------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Bush and Powell ready to launch missile defence
NZ unsettled by Australia's nuclear shipment
Depleted Uranium is a low level radiation hazard
Downplaying Dispute Over Uranium Shells
Hoon accused of being glib over uranium shells
US trade panel rules against EU uranium imports
Pentagon Lacks Iraq Arms Evidence
Bush Administration Warns Iraq on Weapons Programs
On a Global Missile Defense
Reps. Worried About Electric Prices
GAO: Clinton Team Broke Law on Jobs
Defense Sec'y Holds First Session

MILITARY
North Korea hails Kim's China visit
Taiwan asks Bush for advanced arms
Burmese court rules in Suu Kyi's favor
MYANMAR: COURT VICTORY
THE AMERICAS
Justice Dept. Finds Success Chasing Health Care Fraud
Officials: Mandatory drug sentences don't work
WIDESPREAD DRUG USE
States
U.N. releases drug-use report
U.N. Prosecutor Demands Milosevic
Montana
Kosovar politician favors U.S. presence

OTHER
Britain legalizes human cloning
Ex-IBM workers' fume case settled
Oil Spill Threatening Heart of Galápagos Ecosystem
Winds Carry Fuel Away From Galapagos
Global Warming Threat Worsening, Report Says
Currents carry fuel spill away from Galapagos
States
When Sweet Scents Pollute
U.N. says forests still shrinking
Australians Create a Deadly Mouse Virus
W.T.O. Seeks a New Host City
W.T.O. vs. Democracy
After 5 Months, Nassau Pursues Report of Sex Abuse in Police Car
Judge, Overruled, Quits Trial of 2 Troopers
New York

ACTIVISTS
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE STOPPED BY POLICE - ACLU
Sect Members Immolate Selves in Tiananmen Square
Falun Gong attempt public suicide
EUROPE
Tennessee


-------- NUCLEAR

Bush and Powell ready to launch missile defence

Tuesday 23 January 2001
The Age
By SIMON TISDALL
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/01/23/FFXHPKT09IC.html

Now that he is inaugurated, how does President George W. Bush intend to sell to a hostile world the new administration's plan to deploy a ground-based national missile defence (NMD) system that initially comprises 100 space interceptor rockets?

The answer given by Republican hawks is that he does not have to. American security interests are paramount. The US faces threats posed by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and offensive missiles. Its government has a duty to defend itself against "states of concern" (the more polite term that has replaced "rogue states") such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq and international terrorists. NMD is going to happen, say the hawks, like it or lump it.

Secretary of state-designate, Colin Powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will be NMD's top salesman. But in his new role as the chief US diplomat, he will have to face the opposition. An effort will be made to persuade; selling NMD is likely to involve carrots as well as sticks.

Take Russia. President Vladimir Putin has been saying that NMD will create insecurity, breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, disrupt strategic arms reduction talks (Start III) and provoke a new arms race. The US will reply that even if Start III were agreed to, Russia would retain 1500 to 2000 deployed nuclear warheads and a non-operational stockpile of about 25,000. Russia has more than 1100 operational intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It is also deploying the advanced SS-27 (Topol-M) intercontinental missile. This arsenal guarantees Russia's security and, in extremis, would easily overwhelm an NMD shield.

The argument continues: Russia cannot afford to maintain its current strategic forces, let alone augment them in response to NMD; thus a Start III agreement is greatly in Russia's interest. The ABM treaty, meanwhile, need not be scrapped, merely updated. Russia's immediate security concerns, for instance, in dissuading NATO from expanding into the Baltic republics, could be adversely affected if it tried to block NMD. The country depends on IMF, World Bank and commercial bank lending. The US could pull the plug; indeed, Bush threatened last weekend to do just that.

The Chinese case is that NMD is yet another manifestation of America's threatening, "hegemonistic" tendencies. The US may reply that China has more than 100 nuclear warheads and is making more. China has at least 20 CSS-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting the US and is developing new ICBMs, such as the DF-31, and more sea-launch platforms. These forces could break through any NMD shield, so the principle of mutual assured destruction is maintained.

China is already engaged in a big arms build-up with a rising annual military budget now estimated at $US60 billion ($A108 billion). Spending even more on defence will hinder economic development. (Hawks who view China as the next big threat to US global dominance hope this will happen.) Chinese obduracy over NMD could strengthen pressure in Congress to sell new theatre missile defences to Taiwan.

China's successful entry into the World Trade Organisation, its large export trade with the US and its lucrative international arms business depend on smooth relations. It will be intimated that there is a threat of tougher scrutiny of its human rights record in, for example, Tibet.

In Britain, the ruling Labour Party is divided on the NMD requirement of an upgrade to the American tracking station at Fylingdales, North Yorkshire. But the emerging line is that Britain will acquiesce if Russia and others agree. The opposition Conservatives have given their unreserved support. Despite the threat of protests, the US probably expects to have little trouble getting the British on side. Britain depends on intelligence and military hardware, as well as in broad political and economic terms, to defy Washington's will.

France, the other European nuclear power, is stridently critical of NMD. But Paris may be reminded that its pet project, the EU rapid reaction force, could face stiffening American and NATO opposition. French intransigence might also be linked by the US to continued American support for Balkan peacekeeping. As for Germany, Spain and the others, their opinion will make no difference, although Powell no doubt will listen politely.

European allies may be assured that a phase-two NMD with 250 interceptors will protect their territories. At this point perhaps, for public relations purposes, the chauvinist national missile defence tag may be swapped for something more "inclusive", such as "international" or "allied" missile defence.

In tandem with NMD development, the US will back the strengthening of international containment mechanisms such as the non-proliferation treaty, the missile technology control regime, the Wassenaar arrangement (on dual-use technology export controls), the chemical weapons convention and the biological and toxin weapons convention.

Some believe NMD's cost - $US30 billion, rising to more than $US60 billion in phase two - and its unresolved technical problems will stop the US going ahead. They misunderstand what an overriding priority it has become in Republican-controlled Washington. Bush and his generals are determined to get what they want.

---

NZ unsettled by Australia's nuclear shipment

Tue, 23 Jan 2001
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-23jan2001-74.htm

Australia's shipment of nuclear waste to France has unsettled neighbour New Zealand, where Foreign Minister Phil Goff has called for a proper system of notification of such cargos.

Spent nuclear fuel from Sydney's Lucas Heights research centre was shipped to France for reprocessing overnight, despite protests in Sydney.

Environmental activists Greenpeace claimed the waste was highly radioactive and posed a grave health risk to the public while being trucked through suburban streets.

Mr Goff said in a statement that Australia had informed New Zealand of the shipment out of "neighbourly courtesy".

But he suggested New Zealand had not been given sufficient notice, adding: "We want proper systems of notification and we want the highest possible safety standards to apply in regard to these shipments and we ask that countries accept full liability for compensation."

"New Zealand does not want any shipment of nuclear materials to come anywhere near our country," he said. Mr Goff added there was no suggestion that this shipment would come near New Zealand.

Meanwhile, plutonium-mixed oxide pellets being shipped from Cherbourg in France to Japan will pass through the Tasman Sea later next month on two ships.

A small flotilla of boats is expected to leave New Zealand in mid-February to protest the route.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Free Tasman Flotilla, Tony Atkinson, says the group will form their boats into a chain across the passage between Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island where the two ships are due to sail.

-------- depleted uranium

Depleted Uranium is a low level radiation hazard

but how dangerous is it and how can it be proved? The vital thing is to look in the right place with the right test. Here's how it should be done:

DU: How to find out something useful.
Low Level Radiation Campaign
http://www.llrc.org/dutest.htm

[Note: for the time being we are confining ourselves to the idea of screening to demonstrate whether or not DU is causing or contributing to the diseases reported from exposed populations. The question of screening for treatment subsequently is, of course, vital but we do not address it here. Some of the studies we recommend could show informative results quite quickly.]

The nature of the hazard

The use of depleted Uranium weapons creates large numbers of inhalable insoluble Uranium Oxides.

As we have been saying for several years, this is probably the greatest hazard from DU. White blood cells scavenge the particles in the lungs and deposit them in the tracheobronchial lymph nodes (TBLNs).

It is already well known [see <a href="http://www.llrc.org/medact.htm#actinide" target="_blank">this link</a>] that the TBLNs can retain such particles for very long periods and at remarkable high concentrations. A single particle 0.5 micron in diameter gives a radiation dose to the tissue immediately surrounding it at a rate 10 times higher than Natural Background.

This chronic irradiation of lymph tissue may be causing mutation of stem cells with implications for leukaemia and other diseases of the immune system, even though radiation doses as assessed by advisers such as the National Radiological Protection Board may be very low - far below the threshold for chemical toxicity and heavy metal damage to the kidneys.

This type of contamination is hard to detect and might not show up at all in urine. [<a href="http://www.llrc.org/goodhead.htm" target="_blank">see this link</a> for some authoritative support for our view]

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Post mortem analysis of TBLNs to test for DU Age of subjects and causes of death should be discovered. This study should include: all veterans, both Balkans and Gulf War, who die over the next five years as many people as possible from populations living near sites where test firing has been conducted civilians from the war zones

Recommendation 2: Health statistics and non-invasive testing of TBLNs in living subjects It is possible to test for the presence of DU in the lungs and lymph nodes by non-invasive means. This entails detecting the gamma rays emitted from the daughter isotopes to which Uranium decays. Substantial samples of the populations described in Recommendation 1 should be screened, and the results matched with reported symptoms NATO and the EU should provide funding to deploy enough instruments to do it. [See note below]

Recommendation 3: Health statistics and urine analysis Urine may be a poor indicator of insoluble DU but it may be useful in a sufficiently large study. Results should be matched with reported symptoms.

Recommendation 4: Health of veterans A morbidity study of soldiers and auxiliaries who served in ground forces in the Gulf and in the Balkans controlled against service people who were not deployed in those places;

Note: Non-invasive testing of TBLNs We predict that the MoD and NATO will protest

1.that it's no good looking at the Gulf veterans as the Uranium will have cleared from their bodies. This is not true. The insoluble forms are remarkably persistent.

2.that the test is not sensitive enough to detect low levels of Uranium or to distinguish between natural Uranium and the depleted Uranium. We don't really believe this one, and we are looking into the technical possibilities further.

3.that there isn't any (or enough) suitable equipment. They'd have a point. 6 or 7 labs in the UK have such equipment, e.g. Sellafield, where there is a need to do whole body counts in case of internal contamination of Plutonium and Americium. It is highly specialised, intended for health physics work [i.e. radiation protection professionals mostly in the nuclear industry.] It's not available in hospitals. Maybe the present row will raise enough political will to develop the necessary instruments.

------

Downplaying Dispute Over Uranium Shells

Tuesday, January 23, 2001
International Herald Tribune
Reuters
http://www.iht.com/articles/8358.htm

BRUSSELS Germany played down its dispute with the United States over plutonium traces in depleted uranium shells Monday, and EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels said they had not discussed the issue.

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany said America's apparent failure to alert allies to the fact that the depleted uranium shells it used in Kosovo contained minute traces of the highly radiotoxic substance "is not the point."

Assuming the six-month presidency of the EU for Sweden, Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said the 15 ministers had discussed the uranium problem over lunch but "never touched on" the question of whether EU countries had been surprised to learn that some of the munitions contained plutonium.

The EU ministers said the issue was mainly the concern of NATO and other military officials.

--------

Hoon accused of being glib over uranium shells

By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent, and Richard Alleyne
23/01/2001
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/23/nuran23.xml

GEOFF HOON, the Defence Secretary, was accused of being glib by a leading scientist yesterday after dismissing fears over depleted uranium as "anti-science" paranoia.

Mr Hoon said in an interview with The Telegraph that the debate over depleted uranium had gone to "the lowest common denominator of fear". There was "no evidence" of any link between the use of the DU ammunition and the illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans.

But Eric Wright, Professor of experimental haematology at Dundee University, said Mr Hoon and the Ministry of Defence were being "glib". There was no evidence because there had been no clinical research into possible connections.

MoD scientists had been right to say there was no danger from the rounds before they were fired, he said. But the explosion when they hit their target created a dust containing particles of insoluble uranium dioxide - and that was a potential problem.

Professor Wright said: "What happens is that when they [the particles] enter the body, they get gobbled up by scavenger cells and get lodged in the lymph nodes, and the situation you then have is that the uranium is emitting alpha particles." He added that a single alpha particle was not just capable of doing "enormous damage" to one cell, but to adjacent cells as well.

Shaun Rusling, chairman of the Gulf War Veterans and Families Association, said Mr Hoon was not only "arrogant" in his dismissals, he was "gullible" for accepting what he was told by MoD civil servants. He added: "We have seen a series of ministers going into Parliament and saying things that have turned out not to be true." Mr Hoon said he would publish details of all advice to ministers on the issue since it was first raised.

The Conservatives attacked Mr Hoon's claims that a woman could be appointed Chief of Defence Staff. Iain Duncan Smith, shadow defence secretary, said: "Labour wants to import a civilian-based rights culture into the Armed Forces which will render them less and less effective and could lead, eventually, to unnecessary loss of lives in action."

-------- europe

US trade panel rules against EU uranium imports

January 23, 2001
USA:
Story by Doug Palmer
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9596

WASHINGTON - In a case that could further strain trade relations between the United States and the European Union, a US trade panel on Monday issued a preliminary ruling against uranium imports from France, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) voted 4-0, with two commissioners abstaining, that low enriched uranium imports from the four EU member states threatened USEC Inc., the only American producer of enriched uranium.

The product is used as fuel in nuclear power-generating plants. USEC is a former U.S government-owned corporation that was privatized in July 1998.

The preliminary decision opened the door for the United States to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on the uranium imports later this year.

In a case filed in December 2000 with the ITC and the US Commerce Department, USEC accused its two European competitors, Eurodif S.A. and Urenco Ltd., of unfairly selling uranium in the US market for less than their cost of production and benefiting from government subsidies.

USEC also accused Eurodif, which is controlled by the French government, through its sales agent Cogema of selling uranium for lower prices in the United States than at home. Urenco is a British-Dutch-German consortium.

"These unfair trade practices must be stopped for the good of US national and energy security and the nuclear fuel cycle," USEC President William Timbers said in a statement after the vote.

The ITC finding clears the way for the Commerce Department to continue its investigation to determine if anti-dumping and countervailing duties are warranted. A negative ITC vote would have stopped the probe.

Commerce is expected to issue a preliminary decision in March in the dumping probe and in May in its investigation of government subsidies.

Following those decisions, US importers could be required to post a bond to cover potential duties that would go into effect if the ITC makes a final injury ruling against the imports later this year.

"We're disappointed that the ITC has decided to continue the investigations," an EU official here said.

The EU argues anti-dumping and countervailing duties are inappropriate in the case because the EU firms only provide enrichment services, not the good itself.

US utilities deliver natural uranium to Eurodif and Urenco, which convert it into low-enriched uranium.

Anti-dumping and countervailing duties are appropriate for goods, not services, the EU says.

The case is the latest in a long list of cross-Atlantic trade disputes that includes fights over EU beef and banana import restrictions and US tax breaks for exporters.

Those disputes have stymied efforts in Brussels and Washington to agree on a common agenda for new multilateral trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization.

-------- iraq

Pentagon Lacks Iraq Arms Evidence

January 23, 2001 Filed at 4:20 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Iraq.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon says it lacks firm evidence that Iraq has accelerated its effort to rebuild a chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Officials wonder what has been missed during the two-year absence of U.N. inspectors and automated video monitors at suspected weapons factories.

``It's the lack of knowledge,'' Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Tuesday.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a secret analysis, known as a national intelligence estimate, was done recently on Iraq's progress toward reconstituting its weapons of mass destruction. The official said the analysis concluded that Iraq's efforts have put it in position to produce new chemical or biological weapons quickly.

The official cited the example of a rebuilt facility that produces chlorine, which has a legitimate use in water purification systems but also could be used as an ingredient in deadly chemical weapons.

Quigley also noted the problem of such dual-use facilities in the hands of President Saddam Hussein.

``There are plausible explanations that the Iraqi authorities have given for the use of these facilities,'' he said. ``We just have no particular confidence in his truthfulness.''

Quigley and others said the United States gained little additional insight into Iraqi activities in recent months. ``I don't think our knowledge of the activities inside those facilities is any greater than it was before,'' he said.

Iraq's rebuilding effort began shortly after the United States and Britain bombed numerous Iraqi targets, including missile production plants and special security forces, in December 1998. President Clinton declared immediately after the raid that U.S. forces would strike again if Iraq began reconstituting its chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs.

Now a new U.S. administration must determine whether, or when, the use of military force would be an appropriate response.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hardly mentioned Iraq at his Senate confirmation hearing Jan. 11. He did say that deterring the use of weapons of mass destruction is a vexing problem.

``The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery are increasingly a fact of life that first must be acknowledged and then managed,'' Rumsfeld said in a prepared statement.

Rumsfeld's predecessor, William Cohen, told Rumsfeld shortly before he came to the Pentagon that containing Iraq's military power will be a pressing issue for the Bush administration.

On Jan. 10 Cohen released a report on the global spread of weapons of mass destruction. It said that over the past two years Iraq may have reconstituted its efforts to build such terror weapons and noted that the United Nations has had no inspectors in Iraq since late 1998.

In a report last fall, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the U.N. inspection effort was ``dying, if not dead.''

---

Bush Administration Warns Iraq on Weapons Programs

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/world/23IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - The Bush administration warned Iraq today to honor its agreements to destroy its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, but the White House said it was too soon to say what steps the new administration would take to ensure Baghdad's compliance.

Responding to a report today that Iraq had rebuilt a series of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons, the new White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said, "The president expects Saddam Hussein to live up to the agreements that he's made with the United Nations, especially regarding the elimination of weapons of mass destruction."

But when asked how and when the administration would help resume international inspections of suspected weapons sites and factories, Mr. Fleischer said, "I'm not prepared to address that today, but we will."

A decade after Mr. Bush's father led a coalition that ousted Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait, Iraq remains one of the most daunting foreign policy problems that former President Bill Clinton has left his successor.

Mr. Bush and his national security advisers - including Gen. Colin L. Powell, now secretary of state, and Vice President Dick Cheney, who both confronted Iraq as top defense officials 10 years ago - have talked tough about containing President Hussein.

But as they enter office, it is not clear whether they have any better options than Mr. Clinton had. International support for tough enforcement of sanctions has waned, while Mr. Hussein has managed to ease his diplomatic isolation, making it difficult to re-energize sanctions, as General Powell has suggested.

If Mr. Bush pursues a more aggressive strategy, including military force, the new administration is likely to find few allies, despite evidence that Iraq has resumed covert work on dangerous weapons.

As a condition of ending the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Iraq agreed to destroy its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, as well as the production of long-range missiles to deliver to such weapons.

But since the middle of 1998, Iraq has barred any meaningful inspections by teams of United Nations experts, who since the end of the gulf war had ferreted out and destroyed large quantities of weapons and uncovered secret programs to create biological and chemical weapons.

"The challenge is larger than a lot of people suspect," said Representative Porter Goss, a Florida Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee. "To say we've lost our eyes and ears in Iraq is true."

Clearly, constraining Mr. Hussein's weapons programs is at the core of the new administration's policy. "His only tool, the only thing he can scare us with are those weapons of mass destruction, and we have to hold him to account," General Powell said last week.

Mr. Bush and his top advisers have vowed to reinvigorate the economic sanctions against Iraq, convince skeptical allies of their value, and somehow spare Iraqi children from bearing the brunt of their effect.

"The most important thing is to maintain the core sanctions, the key sanctions that do make it more difficult and prevent Iraq from rebuilding its weapons programs, particularly its weapons of mass destruction," Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman, said today.

But even some of Mr. Bush's own advisers question this approach. "Re-energizing sanctions is a mistake," said Richard Perle, a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Bush during the campaign. "Ten years later, they're an obvious failure."

The new administration also supports Iraqi opposition whose goal is to topple Mr. Hussein.

The Clinton administration provided only tepid support to the Iraqi opposition. Although President Clinton signed a law in 1998 authorizing $98 million in military aid and equipment, the administration provided very little in the end and explicitly refused to provide any weapons.

Under pressure, the Pentagon began providing some direct military training to Iraqi dissidents and opposition leaders in the fall of 1999. Since then, the Pentagon has given courses to 90 members of the Iraqi National Congress - including 27 at a public affairs seminar in London last summer and 43 who went to a one-week course on war crimes in November at the Defense Institute of International Studies in Newport, R.I. Training continues, but it does not involve combat-related skills.

Senior military commanders opposed giving much military aid to the Iraqi groups, warning that they were too weak and fractious to pose a serious threat to Mr. Hussein's rule.

The Bush administration would be committed to the opposition's cause, aides say. "What we have in mind is making it clear to Saddam and the world that we're in favor of seeing this regime change," Mr. Perle said. "We'll support freedom fighters who are prepared to engage in a long- term struggle."

The Bush administration has not ruled out bombing suspected weapons sites as a last resort. "If, in fact, Saddam Hussein were taking steps to try to rebuild nuclear capability or weapons of mass destruction, we'd have to give very serious consideration to military action," Mr. Cheney said in a debate on Oct. 5.

As they departed, Clinton administration officials defended their policies. Walter B. Slocombe, who stepped down last week as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, said of Mr. Hussein, "I don't want to claim he hasn't made progress, but he's still in the box."

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

On a Global Missile Defense

January 23, 2001
New York Times
Letters
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/science/23LETT.html

To the Editor:

The country and the new president should take note that even the head of Pentagon weapons testing says the technology for a national missile defense system is not yet there ("Words of Caution on Missile Defense," Jan. 16).

Moreover, the global dominance and sole superpower status of the United States already create international tension and resentment. Starting another arms race by rashly implementing a missile defense system is not going to help.

If the United States thinks this is really such a hot idea, why not create a global missile defense for the entire world and have it backed up and cooperatively funded by the United Nations and its member countries. Perhaps in that way we could assure that the threat of atomic annihilation does not exist for anyone.

SAMUEL C. SEIDEN Chicago

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

Reps. Worried About Electric Prices

January 23, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Uranium-Trade.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers from nuclear-reliant North and South Carolina say they're worried about electricity price hikes if the only American provider of power plant uranium wins a trade complaint against European competitors.

If the U.S. Enrichment Corp. wins its case, duties on the enriched uranium from abroad ``would only serve to raise costs for utilities and consumers at a time when U.S. energy costs are rising,'' House members from the two states said in a letter released Tuesday.

The letter was signed by Reps. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, both R-S.C.; Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C.; and Reps. Richard Burr, Sue Myrick and Howard Coble, all R-N.C.

Nuclear power provides more than 30 percent of North Carolina's electricity and 56 percent of South Carolina's electricity, the Nuclear Energy Institute says.

The lawmakers said they agreed with competitors of Bethesda, Md.-based USEC that the company's recent financial woes were caused by its own high production costs and a money-losing contract to sell uranium retrieved from former Soviet weapons.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, in a preliminary finding, agreed with USEC that the company has been injured or faces the threat of injury from uranium sales by Urenco -- a British, Dutch and German consortium -- and Eurodif, France's uranium enrichment company.

The ITC ruling, returned Monday, cleared the way for the Commerce Department to consider the USEC complaint that the Europeans have unfairly subsidized the companies that compete with it to sell power plant-ready uranium.

If USEC wins, the government could impose punitive duties and give the company the money.

Despite declining profits and stock prices, USEC dominates the world market for enriched uranium, with 36 percent of current business.

USEC, which was a government enterprise until 1998, intends to stop production later this year at its Piketon, Ohio plant to reduce costs. That will leave the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky as the only U.S. producer of enriched uranium.

-------- ohio

GAO: Clinton Team Broke Law on Jobs

January 23, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Uranium-Plant.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration violated federal law when it went around Congress to save the jobs of workers at a soon-to-be-shuttered Ohio uranium plant, congressional auditors said Tuesday.

The General Accounting Office said the plan to keep the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in a standby mode, thus sparing some 1,000 layoffs, cannot legally be financed in the way devised by former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Richardson said putting the plant on standby was done as an offshoot of a program to privatize government uranium enrichment operations. He arranged to have $725 million in leftover privatization funds returned from the Treasury, then went to Piketon, Ohio, and promised to spend $630 million of it there to protect the Portsmouth jobs.

``You were there for us when we won the Cold War. Now we're going to pay you back,'' he told workers at the plant.

Moving the $725 million did not require congressional approval. The GAO said establishing a technology demonstration project at Piketon and putting the plant on standby are not legitimate expenses of privatization and therefore violate the Antideficiency Act.

That law allows agency decision-makers to be reprimanded, suspended or fired if they obligate the government to spend money that Congress hasn't formally approved. In this case, the decision-makers were Clinton administration political appointees who left when the Bush administration took over Saturday.

-------- us nuc politics

Defense Sec'y Holds First Session

January 23, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Rumsfeld-Chiefs.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held his first meeting Tuesday with the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Henry H. Shelton.

The closed-door session in the Pentagon conference room known as the ``tank'' was described by one participant as an ``introductory session'' rather than a detailed discussion of Rumsfeld's policy plans.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Rumsfeld asked each service chief to explain what his service is doing to ``transform'' itself from a Cold War structure to one geared toward 21st century challenges. Quigley declined to provide any other details on the hourlong meeting.

By statute, Shelton, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is the defense secretary's senior military adviser. The chairman and each service chief is appointed by the president for a fixed term; Shelton's is up this fall.

Rumsfeld was sworn in as secretary of defense Saturday evening. A formal Pentagon welcoming ceremony is planned Friday.

Quigley said Rumsfeld planned to travel to Munich, Germany, in early February, to attend an annual European conference on security issues, where he would meet many of his European counterparts.

Asked whether Rumsfeld intended to use the Munich visit as a chance to discuss the controversial topic of missile defense, Quigley said, ``I don't think he has settled on what message he wants to send while he's there yet.''

The spokesman said Rumsfeld had not yet received a detailed briefing on the status of Pentagon missile defense programs. Rumsfeld is a strong proponent of building a national missile defense.

Rumsfeld, 68, previously served as secretary of defense in the Ford administration from 1975-77.

-------- MILITARY

North Korea hails Kim's China visit

1/23/2001
InfoBeat News
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405933274

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea hailed Kim Jong Il's visit to China as a success on Tuesday, saying it would help promote international peace.

Kim returned home Saturday from a six-day trip that included talks with Chinese leaders and visits to high-tech industrial plants. It was his second visit to China in less than eight months.

``Leader Kim Jong Il's historic China visit offered a momentous opportunity of consolidating and developing the friendly ... relations and it will greatly contribute to ensuring peace and security in Asia and the world,'' the North's communist party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in an editorial.

The editorial was carried in part by the North's foreign news outlet, KCNA, and monitored in Seoul.

Kim's visit also included a meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other leaders. During the China trip, Kim stayed mostly in Shanghai, one of China's financial and industrial hubs.

Kim's itinerary in Shanghai and his unreserved praise of China's economic development spawned speculation that his reclusive country might open further to the outside world.

But the editorial gave no hint that North Korea would make any policy changes.

Four days after Kim returned home, North Korea's state radio and television continued to report on his visit almost hourly, with supportive comments from government and party leaders, according to South Korean officials.

That could be an effort by North Korea's leadership to prepare its hunger-stricken people for policy shifts toward reforms and openness, South Korean officials and experts said.

China is North Korea's only remaining major communist ally. China fought on North Korea's side against the American-led U.N. forces in the 1950-53 Korean War.

-------- arms sales

Taiwan asks Bush for advanced arms

January 23, 2001
Washington Times
By Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200112322846.htm

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has asked the Bush administration to approve sales of advanced destroyers and to increase contacts with Taiwanese officials here, according to a senior Taiwanese politician.

Parris Chang, a legislator and senior member of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said in an interview that the letter expresses Taiwan's need for Aegis guided-missile warships to counter the growing military threat from China.

The letter reinforced last month's request by Taiwan for the advanced warships as part of an annual package of weapons. The Clinton administration rejected a similar attempt to purchase Aegis destroyers last year.

Other systems sought by Taipei this year include diesel submarines, P-3 surveillance aircraft, and advanced air-launched missiles, including infrared-guided Maverick missiles and the High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM, which is used to destroy radar systems, Mr. Chang said.

Regarding upgraded diplomatic contacts, Mr. Chang said the Clinton administration "snubbed" Taiwan's diplomats, and Mr. Chen is asking the new Bush administration to improve contacts between administration officials and Taiwan's diplomatic representatives.

The United States broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1978 when it recognized Beijing. Taiwan is now represented by a semiofficial office known as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Relations Office, or TECRO.

TECRO spokesman Eric Chiang declined to comment on the content of Mr. Chen's letter to the administration.

Mary Ellen Countryman, a White House National Security Council spokeswoman, confirmed that Mr. Chen has written the new administration but said Mr. Bush has not seen his letter yet.

A State Department spokesman referred to the White House all questions on Mr. Chen's letter, which was delivered by Wang Jin-ping, the speaker of Taiwan's legislature, several days ago.

Mr. Wang led a delegation of about 40 Taiwanese officials, including Mr. Chang, to Mr. Bush's inauguration.

Mr. Chang said the Aegis ships are needed in addition to a U.S. proposal to sell less-capable Kidd-class U.S. destroyers to Taiwan as a stopgap measure.

"Our president is saying we need the Aegis ships, and that the Kidd-class ships are not enough," Mr. Chang said. "This will be very very important for Taiwan's defense."

The Taiwanese want to buy four Aegis destroyers, which cost about $1 billion each and would take between eight and 10 years to build and deploy.

The Kidd destroyers were proposed by the Pentagon because they would come from an existing fleet and could be transferred within the next several years.

The Aegis ships - which contain the high-technology Aegis battle management system - are much more advanced and will provide Taiwan with a base for developing effective sea-based anti-missile defenses, in addition to coastal defense.

According to Pentagon officials, China has destabilized the Taiwan Strait in recent years with its deployment of hundreds of short-range missiles. The Clinton administration limited Taiwan's access to advanced weaponry in trying to placate Beijing, said officials who declined to be named.

A recent Pentagon review of Taiwan's maritime defense needs was completed last year and strongly recommended providing Aegis ships, P-3 aircraft and submarines to bolster the island's defenses, said officials familiar with the review.

The Aegis ship request is likely to anger China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province. China opposes sales of advanced weaponry to the island.

The official Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, stated in a commentary last week that any effort by the new administration to deal with China as an ideological adversary will lead to "confrontation and even conflict."

Mr. Chang noted that the last major U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan -150 F-16 fighters - was first proposed in 1981, but no planes were transferred until 1992.

"The point is that if [the Aegis sale] is delayed it will send the wrong signal and could give China more time to mobilize opposition to it," Mr. Chang said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said selling Aegis ships to Taiwan would bolster U.S. security as well as Taiwan's security.

"The communist Chinese have been upgrading their weapons systems that are aimed at Taiwan, so it's consistent that we upgrade the weapons systems Taiwan has to defend itself in order to deter acts of aggression."

The final word on the annual arms-sales request, which is expected in April, is likely to be the first test of Mr. Bush's policy toward China, which he has said will be aimed at treating China as a competitor and not a partner.

-------- burma/myanmar

Burmese court rules in Suu Kyi's favor

January 23, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001123211840.htm

RANGOON, Burma - A court yesterday gave pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi a rare legal victory in military-ruled Burma, throwing out a property-dispute case filed by her estranged brother.

Citing procedural errors, Rangoon Division Court Judge Soe Thein dismissed a petition to divide the sprawling lakeside property where she lives under house arrest.

Since courts are controlled by the junta government, the case's dismissal appears to show that the generals are making an effort to keep the atmosphere conducive for ongoing reconciliation talks with Mrs. Suu Kyi, who yesterday marked four months of house arrest.

---

ASIA
January 23, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/world/23BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

MYANMAR: COURT VICTORY A property dispute case against the pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, by her estranged brother was thrown out by a district court judge. He dismissed a petition to divide the property where she lives under virtual house arrest. Since courts are controlled by the military government, the dismissal appears to show that the generals are trying to keep the atmosphere conducive to reconciliation talks with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. (AP)

-------- colombia

THE AMERICAS
January 23, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/world/23BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

COLOMBIA: PEACE EFFORT A day after the government's lead peace negotiator presented Marxist rebels with a proposal to restart stalled peace talks, the two sides met again in the demilitarized zone controlled by the guerrillas. Talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who have been battling the government for 36 years, have been at a standstill since the rebels announced a freeze in November. Juan Forero (NYT)

ECUADOR: JUNGLE SKIRMISH A skirmish between the national police and an unidentified armed group in a jungle area near the Colombian border has left at least two people dead. The incident came a day after the discovery of what military officials described as an abandoned Colombian guerrilla camp, complete with uniforms, about five miles from the border in another Amazon area. Larry Rohter (NYT)

-------- drug war

Justice Dept. Finds Success Chasing Health Care Fraud

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/health/23FRAU.html?pagewanted=all

While drug lords and organized-crime bosses may have been the more high-profile targets of the Department of Justice in recent years, among the most hotly pursued culprits have been those who commit health care fraud.

Emboldened by new laws and flush with money for lawyers and investigators, United States attorneys throughout the country more than quadrupled the rate of convictions for criminal health care fraud from 1992 to 1999, from one a week to roughly one a weekday, according to Justice Department figures. The new resources were critical to the effort because health care fraud cases are expensive and difficult to pursue.

The figure for civil cases is similar. From 1997 to 2000, recovery in civil fraud cases grew by more than 50 percent, and last year, of the $1.5 billion recovered by the federal government from fraud cases generally, $840 million was from those involving health care, according to the department.

"There is no doubt that the government has gotten more aggressive in both civil and criminal cases," said Jim Sheehan, a leading expert in health care fraud and the chief of the civil division in the United States Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "There has been a huge run-up in convictions under various federal laws," Mr. Sheehan said.

But while many health care and consumer experts hail these strong efforts as a way to save billions of dollars, some see the government's hand as too heavy and warn that well-meaning health care providers, particularly hospitals, may be getting unfairly snagged.

"There is no question that the government believes there is an element of crime in our health care system," said Keith M. Korenchuk, a health care lawyer in Charlotte, N.C. "But a vast majority of health care centers are trying the best they can and don't understand the amazing complexity of these billing procedures. The government is creating a climate of fear in the health care industry."

Some trade groups and lawyers have begun to make inquiries into whether President Bush, whose choice of John Ashcroft for attorney general has not yet been approved by the Senate, will continue the fight against health care fraud. The answer is not quite clear.

"There are no indications that this administration is going to back off," said Dennis Jay, the executive director of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, a consortium of government agencies, private insurance companies and consumer groups. "But there is no sense that it is going to be as big a priority," Mr. Jay said. "We think it is going to be somewhere in between. It depends a lot on who the U.S. attorneys are."

Over the last five years, health care fraud has become one of the most active areas in federal prosecutor's offices all over the country, from Boston, where a $486 million case was settled last year, to Florida, where prosecutors are among the most aggressive in bringing all types of health care fraud cases, to Syracuse, where the number of such cases has risen to 5 to 10 a year from one.

Beyond the vastly increased financial resources and a new federal statute devoted to health care fraud, the prosecution of these cases has also been aided by relatively fresh cooperation between government prosecutors and private insurance companies, which once went about the business of prosecuting fraud all alone, and a newly sophisticated group of whistle-blowers who alert the authorities to instances of fraud.

"Typically former prosecutors are now representing whistle-blowers," Mr. Sheehan said. "The good ones walk in with packages of arcane regulations, doctors and professional society notes, and a tape of their client with the doctor."

Fraudulent billing is a silently common practice among many doctors around the country, some of whom contend that managed health care does not reimburse them for procedures they believe are necessary.

The conviction two weeks ago of Dr. Niels H. Lauersen in Federal District Court in Manhattan was the most recent high-profile case to underscore the power of prosecutors' new tools against such practices. Dr. Lauersen, who was convicted of billing insurance companies roughly $2.5 million for covered gynecological procedures that masked the uncovered fertility treatments he was actually doing, billed private insurance companies, not government programs, and those firms worked closely with F.B.I. agents.

And Dr. Lauersen's prosecution was expensive, a prime example of the use the federal infusion of money for such prosecutions has been put to: a first effort to convict him ended in a mistrial, and his second trial took several weeks. Too, he was convicted under a health care fraud statute that many prosecutors, unfamiliar with its use, had feared trying out.

"That case will set a precedent," Mr. Jay said. "Prosecutors shy away from new statutes because they are untested and have a high rate of successful appeals, so each case gives them more courage to use these statutes."

Mr. Jay's group estimates that fraud claims in both private and public health insurance programs total $53.9 billion a year.

The federal policy of aggressively pursuing health care fraud and harshly punishing those who commit it is one of the few legacies of the Clinton administration's failed efforts to overhaul health care. The crackdown began when Attorney General Janet Reno told President Bill Clinton in 1993 that any health care reform act would need a strong fraud component, Mr. Sheehan said. In 1996, a far-reaching health care bill, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, was enacted, and it included a new health care fraud statute as well as new money.

In 1996, Congress gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation $47 million solely to investigate health care fraud, and the Department of Justice got $22.2 million to prosecute it. Both agencies were given more money in 1999 and 2000, and this year received $88 million and $43 million, respectively, for their efforts.

United States attorney's offices and the F.B.I. rushed to spend the money. Since 1994, the number of lawyers and their staffs in United States attorney's offices around the country who are dedicated to health care fraud alone increased 58 percent, said a Department of Justice spokesman, and over roughly the same period, the number of F.B.I. agents assigned to the field rose about 340 percent.

Here is what they did with their cash and resources: between 1992 and 1999, the latest years for which figures were available, the number of health care prosecutions filed increased to 506 cases from 83, department figures show, and convictions rose to 263 cases from 59.

Many United States attorney's offices have assigned a lawyer to pursue only health care fraud, a dedication of labor usually afforded only to the investigation of violent crimes. And in some cases, entire health care fraud units have been created. In Boston, for example, such a unit was created to pursue both criminal and civil cases.

"In white-collar crime, this is certainly the area we have been most active in," said Donald K. Stern, the United States attorney for Massachusetts. "We have done clinical labs, individual doctors and some national cases," Mr. Stern said. "There is a fair amount out there to sink your teeth into."

Last January, in the largest case of its kind, Mr. Stern's office won a plea settlement worth $486 million against Fresenius Medical Care North America, the world's largest provider of kidney dialysis products and services.

But Mr. Stern also goes for lower- flying targets. In a recent case involving a psychiatrist who eventually went to prison for false billings, prosecutors produced as evidence a calendar of patients for whom the psychiatrist had billed juxtaposed with a personal calendar that showed the doctor on a cruise.

Even a handful of cases can keep a single prosecutor busy. The cases are particularly time-consuming, riddled with paperwork, technical language and idiosyncratic regulations. Prosecutors also must familiarize themselves with clinical language and standards in medical care. In New York, prosecutors in the case against Dr. Lauersen were constantly forced to repeatedly explain the intricacies of various gynecological and fertility procedures. It is not uncommon for five years to elapse between the time of an alleged instance of fraud and a trial date.

There are several laws, including those covering mail and wire fraud, that have helped prosecutors pursue health care cases. But as the 1996 statute, which has still to be broadly applied, is increasingly tested, conviction rates are likely to rise further, lawyers say.

"In some ways, this law is like a new airplane," Mr. Sheehan of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said. "After we've flown it a few times we see, yes, you can get this 20- ton beast off the ground, and people are getting used to it."

---

Officials: Mandatory drug sentences don't work

01/23/2001
USA Today
By Kevin Johnson
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-01-21-drugs.htm

WASHINGTON - When New York Gov. George Pataki announced plans to reduce prison terms for non-violent drug offenders last week, he joined an emerging national movement in acknowledging that harsh punishments have contributed to failed drug policy.

In New Mexico this month, a state advisory committee proposed radical changes to existing drug laws that would do away with criminal penalties for marijuana possession and eliminate mandatory-minimum prison sentences for drug-related offenses.

The Massachusetts Legislature is considering restructuring the state's drug laws to reduce steep mandatory-minimum punishments for first-time offenders.

And in Michigan, officials recently replaced mandatory life sentences with parole-eligible prison terms for first-time cocaine and heroin offenders.

"The impetus for drug law reform in New York and across the nation has never been stronger," says Edward Jurith, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "We cannot simply arrest our way out of the problem of drug abuse and drug-related crime."

Long mandatory-minimum prison sentences for drug offenders were the rage in the 1970s and '80s, when officials began to confront serious drug-related crime in their states.

Nearly three decades later, those strict policies, some of which bought many first-time drug offenders up to 15 years in prison, have only driven up prison populations while having little influence on addiction, many officials now acknowledge.

In New York, where existing drug laws are considered among the harshest and date to the early 1970s, the new strategy "balances the need to crack down on drug kingpins with common sense proposals to address overly severe provisions of the Rockefeller-era drug laws," Pataki says.

Instead of 15-years-to-life terms for first-time, non-violent offenders convicted of the most serious drug felonies, Pataki's plan calls for a minimum of slightly more than eight-years-to-life.

"Pataki has joined the ranks of state officials troubled that these mandatory sentences have failed to accomplish what they were intended to accomplish," says Laura Sager, executive director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. When the current drug laws were enacted in New York, the state prison population numbered more than 12,000. That number has increased to about 70,000 today, Pataki spokeswoman Caroline Quartararo says.

About 21,000 of those inmates are there for drug-related convictions. About 70% of them were involved in non-violent offenses.

"We want to keep the violent predators in prison longer and find treatment for the low-level, non-violent drug offenders," Quartararo says.

Frank Carney, executive director of the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission, says proposed changes pending before the state Legislature "represent a comprehensive restructuring of the drug laws toward moderation."

The commission, as in New York, has proposed reducing mandatory sentences for non-violent first offenders from 15 years to a minimum of eight years.

"We found the sentences to be disproportionately long when compared to punishments for rape and armed robbery," Carney says.

"Now there is a growing awareness that in the drug war, there needs to be a greater emphasis on treatment and perhaps less on taking prisoners."

---

WIDESPREAD DRUG USE

UNITED NATIONS
January 23, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/world/23BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

An estimated 180 million people around the world - more than 4 percent of all people 15 years and older - use illegal drugs, according to the latest report by the United Nations drug control program. Illicit drug consumers include 14 million abusers of cocaine and 9 million heroin addicts. Christopher S. Wren (NYT)

---

01/23/01
States
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Indiana

Bloomington - Monroe County prosecutors say crack cocaine dealers from Detroit have established a foothold in Bloomington. They say dealers buy crack at low prices in big cities and sell it for big profits in places like Bloomington. In the past year, 18 cocaine convictions were registered in Monroe County courts; seven of the defendants were from Detroit.

South Dakota

Pierre - South Dakota should join nine other states that have allowed marijuana for medical treatments, state Sen. Ron Volesky told a legislative committee. Opponents said other drugs are better for treating various medical disorders and that allowing marijuana for medical use would run counter to federal law. The committee will hear more testimony before it votes.

---

U.N. releases drug-use report

January 23, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001123211840.htm

VIENNA, Austria - Cocaine and heroin abuse is diminishing worldwide but consumption of amphetamines is growing, the United Nations said in a report released yesterday.

The report, published by the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, said the increase in amphetamine usage in the 1990s was mainly in Europe and in Asia, with developed countries the main suppliers.

In the United States, drug use fell 40 percent from 1985 to 1999, with cocaine use falling 70 percent. Officials with the drug agency said that much of the reduction was a result of increased government spending on prevention and treatment.

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

U.N. Prosecutor Demands Milosevic

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Yugoslavia-War-Crimes.html

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Talks between the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor and President Vojislav Kostunica ended abruptly Tuesday with Kostunica resisting demands for the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian suspects.

Venturing into Milosevic's home territory, Carla Del Ponte met with Kostunica, a staunch critic of the Netherlands-based court, to urge him to cooperate in having his predecessor and other Serbian suspects stand trial on war crimes charges.

After an hour-long meeting, an angry-looking Del Ponte hastily walked past reporters, refusing to give a scheduled statement.

A written statement from Kostunica's office after the talks confirmed deep ``differences'' with Del Ponte.

Kostunica insisted new Yugoslav laws would be needed for full cooperation with the tribunal, a stance rejected by Del Ponte, the statement said.

Kostunica also complained that ``mostly Serbs were indicted'' by the tribunal which has also indicted several Croats and Bosnian Muslims for their alleged role in atrocities in the Croatian and Bosnian wars that broke out after those republics broke away from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Outside of Yugoslavia, dominated by Serbia, its larger republic, the prevailing view is that -- while all sides in the Balkan wars accompanying Yugoslavia's breakup committed war crimes -- Serbs were in the majority.

In his statement, Kostunica accused the tribunal of wanting to impose ``collective guilt on all the Serbs.''

``The prosecutor rejected those assessments,'' it added.

Del Ponte's spokeswoman, Florence Hartmann, said only the talks were ``an official meeting.'' She said that Del Ponte would give ``a frank'' statement about her talks with Kostunica at the end of her Belgrade visit on Thursday.

For Yugoslavia and its reform-minded leadership, much depends on Del Ponte's visit to Belgrade. If the Yugoslav government fails to cooperate with the U.N. court in The Hague, it is likely to lose international political and financial support garnered after Milosevic's ouster in October.

The talks clearly fell short of Del Ponte's expectations. Ahead of the visit, she had said that she would press for Milosevic's extradition. Hartmann, her spokeswoman, said: ``We are here to see whether Yugoslavia will start cooperating with the tribunal. Arrest of the indicted is an international obligation.''

The tribunal indicted Milosevic in 1999 for alleged war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo -- a crackdown ended by NATO airstrikes in 1999.

Turning up the pressure ahead of the talks, the U.N. war crimes tribunal Tuesday ordered Yugoslavia to freeze Milosevic's remaining financial assets.

Yugoslav Central bank officials have accused the Milosevic regime of stealing more than $4 billion and siphoning it out of the country in bags of cash marked ``citizens' savings.''

Del Ponte has declined to comment on the estimated amount the former president may have left in Yugoslavia until the tribunal completes investigations. She told the United Nations in November that, ``a huge, huge amount of money ... was stolen (from) the Serb population.''

In addition to Milosevic, numerous other suspects still live in Yugoslavia, including the president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, and the former Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Milosevic's Socialist party protested Del Ponte's visit, demanding from all ``patriots to raise their voices against the tribunal and its supporters in the country.''

A pro-Milosevic group, ``Forum Free Serbia,'' scheduled demonstrations against Del Ponte on Wednesday, calling her ``the jailer of the Serbian people.''

Del Ponte also met relatives of 16 state Belgrade TV employees killed when NATO bombed their headquarters in 1999. The relatives said she told them that Milosevic knew in advance that the building would be bombed, but sacrificed the people for political and propaganda gains.

Kostunica has suggested Milosevic and others could be tried by a Yugoslav court.

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

01/23/01
States
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Montana

Libby - The Army Corps of Engineers increased flows from Libby Dam to help increase electricity production and ease the strain on the West's power supply. The corps more than doubled releases from the dam. Libby is one of several dams to increase flows in response to requests from the Bonneville Power Administration for additional production to help meet electricity demands.

Texas

Edgewood - A single-engine plane crashed 35 yards from Edgewood High School, killing two off-duty Marine Corps reservists, officials said. No one on the ground was injured, and the school wasn't damaged. About 20 students inside the building heard the crash and found the wreckage. The victims were identified as Lt. Col. Kennel F. Mauclair, 46, of Acworth, Ga., and William Hindman, 43, of Cloudcroft, N.M. Authorities believe the plane may have clipped a communications tower.

---

Kosovar politician favors U.S. presence

January 23, 2001
Washington Times
By David R. Sands
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001123215228.htm

Ramush Haradinaj, a onetime Kosovo Liberation Army general and now an emerging political leader among the province's Albanian majority, yesterday warned a U.S. military pullout would have dire consequences for the Balkans.

"Without U.S. troops on the ground, there is no real peace in Kosovo," Mr. Haradinaj said in an interview yesterday.

"In many ways, the Kosovo Albanians trust the American troops more than any other forces" in the NATO-dominated multinational peacekeeping force in the Yugoslav province, Mr. Haradinaj said.

During the recent U.S. campaign, aides to President Bush said he wanted to reduce the U.S. military role in Kosovo, in place since the NATO air war in the spring of 1999 that drove out Serbian forces of Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.

The Bush administration has made clear in recent days that it would consult with its allies before any troop reduction.

Trading in fatigues for business suits, the 32-year-old Mr. Haradinaj led his Alliance for the Future of Kosovo to a third-place finish in municipal elections in Kosovo in October, with 7.7 percent of the vote.

The party of longtime Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, an academic, finished first with 58 percent, and Hashim Thaci, a former colleague of Mr. Haradinaj in the KLA, finished second with 27.3 percent.

Like virtually every prominent Kosovo Albanian leader, Mr. Haradinaj favors independence for Kosovo from Yugoslavia, despite opposition from Belgrade and despite a U.N. resolution that leaves the province's ultimate status purposefully vague.

Foreign ministers of the 15-nation European Union, meeting in Brussels yesterday, sent another signal of support for new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica. The ministers in a statement sided with Belgrade against Montenegro, Serbia's tiny sister republic that also has talked of leaving the Yugoslav Federation.

Carl Bildt, the United Nations' Balkans envoy, said the EU statement "very clearly expresses that the international community has no interest in setting up new states in the region."

Mr. Haradinaj argued that his party provided the best vehicle for a political solution to Kosovo, because it welcomed Serbs and other minorities and because it is focusing for now on building the economic, social and political institutions needed for a viable state.

Mr. Thaci is better known abroad, but his Democratic Party of Kosovo is increasingly unpopular because of abuses committed by ex-KLA members in its ranks, Mr. Haradinaj argued. And Mr. Rugova, while still the single most popular Kosovar Albanian leader, has seen his support fall steadily in the aftermath of the 1999 war.

Mr. Rugova "used to have 100 percent support, and now it's 58 percent," Mr. Haradinaj said.

A highly regarded guerrilla leader during the war and deputy commander for a time of the civilian Kosovo Protection Corps after Mr. Milosevic's troops pulled out, Mr. Haradinaj developed close ties with U.S. military and intelligence officials during the conflict.

But he remains a controversial figure in Kosovo and in Europe, where, he concedes, opposition to Kosovo's independence is much stronger than in Washington.

Mr. Haradinaj was injured in a confrontation with Russian peacekeepers last year, and he was wounded again by a grenade in a still-murky incident in July involving a feud with a Kosovar Albanian family from a rival guerrilla organization.

The London-based Guardian newspaper reported in September that U.S. forces helped cover up the July incident and also played down Mr. Haradinaj's links to drug trafficking and organized crime elements that have flourished in the province since the end of the war.

Mr. Haradinaj denied any links to criminal gangs in Kosovo. Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, executive director of the Albanian-American foundation and a spokeswoman for Mr. Haradinaj's party in the United States, said the July grenade attack has been misreported in the Western press.

-------- OTHER

Britain legalizes human cloning

January 23, 2001
Washington Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Emma Ross
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001123221716.htm

LONDON - The House of Lords approved a proposed change to government regulations yesterday that makes Britain the first country to effectively legalize the creation of cloned human embryos.

The measure is aimed at allowing research on stem cells - the unprogrammed master cells found in early-stage embryos that can turn into nearly every cell type in the body.

Like all other embryos used in research, the clones created under the new regulations would have to be destroyed after 14 days, and the creation of babies by cloning would remain outlawed.

The change passed late last night after an amendment that would have delayed the law in order to create a special committee to review ethical and scientific issues was defeated. The new regulations take effect Jan. 31.

Before the measure won approval, an impassioned debate on the topic ran on into the night, with many lords expressing concern that ethical questions were being sidelined in the rush to be at the forefront of medical research.

Others urged giving scientists the go-ahead now. They said treatments developed through embryo research and cloning could revolutionize medicine. It offers the hope of engineering transplants that would prevent or cure scores of illnesses, from diabetes to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

The amendment was defeated by 212 votes to 92, with the lords saying the ethical issues should be debated by a special committee later. That cleared the way for the cloning measure's approval.

Fertility expert Lord Winston, who chairs the House of Lords' science and technology committee, spoke out strongly in favor of embryo research.

"There is no doubt that on your vote, my lords, depends whether some people in the near future get the treatment which might save them from disease or, even worse, death." he said.

Lord Alton of Liverpool, who proposed the amendment to set up a committee to review ethical and scientific questions, urged the lords to withhold approval of the legislation.

"Since 1990, when miracle cures were promised for 4,000 inherited diseases, between 300,000 and half a million human embryos have been destroyed or experimented upon. There have been no cures, but our willingness to walk this road has paved the way for more and more demand," Mr. Alton said.

The British government was seeking to relax rules that limit medical research on human embryos under the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act. It strictly limits research on donated embryos to such areas as studies on infertility and the detection of birth defects.

The changes, which passed the House of Commons by a wide margin in December, expand the types of allowable research to include stem-cell experiments.

Scientists have said that stem cells, harvested from early-stage embryos or fetal tissue, will revolutionize medicine and someday yield remarkable cures.

It is unlikely any legislation sanctioning the creation of cloned embryos for research would pass in the United States. President Bush opposes federal funds for research that involves destroying human embryos, and several bills aimed at outlawing cloning are at various stages in Congress.

Currently in the United States, early stage embryonic stem cells obtained from the donated or purchased embryos produced in private laboratories - especially fertility clinics - may be used in certain research. Fertility clinics are a prime source of the cells because they produce an oversupply of embryos for in vitro fertilization and ultimately destroy the unused ones.

Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which polices embryo research, also has promised to consider cloning applications for some types of research, including certain stem-cell experiments.

The stem-cell research inevitably would involve embryo cloning because physicians ultimately want to treat ill patients with cells from their own bodies. Those cells would then be altered, cloned and returned to the patient to replace damaged or dead cells causing illness.

Scientists would remove the nucleus of a donor egg and replace it with a cell from a sick patient. The egg would then be induced to divide and start growing into an embryo. The cloned cells would be genetically identical to the patient's and therefore could theoretically overcome problems of transplant rejection, caused when the immune system fights foreign tissue.

Scientists foresee extracting the stem cells from the embryo when it is three or four days old and directing the cells' growth in the lab so the cells become any desired cell or tissue type for transplant.

"The human embryo has a special status, and we owe a measure of respect to the embryo," said Health Minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who supports the proposed changes.

"We also owe a measure of respect to the millions of people living with these devastating illnesses and the millions who have yet to show signs of them. This is the balance we must make."

-------- environment

Ex-IBM workers' fume case settled

1/23/2001
InfoBeat News
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405933274

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) - Two former IBM workers who alleged that exposure to toxic fumes caused their son's birth defects have settled their lawsuit, the first of more than 200 such cases scheduled to go to court.

Michael Ruffing and Faye Calton sued IBM in 1997 over the birth defects suffered by their son, now 15. He was born blind and with facial deformities that prevented him from breathing normally.

The couple contended the defects were caused by their exposure to fumes at an IBM computer chip manufacturing plant in East Fishkill, N.Y.

The settlement, made public Monday, could mean that the other cases will also be settled out of court. State Supreme Court Justice John DiBlasi had said the first case would be a bellwether.

Terms of the settlement were confidential.

Similar defects were found in the children of other employees at the Fishkill plant, as well as in other plants in Vermont and California.

IBM said in a statement that while it believed it had no liability, ``the vast majority of civil cases in America terminate without a trial, and that is particularly true as regards cases involving novel and complex issues of law, science and fact.''

---

Oil Spill Threatening Heart of Galápagos Ecosystem

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/science/23GALA.html

PUERTO BAQUERIZO MORENO, Galápagos Islands, Jan. 22 - More than 160,000 gallons of fuel that spilled from a stricken tanker threatened creatures today - from birds to iguanas to sea lions - off these fragile islands, where Darwin forged his theory of evolution.

"The bottom line is, once oil gets out of a ship, it's virtually impossible to remove it or contain it on the ocean," said Capt. Edwin Stanton of the United States Coast Guard, part of a 10-member team trying to help.

An Ecuadorean tanker, the Jessica, carrying 243,000 gallons of diesel, ran aground last Tuesday off San Cristóbal Island, the easternmost island. The ship started leaking fuel on Friday.

The Ecuadorean environment minister, Rodolfo Rendón, said 60,000 gallons had been recovered from the tanker, but not before more than 160,000 gallons had seeped out. Oil slicks are being carried by strong currents to the south and, more alarmingly, west, toward the center of the chain, an ecosystem populated by animal and plant species found nowhere else.

Darwin developed his theory of evolution by studying wildlife on the mostly arid and rocky islands, 600 miles off Ecuador. The islands, ruled by Ecuador since 1832, were formed by underwater volcanos.

A spokesman for the Galápagos National Park, Fabian Oviedo, said that dispersants and absorbents were being used to lessen the effects of the spill but that the fuel had reached Santa Fe Island, 37 miles west of San Cristóbal. "The part of Santa Fe most affected is the coastal zone of El Miedo, populated by iguanas, sea lions and birds like the blue- footed booby," he said. "Four sea lions stained with diesel have been spotted, as well as boobies and 30 pelicans."

The coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund Galápagos program, Carlos Valle, said the damage could be grave for the hundreds of sea lions and thousands of iguanas that populate Santa Fe. "It is very difficult to move them because they are very territorial," Mr. Valle said. "The most vulnerable animals are the blue-footed boobies, masked boobies and frigate birds, whose feeding zone is in the area of the spill."

He said some colonies of marine turtles could be threatened. But species in danger of extinction like the miniature Galápagos penguin and flightless cormorant are not immediately threatened because they live in the far western reaches of the archipelago. And the giant land tortoises for which the islands are named live in higher elevations.

The police on San Cristóbal Island said no charges had been filed against the ship's captain, Tarquino Arévalo, or his company, Acotramar. But the chief of marine monitoring for the park, Capt. Ramiro Morejón, said the spill could have been avoided. "A signal buoy was mistaken for a lighthouse," he said. "The accident was definitely caused by human error."

---

Winds Carry Fuel Away From Galapagos

January 23, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Galapagos-Threat.html

PUERTO BAQUERIZO, Galapagos Islands (AP) -- Shifting winds and prevailing tides are pushing about 170,000 gallons of diesel fuel from a stricken tanker toward open sea and away from the fragile environment of the Galapagos Islands, officials said Tuesday.

Ecuadorean Environment Minister Rodolfo Rendon said the fuel was now moving ``toward the northwest, which is an open zone where there are no major islands.''

He characterized the spill as ``a problem, not a tragedy.''

The leaking began Friday near the islands, a natural treasure 600 miles off Ecuador's west coast. About 170,000 gallons of diesel fuel prompted Ecuador, which controls the territory, to declare a state of emergency late Monday to speed funding for the cleanup.

As of late Monday, currents had spread intermittent slicks over 488 square miles -- an area bigger than Los Angeles.

The crippled tanker ship has threatened not just the Galapagos' famed and fragile wildlife. Residents on nearby San Cristobal island who depend on the sea for their livelihood say the tanker has also interfered with their fishing and spoiled the waters that are the azure backdrop of their lives.

``The sea is our sustenance. Because of this spill, we are left without work,'' said Pedro Mieles, 35. ``We have nothing to do. We are immobilized.''

Local radio warned residents not to eat the fish or swim in the water -- an alarming message in a community where some 700 of the island's 4,000 residents are fishermen.

Fisherman Robin Betancourt said he saw about 50 mullet fish floating dead in an area to the south of the island known as Manglecito.

The islands were catapulted to fame in the 19th century, when naturalist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution by studying wildlife there.

Formed roughly 4 to 5 million years ago by underwater volcanos, the islands are mostly arid and rocky, dotted more by cactuses than lush vegetation.

In recent years, they have become the focus of a struggle between fishermen and conservationists as migration from Ecuador's mainland poses a major threat to the islands' fragile ecosystem.

The Galapagos, inhabited by fewer than 1,000 residents in 1950, is now home to some 16,000 people. To feed and employ the population, fishermen have stepped up demands for loosening regulations on catch sizes.

Park spokesman Fabian Oviedo said Monday that absorbent materials were being used to lessen the impact of the diesel but some of the spill had already reached Santa Fe Island, 37 miles west of San Cristobal.

Sea lions and pelicans have been spotted there with diesel stains and workers were trying to capture birds for cleanup, Oviedo said. Monitoring flights were being conducted over Santa Cruz, the next major island in the chain.

A team of U.S. coast guard specialists were working with local officials to recover remaining diesel fuel from inside the damaged 28-year-old tanker Tuesday, but pounding surf and strong waves were complicating the recovery efforts.

Some 10,000 gallons were still left of the ship's cargo of about 243,000 gallons, officials estimated.

Long-term threats included the possibility that escaped fuel would sink to the ocean floor, destroying algae vital to the food chain and threatening marine iguanas, sharks and other species, officials said.

The damage could be grave also for the hundreds of sea lions and thousands of iguanas that populate Santa Fe, said Carlos Valle, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund's Galapagos program in Ecuador.

``It is very difficult to move them because they are very territorial,'' he said. The most vulnerable animals are the blue-footed boobies and frigate birds that feed in the area of the spill, he said.

Giant land tortoises, which can reach 550 pounds and for which the Galapagos are named, were not in danger because they live in the higher elevations of the islands.

---

Global Warming Threat Worsening, Report Says

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/science/23CLIM.html

SHANGHAI, Jan. 22 - In the most emphatic warning yet about the danger of global warming, scientists from 99 nations meeting here issued a report today that sharply increased projected climate change blamed on air pollution and warned of drought and other disasters.

The report, which could spur stalled world negotiations on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, said global temperatures could rise by as much as 10.5 degrees over the next century. By comparison, the earth's temperature rose about 9 degrees since the last ice age.

"This adds impetus for governments of the world to find ways to live up to their commitments" to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, said Dr. Robert T. Watson, chairman of the United Nations-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which organized the meeting in Shanghai.

International talks ended in November without agreement on how to carry out a 1997 agreement by industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2010.

The Shanghai report, meant to be the most comprehensive study to date on global warming, says new evidence shows more clearly than ever that temperature increases are caused mostly by pollution, not by changes in the sun or other natural factors. "The rate of climate change this century is expected to be greater than it has been in the past 10,000 years," Sir John T. Houghton, co- chairman of the Shanghai meeting and former head of Britain's weather agency, said.

The report is the one of the most authoritative pieces of evidence yet to support warnings that greenhouse emissions from industry, power plants and vehicles threaten to disrupt global climate and ecosystems by causing the atmosphere to trap more of the sun's energy. The findings were unanimously approved by the roughly 150 scientists and 80 members of environmental and industry groups attending the meeting.

Most of the contents of the report had not changed since last October, when a draft was distributed to governments and some reporters. But scientists involved in writing it said some points were made even more strongly in the final version. In particular, it concludes that new evidence shows that "most of the observed warming" in recent decades has come from gas releases from human activities.

Rising temperatures could lead to drastic shifts in weather, scientists at the meeting said. They said drought could strike farming areas, while melting glaciers could raise sea levels, flooding densely populated coastal areas of China, Egypt and other countries.

The Shanghai conference was the start of a series of meetings under United Nation auspices to update evidence for climate negotiators. Other gatherings will focus on the social and economic costs of global warming and how to reduce it. The series ends in April with the release of a huge report in Nairobi, Kenya.

---

Currents carry fuel spill away from Galapagos

01/23/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-01-23-galapagos2.htm

PUERTO BAQUERIZO, Galapagos Islands (AP) - Shifting winds and prevailing tides are pushing about 170,000 gallons of diesel fuel from a stricken tanker toward open sea and away from the fragile environment of the Galapagos Islands, officials said Tuesday. Ecuadorean Environment Minister Rodolfo Rendon said the fuel was now moving "toward the northwest, which is an open zone where there are no major islands." He characterized the spill as "a problem, not a tragedy."

The leaking began Friday near the islands, a natural treasure 600 miles off Ecuador's west coast. About 170,000 gallons of diesel fuel prompted Ecuador, which controls the territory, to declare a state of emergency late Monday to speed funding for the cleanup.

As of late Monday, currents had spread intermittent slicks over 488 square miles - an area bigger than Los Angeles.

The crippled tanker ship has threatened not just the Galapagos' famed and fragile wildlife. Residents on nearby San Cristobal island who depend on the sea for their livelihood say the tanker has also interfered with their fishing and spoiled the waters that are the azure backdrop of their lives.

"The sea is our sustenance. Because of this spill, we are left without work," said Pedro Mieles, 35. "We have nothing to do. We are immobilized."

Local radio warned residents not to eat the fish or swim in the water - an alarming message in a community where some 700 of the island's 4,000 residents are fishermen.

Fisherman Robin Betancourt said he saw about 50 mullet fish floating dead in an area to the south of the island known as Manglecito.

The islands were catapulted to fame in the 19th century, when naturalist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution by studying wildlife there.

Formed roughly 4 to 5 million years ago by underwater volcanos, the islands are mostly arid and rocky, dotted more by cactuses than lush vegetation.

In recent years, they have become the focus of a struggle between fishermen and conservationists as migration from Ecuador's mainland poses a major threat to the islands' fragile ecosystem.

The Galapagos, inhabited by fewer than 1,000 residents in 1950, is now home to some 16,000 people. To feed and employ the population, fishermen have stepped up demands for loosening regulations on catch sizes.

Park spokesman Fabian Oviedo said Monday that absorbent materials were being used to lessen the impact of the diesel but some of the spill had already reached Santa Fe Island, 37 miles west of San Cristobal.

Sea lions and pelicans have been spotted there with diesel stains and workers were trying to capture birds for cleanup, Oviedo said. Monitoring flights were being conducted over Santa Cruz, the next major island in the chain.

A team of U.S. coast guard specialists were working with local officials to recover remaining diesel fuel from inside the damaged 28-year-old tanker Tuesday, but pounding surf and strong waves were complicating the recovery efforts.

Some 10,000 gallons were still left of the ship's cargo of about 243,000 gallons, officials estimated.

Long-term threats included the possibility that escaped fuel would sink to the ocean floor, destroying algae vital to the food chain and threatening marine iguanas, sharks and other species, officials said.

The damage could be grave also for the hundreds of sea lions and thousands of iguanas that populate Santa Fe, said Carlos Valle, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund's Galapagos program in Ecuador.

"It is very difficult to move them because they are very territorial," he said. The most vulnerable animals are the blue-footed boobies and frigate birds that feed in the area of the spill, he said.

Giant land tortoises, which can reach 550 pounds and for which the Galapagos are named, were not in danger because they live in the higher elevations of the islands.

---

01/23/01
States
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

California

Geyserville - A pesticide was found in ground water at a vineyard where 400 birds died in November. The pesticide was used to treat 30 acres of wine grapes at Klein Family Vineyards. The North Coast water quality board advised area residents to drink bottled water last month but now says tap water is safe. Testing of nearby residential wells will continue.

Florida

Marineland - Nellie, the oldest known captive dolphin, and the other 17 dolphins at Marineland are being sold to SeaWorld to help clear park debts, officials said. But Nellie, who turns 48 next month, and eight tankmates will stay on at Marineland, which is being redeveloped as an eco-tourism park.

Idaho

McCall - An invasive noxious weed that can hamper boats and kill fish is threatening Big Payette Lake, the Idaho Department of Agriculture says. It fears that unless Eurasian watermilfoil is curbed the feather-like weed could spread deep into southern Idaho, displacing native milfoils. The weeds can grow rapidly into decaying, foot-thick mats that can trap birds and wrap around boat propellers.

Maine

Portland - Lobster catches hit a record-high 52.3 million pounds in 1999, but a team of scientists says a decline is expected during the next two to four years because of changes in the ocean environment. Preliminary estimates show the decline may be about 40% in Penobscot Bay, which accounts for the bulk of the state's catches. Figures for 2000 haven't been released but are expected to be as high as 60 million pounds.

Minnesota

Duluth - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expanding its water quality research laboratory on Lake Superior. The $2 million expansion, to be completed by August, will add 13,000 square feet to the facility. Researchers at the lab are developing new techniques for water quality experiments and exploring the effects of pollutants in the environment.

New Mexico

Santa Fe - Three environmental groups are trying to force changes in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's national flood insurance program. In a lawsuit, the Sierra Club, Forest Guardians and Southwest Environmental Center contend that the federal program promotes development within floodplains, particularly along the Rio Grande and the San Juan River, harming endangered fish and wildlife.

Ohio

Columbus - A program that gives businesses a chance to avoid lawsuits by voluntarily cleaning up pollution needs $25 million and 10 to 12 more staff members to be effective, according to the Green Environmental Coalition. The group studied the Voluntary Action Program over a four-year period. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged that the program is underfunded and understaffed.

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia - Nearly 20% of Pennsylvanians who have switched electrical suppliers have picked utilities that produce at least part of their energy from nonpolluting, naturally renewable resources, such as wind, water and sun. More than 80,000 residential electric customers have chosen so-called green power suppliers.

---

When Sweet Scents Pollute

January 23, 2001
New York Times
Letters
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/science/23LETT.html

To the Editor:

To the Personal Health column "Another Source of Air Pollution: The Home" (Jan. 16), I would like to add that those who wear perfumes, colognes and scents should be aware that they are imposing on their neighbors to whom these chemicals may be toxic. These seemingly innocuous substances can add to indoor air quality problems.

GRETA ECKHARDT Arlington, Mass.

---

U.N. says forests still shrinking

January 23, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001123211840.htm

ROME - The world's forests are still vanishing, but at a slower rate than five years ago, U.N. experts reported yesterday.

They said the world has been losing more than 22 million acres of forest a year since 1995, 20 percent less than in the previous five-year period.

Forests are disappearing most rapidly in Africa and Latin America, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization report said. In Asia, new plantations are helping make up for loss of natural forests, it said.

-------- genetics

Australians Create a Deadly Mouse Virus

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/health/23MOUS.html?pagewanted=all

Australian scientists have accidentally created a virus that kills mice by crippling their immune systems, and warn that the technique may threaten to produce deadlier forms of human viruses and new kinds of biological weapons.

The scientists were trying to make the mice infertile, but unintentionally created a killer.

They added a gene involved in the mouse immune system to the mousepox virus, which is a cousin of the human smallpox virus that is widely used in lab studies.

Mice infected with the pathogen died, even many of those who had been vaccinated against mousepox.

Because people have the same immune system gene, in theory a similar step could create a pathogen deadly to people.

Previously, scientists exploring the shadowy world of designer pathogens found that superbugs made by genetic engineering often turned out to be less potent than their natural progenitors. It seemed that virulence was easier to lose than enhance.

So the Australian scientists, from the Australian National University in Canberra, say the discovery of how easy it is to make such a viral killer should ring global alarm bells. They called on all nations to strengthen a global treaty that seeks to ban germ warfare.

The surprise discovery was made over a period beginning in 1998 and ending in 1999. At first, the scientists informed only the Australian government and military about it. But after some debate, "We thought it was better that the information came out in case somebody constructed something more sinister," said Ronald J. Jackson, the lead researcher for the team, whose work is described in the February issue of the Journal of Virology.

"We felt we had a moral obligation because it is existing technology," he said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

American researchers noted, though, that similar pathogens created in the past have remained laboratory curiosities that produced no known weapons or harm. In interviews, they said that while the Australian discovery was ominous, much remained unknown about whether the technique could be applied to human viruses and, if so, whether new classes of designer pathogens would become available.

"There's a lot of potential things like this," said Peter C. Doherty, a Nobel laureate and immunologist at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. "This is unusual in that they made it more virulent rather than less. It just shows these things can be done."

The scientists made the discovery while exploring ways to help protect global food supplies from mice and rats. The scientists were trying to use mousepox virus to create an artificial strain of the microbe that would render mice infertile.

Instead, they found that inserting a particular mouse gene made the virus deadly for breeds of laboratory mice normally resistant to the disease. They also found that vaccines against mousepox became far less effective.

"In this case, we've found that certain changes to a mouse virus can render it more lethal and harder to immunize against," Bob Seamark, director of the Cooperative Research Center for Pest Animal Control, a governmental group in Australia that coordinated the research, said in a statement. "The best protection against any misuse of this technique was to issue a worldwide warning."

The mousepox virus has no affinity for people and poses no threat to humans. But the scientists worry that unethical biologists might adopt the method to strengthen weapons based on human viruses, possibly turning even the common cold into a killer.

Annabelle Duncan, head of molecular science at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the nation's main science agency, said the discovery suggested that "we need urgently to strengthen" the Biological Weapons Convention, a 1972 treaty that bans germ warfare.

For years, states have negotiated unsuccessfully to make the treaty more rigorous. Their efforts have been thwarted mainly by disputes over how to police modern biology and medicine.

After gene splicing was invented in 1973, a quiet debate arose in military and scientific circles over whether designer pathogens would really be more harmful than what nature produced, or whether added genes might backfire and leave them weaker. Evidence on both sides has often been murky, partly because the work is sometimes done in secret.

The Journal of Virology is published in Washington by the American Society for Microbiology, the world's top group of germ scientists. In addition to Dr. Jackson, the authors of the report in the journal are Alistair J. Ramsay, Carina D. Christensen, Sandra Beaton, Diana F. Hall and Ian A. Ramshaw. All are from either the Australian National University or the pest animal control program of the Commonwealth agency.

Ronald M. Atlas, a microbiologist at the University of Louisville and president elect of the American Society for Microbiology, said in an interview that the Australians were right in signaling concern, but wrong in implying that their finding is unique.

"If there's a lesson in this, it's that you can create a more virulent pathogen," he said. "In 99 percent of the cases you would not, but in the others you can, and here's an example."

But an American biologist who works for the Defense Department on germ defenses said the finding was more surprising than that. "It demonstrates a frightening message," he said. "Maybe it's easier to do these things than we think."

The Australian scientists inserted into the mousepox virus a mouse gene that controls the making of interleukin-4, chemical that plays a starring role in the immune system's responses to foreign invaders. The aim was to enhance the making of interleukin-4 and thus the immune response so that even mice eggs would be rejected as foreign, blocking mouse reproduction.

But the female mice instead died, as did many of those vaccinated to resist mousepox. The scientists say the designer virus unexpectedly crippled the immune system to such an extent that the microbe reproduced wildly, killing most of the mice and making the rest permanently disabled.

The mousepox virus, they added, was used simply because it was well studied and convenient. If successful, the experiment would have progressed to inserting the interleukin-4 gene into a benign microbe of rodents, the murine cytomegalo virus.

The bodies of people, like those of mice, use interleukin-4 to control immune responses. Its signals are one of the main ways biological reactions to infection are orchestrated. That similarity is one reason the new finding worries experts.

-------- imf / world bank

With Seattle a Vivid Memory,
W.T.O. Seeks a New Host City

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By ELIZABETH OLSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/business/23WTO.html

GENEVA, Jan. 22 - The World Trade Organization's last top-level meeting, which left Seattle reeling after violent protests, scores of arrests and property damage, was not the greatest advertisement to lure countries to be the host of its next big gathering later this year.

Nonetheless, two of the W.T.O.'s 140 member countries are vying for the meeting, and the contest between Chile and the Persian Gulf state of Qatar has turned into another diplomatic wrangle. In the middle is the coming ministers' meeting, which is expected to attract thousands of representatives of governments and nongovernment groups as well as journalists.

The meeting, tentatively scheduled for next fall, will draw global attention because the W.T.O. may again try to start the round of trade talks that never got off the ground in Seattle in December 1999.

The venue, however, is looming as a problem because of unofficial worries about Qatar's ability to hold the meeting. Qatar, a nation of only 540,000 people, already had its collective feelings ruffled when Chile floated an offer last month.

Qatar's trade envoy, Fahed Awaid al-Thani, pointed out that his country had bid for the meeting as long ago as the Seattle meeting and had made an official offer. In October, however, Qatar acknowledged that it might not have enough hotel beds for the five-day meeting, and other countries were encouraged to make bids.

A team from the W.T.O. went to Qatar's capital, Doha, last year and found adequate conference facilities. An assessment team has also traveled to Santiago, however, though Chile has yet to make a formal offer.

Qatar has since sweetened its bid, saying it will rely on luxury villas and cruise ships to make up the lodging shortage.

Both countries were reviewed by the W.T.O.'s decision-making body last month, but no choice was made.

While countries typically seek out such huge international gatherings because of the prestige and money they bring, the W.T.O. has not been overwhelmed with offers since it became the target of disruptive protests. Even Geneva, the organization's home city, has been quietly reluctant.

A key sticking point for Qatar's candidacy is the admission of representatives of nongovernment organizations. Qatar has pledged free access, and an informal poll of W.T.O. representatives last week found no opposition to it.

But Human Rights Watch, based in New York, said today that a meeting in Qatar would shut down any possibilty of peaceful protest. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that holding the meeting in a country that limits the rights of assembly and association "would send a signal that it's O.K. to build the global economy on a foundation of repression - exactly the oppoosite message the W.T.O. should be pronouncing."

Mr. Thani, whose enthusiasm for the meeting is tempered by memories of the two days he spent shut in at his Seattle hotel room, said: "We welcome peaceful demonstrations. We have the ability to control it."

---

W.T.O. vs. Democracy

January 23, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/opinion/L23WTO.html

To the Editor:

Robert Wright ("Clinton's One Big Idea," Op-Ed, Jan. 16), in calling the World Trade Organization "the most effective body of world governance in the history of the planet," seems to understand neither history nor human nature.

In almost every case (29 out of 33) completed by W.T.O. tribunals in which a country has challenged a nation's democratically created law, the tribunal has ruled in favor of the challenger. Furthermore, not a single environmental, health or food safety law challenged at the organization has ever been upheld.

Many in Congress - although the free-trade fundamentalists like Mr. Wright call us "largely disingenuous" - will continue to fight for improved standards that protect workers, public health and the environment in the United States and developing countries alike.

SHERROD BROWN Member of Congress, 13th Dist., Ohio Washington, Jan. 17, 2001

-------- police

After 5 Months, Nassau Pursues Report of Sex Abuse in Police Car

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By AL BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/nyregion/23COP.html

GARDEN CITY, N.Y., Jan. 22 - The Nassau County Police Department is investigating a woman's report that she was sexually abused by a police officer in August. Officials are also trying to determine why the allegation, which was reported to the police at the time, was not forwarded to the unit responsible for investigating police misconduct, a department spokesman said.

The spokesman, Deputy Inspector Peter A. Matuza, said today that the woman, a Nassau County resident who was not identified, walked into the Eighth Precinct station house in Levittown last summer and logged her complaint with a desk officer. She said she had been forced to perform oral sex on a male police officer who pulled her car over the night before.

The complaint was forwarded to the Eighth Precinct detective squad, though under police procedures, allegations of police wrongdoing are supposed to be forwarded immediately to the Internal Affairs Unit, Inspector Matuza said.

He could not say how or why the Internal Affairs Unit, as well as other high-ranking police officials, became aware of the complaint only last week. But he said it had nothing to do with recent reports by at least four women that a Suffolk County police officer made them undress or expose themselves to avoid arrests on drunken driving charges. Inspector Matuza also gave no indication why the Nassau woman's complaint was not pursued last summer.

"We will be seeing if there are any breaches of any administrative or procedural guidelines," he said. "Right now, it would look like that. But it will take a few weeks for this to pan out and for us to get a clearer picture of what happened."

Police officials have impounded at least two unmarked police cars from the Eighth Precinct, which includes roughly 200 officers of all ranks. The cars fit the woman's description of the one that stopped her.

The woman said she was pulled over on the suspicion of drunken driving on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway, near Hempstead Turnpike, early in the morning of a day in early August. She said the officer then drove her to a secluded area in the Eighth Precinct where she was sexually abused.

Inspector Matuza said the woman was not arrested. She did not provide a name of an officer or describe him other than to say he was a white man. Police officials will try to determine whether a police officer was indeed involved, and if not, will treat the case as a normal criminal investigation, he said.

"The possibility exists that it could be somebody impersonating a cop," he said. "However, we are going to make an assumption that it is one of ours, and we are investigating it aggressively."

In Suffolk County, four women have told investigators this month that a patrolman made them undress or expose themselves after traffic stops. The women said that a highway patrol officer led them to believe they had to do as he directed or face charges for drunken driving. Those reports are under investigation.

---

Judge, Overruled, Quits Trial of 2 Troopers

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By ROBERT HANLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/nyregion/23TROO.html

A New Jersey judge removed himself yesterday from hearing the criminal case against two state troopers accused of shooting and wounding three unarmed black and Hispanic men during a 1998 traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The move, by Judge Andrew J. Smithson of State Superior Court, came 17 days after an appeals court criticized him for dismissing charges against the troopers last October.

In a surprise decision, Judge Smithson said he was removing himself from the case because the appeals court had questioned his fairness and created a public impression that he was biased when it reinstated the charges on Jan. 5.

In a statement he read from the bench at the start of a hearing in Trenton, the judge said the appeals court's criticism implied bias, dishonesty and injustice and could lead to a public inference that he was a "bad judge."

Judge Smithson said he had no doubts about his ability to act with integrity and impartiality. But he added, "Under these circumstances, my continuation with this case is no longer a viable option."

His departure seems certain to further delay the start of a trial for the two troopers, John Hogan and James Kenna. Both were indicted in September 1999 for firing 11 shots into the van after a stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1998 and wounding three of its four occupants. The case created a political furor over racial profiling in New Jersey and ultimately made awareness of the practice a national issue.

Mr. Kenna is now charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault and Mr. Hogan with aggravated assault. No trial date has been set for either.

After Judge Smithson stepped aside, the case was transferred to Judge Charles A. Delehey, the presiding judge of the criminal part of New Jersey Superior Court in Mercer County. Judge Delehey scheduled a hearing for Feb. 1, but it was unclear yesterday if he would take over the case or assign it to another judge.

The disagreement between Judge Smithson and the three- judge appeals panel focused on the indictment against Mr. Hogan and Mr. Kenna. Judge Smithson threw it out on Oct. 31 and, in the process, accused the attorney general's office of trampling on the rights of the troopers by prejudicing the grand jury investigating the van shooting.

While that grand jury was hearing evidence in April 1999, the attorney general's office publicly revealed that another grand jury had indicted the two troopers on misconduct charges for allegedly falsifying records about the race of drivers they had stopped.

In his October ruling, Judge Smithson denounced the timing of the disclosure and accused the attorney general's office of casting the two troopers as "the poster boys for racial profiling." Judge Smithson argued the state was more concerned with "political expediency" than the legal rights of the troopers, and said that the state had disclosed the misconduct indictment because of "powerful and intimidating forces."

At the time, the Whitman administration was under political fire on the profiling issue and the attorney general then, Peter G. Verniero, was about to face hearings in the State Senate on his nomination to the state's Supreme Court.

In its decision on Jan. 5 overturning Judge Smithson and restoring the aggravated assault and attempted murder charges, the appeals court said unanimously that his comments were "unfounded and unfair." The court said it had found no evidence supporting Judge Smithson's charge that release of the misconduct indictment was intended to deny the troopers' legal rights.

In his statement yesterday, Judge Smithson said it was "highly unusual" for the higher court to call his findings unfair and unfounded.

After the hearing, James Gerrow, the deputy attorney general who led the investigation into the van shooting, revealed that the state had sent Judge Smithson a letter on Friday, saying officials planned to ask him to disqualify himself because of the appeals court's finding that his views were unfair and unfounded. The judge did not mention the letter in his statement.

The lawyer for Mr. Kenna, Jack Arsenault, called Judge Smithson's decision unfortunate. Mr. Hogan's lawyer, Robert Galantucci, said it was regrettable.

"We think he's a bright light in the system," Mr. Galantucci said.

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01/23/01
USA Today
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

New York

Queensbury - Police are going undercover at an Adirondack-area ski center after a series of snowboard thefts. More than 30 snowboards have been reported stolen during the past month at West Mountain, Gore Mountain and other ski areas, authorities said. Sheriff's investigators are posing as snowboarders at West Mountain in hopes of catching the thieves.

-------- activists

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE STOPPED BY POLICE - ACLU

Tue, 23 Jan 2001
ANGELA DAVIS COP WATCH and CAMPAIGN AGAINST RACIAL PROFILING PROFILE DEFINITIONS

Driving While Black or Brown (DWB) - the unlawful practice of stopping, searching, and or detaining a motorist based on his or her race, ethnicity, gender, age, or station-in-life.

Walking While Black or Brown (WWB) - the unlawful practice of stopping, searching, and or detaining a pedestrian based on his or her race, ethnicity, gender, age, or station-in-life.

Running While Black or Brown (RWB) - the unlawful practice of pursuing, stopping, searching, detaining and arresting a pedestrian who is in a "high crime area:, because he or she broke into an unprovoked run at the sight of law enforcement officials.

Shopping While Black or Brown (SWB) - the unlawful practice of tailing a consumer based on his or her race, ethnicity, gender, age, or station-in-life.

Flying While Black or Brown (FWB) - the unlawful practice of detaining and searching a commuter based on his or her race, ethnicity, gender, age, or station-in-life.

Hailing A Cab While Black or Brown (HACWB) - the unlawful practice of avoiding to stop or acknowledge individuals of a specified race, ethnicity, gender, age, or station-in-life, who hail a cab, based on a profile of descriptive attire and stereotypes.

"We believe that fighting crime is a high priority, as long as it is done without damaging other important values like the freedom to go about our business without unwarranted police interference and the right to be treated equally before the law, without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, age, or station-in-life." Karen Murphy-Smith, Human Rights Activist/Prison Reform Public Policy Activist

Angela Davis Cop Watch Campaign Against Racial Profiling 7165 North 42nd Street Milwaukee, WI 53209 (414) 228-9962 ADCopwatch@againstthewalls.org

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Sect Members Immolate Selves in Tiananmen Square

January 23, 2001
New York Times
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/world/23CND-CHINA.html?pagewanted=all

BEIJING, Jan. 23 - Five members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire in the middle of Tiananmen Square this afternoon, a dramatic act of protest on the eve of China's most joyous holiday, Spring Festival or Lunar New Year.

One woman died and four others were severely burned "in two suicidal blazes," according to Xinhua, the government news agency.

The self-immolation and public suicide is the most dramatic act so far in the escalating 18-month war of wills between the Chinese government and Chinese members of Falun Gong, which the government has labeled an "evil cult."

While small acts of defiance by individual Falun Gong members have become a daily occurrence in Tiananmen over the last year, they have been mostly silent affairs that passed in the blink of an eye, as police snatched banners and hustled protesters into vans.

They pale in comparison to today's chilling scene, in which witnesses describe Falun Gong members staggering across the vast expanse of the square, arms raised in the group's meditative pose, and flames streaming from their bodies.

Police rushed to douse the flames and erected a shield to keep onlookers from seeing the injured and the dead, according to a CNN television crew which witnessed the event and was detained. One man was seen being carried to a police van with serious burns on his face.

Such scenes are certainly anathema to the Chinese leadership which is going all out to win the 2008 Olympics for Beijing, over the objections of human rights groups; Tiananmen Square, the political epicenter of Beijing, is slated to be the setting for beach volleyball.

Falun Gong spokesmen in New York and Hong Kong immediately distanced the group from today's event, expressing skepticism and disbelief that the dead and injured were Falun Gong members.

"In Chapter Seven, the first sentence says it is forbidden to take a life; that includes to take your own," said Gail Rachlin, a New York-based spokesman for the group, referring to the writing of the group's founder, Li Hongzhi.

"So when the Chinese government talks about all these people committing suicide, it's not true. It's totally against what we believe."

The Chinese government had clearly been bracing itself for the potential of intensified protests by Falun Gong, both during the Lunar New Year celebration this week and again when the Olympic Selection Committee visits Beijing at the end of February.

They had hoped to head off a spectacle like the one that occurred during the holiday period last year, when small groups of Falun Gong members were constantly popping up in the Square, unfurling small banners or adopting meditation poses. As has generally been the case, most were poor middle-aged people from the countryside.

Hundreds, at least, were arrested during that period. And a number were pushed and kicked as they were herded into police vans, sometimes with foreign television cameras rolling. Some were ultimately sent to labor camps, but most were sent back to their home provinces for some "education," the policy at that early stage of the government's battle with the group.

Since then both sides have become more intransigent.

On Jan. 1, Mr. Li sent out a message on the group's Web site suggesting that the Falun Gong's cardinal principal of "forbearance" might not be appropriate in all situations. And protest activity has become increasingly defiant in the last few months, as members have started covertly pasting up the group's leaflets in subway stations and slipping them under apartment doors.

Since late last year, the numbers of protesters arrested on the Square have been increasing - often dozens a day - and the government has become increasingly frustrated with a group that just won't give up. In addition, some protesters are now coming to Beijing without identity papers and have refused to tell police where they are from, making their ready disposal a vexing problem.

Earlier this month, a high-level circular instructed the leaders of government work units that they would be held personally responsible for employees who protested in Tiananmen.

Since the group was banned 18 months ago, hundreds of thousands of members have been detained by police, at least briefly. Thousands are in labor camps, according to human rights groups, which have confirmed that about 100 have died in custody.

In the past few weeks, the Chinese state media has stepped up propaganda against the group, calling it a tool of foreign anti-Chinese forces and defending the government ban as "the will of the Chinese people."

"The people have expressed their deep concern over the cult's harmful effect on families, the health of the Falun Gong practitioners themselves, China's social stability as well as its illegal profits," according to the government news agency.

Last week several newspapers contained long accounts about hundreds of Falun Gong members who had been released from labor camps or had their sentences reduced, generally after giving up their practice and denouncing the group. At least one of those members, a sculptor named Zhang Kunlun who holds both Canadian and Chinese passports, later denied that he had broken ties with Falun Gong - once he had returned to Canada.

A brief state media report put out by Xinhua concerning today's suicide said that the five "cult members," who were all from Kaifeng City in Henan Province, had been "hoodwinked by the evil fallacies of Li Hongzhi." The event was not reported on the television news, which focused mostly on feel-good stories related to the Lunar New Year.

The Square remained open late today and into the evening, but on a freezing cold day, police in uniform and in civilian dress generally outnumbered the usual array of strollers and tourists. After the immolation, there were at least a few of the more commonplace Falun Gong protests on Tiananmen, which are by now regarded with only mild curiosity by Beijingers.

In late afternoon, as a middle-age man in a worn padded jacket attempted to unfurled a small yellow banner - only to be escorted away by police - an onlooker remarked: "another one from the countryside."

Still there were signs of the disaster that had come earlier in the day: Fire extinguishers had been added to the array of police vans and other equipment that now routinely graces the square. Police were frisking people and checking identity papers - giving extra scrutiny to those who carried water bottles, smelling the contents to check for gasoline.

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Falun Gong attempt public suicide

01/23/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405933661

BEIJING (AP) - Five Falun Gong followers doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves ablaze in China's Tiananmen Square on Tuesday in a suicide attempt that left one sect member dead and the other four injured.

The attempted group suicide is the latest in a series of increasingly radical actions by sect members defying the communist government's 18-month ban on Falun Gong.

It came as police geared up for sect protests in Tiananmen at Wednesday's start of the Lunar New Year, China's biggest holiday.

The group has drawn millions of followers with a mix of slow-motion exercises and eclectic ideas that followers say promote health and good citizenship. The government disagrees, accusing the group of deceiving practitioners and causing the death of 1,600 followers.

On Tuesday, the followers, a man and four women, poured gasoline on themselves and set themselves afire in two "suicidal blazes," the government's Xinhua News Agency said.

Police rushed to the site, Xinhua said. The brief report added that one woman burned to death and the other injured were sent to hospital.

A producer and cameraman with CNN television witnessed the protest, but police immediately confiscated their videotape and detained them for 90 minutes.

CNN later reported that one man sat down, poured gasoline on himself and then set himself ablaze. Moments later, as the two journalists were being detained, they saw four more people on fire, staggering forward with their hands raised.

Officers at the Tiananmen Square police station refused comment, referring all questions to Xinhua.

No traces of the fiery protest could be found on the square three hours later. But it caused police to increase their usually heavy patrols on the vast plaza in central Beijing. In one pedestrian underpass leading to the square, police stopped everyone, patting them down and inspecting their bags.

Police battled sporadic Falun Gong protests throughout Tuesday.

Around noon, small batches of protesters handed out leaflets and raised banners underneath the portrait of Mao Tse-tung at the square's north end before being arrested.

"Falun Dafa is good," one middle-aged woman yelled, using another name for the group. A plainclothes agent tripped her and sent her sprawling as she ran to elude arrest.

The square, China's symbolic political heart, has been the focus of largely peaceful Falun Gong protests since the July 1999 ban was imposed.

Followers, in touch with sect activists in the United States, have promised more acts of civil disobedience to mark the opening hours of the Year of the Snake on Wednesday.

The group has broadened tactics in recent months to include leafleting and painting slogans around Beijing.

Thirty followers in northern Tangshan city attempted suicide last month, but were discovered and stopped, state media said. Twelve others reportedly jumped from a four-story building in southern Guangdong province, killing one and badly injuring two others.

In an indirect admission that police have failed to keep protesters from streaming into Beijing, Xinhua said the five who tried to kill themselves on Tuesday were from Kaifeng, a city near the Yellow River 300 miles south of Beijing.

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January 23, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/world/23BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

EUROPE

SPAIN: IMMIGRANTS PROTEST Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Ecuadorean and Morocccan, staged hunger strikes and marches to protest a new law on foreigners coming into effect today that allows the government to deport immigrants found without official papers. Some carried signs, left, saying "For the government we are invisible." About 150,000 foreigners are believed to be in Spain without papers. Emma Daly (NYT)

ECUADOR: INCREASE OVERTURNED Responding to appeals by citizens' groups, a judge has overturned a price increase of 25 percent or more for gasoline and other fuels announced by the government last month, saying the increase is unconstitutional. The action followed more than a week of sometimes-violent protests by students and labor unions. Larry Rohter (NYT)

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01/23/01
USA Today
States
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Tennessee

Memphis - A woman who has protested outside the National Civil Rights Museum for 13 years was arrested for the second time. Jaqueline Smith refused to obey police orders to move about a half block from her usual location to make way for museum expansion. Smith contends that the museum is not a fitting memorial to the civil rights struggle. She was arrested last week for placing protest banners on construction barricades.

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)