------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Missile debate sparks new Cold War fears
Solana: U.S. Can Deploy Shield
Britain's Cook Starts Get - Acquainted Visit to U.S.
Allies' Mood on 'Star Wars' Shifts
Enemies of the Future
China adding missiles aimed toward Taiwan
DU: Cancer as a Weapon Radioactive War
Forces fight to debunk health fears
India Plans to Test Mega Rocket in March
Strike Force, Missile Defense Split U.S., Allies
U.S., Russian officials become icier over security
Taiwan closer to resolving nuclear row
Researcher Sues DOE for Historical Documents
The Case of Wen Ho Lee
Government may seek more questioning of scientist
Reaganism II?

MILITARY
Futurist Community Blooms in Least Likely Location
Thousands reject guerrilla enclave
U.S. Intends to Put Anti-Missile Shield Around the World
Bush Warning on Military Spending Challenges Pentagon
Wolfowitz Named No. 2 at Pentagon
Clinton's travel left military overextended

OTHER
Bush Delays Logging Ban 2 Months
Soldiers ran risk of mad cow disease
Mad Cow Disease -The Chemical Industry Plays Dirty
Fears of mad-cow disease feed appetite for regulation
Secret Witness Set to Testify in Terror Trial
Experts say terrorists hiding message on Web

ACTIVISTS
Davos - State of war
Shell - illegal disposal/dumping and silencing
World Economic Forum systems hacked


-------- NUCLEAR

Missile debate sparks new Cold War fears

February 5, 2001
St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/News/020501/Worldandnation/Missile_debate_sparks.shtml

Missile debate sparks new Cold War fears Russia and Asian nations say the proposed defense system will prompt a new arms race - one that will extend into space.

MUNICH, Germany -- Russian and U.S. security officials sparred Sunday over Bush administration plans for a national missile defense and Kremlin threats against domestic opponents, prompting warnings that the erstwhile superpower rivals are headed for a new Cold War.

Although delegates to the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy took note of the vast improvements in international relations since the end of totalitarian rule in Moscow, there were expressions of "profound concern" over the direction of U.S.-Russian ties from a broad spectrum of their allies and neighbors.

A day earlier, the elite from Western security and defense circles had politely debated the U.S. missile defense plan, with newly appointed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisting that no one with peaceful intentions should fear the project, although even Washington's European allies made clear that they have reservations.

But as Russia and its Asian neighbors waded into the verbal fray on the second and final day of the conference, it became clear that the worries are global and that many see new and potentially destructive strains between the United States and Russia.

Russian national security chief Sergei B. Ivanov affirmed President Vladimir V. Putin's quest for a strong, democratic country. He then cast the United States and Western Europe as hypercritical, shortsighted and meddling. And he accused the new U.S. administration of provoking a costly arms race with its missile defense project and said the project's development would scuttle the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

"Destruction of the ABM treaty, we are quite confident, will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race -- including one in space," he said.

While Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger a day earlier had deemed the ABM treaty "outdated," Ivanov insisted that the pact remains relevant and a fundamental precondition for further nuclear arms reductions.

A senior Chinese foreign policy figure, Mei Zhaorong, also warned Washington that the missile defense plan could lead to fresh global insecurities. India's national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, voiced an even graver concern: "It is my personal impression that with this national missile defense, we are starting another Cold War."

Rather than spend billions on a technologically suspect missile shield, Ivanov suggested, Washington should work with Moscow to diminish the risks of rogue nuclear attacks by instituting tighter export controls to halt proliferation.

That prompted a retort from former U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, who used his new out-of-government status to its full measure in expressing candid and at times provocative views he could ill afford as a Cabinet member.

"One way to deal with the problem is to stop proliferating. Russia must cease and desist in that regard," Cohen said, contending that Moscow has a history of controversial technology deliveries to rogue states.

Cohen also lashed out at Ivanov's claim that U.S. planes exposed Yugoslav civilians and Balkans peacekeepers to dangerous carcinogens by dropping 10 tons of depleted uranium during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

Noting that health experts have no hard evidence of a link between depleted uranium exposure and cancers, Cohen called Ivanov's innuendo "a rhetorical act that prompts others," like inquiries into Russian military aggression in the separatist republic of Chechnya.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., delivered a more diplomatic but no less dire view of Russia's drift away from the democratic fold.

"In recent weeks, President Putin has made trips to Cuba, Iraq, Iran -- not exactly America's favorite nations, " Lieberman said.

While conceding that "no single event has done more to expand freedom's borders and improve our common security than the fall of the Soviet Union," Lieberman warned Moscow that the Bush administration's foreign policy team is likely to take a more "arm's-length" approach to Russia. Strong bipartisan support remains for helping Russia reform and prosper, he said, but he quoted Bush's national security adviser, Russian scholar Condoleezza Rice, as saying "Russia's economic future is now in the hands of the Russians," a statement many have interpreted as heralding less U.S. aid and guidance.

"Assistance will depend on the extent to which the Russian people enjoy their human rights," Lieberman said. "Our constituents will demand no less."

-------

Solana: U.S. Can Deploy Shield

February 5, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Europe-Defense.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and NATO's secretary-general, Lord Robertson, acknowledged Monday the United States cannot be deterred from deploying a national missile defense despite misgivings among the allies and Russia.

``The United States has the right to deploy,'' Solana said before meetings with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security assistant to President Bush.

Were there any doubt, Powell told Solana that ``we intend to move forward'' on the controversial program, according to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher after they met.

And in Brussels, Belgium, where NATO has its headquarters, Robertson said Europe must bow to the inevitability of U.S. deployment of an anti-missile defense system. What's more, Robertson denied there were any divisions in the alliance on the issue.

``I think people wanted to find a split between America and Europe on the issue of missile defense,'' Robertson said after meeting with the European Union's political and security committee.

``The United States has made it clear that it intends to deploy some effective missile defense system and there has to be an acceptance that that was the decision made in the election campaign and we should treat it seriously and with respect,'' the former British minister said.

On an equally touchy issue, Europe's determination to create its own military corps to respond to crises, Solana was unyielding. He said the principle was established a decade ago when Bush's father was president and reaffirmed several times at summits in the Clinton years.

``We don't have to create a fuss about something that is not new,'' he said over breakfast in a hotel near the White House.

Later, Boucher said, ``We just haven't reached full agreement within NATO and between NATO and the European Union on how some of these mechanisms should work.''

Boucher said Powell wanted to know whether the force would be a complement to NATO and whether the Europeans would pay for it. He said Powell wanted to make sure ``that we not try to duplicate the capabilities of NATO.''

The two troublesome issues were aired at a two-day conference in Munich, Germany, last weekend amid signs the United States and its allies were being driven apart.

``These are very manageable problems,'' Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said after the Conference on Security Policy. ``We ought to relax and talk it through.''

Other observers were not so sanguine even though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld offered to help the Europeans with a missile defense while the Bush administration proceeds with trying to erect a shield against what it says are potential threats from North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's national security assistant, Sergei B. Ivanov, said a vast missile defense program would undermine international stability and touch off an arms race, including one in outer space. Europeans also have been critical.

Solana, taking a softer tone, said Monday the Europeans want to get involved in a dialogue with the Bush administration about the program. And, in a conciliatory gesture, the Spanish diplomat said the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prohibited a national missile defense, was between the United States and the Soviet Union, not Europe, and was revised in 1974. ``It's not a Bible,'' he said.

Indeed, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush ``intends to pursue that matter in consultation with our allies. He believes it's a very effective way to protect America and our allies.''

Powell indicated at his Senate confirmation hearing last month that the administration would approach Russia about changing the treaty to fit U.S. plans and would consider reducing the U.S. arsenal of offensive nuclear weapons.

While acknowledging the United States has the authority to go ahead with an anti-missile defense, Solana said the program ``has consequences that go far beyond it.''

Urging more trans-Atlantic consultation, Solana, a former NATO secretary-general, said, ``We have to start talking and I hope whatever is done is beneficial to the alliance and to the stability of the world.''

Meanwhile, defending the European plan to establish a rapid reaction military force headed by a European commander, Solana said it would not threaten the unity of the NATO military alliance,

``I don't perceive any especially negative attitude'' from the Bush administration, he said,

The force would help avert the sort of ``catastrophe'' that occurred in Bosnia, Solana said, and spare the United States getting involved in every crisis. Besides, he said, ``It is part of the strategic concept of NATO.''

Even so, at Munich, serious questions were raised about the U.S. and European plans.

Boucher, on Monday, said reports that the United States and Europe were drawing apart were old hat.

``We seem to be in another period where people are writing that. And as with the last 50 years, we'll probably get through it with the strong and positive relationship that we continue to have with Europe,'' he said.

---

Britain's Cook Starts Get - Acquainted Visit to U.S.

February 5, 2001
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-usa-coo.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook began a get-acquainted visit with the new U.S. administration on Monday, calling for thorough debate on U.S. plans for a missile shield that have drawn fierce opposition from Russia and reservations from European leaders.

``There's a very serious debate in the United States at the present time. It should not be rushed. It will not be rushed. And we will be ready to discuss it with them when they are ready to do so,'' he told reporters when asked about differences over the planned National Missile Defense (NMD).

Britain welcomed assurances from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell that a decision on building the system to shoot down missiles with other missiles would be taken in consultation with allies and without undue haste, he added shortly after arriving at the ambassador's residence.

``Of course we are close allies with the United States. It is not in our national interests that the United States should feel in any way that its own defense and security is compromised,'' Cook said.

Former President Clinton deferred a decision on NMD, whose critics say it will undermine the fabric of international arms control treaties, after tests were inconclusive and his administration failed to win Russia round.

Russia and China in particular strongly oppose the system, focusing their criticism on the Soviet-era Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that specifically banned such a system for fear it would spark a new arms race.

Speaking on the eve of his first meeting with Powell since he was sworn in and with Vice President Dick Cheney, and two days ahead of his initial meeting with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Cook played down such concerns.

Rumsfeld, during a visit to Munich for a security conference last week, ``stressed that they would be consulting allies and they did not want this to become a divisive issue with the alliance,'' Cook said, referring to NATO.

``Colin Powell himself has said it will be some months before they come to a view on the technical value of the system and before they assess the external threat,'' he added.

``There are many issues to be addressed, particularly for instance what will be the outcome of the consultation with Russia and with the allies,'' said Cook, the first European foreign minister to visit Washington since President George W. Bush's inauguration last month.

``Our close relationship with the U.S. and our good standing in Europe enable us to play a pivotal role between our friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Britain will use that role to work to make sure that we strengthen the Atlantic partnership.''

LOCKERBIE, BALKANS, EUROPEAN DEFENSE ON HIS AGENDA

Cook said he would discuss what the two countries demanded of Libya in the light of the conviction last week of a Libyan intelligence agent, for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland which killed 270 people.

The United States has vowed to keep its sanctions against Libya in place until Tripoli meets a list of conditions linked to alleged support for terrorism, while Britain has restored diplomatic relations with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Both allies insist however that Tripoli accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing and pay compensation before U.N. sanctions suspended two years ago are formally lifted.

Apart from promoting further stability in the Balkans, Cook also mentioned plans for a European rapid reaction force aimed at taking some of the burden away from NATO but which critics fear may undermine the alliance.

Rumsfeld, asked last week about the plans for a European force, warned ``anything that damages NATO cohesion would be unwise for Europe, for the United States and for our ability to contribute to peace and stability'' in Europe.

The broader U.S. stance is one of support for the force as long as it works in tandem with NATO. A senior State Department official insisted the differences would be ironed out.

---

Allies' Mood on 'Star Wars' Shifts

February 5, 2001
New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/05/world/05EURO.html?pagewanted=all

MUNICH, Feb. 4 - Though its drive to build a national missile defense is barely under way, the Bush administration has already managed to shift the focus of the European security debate.

Despite deep-seated hopes that the missile defense issue would just go away, European officials now seem to accept, grudgingly, the fact that the new American team is determined to move ahead.

The new mood was evident at a two-day conference here, which NewsAnalysisbrought together top security officials and defense experts from Europe, the United States and Asia.

No ranking Europeans officials rushed to grab Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's offer to help the European allies deploy their own missile defenses. But there were no fiery dissents either.

None of this means that the matter has been put to rest. What it does mean is that the debate is entering a new phase in which the issue is more how the United States should go about developing missile defenses, than whether it should try.

The diplomatic and technological questions are more pressing than ever, and they could yet affect the debate in both the United States and Europe.

It is still unclear whether the Pentagon can overcome the technological hurdles for an effective missile defense, and even if it does, it could take the better part of a decade to start putting such a system in place.

But the political costs must be paid up front. That is because the United States will need to amend or jettison the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to embark on a serious testing and development program.

That means coping with Russia's and China's anxieties that Washington has embarked on a quest for strategic dominance. And it means reassuring the Europeans that the Bush administration is attuned to the concerns of its allies and has not embarked on a go-it-alone strategy.

The administration is still in its early days, but it clearly has yet to produce a diplomatic strategy to accompany its missile defense plan.

Mr. Rumsfeld, for instance, barely mentioned Russia in his Saturday address to the conference, and what he did say consisted of little more than the assertion that with a sizable nuclear arsenal, Moscow had no reason to be concerned about a limited missile defense.

The Russians provided no openings either. Seeking to rouse European sentiment against the administration's plan, Sergei Ivanov, the head of President Vladimir V. Putin's security council, warned that it would ignite an arms race in space and undermine the entire edifice of arms control agreements.

"It will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create the prerequisites for a new arms race," Mr. Ivanov said.

Though neither spoke in a confrontational tone, the two speeches recalled the superpower jousting of the cold war. The battleground was again European public opinion, only this time there appears to a general acknowledgment that Moscow's influence has waned.

It was left to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the former Democratic candidate for vice president and a supporter of missile defense, to raise the possibility of cooperating with the Russians.

And it was another missile defense supporter, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican and former presidential aspirant, who suggested that the United States broaden its strategic agenda by reconsidering ratification of the international treaty banning nuclear tests.

While reasonable men can differ about the merits of that treaty - Mr. McCain said verification measures should be improved before it was reconsidered by the Senate - it was an effort to present a security policy that embraced both arms control as well as missile defense.

During the election campaign, George W. Bush signaled that he would push for deeper, perhaps one- sided cuts in long-range nuclear arms. Those proposals will take time to develop, and the Europeans are looking for more than cuts in the American arsenal. They want to preserve much of the existing framework of arms control treaties.

For those who favor cooperation with Moscow, much will depend on what type of missile defenses the administration designs.

Mr. Lieberman touted a "boost phase" system, in which interceptors based on ships would be used to shoot down missiles soon after they were launched. The system would be far more palatable to the Russians than a space-based defense, in part because it could not down missiles launched from Russia's heartland.

The Russians, in fact, have proposed a similar approach. But the Bush administration has talked about developing a system that can also defend against an accidental or unauthorized launching. That makes it very unlikely that it will limit itself to a boost-phase defense and makes reconciling arms control with a missile shield much more of a challenge.

Administration officials said today that they recognized that they would have to get around to dealing with Moscow. But they say they wanted to start by consulting with the allies, a step Mr. Rumsfeld took when he offered to help the Europeans deploy their own missile defenses.

The primary European concern, however, seems to be to keep relations with Russia on an even keel. The Europeans seem to see little benefit from missile defense, at least in the near term, and have little enthusiasm for spending the billions of dollars it would take to build one.

Washington also has a stake in trying to avoid a diplomatic confrontation with Moscow. Without the Russians, the United States may find it difficult to continue its programs to protect nuclear materials in Russia or to press Russia to crack down on the export of missile and nuclear technology.

As for China, if the United States cannot ease worries there, Beijing may speed up efforts to modernize its arsenal of 18 land-based missiles, a development that American intelligence has warned could set off an arms race including India and Pakistan.

Though administration officials do not have the answers yet, they insist that a comprehensive policy will be produced. Their diplomatic strategy for now is: Watch this space.

"We understand that there is a lot of work to do with the allies, a lot of work to do with the Russians," Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, told CNN today. "But we believe that, with the proper context, and with the chance to do the diplomacy, that we can make this work."

-------- business

Enemies of the Future
The 10 worst corporations of 2000

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
http://www.westchesterweekly.com/articles/worstcorp.html
...

Lockheed Martin: Testing its Pollutant on Humans

For years, pesticide companies have tested their dangerous products on human beings. Now, the merchants of war are testing a pollutant on human beings.

In November, the Los Angeles Times reported that on behalf of military contractor Lockheed Martin, Loma Linda University is conducting the first large-scale tests of a toxic drinking water contaminant on human subjects. Medical researchers and environmentalists called the step morally unethical and scientifically invalid.

The Times reported that Loma Linda Medical Center is paying 100 people $1,000 each to eat a six-month daily dose of perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel that damages thyroid function and is found in hundreds of water supplies in Southern California. The Loma Linda subjects are being fed up to 83 times the "safe" level of perchlorate currently set by the state health department, which is expected to review its perchlorate standards in coming months.

The paper reported that a former Lockheed plant is the likely cause of the contamination of water wells in San Bernardino County.

This year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will begin national testing of water supplies for perchlorate in preparation for setting national regulations on the chemical. If Lockheed Martin can persuade the state and EPA not to set strict standards for drinking water, the company will save millions of dollars in cleanup costs.

The Times said the Loma Linda tests are apparently the first large-scale study to use human subjects to test a water pollutant. The EPA has no protocols or regulations for human testing. In September, the agency's science advisory panel said human testing should be used only with "the greatest degree of caution."

A recent study by the Arizona health department of infants near Lake Mead, Ariz., which is contaminated with perchlorate, found that many were born with altered thyroid function.

As the Times pointed out, scientists who perform these human experiments compare them to clinical trials for drugs. In fact, perchlorate isn't just a pollutant -- high doses are used, in rare cases, to treat hyperthyroidism.

But people who test drugs are helping society find treatments for sick people. Consuming a pollutant has no medical benefits.

Lockheed denies responsibility for the tests. Says Gail Rymer, company director of environmental communications: "The corporation has relied on experts ... to ensure that the study is safe, and ethically and scientifically sound. We believe it will help us understand better the effects of low-dose perchlorate exposure on humans."

Asked about the general perception that poisons should not be tested on humans, Rymer responds: "That's not for us to determine. Again, we rely on the experts and their guidance in their areas."

Of course, Lockheed Martin is involved in much more than testing pollutants. Among other dubious activities, the company is the primary proponent of one of the greatest government boondoggles of all time and a genuine national security risk: Star Wars. Lockheed invested nearly $2 million in the 1999-2000 election cycle, not to mention millions more spent on lobbyists, think tanks and other opinion makers, to push for increased support for the proposed National Missile Defense system. Despite an impressive record of technological failure, all signs point to the U.S. government dumping billions more into research and development for the military fantasy.

-------- china

China adding missiles aimed toward Taiwan

February 5, 2001
Washington Times
By Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200125231157.htm

China is continuing a destabilizing buildup of short-range missiles opposite Taiwan and now has up to 300 missiles deployed, according to a senior military official.

The senior official, who spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity, also said Russia is supplying China with advanced ballistic-missile technology and strategic nuclear warhead know-how.

"The candy store appears to be open," the official said. "The Russians will sell anything to the Chinese that the Chinese want to buy, and that's what bothers me."

On China's massing of short-range missiles, the official said Chinese military leaders have refused to draw down the force, despite U.S. protests that the missiles are increasing instability and the danger of conflict across the Taiwan Strait. "They keep on building," the official said.

He noted: "If the Chinese keep on doing what they're doing, we're going to make theater missile systems available to the Taiwanese.

Taiwan currently has deployed the most-advanced U.S. missile defense available, a version of the Patriot system known as GEM PAC-2. The systems are deployed around Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.

Other more advanced regional missile defenses will be fielded with U.S. forces in the next several years.

Asked about growing Russian-Chinese military cooperation, the official said missile and nuclear warhead transfers are troubling.

Intelligence reports indicate the Russians have begun "helping Chinese ballistic missile programs and nuclear programs, which are of course targeted on Russia," the official said.

"It's one thing if they want to help [the Chinese] screw the United States, which is in their common interest right now, but this just seems to be mindless," the official said. "I think it's stupidity on the Russians' part; it is going to hurt them in the long term."

He said Russia's state-owned arms-export company, Rosvooruzheniye, is becoming China's major supplier.

China also is seeking to purchase an advanced airborne warning and control (AWAC) jet from Russia, after Israel canceled a similar deal at U.S. insistence in July.

On the missile buildup, the official said the growing numbers are only one aspect of the problem. The Chinese also are deploying highly accurate "precision" weapons in addition to older, inertially guided missiles.

"They are in the 200 to 300 category," the senior official said. "And just as important as the number, is the accuracy. Right now they are mostly inertial [guidance], which give them [circular error probabilities] in the Scud range. But they are working on more precision guidance, which will make a big difference."

Between 600 and 1,000 short-range missiles could be in place in the next several years.

The official said the United States has informed China it is considering sales to Taiwan of advanced Aegis-equipped warships. If the $1 billion warships are sold, they will be equipped with "fleet air defenses" capable of countering China's current arsenal of Sunburn anti-ship missiles and other anti-ship weapons, but they will not be outfitted with the Navy's two regional missile defense systems, which have not yet been fielded.

The Aegis-ships "would give the Taiwanese the ability to survive with their surface ships," he said.

U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the building of a national missile defense systems are two issues expected to cloud U.S.-China ties, the official said.

However, China is not likely to increase the size of its strategic nuclear missile buildup in response to a U.S. missile shield, he said. "I see no indication that anything we do really affects the Chinese building program."

The missile buildup has been tracked by Pentagon intelligence agencies for the past several years. In 1998, China had fewer than 50 short-range missiles deployed near Taiwan, and in 1999 the number had increased to 150.

The senior official identified the missiles as CSS-6s and CSS-7s -missiles also known by the designations M-9 and M-11, respectively. China unveiled an advanced CSS-7 Mod 2 in late 1999.

The missiles have enough range to hit targets in Taiwan with little or no warning. The lack of warning time increases the risk of conflict, U.S. military officials said.

Last year, the State Department privately protested Beijing's missile buildup, U.S. officials said. Publicly, the department has described the buildup as worrying and said it could lead to future sales of U.S. anti-missile defenses to Taiwan.

According to the senior military official, China's military remains backward by American standards but is building up its forces - both strategic and conventional -through purchases of high-technology arms, mostly from Russia.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) views the United States as its main threat and is highlighting the perceived danger to win more funds for military programs.

"It's clear that the PLA, both because they believe it and because it's a wonderful bureaucratic strategy, continues to pump up the American threat," he said. "They clearly justify the requirements for increases in military budgets based on the Taiwan scenario, keeping the United States out, and damaging Taiwan. And they're having some success in getting budget increases."

China appears to be having problems integrating high-technology weapons, like domestic versions of the Russian Su-27, he said.

A recent Chinese military exercise in the South China Sea also revealed training tactics that are 20 to 30 years behind those carried out by the United States, he said.

The exercise, code-named Invincible Might, came as nations in Southeast Asia held talks to set up a code of conduct for regional militaries aimed at avoiding conflicts.

China's most visible recent military deployments include two Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers that are armed with supersonic SSN-22 Sunburn anti-ship missiles, and scores of Su-27s that can be equipped with advanced Russian A-12 guided missiles. They also have Badger bombers capable of carrying out missile attacks on ships.

China's forces could fight well on their territory but would be no match for the United States in a conflict over Taiwan, he said.

Chinese military officials, in talks with U.S. counterparts, have been urged not to consider a conflict with the United States because "we know how that one is going to end," the official said. "There's going to be a lot of bloodshed and there is going to be no change at the end of the day."

The U.S. strategy has been to try to involve China in regional forums and exercises as a way to prevent Beijing from resorting to bullying tactics, the official said.

-------- depleted uranium

DU: Cancer as a Weapon Radioactive War

February 5, 2001
CouonterPunch
by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/du.html

At the close of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was denounced as a ferocious villain for ordering his retreating troops to destroy Kuwaiti oil fields, clotting the air with poisonous clouds of black smoke and saturating the ground with swamps of crude. It was justly called an environmental war crime.

But months of bombing of Iraq by US and British planes and cruise missiles has left behind an even more deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the US hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles.

More than 10 years later, the health consequences from this radioactive bombing campaign are beginning to come into focus. And they are dire, indeed. Iraqi physicians call it "the white death"-leukemia. Since 1990, the incident rate of leukemia in Iraq has grown by more than 600 percent. The situation is compounded by Iraq's forced isolations and the sadistic sanctions regime, recently described by UN secretary general Kofi Annan as "a humanitarian crisis", that makes detection and treatment of the cancers all the more difficult.

"We have proof of traces of DU in samples taken for analysis and that is really bad for those who assert that cancer cases have grown for other reasons," says Dr. Umid Mubarak, Iraq's health minister.

Mubarak contends that the US's fear of facing the health and environmental consequences of its DU bombing campaign is partly behind its failure to follow through on its commitments under a deal allowing Iraq to sell some of its vast oil reserves in return for food and medical supplies.

"The desert dust carries death," said Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, an oncologist and member of England's Royal Society of Physicians. "Our studies indicate that more than forty percent of the population around Basra will get cancer. We are living through another Hiroshima."

Most of the leukemia and cancer victims aren't soldiers. They are civilians. And many of them are children. The US-dominated Iraqi Sanctions Committee in New York has denied Iraq's repeated requests for cancer treatment equipment and drugs, even painkillers such as morphine. As a result, the overflowing hospitals in towns such as Basra are left to treat the cancer-stricken with aspirin.

This is part of a larger horror inflicted on Iraq that sees as many as 180 children dying every day, according to mortality figures compiled by UNICEF, from a catalogue of diseases from the 19th century: cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis, e. coli, mumps, measles, influenza.

Iraqis and Kuwaitis aren't the only ones showing signs of uranium contamination and sickness. Gulf War veterans, plagued by a variety of illnesses, have been found to have traces of uranium in their blood, feces, urine and semen.

Depleted uranium is a rather benign sounding name for uranium-238, the trace elements left behind when the fissionable material is extracted from uranium-235 for use in nuclear reactors and weapons. For decades, this waste was a radioactive nuisance, piling up at plutonium processing plants across the country. By the late 1980s there was nearly a billion tons of the material.

Then weapons designers at the Pentagon came up with a use for the tailings: they could be molded into bullets and bombs. The material was free and there was plenty at hand. Also uranium is a heavy metal, denser than lead. This makes it perfect for use in armor-penetrating weapons, designed to destroy tanks, armored-personnel carriers and bunkers.

When the tank-busting bombs explode, the depleted uranium oxidizes into microscopic fragments that float through the air like carcinogenic dust, carried on the desert winds for decades. The lethal dust is inhaled, sticks to the fibers of the lungs, and eventually begins to wreck havoc on the body: tumors, hemorrhages, ravaged immune systems, leukemias.

In 1943, the doomsday men associated with the Manhattan Project speculated that uranium and other radioactive materials could be spread across wide swaths of land to contain opposing armies. Gen. Leslie Grove, head of the project, asserted that uranium weapons could be expected to cause "permanent lung damage." In the late, 1950s Al Gore's father, the senator from Tennessee, proposed dousing the demilitarized zone in Korea with uranium as a cheap failsafe against an attack from the North Koreans.

After the Gulf War, Pentagon war planners were so delighted with the performance of their radioactive weapons that they ordered a new arsenal and under Bill Clinton's orders fired them at Serb positions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. More than a 100 of the DU bombs have been used in the Balkans over the last six years.

Already medical teams in the region have detected cancer clusters near the bomb sites. The leukemia rate in Sarajevo, pummeled by American bombs in 1996, has tripled in the last five years. But it's not just the Serbs who are ill and dying. NATO and UN peacekeepers in the region are also coming down with cancer. As of January 23, eight Italian soldiers who served in the region have died of leukemia.

The Pentagon has shuffled through a variety of rationales and excuses. First, the Defense Department shrugged off concerns about Depleted Uranium as wild conspiracy theories by peace activists, environmentalists and Iraqi propagandists. When the US's NATO allies demanded that the US disclose the chemical and metallic properties of its munitions, the Pentagon refused. It has also refused to order testing of US soldiers stationed in the Gulf and the Balkans.

If the US has been keeping silent, the Brits haven't been. A 1991 study by the UK Atomic Energy Authority predicted that if less than 10 percent of the particles released by depleted uranium weapons used in Iraq and Kuwait were inhaled it could result in as many as "300,000 probable deaths."

The British estimate assumed that the only radioactive ingredient in the bombs dropped on Iraq was depleted uranium. It wasn't. A new study of the materials inside these weapons describes them as a "nuclear cocktail," containing a mix of radioactive elements, including plutonium and the highly radioactive isotope uranium-236. These elements are 100,000 times more dangerous than depleted uranium.

Typically, the Pentagon has tried to dump the blame on the Department of Energy's sloppy handling of its weapons production plants. This is how Pentagon spokesman Craig Quigley described the situation in chop-logic worthy of the pen of Joseph Heller.: "The source of the contamination as best we can understand it now was the plants themselves that produced the Depleted uranium during the 20 some year time frame when the DU was produced."

Indeed, the problems at DoE nuclear sites and the contamination of its workers and contractors have been well-known since the 1980s. A 1991 Energy Department memo reports: "during the process of making fuel for nuclear reactors and elements for nuclear weapons, the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant... created depleted uranium potentially containing neptunium and plutonium."

But such excuses in the absence of any action to address the situation are growing very thin indeed. Doug Rokke, the health physicist for the US Army who oversaw the partial clean up of depleted uranium bomb fragments in Kuwait, is now sick. His body registers 5,000 times the level of radiation considered "safe". He knows where to place the blame. "There can be no reasonable doubt about this," Rokke recently told British journalist John Pilger. "As a result of heavy metal and radiological poison of DU, people in southern Iraq are experiencing respiratory problems, kidney problems, cancers. Members of my own team have died or are dying from cancer."

Depleted uranium has a half-life of more than 4 billion years, approximately the age of the Earth. Thousand of acres of land in the Balkans, Kuwait and southern Iraq have been contaminated forever. If George Bush Sr., Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Bill Clinton are still casting about for a legacy, there's a grim one that will stay around for an eternity.

-------

Forces fight to debunk health fears
Computer analysis to assess Gulf, Balkan syndrome claims

01/02/05
Ottawa Citizen
Mike Blanchfield
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010205/5118937.html

The Armed Forces is using Statistics Canada's formidable computer databases to attempt a sweeping analysis of the health of its soldiers.

The military hopes the findings will allow it to dismiss, once and for all, what it considers to be a false perception that large numbers have been mysteriously afflicted with the Gulf War or Balkan syndromes.

The project became a priority two weeks ago, partly in response to the growing clamour in Europe over whether NATO peacekeepers are dying of cancer in unusually high numbers from exposure to depleted uranium. The Canadian Forces had already begun to track the health of personnel who participated in the Gulf War 10 years ago.

Senior military medical officials hope that if the project is successful, it will give them the tools to respond quickly when concerns arise about other mysterious battlefield ailments, whether they stem from service in the Gulf, the Balkans or any other theatre of operation.

"With the huge amount of media attention that's been paid to this for the last 10 years, this has become a significant health-care issue for us to address as a military health-care service," Col. Scott Cameron, the Canadian Forces surgeon general, told the Citizen in an exclusive interview.

Col. Cameron, the Forces' senior medical officer, recently attended a meeting of his 18 North Atlantic Treaty Organization counterparts in Brussels, to compare notes on the depleted uranium controversy, which flared in several alliance countries last month after reports that 20 soldiers from various European nations had succumbed to leukemia after postings to the Balkans. Depleted uranium is a radioactive substance used in the tips of anti-tank missiles fired in the Balkans in the 1990s, and in the 1991 Gulf War.

The meeting resulted in NATO's top medical committee issuing a statement Jan. 16 that emphasized the lack of a scientific link between exposure to depleted uranium and cancer. However, the NATO medical officers pledged to return to their respective countries to study the issue further because of the concerns raised by some governments and soldiers.

The Statistics Canada studies will eventually provide a definitive answer to whether the rates of cancer among Canadian personnel sent to the Gulf and the Balkans is any higher than the accepted average in the overall population, said Col. Cameron.

Within two months, computers will cross-reference the names of 4,500 Gulf personnel with two key Statistics Canada databases: one that lists all people who have died from cancer, and another that lists all those living with cancer.

Within six months to a year, the Forces will feed thousands of names of peacekeepers deployed to the Balkans in the 1990s through those same databases. The ongoing project will enable the Forces to track the cancer rate among the thousands of soldiers sent to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

Col. Cameron said the Forces are compiling detailed lists of personnel sent on other foreign deployments so they can be at the ready in case future controversies flare up about the health of peacekeepers.

"What every military in the western world is struggling with is: how do we quickly address these concerns when they get raised?" Col. Cameron said.

"Next week, it could be a question of skin cancer in people who deployed to Africa. What you need to quickly address those (questions) is a workable database that you can then run through a computer and come back with the statistics for the specific question, quickly."

Because StatsCan has one of the most extensive computer databases in the world, Col. Cameron said the Canadian statistical analysis should add significantly to the body of evidence examining whether such "syndromes" are afflicting western soldiers.

"We have the advantage of having this national database which is fairly accurate, which a lot other countries do not have," he said.

"Certainly the approach that Canada is taking, in particular exploiting this national database, is a significant advantage in that we'll be able to produce some information that is very reliable."

Col. Cameron candidly admits that he fully expects the Canadian study to confirm what he and experts throughout NATO believe: that the cancer rate is no higher among Balkan military personnel than the general population.

"If we find -- as we expect we will -- that the rates of these things are exactly the same as other groups of Canadians, then that's another piece of fact that we can bring to the table," he said.

"Who knows, we might find that it's elevated. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that we will."

Despite the clamour, there has been no scientific study that has categorically linked depleted uranium exposure to cancer. Indeed, many scientists, including Col. Cameron, maintain that the current controversy is the result of ill-informed politicians and news media.

"There hasn't been anything really in the realm of fact or study to generate this," Col. Cameron said.

"They're sensational, they're interesting, and they get a lot of ink in the papers, but what I have not seen in all of the storm is any new information that would lead us to change our approach to this."

One scientist Col. Cameron took to task was Asaf Durakovic, who is currently researching Gulf War syndrome in Toronto.

The former head of nuclear medicine at a U.S. veterans hospital says he has turned up traces of a radioactive uranium isotope in the bodies of dozens of British, American and Canadian Gulf War veterans.

His research has gained prominence in Europe because it is detailed in a newly published book, Depleted Uranium, Invisible War. Dr. Durakovic has not claimed to have found a definitive link between depleted uranium and sick soldiers, only that he has found traces of radiation in the bodies of some.

"There's an overwhelming body of evidence contrary to what he is saying," Col. Cameron said. "We've asked Dr. Durakovic on several occasions, as have several other legitimate scientific bodies and militaries, to present what his methods and results are ... the whole goal of science is to put that knowledge out there, for other scientists to look at."

Numerous studies have concluded there is no link between depleted uranium exposure and cancer. The U.S. National Cancer Institute, Britain's Middlesex University and U.S. consultants Rand Worldwide are among the recent institutions to author studies that discount any connection between cancer and depleted uranium.

Most naysayers such as Col. Cameron point to the 15 U.S. Gulf War veterans currently under observation by a Veterans Affairs hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. The 15 vets all have depleted uranium fragments in their bodies and elevated amounts of the substance in their bodily fluids. None have developed cancer.

Col. Cameron said he's against mandatory testing of Canadian soldiers for radiation exposure, something that has been conducted by some European countries. "Why would we test for something that a large body of science said is not a hazard?" he asks.

However, Col. Cameron said the Forces medical establishment does not want to give the impression that it is turning its back on sick soldiers. "We urge them: If you're concerned about something, come in and see us. Let us give you the facts to the best of our ability." Sick personnel, whether or not they are currently serving, will we be referred to specialized clinics if needed.

"There's not any science that supports DU (depleted uranium) as a health threat to our personnel," Col. Cameron said.

"But, on the other hand, when our troops in the field raise concerns we need to react in a way that takes their concerns seriously and investigates them seriously."

-------- india / pakistan

India Plans to Test Mega Rocket in March

February 5, 2001
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-space-india-d.html

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - India's state-run space agency hopes next month to test a rocket that can launch heavy satellites deep into space, an official said Monday.

``It will be the first experimental flight of the GSLV,'' a spokesman at the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), told Reuters.

The GSLV or the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle can carry satellites weighing up to two tons into high-earth orbits and will put India in a group of among half-a-dozen elite nations with similar capability.

The ISRO spokesman said the GSLV test flight would carry an experimental satellite, GSAT-1, to test the rocket's reliability.

The rocket will be launched from ISRO's seaport in southern Sriharikota town on the Bay of Bengal coast, he said.

India's GSLV program has been hit by delays due to refusal by Russia -- under pressure from the United States -- to stick to its deal to provide India with rocket engine technology in 1992.

Russia instead only delivered the promised seven rocket engines, leaving India to develop the technology on its own.

Washington has, over the years, restricted access to technology that might have military applications and slapped significant sanctions on India after its nuclear tests in 1998.

Aerospace experts have said that India can offer satellite launches at rates that would compete with those charged by the United States, Russia and recent entrant China.

ISRO chairman K. Kasturirangan has said in the past that the launches could be about 25 percent cheaper than those of other countries.

India made a limited entry into the commercial satellite launch market in May 1999 when the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C2, launched two small foreign satellites into low-earth orbits.

-------- missle defense

Strike Force, Missile Defense Split U.S., Allies

Monday, February 5, 2001
Washington Post
By Thomas E. Ricks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26111-2001Feb4?language=printer

The United States and its NATO allies in Europe are being driven apart by two troublesome issues, the European plan to create a non-NATO rapid reaction military force and the Bush administration's determination to field a national missile defense system, several members of the U.S. delegation to a major European security conference said yesterday.

Members of the U.S. delegation, which included several senators and former senior officials, expressed little hope while flying home from the Munich Conference on Security Policy that this drift apart in transatlantic relations will be corrected any time soon. Rather, they said they expect it to persist and be exploited by the Russian government to cultivate anti-U.S. sentiment in European public opinion.

"I think there's a growing division in understanding between the United States and our European allies -- and I think the worst is yet to come," said Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.).

Likewise, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said: "If the Europeans go forward with [plans to create a non-NATO military force], there will be a cultural change, unintended consequences that will change the dynamic of the transatlantic relationship."

And former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft said that in the worst case, such a force could make some members of Congress believe that NATO no longer is essential to the security and stability of Europe.

Almost alone among the U.S. delegates, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said the transatlantic relationship is in better shape than it looks. "These are very manageable problems," he said while flying home. "We ought to relax and talk it through."

But, Lieberman added, "we ought not to relax about the Russians and Putin."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's national security adviser, Sergei B. Ivanov, denounced the U.S. stance on missile defenses in a speech to the conference yesterday, charging that it undermines international stability and threatens to spark "a new arms race, including one in outer space." A parade of defense and foreign ministers from NATO nations made similar points in speeches earlier in the conference.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld responded to such rhetoric in his talk to the conference the previous day. The American delegation gave him high marks for combining in his comments a gentle tone with a tough substance. Making the first overseas appearance by a member of the Bush Cabinet, Rumsfeld flatly stated that the United States intended to go forward with developing and deploying an anti-missile system, which he said presented a threat to no one.

"He did the maximum that could be done," said former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger. "He was calm, conciliatory, and . . . very explicit on missile defense."

But there was strong disagreement within the delegation about the calculation made by Rumsfeld at his Senate confirmation hearing last month that the Russians -- once convinced that the Bush administration was serious about missile defense -- would find a way to accommodate it. "I think that's true," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), one of the Senate's strongest advocates of missile defenses.

But others said they thought Rumsfeld probably would be proven wrong. Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) said he fears that the Bush administration has given the Russians a huge foreign policy opportunity by declaring the intent to deploy missile defenses even before the technology of the new system is proven.

"We say we're going forward with something, but frankly we have nothing to go forward with," Dicks said. "So the Russians have no incentive to settle."

Bereuter, a member of the House International Relations Committee, agreed that Moscow now has "an opportunity to try to drive our NATO allies from us."

Russia may try to use the disagreement within the alliance over missile defenses to try to block further expansion of NATO into the Baltic region, worried Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. He said such a campaign might argue that the Russians had been pushed hard during the Kosovo war and then again on national missile defense, and so shouldn't be further pressed by seeing NATO take in a Baltic nation that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

But Scowcroft said he doubted that the allies would be persuaded by such a campaign. He predicted that the European allies ultimately would arrive at an understanding with the United States, "instead of following the Russian lead."

Dicks gloomily said the Munich meeting persuaded him that the United States blundered terribly when it declared its determination to field missile defenses. "I think we've had a public relations disaster with the rest of the world," he said. "We've kind of isolated ourselves."

--------

U.S., Russian officials become icier over security

Monday, Feb. 5, 2001
San Jose Mercury News
Los Angeles Times
BY CAROL J. WILLIAMS
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/security05.htm

MUNICH, Germany -- Russian and U.S. security officials sparred Sunday over Bush administration plans for a national missile defense and Kremlin threats against domestic opponents, prompting warnings that the erstwhile superpower rivals are headed for a new Cold War.

Although delegates to the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy took note of the vast improvements in international relations since the end of totalitarian rule in Moscow, there were expressions of ``profound concern'' over the direction of U.S.-Russian ties from a broad spectrum of their allies and neighbors.

A day earlier, the elite from Western security and defense circles had politely debated the U.S. missile defense plan, with newly appointed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisting that no one with peaceful intentions should fear the project, although even Washington's European allies made clear that they have reservations.

But as Russia and its Asian neighbors waded into the verbal fray on the second and final day of the conference, it became clear that the worries are global and that many see new and potentially destructive strains between the United States and Russia.

Russian national security chief Sergei Ivanov affirmed President Vladimir Putin's quest for a strong, democratic country.

He then cast the United States and Western Europe as hypercritical, shortsighted and meddling.

And he accused the new U.S. administration of provoking a costly arms race with its missile defense project and said the project's development would scuttle the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

``Destruction of the ABM treaty, we are quite confident, will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race -- including one in space,'' he said.

While Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger a day earlier had deemed the ABM treaty ``outdated,'' Ivanov insisted that the pact remains relevant and a fundamental precondition for further nuclear arms reductions.

A senior Chinese foreign policy figure, Mei Zhaorong, also warned Washington that the missile defense plan could lead to fresh global insecurities. India's national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, voiced an even graver concern: ``It is my personal impression that with this national missile defense, we are starting another Cold War.''

Rather than spend billions on a technologically suspect missile shield, Ivanov suggested, Washington should work with Moscow to diminish the risks of rogue nuclear attacks by instituting tighter export controls to halt proliferation.

That prompted a retort from former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, who used his new out-of-government status to its fullest measure in expressing candid and at times provocative views he could ill afford as a Cabinet member.

``One way to deal with the problem is to stop proliferating. Russia must cease and desist in that regard,'' Cohen said, contending that Moscow has a history of controversial technology deliveries to rogue states.

Cohen also lashed out at Ivanov's claim that U.S. planes exposed Yugoslav civilians and Balkans peacekeepers to dangerous carcinogens by dropping 10 tons of depleted uranium during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

Noting that health experts have no hard evidence of a link between depleted uranium exposure and cancers, Cohen called Ivanov's innuendo ``a rhetorical act that prompts others,'' like inquiries into Russian military aggression in the separatist republic of Chechnya.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., delivered a more diplomatic but no less dire view of Russia's drift away from the democratic fold.

``In recent weeks, President Putin has made trips to Cuba, Iraq, Iran -- not exactly America's favorite nations,'' Lieberman said.

While conceding that ``no single event has done more to expand freedom's borders and improve our common security than the fall of the Soviet Union,'' Lieberman warned Moscow that the Bush administration's foreign policy team is likely to take a more ``arm's-length'' approach to Russia.

There remains strong bipartisan support for helping Russia reform and prosper, he said, but he quoted Bush's new national security adviser, Russian scholar Condoleezza Rice, as saying, ``Russia's economic future is now in the hands of the Russians,'' a statement many have interpreted as heralding less U.S. aid and guidance.

-------- taiwan

Taiwan closer to resolving nuclear row

Monday, February 5, 2001
By Alice Hung
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/02/02052001/reu_taiwan_41829.asp http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/02/02052001/reu_taiwan_41829.asp?P=2
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/taiwan-politics.html

Deputies in Taiwan's anti-nuclear Democratic Progressive Party agreed on Monday to resume construction of a nuclear power station, raising hopes for an end to a bitter political stand-off over the plant.

DPP legislative caucus whip David Chou said the party was forced to bow to the Nationalist-led opposition for the sake of "political stability, economic prosperity, and harmony between the cabinet and parliament."

Chou said the DPP agreed to a proposal to resume construction of the plant until the end of this year and then to let a newly elected legislature decide whether to finish it.

"The ruling party's position has shifted from 'fight until the end of the year' to 'build until the end of the year'," Chou told a news conference.

Taiwan media said the government could make an announcement as early as Monday but a cabinet spokesman said there were no plans to make any announcement on Monday.

Cabinet secretary-general Chiou I-jen told reporters the cabinet would seek talks with the legislature before drafting an energy bill, which could encompass the US$5.5 billion plant - one-third complete before it was shelved last October.

The newly elected legislature would have the mandate to decide whether the project would be finished, Chiou added.

The cabinet decided last October to scrap the nuclear power plant, Taiwan's fourth, much to the anger of the Nationalist Party, which initiated its construction.

The Nationalists, ousted by the President Chen Shui-bian of the DPP in presidential elections last March after half a century in power, argued the plant was vital for economic growth and to avoid a power shortage and challenged the cabinet decision as unconstitutional.

In January Taiwan's top judges censured Premier Chang Chun-hsiung for not consulting lawmakers on the decision to halt construction and said the cabinet must seek legislative approval.

Analysts say reversing the cabinet decision to scrap the plant would be a boost for the economy and a boon for the DPP in parliamentary elections.

The business community mostly favours building the island's fourth nuclear plant, fearing power shortages. Environmentalists say Taiwan cannot process nuclear waste or deal with accidents.

Taiwan stocks have posted strong gains in recent days, cheered in part by signs of calm on the domestic political front. But the benchmark TAIEX (.TWII) ended down 1.93 percent on Monday as investors factored in the good news and cashed in profits.

President Chen's confrontation with the Nationalists, who still dominate parliament, has created political gridlock that has damaged investment sentiment. His apparent shift to more conciliatory tactics has raised hope the row will be resolved.

The DPP concession appeared to indicate Chen had convinced anti-nuclear die-hards in his party to go along with his plan, or at least prevent them from publicly opposing it.

Chen spent most of the weekend talking to political heavyweights in the DPP, including former party chairman Lin Yi-hsiung, to gain their support.

Lin, an ardent anti-nuclear activist, has not made any public comments since meeting Chen on Sunday.

Chen also met a group of anti-nuclear activists in his office on Monday to explain his position.

"He told us he is still anti-nuclear, but he must take the political reality into consideration," environmentalist Kao Chen-yen told TVBS cable news network.

Anti-nuclear activists plan a protest march on February 24.

Wang Jin-pyng, speaker of parliament and a Nationalist vice chairman, said once the cabinet announced it would revive the project, the opposition would agree to resume stalled dialogue.

But he criticised the DPP proposal to resume construction only until the end of the year.

"This is irresponsible. A major project like this must be completed once we decide to go ahead. There is no other alternative," Wang told reporters.

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

-------- new mexico

Researcher Sues DOE for Historical Documents on Los Alamos Environmental Releases

February 5, 2001
Federation of American Scientists
Ken Silver
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/02/silver.html

A doctoral candidate in environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health today filed a lawsuit in federal district court demanding that the Department of Energy provide him with specific historical documents pertaining to releases of radioactive materials from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). At issue in the lawsuit are three requests for specific documents filed by Ken Silver in June and July, 2000 under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

"I requested about three dozen documents by their titles, dates and specific locations on the shelves in the LANL Archives and the Occurrence Reports Collection," said Silver. "But the DOE wrote back that 'other documents may exist' and that they were still searching for the information," he said. "I made it so easy for them. I gave them the precise locations of the records. But they're playing games," Silver charged.

"Public health research isn't supposed to be a game," he said.

Silver hopes the documents will shed light on three key questions about LANL's possible impacts on public health (see "Background Document..." for further details):

How much radioactive iodine was emitted from Omega West Reactor in the late 1960's, in particular in 1967, a year in which 15,000 curies of "mixed fission products" were released into air from Omega site? What is the total quantity of plutonium isotopes emitted into air from stacks at the Chemistry and Metallurgical Research (CMR) Building in 1971 to 1973? Why do air monitoring records from DP West, the Lab's old plutonium facility, carry the hand-written notation "These figures should not be recorded on yearly report" alongside very high levels of airborne radioactivity in work areas in July 1969?

In 1997 Silver arranged for a set of finding aids to historical documents in the LANL Archives to be placed in the Community Reading Room in Los Alamos. From those finding aids (called "Records Transfer Request forms") he honed in on specific documents which he needs to answer the above questions and complete his doctorate on historical emissions from LANL. Silver temporarily shelved his use of FOIA as a research tool when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced in 1998 that they would be reviewing every box of LANL historical records for evidence of off-site releases, and placing copies of key records in the public domain. But CDC has been locked out of the main LANL records facilities since June 2000 because of security concerns.

"These documents deal with environmental releases. They have nothing to do with the details of weapons design. So DOE and LANL can't legitimately claim that the documents are 'classified' for national security reasons," Silver asserted.

Silver is represented by Attorney Richard Mietz of Santa Fe. "Mr. Silver requested a few very specific documents. He also pinpointed their exact locations in LANL's records facilities. Given the limited nature of records sought in this request, there's no excuse for DOE taking seven months to respond, when the FOIA statute requires a determination within 20 working days" Mietz said.

"If tenacity were money, Ken would be millionaire," said Dr. Richard Clapp, Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). Clapp, who specializes in community-oriented epidemiology, is Silver's advisor. "Unfortunately, serious public health researchers who focus on DOE facilities take a lot of lumps and face tremendous obstacles in seeking information about past exposures," he said.

The BUSPH Environmental Health program, home to one of the few groups of scholars and technical experts in environmental health sciences who eschew financial support from private corporations and the operators of polluting facilities, attracts mid-career public interest scientists and advocates. They specialize in assisting communities and labor groups in understanding the activities of polluting facilities. Mr. Silver has 20 years' experience as a public interest scientist and advocate. He holds a master of science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.

"I'd much prefer to pursue my research hypotheses like a normal researcher, in a low-key, deliberate manner," said Silver. "But DOE and LANL are so intransigent when it comes to sharing historical data. They've left me no choice but to file this lawsuit in a public way," he said.

--------

The Prosecution Unravels:
The Case of Wen Ho Lee

February 5, 2001
New York Times
By MATTHEW PURDY with JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/05/national/05WEN-EDIT.html?pagewanted=all

In a secure warren of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, investigators mined the office of Wen Ho Lee. Books, reports, notes written in Chinese - everything was handled with latex gloves to preserve the evidence. Just days before, laboratory officials had fired the computer scientist for security violations, and investigators suspected he was a spy, but the search was yielding little. Then agents discovered the list.

It was on his desk, a record of computer files containing highly sensitive weapons-design information. With the help of a Los Alamos physicist, investigators determined that Dr. Lee had downloaded the secret files from the laboratory's classified computer system and transferred them to computer tapes. Some of the tapes were missing. The potential compromise of America's nuclear weapons secrets was staggering.

"It's unimaginable," the physicist, John Romero, remembers thinking.

For three years, agents had suspected Dr. Lee of giving China information on America's most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the W-88. But their meandering espionage investigation had been short on resources and long on missed opportunities. The discovery of the download, in late March 1999, was the first hard evidence of any crime - the key, perhaps, to the maddening enigma of Wen Ho Lee. Now, with the case out in the open and hotly debated, and Dr. Lee's huge security breach raising the stakes of the investigation, the government, in the words of one F.B.I. official, "sent in the cavalry."

Agents conducted 1,000 interviews over nine months, scouring the globe for evidence that Dr. Lee had leaked his secrets. The Federal Bureau of Investigation carried out its largest computer forensic investigation ever. Investigators traced years of Dr. Lee's telephone calls. Prosecutors pressed him to explain himself, and when he did not, they brought a 59-count indictment and convinced a federal judge that he was so dangerous he had to be jailed without bail. He spent nine months in such restrictive conditions that he was shackled during recreation.

In the field and then in the courtroom, the prosecution of Wen Ho Lee was a final attempt to understand a man whose deepening suspiciousness had taunted the government for nearly 20 years. When they failed to uncover espionage, prosecutors constructed an unusual and risky strategy, seeking to put him in prison for life on charges they had no direct evidence to support. It was a leap, and in the end, it fell short.

Last September, the judge freed Dr. Lee, declaring that his jailing had "embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it." The Justice Department wound up with a public relations disaster and a guilty plea to the crime it had evidence of from the start - a single felony count of mishandling national security information.

Dr. Lee, 61, had always left investigators feeling that he was hiding something. He had a history of deceiving the authorities about security matters and clandestine contact with foreign scientists. Now, agents discovered that he had tried to delete his downloaded files as they closed in on him. After he was kicked out of the bomb-design area of Los Alamos for security violations, he found ways to sneak back in. Investigators also began seeing signs that he might be exploring a relationship with a military research institute in his native Taiwan.

Whatever the evidence of deception, though, the prosecution's most powerful charges unraveled as defense lawyers homed in on gaps in the case. Without proof that Dr. Lee was a spy, prosecutors charged him with intent to injure the United States and help a foreign country. But they were never sure why he had taken the secrets, or which country he might have planned to help with them.

They initially suspected he was a spy for China. Then they toyed with China's nemesis, the regime on Taiwan. Finally, in court last summer, they presented a menu of surprising possibilities that included Australia and Switzerland. And they said they believed his motive for downloading the information was to enhance his job prospects. To the judge who had ordered him jailed, and to Dr. Lee's increasingly vocal supporters, the government's cold, hard case was melting away.

Another blow came from John L. Richter, an esteemed weapons designer who had played a crucial role in beginning the espionage investigation that ensnared Dr. Lee. Testifying in court, Dr. Richter played down the threat of Dr. Lee's crime. Although he later backed away from that assessment, Dr. Richter said he had spoken out in court because he believed Dr. Lee "had suffered enough" and should be set free.

In one sense, prosecutors got what they wanted - the felony plea and an agreement from Dr. Lee to tell all under oath. But, to this day, they remain taunted by what they do not know. The debriefings over the last few months and further investigation have left them with a blur of questions. Unsatisfied with some of his explanations, investigators are still exploring his dealings with Taiwanese and Chinese scientists.

As for the downloading itself, frustrated investigators are left with nothing but Dr. Lee's innocent explanation: He downloaded the information to protect his work and tossed the tapes that are missing in a trash bin behind his office at Los Alamos. They have never been found.

At the F.B.I., a top official voiced the bureau's latest conclusion: "I don't think anyone fully understands Wen Ho Lee."

KEEPING WATCH

Each step of the F.B.I. investigation seemed to fuel old suspicions and cast new doubt.

Day and night throughout 1999, agents sat in cars outside Wen Ho Lee's red ranch house on Barcelona Avenue near Los Alamos, N.M., where suburban development abuts striking mesas. They trailed him everywhere, and he could hardly have appeared more harmless and cordial. He told his neighbor, Jean Marshall, that the agents especially liked it when he went fishing because it gave them a chance to get out of their hot cars. Once, when he had to travel out of town, he changed his schedule to accommodate his watchers.

But as investigators pieced together Dr. Lee's past, their already dim view of him darkened.

Their computer investigation showed that in early 1999, just as agents were pressing him for evidence of espionage, Dr. Lee had been busily trying to delete the downloaded files. On Feb. 10, for example, after failing an F.B.I. polygraph, Dr. Lee deleted 310 files, F.B.I. documents show.

Investigators also discovered that he had continued to sneak into the bomb-design area, X Division, after his access was canceled. In January of 1999, soon after losing his access, he was let in by an unwitting security officer. Other times he simply walked in behind division employees, lawyers knowledgeable about the case said. (In his recent debriefing, Dr. Lee told investigators that he had slipped in through an open door just hours after he was barred from X Division, the lawyers said.)

"Each day we found more information that cast doubt on him," said David V. Kitchen, then head of the F.B.I.'s Albuquerque office. In January, Mr. Kitchen had recommended closing the espionage investigation of Dr. Lee, because he appeared cooperative and had innocent explanations for everything. Since the discovery of the download, everything had begun to look less innocent.

In August 1998, agents ran a sting operation to see if Dr. Lee would bite at the chance to meet with an agent posing as a Chinese intelligence agent. Dr. Lee's reaction appeared ambiguous to investigators.

When the agent called, Dr. Lee said there was a laboratory policy against meeting foreign representatives without approval. However, according to a secret F.B.I. report recently obtained by The New York Times, "Lee indicated that it is all right to talk on the phone since everything Lee has done was in the open." Dr. Lee first agreed to meet the agent, then called back to say he could not. When the agent called back the next day, Dr. Lee agreed to take his beeper number.

"He doesn't take the bait," said one former government official, "but he seems to be feeling him out."

He also seemed to be feeling Taiwan out. In March and April of 1998, according to court testimony, Dr. Lee had spent six weeks in Taiwan as a consultant to the Chung Shan Institute, a government defense complex where American officials say Taiwan has done nuclear weapons research. Dr. Lee's trip was taken with the approval of laboratory officials.

Investigators discovered that while on that trip, Dr. Lee called the Los Alamos computer help desk to find out if he could access his classified computer. He was told he could not, but investigators later found that he had downloaded an unclassified computer code from Los Alamos to his computer in Taiwan.

Those dealings with Taiwan echoed the F.B.I.'s first contact with Dr. Lee in the early 1980's. Dr. Lee had been picked up on a wiretap, offering to help a fellow scientist who was under investigation for spying. In interviews at the time, Dr. Lee admitted to agents that he had improperly passed unclassified but restricted scientific information to Taiwanese officials.

If the investigation of the download was fueling the same old suspicions about Dr. Lee, investigators were getting the same old result.

Agents determined that 9 of 15 computer tapes Dr. Lee had made were missing, but their exhaustive search - they even visited every private storage facility in New Mexico - left them unable to refute Dr. Lee's explanation that he had destroyed them. They spent months searching the Los Alamos computer system, even shutting it down entirely for three weeks, but found no evidence that anyone had gotten into Dr. Lee's computer files. They did discover that Dr. Lee had given his password to his children so they could connect to the Internet and play computer games through his Los Alamos computer while they were at college.

And they had no evidence to counter Dr. Lee's only public explanation - in a "60 Minutes" interview in August 1999 - that he had downloaded and copied the information so he would have backup files for his work.

Investigators began to see hints of another motive. F.B.I. agents traveled to Taiwan and found that in addition to lecturing and consulting there in 1998, he also met with a company to explore job opportunities, federal investigators testified in court.

Agents discovered more evidence of Dr. Lee's job hunting when they searched his house in April 1999 - seven letters to scientific institutes and universities around the world inquiring about job prospects. Dr. Lee wrote them in 1993 and 1994, after he had learned he was on a list of employees to be laid off in the event of a budget crunch.

The downloading that Dr. Lee eventually was charged with occurred during that same period, even though investigators discovered that he had actually begun transferring some material as early as 1988, well before his job was threatened.

Perhaps, investigators thought, the download was an insurance policy. Perhaps, entering his late 50's and contemplating retirement at 60, he figured that the secrets of Los Alamos would make him more marketable.

"We may not be able to show he was a spy," said one F.B.I. official, "but we can show he was not just a wayward scientist."

SECRETS AND SCIENCE

The government had no evidence of espionage. So it fashioned an unusual prosecution strategy based on the idea that Dr. Lee must have intended to injure the United States.

In April 1999, federal prosecutors from Albuquerque went up the mountain to Los Alamos, where scientists gave them what one lawyer called the " `Oh, my God' speech." Having assessed Dr. Lee's security breach, the scientists told prosecutors, "There was nothing more valuable that anyone could take."

Computer forensic investigators re-created Dr. Lee's deleted files and determined that Dr. Lee had moved 806 megabytes of information (the equivalent of papers stacked 134 feet high, they said) that contained the tools for computer-simulated weapons testing, a valuable commodity in an age of nuclear test bans.

The files included computer codes, which he had helped write, that used the information from decades of actual weapons tests to simulate the detonation of bombs. He also downloaded files containing sketches and dimensions of weapons and files giving physical properties of bombs.

Experts would later testify that while the files alone would not allow someone to replicate a weapon, in knowledgeable hands they could advance a nuclear weapons program. And officials had another fear, one they were prohibited for security reasons from voicing publicly: Dr. Lee's files contained information about currently deployed weapons, which could help an enemy defend against them.

The task of translating the science into a criminal case fell to Robert J. Gorence, the first assistant to John Kelly, the United States attorney for New Mexico.

At 41, Mr. Gorence had wide experience as a prosecutor - drug cases on Indian reservations, complicated savings and loan trials, the pursuit of the runaway spy Edward Lee Howard. Intense and aggressive, Mr. Gorence threw himself into the Lee case, spending weeks at Los Alamos with other investigators, interviewing scientists and reading physics texts. Steeped in the details, he could rattle off such obscure facts as the amount of time it takes for an atom bomb to "go critical." (Fifty millionths of a second.)

At one point, Mr. Gorence went to Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, where the government stores films of nuclear weapons tests in a secure vault, chilled to preserve the pictures. Impressed by the films' awful drama, he told colleagues he wanted to show them to a jury to demonstrate the power of the secrets Dr. Lee had compromised.

Even so, evidence of a crime beyond the security breach itself was limited. As Mr. Kitchen, the former F.B.I. official, put it, "Short of espionage, what do we have?"

Mr. Gorence consulted the Atomic Energy Act, which he had read a few years earlier in preparation for the threat of protests at Los Alamos on the 50th anniversary of the Japan bombings. He focused on the only two provisions in American law that allow life sentences for mishandling secrets even without proof of espionage, seemingly a perfect fit for Wen Ho Lee.

No one had ever been prosecuted under those statutes, according to court testimony, and proving the charges, one prosecutor acknowledged, was "hardly a slam dunk." But federal officials all the way up to the attorney general, Janet Reno, signed on to the charges, which accused Dr. Lee of acting with "intent to injure the United States, and with the intent to secure an advantage to a foreign nation."

Prosecutors had no hard evidence that he planned to give away the secrets, but they reasoned that the simple absence of an innocent explanation showed his criminal intent. They emphasized the deliberate nature of the download - they estimated it had taken him 40 hours over 70 days. And they argued that his long experience at Los Alamos and secretive manner showed he knew what he was doing was wrong. In fact, after the download was discovered, he at first denied making the tapes, according to Congressional testimony.

They argued further that his actions injured the United States by denying it exclusive possession of the secrets, and they began lining up Pentagon officers to testify about the potential effect on American military strategy. Proving that Dr. Lee had aided another nation was more difficult, but prosecutors argued that they did not have to prove he had a specific country in mind when downloading the material, only that he eventually intended to help one.

The strength of the prosecution's case, one Justice Department official said, lay in the sheer "depth and scope" of the material. But that was also a major potential pitfall.

Many cases involving classified information are not brought to trial for fear of divulging secrets. In the Lee case, top government officials, including the attorney general, the director of central intelligence and the national security adviser, met at the White House on a Saturday in December 1999 to discuss the risk of prosecution. They decided the case had to go forward, lest Dr. Lee's tapes be passed to a foreign country, since efforts to strike a deal had failed. One letter from Mr. Kelly, the United States attorney, to defense lawyers ended in blunt frustration: "In short, we want you to tell us why he made the tapes!"

If they ended up having to go to trial, the officials decided, they would try to thread a needle on the secrets issue, allowing only summaries of the data on Dr. Lee's files to be used.

Still, as Mr. Kelly conceded in an interview, "no one wanted to go to trial." And bringing powerful charges, another government lawyer said, was partly a strategy to get information from Dr. Lee, and perhaps force a plea.

The indictment, handed up Dec. 10, made no mention of the W-88 or of spying. But in bail hearings, prosecutors presented a dark image of Dr. Lee by sweeping together all they knew about him - from his earliest suspicious contacts with foreign scientists to his attempts to delete his downloaded files.

At the first bail hearing, Stephen M. Younger, the associate director for nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, said the information on the missing tapes could "in the wrong hands, change the global strategic balance."

A magistrate denied bail and two weeks later, after Dr. Lee appealed, prosecutors raised the ante before Judge James A. Parker of Federal District Court. "This court, I believe, faces a you-bet-your-country decision," Paul Robinson, president of the Sandia National Laboratories, told the judge.

The judge indicated he was leaning toward a restrictive form of house arrest, but in a secret hearing the prosecution warned of dire circumstances.

Dr. Lee could be "snatched and taken out of the country" by a hostile element looking for the missing tapes, Mr. Kelly said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Robert Messemer, the F.B.I. agent brought in as the lead investigator because of his background in espionage cases and proficiency in Chinese, was more pointed.

"We anticipate a marked increase in hostile intelligence service activities both here in New Mexico and throughout the United States in an effort to locate those tapes," he said. "Our surveillance personnel do not carry firearms, and they will be placed in harm's way if you require us to maintain this impossible task of protecting Dr. Lee."

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Jailed for nine months, Dr. Lee found release in music, literature and science.

Wen Ho Lee was held in solitary confinement for nine months at the Santa Fe County Detention Facility. He was kept in his cell 23 hours a day. A small light burned constantly so guards could watch him at all hours. He was allowed to see his family just one hour a week, and they had to speak English - not Mandarin, which they speak at home - so the F.B.I. could listen. And like other prisoners in solitary confinement, he was shackled whenever he left his cell, even while exercising or meeting with his lawyers.

Early last January, when Dr. Lee's lawyers demanded that his conditions be eased, prosecutors responded that Ms. Reno had personally approved them.

"These special administrative measures were requested for one reason and one reason only: to restrict Dr. Lee's ability to pass information through intermediaries that could have the devastating consequence of disseminating the nuclear secrets he had stolen from Los Alamos," Ms. Reno later told a Senate hearing.

Eventually, the government loosened its restrictions. Officials arranged for a Mandarin-speaking agent so Dr. Lee could talk to his family in his native language. They gave him a radio and removed his chains during exercise.

But if the government hoped Dr. Lee would crack, he displayed hardly a fissure.

Dr. Lee is a meticulous man, obsessively neat and ordered. In a recent picture-taking session at his home, Dr. Lee led a visitor to a small room that his daughter, Alberta, called "his room." It was impeccably clean and sparsely furnished - a bed, a desk with a few books, an amplifier, turntable and speakers and Dr. Lee's collection of classical and opera records, stacked neatly on shelves. His daughter said he would stay there for hours, listening to music. In the garage, Dr. Lee's used but clean gardening tools were laid neatly on a shelf. Later, cooking dinner, he moved with methodical precision, chopping, arranging food in piles and cleaning the cooking area before sitting down to eat with guests.

In prison, he re-created his world. He listened to classical music on the radio. He read novels. He wrote large parts of a mathematics textbook. A friend, Cecilia Chang, recalls him saying that while physically he was in prison for nine months, "spiritually, I lived with my music and my literature and my science."

The government's case had created a storm, but, once again, the man at the center seemed curiously unchanged. When a jail monitor visited him, a federal official later told Congress, Dr. Lee said that, other than his freedom, his only wish was for "additional fruit at the evening meal."

FIGHTING BACK

The defense knew it had to fight two battles: one in court, the other in the public arena.

The defense lawyers were not as serene as their client. Their man was in prison. The public seemed convinced he was a spy for China. And the government was throwing heavy resources at the case.

The lead lawyer was Mark Holscher, then 36, a white-collar criminal specialist at the Los Angeles law firm of O'Melveny & Myers. A former federal prosecutor, he had made his reputation, in part, prosecuting Heidi Fleiss, known as the Hollywood Madam. Mr. Holscher agreed to take the Lee case pro bono after being found by Dr. Lee's daughter.

The second lawyer, John D. Cline, had handled the classified material issues for Oliver North's defense in the Iran-Contra prosecution. As time wore on, and donations to the defense increased, more lawyers were added.

They saw two battles, Mr. Holscher said, "one in the court and the other in the public at large." They fought on both fronts.

The government provided the defense with a secure room on the top floor of the imposing federal courthouse in Albuquerque where they could prepare their case and meet with their client under the eye of a security camera.

The first crack in the prosecution appeared as they sifted through testimony from the December bail hearing. A Los Alamos computer expert had testified that the downloaded files were classified under a category called PARD, "protect as restricted data" - a rule for handling computer- generated material that includes some secrets in a sea of more ordinary information.

Defense lawyers recognized that meant that the files themselves were not classified "top secret" or "secret." It was a perfect opportunity to strike at the heart of the government's claim that the files represented the nation's "crown jewels." Prosecutors acknowledge that they had not been fully aware of the PARD issue. While there was still little question Dr. Lee had downloaded important secrets, they knew the defense would press the issue with a jury.

The defense found its next opening by asking prosecutors one simple question: Which country did they expect to argue Dr. Lee was intending to aid? Defense attorneys expected the answer to reveal the murky center of the government's most powerful allegations, but even they were surprised by the results.

Mr. Gorence resisted answering, arguing that the government was under no obligation to say. But by the spring of 1999, Mr. Gorence was no longer the lead prosecutor on the case. Mr. Kelly had left his post to run for Congress. Officials in Washington not only declined to appoint Mr. Gorence as United States attorney but also, without any public explanation, brought in a new prosecutor.

He was George A. Stamboulidis, a a federal prosecutor on Long Island who had long experience with organized crime and other complex cases. Fresh on the Lee case, he made his first substantive move.

Under orders from Judge Parker, Mr. Stamboulidis answered the defense's question. He filed a document listing Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan - the countries on the job search letters found in Dr. Lee's house. Mr. Stamboulidis also threw in China.

Defense lawyers had believed that the government's suspicions of Dr. Lee as a spy for China had waned. Indeed, under Mr. Gorence, the government was building a case that Dr. Lee might have been aiding Taiwan. But Australia and Switzerland?

"These are not countries which anyone other than the prosecutors have identified as presenting any kind of nuclear threat to the United States," Mr. Holscher said, snickering.

Judge Parker had a more sober, but equally damaging, view. Writing later in a decision releasing Dr. Lee, he said, "Enhancing one's resume is less sinister than the treacherous motive the government, at least by implication, ascribed to Dr. Lee at the end of last year."

Defense lawyers began another assault in July, announcing in a secret hearing that they intended to bring a nuclear bomb to court. Not a real bomb, but something just as audacious - an actual bomb blueprint.

One of the government's constant refrains had been that Dr. Lee had stolen "electronic blueprints" for nuclear weapons. Therefore, the defense argued, it had the right to rebut that by introducing a real blueprint. The defense knew the government would resist, and hoped that might persuade the judge to drop the charges on fair-trial grounds.

This was a preview of the defense's strategy on secrets. Using the classified material, Mr. Cline said at the closed hearing, would be necessary for proving four central defense arguments: that most of the downloaded material was already in the public domain; that some of the computer codes contained flaws that made them less useful; that the codes were related to Dr. Lee's work; and that they were difficult to use without user manuals, which were not on the tapes.

The case ended before Judge Parker could decide whether to allow the use of the bomb blueprints or other secrets at a trial. But based on early rulings that some secrets might be relevant to the defense, Ms. Reno testified later, prosecutors expected to be forced to cross "an exposure threshold we had already determined posed an unacceptable risk."

QUESTIONS OF FAIRNESS

Accusations of racial profiling and overzealous prosecution helped turn the case in Dr. Lee's favor.

As much as anything, what ultimately undid the prosecution were questions of fairness. The image of the diminutive Wen Ho Lee - still untried, not even charged with espionage - chained in a cocoon of silence, transformed him in the public eye from villain to victim.

Asian-American groups, energized by the case, charged that Dr. Lee was a victim of racial profiling, unfairly singled out for prosecution. Scientific and civil rights groups joined in. The clearest, loudest voice belonged to Alberta Lee, a 26-year-old technical writer who gave speech after speech hammering away at a message defense lawyers were arguing in court.

A defense motion claiming selective prosecution contrasted Dr. Lee's treatment with that of John M. Deutch, the former director of central intelligence, whom the Justice Department initially declined to prosecute for keeping national security secrets on his home computer. (The department eventually opened an investigation, but Mr. Deutch was among those pardoned by Bill Clinton on his last day as president.)

Defense lawyers made sure their legal papers got to reporters. One document that particularly resonated was a declaration from Robert Vrooman, former head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, stating that a major reason investigators initially suspected Dr. Lee had spied for China was because he was ethnic Chinese.

Indeed, Dr. Lee's race was one strand of investigators' suspicion. In an affidavit seeking permission to search Dr. Lee's house in April 1999, an F.B.I. agent stated that Chinese "intelligence operations virtually always target overseas ethnic Chinese with access to intelligence information."

But Mr. Vrooman knew there was more to investigators' suspicions. Mr. Vrooman himself had raised concerns about Dr. Lee's contacts with Chinese scientists in the late 1980's and had identified Dr. Lee to Energy Department investigators as a potential suspect in the W-88 case. Beyond that, Mr. Vrooman was one of three laboratory officials reprimanded for the handling of the Lee case, and his critics said that gave him a motive to criticize the investigation.

Even so, supporters of Dr. Lee saw Mr. Vrooman's declaration as further evidence of overzealous prosecution. Their view was bolstered at a new bail hearing in August, ordered by Judge Parker.

In testimony, Mr. Messemer, the lead F.B.I. agent, acknowledged having misstated important evidence against Dr. Lee. For example, Mr. Messemer had testified in December 1999 that Dr. Lee had lied by asking a colleague to borrow his computer to download a resume. In fact, Dr. Lee was downloading nuclear secrets, and that testimony seemed to show Dr. Lee's deception - an element in proving the intent charges.

But defense lawyers discovered that the colleague, in interviews with the F.B.I., had never said Dr. Lee told him he was downloading a resume. Mr. Messemer told the judge he had made "an honest error," and never intended "to mislead you or anyone in this court or any court."

Next he acknowledged that after further investigation, there was no evidence that the job-search letters found in Dr. Lee's house had been sent. That undercut the prosecution's image of Dr. Lee feverishly job-hunting.

If Dr. Lee needed one more nudge to turn the case in his favor, it was delivered by John L. Richter. A plain-talking Texan and veteran bomb designer, Dr. Richter was making his second pivotal appearance in the Lee case.

In 1995, he was the first to suggest that the Chinese might have significant information about the W-88 warhead. Even though he eventually backed off that opinion, it helped start the investigation that led to the discovery of Dr. Lee's download and his jailing.

Now, asked about the danger of Dr. Lee's tapes falling into enemy hands, Dr. Richter responded: "I think that keeping him locked up the way he is is much more injurious to the reputation of the United States. And that is one reason that I am here."

Without having reviewed the downloaded information, he minimized its importance, saying "99 percent of it was unclassified in the open literature."

In a subsequent interview and Congressional testimony, Dr. Richter said his "99 percent" statement referred only to the basic physics underlying the computer codes. But he said other elements of the files did hold important secrets.

Dr. Richter had seen the testimony of laboratory officials that helped jail Dr. Lee as hyperbole. Having played a role in starting the Lee affair, he now thought it was time to end it.

"If I had any influence in getting him out," he said recently, "I figured that's a payback."

APOLOGY FROM THE BENCH

After pleading guilty to a single charge, Dr. Lee walked free. The judge said he had been 'induced' to jail Dr. Lee unfairly.

On Aug. 24, 2000, Judge Parker issued a brief order saying he had decided to release Dr. Lee under stringent conditions.

Just days before, Mr. Stamboulidis had warned that the risk of freeing Dr. Lee was "of a caliber where hundreds of millions of people could be killed." But after the judge's order, prosecutors began trying to cut a plea deal. By early September, they had one.

Dr. Lee agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of illegally gathering and retaining national security data. He did not admit to intending to harm the United States or aid a foreign country. He agreed to a sentence of time served, with no probation, and to undergo 60 hours of debriefing, under oath, by the government.

Dr. Lee had one last surprise before entering the guilty plea. Asked for the first time by the government, he acknowledged having made copies of the tapes. It made prosecutors suspicious all over again, but they went ahead.

On Wednesday, Sept. 13, Dr. Lee stood in court and admitted his guilt. But the drama of the day was Judge Parker's soliloquy.

"What I believe remains unanswered," he said, "is the question, What was the government's motive in insisting on your being jailed pretrial under extraordinarily onerous conditions of confinement until today, when the executive branch agrees that you may be set free essentially unrestricted? This makes no sense to me.

"A corollary question, I guess, is, Why were you charged with the many Atomic Energy Act counts for which the penalty is life imprisonment, all of which the executive branch has now moved to dismiss and which I just dismissed?"

The judge blamed Clinton administration decision makers, saying, "I was induced" to jail Dr. Lee before his trial. But it had become clear that "it was not necessary."

He ended, "I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner you were held in custody by the executive branch."

EPILOGUE

Even now, the case is not quite over. Agents continue to look at some of Dr. Lee's activities, and the W-88 mystery remains unsolved.

The government's debriefing of Dr. Lee ended late last year. He acknowledged making as many as a dozen trips to Taiwan over the last two decades - more than officials previously knew about - although it remains unclear how many were for purely personal reasons.

According to people knowledgeable about the case, investigators are looking at aspects of two of those trips, taken in 1998 with full knowledge of laboratory officials. One was his six-week visit to the Chung Shan military institute, where he received a consulting fee of about $5,000; the second was paid for by a private company in Taiwan. Investigators are also interested in small family accounts in Taiwanese and Canadian banks.

And they are continuing to examine Dr. Lee's relationships with Chinese scientists, including a dinner he held for one scientist where officials say they have information that a computer code might have been discussed.

Mr. Holscher, Dr. Lee's lawyer, called any suggestion of wrongdoing false, adding, "even more disappointing is that anonymous government officials risk violating federal criminal law by talking about the investigation."

Under the plea agreement, prosecutors have the option of submitting Dr. Lee to another lie detector test.

As for the missing computer tapes, they were not found in a thorough search of the Los Alamos landfill.

Dr. Lee is getting a curtain call. He recently agreed to tell his story. This time it will not be under oath. He has a contract for a book and mini-series.

Notra Trulock, who began the W-88 investigation as the intelligence director at the Energy Department, is now the spokesman for the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative research group in Washington. He has a contract for a book that he is thinking of calling "Kindred Spirit: The Inside Story of the Chinese Espionage Scandal."

After Dr. Lee's release, President Bill Clinton rebuked his own Justice Department, saying, "I always had reservations about the claims that were made denying him bail." He added, "The whole thing was quite troubling to me."

The W-88 investigation itself is stalled. Just as the downloading case was gathering steam in the summer of 1999, the F.B.I. was coming to grips with the flaws of its initial inquiry.

After interviewing scientists who had conducted an analysis for the Energy Department in 1995, F.B.I. officials determined that many of them had disagreed with the conclusion that China, using stolen secrets, had built a weapon like the W-88.

At the same time, a White House panel pointed out that the stolen information about the W-88 could have come not just from Los Alamos but from numerous energy and defense installations as well as private contractors. And intelligence experts say they have no evidence that China has actually deployed any long-range weapons that incorporate the lost secrets, though they believe a new generation of weapons may do so by 2015.

In September 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno and Louis J. Freeh, the F.B.I. director, ordered federal agents to broaden their spy investigation. But the new trail proved so cold and so wide open that investigators made little headway. "You're looking at potentially thousands of points of compromise," a senior federal official said, "so it becomes an undoable problem."

Neil J. Gallagher, the bureau's national security chief, said in a recent interview that if the bureau had known in the beginning what it eventually learned, it would not have been so quick to focus on Wen Ho Lee. He said he would have labeled the investigation the "potential" compromise of the W- 88.

The chief suspect, he said, "would have been unknown."

---

Government may seek more questioning of scientist

02/05/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-05-wenholee.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI and federal prosecutors are weighing whether to seek further questioning of former Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee because of disclosures he made during talks in November and December, according to officials familiar with the case.

No decision has been made whether to ask a federal judge for additional formal questioning, one official said, requesting anonymity.

FBI agents who questioned Lee until Dec. 12 as part of his agreement to plead guilty to one count of mishandling nuclear weapons secrets did not receive a verifiable account of what he did with portable computer tapes onto which he downloaded the secrets, officials said.

Lee said he threw them into a Dumpster at the New Mexico weapons laboratory. FBI dug up sections of a nearby landfill that received Los Alamos trash around the dates he said he disposed of the tapes. They found tapes, but they were not the ones Lee made, according to previous accounts by federal law enforcement officials.

In addition, during the questioning Lee disclosed additional dinner meetings he had with Chinese and Taiwanese nuclear weapons scientists, beyond those already known to investigators, officials said. They said he also acknowledged he has a small bank account in his native Taiwan, into which he put part of a $5,000 fee he received in 1998 from a Taiwan military research center suspected of helping the island's government try to develop nuclear weapons, the officials said.

Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen for more than 25 years, made trips to China at the urging of Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1980s.

Attorneys for Lee expressed concern over news leaks about the scientist's disclosures during questioning, which appeared first in The Washington Post.

Lee pleaded guilty to the single felony count Sept. 13 and agreed to be interrogated under oath for 60 days.

In exchange, the government agreed to drop 58 other counts of downloading restricted data against Lee and to limit future contacts, beyond the 60-day debriefing, to informal questioning. The agreement provides for Lee to make himself available for informal follow-up inquiries until Sept. 13 but not for interrogations under oath.

Lee, who was not accused of espionage, was jailed nine months before the plea bargain, which set him free.

"Dr. Lee has cooperated with the government, and the government has not notified us of any of the matters that have apparently been leaked to the press," defense attorney Mark Holscher said Sunday in Los Angeles.

"There's been a disturbing pattern of anonymous leaks in this case from the outset, almost all of which have been proven to be false," Holscher said.

Such leaks gave impetus to a civil lawsuit filed last year by Lee, 61, and his wife, alleging an invasion of their privacy. The lawsuit, filed by attorney Brian Sun, is pending in Washington, D.C.

Sun said Sunday in California that any new leaks will not be overlooked in the case against the government. "We're going to definitely pursue that," he said.

The lawsuit names the Departments of Justice and Energy as defendants, saying federal officials leaked personal - and sometimes false - information about Lee to smear him as a spy for China.

"We remain troubled," Sun said, "that the government is seemingly continuing its pattern of selected, fragmented leaks, which are highly susceptible to speculative inferences and unfounded conjecture.

"Dr. Lee will continue to pursue vigorously his Privacy Act lawsuit, which is expressly designed to make accountable those in the government who have engaged in this unlawful conduct, which, I might add, appears to be leaks of classified information," Sun said.

"It appears that what was leaked to The Washington Past was information that was classified," he said. "It's the ultimate irony."

-------- us nuc politics

Reaganism II?

Monday, February 5, 2001; Page A19
Washington Post
By Jackson Diehl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26499-2001Feb4?language=printer

For eight years critics accused the Clinton administration of failing to fashion a coherent post-Cold War foreign policy. Within a few months, we may find that George W. Bush has come up with a seemingly unlikely response: restoring the Reagan era.

Ronald Reagan spent much of his first term persuading a reluctant Europe to accept the deployment of U.S. medium-range Pershing missiles while fending off Soviet efforts to divide the NATO alliance. Bush intends to sell the Europeans on missile defense and faces a similar divide-and-conquer strategy by Vladimir Putin's Russia. Reagan warred with Democrats in Congress over whether to train and fund El Salvador's army in its battle with Marxist guerrillas; Bush may soon be embroiled in a similar debate over Colombia. Reagan gambled on backing unruly bands of "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan and Nicaragua; Bush may try something similar in Iraq.

Although the Cold War is still over, there is more than coincidence here. Since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, two U.S. administrations have been consumed with managing the fallout of the collapse of communism and the subsequent spread of globalization. The first Bush administration and then Clinton's reeled from crisis to crisis, from German reunification to the Gulf War to wars in the Balkans, seeking mainly to shape the collapse of one world order and the rise of another.

This Bush administration, in contrast, comes to power in a more settled world and brings an agenda to change it that is both concrete and ambitious. Like Reagan, Bush hopes to initiate a fundamental shift in the balance of global security. He believes that America can best maintain its alliances by forcefully leading them. And, like Reagan, he may be prepared to reject mere containment of America's enemies in favor of more aggressive measures.

Reagan's initiatives -- in deploying missiles, supporting democracy in El Salvador and backing freedom movements -- ultimately proved mostly successful. Bush, too, could correct much that has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy in the past decade by taking the initiative -- and some of his top aides, who served in the Reagan administration, are drawing comparisons with the battles of the 1980s. Still, they may find the going harder this time around.

Take the deployment of new strategic weapons in Europe. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Colin Powell fondly recalled "a heck of a hullabaloo" when the Reagan administration moved to deploy Pershing II missiles in West Germany. "Our European allies at that time were going nuts," he said. "And it took quite a selling story. But lo and behold, we were able to do it by convincing our friends that this made sense."

Lesson: Although the Europeans may object to U.S. efforts to introduce such a weapons system, they ultimately will go along if Washington insists on its initiative. But will it work for Bush and missile defense? "The situation is completely different," says a well-placed European parliamentarian, who is generally supportive of the new U.S. administration. Reagan's missile deployment, he points out, always was backed by European governments; the resistance came from public opinion. On missile defense, Bush will begin with European governments that are deeply skeptical of his initiative -- and that are considerably more likely to be influenced by appeals from Moscow than they were in 1983.

Bush in the end will prevail on missile defense, the European legislator predicted. But it may take more work and more concessions, both to West European leaders and maybe to Moscow.

Colombia poses an analagous political problem, this time at home. Until now, a fragile bipartisan alliance in Congress has backed the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia initiative, which combines equipment and training for the army with development aid, all nominally in pursuit of the aim of combating drug trafficking. But the distinction between Colombia's fight against traffickers and its war with guerrilla movements is increasingly understood to be a fiction. And as in El Salvador, the army is both too weak to defeat the insurgents and too unprofessional to control its own human rights abuses or those by right-wing militias.

Now that a Republican president is responsible for Colombia policy, the same Democrats who opposed Reagan in Central America may defect, and "we will replay the same debate we had in El Salvador," says Bernard Aronson, a former assistant secretary of State for Latin America.

The Colombia debate shows that many in Washington have failed to absorb one of El Salvador's central lessons: The United States ultimately succeeded in establishing both peace and democracy by sticking to its support for the army -- with all its weaknesses -- while pushing for negotiations once the guerrillas accepted that military victory was impossible. Bush administration officials are suggesting that they, too, will match support for the Colombian army with encouragement of peace talks. But when the nominal threat is cocaine, as opposed to the spread of an evil empire, will the Bush administration be able to match Reagan's ability to win the debate in Congress?

As in the case of missile defense, the challenge the administration faces is winning its arguments without the Cold War's cohesive power. To do that, Bush will need every bit of the charm and luck of the last American president who tried to change his world.

The writer is a deputy editor of the editorial page.


-------- MILITARY

-------- colombia

Futurist Community Blooms in Least Likely Location

In The News.....
http://savesite.net/gvnr/articles/020101_1.html

COLUMBIA - You've head about the drug trade, the guerilla wars & the civil strife. What you haven't heard about are the many extraordinary efforts being made by ordinary Columbians to create model communities of the future. Take "Gaviotas" for example.

----

Thousands reject guerrilla enclave

February 5, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200125221919.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia - Thousands of Colombians rejected the creation of a second guerrilla stronghold during a protest yesterday in what would be the main town inside the enclave in northern Colombia.

The protest came as the government was close to granting a 1,860-square-mile territory to the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN. The guerrilla army has demanded the demilitarized zone as an exchange for peace talks with the government.

During the peaceful demonstration yesterday, some 12,000 people filled the streets of San Pablo to oppose the plan.

-------- space

U.S. Intends to Put Anti-Missile Shield Around the World

Monday, February 5, 2001
International Herald Tribune
by Joseph Fitchett,
http://www.iht.com/articles/9633.htm

MUNICH -- The Bush administration will move ahead with a controversial missile defense system, one that is even more ambitious and far reaching than the proposal put on hold by Bill Clinton in the last year of his presidency.

The confirmation of the Bush administration's determination - its first major initiative on international security - was delivered by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a weekend conference on security in Munich.

From Mr. Rumsfeld's terse description, the administration intends to create something amounting to a global defense system - probably a mobile one - that could protect the United States as well as American armed forces in such distant regions as South Korea or the Gulf.

European governments, which in the past have echoed Russia and China in objecting to U.S. missile defense, will seek urgent consultations with Washington now that the plan seems bound to go ahead, allied officials said after hearing about the Bush team's intentions.

Similarly, Mr. Rumsfeld implied, the interceptor missiles could be deployed in Europe or in Asia to protect allied nations that otherwise would have no defense against even one or two ballistic missiles - from the Middle East or North Korea, for example. By expanding the system's coverage in this way, the administration of President George W. Bush clearly hopes to curb complaints from allies that missile defense is an umbrella for the United States that would be liable to make Americans seek security in isolationism.

Mr. Rumsfeld, speaking at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, an annual meeting attended by a score of defense ministers and 200 other specialists, said Saturday, "The United States intends to develop and deploy a missile defense designed to defend our people and our forces against a limited missile attack and is prepared to assist friends and allies threatened by missile attack to deploy such defenses."

The Clinton administration's plan had been called "national missile defense," but Mr. Rumsfeld pointedly did not use the word "national" when describing the Bush team's approach. He did not bring up any circumstances or conditions that might throw doubt over U.S. determination to proceed with the program. Previous programs have had to meet such criteria as the performance of technology, costs and arms control treaties signed with Moscow.

Underlining the new approach in Washington, Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president last year, said at the conference that U.S. missile defense was "not a question of whether, only when and how."

Russia and China, which have threatened to build more weapons if the United States adopts missile defenses, were not mentioned by Mr. Rumsfeld in his speech. But the defense secretary said afterward said that Moscow and Beijing did not need to worry about a system that would be designed to handle "handfuls" of incoming missiles, not the full arsenal of a major nuclear power.

Still - "limited" in the sense of being designed to intercept a few missiles launched by a so-called rogue state, by terrorists or by accident - the proposed U.S. system would extend far the beyond the previous "national missile defense," one that would have been designed to cover part of the continental United States.

For the moment, the United States does not have any proven technology to protect even limited parts of U.S. territory against incoming warheads, especially a strategic ballistic missile traveling at supersonic speed. In tests last year, failures led to the Clinton administration's decision to shelve its program for a national system centered on new radars and interceptor missiles in Alaska and Europe.

But the Bush administration, U.S. officials have said, will authorize a research program that examines a much wider range of technologies, including sensors in space - an element banned by an arm control treaty that the Clinton administration was reluctant to breach.

It is unclear whether Washington will press ahead with the old program while perhaps seeking to mesh it with more advanced systems. One new idea involves trying to spot a missile at launching, perhaps early enough to destroy it in the boost phase, when the missile provides a relatively easy target.

The current program against long range missiles might also be meshed with so-called tactical anti-missile systems that are designed to intercept short-range nuclear missiles.

These systems can be operated from warships, so they offer rapid mobility in a crisis and could help neutralize Scud type missiles, like those of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. All of these questions - the mix of technologies, the political impact for the allies of a shift in Western nuclear strategy, the reactions of Russia and China and the potential industrial opportunities for allied countries to participate - will now be broached in U.S. consultations with European governments in the coming weeks, officials said, once Mr. Bush installs more top appointees in the Pentagon and the State Department.

Mr. Rumsfeld, the first Bush cabinet member to visit Europe, encouraged the allies to seek ways to benefit from the U.S. program to tighten Western solidarity and increase their own protection against missile threats across the Mediterranean.

"We will consult with you," the defense secretary said. The allies, Mr. Rumsfeld added, ought to agree that European nations "share similar threats" to the ones alarming the United States. But he offered no guarantee that Washington would refrain from proceeding with missile defense unilaterally if the allies refused to join in.

European leaders have so far largely shunned domestic debate about missile defense because they felt that the program had only half-hearted support from the Clinton administration. The center-left governments in Britain, France and Germany worry that missile defense will lead to new tensions with Moscow and put fresh pressure on military budgets that are already strained.

European leaders' hopes that the missile defense issue might go away if it was ignored long enough seem to have evaporated after the exchanges in Munich, British and French officials said.

The German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, said, "We Europeans place great value on frequent exchanges with the American administration on plans for missile defense."

Sounding as if he anticipated trouble from arms control advocates among his Social Democratic Party and its coalition ally, the Greens, Mr. Schroeder called for German debate on missile defense "that takes into account the entire width and breadth of German American relations and does not make the mistake of concentrating on this question alone."

Russian Warns of Arms Race

A senior Russian security official said Sunday that plans by the Bush administration to deploy an anti-missile system would undermine world stability and lead to a new arms race in outer space, Reuters reported from Munich.

"The destruction of the ABM Treaty will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race, including one in outer space," the official, Sergei Ivanov, secretary of Russia's security council, said at the conference on security.

Military analysts say the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty between Washington and Moscow would be breached by the new U.S. system if it were deployed.

Mr. Ivanov offered talks on deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons if the Bush administration abandoned its plans for missile defense. He added: "Restraining the so-called rogue nations - to use the American terminology - may be carried out more effectively from the point of view of both expense and consequences by means of a common political effort. The situation in North Korea is the obvious example because the situation a year ago seemed much worse than today."

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

Bush Warning on Military Spending Challenges Pentagon

February 5, 2001
New York Times
By JAMES DAO and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/05/politics/05PENT.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 - With his vow to keep Pentagon spending lean in the coming year, President Bush issued a stern and unexpected challenge to members of Congress and the military who believe that America's armed forces need a rapid and large infusion of money if the nation is to remain a global superpower.

For months, an array of influential politicians and top Pentagon officials have argued that the military must invest tens of billions of additional dollars each year to replace aging fighter planes, warships and helicopters.

But Mr. Bush splashed skepticism on their demands last week by warning that he would not let modernization dollars flow until Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld finished a sweeping review of the Pentagon's cold war strategies, a painstaking process that could sharply revise accepted wisdom about the military's needs.

In doing so, Mr. Bush clearly showed that he was not prepared to accept on face value the frequently voiced arguments in Congress and in the Pentagon that the United States must increase military spending $50 billion to $100 billion each year to reverse a dangerous decline in its military power.

Mr. Rumsfeld and his skeletal staff have barely begun their review, and it is far from clear how extensive it will be. But Mr. Bush's slowdown orders have already forced military commanders to begin revising optimistic budget proposals downward. Rather than pushing for the sky, they are now thinking about delaying equipment purchases and scaling back wish lists they had prepared in anticipation of lavish new spending, officials said.

Those Pentagon officials have also stopped circulating position papers on Capitol Hill that had outlined $8 billion or more in additional spending they claimed to need for just the current year. It appears likely, however, that to pay for rising health care and fuel costs in the military, Congress will approve a smaller adjustment in this year's Pentagon budget.

Although Mr. Bush did not rule out eventual increases, his approach sharply contrasts with that of President Ronald Reagan. In his first months in office two decades ago, Mr. Reagan pushed through immediate increases in the Pentagon budget, including what ultimately became the largest single-year increase in military spending since the Vietnam War, 12 percent.

Mr. Bush told Congressional Republicans in Williamsburg, Va., on Friday, "It's incumbent upon those of us in the executive branch - Secretary Rumsfeld and our policy team - to present to you a blueprint about what the military ought to look like and what the priorities ought to be."

"You may like it, you may not like it," Mr. Bush added, "but good appropriations will really only occur if there is a strategic vision."

Mr. Bush's plan is all the more surprising because in last year's campaign he repeatedly accused the Clinton administration of allowing a serious erosion in military readiness and morale. In the campaign, however, he pledged only a modest $4.5 billion a year increase in military spending, of which $1 billion would be for an immediate pay increase. Aides have said he is still committed to new spending for pay and military housing.

Nevertheless, his remarks last week stunned and dismayed people in Congress and the military industry who had anticipated a post-inauguration flow of cash into the Pentagon's coffers.

"I was surprised," said Eric D. Newsom, an assistant secretary of state under President Bill Clinton and now vice president for national security affairs with the United States Chamber of Commerce. "I can certainly understand that they would want to be careful and study the new budget they have been given," Mr. Newsom said. "But I'm a little disappointed in that I think the need for more defense spending is so apparent."

In appearing to make military spending a lower priority than tax- cutting and education, Mr. Bush may risk angering conservatives and veterans groups that supported his election, some Republicans say. But Mr. Bush has also clearly left the door open to appeasing those core Republicans by sharply increasing the Pentagon budget before the 2004 election.

Too Little for Too Much

For all the debate over the size of the Pentagon budget, there is broad agreement among military experts that it is not large enough to meet the demands placed on the armed forces, from patrolling the skies over Iraq to plying the waters of the South China Sea.

To bring the two into line, Mr. Bush could simply spend more money, or he could revise strategic policy to drastically change the shape, size and budgets of the armed forces.

But doing that would almost certainly involve the kinds of politically difficult decisions that Congress and the Pentagon have tended to resist, from canceling weapons programs to closing bases to reducing commitments overseas to restructuring the services themselves.

"If you want to execute the current defense program, you have to put more money into it," said Andrew F. Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a private research group that studies military issues. "But that begs the question of whether we are investing in the right strategies."

Mr. Krepinevich's group says that to meet its current mission, the Pentagon needs to increase military spending by $10 billion a year in the short term, rising to $40 billion or more toward the end of the decade. But his projections are on the low end of the scale, with some experts contending that the Pentagon needs an additional $100 billion or more each year starting now.

In outlining the problem in a speech at the National Press Club here in December, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton of the Army, advocated raising spending by $30 billion to $40 billion a year on new weapons and equipment alone. The Pentagon already spends more than $60 billion annually on acquiring equipment.

General Shelton's proposal would mean a 10 percent or greater increase in today's $309 billion Pentagon budget, without accounting for increases in pay, fuel costs, health care benefits and other routine expenses that inexorably drive up military spending every year.

And all those proposals for additional military spending do not include the estimated $60 billion or more for building a national missile defense system, which Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have made a top priority. This year the Pentagon is spending just $2.8 billion on developing that missile shield.

Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, offered a typical assessment of the problem in a recent interview. "All the programs are coming due: shipbuilding, health care, aircraft, maintenance," he said. "I don't know where you come out at. But it's a pretty high figure."

Buying New, or Fixing Old

Few programs better exemplify the problems of modernization than the Air Force's F-22 fighter plane. With its supersonic cruising speed and stealthy design, the F-22 is intended to replace the fleet of F-15 fighters, which have an average age of about 15 years and are rapidly approaching retirement.

But the F-22 is so expensive - by some estimates $180 million a plane - that the Air Force cannot afford enough of them to replace all of its F- 15's. And that means older fighters will be kept in service longer, increasing costs for maintenance and spare parts. The F-22's steep price will also reduce the money available for other important aircraft, like midair refueling and reconnaissance planes.

Similar problems confront the other services.

Perennial shortfalls of $1 billion or more in the Navy's shipbuilding account have reduced annual ship purchases to about six a year from the Navy's goal of nine, at which rate the fleet will shrink in the coming decades to about 200 ships from its current 316.

The Marines want to replace their Vietnam-era helicopters with tilt-rotor V-22 Ospreys, a $30 billion program that has been plagued by crashes and charges of corruption. And the Army wants to build 1,213 Comanche helicopters at $39 billion. Yet both services recently reported not having enough money this year for basic things like base maintenance, spare parts and salary bonuses.

And in one of the biggest programs of all, the Pentagon has proposed spending $200 billion to buy 3,000 Joint Strike Fighter planes to be used by all the services, though it is not clear that all the services really want the planes.

Even before the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the military had begun to shrink from its cold war highs under President Reagan. The Department of Defense budget peaked in 1985 at $436 billion, measured in today's dollars, compared with $296 billion this year (excluding $13 billion that the Department of Energy spends on maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons).

Through the early 1990's, military spending fell steadily as the Army cut its combat divisions to 10 from 18, the Air Force went from 22 fighter wings to 12, and the Navy from nearly 600 ships to a little more than 300 today. By 1996, spending on procurement, as measured in current dollars, had fallen to the lowest level since the beginning of the Korean War.

Mission Improbable

After years of seeing "peace dividends" control spending and help balance the federal budget, senior commanders began to warn in 1998 that the current force could not sustain itself and its missions without significant increases.

The question is, for what?

Since 1991, when Vice President Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the nation's military strategy has more or less remained the same. It requires the armed services to be prepared to fight and win two major wars in separate regions at nearly the same time - against, say, North Korea and Iraq.

Military officials say that requirement has become increasingly onerous as American forces have been committed to an array of other missions - from patrolling so-called no- flight zones in Iraq, which President Bush's father first ordered, to the peacekeeping missions that President Clinton ordered in Bosnia and Kosovo.

At the same time, they say, those other missions have increased the strain on today's forces, which do not have the time, money or equipment to do all that is asked of them.

In his campaign, Mr. Bush suggested that he would withdraw United States troops from the Balkans, though that would provide minuscule savings compared with what the chiefs are asking for. And it would do nothing to address the question of how to modernize the force.

Some experts inside and outside the Pentagon say that Mr. Bush could solve the Pentagon's modernization problem by simply revising the nation's military strategy.

Neither Iraq nor North Korea has a military as powerful as both countries did a decade ago, Iraq because of the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and North Korea because of a decaying economy. And yet the Pentagon still plans as if it would have to dispatch a force nearly as large as the 700,000 American troops it sent to repel Iraq's invasion of Kuwait a decade ago.

Armed With Assumptions

Altering the core assumptions behind the strategy even slightly could mean the armed services would need to equip fewer forces with less equipment. In a new book called "Holding the Line" (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press), seven military experts argue that the Pentagon's budget could even decline slightly in the years ahead by a restructuring of the forces and their missions; for instance, the elimination of the Navy's presence in the Mediterranean.

"We've spent a lot of time and money to make the Med an American lake," said James T. Quinlivan, one of the book's contributors and a senior analyst at the Rand Corporation.

Other experts contend that the services should simply continue buying the kinds of weapons they already have, like F-15 fighters, which cost half or less than half what F-22's cost yet are still considered among the best fighter jets in the world. The savings could then be invested in developing far more advanced weapons, like unmanned aircraft.

President Bush has not clearly defined his strategy for the American military, but in last year's campaign he repeatedly spoke of transforming the armed forces. And he dropped hints that he was prepared to abandon some existing programs for ones that promise greater technological advancement.

Of course, canceling or just changing weapons programs is one of the most difficult things to do in Washington. But many people believe that Mr. Bush, as a Republican who ran on a platform of modernizing the military, would have the political standing to make such hard choices.

"There's an old saying: be careful what you ask for, you may get it," Mr. Krepinevich said. "And I think a lot of people in the Pentagon are thinking that now. Only Nixon could go to China, and only a Republican can whack the defense budget."

---

Wolfowitz Named No. 2 at Pentagon

February 5, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Appointments.html

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Monday named Paul Wolfowitz as deputy secretary of defense and Mark Weinberger as assistant treasury secretary for tax policy.

Wolfowitz was the undersecretary of defense for policy from 1989 to 1993, when Vice President Dick Cheney served as defense secretary for Bush's father. He is dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Last year Wolfowitz teamed with former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia to produce a report on striking a balance between promoting U.S. commercial exports and protecting U.S. national security interests.

Weinberger is head of Ernest & Young LLP's national tax practice in Washington. As the Treasury Department's top tax man, Weinberger will work closely with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to sell Bush's 10-year $1.6 trillion tax cut.

Weinberger served as chief tax counsel to former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo.

---

Clinton's travel left military overextended

February 5, 2001
Washington Times
By Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200125232748.htm

Top military officers have expressed concern that an excessive number of military cargo planes were required to take former President Clinton and his large entourage last year to India, Vietnam and other distant places.

These officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Air Force Air Mobility Command's ability was perilously stretched to supply airlifts for exercises, as well as troop deployments in the Persian Gulf, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo and South Korea.

Unofficial internal estimates show that Mr. Clinton's trip to Vietnam in November cost the military about $60 million. Air Force Air Mobility Command deployed 26 C-5, 33 C-17 and 4 C-141 cargo jets as well as 10 refueling tanker aircraft and one C-130 propeller jet. Estimated costs for Mr. Clinton's trip last March to India and Pakistan ranged from $25 million to $50 million.

One Marine officer said the number of planes required to support Air Force One, code name for the Boeing 747 carrying the president, strained a recent exercise.

"We are in the midst of exercising one of our regularly scheduled incremental training exercises with the [South Korean military]," said the officer. "Unfortunately, the nonavailability of lift in the theater has severely retarded the deployment of a single reinforced infantry battalion. . . . It seems most of the available [strategic] lift is tied up with a president of the U.S. event."

Another officer told of special operations commanders redrafting contingency plans for getting troops overseas in the event that at the same time the president was traveling overseas.

The Air Force, following established policy, referred presidential travel questions to the White House. A Bush spokeswoman declined to comment.

P.J. Crowley, a retired Air Force officer and former Clinton White House spokesman, defended the need for a large air armada to accompany the president to distant destinations. He said the Air Force and Secret Service - not the president - dictate aircraft requirements based on the travel itinerary, air field availability and threat assessment.

"The logistics are actually driven by the Secret Service in terms of what the security requirements are," Mr. Crowley said. "When the president travels, we're going to bring our own planes, our own helicopters and our own vehicles. These are requirements so the president can travel safely and has the ability to communicate with his government any place he goes in the world. This is not a question of luxury. It's a question of security."

However, Mr. Crowley said, "I know there have been concerns expressed in military circles about the cost of travel, but the trips to India and Africa and Vietnam were both historic in nature and reflective of the need of the Untied States to engage in a part of the world we need to improve relations with. And each of those trips will pay huge dividends for the United States in the long term."

It's not only presidential trips and peacekeeping that strain airlift capabilities. The Air Force's aircraft mission-capable rates have declined 10 percent in 10 years. This means no more than 75 percent of the fleet is able to fly as grounded aircraft await spare parts or maintenance.

"Both of these components," Gen. Michael Ryan, Air Force chief of staff, told Congress last year, "have contributed to our current concern and one of the primary reasons is the average age of our current aircraft fleet. It's now almost 22 years old."

One of the oldest is the C-5 Galaxy, a giant fuel-guzzling cargo jet wide enough to ferry tanks, armored vehicles, trucks and troops to overseas deployments. Its combined mission-capable rate for 126 active, Guard and Reserve jets last year was below 60 percent.

However, new cargo jets have been trickling in. The Air Force has 70 operational C-17s, about half the total purchase of 130 of the jets.

In a statement to The Washington Times, Air Mobility Command said, "The primary limitations to our airlift capability are too few C-17s . . .; the retirement of the C-141, which gives us fewer airframes to operate and reduces our flexibility; poor C-5 reliability, which has hampered our largest airlifter; and a need to invest in en route infrastructure. . . . It is clear that the combination of increased operations tempo and missions around the world, combined with declines in force structure, have significantly increased operational challenges for Air Mobility Command."

A military source told The Times that the average number of aircraft missions each month increased from 76 in 1992 to 140 in the first eight months of 2000. During the time that Vice President Al Gore was running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton was campaigning for the U.S. Senate and Mr. Clinton was visiting India, Pakistan and Russia.

"The reason is Clinton, Hillary and Gore," the source said. "It just blows my mind."

When the president travels to developing countries, the Secret Service puts on quite a show, with limousines, rugged sports utility vehicles and helicopters. The White House communications office takes along sophisticated electronic equipment to enable the president to conduct secure conversations. Hundreds of support staffers are taken along.

Responding to charges that Mr. Clinton's presidential trips abroad were financially excessive and wasted taxpayer dollars, Mr. Crowley said, "This is entirely a red herring because when you're reaching out to countries that do not have anything approaching the infrastructure you would have in Europe, for example, you're always going to have to take whatever you need with you.

"Any time you're going to have a trip with multiple stops to developing countries and at great distances, the bill is going to be higher."

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

Bush Delays Logging Ban 2 Months

February 5, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Forest-Plan.html
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-05-logging.htm

WASHINGTON -- A ban on road-building and most logging in a third of the country's national forests was delayed for two months Monday by the Bush administration.

The forest plan, which President Clinton announced Jan. 4, has been attacked by Republican Western lawmakers, and by energy, timber and mining industries.

The delay is in line with an order President Bush made on taking office last month to halt or slow down a series of regulations and rules the Clinton administration issued in its final days.

The forest restrictions were published in the Federal Register before Bush took office, so he can't block or alter them without going through a new rule-making process. The Forest Service held 600 hearings and received 1.7 million comments while developing the plan.

Monday's action changes the plan's effective date from March 13 to May 12.

The forest plan is still under review by the Agriculture Department, said USDA spokesman Kevin Herglotz. ``No decision has been made,'' he said.

Sierra Club spokesman Sean Cosgrove said the delay buys the administration some time while they decide how to roll it back. ``I don't know exactly what the Bush administration thinks they need to review or what they want to look at except at how they can take it apart,'' he said.

Under the plan, the Forest Service will ban road-building in 58.5 million acres of federal forests where no roads currently exist, including 9.3 million acres in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

The regulations also will limit future logging in those areas to activities that ``restore and preserve'' the forest, although commercial timber contracts already in the government pipeline will be allowed to go through.

The chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, has appealed to Bush to work with Congress on rolling back the plan. Hansen called the logging restrictions ``one of the most egregious abuses by the Clinton administration.''

Several senators opposed to the plan have said they will use a never-invoked 1996 law that allows Congress to rescind a regulation within 60 legislative days of it being published. The deadline for lawmakers to act on the rule will depend on the congressional schedule over the coming weeks.

The Clinton administration said the impact on the timber industry would be minimal because there is relatively little logging in the roadless areas even though they account for 31 percent of all federal forests.

---

Soldiers ran risk of mad cow disease

02/05/2001
USA Today
By Anita Manning
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-05-madcow.htm

Millions of U.S. military personnel and their families stationed in Europe before 1996 may have eaten British beef on base during the height of the mad cow epidemic, military records show.

For 10 years after the emergence of mad cow disease in British cattle in 1986, commissaries on U.S. bases in Europe were supplied beef from the United Kingdom. There were no bans on British beef on U.S. military bases until 1996, when the world learned that the disease had jumped to humans through the consumption of infected beef.

No U.S. military personnel have been diagnosed with the human form of the disease, and federal health experts estimate the risk from consumption of British beef at "less than one per 10 billion servings," says Army Col. Scott Severin, deputy director of the Department of Defense's veterinary services.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, has spread across Europe and infected cattle in more than a dozen countries. More than 90 Europeans have contracted the human form of the disease, a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that causes dementia and death. Victims may have been infected 10 years or more before symptoms appeared.

Scientists don't know how many others might be infected.

Last week, the American Forces Press Service produced articles on the disease for military newspapers, says Virginia Stephanakis of the Army Medical Department.

"We feel we owed them accurate information, to let them know there is a risk, albeit very small, and try to allay a sense of alarm," Stephanakis says.

Only U.S. beef has been served in military dining halls since 1980. But until 1990, about 35% of the beef sold in commissary stores was from the U.K. After 1990, British beef continued to be sold on some U.S. bases until the ban in 1996.

---

Mad Cow Disease -The Chemical Industry Plays Dirty
2-5-01
By Paul Kail, PhD
freezerbox.com
http://www.freezerbox.com

BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), or Mad Cow Disease, and its human form, nvCJD (New Variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease), are incurable brain disorders. Holes appear in victims' brains, then they become demented and die. The diseases are not caused by a virus or a bacterium, but by a mysterious type of twisted protein, known as a "prion". The prion can propagate itself by causing other proteins to twist into the same shape. Prions can be passed on by eating the flesh of another animal, and are resistant to cooking and digestion.

A theory about how prions are formed suggests that organophosphate pesticides could be partly to blame. Two people have already died defending this theory, apparently at the hands of professional assassins working either for the British government or the chemical industry. So the theory needs to be taken seriously.

BSE first appeared in the UK in 1985. Since then, the disease has affected half of the cow herds in the country. New Variant CJD also first appeared in the UK, ten years later: to date, around 90 people have died from it. Both BSE and CDJ are beginning to spread throughout the rest of Europe; today, 30 European countries have had exports of their cattle banned. The diseases have the potential to destroy the entire European cattle industry, and kill thousands of people. The death toll from nvCJD is increasing by 35% per year, and the disease has a gestation period of twenty years. Some projections suggest that hundreds of thousands of people could eventually die from it.

Given the huge amount at stake, one might expect that any credible theory would be welcomed. Yet Mark Purdey, a British farmer from Somerset, has suffered constant harassment and has had to support his research from his own pocket. Purdey has a theory which might explain the mystery of why BSE and new variant nvCJD started in the UK, and why they are so much more serious there. However, since he went public with his ideas, some rather unfortunate things have happened:

1. Both his vet and the lawyer defending his case died in suspicious road accidents. His second lawyer also had a car crash, but survived.

2. When an article about his work appeared in the "Independent", a national British newspaper, his telephone lines were cut. He was therefore unable to take follow up calls from other papers and television stations.

3. His farm house was burnt down just before he was about to move in.

4. His science library was destroyed by a collapsing barn.

5. When he travels around the country to talk about his theory, he is constantly trailed. Purdey believes that the root cause of BSE is an imbalance of magnesium and copper, exacerbated, in the case of the UK, by the use of a highly toxic pesticide known as phosmet. Phosphet is an organophosphate nerve toxin, originally developed by the Nazis. It is also related to the drug Thalidamide, which causes birth defects.

Phosmet is made by Zeneca, a subdivision of the British chemical giant ICI. A week after the British government first announced the link between BSE and nvCJD, Zeneca sold the patent for phosmet to a PO Box company in Arizona, apparently to avoid potential legal action.

The theory started when Purdey noticed that his cows, unlike those of his neighbours, were not getting BSE. Cows often suffer from a parasitic infection known as warble fly. Since Purdey is an organic farmer, he treated his herd with derris root powder, a natural remedy. Other farmers were using phosmet, which was later made compulsory throughout the UK. When Purdey bought an infected cow from another herd, he was able to reduce the symptoms of BSE by injecting oxime, which is an antidote to pesticide poisoning. However, officials from MAFF (the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) turned up to kill the cow before the experiment could be completed.

As well as the link to phosmet use, Purdey discovered that brain diseases such as BSE and nvCJD appear in clusters in many places around the world. The link seems to be a lack of copper and an excess of manganese.

For example, in some areas of Colorado and Wyoming, 4-6% of deer and elk suffer from CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease), which is related to nvCJD. These animals live in areas where the soils are very high in manganese. In Slovakia, where the incidence of nvCJD is a thousand times higher than normal, most of the victims live near a glass making plant (where manganese is used) or else down-wind of one of two large ferro-manganese factories.

In the UK, two factors have increased the amount of manganese which cows consume. Until 1988, cows were fed chicken manure. The chicken had been fed manganese to strengthen their eggs, but 98% of it ended up in the manure. In addition, a fungicide rich in manganese was used on crops at that time.

According to Purdey, a lack of copper and an excess of manganese causes proteins in the nervous system of foetal cattle to change into the abnormal prion forms found in BSE and nvCJD. Phosmet facilitates this process by binding to copper, and therefore reducing the amount available to brain tissues.

Recently, Dr David Brown, a chemist at Cambridge University, showed that manganese can replace copper in brain proteins, thereby transforming them into prions. Dr Brown lost his funding, and was not able to continue the research.

The BSE crisis started in the UK, and that country still has the highest rate of the disease. Purdey believes that this was because the British government was the only one to enforce systemic phosmet at such a high dose. Phosmet is used elsewhere, but either on a voluntary basis, or at a much lower dose, or non-systemically.

However, there is a long lag between the peak of phosmet use and the incidence of BSE. Purdey says that this is for two reasons. First, cows are most susceptible to phosmet damage when they are in the womb. Second, phosmet has to reach a certain concentration in the food-chain before it has an effect.

Quite apart from the direct attacks on Mr Purdey, the chemical industry have launched a media campaign to discredit his research. Although MAFF claims that any credible theories for BSE will receive funding, Purdey has received nothing.

The effort that the chemical industry has apparently gone to to discredit Mark Purdey mirrors the experiences of Alice Stewart, the scientist who first showed the link between radiation and cancer. Scientists who supported her had their cars rammed. Maybe in this case as well, the truth will come out in the end. _____

Dr. Paul Kail has a Ph.D. in nueroscience from Cambridge University and is founder and Director of the Animal Consciousness Foundation, which can be reached via www.animals.org.

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Fears of mad-cow disease feed appetite for regulation

February 5, 2001
Washington Times
By Chris Baker
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200125225343.htm

U.S. health officials are clamping down as "mad cow" disease - and the fear of it - spreads throughout the world.

Scientists say the chances of the brain-destroying illness appearing in the United States are slim. But several incidents here in the past week have made calls for stricter regulation grow louder:

• The Food and Drug Administration confirmed that 1,222 head of cattle in Texas were mistakenly fed cattle remains, a practice banned in the United States since 1997 because scientists think it could help spread the disease.

• The German company that makes Mamba candy - a fruit chew sold in 80 countries, including the United States - said it would stop using beef-based gelatin in the treat because Germany is experiencing a mad-cow outbreak. Health officials in New York inspected the candy but decided against pulling it off shelves after deeming it safe.

• The FDA said it is considering adopting tighter controls on cattle feed and adding restrictions on donating blood, another possible form of transmission among humans.

• Brazil suspended shipments of some beef products to the United States in anticipation of a U.S. ban, hours after Canada said it was banning beef imports from Brazil because of concerns over the South American country's efforts to prevent mad-cow disease.

• A coalition of cattle producers, feed companies and veterinarians met with regulators in Washington and urged them to continue a series of bans on feed and imports designed to keep mad-cow disease out of the country.

• Federal researchers said they will continue to look at possible links between mad-cow disease and chronic-wasting disease (CWD), a similar neurological disorder found in deer and elk in the western United States. Unlike mad-cow disease, there is no evidence CWD can spread to humans.

The FDA said Americans should not worry about the Texas cow and German candy incidents. Beef-based gelatin is safe to eat, and there is virtually no chance the Texas cattle ate remains from infected cattle because the United States does not import beef from Europe.

"The Texas cattle thing is a nonevent. The candy in New York thing is a nonevent," said Paul Brown, a researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke who has studied mad-cow disease extensively.

Consumer-rights activists are skeptical.

"We're dealing with a lot of hypotheticals here. We need much better assurances from the regulators," said Jane Halloran, a policy director for Consumers Union, the Yonkers, N.Y.-based publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Researchers do not know the origin of mad-cow disease. They think it spreads among cattle that are fed the ground remains of other, infected cattle. They suspect humans catch the disease by eating beef from infected cattle.

How it spreads

The first reports of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), surfaced in Britain in 1985.

Researchers think the disease may have originated when the remains of sheep suffering from another brain-destroying disease, scrapie, were fed to British cattle. Canada's ban on beef imports from Brazil came after 305 sheep in southern Brazil were found to have scrapie.

BSE causes prion proteins, a normal component of human and animal brains, to become deformed. When this happens, the proteins form a toxic plaque on brain tissue, researchers say. The brain cells die, and the brain becomes spongelike.

The deformed proteins have been found in brain tissue, eye tissue and the spinal cords of infected cattle.

The proteins have not been found in the beef or milk that comes from cattle. Scientists think BSE spreads among the animals when infected tissue is mixed with meat and ground into cattle feed.

Britain has reported more than 180,000 cases of BSE-infected cattle, but mad-cow disease also has surfaced in other European countries. Ireland and Portugal have documented more than 400 cases each. The German government plans to slaughter about 400,000 cattle that could be infected.

Most at risk for the spread of mad-cow disease are countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa because they import meat and bone meal from Europe, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization.

The human variant

The human version of mad-cow disease, called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), was first diagnosed in a British teen-ager in 1995. Since then, 92 persons - almost all younger than 55 -have died of or been diagnosed with vCJD. Eighty-eight were in Britain, three in France and one in Ireland.

Researchers think people catch vCJD from eating beef that was mixed with infected tissue during slaughter. This can include ground beef and sausage, but probably not steaks.

The prion proteins associated with BSE cannot be destroyed through cooking, research has shown.

In addition, the Bethesda, Md.-based National Institutes of Health last month said beef byproducts -including some imported from nations reporting cases of BSE - are used in products ranging from dietary supplements to cosmetics and automobile tires.

The FDA does not require companies to list on product labels the countries from which beef-based ingredients were imported. Researchers say it is not clear whether BSE can be contracted through nonfood products such as dietary supplements or cosmetics that have bovine ingredients.

The incubation period of the disease ranges from a few years to as long as a few decades, researchers think. Symptoms include poor concentration, lethargy and unsteadiness, followed by depression, uncontrollable body movements and severe dementia.

The disease is always fatal, and there is no treatment. Most victims die within two years after the first symptoms appear.

Though research continues on treatment, it is not a priority because so few humans are known to be affected. Scientists also are trying to determine better ways to diagnose vCJD.

Researchers vigilant

Neither BSE nor vCJD has been detected in the United States, which stopped importing beef from Britain in 1985 over a trade dispute.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture began surveying American cattle for BSE in May 1990 but has never found evidence of the disease here.

The USDA surveys for the disease by examining dead cattle that show any signs of neurological disorders. Since 1990, about 12,000 cattle have been tested, the USDA says.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, meanwhile, look for vCJD cases by tracking death certificates nationwide. If the victim of a neurological disorder matches the clinical profile of a vCJD victim, the person's brain tissue is sent to a special laboratory for examination.

Some researchers say this multilayered approach - tracking signs of disease in both cattle and humans - positions regulators to detect mad-cow disease if it surfaces.

"The chance of this becoming a serious public health risk in the United States is very low," said George Gray, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health who is preparing a report for the USDA on the risks of mad-cow disease here.

His report will not be published until spring, Mr. Gray said, but he is optimistic about the evidence so far.

"We won't have a U.K.-style epidemic here," he said. "It just won't happen."

Another researcher, Albino Belotto of the World Health Organization, agreed.

Mr. Belotto, considered one of the organization's top specialists in mad-cow disease, said he has reviewed procedures used in the United States and other countries to detect and prevent BSE and vCJD.

"[American health officials] are taking the right measures to prevent the occurrence of the disease in their country. . . . It could happen, but the risk in the United States is low," he said.

Some skeptical

Consumer-rights activists are not convinced.

Ms. Halloran of the Consumers Union said the 12,000 cattle inspected by federal regulators are an insignificant statistical sample, given the USDA's estimate that 13.6 million of the 100 million cattle in the United States are on feed.

"You'd have to have an enormous problem before you could detect it, and then it would likely be too late," she said.

She said the Consumers Union has urged the FDA to take extra steps to prevent the disease, including prohibiting the use of cow parts in other products, such as the beef-based gelatin found in the German candy.

Since 1997, the Consumers Union has encouraged the FDA to adopt a full ban on mammal-to-mammal feed. Regulations prohibit cattle from eating ground cattle parts, but the remains still can be fed to livestock, including pigs, chickens and turkeys.

"We think this is quite worrisome," Ms. Halloran said.

Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said no scientific evidence suggests that livestock can harbor a BSE-like illness. If such evidence emerged, the FDA would update its regulations, he said.

"It's an evolving situation, and we respond as things evolve. As we get more information, we respond," Mr. Sundlof said.

Protecting blood supply

Last month, federal researchers said they will investigate possible links between mad-cow disease and chronic wasting disease, the neurological disorder similar to mad-cow disease that has killed deer and elk in Colorado, Wyoming and other states in the West.

So far, they see no evidence that CWD can spread to humans and livestock that consume venison and venison byproducts.

Meanwhile, the FDA said it is considering recommendations by the American Red Cross last month for adopting stricter regulations on blood donations.

Currently, there is no proof that vCJD is spread to humans through blood. Nevertheless, the FDA bans anyone who traveled or lived in Britain for six months or more between 1980 and 1996 from giving blood.

Bernadine Healy, president and chief executive of the Red Cross, said the organization recommended extending the ban from 1996 to the present and including anyone who lived or traveled in Western Europe for six months or more.

The Red Cross estimates that a broader ban would shrink the pool of potential blood donors by 5 percent to 6 percent. If the FDA accepts the recommendations, Ms. Healy said, the Red Cross will boost its public-education campaign to attract more donors to cover the shortfall.

"Preserving the safety of the blood supply is our biggest concern," she said.

Economic impact mixed

Though officials say mad-cow disease does not pose a health risk to U.S. consumers, it could pose an economic one to U.S. businesses.

McDonald's Corp., the Oak Brook, Ill.-based hamburger giant, last month said profits fell 7 percent between October and January, in part because European customers, fearful of mad-cow disease, avoided hamburgers.

Sales in Europe dropped 8.6 percent during the final three months of 2000, McDonald's said. The fast-food chain is promoting nonbeef products, such as ham-and-cheese sandwiches, to boost sales.

Elsewhere, cattle prices took a big hit in Chicago markets last week.

Cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell to a two-week low, with some contracts briefly dipping below the minimum daily limit of 1.5 cents per pound.

Trade experts think American farm exports could benefit from the mad-cow turmoil in Europe.

Beef consumption in Europe has plunged by about 27 percent since a number of countries reported cases of mad cow disease, according to the 15-nation European Union. Consumption in Italy has fallen 70 percent since its first native case of mad-cow disease was reported last month.

In the United States, demand for beef rose about 6 percent in the past two years, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Some observers expect demand for U.S. soy meal to soar as overseas farmers shun the use of meat and bone meal to feed their herds.

Meanwhile, a coalition of cattle producers, feed companies and veterinarians last week met with regulators in Washington to urge them to step up efforts to keep BSE out of the country.

Murray Lumkin, a senior medical adviser to the FDA, said industry and government have to work together to protect consumers.

"If we are going to have any chance of keeping BSE out of the country, we as regulators, the rendered feed lot operators and so on are going to have to redouble efforts," Mr. Lumkin said.

-------- terrorism

Secret Witness Set to Testify in Terror Trial

February 5, 2001
New York Times
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/05/world/05TERR.html?pagewanted=all

The trial in the bombings of two American embassies in East Africa is to begin this morning in Federal District Court in Manhattan and indications are that the government's first witness will be an informer who worked for the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden until 1996, when he agreed to cooperate with the American authorities.

The witness could take the stand as early as tomorrow, after both sides finish their opening statements. The government has been concealing the identity of the witness, a convicted terrorist known only as CS-1, for almost five years and has resisted all attempts by defense lawyers to learn his identity.

CS-1 is the basis for many of the significant charges in the indictment, including allegations that Mr. bin Laden's group trained those who carried out the fatal ambush of American soldiers in Somalia in 1993, that he cooperated with other terrorist groups such as the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and sought to obtain materials that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Indications that CS-1 would be the government's first witness arose during a meeting with Judge Leonard B. Sand on Wednesday attended by prosecutors and defense lawyers. The transcript of the meeting shows that discussion centered on a witness who was not identified but who was said to have reached a plea agreement with the government, had been extensively debriefed by the F.B.I., and would provide two days of testimony on issues that might include the attacks in Somalia. In addition, people close to the case said defense lawyers had been told that CS-1 is likely to be the first witness.

Prosecutors, in their opening presentation, are expected to outline their case for the jury that Mr. bin Laden orchestrated a global terrorist conspiracy that included the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands; and the Somali attacks, in which 18 American soldiers died.

Mr. bin Laden, who has been indicted in the case, remains a fugitive, and is believed to be living in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban. But prosecutors are expected to contend that the four defendants were integral parts of the broader conspiracy which the government says spanned much of the last decade and reached into dozens of countries.

Indeed, the size of the case has raised enough concern that Judge Sand asked the government last week "whether there should not be some streamlining" of the indictment, perhaps by eliminating the Somalia charges. The indictment runs about 150 pages.

But the lead prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said the 1993 Somalia attacks were critical to an understanding of the role Mr. bin Laden's operatives in Kenya played in the embassy bombings.

"It explains what was going on in this case," Mr. Fitzgerald said, adding that Mr. bin Laden's "cell set up in Kenya was set up as a support base for bin Laden's group to fight the Americans in Somalia."

The trial is expected to last 9 or 10 months. The jury will be anonymous, referred to only by numbers, to ensure security and privacy. The process of jury selection was made more complicated by the fact that two of the defendants could face execution if they are convicted.

"I really believe that the trial is going to be a great moral test for the nation," said David P. Baugh, one of the lawyers for Mohamed Rashed Daoud al- 'Owhali, a 24-year-old Saudi citizen and one of the defendants who could face the death penalty.

"America is going to try people who, according to the indictment, hate America," he said. "Our constitutional principles are tested the most when we have people the population would view as despicable."

The trial thus becomes the first involving the federal death penalty to go before a Manhattan jury in nearly half a century, and the government's decision to seek capital punishment has been bitterly contested from the start.

David A. Ruhnke, one of the lawyers representing Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian who is the other defendant who could face execution, said that if the jury convicted his client and had to weigh the death penalty, "it is our belief the jury will quickly come to the stunning realization that the government is seeking the death penalty against one of the least important figures in this entire conspiracy."

Mr. Ruhnke added that "in a plan that required leaders, financiers, experts and technicians, the indictment basically charges that all Khalfan Mohamed brought to the table was a willingness to do as he was told."

Two other defendants, Wadih El- Hage, 40, a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon, and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, a 35-year-old Jordanian, are charged with roles in a broader terrorist conspiracy, and each faces life imprisonment if convicted.

One of Mr. El-Hage's lawyers, Sam A. Schmidt, would say only, "It's a relief to actually begin the trial, especially for Mr. El-Hage, who has been incarcerated for so long under extraordinarily harsh conditions." A lawyer for Mr. Odeh would not comment yesterday. A spokesman for the United States attorney, Mary Jo White, in Manhattan, also refused to comment.

The trial comes after two and a half years of bitter legal disputes between the defense and prosecution over the highly restrictive conditions under which each defendant has been jailed, and the government's investigative tactics both in the United States and Africa.

"In many ways, we are treading on new territory," Judge Sand said in a hearing last fall, referring to the jury selection process but aptly characterizing the legal, ethical, and political issues raised by the case.

Another former associate of Mr. bin Laden could also provide critical testimony in the case. Ali A. Mohamed, a former Egyptian intelligence officer who served in the United States Army at Fort Bragg, N.C., and obtained his American citizenship, went to work for Mr. bin Laden in the early 1990's, the government charges.

Mr. Mohamed pleaded guilty last fall, admitting that Mr. bin Laden asked him in 1993 to conduct surveillance of the American Embassy in Nairobi and other potential bombing targets.

Mr. Mohamed said that when he returned to Sudan and showed Mr. bin Laden his file, "bin Laden looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber."

As for CS-1, there has been speculation that he is Sidi Tayyib, a businessman who was married to one of Mr. bin Laden's relatives and was said to be cooperating with the American and Saudi governments. One of Mr. bin Laden's own operatives wrote in a 1997 computer file seized by American investigators that "an important man with close links" to Mr. bin Laden "seems to have fallen into the enemy's hands," making him worry about the security of the "East African network." The writer suggested the traitor was Mr. Tayyib.

But it seems highly unlikely that CS-1 is Mr. Tayyib, since the government has allowed the document downloaded from the computer file mentioning Mr. Tayyib's name to be placed into the public record.

The decision to begin with CS-1 could always change as prosecutors often remake their strategies once trials are under way. The government is also expected to offer graphic testimony about the bombings from witnesses and survivors. Prosecutors say they are bringing more than 100 witnesses to New York from six countries.

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Experts say terrorists hiding message on Web

02/06/2001
USA Today
By Jack Kelley
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-05-ejihad.htm

WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden and other Muslim extremists are posting encrypted, or scrambled, photographs and messages on popular Web sites and using them to plan terrorist activities against the United States and its allies, U.S. officials say. The officials say bin Laden and his associates are using the Internet to conduct what some are calling "e-jihad," or holy war.

Bin Laden, a dissident Saudi businessman, has been indicted for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and is believed to be responsible for last fall's bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Four alleged bin Laden associates went on trial Monday in federal court in New York on charges relating to the embassy bombings.

"To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and bin Laden's al Qaida group, "are using computerized files, e-mail, and encryption to support their operations," CIA Director George Tenet wrote last March to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The testimony, at a closed-door hearing, was later made public.

Through weeks of interviews with U.S. law-enforcement officials and experts, USA TODAY has learned new details of how extremists hide maps and photographs of terrorist targets - and post instructions for terrorist activities - on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other popular Web sites. Citing security concerns, officials declined to name the sites. Experts say it's difficult for law enforcement to intercept the messages.

"It's something the intelligence, law-enforcement and military communities are really struggling to deal with," says Ben Venzke, special projects director for iDEFENSE, a cyberintelligence company.

Officials and experts say the Internet is a new form of the "dead drop," a Cold War-era term for where spies left information. Officials and experts say the messages are scrambled using free encryption programs set up by groups that advocate privacy on the Internet. Those same programs also can hide maps and photographs in an existing image on selected Web sites. The e-mails and images can be decrypted only with a "private key" or code.

"The operational details and future targets, in many cases, are hidden in plain view on the Internet," Venzke says. "Only the members of the terrorist organizations, knowing the hidden signals, are able to extract the information."

Officials say bin Laden began using encryption five years ago, but recently increased its use after U.S. officials revealed they were tapping his satellite telephone calls in Afghanistan and tracking his activities.

"We will use whatever tools we can - e-mails, the Internet - to facilitate jihad against the (Israeli) occupiers and their supporters," Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Muslim group Hamas, said in a recent interview in the Gaza Strip. "We have the best minds working with us."

-------- activists

Davos - State of war

Mon, 05 Feb 2001
Laurent Jésover.
radman <resist@best.com>
Editor journal@attac.org
You'll be able to find photos on the ATTAC website. <http://attac.org>

"We're living in rad times!"
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.

Saturday 27 January about 1,500 protestors against the World Economic Forum were forbidden to demonstrate. Arrested, encircled, violently stopped by military and police forces, their rights to move, their freedom of expression and to associate freely were totally denied.

"Is it constitutional to use liquid manure against demonstrators?" During a TV show the day before the demonstration the Grison Chief of Police asked a panel of experts and peasants this question. The peasants answered him that liquid manure is no more liquid and is in fact solid in winter and that for them it is a fertilizer. One of them added that he didn't perceive the relation between manure and corporate globalization.

Davos region was militarized. Hundreds of kilometers of barbed wires were placed along the roads at strategic points where demonstrators could escape from controls and along railroads. The WEF protection was so imposing that even the inhabitants finished by expressing their concerns. Guarded metallic fences closed all Davos streets. The last one at the center of the city just 100 meters from the WEF venue was impressive. Military and police all in black were checking every one suspiciously. An ATTAC badge could throw you out the city.

The day before in Zurich where an international conference, "The Other Davos" was held and gathered 800 participants during an afternoon and an evening of hard work around workshops on different themes, a real success, I met with a Gamma press agency photographer. He was asked to leave Davos as he was entering. His crime? To carry along with his cameras heavy glasses that he uses to protect his eyes in demonstrations in case of tear gas. His glasses were taken away and him thrown out. His accreditation or phone calls from the Swiss embassy attaché in Paris were of no help. Army and police took power. The Swiss government is no longer ruling.

Early Saturday morning seven buses organized by ATTAC Switzerland started to head toward Davos. Nobody was really optimistic. Information received for the last 24 hours were dramatic: buses and cars couldn't pass the borders from all European countries, an highway closed, the one coming from the south, from Italy. Other groups chose to take the train. Since the day before cars and train passengers disguised in normal tourists and willing to be searched upon arrival, were reaching Davos village.

After driving 2 hours, the buses were stopped on a small road by an armored vehicle and were encircled by military men all in black their faces covered with a black hood. Some of us stepped out the buses to negotiate as we were all waiting to continue our journey.

"I was told to hold the position" said in a more military fashion than a police one the chief of the platoon. We decided also to hold the position and as we stepped out the buses helicopters started flying around. One of them was just above our heads and filmed us. The person in charge on the police side threatened to take away the licenses of the bus drivers, to take away the bus company authorization to operate. We had therefore to send them back, which we did as quickly as we could since the small road was packed with a huge traffic jam caused by the police barrage.

Very peacefully and calmly we organized ourselves on the road. The police got nervous. Some of them were facing us while the armored vehicle started to point its machine gun at us. We were between 300 and 400 and we were asked to evacuate quickly. We headed back slowly toward the gas station parking were the buses waited for us.

At the same time, in a small town called Lanqvart not far from where we were the train was stopped. The village was encircled by police forces and it was impossible for us to go in. The demonstrators inside the train (400 also) tried to demonstrate, tried to block the highway not far away. There were soon encircled by the police. Later during the day they shot at the small crowd with rubber bullets and water canon. The demonstrators were put back on a train to Zurich.

We learned that the demonstration started in Davos as scheduled, 01:30pm. 300 demonstrators succeeded to by-pass the police and army disposal which had cost Swiss taxpayers 10 millions Swiss Francs. Isabelle is giving us information using her cell phone. The demonstrators are very peaceful and the demonstration is quite festive. The security forces are running to block them. The day after a Swiss newspaper will make an headline calling the demonstration the body-guards demonstration since they were outnumbering the demonstrators. It is snowing in Davos. The weather is cold and icy. Suddenly the police are shooting with their water canon. The demonstrators will be pushed toward the train station and put inside one to be sent back to Zurich.

Oliver, a friend from ATTAC Germany, and I decided to not take the bus back and to try to reach Davos as we had some people to meet outside the Forum. We waited a while for the buses to leave and for the police to think that we were away. Then we hitchhiked.

We will arrive in Davos around 05:00pm after three police stops and checking points. A couple of Davos people that were really fed up with all this police mania and the nearly state of emergency they were enduring in the region for the past days, took us in their car.

During the evening in Zurich some violent actions ended a demonstration that was taking place after all of the demonstrators were pushed away Davos. Use of violence is never a good thing even if it can be explained by some logical reasons. The police arrested 121 persons. but not Mr Smadja. Davos showed the whole day that it was weak, and that all these powerful people were ridiculous and without any idea.

The "Bridging the Divide" theme of this year WEF forum is only words afar from reality. The "Forum" changed into a medieval castle, a mean and violent castle. The WEF, a private company called the "World Economic Forum" that organized a private reunion, could use all the state forces, army and police. Responding to small shop owners about the fact that there were loosing money because of the military and police crowding the city and giving Davos a bad image that turned away tourists, the WEF answered that it is not their business and had nothing to do with it.

The WEF succeeded to create a state of war with no war at sight but their fears and weakness. The WEF had no problem forbidding the rights of citizens that had opinions that were not pleasing Mr Smadja its director. The Swiss state demonstrate once again that it prefers dealing with rogue transnational companies (some of the invited CEOs are directly involved in corrupting governments and financial crimes) and with dictators than dealing with responsible and peaceful citizens that wished to use their rights normally guaranteed by the laws and constitution of the country. Saturday 27 January between 08:00am and 08:00pm laws no more existed in Switzerland because of the police, the army and transnational companies.

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When Davos Meets Porto Alegre: A Memoir

By Walden Bello
*Porto Alegre, Brazil

"Hemingway said that the rich are different from you and me. How can anyone expect the people in Davos to understand the crisis that globalization has visited on the lives of people like those of us here in Porto Alegre?" That was going to be my opening line.

When I arrived at the university studio for the televised trans-Atlantic debate with George Soros, the financier, and other representatives of the global elite gathered in Davos, Switzerland, a visibly shaken Florian Rochat of the Swiss delegation was waiting for me. Swiss are known for being impassive, but Florian was visibly shaken. "They are arresting protestors in Davos and other places in Switzerland," he told me. "They're killing democracy in our country. Our friends there are asking you to support them in calling for the shutting down of the World Economic Forum."

That request drove out any lingering desire to be "nice" in the coming exchange, which had been billed by its producers as a "Dialogue between Davos and Porto Alegre." The ambitious, one-million dollar plus production involving four satellite hookups, aimed to explore if there was a common ground between the annual elite gathering in Davos and the newly launched World Social Forum (WSF) in this southern Brazilian city. Millions of people globally were waiting for the transmission.

Since I had been in Davos last year, the producers requested that I make the opening statement for the Porto Alegre side. I obliged with the following: "We would like to begin by condemning the arrests of peaceful demonstrators to shield the global elite at Davos from protests. We would also like to register our consternation that while we in Porto Alegre have painstakingly come up with a diverse panel of speakers, you in Davos have come up with four white males to face us. But perhaps you are trying to make a political statement.

"I was in Davos last year, and believe me, Davos is not worth a second visit. I am here in Porto Alegre this year, and let me say that Porto Alegre is the future while Davos is the past. Hemingway wrote that the rich are different from you and me, and indeed, we live on two different planets: Davos, the planet of the superrich, Porto Alegre, the planet of the poor, the marginalized, the concerned. Here in Porto Alegre, we are discussing how to save the planet. There in Davos, the global elite is discussing how to maintain its hegemony over the rest of us. In fact, the best gift that the 2000 corporate executives at Davos can give to the world is for them to board a spaceship and blast off for outer space. The rest of us will definitely be much better off without them."

The press termed the next 1-1/2 hours not as a debate but as an emotional exchange that, as the Financial Times put it, "sometimes degenerated into personal insults." But I and the other panelists-among them, Oded Grajew of Brazil's Instituto Ethos, Bernard Cassen of Le Monde Diplomatique, Diane Matte of Women's Global March, Njoki Njehu of 50 Years Is Enough, Rafael Alegria of Via Campesina, Aminata Traole, former Minister of Culture of Mali, Fred Azcarate of Jobs with Justice, Trevor Ngbane of South Africa, Francois Houtart of Belgium, and Hebe de Bonafini of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo-were simply reflecting the non-conciliatory mood towards the Davos crowd of most of the 12,000 people who flocked to Porto Alegre.

For this constituency, a significant number of whom watched the debate at a huge auditorium at the Catholic University, globalization was a deadly business, and many undoubtedly shared the feelings of Hebe de Bonafini when she screamed at Soros across the Atlantic divide, "Mr. Soros, you are a hypocrite. How many children's deaths have you been responsible for?" That Soros in the course of the debate made some utterances regarding the need to control the negative impacts of globalization hardly endeared him to this crowd, who saw him mainly as a finance speculator who had made billions of dollars at the expense of third world economies.

The holding of the week-long World Social Forum was nothing short of a miracle. Proposed by the Workers' Party of Brazil (PT) and a coalition of Brazilian civil society organizations, supported with significant funding by donors such as Novib, the Dutch agency, and provided with strong international support by the French monthly Le Monde Diplomatique and Attac, the European anti-globalization alliance, the event was put together in less than eight months' time. The idea of holding an alternative to the annual retreat of the global corporate elite in Davos simply took off. While there were some glitches here and there, the event was resoundingly successful, despite the massive challenge of coordinating 16 plenary sessions, over 400 workshops, and numerous side events.

A major reason for the WSF's success is that it had the organizational support of the government of the city of Porto Alegre and the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, both of which are controlled by the PT. Porto Alegre has, in fact, achieved the reputation of being a city that is run both efficiently and with sensitivity to social and environmental considerations. The city is said to be at the top of the quality of life index for Brazil.

The sharing in Porto Allegre focused not only on drawing up strategies of resistance to globalization but also on elaborating alternative paradigms of economic, ecological, and social development. Militant action was not absent, with Jose Bove, the celebrated French anti-McDonalds' activist, and the Brazilian MST (Movement of the Landless), leading the destruction of two hectares of land planted with transgenic soybean crops by the biotechnological firm Monsanto.

Porto Alegre achieved its goal of being a counterpoint to Davos. The combination of celebration, hard discussion, and militant solidarity that flowed from it contrasted with the negative images coming out of Davos. The Swiss town was the center of Switzerland's biggest security operation since the Second World War. The Swiss police pulled out all the stops to prevent protesters from reaching the Alpine resort, and fired water cannons and tear gas on demonstrators in Zurich, arresting many of them. Even conservative Swiss newspapers condemned the police operation as a threat to political liberties in Switzerland.

Perhaps the outcome of the duel between Davos and Porto Alegre was best summed up by George Soros: "The excessive precautions were a victory for those who wanted to disrupt Davos. It was an overreaction. It helped to radicalize the situation."

On his performance in the televised debate with Porto Alegre, Soros commented: "It showed it is not easy to dialogue...I don't particularly like to be abused. My masochism has its limits." Observed the Financial Times: "Such uncomfortable experiences seem temporarily to have scrambled his ability to deliver pithy soundbites."

But Soros was not alone in flubbing his lines. Soon after my opening statement, Bernard Cassen of Le Monde Diplomatique leaned over and told me: "Walden, it wasn't Hemingway who said the rich are different from you and me. It was Scott Fitzgerald."

Dr. Walden Bello is executive director of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines.

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Shell - illegal disposal/dumping and silencing

Fri, 2 Feb 2001
"john dyer" <adnw32200@cableinet.co.uk>

My name is John Dyer. For the last 13 years I have been researching the alleged illegal disposal/dumping of a nuclear reactor/testing cell by Shell, at its Thornton research Centre, in 1968. Briefly my research is that:

1. In 1968, Shell, hired known criminals (with a history of illegally disposing of nuclear 'waste'), to decommission its (secret) nuclear rector/testing cell.

2. That Shell paid the said 'criminals' a six-figure CASH sun (at today's prices).

3. That Shell's reactor/testing cell decommissioning did not go to plan.

4. That huge amounts of nuclear materials/waste (thousands of tons) was./were illegally dumped (onto an urban population), as part, consequence.

In 1993, following five years of research, my findings resulted in the commissioning of a TV programme for Carlton Television (UK national broadcaster)-. A matter of days before the programmes proposed transmission Shell produced a 2900 word Narrative*, to explain away my allegations/research. The said Narrative resulted in the TV programme being abandoned- Shell claimed that 'I had got it wrong, for it was not a nuclear reactor/testing cell that had been decommissioned, rather, Shell claimed, it was a cobalt-60 labyrinth- i.e., 'harmless' nuclear facility/waste'- this (Shell's Narrative) was/is an absolute/deliberate known lie. *See http://www.nuclearcrimes.com/narrative.htm

However, I have (now) established that the Shell's Native was a (known) tissue of lies from start to finish. Such is my evidence that Shell's legal head (Richard Max Wiseman), was wheeled forward to concede that Shell's said Narrative was a 'mistake'.

As I state, - see www.nuclearcrimes.com Shell's Narrative/defence was no 'mistake' rather, it was a deliberate known, fraudulent sham Narrative to cover up Shell's wholesale nuclear dumping crimes. Shell-following two years of correspondence with senior Shell directors- its Chairman and Legal Head- threatened/'would not hesitate' to sue me. Despite Shell's specific prior threats to sue, it has refused to issue, or embark on any legal process.Shell, aware of the truth* will not risk court action, hence no writs' despite its issued threats. *See http://www.nuclearcrimes.com/new_page_23.htm (latest media included)

In response to my WEB site, Shell has now called in its scientific staff, and others, at Thornton Research Centre, Cheshire.Refusing to refute the allegations, the Group repeats the line (lie) that I have refused to call in the 'Health & Safety'. Shell have used its muscle once to get my site shut down-see http://www.nuclearcrimes.com/ site-now after threatening, my new' ethical web host, and failing to get 'him' to close down my site, Shell is presently endeavouring to get the entire domain closed.

Shell's lawyers latest - www.nuclearcrimes.com/shell_'challenge'.htm

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World Economic Forum systems hacked

February 5, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200125221919.htm

ZURICH - Anti-globalization computer hackers have infiltrated the computer systems of the World Economic Forum and stolen personal information of most of the participants in the Forum's recent annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, forum spokesmen have confirmed.

The attack was first reported yesterday by the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung. The paper says it has received - anonymously, but clearly from the forum's opponents - a compact disc containing 161 megabytes of data apparently copied from the forum's own Web server.

The disc is said to include a list of 27,000 names, some of which are paired with data such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers; another list of 1,400 credit card numbers and names; and spreadsheets detailing the travel schedules, hotel accommodations, session registrations and payments, and Web site passwords of all the 3,200 participants in the Jan. 25-30 meeting.

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