------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Taiwan, China Edge Closer, Talks Seen Resuming
Stanford Researcher Convicted and Sentenced Again in China
War crimes of the West
Gulf War veteran in DU study had lymphoma
Excellent rebuttal to nuclear industry and NATO arguments
Bosnians Blame DU, War for Rise in Cancer
WHO to study effect of uranium weapons' use
SKEPTICISM WANES ON TAINTED SHELLS
Radiation poisoning in Balkans examined
Scientists to re-examine risks of ammo used in Kosovo war
U.S. shells may be risky after all
PROTEST OF RUMSFELD VISIT TO MUNICH
U.S. BEGINS SWEEPING DEFENSE REVIEW, RUMSFELD SAYS
Faults noted in Paducah study
A Village Still Stands by Its Nuclear Plant
Rumsfeld Assures Europeans on Bush Missile Defense Plan
ACTIVISTS
ECUADOR WAKES UP UNDER A STATE OF EMERGENCY,
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
Taiwan, China Edge Closer, Talks Seen Resuming
February 3, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com /reuters/world/international-taiwan-.html
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Frosty relations between Taiwan and rival China appear to be thawing, and some analysts see a window for breaking an 18-month political impasse.
In a sign of warming ties, Beijing has agreed to let a group of about 100 Chinese citizens born on the Taiwan-held frontier island of Quemoy return to their place of birth on Tuesday.
Beijing had been cold to Taiwan's plans to open its frontline island of Quemoy to Chinese tourists and goods and grudgingly went along with historic direct transport links last month.
In another hint acrimony may be fading, the first Chinese reporters to be posted to Taiwan are due Thursday.
Beijing has loaned Taiwan 17 of its world famous terracotta warriors that guard the tomb of China's first emperor.
Two weeks into the Lunar New Year, Taiwan gave the go-ahead to a group of businessmen to sail directly to China's southeastern city of Xiamen from Quemoy -- an economic backwater bombarded by the Chinese in 1958.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has spoken of possible political integration with China in the future as part of efforts to lure Beijing back to the negotiating table.
The Year of the Golden Snake, ushered in by Chinese worldwide last month, holds in store for Taipei an opportunity to resume fence-mending talks -- frozen by Beijing in July 1999 to punish the island for demanding political parity.
``There is a window of opportunity for dialogue to resume in the first half of this year,'' said Taiwan political scientist George Tsai, a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore.
``In the second half, Taiwan will be tied up with parliamentary elections,'' Tsai said. ``Next year, the mainland will be busy with its leadership succession.''
The past Year of the Dragon saw Chen end more than five decades of one-party rule. But his victory alarmed Beijing, which has threatened to attack if the island declared statehood.
Chen will need to shed the skin of his pro-independence past and convince Beijing he is not a weak leader and that it should deal with him instead of pursuing divide-and-reign tactics of wooing the island's business and opposition leaders.
``The mainland will have to talk to Chen Shui-bian if the DPP becomes the biggest political party in parliament after the year-end elections,'' said National Taiwan University political science associate professor Philip Yang.
Chen could become a lame duck president for the remainder of his four-year tenure if the DPP fails to win the most number of parliamentary seats of any political party in the elections -- seen as a litmus test of the government's anti-nuclear policy.
Taiwan's pro-reunification opposition parties would be disillusioned with Beijing if rapprochement between Taiwan and China turns out to be a boost for the DPP in the elections.
Chen has said he wants to be Taiwan's Richard Nixon, the former U.S. president who opened China's doors in 1972, but Beijing remains deeply suspicious of him.
And he will find it difficult to make any further political concessions to Beijing without alienating his most ardent supporters, who demand nothing short of independence, ahead of the crucial elections.
On the military front, Taiwan will seek to buy destroyers equipped with the Aegis battle system from the United States in talks in April -- a deal certain to anger China.
But most analysts don't see China rattling its sabres against Taiwan as in 1996 when the world's biggest armed forces menaced the tiny democratic island with war games and missile tests.
Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu is betting Beijing will behave this year due to its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games and drive to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Another window could emerge after Taiwan joins the WTO this year. Taiwan is counting on accession to pave the way for the lifting of a decades-old ban on direct trade and transport links between the two sides.
A Taiwan presidential envoy will get a chance to rub shoulders with Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shanghai in late 2001.
But Taipei would be forced to turn to the opposition because it has no one acceptable to Beijing to send.
``Chen Shui-bian will have to find someone neutral and who does not advocate Taiwan independence,'' opposition legislator Fung Hu-hsiang said.
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Stanford Researcher Convicted and Sentenced Again in China
February 3, 2001
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/03/world/03CHIN.html
BEIJING, Feb. 2 - A Chinese-born researcher at Stanford University who was arrested here three years ago on charges of revealing state secrets has been convicted for a second time and given a 10-year sentence, according to relatives.
The researcher, a nuclear weapons expert named Hua Di, has appealed, and a decision is expected soon, relatives have been told.
Mr. Hua, 64, holds permanent resident status in the United States, where he fled in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square crackdown. His prosecution has previously been condemned as unjustified by the American government and by colleagues at Stanford, where he was an associate at a research center and helped write articles about China's nuclear missile and submarine programs.
Last March, in what appeared to be a legal precedent for a politically sensitive case here, Mr. Hua's initial conviction and 15-year sentence on similar charges were nullified by an appeals court.
Sending his case for retrial in the Beijing First Intermediate Court, the higher court said that the "facts were unclear" and that the "evidence was inadequate."
The unusual reversal raised hopes that Mr. Hua would be released, and his relatives made appeals on medical grounds, as well, because his detention in early 1998 interrupted chemotherapy he was undergoing for a male breast cancer.
But Mr. Hua was secretly re-indicted in September and then convicted again and sentenced on Nov. 23, steps that have not been publicly reported. His lawyer lodged an appeal on Nov. 28, and "this is his last chance," a relative said, although the Chinese government could still choose to release him on medical or other grounds, as it sometimes has in high-profile cases.
Mr. Hua, a child of the Communist elite who studied in Moscow, was a senior military scientist and an administrator who had many contacts abroad. He fled to the United States in June 1989, saying he feared arrest for publicly criticizing the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. At Stanford, he helped write influential articles on China's weapons programs that Chinese prosecutors here have charged included vital state secrets.
His main colleague at Stanford, John W. Lewis, said in 1998 that Mr. Hua had previously been authorized by Chinese authorities to cooperate in such studies and that the information in their articles could be culled from publicly available documents.
In January 1998, Mr. Hua made his first return trip to China in nine years - only after having received assurances of his safety from Chinese security officials, he told colleagues before leaving. Instead, he was detained within days. His relatives have not been allowed to see him or to attend his secret trials, and they said they had no reliable information on his medical condition.
-------- depleted uranium
War crimes of the West
Feb. 03 - 16, 2001
The Hindu
FRONTLINE,
WORLD AFFAIRS
Volume 18 - Issue 03,
http://www.the-hindu.com/fline/fl1803/18030580.htm
Depleted uranium weapons used in the West-sponsored wars in the Gulf and the Balkans have posed serious health hazards to soldiers and civilians, but the Western powers involved show no remorse.
JOHN CHERIAN
THE West has finally been forced to react to the trail of devastation left by the depleted uranium (D.U.) weapons it deployed in the wars in the Gulf and the Balkans. But it is not the suffering of poor Iraqi civilians who forced the North Atlantic Trea ty Organisation (NATO) to react; it was the complaints of many European governments that made the United States and NATO to set up a crisis centre to exchange information on health risks that result from D.U. munitions. Last year, Italy started an inquiry into the mysterious illness of 30 of its Balkan war veterans. Seven Italian soldiers have already died of cancer, five of them from leukaemia. French and Portuguese peacekeepers in the Balkans have also been diagnosed with cancer. Italy has now formall y asked for a ban on D.U. munitions.
NATO/AP Delegations from member-countries at a discussion on depleted uranium at NATO headquarters in Brussels on January 10.
Backing the Italian position, German Chancellor Gerard Schroeder said that it was not "right" to use such munitions. All the "facts must be laid on the table", he said. Norwegian soldiers are refusing to sign contracts to go to the Balkans for peacekeepi ng duties; they demand clarifications about the risks posed by D.U. weapons. A group of Belgian soldiers have sued their government for the health problems caused to them by service in the Balkans. Five Belgian soldiers who served in Bosnia and Croatia d ied of cancer.
The President of the European Union (E.U.), Romano Prodi, recently admitted that the NATO-ignited war in the Balkans had "created a horrible environmental problem that is for us to take care of". Prodi called for a ban on such weapons "even if there is m inimal risk". The European Parliament voted on January 17 for a temporary ban on D.U. weaponry. Last year, Finland's Environment Minister Sattu Hassi had appealed to his E.U. counterparts for a ban on D.U. weaponry, which "contaminates by its dust the lo calities where it is used and threatens both soldiers and civilians".
Less than a month after the war in Yugoslavia ended in 1999, the British National Radiological Protection Board warned British citizens about the dangers from staying in Kosovo because of the contamination of its territories by D.U. weapons.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have already fallen victim to the deadly effects of D.U. weapons employed in the Gulf war. Many American and British veterans of the Gulf war also developed symptoms that were euphemistically called the "Gulf war syndrome" . It manifested itself in many ways, ranging from memory loss to various forms of cancers. Children of many Gulf war veterans were born without limbs and with other birth defects.
PHOTOGRAPH: ENRIC MARTI/AP An eight-year-old Iraqi boy, who was born blind and suffers from brain tumour and abdominal cancer, at a shop near the Ibn-Gazwan children's hospital in Basra.
Thousands of people in Iraq have the same symptoms too. The incidence of cancer has increased rapidly and at abnormal rates. Leukaemia in children is especially rampant: it has shown a four-fold rise after the Gulf war. The incidence of breast cancer amo ng women below 30 is around four times higher than it was before 1990. Abnormal births have drastically increased since the war.
The Pentagon, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, continues to insist that D.U. is only "very, very mildly radioactive" and that the shells are not radioactive enough to be classified as a "radiological weapon". It has argued that tank crews firin g rounds of depleted uranium shells received little radiation, the equivalent of one chest X-ray a day. It is common knowledge that even mild radiation is dangerous and increases the risk of cancer. The health risk becomes greater after the shells are fi red because broken shells emit uranium particles. The particles can enter the body easily and deposit themselves on bones, organs and cells.
The shell, developed by the Pentagon in the late 1970s, is a radioactive byproduct of the enrichment process used to make atomic bombs and nuclear fuel rods. The material is provided free of cost to weapons manufacturers by the nuclear arms industry. A c onfidential report by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, prepared in 1991, described the presence of D.U. in Iraq and Kuwait as a "significant problem". The report concluded that there was enough uranium there to cause "tens of thousands of pote ntial deaths".
PHOTOGRAPH: ENRIC MARTI/AP A four-year-old Iraqi girl with tumour in the eye.
It was during the Gulf war that tank armour and armour-piercing rounds made of depleted uranium were used in a big way. The weapons proved to be very effective against Iraqi targets. The Tomahawk missiles, which were launched from the very first day of O peration Desert Storm, were tipped with D.U. The U.S. Army reports that a total of 14,000 D.U. tank rounds were used during the course of the Gulf war, while 7,000 rounds were fired during training in the sands of Saudi Arabia.
There are indications that the U.S. military establishment had some clues about the lethal nature of D.U. A U.S. Navy instruction manual notes that
teams involved in recovering Tomahawk cruise missiles during test rounds must have radiological protection clothing, gloves, respirators and dosimeters. Some 300 tonnes of uranium from spent rounds lies scattered across the battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait.
When a D.U. projectile strikes a hard surface, around 70 per cent of the tip is oxidised and gets scattered as small particles. The U.S. Army Armaments, Munitions and Chemical Command (AMCCOM) states: "When a D.U. penetrator impacts a target surface, a l arge portion of the kinetic energy is dissipated as heat. The heat of the impact causes the D.U. to oxidise or burn momentararily. This results in smoke which contains a high concentration of D.U. particles. These uranium particles can be ingested or inh aled and are toxic." A leading American military contractor, Science Application International Corporation, had warned AMMCOM before the Gulf war that "combat conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of D.U.-aerosol. D.U. exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects."
PHOTOGRAPH: SAVA RADOVANOVIC/AP Bosnian Serb children under treatment for respiratory ailments share a hospital bed.
There were reports in the mid-1990s that the toxic effects of D.U. had become evident in the Balkans. In 1996, there were newspaper reports that around a thousand children in Bosnia were suffering from an unknown disease which caused headaches, muscle pa in, abdominal pain, dizziness, respiratory pains and other problems. Similar symptoms were reported in the so-called Gulf war syndrome. In the mid-1990s U.S. combat aircraft used limited amounts of D.U. ammunition against former Yugoslavia. In the war ov er Kosovo in 1999, NATO resorted to saturation bombing of Yugoslavia using D.U. weapons, despite documented evidence of the extremely harmful effects of D.U. piling up in the Gulf region. NATO soldiers were not given any warning about the deadly nature o f the munitions they were using.
Bernard Kouchener, the U.N. Administrator of Kosovo and a former head of the humanitarian agency Medecins sans Frontieres, also brought up the issue of the dangers that D.U. posed to the regions. More than 100 places in Kosovo itself have been affected. But NATO, which has now been forced to address the issue, seems worried only about the health of its soldiers stationed in the region and not about the local people. It has issued circulars warning about the lingering "heavy metal toxicity" in armour str uck by D.U. bombs in Kosovo.
Only in the second week of January, were signs put up by the U.N. and NATO warning civilians to exercise caution while approaching areas in Kosovo where D.U. was dropped. NATO troops stationed in the Balkans have now been advised to use heavy protection gear while approaching armour struck by D.U.-tipped weapons. Two years since the war against Yugoslavia, the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has found dangerous levels of toxins at the ground level in Kosovo and Serbia. The former government in Yugoslav ia had characterised the NATO war as "ecocide" against the people of the region.
NATO has admitted to dropping 12 tonnes of D.U. in Kosovo alone. In all, an estimated 31,000 D.U. shells with a total weight of over 10 tonnes were dropped over Yugoslavia.
PHOTOGRAPH: JOE KLAMAR/REUTERS In Slovakia's main military hospital, a Slovak soldier who served in Yugoslavia undergoes tests as part of a medical evaluation programme for possible health damage caused by depleted uranium weapons used during the 1999 NATO offensive in Yugoslavia.< /B>
The newly elected President of Yugoslavia, Vojislav Kostunica, has characterised the use of D.U. weapons as a crime against humanity. He wants the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague to look expeditiously into the matter and apportion blame. T o show his displeasure with the War Crimes Tribunal, he refused recently to meet its chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, whose only agenda seems to be to get former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic extradited to The Hague to stand trial for "war crim es". Kostunica has called the War Crimes Tribunal a tool of U.S. foreign policy. The Pentagon, the E.U. and the U.N. have all set up commissions to investigate the risk posed by D.U. but efforts are on to whitewash the investigations.
Scientists close to the Pentagon have rushed to judgment saying that it is biologically impossible for D.U. to cause leukaemia. Physicist Frank von Hippel, professor at Stanford University is one prominent academic who has joined the campaign to give D.U . a clean chit. The outgoing U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, even advised the Europeans to not become "excessively nervous and hysterical" about D.U.
After what happened during the Gulf war, countries like Russia had repeatedly warned NATO about the dangers of using D.U. Boris Alexeyev, head of Russia's environmental department in the Defence Ministry, said that following the Desert Storm, the inciden ce of cancer among the people of Iraq had increased almost five-fold. He said that it was a well-known fact but the West did not care. The West woke up only after its own soldiers started dying. By using D.U. ammunition, NATO has wilfully violated the agreements on radiation security, he said.
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Gulf War veteran in DU study had lymphoma
Sat, 03 Feb 2001
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_refs/n52en651/0089_005_0000002.htm
The above site will link you to Endnote 651 of OSAGWI's online depleted uranium report, http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/. It is a record of a meeting between Dr. Rostker (OSAGWI) and Dr. McDiarmid (VA). RADM Steinman from PSOB was also present via phone. The meeting took place October 15, 1999.
Go to Page 2, number 6. It states, in part: "Dr. McDiarmid said that 30 new veterans had been added to the Baltimore Follow-Up program, including four with shrapnel detectable on x-rays...One of the thirty, a non-shrapnel case, has lymphoma."
In all the debate of the last few weeks, the Pentagon and VA have adamantly denied that any of the veterans in the DU Program are suffering from cancer or any other problems possibly related to depleted uranium. Not once have they said that one of the veterans had lymphoma, and not once have they said that another one of the veterans had a benign tumor taken out of the bone in his upper arm near where he was wounded by DU. Dr. McDiarmid states, on page 1, number 1, that she has not seen "any smoking guns," but no reference is made in the rest of document about whether the lymphoma or the tumor were or were not related to DU. The VA has examined only about 60 of the hundreds of vets in OSAGWI's highest exposure cohort. Is the lymphoma or tumor possibly related to the veteran's DU exposure? Might there be other veterans, not yet examined, who also have lymphoma, tumors, or other potentially DU-related health problems?
Page 2, number 7 states, in part: "Dr. Rostker told Dr. McDiarmid that some or all of DoD's DU may have been contaminated with trace amounts of transuranics." To date, DoD has only reported about transuranics in DU armor, not in DU ammunition. See the Army's report on transuranics in DU armor at www.nato.int.
The Department of Defense has been less than truthful about depleted uranium ever since it first under-reported the number of veterans exposed in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The Pentagon clearly has more explaining to do about what it knows about the health of vets exposed to DU, and the levels of plutonium in the DU ammo shot in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, the US, and elsewhere. Until a proper epidemiological study is conducted, further research is completed, and a full accounting of Pu levels in DU ammunition is disclosed, the DU issue will remain unresolved.
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Excellent rebuttal to nuclear industry and NATO arguments
Sat, 3 Feb 2001
http://www.llrc.org/depleted_uranium.htm <http://www.llrc.org/depleted_uranium.htm>
NATO and the US DoE and the IAEA continually repeat the old tired logic that if the radiation dose is too low, it can't possibly be responsible for the illnesses we are seeing. They use the statutory dose-risk models to deny harm, rather than looking at the harm and opening their minds to a revision of the dose-risk model. Please note that Dr. Chris Busby's Second Event theory, as well as other writing on this topic, has successfully rebutted this idea. He makes a plea for sound science, based on empirical data, not on mathematical models. Please make sure these ideas are widely circulated. They are extremely important for all downwinders' court cases, for those affected by DU, and for those living near nuclear power plants.
See also other crucial original research and documents at the main Low-Level Radiation Campaign website,
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Bosnians Blame DU, War for Rise in Cancer
February 3, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/science-health-balkan.html
KASINDO, Bosnia (Reuters) - ``Something is going on here which was not happening before,'' says a doctor at a remote and decrepit hospital in what is called Serb Sarajevo.
Slavko Zdrale, director of the Kasindo hospital at the Serb-controlled outskirts of the Bosnian capital, says the health of Bosnian Serbs has been significantly threatened by depleted uranium (DU).
``We have exact indicators according to which the number of cancer patients has increased at least 2.5 times in this area compared to the war period and the first two years after the war,'' Zdrale said.
He was referring to a period between 1992 and 1997, during which four cases of leukemia were registered at the hospital.
Over the past three years, 18 people, including a 4-year-old child, have died from the disease, Zdrale said.
NATO has been criticized for using armor-piercing shells in the Balkans, which some ailing soldiers and anti-nuclear campaigners say have caused cancer.
The alliance and the United States, whose aircraft fired some 40,000 DU shells during the 1999 air raids against Yugoslavia and earlier in Bosnia in 1994-95, deny there is any link between the use of DU-ammunition and cancer.
Zdrale disagrees.
``Our analyzes indicate that there is a causal link to the use of munitions containing depleted uranium,'' he said.
Post-war Bosnia is divided into the Serb republic and the Muslim-Croat federation.
The hospital in Kasindo has become a major center providing medical care for up to 100,000 people from central and eastern parts of the Serb republic since the 1992-95 war ended.
According to Zdrale, an increased number of cancer patients have been observed in these areas which include sites hit during the NATO air attacks on Bosnian Serb military positions.
His claim is based on the rise of at least 2.5 times in the number of cancer patients, most of whom come from areas hit by the DU-munition, and on the fact that many of them are younger people.
``We are concerned about the toxic effect. The metals are in the ground, water and food are now affected by toxic dust,'' he added.
But Zdrale said that the hospital staff were cautious about the data, bearing in mind a high level of migration and imprecise figures on the area's population.
MUSLIM DOCTORS CAUTIOUS
In Sarajevo, doctors seem reluctant to link the illness to the use of DU munitions even though figures presented by the main clinic have shown a significant increase in the number of cancer patients in recent years.
However, Ismet Gavrankapetanovic, the head of the bone surgery clinic of the Sarajevo University medical center, said his team had noticed an increase in the number of cancer patients, particularly children, two years ago.
``I did not know what were the reasons for this. We could only express our suspicions,'' Gavrankapetanovic said.
But even without depleted uranium there were enough factors that could account for the rise of cancer in Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia, he said.
``If 2 million grenades fell on Sarajevo during its siege, there must have been heavy metals there, including uranium.'' Heavy metals are genotoxic, causing mutation of the DNA that might create conditions conducive to cancer,'' he added.
Among other factors that might have contributed to a deteriorating health situation, Gavrankapetanovic mentioned poor nutrition during the city's 43-month siege by Bosnian Serb forces as well as daily stress, fear, lack of water and electricity and the use of medicine well past its shelf life.
Gavrankapetanovic said that separate figures from different parts of Bosnia would be no more than ``speculation'' until a recognized state institution for cancer research began to compile data for the whole country.
``I absolutely oppose any abuse of this information for political or any purposes other than the treatment of patients,'' he said. ``In order to conduct real statistical analysis, you have to have a state institute for cancer. It is an essential. I think Bosnia is the only country in the world without it.''
Health is among those sectors that are exclusively under control of Bosnia's two separate entity governments, and there is no state-level health policy.
Even though Serb and Muslim doctors differ in their views of causes which may have led to the increase in cancer across the country, they agree that it is there.
Zdrale said that cases of leukemia and cancer of the digestive organs were most frequent in the whole range of what he called an ``eruption'' of different types of cancer.
Both he and Gavrankapetanovic agreed on the need for Western assistance in order to diagnose the illness at an early stage.
``We are not able to conduct such tests nor do we have equipment for it,'' Zdrale said.
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WHO to study effect of uranium weapons' use
Saturday, February 03, 2001
The Hindu
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/02/03/stories/0303000h.htm
UNITED NATIONS, FEB. 2. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a ``flash appeal'' for $ 2 millions to support its activities concerning the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in the Gulf War and during the conflict in the Balkans.
Over the next six months, the WHO is asking for the flash funds to strengthen its epidemiological expertise to develop and conduct field surveys with standard protocols and support data collection as relevant from local health authorities; to support technical support to national surveillance; and to deploy toxicologists and radiation and chemical experts.
The WHO is also maintaining that this request for $ 2 millions will eventually be a part of an estimated $ 20-million appeal that would cover the organisation's work in the area for the next four years. While the current thinking is that risk from exposure to depleted uranium is low, the consensus is also that information is insufficient to form firm conclusions.
``Evidence on the incidence of cancers needs to be strengthened in communities within Iraq and in the Balkans in order to draw any epidemiological conclusions'', says Dr. Xavier Leus, the Director of Emergency and Humanitarian Action Programme of the WHO. He added, ``There may be other possible risk factors for civilians and the military''.
Meanwhile, a four-person team of the WHO which has been in Kosovo to assess the possible health consequences stemming from the use of depleted uranium in the shell tips of bombs used by the NATO during the war has finalised its report which is due to be released within a week.
But a press statement issued by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and distributed here has listed a number of general conclusions and recommendations of the WHO team.
Among other things, the WHO experts have determined that depleted uranium is only weakly radioactive and emits about 40 per cent less radioactivity than a similar mass of natural uranium; and that scientific and medical studies have not proven a link between exposure to DU and the onset of cancers, congenital abnormalities or serious toxic chemical effects on organs.
The experts have further said that soldiers, particularly the ones at the site of an attack, are the most likely ones to have inhaled uranium metal and oxides. Excepting in isolated conditions, the civilian population would not have encountered the DU in this fashion, it is said. Further, presence of plutonium in the DU used in Kosovo has not been detected.
The WHO team has recommended that the Commission of Experts be utilised to bring together the local, regional and international bodies to agree on a common approach for medical data recording system in Kosovo. Further, the experts have maintained that a separate clean up programme at depleted uranium sites is not necessary. ``The buried penetrators are unlikely to decompose quickly and hence their addition to the national environmental abundance of total uranium in soil will be small'', the experts have said.
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SKEPTICISM WANES ON TAINTED SHELLS
Saturday, Feb. 3, 2001
San Jose Mercury News
Associated Press
BY EMMA ROSS
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/uranium03.htm
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/news_a3b74bfe103600bb00a9.html
LONDON -- The possibility that U.S. tank-piercing ammunition used in the Balkans wars contained more than just depleted uranium has prompted scientists to re-examine their skepticism about health risks to veterans.
Experts' opinions that cancer cases reported by European veterans were not linked to depleted uranium assumed the material came from raw ore. But now the Pentagon says shells used in the 1999 Kosovo conflict were tainted with traces of plutonium, neptunium and americium -- byproducts of nuclear reactors that are much more radioactive than depleted uranium.
``If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium,'' said Dr. Michael Repacholi, the World Health Organization's radiation expert. ``It all depends on the amounts.''
The main new concern, experts say, is plutonium, a highly toxic radioactive metal.
Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson reiterated NATO's position that Balkans peacekeepers have not been shown to suffer health damage from depleted uranium ammunition. U.S. officials said the shells contained mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm.
But WHO experts asked the U.S. government this week to clarify exactly how much plutonium and other radioactive material was in the ammunition.
Countries that sent peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo have been looking for links between the depleted uranium ammunition and illnesses contracted by veterans. A wave of fear swept across Europe and beyond after Italy announced it was screening its soldiers because 30 Balkans veterans had become ill, including five who died of leukemia.
Scores of countries began testing soldiers for radiation poisoning.
U.N. environmental experts are examining radiation levels at sites targeted by NATO in the Balkans, and NATO has set up a special committee to investigate claims of a link. The WHO expects to start new studies in the next six months.
``Minds have to be kept open on this,'' said Malcolm Grimson, a radiation expert at London's Imperial College of Medicine. ``We're in a different ballpark here than where we were when we thought we were dealing with depleted uranium from the ground. You have to do all your calculations again.''
Experts must first establish whether cancers are more common than normal among troops before they go on to investigate why. So far, there is no confirmed increase in cancer rates, said WHO's Repacholi.
Lung cancer is the main danger from the radiation, but experts say it is far too early for that to surface. It takes several decades for lung cancer to develop from radiation exposure.
It is just about possible for leukemia cases to start showing up two years after exposure to radiation, but they are less likely to occur than lung cancer and it would take a massive dose, experts say.
``You would die of suffocation before you could inhale enough of the dust to cause cancer, and even then there's a low probability of cancer,'' Repacholi said.
That opinion is based largely on studies of survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said. Leukemias started to appear there after two or three years.
Depleted uranium mainly contains alpha rays, which are far less toxic than the gamma rays produced by atomic bombs.
Among the Japanese bomb survivors, ``there's virtually no place where you get leukemia from something less than gamma radiation,'' Repacholi said.
Plutonium releases gamma rays, but some scientists believe that while the revelation that the ammunition was tainted raises new concern, it doesn't raise enormous concern.
``I can't imagine anyone in Kosovo got exposed to anything remotely like'' the radiation produced by the bombs in Japan, said leukemia expert Mel Greaves at the Institute of Cancer Research in London.
That's why WHO officials need to know exactly how tainted the ammunition was.
When uranium is extracted from the ground, it is made up mostly of three forms, or isotopes. Two of them, uranium-234 and uranium-235, are highly radioactive and are capable of generating a nuclear explosion or nuclear power, while the other, uranium-238, is not.
The isotopes are separated so that only the uranium-234 and uranium-235 are put into nuclear processing plants. What is left over is pure depleted uranium-238, which is about half as radioactive as natural uranium. That is what is used to fortify airplanes and make ammunition.
Uranium that goes through a nuclear processing plant splits into several substances, including depleted uranium-238, plutonium and other radioactive wastes. If the elements are not separated properly, the depleted uranium can be contaminated.
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Radiation poisoning in Balkans examined
02/03/01
Lincoln Journal Star
The Associated Press
BY EMMA ROSS
http://www.journalstar.com/nation?story_id=3403&date=20010203&past=
LONDON - The possibility that U.S. tank-piercing ammunition used in the Balkans wars contained more than just depleted uranium has prompted scientists to re-examine their skepticism about health risks to veterans.
Experts' opinions that cancer cases reported by European veterans were not linked to depleted uranium assumed the material came from raw ore. But now the Pentagon says shells used in the 1999 Kosovo conflict were tainted with traces of plutonium, neptunium and americium - byproducts of nuclear reactors that are much more radioactive than depleted uranium.
"If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium," said Dr. Michael Repacholi, the World Health Organization's radiation expert. "It all depends on the amounts."
The main new concern, experts say, is plutonium, a highly toxic radioactive metal.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson reiterated NATO's position that Balkans peacekeepers have not been shown to suffer health damage from depleted uranium ammunition. U.S. officials have said the shells contained mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm.
But WHO experts asked the U.S. government this week to clarify exactly how much plutonium and other radioactive material was in the ammunition.
Countries that sent peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo have been looking for links between the depleted uranium ammunition and illnesses contracted by veterans. A wave of fear swept across Europe and beyond after Italy announced it was screening its soldiers because 30 Balkans veterans had become ill, including five who died of leukemia.
Scores of countries began testing soldiers for radiation poisoning.
U.N. environmental experts are examining radiation levels at sites targeted by NATO in the Balkans and NATO has set up a special committee to investigate claims of a link. The WHO expects to start new studies in the next six months.
"Minds have to be kept open on this," said Malcolm Grimson, a radiation expert at London's Imperial College of Medicine. "We're in a different ballpark here than where we were when we thought we were dealing with depleted uranium from the ground. You have to do all your calculations again."
Experts must first establish whether cancers are more common than normal among troops before they go on to investigate why. So far, there is no confirmed increase in cancer rates, said WHO's Repacholi.
Lung cancer is the main danger from the radiation, but experts say it is far too early for that to surface. It takes several decades for lung cancer to develop from radiation exposure.
It is just about possible for leukemia cases to start showing up two years after exposure to radiation, but they are less likely to occur than lung cancer and it would take a massive dose, experts say.
"You would die of suffocation before you could inhale enough of the dust to cause cancer, and even then there's a low probability of cancer," Repacholi said.
That opinion is based largely on studies of survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said. Leukemias started to appear there after two or three years.
Depleted uranium mainly contains alpha rays, which are far less toxic than the gamma rays produced by atomic bombs.
Among the Japanese bomb survivors, "there's virtually no place where you get leukemia from something less than gamma radiation," Repacholi said.
Plutonium releases gamma rays, but some scientists believe that while the revelation that the ammunition was tainted raises new concern, it doesn't raise enormous concern.
"I can't imagine anyone in Kosovo got exposed to anything remotely like," the radiation produced by the bombs in Japan, said leukemia expert Mel Greaves, a professor of cellular biology at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. "It's entirely related to dose."
That's why WHO officials need to know exactly how tainted the ammunition was.
When uranium is extracted from the ground, it is made up mostly of three forms, or isotopes. Two of them, uranium-234 and uranium-235, are highly radioactive and are capable of generating a nuclear explosion or nuclear power, while the other, uranium-238, is not.
The isotopes are separated so that only the uranium-234 and uranium-235 are put into nuclear processing plants. What is left over is pure depleted uranium-238, which is about half as radioactive as natural uranium. That is what is used to fortify airplanes and make ammunition.
Uranium that goes through a nuclear processing plant splits into several substances, including depleted uranium-238, plutonium and other radioactive wastes. If the elements are not separated properly, the depleted uranium can be contaminated.
It is unclear where the depleted uranium in the Kosovo weapons came from.
---
Scientists to re-examine risks of ammo used in Kosovo war
Shells may have been tainted with radioactive elements
Saturday, February 3, 2001
Pioneer Planet
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EMMA ROSS
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/sat/news/docs/030869.htm
LONDON The possibility that U.S. tank-piercing ammunition used in the Balkans wars contained more than just depleted uranium has prompted scientists to re-examine their skepticism about health risks to veterans.
Experts' opinions that cancer cases reported by European veterans were not linked to depleted uranium assumed the material came from raw ore. But now the Pentagon says shells used in the 1999 Kosovo conflict were tainted with traces of plutonium, neptunium and americium -- by-products of nuclear reactors -- which are much more radioactive than depleted uranium.
``If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium,'' said Dr. Michael Repacholi, a World Health Organization radiation expert. ``It all depends on the amounts.''
The main new concern, experts say, is plutonium, a highly toxic radioactive metal.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson reiterated NATO's position that Balkans peacekeepers have not been shown to suffer health damage from depleted uranium ammunition. U.S. officials have said the shells contained mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm.
But WHO experts asked the U.S. government this week to clarify exactly how much plutonium and other radioactive material was in the ammunition.
Countries that sent peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo have been looking for links between the depleted uranium ammunition and illnesses contracted by veterans. After Italy announced it was screening its soldiers because 30 Balkans veterans had become ill, including five who died of leukemia, other countries began testing soldiers for radiation poisoning.
U.N. environmental experts are examining radiation levels at sites targeted by NATO in the Balkans, and NATO has set up a special committee to investigate claims of a link. WHO expects to start new studies in the next six months.
Experts first must establish whether cancers are more common than normal among troops before they go on to investigate why. So far, there is no confirmed increase in cancer rates, said WHO's Repacholi.
Lung cancer is the main danger from the radiation, but experts say it is far too early for that to surface. It takes several decades for lung cancer to develop from radiation exposure.
It is possible for leukemia cases to start showing up two years after exposure to radiation, but they are less likely to occur than lung cancer and it would take a massive dose, experts say.
--------
U.S. shells may be risky after all
SATURDAY • February 3, 2001
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WORLD IN BRIEF
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/news_a3b74bfe103600bb00a9.html
The possibility that U.S. tank-piercing ammunition used in the Balkans wars contained more than just depleted uranium has prompted scientists to re-examine their skepticism about health risks to veterans.
Experts opinions that cancer cases reported by European veterans were not linked to depleted uranium assumed the material came from raw ore. But now the Pentagon says shells used in the 1999 Kosovo conflict were tainted with traces of plutonium, neptunium and americium by-products of nuclear reactors that are much more radioactive than depleted uranium. If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium, said Dr. Michael Repacholi, the World Health Organizations radiation expert. It all depends on the amounts.
The main new concern, experts say, is plutonium, a highly toxic radioactive metal. WHO experts have asked the U.S. government to clarify exactly how much plutonium and other radioactive material was in the ammunition.
-------- germany
PROTEST OF RUMSFELD VISIT TO MUNICH
EUROPEANS SAY NO TO STAR WARS
For Immediate Release
Contact: Regina Hagen (Darmstadt, Germany) regina.hagen@jugendstil.da.shuttle.de
DARMSTADT - Peace groups have announced that they will protest the visit of new U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he visits Munich, Germany on February 3. Rumsfeld will be meeting with European leaders at the Munich Conference for Security Policy. The protest will be held at the Promenadeplatz at 11:00 am.
Protest leaders are concerned that the Rumsfeld visit is an attempt to "sell" the new Star Wars program of the U.S. "This so-called National Missile Defense system is not about protecting the people of the world. It is part of the U.S. plan for 'control of space'. It is a destabilizing and provocative step that will lead to the development of a new arms race in space. We must speak out and say no", said Regina Hagen, a Board member of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
Rumsfeld, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in his recent confirmation hearings that the ABM Treaty with Russia is "ancient history", has long been a proponent of Star Wars and has recently called for the U.S. to develop space-based weapons that will give the U.S. the ability to "deny" other countries "access to space."
The Munich protest will be joined by local peace activists as well as by representatives from several large German national peace organizations. One of the many supporters who signed up to protest Rumsfeld's visit is Heidi Lippmann, a member of the German Parliament .
"It is important that people all over the world understand that 'missile defense' will not protect us. In fact we will be less secure with such a system. We must create a global debate and movement to protect space from this new danger," said Hagen.
"If the US continues with the militarization and weaponization of space, other countries are sure to follow. In their new space strategy, the European Commission and the European Space Agency are already suggesting that they may increase the use of European space assets for military purposes. We must stop this madness now. It's conflict prevention we must work on, not expanding conflict to space."
For more information check the web site http://www.space4peace.org
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
U.S. BEGINS SWEEPING DEFENSE REVIEW, RUMSFELD SAYS
Saturday, February 3, 9:24 AM ET
By Charles Aldinger
From: David Culp <david@fcnl.org>
MUNICH (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday the new administration of President George W. Bush had begun a sweeping review of America's defense strategy, from nuclear missiles to GIs' living conditions.
Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him from Washington to a meeting in Germany that the study would be separate from the quadrennial defense review or QDR, mandated by Congress every four years.
The latest QDR was underway, but would not be completed for about eight months.
Rumsfeld said the administration's own study would include missile defense, offensive and defensive weapons, the quality of life among the troops -- "how you transform this force into a force that is appropriate for the 21st century."
He noted that the QDR, designed to match U.S. strategy with the nation's military forces, was not scheduled to be completed until September, and suggested that the separate study would be completed much faster -- in perhaps 60 to 90 days on some issues.
"The QDR process is mandated by law. It is in place and it is proceeding. But it has a long trail. It ends in September," he told reporters.
"A new president has come in. He has indicated that he wanted a review of defense strategy. And he has asked us to do that and that is just beginning," Rumsfeld added.
"I think as our thinking clears and we get our brains wrapped around some of these things, very likely we would find a way during the QDR process to implant them down into that process," he said.
"I expect that the things I'm talking about, while they may not reach full flowering in 30 or 60 days, we want to get -- in a month or two or three depending on which one of these things they are -- pretty well down the road so that they have some good idea of what we think," he said.
"And then we would probably plug them into the QDR."
The White House indicated earlier this week that there would not be any major increase in the nation's $310 billion defense budget despite promises by both Bush during the recent campaign to sharply upgrade the military.
Instead, Bush's spokesman said that the president wanted to base any important changes on the results of the new study.
Rumsfeld said that among the issues to be studied were the quality of life of troops and charges by some members of Congress that billions of dollars were wasted each year by the Pentagon's vast bureaucracy.
Rumsfeld, who is busy studying the appointment of deputies at the defense department, stressed that the administration study and the QDR would employ different people.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- kentucky
Faults noted in Paducah study
Saturday, February 3, 2001
Lexington KY Herald-Leader
ASSOCIATED PRESS
uranium@t-online.de
PADUCAH A study concerning past radiation exposure at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a best effort, considering notable gaps in records, an investigator said.
``We recognize that as a shortcoming,'' Rick Jones, the Department of Energy's lead investigator for the study, said during a briefing Thursday night.
Nearly 200 people employees or former employees and their families attended the briefing.
The DOE report, released last month, said 2,500 to 4,000 plant workers had jobs from 1952 to 1991 that placed them in potentially high risk of radiation exposure. But important exposure-level records were missing, and much of the data collected was from interviewing current and former employees.
Former employee Al Puckett said he once put his film badge, used to measure external radiation, in a highly radioactive area of the plant and the badge showed nothing. ``One day, I took my badge apart and there was no film in there,'' he said.
Current plant health physicist Orville Cypret, who reviewed the report as a citizen and not as a U.S. Enrichment Corp. employee, said it had many errors, looked unprofessional and apparently did not undergo peer review before release. Despite that, Cypret said he agreed with ``most of the conclusions.''
The report confirms previous studies and statements by former workers about dangerous working conditions and procedures during the plant's early years. DOE officials say the intent was to identify former workers eligible for exposure-related benefits.
DOE is urging people to call to get on a mailing list for benefits information. But several people, including former plant worker Joe Smith, said they left messages and were never called.
Jones said the hotline has gotten more than 10,000 calls since it was set up a year ago, and 600 to 800 calls are returned weekly. Publicity from the meeting may increase calls, which could slow the response pace, he said.
DOE officials hope publicity will encourage former workers to seek free health screenings, including testing for early signs of lung cancer. Last year, Congress approved paying workers and surviving families up to $150,000 compensation for plant-related illness or death. Ongoing medical costs also are covered. Compensation applications are expected to be accepted in the fall.
The report said high-risk areas included now-closed buildings where uranium hexafluoride (UF6) was made and fed into the plant, and where uranium metal was made; and currently used buildings where UF6 is enriched, and where enrichment equipment is overhauled, repaired and cleaned.
People with greatest potential for increased radiation exposure included those working on enrichment equipment and handling ash. The study said they were at most risk for exposure to highly radioactive plutonium, neptunium and similar substances. Findings did not estimate exposure doses for individual workers and said risk does not mean workers will get sick.
Some at the meeting challenged being placed in lower-risk classifications. John Driskill, president of the plant guards' union, said security personnel work in all areas of the plant, even those off-limits because of radiation.
-------- new york
A Village Still Stands by Its Nuclear Plant
February 3, 2001
By LISA W. FODERARO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/03/nyregion/03NUKE.html?pagewanted=all
BUCHANAN, N.Y. - Even as it returned to full power this week, the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant was being reviled by environmentalists as a sloppily run menace to Westchester County and scrutinized by public officials who had recently called for its closing.
But in this scrappy village of tidy homes and plain talk by the Hudson River that has lived with nuclear energy for a half-century, people are standing by their plant.
"Nuclear is about the cleanest energy you're going to find," said Harry Di Pietro, owner of Da-Ro's Corner Store, which is the closest thing Buchanan has to a town square, a place where residents come to buy their milk, newspapers and lottery tickets and toss their two cents in the air about affairs far and near.
"Everyone wants computers, air-conditioners, heat, lights, electricity, but where are we going to get it from?" Mr. Di Pietro added to a couple of nodding customers. "Years from now, when we run out of electricity, I'd like to take a couple of environmentalists and put them on a pole and let them run up and down to create some."
Far from being a sinister presence in this largely blue- collar village in northwestern Westchester, the giant domes that make up the Indian Point nuclear power complex are viewed by many of the 2,200 residents as a protective benefactor, having supplied abundant tax revenues and good jobs for decades.
And many say they believe Consolidated Edison will assure the plant's safe operation in the future, a trust that, in part, comes from the faith residents have in the employees there: former high school classmates, neighbors and sons- in-law.
"I have lived in the area all my life and in Buchanan since 1964," said Alfred J. Donahue, the five-term village mayor. "I raised 5 children here, and 11 of 13 grandchildren were born here. If I felt it wasn't safe, I'd be the first one knocking on their door. I have never once heard a village resident come to a board meeting to say the plant should close."
Sitting on land that was the bustling Indian Point amusement park from the 1920's through the early 1950's, the nuclear plant is so inextricably tied to the village of Buchanan, that the official village seal shows the three intersecting ellipses that symbolize nuclear energy next to an atom-smashing chisel.
Villagers gave Con Edison a warm embrace in the mid-1950's when construction began on the first nuclear plant at the 240-acre site, Indian Point 1, which is now inactive.
"We hated to see the park go - it was the most beautiful park on the Hudson, but when Con Ed wanted to build something there, all of us said there's going to be tremendous tax benefits," said Francis Stein, 70, the village historian. "It enabled us to build roads, sewers, schools and lighting, which was great."
Over the years, the owners of the nuclear plants have given generously to the area, from land for a riverfront park to contributions to the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Thirty-five miles north of Manhattan, Indian Point 2 restarted generating electricity on Jan. 3. The plant had been closed since last February, when a tube ruptured in a steam generator, causing a radioactive leak.
It was the worst accident in the plant's history, but one that officials said posed no public health threat. After a gradual start-up that included a few equipment glitches, the plant reached its full 1,000-megawatt capacity Sunday night.
During the hubbub surrounding its cousin a stone's throw away, Indian Point 3 has continued to operate uneventfully. Last year, the New York Power Authority sold the plant to Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss., and Entergy now has a written agreement with Con Edison to buy Indian Point 1 and 2 from the utility by summer.
The sale is contingent on the plants' running at full capacity, without any major problems.
Both the first leak and the more recent problems led to hearings, angry rhetoric from politicians, demonstrations outside the plant and closer scrutiny from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Local officials say the nuclear plant has made it possible for many with modest incomes to live in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. Today, Con Edison pays 84 percent of all property taxes collected by the village, or $1.9 million, and the company contributes $16.3 million of the $35.5 million collected by the Hendrick Hudson School District.
The district encompasses not only Buchanan but also parts of the town of Cortlandt, the city of Peekskill and the village of Croton-on-Hudson.
Under the state's ownership, Indian Point 3 had been tax-exempt, with the village getting diminishing payments in lieu of taxes - down to $141,000 this year - and the school district getting nothing in recent years. But the plant's sale to Entergy means its return to the tax rolls.
School officials say safety has always been the district's primary concern and have actively pressed for revisions to the emergency plan detailing evacuation procedures in the event of an accident.
But they also say that the financial fallout from the plant has been crucial to preserving socioeconomic diversity.
"Much of our district is made up of people who would never be able to live in the neighboring communities because they couldn't afford the taxes," said Nancy T. Bocassi, the school district's assistant superintendent for business.
The school district has made a determined effort not to use the money from Indian Point to gild the school's facilities, Ms. Bocassi said. Rather, the revenues have helped keep the lid on school taxes.
"We're really responsible to our taxpayers," Ms. Bocassi said. "We are not lavish. That would defeat the purpose of someone's moving here."
When elected officials like Andrew J. Spano, the Westchester County executive, and Senator Charles E. Schumer began calling for the plant's closing a few weeks ago during the plant's bumpy restart, some residents in the area snapped back.
"It's not harming anybody, never did and never will; otherwise none of us would be here," said Jane Rist, a clerk at Da-Ro's Corner Store and a resident of Croton-on-Hudson whose three sons went through the Hendrick Hudson schools.
"If they closed it, our taxes would go sky-high, and no one could afford to live here."
In recent days, Mr. Spano, Mr. Schumer and others have stopped pushing for Indian Point 2 to cease operations, saying they were placated by representatives from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who said they could assure the plant's safety.
The agency is now in a monthlong review of the plant's operations, with 13 inspectors on the site.
Victor Margiotta, the chef at the Paradise Restaurant in nearby Verplanck, is relieved that talk of closing the plant has cooled. Several of his friends work there, and the restaurant, which his family has owned for 53 years, needs the plant for business. "If it weren't for that, my friends wouldn't be working," he said.
-------- us nuc politics
Rumsfeld Assures Europeans on Bush Missile Defense Plan
February 3, 2001
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/03WIRE-EUROPE.html
MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld assured U.S. allies on Saturday that President Bush's plan for a national missile defense will be a ``threat to no one'' except aggressors. He did not provide a timetable for building a missile defense but left little doubt Bush will proceed.
On his first overseas trip since taking office Jan. 20, Rumsfeld also expressed concern at plans for a European military force that would respond to crises when the U.S.-led NATO alliance chooses not to. Rumsfeld, a former ambassador to NATO, said he feared this could destabilize the alliance.
``I'm a little worried,'' he said.
In remarks to a European security conference at a Munich hotel, Rumsfeld spoke forthrightly about missile defense and other sensitive subjects while admitting he had much to learn after just two weeks on the job.
``I'm brand spanking new,'' he said.
Rumsfeld, 68, also was defense secretary during the Ford administration from 1975-77.
Rumsfeld said he is amused at news stories noting that he had been the youngest secretary of defense ever and now is the oldest.
``My wife, Joyce, has read so many of these articles that when I wake up in the morning she rolls over and says, `Well, old timer, do you think you're going to be able to make it out of bed today?'''
Judging by his trip schedule, Rumsfeld is energized by his return to the Pentagon. He flew overnight Friday from Washington, went directly into a daylong series of meetings Saturday and planned a brief stop at Spangdahlem Air Base, also in Germany, to have dinner with troops before returning to Washington in early Sunday.
The topic expected to dominate the Munich conference -- Bush's plan for a national missile defense system -- was raised frequently but not with the hard-edged criticism heard in recent months.
Richard Burt, a State Department arms control official during the Reagan administration, noted that while the Europeans were ``politely complaining'' about missile defense, the Americans in Munich were doing the same on the subject of Europe's plan to create a military force as a subset of NATO.
Henry Kissinger, secretary of state when Rumsfeld was President Ford's defense secretary, told the conference that discussion of missile defense was being approached ``like a visit to the dentist.'' Speakers touched lightly on the topic, as if eager to move on to something more pleasant.
Missile defense is divisive because many European leaders fear it would leave their countries unprotected, thus creating a trans-Atlantic division. They also oppose it on grounds that it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with the former Soviet Union, a pact Rumsfeld has called ``ancient history.''
In an interview with reporters traveling on his plane from Washington, Rumsfeld indicated he believes continued adherence to the ABM treaty would prevent the United States from building the most cost-effective and technologically effective missile defense system at the earliest possible date.
``You would very likely come up with something other than (that) if you sat down and tried to design something that would fit within a treaty that was written 25 years ago when technology was notably different, when we were in a Cold War, when the threats in the world were vastly different.
``That is Cold War thinking,'' he said. ``That period is over in our life. Why don't we get over it?''
In his speech, Rumsfeld provided no details on how Bush intends to proceed toward deployment. He made clear that while the allies will be consulted, they should not expect to change Bush's mind.
``No U.S. president can responsibly say that his defense policy is calculated and designed to leave the American people undefended against threats that are known to exist,'' Rumsfeld said. He said Bush would not wait until technology can provide for a perfect defense, but he mentioned no timetable.
``It is not so much a technical question as a matter of a president's constitutional responsibility,'' he said. ``Indeed, it is in many respects ... a moral issue.''
Regardless of how and when the United States deploys a missile defense, ``these systems will be a threat to no one,'' he said, repeating the phrase for emphasis. ``That is a fact. They should be of concern to no one, save those who would threaten others.''
Also speaking at the conference, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cautioned against allowing European concerns over the missile defense plans to define trans-Atlantic relations with the new administration.
``Within NATO and within the alliance we must discuss what impact feasible implementation of this system would have on the one hand, on relations with China and on the other hand relations with Russia,'' he said.
In earlier remarks to reporters, Rumsfeld said Russia is ``off the mark'' in calling U.S. missile defense a threat to arms control.
-------- activists
ECUADOR WAKES UP UNDER A STATE OF EMERGENCY,
Indigenous Activists Begin Hunger Strike
February 3, 2001
This morning, , Ecuador woke up under a State of Emergency. Under this arrangement, freedom of association has been suspended, private homes can be invaded, and citizens can be detained without warning. In short, the Ecuadorian people have lost their constitutional rights.
The State of Emergency, under the Law of National Security, declared Friday night by the government of Gustavo Noboa, is the latest step in a series of acts of violence and repression undertaken over the past week. The State of Emergency in Ecuador is reminiscent of the methods implemented by various dictatorships during tragic moments in the history of Latin America.
This latest step by the government is clearly aimed at punishing the indigenous people, who have demanded an end to the violence and a repeal of economic policies which have brought the country to the brink of destruction. The economic policies include, among other things, the construction of a new oil pipeline, the spurring along of the mining industry, privatization of the water supply, an increase in taxes, the return of kerosene as a fuel for home use, and an increase in the bus fares. The new indigenous uprising, which began last week, has included the blockading of the nation's highways and a march of 10,000 indigenous people from the countryside in the Capital of Quito. Currently, 6,000 indigenous activists are concentrated inside the Universidad Politecnica Salesiana, surrounded and constantly attacked by the police every time they try to march from the university campus. In the face of this situation, and the refusal of the government to enter into a dialogue, 50 activists from the indigenous and peasant communities, who grow and provide the country's food, have decided to launch a hunger strike, as a way of being heard. Every hour, 50 more indigenous people will join the hunger strike.
Ironically, the business sector of the country, such as the flower cultivators, have supported the violence and "hard repression" out of fear that they will lose export business for the 14th of February - Valentine's Day. Paradoxically, a new delegation of the International Monetary Fund are in the country - how shameful! - having to evaluate another failure of their economic policies.
In Ecuador, we need your help - letters, telephone calls, public declarations and any other type of actions which let the government know that the world is watching. These acts of international solidarity are a way of preventing even worse abuses and violations of the fundamental rights of the Ecuadorian people, and a protest against institutionalized racism against indigenous people.
Please distribute this appeal widely.
ACCION ECOLOGICA - ECUADOR
Letters should be sent to:
Doctor Gustavo Noboa PRESIDENTE DEL ECUADOR Fax No.: (593 2) 580 735
Senor Jorge Manrique MINISTERIO DE GOBIERNO Fax No. (593 2) 580 067
Senores EMBASSY OF ECUADOR IN YOUR COUNTRY
[Ambassador Ivonne A-BAKI 2535 15th Street NW Washington, DC 20009 telephone: [1] (202) 234-7200 FAX: [1] (202) 667-3482]
Please send us a copy at: (593 2) 529287 / 527583
Or to verde@hoy.net
------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)