATO member, supports the general concept but wants guarantees NATO would be compensated for any of its resources used by the EU force, foreign affairs spokesman Carl Schwenger said.
Canadian Defense Minister Art Eggleton said in a recent speech that the EU must cooperate with NATO instead of trying to set up its own decision-making sphere within the alliance.
''From Canada's point of view, exclusion or marginalization is not an option for the alliance of today or the future,'' Eggleton said. ''Nor is polarization, for a polarization between the U.S. and the EU on security and defense issues would leave Canada caught in the middle.''
---
Pentagon To Look Into Asian Military
New York Times
December 18, 2000 Filed at 6:53 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-China-Taiwan.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- To better prepare for a potential crisis in the Taiwan Strait, the United States needs more insight into how China and Taiwan view their own military strengths and weaknesses, the Pentagon said Monday.
In a report to Congress, the Pentagon outlined three ``gaps in knowledge'' that affect U.S. planning.
To analyze the most likely scenarios for conflict between Taiwan and China, ``We need to know more about how the authorities in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan view their military and political situation,'' the report said.
It said such knowledge would enable the Pentagon to assess better whether the balance of forces adequately deters China from attacking the island, which the mainland government considers a rebellious province.
``We are unlikely to be able to replicate their precise views on this military balance, but we probably can learn much more about both sides' ideas about statecraft, their approaches to the use of force, their perceived vulnerabilities and their preferred operational methods,'' the report said.
The Pentagon also would like more insight into less visible aspects of the military balance: each sides' training, logistics, doctrine, command and controln and behind-the-lines capabilities. These things, the report said, are harder to assess than numbers of aircraft and ships.
The third gap in knowledge is how China and Taiwan will pursue emerging methods of warfare such as ballistic missiles and information warfare.
The report, required by Congress, was submitted to lawmakers in classified form. The Pentagon released an unclassified summary, which repeated the long-standing policy of the United States to regard as a matter of ``grave concern'' any effort by China to determine the future of Taiwan by nonpeaceful means.
Taiwan split from the mainland after the 1949 communist revolution. Officially, China reserves the right to use force to reunify the country if Taiwan should declare independence; if Taiwan should be occupied by a foreign country; if it should acquire nuclear weapons; or if Taiwan should refuse indefinitely to negotiate a settlement.
The United States is obligated by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with enough military capability to defend itself, but it has left unclear the circumstances in which it would intervene militarily on Taiwan's behalf.
The report said the United States' goal is to preclude a Chinese attack on Taiwan. If there were to be an attack, the U.S. goal would be that Taiwan defend itself without outside assistance. As a fallback, however, the United States would have Taiwan ``defend itself long enough to permit outside assistance and that the combination of Taiwan and U.S. forces defeat a PLA (People's Liberation Army) attack on Taiwan, should the U.S. decide to intervene.''
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Study Looks at Dangers Shaping World of 2015
Report: A shift in the balance of power invites instability. Weapons of mass destruction, globalization present major challenges.
Los Angeles Times
Monday, December 18, 2000
By ROBIN WRIGHT, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/asection/20001218/t000120695.html
WASHINGTON--Communal tensions flaring among indigenous groups from Mexico to the Amazon. Dozens of Chinese nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. Russia's power in serious decline, its population diminished by 16 million. A cold peace in the Mideast, but transcontinental terrorists attempting devastating attacks with weapons of mass destruction.
Welcome to the year 2015, as characterized in chilling detail by a sweeping new U.S. intelligence report to be released today.
As President-elect George W. Bush prepares to take office, the report offers the most specific insight ever provided an incoming administration about the forces shaping global change. It also underscores the enormous challenges facing Bush's new national security team, to be headed by retired Gen. Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, if it hopes to avert many of the worst-case scenarios.
"Global Trends 2015," the result of an intensive yearlong study involving all branches of the intelligence community as well as many of America's top thinkers, offers sobering predictions about the "drivers," or major forces, that will determine the world of 2015 and beyond.
The dangers are not just from traditional hot spots. Among the report's other predictions: more than 3 billion people, roughly half the world's population, living in "water-stressed" regions, from Southern California to northern China. And while new biotechnology will dramatically lengthen average life spans in rich countries, old diseases will shorten life spans in some African nations by as many as 40 years.
The report was prepared by the National Intelligence Council, the most influential analytic arm of the U.S. intelligence community. The council also produces classified "estimates" on dangers for all branches of the government.
"Global Trends 2015" is being released to launch a "strategic dialogue" within the government to deal with both the challenges and the opportunities ahead, said CIA Director George J. Tenet.
"Grappling with the future is necessarily a work in progress that, I believe, should constantly seek new insights while testing and revising old judgments," he wrote in a letter introducing the report.
The most fundamental shift will be in the world's balance of power, the report predicts.
China and India will be the world's new military powers, based on sheer numbers, growing economic might and technological capabilities.
By 2015, China will have dozens of missiles with nuclear warheads targeting the U.S., along with hundreds of shorter-range ballistic and cruise missiles, some with nuclear warheads, for regional use. It will also have purchased technologies--from the U.S., Russia, Israel, Europe and Japan--to integrate sea and air capabilities against Taiwan and other regional rivals, the report says.
Yet a strong China may not be a serious threat. "China will seek to avoid conflict in the region to promote stable economic growth and to ensure internal stability," the global survey predicts.
Indeed, a weakened China might be more dangerous, opening the way for greater arms proliferation, instability, crime and drug trafficking.
"New leaders will be even more firmly committed to developing the economy as the foundation of national power," the report predicts. "Resources for military capabilities will take a secondary role."
Domestic Challenges for 3 Major Powers
Three of the 20th century's major powers will be increasingly diverted by domestic challenges in the early 21st century, the report says.
Russia's expectations as a world leader will be "dramatically reduced," because by 2015 it still won't be able to fully integrate into the global trading system. Even the best-case scenario would leave it with an economy "less than one-fifth the size of the United States," the report concludes.
Strapped financially, Moscow will have fewer nuclear weapons and missiles than allowed by treaties. It will instead invest in "selected and secretive" weapons of mass destruction.
Japan will have a hard time holding its position as the world's second-largest economy. Tokyo may even need an "external shock" to jolt it into the painful reforms necessary to slow the steady erosion of its leadership role in Asia.
And Europe will be largely peaceful and prosperous but more "inward-looking," the study finds. The region will be challenged by an aging population and low birthrates, which will undermine cohesion and economic health and create chronic shortages of skilled workers and professionals.
Despite the potential benefits of globalization, three blocs will face setbacks, according to the report.
In Latin America, the democratic tide that had spread across the continent by 1990 will suffer reversals because of rampant crime, corruption, narcotics trafficking, local insurgencies and failures by governments to address popular demands. Mexico and Brazil will be the strongest voices in the hemisphere, while the threat of instability will be greatest in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay.
Africa will be more marginalized than it is today. "Most African states will miss out on the economic growth engendered elsewhere by globalization and by scientific and technological advances," the study says.
The negative trends will worsen as Europe severs ties and aid to former colonies. Often filling the void will be religious groups, narco-traffickers, mercenaries, crime syndicates and terrorists seeking refuge.
In the Middle East, increasingly important as a primary energy source, petrodollars will allow the region to resist the forces of reform. With populations due to expand over the next 15 years in most countries--by anywhere from 26% (Algeria) and 39% (Libya) to 56% (Saudi Arabia)--the region's people will be poorer, heavily concentrated in cities that are unable to cope and more disillusioned with their governments. As inequities mount, Islamist movements may come to power.
Although the U.S. will remain the preeminent world power, it will face challenges from a growing array of countries, including China, India, Mexico and Brazil, as well as organizations, such as the European Union, trying to check its leadership.
The way conflicts play out will also change, the report says. Most wars will be within countries--and longer, more vicious, harder to end and more likely to recur. Because of globalization, they could threaten the very stability of the new international system.
Wars between states will be fewer but more deadly because of the lethality of arms, as in South Asia, where both India and Pakistan--the two nations in the world most likely to go to war--will amass larger nuclear and missile arsenals.
Internal problems will exacerbate regional instability. In India, more than half a billion people will live in dire poverty, as the gap between rich and poor widens and sparks domestic strife. In increasingly tumultuous Pakistan, government control will by 2015 be limited to the Punjabi heartland and the commercial capital, Karachi, the report predicts.
U.S. Firms May Be Terrorist Targets
State-sponsored terrorism is likely to decline. But it will be replaced by "freewheeling" terrorism by groups operating across continents with the help of information technology, the National Intelligence Council predicts.
American companies, rather than diplomatic or military facilities, will become targets.
The greatest danger, however, is the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Before 2015, the report warns, Iraq, for example, could test an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. with a nuclear-sized payload.
Worldwide, the potential for the use of a missile with chemical or biological weapons will be far greater than during the Cold War. New threats will come from nations with smaller arsenals of weapons that have "far less accuracy, yield, survivability, reliability and range-payload capability" than the Soviet arsenal did, the council says.
The report does contain some good news. Economically, the world will witness the kind of growth rates characteristic of the 1960s and early 1970s. And globalization will ultimately increase political stability--even though the survey predicts that its evolution will be "rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic divide."
---
2015 Outlook: Enough Food, Scarce Water, Porous Borders
New York Times
December 18, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/world/18THRE.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - In a sweeping projection of what the world will look like in 2015, the intelligence community has concluded that issues like the availability of water and food, changes in population and the spread of information and disease will increasingly affect the national security of the United States.
The assessment, contained in an unclassified report called "Global Trends 2015," also makes a number of predictions about the political landscape of the world.
Russia, for example, will continue to become weaker - economically, militarily and socially, the report predicts. China will be faced by political, economic and social pressures that will "increasingly challenge the regime's legitimacy, and perhaps its survival." And Israel "at best" will conclude a "cold peace" with its adversaries.
In addition, the report lays out a number of what it calls unlikely but nevertheless "possible" scenarios.
One is that strategically important countries like Iran and Nigeria and even strategic allies of the United States like Israel could fall victim to internal religious or ethnic divisions, "and crisis ensues." Another is that China, India and Russia "form a de facto geo-strategic alliance in an attempt to counterbalance U.S. and Western influence."
In terms of global resources, the report concludes that by 2015, nearly half of the world's population - more than three billion people - will be in countries lacking sufficient water, and that even more genetically modified crops or projects to desalt sea water will not substantially help.
The 70-page report is one result of an unusual 15-month collaboration between the National Intelligence Council, a sort of analytical think tank of senior intelligence officials that works alongside the C.I.A., and dozens of outside scientific, diplomatic and corporate experts. It is not a traditional intelligence report based on classical intelligence sources and methods.
"This was a serious effort to provide a context to discuss opportunities as well as threats to the U.S. national security community," said John Gannon, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, in an interview. The purpose, he said, is to get policy makers to focus on long- term global trends and to think beyond the ordinary concerns of the intelligence community.
An advance copy of the report, which will be released on Monday, was made available to The New York Times. Copies of the report were delivered late last week to the White House, other agencies of government and members of the team of President-elect George W. Bush.
Some intelligence officials are concerned that persuading the Bush national security team to look beyond traditional threats will be particularly challenging.
In an article in Foreign Affairs, written during the campaign, Condoleezza Rice, who will be Mr. Bush's national security adviser, argued, for instance, that "national interest" was too often replaced by "humanitarian interest" or the interests of "the international community."
Instead, she suggested, the United States should promote what is in its own interest - democracy or free trade, for example.
But other intelligence officials say a greater problem is that the structure of the national security bureaucracy leads it to look at the world first country by country and then in terms of geographical regions.
"You try to tell people that disease is rising in four out of five continents - well, the regional assistant secretaries have to be persuaded to put it on their agendas first," said one senior intelligence official.
Although the conventional wisdom in Washington, particularly on Capitol Hill, is that China will become more of a regional military threat, the report concludes that modernization of the country's agricultural and national infrastructure will be higher priorities than military investment.
"The evidence strongly suggests" that China's new leaders "will be even more firmly committed to developing the economy as the foundation of national power and that resources for military capabilities will take a secondary role," it says.
Despite all the intelligence resources devoted to China, the report states repeatedly that it cannot say with any certainty what the Chinese state will look like in 15 years.
While most of those taking part in the study concluded that economic growth would continue, the report acknowledges that it will be difficult to meld the openness that growth requires with political control. "Estimates of developments in China over the next 15 years are fraught with unknowables," the report bluntly states.
The outlook for Russia, particularly its economy, is bleak. "Besides a crumbling physical infrastructure, years of environmental neglect are taking a toll on the populations, a toll made worse by such societal costs of transition as alcoholism, cardiac diseases, drugs and a worsening health delivery system."
The Russian population, which will become more sickly, may shrink in size from 146 million to 130 million in 15 years, the report says. Even under a best-case scenario of 5 percent annual economic growth, Russia would attain an economy less than one-fifth the size of the United States'.
In the Middle East, by 2015, there will be a Palestinian state, the report says, but "Israel will have attained a cold peace with its neighbors, with only limited social, economic and cultural ties."
A key driving trend for the Middle East in the next 15 years will be population pressures. Even now, in nearly all of the Middle Eastern countries, more than half of the population is under 20 years of age. "In much of the Middle East, populations will be significantly larger, poorer, more urban and more disillusioned."
The report concludes that the population of the world will grow from the current 6.1 billion to 7.2 billion by 2015. Ninety-five percent of that growth is expected to occur in the developing world, and nearly all of it in rapidly expanding urban areas.
"Megacities" of more than 10 million people will continue to grow, straining or even crippling roads, bridges and sewerage and electrical systems. The population of Jakarta will more than double, from 9.5 million to 21.2 million; Lagos will double from 12.2 million to 24.4 million.
The good news is that there will be enough energy resources in 2015, despite a 50 percent rise in global demand, the report says. It also predicts that there will be enough food to feed the world's growing population, although "poor infrastructure and distribution, political instability and chronic poverty" will lead to malnutrition in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
The main resource problem will be water, the shortages so acute that they could cause regional instability. Problems could include Turkey's construction of new irrigation projects on the Tigris and Euphrates, which would reduce the water flowing into Syria and Iraq, and ambitious projects in Ethiopia and Sudan that could divert water from the Nile and reduce the flow into Egypt.
In terms of disease, the report underscores earlier intelligence projections that AIDS and tuberculosis are likely to account for the majority of deaths in most developing countries in 15 years. In some African countries, average life spans will be reduced by as much as 30 to 40 years, leaving more than 40 million children orphaned and contributing to poverty, crime and instability.
In many cases the report makes stark predictions without offering specific evidence or footnotes. These are some of its other judgments:
¶Japan will have "difficulty" maintaining its current position as the world's third-largest economy.
¶India "most likely" will expand the size of its nuclear-capable force.
¶Pakistan's nuclear and missile forces will continue to increase.
¶Russia will not join the European Union.
¶The very concept of "belonging" to a particular state will probably erode.
In one of its most sweeping conclusions, the report says governments will have less and less control over flows of information, technology, diseases, migrants, arms and financial transactions, whether legal or illegal, across their borders.
"States with ineffective and incompetent governance not only will fail to benefit from globalization," it says, "but in some instances will spawn conflicts at home and abroad, ensuring an even wider gap between regional winners and losers that exists today."
Globalization, the report said, "will not lift all boats."
---
Asia Wary of Bush Missile Proposal
Associated Press
December 18, 2000 Filed at 1:07 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-and-the-World.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Europe and Asia applauded the foreign policy selections of President-elect Bush on Monday, but cautiously waited for details about missile defense, the Balkans, Taiwan and European defense.
The nominations of retired Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser were generally seen as bringing stature and experience to a team whose leader has been ridiculed at home and abroad for lacking foreign policy depth.
``As before with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush also has no foreign policy experience,'' Germany's coordinator for U.S. affairs, Karsten Voigt, wrote in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. ``He has understood the need to surround himself with a highly qualified adviser team.''
Moscow's Vremya Novostei newspaper praised Rice, who helped negotiate with the Russians at the end of the Cold War, as ``a realist who is capable of gauging the consequences of a careless step.''
But positive reactions were tempered by some concerns, including Powell's strong commitment to a U.S. missile defense system. Many Europeans and Asians fear such a system would sabotage arms control agreements with the Russians and trigger an arms race in Asia.
Bush has said he favors a missile shield because it would protect the United States from attack. In accepting his appointment Saturday, Powell called missile defense ``an essential part of our overall strategic force posture.''
In an editorial entitled, ``Fortress America: Powell's tough new defense plans,'' The Sydney Morning Herald warned that pushing through with a missile defense system could lead to a crisis with China.
Others feared the plan was a sign that America was placing its own interests ahead of the concerns of a world it aspires to lead.
``Like his boss, Gen. Powell seems to be determined to delimit the U.S. world role, to view international obligations through the prism of narrow national interests,'' the left-leaning British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote.
Many Europeans are waiting to see how the Bush team will deal with the European Union plan to develop a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force, which would respond when the United States and NATO do not want to get involved.
Both the Clinton administration and that of President George Bush -- the president-elect's father -- feared such a force would undermine NATO.
``The team that is returning to the White House today still has the same hostility to European defense,'' the French newspaper Le Monde said. ``On the one hand, this team calls for the most rapid withdrawal of American forces from Bosnia and Kosovo. On the other, it wants to prevent Europe from planning operations that the United States doesn't want to participate in any longer. It's one or the other.''
Some South Korean officials fear such a hard-nosed, America-first style could complicate their own efforts to use American support in pursuing reconciliation with communist North Korea.
``The Clinton administration was idealistic, whereas the Bush administration is realistic,'' said Yoon Dong-min of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security. ``That would affect South Korea's policy of seeking quick rapprochement with the communist North.''
In Asia, one of the greatest concerns is the new administration's position on Taiwan. Considered a renegade province by China, Taiwan has enjoyed de facto independence for decades. Some Asians believe a Republican administration would be more supportive of Taiwan.
Taiwanese military expert Chung Chien applauded Powell's appointment, saying his military experience will help him handle the delicate Taiwan-China issue.
China's foreign policy establishment remained uneasy. An administration that backs Taiwan and missile defense -- which China considers a threat -- could find itself in crisis with Beijing.
``There are too many people with a military background'' said Yan Xuetong, an international security expert at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
But in Yugoslavia, the government hope Powell and Rice will push ahead with the goal of removing U.S. troops and turning the peacekeeping burden over to the Europeans. That might lead to a greater role for France, which Belgrade considers a friend.
``The question is when and to what extent will there be an American withdrawal from Kosovo and Bosnia,'' the Belgrade newspaper Vecernje Novosti said.
The fact that Rice and Powell are both black did little to assuage African fears that the continent would be overlooked by the Bush administration.
The East African press ignored the appointments, lamenting that Africa will suffer ``benign neglect'' under the new Bush administration.
``Even the appointment of Colin Powell, a black American, as secretary of state, is nothing to cheer about,'' said Dr. Stanley Macebuh, an aide to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, adding he felt Powell was ``anti-Africa.''
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Cuba and Russia Abandon Nuclear Plant, an Unfinished Vestige of the Soviet Era
New York Times
December 18, 2000
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/world/18CUBA.html
HAVANA, Dec. 17 - Lacking financing to finish what they started almost two decades ago, Russia and Cuba have agreed to abandon an incomplete nuclear power station at Juragua on the southern coast of the island, Russian officials traveling with President Vladimir V. Putin said during the weekend.
The decision was reached after President Fidel Castro told Mr. Putin during four rounds of talks last week that Cuba was no longer interested in completing the twin 440-megawatt reactor plant that would have provided a significant addition to Cuba's dilapidated electrical power grid.
Separately, Russian officials said Mr. Putin had offered to forgive 70 percent of Cuba's Soviet-era debt, estimated at $20 billion. Mr. Putin was said to have pressed Mr. Castro to recognize even a small portion of the debt and to commit his country to a schedule of payment under the system of the so-called Paris club of creditor nations.
But from all accounts emerging from the talks, Mr. Castro is thus far unwilling to recognize any of his debt to Moscow, claiming instead that the abrupt Soviet and Russian withdrawal from Cuba beginning a decade ago caused billions in dollars of damage to the Cuban economy.
Mr. Putin, who left for a visit to Canada today, appeared to have fared no better in talks on how Russia might recover past investments in Cuba by taking stock positions in Cuban enterprises. Russian officials have concluded that the most profitable of Cuba's industries - oil, nickel, cigar exports and telecommunications - already have sufficient foreign partners.
Still, there are dozens of small and medium-sized state factories in Cuba operating on Russian designs with Russian machinery and Mr. Putin's entourage expressed the hope that this trip had laid the groundwork for a Russian return to the Cuban market, though the Russians were under no illusions about how difficult this might prove to be.
Though neither side has yet publicly announced the decision on the fate of the nuclear power station, it is certain to be welcomed in the United States, where the Clinton administration, members of Congress and a number of environmental groups have expressed concerns about whether the plants could be operated safely by Cuba's state-run electrical authority.
Since 1996, Russia and Cuba have been seeking third-country financing to complete the plant. Its foundations were 90 percent complete when work was halted in 1992, and about 40 percent of the heavy machinery had been installed. Some Russian press reports have said that at least one of the reactors - without nuclear fuel - and its steam turbine set were delivered to Cuba.
The Soviet Union signed the agreement to build the twin reactor plant in 1976. The V.V.E.R. design, which was the most advanced at the time, was the first to be exported by Moscow for use in a tropical climate. It differs from the Chernobyl-style design in that the radioactive core and fuel elements are contained within a pressurized steel vessel.
Work began in 1983, after which Cuban engineers encountered significant problems in meeting construction targets. Russian engineers had taken over the project by the early 1990's.
The decision on what to do with the Juragua plant was a major item of unfinished business between Havana and Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And Mr. Putin was said to be keen not to announce Russia's desire to back out of the project until Cuban officials first expressed their own desire to walk away. In this manner, the officials said, Moscow felt it would no longer be liable for millions of dollars in costs required to maintain the incomplete installation.
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Russian, Canadian Leaders Get Down to Formal Talks
Reuters
December 18, 2000 Filed at 3:40 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-canada-.html
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien get down to formal business on Monday with talks focusing on disarmament, development of Arctic expanses and improving paltry trade levels.
Putin, on a three-day visit to Canada, and his host were due to sign a ``statement on strategic stability issues'' setting down basic security principles as well as accords on developing the two countries' vast polar areas and expanding their commercial air links.
The two men launched their talks informally on Sunday evening at a private dinner organized soon after Putin arrived at the close of a five-day stay in Cuba aimed at restoring close ties with its Soviet-era Caribbean ally.
Talks were expected to dwell on the new U.S. administration of President-elect George W. Bush, particularly on common ground in opposing Bush's proposals to proceed with a national missile defense (NMD) plan.
Both Canada and Russia oppose U.S. proposals to alter the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that Washington says is required in order to push ahead with the system and guard against missile launches by ``rogue states'' such as North Korea and Iran.
Putin told reporters in Havana that Canada and Russia had points in common -- ``economic like exploration in the north, and also political like maintaining the balance of forces and preserving the system of international security which has been created until now.''
``Our positions are very close.''
Even in the Cold War era, Canada and the Soviet Union enjoyed reasonably good links, thanks in part to late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's efforts to cultivate ties with both Moscow and Havana.
POLICY DIFFERENCES WITH U.S.
Canada, a member of NATO and the G7 group of industrialized countries, has also had periodic, if subtle, policy differences with the United States. But Putin made clear in the run-up to the visit that any agreements should not be directed against Washington.
Before Putin's arrival, commentators suggested Chretien should protest to Putin about the alleged extremes of the Kremlin's military campaign against Chechen separatists.
Canadian officials have said they will raise objections but Western denunciations of Russian actions have become less common and more muted as resistance to the military in Chechnya has become confined to pinprick attacks by rebels.
Jewish groups called for fresh pressure to be exerted on Putin to halt legal proceedings against Vladimir Gusinsky, who heads Russia's top independent media group and is a leader of Russia's Jewish community.
Gusinsky was arrested in Spain last week pending an extradition hearing for him to Russia, where he faces fraud charges which liberals see as an attack on post-Soviet press freedoms.
On trade, deputy Russian Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko told reporters after Putin's arrival that both sides were determined to boost this year's projected level of C$1 billion ($600 million), less than the daily level of trade between Moscow and Washington.
Khristenko said trade was diversifying into high-technology goods, away from traditional patterns of Canadian sales of grain and Russian exports of metals.
``The current level does not reflect the possibilities or the similarities between our countries,'' he said. ``Expansion is entirely possible.''
He said Russia intended to complain about anti-dumping legal cases initiated by Canada against Russian companies.
Canada was expected during the talks to offer public support for Russia's rapid entry into the World Trade Organization.
Putin flies on to Toronto on Tuesday to persuade top industrialists that Russia is now a safe and reliable place for their investments amid a recovery from the 1998 financial collapse.
---
Putin, Chretien discuss nuclear arms
Canada stays on the fence on U.S. missile defense plan
12/18/00
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
http://www.msnbc.com/news/504768.asp?cp1=1
OTTAWA, Dec. 18 - Prime Minister Jean Chretien agreed Monday with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin that existing nuclear arms accords should be supported and strengthened - but stopped short of joining Putin's opposition to a U.S. missile defense plan.
SPEAKING AT A news conference on the second day of Putin's state visit, Chretien said questions remain about the proposal to build a land-based missile defense program. Russia says the plan would breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Chretien and Putin agreed in a joint statement that the treaty was "a cornerstone" of global stability and nuclear nonproliferation and should be preserved and strengthened.
The statement sought swift implementation of the 1993 START-2 treaty to cut long-range nuclear weapons, and efforts to clinch a START-3 pact to reduce warhead levels further.
It also stressed the importance of the Conventional Forces in Europe pact, revised last year to take account of Russia's troop deployment on its southern flank, where it has been engaged in a campaign to crush Chechen separatists.
Putin paid tribute to the outgoing Clinton administration's efforts on disarmament issues for clinching an agreement last week on exchanging information on missile launches.
"I want to welcome the active nature of the outgoing administration...Like players in the National Hockey League, they keep going until the final whistle," he said.
CANADA'S 'COMPLICATED POSITION'
Asked if Canada joined Russia in opposing the missile defense plan, Chretien said it was too soon to tell.
Canada is in a "complicated position," Chretien said, with the United States to the south and Russia across the North Pole. Questions about whether the missile defense system will work and how the incoming administration of President-elect Bush will proceed on the matter must be answered before final decisions can be made, Chretien said.
"We don't want anything to happen to destabilize what we have at this moment," he said. "It's a question of wait-and-see."
Canada has expressed concern that a U.S. missile-defense system could hurt arms control efforts, but has not openly opposed it.
Putin made his opinion clear: Russia considers the plan a threat to world stability. Putin told Canadian journalists in Moscow last week that Canada could help resolve the dispute by opposing the plan.
"We believe deployment would no doubt damage significantly the established system of international security," Putin said in Russian, later adding: "This would ... absolutely change the balance of power in the international arena, and this itself is a threat."
HELP WITH WTO
The issue dominated a 20-minute news conference that followed the signing of agreements on expanded air services between Russia and Canada. The two countries also issued joint statements on cooperation in the Arctic and other northern regions they share and on Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization.
Canada said in the joint statement it would help Russia develop laws that conform to WTO legislation in other member countries and increase training programs for Russian officials in WTO-related areas.
With the three-day Canada trip that began Sunday night, Putin achieved his goal of visiting or meeting with every other head of state in the G-8 club of leading industrialized nations. Members are the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
By playing host to Putin and a Canadian summit with the European Union on Tuesday, Chretien is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between his guests and the United States. The Canadian leader has been in power since 1993 and was recently re-elected.
Putin noted that because of of its location, Canada is a natural intermediary on the missile defense issue. He noted the U.S. motivation for the plan was to intercept missiles that might be fired by rogue states, and said Russia and the United States should assess that threat together.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
---
Russia's President Visits Canada
Associated Press
December 18, 2000 Filed at 4:32 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Canada-Putin.html
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/12/18/canada.putin.ap/index.html
OTTAWA (AP) -- Prime Minister Jean Chretien agreed Monday with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin that existing nuclear arms accords should be supported and strengthened -- but stopped short of joining Putin's opposition to a U.S. missile defense plan.
Speaking at a news conference on the second day of Putin's state visit, Chretien said questions remain about the proposal to build a land-based missile defense program. Russia says the plan would breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Chretien and Putin agreed in a joint statement that the treaty was ``a cornerstone'' of global stability and nuclear nonproliferation and should be preserved and strengthened. Asked if Canada joined Russia in opposing the missile defense plan, Chretien said it was too soon to tell.
Canada is in a ``complicated position,'' Chretien said, with the United States to the south and Russia across the North Pole. Questions about whether the missile defense system will work and how the incoming administration of President-elect Bush will proceed on the matter must be answered before final decisions can be made, Chretien said.
``We don't want anything to happen to destabilize what we have at this moment,'' he said. ``It's a question of wait-and-see.''
Putin made his opinion clear: Russia considers the plan a threat to world stability.
``We believe deployment would no doubt damage significantly the established system of international security,'' Putin said in Russian, later adding: ``This would ... absolutely change the balance of power in the international arena, and this itself is a threat.''
The issue dominated a 20-minute news conference that followed the signing of agreements on expanded air services between Russia and Canada. The two countries also issued joint statements on cooperation in the Arctic and other northern regions they share and on Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization.
Canada said in the joint statement it would help Russia develop laws that conform to WTO legislation in other member countries and increase training programs for Russian officials in WTO-related areas.
With the three-day Canada trip that began Sunday night, Putin achieved his goal of visiting or meeting with every other head of state in the G-8 club of leading industrialized nations. Members are the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
By playing host to Putin and a Canadian summit with the European Union on Tuesday, Chretien is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between his guests and the United States. The Canadian leader has been in power since 1993 and was recently re-elected.
Putin noted that because of of its location, Canada is a natural intermediary on the missile defense issue. He noted the U.S. motivation for the plan was to intercept missiles that might be fired by rogue states, and said Russia and the United States should assess that threat together.
Russia fears the missile system would spark a new arms race that would overwhelm its struggling economy. Canada also has expressed concern that the U.S. plan could hurt arms control efforts.
------
Putin meets with Canadian leader
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 12:04 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsmon08.htm
OTTAWA (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Monday to sign economic agreements, discuss security issues and perhaps cement a personal relationship.
Russia and Canada have much in common: Both are vast countries with Arctic territory and big mineral industries. Harnessed together, Putin thinks they can do more to help each other and prevent the United States from dominating world affairs.
With the three-day Canada trip, Putin achieves his goal of visiting or meeting with every head of state in the G-8 club of leading industrialized nations, which comprises the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
In less than a year as president, Putin's personal diplomacy has helped Russia secure its footing in the group, a crucial step for his efforts to rebuild a struggling economy and try to offset U.S. dominance in the post-Soviet era.
''The global challenges of today, and the realities of the 21st century, call for us to pool our efforts and to work in close coordination - both in the bilateral format and in the international arena,'' Putin said at a welcoming ceremony at the residence of Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson.
Putin and Chretien dined together Sunday night and met again Monday morning before the planned signing of agreements involving air service in each other's territory and contracts between Russian regions and Canadian provinces, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko.
He said Putin also wanted to talk about Russia's admission to the World Trade Organization and would seek Canadian help in adapting its laws to conform to those of WTO member nations. In addition, the parties expected a joint statement on cooperation in the Arctic and other northern regions shared by Canada and Russia.
By playing host to Putin and a Canadian summit with the European Union on Tuesday, Chretien - in power since 1993 and recently elected to a third straight term - is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between his guests and the United States.
Putin arrived Sunday from Cuba. While the United States imposes sanctions on Cuba, Canada defies its powerful neighbor by trading with the communist island and holding full diplomatic relations.
Putin wants that kind of Canadian independence to help prevent the incoming Bush administration from forcing its will on major issues. One topic of conversation will be a proposed new North American missile defense system, an idea supported by Bush.
Russia vehemently opposes the development of such a system, saying it would breach a 28-year-old anti-ballistic missile treaty and could spark a new arms race that Russia cannot afford. Putin told Canadian journalists in Moscow last week that Canada could help resolve the dispute by opposing the plan.
Canada has expressed concern that a U.S. missile-defense system could hurt arms control efforts, but has not openly opposed it.
---
White House Releases Highlights of U.S.-EU Cooperation
U.S. Newswire
18 Dec 19:59
White House Releases Highlights of U.S.-EU Cooperation Under the New Transatlantic Agenda
To: National Desk
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-347-2770
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1218-145.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the White House:
HIGHLIGHTS OF U.S.-EU COOPERATION UNDER THE NEW TRANSATLANTIC AGENDA Washington, December 18, 2000
The United States and the European Union have worked during the six months of the French Presidency to realize the goals of the New Transatlantic Agenda: promoting peace, democracy and development throughout the world; expanding world trade; responding to global challenges; and building bridges across the Atlantic.
Foremost was our close and successful cooperation in supporting the advance of peace and democracy in South East Europe, described in our separate statement.
Concerned at the lack of progress in the Middle East Peace Process and the ongoing violence, we have urged both sides to comply fully and without delay with the commitments undertaken at the Sharm-el-Sheikh Summit and to relaunch negotiations. To this end, we will continue to support the Fact-Finding Committee.
We have supported Russian reforms to strengthen democracy, the rule of law and market economy. We have called for a political solution in Chechnya, the return of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and accountability for reports of humanitarian abuses.
The United States welcomes the results of the Nice European Council, which marked a very important step in the development of European security and defense policy. In particular, the commitments made by the EU member states concerning military capabilities will, as they are implemented, strengthen both the EU and the European pillar of the Atlantic alliance. The U.S. also welcomes the proposed arrangements for consultation and cooperation with NATO adopted at Nice, which received a positive response at last week's North Atlantic Council. The U.S. and the EU commit themselves to work together and with all Alliance members to implement and complete these arrangements and thereby forge a strategic partnership between the two organizations in the management of crisis. In this regard, the U.S. notes with appreciation the arrangements offered by the EU for its relationship with NATO European allies. The U.S. looks forward to working with a European Union playing its full role and assuming its full responsibilities on the international scene.
We have issued a joint statement on the responsibilities of States and on transparency regarding arms exports.
In Ukraine, we provided approximately $900 million or 1 billion euros to help close the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. The power plant ceased operations on December 15.
We have continued, as agreed at our last summit in Queluz, to address the full range of issues of concern in biotechnology. We have intensified our cooperation on regulatory and other issues, including making progress on means to facilitate trade flows for conventional and biotech (genetically-modified) crop varieties approved in both the U.S. and the EU. We also invited twenty eminent, independent experts from a broad cross-section of our societies to work together in the U.S.-EU Biotechnology Consultative Forum to examine the wide range of issues related to food and agricultural biotechnology. We welcome the report that the Forum has just submitted and will give it careful consideration. We thank the members for their hard work.
As agreed at our last summit, we have worked together in many African countries to improve and accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, described in our separate statement.
The U.S. and EU enjoy the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world. While disputes concern a small proportion of U.S.-EU trade, their resolution has been a high priority for us. In this light, we continued our discussions on the various disputes currently before us, either in the context of formal WTO dispute settlement proceedings or through other channels.
We have worked to reduce barriers to trade while maintaining high standards for public health and safety, and the environment. Under the Transatlantic Economic Partnership (TEP), we adopted a plan for cooperation in the area of metrology to facilitate trade and made progress on establishing guidelines and principles for regulatory cooperation and transparency. We have made substantial progress on an agreed text for a mutual recognition agreement (MRA) on marine equipment, which we aim to finalize in early 2001. Under the U.S.-EU MRA, we implemented the sectoral annexes on recreational craft, telecommunications equipment and electromagnetic compatibility, and pursued implementation of the medical devices annex. We discussed the MRAs in the electrical-safety and pharmaceutical sectors with a view toward their full and timely implementation.
We agreed to intensify contacts and cooperation on energy-related issues by re-establishing regular U.S.-EU consultations.
Following the Queluz Summit, we have worked extensively through expert- and political-level meetings to expand transatlantic cooperation in the information society. We have agreed on a joint statement on building consumer confidence in e-commerce and the role of alternative dispute resolution. We are jointly working on high-speed scientific research networking. We have also identified a number of other key areas in which to focus our future efforts such as: enhancing electronic government, combating high-tech crime, measuring the digital economy, researching the societal benefits of information technology and reducing the digital divide.
To minimize the impact of maritime disasters, we have begun sharing information about vessel safety through the European EQUASIS system, a database that contains lists of all ships, records of inspections and safety violations. We have joined in support of a proposal in the International Maritime Organization to phase out all single-hulled tankers in favor of double-hulled tankers.
We agreed to a common approach to the final negotiations of a global UN Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which contributed to their successful conclusion in Johannesburg on December 10.
We renewed the U.S.-EU Higher Education and Training Agreement that established a framework for educational exchanges and joint projects and agreed to promote joint research on on-line education.
We strengthened our science and technology cooperation in the areas of climate change research, including the ARGO project (a system to monitor changes to the temperature in the world's oceans), nanotechnology, biotechnology, e-learning and the mitigation of natural and man-made disasters through disaster information networking. We agreed to intensify scientific cooperation in non-nuclear energy and to explore research proposals on prions. We also upgraded our respective science and technology websites to offer more complete information on possibilities for cooperation and exchanges.
Together we contributed to the successful negotiations on the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its related Protocols.
As we look forward to the Swedish Presidency of the EU, we will continue to pursue this broad agenda. Specific priorities will include the resolution of outstanding trade disputes, and stability and economic renewal in Southeast Europe. We will help Russia implement its non-proliferation and disarmament commitments, in particular the destruction of its chemical weapons and the disposition and management of its excess weapons plutonium. We will strive for an early conclusion of the Agreement on the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation (MNEPR). We will continue to look for other ways to further enhance our cooperation on non-proliferation and counterterrorism, including implementation of UN sanctions on the Taliban and relevant UN Conventions. We will also focus on development, environment protection and health in the northern regions, in line with the EU?s Northern Dimension, and the U.S. Northern Europe Initiative. We will also jointly work for stability and economic reconstruction in Moldova and Southern Caucasus. We will continue to support the efforts towards further normalizing the relations between North and South Korea. We will also intensify our dialogue on the peace process in Colombia.
We will continue to work together to support the efforts of the UN Secretary General to achieve a comprehensive settlement on Cyprus consistent with relevant UNSC Resolutions.
We remain committed to the various understandings and agreements reached at the May 18, 1998 London Summit and, conscious of their importance, will continue to attach a high priority to the effective and prompt implementation of all their aspects.
Global climate change is one of the biggest environmental challenges. We will continue to take steps to bring the Kyoto Protocol into force as soon as possible, including working to reach an agreement at the resumed session of COP VI in May/June 2001 in Bonn.
We will continue to work together in the fight against money laundering to bring an end to harmful practices identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). We will also reinforce international standards in this fight and involve new professions, e.g. lawyers, accountants and other professionals.
We will cooperate on Justice and Home Affairs issues, including the fight against illegal synthetic narcotics and other illicit drugs, trafficking in human beings and high-tech crime. We will continue our cooperation to combat child pornography on the Internet. Another priority is to continue the on-going dialogue on asylum and migration issues with a view to reporting to the U.S.-EU Summit in June 2001. To ensure continuity on Justice and Home Affairs issues of common interest, we will work towards a multi-annual approach within existing structures.
We will continue to work together to build consensus for the launch of a new trade round in the WTO at the earliest opportunity. A new Round should address the interest of all WTO members, in particular the poorer countries, and should strengthen and develop the rules-based system of the WTO. We agree that securing the launch of an inclusive and balanced Round during 2001 is of the highest priority. We will continue to work to this end and to seek to narrow differences that remain between us on the agenda of the Round.
-------- china
China: Buying a Better Army
Beijing has turned to an old strategic rival-Russia-to help modernize its military
MSNBC
12/18/00
By Kevin Platt and Melinda Liu
NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
http://www.msnbc.com/news/501203.asp?cp1=1
Dec. 18 issue - At a recent aerospace exposition in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, the stars of the show were Russian. Military personnel and businessmen from Russia attended the exposition in force. Russian pilots drew the loudest applause for their aerial acrobatics.
"We've brought our best [jet] fighters and our best pilots to the air show" - COL. ALEKSANDR ERMOLENKO Russian Knights
RUSSIAN ARMS PEDDLERS drew the most visitors to their booths. Russian brass sometimes outnumbered their Chinese hosts at the banquets and vodka-soaked happy hours that punctuated the 10-day aerofest. "We've brought our best [jet] fighters and our best pilots to the air show," bragged Col. Aleksandr Ermolenko, trainer for the world-renowned Russian Knights, Moscow's jet-flying team. That wasn't exactly true. The Russians didn't take their most advanced weaponry to China. For weeks Russian generals had debated whether to allow a cutting-edge MiG-31 interceptor to be flown to Zhuhai. In the end Moscow's Defense Ministry decided against the idea. Instead, it sent a miniature dummy of the jet to the exhibition, accompanied by a vague list of technical specifications.
Despite that minor snub, Russian arms makers and the Chinese military have lately developed a very cozy relationship-one built on mutual need. The Russians badly need export earnings, while the Chinese need modern weapons-or at least arms more advanced than those in their creaky arsenal. Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen crackdown triggered a boycott of Western arms sales to China, leaving that country desperate for dependable suppliers. Russia has stepped into the breach, and it is now the biggest seller of big-ticket military hardware to China. Beijing has recently bought everything from Russian aircraft to advanced destroyers to diesel-powered patrol submarines, suited for use in the Taiwan Strait. Last month in Zhuhai, the Russians delivered the first of 45 SU-30 multirole fighter aircraft purchased by Beijing for about $2 billion. More lucrative arms deals are under discussion-ranging from Russian AWACS-type radar systems to attack helicopters. Prime Minister Zhu Rongji recently said that relations between China and Russia were "enjoying their best period ever."
"Much of this is a hard-nosed business relationship-a marriage of convenience." - FOREIGN DEFENSE ATTACHE IN BEIJING
That doesn't mean that China and Russia have become fast friends. The countries have long been strategic rivals and share lots of historical baggage. Mao Zedong was openly offended by Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 hint that Moscow would like a submarine-refueling base in China. A year later Khrushchev refused to assist China's nuclear program-and called Mao "a worn-out galosh." The two sides fought a border war in 1963. Relations have certainly improved since then. The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union diluted Chinese fears of Russian expansionism. But for all the contracts being inked (and all the vodka being guzzled), there's an unmistakable sense of watch-your-back caution on both sides. "There's not a lot of trust between the two," says one foreign Defense attache in Beijing. "Much of this is a hard-nosed business relationship-a marriage of convenience."
That was evident last Nov. 25, when proud Chinese naval officers took delivery of the second of two Sovremenny-class destroyers at a dock in St. Petersburg. Dozens of workers from the Severnaya Verg construction company, along with a Russian naval crew that had been testing the destroyer, looked on sadly as the Russian Navy's blue and white St. Andrews flag was lowered. The Chinese flag was already flying atop the ship. Sergei Lakhin, commander of the Russian crew, could not conceal his emotions as he marched his sailors and officers away from the vessel. "It was so sad to see a foreign crew take over what could have made Russian naval commanders jump for joy, if they could have had this ship," said Svetlana Yemolayeva, a spokeswoman for the shipbuilding company. Russia's top naval brass did not attend the ceremony. The demise of the Soviet Union has shrunk Russian arms-procurement budgets, as well as demand for weapons. If Beijing had not bought the destroyers, their hulls might have been cut up for scrap.
Beijing is moving in the opposite direction. The government's push to modernize the People's Liberation Army is driven primarily by one objective-to intimidate Taiwan. Chinese authorities hope to boost the credibility of their warnings to the prosperous renegade island-namely, that any move toward independence would spark a Chinese invasion. Beyond that, China aims to deter the United States from supporting Taiwan in the event of a military conflict. Chinese strategists were sobered by U.S. high-tech wizardry during the gulf war, and more recently by NATO's intervention in Kosovo. "[In it] the Chinese leadership saw a dangerous precedent that could be used to oppose Beijing's control of Taiwan and dissident ethnic-minority areas [in Central Asia]," says June Teufel Dreyer, a professor at the University of Miami.
Despite its Russian arms-buying spree, the PLA is still in no shape to invade Taiwan. "It will take the PLA another 10 years or so to complete reinforcement of its forces deployed against Taiwan," says Konstantin Makienko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow. He believes the Chinese can change the military balance only after their fighter fleet is upgraded to acquire land- attack capabilities, and after the Navy commissions vessels equipped with powerful anti-ship missiles like the Russian Yakhont. And as other experts point out, it will take years for the PLA to learn to use Russian weapons. "It's taken the Chinese longer than expected to absorb some new technologies," says a foreign Defense attache in Beijing. "It's one thing to buy a new toy-and another thing to know how to play with it."
No doubt, many Moscow arms manufacturers would like to push bilateral cooperation as far as it can go. Russia's opinion makers may feel the same way. According to a survey of Russian politicians, journalists and business leaders released last week, more than half of 650 respondents said they viewed China as Russia's most important strategic partner. The poll, conducted by ROMIR (a member of the U.S.-based Gallup polling group), showed that China edged out Belarus (second), Germany (third) and the United States (sixth).
The handshakes and toasts are not confined to hardware sales. Moscow and Beijing are working on a new 15-year Military Cooperation Plan. Already, Beijing is sending pilots and weapons designers to Moscow for training. Russian weapons experts are helping Beijing with its nuclear arsenal and cruise-missile programs, many Western analysts assert. In addition, the two defense establishments are mulling closer ties as they study joint security initiatives against Islamic extremists in Central Asia. "There are a lot of factors bringing Russia and China closer together militarily," says Dru Gladney of the University of Hawaii, who studies China's Muslim minority groups.
But like most strategic partnerships, cooperation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Jiang Zemin has its limits. Experts don't foresee a formal military alliance between the two, like the one Russia and China forged in 1950 to fight U.S. hegemony and to promote communism. "There's a good deal of unease in the Russian Army about selling weapons to China," says Dreyer. Both sides realize that, one day, the two countries could find themselves on a competitive trajectory once again. "Some Russians are saying, 'We're selling China the weapons it could someday use against us', " says Dreyer. She attributes such cautionary attitudes to the fact that "Russia is a declining power and China is a rising one." Ironically, both now seek to reclaim their former glory by doing business with the other.
With Kevin Doyle in Phnom Penh
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China Eager to Work With Bush
Associated Press
December 18, 2000 Filed at 10:40 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-Another-Bush.html
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405393696
BEIJING - The Chinese call him "Xiao Bu-shi," Little Bush, and remember him as a young visitor in the mid-1970's when his father was the chief American diplomat in a China just beginning to break out of its communist cocoon.
Now that Little Bush is about to become President George W. Bush, they are uneasy.
While campaigning, George W. Bush and his foreign policy advisers asserted U.S. interests in ways China finds threatening. They called for bolstering rival Taiwan, and for stronger alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia and others, raising Chinese concerns about encirclement.
Then there are the perennial issues of human rights, trade and Chinese weapons sales to regimes Washington doesn't like.
The good news is that both sides have signaled an eagerness to get to know each other quickly.
China is one of the few foreign nations Bush has traveled to, visiting when he was about 30 years old during his father's 1974-75 term as head of the U.S. liaison office in Beijing. The office laid the groundwork for official diplomatic ties established in 1979.
Bush ``has to consider having strategic cooperation with China. Without it, it will be impossible to preserve stability in the Asia-Pacific region,'' said Yan Xuetong, an international security specialist at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
Although the communist government stayed carefully neutral during the election campaign, Beijing has telegraphed its worries about Bush in recent weeks. Officials and scholars in the foreign policy establishment have probed likely Bush policies and expressed misgivings in meetings with visiting U.S. officials.
For instance, they wonder whether Bush, 54, weakened by his slim electoral victory and a divided Congress, will try to rally conservatives with provocative shows of support for Taiwan.
As has been the case with every U.S. president since Harry Truman, Taiwan lies at the heart of Chinese concerns about Bush. The island split from China 51 years ago amid civil war. Beijing considers unification a sacred mission, but knows that Washington stands in its way. The United States once kept troops on the island to deter Beijing and is obligated by law to aid Taiwan's defense.
Candidate Bush called for building up military ties with Taiwan and vowed to defend the island if China attacked. That was a more explicit pledge than his recent predecessors made, although President Clinton did send an armada to the Taiwan Straits in 1996 to head off Chinese missile threats.
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan on Friday told Lawrence Eagleburger, a foreign policy elder in Bush's Republican Party, that Taiwan remained ``the most important, sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations.'' Tang urged Bush to seek the constructive ties backed by six U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democrat.
Most disconcerting for Beijing is Bush's support for the weapons to blunt China's growing missile arsenal in a possible attack on Taiwan. He has backed a U.S. national anti-missile defense that Clinton postponed approving and supported giving Taiwan a more limited version.
Those systems could allow Taiwan to stop some incoming missiles and give the United States, if it intervenes, an edge in weathering a possible Chinese missile strike on U.S. territory -- something a leading Chinese general once threatened to do.
``These (systems) will be too disadvantageous to China,'' said Yan, the Tsinghua scholar.
An early indication of Bush's intentions may come during annual arms sales talks with Taiwan in April. Another would be if Congress revives a bill to increase military coordination with Taiwan. Bush has said he supports it.
``These are two possible conflicts in front of our eyes,'' said Jin Canrong, a U.S. watcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ``But they can be controlled through hard work.''
Chinese leaders, especially President Jiang Zemin in his dealings with Clinton, managed to keep the troubled relationship on track by giving it concerted high-level attention, and early indications are that this won't change.
Jiang, Foreign Minister Tang and members of the Bush camp have expressed a desire to forge a working relationship. At least one Bush adviser has traveled to Beijing to gauge misgivings among Chinese officials.
Now that the long electoral deadlock is over, the Chinese seem willing to put a positive face on Bush's victory. The final outcome was front-page news in the state media, and the China Youth Daily ran a lengthy portrait linking Bush closely with his father, who is well liked by Chinese.
-------- korea
Clinton to decide whether he'll visit North Korea
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 03:21 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon04.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Monday it wasn't seeking permission, but was talking with advisers to President-elect Bush about whether President Clinton should visit communist North Korea before he leaves office.
Clinton, who expects to make his decision before Christmas, will likely talk about the possible trip during his meeting with Bush Tuesday at the White House, said press secretary Jake Siewert. But Siewert stressed it would be Clinton's decision.
''The president will make that decision based on his own assessment of whether a trip will be useful in advancing America's national interest,'' Siewert said.
Siewert said a possible Clinton trip to North Korea also would likely surface in a meeting Monday between Clinton's national security adviser Sandy Berger and Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
''We're consulting and have been consulting with the president-elect's team on this and those consultations will continue,'' Siewert said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with North Korea's Kim Jong Il in October to try to pave the way for a possible Clinton visit. Follow-up missile talks were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but no agreements were reached.
The United States is concerned about North Korean exports to Pakistan, Iran and other countries. The North Korean leader has indicated a willingness to curb missile development and missile exports in exchange for economic ties with the United States.
-------- russia
Blast of cold Russian air awaits Bush team
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 02:38 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/comment/nceditf.htm
When President-elect Bush's newly appointed foreign-policy team of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice turns attention to Russia next month, it's likely to find the political climate like the Moscow weather: Just when things seem to be on the mild side, out comes a blast of cold.
Consider what's happened since the closing days of the election:
No sooner had the Russian leadership pardoned ailing U.S. businessman Edmund Pope, convicted on dubious espionage charges, than it renewed efforts to take into custody exiled media oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, persecuted for his TV station's outspoken political views. On Saturday, Mikhail Gorbachev, who began Russia's push toward openness, warned that all democratic achievements of the past 15 years were now at risk.
No sooner had the State Department touted the success of a 1995 U.S.-Russia deal to restrain arms sales to Iran, than President Vladimir Putin's government announced plans to resume the sales, threatening Persian Gulf stability.
And just when it seemed Russia was cozying up to the Western Europeans with cooperation on energy, trade and other matters, the Duma took a giant leap backward by readopting the music from its Stalin-era anthem and the red military flag - symbols of tyranny and expansionism to millions of Russia's East European neighbors opposed by Putin's populist predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
This muscle flexing might look a little milder to the outside world if Putin had a positive track record of domestic reform since he inherited the presidency from Yeltsin, who resigned last January. He'd be able to reassure the United States and others he's strengthening the state, his secret police and the symbols of state power precisely in order to tackle domestic problems.
But from fighting corruption to economic reform, Putin has accomplished little at home. Among initiatives that have been proposed but not implemented:
Putin has vowed he won't perpetuate the Yeltsin-era system of corruption and favoritism. Yet his government has not mounted any significant cleanup campaigns.
Putin's state energy sector has raked in billions in oil sales at a time of high world oil prices. Yet those funds haven't been used to improve the lot of Russia's woeful population, which faces rising unemployment, rising crime, and life expectancy that by last year had plummeted to 65 years.
The Putin government has scrapped the cumbersome old tax code but has done little to strengthen tax collection from the most powerful tax cheats.
Both the Clinton administration and the previous Bush administration, to which Rice and Powell contributed, were patient with Russia's staggering problems. Indeed, ill-timed pressure could have aided Russia's hard-liners.
But what ordinary Russians - and Americans - will need soon from the new administration is a policy to persuade Putin that muzzling and intimidation of opposition voices, arms sales to terrorist nations and nationalist symbolism are preludes to failure.
Selective persecution of political or economic opponents, particularly, prevents Russia from building the openness that both its economy and society need to prosper. It recalls Putin's KGB roots and invites renewed suspicion and confrontation by the West.
True progress would build Russian pride on a foundation of domestic achievement instead of chest-beating for the outside world. In the first year of the Putin regime, such achievement is very hard to find.
-------- ukraine
Culture of Cancer
A health crisis in Ukraine rages almost 15 years after Chornobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster.
From this week's Westchester Weekly...
By Robert Masterson
With the help of Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, we sent a reporter to Ukraine to investigate the aftermath of the world's worst nuclear disaster. This week's cover story is the first in a series of stories on the devastating impact Chornobyl has had on public health and the economy of Ukraine.
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"The Russian radiation is the best radiation in the world. It makes your hair grow thick and the men become more potent."
So say the "liquidators," the firefighters who work at Chornobyl Station. Of course, these are replacement liquidators. Their predecessors, the men who actually fought the fire during the accident of 1986, are all long dead by the thousands, according to Ukraine government figures, and all of them died rather horribly from massive radiation poisoning. During the past decade, approximately 40,000 cleanup workers have died, mostly men in their 30s and 40s. By way of comparison, the U.S. death toll in Vietnam after 12 years of involvement was approximately 50,000. However, say the liquidators with sarcasm, it was the best radiation poisoning in the world.
A rough translation of the Ukrainian national anthem begins, "Ukraine is not dead yet. ..." By all appearances, however, it is moribund. Ukraine's increasingly Third World culture runs rampant in a developed-world, European setting. Feral dogs roam the streets of Kyiv, the nation's capital, and well-dressed middle-aged office workers scrounge through garbage bins on their way to and from work. The sidewalks are lined with elderly women supplementing their minuscule Soviet-era pensions (approximately $10 a month) by selling cigarettes, beer and other sundries brokered to them by gangsters. The streets are clogged with gypsy cab drivers hustling some money on the side maneuvering among the Range Rovers, PT Cruisers, Corvettes, Porches and BMWs of the New Ukrainians, each with a cell phone, a bodyguard and a tarted-up party girl by his side. The only real growth industry seems to be the sex industry; escort services, marriage agencies and pornography are booming as the Ukrainian culture begins to feed upon itself, offering its own flesh as a commodity.
On April 26, 1986, in what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, an explosion and fire within Reactor #4 at the Chornobyl nuclear complex killed 31 people. Commissioned in December 1983, Chornobyl #4 had operated for 865 days (with just 715 of those days deemed "effective," i.e., feeding electricity into Chornobyl Station's massive power grid). The accident -- dubbed "beyond-design-basis," or worse than anyone had anticipated -- destroyed the reactor's nuclear core, its protective safety barriers (such as they were) and all safety systems and released a cloud of radioactive particles, dust and smoke nearly 100 times as large as that kicked up by the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima 41 years earlier. Over the following days, as Soviet officials concealed and minimized the nature and scope of the disaster, prevailing winds from the south and the east blew streamers of radioactivity across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Poland and the Baltic Sea area.
It has never been determined just how many people have been harmed by exposure to that cloud of contamination. The World Health Organization, relying on information supplied by the Ukrainian government, has estimated a range in the thousands. Unofficially, the damage to the health and environment of Ukraine has been both severe and profound. Estimates of human fatalities, released by health and environmental groups such as Greenpeace, range in the hundreds of thousands. (See accompanying story, below.) According to my Lonely Planet guide to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, close to 5 million people were affected to some degree by the explosion. According to such stateside anti-nuke groups as the Radiation and Public Health Research Group, the entire world has suffered from the Chornobyl accident. (Though known to the world by its Russian name, Chernobyl, I will defer to Ukraine's independence and use its native spelling.)
This week, on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in history, the last operating nuclear power plant at Chornobyl Station, the aging #3, will be shut down forever. It appears as if a series of meteorological events (the onslaught of another winter) and equipment failures all along the power grid has taken Chornobyl #3 and two other Ukrainian nuclear plants (Reactor #6 at Zaporizhia and Reactor #2 at Yuzhna) off-line and out of the grid.
But the history of the disaster's impact is still being written, with powerful albeit unofficial evidence that its health and environmental impact has been grossly underestimated.
Thyroid cancer among children living near Chornobyl is 80 times higher than normal; birth defects have nearly doubled since 1986 and more than 10,000 Ukrainian children have been treated for leukemia and other illnesses. (For more on the aftereffects of the accident, see accompanying story, "Mopping Up After Chornobyl," below.)
Ukraine also has Europe's highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection, with 35,500 cases officially reported (out of a 1999 population of 50 million, down from 52 million in 1992). According to First Deputy Health Minister Olha Bobyleva, that number is probably low by a factor of 10. With a likely HIV-positive population of more than 350,000, Ukraine can anticipate a quarter of a million HIV-related deaths during the next 15 years. While drugs and treatment are available through the black market, the government has no agenda to address the issue, no educational program for its citizens and no real budget to implement either. Similar situations exist for such diseases as tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea and a composite condition labeled TORCH (toxic plasmosis, rubella, chlamydia and hepatitis).
The links of such epidemics to the nuclear accident are insidious. Certainly, the population's immune systems have been compromised by long-term, constant exposure to radiation. Certainly, the economic bungling that characterizes both the Soviet and independent Ukrainian governments' lack of effective reaction to the accident, subsequent cleanup and health issues contributes to people's overall vulnerability to a host of infections and opportunistic cancers.
Beyond these quantifiable influences, however, there is a cloud of despair that is as devastating to the nation's health as any cloud of radiation has been. As the country's life expectancy drops (to the mid-50s for males), as the birth rate plummets, as cancer and birth defects increase, fewer and fewer people seem to care about their own chances to survive.
Behind the immediate concerns engendered by the Soviet Union's collapse and subsequent economic crises, the constant presence of radiation in the environment concerns the doctors working in such areas of Ukraine as Zhitomir Oblast. (See accompanying story, "Witness to an Autopsy," below.) These doctors see the Chornobyl radiation as a vampire force that saps the strength, weakens the immune systems and twists the chromosomes of the men and women living in areas declared safe.
<Picture: photo>
Traveling with Olena Maslyukivska, the in-country director of the international humanitarian Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, I visited hospitals across Ukraine and met with administrative staff, directors, doctors and nurses. Fresh from a two-year stint in the United States as a Yale graduate student and an intern with the World Bank, Olena is an energetic (and some would say aggressive) optimist dedicated to rebuilding and healing her ailing homeland. A fundamentalist Christian in a country of atheism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, she provided, with her unshakable optimism, an almost perfect counterpoint to my gloomy reaction to most situations we confronted together. As I became accustomed to the rhythm and the flow of post-Soviet Ukrainian manners, each impromptu interview, each tour of a ward or a lab or another critical care unit began to meld until the entire country at times appeared as one large cancer ward.
The pediatricians, surgeons and neonatologists we met thought of themselves as "firefighters" on the line, desperately battling a conflagration. More than one doctor used this language to explain his role in dealing with the permanent health crisis, an unending emergency. I began to wonder if there was a pamphlet somewhere explaining the metaphor and its use in interviews.
Everywhere we went, Olena and I were presented with a litany of "firefighting" requirements. They ranged from the most basic tools needed for minimal health care -- bandages, gloves, syringes, antiseptic -- to sophisticated neonatal incubators with which to address the spiraling number of premature births, low-birth-weight infants and infants with multiple birth defects. Anything we might be able to do to help them acquire this crucial material would always be deeply appreciated, we were told time and time again. The doctors especially solicited Olena's attention, hoping to attract her potential munificence, and certainly much of what occurred during our visits was colored by that. Nonetheless, what I saw rarely needed translation.
Statistics in Ukraine are kept with a sort of double-entry code, distinctly divided between public and private numbers. Official and officially certified records are statistically manipulated to minimize Ukraine's negative population growth, plummeting fertility rates, rising infant mortality rates and drops in overall life span. Officially, the quality of life really just isn't that bad in Ukraine.
Unofficially, many doctors have compiled and compared their records of direct observation and treatment. Reluctant to release their numbers to a foreign journalist, many of the doctors I spoke with nonetheless declared that, unofficially, Ukraine seems to be dying.
In Zhitomir, west of Kyiv and south of Chornobyl, we visited the statistical bureau at the Zhitomir Regional Ghildren's [sic] Hospital. While Dr. Alexander Gusak, "the deputy of main doctor in medical work," described the relatively low numbers his area of Ukraine reported for infant mortality, he simultaneously gestured toward the bank of filing cabinets in which his staff stored the hospital's records of miscarriages, stillbirths, fatal birth defects and infant deaths. The 3-by-5 cards used to record this information filled half a drawer for the entire year of 1986, the year of the accident at Chornobyl. Previous years were about the same -- half a drawer. For 1987, however, two complete drawers were full of cards. 1988 through 1991 took roughly two drawers a year. In 1992, a single drawer held the records. But for 1993, it took four full drawers to hold all the cards. For 1994, two drawers; 1995, two drawers; and 1996, another four drawers. And all this while the overall birth rate was dropping by 50 percent. Unofficially.
I asked Dr. Gusak if there was a connection between the decrease in the birth rate and the rise in infant deaths, if either was in any way connected with the release of radioactivity in 1986. He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. A common form of communication throughout Ukraine, one that needed no translation. This slow shrug of the shoulders accompanied by rolling eyes meant: "Who knows?" or "That's the way it is" or "I really can't say any more about this subject."
"This Zhitomir," he added in English by way of clarification. Our guide, Ludmilla, the young wife of a Ukrainian Army officer, told us this phrase was a common punctuation to explain a hopeless or frustrating or typically confused situation.
"If the bus is late," our guide elaborated, "the people say, 'This Zhitomir.' If the hot water goes out in the apartment, the people say, 'This Zhitomir.' "
"If the babies die?" I asked her.
"This Zhitomir," she replied.
Dr. Gusak smiled and shrugged, rolled his eyes in agreement.
"This Zhitomir," he reiterated.
"This Ukraine," I replied.
The hospital's statistics department hadn't caught up yet to more recent years' numbers. They said they were working on computerizing these new statistics on their new personal computer, a gift from a relief organization. But it was an overwhelming job. So there we were in the hospital with a portly, balding doctor telling us that things were pretty good in Zhitomir, while he gestured with his soft hands toward the hard evidence that told us things were pretty terrible. These contradictions, these hidden meanings and mixed messages, were the norm as I continued to speak with health professionals throughout the country.
Zhitomir is a supposedly safe place, too. It's 100 kilometers away from the reactor. It's well outside the "yellow zone," the more than 2,000-square-kilometer Exclusion Zone evacuated after the accident. It's supposed to be okey-dokey for human habitation.
At various times throughout our visit, we used Ludmilla's personal radioactivity dosimeter to take readings and got numbers in the 40s at the Zhitomir Regional Children's Hospital. A normal reading is considered 13 or 14; she said she'd gotten readings in the 400s at the city cemetery. The farther north and the closer to the nuclear wasteland we traveled that day as we went to the town of Korosten, the higher the readings went until the dosimeter stopped working by mid-afternoon.
The measurement at the heart of Chornobyl, just outside the containment vessel holding the molten aftermath of the world's most deadly nuclear accident, peaked at 132 millirads.
The causes of death for people who die in Zhitomir, should such deaths ever be reported and recorded, will not be listed as lifelong and constant exposure to radioactive nuclides for deceased parents and grandparents. For an infant or a child whose life was compromised even in utero by that same ambient poison, the cause of death will be tightly focused on the particular infection or the particular birth defect that officially caused mortality. There are no forms to contain unauthorized conclusions regarding the highly toxic environment that truly is modern Ukraine.
Hundreds of miles to the southeast, in the old missile-building city of Dnipropetrovsk, a volunteer effort oversaw the therapy that Chornobyl kids received at that city's Number Three Children's Hospital.
Working in a building almost 100 years old and bearing a shell scar from World War II, chief doctor and physical therapist Lydia Andreena Kulvolchuk monitored the health and therapeutic programs for more than 100 children, about one-third of the kids classified as Dnipropetrovsk's Chornobyl victims. Almost all their families had been relocated to the city after the accident. Kulvolchuk has volunteered her time after her official retirement to organize inpatient, outpatient and home treatment for the children.
The day Olena and I visited Number Three, dozens of kids were in for treatment. Some had come with their parents and some had come alone to receive laser beam therapy to kill infection and tumors, aroma therapy, electro-stimulation and, most oddly, to direct ultra-violet light into their noses from a multi-armed machine. As I was clearly fascinated with the machine, both Kulvolchuk and Olena were fascinated that I had never seen such a device.
"Surely the West has this technology," the doctor declared. "It is very effective in treating infections and bacteria in the sinus and throat areas."
I do remember seeing ultraviolet sterilizers in old-fashioned barber shops as a kid. There would be a pile of combs in a silver tray under a UV tube, but, no, I had never heard of shooting streams of light into anyone's head to kill germs before.
"Well, it works," Kulvolchuk told me, and I could not doubt her.
Kulvolchuk reminded me of a gold-toothed, Eastern European version of The Facts of Life's Mrs. Garrett. She directed her energies to getting the children out of the city, renowned for its industrial toxicity, which is much more dangerous for the already radiation-weakened patients, and to supplying their families with adequate food and clothing. Most of her young patients suffered thyroid and kidney problems, but she could not say if these were actual statistical spikes beyond what was known from the after-effects of the accident, or the outcome of better diagnostics and monitoring.
Kulvolchuk kept her records in a school notebook and held it proudly in her chubby hands. In her spiky Cyrillic writing, she recorded the lives and deaths of the hundreds of children who passed through her clinic.
"What happens to these numbers?" I asked her.
"I send them 'upstairs' until they get to the Ministry of Health," Kulvolchuk replied.
"And then what happens to these numbers?"
She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes.
<Picture: photo>
It was also at Number Three Children's Hospital that Olena and I saw first-hand one of the dirty secrets of the international humanitarian relief community. Hospital director Dr. Igor Makedonsky, proud of the work he has accomplished over the last three years to build a brand-new, four-story facility to replace the hospital's ancient, battle-scarred quarters, is nonetheless dismayed that the new building stands empty.
"We hope to fill this space with new equipment and open within two years," he told us as we toured the vacant wards. I found myself panting at the pace he set while we climbed dark stairways, as we raced through bright hallways still smelling of fresh paint. In his early 40s, Makedonsky came into the position as director of Number Three after his predecessor was caught accepting kickbacks from a medical supply company. That former director, according to Makedonsky, had spent an entire year's equipment budget on disposable hypodermic syringes. After the staff was forced to reuse the inadequately sterilized needles, four patients were accidentally infected with the HIV virus. Although a lawsuit against the hospital was successful and it owes the families of the infected children around $400,000, that corrupt director was merely reprimanded and transferred to another medical center in Dnipropetrovsk.
"And the corruption continues," Makedonsky later told us in his office. The hospital had just received a shipment of much-needed beds from a relief organization. "They are beautiful, these beds. Eight beautiful Dutch hospital beds for our children. And this."
With that, Makedonsky opened a cabinet and pulled out a box. Inside were boxes of medicine and vitamins, all of them water-damaged and moldy and, most disturbingly, out-of-date. Vitamin A, drugs named Lorzaar and Diltalexal, drugs manufactured by companies like Hexal, Lilly and MSD, all bore expiration dates of July 1998, June 1999 and October 1999.
"Do you want to see more?" he asked. "Come on, I will show you."
Makedonsky charged outside to the lot behind the hospital and opened up what looked to be a make-shift garage.
"Oh my God," Olena exclaimed as we saw what was stored there. In tumbled heaps and piles were broken pieces of medical equipment, bags of what appeared to be dirty bandages, boxes of out-of-date medications, rusted surgical instruments, catheter trays with their sterile seals punctured or broken and old-fashioned blood-pressure devices filled with poisonous mercury.
"What am I supposed to do with these things?" Makedonsky asked.
We poked around in this humanitarian relief garbage for a while, marveling at each new outrage. There were rusted instruments designed for artificial insemination, useless cancer drugs and antibiotics, broken glassware and stuff none of us could identify.
"I can't throw these out," Makedonsky said. "This stuff is toxic and dangerous. What if someone found it and tried to use it or sell it on the black market?"
"Have you reported this?" I asked him.
"How can I?" he replied. "This kind of thing always comes bundled with things we need, like Dutch hospital beds. If I make some trouble, will I ever get anything else? I can't risk that."
It was the price he paid for the help he needed to treat the children in his hospital.
"There's got to be a special hell for the people who do this," I suggested. "They should spend an eternity in a hospital they have equipped."
Makedonsky shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes.
<Picture: photo>
In a small town north of the regional capital of Zhitomir, one woman exemplified the kind of work being done by private citizens to pick up the slack from the overwhelmed health care providers.
As we spoke in a car parked outside a small restaurant, Olena Kolena-Prestuty (my phonetic approximation of her last name) told me how she began to collect stray children during the early '90s. A widow in her late 50s, Kolena-Prestuty seemed well-suited for her role as surrogate parent and advocate for these cast-off kids. Short and stout, she also seemed made of iron, and her lined face seemed both compassionate and intolerant of those who were not.
"Initially, all the families who were relocated [from the Chornobyl zone] to this area were supposed to receive compensation from the government," she told me. "But, due to economic conditions ... that never happened. Many of these kids were abandoned or orphaned or removed from their homes because of their parents' alcoholism or drug addiction. I realized that nobody was taking care of all those kids. I decided to create this charity to take care of these orphaned and homeless kids."
Calling her single-handed efforts The St. Michael's Charity for Children, Kolena-Prestuty found it enormously difficult to raise funds. Both Ukrainian culture and years of Soviet training, she said, worked against the notion of individual giving.
"I vowed to make a home, a new kind of family, for these children. I first adopted about 20 kids," Kolena-Prestuty explained. As their legal parent, she received about 50 hrivna (a bit less than $10) a month for each child. "I went to the local government and got them to give me a part of an abandoned military base. Now, I have about 150 kids living there and I get a little bit of help from local organizations," businesses and churches, mostly.
In reality, the local government more or less just looked the other way as Kolena-Prestuty moved her enormous brood into the derelict barracks.
"I hope they find a little bit of happiness in their lives," she said. "If I had my own money, I would send them all to another place."
"What are your hopes for these children?" I asked her.
Kolena-Prestuty shrugged and rolled her eyes.
After establishing her orphanage, Kolena-Prestuty turned her attention to abandoned seniors and in much the same way has established a hospice for those elderly citizens who are dying alone and without resources. Coercing local businessmen into donating material and labor, she has overseen the renovation of yet another abandoned facility -- an ancient hospital -- into a clean, quiet shelter where her charges can ease themselves into death with some measure of dignity.
<Picture: photo>
Before dawn one morning, as our train pulled into the Kyiv station after five furious days of touring medical facilities in Zhitomir, Korosten, Lutsk and Lviv, I had a few moments of clarity watching the gray light slowly illuminate the industrial rust belt of the capital city.
A health crisis in Ukraine is raging. Public health care is problematic at best, and nonexistent at worst. The toxicity of both urban and rural environments -- widespread low- and high-level radioactivity, industrial pollution, even unleaded gasoline -- is a background upon which the health problems associated with poverty, ignorance, greed and fear are magnified. To the wealthy, to the foreign community, to the old Russian elite and the newly privileged Ukrainian, premium health care is available for premium prices. Dozens of private hospitals and clinics fill the English-language version of Kyiv's phone book and the pharmaceutical black market deals in everything from Viagra to sophisticated AIDS cocktails for those with the cash to pay.
For everyone else, though, it's stand and wait until they die. For the masses, those workers and peasants for whom communism was designed to relieve oppression, public health care facilities are often capable of providing only minimal treatment. During Soviet times, health care was available and consistent throughout the Union. It was often substandard by Western measures, but it was available and it was free. Now, however, with the loss of central planning and administration, the Ukrainian health care system is fragmented and operating on a catch-as-catch-can basis. More than one small-town clinic's director claimed a lack of even the most basic drugs with which to treat illness and infection or pain. Hospital staffs across the country were often limited to offering nothing more than a hygienic environment, nutritious meals and consistent heat as treatment for their cases. Other than that, they had nothing to offer except, perhaps, a referral to another, better-equipped hospital.
A situation calling for preventive as well as crisis health care measures, as well as medicine and technology, is being handled on an improvised basis by a loose network of women -- mothers, wives and widows, mostly -- working with a handful of overworked, underpaid (if they're paid) doctors.
A community of constant illness, a culture of cancer, has evolved to make do and to get by as best as it is able with little or no help from any government agency or healthy citizen. Ukraine has the highest rate of thyroid cancer in the world. Its citizens are afflicted with esoteric forms of leukemia and soft-tissue cancers well beyond any worldwide norm, and the rates of multiple and fatal birth defects are increasing among the fewer and fewer children actually being born. Yet the Ukrainian government seems to have turned its back on its own people.
While ministers wrangle with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the European Union for billions in economic relief, the people in the villages are dying for lack of pennies' worth of soap and antibiotics. While the gangsters and the biznizmen line their pockets with the loot they skim from enterprises both quasi- and blatantly illegal, the industrial workers and peasant farmers huddle in the freezing dark and pray to candle-lit icons or antique portraits of Lenin.
Comfortable now and safe in the U.S.A., I'm frightened by a lot of what I saw. Often, Ukraine seemed to be nothing so much as a rehearsal for the collapse of Western Civilization. There, at the cusp of Asia, Ukraine appears to be dissolving and there, but for the grace of who knows what, go us all.
To be continued...
-------
Mopping Up After Chornobyl
Chornobyl's full health legacy is yet to be determined.
On April 26, 1986, at 1:23 a.m., reactor No. 4 at the Chornobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded. Subsequent investigations revealed that tests that were being conducted on the operating and backup systems were mismanaged. The plant was immediately shut down. Nonetheless, a large amount of radioactive steam was released into the atmosphere during the explosion. The highest amount of radioactive fallout was registered in the vicinity immediately surrounding Chornobyl.
The atomic energy station and the nearby town of Prypiat are located in northern Ukraine, 90 kilometers north of Kyiv (Kiev), the capital of Ukraine, a city with a population of 2.8 million. At the time, the prevailing winds were directed north to northwest, so that Belarus received the most widespread deposit of radioactive fallout. With subsequent shifts in the direction of the wind, as well as rainfall, northern regions of Ukraine and the southern border of European Russia received radioactive fallout. Soviet authorities neither officially acknowledged the explosion nor warned their citizens until May 2, 1986.
Excessive levels of radiation were recorded in northern Scandinavia, Wales, Ireland, Northern Italy, Greece and coastal Alaska in the first weeks after the explosion.
In Ukraine, more than 4.6 million hectares were contaminated, some of the most productive agricultural land in the world.
Soviet authorities originally reported the total amount of radiation released as a result of the explosion at Chornobyl as 50 million curies. New calculations in an MIT research study supervised by former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Norman Rasmussen resulted in a revised estimate of up to 260 million curies. The amount of radiation released at Three Mile Island in 1979 is estimated at 15 curies.
Six hundred thousand soldiers, firemen and cleanup workers (men and women) were sent to the disaster site in the months after the explosion. Liquidators (cleanup workers) live in Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, and more than 350,000 liquidators live in Ukraine. During the past decade, approximately 40,000 cleanup workers have died, mostly men in their 30s and 40s.
A permanent 30-kilometer "dead zone" was established around the power station, where human habitation is forbidden. Approximately 1.2 million people continue to live on lands contaminated by "low-level" radiation outside the 30-kilometer zone; approximately 1,800 villages were affected by the disaster. The total number of evacuees and cleanup workers (those exposed to the most intense levels of radiation) was close to three-quarters of a million people.
Gradual seepage of radiation into the water table, especially the Dnipro River and its tributaries, threatens the water supply for millions of people in coming decades. Shortly after the explosion, thousands of children and adults in Ukraine and Belarus were stricken with acute radiation sickness; symptoms included vomiting, hair loss, severe rashes. This statistic, gleaned from declassified Soviet Politburo Protocols published in Izvestiya, May 1992, contradicts the original official public estimates of 100 people.
The World Health Organization reported that thyroid cancer among children living near Chornobyl rose to levels 80 times higher than normal. Experts from the University of Hiroshima analyzed data on newborns and 30,000 stillborn fetuses in Belarus; researchers concluded that birth defects have nearly doubled since 1986. More than 10,000 Ukrainian children have been sent to Cuba for treatment of leukemia and other illnesses. Overall, oncological illnesses among children in Ukraine have tripled since 1986, according to a Ministry of Health of Ukraine report, Winter 1994.
The UN Office on Population reported that in 1994, the only two nations in Europe with negative population growth were Ukraine and Belarus. The report attributed this decline in part to increased imortality and adverse health conditions stemming from the Chornobyl disaster. Infant mortality in Ukraine stands at twice the European average (14 per 1,000 live births).
Among males in Russia, life expectancy has dropped precipitously since 1986; Chornobyl is suspected as a factor. A Jan. 26, 1996, story in the Boston Globe reported that "Chornobyl has fuelered.
ility crisis in Ukraine." Fifty percent of all men between the ages of 13 and 29 have fertility problems -- the highest rate in the world.
According to radiation health experts working for the National Academy of Sciences, most cancers that result from radiation develop 10 to 20 years after exposure. The highest incidence of cancer is expected to occur over the next five to 10 years. Therefore, no accurate assessment of Chornobyl's overall health impact can be made until this period has expired.
Data provided by Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund.
----
<Picture: photo>
Witness to an Autopsy
Olena and Ludmilla and I had traveled all morning to get to this small children's clinic in the far north of Zhitomir Oblast. Ludmilla lived in the city of Zhitomir and had offered her services as both translator and guide for our trip.
The chief doctor there was apologetic for a number of reasons. He was bone-tired from the long hours he'd been working lately and they had just lost a patient, an infant girl, the day before. It showed in his eyes, the exhaustion and the loss, and he was sorry that his time with us would be limited, but he had to help perform the autopsy on that dead child to determine what had killed her.
He was embarrassed that his hospital was so poorly equipped. They had no bandages and they used bleach for disinfectant and his staff reused the few supplies they did have even though they were clearly marked as "disposable." They had no other choice, he said. If they threw those things away, those instruments and tools, they would have nothing at all with which to work.
They needed everything, the doctor told us, starting with decent food for the patients and enough fuel to keep the wards warm. Soft spoken and weary, he told us how frustrating it was for him to be so handicapped. He often shrugged and rolled his eyes.
It was sad, we all agreed, that his children's hospital was so lacking in supplies and technology that children were dying. The most significant treatment the staff could give their small patients was warmth, nutritious food and good hygiene. And the doctor was finding it difficult to provide even that. They were, however, able to wash everything washable with great lashings of chlorine bleach. The whole place smelled like a public pool. It was cheap and it was available at the local markets. It was all they had for disinfectant, but the sterile environment was important for the already sick children. It could at least help them from getting worse.
Parents from all over the countryside brought their children to this hospital, parents like the dead baby's, traveling for miles on the bus or a tractor or a truck or a rattle-trap Soviet-made Lada that was old when they had been children.
Using a triage technique much like an emergency room or a combat surgery unit, the hospital staff evaluated each child. The cases for which there was hope might then be sent to the regional hospital in Zhitomir. But even there, supplies and equipment were haphazardly available and the doctors limited in what miracles they could perform for those cases.
And that's what we had all begun to call these children: cases. They were infections and birth defects and congenital cardiovascular problems and spina bifida; they were symptoms of a full generation of radioactive contamination, of a poor diet and a harsh climate, of a fatalistic acceptance of a dwindling birth rate, of increased miscarriage, of increased stillbirths, of increased infant mortality.
A 6-week-old girl had died the previous day and the doctor was due to attend the autopsy. No one was quite sure why the child had died, and everyone was hoping this post-mortem examination would provide some clues. He was sorry, the doctor was, but he had to leave us to begin that task. The parents, a young couple from a small village some distance away, were waiting and the pathologist was waiting.
I looked at Olena and we looked at Ludmilla and we all knew what I would ask next.
"May we be allowed to attend this autopsy?" I asked and Olena translated.
"Of course," replied the doctor.
And it was that easy to find us walking toward what looked like a cowshed. The late-morning sky had cleared up; the sky was brilliantly blue and a breeze rattled among the fallen yellow birch leaves. The hospital's horses, two brown geldings with forelegs hobbled together, meandered by while grazing on the last few shreds of greenery along the walkways. They loitered there, pulling at the grass and shrubs with their square teeth.
We waited for the pathologist outside the shed and wondered what we were doing. No one of us had planned to witness the dissection of a human child that day, but we each, for disparate reasons, felt compelled to explore this opportunity. Olena, in-country director of an international relief organization, wished to see the hospital staff in their working environment, to see how they handled the cases with which they were presented and to evaluate their future needs, how her organization could assist them. Ludmilla, our guide and translator, wanted to fulfill her own interests in medicine, to witness the anatomy lesson this day to bring her close to the kind of death that plagued her district. I ... well, I was there as a witness, a journalistic voyeur. Hundreds of miles away from Kyiv and the boards of directors and deputies and ministers who allocated the funds and the equipment for health care and economic reform, thousands of miles from my own home and the comfort of my company's HMO, I was there to look closely into the dark places where genetic damage and disease and disinterest strangle the potential carried in a 6-week-old girl child.
The pathologist arrived and the doctor had a brief conversation with him.
"Be careful what you say," Olena told me. "He thinks you're a doctor from the United States."
I was thrilled to think I had become a medical doctor. I knew how proud my parents would be when they learned.
The girl's parents were waiting together near an ancient blue automobile of Soviet manufacture. They did not speak; the mother stared blankly at the ground between her feet and the father smoked. They were young, surely not more than 25, and probably around 10 years old when the reactor at Chornobyl threw its invisible poison over their homes. They had probably been preparing for May Day in their schools, making banners and practicing songs to celebrate the legacy of communism and Lenin and the grand Soviet Union, and they probably never imagined they would be waiting, almost 15 years later, outside a cowshed to learn what had killed their baby.
We were invited to enter the morgue and immediately the smell of formalin, a sweet and cloying and distinctly chemical perfume, surrounded us. It permeated our clothing and, later that evening back in the city of Zhitomir, our dinner companions would remark upon its odor. In that dim entryway, I could see through the tall door into the examination room. On one table, an adult body waited under a stiff canvas shroud. On the far table, just touched by a beam of autumn sunlight, the infant girl's body, waxen and waiting. A thin cord nearly lost in the folds of her throat carried a crucifix that rested beside her body on the steel table.
The attending nurse, the doctor and the pathologist discussed the case in murmurs. Olena, Ludmilla and I circled the cold metal table; we were nervous and we were trying to hide our nervousness. We were all professionals there and wished not to betray our emotions, our concern for and about each other's ability to watch these medical men skin and gut this doll-like creature. I wondered if this was the smartest thing I could have chosen to do that morning. It was, however, far too late to reason out that question. We were in and the procedure was beginning and, just as there is no crying in baseball, there is no passing out or vomiting allowed in Ukrainian cowshed morgues.
But first, the pathologist stood erect to face me, a foot-long knife in his hand. He spoke. He spoke in Latin.
I smiled and racked my already disheveled mind for a memory of the Latin classes I took when 17 years old. All I could remember was "sic semper tyrannus" and the declination for "amo." I continued to smile.
"What kind of doctor is this?" the pathologist asked the room, switching to Ukrainian.
Immediately, I was demoted.
"He is a journalist," said Olena. "He is a medical journalist."
The pathologist pondered this for a moment. He seemed unconvinced, but did not carry the question further. I was wistful, a bit, to have lost my medical status. The pathologist began to cut.
"This is the place," he said, "where the dead may speak to the living." I wondered if he heard that at a seminar, read it in a book, heard it on a television show. I know I have. But it is a dramatic kind of thing to say and it does stick in one's mind.
The skin across the child's chest was thin, paper-thin, and covered an only slightly thicker layer of fat that rustled as the pathologist peeled it away. We could see the ribs were not even really bones yet, just slips of cartilage that yielded easily to the shears he used to cut a deep triangle from clavicle to diaphragm, a wedge of meat and gristle that opened to expose the lungs.
"Atrophy," he announced. "Atrophy and anemia. These [the lungs] should be bright red everywhere and, see here, at the bottom, they are dark and gray."
And, indeed, the spongy mass of tissue was dull gray below the esophagus. This child had struggled for the few breaths she was able to take.
Beneath her lungs, now removed and spread upon the table, her heart seemed enlarged, choked within the sac surrounding it and stuffed into the tiny chest.
"This heart is swollen, enlarged," said the pathologist.
By that time, our shock at seeing this child so displayed had lessened and we began to lean toward the table to follow the pathologist's knife as he pointed to features of the organs. I took photographs. He snipped small bits of tissue from the liver, the kidneys, for later testing and analysis.
"What causes these symptoms?" I asked the doctor. "Are these common problems?"
"The cause?" he replied. "Poor diet, poor hygiene -- maybe the mother had an infection during the fetus' development, maybe something happened one day when the child was in the womb. Common? Yes. Too common."
"How would the radiation from the accident contribute to this?" I asked.
Meanwhile, the pathologist rummaged through the child's abdomen, eventually lifting all the organs out to spread them across the table. Kidneys, intestines, bowel, stomach, liver, pancreas -- they all show the same signs.
"Atrophy. Anemia."
The doctor stared down at the table, at the empty cavity in what was once a living child. Her spine was visible, though from a new angle, and it was a straight line of corrugation down the interior of her body. The nurse began to cut and carefully peel the child's scalp, bringing it down to expose the skull and to cover her eyes, her nose, her mouth. It was a blind mask of her own skin.
"The background radiation decreases all the immune systems," the doctor explained. "Combined with poor nutrition, both the mother and the child are open to all sorts of infection -- to virus and bacteria that normally would not be any trouble. The constant exposure to these low levels of radiation, levels of radiation that are called safe levels, leave the fetus and the infant and the child vulnerable to damage. So, even if this child's cause of death is another infection, the causes of the infection are the economic conditions of the country. And the radiation."
The pathologist prepared to open the girl's skull and found it difficult. What would normally be a soft cranium was a hard cranium; what would normally be large ribbons of cartilage were only thin lines of white connecting the plates of hard bone.
"Most unusual," said the pathologist as he tried first one knife and then another and then another in his attempt to pierce her tiny head. It was awkward for a moment as he attempted to hold the body still and apply the force necessary to open her skull. The nurse held the infant's legs to keep them from flopping.
Finally, the pathologist made a hole large enough to insert the shears, the same shears he had used to open her chest, and snip along the thin soft lines between the plates of bone. As he opened the four quarters of her skull, a grim flower blossoming, the delicate crunch caused us all to fight against our instinct to flinch. We were, after all, professionals.
The nurse spread a towel, a much laundered and faded yellow towel with a print of small blue teddy bears, across the table and the pathologist pulled the mass of the child's brain out.
"It is swollen," he said as he began to probe and separate the jellied mass across the towel. "Nothing wrong here except it is too large."
We all peered closely as he divided and redivided her brain, took a sample, spread the beige forms and convolutions wider and deeper. As he reached its base, close down to the brain stem, he found what he had been seeking. A strip of leathery, hard material in what should have been soft, gelatinous tissue told the story, providing an end to this examination.
"Toxic plasmosis," the pathologist declared. "An infection from an animal, from another species, most likely a cat."
He cut more samples and transferred them to the specimen bottles.
"Plus, the mother had herpes," added the doctor.
I was stunned. Herpes is an affliction I have come to associate with disco and porn stars, certainly not the pale, drained waif I saw outside, this country girl from the Ukrainian wheat fields.
"Herpes?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," he said. "It's a big problem here."
The pathologist removed his gloves, put up the tools he had used to ferret out this mystery.
"Herpes?" I asked again.
"She also had chlamydia," he told me.
"Chlamydia? Also?"
Ludmilla moved to my side and after I had taken a few last photographs of the empty shell that had once been a human girl-child, while the nurse began to gather organs and what was left of the brain into a tidy bundle, she whispered a story. We removed ourselves from the building.
"It's a big problem," said Ludmilla when we were outside in the warm Indian summer weather. "Maybe the mother got it at the hospital. When the instruments are not sterile, the diseases can be transferred between the patients. That's why I always bring my own instruments when I need an examination."
Outside the morgue, the day was still bright and clear but the wind was stronger, low clouds had crossed the horizon. The air was not yet dusty, though it would become so as the temperature dropped and the wind rose and the sun declined in both angle and illumination.
The odor of formalin clung to our clothing, caught somehow in the fabric and, for the rest of the day, I would watch Olena and Ludmilla occasionally bend their heads to their jackets for a small whiff. Both our driver and a guest would later remark upon the odor.
The pathologist and the doctor stepped down the walkway to speak with the parents, to tell them preliminary results from their daughter's autopsy. They explained about the infections, about the atrophy and anemia, about the toxic plasmosis, about the swollen brain and the enlarged heart. They all stood close together, the young parents and the young owner of the ancient car and the weary doctors, a tight circle of dull pain next to the rusting Muscovitch automobile.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Computer age dawned in a big, bulky way
Center Star electronics buff remembers work on first contraptions
Alabama Live
12/18/00
Huntsville Times
By JOHN ANDERSON Times Political Editor
http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/Dec2000/18-e4633.html
CENTER STAR - About ready to chunk that clunky personal computer for something faster and smaller to balance the checkbook, monitor that 401(k) plan and spit out directions street by street to any place in North America?
Consider what Donald Moore and his colleagues depended on back in the early 1960s to calculate something a little more urgent: the possible effects of a natural disaster like an earthquake. Or a man-made one even more devastating - a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States.
When the federal office that's now the Federal Emergency Management Agency hired Moore to help program a new contraption that electronic engineers were just beginning to call a computer, this was the size of his ''PC,'' a Univac 1103AS Remington-Rand:
The computer's innards measured about 5 feet long and 2 feet deep. The keyboard, what was then called a console, was several times bigger than the IBM PC Moore uses now in his eastern Lauderdale County home.
Instead of today's standard 56-character keyboard, Moore and his colleagues used both hands to tweak hundreds of ''toggles'' to order their machine to perform.
The equivalent of today's silicon chip, the near-microscopic part that gives a computer its prodigious memory? An 8-inch by 8-inch maze of crossing wires then called the computer's memory core.
And the paper-thin disc we now use to transfer data from computer to computer? Moore had to lug around 5-pound, 1,200-foot-long metal tapes.
''They ruined many a shirt,'' he said.
Moore, 67, didn't intend to join the beginnings of the computer revolution when, after graduating from high school in New York, he joined the Navy.
He then attended college in Ohio for a couple of years, but his Navy tour failed to satisfy his curiosity about the world. (Even now Moore and his wife Gail travel extensively, especially to Australia, where he enjoys camping and collecting native art.)
So he joined the Army and there started to read everything he could find about electronics.
The Army, pushing to improve military communications, was just beginning to use a new type of machine that could process information much faster than standard technology.
So it turned to Moore and other electronic buffs. ''We didn't know it at the time, but the communication equipment we were using at the time were computers,'' Moore said.
That's how Moore ended up in Washington, D.C., in 1962, using that expertise to help the nation's emergency disaster experts by programming the mammoth Univac.
''It was so big and had so little information,'' Moore said in an interview Friday at his home in Center Star, a small community about 10 miles west of the Limestone County line.
But the machine might as well have been a laptop when compared to the huge room that stored the computer's thousands of vacuum tubes. Its measurements: 60 feet long, 40 feet wide and 8 feet high.
You couldn't just put them anywhere. Intense air-conditioning ran around the clock to keep the tubes stable. ''It was so cold, workers who ran the midnight to 8 a.m. shift had to wear coats,'' Moore said.
And forget about turning this monstrosity off. ''If we did, we were afraid when we turned it back on we'd blow out a whole lot of tubes,'' Moore said.
In an irony that could occur only in government, a much-hyped attempt to actually turn off one of the giant machines failed.
The nation's disaster agency was converting to a new generation of computers, which was cause for great fanfare. Computers in the early '60s ''became obsolete every three years,'' Moore said. ''Now they become obsolete every three weeks.''
So dignitaries were invited to watch as the emergency agency director pushed a prominent red button on the console, an emergency toggle that shut down the computer in case of fire or other catastrophe.
Nothing happened, so he pushed the button again. And again. ''It didn't go off,'' Moore said.
Despite the drawbacks, Moore said, the leap from adding machines and calculators to computers greatly improved the nation's ability to prepare for nuclear war during the hot days of the Cold War that climaxed in the Cuban missile crisis in the early '60s.
''What impressed me the most is what you could do with it,'' Moore said. ''You could do complicated calculations so much faster and so much more accurate.''
He and his colleagues used the Univac and successively faster and smaller computers to crunch millions of numbers until he retired in 1988.
While they calculated the effects of every possible disaster from earthquakes to storms, it was the threat of nuclear attack that the disaster agency focused on through the '60s.
To do that, Moore read all he could about Soviet nuclear strategy and what little literature was available on the men concocting that strategy.
''I tried to think like a Soviet,'' Moore said.
What was it like for Moore and his colleagues, planning every day for a disaster that would likely kill millions of Americans? ''We always said, 'I hope this doesn't happen, because I don't want to be proved right.' '' How far have computers come from that first Univac Moore used in 1962? It took him about 100 hours to perform 100 trial Soviet nuclear attacks then. Today, Moore could buy a personal computer at Wal-Mart that would perform those same 100 trials in five minutes.
-------- u.s. nuc other
DOT Paves Way for Atomic Waste/Material in Everyday Items:
Ok-ing Weakened Global Regs
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 17:42:58 -0500
From: "diane d'arrigo" <dianed@igc.org>
NIRS Dianed@nirs.org
The DOT is re-classifying some radioactive materials as "not radioactive" for transportation purposes. By exempting some of every radionuclide from regulations and labeling, DOT is enabling radioactive material to enter the marketplace and daily-use items and raw materials.
The US Department of Transportation (DOT), as of January 1, 2001, is adopting, by reference, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)-suggested regulations, ST-1, that include NEW EXEMPTIONS OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS AND WASTES from labeling and regulation and other WEAKENING OF NUCLEAR TRANSPORT REQUIREMENTS.
This is just one of several problems with the radioactive part of the DOT's proposal. DOT is amending its Hazardous Materials Rule (HM-215D) for international commerce. NIRS has only reviewed some of the radioactive provisions. We have not reviewed the rest of the changes regarding hazardous chemical transport. DOT is adopting this as of Jan 1 2001 for international commerce, unless public opposition is voiced loudly NOW. Both DOT and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission plan to announce adoption of these nuclear regulations and exemptions for national commerce (within the US) in the spring of 2001.
DOT Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: 65 Federal Register 205:63293-63435, Oct. 23, 2000
Harmonization of With United Nations Recommendations (IAEA ST-1), International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code (IMO DGC) and International Civil Aviation Organizations Technical Instructions (ICAO TI): Proposed Deadline for public comment: Received by DOT by 5 PM Friday, December 22, 2000
Docket # RSPA-00-7702 (HM215-D)
Mail Address for comments: Dockets Management System (2 copies are requested) US Dept of Transportation Room PL 401 400 7th Street SW Washington, DC 20590-0001
Website Addresses for Electronic Comment Submission
: http://dmses.dot.gov/submit/BlankDSS.asp
http://dmses.dot.gov/submit/Comment.asp?session_id=65132
Fax Comments to: 1-202-366-3753 FAX
Phone Number for DOT Docket office: 1-800-647-5527
Actions Suggested:
--Comment to DOT by December 22, 2000.
--Contact DOT Secretary Rodney Slater to let him know what DOT is doing-helping the nuclear industry release and recycle nuclear power and bomb waste into daily commerce and household items. FAX 202 366-7202
--Demand public access to proposed regulations-actual documents being adopted "by reference". Ask for printouts of the ST-1, the ICAO Technical Instructions and the IMO Dangerous Good Code pertaining to transport of radioactive materials and wastes.
--Send copies of your comments to your local, state or federal officials (such as emergency responders, governor, elected reps and senators) from yourself and your organizations.
DOT Proposed Rulemaking:
The proposed rule (HM-251 D) is an amendment to the Hazardous Materials Regulations which covers both radioactive and hazardous materials shipments and applies to International Transport. Both DOT and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be moving to adopt this and more for Radioactive Transport Within the US in the Spring of 2001.
As part of a larger set of changes to the Hazardous Materials Regulations, The DOT is exempting quantities and concentrations of radioactivity in shipments and packages. The exempt concentrations (being adopted by reference and listed in Table I of ST-1) were derived by nuclear proponents, to legalize the release and recycling into general commerce of radioactive wastes from nuclear power and weapons facilities around the world. They claim that the levels of contamination will pose a "trivial" risk, not worth the resources to regulate.
Under the guise of "harmonization," international radioactive transport regulations are being changed to allow unregulated transport of radioactive waste and materials from nuclear power and weapons into unrestricted commerce, raw materials and consumer goods. The change is "needed" because the UN International Atomic Energy Agency is encouraging release and recycling of nuclear materials as if they were not radioactive. The current international transport regulations (SS-6, which are currently "harmonized" around the world) require labeling and regulatory control of the materials.
Two new columns are being added to the chart of radionuclides (isotopes of radioactive elements). Column 3 lists Exempt Concentrations. These are the very same concentrations that the nuclear establishment is trying to get adopted in every country to allow radioactive waste release and recycling. US DOT and the rest of the world all currently have a uniform exempt concentration for any radioactive materials (70 becquerels per gram). NIRS does not support any level of exemption, but this is the existing world value. Now, based on "science," the nuclear establishment wants to change these numbers-and well over half of them GO UP, thereby increasing the exempt concentrations for the majority of radionuclides.
In addition, Column 4 has been added to exempt given amounts or quantities of radioactive materials in entire shipments. There are no exempt amounts currently in the DOT or international codes. There should be NO EXEMPT AMOUNTS added to these tables. Further, the amounts listed appear to have the potential to result in doses near or exceeding allowable worker inhalation doses in the US. (Internationally, workers are limited to lower doses than in the US.)
Since the US NRC refers to DOT regulations for some of its labeling requirements, these DOT exemptions may have greater ramifications than DOT alone.
The US does have some differences in its existing code from the International regulations. It is imperative that the US DOT reject the exemption provisions in ST-1 for international commerce, and for commerce within the US.
OTHER ISSUES of CONCERN IN ST-1
High level radioactive waste:
Already inadequate criteria for Type B containers, used to transport irradiated fuel, are being reduced further.
Uranium Hexafluoride:
Packaging requirements for Uranium Hexafluoride are being weakened.
NIRS Conclusion:
We demand that there be no reduction in current protections and that current protections be increased if they are changed. NIRS opposes any changes that increase allowable concentrations or amounts of unregulated radioactive materials. We oppose any changes that weaken already existing standards, even though we may be critical of those existing standards. Greater public knowledge, involvement and access to rulemaking are essential.
More Information:
Diane D'Arrigo, dianed@nirs.org
Nuclear Information and Resource Service 202 328-0002 ext. 16.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- illinois
Rare Isotope Accelerator hurtles physics into world of extreme science
anl.gov
12/18/00
by Dave Jacqué
http://www.anl.gov/OPA/logos18-2/ria1.htm
Physicists deal with extremes: particle interactions with their infinitesimal sizes and time scales, and the cosmos itself with dimensions measured in light-years and time ticked off in eons. A machine now on the drawing boards - the Rare Isotope Accelerator - will help physicists explore both these universes many times faster and in much more depth than they can today.
U.S. nuclear physicists are planning this world-class facility to create and accelerate a wide range of short-lived nuclei - many with half-lives as short as thousandths of a second. Today they are usually limited to species with half-lives of months, days and hours.
Argonne is well-positioned in the national site selection competition for the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA), based on the laboratory's pathbreaking and enduring expertise in advanced accelerator technology - the laboratory is home to the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS), the world's first superconducting heavy-ion accelerator for physics research. ATLAS can be fully incorporated into the larger RIA, thereby greatly reducing costs of the new facility. Argonne physicists are already hard at work bridging the gap between today's accelerator technologies and those that will be needed for the new, cutting-edge facility.
RIA will accelerate beams of unstable (rare) isotopes using extensions of the superconducting radio-frequency technology originally developed at the laboratory for ATLAS. Like ATLAS, RIA will produce beams of ions - atoms with electrons removed - but the beams will be thousands of times more intense than anything currently available. RIA will provide unparalleled research capabilities for investigating the fundamental role of atomic nuclei in the universe. A U.S. Department of Energy advisory committee has approved Argonne's concept for RIA.
Theories developed to explain the properties of the well-known, long-lived nuclei make widely different predictions for short-lived nuclei far from stability. These short-lived isotopes are the stuff of rare nuclear reactions and cosmic processes. They produce the chemical elements, fuel the stars, and energize our sun to sustain life on Earth. Studies using beams of unstable isotopes will also allow physicists to test symmetries that determine the laws of physics that govern everyday life.
With intense beams of short-lived nuclei from RIA, physicists can explore:
The nature of nucleonic matter. Today physicists' understanding of the nucleus is based on experiments with a limited set of nuclear beams - mostly stable and a few unstable, but relatively long-lived, versions. RIA will allow detailed looks at highly unstable nuclei with large excesses of neutrons, providing new insight into the nature of interacting nuclear systems and the forces in the nuclear environment.
The origin of the elements. Nuclear reactions in stars play a critical role in the universe's history. These stellar cauldrons convert light elements, hydrogen and helium, into all the heavier elements. The energy released in these reactions, in the form of sunlight, is crucial for all life on Earth.
Tests of the standard model. Physicists' understanding of fundamental subatomic particles and the forces that act on them can be tested with new precision and in new ways with RIA. Areas of study will include the strength of the weak interaction, limits of the extension of the standard model and precise measurement of parity and time reversal violations.
Nuclear medicine. RIA may also play a role in developing new nuclear medicines and techniques. One of every three hospitalized patients in the United States undergoes a nuclear medicine procedure. Nuclear reactors or small accelerators produce most of the radioisotopes used in these procedures. The RIA facility brings a new level of technology for rapid production and exploration of a new generation of medical isotopes specifically selected for their physical and chemical properties.
New technologies
Argonne's groundbreaking ATLAS accelerator was the first to use superconducting elements for beam focusing and acceleration. Superconductors, materials that conduct electricity essentially without resistance, make possible a continuous beam. Traditional materials generally produce too much heat, requiring a pulsed beam to be cost-effective. The superconducting resonators that accelerate ions in ATLAS are also less expensive to operate, using just one-tenth of the electricity of conventional methods.
Like ATLAS, RIA will begin with an ion source, where atoms from hydrogen to uranium will be stripped of one or more electrons, then sent through a next-generation superconducting linear accelerator. Most of the beam will be directed at a target, where the ions produce the unstable isotopes wanted for study. The high intensity and wide variety of beams permits the use of several production methods including fragmentation and fission.
The unstable isotopes of interest will be separated from unwanted reaction products, and then sent directly experimental areas or to a post-accelerator. If RIA is built at Argonne, the post-accelerator will be ATLAS. After post-acceleration of up to 15 million electron volts (MeV) per nucleon, the beams arrive at the experiment area within a few milliseconds from the time they were produced. Again, if built at Argonne, the ATLAS experimental area can be incorporated into the facility for major cost savings.
RIA requires combining several new technologies for success. Argonne researchers have pioneered new technologies that will boost RIA's power and scientific value beyond the original vision.
Nice catch
A "gas catcher cell," developed by a team led by Argonne physicist Guy Savard, provides a new way to generate intense beams of short-lived radioactive nuclear isotopes.
Reaction products exiting the fragmentation target have a wide range of energies, but scientists want a steady beam of known energy for their experiments. The gas catcher cell efficiently stops the ions, reducing their energy to zero, then sends them on their way to the post-accelerator, where they can be accelerated as a group to specific energies.
The new method, demonstrated at ATLAS, magnetically separates energetic rare ions from the fragmentation target and brings them to rest in a "catcher cell" filled with pressurized helium. Normally, these positively charged ions would neutralize themselves by capturing electrons from surrounding atoms. But helium electrons are the most tightly bound of any element, so the stopped ions hold on to their charge. The charge is necessary since accelerators work by inducing an electrical gradient to speed particles along.
Savard and his co-workers demonstrated that a combination of radio frequency and static electric fields can efficiently extract the stopped ions from the gas cell in a few thousandths of a second.
This new separation technology, in combination with ATLAS and a powerful new driver accelerator, will give physicists high-quality rare beams of any element in the periodic table. Researchers from Argonne and Michigan State University (MSU) are working to combine a magnetic fragment separator with the fast gas catcher.
A breakthrough in target technology is also required to gain full benefit from the high-power, heavy-ion driver beam. Engineers from Argonne's Technology Development and Energy Technology Divisions are helping physicists from the Physics Division develop a new liquid target, which uses a miniature version of a method proposed for removing heat from a fusion reactor. The primary ion beam will shine on a thin stream of liquid lithium, which flows in a closed loop through a heat exchanger to dissipate the high beam power. The intense heavy-ion beam would quickly destroy a solid target.
Multiple charges
"Multiple charge state" technology is also being developed by an Argonne team. Peter Ostroumov, Richard Pardo and Ken Shepard have tested a concept that captures and accelerates several charge states of ions after "stripping" more electrons from the partially accelerated charged ions. Stripping low-charge-state ions to higher states after partial acceleration makes the subsequent acceleration more efficient, but normally reduces the beam intensity if only one charge state is captured.
Scientists at ATLAS demonstrated for the first time in July 2000 that RIA's power cam be quadrupled by placing multiple-charge-state technology after a stripper. A visiting scientist from Moscow, Andrei Kolomiets, is developing a plan to use two charge states from the ion source. In combination this would boost the power of RIA's driver beam eightfold for the heaviest ions.
Reuse, recycle
In addition to the laboratory's accelerator expertise, Argonne is considered a prime candidate for the site of RIA because it can be built around ATLAS with the existing Argonne infrastructure saving about $100 million in construction costs. The present ATLAS facility can be incorporated into RIA, including the linear accelerators, experimental facilities and test and assembly areas.
For more information, please contact Dave Jacqué (630/252-5582 or info@anl.gov) at Argonne.
-------- new mexico
Los Alamos Flunks a Security Test
MSNBC
12/18/00
NEWSWEEK
Dec. 18 issue EXCLUSIVE
http://www.msnbc.com/news/501216.asp?cp1=1
Just as the FBI seemed to be clearing up loose ends in its investigation of fired Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, NEWSWEEK has learned of other security worries at the atomic-research facility. Sources close to the Energy Department say that in a recent drill conducted by DOE, security precautions at one of the lab's most sensitive areas were seriously compromised. For the October exercise, an internal DOE watchdog unit assembled a team of former military commandos to stage a mock attack on an installation called Technical Area 18, now guarded by a private security contractor. During the drill, both the attack team and the guard force were equipped with nonlethal laser weapons.
According to some security sources, the attackers penetrated the perimeter at T/A18, and could, theoretically, have blown up a large quantity of the highly dangerous enriched uranium that is used in experiments. Energy Department officials confirm that the commandos did get through two layers of security at the facility but deny they got close enough to the "target" to blow it up and cause a nuclear disaster. But the officials concede that the exercise was stopped by "controllers" in mid-"firefight." DOE officials say Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has ordered immediate improvements.
Meanwhile, FBI officials have found several computer tapes in a Los Alamos landfill. The bureau, which bungled the case against Lee, is trying to determine whether the tapes contain nuclear data he downloaded.
------
USA Today
12/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
New Mexico
Gallup - Medical officials along a new nuclear waste transport route are receiving special training in case of an accident. Contaminated materials traveling to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad will begin rolling on Interstate 40 next year.
-------- washington
First canister moved to dry storage at Hanford
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Monday, December 18, 2000
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/hanf18ww.shtml
RICHLAND -- The first canister containing spent nuclear fuel has been moved from a leaky pool near the Columbia River to a dry storage plant near the center of the Hanford nuclear facility.
The cask containing vacuum-dried nuclear fuel from the K-West Basin was transported about 9 miles Monday to a new canister storage building, where it will be placed in one of 220 underground tubes inside a concrete vault, Energy Department spokeswoman Andrea Powell said.
"We are extremely pleased with the steady progress we are making," Energy Department project Director Phil Loscoe said. "Getting this first shipment of fuel safely out of the basins and through the drying process is a major milestone in this critical project."
The placement of the canister in the tube for permanent storage is the third and final step in the Energy Department's plan to remove about 2,100 tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, from the K Basins.
The fuel, from Hanford's defunct N Reactor, has been stored under water in the K Basins, which are large pools built in the 1950s with a planned use life of 20 years.
Between now and July 31, 2004, contractors plan to move 105,000 fuel assemblies from the pools. They will be cleaned, dried and stored in canisters in 40-foot-deep underground stainless steel vaults below a 5-foot-thick concrete floor.
The new canister storage building is intended to be an interim storage site for as long as 40 years, with the waste eventually headed for permanent disposal at a national repository, possibly in Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
Once the basins are emptied, radioactive sludge and water also must be cleaned out of the pools, and then they will be demolished. The completion target date is 2007.
-------- us nuc politics
Powell insists defence rests on 'Star Wars'
December 18, 2000
From Ian Brodie in Washington
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,15-52851,00.html
GENERAL Colin Powell, America's new Secretary of State, has said that the Bush Administration would make national missile defence (NMD) an essential part of US strategic policy.
Russia, China and America's allies have all been alarmed at the idea of NMD. General Powell made the comment after being invited at the weekend to take up the role by George W. Bush, the President-elect.
Critics have said that building an NMD system would risk a new arms race with Russia and China. Britain and other Nato allies have expressed reservations, although Mr Bush has spoken of the need for ballistic missile defences to include America's allies.
General Powell offered the rationale for NMD first given by Ronald Reagan, for whom he worked as National Security Adviser. He said: "I harken back to the original purpose of such a defence, to start diminishing the value of offensive weapons." It was time to take away the blackmail inherent in some regimes having such weapons and "thinking they can hold us hostage", he said.
Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary, is known to be worried by the US plan because it would mean breaching the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and could damage relations with Russia. During the election campaign Mr Bush called for deployment of a more expansive missile system than the limited "Son of Star Wars" pursued under Mr Clinton, who put off making a final decision after a string of failed tests.
Mr. Bush said that ballistic missile defences should also protect America's allies. The Republican platform promised that a Bush Administration would spend billions of dollars to research and deploy a robust missile defence system, including sea-based missiles, that would extend a shield around Europe, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Mr. Bush's advisers argue that the rise of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as potential missile-building states has changed the strategic balance. General Powell described Russia and China as countries the US would attempt to work with "not as potential enemies or adversaries, but not yet as strategic partners".
He also said that the new Administration will undertake a review of the role of US troops in Bosnia and Kosovo.
As well as reaching out to the black community with the appointment of General Powell, and of Condoleezza Rice as National Security Adviser, Mr Bush sought to include the Hispanic community by choosing Al Gonzales, a judge on the Texas Supreme Court, as his chief White House lawyer.
Mr. Bush flew from Texas to Washington last night for meetings with Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, President Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore and members of Congress. He will also interview potential Cabinet members.
In state capitals across the United States today, 538 members of the Electoral College will be meeting to cast their votes for President: 271 for Mr Bush and 267 for Mr Gore.
Despite speculation, no "faithless electors" have come forward to say that they will switch votes.
----
Bush and Powell proclaim 'uniquely American internationalism'
The Hindu
Monday, December 18, 2000
By C. Raja Mohan
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/12/18/stories/01180009.htm
NEW DELHI, DEC. 17. As India gets ready to engage the new Republican administration and begins to assess the direction of American foreign policy in the next four years, it had the first signals from the President-elect, Mr. George W. Bush, yesterday, to chew on.
There was no surprise in Mr. Bush's nomination of General Colin L. Powell as the top gun of the U.S. diplomacy. The new U.S. Senate is expected to quickly confirm the all-American hero as the Secretary of State when it meets early next month. Even less surprising were the remarks at the nomination ceremony by Gen. Powell who stayed with the broad themes that were articulated by the Bush campaign during the election.
In proclaiming the pursuit of an ``uniquely American internationalism'' by the new administration, Gen. Powell was dispelling any misperceptions abroad that the U.S. was going to withdraw into a shell under the Republican leadership.
Throughout the campaign, the Democrats had accused the Republicans of a planned retreat from internationalism to isolationism. Mr. Powell was assuring both domestic and foreign audiences that the U.S. will remain engaged - purposefully - with the world.
While emphasising the internationalist orientation of the new administration, Mr. Powell did not step back from any of the positions that had in the first place led to the accusations of isolationism. Foremost among them was the argument of the Republican platform that President Clinton has got the U.S. mired in a host of needless military interventions around the world.
Gen. Powell reaffirmed the Republican assessment that the U.S. armed forces are ``stretched too thin'' around the world, and its current missions, including those in the Balkans, will be reviewed. The review, however, will be conducted in consultation with the allies in Europe and East Asia.
Gen. Powell was indeed the original architect, when he served in the Reagan administration in the mid 1980s - of the idea that the U.S. must be extremely cautious about military interventions. He had insisted that the U.S. must intervene only to pursue clearly- defined political objectives. When it does intervene, Mr. Powell has asserted, it must do so with ``overwhelming force.''
This ``Powell doctrine'' has since become the guiding principle for many of the leading lights of the Republican foreign policy establishment. The nomination of Gen. Powell and his reiteration of the opposition to expansive interventions suggests that the internationalism of President Bush will be very different from that of President Clinton.
The transition will, in essence, be from ``liberal internationalism'' of the last eight years to a more ``conservative internationalism'' under the Republicans. New Delhi should find itself more comfortable with a less- interventionist administration in Washington.
Gen. Powell also reaffirmed the Republican commitment, expressed during the campaign, in favour of the controversial programme to build defences against missiles. The American effort to build theatre and strategic missile defences have already raised tensions, with China and Russia strongly opposed to the move. It has also drawn flak from the U.S. allies in Europe. An acceleration of the programme under Mr. Bush will sharpen these contradictions.
Calling the plans for a ``defensive shield'' against missiles an ``essential part'' of the Republican security strategy, Gen. Powell said the objective was to ``start diminishing the value of offensive (nuclear) weapons.''
As a new nuclear weapon power, India will very keenly follow the prospects for a radical change in the presumed relationship between offence and defence in the U.S. nuclear strategy. While emphasising the increased importance of defence related technologies, Mr. Bush has also called for a radical, and even unilateral, cuts in the American arsenal.
India will have to carefully assess the potential for tectonic shifts in the U.S. nuclear doctrine and adapt its own nuclear security and arms control positions. Would nuclear defences be necessarily bad, as India has argued until now? Or, would India, as a small nuclear weapon power, prefer an offence-dominated environment? Could India support radical reductions in global nuclear arsenals, coupled with a new emphasis on missile defences?
New Delhi will also take note of Gen. Powell's remarks moving Washington away from the conception that the U.S. and China are ``strategic partners.'' He said the Bush administration would work with Russia and China ``not as potential enemies or adversaries, but not yet as strategic partners.''
This open-ended formulation is likely to add new uncertainties to the great power relations in the coming months. Indian diplomacy will have to be nimble-footed if it hopes to minimise some of the negative consequences and take advantage of the positive trends.
---
Bush positions on top campaign issues
Excite News
December 13, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/r/001213/21/election-bush-issues
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - These were the positions of Republican George W. Bush on leading issues in the Nov. 7 presidential election campaign that finally ended on Wednesday with Democrat Al Gore's concession:
Abortion:
Bush opposes abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the pregnant woman. He would sign legislation outlawing "partial birth" abortion and cut federal funds for family planning services as well as banning overseas aid for organizations that provide abortion services.
Affirmative action/civil rights:
Opposes quotas and racial preferences. Opposes federal hate crimes legislation.
Campaign finance reform:
Wants to raise campaign contribution limits and improve disclosure regulations but opposes legislation to ban soft money unless union contributions are also banned.
Defense:
Would increase funding on high-tech weapons systems, increase defense spending, give military personnel better pay and conditions. On missile defense, he would pursue an ambitious program to protect the United States and allies from rogue nations, even if that meant withdrawing from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. Would retain "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the military.
Education:
Would provide $1,500 vouchers for students in failing schools that did not improve over three years. Would expand charter schools and end "social promotion" for students who do not reach required standards. Would encourage testing by states and boost spending on reading programs.
Environment:
Bush opposes the Kyoto treaty, would give tax breaks for ethanol use and supports state efforts to reduce pollution from coal-fired power stations.
Foreign policy/trade:
Backs free trade but opposed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and would withdraw from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty if necessary to pursue missile defense. Would reduce U.S. military involvement in international peacekeeping, take a tougher stance toward China, backs close defense ties with Taiwan.
Gun control:
Bush supports enforcement of existing gun laws, immediate background checks at gun shows but opposes any federally mandated national registration program. Backs voluntary child safety lock programs.
Health Care:
Would reduce the number of uninsured by subsidizing their ability to buy private coverage, would expand medical savings accounts, make the cost of long-term care tax deductible.
Social Security:
Bush proposes allowing younger Americans to set aside part of their payroll taxes for personal savings accounts which they would then invest in financial markets.
Taxes:
Proposes a $483 billion tax cut package over five years, would simplify the income tax system eliminating one bracket, would cut rates for all Americans, increase child credits, phase out the estate tax. Over ten years, Bush's package represents a $1.3 trillion tax cut.
---
Powell commits US to missile shield
The Age
Monday 18 December 2000
By MARK RILEY NEW YORK
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2000/12/18/FFXVVIPBUGC.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/18/text/pageone3.html
America's incoming secretary of state, Colin Powell, has established a tough new line on foreign relations by committing the Bush administration to a controversial national missile defence system and to reviewing all of its international troop deployments.
The popular Gulf War commander was nominated by president-elect George W.Bush at the weekend as the new face of US international relations and wasted no time in presenting an agenda likely to cause a stir among European allies in particular.
He said the Bush administration planned after next month's presidential inauguration to look at deployments in Bosnia and Kosovo and other locations "and make sure those deployments are proper".
"Our armed forces are stretched rather thin, and there is a limit to how many of these deployments we can sustain," the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who led US troops in the Gulf War, said.
General Powell, 63, shared Mr Bush's belief that the proposed national missile defence system was necessary as a deterrent to arms proliferation and rogue nations.
There has been widespread international criticism of the proposed defence shield, with warnings from Russia, China and some US allies that the system could be a catalyst for a new nuclear arms race.
General Powell conceded that negotiating the introduction of the system with America's allies would be a tough process.
"But they will have to come to the understanding that we feel this is in the best interests of the American people, and not only the American people, the people of the world, to finally start to move in the direction where we can take away the currency associated with strategic offensive weapons, and the blackmail that is inherent in some regime having that kind of weapon and thinking they can hold us hostage," he said.
General Powell, once touted as a Republican presidential candidate, will be the first black man to hold the crucial secretary of state job. His appointment will be used as proof of Mr Bush's commitment to a pluralist cabinet.
The appointment of such a revered figure will help dispel the atmosphere of illegitimacy surrounding Mr Bush's election and provide some much-needed momentum as he heads to Washington tomorrow.
"General Powell is an American hero, an American example, and a great American story," Mr Bush said in making the announcement.
"It's a great day when a son of the South Bronx succeeds to the office first held by Thomas Jefferson."
Mr Bush is expected to complement Mr Powell's appointment by confirming today the selection of another African-American, Condeleezza Rice, as national security adviser. Ms Rice worked alongside General Powell and vice-president-elect Dick Cheney under Mr Bush's father.
General Powell said he remained concerned at the situation in the Gulf, but believed Saddam Hussein "is sitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years' time".
"The world is going to leave him behind, and that regime behind, as the world marches to new drummers, drummers of democracy and the free enterprise system," he said.
---
THE SECRETARY OF STATE
A Higher Threshold for U.S. Intervention Means Adjustments Abroad
New York Times
December 18, 2000
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/politics/18REAC.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.iht.com/articles/4634.htm
BELGRADE, Serbia, Dec. 17 - In his first remarks as the designated secretary of state, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell spoke on Saturday with force and eloquence. But General Powell made few binding commitments, discussing the future foreign policy of a Bush administration with broad strokes, promising study and consultation.
The world's reaction to his appointment shares the same slightly hopeful fuzziness, with relief that President-elect George W. Bush has chosen a secretary of state with experience, standing, caution and knowledge of alliance politics.
Mr. Bush's commitment to a missile-defense system for the United States is going to be among the most controversial goals of his presidency, presaging fierce disputes with Russia, China and Europe, and probably involving the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
But even on this issue General Powell was careful, promising a hard look at the state of the technology to accomplish an effective missile defense. Similarly, while General Powell did not dissent from a Bush campaign promise to try to extract American troops from peacekeeping duties in the Balkans, he vowed study, assessment and consultation, the emollient words that NATO allies are happy to hear.
General Powell was most specific about his intention to "re-energize those sanctions" against President Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the country against which he commanded the successful Persian Gulf war in 1991. The sanctions have been collapsing, with at least eight European countries authorizing flights and humanitarian aid to Baghdad. Iraq's reaction today to General Powell's threat was dismissive.
In general, the world seems not unhappy with the idea of a less interventionist United States - or, perhaps more accurately, a United States with clearer thresholds for the use of military force that have more to do with national and security interests than with ill-defined "humanitarian intervention," as in Somalia and Kosovo.
And a President Bush with a divided Congress and a wafer-thin electoral triumph is understood to be less likely to make big ideological shifts or to ignore the views of moderate Democrats on any issue, from trade policy to NATO.
For China, which Mr. Bush and the Republican Party have identified as Washington's main security challenge in the future, there is concern over a missile-defense system and Taiwan. But General Powell is seen as less interested than Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in issues of human rights and democratization.
"This team seems more military oriented, and I predict that political disputes, such as human rights and democracy issues, will be moderated while military disagreements, on issues like Taiwan and missile defense and arms control, will become more intense," said Yan Xuetong, executive director of the Institute of International Studies at Qinghua University in Beijing.
China, with only 18 long-range nuclear missiles, considers itself the main target of an American missile-defense program, and would like to avoid the expense of building more weapons to be able to overwhelm any new defensive system.
But with Mr. Bush's commitment to press ahead with a missile-defense program, Mr. Yan said, "it appears that the only thing that could prevent" eventual deployment was "a technology obstacle," which would strain relations.
The problem would be worse, Mr. Yan said, if a Bush administration offered nuclear defenses to other areas of the world, and included Taiwan under that protective umbrella. That, he said, would only intensify the move toward independence on Taiwan. Mr. Bush's intentions to increase the sale of sophisticated arms to Taiwan already promised new problems with Beijing and would, Mr. Yan said, "seriously affect U.S.-China relations."
There is also concern in the region that like Dr. Albright, neither General Powell nor Condoleezza Rice, a Russian scholar picked today for the job of national security adviser, knows much about Asia or economics.
Ms. Rice describes herself as a "Europeanist," but in Europe, too, there is unease about the potential for a further rift between the European Union and Washington over issues like missile defense and the relationship between NATO and a nascent European rapid-reaction force.
Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain of Britain said today that his government recognized American concerns over nuclear threats by so-called rogue states, but hoped the new administration would heed allied angst and go slow on missile defense.
"What we don't want to see is any unilateral steps by Washington which could breach the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, especially in terms of Russian interests," Mr. Hain said.
That is a view shared by Germany, said Karl Kaiser, a government adviser and an analyst of American-German relations. But there are more pressing issues. Noting that Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen spoke recently about the danger of NATO becoming "a relic" if the new European force was planned independently of NATO, Mr. Kaiser urged talks with General Powell.
"It is very urgent that we have a real dialogue on how the U.S. and European roles are redefined," Mr. Kaiser said. "The beginnings of an estrangement have been visible lately, and Powell must engage quickly to head this off."
Berlin, far more than Paris, wants to keep NATO healthy and the Americans deeply engaged in Europe, but the Germans are as committed as the French and the British to a more effective European defense identity lending plausibility to a European Union foreign policy.
There is also some concern about Ms. Rice's suggestion that the Europeans can do peacekeeping in the Balkans while the Americans reserve their military for fighting wars. NATO is all about collective sharing of risk, and to undermine that could also start a crisis.
While Bosnia is essentially stable, Kosovo is more explosive with the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and pressure for independence from the majority ethnic Albanians, who trust Washington more than they trust Europe.
The man who succeeded Mr. Milosevic, Vojislav Kostunica, said he welcomed a less interventionist Washington and thought that a Republican administration would not have gone to war over Kosovo.
The Republicans "always had an isolationist wing," Mr. Kostunica said, "which is strictly against American interference in disputes in certain parts of the world, and which is against the thinking that protection of American interests demands a presence in the Balkans or bombing like the one last year against Yugoslavia."
Given General Powell's doctrine of using force only when there is a clear goal, popular support, an exit strategy and overwhelming numbers, many wonder whether he would have supported a Kosovo war.
As Mr. Kaiser put it: "Powell still has to demonstrate that he is able to integrate a military and foreign- policy approach. The world does not consist of situations where you can apply the Powell doctrine, where you gather the force, know what to do, apply that force and get out. In politics, you need allies, institutions and multilateral approaches, not merely American power."
On the Middle East, little substantial change is expected under Mr. Bush, who was said by a Jordanian official to have spoken by telephone on Saturday to King Abdullah of Jordan. The official said his country, which refused to join the American-led coalition against Iraq in the gulf war, respected General Powell.
In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who has known General Powell for more than a decade since visiting Washington as an Israeli military strategist, spoke with him today, Mr. Barak's office said. There was no indication as to whether General Powell endorsed the latest, last-ditch effort for a Middle East peace deal under President Clinton.
Italy, one of NATO's most reluctant participants in the war in Yugoslavia, greeted the Powell appointment with some satisfaction. The headline in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on an article about General Powell's foreign policy read: "His doctrine: more diplomacy, less intervention."
There was a similar sentiment in the Chilean paper El Mercurio: "There is the hope that Washington will initiate an era of moderate diplomacy on the world scene."
Lucio Caracciolo, editor of Limes, an Italian foreign-policy journal, said Europeans trusted General Powell as a reluctant warrior. "He would prefer to only fight wars that are already won," Mr. Caracciolo said dryly.
Unlike many German analysts, Mr. Caracciolo does not view the withdrawal of American troops from the Balkans with alarm. "The only way Europe will ever develop its own security policy is if it weans itself from Mother America," he said. "This could help Europe face its own responsibilities."
Predrag Simic, a Serbian analyst with the Institute of Foreign Policy in Belgrade, said he regarded the American presence in Kosovo as crucial, at least for now. "American troops should leave," Mr. Simic said, "but only when new institutions are built in the Balkans, and that won't be for some years. Security depends on a U.S. military presence in the region."
To fight over Kosovo and then abandon it too soon, Mr. Simic said, would be irresponsible. Still, given the anger of the Serbs over the bombing, "with a new administration we're allowed to start from zero, so we're now at a new beginning in both countries," with a chance to re-establish good relations of the kind that dominated the last century, before Mr. Milosevic.
---
News Analysis: A Dual Path in Diplomacy
Associated Press
By JANE PERLEZ
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/politics/18POLI.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - Is Gen. Colin Powell planning to tear up eight years of foreign policy and head off in a distinctly new direction? Or is he adjusting the course just slightly, with a few tweaks here and there, adding the luster of new management and a greater ring of authority?
In his opening gambit, General Powell, the secretary of state-designate, gave a sense both of continuity and a break with the Clinton administration.
There were two parts to General Powell's re-entry to the public stage in the elementary school in Crawford, Tex., where his boss, President- elect George W. Bush, stood silently by as the general delivered a discourse on what is in store.
First, General Powell gave what appeared to be prepared remarks that dwelled on the benefits of the blaze of democracy and free-market economies around the world since the end of the cold war.
In tones not unlike those of President Clinton and his national security team, General Powell struck an unrelentingly optimistic note. Sounding like a convert to globalization, he stressed that unimagined "opportunities" awaited the United States because of the triumph of democracy.
He promised that there would be no retreat into Fortress America but rather engagement with allies and the strengthening of alliances.
But in the second portion of his presentation - answers to questions from reporters assembled among the local Texas crowd - General Powell gave a vision quite distinct from that of the Clinton administration on specific issues that have the potential to blow up into crises.
Most strikingly, General Powell said the new Bush administration would forge ahead with a national missile-defense program, stating the pledge so forcefully that he made it sound as though a cut in offensive weapons and the building of a defensive system was a given. "We're going to go forward," he said, plainly.
He did not hide behind words like "assessment" or "review," saying rather that time would be spent discussing the plans with allies and those countries that "don't yet understand our thinking with respect to national missile defense." These negotiations would be "tough," he said.
General Powell was among the Republican foreign policy advisers, including former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz, who stood alongside Mr. Bush in May when he made a major campaign statement on his plans for a missile defense.
In that proposal, Mr. Bush outlined a more ambitious missile defense than Mr. Clinton's limited version and said he would consider unilateral reductions in the American nuclear arsenal. In so doing, Mr. Bush was throwing out the long-held principle of "mutual assured destruction" that has governed strategic doctrine.
General Powell reinforced that plan on Saturday, saying it was time that the world understood it was possible to "move in the direction where we can take away the currency associated with strategic offensive weapons and the blackmail that is inherent in some regime having that kind of a weapon and thinking they can hold us hostage."
On the presence of American troops in the Balkans, General Powell gave a quite different view than the Clinton administration, which sent peacekeeping troops to Bosnia and Kosovo as part of a NATO force and insists that it is necessary for them to remain for the foreseeable future.
On this subject, General Powell did use the word "review" but the message seemed to tilt strongly toward replacing American troops with an international police organization or other units. There are about 7,000 American soldiers in Kosovo and about 4,300 in Bosnia.
As Mr. Bush said many times during his campaign, General Powell said that American armed forces were "stretched rather thin" and that he would be looking for ways to make the Balkans deployments "less of a burden."
When Condoleezza Rice, who was nominated by Mr. Bush as his national security adviser today, made such suggestions several months ago, alarm bells went off in European capitals about the United States refusing to live up to its NATO responsibilities.
But a Republican orthodoxy, outlined by General Powell, is fast developing on the responsibilities of the Europeans in their own backyard. If Europe is serious about developing a European defense initiative that can send troops to hot spots for peacekeeping purposes, why not start with the Balkans, runs the argument.
General Powell's notion is likely to run into strong opposition among those who worry about the future of NATO and its essence as a trans- Atlantic military alliance. "If NATO is not going to do these peacekeeping tasks, what will NATO do?" asked Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a preview of the likely objections.
On President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, against whom General Powell led the Persian Gulf war in 1991 but whom he declined to dislodge from power, the general sounded something of a familiar message.
He described Mr. Hussein as "sitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years' time." Whether General Powell meant that the Iraqi leader's tenure was going to implode from within or crumble under sanctions that the general pledged to "re-energize" was not clear. And how the new Bush administration would stiffen the sanctions, given the opposition of some Europeans and the Russians, was not spelled out.
When General Powell and President George Bush decided against pushing all the way to Baghdad to topple Mr. Hussein, they hoped, according to accounts from the period, that the Iraqi leader would be defeated from within. In a diary entry, the day after he declared the end of the war, President Bush noted about Mr. Hussein: "He's got to go, and I hope those two airplanes that reported to the Baghdad airport carry him away."
But with Mr. Hussein still in power, and perhaps getting bolder from increased oil revenues, General Powell will be facing his old enemy. Some have theorized that just as President Bush handed the Iraqi leader on to President Clinton and now Mr. Clinton is handing him on to Mr. Bush's son, it will be up to the new secretary of state to deliver the final blow.
There was no hint of such frontal action in the general's words on Saturday, but rather something between the almost laissez-faire attitude of the Clinton administration of the last few months and a very hard line favored by more interventionist members of the Bush camp.
"I think it is possible to re-energize those sanctions and to continue to contain him and then confront him should that become necessary again," General Powell said.
On the Middle East, General Powell said he expected the region to be a "major priority" for himself and the State Department. He did not expand on whether this would involve more attention to the Persian Gulf and the moderate Arab states as some have surmised.
Nor did he address how he might approach negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis if no agreement was reached between them before the Clinton administration expires in January.
But as General Powell spoke, negotiators from Israel and the Palestinian Authority were preparing to come to Washington to see if there was one last possibility to reach an accord under the auspices of President Clinton. The hurry was based on the fear that under a Secretary of State Powell there might be less inclination than with President Clinton to delve into the unfinished business between the two warring sides.
---
Clinton Considers N. Korea Visit
Associated Press
December 18, 2000 Filed at 2:56 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-North-Korea.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House said Monday it wasn't seeking permission, but was talking with advisers to President-elect Bush about whether President Clinton should visit communist North Korea before he leaves office.
Clinton, who expects to make his decision before Christmas, will likely talk about the possible trip during his meeting with Bush Tuesday at the White House, said press secretary Jake Siewert. But Siewert stressed it would be Clinton's decision.
``The president will make that decision based on his own assessment of whether a trip will be useful in advancing America's national interest,'' Siewert said.
Siewert said a possible Clinton trip to North Korea also would likely surface in a meeting Monday between Clinton's national security adviser Sandy Berger and Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
``We're consulting and have been consulting with the president-elect's team on this and those consultations will continue,'' Siewert said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with North Korea's Kim Jong Il in October to try to pave the way for a possible Clinton visit. Follow-up missile talks were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but no agreements were reached.
The United States is concerned about North Korean exports to Pakistan, Iran and other countries. The North Korean leader has indicated a willingness to curb missile development and missile exports in exchange for economic ties with the United States.
---
Woman in the News: Condoleezza Rice
New York Times
December 18, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/politics/18COND.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - In 1991, only two years into the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice suddenly left her powerful job as the top Russia expert on the National Security Council and went back to California - to get a life.
"I like balance in my life," Ms. Rice said in an interview in Palo Alto, Calif., during the presidential campaign earlier this year. "I wanted a life. These jobs are all-consuming. And I have strong reservations about going back to that all-consuming life and leaving what is a blessedly normal life here. I like going to the cleaners and the coffee shop on Saturday morning."
But in accepting the offer to become national security adviser in a George W. Bush administration, the 46-year-old former political science professor and provost at Stanford University has decided to return to that all-consuming life.
Perhaps it is not at all surprising. As a child growing up in a segregated bourgeois neighborhood in Birmingham, Ala., Condi, as she is called, was pushed relentlessly to achieve. She started piano lessons at the age of 3, was tutored in French and Spanish as a young girl and entered eighth grade at the age of 11.
As a high school student in Denver, she became both a competitive ice skater (getting up at 4:30 a.m. for lessons) and an accomplished pianist (sometimes staying up until 3 a.m. to practice). She did her senior year of high school and her freshman year in college at the same time. Her parents piled up so many books by her bedside table that she stopped reading for pleasure, and still does not.
"I grew up in a family in which my parents put me into every book club," she recalled. "So I never developed the fine art of recreational reading."
As Mr. Bush's top national security adviser during the campaign, Ms. Rice played a variety of roles. She was his private foreign policy tutor, the person, Mr. Bush once said, who "can explain to me foreign policy matters in a way I can understand." She was his intellectual quarterback, "both a good manager and an honest broker of ideas," he said in an interview. And she was his trusted friend, "a close confidante and a good soul," he added.
At 46, she will not be the youngest national security adviser in American history. McGeorge Bundy was only 41 when he became national security adviser to President John F. Kennedy; Henry A. Kissinger in the Nixon administration and Richard V. Allen in the Reagan administration were only 45. Nor is she the first black national security adviser. Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Mr. Bush's choice for secretary of state, served as national security adviser in the final year of the Reagan administration.
But Ms. Rice will be the first woman to hold the job.
With her girlish laugh and gushes of Southern charm, Ms. Rice can be utterly captivating - without ever appearing confessional or vulnerable - a quality that can mask her spine of steel.
In 1989, in her previous National Security Council stint, for example, she physically blocked Boris N. Yeltsin, then the leader of Russia's reform movement, in the basement of the White House when he balked at seeing the national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and demanded to see President George Bush. (After five minutes, Mr. Yeltsin backed down.)
During the campaign, none of the other members of Mr. Bush's foreign-policy team dared to speak to reporters without her permission. "You make me sound like a tyrant!" she exclaimed when asked to explain why, then added with a smile, "We are disciplined, we are disciplined."
She eats either a bagel or cereal every day for breakfast. She is always impeccably dressed, usually in a classic suit with a modest hemline, comfortable pumps and conservative jewelry. She keeps two mirrors on her desk at Stanford, apparently to check the back as well as the front of her hair. ("I do try to make sure everything is in place," she explained.) She has an oil supertanker named after her, a result of being on the Chevron Corporation board.
"Condi was raised first and foremost to be a lady," said General Powell, in an interview during the campaign. "She was raised in a protected environment to be a person of great self-confidence in Birmingham, where there was no reason to have self-confidence because you were a 10th-class citizen and you were black."
Ms. Rice (whose first name is pronounced kahn-dah-LEE-za) was born on Nov. 14, 1954, in Birmingham, a world of colored-only water fountains and segregated swimming pools. She is the only child of the Rev. John W. Rice Jr., who ran the Westminster Presbyterian Church, which her grandfather had founded. Her father once formed a shotgun brigade after a gas bomb was hurled through a neighbor's window.
Ms. Rice's mother, the former Angelena Ray, and father taught at a black Birmingham high school, where her father was also the football coach. Her mother died of breast cancer in 1985; her father, who still calls his daughter "little star," lives close by her in Palo Alto with his second wife.
Ms. Rice's first name is derived from the Italian musical term "con dolcezza," to perform "with sweetness." The family "lore," she said, is that a great-great-grandfather on her mother's side was an Italian who emigrated to the United States and bought slaves. Her great-great- grandparents on her father's side were slaves.
She once planned for a career as a concert pianist until she realized she was not good enough. "Mozart didn't have to practice," she said in an interview during the campaign. "I was going to have to practice and practice and practice and was never going to be extraordinary."
Asked whether that was upsetting for her, she replied: "I don't do life crises. I really don't. Life's too short. Get over it. Move on to the next thing."
Her mentor at the University of Denver, where she earned a bachelor's degree (Phi Beta Kappa) in political science in 1974, was Josef Korbel, the father of Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who helped Ms. Rice "fall in love" with Russian history, she said. From there she earned a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a doctorate from Denver in 1981, joining the Stanford political science faculty immediately afterward.
Ms. Rice started her political life as a Democrat, switched sides in 1982, and has called herself "an all- over-the-map Republican."
In her two years in the Bush White House, no task was ever beneath her. On the day Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, she typed the president's talking points for his first public message rather than watch her colleague Richard N. Haass hunt and peck on the computer.
In 1993, she became the youngest, the first female and the first nonwhite provost at Stanford. Faced with a $43 million deficit, she cut services and fired staff with only limited faculty consultations. "I don't do committees," she said.
Unlike General Powell, Ms. Rice is not an across-the-board supporter of affirmative action. As provost, Ms. Rice was criticized for not doing enough to promote diversity in the Stanford faculty, prompting her to tell The San Jose Mercury News in May 1998, "I'm the chief academic officer now. I say in principle that I don't believe in and in fact will not apply affirmative action" in promotions. Yet the year before, she was quoted as telling a Stanford faculty meeting, "I myself am the beneficiary of a Stanford strategy that took affirmative action seriously."
Like Mr. Bush, she is a sports and fitness enthusiast, and at Stanford, she trained hard with the football coach. (The reason her dress size is between a 6 and an 8, she said, is because of "muscle mass.")
"Exercise," she said, "is a very high priority for me, especially if you don't have children who are a break on working all the time, you can work all the time." And, Ms. Rice, who is single, added, "I do some of my best thinking on the treadmill."
Ms. Rice and Mr. Bush seem to share a similar view of the world: a realist, Republican balance-of-power approach that focuses more on the big powers and less on the interests of "the international community."
During the campaign, Ms. Rice urged Mr. Bush to avoid making foreign policy statements that he might regret later. She coordinated Mr. Bush's nuclear policy initiative, which called for building a national missile defense system combined with reductions and possibly unilateral cuts in America's nuclear arsenal. Cautious about using American military force, she alarmed America's NATO allies in October when she suggested that if elected president, Mr. Bush planned to tell NATO that the United States should no longer participate in peacekeeping in the Balkans.
That caution runs deep, and in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle in 1993, she was reluctant to recommend the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. "Saddam is an outlaw but I would be careful about trying to do anything to act to overthrow him," she said.
The co-author of two books, one on the reunification of Germany, the other on the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, she would be the first to admit that the task of national security adviser will be challenging. At the height of the presidential campaign last spring, she confessed that there were vast areas of the world that were new to her. "I've been pressed to understand parts of the world that have not been part of my scope," she said in an interview. "I'm really a Europeanist."
Now, as President-elect Bush's appointee as national security adviser, Ms. Rice suddenly will have to prove that she can be master of the universe.
---
Bush seen likely to be tough on China
Washington Times
December 18, 2000
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20001218222359.htm
The Bush administration is expected to take a harder line toward an increasingly belligerent China by abandoning President Clinton's notion of China as a strategic partner of the United States.
Colin Powell, the designee for secretary of state, highlighted this primary difference in President-elect George W. Bush's policy in accepting the nomination. The retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the new approach to Beijing - and Moscow - will be to treat the nuclear-armed powers "not as potential enemies or adversaries, but not yet as strategic partners."
Militarily, the current chairman, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, set the tone for the incoming administration in a speech last week. The four-star general called China a potential "21st-century Soviet Union" that is aggressively modernizing its military and creating instability with contradictory market economic policies and a dictatorial political structure.
Gen. Shelton's harsh tone was based on recent internal Pentagon assessments warning that Beijing will emerge as a hostile military and economic power in the next 20 years, according to Pentagon officials. It was the first time Gen. Shelton had characterized China as a potential threat since he became chairman in 1997.
China's official media on Friday sent a warning shot across the president-elect's bow. The Beijing Review, a magazine published by the State Council, said in a commentary that "the most dangerous aspect of Bush Jr.'s position on U.S.-China policy lies in its destructive role in the tense relations between Taiwan and the mainland."
The journal repeated Beijing's hard-line position on Taiwan and said "war would be inevitable" if the United States defends Taiwan in a conflict with the mainland.
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian welcomed Mr. Bush's election, noting that relations between the United States and Taiwan could be strengthened.
A key issue emerging for the new president will be arms sales to Taiwan, which have been limited under the Clinton administration while China has engaged in a major buildup of several hundred short-range missiles opposite the island.
The Taiwan government presented its annual arms-purchase request to U.S. officials last week, including renewed requests for Aegis guided-missile destroyers and other high-technology weapons, U.S. officials said.
A key issue for Mr. Bush will be whether the new administration will provide Taiwan with short-range missile defenses to counter the Chinese buildup, a plan opposed by the current administration.
Mr. Bush has supported the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, passed earlier this year by the House. Supporters say it is designed to restore balance to U.S. policy toward Taiwan and reduce the growing instability created by the Clinton administration's tilt in favor of China.
He also favors deploying a national missile defense, which China opposes as a threat to its strategic nuclear missile arsenal.
Japan welcomed Mr. Bush's election victory. "We are encouraged that President-elect Bush has stressed the significance of strengthening the Japan-U.S. alliance during his campaign," Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese chief Cabinet secretary, stated.
China views the U.S. alliance with Japan as part of a strategy to "contain" the communist-led nation and has refused numerous approaches from the commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Dennis Blair, to take part in joint military exercises. The Beijing leadership views the military and diplomatic approaches as a trick, according to Pentagon officials.
The Bush policy toward China will be shaped by several key appointments; namely, the choices for positions on the White House National Security Council staff and in the State Department and the Pentagon.
Behind the scenes, former officials and academics already are sparring over the picks.
Critics of the Clinton administration's approach to China say the current pro-business policy has not worked. One former official called it "a dismal failure."
These critics say eight years of conciliatory policies toward Beijing have led to enhanced Chinese military power and bellicosity toward the United States, greater human rights abuses and a strengthened dictatorship unwilling to consider democratic political reforms.
According to U.S. officials close to the transition, among the officials under consideration for the top NSC China policy-making post are Chuck Downs, a former Pentagon China specialist who was a key aide on the special congressional committee that investigated Chinese missile technology acquisition and nuclear espionage. Mr. Downs is said to favor a more realistic strategy of dealing with China as a strategic competitor and not a partner, his supporters said.
Also being considered for the NSC China post is Harry Harding, a George Washington University academic who is viewed as favoring the current engagement policies.
Advocates of so-called "engagement" are urging Mr. Bush to appoint policy-makers who will not take a hard line against China's weapons proliferation activity, military buildup or increasing threats against Taiwan.
A leading proponent of this view within the Bush foreign policy team is said to be Robert Blackwill, who may become the deputy national security adviser.
Mr. Blackwill, a former arms control official, has been in charge of an executive education program at Harvard that has brought groups of Chinese military officers to the university. Critics have called the program a training program for Chinese military spies.
Mr. Blackwill also clashed with conservatives on China during a behind-the-scenes debate on the Republican platform during the Republican National Convention last summer. Congressional aides said Mr. Blackwill tried to tone down criticism of China in the platform's Asia policy plank, an effort that was defeated by former Rep. Robert Livingston and several other conservatives who said Mr. Blackwill's views on China do not represent the Republican Party's views.
The China "realists" are hoping that Paul Wolfowitz, a former defense policy-maker, will emerge in a key position to provide balance to the engagement advocates.
Mr. Wolfowitz is said to want the position of defense secretary but could emerge in the Cabinet-level post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Republican sources say. Mr. Wolfowitz currently heads the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
Another name being mentioned is James A. Kelly, president of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who may be appointed as assistant secretary of state for East Asia.
Mr. Kelly, a former Navy captain, worked in the White House and Pentagon during the 1980s. Critics said he was known then for opposing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, including F-16 jet fighters that eventually were sold.
In the Pentagon, China policy appointments being discussed include Curt Campbell, who was a deputy assistant defense secretary for China during the Clinton administration. Mr. Campbell could be named to a more senior post, the assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, which includes the China policy shop.
Air Force Maj. Mark Stokes, a current policy-maker widely regarded as the the Pentagon's most competent China hand, is being mentioned for the key Pentagon job of deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia.
Also mentioned for the deputy job is Torkel Paterson, an academic said to be favored by pro-China advocates.
Another China specialist being considered for a top job is James Lilley, a former ambassador and CIA official, who is in the running to replace George Tenet as CIA director.
Mr. Lilley is currently at the American Enterprise Institute.
CIA analysis of China has come under fire from Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, and others in Congress who say the agency has a pervasive benign view of China and needs more rigorous competing analysis from outside experts.
-------- us nuc other
Genetics Firm Buys Mammoth IBM Supercomputer
New York Times
December 18, 2000
By STEPHEN SHANKLAND, CNET NEWS.COM
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_0_4_4188415_00.html
NuTec Sciences has spent millions of dollars on an IBM supercomputer that will be rented to researchers trying to solve the mysteries of the human genome, the companies will announce Monday.
NuTec, based in Atlanta, will install the first quarter of the 5,000-CPU machine this month and the rest during the course of the next year, said Peter Morrissey, president of NuTec's life sciences division. "We will be occupying one floor of a professional office building in downtown Atlanta," where NuTec is headquartered, he said.
IBM said in a statement that the machine--with a peak performance ability of 7.5 trillion mathematical calculations per second--will make it the fastest non-governmental machine.
Morrissey declined to say how much the computer cost beyond "tens of millions" of dollars.
Genetics--along with nuclear weapons, oil prospecting, and automobile and aircraft design--is a sweet spot for supercomputing. It's an industry where customers are willing to pay for every last whit of performance they can get. The increasing automation of genetic mapping has produced a wealth of raw data that often requires supercomputers to assemble, then more supercomputers to analyze.
Genes govern much of the biochemical workings of humans, including many diseases. Academic researchers motivated by curiosity and pharmaceutical companies motivated by profit have had their appetites whetted by the information now emerging from the federal government's Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics.
So it comes as no surprise that IBM and supercomputer competitors Compaq Computer and Sun Microsystems have keen interest in genetic research. IBM invested $100 million in August for genetic research, the same amount it earmarked for its own Blue Gene genetics computer a year ago.
Compaq, meanwhile, said in September it will pour $100 million into biotech companies. Celera is one of Compaq's prized customers.
While many genetic research techniques are the equivalent of monumental exercises in alphabetizing, the NuTec machine also will be useful for another sort of genetics research, into the creation of proteins, Morrissey said. Protein research typically exercises the mathematical abilities of a computer, something that chips from Compaq and IBM are better at handling than Intel chips.
Meanwhile, the Linux operating system is making headway in another type of supercomputer called a Beowulf cluster.
Linux Networx, based in Salt Lake City, has sold a 40-processor computer to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for genetics research, the company said Thursday.
The lab is using the cluster to analyze the genome of the fruit fly Drosophila, a common subject for genetics experiments.
Rosetta Inpharmatics also is using a Linux Networx system, spokesman Brad Rutledge said.
IBM is pulling ahead in the rankings of the fastest supercomputers. Although there is a movement afoot to develop measurements that better reflect actual performance, a move that would benefit supercomputer specialists such as Cray, there's no question IBM has made headway.
The NuTec machine will be rented to customers who need the hardware and the analytical techniques NuTec has developed, Morrissey said. These techniques--called algorithms--often are commercialized by NuTec after governmental researchers come up with the initial ideas, he said.
The company, with 40 employees, also has a supercomputer in Houston made of a combination of Sun and IBM computers.
-------- MILITARY
-------- drug war
Voters set trends in approach to drugs
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 02:42 AM ET
By Doug Bandow
http://usatoday.com/news/comment/ncguest1.htm
Lame-duck politicians have a tendency to speak unpopular truths. So it would seem with Bill Clinton, who declared in Rolling Stone magazine that those using or selling small quantities of marijuana should not be jailed.
Nor is Clinton the only politician to criticize the endless war against drugs. New Mexico's Republican governor, Gary Johnson, another lame duck, has turned drug-law reform into a veritable crusade. Johnson, who admits to past drug use, now is a triathelete who warns against drugs. But he contends that the drug war is misguided. And Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif., this year made drug-law reform the centerpiece of his unsuccessful Senate campaign.
These three politicians may be anomalies, but their willingness to speak out illustrates an important phenomenon overshadowed by the presidential contest: Voters are beginning to demand changes in how we treat drug problems.
Campbell lost, but the California drug-reform initiative he championed, Proposition 36, won - despite opposition from virtually the entire political and law enforcement establishment. Proposition 36, which diverts nonviolent drug offenders from prison to treatment, was modeled after an Arizona plan approved in 1996 with the support of an unusual left-right coalition.
This was not the only success for drug-reform advocates. Aside from Massachusetts, which narrowly defeated an initiative similar to Proposition 36, every other statewide drug-reform campaign won Nov. 7.
Over the vehement opposition of the drug warriors in Clinton's administration, Colorado and Nevada approved initiatives legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. (Previously, citizens in jurisdictions as disparate as California and Maine imposed similar rules on reluctant public officials.) Nevada's measure even requires that the state provide a legal pot supply for eligible users.
Tighter seizure laws
Oregon, where voters earlier legalized medical marijuana and rejected a legislative attempt to recriminalize marijuana, joined Utah in reforming drug-forfeiture laws. Police and prosecutors routinely seize property from people merely accused of a crime and keep it for their own use; these initiatives require some proof of guilt.
The most direct challenge to the government's lock-'em-up strategy came from California's Mendocino County, where authorities last year confiscated more than $200 million worth of pot. Despite opposition from the local sheriff and prosecutor, voters decriminalized marijuana cultivation for personal use. Although binding on neither state nor federal officials, the initiative further demonstrates fading popular support for the drug war.
Rethinking the issues
That changing public attitude seems to be affecting some politicians. Michigan Gov. John Engler and New York Gov. George Pataki, both Republicans, have discussed relaxing their states' Draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Hawaii this year became the first state in which the legislature legalized the medical use of marijuana. Some states have moved to allow the sale of syringes and cultivation of hemp, and Vermont has established a methadone program to treat heroin users.
So far, the impact of these drug-policy reforms is limited. The federal government continues to block access to marijuana by the sick and dying. Forfeiture abuses remain rampant. And issues such as hemp and needle distribution are peripheral.
Even the success of Proposition 36, which requires that drug offenders fail two rehabilitation attempts before being imprisoned, remains problematic. It still prescribes prison as the ultimate sanction, and will be put into effect by its opponents, including Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who suggests that money may not be available to fund the initiative.
But further drug-law reform is inevitable, because the existing system isn't working. This country has imprisoned millions of people, wasted billions on enforcement, and sacrificed civil liberties. Yet the illicit drug trade continues to spawn crime and attract kids. And tens of millions of Americans still use drugs - some, like actor Robert Downey Jr., even after serving time in prison.
Thankfully, voters increasingly are saying enough. They know the answers to drug abuse aren't easy - but they also know the drug war is a spectacular failure.
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---
USA Today
12/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Georgia
Albany - Methamphetamine has become a serious problem in rural Georgia, authorities said. Police have busted 88 methamphetamine labs in the state this year, compared with 29 in 1999. Most of the busts have been in northeastern Georgia, but the labs are moving southward as authorities turn up the heat, officials said.
-------- europe
Beyond acronyms Philip Gold
Washington Times
December 18, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2000121813728.htm
The question sounds ridiculous. It's not. Ever since the USSR folded, and the Balkan mess notwithstanding, Europe's centrality to American security and prosperity has slowly faded from public consciousness. Indeed, much of what passes for general European reportage nowadays seems little more than a shallow mix of Schadenfreude and bemusement - tales of falling Euros and rising racism, of rightist revivals and leftist advances.
Occasionally, however, the Old World can still get the New One riled.
Current example: The European Union's (EU) efforts toward creation of a Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) that would operate more or less outside of NATO America's response. After all these decades of hectoring them to take more responsibility for their own security . . . how dare they?
The story goes back to 1991, when the Treaty of Maastricht morphed the old European Economic Community (EEC) into the EU, a political as well as an economic entity that would develop a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). That same year, NATO revised its Strategic Concept to acknowledge a range of potential missions beyond collective territorial defense. In 1994, NATO accepted the notion that the EU should develop an ESDI, a European Security and Defense Identity.
For most of the rest of the decade, the EU/RRF initiative generated little more than acronyms. Member countries were engaged in prolonged national military reassessments, in moving away from conscription, and in physical and fiscal downsizing. Also, the French were acting like the French, the Brits like the Brits, the Germans like the Germans. Then the various Balkan operations revealed how taxing even minor contingencies can be, while the Kosovo bombing campaign underscored the near totality of European dependence on American power. The EU's membership concluded that, for a variety of reasons (British reasons are rarely French reasons are rarely German reasons), this situation had to change, at least a little.
The immediate goal: A force 60,000 strong by 2003, that can deploy out to 1,500 kilometers within two months and remain on-site for a year; not a full combat force, but one capable of sustained and energetic peace-keeping, peace-enforcing, and other missions. In November, EU members pledged a total of 100,000 troops, 400 planes, and 100 ships. Fifteen non-EU members, including Norway, Iceland, and (awkwardly) Turkey and various East European nations, have offered contributions of their own.
In theory, America approves. The Pentagon's new "Strengthening Transatlantic Security" white paper states: "The United States welcomes European efforts to increase their contribution to collective defense and crisis response operations within NATO and build a capability to act militarily under the EU where NATO as a whole is not engaged. These efforts are part of Europe's longstanding and natural trend toward greater cooperation and deeper union . . . we are prepared to adapt ourselves in the future to work with stronger, more versatile, and more united European partners."
Fine words. But at the Dec. 5 NATO ministerial, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen threw a virtual hissy fit, declaring that "there will be no EU caucus in NATO," warning that NATO could become a "relic if an EU force formed, and demanding unity in the alliance." Read here: Total American dominance?
Does the EU initiative endanger NATO, as Mr. Cohen and a growing chunk of the punditry argue? No way. This would not be a standing force; the troops would be available to NATO for major emergencies. Much of its operational planning would have to be done, as Mr. Cohen demanded, within NATO. Much of its doctrine would reflect NATO and American thinking. The force would still depend on NATO and U.S. intelligence and communications capabilities. It would be used primarily to alleviate American commitments and strains, and when political or other considerations prevent NATO's 19 members (headed toward 30) from acting with the requisite unanimity.
Would this force be the start of A Europe That Can Say No? Perhaps someday it might seem thus. But Europe already has many ways of saying no, not least among them the withholding of the unanimity necessary for NATO to go to war . . . or having your planes develop engine trouble when you don't like the mission or the target list. Put differently: Is it possible to conceive of any major situation where the EU would act in direct defiance of American wishes? Where? Why? How? And toward what end?
Nothing comes to mind.
In sum, the proposed EU force strengthens the West for the foreseeable future. It also moves Europe toward fuller partnership in the daunting task of figuring out 21st century warfare. We'll learn from them. But it's important for another, greater reason, not necessarily to America's liking.
It is probable that, just as nation-states and grand alliances dominated the 20th-century, regional arrangements - economic, political, cultural, military - will dominate the 21st. The World's Only Superpower will have to deal with these complex, evolving, powerful entities on terms that will inevitably tend toward a fractious equality. And while a few great issues dominated the 20th-century, a plethora of smaller ones may define the 21st. Can a solitary and imperious America, regardless of its might, maintain an effective long-term military relationship with a region as diverse and dynamic as Europe, in a world of self-organizing regions and the power and problems they generate?
And how might it change us to try?
Philip Gold is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute in Seattle and president of Aretea, a cultural affairs center.
-------- russia
Consider Putin's priorities
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 02:38 AM ET
By Sergei Markov
http://usatoday.com/news/comment/ncoppf.htm
Upon taking office, Vladimir Putin saw solving Russia's problems of regional dictatorships, politically meddlesome oligarchs and low public morality as his top priority.
To start with, he cracked down on the oligarchs. He told them they must vacate ministerial offices where they were making shady deals and return to the economy. Should they want to dabble in political speculation, they would be reminded of the time when many privatized lucrative chunks of the Soviet economy were in serious violation of the law.
Several other blows have undercut the power of regional leaders. Only recently they were still saying the Kremlin was no authority for them - they regarded themselves as sovereign states within Russian borders.
Only recently, moral degradation in society was such that people wanting to sell Russia's military and technological secrets could have formed a line outside the U.S. Embassy.
Putin has made it abundantly clear to all that Edmund Pope's arrest and his trial mean that peddling Russian secrets no longer will be tolerated. Pope has been pardoned, but the people of Russia will know that they no longer can sell out their country.
Foreign policy under Putin has become pragmatic in economic terms. Russian goods need access to the markets of Western allies, but strangely, the United States insists that we should not sell arms to undemocratic regimes, while Russia is prevented from selling arms to NATO countries. Left with no choice, Russia has to sell arms to Iran.
Putin's pragmatic actions have greatly increased people's trust in all institutions of power. Today it is obvious to all that the period of discord is giving way to a period of construction. This change is emphasized also by the official adoption of state symbols such as the flag and the anthem, each from a different epoch of Russia's history. The history of Russia was contradictory, which accounts for the heated debate on these symbols.
Today, as Russia is entering a new epoch, it is still an ailing country, but it has a vigorous president, and its people feel greater optimism about their future.
Sergei Markov is director of the Institution of Political Studies, a Moscow think tank.
-------- u.n.
U.N. Recalls Staff From Afghanistan
Associated Press
December 18, 2000 Filed at 10:35 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghanistan-UN.html
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405391790
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The United Nations is withdrawing most of its foreign staff from Afghanistan, fearing that disgruntled Afghans could react to further U.N. sanctions with retaliatory attacks.
``We are scaling down,'' Stephanie Bunker, U.N. spokeswoman in neighboring Pakistan, said Monday. More than 30 people have left Afghanistan in the past week, and more were expected to depart from its war-ravaged capital, Kabul, on Tuesday.
The U.N. Security Council is expected to pass a resolution this week seeking new sanctions against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban religious militia. The measures would limit the travel of Taliban officials, reduce staff at their diplomatic missions outside the country and impose an arms embargo.
About 50 U.N. staffers are believed to work in Afghanistan. But the United Nations is reluctant to give details about the departures because ``we don't want to create panic in Afghanistan,'' Bunker said.
Despite assurances from the ruling Taliban that it will provide security for U.N. humanitarian workers, officials from the global body are nervous.
``It is not that we are concerned that they can't provide the security, but in a sensitive situation anything could go wrong,'' Bunker said.
Sponsored by the United States and Russia, the resolution demands the Taliban hand over suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden to either the United States or a third country for trial on charges of terrorism. The Clinton administration believes bin Laden is running a terrorist network from his bases in Afghanistan.
The Taliban deny the accusations, refuse to hand over bin Laden and warn that further sanctions will hurt the ordinary Afghans.
``By slapping the sanctions on Afghanistan and exaggerating the issue of terrorism, America wants to maintain its military presence in the Middle East,'' said a statement issued by the Taliban's embassy in Pakistan. It said it fears Russia is also trying to reassert its influence in the region.
The Taliban sharply criticized the United Nations for sanctions when the country is experiencing its worst drought in 30 years and when the Islamic militia has issued a ban on poppy production.
Poppy, the raw material used to make heroin, is one of the largest cash crops for poor Afghans.
Non-U.N. humanitarian aid groups have opposed more sanctions, warning that they could intensify the sense of isolation among Afghans who have already endured 21 years of war.
Sanctions and threats of more sanctions also have weakened the Afghan currency and driven up food costs. The World Food Program has warned that as many as 1 million people face serious food shortages and many could die of starvation during Afghanistan's bitter winter.
Bunker said the United Nations expects to continue its aid programs even with the reduced staff. The programs would be operated by Afghan employees.
While promising to protect U.N. humanitarian workers, the Taliban say they will boycott peace talks mediated by the United Nations if further sanctions are imposed.
In November 1999, the United Nations imposed limited sanctions banning international travel by Afghanistan's national airlines and freezing Taliban assets abroad.
---
Deadline looming as Clinton wavers on world court treaty
Washington Times
December 18, 2000
By Betsy Pisik THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000121821468.htm
NEW YORK - The Clinton administration is deliberating whether in the next two weeks to sign a treaty for an International Criminal Court (ICC) that its own officials say will put American forces abroad at risk of prosecution.
Supporters of the treaty are urging President Clinton to sign before a Dec. 31 deadline, saying that even if it is never ratified, that is the only way the United States can maintain influence on decisions, including the appointments of judges and prosecutors.
But Senate Republicans say they see no useful purpose to signing the treaty, arguing that to do so could be only a "conscious and deliberate effort" to force a course of action on the incoming administration of George W. Bush.
The Clinton administration initially championed the ICC, saying a permanent tribunal to prosecute cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes would help prevent the rise of dictators like Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic.
But U.S. negotiators turned against the treaty when it became clear that the United States would not be able to use its veto in the U.N. Security Council to protect U.S. forces from prosecution by the court over actions, such as last year's bombing of Yugoslavia.
Opposition has been even more forceful in the Senate, where Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, has pledged that the treaty will never be ratified.
The administration's dilemma lies in the language of the treaty, under which countries that sign before Dec. 31 will continue to have input into decisions on the formation of the court, even if they do not ratify it.
After that date, a country must both sign and ratify to participate in such decisions, including the selections of judges and prosecutors.
Because the court will have jurisdiction over all nations - including those that do not choose to endorse it - human rights groups and others are saying the United States must act now before the door slams shut forever.
"Signing gives them more clout, more influence and more good will than if they were on the outside looking in," said Richard Dicker, the associate council for Human Rights Watch International and a passionate proponent of the court.
Noting that the United States may never ratify the court, Mr. Dicker argued that signing the treaty would be "important . . . in terms of influencing what happens in the court process," but legally meaningless.
"There is nothing binding resulting from signature. President Clinton would not have bound the U.S. government to anything."
But Marc Thiessen, a spokesman for Mr. Helms, said in an interview that he does not see any reason to sign.
"There is no practical consequence to not signing the treaty; it's purely a political decision," he said last week. "The only reason this administration would sign it is a conscious and deliberate effort to tie the hands of the Bush administration."
After a moment's reflection, Mr. Theissen added: "One could argue that the most dangerous two months in American foreign policy are November through January" before Mr. Bush takes office.
The treaty, which will take effect once it is ratified by 60 nations, so far has been signed by 120 countries and ratified by 25 of them. With the 15 members of the European Union moving rapidly toward ratification, observers say the court could come into force in late 2002.
U.S. negotiators have argued persistently to improve protections in the ICC treaty for Americans abroad, but remain dissatisfied with the safeguards they have extracted so far from allies in London, Paris, Ottawa, Berlin and elsewhere.
Earlier this month, a team led by the State Department's ambassador for war-crimes issues, David Scheffer, spent two weeks trying to insert protections for U.S. military personnel into a non-treaty document defining the relationship between the ICC and the United Nations - including Secretariat officials, humanitarian workers and peacekeepers.
Legal analysts say the Americans tried yet again to establish a role in the process for the U.N. Security Council, where the United States enjoys a veto.
The final wording of that document, as well as court-financing issues, are unlikely to be resolved until a final conference in September.
The administration so far has refused to say whether Mr. Clinton will sign the treaty in his final days in office and will not even take questions on the issue.
Reporters asking about the government's plans are simply referred to a Dec. 8 interview in which Mr. Scheffer told the New York Times: "No decision has been made at present whether or not to sign the treaty."
Mr. Scheffer "is getting calls from reporters from all over the place, and he's not taking any of them," a State Department spokeswoman said last week.
-------- u.s.
World applauds Powell, Rice selections
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 01:39 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsmon09.htm
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Europe and Asia applauded the foreign policy selections of President-elect Bush on Monday, but cautiously waited for details about missile defense, the Balkans, Taiwan and European defense.
The nominations of retired Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser were generally seen as bringing stature and experience to a team whose leader has been ridiculed at home and abroad for lacking foreign policy depth.
''As before with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush also has no foreign policy experience,'' Germany's coordinator for U.S. affairs, Karsten Voigt, wrote in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. ''He has understood the need to surround himself with a highly qualified adviser team.''
Moscow's Vremya Novostei newspaper praised Rice, who helped negotiate with the Russians at the end of the Cold War, as ''a realist who is capable of gauging the consequences of a careless step.''
But positive reactions were tempered by some concerns, including Powell's strong commitment to a U.S. missile defense system. Many Europeans and Asians fear such a system would sabotage arms control agreements with the Russians and trigger an arms race in Asia.
Bush has said he favors a missile shield because it would protect the United States from attack. In accepting his appointment Saturday, Powell called missile defense ''an essential part of our overall strategic force posture.''
In an editorial entitled, ''Fortress America: Powell's tough new defense plans,'' The Sydney Morning Herald warned that pushing through with a missile defense system could lead to a crisis with China.
Others feared the plan was a sign that America was placing its own interests ahead of the concerns of a world it aspires to lead.
''Like his boss, Gen. Powell seems to be determined to delimit the U.S. world role, to view international obligations through the prism of narrow national interests,'' the left-leaning British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote.
Many Europeans are waiting to see how the Bush team will deal with the European Union plan to develop a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force, which would respond when the United States and NATO do not want to get involved.
Both the Clinton administration and that of President George Bush - the president-elect's father - feared such a force would undermine NATO.
''The team that is returning to the White House today still has the same hostility to European defense,'' the French newspaper Le Monde said. ''On the one hand, this team calls for the most rapid withdrawal of American forces from Bosnia and Kosovo. On the other, it wants to prevent Europe from planning operations that the United States doesn't want to participate in any longer. It's one or the other.''
Some South Korean officials fear such a hard-nosed, America-first style could complicate their own efforts to use American support in pursuing reconciliation with communist North Korea.
''The Clinton administration was idealistic, whereas the Bush administration is realistic,'' said Yoon Dong-min of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security. ''That would affect South Korea's policy of seeking quick rapprochement with the communist North.''
In Asia, one of the greatest concerns is the new administration's position on Taiwan. Considered a renegade province by China, Taiwan has enjoyed de facto independence for decades. Some Asians believe a Republican administration would be more supportive of Taiwan.
Taiwanese military expert Chung Chien applauded Powell's appointment, saying his military experience will help him handle the delicate Taiwan-China issue.
China's foreign policy establishment remained uneasy. An administration that backs Taiwan and missile defense - which China considers a threat - could find itself in crisis with Beijing.
''There are too many people with a military background'' said Yan Xuetong, an international security expert at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
But in Yugoslavia, the government hope Powell and Rice will push ahead with the goal of removing U.S. troops and turning the peacekeeping burden over to the Europeans. That might lead to a greater role for France, which Belgrade considers a friend.
''The question is when and to what extent will there be an American withdrawal from Kosovo and Bosnia,'' the Belgrade newspaper Vecernje Novosti said.
The fact that Rice and Powell are both black did little to assuage African fears that the continent would be overlooked by the Bush administration.
The East African press ignored the appointments, lamenting that Africa will suffer ''benign neglect'' under the new Bush administration.
''Even the appointment of Colin Powell, a black American, as secretary of state, is nothing to cheer about,'' said Dr. Stanley Macebuh, an aide to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, adding he felt Powell was ''anti-Africa.''
---
USA Today
12/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Virginia
Virginia Beach - A gang is blamed for nearly 200 motorcycle thefts, mostly from naval bases around Hampton Roads. Almost all victims are young sailors, police say.
---
Earthquake study center needs home
Infobeat
December 18, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405394271
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) - A national earthquake agency that operates and supports a network of more than 150 seismograph stations around the world is homeless.
The Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, part of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, has been forced to leave an ideal site within the Isleta Pueblo, 13 miles south of Albuquerque, because the pueblo increased the lab's lease fee 14-fold.
The remote site near the adjacent Manzano Mountains was picked in 1959 because it was one of the nation's most seismologically quiet spots, with very low background noise that could disturb sensitive equipment used to measure earth movements.
The pueblo's move ``was a blow to us in many ways,'' said Waverly Person, head of the National Earthquake Information Center. ``It has been a real handicap, hampering us from getting a lot of foreign data coming in by satellite.''
Isleta Pueblo increased the five-year lease from $215,500 to $3.1 million after having the 674-acre site appraised. Isleta Governor Alvino Lucero would not discuss the increase.
The lab's 37 scientists and technicians are temporarily crowded into a 6,000-square-foot building at nearby Kirtland Air Force Base, where they've been since October.
``We are stuffed in here. We used to occupy 25,000 square feet of lab space,'' said Bob Hutt, the scientist-in-charge of the lab.
---
Rice well-suited for Bush inner circle
Washington Times
December 18, 2000
By Nicholas Kralev THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000121822912.htm
In early 1981, Condoleezza Rice, then a 26-year-old fellow at Stanford University, gave a talk on the Soviet military.
Having just received a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Denver, she was planning to leave Stanford at the end of the school year and find an entry-level teaching job at a mid-size college. Stanford's political science department had made it clear that it didn't need another Soviet specialist - it already had three.
But soon after that talk, Miss Rice became the fourth. One of the country's leading academic institutions, Stanford was eager to diversify its faculty, and would go out of its way, if necessary, to create a slot for a woman or a minority in a nontraditional field. Miss Rice, a black woman, was both.
"I suspect, and I've had confirmation since, that they thought this was an opportunity to reach out," Miss Rice said in an interview earlier this year.
"But I was told that when I came up for reappointment in three years no one would care about diversity and if I hadn't made the grade, I'd be gone."
Since then, Miss Rice, 46, has been the first black woman in just about any job she's taken on: from director of Soviet and Eastern European affairs on President Bush's National Security Council when she was only 34, to Stanford's provost, managing a nearly $2 billion budget.
Yesterday, President-elect George W. Bush named her his national security adviser, the first woman to hold that position, and the second black after Colin Powell, who held the post briefly at the end of the Reagan presidency. Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Powell Saturday to be secretary of state.
A pro-choice, centrist Republican, Miss Rice, now a professor of political science and senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, belongs to the camp of realists and balance-of-power advocates in the Republican Party.
During Mr. Bush's campaign, she headed his team of foreign-policy advisers, nicknamed the Vulcans, which provided her with very close access to the candidate.
George Shultz, Mr. Reagan's secretary of state and a Bush adviser, said Miss Rice was a very good manager. "I think people don't know what a nice, decent, straightforward person she is," he said. "That makes her a pleasure to work with."
Miss Rice is also an engaging speaker and skilled communicator, able to deliver speeches based on quickly scribbled notes.
"Playing the piano helped her become a consummate performer," said Michael McFaul, a former student of Miss Rice, now himself a Stanford professor and Russia specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"I may disagree with what she says, but I never have a vociferous reaction to it. I always think about a point of view I may not have considered before," he said.
Although lacking the star power Mr. Powell commands, Miss Rice has attracted considerable attention over the past year by daring comments about America's role in the world.
She denounced the Clinton administration's approach to foreign policy for elevating humanitarian values to the level of national interests.
She has said that peacekeeping and humanitarian work are taking a toll on morale and readiness in the U.S. military, which make it difficult for the armed forces to prepare for major wars.
In October, she announced that Mr.Bush plans to tell NATO that the United States should no longer participate in peacekeeping in the Balkans, signaling a major new division of labor in the Western alliance.
"Carrying out civil administration and police functions is simply going to degrade the American capability to do the things America has to do," she told the New York Times.
"We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten."
Critics countered that U.S. withdrawal from the Balkans would jeopardize NATO's future and would diminish Washington's role in European security.
"The allies would become even more reluctant to consider joint military operations with the United States beyond the continent," Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, wrote in an op-ed article in October.
The U.S. peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Kosovo totals 11,400, according to the Pentagon, less than one-fifth of the 65,000 NATO troops deployed.
Washington allocated $3.5 billion this year for Balkan peacekeeping, slightly more than 1 percent of the Pentagon's annual $280 billion budget.
Miss Rice has also commented on other thorny issues. During a lecture on American foreign policy at Tel Aviv University in August, she said that Mr. Bush intends to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, although the transfer would not be immediate.
In July, she told London's Daily Telegraph that Britain would be welcomed into the North American Free Trade Agreement.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook dismissed the notion of Britain joining NAFTA - a move currently banned by European Union regulations.
Even though realpolitik is one of her "favorite words," Miss Rice said the United States is not "a traditional realpolitik power, because we don't have any territorial claims."
But, she said, the United States "has been active in international affairs."
"I explain that with an idealistic view and our belief to promote peace, economic prosperity and democracy. The question is how you do that.
"You have to recognize that there is something called power in the international system, and just speaking of a good set of ideals won't get you there. You have to be able to exercise power smartly, and that means not always trying to use it."
As well as her active role in Mr. Bush's campaign, the recent interest in Miss Rice has been inspired by what many have labeled an "amazing" life story that began in the segregated Birmingham, Ala., of the 1950s.
Miss Rice, known as Condi, said she is used to her achievements being called "incredible" and calls it the "Condi in Wonderland" phenomenon.
"I have a friend whose words for it are: 'My goodness, the monkey can read. It's amazing,' " she said.
"I'm a package. I'm 5-foot-8, black and female. I can't go back and repackage myself. I can't do an experiment to figure out whether any of this would have happened to me had I been white and male, or white and female, or black and male. So I spend no time worrying about it."
Philip Zelikow, Miss Rice's former White House colleague with whom she co-authored a highly acclaimed book on German reunification, dismissed the notion that some of her jobs might have been the result of affirmative action.
"Those jobs were too big and important to be just given out," he said.
Born in 1954, Miss Rice wasn't even 10 when the town became the epicenter of the civil rights movement in 1963.
"It was a very tough and violent year, and there were a lot of days we didn't go to school," she said.
In spite of the turbulent times, "the community bound together to make certain that opportunities were given to the kids."
Education was always a top priority in her family. Her father was a college administrator, her mother a schoolteacher. Her aunt has a Ph.D. in Victorian literature. "So I should have turned out the way I did," she remarked proudly.
In 1968, the family moved to Denver. In her Roman Catholic high school, young Condi, who had never had a white classmate before, was one of only three black students. As for her religion, she says she is a deeply religious evangelical Presbyterian.
She started college at the University of Denver at 15, and went through English literature and American politics in search of a field in which to major. A class she took in international affairs solved her problem.
She adored her professor, Josef Korbel, a former Czechoslovak diplomat who had fled both Nazism and communism and moved to the United States in 1948. Mr. Korbel took a personal interest in her. "He was a very engaging person, a great storyteller," she said.
Having spent decades in his country's diplomatic service, he gave her a rare perspective on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Mr. Korbel's daughter, 17 years Miss Rice's senior, is Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, also a Soviet specialist. Although Mr. Korbel taught both women the same lessons, one became a Democrat, the other a Republican.
"I know and like Madeleine very much," Miss Rice said. "You can have the same intellectual father and different outcomes, but there are some powerful core values that we share. On issues of how you use power, we probably don't agree."
In an interview, Mrs. Albright declined to comment on Miss Rice's performance as Mr. Bush's adviser, but said, "I laughed about the fact that we have the same [intellectual] father."
The two "withering" years Miss Rice spent as part of President Bush's national security team were probably the most dramatic and significant for American foreign policy in decades. The Cold War ended, Germany unified, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the United States and its allies won a war in the Persian Gulf.
"It was an exciting time," she said. "You could go to bed one night and wake up with some country having changed its social system overnight, with a new democracy to deal with."
She first met then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev aboard a storm-tossed ship during his 1989 Mediterranean summit with Mr. Bush. "It was initially hard for the Russians to accept me," Miss Rice recalled. "I never figured out whether it was because I was female, or black, or young. But by and large, they've managed to deal with it."
Her love for Russia - she speaks the language fluently - dates back long before her trips to Moscow as a White House official.
"There is something about certain cultures that you just take to," she said. "It's like love - you can't explain why you fall in love. Culture is something you can adopt, and I have a great affinity for Russia. It certainly has nothing to do with my ethnic heritage."
Miss Rice said the biggest mistake of the present U.S. policy toward Russia is that "we got so wrapped up in Russian domestic politics - we had a script of how things were going, and it was actually very far from the reality. We called 'reformers' people who were robbing the country blind."
"Let's get out of Russian domestic politics. Let's recognize the good things that are happening in Russia - free elections, more or less free press - and let's get back to the state-to-state great-power relationship in which we deal with the issues."
Miss Rice said she's not bothered by Mr. Bush's lack of international experience.
Good leadership is about much more than citing the names of foreign leaders, she said, referring to a pop quiz Mr. Bush failed during a media interview last fall.
What's important is "being capable of getting to the essence of a problem, being able to home in on what you need to know to make a decision," she said.
"I've never wanted somebody to be president so much," she said of the president-elect. "And it has nothing to do with me and my role, but with what he can do for the country."
Although she said she's "always taken life one step at a time," all her career moves seemed to be leading to a prominent job. Her job as provost at Stanford is equal to being CEO of a large company, said Mr. McFaul.
"The job is essentially making the trains run on time," Miss Rice said. "I like this hands-on, day-to-day, strategic problem-solving. What I learned helped me understand what it is to be an executive, and, by way of that, how presidents need to operate."
She said her career hasn't hampered her personal life.
"I'm not married, but I never met anybody I wanted to live with," she said. "I think I've maintained balance in my life. I'm not a workaholic; I'm pretty relaxed about things. I went back to playing the piano seriously four years ago. I exercise a lot and go to sporting events." She is a big sports fan and once dated a professional football player.
She has spent much of her free time over the past several years with her father, who moved to California after her mother died of cancer in 1985. She still remembers her parents' words of encouragement in Alabama, when she was a girl.
"I lived in a place where you couldn't go have a hamburger at a restaurant," she said, "but my parents were telling me I could be president."
---
Inside the Beltway
Washington Times
December 18, 2000
John McCaslin
Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm Earned his medals
"I'm sorry we couldn't serve snake today, sir."
- National Press Club President Jack Cushman, after observing in his introduction of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry H. Shelton that before taking over the job as principal military adviser to the president he had led a rifle company in Vietnam, served as a division commander in Operation Desert Storm, led a parachute corps during the intervention in Haiti, and one week before officially assuming his presidential duties was jumping out of airplanes over Florida.
-------- OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Is wind power a cheaper option than solar?
From: ELEvans@aol.com
Mon, 18 Dec 2000 20:25:55 EST
Is wind power a cheaper option than solar? As recent constructions show, wind in Midwest states is now cheaper than new coal, nuclear and anything else. Maybe solar (solar thermal Barstow type trough collector) will get cheaper than wind soon, if mass-produced. But please do not repeat the technical mistakes of the 70ies....
About wind economics in Minnesota (http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp? story_id=15794989&ID=cnniw&scategory=Energy%3AAlternative)
"In Lake Benton, Minnesota, this means that power from wind is dropping from 4.9 cents per kilowatt hour produced in old-style turbines to 2.8 cents for energy coming from the newest models." Rudolf
*Try this for a pretty good energy survey or review:
http://greatchange.org/convincesheet.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20001218/tc/power_struggle_1.html
Monday December 18 12:16 PM EST
Power Struggle By Robert Bryce Special To Interactive Week, Interactive Week
In late September, while on the stump in michigan, George W. Bush outlined his energy plan for America. More domestic oil drilling was needed, he told the crowd, because the country's energy needs far exceed its current production. We also need more renewable energy and more electric power because, he said, "today the equipment needed to power the Internet consumes 8 percent of all the electricity produced in the United States."
Bush isn't the only one to use the 8 percent figure. Over the last 18 months, that estimate - first published in a May 31, 1999, article in Forbes by Peter Huber and Mark Mills - has appeared in reports issued by investment banks, in energy projections issued by natural gas companies, and in numerous magazines and newspapers.
* IBM, Intel chips: Smaller and faster * Virus Alerts & Solutions * Web Surfer Power Tools * Beginner's Guide to MP3
But is it, in fact, an accurate reflection of reality present and future? Questions about the Internet and electricity usage gained velocity this fall, after tech guru George Gilder and the Energy Information Administration both weighed in on the topic. In September, Bambi Francisco at CBS' MarketWatch.com reported that Gilder was predicting the Internet would "eventually use as much electricity as the entire U.S. economy does today." In late November, the EIA significantly increased its projections for future electricity usage and named computers as a cause.
Meanwhile, California continues to be rocked by serious electricity shortages. On Dec. 7, the state declared a Stage 3 emergency, meaning that residential and commercial users could face rolling blackouts. On Dec. 13, the power shortage became so severe that U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson threatened to hit out-of-state power producers with federal price controls if they didn't begin shipping more electricity to California immediately. Richardson also ordered federal hydroelectric networks to boost power generation. His moves helped the state avert widespread blackouts, but the long-term prospects for California's electric power system are unclear. These predictions and events have helped fuel a surge in the prices of once-stolid electric utility stocks. They have also contributed to the widespread belief that the Internet is causing big increases in domestic electricity usage. And while evidence supports that belief, it's not yet certain that the Internet is causing or will cause Americans to use vast amounts of additional electric power. There's another problem: Huber and Mills' 8 percent estimate appears to be wrong. All office, telecommunications and network equipment in the country actually uses about 3 percent of the power consumed in the U.S., said a group of staff scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That analysis is supported by Steven Taub, an associate director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. The Lawrence Berkeley scientists are "much closer to right," Taub said. Questions about the Internet and electricity consumption are part of a broader debate over global warming. If Huber and Mills are right, the Internet's expansion is contributing to the warming of the planet and is therefore damaging the environment. If their critics are right and the Net is lowering the quantity of power needed to keep the economy humming along, it should be having a positive impact on the environment.
Despite the attack on their estimate, Huber and Mills have refused to back off their 8 percent figure, triggering a rancorous debate over their motives, methods and credentials.
Not surprisingly, the debate is suffused with politics: Huber and Mills are free-market conservatives who argue that the solution to looming electricity shortages is to build more big power plants. Their critics, generally speaking, are left-leaning energy analysts who favor distributed generation plants, higher-efficiency products and renewable energy programs, while opposing big new power plants. Increased use of the Internet, these critics argue, is increasing productivity and significantly reducing the nation's "energy intensity" - the amount of power needed to produce goods and services.
Quality vs. Quantity
Even if Huber, Mills and gilder are wrong about the quantity of power used by the Net, the debate they have spawned is long overdue, and the issues they raise are crucial for the Internet and those who use it. The nation's aging power grid is sagging under the strain of surging economic growth and the need for more reliable power.
According to the Electric Power Research Institute, America's generating capacity has grown 30 percent over the past decade, but its transmission capacity grew just 15 percent. EPRI predicted that over the next 10 years generation will grow another 20 percent, but the infrastructure needed to deliver that power will grow by just 4 percent.
Nowhere are the problems of generation and transmission more evident than in California. "It's a dire situation," said Michelle Montague-Bruno, a spokeswoman at the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, which represents 190 companies in the region. To save power, members are turning off nonessential equipment, including some lights and computers. Electricity became a key issue for the group in June, when Pacific Gas & Electric was forced to cut power to about 100,000 customers after managers of California's power system warned that the San Francisco Bay area's power grid was near collapse. Those problems continued into December, when the problem was exacerbated by cold weather, power plants idled for maintenance and a shortage of electricity that can be imported.
"There's a perception that the high-tech industry is responsible for the boom in power consumption. That's not necessarily accurate," Montague-Bruno said. "It's due to the boom in construction and the overall growth in the economy and population in California."
Since 1998, California has licensed eight new power plants. But that new power won't begin coming online until next summer, which means the state's electricity woes are likely to continue for many months to come. Some companies have begun to look more closely at on-site generating equipment, including gas-fired turbines and fuel cells.
Those technologies could be implemented at far lower cost than centralized power plants, and would obviate the need for big investments in new high-power transmission lines. In addition, on-site generation is more efficient - when electricity is transported long distances, significant amounts of power are lost due to resistance from the wires themselves.
Deregulation was supposed to lead to cheaper, more reliable power. But so far, deregulation, now under way in California and about two dozen other states, has only confused the nation's power picture. And all types of businesses - from manufacturers to dot-coms - are being forced to deal with questions about the availability, reliability and quality of electricity. America's power grid was "built on a 1950s and 1960s design that doesn't address the type of reliability that we need," said Karl Stahlkopf, vice president of power delivery at EPRI. Stahlkopf, too, believes that Huber and Mills overstated the amount of power used by the Net. But he argued that much of the debate is over the wrong issue. Yes, the quantity of power used by the Net is important. But Stahlkopf said Huber and Mills have been prescient in their discussion of the reliability issue, which may be a longer-term problem than questions about availability. "The nature of power usage in America is changing, because all silicon-based equipment needs absolutely reliable power," he said. EPRI estimates that power interruptions - some lasting just one-sixtieth of a second - are costing American businesses some $50 billion each year. Sun Microsystems has estimated each minute of power outage costs it $1 million, Stahlkopf said.
Power quality has become a white-hot topic in boardrooms and on Wall Street. Recent initial public offerings for flywheel-based uninterruptible power supply companies, such as Active Power and Beacon Power, and fuel cell makers, such as H Power and Proton Energy Systems, raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Companies of all kinds are spending billions of dollars per year on technologies, ranging from batteries and flywheels to diesel engines, to assure a constant flow of power to their factories, clean rooms and data centers. But that reliability has a cost: Much of the equipment consumes more electric power, which Mills said supports his contention that the Internet will increase power consumption.
"I don't believe for a second that electric power demand is going down," Mills said. "It hasn't for 100 years, and it won't go down now."
So Who's Right?
In the debate over power demand and the Internet, data centers are often exhibit No. 1. These facilities, also known as "server farms" or "telco hotels," consume vast amounts of electricity. With power concentrations of 100 watts per square foot, a 10,000-square-foot data center can demand as much power as 1,000 homes. But unlike homeowners who turn their lights off when they leave for vacation, data centers require full power 24/7.
In Seattle, a raft of new data centers is forcing the city to scramble to meet their needs. Over the next 24 months, the city's utility company expects a handful of data centers to raise its average daily demand by about 250 megawatts, an increase of nearly 25 percent over current loads. Other regions, including the San Francisco Bay and Chicago areas, are also facing power supply problems caused, in part, by data centers.
Little doubt remains that electricity usage is rising. Until recently, the EIA was projecting that domestic power demand would rise 1.3 percent through 2020. But in late November, the agency increased its forecast by 38 percent, to an annual growth rate of 1.8 percent, citing higher-than-projected economic growth and a "re-reviewuation of the potential for growth in electricity use for a variety of residential and commercial appliances and equipment, including personal computers."
Although the EIA listed computers as a possible reason for the increase, economists and energy analysts cannot say with certainty why electricity usage is increasing, how fast it will grow or even the best way to meet that new demand. Nor is it clear how much of that growth is caused by Internet-related facilities, such as data centers.
Some experts, like Taub, believe that much of the growth is the result of the "wealth effect." Americans are making more money, so they are buying more gadgets that use electricity. In addition, people are buying bigger houses that require more lighting, air conditioning and other comforts that require lots of power. And as the American economy grows, more companies are launched, more stores and offices are built and, thus, more electricity is consumed.
Mills agreed that the wealth effect plays a role, but he firmly believes data centers will increase consumption. "When we get tens of millions of square feet of data centers, the power supply problem is going to be more acute," Mills predicted.
In fact, the two sides find some common ground when it comes to power consumption by data centers. Jonathan Koomey, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley, has calculated that by 2005, data centers could be consuming slightly more than 1 percent of all electricity in the U.S. Koomey based his projection on a report written earlier this year by Richard Juarez, a senior Internet analyst at Robertson Stephens, who predicted that 50 million square feet of data centers would be online by that time.
Juarez's estimate may be conservative. On Dec. 12, IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Lou Gerstner announced that Big Blue will build 50 new data centers to meet the growing demand for the outsourcing of information technology services.
Still, Koomey and energy efficiency experts such as Amory Lovins, CEO for research at the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think tank, believe that Huber and Mills drastically overestimated overall demand from the Internet. For one thing, they said, the two erred in estimating that each computer now on the Internet uses 1,000 watts of power. In reality, the average desktop unit and monitor use about 150 watts. When in sleep mode, they said, that figure drops to 50 watts or less. Laptops are even more efficient, with some newer models using less than 30 watts.
Furthermore, they charged that Huber and Mills are carrying coal for the mining and utility industries. Last year, a day after the Forbes article appeared, the Greening Earth Society, a group financed primarily by companies that mine, transport and burn coal, published a report authored by Mills titled The Internet Begins with Coal. One of the Greening Earth Society's primary objectives is to cast doubt on the science behind global warming theories and to promote the message that "the Earth is actually getting greener thanks to increasing CO2 levels."
Huber and Mills are the co-editors of the Huber-Mills Digital Power Report newsletter, which is published by the Gilder Technology Group, the Housatonic, Mass., company headed by George Gilder. In their Forbes article, Huber and Mills predicted that the "infoelectric convergence" would result in a massive increase in energy use.
Moving 2 megabytes of data on the Net, they said, requires the energy equivalent of 1 pound of coal. And with hundreds of millions of new digital devices, ranging from digital X-ray machines to Palm handheld computers, getting plugged in, the future of our economy depends on burning more fossil fuels, including coal, which produces 56 percent of the electricity used in America. All those Net-related electronics consume "up to 290 billion kWh [kilowatt-hours] of demand. That's about 8 percent of total U.S. demand," they wrote. "Add in the electric power used to build and operate stand-alone [unnetworked] chips and computers, and the total jumps.
-------- chemicals
Wis. boxcar fire contained
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 08:36 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndsmon02.htm
OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) - Hundreds of people evacuated because of a dangerous chemical fire burning in a railroad boxcar hoped to be back home by Christmas.
The evacuation of about 750 homes took place after the boxcar loaded with 141,000 pounds of sodium hydrosulfite caught fire Saturday outside the Hydrite Chemical.
The chemical produces toxic fumes when it comes contact with water. Exposure to the fumes can cause respiratory problems, such as wheezing, fire officials said.
There were no reports of serious injuries.
Officials say it could be several days before evacuees are allowed to return to their homes.
''We have to get home so we can get ready for Christmas,'' said Andy Wenhardt, a retiree who was forced from his home three blocks from the chemical company.
Wenhardt and his wife, Lisa, were among those staying at a temporary shelter set up at South Park Middle School.
Sean Lyon, 9, and his family also stayed at the school. Lyon said the evacuation is ruining the family's holiday.
''We can't put up a tree,'' he said. ''And I don't think we're going to spend Christmas here, but will it be too late for us to go out and buy stuff? This pretty much ruins it.''
Firefighters contained the blaze to the boxcar Saturday night. Officials decided Sunday night to help the fire burn itself out by opening the boxcar's doors, letting in air to fuel the blaze, said John Holland, a spokesman for the Oshkosh Fire Department.
Once the fire is out, hazardous material experts planned to combine the remaining material with a stabilizing solution and to run the mixture through the sewer system for disposal, said Jim Coats, a fire battalion chief.
He said the using the sewer system to get rid of the chemical will not harm residents.
''We wouldn't be doing this if there was a risk to people,'' Coats said.
People were allowed to return home Sunday for no more than 10 minutes to gather essential items, said Scott Snyder, an American Red Cross spokesman.
Viola Knack, a 99-year-old Oshkosh resident, was among the hundreds told to leave immediately about 7 p.m. Saturday.
''They rapped on my door and said, 'Grab your coat and get out of here,''' said Knack, who spent the night on a cot in the school. ''I need my eye drops and medicine. I'm here without anything, just what I got on.''
Nicole Lyon, 15, had to meet her parents and two younger brothers at the relief center late Saturday after a night of baby-sitting.
The Lyons stayed at the center Sunday night but might go to a motel depending on when the evacuation ends, she said.
''I don't really enjoy being here. The people from the Red Cross are being great, and I especially like the food, but it's not home,'' she said. ''I can't wait until this is over.''
-------- environment
EPA fines United Airlines $68,695
Infobeat
December 18, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405394896
DENVER (AP) - Inspectors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have fined United Airlines $68,695 for hazardous waste violations at Denver International Airport.
The EPA check was one of several that focused on companies that had not been inspected by state government for at least five years. Four other companies have been fined by the EPA as part of the recent crackdown.
Federal inspectors last year found two drums overflowing with used oil, plus evidence of another small oil spill, while checking United's airport facilities last year. United also failed to complete its own required toxic inspections, and was storing hazardous waste without a required permit, EPA inspectors said.
''(United) had a little bit of bad housekeeping, and some shoddy record-keeping and some inadequate personnel training,'' said EPA inspector Randy Lamdin.
United spokeswoman Chris Nardella said, ``We responded immediately and fixed the problems immediately.''
The original EPA inspection detailed 13 violations of federal hazardous-waste handling rules. Most violations involved the improper labeling and handling of hazardous waste.
In September, United signed an EPA settlement that claimed six violations from the December 1999 inspection, all for paperwork or management failures. In the $68,695 settlement, United said it ``neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations contained herein.''
Hazardous waste inspections usually are done by state regulators. The EPA last year started conducting its own spot-checks of Colorado companies because of worries that state government had become too lax in enforcing toxic-waste laws, the first time the EPA has done so in 15 years.
Besides United, the other EPA-fined firms are a John Elway AutoNation USA repair shop in north Denver, which paid $1,000 and provided $5,000 of employee training after inspectors found an improperly stored 55-gallon drum of solvents; Ranch Manufacturing of Lamar, which was fined $9,000 and required to offer $4,000 of training after EPA found 10 drums of paint-related wastes stored improperly; and FMH Material Handling of Denver's Globeville neighborhood, which was fined $1,000 after inspectors found an improperly stored 5-gallon container of paint-related waste.
Federal officials announced earlier this year that the state had beefed up its hazardous waste program enough to handle the toxic inspections itself.
---
NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS
Subject: DayTips' Strange News: 12/18/00
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 04:58:57 -0800
DayTips.Com Daily Lists Strange News
info@daytips.com http://www.daytips.com
Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka say the elephant population on the Indian Ocean island nation is dwindling fast because poachers are killing the pachyderm -- for their hair. A senior police officer said elephant hair has become a popular accessory for jewelry because of superstition among the local people. It's believed to impart enormous strength to the wearer. Unscrupulous poachers cut off the tails of elephants and shave off the hair. The hair is then used for making bracelets, rings and necklaces.
---
Mr. Bush's Environmental Choices
New York Times
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/opinion/18MON1.html
New presidents who use their cabinet choices to bridge party lines tend to think first of big-ticket posts like Defense, State and Treasury, reserving their more partisan appointments for less visible places like the Interior Department and the regulatory agencies. George W. Bush should think hard before following that course. Ronald Reagan stashed his ideologues at the agencies and Interior with disastrous results, both for the bipartisanship that Mr. Bush professes to hold dear and for the country as a whole. Mr. Reagan was forced to name William Ruckelshaus, a reliable Republican environmentalist, to rebuild the Environmental Protection Agency after two years of mismanagement by Anne Burford and the industry lobbyists she installed in senior positions. Likewise, Mr. Reagan was forced by Congress to accept the resignation of his tragicomic interior secretary, James Watt, who used his office to undermine the statutes he was sworn to uphold.
Although Mr. Bush appears to have given environmental issues scant attention in Texas, he is clearly not Mr. Reagan, the first openly anti-environmental president in the nation's history. Nevertheless, Mr. Bush should be aware of two important truths before he starts making his appointments to departments that have enormous impact on the quality of life in America even though they do not lie near the center of the political radar screen.
One is that in poll after poll, the nation as a whole has supported President Clinton's aggressive efforts to clean up the country's air and water, expand wilderness and protect endangered species. The second is that Mr. Bush's own party lost much of the advantage it gained in the 1994 elections because of its reckless assault on the country's underlying environmental statutes - an assault Mr. Clinton quickly exploited for political gain.
Spurred on by Bruce Babbitt at Interior, by Vice President Al Gore and by increasingly favorable poll ratings, Mr. Clinton wound up protecting more open space than any president since Theodore Roosevelt. He did so even though it meant taking on formidable constituencies like the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest, the sugar barons in the Florida Everglades, the big utilities and automobile companies that chafed under clean-air regulations, and the oil companies that wanted to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The three names that have surfaced as candidates for Interior in a Bush administration - there has been little speculation about the E.P.A. - are not promising. One is Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who has shown little initiative on environmental issues during a sluggish career as a Republican senator from Colorado. The other two, more frequently mentioned, are Montana's Republican governor, Marc Racicot, and Washington State's recently deposed senior senator, Slade Gorton.
Both have weak environmental records. Mr. Racicot endorsed an easing of Montana's clean water laws, supported drilling for natural gas on the Rocky Mountain Front, criticized Mr. Clinton's plan to protect roadless areas in the national forests and resisted reasonable solutions aimed at stopping the slaughter of bison that migrate each winter from Yellowstone National Park. Mr. Gorton has been a loyal servant of the mining industry, a critic of the Endangered Species Act and a reliable supporter of the anti-environmental riders that Western Republicans try to sneak through Congress at the end of every legislative year.
Below these top jobs lie hundreds of others whose occupants will help determine how the country's environmental laws are interpreted and enforced. But the tone is set at the top. The choice before Mr. Bush is a choice between two kinds of Republicanism - that of Teddy Roosevelt (and even Richard Nixon), and that of Ronald Reagan. It is also a choice between backsliding or building on eight years of admirable stewardship.
---
A Crucial Decision for the Meadowlands
New York Times
By ANDREW JACOBS
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/nyregion/18MEAD.html?pagewanted=all
CARLSTADT, N.J., Dec. 14 - For more than three centuries, man has tried his best to obliterate the watery quilt of marshland and mud flats that sits five miles from the Empire State Building. Long viewed as a mosquito-breeding wasteland, these 32 square miles of salt hay and swamp have been drained, dammed and piled high with mountains of trash, making the Hackensack Meadowlands the nation's most famous garbage dump.
But somehow, nature has found a way to survive. In the years since the 1972 Clean Water Act ended unfettered dumping, all but one of the Meadowlands' 21 commercial landfills have been shut down, a few dried-out marshes have had their tidal waters restored and, to the surprise of naturalists, wildlife has returned. These days, state researchers say, more than 260 species of birds, 11 of them threatened or endangered, feed or nest in the Meadowlands.
Now, at the same time that environmentalists are pressing to have the entire Meadowlands designated a federally protected preserve, a decision is imminent on a Virginia-based developer's proposal to build what would be the region's biggest shopping complex, a $1 billion collection of stores, movie theaters and a hotel surrounded by a savanna of paved parking lots. In its current incarnation, Meadowlands Mills, as its sponsors call it, would rise atop 204 acres of reed-packed swamp in Carlstadt. "We haven't seen a proposed fill of this size in at least 15 years," said Joseph J. Seebode, chief of the regulatory branch of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Environmentalists say that if built, the project would destroy more wetlands than any project since the Clean Water Act was enacted almost three decades ago.
This is not an old-fashioned battle between environmental issues and economic ones. Instead, it reflects the way such struggles have evolved into more ambiguous struggles characterized by competing scientific claims and sophisticated spin. So while opponents portray the project as a titanic setback of environmental progress, the developer says its proposal respects nature, and even improves it.
The situation is compounded by the critical role being played by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is expected to decide next month whether the project will move forward.
The corps' own environmental study found little threat to the area's ecology, a sharp contrast to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which have urged the corps to deny a fill permit. The corps is set to rule at a time when it is under fire for being overly sympathetic to massive construction projects. A report released by the Pentagon two weeks ago said that corps officials manipulated a study to justify projects along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, and that the corps had a systematic bias in favor of large development projects.
Although the E.P.A. can veto such decisions, it has overruled the corps fewer than a dozen times on the 200,000 permit decisions that have been rendered in the last two decades. And even if its current proposal is rejected, the company can reapply with a scaled-back project.
Advocates of restoring the Meadowlands say the mall would destroy precious habitat. "Plopping a mega-mall in the middle of wetlands would be laughable if it weren't so awful," said Carolyn Summers, a project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The developer, the Mills Corporation, disagrees. It says the tract is ecologically moribund, the victim of a 1930's mosquito-control campaign that employed berms and canals to sever the land from the tidal reach of the Hackensack River. These days, the parcel is thick with phragmites, a photogenic, fluffy-headed reed that some ecologists say crowds out all other forms of life. David Charette, an environmental consultant who studied the parcel on behalf of the Mills Corporation, said the density of phragmites has reduced the parcel's value as a habitat for birds and mammals.
"We've found some possum, rats, pheasants and rabbits," he said. "And that's about it."
Mr. Charette and Mills Corporation executives say that rather than being viewed as an engine of destruction, Meadowlands Mills should be seen as a force for renewal. The project, they point out, includes a $30 million restoration component that will clear out the invasive phragmites, reintroduce native plants and bring back the natural flow of water to the 335 acres that will remain undeveloped. "We're talking about recreating a functioning wetlands, one that the general public can enjoy," said David D'Onofrio, a company spokesman. "That costs a lot of money."
But opponents, including the E.P.A., have described this proposed restoration as little more than a series of ditches that will collect water, not to mention motor oil and trash that drains from the parking lots. "Sure, they will be wet, but they will be filled with polluted storm water," said Mary Mears, a spokeswoman for the agency. "As it stands now, the project is absolutely unacceptable."
In the last century, the Meadowlands found its calling as America's largest garbage dump. From tons of deadly mercury to common household refuse, the Meadowlands hosted as many as 300 active landfills, not to mention raw sewage from adjacent municipalities. Pieces of the old Pennsylvania Station were dumped here, as were chunks of London destroyed during the Blitz (the rubble came over as ship ballast). In 1959, an editorial in The New York Times cried out for reclamation and development. "The city and its environs are bursting at its seams," it said. "The Meadows must go."
Much of it is gone. More than half of its original 21,000 acres have given way to truck depots, outlet centers and the massive sports complex that bears its name. Railroad tracks, highways and a natural gas pipeline crisscross the remaining 8,500 acres; many stretches are fouled by a century's worth of industrial effluent and the goo of rotting garbage.
In the years since the Clean Water Act ended the free-for-all dumping, life has gradually returned to the area's estuaries and creeks. According to federal officials, its waterways now provide a nursery for 75 percent of the mid-Atlantic's commercial fish.
One day in October, Bill Sheehan, executive director of the Hackensack Riverkeeper, an environmental group, steered a pontoon boat through Saw Mill Creek. Mr. Sheehan, 51, who grew up with the marshes as his front yard, pointed out a black crown night heron and a pair of snowy egrets wading through tufts of spartina grass. As the sound of whooshing cars mingled with a fading choir of cicadas, fiddler crabs danced along the edge of a mud flat and diamondback turtles sunned themselves against the chilly fall air. The crowns of the World Trade Center peered over the reeds.
Mr. Sheehan, who leads ecology tours of the area and frequently fishes its waters, believes that the Meadowlands are slowly healing themselves. "After 250 years of public abuse, the Meadowlands need to be taken care of," he said. His dream of federal wildlife status remains elusive. The Department of the Interior, citing huge land acquisition costs and lingering contamination, rejected a request by environmental organizations last year.
There are, however, other possibilities, including state and federal open-space grants that could be used to assemble a Meadowlands park. But the land, within the most populous and affluent corridor in America, does not come cheap - as much as $250,000 an acre - a figure that will remain high as long as there is the potential for development.
Which is all the more reason environmentalists see the Mills project as their Waterloo. Defeating the mall, they say, would chill the prospect of future development, push down the price of land and make the creation of a Meadowlands preserve more affordable.
But the Mills Corporation is pushing ahead with its mall, which would be its 12th retail complex nationwide.
The company, which spent $40 million for the development rights, has been working on the plan since 1984. Ground could be broken sometime next year, assuming that the necessary approvals are received.
Meadowlands Mills is supported by a number of elected officials, including the mayor of Carlstadt, an erstwhile opponent who was won over by the estimated 12,000 retail and 6,000 construction jobs, and the $24 million in taxes the borough would receive during the mall's first decade. Mills has also retained the state's best-connected lobbyist, the GluckShaw Group, and parceled out $140,000 to New Jersey lawmakers in recent years. Gov. Christie Whitman, known for her environmental initiatives, has yet to weigh in on the project.
The Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, the state agency that has jurisdiction over the area's zoning, has a somewhat ambiguous position. Although its director, Alan Steinberg, says he is committed to saving the Meadowlands, calling it "a national treasure," he insists that the high cost of restoration and acquisition means that some development will have to be allowed. "If a wetland has lost virtually all of its function and there is no public money for restoration, we will consider development on a site as long as a developer is committed to a mitigation strategy," he said. "Our goal is one of balance."
Many environmentalists criticize the commission's conflicted mission, noting that it will continue to encourage development as long as its budget comes from application fees paid by those seeking to build here. The proposed Mills project, for example, has brought the agency $300,000. "For them, development is a matter of self-preservation," Mr. Sheehan said.
If anything, the decade-long fight over the proposed mall has generated newfound appreciation for these forsaken swamps. Private marinas, a waterfront park and a public boat launch that recently opened in Secaucus have brought many residents out to the marshes for the first time in their lives. George Fosdick, the mayor of Ridgefield Park, a village surrounded on three sides by water, said he has seen a shift in sentiment.
"People are starting to realize that you don't have to go down the shore to put your boat in the water," said Mr. Fosdick, 59.
An opponent of the project, Mr. Fosdick said many people in Ridgefield Park see the mall as a threat to the Meadowlands and to the village. They worry about potential traffic jams, the result of an estimated 25,000 cars that would come to the mall each day, the competition that might kill off local businesses and the increased flooding that could result from the loss of wetlands.
"We have enough malls already," he said. "What we need is a place to breathe."
---
Help the Everglades
New York Times
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/opinion/L18EVE.html
To the Editor:
Re "Bush (Jeb) at White House for Bill on Everglades" (news article, Dec. 12):
Now that President Clinton has signed a bill that provides $7.8 billion for restoration of the Florida Everglades, it would be sad if he approved plans for the conversion of the former Homestead Air Reserve base into a commercial airport. The Interior Department and many environmentalists have expressed concerns that this airport could cause serious harm to the Everglades.
It will not make sense if we spend so much of the public's money trying to protect a natural area and at the same time go forward with plans that harm that area. Mr. Clinton should call a halt to the Homestead airport.
ANDREW JONES Tucson, Dec. 12, 2000
---
USA Today
12/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Iowa
Hubbard - Cleanup from a natural gas explosion on Dec. 7 that damaged every downtown building has been slowed by the discovery of asbestos in some of the debris. Business owners taking rubble to a landfill last week were turned away because the materials had not been tested.
Nevada
Beatty - The Nature Conservancy has purchased the 525-acre Parker Ranch in Oasis Valley to preserve habitat for the rare Amargosa toad and other species. The move is part of the group's $580,000 project aimed at keeping the toad off the federal endangered species list. The olive-colored toad is found exclusively in the valley.
New Jersey Hackensack - A plan to dump 650 obsolete New York City subway cars off the New Jersey coast still needs final approval from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. New Jersey has accepted the city's offer to dump the cars a dozen miles offshore to create artificial reefs. Some environmental activists are skeptical of the plan.
North Dakota
West Fargo - A water shortage could be looming here. A North Dakota Water Commission report says about 535 million gallons were pulled from the nearly depleted aquifer last year, six times more than the city used 35 years ago. David Ripley, a water commission hydrologist, says alternative water sources need to be found.
Oklahoma
Tulsa - A Tulsa trash plant with two emissions violations in two years installed $25 million of pollution equipment ahead of a federal deadline Tuesday. The equipment aims to cut down on soot and chemical emissions and allow the Ogden Martin Systems plant to meet new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency. State environmental official Rhonda Jeffries said the upgrade should solve the problems.
Oregon
Newport - The Oregon coast is preparing for the annual march of gray whales from Alaska toward Mexico and the thousands of people who flock to the beach to watch them swim by. This year's watch is scheduled from Dec. 26 to Jan. 2 at 27 sites in Oregon. More than 11,000 whale watchers visited last year, Oregon parks officials said.
-------- genetics
Panel wants tighter biotech control
Infobeat
By PHILIP BRASHER AP Farm Writer
December 18, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405394739
WASHINGTON (AP) - A committee formed by the United States and the European Union recommended tighter controls Monday on genetically engineered foods, including mandatory labeling of products with biotech ingredients.
``Consumers should have the right of informed choice regarding the selection of what they want to consume,'' said the 20-member panel, which included scientists, farmers, consumer advocates and industry officials.
The 19-page report said the United States and Europe should set ``content-based mandatory labeling requirements'' for foods that contain ``novel genetic material,'' a term Europeans use for genetically engineered ingredients.
The United States currently does not require the labeling of products with gene-altered ingredients, based on the premise that they are essentially the same as conventionally bred crops. Some panel members believe the report's language is vague enough to support the U.S. position.
Agricultural biotechnology ``holds the potential to provide new tools for farmers in developing countries to increase yields, produce crops resistant to drought, salinity, pests and diseases, and produce new crop products of greater nutritional value,'' said the panel's report.
But it also said that new biotech products should not be allowed on the market until they have gone through a mandatory government approval process.
The report ``basically says that what we are doing right now is not enough,'' said panel member Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute.
Under the report's recommendation, any foods with detectable traces of genetically engineered crops should be labeled, she said.
But another panel member, Missouri farmer Ryland Utlaut, said the report could be read to support existing U.S. policy on labeling.
``If we're not changing the content of the food or putting anything new in it, it is saying that we do not have to label,'' he said.
Although the Clinton administration agreed to set up the committee, it has resisted pressure from environmentalists and consumer advocacy groups to require mandatory labeling of biotech food.
This spring, the Food and Drug Administration said it would start requiring biotech companies to consult with the agency before bringing new products onto the market, something the industry now does voluntarily. But FDA said that mandatory labeling was not warranted.
The agency instead said it would develop guidelines for food makers to use for voluntarily labeling foods as biotech or biotech-free.
Critics of the industry hope the latest report will pressure the incoming Bush administration to reconsider FDA's position.
---
Panel Backs Stronger Rules for Some Food
New York Times
By ANDREW POLLACK
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/business/18FOOD.html
A blue-ribbon biotechnology committee formed by the United States and the European Union is expected to recommend that Washington strengthen regulation of genetically modified foods and move toward mandatory labeling, according to some panel members.
The report, scheduled to be made public today at a summit meeting in Washington between President Clinton and leaders of the European Union, says that consumers should have the "right of informed choice" about what they eat. It recommends that "at the very least," the United States and European Union "should establish content-based mandatory labeling requirements for finished products containing novel genetic material," according to an excerpt read by one panel member.
Critics of bioengineered foods, who have started learning of the recommendations, are hoping the report will put new pressure on the Food and Drug Administration, which does not require such foods to be labeled. "I'm quite surprised that the U.S. contingent would sign off on it," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
But it is unclear how much weight the report will carry, especially with the administration changing in Washington. Moreover, the wording of the document leaves room for interpretation. One committee member said that the reference to "content-based" labeling referred pretty much to what the F.D.A. is already doing - requiring labeling only if the content of the food is changed significantly, not merely because genetic engineering was used.
The panel, known as the Biotechnology Consultative Forum, was established after the last United States-European Union summit meeting in May to discuss biotechnology-related issues that have led to trade tensions between Washington and Brussels.
Two panel members said the report recommended mandatory regulation of genetically altered foods. It contains language about foods not being let on the market until after they have been found to be reasonably certain of causing no harm, one member said.
---
Engineered Plants
New York Times
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/opinion/L18GEN.html
To the Editor:
Re "First Complete Plant Genetic Sequence Is Determined" (Business Day, Dec. 14):
The recent sequencing of the entire genetic code of Arabidopsis, a common laboratory plant, is clearly a milestone in genetic engineering, one that will reduce the cost and increase the speed of commercial applications. But how will this new knowledge and expertise be used?
A clue comes from a leading biotech company you report as having "already identified 100 genes in Arabidopsis that could be used to design new herbicides." It seems we can expect a mere extension of the prevailing agricultural paradigm of chemical dependence, rather than the reduced reliance on pesticides that proponents of transgenic plants claim.
BRIAN HALWEIL Washington, Dec. 15, 2000
The writer is a staff researcher at Worldwatch Institute.
-------- imf / world bank
France: Parliament stands up to IMF/WB
From: Doug Hunt <dhunt@neerucc.net>
Mon, 18 Dec 2000 14:39:40 -0500
The following report comes from our colleagues at Agir Ici, one of the leading French NGOs working against structural adjustment and the exploitation of the IMF and World Bank. The news of demands for accountability in the parliament of the instiutions' fourth-largest contributor is good news indeed.
Soren Ambrose - 50 Years Is Enough Network - Washington, DC USA
==
The French Parliament in the Driver's Seat?
Harsh Criticism of the IMF and the World Bank in France: Parliamentary Commission Wants to End Treasury's Monopoly - Proposals for Reform
In December 1998, the French government asked the Parliament to approve a 3.3 billion SDRs increase of the French quota at the IMF. Some MPs decided that perhaps the time had come to ask how taxpayers' money was being used by the IMF and the World Bank. Until that day most French MPs had shown little interest in these issues. They suddenly realized they knew almost nothing about how and why decisions were being made by the French government-that is, the Treasury - in Washington. Therefore they passed an amendment stating that every year the French government would submit a report to the Parliament about IMF and WB activities, decisions of the Boards, and French positions on these decisions.
In 1999, together with 40 French associations and NGOs, Agir ici, AITEC and CRID launched a campaign demanding that this Report be made public and that the Parliament give instructions on what the French positions should be. The 1999 Report was sent to us by M. Laurent Fabius, at that time President of the National Assembly ... and current Finance Minister -- which was a success in a sense. But the document was so poor that we hardly had any comments, except on what had to be done to improve it.
Last August the 2000 Report was given to the MPs, and posted on the Finance Ministry's website (www.finances.gouv.fr). It provides much more information than last year's report, about the IMF, the World Bank, figures and financial aspects but it lacks fundamental things, including :
- fair evaluation of the consequences of decades of structural adjustment - a debate about impact evaluation studies at the IMF - analysis of environmental consequences of World Bank-led projects.
These are just a few elements of the criticisms French associations and NGOS have made about the report, the main one being that it doesn't address crucial issues such as reform of the global financial architecture, democracy and transparency of the IFIs, the role of France and Europe in these institutions, etc. There is absolutely no questioning of the role and future of these institutions, nor propositions for reforms, wich is a bit surprising if you consider the current context (the full analysis by French CSOs is available -in French- on our website : www.globenet.org/ifi).
The positive aspect is that the parliamentary finance commission has decided that the governmental report was worth a reply. They decided to write a "report on the report" in order to draw the MPs' attention. The main aim was to give them elements of comparison and information so that they could have a fair view of what was really going on.
A fairly impressive number of hearings have been made by Yves Tavernier, MP of the Socialist Party and rapporteur of foreign affairs budget for the commission. It included hearings of numbers of NGOs and we and our partners had the opportunity to present our comments and propositions. In the end the commission has issued a report that was presented to MPs and to the press last week. The main conlusions are that:
- activities of the IMF should focus on financial aspects and the World Bank should be in charge of the financial support to development - the World Bank should not become a "Knowledge Bank" - France should promote strongly the idea that policies and programs of the IMF and the WB are not the only possible development strategy.
- IFIs should break clearly with the Washington consensus
- the WB and the IMF must submit to international rules and conventions, especially social ones.
- volontary contributions to the United Nations specialized agencies should be increased so that they remain important partners for poor countries.
There are also a number of reforms proposed, concerning voting power, evaluation, etc.
What is also discussed is how French positions and orientations should be defined. The prominent role of the Treasury is questioned, and the commission wants the French Executive Director to be accountable not just to the Treasury but also to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There could be two French EDs : one at the Fund and one at the Bank, the latter being mainly accountable to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The French ED (or EDs) should be heard by the Parliament every year. A parliamentary delegation to international economic and financial institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, G7, ... ) should be created. Another recommendation is that civil society representatives should be consulted on the definition of French positions.
What can we expect ?
- It is significant that the report of the finance commission refers to the demonstrations that took place in Seattle, Washington and Prague. It means that Parliaments cannot ignore the growing concerns and hostility of ordinary citizens towards undemocratic, non-transparent institutions.
- M. Tavernier wants to meet the President of the National Assembly, M. Forni, in order to discuss the creation of the parliamentary delegation.
- The other propositions for reform of the IFIs and of the French decision-making process are unlikely to have direct consequences in terms of laws passed, but they put the stress on these issues - and pressure on the French government. Nevertheless we still have to push for the Parliament to define and control French orientations and positions at the Fund and the Bank. It means we need a debate at the Parliament on the governmental report and a vote.
- The full report of the commission (300 pages) will be made public on Wednesday, December 20th.
Some of the recommendations that have been made in the report are closely linked to things we have been advocating for in the past few years. Therefore we will support them, because we think the MPs are the ones who should be in control, being the people's direct representatives. Many MPs can be sensitive to the fact that their country's Executive Director can take a stand in Washington that they themselves would fight fiercely in Paris (or London or Madrid). Most of them are also curious to know how taxpayers' money is being used, and the reason for that is obvious. It is the role of the French government to define and implement the country's policies. If the Parliament has no political will or no way to control them, who will ?
Agir ici pour un monde solidaire 14, passage Dubail F- 75010 Paris Tel: 33-1-40 35 07 00 Fax: 33-1-40 35 06 20 E-mail: agirici@globenet.org
-------- police
Metro Briefing
New York Times
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/nyregion/18MBRF.html
QUEENS: CADET KILLED IN CRASH A new police cadet died early yesterday after he lost control of his car and drove into a tree, the police said. The authorities said the cadet, Peter Radske, 20, was blocks from his family's home in Middle Village when he swerved to avoid another car while westbound on Juniper Boulevard South at 3:30 a.m. He was appointed a cadet on Dec. 8. Elissa Gootman (NYT)
BRIDGEPORT: POLICE SHOOT SUSPECT The Bridgeport police wounded a man suspected of murder after a shootout at a city intersection on Friday, the police said. The man, Clifford Brown, 27, of Bridgeport, was shot in the leg Friday night after he pointed his gun at an officer, the police said. Mr. Brown was charged with murder, attempted murder and unlawful discharge of a firearm. The police said the victim, Evon A. Brown, 24, of Bridgeport, had been stopped at an intersection when he was shot several times. The two Browns were not related, the police said. (AP)
---
USA Today
12/18/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Indiana
Bloomington - A $700,000 federal grant will help pay for police patrols in public housing developments in Bloomington. Off-duty officers will be put on foot patrol in the Crestmont, Reverend Butler and Walnut Woods neighborhoods from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Rhode Island
Providence - The city has signed a contract with the police department that includes health care coverage for same-sex partners. The provision gives police the same coverage already afforded to city firefighters, laborers and teachers. Mayor Vincent Cianci said it is important that all people feel welcome to work for the city.
-------- spying
Former prisoner Pope returns home
Infobeat
December 18. 2000
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405394311
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Edmond Pope, returning to the United States after eight months' imprisonment in Russia on an espionage charge, enjoyed a surprise reunion with his elderly mother at Portland International Airport.
What he wanted most was to relax, the 54-year-old Pope said late Sunday. ``I'm going to get with family. I have a million things to do. But family is first.''
Instead of waiting for her son to make the five-hour trip from Portland to her home in Grants Pass in southern Oregon, Elizabeth Pope, 80, came to meet him. Pope's 76-year-old father, gravely ill with cancer, did not make the trip.
Pope had not been told his mother would be at the airport.
A handful of well-wishers cheered as he came into view, holding up signs saying ``Welcome Back Ed'' and ``The Pope is Back.''
Pope was convicted of illegally obtaining classified blueprints of a high-speed underwater torpedo. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, then quickly pardoned.
Pope argued in vain that the plans were not secret because they had already been published and sold abroad. His company, CERF Technologies International, specializes in information about foreign maritime technology.
``What a tremendous Christmas present for him, his family, his mom and especially his dad,'' said fellow Oregon State University graduate John Kirkland. The two served together at the Pentagon in the late 1970s when both were naval officers.
Pope's mother was escorted through the boarding gate to the door of the airplane, where she was able to welcome her son in private. She had not seen him for more than a year.
Pope and his wife, Cheri, plan to spend several days at his parents' home in Grants Pass before leaving for their home in State College, Pa., for Christmas.
Convicted in Russia on Dec. 6, Pope was pardoned Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pope said that while in prison he was ``in isolation most of the time. So I didn't know much about what was going on, and I certainly didn't know the truth about what was going on.''
Pope said he has begun a book about his ordeal.
Pope credited his wife, who pressured Congress and Presidents Clinton and Putin, for his release.
A Putin spokesman has said Pope was pardoned on humanitarian grounds and to preserve good relations with Washington.
After his pardon, Pope was flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany for medical tests. Pope, who has suffered from a rare form of bone cancer, fell ill again while imprisoned. He did not comment on his medical condition Sunday.
Air Force Capt. Andrew Reynolds, Pope's physician at the military hospital, said it is unclear whether Pope's bone cancer is recurring. But he said Pope may have acquired a potentially lethal skin cancer during his imprisonment in the Lefortovo jail.
Pope appeared to be in good shape Sunday, if a little tired.
Pope began active duty in the Navy in 1969, retiring as a captain in 1994. He then worked as an engineer at Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory, which performs research for the military.
---
An American in Russia
Washington Times
EDITORIAL • December 18, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-20001218161413.htm
Edward Pope's Kafkaesque nightmare has finally come to an end. After he was arrested on April 3 by Russian authorities and sentenced on Dec. 6 to 20 years in prison on charges of espionage, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided on Thursday to pardon Mr. Pope, following belated intercessions from the highest levels of the U.S. government. Needless to say, Mr. Pope, who may have received a new lease on life, and his family are overjoyed. However, this does not erase the disturbing features of the case, the first major espionage case between the United States and Russia since the end of the Cold War.
This case should be remembered as a testament to the shortcomings of Russian courts. Indeed, the extreme irregularities in the proceedings against Mr. Pope and the insubstantial evidence against him are disconcerting. The fact that an American citizen can be tried under these conditions with such initially muted opposition from the White House and the media is alarming.
It is surprising that Mr. Pope's case didn't resonate more strongly in the United States. Like many other developments in Russia, it ought to command our attention. Mr. Pope was charged with trying to buy classified plans for the propulsion system of a high-speed Russian torpedo. But the American businessman and former U.S. Navy officer said he was trying to obtain the designs for the older, unclassified model of the propulsion system. Mr. Pope's business associates maintain he wanted to adapt those Russian designs to make commercial ferries and cargo ships faster in the United States. The royalties for using these plans go back to Russia. Mr. Pope has made more than two dozen business trips to Russia since helped to found two high-tech firms in 1997.
Among the many disturbing aspects of the case was the chief witness, Anatoly Babkin, who said he was forced to sign incriminating testimony against Mr. Pope. When Mr. Babkin said he would recant the false testimony, Russia's security service threatened to put him in jail, according to tapes broadcast in Russia. Despite the threats, Mr. Babkin categorically withdrew the false evidence, but Mr. Pope was found guilty by the court all the same.
In addition, the judge denied all but three of the 200 motions made by Mr. Pope's lawyer. And the process was wrapped up with suspicious dispatch. The investigation lasted three months, the hearing two months and the verdict was written in just two and a half hours.
Unfortunately, time spent in jail always comes at a cost. Since Mr. Pope's bone cancer, which was in remission at the time of his arrest, has gone untreated for 8 months, the cost could be irreparably high.
But Mr. Pope won't be the last victim of Russia's judicial system. Russia's request for the extradition of Vladimir Gusinsky, who was arrested in Spain on Tuesday, is also raising warning flags. Although Mr. Gusinsky has reported been involved in murky business dealings, he is more than likely being pursued by the courts because of the criticism his media conglomerate has leveled on the Putin administration. Mr. Gusinsky has been accused of embezzling 250 million dollars.
Mr. Pope's travails are now over. Mr. Gusinsky's appear to have only begun.
---
Pardoned Pope heads home from Russia
Washington Times
December 18, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-20001218213450.htm
BERLIN - U.S. businessman Edmond Pope was discharged yesterday from a U.S. military hospital where he had been undergoing tests since his release after months in a Russian prison on espionage charges, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Mr. Pope, the first American convicted of espionage in Russia in 40 years, will be heading home today or tomorrow.
Mr. Pope, 54, has suffered in the past from a rare form of bone cancer, and doctors said Friday it was not clear if it had resurfaced. They also ran tests for three lesions that were possible skin cancer.
He was pardoned Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin and immediately flew to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
---
Clemency for Pollard
New York Times
December 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/opinion/L18POL.html
To the Editor:
Re "Pressure Is Again Emerging to Free Jonathan Pollard" (news article, Dec. 13):
It is hard to comprehend the vindictiveness of those who oppose clemency for Mr. Pollard while refusing to explain why.
Mr. Pollard committed a crime when he passed along classified intelligence information to Israel, an ally of the United States. He deserved to be punished. But the life sentence he received is almost unheard of in such a case, especially since the government reneged on its agreement not to seek a life sentence.
Mr. Pollard pleaded guilty and has already served 15 years in prison, but he was never convicted in a court trial that would have required the hard evidence that his accusers now refuse to reveal while they circulate undocumented rumors.
It is time for President Clinton to grant clemency to Mr. Pollard on humanitarian grounds and set him free.
SEYMOUR D. REICH New York, Dec. 13, 2000
The writer is a past chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
-------- terrorism
Terrorists said major U.S. threat
December 18. 2000
By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer
Infobeat
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405394306
WASHINGTON (AP) - The main threats to U.S. territory over the coming 15 years will likely come from terrorists and other adversaries using low-tech tools of war, according to a sweeping new study by intelligence analysts and non-goverment experts.
This threat is made more worrisome by a trend toward increasing collusion among terrorists, drug traffickers, weapons proliferators and organized crime, according to the assessment ``Global Trends 2015,'' published Monday.
``Most adversaries will recognize the information advantage and military superiority of the United States in 2015,'' the report said. ``Rather than acquiesce to any potential U.S. military domination, they will try to circumvent or minimize U.S. strengths and exploit perceived weaknesses.''
The most recent example of this approach was the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12 as it refueled in Aden, Yemen. A small boat maneuvered alongside the huge destroyer and, without drawing attention from the ship's security forces, detonated explosives that tore a hole in the ship and killed 17 sailors.
Monday's report said this kind of approach - known as ``asymmetric warfare'' - will threaten U.S. interests not only abroad but also at home.
``Such asymmetric approaches - whether undertaken by states or nonstate actors - will become the dominant characteristic of most threats to the U.S. homeland,'' the report said. This will become the ``defining challenge'' of U.S. national security strategy and military force development in coming years.
High-tech threats also will loom large, the report said.
``Advances in science and technology will pose national security challenges of uncertain character and scale,'' it said. ``Increasing reliance on computer networks is making critical U.S. infrastructures more attractive as targets. Computer network operations today offer new options for attacking the United States within its traditional continental sanctuary, potentially anonymously and with selective effects.''
Highlights of the study were first reported in Monday's editions of the New York Times and Washington Post. The Times said copies of the report were given last week to President-elect Bush's team.
The assessment also looked at global economic, political, and resource trends.
It predicted that Russia would continue to face problems. It will be ``challenged even more than today to adjust its expectations for world leadership to its dramatically reduced resources.'' The report concluded that the most likely outcome is that Russia will remain internally weak through 2015.
The experts had a mixed view of China. ``Working against China's aspirations to sustain economic growth while preserving its political system is an array of political, social, and economic pressures that will increasingly challenge the regime's legitimacy, and perhaps its survival,'' they concluded. On the other hand, China may introduce enough political reform to adapt to domestic pressure for change.
The report was 15 months in the making and was directed by the National Intelligence Council, a group of intelligence officials representing all elements of the U.S. national security establishment, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Also contributing were experts from private think tanks and academic institutions
---
Terrorists seen as threat in coming years
USA Today
12/18/00- Updated 11:17 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon02.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The main threats to U.S. territory over the coming 15 years will likely come from terrorists and other adversaries using low-tech tools of war, according to a sweeping new study by intelligence analysts and non-goverment experts.
This threat is made more worrisome by a trend toward increasing collusion among terrorists, drug traffickers, weapons proliferators and organized crime, according to the assessment Global Trends 2015, published Monday.
''Most adversaries will recognize the information advantage and military superiority of the United States in 2015,'' the report said. ''Rather than acquiesce to any potential U.S. military domination, they will try to circumvent or minimize U.S. strengths and exploit perceived weaknesses.''
The most recent example of this approach was the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12 as it refueled in Aden, Yemen. A small boat maneuvered alongside the huge destroyer and, without drawing attention from the ship's security forces, detonated explosives that tore a hole in the ship and killed 17 sailors.
Monday's report said this kind of approach - known as ''asymmetric warfare'' - will threaten U.S. interests not only abroad but also at home.
''Such asymmetric approaches - whether undertaken by states or nonstate actors - will become the dominant characteristic of most threats to the U.S. homeland,'' the report said. This will become the ''defining challenge'' of U.S. national security strategy and military force development in coming years.
High-tech threats also will loom large, the report said.
''Advances in science and technology will pose national security challenges of uncertain character and scale,'' it said. ''Increasing reliance on computer networks is making critical U.S. infrastructures more attractive as targets. Computer network operations today offer new options for attacking the United States within its traditional continental sanctuary, potentially anonymously and with selective effects.''
Highlights of the study were first reported in Monday's editions of the New York Times and Washington Post. The Times said copies of the report were given last week to President-elect Bush's team.
The assessment also looked at global economic, political, and resource trends.
It predicted that Russia would continue to face problems. It will be ''challenged even more than today to adjust its expectations for world leadership to its dramatically reduced resources.'' The report concluded that the most likely outcome is that Russia will remain internally weak through 2015.
The experts had a mixed view of China. ''Working against China's aspirations to sustain economic growth while preserving its political system is an array of political, social, and economic pressures that will increasingly challenge the regime's legitimacy, and perhaps its survival,'' they concluded. On the other hand, China may introduce enough political reform to adapt to domestic pressure for change.
The report was 15 months in the making and was directed by the National Intelligence Council, a group of intelligence officials representing all elements of the U.S. national security establishment, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Also contributing were experts from private think tanks and academic institutions.
-------- activists
Common Sense Security
by Sheila O'Donnell
http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/comsense.html
Popular consciousness of environmental issues has seen tremendous growth in the past few years. People organizing or speaking out against environmental degradation in this country and abroad are facing an escalating pattern of harassment. Increasing also is the number of arsons, robberies, burglaries, and attacks on environmental activists, especially on women--who are often on the front lines in isolated rural areas. Investigators have learned of more than 100 cases since 1990. A pattern is emerging in these attacks which is similar to attacks on civil rights, anti-war, and Central America activists in the past.
As our movements have become stronger and more sophisticated, the techniques of the state, corporations, and right-wing groups have also become more sophisticated. We have seen government agents, corporate security and right-wing intelligence networks share information as well as an ideology. For instance, the FBI's COINTELPRO operations targeted dissidents in America in the 1960s and 1970s. Caution and common sense security measures in the face of the concerted efforts to stop us are therefore both prudent and necessary.
Spend a few minutes to assess your work from a security point of view: understand your vulnerabilities; assess your allies and your adversaries as objectively as possible; do not underestimate the opposition. Try to assess your organizational and personal strengths and weaknesses. Do not take chances. Plan for the worst; work and hope for the best.
Here are some specific suggestions for protecting yourself and your projects:
Office
Never leave the only copy of a document or list behind; take a minute to duplicate an important document and keep the duplicate in a safe place off-site.
Keep mailing and donor lists and personal phone books out of sight. Always maintain a duplicate at a different location; update it frequently.
Know your printer if you are about to publish and know your mailing house if you contract for distribution. The loss of camera-ready copy or a change in text could feel like a disaster.
Back up and store important computer disks off-site. Sensitive data and membership lists should be kept under lock and key. Do not leave sensitive files on the hard disk; use floppies, back them up, and store the disks in secure spots. Use an encryption program to protect your data.
Know the background of anyone you are trusting to work on any part of a project that is sensitive. Projects have been bungled because an untrustworthy person has purposefully intervened or inadvertently screwed up.
Don't hire a stranger as a messenger. Your message might not arrive or could arrive after being duplicated for an unintended party.
Sweeps for electronic surveillance are only effective for the time they are being done, and are only effective as they are being done if you are sure of the person(s) doing the sweep.
Sweeps tend to be expensive because one must sweep a large area to be effective. Many experts contend that the most sophisticated federal government and private agency taps cannot be detected.
Keep a camera handy at all times.
Trash
What you consider trash could be a real treasure to someone looking for information about you or your projects. Don't throw information out in your trash. Garbology has become a tactic because it is so useful. Keep a "Burn file" in a secure place and occasionally burn it or use a shredder.
Make sure you shredder creates confetti because strips can easily be reconstructed with a little patience.
Telephone
Do not list your address with your phone number in the directories. Consider having yourself unlisted.
If you receive threatening calls on your answering machine, immediately remove and save the tape.
Never respond to a query over the telephone from an unknown person--lottery tickets, fabulous prizes, jury questionnaires, etc. notwithstanding. Ask for a telephone number and call the party back considerably later or the following day. Check the phone book to see if the phone number they gave you is legitimate. Check it out. Do the same if a reporter calls.
Never say anything you don't want to hear repeated where there is any possibility of being recorded or overheard. Don't say anything on the phone you don't want to hear in open court.
Don't talk in code on the telephone. If you are being tapped and the transcript is used against you in court, the coded conversation can be alleged to mean anything by government code "experts."
Don't gossip about sensitive people or projects on the telephone. All information that can make an outsider "in the know" about you and your projects is valuable and makes everyone vulnerable.
Keep a pad and pen next to the telephone. Jot down details of threatening or suspicious calls immediately. Note the time, date and keep a file.
Don't waste time worrying about phone taps or imagining that strange clicks or hums or other noises indicate a phone tap. Many taps are virtually impossible to detect. Trust your instincts. If you think your phone is tapped, act accordingly.
Mail
Get a mail box through the United States Post Office or a private concern. Be aware that the Post Office will give your street address to inquirers under certain circumstances.
If you receive a threatening letter, handle it as little as possible. Put both the letter and the envelope in a plastic bag or file folder. Give the original to the police only if they agree to fingerprint it. If not, give them a copy because you may wish to have your own expert examine it.
Automobiles
Keep your automobile clean so you can see if there is an addition or loss.
Put no bumper stickers on your car which identify you as an organizer. Make your car look ordinary.
Put your literature in the trunk or in a closed box.
Keep your car locked at all times.
Police
Report any incidents to the local police and ask for protection if you feel it is warranted.
Report threats or harassment to your local police. Demand that they take a report and protect you if that is necessary. Talk to the press and report the police response as well as the incident(s).
Report thefts of materials from your office or home to the police; these are criminal acts.
Under Surveillance?
Brief your membership on known or suspected surveillance. Be scrupulous with documentation. Do not dismiss complaints as paranoia without careful investigation. The opposition can and frequently does have informants join organizations to learn about methods and strategy.
Discuss incidents with colleagues, family, and membership. Call the press if you have information about surveillance or harassment. Discussion makes the secret dirty work of the intelligence agencies and private spies easier to spot.
If you wish to have a private conversation, leave your home or office and take a walk or go somewhere very public and notice who can hear you.
If you know a secret, keep it to yourself. As the World War II poster warned: loose lips sink ships.
Photograph the person(s) following you or have a friend do so. Use caution. If someone is overtly following you or surveilling you, she or he is trying to frighten you. Openly photographing them makes them uncomfortable. If you are covertly being followed, have a friend covertly photograph them.
If you are being followed, get the license plate number and state. Try to get a description of the driver and the car as well as passengers. Notice anything different about the car.
If you are followed or feel threatened, call a friend; don't "tough it out" alone. "They" are trying to frighten you. It is frightening to have someone threatening your freedom.
Debrief yourself immediately after each incident. Write details down: time, date, occasion, incident, characteristics of the person(s), impressions, anything odd about the situation.
Keep a "Weirdo" file with detailed notes about unsettling situations and see if a pattern emerges.
Break-Ins
Check with knowledgeable people in your area about alarm systems, dogs, surveillance cameras, motion sensitive lights, dead bolt locks, and traditional security measures to protect against break-ins.
Visits From the FBI
Don't talk to the FBI or any government investigator without your attorney present. Get the names and addresses of the agents and tell them you will have your attorney contact them to set up a meeting. If you have an attorney, give her or him the name and phone number. Under any circumstance, get the agents' names and addresses. Information gleaned from a conversation can be used against you and your co-workers. The agents' report of even an innocuous conversation could "put words in your mouth" that you never uttered or your words could be distorted or made up if you don't have your attorney present.
Call the National Lawyers Guild, American Civil Liberties Union, or other sympathetic legal organizations if you need assistance locating a reliable attorney in your area.
The FBI rarely sets up interviews with counsel present. Often when the demand is made to have the interview with counsel, the FBI loses overt interest.
Don't invite agents into your home. Speak with the agents outside. Once inside, they glean information about your perspective and lifestyle.
Don't let agents threaten you or talk you into having a short, personal conversation without your lawyer. Don't let them intimidate or trick you into talking. If the FBI wants to empanel a Grand Jury, a private talk with you will not change the strategy of the FBI. Don't try to outwit the FBI; your arrogance could get you or others in serious trouble.
FBI agents sometimes try to trick you into giving information "to help a friend." Don't fall for it; meet with the agents in the presence of your attorney and then you can help your friend.
Lying to the FBI is a criminal act. The best way to avoid criminal charges is to say nothing. Any information you give the FBI can and will be used against you.
Write for your government files under the Freedom of Information Act and keep writing to the agencies until they give you all the documents filed under your name.
Don't let the agents intimidate you. What if they do know where you live or work and what you do? We have a constitutional right to lawful dissent. You are not required to speak with the FBI. They intend to frighten you; don't let them.
Do not overlook the fact that government agencies sometimes share information within the government and with the private sector, particularly right-wing organizations. This has been documented.
Remember
If you feel you are being surveilled, your phones tapped, or that you are being followed, the best overall advice is to trust your instincts. If you feel something is wrong, trust the feeling. Your instincts are usually right. Most of us recall the times when we "felt something was wrong" or we "knew better but did it anyway."
Talk to colleagues and make yourself as secure as you can. Experts claim that people who resist get away from attackers more often than those who do not. The same logic applies to keeping outsiders out of your business; it is a more subtle form of attack.
Trust your instincts and resist when possible. One of the biggest blocks to resistance is the failure to recognize that we are under attack. None of this advice is intended to frighten but to create an awareness of the problems. A knowledge of the strategies and tactics of your adversaries will strengthen your movement. Cover yourself; it's a tough world out there.
Suggested Readings
Caignon, Denise and Gail Groves. Her Wits About Her: Self Defense Success Stories by Women. New York, 1987.
Churchill, Ward and Jim Vander Wall. Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. Boston: South End Press, 1988.
Donner, Frank J. The Age of Surveillance. New York: Random House, 1981.
Gelbspan, Ross. Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement. Boston: South End Press, 1991.
Glick, Brian. War at Home: Covert Action Against US Activists and What We can Do About It. Boston: South End Press, 1989.
Sheila O'Donnell, a licensed private investigator and partner at Ace Investigations in California, was a founder of the Public Eye network. This article may be copied in its entirety without permission. Any adaptation must be approved in writing by the author. (c) 1995, Sheila O'Donnell.
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publiceye.com
If an Agent Knocks Federal Investigators and Your Rights Center for Constitutional Rights
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm
Background
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#backg
1.What is Political Intelligence?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#1
2.Do I have to talk to the FBI?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#2
3.Under what laws do the agents operate?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#3
4.What federal agencies are likely to be interested in a citizen's political activities and affiliations?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#4
5.How does the FBI learn about citizens and organizations?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#5
6.What if I suspect surveillance?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#5
7.How should I respond to threatening letters or calls?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#7
8.What rights do I have?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#8
9.What should I do if police, FBI, or other agents appear with an arrest or search warrant?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#9
10.What should I do if agents come to question me?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#10
11.If I don't cooperate, doesn't it look like I have something to hide?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#11
12.Are there any circumstances under which it is advisable to cooperate with an FBI investigation?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#12
13.How can grand juries make people go to jail?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#13
14.Is there any way to prevent grand jury witnesses from going to jail?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#14
15.What can lawyers do?
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#15
Errata
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#errata
Notes
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#notes
People opposing U.S. policies in Central America, giving sanctuary to refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador, struggling for Black liberation, and against nuclear weapons, are today more than ever likely to receive visits from FBI agents or other federal investigators. Increasingly, agents are also visiting the familist, friends, and employers of these activists.
This pamphlet is designed to answer the most frequent questions asked by people and groups experiencing government scrutiny, and to help them develop practical responses.
What is Political Intelligence?
Political intelligence is information collected by the government about individuals and groups. Files secure under the Freedom of Information Act disclose that government officials have long been interested in all forms of data. Information gathered by government agents ranges from the most personal data about sexual liaisons and preferences to estimates of the strength of groups opposing U.S. policies. Over the years, groups and individuals have developed various ways of limiting the collection of information and preventing such intelligence gathering from harming their work.
Do I have to talk to the FBI?
No. The FBI does not have the authority to make anyone answer questions (other than name and address [see errata]), to permit a search without a warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with an investigation. Agents are usually lawyers, and they are always trained as investigators; they have learned the power of persuasion, the ability to make a person feel scared, guilty, or impolite for refusing their requests for information. So remember, they have no legal authority to force people to do anything -- unless they have obtained an arrest or search warrant. Even when agents do have warrants, you still don't have to answer their question.
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#errata
Under what laws do the agents operate?
In 1976, FBI guidelines regulating the investigation of political activities were issued by Attorney General Edward H. Levi. Criticized by liberals and conservatives alike, the guidelines were issued in the wake of a Congressional committee's report of highly questionable activities by the FBI: monitoring the activities of domestic political groups seeking to effect change. The report exposed the FBI's counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) under which the agency infiltrated groups, compiled dossiers on, and directly interfered with individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and association.
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#fn1
The FBI COINTELPRO program was initiated in 1956. Its purpose, as described later by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize activities" of those individuals and organizations whose ideas or goals he opposed. Tactics included: falsely labelling individuals as informants; infiltrating groups with persons instructed to disrupt the group; sending anonymous or forged letters designed to promote strife between groups; initiating politically motivated IRS investigations; carrying out burglaries of offices and unlawful wiretaps; and disseminating to other government agencies and to the media unlawfully obtained derogatory information on individuals and groups.
In 1983, Attorney General William French Smith issued superseding guidelines that authorized "domestic security/ terrorism" investigations against political organizations whenever the FBI had a reasonable belief that these groups might violate a law. The new guidelines permitted the same intrusive techniques the FBI used against organized crime.
The Smith guidelines were justified by the Attorney General's observation that "our citizens are no less threatened by groups which engage in criminal violence for political... purposes that by those which operate lawlessly for financial gain." He concluded: "we must ensure that criminal intelligence resources that have been brought to bear so effectively in organized crime and racketeering investigations are effectively employed in domestic security/ terrorism cases." The guidelines provide, therefore, no safeguards to protect against infringements of First Amendment rights.
Worst, they ignore the history of COINTELPRO abuses, and abolish the distinction between regular criminal investigations and investigations of groups and individuals seeking political change. They fail to limit the investigative techniques used to obtain data on political groups, so that now the FBI may use any technique, including electronic surveillance and informers, against political organizations.
Today, the FBI may begin a full investigation whenever there is a reasonable indication that "two or more persons are engaged in an enterprise for the purpose of furthering political or social goals wholly or in part through activities that involve force or violence and a violation of the criminal laws of the United States." The FBI has interpreted "force or violence" to include the destruction of property as a symbolic act, and the mere advocacy of such property destruction would trigger an investigation. Even without any reasonable indication, under a separate guideline on "Civil Disorders and Demonstrations Involving a Federal Interest," the FBI may investigate an organization that plans only legal and peaceful demonstrations.
Another set of rules governing federal intelligence gathering is Executive Order 12333, in force since 1981. It authorizes the FBI and CIA to infiltrate, manipulate and destroy U.S.political organizations, as well as to use electronic surveillance -- under the pretext of an international intelligence investigation.
What federal agencies are likely to be interested in a citizen's political activities and affiliations?
The FBI is still the major national intelligence-gathering agency. There are also many other federal, state, local and private investigative agencies. At least 26 federal agencies may gather intelligence, including the Immigration & Naturalization Service, Internal Revenue Service, and the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Local police agencies sometimes contain "special services" units and narcotics or other "strike forces" in which federal, state, and local agencies cooperate. The Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency are particularly active when a political organization has or is suspected to have international contacts. Military security agencies and increasingly significant "private" research institutes and security agencies also gather intelligence.
A recent Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of the Livermore Action Group, an anti-nuclear organization, revealed that the Navy, the U.S. Marshal's Service, and the Marine Corps all sent agents to the Group's public meetings and kept newspaper reports of such meetings. Most chilling was the revelation that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) -- the federal agency charged with implementing martial law in the event of a nuclear war -- was also watching the Livermore group.
Federal and state, local and private agencies, all tend to share information in a variety of ways.
How does the FBI learn about citizens and organizations?
Political intelligence is gathered from public sources, such as newspapers and leaflets. It is also collected by informers who may be government employees or people recruited by them. Political intelligence is also collected through FBI visits to your home or office. We are here most concerned with this aspect of intelligence gathering.
Agents may be sent to interview people after FBI officials decide there is a "reasonable indication" that an organization or person meets the guidelines for a "domestic security" investigation. Such interviews are a primary source of information, for most people are not aware of their right not to talk to federal agents.
Most people are also unaware of the limits to the power of FBI and other investigative agents. Many people visited by agents are also afraid of being rude or uncooperative. Agents may be friendly and courteous, as if they are attempting to protect you or your organizati on, or express admiration for your organization and its goals. Occasionally, the FBI may persuade a disaffected member of an organization to give them information about other members, including their personal lives, character and vulnerabilities.
A major job of FBI agents is to convince people to give up their rights to silence and privacy. For example, after a Quaker pacifist spoke in Anchorage, Alaska, at a memorial Service for El Salvador's Archbishop Romero, FBI agents visited a local priest and interrogated him about the speaker. The agents asked about the speaker's organizational affiliations and expressed fears about "terrorist connections." The agents informed the priest that they would do a "computer check" on the speaker and his wife, and asked the priest if the two might do violence to the U.S. President, scheduled to visit the area. These interrogations were repeated in the community by agents who later admitted there was no basis for their questions about "terrorist connections" and the danger to the President.
What if I suspect surveillance?
Prudence is the best course, no matter who you suspect, or what the basis of your suspicion. When possible, confront the suspected person in public, with at least one other person present. If the suspect declines to answer, he or she at least now knows that you are aware of the surveillance. Recently, religious supporters of a nation-wide call to resist possible U.S. intervention in Central America noticed unfamiliar people lurking around their offices at 6 a.m., but failed to ask what they wanted and who they were. If you suspect surveillance, you should not hesitate to ask the suspected agents names and inquire about their business.
The events giving rise to suspicions of surveillance vary widely, but a general principle remains constant: confront the suspected agents politely and in public (never alone) and inquire of their business. If the answer does not dispel your suspicion, share it with others who may be affected and discuss a collective response. Do not let fears generated by "conspicuous surveillance create unspoken tensions that undermine your work and organization. Creating fear is often the purpose of obvious surveillance. When in doubt, call a trusted lawyer familiar with political surveillance. Please do not call the number that was printed here as the Movement Support Network Hotline, because it is no longer active, and is now the private residence of an unrelated person.
How should I respond to threatening letters or calls?
If your home or office is broken into, or threats have been made against you, your organization, or someone you work with, share this information with everyone affected. Take immediate steps to increase personal and office security. You should discuss with your organization's officials and with a lawyer whether and how to report such incidents to the police. If you decide to make a report, do not do so without the presence of counsel.
What rights do I have?
1.The Right to Work for Change. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of groups and individuals who advocate, petition, and assemble to accomplish changes in laws, government practices, and even the form of government Political intelligence gathering is not supposed to interfere with these rights.
2.The Right to Remain Silent. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to remain silent in the face of questions (other than name and address) posed by any police officer or government agent.Since 1970, however, federal prosecutors may request judges to order a subpoenaed witness to testify, after a grant of immunity, at a grand jury hearing or at a criminal trial. This grant of immunity means that your Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify is taken away. What is given to you is only the promise not to use your testimony against you in a subsequent criminal prosecution. But you can still be charged with a crime. Failure to testify after a grant of immunity is discussed on page 12 below.
3.The Right to be Free from "Unreasonable Searches and Seizures." Without a warrant, no government agent is allowed to search your home or office (or any other place that is yours and private) You may refuse to let FBI agents come into your house or into your workplace unless they have a search warrant. Politeness aside, the wisest policy is never to let agents inside. They are trained investigators and will make it difficult for you to refuse to talk. Once inside your home or office, just by looking around, they can easily gather information about your lifestyle, organization, and reading habits. The right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures" is based on the Fourth Amendment lo the Constitution. This Amendment is supposed to protect against government access lo your mail and other written communications, telephone and other conversations. Unfortunately, it is difficult to detect government interference with writings and conversations. Modern technology makes it difficult to detect electronic surveillance on a telephone line, other listening devices, or cameras that record whatever occurs in a room. Also common are physical surveillance (such as agents following in car or on foot), mail covers, and informers carrying tape recorders.
What should I do if police, FBI, or other agents appear with an arrest or search warrant?
Agents who have an arrest or search warrant are the only ones you are legally required to let into your home or office. You should ask to see the warrant before permitting access. And you should immediately ask to call a lawyer. For your own physical safety you should not resist, even if they do not show you the warrant, or if they refuse to let you call your lawyer. To the extent permitted by the agents conducting a search, you should observe the search carefully, following them and making mental or written notes of what the agents are doing. As soon as possible, write down what happened and discuss it with your lawyer.
What should I do if agents come to question me?
Even when agents come with a warrant, you are under no legal obligation to tell them anything other than your name and address. It is important, if agents try to question you, not to answer or make any statements, at least not until after you have consulted a lawyer.
Announce your desire to consult a lawyer, and make every reasonable effort to contact one as quickly as possible. Your statement that you wish to speak to the FBI only in the presence of a lawyer, even if it accomplishes nothing else, should put an end to the agents' questions. Department of Justice policy requires agents to cease questioning, or refrain from questioning, anyone who informs them that he or she is represented by a lawyer. To reiterate: upon first being contacted by any government investigator the safest thing to say is, "Excuse me, but I'd like to talk to my lawyer before I say anything to you." Or, "I have nothing to say to you. I will talk to my lawyer and have her [or him] contact you." If agents ask for your lawyer's name, ask for their business card, and say you will have your lawyer contact them. Remember to get the name, agency, and telephone number of any investigator who visits you. If you do not have a lawyer, call Movement Support Network Hotline (212) 477-5652, or call the local office of the National Lawyers Guild.
As soon as possible after your first contact with an investigator, write a short memo about the visit, including the date, time, location, people present, any names mentioned by the investigators, and the reason they gave for their investigation. Also include descriptions of the agents and their car, if any. This may be useful to your lawyer and to others who may be contacted by the same agents.
After discussing the situation with your lawyer, you may want to alert your co-workers, friends, neighbors, or political associates about the visit. The purpose is not to alarm them, but to insure that they understand their rights. It might be a good idea to do this at a meeting at which the history of investigative abuse is presented.
If I don't cooperate, doesn't it look like I have something to hide?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer involves the nature of political "intelligence" investigations and the job of the FBI. Agents will try to make you feel that it will "look bad" if you don't cooperate with them. Many people not familiar with how the FBI operates worry about being uncooperative. Though agents may say they are only interested in "terrorists" or protecting the President, they are intent on learning about the habits, opinions, and affiliations of people not suspected of wrongdoing. Such investigations, and the kind of controls they make possible, are completely incompatible with political freedom, and with the political and legal system envisaged by the Constitution.
While honesty may be the best policy in dealing with other people, FBI agents and other investigators are employed to ferret out information you would not freely share with strangers. Trying to answer agents' questions, or trying to "educate them" about your cause, can be very dangerous -- as dangerous as trying to outsmart them, or trying to find out their real purpose. By talking to federal investigators you may, unwittingly, lay the basis for your own prosecution -- for giving false or inconsistent information to the FBI. It is a federal crime to make a false statement to an FBI agent or other federal investigator. A violation could even be charged on the basis of two inconsistent statements spoken out of fear or forgetfulness.
Are there any circumstances under which it is advisable to cooperate with an FBI investigation?
Never without a lawyer. There are situations, however, in which an investigation appears to be legitimate, narrowly focused, and not designed to gather political intelligence. Such an investigation might occur if you have been the victim of a crime, or are a witness to civil rights violations being prosecuted by the federal government. Under those circumstances, you should work closely with a lawyer to see that your rights are protected while you provide only necessary information relevant to a specific incident. Lawyers may be able to avoid a witness' appearance before a grand jury, or control the circumstances of the appearance so that no one's rights are jeopardized.
How can grand juries make people go to jail?
After being granted immunity and ordered to testify by a judge, grand jury witnesses who persist in refusing to testify can be held in "civil contempt." Such contempt is not a crime, but it results in the witness being jailed for up to 18 months, or the duration of the grand jury, whichever is less. The purpose of the incarceration is to coerce the recalcitrant witness to testify. In most political cases, testifying before a grand jury means giving up basic political principles, and so the intended coercion has no effect -- witnesses continue to refuse to testify.
Witnesses who, upon the request of a grand jury, refuse to provide "physical exemplars" (samples of handwriting, hair, appearance in a lineup, or documents) may also be jailed for civil contempt, without having been granted immunity.
The charge of "criminal contempt" is also available to the government as a weapon against uncooperative grand jury witnesses. For "criminal contempt" there is no maximum penalty -- the sentence depends entirely on what the judge thinks is appropriate. Charges of criminal contempt are still rare. They have been used, however, against Puerto Rican independentistas, especially those who have already served periods of incarceration for civil contempt.
Is there any way to prevent grand jury witnesses from going to jail?
There is no sure-fire way to keep a grand jury witness from going to jail. Combined legal and community support often make a difference, however, in whether a witness goes to jail and, if so, for how long. Early awareness of people's rights to refuse to talk to the FBI may, in fact, prevent you from receiving a grand jury subpoena. If the FBI is only interested in getting information from you, but not in jailing you, you may not receive a grand jury subpoena.
What can lawyers do?
A lawyer can help to ensure that government investigators only do what they are authorized to do. An attorney can see to it that you do not give up any of your rights. If you are subpoenaed to a grand jury your lawyer can challenge the subpoena in court, help to raise the political issues that underlie the investigation, and negotiate for time. Your lawyer can also explain to you the grand jury's procedures and the legal consequences or your acts, so that you can rationally decide on your response.
ERRATA
A law enforcement official can only obtain your name and address if he or she has a reasonable suspicion to believe that you have committed or are about to commit a crime [note #2]. Thus, if an FBI agent knocks at your door you do not have to identify yourself to him; you can simply say "I don't want to talk to you," or "You'll have to speak to my lawyer," and then close the door. An FBI agent, unlike a local police officer, does not have jurisdiction to investigate violations of state statute.
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Feds/If_an_Agent_Knocks.htm#fn2
First Edition published March 1985.
Published by Center for Constitutional Rights 853 Broadway, 14th Floor NY, NY 10003 (212) 674-3303
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational corporation dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Contributions to the CCR are tax-deductible.
Additional copies or this publication can be ordered from the Center for Constitutional Rights at the address above. Your comments about this publication will be appreciated and will be useful in preparing future editions.
This pamphlet was prepared by The Movement Support Network with the help of Linda Backiel, Joan Gibbs, Jonathan Ned Katz, Margaret L. Ratner, Audrey Seniors, and Dorothy M. Zellner.
Photographs: Maddy Miller
Notes:
1.1 See Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, 94th Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 94-755
2.2 See e.g. United States v. Hensley, 83 L. Ed. 2d 604 (1985); Kolander v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983); Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979).
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ZAP ACTION - White House 11:00 AM Today
From: Adam Eidinger <aeidinger@yahoo.com>
Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:00:39 -0800 (PST)
ZAp Action!
The Justice Action Movement (JAM) will hold a ZAP Action at the WHITE HOUSE today when Dubya goes there to meet Clinton and Gore. The fun begins at 11:00 AM and goes til we get tired. Lets give the Commander N Thief a preview of the Inaugurauction! Bring signs, bull horns and puppets!
Onwards,
Adam Eidinger JAM
More info at www.inaugurauction.org Sorry for cross postings
"We are protesting the inauguration of a president elected through an exclusionary political system that is more beholden to corporate interests than the people. The Justice Action Movement (JAM) is a unified multi-issue coalition advocating a political system that gives each person full representation and justice. This historic election exposes the fundamental problems of the US electoral process. We call on all people to join the global movement for political, social, and economic justice."
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Millions for democracy
Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee
John Steinbach <jsteinbach@igc.org>
Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:07:48 -0400
FYI
A United Front To Mobilize Millions For Democracy: January 20 Must Be A Day Of Resistance
For several years thousands of Black people and our allies braved the bitter January cold to rally in Washington, D.C., under the leadership of Congressman John Conyers and Stevie Wonder, to fight to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. But what good is it to have a Martin Luther King Holiday when this nation is trampling on King's legacy, including the hard won Voting Rights Act of 1965. What we have witnessed is the massive disenfranchisement of Black voters in Florida and across the nation and the hijacking of the presidency with the sanction of the highest court in the land. In recent years, the "million march" phenomenon has become quite faddish. But if there was ever a time for a million people's march, the time is now. Black civil rights/human rights, political, civic, labor and religious organizations and grassroots groups need to launch a unified effort to mobilize millions for democracy. January 20, 2001, Inauguration Day should be a Day of Resistance.
As Dr. Manning Marable noted in a recent television interview in New York, there is a straight line between the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision which declared that "the Negro has no rights that white men are bound to respect;" Plessy vs Fergusion in 1896 which was the judicial capstone of the Post Reconstruction era (which began with the infamous compromise/betrayal of 1876), and the events of the presidential election of 2000 where countless thousands of Black voters have been disenfranchised. By a vote of 5 to 4, with Mr. Justice Thomas voting with the wrong side again (what a historical irony), the conservative majority on the Supreme Court used "strict constructionist," bureaucratic and technical interpretations of the U.S. Constitution to overrule the Florida Supreme Court's decision ordering a manual recount in several counties in Florida. Many of these counties have heavy concentrations of African American, Haitian and Hispanic voters. By ordering a halt to the recount, in effect, the Supreme Court of the United States spat in the face of millions of Black voters who had mobilized massively to promote and defend their interests and aspirations through the electoral process.
On November 7, Black folks marched on ballot boxes in record numbers, nearly 90% in Miami Dade County in Florida, to fend off what they perceived to be the dangers of a Bush administration. Black voters were not as much enamored with Al Gore as they were determined that the right wing counter attack and White backlash against the progress of the civil rights movement, as represented by forces behind George W. Bush, would be blocked from capturing the highest office in the land. Black voters, along with their allies in labor and other liberal-progressive constituencies succeeded in that quest only to have victory snatched from their hands.
Though election irregularities in Florida and across the nation were widespread, the most egregious violation was the thousands of Blacks who did manage to cast ballots only to have them thrown out by voting machines. This problem was aggravated by the disproportionate locating of antiquated voting machines in predominantly Black precincts in Florida. Hence, huge numbers of ballots with valid votes for President and other offices were not counted. These are the ballots that constitute the "undercount" which would have been rectified by the manual recount halted by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court of the United States, as it has in the past, aided, abetted and sanctioned the disenfranchisement of Black voters. By refusing to respect what is supposed to be the most fundamental right in the American democratic system, the right of citizens to vote and have their ballots counted, the highest court in the land altered the outcome of the election. The disenfranchisement of Black voters has produced an illegitimate President in the person of George W. Bush. It is an outcome that African Americans and all proponents of authentic democracy must reject. As in the past, the systems of government have failed Africans in America, leaving us no alternative but to take to the streets to express our utter outrage and opposition to the coronation of an illicit regime and to put forth an agenda for genuine democracy and social, economic and racial justice. The disrespected, dispossessed and disenfranchised, Black people and people of color must be at the center and at the forefront of a massive mobilization to finish the unfinished democracy, to perfect the imperfect union, to move from "democracy for the few" to a new society where the will of the people reigns supreme. It's time for the second American Revolution.
There can be no place for egoism and organization turfism at this critical juncture in our history. We urgently need Black civil rights/human rights, political, religious, civic and grassroots leaders to forge a "united front," to gather up and galvanize the anger in Black America and the nation over the imposition of a fraudulent administration, to mobilize millions for democracy. On January 20th the nation and world must see true patriots and democrats in the streets of the nation's capital engaging in non-violent direct action, declaring our intent to become ungovernable in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence in pursuit of real democracy. In the words of our beloved Black Shining Prince Malcolm X, it must be "freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody."
by Ron Daniels. He can be reached at <RONMAE@aol.com> The Black World Today <www.tbwt.com>
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Polish nurses rally for more pay
Infobeat
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Associated Press writer
December 18, 2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405395313
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Police in riot gear scuffled with hundreds of Polish nurses who blocked a main street in downtown Warsaw on Monday to demand higher pay.
More than 1,000 nurses halted traffic for three hours along the capital's main east-west thoroughfare before police with clubs, helmets and bulletproof vests moved in and began dragging them away.
Two nurses and one member of parliament, Piotr Ikonowicz, were taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
``We were forced into this situation by our subsistence wages,'' said one protester, 43-year-old Agnieszka Wyszczelska. ``I make $115 a month, and I have to borrow money from neighbors and from family.''
Many of the protesters moved on to disrupt traffic on other streets, picket the presidential palace or join colleagues who have staged a sit-in at the health ministry for a week.
About 60 nurses blockaded the Cieszyn border crossing to the Czech Republic on Monday but gave up after police threatened to disperse them. In other Polish cities, nurses blocked entrances to state offices and held up traffic on roads.
On Saturday, about 400 nurses blocked a major railway line and several border crossings for part of the day.
Poland's 250,000 nurses and midwives are among Poland's lowest-paid workers. They make an average of $114 to $205 a month, well below the national average of $454.
Deputy Prime Minister Longin Komolowski opened talks Monday with the All-Poland Union of Nurses and Midwives, but they were suspended when Komolowski said there was no money for pay raises this year.
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New York Times
December 18, 2000
Metro Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/nyregion/18MBRF.html
NEW YORK
MANHATTAN: POE HOUSE ARREST A man leading a protest outside a house in Greenwich Village where Edgar Allan Poe once lived was arrested about 10 p.m. Saturday because he did not have a sound permit, the police said. The man, William Tallen, 50, and others were reading "The Raven" over a hand-held microphone to more than 100 people who had gathered at the Poe House, on West Third Street between Thompson and Sullivan Streets, to protest New York University's plan to demolish part of the block - including the historic red-brick home - to make way for a law school building.He was arrested about 10 p.m., soon after he finished the last line of the poem and said, "Thank you for not arresting me," said the police and a witness, Peter Rooney. Edward Wong (NYT)
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