NUCLEAR
Chretien, Putin discuss nuclear missiles
Russia, Canada Seek Clarity on Missile Plan
Uphill march for Putin
Putin seeks Canada's help to fight U.S. missile shield
Russia, Canada call for stability on missiles
Canada, Russia Promise Closer Ties
Putin Pays a Visit to Canada, Winning Support on Missile Issue
Putin Asks Canada to Mediate With U.S.
Canada, EU Plan Defense Talks
Chretien, Putin talk arms
China Congratulates Powell, Wary of Missile Plans
Palestinian Hiroshima
Texas says no to DU counterweight disposal
TV documentary on Kosovo: can you help?
GULF WAR DU ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE REPORT
DoD Updates its DU Environmental Exposure Report
DoD examines vaccine use in the Gulf War
53% Increase In Early Childhood Cancers Near Nuke Power Plants
India, Pakistan Remain U.S. Concern
Russia's Top Spies Speak Out on Secret Police Day
Washington Calling:
Rich Slice of Soviet Asia, Left to a Lonely Despair
Questions Haunt Lazio's Eriksson
Hoover Institution Fellows
Prelude to a Missile Defense
The Bush foreign policy
Europe, Asia praise Powell, Rice choices
At the Movies: 'Thirteen Days'
States
U.S. Foreign Policy May Change
The Powell Perplex
Powell, Up First for the Bush Team
Text of Clinton - Bush Statements
Bush Meets With Clinton, Gore

MILITARY
Citibank Starts Selling $250 Mln Loan for Colombia
Colombian Army Goes High Up to Fight Rebels
Cadet charged with dealing LSD, Ecstasy
States
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT THE NICE SUMMIT
Burmese Sales to the Pentagon Spark Criticism
Rocky Road to Liftoff for a Successor to Space Shuttle
Pentagon supports arms sales to Taiwan
U.N. Rejects Troops for Palestinian Territories
U.N. withdraws from Afghanistan
World Briefing
U.S. angles for a smaller slice in U.N. budget
U.N. withdraws foreign-aid workers
Copernicus Therapeutics, Inc.
Conneticut
Democratic objections doom bill on voting booths

OTHER
Study: Cell phones not linked to cancer
Report lets cellular telephones off the hook
MANHATTAN: MAYOR ENDS RADIATION
M.T.A. SET FOR HYBRID BUS ORDER
World Still Gripped by Warming Trend
Washington Calling
New Jersey Pastoral
Mandatory Water Meters
HARTFORD: STATE ENTERS BEACH FRAY
States
What's Next for Biotech Crops? Questions
I.M.F. Plans Billions in Aid to Argentina
City Hall and Police Union Trade Blame as Talks Stall
Foreign Spying in Russia Is Reportedly on the Rise
Terror Label No Hindrance to Anti-Arab Jewish Group

ACTIVISTS
Join us in a Solemn Candlelight Vigil
Democracy Petition- It's Time to Rock the Vote!
CharitEx Expands Online Financial Services for Nonprofit Organizations

-------- NUCLEAR

Chretien, Putin discuss nuclear missiles

CBC News
WebPosted Tue Dec 19 00:42:21 2000
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2000/12/18/putin_001218

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chretien says Canada is caught in the middle of growing tensions between Russia and the incoming U.S. administration over nuclear missiles.

Chretien and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin have spent five hours behind closed doors over the past two days. When their meeting was over, the two men signed an agreement on nuclear stability.

Both are questioning plans by U.S. President-elect George W. Bush to create a national missile defence system.

Chretien and Putin and their key ministers signed an agreement on arctic co-operation, as well as the nuclear stability treaty - one that could catch the eye of the incoming president.

Canada and Russia have affirmed their support for the long-standing antiballistic missile treaty. And as soon as the ink was dry Chretien and Putin were questioning American plans to create a national missile defence system.

INDEPTH: An interview with Vladimir Putin

http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/putin/

Any North American system would need Canada's co-operation. Chretien admits being in between the U.S. and Russia on this issue is not a very comfortable position.

"We are in a bit of a geographical bind in a way, because Russia is on one side and on the other side is the Americans," said Chretien. "So we want to access all the consequences this program could have for Canada."

Russia says if the U.S. goes ahead it would destabilize world security. And now that it's no longer a superpower Russia is looking to Canada for a little leverage with Washington. Putin says Canada could act as mediator.

Putin appears to have gained Canada's cautious support in his fight against Bush's plans for a nuclear defence system. It's uncertain how the new administration in Washington will react to this new co-operation between Canada and Russia.

In other developments on Monday, Canada and Russia signed an agreement for greater co-operation in the Arctic as well as an Air Services Agreement. That allows both countries more landing rights.

Russian airlines now fly scheduled flights to Montreal. Under the agreement, they will get scheduled flights to Toronto and three other cities.

Putin is making his first official visit to Canada. Earlier on Monday, he met with the Governor General. Adrienne Clarkson spoke of the bond between the two countries.

"We are happy that we will be able to discuss with you the common interests in our North and the interests that we have also in good governance and in multicultural diversity," she said.

Speaking through an interpreter, Putin said the Canadian and Russian people must become closer and should work together.

"The global challenges of today, and the realities of the 21st century, call for us to pool our efforts and to work in close co-ordination - both in the bilateral format and in the international arena," he said.

Putin plans to explore an expanded trade relationship with Canada during talks with the government and business leaders.

Right now, exports to Russia account for only 0.2 per cent of Canada's international business.

Ottawa and Moscow are currently negotiating changes to a decade-old agreement designed to make it easier for Canadian businesses to invest in Russia.

On Tuesday, Putin addresses a business lunch in Toronto, where he's expected to tell people Russia is still a good place to invest.

---

Russia, Canada Seek Clarity on Missile Plan

Russia Today
Dec 19, 2000
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=231606§ion=default

OTTAWA -- (Reuters) Canada and Russia called on Monday for the U.S. to clarify its plans for an anti-missile defense system and reaffirmed their commitment to uphold a landmark 1972 arms treaty Washington may want to alter.

A statement signed by Prime Minister Jean Chretien and President Vladimir Putin during a three-day visit by the Russian leader called for efforts to bolster the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and press forward with other arms pacts.

Both men suggested Canada, with its sensitive geographical position between Russia and the United States, could act as a go-between in negotiations.

The joint statement described the ABM pact as a "cornerstone of strategic stability and an important foundation for international efforts on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation".

U.S. President-elect George W. Bush favors amending the ABM pact to enable Washington to proceed with a proposed missile defense shield to prevent strikes by "rebel states" like North Korea and Iran. Outgoing President Bill Clinton has left the decision on the system to his successor.

Russia and China have led denunciations of the proposal, while leaving open the possibility of talks. Canada and Western European countries have expressed deep suspicions.

Putin, who arrived in Canada on Sunday from Cuba, had suggested close positions on the missile issue could be the basis for extending co-operation between the world's two largest countries, which straddle a vast polar expanse.

The Russian leader told a joint news conference the U.S. missile proposal "without any doubt will cause serious damage to the existing system of international security and undermine work undertaken for decades."

"We proceed on the assumption that dialogue with our U.S. colleagues will be continued in a positive manner," he said. CANADA AS GO-BETWEEN

"Canada believes that it could play the role of go-between between Russia and the United States on this issue. I believe Canada not only can do this, but is fully entitled to do so."

Chretien said Canada had received no formal request from the United States to take part in development of such a system, but wanted to know more of the possible consequences.

"Our preoccupation and everyone's preoccupation is to ensure that the stability which exists now is not undermined by this plan put forward by the Americans," he said.

"We are in a geographical bind, because Russia is on one side and the Americans are on the other. We want to assess all the consequences that this program could have for Canada."

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.

Other agreements signed after the two leaders' talks included a Canadian pledge to ease Russia's process of joining the World Trade Organization, a statement on developing Arctic regions, the expansion of commercial air links and an accord boosting links between Russian and Canadian regions.

The two leaders have pledged to boost trade links, expected to climb to C$1 billion ($660 million) this year.

Putin was to meet parliamentary officials and the leader of the opposition and attend a state dinner before leaving on Tuesday for Toronto, where is scheduled to address business leaders.

---

Uphill march for Putin

Montreal Gazette
Tuesday 19 December 2000
http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/001219/5040172.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin has come calling with at least two big items on his agenda: to enlist Canada as an opponent of the U.S. national-missile-defence program and to persuade Canadians that Russia is a fine place to do business.

He has his work cut out, on both fronts.

While Canadians would love to see Russia prosper, Mr. Putin will have a hard time coaxing investments out of the business group he is to address in Toronto today - or anyone else - so long as corruption remains a big problem in his country, and so long as businesspeople cannot have much confidence that Russian courts will enforce contracts. Too many Canadian firms have had bad experiences.

Canada's announcement that it would help Russia fulfill some of the legal-reform prerequisites for membership in the World Trade Organization is welcome, but Russia clearly has much of its own work ahead of it (including significant lowerings of its tariffs) before it can expect actually to join.

As for missile defence, the most Mr. Putin could coax out of Canada yesterday was an expression of support for existing nuclear-arms accords and a statement that it is too soon to tell whether Canada would join Russia in opposing the plan.

At issue is a proposed successor to the Reagan-era Star Wars scheme to create a defensive system to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. The new plan is off to a slow start because of unsuccessful tests and the Clinton administration's ambivalence. However, U.S. president-elect George W. Bush seems keener.

The plan has been presented as a response to the threat of missiles launched at the United States by rogue states, but it has stirred vehement opposition from Russia, because it seems to contravene the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Canada, in the middle geographically, so far has found itself in the middle politically as well, appearing to share many of Russia's objections but also aware that membership with the United States in NORAD would make it difficult to take an independent course.

But Canada should indeed join Russia in opposing the plan. While missile defence sounds attractive, a major problem with it is that the obvious military counter-strategy of someone who expects to be faced with such a system is to build more missiles, so as to overwhelm defences. It also appears to be an impractical scheme that would just enrich military contractors with public money better spent elsewhere.

---

Putin seeks Canada's help to fight U.S. missile shield
Chretien sides with Russia, questions plan 'put forward by Americans'

Ottawa Citizen
12/19/00
Mike Trickey The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/001219/5040545.html

Prime Minister Jean Chretien sided decisively with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday in questioning the validity and necessity of a proposed new U.S. missile defence system.

Mr. Chretien, who usually displays little interest in foreign policy issues unrelated to trade, sounded more like his former foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, as he responded to questions about Canada's willingness to back the controversial program, which is supported by U.S. president-elect George W. Bush and vigorously opposed by Mr. Putin.

While careful to repeat that arguments about national missile defence were hypothetical because of repeated failures in American tests earlier this year, Mr. Chretien said Canada has many questions about the plan, which involves U.S. missiles intercepting incoming nuclear missiles and blowing them up in space.

"On the one hand, the U.S. often says this has nothing to do with the Russians, that it's more with regard to other states than Russia, but we have a lot of questions. Questions will be raised by the Canadian government," Mr. Chretien said at a news conference following a two-hour meeting with Mr. Putin.

The Russian leader is making his first visit to Canada since becoming president a year ago.

"We want to know all the consequences regarding stability if they put this system in place," said Mr. Chretien. "For every action, there is usually a reaction and we don't know what the nature of the reaction will be ... Our preoccupation and the preoccupation of everybody is to make sure that the stability that exists at the moment is not undermined by this plan that has been put forward by the Americans."

In a joint statement, Mr. Chretien and Mr. Putin underlined the importance of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and an important foundation for international non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament efforts.

Opponents to the national missile defence (NMD) system say the missile shield against attack by "rogue nations" that the U.S. wants to erect over its entire territory violates the ABM Treaty, which stipulates that no country can create a defensive system that provides full coverage.

The thinking behind the ABM Treaty is that if a country knows it will suffer badly in a counter-attack, it is unlikely to launch a first strike against its rival. The concept, known as mutually assured destruction, is credited with keeping the Cold War from becoming hot during the massive nuclear arms race of the 1960s-1980s.

Mr. Putin said Russia's objection to NMD is that if the Americans act unilaterally, it will upset the global balance of power.

"If one of the nuclear club members feels itself totally secure, this would absolutely change the balance of power in the international arena and this itself is a threat," Mr. Putin said, adding that Canada has a legitimate role to play because it is sandwiched between the continental United States, the ostensible target of a "rogue state" attack, and Alaska, which would be the launching pad for the American missile defence.

Mr. Chretien said he agreed with Mr. Putin's assessment that Canada is in a difficult position because "Russia is on one side and on the other side are the Americans."

U.S. military leaders want to operate the missile defence system out of North American Aerospace Defence (Norad) Command headquarters in Colorado. Norad is under joint Canada-U.S. command, and Canadian opposition to the missile plan might mean the end of Norad while the U.S. shifts missile defence to its own space command operation.

Mr. Chretien and Mr. Putin also agreed on the positive developments in Russia's business community, but provided little comfort to Canadian and other foreign investors who have had their enterprises stolen from them by crooked partners and corrupt courts.

Mr. Putin offered a lengthy explanation of the problems facing investors, claiming that most of their losses resulted from the 1998 Russian financial crash that was, he said, fallout from the Asian economic crisis.

He said a new tax code taking effect Jan. 1, new customs duties laws being put in place early next year and plans to strengthen Russia's arbitration and judicial systems will solve foreigners' problems, as well as those of domestic entrepreneurs.

"Those are necessary activities that are aimed at creation of necessary conditions that secure the interests of investors," he said. "This all has been done."

He did not touch on the rampant corruption inside and outside his government that has gone unchecked, nor did he talk about the country's infamous oligarchs, who have used their political connections and the point of a gun to take control of the country's natural resources and profitable businesses.

Mr. Chretien accepted Mr. Putin's assurances that all will soon be well and suggested the Team Canada trade trip scrapped in 1998 could be back on track as early as 2002.

Canada and Russia also signed three minor agreements yesterday.

One was a joint statement on strategic stability reiterating "the broad areas of agreement" between the two countries on many international security issues, including the "human security agenda," which pointedly did not mention Chechnya, which has seen tens of thousands of civilians killed, maimed or displaced in two separate wars over the past six years.

The other was a statement of co-operation in the Arctic and the north, particularly on environmental protection and sustainable development.

The final document reaffirmed Canada's support for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization.

Mr. Putin will address the leaders of Canadian business today in a speech to the Empire Club in Toronto.

---

Russia, Canada call for stability on missiles

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Tuesday, December 19, 2000
By TOM COHEN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/misl19.shtml
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=canada19&date=20001219
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=121900&ID=s897351
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/putin192000121978.htm
http://www.sltrib.com/12192000/nation_w/55109.htm

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Jean Chretien yesterday agreed with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin that 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. Asked if Canada joined Russia in opposing the missile defense plan, however, 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 President-elect George W. Bush will proceed on the matter must be answered before 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.

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 statements on cooperation in the northern regions they share and on Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization.

Canada said it would help Russia develop laws that conform to WTO legislation in other member countries and increase training for Russian officials in WTO-related areas.

With the three-day Canada trip that began Sunday night, Putin achieved his goal of meeting with every other head of state in the G-8 club of leading industrialized nations.

By playing host to Putin and a Canadian summit with the European Union today, Chretien is seeking to position Canada as a facilitator between Europe and the United States. Putin noted that because of its location, Canada is a natural intermediary on the missile defense issue.

---

Canada, Russia Promise Closer Ties

Reuters
December 19, 2000 Filed at 3:43 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Canada-Putin.html
http://www.herald.com/content/tue/news/brknews/docs/110763.htm

OTTAWA (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin got most of what he wanted in Canada -- agreements on closer cooperation and support for a bid to join the World Trade Organization -- but could not persuade Prime Minister Jean Chretien to reject a proposed U.S. missile defense plan.

The two leaders, continuing discussions that began over dinner Sunday night after Putin arrived from Cuba, met for 90 minutes Monday, then got together again for lunch and a state dinner.

With the trip, Putin achieved a goal of his first year in office: He has met one-on-one with each of the other leaders in the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations. It is part of his effort to invigorate a struggling economy and recapture some of Russia's Soviet-era status as a world power.

But the Russian president seemed certain to head home Tuesday with one hand empty after failing to elicit a firm Canadian statement opposing U.S. development of a national missile defense system.

U.S. supporters say such the purpose of the land-based system would be to intercept missiles that might be fired by rogue states. Russia says it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, tip the already lopsided scales of world power toward Washington and prompt a new arms race.

``We believe deployment would no doubt damage significantly the established system of international security,'' Putin said, later adding: ``This would ... absolutely change the balance of power in the international arena, and this itself is a threat.''

In a joint statement, Putin and Chretien did call the ABM treaty ``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 shares Russia's concern that the U.S. plan could spark a new round of weapons proliferation. But the issue is politically sensitive for Canada -- a NATO ally, northern neighbor and key trading partner of the United States.

Chretien said his country is 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 will 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 plan,'' he said.

The issue dominated a 20-minute news conference that followed the signing of agreements on expanded air services and increased cooperation between administrative regions in both countries.

Canada and Russia also issued joint statements on strategic stability and Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization. Canada agreed to help Russia develop laws needed for WTO membership and to broaden training programs for Russian officials.

Another statement promised cooperation in the Arctic and northern regions, including plans for a bilateral ``North-to-North'' conference next year to discuss issues and opportunities in the two nations' vast northern stretches.

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 leaders also discussed trade, with Putin saying a new tax system and customs duties should improve the environment. Canadian exports to Russia, battered by a 1998 economic crisis, fell to $116 million last year from $255 million in 1997.

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 for the Canada-EU summit.

---

Putin Pays a Visit to Canada, Winning Support on Missile Issue

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19PUTI.html

OTTAWA, Dec. 18 - Fresh from a visit to Cuba, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia visited Canada today and lined up its support for strengthening a cold war treaty that the Russians see as blocking an American national missile defense system.

"Canada and the Russian Federation agree that the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty is a cornerstone of strategic stability," read the joint communiqué signed by Mr. Putin and by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada. In a diplomatic offensive directed at American allies this year, the Russians have argued that the treaty rules out the kind of missile defense system advocated by President-elect George W. Bush.

Such a system, directed toward "rogue states" like North Korea or Iraq, could be operated without using Canada's Arctic airspace. But Canada's leader seemed unenthusiastic about the idea.

"Our preoccupation and everyone's preoccupation is to ensure that the stability that exists now is not undermined by this plan put forward by the Americans," Mr. Chrétien said at a joint news conference.

Before flying here on Sunday from Havana, Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer, worked to soften his image with Canadians. In an advance interview with Canadian reporters, he recited National Hockey League statistics, mused about working as an environmentalist after serving as president, and disclosed that he is studying English. Today Mr. Putin said Canada could be a "mediator" between Russia and the United States over the missile system issue.

Last month, after Mr. Chrétien won a third term as prime minister, his aides noted that, with President Clinton's retirement in January, Mr. Chrétien will be the longest-serving leader among the world's seven major industrial nations and Russia.

With his Canada trip, Mr. Putin achieves his goal of meeting this year with every head of government of the group, which also includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Saving this trip for last, he seemed to be trying to tweak Washington.

Some experts on Russia see a bit of tit for tat for American diplomatic and commercial forays into Russia's "near abroad" - the southern belt of former Soviet republics that are now independent nations.

"Putin, by bringing a diplomatic offensive into America's backyard, has played a weak hand very deftly," Joseph Cirincione, nonproliferation director for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a self-described "techno-skeptic" on the missile plan, said today from Washington. "The talks with Russians are going to be the way Powell described them on Saturday - tough negotiations," he said, referring to Gen. Colin L. Powell, tapped to be the Bush administration's secretary of state.

Mr. Chrétien said that the United States had not made any formal request for Canadian participation in the missile defense system: "We believe, at the moment, the question is more hypothetical because of the problems the Americans have had on technology.

Two of the most dynamic areas of cooperation between Russia and Canada were highlighted today. They are working to open up their space to send passenger jets over the polar region, which would generate million of dollars in new overflight fees. In the area of Arctic cooperation, Canada has spent $30 million on 45 development and aid projects for Russia's north since the end of the Soviet Union.

---

Putin Asks Canada to Mediate With U.S.

Washington Post
Tuesday, December 19, 2000 ; Page A36
By DeNeen L. Brown Washington Post Foreign Service
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/americas/A24445-2000Dec18.html

TORONTO, Dec. 18 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin pressed Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien today to mediate a dispute between Russia and the United States over a U.S. proposal to build a national missile defense shield.

Putin, making his first official visit to Canada, told Chretien that such a system would damage international security. It would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Putin said, and have the potential to start another arms race.

Chretien was noncommittal on Putin's request, saying at a news conference in Ottawa that it is too soon to discuss the issue. He added, however, that the Canadian government would formally ask the United States about the system -- current proposals for which call for the United States to build a network of anti-ballistic missile bases to protect it from a limited nuclear missile attack.

"We're in a bit of a geographical bind because Russia is on one side and on the other side [are] the Americans," Chretien said. "So we want to explore all the consequences for Canada. We don't want anything to happen to destabilize what is happening at this moment."

Chretien said Canada would take a "wait and see" stance until it learns whether President-elect Bush -- who has advocated such a system -- moves ahead with construction.

Putin condemned the system in strong terms today, saying at the news conference: "We believe the deployment of the national missile defense system will damage significantly the established defense system. This would absolutely change the balance of power in the international arena, and this itself is a threat."

In September, President Clinton left the fate of the system to his successor, citing diplomatic and technical problems. Two costly tests of the proposed system have failed, and many U.S. allies have spoken against the plan.

A Canadian official said today, "Canada has never been asked to participate in a missile defense system, so this is still a hypothetical situation." Nonetheless, the official said, "Canada believes very strongly in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which is the cornerstone for stability."

Putin and Chretien also signed minor agreements to increase trade and the number of commercial flights between the two countries. The two leaders also promised to work together to protect the environment in the Arctic.

---

Canada, EU Plan Defense Talks

Associated Press
December 19, 2000 Filed at 3:29 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Canada-EU-Summit.html

OTTAWA (AP) -- Canada and the European Union agreed Tuesday to meet four times a year to discuss Europe's new defense posture, including the planned creation of a rapid reaction force for crises that NATO declines to enter.

The agreement was one in a series on increased cooperation between Canada and the European Union emerging from a one-day summit, the last of France's EU presidency.

In setting up expert-level consultations on European security and defense policy, Canada and the EU were addressing concerns that the EU's recent decision to mount a 60,000-member rapid reaction force for peacekeeping missions and crisis response amounted to a challenge to NATO influence.

Born out of the inability of Western nations to act quickly during the Bosnian war and other European crises, the EU rapid reaction force would only take on missions turned down by NATO as a whole.

Most of the EU member states also belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which formed after World War II as a Western military alliance.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien and French President Jacques Chirac insisted Tuesday at a joint news conference with European Commission President Romano Prodi that the new European force would be an attribute, not a detriment, to NATO.

``We respect the essential nature of the Atlantic alliance,'' Chirac said, noting that the United States has in the past called for greater European participation in NATO missions. ``We cannot do this ignoring the United States, nor can we do this ignoring Canada.''

Chretien described the proposed European force as similar in concept to the bilateral security arrangement Canada has with the United States.

``We're a member of NATO and they have their own organization in Europe,'' he said of the EU and its proposed new military force. ``We're not part of it but through this document, we're associated with it.''

Canada went into the summit wanting guarantees the European force would only act in consultation with NATO, and would compensate the alliance if it used any NATO equipment or resources. The joint statement on defense and security called for quarterly meetings between Canada and the EU, with intensified consultations ``in times of crisis.''

Canada also volunteered to take part in missions of the proposed EU force, the statement said.

Chirac, Chretien and Prodi met for two hours before announcing agreements on increased cooperation in combatting international crime, programs involving higher education and training, development assistance, satellite navigation and defense and security.

They also discussed Chretien's meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which Putin denounced a proposed new U.S. missile defense plan as a threat to international security.

Chirac also expressed opposition to the plan, which would require changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nuclear nonproliferation. He said it could lead to ``a renewed proliferation.''

Chretien reiterated earlier statements that Canada had questions about the plan, but wanted to assess all consequences before making a final decision.

``We are of the same preoccupation that this could lead us to what we call a renewal of the armament race,'' he said.

---

Chretien, Putin talk arms

Chicago Sun-Times
December 19, 2000
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/combo19cx.html

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien agreed Monday with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin that existing nuclear arms agreements should be supported and strengthened--but he stopped short of joining Putin's opposition to a U.S. missile defense plan. Russia says the plan would breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Chretien said he would like to see how U.S. President-elect George W. Bush will proceed on the matter before making a final decision. "We don't want anything to happen to destabilize what we have at this moment," Chretien said.

-------- china

China Congratulates Powell, Wary of Missile Plans

Inside China Today
Dec 19, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=231796

BEIJING -- (Reuters) China sent congratulations on Tuesday to future U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, but reiterated opposition to a missile defense system that Powell and President-elect George W. Bush advocate building.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan sent a letter of congratulations to Powell, ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a regular news conference.

Asked to comment on Powell's support for missile defense, Zhang said: "The general trend of the current world is peace and development. But under such a background, some countries still want to deploy a national missile defense system".

"China is seriously concerned about it," she said. Powell gave his support for a missile defense initiative in a ceremony on Saturday marking his nomination by Bush.

U.S. President Bill Clinton has passed on to his successor the decision on whether to deploy the system, saying the technology was still not sufficiently researched to ensure it could protect U.S. territory from missile attacks.

China bitterly opposes the national system, fearing it could render its relatively small intercontinental nuclear arsenal impotent.

It also takes a dim view of Washington's proposed Theatre Missile Defense System to protect troops and allies in East Asia. They fear it would be used to shelter Taiwan, which Beijing has vowed to reunify with China, by force if necessary.

The defense system could shelter the island from mainland missiles, removing the threat of attack that is China's main means of deterring Taiwan from declaring independence.

NOT YET STRATEGIC PARTNERS

Powell said the United States would work under Bush's leadership to engage countries like Russia and China, which he said were "transforming themselves".

"We will work with them not as potential enemies, and not as adversaries, but not yet as strategic partners -- but as nations that are seeking their way," Powell said.

Bush referred to China during his campaign as a "strategic competitor" rather than a "strategic partner", as Clinton had termed the country.

Despite the change in rhetoric, Chinese scholars do not expect the Bush administration to adopt a confrontational China policy and view Powell as reassuringly moderate.

"He would certainly put American interests as a priority but he would follow the moderate line and he wouldn't go to any extremes," said Mei Renyi, director of American studies at Foreign Studies University in Beijing.

"I don't think that a new president and a new secretary of state would change China and U.S relations very much -- it would be more or less the same."

China would likely welcome another aspect of the new administration's foreign policy: its stated reluctance to use U.S. troops to intervene in humanitarian crises abroad.

China was a strident opponent of U.S. air strikes on Yugoslavia. The intervention struck a nerve in Beijing, where the government is navigating its own ethnic and separatist tensions in its western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

"On the whole the Americans are rather reluctant to send troops anywhere, but whether they will drop this idea of humanitarian intervention or not, we will have to wait and see," said Mei.

-------- depleted uranium

Palestinian Hiroshima

Tue, 19 Dec 2000 22:08:22 +0100
Jerusalem Post

(December 19) - Minister of Interior Dr. Yusuf Abu-Safieh has confirmed that the occupation authorities have started using radioactive uranium ammunition to suppress the intifada and destroy Palestinian society. Abu-Safieh added that President Yasser Arafat has decided to assemble a special committee to examine the situation. The minister has warned of the dangers of Israel's use of uranium waste and radioactive materials, explaining that their destructive effects only appear at a later stage through genetic deformities affecting several generations, as happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. - *(Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, Ramallah, December 15)

*The Jerusalem Post.

--------

Texas says no to DU counterweight disposal
Re Import license IW-010, Import of DU counterweights from UK for disposal in US

Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:47:17 +0100

excerpt from a Texas Bureau of Radiation Control Nov. 29 letter to NRC: (uncorrected OCR text obtained through ADAMS)

The exemption for depleted uranium aircraft counterweights in both U.S. NRC regulations [Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations Section 40. 13(c)(5)] and TDH BRC regulations [Title 25 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) Section (§) 289.251 (d)(3)(E)] is applicable only to counterweights installed in aircraft or stored or handled in connection with installation or removal of such counterweights; and~ manufactured in accordance with a specific license issued by the NRC. Because the counterweights in question do not meet the conditions specified in regulation for exemption, it is BRC's position that the counterweights are not exempt from regulation and must be disposed in a facility licensed for the disposal of radioactive material. Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas, is not licensed for the disposal of radioactive material and may not accept the counterweights for disposal.

---

Tue, 19 Dec 2000 22:45:05 +0100

TV documentary on Kosovo: can you help?
Louis Bertholet (SOVB)

Request for cooperation!

Michel Collon returned from Kosovo where he shot images for a TV documentary (50 minutes or more) about the situation of Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo today.

Please contact Michel Collon. All suggestions are welcome. Thanking you in advance!

Dear friends,

I just come back from Kosovo where I shooted images for a TV documentary (50 minutes or more) about the situation of Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo today. I was helped by very good and courageous profesionals there. We now have 450 minutes of very good interviews in Betacam.

This situation is dramatic and is not improving although there is now another government in Belgrade. On the contrary. Two weeks before, the representative of Belgrade was almost killed by a bomb. Many assistents of Rugova are also targets. Some Albanians I interviewed believe a civil war will occur in the next years. Between Albanians.

I interviewed many ordinary Serbs: old people beaten, expelled from villages or houses, doctors, nuns, journalists, teachers and children in the schools, theatre actors, families of kidnapped or murdered persons...

I also interviewed representative of other national minorities: Goranis, Roms, Moslims, Egyptians, Turks, Jewish. Expelled or living under terror. The situation in the ghettos is really terrible.

1200 Serbs were kidnapped and I received documents showing how KFOR (NATO) does not really investigate to find them neither the perpetrators.

I also interviewed a responsible of the civil Unmik administration whose opinions are very significant.

How can you help?

1. Do you know profesionals - producer and and mounter - who coule help me? We have no money but we believe it is our duty to communicate the truth all over the world about this Nato occupation.

2. Can you help to make translated versions in different languages? The interviews are in Serb (or Albanian and English), and will be translated to French)?

3. Can you help for the circulation of the film (I believe it would be good to present it for the second anniversay of the war)?

Please contact me. All suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!

-- Michel Collon

Don't hate the media, be the media.

---

GULF WAR DEPLETED URANIUM ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE REPORT UPDATED

Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:47:17 EST
No. 753-00 (703)695-0192(media)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 19, 2000 (703)697-5737(public/industry)

The Department of Defense released today an update to its environmental exposure report, "Depleted Uranium in the Gulf (II)," addressing information gained from ongoing investigations and research into the use of depleted uranium as it relates to U.S. servicemembers' exposure to the material during the Gulf War. Based on the scientific evidence developed so far, the report concludes it is unlikely that depleted uranium exposure is a cause of the undiagnosed illnesses some Gulf War veterans are experiencing. This conclusion is supported by a recent Institute of Medicine review of the scientific literature relating to depleted uranium. The first interim report about depleted uranium was published in August 1998. This updated report reviews research conducted by both governmental and non-governmental agencies. It also includes the latest data available from a study the Department of Veterans Affairs is conducting on servicemembers who had the greatest exposure to depleted uranium during the Gulf War. Since 1993, the VA has monitored 33 veterans who were seriously injured in friendly-fire incidents involving depleted uranium. About half of this group still have depleted uranium metal fragments in their bodies. Additionally, this update refines previous Gulf War exposure assessments. The first battlefield use of depleted uranium in tank armor and armor-piercing ammunition took place during the Gulf War. Military experts say that depleted uranium weapons and armor contributed to the overwhelming success of coalition forces during the Gulf War. But after the conflict, some veterans have expressed concern about the chemical toxicity and radiological properties of depleted uranium and possible health risks from its use. Environmental exposure reports contain what is known today about certain events of the Gulf War. They are part of DoD's efforts to inform the public about its investigations into the nature and possible causes of illnesses experienced by some Gulf War veterans. This report is posted on DoD's website GulfLINK at <A HREF="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/"> http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/</A>. Other publications of the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses are also listed at <A HREF="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/">http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/</A>

--------

DoD Updates its Depleted Uranium Environmental Exposure Report

gulflink.osd.mil
December 19, 2000 http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_du_ii_19dec00.htm

WASHINGTON, (GulfLINK) - Information gained from more recent investigations and research into the use of depleted uranium has prompted the special assistant for Gulf War illnesses to release an updated version of the Department of Defense's environmental exposure report on depleted uranium in the Gulf War. The additional information supports previous assessments that depleted uranium is not the cause of the illnesses some Gulf War veterans are experiencing.

The report originally released in 1998 explains that the first battlefield use of depleted uranium in tank armor and armor-piercing ammunition took place during the Gulf War. Military experts say that depleted uranium weapons and armor contributed to the overwhelming success of coalition forces during the Gulf War. But after the conflict, some veterans expressed concern about the chemical toxicity and radiological properties of depleted uranium and possible health risks from its use.

The report examines the issues regarding depleted uranium exposures during and after the Gulf War and includes an explanation of depleted uranium's properties. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the process for converting natural uranium into the enriched form used in nuclear weapons and reactors. What remains after the process, the depleted uranium, is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium. Depleted uranium is a toxic heavy metal. David Case, Ph.D., of the special assistant's environmental and occupational exposure team, says the health risks from its radioactivity are slight compared to the heavy metal toxicity risk.

"Exposure to depleted uranium can cause kidney problems because of its heavy metal toxicity," Case said. "The exposure that could cause radiation-related health problems is thousands of times more than the exposure that could cause heavy metal toxicity symptoms."

The updated environmental exposure report contains references to more recent information as presented in RAND's "Review of the Scientific Literature as it Pertains to Depleted Uranium." Other sources have also contributed to a better understanding of depleted uranium's effects.

"We also have a very important document put out by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry," said Case. "The ATSDR is charged with summarizing and informing the public about the health effects of hazardous substances."

Those profiles describe the toxicity of a substance over time. The ATSDR report on uranium focuses on the chemical toxicity of natural uranium, which is the same as that of depleted uranium. It also discusses how common natural uranium is, which is important when examining the effects DU may have on the environment.

"People who hear about the 320 tons of DU fired in the Gulf War have been led to believe that the DU could cause serious environmental problems, but the ATSDR report helps put it into perspective," said Case. "They report there are normally two to four tons of uranium in the top foot of soil per square mile."

The primary hazard associated with uranium is due to its chemical properties, not its radiological properties. ATSDR cites that "no human cancer of any type has ever been seen as a result of exposure to natural or depleted uranium" and further states that because of the low radiation from natural and depleted uranium, "no radiological health hazard is expected from exposure to natural or depleted uranium."

Case says the ATSDR report adds credibility to DoD's environmental exposure report because it provides a thoroughly peer-reviewed evaluation of uranium by an independent agency outside the Defense Department. In addition, the Institute of Medicine recently released a report that supports the environmental exposure report's conclusions. In "Gulf War Health, Volume I: Depleted Uranium, Sarin, Pyridostigmine Bromide, and Vaccines," the IOM reported its comprehensive assessment of the scientific literature available on four potentially harmful agents.

In its review of depleted uranium, the committee concluded "there is limited/suggestive evidence of no association between exposure to uranium and clinically significant [kidney] dysfunction."

The IOM also found inadequate evidence to determine whether an association does, or does not, exist between uranium exposure and other health outcomes. Citing information from studies of uranium processing workers and case reports of workers accidentally exposed to large doses of uranium compounds, the committee wrote, "While the studies did not suggest that uranium has adverse health effects, the studies were of insufficient quality, consistency, or statistical power to permit a conclusion regarding the presence or absence of an association in humans."

The revised environmental exposure report also updates the findings of the Department of Veterans Affairs study currently under way at its medical center in Baltimore, Md. Since 1993, the VA has monitored 33 Gulf War veterans who were seriously injured in friendly-fire incidents involving depleted uranium. Many of these veterans continue to have medical problems, mostly relating to the injuries they received during friendly-fire incidents. About half of this group still have depleted uranium metal fragments in their bodies. These veterans are being followed very carefully and a variety of medical tests are being done to determine if the depleted uranium fragments are causing any health problems.

So far, published results indicate the veterans who were in friendly-fire incidents have not experienced health problems related to their exposure to depleted uranium. Tests for kidney function have all been normal for veterans in the program. In addition, the reproductive health of this group appears to be normal in that no babies born to these veterans between 1991 and 1997 have exhibited birth defects.

"Overall, the medical news is good news," said Case. "But we're not stopping our work and Veterans Affairs plans to keep its investigations open, and continue to monitor those individuals."

The revised environmental exposure report also updates the Gulf War exposure assessments. Originally, the special assistant's office divided Gulf War exposures into three categories, Level I - involving around 170 servicemembers - being the highest level of exposure. The General Accounting Office criticized the original estimates, prompting the special assistant's office to take a closer look. These were re-examined by the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine staff who reevaluated the DU exposure Gulf War veterans may have received and the possible health risks.

"Modeling is not an exact science," Case continued. "It was difficult to interpret the exposure data because we didn't have a lot of it. The revised exposure estimates are still conservative." We are also sponsoring an expanded test-firing program, which is currently underway, to provide a full understanding of DU's health and safety characteristics in combat vehicles.

The updated estimates indicate that Level II and Level III exposure were far below any applicable safety guidelines. The assessments by CHPPM - together with the results of the medical follow-up program, and the work performed by RAND, the ATSDR and the IOM - form a body of consistent evidence indicating that depleted uranium exposures are not the expected cause of Gulf War veterans' illnesses.

This version of the report is an interim report. The final environmental exposure report on depleted uranium will be published when DoD is satisfied that the health risks involved have been thoroughly evaluated by the results from the live test-fire program. The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute and the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute are continuing their research on the effects of imbedded depleted uranium fragments. Also, several laboratories are testing uranium levels in the urine of veterans, and common standards are being sought so the results of those tests can be compared. And, the VA will continue their medical surveillance programs for Gulf War veterans.

The entire environmental exposure report can be read on GulfLINK. Case emphasized that this is an interim report. We encourage anyone with information that might impact its findings to contact the office by phone at (800) 497-6261 or by e-mail at brostker.osd.mil.

---

DoD examines vaccine use in the Gulf War
Shortfalls identified, improvements needed

gulflink.osd.mil
12/19/00
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_vaccine_19dec00.htm

WASHINGTON, December 19, 2000 (GulfLINK) - The Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses released today an information paper detailing vaccine use during the Gulf War. Since the return of approximately 697,000 Gulf War veterans nearly 10 years ago, a number of veterans have expressed concern that vaccines may have adversely affected their health.

The paper complements a recently released report from the Institute of Medicine that evaluates the published scientific research on the health effects of specific vaccines used during the Gulf War. Citing inadequate and insufficient scientific evidence to determine whether biological warfare agent vaccines are associated with long-term adverse health effects, the IOM recommended long-term studies of the recipients of the anthrax and botulinum toxoid vaccine.

Vaccines are commonly used health interventions that serve as critical countermeasures against infectious diseases and biological warfare agents. The military's dynamic nature and the unique and diverse missions also require constant review and updating of vaccine policy to incorporate advances in preventive medicine, as well as responding to changing health threats, analysts said.

"The purpose of this information paper is to provide information to veterans and other interested individuals about vaccines, their use by the military, and issues arising from the administration of biological warfare vaccines in the Gulf War," says Army Col. Frank O'Donnell, M.D., director, medical outreach and issues. "For veterans, we hope this paper provides some context in which vaccines were used and a reasonable explanation for the difficulties surrounding their use."

The information paper was co-authored by Thomas Cardella, M.D., an infectious diseases specialist, and Tom Rupp, a senior health policy analyst. Both are assigned to the special assistant's medical issues team.

The authors reviewed policy guidance, operational and historical documents, and clinical reports as source documents for the information paper. No individual health records were reviewed, says Cardella. He adds the paper cannot provide detailed information on the specific vaccines that individual servicemembers may have received. However, the general information about the individual vaccines used in 1990 and 1991, why they were used and who would have received them may shed light on a subject of significant interest to Gulf War veterans.

During the Gulf War, vaccines - including two non-traditional vaccines, anthrax and botulinum toxoid - were identified for administration in response to the infectious disease and biological warfare agent threat. The decisions to select and use these specific vaccines were based on assessments of the infectious diseases and biological warfare agents that service members were likely to encounter during the deployment.

Military immunization policies then - and today - are developed in consultation with the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board and the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. Particular emphasis is given to conditions that affect operational readiness, pose a risk in the community or occupational environment or are unique to a particular geographic or cultural setting, explains Rupp. The Defense Department also complies with communicable disease and adverse reaction reporting requirements established by civilian public health authorities.

The report notes that administration of the biological vaccines was characterized by several difficult issues, including a shortage of available quantities of vaccines to protect all servicemembers at risk, prioritizing military units for vaccination based the available vaccines and anticipated threat, and ensuring servicemembers had the information needed about the vaccines.

"Because supplies of the two biological warfare vaccines were limited, the DoD allocated the vaccines only to those personnel believed to be at greatest risk of exposure," Cardella says. "It was anticipated that the relatively long period between exposure and the onset of illness would make anthrax an agent more likely to be used against fixed and rearward units. The guidance called for two doses of vaccine approximately 14 days apart."

U.S. Central Command directed that personnel in units in the vicinity of Riyadh, Dhahran-Damman, King Khalid Military City -"KKMC" - Logistics Bases A, B C, D, and E, Headquarters VII Corps, the XVIII Airborne Corps, the 1st Cavalry Division and Bahrain receive the anthrax vaccine.

The botulinum toxoid vaccination guidelines specified that only personnel in units prioritized by Central Command, VII Corps and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, were to be vaccinated at that time and that limited available quantities of the vaccine would be available in February and March 1991 to vaccinate additional personnel. The guidance called for two doses of vaccine approximately two weeks apart, followed by a third dose 10 weeks after the second dose.

Because of the supply shortage, in some units vaccines were administered as voluntary. Rupp says that a message published after the Gulf War indicates that anthrax vaccinations were not portrayed as mandatory, but as highly recommended. Other reports indicated that the botulinum toxoid vaccine was likely declined by several thousand servicemembers. Informed consent wasn't required for either vaccine.

There is no accurate count of how many servicemembers received these vaccines. Estimates are that 150,000 received at least one dose of anthrax vaccine and 8,000 received at least one dose of botulinum toxoid vaccine. Rupp says that a recent survey of Gulf War veterans suggests that numbers of servicemembers who received these vaccines may be higher. "It is unfortunate that we don't have more accurate records of vaccinations from the Gulf War," says Cardella. "Today, this lack of documentation complicates research on possible connections between vaccines and the unexplained illnesses of some Gulf War veterans."

In addition to problems with lack of accurate recordkeeping, operational security concerns may have prevented many servicemembers from receiving important information about the vaccines they needed.

"During the Gulf War, the policy for informing servicemembers about the biological warfare vaccines was contained in the Central Command guidelines and was classified in order to preserve operational security. Prepared statements were to be read to servicemembers at the time of vaccination, but were not to be distributed," Cardella says. "Vaccine recipients were cautioned not to discuss the vaccinations with anyone."

Based on veterans' accounts, the policy to provide information to all servicemembers appears to have been implemented with varying consistency and success. A medical detachment commander reported that poor communication about the vaccines led to many fears among those potentially receiving the vaccines. There was a great deal of misinformation about the anthrax vaccine, he said. Many thought the vaccine was not FDA approved. Many feared drastic side effects. Other servicemembers reported they were provided no information on why the anthrax and botulinum toxoid vaccines were being given.

"Communicating information about health hazards of war and information about the benefits and risks of medical countermeasures like vaccines is essential. We tell Gulf War veterans they are their own best health advocate. They can't be an advocate unless they have the information needed," says O'Donnell. "This is one lesson of the Gulf War that is crystal clear."

Today, military personnel increasingly face routine deployments overseas and confront exposures to environmentally hazardous battlefields and risks associated with biological warfare agents. Vaccines are an integral part of DoD's new strategy of force health protection. The Gulf War experience has brought to light some shortfalls in vaccine administration.

"We have forwarded the observations in this information paper to the Lessons Learned Implementation Directorate for coordination with applicable offices within the military departments," O'Donnell says. "We intend to help ensure that identified issues are appropriately addressed."

Information papers are reports of what the Defense Department knows today about military, procedures and equipment used during the Gulf War. This release, the tenth information paper published by the special assistant's office, is intended to provide a basic understanding of vaccine administration. Although not an investigative report, the report will be updated if additional information becomes available. Gulf War veterans who have records, photographs, recollections or find errors in the details of the report are asked to contact the office at (800) 497-6261.

-------- germany

53% Increase In Early Childhood Cancers Near Nuke Power Plants

"Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>
Tue, 19 Dec 2000 01:56:55 -0500
http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/childrencancers.html

Please see list at bottom for other epidemiological studies around the world. If there's no quality study or studies of cancer & other immune suppression related diseases at reactors in your continent, country, area, people might organize to plan just such a study[s]. This is one of the best ways to get these things finally shut down- have accurate study[s] conducted & get this out to the local communitties most effected.

Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of German Nuclear Power Plants Alfred Körblein, Ph.D., Wolfgang Hoffmann, MD,MPH

Abstract

An epidemiologic study published in 1997 reported no significant rise in childhood cancer rates around West German nuclear power plants. The conclusions of this study were extensively used by politicians and lobbyists as proof of no increased cancer risk around nuclear power plants. A reanalysis of the data, however, reveals a statistically significant increase of childhood cancers (all malignancies) when the evaluation is restricted to commercial power reactors, the vicinities closest to the plants, and children of the youngest age group (0-4 years). The findings remain unchanged when the Krümmel reactor, with its known leukemia cluster, is excluded from the analysis. [M&GS 1999;6:18-23]

In November 1997, the German Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety announced to the media the results of a new investigation dealing with the incidence of leukemia and other malignant diseases in children living near nuclear power plants (NPPs) [1]. According to the Minister, the investigation had unequivocally proven that no risk exists. The study's conclusions were quoted extensively in the media and were readily exploited by lobbyists and supporters of nuclear power in the ongoing debate about health risks of NPPs in Germany.

The new study was essentially an update of an earlier study [2, 3] carried out by the Institute of Medical Statistics and Documentation (IMSD) in Mainz, Germany. The first study, covering the years 1980 to 1990, had found a significant increase in early infant leukemias within 5 km of all nuclear installations. The authors of the extended study (1980-1995) concluded that these risks were no longer significant. Furthermore, they claimed that no further research was necessary, since the new study had been based on more than 2,500 cases, and that the hitherto controversial issue was finally resolved.

In several previous studies in Germany and in other countries, however, increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations had been observed. Increased leukemia rates were reported for children living in the town of Seascale [4,5], near nuclear weapon factories in Great Britain [6], in the vicinity of the nuclear installation of Dounreay, Scotland [7], near the French nuclear reprocessing plant of La Hague [8], and for several locations in Germany [9]. Recent results from Japan, though based only on mortality, seem to confirm the general association [10,11]. A comprehensive study around nuclear power plants in England [12,13], again revealed significant increases in cancer mortality rates.

Conflicting Conclusions

The results of the first IMSD report [2,3] were generally in line with the observations referenced above. The negative findings in the updated report prompted a re-evaluation of the evidence and of the IMSD conclusions. To date, the new study has not been published in the scientific literature. The re-evaluation presented here is therefore based on a Technical Report provided by the IMSD [1].

In 1990-91, an unprecedented time-space cluster of childhood leukemia cases was observed in the immediate vicinity of the Krümmel nuclear boiling water reactor (BWR) [14,15]. Clusters in the vicinities of two other German BWRs (Lingen and Würgassen) had been reported earlier [16-18] and were reviewed [9]. These observations raised some concern about possible systematic differences in the emissions of the two reactor types. Unlike pressurized water reactors (PWRs), which have a secondary cooling circuit separating the radioactive primary water from the turbines, BWRs pass the steam in the primary circuit directly through the generating turbine. Due to this technical difference, BWRs are generally considered to release more radiation to the environment than comparable PWRs.

Based on data from the IMSD, the authors investigated whether childhood cancer rates (all malignancies) and in particular, childhood leukemia rates near the 15 sites of German commercial nuclear power reactors show increases compared to the defined control areas [1]. The 15 NPP sites were further subdivided into 7 BWR sites and 8 PWR sites. All sites with both types of reactors were considered BWR sites. To see whether a possible increased risk around NPPs is solely due to the Krümmel site with its known cancer cluster, the analyses were repeated with the Krümmel NPP excluded.

Material and Methods

Since 1980 all incident childhood malignancies are registered in the National Childhood Cancer Registry at the Institute of Medical Statistics and Documentation (IMSD) in Mainz, Germany. The data are used in epidemiologic research projects conducted by the IMSD. They are, however, not released to other scientists. The authors of the IMSD studies on childhood malignancies in the vicinity of German nuclear power plants were contacted, but access to the original data was not granted. The present analyses are therefore based on tables of data published in the appendices of the IMSD Technical Report [1]. Upon special request, site specific data for children below age 5 were also obtained from the IMSD in an aggregate form (i.e. all nuclear facilities, all 15 NPP sites, and all BWR sites, respectively).

In the IMSD report, the study areas around NPPs were compared with matched control areas with similar population densities and social structures. Standardized incidence rates (SIRs) were calculated for the study areas and the control areas. SIRs were defined as the number of observed cancer cases divided by the number of expected cases. Expected cases were calculated based on the population size in each age stratum and the average age-group-specific childhood cancer incidence rate in Germany. The relative risk is defined as the ratio of the SIR in the study group, divided by the SIR in the control group.

In all calculations, the hypothesis H1--that there is an observed increase in childhood cancer rates around the sites of nuclear power plants compared to control areas--is tested against hypothesis H0--that the number of observed cases is less than or equal to the number of expected cases.

The method described in the earlier IMSD study [2,3] was used to test for statistical significance. A statistical test provides a "p-value," which is the probability that the test result occurs by chance. According to a generally accepted convention, a p-value less than 0.05 is considered statistically significant and, hence, sufficiently unlikely to be due to chance. The more recent IMSD report provides two-sided p-values. These p-values correspond to the question whether the cancer rates near NPPs differ from the expected rates, irrespective of the direction of the difference. No mechanism has so far been discovered through which the presence of a nuclear power plant could reduce childhood leukemia risk. The authors believe, therefore, that the hypothesis under study is whether childhood cancers are significantly increased around NPPs; that this hypothesis is a genuine one-sided question; and that, consequently, a one-sided p-value should be provided. This approach is consistent with the earlier IMSD study, which had also calculated one-sided p-values [1].

In addition to sites of commercial nuclear power plants, the authors of this earlier study included sites of two nuclear research facilities (Karlsruhe and Jülich), one small research reactor (Kahl, capacity 16 MW) that was decommissioned in 1985, one prototype high temperature reactor (Hamm-Üntrop, 307 MW) that operated for a total of about 400 days, and a commercial reactor (Mülheim-Kärlich) that operated for several months (Table 1).

Since the radioactive inventory of research reactors is only 0.01-0.001 times that of typical commercial reactors, the authors were reluctant to evaluate both groups together. Power reactors with a very short time period of operation were also excluded, since their contribution to the overall population exposure was small compared to the remaining reactors that were operated on average for more than 15 years. Hence, this analysis was restricted to the 15 sites of commercial reactors.

In all analyses, IMSD's matched 15-km control regions were retained for each of the respective nuclear sites. While the study areas were subdivided into concentric regions of 0-5, 5-10, and 10-15 km radius, these were always compared with the complete 15 km control regions. Results

Both IMSD studies included all 20 sites of nuclear reactors in Germany. Sites were chosen as the unit of observation rather than nuclear reactors since, at a few of the sites, multiple nuclear reactors are, or have been, in operation for various periods of time between 1980 and 1995. All nuclear installations under study are listed in Table 1. At some of the sites, both pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors were operated. These sites are categorized here as BWR sites.

This paper focuses on the 0-5 km regions of the 15 commercial NPP sites. After evaluating the risks for all children below age 15, the authors further restrict the analyses to early childhood cancers (i.e. children less than 5 years of age). The results of these calculations are presented in tables 2-5.

All childhood malignancies (0-14 years): In agreement with [1], no excess risk is yielded when all 20 nuclear facilities are taken together (RR

1.04; p0.345). A significant (22%) increase of childhood cancers (all malignancies), however, was found around the 15 commercial power reactors (p0.047; Table 2). There are 93 observed vs. 74.9 expected cases in the study area and 578 vs. 566.8 in the control area. The increased overall risk around NPPs is essentially attributable to the BWR sites where the RR is 1.40 (p0.021), while the RR is only 1.05 around the PWR sites. The increased RR around the BWR sites remains statistically significant even when the Krümmel BWR is excluded from the analysis (RR1.40, p0.035; Table 2).

Acute childhood leukemias: The increase in acute childhood leukemias is 34% around the commercial NPP sites. Due to small numbers, this increase is not statistically significant (p0.073; Table 3). The incidence rate around all 20 nuclear facilities is considerably smaller (RR1.12; p0.258). Without the Krümmel NPP, the RR around all commercial reactors is 1.13. All BWRs yield an RR of 1.45 (p0.098). After exclusion of the Krümmel BWR, this RR becomes 1.0. Hence in this analysis the statistically nonsignificant (45%) increase of acute leukemia risk near BWRs is entirely attributable to the BWR Krümmel.

Early infant malignancies (0-4 years): Around the 15 commercial reactor sites, a statistically significant (53%) increase of cancer rates (all malignancies) was observed; the corresponding p-value is p0.0034 (Table 4). The increase is more pronounced around BWR sites (RR1.70, p0.008) compared to PWR sites (RR1.40, p0.085). Exclusion of the Krümmel BWR does not substantially change the RR (RR1.53, p0.006).

Around the other nuclear facilities, the risk is significantly reduced compared to the control areas (RR0.48). This explains the nonsignificant overall risk for early infant malignancies around all 20 nuclear facilities provided in the IMSD report (RR1.10, p0.258).

Early infant leukemias (0-4 years): In this age group the increase of acute leukemia incidence (RR1.76, p0.012) around all commercial sites is somewhat more pronounced than the increase for all malignancies (Table 5). There is no substantial difference in risk near BWRs (RR1.86, p0.038) and PWRs (RR1.71, p0.087). Even when evaluating all 20 nuclear facilities, the increase is statistically significant (RR1.49, p0.029). Excluding the Krümmel BWR, the relative risk around commercial reactors is 1.49 (p0.077), and 1.33 around BWRs (p0.276).

All childhood malignancies; dependent on distance: Table 6 gives the numbers of all malignancies in children below age 15 in the three distance rings from the 15 NPP sites. As already pointed out, the increase is 22% in the 5 km zone, while no increase is found in the two outer distance rings (5-10 km: RR1.01; 10-15 km: RR0.92). This analysis reveals a significant direct relationship between RR and the inverse distance from the site (p0.028, one-sided test). The incidence rate in the inner 5 km zone was also compared with the rates in the combined two outer zones (5-15 km); the combined two inner zones (0-10 km) were then compared with the outer zone (10-15 km). Using the binomial test, the incidence rates in the inner zones were found to be significantly higher in both cases than in the outer zones (p0.017 and p0.034 respectively, Table 6).

Discussion

In this reanalysis evidence was observed of significant increases of early childhood cancer incidence and, particularly, leukemia rates near German commercial nuclear power reactors in the time period 1980-1995. The overall increase cannot be accounted for by the known leukemia cluster at the Krümmel BWR since the RR remains high even after exclusion of the Krümmel site. These findings contradict the conclusion of the official IMSD report [1].

Since a beneficial effect of ionizing radiation on childhood cancer is considered impossible, a one-sided significance test was applied throughout these analyses. Nevertheless, the results for early chidhood cancers (p0.007) as well as for acute leukemias (p0.024) would remain statistically significant, even were the two-sided test used. For all malignancies in children below age 15, the two-sided test does not achieve statistical significance around all 15 commercial nuclear reactor sites. For BWR sites alone, however, a significant increase is observed.

The numbers of cases are small: for children below age 15 there are 19 excess cancers in the 16-year study period. The same excess is obtained with children below age 5. It should be understood that due to the ecologic nature of this study, increased relative risks merely represent associations and must not be interpreted as a proof of causality. Nevertheless, the results are consistent with an actual influence by German nuclear power plants on childhood cancers:

a.. The IMSD findings are generally consistent with published results from Germany and other countries.

b.. The increased risks are confined to the immediate vicinity of the plants. This would be expected if NPPs were in fact point sources of any actual risk factor (e.g. radioactive emissions).

c.. Relative risks are higher around BWRs, which are known to release higher quantities of radionuclides than PWRs [19].

d.. Relative risks are higher for acute leukemia for which a radiogenic etiology is firmly establishede.. Relative risks are higher for younger children. This again would be expected since it is known that radiosensitivity is higher in early childhood and even higher prenatally [20-22]. The observed 53% increase of early infant cancer rates in the vicinity of NPPs is much greater than expected based on the estimated radioactive releases by German NPPs. Extrapolation of radiogenic risk from higher doses to the very low dose range under the prevailing assumption of a linear dose-response relation would not result in any detectable excess risk. Radiobiological knowledge about the effects of very low cumulative doses and dose rates (dose per unit time) of ionizing radiation is inconclusive, however, and data is virtually lacking. Instead, there is an ongoing controversy among experts about the quantitative effect of very small doses, especially with respect to incorporated radionuclides. Some experts claim that there might be a highly increased sensitivity of the human organism at very low doses and that the extrapolation from high doses underestimates the low dose effect of radiation [23].

To clarify whether or not low levels of ionizing radiation pose a health risk to the general population, analytical instead of descriptive epidemiology is required. Two recent analytical studies seem to support an actual health risk. In a case control study, Morris and Knorr [24] observed a statistically significant positive association between risk of leukemia (all forms except chronic lymphatic leukemia [CLL]) and individual accumulated exposure to airborne emissions from the Pilgrim BWR (Massachusetts, USA). Another case control study observed an increased leukemia risk around the La Hague reprocessing plant (LaHague, France) [25]. There, the excess leukemia risk was found to be associated with use of local beaches and local shellfish consumption.

Conclusion

The 1997 IMSD report [1] presently provides the most detailed analysis of childhood cancers around nuclear power plants in Germany. Its negative conclusion, however, need to be questioned.

The observed increase in the cancer rate for the most vulnerable (youngest) subgroup near commercial nuclear reactors deserves particular attention. The issue of adverse health effects in the vicinity of NPPs is far from resolved and definitely requires further study.

References

1. Kaletsch U, Meinert R, Miesner A, Hoisl M, Kaatsch P, Michaelis J. Epidemiologische Studien zum Auftreten von Leukämieer-krankungen bei Kindern in Deutschland. Bonn: Der Bundesminister für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit, 1997. [Return to text]

2. Keller B, Haaf G, Kaatsch P, Michaelis J. Untersuchungen zur Häufigkeit von Krebser-krankungen im Kindesalter in der Umgebung westdeutscher kerntechnischer Anlagen 1980-1990. IMSD Technischer Bericht. Mainz: Institut für Medizinische Statistik und Dokumentation der Universität Mainz, 1992. [Return to text]

3. Michaelis J, Keller B, Haaf G, Kaatsch P. Incidence of childhood malignancies in the vicinity of West German nuclear power plants. Cancer Causes Control 1992;3:255-63. [Return to text]

4. Gardner MJ. Review of reported increases of childhood cancer rates in the vicinity of nuclear installations in the UK. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 1989;152:307-25. [Return to text]

5. Gardner MJ, Hall AJ, Downes S, Terrell JD. Follow up of children born to mothers resident in Seascale, West Cumbria (birth cohort). BMJ 1987;295:822-7. [Return to text]

6. Roman E, Beral V, Carpenter L, Watson A, Barton C, Ryder H, et al. Childhood leukemia in the West Berkshire and Basingstoke and North Hampshire District Health Authorities in relation to nuclear establishments in the vicinity. BMJ 1987;294:597-602. [Return to text]

7. Heasman MA, Kemp IW, Urquhart JD, Black R. Childhood leukemia in northern Scotland [letter]. Lancet 1986 Feb 1;1:266. [Return to text]

8. Viel J-F, Pobel D, Carré A. Incidence of leukemia in young people around the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing plant: A sensitivity analysis. Statistics in Medicine 1995;14:2459-72. [Return to text]

9. Hoffmann W. Review and discussion of epidemiologic evidence for childhood leukemia clusters in Germany. In: Schmitz-Feuerhake I, Schmidt M, editors. Radiation exposures by nuclear facilities. Evidence of the impact on health. Münster: Gesellschaft für Strahlen-schutz (German Society for Radiation Protection), 1998:86-117. [Return to text]

10. Iwasaki T, Nishizawa K, Murata M. Leukemia and lymphoma mortality in the vicinity of nuclear power stations in Japan, 1973-1987. J Radiol Prot 1995;25(4):271-88. [Return to text]

11. Hoffmann W, Kuni H, Ziggel H. Leukemia and lymphoma mortality in the vicinity of nuclear power stations in Japan 1973-1987 (letter). J Radiol Prot 1996;16:213-5. [Return to text]

12. Forman D, Cook-Mozaffari P, Darby S, Davey G, Stratton I, Doll R, et al. Cancer near nuclear installations. Nature 1987;329:499-505. [Return to text]

13. Cook-Mozaffari PJ, Darby SC, Doll R, Forman D, Hermon C, Pike M, et al. Geographical variation in mortality from leukemia and other cancers in England and Wales in relation to proximity to nuclear installations, 1969-78. Br J Cancer 1989;59:476-85. [Return to text]

14. Dieckmann H. Häufung von Leukämieer-krankungen in der Elbmarsch. Gesundheits-wesen 1992;10:592-6. [Return to text]

15. Hoffmann W, Dieckmann H, Schmitz-Feuerhake I. A cluster of childhood leukemia near a nuclear reactor in northern Germany. Arch Environ Health 1997;52(4):275-80. [Return to text]

16. Stein B. Krebsmortalität von Kindern unter 15 Jahren, Säuglingssterblichkeit und Tot-geburtenrate in der Umgebung des AKW Lingen. Berlin: Arbeitsgruppe Umweltschutz Berlin e.V., Eigenverlag, 1988. [Return to text]

17. Prindull G, Demuth M, Wehinger H. Cancer morbidity rates of children from the vicinity of the nuclear power plant of Wurgassen (FRG). Acta Haematol 1993;90:90-3. [Return to text]

18. Demuth M. Leukämieer-krankungen bei Kindern in der Umgebung von Atomanlagen. In: Köhnlein W, Kuni H, Schmitz-Feuerhake I, editors. Niedrigdosisstrahlung und Gesundheit. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1990:127-35. [Return to text]

19. Widermuth H, Kainz M, Haubelt R. Strahlenexposition der Bevölkerung durch mit der Fortluft aus Kernkraftwerken emittierte Radionuklide. In: Jahresbericht 1996. Salzgitter: Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, 1996. [Return to text]

20. Shimizu Y, Kato H, Schull WJ. Studies of the mortality of A-bomb survivors. Mortality 1950-1985: Part 2. Cancer mortality based on the recently revised doses (DS86). Radiat Res 1990;121(2):120-41. [Return to text]

21. Stewart AM, Gilman EA, Kneale GW. Radiation dose effects in relation to obstetric X-ray and childhood cancer. Lancet 1970;2:1185-8. [Return to text]

22. Schmitz-Feuerhake I, v.Boetticher H, Dannheim B, Götz K, Grell-Büchtmann I, Heimers A, et al. Strahlenbelas-tung durch Röntgendiagnostik bei Leukämie-fällen in Sittensen im Landkreis Rotenburg/Wümme. In: Lengfelder E, Wendhausen H, editors. Neue Bewertung des Strahlenrisikos: Niedrigdosis-strahlung und Gesundheit. München: MMV Medizin-Verlag, 1993:93-101. [Return to text]

23. Nussbaum R, Köhnlein W. Inconsistencies and open questions regarding low-dose health effects of ionizing radiation. Environ Health Perspect 1994;102:656-67. [Return to text]

24. Morris MS, Knorr RS. Adult leukemia and proximity-based surrogates for exposure to Pilgrim Plant's nuclear emissions. Arch Environ Health 1996;51(4):266-74. [Return to text]

25. Pobel D, Viel J-F. Case-control study of leukemia among young people near LaHague nuclear reprocessing plant: The environmental hypothesis revisited. BMJ 1997;314:101-6. [Return to text]

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Professor J. Michaelis at the ISDM for providing the data, Hagen Scherb for his help with the statistical treatment, and John Otranto for help with the translation and valuable comments.

Alfred Körblein is Senior Scientist, Umweltinstitut Muenchen (Munich Environmental Institute), Munich, Germany. Wolfgang Hoffmann is an epidemiologist and Scientific Assistant, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research, Social Medicine and Epidemiology. Address correspondence to: Dr. Alfred Körblein, PhD, Schwere-Reiter-Str. 35/1b, D-80797 Muenchen, Germany; email: ak@umweltinstitut.m.shuttle.de

-------- india / pakistan

India, Pakistan Remain U.S. Concern

Associated Press
December 19, 2000 Filed at 4:34 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-India-Bush.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/121900/india_bush.sml

NEW DELHI, India -- A year ago, George W. Bush couldn't name the leader of India or Pakistan when faced with a reporter's pop quiz during the campaign.

Now the two countries, whose bitter rivalry over disputed Kashmir resounds worldwide because both have tested nuclear weapons, are wondering what a Bush presidency will mean for the subcontinent.

Indian leaders, charmed last March when Democrat Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit the country in more than 20 years, are hoping a year of unprecedented warmth in relations will continue under Bush despite U.S. concerns about nuclear arms.

Pakistani officials, meanwhile, hope a Republican administration will be more sympathetic. But the country, run by a military chief after a bloodless coup in 1999, is at odds with Washington over its nuclear effort and over neighboring Afghanistan's Taliban militia.

The hostile relationship between India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since 1947, is likely to remain a major U.S. foreign policy concern.

Under Clinton, Washington has pushed both countries to sign a global treaty banning nuclear tests. The United States has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty but not ratified it, and Bush backs the Senate's rejection of the pact -- a position that has won him praise from both India and Pakistan.

``We expect the U.S. will reduce pressure on Pakistan regarding the signing of the CTBT because Republicans themselves are not in favor of this treaty,'' said Shireen Mazari, director of the Pakistan's government-run Institute of Strategic Studies.

Neither Pakistan nor India has signed the treaty, but each has committed to a moratorium on nuclear testing until it comes into force. U.S. sanctions imposed on India after its 1998 tests remain in place.

India's Cold War ties to the Soviet Union turned Pakistan into Washington's natural ally, but that has changed since the Soviet collapse and the United States has grown much closer to India.

Clinton exchanged visits this year with Indian Prime Minister Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and economic relations between the world's most powerful democracy and the world's most populous democracy have been improving.

Indian officials are cautiously optimistic that ties will strengthen under Bush, whose father was president from 1988-92. During the campaign, the younger Bush spoke to Vajpayee on the phone and said in a speech that the new century would see India's arrival as a force in the world.

``I don't see any basic change in the U.S. policy toward India,'' said former Indian foreign secretary Mani Dixit. ``India's relations with the United States were all right during his father's presidency.''

In Pakistan, military chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf said last week that he hoped for friendly ties.

``Under the Republicans we don't expect U.S.-Pakistan relations to deteriorate as they did under the Democrats,'' Mazari said. ``We expect a shift in nuance.''

But the think tank director said Pakistan should distance itself from the United States because the two countries have opposing interests in the region, particularly on China and Afghanistan.

The United States has accused China of helping Pakistan develop its missile and nuclear technology. Pakistan has close ties with Afghanistan's Taliban, which Washington accuses of harboring terrorists.

-------- russia

Russia's Top Spies Speak Out on Secret Police Day

New York Times
December 19, 2000 Filed at 4:22 p.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's two top spies have emerged from their cloak and dagger world to warn off foreign agents, but also encourage international cooperation.

The heads of Russia's FSB domestic counter-intelligence service and the SVR foreign intelligence agency broke with their usual secrecy in rare interviews to be published on Wednesday to mark the December 20th ``Day of Security Organs.''

The holiday, known in the Soviet era as ``Chekist Day,'' marks the founding of the ruthless Cheka Soviet secret police, later the NKVD and then KGB, which killed, tortured and imprisoned millions of Russians during decades of totalitarian rule.

FSB boss Nikolai Patrushev told the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda that the former Soviet secret police should take pride in the positive side of their bloody history.

But Patrushev said Russians had nothing to fear from the secret police now, despite the recent return of KGB alumni to the corridors of power under Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president is a former KGB spy and Patrushev's predecessor at the FSB, who has placed some of his former comrades into top jobs.

``The history of the Lubyanka in the last century is our history, no matter how bitter and tragic it was,'' Patrushev said, referring to the KGB's Moscow headquarters, still synonymous with the torture and repression of the Stalinist era.

``We should preserve and multiply everything in that history which worked for the benefit of Russia, Russia's development, prosperity and national interests,'' he said.

Patrushev said foreign intelligence agencies had ''undertaken significant efforts to expand their intelligence positions in Russia,'' requiring more vigilance than ever.

Spies from Western countries were coordinating their operations and acting from bases in former Communist states of Eastern Europe, where they are ``always welcome guests.''

SVR CHIEF SEES COMPETITION, COOPERATION, CASH CRUNCH

The FSB two weeks ago won the first conviction of a Western spy in Russia since the Cold War. The convicted man, retired U.S. Naval Intelligence officer and businessman Edmond Pope, was freed last week after Putin pardoned him.

Despite criticism of ``spy mania,'' Patrushev said the Pope case vindicated the security police.

``Foreign 'businessman-spies' were always comfortable in murky water. For kopeks (Russian pennies) they could acquire know-how accumulated through the work of thousands of people. In the Pope case, Russia showed that this era is over,'' he said.

SVR chief Sergei Lebedev, giving his first interview since his appointment in May, said Russia and the West faced the paradox of working with and against each other.

``In recent years, our partners in the West have been calmer at the idea of us carrying on intelligence work against each other and at the same time developing cooperation,'' he said.

He said both sides have fought international terrorism, drug trafficking and the spread of nuclear weapons technology together.

``We intend in the future to continue such relations of partnership,'' said Lebedev, the SVR's representative in Washington before becoming the service's head.

He said the financing of his service was ``miserly'' compared with that of Western agencies, but that ``where we need to work, we work and we receive financing for it.''

Lebedev also gave his vision of the perfect spy.

``Being an agent means being reliable, it means dedication, dedication to one's homeland, to one's comrades, it means being noble.''

-------- siberia

Washington Calling: Government has gift for those who didn't file 1997 returns

Evansville Courier & Press
12/19/00
This is a weekly size-up by the Washington staff of Scripps Howard News Service.
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200012/19+calling121900_news.html+20001219

The Energy Department is touting a milestone as the Siberian city of Snezhinsk, a formerly closed and secret weapons production site, has been denuked.

An astonishing 10 metric tons of plutonium and enriched uranium has been consolidated into a secure facility, and a new civilian computer center was set up to employ up to 120 weapons specialists to monitor the stockpile.

-------- tajikistan

Rich Slice of Soviet Asia, Left to a Lonely Despair

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19TAJI.html

SHURAB, Tajikistan - From the outcroppings above the town, everything looks normal. Buildings appear well kept and children career down a street on sleds. A close observer might wonder why the coal mine is idle at midday, but it is a minor clue.

Drive down the road into Shurab, however, and the reality is immediately apparent. Apartment buildings have been stripped, everything removed, from window glass to wiring. The railroad tracks to the mine are rusted and overgrown with weeds. City hall is padlocked.

Near the center of town, a restaurant looks as if it had been hit by a bomb. The roof is gone and there is no glass in the windows. The floor lies deep in rubble and an ornate column sprawls across the porch. Murals of dancing women in flowing dresses remain startlingly vibrant.

The desolation is ghostly and even the stragglers trying to tough it out add to the sad tableau. The children's sleds turn out to be just pieces of wood.

Conquerors have swept across Central Asia for 1,000 years. From the Huns and the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan to the Muslim potentates of Bokhara and Peter the Great of Russia, outsiders imposed their will and took their toll on the tribesmen in the mountains, valleys and plains known as Turkestan.

Viewed from a distance, the 70 years of Soviet domination here seem to be one of the more peaceful episodes in the struggle for empire. But the landscape of Central Asia is littered with ghost towns and polluted rivers and towns that belie the benign image.

One of those places is Chkalovsk. For nearly half a century, it was a closed city, part of the Soviet military-industrial complex tucked away in the northwest corner of Tajikistan. Lavrenti Beria, the Soviet secret police chief, established a uranium-processing plant near the city in the 1940's, and it brought skilled workers and prosperity.

It was one of many places developed or expanded during the Soviet era to exploit gold, uranium, coal, tungsten and other natural resources.

Vast stretches of arid land in the southern part of the country were turned into collective farms laced with irrigation to grow cotton.

When Communism collapsed, so did the economy and stability of Tajikistan. From 1992 to 1997, the country was embroiled in civil war. Its economic recovery has been slow, leaving it the poorest of the 15 former Soviet republics.

For Chkalovsk, the end of Communism meant piles of uranium waste, buried under a few feet of soil in places where young shepherds now graze flocks of sheep and goats. Traces of radioactivity have been found in meat sold in local markets, say professors at Khujand State University, just northwest of Chkalovsk, and the impact will be felt for decades.

Shurab is to the east on the border with Kyrgyzstan, and life was once much better here, too. The mine churned out large quantities of coal, providing exports to industrialized regions of the Soviet Union and good- paying jobs.

"We had a good life, with jobs and food and houses," Saparbai Abdullaev said as he stood on the high point outside town.

He wore a traditional long quilted coat, a strip of cloth securing it to his thin 77-year-old frame. His face was creased with age and grime and bad memories since the mine closed and his pension was trimmed to about $4 a month.

"No job, no land, no water, no hope," he said, summing up life in Shurab today.

Mr. Abdullaev said he and his wife were not the worst off among the people here. They have a house and family to help them. No, he said with a sad nod, the worst off are the ethnic Russians and Tatars brought to the area by Stalin's forced migrations to work in the mines. They had nowhere to turn for help.

"They stayed and sold everything to survive," he said. "They sold the spoons from their kitchens. They sold pieces of buildings and shops. Now they have nothing to sell."

He paused and peered down the road as if trying to will the town back to life, and said, "I cannot look at them without tears." And the tears began to flow into the creases of his face.

-------- ukraine

EUROPEAN ROUNDUP
Questions Haunt Lazio's Eriksson

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By JACK BELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/sports/19EURO-ROUNDUP.html?pagewanted=all

Sven Goran Eriksson is caught in a maelstrom of his own making.

Last month the Swedish coach of Lazio in Italy's Serie A last month accepted the job as coach of England's national team -- but only after his current contract with the Roman club expires on July 1.

That immediately set off a cascade of speculation that Eriksson would seek an early exit from his deal with Lazio to assume his duties with England when qualifying matches for the 2002 World Cup resume in a couple of months. Eriksson denied those assertions and now has been forced again and again to repeat those denials as Lazio has struggled in league and Champions League play.

The spotlight was focused on Eriksson even more before and after Sunday's Roman derby against league leaders A.S. Roma, which Roma won, 1-0, at the Olympic Stadium that both teams share.

Before the match, the English news media was rife with speculation that Lazio officials, led by the club president, Sergio Cragnotti, would dismiss Eriksson if Lazio lost the match. Lazio did lose, but Cragnotti's son, Massimo, said after the match that Eriksson would be staying in Rome -- for now.

"There is no need to say anything about Eriksson after this defeat," Cragnotti said. "The Swede will stay with us until the end of the 2001 season we hope with him we will achieve the results we want."

In the wake of Eriksson's announcement that he would take over in England, Lazio has slumped to fifth place in Serie A, 10 points behind Roma. In the past six matches, Lazio (5-3-3 overall) has a 2-2-2 record and has taken only six points of a possible 18. Lazio has a 4-1-1 record at home but is only 1-2-2 in away matches.

Eriksson, too, has deflected speculation that he would leave early for England. By most accounts, the English news media are engaged in wishful thinking, hoping that Eriksson would feel the tug of England and go to the rescue of the struggling national team.

"The season is far from over," Eriksson said. "Besides, I am convinced that this will not be my last derby match. I have not spoken to any English journalists for a good two weeks, so, therefore, I cannot have said anything about leaving Lazio early.

"We are not the same team we were last year; there has also been a little bit of bad luck," Eriksson said. "But I do not think that has anything to do with my decision to become England's coach."

England

The often-vilified chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, Sir Alan Sugar, said over the weekend that he plans to sell his 40 percent stake in the storied north London club.

Sugar, who also runs the Amstrad computer company, has been involved with Spurs since 1991, a period in which the club has won only one major trophy -- the 1999 Worthington Cup -- and has been a middle-of-the-table fixture in the English Premier League. Sugar has been criticized for his unwillingness to spend money on and retain popular players.

This year he let a crowd favorite at White Hart Lane, the Frenchman David Ginola, leave the club. He was replaced by the Ukrainian international Serghii Rebrov, but little else has changed and Spurs is again an also-ran.

"A few people have maybe criticized me for not setting my targets higher," Spurs' manager George Graham said over the weekend, responding to reports that Sugar was about to sell his stake in the club. "But I think when a club as big as Tottenham have slipped into the relegation zone, I don't think it's possible now within two or three years to be in the top three challenging for the championship. That's not only Tottenham, that's also other big clubs like Newcastle, like Everton, big established clubs with great aspirations. It will take time."

The situation at Tottenham has been especially difficult to deal with because the club's local rival, Arsenal, has spent lavishly on foreign players the past couple of years and has been successful both the league and in European competitions.

Corner Kicks

The A.C. Milan striker Andriy Shevchenko, who previously played for Dynamo Kiev in Ukraine, has dedicated his sporting success to the young victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A reactor at the power plant exploded in 1986 and spread radiation across Europe. Last week, the remaining active reactors at Chernobyl were closed. "I play football for my supporters and for those who love me, but if it helps the world never to forget, I dedicate my victories to the children of Chernobyl," Shevchenko said. ... A match in the Iranian city of Isfahan had to be abandoned late in the second half when a stray dog wandered onto the field and attacked the referee and players from the Karo-o-Technic and Iran-Sport clubs, according to the newspaper "Doran-e Emrouz."

Martin Palermo, one of the top scorers in the Argentine league and an emerging national team star, is being pursued by Napoli of Italy. Napoli is prepared to pay Boca Junior about $20 million for Palermo and have him join the club's three other Argentine players -- Claudio Husain, Mauricio Pineda and Facunda Quiroga. Napoli is also the club that purchased another Boca Juniors star, Diego Maradona, in the mid-1980's. ... The Australian Paul Agostino is the third-leading scorer in the Bundesliga after getting his 11th goal of the season in 1860 Munich's 2-1 victory over Hamburg. ... The American international Claudio Reyna scored Rangers' only goal in a 1-1 draw with last-place Dundee United in the Scottish Premier League. ... To accommodate its huge base of support in Asia, Manchester United has announced that it would soon launch Chinese- and Malay-language Web sites, probably by March. The club's Web site, manutd.com, gets about 8.5 million hits a month, but an estimated 20 million of the club's fans in Hong Kong and China cannot read English. United has nearly 200 supports clubs spread around the world.

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

Hoover Institution Fellows On Bush Tax Cuts, Israeli Election, Colombian Drug War, Trade With Mexico, and National Missile Defense

Yahoo News
Tuesday December 19, 2:39 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001219/ca_hoover_.html

STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fellows at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University are available to comment on the following topics. They may be reached directly or through the Office of Public Affairs at 650/723-0603.

BUSH TAX CUTS

Martin Anderson, Senior Fellow. Expertise: The presidency, U.S. political system, U.S. economic and social policy, national security, strategic defense, higher education, campaign financing. Adviser to the Bush campaign. Author: Revolution: The Reagan Legacy (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990). ADVISER TO THE BUSH CAMPAIGN. Contact: 650/723-4742.

Michael Boskin, Senior Fellow. Expertise: Tax and budget theory and policy, U.S. savings and consumption patterns. Member of the panel of advisers to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation and the advisory board of the Congressional Budget Office. ADVISER TO THE BUSH CAMPAIGN. Contact: 650/723-6482.

John Cogan, Senior Fellow. Expertise: The federal budget and domestic human resources policy, the role of the congressional budget process in producing federal budget growth and deficits. Author: The Budget Puzzle (with Tom Muris and Alan Schick, Stanford University Press, 1994. ADVISER TO THE BUSH CAMPAIGN. Contact: 650/723-2585.

John Taylor, Senior Fellow. Expertise: Monetary, fiscal, and international economic policy, created formulas for wage and price setting and models for economic policy evaluation. Member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers. ADVISER TO THE BUSH CAMPAIGN. Contact: 650/723-9677.

THE ISRAELI ELECTION/ ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Senior Fellow. Expertise: International conflict, foreign policy formation, trends in political change that influence economic development, political stability. Author: Principles of International Politics (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2000). Contact: 650/725-4202.

Charles Hill, Research Fellow. Expertise: Middle East peace process, international political affairs. Served as special consultant on policy to the secretary-general of the United Nations from 1992-1996. Author: Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (co-authored with Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Random House, 1999). Contact at Yale 203/432-6291.

Abraham D. Sofaer, Senior Fellow. Expertise: International relations, national security affairs, United Nations peacekeeping and nation building. Legal adviser, U.S. Department of State, 1985-1990. 650/725-3763.

DRUG WAR IN COLOMBIA

William Ratliff, Senior Research Fellow. Expertise: U.S. policy toward Latin America, legal reform and economic reform in Latin America, domestic and foreign policies of Latin America. Author: The Civil War in Nicaragua: Inside the Sandinistas (with Roger Miranda, Transaction Publishers, 1993). Contact by e-mail at ratliff@hoover.stanford.edu or by phone at 650/723-2106.

TRADE RELATIONS WITH MEXICO

Stephen H. Haber, Senior Fellow. Expertise: Latin American economic growth, financial markets and industrial development in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Author: How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914 (Stanford University Press, 1997). 650/723-1348.

NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE

Bruce Berkowitz, Research Fellow. Expertise: National security affairs, technology policy, defense and intelligence issues. Author: Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age (with Allan Goodman, Yale University Press, 2000) and The Need to Know: Covert Action and American Democracy (with Allan Goodman, 20th Century Fund, 1992). Contact by e-mail at bdb@pop.erols.com.

Sidney Drell, Senior Fellow. Expertise: Arms control, national security, theoretical physics. Author: Reducing Nuclear Danger (co-authored with McGeorge Bundy and William J. Crowe, Jr., The Council on Foreign Relations, 1993). Contact by e-mail at drell@slac.stanford.edu.

Abraham D. Sofaer, Senior Fellow. Expertise: International relations, national security affairs, United Nations peacekeeping and nation building. Legal adviser, U.S. Department of State, 1985-1990. 650/725-3763.

Contact:

Hoover Institution Stanford University Caleb Offley, 650/723-1454 Offley@Hoover.Stanford.edu www. Hoover.org

---

Prelude to a Missile Defense

New York Times
December 19, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/opinion/19TUE1.html

The incoming Bush administration risks making an early mistake if it rushes to build a national missile defense. A hasty move in this area could quickly deplete the good will generally accorded a new president by foreign leaders, especially those of Russia, China and Washington's main European allies. George W. Bush should instead expand research and testing to determine what kind of defensive shield can best meet America's security needs.

A reliable antimissile system could protect the country against the future threat of nuclear missile attack from unpredictable nations like North Korea, Iraq and Iran. American intelligence agencies predict that North Korea could have the capacity to launch a handful of nuclear-tipped long-range missiles within five years and that Iraq and Iran could reach that point within a decade.

But no workable shield now exists. The prototype interceptor missile developed by the Clinton administration has so far proved highly unreliable in tests. Mr. Bush and his advisers made clear during the presidential campaign that they considered the Clinton system flawed and inadequate. They promised to consider a variety of other technologies, including sea-based and space-based systems as well as the current land-based model.

Any of those alternative approaches would require rigorous study and testing before construction commences. While that evaluation proceeds, Mr. Bush's new foreign policy team should try to persuade skeptical countries that a limited defensive system can be built without wrecking existing arms control treaties or setting off a destructive new arms race.

Their biggest hurdle will be overcoming Russia's current refusal to modify the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to permit limited national missile defenses. The ABM treaty has been a keystone of the arms control efforts of the last three decades. If America abruptly withdraws from that treaty to build a defensive system, other agreements might begin to unravel, including the two primary nuclear arms reduction treaties signed by Mr. Bush's father at the end of the cold war.

Those two treaties provide for a two-thirds reduction in both sides' nuclear arsenals from their mid-1980's peak and for a total elimination of Russia's land-based, multiple-warhead missiles, Moscow's most dangerous weapons. Already progress in carrying out the second of these treaties has been held up by disputes over missile defense rules.

China fears that even a limited United States missile shield might be able to deflect Beijing's small force of long-range nuclear missiles. In response, China, which is not bound by any nuclear arms limitation agreement with Washington, could be tempted to build hundreds of new intercontinental missiles. America's European allies do not wish to see the revival of a costly arms race.

Mr. Bush's foreign policy advisers have been around Washington long enough to know that few initial steps would be more divisive abroad than a decision to move ahead with installation of a missile defense system. Colin Powell, the prospective secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice, the future national security adviser, also recognize that construction of even a limited system would cost tens of billions of dollars. Until the technology is perfected, there is no point in incurring these diplomatic and financial costs.

---

The Bush foreign policy

Washington Times
EDITORIAL • December 19, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-20001219201436.htm

Foreign policy will take on a stronger face in the new Bush administration, providing continuity by fulfilling previous commitments and ingenuity by building up a military that is severely overtaxed and which lacks the necessary resources. Former Gen. Colin Powell, George W. Bush's pick for secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser-to-be, have the resources to do it. Miss Rice was the top Russia expert on the National Security Council during the previous Bush administration. Gen. Powell has 35 years of experience in the military and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Bush and Clinton administrations. Both have been trusted Bush advisers, and their unified new foreign policy platform calls for reassessing peacekeeping missions in collaboration with U.S. allies and bolstering national security.

What the new platform does not spell is isolationism. Rather, it calls for carefully selecting which conflict areas the United States is best equipped to handle. The peacekeeping and military forces will have better resources, and greater ability to enter conflict areas with a defined mission and exit strategy.

Unlike the Clinton administration, which used the reduced threat of the Cold War as an excuse to scale back military funding, the Bush foreign policy platform addresses the realities of terrorism, and the demands continually being placed on the United States to intervene in conflict areas around the globe.

This will mean getting the national missile defense system back up to speed, a job President Clinton decided in September to leave to his successor. This system will be an "essential part of overall strategic force posture, which consists of offensive weapons, command-and-control systems, intelligence systems, and a national missile defense," Mr. Powell said in his acceptance speech.

In keeping with the goal to streamline peacekeeping missions, the two new top picks called for reassessment on the ground in Bosnia and Kosovo, in collaboration with U.S. allies. The United States would "find ways that it is less of a burden on our armed forces," Mr. Powell said. This would include substituting other forces, such as police units, for U.S. troops on the ground.

The Middle East would be a top priority, but the Bush administration is supportive of the Clinton administration's efforts during Mr. Clinton's remaining weeks in office, they said. To that end, Palestinian and Israeli diplomats are starting another round of peace talks today in Washington in the hopes that some framework for a peace agreement can be reached before Mr. Clinton leaves office. Part of maintaining the peace is addressing the risk posed by those who do not keep it. Mr. Powell has not forgotten Iraq, which is developing weapons of mass destruction. In that vain, he wants to "re-energize the sanctions regime" against Saddam Hussein.

Bridge-building with the closest neighbors to the United States, who have been almost forgotten in the Clinton administration, will be a key part of the platform as well. Re-establishing good relations with Latin America, Mexico and Canada would serve as core to the administration's foreign policy, Miss Rice said.

For an administration only finally made legal six days ago, the platform provides quite a formidable start.

---

Europe, Asia praise Powell, Rice choices

Washington Times
December 19, 2000
By Robert H. Reid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000121902045.htm

VIENNA, Austria - Europe and Asia applauded the foreign policy selections made by President-elect George W. Bush yesterday, 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's lack of foreign policy depth has been noted at home and abroad.

"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 Miss 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 Mr. 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.

Mr. Bush has said he favors a missile shield because it would protect the United States from attack. In accepting his appointment Saturday, Mr. Powell called missile defense "an essential part of our overall strategic-force posture."

In an editorial titled "Fortress America: Powell's tough new defense plans," the Sydney, Australia, 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, General 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.

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.

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.

The fact that Miss Rice and Mr. Powell are both black did little to assuage African fears that the continent would be overlooked by the Bush administration.

"Even the appointment of Colin Powell, a black American, as secretary of state, is nothing to cheer about," said Stanley Macebuh, an aide to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. He considers Mr. Powell "anti-Africa."

-------- u.s. nuc other

At the Movies: 'Thirteen Days'

Associated Press
December 19, 2000 Filed at 1:29 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-WKD-Film-Review-Thirteen-Days.html

``Thirteen Days'' is about a precarious moment in American history: the Cuban missile crisis.

This is a subject that would seem to merit the utmost respect and solemnity. So it's embarrassing -- and, frankly, disheartening -- that the film, which runs an overlong 135 minutes, is such a disappointment.

In the opening scene, Kevin Costner, as Kenny O'Donnell, special assistant to President Kennedy, unwittingly sets the tone of the film -- and undermines its drama -- with his atrocious New England accent.

``This is your report cahd?!'' he says, scolding one of his sons at the breakfast table. ``I'm talkin' tah you lay-tah!''

After about an hour into the movie -- either Costner's accent is more subtle or the audience has accepted it -- viewers can finally become engrossed in the story of that brief period in October 1962 when the United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of nuclear war.

Based on the book ``The Kennedy Tapes -- Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis,'' the film offers a glimpse into the negotiations that took place, and how the nation's leaders -- and the nation itself -- were tested.

Director Roger Donaldson, who worked with Costner on ``No Way Out,'' takes a no-nonsense approach, using O'Donnell's inside perspective to guide the audience through the crisis.

The film gets the look of the period right: government officials dressed in business suits sit around enormous conference tables, barking at each other and chain-smoking.

Donaldson also captures the inherent tension well. Surveillance missions over Cuba are thunderous and particularly well done, as is the confrontation between Adlai Stevenson and the Soviet ambassador at the United Nations.

But an overbearing score and some over-the-top performances give ``Thirteen Days'' the melodramatic feel of a made-for-TV movie. (William Devane starred as the president in the 1974 TV movie ``The Missiles of October.'')

Bruce Greenwood bears little resemblance to JFK, but he gets the accent right and exudes a quiet, presidential strength. Steven Culp is nearly dead-on as Robert Kennedy, although we gain little insight into his reputation for being cunning and ruthless.

Dylan Baker stands out as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, especially during the standoff between U.S. and Soviet ships during the naval quarantine of Cuba.

To his credit, and although his name appears above the title, Costner actually serves in a supporting role. He is the conduit through which we witness the action, not the one in action.

One minor gripe: At the start of each new day, the date appears at the bottom of the screen -- Wednesday, Oct. 17, etc. But we don't know how far along we are in the crisis. Since the film's title is ``Thirteen Days,'' wouldn't it help to know which day we're on?

A New Line Cinema release, ``Thirteen Days'' is rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

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

-------- michigan

USA Today
12/19/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Michigan

Bridgman - Both reactors at D.C. Cook nuclear power plant are back in operation. The Unit 1 reactor was restarted after more than three years off line. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered both plant reactors shut in 1997 and fined American Electric Power Co., the facility operator, $500,000 for safety violations. The Unit 2 reactor was restarted in June.

-------- us nuc politics

U.S. Foreign Policy May Change

Associated Press
December 19, 2000 Filed at 1:31 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Foreign-Policy.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, leaders of President-elect Bush's national security team, are likely to turn the country's foreign policy inward with a robust missile defense and a reluctance to use peacekeepers in ethnic conflicts abroad.

Compounding their conservative philosophies, Bush's inexperience in international affairs is apt, at least at the outset, to produce a less- expansive role than Bill Clinton's as president over the past eight years.

Under Secretary of State Powell and National Security Adviser Rice, the United States is likely to spend less energy countering repressive governments and tackling global issues such as assaults on the environment.

``You will see them conscious of the importance of strength and very careful in its use,'' former Secretary of State George P. Shultz said.

On peacekeeping, Shultz, who headed the State Department under President Reagan, defended their approach. ``The more you do, the more spread out you are, the more you tend to dilute your capability and your primary missions,'' he said.

And yet, Shultz said, ``What I see is a more active, more professional, more hardheaded foreign policy.''

Powell spent 35 of his 63 years in the U.S. military, rising to full general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

His best-known comment: ``If we go in, we go in to win.'' Less well-known is a quote from the Greek historian Thucydides that Powell kept under glass on his Pentagon desk: ``Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.''

In the early years of the Clinton presidency, Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued against U.S. military involvement in the ethnic conflict in Bosnia.

Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is said to have stared at Powell and asked: ``What's the point in having this superb military you are always talking about if we can't use it?''

Rice, the 46-year-old former Stanford provost, is also dubious of U.S. involvement in the Balkans. During the presidential campaign, where she primed Bush on foreign affairs, Rice caused a stir when she said the United States should pull out its peacekeeping troops.

Powell's and Rice's focus promises to be girding to protect U.S. interests, anchored by a program to erect a national defensive screen against missiles.

``You will see a desire to continue to build up U.S. military power, but more reluctance to use it, especially in civil, ethnic conflicts,'' said Leslie Gelb, president of the private Council on Foreign Relations.

Some doubt that the Bush team will be able to totally resist the sort of pressures Clinton faced as head of the only superpower.

``I actually expect more of the same on intervention,'' said Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. ``That is, a deep reluctance to do things in Africa and compulsions to do things in the periphery of Europe, in East Asia and in the Persian Gulf region.''

Dimitri Simes, president of the private Nixon Center, said Powell and Rice ``are people with impeccable credentials.'' But he said Powell is not known for anticipating events, nor Rice for being ``a conceptual analyzer.'' Bush himself, said Simes, ``is not known for the breadth of his foreign-policy experience.''

The fact remains, Simes said in an interview, ``We need the vision thing, an appreciation of a historical transition away from the Cold War era that is not as friendly to American interests and values.''

In announcing Powell's selection on Saturday, Bush promised to use America's ``unique power and unmatched influence'' to advance the spread of democracy and peace around the world.

Powell added that the United States must reject isolationism and stay engaged with the world.

He pledged to work with Russia and China, not as adversaries but as strategic partners, and said the United States would stand firm with its allies against nations that pursue weapons of mass destruction or sponsor terrorism.

``I think these are promising times, times of great opportunity but times also of challenge and danger,'' Powell said. ``We are up to the task.''

Rice, a top aide on Soviet affairs for former President Bush from 1989-91, has described the Clinton administration as too ``romantic'' on Russia and too eager to intervene abroad on humanitarian grounds.

In the January-February issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Rice reflected the caution that typifies Powell's views. She wrote that U.S. military intervention in humanitarian crises ``should be, at best, exceedingly rare.''

Powell said last weekend that the Bush administration would undertake an immediate review of U.S. deployments in Kosovo, Bosnia and other places once the new administration takes over.

``Our forces are stretched rather thin,'' he said, ``and there is a limit to how many of these deployments we can sustain.''

---

FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Powell Perplex

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/opinion/19FRIE.html

Watching George W. Bush nominating Colin Powell for secretary of state, I had mixed feelings. One was relief: Mr. Powell's answers to reporters' questions demonstrated a sharp and intuitive grasp of global issues. Whether you agree with him or not, this is a serious man. My other feeling, though, was: I sure hope Colin Powell is always right in his advice to Mr. Bush - because he so towered over the president-elect, who let him answer every question on foreign policy, that it was impossible to imagine Mr. Bush ever challenging or overruling Mr. Powell on any issue.

Mr. Powell is three things Mr. Bush is not - a war hero, worldly wise and beloved by African-Americans. That combination gives him a great deal of leverage. It means he can never be fired. It means Mr. Bush can never allow him to resign in protest over anything. It will be interesting to see who emerges to balance Mr. Powell's perspective.

Indeed, I would have felt better if Mr. Bush - who at age 54 has barely traveled abroad - had interviewed other candidates for secretary of state. A Jack Welch from General Electric, for instance, or a veteran U.S. diplomat like Stapleton Roy, or maybe someone at a smart NGO, like the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights - just to get a feel for other serious people's perspectives on the great trends in the world today. If I'd never driven a car before, I'd want to test-drive a few before I bought one.

After all, a lot has changed since the Bushies were last in office eight years ago. The world has moved from a cold-war system, in which our biggest threats and opportunities flowed from whom we were divided from and which was symbolized by the Berlin Wall, to a globalization system, in which our threats and opportunities now tend to flow from whom we're connected to, and which is symbolized by the World Wide Web.

In this new system, states, and the balance of power between them, still matter - whether it is America balancing China or NATO balancing Russia. But now there are more actors to balance. In addition to states, there are the "supermarkets" - the 25 largest global financial markets - and the "super-empowered people," from terrorists like Osama bin Laden to activists like Jody Williams, who organized a global ban on land mines using e-mail.

"We know that the Bush team will be serious about what the Clinton team was not serious about, which is about intervening militarily," said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. "But what we don't know is how the Bush team will deal with what the Clinton team was serious about, which was intervening financially and diplomatically to stabilize markets when they threatened the international economy."

One of the biggest threats to global stability in the last eight years came when the supermarkets melted down Mexico in 1995. The Clinton administration met that crisis with the Mexico bailout, which was largely opposed by Republicans. That bailout turned out to be exactly right. What does the Powell Doctrine say about such market interventions, which many of our allies might demand of him one day?

Also, the last time the Bushies were in office their main preoccupation was managing the strength of Russia, China and Japan. Today they will find themselves managing the weakness of Russia, China and Japan. As all these countries go through the wrenching adjustment to the globalization system, they are much more likely to threaten us by their economic collapse, corruption or loss of control over nuclear materials than by launching a missile at us.

If you don't think it's a new world, think again: When George Bush Sr. left office in 1993, there were roughly 50 pages on the World Wide Web. Today there are a billion or two. When George Bush Sr. left office, virtually no one you knew had e-mail and most people thought the Internet was something used to catch fish with on the Nile. Today your grandmother has e-mail, not to mention every terrorist group in the world, and Internet access is considered an entitlement.

Every administration gets tested by an unanticipated crisis. My guess is that the test for the new Bush team will come from this whirlwind of rapid change - both the enormous pressure it puts on new democracies and the backlash it produces from traditional societies. Mr. Bush has appointed serious people to wrestle with this. Their serious test awaits.

---

Powell, Up First for the Bush Team

New York Times
December 19, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/opinion/L19BUS.html

To the Editor:

Re "Powell to Head State Dept. as Bush's First Cabinet Pick" (front page, Dec. 17):

President-elect George W. Bush could not have done better than to select Dick Cheney as vice president and to nominate Colin L. Powell as secretary of state. Indeed, they will have to salvage the foreign blunders and domestic excess that the Clinton administration wrought upon this country over the last eight years.

One hopes that the debacle of the 2000 presidential election will tip the balance of power to America's electorate. One hopes that the result will secure high-tech voting networks, more voter participation and nonpartisan elections and government.

And one hopes that in the future, people with the capability, honesty and integrity of General Powell will be elected to manage government based on their real qualifications, not their political party, and not the special interests or moneyed interests behind them.

DANIEL B. JEFFS Apple Valley, Calif., Dec. 17, 2000

To the Editor:

The policy that Colin L. Powell outlined in his remarks on being nominated for secretary of state (front page, Dec. 17) is a throwback to the cold war.

American politicians consider Saddam Hussein a perfect enemy, but even our allies think that years of sanctions have punished the people of Iraq, not Mr. Hussein. Political change in Iraq will come, but not through hunger, disease or a misguided and reckless military operation.

General Powell and President- elect George W. Bush want to return to Ronald Reagan's grandiose missile shield, which will only renew an uncontrolled nuclear arms race and a new era of hair-trigger instability.

True strength demands that we respect economic and cultural diversity, cooperate on global environmental problems and practice the democracy we preach.

DAVID KEPPEL Essex, Conn., Dec. 17, 2000

To the Editor:

After Colin L. Powell was named secretary of state in the new Bush administration, one of his first utterances was a stern warning to Iraq (front page, Dec. 17).

It seems to me that if General Powell and Dick Cheney, then the defense secretary, had completed the job under the stewardship of the president-elect's father, dealing with Saddam Hussein's regime would now be an afterthought, not a priority.

MICHAEL LYLE Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Dec. 17, 2000

•

To the Editor:

Colin L. Powell (front page, Dec. 17) is not a hero to all Americans. In 1993, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had a historic opportunity to ensure equality for everyone who serves in the military by endorsing President Clinton's original proposal to allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

General Powell could have shown real courage by emulating Harry S. Truman, whose decision to force the military to integrate its black and white regiments ultimately made it possible for General Powell to become the highest-ranking American in uniform.

Instead, the general allied himself with Congressional conservatives; together, they forced Mr. Clinton to accept the inequitable and unworkable policy of "don't ask, don't tell."

Thousands of gay service personnel have paid dearly for this policy - some of them, with their lives.

CHARLES KAISER New York, Dec. 17, 2000

---

Text of Clinton - Bush Statements

New York Times
December 19, 2000 Filed at 12:46 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Clinton-Text.html

Text of a press availability by President Clinton and President-elect Bush before their meeting in the White House Tuesday, as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks, Inc.:

------

Q: What's your best advice to the incoming president?

CLINTON: Answer your questions. Get a good team and do what he thinks is right.

Q: Mr. President-elect, talking about the economy, about problems with the economy, are you going to inherit a recession from President Clinton?

And, President Clinton, what are your thoughts about that?

BUSH: I really don't have any comments. I look forward to talking to the president. I'm so honored that he extended his hospitality to me and my wife yesterday. He didn't need to do this, and I'm most grateful that he would do so.

Q: Mr. President, what do you think about a recession?

CLINTON: Well, a recession is two quarters in a row of negative growth. I don't think we're going to have that. But we couldn't keep up 5 percent growth a year, you know, forever. So I think 49 of the 50 Blue Chip forecasters think that growth will be 2.5 percent or better next year, and that'll keep unemployment low.

But I think there will be things to be managed. He'll have economic challenges and we ought to give him a chance to meet them, not try to figure it all out in advance.

Q: Did you have advice for the president-elect?

CLINTON: Well, I just told him, my only advice to anybody in this is get a good team and do what you think is right.

Q: Are you going to North Korea?

CLINTON: No decision has been made on that. We've been talking -- our people have -- about what we've attempted to do in North Korea. It's interesting, when I had this meeting eight years ago with the president-elect's father, he told me the biggest problem we were facing was the nuclear program in North Korea, and we were able to build on the work they had done and put an end to that.

And now the big problem there is the missile program. We may have a chance to put an end to it. And if we can, I think we should.

But this is something that I want to consult with the president-elect and his team about, and we'll see what the facts are. And I'll try to do what's best for the country.

Q: I understand that you're not against him going. Is that right?

BUSH: I haven't had a chance to talk to the president yet, Helen.

CLINTON: No, we haven't talked about this.

Q: What will you tell him is the biggest problem, Mr. President?

CLINTON: I want to talk to him, not you.

(LAUGHTER)

I waited eight years to say that.

(LAUGHTER)

Q: Governor, how different is it to come to this house in your position now?

BUSH: It's vastly different. It's such a huge honor to come as the president-elect. I don't think I'll really, fully realize the impact until I swear in. I expect the president would say the same thing.

And I am humbled and honored, and I can't thank the president enough for his hospitality. He didn't need to do this.

Q: Yes, he did.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: I haven't quite finished yet.

(LAUGHTER)

And I'm grateful. And I've looked forward to the discussion. I'm here to listen. And if the president is kind enough to offer some advice, if he is, I will take it in.

Q: Are there questions you have for the president, sir?

BUSH: If there are, I'm going to ask it in private.

STAFF: All right. Thank you.

BUSH: And afterwards not sharing with you.

Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

STAFF: Thank you.

BUSH: A high-energy moment.

---

Bush Meets With Clinton, Gore

Associated Press
December 19, 2000 Filed at 7:14 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an Oval Office rite of passage masking their sharp differences, President-elect Bush listened to the litany of world problems he'll face from the man who has wrestled with them for the last eight years. President Clinton advised that Bush ``get a good team and do what he thinks is right.''

Sitting where his father led the nation until his defeat by Clinton, Bush said Tuesday, ``It's such a huge honor to come as the president-elect. I don't think I'll really, fully realize the impact until I swear in'' on Jan. 20.

Bush seemed tense, sitting straight in a wing-backed armchair, his hands clasped in his lap as he rubbed his thumbs and tapped his foot. Twice he thanked the president for his hospitality and said, ``He didn't need to do this.'' Bush told reporters, ``I'm here to listen'' and said it was ``a high-energy moment.'' White House officials described the talks as very serious and frank.

After two days of meetings in Washington and interviews with prospective Cabinet members, Bush flew back to Texas. On Wednesday he is expected to name longtime friend and former campaign chairman Don Evans as commerce secretary; Mel Martinez, a former Cuban refugee who is chairman of Orange County, Fla., as housing secretary; And, as agriculture secretary, Ann Veneman, former director of the California Food and Agriculture Department who worked in the previous Bush administration.

Bush, in a gesture of conciliation, also invited black ministers and others to a meeting in Austin to discuss domestic policies. In the Nov. 7 election, Bush received only one of out of 10 black votes.

The president-elect also invited a bipartisan group of education policymakers, including eight to 10 lawmakers, to Austin on Thursday. Bush has promised to make education one of the first items on his legislative agenda.

Clinton and Bush talked by themselves for more than two hours, first in the Oval Office and then over lunch in the family dining room in the residence. They dined on curried squash soup, filet mignon and Greek salad. Their discussions covered trouble spots such as the Middle East, the Balkans and North Korea, officials said.

Bush paid a 15-minute call on defeated rival Al Gore at the vice president's mansion. Stepping outside in a light snow without an overcoat, Gore greeted Bush at his limousine with a long handshake and a pat on the back. ``We're going to have a private discussion,'' Gore said.

Gore, who waged a futile five-week battle to count disputed ballots in Florida, emphasized ``the importance of setting differences aside and coming together,'' spokesman Jim Kennedy said.

Bush also met with Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, his leading candidate for secretary of health and human services. Other candidates include social conservative Kay James and Gail R. Wilensky, former administrator of the federal Health Care Financing Administration.

Thirty-two days before his inauguration, Bush's White House meeting with the outgoing president was part of tradition. ``It's kind of welcome to the club,'' said historian Henry Graff. For Bush it was a return to a White House where he already knows many of the ushers, doctors and Secret Service agents from his father's presidency.

White House officials said there was no sign of any bad feelings from the campaign, when Bush had talked about restoring ``dignity and honor'' to the Oval Office and Clinton had warned that Bush would let polluters regulate the environment, bring back budget deficits and pursue dangerous nuclear-arms policies.

During their photo opportunity, Bush declined to repeat his warning of recent days of a possible recession. ``I really don't have any comments,'' he said. ``I look forward to talking with the president.''

Clinton did not dodge the subject, citing the traditional definition of a recession -- two quarters, or six months in a row, of negative growth.

``I don't think we're going to have that,'' Clinton said. Yet he said the robust growth in the economy could not be sustained forever. ``We couldn't keep up 5 percent growth a year, you know, forever.''

He noted that most forecasters believe growth of the economy will stabilize at about 2.5 percent ``or better next year. And that'll keep unemployment low.''

``But I think there will be things to be managed. He'll have economic challenges and we ought to give him a chance to meet them, not try to figure it all out in advance,'' Clinton said.

At the transition headquarters, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said economic problems are sneaking up on the country, much as energy shortages caught politicians by surprise.

``It wasn't until September of 2000 that anyone in power started talking about an energy problem,'' Fleischer said. ``In Washington we need to do a little better job of looking down the road. That is what President-elect Bush is doing.''

White House press secretary Jake Siewert said foreign policy was the primary focus of the Bush-Clinton talks. He said Clinton ``talked about some of the hot spots around the world and some of the challenges the new administration will face and the state of play in some of those places that make headlines in the news here in America.''

He said Clinton, who got a rocky start to his presidency, also talked about ``how to run an effective operation here, some of the lessons we had learned over the last eight years.''

Clinton also said he had not decided whether to make a ground-breaking visit to North Korea. Bush, asked if Clinton should go, said he hadn't talked with the president about it yet.

Meanwhile, Fleischer said Bush had noted reports quoting administration officials that Clinton would not seek a pardon from the new president. ``We take him at his word,'' Fleischer said. Independent Counsel Robert Ray has said he will decide soon after Clinton leaves office whether to seek an indictment for his actions in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

-------- MILITARY

-------- colombia

Citibank Starts Selling $250 Mln Loan for Colombia

19 Dec 2000 08:09:46 -0000
starcgrassroots] Digest Number 258

New York, -- Citibank NA, a unit of Citigroup Inc., said it started selling parts of a $250 million loan it's arranging for Colombia to help the country invest in new projects and meet funding needs.

The bank held a lenders meeting yesterday in New York, which was attended by about 20 banks, and plans to hold a second meeting in Bogota tomorrow. Standard Chartered Bank, BNP Paribas, Chase Manhattan Corp. and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA have already committed to lend as joint arrangers.

Some $100 million of the syndicated loan, Colombia's first this year, is guaranteed by The Andean Development Corp., a Caracas-based multilateral lender more commonly known as CAF. This should ensure the loan gets an investment-grade rating, Citibank officials said.

The Republic of Colombia has long-term debt ratings of ``BB'' from Standard & Poor's and ``Ba2'' from Moody's Investors Service. Both ratings are two notches below investment grade. Bankers said the loan could get a rating as high as ``BBB'' due to the CAF guarantee, which is contingent on the debt getting an investment grade rating.

Colombia has to use $100 million of the loan to finance new investments. The remainder will go toward Colombia's balance of payments, Citibank officials said.

The loan is set to yield 4 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, in the first year. The yield will then decrease by a quarter point each year until the last year when it drops to 2.5 percentage points more than Libor.

The fall in yield comes because the $100 million guarantee from CAF rolls from one payment to the next so it never dips below 60 percent of the total debt and makes up a full guarantee after the third year.

--

ECHOES OF VIETNAM

by Rachel Massey

*In July, President Clinton signed into law a $1.3 billion aid package to step up the "war on drugs" in Colombia and neighboring countries in South America. Of this sum, $860 million is designated for Colombia itself, mainly as aid to the military.[1] For three decades Colombia has been torn by civil war, and the Colombian military has a well-documented record of human rights abuses including disappearances, arbitrary detentions, kidnappings, and torture of civilians.[2, pg. 20] The U.S. Congress made its "drug war" military aid dependent upon the Colombian government improving its human rights profile, but in August President Clinton waived this requirement so that funds could begin to flow south. This month Mr. Clinton may waive the human rights requirements once again so a second installment of aid can be released.

For a number of years the U.S. has sponsored herbicide spraying in Colombia, intending to curb illegal drugs at their source. Starting in January 2001 under U.S. oversight, the Colombian government will escalate its "crop eradication" activities, in which aircraft spray herbicides containing glyphosate to kill opium poppy and coca plants. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the well-known herbicide called Roundup. Opium poppy and coca are the raw materials for making heroin and cocaine.

Representatives of Colombian indigenous communities recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to explain how they have been affected by spraying that has already occurred. Glyphosate, they said, kills more than drug crops -- it also kills food crops that many rural Colombians depend on for survival. In some places, the spraying has killed fish and livestock and has contaminated water supplies. One photograph from a sprayed area shows a group of banana trees killed by herbicides; nearby a plot of coca plants remains untouched.[3] Sometimes the spray also lands on schoolyards or people's homes. Many Colombians say they have become ill as a result.[4]

According to the NEW YORK TIMES, in one case several spray victims traveled 55 miles by bus to visit a hospital. The doctor who treated them said their symptoms included dizziness, nausea, muscle and joint pain, and skin rashes. "We do not have the scientific means here to prove they suffered pesticide poisoning, but the symptoms they displayed were certainly consistent with that condition," he said. A nurse's aide in the local clinic said she had been instructed "not to talk to anyone about what happened here."[4]

The U.S. State Department denies that there are human health effects from spraying glyphosate on the Colombian countryside. A U.S. embassy official in Colombia told the NEW YORK TIMES that glyphosate is "less toxic than table salt or aspirin" and said the spray victims' accounts of adverse effects were "scientifically impossible."[4] A question-and-answer fact sheet published by the State Department says that glyphosate does not "harm cattle, chickens, or other farm animals," is not "harmful to human beings," and will not contaminate water. The fact sheet asks the question, "If glyphosate is so benign, why are there complaints of damage from its use in Colombia?" and answers: "These reports have been largely based on unverified accounts provided by farmers whose illicit crops have been sprayed. Since their illegal livelihoods have been affected by the spraying, these persons do not offer objective information about the program.... "[5]

But medical reports link exposure to glyphosate herbicides with dhort-term symptoms including blurred vision, skin problems, heart palpitations, and nausea. Studies have also found associations with increased risk of miscarriages, premature birth, and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Formulations in which glyphosate is combined with other ingredients can be more acutely toxic than glyphosate alone.[6, pgs. 5-8] Monsanto, a major manufacturer of glyphosate-based herbicides, was challenged by the Attorney General of New York State for making safety claims similar to those now being repeated by the U.S. State Department. In an out-of-court settlement in 1996, Monsanto agreed to stop advertising the product as "safe, non-toxic, harmless or free from risk."[4,6]

Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, a vocal critic of the "drug war" military aid, visited Colombia last week. During his visit he was treated to a demonstration of aerial crop eradication, in the course of which the Colombian National Police managed to spray Senator Wellstone himself with herbicides. According to the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, this accident occurred shortly after the U.S. Embassy in Colombia circulated materials explaining that the spray was guided by "precise geographical coordinates" calculated by computer. Colombian police said the accident had occurred because the wind blew the herbicide off course.[7]

Both common sense and scientific studies tell us that wind can be expected to blow aerially sprayed chemicals off course. For example, a 1992 study in Canada calculated that a buffer zone of 75 to 1200 meters (243 to 3900 feet) could be needed to protect non-target vegetation from damage during aerial spraying of glyphosate.[8] And a 1985 article on glyphosate says, "damage due to drift is likely to be more common and more severe with glyphosate than with other herbicides."[9]

Proponents of the "war on drugs" would like us to believe that the more acres of South American countryside we spray with herbicides, the fewer North American children will fall prey to drug pushers. But studies show that herbicide spray campaigns are ineffective at stemming the flow of drugs. So long as there is a demand for drugs, someone somewhere will supply them. Therefore crop eradication programs simply waste tax dollars. Furthermore, a 1999 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), a federal agency, concluded that crop eradication efforts to date have failed.[2, pg. 16] According to the GAO, the U.S. State Department escalated its support for aerial spray campaigns in 1996, and during the 1997-98 period, over 100,000 hectares (254,000 acres) of the Colombian countryside were sprayed. But during this same period, net coca cultivation in Colombia increased 50 percent.[2, pgs. 16-18]

On the other hand, tackling the drug problem within the U.S. by reducing drug use can succeed. A study by the RAND corporation found that drug treatment programs for cocaine users in the U.S. are 23 times as cost effective as efforts to eradicate drugs at their source.[10] And yet, according to a 1999 U.S. government report, the majority of Americans needing drug treatment went untreated between 1991 and 1996.[11]

If dousing the Colombian countryside with herbicides is not an effective way to diminish the drug problem in the U.S., it is worth asking what drives our government's enthusiasm for this costly and destructive approach. One explanation is that the "war on drugs" is a pretext for policies that have little to do with drugs. Several U.S. industries stand to gain from U.S. intervention in Colombia's civil war. The Occidental Petroleum Corporation, for example, lobbied hard for the "drug war" military aid; and U.S. companies that manufacture the military helicopters used in Colombia were major supporters of the aid package.[12]

Waging an ineffective "war on drugs" abroad also helps to divert attention away from the political role of drug policy within the U.S. A recent report by Human Rights Watch, an organization that monitors and documents human rights abuses throughout the world, says that drug control policies within the U.S. have been the primary driver of this country's incarceration crisis, in which the prison population has quadrupled since 1980. The U.S. now has more than 2 million citizens behind bars. Rates of conviction and imprisonment are much higher among nonviolent drug offenders who are black than among their white counterparts.[13] Thirteen percent of black men in the U.S. -- more than one in ten -- are not allowed to vote because they are in jail or were previously convicted of a felony.[14]

Without the rhetoric of "fighting drugs," U.S. officials would have to admit to the American public that we are intervening in another country's civil war -- bringing back memories of Vietnam and other disastrous failures of U.S. foreign policy. Unfortunately, the analogy to Vietnam is appropriate as U.S. military involvement in Colombia deepens. During the Vietnam war, the U.S. defoliated and contaminated Vietnam's forests with Agent Orange, a herbicide composed of the chemicals 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T and routinely contaminated with the carcinogen dioxin. American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange suffer elevated rates of diabetes and certain cancers, and veterans' children have elevated rates of major birth defects (see REHW #212 and #250). Under the banner of the "war on drugs," in Colombia once again we are waging a toxic war against another country's unique ecosystems and the health of innocent civilians.

=============================

* Rachel Massey is a consultant to Environmental Research Foundation.

[1] See http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/aid.

[2] U.S. General Accounting Office Report to Congressional Requesters, "Drug Control: Narcotics Threat from Colombia Continues to Grow. GAO/NSIAD-99-136 June 1999. Go to http://www.gao.gov and search for the report by number.

[3] See http://www.usfumigation.org.

[4] Larry Rohter, "To Colombians, Drug War is Toxic Enemy," NEW YORK TIMES May 1, 2000, pgs. A1, A10

[5] U.S. State Department, "The Aerial Eradication of Illicit Crops: Answer to Frequently Asked Questions," Fact sheet released by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, November 6, 2000, available at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/wha/colombia/-fs_0011-6_faqs.html

[6] For a thorough review of glyphosate's adverse effects, see Caroline Cox, "Glyphosate (Roundup)" Herbicide fact sheet, JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM Vol 18, No. 3 (Fall 1998), updated October 2000, available at http://www.pesticide.org or from Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Eugene, Or.; Tel. 541-344-5044.

[7] Rob Hotakainen, "Colombian Police Spray Herbicide on Coca, Wellstone," Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE December 1, 2000.

[8] D. Atkinson, "Glyphosate damage symptoms and the effects of drift," in E. Grossbard and D. Atkinson, editors,THE HERBICIDE GLYPHOSATE (London: Butterworth Heinemann, 1985), pgs. 455-458. ISBN 0408111534.

[9] Nicholas J. Payne, "Off-Target Glyphosate from Aerial Silvicultural Applications, and Buffer Zones Required around Sensitive Areas," PESTICIDE SCIENCE Vol. 34, 1992, pgs. 1-8.

[10] C. Peter Rydell and Susan S. Everingham, CONTROLLING COCAINE: SUPPLY VERSUS DEMAND (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1994), ISBN 0-8330-1552-4, pg. xiii.

[11] Office of National Drug Control Policy, 1999 NATIONAL ANTI-DRUG STRATEGY, Table 27, p. 130. Available at http://-www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov.

[12] Sam Loewenberg, "Well-financed U.S lobby seeks relief from Drug Wars," LEGAL TIMES February 21, 2000, available at http://www.forusa.org/panama/-0300_columbianaid.htl

[13] Human Rights Watch, PUNISHMENT AND PREJUDICE: RACIAL DISPARITIES IN THE WAR ON DRUGS, March 1999, summary available at http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-03.htm or at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

[14] Mary Gabriel, "13 Percent of Black Men in America Have No Vote," REUTERS November 3, 2000.

---

Colombian Army Goes High Up to Fight Rebels

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19COLO.html?pagewanted=all

CORDILLERA DEL CÍNERA, Colombia, Dec. 17 - At this elevation of nearly 12,000 feet, soldiers wear ski masks and heavy wool gloves and bounce from foot to foot trying to keep warm.

Panting in thin air, they huddle over campfires, heating gallons of coffee. By afternoon, clouds cover the rugged landscape, adding to the misery as a freezing mist covers everything.

Nighttime is even worse on the cordillera, or mountain range.

"Sometimes you can't sleep because it's so cold," said one soldier, Luis Bermúdez, an ice-cold Galil assault rifle slung over his shoulder. "You have to try to just get used to it."

Despite the discomforts, it is on the craggy ridges and looming canyons of this northeastern range 32 miles outside the city of Bucaramanga that a Colombian Army often on the losing end of the fighting is having its way with a worn-down and disoriented column of rebel guerrillas.

In a month of skirmishes across about 4,000 square miles of towering peaks, gullies and rocky mountainsides, 1,500 soldiers have split and encircled a guerrilla column that at one point numbered 360 fighters.

Seventy-seven guerrillas of Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have been captured in the campaign. Another 46 have been killed, with the main body of the group dispersed in what military officials are calling the army's shining moment for the year. Only one soldier has been killed.

"The group we attacked, we had them cornered from two sides," recounted Sgt. Giraldo Botero, whose squad killed nine in a firefight, including one whose body lay lifeless a few feet away. "They were in the middle, with canyons on both sides and no way out. They reacted, shot back right away. But we had them."

Usually, the fighting in Colombia's grinding 36-year-long conflict is confined to the jungle or to small police or military outposts in tropical or temperate regions.

But in this country of boundless variety - a nation twice the size of France that holds towering Andean peaks, Amazonian rain forests, grassy plains and bone-dry deserts - it would only make sense that the fighting would reach the mountains.

Every 10 days the nine battalions here need 25 tons of ammunition, food, gasoline and other provisions. But the Russian-made MI-17 helicopters that normally carry three tons of supplies each can only manage a third of that when supplying troops fighting at altitudes of up to 14,000 feet, because the thin air makes it impossible to achieve their maximum lift.

The soldiers, many of whom come from tropical villages, are unaccustomed to temperatures that fall below freezing, fierce winds and cloud cover that can cut visibility to three feet. Six of them have been evacuated for hypothermia.

"The problem is the temperature and the terrain, which is so steep, with many canyons, many holes that are hard to get into," said Gen. Martín Carreño, who commands the Fifth Brigade in Bucaramanga and is overseeing the mountain campaign.

"The visibility, from one moment to the next, can cloud up," General Carreño said. "In the afternoon and early hours of the night, you can't see one meter ahead of you. That's dangerous, because the troops can fire at each other, so at those times we have them stay put."

Troops have also been faced with one of the darker aspects of Colombia's conflict, the use of child fighters. Of those captured, 32 were age 17 or under, including several under 14, the military said today. Of those killed, 20 have been children.

"At first you don't notice their age, you just see guerrillas," said Sgt. Jairo Herrera. "But when you see this situation, as a human being, as a man with a family, it's so sad to see these children abused."

Military officials said the rebel column, which goes by the name Arturo Ruiz, had been en route to the Middle Magdalena River Valley in north-central Colombia to shore up support for guerrillas battling right- wing paramilitary gunmen of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The only way to get to the valley was to cross a mountain range that is Colombia's highest, rising more than 19,000 feet.

Trained and equipped in the southern province of Caquetá, where the rebel group controls a Switzerland- sized chunk of land ceded by the government in an effort to further peace talks, the column left for the north in July. On foot, by canoe and by truck, the column crossed 10 provinces on its 700-mile journey.

The military had detected, but not pinpointed, the column, one of three dispatched by the rebels from the south. But on Nov. 16, a rebel deserted and gave the column's whereabouts to army interrogators. The next day General Carreño, riding in a helicopter over a bleak plateau in North Santander Province, spotted the rebels, who fired shots at the chopper.

On Nov. 18, army troops engaged the rebels near Filo Turbay in Santander Province, killing the first eight rebels. "The column began to fall apart," the general said, "because these people weren't from here. Once they got lost they were disoriented. From that point we began to capture and kill guerrillas."

Captured guerrillas, interviewed at Fifth Brigade headquarters in the presence of army officers, described a backbreaking journey with little food and sliding morale. Some had not eaten in three days. They wolfed down potato chips, candy and soda given to them by soldiers, as local reporters snapped pictures.

"We went two days without a bite," said one rebel, 17, during an interview at a home for delinquent youths operated by a private charity, where teenage guerrilla prisoners were transferred. "We were about to eat when that helicopter came. And then we just started to run."

Back in the mountains, the soldiers and officers who have been at the forefront of what is called Operation Berlín - after the name for the plateau area where the fighting is taking place - marvel that the guerrillas have gotten as far as they have.

Usually, rebels buy, receive or steal food from local farmers and shopkeepers in the rural areas where they operate. But there are no settlements at this altitude.

"I'm not sure how the guerrillas survive up here," Lt. Col. Fernando Pineda, who is in charge of supplying forces in the mountains, said as he looked across the peaks. "There's just no food, nothing, up here. Here there are no farmers to help them, so it's a situation where they can't get any of the things they need."

The army troops, of course, are also adversely affected. Walking a few hundred yards can leave a well- conditioned soldier gasping for breath. The food that is supplied is tediously simple - rice, beans, canned goods - since there are no farms where soldiers can buy chickens or produce, as is the army's practice.

But the helicopters, despite the thin air and sloped terrain that makes landing a fine art, continue to bring rations. Soldiers sleep in tiny tents, placing their sleeping bags atop hundreds of frailejón plants - soft, cotton-like leaves that grow on high plateaus and, when collected, can be used as a cushion. Morale is high, several soldiers said.

Today, army patrols continued to search for rebels as helicopters buzzed the mountainsides, dropping leaflets urging teenage guerrillas to surrender.

"Your comrades made the right decision," read the leaflets, which feature pictures of four who gave up. "Desert. The military will give you security and protection."

General Carreño said his troops had the rebels "fenced in."

"So the ones who are left, the options they have are to fight or turn themselves in," he said. "They have no other way out."

-------- drug war

Cadet charged with dealing LSD, Ecstasy

USA Today
12/19/00- Updated 04:14 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. - A senior cadet has been charged with dealing LSD and Ecstasy, and nine other cadets are being investigated. Military prosecutors allege Senior Cadet Stephen Daniel Pouncey also used LSD, Ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine. Pouncey was to appear in military court Thursday. If found guilty, he faces up to 55 years in prison and dismissal from the Air Force. Pouncey tested positive in a drug test in October, triggering the investigation.

---

USA Today
12/19/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Mississippi

Jackson - The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics reported confiscating 2,600 doses of the hallucinogen Ecstacy between July and November. Only 39 doses were seized during the same period last year. Bureau officials said that a majority of the increase was in towns with colleges but that Ecstacy seizures mainly were made off campus.

Missouri

Kansas City - A judge has imposed the first federal death sentence in Kansas City since 1953. Colombian national German Sinisterra, 35, was sentenced for killing a drug dealer two years ago. He and two others were found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, use of a firearm resulting in murder in drug trafficking and murder for hire. The others will be sentenced this week.

Utah

Farmington - The Davis County School Board is considering a new drug policy proposal that would prohibit teachers from smoking while students or co-workers are around. Maintenance and transportation workers also would be banned from chewing tobacco in district vehicles.

-------- europe

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT THE NICE SUMMIT

NEWROPEANS <webmaster@newropeans.org>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 01:01:28 -0800

NICE SUMMIT: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THERE
THE TEXT INCONSISTENCIES

According to El País, the discrepancies in terms of voting power found in the English (http://ue.eu.int/cig/nice/default.asp?lang=en ) and French texts (www.euractiv.com/a/ndbtext/general/anicetreaty.pdf )of the Treaty published so-far are due to the changes introduced in the French proposal a few minutes before the Summit was closed. For instance, if the calculations on majorities and minorities are made on the basis of a total of 342 votes, this is due to the fact that at the last moment, Lithuania got two more votes and Romania one more vote. Thus the total of votes in the enlarged EU is 345, and not 342.

HOW IT HAPPENED

(These are extracts, but they give a good picture. They have been translated by the Editor of Sources from the Spanish version published by El País):

Jacques Chirac -- Today is the day of truth: If we do not reach an accord, there will be a serious crisis in the EU and a grave crisis for the Euro. And a sine die delay in enlargement.

António Guterres -- I'm sorry. The proposal (re-weighting) is a coup d'Etat.

Paavo Lipponen -- The level of ambition is below zero.

Wim Kok -- We get a worse deal than Romania, this is unacceptable.

Giuliano Amato -- Each one has his problem. To come back to our Parliaments with a failure, delaying enlargement and leaving the Euro at 0,50... You better think it over!

Chirac -- Practically nobody has moved. In order to build Europe you need will and vision, and visionaries are tired...There is a risk of paralysis or anarchy.

Göran Persson -- The Presidency proposal is unbalanced.

Aznar -- As regards the big five, it seems to be taken for granted that they lose a Commissioner and this is forgotten when talking re-weighting. In the Council and in the Commission there is a double legitimacy: States and population. This is the aim. Spain will not pay twice: in the Commission and in the Council.

Chirac -- The consideration of the demographic factor must be integrated in the model. It is not reasonable that 14 States representing 11.3% of the population may block and that three States representing 30-35% may not. This is a matter of ethics and democracy.

Romano Prodi -- Looking only at the compensation for the loss of a Commissioner is not a good approach.

Kok -- The Presidency proposal is unfair. Why should the Netherlands pay for the franco-german problem?

Tony Blair -- If the weight of the small States is increased, the system is altered.

Gerhard Schröder -- The difference between Germany and the next country id 22 million inhabitants. How can we justify some proposals?

Chirac -- I make an appeal to the smaller ones. If there is an incident is a major theme, 35% of the population will not have blocking minority and 11% will have it; the end of the EU may start here. The bigger ones will say O.K. and will do together other things.

Lipponen -- The big ones are entrenched.

Guterres -- Here the big ones win. Let's not make humiliating

Chirac -- Nothing can be done by humiliating, except in totalitarian regimes...We must all make efforts. Here the big ones have made nine steps out of ten. It is a great victory for the small ones. We do it, but we won't thank you...

Lipponen -- The concession by the big ones was made in Amsterdam. Nodbody loses here a Commissioner.

Schröder -- Well, who knows, Prodi may sack some...

Chirac -- I see there is here a lot of Nordic humour

Schuessel -- I must in any case consult my Parliament.

Amato -- I also have to go to my Parliament, which awaits progress.

Chirac -- Why has France moved? Like Germany did it in Berlin. We do not ask for recognition, but a minimum of respect.

Aznar -- I am ready to seek compromises, since acknowledge the interests of some. But the text is not clear in the aims and in the procedure: What is a wide debate? What do we want to do with this exercise? We risk chaos. We must be highly demanding with ourselves and be clear in the procedure.

Chirac -- At the beginning the Presidency was hostile to this idea. Then Schroeder has convinced us of the need for a clarification, above all for the Länder.... We should not open Pandora's Box.

Aznar -- I accept to play the game, but knowing what are the consequences: Do we want to open the whole institutional balance after Nice? The question of the repartition of competences is truly important: it is a serious decision. Spain is as de-centralized as Germany in terms of competences and financing: opening this debate at the European level creates problems.

Schröder -- It is a step in the right direction, although the differences in population have not been taken into consideration as they should. I'll try to sell it in Germany.

Guterres -- I acknowledge the efforts, but it is not a fair proposal. It is discriminatory.

Chirac -- The big countries have made a big part of the path. The small ones have pocketed this win...

Guterres -- France invokes history. I must take my public opinion into consideration in the light of history: You have to loook into the Spain/Portugal relationship. Portuguese history is that of national affirmation in the peninsula during eight and a half centuries. I must explain that we go from a 8 to 5 relationshig to another one of 28 to 11. I won't be able to ratify it in Parliament.

Blair -- I want to recall that with this proposal the United Kingdom has one vote for two million inhabitants and Portugal one vote for 0.8 million. We cannot look for another proposal which is very different to this one. This is vital for Germany.

Persson -- Sweden has problems, but politics is like that.

Guy Verhofstadt -- The big countries are all alike and the medium-size and small countries are all different: the proposal is not logical. The Union does not work like that. And the problem will become more serious with enlargement.

Chirac -- The big ones have already given-in in the Commission: you cannot ask them to give-in everywhere. We all have to make sacrifices and accept injustices. If there is no decision now, it will be a shame.

Aznar -- I understand your observations, but in Spain not everyone will understand that in the future Spain and Portugal will both have one Commissioner (or even that Spain has none). When Spain joined it got two Commissioners and 8 votes; if it had been ten votes and one Commissioner, now we would have 30 votes.

Juncker -- The picture is inexplicable. The partisans of demographic fundamentalism will have to explain it to me.

Guterres -- Here all the big ones are satisfied and the others not. How to explain to Portugal that if we are four times smaller than the Spaniards we have twice and a half less votes: 28 votes are given to Spain and 30 to Germany? I do understand it, but the population will not.

Chirac -- You say the big ones are satisfied. The big countries are resigned! The five bigger ones represent 300 million and their populations also want an explanation. You cannot try to corner the big ones.

Guterres -- I cannot accept a Treaty like that.

Verhofstadt -- Neither can I.

Schröder -- Sometimes it is difficult to sell the concept of Europe: you have to face this situation. If we fail, the enlargement will be significantly delayed. That is why I have accepted to forget 22 million persons and deprive them of a vote. Germany has made painful sacrifices.

Guterres -- I agree that this is the hour of truth. I have a Parliament that must ratify and in which I do not have a majority. Europe is more unfair and more unbalanced with this proposal.

Lipponen -- This is the moment of truth. Now the big ones will dominate the Council and the Parliament.

Verhofstadt -- We must all make concessions: pain is of little importance. But what is important is to know whether the accord is good for the Union after enlargement.

Schröder -- We must symbolically safe the face and sell the result to the national Parliament.

Juncker -- I'm afraid of a failure. This would be the first time we leave a European Council with open wounds. Europe is not made with blocking minorities.

Blair -- We all have problems of national interests and we acknowledge it, but the global package is balanced.

Prodi -- We will be able to proceed with enlargement, but not with the impulse we should.

Chirac -- You cannot say there is enthusiasm. Could not we reflect for one or two months ? We should not lose faith.

Verhofstadt -- The modifications of votes must be made in a non-discriminatory way, and if they do not affect all the States I cannot accept.

Schröder -- I get sick when I hear these complaints. This has nothing to do with the organisation of Europe. I will remember this for a long time. It is two (a.m.) and I can accept, but this does not promise any good for the future.

Chirac -- The Commission and 14 States are in favour of the Treaty package. Belgium vetoes. I suspend the session for more contacts.

Chirac -- This is a unique situation. There is a problem with Belgium. I have proposed Belgium that as from its Presidency, one Council per presidency would be made in Brussels until we are 18. Then all European Councils will be there. I cannot do much more. I make a solemn call for Verhofstadt to accept.

Verhofstadt -- I request a solution to the real problem. I request the suspension of the session.

Chirac -- OK.

(Then the session is re-opened. There is accord on the Belgian proposal to increase the botes of Lithuania-to 7-and of Romania-to 14)

Persson, Rasmussen and Jospin -- We are in a position to back

Verhofstadt -- I do it for enlargement.

Chirac -- There is agreement on the global package (it was 4:20 a.m. of Monay December 11)

EUROPE TEN YEARS AFTER: AN INTERESTING BET

In an article today in El País ('Una visión de la Europa del futuro': http://www.elpais.es/p/d/20001218/internac/europa.htm ), Spanish analyst Andrés Ortega (a former correspondent in Brussels) draws a picture of the Europe of 2010, still an economic superpower with a strong currency, but which has not grown politically in a significant way. The EU has 28 Members. The Commission is presided by Elisabeth Guigou, and Martine Aubry is France´s President. Angela Merkel is Germany's Chancellor. The 2004 IGC brought a reform of the EU in 2007, but a new reform conference is now under way, although iut is not anymore an IGC, since the EU Parliament and other instances are participating, on the basis of a proposal from a Group of Wise Men: Felipe Gonzalez, Bronislaw Geremek, (now SPD) Joshka Fisher and Jean Claude Juncker. This is meant to be the last EU reform to require unanimity: as from 2011 the agreement and ratification by 4/5 of the States and of the EU Parliament will be sufficient to amend the split texts that produced the 2007 reform: a Fundamental Treaty incorporating the Rights Charter (U.K.and Denmark vetoed the term Constitution) and the new complex text. Enlargement happened in 2004 for Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. But the enlarged Union did not work well. And it was even worse in 2008 when the second wave arrived. Now Balkan States and çUkraine have applied. The introduction of the Euro did bring a fundamental change in the perception of the EU by its citizens. Geographical expansion has put a break to political integration. Variable geometry now abounds. Mr. PESC is now a vicepresident of the Commission. The EU Rapid force has only intervened in the Causacus. NATO retains its paramount defence role. The EU's core (called caucus) is formed by the six founder members plus Portugal, Spain, The U.K. and Poland. Independent agencies have proliferated, dealing with competision, sectoral markets, food, biocontrol, etc. The EU Council has now become-in practical terms-a Senate, headed by a President appointed by the Member States every foru years. COREPER has been replaced by a Council of Ministers permanently living in Brussels and travelling to their capitals once a week to attend their government's meetings. English has been adopted as the official language of the EU, but technological developments have rendered this decision unnecessary. There is still little popular interest in EU elections, and the current reform plans may include their outright suppression (Member States to nominate directly). Nest to Mr. PESC in the Commission sits Mr. Euro, and Sir Tony Blair aspires now to become the President of the Commission for the next term. He, together with his two Vice presidents, would have to be appointed by the European Council and ratified by the Parliament. The President would then appoint the Commissioners. The rotating Presidency has been abolished.

-------- myanmar

Burmese Sales to the Pentagon Spark Criticism

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19BURM.html

A Pentagon agency that runs stores on American military bases imported $138,290 in clothing made in Myanmar at a time when the Clinton administration had banned new investments in that country, documents show. While such purchases are not illegal, they violate the spirit of the administration's economic sanctions, critics in Congress and in human rights groups are saying.

Shipping documents show that the agency, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, imported the clothing from Myanmar, the former Burma, in October when the administration was stepping up its criticism of human rights violations by the country's military government.

Human rights groups, labor activists and Cynthia A. McKinney, a Georgia Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, have criticized the agency, saying that its imports of goods helped prop up Myanmar's military.

"This is obscene," said Maureen Aung-Thwin, director of the Burma Project at the Open Society Institute, a New York-based foundation pushing for democracy in Myanmar. "For the Pentagon to support this illegitimate military junta is absurd, especially when the nation's official foreign policy is to help end the repression there."

But Fred Bluhm, a spokesman for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which had $7.3 billion in sales last year at its 1,400 stores, said: "We're aware of the sanctions against Burma, but they have nothing to do with the sale or purchase of goods or services. What they have to do with are new investments, which we're not involved with."

In 1997, President Clinton announced a ban on new investment in Myanmar, following a law that required sanctions if the military there engaged in "large scale repression." The Clinton administration has not prohibited trade with Myanmar although it has often discouraged Americans from doing business with that country.

In obtaining goods from Myanmar, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service followed a strategy embraced by many American apparel companies, which, seeking to benefit from low-wage labor, have greatly increased imports from that country. Some studies have found that Myanmar's apparel workers earn just 8 cents an hour, making them among the world's lowest paid manufacturing workers.

In the first nine months of this year, American apparel companies imported $308 million in goods from Myanmar, more than double the level in the same period a year earlier.

An administration foreign policy official criticized the exchange services' imports from Myanmar, saying, "It's not consistent with the spirit of the administration's policy, which is very confrontational toward the regime."

The documents showing that the Army and Air Force Exchange Service imported goods from Myanmar were obtained from the National Labor Committee, a New York-based labor rights group that seeks to improve factory conditions overseas.

The documents show that the exchange service had about 10,000 pounds of garments made by the Newest Garment Manufacturing Company sent from Yangon, formerly Rangoon, to Los Angeles, arriving Oct. 19. The documents did not specify what garments had been sent.

When President Clinton announced the ban on investment, he said he was seeking to deny any economic support to Myanmar's regime. The military refused to recognize the 1988 election victory by the opposition party and its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been under house arrest for 6 of the last 11 years.

Two weeks ago, the president awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. Her son accepted the award.

Several days earlier, four Senators - Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina; Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky; Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa; and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont - wrote to President Clinton to urge him to ban all apparel imports from Myanmar as a way to advance Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's efforts to restore democracy.

They wrote, "The 1997 U.S. sanctions law on new investment in Burma primarily was clearly intended to deprive the Burmese military junta of funds with which to perpetuate human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing campaigns and to pressure the junta into commencing a dialogue with Suu Kyi's political party and ethnic minorities. Unfortunately, the new surge in apparel exports to the U.S. undermines the spirit of that law, allowing the regime to enrich itself and take advantage of unsuspecting American consumers."

-------- space

Rocky Road to Liftoff for a Successor to Space Shuttle

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By WARREN E. LEARY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/science/19ROCK.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - An experimental rocket once considered the best hope of leading to a replacement for the space shuttle is barely clinging to life, hoping for resuscitation with upcoming engine tests and a possible new source of development money.

When the rocket program began five years ago, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the aerospace industry touted it as the beginning of a new era in space transportation. The rocket, the X-33, they said, would test advanced technology that could lead to low-cost, reusable rockets that greatly reduced the cost of sending payloads into space.

The program is now years behind schedule for its first flight because of technical problems and almost out of money. The unmanned rocket was to have begun a series of 15 suborbital test flights in 1999, but problems with its engines and the unexpected rupture of one of its composite-structure fuel tanks have pushed this date to 2003, if it happens at all.

While proponents say the worst difficulties are behind the program and that it eventually will prove its worth, NASA has begun to explore alternatives it hopes will lead to a new generation of space vehicles.

Congress this year authorized NASA to proceed with a five-year, $4.5 billion program called the Space Launch Initiative, which is supposed to encourage large aerospace companies and small start-ups to develop new approaches for cutting the cost of going into space.

The plan calls for $2.4 billion of the money to go for a "second generation" reusable rocket that could eventually replace the shuttle fleet while increasing safety and cutting launching costs by 90 percent. It also has provisions for testing innovative technology and developing smaller rockets to ferry commercial payloads into space as well as supplies to the International Space Station.

Some groups advocating cheaper access to orbit as the best way to spur private investment and commerce in space already have criticized the plan. They say the plan favors high-risk projects - like the X-33 - instead of looking for simpler solutions, such as improving and applying existing technology, accusations that NASA spokesmen deny.

Moreover, in a move that really rankles critics, NASA is allowing the X-33 developers, led by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, to compete for the new initiative's funds as a way to complete their project. If the troubled program wins support, as a number of experts see as likely, it will drain money for new projects, the critics say.

"We need the Space Launch Initiative to help develop new ideas, new vehicles," said Patricia A. Dasch, executive director of the National Space Society, a space advocacy group with 22,000 members. "The X- 33 is not new. NASA needs to get to flight tests for the X-33 to prove the technology and show faith in its investment, but not at the expense of the new initiative."

Ms. Dasch said the United States had not gotten very far in efforts to replace the shuttles, which have been flying for 20 years. She said NASA may have lost some momentum by putting so much faith in the X-33. NASA had hoped to get out of the launching business and turn it over to the private sector so the agency could concentrate on research.

But it appears more difficult than previously believed for private industry to raise the billions of dollars needed to build and operate a shuttle replacement, Ms. Dasch said. "At least for a while, there probably needs to be a government vehicle if the government has unique requirements, and the government is going to have to pay," she said.

However, commercial rocket proponents, including the X-33 developers, say they have not given up.

Cleon Lacefield, the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company's vice president for the X-33, said the new launching initiative should allow a number of companies to test their ideas and come up with candidates for production vehicles. The X- 33 is still considered a half-scale prototype for the earlier-proposed Lockheed Martin Venture Star rocket, he said, and completing its test program could lead to having production models flying between 2010 and 2012.

"We are very confident we can move forward," Mr. Lacefield said.

The X-33 program began as a cooperative government-industry effort to demonstrate that it was possible to make a rocket that is cheaper and easier to operate than any flying today. It costs about $10,000 per pound to orbit payloads with the space shuttle.

In 1996, NASA selected a Lockheed Martin design over two other proposals and committed $941 million to the project under a contract that froze the government contribution. Lockheed Martin and its partners agreed to put up about $230 million, but problems pushed this investment to more than $350 million.

Lockheed Martin designed a rocket shaped like a flat, fat arrowhead with fins at the bottom. The X-33 is supposed to take off vertically using a new type of nozzle-less rocket engine, re-enter the atmosphere protected by a novel metallic thermal covering, fly back horizontally with the help of lift generated by its flat body, and land on a runway like an airplane.

The craft is called a single-stage- to-orbit rocket because it would fly into space and return to Earth in one piece, much like the typical reusable airliner. Conventional rockets are not totally reusable because they discard parts with each flight.

NASA and Lockheed Martin hoped a successful X-33 program would prove the feasibility of building the larger, commercial rocket called the Venture Star. The plan called for the company to raise private money to build two Venture Stars that it would own and operate.

In September, NASA and Lockheed Martin agreed to keep the X-33 alive through next March, when the program would know whether it won support from the new launching initiative. Gene Austin, NASA's X-33 program manager, said the team submitted its proposal last week.

"I think we have a very good chance to continue," Mr. Austin said, "We are trying to capitalize on the investment we've already made. We've already developed a lot of new technology with this program, such as proving the lifting body design and inventing a new, metallic heat protection system, that could be applied to any number of future launch proposals."

A series of engine tests set to begin in January also should give a boost to the X-33 program, officials said. The rocket, and eventually the Venture Star, is to be powered by linear aerospike engines, which promises to be more efficient than conventional ones. The two X-33 engines, successfully tested separately, have been joined in flight configuration for tandem firings at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The program calls for at least 10 test firings with the dual rockets leading up to the 210-second duration needed for X-33 test flights, and delivery of the flight-certified engines for mating with the rocket at the end of the year, said Don Chenevert, NASA's program manager for aerospike engine testing.

The linear aerospike engines are supposed to save weight and complexity by forgoing the movable, bell- shaped engine nozzles used for conventional engines. Each X-33's engine, which generates 206,000 pounds of thrust, has small combustors, or thrust chambers, that fire across the top of open exhaust ramps instead of through a nozzle.

During launching, the plume shooting from aerospike engines is not confined by a shaped nozzle and widens with decreasing atmospheric pressure as the rocket rises. Proponents say this allows the engines to maintain more efficient thrust throughout the vehicle's flight.

Mr. Austin said that 95 percent of the X-33's components had already been made and that the engines are in final testing. "I think our worst problems are behind us," he said.

-------- taiwan

Pentagon supports arms sales to Taiwan

Washington Times
December 19, 2000
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20001219223355.htm

The Pentagon said for the first time yesterday that it is unable to gauge the outcome of a military conflict between China and Taiwan because of intelligence "gaps."

In a report to Congress that is likely to rankle Beijing, the Pentagon also outlined new policy toward U.S. arms sales to the island, stating that they serve U.S. national security interests and promote peace and stability across the volatile Taiwan Strait.

"We cannot expect to predict confidently the outcome of a military conflict" across the Taiwan Strait, the report says.

The report appears to be another sign the Clinton administration is hardening its national security view of China. Last week, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned in a speech that China may become a 21st-century version of the Soviet Union and is aggressively modernizing its military forces.

The new report's assessment reverses two earlier Pentagon analyses on China's ability to invade Taiwan. The Pentagon stated in the congressional reports that China lacked the capability to successfully invade Taiwan.

"The United States takes its obligation to assist Taiwan in maintaining a self-defense capability very seriously," the report states. "This is not only because it is mandated by U.S. law in the [Taiwan Relations Act] but also because it is in our own national interest. As long as Taiwan has a capable defense, the environment will be more conducive to peaceful dialogue, and thus the whole region will be more stable."

The report uses vague language to describe how U.S. forces would respond to a war in the region, saying China's use of force to determine Taiwan's future would be a "grave concern."

China vehemently opposes all U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which have declined sharply during the Clinton administration.

The report states that President Clinton initiated a "non-hardware" review of U.S. support for Taiwan in 1994. The program is aimed at improving Taiwan's defense planning, command and control, air defense, maritime capability, anti-submarine warfare efforts, logistics, joint force integration and training.

The newly stated policy on arms sales to Taiwan is similar to the views expressed during the election campaign by President-elect George W. Bush, who has said the United States should do more to defend Taiwan.

The United States broke its defense treaty with Taiwan in 1979 after establishing diplomatic ties with China. Congress then passed the Taiwan Relations Act to express support for the former ally.

Over the past decade, Congress has sought to gain a greater say in U.S. policy toward Taiwan after successive administrations refused to cooperate with the Congress in such matters as arms sales, as required by the act.

The act states indirectly that the United States will defend the island if China uses force against it.

The report was based on assessments provided by the U.S. Pacific Command, which would be in charge of the U.S. military's defense of Taiwan in any attack by China, and the office of the secretary of defense.

Defense officials said Adm. Dennis Blair, the Pacific Command, balked at providing details of command's shortcomings regarding a defense of Taiwan.

The report was required under a provision of the Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2000 under an amendment put forth by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

The unclassified version of the report does not state clearly that the United States would come to Taiwan's aid in a war with China. However, it points to the dispatch of two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups to the region in March 1996 as a symbol of U.S. military backing for the island.

According to the report, China's government has said it will use force to try to reunite Taiwan with the mainland. Its three likely forms of attack are an invasion, a military blockade or large-scale missile attacks, the report says.

The report is indirectly critical of the U.S. intelligence community for failing to identify Chinese and Taiwanese military capabilities and decision making, despite monitoring tensions in the area for the past two decades.

It is the first time the Pentagon has publicly identified intelligence shortcomings, which intelligence agencies have said is due to problems in penetrating China's communist government.

The report identifies three intelligence "gaps" that make it difficult to assess whether the United States could successfully defend Taiwan during an invasion, blockade or missile attack.

"In some cases, we are unlikely ever to obtain exactly the information we would want," the report said. "If some knowledge gaps cannot be corrected, it is at least advantageous to be aware that they exist."

The gaps were identified as:

cThe inability to know how leaders in Beijing and Taipei view their military and political situation "in order to identify the most important conflict scenarios."

• The failure to know "training, logistics, doctrine, command and control, special operations, mine warfare" instead of more easily identified issues such as hardware, like numbers of aircraft and ships.

• The inability to "confidently assess" future war-fighting capabilities, with the exception of China's missile buildup and use of computer-based information warfare.

Defense officials said the recent publication of two Pentagon books translating Chinese military and Communist Party writings have improved military planners' understanding of China. One official said the books, by China analyst Michael Pillsbury, "are better than what the CIA provided us."

The report made only a brief mention of China's large-scale missile buildup opposite Taiwan, which Adm. Blair has said warrants the sale of U.S. missile defense systems to Taiwan.

China has deployed several hundred short-range ballistic missiles along the coast opposite Taiwan and is building up to a force of 650 missiles in the next several years, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

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

U.N. Rejects Troops for Palestinian Territories

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19COUN.html

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 18 - The Palestinians failed tonight to muster enough votes in the United Nations Security Council to send an international protection force to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel and the United States have strenuously opposed the proposal, and the American ambassador, Richard C. Holbrooke, said he would veto the resolution if it got the necessary majority of nine votes on the 15-member Council. In the end, an American veto was not needed. The vote on the resolution was eight in favor, with seven abstentions.

The nations abstaining were the United States, Argentina, Britain, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Russia. The resolution's sponsors - Bangladesh, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mali, Namibia and Tunisia - were joined by China and Ukraine. The United States preferred to let the measure be defeated by failing to get the needed number of votes rather than to use the veto that the five permanent members can use to defeat a measure.

Russia's decision to abstain and not to back the Palestinian resolution was regarded as a major factor in the defeat. By abstaining, the Russians also avoided a confrontation with the United States.

"This is a resolution that will never be adopted," Mr. Holbrooke said as he left the Council before the vote, which followed a long afternoon and evening of negotiations, caucuses and huddles in corridors and meeting rooms around the Council chamber. Last-minute efforts were made to tone down the resolution, which had already been revised over several weeks.

The Palestinians originally wanted an armed protection force of 2,000 soldiers, but the last draft of the resolution called only for an unspecified number of "military and police observers." The resolution asked Secretary General Kofi Annan to consult both sides about how and where the force would function, although Mr. Annan has said that the stationing of international troops was impossible as long as Israel opposed the idea.

Arab and Palestinian diplomats rejected the suggestion that with peace talks resuming in Washington, even on a modest scale, it would be an inappropriate time to press for a resolution that is anathema to Israel and the United States. Several members of the Council said that this had been a consideration in the vote. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France said the timing had prevented him from voting for the measure. The Netherlands and Argentina expressed similar views.

Nasser al-Kidwa, the leader of the Palestinian observer mission at the United Nations, said there was no relationship between events in Washington and the effort to create a protection force in the occupied territories. He said the vote had been delayed long enough. The Palestinians had hoped to finally have a vote last Friday, only to see it postponed again.

---

U.N. withdraws from Afghanistan

USA Today
12/19/00- Updated 10:29 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwstue09.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The United Nations withdrew the last of its international staff from Kabul on Tuesday in anticipation of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing further sanctions on the ruling Taliban militia.

Six international workers boarded a U.N. aircraft at the Kabul airport for neighboring Pakistan where they will sit out any initial reactions to the sanctions.

The United Nations has gradually withdrawn its international staff from the war-ravaged country in the last week, fearing a violent backlash from disgruntled Afghans to any new sanctions.

As many as 50 international employees have left, although Afghan staff remain to keep humanitarian programs working, said Stephanie Bunker, U.N. spokeswoman in neighboring Pakistan.

The withdrawal and sanctions come amid widespread opposition from other humanitarian aid groups, who say the victims will be ordinary Afghans - already victims of bitter war and the worst drought in 30 years.

''For 21 years, Afghanistan has been burning in the fires of war and if the United Nations imposes sanctions, then the United Nations, with its own hand, is putting people on fire,'' Faizl Mohammed Faizan, the Taliban's deputy commerce minister said in an interview.

The sanctions resolution, which is expected to be voted upon Tuesday afternoon by the U.N. General Assembly, is cosponsored by the United States and Russia. It calls for an arms embargo on the Taliban, a reduction of their diplomatic missions abroad, a ban on travel of Taliban officials and further freezing of assets abroad.

China and Malaysia were expected to abstain from the vote out of humanitarian concerns. Other countries such as France and Canada expressed similar concerns.

But no member threatened the resolution's passage: Opposition would amount to support for the Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam that bars women from work and girls from school.

Pakistan, however, is a close ally of the Taliban and on Tuesday called the proposed sanctions discriminatory.

''The humanitarian tragedy in Afghanistan threatens to deepen as a consequence of U.N. sanctions,'' foreign Minister Abdul Sattar added. ''Those pushing the sanctions that will force millions to emigrate or perish, will bear responsibility before history for this avoidable disaster.''

The sanctions are being imposed to press a demand that suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, living in exile in Afghanistan, be handed over to the United States or a third country for trial on terrorism charges.

The Taliban have refused, saying there is no proof of bin Laden's involvement in terrorist activities. A U.S. court indicted bin Laden in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people.

One year ago the United Nations imposed limited sanctions on the Taliban, also for bin Laden's extradition.

''Osama is only an excuse used by America against Islam,'' said Faizan. ''Osama is a guest in Afghanistan. He has no activity.''

Taliban officials have said they would boycott proposed peace talks with the opposition if new sanctions are imposed.

Washington and Moscow - on opposite sides during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan of the 1980s - have stressed the resolution is designed to combat terrorism, not to take sides in Afghanistan's civil war as the Taliban allege. Russia claims camps in Afghanistan train Islamic terrorists fighting in Tajikistan and Chechnya.

U.S. and Russian officials have also said the resolution provides for humanitarian exemptions and will mitigate any impact on ordinary Afghans.

Sattar disagreed: ''It is extraordinarily sad that the preoccupation with one person should result in the imposition of suffering for the whole people of Afghanistan.''

---

New York Times
December 19, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

ASIA

AFGHANISTAN: U.N. PULLING OUT As new sanctions aimed at the Taliban loom over Afghanistan, the United Nations is withdrawing most of its foreign relief workers, fearing that they could be become victims of angry Afghans protesting a Security Council move expected within days. The new sanctions, proposed by the United States and Russia, would impose an arms embargo on only one side of the civil war and would almost totally isolate a country already in crisis because of drought. Barbara Crossette (NYT)

UNITED NATIONS DEATH PENALTY PETITION Secretary General Kofi Annan accepted a petition signed by over three million people from 130 countries calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Mr. Annan told a delegation that delivered the petition that it would be up to governments to grant their wish, but that he joined in the appeal. Barbara Crossette (NYT)

Compiled by Terence Neilan

---

U.S. angles for a smaller slice in U.N. budget

Washington Times
December 19, 2000
By Betsy Pisik THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000121902151.htm

NEW YORK - American diplomats at the United Nations are working against a Thursday deadline to complete a long-sought deal that would reduce U.S. financial contributions to the organization in exchange for payment of more than $500 million in arrears.

If U.S. negotiators can persuade the other 188 member states to lower Washington's assessment to the international organization by a total of 8 percent, the Clinton administration will be free to turn over some $572 million - the second of three payments that could total $926 million and nearly wipe out the debt.

A deal must be concluded by dawn Thursday if the General Assembly is to vote on it before adjourning Friday for the Christmas holiday. Under U.N. rules, the scale of assessments cannot be reconsidered again until 2003.

Although officials remain cautious about winning a revision of the regular budget, they are increasingly optimistic about reducing the U.S. assessment for peacekeeping.

"We believe this package has a reasonable chance of being accepted," said Ambassador Donald Hays, who oversees the budget negotiations for the U.S. Mission.

"The net result is an institutional solution which embeds economic performance of countries in determining . . . their assessment," he said.

Discussions on apportioning the organization's annual $1.2 billion operating budget have been proceeding slowly and often rancorously.

The European Union and Japan - which along with the United States account for the largest share of U.N. financing - have said they will not increase their contributions, which are based on a formula that considers gross national product, foreign debt and population.

The United States pays 25 percent of the regular budget but accounts for roughly 27 percent of the world's wealth. It is asking for a ceiling of 22 percent for any single nation, although only Japan comes close.

There is more sympathy for an overhaul of the peacekeeping scale, which initially was cobbled together in 1973 to pay for a single observer mission in the Sinai Peninsula. The U.S. assessment for peacekeeping now is 30.4 percent, with total costs expected to hit $3 billion next year.

Many of the poorest nations that got discounts in 1973 have since become prosperous and should pay more, the Americans say. Israel, Hungary, South Korea and several others have announced they will forfeit discounts worth millions of dollars each year.

But other governments complain that a sudden rise in their peacekeeping assessments would throw their budgets into havoc.

A proposal crafted by Mexico and approved by most of Latin America is to be introduced formally today and will peg the peacekeeping discount more closely to a nation's wealth.

Under the Mexican proposal, nations will be divided into nine groups instead of the current four, with discounts ranging from 90 percent of the regular budget assessment for the poorest nations, to 20 percent for the wealthier ones. Dozens of nations will not receive any discount.

In both scales, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -pay premiums on top of their regular budget assessments.

The Japanese, Australians, Canadians, South Koreans and some of the European nations most likely to have their shares increased have agreed informally to the Mexican proposal, delegates say.

However, it is a not clear whether that proposal would reduce the U.S. contribution for peacekeeping to 25 percent, as Washington demands.

Although U.S. negotiators continue to pursue the 25 percent ceiling, Mr. Hays said, "There is no doubt that if this goes through, we will be closer to 25 than the current 30.4 percent."

Variables include how much the United States ultimately is assessed on the regular budget and how big a premium they pay as a permanent Security Council member.

The United States has been angling for a lower assessment rate since 1995, when President Clinton signed a law capping the American U.N. contribution at 20 percent of the regular budget and 25 percent of peacekeeping. The organization continues to bill Washington at 25 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively, accounting for most of the $1.6 billion the organization claims it is owed.

U.S. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, who has lobbied other governments intensively on this issue, says it is unhealthy for the United Nations to rely so heavily on only one contributor.

Other nations have begun to agree - if only, in the words of allies and enemies alike - because that nation does not pay reliably or without attaching conditions.

---

U.N. withdraws foreign-aid workers

Washington Times
December 19, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-20001219213932.htm

NEW YORK - The United Nations said yesterday it had withdrawn foreign-aid workers from Afghanistan, fearing a backlash when the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions against the ruling Taleban movement.

"We have drawn down our international staff in Afghanistan," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. She would not say how many of the approximately 50 foreign U.N. staffers stationed there were being pulled out.

Western sources said over the weekend in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that most foreign-relief agencies had withdrawn staff from the city, apprehensive that violence could erupt once fresh embargoes were imposed.

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

Copernicus Therapeutics, Inc. Announces Signing Collaborative Research and Development Agreement With the Navy to Develop a Malaria DNA Vaccine Using Copernicus PLASmin Complexes

Yahoo News
Tuesday December 19, 3:43 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001219/oh_coperni.html

CLEVELAND--(BW HealthWire)--Dec. 19, 2000--Copernicus Therapeutics, Inc. and the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) announced they have signed a Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to explore uses of Copernicus' PLASmin(TM) Complexes in the development of a malaria DNA vaccine.

Testing of Copernicus' PLASmin(TM) Complexes will be conducted by a Navy team of investigators led by CAPT Stephen L. Hoffman and CAPT Walter Weiss. The DNA vaccine incorporates genes that are designed to trigger an immune response against the malaria parasite. Several routes of delivery will be tested.

``We have successful proof of principle in preclinical studies that DNA vaccines may provide a protective immune response against malaria. We are looking for ways to improve the efficiency and level of immune responses as well as improve the convenience of administration. We will explore the use of several formulations of Copernicus' PLASmin(TM) Complexes, delivered via a number of routes of administration, to determine if we can reach our goal of creating a safe, efficacious and convenient malarial vaccine,'' said CAPT Hoffman, Director of the Navy Malaria Program.

Mark J. Cooper, M.D., Senior Vice President of Science and Medical Affairs said, ``We have shown that Copernicus' PLASmin(TM) Complexes provide improved delivery of target genes to cells in a number of systems. PLASmin(TM) Complexes consist of single molecules of DNA compacted to their theoretical minimum possible size. The Copernicus method of DNA compaction results in DNA drugs that are extremely stable in physiological solutions, highly resistant to degradative enzymes, more readily taken up by cells, and expressed in both dividing AND non-dividing cells (unique property of Copernicus' non-viral technology). Furthermore, we have the ability to selectively target our highly compacted DNA particles by attaching cell-specific ligands, including ligands specific to antigen-presenting cells. Copernicus is interested in developing our technologies for use in DNA vaccines. We were recently awarded a Phase I SBIR grant from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to advance the development of DNA vaccines that can be applied topically, thus avoiding the need for painful injections. We are anxious to work with the experts at the Naval Medical Research Center to determine the best formulation and route of delivery of our PLASmin(TM) Complexes for use in developing a DNA vaccine for malaria.''

``Our PLASmin(TM) Complex technology is one of the important patented gene therapy technologies that Copernicus is developing that should enable efficient, safe and effective therapies for a broad spectrum of unmet medical needs,'' said Robert C. Moen, M.D., Ph.D., President and COO of Copernicus. ``Combined with our REPLIsome(TM) Vector technologies and our targeting technologies, Copernicus provides the tools required to develop effective gene therapies for diverse indications including cancer, genetic disorders, angiogenesis and vaccine development. We expect to broadly partner these platforms with other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies wishing to exploit the advantages of our proprietary technology.''

Copernicus Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company, is advancing novel targeting and delivery systems with broad applications in human therapeutics, DNA vaccines and functional genomics. Copernicus' technologies include a targeting platform enabling the efficient uptake of drugs by specific cells and tissues and a multi-component delivery platform that can be applied to nucleic acids to develop therapies for a variety of human diseases as well as to enhance transgene expression. The Company's targeting, delivery and expression platforms are complementary and can be combined to enhance the efficacy and safety of existing drugs, to create novel therapeutics, and to speed up the drug discovery process.

Contact:

Copernicus Therapeutics, Inc. Robert C. Moen, 216/231-0227 ext. 26 rmoen@cgsys.com or Copernicus Therapeutics, Inc. Mark J. Cooper, 216/231-0227 ext. 26 mcooper@cgsys.com or Naval Medical Research Center Walter R. Weiss, 301/319-7573 WeissW@NMRC.Navy.Mil

---

USA Today
12/19/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Conneticut

New Britain - Charter Oak State College, a state-sponsored study-at-home college, has been chosen to help develop a "virtual" university for the Army. The Army University Access Online will allow soldiers to take college courses by computer. Twenty-eight institutions across the USA are participating in the $453 million project.

---

Democratic objections doom bill on voting booths

Washington Times
December 19, 2000
By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20001219223732.htm

A bill to allow voting booths on U.S. military bases has died in Congress after Republican backers were told that Democratic senators would object to a quick floor vote in the waning days of the 106th Congress.

Aides for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, wanted to negotiate the bill's passage on Thursday and Friday as the chamber finished up work on the 2001 budget and then quit for the year.

But aides were told that while Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, would support the bill, there were some unnamed Democrats who would protest what is called "unanimous consent" to the bill's passage.

A senior Republican leadership aide quoted Mr. Daschle's staff as saying several weeks ago, "We're not going to object to this bill. But I have checked with my people, and there are people on my side that will object."

An aide said that, as the session wound down Friday, Mr. Lott's people made the decision not to push the bill based on "our own information" that some Democrats would object.

Republican senators in October cleared the bill for unanimous consent.

The aide said that since an objection meant the Senate would have to then debate the bill over the weekend, it was decided to let it die this year and try again in 2001.

"Senator Lott has also made it clear that we will be working with the new administration to get this done in the next Congress," the staffer said. "I think we are going to have an emphasis on election reform, not campaign finance reform."

Ranit Schmelzer, spokeswoman for Mr. Daschle, said the Senate minority leader would not have objected if Mr. Lott brought the bill to the floor last week.

"He would support the bill and vote for it when it came to the floor," Miss Schmelzer said. "He would not object to it if it came to the floor. But there may be other Democrats who may or may not object to it. I don't have any information on that."

The Senate maneuvering comes at a time when some military personnel are resentful of recent Democratic Party efforts to disqualify overseas ballots in Florida to win the state for Vice President Al Gore.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bill Thomas, California Republican, cleared the House, 297-114. It is designed to ease the voting burden on service members by allowing, but not requiring, the military's three service secretaries to authorize polling places on domestic installations. The legislation is primarily aimed at remote bases where personnel and their families must drive considerable distances to a polling location.

Senate aides said Democrats objected to the bill for three principal reasons: There was already legislation that allowed existing military polling places to remain open for the 2000 election; the bill would help relatively few personnel since most of the military vote by mail through absentee ballots; and the Clinton administration fears that voting centers could politicize nonpartisan military bases.

"They dug in," said a Republican staffer. "They didn't want to do anything."

Mr. Thomas pushed his legislation after the Pentagon sent out memos signaling it intended to crack down on commanders who were allowing voting booths in apparent violation of the law.

When the bill arrived in the Senate, Republicans attempted to "hot line" it by bypassing committees and having it approved on the floor unanimously. All Senate Republicans agreed.

Mr. Thomas, chairman of the House Administration Committee, said he will attempt to fold the military voting bill next year into a larger election bill.

Two days before the House passed the bill in October, Defense Department General Counsel Douglas A. Dworkin strongly opposed it in a letter to Mr. Thomas.

"The Department has a long standing policy prohibiting the use of military installations as polling sites for elections," Mr. Dworkin wrote on Oct. 10. "This policy is based on sound public policy of maintaining strict separation between the military and the political process. The policy of separating the military and partisan politics is critically important to maintaining public support for and confidence in our armed forces, as well as maintaining good order and discipline within military ranks."

Mr. Thomas responded in a letter to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

"Allowing and even encouraging people to exercise their right to vote does not involve [the] military in 'partisan politics' as the general counsel alleges," wrote Mr. Thomas, along with Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Stump, Arizona Republican, and Armed Services Chairman Floyd D. Spence, South Carolina Republican.

"In fact, we are surprised that any DoD counsel would make such an argument in view of DoD's active and well-regarded voter assistance program."

-------- OTHER

Study: Cell phones not linked to cancer

USA Today
12/19/00- Updated 05:15 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/life/health/cancer/lhcan146.htm

CHICAGO (AP) - A study of people who used cell phones for an average of less than three years found no evidence the devices cause brain cancer. The research does not answer the question of whether longer-term use is dangerous. The study, funded by the industry group Wireless Technology Research and the National Cancer Institute, appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study of 891 people did find a slightly increased risk for a rare type of brain cancer, but the researchers said it was not statistically significant.

While they acknowledge longer-term studies are needed, the researchers said the overall results should reassure the more than 86 million cell phone users nationwide.

The study of 891 people did find a slightly increased risk for a rare type of brain cancer, but the researchers said it was not statistically significant.

While they acknowledge longer-term studies are needed, the researchers said the overall results should reassure the more than 86 million cell phone users nationwide.

''We feel confident that the results reflect that cell phones don't seem to cause brain cancer,'' said epidemiologist Joshua Muscat, a scientist at the American Health Foundation who helped lead the study.

Unlike regular telephones, handheld cell phones contain an antenna inside the receiver, which puts the user's brain close to the electromagnetic radio waves the antenna emits. Since cell phones were introduced in the United States in 1984, conflicting data have emerged from safety studies on animals and humans.

The Food and Drug Administration has said there is no evidence that the phones are unsafe, but it has joined with the wireless industry in sponsoring research on the devices. Some cell phone makers have also started disclosing their products' radiation levels.

The new study, co-written by Dr. Mark Malkin of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, involved phone-use questionnaires given to 469 men and women ages 18 to 80 with brain cancer and a 422-member cancer-free control group.

Cell-phone use was slightly more common among the cancer-free participants, though average cell-phone use for both groups was under three hours monthly for less than three years.

The amount and duration of cell-phone use were not related to an increased brain cancer risk except for a type of neuron-cell tumors called neuroepitheliomatous cancer. Of the 35 patients with these rare tumors, 14 - 40% - used cell phones.

''An isolated result like that can occur entirely due to chance,'' said Russell Owen, chief of the FDA's radiation biology branch. He said the overall findings are in line with previous research and ''certainly not cause for concern.''

Professor Henry Lai of the University of Washington, whose animal research linked cellular phone signals with cell damage in rat brains, called the study ''very preliminary and inconclusive.''

''Since most solid tumors take 10 to 15 years to develop, it is probably too soon to see an effect,'' Lai said.

---

Report lets cellular telephones off the hook

Washington Times
December 19, 2000
By Erika Pontarelli AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20001219213313.htm

A study published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found no link between short-term cellular-phone use and brain cancer.

The study, conducted between 1994 and 1998, focused on 891 men and women ages 18 to 80, including 469 brain-cancer patients.

The participants were interviewed to see if they were "regular" cell-phone users - that is, whether they subscribed to a cellular-phone service - and they were asked about the number of years they had used cell phones, the amount of time they spent on the phones each month, the manufacturer of their cell phones and the average amount of their monthly cell-phone bill.

In addition, 700 of the 891 patients were asked which hand they had used to hold their cellular phones.

The brain-cancer patients interviewed had a median monthly usage of 2.5 hours, compared with 2.2 hours for the control group; and they had been using cell phones for a mean duration of 2.8 years, compared with 2.7 years for the control group.

"No association with brain cancer was observed according to duration of use," concluded Joshua Muscat of the Valhalla, N.Y.-based American Health Foundation and his colleagues, the authors of the study.

Scientists have long been investigating as-yet unsubstantiated suggestions that radiation emitted by mobile phones, base stations and masts could trigger medical ailments from dizziness to gene damage, nosebleeds to nausea, Alzheimer's disease to brain tumors.

Mobile phones emit low levels of radiofrequency radiation (RF) and energy - the same signals that, in high levels, make microwave ovens work.

Hand-held mobile phones are targeted for research because of the short distance between the phone's built-in antenna, the primary source of the RF, and the user's head.

"The use of the handheld cellular telephones was unrelated to the risk of brain cancer in the current study," the researchers wrote.

"The current study shows no effect with short-term exposure to cellular telephones that operate on [primarily] analog signals," they wrote.

But, they added: "Further studies are needed to account for longer induction periods, especially for slow-growing tumors."

"The RF fields emitted from digital cellular telephones might have different effects on biological tissue than analog telephones," they acknowledged.

Research for the study was conducted at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York University Medical Center and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York; Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I.; and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

An estimated 97 million Americans were mobile-phone users as of June 2000, up from 86 million at the end of 1999, according to the Washington-based Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association

---

MANHATTAN: MAYOR ENDS RADIATION

New York Times
December 19, 2000
Metro Business Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/nyregion/19MBRF.html

NEW YORK
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani completed his last daily session of external beam radiation treatment for prostate cancer yesterday, leaving him with two final months of doses of a cancer-combating hormone. The mayor previously had radioactive seeds implanted in his prostate, and for the last five weeks had undergone daily radiation treatment. The treatments have at times left the mayor tired, but he has not taken any extended periods of time off. Eric Lipton (NYT)

-------- alternative energy

M.T.A. SET FOR HYBRID BUS ORDER

New York Times
December 19, 2000
Metro News Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/nyregion/19BBRF.html

At a meeting today, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is expected to approve an order for 200 hybrid electric buses that will be used in the five boroughs, Gov. George E. Pataki announced in a written statement yesterday. New York City Transit already operates 10 such buses, the largest fleet of electric buses in the country, said Albert O'Leary, a spokesman for the transit agency. He said 130 others were already scheduled for delivery next year, when the transit agency plans to increase bus service by 5 percent. The 200 new buses, whose electric power is replenished by small diesel motors, would be delivered in 2003. Mr. O'Leary said that the hybrid buses burn at least as cleanly as buses fueled by compressed natural gas, and as new technology is developed, their diesel motors could be replaced by even cleaner fuel cells. The new buses, which will cost $77 million, will be built in New York State by Orion Bus Industries in Oriskany and BAE Systems in Johnson City. "These buses will pay important health dividends by dramatically reducing bus emissions on the streets of New York, while helping provide good-paying jobs upstate," Mr. Pataki said, calling the purchase the largest order of hybrid electric buses in North America. Shaila K. Dewan (NYT)

-------- environment

World Still Gripped by Warming Trend

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-environment-c.html

GENEVA - The warming trend that has gripped our climate for the past 20 years will make 2000 one of the hottest years since 1860, despite La Nina's cooling effect on the tropical Pacific and other anomalies, the United Nations weather agency said Tuesday.

This year will be the fifth or sixth warmest since 1860, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. Eight of the 10 warmest years in the 140-year period have occurred since 1990 and 1998, when the El Nino current warmed the Pacific, was the hottest on record.

WMO Secretary-General Godwin Obasi told a news conference that 2000 was the 22nd successive year that global temperatures have been above the average of the 1961-1990 base period.

He said the WMO findings on rising temperatures were consistent with global warming, a phenomenon blamed on emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.

U.N. environment talks in The Hague last month failed when the European Union and the United States disagreed on how to carry out reductions in emissions agreed in Kyoto in 1997.

Obasi, a Nigerian meteorologist who heads the Geneva-based agency, called on governments to further curb greenhouse gas emissions, which are increasing each year.

``The climate of 2000 represents a continuation of the global warming conditions that have persisted throughout the 1990s,'' he said. ``It is consistent with a warmer planet.

``I think we have to take it seriously to curtail the emission of greenhouse gases and this accumulation in the atmosphere. That is the only way somehow that we can start addressing the issue of global warming.''

U.S. Rejects Climate Talks

Many scientists say global warming caused by heat-trapping gases could lead to chaotic weather, higher sea levels, increased disease and disruption in food supplies.

The WMO's annual statement on the climate was issued a day after the United States rejected an invitation to reopen climate talks with the EU, killing the latest effort to forge an international strategy on global warming.

Norway had offered to host a meeting at the end of this week between the EU and a U.S.-led group including Canada, Japan and Australia, to give the two sides a chance to resolve the differences that sank the talks in The Hague last month.

This year the global average surface temperature is likely to be about 0.32 degrees Celsius above the average for 1961-1990 and 0.6 degrees Celsius above temperatures at the start of the 20th century, according to the WMO.

It has been similar to 1999, the fifth warmest year since instruments began recording temperatures 140 years ago.

``The year 2000 was much like those of the 1990s; some areas of the globe experienced extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme rainfall and extreme drought, while many others experienced near normal conditions, but when averaged together the global climate continues to be warmer than normal,'' the WMO statement said.

The data, collected by the WMO network of 10,000 weather monitoring stations, show Japan will have had its fifth warmest year in 103 years, Canada its sixth warmest and the United States between its seventh and 12th warmest since 1895.

Droughts and Fires Beset World

``In North America, drought conditions prevailed through northern Mexico to the southern and western United States. That drought led to the most serious wildfire conditions in over 50 years,'' Obasi said. ``In contrast to the drought situation, many parts of the world experienced severe flooding.''

Italy, Switzerland, Britain, Colombia, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam recorded severe flooding in 2000.

WMO officials said El Nino -- the warming current in the eastern Pacific Ocean whose effects on the global climate caused an estimated $34-38 billion in damage in 1997-98 -- was not expected to return until near the end of 2001 at the earliest.

``At the moment we have fairly neutral conditions in the Pacific Ocean, although there has been something of a recent resurgence of La Nina conditions. None of the models at the present time are predicting an El Nino for the foreseeable six to nine months,'' said Michael Harrison, WMO chief of climate.

``The earliest we may get an El Nino is toward the end of next year, on present evidence,'' he added.

---

Washington Calling:
Government has gift for those who didn't file 1997 returns This is a weekly size-up

Evansville Courier & Press
12/19/00
by the Washington staff of Scripps Howard News Service.
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200012/19+calling121900_news.html+20001219

If you had any thought that partisans were going to forgive and forget, read Sierra Club President Carl Pope's congratulatory message to George W. Bush:

"As President-elect Bush sets his environmental course, the Sierra Club will weigh every act of courage, every omission by cowardice, every visionary look to the future and every sideways glance at a campaign donor and lay it out to the American people for judgment," he said.

---

New Jersey Pastoral

New York Times
December 19, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/opinion/L19JER.html

To the Editor:

Re "Shops vs. Swamps in the Meadowlands" (news article, Dec. 18):

Every day on my commute to New York City by way of Hoboken, I am thankful for the incredible view outside my train window.

Sure, the background is packed with industrial parks, bridges and, of course, the New Jersey Turnpike. But if you allow yourself to gaze, you will see a stretch of unadulterated nature: reeds blowing in the wind, birds flying across the water and tall plumes sparkling in the sunset. Why on earth do we need another mall in New Jersey that would endanger this wildlife sanctuary?

HAYLEY KRISCHER Montclair, N.J., Dec. 18, 2000

---

Mandatory Water Meters

New York Times
December 19, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/opinion/L19WAT.html

To the Editor:

New York City has not changed its policy of requiring water metering for all properties. Universal metering remains a requirement ("In Policy Switch, City Eases Stance on Water Meters," front page, Dec. 15).

What the city has proposed is to take several existing transitional programs that allow units to be billed at flat rates and make them part of a permanent program called the Conservation Program for Multiple Family Residential Buildings. This mandatory program would oblige landlords to install meters and low-flow plumbing fixtures and to fix leaks throughout their buildings.

The proposal addresses concerns that metering disproportionately raises costs on low-and moderate-income housing units - concerns that have been raised since the first days of the city's efforts to bring water conservation and metering to all residential buildings.

JOSEPH J. LHOTA Deputy Mayor
New York, Dec. 15, 2000

---

HARTFORD: STATE ENTERS BEACH FRAY

New York Times
December 19, 2000
Metro Business Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/nyregion/19MBRF.html

CONNECTICUT
The State Department of Environmental Protection has asked the State Supreme Court's permission to file a brief in the case involving Greenwich's restrictive beach access policy. The environmental protection commissioner, Arthur J. Rocque Jr., said he deserved to be heard because his oversight of Connecticut's coast could be significantly affected by the outcome of the landmark case. Last month, Greenwich filed legal papers with the Supreme Court, arguing that a ruling that it must open its beaches to the public would lead to the "Jerseyfication" of the state. (AP)

---

USA Today
12/19/00
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Alaska

Anchorage - State officials scrambled to find office space for 140 workers after a fuel spill damaged an eight-story state office building. A malfunctioning float valve caused a fuel tank on the roof to overflow, spilling up to 200 gallons of heating oil inside the building, officials said. The building was closed indefinitely for cleanup.

Arizona

Tucson - The endangered pygmy owl is causing traffic jams. And it could be months before a road-widening project resumes, county officials said. Plans to make the road four lanes were in the works for years, but work stopped after just four days when federal officials raised concerns about the owl's habitat.

Nebraska

Neligh - Antelope County District Judge Richard Garden has dismissed a lawsuit trying to block expansion of a dairy farm near Royal. Opponents feared an expanded dairy could threaten a trout stream in the northeast Nebraska area. Garden ruled that plaintiffs failed to meet a burden of proof in trying to overturn a conditional use permit for Todd and Chad teVelde.

South Carolina

Greenville - South Carolina should set aside $32 million annually to fund land preservation, a state lawmaker says. Republican Rep. George Campsen said he has support from environmentalists, real estate and home builders for the plan to transfer state funds to a conservation bank. Grants would go to nonprofit groups or governmental bodies to finance conservation deals.

Tennessee

Celina - Federal authorities arrested 35 people for distributing cocaine on warrants dating back to 1993, prosecutors said. If convicted, each of the 35 could face 10 years to life in prison; fines could total up to $4 million. Federal authorities are trying to confiscate cash and property valued at $1.7 million from the alleged ringleaders.

-------- genetics

NEW ANALYSIS
What's Next for Biotech Crops? Questions

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By CAROL KAESUK YOON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/science/19PLAN.html?pagewanted=all

Last week, more than a decade after the federal government allowed the first release of a genetically engineered organism into the environment, researchers concluded that scientists still cannot say with any precision what the ecological effects - either good or bad - of such genetically modified organisms might be.

The findings, published in Science, raise questions about why so little is known and whether some key questions about risk are, in practical terms, answerable.

For example, some scientists have estimated that answering just a single question of risk for a single organism - whether a type of biotech corn harms the monarch butterfly - would cost $2 million to $3 million, more than the Agriculture Department typically grants each year for the study of environmental risk. And if questions cannot be answered, where do we go from here?

Questions about risk first emerged when genetically engineered organisms started making their way out of the laboratory and into the public consciousness in the late 1980's. Men in spacesuits were assigned to release the first genetically engineered organisms into the wide world: bacteria sprayed on strawberries to protect them from frost. Soon afterward uneasy shoppers shunned the first genetically engineered crop, the ill-fated Flavr Savr tomato, whose only crime was a foreign gene for longer shelf life.

Today such organisms seem almost quaint as biotech salmon grow to market size in half the normal time and genetically modified goats make human blood proteins in their milk. And an international debate has sprung up over the value of these organisms, with participation from such unlikely quarters as the Vatican and Prince Charles.

But while biotechnology has raced ahead, scientists' ability to predict potential environmental consequences apparently has not, according to the new Science paper, a review of scientific literature by Dr. LaReesa Wolfenbarger and Dr. Paul Phifer. The study of the highest profile of environmental risks, the potential threat of genetically modified corn to monarch butterflies, is a case in point.

Questions about corn and monarchs first arose in the spring of 1999 when Cornell researchers showed that monarch caterpillars died in the laboratory after eating pollen from genetically engineered corn. The corn, given a gene from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium, then produced a toxin that killed the European corn borer pest.

Corn and monarch butterflies are two of the best studied organisms on the planet. How difficult could it be to determine whether monarchs were indeed at risk in the wild?

But last month, after a year and a half of research by more than 20 researchers from universities and industry, scientists gathered outside Chicago were still unable to say with any precision what the magnitude of risk was from the biotech corn to wild monarch populations.

One reason so little is known about the magnitude of ecological risks in general is that regulators deemed some effects, including those to species like the monarch - which are neither beneficial to agriculture nor legally protected as endangered species - of little concern.

"We knew things like monarchs and other butterflies would be susceptible," Dr. Arnold Foudin, an assistant director of scientific services at the Department of Agriculture, said in a phone interview after the Cornell study appeared. "That's part of the general background noise."

But the major problem for researchers is the inherent difficulty, expense and time involved in understanding ecological interactions.

Biologists first set out to see whether monarch caterpillars would even encounter Bt corn pollen in the wild. By fall, biologists announced that most toxic pollen is shed within a cornfield, rather than outside it.

If monarchs were unlikely to live in cornfields, as industry spokesmen suggested, the effects of the new crop might be quite limited. But this summer researchers discovered that large numbers of monarch caterpillars live on milkweed in cornfields.

"We're finding them between the rows of corn," said Dr. Karen S. Oberhauser, ecologist at University of Minnesota.

To complicate matters further, it appears that risks to monarchs will vary both by region and by variety of corn grown.

More important, other scientists report finding this summer that the survival of monarch caterpillars in Bt and normal corn fields is indistinguishable. The potential complication is that the vast majority of caterpillars are killed by predators.

"Only 2 to 5 percent of them ever make it," said Dr. Rick Hellmich, research entomologist with the Department of Agriculture working at Iowa State University.

So while some are again ready to conclude that Bt corn poses no undue risk to the monarch, others say with such a minuscule survival rate, even important differences between the survival rates in the two fields would be tiny, probably requiring much larger-scale studies to detect. "Given the ups and down on this one, I'd hate to jump to conclusions now," said Dr. David Andow, entomologist at the University of Minnesota.

The difficulty in coming to conclusions about corn and monarchs raises the question of how much scientists can be expected to learn about what researchers say are the other, much more complex ecological threats from biotech organisms. In addition, authors of the new Science paper say there are some risks that scientists may never be able to fully understand.

For example, in the past scientists have recorded delays of 30 to 50 years between the arrival of a plant and its widespread infestation as a weed, making reliable predictions of the long-term likelihood of threats like superweeds extremely difficult.

Dr. John Losey, a co-author of the original monarch study, said he and a group of other researchers originally estimated it would cost between $2 million and $3 million to answer the monarch question.

If this is the cost of understanding just one risk from one biotech organism to one species, where will the big research dollars come from to answer the variety of questions being raised by the development of many new organisms? Dr. Michael Phillips, executive director for food and agriculture at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade association representing biotechnology companies, said he seconded the new Science study's call for further research of ecological risk, but said the public should not look to the private sector to foot the bill.

The public source for such money is the Department of Agriculture's Biotechnology Risk Assessment Research Grants program, which typically finances just over $1 million in research a year - the mandated 1 percent of total dollars spent on biotechnology research by the department. These grants cover risk research on everything from biotech fish, insects and plants to viruses.

Whether the science being called for will ever be in hand remains to be seen. But researchers on both sides of the debate note that any decision about what to do next will be determined not only by the magnitude of the risks and benefits, determined by scientists, but by the value placed on them by those making the decisions.

"Much of the objection to biotechnology involves values," said Dr. Peter Kareiva, senior ecologist for cumulative risk assessment at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Answers, he said, will not come just from "handing off a science answer like a stone tablet from the mountaintop."

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

I.M.F. Plans Billions in Aid to Argentina

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By JOSEPH KAHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/world/19FUND.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The International Monetary Fund and private banks today promised as much as $39.7 billion to help Argentina reduce its growing debt burden, pep up its economy and stem a crisis of confidence that some economists worry could spread through Latin America.

The package, which is much bigger than expected, will help the government manage a foreign debt burden that has weighed heavily on the economy. President Fernando de la Rúa had called the loan negotiations possibly "the last chance" to restore faith in the nation's economic prospects.

The money could help calm fears that the region's relatively robust performance after the emerging- market turmoil of the late 1990's could prove short lived. The I.M.F. acted shortly after it provided $7.5 billion in new loans for Turkey, which experienced a banking crisis that at least temporarily undermined confidence in that economy.

Argentina, which depends heavily on international debt markets to finance government operations, had faced the possibility of a debt default without coordinated help from multilateral financial institutions and private creditors.

Brazil, Chile, Mexico and other Latin economies do not face a crisis of that kind. But they are all wary of slowing growth and slumping stock markets in the United States, the locomotive for the region.

"This eliminates any doubts about the Argentine economy," Mr. De la Rúa said in a ceremony at the presidential residence. The president, who staked the credibility of his centrist Radical Party on successful loan talks, added that the money made clear that Argentina was not "condemned to economic stagnation." The economic problems threatened throughout the year and were magnified in October.

Economists hailed the commitments, but warned that Argentina still faced a delicate task of raising government revenues while stoking growth.

"They are basically calling a timeout on their debt," said Sebastian Edwards, a Latin America expert at the University of California at Los Angeles. "But it is not a long timeout, and if they don't get their house in order it's a waste of time and money."

The package is considerably larger than the market had anticipated and would be the largest rescue effort by the fund since it shored up Brazil in 1998, at the end of the Asian currency crisis. But the financing is not a traditional bailout, as it requires hefty participation by the private sector and Argentine government agencies.

The $39.7 billion includes $12 billion in new loans from official international agencies, including the I.M.F., the World Bank, the Inter- American Development Bank and the government of Spain, people involved in preparing the package said. An additional $7 billion consists of a pre-existing credit line from the fund for Argentina.

Much of the rest of the package, which took nearly a month to negotiate, consists of commitments by Argentine and international private banks, which have pledged to maintain credit lines, extend new loans or exchange debt. The value of those commitments was put at $17 billion. The pension authority of Argentina has agreed to contribute $3 billion to the financing requirements.

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Horst Kohler, insisted that Argentina extract commitments that banks take part in the financing before seeking approval of the I.M.F. board for the fund's increased loans, people involved said. The fund has been under pressure to make sure that it does not effectively bail out private investors when it helps nations in emergencies.

"This should improve the investment climate, and together with enhanced domestic and external confidence, lay the ground for sustained economic growth in Argentina," Mr. Kohler said in a statement.

To qualify, Argentina agreed to adopt measures to restrain spending and try to restore the government's financial health. It promised to freeze spending for five years and limit transfers from the central to local governments. The goal is ambitious, to reduce government debt to zero by 2005.

Argentina also said it would deregulate Social Security, seen as a way to reduce spending while reducing red tape for companies and, potentially, reducing unemployment.

The goals are conditions for the aid, and failure to adopt the changes could lead to a suspension of the emergency financing.

The nation has $123.5 billion in outstanding debt, a ratio of debt to gross domestic product of 51 percent. The ratio is considered high for an emerging market nation, and much of it was taken on when Argentina was growing relatively rapidly in the 1990's.

Argentina keeps its currency pegged one to one to the dollar. That has contributed to monetary stability. But as the dollar has risen sharply in value against other currencies, it has caused Argentina's exports of beef, grain and manufactured goods to slump, reducing foreign currency earnings and making foreign debt harder to repay.

The financing package seems to ensure that Argentina will not devalue it currency anytime soon, officials of the International Monetary Fund have said.

Barring a fresh recession, the money is seen as sufficient for Argentina to afford $14.3 billion in debt repayments due over the coming year.

But Argentina still has to perform an economic double play by igniting its listless economy while reducing government spending to meet the goals specified in the loan accords. The economy shrank 3.1 percent last year, and it is growing at an estimated rate of 0.2 percent this year. In addition, consumer and business confidence has been low.

One way to stoke growth, economists say, is to reduce high taxes. But that potentially reduces government income and the ability to repay debts. As a result, the nation has to reduce taxes and spending, which is proving politically difficult.

"If they just try to weather the storm here with the new financing," Mr. Edwards said, "it's a recipe for disaster."

-------- police

City Hall and Police Union Trade Blame as Talks Stall

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By KEVIN FLYNN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/nyregion/19POLI.html

The breach between the Giuliani administration and the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association widened yesterday as each side accused the other of using feints and public relations ploys to avoid seriously negotiating a new labor contract.

The city's five-year contract with the P.B.A., the city's largest police union, expired in July, and the two sides have been negotiating for months. But the union declared last week that the city had failed to put forward any salary offer and it filed a notice of impasse, in which it sought the appointment of a mediator to enter the talks.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday characterized the P.B.A. position as disingenuous and said the city had indeed offered the union's 26,500 members a raise.

"The exact amount of that raise would be between 2 and 2.5 percent, depending on how it got negotiated out," Mr. Giuliani said. "I can say that because that is actually in the budget. To say that we are offering less than that would be dishonest. To say we might offer more in the negotiations, or might have, that is up to the negotiators to talk about, if we have offered more than that."

But the police union's chief negotiator, Robert W. Linn, said that the proposal put forward by the city would actually cost officers money because it called for concessions that the union calculated would result in an 8 percent reduction in pay. One of the concessions, for example, would require new officers to work an additional 10 shifts a year, Mr. Linn said.

"We have asked them to give us a salary proposal, and they have refused to give us one," Mr. Linn said.

In its own proposal, the police union has asked for a 39 percent salary increase over two years, which, according to the union's calculations, would bring officers to parity with officers in Newark. The starting salary for a New York City police officer is currently $31,305.

The talks between the union and the city are so splintered that the parties cannot agree on which agency would intervene to help mediate a settlement. The city has suggested that disputes be resolved by the city's Office of Collective Bargaining, but the union filed its notice of impasse with the state's Public Employment Relations Board.

The city is negotiating contracts with a variety of unions, including the United Federation of Teachers, District Council 37 and a coalition of uniformed services locals that includes the unions representing firefighters and correction officers. The P.B.A. has chosen to negotiate separately from the coalition, in part because it is seeking to break so-called pattern bargaining, in which the city generally offers its labor unions roughly the same percentage in raises.

The P.B.A. has said the city should award its members more because, it says, New York police wages have fallen far behind those paid in many other cities. But the administration contends that the wage comparisons do not take into account the benefit and pension packages that New York officers receive.

-------- spying

Foreign Spying in Russia Is Reportedly on the Rise

Associated Press
December 19, 2000 Filed at 3:18 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Spies.html

MOSCOW -- Foreign intelligence agencies have intensified espionage activity in Russia, the head of the Federal Security Service, said in an interview published Tuesday.

Nikolai Patrushev also said that the recent conviction for espionage of U.S. businessman Edmond Pope has demonstrated that Russia's counterintelligence officials intended to get tough on spies.

``Foreign spies-businessmen were feeling very comfortable in murky waters'' after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Patrushev was quoted as saying by the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. ``A few pennies could buy know-how that had been created through the work of thousands of people.''

``In the Pope case, Russia demonstrated that those times are over,'' he said. Patrushev's agency is the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

Pope, 54, was sentenced to 20 years by a Moscow court in proceedings strongly criticized by the United States government, which said evidence of guilt was not presented. President Vladimir Putin pardoned Pope last week, citing the prisoner's poor health and the desire for good relations between Russia and the United States.

The interview was to be printed in Wednesday's issue of the newspaper and was made available on the paper's Web site Tuesday.

Wednesday is Chekist's Day, a Soviet-era commemoration of the secret police. The name comes from the first Soviet secret police agency, the Cheka, whose agents were called Chekists.

Patrushev said that foreign secret services ``have made considerable efforts to expand their operative positions in Russia.

``One of their main goals is to determine the true plans of the new state authorities in Russia, regarding both domestic and foreign policy,'' Patrushev said.

-------- terrorism

Terror Label No Hindrance to Anti-Arab Jewish Group

New York Times
December 19, 2000
By DEAN E. MURPHY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/nyregion/19KAHA.html?pagewanted=all

About 350 Jews are scheduled to have dinner in a rented hall in Brooklyn tonight with Binyamin Kahane, the son of Rabbi Meir David Kahane, the radical Brooklyn Jew and Israeli politician who was assassinated in a Manhattan hotel 10 years ago.

Entry will cost $100 a person. The money will go to the Rabbi Meir Kahane Memorial Fund, which supports Binyamin Kahane's political and religious activities in Israel and a host of other pro-Kahane causes.

It is hardly unusual for Jews in Brooklyn to raise money destined for Israel, but in this case the people behind the event - and the featured guest himself - have been associated with terrorist groups and have been carefully running one step ahead of the law.

The Kahane political organizations, Kach and Kahane Chai, were outlawed in Israel in 1994 as terrorist groups because of their Arab-hating doctrines, though members of the group are still seen organizing anti- Arab demonstrations and handing out literature. The next year, they were designated foreign terrorist organizations by the United States government, which made it a crime to support them with money or other means. The crackdown followed a series of violent attacks on Palestinians and other Arabs, including the killing in 1994 of 29 Muslims by Baruch Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born Jew and Kahane adherent, who shot the Muslims to death while they were praying in a West Bank mosque.

But a core group of the rabbi's followers, working from their homes and a converted martial arts studio in Brooklyn, have thumbed their noses at the terrorist designations. They have reinvented themselves as Internet content providers, magazine publishers, community center operators and fund-raisers, all promoting Rabbi Kahane's contentious quest for the restoration of the biblical state of Israel, including the wholesale expulsion of Arabs.

Their numbers are small - estimates range from a few dozen to a few hundred people - but their determination is great.

"If we can't be Kach or Kahane Chai we will be simply Kahane," said Michael Guzofsky, an American who moved back to Brooklyn from Israel after Rabbi Kahane's assassination in 1990 to help lead one of the banned groups. "We operate openly and have nothing to hide. Ultimately, various organizations that did the same thing were put on the terrorist list, but people that believe in something generally don't run away even if it becomes dangerous to speak."

With the recent turmoil in the Middle East, their rallying cry for support has been simple and righteous: "Rabbi Kahane was right." Posters bearing that slogan have been plastered across Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens by a small patrol of Kahane volunteers on bicycles, including a three-wheeler that hauls a bucket of homemade paste.

Other literature distributed at the Hatikva Jewish Identity Center on Coney Island Avenue, the former martial arts studio run by Mr. Guzofsky that has become their headquarters, openly solicits donations for causes with names that have been altered to sidestep the government restrictions.

When the law catches up with them, as it has from time to time, the Kahane faithful just put on a new face and find a new name. The memorial fund is among their latest incarnations, a tax-exempt charitable organization registered two years ago with the Internal Revenue Service (the registered version uses the spelling Kahana). They also run a Web site, www.kahane.org, a youth center and a mail order business for products that include jewelry and videotapes.

"Your support for our vital work is more important than ever," Eric Greenberg, chairman of the memorial fund, said last month at a service in Brooklyn marking the 10th anniversary of Rabbi Kahane's death.

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, described the Kahane activities as subterfuge and said they should be stopped. In 1995, the league issued a report on the Kahane movement, concluding it was "a cult of violence and racism" that had "violated both the substance and spirit of Jewish tradition."

Mr. Foxman said the Kahane movement had lost most of its support in the United States, in both money and followers, since the main organizations were designated terrorist groups, first by executive order in 1995 by President Clinton and later by the State Department.

Mr. Foxman said the Kahane activists were "on the fringe of the fringe," but he warned that they could still be dangerous.

"The threat is always there," Mr. Foxman said. "We have learned from the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City that you don't need hundreds of people to act. It just takes one or two. Numbers don't tell all the story."

In recent months, graffiti proclaiming "Kahane Was Right" have appeared in Israel and the West Bank, and group members are believed to be responsible for recent smashing of windows of Arab cars and homes and the occupation of an Arab home in the West Bank town of Hebron.

Ian S. Lustic, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on extreme Jewish groups, said the Kahane movement also had few followers in Israel aside from some die-hard loyalists.

But Mr. Lustic said the Kahane followers in Brooklyn, by continuing their work in part as a charitable organization, have been able to draw donations from mainstream Jews who were probably not aware of the terrorist connection.

The memorial fund, in Cedarhurst on Long Island, reported income of $107,000 in 1998, the first year it claimed tax-exempt status, according to the I.R.S. A solicitation letter for the fund states that it supports "all of the programs founded by Rabbi Kahane," and papers filed with the I.R.S. list his son, Binyamin, as its honorary chairman.

"It is so easy to become a tax- deductible organization and so hard to get the government to examine a case and say this doesn't qualify," Mr. Lustic said. "It doesn't surprise me that they could keep one step ahead of the government on that particular issue."

Not that it has been particularly difficult for the Brooklyn group to fend off the authorities. Mr. Guzofsky said law enforcement officials usually regard them as "nice people" and have left them alone. The group's closest brush with the law in recent years came in March, when about two dozen supporters from Brooklyn and Queens protested near the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, N.Y. The police kept the protesters at arm's length and arrested no one. The Clintons were not at home.

A spokesman for the Justice Department, which enforces the State Department's ban on the activities of designated foreign terrorist organizations, would not comment on the monitoring of the Kahane movement. An official with the Treasury Department, which tracks the financial dealings of the listed groups, said it was unclear whether investigators were aware of the memorial fund and the other Kahane manifestations.

"We keep the list under review all of the time," said Joe Reap, a spokesman for the State Department's counterterrorism section.

But Mr. Guzofsky could not help chuckling a bit when he was queried by a reporter about the Kahane movement's e-mail publication and its monthly print magazine, both known as The Judean Voice.

The publications were included on the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations because The Judean Voice was found by the State Department to be a new name for Kahane Chai. The designation made it illegal to provide money or weapons to the organization. Twenty-nine groups are on the department's list, including the militant Palestinian movements Hamas and Hezbollah, which have also used other names.

But the print and electronic versions of The Judean Voice have continued uninterrupted under another name, The Voice of Judea. So little has changed that an advertisement in the November/December magazine referred to the publication by its outlawed name.

"It magnifies the absurdity of all of this to name a magazine as a terrorist organization," Mr. Guzofsky said. "All of this name changing and evolution of groups comes about because you need some vehicle to express yourself.

"How else can Mike Guzofsky, who believes in the Kahane philosophy, exercise free speech in America when his speech is considered to be terrorism? When you declare a magazine to be terror because of its views, then you have destroyed the justification for calling yourself a democracy."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice would not say if investigators were aware of the magazine's reincarnation.

"There is a process of adding to the list, including new aliases, but until something is added, we can't comment on what might result from ongoing investigations," said Chris Watney, the spokeswoman.

Last month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a prominent Muslim-American advocacy group, asked the F.B.I. to detain Binyamin Kahane, who was visiting New York for the service marking the 10th anniversary of his father's death. Mr. Kahane was the leader of Kahane Chai when it was banned in Israel in 1994, and his biography posted on www.kahane.org identifies him as "the recognized leader" of his father's movement. Last month, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld his conviction on a sedition charge for distributing a poster that advocated violence against Arabs.

Also last month, Baruch Marzel, the leader of Kach, the party founded by Rabbi Kahane, was traveling across the United States and Canada on a speaking tour. Mr. Marzel is expected to attend the dinner tonight in Brooklyn.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation did not respond to the inquiries about Mr. Kahane from the Islamic group, according to Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman in Washington. A spokesman for the F.B.I., called by a reporter, said there were no grounds to detain the men because they had not been charged with a crime.

"It is inconceivable that they are not on some terrorist watch list," Mr. Hooper said. "Can you imagine the outcry if both the head of Hamas and Hezbollah went on a speaking tour of America? It appears some people are O.K. terrorists and others aren't."

A spokesman for the State Department would not say how or why the two men have been allowed to enter and leave the United States periodically in the last few years. A government official said Mr. Kahane carries an American passport. Mr. Marzel, the official said, renounced his American citizenship in 1988.

The Kahane followers say the Muslim outcry about their activities is both humorous and telling. They have long said the Kahane groups do not belong on the same terrorism list as Hamas and Hezbollah. The followers have started a petition campaign to have the Kahane groups removed from the list, saying the designations are anti-Semitic.

"The funny thing is they raise money for their charities and they kill, and we sit here trying to spread the truth and they try to have us arrested as terrorists," Mr. Greenberg, the memorial fund chairman, said of the Muslim advocacy groups last month. "That's America."

-------- activists

Join us in a Solemn Candlelight Vigil

Tue, 19 Dec 2000
REMINDER: Vigil For Peace and Justice

Hope to see those of you who live in the Washington DC area. .

Sunday, December 24, Christmas Eve., to demand peace and justice for the Palestinian People

Freedom for Palestine, End the Israeli Occupation!

Sunday, December 24 6 - 8 PM

Washington National Cathedral (Massachusetts and Wisconsin Ave.NW, Washington, DC)

Thousands of people will come to the annual celebration of peace at the National Cathedral on Christmas Eve. Join our candlelight vigil outside the Cathedral to remember those who have died at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces, and to demand peace with justice for the Palestinians.

For more information please call (202) 244-2990

Co-sponsored by: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Arab American Institute (AAI), Washington Peace Center, American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ), International Action Center-DC (IAC), Union of Arab Students Associations, The Ramallah Club of Washington, DC

===

Every day more Palestinian civilians are dying at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces. In the past two months alone, Israeli soldiers in occupied Palestine have killed nearly 300 Palestinian civilians, many of them children.

Your U.S. tax dollars, to the tune of $10 million per day, are paying for the brutal repression of the Palestinian people who are struggling for freedom and independence.

This holiday season, it is time to stand up and support the right of the Palestinians to have their own state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital. It is time for all those who have been expelled from their houses and land to be granted the basic human right to go home.

The Global Network of Arab Activists (GNAA) is a democratic forum for all activists who strive to promote Arab culture and advance the civil and human rights of all Arab peoples. Unless indicated otherwise, all statements published on this forum represent the views of their authors and not necessarily those of GNAA. To subscribe to GNAA, send a blank message to GNAA-subscribe@eGroups.com. To unsubscribe, send the message to GNAA-unsubscribe@eGroups.com. Inquiries may be directed to GNAA-SC@egroups.com. Members may view the guidelines of this forum anytime at http://www.egroups.com/message/GNAA/3543?&start=3514

---

International Week of Action Jan. 15-21

Tue, 19 Dec 2000 08:27:58 -0500

Today we mailed out 400 DU packets to US groups asking them to participate in the Week of Actions!! I hope we get a lot of activity around the US and hope groups in other countries can organize similar actions during the same week. Please let me know what your group is planning, so we can begin posting activities to the Listserv and up on our Website. Thanks, Tara Thornton Military Toxics Project

December 7, 2000

Dear Friends,

I am writing today in the hopes that your organization can participate in MTP's International Week of Actions calling for a BAN on Depleted Uranium Weapons, planned for the week of January 15th through 21st, 2001. This week marks the tenth anniversary of the Persian Gulf War.

As many of you know, there are many veterans and civilians suffering from mysterious ailments, which have been dubbed "Gulf War Syndrome". The Gulf War also marks the first time depleted uranium weapons, which are both radioactive and toxic, were used in warfare by the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Most recently, NATO used depleted uranium munitions in Yugoslavia. MTP believes depleted uranium may be one of the sources responsible for Gulf War Illnesses and the increased rates of cancers (especially in children) in southern Iraq and we are calling for an International Ban on DU weaponry.

The U.S. Department of Defense estimates approximately 315 tons (630,000 pounds) of DU were fired in the Gulf in 1991. This firing resulted in the release of large amounts of DU dust, which contaminated thousands of tanks, vehicles and land. Depleted uranium dust can be transported by wind or water or can enter the body via wound contamination or injection (as in fragments), inhalation or ingestion. Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4 1/2 billion years.

Among the short and long term health effects of inhaled or ingested depleted uranium particles are kidney and liver problems, immune system dysfunction, reproductive problems, birth defects and cancer.

DU weapons may impose on a nation a burden of health care and environmental cleanup costs that is expensive to address. In the United States, not only are veterans suffering from the impacts of DU weapons, but the health and environment of communities and workers are being compromised by exposure to uranium throughout the whole life cycle of DU weapons production. The mining and milling of uranium, the enrichment of uranium, the production and manufacturing of DU weapons, and DU weapons testing are all activities which have caused widespread contamination and health problems. The price of clean up of 152,000 pounds of depleted uranium fragments and dust on 500 acres at Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana (where DU rounds were tested) has been estimated at $4 to $5 billion dollars. The costs to human health are incalculable.

Depleted Uranium weaponry should be an international concern as the proliferation of these weapons continues. At least 16 countries including the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Iran, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, and Taiwan now have depleted uranium penetrators in their arsenal. Other sources assert that the weaponry has proliferated to Iraq, Oman, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission has taken up the issue of depleted uranium weaponry through its Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. The Sub-Commission adopted resolutions in 1996 and 1997 (resolution 1996/16 and 1997/36), which included depleted uranium weaponry among "weapons of mass or indiscriminate destruction", incompatible with international humanitarian or human rights law.

MTP organized with two other groups, the LAKA Foundation of the Netherlands and the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium of England, a workshop on depleted uranium at the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in May of 1999. It was there that the International Campaign to Ban Depleted Uranium Weaponry was launched. One of the most important aspects of the international campaign was for each group to develop a national strategy to get their perspective governments to support the ban. As we know with nuclear issues, the Campaign to Ban Landmines, and other very important issues, the United States is the most difficult government to get to do the right thing. We need your help and the help of every major organization fighting for justice in the United States to be on board in support of the ban.

There are several ways your organization can get involved in the efforts to ban DU: Participate in and get the word out about the International Week of Actions from January 15 through January 21, 2001, marking the tenth anniversary of the Persian Gulf War. We would greatly appreciate any support your organization can give us to make this week of actions a success. We would also like your organization to take a position in support of an international ban on depleted uranium weaponry. Your organization can pass a resolution calling for a ban, participate in the petition drive to ban DU, and write letters to the editor and your members of Congress in support of the ban.

I am enclosing MTP's Call to Action packet, which includes; a flyer on the International Week of Actions, a blank petition, sample resolutions and a map of the US which highlights some of the most egregious examples of how DU adversely impacted the health and environment.

Please let us know if your organization supports the ban and if you will be participating in the International Week of Actions. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call toll free 1-877-783-5091 or visit MTP's Website at www.miltoxproj.org

Sincerely, Tara Thornton National Organizer

---

Democracy Petition- It's Time to Rock the Vote!

19 Dec 2000 08:09:46 -0000
starcgrassroots] Digest Number 258

Dear Friend,

The recent election has made it obvious how important every vote is. It's also showed that our electoral system is flawed and our right to vote can be undermined. I have joined Rock the Vote's Demand Democracy Campaign, calling for real electoral reform. Please help me in this effort by signing the petition at:

http://www.rockthevote.org
<http://www.speedle.com/redirect.asp?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erockthevote%2E.org>

Then pass on the petition to your friends. Rock the Vote will compile and deliver them to the President and the next Congress.

Sincerely,

Message from Rock the Vote
<http://www.speedle.com/popularvote.htm>

Rock the Vote Demands Democracy

http://www.rockthevote.org <http://www.speedle.com/redirect.asp?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erockthevote%2E.org>

Elections are the foundation of our democracy, and yet public confidence in the electoral system is deteriorating and our right to vote is being undermined:

Barriers, outdated procedures, and inadequate information suppress participation in the electoral system.

Big money has an overriding influence in campaigns and in the politics of our nation.

Voter intimidation, fraud, and state regulations lead to the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters.

Demand Democracy! Demand real electoral reform!

Sign the petition and get more information at:
http://www.rockthevote.org
<http://www.speedle.com/redirect.asp?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erockthevote%2E.org>

Spread The Word - Share This Message

__________

From: robtice2@aol.com
Subject: Re: [GP2001] (Action Alerty) Democracy Petition- It's Time to Rock the Vote!

While I certainly support changing the electoral college and other changes in the election system, I read the petition at the below referenced site. I disagree with several of their proposals.

One of the main problems is that they forgot that, by the Constitution, the selection of electors is controlled by the states. Their solution is to put it in the control of the Federal government, and that's can only make it worse. Changes to a proportional system must come from within each state.

They also want to take advantage of modern technology, meaning computer voting. Every computer expert not associated with a computer voting company says its a bad idea, not secure and a sure way for the real vote to be subverted. I'm adamantly opposed to computer voting and the resulting opaque results.

They also advance the concept of computer voter registration, another way to increase voter fraud. For example, Alaska already has 108% of it's people registered, and (don't quote me) about 25 or so other states have more people registered than live in the state. We don't need a more corrupt registration system, we need a more accurate registration system, one where the identity and address is verified. From my point of view, they should void all registrations and start over, giving people 6 months to re-register to vote, and require that they bring a valid photo I.D. and then send a form to their address that they must return. That alone would reduce the voter rolls by about 25% and eliminate several millions of dead, duplicate or otherwise "incorrect" voters.

And the petition doesn't directly call for inclusion of third parties in the debates, to me one of the most critical of all the elements of campaign reform. No one will get a significant number of votes without being included in the debates.

So I'm not signing that petition and I urge you to not sign it either. There are other, more progressive, petitions out there and you should reserve your signature for it (or them).

In a message dated 12/18/2000 4:35:36 PM Pacific Standard Time, sbeltram@Bellsouth.net writes:

Dear Friend,

The recent election has made it obvious how important every vote is. It's also showed that our electoral system is flawed and our right to vote can be undermined. I have joined Rock the Vote's Demand Democracy Campaign, calling for real electoral reform. Please help me in this effort by signing the petition at:

A HREF="http://www.speedle.com/redirect.asp?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erockthevote%2Eorg"

http://www.rockthevote.org</A>

Then pass on the petition to your friends. Rock the Vote will compile and deliver them to the President and the next Congress.

Sincerely,

_______


Subject: U'WA stop military aid! Citibank and fumigation info

CLINTON IS ABOUT TO DISREGARD HUMAN RIGHTS IN COLOMBIA AGAIN AND APPROVE THE NEXT WAVE OF U.S. MILITARY AID

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND DEMAND THAT HUMAN RIGHTS CONDITIONS TO THE AID NOT BE WAIVED!

INSIST THAT US MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA BE STOPPED!

In this Post :

!. LAWG alert on military aid to Colombia. Make a phonecall!

2. Citibank arranging $250 million loan to Colombia

3. RACHEL'S Health and Environment News on fumigation in Colombia

During U'wa president Roberto Perez's recent visit to the United States he made it clear to U'wa supporters that one of the best ways to support the U'wa is to join in the broad coalitions working to stop Plan Colombia - the military aid package that will fuel Colombia's bloody civil war. Please take the time to call your representatives and use the sample letter below as a template. Let your representative know that you have been supporting the U'wa struggle and know that they are just one of the many communities whose basic rights are being violated in Colombia. If the military aid continues more communities like the U'wa will be caught in the crossfire of Colombia's civil war.

Now that oil companies like Occidental (who lobbied on behalf of US military aid) have secured increased militarization, the big Wall St. banks are looking for a cut of the action. Hence we see Citibank - targeted by a cross section of movements as the world's most destructive bank - privatizing Colombia's structural adjustment by arranging a $250 million loan. See article #2 below. Citibank intends to profit from Colombia's debt crisis and direct funds into further oil and other resource exploitation efforts that will increase violence, human rights violations and environmental destruction. For more information on the campaign against Citibank see http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/citigroup/homev3.html

U'wa supporters need to educate themselves about the systematic violations of human rights and the incredible environmental damage that US military aid is causing. One of the most destructive elements of the so-called "War on Drugs" is the mass spraying of toxic pesticides over parts of the Colombian countryside. See article #3 for a primer on the fumigation issue complete with footnotes for further research and link building between different aspects of Colombia solidarity work and the broader movement to confront corporate globalization.

For background info and more ways to support the U'wa in their struggle for survival contact Rainforest Action Network at 415-398-4404/1-800-989-RAIN or organize@ran.org

Also for numerous downloadable organizing resources check out :

www.ran.org www.amazonwatch.org www.moles.org

--


To: Latin America Working Group (LAWG) participating organizations & interested activists

From: Lisa Haugaard

Please note that the State Department will move shortly to decide whether Colombia meets the human rights conditions for the second year of aid. We expect that the State Department will announce its decision in early January, so any letter writing should be done shortly.

A couple of weeks ago, we sent you an alert for activists to use to write letters on the subject to Congress and the President. That alert is still valid, and we can resend it if you need it. However, attached is a shorter version of the alert adapted by Global Exchange that may also prove useful.

NO WAIVER ON COLOMBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS CONDITIONS! STOP US MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA NOW!

In July, a US aid package allocating $1.3 billion dollars in primarily military assistance to Colombia was passed by the US Senate, and then signed into law by President Clinton. The $1.3 billion dollars was just a down-payment in what even the Pentagon admits will be a multi-year commitment, marking an increased and dangerous involvement in Colombia1s civil conflict.

However, there was a catch. Some Senators fought for the inclusion of tough human rights conditions within the legislation that the Colombian government had to meet before the aid could be released. Unfortunately, certain members of the House of Representatives also fought to include a loophole in the final bill. The loophole ensured that the President could release the money by waiving the human rights conditions on national security grounds.

By early January, President Clinton will again decide whether or not to certify, or waive human rights conditions on US military and counternarcotics aid to Colombia.

The Colombian government has not met the requirements of the human rights conditions. Overwhelming evidence shows that the human rights conditions have not been met in four major areas:

1. The Colombian government has still not taken the necessary steps to ensure that human rights violators in the military are tried in civilian courts.

2. The Colombian military does not systematically dismiss personnel who have a proven record of human rights violations, and/or support for paramilitary groups.

3. Government investigators, community leaders, journalists, and human rights defenders attempting to document human rights cases continue to face harassment, threats and attacks from the armed forces and paramilitaries.

4. A recent dramatic increase in paramilitary activity shows that the Colombian government has failed to take action to capture paramilitary forces and end military -paramilitary links.

The waiver and continued aid to Colombia sends a clear message that the US government1s insistence on human rights is just talk. Force them to walk the walk! Contact President Clinton and your members of Congress! Demand that human rights conditions not be waived! Insist that US military assistance be stopped!

More details and information is available at www.lawg.org and www.wola.org.

Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Urge your members of Congress to pressure the administration NOT to certify Colombia on human rights and NOT to issue waiver. Also write a letter to the President telling him not to issue a waiver (1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20500; telephone: 202-456-1414).

Sample Letter:

The Honorable [insert Representative or Senator] US House of Representatives / US Senate Washington, DC 20515 / 20510

Dear Senator/Representative X,

I urge you to ask the President not to certify Colombia as meeting human rights conditions and not to waive the human rights conditions on FY2001 US aid to Colombia.

The Colombian armed forces are implicated in serious human rights violations and maintain strong links with paramilitary groups who are responsible for at least 78% of the human rights violations recorded in the six-month period starting in October 1999. The evidence proves overwhelmingly that Colombia has not met the congressionally mandated human rights conditions. High-level military officers responsible for human rights violations have not been systematically dismissed, and some have indeed been promoted. Few cases of military officers implicated in human rights violations have been tried in civilian courts. Brutal paramilitary attacks upon civilians have soared, while the Colombian government appears to do little to stop them.

I do not want to see my tax dollars going to violate human rights in Colombia. For this year, it is imperative to pressure the administration not waive the human rights conditions. For next year, the waiver option needs to be removed from the conditions.

Moreover, this whole policy needs to go back to the drawing board. Rather than clinging to an ineffective militarized drug control policy, we need to address the social and economic problems in Colombia and improve drug treatment and prevention programs at home. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Respectfully,

Your name

---

CharitEx Expands Online Financial Services for Nonprofit Organizations

Yahoo News
Tuesday December 19, 3:50 pm Eastern Time
Press Release

Combining Internet Fundraising with Streamlined Cash Management Reduces Administration Costs and Increases Contributions

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001219/ny_charite.html

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 19, 2000-- CharitEx, Inc. announced the establishment of the first online financial services platform to provide integrated digital solutions for charitable nonprofit organizations.

Total charitable contributions in the United States will exceed $200 billion in the year 2000. According to industry analysts, however, on average only 66 percent of this money reaches the programs it is intended to benefit. While traditional mailing and telemarketing campaigns successfully generate substantial donation flow, they also create administrative processes that are expensive and inefficient, consuming as much as 34 percent of contributions.

CharitEx helps solve this problem with rapid turnkey implementation of Internet solutions that streamline the donation process, generate higher levels of contributions, and reduce administrative costs.

Furthermore, CharitEx charges no start-up or implementation fees to clients as its own revenue model is driven by win-win solutions with a nominal three percent processing fee derived from each online transaction; this equates to a fraction of traditional costs.

``Leveraging consumer adoption of the Internet and deploying a digital strategy for integrating fundraising, reporting, and cash management is essential for nonprofits seeking to adopt efficient business processes,'' said Peter Martino, president and CEO of CharitEx (and former president of XRT, the largest provider of corporate treasury systems in the world). ``CharitEx has merged Internet enabling technology for fund raising with ''best practice`` cash management tools to help charitable nonprofit organizations raise and optimize funds through more efficient financial management.''

While many charitable nonprofit organizations (known as 501(c)(3) organizations) have established web sites, recent reports indicate that less than 20 percent of these 700,000 U.S. charities have the ability to even accept online donations. Even fewer have adopted a digital strategy for conducting online campaigns.

CharitEx provides the Internet infrastructure of financial and reporting tools that integrate fund raising with digital campaigns, accommodate increased visitors to these sites, capture and process contributions and pledges electronically, and generate real-time reports for both nonprofits and their donors.

About CharitEx

CharitEx brings 100 years of technology expertise and 75 years of banking and corporate cash management experience to the charitable nonprofit world. CharitEx is the first online financial services company to provide an Internet infrastructure for integrating digital strategies for fundraising with cash management.

These solutions streamline the donation process, improve overall financial management, and reduce costs, ensuring that more contributions reach their intended beneficiaries. The CharitEx Alliance Network includes providers of financial, technology and consulting services. CharitEx has offices in New York City and in the Philadelphia and Washington D.C. areas. For more information, visit www.charitex.com.

Contact:

CharitEx, Inc. by Tattar Cutler--DBC Public Relations Jackie Voik Martin or Sherry Arobone, 215/957-0300 jvoik@dbcommunications.net sarobone@dbcommunications.net

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)