------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
US Eases High - Performance Computer Export Controls
China's Li Peng Wants to Enhance Trust in India
Cohen Questions Russia's Democracy
U.S. Reports Detail Proliferation Concerns
NRC vital to missile shield plan
Kosovans 'unaware' of DU dangers
Iraq seeks uranium probe
Italy demands answers on DU
Nato moves to ease uranium fears
Pressure mounts over DU arms
UK relents over uranium tests
Nato seeks to calm DU fears
NATO mulls depleted uranium
UN holds back on uranium warnings
Bosnia soldier 'reduced to nothing'
Touchy-feely tough guy rounds on fight-to-lose brigade
Gulf veterans left in cold
Nato pledges to investigate use of 'safe' weapons
NATO Allies Split On Uranium Shells
NATO, EU focus on depleted uranium
NATO URGED TO ACT ON DEPLETED URANIUM
U.S., Britain Reject Calls to Halt Use of Depleted-Uranium Arms
Albright Warns Against Uranium 'Hysteria'
Ill Belgian Soldier Wants Answers
Population of Serbia not in danger from NATO uranium: scientists
Europe to Investigate Uranium-Tipped Arms
NATO to Probe Uranium Fears, Keep Munitions
Italy's 'Balkan' Death Toll at 7
NATO Launches Drive to Calm Uranium Arms Fears
British Army Warned of Uranium Risks
NATO Devises Uranium Action Plan
Yugo Experts See Higher Radioactivity at Blast Sites
Yugoslav Official Visits NATO
Editorial Roundup
Secretary General on the Use of Depleted Uranium
Germany To Investigate U.S. Exercises With DU Weapons
$30B sought to protect Russia's warheads
Missile Shield Illusions
DOE on arrival
California crisis threatens to spread
California fiasco
California ISO Calls for Energy Conservation
Missouri
Bush Focuses on Defense, Seeks New Labor Nominee
Albright urges continued U.S. presence in the Balkans

MILITARY
U.S. Preparing to Sell F-16's to Chile
Burma junta holds secret talks with Suu Kyi
Junta meets Aung San Suu Kyi
Talks between Myanmar junta, Aung San Suu Kyi draw kudos abroad
Burmese Officials in Talks With Dissident
Major events since the 1988 Myanmar army crackdown
Burmese junta, Suu Kyi confer face to face
Military crash in China kills 22
Car Bomb in Colombian Mall, Peace Talks in Balance
30 killed in Colombia amid bid for talks
Early release is no sure thing
U.S. drug suspect arrested in Thailand
Rare nuclear fuel a candidate for speedy rockets, Israelis say
U.S. could be vulnerable in space battlefield
China Launches Unmanned Vehicle Into Space
China launches test flight of spacecraft
Key Senators Favor Paying Off Debt to U.N.
Former Bosnian Serb surrenders to U.N.
Helms backs plan to settle U.N. debt
Trump shows interest in making U.N. repairs
Cargo of memories
Army retires 'Be all you can be' jingle
Warship's Voyage Nears End
Ads Now Seek Recruits for 'An Army of One'
Lessons From the Cole
Alaska
'Army of One' recruits a new generation of soldiers
Cole bombers exploited 'seam' in security

OTHER
Largest wind farm to power 70,000 homes
Agency Reassesses Impact of Timber Policy
Clashing Opinions at Meeting on Alaska Drilling
Justices Bar Wide U.S. Role Under the Clean Water Act
E.P.A. Designee Gives a Rosy Valedictory in New Jersey
Two Germans Quit Cabinet for Handling of Beef Scare
Schroeder Replaces Cabinet Members
Germany Replaces Cabinet Ministers
Germany finds replacements for ministers
Editorial Roundup
States
Pentagon Cites Germ Weapon Threats
Creditors Warn Russia Against Shirking
New York Will Pay $50 Million in 50,000 Illegal Strip-Searches
Mayor's Dispute With the Police Gives a Sense of Déjà Vu
4th Woman Claims a Police Officer Made Her Expose Herself
Report: N.J. still profiles motorists
Anti-cop N.H. lawmaker resigns
Gunmen in Turkey open fire on police
States
Bin Laden appears at son's wedding
'Terrorists in Retirement': Unsung Resistance Fighters

ACTIVISTS
New Hampshire
BRITAIN: BLAIR TARGET OF TOMATO
Left-wing groups join now to stop Ashcroft


-------- NUCLEAR

US Eases High - Performance Computer Export Controls

Reuters
January 10, 2001 Filed at 5:19 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-computer-exports.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday it was easing export controls on U.S. high-performance computers, after determining the United States could no longer control their acquisition by other countries.

White House Chief of Staff John Podesta told reporters that the United States would beef up export restrictions on critical nuclear and military software applications that pose a threat to national security if they fall into the wrong hands.

Because of the wide availability of high-performance computers, the United States' ability to limit their acquisition by potentially unfriendly countries ``is already largely ineffective and it will be increasingly so in a very short time frame,'' Podesta said.

The United States will collapse its four-tier country system for controlling high-performance computer exports into three tiers, eliminating special export licensing requirements for shipments to a long list of countries.

U.S. computer companies hailed the decision, which they said would ease sales to countries such as Brazil, Chile and South Africa. Eliminating Tier 2 licensing requirements should also boost sales to Asian markets, where there is growing demand for high-performance computers.

Sales to Tier 3 countries such as India, Pakistan, Russia, China, Vietnam and nations in the Middle East and Central Europe will not need special export licenses if the computers perform below 85,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS), Podesta said.

The Clinton administration also recommends Congress repeal provisions of the 1998 Defense Authorization Act that require the administration to maintain Tier 3 controls, he said.

``This announcement creates the platform for much-needed, long-term reform and we look forward to continuing this progress with the Bush administration,'' said Lawrence Weinbach, CEO of Unisys Corp. and co-chairman of the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports.

CALIFORNIA LAWMAKER HAILS DECISION

Rep. David Dreier, a California Republican, also hailed the decision, which he said would eliminate ``long outdated export controls that have threatened our critical technology industry without offering real national security benefits.''

The new threshold for computer export controls strikes ``a good balance between national security and promoting the prosperity of the digital economy,'' he said.

Bill Reinsch, undersecretary for export administration at the Commerce Department, said the decision to ease export controls would enhance national security ``by maintaining the health of our computer industry.''

That will allow U.S. firms to continue making ``cutting edge products that are useful for our military and intelligence establishments,'' Reinsch said.

The United States will maintain an embargo on exports to ''terrorists countries,'' which include Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan and Syria, Podesta said.

---

China's Li Peng Wants to Enhance Trust in India

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 12:21 p.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-india-c.html

BOMBAY (Reuters) - China's parliament chief Li Peng said Wednesday he hoped his visit to rival India would enhance trust between the countries, while hundreds of Tibetan exiles staged a protest against his visit in New Delhi.

``I am looking forward to having an extensive and candid exchange of views with the Indian leaders on bilateral relations and other issues of common interest...,'' Li, China's second most powerful leader, said in a statement.

``The purpose of my visit is to enhance trust, boost friendship and strengthen cooperation,'' added Li who arrived in the Indian financial capital Bombay Tuesday.

A day ahead of his visit to the Indian capital, Tibetan exiles burned portraits of Chinese leaders during a protest march led by Tibetan school children.

``Li Peng go back, Li Peng is a killer,'' chanted the protesters. ``Do not forget 1962, the year when China attacked India. Do not be enchanted by slogans of India and China as brothers,'' they said.

Tens of thousands of Tibetans led by the spiritual leader Dalai Lama fled to India after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Li began his nine-day visit as controversy raged over ``The Tiananmen Papers,'' a book released in the United States carrying secret transcripts of the leadership debate within the Chinese Communist party over the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Reporters were not allowed any interaction with Li during his first day of engagements in Bombay, except for photo opportunities. The city is the first stop on Li's nine-day visit to India which analysts say could help iron out differences between the two countries.

Relations between the two Asian giants, which fought a brief border war in 1962, have been strained since India conducted a series of nuclear tests in May 1998.

India's main concerns about its relations with China are Beijing's military assistance to Pakistan, a flood of cheap Chinese consumer goods into India and a 40-year-old border dispute.

ACTION NEEDED

``I think there are a lot of things that need to be improved in Sino-Indian relations. You cannot say the relationship is very good at the moment,'' Chu Shulong, of the state-run think-tank China Research Institute of Modern International Relations, told reporters in Beijing.

``I think the two need to improve their mutual knowledge and understanding... If this problem is not solved, they cannot begin to find solutions to other problems. Of course this cannot be solved with just talks and explanation, there needs to be action too,'' Chu said.

On his second day in Bombay, he met about 30 members of the family of an Indian doctor, Dwarkanath S. Kotnis, who died while serving wounded Chinese on the front between 1938 and 1942 during the Sino-Japanese war.

The doctor was part of a humanitarian medical mission sent by the Indian National Congress to China in 1938. He stayed on after the mission left and worked on the front till his death.

``He (Li Peng) paid glorious tributes to my brother and eulogized his services which he rendered during the Sino-Japanese war,'' Vithal S. Kotnis, Dwarkanath's younger brother said.

The Chinese leader Wednesday also visited three industrial units in Bombay including a leading jewelry maker.

The chairman of China's National People's Congress is also due to meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, leading industrialists and heads of India's booming software sector during his trip.

---

Cohen Questions Russia's Democracy

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 3:30 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary William Cohen, using unusually blunt language in an end-of-tenure speech Wednesday, questioned whether Russia under Vladimir Putin will complete its transition to democracy or ``revert to the past.''

``It's unclear whether Russia is going to make this transition to free minds and free markets as have some of its Eastern European neighbors,'' Cohen said. ``At times its seems to me that President Putin is intent on pursuing democracy almost by decree.''

Cohen did not elaborate about Putin's approach but made clear he sees cause for concern, noting that a recent National Intelligence Council report predicted Russia was headed for further decline over the next 15 years.

``We have to look to see whether or not Russia is going to pursue a course of seeking cooperation and full integration into European affairs and a better relation with the United States or whether or not it's going to revert to the past and seek to achieve some kind of major role on the world scene through the use of force or the threat of it,'' Cohen said.

Speaking at the National Press Club 10 days before he leaves office, Cohen stressed that in some respects Russia has made important progress since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union that ended the Cold War and put Russia on a path toward democracy.

As encouraging examples, Cohen cited Russia's participation in NATO-led peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo and last year's agreement with Washington to establish a joint early warning center in Moscow to monitor potential missile threats.

Cohen noted that Putin's strong opposition to U.S. plans to build a national missile defense would present a challenge to the incoming Bush administration, which has made missile defense a high priority.

``And I think there's cause for concern with the continued deterioration in Russian conventional and strategic forces,'' he said. This deterioration has caused Russian military planners to emphasize threats to use tactical, or battlefield, nuclear weapons to deter a large-scale conventional attack.

---

U.S. Reports Detail Proliferation Concerns

Reuters
January 10, 2001 Filed at 5:24 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-pr.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Interest by guerrilla leader Osama bin Laden's network in acquiring materials for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is a ``key concern'' for future threats to U.S. interests, a Pentagon report said on Wednesday.

Bin Laden, a Saudi exile who lives in Afghanistan, is suspected by U.S. officials of being behind the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen Oct. 12 which killed 17 U.S. sailors.

He is on the FBI's most wanted list, accused of masterminding the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people.

``We continue to see circumstantial evidence. Obviously Osama bin Laden and his organizations are high on the list of suspects, as are others,'' Defense Secretary William Cohen said, referring to the Cole attack.

But no definitive determination has yet been made, and once that happens President-elect George W. Bush would have to decide how to respond, he said at a National Press Club lunch.

The relative ease of producing some chemical or biological agents has increased concern that those types of weapons may become more attractive to ``terrorist'' groups, the Pentagon report titled ``Proliferation: Threat And Response'' said.

``For example, the reported interest of Usama Bin Laden's network in (nuclear, biological, chemical) materials is a key concern in terms of possible future threats to U.S. interests,'' the report said.

``The possibility that such a group could acquire and use fissile, or radiological, material is one of the main reasons we are concerned about the security of nuclear materials in Russia,'' it said.

Russia had 5,870 operational strategic nuclear warheads in 2000 and 1,130 intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles in working condition, the report said.

An Energy Department task force released a report on Wednesday that said the ``most urgent unmet national security threat'' to the United States was the danger that nuclear and other dangerous materials in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nations and used against Americans.

That task force recommended one of the first national security initiatives of the new president should be to formulate a plan in cooperation with Russia to secure or neutralize all nuclear weapons material in Russia over the next decade.

RUSSIA, CHINA MAIN SUPPLIERS

Russia and China are the main suppliers of nuclear, biological, chemical and missile-related equipment and technologies, the Pentagon report said.

Russian entities have exported ballistic missile and nuclear technology to Iran, China is a source of missile-related technology, and North Korea is a ``key source'' for ballistic missiles and related materials, the report said.

``We're going to see the increasing spread of missiles and missile technology,'' Cohen said.

``So it comes back to this issue of national missile defense, that issue is not going away,'' he added.

President Clinton left to his successor the decision on whether to deploy a missile shield to protect the United States. Russia and China bitterly oppose it and have said it could start an arms race.

China has about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles which can reach the United States and modernization of its missile force likely will increase the number of Chinese warheads aimed at the United States, the Pentagon report said.

A longer-range mobile missile being developed by China is likely to be tested in the next several years and ``will be targeted primarily against the United States,'' it said.

North Korea is a concern because while having economic difficulties it has chosen to attach a high priority to maintaining nuclear, biological, chemical weapons and missile programs, the Pentagon report said.

India and Pakistan are in a period of accelerated nuclear weapons and missile development which could endanger the region, the report said.

``Given the long-standing hostility between the two countries, even a minor conflict runs the risk of escalating into an exchange of missiles with nuclear warheads,'' it said.

Since U.N. inspections of Iraq's weapons programs stopped, Iraq may have started to reconstitute its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and missile program, the report said.

Syria was improving its chemical warfare program and could deliver chemical agents with missiles, and Sudan's interest in chemical warfare and its links to Iraq and bin Laden ``will remain a cause for concern,'' the report said.

-------- canada

NRC vital to missile shield plan
Scientists' work goes ahead even without PM's endorsement
Canadians develop rocket-tracking system

David Pugliese The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Citizen
01/10/00
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010110/5075746.html

A Canadian government research program could provide a vital part of the controversial U.S. missile defence shield by allowing for easier tracking of rockets headed toward North America.

While Prime Minister Jean Chretien sits on the fence about whether to join the proposed U.S. missile shield, Canadian military and government scientists have pushed ahead with key technology programs for the Americans.

One of the most innovative systems, developed by Defence Research and Development Canada and the National Research Council in Ottawa, is a sensor called the QWIP, or Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector. The QWIP can focus on the heat from the missile's engine as it takes off or as it flies through space, allowing for better tracking of incoming rockets.

"This project is a key contributor to the collaborative work with the (U.S.) Ballistic Missile Defence Organization," according to military research reports obtained by the Citizen. The Canadian QWIP system has "significant implications for future exploitation to support U.S. Space-based Infrared Surveillance Systems, surveillance from space and missile defence applications."

The Canadian system was launched Nov. 15 for tests to determine whether it can survive the harsh environment of space.

The U.S. already has its own series of space-based sensors designed to warn about missile launches.

But the Canadian QWIP is unique, according to the research reports and briefing notes for senior Canadian Forces officials, in that it can cover a larger field of view than existing systems.

Because of that, surveillance can be extended to more area and the U.S. would not require as many surveillance satellites to track missiles. The Canadian QWIP could provide "superior performance in detecting high-speed aerospace objects such as ballistic missiles throughout their flight," according to one analysis of the device.

The Americans want to build the missile shield to protect their country from missiles fired by so-called rogue nations such as North Korea, Iraq and Iran.

Such a defence system would also be able to deal with accidental launches of missiles from countries such as Russia. It would involve a series of sensors that would warn about a missile launch and then use ground-based interceptor rockets to shoot down incoming warheads while they travel through space.

Mr. Chretien has voiced concerns the shield could upset existing arms control treaties. He said the government must better understand how the system would work and how it could affect international relations before it can decide whether Canada would participate.

Russia and China believe the missile defence system is designed to further U.S. military dominance and is aimed at countering their own rocket systems. Both countries have warned that if the U.S. government builds the missile shield, they will start upgrading their nuclear weapons.

But even in the unlikely event that the U.S. decided against building the shield, the Canadian QWIP could be useful to the Americans for use in their existing system of missile warning sensors and satellites. Defence analyst Brian MacDonald said those sensors feed into the joint Canadian-U.S. North American Aerospace Defence Command, or NORAD.

NORAD currently does the job of watching over U.S. and Canadian airspace. "This type of system would be consistent with our role in NORAD," he said.

But other defence analysts such as Jim Fergusson, deputy director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, believe that even though the Canadian technology might be important, it takes a back seat to a decision by Canada to take part in the missile shield. "Canada's contribution may be helpful, but the Americans would rather have our government's support on national missile defence," said Mr. Fergusson.

The QWIP is only one of several Canadian research projects being carried out in conjunction with the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence Organization. The 1994 White Paper allows the Forces to conduct research into missile defence, mainly in communications and surveillance.

Among the other Canadian research contributions to U.S. missile defence:

- Research into linking satellites so information can be exchanged at high speed. Such a capability is essential to missile defence, where detecting and destroying incoming rockets takes place in just minutes.

- Canada along with several other countries has been contributing to developing miniature sensor technology for what is known as mid-course space experiments. That experiment involves the tracking of the mid-course phase of a ballistic missile's trajectory.

- The use of Canadian Black Brant rockets launched from White Sands, New Mexico, in 1997 and 1998 to gather information on the characteristics of heat produced by a missile's engine. That information allows researchers to better understand how to track missiles.

- Canada has also helped out on U.S. experiments to track missiles and aircraft using space sensors. Department of National Defence researchers in Valcartier, Que., have also developed mathematical programs to help in detecting missiles using space-based optical sensors.

-------- depleted uranium

Kosovans 'unaware' of DU dangers
K-For dressed in full protective gear perplex local civilians

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 14:30 GMT
By Jacky Rowland and Nick Wood in Kosovo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1109000/1109665.stm

While UN peacekeeping troops in Kosovo are testing for radiation from depleted uranium, the local population seems unaware of the potential risks.

For the last 18 months Albanian children have been playing on bombsites strewn with the debris of tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

But as controversy over the risks of depleted uranium grows, Italian and Portuguese K-For soldiers, wearing masks and white overalls and carrying Geiger counters, have been scanning the bombsites for radiation.

Speaking from the bombsite, the head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, said troops found no proof of any radioactivity, and there was no immediate reason to seal off the site.

"Risk exists, but in my humble experience as a health minister for 10 years, I think there is no real risk," he said.

But for the civilian population, his arrival was the first indication that the bomb site could be a risk to their health.

His announcement also contradicts the recommendations of a UN panel of experts, which recommended in October that all Nato targets should be sealed off from public access until more is known about DU and its impact on health.

Leukaemia fears

Elsewhere, British soldiers have been testing the ruins of a Yugoslav army barracks for radiation, while just metres away three Kosovo Albanians salvaged bricks from a destroyed building.

Nobody knows for sure whether the earth contains toxic dust from the depleted uranium missiles that destroyed the buildings.

A team of scientists from Portugal has been trying to find out if there is any link between the use of depleted uranium and cases of leukaemia among former peacekeepers.

They have collected samples of soil, water and urine to take away and analyse.

"I hope that there is no uranium in these samples so that the food, the water and the air we breathe are completely free of uranium," said the Portuguese science minister, Mariano Gago, who has been visiting Kosovo.

UN officials have said the level of leukaemia has remained constant in the province since the end of the war.

But some experts have warned that leukaemia may take several years to develop following exposure to radiation.

---

Iraq seeks uranium probe

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 16:58 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1110000/1110249.stm

Thousands of DU-tipped shells were used in the Gulf War Iraq has called on the United Nations and other international bodies to investigate the effects of weapons containing depleted uranium used during the 1991 Gulf War, as well as in the Balkans.

An Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said the reports of cancer among Nato soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo backed up what Baghdad had been saying about the "disastrous consequences" of depleted uranium for people and the environment.

The spokesman, quoted by the official Iraqi news agency, said the use of such weapons in Iraq had caused an abnormal rise in cases of leukaemia and cancers of the lung, skin and digestive system, particularly among children.

He also blamed depleted uranium for the increase in congenital diseases and deformities.

Tribunal

"Iraq requests the creation of an international tribunal to put US and British officials on trial for crimes against humanity and the genocide carried out by the Americans and British in Iraq and Yugoslavia," the spokesman said.

He accused the two governments of "deliberately concealing" the effects of DU weapons "to mislead public opinion".

Leukaemia, which affects blood and bone marrow, was relatively rare in Iraq before 1990.

But according to the Iraqi Health Ministry, there has been a fourfold increase in the incidence of the disease since then - a figure that is now generally accepted by international agencies such as the World Health Organisation.

Gulf War Syndrome

Baghdad says US and UK forces fired more than 940,000 armour-piercing DU projectiles during the 1991 conflict over Kuwait.

Several countries, including Italy and Germany, want a moratorium on the weapons after a rash of leukaemia cases among former peacekeepers who served in the Balkans.

DU is used because it is so heavy, easily puncturing the armour of tanks.

On impact it vaporises, and can be breathed in.

More than 100,000 Gulf War veterans have suffered unexplained medical problems since they returned from the conflict.

---

Italy demands answers on DU
Italian Nato troops on the Kosovan border

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 14:42 GMT
By Ben Brown in Rome
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1109000/1109877.stm

To his parents, he was the perfect son. At 23 years old, Dalvatore Vaccha was fit, healthy and happy. Until he went to Bosnia, that is.

In 1999, he died from leukaemia, and his family suspect that the cause of his illness was depleted uranium.

"I'm very angry," said his mother. "If uranium was being used out there, then our young men should have been warned of the risks they might be taking."

Italy was one of the first countries to start screening its Balkan peacekeepers for cancer. Other countries in Europe, including Britain, have now decided to follow the Italians' lead.

Some of the Italian soldiers still stationed in Bosnia are very worried.

"If they won't tell me the whole story, I want to be sent home because it isn't right to come here and risk my life," said one young Italian peacekeeper. "We came to protect, not to get a disease."

Hotline set up

The Italian army has set up a telephone hotline to offer advice and information to the worried relatives of soldiers.

They say the service is vital to calm the country's growing wave of panic.

"Mothers or wives are quite worried about their men," said Lieutenant Colonel Marco Centritto. "Their families here in Italy watch television and hear a lot about this problem of the depleted uranium. They want to know exactly what's going on."

The scare is getting saturation coverage in the Italian media.

Words not enough

A TV talk show on Monday night was called War on Uranium. It featured a young corporal, Valery Helis, who has had chemotherapy to fight off cancer.

He too served in the Balkans. After the show, he was comforted by one of his commanders. But to him, kind words are not enough.

"Precautions should have been taken, not only to protect soldiers like me, but also civilians who live in the Balkans," he said. "If it is the cause of my illness, this depleted uranium should never have been used at all."

With several peacekeepers killed by leukaemia and more seriously ill, it is no surprise that there is mounting alarm in Italy over the use of depleted uranium.

Some politicians are even calling for all Italian soldiers to be pulled out of the Balkans. Emotions are running extremely high and NATO cannot afford to ignore them.

---

Nato moves to ease uranium fears

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 23:56 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1110000/1110054.stm

Nato used DU munitions in its bombing of Yugoslavia Nato has announced a range of measures to try to allay concern over the health effects of depleted uranium ammunition.

But speaking in Brussels, the Nato Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, insisted that the fears were misplaced.

And he said Nato would not give in to demands from member countries, such as Italy and Germany, to suspend the use of the weapons.

Depleted uranium (DU) has been blamed for a number of leukaemia cases among former peacekeepers who served in the Balkans.

"We are confident that there is little risk from DU munitions, but we refuse to be complacent," Lord Robertson told journalists at Nato headquarters in Brussels.

"The existing medical consensus is clear. The hazard from depleted uranium is both very limited and limited to very specific circumstances," he argued.

But Lord Robertson accepted that Nato's assurances were not being accepted in many quarters.

The BBC defence correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, says Nato is embarking upon a full-scale action plan to try to minimise concern by disseminating and exchanging information on DU among allied governments.

The plan includes:

A new committee to study further the effects of DU Providing details of locations struck by DU weapons Liaising with other international organisations Co-ordinating research

Armour piercing

Nato aircraft fired tens of thousands of DU rounds during Nato's 1995 bombing of Bosnian Serb targets and 1999 air war against Yugoslavia.

The rounds are denser than standard ammunition, making them more effective against armour.

Depleted uranium gives off relatively low levels of radiation, but can be dangerous if ingested, inhaled as dust or if it enters the body through cuts or wounds.

As a heavy metal, it is also chemically poisonous in addition to being radioactively poisonous.

Six Italian soldiers, five Belgians, two Dutch nationals, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech national have died after serving in the Balkans. Four French soldiers and five Belgians have also contracted leukaemia.

On Tuesday, US Defence Secretary William Cohen reiterated the position of both Washington and London that no link had been proven between depleted uranium and the cases of cancer among former peacekeeping troops.

Nevertheless, the UK Government has now agreed to the medical screening of its personnel in the Balkans, a measure already adopted by Italy, Portugal and other Nato allies.

And the European Union has launched its own investigation, which will include an assessment of whether spent DU shells pose any health risks for workers taking part in reconstruction programmes.

Yugoslav liaison

Earlier on Wednesday, Lord Robertson met the new Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic - the first Yugoslav minister to visit Nato headquarters since the alliance bombed Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.

The two sides agreed to share all available information about depleted uranium residues in the Balkans.

A Portuguese minister, meanwhile, said an independent Portuguese investigation had turned up no significant examples of increased radiation after studying 52 sites in Kosovo.

Russian politicians and generals say initial screening has found no illness among its soldiers who served in the Balkans.

---

Pressure mounts over DU arms

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 01:46 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1107000/1107484.stm

Measuring radiation levels in Kosovo

The head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, has played down the risks of contamination from depleted uranium (DU) shells, despite growing pressure for a ban on the controversial weapons.

Italy and Portugal are among a number of Nato countries screening soldiers who served in the Balkans - where the shells were used - following the death of six Italian peacekeepers from leukaemia.

The European Union responded to alarm about the armour-piercing DU shells on Tuesday by launching an investigation into the possible health risks associated with them.

And the UK Government has announced that it will offer additional medical checks to armed forces personnel who served in the Gulf and the Balkans.

But on a tour of Klina, a town in northern Kosovo where Yugoslav tanks were attacked by Nato aircraft in 1999, Mr Kouchner said targeted sites had been thoroughly checked for radiation.

"Risk exists, but in my humble experience as a health minister for 10 years, I think there is no real risk," said Mr Kouchner, a French doctor who co-founded the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres before entering mainstream politics.

The EU executive has asked a working group of experts to assess whether DU poses a health risk.

They will examine all the available evidence before submitting a report early next month.

The EU also wants to know whether spent DU shells pose any health risks for workers who may take part in EU-funded reconstruction programmes in the region.

The United States says there is no evidence of a significant health risk from DU - a position currently backed by the World Health Organisation. But Portugal has sent three ministers to Kosovo to conduct further investigations.

Nato inquiry

Nato ambassadors are meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the DU scare, which correspondents say threatens to open up a significant rift in the alliance.

The UK and US Governments are likely to resist strongly any attempt to withdraw the weapons from service, as demanded by Germany and Italy.

US aircraft fired tens of thousands of DU rounds during Nato's 1995 bombing of Bosnian Serb targets and 1999 air war against Yugoslavia.

The rounds are denser than standard ammunition, making them more effective against armour.

Depleted uranium gives off relatively low levels of radiation, but can be dangerous if ingested, inhaled in dust or if it enters the body through cuts or wounds.

The UN mission in Kosovo is waiting for a report on DU weapons by the UN Environment Programme (Unep), which is due out at the end of February.

UN concerns

Last October, Unep recommended sealing off the Klina site and 112 other former Nato targets in Kosovo pending further research into DU's possible impact on public health.

Pekka Haavisto, head of a Unep team which inspected DU strike sites last year, told the BBC: "If you explode mines in the areas where there is DU in the ground, you probably also explode again some DU ammunition and inhale this type of dust.

"So you cannot totally exclude the possibility that people can sometimes suffer serious health effects from this type of ammunition.

"It can happen that children who are playing in those areas, pick up some remnants. Even adults were picking up some memoirs of the war and putting them in their rooms - and then you have a radioactive source."

WHO officials who spoke to local doctors in Kosovo said there were as yet no signs of an increase in leukaemia cases since the 1999 war - but that such an increase could still become apparent as research continues.

Six Italian soldiers, five Belgians, two Dutch nationals, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech national have died after tours in the Balkans. Four French soldiers and five Belgians have also contracted leukaemia.

---

UK relents over uranium tests
DU-tipped weapons were used to destroy tanks in Kosovo

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 01:48 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1107000/1107522.stm

Thousands of British soldiers who may have been exposed to depleted uranium are to be offered a chance to be screened for health problems, the UK Government has announced.

The news came as the European Union revealed it would investigate the suggested link between uranium-tipped weapons and cases of cancer among Balkan peacekeepers.

Several European countries have already carried out medical tests on soldiers who served in the Kosovo conflict who may have been exposed to radiation from the ammunition.

But one scientist who has advised the UK Government on the issue described the screening programme as "pseudo-science" and said methods proposed were "unacceptable".

The UK says there is no evidence of a link between the weapons and cancer and Armed Forces Minister John Spellar told the House of Commons on Tuesday that depleted uranium would remain part of British forces' arsenal for the "foreseeable future".

He said there would be a voluntary screening programme for military personnel who had served in the Balkans and were worried about their health.

But he stressed that if handled correctly DU shells "present no hazard to our forces" and said there was no evidence of higher cancer rates or other illness amongst Gulf veterans.

Speaking on BBC2's Newsnight programme, Professor Malcolm Hooper, who has advised the government on Gulf War illness, said a large, representative sample was vital for any proper study.

He said: "The whole thing is a complete ragbag of pseudo-science and spurious measurements which cannot be interpreted accurately and cannot obtain reliable data - quite unacceptable.

"What's required is a properly structured study with a sample size determined before you set out so you get an accurate representative sample, proper techniques being used to do the analysis so that you can actually measure depleted uranium and not total uranium."

'Government to consult'

He added that veterans who had come forward for tests previously had been deceived.

Reacting on Newsnight to the Royal Society's assertion that the screening programme was "scientifically useless", Mr Spellar said the government would be consulting on how to test.

"We would be consulting with the scientific bodies including the Royal Society in order to ascertain the best way of conducting the tests."

But he added that the programme was not a full epidemiological study.

Earlier, his statement to the House of Commons had been greeted with anger by veterans of both the Balkans and the Gulf War.

Former Army engineer Kevin Rudland, who claims to have suffered from osteoarthritis, hair loss and post traumatic stress disorder after serving in Bosnia, said he was "devastated".

Shadow defence secretary Iain Duncan Smith welcomed Mr Spellar's statement, but questioned why the Ministry of Defence's position on the need for health checks appeared to have changed over the last 24 hours.

European concern

The US military fired more than 30,000 rounds of DU ammunition, used for anti-tank purposes, during the fighting in Kosovo.

The armour-piercing weapons were also used during the conflict in Bosnia and in the Gulf war.

The ammunition has been implicated in the deaths of three Italian soldiers and eight European armies are testing their Kosovo veterans for uranium contamination.

Some Gulf veterans tested for depleted uranium poisoning are said to have had between 25 and 75 times the normal level of the chemical in their bodies.

Six Italian soldiers, five Belgians, two Dutch nationals, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech have died after tours in the Balkans. Four French soldiers and five Belgians have also contracted leukaemia.

The material gives off relatively low levels of radiation, but can be dangerous if ingested, inhaled in dust or if it enters the body through cuts or wounds.

---

Nato seeks to calm DU fears
Nato used DU munitions in its bombing of Yugoslavia

BBC News
Wednesday, 10 January, 2001, 13:49 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1109000/1109302.stm

Nato Secretary-General George Robertson has promised to give a "high priority" to investigations into claims that ammunition tipped with depleted uranium has caused cancer in former soldiers.

Several countries, including Italy and Germany, want a moratorium on the weapons after a rash of leukaemia cases among former peacekeepers who served in the Balkans.

But the US and UK say there is no evidence of health risks due to the armour-piercing shells, which they argue are crucial to Nato's operational effectiveness.

Nato Secretary-General Lord Robertson said the alliance would not conceal information about any possible side effects of the weapons.

"We have nothing to hide but we have a lot to share," he told a press conference in Brussels.

"We are confident that there is little risk from depleted uranium emissions, but we cannot afford to be complacent."

And Lord Robertson said Nato would establish a committee to produce more information on the issue.

His comments came after a meeting with new Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic - the first Yugoslav minister to visit Nato headquarters since the alliance's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.

At the meeting, Nato and Yugoslavia agreed to share all available information about depleted uranium residues in the Balkans.

Russian criticism

A Russian politician said on Wednesday that he was "surprised that Nato countries are only now talking about the ecological damage wreaked by their aggression".

Dmitry Rogozin, who heads the lower house of parliament's foreign affairs committee, said "reports and research were conducted long ago."

Russian politicians and generals say initial screening has found no illness among its soldiers who served in the Balkans.

A Portuguese minister, meanwhile, said an independent Portuguese investigation had turned up no signficant examples of increased radiation after studying 52 sites in Kosovo.

US Defence Secretary William Cohen said on Tuesday that no link had been proved between depleted uranium and cases of cancer among former peacekeeping troops.

The same day, the British Government joined Italy, Portugal and other Nato allies in offering additional medical checks to troops.

And the European Union has launched its own investigation, which will include an assessment of whether spent DU shells pose any health risks for workers taking part in reconstruction programmes.

Effective weapons

US aircraft fired tens of thousands of DU rounds during Nato's 1995 bombing of Bosnian Serb targets and 1999 air war against Yugoslavia.

The rounds are denser than standard ammunition, making them more effective against armour.

Depleted uranium gives off relatively low levels of radiation, but can be dangerous if ingested, inhaled as dust or if it enters the body through cuts or wounds.

As a heavy metal, it is also chemically poisonous in addition to being radioactively poisonous.

Six Italian soldiers, five Belgians, two Dutch nationals, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech national have died after serving in the Balkans. Four French soldiers and five Belgians have also contracted leukaemia.

---

NATO mulls depleted uranium
Alliance ambassadors meet as controversy grows

MSNBC
01/01/10
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/510984.asp

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jan. 10 - NATO ambassadors were meeting on Wednesday amid calls for alliance action over health fears for peacekeepers exposed to depleted uranium weapons fired by NATO in the Balkans. Several NATO allies have urged a ban on the use of depleted uranium weapons, which are designed for heavy armor penetration and release mildly radioactive dust on impact.

DEPLETED URANIUM, a slightly radioactive heavy metal known as DU, is used in anti-armor munitions because of its high penetrating power. U.S. forces fired weapons containing depleted uranium in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and in 1999, NATO fired such weapons during its bombing of Yugoslavia.

NATO officials said Secretary-General George Robertson would give a press conference at alliance headquarters in the Belgian capital later in the day.

During Wednesday's meeting, NATO ambassadors were to discuss the growing controversy over the issue, which continued unabated on Wednesday with criticism from countries with soldiers serving in Balkans peacekeeping missions.

Russia accused the West of ignoring its warnings about the hazards of using depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo. It said their legacy endangered the people and environment of Yugoslavia as much as NATO's Balkan veterans.

Politicians and generals said preliminary tests had found no illness among Russian troops who served in Bosnia or Kosovo but that the Kremlin had long ago foreseen the dangers the tank-busting weapons posed to humans and the environment.

"We began to worry back in June 1999," said Lieutenant-General Boris Alekseyev, the head of environmental safety for Russian armed forces, quoted by the daily Kommersant.

WEAPONS MORATORIUM OPPOSED

On Tuesday, Britain and the United States opposed a moratorium on the use of DU missiles, heightening political tensions within the 19-nation military alliance. Italy, which has reported dozens of illnesses allegedly linked to DU weapons, including five leukemia deaths, led the call for a moratorium on the weapons.

NATO insists there is no proven link between the DU ammunition and a wave of cancer cases reported among Western peacekeepers who served in the Balkans.

Numerous studies into the effects of depleted uranium have not revealed any connection between the metal and cancer. But concerns among European nations have intensified with several countries reporting illnesses among troops after duty in the Balkans.

---

UN holds back on uranium warnings
No radiation risk, says official, as fears spread in Kosovo over legacy of bombing

The Guardian
Wednesday January 10, 2001
Nicholas Wood in Klina and Jonathan Steele
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,420165,00.html

The United Nations is resisting calls to protect children and other civilians in Kosovo from the potential health risks from depleted uranium left by British and American shells in contravention of its own expert advice.

On a hastily arranged trip designed to play down growing alarm in Nato countries, Bernard Kouchner, who heads the UN administration in the war torn territory, went to western Kosovo yesterday where most of the Nato shells were fired. He told reporters there was no radiation and he saw no immediate necessity to cordon off sites thought to be contaminated by the heavy metal.

His remarks flew in the face of recommendations from a panel of experts from the UN's own environment programme last autumn that all possible depleted uranium sites be sealed off from public access. On Monday the World Health Organisation also warned that depleted uranium was of potential danger to children in particular playing in contaminated areas.

As Dr Kouchner toured the site of a Nato air strike in the town of Klina, Italian soldiers equipped with white overalls and Geiger counters surveyed the wreckage of a destroyed Yugoslav tank and two armoured personnel carriers. He said no radiation had been detected.

"It might be better to close it because of all the tanks and all the holes, but I trust the soldiers. They are very precise and they did it several times." He added that the UN had not received any requests to close off the site off from the public.

Nearby Valmir Ademaj, 11, told reporters he and his friends had played inside the destroyed military vehicles and nobody had warned them not to go there. Beqir Rracaj, 74, said many people had taken parts of the tanks as souvenirs.

The potential danger from contamination by depleted uranium has been known to western governments for a long time. A month after Nato troops entered Kosovo Britain's government-funded national radiation protection board warned foreigners working in Kosovo, or visiting as journalists or aid staff, to keep clear of war-damaged Yugoslav vehicles.

"If access to potentially contaminated areas is deemed essential, advice should be sought from the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign Office on any protective measures required," it said in a warning posted on its website. But Britain and other western countries did not call for areas to be fenced off.

Most of the anxiety expressed in Nato countries has centred on the risk to their own citizens working as soldiers or police in Kosovo. Several cases of leukemia have prompted alarm. Britain and other countries are now starting a screening campaign for their nationals.

The team from the UN environment programme, which visited 11 potential depleted uranium sites last autumn, is due to publish its findings in February. In the meantime, it said, "where there is an apparent risk of contamination, signs should be put up to forbid public access".

Ironically, the Yugoslav government has taken more precautions since the war than Nato or the UN. It says it marked the eight sites in southern Serbia where up to 5,000 Nato shells landed. It has had no access since the war to the 100 sites in Kosovo where shells fell.

Slobodan Milosevic's government said use of depleted uranium shells "adds a new dimension to the crime Nato perpetrated against the Yugoslav people". The new western-backed government of Vojislav Kostunica has not repudiated this harsh language.

Zoran Stankovic of the Belgrade Military Academy hospital told a Belgrade newspaper this week that about 10% of uranium 238 turns on impact into toxic oxides, and 70% into aerosols, which are often more dangerous than radiation.

He warned that serious lung, kidney and bone disorders caused by toxic uranium particles inhaled or otherwise introduced in the body - with contaminated food or drink - could be expected in Yugoslavia.

The Serbian ecology minister, Dragan Veselinovic, said last week there was a danger of Nato bombs and radioactive ammunition "threatening to turn into live uranium and enter the food chain".

Pleurat Sejdiu, joint head of Kosovo's health department, dismissed the concern as propaganda. "People trust the Nato experts not to harm the population," he said.

Ibrahim Rugova, leader of Kosovo's biggest party, said yesterday that the depleted uranium scare in the Balkans was being misused by those who opposed Nato intervention in Kosovo in the hope that it would lead to withdrawal of the Nato-led peacekeeping force.

---

Bosnia soldier 'reduced to nothing'

The Guardian
Wednesday January 10, 2001
Jeevan Vasagar
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,420159,00.html

Kevin Rudland served with the Territorial Army for 18 years and came top in fitness tests.

He used to enjoy hill-walking, abseiling and parachuting and ran three miles a day, but now he has difficulty walking 200 yards without having to stop for a rest.

His life changed soon after he got back from a six-month tour of duty in Bosnia, where he served as a regular army engineer working for the international peacekeeping force.

Stationed in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka between December 1995 and April 1996, his job involved repairing tanks. He was given no protective clothing and believes he was exposed to depleted uranium while servicing tank tracks and gun barrels.

On his return home to the UK he set up his own business as an engineer but within weeks started to suffer ill effects, beginning with sudden and severe hair loss which left him bald by the winter. This was followed by post-traumatic stress disorder, rotting teeth, and osteoarthritis.

Mr Rudland, 41, a father of three who lives near Hull, East Yorkshire, is angry that he was not told of the health risk from depleted uranium.

He said the Ministry of Defence's announcement yesterday: that soldiers will be screened for cancer was "like a dream come true". He added: "I have been reduced to nothing by this illness. I have chronic fatigue and depression and all I want is for this to be recognised by the government."

Mr Rudland has emerged as the first recognised British case of Balkan war syndrome. It was only within the past year that it had come to Mr Rudland's attention that his condition now might be connected with depleted uranium, the former Royal Engineer said.

"This is a big problem that they've got and they need to look into it quickly. I may be the first in this country at the moment but I believe there are more that have not come forward or do not know yet.

"People have already died in Italy. [Five Italian soldiers who served in the Balkans have died of leukaemia.] I don't know what my future holds or whether the symptoms will carry on. I am unemployable.

"I think I am owed an explanation, for my benefit and for that of other servicemen and women."

Europe's response

• Irish soldiers who served in the Balkans are to be screened for signs of exposure to DU. A team of experts will leave Dublin for Kosovo and Bosnia this week to test 700 Irish troops who have served there since 1997.

• Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma called for a moratorium on the use of DU ammunition when he inspected his country's peacekeepers in Kosovo yesterday.

• France said yesterday a fifth soldier who served in the Balkans had leukaemia but insisted there was nothing to link the illness to DU.

• Italy is to ask Nato to suspend use of DU ammunition until it is sure it is not linked to leukaemia.

• EU medical and scientific experts are to report next month on possible health risks of DU.

• Norwegian soldiers due to join peacekeeping forces in Kosovo this week demanded clarification of the risks from spent DU-tipped shells before leaving for a tour of duty.

---

Touchy-feely tough guy rounds on fight-to-lose brigade

The Guardian
Wednesday January 10, 2001
Simon Hoggart
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,420225,00.html

Following the Guardian article yesterday morning, the defence minister John Spellar made a statement about depleted uranium shells and the effect they are having on our soldiers.

It appears they aren't having any effect, or at least not anything you need to worry about. Short of curling up with a hot water bottle and a mug of Ovaltine, there's nothing healthier for a soldier than a depleted uranium shell.

I exaggerate, but only slightly. Mr Spellar's statement was a classic example of the New Labour caring and sharing, touchy-feely style, combined with the Mister Mucho Macho pose favoured by defence ministers since the days of Genghis Khan.

I ran Mr Spellar's statement through the new bullshit programme on my computer and came up with a helpful concordance.

"This ammunition provides a battle-winning capacity. Therefore DU will remain part of our arsenal for the foreseeable future. Because, when this country commits our forces to conflict, we fight to win!"

[So, anyone who expresses anxiety about the effects is one of those milktoasts who believes that our boys should fight to lose.]

"The working environment of our forces in the Balkans is already closely monitored because of health and safety and environmental concerns about the theatre."

[New Labour treats a battlefield with the same tender concern as a primary school which might have asbestos in the roofing.]

"I have spelt out the background to DU research because it is important to put some of the inaccurate and inflammatory media coverage in context."

[This remark, greeted with some approval, translates as "we can always blame the papers for flamming things up". If there's one thing MPs dislike more than other MPs, it's the press.]

"These issues are not new, and we must not unduly alarm service personnel or their families."

[Anything which warns soldiers that they might have to face dangers quite apart from the enemy is destroying morale. There just might be an implied reference here to the Guardian, a notorious leader of the fight-to-lose brigade.]

"Our response will be... on the best available science."

[This phrase, which we heard innumerable times in the early days of the BSE crisis, means "on the basis of any scientific research we can drag up which fits what we have decided already".]

"I hope this statement puts the current debate in context."

[Or, "shuts the papers up for a few weeks at least".]

"We are providing battle-winning equipment for our forces and taking seriously our responsibility for their welfare. I am sure the house would agree they deserve no less."

[And the house is really keen on motherhood and apple pie, too.]

Not surprisingly, apart from a sprinkling of "fight-to-lose" MPs who pointed out that some of their constituents who'd fought in the Gulf war and Kosovo were in pretty rough shape, this statement was received with tremendous approval from all round the house, not least from the Tories. Iain Duncan-Smith, their defence spokesman, pointed out that the Italians had threatened, if DU weapons were not banned, to pull out of Nato! This was greeted with great hilarity, and no doubt lots of jokes about the Italian tank with one forward gear and three reverse.

Nicholas Soames was entirely in favour of DU shells. "They inflict the most serious damage on the Queen's enemies!" he thundered.

Oh dear, not another attack on the poor old Guardian.

---

Gulf veterans left in cold
Balkans troops to be screened for uranium

The Guardian
Wednesday January 10, 2001
Richard Norton-Taylor and Andrew Osborn in Brussels
Special report: depleted uranium
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,420187,00.html

The government yesterday bowed to intense domestic and international pressure by agreeing to screen Balkans veterans for signs of contamination from depleted uranium used in US anti-tank shells.

But the announcement infuriated Gulf war veterans, whose supporters labelled the refusal to offer the tests to troops in previous conflicts a "vicious injustice".

In an embarrassing u-turn, foreshadowed in yesterday's Guardian, John Spellar, the armed forces minister, told MPs that British troops who had served in Kosovo and Bosnia, as well as civilians working there, would be offered what he called "an appropriate voluntary screening programme".

He said Britain would step up its environmental monitoring of the Balkans and pool data collected by the UN and European allies, which have already introduced emergency screening for their troops. Until yesterday, the MoD had repeatedly spurned the need for any screening for DU.

But Mr Spellar insisted there was no evidence linking DU shells to ill health. He did not offer the new tests to troops in the Gulf war even though far more of the controversial weapons were fired there than in the Balkans.

Mr Spellar delivered a robust defence of DU shells, used in British tanks as well as US aircraft, insisting they provided a "battle-winning military capability". He said: "Because of its density and metallurgic properties, depleted uranium isideally suited for use as a kinetic energy penetrator in anti-armour munitions".

At Nato headquarters in Brussels, Britain and the US joined forces to kill off an Italian proposal, backed by Germany, for the alliance's 19 member countries to stop using depleted uranium ammunition until further notice.

Mr Spellar conceded that debris from DU shells might present a "hazard from chemical toxicity" and a "low-level radiological hazard". Those risks, he said, arose from dust created when the weapons hit targets, but as expended rounds or fragments the hazards of DU were "negligible".

He said Gulf veterans - the cause of whose illnesses, he added, had not been discovered - had been offered screening for a "whole body load of uranium". But these tests were derided as inappropriate by Gulf war veterans and their medicaladvisers.

Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University, described the Ministry of Defence move as a "cynical betrayal" and "vicious injustice".

The MoD, he said, was testing for high-level exposure to soluble material, rather than long-term, low-level, exposure to radiation inside the body. It was indulging in "Mickey Mouse science".

Terry Gooding of the Gulf War Veterans Association said the MoD had never screened members for DU symptoms. Michael Burrows, senior coordinator of the association, said: "Mr Spellar said there is an insignificant danger posed by radiation from depleted uranium, but what about the dust and the effect it has on the lymphatic system?"

He added: "I can't see that the voluntary screening will have any benefit whatsoever. The screening that he is talking about is for uranium, not depleted uranium."

Ministers are expected to await the publication of a report on DU being prepared by the Royal Society, expected in the summer , before finalising details of the screening programme.

Bruce George, chairman of the Commons defence committee, who had been threatening to mount his own inquiry into the affair, warned it was essential that the research was carried out as quickly as possible. "If it is true that there is a link between depleted uranium and leukaemia cancer, then people are going to die," he said.

The government's announcement - pressed on the MoD by Downing Street - follows a spate of leukaemia cases among Balkan veterans in Italy, France, Portugal and Denmark, though scientists differ over whether the number is exceptional within the total groups.

Professor Eric Wright, an expert on radiation-induced leukaemia at the University of Dundee, said: "The diagnosis of leukaemia in many of these people is very soon after the alleged exposure. Whilst you can never say never in science, this does seems extraordinarily unlikely to be causal."

Norwegian peacekeepers yesterday refused to sign contracts for service in Kosovo, demanding a clarification of the risk from ammunition that included DU.

---

Nato pledges to investigate use of 'safe' weapons

The Guardian
Sara Gaines
Wednesday January 10, 2001 2.45pm update
Special report: depleted uranium
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,419882,00.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,420397,00.html

Nato secretary general George Robertson said today there is no evidence of a link between the use of depleted uranium weapons and leukaemia but announced a wide-ranging action plan to reassure soldiers and civilians. But he said that Nato is to carry out further research and clean up 112 sites where missiles were dropped during bombing raids in the Balkans.

He pointed to research in the Balkans which showed leukaemia rates were below average for the area last year.

His comments came after the British government bowed to pressure to join European governments in screening troops for signs of contamination from depleted uranium used in US anti-tank shells. Concern follows a spate of leukaemia deaths among Balkan veterans in Italy, France, Portugal and Denmark, though scientists are divided on whether the incidence is unusually high.

After a meeting of Nato leaders in Brussels this morning, Mr Robertson said Nato was committed to getting all the facts.

"The brave, dedicated people who are serving as our peacekeepers in the Balkans will be reassured that their safety and their health is our priority," he said. "We have not and never will be complacent."

Mr Robertson said Nato leaders were to ask medical experts to review the situation next week and report back immediately. Nato is also to set up a DU committee and act as a clearing house for information on the issue, so government programmes and research information could be shared.

"We have nothing to hide and we have a lot to share," he said.

"The existing medical consensus is clear: the hazard from depleted uranium is both very limited and limited to very specific circumstances.

"This is not a new issue, we have addressed it in the past. We are naturally concerned at suggestions depleted uranium could be causing harm to troops who served in Bosnia or the people who live there." But he said screening of troops who had served in Bosnia showed no evidence of effects, adding: "Based on our evidence it is highly unlikely soldiers carried a high risk of developing leukaemia."

---

NATO Allies Split On Uranium Shells
U.S. and Britain See No Hazard But Some Members Want Proof

International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
William Drozdiak Washington Post Service
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=7039

BRUSSELS The United States and Britain rejected calls by other NATO allies Tuesday to abandon the use of depleted-uranium munitions as controversy swelled within the 19 member Western alliance over whether the weapons posed serious health risks to peacekeeping forces deployed in the Balkans.

NATO diplomats said Italy, backed by Germany and several other European countries, demanded a halt to further deployment of the armor-piercing shells until medical tests determined if radioactive dust left by NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo last year might have caused cancer and other ailments to allied soldiers sent to the region.

But the United States and Britain, citing the World Health Organization and other experts, insisted that the weapons played an important role in allied military arsenals and that no medical evidence had been produced showing a clear link between depleted uranium weapons and health problems that would justify a moratorium on their use.

"There's absolutely no proof that there's a connection," said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

"I think what is very important is for the facts to be made known, and not to have hysteria and emotion take over," she added Tuesday, speaking at the State Department in Washington. "It is important to understand that this is a scientifically based question, not an emotional one."

The furor over the depleted-uranium issue illustrates a growing estrangement between the United States and its European allies on several fronts at a time when NATO faces an array of difficult decisions that will profoundly affect its destiny as the world's dominant military alliance.

As the Bush administration prepares to take office, NATO diplomats point to looming trans-Atlantic conflicts over American plans for a national missile defense, a reassessment of peacekeeping tasks in the Balkans, European ambitions to carve out an independent defense identity and NATO's future enlargement toward Russia's borders.

"It was already going to be very hard to maintain unity within NATO in dealing with all of these matters that go to the core of the alliance's future," said a senior European diplomat. "The depleted-uranium problem could not have come at a worse time because it damages the sense of trust that has kept the alliance strong."

The controversy arose after Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands reported a spate of cancer cases among veterans who had returned from Balkan peacekeeping duties. Other soldiers complained of symptoms ranging from chronic fatigue to hair loss, reminiscent of the Gulf War Syndrome suffered by Western personnel who served in the 1991 campaign to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

During last year's air campaign in the Kosovo conflict, American jets unleashed 31,000 rounds of depleted-uranium warheads and shells against Serbian targets as NATO sought to drive the Yugoslav Army out of Kosovo Province.

Military experts say because of the metal's density, uranium-tipped shells are considered the best available weapons to penetrate heavy armor.

Some officials defended the use of the shells, saying radiation risks were minimal.

"It's a very effective weapon," said Mark Laity, special adviser to the NATO secretary general, George Robertson. "The medical consensus believes it does not pose health problems. It's got less radiation than the normal uranium that can be found in your own backyard."

Military experts say depleted uranium munitions could present health risks if the pulverized dust left by an exploding shell was inhaled or ingested in significant quantities.

But WHO specialists who have studied the matter say there has been no rise in average levels of leukemia among Albanian civilians living in Kosovo Province.

"Based on our studies and the evidence we have, it is unlikely that soldiers in Kosovo ran a high risk of contracting leukemia from exposure to radiation from depleted uranium," said Michael Repacholi, a WHO researcher.

But those reassurances have done little to contain the political anxiety that has stirred several allied governments to take emergency action.

Several NATO ambassadors have asked why, if the threat was so slight, did NATO military commanders send a warning before the peacekeeping mission in July 1999 citing a "possible toxic threat" and urging member states to take their own "preventive measures" in dealing with contamination risks.

"The time has come for us no longer to have complete confidence in anyone," said Portugal's prime minister, Antonio Guterres, after sending three cabinet ministers to Kosovo to conduct their own inquiry after a Portuguese soldier died of a mysterious brain disease and another contracted leukemia.

Italy has demanded a full accounting of where depleted uranium shells were fired to ascertain which areas might pose the gravest health dangers to its soldiers.

Britain announced Wednesday that it would provide voluntary medical checks for all Balkans veterans.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany gave his full support to Italy's call for a wide ranging investigation into potential health hazards from the use of depleted uranium munitions. His defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, meanwhile, suggested that a permanent ban might be the optimal solution.

In Stockholm, Barry James of the International Herald Tribune, reported that the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, had said that the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo had "created a horrible environmental problem that is for us to take care of,"

Mr. Prodi, said that if it could be demonstrated that depleted uranium was dangerous to health, "we have to abolish it."

---

NATO, EU focus on depleted uranium

Christian Science Monitor
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/01/10/fp7s2-csm.shtml

BRUSSELS
NATO quickly shot down an Italian plea yesterday for a moratorium on tank-busting weapons that contain depleted uranium - weapons some European nations fear may cause cancer.

Italy made a long presentation to NATO's Political Committee about its concerns for Italian troops who have served as peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo, where weapons using depleted uranium have been fired. But several NATO members opposed any moratorium, some quite strongly, according to sources familiar with the discussions at the meeting.

Yesterday's Political Committee meeting was the first occasion for all of NATO's 19 members to discuss the matter since the latest wave of concern about depleted uranium emerged.

Depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, is used in anti-armor munitions because of its high penetrating power. US forces fired weapons containing depleted uranium in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995; and in 1999, fired such weapons during NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.

Numerous studies into the effects of depleted uranium have not revealed any connection between the metal and cancer. But concerns among European nations have intensified since Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, six of whom died of cancer. In France, four soldiers are being treated for leukemia. A number of nations and aid agencies have begun screening personnel who served in the Balkans.

Across town at the European Union, the EU's executive arm asked a group of experts for a scientific opinion on whether EU personnel who have worked in the Balkans might face health risks from exposure to depleted uranium. An EU spokesman said the panel should have a clearly defined opinion by early next month. Based on the findings, the EU executive arm will decide how to adapt its aid programs in the region.

In Kosovo, the depleted-uranium scare was becoming a political issue. Ibrahim Rugova, a top ethnic-Albanian leader, said it is being misused by those who opposed NATO intervention in Kosovo in hopes it will lead to the withdrawal of the NATO-led peacekeeping force. Mr. Rugova named no countries, but appeared to be alluding to Russia, a vehement critic of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign.

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NATO URGED TO ACT ON DEPLETED URANIUM

Chicago Tribune
January 10, 2001
By Ray Moseley Foreign Correspondent
http://chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/article/0,2669,SAV-0101100180,FF.html

LONDON -- NATO came under growing pressure Tuesday to ban the use of depleted-uranium shells until the alliance is able to demonstrate they are not linked to leukemia among peacekeeping troops in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In another development, Britain bowed to public pressure and said it would set up a voluntary screening program for service personnel and civilians who served in the Balkans. It previously had refused to do so and had expressed confidence in the safety of the depleted-uranium weapons.

Armed Forces Minister John Spellar said Britain continued to hold that view but would undertake the screening because media reports had "caused some concerns among our people and we recognize a need to reassure them."

Ireland also promised screening for its 700 troops who served in Kosovo. Thirteen European nations have now announced such tests.

Public concern snowballed this week after reports that 16 soldiers who served in the Balkans died of leukemia and scores more were ill.

NATO, the U.S. Defense Department and the World Health Organization have maintained that health hazards from depleted uranium are negligible and that the material is unlikely to cause the rapid onset of leukemia in anyone.

But Italy, which recently lost six soldiers to leukemia, led a call on Tuesday for a NATO moratorium on the use of depleted uranium until further tests demonstrate that the material is safe.

The North Atlantic Council, NATO's decision-making body in Brussels, will meet Wednesday to consider the issue.

A ban appears unlikely, but NATO leaders may agree on a coordinated program of further testing to allay public fears.

Meanwhile, European governments ordered their own investigation, by scientists of the nuclear supervisory body Euratom. The 15-nation European Union instructed the scientists to report within a month on whether the unexplained illnesses among the peacekeepers could be linked to the weapons.

Senior officials from the International Contact Group on the Balkans also will discuss the issue, on Thursday in Paris. The group includes the U.S., Russia, Britain, Germany, France and Italy.

Spellar said battlefield debris from depleted uranium, which is used in tank-busting weapons, might present a hazard from chemical toxicity and be a low-level radiological hazard.

But he said various tests on Persian Gulf war veterans exposed to depleted uranium have shown no kidney damage, which would be the main indicator of heavy-metal poisoning. Radiological damage, he said, would show up as cancer only after a long period of latency.

A study of 4,000 peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said, showed no difference in the level of symptoms between them and troops not sent to the gulf or Bosnia.

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U.S., Britain Reject Calls to Halt Use of Depleted-Uranium Arms

Washington Post
Wednesday, January 10, 2001; Page A15
By William Drozdiak Washington Post Foreign Service
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38135-2001Jan9.html

BRUSSELS, Jan. 9 -- The United States and Britain rejected calls by other NATO allies today to suspend use of depleted-uranium munitions as controversy swelled within the 19-member alliance over whether the weapons pose serious health risks to peacekeeping forces in the Balkans.

NATO diplomats said Italy, backed by Germany and several other European countries, called for removal of the armor-piercing shells from NATO arsenals pending medical tests. Italy contends that radioactive dust the shells left in Kosovo during the 1999 air campaign may have caused cancer and other ailments in allied soldiers there.

But the United States and Britain, citing the World Health Organization and other experts, countered that there is no medical evidence showing a clear link between depleted-uranium weapons and health problems. They said the weapons play an important role in allied military forces and should remain in the arsenal.

"There's absolutely no proof that there's a connection," said U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

The furor over the depleted-uranium issue illustrates a growing estrangement between the United States and its European allies on several fronts at a time when NATO faces a variety of difficult decisions over its future as the world's dominant military alliance.

As the Bush administration prepares to take office, NATO diplomats point to looming transatlantic conflicts. The incoming administration is leaning toward building a national missile defense and reassessing the U.S. role in peacekeeping in the Balkans, plans that put it at odds with European views. Bush officials also are suspicious of plans for a joint European military force, and they disagree with Europe over some aspects of NATO's future enlargement toward Russia's borders.

"It was already going to be very hard to maintain unity within NATO in dealing with all of these matters that go to the core of the alliance's future," said a senior European diplomat. "The depleted-uranium problem could not have come at a worse time because it damages the sense of trust that has kept the alliance strong."

The controversy arose after Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands reported a spate of cancer cases among veterans who had returned from Balkan peacekeeping duties. Other soldiers complained of symptoms including chronic fatigue and hair loss, reminiscent of the "Gulf War syndrome" suffered by Western soldiers who served in the 1991 campaign to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

Depleted uranium is what is left after uranium is processed to remove most of the radioactivity for use in nuclear fuel and weapons. Military experts say that because of the metal's density, uranium-tipped shells are the best available weapons to penetrate heavy armor.

During the 1999 air war, American jets fired about 31,000 depleted-uranium shells as NATO sought to drive the Yugoslav army out of Kosovo province.

"It's a very effective weapon," said Mark Laity, special adviser to NATO Secretary General George Robertson. "The medical consensus believes it does not pose health problems. It's got less radiation than the normal uranium that can be found in your own back yard."

Defense experts say depleted-uranium munitions could present health risks if the pulverized dust left by an exploding shell was inhaled or ingested in significant quantities.

But specialists at the World Health Organization who have studied the matter say there has been no rise in average levels of leukemia among civilians living in Kosovo.

"Based on our studies and the evidence we have, it is unlikely that soldiers in Kosovo ran a high risk of contracting leukemia from exposure to radiation from depleted uranium," said Michael Repacholi, a WHO researcher.

But those reassurances have done little to contain the political anxiety that has stirred several allied governments to take emergency action. Several NATO ambassadors have asked why, if the threat was so innocuous, did NATO commanders dispatch a warning in June 1999 before the start of the peacekeeping deployment in Kosovo citing a "possible toxic threat" and urging member states to take their own "preventive measures" in dealing with contamination risks.

The memo warned of "residual heavy metal toxicity in armored vehicles" that had been struck by the weapons and said it could pose health risks to people coming into contact with the vehicles.

"The time has come for us no longer to have complete confidence in anyone," said Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Guterres. After a Portuguese soldier who had served in Kosovo died of a mysterious brain disease and another contracted leukemia, Guterres dispatched three cabinet ministers to Kosovo to conduct their own inquiry.

Italy has demanded a full accounting of where depleted-uranium shells were fired in order to ascertain which areas might pose the gravest health dangers to its soldiers. Italian soldiers have been deployed in a sector of southern Kosovo where NATO warplanes fired a vast number of uranium-tipped shells at clusters of Yugoslav tanks and armored personnel carriers in the last stages of the air war.

Meanwhile, Italian Defense Minister Sergio Mattarella said he would continue to press for removing such weapons from the alliance's arsenal until they were deemed safe -- to the satisfaction of all NATO members.

Britain announced today that it would provide voluntary medical checks for all Balkan veterans, joining other European allies that have ordered radiation screening and other health tests for their troops.

------

Albright Warns Against Uranium 'Hysteria'

Yahoo News
World News
Wednesday January 10 12:02 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010110/wl/health_balkans_dc_13.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (news - web sites) Tuesday again played down European concerns over possible health risks from depleted uranium in weapons used in NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and warned against ``hysteria'' taking over the discussion.

``As far as I have been told there is no scientific evidence that would link (shells tipped with armor-penetrating depleted uranium) to a health hazard,'' Albright told reporters at the State Department.

Defense Secretary William Cohen gave a similar assessment: ''We have found no scientific link between depleted uranium and leukemia as some have alleged.''

The United States has advised NATO members what steps they should take in dealing with this, Cohen told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

``I suppose if there were any deficiency to be found it would be in failure to pick up fragments of destroyed vehicles or tanks in which the depleted uranium projectiles were used,'' he said.

``But beyond that I think adequate warnings were given and there is a very low risk of coming into contact with this provided there is sufficient protection taken,'' Cohen said.

Referring to an inquiry into the issue by NATO, which is supported by the United States, Albright said: ``I think what is very important is for the facts to be made known, and not to have hysteria and emotion take over.''

The issue has caused a public furor in Europe, where several countries fear their peacekeepers deployed in the Balkans face health hazards because of exposure to the remains of the weapons.

Initial reaction by NATO governments to reports of a so-called ``Balkan syndrome'' involving leukemia among veterans of the Bosnia and Kosovo operations have diverged sharply.

NATO's two main military powers -- the United States and Britain -- have dismissed or played down the risk, while allies such as Germany, Italy, Belgium and Portugal are demanding a full investigation.

Monday Albright said there was ``absolutely no proof'' of a link between the weapons and the potentially fatal blood cancer, a view supported by the World Health Organization (news - web sites) and NATO officials.

Portugal, Norway and Greece have begun mass screening of soldiers who served in the Balkans after the cancer deaths of six Italians and a Portuguese soldier and dozens more cases of unexplained illness.

Asked whether there was any consideration of a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium munitions while the NATO investigation is going on, Cohen replied: ``we have not considered that at this point, no.''

---------

Ill Belgian Soldier Wants Answers

Yahoo News
World News
Wednesday January 10 2:03 PM ET
By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010110/wl/balkan_syndrome_1.html

BOOM, Belgium (AP) - It all started about a year after he returned from Bosnia - muscle pains, shortness of breath and stomach ailments. Five years later, Cpl. Guido Fleurackers says he's still sick and wants to know why.

``I have problems with sleeping, I have pain in my legs, my arms and in my muscles,'' said Fleurackers, a 20-year army veteran who served one tour in Bosnia and another in Croatia. ``I'm sure it's related to my service in the Balkans.''

Fleurackers is one of a growing number of Balkan veterans who fear they are at risk from cancer and other ailments, possibly due to exposure to ammunition containing depleted uranium.

Depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, is used in anti-armor munitions because of its penetrating power. U.S. forces fired weapons containing depleted uranium in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and in 1999, NATO (news - web sites) fired such weapons during its bombing of Yugoslavia.

Studies into the effects of depleted uranium have not revealed any link to cancer. But concerns among European nations have intensified since Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 soldiers, seven of whom died of cancer.

Since then, similar cases have been reported in at least eight other European countries, including four leukemia cases among Balkan veterans in France and two in Denmark. In Belgium, five soldiers who served in the Balkans have died of cancer and four more are suffering from the disease.

Now Fleurackers is part of a class action suit planned on behalf of 1,600 Belgian service members. The Belgian soldiers are not blaming their problems specifically on depleted uranium, but they claim the government endangered their health by sending them to U.N. and NATO-led peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.

Fleurackers says his health deteriorated drastically after he returned in 1994 from Bosnia, where he served in an engineering unit. Within months, he says he noticed fatigue, muscle pains, shortness of breath and stomach problems.

``My work began to suffer,'' Fleurackers said. ``Most people around me can't understand what has happened. Some people think I'm not really sick.''

Fleurackers was transferred to a desk job and then took nine months of sick leave in 1997. He returned to duty, but seven months ago was back on sick leave. Now, he's awaiting results of tests to determine if he has cancer. Even if he does not, he's worried that he may be discharged from the army for medical reasons.

Fleurackers maintains others are suffering from similar disorders but are afraid to talk about them for fear of losing their jobs.

``A lot of people have bought houses, have cars, have a family, have kids, and they are scared to lose their salaries every month,'' he said. ``This is reasonable. I'm also scared to lose my pay.''

NATO and the United States insist there is no evidence linking depleted uranium to cancer or other ailments among Balkan veterans. The European Union (news - web sites) and NATO have promised to accelerate research to determine if there is a ``Balkan Syndrome'' and if so, what causes it.

Still, many European soldiers and veterans are worried.

At his home in Sardinia, former Italian peacekeeper Valery Melis looked through photos of his time in the Balkans and wondered if the reason for his illness lies there. He's 23 and suffering from Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer.

Melis served in Albania and Macedonia from March to June 1999. He never got closer to Kosovo than about 15 or 20 miles. But he still thinks he might have ``inhaled'' depleted uranium somehow.

``At first I didn't make the connection,'' Melis, an army corporal, said. But as the debate over the health risks of depleted uranium heated up across the continent, ``the first doubts came along.''

Then there is retired Capt. Frank Cop of Belgium, a Bosnia veteran who served 30 years before an undetermined illness forced him to retire.

``I don't know if I came in contact with it,'' he said. ``I did not receive any warnings. I did not have any protective gear.''

The Belgian government is at a loss to determine how to deal with people like Fleurackers. The Defense Ministry has been swamped with letters from parents and wives of soldiers serving in the Balkans, concerned about possible health risks.

``We know they are frustrated,'' Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Harveng said. ``We want to give clarification to the families. We can understand their plight.''

For Fleurackers, there is little that can be done but await results of the various investigations.

``I don't know what my future holds,'' he said. ``I'm not afraid of a bullet. I'm not afraid of a grenade. But I am afraid of this. This is scary.''

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Population of Serbia not in danger from NATO uranium: scientists

Yahoo News
Wednesday, January 10 10:51 PM SGT

BELGRADE, Jan 10 (AFP) - The people of Serbia are not at risk from depleted uranium (DU) munitions fired by NATO since no increased radiation levels have been found at most of the bomb sites tested in the country, scientists said Wednesday.

"We tested some 250 locations immediately after they were bombed and we found no indication of increased radiation" except at six sites, Srba Markovic, laboratory chief in Serbia's Vinca nuclear institute, told a meeting of scientists called by the health ministry.

NATO's use of armor-piercing DU rounds in its 1999 air war on Belgrade has left six areas of Yugoslavia contaminated by radiation, excluding areas in the UN-run province of Kosovo, Yugoslav army Colonel Milenko Rilak said.

However, those were "mainly uncultivable places, away from inhabited areas, which reduced the danger to people's health," Rilak said, adding that the spots, five in southern Serbia and one in Montenegro, had been isolated and were inaccessible to ordinary people.

"There has been absolutely no danger to the population," Milan Orlic of the Vinca institute said.

"At the moment there is no reason for panic," Serbian Health Minister Nada Kostic said.

Nevertheless, Kostic added that the ministry would form a commission of scientists and doctors to provide constant surveillance of the situation.

Slobodan Cikaric, deputy head of Belgrade's cancer clinic, said his institution has not registered any rise in the number of patients suffering from leukemia or other forms of cancers since the NATO bombings.

"The number of patients has not significantly changed since 1991," Cikaric said, adding however that the number of cancer cases could increase in the years to come, due to the delayed effects of exposure to depleted uranium.

The debate by prominent Serbian scientists comes as EU nations which sent troops to Bosnia and the Serbian province of Kosovo began investigations into leukemia and other illnesses suffered by Balkans veterans suspected to have links to DU projectiles fired by US forces.

Around 1,000 Yugoslav soldiers thought to have been exposed to DU munitions have been cleared by army medical tests as having no symptoms of related illnesses, Rilak said.

"We did not find a single case of a soldier contaminated by DU," Rilak said, adding however that "all the 100,000 Yugoslav soldiers who served in Kosovo at the time should to be tested, but that would require huge financial resources."

The existance of a so-called Balkans Syndrome among soldiers "is not proven yet, but it is possible that it could appear in the future," Markovic said.

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Europe to Investigate Uranium-Tipped Arms

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By MARLISE SIMONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/world/10NATO.html

PARIS, Jan. 9 - With NATO beginning to react to health concerns about uranium-tipped ammunition, European governments today ordered their own investigation, by scientists of the nuclear supervisory body Euratom.

The 15-nation European Union instructed the scientists to report within a month on whether unexplained illness and even deaths among peacekeepers in the Balkans could be linked to uranium-tipped weapons fired during NATO's air campaign.

The Pentagon and NATO deny that links could exist between the American-made antitank weapons and the unexplained diseases among veterans. But reports of leukemia and other disease continue to surface.

The French Defense Ministry said today that it had found a fifth soldier, a Balkans veteran, suffering from leukemia, but a spokesman said it was not possible to determine the cause.

A French journalist, who said she had had a range of illnesses since covering the Persian Gulf and Balkans wars, has been called to testify before Parliament. The journalist, Marie-Claude Dubin, said she had had the kinds of troubles that thousand of American and British veterans have reported.

In both wars, tons of fired ammunition contained depleted uranium, which is used to make the rounds harder and more effective.

"I'm not saying that uranium was certainly the cause, but I am ill and I have the same symptoms as the veterans," Ms. Dubin told the daily Le Parisien.

As the clamor grows, the British government today made an abrupt turnabout in its handling of the issue. Britain is one of the few European countries to employ depleted uranium weapons and until now it refused to test its soldiers, arguing, like the United States, that the weapons posed no health threats if handled properly.

But this afternoon in the House of Commons, the armed forces minister, John Spellar, unexpectedly announced that the government was setting up a voluntary screening program for service personnel and civilians who served in the Balkans. "Some of the recent coverage will have caused some concerns among our people and we do recognize a need to reassure them," Mr. Spellar said.

Meanwhile, the issue was raised at a meeting of diplomats at NATO headquarters in Brussels, with Italy demanding that a moratorium on such weapons be discussed when senior NATO officials meet on Wednesday.

The European Union said it needed the scientific assessment because if contamination is persisting on the ground it may have to adjust its reconstruction program in Kosovo.

The union spent some $350 million in Kosovo last year on reconstruction and relief projects and keeps several hundred staff members and contract workers there. It says it needs to know what protection is necessary for them. Beyond that, the Europeans need to figure out "if we should develop any new environment or health programs for the people in Kosovo," said Annika Ostergren, a European Union spokesman.

The scientists who will make the assessment under the auspices of Euratom - the name stands for European Atomic Energy Community - are to gather data from military and government sources as well as universities, rather than doing independent research.

American and British military reports have pronounced the ammunition safe. But some independent researchers say there are worries that even small amounts of depleted uranium can have lasting effects on health if they enter the body.

Britain and France are among the few countries in Europe that stock depleted uranium ammunition, although they did not use it in Kosovo. Most other governments do not stock the ammunition, contending that not enough is known about its impact on soldiers handling or otherwide coming in contact with it.

NATO disclosed last month that American warplanes fired 31,000 rounds of depleted-uranium shells in the 1999 campaign on targets mostly in Kosovo but also in Serbia and Montenegro. Some 10,000 rounds were fired in Bosnia during attacks in l994 and 1995.

------

NATO to Probe Uranium Fears, Keep Munitions

Reuters
January 10, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/science-health-balkan.html?pagewanted=all

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO promised on Wednesday to investigate the effects of depleted uranium used in tank-busting ammunition, but insisted it posed a minimal health risk.

As more countries stepped up screening of war veterans who may have been exposed to the munitions' mildly radioactive residue, NATO said it would do all it could to reassure troops and civilians worried by recent cancer scares.

NATO ambassadors agreed a ``robust'' action plan to look into the effects of using depleted uranium (DU) in weapons which have been linked to dozens of cases of leukemia among Western peacekeepers who served in the Balkan conflicts.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said the alliance had ''nothing to hide and everything to share.

``We are confident there is little risk from DU munitions, but we refuse to be complacent,'' he told a news conference.

French President Jacques Chirac and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who led NATO's 1999 Kosovo campaign, urged total openness on the so-called ``Balkans Syndrome.''

``There must be absolute transparency so that all the facts are on the table,'' Solana said during a trip to Germany.

NATO UNDER FIRE

The controversy over DU munitions prompted Russia to accuse the West of arrogance and aroused Iraqi vitriol over the 1991 Gulf War, when Western munitions containing depleted uranium were blamed for thousands of cancer deaths and deformed births.

The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said Iraq urged the United Nations and other world bodies to investigate the use of DU ammunition and go public on their health effects.

``These reports confirm the credibility of facts presented by Iraq over previous years on the use of these weapons by American and British forces in their 1991 aggression on Iraq and their disastrous effects on people and the environment,'' INA quoted one Foreign Ministry source as saying.

Moscow said the West had ignored its warnings about the hazards of using DU ammunition in Kosovo and warned that their legacy endangered the people and environment of Yugoslavia as much as NATO's Balkan veterans.

``We began to worry...in June 1999,'' said Lieutenant-General Boris Alekseyev, head of environmental safety for Russian armed forces. ``But the danger we talked about did not get any reaction, either in our own country or in the West.''

A French journalist suffering from so-called ``Gulf War Syndrome'' accused the U.S. of failing to warn of the hazards of contamination from DU munitions despite knowing of the dangers.

``They sent us to the slaughterhouse,'' Marie-Claude Dubin told Reuters in an interview in her Paris apartment.

Dubin, who testified on Tuesday to a French government inquiry into ``Gulf War Syndrome,'' dismissed the argument that it is unlikely there is link between DU and health problems.

``Just after the invasion of Kuwait, I came across an American document saying depleted uranium ammunition was very dangerous,'' said Dubin, who also reported from the Balkans.

ON THE GROUND

Bosnia said the so-called ``Balkans syndrome'' had cast a new slur on a region that had suffered enough.

The chairman of Bosnia's central government, Martin Raguz, said that according to information from Bosnia's two regions, there was no confirmation that the death rate had increased because of radiation.

``We have no relevant indicators that can confirm a direct link between the use of depleted uranium and the reported death of six Italian soldiers...We cannot speculate about this,'' Raguz told reporters.

In Kosovo, the media furor over DU has sown terror among civilians living among the debris of war.

``When I heard about it on television blood froze in my veins,'' said Budimka Mladenovic, 59, who lives in the remote and tiny southern Serbian village of Borovac.

``They say it will last for thousands of years!''

U.N. staff and peacekeeping troops in Kosovo said they may consider marking or sealing off sites where depleted uranium munitions are known to have been used.

NATO-led peacekeepers have a map showing 112 sites where DU ammunition was fired during NATO air strikes.

Portuguese ministers on a fact-finding mission to the southern Serb province said they were satisfied that initial tests into the effects of DU ammunition at over 50 locations had shown no abnormal radiation levels.

``We are absolutely satisfied,'' Science Minister Mariano Gago said at a Portuguese peacekeepers' base in the town of Klina.

But he stressed that results from analysis of samples taken from food, water and air were not yet available. In Zagreb, Croatia said it would study the frequency of leukemia over the past decade, focusing on those who were close to combat activities in Croatia, Bosnia or Kosovo,.

DU WEAPONS TO STAY

While NATO is to set up a special committee involving allies, non-NATO nations and both military and civilian groups to study the effects of DU, the alliance dismissed calls for it to mothball the ammunition.

``We cannot possibly go on the basis of perceptions or peoples' concerns about that one word -- uranium,'' Robertson said. ``We have to base what we are doing on the facts...we must focus more on the facts and less on the emotions.''

France, one of only three NATO allies to use DU arms, said it would not use them except in ``high intensity tank battles.''

The alliance insisted medical opinion was on its side. It has the backing of the World Health Organization and scientists who argue there is no link between DU weapons and cancers.

NATO medical chiefs will meet on Monday for more talks and the 19-member alliance said it would assist international organizations, such as the U.N. Environment Program, in further field studies in Bosnia.

---

Italy's 'Balkan' Death Toll at 7

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 2:20 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Depleted-Uranium-Deaths.html

ROME (AP) -- Italy on Wednesday raised the death toll it links to possible exposure to depleted uranium ammunition in the Balkans from six to seven.

Briefing the Italian Senate, Defense Minister Sergio Mattarella said investigations are under way into the illnesses of 30 Italian soldiers, including seven who have died of cancer. He offered no other information, and the Defense Ministry provided only a few details of the cases.

One of the seven never served in the Balkans, officials said. Ministry spokesman Col. Paolo Bressan said he was unable to explain why he was included in the studies.

According to Bressan, these are the deaths under investigation:

--Cpl. Salvatore Carbonaro, 24, of Floridia, Sicily, served seven months in Bosnia in 1998 with the Garibaldi Brigade. He died of leukemia in November after an 18-month illness. His family blames benzene exposure, not depleted uranium, for his death.

--Rinaldo Colombo, 31, of Carnago, was a military police officer who served in Bosnia in 1996 and 1997 and in Albania in 1997. He died of skin cancer in November 2000.

--Cpl. Salvatore Vacca, 23, of Cagliari, Sardinia, was in Bosnia in 1998 and 1999 in the Sassari Regiment. He died on Sept. 9, 1999, of leukemia.

--Sgt. Maj. Andrea Antonacci, from the Puglia region, was in Sarajevo from Aug. 20, 1998, to March 4, 1999. He died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer, on Dec. 13, 2000.

--Luigi D'Alessio, a soldier who was in Bosnia with the Italian Red Cross, died of leukemia last year. No date of Balkan service or date of death was provided.

--Capt. Giuseppe Benetti served in Bosnia as an army engineer. He died on Oct. 29, 1998, of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. No date of Balkan service was provided.

--Giuseppe Pintus, of Cagliari, Sardinia, did not serve in the Balkans but did a tour of duty at a firing range in Teulada, Sardinia. That led the media to suggest he'd been exposed to depleted uranium, though Bressan said depleted uranium munitions were not used at Teulada. He died of leukemia in May 1994.

Depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, is used in anti-armor munitions because of its high penetrating power. U.S. forces fired weapons containing depleted uranium in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and in 1999, NATO fired such weapons during its bombing of Yugoslavia.

Numerous studies into the effects of depleted uranium have not revealed any connection between the metal and cancer. But concerns among European nations have intensified since the Italian cases came to light.

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NATO Launches Drive to Calm Uranium Arms Fears

Reuters
January 10, 2001 Filed at 5:36 p.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/health-nato.html

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO moved on Wednesday to damp down a raging controversy over the use of depleted uranium weapons, but held to its line that there was only a minimal health risk.

Alliance ambassadors were called together to discuss the row which erupted after several Western peacekeepers who served in the Balkans, where depleted uranium (DU) ammunition was used, died of leukaemia.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson pledged the alliance would do all it could to reassure troops and civilians spooked by growing concerns over cancers.

``We are confident that there is little risk from DU (depleted uranium) munitions but we refuse to be complacent,'' Robertson told a news conference at alliance headquarters.

Asked if the 19-member military alliance would consider withdrawing uranium-tipped missiles from its armoury, Robertson said: ``No, we must base our analysis on facts and not be swayed by perceptions.''He stressed that NATO firmly believed it had medical and scientific opinion on its side.

``The existing medical consensus is clear: the hazard from depleted uranium is both very limited and limited to very specific circumstances.

``NATO is doing everything it can to ensure that relevant information is made publicly available,'' he added.

He said NATO would provide a ``robust'' plan to try to calm the increasing concerns over the risk to human health from exposure to DU weapons.

The plan would include setting up a dedicated committee involving allies, non-NATO nations and both military and civilian groups to further study the effects of DU arms.

NATO also pledged to provide more information on DU weaponry and would assist other international organisations, such as the United Nations Environment Programme, in further field studies in Bosnia.

The alliance would also act as a ``clearing house'' to coordinate the research being carried out at national level in the wake of the controversy.

Depleted uranium is used on missiles, shells and bullets because of its heavy armour penetration but it can release a fine, mildly radioactive dust on impact.

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British Army Warned of Uranium Risks

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 9:50 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Depleted-Uranium.html

LONDON (AP) -- A British Army report warned almost four years ago that soldiers exposed to dust from depleted uranium shells might be at risk of developing cancers, according to a document carried by the British media on Thursday.

The report, was prepared by the Headquarters of the Army's Quartermaster-General as an internal document for military officials, said that soldiers doing salvage work inside vehicles which had been damaged by depleted uranium shells faced up to eight times the acceptable level of uranium exposure, according to the British Broadcasting Corp. and newspaper reports.

The Ministry of Defense immediately countered that the document was a ``discredited'' draft paper, prepared by a trainee and never endorsed by senior staff.

``Certain elements are scientifically incorrect or misleading,'' the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The British government reiterated its position that medical evidence has so far failed to prove any link between the heavy metal, favored because of its ability to penetrate armor, and soldiers being diagnosed with cancer after coming into contact with the munitions.

The statement reflected comments made earlier in the day by NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, who told reporters in Brussels that there was no scientific evidence that exposure to armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium posed a significant health risk. Nevertheless, he said NATO has set up an action plan because of European countries' fears about health risks to soldiers assigned to the Balkans, where depleted uranium munitions were used in combat.

But the document, which all the news organization said had been leaked to them, still threatened to inflame fears already sweeping across Europe that soldiers' lives had been put at risk in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as in the Gulf War. Depleted uranium munitions were used in all of those wars.

Last month, Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukemia. In France, four soldiers are being treated for leukemia. Several European countries have begun screening soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans. Many civilian aid agencies are doing the same.

Britain on Tuesday bowed to pressure and said it would offer screening to veterans of the Kosovo and Bosnian wars for signs of illness.

According to published excerpts of the leaked Ministry of Defense report, the army warned in 1997 that the risk of exposure to the ``hazardous'' uranium dust ``must be reduced.''

``Inhalation of insoluble uranium dioxide dust will lead to accumulation in the lungs with very slow clearance -- if any,'' the British media quoted the document as saying. ``Although the chemical toxicity is low, there may be localized radiation damage of the lung leading to cancer.''

The opposition Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats called on government officials to explain the report's findings.

---

NATO Devises Uranium Action Plan

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 9:21 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Depleted-Uranium.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- NATO announced Wednesday that it will set up a group to exchange information on possible health risks from depleted uranium munitions because of public concern that they may lead to cancer and other illnesses.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson told reporters there is no scientific evidence that exposure to armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium poses a significant health risk. Nevertheless, he said NATO has set up an action plan because of European countries' fears about health risks to soldiers assigned to the Balkans, where depleted uranium munitions were used in combat.

Robertson said the plan calls for full NATO cooperation with any investigations on depleted uranium's risks. It also includes consultation with countries that contribute peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo and creation of a clearinghouse to exchange information on depleted uranium.

Depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, is used in anti-armor munitions because of its high penetrating power. U.S. forces fired weapons containing depleted uranium in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and in 1999, NATO fired such weapons during its bombing of Yugoslavia.

Numerous studies into the effects of depleted uranium have not revealed any connection between the metal and cancer. But concerns among European nations have intensified since Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 soldiers, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukemia.

While Britain has argued against a link between the depleted uranium and cancer-stricken soldiers, a document leaked to the British media revealed that a British army report had warned four years ago of health dangers connected to the heavy metal munitions.

The draft document, prepared by the Headquarters of the Army's Quartermaster-General in March 1997, said that soldiers exposed to dust from depleted uranium shells might be at risk of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers, according to the British Broadcasting Corp. and newspaper reports published Thursday. All troops who come in contact with depleted uranium ``should be aware that uranium dust inhalation carries a long-term risk to health,'' the document said, according to published excerpts.

The Ministry of Defense said that the document was a ``discredited'' draft paper, prepared by a trainee and never endorsed by senior staff.

``Certain elements are scientifically incorrect or misleading,'' the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

In France, four soldiers are being treated for leukemia. Several European countries have begun screening soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans. Many civilian aid agencies are doing the same.

On Wednesday, Portuguese Science Minister Mariano Gago said Portuguese scientific experts have found no dangerous levels of radiation during tests in Kosovo over the past four days. Gago told Portuguese state radio RDP that readings taken around the central Kosovo town of Klina, where Portuguese peacekeepers are stationed, showed normal levels of background radiation.

``The possibility of generalized contamination in the area is therefore out of the question,'' Gago said.

One Portuguese peacekeeper has been diagnosed with cancer since returning from Kosovo.

In Berlin, Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping also insisted there is no evidence to support growing concern that weapons containing depleted uranium pose a health risk.

``The results of the tests on (German) soldiers deployed in Kosovo, and on soldiers never deployed there, show no differences,'' Scharping said.

But he said Germany still wants a moratorium while more research is carried out. NATO turned down a request by Italy and Germany for such a moratorium Tuesday.

Asked why NATO refused to consider a moratorium, Robertson said that since there are currently no hostilities in Europe, the weapons are not being used anyway.

``What we have to do is act on the basis of our analysis of the facts,'' he said. ``I would not agree to the use of the munitions if I believed there were a hazard.''

One risk that NATO itself has acknowledged is the possibility of contamination from breathing dust from an exploded depleted uranium shell. But even then, Robertson said, one would have to be inside a destroyed vehicle to be affected.

------

Yugo Experts See Higher Radioactivity at Blast Sites

Reuters
January 10, 2001 Filed at 4:57 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-health-.html

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Yugoslav experts have measured radioactivity levels up to 1,100 times the normal in five areas hit by depleted uranium-tipped munitions during NATO's 1999 air war, an army officer said on Wednesday.

Colonel Milenko Rilak said the Yugoslav army estimated that between 1.0 and 1.5 tons of depleted uranium had been fired at Yugoslav targets, excluding Kosovo province, and that 5.5 acres of land had been contaminated.

He stressed during a debate organized by the Serbian health and environment ministries that the affected areas had been marked and isolated from the general population.

``Locations outside Kosovo on which NATO used this ammunition is mostly non-arable land and is far from urban centers which has largely reduced the danger of contamination,'' Rilak said.

A representative of the Vinca Nuclear Physics Institute, which carried out the tests, said the population was not in danger in areas hit by such weapons because they had been properly marked.

``There is no realistic danger for the population,'' said the institute's Srpko Markovic.

He said there was no proof as yet of the existence of the so-called ``Balkan syndrome.''

``The statistical indicators of the (peacekeeping) soldiers who have been taken ill are not significant enough to state with certainty that uranium has caused the illness,'' Markovic added.

Rilak said soil tests carried out by experts at five identified locations -- four in southern Serbia and one in Montenegro -- had shown radioactivity ranging from nine to 1,100 times normal levels.

The highest level was measured near the southern Serbian town of Vranje, Rilak said.

Wednesday's discussion was organized in the Serbian government building in response to growing alarm over reports that NATO peacekeepers had fallen ill possibly from exposure to the ammunition containing depleted uranium and used in the Kosovo and Bosnian conflicts.

MONITORING TEAM

Serbian Health Minister Nada Kostic said a multidisciplinary team would be set up to monitor effects of the radiation on the population, especially in the affected areas in southern Serbia.

``It is important for our public that the experts are here, already giving relevant data, everything is being monitored, that there is no reason for panic and that nothing can slip out of control,'' she said.

She said that the team would cooperate with the international forces now running Kosovo.

The Yugoslav army, which withdrew from Kosovo in June 1999, has no access to information from the province itself. U.S. attack planes fired 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition against Serb targets during the campaign, mainly in Kosovo, according to NATO.

Markovic said the institute had conducted tests on 250 other locations in Serbia proper shortly after they were bombed during the 11-month air campaign to halt Belgrade's repressive policies in Kosovo and had registered no presence of radiation.

He said there was no danger any longer of uranium being dispersed by air. But he warned that there was still some risk of it entering ground water.

``As months pass there is a danger that rains could make it pass into ground waters and into the food chain, which should definitely be prevented. The question is how to prevent this, how to decontaminate these terrains,'' Markovic said.

Doctors participating in the debate said they had not registered a higher incidence of malignant diseases since the conflict but warned that such illnesses usually took several years to develop.

Miodrag Djordjevic, the head of the Bezanijska Kosa medical center, was pessimistic and forecast a 30 percent increase of cancer illnesses over the next 15 years, blaming bombing-related radioactive as well as bacterial and chemical contamination.

---

Yugoslav Official Visits NATO

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 10:55 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-NATO-Yugoslavia.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic went to NATO headquarters Wednesday -- the first time a Belgrade official has set foot in the place since the alliance's 1999 bombing campaign shattered his country.

He declared that Yugoslav forces and NATO are ``not enemy armies anymore.''

``This is an important, indeed an historic day,'' NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said of the visit from the 37-year-old Svilanovic. ``The air campaign was never directed against the Serbian people.''

Svilanovic, head of the Serbian Civic Alliance, was a prominent opposition activist who backed Vojislav Kostunica's rise to the Yugoslav presidency. He said peace and stability in the region is one of Belgrade's absolute priorities.

The Yugoslav foreign minister talked with NATO officials about making changes to the ``ground safety zone,'' a three-mile buffer between NATO-led troops in Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, the largest of two remaining republics in the Yugoslav federation.

NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo are not permitted in the zone, and Yugoslavia can only send lightly armed police into the area. As a result, well-armed ethnic Albanian rebels have been operating there with impunity.

In November, the rebels killed four policemen and seized several Yugoslav police outposts.

Svilanovic, who had already discussed the issue with American generals, said Yugoslavia wants to ``change the scope'' of the zone, which he said ``was implemented as a buffer between two enemy armies.'' It was not clear what changes he had in mind.

The other key talking point was NATO's use of depleted uranium munitions in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and in Kosovo during the alliance's 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia. The munitions -- 30 mm anti-tank rounds fired from American A-10 jets -- use low-radiation depleted uranium because of its high penetration power.

European nations have become alarmed in recent days at the number of cases of cancer among peacekeeping troops who served in the Balkans and wonder if there is a connection between depleted uranium and the disease. There has been no scientific evidence so far to establish any connection.

---

Editorial Roundup

New York Times
January 10, 2001 Filed at 12:12 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Editorial-Rdp.html?pagewanted=all

Jan. 10
Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy, on the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans controversy:

The Depleted Uranium controversy focuses attention on two issues that cannot be solved by any commission. Firstly, the problem of ``humanitarian wars'' and the way in which they are fought.

The West intervenes to punish dictatorships and restore democracy, but doesn't think this cause can justify the death of its soldiers. Fighting is necessary but from a safe distance, with high technology weapons, whose effects aren't always known.

Our safety's price is only paid by the people we are supposed to help.

Secondly, the relations between Europe and United States. More than any other country, the USA wants to win without exposing its citizens to any risks. More than anyone else it possesses advanced weapons and is prepared to experiment their use, especially if the battlefield is on another continent.

These wars start as an international effort but end up being American wars -- the USA is too strong, proud, isolationist and public opinion conditioned to show it has to rely on others.

To hope that some NATO meeting can persuade the USA to change is useless. Europe must understand, that however important the euro may be, it will never be a flag, an army or a policy.

Jan. 10
The Independent, London, on possible dangers from depleted uranium:

Better late than never, perhaps. But only just. Yesterday morning, the government was still insisting that there was no intention to test soldiers who had served in the Balkans because of the possible dangers from depleted uranium, despite the growing concern all across Europe. Minister of Defense spokesman continued to declare that the situation was 'the same as last week and indeed last night.'

By yesterday afternoon, however, the U-turn was plain for all to see. John Speller, the armed forces minister, delivered a sledgehammer speech in which he told parliament that there was no risk of this, no link with that, no evidence of the other. But then came the concession. The government is ready to offer the screening which it has until now categorically dismissed.

With all respect to Mr. Speller, his assurances from the dispatch box about the safety of depleted uranium are in danger of seeming as convincing as John Selwyn Gummer's notorious photocall with his young daughter and a hamburger, intended to prove that BSE was absolutely No Risk At All.

We welcome the fact that the UK is now finally ready to acknowledge the extent of public concern. Even now, however, that response has been far too grudging, as though loyalty to the US ally -- which has been chief cheerleader for depleted uranium from the start -- counts for more than finding out the truth.

--------

Statement by the Secretary General
on the Use of Depleted Uranium Munitions in the Balkans

Press Release (2001)002
10 January 2001
http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2001/p01-002e.htm

The North Atlantic Council, at its regular meeting today, gave special consideration to the possible environmental health risks associated with the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans.

Allies are committed to ensuring the health and safety of their servicemen and servicewomen and to avoiding any ill-effects for the civil population and personnel of non-governmental organisations as a result of NATO military operations. The Council noted in this context that there is no evidence currently available to suggest that exposure to expended depleted uranium munitions represents a significant health risk for NATO-led forces or the civil population in the Balkans. They noted recent statements by representatives of the World Health Organisation and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which confirm that there is very little likelihood of troops becoming ill, such as by contracting leukaemia, from exposure to radiation from depleted uranium. Allies agreed, however, that this should be kept under review and that NATO should continue to cooperate fully with investigations on the possible effects of exposure carried out by the nations involved or by responsible multinational organisations.

Allies recalled that full information had already been provided to, and welcomed by, UNEP to assist its study on the environmental consequences of the use of depleted uranium munitions during Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999, which is due to be issued in March. They agreed that similar information on the use of depleted uranium munitions during Operations Deny Flight and Deliberate Force in 1994 and 1995 will be produced as soon as possible.

The following immediate further steps were agreed:

NATO will cooperate fully with any further investigations on this subject carried out by the nations involved or by responsible multinational organisations, including elsewhere in the region.

The Council agreed to consult fully on this subject with all past and present SFOR and KFOR contributing countries. A first briefing for this purpose will be given at a regular meeting of troop contributors which will take place on 12 January.

Allies will make available to each other and more widely, through arrangements to be established in NATO, all information available to them, now or in the future, on any health risks associated with the use of depleted uranium munitions. As a first step, Service Medical authorities will exchange views on the medical and scientific factual background at a meeting of the Chiefs of Military Medical Services Committee (COMEDS) to be held on 15 January.

A NATO working group will be established to act as a clearing house for the exchange of information. This will involve participation by non-NATO contributors to KFOR and SFOR.

--------

Germany To Investigate U.S. Exercises With DU Weapons

From: kevcross@webtv.net
[STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Wednesday, January 10

STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK

BERLIN, (AFP) - The German defense ministry said on Tuesday it would investigate reports that the United States and other allies may have fired depleted uranium (DU) munitions at their bases in the country. The ministry said in a statement it would probe "which munitions have been employed by allies' troops at bases in Germany." "The defense ministry is interested in the quickest possible explanation of the matter and will release information on the results immediately," it added.

A spokeswoman for US troops in Germany dismissed media reports that US soldiers had possibly fired DU ammunition during exercises at the Baumholder and Grafenwoehr bases in southern Germany but acknowledged such munitions were stockpiled at US bases. Speaking in the western city of Heidelberg, she said the munitions were only used in combat and not in exercises. She declined to say where the ammunition was stored in Germany.

Munitions are tipped with depleted uranium so they can penetrate heavy armor, but some scientists fear that servicemen exposed to the slightly radioactive dust they emit on impact could contract cancer.

The US has said its troops fired around 31,000 DU projectiles during NATO operations in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The German news agency DPA on Tuesday quoted government sources who said Germany would urge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to introduce a temporary moratorium on the use of DU weapons until it was known whether or not they pose a health risk.

NATO ambassadors met Tuesday in Brussels to investigate a possible link between cases of leukemia among NATO troops who had served in the Balkans and the soldiers' possible exposure to DU munitions.

Bernhard Gertz, chairman of the German Army Federation which represents soldiers' interests, said that he assumed US troops had used the controversial munitions during exercises on German soil. Gertz added that former Soviet troops stationed in Germany had stockpiled such ammunition and questioned whether their bases in what was East Germany might be contaminated.

However, the defense ministry in Moscow denied that the Soviet army had used DU weapons in Germany.

A British army spokeswoman in Germany said that while British troops use DU munitions, none were fired in Germany.

Meanwhile, the Union of German Police Officers called on Interior Minister Otto Schily to have the 600 officers who served in the Balkans tested for leukemia. The interior ministry said all police officers had been warned of the potential dangers of DU ammunition before they were sent to the Balkans and that they had received routine medical examinations since their return, with no cases of leukemia reported.

Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping said this week that it was not necessary to test the 60,000 soldiers who had served in the Balkans because a link has not been proved between ammunition tipped with depleted uranium and cancer. He is to meet with medical and scientific experts on the health risks of DU munitions on Wednesday in Berlin.

-------- russia

$30B sought to protect Russia's warheads

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 05:55 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-01-10-nuclear.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Nuclear.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The possibility of Russian nuclear materials being stolen or diverted is ''the most urgent unmet national security threat'' facing the United States, says a task force of former federal officials. The panel recommends a $30 billion program to help Russia secure its nuclear stockpile. ''We have no proof of a diversion of weapons or material from Russia, but there is so much of it and security is so meager ... it is a continuing threat,'' warned former Sen. Howard Baker, co-chairman of the bipartisan panel.

Baker, a Tennessee Republican, said that as a courtesy he has discussed the report briefly with Vice President-elect Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's choice as defense secretary. He said he wanted to give the incoming administration ''a heads up'' on an issue it will face.

The report urged Bush and the new Congress to give the Russia nuclear proliferation concerns top priority. ''If there is going to be attention paid (to this issue) there has to be a very strong presidential leadership,'' said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., a panel member. Hamilton has been mentioned as a possible Bush choice for United Nations ambassador.

Russia has an estimated 40,000 nuclear weapons and more than a 1,000 metric tons of nuclear material including highly enriched uranium and plutonium scattered at facilities across Russia, many of them with inadequate security.

The problem has been compounded by the thousands of Russian nuclear weapons scientists who are out of work or on meager incomes ''and may be tempted to sell their expertise'' to other nations or terrorist groups, the report says.

''The issues are immediate and the dangers are real,'' said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who a year ago ordered the task force review of U.S. efforts to deal with nuclear proliferation in Russia.

U.S. spending on nuclear security in Russia now totals about $900 million annually, about a third of that in Energy Department programs to help Russia secure nuclear materials, safeguard nuclear facilities and retrain nuclear scientists facing hard economic times.

Some members of Congress have been reluctant to continue spending even that much because of concern that money may be misused and because of Russia's refusal to stop selling civilian nuclear technology and conventional arms to Iran.

Russia's dealings with Iran are ''a major cloud on the horizon'' that will make it more difficult to sell the $30 billion spending plan to Congress, acknowledged Lloyd Cutler, President Clinton's former White House counsel and the other task force co-chairman.

The panel urged the Energy Department's spending be increased to $3 billion a year over eight to 10 years. The $30 billion price tag ''would constitute the highest return on investment in any current U.S. national security and defense program,'' said the report.

While U.S. nuclear assistance programs for Russia have made progress, their shortcomings ''leave an unacceptable risk of failure and the potential for catastrophic consequences,'' the report says.

To give the issue a higher profile, the panel urged Bush to create a ''nuclear nonproliferation czar'' with access to the president, and that Congress create a joint House-Senate committee on the subject.

Others on the panel included former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who for years has been active on nuclear nonproliferation issues; Graham Allison, a nonproliferation expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; former Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., now president of the University of Oklahoma; former Rep. David Skaggs, D-Colo., now of the Aspen Institute; and Susan Eisenhower, president of the Eisenhower Institute.

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

Missile Shield Illusions

New York Times
January 10, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/opinion/10WED3.html

Given all the technological and budgetary uncertainties about building a missile defense system, it is hard to believe that the incoming Bush administration would be ready by March to approve groundbreaking at the first radar site. But that is what the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization seems to hope the new administration will do. Rushing ahead with this project would be a serious mistake.

That Pentagon unit plans to tell George W. Bush that he must order construction on a crucial radar system in Alaska to begin this March or risk not having it completed by 2005. That is the date by which a commission led by Donald Rumsfeld, now Mr. Bush's nominee for defense secretary, predicted that North Korean missiles might be able to reach the United States. But the radar is only one element of a functioning defensive system. Until a workable missile interceptor technology is developed, no effective missile shield can be built. Meanwhile negotiations have begun that could eliminate, or at least delay, North Korea's missile program.

March is too soon to expect a new administration to make a decision with such weighty potential consequences. Starting construction on the Alaska radar sets America on a path that would require it to give notice later this year that it intends to withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Moscow has warned that that could jeopardize other treaties, including the two valuable nuclear arms reduction agreements negotiated by Mr. Bush's father a decade ago. That is not the kind of step a new president should be taking two months into his term, before his administration has had a chance to review its missile defense options or conduct an initial round of diplomatic consultations.

The land-based missile interceptor program bequeathed by the Clinton administration has undergone only 3 of its 19 planned tests. Two failed completely and the third was only a partial success. The fourth is not scheduled until sometime this spring. Mr. Bush also wants to consider other kinds of systems, including sea-based interceptors. These might be perceived by Russia as less threatening, limiting the potential damage to arms control. Mr. Bush should first decide what kind of missile shield he wants to build before ordering construction of the appropriate tracking radar.

Mr. Rumsfeld, whose confirmation hearing will be held tomorrow, has ambitious plans for the Pentagon. He favors military pay raises and expensive new weapons acquisition programs as well as expanded plans for missile defense. Mr. Bush has rightly pledged that there will be a review of military plans before new programs are budgeted. That orderly approach is especially important on missile defense, where haste could inflict needless damage on arms control and vital alliances.

---

DOE on arrival

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
Paul Clark
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-200111020835.htm

Former Sen. Spencer Abraham, the nominee for Secretary of Energy, has come under fire for having been an advocate of eliminating the Department of Energy (DOE). Fortunately for him, this position is unlikely to hurt him with his former Senate colleagues, for the simple reason that many of them also advocated this position.

As recently as last year, the Republican platform called for the elimination of the departments of Education, Transportation, Commerce, Housing and Energy as part of a general plan to "devolve" power back to local communities. Since the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, there have been bills introduced to eliminate all of these agencies, with dozens of co-sponsors.

One would hope that rather than backing away from devolution, Mr. Abraham will continue to push for needed reforms and downsizing at the department. There are still good reasons for abolishing the department and eliminating or transferring its various functions. The Department of Energy has three basic functions. First, it owns and operates about 130 power stations across the United States. Second, it inspects privately owned nuclear and hydro-electric power stations for safety violations. Third, it designs and builds nuclear weapons.

Each of these core functions of the department would be better handled somewhere else. Power stations should be privatized, state governments should handle safety inspections, and nuclear weapons facilities should be turned over to defense. This plan, which has been debated in detail for almost a decade, is simply common sense and good business.

A Heritage Foundation study in 1997 estimated that eliminating the DOE would save taxpayers more than $36 billion between 1998 and 2002. Perhaps even more important than monetary savings, however, is the fact that the Energy Department is simply not up to the job of guarding the country's most important military secrets or ensuring plant safety. The DOE has over the years repeatedly bungled important investigations of alleged spying, it has lost or misplaced highly classified nuclear secrets, the General Accounting Office has taken the DOE to task for poor security at its nuclear weapons labs, and it even has trouble keeping track of military equipment.

Most Americans would probably feel a lot safer knowing that nuclear weapons and nuclear secrets were being guarding by the military, rather than bungling bureaucrats at DOE. Besides which, putting a civilian department in charge of nuclear weapons is about like having the FAA run the Strategic Air Command. When it comes to safety inspections, putting DOE in charge is like getting the fox to guard the chicken coup. The fact is that the DOE has a far worse safety record than any private operator.

The President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiological Research, in a study released in 1993, revealed that the DOE (and its predecessor agency), has repeatedly conducted "tests" that released dangerous levels of radioactively into the atmosphere without the knowledge or consent of the local populations, or local governments. Why would we put an agency with that kind of record in charge of plant safety? I would sleep better at night knowing that the local power plant is under the supervision of local officials, and not federal bureaucrats who have shown such callous disregard for local communities. When it comes to privatization, no one can doubt that private companies can run power plants more efficiently than a massive federal bureaucracy.

The DOE has a number of other functions, many of which are simply duplicative of other state or federal agencies. For example, both DOE and Transportation (as well as state agencies) are responsible for pipeline safety. Both DOE and Commerce are responsible for keeping track of energy consumption. In fact, the Energy Department really doesn't even have all that much control over energy policy. The Interior Department (which controls development of natural resources) and the EPA (which also controls energy exploration as well as regulating power plants and automobiles) both probably have a lot more say about energy policy than the DOE. Energy policy is really found throughout at least a half a dozen various federal agencies.

Rather than a secretary of energy, with his own bureaucracy to lead, it would probably make a lot more sense (after eliminating DOE) to create an Energy czar, whose job would simply be to coordinate energy policy among the various other existing agencies. So Mr. Abraham could still find himself with a job, even if we got rid of DOE. Mr. Abraham should not back away from his criticism of the DOE. He should make the point that rather than being a yes-man for the bureaucracy which comes up to Capitol Hill every year to ask for its latest budget increase, that he will be a different kind of secretary, one who puts the American taxpayer and American security before defending his turf.

That would be a refreshing sort a secretary, the kind we haven't seen in a long time.

Paul Clark is director of the Coalition for Local Sovereignty.

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

-------- california

California crisis threatens to spread

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 12:16 PM ET
By Jonathan Weisman, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/acovwed.htm

A high-voltage mix of winter weather, soaring natural gas prices and failed public policy has created an electricity crisis in California that is threatening to spread financial shocks nationwide. Economy watchers from the highest echelons of Wall Street to the Federal Reserve anxiously watched whether emergency talks in Washington on Tuesday night might find a way out of what California Gov. Gray Davis has called "a colossal and dangerous failure" of energy deregulation. Two of the nation's biggest utilities are nearly bankrupt, and its largest state is reeling from electricity shortages.

Residents and businesses were encouraged to forego Christmas light displays and work without electric lighting during daylight hours. Chipmaker Intel announced Tuesday that it won't expand manufacturing capacity in the state because of electricity supply uncertainties. And in the few cities - such as San Diego - where rates have been allowed to rise with the market, outraged consumers have seen their bills more than double.

A dozen utility executives and power producers converged on the U.S. Treasury on Tuesday to huddle with Davis, Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and federal power regulator James Hoecker to hash out a solution.

President Clinton, with 10 days left in office, decided the crisis couldn't wait for President-elect Bush to take over.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Southern California Edison, which provide electricity to 24 million Californians outside of Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, are more than $9 billion in debt and have threatened to file for bankruptcy protection. Analysts say Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase each might have extended up to $500 million in credit to the two utilities.

White House officials said California's energy woes pose a grave threat to the entire country. The Golden State's economy is larger than all but four nations in addition to the USA, and at a time when the U.S. economy is teetering toward recession, an unexpected shock could nudge it over.

"The problems of an electricity crisis in a state as large as California should be a concern to everyone," says Gene Sperling, President Clinton's chief economics coordinator.

What went wrong? The utilities wound up spending far more for electricity on the deregulated wholesale market than they could charge consumers. On top of that, soaring natural gas prices turned gas-fired power plants into huge cost sink holes. Demand skyrocketed along with California's booming economy. And out-of-state power suppliers discovered they could charge just about any price they wanted for suddenly scarce electricity.

Deregulation gone awry

When California deregulated its electricity system in 1996, lawmakers dreamed of a competitive marketplace where new companies would offer lower prices, better services and more environmental protection. California prices were higher than those in other western states, in part because of huge cost overruns that PG&E and Southern California Edison incurred from building nuclear power plants and other expensive assets.

As the deregulation bill went through the state Legislature, private utilities had one major demand: that retail competition begin only after they had recovered the costs they had sunk into power plants that would not be profitable under deregulation.

To meet that request and satisfy consumer demands for lower energy bills, lawmakers decided to:

Drop average electricity costs by 10%, then freeze them until 2002 or until the utilities' unprofitable investments had been paid off. However, wholesale prices, in keeping with federal law, would be allowed to rise and fall with the market.

Demand that the utilities sell off half their generating capacity to other power companies to enhance competition. Later regulations would force them to sell off even more. Southern California Edison now generates 30% of the electricity it sells, says Tom Higgins, a senior vice president of Edison International, the utility's parent company.

Require that a majority of a utility's power be bought wholesale at a new, state-run spot market. The idea was to ensure that consumer prices would be kept as low as possible through greater competition.

The main complaint at the time was that the law was too pro-utility by letting them to recover costs for white elephants on the backs of consumers.

Until April, things went according to plan. Out-of-state companies, such as Duke Power of North Carolina and Reliant Energy of Houston, moved in to buy up power plants that they believed they could operate more efficiently. And initially, wholesale prices did fall. PG&E bought power for 3.3 cents per kilowatt-hour and charged consumers 5.4 cents.

As temperatures began to rise in the summer along with natural gas and oil prices, however, the utilities began paying more to buy electricity than they could charge to sell it.

The state also failed to increase electricity production even as the economy was booming. During the past decade, demand for electricity grew 30% but supplies inched up 6%. And if utilities thought they could purchase plentiful power from the Pacific Northwest, they were wrong. California's boom was matched by growth in Seattle, Portland and Las Vegas, creating supply crunches regionwide.

By August, PG&E spent nearly 19 cents for the same electricity it sold for 5.4 cents. Its financial woes have only grown since then. The utility estimates that it bought power in December for 40 cents, eight times what it could charge. Company spokesman Shawn Cooper says PG&E spent $1.7 billion buying electricity and recouped only $70 million from customers.

With both utilities hemorrhaging red ink, bond ratings agencies came close last week to downgrading their debt to junk-bond status. Even after California's governor outlined his ideas Monday on how to rescue the power system, the bond markets were not impressed. "Our most immediate concern is how (the utilities) are going to find the money somewhere to buy power," says Susan Abbott, corporate finance director of Moody's credit rating agency.

Both Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase took a hit on Wall Street from investors who worry about their exposure to potential bankruptcies. With $21 billion in annual revenue, PG&E ranks 73rd on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. corporations. Edison International ranks 178th.

Seeking a way out

Some policymakers in Washington say the two utilities are simply too big to fail.

"It is a significant concern, but I think there will be a solution which will solve any serious collapse or contagion on the credit side," says Martin Baily, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers. "There is a way out of this mess."

One California utility found such a route. San Diego Gas and Electric declared last summer that it had paid off its uncompetitive assets and would begin charging consumers market rates. The utility's gain was the consumers' loss: Prices more than doubled.

Thomas Fowler says he has shuttered the unused rooms in his house and turned to sweaters and a wood-burning fireplace to help keep family members warm. The sales consultant from National City, south of San Diego, says a $700 utility bill in December was the final straw.

"I could afford a Mercedes for what I'm paying to heat the house," says Fowler, 52. " I feel like I'm lining the pockets of the utility companies."

Fowler's attitude is widespread. According to a recent Los Angeles Times poll, more than half of the Californians surveyed said they do not believe there is an electricity shortage. Instead, they blamed utilities and electricity suppliers for the rising costs. The poll also found that two of three Californians favor re-regulation.

As the smallest of the three major private utilities in California, San Diego Gas and Electric was able to pass on its costs to consumers for a while, until regulators stepped in to cap rates. Thus far, the California Public Utilities Commission has refused to let the other two utilities follow suit.

So now the utilities want:

The state to lift the retail price caps and issue bonds to help them pay off their debts and stave off bankruptcy. "What we can't do is keep hemorrhaging money," warns Higgins of Edison International. "There are serious doubts that the lenders are going to keep the lights on."

State regulators to force power generators, which have been reaping record profits, to sign long-term contracts with the utilities to spread rising costs over several years. If the generators refuse, the state should seize control of the power plants, as Gov. Davis threatened to do Monday night.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates wholesale power, to slap a temporary cap on wholesale costs. Such a cap would have to cover much of the West, if not the whole nation. Otherwise, generators could simply ship their power out of California.

Declaring that "the western energy shortage has metastasized into a financial crisis of major proportions," FERC Chairman Hoecker issued last week his own plan that falls far short of utility demands. He would support a temporary price cap to allow generators, utilities and public officials to work out long-term contracts and to mitigate what some see as price gouging by generators. However, he was clear that he wants deregulation to proceed.

"We cannot 'price cap' California out of a supply shortage," Hoecker wrote last week in a little-noticed plan. "The state will find it is ultimately unable to legislate its way to sustainably low rates."

The plan Davis unveiled Monday called for creating a public agency to build power plants, seizing the plants of suppliers that gouge consumers and setting aside $1 billion to help stabilize supplies and prices. Consumers would be asked to conserve, and the state attorney general would launch an investigation into price manipulation by power generators.

The plan was greeted tepidly by Wall Street, the utilities and the suppliers, all of whom declared that it fails to address the crisis at hand.

Caught in the middle are consumers, who face the prospect of more brownouts or soaring costs.

Consumer groups, demanding that prices stay low, charge that the utilities are overstating their financial problems, and that the suppliers are price gouging.

"We're not the ones that thought this up. They did," says Mindy Spratt of The Utility Reform Network in San Francisco.

"It's a case of them making their bed and finding a lump in it," Spratt says.

Contributing: Scott Bowles in Los Angeles, John Ritter in San Francisco, and Del Jones in Washington.

---

California fiasco

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
Tony Blankley
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-20011102066.htm

It wasn't easy, but after 25 years of effort by politicians and environmentalists (with an assist by private utility executives looking for some government bailouts) California - The Golden State - is running short of electricity. California's two biggest utilities, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric (staples of pension fund portfolios for generations of Californians), have announced they may soon go bankrupt. Their bond rating has fallen from AAA to one step above junk bond level. Bank of America, one of their major creditors, has seen its stock price drop precipitously.

Silicon Valley computer companies, which can lose hundreds of millions of dollars during even a brief rolling blackout, are buying up every diesel generator they can find in the country in order to avoid such catastrophic power losses. There is now a five month backlog for the much desired $400,000 Peterson 2 megawatt Caterpillar generator. More than three-fourths of those Silicon Valley companies believe they have a moderate or high risk of being blacked out this summer.

According to the Wall Street Journal, because of the size of the California economy ($1.2 trillion GDP per year), if California's energy crisis depresses its economy, it could measurably add to a declining national economy.

Earlier this week, California's Democratic Gov. Gray Davis called the current electricity marketing scheme "a colossal and dangerous failure" and vowed that "the time has come to take control of our own energy destiny." The trouble is, they have already taken control - and made a hash of it.

Virtually every media outlet blames this calamitous state of affairs on "the deregulation of the electricity market" in California. CNN reports that "California's experiment with energy deregulation is not just a mess; its a certifiable failure." The vaunted New York Times' economic columnist, Paul Krugman, wrote in December that "California's blind faith in markets has led to an electricity shortage so severe that the governor has turned off the lights of the official Christmas Tree."

This week, Mr. Krugman has taken his argument one step further. Arguing that the federal government should institute a "temporary and partial reregulation" of the California energy market, "But George W. Bush doesn't just have an ideological attachment to free markets; he has close personal ties to some of the companies that are making such huge profits in California right now." Expect to see Mr. Krugman's twisted logic and almost libelous statement about the president-elect repeated continuously by Democratic senators and congressmen over the next several weeks.

But free markets and deregulation have nothing to do with the California energy scheme. As Michael Lynch of Reason Magazine explained recently: "Despite numerous claims to the contrary, the California electricity market wasn't deregulated. It was restructured by state politicians." In 1996, the California State Legislature entered into a grand scheme with big energy users, the private utilities, environmental and consumer groups.

The utilities had to sell off their power plants but got to write off the costs of bad prior investments. They were also given a provision of the law called "competitive transition charges," which had the effect of increasing their profits, while tending to keep out new competitors. At the heart of the scheme was the law that retail prices were fixed by the government, but wholesale prices would be subject to the market. This isn't a free market, its a governmentally rigged market. And, as always happens when regulators try to out think the marketplace, the inexorable forces of supply and demand defeat the most complexly constructed schemes.

The crisis was brought on when market wholesale prices of natural gas skyrocketed to as much as one hundred times the retail prices the utilities are permitted to charge. California's robust economy created greater demand for electricity, but no new supply. And the reason California has been hit so hard is that for 25 years environmental extremists have forced the closure of atomic energy plants and insisted on excessive reliance on always more expensive natural gas for electricity generation. In the last 20 years no net new power has been brought online.

So now California has been trying to buy electricity out of state, but those sellers are hesitant to sell to utilities that may go bankrupt. Thus, the inevitable call for Washington to step in and mandate price controls around the country to bail out California, which has foolishly distorted its own energy market.

With 25 states in the process of moving to genuine energy deregulation (Pennsylvania has successfully and popularly brought on line such genuine deregulation), it is vital that liberal ideologues and news outlets not succeed in their effort to mischaracterize the California fiasco as a failed free market. It is merely one more lamentable example of an overregulated and rigged market failing both the consumers and the investors. E-mail: tonyblankey@erols.com.

Tony Blankley is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column appears on Wednesdays.

--------

California ISO Calls for Energy Conservation

Yahoo News
Wednesday January 10, 7:40 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
Morning Hours Between 5-9 a.m. are Critical
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010110/ca_iso_3.html

FOLSOM, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 10, 2001--The season's most severe winter storm yet is anticipated to increase consumer demand for power at a time when energy reserves are already strained. As a result, the California Independent System Operator (California ISO) has declared Thursday, January 11th a Power Watch Day. The California ISO urges Californians to watch their energy consumption, curtailing their use of electricity whenever possible.

Power reserves have been tight all week with limited imports available from the Northwest. Additionally, the amount of generation unavailable due to planned and forced outages will increase from 10,600 to 12,400 megawatts this evening when the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Station reduces its operating capacity by 80%. Record high swells, that can cause the intake valves of the power plant to clog with sea kelp, are expected to hit the Central Coast shoreline tomorrow.

Thursday's peak demand on the ISO-controlled Grid is expected to reach 32,589 megawatts by about 6:00 p.m.

Power Watch is a public awareness campaign sponsored by the California ISO to communicate the current electricity resource outlook, in light of the rising demand for power in California. By providing regular updates on system conditions and peak demand forecasts, the California ISO hopes to convey the importance of using electricity wisely on days when electricity reserves may run low.

Incorporated under California law (AB 1890), the not-for-profit California ISO is chartered by the state to manage the flow of electricity along the long-distance, high-voltage power lines that make up the bulk of California's transmission system. Following restructuring of the state's electricity industry, the California ISO's mission is to keep the open market power grid in California reliable, safe, competitive and accessible.

Information about the California ISO control area's electricity supply and the current demand is available on the web at www.caiso.com. For questions relating to the status of the electrical distribution systems that carry electricity directly to homes and businesses, please contact your local utility.

Energy Conservation Tips for Winter
-- Keep your thermostat at 68; lower at night and when not at home
-- Minimize power usage during peak hours of 5-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m.
-- Curb hot water usage
-- Turn off lights and computers when not in use

STAGE 1
Consumers are urged to reduce their use of electricity voluntarily to avoid more severe conditions.

STAGE 2
Voluntary interruption of service to select customers is required to avoid more severe conditions.

STAGE 3
Consumers are advised that rotating outages are possible.

Contact:
California ISO Patrick Dorinson, 888/516-NEWS

-------- missouri

USA Today
01/01/10
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Missouri

Kansas City - Ten former workers at a Honeywell International plant here had "beryllium sensitization," while 57 others tested either positive or inconclusive, company officials said. The plant with 2,850 workers is one of 26 across the USA cited by the Department of Energy as a possible source of beryllium-related illness of the lungs. Those affected can receive compensation.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush Focuses on Defense, Seeks New Labor Nominee

Yahoo News
Top Stories News
By Randall Mikkelsen
Wednesday January 10 2:09 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010110/ts/bush_leadall_dc_162.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites), rocked by the withdrawal of beleaguered cabinet pick Linda Chavez (news - external web site), raced on Wednesday to find a replacement and fill three more jobs as he focused again on military matters.

Bush arrived in Washington on Tuesday evening, saying he was ''saddened'' by Chavez's decision to bow out after she came under fire for housing an illegal alien. He said the search for a new nominee for labor secretary would now begin.

Joined by Vice President-elect Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and members of his national security team, Bush was to meet Defense Secretary William Cohen, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry Shelton and other top military brass on Wednesday morning.

``It's going to be a wide-ranging discussion,'' said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett.

Wednesday's talks at the Pentagon (news - web sites), which will include Bush's pick for national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), follow meetings with congressional defense leaders in Austin on Monday.

Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia told reporters after those meetings that Bush was working hard to take defense off the back burner and give it equal billing with education and the economy after many years of neglect.

Warner is to reassume the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 20, when Cheney is sworn in and gets the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

Bush, who takes over the White House in just 10 days, has called for spending $20 billion more on research to accelerate the adoption of new weapons, raise military pay and deploy a national missile defense system as soon as possible.

His administration is due to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the U.S. military before making any budget proposals.

Budget Briefings, Personnel Matters

During his two-day stay in Washington, Bush is to meet with his nominee to head the White House budget office, Mitch Daniels, and his top budget adviser, John Cogan, Bartlett said.

The president-elect will also hold personnel meetings, and could announce appointments to top unfilled positions in his administration, aides said. He has yet to fill the posts of trade representative, CIA (news - web sites) director and U.N. ambassador.

Bush -- whose father, former president George Bush, once headed the CIA -- was to receive a briefing by the intelligence agency later on Wednesday.

But his biggest headache at the moment is finding someone to head the Labor Department after Chavez' decision to withdraw. Her opposition to minimum wage increases and affirmative action galvanized opposition from labor and civil rights groups.

Bush officials reportedly ran several names by Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who will chair confirmation hearings for any labor nominee, including those of former Missouri Rep. Jim Talent, and Washington Rep. Jennifer Dunn.

Other names being circulated were Stephen Perry, an executive with Timken Co. in Ohio; Eloise Anderson, a welfare reform specialist who worked under Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson; and former Peace Corps director Elaine Chao.

Meanwhile, opposition was mounting to Bush's picks for attorney general, former Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft; interior secretary, Gale Norton; and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

Bush Camp Not Supportive, Chavez Says

Chavez, Bush's adviser on immigration issues during his campaign, ran into trouble after reports that an illegal alien from Guatemala had lived in her house in the 1990s, performing chores and receiving thousands of dollars from Chavez over a period of about two years.

``I absolutely believe she would have been a fine cabinet secretary, but I understand her reluctance to move forward,'' Bush told reporters upon his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, outside Washington, around 6:30 p.m. (2330 GMT).

Chavez withdrew her bid complaining that ``search and destroy'' tactics had driven her out, and while she insisted she had not come under pressure from Bush officials, she did acknowledge that they had not been overly supportive.

``I felt they were concerned this was a distraction, it wasn't that anybody told me that,'' she told CNN. ``But I've also been around this town long enough to know that if no one is calling you and saying 'Hang in there,' that that is not a great signal either.''

Democratic senators and labor groups criticized Chavez over the relationship with the Guatemalan woman, Marta Mercado, saying it appeared to exploit the woman and violate laws against harboring and hiring an illegal immigrant.

Bush is to return to Texas on Thursday after an education forum aimed at highlighting his proposals for public school reform. The president-elect also is to pose for his official portrait, to be hung in post offices and federal buildings.

While in Washington, Bush is staying at the official Blair House government guest residence, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House he is to occupy after he is sworn in on Jan. 20.

---

Albright urges continued U.S. presence in the Balkans

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200111022650.htm

Outgoing Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright defended her policies and called at the opening of a new press briefing room yesterday for her successor to carry on U.S. policies in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Korea.

"As I prepare to leave office, I can tell you that I am very, very proud of the efforts we've made under President Clinton to build peace and foster prosperity, promote democracy, and halt ethnic cleansing," said Mrs. Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state.

Among other accomplishments, she listed a reorganization of the State Department that was pressed upon her by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican. She also boasted of the expansion of security in Europe, the administration's efforts on behalf of women and its struggles against crime, terrorism, pollution and disease.

In an unusual departure, she suggested that she wished for the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who at 74 has survived several years past the average Cuban life span. "And I wish them the actuarial tables in Cuba," Mrs. Albright said.

Defending the decision to intervene militarily in Kosovo, she said, "We were left with the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the question as to whether the Europeans could do it alone."

The success of democratic elections in Bosnia and in Yugoslavia, where voters peacefully ousted President Slobodan Milosevic, "have vindicated that point of view," she said.

Mrs. Albright said the subject had "obviously" come up in her talks with her designated successor, Colin Powell, who is expected to review the decision to station U.S. troops in the region.

"I believe that the story in the Balkans is not finished and that the next administration needs to keep in mind that our presence there is very important," she said.

"We, too, obviously, were going to review how long our forces were going to be there. Nobody intends them to be there permanently."

She also urged the new administration to continue her policy of engagement with North Korea in an attempt to persuade it to give up the development of long-range missiles and nuclear weapons.

Mrs. Albright made her remarks at the dedication of a new briefing room at the department's Foggy Bottom headquarters to the late U.S. Information Agency chief and journalist Carl T. Rowan.

She said she was sorry to have inherited the problems posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and was sorry to leave those same problems to Mr. Powell. But she said Saddam was weaker and had been contained through "the longest-running sanctions regime."

She said Mr. Powell had told her he wanted "to strengthen the sanctions, and I wish him a lot of luck in that. It is the right thing to do, but it's very difficult."

Mrs. Albright rejected criticism that U.S. pressure for a Middle East settlement at Camp David last summer was responsible for the violence that has wracked the region since late September.

"What we have done is respond to calls from the region to do something," she said. "What we did at Camp David is a seminal event in terms of having ultimately discussed the issues, the resolution of which is the only way to get to a peace.

"I think that ultimately, the only way to go forward is for the parties themselves to make the decisions."

-------- MILITARY

-------- arms sales

U.S. Preparing to Sell F-16's to Chile

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/world/10CHIL.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - In its final days, the Clinton administration is prepared to approve the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Chile, ending a ban of more than two decades against selling sophisticated American weapons in Latin America, officials said.

The administration first signaled in 1997 that it would ease the Carter- era moratorium when it said it would allow high-tech arms sales case by case and gave American businesses permission to bid on the Chilean sales.

But Chile, roiled by economic troubles stemming from low demand for its exports, did not select a winner until late last month. The government of President Ricardo Lagos announced its choice of Lockheed Martin to renovate the air force with 10 to 12 planes, each costing $24 million, in a deal valued at $600 million after including spare parts and weapons systems.

Negotiations began this week in Santiago between the American military contractor and Chilean officials. After receiving a formal request from Chile - specifying the model and number of planes, as well as the weapons system it seeks - administration officials said they are prepared to submit the terms for Congressional review and clear the way for the transfer.

Chilean officials said the talks were expected to take two to six months. That would leave final control over the sale to the Bush administration. Advisers to President-elect George W. Bush said they expected him to support the sale.

Critics accused the United States of helping foment an arms race in the Southern Cone of South America. The administration already faces considerable skepticism in the Andean region over its decision to send $1.3 billion in mostly military aid in an antinarcotics campaign known as Plan Colombia.

Robert A. Pastor, President Carter's top aide for Latin America, said the F-16 sale would put new pressure on Chile's neighbors to placate their respective armed forces with new equipment. In a time of peace, with budgets already strained, that money would be better spent on social issues like education, Mr. Pastor said.

"The militaries in each of the countries will put increasing pressure on civilian governments to match what the Chileans did," said Mr. Pastor, a professor at Emory University.

Administration officials disputed that, saying they were confident that the armed forces of Chile, as well as most of the region, were firmly under civilian control. They noted that Mr. Lagos, Chile's first Socialist president since the military coup in 1973, backed the sale, and the officials predicted that the action would strengthen bilateral ties.

"We don't feel this is going to lead to a regional arms race," said a spokesman for the State Department, T. Philip Reeker. "Chile's armed forces' modernization project is long overdue. What has changed in the region is that democracy has strengthened, and the militaries aren't running the governments on the continent."

The neighbors' reaction has been mixed. Argentina, a traditional rival that once opposed the sale, now has no objections, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.

But Bolivia, another adversary of Chile, is "extremely disturbed" by the sale, said Foreign Minister Javier Murillo de la Rocha.

Despite their expressions of confidence in Chile, administration officials said they would not allow the transfer of sophisticated air-to-air missiles that Chile seeks to arm the F-16's. They cited a United States policy that forbids introducing new weapons technology into a region where similar arms do not already exist.

As a hedge, administration officials said, they would quite likely approve the sale to Chile of the latest-generation missile system, known as Amraam, but would store the missiles in the United States until a similar technology was acquired by one of Chile's neighbors.

Chilean officials have warned that withholding the Amraam technology, which lets pilots track and shoot targets they cannot see, may be a deal breaker in the negotiations.

A spokesman for Lockheed in Fort Worth, Joseph W. Stout, said he did not expect the dispute to ruin the deal. "We don't expect it to be a showstopper," Mr. Stout said.

For more than two decades, the United States refused to sell supersonic jets and other sophisticated weapons to Latin America. President Carter instituted the ban largely in reaction to former support for military governments in Chile and elsewhere that violated human rights. The Reagan administration broke the moratorium once in the early 1980's, allowing the sale of F- 16's to Venezuela, in response to a threat posed by Cuba's acquisition of Soviet MIG fighters.

-------- burma/myanmar

Burma junta holds secret talks with Suu Kyi

Sydney Morning Herald
01/01/10
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/10/world/world3.html

Burma's junta has held secret top-level talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with both sides poised to begin an historic dialogue that could end a decade of political deadlock.

Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, the junta's first secretary and powerful chief of military intelligence, met with Aung San Suu Kyi at least once last month, said diplomatic sources in Bangkok and Rangoon.

A second meeting scheduled with the Nobel peace laureate may already have taken place over the last few days, sources told AFP yesterday.

The diplomats said they did not know what had been discussed in the talks, but indications were that they had gone well.

Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) were now expected to embark on their first official dialogue since 1994, they said.

The sources said Burma's ruling general had confirmed in private that contacts were underway with the opposition party, which it has tried to destroy since denying it a landslide election victory in 1990.

"I think everyone here accepts it is true and that direct talks have gone on between Aung San Suu Kyi and senior people in the SPDC," one diplomat told AFP.

It was not yet clear what form the dialogue would take, but it was believed Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta would broach political issues while other topics, such as the economy and health care, would be addressed on the sidelines.

The breakthrough in attempts to achieve national reconciliation in Burma is largely credited to UN envoy Razali Ismail, who yesterday left Rangoon at the end of his third mission to the country. He was appointed UN envoy in April.

------

Junta meets Aung San Suu Kyi

Yahoo News
Yahoo! Hong Kong - News Hong Kong
Wednesday, January 10 6:32 AM SGT
http://english.hk.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/hong_kong/article.html?s=hke/headlines/010110/hong_kong/scmp/Junta_meets_Aung_San_Suu_Kyi.html

The Burmese junta has held secret talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, it was revealed yesterday.

The United Nations' Burma envoy, Razali Ismail, said the junta was represented by intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt during the recent meeting. Mr Razali left Rangoon yesterday after what he described as "very satisfactory, very good" meetings with both Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and General Khin Nyunt.

The military has ruled since a 1962 coup and has been loath to hold talks with "The Lady", as she is known in Burma, for fear of strengthening her already formidable popularity.

Their policy has been to isolate and mock her in an attempt to make her appear irrelevant or even an obstacle to progress.

But foreign investment has dried up, the World Bank says health and education have hit sub-Saharan standards and, recently, a UN Aids report painted a devastating picture of impending social disaster.

Even sympathetic fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have called on the generals to break the impasse.

Burma watchers noted with interest that the visit of Mr Razali, a former Malaysian diplomat, coincided with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's first trip to the country in two years.

Josef Silverstein, an American expert on Burma, said news of the talks did not surprise him. There has to be a breakthrough. Things have got so bad that even the military must have problems claiming to be legitimate rulers in their own eyes," he said.

A diplomat said: "I think everyone accepts it is true and that direct talks have gone on between Aung San Suu Kyi and senior people."

The regime's attempts to destroy Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which won a 1990 election but was never allowed to take power, have accelerated over the past year, with more jail terms for supporters. She was returned to de facto house arrest last autumn.

---

Talks between Myanmar junta, Aung San Suu Kyi draw kudos abroad

Yahoo News
Wednesday, January 10 1:18 PM SGT
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/asia/afp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010110/asia/afp/Talks_between_Myanmar_junta__Aung_San_Suu_Kyi_draw_kudos_abroad.html

BANGKOK, Jan 10 (AFP) - The international community Wednesday welcomed the start of historic contacts between Myanmar's junta and the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi, and urged both sides to work towards national reconciliation.

The United Nations confirmed that Aung San Suu Kyi has held several meetings with a top junta general, as signs emerged that they were poised to begin an official dialogue that could end a decade of political stalemate.

"There have been talks between Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar government which started towards the end of last year," UN envoy Razali Ismail, the broker of the secret talks, told AFP.

Razali left Yangon Tuesday at the end of his third mission to Myanmar where he had been striving to bring the bitter adversaries together for the first time since 1994.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said Secretary General Kofi Annan was "encouraged to learn that during his mission, Mr Razali was able to confirm that the two sides had started a direct dialogue since last October."

Annan "reiterates his call for the two sides to seize the momentum and work for national reconciliation."

Eckhard said Razali had reported "they were satisfied with the results achieved so far in the area of confidence-building."

"The two sides are expected to start more substantive discussions shortly."

During his five-day visit Razali met with top government officials and was twice permitted to see Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since September 22.

Eckard said the meetings were the Nobel laureate's first contact with an outside visitor in nearly three months.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright welcomed news of the secret meetings and applauded the role played by Razali, a veteran Malaysian diplomat who has won the confidence of both sides on Myanmar's political divide.

"One of the things that we have wanted to have is the establishment of such a dialogue," she said.

"Obviously this is something that we will have to see where it leads and whether it is a genuine dialogue."

Albright warned the generals must treat Aung San Suu Kyi as a political leader when they finally meet with her and not as a "little sister" -- one of their many derogatory terms for the Nobel peace laureate.

The Secretary of State, a consistent supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, said the military must not be allowed to submit the opposition leader to "patronizing and cruel conversations that were evident when I was there."

Albright, who visited Myanmar while serving as US Ambassador to the United Nations in September 1995, said she believed it was "extremely useful" that Razali was taking an "active role" in brokering dialogue in Myanmar.

The "Razali initiative" comes at a time when the junta, despite enjoying total control over the country, is under increasing pressure from a range of influences.

As the generals' rule stretches into a second decade, it is becoming harder to justify their continuing grip on power and assertions their "temporary" regime will one day hand over to a democratic government.

Pressure is also being brought to bear by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which Myanmar joined in 1997 with the sponsorship of Malaysia.

As the weight of sanctions and poor economic management threaten to bring the country to its knees, many observers believe the junta may at last be willing to countenance some sort of change.

Diplomats in Bangkok and Yangon said the secret meetings, which "went well," were aimed at building the framework for a landmark official dialogue which is expected to touch on a range of political and economic issues.

"They are discussing the subjects that they will develop," one source said of the contacts between the opposition National League for Democracy and the ruling State Peace and Development Council.

---

Burmese Officials in Talks With Dissident

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/world/10BURM.html

BANGKOK, Jan. 9 - Myanmar's military government has held talks with the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a United Nations envoy said today.

"There have been talks between Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar government which started toward the end of last year," the envoy, Razali Ismail, said in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after a five-day visit to Myanmar, formerly Burma.

Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, the junta's first secretary and chief of military intelligence, met with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi at least once last month, said diplomats in Bangkok and Myanmar's capital, Yangon.

A second meeting scheduled with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, may have takenplace in the last few days.

The diplomats said the preliminary talks "went well" and were aimed at building the framework for further talks.

Diplomats said the generals who rule Myanmar had confirmed that negotiations were underway with the opposition party, which it has tried to destroy since denying it a landslide election victory in 1990. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi lives under house arrest.

---

Major events since the 1988 Myanmar army crackdown

Yahoo News
Wednesday, January 10 1:24 PM SGT
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/asia/afp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010110/asia/afp/Major_events_since_the_1988_Myanmar_army_crackdown.html

YANGON, Jan 10 (AFP) - Following are the major events in the history of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement since the military crackdown 10 years ago:

1988

Aug 8: Mass demonstrations demanding an end to the military dictatorship in place since 1962 are staged across the country after months of turmoil. Troops open fire on the crowds, leaving hundreds or thousands dead according to different estimates. Violence spreads over five days, with security forces also coming under attack in some areas.

Aug 12: Confronted by the mounting chaos, General Sein Lwin quits the leadership after just 18 days in his post, to be replaced by lawyer and writer Maung Maung. Protests continue.

Sept 18: Military takes charge with the creation of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which authorises the creation of opposition parties after 26 years of monopoly rule by the Burma Socialist Programme party.

Sept 30: National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San, is formed.

1989

July 20: Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest.

1990

May 27: NLD bags 392 out of 485 seats in parliamentary elections. Junta refuses to recognise the results and hand over power.

1991

Sept 15: Government in exile formed at Mannerplaw on the Thai border.

Oct 14: Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize.

1992

April 23: General Saw Maung resigns as head of SLORC and is replaced by General Than Shwe. In succeeding months, the junta frees some 500 political prisoners.

Aug 24: Universities closed since the protests reopen.

Sept 26: Martial law in force since 1988 is lifted.

1993

Jan 9: National convention for drafting a new constitution opens.

1994

Sept/Oct: Talks held between Aung San Suu Kyi and junta number one and three, Senior General Than Shwe and Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt.

1995

July 10: Aung San Suu Kyi is released after six years under house arrest.

Nov 28: The NLD refuses to take part in a new session of the national convention.

1996

May 25: Some 10,000 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi march in Rangoon in the biggest demonstration since 1990.

June 7: Junta declares opposition rallies "illegal."

Dec 9: Student demonstrators demand setting up of unions and freeing of detained comrades.

1997

April 22: The United States bans all new investment in Myanmar. On April 29, The European Union extends sanctions.

May 27: Hundreds of police prevent the holding of an NLD congress at Aung San Suu Kyi's home.

July 23: Myanmar admitted into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Nov 15: The junta announces SLORC has been replaced by the State Peace and Development Council.

1998

June 24: Aung San Suu Kyi gives an ultimatum to the junta demanding that the parliament elected in 1990 -- which has never met -- be convened by Aug 21.

July 24-30: The junta prevents Aung San Suu Kyi from visiting NLD members. Her car is blocked 26 kilometres (nine miles) from Yangon, forcing her to return home.

July 30: Aung San Suu Kyi declares she would keep defying the authorities and encourages her supporters to keep up resistance.

Aug 8: The anniversary of the 1988 unrest passes without incident. The following day, 18 foreigners are arrested in Yangon for distributing pro-democracy pamphlets and are later deported.

Sept 16: NLD sets up the Committee Representing Peoples Parliament, resulting in a renewed crackdown on dissent by the junta.

1999

Sept 9: Efforts by exiled dissidents to spark another uprising, dubbed the "Four Nines Movement," after the day, month and year, meet with little success.

Oct 1: Dissident gunmen take over Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, taking nearly 40 hostages. The crisis ends 24-hours later, after Thai authorities bow to demands for a helicopter to the Thai-Myanmar border.

2000:

April: Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail named new UN envoy to Myanmar, charged with reinvigorating efforts to achieve national reconciliation.

Aug 24: Aung San Suu Kyi faces off military authorities in a town outside Yangon. She sparked the stand-off when she left Yangon for a meeting with the party's youth wing in the outlying town of Kawhmu, in defiance of an order which confines her to the capital.

Sept 2: Military authorities announce that Aung San Suu Kyi had been "escorted" home and raid the NLD headquarters, placing senior members under house arrest.

Sept 22: Aung San Suu Kyi placed under house arrest again after attempting to travel to the northern city of Mandalay on party business with senior NLD members.

2001:

Jan 9: Myanmar's junta has held secret top-level talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, UN envoy Razali Ismail says as sources tell AFP the two sides are poised to begin an historic dialogue.

---

Burmese junta, Suu Kyi confer face to face

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001110212926.htm

NEW YORK - Burma's military junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi - bitter rivals since the junta took power 13 years ago and violently crushed a democratic uprising - have opened face-to-face talks, the United Nations announced yesterday.

It was the first confirmation that Mrs. Suu Kyi and the Southeast Asian nation's military rulers ever have spoken.

The announcement came just hours after U.N. envoy Razali Ismail concluded a five-day mission to Burma, where he met with the military government and with Mrs. Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

-------- china

Military crash in China kills 22

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 03:25 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed01.htm

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Two military planes crashed in northern China, killing as many as 22 people, including six family members in a house hit by debris, doctors in local hospitals said Wednesday.

The two planes crashed Jan. 4 in Xianrenzhuang, a farm town near the city of Kaifeng in Henan province, the doctors said. The area is 600 miles southwest of Beijing, the Chinese capital.

Sixteen people aboard the two planes were killed, said a doctor at the Kaifeng County No. 115 Military Hospital. She gave only her surname, Zhao.

One plane hit the house of a family named Liu, killing the mother, all four grandparents and another relative, said a doctor at the Xianrenzhuang Clinic. The doctor, who gave only his surname, Gao, said two other people were injured.

The father of the family, Liu Wenjun, is hospitalized with injuries but is in no danger, said Zhao.

The second plane hit a vacant field, causing no deaths or injuries on the ground, Gao said.

Details on the types of planes and how the crash occurred, including whether they collided in midair, weren't immediately available. A paratrooper division is based in Kaifeng.

China's military rarely publicizes accidents. The Defense Ministry in Beijing declined to comment.

-------- colombia

Car Bomb in Colombian Mall, Peace Talks in Balance

Yahoo News
Wednesday January 10 11:25 PM ET
By Jason Webb
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010110/wl/colombia_war_dc_7.html

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A car bomb wrecked a parking lot in a busy shopping mall in the Colombian city of Medellin on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding 50 as the government struggled to revive peace talks with leftist guerrillas.

``We don't know yet who was responsible,'' Gen. Tobias Duran, national police operations director, told Reuters.

The powerful blast came as the government is trying to revive negotiations with the country's biggest guerrilla group, and to begin a peace process with the second largest.

The government -- which is receiving massive U.S. military aid to fight drug trafficking -- wants to end the four-decade long war which has claimed 35,000 civilian lives in the last 10 years alone.

The bomb exploded at 7:40 p.m., a busy time at the northwestern city's year-old El Tesoro mall.

``This was a terrorist attack in the car park ... there were a lot of explosives,'' Fire Service Capt. Leoncio Velez said.

While the country's guerrilla groups always come under immediate suspicion in acts of violence, Colombian criminals are also notorious for their violent methods of extorting protection money.

Local television showed firemen picking through crumpled car wreckage and dousing roaring flames. Rescue workers dragged people from smashed cars and from beneath rubble in the mall in a fashionable neighborhood.

``I saw flames, a lot, a lot of flames, and people who didn't know what to do, and lots of people who were hurt in the car park,'' said Claudia Diaz, who was in a jewelry store.

Another man sitting in the complex's multiplex cinema said his seat and the screen shook.

The injured included a 9-month old baby and a pregnant woman, Velez said. Several were in a serious condition.

``We haven't seen anything this dreadful for months. Just look how we've started the year,'' he said.

The blast came as the country's largest leftist guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), is reportedly preparing to free more than 100 of around 450 police and soldier hostages.

Rebel Gesture To Revive Peace Talks

This gesture would be aimed at reviving stalled two-year old peace talks. Any handover would reportedly come in February -- after the Jan. 31 deadline by which President Andres Pastrana must decide whether to continue allowing the FARC the use of a Switzerland-sized demilitarized enclave.

The government's top peace negotiator on Wednesday also wrapped up preliminary talks in Cuba aimed at starting formal negotiations with the second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). The ELN wants its own demilitarized zone, like the FARC's.

As Colombia's war rages on, the United States is pumping in $1.3 billion of military aid which it intends to use to fight drug trafficking in the world's largest cocaine producer.

U.S. officials say they want no part of the war, but many political analysts argue that guerrillas and their right-wing paramilitary rivals control much of the drug trade and that the U.S. aid will just further inflame the messy conflict.

The FARC were granted their free zone in southern Colombia two years ago by Pastrana to coax them into peace talks.

But the president has come under increasing pressure to take a harder line with the FARC and try to drive them from their territory since the murder late last year of the head of a congressional peace commission, Diego Turbay.

The killings of Turbay, his mother, and five others were widely blamed on the FARC, who have neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

Right-wing paramilitaries, who target suspected civilian guerrilla collaborators, are the third major irregular force in a conflict Colombia's army has been unable to end.

Earlier on Wednesday, the military said helicopter-borne troops rescued 56 hostages taken at an ELN roadblock outside the mountain town of Barbosa and killed one guerrilla.

But 15 other people, including five policemen and a Peruvian priest, were kidnapped by suspected ELN and FARC guerrillas in other parts of the country.

------

30 killed in Colombia amid bid for talks

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001110212926.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's war claimed 30 more lives yesterday, even as newspapers reported the nation's largest leftist guerrilla group was preparing a major prisoner release to revive peace talks with the government.

The army and police clashed with members of the country's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and suspected right-wing paramilitaries staged four separate attacks on rural towns, killing 17 civilians.

-------- drug war

Early release is no sure thing

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 12:29 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/court/2001-01-10-prison.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Nonviolent federal prisoners don't automatically qualify for shorter sentences if they get drug treatment behind bars, a divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The court ruled 6-3 that the federal Bureau of Prisons has discretion to reduce sentences or not, based in part on how the prisoner behaved before conviction.

''The bureau need not blind itself to preconviction conduct that the agency reasonably views as jeopardizing life and limb,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in announcing the majority decision.

In an unusual lineup, Ginsburg was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas and Stephen J. Breyer.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissent on behalf of himself, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Christopher Lopez was convicted on drug charges in 1997 and sentenced to six years in prison. Under a federal law, his sentence included extra prison time because he was carrying a gun.

Another federal law allows nonviolent federal prisoners such as drug offenders to qualify for a year off their sentences if they get drug treatment, and Lopez signed up. But prison officials in South Dakota later told him he wouldn't get any time off, because of the gun conviction.

Lopez sued, arguing that prison officials should consider each case individually and that a gun conviction should not disqualify him. Lopez won in federal court, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in 1999.

The Supreme Court majority upheld the appeals court.

''The bureau reasonably concluded that an inmate's prior involvement with firearms, in connection with the commission of a felony, suggests his readiness to resort to life-endangering violence and therefore appropriately determines the early-release decision,'' the majority opinion concluded.

The majority also said that weighing eligibility case by case could lead to ''favoritism, disunity and inconsistency.''

The dissenting justices argued that in drafting the drug treatment law, Congress intended anyone convicted of nonviolent crimes to be eligible.

Stevens noted that the drug treatment issue caused a major political divide among Republicans and Democrats negotiating the omnibus 1994 crime bill. The decision to make only nonviolent offenders eligible for the one-year sentence reduction was a compromise intended to neutralize GOP criticism that Democrats were too lenient on violent criminals, Stevens said.

The Bureau of Prisons did not have leeway to then effectively re-categorize nonviolent prisoners as violent ones, the minority wrote.

''In so doing, the bureau ignores Congress' express determination that when evaluating eligibility for a sentence reduction, the salient determination is the line between violent and nonviolent offenses,'' Stevens wrote.

''By moving this line, the (bureau) exceeded its authority and sought to exercise its discretion on an issue with regard to which it has none,'' Stevens wrote.

Stevens rejected the majority's worry about unequal treatment by prison officials by noting that wardens already decide case by case whether a prisoner has successfully completed treatment and is thus eligible for time off.

In an odd echo of the court's ruling last month that the Florida presidential ballot recounts needed better standards, Stevens wrote that there would be nothing to stop the Bureau of Prisons from drafting ''a uniform set of criteria'' for case-by-case evaluation after treatment.

''To suggest that decisionmaking must be individualized is not to imply that it must also be standardless,'' Stevens wrote.

By a 5-4 vote, the court stopped ballot recounts in Florida largely because different counties or officials used different standards to evaluate the ballots. The decision effectively handed the election to George W. Bush. Some of the dissenters said then that the court could have allowed the recounts to continue after making sure a uniform standard applied.

The sentence-reduction case is Lopez v. Davis, 99-7504

---

U.S. drug suspect arrested in Thailand

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 11:38 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed08.htm

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Thai police said Wednesday that they have arrested a suspected drug trafficker sought by the U.S. government, which charges that he was the accountant for what used to be the world's largest heroin smuggling syndicate.

Yang Wan-Hsuan - for whom the U.S. government has offered a $2 million reward - was arrested Tuesday night in Chiang Mai, 360 miles north of Bangkok, Thai narcotics police told a news conference.

Police Gen. Pornsak Durongphibul told reporters that Yang is wanted in Thailand for illegally entering the country and on suspicion of smuggling heroin and amphetamine into Thailand. He will be handed over to the United States only after the Thai investigations are over, Pornsak said. Thai authorities hope to arrest more members of his gang.

Yang was indicted in 1994 in a New York federal court for attempted conspiracy to import heroin into the United States and distribution of heroin. According to the U.S. State Department, he was the accountant for the heroin smuggling syndicate known as the Shan United Army. The State Department said his nationality is Chinese.

Yang's arrest was part of an ongoing joint Thai-U.S. operation launched in 1994 that targeted top members of the Shan United Army, formerly headed by Khun Sa. According to the State Department, Yang used to be Khun Sa's confidential secretary.

Khun Sa was once the biggest heroin trafficker in the Golden Triangle, the opium and heroin-producing region where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. More than a dozen top members of his ring have been arrested, and many extradited to stand trial in the United States.

Khun Sa remains at large in Myanmar, also known as Burma. The country is the world's second largest producer of heroin after Afghanistan.

-------- space

Rare nuclear fuel a candidate for speedy rockets, Israelis say

The Oregonian
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Science Notes http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/01/01/sc_41note10.frame

Scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel say an unusual nuclear fuel could speed space vehicles from Earth to Mars in as little as two weeks.

Calculations supporting that conclusion were reported in this month's issue of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A by Yigal Ronen and Eugene Shwagerous.

The researchers say the fairly rare nuclear material americium-242m can maintain sustained nuclear fission as an extremely thin metallic film, less than a thousandth of a millimeter thick. In this form, the extremely high-energy, high-temperature fission products can escape the fuel elements and be used for propulsion in space.

Obtaining fission-fragments is not possible with the better-known uranium-235 and plutonium-239 nuclear fuels because they require large fuel rods, which absorb fission products.

Standard chemical propulsion used in existing spacecraft takes from between eight to 10 months to make the same trip.

---

U.S. could be vulnerable in space battlefield

USA Today
1/10/01- Updated 08:30 PM ET
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
Contributing: USA TODAY reporter Dan Vergano
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-01-10-space.htm

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military won the Cold War and the standoff in the Persian Gulf thanks to superior forces on the ground, in the air and at sea. But there is a new potential battlefield where the nation remains highly vulnerable: space.

Building on the first ''space-based'' war in the Gulf, U.S. troops in Kosovo leaned heavily on satellites for intelligence, missile warning, communication, weather, navigation and precision-guided munitions.

''Many people feel the military has no business in space. Of course, the military is there, in spades,'' said former U.S. Space Command chief Charles Horner at a Heritage Foundation forum. ''Our military forces are so dependent on space that it's created a vulnerability for us. We may be faced with a Pearl Harbor in space.''

At the same time, civilians have become increasingly dependent on commercial satellites for TV, Internet, cell phones, pagers - even copies of USA TODAY.

When a commercial satellite began rotating out of control in May 1998, nearly 90% of the United States' 45 million pagers went dead for nearly a day until controllers could fix a broken computer processor.

It was the worst failure in space communication history, and it offered a glimpse of what an intentional attack on a U.S. satellite might do.

The issue of space defense is linked with another top issue: national missile defense. Donald Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's choice for defense secretary, chaired high-level commissions on both. His space panel reports its findings Thursday.

The 1998 Rumsfeld commission warned that North Korea, Iraq and other rogue nations were much closer to deploying ballistic missiles than intelligence agencies had predicted. Its report persuaded a skeptical President Clinton to propose building land-based missile interceptors. A final decision on deployment has been deferred.

Bush favors a more expansive system with space-based interceptors in addition to ones launched from ground silos and ships. Experts say the technology designed to stop a ballistic missile can be modified to attack a satellite.

''National missile defense will be a wedge that will accelerate the militarization of space,'' warns Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information. Putting weapons in orbit is ''inviting an arms race in space.''

Since the end of the Cold War, when Russia sharply scaled back its space program, the United States has been unchallenged in space, controlling 80% of all military satellites. No other nation is as dependent on satellites to provide reconnaissance, inform troops or guide weapons.

A growing fleet of commercial satellites enables a vast array of technologies that are inextricably entwined with the nation's economic well-being. And other nations such as China, Russia, Japan and India are launching their own military reconnaissance satellites.

According to the U.S. Space Command, the United States has slightly more than 300 active satellites. Of those, 60% are commercial, 20% are military and 20% belong to civilian government agencies.

There are about 750 active military, commercial and civilian satellites worldwide.

With a limited number of radio frequency bands, orbital slots have become hot real estate. How hot? In 1997, an Indonesian company allegedly jammed a communication satellite launched by the tiny Pacific nation of Tonga, which was vying for the same geosynchronous spot over Asia. That dispute affected TV transmissions.

Others could have put U.S. troops in harm's way. During the Gulf War, the United States persuaded a French satellite imaging company not to sell photos that may have shown allied troop positions to Iraq. And when NATO bombing of Serbia's main TV tower failed to keep Yugoslav propaganda off the air for more than a few days, the European space consortium shut the station down for good by pulling satellite service. In those cases, U.S. persuasion prevailed.

''But if they don't abide, do you shoot their satellites down?'' asks David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists. And what if, next time, the snooping satellite doesn't belong to a friendly country? Or another nation or terrorist group tries to disable an American satellite?

Despite such threats, some say that the United States would set a dangerous precedent if it becomes the first to weaponize space.

''If you live in a glass house, you shouldn't be organizing rock-throwing contests,'' says John Pike, head of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense research group. ''It should be unthinkable, regarded as abnormal and abhorrent, that someone would attack a satellite.''

---

China Launches Unmanned Vehicle Into Space

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/science/space-china-d.html

BEIJING - China launched an unmanned vehicle into space on Wednesday as part of a program aimed at sending astronauts into space, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

It said the ``Shenzhou II,'' built entirely in China, was launched from Jiuquan in northwest China aboard the latest version of the Long March rocket and would spend several days in space.

China has said it aims to send a manned flight into orbit in the next five years.

The first ``Shenzhou'' was launched in 1999 and the government has said it plans several more such flights before sending people into space.

``Shenzhou II'' comprises an orbital module, returning module and booster rockets whose functions are basically identical to a manned space vehicle, Xinhua said.

---

China launches test flight of spacecraft

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 03:42 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed03.htm

BEIJING (AP) - An unmanned Chinese spacecraft rocketed into orbit Wednesday in the second test flight of a vessel intended one day to carry astronauts and make China the third nation capable of manned space travel.

A Long March rocket blasted off from the Gobi desert launch center at 1:00 a.m. and put the Shenzhou II spacecraft into orbit 10 minutes later, state media reported.

The spacecraft would return ''in a few days'' after conducting experiments in physics and astronomy and on space's effects on life forms and materials, the Xinhua News Agency said.

China has placed great prestige on its secretive 31-year-old space program and poured an undisclosed amount of resources into it. If successful, the program will lift China alongside the United States and Russia into the exclusive club of space travel.

''An important step in realizing manned spaceflight,'' the People's Daily said in a headline below a picture of the Long March 2-F rocket blasting off from the Jiuquan launch center.

Newspapers praised the rocket and capsule as triumphs of domestic engineering and President Jiang Zemin sent a congratulatory telegram.

''I hope you will work persistently and unremittingly to achieve even greater victory,'' Jiang said in his message to the program's civilian and military personnel.

A smooth flight and safe return would mean China could be ready to put astronauts aloft in 18 to 24 months, said Joan Johnson-Freese, a Hawaii-based analyst and one of the few foreign experts on the Chinese space program.

The government, however, has been circumspect about when it will send up astronauts - or what some Chinese have dubbed ''taikonauts,'' from the Chinese word for space. Program scientists and officials quoted by state media in recent months have suggested it could come within the next five years.

''China will test several unmanned spacecraft, and when its manned spaceflight technology is mature, it will launch people into space,'' the English-language China Daily quoted a spokesman it did not identify from the China Manned Space Program Office as saying.

Wednesday's flight was the second unmanned test of the Shenzhou family of space capsules in less than 14 months. In the first test, in November 1999, the Shenzhou, or ''sacred vessel,'' orbited the earth for 21 hours before landing on the grasslands of China's Inner Mongolia region.

Unlike the first flight, which was disclosed only after the craft safely touched down, China announced the second launching shortly after it occurred and provided more information about the craft and rocket.

''It's a sign of confidence and a sign of pride,'' said James Oberg, a veteran analyst of the U.S. and foreign space programs. He watched the Shenzhou arc across the clear eastern sky at sunset near his home in Houston.

''This is pretty much a textbook program. It's so prestige-based that they want to do it with a 100% success rate,'' said Johnson-Freese, of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

Oberg and Johnson-Freese speculated that the Shenzhou's second flight would focus on testing life-support, guidance and re-entry systems.

Xinhua said the second Shenzhou capsule was an improvement over its predecessor, its structure and technology ''basically identical to a manned space aircraft.'' The Long March rocket too featured upgraded troubleshooting and safety systems, Xinhua said.

China Daily said that early information indicated the rocket and spacecraft ''performed well.''

Despite the fanfare given to the Shenzhou launching, China has released little information publicly about the space program, code-named Project 921.

Its military origins and lingering controversies over China's suspected reapplication of Western space technology to develop weapons have made the Chinese space program a largely domestic affair and partly kept China out of the international space station program.

''The Chinese especially now are so shunned, if you will, that they have been forced to go it alone probably more than they would like to,'' said Johnson-Freese.

In a sign of China's waning interest, Oberg noted that the path of Wednesday's launch was too low to place a future Shenzhou vessel on track to dock with the international space station.

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

Key Senators Favor Paying Off Debt to U.N.

Yahoo News
Politics News
Wednesday January 10 1:12 AM ET
By Evelyn Leopold
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010110/pl/un_usa_dc_3.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With United Nations (news - web sites) members having agreed to a sharp cut in U.S. dues, key senators supported paying off a large portion of American arrears to the world body Congress had set aside for this purpose.

Sen. Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican and one of the harshest critics of the United Nations, said on Tuesday he would amend legislation that withheld at least $585 million toward the U.S. debt to the world body, even though the cuts in U.S. payments were not as deep as he wanted.

``The U.N. missed the target,'' Helms told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ``But on the basis of what was achieved, I'm prepared to support a technical change in that law to permit the so-called year two payment, that is to say $585 million, to be released.''

His comments were met with delight by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who clinched the deal in the 189-member U.N. General Assembly on Dec. 23, only weeks before he ends his 18 months as chief U.S. representative to the United Nations.

``Great News''

``That is great news,'' Holbrooke said. ``And I believe it will dramatically strengthen American national interests.''

The release of the funds could end the standoff between the United Nations and right-wingers in Congress and help the ever-scrimping world body pay for peacekeeping missions.

Attending the hearing with Holbrooke were U.N. ambassadors from Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Argentina, Australia and Colombia. Holbrooke noted that Argentina, South Korea and Australia called themselves ``the victims,'' because their countries now needed to pay higher assessments.

The arrears are tied to a 1999 law that Sen. Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the committee, and Helms drafted. It includes a series of conditions, ranging from a cut in the U.N. bureaucracy to the U.S. role in several U.N. bodies.

The law calls for the U.S. share of the $1.1 billion annual U.N. administrative budget to be reduced from 25 percent to 22 percent, which U.N. member governments agreed to do in a major revamp of finances in December.

The law also says the American share of the estimated $3 billion annual peacekeeping budget should be cut from 31 percent to 25 percent. But the U.N. assembly approved gradual reductions, ranging from nearly 28 percent this year and then dropping to close to 25 percent over a six year period, thereby requiring new legislation.

Balance Paid By 2002

Congress had earmarked $926 million for U.N. budgets and paid $100 million in arrears last year. The cut in U.S. payments frees $584 million, once the legislation is amended. The balance would be paid by 2002.

Nevertheless, the hearing brought up a second problem that could jeopardize the agreements, although some U.S. officials are confident Congress will fix it over the next few months.

An earlier law, passed in 1994, puts a 25 percent cap on the rate of American contributions to U.N. peacekeeping. If this stays in place, the United States would accumulate another pile of debts since peacekeeping costs are above that ceiling.

The self-imposed cap accounts in part for the large discrepancy between U.N. official figures, which say Washington owes more than $1.5 billion, and U.S. figures, which put the sum at less than $1 billion.

While Helms agreed to pay off arrears accumulated throughout the 1990s, he was reluctant to repeal the cap when asked by Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar to do so.

Lugar said U.N. members anticipated the cap would be lifted or Holbrooke could not have negotiated in good faith.

The controversy did not escape Australia's U.N. ambassador, Penny Wensley. ``What we want now to see is the U.S. living up to its side of the bargain because there was an implicit bargain there,'' she told reporters.

``We want to see the funds released to the United Nations as quickly as possible. We wait with considerable interest the decision on the lifting of the cap. Then we will be able to say 'mission accomplished,''' Wensley said.

------

Former Bosnian Serb surrenders to U.N.

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 08:47 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed05.htm

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The former Bosnian Serb president - a one-time ally of the region's most-wanted war crimes suspect - surrendered to the U.N. tribunal on Wednesday to face charges for her alleged role in Europe's worst atrocities since World War II.

Biljana Plavsic, a hardline nationalist politician during the bloody 1992-1995 Bosnian war, will answer to accusations of committing every crime under the tribunal's statute: Genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

Plavsic was a key aide to Radovan Karadzic, the tribunal's most-wanted Bosnian suspect, though after the war she established close ties with international officials in Bosnia and was considered a moderate by Western leaders. She will be the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb official and first woman to face charges at the tribunal.

Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte made the announcement in a press conference with Plavsic's attorney. She said charges were brought against Plavsic in a sealed indictment issued in April.

''I confirm that Biljana Plavsic surrendered voluntarily, having been advised of the existence of an indictment against her,'' Del Ponte said. She said Plavsic is in the tribunal's custody and will make an initial court appearance Thursday to enter a plea when the indictment is unsealed.

Plavsic flew to the Netherlands on Tuesday to obey a summons from the court.

''She is aware this is the only place she can legally prove her innocence or guilt,'' said her lawyer, Krstan Simic, adding that Plavsic ''surrendered as soon as she heard of the indictment.''

Plavsic, a 70-year-old biologist, sided with the Bosnian Serb nationalists when Serbs in Bosnia rebelled against the country's independence declaration from Yugoslavia in 1992, triggering more than three years of war.

Throughout the Balkan conflict - during which Bosnian Serb forces kept the capital, Sarajevo, under siege and killed and expelled tens of thousands of Muslims and Croats - Plavsic held a top leadership position and was known for her nationalist statements. She served as a key aide to Karadzic.

After the war, Plavsic took over from Karadzic and led the Bosnian Serb republic from 1996-98.

In the years after the conflict ended, Plavsic split from the Bosnian Serb hard-liners, turning to the West. She lost a presidential election in 1998 but retained the leading position in her party, based in the northern town of Banja Luka.

Her lawyer said Plavsic's contacts with Karadzic and his wartime military chief, Ratko Mladic, who is also under indictment, ''stopped in 1995-96.''

Since its establishment in 1993, the U.N. tribunal - officially known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia - has sentenced 14 Bosnian Serb, Croat and Muslim suspects to up to 45 years in prison.

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Helms backs plan to settle U.N. debt

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
By Tom Carter
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200111022043.htm

Sen. Jesse Helms yesterday endorsed a partial payment of $585 million in back dues to the United Nations, citing the world body's fulfillment of many - but not all - reforms mandated by Congress in 1999.

"On the basis of what was achieved, I'm prepared to support a technical change in that law to permit the so-called year-two payment, that is to say $585 million, to be released," said Mr. Helms, North Carolina Republican, at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Helms' statement came in response to a deal crafted by Richard C. Holbrooke, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to reduce the U.S. assessment for general U.N. dues from 25 percent to 22 percent and the separate peacekeeping assessment from 31 percent to 27 percent.

Legislation sponsored two years ago by Mr. Helms, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Deleware, the committee's ranking Democrat, required that the United Nations lower the U.S. peacekeeping contribution to 25 percent.

"Let me be clear," Mr. Helms said yesterday. "I don't concede the principle that the United States is at all obligated to pay more than 25 percent of the peacekeeping budget of the United Nations. But I do believe that we must acknowledge the important progress that has been made at the U.N., and the Congress should respond to it."

The United States paid the United Nations $100 million last year but was withholding payment of the second tranche of $585 million to see if the world body would meet U.S. requirements.

Mr. Holbrooke made his final appearance before the committee yesterday as ambassador to the United Nations to report that "almost all" of the reforms that the United States had demanded had been approved.

For 17 months he has been working to cajole - some would say browbeat - a reluctant United Nations to reform itself and lower the amount of dues required of the United States.

Both sides hammered out a deal Dec. 23 that fulfills most of what he set out to accomplish.

On Jan. 20, when President-elect George W. Bush is inaugurated, Mr. Holbrooke will join the Council on Foreign Relations, a public-policy think tank.

"We have met almost all of the critical benchmarks outlined by the Helms-Biden legislation. The U.N. is more streamlined, efficient and effective. We have helped to make its financing more fair and equitable," Mr. Holbrooke said. "I believe we can say 'Mission substantially accomplished.'"

Mr. Biden, temporary chairman of the committee until Mr. Bush's inauguration, said he was pleased with what Mr. Holbrooke accomplished.

"Many naysayers, both here in Washington and in New York, said 'It can't be done.' Well, he has done it," the Delaware senator said. "From what I've heard, it looks like we got almost everything we asked for."

The United States has been in a contentious battle with the United Nations for several years over back dues. The United States refused to pay some $1.3 billion the United Nations said it was owed unless the world body enacted a series of cost-saving reforms and cut the U.S. share of dues.

In 1999, Mr. Helms and Mr. Biden reached a compromise on legislation to pay $926 million in back dues, if the United Nations would reduce the regular U.S. assessment to 22 percent and the peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent.

Mr. Biden said the so-called "contested arrears" - the difference between the $926 million the United States is willing to pay and the $1.3 billion the United Nations claims it is owed - will "never be paid."

Yesterday, with the support of U.N. ambassadors from Korea, Japan, Argentina, Australia and South Africa, Mr. Holbrooke testified before the committee. He said the United Nations had hammered through dozens of U.S. reforms which will save U.S. taxpayers more than $100 million this year and up to $170 million in two years. Some 29 nations will be required to pay more in dues because of the deal. At the end of the session, Mr. Helms had the entire committee stand and applaud Mr. Holbrooke.

• Betsy Pisik, in New York, contributed to this report.

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Trump shows interest in making U.N. repairs

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
By Betsy Pisik
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001110222755.htm

NEW YORK - Celebrity developer Donald Trump visited Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday to discuss the bidding on a planned $954 million repair and upgrade of the deteriorating U.N. headquarters complex.

Mr. Trump, who vexed U.N. officials last year by building a 90-story residential tower directly across the street from the landmark Secretariat Building, will not be donating his services or his bankroll.

"This is not about philanthropy," said Joseph Connor, the U.N. chief of budget and management. "You're thinking of Ted Turner. This is Donald Trump."

The visit yesterday was set some time ago, according to U.N. officials who said it is a coincidence that the developer showed up hours after the U.S. Senate agreed to release about $585 million in overdue U.N. funds.

In Manhattan social circles, the apple-cheeked developer is as well known for his monstrously tall buildings as he is for the shapely supermodels who lean against his shoulder at restaurant openings. He arrived yesterday in a limousine, flanked by bodyguards.

His most widely criticized project has been the Trump World Tower, a black monolith that looms over the United Nations with 90 stories of luxury apartments. A coalition of neighbors sued the city and Mr. Trump repeatedly trying to halt the project, or at least scale it back.

In contrast, the U.N. Secretariat Building is a landmark example of the international style that was popular from the early 1950s to late 1960s.

The building, which resembles a 39-story ice-cube tray, was designed in part by the legendary architect Charles Edouard le Corbusier. Its east- and west-facing walls are curtains of glass that bleed heat in the winter and trap sunlight in the summer.

A decade of deferred maintenance has compromised the building's outdated electrical, phone and ventilation systems. Asbestos and other problems might force its closure if it were subject to New York City building codes.

Even without these problems, the building cannot accommodate the roughly 10,000 employees who report to work in it every day.

The United Nations announced plans last summer to rehabilitate the building, but it is not clear how the perpetually cash-strapped organization will pay for it. The $954 million figure also will cover a new visitor center, rent of temporary office space and landscaping.

Mr. Connor said yesterday that officials are hoping that half the money will be loaned, interest-free, by member states. The rest could come through a public bond offering, donations by dot-com billionaires or another infusion from Mr. Turner, the Atlanta communications mogul who has already pledged more than $1 billion for the world organization.

No matter how the U.N. headquarters is rebuilt, Mr. Connor said, it will still be known as the Secretariat Building. No consideration will be given to selling naming rights, as has been done with college dormitories and sports arenas throughout the country.

"We must keep in mind that this is a multigovernmental organization," Mr. Connor said firmly.

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

Cargo of memories
Veterans hope to bring honored World War II landing craft to Boston

Boston Globe
1/10/2001
By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/010/metro/Cargo_of_memories+.shtml

He may be a 74-year-old grandfather, but Frank Earley would jump at a chance to serve in the crew of World War II Landing Ship Tank 325, one of the last of the vessels used at the Normandy invasion.

''I'd be happy to chip paint or mop floors,'' Earley said from his Walpole home this week.

The ship, which is being decommissioned by the Greek Navy, arrives today in Mobile, Ala., after a wintertime Atlantic crossing with a crew averaging 72 years of age. In November, the 29 LST veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam started a journey from Greece to bring ''the 325,'' as the beloved troop carrier is known, home after an absence of almost 40 years.

Now, Earley and other Massachusetts World War II veterans are waging a letter-writing campaign to bring the old ship to Boston when the weather turns warmer. And Earley, for one, can't wait to jump into the type of bunk he first slept in as a fresh-faced 17-year-old recruit from Dorchester.

''I can't wait to make that trip,'' said Earley, who served as a radioman in World War II aboard LST 923, one of the many built at Hingham Shipyard. ''I couldn't be radioman this time. They don't use Morse code anymore, though I still remember it and couldn't forget it if my life depended on it.''

The current crew, which sailed from Athens in November amid warnings of bad weather and fears of how elderly bones would handle the rigorous shipboard tasks, vowed to bring the ship home as a memorial to the men who sailed on LSTs during World War II.

Some crew members are over 75. The youngest is the captain, Robert Jornlin, of Earlville, Ill., at 61. LST 325 itself is 60.

All crew members, apparently, managed the voyage well, though one flew home from Athens after becoming sick before the trip began, and subsequently died. The others paid tribute to him and added his name to those whose memory was being honored by the voyage.

During the war, LSTs were considered the workhorses of the military, taking part in land invasions in both the Atlantic and Pacific campaigns.

The LSTs have flat bottoms and shallow drafts, allowing them to to ride out of the water onto the beaches to deposit troops, tanks, trucks, and even railroad cars. Once their decks were cleared, they filled them with the wounded left on the beaches, often rescuing them under heavy fire. They also carried prisoners of war.

With its graying and grizzled crew, LST 325's current journey apparently went smoothly, except for some engine trouble that required a stopover in Gibraltar.

Most of the 10,000 members of the United States LST Association and the 342 members of the Massachusetts chapter followed 325's journey on the Internet, said Eugene Creedon of Kingston, the chapter president. The LSTs were used by both the Navy and the Coast Guard.

Creedon flew from Boston to Alabama yesterday to prepare to welcome the 325 in Mobile and talk to officials there about the possibility of sharing the vessel with Boston.

Now 75, Creedon served on LST 557 in the Pacific and, ''after the war, from Hong Kong and Shanghai to Manchuria with men and materiel for Nationalist China in its war with the communists. We even transported a shipload of mules for the cavalry,'' he said.

Notwithstanding the infirmities of age, other Massachusetts men who more than 50 years ago served aboard the gray flatbottoms, a standard 328-feet in length, also said they'd like to make a Mobile-to-Boston run aboard the 325.

''I think the world of that ship and would sign on if there were something I could do,'' said Charles Schmidt, 77, of South Boston, vacationing in Fort Myers, Fla. He served six months on the 325 toward the end of the war, having had a deferment because he was building LSTs at the Hingham shipyard.

Chances of such a trip, however, seem remote right now, Creedon said, adding that he hoped to talk with city and state officials about finding a berth here for the 325 ''for at least six months of the year.''

Local chapter members are all for that. Dan Johnson, 77, of Winthrop, a retired Boston police officer, said getting the 325 to Boston would honor those who never returned.

''We just did our job,'' he said. ''This memorial ship to me is in memory to the men who didn't come back.''

Johnson, too, said he was eager to join the crew of LST 325 on a voyage from Mobile to Boston.

LST 325 has a noble history and lived up to the nickname its crew bestowed: ''On the Ball.''

Robert Lemieux, 75, of Leominster, joined the Navy at 17 in 1942 and served aboard 325 as a botswain's mate first class, ''from the day it was commissioned in Philadelphia on Feb. 1, 1943, until it was decommissioned in Green Cold Springs, Fla., 21/2 years later.''

''We carried smaller, 36-foot landing craft, tanks, trucks, and jeeps,'' Lemieux said. ''In the Salerno, Italy, invasion, we were strafed coming in and about four of our crew were injured, but we never lost anyone.''

The 325 was involved in the Normandy invasion on D-Day and after that, Lemieux said, ''it made 44 consecutive trips back and forth to Normandy, landing troops and picking up injured.''

All LST veterans share memories of close calls, seared into the minds of 18-year-old boys.

Earley's are still vivid.

''Our ship left Hingham, where it was built in May 1944, and we went through the Panama Canal and then to Pearl Harbor. We had several invasions in the South Pacific, the Philippines, and ultimately in Okinawa.

''One bright, sunny morning in Okinawa, we looked up and saw a Japanese kamikaze plane heading right down for our ship. We were unloaded at the time. A short distance in front of us was another LST loaded with equipment. We assumed the pilot must have decided it was better to hit a loaded ship rather than ours, but he waited too long and crashed into the water between us.''

Earley recalled another experience in the Philippines, shared by other LST veterans thankful for the flat bottoms of their ship.

''A torpedo went right under us,'' he said.

Retired Malden Fire Captain John Mulcahy, 78, served as motor machinist mate on LST 288. ''On D-Day on Omaha Beach, we couldn't unload our troops because there were so many others pinned down on the beach, there wasn't room for any more. So we went back, [to other Navy ships], and came back empty to pick up casualties.''

Omaha Beach that day was a scene of devastation and confusion. Mulcahy and his signalman took it on themselves to grab stretchers and head for the beach. Dodging fire from German bunkers, they rescued 14 men.

George Henderson, 79, of North Andover, has vivid memories as well. He is the founder and first president of the Massachusetts LST chapter and is its historian. His LST, number 345, took part in four invasions and landed British troops on Gold Beach in the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944.

Henderson served 33 months, making him the longest-serving officer aboard the 345, and made 66 roundtrips across the English Channel landing troops and returning with injured.

''The LST was Churchill's idea,'' Henderson said. ''When he was a Naval officer in World War I, he saw the need. He sent men here to talk about it and a brilliant US Naval designer, John C. Niedermair, created it.''

Henderson said that although the nickname for LSTs by the men who sailed them was ''Large Slow Target,'' of the 957 commissioned during the war, ''only 40 [LSTs] were lost. In all the trips and the thousands of troops we carried, we never lost a man [on LST 345]. It was a miracle.''

This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 1/10/2001.

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Army retires 'Be all you can be' jingle

CNN
January 10, 2001
From CNN Correspondent Carl Rochelle
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/10/new.army/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After years of urging prospective recruits to "Be all you can be," the U.S. Army has decided it's time to switch slogans.

Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera said the familiar phrase has gotten old and outdated.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/10/new.army/link.caldera.jpg

"People aren't responding to it," Caldera said. "It doesn't tell them how this benefits me as an individual, and frankly, it's focused at the wrong segment -- those who are least interested in military service."

Starting Thursday, the Army is betting its $150 million advertising budget, and its recruiting goals, on a new jingle: "An army of one." The target: recruits aged 18 to 24.

One promo in the new campaign shows a solitary soldier running through the outdoors while a voice says, "I am an army of one, even though there are 1,045,690 soldiers like me."

Another ad focuses on technology and training, encouraging would-be recruits to log onto the Army's web site at goarmy.com.

Army officials said they reached their recruiting goals last year with the old commercial. But they think a change will help them continue to reach their goals in the future.

Ad vet decries change

Thursday's campaign opens on network television, with follow-ups planned for radio and print as well as the Internet.

While Army authorities are eager for the unveiling, not everyone welcomes the change.

Advertising expert Jerry Della Famina thinks the Army is making a terrible mistake, having benefited for years from one of the advertising industry's finest efforts. "Advertising Age," an industry information leader, ranked the campaign as the second best of the 20th century.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/10/new.army/link.famina.jpg

"I don't understand why they're doing it!" Della Famina said. "I mean, you can count the great slogans on one hand. It's one of the great slogans."

------

Warship's Voyage Nears End

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 4:03 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Returning-Warship.html

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- A rusting relic from World War II sailed into port with a jubilant crew of elderly veterans Wednesday after a monthlong trans-Atlantic voyage that the Coast Guard had warned was too dangerous to attempt.

``Bravery is ageless,'' Bill Shannon, a veteran from Fort Worth, Texas, said as the naval vessel LST-325 arrived to a celebration.

The 29-member crew, average age 72, was made up mostly of veterans from World War II and the Korean War. The 328-foot vessel, which delivered troops to Normandy during the D-Day invasion, will become a museum.

``This is the greatest thing I've ever done in my life, but I wouldn't do it again for all the world,'' said crewman Jim Edwards of Canton, Texas. ``I like to have froze.''

The veterans left Greece on Nov. 17 and crossed the Mediterranean in 11 days despite two storms and equipment problems. One man suffered heart problems and left for home, dying after he arrived in the United States. The crew was at sea continuously after leaving Gibraltar on Dec. 12.

The Coast Guard had warned the crew against trying to cross the Atlantic during the stormy winter months, citing the ship's lack of safety equipment, its questionable steering, and uncertainty about the crew's ability to respond to emergencies.

The crew rejected the advice. Capt. Robert Jornlin of Earlville, Ill., described the voyage as fairly smooth, though there were steering problems and rough, cold weather off the Florida Keys this week. A failed engine also took 10 hours to repair. And in the Bahamas last week, divers had to fix a hole the size of a silver dollar in the bow.

``We're certainly delighted that they safely completed the voyage despite our warnings,'' Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Brendan McPherson said. ``It's a great moment in history.''

The ship was built in 1942. It was decommissioned in 1946, lent to the Greek government in 1964 and taken out of service last summer. Congress passed a bill authorizing Greece to turn it over for use as a memorial.

Crew members paid their own way to Greece and donated $2,000 to help cover expenses. The rehabilitation of the boat was extensive, with engine troubles, leaks and other problems.

``We thought our main problem was to get this ship back from the Greeks, but lately we have been fighting with another group as to who will control this vessel: the deck house can be rightly called Cockroach Hotel,'' according to a captain's log entry from August.

The toilets were astoundingly bad. ``Forget about gleaming white porcelain. The appearance of ours would shock a skid row resident. They defy cleaning,'' the log said. One commode leaked on deck.

But for four months, 74-year-old Joe Sadlier got to be a kid again.

``It was just like going back in time. We were 18 again out on that ship,'' said Sadlier, a bus driver from Ketchikan, Alaska. Sadlier was the cook for the voyage, which he called an adventure of a lifetime: ``I can't think of any time I've been as happy as I am right now.''

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Ads Now Seek Recruits for 'An Army of One'

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/national/10ARMY.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - In the most sweeping revision of its marketing practices in two decades, the Army this week will scrap its memorable advertising slogan, "Be all you can be," and replace it with one intended to appeal to the individualism and independence of today's youth: "An Army of one."

Based on research showing that young people view military life as dehumanizing, the motto will be the centerpiece of a $150 million campaign that uses slick commercials, a new logo and an interactive Web site, goarmy.com, to bolster the Army's recruiting programs, which have missed their goals two of the last three years.

It all kicks off when the Army premieres the first of its new commercials not during a Sunday football game, as might have been the case in the past, but during the popular NBC sitcom "Friends" this Thursday night. The Army has been criticized for broadcasting too many advertisements during televised sporting events, and the choice of "Friends" is intended to help broaden its audience and shake off its stodgy, male-only image. The commercial will also appear during "The Simpsons" on Fox and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on WB, among other programs, and on MTV, Comedy Central and Channel 1, which is broadcast in high schools.

The 60-second spot, produced by the Army's new advertising agency, Leo Burnett U.S.A. of Chicago, tries to counter what Army officials said was the widespread perception among young men and women that soldiers were faceless, nameless cogs in an impersonal military machine.

The commercial features a lone corporal running across the barren terrain of the Mojave Desert at dawn. At one point, a squad of soldiers runs past in the opposite direction; later, a Blackhawk helicopter flies by overhead. But the corporal never veers from his solitary path, panting under the weight of his 35-pound pack as his polished dog tags glint brilliantly in the rising sun.

"Even though there are 1,045,690 soldiers just like me, I am my own force," the corporal, Richard P. Lovett, says. "With technology, with training, with support, who I am has become better than who I was."

"And I'll be the first to tell you, the might of the U.S. Army doesn't lie in numbers," Corporal Lovett continues. "It lies in me. I am an Army of one."

It might seem incongruous for the Army, which for two centuries has trained its recruits in the art of selflessness and unit cohesion, to promote itself as an incubator of self-actualization. Indeed, in recent decades many military officials have come to view the armed forces as a redoubt against unbridled individualism.

But Louis Caldera, the departing secretary of the Army, who initiated and championed the marketing makeover, said that no one should be worried that the Army is advocating self-centered behavior.

"They are going to get the ethic of selfless service, duty, honor and country in basic training and in every unit they are assigned to," Mr. Caldera said. "But you've got to get them in the door to try selfless service. And you've got to let them know that even though it is about selfless service, they are still individuals."

Mr. Caldera said the campaign would de-emphasize benefits the Army has long promoted in its recruiting literature, including college tuition and signing bonuses, because its marketing research showed that many young people were already aware of those benefits.

The research also showed that many adults of prime recruiting age, 18 to 24, wanted swifter gratification from signing up.

"It's a me-now group," Mr. Caldera said. Partly for that reason, the Army coined a second slogan for the campaign, which is intended to promote the possibilities of eventually marketing military training to the private sector: "212 different ways to be a soldier." The number refers to training specialties.

Mr. Caldera, 44, who has a master's degree from Harvard Business School, made revamping recruiting and marketing a priority when he became secretary in July 1998.

That year, the Army fell short of its goal of 72,550 enlistees by 801; in 1999, it missed its target of 74,500 enlistees by 6,290. In 2000, however, the Army barely surpassed its goal of 80,000 enlistees, by 113. The goal for 2001 is 78,950.

Pentagon officials have attributed their recruiting problems, which have hit all the services except the Marine Corps, to several factors: more high school graduates attending college, a booming economy and a decline in the number of people of prime recruiting age.

But a study commissioned last year by Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen suggested that some of the blame lay with the Pentagon itself. The study recommended that the Army, Navy and Air Force articulate clearer images to potential recruits, do more research into current attitudes and rely less on advertising during sporting events.

Under Mr. Caldera, the Army created a four-person marketing office at the Pentagon. It hired McKinsey & Company and RAND to review marketing practices and conduct an extensive survey of potential recruits. And it ended its 13-year relationship with Young & Rubicam, hiring Leo Burnett last summer to be its lead advertising agency. Leo Burnett's clients include McDonald's, Walt Disney and Coca-Cola.

Army officials said the marketing data showed many young people wanted to be part of "something bigger." But many also held negative perceptions of the military, including that soldiers cannot date, have no free time and spend most of their time in the mud.

And the research suggested a cultural divide, with many saying they did not know or could not identify with anyone in the armed forces.

Patrick Lafferty, a vice president with Leo Burnett, described one typical view of the Army this way: "It's people unlike me. And if they're not like me, I don't want to be part of it."

In part to address those perceptions, the Army has tried to personalize its advertising by using real soldiers instead of actors. On its Web site, potential recruits will be able to click on photographs of soldiers and hear them talk about themselves and Army life. Future commercials will also depict soldiers confronting problems, and challenge viewers to solve those problems, with the answers to be posted on goarmy.com.

Army officials said their market research also suggested that the Army needed stronger "brand- name" identification. The result was a new logo, a white star with gold and black edging. Army officials said that there were no plans to incorporate the logo into uniforms but that it would probably be woven into running gear and other Army products.

Mr. Caldera said it was unlikely that "Be all you can be," which was created 20 years ago this month and remains one of the most identifiable slogans in advertising history, would be completely dropped.

Leo Burnett's one-year contract, which can be renewed annually for three additional years, calls for the firm to receive bonuses if the Army exceeds its recruiting goals. The Army has budgeted $150 million for the entire campaign in the current fiscal year, which ends in September. But it has declined to disclose the size of Leo Burnett's fees.

When Leo Burnett was first hired, the Army was accused by some critics of not doing enough to recruit minority-owned advertising firms. Forty percent of soldiers belong to minority groups.

In part to address that concern, Leo Burnett hired two minority- owned subcontractors, Cartel Creativo, a Hispanic-owned agency, and IMAGE USA, which specializes in marketing to African-Americans.

Some of the new material will also be tailored to minority communities, with, for instance, certain commercials appearing on Univision and Telemundo, the Spanish-language television networks.

The Army also made a point of featuring mixed-race soldiers in some of the advertisements. Corporal Lovett is of Panamanian and Native American descent.

Mr. Caldera said he had no plans to brief advisers to President-elect George W. Bush about the marketing campaign, saying he was confident they would like it.

"It would be capricious to come in and say, gee, I've got to change it just because there is a change in administration," he said.

---

Lessons From the Cole

New York Times
January 10, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/opinion/L10COL.html

To the Editor:

Re "Navy Inquiry on Cole Urges No Punishment of Captain or Crew" (news article, Jan. 8): I am appalled at the statement by a Navy official that "if you have a small boat carrying out a suicide attack, there's not a lot you can do to stop it."

This is an open invitation to every terrorist with a small boat. Before other sailors are killed, the Navy should figure out what actually can be done and then order it done.

At the confirmation hearing for Donald H. Rumsfeld, George W. Bush's choice for defense secretary, Mr. Rumsfeld should be confronted with this life-or-death problem and asked if he agrees with its cavalier dismissal by the Navy.

GERALD ADLER Los Angeles, Jan. 8, 2001

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USA Today
01/01/10
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Alaska

Fairbanks - Over 300 airmen and 20 aircraft from Eielson Air Force Base will be heading to Nevada to escape the coldest part of an Alaska winter. Pilots for Eielson's 354th Fighter Wing are grounded when temperatures drop to 40 degrees below zero.

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'Army of One' recruits a new generation of soldiers

USA Today
01/01/10
By Dave Moniz USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010110/2976658s.htm

WASHINGTON -- Two decades after launching one of the most successful ad campaigns in history, the Army unveils a new slogan today that it hopes will reconnect the service with young men and women.

The new tagline, ''An Army of One,'' replaces the popular ''Be All You Can Be,'' which has been used since 1981.

The Army hopes the new slogan will appeal to a generation less attracted to military service than its predecessors. The message: The Army is an egalitarian outfit that values self-growth and teamwork.

''An Army of One,'' crafted by the Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett, caps a year-long effort to reshape the Army's marketing approach. The slogan debuts in a 60-second ad Thursday during NBC's Friends, a popular show with young adults. For the year, the Army plans to spend $150 million promoting the tagline on TV, in print and through direct mail.

Army officials say ''Be All You Can Be'' will remain part of recruiting brochures. The slogan became a cultural touchstone in the early 1980s after it helped the Army rebuild itself after the Vietnam War.

''Be All You Can Be'' has been hailed as one of the best ad campaigns in history. The trade publication Advertising Age ranks it as the second-best jingle in modern history, after the McDonald's slogan ''You Deserve a Break Today.''

Jim Martin, a military sociologist at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, says the ''Be All You Can Be'' campaign helped attract a generation of high school graduates who couldn't afford college. ''They viewed the Army as an entry point into society,'' Martin said. But today's strong economy has made jobs more plentiful and college more affordable at the expense of the Army.

''Be All You Can Be'' was the brainchild of Gen. Maxwell Thurman, who headed the Army Recruiting Command. The slogan is inscribed on Thurman's headstone at Arlington National Cemetery.

The new slogan already has some critics. ''What does that mean?'' asks Andrew Bacevich, a former Army officer who teaches at Boston University. Bacevich says it doesn't explain the Army's post-Cold War role.

---

Cole bombers exploited 'seam' in security

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
By Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001110225359.htm

The U.S. military needs better intelligence and training to combat terrorist attacks like the suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole, according to a commission that investigated the blast.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, who released the commission's report yesterday, told reporters the seaborne attack in Aden harbor in Yemen exposed how terrorists found a "seam" in the military's anti-terrorism protection efforts.

Protecting U.S. forces from terrorist attacks was made one of the military's highest priorities after the 1996 bombing of a U.S. Air Force residence known as Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

"I have said and stated over and over again, since the Khobar Towers bombing, that force protection should be a key element of everything that we do," Mr. Cohen said, noting that security of fixed facilities has improved.

"It's apparent it has not been across the board or certainly with sufficient intensity when it comes to in-transit movement of ships," he said.

Ships at sea have good security from attacks.

"The gap or the seam has been when they move into a sort of semi-in-site status, on-ground status, with the refueling," Mr. Cohen said. "That's where the seam has existed."

Mr. Cohen said the military needs to change its mindset and "become much more aggressive" in protecting overseas troops on the move.

The 505-foot destroyer was refueling in Aden harbor Oct. 12 on its way to the Persian Gulf when a small boat packed with explosives moved close to the ship's hull and set off a bomb. The blast created a 40-foot hole in the ship.

Seventeen sailors were killed and scores injured, and at least two suicide bombers died on the small boat that the Cole's crew thought was helping the ship tie up to a refueling buoy.

Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman, co-chairman of the commission along with retired Army Gen. William Crouch, told reporters that Pentagon and other U.S. intelligence agencies have not done enough to reconsider anti-terrorism methods since the end of the Cold War.

"More assets should be devoted toward fighting against terrorism, particularly in the SIGINT (signals intelligence), HUMINT (human intelligence) and language area," he said.

Ships at sea also lack onboard intelligence analysis capability that can help identify terrorist threats better.

The admiral said the commission did not find any "tactical, actionable intelligence that would have predicted this attack." However, he stated that "all transiting units could be better served by tailored intelligence support."

Mr. Cohen said intelligence warnings of attack in the region "were general in nature and not directed against the ship" and preceded the attack by at least a month.

The Nation Security Agency issued a top-secret intelligence report on the day the Cole was bombed warning that terrorists were planning an attack in the region, U.S. intelligence officials told The Washington Times.

The warning did not reach the ship. It stated that terrorists were involved in "operational planning" for an attack on U.S. or Israeli personnel or property in the Middle East. One official said the dispatch warned of an impending attack in Yemen.

The warning was not disseminated soon enough. It also was not reported on the worldwide computer network known as Intellink, the officials said.

The commission report concluded that the Pentagon "does not allocate sufficient resources or all-source intelligence analysis and collection in support of combating terrorism."

The commission made a series of recommendations aimed at improving the security of U.S. forces, including improved intelligence threat dissemination and analysis, better training and staffing, and using more security-related equipment.

The commission did not seek to determine who was behind the attack, and the officials said it could not be confirmed that Saudi terrorist leader Osama bin Ladin was behind it.

The Navy is conducting a separate accountability review to see whether the ship's captain will be punished for the attack. The Navy traditionally holds a ship's captain responsible for mishaps or other problems.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Largest wind farm to power 70,000 homes

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 08:04 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed09.htm

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Plans were announced Wednesday for the world's largest wind farm - 450 windmills along the Oregon-Washington line that will generate enough electricity for 70,000 homes in 11 Western states. Construction will begin next month and could be completed by the end of the year.

FPL Energy, a sister company to Florida Power & Light, will build, own and operate the wind farm, which will create 25 permanent jobs. PacifiCorp, an Oregon utility, will buy the wind power, combine it with hydroelectric energy and distribute it across the West, where California has come perilously close to blackouts in recent months because of shortages of electricity.

''This farm, in and of itself, is not going to completely relieve the energy challenge in the Northwest, but it will contribute to solving it,'' said Carol Clawson, spokeswoman for FPL Energy, which refused to disclose the project's cost.

Conservationists called the project a breakthrough in renewable energy.

''What you're getting here is a signal from one of the most significant participants in the commercial market that wind power is ready for prime time, that it's marketable and profitable,'' said Ralph Cavanagh, energy resources director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. ''It used to be exotic, an alternative.''

The collection of 240-foot windmills will straddle the state line, with 200 megawatts generated in Walla Walla County, Wash., and 100 megawatts in Umatilla County, Ore.

The evolution of turbine technology has made wind power more profitable and safer.

The smaller, rapid rotors on older turbines have been replaced by slow-moving blades 150 feet across. Modern wind turbines can monitor themselves, adjusting their direction and blade angle to get the most from the wind's natural power.

The bigger and slower-moving rotors also solve another problem that had plagued wind farms for years - the deaths of birds caught in the spinning blades.

-------- environment

Agency Reassesses Impact of Timber Policy

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/science/10TIMB.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - A new policy banning the cutting of old- growth trees in the national forests would affect no more than 20 percent of the timber harvest scheduled for auction across the country in the coming year, Forest Service officials said today.

The officials made the estimate a day after the agency's chief, Mike Dombeck, issued the policy. In the Pacific Northwest, where the harvesting of old trees has been most controversial, the affected harvest could be as high as 50 percent, the officials said.

The overall estimate was at odds with one reported in The New York Times on Tuesday based on estimates provided by Clinton administration officials, who said the ban would affect 50 percent of the planned national harvest. The officials said today that the larger estimate had been misunderstood and applied only to the Pacific Northwest.

The new policy caught forest managers by surprise. In an internal memorandum today, Mr. Dombeck sought to address internal criticism by emphasizing that details of his plan had not yet been drafted and that final decisions about harvests would still be made by local managers, although they would have to take his directive into account.

Until recently, the prevailing rule within the Forest Service has been that the biggest and oldest trees should be cut first, and Mr. Dombeck's directive that old-growth trees, prized for their commercial value, should be protected represents a major step in what had been an incremental reversal.

In 1989, Dale Robertson, who was then the Forest Service chief, issued a policy statement calling for the protection of old-growth values within public lands. But Mr. Dombeck's directive went well beyond that earlier directive.

The Republican staff director of the Senate panel overseeing the Forest Service said today that hearings would be held on the new policy, which seems to run counter to the one signaled by President-elect George W. Bush.

"What Dombeck is proposing affects a policy that has been incorporated in a Forest Service manual, and changes to that require a public process," said Mark Ray, staff director of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on forests and public land management.

In his memorandum, Mr. Dombeck said he recognized that his new policy would "be subject to review by the incoming secretary of agriculture and the new administration."

Ann M. Veneman, the agriculture secretary-designate, would oversee the Forest Service in the Bush administration if her nomination was confirmed by the Senate.

"I realize that some of you would have preferred that I delay talking about old growth," Mr. Dombeck said in the memorandum. "During the last four years we have highlighted many and often difficult policy issues. The old-growth issue has been with the Forest Service for many years. It is our responsibility to highlight it and attempt to bring to resolution the issue in a professional, transparent and forthright manner."

As the Forest Service chief, Mr. Dombeck, a career government employee, holds what has traditionally been a nonpolitical post.

Because of his senior rank within the civil service, Mr. Dombeck cannot be dismissed until 120 days after Mr. Bush takes office. He has said he would like to stay in office as long as he can serve usefully, but people who have watched the transition process say it is likely that he will be replaced.

Among his main critics have been timber companies who have described his policies as a barrier to their commercial interests, and those same companies are among the critics most eager to see him replaced.

"Dombeck is finished," said Frank Carroll, a former Forest Service official who is now the chief spokesman for the Potlatch Corporation, a timber concern based in Spokane, Wash. "His time is over; he's done."

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Clashing Opinions at Meeting on Alaska Drilling

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/science/10OIL.html?pagewanted=all

ANCHORAGE, Jan. 9 - Oil companies, conservation groups and Alaska Native communities squared off before a panel of scientists here over two days this week, presenting clashing visions of the impact of expanding oil and gas drilling on the country's Arctic frontier, Alaska's North Slope.

Industry experts said that new technologies for efficiently finding and drilling for oil had sharply reduced pollution and other environmental problems and that their studies showed wildlife was generally not harmed by the work.

But scientists from conservation groups said the expansion of the oil fields would irrevocably mar one of the country's wildest and most fragile landscapes. And leaders for Eskimo communities said that although they benefited from the oil industry, development was leaving deep scars on their culture.

Both sides agreed, however, that momentum had never been more strongly on the side of the oil companies.

With the meeting, the panel, convened by the National Research Council at the behest of Congress, began an 18-month study of the effects of the maze of oil fields, pipelines, roads and causeways that has unfurled from Prudhoe Bay, the site of a large oil find 32 years ago, on the environment, landscape and residents.

The study is likely to influence debate over the proposed expansion of oil drilling into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is east of Prudhoe Bay and is thought to sit atop significant oil reserves.

The contrasting views presented before the panel frame what is likely to be President-elect George W. Bush's first environmental battle.

Mr. Bush said in his campaign that a cornerstone of his energy policy would be to open the coastal plain of the refuge to drilling, which was also a goal of his father's administration. The Prudhoe oil fields are dwindling, and oil companies have been eager to move east into the refuge and west into other federal lands.

But environmental groups say they will fight hard to keep oil rigs out of the refuge, which has often been described as an American Serengeti because of its grand vistas and masses of migrating wildlife.

Oil industry representatives said they were convinced that Republicans in Congress, riding a wave of worries about energy shortages and spurred by an oil-friendly president, would be able to garner sufficient votes to authorize drilling in the reserve.

"We will prevail," said Roger C. Herrera, a consultant on energy and environmental policy for Arctic Power, a lobbying group representing oil companies working in Alaska. "It's just a matter of time now."

The refuge occupies the eastern end of the 500-mile-long North Slope, a rumpled treeless plain that drapes between the jagged Brooks Range and the nation's only Arctic shore.

The state-owned area west of the refuge is already peppered with oil wells and laced with pipelines, including the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

One sign of industry confidence that it will succeed this time is that it was not environmental groups but oil companies - in particular BP Amoco - that suggested the impartial study to Alaska's Congressional delegation of three Republicans, who inserted $1.5 million for the project into a bill last year.

"Republicans asked for this review because we're confident it'll say there's been no environmental damage to the Arctic," said Chuck Kleeschulte, a spokesman for Senator Frank H. Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Environmental campaigners in Anchorage said they were just as confident that the panel would draw very different conclusions, but added that the panel's nonbinding report, expected in July 2002, might end up being irrelevant if Republicans moved ahead with legislation unlocking the refuge.

People on both sides of the issue agreed that such a legislative move could come as early as spring, most likely as "a stealth rider hidden deep in the bowels of a budget bill," in the words of Deborah Williams, the executive director of the Alaska Conservation Foundation and a former top aide to the interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt.

"The conservation community is going to have to work extra hard to identify when and if that rider is attached and bring it to the attention of the American people," Ms. Williams said.

The issue lay dormant for eight years, but now the conservation groups have lost any security they felt they had.

"There is no longer the veto firewall you had with the Clinton administration," Ms. Williams said.

Oil industry officials say that conditions, both political and environmental, are very different now than they were in 1991, when President George Bush failed to get his way despite the high oil prices from the Persian Gulf war.

The image of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of Alaskan crude has faded, and in recent years the Alaskan oil industry has largely eliminated road building, waste dumping and other practices that previously damaged the fragile tundra, said Steven D. Taylor, the director of environmental policy for BP Exploration Inc., a division of BP Amoco.

Mr. Taylor was one of many experts who gave presentations before the panel, which consists of 16 geologists, ecologists and other experts, most from academia and some with ties to industry and conservation groups.

He flashed a slide presentation showing how old, polluting ways were ancient history - with new well fields occupying tiny patches of land instead of sprawling over the spongy peat, and calving caribou munching lichens a few feet from pipelines.

But other presenters told different stories. Some pointed out that the existing oil operations annually released more than 56,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, a source of acid rain. That is double the nitrogen oxides wafting into the air from traffic and smokestacks in Washington.

Peter H. Van Tuyn, a lawyer for Trustees for Alaska, a private group that has frequently sued Alaskan polluters, warned the committee to approach the studies it would soon contemplate with "a large grain of salt."

"There are huge data gaps," Mr. Van Tuyn said, pointing not only to industry studies but also to those of federal and state agencies.

Mr. Taylor said BP was confident it would be able to make its case that the oil fields of the new century would bear little resemblance to those of the last.

Displaying a level of candor rarely seen in such meetings, he said: "This is not good works. It's trying to improve our image so that we can get into other areas."

George M. Ahmaogak Sr., the mayor of the North Slope Borough and an Inupiat Eskimo, reminded the committee that some impacts of oil drilling were far more difficult to measure than shifts in the numbers of caribou or pollution cleanups.

He described how Nuiqsut, a village near the newly built Alpine oil field west of Prudhoe Bay, is essentially surrounded by pipelines.

"The pipelines can be punctured by a bullet," Mr. Ahmaogak said, so shooting is forbidden in the area. "Now our children can't practice their hunting skills."

---

Justices Bar Wide U.S. Role Under the Clean Water Act

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/politics/10SCOT.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Overturning a 15-year-old environmental regulation, the Supreme Court ruled today that the Clean Water Act does not authorize the federal government to regulate the dredging and filling of isolated ponds and wetlands.

Depending on how future rulings define "isolated," the 5-to-4 decision could remove 20 percent of the country's waters from federal protection. It leaves in place federal regulation of wetlands that, while not actually navigable themselves, abut navigable rivers or their tributaries, an interpretation of the Clean Water Act the Supreme Court upheld in 1985.

The decision was based on an interpretation of Congressional intent rather than on a conclusion about constitutional limits on Congressional power. But the ruling was nonetheless very much a part of the court's ongoing federalism debate, with the majority observing that the authority that the Army Corps of Engineers claimed over isolated waters would, if upheld, "result in a significant impingement of the states' traditional and primary power over land and water use."

For that reason, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said in his opinion for the court, Congress should not be understood to have granted the agency this degree of authority in the absence of a "clear statement" to that effect. He said there was no such statement in the Clean Water Act, a 1972 law that gives the Army Corps jurisdiction over dredging and filling of "navigable waters."

In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said the regulation was a "manifestly reasonable" interpretation of the Clean Water Act and was therefore entitled to the deference the Court usually gives to executive branch agencies' interpretations of their statutory authority. There was no reason to inject "the specter of federalism," he said.

The division on the court was a familiar one: Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion, while Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer joined the dissent.

Environmental advocates said that because few states protect isolated waters and wetlands, the decision today had removed an important tool from regulators. Timothy Searchinger, senior attorney with the group Environmental Defense, which filed a brief in the case, said that while the ruling "sounds modest and procedural," it actually offered a road map for the court to "strike down environmental rules it doesn't like," because Congress often uses broad language that the court could find insufficiently specific.

Carol M. Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the Clean Water Act with the Army Corps of Engineers, said the ruling would "make it even more difficult to effectively protect against the loss of wetlands," which she said were important for flood control and as natural filters as well as for wildlife habitat.

The regulation the court invalidated was known as the migratory bird rule, because it asserted jurisdiction over waters that were or could be used by birds that cross state lines or that are protected by international treaties. The Army Corps of Engineers, which issued the regulation in 1986, invoked it in 1994 to block a landfill project on an abandoned strip mine in northeastern Illinois.

The old strip mine had partly returned to forest, with the depressions left by the mining operations having turned into ponds that became a breeding ground for great blue herons. More than 100 species of birds had been seen at the site, which was bought in 1990 by a consortium of 23 municipalities, to use for disposing of solid waste. The project was approved by local and state agencies before the Army Corps, deciding that the migratory bird rule gave it jurisdiction, denied a permit.

The Illinois consortium sued in Federal District Court in Chicago on the ground that the Army Corps lacked jurisdiction over isolated waters. The consortium lost in the district court in 1998 and the next year in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which rejected the argument that the exercise of authority over isolated, intrastate waters exceeded Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. In the aggregate, the money that millions of people spend every year viewing or hunting migratory birds has a sufficiently substantial effect on commerce, the Chicago-based appeals court said.

But that constitutional theory looked doubtful after the Supreme Court last year struck down the Violence Against Women Act that rejected the argument that the aggregate economic effect of acts of violence against women had a substantial effect on commerce.

The court's decision last May to hear the Illinois consortium's appeal in this case, Solid Waste Agency v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, No. 99-1178, offered the prospect of a broad constitutional ruling that could cast doubt on an array of federal regulations. From the majority's point of view, that did not prove necessary. Chief Justice Rehnquist said the court interpreted the Clean Water Act "to avoid the significant constitutional and federalism questions raised" by the government's defense of the regulation.

The decision more than satisfied opponents of the migratory bird rule. George Van Dusen, the mayor of Skokie, Ill., and chairman of the consortium, said today that an opposite ruling "would have transformed the Army Corps of Engineers into a super zoning agency with land use authority over vast tracts with the power to block any projects approved by local or state agencies."

The current Supreme Court term offers several additional opportunities for the court to scrutinize federal environmental regulations. A pending petition, Gibbs v. Babbitt, No. 00- 844, challenges the constitutionality of a regulation issued under the Endangered Species Act that prohibits people from harassing, capturing or killing red wolves, currently being reintroduced into a federal wildlife refuge in North Carolina, that wander onto private property.

In another action today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of a federal immigration law that makes it easier for illegitimate children born overseas to American mothers to be deemed United States citizens than for children whose American parent is the father. The law requires American fathers to acknowledge paternity and promise support before the child is 18 in order for the child to be deemed a citizen, while those requirements are not placed on American mothers.

In a similar case three years ago, a majority of the court indicated that the different treatment violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection, but several found a procedural problem in that case. The case today, Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, No. 99- 2071, was brought by a Vietnamese- born man and the American father who raised him but did not formally acknowledge paternity until the son was in his 20's and facing deportation after a criminal conviction.

---

E.P.A. Designee Gives a Rosy Valedictory in New Jersey

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/nyregion/10WHIT.html?pagewanted=all

TRENTON, Jan. 9 - Her attention now fixed on Washington, Gov. Christie Whitman offered a rosy recollection of her seven years in office and presented only a few new initiatives today, in what is likely to be her last annual address to the Legislature.

In a carefully staged farewell performance in Trenton's ornate War Memorial auditorium, complete with a lengthy videotape showing Mrs. Whitman canoeing, kissing animals and trumpeting her many tax cuts, the governor claimed credit for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, slashing New Jersey's welfare rolls in half, cutting crime and lifting children out of poverty since taking office in 1994.

"By these and almost any objective measures, New Jersey today is a far better place in which to live, work and raise a family," she said, using a favorite refrain.

Democrats angrily noted that the governor had neglected to mention any of the failures of her administration, from the still-raging controversy over racial profiling to the climbing state debt, now about $15 billion, even before the start of an $8 billion bond issue for school construction.

Mrs. Whitman, who is to appear at a confirmation hearing next Tuesday in Washington over her nomination to lead the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said her time remaining as governor was short, and she refrained from proposing any ambitious new programs. The man who will fill out the rest of her term if she is confirmed for the E.P.A., Senate President Donald T. DiFrancesco, would be free to abandon them, after all.

Instead, the governor called for a few inexpensive measures to expand existing health insurance coverage for poor children and their parents, enlarge the labor pool for the high- technology sector and repair a growing list of decrepit state parks and historic sites.

Despite the pageantry of the occasion, which drew more than 1,600 people to the War Memorial, the strains in the governor's relationship with lawmakers could be glimpsed at times. Mrs. Whitman, who entered the auditorium to polite applause, mentioned Mr. DiFrancesco - the leading Republican candidate in the fall election for governor - only once. He received a long and rousing ovation.

Mrs. Whitman also said that her budget proposal, to be delivered in two weeks, would provide for a record $1 billion surplus at the end of the next fiscal year, an announcement from which Mr. DiFrancesco immediately distanced himself.

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Mr. DiFrancesco noted that such a budget-related announcement was unusual for an annual message. He said that the billion-dollar goal was Mrs. Whitman's, not his, and that he was more interested in sending larger amounts of money back to New Jersey homeowners in the form of property tax rebates.

Those tax rebates could cut into the surplus. Mr. DiFrancesco said he was committed to a surplus no smaller than what was proposed for the current fiscal year, or $870 million out of a budget of $21.5 billion.

Mrs. Whitman's address today often had the flavor of a high school class president's graduation speech. She recalled the disasters that occurred on her watch, like Tropical Storm Floyd. She cited the passage of Megan's Law, the package of laws requiring notification of residents when released sex offenders move into their neighborhoods. She gently alluded to the struggles over auto insurance and school financing.

And she noted proudly that her plan for preserving 1 million acres of open space over 10 years had already resulted in commitments for the purchase of about 200,000 acres. "We've preserved nearly as much land during this administration as was preserved under the Florio, Kean, Byrne, Cahill and Hughes administrations combined," she said.

But with Mrs. Whitman suddenly the lamest of lame ducks, and the fall elections for governor and both houses of the Legislature now dominating the political agenda, Democrats were harsh in their appraisal of the governor's record.

"She's acquired more debt than every governor from Hughes to Florio combined," said James E. McGreevey, the mayor of Woodbridge and so far the lone Democratic contender for governor. "That will be her lasting legacy."

Even Mrs. Whitman's modest initiatives today - none of which Mr. DiFrancesco said he was committed to - drew harsh rejoinders from some lawmakers and other critics.

Her largest proposal was to dedicate $25 million of the tax on real estate sales to pay for capital improvements to state parks, historic sites and wildlife areas.

But environmental advocates and Democrats called her proposal much too little, and seven years too late. Jeffrey Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said New Jersey now spends less per capita for capital repair and maintenance of its parks than any other state.

And the ranking Democrats in the Legislature, Assemblyman Joseph V. Doria Jr. and Senator Richard J. Codey, recalled that Mrs. Whitman had cut spending for state parks and other environmental programs by 30 percent in her first year as governor. That led to cuts in services, leaving some swimming areas without lifeguards and halting trash collection at state parks, Mr. Tittel said.

"The parks almost had to shut down because she slashed their budgets," Mr. Codey said. "Where have you been, Mrs. Whitman?"

The governor's other initiatives were mainly incremental. She called for $20 million, an increase of $5 million over last year, in grants to colleges and universities to strengthen programs in the hard sciences, computers and information technology, the education of science and math teachers and engineering.

Mrs. Whitman said her budget address later this month would include $200 million in programs to promote the high-tech sector.

She also called for an expansion of state programs that provide health insurance to poor children and their parents. The governor proposed allowing parents whose incomes are more than three and a half times the poverty level - or $59,675 for a family of four - to buy coverage for their children under KidCare, at a cost of about $126 a month per child. They are now excluded from the program, leaving nearly 45,000 children without medical coverage.

"Now it's time to reach every child," Mrs. Whitman said.

She also proposed spending $16 million to extend health coverage to about 21,000 childless adults whose incomes are less than twice the poverty level - or $16,700 for single residents, $22,500 for couples.

Finally, the governor proposed granting five $10,000 scholarships each year to young New Jerseyans "who perform heroic deeds." The scholarships should be named, she said, for Dana Christmas, a Seton Hall University resident adviser who was badly burned rescuing other students during a dormitory fire that killed three people last Jan. 19.

And with $10,000 in state money at her discretion, Mrs. Whitman said, she would award the first such scholarship to Ms. Christmas herself.

---

Two Germans Quit Cabinet for Handling of Beef Scare

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By ROGER COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/world/10BERL.html

BERLIN, Jan. 9 - The German health and agriculture ministers quit today over their handling of an outbreak of mad cow disease that has shattered consumer confidence in beef and even the country's beloved sausages.

The two officials, Andrea Fischer, the health minister and a member of the environmentalist Green Party, and Karl-Heinz Funke, the Social Democratic agriculture minister, became the first ministerial-level casualties of Europe's battle with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

The illness, believed to result from animal products in feed, has been linked to a nervous condition in humans - new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease - from which 80 people in Britain and 2 in France have died. Germany has had no human casualties, but panic over beef has been at a high level for weeks.

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder accepted the resignations without apparent regret, an indication that he had grown exasperated with the muddled response to the disease of the two ministers and encouraged them to quit. His government, riding high only weeks ago, is under pressure on several fronts.

In ecologically conscious Germany, which prides itself on its untainted products, the outbreak has come as a particular shock. This, and Mr. Schröder's low tolerance for errors, helps explain why the first resignations of officials have occurred here rather than in Britain or France.

Ms. Fischer, 40, said, "I have to acknowledge that public confidence in the government's ability to deal with this problem has been shattered." She was bitterly attacked, on the eve of the Christmas holidays, for announcing that some kinds of wurst, or sausage, might be dangerous, just days after she had said they presented no threat.

Many of Germany's several hundred varieties of sausage contain beef, and newspapers have been full of lists of the risk levels of the different kinds. Beef and sausage sales have plunged, while poultry is in unprecedented demand.

It was not only the sausage debacle that brought down the ministers. Ms. Fischer, an environmentalist who favors ecological farming practices, and Mr. Funke, a beef farmer with a keen interest in the large- scale industrialized methods of modern production, found themselves at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. One result was an often staggering confusion. Ms. Fischer was reluctant to pass on information to Mr. Funke, 54, who took to penning poems in praise of beef farming that led some newspapers to surmise that he had gone mad himself.

When the ministries did finally come up with a plan to reform the farm sector last week - including a proposed $240 million investment to encourage ecological farming practices - Mr. Funke promptly disavowed it and promised to draw up some new ideas more favorable to large-scale beef producers.

His reputation was further damaged when it emerged last weekend that more than one scientist had informed the minister that cases of the disease existed in Germany, but that he had ignored the warnings.

For a long time, the government's position was that Germany was free of mad cow disease because it used grain for feed rather than products containing animal feed. But since systematic testing began last autumn, several cases of the disease have been discovered. In all, 10 cases have been confirmed. The official explanation is that the cows were probably fed tainted grain.

Ms. Fischer admitted that she had made mistakes, but suggested that the real causes of the hysteria in Germany and throughout Europe were beyond the control of any minister. "The real cause of the crisis is to be found in the industrialized farming economy," she said. "Financial interests dominate and are put above consumer interests. On top of that, consumers are reluctant to pay the price for good food."

The resignations come at an awkward time for Mr. Schröder. Two other members of the cabinet have quit in recent months - former Transport Minister Reinhard Klimmt and former Culture Minister Michael Naumann. Mr. Klimmt was involved in a financing scandal; Mr. Naumann decided to return to the publishing industry.

In addition, three top ministers - Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Finance Minister Hans Eichel and Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping - are under pressure. Mr. Fischer (no relation to Ms. Fischer) has faced an outcry over photographs showing him beating a police officer as a militant leftist in the 1970's.

Mr. Eichel has been accused of using the air force plane at his disposal for personal flights - charges as yet unproven - and Mr. Scharping is facing questions over the exposure of soldiers to depleted uranium in NATO ammunition.

Those difficulties have not yet made a significant impact on Mr. Schröder's popularity, but they do provide the Christian Democrat opposition, long beleaguered, with a variety of new means to attack the chancellor before important regional elections in 10 weeks.

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Schroeder Replaces Cabinet Members

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 2:46 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Germany-New-Cabinet.html

BERLIN (AP) -- Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, fending off opposition questions about his government's competence, moved quickly Wednesday to replace two Cabinet ministers who resigned over the botched handling of Germany's mad cow disease outbreak.

Conservative leaders pounced on the crisis and problems dogging other ministers -- including questionable flights by the finance chief and failed pension reform proposals -- to urge a wider government shake-up.

But Schroeder, whose popularity remains high, insisted he would make no more changes ahead of the federal elections in 2002. Asked at a news conference whether he should have used the occasion to replace other ministers, Schroeder simply responded: ``Why should I?''

German officials had declared the country mad cow-free until the first case emerged in November. Since then, the total has grown to more than 10 sick animals, and the European Union has accused Germany's ministers of ignoring warnings for months.

After weeks of infighting and calls for their ouster, Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke and Health Minister Andrea Fischer stepped down late Tuesday. Their departures brought to seven the number of Cabinet members -- five of them ministers -- who have left their posts since Schroeder and the Social Democrats won power in 1998.

``The theater of the last few weeks shows the total incompetence of the Schroeder government,'' said Angela Merkel, chairwoman of the opposition Christian Democrats, who themselves are struggling to recover from a financial scandal around ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Other ministers under fire include:

--Finance Minister Hans Eichel, accused of using government planes for private trips or Social Democratic party events. Berlin prosecutors were determining whether to open an inquiry. Schroeder called the allegations ``totally unjustified.''

--Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, criticized for his handling of soldiers in the Balkans exposed to possible dangers from depleted uranium ammunition. Scharping insisted Wednesday that ``all assertions that timely and comprehensive action wasn't taken are totally without foundation.''

--Labor Minister Walter Riester, who was forced to change his high-profile plans to reform Germany's pension system, which is being pressured by an increasingly older population.

Even the highly popular Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's well-known radical past has resurfaced in public debate with the recent publication of photographs showing him scuffling with a police officer at a 1973 protest.

Schroeder said he saw no ``weaknesses'' in the Cabinet. ``I rarely ponder what the opposition says. I'm not impressed,'' he said Wednesday.

Instead, the chancellor appealed to populist sentiment, saying new Agriculture Minister Renate Kuenast, until now co-leader of the Greens party, also would be responsible for consumer protection and setting ``new priorities'' in farm policy.

Under Kuenast, organic farming and consumer protection will be at the forefront in a ministry traditionally close to the nation's farmers. Schroeder warned the powerful farm lobby to anticipate and accept a loss of influence.

``It is high time for a new course in the kind of agriculture and food we have,'' he said. ``We have to produce what is healthy, not just what can be sold.''

The head of the German Farmers' Union, Gerd Sonnleitner, urged Kuenast not to base reforms on ``ideological concepts,'' a reference to the Greens' critical view of industrial farming.

Ulla Schmidt, a Social Democrat, will replace Fischer as health minister. Schmidt, 51, is deputy head of her party's parliamentary faction and an expert on family policy and pensions.

---

Germany Replaces Cabinet Ministers

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 10:34 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mad-Cow.html

BERLIN (AP) -- Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder named new health and agriculture ministers Wednesday, replacing embattled predecessors who left over mishandling of Germany's escalating mad cow disease crisis.

With public confidence in his government at stake, Schroeder said the crisis that led to the hasty resignations Tuesday showed that Germany's farm industry must be restructured.

``It is high time for a new course in the kind of agriculture and food we have,'' Schroeder told a news conference. ``We have to produce what is healthy, not just what can be sold.''

In the most visible change, Schroeder tapped Greens party co-leader Renate Kuenast to lead the fight against the crisis. He put her in charge of a revamped agriculture ministry that will focus on consumer safety efforts. Previously, those efforts were spread among several departments.

The Greens, the German governing coalition's junior partner, have strong positions in favor of consumer protection and organic farming. Schroeder, too, called for ``new priorities'' in a farm industry he accused of focusing on economic profit at the expense of food safety.

``That is the only way to restore lost confidence among consumers,'' he said.

He said Germany would try to persuade its 14 European Union partners of the need for less industrial farming. But he gave few details of how the government would step up the fight against mad cow disease, saying his new farm minister would need time to develop concepts.

Kuenast, a 45-year-old lawyer, replaces Karl-Heinz Funke, a Social Democrat and farmer who quit Tuesday, hours after Health Minister Andrea Fischer announced her resignation. At an earlier news conference, Kuenast called for bringing agriculture ``close to nature.''

Ulla Schmidt, a Social Democrat, was named to replace Fischer, a Green. Schmidt, 51, is a deputy head of her party's parliamentary faction and an expert on family policy and pensions.

Fischer and Funke took the blame for errors and confusion in the government's response after Germany's first case of mad cow disease -- formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE -- was discovered six weeks ago. The number of infected cattle has now swelled to more than 10, and meat sales have plunged more than 50 percent.

Germany's main farm lobbyist reacted cautiously to Schroeder's announcements. Gerd Sonnleitner, head of the German Farmers' Union, offered to cooperate with the new agriculture minister but urged her not to base reforms on ``ideological concepts,'' such as the Greens' critical stand on industrial farming.

Opposition leaders criticized Schroeder for failing to carry out a wider shake-up in what they said is a weak set of ministers. ``Schroeder's repairs fall short by far,'' said Friedrich Merz, parliamentary leader of the Christian Democrats.

But Schroeder said he saw no reason for a bigger Cabinet shuffle. Seven Cabinet members -- five of them ministers -- have now resigned since Schroeder and the Social Democrats won power in September 1998.

For years, Germany insisted that its domestically born herds were free of BSE, which experts have linked to a new human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. About 80 people have died of the brain-wasting disease in Britain alone since the mid-1990s.

---

Germany finds replacements for ministers

USA Today
1/10/01- Updated 05:45 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwstue11.htm

BERLIN (AP) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government has agreed on replacements for the health and agriculture ministers, who resigned over mishandling of Germany's mad cow crisis, officials said Wednesday.

Leaders of the coalition reached an agreement on the new ministers replacements after the hasty resignations on Tuesday, government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said without revealing the names. Schroeder was to make an announcement later Wednesday.

A spokesman for Schroeder's Social Democratic party said the deputy head of the party's faction in parliament, Ulla Schmidt, would be named to replace Andrea Fischer, a Green, at the Health Ministry. The spokesman, Michael Donnermeyer, made no comment on the agricultural post.

The first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was discovered in a German cow six weeks ago, and government errors in handling the crisis have surfaced. Sales of German beef have dropped more than 50%. The number of infected cattle has now swelled to more than 10.

Fischer called a hasty news conference late Tuesday to announce her decision to step down, in hopes of restoring confidence in the country's efforts to battle the bovine disease. She had been accusations by some of ignoring warnings by government experts on industry practices and putting farmers' interests ahead of consumers'.

''I must acknowledge that the confidence of German citizens in the government's ability to solve the (mad cow) crisis has been shaken,'' she said.

Hours later, Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke told reporters he was also resigning, because he wanted to ''clear the way for a new beginning'' in agriculture politics.

For years, Germany insisted that its domestically born herds were free of BSE, which experts have linked to a new variant of its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. About 80 people have died of the brain-wasting disease in Britain alone since the mid-1990s.

After the resignations, Schroeder held late-night talks Tuesday with top members of the Social Democrats and their junior partner, the Greens.

The Cabinet was also meeting Wednesday to discuss the resignations and also possible restructuring of the ministries. The head of the Social Democrats parliament faction, Peter Struck, told west German broadcasting Wednesday morning that the Agriculture Ministry would also gain responsibility for consumer protection and food.

After recent discoveries of mad cow cases in Germany, France and elsewhere in Europe, countries across the continent have taken steps aiming to stop the disease's spread - particularly halting the use of animal remains in cattle feeds, thought to be a main route for BSE's transmission.

In Australia, which has banned imports of meat products from Europe, officials said Wednesday they would review the practice of including kangaroo, horse and pig remains in cattle feeds.

So far, no cases have been reported in the cattle herds of Australia, a major meat exporter to Asia and Europe.

---

Editorial Roundup

New York Times
January 10, 2001 Filed at 12:12 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Editorial-Rdp.html?pagewanted=all

Jan. 6
The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun, on President Clinton's land preservation initiative:

President Clinton infuriated Republicans this week when he signed a sweeping executive order that will place more than 58 million acres of national forests lands off limits to road building, logging, mining and other harmful activities. But President-elect George W. Bush ought to be wary of any calls to reverse Clinton's historic land preservation initiative.

Deserved or not, Bush is coming into office with a reputation for being at best indifferent and at worst hostile toward environmental protection issues. ...

Bush ought not to underestimate the popularity of ``green'' issues with Americans. Indeed, he would do well to consider the depth of support for the ``roadless'' initiative that Clinton signed this week.

This plan was not concocted in isolation by a group of government bureaucrats, or even by environmental activists. Instead, it was a product of some 600 public hearings conducted over a lengthy period of time. Indeed, more than 1.7 million Americans spoke out in favor of a measure to better protect America's national forests against harmful uses. ...

Bush ought to respect the legitimacy of this historic forest conservation initiative. To do otherwise would be to fly in the face of both public sentiment and good government policy.

---

USA Today
01/01/10
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

California

Sacramento - The state will stop putting fingerling trout in most Sierra lakes above 4,000 feet for three years to study the impact the fish have on frogs. The lakes have been stocked for 51 years. But biologists are investigating whether the stock is linked to dwindling populations of mountain yellow-leg and Cascade frogs. Lakes without frog survival problems may be restocked.

D.C.

Investigators were trying to determine what chemicals may have been dumped into the district's sewer system, sickening 18 people who work at a water and sewer pumping station near the Navy Yard. They complained of headaches and nausea after inhaling a paint thinner-like odor. The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority said it could be a petroleum product.

Idaho

Boise - The Idaho Land Board filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service over the Clinton administration's national forest initiative banning road-building on 9.3 million acres. The board contends the agency's review was inadequate under federal requirements. The panel is worried that the roadless tracts may block access to state timber.

Illinois

Springfield - Corn farmers can expect to pay a hefty price for nitrogen fertilizer this spring. Experts blame the recent increase in the price of natural gas, a raw material in the production of ammonia which is used to make the fertilizer. Experts say farmers may need to ration fertilizer, although corn yield may not be affected.

Kentucky

Frankfort - The owner of a Lawrenceburg distillery where a fire caused a whiskey spill that killed fish in the Kentucky River last summer has paid for the damages. Boulevard Distillers, the parent company of Wild Turkey, paid $256,000 to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The money will be used to restock the river.

Louisiana

New Orleans - For the first time in several years, cold weather has killed thousands of fish all over Louisiana. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries officials say cold water temperatures probably killed 280,000 fish in a northeast Louisiana lake alone. Cold weather-related fish kills have been rare the past few years because of mild temperatures.

South Carolina

Charleston - Wildlife officials hope this year's midwinter bald eagle count will find an increased population. But they are concerned about a disease that has killed at least eight eagles on Strom Thurmond Lake. The state's count has risen from 36 eagles in 1979 to 453 last year.

Tennessee

Alcoa - Preservationists say the pioneer settlement of Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is in danger of being "loved to death." A new citizens group has formed to help preserve the broad mountain valley, dotted with log cabins and churches of its settlers. The valley is a major tourist attraction.

Utah

Salt Lake City - The Bureau of Land Management, using a Wyoming company that drops nets from helicopters, has begun impounding cattle in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. More than 70 cattle ventured into the monument's remote southeast corner, and their owners refuse to get them out. The operation could cost the federal government $42,000.

-------- germ weapons

Pentagon Cites Germ Weapon Threats

Associated Press
January 10, 2001 Filed at 1:39 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Germ-Weapon-Threats.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Germ weapons usually are viewed as a threat to U.S. troops and cities, but in a new report Wednesday the Pentagon said American ranches and farms also are highly vulnerable.

``Attacks against U.S. agricultural assets might be tempting, due to the perceived relative ease of attack'' and the likelihood that an attacker could plausibly deny responsibility, the Pentagon said in a report, ``Proliferation: Threat and Response.''

The report, signed by Defense Secretary William Cohen as one of his last acts before leaving office, outlines a wide range of threats posed by biological, chemical and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as the spread of missiles used to deliver such weapons. It updates a 1997 report on the same subject, but the latest version adds a section on biological agents, such as anthrax, that cause debilitating or deadly diseases in plants and animals, such as foot and mouth disease.

Protecting U.S. troops abroad from such germ weapons as anthrax has been a growing concern in recent years. In 1997, Cohen ordered all active duty troops inoculated against anthrax, although the program has been hobbled by limited supplies of vaccine and resistance from some troops who fear the vaccine may have unintended health consequences.

Anthrax is considered the easiest germ weapon to make and use. When inhaled as tiny, dry particles, it can cause severe pneumonia and death within a week.

``Similar to the human population, the high health status of crop and livestock assets in the United States creates a great vulnerability to attack with biological agents,'' the Pentagon report said. It said highly infectious plant and animal microorganisms exist outside U.S. borders and some are readily transportable with little risk of detection.

A germ weapon attack on U.S. agriculture could disrupt the supply lines for food stocks, which in turn could undermine U.S. military readiness, the report said.

The former Soviet Union apparently had a plan in place to target U.S. agriculture and livestock as one part of a larger ``disruptive process,'' and it developed a range of biological agents that would be effective in such attacks, the report said. It provided no other details on the Soviet plan, including when it was developed or when Washington learned of it.

The Pentagon report also outlined more commonly discussed aspects of limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It said China and Russia are the main suppliers of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons equipment and technologies, as well as missile technologies.

It said China's record on proliferation has improved in recent years and it has lived up to pledges to forego all nuclear cooperation with Iran, which the United States believes is intent on developing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons.

Even so, China ``likely will continue to take advantage of ambiguities'' in its nonproliferation commitments to advance its own interests, the report said.

In a message introducing the report, Cohen said the United States faces a ``superpower paradox'' at the start of the 21st century.

``Our unrivaled supremacy in the conventional military arena is prompting adversaries to seek unconventional, asymmetric means to strike what they perceive as our Achilles heel,'' Cohen wrote. He cited North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya as the main concerns.

``Also looming on the horizon is the prospect that these terror weapons will increasingly find their way into the hands of individuals and groups of fanatical terrorists or self-proclaimed apocalyptic prophets.'' Cohen added that followers of Osama bin Laden, accused by U.S. officials of bombing U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, have already trained with toxic chemicals.


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

Creditors Warn Russia Against Shirking

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/world/10RUSS.html

MOSCOW, Jan. 9 - Russia's official creditors issued a stern warning today, telling the government that it had no economic basis for putting off payments on $48 billion in debt.

The creditors said that, given Russia's favorable economic situation nowadays, they expected it to pay both the interest and the principal.

The statement is the latest step in a tussle over Soviet-era debts that Russia inherited but now says it cannot pay in full. The payments are due to a group of governments, including the United States, known as the Paris Club.

The warning follows a weekend visit to Moscow by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, during which President Vladimir V. Putin spoke optimistically of paying all the debt. Despite the amicable atmosphere of the weekend, Western creditors, including Germany, the government that has lent the most to Moscow, appear to be laying down a marker for negotiations.

Russia has a spotty history with paying its debts. It has defaulted on debt to the Paris Club twice since the fall of the Soviet Union, and is now asking creditors to recast the terms of repayment once again.

Talks with the Paris Club can begin officially only after the country secures an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which would take place in March at the earliest.

Until then, the government will conduct informal talks.

Russia announced today that it could not meet all payments this year. Only certain interest payments will be made, while principal payments will be skipped entirely, said Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, as quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax.

The government has been sending conflicting signals about its intentions to pay its Soviet-era debts, and the statement today further muddied Russia's position.

Russia's negotiating strategy has been to draw fine distinctions between types of debt, some of which it agrees to pay, some not.

The government now says it will make selective payments before an agreement is reached, while creditors are insisting on full payment until then.

That might be difficult, because only a small portion of what the government owes the Paris Club is included in the budget this year. Of the $1.5 billion owed in the first quarter, Russia made allowances for only $307 million.

Russia missed a payment to Germany last week. Though Russian officials announced today that a $10.5 million payment would be transferred on Wednesday, it was unclear if that would cover the missed payment. Another debt falls due this week.

"I don't know what the outcome of the negotiations will be, but it's very clear that Russia will apply a high degree of pressure to get something," said Jean Lemierre, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and former chairman of the Paris Club, as quoted by Reuters.

With about $3 billion in additional revenue last year and benefiting from the high price of oil, which is Russia's main export and cash earner, creditors argue that Russia has more than enough money to meet its debt payments.

-------- police

New York Will Pay $50 Million in 50,000 Illegal Strip-Searches

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/nyregion/10STRI.html?pagewanted=all

The Giuliani administration has agreed to pay up to $50 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of tens of thousands of people who were illegally strip-searched after being arrested for minor offenses, many of which fell under the city's crackdown on quality of life violations.

The searches were conducted by jail guards in Manhattan and Queens during 10 months in 1996 and 1997. Many of the victims of the illegal searches were first-time offenders who were arrested for minor infractions like loitering, disorderly conduct or subway offenses.

The $50 million class action settlement could be paid out to more than 50,000 people who were arrested during the 10 months. The lawsuit recounts several cases of men and women with no arrest record who said they felt humiliated as they were ordered to disrobe, lift their breasts or genitals for visual inspections, and to squat and cough.

The minimum award will be $250, the maximum $22,500, though individual plaintiffs can appeal if they think they deserve a higher award based on their emotional suffering. A plaintiff who spent thousands of dollars on psychiatric care in the aftermath of a strip-search could seek additional damages to cover the fees, for example.

All told, the settlement would be the largest in a civil rights suit against New York City, lawyers said, and appears to be one of the largest civil rights settlements against a municipality anywhere.

The agreement, which is subject to approval by Judge John S. Martin Jr. of Federal District Court in Manhattan, and has not yet been announced, comes after two years of negotiations over how to compensate such a huge pool of victims.

The deal includes a novel formula that seeks to tailor awards to the circumstances of each search and the resulting emotional impact. Both sides agreed that some victims had suffered more and therefore deserved more, like first-time offenders or those who endured abusive conduct by jail guards, or women who were menstruating.

But for others, the psychological impact may have been less. For example, the settlement reduces the probability of larger awards for people who previously served time in prison, where strip-searches are routine. This part of the settlement would seem to address concerns that serious criminals or people who did not suffer psychological injury could benefit substantially.

The city's Department of Correction has said that it adopted the policy of strip-searching all people arrested on minor charges "for security purposes." But a federal appeals court had ruled in 1986 that the Fourth Amendment barred strip- searches of people charged with misdemeanors or other minor offenses unless there was reasonable suspicion that weapons or contraband were concealed.

"This is a precedent-setting settlement," said Richard D. Emery, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, "because it recognizes the degrading and dehumanizing aspects of a strip- search, and attempts to mold compensation to the individual circumstances of each victim of the city's ill-conceived policy."

He added that given the large numbers of victims involved, the sliding scale formula for damage awards, which adds or subtracts points depending on the circumstances of the search and on whether a plaintiff has a criminal record, was the best resolution to the case.

"It would be silly to deny that this is rough justice," Mr. Emery said. "It's just better justice than any other alternative."

The city's corporation counsel, Michael D. Hess, said his office had tried to address the case "in a way that is fair to the class of plaintiffs as well as to the city."

The settlement includes an aggressive campaign to find eligible claimants. Citing the possibility that tens of thousands will seek awards, Mr. Hess added: "We feel the settlement is one that protects the taxpayers in the best possible way. The money doesn't grow on trees. It must come from the taxpayers."

Mr. Hess also pointed to the aspects of the settlement that make it difficult for people to recover larger sums if they have been through the criminal justice system. "We don't want bad people to profit," he said.

There is some disagreement over when the strip-searches stopped, and consequently, on how many people are eligible to file claims.

Both sides agree that the practice existed from July 1996 to May 1997, a period in which the city's records show that about 58,000 people were strip-searched, Mr. Emery said. He said the plaintiffs have evidence, however, that the searches extended into June 1997, which would mean that perhaps another 4,000 people were searched. Judge Martin will rule on how long the policy lasted.

Correction officials rescinded the policy on May 27, 1997, shortly after Mr. Emery's law firm filed the class- action lawsuit. Mr. Emery said that one partner, Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, discovered that the city was conducting illegal searches in the course of another lawsuit and that their law firm alerted the city.

The policy was in effect when the current police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik, was first deputy commissioner of the Department of Correction. The commissioner then was Michael P. Jacobson.

The settlement does allow for plaintiffs to "opt out" and file individual lawsuits. If more than 150 people do so, the city has the option to void the settlement, since New York would then face the possibility of both a massive payout under the settlement and potentially staggering jury verdicts.

In the first case to go to trial involving one of the illegal strip- searches, a federal jury in Manhattan in May 1999 awarded Debra Ciraolo, a Greenwich Village resident who was arrested in a domestic dispute, $5 million in punitive damages and $19,500 in compensatory damages. Although the punitive verdict was later thrown out, the compensatory damages suggested New York faced a huge liability in individual lawsuits.

The sliding scale for compensation works this way: any eligible person is entitled to a minimum payment of $250 by filling out the proper forms.

Claimants may pursue a second step, in which points are awarded, worth up to $500 each, up to a total of $9,750, depending on circumstances.

Two points are awarded to people searched without privacy. Men in Manhattan were searched in groups, for example, while women were usually searched individually.

The formula also awards two points to women who can show they were strip-searched during their menstrual cycle.

Abusive conduct by jail guards can result in eight more points. Claimants also get eight points if they were ultimately acquitted of the offense for which they were arrested.

Point totals are halved for those previously convicted and imprisoned.

Claimants can pursue a third step by trying to show they suffered greater psychological damage. Such claims, in which they could receive $12,500 more, for a total of $22,500, must be backed by medical records, or possible evaluation by a court- appointed psychologist.

The class-action suit was originally filed on behalf of Danni Tyson and other plaintiffs who were strip- searched in Manhattan and Queens, where correction officials had assumed the responsibility for holding people waiting to be arraigned. That had previously been a police job.

Ms. Tyson's case was typical, Mr. Emery said. On April 10, 1997, Ms. Tyson, 48, a secretary in the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest stemming from an incident on a Manhattan subway train, the suit says.

It says Ms. Tyson, who had no prior arrest record, was taken to Central Booking, next to the Criminal Court at 100 Centre Street, and ordered to disrobe and lift up her breasts for an inspection while other guards walked by.

No contraband was found and the charges were later dismissed.

Under terms of the deal, the city is not obligated to pay $50 million if the total number of claims results in less than that figure.

But the settlement includes a floor of $19.5 million. If the city's obligation turns out to be less than that, Judge Martin will decide how the money will be used, after consulting with both sides.

Possible claimants may call a toll- free number (866-99-TYSON).

---

Mayor's Dispute With the Police Gives a Sense of Déjà Vu

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By KEVIN FLYNN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/nyregion/10PBA.html?pagewanted=all

A little over eight years ago, Rudolph W. Giuliani stood on a sound stage a block from City Hall, shouting encouragement to 10,000 officers who had gathered to denounce Mayor David N. Dinkins for what they viewed as his poor treatment of the police. Tomorrow, many of those officers are expected to return there to show their dissatisfaction with a different mayor: Mr. Giuliani.

Officials of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association said they expected as many as 8,000 officers to attend a rally to denounce the Giuliani administration for failing to offer them a new labor contract with a substantive raise.

In many respects, the event is a public relations ploy by a union that has reached a stalemate in contract talks with a mayor who has been an extremely effective labor negotiator. But the rally also appears to demonstrate the extent of police anger toward Mr. Giuliani, whose popularity with officers, which was sky high when he stood with them in protest, has been sinking since his administration negotiated a contract with a two-year wage freeze in 1995.

"Rudy Giuliani at one time stood outside City Hall and promised us a lot," said Patrick Lynch, the P.B.A. president, "and it's ironic that now we will stand on his front door, not for him to give us false praise, but for him to give us a raise."

To get their message across effectively, however, police union officials will have to avoid what happened in 1992, when their last major demonstration outside City Hall degenerated into a rowdy disturbance.

Thousands of off-duty officers, some of them drinking beer, blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, while others screamed racial epithets about Mr. Dinkins, the city's first black mayor, or broke through police lines to storm City Hall's steps.

Police officials, who determined that officers assigned to control the 1992 demonstration were "lethargic at best," said they had assigned a large security detail, heavily weighted with supervisors, to oversee tomorrow's rally.

In addition, orders have been sent to all commanders telling them to warn officers that they are expected to behave at the rally.

For his part, Mr. Lynch promised an orderly demonstration. He said that a similar police rally in Battery Park last summer ended without incident and that "the drink of choice that day was mineral water." But to be safe, the union has assigned delegates to serve as rally marshals, and it sent two letters to officers, reminding them that unruly conduct would undermine their cause.

The city and the police union remain far apart in contract discussions, and the figure the mayor has mentioned as a possible yearly raise, 2.5 percent, is about a tenth of what the union is demanding.

The current starting salary for an officer is $31,305.

To make their case tomorrow, union officials said they would focus on the higher pay earned by officers in nearby cities and counties and would present remarks by Maria Dziergowski, the widow of Officer Matthew Dziergowski, who was killed on duty in 1999.

"My husband felt very strongly that the police were greatly underpaid," Mrs. Dziergowski said yesterday, "and I feel that I owe it to him to show my support."

Measuring police dissatisfaction with the mayor is an inexact science, but few dispute that Mr. Giuliani is far less popular than he was in 1992, when he drew huge cheers by using an expletive to denounce Dinkins administration policies.

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch called it funny that Mr. Giuliani would now be the subject of a similar demonstration. "I think David Dinkins should go down there just for the fun of it," Mr. Koch said.

Mr. Dinkins declined the advice. "I assure you," he said, "that while I may sympathize with the officers in the dispute they have with Rudy on a contract, I will not be out on a flatbed yelling expletives."

Joseph Mercurio, a political consultant, said that even though much of Mr. Giuliani's success had been achieved with the help of police officers, he did not believe that the demonstration would do much to influence the mayor at the bargaining table.

"It has to affect him a little, and more so than if the teachers' union did it," Mr. Mercurio said. "But he has proven over the years to be a very tough labor negotiator. Whether he personally believes the officers deserve a raise, he has taken a very corporate style of management and views it in a very dispassionate, professional manner."

Thomas Reppetto, a crime analyst and co-author of "N.Y.P.D.: A City and Its Police" (John Macrae/Holt, 2000), said Mr. Giuliani was not the first person highly respected by the police to become a target of their protests.

He cited the case of Mike Codd, a police commissioner whose popularity declined when the city began laying off officers during the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970's. Angry officers ended up picketing his house, Mr. Reppetto said.

"Whatever the previous relations," Mr. Reppetto said, "union negotiations often turn on `What have you done for me lately?'"

---

4th Woman Claims a Police Officer Made Her Expose Herself

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By TINA KELLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/nyregion/10NAKE.html

GARDEN CITY, N.Y., Jan. 9 - Investigators for the Suffolk County Police Department met today with a fourth woman who says that a patrolman made her expose herself to him during a traffic stop, the police said.

Three other women came forward last week to say that a highway patrol officer had made them undress, or feel compelled to show him their breasts, to avoid arrests on drunken-driving charges. Two of those women have identified the officer as Frank Wright, a nine-year veteran of the department.

The fourth woman, who, through her lawyer, Gary Gramer of Lake Grove, requested anonymity, said she was stopped just after midnight on New Year's Day in Shirley after her car swerved on the William Floyd Parkway. When the officer asked if she had been drinking, the woman, 46, said no, and explained that she had swerved because she was trying to pick up her cellular phone.

The officer threatened to give her a sobriety test, Mr. Gramer said. The lawyer added that the officer asked her what she was wearing under her sweatshirt, and told her to unzip it, which she did, showing him her bra. He then let her go, the lawyer said.

Lt. William Rohrer, a police spokesman, would not say if Officer Wright had been involved in this traffic stop, but added, "We still have no reason to believe that we're looking at a second officer involved."

Officer Wright's lawyer, David Davis, would not comment on the case, said a woman who answered the phone at his office.

Police have confirmed that Officer Wright was involved in the two traffic stops in which women say they were forced to undress. One woman, Julianna Rubio, 19, of Ridge, said that on Dec. 27, she was made to stand in front of the officer for 10 minutes, wearing only her socks, to avoid arrest. A second woman, Angelina Torres, 27, of Mastic Beach, said that on Jan. 1, she was made to strip to her underpants and high heels and walk four blocks to her home. Both women have filed papers with the Suffolk County attorney indicating that they intend to sue the county.

The third woman to come forward, Tracy Deon, 34, of Rocky Point, said last week that in September, she was handcuffed and driven around in the back of a highway patrol car for almost an hour by an officer she could not identify. She said his gestures led her to believe that the only way she would be released from custody would be to show him her breasts. Ms. Deon said that she spoke to a sergeant on duty in the area that night, and that he came to the house the next day to dissuade her from filing a complaint.

Mr. Gramer said she identified the sergeant as Joshua Wertheim. Sergeant Wertheim, 53, has been with the force for 22 years and is Officer Wright's supervisor, the police said. He was not available for comment.

Sgt. Vincent Ward said he did not believe that Sergeant Wertheim was being charged with anything. "I'm sure they're questioning him also to find out his role also, and if it warrants administrative charges against him, I'm sure they'll do it," Sergeant Ward said.

Meanwhile, the county police commissioner, John C. Gallagher, today ordered the creation of a criminal investigation team, headed by Detective Lt. Peter Desposito, who worked in the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau for seven years.

Last week, Officer Wright was suspended without pay for violating department procedures, and the F.B.I. began a preliminary inquiry. Mr. Gramer said agents interviewed the first three women to come forward for more than four hours on Sunday. The county's district attorney plans to make a presentation to a grand jury, but no date has been set, a spokeswoman said today.

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Report: N.J. still profiles motorists

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 12:43 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed06.htm

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Minorities made up a larger percentage of those stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, but a smaller portion of arrests, new figures show. The state Attorney General's office was to release the data as part of a federal consent decree to end racial profiling, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported in Wednesday's editions.

The data shows that 40% of motorists stopped from May 1 to Oct. 31 were black, Hispanic or of another minority group, up from 38% in the previous four-month period.

But minorities accounted for 60% of turnpike arrests, down from 63%, the newspaper said, citing sources familiar with the report.

''The numbers are a little disparate,'' said David Jones, vice president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association.

State Police Superintendent Col. Carson Dunbar and Attorney General John Farmer Jr. declined to comment.

It was the second release of data prepared for federal monitors reporting to U.S. District Judge Mary Cooper.

Cooper is overseeing a legal settlement reached in December 1999 between the state and the U.S. Justice Department to avoid a federal civil-rights lawsuit.

The monitors were also expected to issue a quarterly report Wednesday assessing the state's work. That report, the Star-Ledger said, will show steady progress, particularly on police training.

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Anti-cop N.H. lawmaker resigns

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 05:56 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed07.htm

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A newly elected state lawmaker who called for the killing of police officers in certain cases resigned Wednesday under pressure from his party and the voters.

Rep. Tom Alciere, a Republican from Nashua, informed the secretary of state and the House speaker of his resignation in a letter.

Alciere, 41, had said earlier this week that he would step down if fellow lawmakers put his bills to a vote in the full House. Another freshman lawmaker, Manchester Republican Gary Greenberg, has tentatively agreed to substitute his name for Alciere's on eight bills, according to Carol Holahan, director of the Legislature's bill-drafting office. She said Alciere has until Jan. 19 to sign off on the bills.

The bills deal with education, underage drinking and drug abuse, among other issues, but not the police.

''I don't even know what's in the bills,'' Greenberg said. ''My main concern was he was a distraction to the House. I was willing to come out and help him go.''

Alciere did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Alciere also reserved the right to run in the special election that would be needed to fill his seat. It wasn't immediately known whether he planned to run again.

State GOP leaders and Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, had called for his resignation, suggesting he misled voters.

''Tom Alciere misled the voters about his extremist opinions,'' the governor said. ''In New Hampshire, we respect and honor our citizens who serve in uniform.''

Alciere has acknowledged posting anti-police messages on the Internet, including one that said: ''There is nothing wrong with slaughtering a cop. Just throw the carcass into the Dumpster with the rest of the garbage.''

Alciere, a married father of one who said he is a circuit board inspector, has said his anger stems from reading and watching television about police misconduct.

Alciere did not express his anti-police views during the campaign, which he won by 55 votes. He said no one asked.

In a separate case, state Rep. Ron ''Tony'' Giordano has revealed a criminal past he didn't disclose to New Hampshire voters. The Republican from Salem said this week that he did two stints in jail in Massachusetts during the early 1980s for five check-forging convictions and one handcuff-stealing incident. He was known as Ron Gordon at the time.

''We all make mistakes. I've turned my life around,'' Giordano said.

Giordano, who moved to Salem six years ago after changing his name, said he would step down only if his 6,000 constituents demanded he quit.

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Gunmen in Turkey open fire on police

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 06:24 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Masked gunmen fired on a police car in a poor part of Istanbul on Wednesday, killing one officer and injuring another, police said. As of Wednesday evening the three gunmen had not been caught or identified. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on left-wing groups. Turkish police have increased security following recent attacks that have left three police officers dead and more than two dozen injured.

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USA Today
01/01/10
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Indiana

Kokomo - Howard County Sheriff Jerry Marr's second-in-command has removed himself from an investigation of his boss. Sheriff Major Dave McKinney turned the probe over to department detective Steve Rogers because he thought someone who is not as close to Marr should handle it. Marr is accused of using county money to remodel a home he shares with his girlfriend.

Maryland

Annapolis - A bill making it illegal for most Marylanders to own body armor will be part of Gov. Glendening's legislative package for the session opening today. Glendening said the bill would help protect police officers by keeping body armor out of the hands of criminals.

Minnesota

St. Paul - The agency that licenses Minnesota police officers plans to require law enforcement agencies to follow a written policy to prevent racial profiling. Police will be barred from making traffic stops based on race and are to be trained in avoiding racial profiling. The board will check on officers and could discipline them, officials said.

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Bin Laden appears at son's wedding

USA Today
01/10/01- Updated 01:31 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed09.htm

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden appeared happy and smiling at his son's wedding in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in footage shown Wednesday on an Arab satellite channel.

Al-Jazeera channel said the wedding of Mohammed bin Laden took place Tuesday and was attended by Afghan officials and Arabs residing in Afghanistan.

Mohammed bin Laden married the daughter of Abu Hafas al-Masri, an Egyptian aide to the elder bin Laden who fought with him in the 1980s against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera said. It did not give the name of the bride.

The younger bin Laden, wearing a traditional white Arab headdress, was shown sitting on a carpet between his father, who was wearing a white turban, and another man believed to be al-Masri. Two masked bodyguards could be seen in the background.

A beaming elder bin Laden appeared healthy in Al-Jazeera's footage. Reports have surfaced in the past year that he was suffering from kidney and liver disease.

The bride and the groom were both born in Pakistan when their fathers were fighting in neighboring Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera said. It did not give their ages.

The guests included Ayman el-Zawahiri, the leader of Egypt's Jihad, a militant group linked to the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, the channel reported.

El-Zawahiri is known to be close to bin Laden and also believed to have been living in Afghanistan for years.

The station said the wedding speeches touched on the Palestinian uprising. El-Zawahiri was the first to speak.

Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire dissident, has been indicted by the United States for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

Days after the bombings, the United States fired dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles on eastern Afghanistan in retaliation and to pre-empt more planned terrorist attacks on Americans.

The Taliban, Afghanistan's hard-line Muslim rulers, have refused to hand bin Laden over, saying Washington has not provided proof of his guilt and that it is against Afghan tradition to hand over a guest to his enemies.

Last month, the United Nations imposed fresh sanctions on the Taliban to press a demand that they hand over bin Laden for trial in the United States or a third country.

Earlier this week, a key suspect facing trial in connection with the Oct. 12 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden told authorities he believes the suicide bombers were acting on the orders of bin Laden. The Cole bombing left 17 American service people dead and 39 wounded.

Bin Laden has vowed in the past to fight the ''enemies of Islam'' - an apparent reference to the United States, Israel and the Saudi royal family.

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'Terrorists in Retirement': Unsung Resistance Fighters

New York Times
January 10, 2001
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/arts/10TERR.html

Mosco Boucault's film "Terrorists in Retirement" provoked a scandal 16 years ago when it was initially banned from French television, and it is not hard to see why. The documentary, which is having its belated American theatrical debut today at the Film Forum, is a scathing if minor footnote to "The Sorrow and the Pity," Marcel Ophüls's 1971 epic exposé of French collaboration with the Nazis, which itself was banned from French television (for 10 years).

"Terrorists in Retirement" lacks the breadth of its devastating forerunner, and except for one horrifying description of torture, most of its witness accounts of wartime events are skimpier and less dramatic. Yet the film still succeeds in removing another chip from whatever remains of the crumbling national myth (discredited by "The Sorrow and the Pity") of heroic French solidarity in fighting the Nazi occupation.

The film presents a group portrait of several surviving members of the immigrant, mostly Jewish arm of the French Resistance. It focuses on the recollections of a handful of stateless partisans who carried out some of the group's most dangerous missions during the occupation but who, because of their backgrounds, never received recognition. The movie shows how they were betrayed by their Communist leaders for reasons of political expediency, national image, and anti-Semitism.

Beginning in 1943, the Communist Party began deliberately dispatching the partisans on missions that their Communist leaders knew would lead to their arrest and probable execution. Their betrayal came to light that year when Missak Manouchian, the immigrants' militant Armenian leader, was arrested and later executed with 22 other partisans. The film offers conflicting speculations (including the testimony of Manouchian's widow) as to what actually happened. Eventually almost all of the group's 200 members were rounded up and executed.

The Nazis claimed all along that the Resistance was really a Judeo- Communist plot. After the executions, they circulated a poster denouncing the immigrants as "Jewish, Armenian and other stateless terrorists," which helped further separate them in the official record from the true (French-born) heroes of the Resistance.

Most of the men interviewed for "Terrorists in Retirement" were in their 60's and 70's when the film was made and lived inconspicuously in the 11th arrondissement in eastern Paris, where they worked as tailors. Refugees from Central and Eastern Europe who had fled Nazi oppression to settle in Paris in the late 1930's and early 40's, they had less to lose than their French counterparts and were more willing to risk their lives.

The film follows several of these men to sites where they committed terrorist acts four decades earlier and has them re-enact those events, which some do with a swaggering cloak-and-dagger zest. One man demonstrates how easy it was to assemble a pipe bomb (the movie bleeps the names of the incendiary ingredients). Wielding such weapons was extremely risky, since they detonated only seconds after they were tossed. As these men reminisce about the war and revisit their past, traces of their youthful ferocity bubble up along with a simmering rage and sorrow at the destruction of their families by the Nazis.

As disquieting as its message may be, "Terrorists in Retirement" is not a gripping movie, and it is bogged down by the inevitable and necessary historical minutiae. The scenes of these former partisans re-enacting their deeds are crudely filmed, not very dramatic, and occasionally silly-looking. At the same time, the sight of these unsung heroes with their bitter memories bent over their sewing machines is inescapably poignant.

"Terrorists in Retirement" is an uncomfortable reminder that as much as we would like to believe that history is written in stone, it is never really settled. As long as there are survivors to tell their stories, history remains unfinished business. And even then, memories can fail, stories, theories and agendas clash. The most we can hope for is a reasonable approximation of the truth.

TERRORISTS IN RETIREMENT

Directed by Mosco Boucault; in French, with English subtitles; directors of photography, Jean Orjollet and Philippe Rousselot; edited by Christiane Lehérissey; music by Jean Schwarz. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, South Village. Running time: 84 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Simone Signoret and Gérard Desarthe (narrators).

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USA Today
01/01/10
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

New Hampshire

Concord - Demonstrations for an imprisoned American Indian leader are planned when President Clinton visits the state on Thursday. Clinton will be urged to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, convicted in 1976 of killing two FBI agents during a shootout with a radical Indian group. Rally organizers say Peltier was convicted unjustly.

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New York Times
January 10, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/10/world/10BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

BRITAIN: BLAIR TARGET OF TOMATO Prime Minister Tony Blair was hit in the back by a tomato thrown by a demonstrator protesting British support for sanctions on Iraq as he arrived in Bristol to make a speech on domestic politics to a college audience. Mr. Blair continued to smile and wave and made no mention of the incident. Two women and a man were arrested. Warren Hoge (NYT)

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Left-wing groups join now to stop Ashcroft

Washington Times
January 10, 2001
By Dave Boyer
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001110225655.htm

A coalition of liberal groups yesterday vowed to defeat the nomination of conservative former Sen. John Ashcroft for attorney general with the help of new feminist senators such as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Democrats facing re-election.

"We will fight this nomination tooth and nail," said Hilary Shelton, top Washington lobbyist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

More than 200 organizations, ranging from the Sierra Club to homosexual-rights groups to the gun-control lobby, have banded together to challenge not only Mr. Ashcroft but Interior Secretary-designee Gale A. Norton and Labor Secretary nominee Linda Chavez, who quit yesterday amid questions about her aiding an illegal immigrant years ago.

The early "kill" of one of the three most controversial Bush Cabinet nominees puts blood in the water for Democrats in the Senate hungry to satisfy their labor-union, pro-choice constituents and other left-wing constituencies for more "kills," according to one group of Bush advisers.

Others agreed.

"It clears the road for full attention back on Ashcroft," said David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual-rights group.

At a press conference at the swank Mayflower Hotel yesterday, a parade of leaders of liberal groups berated Mr. Ashcroft as an enemy of blacks, women and "working people." They said as attorney general, Mr. Ashcroft would ignore hate crimes, restrict abortion rights and even allow rat poison in drinking water -a reference they said was a past vote to weaken the Clean Water Act.

"John Ashcroft has been an ardent opponent of women's rights for over 20 years," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority.

Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, said Mr. Ashcroft "might make an excellent choice to head the Christian Coalition or the [National Rifle Association], but he is not qualified to lead the U.S. Department of Justice."

The interest groups are besieging senators with personal visits, promising to withhold campaign funds from uncooperative senators. They also are poring over Mr. Ashcroft's Senate votes and televised interviews, issuing "action alerts" to their members and encouraging the media to publish and broadcast negative news stories about the nominees.

Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, said pro-choice groups opposed to Mr. Ashcroft are counting on "some of the five or six feminists" in the Senate, including Mrs. Clinton, who was sworn in last week and has yet to be assigned to any committees. The Senate now has a record 13 women.

Asked if Mrs. Clinton will help her feminist allies fight the Ashcroft nomination, Miss Ireland said, "We're about to find out."

Aides to Mrs. Clinton did not return several phone messages yesterday.

No senator has come out explicitly against Mr. Ashcroft yet. But Democrats who are expected to be especially sympathetic to the coalition's views include Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, temporary chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware; Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose Capitol Hill office was the site of a coalition strategy session last week.

President-elect George W. Bush's choice of Mr. Ashcroft, a pro-life former governor of Missouri, has reunited many of the same well-funded liberal groups that joined forces in 1987 to defeat President Reagan's nomination of conservative federal judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

"The liberal groups are getting their coalitions out of mothballs," said Clint Bolick, executive director of the conservative Institute for Justice in Washington. "Once they get together, they have a very powerful arsenal."

The effort also is showing a grim cost-effectiveness of such hardball politics: By pooling their resources, the liberal groups essentially are trying to take down three nominees for the price of one.

"The cost of talking about one person [with senators] and the cost of talking about two people are about the same," said Damon Silvers, associate general counsel of the AFL-CIO.

Nobody is saying how much the coalition will spend fighting Mr. Ashcroft. The effort to bring down Judge Bork's nomination cost more than an estimated $10 million, but that battle lasted several months.

"We're all going to spend whatever it takes," said Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League. "We're seasoned operatives."

Said one conservative activist who regularly does battle with the Left: "They have a lot of financial resources," "Beyond that, they get a tremendous amount of free media -it's hard to put a dollar amount on that."

Miss Ireland said liberal groups like the National Organization for Women are using the Ashcroft nomination to lure back Democratic campaign workers who were dispirited by Vice President Al Gore's loss in the presidential election.

"Gore won the popular vote," Miss Ireland said in an interview. "A lot of people are still feeling really angry about the way that played out in the courts. A lot of these young, first-time activists worked so hard, and now they're saying 'For what?' Those are people I think we can offer a longer-term view: We lost the battle, but [the Ashcroft nomination] is the war."

Miss Ireland also said NOW intends to remind Democratic senators up for re-election in 2002 of the group's previous donations for their campaigns. Asked if that is a form of political blackmail, she replied, "We would call it 'allocating resources.'"

Among Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2002 are Mr. Biden, Mr. Durbin, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, Sen. Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Even if Ashcroft opponents persuaded all 50 Senate Democrats to oppose him, they would need at least one Republican to defeat him. Among the Republicans running for re-election in 2002 are Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Representatives of the coalition say they are urging Senate Democrats to hold Mr. Ashcroft's nomination hearing as soon as possible, while Democrats control the Senate until Jan. 20.

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)