------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Britain Leader Backs Missile Plan
UN Urges Wider Uranium Studies in Kosovo, Bosnia
China Calls on U.S. to Scrap Missile Shield Plan
Hoon is urged to 'come clean' over uranium report
German Ex - Minister Backs U.S. Missile Defense
Officials caution Bush not to 'militarize' Taiwan issue
Study finds no signif. increase of U in urine of German soldiers
German soldiers 'not affected' by DU
Germany issues uranium 'all clear'
U.N. plays down ammunition risk
"Ecol. Catastrophe & Health Hazards NATO Bombings"
Britain Dismisses '97 Report on Uranium
Facts About Depleted Uranium
Group Urges Balkan Uranium Cleanup
Uranium Furor Puts Kosovars in the Dark Again
Toxic NATO politics
Russia Wants Summit on Depleted Uranium Munitions
UN Health Agency Urges Clean-Up of Uranium Sites
'Defusing tension key to stable S. Asia'
Clinton Predicts North Korea Success for Bush
Nuclear Duty for Reservists
Search may resume for nuclear bomb lost off Georgia coast
At confirmation, Rumsfeld promotes missile defense
Electricity talks run out of steam
Nuke workers may get lost pay
No Pressure to Open A-Plant, Con Edison Tells Workers
Hanford on list of sites with beryllium hazard
Rumsfeld Calls for Missile Defense
Bush Candidate for Defense Job Sees Overhaul
Bush's Wild Card
Rumsfeld Impresses Armed Services Panel
MILITARY
North troops hid with refugees
Mitterrand's Son Free on Bail After 21 Days
Somalia supports regional arms curbs
Colombian rebel camp found in Ecuador
Stay the course
Commission that nominee headed says U.S. is vulnerable in space.
U.S. Should Improve Defense of Satellites, Panel Advises
The military get mightier
Clinton, at Odds With Pentagon, Says Gulf War Pilot May Be Alive
Marketing an Army of Individuals
Army Confirms G.I.'s in Korea Killed Civilians
Clinton suggests pilot may be alive
Shahab-3 test set
OTHER
Anti-AntiTrust
NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS
Norton Billed Alaska for Her Help
Global Warming Dispute
Genetic Advances Spark Fears of Science Gone Awry
Police Demonstrate for a Raise and Denounce Giuliani
New Jersey Sheriff Pleads Guilty to Fund-Raising Crimes and Loses Job
Metro Briefs
Working with Spain
Environmental Groups Join in Opposing Choice for Interior Secretary
Female Musicians Join Anti-Violence Benefit
-------- NUCLEAR
Britain Leader Backs Missile Plan
Associated Press
January 12, 2001 Filed at 10:33 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Missile-Defense.html
LONDON (AP) -- Britain's opposition Conservative Party declared its support Friday for a U.S. missile shield program which has been backed by President-elect Bush.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has taken no position on the so-called ``Son of Star Wars'' program, which might require use of some ground facilities in Britain.
``I think the United States should be supported in pushing forward this project and in pursuing the necessary research,'' Conservative leader William Hague said.
``I also welcome very much the President-elect's major campaign speeches which suggest that such a missile shield could provide protection for America's allies as well as the U.S. homeland.''
---
UN Urges Wider Uranium Studies in Kosovo, Bosnia
Reuters
January 12, 2001 Filed at 8:10 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/health-uranium.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - Top United Nations environmental officials, speaking as Kosovo war veterans voiced growing concern about cancer risks from depleted uranium (DU) weapons, called on Thursday for investigation of sites in Bosnia too.
Klaus Toepfer, head of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and Pekka Haavisto, who leads its Balkans Task Force team, which has collected samples at 11 sites in Kosovo, said all 112 Kosovo sites should be analyzed for possible health risks.
In the meantime, they appealed again for authorities to mark all the Kosovo sites and prevent local populations from nearing areas hit in 1999 by NATO forces until they can be cleared.
``We believe...that there should be a need to go to all of the sites (in Kosovo) simply to know are there still some parts (pieces of ammunition), are there some additional risks?'' Toepfer told a 90-minute news conference in Geneva.
``I also believe that what we are doing in Kosovo should be also done in the situation of Bosnia...,'' added Toepfer, a former German environment minister.
In response to a reporter's question on Iraq, Toepfer said that the Kosovo findings would form a ``better basis'' for deciding what measures might also be necessary in Iraq.
Iraq has blamed western munitions containing depleted uranium used during the 1991 Gulf War for thousands of cancer deaths and deformed infants. RESULTS AWAITED FROM 11 KOSOVO SITES
In November, UNEP experts tested 11 sites in the Italian and German peacekeeping sectors of western and southern Kosovo for radioactivity and toxicity in soil and water. Pieces of DU ammunition and evidence of beta-radiation were found at eight.
``When entering these 11 sites, I have to say we were surprised to find full penetrators and sabots lying on the ground. These have probably hit something and then just lost their speed and rolled around on the ground,'' said Haavisto.
``Some of these were near villages or in the middle of villages and at sites where people having their normal life--cows and children were there. It was a little bit disturbing.''
The team collected 340 soil, water and vegetation samples and decontaminated the areas. Results of analyses, being carried out at five European laboratories, are due in early March.
``Our endeavor is to produce and make scientifically reliable data available for the use of different kinds of ammunition and for the results to the environment,'' Toepfer said.
``This is, I believe, also in the main interest of NATO and all the other partners, not the least the population in Kosovo, Serbia or other places where this ammunition was used,'' he said.
NATO and the United States insist there is no evidence of a link between the use of depleted uranium weapons and cases of leukemia in troops who have served in the Balkans.
Italy has demanded NATO investigate whether the deaths of six of its soldiers from leukemia after tours of duty in Kosovo and Bosnia were due to the so-called ``Balkans Syndrome.'' Cases of cancer have also been reported among soldiers from France, the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium.
Munitions with a depleted uranium core enhance the ability of weapons to pierce armored vehicles like tanks.
The Pentagon said last year that NATO forces had fired 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium against Yugoslav armored vehicles in the 1999 Kosovo conflict, while NATO officials reported only last month that some 10,000 had been fired in Bosnia in 1994-95.
Haavisto said: ``My conclusion is that these NATO coordinates concerning Kosovo are reliable. My recommendation is that at least these 112 sites should be visited.
``These areas are not marked, and actually the local population usually did not know if they were living near the DU sites,'' Haavisto added. ``Most of the DU sites are situated at minefields or fields where there are still unexploded cluster bombs...''
---
China Calls on U.S. to Scrap Missile Shield Plan
Reuters
January 12, 2001 Filed at 5:23 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/china-usa.html
BEIJING, Jan 12 (Reuters) - China called on the United States on Friday to scrap plans to build an anti-missile shield, reacting sharply to signs the George W. Bush administration will push ahead with a system to protect against missile attacks.
``We hope the United States will seriously heed the wise appeals of the international community and abandon as soon as possible the NMD plan,'' the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement, referring to the U.S. proposal to build a National Missile Defence.
Reiterating the position China has taken since last year, the ministry said there would be ``broad and deep negative consequences'' to world stability and the international strategic balance if the incoming administration went ahead with the plan.
``Moves by some countries to push ahead with development of a National Missile Defence or a Theatre Missile Defence run counter to the trend of modern times and are harmful for international nonproliferation and disarmament efforts,'' it said.
The statement was issued in response to comments on Thursday by Defence Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld which strongly endorsed the NMD plan, conceived to intercept ballistic missiles from hostile states such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
Bush has promised to deploy a NMD system as soon as possible despite opposition from Russia and China and fear among U.S. allies in Europe that it would destroy the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, jeopardising all arms control pacts.
Beijing has steadfastly opposed NMD and last year spearheaded a U.N. resolution in support of the ABM treaty.
RUMSFELD BACKS SYSTEM
``Effective missile defence -- not only homeland defence but also the ability to defend U.S. allies abroad and our friends -- must be achieved in the most cost-effective manner that modern technology offers,'' Rumsfeld said at his confirmation hearing.
Rumsfeld, defence secretary between 1975 and 1977 under President Gerald Ford, called the 1972 ABM treaty with Moscow which outlawed such a system ``ancient history.''
A bipartisan panel appointed by the U.S. Congress and headed by Rumsfeld until his nomination last month said on Thursday the U.S. president should retain ``the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests.''
The panel said Washington should review existing arms control obligations ``in light of a growing need to extend deterrent capabilities to space.''
China worries that even a limited U.S. missile shield would neutralise its modest strategic arsenal.
Beijing also opposes U.S. plans for the much smaller Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) for American troops and allies in Asia, fearing it would be extended to protect Taiwan. China claims sovereignty over the self-governing island.
CHINA WARY OF BUSH
Chinese President Jiang Zemin pledged last month to work with Bush, despite shrill Chinese warnings before the U.S. election about the consequences of a victory for the Texas governor, perceived as hawkish on China and friendly toward Taiwan.
Chu Shulong of the China Research Institute of Modern International Studies said Beijing was wary that ``Bush and his cabinet seem to have a greater determination to build a NMD system and also want to expand the scope of the NMD over that of the previous Democratic administration.''
U.S. President Bill Clinton sparred with Beijing over NMD and TMD, among other thorny bilateral issues. But after two of the last three NMD tests failed, he left any decision on deployment of the estimated $60 billion system to the new administration.
Sha Zukang, the Foreign Ministry's top arms control official who leads China's anti-NMD campaign, called Clinton's move a ``sensible decision.''
``But it also indicated that this negative factor influencing the healthy development of international relations would not disappear quickly,'' Sha wrote in the official Beijing Review.
-------- depleted uranium
Hoon is urged to 'come clean' over uranium report
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
January 12 2001
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/12/nuran12.xml
OPPOSITION parties demanded yesterday that Geoff Hoon, Defence Secretary, should "come clean" over an Army document that said inhalation of depleted uranium dust increased the risk of contracting lung, lymph and brain cancer.
They had previously been prepared to accept a statement by John Spellar, Armed Forces minister, that there was minimal risk to British Servicemen from the use of the ammunition.
But attempts by the Ministry of Defence to portray a report warning of the cancer risks as a "discredited document written by a trainee" backfired.
Iain Duncan Smith, shadow defence secretary, pointed out that a covering letter, suggesting that the document be given wide distribution, was written by an RO2, A H Lyall Grant, on behalf of the Chief of Staff of the Quartermaster General's Department.
Defence sources said that an RO2 was an experienced staff officer of major rank who would not have distributed the document without knowing that the Chief of Staff wanted it to be done. Mr Duncan Smith said: "The Government have to stop playing this silly game, pretending they know everything and don't have to tell anybody. They should clarify things once and for all."
The document, issued by UK Land Forces in early 1997 to all units and ranges using the ammunition, said inhalation of insoluble uranium dioxide dust created by its impact with a target might never leave the lungs, resulting in cancer.
The MoD initially admitted that it was genuine but said that it had been based partly on a draft written in 1993 by a trainee and that as a result some of its content was "misleading and inaccurate".
When asked what parts were inaccurate or misleading, the MoD pointed to three paragraphs of the document that had no relevance to the media reports on the increased risks of contracting cancer.
By yesterday morning the 1997 document was itself being widely dismissed by MoD officials as having been written by a trainee.
Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said the Government's attempts to explain the document lacked credibility.
"The March 1997 document is not a draft and appears to be official. The contents are clear and unqualified. The confusion ought to be cleared up as soon as possible."
In a letter to Geoff Hoon, Mr Duncan Smith said it was clear from the letter that the Quartermaster General's Department was concerned. If it was later found to be inaccurate then it must have been rescinded, Mr Duncan Smith said. The MoD had only to produce those documents to show that the advice was, as it claimed, inaccurate.
The MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Keith O'Nions, insisted that the medical report contained "many, many scientific errors" and did not form any part of the advice given to ministers. "It is not part of the approved advice stream to ministers," he said.
---
German Ex - Minister Backs U.S. Missile Defense
Reuters
January 12, 2001 Filed at 2:27 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-usa-mis.html
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's conservative former Defense Minister Volker Ruehe has backed American plans for a new missile defense shield and called for Europe to join the controversial project, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Volker Ruehe, who served under Helmut Kohl until Germany's Christian Democrats lost power in 1998, will propose to a party meeting on Sunday that Europe ``actively seize'' on the chance to participate in the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) project.
The proposal is contained in a paper due to be presented by Ruehe at CDU strategy talks in Mainz, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) said.
The call by Ruehe, a convinced Atlanticist, coincided with a campaign mounted by British Conservatives to back the NMD project advocated by U.S. President-elect George W. Bush.
Quoting from Ruehe's position paper, the FAZ said there was a moral obligation to examine missile defense as a possible replacement for the concept of mutually assured nuclear destruction which prevailed during the Cold War.
``The dialogue over missile defense should be held in a way which does not threaten the cohesion of the NATO alliance,'' it said.
Ruehe's stance contrasted with the skepticism expressed by Germany's center-left government, and in particular by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a leader of the Greens Party and a former peace activist.
Berlin has expressed concern that the missile defense scheme could alienate NATO's European partners, provoke Russia and China and undo the progress achieved in strategic disarmament talks over the past 30 years.
The German government is also worried that NMD, still in its development stages, could turn out to be a hugely expensive failure.
---
Officials caution Bush not to 'militarize' Taiwan issue
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200111222149.htm
Outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Stanley Roth yesterday warned the incoming administration not to "militarize" the Taiwan-China relationship, which he said could destabilize U.S. relations with China.
"Too much attention is paid to weapons," which Taiwan has requested from the United States and which China is urging not be sold.
"Once the issue is militarized, Taiwan is lost," Mr. Roth said at a breakfast hosted by the Asia Society yesterday. "This issue has to be on a political track."
Also yesterday, Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Taiwan's "new arms requests will prompt one of the toughest early national security decisions faced by the Bush administration."
"The tensions between China and Taiwan will, if not mitigated, lead to a confrontation that will seriously jeopardize U.S. interests," Mr. Lugar said at a Hudson Institute conference in Indianapolis.
Mr. Roth said there is "growing suspicion in China about the intentions of the United States."
Those concerns were fueled by the accidental U.S. bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, as well as by NATO expansion, the Kosovo intervention, new U.S.-Japanese military guidelines, President Clinton's visits to China's Asian rivals India and Vietnam, resumed U.S. Navy ship visits to the Philippines and U.S. military and other backing for Taiwan, he said.
Mr. Roth also said he is "worried about cross-strait relations" because neither Taiwan nor China "fundamentally understands the other."
He called China's efforts to ignore Taiwan's elected government and cultivate ties with opposition groups "clumsy" and "a serious mistake."
In addition, Mr. Roth advised the incoming administration of George W. Bush and Secretary of State-designee Colin Powell to go easy on North Korea.
"I believe it would be a serious mistake to insist on progress on every front with North Korea simultaneously," he said.
He said the Clinton administration's 1994 pact with North Korea had ended its nuclear program and that talks to end its missile program should be completed. North Korea, despite its diplomatic openings to Asian neighbors, Italy, the United States and other countries, still has not moved back its huge conventional army from the border with South Korea.
Mr. Roth advised the Bush team to not demand that step be taken immediately.
The progress in defusing the North Korean hostility could lead to calls in Asia for an end to U.S. troop deployments there as Korea and then Japan would face pressure to remove foreign forces.
But Mr. Roth said the United States must resist such pressure.
"The challenge for the Bush administration is to confront directly the question of what type of reconfigured U.S. forward deployment in the Asia-Pacific region makes sense," he said, adding that he believes Japan and Korea still support the presence of U.S. troops.
Mr. Roth said dire predictions that the economic crisis that began in Thailand in 1997 would spark chaos, starvation and instability in Asia had not come true because of prompt U.S. financial intervention and "most importantly keeping our own economy growing and keeping our markets open."
While Northeast Asian countries - South Korea, China and Japan -are doing well economically and otherwise, Southeast Asia is turning inward.
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines all face political or succession crises now or in the immediate future and economic growth is below China's 7 percent to 8 percent, he said
-------- depleted uranium
Study finds no signif. increase of U in urine of German soldiers in Kosovo
Fri, 12 Jan 2001 19:47:31 +0100
Study by GSF - Research Center for Environment and Health (Germany)
urine samples collected from 121 soldiers and 50 other persons before and during their service in the area, several cohorts analyzed within this total number of persons
ICP-MS (detection limit: 1 ng U/ltr), no isotope analysis
The results for the daily uranium excretion (ng/day) of study group 1 (total of 43 persons) are presented in the attached graph "Abb.9" (red: possibly exposed, green: controls; left: before, right: during service) and table "Tabelle 5"
Excerpt from the press release:
"Die jetzt vorliegenden Ergebnisse der Studie legen den Schluss nahe, dass die Gefahr einer Inkorporation von DU in gesundheitsgefährdenden Ausmaßen bei den Angehörigen des deutschen Kontingents der KFOR nicht besteht. Dennoch empfehlen die Wissenschaftler der GSF dringend, die dort lebenden Menschen auf die mögliche Gefährdung durch Uran auch in Hinblick auf dessen chemisch-toxische Effekte hinzuweisen. Insbesondere die Gefahr einerInkorporation bei dort spielenden Kindern sollte deutlich gemacht werden. Die identifizierten Kontaminationsflächen sollten markiert und abgesperrt sowie durch entsprechend ausgebildete Personen von Uranresten gesäubert werden. Die Personenmessungen sollten zum Schutz der Bevölkerung durch gezielte Untersuchung von Umweltproben ergänzt werden. Damit können wertvolle Informationen über die durch den Einsatz von DU-Munition erfolgten Umweltbelastungen gewonnen werden, um langfristige lokale Belastungen zu vermeiden."
(No hazard of DU incorporation for German members of KFOR troops assumed, but urgent recommendation to advise the residents of the area about the chemical toxicity - in particular in regard of playing children. Recommendation to mark contaminated areas, prevent access, and clean-up the areas by persons instructed accordingly. Recommendation to monitor environmental samples in addition to the personal samples.)
--
the above is compiled from the following sources:
GSF press release of Jan. 12, 2001 (in German):
http://www.gsf.de/Aktuelles/Presse/kfor.phtml
full GSF Study (31 pages in German):
Untersuchungen zur Uranausscheidung im Urin Überprüfung von Schutzmaßnahmen beim Deutschen Heereskontingent KFOR Forschungsbericht im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Verteidigung
P. Roth, E. Werner, H. G. Paretzke
GSF - Forschungszentrum für Umwelt und Gesundheit, Institut für Strahlenschutz, Neuherberg Januar 2001 GSF-Bericht 3/01
http://www.gsf.de/Aktuelles/Presse/uran.pdf (486k PDF)
---
German soldiers 'not affected' by DU
German soldiers 'safer' than local people
BBC News
Friday, 12 January, 2001, 17:13 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1114000/1114157.stm
A study commissioned by the German Ministry of Defence has shown that soldiers deployed in the Balkans were not affected by exposure to depleted uranium (DU).
The GSF research centre for environment and health tested 121 German soldiers before and during their deployment with K-For troops in Kosovo.
"All measurements of uranium were around levels we would expect from groups which have not been exposed," said radiation expert Paul Roth.
Researchers warned, however, that the local population could face a potential health risk of chemical and toxic effects which derive from the heavy metal properties of DU.
Germany has demanded a moratorium on the use of DU weapons until further research has been carried out.
Depleted uranium has been blamed for a number of leukaemia cases among former peacekeepers.
'No link'
Six cases of blood-related illness have been registered by German soldiers returning from the Balkans.
Researchers say a link between the illnesses and DU cannot be made as, given the numbers of troops deployed, between seven and 10 cases are statistically to be expected.
The study tested urine samples from 121 German soldiers as well as a population of 200 non-exposed people from various regions of Germany.
In addition 50 aid workers, OSCE police officers and members of the local population were tested.
While no link between DU and illness in soldiers was found, the study said that action should be taken to prevent a potential danger to the local population, particularly children, who may play in areas where DU weapons exploded, releasing toxic chemicals.
The World Health Organisation also said on Friday that a link between leukaemia and DU was "unlikely", but that targeted areas should be cordoned off due to "remaining uncertainties".
DU moratorium
The research has led to suggestions that the German defence minister, Rudolf Scharping was "overly defensive" in calling for a moratorium on the use of DU weapons.
But on Friday, Norway and Finland declared their support for the temporary ban.
Nato aircraft fired tens of thousands of DU rounds during its 1995 bombing of Bosnian Serb targets and 1999 air war against Yugoslavia.
DU rounds are denser than standard ammunition, making them more effective against armour, but the dust given off on impact can be dangerous.
On Wednesday, Nato announced a range of measures to try to allay concerns over DU munitions. Its Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, insists that fears are misplaced and says there will be no suspension of the use of the weapons.
For their part, Yugoslav experts have said they have found radioactivity levels more than 1,000 times greater than usual in Serbia and Montenegro.
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.
However, Russia says initial screening has found no illness among its soldiers who served in the Balkans.
---
Germany issues uranium 'all clear'
CNN
January 12, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/01/12/balkans.uranium.02/index.html
GENEVA, Switzerland -- Tests on German peacekeepers serving in Kosovo have revealed no signs of exposure to debris from depleted uranium ammunition.
The results were disclosed after the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was "unlikely" that DU ammunition fired during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia could have caused cancer.
A special NATO meeting was also told on Friday that Portuguese soldiers serving in the Balkans are likely to encounter higher background uranium radiation at home than on their Kosovo and Bosnia missions.
But Turkey said two of its soldiers who served as NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo had been affected by exposure to DU munitions.
German researchers said urine tests carried out by a medical body at the request of the Defence Ministry showed no unusual traces of depleted uranium (DU).
Paul Roth, a radiation expert at the research body that carried out the tests, said: "All measurements of uranium were around levels we would expect from groups which have not been exposed.
"Our results showed that none of the soldiers we tested had ingested depleted uranium, and where there is no uranium, there cannot be any illnesses caused by uranium."
Responding to reports in Italy that several deaths of former peacekeepers from leukaemia resulted from a so-called Balkans Syndrome caused by exposure to DU munitions, Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping called the risk to German soldiers "negligible."
Scharping has ruled out comprehensive testing on all of the 60,000 German group troops who have seen peacekeeping action in the Balkans.
That position contrasts with the line taken by the British government, which has extended screening to include not only troops who served in the Balkans but also veterans of the 1991 Gulf War.
Roth's institute tested a sample of 121 German troops before, during and after their Kosovo deployments. Some had been involved in clearing the wrecks of vehicles destroyed by DU munitions. A control sample of a further 200 volunteers from Germany also took part.
The WHO, the Geneva-based United Nations health agency, issued its first recommendation on the ammunition since the beginning of the current controversy over potential health risks.
The body concluded it was "unlikely" that exposure to NATO weapons containing depleted uranium could have led to a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan conflicts.
But it said that it plans a study to "assess whether there has been an increased rate of cancer amongst military personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans, as well as amongst exposed populations."
It also called for the cordoning off and cleaning up of sites in Kosovo where DU ammunition landed during the NATO air campaign.
A WHO spokesman told CNN their research showed there was no link between DU and leukaemia, but there might be links with other forms of cancer.
"Until we know what is going on, it is better to be cautious," he said.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has called for a more extensive survey of sites in the Balkans that were hit by NATO shells containing depleted uranium.
An IAEA spokesman said checks on at least 30 sites were required for a satisfactory survey to determine whether debris from the shells could cause cancer.
Portuguese officials said early results of an on-the-spot study of 50 depleted uranium sites closest to where that country's troops with NATO were based "showed overall natural levels or uranium are actually lower than in Portugal itself."
"The idea of a general risk of contamination is false," a NATO statement quoted the official as telling a special meeting of some 60 representatives of NATO and non-NATO countries who have contributed troops to the peacekeeping missions.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said: "We have two personnel who had been affected at a benign level,". He did not elaborate on the exact nature of their health complaints.
Ankara earlier said it had found no such cases but would study the subject and share information with NATO allies.
---
U.N. plays down ammunition risk
CNN
January 12, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/01/12/balkans.uranium/index.html
GENEVA, Switzerland -- The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is "unlikely" that depleted uranium ammunition used by NATO troops could have caused cancer.
The Geneva-based United Nations health agency on Friday issued its first recommendation on the ammunition since the beginning of the current controversy over potential health risks.
The body concluded it was "unlikely" that exposure to NATO weapons containing depleted uranium could have led to a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan conflicts.
But it said that it was planning a study to "assess whether there has been an increased rate of cancer amongst military personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans, as well as amongst exposed populations."
It also called for the cordoning off and cleaning up of sites in Kosovo where depleted uranium (DU) ammunition landed during the NATO air campaign.
Future research would include assessing links between exposure to uranium and kidney damage, and studies of the "reproductive, mutagenic and carcinogenic properties of uranium."
Italy recently demanded that NATO investigate whether the deaths of six of its soldiers from leukaemia after tours of duty in Kosovo and Bosnia was due to the so-called "Balkans Syndrome."
While playing down the likelihood of DU ammunition posing a serious cancer risk, WHO did recommend measures be taken to put areas strewn with the spent ammunition off limits.
"Given the remaining uncertainties about the effects of DU, it seems reasonable to undertake clean-up operations in impact zones where there are substantial numbers of radioactive particles remaining," WHO said.
"If there are very high concentrations of DU, then areas may need to be cordoned off until the particles are removed. This is especially the case where children are likely to be present."
On Thursday, Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, and Pekka Haavisto, who leads its Balkans Task Force team which has collected samples at 11 sites in Kosovo, said all 112 Kosovo sites should be analysed for possible health risks.
The top U.N. environmental officials, who await laboratory results on 340 samples taken at 11 Kosovo sites by early March, recommended that sites in Bosnia also be investigated.
WHO spokesman Greg Hartl told a news briefing that three WHO officials would attend a January 16-17 conference in Basra, Iraq on the effects of depleted uranium and other environmental factors which could be the cause of "increased adverse health effects."
Iraq has blamed western munitions containing depleted uranium used during the 1991 Gulf War for thousands of cancer deaths and deformed births.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has called for a more extensive survey of sites in the Balkans that were hit by Nato shells containing depleted uranium.
An IAEA spokesman said checks on at least 30 sites were required for a satisfactory survey to determine whether debris from the shells could cause cancer.
Nato has informed the United Nations of more than 100 sites where the shells were used, and so far UN inspectors have seen 11 of them.
---
"Ecol. Catastrophe & Health Hazards NATO Bombings"
Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:43:29 +0000
Dear All:
Further to the international debate which has erupted during the past week over the use of depleted uranium weapons and the Balkan Syndrome-the following Master Index provides an annotated URL referenced list of some 89 internet-based news items, press releases from NGO's and agencies, and articles which were tracked, summarized and compiled from March 31-September 10,1999 on a range of subjects related to the ecological and health consequences of NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999, including many items on depleted uranium. Even articles and news entitled, more generally, ecological catastrophe or environmental consequences e.g. often make reference to the concerns surrounding depleted uranium. Indeed the use of DU weapons along with the bombings of petrochemical plants, such as the one in Pancevo, and the implications thereof, were among the greatest concerns that led to the sustained outcry, throughout the duration of the war, of "Ecological Catastrophe"!! FYI-Janet M Eaton, PhD [Biology] Wolfville, N.S, Canada. Phone 902-542-1631 Researcher, part-time Political Science academic, Internet activist, and Executive Director of the recently formed "Institute for Global Creative Perspective" [Focusing on Critical Perspectives on Globalization, the Global Citizen, Global Mindshift and Global 'Systemic' Transformation
=====
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES!! [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, from e-mails received from list serves, and directly from anti-war, peace and environmental NGO's and News Services etc. during the period March 31- April 18th] http://mai.flora.org/forum/11003
For your information and knowledge!! Please forward widely to all manner of citizens and NGO's concerned with the disastrous consequences for the environment, people and the future of humanity of the NATO bombings in the Balkans and forward also to journalists, business representatives, political representatives of all parties and government officials.
USE AS EVIDENCE OF THE NEED TO: 1) STOP THE NATO BOMBING 2) STOP THE HUMANITARIAN AND ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE 3) RETURN TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE WITH THE UN INVOLVED AND FIND INTERNATIONALLY ACCEPTABLE SOLUTIONS!!
As is stated in the first annotated reference below by Dr. Rosalie Bertell: "This is certainly not to be interpreted as condoning socalled ethnic cleansing or any [related] nationalistic actions of the Yugoslav government." All the best, Janet Eaton!! Dr. Janet M. Eaton, Biologist, Educator, Researcher, Public Policy Consultant, Concerned Global Citizen !! Wolfville, N.S. CANADA jeaton@fox.nstn.ca
INDEX [Followed by Annotated list with Website URL's ] 1) MARCH 31st, 1999 Subject: WAR in Kosovo: Use of depleted uranium Author: Dr. Rosalie Bertell, PhD, GSNH - A Statement From
2) APRIL 1, 1999. Subject: Radioactive weapons used by U.S./NATO in Kosovo Author: Sara Flounders and John Catalinotto, 212-633-6646 International Action Center
3) APRIL 1, 1999 Subject: Kosovo: A Youthful Green Voice Author: Stephan Buzharovski, Vice Chairperson of the Federation of Young European Greens
4) APRIL 2, 1999 Subject: Serbian Ecological Society Plea vs War!! From: Radoje Lausevic and Dmitar Lakusic, Serbian Ecological Society, University of Belgrade
5) APRIL 4, 1999 Subject: NATO using depleted uranium weapons Author: Felicity Arbuthnot and Darran Gardner April 4 1999 Sunday Herald Glasgow, Scotland
6) APRIL 7, 1999 Subject: Environment of Europe at Risk from NATO Bombing From the Environment News Service (ENS)
7) APRIL 9, 1999 Subject: Uranium weapon fears in Kosovo --A-10 - Can fire depleted uranium shells Author: Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby of the BBC
8) APRIL 11, 1999 Subject: Impacts of Nato's "Humanitarian" Bombings, The Balance Sheet of Destruction in Yugoslavia Author: Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
9) APRIL 13, 1999. Subject: A New Chernobyl in the Balkans Author: Natasha Dokovska
10) APRIL 14, 1999 Subject: End Eco-destruction Yugoslav Scientists Plead Author/Origin: Environment News Service (ENS)
11) APRIL 16, 1999 Subject: NPPs Around Yugoslavia: Potential Source of Nuclear Catastrophe Author: Anti-war committee, NGO in Moscow [Press Release]
12) APRIL 18, 1999 Subject: Threat of Ecological Catastrophe <--> NATOBombings!! From: Serbian Ecological Society with Intro by Janet Eaton
====
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES!! PART 2 [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, during the period April 19th to May2] http://mai.flora.org/forum/11281
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES-INTERNET ARTICLES
1) Date: MAY 3, 1999 Subject: Dr. Rosalie Bertell - A Great Humanitarian & Scientist From: jeaton@fox.nstn.ca (Janet M. Eaton) URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11275
2) Date: MAY 2, 1999 Subject: DU Weapons - 2 articles [Iraq & FRY] Nation & Newsweek!! Author: Christian Science Monitor URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11250
3) Date: MAY 2, 1999 Subject: DU Weapons - 4 articles [Iraq] CSM Author: Christian Science Monitor http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11247
4) Date: April 29, 1999 Subject: Compilation of 4 e-mails from and about women's concerns about DU radioactivity Provided by Catherine Euler of ukantiwar list serve URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11189
5) Date: April 28, 1999 Subject: Nato Air Strikes - Second Chernobyl?? By: Felicity Arbuthnot, Sunday Herald URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11188
6) Date: April 26, 1999 Subject: 13 Yrs Ago - Chernobyl - Grim Reminder for War torn Yugoslavia - preface to UN article on Chernobyl From: Janet M. Eaton URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11171
7) Date: April 26, 1999 Subject: Gorbachev Statement -- Environmental Implications of Hostilities in Yugoslavia By: Mikhail Gorbachev, President, Green Cross International URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11164
8) Date: April 21, 1999 Subject: Environment a casualty of NATO bombing From: Stephen Schowengerdt, Environmental News Network: URL: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/04/042199/natobomb_2782.asp
9) Date: April 21, 1999 Subject NATO's Eco-war Source: Times of India URL: http://www.timesofindia.com/today/21edit2.htm URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11050
10) Date: April 19, 1999 Subject: Toxic Clouds Over Belgrade From: Environment News Service (ENS) April 19 URL: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr99/1999L-04-19-04.html URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11029
=======
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES !! PART 3 [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, during the period May 3 - May 19th, 1999] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11622
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES -INTERNET ARTICLES
1) Subject: The End of Imagination [An Anti-nuclear Essay] By: Arundhati Roy, novelist Date: 17 May 1999 10:31:38 -0400 Posted because of length in two parts: URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11539 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11540
2) Subject: Depleted Uranium -Please Act now From: Janet M Eaton post incorporating Depleted Uranium post from Catherine Euler. Date: may 17, 1999 URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11567
3) Subject: NATO Bombings Could -> Ecol. Disaster - IEER News Release !! From: Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of IEER. Date posted on mai-not: May 17, 1999 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11554 Date Released from IEER: Date May 11, 1999. http://www.ieer.org/ieer/comments/yugo/pr051199.html
and
4) Subject: Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Threatens Environment in Kosovo Region. Media Release From: Elizabeth may, Ex.Dir., Sierra Club of Canada Date: April 28, 1999. Date posted on mai-not website: May 17, 1999 URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11553 [A background document on depleted uranium is included with this release.]
5) Subject:Massage from a Cluster Bomb By: Norman Soloman Date published: May 12, 1999 Date posted to mai-not list serve: May 17, 1999 URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11547
6) Subject:Dr. Bertell on DU & Can. Role -AUDIO Transcript May 6th Panel From: Janet M. Eaton (Transcriber) Date: May 16th URL : http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11531
7) Subject: NATO's bombs cause environmental disaster!! From: Greenleft Cover Story-"War Crimes-NATO's Attack on People and the environment." [Current Issue-May] Date: May 1999 URL: http://www.peg.apc.org/~greenleft/ Date posted to mai-not: May 16, 1999 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11526
8) Subject: Nato Bombing Unleashes Environmental |Catastrophe in Europe From: International Action Center Date: May 14, 1999 URL: http://www.iacenter.org/natodu.htm
9) Subject: Green Horizon, May 13, Balkan Envir. Crisis - News from Reginal Environmental Centre for Eastern and Central Europe, Hungry. Posted by: Janet M Eaton on mai-not list serve Date: May 13th, 1999 URL http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11455
10) Subject: Green Horizon news tip sheet from Website Reginal Environmental Centre for Eastern and Central Europe, Hungary Date: April 23, 1999 Volume 2 Number 1 URL: http://www.rec.org/Default.shtml
11) Subject: European Environment Ministers Alarmed at NATO Bombing From: Environmental News Service [ENS] Date: May 10, 1999 URL: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may99/1999L-05-10-04.html
12) Subject: UN Task Force re Environmental Impact of the Balkans War!! From: ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS) Date: May 11, 1999. URL: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may99/1999L-05-11-02.html
13) Subject: NATO's Use of Cluster Munitions in Yugoslavia By: Human Rights Watch, New York. Date: May 11, 1999 URL: http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/clus0511.htm
14) Subject: US escalates terror-bombing of Yugoslav cities From: World Socialist Web Site By: Editorial Board Date: May 8,1999 URL: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/yugo-m08.shtml
15) Subject: Danube River Ecosystem Caught in Balkan War From: ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS SERVICE Date: 8 May 1999 00:31:02 -0400 URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11352
=====
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED URL REFERENCED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES. [PART 4] [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, May 31, 1999] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-n This compilation contains summaries and links to a comprehensive paper on "Gulf War Veterans and Depleted Uranium" prepared by Dr. Rosalie Bertell for the Hague Appeal for Peace [HAP] Conference, a 30 page "Overview of the Ecological Consequences of NATO Bombing on Yugoslavia" by Dr. Radoje Lausevic, University of Belgrade, startling photos of a massive and dense toxic black cloud from the burning of Pancevo Petrochemical Plant photographed 50 km away several hours afterwards as well a few resources and several related news releases.
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES ARTICLES
1) Gulf War Veterans and Depleted Uranium Prepared for the Hague Peace Appeal Conference, May 1999 By Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., G.N.S.H. http://www.pgs.ca/pages/nl/rb990504.htm
2) OVERVIEW OF ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA SINCE MAY 20, 1999 By Dr. Radoje Lausevic Posted by :Janet M. Eaton [Due to length of the report it was posted in four sections] Date: May 23rd URL's http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11655 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11656 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11657 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11658. Website: Full report available as a zip file containing a wordperfect document: http://www.BalkanPeaceNetwork.freeserve.co.uk/Environment.htm
3) BLACK CLOUD OVER THE BALKANS -PHOTOS From: Janet M Eaton Date: May 23, 1999 URL: http://www.BalkanPeaceNetwork.freeserve.co.uk/Environment.htm [Network for Peace in the Balkans]
4) The Use of Depleted Uranium bullets and bombs by NATO forces in Yugoslavia. By: Coghill Research Laboratories Lower Race, Pontypool, Gwent NP4 5UH Date: April 8, 1999 URL:http://www.cogreslab.demon.co.uk
5) DU - Valid Information Sources re Health Impacts!! From: jeaton@fox.nstn.ca (Janet M. Eaton) Date: 26 May 1999 16:34:58 -0400 URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11716
6) Greek Greenpeace Grivas resigns - condemns NATO's Ecological Disaster [letter of resignation!] Date: 26 May 1999 13:14:33 -0400 URL http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11711
7) Vegetables A Casualty Of NATO Air War? From:Reuters Press Date: May 27, 1999. http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990527/09/odd-hailstorms
8) ROMANIA BLAMES ACID RAIN ON NATO BOMBING From: Reuters, (Planet Ark http://www.planetark.org/) Date: May 27, 1999 URL: http://202.139.253.156/news/27059903.html
9) Fishermen up in arms over NATO bombs By: Michel Bôle-Richard in Rome For: Le Monde URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11723
10) NATO BOMBING DAMAGE ASSESSMENT [links to ca 75 photofiles] From: Ian Goddard <Ian@Goddard.net> Receivd via: proposition1 news list May 25, 1999 URL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/yugo-war.htm
11) APPEAL FOR THE YUGOSLAV HERITAGE UNDER THE BOMBS From: The Institute for Protection of Nature of Serbia Date Received: May 23, 1999 URL: http://www.natureprotection.org.yu/apel.html
12) NATO bombing of Yugoslavia By: Department of Organic Chemical Technology and Polymers Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy Belgrade University Belgrade, Yugoslavia URL: http://www.net4s.com/under/ecologicalcatastrophe.htm
=====
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED URL REFERENCED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES. [PART 5] [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, June 13, 1999] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12187
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE-INTERNET ARTICLES
1] Poison in the air: The environmental costs of the Kosovo conflict must be exposed. By Mikhail Gorbachev, Guardian (6-18-99) http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,59107,00.html
2] REC Executive Director Jernej Stritih's speech on The Balkan Crisis and Environment From: GREEN HORIZON: Regional Environmental Center for Eastern and Central Europe, Hungary June 2, 1999 * Volume 2 Number 3 or http://www.rec.org/REC/Announcements/osce.html
3] BBC NEWS On-line Six News Releases about the use of depleted uranium [DU] weapons in the Gulf and Yugoslav Wars and implications for human health. [From March 19, 1999 to June 6th, 1999.] Compiled & posted by Janet M. Eaton, Date: June 11, 1999 URL: http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12039
4] Conflict in the Balkans: Not such conventional weapons Le Monde Diplomatique [June, 1999] By: Christine Avdelkrim-Delanne Date Posted June 16th http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12109
5] Nuclear Fuel Near Belgrade Unchanged by Bombing By: Environmental News Service [ENS] VIENNA, Date: June 9, 1999 http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-09-01.html
6] Yugoslavia says NATO bombs causing "ecocide" Reuters News Service; Netherlands, June 9, 1999 http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=159
7] Romania Assesses War Related Eco-Damage By Alexandru R. Savulescu, (ENS) Bucharest, Romania, June 4, 1999 http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-04-03.html
8] The Environmental Impact of the NATO Campaign Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Prague, Czech Republic RFE/RL Mewsline Vol 3, No.108, Part II, 3 June 1999 By Christopher Walker http://www.flora.org/fora.mai-not/12142
9] Medical Student from Pancevo re NATO's Eco - Disaster Letter from: Mirjan Nadrljanski, Posted by: Janet M Eaton to mai-not listserv http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12137
10] NATO bombs take toll of environment By: Herve Kempf, Le Monde/Front Date: June 2, 1999 http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11844
11] NATO air strikes likely to produce widespread eco-damage in Balkans By SONYA YEE (c) Earth Times News Service Date: June 2, 1999 http://www.earthtimes.org:80/jun/environmentnatoairstrikeslikelyjun2_99.htm
12) The Toxic Side Of War: Fears Of An Ecological Disaster Air Strikes Are Allegedly Poisoning The Balkans By: Filio P. Kontrafouri, May, 1999 http://www.greekamerican.com/14/17/1toxic.htm
13] Bombardment of Yugoslavia creates ecological disaster By: A correspondent in Romania, June 2, 1999 http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/rom-j02.shtml
14] A Survey on Negative Consequences of NATO Aggression Against Yugoslavia on the Flora & Fauna By: Dr. Georg Dzukic & Dr. Gabor Mesaros http://www.ibiss.bg.ac.yu/english/indexeng.htm
15] ECOCIDE IN YUGOSLAVIA By: Prof. Ph.D. Goran Belojevic http://www.inet.co.yu/war/analize/ekolo/Ekocid-e.htm
=====
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED URL REFERENCED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES. [PART 6] [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, July 15, 1999] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12608
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE -INTERNET ARTICLES
1) ADVISORY: Request DU Maps & Info for Balkans By Joan McQueeney Mitric, Jmitric1@aol.com Independent medical reporter based in Washington, DC July 15, 1999, Washington, D.C. http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12606
2] Serbian Town [Pancevo] Bombed by NATO Fears Effects of Toxic Chemicals By: Chris Hedges, New York Times, July 14, 1999 http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a378d1e98238f.htm
3] Serbs Allege NATO Raids Caused Toxic Catatrophe Bombed Refineries, Plants Spewed Stew of Poisons they Say By Uli Schme, Foreign Correspondent Chicago Tribune: July 14, 1999 http://chicagotribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-9907080418,00.html
4] Belgrade is hiding toxic time bomb, Greens warn By: Rory Carroll in Belgrade The Guardian, Wednesday July 7, 1999, http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,,63681,00.html
5] Eye witness account of the impact of war and sanctions on Iraq A two-part interview with journalist Felicity Arbuthnot by Barbara Slaughter Part One of the interview with journalist Felicity Arbuthnot by Barbara Slaughter-World Socialist Web Site, 5 July 1999 http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jul1999/iraq-j05.shtml
Part two of the interview with journalist Felicity Arbuthnot by Barbara Slaughter-World Socialist Web Site, 6 July 1999 http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jul1999/iraq-j06.shtml
6] Collateral Damage By Tony Wesolowsky, In These Times (8-8-99) http://www.inthesetimes.com/wesolowski2317.html
7] Hiding Under The Black Rain By: Milenko Vasovic, IWPR, June 30th, 1999 http://www.iwpr.net/balkans/news/bcr300699_2_eng.htm
8] Damage to Yugoslav Environment "Immense" UN Team Reports Environmental News Service June 29th, 1999 http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-29-02.html
9] Green Horizon Online Newsletter Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe June 29, 1999 * Volume 2 Number 4 http://www.rec.org/Default.shtml
10] Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Military Activity During the Yugoslavia Conflict By: Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe Released June 28th, 1999 http://www.rec.org/REC/Announcements/yugo/contents.html
11] Too hot to handle By: Rob Edwards, From: From New Scientist, 5 June 1999 http://www.newscientist.co.uk/ns/19990605/newsstory6.html
12] New DU Website Address:http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/ud_main.html Received From: Peter Doedens <earth@web-light.nl> Summary of Content of Website Posted by: Janet M. Eaton June 26, 1999 http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12284
13] Cluster bombs - A million tiny fragments with each impact From Guardian (London) Wednesday June 23, 1999 http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12232
14] Depleted Uranium: The Invisible Threat By: J.J. Richardson, MoJo Wire (6-23-99) http://www.motherjones.com/total_coverage/kosovo/reality_check/du.html
=====
MASTER INDEX FOR THE SERIES:
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE & HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED URL REFERENCED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES. [ PART 7 ] [For the period July 16 to August 1, 1999] [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, September 10, 1999] http://mai.flora.org/forum/13970 Please add to the following
ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 6] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12608 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 5] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12187 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 4] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11860 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 3] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11622 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 2] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11281 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 1] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11003
This compilation contains
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES ARTICLES
B) ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE ARTICLES [Excerpts]
Ecological Catastrophe [7] focuses on the post war period from July 16 to July 31st and in particular on the work of the UNEP Balkans Task Force, emerging concerns around the dangers of contact with Depleted Uranium in the war zone and the chemical contamination of Pancevo.
For your information and use. Please distribute as you see fit !!
All the best, Janet Eaton Dr. Janet M. Eaton, PhD Biologist, Educator, Researcher, Wolfville, N.S., CANADA
A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE -INTERNET ARTICLES
#1] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12864 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE -- NATO BOMBINGS in the BALKANS By Dr. Janet M. Eaton Commissioned by: The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Szentendre, Hungary. For the BULLETIN, Quarterly Magazine, Volume 8, Number 4. Submitted: July 7, 1999 for Summer edition of the REC Bulletin Posted to the Internet: July 31, 1999
#2] http://www.rec.org Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe Press Release, July 30, 1999 Regional Environmental Center Calls for the Integration of Environment and Civil Society in post war Balkan Reconstruction. [Discussion Paper]
#3] http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/unwire.cfm#16?ID=48127 UN Wire July 31, 1999 IRAQ: Blames West For Children's Deformities
#4] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12846 Please ignore-posted prematurely before final edit
#5] Two news Items on the reporting of the UNEP team July 28.
a] http://www.telegraph.co.uk. Telegraph, July 28, 1999 UN denies bombing led to pollution catastrophe By David Graves in Pancevo
b] http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-29-03.html Balkans Task Force Finds No Eco-Catastrophe GENEVA, Switzerland, July 29, 1999 (ENS) - A
#6] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12811 Poisonous Politics 26 July 1999 By Emil Spahiiski, journalist with the Sofia daily Sega. Translated by Olga Apostolova. (Transitions (Prague) July 1999)
#7] http://www.nrpb.org.uk/D-uran.htm UK National Radiological Protection Board, July 1999 DU Advisory "Depleted Uranium
#8] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12795 Re Advisory: FU Mapping-FOIA Response from Pentagon July 25, 1999 By Joan McQueeney Mitric, Independent Medical Reporter
#9 http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12786 Pancevo_Ecological Timebomb - 2 items
a] http://www.independent.co.uk/ The Independent July 23, 1999 Serbs Blame Illnesses on NATO Bombs
b] http://www.canada.com/newscafe/getcp.asp?bk=world&sk=990724/w072410.html The Canadian Press Serbian town will be polluted for years following NATO strikes by Misha Savic
#10] http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12755 Financial Times 22-July 1999 Nato uranium 'polluting Yugoslavia'
# 11] UN BTF Begins Work - Commentary by Janet Eaton and 4 news releases - July 19 - July 20 1999.
a) http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12678 Commentary by Dr. J.M. Eaton
b] http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/unwire.cfm#11?ID=48127 UN WIRE, Tuesday, 20 July, 1999 BALKANS: UN Team Begins Environmental Assessment
c] http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_398000/398781.stm BBC Online News Monday, July 19, 1999 Published at 22:17 GMT 23:17 UK Green team investigates NATO Campaign :Oil refineries were a regular target of NATO bombs By Belgrade Correspondent Jackie Rowland
d) http://www.flora.org/flora.mai-not/12700 Agence France Presse BELGRADE, July 20 (AFP) UN environment team assesses sites damaged in NATO bombing
e] http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-23-03.html ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS) Environmental Damage Assessed in Kosovo, Serbia
---
Britain Dismisses '97 Report on Uranium
Reuters
January 12, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/world/12BRIT.html
LONDON, Jan. 11 - The British government denied today that it was playing down the dangers from munitions reinforced with depleted uranium despite a leaked Defense Ministry report warning that exposure to the ammunition increased the risk of cancer.
A ministry spokesman confirmed that such a report was prepared four years ago but dismissed it as flawed, written by a trainee and only a draft paper. "It was never endorsed by senior staff," the spokesman said.
But its very existence heightened fears about the safety of munitions containing depleted uranium that were used by British, American and other armies in the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and the Balkans campaign in 1999.
Britain, along with NATO and the United States, insists that there is no evidence of a link between the use of depleted uranium weapons and cases of leukemia in troops who have served in the Balkans. Other NATO member nations are less sure.
Britain made an abrupt policy U- turn this week, agreeing to test Balkans peacekeepers for possible health problems.
---
Facts About Depleted Uranium
Associated Press
January 12, 2001 Filed at 4:39 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Depleted-Uranium-Glance.html
Concerns have arisen over NATO's use of ammunition containing depleted uranium during the Balkan war. U.N. scientists are trying to determine whether the heavy metal is linked to the leukemia deaths of several soldiers and illnesses in dozens of others. Some facts:
-- Depleted uranium is a byproduct of natural uranium, created after the fissile isotope U235 is removed to produce nuclear fuel. Thousands of tons exist.
-- Depleted uranium is about 40 percent as radioactive as natural uranium.
-- It is extremely dense; a piece the size of a soda can weigh about 15 pounds.
-- Because of its density, depleted uranium is used as ammunition, armor, ballast for aircraft and ocean-going vessels, packaging for radioactive materials and shielding for medical workers taking X-rays.
-- Because its high density gives it an unmatched ability to punch through armored vehicles, it is used to tip anti-tank ammunition. It also is self-igniting, creating secondary explosions.
-- U.S. and British tanks and warplanes first used ammunition containing depleted uranium in combat during the Gulf War, and more than 300 tons still litters battlefields in Iraq, according to U.N. officials. U.S. forces fired about 30 tons in air raids in Kosovo two years ago, and smaller quantities in Bosnia.
-- Unfired munitions pose little health risk because they emit virtually no radiation. But depleted uranium ammunition penetrates armor, it creates dust particles that can be inhaled, ingested or enter the body through an open wound.
-- Because it is a heavy metal, depleted uranium can be both a chemical poison and a radiation hazard. The chemical hazard is greater, according to the U.S. Army.
-- The U.S. Army urges soldiers to wear protective masks and cover exposed skin when working around vehicles struck by depleted uranium munition, and advises troops not to pick up unexploded rounds.
---
Group Urges Balkan Uranium Cleanup
Associated Press
January 12, 2001 Filed at 4:33 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Depleted-Uranium.html
BERLIN (AP) -- Scientists studying the health risks of depleted uranium for the German government recommended Friday that Kosovo be cleaned of traces of the metal left by NATO weapons.
The experts found no evidence that German peacekeepers were likely to suffer health problems after serving in Kosovo, where depleted uranium ammunition was used during NATO's 1999 air campaign.
But people living in areas where the weapons were used should be warned of possible risks, said the scientists from the Munich-based Research Center for Environment and Health.
``In particular, the danger of uptake through children playing there should be made clear,'' they said in a statement. ``Contaminated areas should be marked and sealed and cleansed of uranium traces.''
Research has shown no link between the depleted uranium used in armor-piercing weapons and serious illnesses such as leukemia.
Still, children are feared to be at risk if they inhale uranium dust or put hands soiled with the toxic metal in their mouths.
Scientists say more research is needed into long-term effects on the human body.
United Nations officials said peacekeepers had begun marking known bomb sites this week.
On Friday, Italy's Agriculture Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said he had asked the European Union to impose controls on agricultural imports from the Balkans due to the radiation scare.
Speaking on Italian radio, Scanio said he had written letters asking the EU to inspect produce from contaminated areas -- especially mushrooms and animals -- for depleted uranium and other chemical substances linked to the war.
Italy is looking into a possible link between exposure to depleted uranium and the illnesses of 30 Italian soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo. Seven have died of leukemia or other cancers.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of natural uranium and about 40 percent as radioactive.
Because of its extreme density it has an unmatched ability to punch through armored vehicles and is used to tip anti-tank ammunition. It also is self-igniting, creating secondary explosions.
U.S. and British tanks and warplanes first used ammunition containing depleted uranium in combat during the Gulf War, and more than 300 tons still litters battlefields in Iraq, according to U.N. officials. U.S. forces fired about 30 tons in air raids in Kosovo two years ago, and smaller quantities in Bosnia.
Unfired munitions pose little health risk because they emit virtually no radiation. But when depleted uranium ammunition penetrates armor, it creates dust particles that can be inhaled, ingested or enter the body through an open wound.
Because it is a heavy metal, depleted uranium can be both a chemical poison and a radiation hazard. The chemical hazard is greater, according to the U.S. Army.
Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev called Friday for an international conference on the hazards of ammunition containing depleted uranium.
---
Uranium Furor Puts Kosovars in the Dark Again
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/world/12KOSO.html?pagewanted=all
LLOZICE, Kosovo, Jan. 11 - Scientists in white overalls, accompanied by NATO soldiers, were collecting soil samples this week near a bombed-out bridge on a well-traveled road, but they told Etrem Javori, who lives and works here, nothing about what they were doing or why.
Mr. Javori and his family are not surprised, being used to a policy of silence on the part of their former leaders in the former Yugoslavia. But they have heard of the fuss over depleted uranium from television, even if they do not understand it.
Like the Kosovo war itself, the sudden, furious and deeply political debate in NATO over the possible ill effects of munitions reinforced by depleted uranium is a kind of Western morality play with Kosovo as its stage.
The people of Kosovo and this village - who presumably live with the effects all year round, and not for six-month tours of duty - are barely consulted or counted. And NATO - having fired the ammunition from great height at Serbian tanks and other targets, including decoys - is only now beginning to disclose the sites it bombed with weapons reinforced by depleted uranium and to consider cleaning up whatever debris might be left.
NATO says it fired some 31,000 rounds containing depleted uranium in Kosovo, as much as 12 tons of toxic and mildly radioactive uranium metal (a figure that pales next to the 300,000 tons used in the Persian Gulf war in 1991). Uranium is one of the heaviest metals, which makes it effective in piercing targets like tanks.
NATO has also been slow to identify and clear away the antipersonnel cluster bombs it dropped in Kosovo; even a large park in Pristina has not been fully cleared. NATO also bombed sensitive environmental sites in Serbia, including large petrochemical plants in the town of Pancevo, which the United Nations Environment Program has been regularly urging must be cleaned up with Western aid.
Just today, the United Nations administration in Kosovo announced that, in cooperation with NATO, it would fence off sites where depleted uranium was known to have been dropped and would put up multilingual signs reading: "Caution. Area may contain residual heavy metal toxicity. Entry not advised."
What most Kosovars will understand of such a sign can only be imagined. The people here, in interviews today, say they are simply trusting NATO, which went to war on their behalf against the Serbs, "to do whatever it is right and necessary to do," as Mr. Javori put it.
Mr. Javori, 22, is rebuilding his family house here, about 35 miles from Pristina, between the bombed- out bridge and the metal military bridge that Italian engineers finally put up to replace it, making it possible to drive to Pec without crossing muddy fields.
He spent the NATO war in 1999 hiding in the Turjak mountains that break the horizon to the distant south; his house had been destroyed by the Serbian Army in its offensive of August 1998. Only now does he have the peace and resources to begin rebuilding, though his funds do not stretch to the purchase of roof tiles, which he makes himself. He is more worried about money than about uranium, though he says: "My family is more worried than me. The son of my brother had some chest problems."
He watched the soldiers and the scientists collect samples from around the bombed bridge, one of those twisted memorials to the war that will probably never be removed or repaired, now that a replacement exists.
"A lot of people get sick this time of the year, with the flu and other problems," Mr. Javori said hopefully. "Maybe these soldiers don't know what is wrong and just put it down to uranium."
The World Health Organization has said it has found no increase in leukemia among the population of Kosovo, and the chief United Nations administrator here, Bernard Kouchner, a doctor and former French health minister, has dismissed the furor as "a wave of irrationality."
Uke Javori, 29, Etrem's cousin who lives nearby, has a 1-year-old son, born after the war, and insists that he is not worried about the boy's health. "If there is a problem, NATO and KFOR will take care of it," he said, using the acronym for the NATO-led Kosovo force that patrols the province. "If we didn't trust them, we wouldn't have asked them to come here."
Asked how he spent the war, Uke Javori paused and pointed to the distant mountains. "I went there," he said. "I've never left Kosovo, and I never will."
His brother, Muhammad Javori, 26, has left, to go to Italy, where he works in a paint factory. But he is back, on vacation, but working in the family grocery store, a roadside stop near the bridge, where traffic normally backs up some distance. There are competing stores, all with faded Albanian flags flying from their metal roofs, but the Javori family has a bit of parking, on the old road leading to the bombed bridge.
It has become a great commercial advantage, with many motorists stopping to buy some fruit, or cans of soda, or some cookies and cakes. Many of those products are made in Serbia, but Muhammad Javori says no one cares. "No one has died from poisoned cookies," he said, laughing.
He says he worries about spending so much time near a possible site for depleted uranium, but knows no one in the area who has become sick, with leukemia or anything else. "Who can really know?" he said. "It's a NATO secret."
Fehmi Gashi, a workman digging holes for a fence, said he had heard about depleted uranium on television, "but I don't know what it is." After an explanation, he sighed and said: "Well, we've had no problems, not yet, anyway. If there's a danger, NATO should have cleared it. They know everything that there is in Kosovo. I trust 100 percent in NATO."
Anyway, he said, rubbing his bristle, "what danger compares to what we went through already?"
To Vladimir and Volodya, two Russian soldiers controlling the new bridge, life in Kosovo seems fine. They have been here four months, with another eight or so to go. The pay is good, and they have been told not to worry about depleted uranium.
"They say they've checked with a Geiger counter, and it's normal here," Vladimir said. Does he believe them? "Sure," he said, laughing. "Why not?"
---
Toxic NATO politics
Washington Times
EDITORIAL • January 12, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-2001112202717.htm
The unity of NATO is being threatened by a dense, silver bullet. Depleted uranium, which was used in the tips of bullets in NATO's Kosovo air campaign, is being blamed for causing leukemia deaths following the bombings. So far, there is no scientific proof of any link between the material and the illnesses suffered by servicemen, but Italy and Germany are among the members still calling for a suspension of the substance - used in American and British munitions. While the military should remain open to new evidence, a substance that is this vital in warfare should not be dropped based on unfounded fears.
The uranium causes bullets to penetrate armor more deeply than other substances, and is also used in missiles and shells. On impact, it becomes radioactive dust. Leukemia can be a risk resulting from nuclear explosions, but there has been no proven link to the low-level radiation caused by depleted uranium.
A similar scare came after the Gulf War, when the substance was also used and later blamed for Gulf War syndrome. A presidential oversight panel said in 1999 there was no evidence that the substance caused the illness. Yet, once again, it is being painted as the culprit, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, leukemia has been proven to result from smoking, chemotherapy drugs and benzene.
Consider the cost to the U.S. military if the member states decide to outlaw the substance: Not only would the military be deprived of one of its most potent weapons, but it would be faced with compensation claims from servicemen around the world and possibly dating back to the Gulf War. The cost of cleaning up the radioactive substance would be phenomenal. For example, when 152,000 pounds of the material was removed from Jefferson Proving Ground, a 500-acre area in Indiana, it cost $4 to $5 billion.
No cost is too high to protect our servicemen or the lives of innocent civilians. Military personnel serving in both wars have also been given reason to be upset. Their illnesses are real, and were visible only after they had put themselves in harm's way for their countries. The European Commission has put together a working group of medical and scientific experts to research any further threats posed by depleted uranium. However, until tests show that the substance is linked to the illnesses, NATO would be foolish to throw away some of its most powerful munitions. Focusing on such squabbles only weakens the NATO alliance.
--------
Russia Wants Summit on Depleted Uranium Munitions
Yahoo News
Science News
Friday January 12 4:08 PM ET
By Ross Colvin
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010112/sc/health_balkans_dc_17.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Russia on Friday demanded a summit on the dangers of depleted uranium ammunition, as growing alarm over its alleged toxicity prompted Greece to tell its troops to leave the Balkans if they feared for their health.
NATO (news - web sites) held briefings in Brussels in its first concerted effort to reassure the public and contain the media furor that has erupted over the alleged health risks of depleted uranium, a radioactive heavy metal used in tank-busting munitions.
The World Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO) said it was planning a study to assess whether there had been an increased rate of cancer among military personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans, as well as among exposed populations.
But it said it was unlikely that exposure to NATO weapons containing depleted uranium could have led to a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan conflicts.
NATO member Turkey said two of its soldiers had been exposed to depleted uranium munitions used during the Balkans conflicts.
``We have two personnel who had been affected at a benign level,'' Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz told a news briefing.
DU munitions can pulverize on impact, creating radioactive dust which can enter the human body via the lungs.
Russia warned NATO that the furor over depleted uranium was only just beginning and said international experts should meet to discuss the dangers. ''We will make a proposal to Russia's president on holding an international conference of specialists on this problem within the OSCE (news - web sites) (Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe) or the UN,'' Interfax news agency quoted Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev as saying.
He said the conference would allow experts to ``objectively work out the degree of danger the use of these weapons presents to human life.''
Greece Says Troops Can Go Home
NATO insists there is no proven link between the arms and cancer. But at least seven deaths from leukemia among Italian troops and illness among servicemen from France, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Portugal have been blamed on depleted uranium, and driven rifts through the alliance.
Greek Defense Minister Apostolos Tsochatzopoulos said any of his country's peacekeepers already serving in Kosovo who were bothered about the risks of depleted uranium would be allowed home.
Tsochatzopoulos said radiation measurements by KFOR peacekeepers had given no cause for alarm and Greek soldiers had taken protective measures, including importing water and wearing special suits.
``We don't want even one soldier to stay against his will,'' Tsochatzopoulos told reporters during a visit to Kosovo. ``Anyone who wants to leave will immediately be replaced.''
Greece now has 1,481 peacekeepers deployed in Kosovo, some of whom have already expressed a desire to terminate their tour of duty.
In Athens, a military official said nearly a third of the soldiers who had applied for a tour of duty in Kosovo have changed their minds because of concern over DU munitions.
German Soldiers Get All Clear
Portuguese soldiers serving in the Balkans are likely to encounter higher background uranium radiation at home than on their Kosovo and Bosnia missions, a special NATO meeting was told in Brussels.
Portuguese officials said early results of an on-the-spot study of 50 depleted uranium sites closest to where Portuguese troops with NATO are based ``showed overall natural levels of uranium are actually lower than in Portugal itself.''
``The idea of a general risk of contamination is false,'' a NATO statement quoted an official as telling a special meeting of some 60 representatives of NATO and non-NATO countries who have contributed troops to the peacekeeping missions.
A new study showed that German peacekeepers serving in Kosovo had shown no signs of exposure to debris from depleted uranium ammunition fired during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia.
``All measurements of uranium were around levels we would expect from groups which have not been exposed,'' said Paul Roth, a radiation expert at the research body which carried out the tests for the German Defense Ministry.
---
UN Health Agency Urges Clean-Up of Uranium Sites
Yahoo News
World News
Friday January 12 8:19 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010112/wl/health_balkans_dc_24.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO) on Friday issued its first recommendation on depleted uranium ammunition since the beginning of the current controversy over potential health risks.
The Geneva-based United Nations (news - web sites) health agency said it was ''unlikely'' that exposure to NATO (news - web sites) weapons containing depleted uranium could have led to a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan conflicts.
But it said that it was planning a study to ``assess whether there has been an increased rate of cancer among military personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans, as well as among exposed populations.''
It also called for cordoning off and cleaning up sites in Kosovo where depleted uranium (DU) ammunition landed during the NATO air campaign.
Future research would include assessing links between exposure to uranium and kidney damage, and studies of the ''reproductive, mutagenic and carcinogenic properties of uranium.''
Italy recently demanded that NATO investigate whether the deaths of six of its soldiers from leukemia after tours of duty in Kosovo and Bosnia was due to the so-called ``Balkans Syndrome.''
``Given the remaining uncertainties about the effects of DU, it seems reasonable to undertake clean-up operations in impact zones where there are substantial numbers of radioactive particles remaining,'' WHO said.
``If there are very high concentrations of DU, then areas may need to be cordoned off until the particles are removed. This is especially the case where children are likely to be present.''
On Thursday, Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Program, and Pekka Haavisto, who leads its Balkans Task Force team which has collected samples at 11 sites in Kosovo, said all 112 Kosovo sites should be analyzed for possible health risks.
The top U.N. environmental officials, who await laboratory results on 340 samples taken at 11 Kosovo sites by early March, recommended that sites in Bosnia also be investigated.
WHO spokesman Greg Hartl told a news briefing that three WHO officials would attend a January 16-17 conference in Basra, Iraq on the effects of depleted uranium and other environmental factors which could be the cause of ``increased adverse health effects.''
Iraq has blamed western munitions containing depleted uranium used during the 1991 Gulf War for thousands of cancer deaths and deformed births.
-------- india / pakistan
'Defusing tension key to stable S. Asia'
The Hindu
Friday, January 12, 2001
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/01/12/stories/03120006.htm
WASHINGTON, JAN. 11. Given the long standing hostility between India and Pakistan even a minor conflict runs the risk of an exchange of missiles with warheads which would have disastrous consequences for the region and beyond, says the ``Proliferation: Threat and Response'' report of the U.S. Defence Department.
``Completely halting proliferation is not possible but stemming it is both vitally important and achievable. To that end the Department of Defence is playing an active role in technology transfer and export controls and in the implementation of arms control and non-proliferation regimes,'' the Defence Secretary, Mr. William Cohen, has said in a message. ``The race is on between our preparations and those of our adversaries. There is not a moment to lose.''
The section on South Asia is along what the administration has been saying over the last two years or so, or since India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons with the report pointing out that more nuclear tests are possible, ``although Pakistan is likely to test only if India tests first''. The potential for proliferation of technology and expertise will increase in the future as both India and Pakistan become ``more self-sufficient in the production of nuclear weapons and missiles and subsequently become potential suppliers'', says the Pentagon.
The Pentagon has detailed the capabilities, intentions and trends of both India and Pakistan as also in talking about the scope and state of biological, chemical and ballistic missiles research, production and the threat perception levels in the region. Prefacing the American goals and interests in South Asia, the Defence Department warns that the region cannot be stable until there is a ``just and equitable'' settlement of long standing tensions between India and Pakistan including over Kashmir.
``The threat or use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons (and their delivery by advanced aircraft and missile systems) must be deterred, the further proliferation of these weapons thwarted and all states must become parties to outstanding non- proliferation and related arms control regimes,'' the Pentagon has said. The proliferation of missile delivery systems and related technologies in South Asia remains an area of concern to the U.S.
On the Indian nuclear programme, the Pentagon said the country ``probably'' had a small stockpile of nuclear weapon components and could assemble and deploy a few nuclear weapons within a ``few days to a week'', with the most likely delivery platforms being fighter-bomber aircraft. It was also noted that New Delhi was developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in the future.
``Islamabad's nuclear weapons are probably stored in component form. Pakistan probably could assemble the weapons fairly quickly and has aircraft and possibly ballistic missiles available for delivery,'' the Pentagon said.
The report, among other things, said that despite the announced 28 per cent nominal increase in the Indian defence budget for 2000 - some of it reflecting inflation and definitional differences - military spending was expected to rise by about 2 to 3 per cent annually in real terms over thenext ten years. Future defence budgets would include a focus on investments for self-sufficiency in military production, including for nuclear and missile forces.
``As part of it overall, national security strategy, Pakistan is likely to continue to attach budget priorities to the further development of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles. However, part of this effort will depend on continuing support from China and North Korea or on alternative sources of financial or technical aid,'' the Pentagon said.
-------- korea
Clinton Predicts North Korea Success for Bush
Reuters
January 12, 2001 Filed at 2:03 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-clinton.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton predicts President-elect George W. Bush will be able to seal an early agreement on North Korea's missile program and eventually reach a deal with Russia on further nuclear arms reductions.
But he warns that Bush should handle carefully his plans for a robust national missile defense system, saying it could provoke a new round of missile proliferation around the world.
Clinton told Reuters in an interview aboard Air Force One late on Thursday that Bush would likely complete a deal under which Pyongyang would stop producing and selling ballistic missiles in exchange for foreign assistance in launching satellites.
Clinton had hoped to complete the deal himself and travel to Pyongyang to sign it, but it was not finished in time. He leaves office on Jan. 20. He had hoped to become the first U.S. president to travel to the Stalinist state.
``I think (the deal) will come,'' Clinton said in the interview. ``That's teed up and I believe the Bush administration will see it as a great opportunity.''
``I think it will be one seized within the first few months of the incoming administration,'' he said. ``I think it will be one of their first achievements because it is set and I think it will happen.''
In a meeting at the White House last month, Clinton briefed Bush on what the administration was doing to improve ties with North Korea.
PROGRESS WITH PUTIN?
Clinton also predicted Bush would be able to find common ground with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a new round of nuclear arms reductions.
The Russians have warned that nuclear arms agreements reached at the end of the Cold War could unravel if the United States withdraws from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to build a missile defense system.
``I expect that there will be a further reduction in nuclear warheads by both countries,'' Clinton said. ``That's one thing I think the Bush administration will be in a position to do. Because of the development of our relationships, I expect that President Putin and then-President Bush will be successful in continuing to reduce the nuclear arsenals,'' he said.
On the missile defense system, Clinton said the United States has ``almost a moral obligation'' to pursue the technology but that there should be a way to share it with other countries so it is not destabilizing.
``If we deploy the system in a way that leads to more proliferation and more insecurity, that's very problematic and it's one of the things that I had to consider,'' Clinton said.
For example, he said, if the United States intended the system to counteract missiles based in the Middle East and North Korea, China could interpret it as a move to try to contain them and build up their arsenal from 50 nuclear missiles to 300.
``If they did that, the Indians would decide that they needed more, under the present state of play (with Pakistan). If they did that, the Pakistanis would certainly build more,'' he said.
---
Nuclear Duty for Reservists
International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 12, 2001
NYT
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=7318
WASHINGTON The Pentagon has decided to open U.S. strategic nuclear forces to members of the Reserves and National Guard, reversing a prohibition that dates to the end of the Cold War, according to officials.
As a result, thousands of the nation's citizen-soldiers could join the elite, scrupulously screened forces that control nuclear weapons, whether in missile silos, command bunkers and depots or aboard strategic bombers, transport planes and even submarines.
document.write("<NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT>")The decision is not expected to cause an immediate infusion of reservists into some of the most secretive, sensitive jobs in the American military, the officials said. But they said it would revise what they called an unfair and outdated policy that presumed that people whose military service comprised only part of their lives were unfit for such duty.
---
Search may resume for nuclear bomb lost off Georgia coast in 1950s
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Friday, January 12, 2001
By RUSS BYNUM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/bomb12ww.shtml
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/12/offshore.nuke.ap/index.html
TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. -- Lost beneath the shallow waters and sand off the Georgia coast lies a Cold War relic that lingered for decades, a 7,600-pound nuclear bomb dumped by a crippled Air Force plane.
Nearly 43 years later, questions raised by a former military pilot and a Georgia congressman have caused the government to consider renewing its search for the lost bomb near Tybee Island, 12 miles east of Savannah. The bomb is lost in Wassaw Sound, where the 1996 Olympic sailing competition was held.
The Air Force insists the bomb lacks a key plutonium capsule needed to cause a nuclear explosion, though it still contains radioactive uranium and the explosive power of 400 pounds of TNT.
"It's a nuclear bomb," insists Derek Duke, a former Air Force pilot who's been researching the case for two years. "It's like if I take the battery out of your car, then I try to convince you it's not a car."
"It needs to be found so it moves from the dark, scary realm of lost and unknown and we know where and how it is."
Air Force officials aren't so sure. After weighing the potential dangers of leaving the bomb against the cost of finding it, possibly $1 million or more, they plan to decide soon whether a new search is warranted.
Duke's own search has revived what had become a largely forgotten tale on Tybee Island, a beach community of 4,000 where rustic bungalows sit beside $500,000 homes.
In February 1958, a B-47 bomber on a training mission collided with a fighter jet near Savannah and had to drop the bomb to land safely. It was dumped on the south side of Tybee's uninhabited sister island, called Little Tybee. The military spent weeks searching for the sunken weapon, then gave up.
For residents who remembered, the bomb was ancient history by the time the Olympics came to town. Others had never heard the story, or discounted it as local myth.
"Savannahians have all kinds of tales and legends," said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, who represents coastal Georgia in Congress. "And part of the Savannah lore was there's a bomb off Tybee. And you'd go, 'Is there really?'"
Kingston was skeptical until Duke came to him last summer with a proposal to find the lost weapon himself using a team of former military experts with technology capable of scanning the ocean floor. Newspaper clippings from 1958 and government documents indicated the bomb was real. But how dangerous was it?
Duke points to an April 1966 letter to the chairman of Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy by W.J. Howard, then assistant to the secretary of defense. Howard listed four nuclear weapons that had been lost and never recovered.
Though two were described as "weapons-less capsules," and thus incapable of a nuclear blast, the Tybee Island bomb wasn't one of them. Howard listed it and a device lost in the deep Western Pacific in 1965 as "complete" weapons.
At Kingston's urging, the Air Force checked its original records on the bomb and concluded Howard was wrong.
"The bomb off the coast of Savannah is not capable of a nuclear explosion," said Maj. Cheryl Law, an Air Force spokeswoman. As for the uranium still inside the bomb, "to have that hurt you, you would actually have to ingest it."
That doesn't mean the bomb is harmless. High explosives in the 12-foot cylinder, resembling a large propane tank, could cause serious damage if they detonated with a boat directly overhead. There's also the environmental threat of an underwater explosion and radiation leakage killing fish and other sea life.
But there's no guarantee the bomb could be found. Experts have warned the Air Force that tides and strong weather patterns over the years could have moved the bomb out to sea.
Kingston said he's willing to follow the Air Force's lead for now. But he'd like to see some effort, if only a small search covering just a few miles.
"Four hundred pounds of TNT to some folks isn't a big deal," he said. "But if it's your family and your boat that hits it, it is a big deal."
But an Air Force expert on nuclear weapons who has studied the Tybee Island bomb said damage from an accidental explosion would be minimal.
Officials believe the bomb sank at least five miles off the coast, beneath 20 feet of water and an additional 15 feet of sand and silt, said Maj. Don Robbins, deputy director of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation Agency.
If it exploded, the bomb "would create maybe a 10-foot diameter hole and shock waves through the water of approximately 100 yards," Robbins said. "Even boats going over it would not even notice. They might see some bubbles coming out around them."
The amount of uranium in the bomb's casing is too low to cause a serious environmental threat, he said.
A month after the Tybee Island incident, in March 1958, a second B-47 dropped a similar bomb, without its nuclear payload, in Florence, S.C. The resulting explosion blasted a crater into the ground and injured six people.
Tybee Island residents, known to ride out hurricane warnings at the beachside bars, haven't been ruffled by the wayward bomb.
"It was all over the newspapers and the radio. But nobody worried about it," said city councilman Jack Youmans, 75, who was living on the island when the bomb was dropped. "If it's there, then it's there. That's all."
Tybee Island Mayor Walter Parker said he hasn't received a single phone call from residents about the bomb. And John Mack Adams, an island retiree who writes about local history, hasn't heard much other than a friend's joke that their property values might plummet.
"A lot of the locals have lived here all their lives. They look at it kind of like a crap shoot," Adams said. "These folks don't scare too easily."
------
At confirmation, Rumsfeld promotes missile defense
Philadelphia Inquirer
Friday, January 12, 2001
By Jonathan S. Landay INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/01/12/national/RUMSFELD12.htm
WASHINGTON - The United States needs a national missile defense and could deploy the system even before all the technical bugs are worked out, Defense Secretary-designate Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.
"Effective missile defense - not only homeland defense but also the ability to defend U.S. allies abroad and our friends - must be achieved in the most cost-effective manner that technology offers," Rumsfeld testified during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
At the end of the six-hour hearing, panel members from both parties assured Rumsfeld he would be swiftly confirmed after President-elect George W. Bush's inauguration Jan. 20.
Rumsfeld pledged to push for a major increase in the Pentagon's $310 billion budget, improve military readiness, transform the armed forces to meet 21st-century threats, bolster intelligence gathering, and implement wide-ranging acquisition and budgetary reforms.
Rumsfeld, 68, was secretary of defense for 14 months between 1975 and 1977 under President Gerald Ford.
Despite major differences over issues such as missile defense, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and nuclear testing, committee Democrats did not get tough with Rumsfeld.
Yet there were hints during the session of future frictions.
Senators, for example, reminded Rumsfeld that China and Russia strenuously oppose U.S. missile-defense plans, and NATO partners also have serious reservations. Rumsfeld promised he would consult more closely with the European allies on missile defense.
Noting that two of three tests of a prototype national missile-defense interceptor had failed to hit warheads in space, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) asked Rumsfeld whether he would require the system to pass a field test before declaring it ready.
"I would really like to avoid setting hurdles on this subject," Rumsfeld replied. But he went on to imply that a system that still had technological problems could be deployed. He pointed out that the United States began using its first spy satellites, code-named Corona, before they were fully proved.
Corona "failed something like 11, 12, or 13 times during the Eisenhower administration and the Kennedy administration," Rumsfeld said. "And they stuck with it, and it worked, and it ended up saving billions of dollars because of the better knowledge we achieved."
Just deploying a national missile-defense system, Rumsfeld continued, was sufficient to force adversaries to think twice about attacking the United States.
Rumsfeld declined to discuss the kind of national and theater missile-defense systems that the Bush administration would seek. He said that would be determined in a review.
During the campaign, Bush spoke of developing globe-spanning land-, sea- and space-based missile defenses capable of defending the United States, its allies and its troops in the field from attacks by missiles with nuclear, biological and chemical warheads.
Many experts, including prominent physicists, doubt that effective missile defenses are possible. They doubt technology would ever allow interceptors to distinguish between real warheads and decoys.
Rumsfeld stuck to the national security platform Bush promoted in the campaign.
On some issues, such as U.S. military assistance to Colombia's antidrug efforts, Rumsfeld declined to offer his position, saying that he had yet to be briefed or that he would await the results of a defense strategy review.
Among the topics on which he would not be pinned down was the size of the Pentagon spending increase he would seek. But he held out the possibility that the defense strategy review could target big-ticket weapons programs for elimination.
During the campaign, Bush promised to raise military spending by at least $45 billion over a decade. But the sum is insufficient to cover a shortfall - estimated at $50 billion to $100 billion per year - between what the Pentagon needs to buy aircraft, guns and ships already on order and the money it will actually have available.
Nor does Bush's plan include funds for the larger missile-defense system he has proposed. President Clinton was pursuing a more limited $60 billion system but deferred a decision on deployment to his successor.
Many experts, including some who advised Bush on defense during the campaign, say the financing shortfall will force the administration to cut or scale back major weapons programs.
Jonathan S. Landay's e-mail address is jlanday@krwashington.com
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Electricity talks run out of steam
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
By Patrice Hill
http://www.washtimes.com/business/default-2001112213421.htm
Hopes for a federally brokered solution to California's power crisis faded yesterday as the state declared a high-level power emergency and Gov. Gray Davis said he would not act to prevent a utility bankruptcy.
The state's two largest utilities are fast running out of cash to pay for their purchases of power, as well as for servicing $12 billion of debt they amassed, mostly during the power crisis last year.
Federal and state negotiators so far have failed to find a solution to this critical problem, because it would require either a large increase in consumer electricity rates or a state-financed bailout or guarantee of the utility debt. Mr. Davis ruled that out yesterday.
"We're not stepping in in the short term," the California Democrat said at a news conference in Sacramento after returning from a negotiating session here on Tuesday aimed at resolving the crisis. The session was arranged by the Clinton administration. "We will help in the long term," he said.
Hearings in the Democratic-controlled state Legislature also have focused only on long-term remedies for the state's energy crisis. Lawmakers say they do not want state ratepayers or taxpayers to finance a bailout.
But Wall Street analysts say there will be no "long term" unless the state resolves the short-term credit crunch faced by the utilities. And a growing number of economists on Wall Street say the state's energy crisis and impending bankruptcies are threatening to drag the state and the rest of the country into recession.
Major credit agencies say they will downgrade the utilities' debt to "junk" status unless the state acts. That would put the companies in default and make it impossible for them to get new loans.
Mr. Davis is considering having the state buy electricity for the utilities, owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. and Edison International, and giving the utilities flexibility in paying for the power. But analysts say that plan would not restore their credit ratings and enable them to keep operating on their own.
"There have to be some serious credit guarantees," said Mark Palmer, vice president of Enron Corp., one of the power suppliers participating in the negotiations.
Participants in the negotiations said they had seen progress on some issues, such as reforming the way the utilities purchase power from generators through long-term contracts. But the talks are far short of finding a solution to the credit crunch that shook Wall Street markets a week ago.
Administration sources said there's a good chance the negotiations won't resolve the financial crisis. The utilities' creditors -Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other banks and mutual funds -have not been involved in the talks. Negotiators have been constrained by Mr. Davis' unwillingness to find ways to make the utilities financially whole, though they are doing their best to work within the limits he set, administration sources said.
The talks are being held at the Treasury Department, which is comforting to Wall Street financiers who are hoping for a federal or state bailout. But administration sources said they have no intention of stepping in with a bailout if the state fails to act.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson set a new deadline for negotiators by extending until Wednesday an emergency order that requires Western power generators to keep supplying the utilities with electricity, despite doubts about their ability to pay for it
"The best way to prevent a bankruptcy is to support the utilities' request to raise consumer rates," said Richard Wheatley of Reliant Energy, a Houston energy supplier participating in the negotiations.
Instead, Mr. Davis and the state legislators appear to be moving toward a takeover of parts of the power system. They also want the federal government to impose caps on wholesale power prices throughout the West. The state already caps consumer rates.
The Energy Department emergency order contains a cap on wholesale prices, set at $64 per megawatt hour. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has strongly opposed such price controls over the long term.
"Re-regulation and state control cannot and will not solve the issue of supply - the main factor creating the crisis in California," Mr. Wheatley said.
Mr. Davis said Reliant, Enron and other power generators involved in the negotiations are prepared to give the utilities extra time to repay their debts. But the power company spokesmen said an agreement is still far off, and may not be reached if the state provides no guarantees.
Meanwhile, bad weather and power plant closures yesterday forced the manager of California's power grid, the Independent System Operator, to declare a "stage three" emergency for only the second time in the crisis.
The emergency designation, which is declared when power reserves fall within 1.5 percent of demand, enables the utilities to cut off power for commercial customers that have interruptible contracts. Some universities and businesses closed for the day.
The state narrowly averted rolling blackouts yesterday after a powerful storm crippled a key nuclear plant while other electric-generating stations shut down for maintenance.
-------- colorado
Nuke workers may get lost pay
Clinton plan would compensate those made ill at Rocky Flats
Denver Rocky Mountain New
January 12, 2001
By Berny Morson Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
mailto:morsonb@rockymountainnews.com
http://insidedenver.com/news/0112flat7.shtml
The Department of Energy moved Thursday to compensate workers at Rocky Flats and other nuclear facilities who developed serious diseases, such as cancer.
The proposal, one of the final acts of the Clinton administration, would reimburse the workers for lost wages after they became ill.
It must be approved by Congress. But outgoing Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said that a related bill last year to help "our Cold War heroes" was supported by both parties.
President Clinton Last month issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to reconstruct the exposure levels of current and former nuclear workers who have become ill. The project will help establish whether the diseases are occupational.
An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 workers nationwide could be affected. At Rocky Flats, 2,000 people could have claims, said spokeswoman Karen Lutz.
Costs for the next 10 years are estimated at $1.66 billion.
Those who believe they have claims should call a federal hotline at (877) 447-9756.
In the past, the federal government had fought worker claims. Many workers felt they had been abandoned by the government they had served, a view Richardson shares.
"Somehow we forgot what a handshake meant, what our word meant - especially the word of our country," he said. "For many years, the government promoted a legacy of neglect toward those workers who helped build the strongest national security in the world."
George Barrie, a former Rocky Flats machinist who lives in Craig, said he's glad the government will open the records to determine worker exposure levels. Barrie has degenerative bone disease, as well as digestive problems, which he attributes to his work.
Barrie inhaled Americium, a by-product of plutonium, when the seal failed on a piece of protective glass. But how much was never established, he said Thursday.
"I'm happy with them now. They're going as fast as they can," Barrie said of Clinton Administration efforts to compenstate the injured workers.
The bill passed last year authorizes the government to cover the medical costs of the Cold War workers and to pay them - or their heirs - a lump sum of $150,000 for lost wages.
But lost wages could total far more than that for some employees who were sick for years.
The new bill would cover the higher costs, although it would not be retroactive, said Shelby Hallmark of the Department of labor, which will administer the payments.
In addition to the Rocky Flats workers, compensation could go to people who worked at private companies with defense connections, such as Coors Porcelain, which processed beryllium for use in nuclear weapons.
Contact Berny Morson at (303) 892-5072 or morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com.
-------- new york
No Pressure to Open A-Plant, Con Edison Tells Workers
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By WINNIE HU
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/nyregion/12INDI.html
WHITE PLAINS, Jan. 11 - Consolidated Edison held special safety briefings today for its 800 workers at the Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor, but that was not enough to deflect renewed criticism from local officials and advocacy groups about its bungled effort to restart the plant.
An internal report by Con Edison, which was made public on Wednesday, said that some workers had made avoidable mistakes in bringing the plant back on line last week, in part because they felt pressure from their supervisors to act quickly.
The report said those errors posed no safety threats and violated no government rules, but they did make the reactor harder to monitor and control, and have delayed plans to bring the reactor up to full power for the first time in nearly 11 months. The plant in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Manhattan, was shut down in February after a tiny amount of radioactive water leaked out of a cracked tube.
Con Ed's internal report said that in restarting the reactor, pressure from supervisors to move quickly "may have led operators to reduce their questioning attitude and make them more willing to accept less-than-adequate conditions."
Today, Con Edison managers sought to assure workers that they were under no such pressure from management, said Stephen E. Quinn, a vice president at the utility. "The safe operation of this plant is our only, only, only concern," he said. "We just have to drive it home to the public. We even have to drive it home to our own employees."
Mr. Quinn said the utility would follow seven technical and safety procedures that the report recommended be adopted before trying to bring the plant up to full power. The plant has been operating at about 30 percent of its 1,000-megawatt generating capacity since Jan. 3.
Critics had warned that it was too soon to restart the plant, and Con Ed's internal report has done little to reassure them.
"They seem to be in a rush to open it up," said Senator Charles E. Schumer. "And they have put safety in the back seat."
Andrew J. Spano, the Westchester County executive, and many others said the internal report bolstered their earlier call to shut down the plant until its operations have been fully evaluated by an independent panel of industry experts and local officials. "It's a milieu that's been established at the plant, and the workers felt it," Mr. Spano said. "They were intimidated by an arbitrary deadline."
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Brian E. Holian, acknowledged today that the report revealed a troubling perception among some of the plant's workers but emphasized that Indian Point 2 was considered to be safe for operation. He said that Con Ed did not need regulatory approval to restart the plant or to increase its production of electricity.
Con Edison officials said no date had been set for bringing the plant to full capacity. The utility has a contract to sell the reactor to Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss. A spokesman for Entergy did not respond to calls today seeking comment.
Several critics said Con Edison's mistakes had continued to cost residents who depend on the utility. Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, who represents parts of Westchester County, said Con Ed had passed along about $800,000 a day in added costs to its customers because of the Indian Point 2 shutdown. "Not only does Con Edison refuse to change its behavior," he said, "but it insists on charging us for its own negligence."
In a separate action, Mr. Spano today asked county legislators to approve two suits against Con Ed and the Public Service Commission over two rate plans approved in November that he said would lead to higher bills for Westchester customers.
-------- washington
Hanford on list of sites with beryllium hazard
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Friday, January 12, 2001
By LINDA ASHTON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/bery12.shtml
YAKIMA -- Terry Cherney doesn't know exactly when or where he was exposed to beryllium, a rare metallic element once used for nuclear fuel rod construction at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
But three years ago, a blood sample showed he had been exposed to the metal, which can cause chronic, disabling respiratory illness and sometimes death.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy identified 317 sites that employed 600,000 people in 37 states and elsewhere for nuclear weapons-related work during the Cold War.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson urged sick workers who were employed at the facilities to contact the government because they might qualify for compensation under a federal program enacted last year.
Hanford, where plutonium was made for nuclear bombs for 40 years, and DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are on the list.
Twenty-five Hanford workers so far have been identified as being affected by beryllium, said Cherney, 47, a health physics technician who's worked at the site for more than 20 years. Three of those have chronic beryllium disease, the other 22 are diagnosed as beryllium sensitive.
Beryllium was used at 55 Hanford facilities from the 1950s until 1987.
-------- us nuc politics
Rumsfeld Calls for Missile Defense
Associated Press
January 12, 2001 Filed at 3:41 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Rumsfeld.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Rumsfeld easily fielded six hours of questioning in his pursuit of a second stint as secretary of defense. Now comes the hard part: revamping America's military and building and funding a national missile defense.
President-elect Bush's nominee for the top Pentagon post appeared relaxed and was well-received Thursday as he answered questions on a wide range of defense issues before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He told the panel that, if confirmed, he'd refashion America's armed forces, including building a national missile defense system to protect America against new global threats.
``The old deterrence of the Cold War era is imperfect for dissuading the threats of the 21st century,'' Rumsfeld said.
Committee members said Rumsfeld has broad bipartisan support and is expected to easily win the panel's approval. Senators said he is likely to get the full chamber's vote on Jan. 20, the day Bush is inaugurated.
A veteran of Republican administrations going back to the Nixon years, Rumsfeld, 68, was hailed at Thursday's hearing as a candidate of substantial experience and ability. Among previous posts was his 14 months as secretary of defense under President Ford from late 1975 to early 1977.
The hearing, which ranking committee Republican Sen. John Warner called a ``thorough discussion'' of defense issues, also touched on international peacekeeping missions, problems with military recruiting, military assistance in Colombia's anti-drug war and North Korea's nuclear program.
But over and over, senators kept coming back to questions on the effectiveness, cost and need for a missile defense system.
In addition to missile defense, Rumsfeld said his primary objectives are improving force readiness, strengthening intelligence and space capabilities, shortening the time it takes to develop new weaponry and reorganizing things at the Department of Defense.
Before Rumsfeld even got a chance to speak, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, opened the hearing by noting improvements in the armed forces already made in the 1990s.
The new secretary, Levin said, ``will inherit the most dominant military force in the history of the world.''
He argued against developing and deploying a system to defend against incoming missiles, noting that before President Clinton deferred a decision on the program last fall he considered its potential expense, world opposition to it and the important questions of whether one could even be developed to work.
``Ballistic missile attack ... is a threat, but it is one we have successfully deterred,'' Levin added.
Others questioners focused on how fast the new administration will want to move on the proposed missile defense program and how it plans to pay for it and other big-ticket plans such as modernizing the Army and boosting military salaries in a slowing economy.
``This is going to require some tough leadership ... the setting of priorities,'' said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.
A native of Chicago, Rumsfeld was elected to the first of four congressional terms at 30. He became the youngest defense secretary in history when he was tapped for the job by Ford.
While Rumsfeld has been out of government for years, he has stayed on top of some of the biggest defense issues. He led a national commission that examined the risk of missile attacks against the United States and another that looked at possible threats to U.S. satellites.
While Rumsfeld was testifying on Capitol Hill, a commission he chaired on satellites released its report, saying lack of attention by the government to its satellites and space policy makes the United States ``an attractive candidate for a space Pearl Harbor.''
The United States depends on space more than any other country -- for military surveillance, weather forecasts, cell phone connections -- yet the White House, Congress and various government agencies fail to make space protection a top priority, the panel concluded.
The commission was led by Rumsfeld until he stepped down following his nomination by Bush to be defense secretary.
---
Bush Candidate for Defense Job Sees Overhaul
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/politics/12RUMS.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 - Donald H. Rumsfeld, the prospective secretary of defense, called today for a sweeping revision of the nation's deterrence strategy and weaponry, advocating increases in military spending, the deployment of a national missile defense and a tougher stand toward China and North Korea.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee more than 25 years after hearings for his first confirmation as secretary of defense, Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States today faced "a dangerous and untidy world" that included threats not thought of in the cold war, like cyberattacks and ballistic missiles from emerging nuclear powers.
Among his first tasks upon taking office, he said, would be to conduct a "comprehensive review" of military policy to meet those new threats. And he vowed that the review would eliminate the Pentagon's "unneeded organizations and facilities" and revise its cumbersome system of developing new weapons.
But Mr. Rumsfeld left no doubt that, even before such a review, he believed today's threats required increases in military spending, which he said had been inadequate and unreliable. He even suggested President-elect George W. Bush would not wait until the next fiscal year's budget takes effect in October, but rather seek an immediate infusion of money shortly after taking office.
Mr. Rumsfeld offered neither an exact figure nor an explanation of how the new administration would pay for the array of weapons the armed services already have on the drawing board but cannot afford in current budget projections - something military experts call the approaching "defense train wreck."
"We need to ensure that we will be able to develop and deploy and operate and support a highly effective force capable of deterring and defending against new threats," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "This will require a refashioning of deterrence and defense capabilities. The old deterrence of the cold-war era is imperfect for dissuading the threats of the new century and for maintaining stability in our new national security environment."
There was bipartisan agreement in the hearing that spending needed to rise, but partisan disagreements over how much and in what areas. During the campaign, Mr. Bush pledged to increase spending by $45 billion over 10 years, far short of what the uniformed commanders say they need to replace aging weapons and equipment. Vice President Al Gore proposed roughly twice that amount in his Democratic campaign for the presidency.
While Mr. Rumsfeld stopped short of announcing any changes the Bush administration intends to make in national security policy, he expressed views that sharply contrasted with the Clinton administration's national security strategy in significant areas. They included his opposition to the treaty banning nuclear- weapons testing and his description of North Korea as a dictatorship more interested in selling missiles than feeding its people.
Mr. Rumsfeld also made a forceful case for deploying a national missile defense, saying the United States needed to develop a new kind of deterrence against emerging missile threats. He also derided the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which prohibited such defenses, as "ancient history."
"It dates back even farther than when I was last in the Pentagon," said Mr. Rumsfeld, who served as secretary of defense under President Gerald Ford from November 1975 until January 1977.
Mr. Rumsfeld warned that Chinese leaders were bent on challenging American influence in Asia and continued to spend more on its military, particularly the forces poised across the strait from Taiwan.
"We can't engage in self-delusion," he said. Then, rejecting a phrase President Clinton's aides often used, he added, "They are not strategic partners in my view."
The question of whether Mr. Rumsfeld would be confirmed was never really at issue at today's hearing, which lasted more than six hours. None of the 24 senators on the committee - evenly split between Democrats and Republicans - expressed opposition to his selection.
Nonetheless, Mr. Rumsfeld's extensive business investments and a conversation he had with President Richard M. Nixon 29 years ago emerged as pointed rocks on an otherwise smooth path to confirmation.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who has served as chief executive officer for G. D. Searle and Company, the pharmaceutical company, and the General Instrument Corporation, the electronics company, stumbled when asked if he had adhered to the government's conflicts of interest laws, saying, "I don't know."
Mr. Rumsfeld has filed financial disclosure forms with the Bush transition team, the Pentagon and the Office of Government Ethics, but those offices had yet to forward the paperwork to the Senate.
Mr. Rumsfeld acknowledged that he had "a large number of investments and activities that would have to be characterized as `conflicts' were they to be maintained during service as secretary of defense." But he pledged to divest himself of them.
Senator Carl Levin, the Democrat from Michigan who is serving until Jan. 20 as the committee's chairman, also questioned a White House tape of a conversation Mr. Rumsfeld had with President Nixon in 1971, in which Mr. Rumsfeld referred to the World Wars , and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam as "Democrat wars," and agreed as Mr. Nixon offered a rambling, racially tinged discourse that included slurs.
Mr. Rumsfeld said he did not recall the conversation, which was recounted in The Chicago Tribune on Sunday, but he disavowed the remarks Mr. Nixon made. "I did not then, and I do not now, agree with the offensive and wrong characterizations," he said.
For the most part, the tone of today's hearing was collegial and respectful. But the committee's Democrats pressed Mr. Rumsfeld on a number of issues, including the new administration's promise to negotiate the removal of American peacekeeping troops from the Balkans and to build a national missile defense. The latter is expected to be one of the major areas of confrontation with the new administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill.
On Wednesday, the outgoing secretary, William S. Cohen, promoted the administration's Pentagon budget, including new projected increases of more than $50 billion over six years. But Mr. Rumsfeld suggested that even more may be needed.
At one point, Mr. Rumsfeld again recalled his first tour at the Pentagon, saying that as secretary of defense a quarter-century ago he approved the B-1 bomber, the F-16 fighter jet and the M1 tank - all weapons still in the arsenal today. And yet, at no point did he indicate which, if any, of the new weapons programs he would support.
The questions over financing for new weapons underscored the challenges facing Mr. Rumsfeld as he returns to a Pentagon bureaucracy that he acknowledged resists change. At several points, he complained that with the truncated transition, he would enter the Pentagon with few of the deputies he will need.
Mr. Rumsfeld cannot be confirmed until Mr. Bush officially nominates him after taking the oath, and it appears the transition team has held off appointing deputies until then. Two Republican officials said that Mr. Rumsfeld hoped to move quickly to appoint a deputy secretary and has focused on Paul D. Wolfowitz, a former Pentagon official and ambassador to Indonesia whom Mr. Bush had considered for the top job.
--------
Bush's Wild Card
By Bob Woodward
Friday, January 12, 2001 ; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50382-2001Jan11?language=printer
Donald H. Rumsfeld, the man President-elect George W. Bush wants to be the next secretary of defense, was one of the brightest Republican stars in the 1960s and '70s, serving in Congress, in cabinet-level posts in the Nixon administration, as President Ford's White House chief of staff, and then as Ford's defense secretary for 14 months. Many associates, including Rumsfeld himself at times, thought that the former 157-pound Princeton wrestler was headed for the presidency.
Those ambitions never fully flowered in part because of the rise of the president-elect's father, George Bush senior. In the 1980s and '90s, when Bush served as vice president and then president, Rumsfeld stayed in the Chicago area, his hometown, running companies and playing only on the edge of government. But over four decades a pretty clear picture emerges of this scrappy, independent-minded and demanding executive's core: Rumsfeld admires most those people who don't allow themselves to be pushed around -- even by presidents.
If confirmed, he may be more of a wild card in the new administration than the Ford retread some have made him out to be.
In 1975, after a year as White House chief of staff, Rumsfeld was summoned to see Ford, who said that he planned to fire Defense Secretary James Schlesinger. Rumsfeld would move to Defense. CIA Director William Colby was also leaving and was going to be replaced by George Bush senior, then the representative in China -- an assignment that Rumsfeld has privately called "a crappy, irrelevant job." Ford then elevated Rumsfeld's deputy, Dick Cheney, to be the new White House chief of staff. At the time, the Senate was refusing to confirm Bush senior as CIA director unless Ford pledged not to select Bush as his vice presidential running mate for the coming election. Rumsfeld told Ford and Cheney that the president should not cave in to the Senate and should keep the option open. When Ford and Bush eventually made the pledge to the Senate anyway, Rumsfeld blamed Cheney in part and was very severe with the new chief of staff, telling him in so many words, you've screwed up on the first thing you've done.
During the next year, 1976, a subtle rivalry emerged between Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and CIA Director Bush. In their years in the House, Rumsfeld had found Bush to be a lightweight who was interested in friendships, public relations and public opinion polls more than substantive policy. In Rumsfeld's view, Bush avoided controversy and sweat, except in the House gym. He went so far with others as to declare that Bush had some of what Rumsfeld called the "Rockefeller syndrome": available and wanting to serve but not having clear goals or knowing why he wanted a particular post.
Rumsfeld believed that Bush and his CIA seriously underestimated the Soviet Union's military advances in missile accuracy, the speed with which multiple warheads were being placed on intercontinental missiles, and defense expenditures. In particular, Rumsfeld believed that Bush senior as CIA director stayed mute or agreed with then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that the Soviet Backfire Bomber was not an intercontinental, strategic bomber. Intelligence photos showed that the bomber had a refueling probe that extended its range, but Bush and Kissinger would not acknowledge what was obvious to Rumsfeld. "Kissinger wanted Bush for the CIA because he felt he could manage him," Rumsfeld has said.
Rumsfeld felt that his most significant achievement during his 14 months as defense secretary was alerting Congress and the public that the Soviet Union had gone from a primitive power in the 1960s to superpower status in the 1970s. "It was a stunningly unattractive position for the president and Kissinger," Rumsfeld has noted. He showed the highest classified material to congressmen and senators, including satellite photos to prove his point. Ford wanted to win election as a president who had maintained superiority over the Soviets, and Kissinger wanted an arms control agreement. Rumsfeld's efforts hurt both.
Having toyed with running for president himself, Rumsfeld has some very specific thoughts -- and high expectations -- for anyone who wins the office. In 1988, he had reservations about Bush senior, and that spring he said privately, "Bush has very few enemies. He's not accumulated them because of the way he's lived. He has not drawn fire. He has not gone to the wall that often, if ever. He's not been around a lot of carnage. This is a good strategy to get the nomination, but can somebody like this be president?"
After a long discussion Rumsfeld and I had about the presidency, he sent me a letter dated Sept. 29, 1988, summarizing six core traits he believed were necessary for a successful president: "1) Having priorities . . . must be willing to make choices or the Administration will lack focus, go off in fifteen directions at once, get nowhere. 2) Knowing the importance of selecting the right people for key posts. 3) A president leads by consent, not by command . . . success will depend more on his ability to 'persuade,' than on his ability to 'order.' 4) A moral compass. . . . 5) The president has to have guts . . . he will need a little steel up his spine at the important moments. 6) There should be as small a gap as possible between what a president is and what people think he is, because the gap will close."
Rumsfeld was thinking of the president-elect's father, who was on the verge of winning the presidency, but it's not a bad list for the son. In fairness, Rumsfeld has since said that he thought Bush senior was a strong president in foreign policy and during the Gulf War, when President Bush clearly went to the wall. Rumsfeld had government appointments in the Reagan administration as Middle East envoy and the Clinton administration as head of the missile defense commission, but none in the administration of Bush senior.
The novelist Wallace Stegner wrote of what he called "resilience under disappointment," the persistence of drive, hard work and even stubbornness after ambition has not been fully realized. Rumsfeld once thought he was on track to run for or even become president. Instead, 25 years after his Pentagon service he is slated to return in the administration of his rival's son. It will surely be one of the most interesting relationships to watch.
The writer is an assistant managing editor of The Post.
----
Rumsfeld Impresses Armed Services Panel
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 12, 2001 ; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50198-2001Jan11?language=printer
Donald H. Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's pick to be defense secretary, sailed through a confirmation hearing yesterday that focused heavily on missile defense, Third World missile proliferation, information warfare and other emerging 21st century threats to U.S. security.
Meanwhile, former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz was picked by Bush and Rumsfeld for the No. 2 job at the Defense Department, a Bush transition official said.
The selection of Wolfowitz, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, appears to be another victory for Vice President-elect Cheney over Secretary of State-designate Colin L. Powell. Wolfowitz was Cheney's policy chief at the Pentagon during the Persian Gulf War, and people around Cheney have been touting him for a top job at the Pentagon.
Powell reportedly had favored former Pentagon official Richard L. Armitage for the post of deputy secretary of defense, and some people close to Powell had criticized Wolfowitz as a manager. In addition, said one person familiar with Powell's thinking, Powell disagrees with Wolfowitz's advocacy of a much more aggressive stance on Iraq.
The selection of Wolfowitz marks the second time that Cheney's choice for a top Pentagon job prevailed over Powell's. Earlier, Powell had backed Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge for defense secretary, only to have Cheney and Bush select Rumsfeld.
In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld signaled that he expects to be a forceful voice on foreign policy matters, just as he was when he was defense secretary from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford.
For example, while discussing how other nations might react to Bush's intention to deploy a missile defense system, Rumsfeld noted that he was "wandering" onto the State Department's turf, yet he continued to hold forth. "Once the Russians understand that the United States is serious about this and intends to deploy," he said, "they will . . . accept that reality."
Rumsfeld also criticized Moscow for selling missile technology to Iran and India. "I know in fact that they [the Russians] are active proliferators," he said.
Without mentioning Powell by name, he went on to question some aspects of Powell's restrictive view on the use of force, generally known as the Powell doctrine. In particular, he argued that U.S. leaders should not make public support a prerequisite for taking military action. "I'm uncomfortable with that," he said. "There are times when leaders have to act when the public's not there yet."
Rumsfeld's confident manner and command of current facts, after more than two decades outside government, clearly impressed the Armed Services panel, whose members at one point discussed whether they could forward the nomination immediately.
The only tough questioning concerned comments Rumsfeld made in response to President Richard M. Nixon while Rumsfeld was a White House aide 30 years ago. Nixon's comments, which were taped, disparaged African Americans, and Rumsfeld's low-key response appeared to go along with those comments.
"The truth is, I didn't remember the meeting or the conversation at all when it was raised," Rumsfeld said. He added: "I did not then, and I do not now, agree with the offensive and wrong characterizations."
Rumsfeld said he strongly supports Bush's plan to reform the military to deal with the threats of the 21st century. But he appeared less than enthusiastic when asked specifically about Bush's campaign promise to "skip a generation of technology" in weapons procurement -- a vow that has worried members of Congress with big defense plants in their districts. Rumsfeld reassured the committee that he does not believe it is necessary to "leapfrog" to transform the military.
He also said it is his understanding that Bush will spend more on defense than the $45 billion increase promised during the election campaign. But he said he would not know how much more until the new administration completes a sweeping review of national security strategy.
He also indicated that during the review, he will seek to focus the national security establishment much more on missile proliferation and the need for better intelligence to deal with it.
Rumsfeld's ease during his second confirmation hearing to be defense secretary, 26 years after the first, was evident throughout the day, but never more so than when Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) lectured him at length on the lack of financial controls at the Pentagon. Byrd wound up by demanding, "What are you going to do about this?"
Rumsfeld shot back, "Decline the nomination!"
-------- MILITARY
North troops hid with refugees
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001112221448.htm
The Pentagon said yesterday that U.S. soldiers killed groups of South Korean refugees early in the Korean War because North Korean soldiers were hiding among them.
President Clinton issued a statement of regret for the killing of civilians.
"On behalf of the United States of America, I deeply regret that Korean civilians lost their lives at No Gun Ri in late July 1950," the president said.
The incident at No Gun Ri "has served as a painful reminder of the tragedies of war and the scars they leave behind on people and on nations," Mr. Clinton said. "To those Koreans who lost loved ones at No Gun Ri, I offer my condolences."
The events surrounding the deaths in June 1950 - shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War -could not be determined precisely, and an investigation by the United States and South Korea said an unconfirmed number of refugees were killed or injured, defense officials said.
The United States is setting up a memorial near No Gun Ri, located about 30 miles southeast of Taejon, in the southern part of the country, Mr. Clinton said. It also is establishing a commemorative scholarship fund "to preserve the memory of those who died during the war."
But South Korean survivors of the incident called the U.S. report a "whitewash."
"It's full of excuses," said Park Hee-sook, 66, who said she witnessed the incident.
"Any final report that does not deal with the responsibility of commanders has a serious defect," said Chung Koo-do, spokesman for a group of No Gun Ri survivors. "It can't be construed as anything other than a Pentagon attempt to whitewash the massacre."
Charles Cragin, a deputy assistant defense secretary involved in the investigation, said there is no evidence orders were given to shoot civilians. "The only orders that we could find were the inferences of orders," he said at a Pentagon briefing.
"U.S. soldiers were legitimately fearful of the possible infiltration of North Korean soldiers, who routinely entered American lines in groups disguised as civilians in refugee columns and then attacked American positions from the rear," Mr. Cragin said.
The U.S. Army's report concluded that the deaths and injuries of civilians were part of the tragedy of war and not deliberate.
Mr. Cragin said soldiers at the time "were not aiming at innocent civilians for the purpose of killing innocent civilians."
With North Korean infiltrators hiding among the civilians, the unprepared U.S. soldiers "believed they were in a threat situation," Mr. Cragin said. "That is not the deliberate and intentional determination to kill an innocent noncombatant."
He said there was a "very substantial history" of North Korean soldiers posing as civilians at that period of the conflict.
Army Lt. Gen. Michael Ackerman, the Army's inspector general, said soldiers told investigators of the bodies of North Korean soldiers being found among the civilian casualties at No Gun Ri.
"Yes, there were soldiers that we interviewed, veterans that said that they saw or found afterwards North Korean soldiers amongst the civilians after the firing had occurred," Gen. Ackerman said.
The United States and South Korea issued a joint statement of mutual understanding yesterday that concluded there is no proof orders were given to fire on civilians.
The 15-month investigation was arranged after publication of a series of investigative articles by the Associated Press.
A blue-ribbon panel of eight defense specialists appointed by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen oversaw the investigation.
"The Korean War was fought for a just cause," Mr. Cohen told reporters in releasing the Pentagon's findings. "After North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, U.S. forces were rushed into battle from Japan, joined later by many thousands of Americans, 36,000 of whom lost their lives in battle to defend freedom."
-------- arms sales
Mitterrand's Son Free on Bail After 21 Days
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By SUZANNE DALEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/world/12FRAN.html
PARIS, Jan. 11 - The 54-year-old son of former President François Mitterrand was freed on bail today after spending 21 days in jail on suspicion of being involved in an illegal arms sale to Angola.
The son, Jean-Christophe, was released after his mother posted the $725,000 bail. Mr. Mitterrand, who was a longtime adviser to his father on African affairs, smiled as he left the fortress-like Santé prison here, but he offered no comment.
After posting the bail in person, his mother, Danielle, told reporters that she had paid her son's "ransom," adding: "It's done. Jean-Christophe is free. Now he can defend himself and say what he has to say."
Mr. Mitterrand is suspected of having used his contacts to arrange a $500 million weapons sale to Angola from a private arms manufacturer in the mid-1990's.
He has acknowledged that $1.8 million was deposited to his Swiss bank account. But he has denied any wrongdoing and said the money was his legitimate commission for arranging bank loans to the government of Angola's president, José Eduardo dos Santos.
In an interview published in this week's issue of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Mr. Mitterrand accused investigators of using him to score political points and blacken his family name. He said the investigating judge in the case, Philippe Courroye, "had displayed an unyielding hostility, with a real look of hate."
"If I had not been called Mitterrand, I would not have had this treatment," Mr. Mitterrand said. He said a special effort had been made to humiliate him by asking him what his father's first name was during the filling out of forms and by keeping him handcuffed.
Since Mr. Mitterrand was arrested on Dec. 21 the investigation seems to have broadened. At first, investigators appeared to be concentrating on his relationship to a man accused of arms dealing, Pierre Falcone. In recent days, however, investigators have also questioned a leading right- wing politician, Charles Pasqua, about possible links to Mr. Falcone and illegal party financing.
Under the terms of his bail, Mr. Mitterrand must surrender his passport and report to the police once a week while the investigation continues. He is also barred from contact with others being investigated in the case.
---
Somalia supports regional arms curbs
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200111221433.htm
NEW YORK - Somalia's prime minister yesterday added his voice against lifting a U.N. arms embargo against neighboring Ethiopia and Eritrea, as the United States wants to do next week.
Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaid, paying his first visit to the U.N. Security Council, said he was "totally opposed to lifting the arms embargo," particularly in light of his country's running feud with Ethiopia.
"We in the Horn (of Africa) have as much weapons as we want to use in probably the next two generations, and I think it will be a very major disappointment to us if the embargo is lifted," Mr. Galaid said.
-------- colombia
Colombian rebel camp found in Ecuador
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200111221433.htm
QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador believes it has found an abandoned Colombian guerrilla camp in its jungle, fueling fears that leftist rebels from its northern neighbor may be operating across the border, military sources said yesterday.
A source in the intelligence unit of Ecuador's military high command said the camp, about five miles into Ecuadorean territory across from the Putumayo region in Colombia's Amazon jungle, consisted of a hut, trenches, military uniforms and backpacks.
The way the camp was built indicated it belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the nation's biggest guerrilla group, the source said.
-------- drug war
Stay the course
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin
Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.
Concerned that President-elect George W. Bush will "drop" the Cabinet-level status of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), eight high-ranking members of Congress have appealed to Mr. Bush to "re-energize" the commitment to fighting the national drug epidemic.
"We believe that any downgrade of the drug czar position below Cabinet status at the outset of your administration would be a political misstep," says the letter, obtained yesterday by Inside the Beltway and signed by Republican Reps. John L. Mica of Florida, chairman of the House Government Reform criminal justice, drug policy and human resources subcommittee and co-chairman of the Speaker's Working Group for a Drug Free America; Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee; Cass Ballenger of North Carolina, vice chairman of the International Relations Western Hemisphere subcommittee; and Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, past chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
"Early on, President Clinton's misguided efforts to severely reduce the ONDCP staff was met with strong public and congressional condemnation and eventually reversed," say the congressmen, who tell Mr. Bush they want a "nationally prominent figure" appointed as drug czar.
Leading contender for the post, we're told: former Florida Rep. Bill McCollum.
-------- space
Commission that nominee headed says U.S. is vulnerable in space.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Friday, January 12, 2001
By Jonathan S. Landay INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/01/12/national/SPACE12.htm
WASHINGTON - The United States is "an attractive candidate for a 'Space Pearl Harbor' because U.S. military and intelligence agencies are not prepared to fight in space," a commission that until last month was directed by Defense Secretary-designate Donald H. Rumsfeld said in a report released yesterday.
Other countries are capable of attacking U.S. satellites for communications, early-warning systems and spying, and the United States should develop the ability to shield its satellites from attack and develop new weapons to fight in outer space, the report argued.
At his confirmation hearing yesterday before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld indicated the new report would form the bedrock for space policies he would pursue if confirmed.
Technologies to deter attacks and defend satellites are crucial to the ambitious ballistic missile defense he wants the United States to develop. Missile-defense systems rely on satellites to spot enemy missile launches and guide interceptors into incoming warheads.
The proposals are likely to fuel debate about how much further the United States should go in using space for military and intelligence purposes.
Arms-control advocates argue that trying to perfect missile defenses, a space-based laser and other systems could turn space into a battleground. They also argue that the threat to U.S. satellites is overblown.
"U.S. initiatives to militarize space would alienate our allies, drive Moscow and Beijing into further strategic cooperation, and isolate the United States diplomatically," said Michael Krepon of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.
"The prevention of the weaponization of outer space is a task even more urgent than" negotiating a global ban on the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons, Sha Zukang, China's top arms controller, told a U.N. conference last year.
The commission of former defense officials and other experts that had been headed by Rumsfeld, however, argued that the Pentagon would do a "disservice to the nation" if it ignored the idea of putting weapons in space. It called on the government to "vigorously pursue" the means to ensure that the president "will have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to, and if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests."
Commercial satellites are widely used for communication, including Internet and TV transmissions, and weather forecasting. U.S. military forces and intelligence agencies rely on satellites to guide bombs, pinpoint the enemy, navigate, communicate and eavesdrop.
Many countries, including Iraq and North Korea, have the ability to jam satellite data, the report said.
U.S. officials believe a number of countries, including China, are developing ground-based lasers that could attack satellites. Russia has had a rocket-powered anti-satellite weapon since the mid-1980s.
The United States has been developing anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons for more than two decades; the report called for giving these weapons higher priority.
Current ASAT programs include the development of a space-based laser for use in missile defenses, despite a prohibition on the deployment of such systems in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Retired Adm. David Jeremiah, who became chairman of the commission after Rumsfeld was nominated to be defense secretary last month, told reporters at a briefing that terrorist groups also might be able to disrupt U.S. satellite operations.
"I personally think that we probably may have already had some space attacks," he said.
Jonathan Landay's e-mail address is jlanday@krwashington.com
---
U.S. Should Improve Defense of Satellites, Panel Advises
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/politics/12SPAC.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 - The United States must improve its ability to defend its satellites and other critical space systems in order to avoid a surprise attack with the potential to become a "space Pearl Harbor," a commission appointed by Congress said today.
The report from the panel, which reviewed space-related national security issues, was led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, President-elect George W. Bush's choice for secretary of defense.
The commission's report, released on Capitol Hill on the day that the Senate Armed Services committee was holding hearings on Mr. Rumsfeld's nomination, warned of the threat to United States space operations from hostile nations and called for an increased emphasis on the military's role in space to deter possible attacks on satellites.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who resigned as chairman of the panel when he was selected by Mr. Bush, noted in his Senate hearing today that space operations would be one of his priorities.
While Mr. Rumsfeld said he had not read the commission's final report, he made clear that he supported its findings. "If you are as dependent as our country is on space, you are, by definition, vulnerable, more vulnerable than others," he testified.
The report echoed many of the themes that Mr. Rumsfeld had struck in recent years, as he has focused his public work on proliferation and new strategic threats to the United States.
That focus has led him to become a major supporter of a national missile defense system, placing him squarely in the midst of what is shaping up as the biggest national security controversy of the new administration.
The space commission's report warned that the potential for attacks that damage the United States' ability to maintain military communications and spy on its enemies was likely to increase. To deal with such threats, the panel urged a reorganization of the way that the government, and the military in particular, managed the security elements of America's space operations.
"We know from history that every medium - air, land and sea - has seen conflict," the report said. "Reality indicates that space will be no different. Given this virtual certainty, the U.S. must develop the means both to deter and to defend against hostile acts in and from space." The United States "needs to take seriously the possibility of an attack on U.S. space systems," the report said.
To do so, "explicit national security guidance and defense policy is needed to direct development of doctrine, concepts of operations and capabilities for space, including weapons systems that operate in space and that can defend assets in orbit and augment air, land and sea forces," the report said.
A greater emphasis within the military on efforts to deter attacks on satellites and other space systems does not necessarily mean placing weapons in space that could also have offensive uses, members of the commission emphasized today. The panel said instead that defense in space would include such things as hardened satellites capable of withstanding antisatellite attacks.
The commission said the Air Force, which has long had a leadership role in space operations, "must take steps to create a culture within the service dedicated to developing new space system concepts, doctrine and operational capabilities."
-------- u.s.
The military get mightier
Is this the shape of GIs to come?
By BBC News Online's Mark Ward,
Friday, 12 January, 2001, 15:17 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1112000/1112411.stm
The US military is planning to turn soldiers into supermen by fitting them with powered exoskeletons.
The research arm of the US military is spending $50m to develop new technologies that will improve the speed, strength and endurance of soldiers.
The research programme is aiming to give soldiers better protection against enemy fire, the ability to tote bigger guns, run faster, communicate better and help them avoid friendly fire.
The first trials of the technology are expected within the decade.
Power play
This month, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is expected to sign contracts to kick off the project to develop powered exoskeletons for its ground troops.
The contract signings follow a year of meetings and assessments run by Darpa to find the most promising technologies.
So far, Darpa, the main research and development organisation for the US Department of Defense, has not said which ideas it favours, but it has set out the broad goals of the programme which calls for technologies that can help troops:
carry heavier packs; march faster over longer distances; lift heavier objects and use larger weapons; leap extraordinary heights and/or distances.
Dr Ephrahim Garcia, co-ordinator of the exoskeleton project, said its demands were "formidable" and much of the initial research was speculative to prove concepts rather than develop finished products.
"The controls, the power requirements, the human interface to the machine are all things that we do not know if we can do yet," he said. "There is a huge challenge here."
He added that the exoskeletons must be something that troops can wear and use without thinking rather than something they have to operate.
Suited up
The powered suits will help soldiers carry and use larger weapons and to take heavier loads into battle. Currently, soldiers carry a pack that is no more than a third of their body weight and usually take far less into combat.
Field trials have shown that troops typically dump anything too bulky or heavy to carry for long distances.
The exoskeletons will also have to be almost silent to operate and use fuel very efficiently. And soldiers must be able to use them for at least 24 hours before needing to refuel.
Early work sponsored by Darpa has used pneumatic muscles or deformable magnets to power artificial limbs or suits that soldiers could wear. Trials of a Springwalker system helped its developers travel at speeds in excess of 24 km/h (15 mph).
Stuck in the mud
The exoskeletons are expected to include a sensor web that expands a soldier's field of vision, passes on information about battlefield conditions, using GPS or thermal cameras, helps to co-ordinate groups of other soldiers and lessens the chance of being hit by friendly fire.
Conducting fabrics could be used to swap data between sensors, and wireless networks could pass information between squads or soldiers.
The suits could also act as body armour or have physiological monitoring systems that let officers know the health of the troops under their command.
Field trials of mock-ups of future systems on soldiers running a cross-country course revealed the limitations of some approaches.
Visors on helmets that could double as screens got in the way of rifle sights or made the headgear bulky and unstable. Other sensors or power packs distributed around the body of a soldier got in the way when combatants were crawling and made it harder for them to hide.
----
Clinton, at Odds With Pentagon, Says Gulf War Pilot May Be Alive
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By MARC LACEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/world/12PILO.html
BOSTON, Jan. 11 - President Clinton said in an interview today that an American fighter pilot shot down over Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf war may still be alive and that the United States government would work aggressively to seek his release if he did indeed survive.
"We have some information that leads us to believe that he might be alive," the president told CBS News Radio in remarks that were at odds with accounts from Pentagon officials. "We hope and pray that he is."
On Tuesday the Navy notified relatives of the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher (who has been listed as dead for the last decade), that his status would be changed from "killed in action" to "missing in action."
But defense officials said they had no information that Commander Speicher was still alive, and were merely using the new M.I.A. declaration to press Iraq for a full accounting of the pilot's whereabouts.
"We think there is credible evidence he could have survived after the crash, but after that we only have a lot of questions," a senior government official said tonight. Mr. Clinton, in an interview in Dover, N.H., said his administration has begun an intensive effort to determine whether Commander Speicher survived the incident. Mr. Clinton said he was not seeking to "raise false hopes" about the fate of the pilot, who had originally been declared the first American casualty of the war.
"We've already begun working to try to determine whether, in fact, he's alive; if he is, where he is; and how we can get him out," the president said. "Because since he was a uniformed service person, he's clearly entitled to be released, and we're going to do everything we can to get him out."
Commander Speicher's death has been a mystery from the start. Witnesses reported seeing a fireball as his F-18 Hornet was hit during a dogfight on Jan. 17, 1991, and another explosion when the aircraft hit the ground.
At first no wreckage was found, but three years later a hunting party stumbled upon the crash site. The Pentagon debated whether to seek a secret mission to scour the site for clues but Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected the plan. He asserted, according to various accounts, that he did not want to risk additional lives "looking for old bones."
Instead, the Pentagon negotiated with the Iraqis and sent investigators to the site with President Saddam Hussein's approval and under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross. But years had passed and they came up with no definitive clues.
Subsequent information has led Navy investigators to conclude that Commander Speicher successfully ejected from his plane and probably survived the crash, defense officials have said.
"We have enough information that makes us believe that at least he survived the crash, at least that that's a possibility, and that he might be alive," Mr. Clinton said. "And based on a review of the information and the Defense Department's recommendation, we should change the status. But that's all we know, and I don't want to raise false hopes."
The State Department said today that it had sent a new diplomatic note to the Iraqi government demanding it tell all it knows about Commander Speicher's fate.
"We don't have a response from Baghdad," said Philip Reeker, a department spokesman, adding that similar notes would be sent to Iraqi representatives at the United Nations in New York and in Geneva.
---
Marketing an Army of Individuals
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/opinion/12TRUS.html
LOS ANGELES - After decades of attempts to convince the youth of small-town, conservative America to join the Army team, the new recruiting campaign with the slogan "An Army of One" had its debut this week during NBC's "Friends." The stark departure from the old emphasis on team spirit shows a bit of desperation. A real-life Army corporal faces the camera and says: "And I'll be the first to tell you, the might of the U.S. Army doesn't lie in numbers. It lies in me. I am an army of one." By hitting this lone-wolf tone, the ad attempts to address the concerns of young adults who see the Army as a nameless horde, conditioned to follow orders blindly.
Marketing research ordered by the secretary of the Army, Louis E. Caldera, a 1978 graduate of West Point, confirmed what he must have already known: Many young Americans see life in the military as dehumanizing. It can be. The Army and the other armed services are the only employers in the United States that can send you to bed at taps, wake you up in a rain-soaked tent, order you to don a 40-pound pack to march 20 miles and prosecute you under a federal law if you refuse to comply.
The ad campaign is fresh and visually bold, but I doubt that what motivates people to sign up has changed much over the years. Joining the Army is not about individualism and rarely about money. For most enlistees, I think it's still about a desire to serve your country and an irresistible urge to escape the confines of one-stoplight hometowns and big-city apartment blocks.
The new marketing strategy seems designed to appeal to individualistic youth, and while that may seem to be a departure from the Army's stated goal of unit cohesion, the Army of 2001 clearly has different needs than the Army I served 30 years ago.
By moving some of its ads from the Sunday afternoon football, with its male-heavy audience, and running them on MTV and during "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the Army seems to be placing more emphasis on recruiting young women. The Pentagon is clearly aware that female recruits are, by and large, better educated and enter the Army with higher skill levels than male recruits. Today, women make up 14 percent of those on active duty, and 20 percent of new recruits.
But since the late 1990's, the Army has had increasing difficulty in retaining women once they have been recruited. According to its own figures, in 1999, a year when the Army missed its recruiting goals by 6,290, fully 47 percent of enlisted Army women either resigned voluntarily or were forced out before they had served three years. Only 28 percent of men left before serving three years.
The new advertising approach might attract more women, but marketing alone won't change the fact that many female soldiers still perceive a cultural gap in an Army with an officer corps that tends to be largely Southern, white and very conservative.
Nearly everything in corporate marketing today is about brand name identification and appealing to a specific segment of the public. But applying marketing "science" to military recruiting may backfire. Every time the Army comes up with a new recruiting program, it is attempting to address a deeper problem. The current problem is retainment. The Army's new advertising campaign seems likely to fail if it succeeds in recruiting smart, independent-minded young people who find that the Army doesn't live up to the image in the ad they saw on "Friends."
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a 1969 graduate of West Point, is the author of ``Full Dress Gray.''
---
Army Confirms G.I.'s in Korea Killed Civilians
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By ELIZABETH BECKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/world/12KORE.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 - After a yearlong review, the Army officially acknowledged today that American soldiers shot and killed unarmed Korean civilians near the village of No Gun Ri in the early days of the Korean War, but officials said the deaths were a result of confusion and even fear, and were not deliberate.
President Clinton then offered his regrets for the deaths of the Koreans, who were shot after fleeing the advance of the North Korean Army, but his statement fell short of the apology many Koreans have demanded.
"To those Koreans who lost loved ones at No Gun Ri, I offer my condolences," he said. "Many Americans have experienced the anguish of innocent casualties of war."
The investigation by the Army inspector general concluded that it was impossible to determine how many Koreans were killed at No Gun Ri despite South Korean records that report 248 civilians killed, wounded or missing.
The Army study described how American soldiers fired on Korean civilians in July 1950, although sometimes over their heads or at the ground. But the study rejected the contention that the soldiers were under orders to kill civilians, and instead ascribed the shootings to the confusion of combat and the poor training of the soldiers who had been rushed to the Korean battlefield from occupation duty in Japan.
"We have determined, however, that U.S. soldiers killed or injured an unconfirmed number of Korean refugees," Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said at a news conference.
In his statement of regret, Mr. Clinton emphasized that American and South Korean soldiers "fought shoulder to shoulder in the harshest of conditions," and won the war that eventually led to the creation of a democracy in South Korea.
To emphasize American sympathy, Mr. Clinton telephoned President Kim Dae Jung this evening to discuss the report and his statement of regret. He also announced that the United States would erect a monument in South Korea to honor the more than one million Korean civilians who died in the war, and establish a scholarship fund for Koreans studying in their homeland or the United States.
In a joint memorandum by the separate investigative teams, both sides stated their agreement that it was also possible that Korean civilians had been hit by American airplanes bombing and strafing the area.
With today's report, senior Defense Department officials said they had resolved one of the most sensitive issues to erupt between Washington and South Korea in recent years.
For several decades, survivors and relatives of the victims of No Gun Ri had petitioned the government in Seoul for compensation, but they were routinely rejected for lack of proof. These wartime deaths entered a broad public debate only when The Associated Press published an extensive report on the killings in September 1999, including eyewitness accounts of American veterans who said they had been ordered to fire on the refugees.
The A.P. won a Pulitzer Prize for the investigation, and Defense Secretary Cohen ordered a thorough review of the incident. However, aspects of the A.P. report were questioned and one of the key veterans quoted by the wire service later acknowledged that he could not have been near No Gun Ri at the time of the shooting.
The South Korean team agreed with the Army that American soldiers were not ordered to shoot at the refugees, as had been reported in The A.P. account. After interviewing more than 100 veterans and examining more than one million pages of documents, Army investigators failed to find a written record of any order. The study also said that the Army veterans "who fired at refugees stated that they did not receive any order to fire."
In the early days of the war, refugee columns were infiltrated by North Korean soldiers dressed as civilians, and refugees came to be considered hostile targets by some troops. Investigators found that American soldiers were "given an order to stop civilians and not to let them pass their position."
"The order not to let refugees pass could have been misinterpreted to be an order to fire," said Lt. Gen. Michael W. Ackerman, the Army inspector general.
Charles L. Cragin, a principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who helped lead the investigation, said today that the soldiers' actions were not deliberate attempts to kill innocent civilians, but actions taken to protect themselves in the "desperate opening weeks of defensive combat in the Korean War."
For Koreans, Mr. Clinton's personal regrets over No Gun Ri spoke to other issues.
"It was important that the statement of regret came from the president and not from the Army," said Kongdan Oh, a Korean expert at the Institute for Defense Analyses. "The president gives the statement dignity."
In Korea, a number of people who lived through the killings at No Gun Ri denounced the report as a whitewash. "It's full of excuses," Park Hee Sook, 66, told The Associated Press. "The Americans need to be more frank about their past wrongdoings." She said she had witnessed the incident.
"We don't need the scholarship and monument," said Chun Choon Ja, 62. "We want a more sincere apology, not a vague statement of regret, from the U.S. government."
The United States response to No Gun Ri will be carefully weighed in Japan, where officials have been under pressure to offer full apologies and expressions of guilt to Korea for the crimes that Japanese troops committed during World War II. Unlike Germany, Japan has refused to admit the scale of its war crimes and apologize to the people of the nations it brutally occupied. Indeed, in the Korean translation of various documents, the word haksal, or massacre, was deleted to ensure that Japan could not compare its war crimes with the events at No Gun Ri.
---
Clinton suggests pilot may be alive
USA Today
01/12/01- Updated 09:21 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-01-12-gulfmia.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton says there is some evidence that a U.S. flier shot down on the first night of the Gulf War may be alive.
Clinton's statement Thursday went further than a Navy announcement that it has changed the status of the F-18 pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher from killed in action to missing.
''We have some information that leads us to believe that he might be alive and we hope and pray he is,'' Clinton said in an interview with CBS. ''But we have already begun working to try to determine whether, in fact, he's alive; if he is, where he is and how we can get him out and we're going to do everything we can to get him out.''
Speicher was shot down while flying a mission from the carrier USS Saratoga on the opening night of the 1991 war.
''Since he was a uniform service person, he's clearly entitled to be released, and we're going to do everything we can to get him out,'' Clinton said. The president cautioned, however, that he did not want the change in Speicher's status to ''raise false hopes.''
Iraq has never accounted for Speicher.
Barry Hull, who flew off the Saratoga on the same mission with Speicher, said Friday he is puzzled by the fact Speicher's uniform was found in the Iraqi desert.
''That's one of the pieces of the puzzle that just doesn't fit,'' Hull said on CBS' ''The Early Show.'' ''If I get shot, the moment I pull that ejection handle, I'm no longer a pilot. At that point I'm a soldier and the last thing I'm going to do, running around in the desert, is take off my flight suit and walk around in my skivvies. It just doesn't make any sense.''
Hull said ''my gut tells me that he is probably dead, but there is no evidence that he's dead.''
The Navy statement did not mention the possibility that Speicher could be alive. One day after it notified Speicher's family of the decision to change his status to MIA, the Navy said Thursday that ''additional information and analysis'' led Navy Secretary Richard Danzig to reverse earlier determinations that Speicher had died.
The Navy did not explain what new information it had obtained. As recently as 1996 it had reaffirmed a 1991 ''finding of death.''
Pentagon officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Danzig acted because of substantial evidence that Speicher may not have died in the crash.
One official said the State Department sent a new diplomatic note to Baghdad demanding that the Iraqi government tell all it knows about Speicher's fate.
''We don't have a response from Baghdad,'' Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman, said Thursday.
He said similar U.S. notes would be sent Iraqi representatives at the United Nations in New York and in Geneva.
''We do believe that the Iraqis hold additional information that could help resolve the case of Commander Speicher, and they are obligated to provide that information to us,'' Reeker said.
In March 1999, Republican Sens. Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Rod Grams of Minnesota asked Danzig to change Speicher's status to missing in action, reflecting evidence of doubt about whether he survived the crash. Smith met with Danzig again Dec. 20 on the matter, officials said.
In a letter dated Dec. 18, Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, told Smith a recent intelligence assessment ''has stimulated a high-level review of this case - several new actions are under way and additional steps are under intense review.''
Berger's letter, provided to The Associated Press on Wednesday, did not specify what actions were contemplated.
Speicher, of Jacksonville, Fla., went missing when his Navy F-18 Hornet was shot down on Jan. 16, 1991, in an air-to-air battle with an Iraqi fighter. He was the first American lost in the war and the last still unaccounted for.
--------
Shahab-3 test set
January 12, 2001
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Notes from the Pentagon.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-200111221718.htm
Iran is preparing to conduct another flight test soon of its new intermediate-range ballistic missile, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Preparations for the latest Shahab-3 missile test were spotted by U.S. spy satellites at a base inside Iran. The impending test was described to us as a "full-range" flight meant to test its maximum distance.
The Shahab-3 is a single-warhead mobile missile with a range of about 800 miles. It is believed by U.S. intelligence to be the first Iranian missile that could carry a nuclear warhead, if Tehran's weapons program, helped by both China and Russia, succeeds in producing a small enough warhead for the weapon.
The last Shahab-3 flight test took place Sept. 21 and was gauged a failure by U.S. intelligence agencies. The Iranians carried out a successful flight test in July and in 1999.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told reporters in July that Iran is making progress in its missile program. He said the progress "has a way of going almost exponentially once you get some of the fundamentals down."
If the next test is a success, analysts believe, the Iranians will have shown they have the fundamentals in place to develop medium-range ballistic missiles that could threaten key U.S. friends and allies in the region.
Clinton's volunteers
The Pentagon had trouble convincing 100 "volunteers" to show up at last Friday's Fort Myer ceremony honoring President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, insiders tell us.
Amid all the pomp and music, the pair were honored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen for their contributions to the armed forces.
Before the ceremony, messages were sent out throughout the Pentagon seeking volunteers to attend.
"We need 100 individuals [from] all ranks to participate in the Armed Services Farewell to the President of the United States," one such message said.
But as the appointed hour neared, organizers had not reached the 100 mark, so division managers were told to pick "volunteers."
"There seems to be little enthusiasm for a president who many consider the least-liked commander-in-chief in recent memory," one officer told us at the time.
Another officer called the scene "hilarious" as supervisors went through his office looking for attendees.
In particular, some officers took a dim view of Mr. Clinton's White House dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, saying such action on their part would have resulted in disciplinary action. Others also blame Mr. Clinton for cutting the defense budget while sending troops on varied peacekeeping missions around the world. The result: reduced combat readiness.
China's new warship
China's second guided-missile destroyer arrived at a port in its home waters earlier this week after a six-week voyage from a shipyard in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The new Sovremenny-class warship doubles the number of Chinese navy tubes for launching supersonic SSN-22 Sunburn anti-ship missiles. The Sunburn was designed during Soviet days to destroy U.S. ships.
The warship was spotted by Asian defense analyst Prasun K. Sengupta, editor of the Asian Defense Journal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The ship was photographed Jan. 3 as it sailed through the Strait of Malacca.
The influx of Russian high-technology weapons is the most visible sign of growing Chinese-Russian military cooperation. There are reports Moscow and Beijing are working on a formal military alliance that could be concluded this fall. One U.S. official said if the alliance is solidified it would be a "final, humiliating strategic blow" to the conciliatory policies of the Clinton administration.
Bush's Vulcans
Paul Wolfowitz has emerged as the top candidate to become deputy secretary of defense. Mr. Wolfowitz, currently the dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, appears to have eclipsed Richard Armitage. Both Mr. Armitage and Mr. Wolfowitz had been part of the small group of defense advisers to President-elect George W. Bush known as the "Vulcans." An announcement is not expected until after Donald H. Rumsfeld completes the nomination process for defense secretary.
Mr. Armitage is now said to be in the running to become CIA director, along with several other candidates, including Rep. Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Richard Haver, an intelligence pro who is currently head of the Bush transition team for the U.S. intelligence community.
Mr. Armitage's status shows that the seasoned defense policy gurus who advised Mr. Bush during the campaign are having mixed success landing the jobs they coveted.
Only one, Condoleezza Rice, got the post she wanted: White House national security adviser.
"No one anticipated [defense-designate] Don Rumsfeld coming in," said one well-placed Republican, referring to a man who was not among the "Vulcans."
Some younger office-seekers are looking at the parade of former Ford, Reagan and Bush elder statesmen joining the "Bush II" administration and wondering if there will be any room for them.
"In the under-40 Republican crowd, there is sort of a pall," the source said. "If they don't get new blood in the Pentagon, the building is going to capture them."
The young and the restless are hoping Mr. Rumsfeld will recall that he was once a 40-something and able to serve as White House chief of staff and then defense secretary. They also hope he keeps in mind that he reached out to a 30-something, Richard B. Cheney, to succeed him as President Ford's chief of staff.
Intercepts
• Insiders tell us that Stephen Cambone, chief of staff for Donald H. Rumsfeld's 1998 commission on ballistic missile threats, is a candidate for a position in the office of the secretary of defense.
• Republicans say the Bush Pentagon transition has not gone as smoothly as hoped. "They're having trouble focusing over there," a congressional defense aide said.
Mr. Rumsfeld dispatched William Scheider, a former senior State Department official during the Reagan administration, to the Pentagon to shape things up.
Mr. Scheider served on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat, which was headed by Mr. Rumsfeld.
• Congressional aides say Mr. Rumsfeld "was as surprised as everyone else" that President-elect George W. Bush tapped him to run the Pentagon. Media reports had Mr. Rumsfeld heading the Central Intelligence Agency. But Mr. Bush suddenly turned to Mr. Rumsfeld for defense, instead of two front-runners, former Sen. Daniel Coats and former Pentagon policy-maker Paul Wolfowitz.
• Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are syndicated columnists. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertz@twtmail.com. Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbo@twtmail.com.
-------- OTHER
Anti-AntiTrust
Slate
Updated Friday, Jan. 12, 2001, at 1:00 p.m. PT
By Yael Schacher
http://slate.msn.com/SummaryJudgment/01-01-09/SummaryJudgment.asp
Thirteen Days (New Line). Critics find this TV-movielike depiction of the Cuban Missile Crisis gripping, even if all the action is in the White House back rooms and "its heroes are policy wonks" (Mike Clark, USA Today). Though they don't quibble about accuracy, reviewers do fixate on how the drama works as a history lesson. They have two history-related questions. 1) Is the film more or less dramatic than the actual events portrayed? Most claim the film is "understated" (Todd McCarthy, Variety; and Desson Howe, the Washington Post), a few feel it's "inflated" (Elvis Mitchell, the New York Times), and still others that it does not register the "public terror" (Joe Morgenstern, the Wall Street Journal) that seized the nation during the crisis. 2) How does our very own election crisis compare to the nuclear showdown of 1962? The critics-whose punning was overshadowed by that of Dan Rather for over a month-take the opportunity to take a stab at punditry. We live in a time of "small chads" (Lou Lumenick, the New York Post), an "age of nonleadership" (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly). The Bushies have no chance against the Kennedys; good acting by Steven Culp and Bruce Greenwood as Robert and John, respectively, has everyone longing for a time "when being president of the United States actually meant something" (J. Hoberman, the Village Voice). "Its heroic point of view is something of a relief" (Kenneth Turan, the Los Angeles Times). (Read Slate's take on how the film squares with history here. Click here to read excerpts from the book the film is based upon.)
http://slate.msn.com/LifeAndArt/00-12-28/LifeAndArt.asp
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/
-------- environment
NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS
DayTips' Strange News: 01/12/01
Fri, 12 Jan 2001 04:51:34 -0800
Wildlife experts in the Northwest say they think that President Clinton's mandating of thousands of acres of "roadless forests" will have a tremendous effect in some areas but will have little if any effect on the ecology or wildlife in one specific federal parcel. The Custer National Forest says the move is a great idea but it has little to worry about anyway. The press officer for the forest says that his acreage has never been the site of timber cutting and has no standing timber earmarked for lumbering and will likely see the smallest change from the new administrative order. The new mandate will put more than 58.5 million acres of national woodlands in 38 states under a new land-use plan where most of the acreage will not be accessible by road. The plan was implemented to stem the damage done to wildlife by the increasing number of people with off-road vehicles on federal lands.
---
Norton Billed Alaska for Her Help
Associated Press
January 12, 2001 Filed at 5:50 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Norton-Legal-Work.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Environmentalists contended on Friday that Interior Secretary nominee Gale Norton was wrong to charge the state of Alaska for legal help she gave a private foundation in a fishing-rights case.
Republicans said there was nothing improper about Norton having Alaska pay her $270-per-hour fee while she assisted the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation.
The GOP-led Alaska Legislature hired Norton last year to help write a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit challenging the Interior Department's fishing regulations. Norton would have the power to change those regulations as interior secretary.
Billing records obtained by The Associated Press show Norton also charged Alaska at least 18 times for assistance she gave to Mountain States, where she had worked for four years two decades ago. The foundation has sued the Interior Department repeatedly, seeking to overturn new national monuments and loosen mining restrictions and other environmental regulations.
Norton's spokesman said she had enlisted the group on the state's behalf in the fishing-rights case.
Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental, labor and civil rights groups on Friday kicked off what they hope will be a multimillion-dollar advertising and public pressure campaign to persuade senators to reject Norton's nomination.
``This is a battle about whether or not the rights of polluters ... ought to stand in the way of the rights of the people,'' said David Smith, director of public policy for the AFL-CIO.
Ari Fleischer, President-elect Bush's transition spokesman, said, ``Those type of statements contribute to the coarsening of the tone in Washington, D.C.
``One of the reasons that Gale Norton has received such high marks from people in Colorado with whom she's worked is because she is a consensus builder,'' Fleischer said. She is a former attorney general of Colorado.
Norton's bills for the Alaska case charge for such items as eight hours for ``revisions to Mountain States Legal Foundation brief'' -- costing $2,160.
``State government is not an ideological tool of the Mountain States Legal Foundation,'' said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.
``I would be concerned about us spending Alaska money to help another organization outside the state put their views forward,'' Democratic state Rep. Al Kookesh said.
But Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor, said, ``It's very clear to me that as long as there was disclosure to the state legislature and permission, there's no ethical problem.''
Alaska House Speaker Brian Porter, one of the GOP legislative leaders who hired Norton, said he was not bothered by the billings. ``We're happy,'' he said.
Norton's spokeswoman, Jeanie Mamo, said Norton charged Alaska for helping the foundation because she had enlisted the group's help on the state's behalf. Paul Lenzini, another lawyer hired by the Alaska Legislature in the case, agreed.
``To the extent that the Mountain States brief was better and sharper after she reviewed it, she served the interests of the state,'' Lenzini said.
The activity was part of Norton's legal and lobbying work after she ended her two terms as Colorado attorney general in 1999. Senators are reviewing that work for possible conflicts of interest.
Norton's Denver firm, Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, has represented a company that tried to develop an Indian casino regulated by the Interior Department, records show. It also represented a company seeking the department's approval to drill for oil off California's coast.
Mamo said Norton would ``follow the law in every case'' where she might have a conflict of interest. Federal ethics laws require officials to stay out of decisions that could benefit them or their families financially.
The fishing case is the second environmental controversy in Alaska to involve Norton. While she was a top Interior Department lawyer during the Reagan administration, she advocated drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- a position Bush supports but environmentalists oppose.
In the fishing case, Alaska is challenging a ruling that said the Interior Department has the right to regulate subsistence fishing in most Alaska waters.
The state argues that such federal regulations infringe on the state's right to regulate fishing in its territory. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in December but has not ruled.
---
Global Warming Dispute
New York Times
January 12, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/opinion/L12WAR.html
To the Editor:
In "Too Hot to Handle" (Op-Ed, Jan. 5), Bill McKibben argues for major cuts in fossil fuel use to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, ostensibly to reduce global warming. His fear arises from a new computer model that assumes that carbon will be released from forests as the air warms. But analysis of data from 82 sites over five continents by plant experts at the University of Edinburgh undercuts that assumption. These researchers expect the forests to absorb more carbon if the air warms.
There is no reliable evidence for catastrophic global warming from fossil-fuel use. Drastic cuts in America's energy would be destructive to our economy, and those of developing countries that rely on America for global stability and free trade.
JOHN E. PETERSON Member of Congress, 5th Dist., Pa. Washington, Jan. 8, 2001
-------- genetics
Genetic Advances Spark Fears of Science Gone Awry
Reuters
January 12, 2001 Filed at 5:23 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/health-genes.html
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-genetics-dc.html
LONDON (Reuters) - A genetically modified monkey and a lethal man-made virus, once restricted to the realms of science fiction, have become reality and are raising concerns that science is out of control.
A day after news broke that Australian researchers had accidentally made a killer animal virus with technology that could be used against humans, US scientists announced the creation of ANDi--the first genetically modified monkey.
His makers say the cute little primate could accelerate cures for human diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.
But tinkering with the genes of humankind's closest relatives and altering viruses to increase their potency has left researchers wondering if some scientists have gone too far.
``Without a doubt all the necessary checks and balances are not in place but I'm not sure that we know exactly what we need to do yet either,'' said Dr. Christopher Exley, a research fellow with an interest in ethics at Britain's Keele University.
``You will always have irresponsible individuals, almost James Bond bad-guy-like people, who are out there and who want to do something different. I guess all we can do, is do our very best to regulate it and make sure everything is as open as possible.''
DESIGNER BABIES
Exley said that prior to the announcement he had not been aware that US scientists had been working on the ANDi project.
``Therefore we must assume lots of other things like this are going on,'' he added.
Like other scientists he has expressed doubts about how the transgenic monkey will spur advances in medicine. Some fear ANDi is more likely to lead to genetically modified humans.
``This is yet another step to designer babies,'' said Dr. David King of Britain's Campaign Against Human Genetic Engineering.
France's Le Figaro newspaper voiced similar concerns.
``If it's possible to introduce a...gene into a rhesus monkey, we can imagine the same thing happening to men, with specially selected genes,'' it said.
New Scientist magazine, which broke the news of the killer Australian virus, said the scientists who created it could not have foreseen the potential danger.
They had hoped that the altered mouse virus, similar to the smallpox virus in humans, would act as a contraceptive to control the pests but not to kill them.
Although more stringent vetting of research proposals will never catch everything, the weekly magazine said education and vigilance are the key to safe science.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Joseph Rotblat is perhaps more aware than most researchers of the potential dangers of scientific advances.
The Polish-born nuclear physicist worked on the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bomb and has spent 40 years campaigning against nuclear weapons.
``Almost any development of science which has brought benefits to mankind has also created dangers and could be applied either one way or the other,'' he told Reuters.
``Scientists have the responsibility to see to it that what they are doing is not going to be applied for the detriment of mankind.''
-------- police
Police Demonstrate for a Raise and Denounce Giuliani
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By DIANE CARDWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/nyregion/12RALL.html?pagewanted=all
Bearing signs reading "No increase in pay, no reason to stay," and "Crime is down, so is our morale," thousands of police officers gathered yesterday near City Hall to hear speaker after speaker direct words of bitterness against Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and accuse him of betraying them.
At the rally, organized to demand higher pay, Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, screamed himself hoarse and punched his hand in the air for emphasis from a makeshift stage on a rented flatbed truck. He, like other speakers and many officers in the crowd, suggested that Mr. Giuliani had used the police to further his agenda without any real concern for them.
"We're not numbers in somebody's political career," said Mr. Lynch, who is conducting contract negotiations for the union for the first time. "We brought crime down double digits and how are we paid? With double zeros."
The rally, which stretched four blocks along Broadway, was in marked contrast to the last major police demonstration at City Hall in 1992, when thousands of off-duty officers, some openly drinking beer, blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and shouted racial epithets about David N. Dinkins, the city's first black mayor. Mr. Giuliani, then a probable candidate for mayor, was a speaker at the union demonstration, organized to denounce what many officers viewed as Mayor Dinkins's poor treatment of the police.
This time, police officers did little more than chant, cheer and leave a trail of empty coffee cups.
Chief Allan H. Hoehl, the police supervisor for southern Manhattan, said, "I thought they were very well behaved and very orderly."
Police Department officials said the rally drew a crowd of 4,500, while the police union put the number at 15,000. But police supervisors on the scene estimated the number to be 7,000.
As Mr. Lynch spoke, Steven McDonald, a police officer who was shot and paralyzed in 1986, sat nearby in a wheelchair, a reminder of the dangers of the job. With him were parents and widows of police officers killed in the line of duty.
Terri Gillespie, the mother of Kevin Gillespie, an officer who was fatally shot in the Bronx in 1996, recalled the wrenching night at the hospital when her son died. She said Mr. Giuliani had made a special point of approaching her in the waiting room and saying, "If there is anything I can do for you, please, all you have to do is ask."
Mrs. Gillespie told the crowd, "Well, guess what, Mayor Giuliani, I'm asking that you give the surviving officers enough money to live on."
Throughout the crowd, officers and their families held American flags and signs with messages like: "To make ends meet, I mow a Nassau cop's lawn," referring to the fact that officers in many other places earn more than those in New York City. Police dissatisfaction with Mr. Giuliani has been growing since his administration negotiated a contract with a two-year wage freeze in 1995.
The current contract talks have stalled, with the union seeking a 39 percent raise over two years to bring salaries in line with those in Newark, and the city suggesting that it is willing to increase pay by 2.5 percent annually, or more if the union makes concessions on so-called productivity issues. The current starting salary for a police officer is $31,305.
Mr. Giuliani said yesterday that to award officers anywhere near 39 percent would bankrupt the city because a similar raise would have to be awarded to other city unions, a position the police union contests. "I believe I am doing my job as the mayor," he said, "which is I can't give them everything they want."
The police were aware that to advance their cause it was crucial to avoid a replay of the events of 1992.
This time, the demonstrators were overseen by a detail of several hundred members of the force, heavily weighted with supervisors, including many chiefs, as well as union delegates who served as rally marshals.
In the only sign of a counterdemonstration, hundreds of fliers that read, "N.Y.P.D. wants higher wages, the people want to end police brutality" rained from the Woolworth Building, sometimes falling into knots of officers gathering for the rally. Many dismissed the fliers with a joke.
Organizers had said they did not plan to have political speakers, but as the rally, which lasted under two hours, unfolded, several members of the City Council and its speaker, Peter F. Vallone, addressed the crowd. Mr. Vallone, who is running for mayor, thanked the police for making New York safer and said, "I want you to know you do have friends at City Hall." Still, the anger at Mr. Giuliani was palpable.
Louis Corrente, an officer in the 106th Precinct in Queens who has been on the force for 18 years and has a second job, said he felt used by the mayor. "He likes to give himself nice big raises, but when it comes to a working wage for police officers, we've fallen behind every department in the country," he said. "He's used us as a steppingstone to get to higher political positions."
His wife, Katie, who was at the rally as his girlfriend in 1992, said: "I should've married a garbageman instead of a cop. They make a whole lot more than cops do."
---
New Jersey Sheriff Pleads Guilty to Fund-Raising Crimes and Loses Job
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By ROBERT HANLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/nyregion/12SHER.html?pagewanted=all
MORRISTOWN, N.J., Jan. 11 - The sheriff of Bergen County pleaded guilty today to illegal fund-raising and, by law, was forced from office and required to surrender $226,000 he had raised for a re-election campaign.
The admissions by the sheriff, Joseph L. Ciccone, stem from a seven-month corruption investigation into the Sheriff's Department by the state attorney general and the Bergen County prosecutor.
Prosecutors said the inquiry, which has already resulted in the arrests of two members of Mr. Ciccone's staff, was continuing. They said the state would seek job sanctions, including dismissal, against 15 staff members who made improper campaign contributions in exchange for promotions, favorable transfers or jobs.
Today, Mr. Ciccone, who had not been charged previously, pleaded guilty to two crimes as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid a jail sentence.
"Simply put, Joseph Ciccone is a corrupt public official," an assistant state attorney general, Anthony J. Zarrillo, said after Mr. Ciccone admitted in New Jersey Superior Court here that he had improperly demanded campaign contributions from members of his staff and sold "honorary special deputy" badges to contributors who might use them to pose as law enforcement officers or seek lenient treatment from the police.
The guilty pleas by Mr. Ciccone, 39, marked a distinct departure from his public posturing on the investigation.
Previously, Mr. Ciccone, a Democrat who was elected to office in 1998, scoffed at the inquiry and dismissed it as politically inspired by Bergen County Republican leaders, including the county executive, William P. Schuber.
Today, Mr. Ciccone was somber as he appeared in court in a dark blue business suit, entered his pleas and then read a statement before Judge B. Theodore Bozonelis acknowledging details of the state's charges of wrongdoing.
Afterward, Mr. Ciccone hurried from court with his lawyer, John J. Fahy, a former Bergen County prosecutor, without making any comment. His office later issued a statement saying simply that he had retired from office. It made no mention of the state's investigation or his guilty plea two hours earlier.
Mr. Ciccone's admissions were part of a plea bargain with state and county prosecutors. Despite Mr. Zarrillo's sharp denunciation of Mr. Ciccone and contention that he had tarnished the reputation of law enforcement officials in the state, the prosecuting team recommended that Mr. Ciccone not be imprisoned and that he be sentenced only to probation. The two crimes he pleaded guilty to carry a combined maximum term of six and a half years.
Mr. Zarrillo said during a news conference that he thought it was likely that Judge Bozonelis would accept the recommendation.
Mr. Zarrillo also heatedly rejected Mr. Ciccone's contention that he had retired and some early news reports that he had resigned. "He was forced out of office," Mr. Zarrillo said. As elected officers, sheriffs must be removed from office if they are convicted of a crime or plead guilty to one, he said.
As part of the plea arrangement, Mr. Ciccone agreed to surrender the $226,000 he raised last year for a re-election campaign next fall. Mr. Zarrillo said "very nearly all" of the money had been obtained illegally. Without offering details, he said all but $14,000 of the money would be distributed to various law enforcement offices, much as funds seized from convicted felons are.
Immediately after the plea, a Bergen County undersheriff, Gordon Johnson, became acting sheriff.
One of the two crimes Mr. Ciccone pleaded guilty to was demanding contributions from public officials, in this case, members of his staff. Mr. Zarrillo did not identify any of the 15 who he said had made the illegal contributions. The sheriff's office has an annual budget of about $35 million and a staff of about 445. Most serve as correction officers in the county jail or provide security in county courtrooms in Hackensack.
The second charge Mr. Ciccone pleaded guilty to - official misconduct - involved the so-called honorary special deputy badges. Officials said that early last year, Mr. Ciccone ordered about 500 of the badges and, through September, gave 454 of them to contributors who paid $250 to $1,500 to his campaign fund.
One element of the misconduct count involved theft of county money, prosecutors said. They said Mr. Ciccone used taxpayer money from the county treasurer's office to pay for the badges and then shielded his use of the money from treasurer's auditors by submitting several vouchers for less than $500. The auditors do not carefully examine such vouchers, the prosecutors said.
Mr. Ciccone, who is single and lives in Cliffside Park, had planned to run for re-election next fall. In December, the Democratic County Committee appeared to abandon him politically when the police chief in Hackensack, Charles K. Zisa, who is also an assemblyman, announced in party headquarters that he would run for sheriff.
About a month earlier, two of Mr. Ciccone's detectives were arrested on misconduct charges. One, James M. McLarnon, was accused of soliciting campaign contributions in return for jobs in the department; the other, John A. Inglese, was charged with demanding $15,000 from a job applicant. Their cases are pending.
---
New York Times
January 12, 2001
Metro Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/nyregion/12MBRF.html?pagewanted=all
NEW YORK
BROOKLYN: OFFICER INDICTED IN ROBBERY Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment yesterday charging a city police officer with the armed robbery of a Long Island jewelry store in 1997. The officer, Anthony Trotman, 35, was assigned to the 77th Precinct in Brooklyn when he and a group of accomplices stole $500,000 in jewelry and watches from Gross Jewelers in Garden City, prosecutors said. Alan Feuer (NYT)
HAUPPAUGE: THIRD WOMAN TO SUE POLICE A third woman has given notice that she intends to sue Suffolk County, claiming that she was made to expose herself to a police officer. The woman, Susan Pannone, 46, of Mastic Beach, said that just after midnight on New Year's Day, an officer stopped her in Shirley after her car swerved. In a notice of intent to file a suit, Ms. Pannone said the officer then put her in his car and asked her to unzip her sweatshirt to show him her bra. Two other women have filed similar notices, claiming that an officer made them undress or face drunken-driving charges. Tina Kelley (NYT)
CONNECTICUT
HAMDEN: CRASH REPORT ABSOLVES OFFICERS A state police report concluded that a multivehicle crash last summer near the New Haven-Hamden border was not caused by a high-speed police chase. The report, issued on Wednesday, said that although a Hamden patrolman was following a Dodge Durango that crashed in New Haven in June, damaging 11 cars and injuring 15 people, the officer was not reckless. The collision led to accusations by black residents of New Haven that Hamden police officers single them out in traffic stops. The Durango's driver, Eric L. Anderson, 29, of New Haven, was charged with reckless endangerment and drunken driving. Paul Zielbauer (NYT)
-------- terrorism
Working with Spain
Washington Times
January 12, 2001
Embassy Row
James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-2001112212014.htm
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright yesterday signed a comprehensive agreement with Spain, pledging joint cooperation to strengthen defense, fight terrorism and even promote the Spanish language in the United States.
"This is surely one of the last official documents that I sign," Mrs. Albright said at a ceremony in Madrid with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Pique.
Mrs. Albright told Mr. Pique, "It's difficult to leave this post, especially with wonderful colleagues like you."
In the spirit of cooperation, he returned the compliment, calling her an "excellent secretary of state . . . [with] imagination and intellect."
Mrs. Albright stopped briefly yesterday in Madrid on the first part of her final visit to Europe as secretary of state. She later flew to Paris.
Under the agreement signed with Spain yesterday, the U.S. secretary of state and Spanish foreign minister plan to meet at least once a year.
More presidential and ministerial meetings are also envisioned.
The United States and Spain pledged to "build on their high-level counterterrorism dialogue" and to negotiate an updated extradition treaty.
"The two parties, working together, will seek to deny safe haven and material support to international terrorist networks [and] . . . to exchange information and cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking, environmental destruction, organized crime, pandemic disease, and other global threats," the agreement says.
The United States also promised to promote the study of Spanish, and Spain pledged to encourage the study of English.
Both countries also plan to cooperate on scientific, industrial, technological and economic issues.
-------- activists
Environmental Groups Join in Opposing Choice for Interior Secretary
New York Times
January 12, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/politics/12NORT.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 - Major environmental groups joined today in registering strong opposition to the selection of Gale A. Norton as interior secretary, calling her views "fundamentally incompatible" with the task of being steward of the nation's public lands.
A letter sent to members of the Senate committee who must consider her nomination said that Ms. Norton had championed "extreme" views on property rights and that confirming would mean "a momentous shift backwards" from the path toward conservation.
One of the groups opposing Ms. Norton is Republicans for Environmental Protection. Its president, Martha Marks, called her selection "a divisive choice at a time when unity is sorely needed."
"With so many pro-conservation Republicans qualified for this position," Ms. Marks said in a statement to be read at a news conference in Washington on Friday, "we cannot understand why President- elect Bush chose someone who holds views shared by only a minority in our party and the nation at large."
The groups that will announce their opposition to Ms. Norton at the news conference include the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters, which endorsed Vice President Al Gore in the presidential election; Republicans for Environmental Protection, which endorsed Senator John McCain in the Republican primaries; and the Wilderness Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which took no formal stand.
That environmental groups were unhappy with the selection of Ms. Norton became evident almost from the moment she was named by Mr. Bush. But the first declaration of opposition was made today.
And Ms. Norton, 46, a former attorney general of Colorado, faced a separate round of criticism today after an article in The Washington Post called attention to a 1996 speech in which she said the importance of states' rights were diminised by the loss of the Confederacy in the Civil War. But she noted in that speech that the central issue of slavery in the Civil War undercut a defense of states' rights.
The transition team, already stung by the withdrawal of Linda Chavez as the labor secretary designee has mounted a vigorous defense of Ms. Norton, with President-elect Bush leading the way.
Responding to a question at a news conference today, Mr. Bush called the article, and subsequent criticism by civil rights groups, "just a ridiculous interpretation of what's in her heart."
"I'm confident when she gets a fair hearing, when people hear her and listen to what she has to say and look at her record as a elected official in a state like Colorado, she's going to be confirmed," Mr. Bush said.
Through spokesmen, Ms. Norton has declined to address criticism directly, saying that she will heed the convention in which nominees respond to substantive questions only during their confirmation hearings in the Senate.
The hearings are scheduled to open next Thursday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and today's announcement by environmental groups set the stage for what promises to be an angry battle.
The letter to the senators said Ms. Norton's career reflected "a long-term commitment to undermining the policies of land and wildlife protection for which the Interior Department bears responsibility."
A protégée of James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first interior secretary, Ms. Norton has for many years criticized the role of the federal government in enforcing environmental standards. As a lawyer, as an Interior Department official and as Colorado's attorney general, she has publicly taken stands challenging federal environmental regulations, including some she would be obliged to enforce if she becomes interior secretary.
Even now, Ms. Norton is affiliated with groups that have filed a total of three lawsuits against Interior Department policy, including one taking issue with some provisions of a rule protecting endangered bald eagles.
In that case, Ms. Norton's played only a peripheral role, as a member of the board of the Defenders of Property Rights, the main litigant, said the group's founder, Roger Marzulla.
In an interview, Mr. Marzulla said Ms. Norton would be fiercely loyal to the new administration, and he insisted that her past views should not be seen as indicative of the positions she would adopt as interior secretary.
"If you tell me George Bush's position, I'll tell you what Gale Norton's position is," Mr. Marzulla said. "I firmly believe that Gale Norton is not coming to the administration with her own position that come hell or high water she's going to push through."
---
Female Musicians Join Anti-Violence Benefit
billboard.com
Edited by Jonathan Cohen
January 12, 2001, 4:20 p.m. EDT
http://www.billboard.com/daily/2001/0112_06.asp
More than 75 female entertainers will rally for a live performance of Eve Ensler's acclaimed "The Vagina Monologues" Feb. 10, with proceeds going to the V-Day Fund, which benefits programs aimed at ending violence against women. The one-time celebrity staging at New York's Madison Square Garden is the centerpiece of the fourth annual V-Day campaign and includes special musical performances from Joan Osborne, Phoebe Snow, the long-established female alterna-rock outfit Betty, and Queen Latifah, who will perform at the show's finale.
In key roles in the intense "Monologues" presentation -- a moving and often witty collection of spoken-word accounts focusing on the international plight of violence against women and girls -- are personalities as diverse as Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Calista Flockhart, and Sharon Gless.
V-Day was initiated when "The Vagina Monologues" began a global tour in 1998, highlighted by celebrity benefit performances that year at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, at London's Old Vic in 1999, and in Los Angeles last year. In addition, money has been raised via performances at hundreds of colleges nationwide and through local, national, and international groups that aim to halt violence against women. In its first three years, V-Day has raised more than $1 million.
"These kinds of events are important -- not because a bunch of celebrities are going to get together and change the world but [because] they offer greater visibility to these ideas," Osborne says. "Nothing is going to change overnight, but we need to express these ideas as many times as it takes for change to take place. It's a small part of a large effort, but it's important. With every drop, the glass gets a little fuller."
Osborne will perform one of two songs at the event: either "St. Teresa" from her 1995 debut album, "Relish," or the Bob Dylan composition "To Make You Feel My Love," from her current "Righteous Love." Snow will perform an original song written for the event by Chloe Goodchild, which, at deadline, had not been completed. Betty will perform its self-penned song "Broken."
"The Vagina Monologues" was originally produced in 1996 in New York and opened off-Broadway in October 1999, with Ensler acting out a dozen or so stories collected from interviews she conducted with hundreds of women. Each story focuses on the vagina, ranging from disturbing and affecting accounts to more lighthearted and even uproarious tales.
The show won an Obie Award in 1997, the jury award for the best theater performance at the Aspen Comedy Festival 2000, and was nominated for Drama Desk and Helen Hayes awards. It is currently enjoying a sold-out run at off-Broadway's Westside Theater in Manhattan, with a steady stream of popular and esteemed public figures and entertainers taking part in the play over the years.
-- Chuck Taylor, N.Y.
------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)